BAUAW NEWSLETTER - FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2012

Protest U.S. Military Union Busting!
Protest Monday, January 23
Assemble: 2:30 p.m. at the Federal Building, 1301 Clay Street, Oakland
March: 3:00 p.m. to Coast Guard Island, Embarcadero in Oakland

The International Longshore Workers Union (ILWU) is in a battle that affects us all. For the first time in recent history, there is an attempt to operate a port outside of the ILWU contract. This is the EGT grain terminal at Longview, Washington.

Now, when the first ship comes in to that terminal it will be escorted by armed Coast Guard cutters. The federal armed forces are being used for union busting!

Join with organized labor to Stop U.S. Military Union Busting!

Keep the Military from being used as an Employer Goon Squad!
This impacts all workers!
Demonstrate your outrage at this misuse of our armed forces!
Stop the militarization of our police, schools, borders, courts, and now Labor Relations!

More info: committeetodefendilwu@yahoo.com

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DON'T VOTE FOR THE ONE PERCENT!
We working people--employed, unemployed, partially employed or retired--can't get any economic justice by voting for the One Percent! We need to occupy the elections with our own candidates of, by and for working people! --Bonnie Weinstein

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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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Dear Sisters and Brothers,

Please find below the time and date for the Visitation and Memorial Service for Walter L. Johnson.

Visitation:

at Cypress Lawn, 1370 El Camino Road
Colma
Friday, January 20, 2012
4 pm - 9 pm
Memorial Service:

at Grace Cathedral, California & Taylor Streets
San Francisco
Saturday, January 21, 2012
1 pm

In the announcement of Walter's death that we sent out yesterday there was a typo and a mistake, for which we apologize. First, Walter experienced a heart attack on the way to the hospital -- not a heartache, as we wrote. Second, Walter was half-Norwegian and half-Swedish (which he often joked about). We had meant to write "of Scandinavian ancestry."

We hope you will be able to attend one or both memorial events for Walter.

In solidarity,

Eduardo Rosario and Alan Benjamin

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A Call to Occupy Wall St. West!

http://www.occupywallstwest.org/wordpress/

FRIDAY, JANUARY 20TH
DAYLONG NONVIOLENT MASS OCCUPATION OF THE FINANCIAL DISTRICT BY THE 99%
More info: www.occupywallstwest.org

Wells Fargo HQ Action
8:00am @California and Montgomery
Contact: Sasha Wright, Pride at Work, sasha2justicia@gmail.com

Bank of America Actions
8:00am @Justin Herman Plaza
Contact: Grace Martinez, ACCE, grace@calorganize.org

Bechtel Teach-in & Action
50 Beale St. - off Market
8:30-4:30 IVAW sponsored informational demo
3:00 p.m. Teach-in sponsored by
Iraq Veterans Against the War,
New Priorities Campaign, Global Exchange,
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Contact: John Linsday-Poland

Occupy CPMC/Healthcare and Jobs for the 99% Action
11:00am @Van Ness and Geary
Contact: Pilar Schiavo, California Nurses Association, pschiavo@calnurses.org

Fannie Mae/Wells Fargo/ICE Action March
12:00pm @meet at Justin Herman Plaza
Contact: Robbie Clark, Causa Justa, robbie@cjjc.org

Stop Wage Theft Action with Progressive Workers Alliance
3:00pm @Church and Market
Contact: Mario Demira, Progressive Workers Alliance, mario@filipinocc.org

Occupy Hyatt Picket and Action with Unite Here Local 2
4:15pm @Grand Hyatt Union Square, Stockton and Sutter
Contact: Gordon Mar, Jobs with Justice, gordon@jwjsf.org

Closing Unity March, Rally & Celebration
5:00pm @start from Grand Hyatt Union Square or Justin Herman Plaza for convergence in the Financial District
Contact: Shaw San Liu, Chinese Progressive Association, shawsan@cpasf.org

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Justice for Kenneth Harding Jr.
Sunday, January 22, 2012 Noon
3rd and Oakdale:
Protest and March to Candlestick Park

Kenneth Harding JR. was murdered by the San Francisco police on July 16, 2011 for allegedly evading a two-dollar Muni train fare. Kenneth was only nineteen years old when he was gunned down and left in the street for over twenty-eight minutes where he bled out and died on 3rd and Oakdale. The Kenneth Harding Fr. Foundation is asking for the community's support in bringing the noise. We are doing a protest and march down 3rd street to Gilman and Jamestown in order to surround Candlestick Stadium during the NFC championship game. We need justice for Kenneth Harding Jr., hands off the truth tellers, and to fight back against police brutality. We will start off at Kenneth's memorial sight and disburse at the stadiums park. We want to bring awareness to all game attendees that the police in the Bay View/Hunters Point community are killing our children, violating our rights, and trying to silence people for speaking out. Come out, take a stand and help support us. We are fighting for an injustice we want to see change. Kenny may be gone but he will never be forgotten. Help honor his memory by supporting his movement.

Contact facebook.com/justice4kennethhardingjr

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Protest U.S. Military Union Busting!
Protest Monday, January 23
Assemble: 2:30 p.m. at the Federal Building, 1301 Clay Street, Oakland
March: 3:00 p.m. to Coast Guard Island, Embarcadero in Oakland

The International Longshore Workers Union (ILWU) is in a battle that affects us all. For the first time in recent history, there is an attempt to operate a port outside of the ILWU contract. This is the EGT grain terminal at Longview, Washington.

Now, when the firt ship comes in to that terminal it will be escorted by armed Coast Guard cutters. The federal armed forces are being used for union busting!

Join with organized labor to Stop U.S. Military Union Busting!

Keep the Military from being used as an Employer Goon Squad!
This impacts all workers!
Demonstrate your outrage at this misuse of our armed forces!
Stop the militarization ofour police, schools, borders, courts, and now Labor Relations!

More info: committeetodefendilwu@yahoo.com

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FREE BRADLEY MANNING!

The campaign to save Army Private Bradley Manning, accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Friday, February 17, 2012 from 7:00pm to 8:30pm UC Berkeley's International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave, Berkeley, California

Bradley Manning, a 24-year-old Army intelligence analyst, faces life in prison for allegedly sharing the "Collateral Murder" video of a US helicopter attack that killed 11 civilians and wounded two children in Baghdad, Iraq with the WikiLeaks website. Bradley has also been charged with blowing the whistle on the "Iraq War Logs", the "Afghan Diaries", the "Gitmo Files", and embarrassing US State Department cables. All of the documents released have added significantly to public knowledge of war crimes, civilian casualties, government corruption, and the over-classification of information. No one has been harmed and the information has helped fuel pro-democratic protests globally. For this, Bradley faces life in prison at a military court martial this spring. Free Bradley Manning!

Daniel Ellsberg Pentagon Papers whistle-blower who helped end the Vietnam War

US Army Colonel Ann Wright (ret) Diplomat who resigned in protest of the Iraq War

Ray McGovern Former CIA analyst

Jeff Paterson Bradley Manning Support Network organizer

Suggested donation $10 (no one turned away). A fund pitch for the Bradley Manning Defense Fund will be made during the program by Reverend Billy Talen. For more information regarding this panel, contact Courage to Resist at 510-488-3559 or courage@riseup.net

Presented by the Bradley Manning Support Network, Courage to Resist, and the Fresh Juice Party. Endorsed by.

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This panel will help kickoff the "Occupy the Truth: Whistleblower's" open-source conference at UC Berkeley's International House, February 17 -19, 2012. Participants are encouraged to return the following day to participate in the conference and/or become involved in the campaign to save Bradley Manning. For more information regarding the conference: www.freshjuiceparty.com/occupy-the-truth

Other weekend conference participants include: filmmaker Mikko Allane, strategist Celia Alario, performance artist Larry Bogad, veterinarian Dr. Jennifer Conrad, performance Artist Savitri D, firebrand teen activist Erica Fernandez, attorney Stephen Kohn, activist and widow of the late great Abbie Hoffman Johanna Lawrenson, filmmaker Carol Leigh, medical marijuana activist Dr. Frank Lucido, actress / activist Alexandra Paul, communications specialist Zack Pesavento, social entrepreneur Peter Samuelson, WikiLeaks expert Micah L. Sifry, artist and media hoaxer Joey Skaggs, activist David Solnit, artist / filmmaker Annie Sprinkle PhD, activist Andy Stepanian, professor Elizabeth Stephens, Reverend Billy Talen, and attorney Ben Wizner.


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LYNNE STEWART WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 29, 2012 HEARING AND 24-HOUR VIGIL ALERT:

Ralph Poynter updated his status: "GREETINGS FAMILY/COMRADES/SPIRIT WARRIORS- BE SURE TO PLACE OUR 'OCCUPY THE COURTS' EVENT IN YOUR CALENDAR. THE EVENING OF TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2012 IS THE DATE OF THE ALL NITE VIGIL PRECEEDING THE HEARING FOR LYNNE STEWART AT 500 PEARL STREET NEW FEDERAL COURT ON WEDNESDAY MORNING, FEBRUARY 29TH IN NYC. THE ALL NITE VIGIL WILL TAKE PLACE IN TOM PAINE PARK BESIDE THE COURT HOUSE. COME WITH YOUR DRUMS - YOUR SLEEPING BAGS - YOUR BANNERS SUPPORT LYNNE STEWART, LEORNARD PELTIER, MUMIA, BRADLEY MANNING AND ALL OF OUR FREEDOM FIGHTERS UNJUSTLY INCARCERATED IN THE TORTURE CELLS OF USA INJUSTICE SYSTEM."

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#F29 - Occupy Portland National Call To Action To
Shut Down the Corporations FEBRUARY 29, 2012
by OccupyWallSt
http://occupywallst.org/article/f29-occupy-portland-national-call-action-shut-down/

via Occupy Portland & Portland Action Lab:

"Occupy Portland calls for a day of non-violent direct action to reclaim our voices and challenge our society's obsession with profit and greed by shutting down the corporations. We are rejecting a society that does not allow us control of our future. We will reclaim our ability to shape our world in a democratic, cooperative, just and sustainable direction.

We call on the Occupy Movement and everyone seeking freedom and justice to join us in this day of action.

There has been a theft by the 1% of our democratic ability to shape and form the society in which we live and our society is steered toward the destructive pursuit of consumption, profit and greed at the expense of all else.

We call on people to target corporations that are part of the American Legislative Exchange Council which is a prime example of the way corporations buy off legislators and craft legislation that serves the interests of corporations and not people. They used it to create the anti-labor legislation in Wisconsin and the racist bill SB 1070 in Arizona among so many others. They use ALEC to spread these corporate laws around the country.

In doing this we begin to recreate our democracy. In doing this we begin to create a society that is organized to meet human needs and sustain life.

On February 29th, we will reclaim our future from the 1%. We will shut down the corporations and recreate our democracy.

Join us! Leap into action! Reclaim our future! Shut down the corporations!

*This action received unanimous consensus from the Portland General Assembly on Sunday January 1st, 2012."

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NATO, G8 In Chicago: More Details Released, City Grants First Protest Permit
By CARLA K. JOHNSON
January 12, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/12/nato-g8-in-chicago-more-d_n_1203429.html




NATIONAL CONFERENCE

United National Antiwar Coalition

Say No! To the NATO / G8 Wars & Poverty Agenda

A Conference to Challenge the Wars of the 1% on the 99% at Home and Abroad

March 23-25, 2012 Stamford Hilton Hotel, CT (just one Metro North train stop from NYC)

On December 31, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). This legislation:

1. Directs $662 billion dollars desperately needed by the 99% for housing, jobs, health care and schools towards war appropriations.
2. Slaps dangerous new sanctions on Iran.
3. Codifies indefinite detention without charges or trial on American soil.

The sanctions on Iran, which will cause severe economic hardship for the people of Iran and squeeze U.S. competitors like China who depend on Iranian oil, are just one more step toward a new U.S. war. The indefinite detention threat will be used to silence activists for social change and to ramp up Islamophobia and war fever here at home. Already, on January 1, a mosque in NYC and the homes of people of color were firebombed. Overall, the billions of dollars just appropriated are going to be used for provocative new military operations in the Middle East, Central Asia, Africa, and the Pacific.

And this is just the beginning of 2012. On May 19, the U.S. will be hosting, simultaneously, the summits of the US led military coalition that has destroyed Afghanistan and Libya and threatens Syria and Iran-NATO-and the representative financial body of the rich nations-G8 - that are now imposing austerity and inequality on people everywhere.

Government leaders are preparing for expanded war and repression in 2012.

The 99% at home and around the globe will be watching to see if we are able to respond effectively.

Join us at a conference specifically designed to take up this challenge.

NATIONAL CONFERENCE

United National Antiwar Coalition

Say No! To the NATO / G8 Wars & Poverty Agenda

A Conference to Challenge the Wars of the 1% on the 99% at Home and Abroad

March 23-25, 2012 Stamford Hilton Hotel, CT (just one Metro North train stop from NYC)

The US-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the G-8 world economic powers will meet in Chicago, May 15-22, 2012 to plan their economic and military strategies for the coming period. These military, financial, and political leaders, who serve the 1 % at home and abroad, impose austerity on the 99% to expand their profits, often by drones, armies, and police.

Just as there is a nationally-coordinated attempt to curb the organized dissent of the Occupy Wall St. movements, the federal and local authorities want to deny us our constitutional rights to peacefully and legally protest within sight and sound range of the NATO/G-8 Summits. We must challenge them and bring thousands to Chicago to stand in solidarity with all those fighting US-backed austerity and war around the globe.

To plan these actions and further actions against the program of endless war of the global elite, we will meet in a large national conference March 23-25 in Stamford CT. This conference will bring together activists from the occupy movements, and the antiwar, social justice and environmental movements. We will demand that Washington Bring Our War Dollars Home Now! and use these trillions immediately for human needs.

Workshop topics include:

Occupy Wall St. & the Fight Against War; Global Economic Crisis; Climate Crisis and War; Women and War; War at Home on Black Community; War on the U.S.-Mexico Border; Islamophobia as a Tool of War; Labor; Defense of Iran and Syria; Afghanistan: Ten Years of Occupation; Is the U.S. Really Withdrawing from Iraq?; Updates on Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, and Yemen; What Next for the Arab Spring?; Occupation of Haiti; U.S. Intervention in Honduras, Colombia, and the rest of Latin America; No to Drone Warfare and Weapons in Space; Civil Liberties; Guantanamo, Torture and Rendition; U.S. Combat Troops Involved in New Scramble for Africa; Control of Media; Imperialism Nonviolence & Direct Action; Palestine: UN Statehood, Civil Resistance, BDS; Breaking the Siege of Gaza; Veterans Peace Team; Immigrant Rights and War; Human Rights in South Asia; Fight for Our Right to Protest; No War; No Warming; No Nukes; Philippines & the Pacific; Bring Our War $$ Home

Register now at www.unacpeace.org.

Donate to send an occupier or student to this conference!

Donate to help build the NATO/G8 permitted protest!

Send donations to: UNACpeace@gmail.com orto use a credit card, go here: https://nationalpeaceconference.org/Donate.html

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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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Occupy the PGA in Benton Harbor, MI May 23-27, 2012
http://wibailoutpeople.org/2011/12/29/occupy-the-pga-in-benton-harbor-mi-may-23-27-2012/

A personal invitation from the President of the NAACP , Benton Harbor
Chapter:

It is our distinct honor and privilege to invite you on behalf of the
NAACP-BH , the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO)
and Stop The Take Over in Benton Harbor, Michigan to an event
scheduled for May 23-27, 2012 .

Occupy the PGA
Benton Harbor, Michigan
Senior PGA Golf Tournament

We are committed to escalating the Occupy Movement to support human
rights in housing in addition to the push back against bailouts for
fraudulent banks. They are stealing our homes and lives. Democracy is
non-existent here in Benton Harbor. Joseph Harris, the Emergency
Manager must go! With pride, he called himself a "dictator."

The PGA will be played on a $750 million dollar, 530-acre resort near
the lakeshore with $500,000 condominiums. We can not forget the three
golf holes inside Jean Klock Park that were taken from the Benton
Harbor residents.

If your schedule does not permit your attendance on May 26, 2012,
alternative action dates are May 23-25, 2012. Please let me know if
you can accept the invitation to participate in Occupy the PGA. We
eagerly await your response. If you have any questions or concerns,
feel free to contact me directly at (269-925-0001). Allow me to thank
you in advance.We the residents of Benton Harbor love you!

President/NAACP/BANCO
& Stop The Take Over
Benton Harbor
Rev. Edward Pinkney
1940 Union St.
Benton Harbor, MI

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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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"Welcome to Chicago! You're under arrest!"

"Under the new ordinance: Every sign has to be described in particularity on the parade permit. ...If there are signs not on the parade permit, police can issue an ordinance violation. What does that ordinance violation allow? It allows for every sign, the organizer ... can face $1000.00 fine--that's for every un-permitted sign--plus up to ten days in jail...."

Chicago City Hall Press Conference Against NATO/G8 Ordinance

YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYQfJcRNwqM



An impressive coalition of organizations -- unions, anti-war, human rights, churches and neighborhood groups -- held a press conference today (Jan. 17, 2012) at Chicago's City Hall. They were protesting the proposed new ordinances against demonstrations targeting the upcoming spring NATO/G8 meetings here, but now possibly to become permanent laws. The press conference took place right before two key City Council committees were to meet to consider whether to endorse the proposed new ordinances, prior to their going to a vote before the full City Council tomorrow. In this excerpt from the press conference, speakers include Eric Ruder, Coalition Against NATO/G8's War & Poverty Agenda; Erek Slater, ATU 241 member speaking for ATU International Vice Presidents; Talisa Hardin, National Nurses United; Wayne Lindwal, SEIU 73 Chicago Division Director; Jesse Sharkey, Vice President, Chicago Teachers Union.

For more info on fight against ordinance: (http://bit.ly/AntiLibertyOrdinance).

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This is excellent! Michelle Alexander pulls no punches!
Michelle Alexander, Author of The New Jim Crow, speaks about the political strategy behind the War on Drugs and its connection to the mass incarceration of Black and Brown people in the United States.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P75cbEdNo2U&feature=player_embedded



If you think Bill Clinton was "the first black President" you need to watch this video and see how much damage his administration caused for the black community as a result of his get tough attitude on crime that appealed to white swing voters.

This speech took place at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem on January 12, 2012.

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NATO, G8 In Chicago: More Details Released, City Grants First Protest Permit
By CARLA K. JOHNSON
January 12, 2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/12/nato-g8-in-chicago-more-d_n_1203429.html



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Release Bradley Manning
Almost Gone (The Ballad Of Bradley Manning)
Written by Graham Nash and James Raymond (son of David Crosby)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAYG7yJpBbQ&feature=player_embedded



Locked up in a white room, underneath a glaring light
Every 5 minutes, they're asking me if I'm alright
Locked up in a white room naked as the day I was born
24 bright light, 24 all alone

What I did was show some truth to the working man
What I did was blow the whistle and the games began

Tell the truth and it will set you free
That's what they taught me as a child
But I can't be silent after all I've seen and done
24 bright light I'm almost gone, almost gone

Locked up in a white room, dying to communicate
Trying to hang in there underneath a crushing wait
Locked up in a white room I'm always facing time
24 bright light, 24 down the line

What I did was show some truth to the working man
What I did was blow the whistle and the games began

But I did my duty to my country first
That's what they taught me as a man
But I can't be silent after all I've seen and done
24 bright light I'm almost gone, almost gone
(Treat me like a human, Treat me like a man )

Read more on Nash's blog - grahamnash.com

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FREEDOM ROAD - A Tribute to Mumia sung by Renn Lee
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qC27vzqxSCA&feature=youtu.be



FREEDOM ROAD

(written by Samuel Légitimus- adapted in english, sung and arranged by Paris-Sydney)

They've taken all you had away
And what's left, still they can't bend
To find you guilty was their way
Yet here I am and you're my friend.

Your writing's proof enough for me, Mumia,
You place honor and law
Above all, till the end.

Thirty years gone by
On death row, we never knew
Anything of the weight
You had to carry while you grew.

But they won't get you, no, Mumia, no
We won't let them ever win
Won't let you bear such a heavy load
While walking down the Freedom Road.

(Instrumental)

Like Jimmy (1) and Bob (2) you've lived to see the light:
Believing that all men
Can stand up for their rights.

Accusing you of crime
From behind their scales they hide
It makes them scared deep down inside
To know that truth is on your side.

But they won't get you, no, Mumia, no,
We won't let them ever win
Won't let you bear such a heavy load
While walking down the Freedom Road.

(Instumental)

Those thirty years gone by
On death row, we never knew
Anything of the weight
You had to carry while you grew.

We've named a street for you, Mumia
A lovely rue in Saint-Denis
By joining hands we're showing you
Proof of our strength and peace.

But they won't get you, no, Mumia, no,
We won't let them ever win
Won't let you bear such a heavy load
While walking down the Freedom Road.X2

But they won't get you, no, Mumia, no
We won't let them ever win
Won't let them block you from getting in,
Into your home on Freedom Road.

But they won't get you no Mumia,
We will win, we'll never bend
For thirty years you've shown us all
Just how to fight until the end.

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School police increasingly arresting American students?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl-efNBvjUU&feature=player_embedded



Uploaded by RTAmerica on Dec 29, 2011

A new study shows that by age 23, 41 percent of young Americans were arrested from the years 1997-2008. The survey questioned 7,000 people but didn't disclose the crimes committed. Many believe the arrests are related to the increase of police presence in schools across America. Amanda Petteruti from the Justice Policy Institute joins us to examine these numbers.

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"The mine owners did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!" -- Big Bill Haywood

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1293. Big Coal Don't Like This Man At All (Original) - with Marco Acca on guitar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljtxjFKB718&mid=574



This song is a tribute to Charles Scott Howard, from Southeastern Kentucky, a tireless fighter for miners' rights, especially with regard to safety, and to his lawyer, Tony Oppegard, who sent me this newspaper article on which I based the song: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/14/charles-scott-howard-whistleblower-m...

The melody is partly based on a tune used by Woody Guthrie, who wrote many songs in support of working men, including miners.

My thanks to Marco Acca for his great guitar accompaniment at very short notice (less than an hour).

http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=142068

To see the complete lyrics and chords please click here: http://raymondfolk.wetpaint.com/page/Big+Coal+Don%27t+Like+This+Man+At+all

You can see a playlist of my mining songs here:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=CF909DA14CE415DF

You can hear a playlist of my original songs (in alphabetical order) here:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=B9F8E3B7A8822951

For lyrics and chords of all my songs, please see my website: http://www.raymondcrooke.com

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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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Lifting the Veil
Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee. --HELEN KELLER



Suggested slogan for the 2012 elections:

DON'T VOTE FOR THE ONE PERCENT!
We working people--employed, unemployed, partially employed or retired--can't get any economic justice by voting for the One Percent! We need to occupy the elections with our own candidates of, by and for working people! --Bonnie Weinstein

Keep Wall Street Occupied (Part 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JlxbKtBkGM


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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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We Are The People Who Will Save Our Schools

YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFAOJsBxAxY



This video begins with Professor of Education Pauline Lipman (University of Illinois-Chicago) briefly recapping the plans hatched a decade ago in Chicago to replace public schools with private charter schools. Then Chicago Public Schools head Arne Duncan implemented those plans (Renaissance 2010) so obediently that President Obama picked him to do the same thing to every school system in the country. So Chicago's growing uprising against these deepening attacks against public education has national importance. Here is a battalion of voices from the communities and the teachers union, all exposing the constantly changing, Kafkaesque rules for evaluating school turn-arounds and closings. The counter-attack from the working people in the city is energized and spreading, and is on a collision course with the 1% who want to take away their children's futures. Includes comments from Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis, teachers and parents from targeted school communities. Length - 24:40

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The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom: Documentary Footage (1963)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL2mU029PkQ&feature=fvsr



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In honor of the 75th Anniversary of the 44-Day Flint Michigan sit-down strike at GM that began December 30, 1936:

According to Michael Moore, (Although he has done some good things, this clip isn't one of them) in this clip from his film, "Capitalism a Love Story," it was Roosevelt who saved the day!):

"After a bloody battle one evening, the Governor of Michigan, with the support of the President of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt, sent in the National Guard. But the guns and the soldiers weren't used on the workers; they were pointed at the police and the hired goons warning them to leave these workers alone. For Mr. Roosevelt believed that the men inside had a right to a redress of their grievances." -Michael Moore's 'Capitalism: A Love Story' - Flint Sit-Down Strike http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8x1_q9wg58

But those cannons were not aimed at the goons and cops! They were aimed straight at the factory filled with strikers! Watch what REALLY happened and how the strike was really won!

'With babies & banners' -- 75 years since the 44-day Flint sit-down strike
http://links.org.au/node/2681
--Inspiring

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Busby: Fukushima 'criminal event' calls for investigation
Uploaded by RussiaToday on Dec 27, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1F0uFAWV7uc&feature=player_embedded%23!

A newly released report on the Fukushima nuclear crisis says it was down to the plant's operators being ill-prepared and not responding properly to the earthquake and tsunami disaster. A major government inquiry said some engineers abandoned the plant as the trouble started and other staff delayed reporting significant radiation leaks. Professor Christopher Busby, scientific secretary to the European Committee on Radiation Risks, says health damage after contamination will be more serious than Japan announced.



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HALLELUJAH CORPORATIONS (revised edition).mov
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ws0WSNRpy3g



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ONE OF THE GREATEST POSTS ON YOUTUBE SO FAR!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8C-qIgbP9o&feature=share&mid=552



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ILWU Local 10 Longshore Workers Speak-Out At Oakland Port Shutdown
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JUpBpZYwms

Uploaded by laborvideo on Dec 13, 2011

ILWU Local 10 longshore workers speak out during a blockade of the Port of Oakland called for by Occupy Oakland. Anthony Levieges and Clarence Thomas rank and file members of the union. The action took place on December 12, 2011 and the interview took place at Pier 30 on the Oakland docks.

For more information on the ILWU Local 21 Longview EGT struggle go to
http://www.facebook.com/groups/256313837734192/
For further info on the action and the press conferernce go to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz3fE-Vhrw8&feature=youtu.be
Production of Labor Video Project www.laborvideo.org



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Lifting the Veil
"Our democracy is but a name...We choose between Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee" --Helen Keller, 1911

"It is naive to expect the initiative for reform of the state to issue from the political process that serves theinterests of political capitalism. This structure can only be reduced if citizens withdraw and direct their energies and civic commitment to finding new life forms...The old citizenship must be replaced by a fuller and wider notion of being whose politicalness will be expressed not in one or two modes of actibity--voting or protesting--but in many." --Sheldon Wolin
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/lifting-the-veil/

This film explores the historical role of the Democratic Party as the graveyard of social movements, the massive influence of corporate finance in elections, the absurd disparities of wealth in the United States, the continuity and escalation of neocon policies under Obama, the insufficiency of mere voting as a path to reform, and differing conceptions of democracy itself.

Lifting the Veil is the long overdue film that powerfully, definitively, and finally exposes the deadly 21st century hypocrisy of U.S. internal and external policies, even as it imbues the viewer with a sense of urgency and an actualized hope to bring about real systemic change while there is yet time for humanity and this planet.

Noble is brilliantly pioneering the new film-making - incisive analysis, compelling sound and footage, fearless and independent reporting, and the aggregation of the best information out there into powerful, educational and free online feature films - all on a shoestring budget.

Viewer discretion advised - Video contains images depicting the reality and horror of war.

Lifting the Veil from S DN on Vimeo.

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Frida Kahlo Diego Rivera y Trotsky Video Original
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45Z0keLaGhQ



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Toronto Emergency Public Warning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iiGTGwQ9HM&feature=player_embedded



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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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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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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 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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Mumia Still in Solitary Confinement - A Legal Update
From International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal:
Mumia is still in Administrative Custody (AC)-the hole-at SCI Mahanoy. The confinement conditions in all the Restricted Housing Units (RHU) are degrading and tortuous.
Sunday, January 08, 2012
http://freemumianow.blogspot.com/2012/01/mumia-still-in-solitary-confinement.html

Mumia is on a cellblock that houses AC as well as disciplinary custody inmates. He is in solitary confinement, with lights glaring 24/7, without adequate food, or the opportunity to buy food to supplement his diet. He is shackled and handcuffed whenever outside his solitary cell-including when he goes to shower. And he is isolated without regular phone calls, or access to his property, including legal materials, books and typewriter. His visiting hours are limited. In short, Mumia is being subjected to conditions in AC that are more onerous than those on death row.

There is no legal basis for Mumia to be confined in AC. At the point he was no longer under a death sentence, he should have been transferred into general population. This is not dependent on a court date for Mumia to be formally resentenced to life imprisonment.

On January 3 and January 6, 2012 I submitted demand letters on Mumia's behalf to John Wetzel, Secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC), and to John Kerestes, Superintendent SCI Mahanoy, to immediately transfer and assign Mumia to general population with full visitation, phone and commissary privileges and access to all programs and services. The stated legal grounds are the following: The degrading, dehumanizing, tortuous conditions of Mumia Abu- Jamal's confinement in administrative custody at SCI Mahanoy are an abuse of authority, counter to DOC regulations, punitive, discriminatory, in violation of his protected liberty interests and his civil rights, including First Amendment rights.

The DOC regulations allow only two permanent categories of imprisonment, death row and general population. AC is by law only a temporary placement. It must be based on defined grounds, justified and implemented subject to procedural due process. None of the grounds listed in the DOC regulations for placement in AC apply to Mumia. In fact, on December 8, 2011 the DOC transferred Mumia from death row at SCI Greene and onto a cellblock that does not house capital inmates. On December 14, the DOC ordered Mumia moved to a medium security facility, SCI Mahanoy, which by regulation cannot hold death row prisoners.

The response by the DOC via telephone by Chief Counsel Suzanne Hueston was that Mumia is in AC pending resentencing and further evaluations. These are bogus explanations. The December 2001 federal court ruling that Mumia's death sentence is illegal has been upheld on appeal. The District Attorney has stated there will be no trial to obtain a new death sentence. Therefore Mumia should be in general population.

Nor is there a reason or basis for "further evaluation." Mumia has been confined in Pennsylvania prisons for some thirty years. The DOC unquestionably knows his history, conduct and behavior. There is nothing in Mumia's personal record to justify holding him in Administrative Custody.

The DOC's treatment of Mumia is punishment for depriving the FOP and Philadelphia District Attorney of his execution. This is the latest attempt by this frame-up system to silence Mumia, an innocent man, and to subject him to tortuous, punitive conditions in the hole.

Rachel Wolkenstein, Attorney
January 7, 2012

1) Write Call Phone and email the Secretary of Corrections

Tell them that Mumia must be immediately transferred to General Population.

John Wetzl, Secretary Department of Corrections
2520 Lisburn Road,
P.O. Box 598
Camp Hill, PA 17001-0598
717) 975-4928 Email: ra-contactdoc@pa.gov

2) Write, Call, Phone and Email the Secretary of Corrections

John Kerestes, Superintendent
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932
(570) 773-2158
fax 570-783-2008
3) Write Call Phone and email the Philadelphia DA

Seth Williams, DA Philadelphia
Three South Penn Square
Philadelphia, PA 19107-3499
(215) 686-8000
Email: DA_Central@phila.gov
and finally if you can send Mumia a note or a card.

Write to Mumia

Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932

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ACLU: SAY NO TO INDEFINITE DETENTION!

He signed it. We'll fight it.

President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. It contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision.

The dangerous new law can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. He signed it. Now, we have to fight it wherever we can and for as long as it takes.

Sign the ACLU's pledge to fight worldwide indefinite detention for as long as it takes.

The Petition:

I'm outraged that the statute President Obama signed into law authorizes worldwide military detention without charge or trial. I pledge to stand with the ACLU in seeking the reversal of indefinite military detention authority for as long as it takes.

And I will support the ACLU as it actively opposes this new law in court, in Congress, and internationally.

Signed,
[your name]

https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageServer?emsrc=Nat_Appeal_AutologinEnabled&s_subsrc=120103_NDAA_GOL&pagename=120103_NDAAGOLAsk&emissue=indefinite_detention&emtype=pledge&JServSessionIdr004=d90jai6lu1.app224a

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Urgent Appeal to Occupy and All Social Justice Movements: Mobilize to Defend the Egyptian Revolution
Endorse the statement here:
http://www.defendegyptianrevolution.org/2011/12/19/defend-the-egyptian-revolution/

In recent days, protesters demanding civilian rule in Egypt have again been murdered, maimed and tortured by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) and the Interior Security Forces (ISF).

The conspiracy, being brutally implemented in Egypt, is part of a global conspiracy to suffocate mass movements for socio-economic justice and is being done with direct assistance of the American government and the private interests which direct that government. We have word from friends in Egypt that SCAF, ISF and their hired thugs - armed by ongoing shipments of $1.3 billion in weapons from the U.S. government - plan to execute one by one all the leaders of the revolution, and as many activists as they can.

Accordingly, we need to ensure that people and organizers in the US and internationally are involved in closely monitoring the events unraveling in Egypt. By keeping track of the atrocities committed by SCAF and ISF, keeping track of those detained, tortured or targeted, and continuously contacting officials in Egypt and the US to demand accountability, cessation of the atrocities and justice, we can add pressure on SCAF, ISF and the forces they represent. In this way we may be able to play a role in helping save the lives of our Egyptian brothers and sisters.

Evidence of the conspiracy to execute the leaders and participants of Egyptian freedom movement, includes in very small part the following:

* Sheikh Emad of Al Azhar was killed by a bullet entering his right side from short range. This was seen at first hand by witnesses known to members of our coalition. Sheikh Emad was one of a small number of Azhar Imams issuing decrees in support of the revolution. His murder was no accident.
* Sally Tooma, Mona Seif, Ahdaf Soueif, and Sanaa Seif, all female friends and relatives of imprisoned blogger and activist Alaa abd El Fattah, and all known internationally for their political and/or literary work, were detained, and beaten in the Cabinet building.
* A woman protesting against General Tantawi, head of SCAF, was detained and then tortured by having the letter "T" in English carved into her scalp with knives.
* Detainees are being tortured while in courtroom holding pens. Two men (Mohammad Muhiy Hussein is one of them) were killed in those pens.These are only a small number of the horror stories we are hearing. And we continue to receive reports from Cairo about a massive army presence in Tahrir Square and the constant sound of gunshots.These are only a small number of the horror stories we are hearing. And we continue to receive reports from Cairo about a massive army presence in Tahrir Square and the constant sound of gunshots.

In every way, Egypt's fight is our fight. Just like us, Egyptians are the 99%, fighting for social, political and economic justice.

The same 1% that arms the Egyptian dictatorship commits systematic violence in this country against the Occupy movement; antiwar and solidarity activists; and Arabs, Muslims, and other communities of color.

As the US Palestinian Community Network recently observed, "the same US-made tear gas rains down on us in the streets of Oakland, Cairo and Bil`in."

Because of Egypt's key strategic location, the fate of its revolution echoes across the world. Its success will bring us all closer to achieving economic and social justice. But its defeat would be a major blow to social justice movements everywhere, including Occupy.

In short, Egypt is key to the continued success of the Arab Revolution, and movements she has inspired.

For all these reasons, we ask Occupy and all U.S. social justice activists to join us in mobilizing to defend our Egyptian brothers and sisters by immediately organizing mass convergences on Egyptian embassies, missions, consulates, and at U.S. government offices, to demand:

* Cancel all US aid and shipment of military and police materiel to Egypt!
* Stop the murders, tortures and detentions!
* Release all detainees and political prisoners!
* Immediate end to military rule in Egypt!

Please endorse and circulate this appeal widely. Please send statements with these demands to the bodies listed below. By endorsing, your organization commits to making these phone calls and following up continuously for the next week.

www.defendegyptianrevolution.org and defendegyptianrevolution@gmail.com

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Tarek Mehanna - another victim of the U.S. War to Terrorize Everyone. He was targeted because he would not spy on his Muslim community for the FBI. Under the new NDAA indefinite military detention provision, Tarek is someone who likely would never come to a trial, although an American citizen. His sentencing is on April 12. There will be an appeal. Another right we may kiss goodbye. We should not accept the verdict and continue to fight for his release, just as we do for hero Bradley Manning, and all the many others unjustly persecuted by our government until it is the war criminals on trial, prosecuted by the people, and not the other way around.

Marilyn Levin

Official defense website: http://freetarek.com/

---------- Forwarded message ----------

From: Free Tarek
Date: Tue, Dec 20, 2011 at 3:41 PM
Subject: [Tarek Mehanna Support] Today's verdict

All who have followed Tarek's trial with a belief in the possibility of justice through the court system will be shocked to learn that today the jury found him guilty on all seven counts of the indictment. In the six weeks that the prosecution used to present its case, it presented no evidence linking Tarek to an illegal action. Instead, it amassed a large and repetitive collection of videos, e-mails, translated documents, recorded telephone conversations and informant testimony aimed at demonstrating Tarek's political beliefs. The core belief under scrutiny was one that neither Tarek nor his defense team ever denied: Muslims have a right to defend their countries when invaded.

The prosecution relied upon coercion, prejudice, and ignorance to present their case; the defense relied upon truth, reason and responsibility. The government relied upon mounds of "evidence" showing that Tarek held political beliefs supporting the right to armed resistance against invading force; they mentioned Al-Qaeda and its leadership as often as possible while pointing at Tarek. It is clear they coerced Tarek's former friends and pressured them to lie, and many of them admitted to such. There is a long list of ways this trial proceeded unjustly, to which we will devote an entire post. The government's cynical calculation is that American juries, psychologically conditioned by a constant stream of propaganda in the "war on terrorism," will convict on the mere suggestion of terrorism, without regard for the law. Unfortunately, this strategy has proved successful in case after case.

Tarek's case will continue under appeal. We urge supporters to write to Tarek, stay informed, and continue supporting Tarek in his fight for justice. Sentencing will be April 12th, 2012. We will be sending out more information soon.

A beacon of hope and strength throughout this ordeal has been Tarek's strength and the amount of support he has received. Tarek has remained strong from day one, and even today he walked in with his head held high, stood unwavering as the verdict was read to him, and left the courtroom just as unbowed as ever. His body may be in prison now, but certainly this is a man whose spirit can never be caged. His strength must be an inspiration to us all, even in the face of grave circumstances. Before he left the courtroom, he turned to the crowd of supporters that was there for him, paused, and said, "Thank you, so much." We thank you too. Your support means the world to him.

You are here: Home » ACLU | "Mehanna verdict compromises First Amendment, undermines national security" by Christopher Ott

ACLU | "Mehanna verdict compromises First Amendment, undermines national security" by Christopher Ott

Mehanna verdict compromises First Amendment, undermines national security

Submitted by Online Coordinator on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 14:31 First Amendment National Security

Decision today threatens writers and journalists, academic researchers, translators, and even ordinary web surfers.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

CONTACT:

Christopher Ott, Communications Director, 617-482-3170 x322, cott@aclum.org

BOSTON - The following statement on the conviction today of Tarek Mehanna may be attributed to American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts executive director Carol Rose:

"The ACLU of Massachusetts is gravely concerned that today's verdict against Tarek Mehanna undermines the First Amendment and threatens national security.

"Under the government's theory of the case, ordinary people-including writers and journalists, academic researchers, translators, and even ordinary web surfers-could be prosecuted for researching or translating controversial and unpopular ideas. If the verdict is not overturned on appeal, the First Amendment will be seriously compromised.

"The government's prosecution does not make us safer. Speech about even the most unpopular ideas serves as a safety valve for the expression of dissent while government suppression of speech only drives ideas underground, where they cannot be openly debated or refuted.

"The ACLU believes that we can remain both safe and free, and, indeed, that our safety and our freedom go hand in hand."

The ACLU of Massachusetts has condemned the use of conspiracy and material support charges where the charges are based largely on First Amendment-protected expression.

In Mr. Mehanna's case, the charges against him have been based on allegations of such activity, such as watching videos about "jihad", discussing views about suicide bombings, translating texts available on the Internet, and looking for information about the 9/11 attackers. Historically, government prosecutors have used conspiracy charges as a vehicle for the suppression of unpopular ideas, contrary to the dictates of the First Amendment and fundamental American values.

After the ACLU of Massachusetts submitted a memorandum of law in support of Mehanna's motion to dismiss the parts of the indictment against him that were based on protected expression, U.S. District Court Judge George O'Toole denied permission for the memorandum to be filed with the court. A copy of the memorandum is available here.

For more information, go to: http://aclum.org/usa_v_mehanna

via Mehanna verdict compromises First Amendment, undermines national security | ACLU of Massachusetts.

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MUMIA HAS BEEN TRANSFERRED TO SCI MAHANOY!
From: info@freemumia.com
December 14, 2011

Greetings all,

Just verified with Superintendent John Kerestes that Mumia Abu-Jamal is being held in Administrative Custody at SCI Mahanoy, Frackville, PA until he is cleared to enter general population within a few days.

We need phone calls to the institution to let them know that the WORLD is watching Mumia's movements and ask general questions so that they know that nothing they are doing is happening under cover of darkness.

Please also send cards and letters to Mumia at the new address so that he begins receiving mail immediately and it is known to all of the people there that we are with him!

PHONE NUMBER: 570-773-2158

MAILING ADDRESS:

Mumia Abu-Jamal, #AM8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932

CURRENT VISITORS on Mumia's list will allegedly be OK'd to visit once their names are entered into the computer at Frackville. NEW VISITORS will have to receive the pertinent forms directly from Mumia.

DIRECTIONS TO THE PRISON are available at http://www.cheapjailcalls.com/correctional-facility-directory/state-prison-directory/item/sci-mahanoy

PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD!!!

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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

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

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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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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

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WITNESS GAZA
http://www.witnessgaza.com/

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Hundreds march, rally at Fort Meade for Bradley

Courage to Resist, January 5, 2012

December 16-22, the world turned its eyes to a small courtroom on Fort Meade, MD, where accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Army PFC Bradley Manning made his first public appearance after 18 months in pre-trial confinement. The "Article 32" pre-trial hearing is normally a quick process shortly after one is arrested to determine whether and what kind of court martial is appropriate. Bradley's hearing was unusual, happening 18 months after his arrest and lasting seven days.

Courage to Resist and the Bradley Manning Support Network organized two public rallies at Fort Meade to coincide with the beginning of the hearing, and there were about 50 solidarity rallies across the globe. We also sent representatives into the courtroom during all seven days of the hearing to provide minute-by-minute coverage via bradleymanning.org, Facebook, and Twitter.

"No harm in transparency: Wrap-up from the Bradley Manning pretrial hearing" includes our collection of courtroom notes
"Statement on closed hearing decisions" covers how even this hearing was far from "open"

Article and photos by John Grant
A message from Bradley and his family

"I want you to know how much Bradley and his family appreciate the continuing support of so many, especially during the recent Article 32 hearing. I visited Bradley the day after Christmas-he is doing well and his spirits are high."
-Bradley's Aunt Debra

Write to Bradley
http://bradleymanning.org/donate

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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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) Advisory: Mumia Abu-Jamal's conditions worsen dramatically after move off death row -
01/12/2012
After death row transfer, NLG VP Mumia Abu-Jamal languishes in solitary
Contact:
Nathan Tempey,
Communications Coordinator
communications@nlg.org
212-679-5100, ext. 15
New York
http://www.nlg.org/news/press-releases/after-death-row-transfer-nlg-vp-mumia-abu-jamal-languishes-in-solitary-2/

2) Sad News: Walter Johnson has Died
Friday afternoon, January 13, 2012
Walter Johnson dies - headed S.F. Labor Council
Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, January 14, 2012
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/13/BAD41MPB12.DTL

3) Reprehensible Behavior Is a Risk of Combat, Experts Say
[WHY WE NEED A WORLD WITHOUT WAR. WAR IS NOT HEALTHY FOR HUMANS AND OTHER LIVING THINGS!..BW]
By JAMES DAO
January 13, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/14/world/reprehensible-behavior-is-a-risk-of-combat-experts-say.html?ref=world

4) Answering Call About Armed Intruders, Police Kill Resident Holding a Gun
By AL BAKER and TIM STELLOH
January 13, 2012, 10:52 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/questions-remain-after-police-kill-brooklyn-man/?ref=nyregion

5) Foreclosure Auctions Show Raw Form of Capitalism
"But in the years since, the auctions have grown into a scruffy economic circus where bargain hunters from around the world have scooped up houses often sold for less than half of the value of the mortgage. ...Some homeowners come to see their houses sold and vent their anger. A few bring video cameras to film the auction, trying to intimidate the bidders. Every so often a homeowner, having walked away from the mortgage, will bid on his own house. In recent weeks, protesters from the Occupy Phoenix movement camped in the park across the street have stopped by to appeal for an end to the auctions."
By KEN BELSON
January 14, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/us/foreclosure-auctions-in-phoenix-show-capitalism-at-its-rawest.html?ref=us

6) Unlocking the Secrets Behind Hydraulic Fracturing
By KATE GALBRAITH
January 14, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/us/new-texas-rule-to-unlock-secrets-of-hydraulic-fracturing.html?ref=us

7) On Eve of MLK Day, Michelle Alexander & Randall Robinson on the Mass Incarceration of Black America
January 13, 2012
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/13/on_eve_of_mlk_day_michelle

8) Amid Strikes, Nigeria Rolls Back Gasoline Price
By ADAM NOSSITER
January 16, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/world/africa/nigerian-president-rolls-back-price-of-gasoline.html?ref=world

9) Protests Over Austerity Measures Turn Violent in Romania
"Demonstrators yelled, 'The Mafioso government stole everything we had!" and "Get out, you miserable dog!'"
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 15, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/world/europe/romanians-protest-austerity-measures.html?ref=world

10) Panel Challenges Japan's Account of Nuclear Disaster
By HIROKO TABUCHI
January 15, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/business/global/independent-panel-to-start-inquiry-into-japans-nuclear-crisis.html?ref=world

11) Study of Retail Workers Finds $9.50 Median Pay
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
January 16, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/nyregion/study-offers-a-look-at-new-yorks-retail-workers.html?ref=nyregion

12) EU unable to defend apartheid Israel
"So, as I often say on Press TV and elsewhere, if we were to have a law in the US or elsewhere that stated that to be entitled to have rights or to hold land or to work on land or to sharecrop land you had to show that you had no Jewish blood for at four generation s, people would understand the inherently racist nature of that kind of stating; that kind of legislation."
By Ralph Schoenman
Fri Dec 30, 2011 6:35PM GMT
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/218559.html

13) 'Israeli economy on verge of collapse'
Interview with Ralph Schoenman
January 16, 2012
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/221395.html

14) Tax the Rich! Occupy the Profits!
By Bonnie Weinstein
January/February 2012
Socialist Viewpoint
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/janfeb_12/janfeb_12_19.html

15) Wikipedia to Go Dark on Wednesday to Protest Bills on Web Piracy
By JENNA WORTHAM
January 16, 2012
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/wikipedia-plans-to-go-dark-on-wednesday-to-protest-sopa/?ref=business

16) Patrice Lumumba: 50 Years Later, Remembering the U.S.-Backed Assassination of Congo's First Democratically Elected Leader
DemocracyNow!
January 21, 2011
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/21/patrice_lumumba_50_years_later_remembering

17) Latest Versions of Mayor's Anti-Protester Ordinances on the Eve of the City Council Vote
by Andy Thayer, CANG8
January 18, 2012
http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/95662/index.php

18) Call General Linnington - Tell him to drop the charge of 'aiding the enemy'
Shine a Light on War and Occupation
FREE BRADELY MANNING
Bradley Manning Support Network
January 20, 2012
http://www.bradleymanning.org/activism/call-general-linnington-tell-him-to-drop-the-charge-of-aiding-the-enemy

19) "Sit Down and Shut Up" ordinances passed in Chicago City Council
Joint statement by Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8) and Occupy Chicago
By Staff |
January 18, 2012
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2012/1/18/sit-down-and-shut-ordinances-passed-chicago-city-council

20) Senate Postpones Vote on Internet Piracy Bill
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
January 20, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/technology/senate-postpones-piracy-vote.html?hp

21) G.E. Says Operating Profit in Quarter Rose 6%
[GE--famous for not only not paying any taxes--but for actually getting tax rebates right from out of the pockets of the 99 percent!...bw]
By STEVE LOHR
January 20, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/business/general-electric-says-quarterly-profit-rose-6.html?hp

22) Romanian Protesters Urge Government's Ouster
By NICHOLAS KULISH
January 19, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/world/europe/romanian-protesters-urge-governments-ouster.html?ref=world

23) Active-Duty Soldiers Take Their Own Lives at Record Rate
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
January 19, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/us/active-duty-army-suicides-reach-record-high.html?ref=us

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1) Advisory: Mumia Abu-Jamal's conditions worsen dramatically after move off death row
01/12/2012
After death row transfer, NLG VP Mumia Abu-Jamal languishes in solitary
Contact:
Nathan Tempey,
Communications Coordinator
communications@nlg.org
212-679-5100, ext. 15
New York
http://www.nlg.org/news/press-releases/after-death-row-transfer-nlg-vp-mumia-abu-jamal-languishes-in-solitary-2/

Over a month after National Lawyers Guild (NLG) Vice President Mumia Abu-Jamal was moved from death row, he remains in transitional solitary confinement under harsh restrictions.

"Mumia's move off death row is a hollow victory if it means he is subjected to cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment in violation of the United Nations Convention against Torture," said NLG Executive Director Heidi Boghosian.

Since Mr. Abu-Jamal's transfer to administrative custody at SCI Mahanoy on December 7, 2011 he has been held in conditions far more restrictive than death row at SCI Greene, where he spent the last 17 years. He is now shackled and handcuffed whenever outside his cell; his visitation is cut to one hour-long visit per week; the number of stamps and envelopes he can use is greatly limited; his phone call privileges are reduced; and his commissary privileges have been revoked. He is also barred from having a television, typewriter or radio in his cell, and access to personal possessions such as books is severely limited.

The National Lawyers Guild and the Human Rights Research Fund sent Pennsylvania corrections department secretary John Wetzel a letter yesterday, calling on him to move Mr. Abu-Jamal out of administrative custody in SCI Mahanoy's Restrictive Housing Unit and into general population.

"Once the District Attorney announced that its office would not seek a new sentencing trial, Mr. Abu-Jamal should have been transferred into general population," the letter reads. "Such a transfer is not dependent on a judge's formal resentencing to life imprisonment. Given that, and given his exemplary disciplinary record, we can only conclude that Mr. Abu-Jamal's prolonged detainment in solitary confinement is in retaliation for his highly publicized and internationally-supported efforts to secure a new trial, and intended to placate those who have been demanding his execution."

A petition in support of the letter is now circulating

Convicted of the 1981 murder of a Philadelphia police officer, Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning journalist whose case and writings about the criminal justice system have garnered international attention. The Philadelphia district attorney's office ended its pursuit of the death penalty last month after a federal appeals court found that jury instructions at Mr. Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial were misleading.

The NLG has long maintained that Mr. Abu-Jamal is entitled to a new and fair trial. Procedural irregularities plagued his case from the outset, including blatant constitutional violations.

Mr. Abu-Jamal has served as the NLG's jailhouse lawyer vice president for over a decade.

The National Lawyers Guild was founded in 1937 and is the oldest and largest public interest/human rights bar organization in the United States. Its headquarters are in New York and it has members in every state.

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2) Sad News: Walter Johnson has Died
Friday afternoon, January 13, 2012
Walter Johnson dies - headed S.F. Labor Council
Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, January 14, 2012
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/13/BAD41MPB12.DTL

Dear Friends,

Walter Johnson, a champion of the rights of working people -- in fact, of all oppressed people at home and abroad -- has just died. For decades, Walter, a native of North Dakota of proud Swedish descent, was the secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco Labor Council, after having been secretary-treasurer for many years of the Retail Clerks Union in San Francisco.

Alexis Gonzales, who has been at Walter's side (almost night and day) for many years, reports that the doctors stopped letting in visitors and family Wednesday morning after an infection and fever gave Walter fierce tremors. For more than a week, he had been in a coma following a heartache that occurred while his son, Lawrence, was driving him to the hospital for a check-up.

Walter was a real leader in the labor movement -- something that is extremely rare in the trade union movement today. He was one of the few labor officials who spoke out against the Vietnam War, at a time when this was an extremely unpopular position in the house of labor.

Later, when the LGBT movement got off the ground in New York and San Francisco, he was one of the first in the labor movement to give his unconditional support to this movement. [See letter below from Nancy Wohlforth to Alexis Gonzales, sent only a few moments ago.]

And when the fight against the bipartisan so-called "Free Trade" agenda took off, Walter helped to make the San Francisco Labor Council a powerful international organizing hub against what he and the late Jack Henning, past Secretary Treasurer of the California Federation of Labor, lambasted as "global capitalism." Both of us had the opportunity to work closely with Walter in this important effort.

It is not the purpose of this letter to pay the kind of tribute to Walter that he deserves. The purpose here is simply to convey the terribly sad news that our dear Brother Walter has died.

Please send your messages of condolence to the family and colleagues of Walter care of Alexis Gonzales at and the San Francisco Labor Council at . Alexis is compiling all the messages in binders for Emily (Walter's daughter), Lawrence, and their families.

In solidarity and great sorrow,

Eduardo Rosario and Alan Benjamin

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Walter Johnson dies - headed S.F. Labor Council
Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, January 14, 2012
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/13/BAD41MPB12.DTL

Walter Johnson, a longtime San Francisco labor leader known as much for his sense of humor and caring nature as for his political power and labor advocacy, died Thursday in San Francisco. He was 87.

Mr. Johnson spent more than 50 years as a San Francisco union leader, the last 19 as secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco Labor Council. He earned a reputation as a fierce but friendly fighter for workers' rights as well as social justice and equity issues. In addition to his union work, he served on several nonprofit boards, including United Way of the Bay Area.

"Walt was a big and fearless advocate for everyone and anyone who was wronged, mistreated, put down, left out, pushed aside or just down on their luck," said Art Pulaski, chief officer of the California Labor Federation. "He was fearless because he always followed his faith, his values and his heart."

Born on April 22, 1924, in Amenia, N.D., Mr. Johnson served three years in the Army during World War II and moved to San Francisco after the war. While working as an appliance salesman for Sears, he was recruited to work for the Retail Clerks Union, Local 1100, later the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, in 1957 as a business agent. A year later, he was elected president of the local, then became its executive officer in 1965.

In 1985, Mr. Johnson was elected to head the San Francisco Labor Council, a post he held until he retired in 2004. Even after his retirement, Mr. Johnson was active in labor demonstrations, walking picket lines and getting arrested in sit-ins.

Although he was not a San Francisco native, Mr. Johnson was well known, well liked and respected in the city. Labor leaders and politicians say he could often ensure that new developments or businesses coming to the city were friendly to unions.

"He brought the Labor Council into a new age - very focused on intense political action and the mobilization of members," Pulaski said.

But Mr. Johnson was also respected for his ability to settle disputes. When the council got involved in BART negotiations, shuttling back and forth between the unions and management, he told Pulaski, " 'We're about building a bridge, bringing people together - not tearing things apart,' " Pulaski recalled. "He had a very special talent."

Tim Paulson, his successor at the Labor Council, said Mr. Johnson worked "in an era when workers and management during contentious negotiations never got to a point where parties couldn't shake hands and know that workers would have a fair deal."

Mr. Johnson also served as a mentor to newer labor leaders. Katie Quan, associate chairwoman of the UC Berkeley Labor Center, moved to San Francisco in 1989 to work for the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. Mr. Johnson, who had an office a floor above, introduced her to other labor leaders and politicians and taught her how things worked in San Francisco.

"He always stressed the humanity of people," she said. "He was a very decent human being himself, and he brought humanity to the labor movement at a time when all labor leaders were not."

Mr. Johnson also loved unusually strong coffee, she said, and enjoyed giving people nicknames, friendly teasing and telling jokes. And though he associated with, and sometimes mentored, politicians, Mr. Johnson would talk to anyone, and often did.

"He drove people in his office crazy," Pulaski said. "Because he would meet a homeless person on the street and tell him, 'Come into my office anytime for a cup of coffee.' They would, and he would sit down and talk with them."

Local political leaders, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Sen. Leland Yee, all issued statements this week praising Mr. Johnson.

Mr. Johnson is survived by a son, Lawrence, of Burlingame; a daughter, Emily Davis, of Maple Valley, Wash.; and five grandchildren. No memorial services are scheduled.

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3) Reprehensible Behavior Is a Risk of Combat, Experts Say
[WHY WE NEED A WORLD WITHOUT WAR. WAR IS NOT HEALTHY FOR HUMANS AND OTHER LIVING THINGS!..BW]
By JAMES DAO
January 13, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/14/world/reprehensible-behavior-is-a-risk-of-combat-experts-say.html?ref=world

Talk to almost anyone who has fought in combat, and chances are they can tick off a string of reasons why the YouTube video showing four Marines urinating on the bodies of dead enemy fighters in southern Afghanistan is horrible. Horrible for America's image around the world. Horrible for its strategy of winning support from the Afghan people. Horrible for a professional military that believes its troops behave with the utmost decorum, even in the heat of battle.

And yet, their outrage often also comes with a caveat. Reprehensible behavior, combat veterans and military experts say, is an ever-present risk when troops in their teens and early 20s are thrown into nerve-racking battle for months at a time. And if there are weaknesses in their leadership or breakdowns in discipline, that behavior can easily spill over into acts that might be considered war crimes.

"The degree to which a squad or platoon in combat becomes calloused toward the enemy that they are facing is almost always high," said Andrew M. Exum, a former Army officer who did combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Washington policy group. "There is always, always, always the temptation to abuse a detainee or pose for a picture with some dead fighter. And that's why noncommissioned officers and commissioned officers have to be extra vigilant."

Military officials said they had identified all four Marines in the video, though they have not released their names. The Marines are thought to be members of a scout sniper team that was deployed last year to northern Helmand Province - one of Afghanistan's most violent precincts.

The actions depicted in the video represent the modern unit commander's worst nightmare: crude behavior over dead or captured enemies that is broadcast across the globe with the push of a cellphone button, as happened with the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Yet the act of desecrating an enemy's body is as old as war, perhaps most famously described by Homer in "The Iliad," when Achilles drags Hector's lifeless body behind his chariot before the eyes of a shocked and despairing Troy. Nancy Sherman, a professor of philosophy at Georgetown University who has written a book about the moral implications of war on troops, "The Untold War," said dehumanizing the enemy can be a psychological defense mechanism for the troops whose job is to kill that enemy.

"Desecrating bodies is not routine, nor is it expected or condoned," Ms. Sherman said. "But you can understand it, in complicated ways. Because war requires a very complicated moral psyche."

Mr. Exum said black humor is another coping mechanism for young troops trying to act tough beyond their years. "I remember being a young officer in Afghanistan in 2002 and standing over the body of this partially decapitated Taliban and cracking jokes," he said. "Humor is how we cope with pretty horrific stuff. It's almost dangerous to be too sensitive."

Alex Lemons, a Marine scout sniper during the fierce fighting in the Iraqi city of Falluja in 2004, said that on several occasions he encountered American troops who either urinated on insurgent bodies or manipulated them for photographs, like putting them in ridiculous poses. While he called such behavior disgusting, he also said it could be cathartic.

"I've never spat on a dead body or urinated on one, but I've certainly screamed at a dead body because they've taken a friend's life," said Mr. Lemons, who left the Marine Corps in 2008.

Snipers in both the Army and the Marine Corps are elite teams highly trained in marksmanship, surveillance and camouflage who can operate independently from larger units. They often patrol dangerous areas and get more kills, and are sometimes viewed as cowboys by regular infantry troops as a result. But Mr. Lemons and other officers said scout snipers tend to be more mature and disciplined, precisely because they are expected to face greater danger.

"In sniper school, we were taught not to relish in killing," Mr. Lemons said. "We're professional gunmen. That's what the other side does, not us."

Though some military blogs have been filled with reader comments supporting the Marines in the video, some of the harshest criticism against them has come from other Marines who feel that the corps, and even the entire American military, have been disgraced.

"There is no excuse for what they did," said Timothy Kudo, who served with a Marine unit in northern Helmand Province and now works for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "It goes against everything you've been trained to do as a Marine."

Michael Newton, a former Army prosecutor who now teaches at Vanderbilt Law School, said the international laws of war and the American code of military justice are intended to instill discipline in troops and set boundaries for what is acceptable in combat. Prosecuting war crimes is necessary to ensure that crossing those boundaries does not become the norm, he said.

"Some people will look at this and say all Marines are animals," he said. "But that's not true. That instance was undisciplined and unprofessional. And that's why it's a war crime. The law exists to instill professionalism. But it is also there to create a humanitarian imperative, even in conflict."

Beyond court-martial or prison, the desecration of an enemy's body could also leave psychological scars on the perpetrators, in the form of guilt, Mr. Lemons said. "Even though there are all these consequences on an international level that these guys didn't comprehend, the worst effects are the ones they will have to come to terms with later in life," he said. "Every memory gets stored in you. Even if it was something that just took two seconds, you'll have revisit it at some point."

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4) Answering Call About Armed Intruders, Police Kill Resident Holding a Gun
By AL BAKER and TIM STELLOH
January 13, 2012, 10:52 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/13/questions-remain-after-police-kill-brooklyn-man/?ref=nyregion

Updated, 10:07 p.m. | Two police officers shined a searchlight behind the single-family home in East New York, Brooklyn, on Thursday night, authorities said, and found a "highly anxious" woman flailing her arms inside a Chevrolet Tahoe.

It was the same woman whose rapid-fire calls to 911 had reported a home invasion. Her boyfriend, Dale Ogarro, had been grabbed by two armed men wearing hoods, masks and latex gloves and led - gun to his head - into his residence in the basement of the home, on Schenck Avenue.

"Where's the money?" they shouted at Mr. Ogarro, according to officials' account of the woman's 911 calls.

Moments later, the officers saw a man who they later learned was Mr. Ogarro, 41, emerging from the back entrance with his hands up. He said there was not a problem.

It was not. In the next moments, a second man came out that door, carrying a loaded .38-caliber revolver and refusing an officer's orders to freeze, the authorities said.

The man made some kind of move, the police said, and an officer, 30, fired a single bullet that tore through the man's chest, killing him.

What was learned thereafter was that uniformed officers had not shot a robber, but another resident of the home, Duane Browne, 26, about 14 minutes after the first 911 call.

The police said Mr. Browne was the half-brother of Mr. Ogarro, the target of the robbery. The police said that while Mr. Ogarro did not tell them much about what had happened with the robbers, investigators found 11 bags of marijuana and a scale in his home.

The shooting, the first fatal one by New York City officers this year, sent ripples of outrage through the neighborhood. Mr. Browne's relatives and others said he was innocent of wrongdoing and was merely coming to his brother's aid. City Councilman Charles Barron, Democrat of Brooklyn, who spoke outside Mr. Ogarro's home on Friday, said people had gone into Mr. Browne's house "to do some harm" just before the shooting.

Mr. Browne lived in a top-floor bedroom and was there with his girlfriend, Renita Ferdinand, on Thursday night. She was in the home during the shooting.

"He went downstairs and came back upstairs shot," Ms. Ferdinand said.

But the police outlined another portrait of the shooting, in one of the city's most crime-plagued areas, though they stopped short of saying that the officer, a six-year veteran, was justified in using deadly force. An internal department inquiry has begun, officials said.

Paul J. Browne, the Police Department's chief spokesman, who is not related to Duane Browne, said: "The overarching consideration that is looked at, in whether a shooting is justified or not, is whether it is reasonable for the police officer to believe that either he or somebody else present is in imminent danger of serious injury or death. And in this instance you had an individual, armed, who was not complying with a directive to stop and drop the gun."

It was a month ago - three miles away, in the same precinct, the 75th - that Officer Peter J. Figoski was fatally shot responding to a burglary. The police said that four men were interrupted trying to rob an East New York residence that they thought was a base for a marijuana dealer, and that one of them shot Officer Figoski in the face.

Asked if he believed that wrenching episode had made officers more anxious or affected what occurred on Thursday, Raymond W. Kelly, the police commissioner, said, "No, I don't think it played any role."

The police said the robbers had emerged from an alley as Mr. Ogarro parked his Tahoe in his driveway behind his house. He was grabbed, and his girlfriend remained in the car.

Duane Browne, who was in the bedroom with Ms. Ferdinand, heard a commotion below, and when he checked the noise, saw Mr. Ogarro with two men and returned upstairs, the police said. He told his girlfriend, "They're messing with my brother," Mr. Kelly said, and he retrieved a .38-caliber Smith & Wesson.

As officers arrived, Mr. Ogarro's captors told him to show them a way out of the house and he led them through the front door to avoid the police. Mr. Ogarro then exited from the rear, and officers handcuffed him.

When Mr. Browne came outside with the gun in his hand, about 10:50 p.m., an officer, with his gun raised, said, "Police, don't move," officials said, citing what his partner recounted. Mr. Ogarro said he heard an officer yell, "Freeze, freeze, freeze, he's got a revolver," but the police said they have a recorded transmission in which a man they believe is the officer who opened fire yelled, "He's got a gun." Mr. Ogarro's girlfriend told the police that she heard the police officer shout, "Freeze, freeze, drop the weapon," the police said.

Mr. Browne was taken to Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, Mr. Kelly said.

The police said the gun recovered at the scene was illegal and was not registered to Mr. Browne. It was loaded with five bullets, and a round was discovered on the ground.

In April 2005, Mr. Ogarro was wounded by gunfire in a former residence in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, the police said, in a dispute over a sale of two pounds of marijuana. He was also present a month later when a drug dealer carried out a killing, the police said.

On Friday night, a search continued for the two robbers.

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5) Foreclosure Auctions Show Raw Form of Capitalism
"But in the years since, the auctions have grown into a scruffy economic circus where bargain hunters from around the world have scooped up houses often sold for less than half of the value of the mortgage. ...Some homeowners come to see their houses sold and vent their anger. A few bring video cameras to film the auction, trying to intimidate the bidders. Every so often a homeowner, having walked away from the mortgage, will bid on his own house. In recent weeks, protesters from the Occupy Phoenix movement camped in the park across the street have stopped by to appeal for an end to the auctions."
By KEN BELSON
January 14, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/us/foreclosure-auctions-in-phoenix-show-capitalism-at-its-rawest.html?ref=us

PHOENIX - To the unknowing, the few dozen people milling around the picnic tables in front of the Maricopa County courthouse here every day could be jurors on break or scofflaws finally coming to pay a ticket. They tug on cigarettes, sip from big cups of coffee and fidget with their cellphones, often speaking in whispers.

But instead of waiting to meet a judge, they are preparing to bid on the hundreds of foreclosed properties auctioned each week in one of the country's more colorful public clearinghouses. During the housing boom, when mortgages were being given out with no money down and prices soared, the auctions were a sleepy sideshow. But in the years since, the auctions have grown into a scruffy economic circus where bargain hunters from around the world have scooped up houses often sold for less than half of the value of the mortgage.

The auctions look more like a low-end poker game than the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. The bidders and auctioneers, most of them men in their 20s and 30s, are on a clubby first-name basis, and their banter can border on sophomoric. But their trading serves a critical if somewhat heartless function: to find new buyers for houses so they can be fixed up and sold to more stable owners.

"This is capitalism at its rawest," said Brad Grannis, a bidder from AZ Property Advisors. "There's an asset, and people assign a value to it."

In recent months, the auctions have become more competitive because of an influx of outsiders who are eager for cut-rate houses that they can resell or rent out and because of a decrease in the number of houses available. There were 2,296 trustee sales in Maricopa County last month, 44 percent fewer than in December two years ago during the depths of the market crash, according to The Cromford Report, a real estate newsletter.

Many economists say that the housing market has a long way to go before it returns to health and that the decline in foreclosures is partly because lenders, often under political pressure, are trying to work with distressed borrowers.

But optimists in Phoenix point to the decline as a harbinger of an upturn, albeit a tentative one.

"We went lower than anywhere except Las Vegas, and we got through the foreclosure crisis faster," said Mike Orr, a researcher at the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University and the editor of The Cromford Report. "I don't know if this will be a significant recovery, but even going up a few points is still a recovery."

The courthouse auctions have a bloodlessness that belies their impact on people's lives. Every day, in the rain, morning chill or scorching heat, a half-dozen auctioneers set up shop on the picnic tables in front of the courthouse. They flip open their laptops and read off the addresses of the properties for sale, the value of each mortgage, the taxes due and the opening bid, which the seller determines. Homeowners' names are never mentioned.

The bidders, many wearing jeans, hoodies and the occasional nose ring, work for investors who rarely attend the actual bidding. Increasingly, those investors come from Canada, China and other countries where Arizona property looks like a bargain. Local investors say these newcomers, as well as hedge funds, have driven up prices and made it harder to turn a profit.

The bidders register with each auctioneer and must produce a $10,000 certified check. They consult their spreadsheets on clipboards or iPads, which list the homes for sale. Many wear earpieces connected to cellphones so they can instantly relay the prices during the auction to their bosses, who know the limit of their clients.

"There's no emotion in the bidding," said Mary Nicholes, who runs the Home Ownership Center of Arizona, which bids on behalf of investors who want to rent out their homes. "They all have their number."

The bidding moves quickly, but there are no secret signals and bidders rarely make eye contact. The regulars help one another, and they will also cheer or encourage colleagues as if they were investing their own money. "You got a hole in one!" one bidder yelled to another who had just bought a house with virtually no bidding. Bidding companies are typically paid a flat fee of about $2,500 or 3 percent of the purchase price, with a share of that money going to the bidder.

No rules are posted, but the bidders obey a strict code, the cardinal rule of which is that those who fail to pay their bills can no longer bid. One former bidder earned the nickname Runaway Bride after she won an auction for the wrong house, panicked and fled the scene without paying her $10,000 deposit.

Individual bidders show up, too. Christopher St. John, a longtime broker in Phoenix, recently went to bid on a house that was near another one that he bought and resold last year, making a $16,000 profit. Bidding at the auction started at $119,700 and zoomed past Mr. St. John's limit of $125,000. The auctioneer, in chinos, a golf shirt and a Diamondbacks baseball cap, eventually sold the house for $158,000.

Mr. St. John thought the house was worth no more than $175,000, and because he would have to pay about $15,000 to fix it and cover any fees and taxes, bidding that high did not make sense to him. But to well-heeled investors, a smaller profit was acceptable, he said.

"It's amazing how different it is now and how many more people there are," he said. "It's a battle to get properties."

At times, the auctioneers and bidders are confronted with the reality of what they are trading. Some homeowners come to see their houses sold and vent their anger. A few bring video cameras to film the auction, trying to intimidate the bidders. Every so often a homeowner, having walked away from the mortgage, will bid on his own house. In recent weeks, protesters from the Occupy Phoenix movement camped in the park across the street have stopped by to appeal for an end to the auctions.

For some bidders, the intrusion is another reminder of the hardship that they themselves are enduring. This month, Kelly Galles started working as a bidder after a bout with cancer forced her to give up her job teaching preschool. Her husband, who worked in construction until the downturn, is one of the auctioneers. Lured to Arizona from California during good times, they bought a house that is now worth less than what they owe on it.

"It's a pretty exciting job," she said. "The downside is these are people's homes. We're lucky not to be here ourselves."

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6) Unlocking the Secrets Behind Hydraulic Fracturing
By KATE GALBRAITH
January 14, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/us/new-texas-rule-to-unlock-secrets-of-hydraulic-fracturing.html?ref=us

Starting Feb. 1, drilling operators in Texas will have to report many of the chemicals used in the process known as hydraulic fracturing. Environmentalists and landowners are looking forward to learning what acids, hydroxides and other materials have gone into a given well.

But a less-publicized part of the new regulation is what some experts are most interested in: the mandatory disclosure of the amount of water needed to "frack" each well. Experts call this an invaluable tool as they evaluate how fracking affects water supplies in the drought-prone state.

Hydraulic fracturing involves injecting water, sand and chemicals into underground shale formations at enormous pressure to extract oil and natural gas. Under the new rule, Texans will be able to check a Web site, fracfocus.org, to view the chemical and water disclosures.

"It's a huge step forward from where we were," Amy Hardberger, an Environmental Defense Fund lawyer, said of the rule.

Most fracked wells use 1 million to 5 million gallons of water over three to five days, said Justin Furnace, president of the Texas Independent Producers & Royalty Owners Association.

A June study prepared for the Texas Water Development Board suggested that less than 1 percent of the water used statewide went into fracking. Oil and natural gas groups say such numbers show their usage lags well behind that of cities.

But the data cited is a few years old, and drilling has since increased in places like the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas. The amount of water used for fracking is "expected to increase significantly through 2020," according to the state water plan published this month.

Dan Hardin, the water board's resource planning director, said water use for fracking was not expected to exceed 2 percent of the statewide total.

But drilling can send water use numbers much higher in rural areas, Dr. Hardin said. For example, he projects that in 2020, more than 40 percent of water demand in La Salle County, in the Eagle Ford Shale, will go toward "mining," a technical term that in this case means almost entirely fracking. Until recently, no water went toward mining there.

Researchers say predicting future water usage for drilling is tough, citing economic and technological uncertainties. Meanwhile, they want more data.

Jean-Philippe Nicot, a research scientist with the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas at Austin and the main author of the water board's June study, noted that many drillers already reported water usage to the Texas Railroad Commission. (The commission's new rule will be the first time water disclosure is required.)

Dr. Nicot would like to see more information about whether the water comes from aquifers or reservoirs, or has been recycled from other fracking operations.

Texas also needs better information about what is in water that has been in the earth and comes up in a well in addition to oil or gas, said Mark A. Engle, a geologist with the United States Geological Survey's Eastern Energy Resources Science Center. That water can contain materials like grease and radioactive elements.

"Texas ranks pretty much dead last of any state I've worked with for keeping track of that sort of data," Dr. Engle said.

kgalbraith@texastribune.org

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7) On Eve of MLK Day, Michelle Alexander & Randall Robinson on the Mass Incarceration of Black America
January 13, 2012
http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/13/on_eve_of_mlk_day_michelle

On this eve of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, we host a wide-ranging discussion with TransAfrica founder Randall Robinson and author Michelle Alexander about the mass incarceration of African Americans that has rolled back many achievements of the civil rights movement. Today there are more African Americans under correctional control, whether in prison or jail, on probation or on parole, than there were enslaved in 1850. And more African-American men are disenfranchised now because of felon disenfranchisement laws than in 1870. Alexander, whose book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness" is newly released in paperback, argues that "[n]othing less than a major social movement has any hope of ending mass incarceration in America or inspiring a recommitment to [Martin Luther] King's dream... My view is that this has got to be a human rights movement. It's got to be a movement for education, not incarceration; for jobs, not jails; a movement that acknowledges the basic humanity and dignity of all people, no matter who you are or what you have done." [includes rush transcript]

Guests:
Michelle Alexander, civil rights advocate and the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, which has just been re-released in paperback.

Randall Robinson, founder and past president of TransAfrica and a law professor at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of several books, including An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, from Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President. His most recent book is Makeda, his second novel.

AMY GOODMAN: On this eve of Martin Luther King's birthday, you write about King in the book. You write about how he once shows up in Richmond and the inspiration of Gray when he saw him speak. Did you meet Dr. King?

RANDALL ROBINSON: He came to my high school. And he walked down my aisle. This was just after the beginning of the bus boycott, and he had become a national figure. And my brother Max and I were sitting on the aisle. And my father, who taught history at the school, was back behind us. And he shook our hands, and I looked back at my father. I looked back at my father. It was a special, special and memorable moment. But even Dr. King is said to have said about this lost memory that, to quote him, "The Negro knows nothing of Africa." I think he said that with some pain and some distress.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to turn to a clip of Dr. King. This is from the famous address in 1963, August 28th.

REV. DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

JUAN GONZALEZ: On this eve of Martin Luther King's birthday, we want to bring Michelle Alexander into this discussion and talk about Black America. Today there are more African Americans under correctional control, whether in prison or jail, on probation or on parole, than there were enslaved in 1850. And more African-American men are disenfranchised now because of felon disenfranchise laws than in 1870.

AMY GOODMAN: A legal scholar and civil rights advocate, Michelle Alexander has argued in her recent book that although Jim Crow laws have been eliminated, the racial caste system it set up remains intact. It's simply been redesigned, and now racial control functions through the criminal justice system. Michelle Alexander is the author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, former director of the Racial Justice Project at the ACLU of Northern California, now holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Michelle Alexander.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: As you join with Randall Robinson in this discussion, it's also the hundredth anniversary of the ANC in South Africa. And you have talked about how there are more African Americans percentage-wise imprisoned in the United States, more black people, than were at the height of apartheid South Africa.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes, yes. You know, I think we've become blind in this country to the ways in which we've managed to reinvent a caste-like system here in the United States, one that functions in a manner that is as oppressive, in many respects, as the one that existed in South Africa under apartheid and that existed under Jim Crow here in the United States. Although our rules and laws are now officially colorblind, they operate to discriminate in a grossly disproportionate fashion. Through the war on drugs and the "get tough" movement, millions of poor people, overwhelmingly poor people of color, have been swept into our nation's prisons and jails, branded criminals and felons, primarily for nonviolent and drug-related crimes-the very sorts of crimes that occur with roughly equal frequency in middle-class white neighborhoods and on college campuses but go largely ignored-branded criminals and felons, and then are ushered into a permanent second-class status, where they're stripped of the many rights supposedly won in the civil rights movement, like the right to vote, the right to serve on juries, and the right to be free of legal discrimination in employment, housing, access to education and public benefits.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, one of the fascinating things in the book, which has now been reissued in paperback, is you talk about your own sort of journey of realizing this, that even as an activist, a civil rights legal activist, that you were not clearly aware of the depth and the extensiveness of this mass incarceration.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yeah, I admit in the introduction to the book that I was blind for a long time. Even as a civil rights lawyer, someone who cared deeply about racial justice and who thought I knew, as a lawyer, how the criminal justice system functioned, I was blind. It was really only after years of representing victims of racial profiling and police brutality and investigating patterns of drug law enforcement in poor communities of color and attempting to assist people re-enter into a society that had never shown much use for them in the first place, that I had a series of experiences that really began my own awakening.

I began to see that our criminal justice system does in fact more-operate more like a caste system than a system of crime prevention or control and that so many of the myths that we are fed about why our prison system, you know, has exploded in the past 30 years, why we now have the largest-the highest rate of incarceration in the world, you know, just don't even pass the laugh test once you take a close look at them. It is not the case that our prison population has exploded due to a surge in crime or crime rates. It is not true that people of color are more likely to commit drug-related crimes than whites. So many of the excuses that have been offered actually just aren't true, once you dig a little deeper. And my book is an effort to do just that.

AMY GOODMAN: And let's talk about what happens when you have a person going to prison, how that affects the rest of their life. First of all, just the astounding figures. It's something like half the young black men in this country have been incarcerated or on parole, probation. Half?

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes. Well, you know, in large urban areas, half or more than half of working-age African-American men now have criminal records and are the subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. In some cities like Chicago, it's been estimated that nearly 80 percent of working-age African-American men have criminal records and are now part of this undercaste, a group of people, defined largely by race, that are relegated to a permanent second-class status by law.

AMY GOODMAN: What it means, for example, for housing?

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes. Well, you know, I think most people have a general sense that when you're released from prison, life is hard, but, you know, if you work hard and apply self-discipline and stay out of trouble, you can make it. But that's true only for a relative few. You know, when people are released from prison and have a criminal record, they are discriminated against for the rest of their life in employment. For the rest of their life, they've got to check that box on employment applications, knowing that application is likely going straight to the trash.

AMY GOODMAN: Sometimes not even convicted, you have to say you were arrested.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes, absolutely. And in public housing, you can be barred from public housing just based on an arrest. You don't even have to be convicted. People returning home from prison who want to return to their children or their families, their families risk eviction just by allowing their loved ones to come home to them. Under federal law, you're deemed ineligible for food stamps for the rest of your life if you've been convicted of a drug felony. Now, fortunately, many states have now opted out of the federal ban on food stamps for drug offenders, but it's still the case that thousands of people can't even get food, food stamps, because they were once caught with drugs.

JUAN GONZALEZ: I'd like to bring Randall Robinson into the conversation. When you were at TransAfrica and you were working in Washington, the climate in Washington in the '80s and '90s was just more incarceration, more incarceration. Did any of the political leaders that you dealt with realize the long-term impact of what was happening?

RANDALL ROBINSON: I recall that when we were first being arrested at the embassy and I went to jail that first night, everyone in the lock-up with me was black.

AMY GOODMAN: This was-you were being arrested for protesting apartheid South Africa.

RANDALL ROBINSON: For protesting at the embassy. Everyone was black. And I had some sense of this. I think at the time I was told that one out of every three young black males in the District of Columbia was under one or another arm of the criminal justice system. And what stunned me about it, and what continues to bother me about it, is that when we were struggling during the civil rights movement, some of us were in better positions to benefit from this change that was coming than others were. And so, while we had all been in the same boat during segregation, when change came, we weren't all in the same boat anymore. Some of us could escape, but others of us were bottom-stuck. And I don't believe that those of us who escaped worked as hard, as tenaciously, since, to remember those of us who could not.

And the result is that we now see our future as a people in America being warehoused. How can we not be concerned, in some relentless way, about the fate of all of these young black people who are being imprisoned? Because we are indissolubly bound up with them. Their future is our future. Our future is their future. And we have to be mindful of that. But it doesn't so much penetrate if we don't have news of it every day. So many people don't know.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes.

RANDALL ROBINSON: In the same way that you said. And you have done an extraordinary work.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Thank you.

RANDALL ROBINSON: I mean, I am so impressed by the work that you have done. And it is so needed to get us to understand that it is a harness that we all have to get in and pull in.

AMY GOODMAN: We're going to break and then come back to this discussion, on this eve of Martin Luther King weekend. We're speaking with Randall Robinson. His latest book is his second novel. It's called Makeda. It is set in the dawn of the civil rights era. And we're joined by Michelle Alexander. Her book has just come out in paperback. It's called The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. When we come back, we're also going to talk about what it means in this country, mass incarceration, when it comes to voting and determining who are the representatives of the people of this country. Stay with us.

AMY GOODMAN: On this eve of Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday, a federal holiday-the last two states to acknowledge it were New Hampshire and Arizona-we are having a discussion about the state of Black America. Michelle Alexander has written extensively about the mass incarceration in the age of color blindness, and we want to talk about what that means in terms of voting. People died for the right to vote in the United States. And yet, today, what happens to people who are imprisoned? Just a figure: Human Rights Watch says African-American adults have been arrested at a rate of 2.8 to 5.5 times higher than white adults in every year from 1980 to 2007, yet African Americans and whites have similar rates of illicit drug use and dealing. And then how that plays out right to deciding who will vote for these laws?

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Well, absolutely. You know, felon disenfranchisement laws have now accomplished what poll taxes and literacy tests, you know, ultimately could not. People in the United States are stripped of the right to vote in many states if they have a felony conviction, including a minor drug conviction can, you know, wind up labeling you as a felon for life. And when people are released from prison, they can be stripped of the right to vote for a period of years, or in, you know, a few states, for the rest of your life.

And I find that many people kind of shrug their shoulders at that when I, you know, remark on the fact that so many people are denied the right to vote because of criminal convictions. But in other Western democracies, people who are in prison have the right to vote. But here, we deny the right to vote not only if you're in prison, but once you're released.

AMY GOODMAN: I think in maybe two states, you're allowed. One of them is Vermont-

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: -where you can vote in prison.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Maine and Vermont, yes, absolutely. But we just don't seem to take democracy as seriously here in the United States, particularly if you're poor and of color.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And this whole emphasis in recent years on-by many police departments on quality-of-life arrests and stop-and-frisks. In New York City, for instance, 600,000 people stopped and frisked by police, with 90 percent of them black and Hispanic. And increasingly, the militarization of the schools, arresting students in schools, police departments actually functioning within the schools. The impact on the underside of the building of this Jim Crow system at that level, at the street level and at the school level?

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes. You know, that is the engine of mass incarceration, is the stream of people who are fed into the system through these kinds of aggressive policing tactics like stop-and-frisk. And, you know, think about that. You know, in one year alone, 2010, more than 600,000 people were stopped and frisked in the city of New York. And in less than 15 percent of those cases was there any kind of suspect description involved. The overwhelming majority of those stops and frisks were police stopping, frisking people on their way to school, on their way to work, on their way to church. And inevitably, people are fed into the criminal justice system in that fashion and labeled criminals or felons for engaging in extremely minor, nonviolent offenses. Drug use and sales is about as common in middle-class white communities and college campuses as it is in the hood, but it's poor folks of color who are doing time for these kinds of offenses.

AMY GOODMAN: Michelle Alexander, you've talked about the war on drugs as a counterrevolution against the civil rights movement.

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Yes, absolutely. You know, numerous historians and political scientists have documented now that the war on drugs was part of a grand Republican Party strategy, known as the Southern Strategy, of using racially coded, "get tough" political appeals on issues of crime and welfare in order to appeal to poor and working-class white voters who were resentful of, anxious about, fearful of many of the gains of African Americans in the civil rights movement.

And, you know, to be fair, I think we have to acknowledge that poor and working-class whites really had their world rocked by the civil rights movement. You know, wealthy whites could continue to give their kids all of the advantages that wealth has to offer, but it was poor and working-class whites who were faced with the social demotion and whose kids might be bused across town to go to schools inferior. And affirmative action programs created this sense that, you know, black folks were now leapfrogging over them on their way to Harvard or Yale or fancy jobs in corporate America. And this state of affairs created enormous amount of anxiety, fear and resentment. But it also created an enormous political opportunity.

Pollsters and political strategists found that these thinly veiled promises to get tough on a group of people, not so subtly defined by race, could be enormously successful in persuading poor and working-class whites to defect from the Democratic New Deal coalition and join the Republican Party in droves. So the war on drugs was really an effort by the Reagan administration to make good on campaign promises to get tough on a group of people defined largely by race.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you and then Randall Robinson about solutions, informed by your research and your life, movements. We see the Occupy movement today and how it has shaken this country. Now, even the Republicans are going at each other for the kind of capitalism that they practice, the Republican presidential hopefuls, Rick Perry calling Romney a vulture capitalist. What movement do you think needs to take place now?

MICHELLE ALEXANDER: Well, there absolutely has to be a movement. Nothing less than a major social movement has any hope of ending mass incarceration in America or inspiring a recommitment to King's dream. You know, if we were to return to the rates of incarceration we had in the 1970s, before the war on drugs and the "get tough" movement kicked off, we would have to release four out of five people who are in prison today. You know, a million people employed by the criminal justice system would lose their jobs. So this system isn't going to just fade away without a major social upheaval, a fairly radical shift in our public consciousness.

So, my view is that this has got to be a human rights movement. It's got to be a movement for education, not incarceration; for jobs, not jails; a movement that acknowledges the basic humanity and dignity of all people, no matter who you are or what you have done, so that we don't view it as normal and natural to strip people of basic civil and human rights following their release from prison.

AMY GOODMAN: Randall Robinson, talking about movements, you spearheaded the anti-apartheid movement in this country, getting arrested numerous times, among other places, in front of the South African embassy. You fasted almost unto the death to stop the-to fight the U.S. government-President Clinton, I think, at the time-to allow Haitians to come into this country at the time of the bloody coup of 1991 to 1994 in Haiti. Talk about the power of movements and what you see, from your perspective now living in St. Kitts, having quit America-the name of one of your books-what you think needs to happen in this country.

RANDALL ROBINSON: Just 12 percent of the people who commit nonviolent drug infractions are black, I think 56 percent of those, nonetheless, who are prosecuted, and something on the order of 75 percent of those who are imprisoned. I mean, we can see the striking unfairness of it. But we have to find a way to get that information to people. Outrage has to be informed by information to go anywhere. South Africa worked because everybody knew about the apartheid system when we went to jail. And so, it was instant. This is a little bit more difficult.

We're backward in the world in so many ways. We find ourselves in bed with China, Iran and two or three other nations in our embrace of the death penalty, when the rest of the world is moving in the other direction. But 75 percent of those executed are black and Hispanic. And so, the unfairness of it is seen in the statistics of who pays and who doesn't. We get sentences twice as long for commission of the same crime. It's just fundamentally unfair.

And the question, Amy, is how we can put this together in a way that is consumable and inspiring to people to let them know that this is not just a black or racial issue, it's an issue for all Americans who care about democracy and equity and fair play and decency. And that's what we have to do. We are killing our own country's future, is what we are doing. And we're killing genius in jail cells that does not have a chance to blossom and to flower.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And you've written some amazing books in terms of impacting on social policy-your book on the debt that the Unites States owes to Black America. But now you've moved more into fiction. Your sense of the role of fiction and of creative writers in helping to shape the consciousness and understanding of reality by readers?

RANDALL ROBINSON: I read a lot of fiction. I read both fiction and nonfiction. But there are some people who read only fiction. And I think you can write meaningful fiction for people who would be concerned about the kinds of issues that we're discussing here today. And nonfiction is not as multi-layered as fiction is. Fiction not only conveys information, but it conveys other dimensions of the human personality and the capacity to care and think and to puzzle out problems.

AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there. I thank you so much, both, for being with us. Randall Robinson will be speaking tonight at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem from 6:00 to 8:00. Randall Robinson's latest book is a novel; it's called Makeda. The latest book of Michelle Alexander, just out in paperback, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.

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8) Amid Strikes, Nigeria Rolls Back Gasoline Price
By ADAM NOSSITER
January 16, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/world/africa/nigerian-president-rolls-back-price-of-gasoline.html?ref=world

LAGOS, Nigeria - After a week of strikes, protests and national paralysis over a sharp rise in the government-controlled price of fuel, President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday announced a partial rollback of gasoline prices.

After the announcement, Nigerian unions said they would suspend their walkout and street protests. A statement from the Nigeria Labor Congress said that union leaders had decided "that in order to save lives and in the interest of national survival, these mass actions be suspended."

In a speech on the state-run Nigerian Television Authority, the president said the price would drop to about $2.75 a gallon, still higher than the $1.70 that Nigerians had been paying before the government eliminated subsidies on Jan. 1 in a highly unpopular decision.

The government said it was revoking the fuel subsidies to put public finances on a sounder footing, but the move prompted tens of thousands of protesters to fill the streets of Nigerian cities. The police used live ammunition to disperse protests in Kano and other places; at least three people were killed, and Amnesty International denounced what it said was excessive use of force by the authorities.

Nigerians emerged from their homes this weekend to find the fragile calculus underpinning most people's lives in the country further threatened.

The price of onions has more than doubled because of the cost of getting them to market. Dried crawfish, hot peppers and watermelon seed are twice as expensive. Lines of cars stretched far down dingy blocks in the gray winter haze, waiting to pay about $3.50 a gallon for gasoline that cost just $1.70 on New Year's Eve.

The standoff among the Nigerian government, the labor unions and the street continued Sunday, with vows of more strikes unless the government backed down.

At the grimy Iddo Market in Lagos, a long line of rickety open stalls under a highway overpass, the mood over the weekend was wary. Housewives bustled about the piles of yams and tomatoes for the first time in a week.

"Everything is just double, triple the price," said Segun Nisi, shaking her head over the cost of watermelon seeds, whose oil is used in cooking here. Similar reactions boded ill for the government's policy course.

Nigeria produces immense oil wealth, but analysts say that for decades, billions of dollars from the country's oil earnings have been stolen by a corrupt elite while three-quarters of the country's citizens live on about a dollar a day. Government-subsidized gasoline has been almost the only benefit from oil production to reach the wider population.

Some local commentators saw the widespread protests over fuel as the beginning of a "Nigerian Spring." But they were another headache for a country that is already faced with an insurrection by armed Islamic militants in the north, sectarian tensions in the middle and perpetual restiveness in the oil-producing south. At Iddo, Mrs. Nisi was dressed up for shopping - a shiny white blouse, embroidered black cap - after a week of closed stores and markets. But the experience was not making her sympathetic to the government's plan. And the seed vendor was not budging from his new price. "We are just suffering here, and the people at the top are enjoying their life," Mrs. Nisi said. "They are just making people too crazy."

Even the country's oil workers threatened to strike, which could affect world energy markets if the country's exports are crimped. One analyst said a strike lasting several weeks could push up oil prices by $10 to $20 a barrel.

At the root of the trouble is a paradox that some see as emblematic of the country's 50 years of independence: Nigeria is one of the world's leading crude oil exporters, but it must import nearly all of its gasoline from foreign refineries because years of neglect, mismanagement and corruption have left the country's own refineries unable to function. The government subsidies, which approached $8 billion, made up the difference between the world market price and the lower price that Nigerians had been paying at the pump, while the middlemen who imported the gasoline made huge profits.

In a 2009 report, the International Monetary Fund called the removal of the fuel subsidy "an important first step." But in a place where experts estimate that $50 billion to $100 billion in oil revenue has been lost through fraud and that 80 percent of the economic benefit from oil production has flowed to 1 percent of the population, the monetary fund's approval of a step that hits ordinary people so hard looks provocative.

At Iddo, Mabel Ekewke eyed five small baskets of onions. Before, they would have cost about 1,000 nairas (about $6.25), she said; now the vendor was asking 2,500 nairas ($15.50).

"People don't have money, and people are very hungry," Ms. Ekewke said. "The salaries they are paying are just too small. I personally am ready to continue the strike."

That vow was echoed by Nigerian labor leaders, who held talks with the government on Sunday in Abuja, the capital. No agreement had been reached by the evening.

"They've come into power and said they would improve infrastructure, and at the end of the day, nobody sees anything," said Peter Esele, president general of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria. "People have just lost trust in the Nigerian government. It's an issue of confidence. We're not ready to give our trust. It must be earned."

Even so, for President Jonathan, any retreat now on the subsidy could be interpreted as a sign of weakness, which would be harmful for a leader dealing with internal unrest on many fronts. The government's spokesman sought over the weekend to cast Mr. Jonathan's position in the opposite light. "It's a sign of strength for a leader to see what's in the best interest of Nigerians," said the spokesman, Reuben Abati. "He's made it clear that it's absolutely in the best interest of Nigerians to deregulate the downstream sector," meaning the retail sale of gasoline.

That logic was lost on shoppers at Iddo, though. "If he doesn't go back, we'll go on strike again," Vivian Kezie said as she eyed the onions. She said she was not persuaded by government claims that the $8 billion it was saving by scrapping the subsidy would go to shoring up the country's rickety infrastructure. "I don't trust them," Ms. Kezie said. "They will use it on their families. All their children are in school abroad."

The strike shut down much of the country's economy, and it seemed unlikely that the people in the street would relent without a gesture from the government.

"When the equation is still Hobbesian, people are not going to participate," said Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, a lecturer at Oxford University and an expert on Nigerian oil politics, referring to the grimness of daily life in Nigeria. "People perceive this as a raid on their resources."

Richard Berry contributed reporting from Paris.

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9) Protests Over Austerity Measures Turn Violent in Romania
"Demonstrators yelled, 'The Mafioso government stole everything we had!" and "Get out, you miserable dog!'"
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 15, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/world/europe/romanians-protest-austerity-measures.html?ref=world

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Romania's government called an emergency meeting late Sunday to discuss violent protests that showed no sign of abating, after demonstrators angry about austerity measures hurled stones and firebombs at the police here in the capital. At least 13 people were injured.

More than 1,000 protesters clashed with police officers, who used tear gas and flares to repel demonstrators who blocked a main road in Bucharest. One man was briefly set on fire during the chaos.

The interior minister, Traian Igas, called an emergency meeting to deal with the crisis.

The protests, in their fourth day, were the most serious since President Traian Basescu came to power in 2004. They are the result of frustration over public-sector wage cuts, reduced benefits, higher taxes, cronyism in state institutions and widespread corruption.

Demonstrators yelled, "The Mafioso government stole everything we had!" and "Get out, you miserable dog!" - a popular expression of contempt used to refer to Mr. Basescu. Protesters roamed through the center of the capital, and Mayor Sorin Oprescu called on them to refrain from acts of violence.

Antena 3 TV reported that shops in the vicinity of the protest had been vandalized.

"We are here to protest, we cannot face it any more, we have no money to survive, our pensions are so small, the expenses are more than we can afford," said a demonstrator who would identify himself only as Sorin. "It's no way to live."

Thirteen people needed medical treatment, said Bogdan Oprita, who is in charge of emergency services in Bucharest.

The protests began Thursday in support of a health official who resigned because he opposed government health care changes. Mr. Basescu withdrew the health care bill on Friday, but the protests continued.

Anger has been directed mainly against the once-popular Romanian president. Mr. Basescu, 60, vowed to be a hands-on president when he came to power in 2004. He regularly gave interviews in supermarkets, was filmed dancing with his wife in restaurants and enjoyed a reputation as a man of the people.

Mr. Basescu, a former ship captain who is staunchly pro-American, has always relished a political fight. He was suspended by Parliament in 2007, but reinstated after a national referendum. In the 2009 presidential runoff, he narrowly defeated Mircea Geoana, a former foreign minister.

On Sunday, hundreds of people of all ages noisily protested in Bucharest's University Square, a day after demonstrators clashed with the police there. "Down with Basescu!" they shouted, and called for early elections.

Hundreds rallied in the cities of Iasi, Cluj-Napoca, Deva and Galati. On Saturday, more than 3,000 protested in cities outside Bucharest, the police said.

Prime Minister Emil Boc said the government, together with coalition partners, would draw up a new health care bill on Monday, consulting with politicians and civil groups. Mr. Boc spoke after visiting a police officer who was hospitalized after he was hit in the head with a stone in Saturday's protest.

"The solution is dialogue, not throwing bricks left and right, which can endanger lives," Mr. Boc said.

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10) Panel Challenges Japan's Account of Nuclear Disaster
By HIROKO TABUCHI
January 15, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/business/global/independent-panel-to-start-inquiry-into-japans-nuclear-crisis.html?ref=world

TOKYO - A powerful and independent panel of specialists appointed by Japan's Parliament is challenging the government's account of the accident at a Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, and will start its own investigation into the disaster - including an inquiry into how much the March earthquake may have damaged the plant's reactors even before the tsunami.

The bipartisan panel with powers of subpoena is part of Japan's efforts to investigate the nuclear calamity, which has displaced more than 100,000 people, rendered wide swaths of land unusable for decades and spurred public criticism that the government has been more interested in protecting vested industry interests than in discovering how three reactors were allowed to melt down and release huge amounts of radiation.

Several investigations - including inquiries by the plant operator, Tokyo Electric Power, and the government - have blamed the scale of the tsunami that struck Japan's northeastern coast in March, knocking out vital cooling systems at the plant.

But critics in Japan and overseas have called for a fuller accounting of whether Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, sufficiently considered historically documented tsunami risks, and whether it could have done more to minimize the damage once waves hit the plant.

Questions also linger as to the extent of damage to the plant caused by the earthquake even before the tsunami hit. Any evidence of serious quake damage at the plant would cast new doubt on the safety of other reactors in quake-prone Japan. Tsunamis are far less frequent.

In his first interview since the panel was appointed last month, Kiyoshi Kurokawa, chairman of the new Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, said his investigation would have no sacred cows.

Mr. Kurokawa, a former leader of Tokyo University's medical department and a professor at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, has lined up a prominent team, including the Nobel laureate Koichi Tanaka. The committee will have its first full meeting on Monday.

"For Japan to regain global credibility, we need an investigation into the disaster that is completely independent," Mr. Kurokawa said. He said he was aware of questions raised about quake damage to the plant, and that the committee "would investigate that issue vigorously."

"The lessons Japan can learn are globally relevant, because such a disaster can happen again," he said.

Mr. Kurokawa's committee has garnered attention because some members have been openly critical of Japan's nuclear policy, including Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a seismologist who has long warned of the risks Japan's volatile geology poses to its 54 nuclear reactors.

The panel includes Mitsuhiko Tanaka, a former nuclear engineer at Babcock Hitachi who has argued that the quake was likely to have damaged reactors at the plant to the extent that meltdowns would have occurred without the tsunami. Tepco disputes that view. Mr. Tanaka worked on the design of the reactors.

The panel is also the first such group of outside specialists to be named by Japan's Parliament, supported by members of the ruling Democratic Party and its main opposition, the Liberal Democratic Party.

"If the panel can truly distance itself from political pressure, then it could be a powerful exercise," said Yoichi Tao, a visiting professor in physics at Kogakuin University who has been working with Fukushima residents to clean up the radioactive fallout. "They must make sure that having bipartisan support does not mean they have to listen to everyone."

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11) Study of Retail Workers Finds $9.50 Median Pay
By STEVEN GREENHOUSE
January 16, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/nyregion/study-offers-a-look-at-new-yorks-retail-workers.html?ref=nyregion

Retail workers in New York City earn a median of $9.50 an hour, most are part-time or temporary, and just 3 in 10 receive health insurance through their jobs, according to a new study of the city's larger retailers.

The study, based on interviews with nonunion workers and released on Monday, largely found poverty wages and highly unstable schedules for the city's retail employees, with less than a fifth having a set schedule each work week. The study said many workers had a hard time planning for, say, child care or classes because more than half learned their schedules a week or less before a work week would begin.

The study, "Discounted Jobs: How Retailers Sell Workers Short," was led by a City University professor and was based on face-to-face interviews with 436 nonunion employees of retail businesses, ranging from high-end establishments on Fifth Avenue to discount stores on Fordham Road in the Bronx. The researchers went to department stores, electronics stores, home centers, clothing stores, bookstores and others.

The report was financed by the Retail Action Project, an organization in Manhattan that is financed by unions and foundations; by City University's Murphy Institute; and by the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union. Two in five workers interviewed said the number of hours they worked each week always or often varied. One in five said they always or often had to be available for call-in shifts, with some workers saying they were assigned one or two days of work each week, but had to leave open another two or three days and call in those mornings in case their employers needed them.

The report said, "Guaranteed work hours are no longer the normal and just 'getting on the schedule' has become the reward for job performance." Workers who rack up more sales per shift were often assigned more days.

The study said two in five of New York's retail workers were full-time, slightly more than half were part-time, and the rest were temporary or holiday workers. The study found that about one in 10 part-time workers had a set schedule week to week, with many working 15 or 20 hours a week."An extremely high number earn low wages that cannot even bring them to the federal poverty line," said Stephanie Luce, the study's main author and a professor of labor relations at the Murphy Institute. "The problem of low wages is exacerbated by low work hours. If large chains, with stores in the retail mecca of Manhattan, can't create living-wage careers in this industry, we should be pretty pessimistic about the opportunities for millions of retail workers around the country."

The study's other author was Naoki Fujita, a researcher for the Retail Action Project.

The authors had interviewers question workers in all five boroughs in a total of 230 individual businesses, all with 100 employees or more.

A worker told an interviewer that her manager once called her around 7 p.m. to tell her to go in at 6 the next morning. "For students and parents or people with two jobs, unstable schedules are particularly stressful," the study said. About one in six workers said they held a second job.

Of the roughly two-thirds of workers who do not receive health insurance from their employers, the study found, one in four have no health insurance, about one in three receive it through a relative and one in three through a government program, most often Medicaid.

The study found that fewer than half of those interviewed were entitled to paid sick days, and of those more than half said they never took any.

There was substantial evidence of wage and hour violations, the study concluded. About one in six workers said they had done work off the clock at least occasionally. More than one in three reported that they sometimes worked more than 10 hours a day, and a sizable number of them were not paid overtime when they did, as mandated by state law.

Of all the part-time workers, the study found, about one in 10 received health benefits through their employer, and about one in four said they received paid sick days.

According to the study, mean hourly pay was $10 in Manhattan, $9 in Queens, $8.50 in Brooklyn and $8 in the Bronx, with no figure available for Staten Island.

Some workers complained that they were sometimes called in to work a shift, but would then be sent home after two hours because business was slow. The study found that just one in six of those workers said they were always paid - as state law requires - for a full four hours whenever they worked a shift of fewer than four hours.

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12) EU unable to defend apartheid Israel
"So, as I often say on Press TV and elsewhere, if we were to have a law in the US or elsewhere that stated that to be entitled to have rights or to hold land or to work on land or to sharecrop land you had to show that you had no Jewish blood for at four generation s, people would understand the inherently racist nature of that kind of stating; that kind of legislation."
By Ralph Schoenman
Fri Dec 30, 2011 6:35PM GMT
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/218559.html

Interview with Ralph Schoenman, political analyst and author of the Hidden History of Zionism, Berkeley.

The EU holds concerns and has criticized Israel over its treatment of the Arab minority inside the state of Israel yet at the same time supports a colonial Jewish state.

Press TV talks with Ralph Schoenman, political analyst and author of the Hidden History of Zionism from Berkeley in a discussion about the contradiction of the EU report and posturing that appears to be against Israel's treatment of minorities yet sanctifies and attempts to legitimize a colonial Jewish state. What follows is a transcript of the interview.

Press TV: Is news of discrimination against Arabs in Israel surprising at all?

Ralph Schoenman: The European Union's secret report, as it's been described in Haaretz and elsewhere (in Haaretz it's an article by Barak Ravid called Jews and Arabs) and it states that the European Union should consider Israel's treatment of its Arab population as a core issue - not second tier to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.

But the European MBC that participated in this have stated that they support what they call a Jewish State and are looking for some cosmetic treatment of the Arab population ,as it were, - the Israeli Arabs as they're called - the people who were driven out through massacre and whose remnants are part of what is called the Israeli Arab population inside the
Green Line.

It's a contradiction in terms. It flows from the fact that the Zionist colonial settler movement predicated its claims on the thesis that this was a land without a people for a people without a land. In other words, they defined the population there as having no status; they want to remove the Palestinian people from their land and from history.

Thus, the European Union's attempts to legitimize and sanctify in perpetuity an exclusively colonial settler state in Palestine is fundamentally incompatible with the basic rights of the Palestinian people in their own country, namely Palestine, and there is no way to square that circle.

This entire posturing by the European Union regarding respect for the rights of Israeli Arabs is incompatible with the existence of the Zionist state itself in the same precise sense in which the rights of the African people in South Africa could not be reconciled with an apartheid colonial settler regime in the territory of South Africa. It's the same issue - the same basic principles are reflected in it.

Press TV: Why has it taken so long for the Europeans to have woken up to the realities on the ground in Israel. Does this in a sense signal a shift in support away from Israel towards the Palestinian cause?

Ralph Schoenman: No, because the European Union's commentary about the treatment of Israeli-Arab population, as a core issue, is strictly within the context of a "settlement" of the conflict based upon the permanent legitimization of Israel as an exclusively Jewish state.

I think it's important to keep in mind that the Jewish National Fund, which preceded the formation of Israel, had a set of predicates and requirements, which were adopted by Levi Eshkol and by the Israeli Knesset as the permanent law of Israel. These requirements stipulate that in order to be entitled to own or hold land or to sharecrop it or work on it you've got to demonstrate possession of at least four generations of maternal Jewish descent.

That rather absurd notion was sanctified by orthodox rabbis - the religious establishment of Israel - as the determinant of what constitutes rights and what constitutes citizenship in this State of Israel.

So, as I often say on Press TV and elsewhere, if we were to have a law in the US or elsewhere that stated that to be entitled to have rights or to hold land or to work on land or to sharecrop land you had to show that you had no Jewish blood for at least four generations, people would understand readily the inherently racist nature of that kind of State and of legislation that enshrines these defining precepts.

I'm obligated to emphasize, and feel it very important to point out that, this egregious characteristic reflecting as it does the nature of the Israeli state, namely that it is predicated upon the racist discrimination and subjugation of the indigenous population, and, it follows, against those who hold different religious beliefs or no religious beliefs.

A theocratic society of this kind cannot afford real rights apart from the inherent dynamics of a colonial settler State. It requires a democratic and secular society in which rights do not flow from ethnicity or religious affiliation, and I say to you that this precept applies everywhere, not only in the Israeli Zionist state. It applies to Bahais; it applies to Copts; it applies to people of no religious convictions. that their rights should not be dependent upon adherence to a particular religious point of view, because once that is enthroned as the basic constituent of rights in a society and in a State, it flows from this that all peoples who do not happen to hold those beliefs are without real rights in such a society.

And, of course, as we have often discussed, in a particular way the Zionist state both requires and deploys its colonial character as an instrument of imperialism.

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13) 'Israeli economy on verge of collapse'
Interview with Ralph Schoenman
January 16, 2012
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/221395.html

The Israeli Union of Local Authority has begun a general strike affecting all municipal services in protest against a recent decision to reduce municipal revenues.

The union leaders said the open-ended strike on Monday includes services such as parking inspectors, school buses, garbage collectors, welfare offices, security guards at educational institutions and inspections on meat and fish.

Earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with heads of the union, urging them to cancel the strike. The ULA said that following the meeting Netanyahu has failed to offer solutions regarding the income of local authorities.

The latest strike comes after protests over the past few months against the rising costs of living, injustice, social inequality and official corruption. Last October, Israeli medics quit to protest their low income and the high cost of living.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Ralph Schoenman, the author of 'The Hidden History of Zionism' from Berkeley, to further explore the issue. Below is an approximate transcription of the interview:

Press TV: What does this strike, and the months of protests say about the level of dissatisfaction with the internal policies of the Israeli regime?

Schoenman: It reflects the fact that Israel like the capitalist economy globally in the United States and in Europe, in particular, is in extremis. A very severe and protracted crisis that is deepening and extending and underlies the aggressive military posture of the United States and Israel not only towards Iran but towards the region and the world.

With respect to the particular strike of the Union of Local Authorities that is underway and which is already beginning now in Israel on Monday, Netanyahu pleaded with them not to proceed with it, but the Union of Local Authorities' chairman Shlomo Buhbut sought an all-out strike by local authorities and called upon teachers to go on strike and garbage workers and security guards and by the way, generalizing the call for municipal workers, but the issues focus upon the extreme cost of living and the failure to provide municipal support for essential services which is affecting people throughout Israeli society and fueling a generalized opposition and mobilization of the working population against the state.

Press TV: Social inequality certainly is not something new in the Occupied territories as Palestinian's rights are abused, ignored and trampled over on a daily basis. In this instance though, what kind of response are you expecting to see from Netanyahu?

Schoenman: Of course, when we speak about the opposition that is mobilizing now within the Israeli population, the settler population, anything that pertains to the economic condition of the settler population is magnified enormously for the population of the Palestinian people which is after all a population subject to extreme exploitation, deprivation of all rights essentially a slave economy which is imposed upon that population.

In this regard, I should mention that Haaretz has also published a very reviewing report on the concentration of wealth in the hands of just a few families, 'the control of the business and financial sector by a small number of families by means of control pyramids jeopardizes the general public, economic development and even the nature of government in Israel'. That is the finding of a study on the concentration of financial and corporate control conducted by professor Assaf Hamdani, a Hebrew University of Jerusalem expert.

Hamdani is an external adviser to something called the Hodek Committee, which was set up to find ways to protect the public's retirement income and pensions which are under extreme jeopardy not only in the wake of the global economic crisis, but in particular in the contacts of the control of the entire economy in Israel by a small handful of families.

There are very specific examples given in this report, the outstanding examples are Dankner, Ofer, Tshuva, Arison, Leviev and Strauss families. One hundred public companies, over 52 percent are owned by a few families and that does not include some of the essential industries, pharmaceuticals industry, the arms industry and so on.

What we are reflecting here in the starvation, if you like, of public services to municipalities is a generalized exploitation and a deepening of economic austerity that has led to uprisings across the world and is intensifying within Israel itself.

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14) Tax the Rich! Occupy the Profits!
By Bonnie Weinstein
January/February 2012
Socialist Viewpoint
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/janfeb_12/janfeb_12_19.html

"The mine owners did not find the gold, they did not mine the gold, they did not mill the gold, but by some weird alchemy all the gold belonged to them!" -Big Bill Haywood

"You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us; therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society. In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend." -Karl Marx,1

We workers are being forced to foot the bill for capitalism-from the trillion-dollar wars and corporate bailouts, to the plundering of our environment.

From cuts in wages, and benefits, increased taxes, exorbitant credit-card interest rates, increased parking tickets and postage stamp rates-we are footing the bill for all expenses accrued by the commanders of capital. We are the 99 percent under the dictatorship of the one percent.

While we workers are forced to pay through the nose for the bare necessities of life, the corporations, and the executives who run them, continue to rake-in the dough! They create the rules of law and capital, and they command the police and army to protect and enforce those rules. And, they charge all the costs to the working class.

Here are a few of the more subtle ways they make workers pay.

The stock- options game

In a December 29, 2011 New York Times article by David Kocieniewski titled, "Tax Benefits From Options as Windfall for Businesses,"

"Thanks to a quirk in tax law, companies can claim a tax deduction in future years that is much bigger than the value of the stock options when they were granted to executives. This tax break will deprive the federal government of tens-of-billions of dollars in revenue over the next decade. And it is one of the many obscure provisions buried in the tax code that together enable most American companies to pay far less than the top corporate tax rate of 35 percent-in some cases, virtually nothing even in very profitable years. â€_ A stock option entitles its owner to buy a share of company stock at a set price over a specified period. The corporate tax savings stem from the fact that executives typically cash in stock options at a much higher price than the initial value that companies report to shareholders when they are granted. But companies are then allowed a tax deduction for that higher price. â€_'The reason the C.E.O.'s and corporate boards gave all those options during the crisis is because they expected the market to recover-and because the economy is cyclical, everyone knew it would recover,' said Sydney Finkelstein, a professor of management at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. 'And the whole game is played with other people's money-the market's money and the taxpayers' money.'"

The commanders of capital simply make up the rules of finance that give tax breaks to the rich and make the poor pay for them. As the old saying goes, "figures don't lie, but liars sure can figure" and the capitalist class can buy the best in both fields-liars and figurers!

Corporations even get away with murder

According to an article in the New York Times, December 6, 2011, by Sabrina Tavernise and Clifford Krauss titled, "Mine Owner Will Pay $209 Million in Blast that Killed 29 Workers,"

"In what officials say is the largest settlement ever 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 mine explosion last year that killed 29 men in West Virginia."

However, in a December 9, 2011 article in the New York Times by David M. Uhlmann, titled, "For 29 Dead Miners, No Justice," regarding the April 10, 2009 explosion at the Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch Mine,

"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."

In other words, the bulk of the settlement will go to Alpha, its subsidiary, Massey Energy, and the U.S. Department of Labor's own Mine, Safety and Health Administration, to do what they should have done in the first place, which would have avoided the massacre of these miners to begin with!

And, in fact, according to Wikipedia2,

"The restitution payments are $1.5 million to each of the two survivors and the families of each the 29 fatal casualties."

Essentially, this settlement is forcing the dead and injured miners and their families to subsidize the corporate murderers!

Fukushima

Corporations getting away with murder are not just a U.S. phenomenon. Corporate/governmental corruption is worldwide. It's happening right now to workers in Japan.

In a December 27, 2011 New York Times article by Hiroko Tabuchi, titled, "Japan Recommends Temporary State Control for Tokyo Electric,"

"The Japanese government told the operator of the ravaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant on Tuesday to consider accepting temporary state control in return for a much-needed injection of public funds, in effect proposing an interim nationalization of the struggling utility. The order came after Tokyo Electric Power requested ¥689.4 billion, or $8.8 billion, in government aid to help pay for its response to the nuclear accident at its Fukushima site." [Emphasis added]

And, in a December 28, 2011 article in The Telegraph (UK) titled, "Tokyo Electric Power Co. Shares Plunge on Fears Fukushima Nuclear Plant Owner May be Nationalized," by Gary White,

"Tepco has requested Â¥689 billion (£5.7 billion) [$8.8 billion] in government aid to help pay compensation to the victims of the accident. â€_and it has also asked permission to increase[s] electricity rates to meet its potential Â¥4.5 trillion liabilities."

In other words, Japan's workers-even the victims of the disasters themselves-will pay for the governmental bailout of TEPCOs murderous criminals.

Going postal

In a December 5, 2011 article in the New York Times by Steven Greenhouse, titled, "Planned Postal Service Cuts to Slow First-Class Mail,"

"The United States Postal Service [USPS] 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..."

This is a direct hit on the poor. The overwhelming majority of the poor don't have access to high-speed Internet, electronic bill pay, or electronic banking.3 This means their bill payments via USPS will be late and they will be charged late fees; it means their pension and Social Security checks will arrive late; and 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 to pay even more to subsidize these wealthy usurers.

Time to claim the profits we create

The essence of the Occupy movement is the epiphany among the many-the 99 percent-that there is a huge inequality in the distribution of wealth in the world today; and, that this inequality is unjust!

News about soaring corporate profits and exorbitant CEO compensation packages-even "separation" packages worth millions-are bragged about incessantly while workers' belts are squeezed ever tighter. And the "right to cheat" is the commonly understood "perk" for being among the one percent!

Workers know that "taxable income" is determined and defined by the one percent-the commanders of capital. Everyone knows that CEOs get hundreds-of-thousands of dollars in pay up front on the books; but millions in bonuses and all kinds of other hidden, under-the-table deals-not to mention "off-shore" accounts that enable them to avoid taxes.

Workers know that the world's wealthy have a multitude of "legal" tricks to avoid taxes, and getting caught, since they make these tricks up themselves as they go! They are the "commanders" of the world capitalist dictatorship-the proverbial one percent-and they are the "deciders."

Occupy the profits

The slogans, "Tax the Rich!" and "Open the Corporate Books!" should become the rallying cry for the Occupy movement the world over.

The 99 percent have the right to know the full extent of the corporate profits they create for the bosses.

When the boss claims that pensions and pay have to be cut; or that two-tier wage scales must be instituted; or that they must ignore health and safety regulations-or they will go out of business; or move their operation to countries with slave wages and no safety laws-of course workers have the right to see the books and to find out exactly where every dime has gone!

In fact, we workers should demand our right, as the overwhelming majority, to claim these profits for ourselves-to decide to whom these profits should rightfully go, and just where and how they should be spent!

We workers do the work. We create the profits.

When we are finally able to occupy the profits we create, then we will become the "deciders"-free to use the profits from our labor for the good of the many and not for the benefit of the tiny few!


1. Manifesto of the Communist Party, 1948.

Chapter II, Proletarians and Communists,

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch02.htm

2. Upper Big Branch Mine Disaster, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upper_Big_Branch_Mine_disaster

3. "Are We All Connected? We believe we are connected, though many can't pay the price," Psychology Today, December 9, 2011, by Ken Eisold, Ph.D. in Hidden Motives

"...four out of every ten households with annual household incomes below $25,000 in 2010 reported having wired Internet access at home."

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/hidden-motives/201112/are-we-all-connected

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15) Wikipedia to Go Dark on Wednesday to Protest Bills on Web Piracy
By JENNA WORTHAM
January 16, 2012
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/wikipedia-plans-to-go-dark-on-wednesday-to-protest-sopa/?ref=business

The wave of online protests against two Congressional bills that aim to curtail copyright violations on the Internet is gathering momentum.

Wikipedia is the latest Web site to decide to shut on Wednesday in protest against the two Congressional bills, the Stop Online Piracy Act, often called SOPA, and the Protect IP Act, which is often called PIPA. The bills have attracted fierce opposition from many corners of the technology industry. Opponents say several of the provisions in the legislation, including those that may force search engines and Internet service providers to block access to Web sites that offer or link to copyrighted material, would stifle innovation, enable censorship and tamper with the livelihood of businesses on the Internet.

Nearly 800 members of Wikipedia have been debating and voting whether the English-version of the site should participate in a blackout since December.

Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia, confirmed the site's decision on Monday on Twitter, writing: "Student warning! Do your homework early. Wikipedia protesting bad law on Wednesday!"

In a phone interview late Monday, Mr. Wales said that the Wikipedia community hoped to send a clear message to lawmakers and regulators in Washington that people who worked on the Internet and used it daily were not happy about the potential effects of the bills.

"What will make a difference is for ordinary people to pick up the phone and send an e-mail or a letter to their representatives about this," he said. "When you consider the magnitude of how many people use Wikipedia globally, there is a potential here for really creating some noise and getting some attention in the U.S."

Mr. Wales said that if passed, the bills could censor what information and links that sites like Wikipedia would be permitted to publish.

"The government could tell us that we could write an entry about the history of the Pirate Bay but not allow us to link to it," he said, referring to the popular file-sharing site. "That's a First Amendment issue."

Wikipedia will go dark at midnight Eastern time on Tuesday and remain unavailable until midnight Eastern time on Wednesday. Visitors around the globe who try to reach the English-version of Wikipedia will be greeted with information about the bills and details about how to reach their local representatives. Mr. Wales said 460 million people around the world visited the site each month, and he estimated that the blackout could reach as many as 100 million people. In addition, some international Wikipedia communities, including the one in Germany, have decided to post notices on their home pages leading to information about the protests, although they will remain functioning as usual.

Mr. Wales said the decision to take the site down was an unprecedented move by Wikipedia. In October, the Italian version of Wikipedia staged a similar online protest in response to a similar bill proposed by the Italian Parliament, but the scale of Wednesday's demonstration would be significantly broader, he said.

Wikipedia's protest will join several other Web sites, including Reddit, the social news site, and BoingBoing, a technology and culture blog, that also plan to black out their sites on Wednesday. Some sites that are not planning to go offline are still finding ways to participate in the protest. For example, WordPress, a blogging platform, is supplying its users with a widget that will add a banner to their Web sites and blogs showing support for the protest.

It is not yet clear whether any of the biggest Internet companies, like Facebook or Google, will also participate. Dick Costolo, chief executive at Twitter, responding to inquiries on Twitter, suggested that although the company had been among those in the industry to oppose elements of the bill, it would not follow in Wikipedia's footsteps.

The groundswell of technology leaders, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and public policy advocates galvanizing around a central political issue is unique to the technology industry, which has largely been inactive in lobbying and activities in Washington.

But that is changing, Mr. Wales said.

"What we've seen across the world, with the Arab Spring, is that people are now more aware of the tools that are available for people to make a big noise and make their voices heard," he said. "Ten years ago, the Internet was quite big and didn't have the infrastructure for the public to express their voice in this way, and that's fundamentally changing."

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16) Patrice Lumumba: 50 Years Later, Remembering the U.S.-Backed Assassination of Congo's First Democratically Elected Leader
DemocracyNow!
January 21, 2011
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/1/21/patrice_lumumba_50_years_later_remembering

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba, the first democratically elected leader of what is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Lumumba's pan-Africanism and his vision of a united Congo gained him many enemies. Both Belgium and the United States actively sought to have him killed. The CIA ordered his assassination but could not complete the job. Instead, the United States and Belgium covertly funneled cash and aid to rival politicians who seized power and arrested Lumumba. On January 17, 1961, after being beaten and tortured, Lumumba was shot and killed. [includes rush transcript]

Guest:
Adam Hochschild, author of several books, including King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa and the forthcoming To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918. He teaches at the University of California at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

JUAN GONZALEZ: This week marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. He was the first democratically elected leader of what is now known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Congo had been a colony of Belgium since the late 1800s, which ruled over it with brutality while plundering its rich natural resources. Patrice Lumumba rose as a leader of the Congo's independence movement and, in 1960, was elected as the first prime minister of the country.

AMY GOODMAN: Lumumba's pan-Africanism and his vision of a united Congo gained him many enemies. Both Belgium and the United States actively sought to have Lumumba overthrown or killed. The CIA ordered his assassination but could not complete the job. Instead, the United States and Belgium covertly funneled cash and aid to rival politicians who seized power and arrested President Lumumba. This is how it was reported in a Universal Studios newsreel in December of 1960.

UNIVERSAL STUDIOS NEWSREEL: A new chapter begins in the dark and tragic history of the Congo with the return to Leopoldville of deposed premier Lumumba, following his capture by crack commandos of strongman Colonel Mobutu. Taken to Mobutu's headquarters past a jeering, threatening crowd, Lumumba - Lumumba, but promised the pro-red Lumumba a fair trial on charges of inciting the army to rebellion. Lumumba was removed to an army prison outside the capital, as his supporters in Stanleyville seized control of Orientale province and threatened a return of disorder. Before that, Lumumba suffered more indignities, including being forced to eat a speech, which he restated his claim to be the Congo's rightful premier. Even in bonds, Lumumba remains a dangerous prisoner, storm center of savage loyalties and equally savage opposition.

AMY GOODMAN: On January 17th, 1961, after being beaten and tortured, the Congolese prime minister, Patrice Lumumba, was shot and killed.

For more, we go to Adam Hochschild. He's the author of King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa and the forthcoming book To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion. He teaches at the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, is co-founder of Mother Jones magazine, had an op-ed in the New York Times this week called "An Assassination's Long Shadow." Adam Hochschild is joining us from San Francisco.

Explain this "long shadow," Adam.

ADAM HOCHSCHILD: Well, Amy, I think the assassination of Lumumba was something that was felt by many people to be a sort of pivotal turning point in the saga of Africa gaining its independence. In the 1950s, there were movements for independence all over Africa. There was a great deal of idealism in the air. There was a great deal of hope in the air, both among Africans and among their supporters in the United States and Europe, that at last these colonies would become independent. And I think people imagined real independence - that is, that these countries would be able to set off on their own and control their own destiny economically as well as politically. And the assassination of Lumumba really signaled that that was not to be, because, for Belgium, as for the other major European colonial powers, like Britain and France, giving independence to an African colony was OK for them as long as it didn't disturb existing business arrangements. As long as the European country could continue to own the mines, the factories, the plantations, well, OK, let them have their politics.

But Lumumba spoke very loudly, very dramatically, saying Africa needs to be economically independent, as well. And it was a fiery speech on this subject that he gave at the actual independence ceremonies, June 30th, 1960, where he was replying to an extremely arrogant speech by King Baudouin of Belgium. It was a speech he gave on this subject that I think really began the process that ended two months later with the CIA, with White House approval, decreeing that he should be assassinated.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, of course, for most Americans, who - we're not, perhaps, as familiar with African colonialism, since that was basically a European project throughout the 19th century - the role of Belgium and the importance of the Congo as really the jewel of Africa in terms of its wealth and resources - how did the Congo suffer before Lumumba came to power?

ADAM HOCHSCHILD: Well, the story really begins, in the modern era, in 1885, when - or 1884 to '85, when all the major countries of Europe led - preceded by the United States, actually; we were the very first - recognized the Congo not as a Belgian colony, but as the private, personally owned colony of King Leopold II of Belgium, a very greedy, ambitious man who wanted a colony of his own. At that point, Belgium was not sure that it wanted a colony. Leopold ruled this place for 23 years, made an enormous fortune, estimated at over a billion in today's American dollars. Finally, in 1908, he was forced to give it up to become a Belgian colony, and then he died the following year. And the Belgians ran it for the next half-century, extracting an enormous amount of wealth, initially in ivory and rubber, then in diamonds, gold, copper, timber, palm oil, all sorts of other minerals. And as with almost all European colonies in Africa, this wealth flowed back to Europe. It benefited the Europeans much more than the Africans.

And the hope that many people had when independence came all over Africa, for the most part, you know, within a few years on either side of 1960, people had the hope that at last African countries would begin to control their own destiny and that they would be the ones who would reap the profits from the mines and the plantations and so on. Lumumba put that hope into words. And for that reason, he was immediately considered a very dangerous figure by the United States and Belgium. The CIA issued this assassination order with White House approval. And as was said at the beginning, they couldn't get close enough to him to actually poison him, but they got money under the table to Congolese politicians who did see that he was assassinated, with Belgian help. It was a Belgian pilot who flew the plane to where he was killed, a Belgian officer who commanded the firing squad.

And then, the really disastrous thing that followed was this enthusiastic United States backing for the dictatorial regime of Mobutu, who seized total power a couple years later and ran a 32-year dictatorship, enriched himself by about $4 billion, and really ran his country into the ground, was greeted by every American president, with the sole exception of Jimmy Carter, who was in office during those 32 years. And he left the country a wreck, from which it has still not recovered.

AMY GOODMAN: Adam Hochschild, I want to play a clip of the former CIA agent John Stockwell talking about the CIA's plans to assassinate the prime minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba.

JOHN STOCKWELL: The CIA had developed a program to assassinate Lumumba, under Devlin's encouragement and management. The program they developed, the operation, didn't work. They didn't follow through on it. It was to give poison to Lumumba. And they couldn't find a setting in which to get the poison to him successfully in a way that it wouldn't appear to be a CIA operation. I mean, you couldn't invite him to a cocktail party and give him a drink and have him die a short time later, obviously. And so, they gave up on it. They got cold feet. And instead, they handled it by the chief of station talking to Mobutu about the threat that Lumumba posed, and Mobutu going out and killing Lumumba, having his men kill Lumumba.

INTERVIEWER: What about the CIA's relationship with Mobutu? Were they paying him money?

JOHN STOCKWELL: Yes, indeed. I was there in 1968 when the chief of station told the story about having been, the day before that day, having gone to make payment to Mobutu of cash - $25,000 - and Mobutu saying, "Keep the money. I don't need it." And by then, of course, Mobutu's European bank account was so huge that $25,000 was nothing to him.

AMY GOODMAN: That was former CIA agent John Stockwell talking about the CIA's plans to assassinate Lumumba. Juan?

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, Adam, I'd like to ask you - you were in the Congo shortly after Lumumba's death. Could you talk about - we have about a minute - could you talk about your personal experiences there and what you saw?

ADAM HOCHSCHILD: Yes, I was there. I was just a college student at the time. And I wish I could say that I was smart and politically knowledgeable enough to realize the full significance of everything I was seeing. I was not, and it was really only in later years that I began to understand it. But what I do remember - and this was, as I say, six months or so after he was killed - was the sort of ominous atmosphere in Leopoldville, as the capital was called then, these jeeps full of soldiers who were patrolling the streets, the way the streets quickly emptied at dusk, and then two very, very arrogant guys at the American embassy who were proudly talking over drinks one evening about how this person, Lumumba, had been killed, whom they regarded, you know, not as a democratically elected African leader, but as an enemy of the United States. And so, of course, I, as a fellow American, they expected to be happy that he had been done away with. There was something quite chilling about that, and it stuck with me. But I think it's only in much later years that I fully realized the significance.

AMY GOODMAN: Adam Hochschild, I want to thank you very much for being with us, author of several books, including King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed.

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17) Latest Versions of Mayor's Anti-Protester Ordinances on the Eve of the City Council Vote
by Andy Thayer, CANG8
January 18, 2012
http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/95662/index.php

CHICAGO - Early morning, Jan. 18 - Over the past few days, opponents of Mayor Emanuel's "sit down and shut up" ordinances have faced a moving target. In response to a firestorm of protest, the administration has dropped some of the more widely publicized repressive measures, but has often over-sold, if not directly lied about, the magnitude of its concessions to public pressure.

Case in point: At a City Council committee meeting this morning, the administration made much of its dropping of increased penalties for resisting arrest. Left unsaid, though, was that Chicago's unique interpretation of "resisting" makes many forms of non-violent civil disobedience subject to punishment under the statute. This would be in addition to more conventional charges, like trespassing, that one would be likely to get for such non-violent protest.

The City has made getting accurate information about its proposed ordinance changes a chore, even for experienced reporters. At a briefing for the press last week, they made many verbal promises about what the revised proposals contained, but refused to go on the record or release printed copies of them to the media at that time. At one of today's City Council committee meetings, they said that the City Clerk's website had up-to-date versions of the Mayor's proposals, but as of midnight tonight, only the out-dated versions were there.

The following is thus a perhaps imperfect accounting of the serious problems that remain in Emanuel's "sit down and shut up" ordinances, as gleaned from today's City Council committee meetings and discussions with aldermen. If there are inaccuracies in this account, a large part of the blame is due to the City's appalling non-transparency throughout this whole process.

Here are the highlights of why Emanuel's proposed ordinances should be rejected:

1. The minimum fine for violation of the City's parade permit ordinance would jump four-fold, from $50 to $200. A "concession" rolled out today by the administration would keep the maximum penalty at $1000 and/or 10 days in jail. However, given that the new version of the ordinance offers so many new ways to violate it, this "victory" for our side may be illusory.

2. In advance of a demonstration, organizers would be required to provide the City with a list of all signs, banners, sound equipment or "attention-getting devices" that require more than one person to carry them. It is unclear whether such information would be required on the permit application (i.e., months in advance), or at some later time in advance of the demonstration. Either way, the proposal is totally unworkable and a license for the city to "ding" organizers with absurd fines.

The City's grand concession is that its earlier proposal demanded that all signs, banners, etc. be registered. This is now replaced by a requirement that "only" those such signs, etc. that require two or more people to carry them be registered. A mayoral representative, Michelle T. Boom, the Commissioner of the Department of Cultural affairs and Special Events, tried to soft-pedal this provision by implying that there would be no penalty for violation of it. But if that's so, why include it in the ordinance at all?

3. The no-bid contracts provision for G8 / NATO activities, an invitation to rampant graft and contract favoritism, remains intact.

4. The provision allowing deputizing of "law enforcement" by the Chicago Police Department remains intact. After listing a bunch of different bodies that would be subject to deputizing, like the DEA, the FBI and the Illinois State Police, Emanuel's latest proposal also includes "and other law enforcement agencies as determined by the superintendent of police to be necessary for the fulfillment of law enforcement functions." In other words, anyone he wants, be they rent-a-cops, Blackwater goons on domestic duty, or whatever. For a city that has great problems keeping its directly sworn officers in check, this looser authority is an even greater license for abuse.

and,

5. The proposed, huge financial burdens for virtually all downtown street demonstrations would remain in the latest version of the ordinance proposals. Virtually all downtown protest marches would require that organizers get $1 million insurance coverage, "indemnify the city against any additional or uncovered third party claims against the city arising out of or caused by the parade," and "agree to reimburse the city for any damage to the public way or city property arising out of or caused by the parade."

In other words, someone not at all associated with you or your organization could decide to crash your event, cause damage to city property, and the City could insist that you pick up the tab. While the financial requirements can be waived by the Commissioner of Transportation, this decision would be up to his/her discretion.

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At one point during this afternoon's committee meeting, a member of the public raised concerns about the permit requirements for public assemblies (i.e., rallies, pickets, and sidewalk marches that do not require street closings). Boom responded that the language for the new public assembly ordinance, 10-8-334, is taken directly from public assembly provisions of the current 10-8-330 permit ordinance, and that thus no one should be alarmed about it because "they [the police] don't enforce a lot of it."

But that just highlights a major reason why the current permit ordinance is deficient, and that the mayor's new proposals make it much worse. While "they don't enforce a lot of it" against very disruptive events like the St. Patrick's Day parade and other events that have City Hall's favor, "they" - the Chicago Police - very much enforce it against anti-war protesters and other 1st Amendment messages that they disagree with. Selective enforcement of the current ordinance already gives police officers plenty of arbitrary authority to take out their personal animus on messages and individuals they loathe, and the additional requirements of Emanuel's new ordinances give them even more license for abuse.

During this afternoon's meeting of the Committee on Special Events, Cultural Affairs and Recreation, mayoral spokespeople occasionally cited as a major reason for their ordinance revisions a decision decision by Federal Judge Richard Posner condemning the City for its handling of a mass anti-war march on the start of the Iraq War (Vodak v. City of Chicago, et al). But the City's citing of the Posner decision was entirely disingenuous, and their "solution" - the new ordinances - is not what Posner said should be done.

"The indifference of the superintendent and his subordinates to the danger to public safety and convenience of a mass antiwar demonstration cannot be attributed to the ordinance, defective as it undoubtedly is," wrote Posner [emphasis mine]. The defectiveness in the ordinance, Posner implies, is due to its convoluted nature. To add even more requirements, then, would be to go in the opposite direction that Posner proposes as a solution.

The City may disagree with Judge Posner. That is their right. But they cannot cite him in their defense of an even worse ordinance, which ironically, they want to impose just weeks before this major class action suit against the City for alleged wholesale police abuse of protesters goes to trial.

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18) Call General Linnington - Tell him to drop the charge of 'aiding the enemy'
Shine a Light on War and Occupation
FREE BRADELY MANNING
Bradley Manning Support Network
January 20, 2012
http://www.bradleymanning.org/activism/call-general-linnington-tell-him-to-drop-the-charge-of-aiding-the-enemy

The Bradley Manning Support Network has just been notified that the recommendations made last week by Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, who presided over last month's Article 32 hearing, have been passed up the chain of command by Col. Carl R. Coffman Jr. This means that Lt. Col. Almanza, and now Col. Coffman, have decided that all charges against Bradley Manning - including the most odious charge of "aiding the enemy" - should be referred to a full military court-martial. At this moment, these recommendations now sit on the desk of Major General Michael S. Linnington, who represents an entity known as the General Court-Martial Convening Authority. He now has the final power to rubber stamp these recommendations, which would formally refer these charges and initiate the court-martial process.

We need you and everyone you know to call General Linnington right now at 202-685-2807.

If the general's staff are not answering their phone, please call the DoD as FireDogLake is asking their supporters to do,

"We're calling the Department of Defense to demand they drop the "aiding the enemy" against Manning. To make your voice heard:

1. Dial 703-571-3343
2. Press 5 to leave a comment
* If the mailbox is full, leave a written comment for the DOD here: https://kb.defense.gov/app/ask/session/"

Tell him that we're watching him. Tell him to drop the charge of "aiding the enemy" and allow the defense team access to the critical evidence and testimony that they have so far been denied. Tell the military to stop preventing consideration of evidence which shows that these WikiLeaks revelations were never a threat to our national security. Tell them to stop the show trial.

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19) "Sit Down and Shut Up" ordinances passed in Chicago City Council
Joint statement by Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8) and Occupy Chicago
By Staff |
January 18, 2012
http://www.fightbacknews.org/2012/1/18/sit-down-and-shut-ordinances-passed-chicago-city-council

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following joint statement from the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8) and Occupy Chicago on the Jan. 18 vote by the Chicago City Council.

Joint statement by Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8) and Occupy Chicago

At 12:30 today, Rahm Emanuel officiated over the death of the Bill of Rights in the City Council chambers.

Ordinances designed to severely restrict First Amendment rights of speech and assembly were presented on December 14th. The stated target was to prepare to repress protesters during the summits of NATO and the G8.

At first, aldermen and the media all agreed that no one would oppose Emanuel on this.

In response to mayor's attack on civil liberties, the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8) joined together with Occupy Chicago and several unions to unite our efforts to defend of civil liberties in Chicago. By last week, aldermen had felt so much pressure from constituents that they had to speak out.

Emanuel then moved to withdraw first one, and then another, of the most criticized pieces. Protests continued to grow; Emanuel retreated further; the protests mounted, and he retreated even further.

Finally, a version was reached that the council opposition could vote for, hoping that the movement would not condemn them. The final version is still a significant attack on democratic rights; its passage is a defeat for our movement.

The mayor has not achieved his true objective, though. Emanuel looks at the new Chicago he has inherited, with protesters in so many places, and he wants to put the genie back in the bottle. It's not possible.

We have the right to protest against war, austerity, and inequality. Mayor Emanuel, you'll see us in the streets of Chicago: our streets.

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20) Senate Postpones Vote on Internet Piracy Bill
By JONATHAN WEISMAN
January 20, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/technology/senate-postpones-piracy-vote.html?hp

WASHINGTON - Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, on Friday called off a scheduled vote on the Internet piracy bill that had rallied the World Wide Web and rocked Capitol Hill, and House leaders took steps to slow legislation as well.

Taking to the medium that helped organize extensive protests against the legislation, Mr. Reid, Democrat of Nevada, announced a delay in the vote via the social media Web site Twitter. But he indicated the issue, which had been scheduled for a vote Tuesday, had not died.

"There's no reason that legitimate issues raised about PROTECT IP can't be resolved," he wrote, referring to the legislation by its short-hand name. "Counterfeiting & piracy cost 1000s of #jobs yearly. Americans rightfully expect to be fairly compensated 4 their work. I'm optimistic that we can reach compromise on PROTECT IP in coming week."

In the House, Representative Lamar Smith, the Texas Republican who is chairman of the Judiciary Committee, called off plans to formally draft his version of the anti-piracy bill next month.

After vowing two days ago to move forward, Mr. Smith said in a statement on Friday: "The Committee remains committed to finding a solution to the problem of online piracy that protects American intellectual property and innovation." But he added, "The House Judiciary Committee will postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution."

The Protect I.P. Act and its counterpart in the House, the Stop Online Piracy Act, had broad bipartisan support when they were drafted by Mr. Smith and Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont and chairman of the Judiciary Committee. The bills were pushed hard by the Hollywood studios, recording industry, book publishing world and United States Chamber of Commerce as antidotes to rampant piracy of American cultural wares by offshore Web sites.

But many Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Reddit, saw the bills as a threat, and said they would stifle creativity on the Internet while forcing search engines and social media to become police officers for the Department of Justice. Other outlets, like Wikipedia, objected to any proposed laws that could crimp the free flow of information on the Internet.

With new economy aplomb, the Internet giants rallied their troops to rise up against Washington stalwarts like the Motion Picture Association of America and the Recording Industry Association of America. What had started as a non-partisan issue began turning to Republican advantage, as Republicans led the flight away from the bill.

By Thursday night, senior Republican staff members were bragging that the remaining supporters of the bills were largely Democrats, even though members of both parties had helped draft them.

Mr. Leahy went along with Mr. Reid's decision to back off, but he made it clear he was doing so reluctantly.

"More time will pass with jobs lost and economies hurt by foreign criminals who are stealing American intellectual property and selling it back to American consumers," he said in a statement.

"The day will come when the senators who forced this move will look back and realize they made a knee-jerk reaction to a monumental problem," he added. "Somewhere in China today, in Russia today, and in many other countries that do not respect American intellectual property, criminals who do nothing but peddle in counterfeit products and stolen American content are smugly watching how the United States Senate decided it was not even worth debating how to stop the overseas criminals from draining our economy."

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21) G.E. Says Operating Profit in Quarter Rose 6%
[GE--famous for not only not paying any taxes--but for actually getting tax rebates right from out of the pockets of the 99 percent!...bw]
By STEVE LOHR
January 20, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/21/business/general-electric-says-quarterly-profit-rose-6.html?hp

General Electric, the nation's largest industrial company, reported a higher fourth-quarter profit on Friday and a slight decline in revenue.

The financial performance is in line with Wall Street's expectations and reflected the company's strategy of paring back its reliance on its big finance arm and relying more on its diverse portfolio of industrial businesses.

The quarterly profit was helped by strong orders for jet engines and a favorable tax rate. G.E. executives expressed confidence that despite "volatile" economic conditions, especially in Europe, the company would remain on track for double-digit earnings growth in 2012 and an increase in the dividend payout to shareholders.

G.E. reported that its operating earnings rose 6 percent to $4.1 billion, which excludes the previous year's contribution from NBC Universal, which G.E. had owned and sold a majority stake to Comcast. Net earnings attributable to the company fell 18 percent, to $3.7 billion, largely because the year-ago quarter included the proceeds of the sale of BAC Credomatic GECF, a lending company in Central America, said Keith S. Sherin, G.E.'s chief financial officer.

Its operating earnings per share rose 11 percent, to 39 cents a share. The result partly reflects fewer shares outstanding than the year-earlier quarter, because the company bought back shares, and was just above analysts' average estimate of 38 cents a share, as compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Revenue for the quarter declined 8 percent, to $38 billion. That was below Wall Street's forecast of $40 billion. Excluding revenue in the 2010 fourth quarter from NBC, revenue from continuing operations rose 4 percent.

In a statement, Jeffrey R. Immelt, General Electric's chief executive, said the quarterly performance underlined the company's "strength and resilience," continuing a steady recovery from the financial crisis. In Europe, Mr. Immelt said, the company would be restructuring its operations given the weakness in that market.

But Mr. Immelt said G.E. remained confident that its financial improvement would improve in 2012 enough to "provide dividend growth to our shareholders in line with earnings."

Revenue in General Electric's industrial businesses - ranging from jet engines and power generators to medical-imaging equipment and wind mills - rose 10 percent to $26.8 billion. The result was helped by strong sales of jet engines and gas turbines in the Middle East.

The company's revenue was held back by a 9 percent decline, to $11.6 billion, in its finance unit, GE Capital. That contraction was by design. Before the financial crisis hit in 2008, GE Capital had grown well beyond its traditional business of financing sales of the company's industrial equipment into home mortgages in Britain and consumer finance in Japan.

But battered by the credit crunch, General Electic was forced to cut its dividend for the first time since the Great Depression, and began the lengthy process of shedding bad loans and trimming the finance business.

A smaller GE Credit produces less revenue for the company, but the recovery of the unit has been the main source of profit gains in the last few years.

"GE Capital is continuing to improve and to drive earnings growth for the company," said Steven Winoker, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein.

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22) Romanian Protesters Urge Government's Ouster
By NICHOLAS KULISH
January 19, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/world/europe/romanian-protesters-urge-governments-ouster.html?ref=world

BUCHAREST, Romania - Thousands of protesters gathered in Romania's capital on Thursday to demand the ouster of the government and new elections, as a week of demonstrations against far-reaching austerity measures and years of difficult reforms seemed to gain strength.

Economic frustrations have spilled into the streets here, as they have in Spain and Greece. Protesters in University Square downtown shouted chants calling for the resignation of President Traian Basescu and his ally, Prime Minister Emil Boc.

Around 11 p.m. several demonstrators began dragging metal barricades into the street, and some hurled bottles and other objects at the police. Hundreds of riot police officers in black ski masks moved in, clearing the square and nearby streets. Fifty-five people were arrested, and five were treated for injuries, according to Realitatea TV.

The demonstrations were reminiscent of Sunday's protests, which turned violent, with demonstrators smashing store windows, setting newsstands on fire and throwing stones at police officers, who dispersed the crowds with tear gas and arrested dozens of people.

The wave of protests, which have spread across the country, broke out after a popular health official resigned last week over government proposals to overhaul the health-care system. The official was reinstated this week, and a controversial proposal to partly privatize the medical emergency-response system has been shelved for now, but the protests have continued.

"I want the president to resign, the prime minister to resign and the entire government to be replaced with experts who are not involved in politics," said Mihaela Leonte, 31, a hairstylist who joined the raucous crowd in the square in Bucharest on Thursday night. The dispute over the health overhaul "was the final straw," said Ms. Leonte, who held a picture of President Basescu with the nose of a pig superimposed on his face. "But it is more than that. People are determined."

Protesters focused much of their anger on Mr. Basescu, a former ship captain whose leadership style has been widely criticized as increasingly authoritarian. They cited cuts to government salaries, frozen pensions and an increase in the value-added tax, as well as what they said was deep-seated corruption and a broader sense that the government served only its own interests and those of its richest constituents.

Many of the same broad themes have been voiced by demonstrators in countries as diverse as Israel and India, from the "indignados," or outraged, in Spain to the Occupy Wall Street protests that started in New York and spread around the world.

In Romania, news media reported that the unrest had spread over the past week to about 60 cities nationwide. About 7,000 people turned up at a rally in Bucharest on Thursday organized by the opposition National Liberal Party, according to the Ministry of the Interior, and the crowd in the downtown square later was said to number about 1,500.

Romania had to turn to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the European Union in 2009 for 20 billion euros in emergency loans (about $27 billion at the exchange rates then). In response the government took tough steps to rein in the budget deficit, which was 7.3 percent of gross domestic product that year. Without the spending cuts and tax increases, that could have risen to 13.7 percent in 2010, according to Andreea Paul, an economic adviser to Mr. Boc. Instead the deficit was cut to 6.9 percent in 2010 and an estimated 4.2 percent in 2011, and the economy began to grow again.

"It was not easy at all, politically speaking, but these are times when political leaders separate themselves from demagogic politicians," said Ms. Paul, who placed blame for the protests on opposition parties trying to drum up discontent in an election year.

Laura Stefan, a senior analyst at the Expert Forum, a research institute in Bucharest, disputed the government's characterization of the demonstrations as driven by the opposition parties. "Economically, those were sound decisions taken by the government, but that doesn't mean people were happy with them," Ms. Stefan said. "It's not at all an attempt to change the government for the opposition, but people saying that all parties are just as dirty."

Octavian Caldararu, 75, a retired construction worker, said he was not a member of any party but took part in the opposition rally at Bucharest's triumphal arch, modeled after the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, to show his displeasure with the direction the country had taken in recent years. "I took part in the revolution in 1989" against the dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, Mr. Caldararu said, "and the ideals of the revolution have not only been forgotten, they have been broken."

Mr. Ceausescu and his wife were executed on Dec. 25, 1989. Since then, Romania has made significant strides, joining the European Union and NATO. But the recession in the wake of the global financial crisis struck the country of 22 million particularly hard. And even as the economy has recovered here, some Romanians who used to work in other European Union countries whose economies have slowed, particularly Spain and Italy, have been forced to come home, making the search for jobs even harder for the long-term unemployed.

Alexandru Dragan, 46, an electro-technician, said he had been unemployed since 2009 despite having a lengthy résumé and work experience in Germany.

"Regular Romanian citizens who are not a part of any political party should be asked about new laws," Mr. Dragan said. "If we look at the people, we can find smarter individuals than the ones in the current government."

Mihai Radu contributed reporting.

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23) Active-Duty Soldiers Take Their Own Lives at Record Rate
By ELISABETH BUMILLER
January 19, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/20/us/active-duty-army-suicides-reach-record-high.html?ref=us

WASHINGTON - Suicides among active-duty soldiers hit another record high in 2011, Army officials said on Thursday, although there was a slight decrease if nonmobilized Reserve and National Guard troops were included in the calculation.

The Army also reported a sharp increase, nearly 30 percent, in violent sex crimes last year by active-duty troops. More than half of the victims were active-duty female soldiers ages 18 to 21.

"This is unacceptable," Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, the departing vice chief of staff of the Army, said at a news conference, referring to the jump in violent sex offenses. "We have zero tolerance for this." General Chiarelli said factors driving the increase in sex crimes were alcohol use and new barracks that offered more privacy. He said it was also possible that reporting of the offenses had increased.

General Chiarelli said that 164 active-duty Army, National Guard, and Reserve troops took their own lives in 2011, compared with 159 in 2010 and 162 in 2009. The increase occurred even as the Army expanded suicide prevention efforts and drug and alcohol counseling, in large part in response to a steady rise in Army suicides that began in 2004.

Asked if he was frustrated by the jump last year in suicide by active-duty soldiers, General Chiarelli said no.

"The question you have to ask yourself, and this is the number that no one can prove, what would it have been if we had not focused the efforts that we focused on it?" he said. He said that "for all practical purposes, for the last two to three years, it has leveled off."

General Chiarelli held the news conference to release a new report, "Generating Health and Discipline in the Force," a review of the overall health of the Army after a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the longest period of conflict in the nation's history. The report, printed well before Thursday, did not include the final number of 164 suicides among active-duty soldiers for 2011. General Chiarelli disclosed that statistic at the news conference, as well as the number of suicides among active-duty troops from 2008 to 2010.

General Chiarelli said that if nonmobilized National Guard and Reserve units were included, Army suicides dropped to 278 in 2011, from 305 in 2010.

Active-duty Army suicide rates have been higher than civilian rates since 2008, when there were nearly 20 suicides per 100,000 in the Army, compared with close to 18 suicides per 100,000 in a civilian population that was adjusted to be comparable to Army demographics. The Army projects that final 2011 numbers will be more than 24 suicides among active-duty soldiers per 100,000, another record high.

The rise in Army suicides has long been attributed to the stress of repeated deployments during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But Army officials say there are many other factors at work, including alcohol abuse and a lowering of recruiting standards several years ago that allowed a higher-risk population into the military. In 2010, General Chiarelli said that about 60 percent of Army suicides occurred during a soldier's first enlistment, typically four years, and that the most dangerous year was the first - suggesting that repeated deployments to war zones were not necessarily a major factor in suicide.

Since then, Army officials said there had been a decrease in the number of soldiers who committed suicide after one deployment and an increase in those who killed themselves after two or more deployments.

Last year, for example, about 40 percent of suicides occurred after one deployment and another 40 percent were committed after two or more deployments. Army officials could not explain the change, although they said they were asking themselves three questions in trying to analyze the data: Was their attention to suicide risk among young soldiers paying off? Did repeated deployments in fact place soldiers at higher risk of suicide? Did a dismal civilian job market discourage soldiers, already stressed by repeat deployments, from leaving the force?

General Chiarelli sought to paint the report in a positive light by saying that the Army leadership was paying serious attention to troubles within the force.

"The fact I'm in front of you here today laying this out for you shows you that we see these problems, we see where we've had successes, and we're attacking those areas where we've got problems," he said. "But I also think it shows the fact that after 10 years of war, with an all-volunteer force, you're going to have problems that no one could have forecasted before this began."

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