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Snowden and Manning deserve clemency
based on NYT criteria
http://ymlp.com/z9ltdc
Last week, the New York Times editorial board thrilled government transparency advocates worldwide when they released an article calling on President Obama to grant clemency to Edward Snowden. They declare him a whistleblower loud and clear in the article’s title, and detail the NSA’s legal and ethical violations which Mr. Snowden uncovered.Firedoglake’s Kevin Gosztola, who reported on PVT Manning’s trial last summer, praised the NYT for its support of Snowden while challenging them on another point “If Snowden is a whistleblower, what is Chelsea Manning?” This summer the NYT’s editorial board called Manning’s 35 year-sentence “excessive”, but they stopped short of calling her a whistleblower.
There are close parallels in the stories of Snowden and Manning as detailed on Gosztola’s blog:
Just as the Times makes clear that Snowden could not have gone through ‘proper channels,’ it would have been impossible for Manning as well… Had she sent specific documents in the sets to get the attention of members of Congress or had she gone to superiors within the military and said this should not be secret, she most certainly would have lost her security clearance...
Six bullet points on violations Snowden revealed and legal actions he provoked are offered by the Times editors to further advance the argument that he is a whistleblower. Certainly, the same could be done for Manning:
- Manning revealed a video of a 2007 Apache helicopter attack, which shows two Reuters journalists being gunned down in Baghdad. The video, which featured soldiers begging superior officers for orders to fire on individuals, was withheld from Reuters, even though the media organization filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
- Frago 242, which the US and the UK appeared to have adopted as a way of excusing them from having to take responsibility for torture or ill-treatment of Iraqis by Iraqi military or security forces, was revealed in the Iraq War Logs.
- Yemen president Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to secretly allow US cruise missile or drone attacks that he would say were launched by his government
- Both the administrations of President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama pressured Spain and Germany not to investigate torture authorized by Bush administration officials
- US government was well aware of rampant corruption in the Tunisian ruling family of President Ben Ali and the FBI trained torturers in Egypt’s state security service. The information released by Manning was one of the “small things“ that helped to inspire the Arab Spring
- Al Jazeera journalist Sami al-Hajj was sent to Guantanamo Bay prison “to provide information” on the “al Jazeera news network’s training program, telecommunications equipment and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan, including the network’s acquisition of a video of [Osama bin Laden] and a subsequent interview” of bin Laden, a clear attack on press freedom
If you’re wondering why government transparency advocates should present a unified front in fighting for whistleblower protections, you have only to look to the words and experiences of these whistleblowers themselves. While Snowden flees persecution by the same administration and same set of laws that were used to imprison Chelsea, he has clearly stated that ”Manning was a classic whistleblower.” She “was inspired by the public good.”
- Partly basing its ruling on diplomatic cables Manning released, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the court condemned the CIA for its extraordinary rendition program and found Macedonia had been responsible for the torture and violation of German car salesman Khaled el-Masri’s rights when he was abducted. Macedonia was ordered to pay $78,500 in damages to Masri.
Do you support both Manning and Snowden? Tell us why on our facebook page. Leave a comment, a graphic, or a picture of you holding a sign with your message. We will share some of our favorite messages and images with our 105,000+ facebook followers in the coming weeks.
“When
I chose to disclose classified information, I did so out of a love for
my country and a sense of duty to others.”-Pvt. Manning
|
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Here are three important ways you can support Chelsea:
1. Make a gift to the Private Manning Defense Fund. We are currently in the middle of a fund drive to raise $40,000 for her legal appeals and personal needs, including visits from family.
2. Send her a message at:
PVT Bradley E Manning89289
1300 N Warehouse Rd
Ft Leavenworth KS 66027-2304
USA
Please note that regular letter paper must be used, as cardstock will be turned away.
3. Hold a
party with friends and neighbors to raise money for Chelsea’s legal
defense.
Whether a dinner party, cocktail party or concert, bringing people
together for an evening of education and socializing is a great way to
kindle some social consciousness.
On each person's way out the door, you can ask them to add a personal
message on a joint letter to Chelsea.
If you want your party to be public, send information about your event
to owen@bradleymanning.org
Help us continue to cover 100%
of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591
COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. ARTICLES IN FULL
B. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.
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A. ARTICLES IN FULL
(Unless otherwise noted)
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1) Fifty Years Later, War on Poverty Is a Mixed Bag
By ANNIE LOWREY"But high rates of poverty — measured by both the official government yardstick and the alternatives that many economists prefer — have remained a remarkably persistent feature of American society. About four in 10 black children live in poverty; for Hispanic children, that figure is about three in 10. According to one recent study, as of mid-2011, in any given month, 1.7 million households were living on cash income of less than $2 a person a day, with the prevalence of the kind of deep poverty commonly associated with developing nations increasing since the mid-1990s"
WASHINGTON — To many Americans, the war on poverty declared 50 years ago by President Lyndon B. Johnson has largely failed. The poverty rate has fallen only to 15 percent from 19 percent in two generations, and 46 million Americans live in households where the government considers their income scarcely adequate.
But looked at a different way, the federal government has succeeded in preventing the poverty rate from climbing far higher. There is broad consensus that the social welfare programs created since the New Deal have hugely improved living conditions for low-income Americans. At the same time, in recent decades, most of the gains from the private economy have gone to those at the top of the income ladder.
Half a century after Mr. Johnson’s now-famed State of the Union address, the debate over the government’s role in creating opportunity and ending deprivation has flared anew, with inequality as acute as it was in the Roaring Twenties and the ranks of the poor and near-poor at record highs. Programs like unemployment insurance and food stamps are keeping millions of families afloat. Republicans have sought to cut both programs, an illustration of the intense disagreement between the two political parties over the best solutions for bringing down the poverty rate as quickly as possible, or eliminating it.
For poverty to decrease, “the low-wage labor market needs to improve,” James P. Ziliak of the University of Kentucky said. “We need strong economic growth with gains widely distributed. If the private labor market won’t step up to the plate, we’re going to have to strengthen programs to help these people get by and survive.”
In Washington, President Obama has called inequality the “defining challenge of our time.” To that end, he intends to urge states to expand their Medicaid programs to poor, childless adults, and is pushing for an increase in the minimum wage and funding for early-childhood programs.
But conservatives, like Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, have looked at the poverty statistics more skeptically, contending that the government has misspent its safety-net money and needs to focus less on support and more on economic and job opportunities.
“The nation should face up to two facts: poverty rates are too high, especially among children, and spending money on government means-tested programs is at best a partial solution,” Ron Haskins of the Brookings Institution wrote in an assessment of the shortfalls on the war on poverty. Washington already spends enough on antipoverty programs to lift all Americans out of poverty, he said. “To mount an effective war against poverty,” he added, “we need changes in the personal decisions of more young Americans.”
Still, a broad range of researchers interviewed by The New York Times stressed the improvement in the lives of low-income Americans since Mr. Johnson started his crusade. Infant mortality has dropped, college completion rates have soared, millions of women have entered the work force, malnutrition has all but disappeared. After all, when Mr. Johnson announced his campaign, parts of Appalachia lacked electricity and indoor plumbing.
Many economists argue that the official poverty rate grossly understates the impact of government programs. The headline poverty rate counts only cash income, not the value of in-kind benefits like food stamps. A fuller accounting suggests the poverty rate has dropped to 16 percent today, from 26 percent in the late 1960s, economists say.
But high rates of poverty — measured by both the official government yardstick and the alternatives that many economists prefer — have remained a remarkably persistent feature of American society. About four in 10 black children live in poverty; for Hispanic children, that figure is about three in 10. According to one recent study, as of mid-2011, in any given month, 1.7 million households were living on cash income of less than $2 a person a day, with the prevalence of the kind of deep poverty commonly associated with developing nations increasing since the mid-1990s.
Both economic and sociological trends help explain why so many children and adults remain poor, even putting the effects of the recession aside. More parents are raising a child alone, with more infants born out of wedlock. High incarceration rates, especially among black men, keep many families apart. About 30 percent of single mothers live in poverty.
In some cases, government programs have helped fewer families because of program changes and budget cuts, researchers said. For instance, the 1996 Clinton-era welfare overhaul drastically cut the cash assistance available to needy families, often ones headed by single mothers.
“As of 1996, we expected single mothers to go to work,” Professor Ziliak said. “But if they’re shelling out most of their weekly pay in the form of child care, they can’t make sense of doing it.”
The more important driver of the still-high poverty rate, researchers said, is the poor state of the labor market for low-wage workers and spiraling inequality. Over the last 30 years, growth has generally failed to translate into income gains for workers — even as the American labor force has become better educated and more skilled. About 40 percent of low-wage workers have attended or completed college, and 80 percent have completed high school.
Economists remain sharply divided on the reasons, with technological change, globalization, the decline of labor unions and the falling value of the minimum wage often cited as major factors. But with real incomes for a vast number of middle-class and low-wage workers in decline, safety-net programs have become more instrumental in keeping families’ heads above water.
The earned-income tax credit, for instance, has increased employment among single mothers and kept six million Americans above the poverty line in 2011. Food stamps, formally known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, kept four million Americans out of poverty in 2011.
Above all, the government has proved most successful in aiding the elderly through the New Deal-era Social Security program and the creation of Medicare in the 1960s. The poverty rate among older Americans fell to just 9 percent in 2012 from 35 percent in 1959.
But for working-age households, both conservatives and liberals agree that government transfer programs alone cannot eliminate poverty. The answer, the White House has said, is in trying to improve households’ earnings before tax and transfer programs take effect.
“Going forward, the biggest potential gains that could be made on poverty would be in raising market incomes,” said Jason Furman, the chairman of Mr. Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. “In the short run, that means things like the minimum wage, and in the long run, things like early education.”
If Congress approved a proposal to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from its current level of $7.25, it would reduce the poverty rate of working-age Americans by 1.7 percentage points, lifting about five million people out of poverty, according to research by Arindrajit Dube of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. But in the meantime, the greatest hope for poorer Americans would be a stronger economic recovery that brought the unemployment rate down from its current level of 7 percent and drew more people into the work force. The poverty rate for full-time workers is just 3 percent. For those not working, it is 33 percent.
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2) Moves to Curb Spying Help Drive the Clemency Argument for Snowden
By PETER BAKER
WASHINGTON — To the prosecutors pursuing him, Edward J. Snowden has committed espionage by divulging national secrets. But the growing backlash against government surveillance has spurred a spirited debate about whether he should be forgiven.
The whistleblower-versus-traitor argument has taken on a new dimension with recent moves to curtail the programs that Mr. Snowden revealed. A federal judge ruled that one program was probably unconstitutional, technology companies are demanding changes, lawmakers are considering restrictions, and even a White House panel urged modifications.
If the programs are so debatable, advocates for Mr. Snowden argue, then he should not be punished for bringing them to light.
“I absolutely think the tide has changed for Snowden,” said Jesselyn Radack, a legal adviser to Mr. Snowden and a lawyer with the Government Accountability Project, an advocacy group. “All of these things taken together counsel in favor of some sort of amnesty or pardon.”
But the call for leniency, proposed by a National Security Agency official, advanced by the American Civil Liberties Union and fueled by liberal newspaper editorial pages and television commentators, has made little headway in the White House or the Justice Department, which both reject it out of hand. Nor has it been persuasive to officials in the national security establishment, who warn that letting Mr. Snowden off the hook would set a dangerous precedent.
“Bottom line for me is that he is responsible for the most damaging leaks in U.S. intelligence history,” said John McLaughlin, a former acting C.I.A. director. Mr. Snowden, who worked as an N.S.A. contractor, “is a traitor and no way a whistle-blower,” Mr. McLaughlin added, and “represents only callow arrogance.”
Michael V. Hayden, who led the initial expansion of surveillance as the security agency’s director after the Sept. 11 attacks, said clemency would be “outrageous on its face.”
“This is the most destructive hemorrhaging of American secrets in the history of the Republic,” he said, “and Snowden’s cavalier dismissal of the consequences of his actions looks like depraved indifference at best.”
In interviews, a majority of the members of the White House review panel that recently recommended scores of changes to the surveillance programs to President Obama likewise dismissed the notion of exoneration for Mr. Snowden, even though they believed that the programs he disclosed should be curbed.
“His supporters say he may have violated the law, but it can be forgiven,” said Richard A. Clarke, a former White House counterterrorism adviser who served on the panel. “I don’t think it can be. In any outcome here, he’s going to serve time. The only question here is how much.”
As the debate plays out, Mr. Snowden watches from refuge in Moscow, where he fled last year after turning over classified documents to journalists from The Guardian and The Washington Post. Even after a lengthy interview published by The Post last month, little is known of his current life beyond his self-description as an “inside cat” who survives on ramen noodles and entertains sympathetic visitors but does not read the books they bring him.
Mr. Snowden claimed vindication last month after a judge ruled against the legality of a telephone metadata collection program detailed in the documents he disclosed. Another judge took the opposite position, but the conflict suggests that the matter is not as cut-and-dried as the government asserts, Mr. Snowden’s advocates said. The White House panel found “persistent instances of noncompliance” by the security agency but no “illegality or other abuse of authority” targeting domestic political activity.
Mr. Snowden’s disclosures are protected by the First Amendment, said Bruce Fein, a former Reagan administration lawyer who at one point represented Mr. Snowden's father. “It prohibits government from punishing communications that expose government lawlessness whether or not the illegality is classified,” he said. “Calling government to account for breaking the law is a compelling civic duty of all citizens.”
The amnesty idea won widespread attention last month when Richard Ledgett, who leads an N.S.A. task force evaluating damage from the disclosures, said on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” that it was “worth having a conversation about” it to prevent further revelations.
That position won further attention in the last week with editorials in The Guardian and The New York Times urging clemency. (The editorial page of The Times is run independently of the news department.) Debates about the idea played out on CNN, ABC and elsewhere, and Anne-Marie Slaughter, a former State Department official in the Obama administration, posted a message on Twitter in favor of clemency.
But inside the White House and the Justice Department, Mr. Ledgett’s suggestion has been met with stony opposition. The administration has made no move to reach out to negotiate any kind of deal and makes clear that it has no plans to. Officials express nothing but antipathy for Mr. Snowden, whose disclosures, one argued, have caused Al Qaeda and its allies “to change their tactics.”
Under the Espionage Act, there is no whistle-blower defense that would allow Mr. Snowden to argue his innocence because he was justified in exposing wrongdoing. Such an argument might be raised at sentencing, but Mr. Snowden’s supporters are focused on the court of public opinion, portraying him as a hero.
“The irony is the Obama administration welcomes the debate but condemns the man who sparked the debate,” said Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the A.C.L.U. “The debate would never have happened but for Edward Snowden.”
Michael B. Mukasey, an attorney general under President George W. Bush, said that theoretically noble motives were no excuse. “The only lesson if he doesn’t get prosecuted will be that if you commit a crime, take hostages — whether people or information — that you can use to negotiate your freedom,” he said.
John D. Negroponte, a former director of national intelligence, said any changes to the programs would be relatively minor. “Whether it’s tweaked — and that’s what it’s going to be, tweaked — it doesn’t justify what Mr. Snowden did,” he said.
Among those who want to change the program are the five members of Mr. Obama’s review panel. Three opposed leniency for Mr. Snowden, including Mr. Clarke; Geoffrey R. Stone, a University of Chicago law professor; and Michael J. Morell, a former acting director of the C.I.A.
“Even if Snowden’s benefit outweighed his costs, you don’t want to encourage people to make this decision for themselves,” Mr. Stone said.
The other two panel members, Cass R. Sunstein and Peter Swire, took no public position. But Mr. Swire said the debate underscored how much the surveillance had polarized the country. “One Silicon Valley person I spoke to on the question of whistle-blower versus traitor, his estimate was over 90 percent of the people in his company would say whistle-blower,” said Mr. Swire, a professor at Georgia Tech. “And I don’t think I’ve met a person in the intelligence community who would say whistle-blower. This is one of the biggest left coast-right coast splits we’ve seen.”
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3) Zero Tolerance, Reconsidered
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Schools across the country are rethinking “zero tolerance” discipline policies under which children have been suspended, even arrested, for minor offenses like cursing, getting into shoving matches and other garden-variety misbehavior that in years past would have been resolved with detention or meetings with a child’s parents.
These reappraisals are long overdue. Studies have shown that suspensions and expulsions do nothing to improve the school climate, while increasing the risk that children will experience long-term social and academic problems. Federal data also indicates that minority students are disproportionately singled out for harsh disciplinary measures.
These policies date back to 1994, when Congress required states receiving federal education money to expel students for bringing guns onto school property. States and local governments broadened and distorted this mandate to expel children for minor infractions. At the same time, schools began stationing police officers in hallways, which also increased arrests for nonviolent behavior.
The scope of the problem became clear three years ago when the Council of State Governments Justice Center, a nonprofit policy group, issued a study of school discipline polices in Texas. It showed that nearly 6 in 10 public school students were suspended or expelled at least once between seventh and 12th grade. But only a tiny fraction of the disciplinary actions taken against students were for serious criminal conduct requiring suspension or expulsion under state law.
Children who are removed from school are at heightened risk for low achievement, being held back, dropping out or becoming permanently entangled in the juvenile justice system. The Texas Legislature has taken steps aimed at keeping minor misconduct cases from reaching the courts. One law recommends that school districts consider less harsh sanctions, like a warning letter or counseling. Another measure prohibits police from ticketing and fining children under the age of 12 on school grounds or on a school bus.
A similar evolution is taking place in California. The Los Angeles school district became the first in the nation to ban suspensions for “willful defiance,” a catchall category that accounted for more than 40 percent of the state’s suspensions in the 2011-12 school year. A new state law allows suspension for serious offenses, like those involving violence or weapons, but requires schools to try alternative strategies, including parent-teacher conferences, before suspending students for nonviolent infractions. Change is also afoot in Broward County, Fla., one of the nation’s largest school districts. The district has entered into an agreement with civil rights groups and law enforcement to keep troubled children in school, where they can receive counseling and other forms of help. Broward’s superintendent said it was wrong to keep saddling students with criminal records that can hurt their chances of getting a job or college financial aid, or of entering the military. School systems across the country should pay attention.
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4) Migrants in Israel Protest Law for Detention
By REUTERS
TEL AVIV — Thousands of African migrants, many holding banners demanding freedom for fellow migrants jailed by Israel,
protested in a square here on Sunday against a new open-ended detention
law that allows migrants to be sent to a desert prison.
The protests prompted a rare and strongly worded statement from the United Nations refugee agency, which said that Israel’s incarceration of migrants caused “hardship and suffering” and was “not in line” with a 1951 world treaty on the treatment of refugees.
Human rights groups say more than 300 people have been arrested since the law, which allows the authorities to detain migrants without valid visas indefinitely, was passed by Israel’s Parliament three weeks ago.
Dozens more have been summoned for detention, among them men with wives and children, human rights activists and the United Nations said.
About 60,000 migrants, largely from Eritrea and Sudan, have crossed into Israel across a once-porous border with Egypt since 2006, Israeli authorities say.
Many live in poor areas of Tel Aviv and say they want asylum and safe haven. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he views the presence of many of the Africans as a threat to Israel’s Jewish social fabric.
An Israeli border fence has cut off the African influx from Egypt since 2012, but migrants who have already crossed can be sent to what the government describes as an open prison in Israel’s southern desert.
The new site, which was the focal point of the protests by some 10,000 in Tel Aviv, is similar to a halfway house. Detainees can leave during the day but must report back by nightfall. Migrants can be held there without a time limit pending voluntary repatriation, implementation of deportation orders or resolution of their asylum requests.
In a written statement, Walpurga Englbrecht, the representative for the United Nations refugee agency in Israel, said she was “particularly disquieted” about the newest Israeli site that “would appear to operate as a detention center from where there is no release. This means in effect indefinite detention.”
Ms. Englbrecht criticized Israel’s designation of many migrants as “infiltrators,” saying most were refugees or deserved international protection.
The protests prompted a rare and strongly worded statement from the United Nations refugee agency, which said that Israel’s incarceration of migrants caused “hardship and suffering” and was “not in line” with a 1951 world treaty on the treatment of refugees.
Human rights groups say more than 300 people have been arrested since the law, which allows the authorities to detain migrants without valid visas indefinitely, was passed by Israel’s Parliament three weeks ago.
Dozens more have been summoned for detention, among them men with wives and children, human rights activists and the United Nations said.
About 60,000 migrants, largely from Eritrea and Sudan, have crossed into Israel across a once-porous border with Egypt since 2006, Israeli authorities say.
Many live in poor areas of Tel Aviv and say they want asylum and safe haven. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he views the presence of many of the Africans as a threat to Israel’s Jewish social fabric.
An Israeli border fence has cut off the African influx from Egypt since 2012, but migrants who have already crossed can be sent to what the government describes as an open prison in Israel’s southern desert.
The new site, which was the focal point of the protests by some 10,000 in Tel Aviv, is similar to a halfway house. Detainees can leave during the day but must report back by nightfall. Migrants can be held there without a time limit pending voluntary repatriation, implementation of deportation orders or resolution of their asylum requests.
In a written statement, Walpurga Englbrecht, the representative for the United Nations refugee agency in Israel, said she was “particularly disquieted” about the newest Israeli site that “would appear to operate as a detention center from where there is no release. This means in effect indefinite detention.”
Ms. Englbrecht criticized Israel’s designation of many migrants as “infiltrators,” saying most were refugees or deserved international protection.
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5)The War on Poverty at 50
By JARED BERNSTEIN
January 6, 2014
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-war-on-poverty-at-50/?src=busln
This week marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, a broad set of policy initiatives designed to reduce poverty in America.
Or, if you’re so inclined, an opportunity to echo President Reagan’s line: “We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won.”
So, which is it?
It turns out to be a bit of a trick question. It’s easy to show that much of what we’ve done to reduce poverty has been highly successful. Social Security — a New Deal program that was expanded in the 1960s — today reduces the official elderly poverty rate from 44 percent without counting Social Security benefits to 9 percent with them. That development alone belies the facile Reagan quip. More careful analysis of the benefits of our current set of anti-poverty programs, reviewed below, further underscore this point.
Yet poverty still exists. The official measure stands at 15 percent, but it is widely regarded to woefully inadequate, as it depends on outdated income thresholds and omits both much of the impact of policies intended to fight poverty and income sources of low-income households. Under a metric that corrects for these omissions, the poverty rate in 2012 was 16 percent; that’s almost 50 million people, including 13 million children.
Still, that rate is considerably lower than two important benchmarks. First, thanks to a recent study by poverty scholars from Columbia University (see chart and source below), we can track this improved metric back to the latter 1960s. In 1967, about 26 percent were poor compared to 16 percent in 2012.
Second — and this benchmark really gets to the question of the effectiveness of anti-poverty policies — absent those policies, the 2012 rate would be 29 percent, meaning that the value of food stamps, unemployment benefits, the earned-income tax credit, housing subsidies and more lifted 13 percent of the population — 40 million people — out of poverty that year.
Another way to see the increasing poverty-reducing impact of the programs noted above is to observe the growing gap between the two top lines in the chart. The growing distance between the rate that counts what we’re doing to reduce poverty and the rate that leaves it out is proof of the increasing anti-poverty impact of these policies.
Such benchmarks provide a sharp rebuke to the “we lost the war” crowd.
Yet I suspect that if I could sit President Johnson down and explain to him all we’ve done to maintain and expand the policy arsenal he helped to introduce half a century ago, he’d be surprised that there’s still so much economic hardship.
The reason, however, is not the ineffectiveness of the anti-poverty programs that his administration introduced and strengthened. It’s that they’ve had to work much harder in an economy that has made it a lot tougher for those at the bottom to get ahead. If this is a war, then it is not just the anti-poverty forces that have gotten stronger over time, as revealed by the growing distance between the two top lines in the figure. The opposing army, wielding weapons of inequality, globalization, deunionization, lower minimum wages, slack labor markets and decreasing returns to lower-end jobs, has also gained much strength.
There’s a counterargument — one as old as poverty itself — that says don’t blame the economy; the poor themselves have made life choices that consigned them to poverty, like not getting enough schooling, single parenthood, or having children out of wedlock. Clearly such choices have always played a role in driving up poverty, but how have they changed over time, and what’s their relative importance compared to the broader economic trends noted above?
In fact, research released Monday by some of my colleagues at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that such demographic and educational trends have often moved in opposite directions, some pushing toward higher poverty rates, others pushing toward lower ones. Regarding the latter, for example, the share of adults with higher educational attainment has risen significantly, family size has shrunk, and a lot more women are in the paid labor market. Pushing the other way — toward higher poverty — are a larger share of single-parent families and lower employment rates for men (I wouldn’t be so quick to assign this one to behavior versus structural economic changes).
Fortunately, the Economic Policy Institute publishes a revealing decomposition on the relevant roles of these poverty determinants, including inequality — which, by steering any given level of economic growth away from the low-income families, leads to higher poverty — family structure, education, and so on. Their analysis shows that between 1979 and 2007, the increase in inequality was the single most important factor in their analysis, increasing poverty by 5.5 percentage points. The shift to single parent families added 1.4 point to poverty over those years, but educational upgrading reduced it by almost twice that amount.
So, collecting all of these facts, the answer to the question posed above is that it’s the wrong question, in that its inherent win/loss framing precludes a nuanced analysis of the play between many disparate factors. The data clearly show that anti-poverty policies have been effective, but they’ve had to work harder in the face of increasing economic challenges facing low-income families. We could try to push the safety net further, but the politics aren’t there, to say the least. Moreover, unless we do more to deal with the underlying structural problems in the economy that are increasing poverty — especially the lack of decently paying jobs, which I link closely to the absence of full employment — we’ll have to increasingly ratchet up government support year after year.
The American safety net is actively helping millions of economically disadvantaged families, and we should protect and improve it. But the best way to help it — and more importantly, the poor themselves — is to strengthen the underlying economy in ways that will take some of the pressure off of what has, over the last 50 years, become an effective set of anti-poverty social policies.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/06/the-war-on-poverty-at-50/?src=busln
This week marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty, a broad set of policy initiatives designed to reduce poverty in America.
Or, if you’re so inclined, an opportunity to echo President Reagan’s line: “We fought a war on poverty, and poverty won.”
So, which is it?
It turns out to be a bit of a trick question. It’s easy to show that much of what we’ve done to reduce poverty has been highly successful. Social Security — a New Deal program that was expanded in the 1960s — today reduces the official elderly poverty rate from 44 percent without counting Social Security benefits to 9 percent with them. That development alone belies the facile Reagan quip. More careful analysis of the benefits of our current set of anti-poverty programs, reviewed below, further underscore this point.
Yet poverty still exists. The official measure stands at 15 percent, but it is widely regarded to woefully inadequate, as it depends on outdated income thresholds and omits both much of the impact of policies intended to fight poverty and income sources of low-income households. Under a metric that corrects for these omissions, the poverty rate in 2012 was 16 percent; that’s almost 50 million people, including 13 million children.
Still, that rate is considerably lower than two important benchmarks. First, thanks to a recent study by poverty scholars from Columbia University (see chart and source below), we can track this improved metric back to the latter 1960s. In 1967, about 26 percent were poor compared to 16 percent in 2012.
Second — and this benchmark really gets to the question of the effectiveness of anti-poverty policies — absent those policies, the 2012 rate would be 29 percent, meaning that the value of food stamps, unemployment benefits, the earned-income tax credit, housing subsidies and more lifted 13 percent of the population — 40 million people — out of poverty that year.
Another way to see the increasing poverty-reducing impact of the programs noted above is to observe the growing gap between the two top lines in the chart. The growing distance between the rate that counts what we’re doing to reduce poverty and the rate that leaves it out is proof of the increasing anti-poverty impact of these policies.
Such benchmarks provide a sharp rebuke to the “we lost the war” crowd.
Yet I suspect that if I could sit President Johnson down and explain to him all we’ve done to maintain and expand the policy arsenal he helped to introduce half a century ago, he’d be surprised that there’s still so much economic hardship.
The reason, however, is not the ineffectiveness of the anti-poverty programs that his administration introduced and strengthened. It’s that they’ve had to work much harder in an economy that has made it a lot tougher for those at the bottom to get ahead. If this is a war, then it is not just the anti-poverty forces that have gotten stronger over time, as revealed by the growing distance between the two top lines in the figure. The opposing army, wielding weapons of inequality, globalization, deunionization, lower minimum wages, slack labor markets and decreasing returns to lower-end jobs, has also gained much strength.
There’s a counterargument — one as old as poverty itself — that says don’t blame the economy; the poor themselves have made life choices that consigned them to poverty, like not getting enough schooling, single parenthood, or having children out of wedlock. Clearly such choices have always played a role in driving up poverty, but how have they changed over time, and what’s their relative importance compared to the broader economic trends noted above?
In fact, research released Monday by some of my colleagues at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities shows that such demographic and educational trends have often moved in opposite directions, some pushing toward higher poverty rates, others pushing toward lower ones. Regarding the latter, for example, the share of adults with higher educational attainment has risen significantly, family size has shrunk, and a lot more women are in the paid labor market. Pushing the other way — toward higher poverty — are a larger share of single-parent families and lower employment rates for men (I wouldn’t be so quick to assign this one to behavior versus structural economic changes).
Fortunately, the Economic Policy Institute publishes a revealing decomposition on the relevant roles of these poverty determinants, including inequality — which, by steering any given level of economic growth away from the low-income families, leads to higher poverty — family structure, education, and so on. Their analysis shows that between 1979 and 2007, the increase in inequality was the single most important factor in their analysis, increasing poverty by 5.5 percentage points. The shift to single parent families added 1.4 point to poverty over those years, but educational upgrading reduced it by almost twice that amount.
So, collecting all of these facts, the answer to the question posed above is that it’s the wrong question, in that its inherent win/loss framing precludes a nuanced analysis of the play between many disparate factors. The data clearly show that anti-poverty policies have been effective, but they’ve had to work harder in the face of increasing economic challenges facing low-income families. We could try to push the safety net further, but the politics aren’t there, to say the least. Moreover, unless we do more to deal with the underlying structural problems in the economy that are increasing poverty — especially the lack of decently paying jobs, which I link closely to the absence of full employment — we’ll have to increasingly ratchet up government support year after year.
The American safety net is actively helping millions of economically disadvantaged families, and we should protect and improve it. But the best way to help it — and more importantly, the poor themselves — is to strengthen the underlying economy in ways that will take some of the pressure off of what has, over the last 50 years, become an effective set of anti-poverty social policies.
Jared Bernstein is a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington and a former chief economist to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
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6) Seattle's first socialist council member sworn in
Kshama Sawant promises to fight for $15-an-hour minimum wage, affordable housing and taxes on super-rich
theguardian.com
Seattle
has sworn in its first socialist city council member in a century after
a former community college professor won a surprising victory in a
citywide election.
Kshama Sawant of the Socialist Alternative party took her oath and served in her first hearing, then gave a speech to supporters in a ceremonial swearing-in at a packed city hall.
"I will do my utmost to represent the disenfranchised and the excluded, the poor and the oppressed, by fighting for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, affordable housing, and taxing the super-rich for a massive expansion of public transit and education," said Sawant, 41.
Sawant's win surprised many even in this liberal city. Bolstered by a grassroots campaign that focused on economic inequality, she toppled the incumbent of 16 years, Richard Conlin, who was backed by the political establishment.
"Here in Seattle, political pundits are asking about me: will she compromise? Can she work with others? Of course, I will meet and discuss with representatives of the establishment. But when I do, I will bring the needs and aspirations of working-class people to every table I sit at, no matter who is seated across from me," Sawant said.
On Monday, the mood was celebratory and resolute. "I wear the badge of socialist with honour," she exclaimed.
Seattle city council staff estimate Sawant is the first socialist to be elected to office in 100 years.
Seattle's new mayor, Ed Murray, who led efforts to legalise gay marriage in Washington state over two decades, was also ceremonially sworn in on Monday. The veteran state politician defeated incumbent Mike McGinn.
Kshama Sawant of the Socialist Alternative party took her oath and served in her first hearing, then gave a speech to supporters in a ceremonial swearing-in at a packed city hall.
"I will do my utmost to represent the disenfranchised and the excluded, the poor and the oppressed, by fighting for a $15-an-hour minimum wage, affordable housing, and taxing the super-rich for a massive expansion of public transit and education," said Sawant, 41.
Sawant's win surprised many even in this liberal city. Bolstered by a grassroots campaign that focused on economic inequality, she toppled the incumbent of 16 years, Richard Conlin, who was backed by the political establishment.
"Here in Seattle, political pundits are asking about me: will she compromise? Can she work with others? Of course, I will meet and discuss with representatives of the establishment. But when I do, I will bring the needs and aspirations of working-class people to every table I sit at, no matter who is seated across from me," Sawant said.
On Monday, the mood was celebratory and resolute. "I wear the badge of socialist with honour," she exclaimed.
Seattle city council staff estimate Sawant is the first socialist to be elected to office in 100 years.
Seattle's new mayor, Ed Murray, who led efforts to legalise gay marriage in Washington state over two decades, was also ceremonially sworn in on Monday. The veteran state politician defeated incumbent Mike McGinn.
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7) Faulty Websites Confront Needy in Search of Aid
By FRANCES ROBLES
MIAMI — Three months after the disastrous rollout of a new $63 million website for unemployment claims, Florida is hiring hundreds of employees to deal with technical problems that left tens of thousands of people without their checks while penalties mount against the vendor who set up the site.
Efforts at modernizing the systems for unemployment compensation in California, Massachusetts and Nevada have also largely backfired in recent months, causing enormous cost overruns and delays.
While the nation’s attention was focused on the troubled rollout of the federal health care site under the Affordable Care Act, the problems with the unemployment sites have pointed to something much broader: how a lack of funding in many states and a shortage of information technology specialists in public service jobs routinely lead to higher costs, botched systems and infuriating technical problems that fall hardest on the poor, the jobless and the neediest.
As a result, the old stereotype of applicants standing in long lines to speak to surly civil servants at government unemployment offices is quickly being replaced. Now those seeking work or government assistance are often spending countless hours in front of buggy websites, then getting a busy signal when they try to get through by phone.
In October, food stamp recipients in 17 states were unable to use their electronic cards for a day because the computer system that runs the program failed. Over the years, similar problems with systems in Georgia, Massachusetts, Texas, Colorado and other states have prevented people from getting food stamps and Medicaid benefits.
The problems come at a time when state legislatures are increasingly demanding efficient methods for people to apply online for aid, from food stamps to unemployment benefits.
“It’s like calling a radio station trying to get tickets,” said Gary A. Grimes, 52, an unemployed construction manager in Pensacola, Fla. His $275 weekly checks stopped after he tried to log in to report that he had gotten a weeklong job but still needed benefits.
High unemployment in recent years has forced states to process record numbers of benefit claims using outdated technology, and without significant increases in federal funding, according to a report in 2012 by the National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for lower-wage workers. Most states are operating unemployment insurance programs with 30-year-old computer systems, said George Wentworth, a senior staff lawyer with the legal group.
“What we have seen is that a lot of the old systems have been breaking down,” Mr. Wentworth said. “The recession really ended up highlighting the fragile state of a lot of these systems.”
But for many states, the upgrade was even worse.
So many applications for benefits were stalled when California introduced its new system on Labor Day that the government had to process them by hand. About 148,000 people waited weeks for their unemployment checks.
Similar problems after Massachusetts rolled out its system in July cost the state $800,000 in overtime and new hires to resolve and prompted legislative hearings. The project was delivered two years late and $6 million over the original estimate, The Boston Globe reported.
Also in July, Pennsylvania scrapped its $153 million online system for unemployment benefits, because the project was “simply not working,” the state’s secretary of labor, Julia Hearthway, said at the time.
Florida’s website trouble stems from a 2011 law that required people to sign up online for unemployment benefits. Before the law, 40 percent of the applications were done by phone.
In April, in response to a complaint by the nonprofit Florida Legal Services, the federal Department of Labor found that the online requirement violated the civil rights of people with language barriers and disabilities. The Florida Department of Economic Opportunity lashed back, accusing the federal agency of being overly politicized.
The state agency’s website shows more than 78,000 calls came in to the customer service center last Thursday alone. Of those, fewer than 6,500 callers spoke with a representative. More than 300 customer service representatives and claims adjudicators will be hired in the coming months, the agency said last week.
The department blamed its vendor, Deloitte Consulting, which was also responsible for the projects in California and Massachusetts. The agency issued $6 million in penalties against the company, withheld a $3 million payment and on Dec. 23 began fining it $15,000 a day until the problems are fixed.
“We are dedicated to making sure every claim is processed quickly, and we will continue to work until every claimant is served,” Jesse Panuccio, the executive director of the Department of Economic Opportunity, said in a statement. “We will continue to hold Deloitte accountable and I have asked them to devote whatever resources necessary to fix all remaining technical issues.”
Deloitte defended its work, saying that most jobless people have been able to file for benefits without trouble. It blamed the department for the latest setbacks because, the company said, it changed requirements that strained Deloitte’s resources. The company has already made more than 1,000 fixes and successfully processed at least 300,000 claims, Deloitte said in response to the latest fine.
Deloitte said a 2012 report by the Government Accountability Office showed that states were struggling to modernize their unemployment insurance programs, because governments lacked the budgets and the trained staff to make the updated systems work. Most of the issues that continue to dog the project, the company said, are beyond its control or have nothing to do with the software.
“We will also continue to work with D.E.O. to clarify the true nature of the remaining issues and will hold ourselves strictly accountable for fixing anything within our control as quickly as possible,” the company said in a statement.
Users of the site say the online enrollment system is particularly a problem for people whose benefits applications require further review.
Albert Harris, an Army reservist who recently returned from Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was owed $2,400 in unemployment benefits, but a problem with a claim involving his previous employer, Disney, complicated his application. He was finally paid last week, after calling the customer service line about 150 times over two and a half months.
“Some of the representatives are really rude because they have been dealing with so many angry claimants,” he said, adding that he got through to speak with a representative about 30 times. “Sometimes they hang up, because they can’t take it.”
Shari Godfrey, 51, who was owed $2,000 in unemployment checks, was so desperate for money over the holidays that she set up a fund-raising site on gofundme.com to ask for donations. Having spent her severance payment so her dying sister could continue to receive hospital care, Ms. Godfrey was two months behind on her rent, was getting late notices on her car payments, and did not have enough money to pay for her diabetes medication.
Late last week she received notice that her overdue unemployment payment would finally arrive.
“The system does not work,” Ms. Godfrey said. “They cannot process claims. For months, not one check.”
Valory Greenfield, a lawyer with Florida Legal Services, said the state was not doing enough to make fixes and penalize the company responsible. “At Legal Services, we are hearing, ‘I am getting evicted. I can’t pay my bills,’ ” Ms. Greenfield said.
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8) Burglars Who Took On F.B.I. Abandon Shadows
By MARK MAZZETTI
PHILADELPHIA — The perfect crime is far easier to pull off when nobody is watching.
So on a night nearly 43 years ago, while Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier bludgeoned each other over 15 rounds in a televised title bout viewed by millions around the world, burglars took a lock pick and a crowbar and broke into a Federal Bureau of Investigation office in a suburb of Philadelphia, making off with nearly every document inside.
They were never caught, and the stolen documents that they mailed anonymously to newspaper reporters were the first trickle of what would become a flood of revelations about extensive spying and dirty-tricks operations by the F.B.I. against dissident groups.
The burglary in Media, Pa., on March 8, 1971, is a historical echo today, as disclosures by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden have cast another unflattering light on government spying and opened a national debate about the proper limits of government surveillance. The burglars had, until now, maintained a vow of silence about their roles in the operation. They were content in knowing that their actions had dealt the first significant blow to an institution that had amassed enormous power and prestige during J. Edgar Hoover’s lengthy tenure as director.
“When you talked to people outside the movement about what the F.B.I. was doing, nobody wanted to believe it,” said one of the burglars, Keith Forsyth, who is finally going public about his involvement. “There was only one way to convince people that it was true, and that was to get it in their handwriting.”
Mr. Forsyth, now 63, and other members of the group can no longer be prosecuted for what happened that night, and they agreed to be interviewed before the release this week of a book written by one of the first journalists to receive the stolen documents. The author, Betty Medsger, a former reporter for The Washington Post, spent years sifting through the F.B.I.’s voluminous case file on the episode and persuaded five of the eight men and women who participated in the break-in to end their silence.
Unlike Mr. Snowden, who downloaded hundreds of thousands of digital N.S.A. files onto computer hard drives, the Media burglars did their work the 20th-century way: they cased the F.B.I. office for months, wore gloves as they packed the papers into suitcases, and loaded the suitcases into getaway cars. When the operation was over, they dispersed. Some remained committed to antiwar causes, while others, like John and Bonnie Raines, decided that the risky burglary would be their final act of protest against the Vietnam War and other government actions before they moved on with their lives.
“We didn’t need attention, because we had done what needed to be done,” said Mr. Raines, 80, who had, with his wife, arranged for family members to raise the couple’s three children if they were sent to prison. “The ’60s were over. We didn’t have to hold on to what we did back then.”
A Meticulous Plan
The burglary was the idea of William C. Davidon, a professor of physics at Haverford College and a fixture of antiwar protests in Philadelphia, a city that by the early 1970s had become a white-hot center of the peace movement. Mr. Davidon was frustrated that years of organized demonstrations seemed to have had little impact.
In the summer of 1970, months after President Richard M. Nixon announced the United States’ invasion of Cambodia, Mr. Davidon began assembling a team from a group of activists whose commitment and discretion he had come to trust.
The group — originally nine, before one member dropped out — concluded that it would be too risky to try to break into the F.B.I. office in downtown Philadelphia, where security was tight. They soon settled on the bureau’s satellite office in Media, in an apartment building across the street from the county courthouse.
That decision carried its own risks: Nobody could be certain whether the satellite office would have any documents about the F.B.I.’s surveillance of war protesters, or whether a security alarm would trip as soon as the burglars opened the door.
The group spent months casing the building, driving past it at all times of the night and memorizing the routines of its residents.
“We knew when people came home from work, when their lights went out, when they went to bed, when they woke up in the morning,” said Mr. Raines, who was a professor of religion at Temple University at the time. “We were quite certain that we understood the nightly activities in and around that building.”
But it wasn’t until Ms. Raines got inside the office that the group grew confident that it did not have a security system. Weeks before the burglary, she visited the office posing as a Swarthmore College student researching job opportunities for women at the F.B.I.
The burglary itself went off largely without a hitch, except for when Mr. Forsyth, the designated lock-picker, had to break into a different entrance than planned when he discovered that the F.B.I. had installed a lock on the main door that he could not pick. He used a crowbar to break the second lock, a deadbolt above the doorknob.
After packing the documents into suitcases, the burglars piled into getaway cars and rendezvoused at a farmhouse to sort through what they had stolen. To their relief, they soon discovered that the bulk of it was hard evidence of the F.B.I.’s spying on political groups. Identifying themselves as the Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the F.B.I., the burglars sent select documents to several newspaper reporters. Two weeks after the burglary, Ms. Medsger wrote the first article based on the files, after the Nixon administration tried unsuccessfully to get The Post to return the documents.
Other news organizations that had received the documents, including The New York Times, followed with their own reports.
Ms. Medsger’s article cited what was perhaps the most damning document from the cache, a 1970 memorandum that offered a glimpse into Hoover’s obsession with snuffing out dissent. The document urged agents to step up their interviews of antiwar activists and members of dissident student groups.
“It will enhance the paranoia endemic in these circles and will further serve to get the point across there is an F.B.I. agent behind every mailbox,” the message from F.B.I. headquarters said. Another document, signed by Hoover himself, revealed widespread F.B.I. surveillance of black student groups on college campuses.
But the document that would have the biggest impact on reining in the F.B.I.’s domestic spying activities was an internal routing slip, dated 1968, bearing a mysterious word: Cointelpro.
Neither the Media burglars nor the reporters who received the documents understood the meaning of the term, and it was not until several years later, when the NBC News reporter Carl Stern obtained more files from the F.B.I. under the Freedom of Information Act, that the contours of Cointelpro — shorthand for Counterintelligence Program — were revealed.
Since 1956, the F.B.I. had carried out an expansive campaign to spy on civil rights leaders, political organizers and suspected Communists, and had tried to sow distrust among protest groups. Among the grim litany of revelations was a blackmail letter F.B.I. agents had sent anonymously to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., threatening to expose his extramarital affairs if he did not commit suicide.
“It wasn’t just spying on Americans,” said Loch K. Johnson, a professor of public and international affairs at the University of Georgia who was an aide to Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho. “The intent of Cointelpro was to destroy lives and ruin reputations.”
Senator Church’s investigation in the mid-1970s revealed still more about the extent of decades of F.B.I. abuses, and led to greater congressional oversight of the F.B.I. and other American intelligence agencies. The Church Committee’s final report about the domestic surveillance was blunt. “Too many people have been spied upon by too many government agencies, and too much information has been collected,” it read.
By the time the committee released its report, Hoover was dead and the empire he had built at the F.B.I. was being steadily dismantled. The roughly 200 agents he had assigned to investigate the Media burglary came back empty-handed, and the F.B.I. closed the case on March 11, 1976 — three days after the statute of limitations for burglary charges had expired.
Michael P. Kortan, a spokesman for the F.B.I., said that “a number of events during that era, including the Media burglary, contributed to changes to how the F.B.I. identified and addressed domestic security threats, leading to reform of the F.B.I.’s intelligence policies and practices and the creation of investigative guidelines by the Department of Justice.”
According to Ms. Medsger’s book, “The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret F.B.I.,” only one of the burglars was on the F.B.I.’s final list of possible suspects before the case was closed.
A Retreat Into Silence
The eight burglars rarely spoke to one another while the F.B.I. investigation was proceeding and never again met as a group.
Mr. Davidon died late last year from complications of Parkinson’s disease. He had planned to speak publicly about his role in the break-in, but three of the burglars have chosen to remain anonymous.
Among those who have come forward — Mr. Forsyth, the Raineses and a man named Bob Williamson — there is some wariness of how their decision will be viewed.
The passage of years has worn some of the edges off the once radical political views of John and Bonnie Raines. But they said they felt a kinship toward Mr. Snowden, whose revelations about N.S.A. spying they see as a bookend to their own disclosures so long ago.
They know some people will criticize them for having taken part in something that, if they had been caught and convicted, might have separated them from their children for years. But they insist they would never have joined the team of burglars had they not been convinced they would get away with it.
“It looks like we’re terribly reckless people,” Mr. Raines said. “But there was absolutely no one in Washington — senators, congressmen, even the president — who dared hold J. Edgar Hoover to accountability.”
“It became pretty obvious to us,” he said, “that if we don’t do it, nobody will.”
The Retro Report video with this article is the 24th in a documentary series presented by The New York Times. The video project was started with a grant from Christopher Buck. Retro Report has a staff of 13 journalists and 10 contributors led by Kyra Darnton, a former “60 Minutes” producer. It is a nonprofit video news organization that aims to provide a thoughtful counterweight to today’s 24/7 news cycle.
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9) French Workers Hold Goodyear Managers Over Jobs
By LIZ ALDERMAN
PARIS — When negotiations broke down this weekend at a Goodyear tire
factory slated for closing in northern France, employees resorted to a
brazen tactic to get management’s attention: They kidnapped the bosses.
On Tuesday, hundreds of employees at the plant in Amiens were holding two senior executives captive for the second day. Union leaders threatened to keep them sequestered until the company agreed to pay out “huge amounts of money” to workers in exchange for shuttering the factory.
A tense standoff between employees and management had been going on for more than a year. Various episodes verging on violence — including the mass burning of tires, and workers’ blocking the assembly line — flared up regularly as unions sought to prevent a total closing of the factory, which would wipe out about 1,200 jobs.
The “boss-napping” revived a sort of guerrilla theater that was used at several companies including Caterpillar and Sony at the height of the financial crisis as workers despaired about layoffs and cutbacks. So far, the French government has shown no sign of stepping in, but on Tuesday, a court in Amiens appointed a bailiff to ensure “the security and free movement of goods and people” at the factory, a move that paves the way for possible police intervention.
The workers’ tactic may not help with overall concerns about France as a place to do business. As a debate resurfaces over whether France is in danger of becoming the next sick man of Europe, the Goodyear factory has become one of the most potent symbols of challenges that companies face. France’s rigid labor market and the influence that labor unions hold over the workplace have long been a source of aggravation. The imminent closing of the Goodyear factory — the latest in a series of mass layoffs at large companies across France — underscores the economic consequences for workers in a country that is grappling with a decline in competitiveness.
Goodyear said in a statement that it was refusing to negotiate with the unions as long as the managers were being held against their will. Condemning the action, the company said it was “especially inopportune and counterproductive at a time when we should concentrate on the future of employees affected by the restructuring, after several years looking for a solution.”
The workers are unlikely to find any other job once the factory is closed and are pressing for severance packages of 80,000 euros, or about $110,000, plus €2,500 for each year worked, before they will set the bosses free.
The issue had flared last year after the chief executive of an American tire company, Titan, responded to a government request to step in and buy the plant, partly in order to help avoid mass layoffs.
“How stupid do you think we are?” Maurice Taylor Jr., the head of Titan International, responded to the country’s industry minister, Arnaud Montebourg, in a letter published in French newspapers last February. Mr. Taylor, who had wanted to buy some of the operation, eventually gave up, saying he had had numerous confrontations with unions over the plant’s workers, whom he described as loafers who generated little productivity.
Once he pulled away, there was no other buyer in sight, and the factory was eventually slated for closing with the loss of all 1,173 jobs.
Late last year, Mr. Montebourg again reached out to Mr. Taylor — nicknamed “the Grizz” by Wall Street analysts for his abrasive negotiating and management style — in an attempt to lure him back to the bargaining table. But Mr. Taylor has so far not made a firm commitment and Goodyear began winding down the operation, starting with notices of redundancy to be issued this month.
Late Monday, Mr. Taylor said he was appalled by the latest vigilante action at the factory, in which workers rolled giant farm tractor wheels in to block the doors to the room where the managers were being held.
“In the United States, we call this a kidnapping,” he told Europe 1 Radio. “These people would be arrested and prosecuted. This is a very serious crime, you would risk life imprisonment. But in France, your government does nothing — it’s crazy.”
But in France, there is a certain sympathy with workers who see their livelihood eroded.
“We must acknowledge that the life of these people is going to stop. We’re talking about families with children, people who won’t have any more revenue, and older people who will never find new work,” Pierre Laurent, the national secretary of the P.C.F., the French communist party, told the French radio station RTL. “They have enriched the country, they have worked for France. We can’t just throw them outside with nothing.”
The managers being held — Bernard Glesser, the director of human resources at the Amiens plant, and Michel Dheilly, the director of production — were permitted to be filmed by journalists and speak with their families. They appeared mostly at ease, smiling and consulting their cellphones, as workers milled about and occasionally shouted at them.
“When we are kept against our will and forced to submit to humiliations and insults, we are not being well treated,” Mr. Glesser said in a video posted on the French business news site BFM.
Franck Jurek, a member of the militant Confédération Générale du Travail union, said that workers were still holding out hope that a buyer would emerge for the factory. “Even if we have to wait three or four days, they are not getting out,” he said.
In 2009, workers in France engaged in a series of boss-nappings. Employees took executives of Caterpillar hostage temporarily when talks over revamping the company’s operation broke down. Workers trapped François-Henri Pinault, the chief executive of PPR, the group that owns Gucci, in his car that same year, while bosses at 3M and Sony were also held against their will in an attempt to get strong severance packages.
The standoff comes with unemployment in France near 11 percent, up from 10 percent a year ago, and the French economy showing signs of slipping back into a shallow recession.
The French government has frantically sought to avoid large-scale layoffs. Mr. Montebourg had even brandished the threat of nationalization to try to save jobs at the steel giant ArcelorMittal in 2011, calling the management liars who were not welcome in France. Last year, Air France-KLM, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Alcatel-Lucent and Sanofi all announced major job cuts, though with far fewer fireworks than those that have been set off at the Goodyear site.
On Tuesday, hundreds of employees at the plant in Amiens were holding two senior executives captive for the second day. Union leaders threatened to keep them sequestered until the company agreed to pay out “huge amounts of money” to workers in exchange for shuttering the factory.
A tense standoff between employees and management had been going on for more than a year. Various episodes verging on violence — including the mass burning of tires, and workers’ blocking the assembly line — flared up regularly as unions sought to prevent a total closing of the factory, which would wipe out about 1,200 jobs.
The “boss-napping” revived a sort of guerrilla theater that was used at several companies including Caterpillar and Sony at the height of the financial crisis as workers despaired about layoffs and cutbacks. So far, the French government has shown no sign of stepping in, but on Tuesday, a court in Amiens appointed a bailiff to ensure “the security and free movement of goods and people” at the factory, a move that paves the way for possible police intervention.
The workers’ tactic may not help with overall concerns about France as a place to do business. As a debate resurfaces over whether France is in danger of becoming the next sick man of Europe, the Goodyear factory has become one of the most potent symbols of challenges that companies face. France’s rigid labor market and the influence that labor unions hold over the workplace have long been a source of aggravation. The imminent closing of the Goodyear factory — the latest in a series of mass layoffs at large companies across France — underscores the economic consequences for workers in a country that is grappling with a decline in competitiveness.
Goodyear said in a statement that it was refusing to negotiate with the unions as long as the managers were being held against their will. Condemning the action, the company said it was “especially inopportune and counterproductive at a time when we should concentrate on the future of employees affected by the restructuring, after several years looking for a solution.”
The workers are unlikely to find any other job once the factory is closed and are pressing for severance packages of 80,000 euros, or about $110,000, plus €2,500 for each year worked, before they will set the bosses free.
The issue had flared last year after the chief executive of an American tire company, Titan, responded to a government request to step in and buy the plant, partly in order to help avoid mass layoffs.
“How stupid do you think we are?” Maurice Taylor Jr., the head of Titan International, responded to the country’s industry minister, Arnaud Montebourg, in a letter published in French newspapers last February. Mr. Taylor, who had wanted to buy some of the operation, eventually gave up, saying he had had numerous confrontations with unions over the plant’s workers, whom he described as loafers who generated little productivity.
Once he pulled away, there was no other buyer in sight, and the factory was eventually slated for closing with the loss of all 1,173 jobs.
Late last year, Mr. Montebourg again reached out to Mr. Taylor — nicknamed “the Grizz” by Wall Street analysts for his abrasive negotiating and management style — in an attempt to lure him back to the bargaining table. But Mr. Taylor has so far not made a firm commitment and Goodyear began winding down the operation, starting with notices of redundancy to be issued this month.
Late Monday, Mr. Taylor said he was appalled by the latest vigilante action at the factory, in which workers rolled giant farm tractor wheels in to block the doors to the room where the managers were being held.
“In the United States, we call this a kidnapping,” he told Europe 1 Radio. “These people would be arrested and prosecuted. This is a very serious crime, you would risk life imprisonment. But in France, your government does nothing — it’s crazy.”
But in France, there is a certain sympathy with workers who see their livelihood eroded.
“We must acknowledge that the life of these people is going to stop. We’re talking about families with children, people who won’t have any more revenue, and older people who will never find new work,” Pierre Laurent, the national secretary of the P.C.F., the French communist party, told the French radio station RTL. “They have enriched the country, they have worked for France. We can’t just throw them outside with nothing.”
The managers being held — Bernard Glesser, the director of human resources at the Amiens plant, and Michel Dheilly, the director of production — were permitted to be filmed by journalists and speak with their families. They appeared mostly at ease, smiling and consulting their cellphones, as workers milled about and occasionally shouted at them.
“When we are kept against our will and forced to submit to humiliations and insults, we are not being well treated,” Mr. Glesser said in a video posted on the French business news site BFM.
Franck Jurek, a member of the militant Confédération Générale du Travail union, said that workers were still holding out hope that a buyer would emerge for the factory. “Even if we have to wait three or four days, they are not getting out,” he said.
In 2009, workers in France engaged in a series of boss-nappings. Employees took executives of Caterpillar hostage temporarily when talks over revamping the company’s operation broke down. Workers trapped François-Henri Pinault, the chief executive of PPR, the group that owns Gucci, in his car that same year, while bosses at 3M and Sony were also held against their will in an attempt to get strong severance packages.
The standoff comes with unemployment in France near 11 percent, up from 10 percent a year ago, and the French economy showing signs of slipping back into a shallow recession.
The French government has frantically sought to avoid large-scale layoffs. Mr. Montebourg had even brandished the threat of nationalization to try to save jobs at the steel giant ArcelorMittal in 2011, calling the management liars who were not welcome in France. Last year, Air France-KLM, PSA Peugeot Citroën, Alcatel-Lucent and Sanofi all announced major job cuts, though with far fewer fireworks than those that have been set off at the Goodyear site.
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10) Africans Continue to Protest in Israel
By ISABEL KERSHNER
JERUSALEM — After years of living on the margins of Israeli society, thousands of African asylum seekers flooded the streets of central Tel Aviv for a second day on Monday to protest their treatment by the Israeli authorities and to demand recognition as refugees.
Throngs marched to the United States Embassy on the Tel Aviv seafront, and delegations fanned out to the British, Canadian, French and Italian Embassies as well as the offices of the United Nations refugee agency, among others, to appeal for international attention and help.
On Sunday, tens of thousands demonstrated in Rabin Square in Tel Aviv, many chanting, “Freedom.” The migrants also began a three-day strike, leaving many restaurants and hotels without dishwashers and cleaners.
Although the concentrations of African migrants in the run-down neighborhoods of south Tel Aviv have caused friction with the local population, some celebrity chefs and cafe owners have come out in support of their striking workers, serving customers meals on paper plates.
Activists leading the asylum campaign said in a statement, “We believe this strike will demonstrate our importance to the Israeli economy and create a pressure that will cause them to change their policies.”
The highly visible, and vocal, campaign, which has dominated the headlines here, was set off by Parliament’s approval last month of an amendment to the country’s Prevention of Infiltration Law. It allows for the detention of migrants who enter the country illegally for up to a year without trial and allows the state to hold those already in Israel indefinitely in a new “open” detention facility in the Negev Desert.
The representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Israel issued a rare, critical statement on Sunday, saying that Israel’s laws and policies did not fit the spirit of a 1951 refugee convention.
About 60,000 migrants have surreptitiously crossed into Israel over the once-porous border with Egypt since 2005, most of them Sudanese or Eritreans who cannot be sent back to their home countries because of the risks. Israel affords them protection from deportation in line with international conventions.
But Israeli officials regard them as “infiltrators” and insist that most of the Africans came as economic migrants looking for work. Only a few hundred applications for refugee status have been processed, and even fewer have been approved, leaving many of the migrants in a kind of limbo where they risk incarceration and cannot legally work.
Israel recently constructed a steel fence along its border with Egypt, halting the influx, but the government maintains a tough policy designed to encourage those who are here to leave.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that 2,600 migrants left Israel last year. “I would like to emphasize that these are not refugees, but people who are breaking the law and whom we will deal with to the fullest extent of the law,” he said, adding, “We will continue to deport the illegal migrants from our cities.” Gideon Saar, the interior minister, said on television on Monday, “We have no intention of compromising.”
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11) In Jobless Youth, U.S. Is Said to Pay High Price
By SHAILA DEWAN
Persistent
high unemployment among young people is adding up to $25 billion a year
in uncollected taxes and, to a much smaller degree, increased safety
net expenditures, a new report says.
“The key takeaway here is that it’s not just the individuals who are suffering as members of our generation,” said Rory O’Sullivan, the policy and research director of the Young Invincibles, a postrecession youth advocacy group, which did the study. “When you have an entire generation of people that are out of work, it’s going to create tremendous costs for taxpayers both now and in the future.”
Fifteen percent of workers ages 16 to 24 are unemployed, compared with 7.3 percent of all workers. That does not include young people who are not working because they are in school, who are no longer looking for work or who were too discouraged to begin a job search. Much has been written about how much this will cost them in the long run, as they spend years trying to catch up.
The new report is an effort to quantify the financial effect now. Its authors determined how much young people would have paid in taxes had they been working, and how much less they would have collected in unemployment and other social welfare spending. Each jobless worker between 18 and 24 accounted for $4,100 a year, they concluded, and those between 25 and 34 accounted for $9,875, the study said.
Based on those figures, if youth unemployment were reduced to its prerecession rate, the study said, the federal government would recoup $7.8 billion, or $53 per taxpayer, and state and local governments would recoup $1.1 billion.
If all those discouraged young people, who are not counted as unemployed because they are not actively seeking work, were also in the labor force, the total figure would be larger: $25 billion. About 93 percent of that number comes from taxes that would have been collected, and the rest from averting social spending, the study said. The report estimated that effect per state taxpayer was greatest in Alabama, Kentucky and North Carolina.
The group intends to present its findings at a news conference on Tuesday with Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Cory A. Booker of New Jersey, both Democrats.
The report is the latest in several detailing the disproportionate effect of the recession on young people and their lifetime earnings. The findings have renewed interest in programs that long ago went out of fashion, like apprenticeships and vocational high schools. President Obama has said he will reward colleges and universities that demonstrate an ability to place graduates in paying jobs.
“Suddenly people are talking about youth,” said Anthony P. Carnevale, the director of the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown, who wrote a foreword for the latest study. He said youth work programs went out of style in the 1980s, as the baby boom generation stopped needing them.
Now, struggles among white, middle-class young people have helped bring the issue back to the fore, he said. “They’re not getting traction,” he added. “The fear that’s the strongest of all is that young people won’t be middle class anymore.”
Still, Mr. Carnevale said, “Spending for retirement is crowding out investment in young people, especially human capital investment.”
Young Invincibles said that federal youth jobs programs had been cut by $1 billion a year since 2002, and recommended expanding the Labor Department’s registered apprenticeship program and AmeriCorps, a national service program that had more than half a million applicants last year for about 80,000 positions, Mr. O’Sullivan said. It also advocates restoring financing to Youth Opportunity Grants, which were aimed at at-risk youth and were ended in 2005.
“The key takeaway here is that it’s not just the individuals who are suffering as members of our generation,” said Rory O’Sullivan, the policy and research director of the Young Invincibles, a postrecession youth advocacy group, which did the study. “When you have an entire generation of people that are out of work, it’s going to create tremendous costs for taxpayers both now and in the future.”
Fifteen percent of workers ages 16 to 24 are unemployed, compared with 7.3 percent of all workers. That does not include young people who are not working because they are in school, who are no longer looking for work or who were too discouraged to begin a job search. Much has been written about how much this will cost them in the long run, as they spend years trying to catch up.
The new report is an effort to quantify the financial effect now. Its authors determined how much young people would have paid in taxes had they been working, and how much less they would have collected in unemployment and other social welfare spending. Each jobless worker between 18 and 24 accounted for $4,100 a year, they concluded, and those between 25 and 34 accounted for $9,875, the study said.
Based on those figures, if youth unemployment were reduced to its prerecession rate, the study said, the federal government would recoup $7.8 billion, or $53 per taxpayer, and state and local governments would recoup $1.1 billion.
If all those discouraged young people, who are not counted as unemployed because they are not actively seeking work, were also in the labor force, the total figure would be larger: $25 billion. About 93 percent of that number comes from taxes that would have been collected, and the rest from averting social spending, the study said. The report estimated that effect per state taxpayer was greatest in Alabama, Kentucky and North Carolina.
The group intends to present its findings at a news conference on Tuesday with Senators Patty Murray of Washington and Cory A. Booker of New Jersey, both Democrats.
The report is the latest in several detailing the disproportionate effect of the recession on young people and their lifetime earnings. The findings have renewed interest in programs that long ago went out of fashion, like apprenticeships and vocational high schools. President Obama has said he will reward colleges and universities that demonstrate an ability to place graduates in paying jobs.
“Suddenly people are talking about youth,” said Anthony P. Carnevale, the director of the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown, who wrote a foreword for the latest study. He said youth work programs went out of style in the 1980s, as the baby boom generation stopped needing them.
Now, struggles among white, middle-class young people have helped bring the issue back to the fore, he said. “They’re not getting traction,” he added. “The fear that’s the strongest of all is that young people won’t be middle class anymore.”
Still, Mr. Carnevale said, “Spending for retirement is crowding out investment in young people, especially human capital investment.”
Young Invincibles said that federal youth jobs programs had been cut by $1 billion a year since 2002, and recommended expanding the Labor Department’s registered apprenticeship program and AmeriCorps, a national service program that had more than half a million applicants last year for about 80,000 positions, Mr. O’Sullivan said. It also advocates restoring financing to Youth Opportunity Grants, which were aimed at at-risk youth and were ended in 2005.
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12) Saying Police Fed ‘Lies,’ Witness to ’94 Murder Recants
By SARAH MASLIN NIR
For the second time in nearly 20 years, Joan Purser-Gennace took the witness stand in a Queens courtroom, but this time her testimony was starkly different: Much of what she testified to two decades ago — words that helped convict a man of a murder — was a lie, she said, spoon-fed to her by police detectives.
“Everything, it was provided to me from the police — the lies,” she said on Monday in State Supreme Court in Kew Gardens, at a hearing on behalf of Robert Jones, who is serving 25 years to life after he was convicted of the 1994 murder of Antoine Stone, a street preacher, in Far Rockaway, Queens.
Ms. Purser-Gennace said that although she told the police she could not properly identify the man, they proceeded to coach her with pictures, telling her whom to pick out of a lineup, and mapping out a script for her day in court.
“They said, ‘This is how I want you to say it,’ and it was a lie,” Ms. Purser-Gennace testified. In the audience, several of Mr. Jones’s family members burst into tears.
The re-examination of a murder witness, almost 20 years later, called into question not only the conviction, but the behavior of the police and prosecutors.
The hearing was granted after a team of lawyers led by Christopher M. Joralemon filed a motion to set aside the verdict. The motion alleged that possibly exculpatory information was not given to defense lawyers, and that Mr. Jones’s lawyers did not investigate a crucial other lead, thus providing ineffective counsel. The motion also cited the recantation of two key witnesses.
The prosecutors pushed back, requesting that any hearing be limited to the credibility of the witnesses’ recanted statements. But Justice Joseph A. Zayas went further, allowing the scope of the hearing to include possible misconduct by law enforcement officials, as well as other claims.
The shooting occurred Sept. 10, 1994, in Far Rockaway. Ms. Purser-Gennace testified at the trial that she saw the killing from her second-story window, but she now insists that she could not identify the gunman.
At a nearly six-hour hearing, presided over by Justice Zayas, Ms. Purser-Gennace, 57, who now lives in Rosedale, Queens, described how she came to falsely identify Mr. Jones as the man who killed Mr. Stone. She testified that two Queens police detectives, led by Gerard Weiser, harangued her, visiting her home nearly 10 times with a photo of the man she said they directed her to implicate.
She said the detectives made threatening comments about her husband and children, and hinted that her immigration status could come into play. And when she tried to tell an assistant district attorney, Debra L. Pomodore, that she could not identify the gunman, she said Ms. Pomodore became enraged.
In a written response in July to the defense motion, the district attorney’s office called the affidavits in the motion “incredible,” and dismissed the notion that law enforcement officials had conspired to frame Mr. Jones as bizarre. “It is fantastic that an experienced prosecutor and the police conspired to frame defendant for this homicide,” the 39-page response said in part.
Another witness in the original trial, which was presided over by Justice Robert C. McGann, said he saw a man flee on a bike matching one owned by Mr. Jones. Like Ms. Purser-Gennace, that witness, Philip Engelbert, is expected to recant that testimony in the coming days.
After the hearings conclude, Justice Zayas will decide whether to set aside Mr. Jones’s conviction and order a retrial.
Outside the courtroom, Mr. Jones’s sister, Gertrude Jones-Pinnock, 38, was overcome with emotion speaking about the sibling who was incarcerated when she was just a child. “His life has been stolen, 20 years,” she said. But she said she felt no vehemence toward the woman who helped convict him. “I’m not angry with her, I feel sorry for her; they threatened her too, threatened her children, threatened her husband,” she said. “I am so grateful that she is coming forward to tell the truth.”
Thomas Hoffman, another lawyer assisting in Mr. Jones’s defense, said that Ms. Purser-Gennace was courageous in coming forward all these years later, noting that she was testifying without immunity in admitting she had lied under oath.
“It was eating me up inside,” Ms. Purser-Gennace said, as an assistant district attorney, Robert J. Masters, cross-examined her, pressing her about her motive for taking the stand: Was she hoping the truth, which she alleged she was now telling, would set the man she helped convict free?
“The truth,” she said, her voice raising to a shout, “to set me free!”
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13) U.S. Criticizes Zero-Tolerance Policies in Schools
The Obama administration issued guidelines on Wednesday that recommended public school officials use law enforcement only as a last resort for disciplining students, a response to a rise in zero-tolerance policies that have disproportionately increased the number of arrests, suspensions and expulsions of minority students for even minor, nonviolent offenses.
The secretary of education, Arne Duncan, and the attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., released a 35-page document that outlined approaches — including counseling for students, coaching for teachers and disciplinary officers, and sessions to teach social and emotional skills — that could reduce the time students spend out of school as punishment.
“The widespread use of suspensions and expulsions has tremendous costs,” Mr. Duncan wrote in a letter to school officials. “Students who are suspended or expelled from school may be unsupervised during daytime hours and cannot benefit from great teaching, positive peer interactions, and adult mentorship offered in class and in school.”
Data collected by the Education Department shows that minorities — particularly black boys and students with disabilities — face the harshest discipline in schools.
According to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, African-Americans without disabilities are more than three times as likely as their white peers to be suspended or expelled from school. And an analysis of the federal data by the Center for Civil Rights Remedies at the University of California, Los Angeles, found that in 10 states, including California, Connecticut, Delaware and Illinois, more than a quarter of black students with disabilities were suspended in the 2009-10 school year.
In addition, students who are eligible for special education services — generally those with disabilities — make up nearly a quarter of those who have been arrested at school, despite representing only 12 percent of the nation’s students.
As school districts have placed more police officers on campuses, criminal charges against children have drastically increased, a trend that has alarmed civil rights groups and others concerned about the safety and educational welfare of public-school students.
The Obama administration’s document also set guidelines for reducing arrests and keeping discipline within schools.
“A routine school disciplinary infraction should land a student in the principal’s office, not in a police precinct,” Mr. Holder said in a statement.
The administration advised schools to focus on creating positive environments, setting clear expectations and consequences for students, and ensuring fairness and equity in disciplinary measures. It also called for districts to collect data on school-based arrests, citations and searches, as well as suspensions and expulsions, and reminded schools of civil rights laws protecting students.
Civil rights groups broadly welcomed the federal guidance. Citing “misuse and overuse of exclusionary school discipline” that fuels a “school to prison pipeline,” Deborah J. Vagins, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Washington legislative office, called the guidelines “timely and important.”
Some school districts, including Baltimore, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and Broward County, Fla., have already begun to alter their policies and focus more on preventing problem behavior in the first place.
Of the federal guidance, Leticia Smith-Evans, interim director of education practice at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said, “We can only hope that districts will look at this and embrace it and try to make sure that they can move forward in a positive direction to make sure that all students in their schools are being educated.”
School officials generally welcomed the guidance but said that implementing all of the recommendations could be a long, expensive process. “Resistance can make implementing alternatives a difficult course to chart for school leaders,” said Daniel A. Domenech, executive director of the American Association of School Administrators, which represents district superintendents. “Meanwhile, funds to improve school climate and train school personnel in alternative school discipline can be scarce in today’s economic climate.”
Some experts saw the guidance as a good first step but warned that changing entrenched school cultures would be difficult.
“We often talk about solving this problem as if it’s an easy problem to solve,” said James Forman Jr., a clinical professor at Yale Law School. “Actually creating a positive school climate, particularly in schools that are in communities that are themselves not calm and orderly, is hard work.”
Mr. Forman added that because school accountability systems focus on student test scores and other academic measures, rather than on reducing suspensions, schools might not have much incentive to keep troubled students in class. “Sometimes getting rid of these kids can help you do better on the metrics that you are evaluated on,” he said. “If a kid is causing trouble, that’s probably not a kid who is testing well, and it may be a kid who is making it hard for teachers to teach other kids.”
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14) Webcams See All (Tortoise, Watch Your Back)
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15) Additional U.S. Battalion Going to South Korea
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16) For Some Tenants, Only Thing Heating Up Is a Temper
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/08/nyregion/for-some-tenants-only-thing-heating-up-is-a-temper.html?ref=nyregion
In her chilly living room in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, Vernaline McFarlane on Tuesday read the most recent dates from a spiral notebook she has kept since October.
Jan. 2. No heat for 11 ½ hours.
Jan. 3. No heat after 11 a.m.
Jan. 4. No heat all day.
Jan 5. No heat until 10 p.m., and then only for 10 minutes.
She could not read any more.
With the winds outside punishing New Yorkers with blasts of single-digit temperatures, Ms. McFarlane paced her apartment wearing wool pants under her jeans and a heavy wool jacket over a sweatshirt and vest. The only heat came from her oven and a space heater, enough to take the edge off without making it comfortable. Imagine an apartment in which it seemed possible never to be warm again.
Which is not to say Ms. McFarlane was cold; she was furious.
“I’m tired of this,” she said, her voice scratchy from a cold and asthma, both irritated by the lack of heat. “I’m sick. This morning my nose was bleeding. The city knows I’m using the oven to heat the apartment, but it’s just so frustrating because no one is helping us. When is it going to stop?”
On Tuesday the whole city seemed choked in arctic suffering, as the morning low temperature of 4 degrees shattered a century-old record for the date. More than a quarter of New York City public school students stayed home, up from less than 10 percent the day before.
The cold posed some unique challenges to firefighters: “A lot of the time, the hydrant freezes because it doesn’t drain properly,” said Jim Long, a Fire Department spokesman.
The temperature is expected to climb through the week, to 22 degrees on Wednesday and 51 on Saturday.
For thousands of New Yorkers, that is also the best hope for any relief inside their apartments.
For the first week of 2014, even before the piercing cold of Tuesday, complaints about lack of heat were nearly double what they were during the same period last year. There were 2,900 complaints alone on Tuesday before 3:30 p.m.
For Ms. McFarlane, 45, and her neighbors, who say they have had only sporadic heat since October, the polar vortex that swept down on the city on Monday night was a malicious wind sent into their homes to suck the human warmth from their bones.
“I have to put gloves on my daughter because I can’t keep her hands under the covers,” said Christine Ortega, trying to stay warm in a first-floor apartment with a mattress propped against the window to keep out draughts. Her daughter, Christael Caraby, 6, breathed through a plastic tube in her trachea, a necessity associated with her cerebral palsy.
In 2010, Christael had a collapsed lung, and in their apartment, Ms. Ortega and her boyfriend, Deryck Thomassian, fear another serious illness if they do not keep her warm enough.
Christael needs access to a ventilator, oxygen tank, suction machine and feeding tube, which Ms. Ortega keeps in her daughter’s room. But when she tried running a space heater on the same electrical line, it blew a circuit breaker, so she has had to make a choice: keep her daughter near the machines that can save her life, or keep her near a heat supply that might ward off dangerous chills.
The landlord in Ms. McFarlane’s and Ms. Ortega’s buildings, at 930 and 940 Prospect Place in Crown Heights, Seth Miller, was named one of the city’s 50 worst landlords by Bill de Blasio last year, when he was the city’s public advocate.
The Department of Housing Preservation and Development lists 78 open violations in the two buildings, which have a common heating system. Since Mr. Miller’s company, Aegis Realty Management Company, bought the buildings out of foreclosure in 2012, tenants say it has harassed and tried to evict long-term tenants, challenging their leases and refusing to accept their rent payments, in order to bring in higher-paying residents. The tenants have sued Aegis and Mr. Miller for failure to provide heat and adequate hot water; their case is scheduled to be heard in housing court next Tuesday.
Reached on Tuesday at his office in Midtown Manhattan, Mr. Miller said “no comment” and hung up the phone.
George and Shirley Brown, who moved into 930 Prospect Place in 1969 after they married, said they now felt threatened on several fronts: by a landlord who wanted their apartment; by the cold; and by the fire hazard posed by so many people using space heaters under such desperate conditions.
“I never leave the heater on at night,” Ms. Brown, 63, said. “But I worry about others. Once in a while I use the oven.”
In a first-floor apartment, Nicole Carty, 25, who with her two roommates pays more than $2,100 in monthly rent, wore a maroon knit hat and thick fuzzy slippers, and said she often spent days working in a local coffee shop because her apartment was too cold.
“The other day it was down in the 40s,” she said. “One day my roommate borrowed my hair dryer to warm herself so she could change her clothes.”
Ms. McFarlane stopped in to say hello to Ms. Carty. Outside the apartment, two workmen in a hallway carried black plastic bags down from a unit on a higher floor, where a tenant had recently moved out. It was the only sign of repair going on in the building.
Ms. McFarlane was beside herself.
“You see what they’re doing?” she said. “They’re busy renovating an apartment while we have no heat.”
J. David Goodman contributed reporting.
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17) Chemical Spill Leaves Thousands Without Water in West Virginia
Nearly 200,000 people in Charleston, W.Va., and nine surrounding counties were without drinking water on Friday after a chemical spill contaminated supplies, the West Virginia governor’s office said.
Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin said early Friday in a statement that the federal government had approved a request of assistance in dealing with the chemical spill into the Elk River, which flows into the Kanawha River at Charleston.
“West Virginians in the affected service areas are urged not to use tap water for drinking, cooking, washing or bathing,” Mr. Tomblin said in declaring a state of emergency. The warning affected customers of the West Virginia American Water Company in Boone, Cabell, Clay, Jackson, Kanawha, Lincoln, Logan, Putnam and Roane Counties.
Many stores in the area quickly ran out of bottled water Thursday night as residents rushed to stock up, according to local news media reports. Restaurants and businesses closed, and The Associated Press reported that schools as well as the State Legislature had canceled sessions on Friday.
The spill was discovered Thursday at a storage facility about a mile north of a water treatment plant on the Elk River, where a 48,000-gallon tank began leaking 4-Methylcyclohexane Methanol, or MCHM, a compound used to wash coal of impurities, according to the state’s Department of Environmental Protection.
The chemical leaked from a hole in the bottom of the tank and then filled an overflow container before spilling into the river, said Thomas J. Aluise, a spokesman for the agency.
It is not clear how much of the chemical flowed into the river, which Mr. Aluise said looked like “cooking oil floating on top of the water.”
The chemical, which smells like licorice, can cause headaches, eye and skin irritation, and difficulty breathing from prolonged exposures at high concentrations, according to the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists.
Freedom Industries, the company that owns the storage tank, has not responded to emails seeking comment.
Liza Cordeiro, a spokeswoman for the State Department of Education, said schools in at least five counties would be closed Friday.
On the Facebook page of the West Virginia American Water Company, dozens of residents expressed concern that they had not been immediately told about the chemical leak or the potential for health risks.
“Yeah, so I’m six months pregnant and drank tap water at a restaurant about an hour before the notice was sent out,” one woman wrote.
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18) The Employment Rate’s New Normal
By BINYAMIN APPELBAUM
The share of Americans with jobs did not increase in 2013. The economy added about 182,000 jobs a month, just enough to keep pace with population growth.
At the end of 2006, 63.4 percent of American adults had jobs. By the end of 2009, this employment rate fell to 58.3 percent, and it has recovered only very slightly.
2009: 58.3 percent
2010: 58.3 percent
2011: 58.5 percent
2012: 58.6 percent
2013: 58.6 percent
This stands in sharp contrast to the more familiar unemployment rate, which continues to fall rapidly. But the unemployment rate doesn’t measure the share of American adults who don’t have jobs. It only counts people who are seeking work. It has been falling primarily because a smaller share of people is seeking work.
That has some important policy implications. The decline in unemployment may limit the Federal Reserve’s ability, or at least its willingness, to stimulate the economy. But the employment rate may offer a more accurate picture of the health of that economy and the picture, as you can see, is not very good.
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B. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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THIS BOY IS JUST SO STRANGE
a free concert of original songs
featuring Tommi Avicolli Mecca, Joel Mark and Diana Hartman
Saturday Feb. 1 at 8pm and Sunday Feb. 2 at 3pm
Eric Quezada Center, 518 Valencia/16th
Says Tommi, who wrote the songs and monologues in the show:
"This boy is just so strange" is something a nun said (in a heavy South Philly accent of course) to my Mama because I draped my sweater over my shoulder "like a girl" (gender non-conformity was not something the brides of jesus understood), it's also the name of my latest musical excursion, which could be called "how I survived the gender binary system" or Tommi, the sissy rock opera.
And to paraphrase Liza, it's Tommi with an "i" not Tommi with a "y."
From a working-class Italian neighborhood in South Philly and the wild and wonderful gay liberation movement of the early 70s to the very gay Castro in San Francisco in the 90s, this musical winds around a lifetime and comes out somewhere in the social construct called the present.
They say that southern Italians (both sides of the family are from il mezzogiorno) are born with an opera libretto not a silver spoon. I've been singing since I can remember, sometimes to the horror of neighbors and family, especially after I got a guitar for graduation and struggled to learn chords.
Featuring Joel Mark on acoustic bass and Diana Hartman on vocals, she also plays various characters. Funded by a grant from Faetopia. FREE, but donations gladly accepted and shared among the performers. ALSO RUNS SUNDAY FEB. 2 at 3pm.
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND
ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Sireen Khudairy Appeal Update.
Sireen Khudairy was arrested again at 4am on Tuesday 7th January 2014. According to reports she has been taken to Huwwara military point. When the Israeli army took her from her home they didn't show any papers to her or the person she was with.
This follows eight months of harassment of this 24-year-old Palestinian woman who is a teacher, activist and supporter of the non-violent action against the Israeli occupation. She was previously imprisoned from May to July 2013, and has been subjected to frequent harassment ever since. See further details at:
http://freesireen.wordpress.com
Please help by contacting your Embassies urgently to demand her release and spread her appeal widely. Follow updates on:
https://www.facebook.com/FreeSireenKhudiri?ref=hl
Please contact us to let us know any action you take. We will pass this information on to her family. Thanks for your solidarity and support.
Steven Katsineris, January 2014
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U.S. Court of Appeals Rules Against Lorenzo Johnson’s
New Legal Challenge to His Frame-up Conviction!
Demand the PA Attorney General Dismiss the Charges!
Free Lorenzo Johnson, Now!
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit denied Lorenzo Johnson’s motion to file a Second Habeas Corpus Petition. The order contained the outrageous declaration that Johnson hadn’t made a “prima facie case” that he had new evidence of his innocence. This not only puts a legal obstacle in Johnson’s path as his fight for freedom makes its way (again) through the state and federal courts—but it undermines the newly filed Pennsylvania state appeal that is pending in the Court of Common Pleas.
Stripped of “legalese,” the court’s October 15, 2013 order says Johnson’s new evidence was not brought into court soon enough—although it was the prosecution and police who withheld evidence and coerced witnesses into lying or not coming forward with the truth! This, despite over fifteen years and rounds of legal battles to uncover the evidence of government misconduct. This is a set-back for Lorenzo Johnson’s renewed fight for his freedom, but Johnson is even more determined as his PA state court appeal continues.
Increased public support and protest is needed. The fight for Lorenzo Johnson’s freedom is not only a fight for this courageous man and family. The fight for Lorenzo Johnson is also a fight for all the innocent others who have been framed and are sitting in the slow death of prison. The PA Attorney General is directly pursuing the charges against Lorenzo, despite the evidence of his innocence and the corruption of the police. Free Lorenzo Johnson, Now!
—Rachel Wolkenstein, Esq.
October 25, 2013
For more on the federal court and PA state court legal filings.
Hear Mumia’s latest commentary, “Cat Cries”
Go to: www.FreeLorenzoJohnson.org for more information, to sign the petition, and how to help.
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PUSH CHELSEA'S JAILERS TO RESPECT HER IDENTITY
Call and write Ft Leavenworth today and tell them to honor Manning's wishes around her name and gender:
Chelsea's supporters were awarded the title “absolutely fabulous overall contingent” at the San Francisco Pride Parade
|
Call: (913) 758-3600
Write to:
Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander
U.S. Detention Barracks
1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027
Private Manning has been an icon both for the government transparency movement and LGBTQ activists because of her fearlessness and acts of conscience. Now, as she begins serving her sentence, Chelsea has asked for help with legal appeals, family visits, education, and support for undergoing gender transition. The latter is a decision she’s made following years of experiencing gender dysphoria and examining her options. At a difficult time in her life, she joined the military out of hope–the hope that she could use her service to save lives, and also the hope that it would help to suppress her feelings of gender dysphoria. But after serving time in Iraq, Private Manning realized what mattered to her most was the truth, personal as well as political, even when it proved challenging.
Now she wants the Fort Leavenworth military prison to allow her access to hormone replacement therapy which she has offered to pay for herself, as she pursues the process to have her name legally changed to ‘Chelsea Elizabeth Manning.’
To encourage the prison to honor her transgender identity, we’re calling on progressive supporters and allies to contact Fort Leavenworth officials demanding they acknowledge her requested name change immediately. Currently, prison officials are not required to respect Chelsea’s identity, and can even refuse to deliver mail addressed to the name ‘Chelsea Manning.’ However, it’s within prison administrators’ power to begin using the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ now, in advance of the legal name change which will most likely be approved sometime next year. It’s also up to these officials to approve Private Manning’s request for hormone therapy.
Call: (913) 758-3600
Write to:
Col. Sioban Ledwith, Commander
U.S. Detention Barracks
1301 N Warehouse Rd
Ft. Leavenworth KS 66027
Tell them: “Transgender rights are human rights! Respect Private Manning’s identity by acknowledging the name ‘Chelsea Manning’ whenever possible, including in mail addressed to her, and by allowing her access to appropriate medical treatment for gender dysphoria, including hormone replacement therapy (HRT).”
While openly transgender individuals are allowed to serve in many other militaries around the world, the US military continues to deny their existence. Now, by speaking up for Chelsea’s right to treatment, you can support one brave whistleblower in her personal struggle, and help set an important benchmark for the rights of transgender individuals everywhere. (Remember that letters written with focus and a respectful tone are more likely to be effective.) Feel free to copy this sample letter.
Earlier this year, the Private Manning Support Network won the title of most “absolutely fabulous overall contingent” at the San Francisco Pride Parade, the largest celebration of its kind for LGBTQ (Lesbian, Gay Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning) people nationwide. Over one thousand people marched for Private Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning in that parade, to show LGBTQ community pride for the Iraq War’s most well-known whistleblower.
Help us continue to cover 100%
of Pvt. Manning's legal fees! Donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38591
COURAGE TO RESIST
http://couragetoresist.org
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
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Kimberly Rivera
Imprisoned pregnant resister seeks early release for birth
495 supporters from around the world write letters in support of clemency applicationBy James Branum and Courage to Resist. November 4, 2013
Fort Carson, Colorado – Imprisoned war resister PFC Kimberly Rivera has submitted a clemency application seeking a reduction by 45 days in the 10 month prison sentence she received for seeking asylum in Canada rather return to her unit in Iraq.
The request for clemency was based on humanitarian reasons due to pregnancy. Unless clemency is granted, Private First Class Kimberly Rivera will be forced to give birth in prison and then immediately relinquish custody of her son while she continues to serve the remainder of her sentence.
Unfortunately military regulations provide no provisions for her to be able to breastfeed her infant son while she is in prison.
Fort Carson Senior Commander Brigadier General Michael A. Bills will be making a decision on PFC Rivera’s clemency request in the coming weeks.
PFC Rivera’s case made international news when she was the first female US soldier in the current era to flee to Canada for reasons of conscience. After a protracted struggle through the Canadian legal system, she was deported back to the United States in September 2012. She was then immediately arrested and sent back to the Army to stand trial.
In an interview with Courage to Resist on the eve of her court-martial,
Rivera said, “When I saw the little girl [in Iraq] shaking in fear, in
fear of me, because of my uniform, I couldn’t fathom what she had been
through and all I saw was my little girl and I just wanted to hold her
and comfort her. But I knew I couldn’t. It broke my heart. I am against
hurting anyone… I would harm myself first. I felt this also made me a
liability to my unit and I could not let me be a reason for anyone to be
harmed—so I left... Even though I did not fill out the official
application to obtain conscientious objector status, I consider myself a
conscientious objector to all war.”On April 29, 2013, PFC Rivera pled to charges of desertion. She was sentenced by the military judge to fourteen months in prison, loss of rank and pay, and a dishonorable discharge; thanks to a pre-trial agreement her sentence was reduced to an actual sentence to ten months of confinement and a bad-conduct discharge.
Kimberly Rivera has been recognized by Amnesty International as a “prisoner of conscience.” She is the mother of four children, ages 11, 9, 4 and 2.
Kimberly Rivera’s request for clemency was accompanied by 495 letters of support, written by family members, friends, as well as members of Amnesty International from 19 countries.
“We have many organizations to thank for the outpouring of support for Kimberly Rivera, including Amnesty International, Courage to Resist, the War Resisters Support Campaign of Canada, Veterans for Peace and Coffee Strong,” said James M. Branum, civilian defense attorney for PFC Rivera. “We also want to recognize the tireless efforts of local supporters in Colorado Springs and San Diego who have taken the time to visit Kim in prison as well as to provide important support to Kim’s family in her absence.”
While the official clemency request is now complete, supporters of PFC Rivera are still encouraged to continue to speak out on her behalf. Letters in support of PFC Rivera’s clemency request can be sent directly to:
Brigadier General Michael A. Bills
c/o Fort Carson Public Affairs Office
1626 Ellis Street
Suite 200, Building 1118
Fort Carson, CO 80913
(fax: 1-719-526-1021)
Supporters are also encouraged to sign an online petition posted at:c/o Fort Carson Public Affairs Office
1626 Ellis Street
Suite 200, Building 1118
Fort Carson, CO 80913
(fax: 1-719-526-1021)
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/752/756/678/free-a-pregnant-war-resister/
Photos: Top-Kimberly with husband Mario
during her court martial. Middle-Kimberly in Canada prior to being
deported. Bottom-Courage to Resist rallies outside Canadian Consulate,
San Francisco CA, prior to Kimberly's forced return.
Initial press release
by The Center for Conscience in Action, an Oklahoma City-based
organization dedicated to the intersection of peace, conscience and
direct action. CCA’s Legal Support Project provides low and no cost
legal representation to military service members seeking discharge on
the grounds of conscience.For more information or to schedule an interview about this subject, please contact James M. Branum, lead defense counsel for PFC Rivera, at 405-494-0562 or girightslawyer(at)gmail(dot)com. Consolidated Brig Miramar generally forbids inmates from doing interviews with the press, but you are welcome to see if an exception can be made by contacting the Brig Public Affairs office at 858-577-7071.
Additional case updates will be posted at couragetoresist.org and freekimberlyrivera.org.
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SAVE CCSF!
Two campaigns that need funds – Please donate!
Cartoon by Anthonty Mata for CCSF Guardsman
DOE CAMPAIGN
We are working to ensure that the ACCJC’s authority is not renewed by the Department of Education this December when they are up for their 5-year renewal. Our campaign made it possible for over 50 Third Party Comments to be sent to the DOE re: the ACCJC. Our next step in this campaign is to send a delegation from CCSF to Washington, D.C. to give oral comments at the hearing on December 12th. We expect to have an array of forces aligned on the other side who have much more money and resources than we do.
So please support this effort to get ACCJC authority revoked!
LEGAL CAMPAIGN
Save CCSF members have been meeting with Attorney Dan Siegel since last May to explore legal avenues to fight the ACCJC. After much consideration, and consultation with AFT 2121’s attorney as well as the SF City Attorney’s office, Dan has come up with a legal strategy that is complimentary to what is already being pursued. In fact, AFT 2121’s attorney is encouraging us to go forward.
The total costs of pursuing this (depositions, etc.) will be substantially more than $15,000. However, Dan is willing to do it for a fixed fee of $15,000. He will not expect a retainer, i.e. payment in advance, but we should start payments ASAP. If we win the ACCJC will have to pay our costs.
PLEASE HELP BOTH OF THESE IMPORTANT EFFORTS!
Checks can be made out to Save CCSF Coalition with “legal” in the memo line and sent to:
Save CCSF Coalition
2132 Prince St.
Berkeley, CA 94705
Or you may donate online: http://www.gofundme.com/4841ns2132 Prince St.
Berkeley, CA 94705
http://www.saveccsf.org/
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16 Years in Solitary Confinement Is Like a "Living Tomb"
American Civil Liberties Union petition to end long-term solitary confinement:
California Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard: We stand with the prisoners on hunger strike. We urge you to comply with the US Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons 2006 recommendations regarding an end to long-term solitary confinement.
Sign the petition:
https://www.aclu.org/secure/ca-hunger-strike?emsrc=Nat_Appeal_AutologinEnabled&emissue=criminal_justice&emtype=petition&ms=eml_130719_acluaction_cahungerstrike&af=k%2FxKX1cIRdoonPVmvnAfAit8jzOCulLOnCX4AAFljff%2B%2BVOdOHNe6CKwl7glWQSjSakzXt53zF%2FodPf00T3rRHlglO3tjEA6DcMSLJRlTbfVBHAizX6uOxoSy5%2FbP93EBFj5xi6Lwm3RWHjmDOZDARHLBSl1rqTr07kLhONZrnU1UIIgPs0P%2FXQ%2BJL3reyE8%2BoiI1nlfPZPBVhbfYxUzMQ%3D%3D&etname=130719+CA+prisoners+hunger+strike&etjid=946739
In California, hundreds of prisoners have been held in solitary for more than a decade – some for infractions as trivial as reading Machiavelli's "The Prince."
Gabriel Reyes describes the pain of being isolated for at least 22 hours a day for the last 16 years:
“Unless you have lived it, you cannot imagine what it feels like to be by yourself, between four cold walls, with little concept of time…. It is a living tomb …’ I have not been allowed physical contact with any of my loved ones since 1995…I feel helpless and hopeless. In short, I am being psychologically tortured.”
That’s why over 30,000 prisoners in California began a hunger strike – the biggest the state has ever seen. They’re refusing food to protest prisoners being held for decades in solitary and to push for other changes to improve their basic conditions.
California Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard has tried to dismiss the strikers and refuses to negotiate, but the media pressure is building through the strike. If tens of thousands of us take action, we can help keep this issue in the spotlight so that Secretary Beard can’t ignore the inhumane treatment of prisoners.
Sign the petition urging Corrections Secretary Beard to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.
Solitary is such an extreme form of punishment that a United Nations torture rapporteur called for an international ban on the practice except in rare occasions. Here’s why:
The majority of the 80,000 people held in solitary in this country are severely mentally ill or because of a minor infraction (it’s a myth that it’s only for violent prisoners)
Even for people with stable mental health, solitary causes severe psychological reactions, often leading people to attempt suicide
It jeopardizes public safety because prisoners held in solitary have a harder time reintegrating into society.
And to add insult to injury, the hunger strikers are now facing retaliation – their lawyers are being restricted from visiting and the strikers are being punished. But the media continues to write about the hunger strike and we can help keep the pressure on Secretary Beard by signing this petition.
Sign the petition urging Corrections Secretary Beard to end the use of long-term solitary confinement.
Our criminal justice system should keep communities safe and treat people fairly. The use of solitary confinement undermines both of these goals – but little by little, we can help put a stop to such cruelty.
Thank you,
Anthony for the ACLU Action team
P.S. The hunger strikers have developed five core demands to address their basic conditions, the main one being an end to long-term solitary confinement. They are:
-End group punishment – prisoners say that officials often punish groups to address individual rule violations
-Abolish the debriefing policy, which is often demanded in return for better food or release from solitary
-End long-term solitary confinement
-Provide adequate and nutritious food
-Expand or provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU inmates
Sources
“Solitary - and anger - in California's prisons.” Los Angeles Times July 13, 2013
“Pelican Bay Prison Hunger-Strikers' Stories: Gabriel Reyes.” TruthOut July 9, 2013
“Solitary confinement should be banned in most cases, UN expert says.” UN News October 18, 2011
"Stop Solitary - Two Pager" ACLU.org
What you Didn't know about NYPD's Stop and Frisk program !
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=rfJHx0Gj6ys#at=990
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Egypt: The Next President -- a little Egyptian boy speaks his remarkable mind!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeDm2PrNV1I
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Wealth Inequality in America
[This is a must see to believe video...bw]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=QPKKQnijnsM
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Read the transcription of hero Bradley Manning's 35-page statement explaining why he leaked "state secrets" to WikiLeaks.
March 1, 2013
Alternet
The statement was read by Pfc. Bradley Manning at a providence inquiry for his formal plea of guilty to one specification as charged and nine specifications for lesser included offenses. He pled not guilty to 12 other specifications. This rush transcript was taken by journalist Alexa O'Brien at Thursday's pretrial hearing and first appeared on Salon.com.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/bradley-mannings-surprising-statement-court-details-why-he-made-his-historic?akid=10129.229473.UZvQfK&rd=1&src=newsletter802922&t=7
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You Have the Right to Remain Silent: NLG Guide to Law Enforcement Encounters
Posted 1 day ago on July 27, 2012, 10:28 p.m. EST by OccupyWallSt
Occupy Wall Street is a nonviolent movement for social and economic justice, but in recent days disturbing reports have emerged of Occupy-affiliated activists being targeted by US law enforcement, including agents from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security. To help ensure Occupiers and allied activists know their rights when encountering law enforcement, we are publishing in full the National Lawyers Guild's booklet: You Have the Right to Remain Silent. The NLG provides invaluable support to the Occupy movement and other activists – please click here to support the NLG.
We strongly encourage all Occupiers to read and share the information provided below. We also recommend you enter the NLG's national hotline number (888-654-3265) into your cellphone (if you have one) and keep a copy handy. This information is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact the NLG or a criminal defense attorney immediately if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.
You Have the Right to Remain Silent: A Know Your Rights Guide for Law Enforcement Encounters
What Rights Do I Have?
Whether or not you're a citizen, you have rights under the United States Constitution. The Fifth Amendment gives every person the right to remain silent: not to answer questions asked by a police officer or government agent. The Fourth Amendment restricts the government's power to enter and search your home or workplace, although there are many exceptions and new laws have expanded the government's power to conduct surveillance. The First Amendment protects your right to speak freely and to advocate for social change. However, if you are a non-citizen, the Department of Homeland Security may target you based on your political activities.
Standing Up For Free Speech
The government's crusade against politically-active individuals is intended to disrupt and suppress the exercise of time-honored free speech activities, such as boycotts, protests, grassroots organizing and solidarity work. Remember that you have the right to stand up to the intimidation tactics of FBI agents and other law enforcement officials who, with political motives, are targeting organizing and free speech activities. Informed resistance to these tactics and steadfast defense of your and others' rights can bring positive results. Each person who takes a courageous stand makes future resistance to government oppression easier for all. The National Lawyers Guild has a long tradition of standing up to government repression. The organization itself was labeled a "subversive" group during the McCarthy Era and was subject to FBI surveillance and infiltration for many years. Guild attorneys have defended FBI-targeted members of the Black Panther Party, the American Indian Movement, and the Puerto Rican independence movement. The NLG exposed FBI surveillance, infiltration and disruption tactics that were detailed during the 1975-76 COINTELPRO hearings. In 1989 the NLG prevailed in a lawsuit on behalf of several activist organizations, including the Guild, that forced the FBI to expose the extent to which it had been spying on activist movements. Under the settlement, the FBI turned over roughly 400,000 pages of its files on the Guild, which are now available at the Tamiment Library at New York University.
What if FBI Agents or Police Contact Me?
What if an agent or police officer comes to the door?
Do not invite the agents or police into your home. Do not answer any questions. Tell the agent that you do not wish to talk with him or her. You can state that your lawyer will contact them on your behalf. You can do this by stepping outside and pulling the door behind you so that the interior of your home or office is not visible, getting their contact information or business cards and then returning inside. They should cease questioning after this. If the agent or officer gives a reason for contacting you, take notes and give the information to your attorney. Anything you say, no matter how seemingly harmless or insignificant, may be used against you or others in the future. Lying to or misleading a federal agent is a crime. The more you speak, the more opportunity for federal law enforcement to find something you said (even if not intentionally) false and assert that you lied to a federal officer.
Do I have to answer questions?
You have the constitutional right to remain silent. It is not a crime to refuse to answer questions. You do not have to talk to anyone, even if you have been arrested or are in jail. You should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to consult an attorney. Once you make the request to speak to a lawyer, do not say anything else. The Supreme Court recently ruled that answering law enforcement questions may be taken as a waiver of your right to remain silent, so it is important that you assert your rights and maintain them. Only a judge can order you to answer questions. There is one exception: some states have "stop and identify" statutes which require you to provide identity information or your name if you have been detained on reasonable suspicion that you may have committed a crime. A lawyer in your state can advise you of the status of these requirements where you reside.
Do I have to give my name?
As above, in some states you can be detained or arrested for merely refusing to give your name. And in any state, police do not always follow the law, and refusing to give your name may make them suspicious or more hostile and lead to your arrest, even without just cause, so use your judgment. Giving a false name could in some circumstances be a crime.
Do I need a lawyer?
You have the right to talk to a lawyer before you decide whether to answer questions from law enforcement. It is a good idea to talk to a lawyer if you are considering answering any questions. You have the right to have a lawyer present during any interview. The lawyer's job is to protect your rights. Once you tell the agent that you want to talk to a lawyer, he or she should stop trying to question you and should make any further contact through your lawyer. If you do not have a lawyer, you can still tell the officer you want to speak to one before answering questions. Remember to get the name, agency and telephone number of any investigator who visits you, and give that information to your lawyer. The government does not have to provide you with a free lawyer unless you are charged with a crime, but the NLG or another organization may be able to help you find a lawyer for free or at a reduced rate.
If I refuse to answer questions or say I want a lawyer, won't it seem like I have something to hide?
Anything you say to law enforcement can be used against you and others. You can never tell how a seemingly harmless bit of information might be used or manipulated to hurt you or someone else. That is why the right not to talk is a fundamental right under the Constitution. Keep in mind that although law enforcement agents are allowed to lie to you, lying to a government agent is a crime. Remaining silent is not. The safest things to say are "I am going to remain silent," "I want to speak to my lawyer," and "I do not consent to a search." It is a common practice for law enforcement agents to try to get you to waive your rights by telling you that if you have nothing to hide you would talk or that talking would "just clear things up." The fact is, if they are questioning you, they are looking to incriminate you or someone you may know, or they are engaged in political intelligence gathering. You should feel comfortable standing firm in protection and defense of your rights and refusing to answer questions.
Can agents search my home or office?
You do not have to let police or agents into your home or office unless they have and produce a valid search warrant. A search warrant is a written court order that allows the police to conduct a specified search. Interfering with a warrantless search probably will not stop it and you might get arrested. But you should say "I do not consent to a search," and call a criminal defense lawyer or the NLG. You should be aware that a roommate or guest can legally consent to a search of your house if the police believe that person has the authority to give consent, and your employer can consent to a search of your workspace without your permission.
What if agents have a search warrant?
If you are present when agents come for the search, you can ask to see the warrant. The warrant must specify in detail the places to be searched and the people or things to be taken away. Tell the agents you do not consent to the search so that they cannot go beyond what the warrant authorizes. Ask if you are allowed to watch the search; if you are allowed to, you should. Take notes, including names, badge numbers, what agency each officer is from, where they searched and what they took. If others are present, have them act as witnesses to watch carefully what is happening. If the agents ask you to give them documents, your computer, or anything else, look to see if the item is listed in the warrant. If it is not, do not consent to them taking it without talking to a lawyer. You do not have to answer questions. Talk to a lawyer first. (Note: If agents present an arrest warrant, they may only perform a cursory visual search of the premises to see if the person named in the arrest warrant is present.)
Do I have to answer questions if I have been arrested?
No. If you are arrested, you do not have to answer any questions. You should affirmatively and unambiguously state that you wish to assert your right to remain silent. Ask for a lawyer right away. Do not say anything else. Repeat to every officer who tries to talk to or question you that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a lawyer. You should always talk to a lawyer before you decide to answer any questions.
What if I speak to government agents anyway?
Even if you have already answered some questions, you can refuse to answer other questions until you have a lawyer. If you find yourself talking, stop. Assert that you wish to remain silent and that you wish to speak to a lawyer.
What if the police stop me on the street?
Ask if you are free to go. If the answer is yes, consider just walking away. If the police say you are not under arrest, but are not free to go, then you are being detained. The police can pat down the outside of your clothing if they have reason to suspect you might be armed and dangerous. If they search any more than this, say clearly, "I do not consent to a search." They may keep searching anyway. If this happens, do not resist because you can be charged with assault or resisting arrest. You do not have to answer any questions. You do not have to open bags or any closed container. Tell the officers you do not consent to a search of your bags or other property.
What if police or agents stop me in my car?
Keep your hands where the police can see them. If you are driving a vehicle, you must show your license, registration and, in some states, proof of insurance. You do not have to consent to a search. But the police may have legal grounds to search your car anyway. Clearly state that you do not consent. Officers may separate passengers and drivers from each other to question them, but no one has to answer any questions.
What if I am treated badly by the police or the FBI?
Write down the officer's badge number, name or other identifying information. You have a right to ask the officer for this information. Try to find witnesses and their names and phone numbers. If you are injured, seek medical attention and take pictures of the injuries as soon as you can. Call a lawyer as soon as possible.
What if the police or FBI threaten me with a grand jury subpoena if I don't answer their questions?
A grand jury subpoena is a written order for you to go to court and testify about information you may have. It is common for the FBI to threaten you with a subpoena to get you to talk to them. If they are going to subpoena you, they will do so anyway. You should not volunteer to speak just because you are threatened with a subpoena. You should consult a lawyer.
What if I receive a grand jury subpoena?
Grand jury proceedings are not the same as testifying at an open court trial. You are not allowed to have a lawyer present (although one may wait in the hallway and you may ask to consult with him or her after each question) and you may be asked to answer questions about your activities and associations. Because of the witness's limited rights in this situation, the government has frequently used grand jury subpoenas to gather information about activists and political organizations. It is common for the FBI to threaten activists with a subpoena in order to elicit information about their political views and activities and those of their associates. There are legal grounds for stopping ("quashing") subpoenas, and receiving one does not necessarily mean that you are suspected of a crime. If you do receive a subpoena, call the NLG National Hotline at 888-NLG-ECOL (888-654-3265) or call a criminal defense attorney immediately.
The government regularly uses grand jury subpoena power to investigate and seek evidence related to politically-active individuals and social movements. This practice is aimed at prosecuting activists and, through intimidation and disruption, discouraging continued activism.
Federal grand jury subpoenas are served in person. If you receive one, it is critically important that you retain the services of an attorney, preferably one who understands your goals and, if applicable, understands the nature of your political work, and has experience with these issues. Most lawyers are trained to provide the best legal defense for their client, often at the expense of others. Beware lawyers who summarily advise you to cooperate with grand juries, testify against friends, or cut off contact with your friends and political activists. Cooperation usually leads to others being subpoenaed and investigated. You also run the risk of being charged with perjury, a felony, should you omit any pertinent information or should there be inconsistencies in your testimony.
Frequently prosecutors will offer "use immunity," meaning that the prosecutor is prohibited from using your testimony or any leads from it to bring charges against you. If a subsequent prosecution is brought, the prosecutor bears the burden of proving that all of its evidence was obtained independent of the immunized testimony. You should be aware, however, that they will use anything you say to manipulate associates into sharing more information about you by suggesting that you have betrayed confidences.
In front of a grand jury you can "take the Fifth" (exercise your right to remain silent). However, the prosecutor may impose immunity on you, which strips you of Fifth Amendment protection and subjects you to the possibility of being cited for contempt and jailed if you refuse to answer further. In front of a grand jury you have no Sixth Amendment right to counsel, although you can consult with a lawyer outside the grand jury room after each question.
What if I don't cooperate with the grand jury?
If you receive a grand jury subpoena and elect to not cooperate, you may be held in civil contempt. There is a chance that you may be jailed or imprisoned for the length of the grand jury in an effort to coerce you to cooperate. Regular grand juries sit for a basic term of 18 months, which can be extended up to a total of 24 months. It is lawful to hold you in order to coerce your cooperation, but unlawful to hold you as a means of punishment. In rare instances you may face criminal contempt charges.
What If I Am Not a Citizen and the DHS Contacts Me?
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) is now part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and has been renamed and reorganized into: 1. The Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS); 2. The Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP); and 3. The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All three bureaus will be referred to as DHS for the purposes of this pamphlet.
? Assert your rights. If you do not demand your rights or if you sign papers waiving your rights, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) may deport you before you see a lawyer or an immigration judge. Never sign anything without reading, understanding and knowing the consequences of signing it.
? Talk to a lawyer. If possible, carry with you the name and telephone number of an immigration lawyer who will take your calls. The immigration laws are hard to understand and there have been many recent changes. DHS will not explain your options to you. As soon as you encounter a DHS agent, call your attorney. If you can't do it right away, keep trying. Always talk to an immigration lawyer before leaving the U.S. Even some legal permanent residents can be barred from returning.
Based on today's laws, regulations and DHS guidelines, non-citizens usually have the following rights, no matter what their immigration status. This information may change, so it is important to contact a lawyer. The following rights apply to non-citizens who are inside the U.S. Non-citizens at the border who are trying to enter the U.S. do not have all the same rights.
Do I have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any DHS questions or signing any DHS papers?
Yes. You have the right to call a lawyer or your family if you are detained, and you have the right to be visited by a lawyer in detention. You have the right to have your attorney with you at any hearing before an immigration judge. You do not have the right to a government-appointed attorney for immigration proceedings, but if you have been arrested, immigration officials must show you a list of free or low cost legal service providers.
Should I carry my green card or other immigration papers with me?
If you have documents authorizing you to stay in the U.S., you must carry them with you. Presenting false or expired papers to DHS may lead to deportation or criminal prosecution. An unexpired green card, I-94, Employment Authorization Card, Border Crossing Card or other papers that prove you are in legal status will satisfy this requirement. If you do not carry these papers with you, you could be charged with a crime. Always keep a copy of your immigration papers with a trusted family member or friend who can fax them to you, if need be. Check with your immigration lawyer about your specific case.
Am I required to talk to government officers about my immigration history?
If you are undocumented, out of status, a legal permanent resident (green card holder), or a citizen, you do not have to answer any questions about your immigration history. (You may want to consider giving your name; see above for more information about this.) If you are not in any of these categories, and you are being questioned by a DHS or FBI agent, then you may create problems with your immigration status if you refuse to provide information requested by the agent. If you have a lawyer, you can tell the agent that your lawyer will answer questions on your behalf. If answering questions could lead the agent to information that connects you with criminal activity, you should consider refusing to talk to the agent at all.
If I am arrested for immigration violations, do I have the right to a hearing before an immigration judge to defend myself against deportation charges?
Yes. In most cases only an immigration judge can order you deported. But if you waive your rights or take "voluntary departure," agreeing to leave the country, you could be deported without a hearing. If you have criminal convictions, were arrested at the border, came to the U.S. through the visa waiver program or have been ordered deported in the past, you could be deported without a hearing. Contact a lawyer immediately to see if there is any relief for you.
Can I call my consulate if I am arrested?
Yes. Non-citizens arrested in the U.S. have the right to call their consulate or to have the police tell the consulate of your arrest. The police must let your consulate visit or speak with you if consular officials decide to do so. Your consulate might help you find a lawyer or offer other help. You also have the right to refuse help from your consulate.
What happens if I give up my right to a hearing or leave the U.S. before the hearing is over?
You could lose your eligibility for certain immigration benefits, and you could be barred from returning to the U.S. for a number of years. You should always talk to an immigration lawyer before you decide to give up your right to a hearing.
What should I do if I want to contact DHS?
Always talk to a lawyer before contacting DHS, even on the phone. Many DHS officers view "enforcement" as their primary job and will not explain all of your options to you.
What Are My Rights at Airports?
IMPORTANT NOTE: It is illegal for law enforcement to perform any stops, searches, detentions or removals based solely on your race, national origin, religion, sex or ethnicity.
If I am entering the U.S. with valid travel papers can a U.S. customs agent stop and search me?
Yes. Customs agents have the right to stop, detain and search every person and item.
Can my bags or I be searched after going through metal detectors with no problem or after security sees that my bags do not contain a weapon?
Yes. Even if the initial screen of your bags reveals nothing suspicious, the screeners have the authority to conduct a further search of you or your bags.
If I am on an airplane, can an airline employee interrogate me or ask me to get off the plane?
The pilot of an airplane has the right to refuse to fly a passenger if he or she believes the passenger is a threat to the safety of the flight. The pilot's decision must be reasonable and based on observations of you, not stereotypes.
What If I Am Under 18?
Do I have to answer questions?
No. Minors too have the right to remain silent. You cannot be arrested for refusing to talk to the police, probation officers, or school officials, except in some states you may have to give your name if you have been detained.
What if I am detained?
If you are detained at a community detention facility or Juvenile Hall, you normally must be released to a parent or guardian. If charges are filed against you, in most states you are entitled to counsel (just like an adult) at no cost.
Do I have the right to express political views at school?
Public school students generally have a First Amendment right to politically organize at school by passing out leaflets, holding meetings, etc., as long as those activities are not disruptive and do not violate legitimate school rules. You may not be singled out based on your politics, ethnicity or religion.
Can my backpack or locker be searched?
School officials can search students' backpacks and lockers without a warrant if they reasonably suspect that you are involved in criminal activity or carrying drugs or weapons. Do not consent to the police or school officials searching your property, but do not physically resist or you may face criminal charges.
Disclaimer
This booklet is not a substitute for legal advice. You should contact an attorney if you have been visited by the FBI or other law enforcement officials. You should also alert your relatives, friends, co-workers and others so that they will be prepared if they are contacted as well.
NLG National Hotline for Activists Contacted by the FBI
888-NLG-ECOL
(888-654-3265)
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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
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Rachel Wolkenstein
August 21, 2011 (917) 689-4009
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ILLEGALLY SENTENCED TO
LIFE IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT PAROLE!
FREE MUMIA NOW!
www.FreeMumia.com
http://blacktalkradionetwork.com/profiles/blogs/mumia-is-formally-sentenced-to-life-in-prison-w-out-hearing-he-s
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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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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-herm\
an-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=2071005093\
21891
Courage to Resist needs your support
Please donate today:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
"Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning
has been defending and supporting our Constitution." --Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon
Papers whistle-blower
Jeff Paterson
Project Director, Courage to Resist
First US military service member to refuse to fight in Iraq
Please donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
P.S. I'm asking that you consider a contribution of $50 or more, or possibly
becoming a sustainer at $15 a month. Of course, now is also a perfect time to
make a end of year tax-deductible donation. Thanks again for your support!
Please click here to forward this to a friend who might also be interested in
supporting GI resisters.
http://ymlp.com/forward.php?id=lS3tR&e=bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
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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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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. 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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Exceptional art from the streets of Oakland:
Oakland Street Dancing
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NYC RESTAURANT WORKERS DANCE & SING FOR A WAGE HIKE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_s8e1R6rG8&feature=player_embedded
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On Gun Control, Martin Luther King, the Deacons of Defense and the history of Black Liberation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzYKisvBN1o&feature=player_embedded
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Fukushima Never Again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU-Z4VLDGxU
"Fukushima, Never Again" tells the story of the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns in north east Japan in March of 2011 and exposes the cover-up by Tepco and the Japanese government.
This is the first film that interviews the Mothers Of Fukushima, nuclear power experts and trade unionists who are fighting for justice and the protection of the children and the people of Japan and the world. The residents and citizens were forced to buy their own geiger counters and radiation dosimeters in order to test their communities to find out if they were in danger.
The government said contaminated soil in children's school grounds was safe and then
when the people found out it was contaminated and removed the top soil, the government and TEPCO refused to remove it from the school grounds.
It also relays how the nuclear energy program for "peaceful atoms" was brought to Japan under the auspices of the US military occupation and also the criminal cover-up of the safety dangers of the plant by TEPCO and GE management which built the plant in Fukushima. It also interviews Kei Sugaoka, the GE nulcear plant inspector from the bay area who exposed cover-ups in the safety at the Fukushima plant and was retaliated against by GE. This documentary allows the voices of the people and workers to speak out about the reality of the disaster and what this means not only for the people of Japan but the people of the world as the US government and nuclear industry continue to push for more new plants and government subsidies. This film breaks
the information blockade story line of the corporate media in Japan, the US and around the world that Fukushima is over.
Production Of Labor Video Project
P.O. Box 720027
San Francisco, CA 94172
www.laborvideo.org
lvpsf@laborvideo.org
For information on obtaining the video go to:
www.fukushimaneveragain.com
(415)282-1908
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1000 year of war through the world
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiG8neU4_bs&feature=share
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Anatomy of a Massacre - Afganistan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6BnRc11aug&feature=player_embedded
Afghans accuse multiple soldiers of pre-meditated murder
To see more go to http://www.youtube.com/user/journeymanpictures
Follow us on Facebook (http://goo.gl/YRw42) or Twitter
(http://www.twitter.com/journeymanvod)
The recent massacre of 17 civilians by a rogue US soldier has been shrouded in
mystery. But through unprecedented access to those involved, this report
confronts the accusations that Bales didn't act alone.
"They came into my room and they killed my family". Stories like this are common
amongst the survivors in Aklozai and Najiban. As are the shocking accusations
that Sergeant Bales was not acting alone. Even President Karzai has announced
"one man can not do that". Chief investigator, General Karimi, is suspicious
that despite being fully armed, Bales freely left his base without raising
alarm. "How come he leaves at night and nobody is aware? Every time we have
weapon accountability and personal accountability." These are just a few of the
questions the American army and government are yet to answer. One thing however
is very clear, the massacre has unleashed a wave of grief and outrage which
means relations in Kandahar will be tense for years to come: "If I could lay my
hands on those infidels, I would rip them apart with my bare hands."
A Film By SBS
Distributed By Journeyman Pictures
April 2012
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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-sooti\
ng-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 and 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-g\
un-.html
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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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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-ta\
pe-of-beating-surfaces/?ref=nyregion
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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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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
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
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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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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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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-add\
s-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
*---------*
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
*----*
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
*---------*
Labor Beat: Hey You Billionaire, Pay Your Fair Share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY8isD33f-I
*---------*
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
*---------*
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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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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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
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