PSL Presidential Candidate Gloria La Riva reports from Louisiana
Tomorrow, the people of New Orleans and the wider area again face the possibility of catastrophic disaster. While the government's evacuation is demonstrably better than that of Katrina, the physical damage to homes and the infrastructure could exceed that of Katrina. Storm surges of 18-feet to 24-feet of water are expected. Officials on TV have said that they've strengthened the levees only to Hurricane Category 3 strength, while Gustav is likely to hit as a Category 4. Almost all of New Orleans is below sea level.
In the aftermath of Katrina, New Orleans residents saw hundreds of public housing units demolished, never to be replaced.
The for-profit, "free market" disaster response—which resulted in tragedy three years ago—has already again rose its ugly head. All of New Orleans will be on lockdown this afternoon. 50,000 soldiers from the National Guard have been activated in the region. The police of several parishes, including Jefferson and Kenner, have warned that anyone in the street will be "challenged." During Katrina, Jefferson police shot and killed a group of people driving on the bridge. This morning, the Kenner police chief, Steve Caraway, said, "if you are arrested, you will not go to a county jail. You will be taken to Angola prison." As those around him smirked, Mayor Ray Nagin made the same promise at a press conference this morning. Yesterday, we visited the Harvey Canal, where construction has quite obviously not been completed. There are still holes in the wall, and the hurricane could thus fill up the Mississippi's west bank. Harvey is the district right next to New Orleans. Despite the major evacuation plan, the federal government's failure to carry out levee strengthening to a sufficient capacity means that the natural disaster's damage will be multiplied due to the government's criminal neglect. Campaign Organizer Richard Becker and I spent the night and this morning at the house of Malik Rahim, the co-founder of the Common Ground Collective, an organization whose volunteer reconstruction and health programs have served tens of thousands of people. Malik lives in Algiers, which is on the west bank of the Mississippi River in New Orleans. Since the Mississippi runs a twisted and meandering eastward route through New Orleans, the West Bank is actually the South Side. Algiers was not affected by flooding in Katrina, but predictions are that it could suffer major flooding now. Malik, like nearly everyone in New Orleans, has no flood insurance. Malik is just one example of what hundreds of thousands of people could suffer. Malik's house could be flooded and there is nothing he can do. In some parishes, there were only ten sandbags per household available. All his personal belongings may be destroyed. We are doing what we can in the hours remaining. Most everyone we saw leaving had their singular vehicles filled with family members and small amounts of personal items. People who evacuate have to bring their own bedding and food to the shelter. There's no more gasoline available anywhere. At Malik's house, we have been loading up several trucks and carloads of tools, equipment, a refrigerator, a stove, a freezer and other supplies. He will first evacuate to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and then he will travel to wherever the damage is greatest. His plan is to camp with a group of volunteers from Common Ground and begin reconstruction efforts. The volunteers are blocked from entering Algiers right now, so they cannot help evacuate the supplies from Malik's house. Our plan is to drive with Malik to the Lower Ninth Ward with one of his vehicles, where others will leave with him to Mississippi. After we leave Malik in the Lower Ninth ward, we will head to Baton Rouge, the state capital. We came to Louisiana several days ago and completed the paperwork to get our presidential campaign on the ballot here. It may be very difficult to get to Baton Rouge because of the impending storm, and closed off roads, but Tuesday, Sept. 2, is the deadline to submit to the Secretary of State. Traveling through the state these last few days, one cannot avoid the depth of poverty and isolation—the profound legacy of racism and oppression that extends far before Hurricane Katrina. A newspaper story in the Louisiana daily paper this week stated that adult illiteracy is as high as 44 percent in New Orleans. The story that the politicians and pundits are running with is that the governmental authorities have "learned the lesson" of Katrina, and that FEMA is now fully ready for such disasters. But the real legacy of Katrina is not just of governmental incompetence or of a non-existent evacuation plan. Rather, those crimes have been compounded by three years of systematic exclusion of the poor, mostly Black, communities here. As Louisiana human rights lawyer Bill Quigley recently reported, not a single renter in Louisiana has received financial assistance from the $10 billion federal post-Katrina Road Home Community Development Block Grant. Not a single apartment has been built to replace the 963 public housing apartments formerly occupied and now demolished in St. Bernard. The Gulf Coast became a test case for a massive corporate-controlled gentrification scheme that left the state with 46,000 fewer African American voters. The corporations—backed by the federal and local government—have indeed learned a lesson from Katrina: that natural disasters are opportunities for immense profit. Can we expect these same institutions to change their priorities, and suddenly decide to put people's needs first? Needless to say, we have to be prepared for a mighty struggle to make sure that all displaced people of the Gulf Coast be allowed to return, and so that they receive unconditional and comprehensive assistance during this time of hardship.
Let me be perfectly clear here--all of us here are planning nonviolent protests against an administration which is responsible for immense violence, bombs that have destroyed whole countries, and hundreds of thousands of deaths.
This is the America that eight years of the Bush administration have brought us, a place where dissent is no longer tolerated, where pre-emptive strikes have become the strategy of choice for those who hold power, where any group can be accused of `bombmaking' or `terrorism' on no evidence whatsoever in order to deter dissent.
Please stand with us. Because it could be your home they are raiding, next.
Call the Mayors of St. Paul and Minneapolis. Tell them you are outraged by these attacks on dissent. Urge them to let Poor People encamp and to let dissent be heard.
FLOOD THE MAYORS' OFFICES ASAP
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman
651-266-8510
*
Lydia Howell
Saturday Aug 30th, 2008 6:31 PM
Anti-RNC Activists respond to police raids
by Lydia Howell Aug. 30, 2008 3pm Minneapolis, MN
Ramsey County Sheriffs Department didn't stop with their raid and shut down of anarchist protest group, RNC-Welcoming Committee's St. Paul convergence center on Friday, August 29. From around 9am to noon, on Saturday morning they crossed the river to hit at least three homes in south Minneapolis. Activists are calling for the peace and justice community to come to a press conference at 4pm today (Saturday) at the RNC-WC Convergence Center, in St. Paul, to condemn the raids. Word went out via the Internet and cell phone messages and about 150 activists gathered at Powderhorn Park to share eye witness accounts of the raids and plan the activist community responses. Eyewitnesses described being made to lie on the floor for hours and that police had a broad search warrant that netted no weapons at all. However, police seized lap top computers, a big laminated St. Paul map, and political literature. A St. Paul building inspector on the scene closed the building Friday night. After St. Paul City Council-member, Dave Thune expressed objections, the center at 627 Smith Avenue South, at Wyoming, is being allowed to reopen Saturday afternoon. Four RNC-WC members were arrested and are being held without bail on various "conspiracy" charges. Civil liberties advocates note that such a charge is termed "the prosecutor's friend", as "conspiracy" often amounts to little more than allegations with no concrete evidence. At the Powderhorn Park gathering, news of the south Minneapolis raids continued to come in. The raided homes were: Food Not Bombs home, at 23rd Avenue; the Harriet House on 35th Avenue; a home on 17th Avenue, where three arrests were made, including one with no bail for "probable cause". The search warrant for the raids included such items as: puppets, nails,, screws, electronic equipment fromm cell phones to I-pods, vegetable oil, and "gray water". A building inspector at the house on 1734-17th Avenue South was said to have ordered the home boarded closed. Minneapolis City Council-members, Elizabeth Glidden and Cam Gordon were being contacted about the raids on homes in their wards. Longtime activist and south Minneapolis resident Dave Bicking said he observed "Police were taking mattress pads and other items out of the garage" of one of the raided houses. Another activist said she returned home Friday evening from the St. Paul raid to find her garage broken into. Since expensive athletic equipment remained untouched, while file boxes were strewn about, she felt law enforcement were responsible. Undercover law enforcement had been at the activists health center and legal assistance space, but, by noon had left. Ramsey County Sheriffs issued a press statement, that National Lawyers Guild member Jordan Kushner, read to the gathering, which included allegations not substantiated by any specifics, such as calling the RNC-WC "a criminal enterprise intent on criminal acts before and after the Republican National Convention". "We now know how St. Paul intends to respond to the people exercising our rights of free speech--with an abuse of power, "said one spokeswoman to the crowd of mostly young people at Powderhorn. "But, we also have our power to act and we call on the community to stand with us and condemn these actions. We will not be stopped by these raids. We will be in the streets on Monday." The press conference will be at 4pm, Saturday, Aug. 30 at the RNC-WC Convergence Center at 627 Smith Avenue South in St. Paul. http://www.nornc.org RNC protesters Legal Help Hotline number is: 651.356.8635. Housing of out-of-town activists remains needed. If you can help: Housing Number, 612.419.7809. In order to expedite housing arrangements,we are hoping to shift from the housing board to this number. If you have housing to offer, please email wc_orientation [at] riseup.net Lydia Howell is producer/host of Catalyst on KFAI Radio and an independent Minneapolis journalist.
Bank agrees to stop illegal 'sweeps,' make refunds
California Attorney General Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced that he has reached a settlement with Citibank after a three-year investigation into the company’s use of an illegal “account sweeping” program.
Nationally, the company took more than $14 million from its customers, including $1.6 million from California residents, through the use of a computer program that wrongfully swept positive account balances from credit-card customer accounts into Citibank’s general fund, Brown said.
“The company knowingly stole from its customers, mostly poor people and the recently deceased, when it designed and implemented the sweeps,” Brown said. “When a whistleblower uncovered the scam and brought it to his superiors, they buried the information and continued the illegal practice.”
Between 1992 and 2003, Citibank employed a computerized “credit sweep” process to automatically remove positive or credit balances from credit-card customer accounts.
An account could show a credit balance if a customer double-paid a bill or returned a purchase for credit. The credit sweeps were done without notifying the customer and without regard for whether the customer had any unpaid balances or other charges owed to Citibank.
The credit sweeps targeted more than 53,000 customers nationwide. All of the affected accounts were in a recovery status, which includes accounts of customers who have died, sought bankruptcy protection, or been the target of litigation or other collection efforts by Citibank.
In July of 2001, a Citibank employee uncovered the practice and brought it to the attention of his superiors. The employee was later fired for discussing the credit sweeps with an internal audit team.
In the words of a Citibank executive, “Stealing from our customers is a business decision, not a legal decision.” The same executive later said that the sweep program could not be stopped because it would reduce the executive bonus pool, Brown charged.
The attorney general's office launched its investigation of Citibank in 2005 to determine whether the company violated the California False Claims Act by filing false holder reports with the California State Controller that omitted any reference to the swept funds. The 3-year investigation led to today’s settlement.
The settlement includes:
• Permanent injunction – Citibank will be permanently prevented from re-initiating the credit sweeps.
• Refunds to victims – Citibank will refund all improperly swept funds to customers who were victimized by the sweeps. Citibank will also pay California customers 10% interest on the amount taken.
• Penalties – Citibank will pay $3.5 million in damages and civil penalties to the State of California.
• Compliance audit – After Citibank’s refund process is complete, an independent auditor will review Citibank’s work to ensure that it has lived up to its obligations.
Citibank has affirmed that it can identify most of the victims of the credit sweeps and has begun the process of reviewing archived account data and refunding the improperly swept funds going back to 1992.
New York Charges
Earlier this month, Citigroup Global Markets, Inc. and Citi Smith Barney have agreed to settle allegations stemming from its marketing and sales of auction rate securities. The firm marketed and sold auction rate securities as safe, cash-equivalent products, when in fact they faced increasing liquidity risk, a number of states alleged.
New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo hailed the agreement as a turning point for investors nationwide seeking relief from the collapse of the auction rate securities market.
"The settlement sends a resounding message to the entire auction rate securities industry: this type of deceptive behavior will not be tolerated and we will actively seek justice on behalf of investors in auction rate securities," said Cuomo. "Our goal is simple: to get investors back their money, and that's exactly what this deal does."
Under the settlement, Citigroup has agreed to buy back, no later than November 5, 2008, all illiquid auction rate securities from all Citigroup retail customers, charities, and small to mid-sized businesses. These customers, who number approximately 40,000 nationwide, have been unable to sell their securities since February 12, 2008. Their securities are worth more than $7 billion.
Citigroup will also:
• fully reimburse all retail investors who sold their auction rate securities at a discount after the market failed;
• consent to a special, public arbitration process to resolve claims of consequential damages suffered by retail investors as a result of not being able to access their funds;
• undertake to expeditiously provide liquidity solutions to all other institutional investors; and
• reimburse all refinancing fees to any New York State municipal issuer who issued auction rate securities through Citigroup since August 1, 2007.
In addition, Citigroup will pay a $50 million civil penalty to the State of New York. The penalty embraces both Citigroup's substantive conduct and its failure to properly comply with its obligations under the Attorney General's Martin Act subpoena.
Citigroup also will pay a separate civil penalty of $50 million to the North American Securities Administrators Association, whose ARS Task Force has been conducting its own series of investigations into the marketing and sale of auction rate securities by broker-dealer firms.
No democracy in Denver Cops attack protesters at DNC: Emergency news conference exposes gov’t terrorBy LeiLani Dowell Denver Published Aug 27, 2008 9:19 PM Denver police have used violence and mass arrests in an attempt to silence dissent during the Democratic National Convention. However, organizers and activists have put the city and police on notice that their intimidation tactics will not work.Several hundred activists were gathered in Civic Center Park on Aug. 25, where the Recreate 68 Alliance (Recreate68.org) has a permit for a week of actions during the DNC. At about 6 p.m., Denver police began massing in groups, encircling the park. Squads then began to march through the park, pushing and kicking people as they passed. One group of heavily-armed police lined up directly across from the Troops Out Now Coalition table.At about 7:00, a group of mostly young people responded by chanting “No justice, no peace!” The police charged the group, hitting several of them with pepper spray. Attempting to get away from the club-swinging police, the group moved onto Cleveland Street, joined by many others from the park.Police then closed off both ends of the block, entrapping the group as well as many bystanders. They began hitting people with their nightsticks and using pepper spray and pepper balls.One young protester, Martin, told the Denver Post, “We moved to the sidewalk—a few people stayed in the street—because we didn’t want a confrontation, but it didn’t matter. People started pleading: ‘Let me go. I want to go home.’ ...“Some of the police on horses were whacking people with their batons. I was told later that the police were telling us to disperse, but I didn’t hear them say that. And where would we go? The police were all around us, not letting us leave.”TONC organizer and Navy veteran Dustin Langley was among those trapped on the street between the police lines. He noted that spirits remained high, saying: “Street medics took care of those who had been pepper sprayed, and we shared water and made sure everyone was okay. We continued chanting and singing. At one point, we sang ‘Solidarity Forever’. One group of activists chanted at the cops: ‘Who do you protect? Who do you serve?’”After more than an hour, the solidarity of those on the streets and negotiations by Recreate 68 organizers won the release of most of those trapped on the block.At least 85, however, were placed in metal shackles and arrested. They were denied access to attorneys while at the detention center, and many were bullied into making a guilty plea in order to get released. Martin said, “Now, because of the plea bargain, I’m free but on probation. I can’t join any more marches, or do anything illegal in the next six months, or I’ll get five days in jail on top of the other charges.”The next day the police continued their attempts to intimidate those protesting the DNC. Heavily-armed police continued to mass around the park, and squads of horse-mounted cops rode through the park several times.At about 9 a.m., the right-wing bigot Fred Phelps entered the park, spewing a homophobic hate speech. A Recreate 68 organizer, Carlo Garcia, told him to leave. The Denver police responded by arresting Garcia, who has two brothers in Iraq.When Code Pink organizer Alicia Forrest questioned Garcia’s arrest, she was knocked to the ground by police and arrested as well.Organizers with the Recreate 68 Alliance and TONC called an emergency press conference in front of police headquarters to take a public stand against these tactics and respond to distortions in the corporate media, which portrayed the protesters as the initiators of violence.Glenn Spagnuolo, one of the cofounders of the Recreate 68 Alliance, put the mayor, police chief and Denver Police Department on notice that he and other organizers are meeting with attorneys to move forward with legal action. He noted several major protest-related lawsuits, such as those in New York and Washington, which have cost local governments millions of dollars.Larry Hales, a leader of the Recreate 68 Alliance and of the youth group FIST (Fight Imperialism Stand Together), noted that any violence that has occurred was initiated by the Denver police. Recreate 68 demands all police be removed from the park. Hales stated that since Recreate 68 has a permit to hold its activity in the Civic Center Park, the police have no business there.Other speakers at the press conference included Brian Vicente of the Peoples Law Project; Ben Kaufman, who described the arrest of Carlo Garcia; Sally Newman of Code Pink; and Mark Cohen, a Recreate 68 cofounder, who questioned the role of the Democratic Party in suppressing civil liberties and attempting to silence protest.Following the press conference, organizers returned to Civic Center Park, where they joined hundreds of activists from around the country determined to continue in the spirit of resistance and protest.
Matthew Thomas "Matt" Robinson, Jr. (January 1, 1937 – August 5, 2002) was an Americanactor. Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on New Year's Day in 1937, he was the first actor to portray the character of Gordon Robinson, on the long-running children's TV program Sesame Street. When Sesame Street began in 1969, not only did Robinson play Gordon, but he also provided the voice of the puppet Roosevelt Franklin and also was one of the show's producers. He left the show in 1972. In later years, when producers needed a last name for the Gordon character, then played by Roscoe Orman, they used Matt's last name.
He wrote and produced the films Save the Children and Amazing Grace in the early 1970s, and authored scripts for Sanford and Son and Eight Is Enough. In 1983, he joined the staff of the NBC's The Cosby Show as a producer and staff writer. By that time, he was beginning to show symptoms of Parkinson's Disease, but stayed with the show for seven seasons despite the difficulty; however, he ultimately succumbed to the disease on August 5, 2002 in Los Angeles, California at the age of 65.
Posted by The Nader Team on Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 05:25:00 PM
Last night in Denver was a wild party for democracy.
Four thousand people jammed into Magness Arena.
Sean Penn hit it out of the ballpark.
Tom Morello sang a glorious version of Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land.
Cindy Sheehan ripped into the dastardly twins (Democrats and Republicans).
Two new supporters came out of the woodwork to support Nader/Gonzalez.
When we asked for donations, Brooke Smith, star of ABC's Grey's Anatomy, rose out of the crowd, took the stage, pledged her support -- and $4,600 -- to the Nader/Gonzalez campaign.
Then we had another convert.
A 21-year-old African American from Phoenix -- Rev. Jarrett Maupin -- gave an eloquent speech as to why he's breaking with the Democratic Party, and vowed to organize the Latino and African American communities for Nader/Gonzalez.
And off course, Ralph laid it on the line, as usual.
So, take a peek at this amazing show, and then get the DVD (see below).
As you know, we're in the middle of a fundraising drive to raise $100,000 by September 4.
We're off to a great start, hovering around $25,000 in just four days.
But we have to crank it up to meet our goal (we haven't missed one yet -- good job troops).
Let's get it done.
Remember, if you give $100 or more now, we'll send you three DVDs -- the Denver rally, the Minneapolis rally, and a special debate DVD. (Three DVD offer ends September 4 at 11:59 p.m.)
AMY GOODMAN: While Senator Barack Obama made a surprise appearance at the Democratic National Convention in Denver last night, he was not the only presidential contender in town. Independent candidate Ralph Nader held a rally on Wednesday at the University of Denver, calling for an end to corporate control over the presidential debates. The longtime consumer advocate is making his third run for the White House.
Nader has been a vocal critic of the policies of both John McCain and Barack Obama. When Obama selected Joe Biden to be his running mate, Nader dubbed Biden the “MasterCard Senator” because of his close ties to the credit card industry. Biden was a key architect of the 2005 bankruptcy law which made it harder for consumers to file for bankruptcy protection. Nader has also criticized Biden for helping to create the modern drug war by pushing the 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act.
Ralph Nader joins us here in Denver at Free Speech TV’s studios. Welcome to Democracy Now!
RALPH NADER: Thank you, Amy. Actually, it’s only three times, run for president, as our website votenader.org points out.
AMY GOODMAN: Why are you doing it this year? A lot of people got angry at you last time, even the time before, though last time was key.
RALPH NADER: It’s amazing how people can say that, when in the same breath they will criticize the Democrat and Republican parties for being pro-war parties, pro-corporate parties, pro-military-industrial complex parties.
You know, why are we doing this? We’re doing this to give voters a broader choice of agendas and to bring a younger generation in. At our rally last night, it was just magnificent to see young people in their early twenties get up on that stage and, with very articulate performances, show what’s coming.
AMY GOODMAN: In fact, it was not only you as a presidential candidate there. Bob Barr was represented in a videotape, and Rosa Clemente, the Green vice-presidential candidate, along with Cynthia McKinney, who is the presidential candidate—
RALPH NADER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Rosa Clemente also spoke. What was the point of your rally last night?
RALPH NADER: The point was, and why we did what almost nobody ever does at the presidential candidacy level, bringing on competitors, so to speak, third-party and independent candidates, is to try to break the grip of this corporation called the Commission on Presidential Debates that the two major parties created in 1987 and control. And they don’t want anyone else on the stage, and that means that there’s no way to get to tens of millions of people, unless you’re a multibillionaire like Perot, no way to get to tens of millions of people, no matter how many states we campaign in, no matter how many giant arenas we fill. It’s less than two percent of what we would reach if we were on just one debate. Now, we’re at six, seven, eight percent in the latest CNN polls—seven percent in Colorado—with no mass mainstream television media.
AMY GOODMAN: This is the latest poll that came out this week?
RALPH NADER: Yes, yes.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain again. And in what states?
RALPH NADER: In states like New Mexico, Colorado, Minnesota, we’re coming in at six, seven, eight percent. NBC national news, ABC national news, CBS national news—total blackout since February 24th. And we’re still doing that well. So we could turn it into a three-way race, if we were really on those three presidential debates, or if Google or Yahoo! or veterans’ groups, who all wanted to sponsor their own debates and deliver millions of viewers would get the cooperation of Obama and McCain.
It’s really interesting to see a difference here. McCain offered ten town meetings to Obama. Obama said no. Google wants a—let’s see, a September 18th debate in New Orleans. McCain said OK, Obama said no. A veterans’ group coalition out of Fort Hood, Texas, they wanted a debate. McCain said OK, Obama says no. Isn’t that amazing?
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the candidates that—particularly that spoke last night. Yesterday was an interesting scene in Denver. Thousands of people were in the streets protesting, led by soldiers who had returned from Iraq, Iraq Veterans Against the War. They—we’re going to play a clip of that protest later. It was mounting pressure through the day, the question of whether the riot police would actually teargas them. They were all lined up. Their helmets were on their face. Coverings were on. But ultimately, Obama’s people came out to talk with them, which is actually all they were asking for at that point.
Biden accepted the vice-presidential nomination. You spoke in a different part of Denver. Joseph Biden—what do you think of him as the vice-presidential candidate for Barack Obama?
RALPH NADER: Well, he’s going to be, probably, an effective attack dog against the Republicans. But what we call him is “Senator Plastic,” because he is the champion of the credit card industry. MBNA is in Delaware. It’s a huge credit card company. It’s given more than $200,000 to Joe Biden over his career. And he championed, almost shamelessly, the anti-consumer bankruptcy law that his fellow colleague, Senator Chris Dodd, who’s the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, called, quote, “the worst bill ever,” end-quote.
And what it did, unlike corporate bankruptcy, it really squeezed people who had to go into bankruptcy because of medical bills or because they lost their job, as Professor Elizabeth Warren at Harvard Law School pointed out. Those are the two main reasons for bankruptcy. It squeezed them horribly. And this paved the way for predatory lenders to shift the burden on these hapless borrowers in the subprime home mortgage crisis, as they call it. He’s got a lot to answer for. He tries to say he moderated the bill, and it couldn’t have been worse.
But he’s very corporate. He comes from Delaware, which is in—has always been in a race to the bottom to weaken corporate charter laws, which is why so many of the giant corporations are strangely chartered in Delaware over the years, like the big New York banks or General Motors. We want to use that to raise the whole issue of what Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft were proposing a hundred years ago, which is federal chartering of giant corporations. Take it away from the states like Delaware, rewrite the compact between the people and these artificial entities, and hopefully take away some of the constitutional rights to lobby and to engage in politics of these artificial entities, because they’re not human beings, they don’t vote, and they shouldn’t have these constitutional rights.
AMY GOODMAN: It’s interesting. Senator Joe Biden himself is one of the least wealthy members of the Senate.
RALPH NADER: Yes. That’s a commendable impression that he’s going to give. You know, he’s just a working fellow from Scranton, Pennsylvania, takes the train from Wilmington back and forth. And that is commendable. But on the other hand, look who he’s standing up for: these giant corporations and the shameless drug war act, with just, you know, mandatory minimum sentences that have filled the jails, so we now have more prisoners in our jails, nonviolent drug offenders, than—per capita than anybody, any country in the world, including China. I mean, we don’t send nicotine addicts or alcoholics to jail. Why are we sending people who have drug addictions to jail?
AMY GOODMAN: Well, you are calling on some people to be jailed, but we’re going to find out just who those people are—
RALPH NADER: Yes.
AMY GOODMAN: —in a minute. We’re talking to Ralph Nader. He’s an independent presidential candidate, just held a super rally last night for a number of independent presidential candidates. He’s here in Denver and then is headed to St. Paul for a similar rally next week in the midst of the Republican National Convention. We’re also going to bring you a piece about the protests that built through yesterday on the streets of Denver. Stay with us.
[break]
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader. He has run for president three times. Maybe I confused you with Eugene V. Debs. He ran five times?
RALPH NADER: He ran five times, with the statement: better to vote for someone you believe in and lose than to vote for someone you don’t believe in and win who will certainly betray you. That’s a very, very important thing for voters to consider when they decide what they’re going to—
AMY GOODMAN: He was also disappointed with the American people, in terms of activism.
RALPH NADER: Yeah. Yeah, a remarkable statement. A reporter asked him, “What’s your biggest regret?” at the end of his great career as a labor leader. And Eugene Debs said, “My greatest regret is that, under our Constitution, the American people can have almost anything they want, but it just seems they don’t want much of anything at all.”
Fast-forward to 1945. We were the biggest power in the world after World War II. Western Europe was devastated, but those people pushed and got, by law, universal healthcare, decent pensions, living wage, decent public transit, paid vacation, paid maternity leave, paid family sick leave, university free education. They got it, by law.
Sixty-three years later, these two parties, the Republican and Democratic parties, still have not given the American people what people in western Europe got decades ago. So we’re trying to raise the expectation level, Amy, of the American people. If they become cynical and withdraw, which is what cynicism does, then they’re going to lose their country. These giant corporations that hijacked our government are tearing the heart and soul out of America.
AMY GOODMAN: Dennis Kucinich addressed the Democratic convention. In the news we have from The Hill newspaper—he gave a fiery speech.
RALPH NADER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: He criticized war profiteering, the oil giants, Wall Street, drug companies and, most of all, the Bush administration, which he said invaded Iraq for oil. But Obama staffers redacted one line suggesting Republicans should be jailed. The line read, quote, “They’re asking for another four years. In a just world, they’d get ten to twenty.”
RALPH NADER: Yeah. I mean, that’s the tragedy of Dennis Kucinich. Now, he’s done by February or March. The primaries are over. He will not at all support the Nader-Gonzalez campaign. I mean, he doesn’t have to endorse us. We can’t even get his mailing list. And I say, “Dennis, we’re the only people who are going to take your proposals to November.”
Imagine the Democrats—in 2004, they were prohibited from criticizing Bush at the Democratic National Convention in Boston, and now, in 2008, they don’t want to raise the issue of criminal recidivism in the White House, the most impeachable presidency and vice presidency in our history—torture, incarcerating people without charges, the criminal war of aggression in Iraq, spying on millions of Americans without judicial approval. That’s a five-year jail term. That’s a first-class felony. So the Democrats are really abandoning the rule of law, abandoning the Constitution and its impeachment provisions. And they ought to be taken into account. But, you know, Dennis got virtually—he got nothing in the platform. They won’t give him a comma in the Democratic national platform.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you think needs to in the Democratic platform? What isn’t there? What is there?
RALPH NADER: They ignore the need for a massive crackdown on corporate crime, fraud and abuse, which even the mainstream media, Wall Street Journal and others, are reporting. They’re allowing a bloated military budget to devour the federal budget away from public works and the necessities of the American people. We have no more Soviet Union. They don’t even mention consumer protection in any way. You can’t get them to talk about shifting the tax burden to security speculation and things we like the least or dislike the most. You can’t get them to do anything, other than homilies and hope and change and all that nonsense, when the central issue of this campaign has got to be the corporate domination of our political economy and our government.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, what you would do if you became president? What are the first actions that you would take?
RALPH NADER: Well, I call them the first-stage improvements. Full Medicare for all—I mean, sixty-some years after Harry Truman proposed it, it’s about time. It would save a lot of lives, by the way. A living wage—you know, they don’t even talk about living wage. If the minimum wage in 1968 was adjusted for inflation, the way members of Congress do their salaries, it would be $10 an hour. Do you know what the federal minimum wage is? It just rose to this level of $6.55 in July, last month. It’s disgraceful. One out of every three—one out of every three full-time American workers is making Wal-Mart wages. You can’t provide for the necessities, the barest necessities of your family, that way.
This used to be the party of the working people, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. It’s turning into a toady of giant business. They can’t ever even use the words “corporate crime” or “corporate welfare” or the taxpayers bailing out crooks routinely on Wall Street and other places around the country. This is a bankrupt party. And Dennis Kucinich, in effect, has been told, “Well, you can have your little speech, Dennis, but you’re going to jump in line and salute.”
AMY GOODMAN: When you’re talking about matters of life and death, John McCain says the US could be in Iraq for a hundred years.
RALPH NADER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: Barack Obama says he wants to pull out a number of the troops within the first sixteen months.
RALPH NADER: Yeah. Well, his military adviser said that means they’ll keep 50,000 or more soldiers, US soldiers, in Iraq in the military bases. We have twenty-two military bases in Iraq, and three of them are like the Battleship Galactica.
AMY GOODMAN: What do you say has to happen right away on that issue? What could you do?
RALPH NADER: Six months, negotiate withdrawal, all military and corporate forces from Iraq, continued humanitarian aid, UN-sponsored elections, and negotiating with the Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis, what they did in the 1950s, a certain amount of autonomy within the unified Iraq that they all want.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to tell our viewers and listeners that in the other hour of Democracy Now!—we’ve expanded to two hours, and if you don’t get to see or hear that other hour, you can go to our website at democracynow.org—in that other hour, we played a piece by Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill, author of the bestselling book Blackwater. He went on the floor and saw Henry Waxman, the powerful House chair, House Congress member. And Waxman has called on Obama, if he becomes president, to end military contracts with Blackwater.
RALPH NADER: And Obama has indicated that he’s simply not going to do that. You know what the dilemma for Obama is? He’s inheriting war criminals: Bush and Cheney. In all kinds of ways, they’ve been committing daily war crimes. At what point does he become a war criminal? If he does not issue executive orders and say no to what the regime has been doing and torture and incarceration and wiretapping and a criminal war, an unconstitutional war in Iraq, that’s—he’s got to think about that, his advisers have got to think about that, because he is going to inherit and pursue and be culpable for these war crimes.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much, Ralph Nader, for joining us. Ralph Nader, independent presidential candidate, longtime consumer advocate and corporate critic, he is running for president for the third time on the Independent ticket. Last question: why not the Green Party ticket? Why didn’t you go for the nomination? Cynthia McKinney won that nomination.
RALPH NADER: Because it’s just too disorganized. They can’t—they can’t put it together. They bicker a lot, and they drive out a lot of good Greens who want to focus on agendas. I wish them well. I wish Cynthia McKinney well. I wish people would continue to support us and send contributions to votenader.org. But the liberal, progressive press, if they do not support those of us who are taking their agenda inside the presidential election arena—a propos my letter to Jim Hightower, Bill Greider and Bob Kuttner—they’re going nowhere. They’re just whistling in the dark. And most of them, with the exception of John Nichols, have been ignoring or actually undermining the Nader-Gonzalez campaign. So we’re going to generate this kind of debate within what I like to call the liberal intelligentsia.
RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug 28 (IPS) - A Brazilian Supreme Court hearing on a landmark case got off on a positive footing for the indigenous people who live in the Raposa Serra do Sol reservation in northern Brazil.
The Court, which will set an important legal precedent when it decides the fate of the reservation in the Amazon jungle along Brazil’s northern border, delayed the final decision when one of the judges asked for a recess to further investigate the case, on the first day of the hearing Wednesday.
Magistrate Carlos Ayres de Britto, the first and only judge to have voted so far, used the Portuguese word "esbulho" (dispossession or unlawful possession) to describe the occupation of parts of the reservation by non-indigenous landowners who want to break up the 1.7 million hectare reserve in order to hold on to the land that they farm.
The demarcation of the reservation as one continuous tract of land in the state of Roraima, on the border with Venezuela and Guyana, was signed into law in 2005 by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
In his vote, Britto rejected the complaint brought by two senators from Roraima state with the backing of local government authorities, landowners and even factions of the indigenous groups.
He said the reservation must remain intact in order to live up to the constitutional rights of the 19,000 members of five indigenous groups who share the territory.
The Supreme Court ruling will be decisive not only for the people of Raposa Serra do Sol but for a large part of the indigenous people living in areas disputed by landowners and ranchers in Brazil.
Native groups, indigenous rights activists and environmentalists fear that a verdict in favour of breaking up the reservation could also open up to legal challenges dozens of other indigenous territories that have already been demarcated.
The position taken by Britto, who spoke for nearly two hours, represents more than just one vote on the 11-judge panel. The next magistrate in line to vote, Carlos Alberto Direito, asked for more time to look into the case, after praising Britto’s broad knowledge of the matter.
The president of the Supreme Court, Gilmar Mendes, said he hoped a verdict would be handed down before year-end.
The legal challenge to the demarcation of Raposa Serra do Sol defends the "acquired rights" of landowners, mainly rice farmers, who lay claim to property within the reservation.
Joenia de Carvalho, the first female indigenous lawyer to make a presentation at a Supreme Court hearing, said the farmers, who she described as "invaders" of traditionally indigenous areas, have caused land conflicts in the reservation in which "21 leaders have been killed and many houses have been burned down."
Since 1996, these "supposed owners" have had no right to the land they occupy, said Britto, who said the unlawful possession of the land was proven by notary records that show irregular growth of the property in the hands of the landowners by means of murky sales, mergers and divisions in the 1980s and 1990s.
Former Supreme Court justice and foreign minister Francisco Rezek, representing the Roraima state government, accused the federal government of demarcating Raposa Serra do Sol in an irresponsible manner and of reducing the area under jurisdiction of the state government to just 10 percent of the total, which he said left little land for agriculture.
But Britto argued that the 121,182 sq km -- equivalent to three other Brazilian states that are home to 22 million people -- of land in Roraima outside of the indigenous reserve and other federal land is more than enough territory for the "less than 400,000 non-indigenous inhabitants of the state."
The judge also said the anthropological studies on which the demarcation of the reservation was based were sound and widely recognised, and were not questioned for years after they were published.
The studies show that "only a continuous territory ensures the rights of physical and cultural reproduction and integral maintenance of customs and traditions" of indigenous groups, Britto added.
The five indigenous groups, who have lived in that area free of conflict for at least 150 years, have mingled and speak related languages, and the areas where they have traditionally lived border each other to form one continuous territory that should not be separated into "islands," which would be unconstitutional, said the magistrate.
He argued, furthermore, that indigenous lands and border areas are "perfectly compatible" -- a reference to the argument set forth by landowners in that area and even members of the military that the fact that Raposa Serra do Sol is on the border poses a threat to security and national sovereignty.
History shows that the presence of indigenous people along the border has helped defend the country’s frontiers, and the constitution itself recognises private ownership of land along borders as "fundamental to defence," he said.
To those who express fears that indigenous groups will assert themselves as independent nations with foreign support, based on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, Britto said the Brazilian constitution has adequate provisions to prevent this. He also said the constitution is the best possible instrument for defending the rights of native groups.
Waxman’s call comes as newly revealed federal documents obtained by USA Today show US spending on armed private contractors like Blackwater is on the rise. This year alone, the US State Department will spend more than a billon dollars on armed contractors. That’s a 13 percent increase from 2007. A State Department official revealed contractors “will increasingly take over…former military roles and missions, increasing [the] numbers of private security.”
As Barack Obama prepares to make the war in Iraq a centerpiece of his campaign against John McCain, serious questions remain about what Obama will do with this massive private shadow army in Iraq. Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill filed this report.
JEREMY SCAHILL: When you talk to people here at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, it’s taken as a fait accompli that, if elected president, Senator Barack Obama is going to end the Iraq war swiftly.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA: I’ve been against it 2002, 2003, 2004, ’5, ’6, ’7, ’8, and I will bring this war to an end in 2009, so don’t be confused.
JEREMY SCAHILL: But it’s not hard to be confused by Senator Obama’s statements on Iraq. Cut through the fiery rhetoric, and the devil is in the details. While Obama’s plan starkly differs from that of his rival, John McCain, Obama’s Iraq policy in reality is one of downsizing and rebranding the occupation, not entirely ending it.
One aspect of Obama’s Iraq plan that has received little corporate media attention is what he plans to do with for-profit war corporations, particularly mercenary companies like Blackwater. While Obama has consistently been very critical of these companies, calling them unaccountable, above the law, and a danger to US troops and Iraqi civilians, his own Iraq plan will necessitate using them in Iraq. Indeed, one of Obama’s senior foreign policy advisers told me earlier this year that Obama, quote, “cannot and will not rule out using these companies.”
Obama representatives say he will not sign onto legislation sponsored by Representative Jan Schakowsky and Senator Bernie Sanders to ban the use of Blackwater and other armed contractors in US war zones. Obama’s running mate, Joe Biden, has not signed onto the legislation either. Instead, Obama has sponsored his own legislation that seeks to regulate the industry and hold contractors accountable under US law.
He articulated his position in a brief interview with Democracy Now! in March.
SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Here’s the problem: we have 140,000 private contractors right there, so unless we want to replace all of or a big chunk of those with US troops, we can’t draw down the contractors faster than we can draw down our troops. So what I want to do is draw—I want them out in the same way that we make sure that we draw out our own combat troops. Alright? I mean, I—
AMY GOODMAN: Not a ban?
SEN. BARACK OBAMA: Well, I don’t want to replace those contractors with more US troops, because we don’t have them, alright?
On August 27th at around 10:30am, 5-6 police officers from three agencies made their way into the Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley, broke down every door, and confiscated all computers on the property. Computers taken included those used by the Slingshot Collective and East Bay Prisoner Support. Police also broke into cabinets, cut locks, and went through mail. People arrived after being informed of the situation, and demanded that the police show a warrant. The police said they would show one once they were done, and they did. Both CopWatch and The Berkeley Daily Planet were there to cover the incident. The departments involved were 4 UC Berkeley cops, 1 Alameda County Sheriff, and 1 Federal agent. The police stated that the computer equipment "may have been used to commit a felony." This is the first time the infoshop has been raided.
The following is Part 1 of an edited and enhanced radio interview conducted in August 2008 with Dr. Doug Morris, Eastern New Mexico University Department of Curriculum and Instruction.
Rick Smith: One of the things I love hearing about is what is happening in other countries. I like to hear from the inside and I like to hear different opinions. This is why we have our next guest, Dr. Doug Morris, from Eastern New Mexico University. He just returned recently from Cuba, and I am always interested and fascinated to find out what goes on in the closed-arena there. Why did you go? I can’t go, as far as I know… how did you get there?
Doug Morris: I went as part of the “Research Network in Cuba Group,” sponsored by the US based “Radical Philosophers Association.” The group does research in Cuba and participates in a yearly conference at the University of Havana as part of that research, and shares that work back here in the US in various academic and public settings. A number of the participants travel back and forth to Cuba numerous times over the year to carry out research and to keep open lines of communication, for example around socialist economics and agriculture. The group travels legally on an academic research general license provided by the US State Department. There are different categories for research and legal travel to Cuba, including journalistic research, so one would guess that you would be able to obtain a license to do “legal” journalistic work and research in Cuba. We should add that it is not Cuba that is trying to keep US citizens out of Cuba; rather, it is the US government that is violating our Constitutional right to travel.
I should also say that the reasons for going to Cuba are many and also share that I am not an expert on Cuba. Cuba is not my primary area of academic interest but more peripheral. Cuba remains a source of interest and inspiration mostly because Cuba is attempting to carry out a social project outside of the global neoliberal model, a neoliberal model that places profits first and is a source of many global calamities and much human suffering. Cuba’s project, filled with contradictions and struggles, is working to ensure that people come first. Cuba remains an inspiration because they have accomplished so much under very trying conditions and circumstances, not least of which is the presence of the hostile global behemoth just to the North.
Cuba, as one Cuban scholar pointed out, always “walks on a razor’s edge, and does so in a world that stands on the edge of a precipice.” In other words, Cuba, always struggling to survive, is often forced to pursue policies against their basic commitments, but they must survive, and they are trying to survive as a socialist island in a rising sea of neoliberal abominations. There is no rule book available for revolutionaries so they can simply open to page 155 to find the answer to the latest dilemma. Cuba, though it walks on a razor’s edge, is an inspiring source of alternative political, economic, agricultural and pedagogical knowledge that we, standing on the precipice, so desperately need as we now face ever-growing global threats through climate change, ecological catastrophes, growing poverty and inequality, food and hunger crises, water shortages, political authoritarianism, corporate tyranny, and an increasingly militarized globe. So, Cuba has been designated the only sustainable society in the world by the World Wildlife Fund, and that is of great importance at a time when a sustainable human future is in serious question.
As to Cuba being a “closed-arena” one must be careful on how that gets interpreted because people in the US will use that to intimate that Cuba is some kind of Stalinist society in which people lack all freedoms, where everyone lives under constant surveillance and fear, where people are abducted from the streets in the middle of the night if they disagree with State opinion, where people are sent off to torture camps, etc. But that is not the case in Cuba, although one might draw links between what was just described and the US base at Guantanamo, a real core of human rights abuse on land that belongs to Cuba but is occupied by a US Naval base. The “closed-arena” in Cuba is partially a myth created by US propaganda in order to keep the US population distanced from understanding what really happens in Cuba, and partially a consequence of Cuba living constantly under the threat of US aggression, a situation that compels certain forms of centralized control and suspicions that may occasionally result in forms of repression beyond that which one could support.
One might ask why US power is interested in keeping US citizens from understanding what is happening inside Cuba, and I would argue that the primary reason is that Cuba is working to carry out an experiment in economics and politics that puts human interests and well-being first, is committed to ecological rationality and sustainable agriculture, and assumes that there are sets of human rights that should be honored, for example, the rights to food, health care, education, housing, employment, access to culture, sports, participation, etc. Cuba sees these rights as basic to human needs, and they should not therefore be available only to those who can afford them in the market. The problem with Cuba from the perspective of US power, I would say, is that if Cuba succeeds in carrying out this people-first experiment in politics and economics, it will demonstrate the legitimacy of what in Cuba is called “people’s power.” The Cuban revolution violated 150 years of US policy and belief as expressed in the Monroe Doctrine, i.e., US power owns the hemisphere and US power will determine who does what and in whose interests, etc.
Soon after the Cuban revolution the Kennedy Administration made it clear what the problem was. The Cuban model, they suggested, was providing a source of inspiration for people across the hemisphere who had been robbed and exploited for hundreds of years, people who now might want to follow the Cuban example and take matters into their own hands to advance their own interests and live lives outside of misery, poverty and despair. Of course, if that interferes with profits and power concerns, that is intolerable from the perspective of US power. So, one of the central problems with Cuba from the view and interests of US power is that Cuba can show that a society can be run by the people through various interactions between formal and informal democracy, between participatory and representative forms of democracy, and, crucially, Cuba can demonstrate that a society can be run in the interest of people without resorting to a profit-based and tyrannical economic system.
And, secondly, the threat of US aggression is very real as history has demonstrated quite clearly. More than 200 years ago, John Adams argued that Cuba is a “natural extension of the US,” and that Cuba should be annexed by the US. Jefferson wrote that “Cuba [is] the most interesting addition that can be made to our system of states,” and John Quincy Adams referred to “the inevitability of the annexation of Cuba,” suggesting that it would eventually fall into US hands by the laws of political gravity, like “a ripe fruit.” In the 1850s, the US Ostend Manifesto warned against Cuba becoming “Africanized [like Haiti]… with all the attendant horror for the white race.” In addition, of course, were commercial interests, and by the 1880s Cuba was a key US commercial “partner,” especially around sugar. The US provided 70% of the Cuban market. Prior to the US intervention in Cuba’s second war of independence, the US undersecretary of war, J. Breckenridge wrote that Cubans were incapable of managing their own society, that they had only “a vague notion of what is right and wrong,” and therefore the US should “destroy everything within our cannon’s range of fire, impose a harsh blockade so that hunger runs rampant, undermine the peaceful population, and decimate the Cuban army.”
In 1901, the US forced the Cubans to accept the Platt Amendment, still used to “justify” the US military base at Guantanamo Bay. It also gave the US the “right” to intervene in Cuban affairs anytime to “preserve Cuban independence” (but not independence from US intervention, of course), and to protect life, liberty, and crucially property. The US acted on the amendment in 1906 and militarily occupied Cuba until 1909. From 1901 until 1959 and the triumph of the revolution that overthrew the US backed Batista dictatorship, Cuba, in Robert Scheer’s words “was more of an appendage of the US than a sovereign nation.” Most of the land and resources was under various forms of US control.
The US has, for close to fifty years now, been hostile to the Cuban revolution, has wanted to reestablish US domination over Cuba, and has engaged in outright military aggression, economic strangulation of multiple sorts, endless forms of terrorism, biological and chemical warfare attacks, diplomatic maneuvers to isolate Cuba, introduced legislation such as the Helms-Burton Act and the Torricelli Bill to punish Cuba and other countries that deal with Cuba at a time when Cuba was in dire straits and in need of serious assistance not further punishment, sponsored people who carried out bombing attacks in Cuba or blew-up a Cuban airplane (killing all on board), planned dozens of assassination attempts against Cuban leaders, engaged in widespread propaganda attacks around the world against the Cuban experiment (a good portion of it through US embassies), funded anti-Cuban think tanks, etc.
We should also keep in mind, that if we consider the definition of terrorism to be “the use of force and violence, or the THREAT of force and violence, to intimate, coerce or control, in order to advance ideological, political, religious or economic interests,” a close paraphrase of the official US definition, then the US is engaged in terrorism 100% of the time because the announced policy of its willingness to not only attack anyone, anywhere, anytime for any reason, made formal in the 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States, and demonstrated in the illegal US attack against Iraq, but the US also reserves the “right” to use nuclear weapons in a first strike. That means the US is always engaged in the THREAT to use force and violence around the world, i.e., always engaged in terror. Cubans are well aware of this, and we should be too.
The continuing hostility against the Cuban revolution is grounded, arguably, in three main considerations. The first is the commercial and financial losses for US business interests in Cuba. The Wall Street Journal referred to the revolution as a “watermelon.” The more you slice it “the redder it gets.” For example, Cuba nationalized the oil refineries. Cuba had signed a trade deal with the Soviet Union in early 1960, and it included Soviet crude. At the command of the US government Texaco and Standard Oil refused to refine the crude, thus forcing Cuba to nationalize the refineries. Nationalizations were carried out with offers of compensation based on the reported assets and earnings provided by the companies in their official record. These assets and earnings were typically underreported in order to save on taxes.
The second is Cuba’s commitment to pursue a course of economic, political and social development that is independent of US hegemony, and the concomitant threat that the Cuban revolution could provide inspiration for others in the region to challenge US domination.
Advisor to JFK, Arthur Schlesinger stated that the problem with the Castro regime, i.e., the Cuban revolution, was that it represented a successful resistance to US hegemony, and that defiance undermined 50 years of US policy in the region. In other words, the Cuban revolution was providing an emancipatory opening for people to move beyond subservience and subjugation. In short, as the Administration said, “the poor and underprivileged [i.e., exploited] might demand opportunities for a decent living,” and that is simply unacceptable. The Kennedy Administration responded to this “threat” by implementing the “Alliance for Progress.” Interestingly, about ten years after the Alliance began, a major US study demonstrated that Cuba, the one country excluded from the Alliance, was the only country that had achieved what the Alliance purported to be carrying out, for example, advances in public health, education, transportation, as well as the integration of rural and urban sectors.
And, the third is Cuba’s commitment to international solidarity, revealed in Cuba’s international projects in medicine, literacy, and agriculture, as well as “Operation Miracle,” through which more than one million people have been treated to restore their vision. Cuba demonstrates that international relations can be built on solidarity rather then exploitation, domination and aggression. And then there is the matter of people’s power, i.e. people taking matters into their own hands.
RS: What was the purpose of the conference in Cuba?
DM: The purpose of the conference includes efforts to build bridges of solidarity and understanding between Cuban and US academics and Cuban and US citizens. The conference itself revolves around different areas of research including research in economic matters, philosophical issues, education, agriculture, various forms of social organization, history, projections about what kind of future we should struggle for, the role that civil society plays in creating popular empowerment in Cuba and the role that civil society could play in producing citizen empowerment in the United States, etc.
RS: Would you say we are not politically empowered in the United States?
DM: I would argue that the Cuban population is much more politically empowered than the population in the United States for a fairly simple reason, one that is surely considered a controversial perspective by many people in the US. Cuba has a much different, more wide-ranging and stronger concept of democracy than we have in the United States.
In the United States the notion of democracy basically stops at the most elementary, rudimentary and least developed form of democracy, electoral democracy. Every two or four years, people are permitted to vote for a set of candidates who are essentially pre-selected by the owners of society, the business class. Anyone who challenges the interests of the owners is essentially marginalized or excluded from serious consideration. The case of Dennis Kucinich demonstrates this rather clearly. We vote for one or another of the corporate-sponsored candidates and very little changes in terms of the public interest being advanced, in terms of public well-being improving, in terms of pursuing the overall public good, in terms of the public developing capacities, resources and knowledge to meaningfully and effectively shape politics in ways that represent real public concerns, such as universal health care, environmental protection, a political system that responds to public concerns, better education, less militarism, infrastructure repair and development, a fairer economic system, etc.
Electoral democracy in the US generally produces a form of competition limited to major parties funded by wealthy elites and the corporate sector, and while public interest and enthusiasm, in some sectors, can be temporarily elevated by the hyper-spectacles that are regularly presented during campaign season, the barrage of PR materials, or by the constant repetition of largely empty slogans around “hope” and “change,” the final result is that very little of substance changes in regards to policies that promote, represent or fulfill public interests, needs and concerns, or stimulate public empowerment.
The public is largely aware of this sham, and that is surely one reason why participation in electoral democracy is so low in the US. In electoral democracies, voters vote every two or four years, with virtually zero input into policies and programs, but as George Soros makes clear, “markets vote every day,” suggesting that without meaningful forms of democratic participation in the economy and in social arrangements, democracy remains a largely empty and formal vessel, a shadow that hides the substance of power and decision making which lives and works largely at the corporate level.
In Cuba, I would suggest, they have extended the idea of democracy beyond electoral democracy (they do have elections in Cuba, contrary to what we have been taught in the US), to include political democracy, which is the beginning of more participatory forms of democracy, as well as social democracy and economic democracy. So, elections in Cuba are not funded and controlled by elites but organized by the people.
RS: Wait a second, how it that possible? Castro has been the leader their for a long time; is he being elected? What I keep hearing is that he is a communist dictator.
DM: Cuba, as I understand it, is carrying out an experiment, and this has to be emphasized, what is happening in Cuba is an experiment being carried out under extremely harsh conditions not of their own choosing. Still, it must be said that Cuba exhibits none of the chronic human abominations one witnesses in most other countries of the region: there are not droves of homeless people rotting in gutters, no children starving, no mass illiteracy, no high levels of infant mortality or unemployment, no death squads roaming the countryside, no monstrous inequalities, no high levels of political and social instability, etc. There is a housing crisis, but there are programs underway to address the housing crisis. For example, in 2006 Cuba constructed roughly 110,000 new houses, and in 2007 roughly 67,000 new houses. They project that if they can average 50,000 new houses per year for ten years, they will have addressed the main issues of the housing crisis, and they are on target to meet those expectations.
What they are attempting to do in Cuba is mobilize the collective intelligence and imagination of a population of people to manage and run the society and they are doing it through a combination of participatory and representative democracy organized through local and national political organizations such as the Youth Communist League with roughly 800,000 members of young people between the ages of 14 and 30, the Communist Party of Cuba with roughly 1.5 million members (it should be noted that the Party is not an electoral party, that is, the Party does not participate in the nomination or election of political candidates at the local, provincial or national levels of assembly elections, nor can the party propose legislation in the representative political bodies; this is not to say that the Party lacks influence in Cuban politics, it is clearly very influential across Cuban society in its role as sort of protector and stimulator of socialist consciousness and in encouraging people to, as they say, “Be like Ché,” which essentially calls for developing a concern for and a commitment to the collective good and a willingness to make sacrifices for the collective good).
Then there are the mass organizations that include the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, the Women’s Federation, the Worker’s Unions, Student Federations at the University, Secondary and Elementary school levels, professional organizations and the organs of the state which include judicial bodies, the armed forces, the Organ’s of People’s Power that include the National, Provincial and Municipal Assemblies, and the Popular Councils that serve as a bridge between neighborhoods and Municipal Assemblies, the Council of State, and the Working Commissions of the National Assembly of People’s Power. The National Assembly has legislative authority and the delegates to the assembly are elected by the Cuban electorate. The National Assembly chooses from among the members of the Assembly the Council of State. The Council of State is then responsible for selecting the Council of Ministers.
As I understand it, the Council of State selects a president, but the president must first be nominated at the level of his local municipality in order to achieve the status of National Assembly representative who then moves into the Council of State, etc. Furthermore, as I understand it, the status of President does not accord any dictatorial powers, but it does provide the opportunity for the President to present arguments for or against any piece of legislation. There are numerous cases over the years in which Fidel argued one way and others argued the other, and Fidel’s position did not carry the day. Legislation and decrees must be ratified by the National Assembly. Fidel’s status, or now Raul’s status, provides a symbolic and influential power in Cuba that others may not have by virtue of their participation in the Cuban revolutionary struggle since the early 1950s, in particular since the attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953, 55 years ago this July 26th.
At the same time, one should note that there has been a significant turnover in the Cuban political system over the last decade or so, and many of those running the system are in their 30s and 40s. The creation of the Popular Councils in the early 90s, in the early years of the Special Economic Period (after the Soviet Union collapsed and Cuba lost roughly 85% of its trade overnight), was carried out as a bulwark against centralization and bureaucracy and as a way to enhance local government power and popular participation. Candidacy Commissions, made up of people from the mass and popular organizations and presided over by members of the worker unions were established to organize the provincial and national assembly elections. Their primary purpose is to ensure a fairer representation from across the populace. In other words, the citizenry is involved in both nominating and electing its representatives. Provincial and national elections are held every five years, and municipal elections every 2½ years.
Roughly half the representatives in the National Assembly are from the Municipal Assemblies and the other half are comprised of national figures who are politicians, scientists, intellectuals, artists, athletes, workers, etc. Of particular interest to the audience for this program in the US, “where working people come to talk,” is the role of unions in Cuba and the worker assemblies. Isaac Saney, in his book, A Revolution in Motion, describes how Cubans are involved in an intense political learning process and how “the system responds to popular demands for adjustment.”
In 1993, during some of the worst times of the Special Economic Period when the Cuban economy was in the gutter, and Cubans were suffering, the National Assembly wanted to introduce a tax on wages. Union representative opposed this proposal on the grounds that the workers had not had an opportunity to discuss and debate the measures. The National Assembly thus delayed any action until the worker’s parliaments could meet. There were three months of meetings, over 80,000 meetings, involving over 3 million workers where these matters were discussed and debated, and new proposals were offered. National policy reflected worker views. When the new tax law was finally passed the taxes were primarily on the self-employed rather than on wage workers. This is one example that demonstrates how mass consultations and input from citizens distinguish the Cuban experiment from other countries.
All Cuban citizens can vote upon turning 16, and they can be nominated by fellow citizens in local popular assemblies at the age of 18. So, people are nominated in neighborhood mass assemblies at the local level to serve in Municipal Assemblies. It is a process of consultations and dialogues within popular and community organizations. We should also note that
Cubans possess the capacity to recall the representatives they elect if it is determined that the performance of the representative is unsatisfactory. This Cuban right is carried forth in periodic meetings, sort of accountability sessions with constituents, where representatives report on their work.
Let me return to the point of moving from electoral democracy to political democracy, and then from there into social and economic democracy. Democracy becomes more engaging politically when forms of effective and more participatory political representation are permitted and encouraged. In short, where there is established public controls on the financing of elections, not private control by those who own the society; where access to vital information is available and accessible rather than the kinds of limited access we experience in the US through the dominant corporate media where we very seldom learn what public opinion really is and only see it refracted through corporate interests; where the role of lobbies is constrained (so in the US the oil lobby spent roughly $83 million last year and will probably surpass that figure this year in attempts to direct legislation and voting their way…the pharmaceutical industry, the Chamber of Commerce, Phillip Morris and General Electric are near the top of lobbyists working to ensure that policies are endorsed and legislation passed to protect and promote private power, corporate profits and wealth for the privileged…), so lobbying would be constrained except to the extent that lobbying is carried forth in the public interest not to promote private power and wealth.
Political democracy also would be a form in which legislative bodies are empowered to carry out the will of the people, by the people and for the people; with the people having opportunities to recall candidates who are not serving the interests of the public; where there are instruments through which the public can express its interest and concerns through forms of collective consultation, dialogue, discussion and referenda; and where there are more equitable and responsible distributions of power. To some folks in the US this “of, by and for the people” notion of democracy would sound crazy, but it does reflect a rather Lincolnesque notion of democracy and that is as American as apple-pie, yes?
Democracy becomes more meaningful when politically engaging forms are combined with electoral forms in the context of social forms that recognize citizenship as a component of a social contract in which rising standards of living are measured through how well the society provides access to basic services and needs around food, recreation, education, social security, health, housing, arts, and transportation. In short, effective citizenship is rooted in social justice, a de-commodification of society, as well as equality of rights and conditions because people are fundamentally citizens in a participatory democracy rather than consumers in a profit based and undemocratic and dehumanizing market system.
Basically, in a social democracy needs are not satisfied through the ability to purchase commodities but are seen as a social right and duty. This form of social democracy eliminates the rampant exclusionary prejudice present in commodified markets where goods, needs and services are available only to those who have enough money and power for purchase rather than being available to all by virtue of their condition as citizens and human beings living under a mutually fulfilling and responsible social contract. This is the de-commodification mentioned above. In the United States, all of the goods and services mentioned above, from food, to health, to education, to sports, etc. are not available to people as a human right, but are seen as a privilege and available only to those who can purchase them on the market. I would suggest that is very anti-democratic and it has the consequence of dehumanizing people and social relations because too many people lack the ability to have their needs satisfied and they don’t live in a culture dedicated to fully developing their capacities.
White male yuppie in his early 30s jogging
on the sidewalk past
a bodega, a mosque, and Starbuck's
dutifully stops at red light and
bounces in place
(can't let that heart rate drop)
Across the street
Pakistani boy no more than six
waits for the light to change
holding the barely visible
hand of his veiled, shrouded mother as he giggles
uncontrollably at the sight of a bouncing
white male yuppie
*
[Ask me how hard it was to find a photo of a smiling Palestinian Boy, and how easy it was to find a white man jogging...]
I spent much of yesterday following independent presidential candidate (and Connecticut native) Ralph Nader around as he tried to get attention for his campaign -- specifically for its attempt to open up the debates to the third party candidates.
By Diego Cevallos
Studies also show that "back-alley" abortions are the fourth or fifth cause of death among women in Mexico, and that obtaining permission for a legal abortion in any of the above mentioned circumstances is difficult to impossible.
The Mexican government, Catholic Church and conservative groups lost a crucial battle Wednesday in their fight against abortion, which was legalised in the capital in April 2007.
In Supreme Court deliberations on a legal challenge brought by the conservative federal government last year with the aim of overturning the 2007 Mexico City law, it became clear Wednesday that at least seven of the 11 justices would vote that the law does not violate the constitution.
Although the Supreme Court sessions will continue, there is no longer any chance that the Mexico City law will be revoked, because at least eight of the 11 magistrates would have to declare it unconstitutional.
"Reason, the law, and women’s right to decide have prevailed," Lorena Martínez, a member of a women’s rights group at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), told IPS.
But Marcela Fernández, of the anti-abortion group Comité Pro Vida (Pro Life Committee), lamented to IPS that "the sacred right to life is the loser here."
The federal Attorney General’s Office and National Human Rights Commission had challenged the constitutionality of the Mexico City law that legalised abortion in the first 12 weeks of pregnancy.
Since the law went into effect, 26,000 women have sought information in municipal public health facilities on the right to abortion, and 12,262 women have undergone the procedure in Mexico City.
According to the local authorities, 50 percent of the women who had abortions were single women under the age of 24, and the women were two months pregnant on average.
The law that struck down the penalties for abortion -- three to six months in prison or community service -- was approved last year by the Mexico City assembly, which is dominated by the leftwing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD).
Although the penalties remain in place for women who undergo an abortion after the 12th week of pregnancy without medical indication, studies show that the punishment is rarely if ever applied.
The Supreme Court held several hearings between April and June to receive input from activists, lawyers, doctors, government officials and religious groups opposed to and in favour of the law that legalised abortion in Mexico City.
On Sunday, the day before the magistrates began their final debate on the question, the president of Mexico’s bishops’ conference, Carlos Aguiar, appeared in a paid TV spot urging the Court to rule that the abortion law was unconstitutional.
"Among the many challenges facing the country, respect for human life from conception is paramount. Without the gift of life, no other right is possible. The defence of the newly conceived human being must be accompanied by the defence of the dignity of women. Respect for the right to life forms the basis of true democracy," the bishop said in the ad.
For its part, the administration of President Felipe Calderón of the conservative National Action Party (PAN) challenged the Mexico City law through the Attorney-General’s Office, using legal rather than religious arguments.
The National Human Rights Commission, a state body, also tried to get the law repealed, thus drawing harsh criticism from human rights activists.
But the arguments set forth by opponents of the law failed to convince the necessary majority of magistrates.
Supreme Court Justice Genaro Góngora said "there are no universally accepted and compellingly rational legal elements making it obligatory for the criminal justice system to defend the right to life of the product of conception before the 12th week of pregnancy."
Justice José de Jesús Gudiño argued that "in the constitution there is not one single provision establishing the direct protection of the product of conception, independently of and against the will of the mother," which means the decriminalisation of abortion is not unconstitutional.
By contrast, Justice Salvador Aguirre, who came out against the law, repeated on several occasions that it was not a question of penalising women but of safeguarding embryos, which in his view have been left without protection.
When the municipal law was passed in April 2007, surveys showed that although 40 percent of respondents were opposed to it, the decriminalisation of abortion enjoyed majority support, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of Mexicans are Roman Catholic and the Church punishes the practice of abortion with excommunication.
While the draft law was being debated by the Mexico City assembly, Pope Benedict XVI urged the assembly-members not to approve it, sparking protests by the left that the Vatican was meddling in the domestic affairs of another state.
According to a UNAM study, up to one million illegal abortions a year -- equivalent to 30 percent of all pregnancies -- are performed in this country of 104 million people. But other sources put the number at less than 500,000.
Although abortion is legal in all of Mexico’s 32 states for victims of rape, studies show that in practice it is extremely difficult for a rape victim to exercise her legal right to terminate her pregnancy, because of an endless list of administrative hurdles and outright obstruction by the authorities.
In addition, 27 states allow the termination of pregnancy when the mother's life is at risk, 13 allow it in the case of serious fetal deformities, and 10 permit it in order to protect the expectant mother's health.
Studies also show that "back-alley" abortions are the fourth or fifth cause of death among women in Mexico, and that obtaining permission for a legal abortion in any of the abovementioned circumstances is difficult to impossible.
Wayne Price- The Abolition of the State: Anarchist and Marxist Perspectives Dialogue
Friday September 5th at 6pm
At the Southern California Library: the People's Library
Sponsored by the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities and the NorthEastern Federation of Anarchist-Communists
6120 S. Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90044 (off the 110 Freeway, exit Slauson or Gage).
We're accessible by MTA Bus 204 and Express Bus 754. Street parking is available.
Mapquest map and directions to the Library
Wayne Price is a long-time revolutionary activist and writer. He has been active in labor, human rights, and antiwar struggles, and writes regularly for www.Anarkismo.net, for The Utopian, and for The Northeastern Anarchist. He has written The Abolition of the State: Anarchist & Marxist Perspectives, which is now being translated into Spanish. Previously a member of the Love & Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation, he is now a member of the NYC local of the Northeastern Federation of Anarchist-Communists (NEFAC).
Wayne Price- The Abolition of the State: Anarchist and Marxist Perspectives Dialogue
Friday September 5th at 6pm
At the Southern California Library: the People's Library
Sponsored by the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities and the NorthEastern Federation of Anarchist-Communists
6120 S. Vermont Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90044 (off the 110 Freeway, exit Slauson or Gage).
We're accessible by MTA Bus 204 and Express Bus 754. Street parking is available.
Mapquest map and directions to the Library
Wayne Price is a long-time revolutionary activist and writer. He has been active in labor, human rights, and antiwar struggles, and writes regularly for www.Anarkismo.net, for The Utopian, and for The Northeastern Anarchist. He has written The Abolition of the State: Anarchist & Marxist Perspectives, which is now being translated into Spanish. Previously a member of the Love & Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation, he is now a member of the NYC local of the Northeastern Federation of Anarchist-Communists (NEFAC).
Wayne will present on:The Abolition of the State.
Revolutionary anarchists oppose all forms of domination and oppression: class, race, national, gender, sexual orientation, etc. Important in maintaining all oppression is the state. Both anarchists and Marxists talk about abolishing the state. But what does this mean? What actually is the state? How could it be abolished? What could replace it? What lessons can be learned from past revolutions? How can our theories about the state affect our present-day organizing and thinking?
I must admit I have a secret ;-) agenda, besides meeting comrades and perhaps selling books. I want to ally with you-all, within the broader anarchist movement, in supporting national self-determination. This is very controversial among revolutionary anarchists and antistatist Marxists, and even among comrades in NEFAC. Some agree with the idea, many are bitterly opposed. I have been denounced (on libcom) for supporting national liberation. Without necessarily completely agreeing, I hope we can somehow generally support these ideas, although I have no specific plans. If you or others are interested in my thinking on this topic, you could look up my essays: The Relation Between the Working Class and Nonclass Oppressions
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/6204
and: Lessons for the anarchist movement of the Israeli-Lebanese War
http://www.anarkismo.net/article/3614
Anyway, please let me know about any possible informal meeting with you and others.
Solidarity,
Wayne
The following is a media release from the Nader presidential campaign:
August 27, 2008
www.votenader.org
News Advisory
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Marc Abizeid, 831-818-7736, marcabizeid@votenader.org; Chris Driscoll, 202-360-3273, chris@votenader.org
NADER POLLING AT 6-8% IN 4 KEY BATTLEGROUND STATES
A new Time/CNN poll shows Ralph Nader polling 8 percent in New Mexico, 7 percent in Colorado, 7 percent in Pennsylvania, and 6 percent in Nevada (See poll here).
“It’s clear that Ralph Nader could again have a significant impact on the Presidential race—though in highly unpredictable ways,” Time/CNN pollsters concluded.” In Nevada, Nader was the choice of 6% of respondents, and his presence flattened Obama’s lead into a 41%-41% tie. Yet in New Mexico, where Nader polled at 8%, he drew votes almost equally from both major candidates, while in Pennsylvania he siphoned off significant support from McCain; a three-way race there would give Obama 47%, McCain 38% and Nader 7%.”
The Nader/Gonzalez campaign is on track to be on 45 ballots by September 20.
For more information on the Nader/Gonzalez campaign, visit: votenader.org.
Yeah, most politically interested people in Denver and the nation are focused on former President Bill Clinton and newly minted vice-president candidate Sen. Joe Biden this evening. Those are the big names of the Democratic National Convention on the eve of the Barack Obama acceptance speech.
But at a University of Denver auditorium right now, a collaboration of the disaffected have come together. It is nominally a Ralph Nader presidential rally, but it's acted in a larger sense as an Everybody Else town meeting. (Though it's possible that one significant draw for the young crowd is the several musicians performing between those issuing political rhetoric.)
Sean Penn just spoke. He's clearly not into the offerings of the Republicans and Democrats. He called McCain "the Man Who Would Be George Bush the Third." He did seem to be pretty impressed with Nader, but he said he didn't know who he'd vote for yet. He also blasted the media -- at some length.
[Hey, Sean, I own "Dead Man Walking" and "Mystic River" and, if we want to recall how you weren't always so serious, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." Maybe it's time you buy a copy of The Courant?]
Cindy Sheehan, the eternally Bush-baiting protester, also spoke. She now seems to blame the Democratic Party equally for the ills of the country. She called the two major parties "the twins." "The twins, they don't care about you," she told the crowd (which looks mostly college-aged.) She talked about her son who died in Iraq. "I didn't lose my son. If I lost him, I would go find him. He was murdered by the twins," she said, blaming the parties' alliance with the "military-industrial complex."
She compared President Bush to a boil, and added Barack Obama and John McCain to her boil list. "Unless we cure the disease, the boils will keep popping up."
[Actually, I did see a girl with an Obama 08 shirt here. Then again, I also saw a guy with a Nine Inch Nails shirt.]
Nader's money guy took the stage to plead for cash. ("Every vote that Nader gets is somebody saying, I'm not going to take it any more," he said.) He started with the maximum allowed campaign contribution, $4,600, and seemed to get a couple of takers. Then, like an auction in reverse, he lowered the request implementally until more and more people in this gathering of the alienated agreed to give. "The rent's not free," he said. "The campaign's not free."
Now, Nader's finally been introduced, to blasts of red, white and blue confetti over the stage. ("Don't worry," he said. "All of this is going to be recycled.") He immediately began criticizing the Democratic Party and its nearby corporate-sponsored convention. "They're being wined and dined by the corruptors," he said.
Of the Democrats and Republicans, Nader said, "They're turning our country into, essentially, a one-party state." He said,
(The Connecticut native, while admitting that Democrats are more supportive of social security, even slipped in a dig against a senator from his home state. "They don't want to send [social security] to Wall Street -- except for Joe Lieberman.")
Nader got major cheers during his amnesty talk for non-violent drug offenders. Replace them in the prisons with corporate criminals, he said.
Nader cautioned about his fellow politicians: "Every politican I've ever known from the major parties ... starts flattering the people. Oh, how they flatter the people! Because that's what gives the people weak knees. ... Well, we have got to start getting tough with each other." He said he's disappointed about the percentage of people 18-24 who don't vote. "Read the grim lesson of history, here and abroad. When people do not turn on to politics, politics will turn on them."
"If only you knew the power you have at this young age," he said. "Chuck the iPod once in a while. Stop listening to non-stop music, which is blowing out your mind. And get serious."
[Now when you accomplish ANYTHING from the bottom up except your own self...call me...THE BOTTOM UP POLICY, while correct, has been hijacked without attribution by Obama...now, I simultaneously know that I am not one to enforce such a thing as MY IDEA IS MINE AND YOU CAN'T HAVE IT...however..I would have really appreciated Obamaville KNOW, if not say where he learned that idea...It may not be the Zapatistas, in fact, I'm sure someone, somewhere, long before the Zapatistas mentioned this concept...but still...IMHO, if one is going to become the president of the united states, one should not use that idea and not make it happen..or one had better have an honest fucking excuse for why it is not happening...]The following is drawn from the text of a speech given on December 24 at the “In Defense of Humanity” conference.
Our Struggle is Against US ImperialismI Believe Only in the Power of the People
By EVO MORALES
What happened these past days in Bolivia was a great revolt by those who have been oppressed for more than 500 years. The will of the people was imposed this September and October, and has begun to overcome the empire’s cannons. We have lived for so many years through the confrontation of two cultures: the culture of life represented by the indigenous people, and the culture of death represented by West. When we the indigenous people–together with the workers and even the businessmen of our country–fight for life and justice, the State responds with its “democratic rule of law.”
Cochabamba 1999 battle over water, against Bechtel
What does the “rule of law” mean for indigenous people? For the poor, the marginalized, the excluded, the “rule of law” means the targeted assassinations and collective massacres that we have endured. Not just this September and October, but for many years, in which they have tried to impose policies of hunger and poverty on the Bolivian people. Above all, the “rule of law” means the accusations that we, the Quechuas, Aymaras and Guaranties of Bolivia keep hearing from our governments: that we are narcos, that we are anarchists. This uprising of the Bolivian people has been not only about gas and hydrocarbons, but an intersection of many issues: discrimination, marginalization , and most importantly, the failure of neoliberalism. [...]
First I want to know how Democrats can be so impressed by an expensive commercial for their party...
when their beloved party has done nothing in accordance with their will...Second I want to know how Dennis Kucinich was elected as a Democrat...? The Great Appeaser...?
"The Magical Approach" as channeled by Jane Roberts and articulated by Seth:
"I want it understood that we are indeed dealing with two entirely different approaches to reality and to solving problems--methods we will here call the rational method and the magical one. The rational approach works quite well in certain situations, such as mass production of goods, or in certain kinds of scientific measurements--but all in all the rational method, as it is understood and used, does not work as an overall approach to life, or in solving problems that involve subjective rather than objective measurements or calculations.
Those methods work least of all for any art. It is a trite statement, perhaps, but the ruler's measurements have absolutely nothing to do with the measurements made by the heart, and they can never be used to express the incalculable measurements that are made automatically by the smallest cell.
The magical approach takes it for granted, in the simplest terms, that the life of any individual will fulfill itself, will develop and mature, that the environment and the individual are uniquely suited and work together."
PG&E Gives 250,000 dollars to BAN GAY MARRIAGE from the STATE CONSTITUTION IN CALIFORNIA - WHY?
Utility company PG&E announced Tuesday that it would donate $250,000 to California's No on Proposition 8 campaign, the Los Angeles Times reported.
Company officials also indicated they would attempt to garner support from other companies to defeat the anti-gay measure by assembling a business advisory council on the matter.
Proposition 8 would amend the state's constitution to bar marriage between same-sex couples, made legal in a May 15 decision from the California Supreme Court.
"We are thrilled to partner with PG&E," Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California, said in a statement.
AT&T and Wells Fargo Bank have donated money directly to Equality California, which is working to defeat Prop 8.
Proponents of the measure have also made major donations. LGBT advocates called for a boycott of Hyatt hotels in San Diego after owner Doug Manchester poured thousands of dollars into the effort to pass the marriage ban.
Allan Hoffenblum, a GOP strategist, told the Times that PG&E was likely to be unfettered by any organized boycott since it monopolizes most of the California market.
"I can't in outrage call PG&E and say, 'Cut off my gas,'" he said. (The Advocate)
Alex sits down with independent president and political activist Ralph Nader. Alex talks with Ralph about the lack of difference between Barack Obama and John McCain, the violations of the Constitution by the current administration, the futility of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the reasons Nader is running for president for a fifth time.
*
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
PSL on the ballot in New York!
On August 18, the Party for Socialism and Liberation filed with the state’s Board of Elections in Albany. We met all of the requirements to be on the ballot for the 2008 presidential elections, including submitting 30,000 signatures—twice the required number. We are proud to say that millions of working-class people will be able to vote for a socialist alternative in New York State.
PSL activists celebrate the collection of 30,000 signatures in New York state
The requirements to be listed on the ballot include submitting 15,000 valid signatures of registered voters, with at least 100 valid signatures in half of the state’s 29 congressional districts. These signatures could not be collected prior to July 8, and were due on August 19. The first phase of the Party for Socialism and Liberation Presidential Campaign has been a great success. Through a tremendous amount of hard work, we have succeeded in meeting the requirements for ballot status in ten states and are in the process of achieving status in two more. Our biggest challenge was in New York State. For six weeks, volunteers worked tireless in New York City’s five boroughs and many upstate and Long Island counties to collect the needed signatures and prepare the filing. The army of volunteers sacrificed vacation time, days off, and time with their families to make sure that a powerful voice of socialism and struggle would be on the ballot in November in this key state. Thousands of people across New York State were excited to hear about a campaign that would speak out loud and strong against the war, racism and police brutality. “For me, getting Gloria and Eugene on the ballot was a great chance to talk to people in my community in the Bronx about the need to fight back,” said petitioner Frances Villar, a student and mother of two. Leon Williams just graduated from high school in New York City and had not participated in political work before. “My first day petitioning, it seemed I would never get a signature,” he recalled with a smile. “But it was enriching to have so many conversations with people that may never have had a conversation about such ‘taboo’ topics like socialism.” PSL on the ballot nationwide
We are very excited at the prospect of being able to reach millions of people across the country with the Gloria La Riva/Eugene Puryear campaign theme of “People Over Profits—End the War Now —We Need Socialism!”
In this first-ever campaign by the PSL, our strategy has included gaining ballot status in every major region of the country. We will be on the ballot in New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont in the Northeast; Florida, Arkansas and Louisiana in the South; Iowa and Wisconsin in the Midwest; and Colorado, Utah and Washington in the West.
Over the past few months, we have collected more than 45,000 petition signatures, recruited electors, held state conventions and paid filing fees. Hundreds of volunteers are working around the clock in cities and towns throughout the country. Join our campaign of struggle Our campaign will one of struggle. We will carry forward the message that the key to bringing about real progressive change is building a powerful people’s movement that stands together with our sisters and brothers around the world who are resisting imperialism and exploitation.
As capitalism sinks further into its deepest crisis since the Great Depression, it is more important than ever that we explain that there are really only two choices for the future: Continue with a system based on maximizing profits regardless of destruction to people or the planet, or create a new, sustainable system based on meeting people’s needs - socialism.
How many cities, towns and campuses we can travel to, how many people we can reach and bring into the struggle, in short, how successful we can be with the precious few weeks we have until election day, depends largely on you. There are many ways you can help:
A few thoughts on the electoral theatre that is upon us.
First, the most obvious and glaring reality of US politics is that only the very, very rich participate. This single fact really should give one pause, should give everyone who actually works for a living pause. As one old Wobbly put it, there are two kinds of people in the world, those who work and those who don’t.
Now, John McCain, like Kerry, got most of his money via his second wife …. after dumping his first one. Cyndi is a beer heiress, and if McCain were to be elected, and I think he will be, he will the first US president to have signed a pre-nuptial agreement. Anyway, the McCains spend, for household employees, $273,000 (in 2007), according to John McCain’s tax returns. The butler and maid budget for a single year exceeds a decade’s income for most Americans.
McCain is the son of an admiral, and finished near bottom of his graduating class at Annapolis. I’m just stringing together a few details here. And now Obama has chosen among the creepiest and most vile men in American government as his running mate: Joe Biden. Both Biden and Obama are millionaires by the by, albeit minor league—so far. Anyway, Biden is a longtime foreign policy hawk. A big supporter of the Clintonian bombing of Belgrade, and the guy who tossed off the idea of creating three small statelets in Iraq — partioning the country along ethnic and religious lines. He was also guilty of plagiarism a while back, and if you want a better look at Joe, watch the fine documentary on Waco, and see his craven apology for ATF actions that resulted in the burning to death of children and women. The man is a ghoul. Also, check out Cockburn’s piece on Biden here:
What strikes one about this carnival is the degree to which this narrative has become entrenched — the political follies, the circus of conventions and empty speeches. Now, let’s also note the increasingly draconian policing of these conventions ([4] http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=washingtonstory&sid=aJgx7Uji1acI) So we have a theatre of abstract rhetoric and managed perceptions, of jillionaires who pretend there is a real difference between what they say.
Now, if you asked me do I think Obama would be less harmful than McCain, I would answer yes. In the sense that liver biopsy is better than root canal. And I do grant that at the least, and this about all I will grant, his black face is the first genuine or authentic black face in US politics (well, maybe Marian Berry). Yes, I do. But again, why do people accept an elite class telling them what to do? Why is there a nostalgia for the Romanovs, or for a Kiplingesque colonial landscape? Why? One sees countless reflections of this in popular culture, certainly. The nostalgia for colonial empire is reflected in every Harry Potter spinoff one can find, and certainly in films like Sex & the City or even Dark Knight. The rich are deserving of our attention, and the rich are what *we* wish we could be. A list of top political figures, Rudy Giuliani, Dick Cheney, the Bushes, Kerry, Romney, Biden, Clinton, Gore, McCain; what do they share? They share extreme wealth.
Cyrano’s Journal Online and its semi-autonomous subsections (Thomas Paine’s Corner, The Greanville Journal, CJO Avenger, and VoxPop) would be delighted to periodically email you links to the most recent material and timeless classics available on our diverse and comprehensive site. If you would like to subscribe, type “CJO subscription” in the subject line and send your email to [5] JMiller@bestcyrano.org
In film today Bruce Wayne is exactly one of these men, except he gets tricked out in tights and mask at night to practice vigilantism, to take the law into his own hands…..well, sort of like Cheney and Bush, actually. I return again and again to the simplistic narrative at work. For a film like Dark Knight it’s almost (as Le Colonel Chabert put it on her blog) a high school drama with the rich jock and the outcast nerd (the Joker). One might additionally see The Joker as something of a collective unconsious projection of self loathing. This comic book level narration is carried on regards Russia/Georgia and even Iraq and Iran. It’s the total failure of class consciousness. It’s the result, now, of the absolute destruction of public education (not that US education, or even western education, was ever much more than a control mechanism) and of the satisfying of *needs* by advanced capital — or in part, the illusion thereof. The relations under monopoly capital are increasingly relations of the market, and not really work.
Here is Marcuse, circa 1972:
“ The Western world has reached a new stage of development: now, the defense of the capitalist system requires the organization of counterrevolution at home and abroad. In its extreme manifestations, it practices the horrors of the Nazi regime. Wholesale massacres in Indonesia, the Congo, Nigeria, Pakistan and the Sudan are unleashed against everything which is called *communist* or which is in revolt against governments subservient to the imperialist countries. Cruel persecution prevails in the Latin American countries under fascist and military dictatorships. Torture has become a normal instrument of interrogation around the world. The agony of religious wars revives at the height of Western civilization and a constant flow of arms from the rich to the poor countries helps to perpetuate the oppression of national and social liberation. ”
Remember, this was written over thirty years ago. Was also written the year Joe Biden began his career in US government.
So, in light of Joe Biden’s VP appearance, in light of crazy John McCain and whatever rich prick he chooses to run with, we have, essentially, more of the same. Even if an Obama actually wanted to change something, he couldn’t.
The populace internalizes the accepted comic book narrative; the rich are rich because they are virtuous, and the poor are poor because they are stupid. Oh, some of the poor might one day *make it*, one out of a million, and this narrative will also be held up and included in the managed reality of today’s western world. The master discourse says we all have a chance to become Sam Walton, we could all become President, if we only had an Admiral for a father or married an heiress, or were telegenic enough and compliant enough to do the bidding of the military industrial complex.
Monopoly capitalism defuses change via the narrative it continues, ever more hysterically, to thrust upon the public. I often ask myself why anyone actually fights in Iraq? Do people actually believe they are spreading democracy? Whateverthefuckever that is. Or do they think they are protecting the United States from an evil Islamic scourge, a future caliphate? Is that possible? I suppose it is, since people also believe every other narrative at work in this giant spectacle of counterrevolution that is modern American culture. Gaither Stewart’s fine piece here at TGJ on Stalin is a worthy attempt to counter these received *truths*. If Ronald Reagan can be enshrined as a great man — a hack actor, a reactionary and prematuraly senile sock puppet, can actually find traction as a *great man* then anything is possible. Churchill was an elitist colonial racist pig — but how many people have bothered to read some of Winnie’s speeches to Parliament from his early years. He advocated the gassing of natives, as a perfectly reasonable policy. Saddam is a monster because he *gassed* the Kurds (assuming he did) but Churchill is considered one of the great leaders of the 20th century. The western appeasement of Hitler is totally forgotten, and the new re-write of history has Stalin and those horrid Soviets as the evil Empire. Mao is a monster who didn’t bathe enough, and Castro is dictator, much like Chavez. Dropping nuclear bombs on civilian cities in Japan actually *saved* lives, so the narrative goes. Anything can be marketed, apparently. Saakashvilli as courageous democrat, the Mau Mau as crazed barbarians treated with firmness but fairness by the British, and Israel as an outpost of tolerance and progress and democracy in a sea of Muslim backwardness. Just color in the accepted storyline.
Today the individual in advanced capital is totally fragmented yet integrated (if we look at the broader perspective). He serves the system during both work (if he has it) and during leisure. Putting aside the growing and severly punished underclass, the modern individual is provided with (as Marcuse put it) “steered satisfaction of material needs*. The administered reality, the master discourse, serves to create a populace that produces and reproduces the values of the ruling class, of the system of domination. So, today we have the political party conventions, the illusion of real choice, and a further continuance of near complete servitude. The problem is that growing underclass. Advanced capital is finding it harder and harder to know what to do with them. In Kigali, or Lagos, in Jakarta or Mexico City, in Calcutta or Sao Paulo, the vast barrios and ghettos grow and grow again. In the US itself major cities find a spike in homelessness, and in the rural wasteland where agribusiness has destroyed all community farming and culture, there is an equivalent surplus populace with little to do but cook meth and strike out in random violence … hence a prison population that exceeds any in the world. But then, prison construction (and privatizing) is a rare growth industry.
It is time to stop accepting the *accepted* narrative. Political conventions are pure dog-and-pony shows. Protesters will be shuttled into holding tanks and cages, and corporate media will spin these orgies of meaningless abstraction as providing evidence of US democratic ideals and our shining exceptionalism.
Look at what is before you:
John McCain is insane. Literally and by any standard one could find. Barry Obama has revealed his lack of genuine or meaningful integrity by choosing bag man Joe Biden. Look at the speakers lined up for these circuses: Mark Warner, Rudy Guiliani, Al Gore and Dick Cheney. Look at these men. Check their bank accounts, and how they made that money. Look back at the Bush family, look all the way back to Prescott Bush.
Colonialism never ended. Fascism is alive. NATO is an organ of Imperialism, and the defense budget is over two billion a day. So when we get up in the morning to go to a job we don’t like, and to get paid a wage that barely, if it all, can support our family, and when ghouls like Cheney or Biden or Bush or Gordon Brown, or Sarko, or Angie Merkle are held up as anything other than what they are, empty cardboard cut outs created to mouth the platitudes of the prevailing class interests, try to look for the places where real change might take place. The police are there to protect property, not to protect you. Same with the military, which is there to further the economic hegemony of the imperial class. Trust none of it.
Senior Editor John Steppling currently resides in Lodz, Poland, where he teaches at the Polish Film Institute. The main archive of his articles may be found at VOXPOP, Cyrano’s blog area devoted to theater, cinema and politics, which he co-edited with Guy Zimmerman.
Recreate 68' Seeking $50 Million, Department Defending Officers ActionsSaying any trust had been lost with police, organizers of the protest group Recreate 68 announced plans Tuesday to sue the City of Denver.“The promise at the beginning of all of this was, ‘We stay peaceful, they stay peaceful,’” said Glenn Spagnuolo, co-founder of the group."We are talking to attorneys about suing the city of Denver," said Mark Cohn, also a founder of the protest group.Speaking through a bullhorn to reporters outside the Denver Police Department headquarters, the group’s organizers accused police of illegally detaining and arresting of people Monday night, when tensions escalated into a stand-off between police and protesters.Denver police said it made limited use of pepper spray paintball-type bullets when the crowd, estimated at 300 people, refused requests to disperse.Many were observed carrying rocks and other items that could be used to threaten public safety, according to a statement released by Denver Police Tuesday morning."Some individuals I represented in court had nothing to do with the protests at all,” said Brian Vicente, Executive Director of the People’s Law Project. “They were penned-in and were not allowed to leave."Denver Police Lt. Ron Saunier defended the actions of police."Through the indications of a lot of things we felt (the protesters) were getting ready to move down, start creating destruction of private property, and possibly assaulting people," Saunier said.Eighty-five people were arrested on charges of obstruction, disobeying lawful orders, and interfering with a police officer, Saunier said.Police surrounded the area of 15th Street and Court Place out of concern for public safety, Saunier told 7NEWS Tuesday."We pretty much circled around (the demonstrators) and contained them within that area in an effort to deescalate the situation which it did," Saunier said.Spagnuolo verbally fired back Tuesday, accusing police of whipping up tension with protesters in the hour before demonstrators dawned bandanas and linked arms on Bannock St.“(Police were) pushing them with their feet saying, ‘move out of my way,’ instead of treating these people with respect,” Spagnuolo said, adding the incidents occurred when much of the media was not around."They were building up that confrontation and this is what it lead to, it was totally unneccary," Spagnuolo said."It became clear very early on, through the totality of all circumstances, that their intent was not to be there to express their first amendment rights," Saunier said of the increased police presence in the park at that time.“There’s a lot of footage out there where officers were taking quit a bit of abuse and remained very professional,” Saunier said.Cohn disagreed and said the group is considering seeking $50 million in damages -- the same amount Denver was award by the federal government for security.“We're not sure what was done with that money but we think it's about time that some of the money go to people who've been victimized and whose civil liberties have been violated during this convention," Cohen said.Related Story: * August 27, 2008: Police Officer Tells Protester 'Back It Up, B*tch'
The event comes one day before Obama's acceptance speech.
The Democratic convention has attracted plenty of non-Democrats in search of attention. Independent Alan Keyes and Green Party candidate Cynthia McKinney have been in town. Anti-immigration activists hoped Libertarian Bob Barr would attend their rally, though Barr didn't show.
...
VAN NUYS - A routine trip to the Social Security office Monday turned into 30 minutes of shock, disbelief and irritation for Lapriss Gilbert, who was forced to leave the federal building by a guard who objected to her "lesbian.com" T-shirt.
As she headed for a line to pick up a Social Security card for her son, Gilbert was stopped by a guard who said her T-shirt, naming an educational and resource Web site for gay women, was offensive.
She said the guard, who works for a private company hired by the Department of Homeland Security, demanded that she leave the building or face arrest.
"As an African-American and a lesbian, I haven't been through one day without facing some sort of discrimination ... but this is just shocking," said Gilbert, 31.
Lori Haley, a federal spokeswoman for the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement - which is under the Homeland Security umbrella - said the guard was out of line.
"We believe that the actions of the contract security guard were inappropriate and unacceptable - we have notified his company, Paragon, of our position in the matter," Haley said.
A security guard identified by Gilbert as the one who told her to leave declined to comment.
The guard cited the document, The Rules and Regulations Governing Conduct on Federal Property, as proof of his jurisdiction over Gilbert's attire, she said.
The document does not specifically address what type of clothing
is allowed in federal buildings.
After being kicked out of the federal building, Gilbert called her mother, Tanya Gilbert, who calls herself a longtime activist for gay rights.
The mother and daughter have had same-sex partners for many years.
Tanya Gilbert said she plans to contact her attorney today to file a lawsuit against the Paragon Security Co.
"In 30 years as an activist, this is one of the most unsettling things I have seen. When she called me I told her to wait right there," said Tanya Gilbert, who recently moved to the Van Nuys area from Chicago.
When the mother arrived, she called the LAPD to protest her daughter's removal. But before four Los Angeles police officers arrived with at least one federal agent, Lapriss Gilbert was told she could come back into the building and was escorted to the front of the line by another Paragon security guard.
Paul Dumont said he witnessed the entire incident.
"For her to be told to leave was completely unnecessary, especially considering how peaceful and quiet she was responding to the security officers," Dumont said. "Nobody in that office felt her T-shirt was offensive by any means."
In a statement to police, Dumont said the guard's "loud, unreasonable, aggressive and angry approach to the situation almost caused chaos."
An attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union said that instances of sexual discrimination are rare in federal buildings.
"I haven't seen this type of blatant discrimination in a federal office building before," said Peter Eliasberg, a family attorney for First Amendment rights who spoke on behalf of the ACLU.
VAN NUYS - A routine trip to the Social Security office Monday turned into 30 minutes of shock, disbelief and irritation for Lapriss Gilbert, who was forced to leave the federal building by a guard who objected to her "lesbian.com" T-shirt.
As she headed for a line to pick up a Social Security card for her son, Gilbert was stopped by a guard who said her T-shirt, naming an educational and resource Web site for gay women, was offensive.
She said the guard, who works for a private company hired by the Department of Homeland Security, demanded that she leave the building or face arrest.
"As an African-American and a lesbian, I haven't been through one day without facing some sort of discrimination ... but this is just shocking," said Gilbert, 31.
Lori Haley, a federal spokeswoman for the office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement - which is under the Homeland Security umbrella - said the guard was out of line.
"We believe that the actions of the contract security guard were inappropriate and unacceptable - we have notified his company, Paragon, of our position in the matter," Haley said.
A security guard identified by Gilbert as the one who told her to leave declined to comment.
The guard cited the document, The Rules and Regulations Governing Conduct on Federal Property, as proof of his jurisdiction over Gilbert's attire, she said.
The document does not specifically address what type of clothing
is allowed in federal buildings.
After being kicked out of the federal building, Gilbert called her mother, Tanya Gilbert, who calls herself a longtime activist for gay rights.
The mother and daughter have had same-sex partners for many years.
Tanya Gilbert said she plans to contact her attorney today to file a lawsuit against the Paragon Security Co.
"In 30 years as an activist, this is one of the most unsettling things I have seen. When she called me I told her to wait right there," said Tanya Gilbert, who recently moved to the Van Nuys area from Chicago.
When the mother arrived, she called the LAPD to protest her daughter's removal. But before four Los Angeles police officers arrived with at least one federal agent, Lapriss Gilbert was told she could come back into the building and was escorted to the front of the line by another Paragon security guard.
Paul Dumont said he witnessed the entire incident.
"For her to be told to leave was completely unnecessary, especially considering how peaceful and quiet she was responding to the security officers," Dumont said. "Nobody in that office felt her T-shirt was offensive by any means."
In a statement to police, Dumont said the guard's "loud, unreasonable, aggressive and angry approach to the situation almost caused chaos."
An attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union said that instances of sexual discrimination are rare in federal buildings.
"I haven't seen this type of blatant discrimination in a federal office building before," said Peter Eliasberg, a family attorney for First Amendment rights who spoke on behalf of the ACLU.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REbDCcLkaxgOn 8/20/2008, police were called by KPFA and Pacifica management to arrest a unpaid staff member Nadra Haeidy Foster at the station for trespassing. She was attacked, hogtied and arrested by the Berkeley police. This interview was conducted at the Alameda court house on 8/25/2008 with some of her supporters. Following the arraignment Lemlem Rijio the interim manager of KPFA entered the court house to drop the charges filed by KFPA and Pacifica. Other charges are still pending. Produced by the Labor Video Project P.O. Box 720027 San Francisco, CA 94172 (415)282-1908 lvpsf [at] labornet.orghttp://www.laborvideo.org
I Found you and I lost you,
All on a gleaming day.
The day was filled with sunshine,
And the land was full of May.
A golden bird was singing
Its melody divine,
I found you and I loved you,
And all the world was mine.
I found you and I lost you,
All on a golden day,
But when I dream of you, dear,
It is always brimming May.
Ordinary Americans have been “shut out of their government by two major parties that, in varying degrees, have turned Washington into corporate-occupied territory,” declared Ralph Nader (USA Today, 3/5/08).
In sharp contrast to Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, Nader is running an insurgent campaign for President as an independent to challenge the corporate stranglehold over U.S. society. Socialist Alternative is strongly supporting Nader’s antiwar, pro-worker campaign, as we did in 2000 and 2004.
Barack Obama has built his campaign around an image and rhetoric of change. However there is little substance behind this image (see pg. 3-4). Despite populist posturing, Obama is tied by a million strings to the political establishment and their big business policies.
If Obama is elected, those who believe – or hope – he will deliver real change will be bitterly disappointed. Further, Obama’s failure to campaign around concrete policies that would benefit working people, rather than vague promises of change, has even put into question his ability to defeat McCain, who should be easy to beat.
Ralph Nader’s campaign, in contrast, will reach millions of people with a radical anti-corporate platform that would dramatically improve the lives of workers and young people:
Withdraw ALL U.S. troops and corporations from Iraq
Establish a universal single-payer healthcare system
Create millions of living wage jobs through public works programs
Slash the massive military budget
Repeal the Patriot Act and the FISA bill
Expand workers’ rights and repeal the Taft-Hartley Act
Scrap harmful nuclear power – Invest in clean, renewable energy
Abolish the racist death penalty
End the failed, racist War on Drugs
Nader’s main strengths are his firm opposition to the Republicans and Democrats as two parties of big business, and his stand against the idea that the Democrats should be supported as a “lesser evil.”
Nader’s campaign will give a voice to an important minority of workers and youth who are searching for a left-wing alternative to the rotten right-wing consensus of corporate politics.
He has consistently received 4 – 6% in polls, though his actual vote could be squeezed by enthusiasm for Obama, especially if the race remains close, as well as the numerous undemocratic obstacles to ballot access.
Nader is not a socialist, but rather a left-wing populist. He mistakenly believes it is sufficient to reform capitalism by exerting more democratic control over big corporations. We believe real change requires a fundamental overturn of the whole capitalist system by the working-class majority of the population (see pg. 8-9).
Nader's main weakness, however, is his unwillingness to use his campaigns as a launching pad for building an on-going political alternative. Nevertheless, his campaign points in the direction of what is needed: a mass party that fights big business and gives a political voice to the disenfranchised working class and oppressed.
All those who want to fight for real change should join us in supporting the Nader campaign. At the same time, we need to build a movement that continues to fight beyond November 4 to address the root cause of society’s problems – the global capitalist system. Join us in the fight to change the system!
3rd party Presidential hopeful Ralph Nader paid a visit to Albuquerque and Santa Fe on Tuesday, August 26th, on his way to a rally at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. KNME was there and streamed both his press conference and rally live. Here is video from that rally. There are a few technical glitches along the way, so bear with it. Mr. Nader talked longer than we expected so our microphone ran out of battery power at one point, and our disk that we were recording on also ran out at one point, creating some beeping in the background. Still, it was a worthwhile event, and we are committed to covering as many of these presidential visits as possible.
posted by Kevin McDonald
Perspectives is a Metro Chamber signature event. This annual day-long public affairs program draws in an audience of nearly 3,500 people. Since 1995, Perspectives has hosted more than 70 of the world's most influential individuals who share their personal views on world affairs and current events.
This morning I came across a weird headline....American Right To Life Unfurled World's Largest Protest Sign: DNC Sheets Of Shame - nutty, I know...so I read it out of the car crash theory...and literally, it's the world's largest...and I refused to blog it this morning, as odd as the whole thing is...Anyway...Like life and ocean tides, by the time I arrived home from work, there was a change, an even, fair, flow if you will, I saw the following headline.. 13 anti-abortion protesters arrested now I'm not sure if the world record holders are in the hoosegow now, or not, because I refuse to read this article..but I was also shaken by the oddity of anyone on the right ever being arrested at a public protest events..I'm not expert, they may be arrested all the time..I don't know...
I'm all askew from reading such drivel...what is with people who resign their personal sovereignty
DENVER - Democrats bickered among themselves Tuesday about how hard to attack John McCain as the party’s former dominant couple — Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton — took center stage at Barack Obama’s political coronation.
With convention strains persisting between Obama and some former Hillary Clinton supporters, Republicans brought out a new ad pointedly invoking her past criticism that Obama wasn’t ready to lead.
The next two days give star billing to the old Clinton regime even as the party delivers to Obama its presidential nomination.
Obama’s former rival was to urge her disappointed supporters to line up in unity behind him in a prime-time speech Tuesday night. She did a midday check of the convention-hall podium, accompanied by daughter Chelsea.
Her husband, former President Clinton, speaks Wednesday night.
McCain’s latest TV ad reprises her primary campaign spot featuring sleeping children and a 3 a.m. phone call portending a crisis. In the new ad Clinton is shown saying: "I know Sen. McCain has a lifetime of experience that he will bring to the White House. And, Sen. Obama has a speech he gave in 2002."
A narrator adds: "Hillary’s right. John McCain for president."
Some Democratic activists, meanwhile, voiced concern that the convention has yet to produce a sustained attack against the Republican presidential candidate.
In particular, they cited former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner’s preview of his Tuesday night keynote speech in which he suggested he would not make a red-meat attack on McCain but an appeal for bipartisanship.
"There may be parts of the speech that aren’t going to get a lot of applause, but I’ve got to say what I believe will get our country back on the right path," Warner — who was neutral in the party primaries — told reporters on Monday.
Democratic strategist Paul Begala took issue with Warner’s comments, suggesting that more partisanship, not less, was needed at the party convention. "This isn’t the Richmond Chamber of Commerce," Begala said Tuesday.
On Monday, James Carville told CNN: "If this party has a message, it’s done a hell of a job hiding it tonight, I promise you that."
Both Begala and Carville were top strategists behind Bill Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential bid.
Party chief Howard Dean dismissed such criticism.
"We don’t need to attack McCain" during opening events, Dean told delegates from Ohio, a battleground state. "There will be plenty of time for that." It’s more important now to introduce the nation to Obama and running mate Joe Biden, Dean said.
"There is not a unity problem," he added. If anyone doubts that, he said, "wait ’til you see Hillary Clinton’s speech tonight."
Even so, internal strains remained. Former party chairman Don Fowler, a former Clinton supporter, questioned the attitudes of some Clinton delegates.
"All you need is 200 people in that crowd to boo and stuff like that and it will be replayed 900 times. And that’s not what you want out of this," he said in an interview.
Anna Burger, the chair of Change to Win, made up of seven unions, said some Clinton supporters were having a hard time letting go and switching loyalties to Obama. But, she said in an interview with The Associated Press, "the vast majority of them have."
"We have to leave here Friday ready for action," said Burger, a convention speaker Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, McCain is expected to name his running mate in the coming days.
Two prospective contenders were to be in Denver on his behalf to assail Democrats: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on Tuesday and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty on Thursday. It amounted to a final audition of sorts.
Biden, in his first public remarks since joining the ticket, confided to home-state Delaware delegates he "didn’t always comport myself in the way that I wanted to."
He did not elaborate, but aides said it was mostly a reference to Biden’s reputation for long-windedness and off-the-cuff remarks that sometimes backfired. He ended his 1988 presidential run amid allegations of plagiarism. As he began a 2007 run, he called Obama "articulate" and "clean." He also drew criticism for saying "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent."
Biden, at times emotional, thanked fellow Delaware Democrats for their tolerance as his large family listened.
Clinton once seemed to have the nomination in her grasp and now is being called on to defend and support the person who wrested it from her. She is effectively playing middlewoman Tuesday night — passing a torch from her husband, the 42nd president, to Obama, who wants to succeed him as the next Democratic president.
But not without some Clinton-style political dealmaking and drama.
The Clinton and Obama camps agreed to limit Wednesday’s potentially divisive nominating process for president, allowing some states to cast votes for both Obama and Clinton before ending the roll call in an acclamation for the Illinois senator.
Clinton herself may cut off the voting and urge the unanimous nomination of Obama, according to Democratic officials involved in the negotiations.
But some Clinton delegates said they were not interested in a compromise, raising the prospect of unwelcome floor demonstrations.
Gloria Allred, a California celebrity lawyer and pledged Clinton delegate, briefly disrupted a breakfast meeting of the California delegation on Tuesday. Wearing a gag over her mouth, she protested efforts to discourage Clinton supporters from speaking out.
"There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that this is Barack Obama’s convention," Clinton said on Monday. And yet, she said, some of her delegates "feel an obligation to the people who sent them here" and would vote for her.
As part of the deal, Obama and Clinton activists teamed up and circulated three petitions on the convention floor Monday night — supporting submission of Clinton’s and Obama’s names for president in the roll call and Biden’s for vice president. Each needed 300 signatures.
The second-day lineup also features 11 governors and prominent House and Senate leaders.
Former Vice President Al Gore, Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin are among the speakers lined up for Thursday night’s convention finale.
Obama will accept the nomination before an estimated 75,000 people at the Denver Broncos’ football stadium that night.
Both Bill and Hillary Clinton are viewed favorably by a majority of adults, according to a USA Today-Gallup poll released Tuesday.
She is viewed favorably by 54 percent of those surveyed and unfavorably by 43 percent. His ratings are similar: 52 percent to 44 percent. About half — 52 percent — said they’d like to see her run again for president.
The biomedical model we have used for the past century has reached its limit of effectiveness. The word "healing" is not used in medicine today, with one exception. The first-year histology course includes some talk about wound healing, But outside of that, the word healing is not used in medicine. One of the points that I made in Spontaneous suggest that the human body has a healing system. Not a very radical idea. All you have to do is watch cut finger heal to see very clearly that the body has a capacity for awareness of troubles and the mechanisms for repairing tissue. Yet it is discouraging to find that it's much easier to talk with children about the body's healing capacities than with most of my colleagues. If a kid gets an "owie" you say watch what happens. If you try to talk to most physicians about the body's system, it's easy for them to dismiss this as more New Age fluff. It is not New Age fluff, it is physiological reality. Any level of biological organization that we examine, from DNA up to the most complex body systems, shows the capacity for self-diagnosis, for removal of damaged structure, for regeneration of new structure.
Why are medical students never taught that the body has healing functions or healing systems? First, consider the great lopsided emphasis on disease processes rather than on health in the pre-clinical years of medical school. Second, when medical students get to their clinical years, they are seeing very sick people, hospitalized people, a population in which healing responses occur less frequently than in the general population. If your whole world of illness is hospitalized patients, that tends to make you more pessimistic about possibilities of healing.
But there is a deeper problem here with the nature of western science and medicine in general. We are very locked into looking at the body as a set of structures and structural systems rather than functional systems. The healing system is not a structural system. I can't show you a slide of it, the way that I could show you a slide of the circulatory or digestive systems. In some cases, as with circulation and digestion, structure and function are relatively synonymous. But other cases, notably healing, demonstrate no neat correlation of a function with a set of body structures. The healing system makes use of all of the structural systems -- the normal operations of the circulatory, nervous, immune, and endocrine systems, and more, for its operations.
For a variety of cultural reasons, Chinese medicine developed along functional rather than structural lines. For one, it was unthinkable in traditional Chinese society to cut into a dead human body. So Chinese thinkers had to develop their system in the absence of detailed knowledge of internal structures of the human body. They focused instead on developing a science of functional relationships, spheres of function and their inter-relationships. One sphere identified very early was a defensive sphere concerned with self-protection against various kinds of environmental or internal threats. That concept led physicians to explore Nature to find ways to protect and enhance this function. An impressive array of remedies in the Chinese traditional pharmacopoeia are highly valued because they are believed to increase body defensiveness. This includes a number of species of mushrooms and some higher plants, which are very much prized as tonics to extend longevity, increase resistance of all kinds, make people generally healthier.
Note how recently, in western medicine, we identified and recognized the functions of some organs. We identified these as structures, but didn't know what they did. When I was at Harvard Medical School in the late 1960s, I was still taught that many of these organs were functionless. it requires an amazing degree of hubris to say that because you don't know the function of something, therefore it has no function, then to take it even one step further, and give surgeons license to take it out because it's just taking up space. When I was growing up, no one made it to adolescence with their tonsils and adenoids intact. Similarly, I know many patients, right up through the 1980s, who went into leading hospitals for abdominal surgery, a hysterectomy, or gall bladder removal, and did not find out until they got their hospital bills that their appendix had also been taken out, as a useless structure that could give trouble at some point. Physicians systematically destroyed young children's thymus glands throughout the 1950s in the belief that they were useless structures that got too big in childhood and adolescence and should be bombarded with X-rays to shrink them to normal size.
Meanwhile in the East, without any knowledge of thymuses and appendices, tonsils and adenoids, Chinese doctors recognized a defensive function of the body and gained very practical information about how to strengthen it. The mushrooms and plants that the Chinese doctors have been using for hundreds, if not thousands, of years, now turn out actually to increase immune function. They are non-toxic, they increase phagocytosis, movement of macro phages, and various aspects of immune function. They are now a very hot item of research because they may be potentially useful for the treatment of AIDS and other chronic viral conditions that we can't manage in western medicine because we don't have technologic weapons. This is not to deny the importance of structural thinking, but more emphasis on function would make apparent the body's principle of self-organization, the ability to diagnose problems, repair damaged structure, and regenerate structure.
Remarkably, no systematic study has ever been made of healing. We have a phenomenon that we call "spontaneous remission" which is considered a curiosity with no particular explanation. When you talk to doctors and to most patients about spontaneous remission, they immediately think of cancer. Cancer is the worst place to look to understand the functions of the body's healing system because, very simply, in order for a malignant cell to survive all of the levels of defense that the body has for weeding out malignancy, and to get to the point of a clinically detected tumor, a long-term failure of the body's healing mechanisms has already occurred.
Cases of healing in cancer still occur, and are fascinating, but that's not the best place to understand the body's healing system. A much better place to look, for example, is autoimmunity. It is the nature of autoimmune diseases to go into periods of remission and exacerbation. Therapists and clinicians should be working on diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, because these have a natural tendency to go into remission.
I would argue that most disease is self-limited. This is certainly my experience as a clinician and as a patient. This fact makes interpretation of therapy very difficult. If most diseases end by themselves, then it may be that a great many practitioners, both conventional and unconventional, are taking credit for methods that have nothing to do with the outcomes. At any rate, I can think of nothing more important to study than how diseases end. Yet we have not done this in medicine. This is not a research priority. We don't collect these cases, we don't try to analyze them, we don't try to look for common factors.
Furthermore, one of the connections of the healing system is to consciousness. In many cases a healing response seems to have followed immediately upon some change at the level of consciousness. That does not prove that there is a cause-and-effect relationship but it certainly is suggestive. There is a danger, especially on the part of New Age therapists, of suggesting to patients that illness is entirely the result of people's emotions, or moods, for which they are responsible. A dangerous line of reasoning, this is often unhelpful and creates in the patients guilt which will, if anything, interfere with healing.
When I was in medical school, I asked many women of my grandmother's generation why they had breast cancer. The answers, 100 percent of the time, had to do with an old injury. Today we know of no association between trauma and breast cancer, but this was the idea then. Today, if you ask American women why they think they got breast cancer, they respond with formulations like, "I bottled up my feelings for all those years" or "I never expressed the rage I felt at my husband." That may have no more of a causal relationship with breast cancer than the idea that an injury caused it, but a cultural shift has happened. If you believe you get breast cancer because you fall against a table, that's fate. But if you get breast cancer because you don't express feelings, then that's your fault. I am not suggesting that. I just point out that I have repeatedly seen healing responses, some very dramatic, immediately following some shift at the level of consciousness.
Some years ago I reported two cases of women in their thirties who came into my experience at the same time. They both had advanced cases of systemic lupuserythematosous. One woman was hospitalized and was not expected to live. Her kidneys and autoimmune process were severely impaired, and she had malignant hypertension, which could not be controlled by pharmaceutical agents. The other woman also had a lot of kidney and brain involvement. She had psychotic periods and her lupus was unresponsive to the strongest immuno-suppressive drugs. The hospitalized woman had a conversion in the hospital to some variety of fundamentalist Christianity. The other woman fell in love and subsequently was married. To the astonishment of their doctors, both of them are now in permanent remission.
I cannot often arrange for my patients to fall in love or have religious conversions, but it's very important to note that possibility, even if you don't know how to make it happen. Something can be accessed there. I cannot tell you how many cases I've seen, mostly in men, who have had debilitating back pain to the point where they were told they had to have disc surgery. Their CAT scans and MRI scans looked awful. Nobody knew what to do to them, they were on immense amounts of pain medication. Then they fell in love and the back pain disappeared instantly. That's amazing! What happens? Is this just a matter of endorphins? I don't think so. I think there is something more going on, and it certainly behooves us to direct our research attention to it.
I have reported many things done by people in different cultures to get rid of cutaneous warts. Most interestingly, there is no unity to what people do. Treatment ranges from rubbing a wart with a cut potato and burying the potato under a particular kind of tree during a particular phase of the moon, to being touched by the neighborhood wart healer, to selling your wart to your sibling. These actions seemingly have nothing in common, but people will do them, with two types of response. Some do it in the evening, and the next morning they touch the wart and it falls off and doesn't grow back. Equally common is to do one of these procedures and over the next two to three weeks the wart shrivels up, goes away, and doesn't grow back.
In allopathic medicine, we bum warts off with an electric spark or freeze them with liquid nitrogen, or use an acid that is so corrosive that you have to be very careful not to get it on normal skin. When we apply these methods to warts, in better than fifty percent of the instances the warts grow back, usually in multiple clusters. This is a model for how allopathic medicine has evolved. We approach many problems with the same crudity that we approach cutaneous warts, and with not much better success, while we ignore the possibility that there is a very precise innate healing mechanism that can be activated through the level of consciousness.
Stories about wart cures are told sometimes by doctor as examples of patients' gullibility. One doctor told me that he had a patient at a rural hospital in South Dakota who had warts all over his body. They had been burned off repeatedly and had always regrown multiply. Finally, on a whim one day, the doctor and a colleague told the guy that they had a new form of radiation that could make warts go away. They had him stand in a darkened X-ray room while they made the machine hum for thirty seconds. The next day the warts fell off all over his body and didn't grow back. But this story was told as an example of how you can really put things over on patients, rather than seeing it as a marvelous example of how the body's healing machinery can be accessed through the level of belief We don't take these things seriously in our medical teaching and research and practice because they don't fit our conceptions.
One other anomaly: our culture manifests an epidemic of multiple personality disorders. When I was in medical school, multiple personality was so rare that if you ever got a case of it, you were guaranteed publication in a psychiatric journal. Now, everyone is seeing cases of multiple personality, and people have far more personalities than they used to in the past ... thirty, forty personalities. One of the most interesting aspects is physiological differences between the personalities. One woman with a violent allergy to citrus gets giant hives on consuming citrus, but one of her personalities is not allergic. If that personality can emerge within fifteen minutes of consuming a citrus fruit, there is no allergic response. We have seen reports of insulin-dependent diabetics with different insulin requirements for different personalities. A woman with multiple personality was studied by a friend of mine. They were having dinner together. They had wine with dinner, they had a before-dinner drink and she ordered an after-dinner drink, and he said "You know, we have to drive home" and she said, "Don't worry, I'm not the one who is going to be driving."
This is easily researchable. Apparently, it doesn't matter how multiple personality disorder is explained, or whether or not it is "real"; the brain is the hardware of the system and you can run different software through it and come out with very different results. What a wonderful thing to know in clinical medicine. These people, if you could get them together, could be fabulous teachers, fabulous people to have as your allies as a doctor, to teach patients with allergies or with various conditions how to modify their physiology. That would be a wonderful thing, but we'll never know that if we don't research these things, if we don't take them seriously, if we don't adjust our view of the body and of illness to take account of consciousness.
Media Contacts:
Glenn Spagnuolo 720-771-4669
Larry Hales 720-979-9491
Dustin Langley 646-354-8056
**DNC Protest Organizers to Hold Press Conference at Denver Police Department**
When: 3:15 pm Tuesday, August 26
Where: Denver Police Department, W. 13th Ave & Cherokee St.
What: Press Conference
Representatives from the Recreate 68 Alliance, the Troops Out Now Coalition, Unconventional Action, and Peoples Law Collective, joining with arrestees who have been released, will hold a press conference at 3:15 to address:
- the police state atmosphere created by the Denver Police Department
- provocations and violence instigated by the Denver Police Department last night
- the refusal of the Denver Police Department to honor Recreate 68’s permit for Civic Center Park
- the Denver Police Department’s protection of right-wing provocateurs who are disrupting peaceful protests
American supporters of Israel were delighted to learn that an Israeli company, Magal Security Systems-owned in part by the government of Israel-is in charge of security for the most sensitive nuclear power and weapons storage facilities in the United States.
The largest perimeter security company in the world, Magal started out as a division of Israeli Aircraft Industries (IAI)-which was owned in part by the government of Israel. In recent years, however, Magal evolved into a publicly-traded company, although IAI (and thus the government of Israel) still holds a substantial share in the highly successful firm.
What all of this means is that the government of Israel will actually have control over the security of America's nuclear weapons.
Supporters of Israel say that this is a splendid idea, since Israel is said to be perhaps America's closest ally on the face of the planet. However, there are some critics who question the propriety of America's super-sensitive nuclear security being in the hands of any foreign nation, particularly Israel which, even today, officially denies that it is engaged in the production of nuclear arms.
Be that as it may, however, Magal's global interests are quite broad-ranging. Having secured 90 percent of Israel's borders through a wide-ranging array of super-modern "space age" technology, Magal has now branched out internationally.
Not only does Magal provide security for American nuclear facilities, but it also does likewise for most major nuclear facilities in Western Europe and Asia. In addition, the Israeli firm also provides security for Chicago's O'Hare Airport and, for the last fifteen years, has kept watch on the Queen of England's famed Buckingham Palace in London. What's more, Magal provides security for 90% of the American prisons that utilize electronic systems. Magal brags that its other clients around the globe include: borders, airports, industrial sites, communication centers, military installations, correctional facilities, government agencies, VIP estates and residences, commercial buildings and storage yards.
There is hardly a major country or major enterprise that does not have Magal's security specialists keeping a close watch on their activities.
Clearly, Magal is no small enterprise. While 27% of its total sales are in the Israeli market, its largest market is in North America, which currently accounts for 35% of its sales.
However, Magal's American outreach is expected to increase substantially, especially now that firm has set up a Washington, D.C. office which will promote its products to federal agencies and to the members of Congress who provide funding for federally-supervised security projects across the country at all levels: local, state and national.
And with current U.S. Homeland Security Chief, Michael Chertoff, not only a strong supporter of Israel but also the son of a woman who has strong Israeli ties-even including service with El Al, the national airline of Israel-Magal, owned in party by Israeli Aircraft Industries-will be a clear-cut favorite in the eyes of the power brokers in official Washington who have the power to grant lucrative security contracts.
At the moment, Magal has four U.S.-based subsidiaries: two in California, Stellar Security Products, Inc. and Perimeter Products Inc., as well as the New York-based Smart Interactive Systems, Inc., and the Virginia-based Dominion Wireless, Inc.
All told, the Israeli company holds a 40% share in the worldwide market in perimeter intrusion detection systems and is working to expand its business in the protection of oil pipelines.
Magal is also said to be quite interested in guarding water lines around the globe, particularly in the United States. In fact, Magal may have an inside shot at getting a monopoly in guarding America's water supplies.
On July 19, the Bush administration's Environmental Protection Agency announced a "partnership" with the Israeli Ministry of National Infrastructures to improve what they called "water supply system security in the United States and Israel." Since Magal is so highly respected in Israel, it's an even bet that Magal will soon be guarding the U.S. water supply.
Cindy Sheehan returned to her Denver hotel room today to find the door unlocked and ajar. She walked in to discover a man working on her phone, screw driver in hand.
Sheehan reported, in an email,
"As I walked toward my room, I noticed that the door was opened with the security bolt blocking the complete closing of the door. I knew immediately that I had not left the door open, and I double checked to make sure it was the right room because, as a frequent traveler, I have been known to forget my room number, but it was the right room.
I was upset at first thinking that housekeeping had made a mistake and left my room open and I was worried that something might be missing. So I walked into my room and bigger than life, there was a man standing by my desk holding the room phone with a screwdriver in his hand!
I immediately said; "What the hell are you doing? Are you putting a bug on my phone?" He looked like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and stammered out: "N--no, we are having problems with the phone." I told him to get out of my room because my phone was fine and I called the front desk and the person at the front desk stammered something out about "problems" with some of the phones.
This room was reserved soon after we got to Denver last night because the room we had was inadequate for 3 people. The room was reserved under my campaign manager's name with a CFC debit card. By the time we left for the march, it could have very well been ascertained that I was the one in this room, and the room we did reserve could be bugged, also. I am confident that that's what was happening when I walked in on the "maintenance" man"
You don't come in the room with a screwdriver if there are problems with the hotel phones. You do it electronically, through the system or you hook up a new phone.
She said to me, "How many hotel rooms have I been in the past four years? It was so obvious."
I asked, "Do you think it was Pelosi's people?" since Sheehan is running against Pelosi, for her congressional seat.
She replied, "Of course, I don't know."
I asked, "Have there been any other episodes that would make you believe this kind of action is being taken against you?"
She replied,
"Not since I've been running for congress, but there were several times when I was in Crawford, or protesting in D.C., when I felt like we were being surveiled. And actually, in Washington D.C., for a period of time, they would just blatantly follow me, and I would just invite them to come in and have coffee with me. Whenever I was in D.C., whose ever jurisdiction it was, I'd have either the Metro police, the Capitol Hill police or the Park police right on me. Sometimes they were in uniform and sometimes they were plainclothes. But they were very obvious.
Asked how her campaign is going, Sheehan replied,
"I believe the momentum is definitely on our side, especially the last couple weeks, with our signature drive.
The department of elections started to mess with our signatures and say that so many were in-valid, when we knew for a fact that they were valid, because I was checking them myself, on the computer. That really motivated people to help us-- to come to the office to help us or sign the petition (to get Cindy on the ballot) or whatever, that said that they had been meaning to help and that this was something that got them of the fence and got them to actually come into the office and volunteer. We've had ten of thousands of dollars come into the campaign since then and we really have a comfortable amount of money to get our message out-- the message that our country is in deep trouble and Nancy is definitely not the solution. She's part of the problem. And we're going to educate the people of San Francisco about this using alternative forms of media and convince them that I am the alternative-- that I will work to be the voice of the people of San Francisco. And that's something that she has not ever been. I think there is a lot of positive excitement and momentum. Her book tour didn't help her out any.
The campaign's going great. We've been able to hire more staff.
Asked about her goals for Denver, she described,
"after protesting the Republicans for so many years, the Democrats have been moving steadily to the right. We want to show that we're not okay with that, that we want to bring the party closer to the people and further from the corporate lobbyists.
So many people are waking up and starting to realize that there is very little difference in the leadership of the two parties. Working for an altenative third party or independent is one way to bring about real change.
So many people with Obama shirts and pins have come up to me and told me that they're 100% on my side and they're very distressed with the right turn of the Obama campaign and the democratic party and they're hoping that demonstrations that we were at earlier, and that will be happening all week, will bring their party to where they think it should be.
Meanwhile, Cindy's hotel room phone is in the hotel room refrigerator.
Hillary Clinton may not have that much control over her own delegates, who are still whipped up into a frenzy over what they view as slights from the Obama campaign.
Clinton delegate and Los Angeles women's lawyer Gloria Allred grabbed a napkin from the tables at the California delegation breakfast this morning and wore it as a gag to protest not being allowed to speak at the breakfast.
"I was not elected to be a potted plant," Allred said through her gag, holding up DNC rules that say delegates must vote as they are elected. California has 204 delegates pledged to Hillary Clinton, versus 166 for Obama.
Clinton delegate Julie Wong of Los Gatos was handing out white wrist bands to rally solidarity at the convention tonight when Clinton speaks. Hillary supporters have a march planned for today, which coincides with the anniversary of the 19th amendment giving women the right to vote.
Allred said Clinton herself "doesn't have the legal power" to tell her own delegates how to vote. "She can do it, but that doesn't mean we have to do it," Allred said.
The Obama and Clinton camps have worked out an agreement to limit a symbolic but potentially divisive roll call vote Wednesday. Hillary has said she will vote for Obama herself, and has vowed to work for party unity, knowing her own political future rests on it.
Her husband may be a bigger problem. He's said to be still smarting over being labeled a racist during the primaries, and he's got his own speech Wednesday night -- stretching out Clinton double billing that will continue to distract from Obama's unity message. If there's anything Bill Clinton knows how to do, it's steal a show.
A peaceful protest in Denver last night turned ugly as police in riot gear blocked progress of a march down a public street, turning tear gas and paintballs on the corralled crowd, according to the American News Project. In a city that looks to one observer more like a fortress, many protesters were demonstrating against Barack Obama. Around 80 people were arrested. A preamble to St. Paul, where audiences are expected to be less sympathetic to the crowd gathered in the convention center?
Yes, as Briana Nestler said in her Aug. 17 letter, Ralph Nader is doing well, and may well meet the target of getting on the ballot in 45 states. Wisconsin voters may join Massachusetts in seeing the high value of not just choice, but a STRONG CHALLENGE to the two-party corporate corrupt politics by a public interest leader in a career that has netted a limelight household name stature for Nader's good deeds and leadership for government ON TRACK.
Ballot access allows for a new candidate strong enough to challenge the status quo -- a candidate who aims to end the war, uphold the U.S. Constitution, show ability by a proven track record to uphold the duties of a president to lead the country and not usurp Congress, and to offer ON TRACK directions wanted by the nation. These policies should and can win: environmental protection, energy renewable resources and elimination of foreign dependence on oil, and a budget on track for people's priorities for the public not private interests.
"If you're not happy with John McCain and you're not happy with Barack Obama, why spend your vote on somebody you don't believe in? To me, that's wasting your vote," he said."If you vote (for) the candidate you believe in and who stands for issues that represent you, that's the best use you could have of a vote."
USA TODAY's Garrett Hubbard was on the scene Monday when Denver police in riot gear and about 300 protesters clashed near the site of the Democratic National Convention. The Associated Press says about 100 people were arrested.
As you can see in this video report he put together, Garrett got roughed up as well:
1. You won't hear a call for a national crackdown on the corporate crime, fraud, and abuse that, in just the last few years, have robbed trillions of dollars from workers, investors, pension holders, taxpayers and consumers. Among the reforms that won't be suggested are resources to prosecute executive crooks and laws to democratize corporate governance so shareholders have real power. Democrats will not shout for a payback of ill-gotten gains, to rein in executive pay, ending corporate personhood, or to demand corporate sunshine laws.
2. The convention will not demand that workers receive a living wage instead of an inflation ravaged minimum wage. There will be no backing for a repeal of the anti-union Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which has blocked more than 40 million workers willing to form or join trade unions to improve wages and benefits above Wal-Mart or McDonald's levels.
3. Barack Obama will not call for a withdrawal from the WTO and NAFTA. Trade agreements should stick to trade while labor, environmental, and consumer rights are advanced by separate treaties with strong enforcement mechanisms without being subordinated to the dictates of international commerce.
4. Obama will steer clear of any suggestion that our income tax system be substantially revamped. Workers should keep more of their wages while we tax the things we like least at the source, such as polluters, stock speculation, addictive industries, and energy guzzling technologies. Corporations should be required to pay their fair share; corporate tax contributions as a percent of the overall federal revenue stream have been declining for 50 years and now stand at about 7.4 percent despite massive record profits.
5. There will be no call for a single-payer health care system. Sixty years after President Truman first proposed it, we still need health insurance for everyone, a program with quality and cost controls and an emphasis on prevention. Full Medicare for everyone will save thousands of lives while maintaining patient choice of doctors and hospitals within a competitive private health care delivery system.
6. There is no reason to believe that the Democrats will stand up to the commercial interests profiting from our current energy situation. We need a straightforward carbon pollution tax, not a convoluted cap-and-trade system that would invite massive manipulation. We need a major environmental health agenda that challenges these entrenched interests with new initiatives in solar energy, efficiency in motor vehicles, and other sustainable and clean energy technologies. Nor will there be any recognition that current fossil fuels are producing cancer, respiratory diseases, and geopolitical entanglements. Finally, there will be no calls for ending environmental racism that leads to contaminated water and air in our cities, to toxic dumps in poorer neighborhoods, and to high toxicities in the workplace.
7. Democrats will not demand a reduction in the bloated, redundant military budget that devours half the federal government's operating expenditures at a time when there is no Soviet Union or other major state enemy in the world. Studies by the Government Accountability Office and internal Pentagon assessments support the judgment of many retired admirals and generals that a wasteful defense weakens our country and distorts priorities at home.
8. You won't hear a clarion call for electoral reform. Both parties have shamelessly engaged in gerrymandering, a process that guarantees reelection of their candidates at the expense of frustrated voters. Nor will there be any suggestion that law-abiding ex-felons be allowed to vote. Other electoral reforms should include reducing ballot access barriers to candidates, same day registration, a voter verified paper record for electronic voting, run-off voting to ensure winners receive a majority vote, binding none-of-the-above choices and most important, full public financing to guarantee clean elections.
9. You will hear no calls for reform of the criminal justice system. Our nation now holds one out of four of the world's prisoners, half of them nonviolent. While they attempt to counter Republican charges that they favor criminals over victims, Democrats will say nothing about a failed war on drugs that costs $50 billion annually. And they will not argue that addicts should be treated rather than imprisoned. Nor should observers hope for any call to repeal the "three strikes and you're out" laws that have filled our jails.
10. Democrats will ignore the Israeli peace movement whose members have developed accords for a two-state solution with their Palestinian and American counterparts. It is time to replace the Washington puppet show with a Washington peace show for the security of the American, Palestinian, and Israeli people.
11. The Democrats will not call for the United States to begin a military and corporate total withdrawal from Iraq. Such a withdrawal would result in mainstream Iraqis no longer supporting or joining the insurgency. Internationally UN-supervised elections will allow for appropriate autonomy for the Kurdish, Sunni, and Shi'ite communities within a unified Iraq. Seriously waging peace will be far cheaper than a permanent war economy which is generating huge deficits and diverting attention, talent, and resources from the necessities of the American people.
12. Democrats will not stand up to business interests that have demanded changes that close the courtroom to wrongfully injured and cheated individuals, but not to corporations. Where is the campaign against fraud and injury upon innocent patients, consumers, and workers? We should make it easier for consumers to band together and defend themselves against harmful practices in the marketplace. To the voters I say: Don't hold your breath waiting for the Democrats to put people before corporations. Watch as this Convention obeys the 12 taboos.
By Rosa Rodríguez QUITO
The campaign for the Sept. 28 referendum on Ecuador’s newly rewritten constitution has got under way, with fierce arguments between the document's supporters and opponents.
At the moment the main conflict is between those in favour of the new constitution, approved Jul. 24 by the Constituent Assembly, and the hierarchy of the Catholic Church.
Church prelates are vigorously opposed to the proposed constitution because they allege it opens the door to the legalisation of abortion and same-sex marriage, although the word "abortion" is not mentioned in any of its articles.
"Certain aspects of the text are unacceptable to a Christian conscience," the president of the Ecuadoran Episcopal Conference (CEE), Antonio Arregui, said earlier this month. He added that the Roman Catholic faithful would be offered "catechism" about the content of the new constitution so that they would be properly informed when it came time to vote.
Ecuador is a secular state, but over 90 percent of its 14 million people are Roman Catholics.
President Rafael Correa and the former president of the Constituent Assembly, Alberto Acosta, responded forcefully to the CEE statement.
The Catholic Church hierarchy is taking a political stance by openly supporting the No vote against the constitution, clearly aligning itself with rightwing sectors, Correa said.
Acosta publicly released a document he had received from the CEE, making a number of proposals to the Constituent Assembly, including recognition of de facto unions between same-sex couples.
Acosta told IPS that as president of the Constituent Assembly, he had on several occasions met with Catholic bishops. At one of these meetings they gave him a document, dated Apr. 1, 2008, signed by Arregui among others, which included a proposal for recognising "stable unions between couples, no matter what their gender or sexual orientation."
"A good many of these proposals were included" in the draft constitution, Acosta added.
Last Thursday, in an interview broadcast by La Luna radio station in Quito, Correa said he felt the opposition by the Catholic hierarchy to be a betrayal, "like a stab in the back."
A practising Catholic himself, he said that when he met with other South American presidents he used to brag about being the only leftwing president who had a good relationship with the Catholic hierarchy, but now that has changed.
Former CEE presiding bishop Néstor Herrera told the Internet news portal Ecuadorinmediato.com that the Catholic hierarchy would "make war" on Correa during the referendum campaign.
"If President Rafael Correa is looking for a battle with us, unfortunately we will have to make war on him," the bishop said.
Maintaining that the Church "has never looked for a fight before, nor is it looking for one now," the bishop said the Catholic Church is carrying out its pastoral task, which is "to make the faithful aware of the scope of this political instrument (the constitution), in the light of Catholic convictions."
Herrera said the president was "mistaken" when he alleged that the Church was being "political" by announcing it would offer "catechism" about the text of the constitution now under consideration. Catechism, he said, "is broad and detailed teaching on the foundations of our faith, so that Christians may understand and direct their lives by it."
The Church has clearly stated it will not take a stand on either side of the matter of the referendum, he insisted.
But immediately afterwards he contradicted himself: Correa should not worry, he said, because the Yes vote looks like it will win by a comfortable margin, while the Church "has neither the government's publicity apparatus nor the president's popularity" to promote the No vote.
Bishop Mario Ruiz Navas also complained that the proposed constitution is too "statist," and puts an end to state support for private schools, particularly religious schools.
But several priests and laypersons expressed disagreement with these views.
A new constitution was a key campaign pledge by President Rafael Correa, who took office Jan. 15, 2007. Although over 81 percent of Ecuadoreans voted in April 2007 for the convening of a Constituent Assembly to rewrite the country's constitution, the process of producing the document which will be submitted to the will of the electorate next month has been arduous.
Tens of thousands of small farmers, indigenous peoples and social organisations rallied last Saturday in Quito to hear Correa speak in favour of the constitution, according to international press reports. The atmosphere was festive and upbeat, with music, singing and dancing.
According to surveys published by Santiago Pérez Investigaciones and Perfiles de Opinión, two polling firms, 66 percent of interviewees have already decided how they will vote on Sept. 28.
The poll results differ in the percentages of voter intentions for Yes or No to the new constitution, and in the numbers of blank or spoiled ballots they forecast.
According to Pérez Investigaciones, which carries out surveys for the government, 50 percent of interviewees would vote Yes and 29 percent would vote No. The survey by Perfiles, in contrast, indicates 41 percent voting Yes, while the sum of No votes, blank and spoiled ballots would come to 45.9 percent.
For the constitution to be approved, Yes votes must reach over 50 percent of the ballots cast.
Given the current uncertainty as to the outcome of the referendum, in the view of consultant Paulina Recalde of Perfiles de Opinión, the Church is a significant political factor because it enjoys broad credibility.
"The scenario is a complicated one for the president, because if he makes comments denigrating or offending the Church in any way, he may hurt the feelings of believers," she said.
The questionnaire administered by Pérez Investigaciones included the question: "Are the groups that oppose the constitution against it because it is a bad constitution, or because they fear losing their privileges?"
Sixty-three percent answered that their opposition was for fear of loss of privilege, and 25 percent replied that it was because it was a bad constitution.
According to the same survey, 55 percent of interviewees said that the work of the Constituent Assembly had been done well, or very well.
Cedatos, another firm, published the results of a survey of 1,400 people in 15 cities, indicating that 41 percent would vote Yes and 35 percent would vote No.
On Aug. 16, in Guayaquil, Ecuador's main port and largest city with over two million people, 250 kilometres southwest of the capital, during Correa's weekly nationwide radio programme, broadcast from the Catholic University of Guayaquil, groups of university students supporting the Yes and No votes clashed with police.
Both sides have tried to take the moral high ground by blaming their opponents for instigating the violence.
In early August, close to 100 rural and urban social organisations, in particular ECUARUNARI, the Confederation of Peoples of the Quechua Nation, the largest member of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), announced the formation of an autonomous "Social Front" to campaign for the Yes vote, while keeping a distance between themselves and the government.
There is no logic in politics.Haha, no really though. There isn't (click link to read about study): "None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged. Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones."
Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University.
In Timothy Leary's 8 circuits of consciousness: political beliefs are at the 2nd circuit. They get defended at the Emotional Territorial level:
"As every parent knows, the toddler is no longer a passive (bio-survival) infant but a mammalian politician, full of physical (and psychic) territorial demands, quick to meddle in family business and decision-making. Again the first imprint on this circuit remains constant for life (unless brainwashed) and identifies the stimuli which will automatically trigger dominant, aggressive behavior or submissive, cooperative behavior. When we say that a person is behaving emotionally, egotistically or 'like a two-year-old,' we mean that s/he is blindly following one of the tunnel-realities imprinted on this circuit."
Robert Anton Wilson - Cosmic Trigger
That's right... the TODDLER level! (which corresponds to Jung's Feeling, Freud's Anal, Bern's Adapted and Sagan's Mammal level in their respective psychological typologies.)
That's where we are in society today people, the toddler level! And putting Dubya among the pictures was too easy! :p (the old Blair & Chiraq pics are because this copied page is old ;p)
Btw whenever they whine about democracy they speak of Greece, well yes DIRECT democracy we get from ancient Greece. However REPRESENTATIVE democracy - which is based on lies, manipulation, deceit & corruption - comes straight out of the DARK AGES.
"If one wants to recognize effortlessly the essense of politics, let one reflect upon the fact that it was a Hitler who was able to make the world hold its breath for many years. The fact that Hitler was a political genius unmasks the nature of politics in general as no other fact can."
Wilhelm Reich, The mass psychology of fascism
Doublespeak is language deliberately constructed to disguise or distort its actual meaning, often resulting in a 'communication bypass'. Such language is associated with governmental, military, and corporate institutions. Doublespeak may be in the form of bald euphemisms ('downsizing' for 'firing of many employees') or deliberately ambiguous phrases ('wet work' for 'assassination'). Doublespeak is distinguished from other euphemisms through its deliberate usage by governmental, military, or corporate institutions.
"Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
George Orwell
"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies."
Groucho Marx
"There are no political solutions, only technological ones, the rest is propaganda."
Jacques Ellul
"Don't you know that if people could bottle the air they would? Don't you know that there would be an American Air-Bottling Association? And don't you know they would allow thousands and millions to die if they could not pay for air? I am not blaming anybody. I am just telling how it is."
Robert Ingersoll, A Lay Sermon
"Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us."
Leo Tolstoy
Leftist activists with the National Lawyers Guild were tracking how many arrests were made by the local fascist police state officials.
Here's an interview at the scene of the crime(s):
* * * * *RIOT IN DOWNTOWN DENVER!
At least 16 anarchists and young Leftists were arrested tonight near the Sheraton Hotel in downtown Denver.
The Denver riot police blocked off several blocks in downtown Denver around the hotel. The police were wearing their gas masks during the standoff that went on for hours.
Zombie Times was down at the riots.
The Denver Post has a live cam on the protesters here.
Hundreds of police officers were called to the scene.
** Video coming soon!
Democrats convene in Denver amid police state security and a sea of corporate cash
By Bill Van Auken
26 August 2008
Nothing could more graphically expose the political fraud of the “change you can believe in” mantra promoted by the Democrats and their presidential candidate Barack Obama than the reactionary atmosphere surrounding the party’s national convention, which kicked off Monday in Denver, Colorado.
The more than 4,000 Democratic delegates—covered by an army of some 15,000 members of the press—are convening in what amounts to a political bubble surrounded by security measures consistent with those of a police state. The convention itself, not to mention the lavish parties being thrown for the delegates—many of them elected officials—is being paid for largely by major corporations looking to buy political influence.
The media has focused the bulk of its attention on the convention’s first day on speculating as to whether lingering “bitterness” on the part of Obama’s principal rival for the nomination, Senator Hillary Clinton, and her supporters will detract from the unity message that is meant to predominate. Most of this coverage is cast entirely in terms of personal frictions and identity politics, without a hint of any substantive political issues involved.
This is in keeping with the general tenor of the convention itself, which is packaged as a $60 million, four-day infomercial, with no question of a debate over policy breaking out on the floor of Denver’s Pepsi Center, where the delegates are assembled. The media, with very few exceptions, functions as an uncritical conduit for this process, accepting its narrow parameters as given.
It has been more than three decades since such a convention was an arena for any form of political debate, and where the outcome was not preordained. The ritualistic character of these events is a function of the widening gulf separating the official politics of the US two-party system—controlled lock, stock and barrel by the banks, corporations and a narrow financial elite—from the vast mass of the American people.
A stark illustration of this same divide is to be found in the extraordinary security measures that have been put into place in Denver. The Democratic Party, the ostensible political opposition to the Bush administration, is meeting under what amounts to a state of siege, justified in the name of the “war on terror” and the assumed need to exert iron-fisted control over any expression of political dissent in the streets.
The actual scale of protest in Denver is decidedly limited. On Sunday, barely 1,200 people participated in an antiwar demonstration led by Ron Kovic, the paralyzed Vietnam War veteran and author of the book Born on the Fourth of July, and Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq. The leaderships of the major antiwar protest groups are part of the effort to divert anger against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan into support for a political party that has funded and will continue both US interventions.
Nonetheless, demonstrators have been confronted with overwhelming police force. The ranks of Denver’s police have been doubled by the influx of cops from throughout the surrounding area.
As Denver’s Rocky Mountain News reported, “Hundreds of heavily armed officers, some clad in riot gear or hanging off SUVs, are saturating Denver’s streets in unprecedented numbers, quickly isolating any hint of trouble that could tarnish the city’s reputation under the limelight of the Democratic National Convention.
“The officers—on foot, horseback, bicycles and motorcycles—are armed with black batons and pepperball guns that resemble assault rifles. And they were quick to move Sunday when hundreds of rowdy protesters took to the streets of downtown.”
Police have distributed pamphlets to would-be protesters warning them that they will be subject to arrest if they refuse orders to disperse, even if they have broken no laws. To deal with potential mass arrests, the city has opened a temporary detention center—a warehouse divided into chain-link cells. Critics of the security crackdown have dubbed the site “Gitmo on the Platte,” after Denver’s South Platte River.
The authorities have also attempted to restrict protesters to a so-called “free speech zone,” the Orwellian term they have given to an isolated patch of a parking lot ringed by two layers of black steel security fencing, giving it the appearance of a detention camp.
The force of 1,500 officers brought in from 52 police agencies in nearby areas does not include a huge federal contingent that has been mobilized for the event.
The Department of Homeland Security has declared the conventions of both the Democratic and Republican parties—the latter to be held next week in St. Paul, Minnesota—”National Special Security Events.” This designation places the department and the Secret Service in charge of overall security and brings in an array of national police, military and intelligence agencies.
Some $50 million in federal funding has been allotted for security measures at each of the conventions. In Denver, a portion of this money has gone to equip police with body armor and shields as well as to purchase an armored vehicle.
Federal and local police agents have established a secret headquarters, dubbed the Multi-Agency Command Center, or MAC,c from which they are monitoring every movement in the city via hundreds of security cameras that are trained on the convention center, protest sites and the entire surrounding area.
In a chilling indication that the police surveillance is far wider and more intrusive than has been reported by the media, protest leader Cindy Sheehan reported returning to her Denver hotel room Monday to find a man in her room using a screwdriver on the telephone.
The US Customs and Border Protection agency has been brought in to inspect vehicles in the city, while agents of the Transportation Security Administration are being deployed to screen those entering the convention center.
The military has also been deployed in Denver for the convention. In addition to the activation of over 1,000 National Guard troops, elements of the US Coast Guard have been placed in charge of intelligence operations in designated areas, while the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the Northern Command, based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, are also participating. The Pentagon refused to supply any details on the precise role of these commands, but some of the media reported that they were providing the convention with “air cover.”
The convention’s business: bribery and influence-peddling
Behind these rings of steel and phalanxes of police, the real business of the convention is being conducted in a series of activities and events that amount to organized and officially sanctioned bribery and influence-peddling.
Speaking last Saturday in Springfield, Illinois, in his announcement of Delaware Senator Joseph Biden as his running mate, Obama claimed that his campaign was based on “a simple belief: that the American people were better than their government in Washington—a government that has fallen prey to special interests and policies that have left working people behind.”
Yet in Denver this week, he is presiding over a convention that is being paid for by these same special interests, with the clear understanding that their money will secure favors from Democratic politicians and, potentially, a Democratic administration headed by Obama himself.
While posturing as the party of “the people,” the Democrats have auctioned off access to US corporations, selling aptly named “presidential sponsor” packages for a million dollars each. The money buys companies private access to Obama’s advisors, tickets to exclusive parties attended by Democratic elected officials and luxury skybox seats to hear Obama’s acceptance speech Thursday in Denver’s Mile High Stadium.
The party had billed the stadium event as a sign of its openness and desire to include the people in its deliberations. But the auctioning off of skyboxes to the highest corporate bidders clearly expresses the Democrats’ real role as an essential prop of social inequality and the rule of big business.
An array of major corporations has sponsored parties, dinners and other events, using loopholes in new ethics rules touted by Obama and the Democrats, to stage lavish events for and contribute amply to Democratic politicians. While the rules limit individual donations to candidates to $2,300, and bar direct contributions from corporations and unions, their provisions do not extend to the party conventions.
AT&T, which has refused to disclose how much it has given to the convention, held such an event Sunday night from which it barred the media, calling the police against a few reporters who attempted to interview those attending. The bash was given for the Democratic Leadership Council.
AT&T was one of the principal beneficiaries of legislation passed by Congress last month—with Obama voting in favor—which vastly expanded government domestic surveillance powers while granting blanket retroactive immunity to telecommunications firms that collaborated in the Bush administration’s illegal domestic spying program.
Another telecom, Qwest Communications, has donated $6 million to the convention—the largest known contribution.
As the Los Angeles Times pointed out Monday, “The largest donors frequently have some of the largest business issues pending before state and federal agencies at the time lawmakers ask them to donate.”
Qwest has a case pending before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that would grant it regulatory relief. The newspaper reported that a member of the convention’s fundraising committee, Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado, also sits on the congressional committee that oversees the FCC and wrote a letter to the agency on the company’s behalf.
Other major corporate convention donors with issues before Congress that have significant implications for their bottom line include Comcast Corp., Xcel Energy Inc., UnitedHealth Inc., Eli Lilly and other big pharmaceutical firms, and Kraft Foods.
One major donor worth noting is Lockheed Martin, the huge military contractor. “Lockheed Martin strongly supports our nation’s political process and candidates that support in general national defense, homeland security, high technology and educational initiatives,” a company spokesman said of the convention funding. Clearly, it is confident that the US war machine will provide it with profitable conditions under an Obama presidency.
Among the events scheduled at the convention is a poker night for delegates at Coors Field, sponsored by a business alliance that is lobbying Congress not to place restrictions on Internet gambling.
Even the government-backed mortgage finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had been slated to host events and contribute to the convention’s cost, until the idea was scrapped out of fear that it would trigger outrage because of the recent government move to bail out the firms.
Behind the media glitz and meticulously staged spectacle, the Denver convention’s reality of corruption, elitism and repression is the real face of the Democratic Party and the Obama campaign.
No less than the Republicans and their candidate John McCain, the Democrats defend the interests of the corporate and financial ruling elite. The thoroughly anti-democratic two-party system excludes any expression of the genuine interests of working people.
Cynthia McKinney is criticizing Democrats on Iraq funding.
DENVER, Colorado (CNN) — Controversial former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney is in Denver this week, but she isn’t exactly here to attend the Democratic National Convention.
In fact we found her at a protest against US government detainment of “political prisoners."
These days McKinney is the Green Party nominee for President, and she’s blasting the Democrats in Congress for not cutting off funding to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I've been liberated from the values that I believe are the failed values of the Democratic party. I'm proud to be outside,” she said.
Back in 1996, McKinney was not only on the inside of the Democratic convention in Chicago — she was even one of the speakers. She praised then-President Bill Clinton, and lashed out at the Republican Party for its opposition to abortion.
McKinney was well known on the Hill for her run-ins with everyone from the Anti-Defamation league to the Capitol police. But for the record, the protest she attended was peaceful and came off without a hitch.
*sigh*Oh my goodness..they're going to cry... :(Not unlike the rest of the world when the US continues to bully them...however with Obama...he'll do it with a smile..and Dems love that...
...In 2005, Biden Even Said He'd Be Honored To Run On The Same Ticket As John McCain. Comedy Central's Jon Stewart: "You may end up going against a Senate colleague, perhaps McCain, perhaps Frist?" Biden: "John McCain is a personal friend, a great friend, and I would be honored to run with or against John McCain, because I think the country would be better off -- be well off no matter who..." Stewart: "Did I hear, Did I hear with?" Biden: "You know, John McCain and I think" Stewart: "Don't become cottage cheese my friend. Say it." Biden: "The answer is yes." (Comedy Central's "The Daily Show" 8/2/05)...
...Colin Burch, a Boise student who helped spearhead getting Nader on the ballot, says the 10 volunteers who worked on the push encountered the stiffest opposition from supporters of Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee squaring off against Republican John McCain....
Nader and the Press: Condescension Turns NastyBy Jim Naureckas
Ralph Nader's presidential campaign has mostly been of interest to mainstream journalists not for the ideas or new voters that it brings to the election, but for the impact it might have on Democrat Al Gore's electoral chances. The headline "Nader's Bid Complicates Gore's Task" (Washington Post, 5/25/00) sums up this approach.
Even this role for Nader--often referred to as a "spoiler," or as "stealing" votes--was sometimes downplayed by media figures. After George Stephanopoulos suggested on ABC's This Week (6/25/00) that Nader might be polling near the 5 percent mark in several key states, fellow panelist Cokie Roberts responded with, "So far he's not getting that, though." In fact, Nader was polling between 7 and 10 percent in states like Washington and Oregon, which Stephanopoulos cited, and was getting around 5 percent in national polls (Washington Post, 5/25/00).
Likewise, Washington Post assistant managing editor Jackson Diehl responded to Post ombudsman E.R. Shipp's questions about why Nader (and Reform candidate Patrick Buchanan) were getting so little coverage (9/3/00): "We're not a public utility. We're a newspaper, and we cover things based on what is newsworthy. People who have half a percent or less following among the public are much less newsworthy than people with 40 and 50 percent." Half a percent is actually about one-tenth as much support as Nader has generally gotten in national polls.
In keeping with this dismissive approach, journalists often saw the Nader campaign as a chance to demonstrate their wit. The San Francisco Chronicle (6/23/00) reported that Nader "looks like he favors strained spinach and wheat germ." Time magazine (7/3/00) suggested that Nader may be an imperfect candidate for the Greens, given that "he's more into fighting tort reform than promoting tofu."
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank (9/5/00) caricatured Nader as someone whose "only enemy is the corporation," and the Greens as "radical activists in sandals." "The Nader campaign is based on a simple premise: There is no difference between the two major parties," Milbank wrote. "This is true if you stand far enough away from the two parties--in the same way New York and Tokyo would look similar if you were standing on the moon."
But the media's patronizing tone could quickly turn hostile when media outlets felt that Nader was interfering with the sacred two-party system. A New York Times editorial (6/30/00) called Nader's run "a self-indulgent exercise that that will distract voters from the clear-cut choice represented by the major party candidates," adding that "the public deserves to see the major-party candidates compete on an uncluttered playing field."
Several of the Times' regular columnists echoed this editorial stance, with liberal Anthony Lewis (7/8/00) taking Nader to task for his opposition to deregulated trade: "Protectionism would destroy our prosperity and make the world's poor even more miserable. It is a strange platform for the Ralph Nader who says he speaks for the weak and the neglected."
Paul Krugman, the op-ed page's house economist, saw Nader's anti-corporate politics as a sign of a warped psyche (7/23/00): "Many of those who are thinking about voting for Mr. Nader probably imagine that he is still the moderate, humane activist of the 1960s." In fact, according to Krugman, he's now "a rebel without a life," consumed by "a general hostility toward corporations."
Thomas Friedman, the New York Times' other free-trade cheerleader, had earlier lumped Nader in with Buchanan (4/21/00) as politicians who "prefer a Cold War-like world of walls."
"Liberal" columnist Lars-Erik Nelson (New York Daily News, 7/2/00) castigated Nader: "Any presidential candidate whose running mate is Winona LaDuke, an Ojibway Indian activist from a Minnesota reservation, must be considered both marginal and self-indulgent." Nelson did not specify from which ethnic groups a serious candidate could pick a running mate.
The further one goes down the media food chain, the more vicious the ad hominem attacks become. "Like an enormous zit on prom night, when least expected or desired, Nader and his Green Party followers have reappeared on the political scene," wrote talkshow host and syndicated columnist Ken Hamblin (Denver Post, 7/2/00).
"One of the saddest sights in politics is a fading public figure who refuses to concede that his or her time has passed," Hearst columnist Marianne Means asserted (New Orleans Times-Picayune, 2/29/00). "The latest egotist to ignore reality is Ralph Nader, the aging consumer advocate whose crusades stalled and popularity sagged long ago.... Nader is in the great tradition of political diehards who stubbornly hope against hope that they can keep the reporters and speaking fees coming despite all the derisive laughter."
Means spoke for many pundits with the conclusion of a later anti-Nader column (Denver Post, 7/16/00): "The two-party system works fine, if not perfectly. Why can't we leave it at that?"
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s go to some of the voices of protest in the streets of Denver.
PROTESTERS: Occupation is a crime, from Iraq to Palestine! Rise up with the people of the world! Rise up with the people of the world!
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: We’re in Denver, Colorado. We march to protest the Democratic National Convention, because they don’t represent the interests of the people. They Democratic Party represents the interests of the ruling class.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: We’re here to protest against two-party politics and politics itself.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: The time has come for direct action. Take to the streets. Stop sitting back and watching your TV. Politics is in the streets, and it’s every day before your eyes. This affects all of us. This is a common struggle of all people throughout the world.
PROTESTERS: Tell me what a police state looks like! This is what a police state looks like!
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: Essentially, the question being brought upon in a lot of people’s minds right now is, if we’re going against the Democrats, essentially, what are we going to do then? That’s our last resort, supposedly. But what we’re pushing forward as the Revolutionary Communist Party is a science and understanding how we can get out of the situation that we’re in and how to get rid of this American empire that does things like this.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: The whole idea is to document what the police are doing, hopefully prevent police brutality, prevent excessive use of force. I have seen a lot of automatic weapons, held by the police over there, quite a few non-lethal devices also, pepper spray, shooters and a whole bunch of different things. So they’re ready for whatever they imagine is going to happen, and we’re ready to document what they do.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: I’m out here to express my opposition to the war in Iraq and the criminal foreign policy, and I want to, you know, express my opposition to the economic policies of the Bush regime, its anti-environment positions, and I also express my support for the Constitution of the United States. I’m an attorney. I swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution.
PROTESTERS: Pay attention! This could be a peace convention!
MEDEA BENJAMIN: We actually tried to go into Union Station to just do a little walk through, and they locked us out of there, so we had to come up the streets. And we’ve been peacefully walking up the streets saying this could be a peace convention. We’re stopped periodically by the police. Sometimes they’re kind of nice to us, and sometimes they are not so nice.
PROTESTERS: US out of the Middle East! No justice, no peace!
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: We are here at the Democratic National Convention, because the Democrats have been as complicit as the Republicans in screwing over the veterans and continuing this illegal, immoral and unjustifiable occupation.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: It’s funk the war. We’re going to funk the war this afternoon on the 16th Street Mall. That means that we’re going to have some dance, and we’re going to fight some of the anger and evil with a little bit of love. Drop beats, not bombs.
PROTESTERS: We will study war no more. We will study war no more.
MENNONITE PROTESTER: We’re Mennonites with the Mennonite Church USA denomination, and we’re here to speak a religious word of peace. We see ourselves as an alternative to making war. We try to find practical ways to make peace in this world, so we’re out here singing hymns, which a great part of our tradition, and we’re pleased to join these other people who are also working for peace.
NADER CAMPAIGNER: We are with the Nader campaign, and we are out here to support pretty much ending the war and all of the platform issues that Nader stands for. Right now, pretty much, you can only do the duopoly of the Democrats and the Republicans, and we’d like Nader to be able to speak and talk to the American people about the issues at hand and the issues that concern the American people.
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTER: No change. Obama keeps talking about real change, but he’s an imperialist, you know? He supports unconditional support for Israel. He said the people should respect the judge’s decision when the cops in New York got away with murdering Sean Bell. I mean, he’s talking about just redeployment, put the troops in Pakistan and Afghanistan, you know. He’s not talking about—he’s not an antiwar candidate.
There are more than 1,200 parties over the five days of the Denver DNC. One of the first was the AT&T Blue Dog party thrown at Mile High Station. It’s one of the closest venues to Invesco Field at the Mile High stadium where Barack Obama will accept the Democratic presidential nomination on Thursday night. While the delegates were coming in out of the party, it wasn’t quite so easy for the press. Democracy Now! reports from outside the party and we get analysis from Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com.
Glenn Greenwald, constitutional law attorney and political and legal blogger for Salon.com. He is the author of three books. His latest is “Great American Hypocrites: Toppling the Big Myths of Republican Politics.”
DENVER (AP) — A small group of protesters marched to the demonstration zone outside the Democratic National Convention, complaining they are being treated like political prisoners.
Members of the protest group Recreate 68 Alliance visited the fenced-off zone for the first time on Monday and vowed not to return because they oppose the limits on where they can demonstrate.
Protesters derisively call the 47,000-square-foot zone the "Freedom Cage." It's separated from the parking lot around the convention hall by metal fences atop concrete barriers, about 700 feet from the Pepsi Center, where the delegates start gathering Monday night.
"We're being treated by the city of Denver and the Secret Service like political prisoners, like pariahs," said Recreate 68 organizer Mark Cohen.
Cohen and his wife, Barbara, each wore a red inverted triangle similar to the type political prisoners in Nazi Germany were forced to wear.
"We're going to stay here for just a couple of minutes to state our disgust with this abomination, the way the city and Secret Service are tearing the Constitution of the United States to shreds and then we will leave," Mark Cohen said.
Another protester, Holly Heiman, 40, of Green Mountain Falls, said she wanted to show her opposition to what she believes is an oppressive government that won't change no matter who is elected.
Elsewhere, about 100 people rallied at Civic Center Park in downtown Denver to draw attention to people they consider to be political prisoners in the U.S., including American Indian activist Leonard Peltier, who's serving a life sentence for killing two FBI agents during a 1975 standoff on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Activists have planned protests for the duration of the party convention
Hundreds of anti-war protesters have demonstrated amid heavy police security in the US city of Denver where the Democratic national convention is set to kick-off on Monday.
It was the first in a series of protests by the group Recreate 68, whose name echoes the anti-war protests outside the party's convention in Chicago in 1968.
Al Jazeera spoke to five protesters about why they were marching, and their hopes that those attending the convention would listen.
Robert Joyet, Denver, Colorado
I'm here to try to give a voice to the voiceless. The Democrats are supposed to be the party that faces up to the Republicans and provide an alternative voice, but they've sat back and passed every act that infringes our civil liberties; they supported the war.
I'm ashamed at the poor turnout here. I'd have hoped more Americans … maybe they're sidetracked by corporate interests.
I worked three times in Afghanistan as an engineer and when I was there security was tentative and that was three years ago. The situation there is getting like it was in Iraq. I think it's a lost cause and we should just get out. It's a farce. These politicians go on their "fact finding mission" and don't talk to anybody about it [the situation]. It's disgraceful.
Jean Toth, St Petersburgh, Florida
There's a big message going on here, regardless of Republican or Democrat: we have to change our whole way of thinking. I think we're sending a message and I think if there's enough people they will listen as I don't think they'll have a choice. I'd love for people to see that not all Americans are all about war.
The convention serves no purpose at all, it's a huge waste of money, we have helicopters flying around wasting gas to watch us and there's no one here who's evil. It's insane.
Judy Gear, Denver
I'm here with a small international group who have been going just working for peace and justice throughout the world on different issues.
We're very against the war and very concerned about the environment and that's why I'm here to stop all our invasions of various countries.
I just hope that it will make a difference, to make sure Obama's sticking to what he's pledged about getting out of the war and not expanding it. I hope my presence will make a difference. If you just sit at home watching TV you'll get really depressed so I get out to protest.
Daniel Hernandez, Denver
Well I'm just here to show my solidarity with everyone else who opposes the war. I want to show the rest of the world that not all Americans supported our invasion of Iraq.
Delaine Novak, Denver
We're here today because we don't believe in the occupation of Iraq. We need to pull the troops out and spend the money here at home – this war was just about oil.
We have a lot of economic issues here now. We must be united; everyone should still have a voice and not be palmed off - never mind the rhetoric.
About 1,000 people participated in a Sunday morning protest organized by the group Recreate 68. Police patrolled on bicycles and on foot as the protesters marched from the state Capitol and on to Colfax Avenue.
Taser Bait, on the streets of DenverUpdate: Denver police stage bizarre behaviorby Brenda NorrellAugust 25, 2008 at 11:44 pm DENVER -- It was an incredible morning in the streets of Denver, with the voices of the people spilling out through this city during the Political Prisoners March and Rally. It was clear that there is another divide underway, those who are in the Democratic National Convention with their expense accounts and those in the streets, lending powerful voices to define the future. With most US citizens in a state of post traumatic stress syndrome, the brave faced off with Denver police and marched through the streets this morning. What began as a small crowd near the Civic Center grew as hundreds joined the march through the heart of the city to the federal courthouse.Among those speaking out was Ben Carnes, Choctaw, who read a message from Leonard Peltier. King Downing, with ACLU's Campaign against Racial Profiling, described how he was arrested in a racial profiling incident and won his case. Mumia Abu Jamal's message was heard from death row in a recording for the event. Jamal described the true portrait of US democracy.At one point, a police officer drew his weapon on the crowd in front of the federal courthouse. A legal observer with the Lawyer's Guild confronted him and after a standoff, the officer walked away. Still, there was a feeling that we could all soon be "taser bait." UPDATE: Denver police spent the day intimidating and provoking peaceful protesters. By day's end there were entirely too many police with too much time on their hands. They were eager to arrest people in Denver. It didn't matter if the people were simply walking down the street. Medics were even detained.Flashing a wide variety of weapons, Denver police positioned police gangs around the peaceful Food Not Bombs. Police even made a single file procession through the heart of Food Not Bombs' peaceful dinner. As people were eating, Denver police made one of the silliest processions ever through a dinner of rice and lentils.After spending the late afternoon in bizarre staging and intimidation tactics in the Civic Center area, Denver police began spraying people with pepper spray and shoving people randomly by day's end. Finally, apparently bored and itchy to arrest, they arrested people for their convention dog cages. It was a sad and embarrassing day for Denver police, proving that lawlessness reigns for US police. Here is the list of speakers at the Political Prisoners Rally on Monday: Pamela Africa - MOVE Organization; American Indian Movement Spokesperson Leonard Peltier Defense Committee - Ben Carnes, with a message from Leonard, direct from Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary; Rosa Clemente - United States Vice Presidential Candidate for the Green Party; Kathleen Cleaver - The Panther Nine from San Francisco; King Downing - National Coordinator of the ACLU's Campaign Against Racial Profiling; Jenny Esquiveo - Spokesperson for Eric McDavid (Political Prisoner); Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. - Prisoners of Conscience Committee; Mumia Abu Jamal - Current Political Prisoner (Recorded from Death Row); Cha Cha Jimenez - Founder of the Young Lords (Puerto Rican Resistance Prisoners); Ricardo Romero - National Coordinator for the Mexican National Liberation Movement (MLNM); Natsu Saito - Author, Activist, and Human Rights Scholar (Guantanamo Inmates); Spokesperson for the Cuban Five and a special musical performance by Native hip hop youth activists The Savage Family.The audios from the political prisoners march and rally will be posted at Earthcycles. We were live on the radio and web this morning on Earthcycles: http://www.earthcycles.net/In the streets of Denver, Brenda
Reveling in a turnout that began as hundreds and swelled into at least a thousand protesters, Recreate '68 members naysayed those who said that the event would go bust with small turnouts and a lack of speakers."People seemed to think of us like they think of cockroaches," Mark Cohen, Recreate '68 member, said to the crowd. "They weren't happy for us to be here. But we're still here."Prior to the march through Denver to the Pepsi Center, Recreate '68 hosted a carousel of speakers on the west steps of the Capitol this morning. The list of speakers included the likes of highly respected veteran and American activist Ron Kovic, author of "Born on the Fourth of July," to infamous and highly controversial figures like Ward Churchill. Generally, the voices booming out from the Capitol spoke at length against corporations and that electing a Democrat as opposed to a Republican wasn't going to better represent the American people or end foreign occupation."The Convention is being sponsored by AT&T," said Cindy Sheehan, famed anti-war activist. "Who do you think they represent?" The rhetorical question, implying that Democrats and Republicans alike operate in the interest of big corporations, was repeated many times throughout the speaking engagements to cheers from the crowd.The speaking engagements reached their highest and most interesting fervor when African-American Green Party candidates Cynthia McKinney, for president, and Rosa Clemente, for vice president, took the stage. The duo wagged a collective finger at the media and public for overlooking the historical significance of the first ever women-of-color ticket in American history, and not just white media."There are a lot of black and Latino journalists who are letting us down. How can they not cover American history," Clemente said. "The media is telling everybody who's important and who you should listen to.'Clemente described her campaign as representative of the hip-hop generation, and not just of 50 Cent's ilk, but the kind of hip-hop that acts as a tool for social and political expression."We are the hip-hop generation," Clemente said. "We walk to the mic, speak loudly and speak clearly with a political agenda. And that agenda is freedom."McKinney, the first Green Party presidential candidate since Ralph Nader, said neither Republicans nor Democrats offered any substantial change."We can see clearly now who the real stick-up artists are and that's why we're in Denver. We know that a vote for Democrats is a vote for more war," she said.Clemente went on to decry the U.S. Government for refusing the votes of Puerto Ricans. "Imagine if they could vote," she said. "They'd be voting for me, because that's how Puerto Ricans roll." Clemente is part African-American, part Puerto Rican. Clemente then introduced underground political hip-hop duo Dead Prez, who performed for about half an hour, after which the march to the Pepsi Center began.***In spite of hype that an overwhelming presence of police among protesters would incite riots and civil unrest, the speaking event and the proceeding march yielded no clouds of tear gas or yippie protesters falling prey to the baton.The only truly volatile incident occurred during Ron Kovic's speech, when a Fox reporter attempted to interview Ward Churchill and was confronted by a crowd whose hatred for Fox News seemed to trump even their hatred for George Bush or the Iraq war.Just the sight of the man holding a Fox News microphone sent the crowd into a frenzy, as Denver Open Media member Shareef Aleen barricaded the correspondent from Churchill and spat accusations of bias and an intent to put manipulative spin on the event into the reporter's face.A growing crowd swelled around the two as they verbally sparred. The fracas caught the attention of surrounding police, who began to approach just as someone pulled the Fox reporter from the crowd. The argument ended without any physical violence or police intervention, and Aleen was later seen being formally interviewed by the Fox correspondent during the march.Ron Kovic led the march in his wheelchair while a long stream of following activists hoisted banners, signs and fists into the air accompanying anti-war and anti-government shouts.One young activist, identifying himself as Richard, 18, spoke through veil of a bandanna, telling Fort Collins Now that "we're out here to make our voices be heard. We're going to continue and fight until they throw us in their cages or something happens."Mulligan Johnson, another activist, said that he was out there to protest the war and Democrats, who he said are essentially the same as Republicans. When asked who he supported instead of the two major party tickets, he shrugged his shoulders and said he wasn't sure."I'm just an anarchist," Johnson said. Recreate '68 organizers Mark Cohen and Glenn Spagnuolo told Fort Collins Now as they were marching that they were very pleased with the turnout."I think it's been an awesome day," said Cohen. "There's been an incredible list of speakers who have put truth to power.'Cohen conceded that Denver Police maintained an extremely peaceful and cooperative presence. In a recent Fort Collins Now article, fellow Recreate '68 member Tom Mestnik spouted anti-police rhetoric, saying he was all too sure that police would show up to start a fight. After all, he said, why would they spend $50 million on security if they didn't intend to use some of their weaponry? But, at least for the morning march, Mestnik was wrong."So far they've (police) been doing pretty well," Cohen said. The march ended at heavy barricades blocking entrance to the Pepsi Center fronted by an intimidating array of police officers decked out in full riot gear. Protesters stuck around, with some making snide remarks at officers for corralling them and restricting access to surrounding areas.
A group of Democratic National Convention protesters have been gathering to block major arteries in downtown Denver, moving each time as police demand they disperse.
First the marchers blocked traffic at the intersection of Broadway and Colfax Avenue and briefly refused to move.
The protesters, chanting, "no more presidents, no more wars," disrupted traffic along both streets as police tried to move them into either Civic Center or Lincoln Park.
After 10 minutes or so, police gave an order to disperse, and the group barely moved.
Several officers on horseback arrived and began moving the crowd out of the street.
"Double wide!," one officer ordered, and police lined up to move protesters.
Just as it appeared they would disperse peacefully, a small group of about eight protesters ran into traffic on Lincoln Street and sat in the street.
They chanted "our streets!" in front of Capitol.
The war protesters chanted "Two, four, six, eight. This is a police state!" as they moved down Lincoln Street to the 16th Street Mall after officers made at least one arrest.
At 4:30 p.m., the same group, though smaller, briefly blocked traffic at Stout and 16th streets and was once again was ordered to disperse.
"I don't want to be part of any violence but where are we supposed to go?," pleaded a young man wearing a bandana.
An officer on a microphone announced that they can walk out west on Stout Street, away from the mall. But some of the protesters ran into a parking garage instead before they finally dispersed.
By Felisa CardonaA Wyoming man was arrested Saturday afternoon at the Grand Hyatt hotel in downtown Denver when police noticed he was carrying weapons in the lobby.
Joseph Calanchini of Pinedale, Wyo., was arrested for unlawful carrying of a weapon and remained in custody today in Denver.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was briefly evacuated from the hotel after a police dog appeared to indicate that there may be something in Calanchini's car, but the vehicle was eventually cleared for weapons, officials said.
Calanchini was carrying two rifles and two pistols as he was checking into the hotel, according to law enforcement at Denver's Joint Information Center.
...
Calanchini told police he was in Denver on business and that he brought the guns to be repaired at a local gun shop for an upcoming hunting trip.
In an interview with 9News, Calanchini said he was sorry for causing any trouble.
"I didn't even know the DNC was in town. I don't watch the news," Calanchini told the station from the Denver City Jail. "If I had known, I would have done things differently. It was a simple mistake."
Sunday marked the beginning of many protests planned in Denver during the Democratic National Convention. A group called Recreate 68, attracted about 1,000 people to its anti-establishment protest.
Here is a video clip of Cindy Sheehan speaking at the Recreate 68 protest…
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Anti-war protests mar the events leading to tomorrow's historic Democratic National Convention, which will nominate Barack Obama as Democratic candidate for the presidential elections.Cindy Sheehan, Ward Churchill and anti-war protesters marked the day with a demonstration and march to protest the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The protesters called "Bring Them Home Now, Bring Them Home Now..."
The Colorado Independent writes that 2 people have been arrested after the DNC protest.
Two people were arrested on the Auraria Campus in Denver earlier just as a large anti-war protest outside the Pepsi Center was coming to a close. According to the People’s Law Project, a group organizing legal observers to monitor police activities at Democratic National Convention protests, the two were stopped by law enforcement officers at 1:37 p.m. At least one of them was an anti-war protester. They were arrested for not giving their names to the officers.
Gary Ross, a spokesman with the Denver Joint Information Center, which represents the Denver Police Department and other agencies during the DNC, would not give out information specific to the two arrests, saying, “We had a limited number of arrests for minor infractions with DNC.” He says the department will release that information later today.
By Josh Rogin, CQ StaffAnarchists and activists, hippies and clowns, veterans, artists, immigrants, environmentalists and other enlistees in the army of the disaffected have descended on Denver for a week of demonstrations with a multitude of agendas.
This loose amalgamation of groups has two main missions for convention week. They want to bring their various messages to the attention of delegates from around the country in an effort to influence discussion within the party. And they hope to use the convention as a catalyst for reviving activist movements across the country.
Spokesmen for several of the protest groups say they have taken their inspiration from the anti-Vietnam War generation and hope to rekindle the spirit of that era. Others want to take advantage of the convention to bolster their movement’s infrastructure.
Several dozen protesters from various groups marched down Denver’s 16th Street mall Sunday, chanting slogans such as “Bush lied, people died,” and “This is what Democracy looks like.”
Most Denver residents reacted to the demonstration with a mixture of amusement and admiration, although some resented “outsiders” clogging their downtown area with noise.
“I’m here in the hope that people will take care for others the rights that we are fond of enjoying,” said Natalia Haberl, a Denver college student.
The police on scene declined to comment on the record but said that there had been no major disturbances thus far.
The protesters are aligned with groups such as United for Peace and Justice, Progressive Democrats of America, the Alliance for Real Democracy, Code Pink and Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).
And while they generally support Barack Obama ’s presidential candidacy, they stress that they are coming to Denver to draw attention to their causes and don’t feel any responsibility to toe the party line.
“For us, putting the pressure on Democrats is what we feel can do the most good,” said Jared Hood, regional coordinator for IVAW. “They’re the most likely ally to help us, but if that pressure is not there, we can easily be ignored. We’re trying to put ourselves in a position where our voices are heard.”
Their tactics are expected to range from peaceful, music-filled gatherings to guerrilla street theater that is meant to shock the public consciousness. Some groups have vowed to cause disturbances at the convention, raising the specter of confrontations with the police and mass arrests.
Anti-War Protests Planned
With the ongoing Iraq war on most protesters minds, IVAW is among the protest groups that will focus their fire on the demand that Democrats do more to bring the troops home.
Broad Array of Protesters Seek Both To Influence and Infuriate
These protesters see their role as trying to move the Democratic Party toward a more strident anti-war position. Many groups think that Obama’s 16-month timeline for withdrawing troops is too long, while others oppose his proposal to send more troops to Afghanistan.
“What we’re doing at the DNC is highlighting that the Democratic Party was elected into the majority in 2006 to put pressure on the Bush administration . . . and they haven’t done that,” said Hood.
One of their priorities will be to shine a light on what it alleges are the effects of Bush administration policy overseas.
IVAW’s Tuesday event, “Operation First Casualty,” will have veterans in full battle dress pretending to abuse volunteers dressed as Iraqi civilians, to show the public “all of the brutality that American soldiers are trained to treat Iraqi civilians with.” This exercise will include mock arrests, boots on backs, and racial name calling, Hood explained.
IVAW members will conduct “patrols” throughout Denver. To skirt the rules on protest permits, IVAW classifies its show as “guerrilla street theatre performance,” which is protected under a different section of the law.
Amnesty International plans to erect a cell it says is based on those used to house prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Phillip Carter, the Obama campaign’s national veterans director, said that although the campaign is not working directly with the anti-war groups, their participation is welcome, even if it is misdirected.
“We support their right to speak out and are glad these veterans are embracing the opportunity that the convention provides,” said Carter, “But we would hope they would direct the majority of their efforts at the Republican Party, which is responsible for the war in Iraq and the policies they seek to change.”
Frank Bessinger, a representative of Veterans for Peace, saw it a little differently.
“I don’t think Obama’s fully committed to ending the war,” he said.
Rekindling the Spirit of the 1960s
Several groups will join together to organize a week-long program of concerts, lectures, information sessions, marches, and other events designed to entertain and educate the 100,000 visitors who are expected in Denver during the convention.
Tent State University, a play on Kent State University in Ohio, where National Guardsmen opened fire and killed four students in May 1970, is an umbrella organization of groups planning a constant presence throughout the week.
Broad Array of Protesters Seek Both To Influence and Infuriate
The group will offer free “courses” taught by prominent liberal figures, including presidential candidate Ralph Nader, Green Party presidential candidate and former Rep. Cynthia A. McKinney (1993-2003; 2005-2007), and Mark Rudd, a leader of the 1960s radical group Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and a founder of the violent Weather Underground.
Rudd is expected to steer protesters away from the violent tactics he embraced in the 1960s, focusing instead on non-violent forms of protest.
Organizers say they also hope to use the convention to establish a Denver chapter of a resurrected SDS.
Conservative media will surely seek to link such radical groups with Obama and the Democratic Party, and Rudd’s presence could help: Obama has already faced criticism for his relationship with unrepentant former Weather Underground member William Ayres.
Protest organizers say it is not their responsibility to protect Obama’s image.
“I don’t really care who the media ties Obama to. That’s his problem, not mine,” said Joanna Pease, a spokeswoman for Tent State at the DNC.
But most protest groups aim to conduct activities in which convention delegates can participate. They have set their sights on state delegations with liberal constituencies, such as those from New York and California.
“There’s this idea that being a delegate and being a demonstrator are exclusive of each other, so we’re trying to create an environment where you can be against the war and then also be a delegate,” Pease said.
The first major event was a Sunday march entitled “Funk the War,” where five groups converged for a concert on Denver’s 16th Street Mall.
Code Pink, the women’s group that gained notoriety for interrupting congressional hearings on the Iraq war, sent 80 members to Denver and will highlight the effects of Iraq on the environment with their “War is not green” campaign, which will include bike rides around the city.
“It ties the green sustainability movement to the anti-war movement,” aid Zoe Williams, Code Pink’s convention coordinator.
Forty Years Later
While all the protest groups share an animosity toward the current administration, not all of them get along with each other.
Broad Array of Protesters Seek Both To Influence and Infuriate
One umbrella group, called ReCreate 68, has provoked some ire among other groups because of its harsh rhetoric.
Other confrontational groups, including DNC Disruption 08 and Unconventional Denver, plan to try to crash delegate and lobbying parties, block traffic and “reclaim the public space.”
But while the fringe groups have the ability to cause disruptions, most of the activists in Denver oppose such tactics.
“All of that was awesome in the 60s, but that had its time and place,” said Pease, “ But 2008 and 1968 are not the same.”
Designated Protest Areas, Holding Pens
The decision by convention organizers to designate a space for protests on the opposite side of the media tents near the Pepsi Center has provoked anger among protest organizers, who have vowed to disobey such restrictions by holding mock sleep-ins at sites outside the protest perimeter.
“I have an issue with the cage that free speech is being quarantined to,” said Code Pink’s Williams, who pointed out that the space violates the DNC’s promise that protesters would be granted a spot within sight and sound of the convention.
“I don’t see how delegates are going to be able to see or hear the messaging that the groups have to offer,” she added.
Protest groups also are upset about a warehouse on the northeast side of Denver that has been designated as a detention center for anyone arrested during the convention.
Some activists have dubbed the warehouse “Gitmo on the Platte,” after the South Platte River that runs through Denver.
Protest groups have been meeting regularly with the Denver Police Department, the mayor’s office, the U.S. Justice Department, and other agencies to establish a base of communications and head off any misunderstandings.
Law enforcement has received a $50 million grant to spend on security surrounding the convention.
The majority of those funds will be used to reimburse local police departments for overtime pay for the hundreds of extra policemen on the streets throughout the week.
Broad Array of Protesters Seek Both To Influence and Infuriate
Of the remaining funds, more than $1 million will be spent on physical barricades, about $850,000 for crowd control equipment, $725,000 for processing and holding arrestees, and about $3.5 million to buy new police and fire vehicles, according to a document provided by the Department of Safety.
Dan FroschThe Denver National Convention saw its first major protest today, and it ended peacefully with no immediate reports of arrests.
About 1,000 people organized by the group Recreate 68 gathered on the steps of Denver’s capitol on Sunday morning, carrying colorful signs and shouting anti-establishment chants that railed against such targets as corporate influences on U.S. politics, the war in Iraq and big oil.
“We’re here to call the Democrats out, to let them hear our voices,” said Laurie Hunter, 55, of Denver, who said she was an Obama supporter but still felt the protesters needed to be heard.
After listening to various speakers, including Cindy Sheehan, the anti-war protester, and a spirited performance by the rap group dead prez, the protesters set off on a permitted parade route, bound for the Pepsi Center, just a few miles away. Curious onlookers watched as the protest, led by Ron Kovic, the wheelchair-bound Vietnam Veteran and anti-war activist, snaked through downtown Denver, accompanied by bicycle police.
At one point, a small contingent of people draped in American flag T-shirts and hats shouted at the group as the protestors passed by.
One of those was Dale Parrish, 46, of LaSalle, Colo., who held a sign that said, “Freedom is not free.” Mr. Parrish said his son had done two tours of duty in Iraq, was bound for Afghanistan, and was fighting so the protesters could have their right to free speech.
Eventually the protest reached the gates of a security perimeter set up by police around the Pepsi Center.
There, as heavily armed police in riot gear and plain-clothes Secret Service agents stood in formation, the protesters stopped for about an hour — intermittently going silent and then shouting slogans.
“This is what a police state looks like,” one girl yelled at the police line.
After about an hour, however, the group began to disperse quietly.
“We’re pleased with the way things went,” said Detective John White, with the Denver Police. “We want people to know that the city is open for business, and we want to encourage people to come downtown.”
Aside from the brief standoff with police at the Pepsi Center, the march went off without incident and organizers seemed pleased with the turnout and their interaction with police.
While the numbers were not the tens of thousands some organizers had promised, Recreate 68 organizer Larry Hales said it was about “quality not quantity.”
As the protesters wandered off, one teenager mumbled to his friend, “Dude, I’m thirsty. Let’s go get some water or something.”
New owner's promise of sustainable logging brings activists down from redwood perches.
By Eric Bailey, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer August 24, 2008 SCOTIA, CALIF. — Beneath the gnarled green-needled boughs of the North Coast redwoods, a remarkable encounter one recent day shook the roots of the forest's fiercest struggle. A top timber company executive hiked into the woods with a message for the latest generation of tree sitters perched on platforms high in the massive limbs of the ancient trees they've campaigned to protect. Come down out of the sky, he told them. The war is over. With that, a cautious transformation has begun: For the first time in the memory of even the grayest of locals, the vast lands of Humboldt County's most storied timber firm could soon be devoid of protest. Ever since Texas millionaire Charles Hurwitz and his Maxxam Inc. used junk bonds to finance the hostile takeover of Pacific Lumber Co. in 1986, the logging concern has been the focus of a stubborn series of demonstrations -- from the "Redwood Summer" civil-disobedience arrests in 1990 and Julia "Butterfly" Hill's celebrated two-year tree-sit in Luna to the latest encampments aloft in the Nanning Creek and Fern Gully groves. Now a bankruptcy and new ownership group have uprooted the status quo. A timber firm owned largely by the Fisher family, of Gap stores fame, acquired Pacific Lumber through bankruptcy court, renamed it Humboldt Redwood Co. and set upon a new path away from the more aggressive logging practices of the Hurwitz days. Mike Jani, Humboldt Redwood president and chief forester, vowed to the tree sitters during his recent meetings beneath the conifers to hew hard to the tenets of sustainable logging: essentially cutting no more wood per year than the forest can grow. Jani told them he would spare the oldest of the old-growth redwoods, the world's tallest living organisms. In the days since Jani's unheralded Aug. 12 walk into the woods, word has spread among the activists behind the redwood curtain of the North Coast. "This is excellent news, to say the least," said Jeanette Jungers, who has fought to spare these forests for more than a quarter-century. "We've gone from being characterized as environmental terrorists to being embraced. This is like falling down a rabbit hole. I feel like Alice in Wonderland." More than just deliver news, Jani offered a humane embrace. He applauded the activists' perseverance and dedication to a worthy cause. He voiced heartfelt assurances. In one case, he talked a balky sitter out of a tree and then offered a hug. His visit, Jani said later, was "an issue of human respect." The last of the tree sitters, now toiling 150 feet above the fern-decked forest floor to pack up their high-altitude encampments, took time off one recent afternoon to share their glee. "This is a huge, huge milestone," said a 22-year-old woman who identified herself only as Cedar and has been perched aloft since she arrived from Edmonton, Canada, nearly a year ago. "It's been unbelievable to me that this has happened. But this isn't my victory -- I just sat on guard." Signs of change can be spotted in the gloaming of the forest floor. Tape reading "no cut" adorns the old growth in Nanning Creek grove, which sits on a hillside overlooking the old Pacific Lumber mill in Scotia, 15 miles south of Eureka. Marks targeting trees to be cut have been stripped clean. The authenticity of Jani's gesture was burnished by a stark absence of forest industry PR: no press releases from the company, no invitation for news reporters to watch. Officials at Humboldt Redwood Co. say Jani's message to the young activists of the trees was old news. The new firm is an offshoot of Mendocino Redwood Co., which also is owned by the Fisher clan. Over the course of a decade's ownership, Mendocino Redwood has won over many forest activists with a brand of logging that's lighter on the land. The firm's directives to avoid axing old growth trees or clear-cutting vast groves were among the selling points it used to win the right to acquire Pacific Lumber. "We hope to duplicate the things we do well one county away," said Sandy Dean, chairman of the timber firms. "The intent is to operate with a high standard of environmental stewardship." Pacific Lumber under Hurwitz mowed down trees in vast clear cuts to maximize profits and hungered to cut mammoth thousand-year-old trees; the new company intends to wield the chain saw far more selectively on its sprawling 328 square miles of coastal forest and won't cut any redwood born prior to 1800 with a diameter of 4 feet or more. Such practices have earned the company certification by the Forest Stewardship Council, a stamp of approval required by retailers of "green" products such as Home Depot, Lowe's and Kinko's. Dean said it's a more expensive way to manage a forest, but the family-owned firm believes "having a healthy, well-stocked forest will be a good investment over the long term." Scott Greacen, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center in nearby Garberville, called the meeting in the woods "a really important moment." "It doesn't negate the tragedy that has already happened," he said. "But the hope is it'll show the industry there is a better way." Shunka Wakan, who runs the North Coast Earth First! media project, said there is "this amazing sense almost of, 'The war is over.' " In each of the groves, the last of the tree sitters are taking it slowly. On the hillside near Scotia, Cedar and another tree sitter, who preferred to go by the single name of Billy, are cautiously decommissioning their encampment in the limbs. They expect to be on the ground for good in less than a month, nearly a year since they took to tree boughs like the elves of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lothlorien. They cooked and ate meals aloft, bathed in rainwater, watched the clouds roll overhead. They've come to the ground only to retrieve supplies ferried in by the scores of activists who make up the tree-sit support crew. Winter storm winds rocked each giant redwood like a metronome. Cedar's small platform shifted badly in the worst gale, threatening to pitch her off. She huddled under a tarp for weeks, cocooning to escape the winds and rains. Now they can hardly believe it is nearly over. "This is like such a huge step," Billy said. "I was expecting the run-around, but as soon as the new company arrived it was like -- bam -- overnight they made what seemed sincere promises." Neither one talked with Jani when he appeared on the forest floor. Those negotiations were left to Amy Arcuri, one of the first tree sitters at Nanning grove three years ago. "Before, the company wasn't in it for the future," said Arcuri, who continued to climb the old growth even during the early months of her pregnancy with daughter River, now 21 months old. "But these new people appreciate the priceless value in these old trees beyond just selling lumber." She knows there are bound to be squabbles with the new owners but hopes trust can prevail. And there are always the two other big timber firms in the region, Green Diamond Resource Company and Sierra Pacific Industries. In September, activists are holding a weeklong training camp for new recruits to learn climbing, rappelling and the art of nonviolent civil disobedience in the woods. The battle against old Pacific Lumber may be over. But the war over the North Coast forest continues.
Ralph Nader has arrange to have a giant air-filled replica of the Liberty Bell, and also a giant air-filled bottle, placed in Invesco Field in Denver. That is the site of Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, set for August 28. The Liberty Bell and the bottle both have messages about opening up the presidential debates. Here is a picture of the Liberty Bell replica.
...
Dear Senator Obama:
The Nader Team just arrived in Denver for the DNC.
We wanted to see what all the fuss was about, so we paid a visit to Invesco Field, the site of your upcoming speech.
Ironically, it was easier for us to get in there than it was to get in one of your debates.
Here we are protesting that fact.
As you can see from this photo, we managed to inflate a huge liberty bell at Invesco Field.
You know, liberty: the freedom to speak and debate.
A liberty that third party candidates are routinely denied by the mainstream press and mainstream candidates.
We want to change that.
So we are issuing a challenge to the Commission on Presidential Debates -- liberate debates from corporate control and end the anti-democratic exclusion of third party candidates.
And we are issuing a challenge to you.
You are the candidate of hope and change.
Consequently, we hope you will change your mind and make good on your offer to debate anytime, anywhere.
Participate in the Google debates in New Orleans on September 18th and urge them to include third parties.
by Phillip Faruggio / August 23rd, 2008Yes, the campaign season is upon us. Once again, this One Party Duopoly has forged another beaut. It seems they always give the suckers choices: column A) from the extreme Right and column B) from the Center Right. Yup, sorry all you 9 to 5 Americans who watch shrinking paychecks and shrinking home values as you pump what truly has become “Black Gold.” Let’s look carefully at these two major candidates from the self perpetuating “lesser of two evils” school of thought.Say hello to Senator John McLess. Here is a man, with all due respect to the courage and strength he exhibited as a prisoner of war, that now lacks the courage of conviction. He was caught up in the Keating 5 scandel of the 80s, whereupon he said he became “born again” regarding money in politics. McLess co-sponsored the McCain-Feingold law, which was, to this writer, only the tip of the iceberg concerning the influence of money in politics. It actually did absolutely nothing to address the stranglehold that the lobbyist system has on our elected officials. Companies and (groups of) individuals could continue to “bundle” money to politicians. The state of Maine (1996) passed a Clean Elections Law which finally addressed the need for public funding of campaigns. Matter of fact, in the first election cycle the new law was active, 2000, almost one third of those who won office did so by not accepting or spending private funds. Amazing! Due to the Supreme Court ruling of 1976 (Buckley vs. Valeo) state governments (and the feds) could not outlaw money donations from campaigns. Thus, the Maine law had to be a voluntary system. Yet, if John Mcless really is the maverick he pretends to be, he would have stood up in the Senate and pushed for legislation to (at least) get rid of the lobbying system. How dare he, or any Congressperson, not be outraged that members of their club can leave office and go, almost immediately, into lobbying the same people they once sat with in the halls of Congress. Shameful! Senator McLess, when he announced for the Republican Party nomination, could have done what former California Gov. Jerry Brown did. Brown, running for the presidency in 1988, announced that he would only accept up to 100 dollars in campaign donations from any one person. Imagine, if you would, the precedent that could have been set. By now, 20 years later, our whole system of electoral politics as we now know it could have been reshaped. No, Senator McLess is too busy sucking up to the fat cats and Bush regime to dare touch that tip of the iceberg.How about the subject of torture? Here we have a man, McCain, who was brutalized by the North Vietnamese for what, over five years? Now, understand, this writer realizes that McCain could have been convicted by those North Vietnamese for being a war criminal. After all, he was violating their sovereignty by flying over their air space in an act of aggression. But, weren’t we at war in Vietnam, you may ask? Forsaking the crap about the Gulf of Tonkin resolution, our nation never declared war on North Vietnam. Never! McCain, like hundreds of thousands of our brave young men at that time, was being used, perhaps illegally (according to both international law and our very own constitution) to carry out warped foreign policies. Did his captors have the right to torture him for his actions? Absolutely not!! Yet, he now turns a “half blind eye” to what the Bush gang has been doing. One the one hand, McCain speaks out against torture. Then refuses to hold this administration and its minions accountable for it. What message does that send to the rest of the world ?” Do as I say, not as I do.” McCain became more and more of McLess each time he ignored the Bush gang minions who sat there and out and out insulted the intelligence of the American public! And, these jokers still do it! This new gem of an Attorney General, Mooqueasy, sits there in front of the Senate committee and dares insult every family in every part of the world that has had a loved one (or themselves) “water boarded.” How dare the Congress and the press not stand up and shame this man out of office! Shame on my old grade school chum, Senator Schumer, for backing the nomination of this disgraceful man! As to Senator McLess, he of all people should have lambasted this new Attorney General. Lambasted him!So, one could write a treatise on the reasons not to ever wish to see Senator McLess as president. His foolish sing song of “Bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran” was perhaps the lowest of the low. His support for hacks like Scalia, Thomas, Alito and Roberts on the highest court in the land is an insult to the intelligence of any American who studies history. By the way, how about this “clean cut” Johnny Boy Roberts, who the Democrats fawned over and rushed through confirmation (don’t forget that Obama voted to confirm him)? Roberts was a Reagan administration lawyer, at the time, who wrote the draft for the unitary executive principle. Matter of fact, Robert’s draft was so over the top that the Reagan boys pushed him out. Now, the unitary executive principle is what Bush Junior has been using each time he issues a “signing statement.” In layman’s terms, this ever dangerous unitary executive is when the president disregards enforcing laws that Congress passes. Rather than use his constitutional right to veto, Bush follows Johnny Boy Roberts’ credo and simply signs the law. With pen still in hand he then smugly states that he will refuse to enforce it. Do I hear monarchy anyone?So onto this Obama Drama , but one more Democratic Party scam perpetrated on you by the rich and powerful who run politics. To all those sincere and dutiful Afro American neighbors of mine , sorry, but this guy is not even what you pray him to be. My brother, a white man, is married to my sister-in-law, a black woman, and they have two children. Are their kids white? Black? No, they are a mixture of two proud heritage’s. When I look at my niece and nephew I do not see color. Rather a blend of colors. So what!? Yet, Barack Obama played the race card (or allowed it to be played) when he ran for statewide office in Chicago. It served him then and it is serving him now. So much for that.Change.Senator Obama preaches it, over and over. Yet, when his top foreign policy advisor was interviewed by author Jeremy Scahill (Blackwater) , the question of using private military contractors was brought up. Scahill was told, categorically, that as president, Obama would still use private military contractors (AKA mercenaries) to operate in “any foreign situation where our military or business interests were involved.” Change. Hey third world countries, “The Prussians are coming, the Prussians are coming!” Does one need to recite the laundry list of negatives in having Blackwater, or any other private military contractor (AKA Mercenary Army) patrolling the streets of some foreign nation in our name? Isn’t it bad enough that they were doing their neo fascist shuffle in the streets of New Orleans right after Katrina? Read Scahill’s book and make up your own mind.Change.Senator Obama refuses to support Hearings of Inquiry into the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. He refuses to support Rep. Kucinich’s articles of impeachment (read Bugliosi’s new book The Prosecution of George W Bush). Senator Obama also voted to let the telecom companies off the hook (no pun intended) for their covert aid in spying on Americans under the guise of national security. Senator Obama has consistently voted more and more funding for the (illegal, by the way) occupation of Iraq. He now wants to transfer American forces into Afghanistan to fight the Taliban. This is the same Taliban that America once wholeheartedly supported until they a) reneged on an oil pipeline deal with Unocal and b) made it their policy to destroy the opium business that the warlords were running. Yes, the Taliban were fanatical religious dictators. But to Clinton and then to Junior Bush they were our bad guys. This was the same thinking that recent administrations had for Saddam Hussein for decades prior to the 1991 Gulf War.Change.Senator Obama, as President Obama, refuses to push for comprehensive Windfall Profits Taxes on Big Oil, though they secured record profits while the rest of our economy sputters. Senator Obama supported the bailout of Bear Stearns, at our taxpayer expense, while many of his Wall Street donors continue to earn tens of millions, hundreds of millions a year.Iraq. What to do? Well, many in the Congress and the alternative media implored the Democratic Party to “Just Say No” when the annual funding bills for the occupation of Iraq came to the floor. No money, no occupation. The Democrats, 99% of them in fact, stated over and over again that it was a mistake to invade Iraq. They railed how we need to “get our troops out of harms way and leave Iraq to the Iraqis” etc. Blah Blah Blah!! Yet, the Democratic party never once supported those of us who were brave and principled enough to stand up and protest in our towns and cities across America. Few , if any, Democratic politicians would come and stand with us. Locally, we have a man running for Congress, Clint Curtis, who did just that. He came out for cutting funding for the occupation when he ran against incumbent Republican Tom Feeney in ‘06. He stood with us on street corners. Now, the Democratic elites are running someone against him, a woman with lots of money behind her. She was AWOL since before the invasion of Iraq, never speaking out against it, right up to now. She supported the funding for the Iraq occupation. Matter of fact, she is on board with most of what the DLC (Democratic Leadership Committee) spews. Where is the Obama Drama on all this? He was so outspoken (he says) against invading Iraq. How often and how passionate did he speak at rallies and demonstrations in ‘02, ‘03, ‘04 , ‘05, ‘06… You get the drift? No, Obama was too busy voting along with the mainstream Democrats on just about every major issue and bill. Did he join with 19 other Senators who wanted to filibuster Alito? Did he vote against the confirmation of Ms. “Smoking gun” Rice for Secretary of State ? Yeah, folks, real… Change.Well, we do have choices in November. For those from the purist conservative way of thinking, you can vote Libertarian. For we on the progressive side of politics, there is Cynthia McKinney with the Green Party or Ralph Nader. Isn’t it time for the best choice to be the principled one?
Emma Goldman was an early figure in birth control history and the free speech movement. She supported anarchism, the women's rights movement, and lesbian rights.
The Emma Goldman Papers, a project of the University of California at Berkeley, uses its Emma Goldman Online Exhibition to educate young women about the life of this amazing activist. This guide describes how Goldman, born in imperial Russia and educated in Germany, learned about anarchism and other progressive ideals from an early age and then journeyed to America where she began a life's work in increasing opportunities for women.
Early Anarchism and Work for Free Speech
After divorcing her first husband, the EGOE reports, Goldman fell in love with a fellow anarchist and became more strongly tied to the movement. That man was then sentenced to twenty-two years in prison after trying to kill a Carnegie Steel bigwig, and Goldman herself was later arrested because the man who assassinated President McKinley had attended one of her lectures.
After she was released, Goldman disappeared from public life for several years, but then returned to the political scene and began publishing the journal Mother Earth, which had an eleven-year run. She got involved with the Free Speech League, which later evolved into the ACLU, and gave lectures on the topic of free speech.
Reproductive Rights and Anti-War Activism
In 1915 and 1916, Goldman became an advocate for women's rights to birth control, and ultimately, general reproductive choice. She smuggled birth control into the country and was arrested several times, though that campaign was cut short by World War I. Speaking out on conscientious objection, Goldman served a prison term and then was deported to the Soviet Union for her views.
During her time in the United States, Goldman focused not only on birth control, but on sexual freedom for women in general. The Jewish Women's Archive describes her radical views – she felt that the patriarchy was oppressive and restrained women, that marriage was legalized prostitution, and that requiring women to bear children limited them socially and economically. Interestingly, she was opposed to the suffrage movement because she felt that its approach was illusory and rooted in middle-class privilege, and that it would not bring any real improvement to women's inferior position.
Goldman was criticized even by her progressive and anarchist colleagues for her views on homosexuality. She believed in free love, regardless of gender and regardless of sexual preference. In a letter excerpted in the 2001 anthology Come Out Fighting (Chris Bull, ed.), Goldman explained her views on homosexuality in a logical and reasoned manner. Though she denied the lesbianism of a colleague in that letter, she also made clear her acceptance of homosexuality and the lack of a preference for one form of sexuality over another.
Emma Goldman was clearly far ahead of her time. She not only was a forerunner in the women's rights movement, the birth control movement, and the free speech movement, but wrote and spoke in a way that made clear her logical approach to sensitive issues. She refused to accept second-best, and believed in the power of love, openness, and community.
The copyright of the article Women's Rights Activist & Anarchist Emma Goldman in Gender Equality Activists is owned by Judith Faucette. Permission to republish Women's Rights Activist & Anarchist Emma Goldman in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
Aug. 21, 2008 -- If you break a fluorescent light bulb, you've got a mess on your hands. The bulbs contain mercury, a potent neurotoxin that turns cleanup into a toxic waste management project.
Now, research led by Robert Hurt of Brown University has created a product that absorbs mercury 70 times better than the best available technology. The new sorbent -- made of nanoparticles of the element selenium -- could help clean up after breakages in the home, or during shipping or recycling.
Such a technology is likely to become more critical as people are encouraged to switch from incandescent bulbs to energy-saving fluorescent lighting.
To make the sorbent, the team layered the nano-selenium between a tissue and an impermeable backing layer.
By covering the breakage with the paper for several days, "you can stop almost all of the release," Hurt said. "We think it forms mercury selenide, which is a very stable compound.
Without the paper, the mercury slowly evaporates from the broken bulb over several days. Because the mercury vaporizes, Hurt says, "You are not supposed to vacuum it up. You can distribute the mercury around the house." (EPA's recommendations allow for vacuuming, with some precautions.)
The team proposes that the paper could be included with the packaging for the bulbs, so it could soak up spills that might occur during transit. They presented their results this week at a meeting of the American Chemical Society.
Although the potential for mercury release at home may seem scary, "It's not a really high risk, honestly," Hurt said. "It's very hard to imaging poisoning an adult with a CFL [compact fluorescent light bulb]."
The amount of mercury in the bulbs is relatively small, and although the greatest release happens immediately, it takes several days for it all to esc
In the aftermath of Katrina, New Orleans residents saw hundreds of public housing units demolished, never to be replaced.
Eternity 
Uiramutá village in Raposa Serra do Sol.
White male yuppie in his early 30s jogging
on the sidewalk past
a bodega, a mosque, and Starbuck's
dutifully stops at red light and
bounces in place
(can't let that heart rate drop)
Across the street
Pakistani boy no more than six
waits for the light to change
holding the barely visible
hand of his veiled, shrouded mother as he giggles
uncontrollably at the sight of a bouncing
white male yuppie
*
[Ask me how hard it was to find a photo of a smiling Palestinian Boy, and how easy it was to find a white man jogging...]
Cochabamba 1999 battle over water, against 
*
I have known the inexorable sadness of pencils,
Neat in their boxes, dolor of pad and paper weight,
All the misery of manilla folders and mucilage,
Desolation in immaculate public places,
Lonely reception room, lavatory, switchboard,
The unalterable pathos of basin and pitcher,
Ritual of multigraph, paper-clip, comma,
Endless duplicaton of lives and objects.
And I have seen dust from the walls of institutions,
Finer than flour, alive, more dangerous than silica,
Sift, almost invisible, through long afternoons of tedium,
Dropping a fine film on nails and delicate eyebrows,
Glazing the pale hair, the duplicate grey standard faces.
PSL activists celebrate the collection of 30,000 signatures in New York state
