Wake Up, God Dammit!

God Dammit, Aaron Elijah, Thou Shalt Not Snitch!

2012-02-28T13:00:00.002-08:00

Aaron Elijah: Enemy of Occupy Seattle. He LIED and attempted to make a false report to Seattle Police just before the "Bring Diaz Down!" event at City Hall. Click on pic to enlarge.

More open, unapologetic advocacy of snitchcraft by Aaron Elijah, from two days before the "Bring Diaz Down!" event. Also proof of his ties to local law enforcement. Click on image to enlargen.

Class Struggle Heats Up At Occupy Seattle

2012-02-26T14:01:00.000-08:00

The conflict between reformers, revolutionaries, and those who simply "just want everybody to get along." has culminated in a shutdown of the Occupy Seattle website and calls from various working groups, both 'liberal' and 'radical', to separate from Occupy Seattle completely, while others are advocating taking Occupy into the communities via the existing working groups.

Accusations of 'agent provocateurs', 'vanguardism', 'racism', 'race baiting', 'a fresh coup attempt from the liberals', and 'opportunism' are now flying around the local movement. As this is being posted, all the political factions of Occupy Seattle are gearing up for an ideological showdown tonight at general assembly at the Wa. State Convention Center at 7pm PST over a proposal asking whether or not to support a global general strike on May 1st, 2012.

Brandon Darby: A Confirmed Enemy of the People Stalks Oakland.

2012-02-19T12:06:00.000-08:00

Poll: Liberals Support Amerikkkan-Style Fascism.

2012-02-09T13:16:00.000-08:00

God Dammit, Shane Farrow, Thou Shalt Not Snitch!

2012-02-09T13:04:00.000-08:00

Shane: "And Jacob, I'd report you to the police." Click to Enlarge.

The Real Legacy of the Amerikkkan Civil Rights Movement.

2012-02-08T18:10:00.000-08:00

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s image on the back of a King County Sheriff's vehicle. Seattle-area uncle tom/neo-kkkolonial elements pushed hard for this particular 'civil rights' reform. Lol. No, seriously.

Truck Drivers Shut Down Port of Seattle to Expose Dangers of the Job.

2012-02-07T08:55:00.000-08:00

UPDATE 8:30 pm PST 2/7/12 - Port Truckers rally under the viaduct at S. Alaskan Way and S. Hanford to get stolen wages from employer.

UPDATE 8:35 pm PST 2/2/12 -Seattle Times Transportation writer Mike Lindblom breaks the Port’s media blackout attempts! http://bit.ly/xj0pyn

UPDATE 12:00 pm PST 2/2/12 – Port officials are denying to reporters that workers have walked off the job to protest runaway safety hazards; they claim there is zero slowdown! Please help get the truth out…

Monday mornings are the busiest at any port, but this past one in Seattle the trucks were parked. Drivers spanning the major companies that do the most business in the Puget Sound simply turned off the engines, got out of their cabs, and stopped hauling. They had somewhere else they needed to be.

Steely determination led roughly 150 port drivers to sacrifice income and risk retaliation to make the hour-and-a-half trek to swarm the State Capitol in Olympia. Commerce at the Port of Seattle slowed to a trickle, and hasn’t picked up since.

This week the truck drivers – who toil under the guise of false self-employment – are making it their job to sound the alarm on occupational hazards, overweight containers, shoddy equipment, risks to motorists, and the culprits responsible for these rampant safety violations: their employers and their giant retail shipper clients like Wal-Mart, Sears, and Target.

The trucking bosses at Pacer, Seattle Freight, Western Ports and others were stunned, but the state troopers weren’t. Washington’s top cops testified before lawmakers right alongside the workers, detailing a dizzying array of dangers associated with the drayage industry: Chronic safety violations so serious that an investigative journalist discovered late last year that officers pulled 32% of rigs they inspected outside the terminals off the road — double the rate for trucks throughout the state. When specially trained troopers conducted more thorough inspections in 2011, King 5 TV reported, 58% of Port of Seattle cargo vehicles were yanked. And according to Captain Jason Berry’s testimony, an astonishing 80% have been put out of service during certain recent time periods.

If the drivers’ collective action sent shockwaves throughout the shipping and trucking industry, then their demonstration equally uprooted a commonly held societal belief. During the Occupy Wall Street port shutdowns, activists and well-intentioned sympathizers debated whether the blockades would siphon wages from port workers – arguably one of the greatest symbols of the 99% — or if it would suck profits from the 1%, such as the Seattle-based global terminal operator, Goldman Sachs’ SSA Marine, and its West Coast trucking outfit, Shipper’s Transport Express.

What their protest proves is that port drivers, as inside agitators, are very much willing to lose pay as a means to powerfully reveal the crushing economic forces that literally put their lives and livelihoods at risk. Even, and especially amidst a severe economic downturn. Their historical ability to self organize, unite, and seize opportunities to improve their working conditions is unfolding before our eyes. Hundreds more drivers have since joined the safety work stoppage, and some companies remain shut with too few workers to move the cargo.

As their trucks remain parked, they’ve asked allies and supporters to help amplify their voices by reposting this and spreading the word about why they flooded the legislative hearing room to standing room-only capacity. One by one, they ferociously spoke in favor of HB 2527, a bill to shift responsibility for fixing the hazards, paying fines, and correcting safety violations off their sweat-ridden backs, and onto the broad shoulders of the mega-rich corporate owners of the tools of the trade like chassis.

Semere Woldu, who has been hauling cargo at the Port of Seattle for 8 years, told the panel:
“Our work is extremely dangerous. So the safety laws are very important. Unfortunately though, we drivers are forced to pay for violations that we are not responsible for. We often get tickets or are cited for faulty equipment that we don’t own. One time, my boss knew I had a heavy load. He told me to go by the scale early in the morning when it was closed to avoid having the load weighed.”

More drivers cited these illegal pressures their employers put them under, and shared their fears for their personal safety and the lives of motorists. “Every day, I haul two or three loads that are overweight, possibly putting myself and others at risk,” said Aynalem Moba, a 14-year port veteran. “The truck could tip over. I’m afraid I might kill myself or someone else. Sometimes we’re carrying hazardous materials, and we don’t know it.”

Some explained the retaliation they face for blowing the whistle. They get banned from the terminals or are denied work by their dispatchers.

More here.

$50,000 Will Not Make Up For Forced Sterilization.

2012-02-06T08:07:00.000-08:00

By David Zucchino. Los Angeles Times. RALEIGH, N.C.

Elaine Riddick was a confused and frightened 14-year-old. She was poor and black, the daughter of alcoholic parents in a segregated North Carolina town. And she was pregnant after being raped by a man from her neighborhood.

Riddick's miserable circumstances attracted the attention of social workers, who referred her case to the state's Eugenics Board. In an office building in Raleigh, five men met to consider her fate. Board members concluded that the girl was "feebleminded" and doomed to "promiscuity. " They recommended sterilization. Riddick's illiterate grandmother, Maggie Woodard, known as Miss Peaches, marked an "X" on a consent form. Hours after Riddick gave birth to a son in Edenton, N.C., on March 5, 1968, a doctor sliced through her fallopian tubes and cauterized them.

"They butchered me like a hog," recalls Riddick, now 57. Nearly 44 years later, the State of North Carolina has proposed paying $50,000 each to compensate Riddick and other victims of its eugenics program.
It's the first state to consider compensation for victims of forced sterilization -- up to 65,000 in at least 30 states, according to most estimates.

Between 1929 and 1974, nearly 7,600 people were sterilized under orders from North Carolina's Eugenics Board. Nearly 85% were women or girls, some as young as 10. The state estimates that 1,500-2,000 of the victims are still alive.

The board's declared goal was to purify the state's population by weeding out mentally ill, diseased, "feebleminded" and other people deemed undesirable. In a 1950 pamphlet, the Human Betterment League of North Carolina said the board was protecting "the children of future generations and the community at large," adding that "you wouldn't expect a moron to run a train or a feebleminded woman to teach school."

Riddick has endured a lifetime of humiliation and regret. She can barely control her outrage when she discusses what the state did to her -- and what the state proposes by way of compensation and apology.
"Fifty thousand dollars?" she says, her voice rising. "Is that what they think my life is worth? How much are the kids I never had worth? How much?" The $50,000 compensation recommended Jan. 10 by the Governor's Eugenics Compensation Task Force must be approved by the state Legislature. If so,
Riddick said, she will refuse it.

"Fifty thousand dollars isn't nearly enough to bury my pain," she says. "It's shut-up-and- go-away money." Dirt poor and pregnant, she dropped out of school in the eighth grade.

After she gave birth, her son was put in her grandmother' s care, and Riddick was sent to live with an aunt in New York. At 18, she married a man she met there. When he discovered she had been sterilized, Riddick says, he abused her. They later divorced.

Riddick struggled for years to shed the "feebleminded" label stamped on her records. She earned a high school equivalency and a degree in human services from a technical school in New York. For years, she was an office manager for a tax preparation company. She traveled regularly to North Carolina to visit her son, Tony, and the boy went to New York every summer to spend time with his mother. But the stigma of her forced sterilization still clings to her. Now remarried and living in Atlanta, she dreads returning to Perquimans County in eastern North Carolina, where everyone knows the details of her wrecked childhood. "What must they think, reading what the state wrote about me?" she asks.

Between 1929 and 1960, twice as many white people as black were sterilized in North Carolina, according to Eugenics Board records. But between 1960 and 1968, when Riddick was sterilized, twice as many black people as white were sterilized. Riddick was 19 when she discovered, during a medical examination, what had happened to her. She was devastated, for she had always intended to have several children.

Outraged, she contacted the American Civil Liberties Union in North Carolina, which filed a lawsuit on her behalf in 1974. The suit accused the Eugenics Board, social workers and the local hospital of unlawfully depriving Riddick of her right to bear children. Riddick became one of the state's first sterilization victims to go public.

"Nobody knows the pain and humiliation I had to go through," she says. In 1983, a jury ruled in favor of the defendants. The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Riddick's appeal. In 2010, North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue established the Justice for Sterilization Victims Foundation. In June, Riddick testified before the task force.

"I am not feebleminded -- I have never been feebleminded, " she told the task force. “They slandered me,” she said of the Eugenics Board, which put her IQ at 75. “They ridiculed me and they harassed me.” A social worker threatened to take away her grandmother’s state food rations if she did not sign the consent form, Riddick says.

Tony Riddick, now 43 and an entrepreneur in the eastern North Carolina county where he was born, says what the state did to his mother is a crime. “This is not sterilization,” he told the task force in December. “This is genocide.”

In a recent interview, Tony Riddick said he supports his mother’s intention to refuse $50,000 in compensation.

“It’s a political game, and it’s an insult,” he said. North Carolina is one of about half a dozen states to acknowledge or apologize for sterilizations.

Dr. Laura Gerald, a pediatrician who heads the eugenics task force, said the five-person body sought to strike “a fair balance” between victims’ rights and political realities when it approved the $50,000 figure on a 3-2 vote. (Two members voted for a $20,000 payment.)

Several victims requested $1 million in compensation, Gerald said in an interview. “On the other hand,” she said, “there has been little political will for anything other than an apology.”

Then-Gov. Mike Easley issued a one-sentence apology in 2002. He called sterilization a “regrettable episode” and assured victims that “we will not forget what they have endured.”

Elaine Riddick says no apology can erase the fact that the Eugenics Board treated a 14-year-old rape victim like a criminal. She says she was provided no explanation and no follow-up care.

“Because of Elaine’s inability to control herself, and her promiscuity — there are community reports of her ’running around’ and out late at night unchaperoned — the physician has advised sterilization,” the board reported, according to minutes unearthed by the Winston-Salem Journal in 2002.

The board went on: “This will at least prevent additional children from being born to this child who cannot care for herself, and can never function in any way as a parent.”

The words still stab at Riddick. “I was just a child who was raped,” she says, “and then the state raped me all over again.”

U.$. Attorney’s Office Confirms Investigation of Anti-war Activists is Ongoing.

2012-02-02T12:53:00.000-08:00

The Northern Illinois Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas stated that the “investigation is continuing” into the case of the anti-war and international solidarity activists hit with FBI raids and grand jury repression. Barry Jonas is known for his leading role in prosecuting the leaders of the Holy Land Foundation while he was trial attorney for the Department of Justice Counter-terrorism Section.

This confirms what the U.S. Attorney’s office related some months ago - they are preparing multiple indictments of multiple activists. The FBI raided seven homes and the government subpoenaed 23 international solidarity activists to a Chicago grand jury over a year ago. The anti-war activists refused to appear at the secretive grand jury and launched a campaign against political repression. The U.S. government is threatening to imprison anti-war activists on the grounds of “material support for terrorism.”

The confirmation of the ongoing investigation came during a January 24, 2012 phone call between Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas and attorney Bruch Nestor, who represents some of the political activists.

Nestor initially contacted Minneapolis Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Winter to view some of the sealed documents in the case. The grand jury proceedings against the anti-war activists are secret. The vast majority of documents relating to their case are under seal, meaning the targeted activists or their attorneys cannot view them. Assistant U.S. Attorney Winter helped to oversee the Sept. 24, 2010 raids and in recent months represented the government on the issue of returning property seized in the raids. Winter told Nestor to contact Chicago Assistant U.S. Attorney Barry Jonas.

Jonas told Nestor the documents would remain secret "pending completion of the investigation."

Barry Jonas is responsible for railroading the Holy Land leaders. Jonas views solidarity with Palestine as a crime deserving long-term imprisonment. He is willing to pull every dirty trick available to him to obtain convictions. The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development was once the largest Muslim charity in the U.S. Its efforts were geared towards providing humanitarian aid to help the people of Palestine and other countries. In 2001 its offices were raided. Three years later, five people associated with the charity were indicted. The first trial ended with a hung jury. The second trial ended with convictions. The five defendants received sentences that range from 15 to 65 years in prison.

The Holy Land trial included secret witnesses - the defense never got to find out who the witnesses were - the use of hearsay evidence, and the introduction of evidence that had nothing to do with the defendants in the case, such as showing a video from Palestine of protesters burning an American flag, as a means to prejudice the jury.

As lead prosecutor, Barry Jonas played a key role in all this. He is now working under Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, who runs the federal grand jury attacking anti-war and international solidarity activists.

The Committee to Stop FBI Repression urges all supporters of peace with justice to sign the pledge to take action (http://www.stopfbi.net/get-involved/pledge-of-resistance) in the event that international solidarity activists are indicted.

In a closely related case, the FBI directed the LA Sheriff to raid the home of veteran Chicano leader Carlos Montes. Carlos Montes is now facing trial and imprisonment on six felony charges relating back to a student protest that happened 42 years ago.

More at www.StopFBI.net

$upport Arrested Oakland Revolutionaries.

2012-01-30T09:44:00.000-08:00

**** this is not an “official” letter from Occupy Oakland. This is from sleepless comrades helping with the anti-repression committee*****

Comrades near and far,

First off, thank you so much from the bottom of our rebellious hearts for the solidarity actions that took place in your cities across the country. You cannot believe what those actions meant for the morale of the Oakland Commune after the attack from the notorious Oakland police. We love you like we love liberation and we also have your back.

As you have heard or seen reported in international news now, Occupy Oakland experience extreme police repression from several different agencies yesterday after thousands of Oakland residents attempted to take over an empty building to build a social center. The majority of the arrests, however, took place later in the night on a march when protesters were kettled. The Oakland Commune was teargased, shot by bean bag and rubber bullets, and many people were severely beaten.

Our situation is the following: we have hundreds of people who have been arrested and kept in three different sites. Today we had 350 people in Santa Rita jail, with others in Glen Dyer and in North County. We do not know exactly how many have been arrested but it is possibly up to 400. There is also an immense range of charges and some arrestees have multiple chargers.

We also have many cases of comrades in jail who have been injured by the police, including head injuries, and others who have vulnerabilities of concern such as medical conditions or trans gender status.
Some people have already been released but many others are held on bail until their arraignment. Some people can hold tight and others simply cannot.

Occupy Oakland has very little money to handle this situation. We need to bond people out and also make sure people get the medical attention they deserve and need.

PLEASE PUT OUR DONATION INFORMATION FOR BAIL ON YOUR WEBSITE, BLAST IT ON THE INTERNET, FACEBOOK, ETC.

HERE IS THE LINK: https://www.wepay.com/x35uob0/donations/occupy_oakland_bail_fund

ALSO, you can call our glorious district attorneys office here:

Nancy O’Malley (Alameda District Attorney): (510) 272-6222

If you have friends who have been arrested you can find them on inmate locator:http://www.acgov.org/sheriff_app/

If you do not see their names it is because they have not yet been processed, as there are so many people.

Solidarity forever! Never give up! Long live the Oakland Commune!! Freedom begins when fear ends!

2012-01-25T09:05:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Occupy Seattle
www.occupyseattle.org

January 21, 2012
CONTACT: Emily Zisette, Phillip Neel
(206) 745-0164, (530)340-1980
UFWsolidarity@gmail.com

Occupy Seattle Joins in Solidarity with United Farm Workers

SEATTLE, Wash — On January 27, Decolonize/Occupy Seattle will join with the United Farm Workers (UFW) in their long standing campaign for justice for the farm workers at Ruby Ridge Dairy, whose labor supplies the Darigold corporation with its dairy products.

"We want the community to join our struggle so that Darigold can hear the call for justice. We are workers, we make Darigold strong and rich, and we demand justice,” said Margarito Martinez, farmworker and one of the fired Ruby Ridge laborers.

“It’s horrible,” continues Margarito Martinez, “workers at Ruby Ridge work long days without breaks, when they ask for water they are told to drink from where the cows drink and are threatened with guns when attempting to organize. Many have had their wages stolen. When you get down to it one of the major problems, really what founded the UFW in the first place, is the fact that farmworkers are not included in the National Labor Relations Act. This is what we got out of the New Deal, which everyone thinks was so great. Well it wasn’t. It was just a new deal for white male workers, period. Farmworkers and domestic laborers aren’t considered employees under that act. Here at Ruby Ridge one third of the organizers have already been fired for trying to form a union.”

Actions have already been taken to hold Darigold accountable for the injustice at Ruby Ridge, but the company has been unresponsive. “ Like many large corporations, Darigold continues to ignore the abuses being suffered by the workers who labor to produce their milk and their profits,” said Emily Zisette. “Farm workers and UFW supporters found themselves greeted by security guards when they traveled to Darigold’s headquarters to discuss a remedy to the abuses.

In response, the United Farm Workers started a petition to end these abuses. On January 27, with support from Decolonize/Occupy Seattle and the greater Seattle community, they will deliver these petitions to the Darigold Headquarters.

“We call on all people to join with the United Farm Workers and Decolonize/Occupy Seattle to demand justice for Farm workers,” continued Emily Zisette.

At 2pm on Friday, January 27, the march will gather at Westlake and proceed to the Darigold Headquarters at 1130 Rainier Ave. South. There we will rally at 3pm to call on Darigold to take immediate action to resolve the issues facing workers at Ruby Ridge. Transportation will be provided for those who need it.

The farm worker’s fight is the same fight against corporate greed that has led to the occupy movement. They are part of the 99%! JOIN THOUSANDS to demand that Darigold use its influence over its dairies to stop the abuses. Tell them they cannot ignore farm workers!! The petition can be found at: http://action.ufw.org/page/s/darigoldpetitionkids

For more information and interviews, contact the campaign organizers at UFWsolidarity@gmail.com

-30-

Occupy Seattle se une en solidaridad con La Unión de Campesinos

Seattle, WA-Enero 27, 2012
Contacto: Emily Zisette, Phillip Neel
(206) 745-0164, (530)340-1980
UFWsolidarity@gmail.com

En Enero 27, 2012 Decolonize/Occupy Seattle demostrara su continua solidaridad con los trabajadores del mundo al unirse con la Unión de Campesinos (UFW) en su larga campaña por justicia para los trabajadores en la lechería Ruby Ridge, la cual abastece a la corporación Darigold con sus productos lácteos.

"Es horrible," Dijo Margarito Martinez, uno de los empleados corridos de Ruby Ridge Dairy. "Los trabajadores de Ruby Ridge trabajan largos días sin descansos, cuando piden agua se les dice que tomen de las pilas donde toman las vacas y son amenazados con escopetas cuando se intentan organizar. A muchos de nosotros nos an robado horas de nuestros cheques. Darigold le compra y le vende toda la leche a Ruby Ridge, ellos tienen gran influencia sobre Ruby Ridge y deben usarla para frenar los abusos que suceden en la lechería, pero cuando hemos pedido ayuda, nos han cerrado las puertas y desplazado guardias de seguridad alrededor de su edificio. Una vez nos dejaron una letra diciendo que los trabajadores del campo no pueden tener una unión porque no somos cubiertos bajo e Acta de Relaciones Laborales Nacional. Esto no les da el derecho a tratarnos como esclavos; Nadie trabaja mas fuerte que nosotros y los hemos hecho ricos y poderosos, todo lo que estamos pidiendo a cambio es que nos escuchen. Aquí en Ruby Ridge un tercio de los trabajadores ya han sido despedidos por intentar de formar una unión para frenar los abusos mientras que Darigold continua sin decir nada."

Diversas acciones han sido llevadas a cabo para exigir contabilidad a Darigold por las injusticias que suceden en Ruby Ridge, pero nada ha cambiado. Como muchas corporaciones, Darigold se ciega a ver los abusos que sufren los trabajadores que laboran para producirle su leche y sus ganancias. Campesinos y apoyadores de la Unión de Campesinos se vieron recibidos por guardias de seguridad cuando viajaron a las oficinas executivas de Darigold para hablar sobre un remedio a los abusos.

Como respuesta, la Unión de Campesinos empezó una petición (http://action.ufw.org/page/s/darigoldpetitionkids) y en Enero 27, 2012 con el apoyo de Decolonize/Occupy Seattle y la comunidad de Seattle, entregaran las peticiones a las oficinas executivas de Darigold.

Hacemos el llamado a todas las personas para que se unan a la Unión de Campesinos y Decolonize/Occupy Seattle para exigir justicia para los campesinos. En Enero 27, 2012 nos reuniremos en Westlake a las 2pm y marcharemos a las oficinas executivas de Darigold en el 1130 Rainier Ave. South. Habrá un rally a las 3pm para hacer el llamado a Darigold para que tome acciones inmediatas para resolver los asuntos que enfrentan los trabajadores de Ruby Ridge. Habrá transportación para aquellos que la necesiten.

La lucha de los trabajadores es la misma lucha en contra de codicia que a llevado al movimiento Occupy. ¡Los campesinos son parte del 99%! UNASE A MILES para exigir que Darigold use su influencia sobre sus lecherías para frenar los abusos. ¡Déjeles saber que no pueden ignorar a los campesinos!

"Bring Diaz Down" Rally and March: 1-14-12.

2012-01-19T22:55:00.000-08:00

Fake Revolutionaries, Real Reactionaries: International 'Socialist' Organization Sides With Right-Wing ILWU Executive Board Against Occupy Seattle.

2012-01-19T17:25:00.000-08:00

AN OPEN LETTER TO LOCAL 10 LONGSHOREMEN: Help Stop Repression in Local 19 Seattle!
January 18th, 2012

Brothers and Sister of Local 10:

My name is Brian Wiles, and I’m a deregistered longshoreman from ILWU Local 19, Seattle. My ILWU-PMA registration number is #57663.

I was deregistered at the behest of Local 19 union officials in 2007, in retaliation for opposing their racist efforts to ethnically cleanse the Seattle waterfront of Black workers. Almost five years later, I still haven’t been given any due process or afforded the benefit of an arbitration over my unfair deregistration.

But this Open Letter ain’t only or even primarily about my personal situation. I’m concerned about the future of the union I still believe in, the ILWU, to which I’ve given a quarter of my life.

I’ve created a YouTube channel at YouTube.com/Deregistered19. There you’ll find some videos that will blow your mind. Officers of Local 19 and three other Longshore Division locals, in a violent mob action, physically broke up a public meeting called to build solidarity for Local 21 Longview’s fight against EGT/Bunge Ltd. union busting. You probably think this sounds far-fetched, and you’ll probably have to see it to believe it. Please take the time to watch these videos, and see for yourself.

I’m trying to sound an alarm to progressive ILWU members up and down the West Coast. Y’all need to understand how longshore locals in the Pacific Northwest ports, and especially Seattle Local 19, have been taken over by repressive, racist right wingers bent on destroying the democratic rights of their own union members, and purging Black and leftwing workers from the waterfront, so they can continue to gerrymander the union membership in a rightwing direction by means of racist hiring practices, intimidation of existing members, and sending goon squads to violently bust up democratically organized labor solidarity meetings.

I’ve been trying to explain how bad things have become on the Seattle waterfront, particularly to Local 10 members, for seven years. I hope Sisters and Brothers will now give this the serious attention it deserves. Now it’s a matter of public record, and with your own eyes you can see a glimpse of what goes on behind closed doors at the Local 19 hall every day, so I hope you’ll do something decisive to put a stop to this problem. Videos don’t lie, even if corrupt rightwing union officers do.

The despicable events at the Seattle AFL-CIO Labor Temple January 6th stand as an indictment of the Pacific Northwest locals of the ILWU, whose officers exposed themselves to be on approximately the same level of human dignity as Nazi stormtroopers or a lynch mob. They must be held accountable for their actions.

At YouTube.com/Deregistered19 you will find four unedited videos, shot at the Labor Temple event and graciously provided to me by a sister from the Seattle branch of the Freedom Socialist Party. Please take the time to watch Part 4 (at http://youtu.be/vS6kt8eJURI) carefully.

A labor solidarity event to build support for ILWU Local 21, Longview, organized by Occupy Seattle jointly with the Million Worker March Movement, is in progress. Local 52 member and African American Longshore Coalition Co-Chair Gabriel Prawl is MC’ing, and ILWU members Mike Fuqua of Local 21, Jack Mulcahy of Local 8, Clarence Thomas and Jack Heyman (retired) of Local 10, are the featured speakers.

After the other three brothers had spoken, Brother Heyman takes the stage and tries to educate the gathering about the role of socialist, leftwing workers in the founding and development of the ILWU. He dedicates his speech to the late Seattle Local 19 president Shaun Maloney, and explains that before he was an ILWU member he was a participant in the 1934 Minneapolis General Strike led by a militant socialist-led local of the Teamsters union. He goes on to explain ILWU founding president Harry Bridges’ early ties to the IWW and his development into a Marxist.

Halfway through Brother Heyman’s presentation, a goon squad of liquored-up ILWU officials arrives to physically bust up the public meeting. This all-white, all-male crew of rightwing hit men included Local 19 Seattle’s President Cam Williams, Vice President Rich Austin Jr., Port Labor Relations Committeeman Rudy Finney, and Executive Board members Chris Peeler and John Persak; Local 52, Seattle Clerks Business Agent Dave Black; President Scotty Mason of Local 23, Tacoma; President Jeff Smith of Local 8, Portland; and Pacific Coast Pensioners Association President and former ILWU International Vice President Rich Austin, Sr.

As anyone watching this (or any of the other videos shot from various angles appearing all over the internet, such as the full length version available at: http://www.livestream.com/owsoccupyseattle/video?clipId=pla_1853b7d2-338e-4b0f-a866-cac43e1ff636) can plainly see, these union bureaucrats storm into the Labor Temple auditorium intentionally to smash up the event.*

At one point Scotty Mason attempts to lead his faction to storm the stage, but is prevented by audience members who stand together to defend the stage and the speakers. Later on, the goons shamelessly escalate the situation and provoke a riotous physical altercation by allegedly assaulting a female Occupy activist.

For a well-written, politically-sophisticated account by Occupy Seattle of this organized, violent disruption of the Local 21 solidarity event, see: http://www.occupyseattle.org/blog/2012-01-11/jan-6th-2012-unity-vs-union-bureaucracy.

Since the Labor Temple event, Local 19’s January 12th Stop Work Meeting passed a “Resolution Regarding Occupy Seattle”, a blatantly dishonest and slanderous attack against the Occupy movement, an act of sabotage against Local 21’s efforts to conduct outreach for the EGT struggle, and a repressive McCarthy-style measure to curtail the political freedoms of Local 19 members. It begins with a list of outrageously false accusations, including the allegation that Occupy “initiated physical violence against our members” in Seattle, where multiple videos clearly show that the opposite is actually true.

It then goes on to order that “all ILWU Local 19 members withhold all support for ‘Occupy’, formally or informally”. Here is the resolution’s real purpose: To create the conditions for a witch hunt against Local 19 members who participate in or support this new working class movement. This resolution directly violates the First Amendment, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act, and the so-called Union Members Bill of Rights of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure (Landrum-Griffin) Act; it is also illegal under Article III of the ILWU International Constitution, Point #3 of the Ten Guiding Principles of the ILWU, and Section 13.1 of the Pacific Coast Longshore Contract Document, which forbids the parties from discriminating against workers on the basis of, among other protected categories, “political beliefs” and “political affiliation”.

The Local 19 resolution is available as a video here: http://youtu.be/niaF2PkMMoc

That the resolution’s author is none other than Local 19 Executive Board member John Persak—formerly a radical and leader of the Seattle IWW, who for a decade raged against the “repressive ILWU bureaucracy”—makes it doubly hypocritical.
`
I also note with disgust that Local 19 has never passed a resolution forbidding members from joining, supporting or associating with rightwing or racist groupings such as the Tea Party, the KKK or Aryan Nations; but since McCarthyism seems to be in full swing inside the union now, I hereby volunteer to provide a list of Local 19 members I personally know to be affiliated with such noxious political/racial organizations to anyone who might take steps to do something about it.

This McCarthyite attack against the democratic rights of Seattle longshoremen must be overturned immediately.

The ILWU local officers who led this violent, undemocratic attack against the Occupy Seattle/Million Worker March/Local 21 public community meeting in the hallowed halls of Seattle labor—in the very room in which a real working-class hero Brother Shaun Maloney’s wake was held in 2000—must be taken out of office immediately. Enough is enough. This disgraceful display is just beyond the pale of civilized humanity.

And since this reprehensible assault by drunken thugs appears to have been coordinated jointly between the leaderships of ALL the major Pacific NW longshore locals, it would be interesting to find out just how high up the ladder the planning actually went. I hope the rank and file of the Longshore Division will find a way to launch an investigation into this matter and hold accountable whoever might have ordered the violent suppression of a community solidarity meeting to assist Local 21’s fight for its life against transnational capital.

An emergency Coast Longshore Caucus—OUR democratic, rank-and-file longshoremen’s “general assembly”—must be called into session immediately, so that the rank and file can discuss and vote about both the appropriate action strategy that needs to be pursued to stop EGT/Bunge Limited’s union busting against ILWU Local 21 and the ILWU’s proper relationship/alliance with the Occupy Movement.

In Solidarity,
Brian Wiles #57663

* This video also shows what a bunch of opportunists and "left" (ha!) reactionaries and LIARS the International Socialist Organization is. Check out this hit piece they wrote in their newspaper.

One More Reason the 99% Must Seize Power: The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)

2012-01-18T10:36:00.000-08:00

Corporate supporters of Senate 968 (PIPA) and HR 3261 (SOPA) demand the ability to take down any web site (including craigslist, Wikipedia, or Google) that hurts their profits -- without prior judicial oversight or due process -- in the name of combating "online piracy."

PIPA and SOPA authors and supporters insist they'd only go after foreign piracy sites, but Internet Engineers understand this is an attempt to impose "Big Brother" controls on our Internet, complete with DNS hijacking and censoring search results.

Incredibly, many Congress Members favor this idea. These are some of the same people who supported the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and PATRIOT Acts 1 and 2!

Tell Congress you OPPOSE Senate 968 "Protect IP Act" (PIPA) and H.R. 3261 "Stop Online Piracy Act" (SOPA):

Phone your Member of Congress via nifty Progressive Change app
Contact Senators who are refusing to meet with constituents about PIPA.
Reverse Robocall pro-PIPA & pro-SOPA MOC + Lobbyists (More at Ars Technica)
EFF Action Center - Strike Against Censorship - Congressional Emailer
ECA Congressional Emailer - Don't Censor Our Internet!
OpenCongress Congressional Emailer - Oppose SOPA
Generic Congressional Emailer (You'll need your Zip+4)
Petition Congress - Protect Innovation, Dump SOPA (Progressive Change )
Outside the US? Sign Petition Opposing US Censorship of Global Sites (EFF)

Supporters of PIPA and SOPA: RIAA, MPAA, News Corp, TimeWarner, Walmart, Nike, Tiffany, Chanel, Rolex, Sony, Juicy Couture, Ralph Lauren, VISA, Mastercard, Comcast, ABC, Dow Chemical, Monster Cable, Teamsters, Rupert Murdoch, Lamar Smith (R-TX), John Conyers (D-MI)

Opponents of PIPA and SOPA: Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, craigslist, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, eBay, AOL, Mozilla, Reddit, Tumblr, Etsy, Zynga, EFF, ACLU, Human Rights Watch, Darrell Issa (R-CA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Ron Paul (R-TX), All Power To The Positive radio show.

Where does your Member of Congress stand on PIPA and SOPA? (Project SOPA Opera)

Congress needs to hear from you, or these dangerous bills will pass - they have tremendous lobbying dollars behind them, from corporations experts say are attempting to prop up outdated, anti-consumer business models at the expense of the very fabric of the Internet -- recklessly unleashing a tsunami of take-down notices and litigation, and a Pandora's jar of "chilling effects" and other unintended (or perhaps intended?) consequences.

Don't believe it? Monster Cable has labeled craigslist a "rogue site," earmarked for blacklisting and full-takedown under PIPA -- resale of stereo cables by CL users reduces Monster 's new cable sales. (reddit).

There is still time to be heard. Congress is starting to backpedal on this job-killing, anti-American nonsense, and the Obama administration has weighed in against these bills as drafted, but SOPA/PIPA cannot be fixed or revised -- they must be killed altogether.

Sen Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Rep Ron Wyden (D-OR) are championing an alternative to SOPA/PIPA called Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade Act (OPEN) that addresses foreign sites dedicated to piracy, without disrupting basic Internet protocols, or threatening mainstream US sites like craigslist.

Tim O'Reilly, a publisher who is himself subject to piracy, asks whether piracy is even a problem, and whether there is even a legitimate need for any of these bills.

Learn more about SOPA, Protect IP (PIPA), and Internet Blacklisting:

Growing Chorus of Opposition to PIPA and SOPA
Open Letter against SOPA from 83 Prominent Internet Engineers
Why SOPA and Protect IP (PIPA) are Bad, Bad Ideas (Techdirt)
Piracy not a problem, PIPA and SOPA are unnecessary (Tim O'Reilly on GigaOM)
PIPA and SOPA News (Google News)
PIPA Wikipedia entry ::::: SOPA Wikipedia entry
SOPA FAQ (CNET)

The Black Power Mixtape - 2/11/12. 3:30pm (Seattle, WA).

2012-01-16T20:07:00.000-08:00

Saturday, February 11, 2012. 3:30pm. Monica's Village Place. 140 23rd Ave.

1 block north of Starbucks. Directly next to Catholic Community Services.

Please enter on the side entrance(on Main street).

THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE

Archives of The Swedish Government recently found show a Swedish camera crew's shock and awe when they learned from a first hand account as eye witnesses to the Human Rights violations that Black people have endured as a way of American Life.

The Freedom Riders, Stokely Carmichael, H.Rap Brown, Elaine Brown, Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Fred Hampton, Angela Davis.

The most powerful part of THE BLACK POWER MIXTAPE is the age of these young proud courageous leaders some as young as 13 and maybe late 20's.

Using discipline, unity and collective cooperation they inspired the world's underdog's to patch up their own wounds and feed their own people and to protect the neighborhoods we live in.

Narrated by Quest Love of THE ROOTS

Commentary from
-MOS DEF
-ERYKAH BADU
-MIN LOUIS FARRAKHAN
-STOKELY CARMICHAEL

This is a birds eye view into what photographer/author Jamel Shabazz called "The Time Before Crack". Showing us how our neighborhoods thought and moved before the onslaught of chemical warfare and Reaganomics.

Special guest former Seattle Black Panther Party Captain Aaron Dixon will be in the house to speak to us about his new book "The Rise Of my People".

Hip-Hop From Congo: Lopango Ya Banka - "Kongo Bololo"

2012-01-15T17:19:00.000-08:00

"Enemy Expatriation Act": U.$. Attempts To Strip Occupy Movement and Other 1st World Dissenters of Citizenship.

2012-01-10T11:48:00.000-08:00

H. R. 3166: To add engaging in or supporting hostilities against the United States to the list of acts for which United States nationals would lose their nationality.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

October 12, 2011

Mr. DENT (for himself and Mr. ALTMIRE) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

A BILL

To add engaging in or supporting hostilities against the United States to the list of acts for which United States nationals would lose their nationality.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the ‘Enemy Expatriation Act’.
SEC. 2. LOSS OF NATIONALITY.

(a) In General- Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1481) is amended--

(1) in subsection (a)--

(A) in each of paragraphs (1) through (6), by striking ‘or’ at the end;

(B) in paragraph (7), by striking the period at the end and inserting ‘; or’; and

(C) by adding at the end the following:

‘(8) engaging in, or purposefully and materially supporting, hostilities against the United States.’; and

(2) by adding at the end the following:

‘(c) For purposes of this section, the term ‘hostilities’ means any conflict subject to the laws of war.’.

(b) Technical Amendment- Section 351(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1483(a)) is amended by striking ‘(6) and (7)’ and inserting ‘(6), (7), and (8)’.

President Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Bill Into Law

2012-01-03T00:32:00.000-08:00

From aclu.org

December 31, 2011

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: media@dcaclu.org

WASHINGTON – President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law today.

The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill.

“President Obama's action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.”

Under the Bush administration, similar claims of worldwide detention authority were used to hold even a U.S. citizen detained on U.S. soil in military custody, and many in Congress now assert that the NDAA should be used in the same way again. The ACLU believes that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States is unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.

“We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court,” said Romero. “Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today. Thankfully, we have three branches of government, and the final word belongs to the Supreme Court, which has yet to rule on the scope of detention authority. But Congress and the president also have a role to play in cleaning up the mess they have created because no American citizen or anyone else should live in fear of this or any future president misusing the NDAA’s detention authority.”

The bill also contains provisions making it difficult to transfer suspects out of military detention, which prompted FBI Director Robert Mueller to testify that it could jeopardize criminal investigations. It also restricts the transfers of cleared detainees from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to foreign countries for resettlement or repatriation, making it more difficult to close Guantanamo, as President Obama pledged to do in one of his first acts in office.

The Astute 'Follow The Money' and Put [Global] Class Analysis In Command! The Rest Join Or Start A Non-Profit, Or A Church,...Or A Cult!

2011-12-27T16:10:00.000-08:00

An Open Letter To All Those In Occupy/Decolonize Seattle
Who STILL Support This [Nonsense] Non-Violence Proposal.

The issue is NOT about "non-violence" per se, it is about adopting "non-violence" as a vague, quasi-religious political ideology, so that Occupy/Decolonize Seattle can recieve donations from liberal non-profit, governmental, and religious organizations. And pro-U.S./Demokkkratic Party forces and their most deeply committed supporters can, eventually, move in and take over.

First, let us review the history of "non-violence" in O/DS, based upon the ACTUAL practices and political moves made by those who today continue to support this twice defeated proposal:

1. Some of the strongest supporters of this proposal are the very folks who, after losing a vote in the General Assembly, moved to City Hall anyway. As it turned out, the only real consequence of that was for all to see what a sour clique of undemocratic, anti-revolutionary renegades looks like.

2. Some of the strongest supporters of this proposal are the very folks who threatened to "pull the plug" on the sound for "Oct22" @ Westlake due to demokkkrat King County Councilman Larry Gossett not being allowed to show up late, and un-invited, and share the stage with someone he himself ordered the police to attack in July of 1999 at the longest building occupation in U.$. history.

3. Some of the strongest supporters of this proposal are the very folks who showed us their non-violence in PRACTICE, injuring several in the camp and later on at the Chase Bank action.

4. Some of the strongest supporters of this proposal are the very folks who injured another camper with their demonstration of how they would handle a hypothetical attempted tent theft, "non-violently", during a Peace and Safety meeting.

5. Some of the strongest supporters of this proposal are the very folks who called upon the Anti-Fascist Working Group for help vs. a violent individual amongst the dictatorship of the self-medicated who invaded one woman's tent and shoved another. This group from within Peace and Safety then WOULD NOT ADMIT to asking for our help at the impromptu G.A. after the explusion event. They then had the nerve to send someone to summon us during our meeting, asking for help a month later. This time we video recorded him asking for our help, for our own protection from potential future false allegations and accusations.

6. Some of the strongest supporters of this proposal are the very folks who made threats to revolutionaries, specifically, during the G.A. Antifa was formed specifically as a protective alliance between the revolutionaries v.s. the dictatorship of the self-medicated and the "non-violent" Gandhian neo-fascists (refer back to #2) after we were ATTACKED PHYSICALLY BY BOTH SIDES at various times during the occupation at Seattle Central Community College. And all of these folks support this current proposal.

7. Some of the strongest supporters of this proposal are the very folks who show up FADED (i.e. drunk/high) to G.A.

8. Some of the strongest OPPONENTS of this proposal are the people of color in O/DS. I take careful note that ALL but 2 of the people of color present at the 2nd voting G.A. featuring this proposal, voted the proposal down. To be in denial of the underlying racial chauvanism and privilege being resisted so fiercely by such a wide majority, as evidenced by the overwhelming vote against this proposal; TWICE, especially from amongst us so-called 'minorities', is a form of amerikkkan social fascism.

9. Who will MATERIALLY benefit? Again, this aspect was NOT mentioned in either version of the proposal. In discussions with others, I see that this aspect, the monied aspect, remains the 800lb gorilla in the room, and that others that I spoke with at the Occupy Seattle/D24 Dinner event also bear witness.

Again, the issue is NOT about "non-violence", it is about adopting "non-violence" as a vague, quasi-religious political ideology, so that O/DS can recieve donations from liberal and religious organizations, as well as the demokkkrats. Need I remind you all of a very basic rule of capitalist-imperialism: he or she who controls the gold, makes the rules. This is the root and the essense of all other arguments against this piece of kkkrap proposal, its equally wicked and monsterous twin, or the mildly humorous "pro-violence" proposal brought forward by [fellow Occupier].

Next, there are also folks who seek to control the resources, and thus the guiding politics of O/DS. [Fellow Occupier] was the first to attempt this. [fellow Occupier] and [fellow Occupier] are now part of a new breed of folks atttempting to use the promise of resources from bourgeois liberal sources as a political weapon against the revolutionary majority.

So silly is [fellow Occupier] that he puts forward a PRO-violence proposal, knowing that it would be voted down, so as to mock the entire process and debate. Sure, I added a 'friendly amendment' calling for naked jell-o wrestling to resolve inter-Occupy conflicts. I knew that it would be voted down; I did it to mock him and those who support the two kkkraptacular non-violence proposals and the "pro-violence" attempt at satire.

Now, [fellow Occupier] upholds my 'friendly amendment' to his sad attempt at satire as a violation of some cardinal principle or a personal afront. It is clear to me that he will use every tool at his disposal to attempt to destroy that which he views as a threat to his individual material interests, and thus his larger, more general political interests.

Thus, the call for a "transformative justice" meeting: he cannot win the line struggle with a weak and wicked, pro-kkkapitlaist, pro-imperialist, flagrantly undemocratic political line, so he will "tag" in an even more adversarial and reactionary liberal ideologue, since his liberal-amerikkkan populist 'puglism' cannot stand up to scientific, anti-kkkapitalist, dialetical 'jujitsu'!

If the St. Marks or Jams For Justice folks are no longer interested in funding us, due to our refusal to submit to what is essentiallly bourgeois, kkkapitalist ideology manifested as magical thinking on a rickety bed of patently false historical revisionism and imposed from above and from outside by God's self-appointed local representitives on earth, then why would the pastor at St. Mark's attempt to enter the ideological fray, with a letter full of mostly unsubstantiated dogma that only lightly touches on the crux of the issue: the monied aspect.

And why is it that there are others who support this proposal who are still speaking on it as a path to resources as recently as the Occupy dinner at Gasworks Park on December 24th? Clearly, this is NOT a 'dead' issue, since the proposers and their supporters have yet to come all the way clean on why so little attention has been spent around the monied aspect of this proposal (or rather, set of proposals) and how this effects the larger ideological and philosophical questions posed by those who still advocate for this liberal-reactionary political direction.

Let me also address this fresh straw man from the camp of liberal reaction within O/DS. Newness to politics is NO EXCUSE for dishonesty and rank opportunism! If you understand the stories of "Cain Vs. Abel" and Jesus and Judas, then you are abundantly aware of what being unprincipled and irresponsible looks like.

Our desire for freedom is stronger than any individual's political ambitions. Therefore, you must be an 'honest broker' in front of the G.A.

Yes, you have to. Yes, you do. It's either full disclosure in front of the G.A. or get fully heckled at the G.A., by a majority of the G.A.! You know it's true. We've all seen it happen.

9. All kinds of forces are now coming out of the woodwork, working overtime, trying to convince me that co-optation of Occupy/Decolonize Seattle is not occuring.

This is bulls**t. The co-optation attempts started on DAY ONE. It is the radical self-activity of the astute amongst workers and revolutionaries that keeps Occupy/Decolonize Seattle moving forward generally and the co-opters stuck on the sidelines, trying to dictate the guidelines.

All they have are potential purse strings...maybe...and their public/private army of local, state, and federal law enforcement; also informants and 'good' amerikkkans, the 21st century updated and upgraded 'good German', like the folks who called the police on the 19th and Spruce house and reported the one at 12th and Jefferson before that. And what did they report? People going in and out who "didn't look like they were supposed to be there".

Similarly, there are voices within O/DS who say such things about myself, the PoC Caucus, the anarchists, and revolutionaries generally. To hear them tell it, their failure to pass these two ridiculous proposals is all due to "provacateurs", "people with hate in their hearts", "anarchists", etc, as opposed to the dishonesty, material interests, and ideological blindspots of both proposers and supporters, at last exposed for all to see.

10. This is why genuine people's movements find creative ways to seek out and sustain independent money! But this CANNOT happen until transparancy, process, and most importantly, CLASS, is put up front and center!

11. Genuine global equality is NOT in the MATERIAL interests of most amerikkkans (not yet, anyway), and thus not on their mind. This is a FACT. Most amerikkkans don't want to be broke, to be homeless, to see their kids killed overseas on another imperialist military adventure, or in their own neighborhood. Usually, they could careless about their neighbors next door, let alone their neighbors across the 3rd world.

Occupy/Decolonize Seattle has brought attention to this aspect, and many other aspects, of amerikkkan social fascism, in particular, the various Decolonize elements, including here in Seattle, have put this up front and center for the settler-nation majority across amerikkka to deal with in relationship to those of us in this country who some of you still consider your collective social property. I believe this is also the source of the belief by many of you that it is o.k. to jump into our personal space to scream at us, pet us, pat our heads, touch our hair, touch our children without asking, shush us as we are speaking, or simply assault us in the name of "Peace and Safety" or "non-violence".

Of course, if we so-called 'minorties' speak or move in a direction of seriously addressing our collective self-interest as colonized people and as workers, and our parallel struggles in relationship to the larger global revolutionary project, and how the liberal politics of amerikkkan social fascism, like this non-violence proposal, and the most reactionary aspects of it, are an impediment to building the necessary global unity, then we are usually denounced and slandered....as being against "unity"!

We are against UNPRINCIPLED, oppressive, neo-colonial, master/slave, victim/victimizer, "unity"...with ANYONE, regardless of skin color!

12. Capitalism requires exploitation of one group to supply and enrichen another, especially in the relationship between the so-called global south and the imperialist countries, like amerikkka. This is basic. Also required, are those who teach and train the exploited to enjoy and embrace their condition; or seek to mystify the idea(s) of genuine freedom, justice, and equality. This has been the historic role of the clergy, especially in amerikkka, with a few very notable exceptions. Indeed, many of those who teach this type of theology in the 3rd world often get their training in amerikkka.

13. There are two super-obvious general political paths in this movement at this moment:

a. Reform: To seek concessions from the existing government, class structure, and economic system by way of protests, "non-violent" direct action, begging bureaukkkrats, the occasional strike, and voting; so as to defend basic civil rights, as defined under this system, from the perspective of the political and economic elite of amerikkka; but at the same time, challenging those very same upper classes to 'trickle down' a little more as far as jobs, 'progressive' legislation, and the creation and funding of social programs.

b. Revolution: To seek and struggle for [revolutionary] regime change: the overthrow of amerikkka, specifically, so as to play our position aiding and assisting in the global overthrow of capitalism, imperialism, and oppression[s] generally, to create the political space for a radical restructuring of the world on the principles of genuine solidarity (NOT "charity", like liberals offer; plus the iron fist) and a global economy built upon the principles of "from each according to ability, to each according to need"; by way of protests, "non-violent" direct actions such as, but not limited to, mic checking the rich and powerful (the most decidely awful, in particular) if they dare show there face anywhere in Seattle for any reason, seizing foreclosed properties, re-taking stolen native land, port shutdowns, general strikes, evolving workgroups into community-driven counter-institutions that can provide basic services and assist with day-to-day survival needs, and growing the G.A. into an institution of dual-power vs. the existing capitalist government(s); local, state, federal; and to encourage other G.A.s across amerikkka and the world to do the same, until we can effectively join with existing and future 3rd world revolutionary forces in forcing the global 1% and their lackeys to stop what they are doing and, hopefully, slow and /or repair the damage to the planet before we all go extinct; begining with our food sources and water becoming genuinely scarce, as opposed to scarcity due to market spectulation and unfair trade agreements.

Liberals tend to walk down path A. Anarchists, Marxists, revolutionary anti-colonialists/3rd worldist and/or indigenous national liberationists tend to walk down path B. See where I stand for yourself by reading the "What I Want, What I Believe" section of allpowertothepositive.blogspot.com

Conservatives, 'Objectivists'/Ayn Randists, Fascists/neo-nazis, and LaRouchists seek point C., as in CRUSH both sides; fascists/neo-nazis are especially adamant about that.

Opportunists claim to have no general affinity, but gravitate from one political 'extreme' (lol) to another based upon individual material interests and who, organizationally, seems more politically and numerically powerful for achieving their selfish goals at a given time.

Newbies are recruited by whoever can connect with that particular person. Not everyone is attracted by the spectacle of 'non-violence'. Many don't even initially come to O/DS on too deep of a political level, but more on a social one; showing up with friends, college class field trips, saw it on t.v./live stream/you tube/fb and came thru, etc.

Revolutionaries are not afraid to shake a hand and make a friend. We are also quick to do as Malcolm X taught us and "run the white man up and down the street all day with the truth." This is the open secret of our relative success, not vague, dogmatic, and ultimately empty promises to learn how to enjoy being beaten and pepper sprayed, plus how to die quickly and quietly if or when we succumb to our wounds.

Tell you what: if we revolutionaries become entirely too much and over-the-top at actions/demonstrations, we'll put ourselves in jail...but only if you liberals agree to self-emulate (i.e. - sit down and torch yourselves in public) if you and your crew become problematic.

I'll leave you with some seperate, yet related quotables that sum up some of the recurring themes in this writing. I believe passages are to be studied, not taken as gospel. Effectively praying to a particular theorist offends the religious, the atheistic, and the astute, so I don't do it . What I have underlined I view as important to emphasize in each.

"Is the actual condition of the workers in the oppressor and in the oppressed nations the same, from the standpoint of the national question?

No, it is not the same.

(1) Economically, the difference is that sections of the working class in the oppressor nations receive crumbs from the super-profits the bourgeoisie of these nations obtains by extra exploitation of the workers of the oppressed nations.

Besides, economic statistics show that here a larger percentage of the workers become “straw bosses” than is the case in the oppressed nations, a larger percentage rise to the labor aristocracy. That is a fact. To a certain degree the workers of the oppressor nations are partners of their own bourgeoisie in plundering the workers (and the mass of the population) of the oppressed nations.

(2) Politically, the difference is that, compared with the workers of the oppressed nations, they occupy a privileged position in many spheres of political life.

(3) Ideologically, or spiritually, the difference is that they are taught, at school and in life, disdain and contempt for the workers of the oppressed nations."

-V.I. Lenin; A Caricature of Marxism and Imperialist Economism: (#5.) "Monism And Dualism”.

"...Liberalism manifests itself in various ways.

To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.

To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one's suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one's own inclination. This is a second type.

To let things drift if they do not affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame. This is a third type.

Not to obey orders but to give pride of place to one's own opinions. To demand special consideration from the organization but to reject its discipline. This is a fourth type.

To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. This is a fifth type.

To hear incorrect views without rebutting them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened. This is a sixth type.

To be among the masses and fail to conduct propaganda and agitation or speak at meetings or conduct investigations and inquiries among them, and instead to be indifferent to them and show no concern for their well-being, forgetting that one is a Communist and behaving as if one were an ordinary non-Communist. This is a seventh type.

To see someone harming the interests of the masses and yet not feel indignant, or dissuade or stop him or reason with him, but to allow him to continue. This is an eighth type.

To work half-heartedly without a definite plan or direction; to work perfunctorily and muddle along--"So long as one remains a monk, one goes on tolling the bell." This is a ninth type.

To regard oneself as having rendered great service to the revolution, to pride oneself on being a veteran, to disdain minor assignments while being quite unequal to major tasks, to be slipshod in work and slack in study. This is a tenth type.

To be aware of one's own mistakes and yet make no attempt to correct them, taking a liberal attitude towards oneself. This is an eleventh type.

We could name more. But these eleven are the principal types...."

- Mao Tse-Tung "Combatting Liberalism".

Bourgeois Liberals/ Demokkkratic Party Hacks/Rank Opportunists Attempt to Seize Power Over Occupy Movement Nationally

2011-12-18T16:33:00.000-08:00

Representatives from the 99% Declaration group were hoping to have a discussion which would lead to an endorsement from Occupy Philly for plans to hold a National General Assembly in Philadelphia on July 4th of 2012. Instead, in an unusual display of collective assertiveness, the GA voted to unaffiliate themselves with the group and any of its future events.

On Tuesday’s General Assembly, representatives from the group, the 99% Declaration, presented plans to organize a National General Assembly in Philadelphia and hold an online election of 890 delegates from all over the US who would vote on a list of grievances the current government would be asked to redress.

During the questions and concerns part of the conversation, OP members presented information detailing the backgrounds and comments of three board members of the organization.

In addition to these concerns, OP General Assembly attendees raised issues surrounding the selection of delegates and the current efforts to plan the national gathering. OP quickly weighed the evidence, and as a result of the overwhelming concerns raised by the group, the GA voted “We do not support the 99% Declaration, its group, its website, its National GA and anything else associated with it.”

Who exactly is the 99Percent Declaration?
The 99% Declaration is a national working group led by NY criminal defense attorney, Michael Pollok. The story on their website says that Mr. Pollok was contacted for legal representation after the arrests of 700 OWS protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge in NYC. Of the protesters, 20 or so are students from a small liberal arts college in upstate NY where Pollok resides.

After meeting with them, he agreed to represent them pro bono. He then began drafting a list of grievances developed during conversations with them. The document he subsequently posted online is now known as the 99% Declaration. The website further states he later distributed about 400 copies of the declaration to Occupy Wall Street in Zuccotti Park. While there he gathered some people to form a working group at OWS. However, organizers from there have not acknowledged the group’s legitimacy, as noted in heated discussions posted on the NYC GA website.

Two days after his visit to Zuccotti Park, the story was picked up by the Huffington Post and the Global Grind after locating the draft document online. Immediately, the story drew national attention. The news reached Philly immediately, as OP was contacted by reporters for comments on the matter. It seemed mysterious that an event like this was being coordinated without first consulting any of the key organizers at Occupy Philly.

Similarly, the large scale media attention given to a presumed OWS group amid reports of a National General Assembly in Philly raised a lot of concerns from key organizers at OWS, especially from those working in the Demands Working Group. A dispute ensued about the group’s authority to use the OWS name for a proposal that had not been passed in their GA. Shortly after, the 99% Declaration was deemed by OWS, not an official working group. This caused their leader, Pollok, to make the following statement,

“OWS is a failure and there is no backup plan. it is antidemocratic and censors people outside of the narrow agenda of the small elite oligarchy that runs it; I have been down there and I saw them in action; they are a star chamber made up of anarchists and other antidemocratic movements who want everything and nothing. it cannot succeed; it has consumed it’s own oxygen and now the flame is out what a waste. we will press on with the nationwide election of delegates to a National General Assembly”

“this is an anti-democratic movement and we withdraw our support.”

Despite their tumultuous relationship with OWS, the group continued to develop its plans and formed its own nonprofit, The 99% Declaration Working Group, Ltd. The board members include founder Michael Pollok, a former white collar crimes criminal defense attorney who ran for Congress in 2009; Nancy Marcus Newman, whose father Steve Newman was involved in a bribery scandal with Vince Fumo; Adeline Malone, a former VP at Goldman Sachs; and an unknown Kevin Archambault. The comments made by Mr. Pollok, coupled with the background of the board members were enough to set off red flags in the beginning of the GA discussion.

The 99% Declaration claims they have over 10,000 fans on FB who vote on various things, help plan the event, and are coordinating the election of candidates. Though when asked, the representatives at the OP GA could not articulate how their FB voting works nor could they identify the people on the delegate selection committee.

More Here.

In Seattle, a group calling itself the Non-Violence Working Group sent an email to Seattle City Councilman Nick Licata essentially declaring themselves the "legitimate leadership" of Occupy Seattle, without G.A. approval. Yet, they dare call revolutionaries (anarchists/Marxists/anti-colonial People of Color) "undemocratic"! They are mad because revolutionary ideas hold sway in Seattle's Occupy movement. Example: the shutdown of the Port recieved an overwhelmeing majority of support from the G.A.

Tonight, at our Generally Assembly, these forces will exposed, once again, as the 1%'er wanna-bes and 1st worldist/neo-colonialist, petit-bourgoeis, economic parasites that they are.

Yes, We Are Shutting Down The Entire West Coast of Amerikkka. Believe it.

2011-12-09T08:06:00.000-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE / PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY

Occupy Seattle http://www.occupyseattle.org/

December 13, 2011. CONTACT: Seattleportsolidarity@gmail.com

Occupy Seattle: A New Phase for the Workers’ Movement.

[Note: This article was written by several members of Occupy Seattle who were closely involved with organizing for the December 12th West Coast Port Shut Down. Any opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect all of Occupy Seattle.]
SEATTLE, Wash — Monday, December 12th, Occupy protesters and allies shut down several major ports along the West Coast. In Seattle, we stopped all evening work at Terminals 18 and 5, causing millions in profit loss to major corporations Stevedoring Services of America, American President Line, and Eagle Marine Services.

Yesterday’s actions drew a wide swath of the 99%. Protesters of all ages demonstrated, and people of color turned out in large numbers. The protests included a coordinated city-wide high school walkout, a rally emceed by Hip Hop Occupies, and a three mile march to the ports. The shutdown was organized by members of Occupy Seattle in solidarity with Occupy Oakland and with the struggles of LA, Oakland, and Seattle port truckers and Longview longshore workers. Occupy Seattle’s People of Color caucus produced need-to-know guides for the action.

The shutdown was solidly an Occupy action, funded by the heartfelt donations of occupiers and their supporters, and a hefty donation from Occupy Oakland. We received absolutely no material support from any union. This was a direct action in the truest sense of the term: it was rapid-fire, organized on a shoestring budget, bypassed stalling bureaucracy, and mobilized the energy of an inspired community united against economic injustice.

The actions were planned with special attention to the long tradition of democracy and direct action within the ILWU. We picketed Terminals 18 and 5 in light of the longstanding ILWU principle of respecting other pickets. Union policy dictates that if arbitrators rule that picket lines are too dangerous to cross, ILWU workers will be compensated for the work they missed.

The protests were wildly successful. Truck drivers and port workers repeatedly expressed support for the protesters, waving and honking as they passed.

Terminal 18--the Port of Seattle’s largest and busiest terminal--was the first to be shut down. Protesters took the main intersection, swiftly forming a blockade of roadside debris to stop the incoming shift, while redirecting outgoing traffic onto one lane. This effectively blocked three gates, while the fourth had been shut down by the port in anticipation of the action. The Seattle Police Department, not protesters, temporarily stopped workers and truckers from leaving the port by forming a bike chain as protesters yelled at them to “let the trucks through.”

Under pressure from protesters, police backed away, but later stopped traffic once again, stating that they were trying to clear the road for police convoys to enter. In solidarity with the protesters, the truckers honked their horns loudly and persistently, and the frustrated calls of the crowd forced the cops back off the road. Occupiers then continued to direct traffic out of the port, delivering flyers of Scott Olsen’s statement to drivers as they passed (see below).

At 5pm, reports came through that the union arbitrator had ruled in favor of protesters, deeming the picket too dangerous to cross. The shipping company called off work at Terminal 18 for the evening. In accordance with union contract, dispatched longshore workers were nonetheless paid for their time.

Protesters then proceeded to Terminal 5, the location of the Port’s only other ship that day, chanting “Whose Ports / Our Ports.” Approximately one hundred protesters formed a human barricade and moving picket line at the terminal gate, while another hundred stood by in support.

Some protesters who remained at Terminal 18 were herded onto the sidewalk. When they tried to maintain the blockade, conflict escalated. The police used pepper spray and flash grenades to disperse protesters, in one case forcibly pulling back the head of a protester to spray him in the face. A few protesters flung road flares and a bag of paint at the police in retaliation. In the resulting chaos, a number of protesters were arrested.

The crowd of Terminal 18 dissipated and joined Terminal 5. After two hours of picketing, the union arbitrator once again ruled in favor of protesters, calling off work at the terminal.
The Occupy Movement Strikes Back

Many of us showed up to this action having learned from the experiences we’ve had in the short months since we began assembling together. Having previous engagements with the police, we knew to protect ourselves. Legal observers and medics were interspersed through the crowd, and the majority brought bandannas and scarves to cover their noses against flash bombs and other chemical weapons utilized by the police. Some of us sported the goggles that we learned to use after pepper spray incapacitated activists during the march on Chase Bank.

Occupy Seattle’s action was one of the last in the day, following successful port shutdowns in Longview, Portland, Oakland, and other places. A hundred of our friends in Bellingham continued to break the flow of capital by protesting on the railroads, some locking themselves to the tracks in defiance. Solidarity was extended to us even from Japan, where the International Labor Solidarity Committee of Doro-Chiba made a statement of support.

We send our sincere thanks to Oakland and Portland for extending their protests in response to the police aggression in Seattle that left several of our friends with stinging eyes and ringing ears. We extend our support and love to Houston and San Diego, where the police have used similarly aggressive tactics.

Today, we stand in solidarity with the unemployed, the underemployed, the incarcerated, and the 89% of the working class who don’t belong to unions. We stand in solidarity with students protesting education cutbacks and rising debts, with low-wage workers protesting union-busting, with those facing foreclosure, and with the unemployed. We believe that a workers’ movement does not merely belong to the unionized, nor does it recognize imposed political borders. This is the building of a new movement. We rise from our roots in the labor movement, the civil rights movement, and anticolonial struggles across the world.

For ongoing updates on the West Coast Port Shut Down action:

http://www.westcastportshutdown.org/

Truck Drivers Statement:

http://riseanddecolonize.wordpress.com/2011/12/12/an-open-letter-from-americas-port-truck-drivers-on-occupy-the-ports/

More information on Stevedoring Services of America (SSA) and Goldman Sachs: http://www.alternet.org/economy/153393/how_goldman_sachs_and_other_companies_exploit_port_truck_drivers_%E2%80%94_occupy_protesters_plan_to_shut_down_west_coast_ports_in_protest/

ILWU Guiding Principles (See in particular #4 regarding community picket lines):

http://www.ilwu-local13.org/history-guiding-principles.html

A Message from ILWU-Longview, WA. local president:

http://youtu.be/OGqncu3wlEI

California Prison Hunger Strikers Propose 10 Core Demands For The National Occupy Wall Street Movement.

2011-12-08T17:56:00.000-08:00

“The Constitution, then, illustrates the complexity of this American system: that it serves the interests of a wealthy elite, but also does enough for small property owners, for middle-income mechanics and farmers to build a broad base of support. The slightly prosperous people who make up this base of support are buffers against the Blacks, the Natives, the very poor Whites. They enable the elite to keep control with a minimum of coercion, a maximum of law – all made palatable by this fanfare of patriotism and unity.” – Howard Zinn.

Greetings, Brothers and Sisters. A firm, warm and solid embrace of revolutionary love is extended to you all. These words by Brother Howard Zinn are particularly relevant to the survival of the evolving Occupy Wall Street Movement, as these truths have been integral to the success of populist organizing in the U.S. historically and are central to the proposal we’re putting forward here.

Most of you, at this point, are familiar with the NARN Collective Think Tank (NCTT) from the many progressive programs and ideas that have come out of this body from both Pelican Bay SHU and here in Corcoran SHU, most recently our work in the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition.

Like the Arab Spring, which is still rocking the Middle East, and our own struggle to abolish indefinite confinement in sensory deprivation SHU torture units (see the five core demands from Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity), the Occupy Wall Street Movement expresses a fundamental rule of materialist dialectics as they apply to social development – i.e., the transformation of quantity into quality – expressed eloquently by the Honorable Comrade George Lester Jackson some 40 years ago: “(C)onsciousness is directly proportional to oppression.”

The purpose of the NCTT primarily is to act as a clearinghouse for progressive and meaningful solutions to the ills of society from our unique and scientific perspective. As we have followed and supported the Occupy Wall Street Movement, discussing its great potential, analyzing its character, composition and socio-economic motive force, predicting the inevitable violent reactionary response of the fascist state in defense of its capitalist masters, the ruling 1 percent have never, nor will they ever, concede anything, surely not substantive changes, without struggle which requires unity of purpose, broad-based organization, fluid strategy and effective tactics.

Populist and progressive movements in this nation have succeeded or failed, lived or died, based on how effectively they understood and adapted to this reality. We learned this in the epoch following the Civil War as reconstruction gains were effectively repealed and Jim Crow law was introduced.

The populist movements that gave birth to the People Party, the power of organized labor and the Dorr Rebellion learned this very hard lesson on the heels of the Haymarket Massacre. The Civil Rights Movement taught us the necessity of broad-based organization and accurate agreement of the opposition’s center of gravity: their point of weakness. Only a few years later we learned not to underestimate the power of the ruling 1 percent and insidiousness of its state tools when the Counter-Intelligence Program (Cointelpro) dismantled the Black Liberation Movement, imprisoned many of us, and ushered in the world of individualistic pursuits, greed, corruption, gross inequality and mass incarceration you all have now inherited.
As we watched the National (International) Day of Action unfold and the days that have followed, witnessing the predictable brutal response of the tools of the 1 percent as they beat young men and women bloody, pepper sprayed and pummeled peaceful youth at UC Davis, destroyed the people’s property across the nation, and even peppersprayed and dragged away 68-year-old women and pregnant ladies alike, with great effort we detached from our rage and analyzed the comments, ideas, and responses of various political pundits, common people on the streets, agents of the state and our protestors themselves.

Three things immediately became obvious from that analysis: 1) The mass media and far too many of the various pundits were in essence counting on the national Occupy movements to just peter out and fizzle away. It was this message that those who own these mass media outlets – the 1 percent – want to be disseminated as broadly as possible to undermine mass support for the movement.

The mass media were counting on the national Occupy movements to just peter out and fizzle away. It was this message that those who own these mass media outlets – the 1 percent – want to be disseminated as broadly as possible to undermine mass support for the movement.

2) We, the 99 percent, have no intention of going anywhere until substantive change is realized, and though most in this nation not involved directly in the occupations themselves agree with our ideas in opposition to corporate greed and institutional inequality, there were no clearly articulated demands around which the movement could organize the broader masses. 3) This lack of clearly articulated demands and coherent strategic and tactical organization by the national Occupy Movement was undermining its intent, diluting its potential, and degrading its motive force.

As you read this, consider where the men who wrote it live: Here, in Corcoran State Prison, labeled the "worst of the worst," they've survived as long as decades in solitary confinement in the SHU (security housing unit), one of the worst hell holes on earth. Out of despair and unimaginable cruelty and brutality, they forge hope for the beloved community. These men were leaders in the hunger strikes this summer and fall that involved over 12,000 California prisoners.This state of affairs left unaddressed, as in most every similar movement in the U.S. historically, will lead to its isolation. This cannot be allowed. The first step in defeating an enemy as powerful, all-encompassing and organized as the ruling 1 percent is understanding the nature of struggle and the basis of their power. When you analyze opponents, you must see beyond the superficial for the origins of that power, the point of vulnerability upon which it is based. Striking this point of vulnerability will inflict disproportionate damage.

It must be understood that substantive, radical, progressive social change is no different than warfare and warfare is a form of power. Power systems, no matter their myriad manifestations, share the same basic structures. The most visible thing about them is their appearance, what is seen and felt.
Great power systems first try to ignore challenges to them, to dismiss them. When this fails, they opt to crush them. This is exactly what the Occupy Movement has experienced thus far. But all too often this outward display is a deceptive fabrication, a manifestation of insecurity, since power dares not expose its weaknesses.
The key lies in determining what their point of vulnerability is, and to do so you must understand the structure of the power system and the culture in which it operates. I began this discussion with a concise analysis of just this point by Howard Zinn.

The real point of vulnerability in American democracy is the social and political support of its citizens. Unfortunately, the key apparatus in influencing public opinion is the American mass media – yet, ironically, they are equally vulnerable to the power of the mass support of the people. The key factor thus far in failing to harness this mass support is the lack of broad-based, articulable demands around which the uncommitted people who may support our message but not our movement can be educated, organized and mobilized to join the movement and transform not only the nature and structure of U.S. society, but the WORLD.
The key factor thus far in failing to harness the mass support of the people is the lack of broad-based, articulable demands around which the uncommitted people who may support our message but not our movement can be educated, organized and mobilized to join the movement and transform not only the nature and structure of U.S. society, but the WORLD.

To that end the NCTT Corcoran SHU has made a comprehensive analysis of statements from participants of all the national Occupy movements and some of those abroad and compiled these ideas into 10 core demands of the Occupy Wall Street Movement national coalition. We call on you brothers and sisters to disseminate these 10 core demands to all the Occupy movements across the nation and the world, and we call on all the Occupy movements to convene a national forum – which can take place online or at a national convention – to discuss the adoption of these 10 core demands as the definitive goals and organizing points around which the movement is based and the next level of our struggle is to be waged. These 10 core demands can be modified, augmented or amended to take into account the broadest cross-section of the 99 percent possible and the collective will of the movement:

The 10 Core Demands of the Occupy Wall Street Movement National Coalition

1. We want full employment with a living wage for all people who will work, and for employment to be enforced as the right which it is. The U.S. Declaration of Independence states in part “that all men … are endowed … with certain inalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” “Life” is thus a right guaranteed by this nation and the means to live – work, making a living wage for all of those who will and can work – must be equally guaranteed as the right which it is – as must a guaranteed income for those who can’t work. This is the responsibility of the federal government. If the corporate U.S. businessmen will not provide full employment even as they sit on trillions of dollars in cash reserves fleeced from the surplus value of labor, then the means of production should be taken from them and placed in the community so the 99 percent of the people can organize and employ all the people, ensuring a quality standard of life for all.

2. We want an end to institutional racism and race- and class-based disparities in access to, and quality of, labor, education, health care, criminal defense, political empowerment, technology and healthy food. We recognize institutional racism – the U.S. race caste system – and systemic class disparities in the U.S. capitalist structure as not simply an obstacle to equitable educational opportunities, labor access, wage equality, proportionate rates of chronic disease management, access to quality and preventable health care services, non-predatory community policing, equitable treatment of criminal offenders, access to the political process for all, access to communications technology, the internet and fresh, unprocessed foods but as structural features of U.S. market capitalism primarily designed to prevent broad class cooperation between the 99 percent from various racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. We will no longer allow this divide and rule arrangement to govern the socio-economic relationships upon which the nature and structure of U.S. society is based.

3. We want decent and affordable housing for all people and for it to be enforced as the right which it is. We recognize that housing, like living wage employment, is a fundamental necessity of life and as such a right that we have invested this government with securing on our behalf. Instead, government has consistently sided with those on Wall Street, who are responsible for the single greatest loss of housing in the nation’s history, while federal, state and local officials have in essence criminalized homelessness and chronic poverty and made a practice of attacking, destroying the property of and displacing the homeless wherever they’ve tried to erect shelters in this locked, anti-poor society. Since it was corporate greed, government deregulation and financial speculators that led to the creation of exotic financial instruments like credit default swaps and sub-prime loan bundles which fleeced the 99 percent of much of their wealth and home equity, the government should mandate a “cost of living” readjustment to home equity debt on all U.S. homes so what the people owe actually reflects what these properties are now worth. This would eliminate “underwater” homeowners and bail out the 99 percent of the people for a change. Simultaneously, vacated and empty federal housing authority properties (FHA) should be made into cooperatives so that our communities, with government aid, can create and build decent housing for all.

4. We want affordable and equal access to higher education for all and access to education that teaches the true history of colonialism, chattel slavery, repression of organized labor, the use of police repression and imprisonment as tools of capitalist exploitation, and the perpetuation of imperialism in the development and maintenance of modern U.S. power systems and corporate financial markets. As current trends in the national unemployment rate indicate – for the 99 percent nationally, the rate is 14 percent for Latinos, 17 percent for New Afrikans (Blacks), yet only 4 percent for those with a college degree – higher education has a direct correlation to socio-economic opportunity and prosperity. Since equal opportunity is a fundamental right of U.S. citizenship, the 99 percent should have equal access to higher education without speculative corporate profiteering in industries related to higher education driving up tuition costs and student loan interest rates to usurious levels, leaving most in perpetual debt and simply pricing the very prospect of higher education out of reach for those in communities of color and the poor.

This is a Corcoran SHU cell. Notice how cramped it is with two guards inside. Imagine living here for months and years and decades, with no privacy and the lights on 24 hours a day.There should be a universal higher education system open to all based on their capacity to pay with tuitions set at that capacity level, while not barring anyone for an inability to pay. Simultaneously, the usurious debt incurred by students who clearly have no capacity to pay at a sustainable rate should have those debts forgiven in full. Our public education system should give all our people a knowledge of the true nature and structure of U.S. capitalist society and its legacy of injustice, genocide, exploitation, intentional underdevelopment, unjustifiable wars of imperialist aggression to secure new markets, resources and spheres of influence, bloody conquest, ecological mismanagement, slavery and murder in service to the development and maintenance of the molding of greed that is the 1 percent ruling elite.

5. We want an immediate end to police brutality and the murder of oppressed people in the U.S., particularly in the New Afrikan (Black), Latino, immigrant and underclass communities and among those protesting in this nation. We recognize the police and other state paramilitary agencies – sheriffs, FBI, correctional guards etc. – are, and have always been, the enforcement army of the ruling 1 percent. This was again proven when these fascist forces moved nationally, en masse, to attack, pepper spray, beat, destroy the property of, arrest and attempt to crush the national Occupy Movement and its supporters at the two-month anniversary of the worldwide action and every day since. We recognize such brutal and unwarranted treatment is the daily existence of New Afrikan (Black), Latino, immigrant and underclass communities and people in this nation now, and historically, all to ensure the 1 percent “keeps us in our place,” the unfortunate victims of the race/class arrangement.

We recognize the police and other state paramilitary agencies – sheriffs, FBI, correctional guards etc. – are, and have always been, the enforcement army of the ruling 1 percent.

Self-defense is a human right and both the action and means are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and state laws (see the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and California Penal Code Section 50). We believe community organized oversight and self-defense forces should be organized to monitor and record all police interactions with the people and defend them against ruling class directed and racist attacks when necessity dictates. The hypocrisy of the government and media is exposed as they criticize Syria, China and Iran for attacking peaceful protestors while they do the same across the U.S. daily. We will suffer no more attacks like those at UC Davis, no more Scott Olsens, Fly Benzos or Oscar Grants to be injured or killed at the hands of the tools of the 1 percent.

The hypocrisy of the government and media is exposed as they criticize Syria, China and Iran for attacking peaceful protestors while they do the same across the U.S. daily. We will suffer no more attacks like those at UC Davis, no more Scott Olsens, Fly Benzos or Oscar Grants to be injured or killed at the hands of the tools of the 1 percent.

6. We want an end to the expansion of the prison industrial complex, as a profit base – from our tax dollars – for the disposal of surplus labor and the poor. We want an end to the use of indefinite solitary confinement torture units in the U.S. as they are inhumane and illegal. The mass incarceration of people of color and the poor will no longer be tolerated as an acceptable alternative to enforcing socio-economic equality in America. The disproportionate distribution of wealth, privilege and opportunity in a society is the origin of all crime.

The U.S. has one of the greatest disparities between haves and have nots on earth. As a result, the U.S. has the largest prison population on the planet with some 2.7 million of our citizens in prison, 67 percent of them New Afrikans (Black) or Latinos, though they constitute only 26 percent of the nation’s population.
The prison population in the U.S. has exploded some 60 percent since 1981, with state and federal prison budgets in excess of 100 percent of billions of our tax dollars a year lining the pockets of corporate interests that build, supply and maintain these prisons, jails, courts and staff, not to mention the labor aristocrats like the CCPOA (California Correctional Peace Officers Association) guards union, who’ve created a socio-economic and political power base that guarantees their job security and ever increasing salaries and benefits, while maintaining a lobbying stranglehold on state politicians.

We recognize, in the face of such a corrupt cabal of government and business, the purpose of imprisonment in the U.S. now has little to do with public safety and rehabilitation and more to do with the development of a self-perpetuating, poverty-fueled, recession-proof industry and an accompanying socio-political accommodating labor aristocracy of prison guards, cops and staff as a support base for the interests of the ruling 1 percent.

Prison is a socially hostile microcosm of society’s contradictions, possessing the same race/class and state/class contradictions that currently define the socio-economic inequality that is capitalist Amerika. Prisons serve as warehouses for surplus labor, the poor and those who have been forced to the bottom rung of society. It is the systemic race/class disparities, intentional criminalization and underdevelopment of poor communities and social apathy which have forced most offenders into the underground economy as the only viable option to survive.

This is unacceptable and unsustainable, equally repugnant, fundamentally inhumane, and illegal as the continued gross violation of the U.N. Convention Against Torture – to which the U.S. is a signatory and we agree is the law of the land – which prohibits long-term solitary confinement for extracting information, political views or as punishment for any reason – which is the very purpose of SHU units – as torture, but it is being practiced in numerous U.S. prisons with government approval. The continued indefinite confinement of human beings in SHUs, SMUs and other supermax torture units must be abolished in the U.S., as they violate the basic tenets of human rights this nation has sworn to uphold. The basis of true rehabilitation, such as tech and computer-based vocational programs, access to higher education for prisoners and community-based parole boards must become the new order of the day. This is the only way to guarantee true justice in an unjust social arrangement and see our imprisoned citizens are capable of making a meaningful contribution to our society and prosperity.

The disproportionate distribution of wealth, privilege and opportunity in a society is the origin of all crime. The U.S. has one of the greatest disparities between haves and have nots on earth.

7. We want an end to all corporate and financial influences in the political process in the U.S. We recognize, since its inception, the nature and structure of U.S. society has been one of the rich, for the rich and by the rich, in which the 99 percent have served as a source of exploited labor and a consumer market for the goods and services of those who own the means of production. This pattern of usurpations has evolved into a political process in which public policies and elected officials are more often than not determined by lobbying dollars, manipulation of public opinion by corporate-controlled mass media, and the overwhelming influence of financial markets and industries on policies and policymakers, effectively marginalizing the people, their interests and their will, reducing them to pawns in a game of corporate pandering. This will stop now. The U.S. will finally become a nation of the people, for the people and by the people, where only individual citizens may have any influence in the nature and structure of the democratic process in the U.S. This means banning all lobbyists, donors, financial market proxies, strategic advisers and special interest groups from local, state and federal electoral and legislative processes in the U.S. We are sick of this “legalized” corruption.

8. We want an end to imperialist wars of aggression and sending our youth off to kill and die to enforce the economic interests of big oil and other corporate concerns seeking new resources to exploit, new markets to open for sale of their goods and services and as an impetus to keep from addressing domestic ills. We recognize, as Bolton Hall said, “If there is a war, you will furnish the corpses and the taxes and others will get this glory. Speculators will make money out of it, that is, out of you (us).” Thousands of our young men and women died in Iraq and across the Middle East and caused the deaths, either intentionally or unintentionally, of many thousands more Third World people, all based on the lies of greedy and bloodthirsty politicians with multiple ties to big oil and corporate interests. The current administration has only slightly modified this same imperialist tendency by shifting it to a more palatable target at the cost of billions of our tax dollars and thousands of our youth that could have been contributing to the prosperity of the nation and its people. We support our young men and women, but we do not support imperialism.

9. We want a bottoms-up approach to economic development and labor-capital relations in the U.S. This nation is empowered by “we the people,” the 99 percent, to secure our rights to life, liberty, and prosperity; yet we recognize the state has aligned itself so intimately for so long with the exclusive interest of the ruling 1 percent that it has become enamored exclusively to a top-down approach to socio-economic and political solutions which always favors the rich first and everyone else when or if possible. This has resulted in a 281 percent increase in the growth of wealth in the top 1 percent of this nation, while the bottom 90 percent have seen their incomes flat over the past 20 years. We recognize that this fascist alliance between corporate capital and government has become obstructive to the ends of securing the rights of life and prosperity to the 99 percent of this nation’s people and will now come to an end. Socio-economic and political policy must now uplift the quality of life from the bottom rung up – empowering the disenfranchised, providing opportunities for those with no options and directing bailouts and subsidies to the people, not banks and billionaires. We recognize the state has thus far been a tool to guarantee the dominance of one class over others, of the 1 percent over the 99 percent, and that arrangement will now come to an end.
Socio-economic and political policy must now uplift the quality of life from the bottom rung up – empowering the disenfranchised, providing opportunities for those with no options and directing bailouts and subsidies to the people, not banks and billionaires.

10. We want a more equitable distribution of wealth, justice and opportunity at every level of society, reflecting the objective reality that it’s the socio-economic, political, intellectual and cultural contributions of the 99 percent upon which this society stands. We recognize that there is enough food in this nation that no one need be hungry, enough unoccupied structures in this nation that no one need be homeless, enough educators, institutions, knowledge and technology in this nation that no one need be without a degree or skilled trade, enough work to be done that no one needs to be without a job; and it is only due to the insistence of an entrenched, super-rich 1 percent and their stranglehold on every institution and apparatus of this nation’s infrastructure from the government to the mass media that their opulence and privilege be maintained at the expense of the 99 percent. We recognize that this is not our national reality, the ruling class has mismanaged our society – woefully and criminally mismanaged – and those in power at every level are either unable or unwilling to change the nature and structure of capitalist society. So it falls to us, the 99 percent, to forge a new basis upon which socio-economic relationships will be based, ushering in a new social order in Amerika and around the world, that serves the interests of all the people and not simply the privileged few.

For an hour a few times a week, prisoners in the Corcoran SHU are allowed to "exercise" in these yard cages. It is our request that all of you please send a copy of this proposal to each individual Occupy Movement coalition, which includes but is not limited to Occupy Wall Street (New York City), Occupy Oakland, Occupy NOLA (New Orleans), Occupy San Francisco, Occupy Boston, Occupy L.A. (Los Angeles), Occupy Seattle, Occupy UC Davis, Occupy Phoenix, Occupy Fresno, Occupy Cleveland, Occupy Chicago et al. Post a copy of this proposal online at as many sites for the Occupy movement as possible. Post it on Facebook, blog sites and wherever social commentary is held.

In addition, we call on each individual Occupy Movement to begin organizing in and with the underclass communities in your city or town and for all my brothers and sisters in the ghettos, projects, barrios and trailer parks across this nation to begin organizing with Occupy Movement coalition reps around collective programs that can serve to begin realizing these 10 core demands by our unity and contributions alone. The NCTT, both here in Corcoran SHU and Pelican Bay SHU are committed to making meaningful contributions to the development of such community action programs, which we will outline in our next communication.
We call on each individual Occupy Movement to begin organizing in and with the underclass communities in your city or town and for all my brothers and sisters in the ghettos, projects, barrios and trailer parks across this nation to begin organizing with Occupy Movement coalition reps around collective programs that can serve to begin realizing these 10 core demands by our unity and contributions alone.

But what must be understood is social movements of this nature are supported only to the degree that their ideas find resonance in the psychological structures of the masses, but even this is not enough. To ensure the realization of any substantive change in the nature and structure of U.S. capitalist society and to prevent this movement from being isolated and neutralized by the forces of repression, it must be firmly embedded in as broad a cross-section of this population as possible.

There are some 47 million people in Amerika living below the poverty line, another 150 million or so barely getting by – two thirds of this nation’s population, all of them part of the 99 percent. It is here that we will find our most lasting support, and thus it is here that you must begin forging meaningful ties. These are overwhelmingly New Afrikan (Black), Latino, immigrant and poor communities.

You champion us all with your ideas and the courage of your convictions, just as we continue to support you with our sacrifices and insight. It is now time to take the movement to its next evolution and ultimately to its inevitable conclusion: victorious revolutionary change.

Your greatest power lies in your unity and cooperation and ultimately your organizational ability. The power of the people far surpasses all the repressive violence of the Babylons attacking you/us or the wealth of the 1 percent, who will stop at nothing to silence us all.

The power of the people far surpasses all the repressive violence of the Babylons attacking you/us or the wealth of the 1 percent, who will stop at nothing to silence us all.

This is a protracted struggle; there will be no 90-day revolution here. Victory will require sacrifice, tenacity and competent strategic insight. The question you must ask is, Are you prepared to do what is necessary to win this struggle? If you answer in the affirmative, commit to victory and accept no other alternative. The people, as we are, are with you. Until we win or don’t lose, our love and solidarity to all those who love freedom and fear only failures.

Hip Hop Occupies Call-To-Action for West Coast Port Shutdown.

2011-12-05T15:37:00.000-08:00

hiphopoccupies.com

Hip Hop Occupies is calling upon youth and artists in Seattle and beyond to come out in full force December 12th in support and solidarity for the West Coast Port Shutdown.

HHO endorses this day of direct action as not only an opportunity to make a political statement against budget cuts and on-going police brutality, but also to create astrategic profit loss within the toxic capitalist economic system.

From Seattle to San Diego, oppressed peoples of all backgrounds are mobilizing to shut down the power of the 1% in this coordinated national effort.

We choose to occupy capital, not capitol buildings, because we are no longer waiting to have our voices validated at the whim of elected officials.

It is the fact that the Port Shutdown is pushing the Occupy Movement in a more active, coordinated direction that Hip Hop Occupies stands in solidarity.

It has historically been a West Coast tradition to push the envelope of culture and struggle in this way. From the Black Panthers to Freestyle Fellowship, from NWA to the 1919 Seattle General Strike, the West Coast stays innovating.

Following in the footsteps of these West Coast innovators in both Hip Hop and Revolutionary struggle, Hip Hop Occupies to Decolonize Seattle is helping to coordinate rallies at 1pm, 3pm, and 6pm on Monday, December 12th. We are asking all our allies in the artist community to come MC, paint, dance, and create in the name of freedom and self-determination.

Monday, December 12th, 2011. Westlake Park and Port of Seattle.

Event Schedule:

*12:00pm: Hip Hop Occupies Artist Check-In at Westlake Park (4th and Pine)

*1:00pm: Rally and Performances at Westlake Center

*3:00pm: Rally and Performances at Port of Seattle (Spokane Street)

*6:00pm: Rally and Performances at Spokane Street Fishing Area

To participate, perform, speak and/or share at any of the D12 rallies in

Seattle, call (425) 223-7787, email HipHopOccupies@gmail

*Video of Support for D12 featuring Boots Riley of the Coup: http://youtu.be/OGqncu3wlEI

*For more info on the West Coast Port Shutdown visit: http://www.westcoastportshutdown.org/

*For more Info on Hip Hop Occupies to Decolonize visit: http://www.hiphopoccupies.com/

Occupy Seattle Militants Seize Building at 10th and E. Union St. For A Hot Second.

2011-12-03T18:28:00.000-08:00

From 6pm ish to 3am ish, the space featured in the video above was held peacefully, even with the presence of a few dumb liberals and a few remnants from the dictatorship of the self-medicated.

We had impromptu food, general assembly, live music, and more. Sadly, but not unexpectedly, Seattle Police SWAT came in through the roof. Most of us escaped via the main exit, plus additional "secret" exits we made ourselves. 15 people were arrested when they decided to lock arms and "go down with the ship", so to speak. They are out now.

Big up to the revolutionary anarchist, Marxist, and [inter]national liberation/PoC organizations involved in this effort. We have shown that we can come together and make it happen. December 12th is right around the corner (lol)...

Wake Up, God Dammit! Decolonize/Occupy it all!

The 14 Characteristics Of Fascism.

2011-12-01T18:36:00.000-08:00

Dr. Lawrence Britt. Free Inquiry magazine, Spring 2003

[Dr. Britt, a political scientist, studied the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile). He found the regimes all had 14 things in common, and he calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism.]

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism -- Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights -- Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to 'look the other way' or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause -- The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military -- Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism -- The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and antigay legislation and national policy.

6. Controlled Mass Media -- Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or through sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in wartime, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security -- Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined -- Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected -- The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed -- Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts -- Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment -- Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses, and even forego civil liberties, in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption -- Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions, and who use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections -- Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against (or even the assassination of) opposition candidates, the use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and the manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.

$enators Levin (D-Mich) and McCain (R-Ariz) Demand the U.$. Military Lock Up American Citizens.

2011-11-27T17:14:00.000-08:00

From ACLU.org

The Senate will be voting on a bill that will direct American military resources not at an enemy shooting at our military in a war zone, but at American citizens and other civilians far from any battlefield — even people in the United States itself.

The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world.

The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday, November 28th. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.

More here.

"Freedom and Democracy", An Amerikkkan Fantasy. The 99% Must Seize Power.

2011-11-25T14:05:00.000-08:00

Statement from Anti-Fascist (Antifa) Working Group - Occupy/Decolonize Seattle on the Dictatorship Of The Self-Medicated at Occupy Seattle.

2011-11-23T10:34:00.000-08:00

We are individual members of the Antifa working group at Decolonize/Occupy Seattle who have been involved in this movement since the beginning. Our working group is founded on the realization that we need to employ self defense in defending the principles of anti-racism, anti-sexism, among other liberatory principles to keep us and our communities safe.

We are fellow survivors of this racist, patriarchal, transphobic and ableist capitalist society. The capitalist system forces all of us to conform to its norms, and punishes those of us who can’t or don’t, with hunger, depression and homelessness. In the midst of pain, we all seek coping strategies. Some heal us, and others don’t. . It is our hope that this movement will create alternative ways for people to cope with their alienation, and ultimately, that revolution will create a world where we don’t feel as alienated, and as heavily reliant on drugs as we are here, today.

Drug use and addiction among our communities is a way in which people cope with the horror of this society. However, those same powerful drugs that temporarily relieve the pain and alienation of this society, also cause harm to the individuals who are using, as well as those around them. In our encampment at Decolonize/Occupy Seattle, we have unfortunately experienced the negative impacts of drug use through violence and aggressive behavior. Our friends become unrecognizable under the influence of drugs. The drug’s behavior creates an unsafe space for people in the encampament and put us all at unnecessary risk and danger.

The safety of the campers and all members of Decolonize/Occupy Seattle is important for the movement.

Antifa Working Group - Occupy/Decolonize Seattle.

"Wake Up, God Dammit!" On MSNBC.

2011-11-22T19:35:00.000-08:00

"Wake Up, God Dammit! We're occupyin'!"

Pregnant Occupier Alleges Police Brutality Resulted In Miscarriage.

2011-11-22T08:22:00.000-08:00

[The first 'soldier' from Occupy/Decolonize Seattle to fall in battle against the 1%. RIP Miracle. - G.L.]

The Occupy Wall Street movement has recently come under attack nationwide, with police actions ranging from camp evictions to seemingly punitive pepper spraying of peaceful protesters. Police officers are losing their jobs over their brutal actions against OWS, with the now-infamous "Pepper-spray cop" incident resulting in the suspension of UC Davis Police Chief Annette Spicuzza.

Occupy Seattle has seen its fair share of action, with the now-viral image of Dorli Rainey, 84, becoming an iconic symbol of the oppression this movement has begun to face. There were other victims, however, at the pepper-spraying that took place on the evening of the 15th of November.

One of them is Jennifer Fox (above, center), 19, an Occupier who has been with the demonstration since it began operations at Westlake Park in downtown Seattle. Previously homeless, she now sleeps every night at the Occupation, grateful for a safe place to lay her head. She is not just here because Occupy Seattle provides her shelter, however. She has participated in every march since the beginning of the movement and identifies with its goals.

"We deserve to have a change and I felt like Occupy Seattle needed more people to participate."

What's remarkable about the attack on Fox that evening is that she is three months pregnant. She was the victim of several brutal attacks that evening on the part of police, to include being pepper sprayed twice and hit in the stomach with a cop's bike during the fray that occurred when police indiscriminately (and without provocation) sprayed protesters. She was rushed to the hospital as soon as the Occupation was able to summon an ambulance, but she says that police prevented her from leaving the scene even though she told them she was pregnant.

"I shouted 'I'm pregnant, I don't want to get hurt, please let me through!' They didn't cooperate."

She has since visited the hospital once more and received heartbreaking news. On the 20th, Fox received news that she has miscarried, and alleges the miscarriage is due to the injuries she received during the police action on the 15th.

"It hurts. It's upsetting. I was ready to have a kid, because my family was going to support me in taking care of the child. Her name was going to be Miracle."

Fox is receiving consultation with the Occupy Seattle legal team presently and will be deciding whether or not to seek legal action against the Seattle Police Department for the loss of her child. One thing, however, is certain: a tragedy of immeasurable depth has struck the Occupy Wall Street movement. If her allegation is confirmed, the inappropriate use of force against peaceful activists exercising their right to free speech has finally cost a protester something irreplaceable: an unborn baby.

Reposted from oneangryqueer.blogspot.com

[One more reason that protests are NOT enough! The 99% must SEIZE POWER and PUNISH the 1%! - G.L.]

Interview with Arundhati Roy on Maoist Insurgency in India.

2011-11-21T10:15:00.000-08:00

Occupy Seattle Militants Seize Home in Gentrified Central Area.

2011-11-19T19:45:00.000-08:00

23rd and Alder. Seized by the people, for the people. We are the 99%! Wake Up, God Dammit!

84 Year-Old Occupier Blasted With Pepper Spray By Seattle Police.

2011-11-17T00:56:00.000-08:00

"Dangerous, violent anarchist/liberal/marxist/libertarian...etc." Lol. Yeah, right. Wake Up, God Dammit!
Dorli, pictured in the center looking f----ed up, made national news after this; with interviews on NBC and MSNBC.

What would YOU do if the police did this to your grandma?
One more good reason that the 99% must SEIZE POWER over the 1%!

Mayor McGinn, your "support" for Occupy Seattle rings hollow. Nothing short of your unconditional surrender, and that of the entire city council (and other 1% elements and supporters), will satisfy the revolutionaries of the Occupy movement. Our taxes pay for all of you. We ALLOW you to exist! It is only due to our collective courtesy and kindness (also the ignorance and fear of the larger Occupy movement) that you and other 1%'er elements remain among the living! Your treachery and state-sponsored terrorism will eventually catch up to you (look at what happened to former Seattle mayor Paul Schell). And we will be right there when they do!

2011-11-13T11:34:00.000-08:00

Friday, November 18th. Westlake Park. 4pm.

My Thoughts On Occupy Oakland After The Murder and One-Month Anniversary.

2011-11-13T11:00:00.000-08:00

Minister of Information JR outside the KPFA tent at Occupy Oakland on Nov. 2, the day of the General Strike

by J.R. of Blocc Report Radio (on Black Agenda Report).

On Thursday, Nov. 10, Occupy Oakland was supposed to celebrate its one-month anniversary in the renamed Oscar Grant Plaza in front of City Hall. Instead the Occupy Movement worldwide was shaken by the cold-blooded murder of a participant less than an hour before festivities were scheduled to start. And the Occupy Movement and the news tried to cover up the fact that the victim, who was Black, was an active participant.

I got downtown at about 4:30 p.m. on a mission to teach my 7-year-old about Occupy Oakland, capitalism, the U.S. government, the working class, the poor and more. I saw myself giving her one of her first political education field trips. Instead of just talking and watching it on TV, I wanted her to experience the Occupy Movement and be able to ask questions of people who were participating, so that she can come to her own conclusions.

What we stumbled on was a rude awakening. We went to the section of the Occupy Oakland encampment by the Frank Ogawa statue to talk to the young Black campers who were collectively barbecuing, pooling their resources since the food at the camp was not sustaining them. My daughter and I hung out for about 10 minutes.

Then a fight ensued after two newcomers ran up on two of the Brothas who were actually campers at Occupy Oakland. It was soon broken up by the watching crowd.

We left after one of the newcomers yelled, “Stay right there. I’ll be right back.” We went to use the internet at the House of Music, owned by Dwayne Wiggins of Tony Toni Tone, who operates the multi-venue building a safe distance away from the melee.

An aerial view of Occupy Oakland

A short time later, my daughter asked me if I heard the sound of people screaming. I didn’t. Seconds later, people started running by the window of the establishment, which is a half a block away from the Occupy encampment. I peeped out of the door, and some of the young guys I was with earlier were in motion.

They slowed down only to say, “They just shot dude in the head.” I didn’t know who they were talking about exactly, but I did know they were alluding to the fight from about 15 minutes earlier. My daughter and I left the House of Music to walk to the BART, which was in the direction of the murder.

When we got closer, my daughter froze up in the middle of the street, paralyzed in fear. I talked her back into having a level head about the situation, telling her that people who panic usually don’t make the best decisions. I took her by the hand and swiftly walked to the BART station, where I listened to her feelings and answered her questions to the best of my ability.

This is what life is like at the bottom of the 99 percent, where we have to show our 7-year-old daughters how to cope in the vicinity of a fight and a murder at a place where people are demonstrating for the 99 percent in an abstract manner. I know that this is a day that my daughter will never forget. I still think it was an eye-opening experience and that I am fortunate I was with her to help see her through it.

As we got on BART on our way to a screening of the Mumia Abu Jamal documentary, “Justice on Trial,” I was thinking about what happened. The day before, I had a segment on my Morning Mix radio show where I feel we almost predicted this disaster. I asked people simply, what is the Occupy Movement about? What are its goals and objectives? Is it against capitalism or is it trying to reform capitalism?

I pointed out how the moves that Occupy Oakland demonstrated and got major accolades for were extremely symbolic and impractical, including “the general strike,” when the mayor of Oakland gave all city employees the day off, and “the shutting down of the port,” which the mayor allowed to happen by holding the police back from the gathering that lasted less than 24 hours. How do you work with the mayor to demonstrate against the city she runs? Why was the strike not extended right after the Occupiers figured out that the mayor was planning to co-opt it? Why wasn’t the port “shut down” until some demands were met?

There are a lot of questions about what is going on and what conditions created the climate for the murder, since it was in downtown in broad daylight during rush hour. Many people believe that Occupy Oakland has created a lack of safety in downtown Oakland. The Occupiers’ intentions to give away food and tents to people who want to join the camp seems noble on the surface, but if you dig deeper it is rather ignorant to think that food and temporary shelter can heal and politicize people with mental illnesses, addictions and a host of other ailments contracted from being on the bottom of the 99 percent. One of the craziest things is that there is no way to categorize and filter the people who are here to fight the power, from the people who are freeloading, from the people who need serious help before they can fight for anything.

Medics tend to Alex, who had been staying at Occupy Oakland, after he was shot on Thursday, Nov. 10. – Photo: Jane Tyska, AP

Many in the Occupy Oakland camp knew nothing of the lives of the many unemployed Black people who live downtown before they, in Christopher Columbus fashion, decided to “occupy” the area. The area was already populated, with people who have been forced by capitalism to scratch the bottom of the barrel with their knuckles to survive. Many of the white kids who make up the dominant force in the Occupy Movement in general and Occupy Oakland specifically have never even met the type of poverty that exists on the regular out there. They can’t even relate to these people, and in most cases these activists have stopped trying.

Some would argue, like myself, that the Occupy Movement has done nothing to mobilize and support campaigns that affect Black and Brown people directly and that are more urgent than taking your money out of a big bank and putting it in a credit union – campaigns to stop the gentrifying of our communities, to keep schools in Black and Brown neighborhoods open despite budget cuts, to end police terrorism on people besides Oscar Grant, and to resist racism in the working class. In my opinion, this is why the Occupy Movement continues to be mostly white all over the U.S. and Europe and why there is a certain nonchalance and skepticism about it in Black and Brown communities.

With that being the case and there being no active political education program to teach people on both sides about our common economic and political enemies and how to relate to each other, there is no way to create a vested interest in the 99 percent campaign, even if it was going to start to tackle practical issues. And with anarchy as the politic prevailing over the movement, which amounts to chaos, there should be no question as to why somebody could kill somebody else in the midst of monumental demonstrations. There is no hierarchy, or real security apparatus for that matter; no one has to listen to anybody. Everybody can be on their own individual hype. I’m surprised something like this murder has not happened sooner.

If the Occupy Movement is really going to become the political vehicle of the working class, as it is says it wants to be, one of the things that it has to do first is open itself up to criticism aimed at making it stronger. This is the role that progressive media should play.

As Chairman Mao of the Chinese Revolution said, “Claim no easy victories.” KPFA, the main radio station broadcasting the views of supporters, needs to reverse its position of just patting the movement on the back and use its airwaves to analyze where people want to go in a practical sense, as well as issues that need to be discussed, whether controversial or not, like the circumstances that allowed this murder to take place on the plaza a stone’s throw from the lawn that houses the encampment.

The People’s Minister of Information JR is associate editor of the Bay View, author of “Block Reportin’” and filmmaker of “Operation Small Axe,” both available, along with many more interviews, atwww.blockreportradio.com. He also hosts two weekly shows on KPFA 94.1 FM and kpfa.org: The Morning Mix every Wednesday, 8-9 a.m., and The Block Report every Friday night-Saturday morning, midnight-2 a.m. He can be reached at blockreportradio@gmail.com.

Gandhian "Non-Violent" Crypto-Fascists Are Also The 1%.

2011-11-06T12:05:00.000-08:00

“I shall be no party to dispossessing the propertied classes of their private property without just cause. My objective is to reach your hearts and convert you so that you may hold all your private property in trust for your tenants and use it primarily for their welfare….

The Ramarajya of my dream ensures the right alike of prince and pauper. You may be sure that I shall throw the whole weight of my influence in preventing a class war … Supposing there is an attempt unjustly to deprive you of your property. You will find me fighting on your side …

Our socialism or communism should be based on non-violence, and on the harmonious cooperation of labour and capital, the landlord and tenant.” (Gandhi, interview to deputation of United Provinces Zemindars, July, 1934, Mahratta, August 12, 1934).

More here. Go here for the legacy of Gandhism in India.

'Plastered' Pugilists Are 'Pigs'. Why? Because Violent, Drunken Behavior is Police Work!

2011-11-01T19:29:00.000-07:00

Show Notes For Episode #58.

2011-10-30T15:30:00.000-07:00

"....liberalism rejects ideological struggle and stands for unprincipled peace, thus giving rise to a decadent, Philistine attitude and bringing about political degeneration in certain units and individuals in the Party and the revolutionary organizations.

Liberalism manifests itself in various ways:

To let things slide for the sake of peace and friendship when a person has clearly gone wrong, and refrain from principled argument because he is an old acquaintance, a fellow townsman, a schoolmate, a close friend, a loved one, an old colleague or old subordinate. Or to touch on the matter lightly instead of going into it thoroughly, so as to keep on good terms. The result is that both the organization and the individual are harmed. This is one type of liberalism.

To indulge in irresponsible criticism in private instead of actively putting forward one's suggestions to the organization. To say nothing to people to their faces but to gossip behind their backs, or to say nothing at a meeting but to gossip afterwards. To show no regard at all for the principles of collective life but to follow one's own inclination. This is a second type.

To let things drift if they do not affect one personally; to say as little as possible while knowing perfectly well what is wrong, to be worldly wise and play safe and seek only to avoid blame.
This is a third type.

Not to obey orders but to give pride of place to one's own opinions. To demand special consideration from the organization but to reject its discipline. This is a fourth type.

To indulge in personal attacks, pick quarrels, vent personal spite or seek revenge instead of entering into an argument and struggling against incorrect views for the sake of unity or progress or getting the work done properly. This is a fifth type.

To hear incorrect views without rebutting them and even to hear counter-revolutionary remarks without reporting them, but instead to take them calmly as if nothing had happened.
This is a sixth type.

- from "Combat Liberalism" Mao Tse-Tung. Read more here...

Show Notes for Episode #57.

2011-10-24T23:22:00.000-07:00

There cannot be any real unity with unprincipled opportunists, liars, and 1%'er wanna-bes!

Take your unscientific, petit-bourgeois, liberal/social fascist feel-good nonsense designed to fool the politically backward and [temporarily] uninformed somewhere else!

Here's what I experienced just yesterday: a clique led by Juan Jose Bocanegra decides that after the speaker's list was CLOSED to add King County Councilman, Larry Gossett who, in 1999, co-authorized the Seattle Police Department SWAT Team RAID on the GRASSROOTS African-American Heritage Museum and Cultural Center; which led to its re-opening as the "Northwest African-American Museum", effectively run by The Urban League, a domestic neo-colonial/knee-grow organization that undermines the black community. It was James Kelley, the leader of the Seattle branch of the Urban League, who pulled a pistol on another community member on the grounds of Rainier Beach High School in 2003....and did no jail time!

When I, as co-host and de-facto stage manager, said "no" for the reasons stated above, the sound person, Bob Barnes, says "Well, Hip-Hop Occupies won't have any sound unless Larry speaks!" Larry was no where in the park at this time; he didn't show until after 1:30pm!

K.L., you two-faced snake, you KNOW what he has done, you KNOW the history of that struggle, yet there you are carrying the water for the uncle toms and demokkrats! How dare you engage in pork-chop micro-nationalism claiming that a POC ally "doesn't know anything about the black community."?

It is you who knows NOTHING about the black community. Unlike you, she has an actual positive relationship with REAL revolutionaries in the black community. You, K.L., are now shown to be a proven enemy of our community, as you remain a [broke] shill for the WA. State Demokkkrats!

This is in clear violation of the authority of the POC caucus of Occupy Seattle and the OWS statement AGAINST endorsing candidates of either political party; especially the parties of the 1%.

Especially someone like Larry, who according to BOTH founders of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party, was NOT a member of the party! Boca lied on the mic about that FACT, in attempt to give Larry undue credibility that has NOT be earned.t who, in 1999, co-authorized the Seattle Police Department SWAT Team RAID on the GRASSROOTS African-American Heritage Museum and Cultural Center; which led to its re-opening as the "Northwest African-American Museum", effectively run by The Urban League, a domestic neo-colonial/knee-grow organization that undermines the black community. It was James Kelley, the leader of the Seattle branch of the Urban League, who pulled a pistol on another community member on the grounds of Rainier Beach High School in 2003....and did no jail time!

When I, as co-host and de-facto stage manager, said "no" for the reasons stated above, the sound person, Bob Barnes, says "Well, Hip-Hop Occupies won't have any sound unless Larry speaks!" Larry was no where in the park at this time; he didn't show until after 1:30pm!

K.L., you two-faced snake, you KNOW what he has done, you KNOW the history of that struggle, yet there you are carrying the water for the uncle toms and demokkrats! How dare you engage in pork-chop micro-nationalism claiming that a POC ally "doesn't know anything about the black community."

It is you who knows NOTHING about the black community. Unlike you, she has an actual positive relationship with REAL revolutionaries in the black community. You, K.L., are now shown to be a proven enemy of our community, as you remain a [broke] shill for the WA. State Demokkkrats!

This is in clear violation of the authority of the People Of Color caucus of Occupy Seattle, and the Occupy Wall Street statement AGAINST endorsing candidates of either political party; especially the parties of the 1%.

Especially someone like Larry, who according to BOTH founders of the Seattle chapter of the Black Panther Party, was NOT a member of the party! Bocanegra lied on the mic about that FACT, in attempt to give Larry undue credibility that has NOT been earned.

Show Notes for Episode #56.

2011-10-21T09:42:00.000-07:00

An Open Letter to the Occupy Wall Street Activists.

Thank you for your courage. Thank you for making an attempt to improve the situation in what is now called the United States. Thank you for your commitment to peace and non-violence. Thank you for the sacrifices you are making. Thank you.

There's just one thing. I am not one of the 99 percent that you refer to. And, that saddens me. Please don't misunderstand me. I would like to be one of the 99 percent... but you've chosen to exclude me. Perhaps it was unintentional, but, I've been excluded by you. In fact, there are millions of us indigenous people who have been excluded from the Occupy Wall Street protest. Please know that I suspect that it was an unintentional exclusion on your part. That is why I'm writing to you. I believe that you can make this right. (I hope you're still smiling.)

It seems that ever since we indigenous people have discovered Europeans and invited them to visit with us here on our land, we've had to endure countless '-isms' and religions and programs and social engineering that would "fix" us. Protestantism, Socialism, Communism, American Democracy, Christianity, Boarding Schools, Residential Schools,... well, you get the idea. And, it seems that these so-called enlightened strategies were nearly always enacted and implemented and pushed upon us without our consent. And, I'll assume that you're aware of how it turned out for us. Yes. Terribly.

Which brings me back to your mostly-inspiring Occupy Wall Street activities. On September 22nd, with great excitement, I eagerly read your "one demand" statement.

Hoping and believing that you enlightened folks fighting for justice and equality and an end to imperialism, etc., etc., would make mention of the fact that the very land upon which you are protesting does not belong to you - that you are guests upon that stolen indigenous land. I had hoped mention would be made of the indigenous nation whose land that is. I had hoped that you would address the centuries-long history that we indigenous peoples of this continent have endured being subject to the countless '-isms' of do-gooders claiming to be building a "more just society," a "better world," a "land of freedom" on top of our indigenous societies, on our indigenous lands, while destroying and/or ignoring our ways of life.

I had hoped that you would acknowledge that, since you are settlers on indigenous land, you need and want our indigenous consent to your building anything on our land - never mind an entire society. See where I'm going with this? I hope you're still smiling. We're still friends, so don't sweat it. I believe your hearts are in the right place. I know that this whole genocide and colonization thing causes all of us lots of confusion sometimes. It just seems to me that you're unknowingly doing the same thing to us that all the colonizers before you have done: you want to do stuff on our land without asking our permission.

But, fear not my friends. We indigenous people have a sense of humor. So, I thought I might make a few friendly suggestions which may help to "fix" the pro-colonialism position in which you now (hopefully, unintentionally) find yourselves. (Please note my use of the word "fix" in the previous sentence. That's an attempt at a joke. You can refer to the third paragraph if you'd like an explanation.)

By the way, I'm just one indigenous person. I represent no one except myself. I'm acting alone in writing this letter. Perhaps none of my own Nishnaabe people will support me in having written this. Perhaps some will. I respect their opinions either way. I love my Nishnaabe people always. I am simply trying to do something good - same as all of you at the Occupy Wall Street protest in what is now called New York.

So, here goes. (You're still smiling, right?)

1) Acknowledge that the United States of America is a colonial country, a country of settlers, built upon the land of indigenous nations; and/or...

2) Demand immediate freedom for indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier; and/or...

3) Demand that the colonial government of the United States of America honor all treaties signed with all indigenous nations whose lands are now collectively referred to as the "United States of America"; and/or...

4) Make some kind of mention that you are indeed aware that you are settlers and that you are not intending to repeat the mistakes of all of the settler do-gooders that have come before you. In other words, that you are willing to obtain the consent of indigenous people before you do anything on indigenous land.

I hope you find this list useful. I eagerly await your response, my friends.

Miigwech! ( ~"Thank you!" )

John-Paul Montano

Show Notes for Episode #55.

2011-10-16T09:58:00.000-07:00


Occupy Seattle remains at Westlake Park. We have NOT been moved at this time. We remain the 99%.

Update: Westlake Park Cleared Of Tents. [Some] of the Occupiers move to [Sh]*ty Hall. Will the 99% Return to Westlake? McGinn Needs 'Tough Love', Especially Since Our Tax Dollars (and the blood of our friends and relatives in the u.$. military) Pay For ALL of Them (the 1%) and ALL of This (the dying world, run by the 1%, we ALL live in).

2011-10-14T15:46:00.000-07:00

Westlake Park. 12pm Rally. 3pm March to Chase Bank. 5pm Tent Raising.

Occupier: I saw you call out the mayor a couple nights ago.

Me: Somebody gotta do it. Heard the latest podcast?

Occupier: A little bit. I haven't listened to all of it.

Me: I went EXTRA hard at Mayor McChipmunk. See, I found out yesterday that the deal for allowing Occupy Seattle to "occupy" (ha!) City Hall meant that OS would have to pack up, clean up, and leave promptly at 7:00am each day, or face eviction and/or arrest.

I also found out that there's a strong capitulationist current being pushed by a clique, to the point where they at times simply ignore General Assembly decisions they do not like. They are also involved in leading the negotiations with the mayor's office.

They may sincerely believe they are working a grand strategy. There are alot of new faces out and about. But, to me it sounds like a reactionary-liberal clique seeking help from a larger imperialist entity to control the collective resource (in Libya, it's the oil; here it's the Occupy Movement). It's the relationship between the new Libyan regime and the u.$./NATO in small-scale. Their existance and power has been bolstered by the mayor's office through that body's strategic use of Seattle Police vs. the rest of us...the 99% .

Occupier: [long, uneasy silence].

Me: Look, when I really let loose on somebody online, on the air, or in person, it's all in the spirit of 'tough love', even for the most unrepentant, ultra-right reactionaries I encounter.

At times, I respect the fascists more than I do these stoopid liberals: at least the right-wingers are upfront with their brand of fascism; the liberals try to convince you and I that their particular brand is kinder, gentler, and is in fact somehow good for us in large doses!

History is moving at an accelerated rate. My message to McGinn and in fact the entire Occupation Movement is "Don't get caught up. Be on the correct side of history." The 'threat' is not any person or group, but the convergence of cause and effect at a particular moment in time and place, which sets off a chain of events, with sometimes tragic consquences. The Fukushima disaster is one example. Another is the Arab Spring.

The systematic uprooting of entrenched histories of hierachies and their oppressions is a dirty business that is best practiced by those with clear heads, clean hands, calm hearts, endless patience, and strong stomachs.

But, in the real world, "you git who you git and you don't throw a fit!"

Occupier: Lol.

Me: No, seriously...

Show Notes for #54: Occupy Seattle: "The Night Of 500 Tents." 10/15/2011. 6:30pm

2011-10-14T11:58:00.000-07:00

"We are the 99%! WAKE UP, GOD DAMMIT!"

On 10/12 the General Assembly for Occupy Seattle passed the following proposal:

"To call for and plan a mass occupation of Westlake Park with tents starting Saturday, October 15, 2011 in solidarity with the worldwide Occupy Movements."

Seattle needs your help to reclaim our occupation. We can not maintain our space unless we attain critical mass, and we need everyones help to do it. Seattle is one of the top corporate head quarters of the world. It is important for the integrity of this movemenet and this country that we the people of the great north west let the powers that be, the powers that surround us, know that this occupation is not going anywhere. So this Saturday, bring your tents, and your Sunday best. Meet at Westlake center, and we will decide from there where we will set up base camp.

Show Notes from Episode #52: What You Heard, What I Didn't Get To.

2011-10-09T15:52:00.000-07:00

A letter from Pelican Bay State Prison (PBSP). 8/29/2011.

I've been in the S.H.U. since July of 1987 so I've lived through a lot of physical as well as psychological abuses. I was originally placed in S.H.U. at San Quentin's Adjustment Center. The first thing I noticed as I was being escorted past the Sgt.'s office was a caricature of a boar hog dressed in a C/O's uniform holding a noose with a hammer hanging from it posted on the wall. So, being Mexican I knew what time it was. Slowly, the blatant racism was pushed into the politically correct broom closet but it's never been thrown out.

In 2003, I was returned from court to Pelican Bay and told in no uncertain terms that I would die here.

When PBSP created the control unit (short corridor) in early 2006, the goal of the Office of Correctional Safety (OCS) was made perfectly clear: Debrief or die! They implemented orders to the short corridor C/O staff to apply pressure to targeted prisoners and the gang unit (IGI) became the overseers of the control unit and began to target prisoners' families and friends and attempt to create discord by mixing up mail, withholding and delaying personal mail and restricting visits for as little as saying hello to another prisoner. Their goal is to isolate these targeted prisoners. I had never believed in hunger strikes, thinking that they're counter-productive. However, when the gang unit began to work in concert with the chief medical officer (the I.G.I. actually decides the level of medical treatment prisoners in the short corridor receive) I decided to participate in this and the next hunger strike, but here's why:

A few years ago, a close friend, his name was Jimmy, developed cancer. The medical staff, M.T.A.'s and R.N.'s explained that if he's debrief, become an informant, he would receive better medical care. Now Jimmy and I had known each other since we were teenagers running the streets of East Los Angeles getting high and living the lifestyle that ended up with both of us in prison for life. As Jimmy's cancer grew worse, he began chemo therapy. Jimmy mentioned to me how the I.G.I. would "show up" at the clinic and comment that he could have contact visits with he wife before he died if he'd debrief. He refused but that's how he found out the cancer was terminal! Jimmy loved his wife mroe than anything and he wouldn't tell her everything about the head games and bullshit like waking up from surgery still under anesthesia being questioned by I.G.I. but I had warned him of that because it happened to me and at least three other prisoners. After one of the surgeries, Jimmy was returned to his cell after a brief stay at the PBSP infirmary. (Those cells are completely bare except for a bed and all you can do is lay there and wait). On the second night bac k in his cell, he awoke to a bed pain. He said it was a little after 2 a.m. and the staples had opened along his abdomen and he was bleeding. He was holding his intestines in calling for the C/O.

The C/O came and saw the blood and said he’d call the R.N. on duty. The C/O came back approximately 30 minutes later with a roll of toilet paper. Jimmy was sitting on the blood-covered cement floor holding a towel soaked in blood against his stomach. The cop tossed Jimmy the toilet paper and said the medical staff would not come until the next shift and there was nothing he could do. Jimmy held his stomach close din pain until almost six a.m. when the medical finally came and they rushed him to the hospital. He asked that I keep it to myself because that was his style.

I was pissed!! He had requested two hardship transfers to Corcoran because of its medical facility and he’d be able to see his wife and family more before he died. Both were denied and he was told to debrief and then he’d be transferred but he steadfastly refused. The cancer spread and the gang unit increased the headgames telling the medical staff to confiscate his shaded prescription glasses. But luckily, a Doctor Williams stepped in and told the medical staff to leave Jimmy alone as he was at end state cancer. Jimmy chose to stop the chemo therapy and die. We’d talk through a steel door and discuss everything and nothing and plan out his funeral. He died in December of 2010 and I am proud and honored to have been his friend.

Shortly after Jimmy’s death I was told that approximately 8 of the older prisoners had been approved for transfer to the S.H.U. medical facility at New Folsom but the gang unit had those transfers stopped citing that those prisoners, all in their 60s and 70s years old, had not successfully completed the debriefing or in-active process thereby issuing a death sentence to all of these prisoners and denying adequate medical care.

I am 53 years old with incurable illnesses, Hep-C and Crohn’s disease so I am participating in the hunger strike to expose how prisoners are being mistreated and medical treatment withheld as a coercement tactic. The abuses, physical and psychological, the intimidations and harassments have very well documented history here at Pelican Bay State Prison. They should speak for itself.

n Early 1990 rumors of abuses at PBSP SHU come to light. The prison opens doors to media tour

n 1995 rumors of abuses citing C/O’s extracting prisoners from their cells, stripping them naked and leaving them hogtied in the cold cells and on the cement yard over night. Prison opens doors to media tours

n 1998 C/O’s accused of setting up inmates opening cell doors in SHU

n 2001 prisoners began hunger strike to change debriefing process as it was not legal! Promises were made, Castillo case settled and reworded to be used against prisoners. Prison opens doors to media tours

n 2006 California Inspector General office issues memo for media release citing their investigation exposed that the PBSP internal affairs would avoid finding staff misconduct on excessive use of force and that some changes had been made but more are needed

During this hunger strike, prisoners have been threatened with “progressive discipline” which means the prisoners’ property will be taken out of the cells and they will only be allowed a pair of shower shoes and a pair of underwear until the administration deems the prisoner as “programming.” The warden had a staff meeting before the last hunger strike telling staff that he would ignore the hunger strikers, which he did, violating the CDCR regulations and allowing prisoners to become ill. Grievances were returned unprocessed so it never happened.

That is Pelican Bay State Prison. So now you know why I participate in the hunger strike. Thank you for your time.

Alfred Sandoval D#61000
Pelican Bay State Prison
Crescent City, California. u$a

[Hunger Strike Resumed on Monday, September 26.]
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Official Statement from Occupy Wall Street.
This statement was voted on and approved by the general assembly of protesters at Liberty Square.

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!

*These grievances are not all-inclusive.

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The guilty verdicts in the Irvine 11 trial attempts to chill campus activism. electronicintifada.net

Why The Irvine 11 are heroes. For centuries, the philosophy behind higher education has encouraged both students and professors to freely exchange ideas and embark on a quest for truth and a better understanding of the world. Historically, movements which have brought about greater social justice have been grounded in college campuses. Protesting the speeches of Israeli diplomats and political leaders like Michael Oren and Ehud Olmert serve as two more additions to America’s rich history of campus protest.

This philosophy, however, seems to be withering away in American universities, where a student’s ability to express herself or himself, and a professor’s right to academic freedom, have at times been ferociously attacked.

This is exemplified most clearly with regard to speech and expression about Palestine, whether it be professors and students facing backlash for speaking on the displacement of more than 750,000 Palestinians during the Nakba (the wave of ethnic cleansing ahead of Israel’s foundation in the late 1940s); universities and other fora refusing to host conferences or events centered around Palestine, due to pressure from Zionist lobby groups; the retaliation that many have been subjected to after comparing Israel to apartheid-era South Africa; academic departments opting out of hosting events which offer the Palestinian narrative or denounce Israel’s illegal and immoral conduct; and cases (which go unreported out of fear of academic consequences) in which university professors either advise against or refuse to accept papers written from the Palestinian perspective.

As was true during the McCarthy era and that of the civil rights movement, it is becoming increasingly clear that the freedom of speech guaranteed by the first amendment may no longer apply to those fighting for social justice and civil rights. Like the communists and African-American leaders of those eras, Arab and Muslim activists in the West have been approached with an increasing sense of distrust and fear.

The conviction of the Irvine 11 is a testament to the degree that Islamophobia has grown in the West. Moreover, it is a testament to how unwilling the United States has become to question its relationship with Israel. Any means can be used to silence such questioning — even the criminalization of free speech.

The Israel lobby and the US government are working hand-in-hand against efforts to raise awareness about the occupation and human rights abuses perpetrated against the Palestinians. This trial, the FBI raids on Palestine solidarity activists in the Midwest and the undermining of the UN Palestinian statehood bid show it.

[Meanwhile......]
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u$ "charities" break tax laws to fund Israeli more settlements. The Electronic Intifada. 9/3/11.

In spite of US government statements about its displeasure with the expansion of Israeli settlements, US based organizations are abusing the 501(C)3 section of US tax codes to provide billions in subsidies to do exactly that.

There are hundreds of these tax-exempt, so-called charities funneling money to illegal Israeli settlements, often with the names no more creative than “American Friends of name an Israeli settlement.”

One such organization, American Friends of Ariel Inc., paints a picture of how these US based front groups collect tax-deductible donations, and use them to build and expand illegal Israeli settlements, and in some cases, purchase weapons for the settlers within them. In many cases, including that of American Friends of Ariel Inc., the organization does not make substantial efforts to disguise the fact that the US based tax exempt entity is nothing more than a shell organization being used to transfer money abroad.

For example, the president of American Friends of Ariel, Ron Nachman, also happens to be the longtime mayor of Ariel. The sole programmatic function of American Friends of Ariel is to transfer funds to a non-exempt organization based in Ariel called the Ariel Development Fund, also controlled by Nachman, which describes itself simply as the “fundraising arm of the city of Ariel.” Under Ron Nachman’s leadership, American Friends of Ariel transferred more than $5 million to the Ariel Development Fund over the last several years.

It is worth noting that much of the funding for American Friends of Ariel has come from Christian Zionist groups, and in general, these groups have played an increasingly dominant role in the financial and political support for the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise.

The work of American Friends of Ariel Inc., and the many tax-exempt organizations like it, is having a devastating impact on local Palestinian communities. A recent report by the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs, covered by the Ma’an News Agency, described the “alarming trends of forced displacement of Palestinians in Area C” as a result of settlement expansion, and found that “more demolitions have taken place so far in 2011 than in all of 2009 and 2010 combined” (“UN: Marked increase in forced displacement of Palestinians,” 21 July 2011).

In addition to the gross human rights violations inherent in illegal Israeli settlement expansion, US taxpayers simply cannot afford to build homes and walls in illegal Israeli settlements while record numbers of Americans are losing their homes, and unmet domestic needs in the US are at an all time high.

American Friends of Ariel, and the vast number of organizations like it, not only violate Palestinian human rights, they violate US laws. American Friends of Ariel Inc. flouts US laws in two ways.

The first has to do with the structure of the organization, and the fact that most of these tax exempt 501(c)3 organizations are simply shells that transfer money to non-exempt organizations abroad, and the second deals with the exempt purposes set forth by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and Treasury Department.

The rule concerning the use of tax exempt entities as conduit organizations is clear, and states that “the code would be nullified if contributions inevitably committed to a foreign organization were held to be deductible solely because, in the course of transmittal to a foreign organization, they came to rest momentarily in a qualifying domestic organization” (Section 170(c)(2)(A)). That is exactly the case with American Friends of Ariel Inc., and hundreds of organizations like it, a fact which is abundantly clear upon review of their publicly available 990 tax forms.

The second major legal violation occurs because these organizations fundamentally violate the purpose for which charities can be organized, namely to provide “relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged; lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating prejudice and discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency.”

Illegal Israeli settlements, mostly built on expropriated land and operated with stolen resources, exacerbate poverty and systematically create an underprivileged class of people. Race-based colonies inherently increase neighborhood tensions, and they effectively annex occupied Palestinian land through a system of apartheid infrastructure that has been detrimental to Palestinian communities across the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.

The raison d’etre of illegal Israeli settlements is rooted in institutionalized discrimination, and therefore technically violates IRS regulations on a daily basis in the same way that Bob Jones University violated those same regulations barring discrimination (Bob Jones University v United States).

In 1983, the Supreme Court ruled that the IRS had the authority to revoke the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University because they openly discriminated against interracially married individuals. The court ruled that such behavior was “wholly incompatible with the concepts underlying tax exemption,” and clarified by stating that “whatever may be the rationale for such private schools’ policies, racial discrimination in education is contrary to public policy.” Fundamental human rights like equality are not confined by jurisdiction, and organizations operating abroad are similarly bound to respect and uphold them.

The numerous and flagrant violations of the tax-exempt purposes set forth by the IRS and Treasury department should be reason enough to revoke the tax-exempt status of these organizations. It is hard to imagine the US playing any constructive role as an “honest broker” when in addition to providing $3 billion in annual military aid to Israel, Americans are also being forced to subsidize the construction and expansion of the same illegal settlements that our government is politely telling Israel are very unhelpful.

Because of the US government’s unwillingness to equally enforce the law, or use the proverbial stick instead of just carrots, money that would otherwise be going into our national treasury to pay down the debt or build affordable housing in the US, is instead being used to construct and defend Jewish-only colonies in the occupied West Bank.
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Gitmo Prisoner Faces Death Penalty in Resumed Military Trial. democracynow.org

A prisoner held at the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay accused of orchestrating the deadly attack on the U.S.S. Cole has been ordered to face the death penalty before a military commission. Abd al-Nashiri faces charges alleging he oversaw the planning of the October 2000 attack, which killed 17 sailors and wounded 40 others. Nashiri’s case will mark the first death-penalty war crimes trial at Guantánamo under President Obama. The military tribunal was initially canceled in 2009 as part of Obama’s pledge to close the prison. But trials have resumed after Obama reversed his position earlier this year. Nashiri has claimed he confessed to the Cole bombing after undergoing repeated torture in U.S. custody. He was waterboarded dozens of times.
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Massachusetts Man Accused of Plot to Attack Pentagon, Capitol. democracynow.org

A Massachusetts physics graduate has been arrested on charges of planning to build explosives-laden drones to attack the Pentagon and the U.S. Capitol. The FBI says Rezwan Ferdaus conducted detailed surveillance to map out the attack and acquired a small aircraft as part of his plan to carry it out. The plot would have marked the first time that militants deployed the drone technology used by the United States to strike targets in foreign countries for an attack on the United States. Ferdaus was caught with the help of undercover agents posing as al Qaeda operatives who gave him with the money to buy the drones, a tactic that has led to allegations of entrapment from defense attorneys in previous cases.
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Homeless 'tent cities' could put down roots under Seattle bill. Wednesday, September 28, 2011. seattlepi.com

Homeless camps hosted by churches and other religious facilities would no longer have to move from place to place under a bill passed Wednesday by a Seattle City Council committee.

Churches and other property owners currently have to get a "temporary use" permit if they want to host a camp. That limits the amount of time a camp can spend in one location to six months, which is a main reason why "tent cities" and other homeless camps move from church to church.

But the proposal would allow churches and synagogues to bypass the permit rule by defining homeless camps as a "use accessory to religious facilities in all zones."

"We're trying to clarify the process that has been used in the past ... all with the eye on reducing red tape," said city planner Mike Podowski.

The proposal would not apply to secular property owners who want to host a camp. Those owners would still have to get a temporary use permit.

The proposed changes would also create a set of requirements churches would have to follow, including providing toilets, running water and food-prep areas. Camps would have to undergo public health and safety inspections and limit the number of residents to 100 people per camp.

A report prepared by the city's Department of Planning and Development recognized homeless camps as a necessity for human survival and said the proposal would help reduce the uncertainty and hardship of having to move.

It also said churches and other religious groups will still be able to require certain standards of campers, such as a ban on drugs, alcohol, weapons or sex offenders.

"The proposed legislation offers a reasonable and effective means to temporarily address homelessness in the city," said the report.

At a packed hearing for the bill, residents of Tent City 3, a roving camp managed by homeless-advocacy group SHARE/WHEEL, criticized the measure for excluding secular property owners.

"Churches, for years, are slowly disappearing, or do not own any land any more," said one resident. "But there are a lot of private property owners willing to step up."

Passed by the Housing, Human Services, Health and Culture Committee, the measure still needs full Council approval.
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Americans Express Historic Negativity Toward U.S. Government. Gallup.com

PRINCETON, NJ -- A record-high 81% of Americans are dissatisfied with the way the country is being governed, adding to negativity that has been building over the past 10 years.

Majorities of Democrats (65%) and Republicans (92%) are dissatisfied with the nation's governance. This perhaps reflects the shared political power arrangement in the nation's capital, with Democrats controlling the White House and U.S. Senate, and Republicans controlling the House of Representatives. Partisans on both sides can thus find fault with government without necessarily blaming their own party.

The findings are from Gallup's annual Governance survey, updated Sept. 8-11, 2011. The same poll shows record or near-record criticism of Congress, elected officials, government handling of domestic problems, the scope of government power, and government waste of tax dollars.

Key Findings:

    82% of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job.

    69% say they have little or no confidence in the legislative branch of government, an all-time high and up from 63% in 2010.

    57% have little or no confidence in the federal government to solve domestic problems, exceeding the previous high of 53% recorded in 2010 and well exceeding the 43% who have little or no confidence in the government to solve international problems.

    53% have little or no confidence in the men and women who seek or hold elected office.

    Americans believe, on average, that the federal government wastes 51 cents of every tax dollar, similar to a year ago, but up significantly from 46 cents a decade ago and from an average 43 cents three decades ago.

    49% of Americans believe the federal government has become so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens. In 2003, less than a third (30%) believed this.

Confidence in Congress hit a new low this month, with 31% of Americans saying they have a great deal or fair amount of confidence in the legislative branch, lower than the percentage confident in the executive (47%) or judicial (63%) branch. Confidence in the legislative branch is slightly higher among Republicans than among Democrats, 41% vs. 32%.

Trend: Trust and Confidence in the Legislative Branch of the Federal Government, Consisting of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives

Apart from a brief rally in public approval of Congress after the 9/11 attacks, Congress' job approval rating has followed a similar path, declining sharply since about 2000. The 15% of Americans approving of Congress in the September poll is just two percentage points above the all-time low reached twice in the past year.

Americans' confidence in the people who run for or serve in office is also at a new low; however, the decline has been more recent, dropping from 66% in 2008 to 49% in 2009 and 45% today. For most of the history of this trend, Americans had much more positive views of those seeking or holding public office, but that changed in 2009, and the balance of opinion has since remained more negative than positive.

At 43%, fewer Americans today than at any time in the past four decades say they have a great deal or fair amount of trust in the federal government to handle domestic problems. That is significantly lower than the 58% average level of confidence Gallup has found on this since 1972, including a 77% reading shortly after the 9/11 attacks. Gallup did not ask the question between 1976 and 1997, however, and thus may have missed low points during the recessions that occurred in the early 1980s or at the time of the House banking scandal in the early '90s.

By contrast, faith in Washington to handle international problems (57%) is currently better than the 51% all-time low recorded in 2007, during the Iraq war, and not far off from the 65% average seen since 1972.

Along with Americans' record-low confidence in the federal government on domestic policy, Gallup finds record skepticism about government waste. As previously reported, Americans, on average, think the federal government in Washington wastes 51 cents of every tax dollar, the highest estimated proportion of waste Gallup has found on this measure in trends dating to 1979.

Americans' sense that the federal government poses an immediate threat to individuals' rights and freedoms is also at a new high, 49%, since Gallup began asking the question using this wording in 2003. This view is much more pronounced among Republicans (61%) and independents (57%) than among Democrats (28%), although when George W. Bush was president, Democrats and independents were more likely than Republicans to view government as a threat.

Americans' various ratings of political leadership in Washington add up to a profoundly negative review of government -- something that would seem unhealthy for the country to endure for an extended period. Nevertheless, with another budget showdown looking inevitable and a contentious presidential election year getting underway, it appears the ratings reviewed here could get worse before they improve.
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Shout out to Occupy Seattle, Shout out to RBE House, Shout out to 206 Zulu. Shout out to the Umoja Fest Peace Center. Shout Out to the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist Movement.

Occupy Together.

2011-10-03T10:08:00.000-07:00

Wake up, God Dammit! Off your ass and into the street! The rest of the world is already awake, from North Africa to Naxalberi. http://www.occupytogether.org/

Show Notes #50.

2011-09-28T14:58:00.000-07:00

Get it there. It will be fun. "Wake Up, God Dammit!"

Show Notes Episode #49.

2011-09-28T14:52:00.000-07:00

Local liberal activists will, once again, attempt to use angry rhetoric, dramatic posturing, prayer, and appeals to the morality of the decidedly amoral to tame the armed guard dogs of the upper classes, their local government, and those amongst the poor and middle classes who willingly support them and the system they love and defend. Only militant mass action, or a miracle, will stop police terrorism. Which of the two options is the most likely?

Show Notes For Episode #48.

2011-09-25T21:30:00.000-07:00

"Wake Up, God Dammit!" Lol. No, seriously. Tell a friend.

Show Notes for Episode #47.

2011-09-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

OPEN LETTER TO THE MUSEUM OF CHILDREN'S ART, OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA
Hilmon Sorey, Board President. Masako Kalbach, Interim Executive Director

We are writing to request an explanation of MOCHA's decision to cancel the forthcoming exhibition, "A Child's View of Gaza."

We commend you for having seen--at least initially--the importance, relevance, and immediacy of such an exhibition. The show's concept is brilliant: art as a window into the minds of children and, simultaneously, a geopolitical issue. The exhibition, which would have displayed children's varied artistic responses to life experience--some of it traumatic--was sure to inspire the viewer that museum art is a vibrant, living form of expression. Art like this touches our lives and underscores our common humanity within the global family of man.

Why, then, the cancellation?

We would hope that MOCHA's decision is not designed to avoid either controversy or controversial art. Surely, there are well-funded institutions whose purpose is to promote a positive view of Israel. Those same parties, unfortunately, see the marginalizing and demonization of Palestinians as an essential corollary to their advocacy for Israel. They work to silence voices that raise essential, appropriate questions about the human impact of Israeli policy. The individuals who fund and direct these institutions possess, in many cases, a worldview based on limited contact with actual Palestinian individuals or the lives they lead: subjects of military occupation, minority members of a nation in which they are relegated to perennial outsider status, exiles who have been dispossessed so that another people might find a place.

Evidently, some of these narrow-minded individuals with influence and access to decision-makers find it threatening that a direct, uncensored Palestinian perspective might be given a temporary space in American cultural life. Is MOCHA's decision to cancel the exhibit a capitulation to the demands of such persons--individuals whose ignorance, prejudice, and empathy deficit have taken the form of a narrow, intolerant political agenda? Are we to be denied access to the art of all children living with political violence--or are only Palestinian children to be denied a place?

We Americans do not suffer from an overexposure to Palestinian perspectives; on the contrary, our limited exposure is a critical factor in perpetuating dangerous and damaging misapprehensions. Those working most assiduously to eliminate expressions of the rich and complex Palestinian experience are the very people who would benefit most from encountering it in an honest, uncensored form. The best remedy for ignorance, prejudice, and lack of empathy is exposure to life through the eyes of another. That was to be the profoundly hopeful, transformative possibility of "A Child's View of Gaza."

We request an explanation of MOCHA's cancellation of the exhibition, an action that, to us, reflects a serious error in judgment.

Show Notes for Epsiode #46.

2011-09-18T10:26:00.000-07:00

No, the entire show wasn't about this, but I wanted to post this for informational purposes. - G.L.

Inside India's Maoist insurgency. By Alpa Shah. BBC World News.

The guerrilla fighter was tough, experienced, leading a platoon of around 60 insurgents.
"I am from a very poor family," the fighter told me."Life was very difficult. I joined the party and now I understand many more things. I think revolution is the only option."

One thing you should know about this hardline Maoist rebel - she is a young woman.
She is one of the growing numbers of poor Indians who have joined a four-decades-old Maoist rebellion, in which thousands have died. Last month the rebels killed 76 members of the security forces in a single attack. More than 20 of India's 28 states are affected by the insurgency. The remote tribal villages of Jharkhand state, where the fields are still tilled by oxen, are at the centre of it.

The area is home to some of the country's poorest people, mostly members of indigenous tribes. There is little sign of India's economic miracle here.

Local people feel the government has neglected them. So the Maoists, or "the party" as the villagers call them, have got on with running the place.

Parallel government
"The government here has no health programmes… so our party sets up health clinics to help the people," one Maoist fighter told me. "This area is plagued by illness... Our party gives free medicines in the clinics - and we get help from doctors and nurses. We run them in the rainy season when people are suffering most."

The Maoists have drawn a lot of support from poor villagers like Chachi."They are like our sons, our brothers," she says. "Before, we were not allowed to go into our forests - the authorities used to cut the trees but we weren't even allowed to gather firewood. Now we can.

"The party makes sure there is no tension between rich and poor… that's why we want the party here."
But not everyone agrees. The Maoists have blown up schools because the security forces use them as barracks. "The pupils there now have classes under a tree," says a teacher, whom I call Pandey.
"The area is not able to develop - if a road is to be constructed, the Maoists won't let it be built," Pandey says. "When electricity was planned, at first they objected. They didn't allow the main road connecting the villages to the cities to be built. And so this area remains extremely backward."

'Gravest threat'
Pandey is from a different state. There are few villagers who are as critical. Whatever actions the Maoists take, it seems they are still considered part of the local community. But the authorities brand them "the gravest threat to India's national security", in the words of Home Secretary G K Pillai. The government has sent 75,000 security forces and tens of thousands of policemen to these remote regions to regain control. "Maoists treat the Indian state as the enemy. If citizens of India take up arms against the state no democracy can allow anarchy to flourish. And you can see in areas where the Maoists are there it's total anarchy. They decide who is to live, who is not to live," says Mr Pillai. The Maoists defend their actions as part of a wider struggle to end the increasing gap between the rich and the poor.

Violence
I had a rare face-to-face, a man I call Rameshji. I questioned him on their violent tactics. "See the other side of the picture - how the minorities are butchered in state-sponsored pogroms," Rameshji responded. "Many people in the struggling areas of central India are being killed by the state forces," he alleged. "Many people are dying of hunger. Who is responsible for such deaths? People are left with no other option. No-one is going to listen to you. This violence has been imposed by the state on the people of India."

For the Indian authorities, such accusations do not justify the insurgents' use of violent tactics against a democratically elected government. But Maoist leaders like Rameshji seem determined to fight on until they overthrow the government itself. "Our aim is to achieve a new democratic revolution - to seize the state power. You must eradicate the whole system and in order to eradicate the whole system, you must seize power."

Show Notes for Episode #45, including stuff I didn't get to.

2011-09-11T09:46:00.000-07:00

New Details Emerge on NYPD Spy Unit. Democracy Now.org

The Associated Press has provided new details on how ethnic groups were targeted by secretive intelligence cooperation between the CIA and the New York City Police Department in the years following the 9/11 attacks.

According to the AP, the NYPD’s so-called "Demographics Unit" dispatched plainclothes officers into ethnic communities throughout New York City. The officers have reportedly used informants, known as "mosque crawlers," to monitor sermons, even without evidence of wrongdoing. The NYPD has also scrutinized imams, taxi cab drivers, food cart vendors and other jobs often done by Muslims. The report claimed an unprecedented level of CIA cooperation made the surveillance possible.

The NYPD has denied the unit’s existence. But on Wednesday the AP released another article citing a memo from the unit’s supervisor and a PowerPoint presentation which described the unit in detail and repeatedly featured the department’s logo. According to the documents, the Demographics Unit is comprised of 16 officers speaking at least five languages and is the only squad of its kind known to be operating in the country. In addition to New York City, the unit has also mapped neighborhoods in Connecticut and New Jersey. The squad has maintained a long list of "ancestries of interest" and received daily reports on life in Muslim neighborhoods.

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Lawsuit accuses security guard of handcuffing first-graders for talking in class. Chicago Tribune.

The attorney for a family suing Chicago Public Schools over the alleged handcuffing of a first-grader in 2010 said that the boy was among several 6- and 7-year-olds who were detained and handcuffed for hours for talking in class.

In an email to the Tribune, attorney Michael Carin said school officials at Carver Primary School on the Far South Side authorized the on-campus security guard in March 2010 to discipline some first-graders who were being disruptive.

Giving details not disclosed in the lawsuit filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, Carin said the school's security officer removed the students from class and held them in another office on campus where there were no other adults present. Carin said the students were handcuffed for hours and told that "they were going to prison and would never see their parents again."

"There appears to be no reason for an officer to isolate 6- and 7-year-old children, place them in handcuffs and threaten them for hours during a school day, or any other day," Carin wrote.

Carin said the Chicago Board of Education had ignored attempts to resolve this case outside the courtroom.

"Unfortunately, we had to file a lawsuit because the Chicago Board of Education ignored my client on the day of the imprisonment and every day thereafter," Carin wrote. "We hope the Chicago Board of Education acknowledges its responsibility and resolves the matter quickly."

In the complaint, the boy's mother, LaShanda Smith, describes the guard's action as "reckless" and said her son suffered injuries both "permanent" and "personal" during the incident. Smith, who is seeking more than $100,000 in damages, accuses the officer of acting "in conscious disregard" of her son's safety.

CPS, along with the Board of Education, are defendants in the case. Neither the security officer nor school administrators are named as defendants.

CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said again Tuesday that school officials have not yet seen the complaint and need to review it before commenting. Calls to Carver Primary School were not returned.
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A new study reveals that 25 of the nation’s largest corporations paid more money to their CEOs last year than they did to the federal government in income taxes. Democracy Now

Often using overseas tax havens, many of the corporations managed to make billions in profits but paid little to nothing in federal taxes. In many cases the companies received large tax rebates. The list includes some of the country’s best-known companies, such as Ford, Coca-Cola, Verizon, General Electric and eBay. The same study found that the ratio of CEO pay to that of the average worker in the United States jumped to 325-to-1 last year.

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Looks Like Obama Intends To Propose A Jobs Program That Gets People To Work For Free
By Susie Madrak. Crooks and Liars.com

When are we going to stop pretending that the only way out of this economic crisis is to passively wait for business to produce "growth"? The only way we're going to get out of this mess is for the government to create actual jobs. Robert Cuttner talks about the Georgia Works program model that Obama seems determined to propose instead:

    Basically, the company gets free labor while the person is receiving unemployment insurance. If the company does hire the person, there is no ongoing wage subsidy or training subsidy.

    According to data from the Georgia Department of Labor provided to the Huffington Post, just 16.4 percent of workers who participated in this program between 2003 when the program started and 2010 got hired by the company where they were placed, and only 24 percent got jobs at all. Currently, exactly 19 people are enrolled.

    Obama’s characterization sounds more like Danish or Swedish active labor market policy, where government subsidizes serious retraining and then subsidizes wages. But the Georgia program, now run by a very right-wing Republican state administration, is a far cry from that.

    Georgia’s top weekly benefit is just $330.

    With unemployment stubbornly above 9 percent, and above 15 percent if you count discouraged workers and part-timers seeking full-time work, this program doesn’t make a dent in the problem. It doesn’t create jobs. It simply alters who gets available jobs, while putting downward pressure on wages. As Obama’s suggests, Smith gets his foot in the door ahead of Jones, by offering to work for free.

    Why would Obama be interested in such weak tea? First, there is no additional cost to government.   Second, it has a nice corporate, free-market flavor. Third, it appeals to Republicans. Obama is fearful that Republicans may block the next extension of unemployment insurance, and this Republican-style embellishment might be part of a bipartisan deal.

    But tiny policy changes like this move employment policy in the wrong direction by pretending that a massive jobs problem is amenable to trivial fixes. And it worsens the related problem of a lack of good jobs by putting downward pressure on wages by adding free labor to the local worker pool. Moreover, to the extent that a better-trained workforce is part (and only part) of the solution, temporary ad hoc training in exchange for free labor is pure tokenism.

    Even if the administration kids itself into thinking that this is smart policy, a political reality check should give the White House pause. How many voters, really, will this impress? What will it do to the actual plague of unemployment?

    As it happens, Obama has just hired as his new chair of the Council of Economic Advisers one of our premier labor economists, Alan Krueger of Princeton University. Krueger came to prominence in 1995 as co-author of an academic study defending minimum wages. Krueger is not making public comments, since he still has to get confirmed.

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A White House bioethics commission has revealed gruesome new details about American-run venereal disease experiments on unsuspecting Guatemalans from 1946 to ’48. Democracy Now.org

The testing focused on sexually transmitted diseases and involved U.S. medical officials intentionally infecting Guatemalan sex workers, prisoners, soldiers, mental patients—without their permission—in order to study the effects of penicillin. The New York Times reports, quote, "When some of the men failed to become infected through sex, the bacteria were poured into scrapes made on the penises or faces, or even injected by spinal puncture."

President Obama personally apologized to Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom for the experiments last year, after they were discovered. Since then, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has studied 125,000 pages of documents and sent investigators to Guatemala.

On Tuesday, the commission concluded nearly 5,500 people were subjected to diagnostic testing in Guatemala, and more than 1,300 exposed to venereal disease by contact or inoculation. President Álvaro Colom has described the experiments as a "crime against humanity" and ordered his own investigation.

The Guatemala program was discovered by Wellesley College Professor Susan Reverby while she was researching the infamous Tuskegee experiments. Professor Reverby spoke to Democracy Now! last year and described how much U.S. officials knew about the practices the program’s architect, Dr. John Cutler, was engaged in.

    SUSAN REVERBY: It’s too easy to say, OK, this was a period when there wasn’t research norms or any of the kind of regulations we’ve had in place since the mid-'70s. But Cutler's bosses at the Public Health Service knew this was sort of really on the edge. And the quote that I found that just really knocked me off the chair was one from the surgeon general himself, who said—and this is secondhand, but it was in a letter to Cutler, where one of his colleagues said, "The surgeon general says, 'Well, we couldn't do this in the United States.’" And that’s just a stunning, absolutely stunning, acknowledgment of what was going on.

Members of the bioethics commission investigating the venereal disease experiments say they recalled Nazi experiments on Jews. They argue that Dr. Cutler, who died in 2003, must have known from the Nuremberg doctors’ trials, underway by 1946, that his work was unethical. Panel members endorsed the idea of creating a compensation fund for subjects who are harmed in the future, or requiring researchers to buy insurance for that purpose. Some countries require these steps; the United States does not.

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Taking a revolution’s weapons: Push comes to shove in Nepal. Posted by Mike E on kasamaproject.org September 2, 2011

We have just learned that the Prachanda and Bhattarai factions of the Maoist party in Nepal have announced that they will not step back from their moves to disarm the Peoples Liberation Army. Not only will they order then hanging over of keys to weapons storage containers, but they will also begin moving the containers themselves out of three of the cantonments. (Cantonment is the name for the treaty-supervised bases where the PLA forces are concentrated.)

Kiran faction of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has launched a major protest program against the disarming of the People’s Liberation Army being led by Nepal’s new Prime Minister, Baburam Bhattarai. See more reports often appear first on the blog Winter Has Its End. By Eric Ribellarsi

Today, the Kiran faction of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has launched a major protest program against the disarming of the People’s Liberation Army being led by Nepal’s new Prime Minister, Baburam Bhattarai. The Maoist rebels are demanding the immediate reversal of the decision to disarm People’s Liberation Army, a process which has already begun.

So far, this program has included:

A nation-wide one hour blockade of major roads and intersection throughout the country. We have heard this took place at roughly 50 locations in Kathmandu, including Kalanki, the main road used for entrance into Kathmandu. A boycott of major party meetings, including today’s Standing Committee meeting.
Torchlight marches throughout Kathmandu and in other cities throughout the entire country, beginning tonight at September 2nd at 6:00 PM. Visit kasamaproject.org for video.

The crowd was mostly young, and the feel was one of both anger and excitement. One young Maoist said to me “finally, we are standing up.” People were not at all demoralized. They were (and are) ready to fight to save their revolution.

Following these demonstrations, Biplab, a leader of the Maoist party who has opposed the disarming and has argued for revolution, has launched a mass campaign throughout the country to build opposition to the moves of Prachanda and Bhattarai within the Maoist party.

We have learned that this campaign will include mass rallies and educational forums, the mass production of polemical pamphlets, and a new graffiti campaign.

Show Notes for Episode #44.

2011-09-05T13:43:00.000-07:00

Our way of life is the problem. By Mickey Z.

When Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, he clearly and firmly announced to the planet: “We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense.” Let’s just say the Pope of Hope is working mighty hard to keep his promise.

With that in mind, since Rosa Luxemburg believes the first revolutionary act is to call things by their true names, well…get ready for some revolting: “Our way of life” is based on violence, expansion, consumption, domination, and predatory capitalism.

Our way of life means 1 in 31 American adults is in prison, on parole, or on probation, yet we live in land of the free. It means the US military—the planet’s worst polluter and recipient of 54% of US tax dollars—can carpet bomb civilians from 15,000 feet in the name of “humanitarianism,” but somehow we dwell in the home of the brave.Our way of life means homelessness. It means sweatshops. It means “illegal” is a noun and “union” is an insult. It means nearly 200 animal and plant species go extinct…every single day. Our way of life means there aren’t any cod in Cape Cod, and soon no ice at the North Pole. It means strip malls; it means strip mining.

Our way of life means a New Hampshire license plates read: “Live free or die.” It also means New Hampshire license plates are manufactured by prisoners. Our way of life means Mumia abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier remain in prison, while war criminals like Madeleine Albright and Dick Cheney walk free. Speaking of war criminals, our way of life also means President Obama can take time out from waging two wars to accept a Nobel Peace Prize.

Our way of life teaches us what to accept as “normal” and, as a result, normal means every 46 seconds, a woman is raped in America. It means depleted uranium and landmines. Normal means gay bashing and racial profiling; veal crates and vivisection; clear cutting and ocean trawling.Normal will have you taking off your shoes at the airport, getting shot at by trigger-happy cops, but never having to walk more than two blocks to find the nearest Starbuck’s. (Did I say walk? I meant drive, of course. Walking…how Third World of me.)

Every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic? Women earn 77 cents for every dollar a man is paid? The meat and dairy industries slaughter 9 billion animals each year and are responsible for 51% of human-created greenhouse gases? All normal. All part of our vaunted way of life—the same way of life that has removed 80% of the world’s forests and over 90% of the large fish in the ocean and will not stop until they’re all gone.

Make no mistake about it, our beloved way of life was built on a nearly exterminated indigenous population, an African slave trade, and all those killed in places like Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Southeast Asia, Central America,Middle East, etc. etc. It was created on stolen land, using stolen oil.

Our way of life is built on terror and it is maintained by terror—the terror of cops, prisons, military, and the psychological terror of propaganda.

The first step to end terrorism remains this simple: Stop practicing it yourself. Many Americans automatically defend their country’s rampant illegalities because they perceive these actions as falling under the seductive justification of “defending our way of life.” The US constitutes roughly 5% of the earth’s population but consumes more than 25% of the earth’s resources. Maybe “our way of life” makes us the real terrorists.

Besides, if our way of life is so sacred, so ideal, so worthy of being defended by any means necessary, why do we need so many homeless shelters, alcohol and drug rehab centers, rape crisis hotlines, battered women’s shelters, and suicide hotlines? Why does a sexual assault occur every two minutes? If America is the world’s shining light, why are its citizens left with no choice but to organize in a desperate attempt to protect human, environmental, civil, and animal rights?

If America is the zenith of human social order, why does our vaunted way of life provoke terror as a tactic and an emotion? With the point of no return fading in the rear view mirror (or at least obscured by an SUV), the time is long overdue for all of us to recognize the real enemy is that which inspires terror. The real enemy just might be what we see as normal.

The precarious state of things on Planet Earth is not some preordained theology or an unstoppable force of nature. We’re in this mess thanks to human decisions. If different decisions had been made in the past, different outcomes would’ve likely occurred. If different decisions are made and different actions are taken—starting right now—perhaps different outcomes can still transpire. I say we find out…

Show Notes for episode #43.

2011-09-04T13:46:00.000-07:00

From Julic C on fb:

Since 1995, in Roxbury Village, Holly Park, High Point, & Rainier Vista, Seattle Housing Authority tore down 2,000 public housing units, displacing 1,000 households & drove median home prices up to $600,000.

Lots of nonprofits own and run properties either as investments, or as an "economic model" for sustainability (they generate income from rentals).

For example 1) the "affordable housing"/museum NAAM in Seattle is owned by nonprofit Urban League, who nationally do lots of real estate, budget lobbying in DC (they are snakes in a lot of communities where they have chapters...) In this example, Urban League took what was supposed to be am African American community center and turned it into a corporate-ish museum with virtually no revolutionary history.

2) Youngstown is another example of a housing/rental building which is a similar model. It is owned by Delridge Neighborhood Development Association, which is a private nonprofit that operates to a certain extent with a decent about of public funding through their affordable housing developments. (This is the reason that the youth service capacity at Youngstown has dropped significantly in last few years when DNDA started losing money...29 free classes a week in 09 to 0 now)

3) Washington Hall (where Voices Rising, Zulu and Hidmo is now) is going that route, kinda. It is owned by Historic Seattle, which is somehow a publically chartered private nonprofit preservation agency I believe, although there will be no housing, it was attached to a Seattle Housing Authority federal grant proposal to redevelop Yesler Terrace.. ...Those are "collaborative" models...

For general housing ish, the housing levy and block grants, Hope VI, etc, nonprofits and private developers also get tax breaks for designating their properties (or a certain number of units within a property) as section 8, low-income, or affordable housing when they build or run them. Usually this designation has an expiration date of 10, 20 years, I believe.
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Seattle Cop Assaults, Tasers Man Due to Personal Vendetta. Pugetsound anarchists.org

Two brothers allege in a lawsuit that they were falsely investigated as bank robbers because a Seattle police officer was upset about the way he had been treated at a popular longshoremen's bar that all three men frequented.

The suit, filed Aug. 8 in King County Superior Court, contends Officer Michael Waters carried out a vendetta against Alan H. Jeffries, a supervising longshoreman at the Port of Seattle, and his brother, Bennie Jeffries IV, a retired longshoreman.

"That's the theory of the complaint," said Cleveland Stockmeyer, the attorney for the brothers. "This was personal."

Waters, who joined the Police Department in 1992, is named in the suit, along with the City of Seattle. A spokeswoman for the City Attorney's Office said her office doesn't comment on pending litigation.The suit contains new allegations against the department at a time when the U.S. Justice Department is investigating whether Seattle officers have used excessive force, particularly against minorities. In the suit, which seeks unspecified monetary damages, the brothers allege they were the victims of false arrest, violations of their rights and assault.

Waters had known the brothers for several years before the Aug. 22, 2009, incident in which Alan Jeffries was shot with a Taser and arrested, according to the suit. Waters often had spoken with both brothers at the Chelan Cafe in Southwest Seattle, a "well known hangout of longshoremen, also frequented by Waters," the suit said.

Alan Jeffries has a history of scrapes with law enforcement, including convictions for obstructing an officer and driving under the influence, court records show. He had even been arrested once by Waters on a boating-while-intoxicated warrant, according to the suit.

The suit alleges Waters developed a "malice and animus" toward Alan Jeffries shortly before the 2009 incident after Waters broke up with a bartender at the Chelan and saw Jeffries flirt with her. Waters became more jealous after he was excluded from a George Clinton concert attended by Jeffries, the bartender and others.

As a result, Waters developed a plan to humiliate Jeffries, the suit alleges.

At morning police briefings, Waters had repeatedly studied descriptions and still shots from bank-surveillance video of two armed bank robbers being sought by local law enforcement, the suit said. Waters didn't claim the robbers resembled the brothers, nor was there an "objective reasonable resemblance," according to the suit. He also didn't notify a supervisor or detective about any suspicion the brothers resembled the robbers, the suit alleges.

On the evening of Aug. 22, 2009, Waters and his partner drove in their patrol car to the South Park Marina, where the brothers had gone in a van so Alan Jeffries could work on his boats, the suit said. After the patrol car passed and turned around, Alan Jeffries was standing outside the van, with his brother sitting inside, according to the suit. A woman with them was on one of the boats.

"At this time there was no probable cause nor objective reasonable basis for thinking there was any crime or basis for stopping or arresting" Alan Jeffries, the suit said.

Waters and his partner got out and drew their guns, and Waters ordered Jeffries to get on the ground, according to the suit. Jeffries asked "for what?," the suit said. Waters then ordered him to turn around and walk backward, the suit said.

Jeffries tried to comply, stumbled and told Waters he could not walk backward, the suit alleges, adding the woman yelled that Jeffries was sick and unable to comply.

Jeffries, the suit said, has Ménière's disease, an inner-ear disorder that can affect balance.

Waters replied "he's not sick and can do as he's ordered" before suddenly firing his Taser at Jeffries, according to the suit.

Jeffries had his hands up the entire time and had made no sudden moves, according to the suit.

Bennie Jeffries, a longshoreman at the time, was handcuffed and detained at the scene. Police had the van towed away, even after Bennie Jeffries told officers it contained an air tank and nebulizer he used for health problems, the suit said.

In a police report signed the next day, Waters said that while on patrol duty he saw two men sitting in a van, including a passenger whose features were visible.

"I immediately recognized his resemblance to that of one of two suspects" wanted by the King County Sheriff's Office for bank robbery, Waters wrote. According to Waters, Jeffries didn't respond to two requests to talk to him, and his partner saw Jeffries duck in front of the van to conceal himself. Jeffries responded to requests to come into view with "defiant curses," Waters wrote. Jeffries' "erratic" actions and words "made me believe even more there was a possible connection" to the bank case or illegal activity, Waters wrote.

Waters wrote that Jeffries refused to get on the ground and wouldn't keep his arms raised. Jeffries was arrested for obstructing a police officer.

Waters' report contains no mention of any personal connection between him and Jeffries.

The lawsuit alleges Waters should have been able to recognize Jeffries as his drinking acquaintance.

Had the brothers been suspected of being violent bank robbers, the suit contends, the proper procedure would have been to call a superior and wait for backup officers with rifles and shotguns.

Neither brother was linked to the bank robbery, and the obstruction charge was dropped at a hearing where Waters did not appear.

Sgt. Sean Whitcomb, a Seattle police spokesman, said that based on the police report, "The whole incident wouldn't have happened if Mr. Jeffries had complied with officer commands."

The suit alleges Waters falsely reported there was no patrol-car video of the incident, and that Seattle police officials knew officers misused their power to make obstruction arrests. "This policy and custom of allowing officers to misuse their power with impunity told Waters he could, too,... " the suit said.

Neither brother filed a complaint with the Police Department's Office of Professional Accountability, said Stockmeyer, their attorney, citing a lack of trust in the department's ability to investigate complaints of excessive force.
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New Details Emerge on NYPD Spy Unit. Democracy Now.org

The Associated Press has provided new details on how ethnic groups were targeted by secretive intelligence cooperation between the CIA and the New York City Police Department in the years following the 9/11 attacks.
According to the AP, the NYPD’s so-called "Demographics Unit" dispatched plainclothes officers into ethnic communities throughout New York City. The officers have reportedly used informants, known as "mosque crawlers," to monitor sermons, even without evidence of wrongdoing. The NYPD has also scrutinized imams, taxi cab drivers, food cart vendors and other jobs often done by Muslims. The report claimed an unprecedented level of CIA cooperation made the surveillance possible. The NYPD has denied the unit’s existence. But on Wednesday the AP released another article citing a memo from the unit’s supervisor and a PowerPoint presentation which described the unit in detail and repeatedly featured the department’s logo. According to the documents, the Demographics Unit is comprised of 16 officers speaking at least five languages and is the only squad of its kind known to be operating in the country. In addition to New York City, the unit has also mapped neighborhoods in Connecticut and New Jersey. The squad has maintained a long list of "ancestries of interest" and received daily reports on life in Muslim neighborhoods.
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Shoreline protest over fatal police shooting. Seattle Times.
About three dozen family members, friends and activists protested in front of the Shoreline Police Department for about an hour Thursday over the death of David Albrecht, who was fatally shot by police Aug. 10. Police had been called after Albrecht threatened suicide.

David Albrecht was shot and killed Aug. 10 — his 22nd birthday — in front of his family home in the 700 block of North 200th Street.

Police were called to the house after Albrecht reportedly put a knife to his throat and threatened to kill himself.

Albrecht emerged from the house holding a knife and a shotgun, and was told several times to drop the gun. When he didn't, two deputies fired several shots, police said.

They tried to stop the bleeding by applying pressure to his wounds, but Albrecht died at the scene.

On Thursday, Tatiana Albrecht and about three dozen family members, friends and activists protested in front of the Shoreline Police Department for about an hour. Then they moved a block west to the more visible intersection with Aurora Avenue North

"Something needs to be changed," said Joel James, whose sister dated Albrecht. "The police need to be held more accountable for what they've done."

James said officers should have tried to "talk him down" instead of immediately firing their assault rifles. "We can't bring David back. It hurts all of us," he said. "What we can do is to make sure this doesn't happen to others."

Cynthia Whetsell, a Seattle member of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, was at the protest.

"Hundreds of people are killed by police every year," she said. "It's a national epidemic," Whetsell said.

Albrecht was convicted last year for felony assault of a police officer stemming from a night out drinking. He'd been ordered to go through a court-ordered rehab program, friends said, and had several other scapes with the law.

James said Albrecht got caught in the legal system and couldn't get himself out.

"He had a great outlook on life," James said. "He said, 'I just want to get this court stuff over and done with and get on with my life.' "

Albrecht was a cancer survivor, loved cooking and simply liked to hang out with his friends, James said. The protest was called in part so that friends and family could paint a different picture of Albrecht from the one given so far by police.

The officers who shot Albrecht were placed on paid administrative leave — a standard procedure — but they haven't been named, which is unusual. They are back on duty now.

The city of Shoreline contracts with the King County Sheriff's Department to provide police service, although officers wear Shoreline uniforms and drive patrol cars marked with the city's name.

Sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart said Thursday the officers are not being named for safety reasons. "There's been a lot of street talk, and it's very emotional out there," he said.

An inquest will be held to examine the facts, Urquhart said, and prosecutors will go over the case to ensure that state laws were followed.

Albrecht's father, Victor Albrecht, was also at the protest. He said he wasn't angry at police, but blamed himself for some of the actions that took place Aug. 10.

The father called police after his son cut himself in the neck. They had been about to prepare a meal when David Albrecht had grabbed a knife.

Albrecht's girlfriend tried to stop him, and her hands were cut.

"I took the knife," Victor Albrecht said. "But he took another one."

His son was afraid he'd wind up back in jail one day, the father said, and David Albrecht predicted that police would kill him one day.

The father said that he called police because he thought deputies could handle the situation better than he could have.

"Let's go, David," he'd said, when the police arrived. But it didn't end the way he expected.
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Lawsuit accuses security guard of handcuffing first-graders for talking in class. Chicago Tribune.

By Joel Hood, Tribune reporter

The attorney for a family suing Chicago Public Schools over the alleged handcuffing of a first-grader in 2010 said Tuesday that the boy was among several 6- and 7-year-olds who were detained and handcuffed for hours for talking in class.

In an email to the Tribune, attorney Michael Carin said school officials at Carver Primary School on the Far South Side authorized the on-campus security guard in March 2010 to discipline some first-graders who were being disruptive.

Giving details not disclosed in the lawsuit filed Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, Carin said the school's security officer removed the students from class and held them in another office on campus where there were no other adults present. Carin said the students were handcuffed for hours and told that "they were going to prison and would never see their parents again."

"There appears to be no reason for an officer to isolate 6- and 7-year-old children, place them in handcuffs and threaten them for hours during a school day, or any other day," Carin wrote.

Carin said the Chicago Board of Education had ignored attempts to resolve this case outside the courtroom.

"Unfortunately, we had to file a lawsuit because the Chicago Board of Education ignored my client on the day of the imprisonment and every day thereafter," Carin wrote. "We hope the Chicago Board of Education acknowledges its responsibility and resolves the matter quickly."

In the complaint, the boy's mother, LaShanda Smith, describes the guard's action as "reckless" and said her son suffered injuries both "permanent" and "personal" during the incident. Smith, who is seeking more than $100,000 in damages, accuses the officer of acting "in conscious disregard" of her son's safety.

CPS, along with the Board of Education, are defendants in the case. Neither the security officer nor school administrators are named as defendants.

CPS spokeswoman Becky Carroll said again Tuesday that school officials have not yet seen the complaint and need to review it before commenting. Calls to Carver Primary School were not returned.

jhood@tribune.com

Copyright © 2011, Chicago Tribune
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A new study reveals that 25 of the nation’s largest corporations paid more money to their CEOs last year than they did to the federal government in income taxes. Democracy Now

Often using overseas tax havens, many of the corporations managed to make billions in profits but paid little to nothing in federal taxes. In many cases the companies received large tax rebates. The list includes some of the country’s best-known companies, such as Ford, Coca-Cola, Verizon, General Electric and eBay. The same study found that the ratio of CEO pay to that of the average worker in the United States jumped to 325-to-1 last year.
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Looks Like Obama Intends To Propose A Jobs Program That Gets People To Work For Free
By Susie Madrak. Crooks and Liars.com

When are we going to stop pretending that the only way out of this economic crisis is to passively wait for business to produce "growth"? The only way we're going to get out of this mess is for the government to create actual jobs. Robert Cuttner talks about the Georgia Works program model that Obama seems determined to propose instead:

    Basically, the company gets free labor while the person is receiving unemployment insurance. If the company does hire the person, there is no ongoing wage subsidy or training subsidy.

    According to data from the Georgia Department of Labor provided to the Huffington Post, just 16.4 percent of workers who participated in this program between 2003 when the program started and 2010 got hired by the company where they were placed, and only 24 percent got jobs at all. Currently, exactly 19 people are enrolled.

    Obama’s characterization sounds more like Danish or Swedish active labor market policy, where government subsidizes serious retraining and then subsidizes wages. But the Georgia program, now run by a very right-wing Republican state administration, is a far cry from that.

    Georgia’s top weekly benefit is just $330.

    With unemployment stubbornly above 9 percent, and above 15 percent if you count discouraged workers and part-timers seeking full-time work, this program doesn’t make a dent in the problem. It doesn’t create jobs. It simply alters who gets available jobs, while putting downward pressure on wages. As Obama’s suggests, Smith gets his foot in the door ahead of Jones, by offering to work for free.

    Why would Obama be interested in such weak tea? First, there is no additional cost to government.   Second, it has a nice corporate, free-market flavor. Third, it appeals to Republicans. Obama is fearful that Republicans may block the next extension of unemployment insurance, and this Republican-style embellishment might be part of a bipartisan deal.

    But tiny policy changes like this move employment policy in the wrong direction by pretending that a massive jobs problem is amenable to trivial fixes. And it worsens the related problem of a lack of good jobs by putting downward pressure on wages by adding free labor to the local worker pool. Moreover, to the extent that a better-trained workforce is part (and only part) of the solution, temporary ad hoc training in exchange for free labor is pure tokenism.

    Even if the administration kids itself into thinking that this is smart policy, a political reality check should give the White House pause. How many voters, really, will this impress? What will it do to the actual plague of unemployment?

    As it happens, Obama has just hired as his new chair of the Council of Economic Advisers one of our premier labor economists, Alan Krueger of Princeton University. Krueger came to prominence in 1995 as co-author of an academic study defending minimum wages. Krueger is not making public comments, since he still has to get confirmed.
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No net jobs created in August; black unemployment rises. Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. employers stopped adding jobs in August, an alarming setback for an economy that has struggled to grow and might be at risk of another recession.

It was the weakest jobs report since September 2010. The unemployment rate remained at 9.1 percent.

Black unemployment jumped a point to 18 percent and African-American teen joblessness also rose from 39.2 to 46.5 percent.

Stock futures plunged on the news. In the 15 minutes after the report was released, Dow futures fell 94 points, from 11,401 to 11,318.

A strike by 45,000 Verizon workers lowered the job totals. Those workers are now back on the job.

The weakness in employment was underscored by revisions to the jobs data for June and July. Collectively, those figures were lowered to show 57,000 fewer jobs added. The downward revisions were all in government jobs.

The average work week also declined and hourly earnings fell by 3 cents to $23.09.

The report may dampen expectations for the economy to pick up in the second half of the year. With hiring stagnant and wages declining, consumers won't see much gain in incomes. That will limit their ability to spend, which undercuts economic growth. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the economy.

The economy needs to add roughly 250,000 jobs a month to rapidly bring down the unemployment rate, which has been above 9 percent in all but two months since May 2009.

In August, the private sector added 17,000 jobs, the fewest since February 2010. That compares with 156,000 in July and 75,000 in June.

Hiring fell across many different sectors. Manufacturers cut 3,000 jobs, its first decline since October 2010. Construction companies, retailers, and transportation firms also cut workers.

The health care industry added 30,000 jobs last month.

Weak growth, a downgrade of long-term U.S. debt in early August and a sell-off on Wall Street likely kept some businesses from hiring.

The economy expanded at an annual pace of only 0.7 percent in the first six months of the year. That was the slowest six months of growth since the recession officially ended in June 2009.

Most economists forecast that growth may improve to about a 2 percent annual rate in the July-September quarter. But that's not fast enough to generate many jobs.

The economy's weakness was underscored Thursday by the Obama administration, which estimated that unemployment will average about 9 percent next year, when President Barack Obama will run for re-election. The rate was 7.8 percent when Obama took office.

The White House Office of Management and Budget projects overall growth of only 1.7 percent this year.
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Libyan “Revolutionaries” Aren’t So Revolutionary. informationclearinghouse.info
By Against the Empire.

March 26, 2011 "Against the Empire" -- Ever since the rebel opposition forces in Libya have taken control of the cities, there have been reports that have surfaced regarding torture, racial violence and repression. Coming across some recent articles regarding Benghazi, the last rebel stronghold in Libya, I can’t say that I’m amazed at the police state that they have designed and who is in power in Benghazi. It was no doubt a complete error on the part of so-called “progressives” to take the side of these rebel forces (never mind those who hailed them as “revolutionaries”).

From a Telegraph article on Thursday (3/23/10):

    “The young gunmen at the roadblock took no chances. They put a knife to the throat of the driver before hauling the three men and one woman from the car, dragging them through the street into a nearby mosque for a rough round of interrogation….
    Libya’s young opposition movement is rounding up suspected opponents and delivering its own brutal form of justice in a city living in fear that they have been penetrated by a fifth column of government loyalists.

    Rebel leaders admit that dozens of Gaddafi supporters have been arrested or killed.

    Every night, gangs of vigilantes assemble at makeshift roadblocks – made from piles of rubble, oil drums or piping – to control entry and exit from their neighbourhoods.

    Many residents are now too frightened to drive through the dark streets at night, fearing a shakedown or worse at the proliferating checkpoints.

    “If they don’t know who you are, and are in their part of town, and you have a nice car, then they are going to think you are a car thief or they say you are with Gaddafi,” said one driver who now stays close to home after dark.” 2

And today in the LA Times (3/25/10):

    “Opposition officials in Benghazi, whose wide sweeps to detain alleged Kadafi supporters have drawn criticism, take journalists on a tightly controlled tour of detention centers. Many detainees say they’re immigrant workers and deny fighting for Kadafi.
    For a month, gangs of young gunmen have roamed the city, rousting Libyan blacks and immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa from their homes and holding them for interrogation as suspected mercenaries or government spies.

    Over the last several days, the opposition has begun rounding up men accused of fighting as mercenaries for Kadafi’s militias as government forces pushed toward Benghazi. It has launched nightly manhunts for about 8,000 people named as government operatives in secret police files seized after internal security operatives fled in the face of the rebellion that ended Kadafi’s control of eastern Libya last month.

    “We know who they are,” said Abdelhafed Ghoga, the chief opposition spokesman. He called them “people with bloodstained hands” and “enemies of the revolution.”
    One young man from Ghana bolted from the prisoners queue. He shouted in English at an American reporter: “I’m not a soldier! I work for a construction company in Benghazi! They took me from my house … “

    A guard shoved the prisoner back toward the cells.

    “Go back inside!” he ordered.

    The guard turned to the reporter and said: “He lies. He’s a mercenary.”

    The Ghanaian was one of 25 detainees from Chad, Niger, Sudan, Mali and Ghana described by opposition officials as mercenaries, though several of them insisted they were laborers. The officials declined to say what would become of them.

    One of the accused shown to journalists was Alfusainey Kambi, 53, a disheveled Gambian wearing a bloodstained sport shirt and military fatigue trousers. He said he had been dragged from his home and beaten by three armed men who he said also raped his wife. A dirty bandage covered a wound on his forehead.

    Khaled Ben Ali, a volunteer with the opposition council, berated Kambi and accused him of lying. Ali said Kambi hit his head on a wall while trying to escape.   He commanded the prisoner to comment on his treatment in the detention center. Kambi paused and considered his answer. Finally, he glanced warily up at Ali and spoke. “Nobody beat me here,” he said in a faint, weary tone. “I have no problems here.”

These reports can be directly corroborated by this video from Al-Jazeera talking about how Black immigrants in Libya lived under complete fear of the rebels. Their businesses were burned to the ground, they were tortured, they were killed on the spot for being alleged “mercenaries”, etc.

Black Agenda Report expounded on this topic earlier this month when it was revealed that:

“What has become apparent from reports filtering out of the country is that many of the 1.5 million black African migrant workers trapped in Libya feel themselves under racial siege, hunted by what Black Americans would immediately recognize as lynch mobs – “pogrom” is another word that springs to mind – especially in the rebel-held areas.

    The testimony of black African victims is most disturbing. “We were being attacked by local people who said that we were mercenaries killing people. Let me say that they did not want to see black people,” 60-year-old Julius Kiluu, an African building supervisor, told Reuters. Even in Tripoli, where the regime is not in full control of neighborhoods, Somalis told journalists they were “being hunted on suspicion of being mercenaries” and “feel trapped and frightened to go out.” Ethiopians told of being “dragged from their apartments, beaten up and showed to the world as mercenaries.” Ethiopian News and Opinions reported that “Muammar Gadhafi haters are taking revenge on black Africans for money Gadhafi threw for many African dictators. The mob attacked and killed many Africans including Ethiopians for being only black.”

The article then goes on to explain many other accounts of racial violence by the so-called “revolutionaries” and “freedom fighters. From a class standpoint, the opposition is not revolutionary. If we are to look again at the first article linked in this article, from Telegraph, we will see a striking passage there.

    “The rebel’s interim government is made up of professionals academics, businessmen and lawyers often educated in the UK or US who make all the right noises about democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”

So here we have a leadership comprised of members of the privileged sectors of Libyan society but that’s not all. Just yesterday, it was reported that the new financial minister of the Libyan opposition is a senior lecturer in the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington. To quote the spokeswoman for the Libyan Provisional Transitional National Council, Iman Bugaighis;    “Tarhouni understands the Western mentality.”

I think that says it all, really, but there are some of us who haven’t been duped. Unfortunately, many of the “progressives” and “leftists” in this country still condemn Gaddafi as the first order of business. Until it is recognized that the Libyan opposition is not to be cheered, romanticized or admired, the anti-imperialist movement of this country can not demand an end to bombs being dropped in Libya, an end to the armed conflict there or the right of the Libyan people to determine the course of their countries future. No, we will, instead, stand by idly as an insignificant minority in the heart of world imperialism.

On a world scale, it seems to be Venezuela and Cuba leading the way for the demonization of Western imperialism for their atrocities they have been committing in Libya for the past week or so as well as their support for the opposition rebels. Today, Venezuela proving itself (like it always does) to be a real, tangible progressive force in this world, announced that they would not recognize the Libyan opposition.

What comes next will surely be crucial in understanding Libya’s fate. If the police state in Benghazi continues the way it is now, this could be a precursor for the kind of society that the Western-bred intellectuals and other affluent individuals in power could’ve only dreamed of previously. A society where neo-liberalism is rampant and the oil reserves are milked like cattle for the pockets and investments of a few oil tycoons. A society where every piece of land, mineral and resource is plundered while Libya falls from the highest in Human Development in Africa to much lower. Needless to say, the potential for a progressive, egalitarian society which fits the needs of the majority of Libyans will be rolled back on a scale never before seen since 1969.
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A White House bioethics commission has revealed gruesome new details about American-run venereal disease experiments on unsuspecting Guatemalans from 1946 to ’48. Democracy Now.org

The testing focused on sexually transmitted diseases and involved U.S. medical officials intentionally infecting Guatemalan sex workers, prisoners, soldiers, mental patients—without their permission—in order to study the effects of penicillin. The New York Times reports, quote, "When some of the men failed to become infected through sex, the bacteria were poured into scrapes made on the penises or faces, or even injected by spinal puncture."

President Obama personally apologized to Guatemalan President Álvaro Colom for the experiments last year, after they were discovered. Since then, the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues has studied 125,000 pages of documents and sent investigators to Guatemala.

On Tuesday, the commission concluded nearly 5,500 people were subjected to diagnostic testing in Guatemala, and more than 1,300 exposed to venereal disease by contact or inoculation. President Álvaro Colom has described the experiments as a "crime against humanity" and ordered his own investigation.

The Guatemala program was discovered by Wellesley College Professor Susan Reverby while she was researching the infamous Tuskegee experiments. Professor Reverby spoke to Democracy Now! last year and described how much U.S. officials knew about the practices the program’s architect, Dr. John Cutler, was engaged in.

    SUSAN REVERBY: It’s too easy to say, OK, this was a period when there wasn’t research norms or any of the kind of regulations we’ve had in place since the mid-'70s. But Cutler's bosses at the Public Health Service knew this was sort of really on the edge. And the quote that I found that just really knocked me off the chair was one from the surgeon general himself, who said—and this is secondhand, but it was in a letter to Cutler, where one of his colleagues said, "The surgeon general says, 'Well, we couldn't do this in the United States.’" And that’s just a stunning, absolutely stunning, acknowledgment of what was going on.

Members of the bioethics commission investigating the venereal disease experiments say they recalled Nazi experiments on Jews. They argue that Dr. Cutler, who died in 2003, must have known from the Nuremberg doctors’ trials, underway by 1946, that his work was unethical. Panel members endorsed the idea of creating a compensation fund for subjects who are harmed in the future, or requiring researchers to buy insurance for that purpose. Some countries require these steps; the United States does not.
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Taking a revolution’s weapons: Push comes to shove in Nepal. Posted by Mike E on kasamaproject.org September 2, 2011

We have just learned that the Prachanda and Bhattarai factions of the Maoist party in Nepal have announced that they will not step back from their moves to disarm the Peoples Liberation Army. Not only will they order then hanging over of keys to weapons storage containers, but they will also begin moving the containers themselves out of three of the cantonments. (Cantonment is the name for the treaty-supervised bases where the PLA forces are concentrated.)

Kiran faction of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has launched a major protest program against the disarming of the People’s Liberation Army being led by Nepal’s new Prime Minister, Baburam Bhattarai. See more reports often appear first on the blog Winter Has Its End. By Eric Ribellarsi

Today, the Kiran faction of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) has launched a major protest program against the disarming of the People’s Liberation Army being led by Nepal’s new Prime Minister, Baburam Bhattarai. The Maoist rebels are demanding the immediate reversal of the decision to disarm People’s Liberation Army, a process which has already begun.

So far, this program has included:

A nation-wide one hour blockade of major roads and intersection throughout the country. We have heard this took place at roughly 50 locations in Kathmandu, including Kalanki, the main road used for entrance into Kathmandu.
A boycott of major party meetings, including today’s Standing Committee meeting.
Torchlight marches throughout Kathmandu and in other cities throughout the entire country, beginning tonight at September 2nd at 6:00 PM. Visit kasamaproject.org for video.

The crowd was mostly young, and the feel was one of both anger and excitement. One young Maoist said to me “finally, we are standing up.” People were not at all demoralized. They were (and are) ready to fight to save their revolution.

Following these demonstrations, Biplab, a leader of the Maoist party who has opposed the disarming and has argued for revolution, has launched a mass campaign throughout the country to build opposition to the moves of Prachanda and Bhattarai within the Maoist party.

We have learned that this campaign will include mass rallies and educational forums, the mass production of polemical pamphlets, and a new graffiti campaign.

Show notes from Episode #42 (including stuff I didn't get to on the air).

2011-08-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

Locked Up and Left Behind: Hurricane Irene and the Prisoners on New York’s Rikers Island
by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway. solitarywatch.com

Bloomberg annouced a host of extreme measures being taken by New York City in preparation for the arrival of Hurricane Irene, including a shutdown of the public transit system and the unprecedented mandatory evacuation of some 250,000 people from low-lying areas. But in response to a reporter’s question, the mayor stated in no uncertain terms (and with more than a hint of annoyance) that one group of New Yorkers on vulnerable ground will be staying put.

New York City is surrounded by small islands and barrier beaches, and a glance at the city’s evacuation map reveals all of them to be in Zone A (already under a mandatory evacuation order) or Zone B–all, that is, save one. Rikers Island, which lies in the waters between Queens and the Bronx, is not highlighted at all, meaning it is not to be evacuated under any circumstances.

According to the New York City Department of Corrections’ own website, more than three-quarters of Rikers Island’s 400 acres are built on landfill–which is generally thought to be more vulnerable to natural disasters. Its ten jails have a capacity of close to 17,000 inmates, and normally house at least 12,000, including juveniles and large numbers of prisoners with mental illness–not to mention pre-trial detainees who have yet to be convicted of any crime. There are also hundreds of corrections officers at work on the island.

We were not able to reach anyone at the NYC DOC for comment–but the New York Times‘s City Room blog reported: “According to the city’s Department of Correction, no hypothetical evacuation plan for the roughly 12,000 inmates that the facility may house on a given day even exists. Contingencies do exist for smaller-scale relocations from one facility to another.”

For a warning of what can happen to prisoners in a hurricane we need only look back at Katrina, and the horrific conditions endured by inmates at Orleans Parish Prison in New Orleans. According to a report produced by the ACLU:

[A] culture of neglect was evident in the days before Katrina, when the sheriff declared that the prisoners would remain “where they belong,” despite the mayor’s decision to declare the city’s first-ever mandatory evacuation. OPP even accepted prisoners, including juveniles as young as 10, from other facilities to ride out the storm.

As floodwaters rose in the OPP buildings, power was lost, and entire buildings were plunged into darkness. Deputies left their posts wholesale, leaving behind prisoners in locked cells, some standing in sewage-tainted water up to their chests …

Prisoners went days without food, water and ventilation, and deputies admit that they received no emergency training and were entirely unaware of any evacuation plan. Even some prison guards were left locked in at their posts to fend for themselves, unable to provide assistance to prisoners in need.

UPDATE (Saturday midnight): In his final news conference of the day, Mayor Bloomberg defended his decision not to evacuate Rikers Island, stating: “It is higher than the Zone A areas and it’s perfectly safe.” Representatives of the mayor have made further statements to New York Magazine (see update at end) and the Wall Street Journal, also specifying that no part of Rikers Island is in Zone A. Deputy Mayor Howard Wolfson went on Twitter to say the same thing. To our knowledge, the mayor’s office still has not clarified what zone, if any, Rikers Island is in, and has not responded to questions regarding the lack of any evacuation plan for the jail.

LIBYA - Resistance to US/NATO Conquest Continues. International Action Center. iacenter.org

Under the most incredibly difficult conditions – including NATO bombing, mercenary landings, Special Forces operations and the destruction of civilian infrastructure – the heroic resistance to imperialist conquest in Libya has continued.

All the corporate media lies claiming mass surrender, the fleeing of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, the arrest of his sons and more have turned out to be nothing but lies and psychological warfare. After 159
days of bombing, incredibly, the residence continues.

The continued resistance also exposes the lie of the so-called democratic “rebel” forces – forces that have been set up by Britain, France and the U.S. to facilitate the imperialist invasion of the oil-rich country. Meanwhile, arms have been distributed by the Libyan government to the whole population – something a hated dictator would never do.

As in Iraq and Afghanistan, an arrogant declaration of U.S. victory and “mission accomplished” does not mean an end to local people's resistance, which takes many forms. The Libyan people have heroically
withstood not only half a year of bombing, but also a hail of racist corporate media propaganda seeking to portray the U.S.-NATO military machine, both preposterously and once again, as great white liberators.

While resistance continues in Libya, we in the center of U.S. imperialism must continue our resistance to the criminal war there –even as the prolonged economic war against poor and oppressed people
continues within the U.S.

An IAC-organized truth tour featuring former Congressperson Cynthia McKinney – who traveled to Libya to be an eyewitness to the U.S.-NATO attack – has built major opposition meetings in 21 cities
across the country. At each meeting, which was undertaken by a local coalition of forces, hundreds of anti-war and anti-imperialist and community activists attended.

These meetings against U.S. war in Libya have been the largest series of anti-war meetings held in years. At the same time, the IAC has been in the streets, organizing protests across the country.

The U.S. war in Libya is a first aggressive step in the expansion of wars of colonial conquest in Africa. It means new U.S. threats against Sudan and Somalia. It means more belligerent targeting of other
countries in Middle East, especially Syria and Iran.

Seattle's Low Income Housing Institute Poisons then Steals from the Homeless. seasol.net

On Monday, August 29th at 12 noon, Seattle Solidarity Network, seasol.net, will be picketing the Low Income Housing Institute.

George B had been living for months in a building owned and managed by the Low Income Housing Institute. When a new neighbor started cooking crack in the unit next door, the smells came in through the
ventilation severely affected his health. For months George felt dizzy, nauseous, light-headed and sick while living in his own home.

George's repeated requests to the building manager for assistance fell on deaf ears. He eventually tried calling the police. After months of no help from building managment or the police, George decided he
would have a better living situation at a local senior men's shelter; where he has been staying since.

As requested, George sent in a written statement with his intention to move out a month in advance. As requested, he cleaned his unit and took his belongings with him. He was ready to move on with his life
and continue taking computer networking classes at Seattle Central. Weeks later he was surprised to receive a bill from the non-profit stating that he owed them money. They also wrote that they were more
than ready to take balance of $40.50 to a collection agency.

George feels this bogus cleaning fee is in revenge for him bringing police attention to the building. He is worried how this will effect his credit while looking for new housing.

George tried to do things by the book but he is now ready to fight back with SeaSol. They will, once again, be picketing outside of the LIHI offices in order to pressure them to pay back George's deposit, advanced rent, and drop the ridiculous cleaning fees and warning possible renters and the public of LIHI's abusive management practices

High Levels of Radiation Detected in Northwest Rainwater. King5.com

A Seattle nuclear watchdog group is accusing the federal government of failing to keep the public informed of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear disaster.

In the days following the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the U.S. began monitoring radiation from Japan's leaking nuclear power plants.Most of the public attention went to the air monitoring which showed little or no radiation coming our way. But things were different on the rain water side.

"The level that was detected on March 24 was 41 times the drinking water standard," said Gerry Pollet from Heart of America Northwest. He reviewed Iodine 131 numbers released by the Environmental Protection Agency last spring. "Our government said no health levels, no health levels were exceeded.When in fact the rain water in the Northwest is reaching levels 130 times the drinking water standards," said Pollet.

Elevated rain water samples were collected in Portland, Olympia and Boise, which had the highest.But EPA officials say the data was there for anyone to read on their website. A spokesman sent this statement, in part:

"Since Iodine 131 has a very short half-life of approximately eight days, the levels seen in rainwater were expected to be relatively short in duration."

State health agencies added that they constantly monitored public drinking water sources and never found levels even approaching the unhealthy range.

Even the watchdog group admits, watering plants with water exposed only briefly to those levels is unlikely to cause health problems.

But they say it's information the public deserves to know about.

The EPA points out this was a brief period of elevated radiation in rainwater, and says safe drinking water standards are based on chronic exposure to radiation over a lifetime.

US buys most expensive drones ever. globalresearch.ca

With $14 trillion in the hole and a slew of wars seemingly no one wants America to be in, what better way for the United States to spend their money by putting $23 billion into spy planes?

The US will drop billions on defense spending with the purchasing of 55 Global Hawk drone planes over the next few years. Each of the four dozen-plus spy crafts comes at a price tag of $218 million apiece — ten times the price of the largest armed attack drone.

Global Hawk drones are capable of flying twice as high as commercial aircraft and can spot insurgents up to 100 miles away. Once identified, the robotic crafts that are controlled from 24-hour command stations can then send images to intelligence centers or directly to troops.

The Global Hawk drones will replace the U-2 spy planes that the States currently deploys, which the US has relied on since the dawn of the Cold War. Sending unmanned aircrafts into warzones, while grossly expensive, comes as an attempt to limit fatalities by avoiding putting extra troops into danger. Though relying on on-board navigation, those U-2 flyers have proved effective over the last half-century, recently assisting in operations in Afghanistan

A team of 50 engineers will slave over the construction of the Global Hawk drones in a Palmdale, California warehouse.

The US Air Force will invest $12 billion towards the initiative, with the Navy offering almost as much to have their own versions of the Global Hawks.

And, in case you didn’t hear, lawmakers just spent months trying to figure out how to keep the country from defaulting. The town of Central Falls, Rhode Island (the entire town) is currently in bankruptcy court, and the most populous county in Alabama is expected to join them in the coming weeks.

New legislation in the US threatens to conflate campus criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
Sami Kishawi.The Electronic Intifada. electronicintifada.net

A number of new initiatives to curtail freedom of speech by conflating opposition to Israeli crimes with anti-Semitism are underway in the United States and Canada.

The Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Anti-Semitism (CPCCA) issued a report in early July recommending the adoption of strict new standards defining anti-Semitism and the types of speech and campus activities that would violate them.

Its report urged the Canadian government to adopt the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia’s definition of anti-Semitism (“Report on the Inquiry Panel,” 7 July 2011 [PDF]).

That definition suggests that any questioning of whether Israel has the right to exist as a state that privileges Jews over people of other religions or ethnic backgrounds amounts to anti-Semitism.

Though the Canadian group is not linked to the Ottawa government, it has 22 parliamentarians as members. Activities it deems as anti-Semitic and, therefore, calls to be banned, include events such as the Israeli Apartheid Week that was founded in Toronto and now takes place on college campuses internationally every March.

The Canadian report is just the latest attempt at stifling public discourse about Israel. Free speech and the unimpeded exchange of ideas are also under attack on America’s college campuses. Pro-Israel supporters have targeted federal funding for academic institutions, including support for research and academic conferences, under the pretext that criticism of Israel is “hate speech.”

Federal authorities from the Office of Civil Rights with the US Department of Education are investigating charges of anti-Semitism against the University of California Santa Cruz, as well as at other institutions within the California university system, according to published reports. These are the first investigations taking place since Title VI of the Civil Rights Act was re-interpreted in October 2010, allowing Jewish students, as members of a religious group, to claim discrimination under a provision that previously applied only to racial and ethnic bigotry.

A “dear colleague” letter issued by the Office of Civil Rights in October 2010 said that discrimination against a student who is a member of a religious group violates Title VI when the discrimination is based on the group’s “actual or perceived shared ancestry or ethnic characteristics … or when it is based upon the student’s actual or perceived citizenship or residency in a country whose residents share a dominant religion or a distinct religious identity,” David Thomas, a US Department of Education spokesman, explained by email.

Major pro-Israel organizations such as the Zionist Organization of America and the Anti-Defamation League have lobbied for this re-interpretation for years. Title VI now can be applied to Jewish students who claim universities create hostile campus environments if they allow pro-Palestinian events or even class lectures critical of Israeli policies.

In other words, since Israel bills itself as a Jewish state, of which all Jews everywhere are automatic citizens, Jewish students can file complaints of anti-Semitism and discrimination based upon their perceived ethnicity and citizenship or residency in a country that has a “dominant religion.”

Dr. Hatem Bazian, a Palestinian-American professor of Near Eastern and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, who co-founded the Students for Justice in Palestine there in 1993, takes issue with the amended understanding of Title VI. While he agrees that Jewish students, as well as Muslim students, should be protected from discrimination based on their religious identity under Title VI, he believes the reinterpretation is actually being used to silence debate about Israel.

“Attempts to silence opposition to the illegal Israeli occupation and policies is un-American and amounts to political and academic censorship,” Bazian said via email. (Bazian is also the chairman of American Muslims for Palestine, the organization with which this writer is employed).

The Title VI reinterpretation and the subsequent case against Santa Cruz is part of a growing trend of stifling of protected political speech on college campuses. Several lecturers and professors have been censured and even denied tenure because they openly criticized Israeli policies or advocated for Palestinian rights.

Perhaps the most widely publicized cases are those of former DePaul University professor Norman Finkelstein and North Carolina State University professor Terri Ginsberg, both of whom were not given tenure because of their open criticism of Israeli policies in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Ginsberg initiated legal action against North Carolina State and her case is currently on appeal.

The new interpretation has rejuvenated a 29-page complaint brought against the University of California Santa Cruz in June 2009 by lecturer Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, the contents of which have been kept secret by the Department of Education and university officials.

On 13 April, American Muslims for Palestine filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the complaint with the San Francisco Office of Civil Rights. Federal authorities declined the request on 22 April, saying that supplying the complaint would “constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” and that it could “reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings,” both of which are listed as exemptions under the federal FOIA statute.

What is so troubling in the University of California Santa Cruz investigation is that the amended interpretation is being applied retroactively to Rossman-Benjamin’s complaint, which she filed more than one year before the October 2010 “dear colleague” letter. No one contacted from the university or the Department of Education would discuss how an institution can be held liable for something that was not considered to be a violation at the time it occurred.

“[The Office of Civil Rights] received the UC-Santa Cruz complaint … on 25 June 2009,” Thomas wrote in an email to American Muslims for Palestine. “On 7 March 2011, OCR formally notified the university and the complainant that OCR was opening for investigation the allegations that a hostile environment existed for Jewish students at the university in 2009 in violation of Title VI and that the university had notice of the hostile environment but did not have a process to adequately respond to hostile environment complaints.”

Thomas failed to respond to American Muslims for Palestine’s direct question about how the new interpretation could be applied retroactively, though it was posed three times in three separate emails on 13 and 15 April.

Jim Burns, a University of California Santa Cruz spokesman, also would not address that issue and instead referred it back to the Department of Education’s civil rights office. He did tell American Muslims for Palestine in an email, however, that the Office of Civil Rights is reviewing a complaint that “speech on campus that is critical of Israel creates a hostile environment for Jewish students.”

“We believe that [the Office of Civil Rights’] investigation will ultimately conclude that [the University of California Santa Cruz] diligently enforces laws, policies and practices that protect our students’ civil rights. But we also believe that our review of the matter with OCR will provide us with an opportunity to examine our relevant policies and practices to ensure that is the case,” he added.

If federal investigators find a university to be in violation of Title VI and the institution does not remedy the situation satisfactorily it could lose federal funding. This is a worst-case scenario to be sure, but it is one that seemingly threatens the open exchange of ideas on college campuses.

“While some of the recent allegations … might well raise a claim under Title VI, many others simply seek to silence anti-Israel discourse and speakers. This approach is not only unwarranted under Title VI, it is dangerous,” Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Presidents (AAUP), and Kenneth Stern of the American Jewish Committee, wrote recently in an open letter on AAUP’s website.

“The purpose of a university is to have students wrestle with ideas with which they may disagree, or even better, may make them uncomfortable. To censor ideas is to diminish education, and to treat students as fragile recipients of ‘knowledge,’ rather than young critical thinkers,” they added.

American Muslims for Palestine’s Hatem Bazian said the implications of the re-interpretation go far beyond free speech in the classroom and at extra-curricular events. Funding for scholarly research and academic conferences that bring up “legitimate criticism of Israel” may be at stake, he said.

“The new interpretation will directly, first and foremost, impact those who administer Title VI funding, and they for sure will be more hesitant and will engage in self-censorship in funding research or activities that are critical of Israel,” Bazian said.

Indeed, the Anti-Defamation League was one of 12 national organizations that urged the Department of Education to amend its Title VI interpretation. It may have just been a co-signer in that battle but the ADL has taken the lead in many high-profile cases to stifle free speech and public debate in its hundred-year history.

In March, the ADL, along with the American Jewish Committee and the Bay Area Jewish Community Relations Council, protested an academic conference at the UC Hastings College of the Law in March entitled “Litigating Palestine: Can Courts Secure Palestinian Rights?” Their protest was so effective the university board voted to remove its name and endorsement for the event and it prevented university Chancellor Frank Wu from making opening remarks.

Writing about the incident in the San Francisco Chronicle, Cecilie Surasky, deputy director of Jewish Voice for Peace, stated that “Perhaps for the first time in US history, there is an aggressive challenge to a one-sided narrative that covers up or justifies ongoing Israeli repression of Palestinians” (“Pressure on law conference threatens free speech,” 21 April 2011).

Surasky added, “The center of that challenge is on campuses, which is why those who have traditionally adopted knee-jerk defenses of Israeli policies are attempting to stigmatize or shut down alternative viewpoints.”

The same threats of losing federal funding because of an “anti-Semitic and hostile environment” are being leveled at Rutgers University in New Jersey, thanks in large part to a 15-page letter written to the university by Zionist Organization of America President Morton Klein, and copied to the state’s governor, its US senators and representatives and other officials.

These recent moves, according to Surasky, “suggest that legitimate criticism of Israeli policy is being conflated with anti-Semitism. If this is allowed to happen, then serious debate on Israel’s illegal actions in the Palestinian territories will be shut down.”

Rossman-Benjamin’s complaint against University of California Santa Cruz could very well be a test case under the new interpretation of Title VI. The reinterpretation, when viewed against the backdrop of professors being censured or denied tenure because of their political views, could have an adverse affect on the free exchange of ideas on college campuses at a time when debate and concrete examinations of US foreign policy in the Middle East is needed more than ever.

Editor’s note: this article originally stated that Dr. Hatem Bazian founded the Students for Justice in Palestine at University of California, Berkeley in 2001. It has been corrected to reflect that he co-founded the SJP in 1993.

Sensei Lewis around town.
I will be speaking at Indigenous Peoples Day at Westlake Center in downtown Seattle on Saturday September 10th at 11am. And listen as I spin the best is true school hip-hop at 10pm on KBCS 91.3 fm Listen online at kbcs.fm, on Saturday, September 6th and the 10th!

U.$./NATO Begin The Recolonization of Africa.

2011-08-26T08:43:00.000-07:00

Refuting Juan Cole: The Myth of Libyan Liberation. by Conn Hallnan.
CounterPunch.org

In his essay, “Top Ten Myths about the Libyan War,” Juan Cole argues that U.S. interests in the conflict consisted of stopping “massacres of people,” a “lawful world order,” “the NATO alliance,” and oddly, “the fate of Egypt.” It is worth taking a moment to look at each of these arguments, as well as his dismissal of the idea that the U.S./NATO intervention had anything to do with oil as “daft.”

Massacres are bad things, but the U.S. has never demonstrated a concern for them unless its interests were at stake. It made up the “massacre” of Kosovo Albanians in order to launch the Yugoslav War, and ended up acquiring one of the largest U.S. bases in the world, Camp Bond Steel. It has resolutely ignored the massacre of Palestinians and Shiites in Bahrain because it is not in Washington’s interests to concern itself with those things. Israel is an ally, and Bahrain hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet. Cole accepts the fact that Qaddafi would have “massacred” his people, but his evidence for that is thin, and he chooses to completely ignore the deaths and casualties resulting from the NATO bombing.

The U.S. is interested in a “lawful world order.” That would certainly come as a surprise to the Palestinians, the Shiites in the Gulf, and peasants in Colombia who suffer the deprivations of death squads aided by the U.S. (see the Washington Post story of 8/20/11) etc. The U.S, supports international law when it is in its interests to do so, undermines it when it is not, and ignores it when it is inconvenient. I wish Cole were correct but he is not. The record speaks for itself.

Okay, spot on for the NATO alliance, which is exactly the problem. Africa has increasingly become a chess piece in a global competition for resources and cheap labor. It is no accident that the U.S. recently formed an African Command (Africom)—the Libyan War was the organization’s coming out party—and is training troops in countries that border the Sahara. It is already intervening in Somalia, and a recent story in the New York Times about an “al-Qaeda threat” in Northern Nigeria should send a collective chill down all our spines. NATO has already “war gamed” the possibility of intervention in the Gulf of Guinea to insure oil supplies in the advent of “civil disturbances” that might affect the flow of energy resources.

NATO represents western economic and political interests, which rarely coincide with the interests of either the alliance’s own people, or those of the countries it occupies. The Libyan intervention sets a very dangerous precedent for the entire continent, which is why the African Union opposed it. Who will be next?

Ummm, Egypt? Certainly the U.S. has “a deep interest in the fate of Egypt,” which ought to scare hell out of the Egyptians. But overthrowing Qaddafi was important because he had “high Egyptian officials on his payroll”? Is Cole seriously suggesting that Libya’s 6.4 million people have anything to do with determining the fate of 83 million Egyptians?

Opposition to the Libyan War is not based on supporting Qaddafi, although Cole’s portrait of the man is one-sided. For instance, Libya played an important role in financing the African Bank, thus allowing African nations to avoid the tender mercies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. Libya also financed a continent-wide telecommunications system that saved African countries hundreds of millions of dollars by allowing them to bypass western-controlled networks. He also raised living standards. This does not make him a good guy, but it does say that Libya’s role in Africa cannot be reduced to simply “sinister.”

Lastly, the charge that this was about Libya’s oil is “daft”? Libya is the largest producer of oil in Africa, and the 12^th largest in the world. Its resources are very important for NATO’s European allies, and over the past several years there has been competition over these supplies.

The Chinese have made major investments. During the war China, Russia, and Brazil supported the African Union’s call for a ceasefire and talks, and pointed out that UN Resolution 1973 did not call for regime change. One of the first statements out of the Transitional National Council following Qaddafi’s collapse was that China, Russia and Brazil were going to be sidelined in favor of French, Spanish, and Italian companies. Quid pro quo?

The war was not just over oil, but how can anyone dismiss the importance of energy supplies at a time of worldwide competition over their control? The U.S. is currently fighting several wars in a region that contains more than 65 percent of the world’s oil supplies. Does he think this is a coincidence?

Sure, the companies that invested in Libya will take some initial losses, but does Cole think those Libyans beholden to NATO for their new positions will drive a hard bargain with the likes of Total SA and Repso when it comes to making deals? If I were those companies I would see the war as a very lucrative investment in futures. In any case, when the U.S., China, and Russia are locked in a bitter worldwide battle over energy resources, to dismiss the role of oil in the Libyan War is, well, daft.

Special Forces are taking over the U.S. military. Africom is increasingly active on the continent. NATO has just finished its first intervention in Africa. With Qaddafi gone, every country that borders the Mediterranean is now associated with NATO, essentially turning this sea into an alliance lake. This is not a good thing.

The Libyan Soldier: The True Heroes of NATO’s War. A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The story is not over – not by a long shot – but the saga of the Libyan resistance to the superpower might of the United States and its degenerate European neocolonial allies will surely occupy a very special place in history. For five months, beginning March 19, the armed forces of a small country of six million people dared to defy the most advanced weapons systems on the planet, on terrain with virtually no cover, against an enemy capable of killing whatever could be seen from the sky or electronically sensed.

Night and day, the eyes of the Euro-American war machine looked down from space on the Libyan soldiers’ positions, with the aim of incinerating them. And yet, the Libyan armed forces maintained their unit integrity and personal honor, with a heroism reminiscent of the loyalist soldiers of the Spanish Republic under siege by German, Italian and homegrown fascists, in the late 1930s.

The Germans and Italians and Generalissimo Franco won that war, just as the Americans, British, French and Italians may ultimately overcome the Libyan army. But they cannot convey honor or national legitimacy to their flunkies from Benghazi, who have won nothing but a badge of servitude to foreign overseers.

The so-called rebels won not a single battle, except as walk-ons to a Euro-American military production. They are little more than extras for imperial theater, a mob that traveled to battle under the protective umbrella of American full spectrum dominance of the air. They advanced along roads already littered with the charcoal-blackened bodies of far better men, who died challenging Empire.

One thing is sure: the Americans and Europeans have never respected their servants. The so-called rebels of Libya will be no different. Washington, Paris and London know perfectly well that is was their 18,000 aircraft sorties, their cruise missiles, their attack helicopters, their surveillance satellites and drones, their command and control systems, their weapons, and their money, that managed to kill or wound possibly half the Libyan army. Not the rabble from Benghazi.

The rebels should not take too seriously being fawned over by the ridiculous hordes of corporate media tourists that have come to Tripoli to record the five-month war's finale. They are highly paid cheerleaders. And, although it may appear that they are cheering for the rebels, don't be fooled – at the end of the day, the western corporate media only cheer for their own kind. They are celebrating what they believe is a victory over the Libyan demon they have helped to construct in their countrymen's minds. Next year, rebel, that demon might be you.

Or next year, it might be many Libyans, including those who were no friends of Col. Moammar Gaddafi. The Americans treat their native minions like children in need of supervision – and there is a certain logic to this, since whoever would entrust his nation's sovereignty and resources to the Americans is, surely, either exceedingly stupid, or hopelessly corrupt. But Libya's honor and her place in history has already been secured by a small African army that held out nearly half a year against the NATO barbarians. For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

The Truth About the Situation in Libya: Cutting through the government propaganda and media lies.

By Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition

Libya is a small country of just over 6 million people but it possesses the largest oil reserves in all of Africa. The oil produced there is especially coveted because of its particularly high quality.

The Air Force of the United States along with Britain and France has carried out 7,459 bombing attacks since March 19. Britain, France and the United States sent special operation ground forces and commando units to direct the military operations of the so-called rebel fighters – it is a NATO- led army in the field.

The troops may be disaffected Libyans but the operation is under the control and direction of NATO commanders and western commando units who serve as “advisors.” Their new weapons and billions in funds come from the U.S. and other NATO powers that froze and seized Libya’s assets in Western banks. Their only military successes outside of Benghazi, in the far east of the country, have been exclusively based on the coordinated air and ground operations of the imperialist NATO military forces.

In military terms, Libya’s resistance to NATO is of David and Goliath proportions. U.S. military spending alone is more than ten times greater than Libya’s entire annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) which was $74.2 billion in 2010, according to the CIA’s World Fact Book.

In recent weeks, the NATO military operations used surveillance-collecting drones, satellites, mounting aerial attacks and covert commando units to decapitate Libya’s military and political leadership and its command and control capabilities. Global economic sanctions meant that the country was suddenly deprived of income and secure access to goods and services needed to sustain a civilian economy over a long period.

“The cumulative effect [of NATO’s coordinated air and ground operation] not only destroyed Libya’s military infrastructure but also greatly diminished Colonel Gaddafi’s commanders to control forces, leaving even committed fighting units unable to move, resupply or coordinate operations,“ reports the New York Times in a celebratory article on August 22.

A False Pretext

The United States, United Kingdom, France, and Italy targeted the Libyan government for overthrow or “regime change” not because these governments were worried about protecting civilians or to bring about a more democratic form of governance in Libya.

If that were the real motivation of the NATO powers, they could start the bombing of Saudi Arabia right away. There are no elections in Saudi Arabia. The monarchy does not even allow women to drive cars. By law, women must be fully covered in public or they will go to prison. Protests are rare in Saudi Arabia because any dissent is met with imprisonment, torture and execution.

The Saudi monarchy is protected by U.S. imperialism because it is part of an undeclared but real U.S. sphere of influence and it is the largest producer of oil in the world.

The U.S. attitude toward the Saudi monarchy was put succinctly by Ronald Reagan in 1981, when he said that the U.S. government “will not permit” revolution in Saudi Arabia such as the 1979 Iranian revolution that removed the U.S. client regime of the Shah. Reagan’s message was clear: the Pentagon and CIA’s military forces would be used decisively to destroy any democratic movement against the rule of the Saudi royal family. Reagan’s explicit statement in 1981 has in fact been the policy of every successive U.S. administration, including the current one.

Libya and Imperialism

Libya, unlike Saudi Arabia, did have a revolution against its monarchy. As a result of the 1969 revolution led by Muammar Gaddafi, Libya was no longer in the sphere of influence of any imperialist country.

Libya had once been an impoverished colony of Italy living under the boot heel of the fascist Mussolini. After the Allied victory in World War II, control of the country was formally transferred to the United Nations and Libya became independent in 1951 with authority vested in the monarch King Idris.

But in actuality, Libya was controlled by the United States and Britain until the 1969 revolution.

One of the first acts of the 1969 revolution was to eliminate the vestiges of colonialism and foreign control. Not only were oil fields nationalized but Gaddafi eliminated foreign military bases inside the country.

In March of 1970, the Gaddafi government shut down two important British military bases in Tobruk and El Adem. He then became the Pentagon’s enemy when he evicted the U.S. Wheelus Air Force Base near Tripoli that had been operated by the United States since 1945. Before the British military took control in 1943, the facility was a base operated by the Italians under Mussolini. Wheelus had been an important Strategic Air Command (SAC) base during the Cold War, housing B-52 bombers and other front-line Pentagon aircrafts that targeted the Soviet Union.

Once under Libyan control, the Gaddafi government allowed Soviet military planes to access the airfield. In 1986, the Pentagon heavily bombed the base at the same time it bombed downtown Tripoli in an effort to assassinate Gaddafi. That effort failed but his 2-year-old daughter died along with scores of other civilians.

The Character of the Gaddafi Regime

The political, social and class orientation of the Libyan regime has gone through several stages in the last four decades. The government and ruling establishment reflected contradictory class, social, religious and regional antagonisms. The fact that the leadership of the NATO-led National Transition Council is comprised of top officials of the Gaddafi government, who broke with the regime and allied themselves with NATO, is emblematic of the decades-long instability within the Libyan establishment.

These inherent contradictions were exacerbated by pressures applied to Libya from the outside. The U.S. imposed far-reaching economic sanctions on Libya in the 1980s. The largest western corporations were barred from doing business with Libya and the country was denied access to credit from western banks. In its foreign policy, Libya gave significant financial and military support to national liberation struggles, including in Palestine, Southern Africa, Ireland and elsewhere.

Because of Libya's economic policies, living standards for the population had jumped dramatically after 1969. Having a small population and substantial income from its oil production, augmented with the Gaddafi regime’s far-reaching policy of social benefits, created a huge advance in the social and economic status for the population. Libya was still a class society with rich and poor, and gaps between urban and rural living standards, but illiteracy was basically wiped out, while education and health care were free and extensively accessible. By 2010, the per capita income in Libya was near the highest in Africa at $14,000 and life expectancy rose to over 77 years, according to the CIA’s World Fact Book.

Gaddafi’s political orientation explicitly rejected communism and capitalism. He created an ideology called the “Third International Theory,” which was an eclectic mix of Islamic, Arab nationalist and socialist ideas and programs. In 1977, Libya was renamed the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya. A great deal of industry, including oil, was nationalized and the government provided an expansive social insurance program or what is called a welfare state policy akin to some features prevalent in the Soviet Union and some West European capitalist countries.

But Libya was not a workers’ state or a “socialist government” to use the popular if not scientific use of the term “socialist.” The revolution was not a workers and peasant rebellion against the capitalist class per se. Libya remained a class society although class differentiation may have been somewhat obscured beneath the existence of revolutionary committees and the radical, populist rhetoric that emanated from the regime.

As in many developing, formerly colonized countries, state ownership of property was not “socialist” but rather a necessary fortification of an under-developed capitalist class. State property in Iraq, Libya and other such post-colonial regimes was designed to facilitate the social and economic growth of a new capitalist ruling class that was initially too weak, too deprived of capital and too cut off from international credit to compete on its own terms with the dominant sectors of world monopoly capitalism. The nascent capitalist classes in such developing economies promoted state-owned property, under their control, in order to intersect with Western banks and transnational corporations and create more favorable terms for global trade and investment.

The collapse of the Soviet Union and the “socialist bloc” governments of central and Eastern Europe in 1989-91 deprived Libya of an economic and military counter-weight to the United States, and the Libyan government’s domestic economic and foreign policy shifted towards accommodation with the West. In the 1990s some sectors of the Libyan economic establishment and the Gaddafi-led government favored privatization, cutting back on social programs and subsidies and integration into western European markets.

The earlier populism of the regime incrementally gave way to the adoption of neo-liberal policies. This was, however, a long process. In 2004, the George W. Bush administration ended sanctions on Libya. Western oil companies and banks and other corporations initiated huge direct investments in Libya and trade with Libyan enterprises. There was also a growth of unemployment in Libya and in cutbacks in social spending, leading to further inequality between rich and poor and class polarization.

But Gaddafi himself was still considered a thorn in the side of the imperialist powers. They want absolute puppets, not simply partners, in their plans for exploitation. The Wikileaks release of State Department cables between 2007 and 2010 show that the United states and western oil companies were condemning Gaddafi for what they called “resource nationalism.” Gaddafi even threatened to re-nationalize western oil companies’ property unless Libya was granted a larger share of the revenue for their projects.

As an article in today’s New York Times Business section said honestly: “"Colonel Qaddafi proved to be a problematic partner for the international oil companies, frequently raising fees and taxes and making other demands. A new government with close ties to NATO may be an easier partner for Western nations to deal with."

Even the most recent CIA Fact Book publication on Libya, written before the armed revolt championed by NATO, complained of the measured tempo of pro-market reforms in Libya: “Libya faces a long road ahead in liberalizing the socialist-oriented economy, but initial steps— including applying for WTO membership, reducing some subsidies, and announcing plans for privatization—are laying the groundwork for a transition to a more market-based economy.” (CIA World Fact Book)

The beginning of the armed revolt on February 23 by disaffected members of the Libyan military and political establishment provided the opportunity for the U.S. imperialists, in league with their French and British counterparts, to militarily overthrow the Libyan government and replace it with a client or stooge regime.

Of course, in the revolt were workers and young people who had many legitimate grievances against the Libyan government. But what is critical in an armed struggle for state power is not the composition of the rank-and-file soldiers, but the class character and political orientation of the leadership.

Character of the National Transition Council

The National Transitional Council (NTC) constituted itself as the leadership of the uprising in Benghazi, Libya’s second largest city. The central leader is Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who was Libya’s Minister of Justice until his defection at the start of the uprising. He was one of a significant number of Western-oriented and neoliberal officials from Libya’s government, diplomatic corps and military ranks who joined the opposition in the days immediately after the start of the revolt.

As soon as it was established, the NTC began issuing calls for imperialist intervention. These appeals became increasing panicky as it became clear that, contrary to early predictions that the Gaddafi-led government would collapse in a matter of days, it was the “rebels” who faced imminent defeat in the civil war. In fact, it was only due to the U.S./NATO bombing campaign, initiated with great hurry on March 19 that the rebellion did not collapse.

The last five months of war have erased any doubt about the pro-imperialist character of the NTC. One striking episode took place on April 22, when Senator John McCain made a “surprise” trip to Benghazi. A huge banner was unveiled to greet him with an American flag printed on it and the words: “United States of America – You have a new ally in North Africa.”

Similar to the military relationship between the NATO and Libyan “rebel” armed forces, the NTC is entirely dependent on and subordinated to the U.S., French, British and Italian imperialist governments.

If the Pentagon, CIA, and Wall Street succeed in installing a client regime in Tripoli it will accelerate and embolden the imperialist threats and intervention against other independent governments such as Syria and Venezuela. In each case we will see a similar process unfold, including the demonization of the leadership of the targeted countries so as to silence or mute a militant anti-war response to the aggression of the war-makers.