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"It's a two class country and the wrong class is running it!" -From a Soldier of Solidarity
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MAY DAY 2012
OCCUPY WALL STREET STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH CALLS FOR:
ON MAY DAY -- WHEREVER YOU ARE -- WHOEVER YOU ARE
NO WORK! NO CHORES! NO BANKING! NO SHOPPING! NO SCHOOL!
A DAY WITHOUT THE 99 PERCENT -- A GENERAL STRIKE AND MORE!!
TAKE THE STREETS!
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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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Please distribute widely via Facebook, Twitter, etc. Let us know about April 10th "Justice 4 Trayvon Martin" actions in your city.
Email us with details so that your action can be listed:
info@occupy4jobs.org
A Florida grand jury is scheduled on April 10 to "consider" whether to arrest the vigilante who lynched by bullet our brother and son, Trayvon Martin, on Feb. 26.
International Day of Justice 4 Trayvon Martin
TUES, APRIL 10 TAKE TO THE STREETS
GATHER AT UNION SQUARE 6:00 P.M.
14th Street & Broadway, Manhattan in New York City
The People's Power Tour and Occupy 4 Jobs urges all organizations, activists and communities to UNITE AS ONE to tell the grand jury that we demand the arrest of George Zimmerman and hold the police responsible for him walking the streets free.
JUSTICE for TRAYVON MARTIN
JUSTICE FOR RAMARLEY GRAHAM & ALL VICTIMS OF POLICE BRUTALITY
STOP THE RACIST STOP & FRISK POLICY
JOBS NOT JAILS: A Massive Jobs Program for Youth,
No police & vigilante terror
STOP DEPORTATIONS of Undocumented Workers
NO MORE CUTS in Education, School Closings, Teacher & Faculty layoffs,
End tuition hikes
STOP THE WAR AGAINST YOUTH
For more information and to get involved email: info@occupy4jobs.org
www.occupy4Jobs.org
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Subject: From code pink: Occupy Oakland ENDORSES our NO WAR ON IRAN
April 17th Action!!!
NO WAR ON IRAN ACTION: Occupy & War(s)
April 17th, Tuesday, 12:00 noon - 5pm
Oakland Federal Building
Reasons:
We're happy to bring you GREAT news! The awesome Occupy Oakland folks voted UNANIMOUSLY to endorse our proposal for a NO WAR ON IRAN action to coincide with the Global Day of Action Against Military Spending, April 17th, from noon-5 at the Oakland Federal Building.
This is what we've been hoping for and working towards: getting the anti-war message front and center with the Occupy movement!!! So let's BE THERE!
So PLEASE mark your calendars, call in PINK, and join us in front of the Oakland Federal Building Tuesday, April 17th, the final day our U.S. income taxes - to pay for wars - are due!
Come bring your ideas & resources & help us plan this action on Saturday, March 24th, 11am-1pm at Mudrakers Cafe, 2801 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley! Thus far we are working on a press conference, maybe a march to/from the Post Office, visual timeline of US. military aggression, street theater, FOOD, music, banner drops, and???
PROPOSAL: Endorse Global Day of Action Against Military Spending NO WAR ON IRAN with CodePINK, anti-war groups, Tuesday, April 17th noon-5pm, Oakland Federal Building
HELLO, we are here as part of CodePINK:Women4Peace, WAK:Women Against Killing, Grandmothers Against War & other activist anti-war groups.
We in CodePINK & WAK work to enable, value and project specifically women's voices, womenâ€(tm)s ideas, womenâ€(tm)s actions, womenâ€(tm)s leadership, as we work to end all forms of violence, especially the violence of â€Å"warâ€ and military occupation.
The imminent threat of a new war against Iran carries with it the real danger of yet another horrendous global, human, environmental (not to mention political,etc) catastrophe, while the present wars continue that same horrendous devastation.
The voice of the U.S. people needs to be heard to STOP this from happening, and we would like to work especially with Occupy, with individuals, communities, and working groups to amplify and direct our tactics, actions, and solutions.
As part of our NO WAR ON IRAN actions, NO NEW WARS, END ALL WARS, we are calling for a protest & occupation in front of the Oakland Federal Building in conjunction with the Global Day of Action AGAINST MILITARY SPENDING. And on the day our income taxes - that pay for wars & occupations ââ€" are due.
Also, Help clarify what wars ‘abroadâ€(tm) have to do with wars at home: foreclosures, racism, budget cuts, misogyny, homelessness, military & prison industrial complex
We hope Occupy will vote to endorse this NO WAR ON IRAN Action as a joint action with CodePINK & other anti-war groups & individuals. We also hope that as a result of this Action together, we can begin an occupy working group or committee that will have regular report- backs to the G.A.
The protest thus far will include banner drops, visuals: timeline of US military aggression, especially against Iran, FOOD, educational exercises, music, group discussions, die-ins, teach- ins, and other ACTIONS.
War and the Military & Prison Industrial Complex are and have always been integral to forming and building of our politics, our economy, our culture and our very country.
In 2011, we spent TWO BILLION dollars a DAY on wars, military occupations, attacks against other nations, primarily peoples of color.
In the U.S., we have 4-5% of the worldâ€(tm)s people while we consume 25-60% of the worldâ€(tm)s resources. We are able to secure so many resources because of our military and our willingness to engage our military might in the conquering, capturing, destroying of people, their lands, their resources - people with miinimal weaponry and military technology.
We spend more on our military than every other country in the world combined.
The U.S. military is the largest single consumer of fossil fuels.
Everything we have obtained in this country, from the very land we stand on to all our ‘richesâ€(tm), we have gotten through genocide, enslaving, torturing, and/or killing someone: from the first time Europeans set foot on this soil to commit genocide against Indigenous Peoples, to enslaving African peoples, to declaring wars against Mexicans, to sending troops off this continent to protect U.S. business interest, steal resources, & occupy the lands of others - mostlly peoples of color - beginning in 1801 when the marines occupied Libya for 4 years, until this very day.
We have over 1000 military bases (that we know about) in over 150 countries in our world of about 192 countries.
In 2011, 52% of our federal discretionary budget supplied by income taxes, went to the military; 7% to education; 5% to health care.
War profiteers, as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Atomics, make much more profits then Goldman Sucks and/or banks.
We invite individuals and working groups from Occupy to come and participate with us in this Global Day of Action against Military Spending, END WARS, NO NEW WARS specifically NO WAR ON IRAN, Tuesday, April 17th, noon â€" 5pm.
Again we are asking at this G.A. if you will endorse this Global Day of Action Against Military Spending, Tuesday, April 17th & join us at the Oakland Federal Building, noon - 5pm.
This action will be taking place on: APRIL 17th, Tuesday, from 12 noon until 5PM at the Oakland Federal Building, 1301 Clay Street, Oakland
You are invited to participate in any way, pass out flyers, spread the word. PLEASE come to our next organizing meeting every Saturday, 11-1pm at Mudrakerâ€(tm)s cafÃ(c) - on the flyer. All are invited.
In solidarity and action,
Xan Sam Joi
DISARM DISARM DISARM
work for peace; hold all life sacred; eliminate violence
www.codepinkjournals.blogspot.com
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Stand with Bradley Manning during the April 24-26 hearing
http://ymlp.com/zKyp5L
Write to Bradley Manning at:
Bradley Manning #89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
Bradley Manning Support Network:
http://www.bradleymanning.org/
Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
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6 Ways to Get Ready for the May 1st GENERAL STRIKE
by OccupyWallSt
Yesterday, 60,000 marched on Madison to mark the one-year anniversary of the passage of Governor Scott Walker's drastic dismantling of collective bargaining rights for public employees. Last year, Walker's attacks on labor rights sparked massive protests that saw hundreds of thousands occupy the Wisconsin capital building. Their actions prefigured Occupy Wall Street and inspired countless others to take a stand against economic inequality, political injustice, and the tyranny of the 1% enforced through politicians and banksters alike.
This is just one example that people across the globe are actively resisting attacks on the 99%. This year has already seen the largest-ever strike on record in India, hundreds of thousands marching for democracy in Bahrain, general strikes in Montreal and Spain where students once again occupied public space in protest of the austerity measures and spending cuts being enforced by the European banking elite, massive uprisings in the streets of Moscow, and more. Even in the United States, the movement grows. The corporate media claims that Occupy's strength is waning, but they are merely in denial. During the coldest months of this year, the United States has already seen more revolutionary momentum than it has in decades.
This winter, we refocused our energies on fostering ties with local communities, saving homes from corrupt banks and jobs from greedy corporations, and building and expanding our horizontal infrastructure. This #GlobalSpring, we will take the streets again. On May 1st, Occupy Wall Street has called for a General Strike. We are calling on everyone who supports the cause of economic justice and true democracy to take part: No Work, No School, No Housework, No Shopping, No Banking - and most importantly, TAKE THE STREETS!
We are getting ready. Planning is already underway in dozens of cities. Labor organizers, immigrants' rights groups, artists, Occupiers, faith leaders, and more have all joined in the discussion to get ready. Now, all we need is you. Keep reading to find out how you can get involved!
May 1st, also known as International Workers' Day, is the annual commemoration of the 1886 Haymarket Massacre in Chicago, when Chicago police fired on workers during a General Strike for the eight-hour workday. In many countries, May 1st is observed as a holiday. But in the United States, despite the eventual success of the eight-hour-workday campaign, the holiday is not officially recognized. In spite of this, May Day is already a powerful date in the U.S. In 2006, immigrant's rights groups took to the streets in unprecedented numbers in a national "Day Without An Immigrant" - a general strike aimed at proving the economic power of immigrants in the U.S. At least one million people marched in Chicago and Los Angeles alone. Hundreds of thousands more marched throughout cities across the U.S.
Now, in response to call-outs from Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy Chicago, Occupy Oakland, and other General Assemblies and affinity groups, the Occupy Movement is preparing to mobilize a General Strike this May 1st in solidarity with struggles already underway to defend the rights of workers, immigrants, and other communities who are resisting oppression. Dozens of Occupations in cities and towns throughout the United States, Canada, and Australia have already endorsed May Day. Here is just a taste of events in the works for New York City:
* 8am-4pm: Midtown action staging zone in Bryant Park. * Disruptive actions in midtown all day! Hit the 1% where they live and prevent them from getting to work. Let's make this a Day Without the 1%, as well! * Family friendly, free food, a really, REALLY free market, skillshares, workshops, lectures, art, fun and more! * 4pm: March to Union Square for solidarity march * 5:30pm: Solidarity march from Union Square to Wall St. * 7pm: March to staging area for evening actions
And this is just the beginning. To quote the ConfederaciÃ_n Nacional del Trabajo, a major Spanish union, who recently called for a national General Strike in Spain on March 29th to protest labor reforms:
For the CNT, the strike on March 29 must be only the beginning of a growing and sustained process of mobilization, one which includes the entire working class and the sectors that are most disadvantaged and affected by the capitalist crisis. This mobilization must put the brakes on the dynamic of constant assaults on our rights, while laying the bases for the recovery and conquest of new social rights with the goal of a deep social transformation.
None of this would be possible without the grassroots support of everyday organizers who volunteer their time to grow the movement against Wall Street greed and political corruption. Here are eight simple things you can do to help advance the cause of equity for all:
[1] Work With Your Local Occupy: There are hundreds of Occupy groups still holding regular meetings and events. Chances are, there's one nearby. (And if there isn't yet - it's easy to start one!) General Assemblies are open to everyone, and everyone has a voice in the consensus planning process. So find your nearest Occupation and go to a GA! If they haven't already endorsed the General Strike, propose it to the group and start planning marches, distributing fliers, and forming direct action groups.
[2] Spread the Word On Social Media: Follow #M1GS, @OWSMayDay, @OccupyWallSt, and @OccupyGenStrike on Twitter. Also be sure to RSVP on Facebook and follow facebook.com/OccupyGeneralStrike. You can also look for city-specific events, like these from Chicago and Detroit.
[3] Start an Affinity Group: You can take action on your own. All you need are a few friends. Affinity groups are groups of people who know each other and come together autonomously for a particular action. Find a few people who are interested in helping you out on a project you have in mind - whether it's making fliers and literature to distribute, or shutting down a Wall Street bank in your hometown. Get creative, and get to work! (Here's a hint: OccuPrint collects, prints, and distributes posters from the worldwide Occupy movement, and they have a ton of amazing General Strike posters!)
[4] Join the General Strike Conference Calls: InterOccupy hosts regular calls to organize May 1st activities. Check out their schedule and join in the conversation!
[5] Talk to Labor: Due to federal laws, most unions are forbidden from organizing strikes for political reasons. However, unions and labor groups are still some of our strongest allies. During last year's General Strike in Oakland, many unions encouraged their workers to take the day off or attend demonstrations after work. Not long after Occupy Oakland shut down ports in solidarity with striking Longshoreman, their employers caved to the union's demands in a new contract. Get in touch with local unions and labor organizations, let them know about the plans for a General Strike, find out what they're working on and how you can help, and encourage them to let their members know about May 1st and get involved in organizing directly.
[6] Organize Your Workplace, Campus, or Community: If you're a unionized worker, encourage your union to support the General Strike. Whether your workplace is union or not, you can encourage co-workers to take a sick day on May 1st. If you can't afford to lose out on pay, that's okay - there will be plenty of celebrations, marches, and direct actions throughout all hours of the day. Invite your community to attend. If you're a student at a high school or college, spread the word to walk-out of class on May 1st. If you're not a worker or student, organize your friends!
More information: [MayDayNYC.org] | [OccupyMay1st.org] | [StrikeEverywhere.net] | [NYC General Assembly - May Day]
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Occupy Oakland Call for Participation in a May 1, 2012 Global General Strike
Occupy Oakland decides to participate in the Global General Strike on May Day!!!
The Occupy Oakland General Assembly passed the proposal today!
Occupy Oakland Call for Participation in a May 1, 2012 Global General Strike
The general strike is back, retooled for an era of deep budget cuts, extreme anti-immigrant racism, and massive predatory financial speculation. In 2011, the number of unionized workers in the US stood at 11.8%, or approximately 14.8 million people.
What these figures leave out are the growing millions of people in this country who are unemployed and underemployed. The numbers leave out the undocumented, and domestic and manual workers drawn largely from immigrant communities. The numbers leave out workers whose workplace is the home and a whole invisible economy of unwaged reproductive labor. The numbers leave out students who have taken on nearly $1 trillion dollars in debt, and typically work multiple jobs, in order to afford skyrocketing college tuition. The numbers leave out the huge percentage of black Americans that are locked up in prisons or locked out of stable or secure employment because of our racist society.
In December of 2011,Oakland's official unemployment rate was a devastating 14.1%. As cities like Oakland are ground into the dust by austerity, every last public dollar will be fed to corrupt, militarized police departments in order to contain social unrest. On November 2 of last year, Occupy Oakland carried out the first general strike in the US since the 1946 Oakland general strike,shutting down the center of the city and blockading the Port of Oakland. We must re-imagine a general strike for an age where most workers do not belong to labor unions, and where most of us are fighting for the privilege to work rather than for marginal improvements in working conditions. We must take the struggle into the streets, schools, and offices of corrupt local city governments. A re-imagined general strike means finding immediate solutions for communities impacted by budget cuts and constant police harassment beyond changing government representatives. Occupy Oakland calls for and will participate in a new direction for the Occupy movement based on the recognition that we must not only find new ways to provide for our needs beyond thestate we must also attack the institutions that lock us into an increasingly miserable life of exploitation, debt, and deepening poverty everywhere. IF WE CAN'T LIVE, WE WON'T WORK.
May Day is an international holiday that commemorates the 1886 Haymarket Massacre, when Chicago police defending, as always, the interests of the 1% attacked and murdered workers participating in a general strike and demanding an 8-hour workday. In the 21st century, despite what politicians tell us, class war is alive and well against workers (rank-and- file and non-unionized), students, people of color, un- and underemployed, immigrants, homeless, women, queer/trans folks, prisoners. Instead of finding common ground with monsters, it's time we fight them. And it's time we make fighting back an everyday reality in the Bay Area and beyond.
On May Day 2012, Occupy Oakland will join with people from all walks of life in all parts of the world around the world in a global general strike to shut down the global circulation of capital that every day serves to enrich the ruling classes and impoverish the rest of us. There will be no victory but that which we make for ourselves, reclaiming the means of existence from which we have been and continue to be dispossessed every day.
REVOLT FOR A LIFE WORTH LIVING
STRIKE / BLOCKADE / OCCUPY
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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/
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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Photo of George Zimmerman, in 2005 photo, left, and in a more recent photo.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/04/02/us/the-events-leading-to-the-sooting-of-trayvon-martin.html?hp
SPD Security Cams.wmv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WWDNbQUgm4&feature=player_embedded
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Kids being put on buses and transported from school to "alternate locations" in Terror Drills
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFia_w8adWQ
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Private prisons,
a recession resistant investment opportunity
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIGLDOxx9Vg
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Attack Dogs used on a High School Walkout in MD, Four Students Charged With
"Thought Crimes"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wafMaML17w
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Common forms of misconduct by Law Enforcement Officials and Prosecutors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViSpM4K276w&feature=related
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Organizing & Instigating: OCCUPY - Ronnie Goodman
http://arthazelwood.com/instigator/occupy/occupy-birth-video.html
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Rep News 12: Yes We Kony
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68GbzIkYdc8
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The New Black by The Mavrix - Official Music Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4rLfja8488
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Japan One Year Later
http://www.onlineschools.org/japan-one-year-later/
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The CIA's Heart Attack Gun
http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/assassination-studies/the-cias-heart-attack-gun-.html
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Occupy The PGA
May 23-27 (big day: Sat. May 26) - Benton Harbor, Michigan
Demonstrate in protest of land stolen by Whirlpool Corporation
http://occupythepga.wordpress.com/
bhbanco.org
Rev. Edward Pinkney 269-925-0001
Occupy The PGA
May 23-27 (big day: Sat. May 26) - Benton Harbor, Michigan
Demonstrate in protest of land stolen by Whirlpool Corporation
http://occupythepga.wordpress.com/
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The Invisible American Workforce
http://www.democracynow.org/2011/8/5/new_expos_tracks_alec_private_prison
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Labor Beat: NATO vs The 1st Amendment
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbQxnb4so3U
For more detailed information, send us a request at mail@laborbeat.org.
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Anti-War Demonstrators Storm Pentagon 1967/10/24
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDiFkckszCw
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Liberal Hypocrisy on Obama Vs Bush - Poll
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pl_HGEXq_aM&feature=player_embedded
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Greek trade unionists and black bloc October 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHMLD_Vql0o&feature=player_embedded#!
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The Battle of Oakland
by brandon jourdan plus
http://vimeo.com/36256273
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Officers Pulled Off Street After Tape of Beating Surfaces
By ANDY NEWMAN
February 1, 2012, 10:56 am
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/01/officers-pulled-off-street-after-tape-of-beating-surfaces/?ref=nyregion
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Defending The People's Mic
by Pham Binh of Occupy Wall Street
The North Star
January 20, 2012
http://www.thenorthstar.info/?p=53
Grand Central Terminal Arrests - MIRROR
Two protesters mic check about the loss of freedom brought about by the passage of the NDAA and both are promptly arrested and whisked out of public sight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7Tj7tEVx8A&feature=player_embedded
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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 Lagitimus- 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
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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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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
DROP ALL CHARGES 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
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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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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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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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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
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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
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmS4kHC_OlY&feature=player_embedded
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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...
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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Antiwar/Social Justice Activist Arrested
Support Joe Callahan
On July 31, 2011, after two Salvadoran immigrants went to Canada to apply for asylum, long-time Twin Cities activist Joe Callahan was arrested by Canadian police at the Pigeon River border station. At the time Joe was alone in his car. The Canadian police used a backpack, maps and other items found in Joe's car as the grounds for his arrest.
Joe was charged with "aiding and abetting an immigration without a visa," and "providing false and misleading information." As a result of these charges, Joe was locked up in the Thunder Bay District Jail in cramped, crowded conditions where inmates are frequently forced to sleep on the floor, as Joe did for the first several days he was there. While Joe was in custody, the authorities added the charge of "smuggling" or "human trafficking." This charge is much more serious and carries a maximum sentence of ten years.
After one month Joe was released on bail and was allowed to return to the Minneapolis area, pending trial. He is restricted to the Twin Cities area as a condition of his release. Meanwhile, the prosecuting attorney, or "Crown Attorney," as they are called in Canada, informed Joe's defense attorneys that he is seeking a sentence of three or four years. The trial will be held in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The date has not yet been set. Joe is being represented by Mary Bird and Francis Thatcher, a prominent attorney in the Aboriginal rights struggle.
Over the last thirty years Joe has been active in solidarity work for Central America and Cuba. He has been an active defender of immigration rights. He was also active against an attempt to reinstate the death penalty in Minnesota. His record in the fight for justice goes back to his youth. As a student he was active in the anti-Vietnam war movement.
For four and a half years Joe worked for the Metro Transit System as a bus driver, and was a member of the Amalgamated Transit Union. He has spent his working life in blue collar, unionized jobs. Now, because of his legal difficulties, he has been forced to take a lower-paying position as a driver for a small bus company.
Joe Callahan is NOT a human trafficker! Joe is NOT a smuggler! These charges against him are unfounded and they should be dropped. Joe is a political activist concerned about the rights of immigrants. He needs the help of all supporters of democratic rights.
You can aid in Joe's defense:
--Send donations to: Joe Callahan Support Committee, 2919 Polk St. NE, Minneapolis, Mn 55418
--Circulate this letter and urge others to sign. New signers can sign via email to: joecallahansupport@hotmail.com
--Attend Joe's trial in Thunder Bay, Ontario. For more information contact: supportjoe.wordpress.com or joecallahansupport@hotmail.com
In solidarity,
Michael Rattner, President, Center for Constitutional Rights; Michael Steven Smith, Esq. Co-host, Law and Disorder; Jeff Mackler, Dir., Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu Jamal; Roger Sheppard, Member, Local 105 IBEW (retired); Barbara Mutnick, activist, Queens, New York; Cliff Conner, author, "A People's History of Science"; Marv Gandall, activist, Ottawa Canada; Walker Jones, activist, Ottawa Canada; Bruce Scheff, Chicago, IL; -Continued on page 2-; Support Joe Callahan, page 2; Dianne Feeley, Editor, Against the Current; Alan Wald, Editor, Against the Current; Malik Miah, Editor, Against the Current; John Riddell, Toronto; Suzanne Weiss, Toronto; Art Young, Greater Toronto Workers' Assembly; Linda Meissenheimer, Toronto; Brad Sigal, Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Coalition; Marie Braun, Twin Cities Peace Campaign; Dave Bicking, Green Party; Alan Dale, Minnesota Peace Action Coalition; Tracy Molm, Students for a Democratic Society; Eric Angell, co-producer, "Our World in "Depth"; Colleen McGilp, AFSCME (retired); Jess Sundin, Anti-War Committee; Bruce Nestor, Past President, National Lawyers Guild; Linden Gawboy, Committee to Stop FBI Repression; Tim O'Brien, Hands Off Honduras; Anh Pham, Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Coalition; Timothy Jordan, architect, Minneapolis; Kay Pitney, activist, Minneapolis; Jennie Eisert, Anti-War Committee; Beth Shapiro, Women Against Military Madness; Joel Greenberg, Chicago, Il.; Mark Satinoff, shop steward, IAM Local Lodge 1894, Queens, NY; Carol Hayse, LCSW Note: Organizations for Identification Purposes Only
This letter has been approved by the Joe Callahan Support Committee. Please circulate this letter as widely as possible to potential supporters.
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LATEST ON LYNNE STEWART:
Free-Speech Argument in Appeal of Disbarred Lawyer's Sentence
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
February 29, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/nyregion/free-speech-is-cited-in-appeal-of-lynne-stewarts-10-year-sentence.html?ref=nyregion
Write to Lynne Stewart Defense Committee at:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
For further information: 718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
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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Free Mumia NOW!
Prisonradio.org
Write to Mumia
Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932
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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/
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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/
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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
(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
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Say No to Police Repression of NATO Protests
http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/nato-g8-police-repression
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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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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 ï¬ght 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
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 .
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 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
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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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) Drones Coming to a Sky Near You as Interest Surges
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 1, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/04/01/business/ap-us-drone-nation.html?src=busln
2) In Florida, a Death Foretold
"In this atmosphere, blacks are the target of the highest number of hate crimes in the United States, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation - higher by a wide margin than any another group of Americans by race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or disability. While blacks make up 12.6 percent of the country's population, they were 70 percent of the victims of racial hate crimes in 2010."
By ISABEL WILKERSON
March 31, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/a-native-caste-society.html?hp
3) Race, Tragedy and Outrage Collide After a Shot in Florida
By DAN BARRY, SERGE F. KOVALESKI, CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and LIZETTE ALVAREZ
[Didn't Treyvon Martin, armed with an ice tea drink and a bag of Skittles also have the right to "stand his ground with some adult chasing him down?" This video gives you several clear views of all sides of Zimmerman's head when he was brought in to the police station after supposedly getting his nose broken and his head "smashed into the ground several times." See it for yourself. This is actually proof that the police report is a lie! There are NO MARKS ON GEORGE ZIMMERMAN'S FACE OR HEAD! ...bw]
SPD Security Cams.wmv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WWDNbQUgm4&feature=player_embedded
April 1, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/us/trayvon-martin-shooting-prompts-a-review-of-
ideals.html?hp
4) Britons Protest Government Eavesdropping Plans
By ALAN COWELL
April 2, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/world/europe/british-government-eavesdropping-
plans-draw-protest.html?hp
5) Ranks of Working Poor Grow in Europe
[This is happening here and now. Kids can't afford to "leave the nest." Anyway, the
"American Dream" was always a sham! And homeless people aren't even allowed to live in the State Parks or National Forests, let alone, put up a tent! ...Bonnie Weinstein]
By LIZ ALDERMAN
April 1, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/world/europe/in-rich-europe-growing-ranks-of-
working-poor.html?ref=world
6) Justices Approve Strip-Searches for Any Offense
By ADAM LIPTAK
April 2, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/us/justices-approve-strip-searches-for-any-
offense.html?ref=us
7) Too Many Small Fish Are Caught, Report Says
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
April 2, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/science/earth/forage-fish-catches-should-be-reduced-
report-says.html?ref=us
8) Unemployment in Euro Zone Hit New High in February
By REUTERS
April 2, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/business/global/unemployment-in-euro-zone-hit-
new-high-in-february.html?ref=business
9) Dow Shuts Plants, Cuts Jobs as Europe Struggles
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 2, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/04/02/business/ap-us-dow-chemical-
layoffs.html?ref=business
10) PA Supreme Court Denies Jamal Petition
Noelle Hanrahan, Prison Radio
PRISON RADIO A PROJECT OF THE REDWOOD JUSTICE FUND
P.O. BOX 411074
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94141
WWW.PRISONRADIO.ORG
415.648.4505
Breaking Legal News
11) Half of Irish Homeowners Join Boycott of New Property Tax
By DOUGLAS DALBY
April 2, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/world/europe/half-of-irish-homeowners-join-
boycott-of-household-tax.html?ref=world
12) California: Affirmative Action Ban Upheld
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 3, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/us/california-affirmative-action-ban-
upheld.html?ref=us
13) Missouri: Bat Disease Moves West
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 3, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/us/missouri-bat-disease-moves-west.html?ref=us
14) As Part of New Pact, U.S. Marines Arrive in Australia
By MATT SIEGEL
April 4, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/world/asia/us-marines-arrive-darwin-
australia.html?hp
15) Chancellor Asks Community College to Hold Off on Tuition Plan
By JENNIFER MEDINA
April 5, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/us/santa-monica-college-asked-to-hold-off-on-tuition-plan.html?_r=1&hp
16) Public Suicide for Greek Man With Fiscal Woe
By NIKI KITSANTONIS
April 4, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/world/europe/greek-man-ends-financial-despair-with-bullet.html?ref=world
17) 5 Ex-Officers Sentenced in Post-Katrina Shootings
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
April 4, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/us/5-ex-officers-sentenced-in-post-katrina-shootings.html?ref=us
18) Plan to Let Poultry Plants Inspect Birds Is Criticized
By RON NIXON
April 4, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/us/usda-poultry-inspection-plan-sets-off-dispute.html?ref=us
19) Graphic: The Billionaires' Club
By BEN PROTESS
[Graphic at link ...bw]
April 5, 2012, 1:06 pm
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/graphic-the-billionaires-club/?src=busln
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1) Drones Coming to a Sky Near You as Interest Surges
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 1, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/04/01/business/ap-us-drone-
nation.html?src=busln
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - Sharp-eyed dog walkers along the San Francisco Bay waterfront may have spotted a strange-looking plane zipping overhead recently that that looked strikingly like the U.S. stealth drone captured by Iran in December.
A few key differences: The flying wing seen over Berkeley is a fraction of the size of the CIA's waylaid aircraft. And it's made of plastic foam. But in some ways it's just like a real spy plane.
The 4 1/2-foot-wide aircraft, built by software engineers Mark Harrison and Andreas Oesterer in their spare time, can fly itself to specified GPS coordinates and altitudes without any help from a pilot on the ground. A tiny video camera mounted on the front can send a live video feed to a set of goggles for the drone's view of the world below.
"It's just like flying without all the trouble of having to be up in the air," Harrison said.
Thousands of hobbyists are taking part in what has become a global do-it-yourself drone subculture, a pastime that's thriving as the Federal Aviation Administration seeks to make the skies friendlier to unmanned aircraft of all sizes.
The use of drones in the U.S. by law enforcement and other government agencies has privacy advocates on edge. At the same time, some DIY drone flyers believe the ease of sending cheap pilotless planes and choppers airborne gives citizens a powerful tool for keeping public servants on the ground honest.
Drones are the signature weapon of U.S. wars in the 21st century. Just as Humvees became a presence on U.S. highways in the 1990s after the first war with Iraq, interest in non-military uses of drones from policing to farming is rising.
Government agencies currently need FAA permission on a case-by-case basis to fly drones domestically. Commercial use is banned except for a small number of waivers for companies building experimental aircraft. But lawmakers have instructed the agency to allow civilian use of drones in U.S. airspace by September 2015. The FAA is expected to take the first step this year by proposing rules that would permit limited use of small commercial drones.
Whether a border patrol drone the size of a single-engine passenger plane or a four-rotor police "quadcopter" equipped with gear to intercept cell phone signals, the increasing ease of aerial surveillance seems destined to be put to a constitutional test over privacy.
"Our concern is with all of the drones," said Jennifer Lynch, a staff attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Small aircraft are hard to see, and large drones can fly high enough to stay out of sight, she said. "I think they all pose different levels of privacy risk."
Lynch has sued the FAA for a list of the 300 waivers it has issued to allow drone use in the U.S. At the same time, she said drones in the hands of average citizens could have important uses.
Among the groups seeking to take advantage of the steep drop in price of drone technology are journalists who want to attach cameras to aircraft the size of small pizzas and that cost as much to buy - about $400 - as a one-hour helicopter rental for a photographer.
In the San Francisco Bay area, Occupy Wall Street activists built the so-called Occucopter designed to monitor police action against protesters from the sky.
In Idaho, wildlife biologists started using a drone for counting fish nets after a helicopter crash killed two colleagues and a pilot.
And researchers are developing techniques to use drones equipped with infrared sensors to detect patches of dry ground in orchards.
Hobbyists say drone prices have been driven down sharply even in the past two or three years mainly by the surge in popularity of smartphones. The chips smartphones use to determine whether they're being held vertically or horizontally or to locate themselves on a map are the same ones drones use to keep themselves flying straight, level and in the right direction.
The supply of such chips has spiked along with the use of smartphones, sending prices lower.
"Today if you have an iPhone or an Android, you basically have an autopilot in your pocket. You're just running the wrong app," said Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and founder of DIY Drones, an online community and company that sells drone kits and parts.
Anderson started DIY Drones in 2007 after spending the weekend building an electronic Lego robot and trying to fly a radio-controlled plane with his kids. The robot didn't impress the kids on its own, and the plane was hard to fly, Anderson said. So the family used the Legos to build a primitive autopilot and attached it to the plane. The kids thought it was cool for a few weeks, but Anderson became obsessed.
Anderson said safety is a top consideration of his group, and he supports strict observance of the FAA regulations developed in the 1970s to cover the amateur use of radio-controlled planes, which also apply to today's DIY drones. Those rules include restricting their altitude to 400 feet, requiring them to always be in view of their controller on the ground and prohibiting them from being flown over built-up areas.
That last rule reportedly led to trouble for some Los Angeles real estate agents, who were warned by police to stop using drones to take photos and video of homes for sale, according to the Los Angeles Times.
In Berkeley, Harrison and Oesterer spent more time tweaking wires and software than their drones spent in the air. Part of the reason was battery power: Their drones rely on the latest in lightweight laptop batteries to stay aloft but suck significantly more power. Still, both say would-be pilots don't need degrees in computer science or electrical engineering to send drones skyward.
Said Oesterer: "It's getting really close to plug-and-fly."
___
Online:
DIY Drones: http://www.diydrones.com
EastBay RC: http://eastbay-rc.com
___
Follow Marcus Wohlsen on Twitter: http://twitter.com/marcuswohlsen
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2) In Florida, a Death Foretold
"In this atmosphere, blacks are the target of the highest number of hate crimes in the United States, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation - higher by a wide margin than any another group of Americans by race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or disability.
While blacks make up 12.6 percent of the country's population, they were 70 percent of the victims of racial hate crimes in 2010."
By ISABEL WILKERSON
March 31, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/01/opinion/sunday/a-native-caste-society.html?hp
Tampa, Fla.
IN the mid-1930s, a Yale anthropologist ventured to an unnamed town in the South to explore the feudal divisions of what we commonly call race but what he preferred to describe with the more layered language of caste. When he arrived - white, earnest and fresh from the North - white Southerners told him that a Northerner would soon enough "feel about Negroes as Southerners do." In making that prediction, the anthropologist John Dollard wrote in his seminal study "Caste and Class in a Southern Town," they are saying "that he joins the white caste. The solicitation is extremely active, though informal, and one must stand by one's caste to survive."
Americans tend to think of the rigid stratification of caste as a distant notion from feudal Europe or Victorian India. But caste is alive and well in this country, where a still unsettled multiracial society is emerging from the starkly drawn social order that Dollard described. Assumptions about one's place in this new social order have become a muddying subtext in the case of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager slain at the hands of an overzealous neighborhood watch captain, who is the son of a white father and a Peruvian mother.
We do not know what George Zimmerman was thinking as he watched Mr. Martin from afar, told a 911 dispatcher that he looked suspicious and ultimately shot him. But we do know that it happened in central Florida, a region whose demographic landscape is rapidly changing, where unprecedented numbers of Latino immigrants have arrived at a place still scarred by the history of a vigilante-enforced caste system and the stereotypes that linger from it. In this context, newcomers - like previous waves of immigrants in the past - may feel pressed to identify with the dominant caste and distance themselves from blacks, in order to survive.
A study released in 2006 by Duke University on attitudes on race in Durham, N.C., a city with one of the fastest-growing Latino populations in the country, found that an overwhelming majority of Latinos - 78 percent - felt they had the most in common with whites, while 53 percent of them felt they had the least in common with blacks. So it would make sense for those respondents to act with the same assumptions about blacks that they perceive are held by native whites. In fact the Latino respondents, many of them immigrants from Mexico and Central America, actually reported higher negative feelings toward blacks than most native-born whites. Nearly 60 percent reported feeling that few or almost no blacks were hard-working or could be trusted, while only 10 percent of whites held that view.
On the other hand, almost three-quarters of blacks felt that Latinos were hard-working or could be trusted. Black Americans appear to view Latinos as more like themselves. "Blacks are not as negative toward Latinos as Latinos are toward blacks because blacks see them as another nonwhite group that will be treated as they have been," said Paula D. McClain, the lead author on the study. Even as blacks worry about losing jobs to new immigrants, they are less supportive of harsh anti-immigration laws, she said, "because they know what laws have done to them."
But shared hardships don't necessarily make allies. "As linked fate rises, so does competition," said Michael Jones-Correa, a professor of government at Cornell who specializes in immigration and interethnic relations. "It's like a sibling rivalry," he said. "This is not a painless relationship." And, of course, Latino immigrants don't just enter a pre-existing racial hierarchy; they bring with them their own assumptions based on the hierarchies in their home countries. "When we come to the U.S.," Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, a professor of sociology at Duke, who is Puerto Rican, said, "we immediately recognize whites on top and blacks on the bottom and say, 'My job is to be anything but black.' "
This uneasy coexistence has had tragic consequences in the past. A series of riots broke out in Miami in the 1980s after several black men were shot dead by Latino police officers who claimed self-defense and were later acquitted. In 1982 in Miami, a 20-year-old black man named Nevell Johnson Jr. was killed at a video arcade by a white, Cuban-born police officer. Seven years later, after a routine traffic stop in that same Miami neighborhood, a black man riding a motorcycle, Clement Anthony Lloyd, was shot dead by a Colombian-born police officer. The motorcycle then crashed; another black man who was riding on the back died the next day.
Just last year in California, a gang of 51 people, mostly Latinos, were indicted in the San Gabriel Valley, east of Los Angeles, after a 15-year campaign of assaults and firebombings of African-American residents, whom they were trying to force out of the neighborhood.
In this atmosphere, blacks are the target of the highest number of hate crimes in the United States, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation - higher by a wide margin than any another group of Americans by race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation or disability. While blacks make up 12.6 percent of the country's population, they were 70 percent of the victims of racial hate crimes in 2010.
WHATEVER role caste may have played in the Trayvon Martin case is unknowable, and it is far too early to tell whether Mr. Zimmerman will be arrested, tried or convicted. But that encounter unfolded in Seminole County, where Latinos have overtaken African-Americans as the dominant minority group, rising to 17 percent from 11 percent in the last decade. Blacks now make up 11 percent and whites, 66 percent. The area had a history of vigilante justice long before the new arrivals, dating back to 1920, when blacks in the nearby town of Ocoee were burned out of their homes after two black men tried to vote.
Despite all that has gone before, there is reason for optimism. One of the great tragedies of the last century was the pitting of immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe against African-Americans who had migrated from the rural South to the industrial North. Both groups were seeking the same thing and were pretty much the same people - people of the land trying to make a way for their families in forbidding and alien places. Fear, suspicion and uneven access to unions, jobs and housing kept them apart. Firebombings and white flight followed, and we are still living with the aftereffects of those divisions.
The arrival of a new kind of immigrant to a country that has endured so much discord offers a chance for re-examination and redemption. Indeed, one of the most encouraging signs noted by Mr. Jones-Correa is that Latinos are maintaining a distinct identity and are increasingly choosing to be identified as "other" rather than black or white. "We have a history of immigrants coming to America and proving themselves as American by identifying as white," he said. "Latinos see themselves as a third category. I think they will continue as a third position beyond the black and white rhetoric."
John Dollard was told time and again that he would come to see the lowest caste of the South the same way that those who had devised the caste system did. He resisted that impulse and instead chose to lay bare the divisions in a hope that they one day might end. Now, 75 years later, a death in Florida gives all of us the chance to reflect on the meaning of that choice.
Isabel Wilkerson is a former national correspondent and bureau chief for The New York Times and the author of "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration."
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3) Race, Tragedy and Outrage Collide After a Shot in Florida
By DAN BARRY, SERGE F. KOVALESKI, CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and LIZETTE
ALVAREZ
[Didn't Treyvon Martin, armed with an ice tea drink and a bag of Skittles also have the right to "stand his ground with some adult chasing him down?" This video gives you several clear views of all sides of Zimmerman's head when he was brought in to the police station after supposedly getting his nose broken and his head "smashed into the ground several times." See it for yourself. This is actually proof that the police report is a lie! There are NO MARKS ON GEORGE ZIMMERMAN'S FACE OR HEAD! ...bw]
SPD Security Cams.wmv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WWDNbQUgm4&feature=player_embedded
April 1, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/us/trayvon-martin-shooting-prompts-a-review-of-ideals.html?hp
SANFORD, Fla. - Once again, a river of protest raged through Sanford this weekend to demand justice in the name of an unarmed black teenager shot dead. It gathered strength in front of the historic Crooms Academy, the first high school for black students in Seminole County, surged through the streets, and formed a flood of grief and outrage just outside the Sanford Police Department.
Once again, thousands chanted the name of Trayvon Martin, 17, the youth killed with one bullet while returning to a home in a gated community where he was a guest. Once again, they cried for the arrest of George Zimmerman, 28, the neighborhood watch coordinator who has claimed self-defense under a Florida law with the assertive name of Stand Your Ground.
With five weeks' passage, the fateful encounter between a black youth who wanted to go to college and a Hispanic man who wanted to be a judge has polarized the nation.
And, now this modest central Florida community finds its name being mentioned with Selma and Birmingham on a civil rights list held sacred in black American culture, while across the country, the parsing of the case has become cacophonic and political, punctuated by pleas for tolerance, words of hatred, and spins from the left and right.
The racial divide that once partly defined Sanford, with U.S. 17-92 serving as the inviolable line separating black and white, has faded over the decades, leaving a casually integrated downtown. Yet the sense remains among residents of both races that the police department has not come as far as the city as a whole.
Velma Williams, its sole black city commissioner, calls Sanford "a small, friendly, good city." But she said that a string of unsolved cases had raised questions over whether the police had a "cavalier attitude" whenever "a black male is murdered." Nonsense, countered its acting police chief, Darren Scott, who is also black. "Everyone here in the city gets fair and equal treatment."
That assertion of justice for all - in Sanford and throughout the United States - has been challenged, though, by a progression of events that began so innocently, so ordinarily: A teenage boy in a gray hooded sweatshirt leaves a 7-Eleven's neon brightness with his purchase of some candy and an iced tea, and heads back into the wet Sunday evening of Feb. 26, back to a residential complex with a forbidding gate and a comforting name.
Trayvon Martin was more than welcome there; he was expected.
With his hood up as the rain came down, Trayvon made his way to one gated community among many, the Retreat at Twin Lakes. Past a dozen storefronts, four of them vacant. Past signs and billboards shouting "Now Leasing!" and "Rent Specials!" His was a tour of a post-bust stretch of Sanford.
For more than two years now, Trayvon's father, Tracy Martin, a truck driver from Miami, had been dating Brandy Green, a juvenile detention officer in Orlando. She lived at the Retreat with her 14-year-old son, Chad, and it was not uncommon for the Martins to drive up from Miami for overnight visits.
Over six feet tall and lanky, Trayvon was interested in girls, computer games, sports and the beat of the rap and hip-hop emanating from the ear buds of his smartphone. Sleeping in Miami Dolphins bedsheets, he was all teenage boy, and more.
He called himself "Slimm" on Twitter, and used a handle, @no_limit_nigga, that echoed a song by the rappers Kane & Abel. On Facebook, he expressed interest in everything from airplanes to "South Park," from Bob Marley to LeBron James. On MySpace, he posted snapshots of his young life: admiring an airplane; fishing with his father; displaying a cake decorated with the words "Happy Birthday Tray."
Easygoing, with a default mood set at "chillin'," as one schoolmate, Suzannah Charles, put it. The kind of kid who made tiny cakes in an Easy-Bake Oven with his 7-year-old cousin; who spoon-fed a close uncle, Ronald Fulton, who is quadriplegic, when his nurse was unavailable; who was an integral part of a close-knit family - raised properly, family members say, by Mr. Martin and his ex-wife, Sybrina Fulton, who works for Miami-Dade County's housing agency.
Ms. Green described him as the kind of kid who did not bring attitude into a house, and who knew how to behave respectfully in the homes of others. "He was smooth, quiet," she said. "He took care of his appearance. He had swag."
But Trayvon was a teenager, not an angel. In his last year at his high school in north Miami- Dade County, he had received three suspensions - for tardiness, for graffiti and, most recently, for having a baggie with a trace of marijuana in his backpack.
This last suspension, for 10 days, was enough for Trayvon's father, who stayed on top of him about his whereabouts and middling grades; after all, he wanted to go to college, just like his quiet older brother, Jahvaris Fulton, 21, a student at Florida International University.
Mr. Martin said that he had taken Trayvon with him to Sanford to keep him from hanging around Miami, doing nothing, and to talk some sense into him.
These recent problems, all nonviolent, hardly reflected the essence of Trayvon Martin, his family and friends say. He was kindhearted, even-tempered and very thoughtful. That night, for example, while his father and Ms. Green were out having dinner in Orlando, Trayvon asked Chad, Ms. Green's son, if he wanted anything from the store.
Skittles, the younger boy said.
A Wary Community
The teenager with candy entered the Retreat at Twin Lakes, either passing the front gate or taking a not-so-secret shortcut. Here was an orderly cluster of 260 or so sandy-colored, two- story town houses that illustrate an all-too-familiar American tale.
According to David Johnson, the Seminole County property appraiser, the Retreat was being built just as Florida's housing bubble was about to burst. When the first units came onto the tax rolls in 2007, he said, they were selling in the vicinity of $250,000, he said. Now: "I think those units are selling for about half."
The Retreat has had a "significant number" of foreclosures, Mr. Johnson said, which have prompted investors to buy the properties at a discount and then rent them out. "A lot of activity in and out of there," he said. "Maybe you don't know the neighbor, because the one who was there before, maybe they got foreclosed on."
Adding to the uncertainty and flux was the sense among some residents that this secured community was no longer so secure. There had been burglaries; at least seven in 2011, according to police reports. Strangers had started showing up, said Frank Taaffe, 55, a marketing specialist, originally from the Bronx, who works out of his home in the Retreat. He made it clear that he was not talking about just any strangers.
"There were Trayvon-like dudes with their pants down," Mr. Taaffe said.
Last August, the homeowners association decided to create a neighborhood watch, and a Sanford police official came to the Retreat to explain the guidelines: volunteers do not possess police powers; they should not be armed; and they should be the eyes and ears for the police - but not vigilantes.
The group chose as its neighborhood watch coordinator the very man who had invited the official to speak: a man with thinning dark hair and an average build named George Zimmerman. The next month, the newsletter for the homeowners association included a cartoon of a man peering through a magnifying glass, Ã la Sherlock Holmes, next to a call for help: "We have recently experienced an increased incidence of crime within the community, including three break-ins in the past month, which is why having residents committed to being members of the Neighborhood Watch and reporting suspicious activities is so important. We must send a message that we will not tolerate this in our community!"
To get involved, the newsletter said, "Call George Zimmerman."
From Virginia to Florida
Now, on this dark, wet night, the neighborhood watch coordinator for the Retreat at Twin Lakes - armed with a licensed, slim 9-millimeter handgun that he kept in a holster tucked in his waistband - was in his truck when he noticed a hooded figure walking through the complex.
He may have been about to go on an errand to Target, as he later told his family, but his commitment to vigilance kicked in. This, it seems, was part of who George Zimmerman was.
He, too, was from someplace else - the second of three children raised in a red-brick home in a cul-de-sac in Manassas, Va. His father, Robert, was a magistrate judge and a veteran of the Vietnam War, and Robert's father worked in Army intelligence. His mother, Gladys, a Peruvian immigrant, worked as a deputy court clerk. They ran a disciplined household that emphasized service, responsibility and the Roman Catholic faith.
"Some kids would have said, 'That's like a prison,' " recalled George W. Hall, a retired pastor who lived across the street. "But they were so polite. They always looked after you before themselves."
George was an altar boy looked upon so favorably by the priests that he became a receptionist in the rectory. He also joined a youth education program called the Young Marines, wearing a uniform, marching in step and learning about good citizenship.
"He was very caring toward everyone," his father said. "Toward anyone who needed anything."
But George could be a character. In middle school, a black boy named Anthony Woodson stumbled over a chair while walking into a classroom, prompting a student he did not know to joke: "Do you know how to walk, or did you trip over your lip?"
From that jarring remark, a friendship was born. Mr. Woodson said that he knew the student, George Zimmerman, meant nothing racist, mostly because of the friends sitting with him. "Two other black kids, an Asian kid and a Hispanic," recalled Mr. Woodson, 30, now a pastry chef in Virginia. His new, bilingual friend seemed comfortable in a multicultural world.
After graduating from high school in 2001, Mr. Zimmerman moved to Florida, into a home that his parents had just bought for their retirement in Lake Mary, near Sanford. He began working as an insurance agent with an uncle, but he became a mortgage broker when the real estate market started booming. According to his father, he was making at least $10,000 a month by his early 20s.
When his parents retired to Florida around 2006, Mr. Zimmerman moved into an apartment in Lake Mary with a friend. Then the housing market went bust and, according his father, his son's employer went out of business. After that, he held several jobs, including at CarMax and Target. He also talked about becoming a police officer.
He seemed to be a young man in search of a path, one who could also show flashes of violence, according to court records detailing Mr. Zimmerman's difficult summer of 2005. That July, he was arrested after pushing a state alcohol agent during a raid to root out under- age drinking at a popular college bar; the felony charge was reduced and then dropped altogether when he agreed to enter a pretrial diversion program.
About a month later, Mr. Zimmerman and a woman who identified herself as his ex-fiancÃ(c)e traded petitions for injunction, both claiming that the other had resorted to violence: she said he "smacked" her, he said she hit him with a baseball bat. Both injunctions were issued and they expired a year later.
Still, Mr. Zimmerman seemed to have a protective streak - a sense of right and wrong - that others admired. For example, Stephanie, a neighbor of the elder Zimmermans in Lake Mary and a family friend, recalled how George Zimmerman struck up a friendship with one of her sons, Douglas, who is autistic, swimming with him, taking him for car rides and letting him play with his dog, Princess.
"He just felt comfortable with George," she said. "For Dougie, everything was 'George, George, George.' "
Stephanie also recalled a party in early December to celebrate Mr. Zimmerman's graduation from Seminole State College (though he still needed a few more credits to receive his associate's degree). He shared his hope to be a judge someday with a small gathering that included two black teenagers whom, she was later told by Mrs. Zimmerman, George was mentoring.
It seemed in character. A 16-year-old boy named Austin, who for a long time has mowed the lawn at the Zimmerman home in Lake Mary, described George Zimmerman as a role model for younger boys, often providing advice while throwing a football around or shooting hoops.
"George would stick up" for a chubby boy in the neighborhood who was being bullied, recalled Austin (who, like Stephanie, asked that his last name not be used). "And if George saw bullies walking by his house, he would pull out his hose and spray them down and tell them they were wasting their time and to go and do something else."
Mr. Zimmerman was also security-minded, Austin said. "He would knock on people's doors at night and say that it was late and that you better close your garage door."
But not everyone saw Mr. Zimmerman as their protector.
A 17-year-old African-American, Teontae Amie, who lives at the Retreat, recalled that Mr. Zimmerman once wrongly accused his friend of stealing a bike. "When you see him, you think automatically that he might try something," said Teontae, who added that he kept his distance from the neighborhood watch coordinator.
George Zimmerman seems to have taken a private vow to protect and defend - but, for some reason, he has not realized his stated desire to become a police officer. (In 2009, though, he was accepted into Seminole County's Community Law Enforcement Academy, in which students take tours of the courthouse and jail, go on ride-alongs with sheriff's department employees and visit a firing range.)
"I don't think it was safety that he was concerned with as much as people's rights and people's welfare," his father said. "And where he was living has a lot of problems with people coming in and burglarizing. I think he became alarmed, and he helped organize the neighborhood watch."
Police records over the last several years suggest a man who was quite familiar with 911 dispatchers; who seemed, somehow, to be always in the middle of things. In October 2003, for example, on perhaps his greatest day in civic vigilance, Mr. Zimmerman chased after and assisted in the capture of a man who had stolen two 13-inch TV/DVD players from an Albertsons.
Mostly, though, his calls were less exciting, more anticipatory. Dangerous potholes. Stray dogs. Speeding vehicles. Open garage doors. Suspicious characters. On Feb. 2, he reported seeing a black man in a black leather jacket and printed pajamas in the Retreat; nothing came of it.
This is what George Zimmerman did.
Married now to Shellie Nicole Dean, a cosmetologist who is studying to be a nurse, he was attending college and working full-time at Digital Risk, a fraud-detection company retained by financial institutions. The job seemed a natural fit.
Digital Risk helps institutions like Bank of America and Freddie Mac to rid their balance sheets of the kinds of toxic loans that led to the 2008 banking crisis. Mr. Zimmerman was among hundreds of auditors who work in a four-story office building in nearby Maitland, mining borrowers' files, sniffing out lies and scrutinizing hardship letters for any hint of deceit that would allow the lender to file a claim.
The role of Digital Risk, as its chief executive likes to put it, is to be "the independent watchdog of the financial world" - though a more apt phrase might be "the independent watchdog for the financial world."
Mr. Zimmerman, then, was a watchdog - at work and at home, in the Retreat at Twin Lakes. And here in the night rain came another suspicious person, in a hood.
Once again, George Zimmerman dialed 911.
'A Real Suspicious Guy'
"Hey, we've had some break-ins in my neighborhood," Mr. Zimmerman said to start the conversation with the dispatcher. "And there's a real suspicious guy."
This guy seemed to be up to no good; like he was on drugs or something; in a gray hoodie. Asked to describe him further, he said, "He looks black."
"Now he's just staring at me," he said.
The incomplete knowledge of the next six minutes, from about 7:11 to about 7:17, comes from recorded 911 calls; a few witnesses who often heard more than saw; Mr. Zimmerman's account, as told to others; the police account, as told to the Martin and Zimmerman families; and a 16-year-old girlfriend in Miami who was on the telephone at the time with Trayvon.
Mr. Zimmerman told the dispatcher that this "suspicious guy" was in his late teens, with something in his hands. He asked how long it would be before an officer arrived, because "These assholes, they always get away."
Mr. Zimmerman's father said that what largely aroused his son's suspicion was how this person was walking close to the town houses, and not on the sidewalk or in the street. Perhaps someone up to no good - or, perhaps, someone disoriented in a maze of identical structures, ducking the rain and looking for the house he had left less than an hour before.
Around the same time, Trayvon told the girlfriend he was talking to by cellphone that somebody was watching him, according to Benjamin Crump, a lawyer for Trayvon's family. The lawyer said that the girl, whose name has not been released, said she told Trayvon to run - and that Trayvon responded by saying: "I'm going to walk fast."
Mr. Zimmerman told the dispatcher that the hooded figure was now running. He jumped out of his car to follow him, the beep-beep of his car, as recorded on the 911 call, announcing the instant that he moved beyond his understood mandate as neighborhood watch coordinator.
The wind could be heard whooshing through Mr. Zimmerman's cellphone as he tried to keep the visitor in view. Also heard is a garbled epithet that some have interpreted to be a racial slur, though his father insisted that his son would never say anything like that. Dispatcher: "Are you following him?"
Mr. Zimmerman: "Yeah."
Dispatcher: "O.K., we don't need you to do that."
Mr. Zimmerman: "O.K."
He and the dispatcher arranged for Mr. Zimmerman to meet a police officer near the mailboxes at the development's clubhouse, and the call ended with a "thank you" and a "you're welcome."
Some of what happened next, along a poorly lighted path that runs between the back ends of two long rows of town houses, is lost to the night.
According to what the girlfriend has told Mr. Crump, Trayvon asked the man why he was following him, and the man responded by asking what Trayvon was doing there. She said she heard what sounded like the earpiece to Trayvon's cellphone falling away before the line went dead. There was no answer when she tried calling back.
Mr. Zimmerman's father provided a different account, based on his conversations with his son. He said that George Zimmerman had lost sight of the hooded figure and was beginning to walk back to his vehicle when Trayvon appeared from his rear left side. He also described a conversation that began far differently than the one recalled by the girl on the phone.
"He did not see Trayvon until he was right there," he said, at which point, Trayvon, cursing, asked if George Zimmerman had "a problem."
"And George said, 'No, I don't have a problem,' or 'No, there is no problem.' And Trayvon said, 'You do now,' and he punched George in the nose."
Here even Mr. Zimmerman acknowledges that there is some confusion. He told a local Orlando news station that George was reaching for his cellphone when Trayvon punched him. But, in a later interview with The New York Times, he said he was unsure whether his son made that movement and he might have conflated news media reports with what he thought his son may have told him.
However it started, witnesses described to the 911 dispatcher what resulted: the neighborhood watch coordinator, 5-foot-9 and 170 pounds, and the visitor, 6-foot-1 and 150, wrestling on the ground.
Screams for help echoed off the backs of town houses. Hearing those screams, now preserved on recorded 911 calls, Sybrina Fulton says they are the cries of her baby, Trayvon. And Robert Zimmerman says they are the pleas of his younger son, George.
No one answered those calls for help. But several people called 911. A man reported "they're wrestling right in the back of my porch." A boy said that he was about to help when his dog slipped his leash and he had to track the animal down. A woman called to report the screams, a report that was underscored by the plaintive wail in the background.
"H-E-E-E-E-L-P!"
"Does he look hurt to you?" the dispatcher asked.
"I can't see him," the woman answered. "I don't want to go out there. I don't know what's going on, so."
"So you think he's yelling help?"
"Yes," the caller answered, over the calls for help in the background. "All right," the dispatcher said. "What is your..."
The sudden crack of gunfire cut the night. A single shot. Then silence.
Here is what Robert Zimmerman said is his son's explanation: Trayvon was on top, punching and slamming his head into the paved sidewalk. When nobody answered his calls for help, he tried to slide onto the grass. But in doing so, the holstered gun in his waistband became visible.
"It is a little bit cloudy," the father said. "But George believes Trayvon saw the pistol, was going to get it, and said: 'You are going to die tonight.' Shortly after that, George drew the pistol and shot him."
The police have said that this account, at least in its broadest outlines, is backed up by witnesses, most of whom have not spoken publicly.
But some witnesses have challenged it, including Mary Cutcher, 31, who said that she saw Mr. Zimmerman straddling Trayvon's body in the grass, with his hands on the teenager's back, moments after the shot was fired. Her roommate, Selma Mora Lamilla, 36, called out three times to Mr. Zimmerman, who did not appear to be hurt, Ms. Cutcher said. After the third call, he said to summon the police.
Soon, callers to 911 were describing the presence of police officers, and the beams of flashlights gliding over a section of grass a few dozen yards from Trayvon's destination, where a boy inside was waiting for Skittles.
Another woman, a former teacher, struggled with her words and her emotions as she told the dispatcher everything she was seeing from her window, as officers roamed around the area behind her back porch.
"They were wrestling each other and then I heard the man saying, 'Help, help.' I would have helped if I..."
She began to sob: "Oh, my God! To see someone killed, lying in the grass. Oh my God. I want to know what happened. Why would this man just shoot him?"
Differing Accounts
Less than half an hour after Trayvon Martin died face-down in gated grass, a privileged crowd of 17,000 rose to their feet at the NBA All-Star game in Orlando, 20 miles to the south, to sing the national anthem. Then, while people enjoyed their after-parties, his body, not yet identified, was taken to the medical examiner's office in Volusia County.
Mr. Zimmerman, meanwhile, was taken to Sanford police headquarters, where, he told his father, the police took many photographs of his injuries. His father said that he had a broken nose, a swollen and cut lower lip, and two cuts on the back of his head.
In a grainy police video that shows a handcuffed Mr. Zimmerman being led out of a police car and through the police station, he does not appear to be badly injured; nor is there noticeable blood on his clothing. To many who have been following the case, the video presents a crucial rebuttal of Mr. Zimmerman's account.
But Mr. Zimmerman's father said that by that time, his son had been cleaned up at the scene by medics.
"They were not huge gashes," the father said. "When he went to the doctor the next day, he said he could stitch it, but that he would have to re-cut it since it had started to heal. He may not have gone to the hospital earlier than that because he was in police custody for a while, and was very shaken up afterwards."
Back at the Retreat at Twin Lakes, Tracy Martin and Brandy Green returned to her town house around 10:30 p.m. to find her son, but not his. Trayvon had gone to the store, Chad explained.
The adults did not panic. Trayvon was 17, after all. Maybe he had gone to visit a cousin in nearby Oviedo, or maybe he had met a girl along the way, and was chatting her up. Mr. Martin called Trayvon's cellphone, but it went straight to voice mail. Then he called the cousin, who did not answer, but he expected the young man to call back. They went to sleep.
Early next morning, no sign of Trayvon, still. Mr. Martin called his son's cellphone, which again went to voice mail. He then repeatedly called the cousin until he answered, only to share the distressing news that he had not seen Trayvon.
Now it was Mr. Martin calling 911. He reported that his son was missing, and then described what his son was wearing. Soon he was outside, meeting a couple of responding police officers. One of them took out a photograph of a dead body from a folder.
"Next thing I heard was a scream," Ms. Green said. "I never want to see anybody in that kind of pain again."
Mr. Martin cried and cried. At the police station later that day, he said, detectives told him that they had not arrested the man who had shot and killed his son. They explained that George Zimmerman was claiming self-defense.
"That was the first thing that came out of the detective's mouth," Mr. Martin said. "That he had a squeaky-clean record, a license to carry a weapon and is studying criminal justice."
Mr. Martin said he asked the officers whether they had checked his son's record, and they said yes. He said that he asked because he knew that Trayvon had no record.
"My son only had snacks in his pocket, no weapon whatsoever," he said. "Not even a fingernail file."
Sanford police have said that once Mr. Zimmerman declared that he had shot Trayvon in the chest in self-defense, they were barred from arresting him by the state's now-famous Stand Your Ground law, the broadest protection of self-defense in the country. It immediately requires law enforcement officials to prove that a suspect did not act in self-defense, and sets the case on a slow track.
Angela B. Corey, the state attorney for the Jacksonville area who has been appointed special prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin case, said that the controversial 2005 law has changed the rules for prosecutors. Making arrests, filing charges and securing convictions are more difficult and time consuming. Now, she said, "There is a different standard."
Ms. Corey said her office has handled hundreds of these self-defense cases - at least three or four every month. The law constantly challenges the authorities, with people citing it for everything from bar fights to road rage. "We've lost Stand Your Ground motions that in my experience showed the shooter should not have shot," she said. "Stand Your Ground needs a second look."
But Mr. Crump and Natalie Jackson, the lawyers for Trayvon's family, said that the law does not preclude police from properly investigating a homicide: collecting evidence, thoroughly interviewing the suspect and aggressively questioning witnesses - much of which, they maintained, did not occur in the death of Trayvon Martin.
For example, the lawyers said that, as of late last week, no investigator had interviewed Trayvon's girlfriend.
Exactly what the police have been considering remains uncertain. Ms. Corey said the Sanford police had filed a request for an arrest warrant with the state attorney usually responsible for the Sanford area, Norm Wolfinger. But no warrant was issued.
Above all, the lawyers for Trayvon's family say, there is simply this: A young man shot dead, and a month later, still no arrest.
The day after the shooting, George Zimmerman, according to his father, returned with at least three police officers to the Retreat at Twin Lakes, back to that grassy area where plaintive cries for help had gone unanswered. The investigators, accompanied by someone with a video camera, wanted him to re-enact the events of the night when the two strangers had stood their ground.
Mr. Zimmerman's father watched from nearby. "They started where his vehicle was," he recalled. "They walked him down the sidewalk and to the end of the sidewalk, to the street where he got an address and then walked him back towards his vehicle, near where the incident occurred."
In the days and weeks to come, Trayvon Martin would be remembered as an easygoing young man who had simply gone to the store for some candy and a drink. And George Zimmerman would go into hiding, amid hundreds of death threats against him and his family. Both would become rhetorical devices in the heated, never-ending national disagreements about race and guns.
All that lay ahead. For now, the neighborhood watch coordinator stood under the bright sun that had replaced the previous night's obscuring rain and told his side of a two-sided story about standing ground, and losing it.
Reporting was contributed by Joseph Freeman from Sanford; Beth Raymer from West Palm Beach, Fla.; Sabrina Tavernise and Timothy Williams from Manassas, Va.; and Jennifer Preston from New York. Alain DelaquÃ(c)rière and Sheelagh McNeill contributed research.
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4) Britons Protest Government Eavesdropping Plans
By ALAN COWELL
April 2, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/world/europe/british-government-eavesdropping-plans-draw-protest.html?hp
LONDON - British lawmakers and rights activists joined a chorus of protest Monday against plans by the government to give the intelligence and security services the ability to monitor the phone calls, e-mails, text messages and Internet use of every person in the country.
In a land where tens of thousands of surveillance cameras attest to claims by privacy advocates that Britain is the Western world's most closely monitored society, the proposal has touched raw nerves, compounding arguments that its citizens live under what critics call an increasingly intrusive "nanny state."
The debate in recent years has pitted those who justify greater scrutiny by reference to threats of terrorism and organized crime against those who cleave to more traditional notions of individual privacy.
But the current proposal would go a step further, raising the question of how security agencies can themselves keep track of a proliferation of newer technologies such as Skype, instant messaging and social networking sites that permit instant communication outside more traditional channels.
"What we do need to make sure is that as technology changes we are able to maintain our current capability in this area," a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said, speaking in return for anonymity under departmental rules.
The Home Office said the new measures were vital to provide police and security services with "communications data to investigate serious crime and terrorism and to protect the public."
Under the proposal, made public in The Sunday Times of London, a law to be introduced this year would allow the authorities to order Internet companies to install hardware enabling the government's monitoring agency, known by its initials, GCHQ, to examine individual communications without a warrant.
A similar effort to enhance the authorities' powers was made by the previous Labour government in 2006, but it was abandoned after ferocious opposition, including from the two parties that now form the coalition government - the dominant Conservatives and the smaller Liberal Democrats - and are now re-introducing the same legislation..
Currently, government eavesdroppers and police need a warrant to monitor specific communications. But the new system would permit the authorities to track communications data like "time, duration and dialing numbers of a phone call or an e-mail address," the Home Office said in a statement.
"It does not include the content of any phone call or e-mail, and it is not the intention of the government to make changes to the existing legal basis for the interception of communications," the statement said.
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister and a Liberal Democrat, defended the plan, saying he was "totally opposed to the idea of governments' reading people's e-mails at will or creating a new central government database."
"The point is, we are not doing any of that and I wouldn't allow us to do any of that," he said, arguing that the authorities wanted to update "the rules which currently apply to mobile telephone calls to allow the police and security services to go after terrorists and serious criminals and updating that to apply to technology like Skype, which is increasingly being used by people who want to make those calls and send those e-mails."
However, opponents, like the Conservative lawmaker David Davis, said the measures would give the authorities far greater powers to intrude into areas that have traditionally been private.
"It is not focusing on terrorists or criminals," Mr. Davis said. "It is absolutely everybody. Historically, governments have been kept out of our private lives."
"Our freedom and privacy has been protected by using the courts, by saying, 'If you want to intercept, if you want to look at something, fine; if it is a terrorist or a criminal, go and ask a magistrate and you'll get your approval.' You shouldn't go beyond that in a decent, civilized society, but that is what is being proposed."
"This is an unnecessary extension of the ability of the state to snoop on ordinary innocent people in vast numbers," he said.
"The problem we have had in the past is this information has been leaked, lost, stolen," said Malcolm Bruce, a Liberal Democrat member of Parliament. "I think there would be very, very real concerns that it could be open to all kinds of abuse."
"We have had a situation where police have been selling information to the media," he said, referring to testimony at a judicial inquiry into media ethics and practices. "I think we are in a very, very dangerous situation if too much information is being passed around unnecessarily," he said.
GCHQ stands for Government Communications Headquarters, which is run in close collaboration with the National Security Agency in the United States.
It is one of three British intelligence agencies, along with the domestic MI5 security unit and the overseas MI6 secret intelligence service. Its operations are conducted mainly from its headquarters near the spa town of Cheltenham, where most of its 5,500 staff members work, according to its Web site.
Information gathered by GCHQ has played a major part in the security service's efforts to foil purported terrorist plots since the July 7, 2005, London bombings.
British officials have taken to warning that London will be a potential target for terrorism when it hosts the 2012 Olympics this summer, strengthening the case for enhanced powers to intercept communications. But opponents of the proposed legislation are pointing out that the coalition came into office promising to respect individual rights.
Nick Pickles, director of a privacy advocacy group called Big Brother Watch, said "no amount of scare-mongering can hide the fact" that the planned law had been attacked by lawmakers in all major parties. "The government has offered no justification for what is unprecedented intrusion into our lives, nor explained why promises made about civil liberties are being junked," he said.
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5) Ranks of Working Poor Grow in Europe
[This is happening here and now. Kids can't afford to "leave the nest." Anyway, the
"American Dream" was always a sham! And homeless people aren't even allowed to live in the State Parks or National Forests, let alone, put up a tent! ...Bonnie Weinstein]
By LIZ ALDERMAN
April 1, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/world/europe/in-rich-europe-growing-ranks-of-working-poor.html?ref=world
PARIS - When Melissa Dos Santos leaves her job at the end of each day, she goes home to an unlikely place: a tiny trailer in a campground 30 miles north of Paris, where scores of people who can barely make ends meet are living on a sprawling lot originally designed as a bucolic retreat for vacationers.
"I grew up in a house; living in a campground isn't the same," Ms. Dos Santos, 21, said wistfully.
Her dreams of a more normal life in an apartment with her boyfriend evaporated when they both took minimum-wage jobs - she in a supermarket and he as a Paris street sweeper - after months of searching fruitlessly for better-paying work. "People call us marginal," she said. "Little by little, it's eating us up."
Europe's long-running euro crisis may be cooling. But the economic distress it has left in its wake is pushing a rising tide of workers into precarious straits in France and across the European Union. Today, hundreds of thousands of people are living in campgrounds, vehicles and cheap hotel rooms. Millions more are sharing space with relatives, unable to afford the basic costs of living.
These people are the extreme edge of Europe's working poor: a growing slice of the population that is slipping through Europe's long-vaunted social safety net. Many, particularly the young, are trapped in low-paying or temporary jobs that are replacing permanent ones destroyed in Europe's economic downturn.
Now, economists, European officials and social watchdog groups are warning that the situation is set to worsen. As European governments respond to the crisis by pushing for deep spending cuts to close budget gaps and greater flexibility in their work forces, "the population of working poor will explode," said Jean-Paul Fitoussi, an economics professor at L'Institut d'Études Politiques in Paris.
To most Europeans, and especially the French, it seems this should not be happening. With generous minimum wage laws and the world's strongest welfare systems, Europeans are accustomed to thinking they are more protected from a phenomenon they associate with the United States and other laissez-faire economies.
But the European welfare state, designed to ensure that those without jobs are provided with a basic income, access to health care and subsidized housing, is proving ill-prepared to deal with the steady increase in working people who do not make enough to get by.
The trend is most alarming in hard-hit countries like Greece and Spain, but it is rising even in more prosperous nations like France and Germany.
"France is a rich country," Mr. Fitoussi said. "But the working poor are living in the same condition as in the 19th century. They can't pay for heating, they can't pay for their children's clothes, they are sometimes living five people in a nine-square-meter apartment - here in France!" he exclaimed, speaking of an apartment of about 100 square feet.
In 2010, the latest year for which data were available, 8.2 percent of workers in the 17 European Union countries that use the euro were living under the region's average poverty threshold of 10,240 euros, or about $13,500, a year for single adult workers, up from 7.3 percent in 2006, according to Eurostat. The situation is nearly twice as bad in Spain and Greece.
While direct comparisons are difficult because of different standards, the Labor Department estimated that 7 percent of single adult workers in the United States earned less than the poverty threshold in 2009 of $10,830 in 2009, up from 5.1 percent in 2006.
France fares better than most European countries, at 6.6 percent, but perhaps nowhere is the phenomenon more startling. While the country seems to exude prosperity, the number of working poor is up from 6.1 percent in 2006, and experts predict it will grow.
In France, half the nation's workers earn less than $25,000.
The median monthly paycheck is $2,199, 26 percent above the average for the entire European Union. But the high cost of living and the difficulty many people face securing affordable housing (home prices have surged 110 percent in the last decade, and most rentals require large advance deposits), leaves a growing number out in the cold.
Ms. Dos Santos and her boyfriend, Jimmy Collin, 22, moved to the trailer because they did not want to live with their families and lacked upfront money for an apartment. Mr. Collin, a high school graduate with some additional technical training, searched for work for more than six months before landing a minimum-wage contract last year, at $1,800 a month, cleaning streets near Parisian jewels like the Eiffel Tower. He gets a small government stipend for low- income earners, but they still found it hard to save after paying taxes and living expenses. The wait for subsidized housing is more than five years.
Ms. Dos Santos, also a high school graduate, jumped at the job at a Carrefour supermarket after she failed to find work through one of France's national employment centers, where counselors meant to handle 120 cases have been overwhelmed lately with up to 500 each. But her boss will not let her work more than 35 hours a week, and she cannot find supplemental jobs.
"It holds people back," she said.
Today, up to 120,000 people are living in French campgrounds, according to Observatoire des InÃ(c)galitÃ(c)s, a social watchdog group. While it is not a new phenomenon, officials say it is accelerating.
And even some people with middle-class jobs are living on the edge.
Bruno Duboscq, 55, a human-resources manager at a small company in central Paris, moved into a recreational vehicle in the parking lot of the Château de Vincennes, a splendid 12th- century castle in eastern Paris, three years ago when the expense of a small apartment left him with too little money at the end of the month.
"People at work were shocked when they found out I live in a camper," said Mr. Duboscq, who is near retirement and hopes the extra savings will tide him over when he is no longer working. "It's getting harder to get by."
One February evening, as the thermometer showed minus 6 Celsius (21 degrees Fahrenheit), he opened the door to his camper and showed off a small kitchen, a TV, two beds and a tiny shower. Living in an official campground would have been better, but at about $40 a day, he said, it was too expensive.
Yet Mr. Duboscq is better off than most of his neighbors. "There is more and more misery around," he said, gazing at a row of snow-swept vehicles outside. "There are many people, especially young people, living in their cars here," he said. "They are not well paid, it's hard to afford an apartment, and the price of everything has risen considerably."
Many of them are on temporary contracts that employers are increasingly using to replace permanent jobs, which carry benefits and job protections that many employers are reluctant to take on. Contract labor has surged in the last several years and is set to increase as politicians in France and elsewhere encourage their use as a way to reduce high unemployment. But numerous recent studies by economists and social groups warn they may increase in-work poverty, because they pay less and have fewer benefits.
In 2011, temporary contracts accounted for 50 percent of all new hires in the European Union, according to Eurostat.
Isabelle Maquet-Engsted, a senior analyst at the European Commission in Brussels, said political efforts to encourage temporary work may only paper over the problems that Europe has in generating solid economic growth and well-paying jobs. "We have signs that things are not going to get better, because the jobs being created are those that carry a higher risk of poverty," she said.
For those who cannot find work after a temporary contract expires, the situation can become dire.
In the Bois de Vincennes, a park behind the parking lot where Mr. Duboscq lives, Jean, 51, an electrician who would give only his first name, warmed his hands recently over a fire in a small oil drum. He used to rent a tiny Paris studio, he said, but moved to a tent hidden in the woods three months ago after a fixed-term job expired and he was unable to secure other lodging.
By day, the forest is a playground for young urbanites. At night, however, it is home to an estimated 200 people, including families with children. Some are French, some are immigrants from Eastern Europe and North Africa.
Like many tent shelters, Jean's is quasi-permanent. With his neighbors, he shares a rickety table and a shelf stocked with sugar, salt and an old teapot. Strips of meat hung frozen on a clothesline.
"I never dreamed I would be here," Jean said. "But my contracts ran out, and at my age, it's getting harder to find new ones."
Matthieu, 31, a construction worker living on fixed-term jobs, wonders why European leaders seem focused more on protecting financial institutions than on helping people like him.
France enjoys a beautiful image, he said one recent evening in the Château de Vincennes parking lot. "But it's not like Anglo-Saxon countries," he said. "There, you arrive, you know how to do something - you can climb. That's the American dream.
"Never anywhere in the world do you hear anyone talking about the French dream," he added, pausing to look at the row of campers. "There is no such dream in France."
Maïa de le Baume contributed reporting.
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6) Justices Approve Strip-Searches for Any Offense
By ADAM LIPTAK
April 2, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/us/justices-approve-strip-searches-for-any-offense.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court on Monday ruled by a 5-to-4 vote that officials may strip-search people arrested for any offense, however minor, before admitting them to jails even if the officials have no reason to suspect the presence of contraband.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, joined by the court's conservative wing, wrote that courts are in no position to second-guess the judgments of correctional officials who must consider not only the possibility of smuggled weapons and drugs but also public health and information about gang affiliations.
About 13 million people are admitted each year to the nation's jails, Justice Kennedy wrote.
Under Monday's ruling, he wrote, "every detainee who will be admitted to the general population may be required to undergo a close visual inspection while undressed."
Justice Stephen G. Breyer, writing for the four dissenters, said strip-searches were "a serious affront to human dignity and to individual privacy" and should be used only when there was good reason to do so.
The decision endorses a more recent trend, from appeals courts in Atlanta, San Francisco and Philadelphia, in allowing searches no matter how minor the charge. Some potential examples cited by dissenting judges in the lower courts and by Justice Breyer on Monday included violating a leash law, driving without a license and failing to pay child support.
The Supreme Court case arose from the arrest of Albert W. Florence in New Jersey in 2005. Mr. Florence was in the passenger seat of his BMW when a state trooper pulled his wife, April, over for speeding. A records search revealed an outstanding warrant based on an unpaid fine. (The information was wrong; the fine had been paid.)
Mr. Florence was held for a week in jails in two counties, and he was strip-searched twice. There is some dispute about the details but general agreement that he was made to stand naked in front of a guard who required him to move intimate parts of his body. The guards did not touch him.
"Turn around," Mr. Florence, in an interview last year, recalled being told by jail officials. "Squat and cough. Spread your cheeks."
"I consider myself a man's man," said Mr. Florence, a finance executive for a car dealership. "Six-three. Big guy. It was humiliating. It made me feel less than a man."
The federal courts of appeal were divided over whether blanket policies requiring jailhouse strip-searches of people arrested for minor offenses violate the Fourth Amendment, which bars unreasonable searches. At least seven had ruled that such searches were proper only if there was a reasonable suspicion that the arrested person had weapons or contraband.
Justice Kennedy said the most relevant precedent was Bell v. Wolfish, which was decided by a 5-to-4 vote in 1979. It allowed strip-searches of people held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York after "contact visits" with outsiders.
As in the Bell case, Justice Kennedy wrote, "the undoubted security imperatives involved in jail supervision override the assertion that some detainees must be exempt from the more invasive search procedures at issue absent reasonable suspicion of a concealed weapon or other contraband."
The majority and dissenting opinions drew differing conclusions from the available statistics and anecdotes about the amount of contraband introduced into jails and how much strip- searches add to pat-downs and metal detectors.
"It is not surprising that correctional officials have sought to perform thorough searches at intake for disease, gang affiliation and contraband," Justice Kennedy wrote. "Jails are often crowded, unsanitary and dangerous places."
"There is a substantial interest," he added, "in preventing any new inmate, either of his own will or as a result of coercion, from putting all who live or work at these institutions at even greater risk when he is admitted to the general population."
In separate concurrences, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. emphasized the limits of the majority opinion. Chief Justice Roberts, quoting from an earlier decision, said that exceptions to Monday's ruling were still possible "to ensure that we 'not embarrass the future.' "
Justice Alito wrote that different rules may apply for people arrested but not held with the general population or whose detentions had "not been reviewed by a judicial officer."
In his dissent in the case, Florence v. County of Burlington, No. 10-945, Justice Breyer wrote that the Fourth Amendment should be understood to prohibit strip-searches of people arrested for minor offenses not involving drugs or violence unless officials had a reasonable suspicion that the people to be searched were carrying contraband.
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7) Too Many Small Fish Are Caught, Report Says
By HENRY FOUNTAIN
April 2, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/science/earth/forage-fish-catches-should-be-rduced-report-says.html?ref=us
An international group of marine scientists is calling for cuts in commercial fishing for sardines, herring and other so-called forage fish whose use as food for fish farms is soaring. The catch should be cut in half for some fisheries, the scientists say, to protect populations of both the fish and the natural predators that depend on them.
"The message is, if you cut back on harvesting of forage fish, there will be benefits," said Ellen K. Pikitch, director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University and chairwoman of the task force that produced a report on the issue that was released Sunday.
The report, "Little Fish, Big Impact," financed by the Lenfest Foundation through the Pew Charitable Trusts, details how fishing has increased for these fish, which now account for 37 percent, by weight, of all fish harvested worldwide, up from about 8 percent half a century ago. The consumer market for forage fish is relatively small; most of the fish are ground and processed for use as animal feed and nutritional supplements and, increasingly, as feed for the aquaculture industry, which now produces about half of all the fish and shellfish that people eat.
Forage fish are an important link in the food chain, eating plankton and being consumed, in turn, by large fish like tuna and cod, as well as by seabirds and dolphins and other marine mammals. The task force estimated that as a source of food in the wild for larger commercially valuable fish, forage fish were worth more than $11 billion, or twice as much as their worth when processed for aquaculture and other uses.
"Sometimes the value of leaving fish in the water can be greater than taking it out," Ms. Pikitch said.
The report cites several cases in which overfishing of forage fish has led to the collapse of populations of larger fish or other predators, and suggests that such cases could increase unless catches are reduced.
On the East Coast, the fishery for menhaden, a forage fish, is the largest in the region, and about 80 percent of the catch is processed into meal and other products. The abundance of menhaden has declined over the last quarter-century, said Edward D. Houde, a professor at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and a member of the task force, as the fish's reproductive rate has fallen. Yet fishing has continued at a high rate.
Bob Beal, an official with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, a regional group that coordinates management plans for the menhaden and other fisheries, said that in 2010, the menhaden population was estimated to have been reduced to 8 percent of its maximum potential. As a result, Mr. Beal said, the commission has recommended reducing the allowable catch so that the population roughly doubles, to a threshold of 15 percent of the maximum level, with an eventual target of 30 percent. The reductions would take place next spring, after a period to allow for public comments on the proposal.
But Mr. Houde said that in the case of menhaden, the task force would recommend a threshold of 30 percent and a target of perhaps 40 percent, which would mean even greater catch reductions. "Our recommendation is to be very precautionary," he said, "mostly to protect other things in the ecosystem, but also to protect the fish itself."
Mr. Beal said while the commission's new plan for the menhaden fishery is not as conservative as some scientists have sought, "it's a pretty big departure from where it's been managed." He said that the commission had to weigh the needs of the fishing industry as well.
"Ultimately, the hope of the managers is to rebuild the stock," he said, "so the industry can get what they want out of it, and prey animals can get what they want out of it, too."
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8) Unemployment in Euro Zone Hit New High in February
By REUTERS
April 2, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/business/global/unemployment-in-euro-zone-hit-new-high-in-february.html?ref=business
LONDON - Unemployment in the euro zone reached its highest level in almost 15 years in February, with more than 17 million people out of work, according to figures released Monday.
Joblessness in the 17-nation currency zone rose to 10.8 percent, up by 0.1 point from January, Eurostat said Monday.
"We expect it to go higher, to reach 11 percent by the end of the year," said Raphael Brun- Aguerre, an economist at JPMorgan in London. "You have public sector job cuts, income going down, weak consumption. The economic growth outlook is negative and is going to worsen unemployment."
February's level - last reached in June 1997 - marked the 10th straight monthly rise and contrasts sharply with the United States, where the economy has been adding jobs since late last year.
In the European Union as a whole, Eurostat said, unemployment stood at 10.2 percent of the working population, or some 24.5 million people, rising from 10.1 percent in January
Economists are divided over the wisdom of European governments' drive to bring down deficits even as economic troubles weaken tax revenues, consumers' spending power and business confidence.
Separate data released Monday showed manufacturing activity in the euro zone shrank for an eighth successive month in March, providing further support for Brussels's forecast that euro zone output will shrink 0.3 percent this year.
Despite the gloomy economic vista, the European Central Bank is expected to hold interest rates at 1 percent at its monthly meeting Thursday, as rising oil prices keep inflation above the bank's 2 percent target.
"With inflation remaining stubbornly high throughout the euro zone, there is very little hope of a consumer recovery," said Jennifer McKeown, an economist at Capital Markets.
Discussions among E.C.B. board members are further complicated by a melting away of more optimistic forecasts made at the start of the year. Even in the bloc's biggest economy, Germany, sentiment in the manufacturing and construction sectors fell in March.
Despite that, the divide between the euro zone's wealthy north and depressed south was again clear on the unemployment front. Years of runaway lending, outdated labor laws and uncompetitive industry in the south have sucked the region into a painful slump.
The jobless rate in Germany was steady at 5.7 percent of the working population in February, while unemployment in southern Europe rose from already high levels. The rate reached almost 24 percent in Spain, the highest in the European Union, and 9.3 percent in Italy.
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9) Dow Shuts Plants, Cuts Jobs as Europe Struggles
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 2, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/04/02/business/ap-us-dow-chemical-
layoffs.html?ref=business
MIDLAND, Mich. (AP) - Dow Chemical will cut 900 jobs and shutter plants on three continents because of weakness in Europe, which may soon tip back into recession of it has not done so already.
Dow was ravaged during the global and economic crisis that struck four years ago, cutting more than 10,000 positions then. CEO Andrew Liveris has aggressively sought to keep the company, the nation's largest chemical maker, agile despite its size.
"These actions, while difficult, are in full alignment with our commitment to continually manage our portfolio to adapt to changing and volatile economic conditions, as we are seeing particularly in Western Europe," Liveris said.
Europe released new employment figures Monday showing that there are now more people unemployed than at any time since the euro was introduced in 1999.
Eurostat, the European Union's statistics office, said unemployment rose to 10.8 percent in February. The number of unemployed totaled 17.1 million, nearly 1.5 million more unemployed than at the same time last year. Of the 17 countries in the eurozone, seven countries had unemployment rates of above 10 percent.
Dow's products are used in nearly every sector in the economy, and it is often the first to feel macroeconomic shifts. On Monday, Europe also released data indicating a bigger-than- anticipated downturn in manufacturing.
The financial information company Markit pointed particularly to deteriorating conditions in German and France. Spain's unemployment level, the highest in the EU, hovers around 23 percent.
Dow is responding to those conditions and said Monday that its latest maneuvers will trim costs by about $250 million each year. In all, Dow will close four plants, idle a fifth, and consolidate other operations.
"Today's announcement further demonstrates our resolve and ability to take swift, strategic cash flow interventions," Liveris said.
The economic situation in Europe will affect Dow employees in the U.S., where the company employs about 25,000 people.
In addition to plants that will be shut down in Portugal, Hungary, and Brazil, as well as the idling of a plant in the Netherlands, Dow will close a factory in Charleston, Ill.
Fewer than 375 U.S. positions will be cut, s
pokeswoman Rebecca Bentley said, and the company plans to hire in other areas and offset those job losses.
Dow has 52,000 employees worldwide.
In the fourth quarter, weak European and U.S. sales pushed Dow to a $20 million loss. Dow expects sales to rebound in the U.S. this year, but conditions in Europe are more dire.
Dow will book a first-quarter charge of $350 million in the first quarter for severance packages, asset impairments and other related items.
Shares of Dow Chemical Co., based in Midland, Mich., rose 5 cents to $34.69 in midday trading.
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10) PA Supreme Court Denies Jamal Petition
Luchando por la justicia y la libertad
Noelle Hanrahan, Prison Radio
PRISON RADIO A PROJECT OF THE REDWOOD JUSTICE FUND
P.O. BOX 411074
SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94141
WWW.PRISONRADIO.ORG INFO@PRISONRADIO.ORG
415.648.4505
Breaking Legal News
It is important that we keep fighting for freedom with grace and committment. Victories come in the courts and in the streets. In this next period it will be key to expose the police and prosecutorial and political corruption that has conspired to keep Mumia and many others unjustly imprisoned.
Prison Radio will continue to make sure that Mumia Abu-Jamal voice is heard, we will not let him be silenced.
Luchando por la justicia y la libertad Noelle Hanrahan, Prison Radio
PA Supreme Court Denies Jamal Petition
On Monday, March 26, 2012 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected Mumia Abu-Jamal's appeal of his capital murder conviction. With a one-page Order, the Supreme Court agreed with a lower court decision denying, without a hearing, Mr. Abu-Jamal's claim that a 2009 report by the National Academy of Science -- exposing serious flaws in forensic evidence routinely introduced in criminal trials -- demonstrated that the forensic evidence relied upon by the Philadelphia County District Attorney's Office in its 1982 prosecution of Mr. Abu-Jamal was unreliable. Because the forensic evidence that was presented at Mumia's trial was untrustworthy and because reliable and potentially exculpatory forensic evidence was never secured or presented by the state, the accuracy of the jury's first degree murder conviction is seriously undermined.
Although this decision concludes all of Mr. Abu-Jamal's pending appeals, the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. and Prof. Judy Ritter are actively researching and investigating all options for future legal challenges to Mr. Abu-Jamal's conviction.
NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.
Christina Swarns
Director, Criminal Justice Project
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11) Half of Irish Homeowners Join Boycott of New Property Tax
By DOUGLAS DALBY
April 2, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/world/europe/half-of-irish-homeowners-join-
boycott-of-household-tax.html?ref=world
DUBLIN - Anti-austerity protesters are claiming victory after the government acknowledged that around 50 percent of Ireland's estimated 1.6 million homeowners failed to pay a new, flat-rate $133 property tax by the March 31 deadline.
"It is quite clear a mass boycott has really sent this government a significant message it didn't want to hear," Luke Flanagan, one of the parliamentary deputies leading the opposition to the new household charge, said in an interview on Monday. "When we started this campaign, even 25 percent support translating to several hundred thousand would have been phenomenal, but we estimate over a million people eligible to pay this tax have refused."
Introduced on Jan. 1, the household charge was intended as a forerunner to a comprehensive property tax next year. It has become a lightning rod for widespread disenchantment on an assortment of issues like cuts to services, findings of political corruption, taxpayer liability for debts to private banks and even European legislation intended to enhance wastewater treatment from septic tanks.
Ireland has had five austerity budgets in four years and faces at least four more through 2016 as it tries to cut its deficit to an agreed 3 percent of gross domestic product from its current 10 percent. The European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund have lent Ireland $90 billion but in turn have demanded spending cuts and tax increases.
The Irish government argues that it has no choice but to introduce the interim tax at the behest of its lenders and has vowed to identify and prosecute those who have refused to pay.
"We will begin with sending out letters and then escalate it from there to the maximum fine of 2,500 euros" - $3,330 - "on top of the outstanding amounts due in late fees and interest," a spokesman for the Department of Environment said in an interview on Monday. "We will be taking people to court if necessary, and if there is refusal to pay, then that could be seen by a judge as contempt of court."
Opponents, like Joe Higgins, a Socialist Party deputy, argue that the likelihood of this happening is slim. He said that he believed the government would tread warily over the coming months as it tries to persuade the electorate to pass a referendum on May 31 binding Ireland to budgetary constraint.
"I think they will adopt a softly, softly approach so as not to alienate people further in the next two months," he said. "But if a substantial cohort of the decent, law-abiding people of this country continue to make a stand, there is no government that can stand against them."
The government is now concentrating on linking the new tax explicitly with the provision of local services in a bid to persuade people to "do their patriotic duty." The minister for environment, Phil Hogan, who is responsible for introducing the charge, has even suggested that local authorities prepared "to pull out all the stops" in collecting the tax may be rewarded. This was widely interpreted to mean others would be penalized by disproportionate cuts from central funding to local services like libraries, playgrounds and swimming pools.
The government remains determined to collect and still believes most people will be prepared to pay the charge eventually, rather than risk prosecution or escalating fines. Both sides are aware of the importance of weight of numbers: the government is hoping there will be a tipping point that will end the rebellion as the protest dwindles. While acknowledging the potential psychological impact of maintaining its current base of nonpayers, Mr. Flanagan said many would carry on regardless. "I don't care if 99.9 percent of people end up paying it," Mr. Flanagan said. "I won't be paying it and there are plenty like me."
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12) California: Affirmative Action Ban Upheld
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 3, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/us/california-affirmative-action-ban-
upheld.html?ref=us
A federal appeals court panel on Monday upheld California's ban on using race, ethnicity and gender in admitting students to public colleges and universities. The ruling was the second time the Ninth United States Circuit Court of Appeals turned back a challenge to the state's landmark voter initiative, Proposition 209, which was passed in 1996. Affirmative action proponents, who had requested that the court reconsider its 1997 decision after the United States Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that affirmative action could be used in college admissions, said they would ask the full appellate court to review the case since this decision was issued by a three-judge panel. At least six states have adopted bans on affirmative action in state college admissions. Besides California, they include Michigan, Arizona, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Washington. In its ruling, the court rejected the plaintiffs' arguments that a new ruling is needed and said the previous decision still applies. In February, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case against the University of Texas alleging that affirmative action is discriminatory. If the court decides against the university, the ruling could definitively end consideration of race in public university admissions.
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13) Missouri: Bat Disease Moves West
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
April 3, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/03/us/missouri-bat-disease-moves-west.html?ref=us
A disease that has killed millions of bats across 16 states and Canada has been found in Missouri, marking its advent west of the Mississippi River and spelling possible trouble for agriculture in the region, officials said Monday. The disease, white nose syndrome has, been confirmed in three bats in two caves in Lincoln County, north of St. Louis, the Missouri Department of Conservation said. The name describes a white fungus found on the faces and wings of infected bats and has not been found to infect humans or other animals. It had been found only as far west as Kentucky until the Missouri discovery. Ann Froschauer of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service said the spread of the disease could affect crops because bats subsist at least in part on crop pests. She said a recent study estimated that bats provide about $22 billion a year in "ecological services" in part because of all the pests they consume. The Missouri Department of Conservation estimated Missouri's gray bats alone eat about 540 tons of insects each year.
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14) As Part of New Pact, U.S. Marines Arrive in Australia
By MATT SIEGEL
April 4, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/world/asia/us-marines-arrive-darwin-
australia.html?hp
SYDNEY, Australia â€" Defense Minister Stephen Smith greeted about 180 Marines in the northern coast city of Darwin on Wednesday, presiding at a welcome ceremony for the first of 2,500 American troops to be deployed here under an agreement increasing the American military presence in Chinaâs strategic backyard.
The Marines will engage in training exercises with the Australian Defense Force during their six-month rotation as part of the agreement signed in November by President Obama and Prime Minister Julia Gillard of Australia. The pact is part of the presidentâ€(tm)s publicly stated strategy of shifting the American militaryâ€(tm)s long-term focus toward the Pacific and an increasingly assertive China. Beijing has accused Mr. Obama of escalating military tensions in the region.
Ahead of the welcome ceremony, Mr. Smith touched on the changing regional dynamics during an interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"We see this very much as responding and reflecting the fact that the world is moving into our part of the world, the world is moving to the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean," Mr. Smith said. "We need to respond to that. The world needs to essentially come to grips with the rise of China, the rise of India, the move of strategic and political and economic influence to our part of the world."
The United States has had military bases in the North Pacific since the end of World War II, but its presence in Southeast Asia was greatly diminished in the early 1990s. Strengthened ties with Australia, one of Washingtonâ€(tm)s foremost allies, will restore a substantial American footprint near the South China Sea, a major commercial shipping route that has been increasingly the focus of Chinese territorial disputes.
There has been speculation here in recent weeks about what form any further regional military cooperation between the long-time allies would take. Ms. Gillard last week confirmed that discussions with Washington were under way about the possibility of flying long-range American surveillance drones from the remote Cocos Islands â€" an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean â€" but said no substantial progress had been made on the issue.
A spokesman for Mr. Smith told The Australian newspaper that the top three priorities to come out of last yearâ€(tm)s bilateral agreement were the deployment of the Marines over five years, the greater use of Australian Air Force bases for American aircraft and, in the longer term, the prospect of increased ship and submarine visits to the Indian Ocean through a naval base outside of Perth, on the countryâ€(tm)s west coast.
Jeffrey Bleich, the American ambassador to Australia, was quick to dismiss what seemed to be a growing media consensus here that the increased military presence in the region was aimed primarily at containing China.
"Thereâ€(tm)s this kind of sexy, fun narrative that you hear from pundits and others trying to suggest this is about China, but itâ€(tm)s not," he said in an interview with Sky TV over the weekend. "If you just look at the Darwin decision, for example: weâ€(tm)ve had our Marines stationed in Central Asia, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and they are mostly an amphibious force. So they need to start training and doing amphibious maneuvers again, and weâ€(tm)re looking for the best place to do it and the best partners to do it with, and Darwin is an ideal spot for it."
But Michael Fullilove, director of the Global Issues Program at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that addressing Chinaâ€(tm)s recent assertiveness was definitely one of the major aspects of the policy. Australia views the presence of American forces in the region as a counterbalance to what it sees as Beijingâ€(tm)s sometimes erratic foreign policy, he said.
"Given that we know that rising powers can disrupt the system," he said, "it makes sense to balance against the risk of future Chinese recklessness by keeping the U.S. engaged in the region. The more that power can be diffused so that it is spread across different capitals, the less likely you are to have unreasonable actions where one power ignores the otherâ€(tm)s needs."
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15) Chancellor Asks Community College to Hold Off on Tuition Plan
By JENNIFER MEDINA
April 5, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/06/us/santa-monica-college-asked-to-hold-off-on-tuition-plan.html?_r=1&hp
LOS ANGELES - The chancellor of the California community college system has requested that Santa Monica College hold off on its plan to offer popular courses with higher tuition this summer, saying that the legality of the program is still in question.
The request came a day after a student protest at the college ended with a campus police officer spraying dozens of people with pepper spray, several of whom suffered minor injuries. Many students and faculty members have criticized the plan saying it violates the long tradition of community colleges as havens for those without the means to afford four-year colleges.
The chancellor, Jack Scott, had already made it clear that he was wary of the community college's plan to charge more for some popular classes and said it could violate state education codes. He has asked the state's attorney general for an opinion, which he expects to receive in the next week.
Last month, the board of trustees at the college approved a plan that would offer about 50 high-demand courses at $180 a unit, rather than the regular $36 tuition. College administrators have said that the higher tuition would cover their costs.
For years, the college has faced increased demand and overcrowded classes at the same time as the state has cut financing to the community colleges. Students routinely complain about not being able to register for classes that they need for job training and transferring to four-year schools - a problem that plagues community colleges across the country.
Chui L. Tsang, the president of Santa Monica College has said that he believes the plan is legal and is the only way to try to meet the demand for more seats in classes.
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16) Public Suicide for Greek Man With Fiscal Woe
By NIKI KITSANTONIS
April 4, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/world/europe/greek-man-ends-financial-despair-with-bullet.html?ref=world
ATHENS - A 77-year-old Greek pensioner distraught over his financial state shot himself in the head in the capital's busy main square near Parliament on Wednesday morning. "I don't want to leave debts to my children," he shouted before pulling the trigger, witnesses said.
The location, Syntagma Square, is a focal point for frequent public demonstrations and protests. It was full of commuters using the nearby metro station when the man killed himself, around 9 a.m. Shocked witnesses told state television that the man positioned himself under a tree, cried out and fired.
The local news media identified the man as Dimitris Christoulas, a retired pharmacist, and said he left a note saying he could not face the prospect "of scavenging through garbage bins for food and becoming a burden to my child." The police did not immediately confirm the existence of a note, but identical passages were reproduced in nearly all the Greek news media.
Three paragraphs of handwritten red text called on young Greeks to take up arms. "I believe that young people with no future will one day take up arms and hang the traitors of this country at Syntagma square, just like the Italians did to Mussolini in 1945," said one passage.
The suicide prompted an outpouring from politicians. In a statement, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos said, "In these difficult times for our country we must all - the state and its citizens - support those next to us who are in despair." On Wednesday evening, Greeks held a vigil in Syntagma Square, while many posted notes of condolence and protest on trees.
Reports said the note blamed "the occupation government of Tsolakoglou for taking away any chance for my survival."
Georgios Tsolakoglou was a collaborationist prime minister during Germany's occupation of Greece during World War II. Germany has drawn the ire of many Greeks in the last year, thanks to its role in shaping harsh austerity measures Greece was required to enact in return for billions of euros in loans from foreign creditors to avert sovereign default. The arrangement helps Europe by stabilizing the euro, but at the cost of financial ruin for some individuals and shrinking the country's social safety net.
The number of suicides reported in Greece over the past three years has risen sharply, a trend experts attribute to repercussions of the debt crisis, including rising unemployment, now at 21 percent, and deepening poverty. Before the crisis, Greece had one of the lowest suicide rates in Europe, just over 300 a year. In 2009, the police recorded 507 suicides; in 2010, 622; and last year, 598.
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17) 5 Ex-Officers Sentenced in Post-Katrina Shootings
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON
April 4, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/us/5-ex-officers-sentenced-in-post-katrina-shootings.html?ref=us
NEW ORLEANS - Five former police officers were sentenced to prison on Wednesday for the shooting of six unarmed civilians, two of whom died, in the days after Hurricane Katrina and for orchestrating a wide-ranging cover-up afterward.
The four officers directly involved in the shooting were sentenced in federal court to lengthy terms ranging from 38 to 65 years, while a police sergeant who was charged with investigating the shooting, and instead helped lead the efforts to hide and distort what happened, was sentenced to six years.
But while the sentences were long, they were not nearly as long as prosecutors were seeking - in one case less than a third of the sentence the government recommended - and for the most part were either the mandatory minimum or a few years more than the minimum.
Before delivering the sentences, Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana gave a two-hour speech condemning mandatory minimum sentences for interfering with judicial discretion and criticizing the case put together by federal prosecutors, saying in particular that he was "astonished and deeply troubled" by the plea deals with cooperating witnesses at the heart of the government's case.
Three police officers who pleaded guilty and later testified at the trial were involved in the shooting on the bridge and received sentences ranging from five to eight years. Two others, a detective and a police lieutenant who helped orchestrate the cover-up, were sentenced to three and four years.
The judge spoke of an "air of mendacity" about the prosecution, charging that the plea bargains - which involved lesser charges that came with capped sentences - had limited his discretion in sentencing those who were convicted.
Prosecutors afterward defended their strategy, explaining to reporters that the case was cold when the Justice Department picked it up after a mishandled prosecution by the local district attorney and a dismissal of all charges by a judge in 2008.
"I've never seen an easy police case in my life," said Thomas E. Perez, assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, who called it the most significant police misconduct prosecution since the Rodney King beating case in Los Angeles in the early 1990s. "I have in particular observed in the New Orleans Police Department that the code of silence was seemingly impenetrable."
Jim Letten, the United States attorney for the Eastern District, called the plea deals "not only appropriate but necessary" for a successful prosecution.
The five former officers were convicted in August on a range of counts including federal civil rights violations and lying to investigators. The account of their actions given at the trial was a grim one.
On Sept 4, 2005, as much of the city still lay submerged in floodwaters, Sgt. Kenneth Bowen and Sgt. Robert Gisevius and Officers Anthony Villavaso and Robert Faulcon jumped in a Budget rental truck with several other officers and raced to the Danziger Bridge in eastern New Orleans, responding to a distress call.
As soon as they arrived, witnesses at the trial said, the officers began firing on members of the Bartholomew family, who were trying to find a grocery store. A 17-year-old named James Brisette, a family friend, was killed and four others were gravely wounded.
The police then began to chase Lance Madison and his brother Ronald, who was 40 years old and mentally disabled, who were trying to get to the other side of the bridge. Ronald Madison was shot in the back by Officer Faulcon and then stomped on by Sergeant Bowen, and Lance Madison was arrested at the scene and accused of shooting at the police. He was later cleared by a grand jury.
The four who were convicted of taking part in the shooting came into the hearing on Wednesday facing sentences of at least 35 years because of mandatory sentencing guidelines; Mr. Faulcon was facing at least 65 years. All could have been sentenced to life in prison. As it was, Mr. Bowen and Mr. Gisevius were sentenced to 40 years, Mr. Villavaso to 38 years and Mr. Faulcon to 65 years.
A cover-up began immediately after the shooting, and eventually grew to include made-up witnesses and a planted handgun. A retired sergeant, Arthur Kaufman, a veteran investigator, was charged with administering much of the cover-up, and while he came into court Wednesday without a mandatory minimum, he was facing up to 120 years in prison. He was sentenced to six years.
Jordan Flaherty contributed reporting.
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18) Plan to Let Poultry Plants Inspect Birds Is Criticized
By RON NIXON
April 4, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/us/usda-poultry-inspection-plan-sets-off-dispute.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - Federal food safety inspectors said a proposal by the Agriculture Department to expand a pilot program that allows private companies to take over the inspections at poultry plants could pose a health risk by allowing contaminated meat to reach customers.
Currently, the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service inspectors are stationed along the assembly lines in poultry plants and examine the birds for blemishes, feces or visible defects before they are processed.
Under the planned expansion, the agency would hand over these duties to poultry plant employees, while the inspectors would spend more time evaluating the plant's bacteria-testing and other safety programs. The department has run the pilot program in 20 poultry plants since 1998.
But many of the agency's inspectors said the proposal puts consumers at risk for diseases like those caused by salmonella. About 1.2 million cases of food poisoning are caused by salmonella each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In affidavits given to the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit legal-assistance group for government whistle-blowers, several inspectors who work at plants where the pilot program is in place said the main problem is that they are removed from positions on the assembly line and put at the end of the line, which makes it impossible for them to spot diseased birds.
The inspectors, whose names were redacted, said they had observed numerous instances of poultry plant employees allowing birds contaminated with fecal matter or other substances to pass. And even when the employees try to remove diseased birds, they face reprimands, the inspectors said.
The inspectors also said the Agriculture Department proposal allows poultry plants to speed up their assembly lines to about 200 birds per minute from 140, hampering any effort to examine birds for defects.
"It's tough enough when you are trying to examine 140 birds per minute with professional inspectors," said Stan Painter, a federal inspector in Crossville, Ala., a small town near Huntsville. "This proposal makes it impossible."
Mr. Painter works at a plant in the pilot program.
The Agriculture Department says it is simply trying to modernize an outdated poultry inspection system.
"This system is the same inspection model we've had since the Eisenhower administration," said Alfred V. Almanza, the administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service.
The agency said the new inspection model would prevent more than 5,200 poultry-related illnesses each year, though it did not say how. The agency said that over a three-year period this change would save $90 million through the elimination of more than 800 inspector positions.
Mr. Almanza, a former inspector himself, said he felt comfortable giving inspection duties to plant employees.
"The poultry industry has made great strides in the past few years in making birds pretty uniform, so it's easier to spot defective birds now," Mr. Almanza said.
The poultry industry applauded the Agriculture Department decision.
"The proposed rule is the logical next step in the modernization of poultry inspection," said Tom Super, vice president of communications for the National Chicken Council in Washington.
But some agriculture inspectors and advocacy groups see it differently.
Food and Water Watch, an advocacy group in Washington, which obtained more than 5,000 U.S.D.A. documents under the Freedom of Information Act last year, found that companies operating under the pilot program were missing defective poultry at high rates, said Tony Corbo, a lobbyist with the group.
Mr. Corbo said the group did not compare the rates with poultry plants not in the pilot program. However, the Agriculture Department said it did compare the two inspection systems and did not find a difference.
Mr. Almanza, the inspection administrator, said, "We find that plants in the pilot program were just as good or better than those that aren't in finding contamination."
But at least one member of Congress wants more information before the program is expanded. Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, has asked the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, to review the Agriculture Department's proposal.
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19) Graphic: The Billionaires' Club
By BEN PROTESS
[Graphic at link ...bw]
April 5, 2012, 1:06 pm
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/04/05/graphic-the-billionaires-club/?src=busln
Regardless of who wins the 2012 presidential election, billionaires will come out on top.
This campaign cycle, the richest Americans, a disparate group that crosses party lines and spans political beliefs, are using their wealth to support a wide cast of presidential contenders. Their growing influence has coincided with the rise of the so-called super PACs, fund-raising efforts that are aligned with specific candidates but shielded from the traditional donation limits.
Now, billionaires are doling out millions. Sheldon Adelson, owner of the Las Vegas Sands casino, has almost single-handedly kept Newt Gingrich's campaign afloat. The hedge fund magnates Julian Robertson of Tiger Management, John Paulson of Paulson & Company and Paul Singer of Elliott Associates are among the top supporters of Mitt Romney. The academy award-winning director Steven Spielberg is backing President Obama's re-election campaign.
As billionaires wade deeper into elections, their influence in Washington - and globally - is growing.
Warren E. Buffett, the head of Berkshire Hathaway and a loyal Democrat, has been a vocal advocate for higher taxes for the rich. The industrialists Charles and David Koch, staunch supporters of libertarian and conservative causes, host a private seminar that draws other conservative billionaires.
Despite their various beliefs, politically minded billionaires aren't all that different in their daily lives, connected through a wide range of charitable causes, financial activities and extracurricular activities.
The Hamptons are home, or rather second home, to many of the nation's moneyed elite, including Mr. Spielberg, the activist investor Carl Icahn and Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York. New York City cultural venues have reaped the benefits of having wealthy neighbors. Lincoln Center, for instance, has recruited donors and board members like Mr. Bloomberg, David Koch and Mr. Soros's sister-in-law, Daisy Soros. And when on their home turf - or on one of several vacation properties - many billionaires share one common passion: golf.
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