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To: Members in JUSTICE FOR OSCAR GRANT ACTION PAGE
Defend the OCCUPY CAL protesters: petition and action!
We urge people to (1) sign the petition to drop the charges against UCB protesters who were arrested defending public education:
http://links.causes.com/s/clyTRf
Second, rally at their arraignment Monday, Dec. 12!
http://links.causes.com/s/clyTQ2
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FYI:
Nuclear Detonation Timeline "1945-1998"
The 2053 nuclear tests and explosions that took place between 1945 and 1998 are plotted visually and audibly on a world map.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9lquok4Pdk&feature=share&mid=5408
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"EDUCATION SHOULD BE FREE"
Hartmann: OWS student loans - are student debt strikes coming?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=fpQnZyx3vD4
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Suggested slogan for the 2012 elections:
DON'T VOTE FOR THE ONE PERCENT!
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West Coast 12/11 MUMIA Event: with Angela Davis, Ramona Africa, Barbara Becnel, Boots Riley, Arundhati Roy et al. For more info call 510.268.9429
http://ponyexpress.taksumedia.com/t/ViewEmail/r/627A6685E86687DA/AB82663C48F4F141DDA3541AF197FE1F
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We Are the 99 Percent
We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we're working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.
Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street. Why will YOU occupy?
OccupyWallSt.org
Occupytogether.org
wearethe99percentuk.tumblr.com
http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/
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Drop All Charges on the 'Occupy Wall Street' Arrestees!
Stop Police Attacks & Arrests! Support 'Occupy Wall Street'!
SIGN THE ONLINE PETITION AT:
http://bailoutpeople.org/dropchargesonoccupywallstarrestees.shtml to send email messages to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, NYC City Council, NYPD, the NY Congressional Delegation, Congressional Leaders, the NY Legislature, President Obama, Attorney General Holder, members of the media YOU WANT ALL CHARGES DROPPED ON THE 'OCCUPY WALL STREET ARRESTEES!
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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Howard Petrick's "Rambo" -- an anti-VietNam War GI activist tells his story at the Marsh Theater in Berkeley--UNTIL DECEMBER 10 -- Don't miss it!
The theater is across the street from the Downtown Berkeley BART station -- very easy to get to by BART.
[This is a great show. I saw it for the second time this past Friday. Great lessons for the movement today!...bw]
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.
The Little Guy Takes on the Pentagon
in Howard Petrick's "Rambo: The Missing Years"
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
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December 10 -- International Human Rights Day
11 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Powell and Market, San Francisco
As 10,581 United Nations troops continue to occupy Haiti as a result of the 2004 coup against President Aristide, almost a million people continue to live in tent and sheet encampments, a consequence of the January, 2010 earthquake. Many are without clean water and sanitation facilities. The people of the world gave hundreds of millions of dollars for assistance, yet much of this money still sits in banks. The rest has been spent to control the Haitian 99%, rather than to benefit them.
In our action, one tent-like structure will be construction from bamboo poles and sheets to represent the kind of non-shelter people in Haiti are still trying to live in two years after the earthquake and notwithstanding the massive amounts of donations collected for their assistance.
Come stand under a sheet tent in whatever weather we get.
Share information prepared by students of USF Human Right Class about U.S. violations of international law in Haiti.
Occupy Wall Street, NOT Latin America
Stand up for human rights for Haitians
Come stand in support of the people of Haiti who call for:
• An end to the U.N. occupation.
• A truly democratic government, with free and fair elections in which all parties can run candidates.
• U.N.: Take responsibility for the cholera epidemic you introduced.
• No return of the military, which has long suppressed popular organizations.
• Distribution of aid money to rebuild Haiti the way the Haitian 99% wants it built.
• A living wage. An end to sweatshops.
Sponsored by Haiti Action Committee
in collaboration with USF Human Rights Education Students
endorsed by: Ecumenical Peace Institute, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice, Bay Area Latin American Solidarity Coalition
For more information visit www.haitisolidarity.net
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Occupy Oakland Calls for TOTAL WEST COAST PORT SHUTDOWN ON 12/12
Posted by OccupyWallSt
http://occupywallst.org/article/occupy-oakland-calls-total-west-coast-port-shutdow/
Support Occupy Call for Dec. 12 Coast Shutdown
Occupy Movement and Ports Workers:
SAME STRUGGLE, SAME FIGHT!
NOVEMBER 28 - On November 2, some 30,000 demonstrators marched on the Port of Oakland, shutting it down on the evening shift in response to a call by Occupy Oakland for a "general strike." One of the declared aims of the powerful march was to show solidarity with longshore workers facing a vicious union-busting attack by the EGT grain conglomerate in Longview, Washington. ILWU officials had scuttled calls by some rank and file longshoremen in the hiring hall that morning to stop work all day.
Now several Occupy groups have issued a call for a West Coast Port Blockade for Dec. 12. Once again they are highlighting the attack on the Longview ILWU, as well as that on the port truckers' union organizing drive in Los Angeles/Long Beach, by the notorious anti-union SSA, majority-owned by Goldman Sachs. The Wall Street banksters and PMA are also pushing a robotics contract provision to cut longshore jobs to the bone in the largest port in the country. Occupy Seattle aims to shut down the port to protest Democrat governor Gregoire's budget cuts.
Waterfront workers from Longview to Long Beach and beyond are facing a frontal attack threatening the future of our jobs and our unions. What's needed to defeat these employer assaults is a solid union action, shutting down the Coast. The call by the populist Occupy movement to blockade ports should be welcomed as supplementary support for labor's struggle. President McEllrath, on Oct. 5 publicized his "solidarity with Occupy Wall Street" statement. But now, the ILWU International officers are contradicting themselves, undermining unity with Occupy and saying the union wants nothing to do with the Dec. 12 blockade.
This is more than a ritual CYA declaration. The voice of the maritime bosses, the Journal of Commerce, (23 November) noted that the union leaders were making clear that they were hostile to the Occupy initiative. The ILWU Coast Committee issued a Nov. 21 memo slamming "outside groups intent on driving their own agendas." The next day it followed up with a press statement "clarifying" its stand on "third-party protests." These shameful statements go against the grain of ILWU's militant record of solidarity actions and don't represent the rank and file's sentiments. ILWU is bottom up not top down.
The Coast Committee said that a community demonstration or picket is not a picket line, as defined by the longshore contract. This flies in the face of "ILWU's 10 Guiding Principles", which say:
"Unions have to accept the fact that the solidarity of labor stands above all else, including even the socalled sanctity of the contract."
Occupy's enemies, EGT and SSA, are ILWU's enemies too.
The ILWU Story, Six Decades of Militant Unionism and The Dispatcher document ILWU's proud history of longshore workers honoring community pickets. For example, here are some community demonstrations or pickets honored by ILWU:
1) 1970's-1980's community pickets in San Francisco opposed apartheid. In 1984, Local 10 longshoremen themselves refused to unload a ship from South Africa without need for a community picket. Mandela applauded that action which sparked the antiapartheid movement.
2) In 1998, in a stunning example of international labor solidarity with Australian wharfies, LA longshoremen respected a labor/community picket and forced the scab ship, Columbia Canada, to return to Australia to be loaded by MUA union workers.
3) 3) In 2003, at the start of the Iraq War anti-war protesters blocked the gates of war profiteers SSA and APL at the port of Oakland. Longshoremen standing by on the safety clause in the contract were hit by police fire. An unprecedented lawsuit against the OPD by Local 10 was won by the union. Our legal brief documented a history of police violence against longshoremen going back to the Big Strike of 1934 when two strikers were shot in the back and killed by police.
4) Now the International turns its back on our history. We have to ask: Why would the Coast Committee place longshore workers in harms way by directing them to standby on safety if there is a large demonstration at the terminal gate when the danger to port workers is not from the protesters but the police? (Just look at the Longview longshore workers who have been beaten and pepper sprayed.) And why would the Coast Committee be concerned about a lawsuit against the union when all of these labor and community pickets were initiated by the ranks, not by the officers? Bottom up not top down!
Their memo and statement underline that any port shutdown will come from the rank and file over the opposition of the International officers. It wouldn't be the first time. Last April 4, Local 10 shut down Bay Area ports in solidarity with Wisconsin workers, and a year ago it held a stop-work rally for justice for Oscar Grant, protesting the police killing of an innocent young black man. We welcomed community support for these mobilizations.
Their memo and statement reek of lawyers' arguments that accept anti-labor laws as gospel. They talk of "the union's internal democratic process." So, has the membership been asked to vote on shutting down the ports over the EGT attack? What about refusing to load or unload STX and Itochu ships, part of the EGT consortium along with the grain conglomerate Bunge? The truth is the union leadership has done everything to prevent democratic rank-and-file decision-making and action. Is there a secret plan?!
1) The Coast Committee tried to gag Longview Local 21's president Dan Coffman, by preventing him from talking to the press, but the local prevailed in their fight to allow him to speak.
2) The Coast Committee has blocked any kind of democratic forum to discuss the most important ILWU struggle in decades, whether it be a dual area meeting of the rank and file in Washington and Oregon or a Coast Caucus, representing longshoremen from all West Coast ports.
3) They've tried to thwart Local 21 members from going to other locals to give information and gain support. Now they try to stop ILWU from linking up with the populist Occupy movement.
4) The Coast Committee has exerted pressure on the small Local 21 to follow their orders or face losing the union's financial support for fines and legal costs approaching $2,000,000, they say.
The ILWU has a long history of standing up to the employing class and organizing solidarity actions, often despite the International officers' positions. This is a source of pride for our membership and the ILWU is admired by other unions for its courageous stands. Longshoremen, as always, need to link up now with other port workers, truckers, machinists, warehousemen and the Occupy movement in a fight against the port bosses for our jobs and our unions, regardless of what the union tops put out.
The Longview workers are more than thankful for the support they have already received in their fight - our fight - against EGT. Speaking at a labor rally before a Nov. 19 march called by Occupy Oakland, Local 21 president Dan Coffman said, referring to the awesome Nov. 2 march that shut down the port in Oakland, "You cannot believe what you did for the inspiration of my union members who've been on the picket line for 6 months!"
The ILWU must support the Occupy move to shut down West Coast ports on Dec. 12. Most importantly, we must show the power of workers when the ship arrives in Longview days later to load scab grain at the EGT terminal. The call must go out: PORT WORKERS: SHUT DOWN ALL U.S. PORTS !!
Transport Workers Solidarity Committee (www.transportworkers.org) For more info: SWoods510@aol.com Labor donated
-In Oakland: the West Coast Port Shutdown Coordinating Committee will meet on General Assembly days at 5pm before the GA to organize the local shutdown, and to network with other occupations.
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Army sets pre-trial hearing date for Bradley. Vigils and rallies planned at Fort Meade MD, worldwide.
Protest his Pretrial Hearing Saturday, Dec 17th (Bradley's B-Day) at 12pm at Fort Meade, MD outside Washington D.C.! (Solidarity actions taking place around the world.)
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/army-schedules-dec-16-pretrial-hearing-for-pfc-bradley-manning
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January 1st 2012 March and Speak-Out in memory
of Oscar Grant and all victims of police terror
*********OGC REPORT*********
On Sunday, November 27, 2011 the Occupy Oakland General Assembly approved by 99% the proposal below for a January 1st 2012 March and Speak-Out in memory of Oscar Grant and all victims of police terror. The working group will have its first meeting on Wednesday November 30th at 8:00 p.m. at San Francisco Pizza, 1500 Broadway, Oakland. *Please join us!!!*
PROPOSAL * The Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression, Bring the Ruckus, and the Raider Nation Collective propose that the Occupy Oakland General Assembly support, participate in, and help to organize a march and Speak Out on January 1, 2012 from Oscar Grant Plaza to the Fruitvale BART station to memorialize and protest the BART Police murder of fellow worker Oscar Grant and all victims of police violence and state terrorism.
By approving this proposal, the assembly will be mandated to form a working group set with the task of mobilizing a broad section of working class people from East, West, and North Oakland by the way of hand-to-hand flyering, canvassing neighborhoods, and having conversations that prioritize the struggles against police brutality, police profiling, and imprisonment.
We are also asking this Assembly to stand up, through this proposed Speak Out, against the Oakland Police Department's daily violent, repression of working class, low-income of communities of color through curfews, gang injunctions and loitering laws, in addition to outright murder by police.
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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
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NATO/G8 protests in Chicago.
United National Antiwar Committee
UNACpeace@gmain.com or UNAC at P.O. Box 123, Delmar, NY 12054
518-227-6947
www.UNACpeace.org
UNAC, along with other organizations and activists, has formed a coalition to help organize protests in Chicago during the week of May 15 - 22 while NATO and G8 are holding their summit meetings. The new coalition was formed at a meeting of 163 people representing 73 different organization in Chicago on August 28 and is called Coalition Against NATO/G8 War and Poverty Agenda (CANGATE). For a report on the Chicago meeting, click here: http://nepajac.org/chicagoreport.htm
To add your email to the new CANGATE listserve, send an email to: cangate-subscribe@lists.riseup.net.
To have your organization endorse the NATO/G8 protest, please click here:
https://www.nationalpeaceconference.org/NATO_G8_protest_support.html
Click here to hear audio of the August 28 meeting:
http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/54145
Click here for the talk by Marilyn Levin, UNAC co-coordinator at the August 28 meeting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1tHQ7ilDJ8&NR=1
Click here for Pat Hunts welcome to the meeting and Joe Iosbaker's remarks:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoNGcnBGGfI
NATO and the G8 Represent the 1%.
In May, they will meet in Chicago. Their agenda is war on poor nations, war on the poor and working people - war on the 99%.
We are demanding the right to march on their summit, to say:
Jobs, Healthcare, Education, Pensions, Housing and the Environment, Not War!
No to NATO/G-8 Warmakers!
No to War and Austerity!
NATO's military expenditures come at the expense of funding for education, housing and jobs programs; and the G8 continues to advance an agenda of 'austerity' that includes bailouts, tax write-offs and tax holidays for big corporations and banks at the expense of the rest of us.
During the May 2012 G8 and NATO summits in Chicago, many thousands of people will want to exercise their right to protest against NATO's wars and against the G8 agenda to only serve the richest one percent of society. We need permits to ensure that all who want to raise their voices will be able to march.
Chicago's Mayor Rahm Emanuel has stonewalled repeated attempts by community organizers to meet with the city to discuss reasonable accommodations of protesters' rights. They have finally agreed to meet with us, but we need support: from the Occupy movement, the anti-war movement, and all movements for justice.
Our demands are simple:
That the City publicly commit to provide protest organizers with permits that meet the court- sanctioned standard for such protests -- that we be "within sight and sound" of the summits; and
That representatives of the City, including Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, refrain from making threats against protesters.
The protest movement, Occupy Wall Street (OWS), has the support of a majority of the American people. This is because people are suffering from the economic crisis brought about by Wall Street and big banks. As the OWS movement describes it, the "99%" see extreme economic inequality, where millions are unemployed without significant help while bankers in trouble get bailed out.
In Chicago and around the country, the Occupy movement is being met with repression: hundreds have been arrested, beaten, tear gassed, spied on, and refused their right to protest.
The Chicago Police Department and the Mayor have already acknowledged that they are coming down hard on the Occupy movement here to send a message to those who would protest against NATO and the G8.
We need a response that is loud and clear: we have the right to march against the generals and the bankers. We have the right to demand an end to wars, military occupations, and attacks on working people and the poor.
How you can help:
1) Sign the petition to the City of Chicago at www.CANG8.org You can also make a contribution there.
2) Write a statement supporting the right to march and send it to us atcangate2012@gmail.com.
3) To endorse the protests, go to https://nationalpeaceconference.org/NATO_G8_protest_support.html or write to cangate2012@gmail.com
4) Print out and distribute copies of this statement, attached along with a list of supporters of our demands for permits.
4) And then march inChicago on May 15th and May 19th. Publicizethe protests. Join us!
Formore info: www.CANG8.org or email us at cangate2012@gmail.com
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B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:
[Some of these videos are embeded on the BAUAW website:
http://bauaw.blogspot.com/ or bauaw.org ...bw]
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Tom Morello Occupy LA
Uploaded by sandrineora on Dec 3, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChicrlyeKhg&feature=player_embedded
The Nightwatchman, Tom Morello, comes to lift the spirits of Occupy LA the evening after the raid on November 29, 2011.
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Japanese Women For Peace
Inspired by the teaching and example of Noriko Nagata, Japan's women march and stand for peace and justice.
http://animoto.com/play/m6cKPrqdWROaNVxJOBUE6A
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Noriko Nagata, War Resister
40 years ago, in Tokyo, Noriko Nagata lost her life in war resistance, but her teaching and her example will never die.
http://animoto.com/play/dBfkOwderAeAfrusKecLSQ
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Mic Check Obama
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0Jmqo1yQag
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UC Davis Police Violence Adds Fuel to Fire
By Scott Galindez, Reader Supported News
19 November 11
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/275-42/8485-uc-davis-police-violence-adds-fuel-to-fire
UC Davis Protestors Pepper Sprayed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AdDLhPwpp4&feature=player_embedded
Police PEPPER SPRAY UC Davis STUDENT PROTESTERS!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuWEx6Cfn-I&feature=player_embedded
Police pepper spraying and arresting students at UC Davis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmJmmnMkuEM&feature=player_embedded
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Officers Put on Leave After Pepper Spraying Protesters
By BRIAN STELTER
November 20, 2011, 2:58 pm
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/officers-put-on-leave-after-pepper-spraying-protesters/?scp=1&sq=Officers%20Put%20On%20Leave%20After%20Pepper&st=cse
UC Davis Chancellor Katehi walks to her car
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CZ0t9ez_EGI#!
Occupy Seattle - 84 Year Old Woman Dorli Rainey Pepper Sprayed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTIyE_JlJzw&feature=related
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THE BEST VIDEO ON "OCCUPY THE WORLD"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S880UldxB1o
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Occupy With Aloha -- Makana -- The Story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-M07v8N_eU&feature=channel_video_title
We Are The Many -- Makana -- The Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xq3BYw4xjxE&feature=relmfu
We Are The Many
Lyrics and Music by Makana
Makana Music LLC (c) 2011
Download song for free here:
http://makanamusic.com/?slide=we-are-the-many
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Rafeef Ziadah - 'Shades of anger', London, 12.11.11
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2vFJE93LTI
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News: Massive anti-nuclear demonstration in Fukuoka Nov. 12, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq_xKEWuj1I&feature=player_embedded
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Shot by police with rubber bullet at Occupy Oakland
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0pX9LeE-g8&feature=player_embedded
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Copwatch@Occupy Oakland: Beware of Police Infiltrators and Provocateurs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrvMzqopHH0
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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
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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
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quebec police admit going undercover at montebello protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg&feature=player_embedded
G20: Epic Undercover Police Fail
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrJ7aU-n1L8&feature=player_embedded
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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
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Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I
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Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DA48gmfGB6U&feature=youtu.be
Voices of Occupy Boston 2011 - Kwame Somburu (Paul Boutelle) Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjKZpOk7TyM&feature=related
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#Occupy St. Louis: Bank of America refuses to let customers close accounts
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=KtI85Zc6Oik
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ALL COLORS (Occupy LA)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1Zh6hDQC8I
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#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
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#OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street
By adele pham
http://vimeo.com/30146870
@OccupyTheHood, Occupy Wall Street from adele pham on Vimeo.
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Live arrest at brooklyn bridge #occupywallstreet by We are Change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yULSI-31Pto&feature=player_embedded
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FREE THE CUBAN FIVE!
http://www.thecuban5.org/wordpress/index.php
Free Them
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded
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The Preacher and the Slave - Joe Hill
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca_MEJmuzMM
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Visualizing a Trillion: Just How Big That Number Is?
"1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years."
Digital Inspiration
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
How Much Is $1 Trillion?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPfY0q-rEdY&feature=player_embedded
Courtesy the credit crisis and big bailout packages, the figure "trillion" has suddenly become part of our everyday conversations. One trillion dollars, or 1 followed by 12 zeros, is lots of money but have you ever tried visualizing how big that number actually is?
For people who can visualize one million dollars, the comparison made on CNN should give you an idea about a trillion - "if you start spending a million dollars every single day since Jesus was born, you still wouldn't have spend a trillion dollars".
Another mathematician puts it like this: "1 million seconds is about 11.5 days, 1 billion seconds is about 32 years while a trillion seconds is equal to 32,000 years".
Now if the above comparisons weren't really helpful, check another illustration that compares the built of an average human being against a stack of $100 currency notes bundles.
A bundle of $100 notes is equivalent to $10,000 and that can easily fit in your pocket. 1 million dollars will probably fit inside a standard shopping bag while a billion dollars would occupy a small room of your house.
With this background in mind, 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) is 1000 times bigger than 1 billion and would therefore take up an entire football field - the man is still standing in the bottom-left corner. (See visuals -- including a video -- at website:
http://www.labnol.org/internet/visualize-numbers-how-big-is-trillion-dollars/7814/
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One World One Revolution -- MUST SEE VIDEO -- Powerful and beautiful...bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aE3R1BQrYCw&feature=player_embedded
"When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty." Thomas Jefferson
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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
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FREE BRADLEY MANNING
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/national-call-in-for-bradley
I received the following reply from the White House November 18, 2011 regarding the Bradley Manning petition I signed:
"Why We Can't Comment on Bradley Manning
"Thank you for signing the petition 'Free PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistleblower.' We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on WhiteHouse.gov.
The We the People Terms of Participation explain that 'the White House may decline to address certain procurement, law enforcement, adjudicatory, or similar matters properly within the jurisdiction of federal departments or agencies, federal courts, or state and local government.' The military justice system is charged with enforcing the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Accordingly, the White House declines to comment on the specific case raised in this petition...
"This email was sent to giobon@comcast.net
Manage Subscriptions for giobon@comcast.net
Sign Up for Updates from the White House
Unsubscribe giobon@comcast.net | Privacy Policy
Please do not reply to this email. Contact the White House
"The White House • 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW • Washington, DC 20500 • 202-456-1111"
That's funny! I guess Obama didn't get this memo. Here's what Obama said about Bradley:
BRADLEY MANNING "BROKE THE LAW" SAYS OBAMA!
"He broke the law!" says Obama about Bradley Manning who has yet to even be charged, let alone, gone to trial and found guilty. How horrendous is it for the President to declare someone guilty before going to trial or being charged with a crime! Justice in the U.S.A.!
Obama on FREE BRADLEY MANNING protest... San Francisco, CA. April 21, 2011-Presidential remarks on interrupt/interaction/performance art happening at fundraiser. Logan Price queries Barack after org. FRESH JUICE PARTY political action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmtUpd4id0&feature=youtu.be
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Labor Beat: Labor Stands with Subpoenaed Activists Against FBI Raids and Grand Jury Investigation of antiwar and social justice activists.
"If trouble is not at your door. It's on it's way, or it just left."
"Investigate the Billionaires...Full investigation into Wall Street..." Jesse Sharkey, Vice President, Chicago Teachers Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNUSIGZCMQ
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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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HANDS OFF IRAN PETITION
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/hands-off-iran/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=system&utm_campaign=Send%2Bto%2BFriend
The Petition
To President Obama and Secretary Clinton:
At no time since the Iranian people rose up against the hated U.S-installed Shah has a U.S./Israeli military attack against Iran seemed more possible. Following three decades of unrelenting hostility, the last few months have seen a steady escalation of charges, threats, sanctions and actual preparations for an attack.
We, the undersigned demand No War, No Sanctions, no Internal Interference in Iran.
(For a complete analysis of the prospects of war, click here)
http://nepajac.org/unaciran.htm
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"A Child's View from Gaza: Palestinian Children's Art and the Fight Against Censorship" book
https://www.mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=25
A Child's View from GazaA collection of drawings by children in the Gaza Strip, art that was censored by a museum in Oakland, California.
With a special forward by Alice Walker, this beautiful, full-color 80-page book from Pacific View Press features drawings by children like Asil, a ten-year-old girl from Rafah refugee camp, who drew a picture of herself in jail, with Arabic phrases in the spaces between the bars: "I have a right to live in peace," "I have a right to live this life," and "I have a right to play."
For international or bulk orders, please email: meca@mecaforpeace.org, or call: 510-548-0542
A Child's View from Gaza: Palestinian Children's Art and the Fight Against Censorship [ISBN: 978-1-881896-35-7]
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It's time to tell the White House that "We the People" support PFC Bradley Manning's freedom and the UN's investigation into alleged torture in Quantico, VA
On September 22nd, the White House launched a new petition website called "We the People." According to the White House blog, if a petition reaches 5,000 signatures in 30 days, "it will be reviewed by policy experts and you'll receive an official response."
Act now! Sign our petition to the White House: LINK
This is our chance to make sure the people in power know that the public still care about the fate of PFC Bradley Manning, and that we won't let this issue go away until PFC Manning is recognized as the whistleblower he is. It is also an opportunity for us to educate fellow Americans who may not have heard of PFC Manning yet, by boosting our petition to the top of the WhiteHouse.gov site.
The same day the White House launched the petition website, it also unveiled an Open Government Action Plan calling to "Strengthen and Expand Whistleblower Protection for Government Personnel." We consider this ironic given the fact that in April of 2011 the UN Chief Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, was forced to issue a rare reprimand to the U.S. for repeatedly denying his request to meet with alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower PFC Manning in an official, unmonitored visit to investigation allegations of his torture in the military brig of Quantico, VA.
We submitted the petition to the "We the People" website earlier this week, and we have already gathered over 1,000 signatures. We are relying on your help so that we can reach the 5,000 mark, and then some.
Signing the petition requires a quick and simple registration process. (Should you encounter technical trouble, please check out the link at the bottom of this e-mail.)
Click here to sign the petition now!
Already signed the petition? You can promote it to your friends on facebook and twitter! Copy and paste the following text: Tell the Obama Administration to let UN investigate torture of alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning! http://wh.gov/40y
We petition the obama administration to:
Free PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistleblower.
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/free-pfc-bradley-manning-accused-wikileaks-whistleblower/kX1GJKsD?utm_source=wh.gov&utm_medium=shorturl&utm_campaign=shorturl
Using the information PFC Bradley Manning allegedly revealed, media outlets have published thousands of stories, detailing countless attempts by governments around the world -- including our own -- to illegally conceal evidence of human rights abuses.
According to the President, "employees with the courage to report wrongdoing are a government's best defense against waste, fraud and abuse."
It appears that PFC Manning acted on his conscience, at great personal risk, to answer the President's call.
However, he has been subjected to extreme confinement conditions that US legal scholars have said may amount to torture.
Therefore, we also ask the Obama administration to stop blocking the UN's chief torture investigator, Juan Mendez, from conducting an official visit with PFC Manning.
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Cristian Fernandez is only 12 years old. And if Florida prosecutor Angela Corey has her way, he'll never leave jail again.
Cristian hasn't had an easy life. He's the same age now as his mother was when he was born. He's a survivor of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. In 2010, Cristian watched his stepfather commit suicide to avoid being charged with abusing Cristian.
Last January, Cristian was wrestling with his 2-year-old brother, David, and accidentally broke David's leg. Despite this, their mother left Cristian with his brother again in March. While the two boys were alone, Cristian allegedly pushed his brother against a bookcase, and David sustained a head injury. After their mother returned home, she waited six hours before taking David to the hospital. David eventually died.
Now Cristian is being charged with first degree murder -- as an adult. He's the youngest person in the history of his Florida county to receive this charge, and his next hearing is scheduled for tomorrow.
Melissa Higgins works with kids who get caught up in the criminal justice system in her home state of New Hampshire. When she read about Cristian's case, she was appalled -- so she started a petition on Change.org asking Florida State's Attorney Angela Corey to try Cristian as a child. Please sign Melissa's petition immediately before Cristian's hearing tomorrow.
As part of his prosecution, Cristian has been examined by two different forensic psychiatrists -- each of whom concluded that he was "emotionally underdeveloped but essentially reformable despite a tough life."
Cristian has already been through more than most of us can imagine -- and now the rest of his life is in the hands of a Florida prosecutor who wants to make sure Cristian never leaves jail.
The purpose of the juvenile justice system is to reform kids who haven't gotten a fair shake. If Cristian is sent to adult prison, it will be more than a tragedy for him -- it will also be a signal to other prosecutors that kids' lives are acceptable collateral in the quest to be seen as "tough on crime."
Cristian's next hearing is in just 24 hours. State's Attorney Angela Corey needs to know that her actions are being watched -- please sign the petition asking her not to try Cristian as an adult:
http://www.change.org/petitions/reverse-decision-to-try-12-yo-cristian-fernandez-as-an-adult
Thanks for being a change-maker,
- Michael and the Change.org team
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International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
TAKE ACTION: New Punishment Against Rene Gonzalez
On Oct 7, René González, one of the Cuban 5 Patriots will be released from the US prison in Marianna Florida after serving out his 15 year sentence. Rene's crime was defending the security of the Cuban people against terrorist attacks.
The US government is now trying to stop his immediate return to his homeland, and his family, after he serves out the last day of this unjust sentence. And now, in the most cynical and mean spirited fashion, the US court that sentenced him in 2001 is extending his punishment by making him remain in the United States.
Because Rene was born in the US he will now have to spend an additional 3 years of probation here. Seven months ago his lawyer presented a motion asking the court to modify the conditions of his probation so that after he finished his sentence he be allowed to return to Cuba to reunite with his wife and his family for humanitarian reasons.
On March 25, the prosecutor Caroline Heck Miller asked the judge to deny the motion. On September 16 Judge Joan Lenard rejected the defense motion, alleging among other reasons, that the Court needs time to evaluate the behavior of the condemned person after he is freed to verify that he is not a danger to the United States.
We have to remember that this is the same prosecutor that rejected an attempt to try Posada Carriles as a criminal, and this is the same judge that included in the conditions of his release a special point that while Rene is under supervised release that," the accused is prohibited from associating with or visiting specific places where individuals or groups such as terrorists are known to be or frequent"
By writing this Judge Lenard made the shameful recognition that terrorists groups do exist and enjoy impunity in Miami. Furthermore she is offering them protection from Rene from bothering or denouncing them upon his release.
It was not enough for the US government to make Rene fulfill the complete sentence to the last day; It was not enough to try and blackmail his family by telling them he would not go to trial if he collaborated against his 4 brothers; it was not enough to pressure Rene with what could happen to his family if he did not cooperate with the government, including the detention and deportation of his wife Olga Salanueva; and it was not enough to deny Olga visas to visit her husband repeatedly all these years.
Why does the US government want to continue punishing René and his family?
The prejudice of the Miami community against the Five was denounced by three judges of the Eleventh Circuit of the Atlanta Court of Appeals on August 27, 2005, where it was recognized who the terrorists were, what organizations they belonged to and where they reside. To mandate that Rene Gonzalez stay another 3 years of supervised "freedom" in Florida, where a nest of international terrorists reside and who publicly make their hatred of Cuba and the Cuban 5 known, is to put the life of Rene in serious risk.
Today we are making a call to friends from all over the world to denounce this new punishment and to demand the US government allow René Gonzalez to return to Cuba to reunite with his wife and his family as soon as he get out of prison.
Contact now President Barack Obama and US Attorney General Eric Holder demanding the immediate return of René Gonzalez to his homeland and his family
TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE WHITE HOUSE
Write a letter to President Obama
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20500
EE.UU.
Make a phone call and leave a message for President Barack Obama: 202-456-1111
Send an e-mail message to President Barack Obama
HTTP://WWW.WHITEHOUSE.GOV/CONTACT
TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
Write a letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder
US Attorney General Eric Holder
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Make a phone call and leave a message for US Attorney General Eric Holder: 202-514-2000
Or call the public commentary line: 202-353-1555
Send an e-mail message to US Attorney General Eric Holder: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
To learn more about the Cuban 5 visit:
www.thecuban5.org
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Say No to Police Repression of NATO/G8 Protests
http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression
The CSFR Signs Letter to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel
The CSFR is working with the United National Antiwar Committee and many other anti-war groups to organize mass rallies and protests on May 15 and May 19, 2012. We will protest the powerful and wealthy war-makers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Group of 8. Mobilize your groups, unions, and houses of worship. Bring your children, friends, and community. Demand jobs, healthcare, housing and education, not war!
Office of the Mayor
City of Chicago
To: Mayor Rahm Emanuel
We, the undersigned, demand that your administration grant us permits for protests on May 15 and 19, 2012, including appropriate rally gathering locations and march routes to the venue for the NATO/G8 summit taking place that week. We come to you because your administration has already spoken to us through Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy. He has threatened mass arrests and violence against protestors.
[Read the full text of the letter here: http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression/full-text]
For the 10s of thousands of people from Chicago, around the country and across the world who will gather here to protest against NATO and the G8, we demand that the City of Chicago:
1. Grant us permits to rally and march to the NATO/G8 summit
2. Guarantee our civil liberties
3. Guarantee us there will be no spying, infiltration of organizations or other attacks by the FBI or partner law enforcement agencies.
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Supporter of Leak Suspect Is Called Before Grand Jury
By SCOTT SHANE
June 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/us/politics/16brfs-Washington.html?ref=world
A supporter of Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, who is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of documents to WikiLeaks, was called before a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday, but he said he declined to answer any questions. The supporter, David M. House, a freelance computer scientist, said he invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, because he believes the Justice Department is "creating a climate of fear around WikiLeaks and the Bradley Manning support network." The grand jury inquiry is separate from the military prosecution of Private Manning and is believed to be exploring whether the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, or others in the group violated the law by acquiring and publishing military and State Department documents.
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Justice for Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace: Decades of isolation in Louisiana state prisons must end
Take Action -- Sign Petition Here:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/appeals-for-action/justice-for-albert-woodfox-and-herman-wallace
For nearly four decades, 64-year-old Albert Woodfox and 69-year-old Herman Wallace have been held in solitary confinement, mostly in the Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola prison). Throughout their prolonged incarceration in Closed Cell Restriction (CCR) Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace have endured very restrictive conditions including 23 hour cellular confinement. They have limited access to books, newspapers and TV and throughout the years of imprisonment they have been deprived of opportunities for mental stimulation and access to work and education. Social interaction has been restricted to occasional visits from friends and family and limited telephone calls.
Louisiana prison authorities have over the course of 39 years failed to provide a meaningful review of the men's continued isolation as they continue to rubberstamp the original decision to confine the men in CCR. Decades of solitary confinement have had a clear psychological effect on the men. Lawyers report that they are both suffering from serious health problems caused or exacerbated by their years of close confinement.
After being held together in the same prison for nearly 40 years, the men are now held in seperate institutions where they continue to be subjected to conditions that can only be described as cruel, inhuman and degrading.
Take action now to demand that Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace be immediately removed from solitary confinement
Sign our petition which will be sent to the Governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, calling on him to:
-- take immediate steps to remove Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace from close confinement
-- ensure that their treatment complies with the USA's obligations under international standards and the US Constitution.
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WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/
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One year after Bradley's detainment, we need your support more than ever.
Dear Friends,
One year ago, on May 26, 2010, the U.S. government quietly arrested a humble young American intelligence analyst in Iraq and imprisoned him in a military camp in Kuwait. Over the coming weeks, the facts of the arrest and charges against this shy soldier would come to light. And across the world, people like you and I would step forward to help defend him.
Bradley Manning, now 23 years old, has never been to court but has already served a year in prison- including 10 months in conditions of confinement that were clear violation of the international conventions against torture. Bradley has been informally charged with releasing to the world documents that have revealed corruption by world leaders, widespread civilian deaths at the hands of U.S. forces, the true face of Guantanamo, an unvarnished view of the U.S.'s imperialistic foreign negotiations, and the murder of two employees of Reuters News Agency by American soldiers. These documents released by WikiLeaks have spurred democratic revolutions across the Arab world and have changed the face of journalism forever.
For his act of courage, Bradley Manning now faces life in prison-or even death.
But you can help save him-and we've already seen our collective power. Working together with concerned citizens around the world, the Bradley Manning Support Network has helped raise worldwide awareness about Manning's torturous confinement conditions. Through the collective actions of well over a half million people and scores of organizations, we successfully pressured the U.S. government to end the tortuous conditions of pre-trial confinement that Bradley was subjected to at the Marine Base at Quantico, Virginia. Today, Bradley is being treated humanely at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. T hanks to your support, Bradley is given leeway to interact with other pre-trial prisoners, read books, write letters, and even has a window in his cell.
Of course we didn't mount this campaign to just improve Bradley's conditions in jail. Our goal is to ensure that he can receive a fair and open trial. Our goal is to win Bradley's freedom so that he can be reunited with his family and fulfill his dream of going to college. Today, to commemorate Bradley's one year anniversary in prison, will you join me in making a donation to help support Bradley's defense?
http://bradleymanning.org/donate
We'll be facing incredible challenges in the coming months, and your tax-deductible donation today will help pay for Bradley's civilian legal counsel and the growing international grassroots campaign on his behalf. The U.S. government has already spent a year building its case against Bradley, and is now calling its witnesses to Virginia to testify before a grand jury.
What happens to Bradley may ripple through history - he is already considered by many to be the single most important person of his generation. Please show your commitment to Bradley and your support for whistle-blowers and the truth by making a donation today.
With your help, I hope we will come to remember May 26th as a day to commemorate all those who risk their lives and freedom to promote informed democracy - and as the birth of a movement that successfully defended one courageous whistle-blower against the full fury of the U.S. government.
Donate now: bradleymanning.org/donate
In solidarity,
Jeff Paterson and Loraine Reitman,
On behalf of the Bradley Manning Support Network Steering Committee
www.bradleymanning.org
P.S. After you have donated, please help us by forwarding this email to your closest friends. Ask them to stand with you to support Bradley Manning, and the rights of all whistleblowers.
View the new 90 second "I am Bradley Manning" video:
I am Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-P3OXML00s
Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
"A Fort Leavenworth mailing address has been released for Bradley Manning:
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
The receptionist at the military barracks confirmed that if someone sends Bradley Manning a letter to that address, it will be delivered to him."
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/update-42811
This is also a Facebook event
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207100509321891#!/event.php?eid=207100509321891
Courage to Resist needs your support
Please donate today:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
"Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning has been defending and supporting our Constitution."
-Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower
Jeff Paterson
Project Director, Courage to Resist
First US military service member to refuse to fight in Iraq
Please donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
P.S. I'm asking that you consider a contribution of $50 or more, or possibly becoming a sustainer at $15 a month. Of course, now is also a perfect time to make a end of year tax-deductible donation. Thanks again for your support!
Please click here to forward this to a friend who might
also be interested in supporting GI resisters.
http://ymlp.com/forward.php?id=lS3tR&e=bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
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Drop the Charges Against Carlos Montes, Stop the FBI Attack on the Chicano and Immigrant Rights Movement, and Stop FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW!Call Off the Expanding Grand Jury Witchhunt and FBI Repression of Anti-War Activists NOW!
Cancel the Subpoenas! Cancel the Grand Juries!
Condemn the FBI Raids and Harassment of Chicano, Immigrant Rights, Anti-War and International Solidarity Activists!
STOP THE FBI CAMPAIGN OF REPRESSION AGAINST CHICANO, IMMIGRANT RIGHTS, ANTI-WAR AND INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY ACTIVISTS NOW!
Initiated by the Committee to Stop FBI Repression stopfbi.net stopfbi@gmail.com
http://iacenter.org/stopfbi/
Contact the Committee to Stop FBI Repression
at stopfbi.net
stopfbi@gmail.com
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY -- ANY DAY
to Fitzgerald, Holder and Obama
The Grand Jury is still on its witch hunt and the FBI is still
harassing activists. This must stop.
Please make these calls:
1. Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300 . Then dial 0
(zero) for operator and ask to leave a message with the Duty Clerk.
2. Call U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder 202-353-1555
3. Call President Obama at 202-456-1111
FFI: Visit www.StopFBI.net or email info@StopFBI.net or call
612-379-3585 .
Copyright (c) 2011 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights
reserved.
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Please make a donation today at stopfbi.net (PayPal) on the right side of your screen. Also you can write to:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
This is a critical time for us to stand together, defend free speech, and defend those who help to organize for peace and justice, both at home and abroad!
Thank you for your generosity! Tom Burke
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Mumia Wins Decision Against Re-Imposition Of Death Sentence, But...
The Battle Is Still On To
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610
www.laboractionmumia.org
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Call for EMERGENCY RESPONSE Action if Assange Indicted,
Dear Friends:
We write in haste, trying to reach as many of you as possible although the holiday break has begun.......This plan for an urgent "The Day After" demonstration is one we hope you and many, many more organizations will take up as your own, and mobilize for. World Can't Wait asks you to do all you can to spread it through list serves, Facebook, twitter, holiday gatherings.
Our proposal is very very simple, and you can use the following announcement to mobilize - or write your own....
ANY DAY NOW . . . IN THE EVENT THAT THE U.S. INDICTS JULIAN ASSANGE
An emergency public demonstration THE DAY AFTER any U.S. criminal indictment is announced against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Spread the word and call people to come out, across the whole range of movements and groups: anti-war, human rights, freedom of information/freedom of the press, peace, anti-torture, environmental, students and youth, radicals and revolutionaries, religious, civil liberties, teachers and educators, journalists, anti-imperialists, anti-censorship, anti-police state......
At the Federal Building in San Francisco, we'll form ourselves into a human chain "surrounding" the government that meets the Wikileaked truth with repression and wants to imprison and silence leakers, whistleblowers and truthtellers - when, in fact, these people are heroes. We'll say:
HANDS OFF WIKILEAKS! FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE BRADLEY MANNING!
Join the HUMAN CHAIN AROUND THE FEDERAL BUILDING!
New Federal Building, 7th and Mission, San Francisco (nearest BART: Civic Center)
4:00-6:00 PM on The Day FOLLOWING U.S. indictment of Assange
Bring all your friends - signs and banners - bullhorns.
Those who dare at great risk to themselves to put the truth in the hands of the people - and others who might at this moment be thinking about doing more of this themselves -- need to see how much they are supported, and that despite harsh repression from the government and total spin by the mainstream media, the people do want the truth told.
Brad Manning's Christmas Eve statement was just released by his lawyer: "Pvt. Bradley Manning, the lone soldier who stands accused of stealing millions of pages secret US government documents and handing them over to secrets outlet WikiLeaks, wants his supporters to know that they've meant a lot to him. 'I greatly appreciate everyone's support and well wishes during this time,' he said in a Christmas Eve statement released by his lawyer...." Read more here:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/mannings-message-christmas-eve-i-gr/
Demonstrations defending Wikileaks and Assange, and Brad Manning, have already been flowering around the world. Make it happen here too.
Especially here . . .
To join into this action plan, or with questions, contact World Can't Wait or whichever organization or listserve you received this message from.
World Can't Wait, SF Bay
415-864-5153
sf@worldcantwait.org
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DEFEND LYNNE STEWART!
http://lynnestewart.org/
Write to Lynne Stewart at:
Lynne Stewart #53504 - 054
Unit 2N
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TEXAS 76127
Visiting Lynne:
Visiting is very liberal but first she has to get people on her visiting list; wait til she or the lawyers let you know. The visits are FRI, SAT, SUN AND MON for 4 hours and on weekends 8 to 3. Bring clear plastic change purse with lots of change to buy from the machines. Brief Kiss upon arrival and departure, no touching or holding during visit (!!) On visiting forms it may be required that you knew me before I came to prison. Not a problem for most of you.
Commissary Money:
Commissary Money is always welcome It is how Lynne pay for the phone and for email. Also for a lot that prison doesn't supply in terms of food and "sundries" (pens!) (A very big list that includes Raisins, Salad Dressing, ankle sox, mozzarella (definitely not from Antonys--more like a white cheddar, Sanitas Corn Chips but no Salsa, etc. To add money, you do this by using Western Union and a credit card by phone or you can send a USPO money order or Business or Govt Check. The negotiable instruments (PAPER!) need to be sent to Federal Bureau of Prisons, 53504-054, Lynne Stewart, PO Box 474701, Des Moines Iowa 50947-001 (Payable to Lynne Stewart, 53504-054) They hold the mo or checks for 15 days. Western Union costs $10 but is within 2 hours. If you mail, your return address must be on the envelope. Unnecessarily complicated? Of course, it's the BOP !)
The address of her Defense Committee is:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
For further information:
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Please make a generous contribution to her defense.
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT! FREE KEVIN COOPER!
Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper
Chronicle Editorial
Monday, December 13, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL
Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's death row!
http://www.savekevincooper.org/
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
17 December 2010
Click here to take action online:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084
To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/iar/success
For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):
http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa25910.pdf
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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D. ARTICLES IN FULL (Unless otherwise noted)
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1) Firebrand Attracts Votes in Congo, Dismaying West
[see: "Africa Lies Naked to Euro-American Military Offensive"
By Glen Ford, Black Agenda Repor, November 30, 2011
http://blackagendareport.com/content/africa-lies-naked-euro-american-military-offensive ...bw]
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
December 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/world/africa/in-congo-tshisekedis-strong-showing-raises-concerns.html?ref=world
2) Africa Lies Naked to Euro-American Military Offensive
By Glen Ford
Black Agenda Report
November 30, 2011
http://blackagendareport.com/content/africa-lies-naked-euro-american-military-offensive
3) When the Police Go Military
"Radley Balko, a journalist who has studied the issue, told a House subcommittee on crime in 2007 that one criminologist found a 1,500 percent increase in the use of SWAT (special weapons and tactics) teams in the United States in roughly the last two decades. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally bars the military from law enforcement activities within the United States. But today, some local and city police forces have rendered the law rather moot. They have tanks - yes, tanks, often from military surplus, for use in hostage situations or drug raids - not to mention the sort of equipment and training one would need to deter a Mumbai-style guerrilla assault."
By AL BAKER
December 3, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/sunday-review/have-american-police-become-militarized.html?ref=us
4) The New Digital Divide
"According to numbers released last month by the Department of Commerce, a mere 4 out of every 10 households with annual household incomes below $25,000 in 2010 reported having wired Internet access at home, compared with the vast majority - 93 percent - of households with incomes exceeding $100,000. Only slightly more than half of all African-American and Hispanic households (55 percent and 57 percent, respectively) have wired Internet access at home, compared with 72 percent of whites."
By SUSAN P. CRAWFORD
December 3, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/internet-access-and-the-new-divide.html?ref=opinion
5) Planned Postal Service Cuts to Slow First-Class Mail
[This will not effect those of us that have high-speed internet service; electronic bill-pay, etc. But the poor don't have any of that. This means their bill payments by check or money order via USPS will be late and they will be charged late fees; it means their pension and SS checks will arrive late; it means the corporations who refuse to change billing dates will be able to charge extra late fees forcing hundreds-of-millions of the poor further behind economically. It will not effect the one percent one iota!. They'll just sit back and collect the extra dough! ...bw]
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
December 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/business/cuts-by-postal-service-will-slow-first-class-mail.html?hp
6) Italy's Leader Unveils Radical Austerity Measures
By RACHEL DONADIO
December 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/world/europe/mario-monti-of-italy-calls-cabinet-to-consider-austerity-measures.html?ref=world
7) WikiLeaks Founder Can Make Final Bid to Avoid Extradition
By RAVI SOMAIYA and ALAN COWELL
December 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/world/europe/julian-assange-renews-bid-to-avoid-extradition.html?ref=world
8) More Radioactive Water Leaks at Japanese Plant
"The Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety in France estimates that between March and mid-July, the amount of radioactive cesium 137 that had leaked into the Pacific from the Fukushima Daiichi plant amounted to 27.1 petabecquerels, the greatest amount known to have been released from a single episode. (A becquerel is a frequently used measure of radiation, and a petabecquerel is a million billion becquerels.)"
By HIROKO TABUCHI and MARTIN FACKLER
December 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/world/asia/more-leaks-from-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-plant.html?ref=world
9) Nineteen Examples of the Obama Administration Assault on Domestic Civil Liberties
By Bill Quigley
Created Dec 2 2011 - 10:13am
http://smirkingchimp.com/author/bill_quigley
10) LSE and Guardian study finds anger with police fuelled summer riots
London School of Economics and Political Science
December 5, 2011
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2011/12/riots.aspx
11) Occupy Our Homes: From the Streets to Foreclosed Homes, OWS Finds a New Frontier
By Sarah Seltzer, AlterNet
Posted on December 5, 2011, Printed on December 6, 2011
SEE ARTICLE WITH VIDEO'S HERE:
http://www.alternet.org/story/153318/occupy_our_homes%3A_from_the_streets_to_foreclosed_homes%2C_ows_finds_a_new_frontier
12) Tiny Tax on Financial Trades Gains Advocates
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and GRAHAM BOWLEY
December 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/business/global/micro-tax-on-financial-trades-gains-advocates.html?_r=1&hp
13) Mine Owner to Pay $200 Million in Death of 29 Men
"In addition to the $46.5 million payout to victims and families, the agreement includes $80 million to bolster safety and infrastructure in all underground mines owned by Alpha and Massey; $48 million to establish a mine health and safety foundation; and about $35 million in fines and fees that Massey owed to the Mine, Safety and Health Administration, the branch of the Department of Labor that oversees the mining industry." [So most of this money is going right back to the company to pay for what they are responsible for anyway! Sounds like a big tax write-off opportunity to me. ...bw]
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
December 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/us/mine-owner-to-pay-200-million-in-west-virginia-explosion.html?hp
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1) Firebrand Attracts Votes in Congo, Dismaying West
[see: "Africa Lies Naked to Euro-American Military Offensive"
By Glen Ford, Black Agenda Repor, November 30, 2011
http://blackagendareport.com/content/africa-lies-naked-euro-american-military-offensive ...bw]
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
December 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/world/africa/in-congo-tshisekedis-strong-showing-raises-concerns.html?ref=world
NAIROBI, Kenya - Could Étienne Tshisekedi, a 78-year-old career rabble-rouser who is immensely popular in the streets of his country but definitely unpopular inside Western embassies, actually win the presidential election in the Democratic Republic of Congo?
It's a long shot, analysts say, but not impossible, though Congo's election this week has been so chaotic and often violent, with poll workers slugged in the face and polling places burned to the ground, that it may be difficult to ever know who truly won. Countless ballots have now been reduced to ashes; many others have been tampered with. On Friday, election observers sounded despondent, saying that the official tallying centers looked like disaster zones, with ballots dumped in the mud and the supposedly sacrosanct tabulation sheets fluttering loose in the wind.
Still, the early results that have not mysteriously vanished or been destroyed show Mr. Tshisekedi leading handily in Kinshasa, the capital, and drawing many votes nationwide, creating the possibility of an upset against President Joseph Kabila, who has ruled Congo with an increasingly heavy hand for 10 years.
"It's neck and neck," said Jason Stearns, a Congo specialist whose blog, Congo Siasa, which means Congo politics, is considered by many to be the electronic handbook for the country. "The results look good so far for Tshisekedi."
Yet, whether a country with a long and bitter history of authoritarian rule actually lets an opposition leader claim the presidency - that's a whole other matter, Mr. Stearns said.
"There are certainly people in the ruling party - how can I put this diplomatically? - who would resort to extralegal means to prevent Tshisekedi from being president," he said.
Few Western diplomats predict Mr. Tshisekedi (pronounced CHISS-say-KAY-dee) will win, and many of them have been hoping against it. Though the vast and potentially rich Congo has been stuck in a violent rut under President Kabila, many people both inside the country and out fear that an abrupt change of leadership could destabilize the nation even further. Analysts say Congo's bevy of international donors is also suspicious of Mr. Tshisekedi for his strident and often anti-Western views and his firecracker remarks, like unilaterally declaring himself president last month.
"The West sees Tshisekedi as intransigent, rigid in his positions, and radically populist," said Georges Nzongola-Ntalaja, a Congolese professor of African studies at the University of North Carolina, who worked briefly with Mr. Tshisekedi in the 1990s. "However, these are the qualities that endear him to the Congolese people, whatever the province, insofar as they see his positions as reflecting their deepest aspirations."
The stage is now set for explosive unrest across Congo, no matter who wins. Mr. Kabila's men have already shown how they deal with dissent, with the business end of their machine guns.
Human Rights Watch said Friday that at least 18 civilians had been killed and 100 seriously wounded in election-related violence in the past week and that "the majority of those killed were shot dead by Republican Guard soldiers." For the past week, the Republican Guard has been making a clear show of force in Kinshasa, cruising around with heavy weapons, red berets and sunglasses; its soldiers are considered Mr. Kabila's closest men.
But Mr. Tshisekedi's base is also primed for violence, with his supporters vowing to riot if he loses. He has become the embodiment of hope and change for millions of desperately poor Congolese who have invested in him their expectations of a better life - jobs, schools, peace. Congo is, after all, probably the most underachieving country in the world. Despite being huge, hugely fertile and blessed with an embarrassment of natural riches - gold, diamonds, cobalt, copper, timber and oil, just to name a few - the United Nations recently ranked Congo the least developed country on earth.
Mr. Tshisekedi has become the leading channeler of all this discontent - there are nine other presidential challengers - for a few reasons. He has been on the Congolese political scene for 50 years, one of the handful of well-educated Congolese back in 1960, when the Belgians granted Congo independence after decades of brutal colonization.
As one of Congo's first lawyers, he served as justice minister, interior minister and prime minister, and at one point was close to Mobutu Sese Seko, the country's kleptocratic dictator for 31 years until Mr. Kabila's father staged a rebellion in the mid-1990s to oust Mr. Mobutu. But Mr. Tshisekedi broke from Mr. Mobutu well before that over the regime's corruption and was jailed, exiled and tortured several times, securing his reputation as a dedicated populist - and as clean.
Mr. Stearns says it is hard to know how much better Mr. Tshisekedi would do than Mr. Kabila at managing beleaguered Congo, which has never really recovered from the rebellion in the 1990s. But, he said, Mr. Tshisekedi "hasn't really been bought off" and his anti-corruption stance seems solid. On the campaign trail, he stumped for free primary education and universal health care, much needed in a country where life expectancy is 55. He has also threatened to review many of the questionable mining deals that the Kabila government has signed, which critics say have deprived the Congolese people of billions of dollars while allowing a few men to get very rich.
In the coming days, Congo's weak institutions will be put to the test, especially if the results are close. This year, Mr. Kabila, 40, pressured Parliament to change the Constitution to eliminate a second round of voting, meaning that whoever wins the most votes now, even if it is only 30 or 40 percent, will be president.
The national election commission, run by one of Mr. Kabila's friends, is determined to release presidential results by Tuesday, even though observers say poll workers are exhausted and overwhelmed.
John Stremlau, a leader of the Carter Center's monitoring delegation, described the tabulation process as "rushed, underprepared and underequipped." With all the pressure building, he said, "it's really, really worrying."
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2) Africa Lies Naked to Euro-American Military Offensive
By Glen Ford
Black Agenda Report
November 30, 2011
http://blackagendareport.com/content/africa-lies-naked-euro-american-military-offensive
The United States and its allies are engaged in an Asian and African offensive, a multi-pronged assault thinly camouflaged as humanitarian intervention that, in some regions, looks like a blitzkrieg. This frenzied aggression, still in its first year, saw NATO transformed into an expeditionary force to crush the unoffending Gaddafi regime in Libya and is now poised to topple the secular order in Syria. Although drawing on longstanding schemes for overt and covert regime change in selected countries, and fully consistent with global capital's historic imperative to bludgeon the planet into one malleable market subordinate to Washington, London and Paris, the current offensive had a particular genesis in time: the nightmare vision of an Arab awakening.
The prospect of an Arab Spring at the dawn of 2011 sparked a general hysteria in imperial capitals. Suddenly, they stared in the face of geopolitical death at the hands of the Arab "street." Washington understands full well that the emergence of Arab governments that reflect the will of the people would soon result, as Noam Chomsky is fond of saying, in the U.S. being "thrown out" of the region-the final toll of the bell, not just for the oil-hungry West, but for international capital's annexes in the autocratic cesspools of the Persian Gulf.
With centuries of Euro-American domination flashing before their eyes, Washington, London and Paris quickly configured NATO to unleash Shock and Awe on the victim of choice in North Africa: Muammar Gaddafi. The momentum of that show of force has led an expanding cast of imperial actors to the gates of Damascus. But Africa is the most vulnerable region in America's warpath, a continent ripe for the plucking due to the multitudinous entanglements of Africa's political and military classes with imperialism. The awful truth is, the United States and its allies, principally the French, are positioned to "take" much of the continent with the collaboration of most of its governments and, especially, its soldiers.
AFRICOM, established in 2008 by the Bush administration and now fully the creature of President Obama's "humanitarian" interventionist doctrine, claims military responsibility for the entire continent except Egypt. The U.S. military command has assembled a dizzying array of alliances with regional organizations and blocs of countries that, together, encompass all but a few nations on the continent-leaving those holdouts with crosshairs on their backs. As the U.S. bullies its way southward in the wake of the seizure of Libya, its path has been smoothed by the Africans, themselves.
The long U.S. war against Somalia, dramatically intensified with American backing for the Ethiopian invasion in late 2006, is now sanctioned by IGAD, the International Authority on Development in East Africa, comprised of Ethiopia; the puppet government in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu; Kenya; Uganda; the de facto French and U.S. military protectorate, Djibouti; and, nominally, Sudan.
This year's French-led, but nominally United Nations operation to oust the regime of Laurent Gbagbo, in Ivory Coast, was vouchsafed by ECOWAS, the 16-member Economic Community of West African States, including Benin Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo.
AFRICOM stages a huge, annual military exercise called African Endeavor, which trains African militaries to use "standard communications practices." African armies are taught U.S. command-and-control procedures, on American-made equipment, that is serviced by American advisors. In 2009, the militaries of 25 African nations took part in the exercise. This year, 40 nations joined Operation African Endeavor, accounting for the vast bulk of the continent's men under arms.
More insidiously, through AFRICOM's "soldier-to-soldier" doctrine, U.S. and African military peers are encouraged to forge one-on-one relationship up and down the levels of command: general-to-general, colonel-to-colonel, major-to-major, and even captain-to-captain. AFRICOM hopes these peer partnerings will forge personal relationships with African armed forces over the long haul, regardless of whatever regime is in power.
In the Sahel, AFRICOM maintains close relationships with virtually every nation along the vast band of land south of the Sahara desert that stretches from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic, all under the heading of "anti-terrorism." These include Mauritania, Mali, Chad, and Niger, plus Nigeria and Senegal. To the north, AFRICOM has similar ties to the Maghreb countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and, until this year, Gaddafi's Libya.
AFRICOM is often the real power behind nominally African missions. AMISOM, officially the African Union's so-called peace keeping force in Somalia, is in fact comprised of troops from Uganda and Burundi, U.S. client states that act as mercenaries for Washington, and paid for mainly by the Americans. They are soon to be joined by 500 soldiers from Djibouti. For years, AMISOM was all that saved the puppet regime in Mogadishu from instant annihilation in its tiny enclaves at the hands of the Shabab resistance. Today, the reinforced "African Union" fighters are on the offensive, along with Kenyan and Ethiopian invaders, aimed at smashing the Shabab in a pincer movement. U.S. drones based in Ethiopia and Djibouti bring death from overhead. Thus, a force nominally fielded by the African Union is an active belligerent in a U.S. engineered war that has set the Horn of Africa ablaze-a conflict also sanctioned by IGAD, the regional cooperative body.
It is only a matter of time before Eritrea, an adversary of Ethiopia and one of the few African nations outside the AFRICOM orbit, is attacked-doubtless by nominally African forces backed by the U.S. and French. Certainly, the thoroughly compromised African Union will be in no position to object.
No sooner than the last loyalist stronghold fell in Libya, President Obama extended his "humanitarian" interventionist reach deep into central Africa, sending 100 Special Forces troops to Uganda for later assignment to the Democratic Republic of Congo, the new nation of South Sudan, and the Central African Republic, the French neocolonial outpost where the Americans sent Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide after kidnapping him in 2004. Supposedly, the American Green Berets will hunt for the 2,000 or so fighters of the Lord's Liberation Army-a force the Ugandans themselves could snuff out if they were not busy acting as America's mercenaries elsewhere on the continent. (Washington's other loyal hit man in the region, Rwanda, was cited by a United Nations report as bearing responsibility for some of the millions slaughtered in Congo.)
NATO's aggression in Libya was made inevitable when Nigeria, South Africa and Gabon dishonored themselves at the United Nations Security Council by voting in favor of the bogus "No Fly Zone." The momentum of the Euro-American offensive flows southward, and will soon set much of the continent afire. The Horn of Africa is already a carnal house of flame and famine, engineered by the Americans but fully joined by Africans and their regional institutions. In the west, ECOWAS legitimizes imperial policies, while in the Sahel, Africans scramble to identify targets for the Americans. Each year, most of the continent's militaries gather round the Americans to learn how to command and control their own troops, thus making their armies useless to resist the real enemy: the U.S. and NATO.
Betrayed by a political/military class eager to integrate itself into the imperial system on any terms, Africa lies naked to the Euro-Americans.
It will be up to the slums and the bush to reverse this catastrophe. If the Americans and Europeans are to be resisted, Africans will have to fight their own governments, first.
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3) When the Police Go Military
"Radley Balko, a journalist who has studied the issue, told a House subcommittee on crime in 2007 that one criminologist found a 1,500 percent increase in the use of SWAT (special weapons and tactics) teams in the United States in roughly the last two decades. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally bars the military from law enforcement activities within the United States. But today, some local and city police forces have rendered the law rather moot. They have tanks - yes, tanks, often from military surplus, for use in hostage situations or drug raids - not to mention the sort of equipment and training one would need to deter a Mumbai-style guerrilla assault."
By AL BAKER
December 3, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/sunday-review/have-american-police-become-militarized.html?ref=us
RIOT police officers tear-gassing protesters at the Occupy movement in Oakland. The surprising nighttime invasion of Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, carried out with D-Day-like secrecy by officers deploying klieg lights and a military-style sound machine. And campus police officers in helmets and face shields dousing demonstrators at the University of California, Davis with pepper spray.
Is this the militarization of the American police?
Police forces undeniably share a soldier's ethos, no matter the size of the city, town or jurisdiction: officers carry deadly weapons and wear uniforms with patches denoting rank. They salute one another and pay homage to a "Yes, sir," "No, sir," hierarchical culture.
But beyond such symbolic and formal similarities, American law and tradition have tried to draw a clear line between police and military forces. To cast the roles of the two too closely, those in and out of law enforcement say, is to mistake the mission of each. Soldiers, after all, go to war to destroy, and kill the enemy. The police, who are supposed to maintain the peace, "are the citizens, and the citizens are the police," according to Chief Walter A. McNeil of Quincy, Fla., the president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, citing the words of Sir Robert Peel, the father of modern-day policing.
Yet lately images from Occupy protests streamed on the Internet - often in real time - show just how readily police officers can adopt military-style tactics and equipment, and come off more like soldiers as they face down citizens. Some say this adds up to the emergence of a new, more militaristic breed of civilian police officer. Others disagree.
What seems clear is that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, and the federal Homeland Security dollars that flowed to police forces in response to them, have further encouraged police forces to embrace paramilitary tactics like those that first emerged in the decades-long "war on drugs."
Both wars - first on drugs, then terror - have lent police forces across the country justification to acquire the latest technology, equipment and tactical training for newly created specialized units.
"There is behind this, also, I think, a kind of status competition or imitation, that there is positive status in having a sort of 'big department muscle,' in smaller departments," said Franklin E. Zimring, a professor of law at the University of California, Berkeley. "And then the problem is, if you have those kinds of specialized units, that you hunt for appropriate settings to use them and, in some of the smaller police departments, notions of the appropriate settings to use them are questionable."
Radley Balko, a journalist who has studied the issue, told a House subcommittee on crime in 2007 that one criminologist found a 1,500 percent increase in the use of SWAT (special weapons and tactics) teams in the United States in roughly the last two decades.
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 generally bars the military from law enforcement activities within the United States. But today, some local and city police forces have rendered the law rather moot. They have tanks - yes, tanks, often from military surplus, for use in hostage situations or drug raids - not to mention the sort of equipment and training one would need to deter a Mumbai-style guerrilla assault.
Such tactics are used in New York City, where Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly (whose department has had armored vehicles for decades) has invoked both the 19th-century military strategist Carl von Clausewitz and the television series "24" in talking about the myriad threats his city faces - both conventional and terrorist. After the would-be Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad was arrested aboard a plane at Kennedy Airport in 2010, Mr. Kelly calculated the plot-to-capture time: Slightly more than 53 hours.
"Jack Bauer may have caught him in 24," said Mr. Kelly, who served as a Marine commander in Vietnam. "But in the real world, 53's not bad."
IN truth, a vast majority of Mr. Kelly's 35,000-member force are not specialized troops, but rank-and-file beat cops. But that did not stop Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg from sounding like Patton at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology last week, when he boasted, "I have my own army in the N.Y.P.D.," suggesting his reasons for preferring City Hall to the White House. More disturbing than riot gear or heavy-duty weapons slung across the backs of American police officers is a "militaristic mind-set" creeping into officers' approach to their jobs, said Timothy Lynch, director of the criminal justice project at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. "It is in the way they search and raid homes and the way they deal with the public," he said.
The more the police fail to defuse confrontations but instead help create them - be it with their equipment, tactics or demeanor - the more ties with community members are burned, he said. The effect is a loss of civility, and an erosion of constitutional rights, rather than a building of good will.
"What is most worrisome to us is that the line that has traditionally separated the military from civilian policing is fading away," Mr. Lynch said. "We see it as one of the most disturbing trends in the criminal justice area - the militarization of police tactics."
Police officials insist they are not becoming more militarized - in their thinking or actions - but merely improving themselves professionally against evolving threats. This is the way to protect citizens and send officers home alive at the end of shifts in an increasingly dangerous world, they say. Of course, in the event of a terrorist attack, they have to fill the breach until federal or National Guard troops can rush in.
"If we had to take on a terrorist group, we could do that," said William Lansdowne, the police chief in San Diego and a member of the board of the Major Cities Chiefs Association. Though his force used federal grants to buy one of those fancy armored vehicles - complete with automatic-gun portals - he said the apparatus was more useful for traditional crime-busting than counter-terrorism.
"We are seeing suspects better armed than ever before," Chief Lansdowne said.
Now the Occupy movement and highly publicized official responses to it are forcing the public to confront what its police forces have become. But analysts say that even here the picture of policing is mixed. While scenes from Oakland were ugly, the police in Los Angeles and Philadelphia last week evacuated Occupy encampments relatively peacefully; Los Angeles officers used a cherry picker to pluck protesters from trees.
Police officers are not at war, said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, and cannot imagine themselves as occupying armies. Rather, they must approach any continuing Occupy protests, now or in the spring, with a respect for the First Amendment and a realization that protesters are not enemies but people the police need to engage with up the road.
"You can have all the sophisticated equipment in the world, but it does not replace common sense and discretion and finding ways to defuse situations," Mr. Wexler said. "You can't be talking about community policing one day and the next day have an action that is so uncharacteristic to the values of your department."
Al Baker is a metropolitan reporter for The New York Times.
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4) The New Digital Divide
"According to numbers released last month by the Department of Commerce, a mere 4 out of every 10 households with annual household incomes below $25,000 in 2010 reported having wired Internet access at home, compared with the vast majority - 93 percent - of households with incomes exceeding $100,000. Only slightly more than half of all African-American and Hispanic households (55 percent and 57 percent, respectively) have wired Internet access at home, compared with 72 percent of whites."
By SUSAN P. CRAWFORD
December 3, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/internet-access-and-the-new-divide.html?ref=opinion
FOR the second year in a row, the Monday after Thanksgiving - so-called Cyber Monday, when online retailers offer discounts to lure holiday shoppers - was the biggest sales day of the year, totaling some $1.25 billion and overwhelming the sales figures racked up by brick-and-mortar stores three days before, on Black Friday, the former perennial record-holder.
Such numbers may seem proof that America is, indeed, online. But they mask an emerging division, one that has worrisome implications for our economy and society. Increasingly, we are a country in which only the urban and suburban well-off have truly high-speed Internet access, while the rest - the poor and the working class - either cannot afford access or use restricted wireless access as their only connection to the Internet. As our jobs, entertainment, politics and even health care move online, millions are at risk of being left behind.
Telecommunications, which in theory should bind us together, has often divided us in practice. Until the late 20th century, the divide split those with phone access and those without it. Then it was the Web: in 1995 the Commerce Department published its first look at the "digital divide," finding stark racial, economic and geographic gaps between those who could get online and those who could not.
"While a standard telephone line can be an individual's pathway to the riches of the Information Age," the report said, "a personal computer and modem are rapidly becoming the keys to the vault." If you were white, middle-class and urban, the Internet was opening untold doors of information and opportunity. If you were poor, rural or a member of a minority group, you were fast being left behind.
Over the last decade, cheap Web access over phone lines brought millions to the Internet. But in recent years the emergence of services like video-on-demand, online medicine and Internet classrooms have redefined the state of the art: they require reliable, truly high-speed connections, the kind available almost exclusively from the nation's small number of very powerful cable companies. Such access means expensive contracts, which many Americans simply cannot afford.
While we still talk about "the" Internet, we increasingly have two separate access marketplaces: high-speed wired and second-class wireless. High-speed access is a superhighway for those who can afford it, while racial minorities and poorer and rural Americans must make do with a bike path.
Just over 200 million Americans have high-speed, wired Internet access at home, and almost two-thirds of them get it through their local cable company. The connections are truly high-speed: based on a technological standard called Docsis 2.0 or 3.0, they can reach up to 105 megabits per second, fast enough to download a music album in three seconds.
These customers are the targets for the next generation of Internet services, technology that will greatly enhance their careers, education and quality of life. Within a decade, patients at home will be able to speak with their doctors online and thus get access to lower-cost, higher-quality care. High-speed connections will also allow for distance education through real-time videoconferencing; already, thousands of high school students are earning diplomas via virtual classrooms.
Households will soon be able to monitor their energy use via smart-grid technology to keep costs and carbon dioxide emissions down. Even the way that wired America works will change: many job applications are already possible only online; soon, job interviews will be held by way of videoconference, saving cost and time.
But the rest of America will most likely be left out of all this. Millions are still offline completely, while others can afford only connections over their phone lines or via wireless smartphones. They can thus expect even lower-quality health services, career opportunities, education and entertainment options than they already receive. True, Americans of all stripes are adopting smartphones at breakneck speeds; in just over four years the number has jumped from about 10 percent to about 35 percent; among Hispanics and African-Americans, it's roughly 44 percent. Most of the time, smartphone owners also have wired access at home: the Pew Internet and American Life Project recently reported that 59 percent of American adults with incomes above $75,000 had a smartphone, and a 2010 study by the Federal Communications Commission found that more than 90 percent of people at that income level had wired high-speed Internet access at home.
But that is not true for lower-income and minority Americans. According to numbers released last month by the Department of Commerce, a mere 4 out of every 10 households with annual household incomes below $25,000 in 2010 reported having wired Internet access at home, compared with the vast majority - 93 percent - of households with incomes exceeding $100,000. Only slightly more than half of all African-American and Hispanic households (55 percent and 57 percent, respectively) have wired Internet access at home, compared with 72 percent of whites.
These numbers are likely to grow even starker as the 30 percent of Americans without any kind of Internet access come online. When they do, particularly if the next several years deliver subpar growth in personal income, they will probably go for the only option that is at all within their reach: wireless smartphones. A wired high-speed Internet plan might cost $100 a month; a smartphone plan might cost half that, often with a free or heavily discounted phone thrown in.
The problem is that smartphone access is not a substitute for wired. The vast majority of jobs require online applications, but it is hard to type up a résumé on a hand-held device; it is hard to get a college degree from a remote location using wireless. Few people would start a business using only a wireless connection.
It is not just inconvenient - many of these activities are physically impossible via a wireless connection. By their nature, the airwaves suffer from severe capacity limitations: the same five gigabytes of data that might take nine minutes to download over a high-speed cable connection would take an hour and 15 minutes to travel over a wireless connection.
Even if a smartphone had the technical potential to compete with wired, users would still be hampered by the monthly data caps put in place by AT&T and Verizon, by far the largest wireless carriers in America. For example, well before finishing the download of a single two-hour, high-definition movie from iTunes over a 4G wireless network, a typical subscriber would hit his or her monthly cap and start incurring $10 per gigabyte in overage charges. If you think this is a frivolous concern, for "movie" insert an equally large data stream, like "business meeting."
Public libraries are taking up the slack and buckling under the strain. Nearly half of librarians say that their connections are insufficient to meet patrons' needs. And it is hard to imagine conducting a job interview in a library.
IN the past, the cost of new technologies has dropped over time, and eventually many Americans could afford a computer and a modem to access a standard phone line. Phone service - something 96 percent of Americans have - was sold at regulated rates and the phone companies were forced to allow competing Internet access providers to share their lines.
But there is reason to believe this time is different. Today, the problem is about affording unregulated high-speed Internet service - provided, in the case of cable, by a few for-profit companies with very little local competition and almost no check on their prices. They have to bear all the cost of infrastructure and so have no incentive to expand into rural areas, where potential customers are relatively few and far between. (The Federal Communications Commission recently announced a plan to convert subsidies that once supported basic rural telephone services into subsidies for basic Internet access.)
The bigger problem is the lack of competition in cable markets. Though there are several large cable companies nationwide, each dominates its own fragmented kingdom of local markets: Comcast is the only game in Philadelphia, while Time Warner dominates Cleveland. That is partly because it is so expensive to lay down the physical cables, and companies, having paid for those networks, guard them jealously, clustering their operations and spending tens of millions of dollars to lobby against laws that might oblige them to share their infrastructure.
Cable's only real competition comes from Verizon's FiOS fiber-optic service, which can provide speeds up to 150 megabits per second. But FiOS is available to only about 10 percent of households. AT&T's U-verse, which has about 4 percent of the market, cannot provide comparable speeds because, while it uses fiber-optic cable to reach neighborhoods, the signal switches to slower copper lines to connect to houses. And don't even think about DSL, which carries just a fraction of the data needed to handle the services that cable users take for granted.
Lacking competition from other cable companies or alternate delivery technologies, each of the country's large cable distributors has the ability to raise prices in its region for high-speed Internet services. Those who can still afford it are paying higher and higher rates for the same quality of service, while those who cannot are turning to wireless.
IT doesn't have to be this way, as a growing number of countries demonstrate. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ranks America 12th among developed nations for wired Internet access, and it is safe to assume that high prices have played a role in lowering our standing. So America, the country that invented the Internet and still leads the world in telecommunications innovation, is lagging far behind in actual use of that technology.
The answer to this puzzle is regulatory policy. Over the last 10 years, we have deregulated high-speed Internet access in the hope that competition among providers would protect consumers. The result? We now have neither a functioning competitive market for high-speed wired Internet access nor government oversight.
By contrast, governments that have intervened in high-speed Internet markets have seen higher numbers of people adopting the technology, doing so earlier and at lower subscription charges. Many of these countries have required telecommunications providers to sell access to parts of their networks to competitors at regulated rates, so that competition can lower prices.
Meanwhile, they are working toward, or already have, fiber-optic networks that will be inexpensive, standardized, ubiquitous and equally fast for uploading and downloading. Many of those countries, not only advanced ones like Sweden and Japan but also less-developed ones like Portugal and Russia, are already well on their way to wholly replacing their standard telephone connections with state-of-the-art fiber-optic connections that will even further reduce the cost to users, while significantly improving access speeds.
The only thing close is FiOS. But, according to Diffraction Analysis, a research firm, it costs six times as much as comparable service in Hong Kong, five times as much as in Paris and two and a half times as much as in Amsterdam. When it comes to the retail cost of fiber access in America, we do about as well as Istanbul.
The new digital divide raises important questions about social equity in an information-driven world. But it is also a matter of protecting our economic future. Thirty years from now, African-Americans and Latinos, who are at the greatest risk of being left behind in the Internet revolution, will be more than half of our work force. If we want to be competitive in the global economy, we need to make sure every American has truly high-speed wired access to the Internet for a reasonable cost.
Susan P. Crawford is a professor at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law and a former special assistant to President Obama for science, technology and innovation policy.
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5) Planned Postal Service Cuts to Slow First-Class Mail
[This will not effect those of us that have high-speed internet service; electronic bill-pay, etc. But the poor don't have any of that. This means their bill payments by check or money order via USPS will be late and they will be charged late fees; it means their pension and SS checks will arrive late; it means the corporations who refuse to change billing dates will be able to charge extra late fees forcing hundreds-of-millions of the poor further behind economically. It will not effect the one percent one iota!. They'll just sit back and collect the extra dough! ...bw]
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
December 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/business/cuts-by-postal-service-will-slow-first-class-mail.html?hp
The United States Postal Service said on Monday that it would reduce service to cut costs in a move it said could largely eliminate the chance of next-day delivery for stamped letters.
Delivery delays will result from the postal service's decision to shut about half of its 487 mail processing centers across the nation.
This would cause the postal service to reduce delivery standards for first-class mail for the first time in 40 years, substantially increasing the distance that mail travels between post offices and processing centers.
Current standards call for delivering first-class mail in one to three days within the continental United States. Under the planned cutbacks, those delivery times would increase to two or three days, potentially creating problems for companies like Netflix that rely heavily on next-day delivery.
The agency announced in September that it would begin studying plans to close 252 out of 487 mail processing centers, and on Monday it said it would "move forward" with that plan, with closings to begin as early as March. Heavy pressure from Congress or the public could still cause the postal service to scale back the plan, at least somewhat.
Patrick Donahoe, the postmaster general, has repeatedly said that by 2015 he hopes to cut $20 billion from the agency's annual costs, which are now about $75 billion. He has called for closing up to 3,700 of the nation's 32,000 post offices, while reducing deliveries to five days a week from six, and cutting the agency's work force of 653,000 employees by more than 100,000.
"We're in a deep financial crisis today because we have a business model that's tied to the past," he said at a news conference last month. "We are expected to operate like a business, but don't have the flexibility to do so. Our business model is fundamentally inflexible. It prevents the postal service from solving its problems."
Mr. Donahoe has urged Congress to act with more urgency to allow the postal service to cut costs. In recent months, he has complained repeatedly that his agency needs permission from Congress to take the actions he says it needs in an era when mail volume has plunged largely because of the explosion of e-mail and electronic bill-paying. Mail volume has dropped more than 20 percent - by more than 40 billion pieces - over the last five years.
According to The Associated Press, about 42 percent of first-class mail is currently delivered the following day, while 27 percent is delivered in two days. Thirty-one percent arrives in three days and less than 1 percent is delivered in four to five days.
According to postal officials, after processing centers are closed in the spring, slightly more than half of all first-class mail is expected to be delivered in two days, with most of the rest arriving in three days.
The postal service previously announced a 1-cent increase in first-class postage, to 45 cents, starting Jan. 22.
The postal service said there would still be opportunities for companies that properly prepare and enter mail at the destination processing center so their mail could be delivered the following delivery day.
David Williams, the vice president for network operations, said, "The proposed changes to service standards will allow for significant consolidation of the postal network in terms of facilities, processing equipment, vehicles and employee work force, and will generate projected net annual savings of approximately $2.1 billion."
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6) Italy's Leader Unveils Radical Austerity Measures
By RACHEL DONADIO
December 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/world/europe/mario-monti-of-italy-calls-cabinet-to-consider-austerity-measures.html?ref=world
ROME - Telling Italians that the fate of their country and the euro was at stake, Prime Minister Mario Monti unveiled a radical and ambitious package of spending cuts and tax increases on Sunday, including deeply unpopular moves like raising the country's retirement age.
The measures are meant to slash the cost of government, combat tax evasion and step up economic growth, so the country can eliminate its budget deficit by 2013. Mr. Monti took the steps in an emergency decree, which means they will take effect before he presents them to Parliament for formal approval.
Delivered ahead of a crucial summit meeting of European leaders this week, the new measures are aimed at showing that Italy - which is seen as both too big to fail and too big to bail out should it default on its immense debts - is committed to getting its finances in order.
The hope is that they will take some of the market pressure off Italy, whose borrowing costs have been pushed up in recent weeks to levels that have led other European countries to seek bailouts; once Italy has shown it is committed to austerity, the European Union can move ahead with broader plans to shore up the euro.
"If you want, call these the 'Save Italy' measures," Mr. Monti said in a news conference after a cabinet meeting on Sunday, less than three weeks after taking office. "I wanted to give you a message of grave concern but also of great hope," he told Italians, adding that he would work to spread the sacrifices with "equity" across the society.
A former European commissioner with no experience in the trenches of the Italian Parliament, Mr. Monti is expected to present the measures to both houses on Monday. Though the Parliament voted confidence in his government of technocrats by a wide margin last month, many legislators are reluctant to push through measures that might hinder their chances for re-election.
There are other hurdles as well. Labor unions are opposed to raising the retirement age, and industrialists say the measures are weighted too heavily toward tax increases that could stifle growth.
Mr. Monti, who is both prime minister and finance minister, faces the challenge of satisfying the demands of European leaders while making clear to Italians that they must take responsibility for solving the country's longstanding structural problems.
"The huge public debt of Italy isn't the fault of Europe; it's the fault of Italians, because in the past we didn't pay enough attention to the well-being of the young and the future adults of Italy," Mr. Monti said. Speaking of his proposals, he said, "We have had to share the sacrifices, but we have made great efforts to share them fairly."
Among the new measures announced Sunday are sharp cuts to regional governments that could significantly change Italian politics by crimping the flow of patronage spending.
There appears to be little room now for traditional Italian political maneuvering. Though Italy's economy is the third-largest in the euro zone, it has no forward momentum; economists expect it to contract in 2012 and stay flat in 2013. Meanwhile, the cost of servicing the country's debts is claiming an ever larger share of its budget.
Mr. Monti must also convince risk-averse Italians that there is much at stake. Silvio Berlusconi, who was prime minister until a few weeks ago, repeatedly told his countrymen that the economy was fine, even though youth unemployment was high and rising, growth was flat and prices were outstripping wages.
"You will never hear me ask for a sacrifice because Europe asks for it, just as you will never hear me blame Europe for things that we should do and that are unpopular," Mr. Monti said. "I would rather be considered unpopular, rather than Europe, because you can do without me, but not without Europe."
Mr. Monti's proposals include reintroducing an unpopular property tax that Mr. Berlusconi abolished in 2008 to fulfill a campaign promise. The new measures would also prohibit cash transactions above 1,000 euros ($1,340), in the hope of making tax evasion harder; raise the country's value-added tax by two points to 23 percent starting in September; and give incentives to businesses to hire new workers.
The country's new welfare minister, Elsa Fornero, a pension expert, choked with emotion at the news conference as she explained how Italians would be asked to sacrifice today in order to make the pension system less "arbitrary" and "more equitable" for future generations.
The standard retirement age, now 60 for many women and 65 for most men, would quickly rise to 62 and 66, with incentives to keep working until age 70; the standard age for women would eventually rise to match that for men. Pensions would be based on the number of years of contributions, not on the worker's salary at the time of retirement, as is common now.
Before the cabinet meeting, Emma Marcegaglia, the president of the business organization Confindustria, called the austerity measures "heavy but indispensable," adding that "the next 10 days will decide whether the euro will survive or not."
But Ms. Marcegaglia added that her group had asked the government to recalibrate the mixture of tax increases and spending cuts once the measures have been passed.
The leader of the center-left Democratic Party, which supports the Monti government, called for more measures to fight tax evasion, a very widespread problem in Italy.
Susanna Camusso, the president of CGIL, Italy's largest labor union, said the austerity measures "deal a very harsh blow to the incomes of pensioners." Raising the retirement age would be "unsustainable for so many workers who would see their retirement prospects shaken and delayed by many years of work."
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7) WikiLeaks Founder Can Make Final Bid to Avoid Extradition
By RAVI SOMAIYA and ALAN COWELL
December 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/06/world/europe/julian-assange-renews-bid-to-avoid-extradition.html?ref=world
LONDON - The High Court gave permission on Monday for Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks antisecrecy organization, to begin a final appeal to Britain's highest judicial authority against extradition to Sweden on allegations of sexual abuse, the latest step in a yearlong legal battle in which he has been under house arrest at a friend's country mansion.
In a complicated ruling, two judges rejected most of the grounds on which Mr. Assange, 40, had sought permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. But they said his lawyers could appeal on a single legal technicality relating to the status of the Swedish public prosecutor seeking his extradition.
If the judges had ruled against Mr. Assange, he could have been be sent to Sweden for questioning within days.
Last month, two High Court judges upheld an earlier ruling in favor of extradition, rejecting his lawyers' claims that sending him to Sweden would be "unfair and unlawful." In response, Mr. Assange said he would seek permission to make a final appeal to the Supreme Court, which usually hears only cases of constitutional or general public importance.
In the latest hearing, the same two judges, Sir John Thomas and Duncan Ouseley, said they had certified that a point of law in the case had a broader public interest, enabling the appeal to go ahead. The question to be considered by the Supreme Court was whether the Swedish public prosecutor qualified as a judicial authority.
Mr. Assange's lawyers maintain that public prosecutors are not judicial authorities and are therefore not entitled to sign arrest warrants.
Court officials said the judges' ruling on Monday meant that Mr. Assange's legal team had 14 days to set out grounds for an appeal in a written submission to the Supreme Court. It would then be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether to allow an appeal.
"If leave is granted by the Supreme Court," Sir John said, "we would for obvious reasons ask that the point is decided as quickly as possible."
Speaking on the courthouse steps after the ruling, Mr. Assange said he was thankful the court agreed that his case had broader implications. Referring to his case and those of others fighting extradition, he said, "It has been a long struggle for justice for me and others."
Earlier, Mr. Assange's lawyers were reported to have been considering a last-minute appeal to a European court if the judges refused them permission to approach the Supreme Court. But, court officials said, the European court would likely be unable to prevent Mr. Assange's extradition if the Supreme Court rules against him.
As it is, the officials said, Mr. Assange will probably be able to remain in Britain into 2012 as the latest legal processes are played out.
WikiLeaks' release of hundreds of thousands of classified United States military documents on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and classified State Department diplomatic cables dominated the front pages of newspapers across the world, including The New York Times, last year. Mr. Assange depicted those releases as a means of seeking publicity for documents he hoped would reshape the very nature of government.
But in August 2010, as he rode a wave of celebrity, he was accused of sexual molestation, unlawful coercion and rape, by two WikiLeaks volunteers in Stockholm who said that consensual encounters with Mr. Assange became nonconsensual. Mr. Assange appeared for an initial interview with the police there that month, but fled to London before further questioning could be completed, a court here was subsequently told.
Swedish prosecutors decided to issue an Interpol red notice and a European arrest warrant to compel him to return last December but Mr. Assange, who denies the charges, has fought the warrants at every turn.
He was briefly jailed a year ago, before being released on bail and placed under house arrest at the country mansion of a wealthy friend in eastern England.
Protesters and celebrity supporters - including the socialites Jemima Khan and Bianca Jagger and the journalist John Pilger - have often conflated the case with a battle for free speech. Mr. Assange himself has suggested that government forces might be behind the allegations of sexual wrongdoing as a means of silencing him.
Ravi Somaiya reported from London, and Alan Cowell from Paris.
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8) More Radioactive Water Leaks at Japanese Plant
"The Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety in France estimates that between March and mid-July, the amount of radioactive cesium 137 that had leaked into the Pacific from the Fukushima Daiichi plant amounted to 27.1 petabecquerels, the greatest amount known to have been released from a single episode. (A becquerel is a frequently used measure of radiation, and a petabecquerel is a million billion becquerels.)"
By HIROKO TABUCHI and MARTIN FACKLER
December 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/05/world/asia/more-leaks-from-fukushima-daiichi-nuclear-plant.html?ref=world
TOKYO - At least 45 tons of highly radioactive water have leaked from a purification facility at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, and some of it may have reached the Pacific Ocean, the plant's operator said Sunday.
Nearly nine months after Fukushima Daiichi was ravaged by an earthquake and tsunami, the plant continues to pose a major environmental threat. Before the latest leak, the Fukushima accident had been responsible for the largest single release of radioactivity into the ocean, threatening wildlife and fisheries in the region, experts have said.
The new radioactive water leak called into question the progress that the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company, appeared to have made in bringing its reactors under control. The company, known as Tepco, has said that it hopes to bring the plant to a stable state known as a cold shutdown by the end of the year.
The trouble on Sunday came in two stages, a Tepco statement said. In the morning, utility workers found that radioactive water was pooling in a catchment next to a purification device; the system was switched off, and the leak appeared to stop. But the company said it later discovered that leaked water was escaping, possibly through cracks in the catchment's concrete wall, and was reaching an external gutter.
In all, as much as 220 tons of water may now have leaked from the facility, according to a report in the newspaper Asahi Shimbun that cited Tepco officials.
The company said that the water had about one million times as much radioactive strontium as the maximum safe level set by the government, but appeared to have already been cleaned of radioactive cesium before leaking out. Both elements are readily absorbed by living tissue and can greatly increase the risk of developing cancer.
Tepco said a check on Saturday had found no sign of the leak, suggesting that it began Saturday night or early Sunday morning. The company said it was exploring ways to stop any more water from escaping.
Since the disaster in March, workers have been struggling to cool the stricken plant's reactors by flooding them with water, which is contaminated with radioactivity in the process and becomes a problem of its own.
Tepco installed a new circulatory cooling system in September with filters that decontaminate and recycle the cooling water. But the company acknowledges that some water has already leaked into the ocean, and thousands of tons of water remain in the flooded basements of the plant's reactor buildings.
The Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety in France estimates that between March and mid-July, the amount of radioactive cesium 137 that had leaked into the Pacific from the Fukushima Daiichi plant amounted to 27.1 petabecquerels, the greatest amount known to have been released from a single episode. (A becquerel is a frequently used measure of radiation, and a petabecquerel is a million billion becquerels.)
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9) Nineteen Examples of the Obama Administration Assault on Domestic Civil Liberties
By Bill Quigley
Created Dec 2 2011 - 10:13am
http://smirkingchimp.com/author/bill_quigley
The Obama administration has affirmed, continued and expanded almost all of the draconian domestic civil liberties intrusions pioneered under the Bush administration. Here are twenty examples of serious assaults on the domestic rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, the right to privacy, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, and freedom of conscience that have occurred since the Obama administration has assumed power. Consider these and then decide if there is any fundamental difference between the Bush presidency and the Obama presidency in the area of domestic civil liberties.
Patriot Act
On May 27, 2011, President Obama, over widespread bipartisan objections, approved a Congressional four year extension of controversial parts of the Patriot Act that were set to expire. In March of 2010, Obama signed a similar extension of the Patriot Act for one year. These provisions allow the government, with permission from a special secret court, to seize records without the owner's knowledge, conduct secret surveillance of suspicious people who have no known ties to terrorist groups and to obtain secret roving wiretaps on people.
Criminalization of Dissent and Militarization of the Police
Anyone who has gone to a peace or justice protest in recent years has seen it - local police have been turned into SWAT teams, and SWAT teams into heavily armored military. Officer Friendly or even Officer Unfriendly has given way to police uniformed like soldiers with SWAT shields, shin guards, heavy vests, military helmets, visors, and vastly increased firepower. Protest police sport ninja turtle-like outfits and are accompanied by helicopters, special tanks, and even sound blasting vehicles first used in Iraq. Wireless fingerprint scanners first used by troops in Iraq are now being utilized by local police departments to check motorists. Facial recognition software introduced in war zones is now being used in Arizona and other jurisdictions. Drones just like the ones used in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan are being used along the Mexican and Canadian borders. These activities continue to expand under the Obama administration.
Wiretaps
Wiretaps for oral, electronic or wire communications, approved by federal and state courts, are at an all-time high. Wiretaps in year 2010 were up 34% from 2009, according to the Administrative Office of the US Courts.
Criminalization of Speech
Muslims in the US have been targeted by the Obama Department of Justice for inflammatory things they said or published on the internet. First Amendment protection of freedom of speech, most recently stated in a 1969 Supreme Court decision, Brandenberg v Ohio, says the government cannot punish inflammatory speech, even if it advocates violence unless it is likely to incite or produce such action. A Pakistani resident legally living in the US was indicted by the DOJ in September 2011 for uploading a video on YouTube. The DOJ said the video was supportive of terrorists even though nothing on the video called for violence. In July 2011, the DOJ indicted a former Penn State student for going onto websites and suggesting targets and for providing a link to an explosives course already posted on the internet.
Domestic Government Spying on Muslim Communities
In activities that offend freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and several other laws, the NYPD and the CIA have partnered to conduct intelligence operations against Muslim communities in New York and elsewhere. The CIA, which is prohibited from spying on Americans, works with the police on "human mapping", commonly known as racial and religious profiling to spy on the Muslim community. Under the Obama administration, the Associated Press reported in August 2011, informants known as "mosque crawlers," monitor sermons, bookstores and cafes.
Top Secret America
In July 2010, the Washington Post released "Top Secret America," a series of articles detailing the results of a two year investigation into the rapidly expanding world of homeland security, intelligence and counter-terrorism. It found 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence at about 10,000 locations across the US. Every single day, the National Security Agency intercepts and stores more than 1.7 billion emails, phone calls and other types of communications. The FBI has a secret database named Guardian that contains reports of suspicious activities filed from federal, state and local law enforcement. According to the Washington Post Guardian contained 161,948 files as of December 2009. From that database there have been 103 full investigations and at least five arrests the FBI reported. The Obama administration has done nothing to cut back on the secrecy.
Other Domestic Spying
There are at least 72 fusion centers across the US which collect local domestic police information and merge it into multi-jurisdictional intelligence centers, according to recent report by the ACLU. These centers share information from federal, state and local law enforcement and some private companies to secretly spy on Americans. These all continue to grow and flourish under the Obama administration.
Abusive FBI Intelligence Operations
The Electronic Frontier Foundation documented thousands of violations of the law by FBI intelligence operations from 2001 to 2008 and estimate that there are over 4000 such violations each year. President Obama issued an executive order to strengthen the Intelligence Oversight Board, an agency which is supposed to make sure the FBI, the CIA and other spy agencies are following the law. No other changes have been noticed.
Wikileaks
The publication of US diplomatic cables by Wikileaks and then by main stream news outlets sparked condemnation by Obama administration officials who said the publication of accurate government documents was nothing less than an attack on the United States. The Attorney General announced a criminal investigation and promised "this is not saber rattling." Government officials warned State Department employees not to download the publicly available documents. A State Department official and Columbia officials warned students that discussing Wikileaks or linking documents to social networking sites could jeopardize their chances of getting a government job, a position that lasted several days until reversed by other Columbia officials. At the time this was written, the Obama administration continued to try to find ways to prosecute the publishers of Wikileaks.
Censorship of Books by the CIA
In 2011, the CIA demanded extensive cuts from a memoir by former FBI agent Ali H. Soufan, in part because it made the agency look bad. Soufan's book detailed the use of torture methods on captured prisoners and mistakes that led to 9-11. Similarly, a 2011 book on interrogation methods by former CIA agent Glenn Carle was subjected to extensive black outs. The CIA under the Obama administration continues its push for censorship.
Blocking Publication of Photos of U.S. Soldiers Abusing Prisoners
In May 2009, President Obama reversed his position of three weeks earlier and refused to release photos of US soldiers abusing prisoners. In April 2009, the US Department of Defense told a federal court that it would release the photos. The photos were part of nearly 200 criminal investigations into abuses by soldiers.
Technological Spying
The Bay Area Transit System, in August 2011, hearing of rumors to protest against fatal shootings by their police, shut down cell service in four stations. Western companies sell email surveillance software to repressive regimes in China, Libya and Syria to use against protestors and human rights activists. Surveillance cameras monitor residents in high crime areas, street corners and other governmental buildings. Police department computers ask for and receive daily lists from utility companies with addresses and names of every home address in their area. Computers in police cars scan every license plate of every car they drive by. The Obama administration has made no serious effort to cut back these new technologies of spying on citizens.
Use of "State Secrets" to Shield Government and Others from review
When the Bush government was caught hiring private planes from a Boeing subsidiary to transport people for torture to other countries, the Bush administration successfully asked the federal trial court to dismiss a case by detainees tortured because having a trial would disclose "state secrets" and threaten national security. When President Obama was elected, the state secrets defense was reaffirmed in arguments before a federal appeals court. It continues to be a mainstay of the Obama administration effort to cloak their actions and the actions of the Bush administration in secrecy.
In another case, it became clear in 2005 that the Bush FBI was avoiding the Fourth Amendment requirement to seek judicial warrants to get telephone and internet records by going directly to the phone companies and asking for the records. The government and the companies, among other methods of surveillance, set up secret rooms where phone and internet traffic could be monitored. In 2008, the government granted the companies amnesty for violating the privacy rights of their customers. Customers sued anyway. But the Obama administration successfully argued to the district court, among other defenses, that disclosure would expose state secrets and should be dismissed. The case is now on appeal.
Material Support
The Obama administration successfully asked the US Supreme Court not to apply the First Amendment and to allow the government to criminalize humanitarian aid and legal activities of people providing advice or support to foreign organizations which are listed on the government list as terrorist organizations. The material support law can now be read to penalize people who provide humanitarian aid or human rights advocacy. The Obama administration Solicitor General argued to the court "when you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs." The Court agreed with the Obama argument that national security trumps free speech in these circumstances.
Chicago Anti-war Grand Jury Investigation
In September 2010, FBI agents raided the homes of seven peace activists in Chicago, Minneapolis and Grand Rapids seizing computers, cell phones, passports, and records. More than 20 anti-war activists were issued federal grand jury subpoenas and more were questioned across the country. Some of those targeted were members of local labor unions, others members of organizations like the Arab American Action Network, the Columbia Action Network, the Twin Cities Anti-War Campaign and the Freedom Road Socialist Organization. Many were active internationally and visited resistance groups in Columbia and Palestine. Subpoenas directed people to bring anything related to trips to Columbia, Palestine, Jordan, Syria, Israel or the Middle East. In 2011, the home of a Los Angeles activist was raided and he was questioned about his connections with the September 2010 activists. All of these investigations are directed by the Obama administration.
Punishing Whistleblowers
The Obama administration has prosecuted five whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, more than all the other administrations in history put together. They charged a National Security Agency advisor with ten felonies under the Espionage Act for telling the press that government eavesdroppers were wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on misguided and failed projects. After their case collapsed, the government, which was chastised by the federal judge as engaging in unconscionable conduct allowed him to plead to a misdemeanor and walk. The administration has also prosecuted former members of the CIA, the State Department, and the FBI. They even tried to subpoena a journalist and one of the lawyers for the whistleblowers.
Bradley Manning
Army private Bradley Manning is accused of leaking thousands of government documents to Wikileaks. These documents expose untold numbers of lies by US government officials, wrongful killings of civilians, policies to ignore torture in Iraq, information about who is held at Guantanamo, cover ups of drone strikes and abuse of children and much more damaging information about US malfeasance. Though Daniel Ellsberg and other whistleblowers say Bradley is an American hero, the US government has jailed him and is threatening him with charges of espionage which may be punished by the death penalty. For months Manning was held in solitary confinement and forced by guards to sleep naked. When asked about how Manning was being held, President Obama personally defended the conditions of his confinement saying he had been assured they were appropriate and meeting our basic standards.
Solitary Confinement
At least 20,000 people are in solitary confinement in US jails and prisons, some estimate several times that many. Despite the fact that federal, state and local prisons and jails do not report actual numbers, academic research estimates tens of thousands are kept in cells for 23 to 24 hours a day in supermax units and prisons, in lockdown, in security housing units, in "the hole", and in special management units or administrative segregation. Human Rights Watch reports that one-third to one-half of the prisoners in solitary are likely mentally ill. In May 2006, the UN Committee on Torture concluded that the United States should "review the regimen imposed on detainees in supermax prisons, in particular, the practice of prolonged isolation." The Obama administration has taken no steps to cut back on the use of solitary confinement in federal, state or local jails and prisons.
Special Administrative Measures
Special Administrative Measures (SAMS) are extra harsh conditions of confinement imposed on prisoners (including pre-trial detainees) by the Attorney General. The U.S. Bureau of Prisons imposes restrictions such segregation and isolation from all other prisoners, and limitation or denial of contact with the outside world such as: no visitors except attorneys, no contact with news media, no use of phone, no correspondence, no contact with family, no communication with guards, 24 hour video surveillance and monitoring. The DOJ admitted in 2009 that several dozen prisoners, including several pre-trial detainees, mostly Muslims, were kept incommunicado under SAMS. If anything, the use of SAMS has increased under the Obama administration.
These twenty concrete examples document a sustained assault on domestic civil liberties in the United States under the Obama administration. Rhetoric aside, how different has Obama been from Bush in this area?
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About author Bill is legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans. You can reach him at Quigley77@gmail.com
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10) LSE and Guardian study finds anger with police fuelled summer riots
London School of Economics and Political Science
December 5, 2011
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2011/12/riots.aspx
A social research inquiry by LSE and the Guardian found that widespread anger at people's treatment at the hands of police was a significant factor behind the summer riots in every major city where disorder took place.
'Reading the Riots' study, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, is the only research into the riots involving interviews with hundreds of people who participated in the disorder.
In its first phase, the study used confidential interviews with a total of 270 people who were directly involved in the riots in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Salford, Liverpool and Nottingham. Of the people interviewed, 85% said policing was an important or very important factor in why the riots happened.
Professor Tim Newburn|, head of the Social Policy department at LSE, who led the research team, said:
Tim Newburn"This is a pathbreaking study of the August riots in England. It reveals the anger and frustration felt by those who were involved in the disorder, in part a product of the unfair and discourteous treatment they feel they suffer at the hands of the police, but also reflecting the disillusionment many feel at the social and economic changes which leave them increasingly disconnected from mainstream society."
Other findings from the first phase of the study include:
Rioters identified a range of political grievances, but at heart of their complaints was a pervasive sense of injustice. For some this was economic - the lack of money, jobs or opportunity. For others it was more broadly social - how they felt they were treated compared with others.
Many rioters conceded their involvement in looting was simply to down to opportunism, saying that a perceived suspension of normal rules presented them with an opportunity to a acquire goods and luxury items they could not ordinarily afford.
Gangs behaved in an entirely atypical manner for the duration of the riots, temporarily suspending hostilities with their postcode rivals. However on the whole, the role of gangs in the riots has been significantly overstated by the government.
Contrary to widespread speculation that social media was used by rioters to organise and share information, sites such as Facebook and Twitter were not used in any significant way. However, BlackBerry phones - and the free messaging service known as BBM - was used extensively.
Although mainly young and male, those involved in the riots came from a cross-section of local communities. Just under half of those interviewed in the study were students. Of those who were not in education and were of working age, 59 percent were unemployed. Although half of those interviewed were black, people who took part in the disorder did not consider these race riots.
The basis of the study was in-depth, primarily qualitative interviews with rioters. The primary aim of this aspect of the study was to understand who had been involved in the riots and what their motivations were, together with a considered analysis of the role of gangs and of social media.
A Reading the Riots report will be published in full on December 14 at a conference hosted at LSE. The second phase of Reading the Riots, which will be completed next year, will draw on interviews with communities, police and judges about their experience of the disturbances and their aftermath.
(05 December 2011)
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11) Occupy Our Homes: From the Streets to Foreclosed Homes, OWS Finds a New Frontier
By Sarah Seltzer, AlterNet
Posted on December 5, 2011, Printed on December 6, 2011
SEE ARTICLE WITH VIDEO'S HERE:
http://www.alternet.org/story/153318/occupy_our_homes%3A_from_the_streets_to_foreclosed_homes%2C_ows_finds_a_new_frontier
Today, Occupy Wall Street and Occupy movements around the country will "go out of the streets and into the homes" of the 99 percent to draw attention to the economic, social, and racial injustice of the foreclosure crisis.
Through vacant home reoccupations, eviction resistance actions, and foreclosure auction disruptions from Brooklyn to Atlanta to Minneapolis and beyond, activists will highlight the families and individuals who live with the threat of eviction ever looming or those who have already lost their homes but are barred from ones that sit empty, owned by banks.
"We want people to pick sides - are you going to side with a bank sitting on an empty house when there's record family homelessness in NYC? Or will you side with a homeless family that is really desperate for a better environment for their kids to grow up in?" says VOCAL-NY organizer Sean Barry, one of many activists involved in the New York City action, which will begin at 1 p.m. at the intersection of Pennsylvania and Livonia in East New York, Brooklyn.
Indeed, the optics are perfect for OWS: not only will the actions highlight the plight of America's families, but they will also point to the indifference and callousness of the 1 percent - the bankers and financiers who speculated on subprime mortgages, turned the other way knowing that many mortgages were being signed - or robosigned - to individuals who could never pay.
Last week, Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times interviewed one such banker who is now wracked with regret about the racist, predatory lending policies of his former employer, Chase:
One memory particularly troubles Theckston. He says that some account executives earned a commission seven times higher from subprime loans, rather than prime mortgages. So they looked for less savvy borrowers - those with less education, without previous mortgage experience, or without fluent English - and nudged them toward subprime loans.
These less-savvy borrowers were disproportionately blacks and Latinos, he said, and they ended up paying a higher rate so that they were more likely to lose their homes. Senior executives seemed aware of this racial mismatch, he recalled, and frantically tried to cover it up.
It should be noted that this kind of eviction resistance action being planned today is not unique to OWS - and that in some ways, it was a logical growth point for the new movement's energy. For years local groups like Take Back the Land, Viva Urbana, and many more have been doing this in local communities. In New York, Picture the Homeless has been training other activists in eviction-resistance tactics, Barry says.
And the fusion between these movements and Occupy is very much in full swing: in cities like Atlanta, Minneapolis, and Rochester, local Occupy movements have already joined forces with these grassroots groups to stave off, delay, or avoid evictions, as AlterNet recently reported. In San Francisco, occupiers joined with local activists to prevent the eviction of a 75-year-old woman. In Atlanta, the woman protected was 103. In Harlem, occupiers refused to leave a building's boiler room until the indifferent landlord had the broken heater fixed.
Just this summer, in New York, the aptly named grassroots group "Organizing for Occupation" delayed the eviction of a woman in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Their meetings have now been flooded by Occupy Wall Street activists who want to help.
Mary Lee Ward Eviction Defense by O4O August 19, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwyopQ-obPI&feature=player_embedded
The movement has global roots as well, as Roar magazine notes:
The action is partly inspired by the 15-M movement in Spain, which - through the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca, or the platform of those affected by their mortgage - has stopped hundreds of evictions in Spain and has occupied numerous large vacant buildings and offered them to people who had been kicked out of their homes by their banks.
Not only does Occupy Wall Street's mission of exposing the gap between the 1 percent and the 99 percent dovetail and overlap with the foreclosure crisis, but its methods of reclaiming space are obvious matches for the burgeoning eviction resistant movement as well.
In fact, for many occupiers, the exploitative nature of the foreclosure crisis, the fact that families are losing their homes while the bankers who engineered this fateful bubble get bonuses--these were the reasons they joined in September.
And this means that occupying homes is one of the most pertinent and personal ways the message of their movement can be expressed.
"About two years ago my family in Northern New Jersey almost lost their home due to a foreclosure - and so I joined the [OWS} movement in late September in part because of this issue, foreclosures," Yesenia Barragan, a Columbia student and member of the OWS press team who has been helping to coordinate the day of action, tells me. "I'm really excited about this action, because it literally hits so close to home," she says.
She calls Occupy Our Homes the new frontier for the movement and particularly is thrilled by the way the local community organizers from Organize for Occupy, VOCAL-NY, and more have brought their experience and knowledge, and fused it with the "energy" coming from Occupy Wall Street - and the activists' willingness to use direct action - all in service of "getting folks back in their homes."
Today in New York, protesters will meet at a train station at the economically ravaged, largely minority neighborhood of East New York, where they will take a neighborhood tour of foreclosed and vacant bank-owned homes - perhaps, it's hinted, potential sites for future occupations. Then they will have a "housewarming and block party" for a family in need, culminating in as yet unknown direct action to bring that family home, complete with a fixup team to help them do so.
This is a family, says Barry, "which has experienced long-term homelessness, been a victim of Bloomberg's budget cuts, and are excited about the opportunity for a better life." The plan, he notes, is to ask that the house be signed over to a community land trust, which will keep rents low and pass the house on to other needy families should this one move on.
Beyond the compelling optics and the help activists are offering this single family, the movement sees tomorrow's varied actions as a change for building bridges within this community. "It's also about getting young people and residents to get hooked up with community organizations to prevent foreclosures," says Barragan.
To that end, OWS activists have been spending the week walking around the East New York neighborhood and flyering, talking to residents about the upcoming action. "They're really excited - this community - they're going to come up for the block party and housewarming," Barragan says. "A lot of them were thanking the door-to-door canvassing occupiers, and that's also because a lot of them are one paycheck away from potentially being foreclosed on."
This day of action will only be the spark plug for what organizers hope is a coordinated but spontaneous national campaign, offering a blueprint for communities to do similar eviction resistance around the country or to coordinate between already-active movements.
In New York itself, "OWS and Organizing for Occupation have already identified other bank-owned vacant properties. The intention is to fill those with families," says Barry of VOCAL-NY. But beyond the five boroughs, this is the beginning of a nationwide effort to replicate this action and literally occupy everywhere. "One of our messages is that there's more empty homes that banks are sitting on than there are homeless families," he says.
Again, there are three ways for residents to participate in these kinds of actions: first, using nonviolent direct action to prevent impending evictions; second, using those tactics for moving families back into their own empty houses post-eviction; or third, fixing up and occupying vacant houses for homeless families.
What's going to happen is "satellite mini-occupy sites around the country so heroic battles can be fought and won on the local level, but can also connect to a much bigger theme," says Stephen Lerner, a veteran organizer with SEIU who has been helping to plan Occupy Our Homes. Beyond the individual efforts, Lerner notes that there's a policy proposal floating around that's connected to these actions, too: the idea of "principal reduction" - or in layman's terms, reconfiguring mortgages to be commensurate with the noninflated, actual value of a property (rather than the inflated "bubble" price).
"This is about how to make Wall Street pay, not in terms of retribution but in terms of actually fixing the economy," he says. "It's not enough to say we should stop individuals from losing homes, but we also must fix the housing bubble: these unfair, illegal, cheating mortgages which are terrible for economy and terrible for people."
The specific goals and targets of these occupations, the issues they highlight, and the solutions proposed, as well as the interfacing with the communities hardest hit by the recession and the policies of the 1 percent, are incredible rejoinders to the mainstream critiques of OWS - its alleged purposelessness, its failure to interface with communities of color and on the margins.
"The foreclosure crisis is really the rot at the center of our economy. This is a predominantly black and Latino neighborhood is at the very forefront of the foreclosure crisis, which had highest number of foreclosure filings in New York last year," says Barry of East New York, the site of today's action. "And the foreclosure crisis is arguably the largest theft of black wealth since slavery."
And while the occupiers young and old have learned about eviction-resistance activism from their partners in the communities, the communities have been emboldened, too.
"This action takes the spirit, energy, and excitement of Occupy and connects it with communities that have been most devastated by economic crisis," says Lerner. "Occupy and their willingness to be arrested has almost mainstreamed this idea: we've occupied public space - now we need to occupy private space that's been stolen by banks."
Within activist communities, the boldness of OWS has "forced people to drop the self-censorship and embarrassment about being audacious," says Barry.
This plan has brought out admiration and praise from those who have watched Occupy Wall Street evolve. Last week, Rachel Maddow discussed the historical context of this new phase of the movement - eviction resistance actions were common during the Great Depression - and the solidarity of its principles: "If you're coming for her, you're coming for us." Police crackdowns have "forced this movement into a new evolution," says Maddow. There's "a concerted effort to move it into the neighborhoods where you can really see it ... this is the real deal."
Watch her segment below, and the stirring video for Occupy Our Homes below that.
Sarah Seltzer is an associate editor at AlterNet, a staff writer at RH Reality Check, and a freelance writer based in New York City. Her work has been published in Jezebel.com and on the websites of The Nation, the Christian Science Monitor, and the Wall Street Journal. Find her at sarahmseltzer.com.
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12) Tiny Tax on Financial Trades Gains Advocates
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE and GRAHAM BOWLEY
December 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/business/global/micro-tax-on-financial-trades-gains-advocates.html?_r=1&hp
They call it the Robin Hood tax - a tiny levy on trades in the financial markets that would take money from the banks and give it to the world's poor.
And like the mythical hero of Sherwood Forest, it is beginning to capture the public's imagination.
Driven by populist anger at bankers as well as government needs for more revenue, the idea of a tax on trades of stocks, bonds and other financial instruments has attracted an array of influential champions, including the leaders of France and Germany, the billionaire philanthropists Bill Gates and George Soros, the consumer activist Ralph Nader, Pope Benedict XVI and the archbishop of Canterbury.
"We all agree that a financial transaction tax would be the right signal to show that we have understood that financial markets have to contribute their share to the recovery of economies," the chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, told her parliament recently.
On Sunday, Mario Monti, the new prime minister of Italy, announced plans to impose a tax on certain financial transactions as part of a far-reaching plan to fix his country's budgetary problems, and he endorsed the idea of a Europe-wide transactions tax.
So far, the broader debt crisis engulfing the euro zone nations has pushed discussion of the tax into the background. But if European leaders can agree on a plan that calms the financial markets, they would be in a stronger position to enact a levy, analysts said.
"There is some momentum behind this," said Simon Tilford, chief economist of the Center for European Reform in London. "If they keep the show on the road, they probably will attempt to run with this."
The Robin Hood tax has also become a rallying point for labor unions, nongovernmental organizations and the Occupy Wall Street movement, which view it as a way to claw back money from the top 1 percent to help the other 99 percent. Last month, thousands of demonstrators, including hundreds in Robin Hood outfits with bright-green caps and bows and arrows, flooded into southern France to urge the leaders of the Group of 20 nations to do more to help the poor, including passing a financial transactions tax.
Enacting such a tax still faces many hurdles, however - most notably, skepticism from leaders in the United States and Britain, home to some of the world's most important financial exchanges.
The day after the Robin Hood protest, for example, Mr. Gates, the chairman of Microsoft and one of the world's wealthiest men, presented a report to a closed-door meeting of the G-20 leaders that laid out his ideas on how rich countries could aid poor ones. One of his proposals was a modest tax on trades of financial instruments that could generate $48 billion or more annually from the G-20 countries.
Ms. Merkel and France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, quickly piped up, enthusiastically endorsing the tax. But Britain's prime minister, David Cameron, expressed serious reservations, saying Britain would embrace it only if it were adopted globally. British officials fear that unless the tax is worldwide, trading will flee London's huge markets to countries with no tax.
The Obama administration has also been lukewarm, expressing sympathy but saying it would be hard to execute, could drive trading overseas and would hurt pension funds and individual investors in addition to banks.
Administration officials say they would prefer a tax on the assets of the largest banks as a way to discourage them from risky activities. "The president is sympathetic to the goals that a financial transactions tax is trying to achieve and he is pushing for a financial crisis responsibility fee and closing other Wall Street loopholes as the best and most feasible way to achieve those goals," an administration official said.
Still, support is growing for the idea, which has been largely dormant since the 1970s, when a version was first proposed by the economist James Tobin, later a Nobel Prize winner.
"The tax is a good idea because banks are where the money is. It's the same reason Jesse James robbed banks," said Rose Ann DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, which recently held demonstrations at the offices of 60 members of Congress in support of the levy. "The thing about the financial transactions tax is it's stunning how quickly people get it and how fast they embrace it."
Labor groups like the nurses' union and the A.F.L.-C.I.O. see the tax as a way to finance job creation programs to fight high unemployment in the United States and Europe.
Other advocates hope it will slow the speculation that many blame for undermining the euro and causing wild swings in financial markets. Mr. Gates and Mr. Sarkozy would like to use the money to finance development in the world's poorest nations. And leaders like Ms. Merkel and some members of Congress are eyeing it as a relatively painless source of money to help plug government deficits.
On Nov. 16, the French Senate passed a bill supporting a financial transactions tax. And the European Commission in Brussels has said it would like to put a tax of $10 per $10,000 of transactions in place throughout the European Union by 2014, predicting it would raise 57 billion euros ($77 billion) a year in European countries alone.
Last month, Representative Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat, and Senator Tom Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, proposed an American version of the tax that they said could raise $350 billion over 10 years.
Their legislation would impose $3 in taxes for each $10,000 in transactions. Other proposals, including those from the nurses' union, call for a tax of $50 per $10,000.
Mr. DeFazio said his tax plan would "raise money to invest in the real economy," but he acknowledged that it faced an uphill battle in Washington, especially within the antitax Republican caucus.
Opponents say that even at the rate in the DeFazio-Harkin bill, the tax would add significantly to the cost of trading, exceeding what institutional investors pay in commissions.
"At a time when we face a slow economic recovery, such a tax will impede the efficiency of markets and impair depth and liquidity as well as raise costs to the issuers, pensions and investors who help drive economic growth," Kenneth E. Bentsen Jr., executive vice president for public policy at the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, said in a statement.
George Osborne, the British chancellor of the exchequer, described the proposed tax as "economic suicide" for Europe. In this time of economic crisis, he said, the European Union "should be coming forward with new ideas to promote growth, not undermine it."
And Glenn Hubbard, who was chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President George W. Bush, said the Robin Hood tax is a "monstrously bad idea."
"Such a tax isn't really going to get at the banks," added Mr. Hubbard, who is now an adviser to the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. "It's going to hit the people who own the assets that are traded," like investors.
Supporters of a financial transactions tax note that Britain already imposes a levy of $50 per $10,000 of stocks traded, while Hong Kong and Singapore, with fast-growing financial markets, impose fees of $10 to $20 per $10,000 of the value of certain transactions. The United States imposed a tiny tax on stock trades from 1914 to 1966.
The British actor Bill Nighy, who has made online videos promoting the tax, calls it a beautiful idea. "It would raise enough money to solve problems at home and overseas, and it could do it without hurting ordinary people," he said.
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13) Mine Owner to Pay $200 Million in Death of 29 Men
"In addition to the $46.5 million payout to victims and families, the agreement includes $80 million to bolster safety and infrastructure in all underground mines owned by Alpha and Massey; $48 million to establish a mine health and safety foundation; and about $35 million in fines and fees that Massey owed to the Mine, Safety and Health Administration, the branch of the Department of Labor that oversees the mining industry."
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
December 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/us/mine-owner-to-pay-200-million-in-west-virginia-explosion.html?hp
In what officials say is the largest ever settlement in a government investigation of a mine disaster, Alpha Natural Resources agreed to pay $209 million in restitution and civil and criminal penalties for the role of its subsidiary, Massey Energy, in a 2010 mine explosion that killed 29 men in West Virginia.
That amount includes $46.5 million allocated to the families of the victims and those who were injured in the blast, and includes terms that protect Alpha - but not individual Massey executives - from prosecution, said Steven Ruby, an assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia.
The settlement, first reported by the Charleston Gazette, follows months of investigative work by federal officials from the Departments of Justice and Labor, as well as an independent commission appointed by the former West Virginia governor. The findings that had been made public placed the blame for the blast squarely on Massey and what investigators said was its reckless disregard for safety standards, but had stopped short of assigning criminal blame.
Tuesday's announcement was made after federal investigators met with families of the victims in West Virginia.
"We believe this can change the way mining is done," said R. Booth Goodwin II, the United States attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia. Mr. Goodwin said there had been no discussions between federal prosecutors and Massey about a settlement before Alpha bought Massey in June.
In a statement, Kevin Crutchfield, chief executive of Alpha Natural Resources, said: "We believe the agreements we've reached represent the best path forward for everyone."
In the past, Massey had dismissed investigators' charges that its actions led directly to the disaster.
"It's a record-level settlement," said a former federal mine safety chief, J. Davitt McAteer, who conducted the independent state investigation, which issued the first findings about the explosion this year. "This is an amount that will get companies to pay attention. It has to affect their bottom line, otherwise it doesn't mean anything."
The settlement does not protect individual Massey managers, including the former chief executive, Don L. Blankenship, who have not been charged. In all 18 executives refused to be interviewed by federal investigators, invoking their Fifth Amendment rights.
In addition to the $46.5 million payout to victims and families, the agreement includes $80 million to bolster safety and infrastructure in all underground mines owned by Alpha and Massey; $48 million to establish a mine health and safety foundation; and about $35 million in fines and fees that Massey owed to the Mine, Safety and Health Administration, the branch of the Department of Labor that oversees the mining industry.
"We were shooting for something that was constructive and wasn't just writing a check to the federal treasury," said Mr. Ruby, the assistant United States attorney.
The agreement also required Alpha to put in place a plan that guarantees it has enough safety equipment, ventilation and methods of clearing potentially explosive rock dust out of its underground mines within 90 days.
The company will be required to build a state-of-the-art training facility in West Virginia, including a mine lab where it will be able to simulate mining disasters.
The agreement does not preclude victims and their families from filing civil lawsuits in the case.
The initial response from Wall Street analysts was positive for Alpha.
"It's an amount of money Alpha can pay," said Lucas Pipes, vice president and senior coal analyst at Brean Murray, Carret and Company, a research and investment banking firm. "Investors were not sure what the liability could possibly be but now it seems this chapter is coming to an end."
Mr. Pipes said the accident, and the more rigorous federal enforcement that followed, had already driven home the point that mine safety needed to be taken even more seriously. "Today's penalties are a reminder that safety also saves you money," he added.
The report released in March by the independent team appointed by former Gov. Joe Manchin III of West Virginia and led by Mr. McAteer determined that the disaster could have been prevented if Massey had observed minimal safety standards.
That finding was in line with previous inquiries by federal officials who have said that in the year prior to the explosion, Upper Big Branch was cited by safety inspectors 515 times and ordered to shut down operations on 52 occasions.
The McAteer report accused Massey of having engaged in a pattern of negligence, which allowed a "perfect storm" of poor ventilation, equipment whose safety mechanisms were not functioning and combustible coal dust.
The investigators dismissed Massey's claims that the blast had occurred because a sudden burst of methane had bubbled from the ground, saying evidence contradicting that theory included the bodies of the miners found near the main explosion. Only two had methane in their lungs.
Federal investigators have also said that Massey kept two sets of books so that accounts of hazardous conditions in Upper Big Branch would be kept hidden from inspectors.
Clifford Krauss contributed reporting from Houston.
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