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More Green Party Networking

djsouljourn — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 07:56:29 GMT

myspace.com/buncombegreens
Check it out
Green Party Unite!
Vote Green & Be Proud

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Legalize Hemp and Cannabis in California

Fully — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 02:49:03 GMT

Hi Family,

Right now there are two competing signature drives to put Cannabis legalization initiatives on the ballot in California in

November 2010.

One is found at www.taxcannabis2010.org

The other is found at www.CaliforniaCannabisInitiative.org

Please look carefully at the text of both laws (the text of each is finalized) and make up your own mind which one you support.

I am supporting www.CaliforniaCannabisInitiative.org because our law will protect Cannabis users from discrimination in

healthcare, employment, and housing. It is a full legalization measure for industrial hemp and recreational cannabis which will restore full human rights to Hemp farmers and Cannabis users all across California. Of course supplying Cannabis to children will remain illegal just as it is today. Driving vehicles under the influence will remain illegal just as it is today. Cannabis users will still be fired from their jobs if they show up to work impaired.

There are two parts to our plan. The first part is to publicly post and personally distribute our "Freedom Lover's Call to Arms" in order to recruit volunteers. This document is available here-

www.imgur.com/dbU83

The second part of our plan is to ask everyone who volunteers to make a pledge for how many signatures they can collect in

the next 30 days or so. 15-30 signatures is a good number. If enough volunteers show this level of commitment we can succeed. You can probably get that number from your family members, friends, co-workers, and neighbors without having to solicit in public too much. This is an "out of the closet" movement. We will have to proudly advocate human rights for responsible, honest, hard-working Cannabis smokers in order to convince legitimate people to support us. I can supply stickers equivalent to each persons pledge number. These stickers can be used to generate interest and be given to voters who sign the petition. Here is the sticker design-

www.imgur.com/2cjvb

Feel free to distribute and use these images. Just don't copyright them.

We have 145 days in order to get the number of signatures that we need. Our petition is hot off the press on 9/11 and we

have started collecting the first signatures yesterday 9/12.

We are polling 56% public support for Cannabis legalization in California which menas that this is an initiative which is not doomed. Its time has finally arrived; we are at the tipping point right now. Now is the time to do this and to do it right. We may only get one chance. If a law which is not exactly what we want is implemented then we may lose our critical mass and our ability to set it right.

I believe that less adults will smoke cannabis after it is legal. This is the case in the Netherlands where it has been

available over-the-counter for 30 years yet only half as many citizens (percentage-wise) smoke as do citizens here. My economics professor has taught for years that prohibition has not succeeded in decreasing usage by increasing penalties. Instead it has destroyed lives and families without substantial benefit to society. After legalization hard-drug usage will decrease due to a "separation of the markets," a decline in the price of Cannabis relative to hard-drugs, and the restoration of honesty and common sense in drug education. Violence, thievery, and the incarceration of honest people will decrease as well. I also believe that a well regulated market will decrease the availability and appeal of cannabis to children. In fact teenage Cannabis use in California has fallen steadily since the passage of Proposition 215. Furthermore the adults who smoke Cannabis after legalization will be better able appreciate the majesty of nature in peace and unity without learning to fear and disrespect authority figures. This will be better for their spirits and better for society. Finally the human rights of legitimate medical Cannabis patients will be better protected than they are today. Legalizing Cannabis will create a safer, healthier, and more humane California for us all to live in.

If you want to help me in any way please contact the CCI campaign at www.CaliforniaCannabisInitiative.org or write me at
deep_space_underground@yahoo.com I give you my encouragement to modify this message if necessary and distribute it to anyone who might help on any forum or by any mechanism.

Love,
-Fully Committed

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

His Holiness the Dalai Lama ( a Rio Earth Summit Green ) : introduction, current international schedule, resources

Tue, 21 Apr 2009 22:26:10 GMT

Keywords : HH The Dalai Lama, public Dalai Lama talks on world peace, Dalai Lama resources and current schedule, Nobel Peace Prize, universal human [ secular ] ethics, deep permaculture ethics.

Summary: Provided here is (1) the current tour schedule for His Holiness the Dalai Lama [ for California, Massachusetts, New York, Denmark, Iceland, Netherlands, India, Germany ], (2) an introduction to the life and work of HH the Dalai Lama, (3) book references and resources, and (4) curriculum vitae.

HH the Dalai Lama:
“Never give up.
No matter what is going on.
Never give up.
Develop the heart.
Be compassionate.
Not just to your friends but to everyone.
Work for peace in your heart and in the world.
Work for peace and I say again:
Never give up.
No matter what is happening.
No matter what is going on around you.
Never give up.”

Introduction:

All Our Relations. Mitakuye Oyasin.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama is one of the pivotal figures of our time. He is, more than anyone else that can be presently named, a world citizen and world teacher.

His work in ethics, human rights,world peace, psychology and education, Buddhist teaching and East West relations, is second to none in our generation.

In addition to a Nobel Peace Prize and the US Congressional Gold Medal, HH the Dalai Lama has received scores of honorary Doctorates ( in Laws, Philosophy, Human Letters, Divinity, Buddhist Philosophy, and so forth ) from major teaching centers worldwide. These include Columba, Brandeis, Universite de Paris, Benaras Hindu University, Hebrew University Jerusalem, U California San Francisco, and Rissho University Tokyo. He is an honorary citizen of Canada, of Roma Italia and so forth.

He speaks worldwide and has published more than seventy two books.

He is one of the most respected and revered persons on the the planet. On one visit to New York City some years back, forty thousand people turned out to see the Dalai Lama in the park.

When the Dalai Lama gives the Highest Yoga Tantra initiation ( abhisekha ) of Kalacakra, the attendees sometimes number 100,000 or even 200,000. HH the Dalai Lama has given this initiation thirty times in different parts of the world. In addition to being a master of the Great Seal ( Mahamudra ) lineage of Buddhist tantra, he also gives initiations of the Great Perfection ( Mahasandhi, Atiyoga ), for example in London, in San Francisco, and Paris.

You can see him this year at public talks in several areas, such as California, Massachusetts, New York, Europe, and India. A current schedule is provided below.

I have seen HH the Dalai Lama give extremely worthwhile empowerments in Los Angeles and San Francisco, and represented him to the State Legislature of Hawaii in 1993, where he was invited to give a talk, and did. I have listened carefully to him conferencing with Hawaiian elders in public and was struck by the care and attention he gave in listening to others, and in asking questions.

HH the Dalai Lama has written extremely important books on psychology and ethics, and I recommend these to the general public for self-help purposes, and also recommend some of his books to those committed to public service, especially in the area of multiculturalism, international human rights work, and the international Green Party movement.

Because of the profound confluence of modern events, global economics, environmental issues and human cultures, the importance of broader and deeper human co-operation becomes more and more important.

To obtain a broader and clearer understanding and principles for working with these most important issues, studying the secular works of the Dalai Lama is of great value and importance.

Similarly, His Holiness is one of the few people who can and does speak for the diverse Buddhist populations and traditions worldwide. He has taught senior Japanese tantric Buddhist gurus of the Shingon lineage in their country, for instance. His Holiness is a paragon of the Buddhist renunciate order ( bhiksu-sangha ), of Buddhist scholarship, and of the Mahayana Great Way lineages, all of which are profoundly universal.

This teacher is one of our very very best, be you a psychologist or academic, a diplomat, a tantric yogi, or a Buddhist practitioner. He has completely revolutionized Buddhist teaching, parts of popular modern culture, the understanding of international diplomacy and so forth in our lifetime.

This is someone who actually embodies many of the key principles of the United Nations treaties on human rights, and also the key Buddhist Mahayana principles and teachings. It is important to note that the Mahayana Buddhist principles and the principles of the UN human rights work are essentially identical. There are universal principles that take us all forward, individually and together. In Buddhist Sanskrit these terms are, for instance pratitya-samutpada and karma. Now you know.

The final point I wish to put forward to all is this: the Dalai Lama believes in all of us as people who *already* have sensitive human hearts that can be educated and developed, and he shows all of us a very real and practical way forward, a way based on self-understanding, listening and mutual respect, and patient co-operation.

You could do worse, and please remember that due to impermanence, this elder teacher will not live forever. It is not clear how anyone anywhere can replace him.

I see no real alternative to respect and co-operation for the common good, because we are one world. For this broader and deeper reason, and not specifically because he is a Buddhist guru, I support this teacher. He was not allowed by their government to attend a recent peace conference in South Africa, but he is available to you, and he is here for All Our Relations. May he live long and may his brilliant consciousness reach many many more.

Thank you,
KT, Rio Earth Summit/ Green Party bioregional class organizer and so forth

In partial fulfillment of my formal Mahayana teaching responsibilities.
Sarva mangalam! Siddhi rastu!
[ May it be auspicious! May there be accomplishment! ]

John David Bartoe, Challenger 8 NASA space mission, July 1985:
“As I looked down, I saw large river meandering slowly along for miles, passing from one country to another without stopping. I also saw huge forests, extending across several borders. And I watched the extent of one ocean touch the shores of several continents. Two words leaped to mind as I looked down on all of this: commonality and interdependence. We are one world.”

Some of the following materials are taken from
http://www.dalailama.com/
Published books and multimedia materials are available at libraries throughout the world, and from Snow Lion Publications at
http://www.snowlionpub.com

From the official web site:

“Universal Recognition

“His Holiness the Dalai Lama is a man of peace. In 1989 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent struggle for the liberation of Tibet. He has consistently advocated policies of non-violence, even in the face of extreme aggression. He also became the first Nobel Laureate to be recognized for his concern for global environmental problems.

“His Holiness has travelled to more than 62 countries spanning 6 continents. He has met with presidents, prime ministers and crowned rulers of major nations. He has held dialogues with the heads of different religions and many well-known scientists.

“Since 1959 His Holiness has received over 84 awards, honorary doctorates, prizes, etc., in recognition of his message of peace, non-violence, inter-religious understanding, universal responsibility and compassion. His Holiness has also authored more than 72 books.

“His Holiness describes himself as a simple Buddhist monk.”

“Three Main Commitments in Life
“Firstly, on the level of a human being, His Holiness first commitment is the promotion of human values such as compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment and self-discipline. All human beings are the same. We all want happiness and do not want suffering. Even people who do not believe in religion recognize the importance of these human values in making their life happier. His Holiness refers to these human values as secular ethics. He remains committed to talk about the importance of these human values and share them with everyone he meets.

“Secondly, on the level of a religious practitioner, His Holiness second commitment is the promotion of religious harmony and understanding among the world's major religious traditions. Despite philosophical differences, all major world religions have the same potential to create good human beings. It is therefore important for all religious traditions to respect one another and recognize the value of each other's respective traditions. As far as one truth, one religion is concerned, this is relevant on an individual level. However, for the community at large, several truths, several religions are necessary.
“Thirdly, His Holiness is a Tibetan and carries the name of the Dalai Lama. Tibetans place their trust in him. Therefore, his third commitment is to the Tibetan issue. His Holiness has a responsibility to act as the free spokesperson of the Tibetans in their struggle for justice. As far as this third commitment is concerned, it will cease to exist once a mutually beneficial solution is reached between the Tibetans and Chinese.

However, His Holiness will carry on with the first two commitments till his last breath.”

Upcoming Schedule
2009
Lecture in Santa Barbara, CA, USA on April 24: His Holiness will give a lecture on The Nature of Mind organized by the University of Santa Barbara at the UCSB Events Center. Contact Website: www.religion.ucsb.edu/dalailama/
Public Talk in Santa Barbara, CA, USA on April 24: His Holiness will give a public talk on Ethics for Our Time organized by the University of Santa Barbara at the UCSB Events Center. Contact Website: www.religion.ucsb.edu/dalailama/
Public Talk in Berkeley, CA, USA on April 25: His Holiness will give a public talk on Peace Through Compassion organized by the University of California, Berkeley at the Greek Theater. Contact Website: www.berkeley.edu

Public Talk in Boston, MA, USA on April 30: His Holiness will give a public talk to the Harvard University Community on Educating the Heart organized by Harvard University at the Memorial Church. Contact Website: www.harvard.edu
Inauguration of The Dalai Lama Center on April 30: His Holiness will inaugurate The Dalai Lama Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by giving a talk on Ethics and Enlightened Leadership. Contact Website: www.thecenter.mit.edu
Panel Discussion in Boston, MA on May 1: His Holiness will participate in a panel discussion on Meditation and Psychotherapy – Cultivating Compassion and Wisdom organized by the Harvard Medical School Department of Continuing Education at Boston Park Plaza Hotel. Contact Website: www.cme.med.harvard.edu/index.asp?SECTION=CLASSES&ID=00292525&SO=Y
Teaching in Boston, MA on May 2: His Holiness will give a teaching in the morning on What Is Buddhism & Commentary on The Four Noble Truths organized by the Tibetan Association of Boston at the Gillette Stadium, Foxboro. Contact Website: www.bostontibet.org
Public Talk in Boston, MA on May 2: His Holiness will give a public talk in the afternoon on The Path to Peace and Inner Happiness organized by the Tibetan Association of Boston at the Gillette Stadium, Foxboro. Contact Website: www.bostontibet.org

Public Talk in New York, NY on May 3: His Holiness will participate in a conversation with Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, and moderated by Pico Iyer on Wisdom & Compassion for Challenging Times and organized by The Tibet Fund at The Town Hall. Contact Website: www.tibetfund.org

Teaching in New York, NY on May 4: His Holiness will give a teaching on The Quintessence of Compassion organized by The Tibet House at The New Beacon Theater. Contact Website: www.tibethouse.org
Public Talk in Albany, NY on May 6: His Holiness will give a public talk on Compassionate Ethics in Difficult Times organized by the World Ethical Foundations Consortium at the Albany Palace Theater. Contact Website: www.worldethicalfoundations.org

Teaching in Copenhagen, Denmark from May 30 & 31: His Holiness will give a day and a half teaching on Nagarjuna's Commentary on Bodhicitta (jangchup semdrel) & Kamalashila's The Middling Stages of Meditation (gomrim barpa) at the Bella Center. Contact Website: www.dalailama.dk
Public Talk in Copenhagen, Denmark on May 31: His Holiness will give a public talk on Peace Through Inner Peace at the Bella Center. Contact Website: www.dalailama.dk

Public Talk in Reykjavik, Iceland on June 2: His Holiness will give a public talk on the topic on Values, Attitude and Happiness at the Laugardalsholl Sporting Arena. Contact Website: www.dalailama.is

Teaching in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on June 4: His Holiness will give a teaching on Shantideva’s Chapter 6 on Patience from A Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life at the Rai Congress Center. Contact Website: www.dalailamanederland.nl
Public Talk in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on June 4: His Holiness will give a public talk on The Power of Compassion At A Turbulent Time at the Rai Congress Center. Contact Website: www.dalailamanederland.nl

Teaching in Kaza, H.P., India from July 10 to 12: His Holiness will give three-day teachings at the request of the Sakya Monastery in Kaza. On July 10 His Holiness will give a Buddhist teaching (topic yet to be decided). On July 11 and 12 His Holiness will confer the Avalokiteshvera Initiation (chenresig wangchen).

Teaching in Frankfurt, Germany on July 30 & 31: His Holiness will give a day and a half teaching on Kamalashila's The Middling Stages of Meditation (gomrim barpa). On the morning of July 31 he will confer an Amitabha Empowerment (opakmey jenang). Contact Website: www.dalailama-frankfurt.de

Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech
[ University Aula, Oslo, 10 December 1989 ] :

Your Majesty, Members of the Nobel Committee, Brothers and Sisters.

I am very happy to be here with you today to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. I feel honored, humbled and deeply moved that you should give this important prize to a simple monk from Tibet I am no one special. But I believe the prize is a recognition of the true value of altruism, love, compassion and non-violence which I try to practice, in accordance with the teachings of the Buddha and the great sages of India and Tibet, I accept the prize with profound gratitude on behalf of the oppressed everywhere and for all those who struggle for freedom and work for world peace.

I accept it as a tribute to the man who founded the modern tradition of non-violent action for change Mahatma Gandhi whose life taught and inspired me. And, of course, I accept it on behalf of the six million Tibetan people, my brave countrymen and women inside Tibet, who have suffered and continue to suffer so much. They confront a calculated and systematic strategy aimed at the destruction of their national and cultural identities. The prize reaffirms our conviction that with truth, courage and determination as our weapons, Tibet will be liberated.

No matter what part of the world we come from, we are all basically the same human beings. We all seek happiness and try to avoid suffering. We have the same basic human needs and is concerns. All of us human beings want freedom and the right to determine our own destiny as individuals and as peoples. That is human nature. The great changes that are taking place everywhere in the world, from Eastern Europe to Africa are a clear indication of this.

In China the popular movement for democracy was crushed by brutal force in June this year. But I do not believe the demonstrations were in vain, because the spirit of freedom was rekindled among the Chinese people and China cannot escape the impact of this spirit of freedom sweeping many parts of the world. The brave students and their supporters showed the Chinese leadership and the world the human face of that great nation.

Last week a number of Tibetans were once again sentenced to prison terms of upto nineteen years at a mass show trial, possibly intended to frighten the population before today's event. Their only 'crime" was the expression of the widespread desire of Tibetans for the restoration of their beloved country's independence.
The suffering of our people during the past forty years of occupation is well documented. Ours has been a long struggle. We know our cause is just Because violence can only breed more violence and suffering, our struggle must remain non-violent and free of hatred. We are trying to end the suffering of our people, not to inflict suffering upon others.

It is with this in mind that I proposed negotiations between Tibet and China on numerous occasions. In 1987, I made specific proposals in a Five-Point plan for the restoration of peace and human rights in Tibet. This included the conversion of the entire Tibetan plateau into a Zone of Ahimsa, a sanctuary of peace and non-violence where human beings and nature can live in peace and harmony.
last year, I elaborated on that plan in Strasbourg, at the European Parliament I believe the ideas I expressed on those occasions are both realistic. and reasonable although they have been criticised by some of my people as being too conciliatory. Unfortunately, China's leaders have not responded positively to the suggestions we have made, which included important concessions. If this continues we will be compelled to reconsider our position.

Any relationship between Tibet and China will have to be based on the principle of equality, respect, trust and mutual benefit. It will also have to be based on the principle which the wise rulers of Tibet and of China laid down in a treaty as early as 823 AD, carved on the pillar which still stands today in front of the Jokhang, Tibet's holiest shrine, in Lhasa, that "Tibetans will live happily in the great land of Tibet, and the Chinese will live happily in the great land of China".

As a Buddhist monk, my concern extends to all members of the human family and, indeed, to all sentient beings who suffer. I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of brotherhood and sisterhood. We need to cultivate a universal responsibility for one another and the planet we share. Although I have found my own Buddhist religion helpful in generating love and com¬passion, even for those we consider our enemies, I am convinced that everyone can develop a good heart and a sense of universal responsibility with or without religion.

With the ever growing impact of science on our lives, religion and spirituality have a greater role to play reminding us of our humanity. There is no contradiction between the two. Each gives us valuable insights into the other. Both science and the teachings of the Buddha tell us of the fundamental unity of all things. This understanding is crucial if we are to take positive and decisive action on the pressing global concern with the environment.

I believe all religions pursue the same goals, that of cultivating human goodness and bringing happiness to all human beings. Though the means might appear different the ends are the same.
As we enter the final decade of this century I am optimistic that the ancient values that have sustained mankind are today reaffirming themselves to prepare us for a kinder, happier twenty-first century.

I pray for all of us, oppressor and friend, that together we succeed in building a better world through human under-standing and love, and that in doing so we may reduce the pain and suffering of all sentient beings.
Thank you.

[ end posting ]

posted in Green Party - 35 replies

Oregon Portland Metro Chapter Call for Volunteers for EcoNvergence

ConGoddess — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 05:43:53 GMT

Folks as some of you know the Metro Chapter of the Pacific Green Party is a Participating Organization in the EcoNvergence
Convention that is happening Oct 2-4 in Portland. The key note speakers are Noam Chomsky & Derrick Jensen.
http://www.econvergence.org/ Northwest Regional Gathering on the Economic and Ecological Crises

The Green Party will be providing facility volunteers and workshops/speakers. There will be a general call for
Green party volunteers later as I get more details, but for now if you can do American Sign Language or act as an interpreter
For Spanish (Mexican) speaking presenters we’d like you to contact me now – since I will be coordinating that effort.

If you are a card carrying green and volunteer at the convention, we’ve just ordered a bunch of t-shirts that will help make our party visible at the convention… so come for the speakers, the workshops, or to help support the visibility of your local party and remind
fellow progressive there is an alternative to Democrats and Republicans.

This is a regional convention pulling coordinators from Washington, Idaho and Oregon – so even if you are not in the Metro Chapter,
Please contact me, latter we will be asking local Greens to volunteer crash space in their homes for the out of town Greens who want to
Attend – this invitation will be extended to out of state greens to – so if you are a local Portland Green, start to think about if you are
Willing to house share for a great weekend!!

Helen Umberger
Portland Metro Chapter of the Pacific Green Party
Volunteer Coordinator
And EcoNvergence Facility Committee member

Email: Metropgp@ook.net

posted in Green Party - 1 reply

Perimeter Fencing : Closure of Golden Gate Park by Outside Lands

Anamika — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 13:39:37 GMT

When
21 AUG -- 3 SEPT 2009 (and in 2010--2013)

Where
21st Ave -- 44th Ave: Most of the West End of GGP: Polo Fields, Speedway, Lindley, Marx, Little Speedway Meadows, and the connective areas

Whom
All unauthorized users

How
Chain--link fencing

What to Do
Spread the word about our loss of access to GGP, the displacement of fauna, and the destruction of flora
by letter, word of mouth, phone, email, text, etc.

Call your supervisor: 554-5184; 554-5163 (fax); 554-5227 (TTY)

Call SF Rec and Park: 831-2700

Attend the Public Meetings
8 June, 7pm, Zephyr Coffee House
11 June, 7pm, Taraval Police Station
15 June, 6pm, Grace Luthern Church
18 July, 10am, Sunset Rec Center

Like last year, Another Planet Entertainment plans to displace San Franciscans from Golden Gate Park. For about two weeks San Franciscans and visitors are getting kicked out of huge portion of GGP by a private entity so that it can make a profit. Chunks of time and space like this are going to add up quickly. Say good bye to Speedway Meadows and hello to the Walmart greeter ....

When
21 AUG -- 3 SEPT 2009 (and in 2010--2013)

Where
21st Ave -- 44th Ave: Most of the West End of GGP: Polo Fields, Speedway, Lindley, Marx, Little Speedway Meadows, and the connective areas

Whom
All unauthorized users

How
Chain--link fencing

What to Do
Spread the word about our loss of access to GGP, the displacement of fauna, and the destruction of flora by letter, word of mouth, phone, email, text, etc.

Call your supervisor: 554-5184; 554-5163 (fax); 554-5227 (TTY)

Call SF Rec and Park: 831-2700

Attend the Public Meetings
8 June, 7pm, Zephyr Coffee House
11 June, 7pm, Taraval Police Station
15 June, 6pm, Grace Luthern Church
18 July, 10am, Sunset Rec Center

[keywords: Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival, Golden Gate Park, Chain link fencing, public property, privatization, SF Rec and Park, Disaster Capitalism, open space, public domain, public funds, Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, Another Planet Entertainment, Polo Fields, Speedway, Lindley, Marx, Little Speedway Meadows]

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Al Qaeda's Nuclear Inventory

B-b — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:01:20 GMT

From Paul L. Williams' book "The Al Qaeda Connection" :

The beginning of the end took place on Sept. 27, 1991, when President George H. W. Bush Announced that the United States would unilaterally withdraw all nuclear weapons from its forces around the world with the proviso that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev would do likewise. Gorbachev readily agreed. The press and the people of both nations were pleased. The agreement represented a grand display of perestroika -- positive proof that the cold war was over and a new day of mutual trust (if not brotherhood) had dawned. The process of the withdrawal of the nukes was greatly facilitated by the enactment of the Nunn-Lugtar Soviet Threat Reduction Act on December 12, 1991. This act provided Russia with millions in funding to transport its nukes to various sites throughout the fourteen newly created republics of what was once the Soviet Union. This, too, seemed like a sensible measure that would make the world a safer place.

Yet the movement of the twenty-two thousand nuclear weapons occurred when everything in Russia was falling apart. With the closing of the communal plants and industries, more than 30 percent of the workforce became unemployed. Inflation soared over 2,000 percent, fueling crime and corruption. An average of eighty-four murders took place a day, many of which were contract killings. A hit could now be arranged with members of eight Mafia families within Moscow for less than $200. Millions of Russians now stood in lines for hours in order to redeem governement-issued coupons. There was one line for red beets and cabbages; another for eggs and bread; and yet another for vodka and cigarettes. Butcher shops sold blue chickens that had died of malnutrition and pies made from rancid beef and horse meat. The savvy customers soon learned not to purchase the pies that were surrounded by dead flies. In the wink of an eye, the second most powerful nation on earth had become transformed into a third world country.

Undfer the new capitalism, male life expectancy fell to fifty-eight years --- fifteen to seventeen years less than that of males in eastern Europe and the United States. By 1996 the suicide rate had doubled. Along with poverty, inflation, unemployment, and depression, Russians experienced a sharp drop in the birth rate. From 1991 to 2001, the population declined at a rate of 1.2 million a year.

Nowhere was the misery more apparent than within the military, which by 1996 had shrunk to a feeble force of 1.7 million soldiers. Because of chronic food shortages, many soldiers resorted to begging. More than ten Russian soldiers died each day from noncombat causes, including suicide and malnutrition. An estimated 110,000 loacked proper housing and became sheltered in hovels. No one in the military, not even a high-ranking general, was receiving a regular pay check. Russian army and navy officers began to sell almost every item at their disposal. In 1993 there were 6,430 reports of stolen weapons from army arsenals, ranging from assault rifles to tanks.

It is incredible to assume that the twenty-two thousand nuclear weapons were moved from strategic sites to arsenals throughout Russia without a single loss. When President George H. W. Bush announced his plans for a nuclear withdrawal, the then secretary of defense Dick Cheney said that the recovery of 90 percent of the nukes in Russia would represent "excellent performance." Such an "excellent performance" would mean that 220 weapons would have been lost, stolen, or otherwise unaccounted for. But what person in his right mind could expect such an outcome from the poorly housed, malnourished, disillusioned, and unpaid Russian troups of 1991? The temptation for gain would have been too great for an Orthodox saint to suppress when a kilo of chrominum-50 would sell for $25,000, cesium-137 for $1 million, and lithium for $10 million. Prospective buyers included agents from North Korea, Pakistan, Libya, and a well-financed group of Muslim terrorists called al Qaeda.

In the first three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the black market in nuclear weapons and materials began to boom. Germany reported more than seven hundred attempted nuclear sales. These illegal sales were luckily stopped by the police, but that was not true of every case of smuggling. Other incidents have been more alarming. In January 1992 an Egyptian newspaper reported that Iran bought three Soviet nuclear warheads from Kazakhstan for $150 million. This report was later confirmed by Russian intelligence. In November 1993 two nuclear warheads, sufficient to kill millions in New York and Los Angeles, were stolen by two employees from the Zlatoust-36 Instrument Building Plant, a weapons assembly facility, in Chelyabinsk. Fortunately, the weapons were later recovered in a nearby residential garage, and the two employees were placed under arrest. Later that same month, Russian navy Captian Alexei Tikhomirov broke into a nuclear storage facility at the Sevmorput shipyard near Murmansk and robbed three pieces of a reactor core containing 3.4 kilograms of highly enriched uranium. At the time of Tikhomirov's arrest, the chief Russian prosecutor noted that "potatoes were guarded better" that the nuclear materials at Murmansk.

The Chechen Mafia, the most powerful criminal organization in Russia, now became the most dominant force in the trafficking of nuclear supplies and materials from Russia to rogue nation and terrorist groups. In March 1993 the Chechens seciured an unknown quantity of highly enriched uranium from Kazakhstan. More than six kilograms were transported from Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, to Istanbul, Turkey. Six months later, Interpol officials collared four Turkish businessmen and four agents of Iran's secret service and confiscated 2.5 kilos of the uranium. The remaining kilos had slipped through the proverbial cracks. In September 1993 the Chechen rebels stunned the world by the display of SS-20 missiles during a military parade in Grozny. The missiles, stolen from some Soviet arsenal, possessed a range of 9,500 kilometers and the capability to launch a nuclear warhead.

At the same time, the Chechen rebels began using radioactive isotopes, which had become available at rock-bottom prices, to commit acts of murder. The first victim was Vladimir Kaplun, the owner of a meat packing plant in Moscow. The Chechens planted gamma ray-emitting pellets in Kaplun's office. The businessman was dead within a matter of weeks. At least half a dozen similar cases were reported in the next three weeks.

In November 1994 Dzokhar Dudayev, the leader of the Chechen rebels, petitioned the Uniter Nations to dispatch troops to protect the weapons of mass destruction within the Chechen arsenal. Dudayev's request was taken as an attempt at grandstanding. The UN officials, along with the international press, scoffed at the notion that a group of Muslim dissidents from the backwater Russian province of Chechnya could possess, let alone maintain, nuclear weapons. This forced the Chechens to make a vivid display that would prove to the world that they possessed nuclear capability. On November 23, 1995, Chechen commander Shamil Basayev directed a television crew to a radiological bomb that had been planted in Izmailovsky Park near Moscow. The bomb was made of cesium-137 and, if detonated, would have killed hundreds in a matter of minutes and contaminated thousands more. The incident represented the first case of a dirty nuke to be shown as a weapon of terror.

Shortly after this incident, Dudayev notified the US State Department that he possessed tactical nuclear suitcase bombs. The Chechen leader said that he was willing to sell these weapons to rogue states of terrorist agencies, such as al Qaeda, if the United States failed to recognize Chechnya's independence from Russia. Dudayev's claim was supported by officials from the National Intelligence Council, an unbrella organization for the US analytical community. The officials informed a congressional committee that weapon-grade and weapons-usable nuclear material, including SADMs (small atomic demolition munitions), had been stolen from Soviet stockpiles. "Of these thefts," the officials said, "we assess that undetected smuggling has occurred, although we do not know the extent or the magnitude.

In January 1996 the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of Internation Studies received information from a "senior advisor to Boris Yeltsin" that an unspecified number of small nuclear bombs had been manufactured for the KGB and had never appeared on a list of the Soviet nuclear inventory.

In May 1997, during a closed door session with a US congressional delegation, former Russian Security Council secretary Alexander Lebed said that more than eighty-four SADMs had disappeared from Russian arsenals and could be in the hands of Muslim extremists. General Lebed said that he was able to confirm the production of 132 small nukes but could only account for 48. When asked the whereabouts of the missing nukes, Lebed replied: "I have no idea." He went on to say that he had no idea how many small nukes had been produced by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Lebed also said that some of these small nukes, with explosive yield of one kiloton of TNT, had been refined so that they could be carried by one person in a case measuring sity by forty by twenty centimeters (twenty-four by sixteen by eight inches) and represented "ideal weapons for nuclear terror."

General Lebed repeated these charges in an interview with the CBS newsmagazine 60 minutes that was aired on September 7, 1997. In the interview, he added that the SADMs were designed to be used in sabotage operations behind enemy lines and lacked the electronic combination locks that had been built into other Soviet nuclear weapons. The following is a sample of the exchange between CBS correspondent Steve Kroft and General Lebed over the matter of the missing nukes:

Kroft: Are you confidant that all of the weapons aqre secure and acoounted for?

Lebed: Not at all. Not at all.

Kroft: How easy would it be to steal one?

Lebed: It's suitcase-sized.

Kroft: You could put it in a suitcase and carry it off?

Lebed: It is made in the size of a suitcase. It is a suitcase, actually. You could carry it. You could put it in another suitcase if you want to.

Kroft: But it's already a suitcase.

Lebed: Yes.

Kroft: I could walk down the streets of Moscow or Washington or New York, and people would think I'm carrying a suitaces?

Lebed: Yes, indeed.

Kroft: How easy would it be to detonate?

Lebed: It would take twnety, thirty minutes to prepare.

Kroft: But you don't need secret codes from the Kremlin or anything like that?

Lebed: No.

Kroft: You are saying there are a significant number that are missing and unaccounted for?

Lebed: Yes, there is. More than one hundred.

Kroft: Where are they?

Lebed: Somewhere in Georgia, somewhere in Ukraine, somewhere in the Baltic countries. Perhaps some are even outside those countries. One person is capable of triggering this nuclear weapon -- one person.

Kroft: So you are saying these weapons are no longer under the control of the Russian military?

Lebed: I'm saying that more than one hundred weapons are not under the control of the armed forces of Russia. I don't know their location. I don't know whether they have been destroyed or whether they are stored or whether they've been sold or stolen. I don't know.

More to come, if you like. It's a great story that is forming up.

posted in Green Party - 4 replies

Closure of Golden Gate Park: Outside Lands Music Festival

Fri, 01 May 2009 20:41:27 GMT

(Unofficial Public Notice)

When
21 AUG -- 2 SEPT 2009 (and 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013)

Where?
Polo Fields, Speedway Meadow, Lindley Meadow, Marx Meadow, Little Speedway Meadow, as well as the adjacent connective areas will be closed to the public

To whom
All unauthorized users (e.g., persons with(out) dogs, nature lovers, bikers, runners, writers, picnickers, artists, Parcourse exercisers, scientists, poets, et al.) will be denied access to the areas above for at least 12 days

How?
Chain--link fencing

Why?
Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival (3 days)

What to Do?
Realize this closure will efficiently serve as a basis for future closures in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013

Spread the word about our loss of access and the gradual privatization of our park by letter, word of mouth, phone, email, text, tweets, blogs

Complain specifically to your SF district supervisor: Phone: 554-5184; 554-5163 (fax); 554-5227 (TTY); Post: 1 Carlton B Goodlett Pl., San Francisco, CA 94102; Email: board(dot)of(dot)supervisors(at)sfgov(dot)org

Participate in the Planning Meetings to be held 60/30 days before the festival as explained by your district supervisor

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

The Green Party's 100-Day Report Card

dbcsez — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:20:06 GMT

This is from the 29 April e-mail release from GPHQ. The evaluations below are those of the leadership & communication arms of the Green Party of the United States, and do not necessarily reflect my own views. However, as much as I would like to support the Obama Administration's efforts, and as much as I understand how political realities explain why those efforts have veered away from our progressive vision, I still find the opening of the Obama years frustrating and disappointing.--dbc

*****

We need your help. Given the world that is fast coming upon us, we need to take full measures, not half-steps, in order to create a livable and sustainable world. That is the essence of the Green Party. After 100 days of Obama's presidency, it has become clear that we are a far cry from where we need to be as far as civil liberties, the environment, the economy, health care, and the military. The Green Party has real solutions to the problems at hand. Please look over the 100 Day Report Card below. Keep in mind that C is "good enough"; in percentages, in order to get a "better than average" grade, you need to score 80%.

Is the Obama administration doing "good enough" or "better than average"? We don't think so! If you see your vision reflected below, donate ( https://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/175/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2455 ) what you can to ensure that the Green Party is strong and able to put the necessary pressure on our monied system.

-----

Civil liberties: F
The Executive Branch is finally following the law by releasing and repudiating the Bush Administration's legal memos that attempted to justify torture. The President also raised the possibility of prosecuting those responsible for providing that justification.

However, the Obama Administration defends the illegal wiretapping program, leaves the door open to outsourcing torture through "extraordinary rendition", and argues that prisoners can be denied habeas corpus if they are shipped to the Bagram prison in Afghanistan instead of Guantanamo! The Administration also opposes a Congressional truth commission to investigate torture by the Bush Presidency, although citizen pressure may successfully force an investigation.

Obama supporter Glenn Greenwald, who writes for Salon.com, recently wrote: "What's being asserted here by the Obama DOJ is the virtually absolute power of presidential secrecy, the right to break the law with no consequences, and immunity from surveillance lawsuits so sweeping that one can hardly believe that it's being claimed with a straight face."

The Green Party supports a ban on torture, the repeal of the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and opposes the warrantless surveillance of US citizens, 'extraordinary rendition' of prisoners to extract information, and denial of habeas corpus and due process.

-----

Environment: D+
The Obama Administration has taken some positive steps on global warming by allowing the EPA to regulate greenhouse gases as pollutants, initiating legislation to reduce greenhouse gases, and providing funds for alternative energy in the recently passed economic stimulus bill.

Unfortunately, the Administration has committed to spending only $145 billion on alternative energy over the next 10 years, about 0.1% of our country's gross domestic product (GDP). In contrast, the proposed military budget for 2010 alone is $664 billion. The Administration supports nuclear power and "clean" coal, and its proposed cap and trade scheme is vulnerable to abuses such as free giveaway licenses for utilities to emit greenhouse gases. In the European Union, free licenses have resulted in increased emissions from coal plants that have offset the reductions gained from new wind power.

The Green Party advocates a moratorium on new coal fired power plants, ending subsidies to the nuclear and fossil fuel industries, increasing CAFÉ standards, and ending mountaintop removal mining.

-----

Economy: D-
The Obama Administration's economic stimulus bill is headed in the right direction with new infrastructure projects that can put Americans back to work. Plans to let the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire are also encouraging.

However, the stimulus was too small and too focused on tax cuts. The Administration's plans for repairing the financial system are likely to result in a great deal of wasteful spending, reward those who got us into the current economic crisis, and ignore the fundamental problems. It is unfortunate that the Administration has rejected calls to nationalize the largest and most insolvent banks in favor of a plan that loans nearly $1 trillion to hedge funds to indirectly subsidize the banks. By contrast, Wall Street Journal recently reported that only "10% of borrowers in some stage of foreclosure appear to be eligible for the federal aid to homeowners program."

The Green Party advocates ending trade in the highly speculative financial instruments that helped cause the crisis, restoring regulations on banks, breaking up financial conglomerates, promoting small local banks and credit unions, implementing a much larger public works program, and working to build a steady state economy based upon sustainability.

-----

Health Care: D+
The Obama Administration has proposed substantial increases in federal spending in order to extend health coverage to more Americans. The Administration's spending plans will extend coverage only to about one-half of uninsured Americans and are short of effective methods for cost control.

The Green Party continues to advocate the single-payer health care systems as the most efficient and effective way to deliver health care to all Americans

-----

Foreign policy/military: D
The Obama Administration has taken a few encouraging steps, such as starting to at least open talks with foreign leaders. The President has shown an increased willingness to negotiate with Iran, and has stated plans to discuss nuclear arms reductions with Russia. However, there are numerous loopholes in the agreement to withdraw all troops from Iraq by the end of 2011, and the Administration is re-deploying some of the troops to Afghanistan. The U.S. is also continuing to launch military operations in Pakistan that have killed and displaced many civilians and contributed to destabilizing the country. The Administration also plans to maintain unnecessarily high levels of military spending.

The Green Party advocates the complete and immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops and contractors from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq and deep reductions in military spending.

-----

Help us hold that vision of a healthy environment, single payer health care, a sustainable economy, civil liberties, and an appropriate military before the American people, on behalf of our children and those to come. Donate what you can to strengthen our voice, so that we can make our vision a reality. And, if you haven't given in some time, please consider making today the day you give. If you've given recently, please consider giving more. Click here https://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/175/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=2455 to make your online donation.

If you can only afford a little each month, you can become a monthly sustainer so your donation can be spread over time.

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

This Week on The New American Dream

Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:50:39 GMT

http://www.newamericandream.net/index.html

The New American Dream
... well ... because we're dreaming of Dick Cheney and George Bush in a big black car limousine motorcade with those little American flags on the front quarter panels on their way to prison

... we're dreaming of a USA truth commission and Cub Scout tours of the "secret" FBI and CIA

and some other stuff

This Week's Feature Interviews:

Monday - Timbre Wolf, a musician who moved from Tulsa to Hawaii

Tuesday - Al Markovitz, of Norfolk, Virginia, the Tulsa of the east coast, editor of the Blue Collar Review, "journal of working class literature"

Wednesday - Aimee England, the mayor of Tulsa — no, actually, Aimee lives in Michigan and spent over twenty years working in an independent, radical bookstore

Thursday - Lee Rayburn, radio show host, formerly of Air American Radio and also Madison, Wisconsin. [never been to Tulsa.]

Friday - Bartcop, of Bartcop.com, from where else? Tulsa.

Columns:
Steve Clemens of the Twin Cities
Lydia Sems from Atlanta

Poetry:
More from Ava Bird of Berkeley

and some other stuff

Thank you.

The Dream Team
http://www.newamericandream.net/index.html

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Draft Donna Frye for Governor

timmodee — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 18:46:28 GMT

http://www.sandiego.gov/citycouncil/cd6/about/index.shtml

You may remember the surfer who energized a whole new constituency in San Diego around ocean conservation (and transparency) issues, and lost to an incumbent mayor in a very very unfair ruling.
She won the election as a write-in candidate, but some of her voters did not ALSO bubble-in next to her name. The intent of these voters was clear, but the California elections commission ruled against her anyway.
She's a Democrat currently, but if she would enter the Governor's race, we could really have conservation on the table.
Comments?

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Dreaming the NEW American Dream

Sat, 04 Apr 2009 17:30:02 GMT

California poets Ava Bird & Rex Butters, and....

Santa Cruz artist Russell Brutsche - Karen Kwiatkowski of Virginia

Protests to stop immigration raids ... and more.
____________________

http://www.newamericandream.net

The New American Dream

What's New?

* Karen Kwiatkowski column
* Ava Bird poetry
* Rex Butters poetry
* Gary Mennie poetry

Columns:
Sherwood Ross — why not shut down a few prisons in the United States as well?
Mickey Z — Americans are cowards, too comfortable, will never-ever-not-in-one-million-years revolt-or-even-bother-to-stand-up — no matter what the rich folks do to them.
Lydia Sems — It's The American Dream that is the problem.

and more from Jack Saunders ...

Resistance:
* Planned civil disobedience in Minnesota to stop raids against immigrants
* Protests at Creech AFB against U.S. drone terroristic activity
*100 days of protest against Guantanamo to culminate

All this, Northern Exposure, The Big Lebowski, Paradise by the Dashboard Lights ... a certificate for free toast ... and more.

Join us.

The New American Dream
Dude.
... because ... Sister Mary Anne told us, "There are no wrong questions, if you don't know the answers."

... from the Dream Team

http://www.newamericandream.net

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Oregon Pacific Green Party at Peace Rally

ConGoddess — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 05:40:03 GMT

Link to article on rally -- article has link to video of the rally

http://www.newmenu.org/blog_permalink.php?record=332&candidate=michaelmeo

Helen

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

German Green Party endorses militarism & social cuts

Steven — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:04:49 GMT

German Green Party program endorses militarism and social cuts
By Dietmar Henning
4 February 2009

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/feb2009/gree-f04.shtml

The national party conference of the German Greens took place in Dortmund at the end of January. Its main objective was to adopt a party programme and a list of candidates for the forthcoming European Union elections. The conference proceedings, however, were completely overshadowed by the international economic crisis.

The Greens are reacting to the most devastating crisis in capitalism since the 1930s by doing everything they can to return to power and make their services available to the ruling class for the implementation of a programme based on social cutbacks and militarism.

The European programme adopted by the party conference expressly supports the European Union (EU) and calls for its strengthening in the interest of German big business and banking interests. “We Greens are a European party”, is the claim in the nine-page preamble to the election programme.

In 2005, the European Constitution was rejected by the French and Dutch electorates. A slightly changed version of the Constitution—the so-called Lisbon Treaty—met the same fate in Ireland last summer. The Greens are now determined to push ahead with the Lisbon Treaty contrary to the will of the general population. In their programme they write: “It has not yet been concluded that the constitution will not be ratified by all member states in a second round of voting. Despite all the criticism of the constitution, we hope it will be ratified”.

The European Union is an economic, political and military bloc of European business interests directed against its competitors on a world scale and also against the interests of the population of the continent. The Green Party is well aware of the class nature of the EU, but seeks to disguise it with a mixture of pacifist and ecological phraseology.

In their election program, the Greens refer to the EU as a “Peace Project” and demand that the EU become “an attorney for world wide peace, human rights and disarmament”.

To this end the EU must speak with a single voice, the program notes. It goes on to advocate majority decision making for the body in its foreign and security policy. The current policy of the EU is that all 27 member states must agree measures relating to foreign and security policy. When the Greens speak of majority decision-making, it is clear they are seeking to increase the specific weight of the continent’s major powers, first and foremost Germany.

At the same time, they combine their demand for a more powerful EU with calls for a more aggressive military policy. The party’s European election program openly advocates military deployments under the command of NATO, in which the EU should play a bigger role: “Decisive for the future of NATO is the ability of the European NATO partners and the US to operate on a level playing field.”

The section of the program dedicated to ecological issues takes a similar stance. The Greens and the media have aggressively publicised the party’s “Green New Deal”, aimed supposedly at “harmonising jobs and environmental protection”.

The reality behind such pretentious claims is the Green Party’s desire to strengthen the position of European companies on the world market. The program states: “With the Green New Deal we are assuring European companies the best chances on the markets of the future”.

While in the federal government in 1998-2005 in a coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), the Greens already demonstrated they were prepared to undertake enormous attacks on the rights and living conditions of workers and the employed. All this in order to assure “German companies the best chances on the markets of the future”, they wrote in justification. They share responsibility for the introduction of the Hartz IV anti-welfare laws, which have led to the creation of a huge army of low-paid workers in Germany.

In particular, the party proved to be crucial in allowing the German army to return to the world stage. Against a widespread anti-militarist sentiment within the German population, the intervention of the Greens in 1998 made possible the dispatch of German troops to the Balkans in the first full-fledged foreign military deployment by the country since the Second World War. It was on the basis of this political intervention that Green Party leader Joschka Fischer won sufficient credibility with the German ruling elite to allow him to assume the post of foreign minister.

Since then the Greens have constituted a bulwark for German imperialism and have supported all of Germany’s international deployments. The Greens also supported Israel’s recent brutal invasion of Gaza.

In its eagerness to return to power the party is prepared to support any type of policy. This was evident last year when the party formed for the first time a coalition with the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in the state of Hamburg. In so doing the party ditched its two main election campaign promises. The party has most recently demonstrated its political cretinism over the issue of the German government’s latest “stimulus program”.

In parliament and at its conference in Dortmund, Green Party leaders lashed out at the government’s stimulus package of €50 billion, declaring it to be a “declaration of bankruptcy” (chairperson Claudia Roth); “voodoo economics” (parliamentary chairperson Fritz Kühn), and a “shambles” (former federal Environment Minister Jürgen Trittin).

All this despite the fact that the party has already decided to vote in favour of the stimulus package in the second house of the German parliament (Bundesrat). In the states of Hamburg and Bremen, where the Green Party shares power, it has agreed to support the government program in the Bundesrat. The organiser of this coup is party leader Jürgen Trittin, who is motivated entirely by the desire to re-enter government office. To this end he is prepared to go to any lengths in order to out-manoeuvre the Green Party’s closest political rival, the pro-business Free Democratic Party.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote recently: “Trittin himself confirmed that the main issue for his party was to out-manoeuvre the FPD.” In the Bundestag, where the governing grand coalition (CDU-SPD-Christian Social Union) have a controlling majority, the Green Party votes against the government’s stimulus measures; while in the Bundesrat, where their vote is decisive, the party supports the government.

The continuing shift to the right by the Green Party is a social phenomenon. The party, which represents like no other the interests of the upper middle class in Germany, stands foursquare in the camp of the ruling elite. The international financial crisis threatens the profits and fortunes of those at the top of society. The reaction of the Greens is to intensify it activities aimed at attacking the incomes and rights of the working population.

In Dortmund, conference delegates loudly applauded the remarks made by one speaker, the former East German rights activist Werner Schultz, when he declared, “In the meantime, people are more afraid of their financial advisors than of Al Qaeda.” In fact, the vast majority of the German population are not in a position to afford the services of a financial advisor. In Dortmund, however, Schultz’s remarks struck a nerve with delegates who selected him to represent the party in the European elections due in June—in the face of a large number of rival candidates.

The message from the Green Party conference in Dortmund could be summed up as follows: When it comes to defending the interests of the banks and big business, we are the most cooperative and flexible party.

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Ecological Impacts of Big Solar Energy

Neotoma — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:55:54 GMT

While I support solar energy, I support it on rooftops and in disturbed areas. If we go with the Al Gore economy, we will be giving up hundreds of thousands of acres of public lands. Big solar farms will end up scraping up many square miles of ecosystems and destroy much of the biodiversity of this planet. Most solar power will be wet cooled parabloic trough systems which require 6 acre feet of water per megawatt. This will dry up springs and destroy many dry adapted species like the desert tortoise. Don't be fooled by the "green" economy. The green economy means massive development in the southwest. If it were really green, it would not destroy so much habitat. Check out this web site I found: www.basinandrangewatch.org/Sola...html. It really talks about the ecological impacts of green energy. You can also comment to the Obama Administration at : change.gov/page/s/energyenviro. Tell them not to ruin our public lands with green energy. Keep it on roof tops and other disturbed areas. Let's not destroy the Earth to save her.

posted in Green Party - 2 replies

Pro-life green considerring running for office

Brian — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 07:09:25 GMT

That's right! I figure with a last name like Kennedy, that I'd get some votes just for name recognition. The first Presidential election that I could legally participate in would be 2016 (I miss 2012 by 9 days). I got out of the military as a Conscientious Objector. Now, I'm a vegetarian, and an ardent Catholic. Given the religious right in this country and their influence, I'd like to take them on and the Dems as well. I agree with everything that the green Party stands for just the only issue is also standing up for those who cannot defend themselves and that reproductive rights are important, but prior to conception- Accurate, scientifically based information about the common failures of birth control are needed.

So, would I have any support?

posted in Green Party - 3 replies

New Middle East Culture & Politics Tribe

Steven — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 20:19:58 GMT

New Middle East Culture & Politics Tribe

This group is open to all who want to discuss Near East and Middle East culture & politics and imperialist intervention in a meaningful way.

Those who want to argue using personal attacks, lies, slander, red baiting, and ridicule instead of addressing the issues will be banned from the group. People with a history of doing so in other groups will not be allowed entry into this group.

In addition, it is fine to question the legitimacy of any and all religions, but racism and attacks on entire oppressed groups such as Palestinians and Kurds is not allowed.

Join Near and Middle East Culture & Politics:
http://tribes.tribe.net/neareast

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Eco Couture – Buy Local, Save the Economy and The Planet

recycledfordancing — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:23:17 GMT

Wear Your Values

Coco Chanel once said “Fashion is not something that exists only in dresses. Fashion is in the sky, in the street; fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening.”

At the end of its journey clothing and fabric scrap takes up a huge amount of landfill. Add to that the environmental costs of packaging, transport, color dying, printing, and laundry and it creates a dangerous and enormous carbon footprint. This is the reason fashion designed with recycled materials comes as a welcome new fashion trend. There are countless ways to reduce your fashion carbon footprint and rebuild the economy. The choice is ours to support local designers and in turn save the planet and create jobs.

“Several studies have shown that buying from an independent, locally owned business, rather than a nationally owned businesses, significantly more of your money is used to make purchases from other local businesses, service providers and farms continuing to strengthen the economic base of the community and creating jobs. Locally owned businesses can make more local purchases requiring less transportation and generally set up shop in town or city centers as opposed to developing on the fringe. This generally means contributing less to sprawl, congestion, habitat loss and pollution. Small local businesses are the largest employer nationally and in our communities, provide the most jobs to residents.“ Source: sconnect.org

RecycledForDancing.com designs by Deborah Paulino are collectable works of art that show the nature of transformation, and draw attention to the human connection to one another and the environment. Combined are an array of fabrics from different eras and areas of the world that are either surplus, recycled or vintage.

The reconstruction process starts with hand washing the fabrics in oxygen bleach, then looking at the fabric, shape, color, then sketching out a design. Often several pieces are used to make one piece of clothing and it can take time, sometimes weeks searching through thrift shops, to find the right elements that compliment each other. Once all the elements are in place the construction takes place, then fittings and finishing touches - sometimes tailoring alterations, other times embellishments such as beading, appliqué, or distressing. When the garment is finished and ready for retail, it is then steam cleaned for any leftover dust and allergens and de-wrinkle and refresh the fabric. The results are one of a kind sincere works of art that are well-made, timeless, and fun to wear. For more info please visit http://www.recycledfordancing.com and check out the latest Winter 08/09 Collection

Retail Store Locations for Recycled for Dancing

Recycled for Dancing
Studio By Appointment:
Haight Ashbury, San Francisco, 94117
Phone 9 am to 6 pm: 415 420 5871
http://www.recycledfordancing.com

Distractions
1552 Haight Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
Walking - Upper Haight, Between Ashbury and Clayton
Open 11 am to 7 pm - 7 Days a week.
Phone: 415 252 8751

Trunk
554 Haight St.
San Francisco, California
Walking - Lower Haight, Between Steiner and Filmore
Open 11 am to 8 pm Wednesday to Monday
Phone: 415 861 5310
http://www.pandorastrunk.com

Jalina's
19 E Blithdale Road
Mill Valley, California
Phone: 415 388 4682

Arara
665 San Jose Ave.
San Francisco, California
Walking - between 28th and 29th / Bernal Heights -Noe Valley
Phone: 415 756 5826
http://www.ararasf.com

“On matters of style, swim with the current, on matters of principle, stand like a rock.” Thomas Jefferson

For more info please visit http://www.recycledfordancing.com and check out the latest Winter 08/09 Collection.

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Green Party candidate Ralph Nader shown to be a Bigot!

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 14:36:10 GMT

A must see for those who have put their hope into this man. what a complete lack of remorse...

http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=45901079

posted in Green Party - 2 replies

Praise from Cheney for Obama’s national security team

Tue, 23 Dec 2008 06:04:42 GMT

Praise from Cheney for Obama’s national security team
17 December 2008

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/dec2008/pers-d17.shtml

As President-elect Barack Obama met with his national security team in Chicago Monday, his appointments drew enthusiastic praise from a most revealing source: the outgoing vice president, Dick Cheney.

“I must say, I think it’s a pretty good team,” Cheney told ABC News. “I’m not close to Barack Obama, obviously, nor do I identify with him politically. He’s a liberal. I’m a conservative. But I think the idea of keeping Gates at Defense is excellent. I think Jim Jones will be very, very effective as the national security adviser.”

He went on to offer qualified praise for Obama’s pick for secretary of state, Hillary Clinton. “I think she’s tough. She’s smart, she works very hard and she may turn out to be just what President Obama needs.”

The comments of the vice president called attention to the most salient characteristic of the five-hour meeting convened by Obama on Monday. The national security group assembled by the candidate of “change” is dominated by very same individuals who are directing national security for the administration of George W. Bush and are responsible for policies that were overwhelming repudiated by the electorate in November.

Robert Gates, responsible for prosecuting the “surge” in Iraq, was there, along with Gen. Jones, who backed Republican John McCain in the presidential election. Also present was Bush’s director of national intelligence, Mike McConnell, and Admiral Mike Mullen, selected by Bush and Gates as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It appears that both are also likely to remain at their posts.

Why shouldn’t Cheney think it’s a “pretty good team”? It’s largely the one he played on.

As for Clinton, she lost the Democratic primary contest in large measure because of her support for the war in Iraq. During the campaign, Obama flayed her for having been wrong on this “most important foreign policy decision of our generation.” Now he has made her his chief foreign policy aide.

Cheney’s kind words for Obama’s selections came in a wide-ranging interview with ABC News broadcast on Monday and Tuesday in which the vice president defended torture in general and waterboarding in particular.

He acknowledged that he had been “involved in helping get the process cleared.” While a vast understatement of his intimate involvement in this grisly facet of US policy over the past seven years, this admission nonetheless provides one more piece of evidence that the vice president is guilty of war crimes.

He insisted that the US prison camp at Guantánamo should be kept open as long as Washington continued its “global war on terrorism,” whose end, he allowed, was unforeseeable.

He defended the Bush administration’s illegal domestic spying program. “It’s worked. It’s been successful. It’s now embodied in the FISA statute that we passed last year, and that Barack Obama voted for,” he added.

He likewise defended the war in Iraq, insisting that the world is “better off” because of it and declaring that “we made the right decision,” despite the subsequent exposure of the administration’s false pretext for the war—weapons of mass destruction.

After summing up and justifying all of the crimes carried out by the Bush administration during its two terms in office, Cheney called upon the incoming Obama presidency to continue them.

It should, he said, “retain the tools that have been so essential in defending the nation for the last seven-and-a-half years” and eschew any inclination to “fall back on campaign rhetoric to make these very fundamental decisions” about national security.

The composition of the Obama national security meeting in Chicago—together with the statements made by the president-elect stressing his intention to leave a “residual force” of tens of thousands of US troops in Iraq and embracing the overall framework of a never-ending “war on terrorism”—give every indication that Cheney’s advice will be heeded.

There were further indications along these lines in an article on the meeting published Tuesday by the New York Times. It noted that in addition to those assembled in Chicago, Obama has “sought the counsel of an old Republican realist—Brent Scowcroft” and also consulted “former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a Reagan administration official who is known in some foreign policy circles as the father of the Bush doctrine because of his advocacy of preventive war.”

Others whose advice Obama has solicited, according to the Times, include former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, the veteran of the CIA’s Operation Phoenix assassination program in Vietnam who went on to become a member of the Project for a New American Century and the “Vulcans,” the right-wing foreign policy advisers to George W. Bush’s 2000 campaign. Armitage also served as a chief foreign policy adviser to McCain in 2008.

Rounding out the list are Gen. Tommy Franks—“we don’t do body counts”—and Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, rejected by his own state’s Democrats because of his vociferous support for the Iraq war.

The latest poll released Tuesday by the Washington Post and ABC News shows that 70 percent of the US population believes that Obama should carry out his campaign pledge to withdraw all US troops from Iraq within 16 months of taking office. Fully 43 percent expressed the view that he should not wait that long, but pull them out immediately upon taking office.

This sentiment had everything to do with Obama’s victory in both the Democratic primaries and the general election. Yet, the will of the people expressed at the polls is to be repudiated and the policies of militarism, aggression and repression continued. This is what Cheney really meant in his remarks about ditching the “campaign rhetoric” and “retaining the tools” employed over the past seven years. He has ample grounds for his confidence in the incoming administration.

The continuity expressed in those Obama has tapped for his national security team is not just with the Bush administration, but with his own Democratic Party as well. In election after election—2002, 2004, 2006—the Democrats have acted politically to disenfranchise the millions of Americans who demanded an end to war, diverting their opposition into the safe confines of the two-party system while continuing support for and funding of US military aggression.

This, in the final analysis, was the purpose of the Obama campaign as well. The likes of Gates, Jones, Armitage, Scowcroft and Shultz are not merely Obama’s advisers. They are leading figures in a ruling establishment for which Obama is to serve as a political front man, providing a new face for US imperialism.

The evolution of Obama’s policies in the transition period and the way in which his administration is taking shape represent the most damning exposure of the failure of American democracy. Controlled and run by two parties that serve as political instruments of the major banks and corporations and a narrow financial elite, it is utterly impervious to the will of the people and incapable of enacting policies that uphold the interests of the vast majority of the population, those who work for a living.

Many on the so-called “left”—from the editors of the Nation to groups like the International Socialist Organization—are now putting forward the conception that the Obama administration portends great progressive changes that will be realized so long as sufficient popular pressure is exerted upon it. Such claims serve only to obscure the hard political realities that have already emerged in the transition period and reflect the rightward movement of the political tendencies that make them.

The policies of the Obama administration will not be determined by the popular illusions of those who voted for him, or by a bit of “left” pressure. Rather, they will be driven by the needs of American imperialism under conditions of a desperate worldwide financial crisis that makes the eruption of militarism an even greater danger than before.

With barely a month to go before the change in administrations, it is necessary to draw the appropriate political conclusions. The struggle to put an end to war and settle accounts with the criminal policies pursued by Washington over the last eight years can be advanced only through a movement independent of the Democratic Party and against the Obama administration. It requires above all the emergence of a mass party of working people fighting for a socialist policy aimed at putting an end to capitalism, which is the source of war. This means building the Socialist Equality Party.

Bill Van Auken

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Action item: Michael Pollan for Sect. of Agriculture

AlohaSteven — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 23:17:19 GMT

Background info and a petition for signing, requesting Obama administration please appoint Michael Pollan as the next Sect. of Agriculture.

http://www.pollanforsecretaryofagriculture.org/

Please invite friends to sign.

You may also be interested to view this excellent 2:35 minute YouTube clip speaking to the issues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt1V9cqPkcw&feature=channel

Thanks!

posted in Green Party - 1 reply

A closer look at Obama’s transition team

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 18:37:16 GMT

A closer look at Obama’s transition team
By Joe Kishore
7 November 2008

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/nov2008/tran-n07.shtml

Barack Obama's transition team is a collection of Washington insiders, former Clinton administration officials, corporate and banking executives, and individuals with roots in the Chicago Democratic Party political machine.

The Obama-Biden Transition Project is led by three co-chairmen. They are John Podesta, former chief of staff for Bill Clinton; Valerie Jarrett, a long-time Obama adviser, Chicago real estate executive and influential figure in the Chicago Democratic Party; and Pete Rouse, Obama's Senate chief of staff.

John Podesta

Podesta, chief of staff for Clinton from 1998 to 2001, will serve as the Transition Project's leader. Podesta is a long-time Washington insider, where he served, beginning in the early 1980s, as legal counsel for a number of congressional committees. As is the custom in Washington, Podesta made use of his political influence to establish a lucrative Washington lobbying firm, the Podesta Group.

Podesta authored a recent book entitled The Power of Progress: How America's Progressives Can (Once Again) Save Our Economy, Our Climate, and Our Country. The lobbying firm of this "progressive" includes among its top clients the oil giant BP, defense industry corporations Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, biotech firms Genentech and Amgen, Swiss pharmaceuticals corporation Novartis Interational AG, and Wal-Mart.

Podesta has the dubious distinction of having been ranked the third most powerful lobbyist in Washington DC by the Washingtonian. According to the newspaper, BP, whose "pipeline problems and refinery fires have created regulatory and public relations issues," has turned to Podesta, who "has quietly been guiding BP through congressional hearings."

For Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics, Podesta has been busy "trying to sell Congress and the Pentagon on another version of their Stryker troop transport vehicle."

Podesta is president and chief executive officer of the Center for American Progress, a Washington think tank. The center was set up with substantial funding from billionaire investor and Obama adviser Warren Buffet.

Valerie Jarrett

Jarrett began her political career in 1987 under then-Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. She became deputy chief of staff for Mayor Richard Daley and later served as Chicago's commissioner of the Department of Planning and chair of the Chicago Transit Board.

Jarrett has also held leading positions on the Chicago Stock Exchange (member of the board from 2000 to 2007 and chairman from 2004 to 2007), the University of Chicago Medical Center (chairman of the board of trustees), the University of Chicago (vice chairman of the board of trustees) and the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry (board of trustees).

Jarrett is the CEO of The Habitat Company, a real estate development firm in Chicago. She has been a top executive at the company since 1995, becoming CEO in 2007. Habitat has worked closely with the Chicago city administration to oversee public housing, receiving millions in local and federal subsidies.

A Boston Globe article from June 27, 2008 ("Grim Proving Ground for Obama's Housing Policy," by Binyamin Appelbaum) describes the state of one 504-unit public housing complex, Grove Parc Plaza, located in Obama's former state Senate district.

"About 99 units are vacant, many rendered uninhabitable by unfixed problems, such as collapsed roofs and fire damage. Mice scamper through the halls. Battered mailboxes hang open. Sewage backs up into kitchen sinks. In 2006, federal inspectors graded the condition of the complex an 11 on a 100-point scale—a score so bad the buildings now face demolition."

"Grove Parc has become a symbol," the newspaper noted, "for some in Chicago of the broader failures of giving public subsidies to private companies to build and manage affordable housing—an approach strongly backed by Obama as the best replacement for public housing."

The Globe reports "thousands of apartments" throughout Chicago, overseen by Habitat, that are characterized by similar disrepair. The Habitat Company "managed Grove Parc Plaza from 2001 until this winter and co-managed an even larger subsidized complex in Chicago that was seized by the federal government in 2006, after city inspectors found widespread problems."

There is some talk that Jarrett will be named housing secretary in the Obama administration.

Pete Rouse

Pete Rouse is an interesting case, whose political trajectory says much about the Obama campaign. Rouse was the chief of staff to Tom Daschle, the former Democratic leader in the Senate. Rouse was known as the "101st senator" in Washington circles due to the power he commanded, particularly when Daschle was the majority leader. He has worked on Capitol Hill for over 30 years.

After Daschle lost his seat in 2004, Rouse decided to take a position as chief of staff for Obama, then just beginning his first term in the Senate. The fact that an individual with Rouse's history and political ties decided to throw in his lot with a freshman senator with little political power or influence indicates that Obama was being groomed at an early stage by sections of the Democratic Party establishment, including Daschle, for bigger things.

Rouse has been a strong advocate of bipartisanship and "reaching across the aisle" to work with Republicans.

Also included on the Transition Project are:

* Carol Browner, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for eight years in the Clinton administration. After 2001, Browner took a position at the Albright Group, a firm headed by former Clinton administration Secretary of State Madeleine Albright that advises businesses on policy.

* William Daley, brother of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley. Daley was special counsel to President Clinton on trade (helping pass the North American Free Trade Agreement) and Clinton's secretary of commerce from 1997 to 1998. After leaving government, Daley took a position as president of SBC Communications and later served as Midwest chairman of JPMorgan Chase and Bank One. He serves on the boards of directors of airline manufacturer and defense contractor Boeing and drug giant Merck.

* Michael Froman is president and CEO of CitiInsurance, a branch of banking giant Citigroup. During the 1990s, Froman served in the US Department of Treasury as deputy assistant secretary for Eurasia and the Middle East, and later as chief of staff.

* Federico Peña was secretary of transportation (1993 to 1997) and secretary of energy (1997 to 1998) under Clinton. After leaving government, he took a post in Vestar Capital Partners, an investment firm.

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Black File 7001: In 1999, Lee Vin Bah became an unknowing human test animal in a U.S. Government mind-control and torture black project. Wednesday, October 08, 2008 [Revised: 10.12.2008]

Lee Vin Bah — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 06:59:47 GMT

Black File 7001: In 1999, Lee Vin Bah became an unknowing human test animal in a U.S. Government mind-control and torture black project.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008 [Revised: 10.12.2008] [Press Statement]

Black File 7001: McCain’s Genocidal Holocaust in America

The McCain Doctrine:
Empty dribble for those unable to distinguish horse manure from shoeshine. McCain’s inner-cracker surfaces with “That one!” aka “Those people!”, “Tar Baby!”, “Little Black Sambo!” or “Jew Boy!” McCain’s comment caused me to remember my youth in the Southern U.S. and gas stations with three bathrooms for men, women and colored. One night I went to sleep as a Jewish child and woke up the next morning to hear my family saying that the U.S. Government now considered us white. As for my race, I chose to remain “human” while at least attempting to recognize same in all people as the individual threads within the beautiful fabric of our humanity.

McCain – “I’ve been on nuclear powered ships”:
Yes, second from the bottom of his graduating class, John McCain wet starts his Skyhawk on the flight deck of the USS Forrestal in 1967, detonates a Zuni missile on the F4 Phantom parked behind his jet and causes the infamous fire aboard the ship killing 132 U.S. Navy sailors and wounding countless others. McCain’s military career has consistently recognized the admiral’s son successfully making touchdowns for the opposing team - stop John you’re running the wrong way…the goalpost is the other direction! McCain’s political career has the same “reverse maverick” modus operandi while supporting an illegal war in Iraq that should result in first degree murder charges being brought against George W. Bush and his administration, as cited within Vincent Bugliosi’s book titled, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.

McCain – “My friends my record speaks of continuous service to the nation”:
Whose nation wrong way McCain – North Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Dubai, land of the Bush bin Cheney harem whores? Allegedly, McCain with a false war hero persona sided with his communist captors in North Vietnam during the war. McCain, you must DECLASSIFY YOUR SEALED MILITARY AND ASSOCIATED RECORDS to answer the charges that while a POW of the North Vietnamese, you voluntarily and without being tortured did give aid and comfort to the enemy of the United States by producing over 32 propaganda tapes denouncing America as a nation of war criminals and did treasonously provide classified military flight path routes to the NVC, which allowed them to reposition their antiaircraft weapons and kill U.S. pilots on their return trips back home. Tell the American people why you and Kerry changed the standing rules that allowed U.S. Military Commanders on the ground to immediately implement a rescue mission to recover POWs and MIAs when sighted and now require a two day delay be communicated through the Pentagon before taking action, which may as well be two years in jungle time? McCain you allegedly support crossing into Pakistan to kill the complicit Bush family’s friend and ally, Osama bin Laden, but you won’t rescue our U.S. Military POWs and MIAs after the CIA has confirmed over 15,000 sighting. Not to mention that my sources close to the U.S. Special Forces operating in that region confirm that the Whitehouse via the Pentagon telephonically gave a special operations team the following orders after identifying the target for neutralization; “do not to kill Osama bin Laden and remove your team from the area.” When the team later inquired about their combat pay, they were told the mission had been classified and technically speaking since on paper they were never in the Afghanistan/Pakistan region, they are therefore not entitled to combat pay. Wonder if this was one of the same formulas used by your syndicated Republican consortium to systematically rape the financial assets of the American people – where were you 90% of the time for the past eight years? Maverick? – no I think you have been more like sedentary hot buttered goat custard.

McCain – “No one in this country supports genocide” – vomit!
Guess what “my friends”, McCain headed a Senatorial Investigation Committee to cover-up the Bush family’s continuing genocide of Americans and scapegoated their blame onto the back of a power company engineer for another Republican act of treason. My sources so very close to the U.S. Secret Service that I once declined their offer to be photographed sitting at Bush 41’s Whitehouse desk, volunteered that President and former CIA Chief, George H.W. Bush ordered the clandestine testing of a military Electromagnetic Pulse [EMP] weapon on New York City from a refitted A-6 Intruder jet-bomber with a golden canopy that “Killed American Citizens.” New Yorkers died that day, just like on 911. On the date of that EMP weapons attack ordered by Republican George H.W. Bush, American citizens died from an inability to obtain emergency services following massive regional power outages caused by the covert use the U.S. Military against our nation’s people while on U.S. soil. Following 911, it’s too bad that Rudy Giuliani affected such a rapid clean-up of the crime scene area to destroy any evidence; especial with what I suspect would have been found after the botched demolition operation on WTC Building No.: 7 that suddenly decided to drop into its own footprint without being touched. The Bush oligarchy historically recognizes an ongoing lineage of treason to perpetuate their global continuing criminal enterprise and the largest theft of government funds in the history of the known world.

President and former CIA Chief, George H.W. Bush replaced CIA Chief William Colby who died during a suspected assassination on August 27, 1996, before he could testify in the 1953 staged suicide/murder of U.S. Army scientist Dr. Frank Olson [CIA MK-ULTRA] from the same top secret laboratories in Fort Detrick, MD that recently recognized another alleged suicide in one Dr. Bruce E. Ivans [911 Postal Anthrax produced from within the same facility].

Black File 7001: The Genocidal Holocaust in America
U.S. Genocidal Black Projects in torture and mind-control have continued in development since the CIA’s importation of 1600 Nazi SS war criminals to America during “Operation Paperclip” where they continued their inhuman atrocities on human test animals within the MK-ULTRA Program. Those monstrous practices were first begun at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camps. These genocidal black projects are covertly funded by billions of dollars from American taxpayers and are rarely scrutinized beneath their program titles by the congressional intelligence committees and their elected members with top secret crypto clearances. Typically these black projects and their methodologies are shrouded beneath federal programs with misnomer titles; kept under wraps at top secret military installations; are concealed within academic research grants; tested during the surrounding events of natural disasters; monitored within the public education system; entrenched within technological devices and surveillance equipment; and are hidden from public scrutiny around the world within prisons, hospitals and centers of academic learning that occasionally double as a blacksite facilities to varying degrees. These formulas for torture are applied against every thread of our existence and the total fabric of humanity by the controlling few against the many whom I feel will increasingly find their revolutionary voice for a restorative democracy that recognizes the human being in all people. Exposing these U.S. black projects causes’ whistleblowers like me to become Targeted Individuals [TIs] who are cauterized through “slow kill” and “silent kill” methods that psychologically wall-off mind-control victims with layers of suicide programming or are rapidly silenced by assassination. Self-inflicted harm is the cornerstone of the four principle components within the CIA torture matrix. This means that the “deep state” proponents of genocidal black projects in torture and mind-control within the U.S. Government infrastructure use covert operatives or jackal agents to harm or murder innocent American citizens. The only reason why these criminal agents and enemies of humanity have not murdered me to date is because I write and publish. The jackals and other criminal actors known to me have been warned along with their handlers that unannounced appearances will be considered a mortal threat. My contacts in the Federal Bureau of Investigation have been notified.

The Federal Witness Protection Program [WitSec], complete with a blacksite facility staffed by government psychologists assisting in the mind-control and torture program, recognizes a clandestine shadow network with given WitSec Inspectors and associated federal agents and agencies conducting sadistic and genocidal practices against Non-Criminal Federal Witnesses and Government Whistleblowers who unknowingly become human test animals within the fraudulent federal program.

This human laboratory control sample within the WitSec is subjected to an evolving mind-control and “no-touch” invisible physical torture experiment sourced from methods produced by the CIA’s MK-ULTRA Program and the KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Manual [The Torture Bible]. The ongoing cover-up by WitSec’s administrators includes their lying under oath before the U.S. Congress to conceal the wrongful deaths of U.S. Government Witnesses from the lasting erosive effects of psyops, mind-control and torture while in and after having exited the Federal Witness Protection Program.

This additionally includes the theft of government funds while robbing the American taxpayers of $Billions through padded numbers to feather their budget. In 2000, I assisted the USDOJ to investigate and successfully prosecute my first WitSec Inspector, John W. Dubois [name authorized by U.S Marshals Service for release] for the same charge. Dubois was later released from prison and allowed to stalk me, convey veiled death threats and later accosted me by the arm while I was near death from cancer treatments.

WitSec Headquarters took no action after filing over 30 security notices, which remains in keeping with the most of our state and federal elected representatives; including Senator Ron Wyden, Congressman David Wu, Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, and Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers. Actually my volunteer work as a consumer advocate has placed nearly $30 thousand in the State of Oregon’s depleted coffers and I like Oregon’s AG, but their motives that extends beyond the perpetuation of the “Dark Figure of Crime” is best known to each of them and should be explained to the Oregon voters before the next election; certainly I am affording them yet another opportunity to respond, since they already know my legal name and contact information.

Every frontline covert operator working deep cover assignments, Non-Criminal Federal Witnesses and Government Whistleblowers who are granted a fraudulent Protective Person’s Status under Title 18 of the U.S.C. only to become unknowing human test animals in clandestine experiments, on average begin developing Post Traumatic Stress Disorder [PTSD] within 24 days of exposure in their given operational areas. Some are affected sooner and all experience the complete deconstruction of Constitutional Civil Liberties and inalienable human rights entitled any person [human being] and/or an American citizen after being psychologically pressed into the Federal Witness Protection Program.

The oil rich nations of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Dubai that supported the attacks against America on 911, today are the only entities making money during the final glut of their end game to destroy America with the treasonous assistance of their complicit partners in the Republican Bush-Cheney administration.
With every economic hardship that our fellow human brothers and sisters are continuing to experience with the collapse of U.S. Republican capitalism, respectfully for those of us who remain an unseen minority as a protect class within plain-sight of mainstream America, the concentrated formulas used against us are horrifically deconstructive and are infinitely worse than anything being generally experienced at this moment.

This is Clandestine Genocide being conducted against American citizens by the U.S. Government. For my group of Veterans of Voluntary Covert National Service, no matter how much the economy and life improves for the majority of Americans living on Main Street, USA, our existence as Non-Criminal Federal Witnesses, Government Whistleblowers and Targeted Individuals [TIs] will remain one of Adjunct Human Slavery within a Virtual Death Camp Environment that continues to systematically and systemically murder our members who are equally entitled American citizens of good character. From that hellish place we watch the blessings of liberty enjoyed by our fellow citizens like “bubble boys” able to move about you while never allowed to penetrate the membrane of that inhuman vessel that falsely imprisons us away from our constitutional entitlements and inalienable human rights. The culpable actors within the U.S. Government have made it virtually if not completely impossible for most of use to find employment. The women in our group have to a degree been able to obtain public assistance, albeit an unnatural reduction from their former financial statuses before the WitSec Program.

This becomes an egregious human rights violation and Constitutional Crime committed by the U.S. Government against its veterans of covert national service who apparently are systemically targeted for eventual death following their voluntary participation as partisans of liberty.

A convicted felon in prison has more recognized civil liberties and opportunities made available to them than American citizen who went above and beyond the call of duty to participate in our government system to make the world and our nation a better place for all human beings.

Female Government Witness and Whistleblower Subjected to Rape Torture!
One female government witness and whistleblower recently communicated that following her discovery that a number of Republican Senators were laundering millions in U.S. taxpayers’ dollars through quasi federal programs, that she was kidnapped and subjugated to human sexual slavery for the sadistic pleasures of those wishing her death. Once programmed through mind-control techniques she was raped for two days, hung by the neck and thought left for dead until she awoke in a pool of her own blood and feces with her sexual organs destroyed.

After a 24 hour reconstructive surgery and a period of recuperation, she returned to a university where she completed her degrees only to have those targeting her for torture and mind-control, separate her from securing those University Degrees while leaving her with $30 thousand dollars in debts for student loans. Somehow she will have to pay-off those federal student loans while continuing to seek restorative justice and restitution for the crimes committed against her. Be aware that all American citizens and other innocent victims of genocidal human experimentation are being subjected to these crimes against humanity by the same individuals who espouse the rights of a blastocyst while processing Christianity. That said, even the members of the Nazi SS attended the Catholic Church.

Like this brutalized human being and gentle woman, I remain disenfranchised from the completion of my degrees by the actionable offences of the WitSec Program and without an audit conducted by the federal government, to this day I am not certain if the WitSec Inspectors actually caused me to pay nearly double what I owed in federal student loans.

Under the Bush oligarchy and within the Bush-Cheney administration, whose members were the first to avoid government service and the first to send our youth to be murdered for financial profits, a former Nazi became a Catholic Pope and the grandfather of Karl Rove [Roverer] aka “The Architect” built the Birkenau death camp. Karl Heinz Roverer was the Gauleiter of Oldenburg. Roverer was the Reich-Statthalter or Nazi State Party Chairman for his region. He was also a partner and senior engineer in the Roverer Sud-Deutche Ingenieurburo A.G. engineering firm, which built the Birkenau death camp where tens of thousands of Jews, Gypsies, dissidents and others were slaughtered through genocide. During that time and before while reaching back to 1920, the namesake of the two Bush presidents, George Herbert Walker and former Republican Senator, Prescott Bush laundered the financial assets of the Nazi industrial complex through WWI, WWII, and the Jewish Holocaust against the United States of America while our nation was at war with Nazi Germany. That treasonous legacy continues today as recognized since September 11, 2001.

The Federal Witness Protection Program with its “deep state” blackops proponents sharpened the blade of tactics later used against detainees inside Abu Ghraib Prison on the unknowing human test animals within the WitSec black project. To date the CIA torture matrix has killed and murdered an estimated 115 human slaves tortured to death inside Abu Ghraib Prison, Iraq; 35 were ruled homicides. The developers of the ongoing CIA torture matrix within the U.S. Government continue to target innocent American citizens for “slow kill” and “silent kill” deaths on U.S. soil and the majority of our alleged elected representatives remain silent. What excuse will they give when this matter reaches the light of public examination?

Other Examples of Black Projects Shrouded from Public Scrutiny
Some other examples of the programs and shrouds used as covers for the testing and development of the torture matrix include: The War for Profit Corporatist Deconstruction and Reconstruction Model; the No Child Left Behind Initiative that erodes the education process in High Schools, funds the testing materials exclusively sold by Neil Bush’s education software company, defrauds varying percentages of students from attending college, herds others into the cheap labor pools, and targets new immigrant American citizens for military service under an anti-American and treasonous administration; the New Phoenix Program; “Project Monarch II”; the CIA MK-ULTRA Program [the Manhattan Project of mind-control to create the perfect Manchurian Candidate] with projects Bluebird, Artichoke and over 250 subprojects; Dr. Ewen Cameron’s development of the July 1963, CIA KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Manual at McGill University, Montreal, Quebec; “Project X” where KUBARK and other new variations that had largely been used in South America from 1983 to 1987 were remixed into a second “Bible” of the perfect torturer, titled Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual - 1993; the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina and the genocide of New Orleans with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ funding for strengthening the levees being diverted by Republicans to build a “Teapot Museum in North Carolina”; the FEMA trailer camp as Guantanamo Bay in New Orleans with free bus rides to Wal-Mart; Guantanamo Bay Prison, Cuba; Abu Ghraib Prison, Iraq; the three word mantra “War on Terror”; Color Code Terrorism Alerts and related Fear Tactics [terrorism]; Fluctuating Gasoline Prices that rise and fall with pending legislation and elections; the Attacks on September 11, 2001 by the oil trading partners of the Bush family; the 911 Postal Anthrax from the top secret laboratory at Fort Detrick, MD and the alleged suicide of Dr. Bruce E. Ivans; the 1953 staged suicide/murder of Dr. Frank Olson, from the top secret laboratory at Fort Detrick, MD; the tactics of Psyops Terrorism used against the American people and the world; the Genocide of over 100,000 innocent Iraqis [women, men, children, and infants] as War Crimes and First Degree Murder; the unconstitutional Judicial Selection of a U.S. President; the lies told to regain control of a Democratic Congress only to deconstruct the U.S. Constitution and the hopes of American citizens with Nancy Pelosi’s “Impeachment is off the Table”; “No-Touch” Invisible Physical Torture Techniques; Targeting Individuals [TIs] with Psychotronic Weapons using Electromagnetic Pulse Energy, Radiofrequency, Microwave Radiation, and Subliminal Imaging to “Alter” Brainwave Patterns that collectively result in Mind-Control or “Brainwashing”; the “Memory Pill” aka Brainwashing made simple by Big Pharma [also involved with MK-ULTRA]; the Punishing of Goodness while Rewarding Criminality and Gross Incompetence; Pharmaceutical particulates in our Toilet to Tap Drinking Water Systems; Atmospheric Nitrogen Fertilizer and Sulfuric Acid from Coal Furnaces compounding Global Warming and Affecting the Balance of Nature with increasing numbers of Dead Zone in the Earth’s Oceans; Plastics Consumer Products manufactured from Oil being used as “Slow Kill” Poison Delivery Systems; Video Surveillance Cameras installed on virtually every street pole for the harvest of a Retinal Recognition Database while simultaneously causing Desensitization to Empirical Intimate Intrusions and Psyops Suppression of the Sovereign Thought Process to create a Toxic and Self-Consuming Society [Self-Inflicted Harm of the CIA Torture Matrix]; the Psychological Conditioning of being Electronically Strip Searched or Raped by NSA X-Ray Body Scanners in Airports while some unknown operator sits in a closed room recording the images of small children and adults into a Database for Republican Pedophiles; Microwave Antenna Arrays positioned throughout most cities that have been removed in Germany from the known harm caused by prolonged exposure; the Electoral College measured against the Popular Vote to manipulate the will of “We the People”; Electronic Voting Machine Irregularities; Ad Nauseam Rhetoric repeated through the Propaganda Ministries that have deconstructed a Constitutionally Entitled Free Press; the Absorption of Generational Wealth for Converting those in the Middle into a Peasant Class Society; the Perversion of Language with a “War on Drugs” verses the Perpetual Promotion of Prescription Pharmaceuticals with many Patented before an Illness has been Invented; and the Deregulation and Privatization of America’s Economic Infrastructure to finish what they started on 911. All of the above and more, depending on the individual concentration or a collective lamination of same, recognize the means of causing psyops terrorism and torture technique that although tested on those of us who walk unseen among you in their most concentrated forms, have increasingly been implemented against the general population of America and the World since September 11, 2001.

Standing Alone for the Human Victims of Torture.
With the exceptions of Senator, Barack Obama; Congressman, Dennis Kucinich; and Congressman, Elijah E. Cummings, the majority of our elected Congressional members, including my Senator, Ron Wyden and Congressman, David Wu have supported genocidal torture programs through their craven silence and failure to implement a Congressional investigation regarding my firsthand experience of having become an unknowing human test animal and victim of torture as Non-Criminal Federal Witness, No.: 7001.

Even though John McCain publically stated “my friends no American would allow genocide to occur when it is completely within our power to stop it.” This unfortunately is not the case and like the past this same government demeanor that once allowed the genocide of over 6,000,000 human beings during the Jewish Holocaust is at play again. My story, Black File 7001 has been blacklisted by the propagandized corporate news media, most of the progressive news media, including Democracy Now, NOW on PBS, Air America Radio, and The Ed Schultz Show. Of course talk radio is what it is and I quit listening over a year ago, but Democracy Now and NOW on PBS, are two shows that I have followed and supported for years; only they will be able to answer the reasons for their own silence.

Currently and while still seeking asylum in Canada, I am attempting to contact Oprah Winfrey with Harpo Productions, Inc., the Canadian BBC and would welcome communications with any genuine journalism organization, publisher, film maker, literary agent or elected political representative willing to discuss the Black File 7001 story. My thank to those of you who have sent a petition to the Government of Canada requesting they grant asylum under the conventions of torture cited by the UNHCR and retroprosity for my Protective Person’s Status issued by U.S. Attorney General, Janet Reno under Title 18 of the United States Code.

The Bush-Cheney administration validates Black File 7001
Ironically, Black File 7001 has been reverse validated by the Bush-Cheney administration through their federal agent’s unlawful use of a communication facility while telephonically threatening, “Bah – you have people in very high places afraid to death that you are going to destroy their programs and they said if you publish your book, they will “invent” a criminal charge against you.” Following my invitation for his handler’s to go pound salt in their asses, agents of the Sensitive Operations Division of the Social Security Administration and the WitSec Program first awarded my Social Security Disability Benefits and then in an act of political retribution, punitively withdrew same under written letters of protest from the U.S. Government’s own federal judge. In an egregious violation of several federal laws that extend to a charge of treason under the Federal Identities Act, those mandated with my protection deliberately commingled federally sealed classified government documents and illegally unsealed my covert SSA file for public viewing from January 8, 2001 [my son’s birthday] until the U.S. Attorney in Seattle, WA suddenly contacted my attorney advising that she was filing a Motion to Reseal on July 14, 2008 – the Bush-Cheney administration is trying to perform a cover-up of the many crimes committed against me. A federal court judge is deciding the case on civil appeal in Seattle, WA.

Again, the administrators of the Federal Witness Protection Program [WitSec] have lied before the U.S. Congress regarding the deaths of government witnesses from the causal effects of the genocidal program while financially raping the American taxpayers with padded numbers they alleged represents 18,000 government witnesses when liberally speaking the number is more likely no higher than 8,500. Only 6% of the total number are Non-Criminal Federal Witnesses and the rest are Custodial and Criminal Federal Witnesses.

The ongoing egregious federal crimes and human rights violations committed against me directly or in layers and the mechanisms that have denied my constitutional right of legal redress under duplicitous use of national security protocols, have deconstructed my ability to enjoy the fundamental right to life, complete my university degrees, secure employment, recognize my Social Security, and retain my Social Security Disability Benefits from the actionable offences committed in political retribution by a corrupt government system that has leaking classified government information under Title 18 of the United States Code to a telecommunications company engaged in this blackops RICO conspiracy. The erosive effects caused by psyops and “no-touch” invisible physical torture by the U.S. Government, recognizes a resulting harm that has remained infinitely more damaging during the past eight years than the singular event relating to the Valerie Plame Wilson matter.

The list of criminal offenses committed against me along with the commingling and leaking of federally sealed and classified information is lengthy and has created a mortal threat environment around my geographic location in violation of the WitSec mandate. This further serves as the U.S. Government’s passive sanction for my assassination that increasingly becomes a probability nearing the end of the treasonous Bush-Cheney administration.

Under this administration and others, this is the clandestine reward for those good citizens and former law enforcement members who gave something extra in service to our nation. With a Protective Person’s Status as a Protected Class, we are “disappeared” into an unequal parallel within our mothercountry that is barren of constitutional civil liberties and inalienable human rights. While being mummified for voluntary covert national service, our individual sense of self-identity is eroded into an existence of adjunct human slavery within a virtual death camp environment were an unnatural death waits in the shadows. Once situated in the plain-sight of the general population, we are confronted by the constant threat of lethal deportation or vicarious extraordinary rendition back to our birth identities and certain death from known mortal threats and often the actionable offences committed in political retribution by the very U.S. Government personnel allegedly tasked with our protection.

Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.
Many of you have written Diane Finley, Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, Canada and again I am indebted to you for your sense of humanity and kindness. Should any of you have time or the inclination, I would be equally grateful for a note being sent to your Elected Representatives, Oprah Winfrey, the BBC, and any progressive journalist who might assist me in sharing the Black File 7001 story. Whether my life is forfeited in this process, G-d or the Mother of All Things has placed this mission in my path and as her servant I obey.

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Open Letter to Progressive Voters

LanSing — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 11:33:31 GMT

[forward freely]

For a Better Obama Presidency, Don't Vote for Him

Let me begin by saying that I dearly hope that Barack Obama is elected president. A McCain/Palin victory would be disastrous for our country and for the world. In a time that desperately needs wise leadership, I believe Obama has the potential to be one of the best U.S. presidents in recent history (admittedly not a real high standard). But the operative word here is "potential." I believe Obama also has the potential to be a colossal disappointment, just as the Clinton presidency deeply disappointed progressives who had high hopes coming out of 12 bleak years of Reagan/Bush I leadership.

Which potential will be realized? It depends on the popular pressure Obama receives to do the right thing. We know he is under tremendous pressure by powerful private interests to do all the wrong things.

We've seen how this pressure has pushed him toward more conservative positions on many important issues: from his support for FISA/telecom immunity, reauthorizing the Patriot Act, "clean coal," offshore oil drilling, and nuclear power, to his hawkishness around Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Russia, to his choice of advisers, many of whom represent anything but the "change" he claims to bring to Washington, DC.

The rest of us need to push back. One way to promote a more progressive Obama administration is to show our support a truly progressive, uncompromised candidate when we vote for president--like Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader--so long as that vote does not jeopardize an Obama victory.

In most states across the country, we can do that. (Yes we can!) Thanks to the undemocratic Electoral College--which makes our individual votes almost meaningless--combined with a decisive statewide margin of advantage for one candidate or the other based on pre-election polling, voters in most states can feel free to vote for the candidate we most agree with, without fear it will help elect McCain.

Is voting your conscience "unrealistic," as some would say? Let's be realistic about the Electoral College. As most of us know (but seem to forget), the only votes that count toward electing a president are Electoral College votes, which are awarded on a winner-take-all basis for each state. So if Obama is way up in statewide polls in your state* (or conversely, way down), your vote for him contributes absolutely nothing to his chances of getting more electoral college votes and winning the presidency. Zero.

The Electoral College undermines the democratic principle of "one person, one vote" and should be reformed. But in the meantime it's also strangely liberating in the sense that it enables those of us who don't live in "swing states" to truly vote our conscience without fear of negative consequences.

So check out what Cynthia McKinney (votetruth08.com) or Ralph Nader (www.votenader.org) truly stand for, then compare it to what Obama stands for: on energy, health care, foreign and military policy, civil liberties, or economic policy. (Nader's site gives a particularly good comparison here: www.votenader.org/issues/ .) Then vote for the candidate you feel best represents your views.

In the choice between Nader and McKinney, I support McKinney. Two reasons: She had the courage to speak truth to power while she was in Congress (e,g., she was the first to call for Bush's impeachment); and now she is working to build the Green Party with her campaign, rather than simply running as an independent. I may not agree with her on everything, but a vote for McKinney is a vote for strengthening the Green Party, which I believe our country needs.

Some say you're wasting your vote if you vote for a candidate unlikely to win; I say that the real waste is to cast a compromised vote when that vote does absolutely nothing to help Obama reach the White House.

Don't waste your vote: Vote your conscience. Vote for single-payer, universal health care. Vote for substantial cuts in the military budget. Vote for a truly green energy policy. Vote for pushing our next president toward the values you believe in and the policies our country needs.

[* One way to ensure that your vote does not jeopardize Obama's chances of winning is to consult your state's polls before you vote. A good source is: www.realclearpolitics.com/epoll...ccain/ ]

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Gas and Oil GO AWAY!!

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 21:10:23 GMT

I have heard people talking about the OIL shortage leading to disater coming 2012. This post is to help people get more ideas and realize yet another lie.

If this massive deception were to be busted,
> it would:
>
> 1. remove the reason that many wars are fought today
>
> 2. revitalize the world economy, especially in rural area
>
> 3. instantly increase the wealth and health of every
> person on earth
>
> The fraud is this: We need gasoline.
>
> The truth is we don't now - and we never did.
>
> Here's a continuation of a series of videos
> from the creator of PermaCulture.org:
>
> http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/432.html
>
> - Brasscheck
>
> P.S. I guarantee you will NEVER see this
> information in the mass media, including
> so-called public broadcasting.
>
> If you believe it's important, please share
> it with your friends and colleagues.
>
> The info in this video is being very actively
> censored.
> - Brasscheck
>
> P.S. Please share Brasscheck TV e-mails and
> videos with friends and colleagues.
>
> That's how we grow. Thanks.
>
> ==============================
>
>
>
> Brasscheck TV
> 2380 California St.
> San Francisco, CA 94115

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Canada: NDP & Green Party Reject Oil Nationalization

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 19:14:16 GMT

Canadian elections
Leaders’ debates underscores parties have no progressive solution to economic crisis
By Keith Jones
4 October 2008

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/05/24/18501994.php

The US financial crisis and impending North American recession were the focal point of the televised debates, held in French and English on successive evenings this week, between the leaders of the five major parties contesting Canada’s October 14 federal election.

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper sought to downplay the significance of the meltdown on Wall Street. Assuming the pose of a serene, fatherly figure, he claimed that Canada is largely insulated from the convulsions rocking world capitalism—no matter that these convulsions are centered in the country that absorbs fully three-quarters of Canada’s exports and that for decades has underpinned the world financial system.

“Canada is not the United States,” declared Harper at the beginning of Wednesday’s French-language debate. “The situation is very different. The foundation of our economy is very solid. ... We do not have a crisis.”

Harper’s comments notwithstanding, the Toronto Stock Exchange’s composite index plummeted 813 points or 7 percent the next day, the second such fall in a week. Meanwhile, information continues to leak into the pages of Canada’s financial press about the extent to which the government, the Bank of Canada, and various regulatory agencies have intervened over the past year, and particularly in the past two months, to provide credit to the country’s big banks and otherwise shore up their position.

In Thursday evening’s English-language debate, Harper spoke more forcefully about the economic crisis in the US, but only to better draw the purported contrast with Canada: “The economic and financial mess in the United States is disastrous; the policies have been irresponsible. We have made very different choices in Canada. We are not bailing out companies ...”

While downplaying the economic crisis, Harper denounced, as he has throughout the campaign, the other parties for advocating “risky” tax changes and spending proposals—in reality, modest social spending increases.

The leaders of the Official Opposition Liberals, social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP), Quebec indépendantiste Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party were united in attacking Harper for subscribing, à la George W. Bush, to the belief that the invisible hand of the market will solve all socio-economic problems.

But all four demonstrated that they, no less than Harper, are implacable defenders of capitalism, of a social order in which basic social needs are subordinated to the profit imperative of big business. At most, they advocated increased government regulation of the financial sector, greater state support for the big auto companies and other manufacturers, and protectionist measures aimed at boosting Canadian big business in the struggle for markets and profits.

Despite their claims of a stark ideological difference between themselves and Harper, none of the four was prepared to defy even the neo-liberal mantra against deficit-spending. Both Liberal leader Stéphane Dion and the NDP’s Jack Layton pledged that, if need be, they will abandon platform commitments of increased social spending so as to ensure that the federal budget is balanced. The BQ’s Gilles Duceppe, for his part, boasted that his party has long advocated a “no deficit” law.

Dion decried as a quasi-socialist measure the NDP’s proposal to cancel the Conservatives’ plan to reduce corporate taxes by $50 billion over the next four years. But Layton is only proposing to roll the corporate tax rate back to the level to which the Liberal governments of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin had reduced it by 2006. An NDP government would leave in place the sweeping cuts Liberal and Conservative governments alike have made during the past decade to capital-gains and personal income taxes—cuts which have all but flattened the progressive tax system and resulted in a massive transfer of wealth to the most privileged sections of society.

The first-ever Green Party representative to participate in a Canadian leaders’ debate, Elizabeth May, echoed Dion’s claim that government action to reduce fossil fuel consumption and promote “green technology” will make Canadian companies more competitive. May positively gushed when she cited former US President Bill Clinton as saying that the environment is the greatest business opportunity of all time.

When a viewer in the French-language debate, having pointed to the huge profits that have accrued to the big oil companies, asked if any of the parties were prepared to nationalize the oil industry, the leaders scrambled to distance themselves from such a “radical” proposal. Dion didn’t even deign to answer the question. Layton, Duceppe, and May, all of whom have criticized the Harper government for being in the pocket of Alberta’s oil industry, flatly rejected it.

Why Harper is lying

Prior to the debates, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper sought and obtained modifications to the format to allow for more discussion of the economy. This is in keeping with the Conservative’s contradictory election strategy, which has sought to tout Harper as the prudent, moderate choice to steer Canada through turbulent economic times, while simultaneously claiming that the impact of the US financial crisis on Canada will be limited.

An economist by training, Harper knows full well that capitalism today confronts its greatest crisis since the Great Depression. But he is loath to spell out the implications of this crisis, because he recognizes that to bolster the crumbling position of Canadian big business the next government will be compelled to take draconian, unpopular measures, while businesses themselves slash jobs and wages. For the same reasons, he is calculating that corporate Canada will rally behind the Conservative drive for a majority government, since a government that is guaranteed of not having to go before the electorate for another five years will be all the more insulated from public opinion.

But the Conservative stance is so transparent a lie—so out of sync with the daily newspaper headlines that announce that the Wall Street crisis is now engulfing leading European financial institutions and that the North American economy has entered a recession—that sections of Canada’s corporate elite are worried it could give voters pause.

On Friday, the Globe and Mail, the traditional mouthpiece of Bay Street, took the prime minister to task in an editorial titled, “This is not leadership: Canada needs to get real on the economy.” The Globe warned that Harper’s rosy claims “are starting to wear thin. ... [H]e is wrong to think, if he really does, that the contagion in the US will not lay us low in Canada.” After noting that governments in Europe are formulating emergency plans to staunch the hemorrhaging of the financial system, the Globe observed that the only one “not quite in the game is the closest neighbour and biggest trading partner of the United States.”

In an attempt to revive the Liberals’ flagging campaign, Dion announced at the beginning of the French language debate that his party has a “five-point plan” to confront the economic emergency. Apart from the accelerated implementation of Liberal proposals to increase spending on public infrastructure, the plan consists of little more than a series of reviews of the economic situation and financial regulatory environment and meetings among top decision-makers.

In response to queries from journalists, Liberal finance critic John McCallum explained that the Liberals intend to generate the type of establishment consensus that the Chrétien government developed in the middle 1990s on the need to eliminate the federal budget deficit—a consensus that was quickly translated into the greatest public spending cuts in Canadian history, including massive cuts to the transfers to the provinces that finance health care, post-secondary education and welfare, and the gutting of the unemployment insurance program.

In response to the deepening economic crisis, the Liberals have repeatedly attacked the Conservatives from the right. They argue that a Liberal government would provide bigger corporate and personal income tax cuts than the Conservatives and contrast the budget- and tax- cutting record of the Chrétien-Martin governments with Harper’s “reckless” fiscal policies.

The Liberals, like the NDP and BQ, have championed the complaints of sections of big business in Ontario and Quebec that the Harper government has failed to aggressively mobilize the resources of the state to help them withstand the impact of increased foreign competition and the rise in the value of the Canadian dollar. “We have a plan for the manufacturing sector,” declared Dion, “to invest in it, to attract investments around the world.” By contrast, said Dion, the Conservatives “have this laissez-faire approach” whereby they say “it’s not our job to choose winners and losers” and cede to “the governors of the United States and all around the world” the leg-up in wooing investment.

Dion’s claim that his party is separated from the Conservatives by a great ideological divide was punctured when Layton made the obvious point that the Liberals voted in support of Harper’s minority Conservative government on more than 40 occasions. Dion literally had no reply.

The NDP leader emphasized his call for repeal of the Conservative corporate tax cuts and cast himself as a leader who would champion the concerns of ordinary Canadians not big business.

The NDP is seeking to win votes by portraying itself as the party that can shield working people from the impending economic catastrophe. The record however shows that the NDP will do just the opposite. The NDP governments that came to power in Ontario, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan in the early 1990s when the Canadian economy last entered into slump quickly bowed before big business’ demands that they shelve their proposals for modest reform and imposed massive social spending cuts and onerous tax hikes and attacked worker rights.

Duceppe appealed for Quebeckers to rally round the BQ as the only means of preventing the Harper Conservatives, whom he accused of placing the interests of Alberta’s oil industry before Quebec’s manufacturing companies, from forming a majority government. But like the Liberals, the BQ openly collaborated with the minority Conservative government in the last parliament. Moreover, the BQ favors the re-election of the Conservatives over the coming to power of the Liberals, because the Conservatives’ plans to hobble the federal state’s capacity to undertake new social programs overlaps with their objectives of strengthening the Quebec state apparatus.

Canada and the Afghan war

The two principal parties of Canadian big business, the Conservatives and Liberals, combined earlier this year to force through a further extension of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) leading role in the Afghan war till the end of 2011.

The NDP initially supported the deployment of Canadian troops to Kandahar, but in late 2006 reversed its stance. However, the NDP has been at pains to otherwise express its support for the US-imposed government of Hamid Karzai and says explicitly in its party platform that it wants the CAF to participate in UN “peace-making” missions, the euphemism used to justify the 1991 Gulf War and the current UN-sanctioned NATO mission in Afghanistan. Layton has refused to make the war a major issue in the election campaign for fear that it would cut across his attempt to cast the NDP as a “responsible” establishment party.

The most significant thing to emerge from the section of the debates devoted to the Afghanistan war and Canadian foreign policy was that Harper for the first time termed the Iraq war a “mistake,” while claiming, despite his own call for Canada to join the 2003 invasion of Iraq and his enthusiasm for using the CAF as an instrument for projecting Canadian power on the world stage, that had he been prime minister when the war began Canadian troops would not now be deployed in Iraq.

Harper made his remarks in the wake of the Liberals’ exposure of the fact that much of the speech he delivered in parliament in March 2003 urging Canadian participation in the Iraq war was taken verbatim from a speech Australian Prime Minister and close Bush ally John Howard made to that country’s parliament.

Harper’s lies and equivocations on this issue arise from his awareness of the massive public hostility to the Bush administration and the Iraq war. But like on some many other issues, the actual stance of the Canadian elite is far different from the public posturing of its parties. While it is true that the Chrétien Liberal government did at the eleventh hour pull back from officially joining the Iraq war, the US ambassador to Canada subsequently admitted that Canada did far more to support the illegal US invasion of Iraq than many members of the “coalition of the willing.”

It is not surprising then that the Canadian state is now returning war resisters for punishment by the US military as “deserters.”

Harper’s remarks came in response to a question from Duceppe, who like Barack Obama promotes the Afghan war “as the good war” in purported contrast to the Iraq war. The truth is both wars were launched by the US so as to gain military-strategic footholds in the two of the world’s principal oil-producing regions.

All five parties are beholden to the interests of Canadian big business. Just as they will do big business’ bidding in imposing the burden of the economic crisis on working people, their electoral pronouncements notwithstanding, so they will, in response to the resurgence of inter-imperialist antagonisms, facilitate the Canadian bourgeoisie’s attempts to revive militarism and assert it predatory interests on the global stage.

Also see:
Take the Profit Out of Global Warming and War, Nationalize the Oil Industry
by STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/05/24/18501994.php

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Debate: right-wing character of Obama-Biden ticket

Sat, 04 Oct 2008 17:00:29 GMT

US vice-presidential debate: A window on the right-wing character of an Obama-Biden administration
By Patrick Martin
4 October 2008

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/oct2008/deba-o04.shtml

Thursday night’s vice presidential debate, having been heavily promoted by the media, was watched by the largest television audience to view such an encounter, larger than the number who watched the presidential debate September 26. The event itself, however, was notable mainly for its avoidance of any serious discussion of the biggest financial crisis in the United States since the Great Depression.

The media speculation about who “won” the debate, or whether the Republican candidate, Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, had survived what one commentator called “the most public IQ test ever administered,” is largely pointless. The debate did little to change the outcome of the presidential election, in which the Democratic ticket of senators Barack Obama and Joseph Biden has now taken a sizeable lead.

The event did reveal the contours of a future Obama-Biden administration as one that will undertake whatever measures are required to defend the interests of the American corporate elite in both domestic and foreign policy. Biden, a 36-year veteran of the US Senate and longtime member of the Washington establishment, spoke more bluntly than had Obama in his debate last week with the Republican presidential candidate, Senator John McCain.

This was particularly the case on foreign policy, where Biden repeatedly sought to attack McCain and Palin from the right. He reiterated Obama’s call for military strikes against Al Qaeda targets in Pakistan and for a greatly increased US military presence in Afghanistan. He denounced the Bush administration’s policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, claiming that the White House had been too soft on Hamas and the Lebanese Hezbollah organization, both targets of Israeli military action.

In response to one question from moderator Gwen Ifill of PBS, Biden boasted of his long experience as an advocate of US military interventions overseas, going back to Bosnia in the early 1990s, the US bombing of Serbia in 1999, and ongoing efforts to engineer a major military push in oil-rich Sudan, using the mass suffering in Darfur as a pretext.

On domestic policy, the debate was framed by the agreement of both parties on the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street. Obama, McCain, and Biden all voted for the bailout legislation the day before the vice presidential debate, demonstrating that, despite the exchange of charges and countercharges, the two campaigns share a common standpoint.

The discussion of the bailout during the debate was brief and superficial. Despite McCain’s vote for the plan, Palin sought to adapt rhetorically to the widespread popular opposition, making several references to Wall Street greed, predatory lenders, corrupt money managers, and so on.

Palin’s anti-Wall Street demagogy was combined with assertions that McCain represents “reform,” although her use of the term remained an abstraction without the slightest content. It resembled Obama’s call for “change,” which has been shown in the course of the campaign to mean nothing more than changing the party in power.

For his part, Biden avoided any harsh anti-business rhetoric and made a vigorous defense of the bailout legislation, emphasizing that the Democratic Party and Barack Obama had considerable input into its provisions. He went out of his way to signal that an incoming Democratic administration will safeguard the property and profits of the rich, notwithstanding some populist-sounding flourishes performed for electoral purposes.

On two occasions, he specifically rejected suggestions that the Democratic ticket was hostile to the interests of the wealthy. The first came when Ifill asked him whether Obama’s proposal to raise taxes on those with incomes over $250,000 a year could be considered “class warfare.” Biden replied indignantly that it was simply a matter of “fairness.”

Palin followed up this suggestion by declaring, “I do take issue with some of the principles there, with that redistribution of wealth principle that seems to be espoused by you.”

Seemingly flustered by the attempt to link him in any way to a policy of wealth redistribution, Biden gave his most incoherent response of the debate: “Gwen, I don’t know where to start. We don’t call a redistribution in my neighborhood, Scranton, Claymont, Wilmington, the places I grew up, to give the—fair to say that not giving Exxon Mobil another $4 billion tax cut this year, as John calls for—and giving it to middle class people to be able to pay to get their kids to college. We don’t call that redistribution. We call that fairness, number one.”

While Palin occasionally referred to the working class in the course of the debate, Biden was careful not to use that term, speaking always of the “middle class.”

Both candidates espoused a completely stereotyped view of the working class, summed up in Palin’s use of the term “Joe Sixpack,” a vulgar label that defines the American worker as socially and politically backward, i.e., the worker as conceived of by the privileged elite and its political and media servants.

Despite the words from both candidates about their supposed identification with ordinary working people, Palin and Biden both belong to the upper crust of the American population, with family incomes of $230,000 and $250,000 a year, respectively. Their financial position is modest only in comparison with their running mates. Barack Obama is now a multimillionaire, while John McCain married an heiress whose holdings are estimated at over $200 million.

One of the most significant aspects of the vice presidential debate was what was not discussed—Palin’s ultra-right-wing views, grounded in an evangelical version of Christian fundamentalism. According to press accounts, Palin has expressed the belief that men and dinosaurs shared the Earth 6,000 years ago (just after Biblical creation), and she advocates the teaching of creationism in public schools. She opposes abortion even in the case of rape and incest and rejects the separation of church and state. She has invoked religious criteria for political decisions in areas as disparate as going to war and building a pipeline.

Ifill chose not to make any inquiries in this area, other than a question about civil rights for gay couples, which Palin answered by espousing tolerance, a standpoint radically in conflict with the Republican Party program. Biden readily accepted Palin’s supposed agreement on gay rights and did not pursue any of the other “social” issues that define the religious right.

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Anti-Bailout Demo in San Francisco Monday 9/29

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 06:39:00 GMT

How Stupid Does Nancy Pelosi Think You Are? Let's get loud!

In response to the bipartisan "done deal" of the Wall Street bailout plan, Cindy for Congress is calling for another non-partisan protest in front of the Federal Reserve Bank: 101 Market (corner of Market and Stearns) at 4pm on Monday, September 29th. Last Thursday, we had a very energetic protest of about 250 activists who were: Democratic, Republican, Green, Libertarian, Peace and Freedom, socialists and decline to states who were saying the same thing: NO CORPORATE WELFARE: HEY NANCY, BAIL US OUT!

The new corrupt deal that the Democrats and Republicans in DC have cobbled together to rob each and every American to pay for corporate excess contains little or no protection for working Americans to recoup our losses under this criminal regime. They are using our hard earned money from our hard-worked labor to rescue corporate pirates who have been living large during the bubble: and when their artificial bubble bursts, We the People are left picking up the pieces FOR THEM!

Almost 100% of America (according to some polls) do not want this bailout to happen, yet Pelosi and her crew are again caving into BushCo to our detriment!

Tired of being trickled on by the fatcats' trickle down economics?

Please make yourself heard at the Federal Reserve! Tomorrow, bring pots and pans and other noisemakers!

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

THIS is the fastest way to build the world we need!

Tim — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 17:09:03 GMT

We have a huge, idealistic, smart, practical "movement" going, over on Facebook: The Next Step Together. There are more than a thousand folks in the group now, About 100 joining daily. There's proposal on the table to run our own presidential "election", and we are trying to enroll the entire world! Join us and bring in all your friends! It's all about acting PRACTICALLY, QUICKLY, WITH HUGE NUMBERS... So job ONE is getting EVERYONE IN!

Learn about the Next Step Together at http://nextsteptogether.net
Join the Next Step Together Group on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=24568801853

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -Mahatma Gandhi

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Democrats push for adoption of Bush plan to bail out Wall Street

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 06:32:32 GMT

Democrats push for quick adoption of Bush plan to bail out Wall Street
By Barry Grey
26 September 2008

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/bail-s26.shtml

The turn of events at the White House summit announced Wednesday night by President Bush and held Thursday to press for bipartisan agreement on his plan for a bailout of Wall Street has underscored the cynical and reactionary role being played by the Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Barack Obama.

Bush called the meeting, bringing together Obama, Republican presidential candidate John McCain and the congressional leadership of both parties, to signal rapid passage of legislation authorizing Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to spend at least $700 billion in taxpayer money to purchase virtually worthless financial assets from banks and other financial institutions, enabling them to offload their bad debts and losses at the expense of the American people.

The meeting was called for Thursday afternoon, in the expectation that by that time the Democratic Party would have already signed off on the deal, along with the Republicans in the Senate. As for the House of Representatives, the Republican minority leader, Rep. John Boehner, had joined with the Democratic speaker of the house, Nancy Pelosi, to issue a statement pledging support for a bipartisan bill that would conform to the basic provisions of the proposal first broached by Paulson the previous Friday.

Early Thursday afternoon, prior to the White House summit, the heads of the banking and finance committees of the House and Senate emerged from talks to announce that they had arrived at an agreed framework for a bailout plan which, with minor amendments, accepted the principles of the scheme proposed by Paulson.

Christopher Dodd, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, spoke for the group, saying, “We’re giving [Paulson] authority that he will need in order to act and the funding that he will need.” He predicted that a final bill would pass both houses of Congress within a few days.

But the White House meeting turned into a contentious affair and ended in disarray. Boehner, with the tacit support of McCain, raised objections to the deal that have been voiced by a large number of right-wing House Republicans, and announced that he had a counterproposal. His intervention blindsided the Democrats, who emerged from the meeting denouncing Boehner and McCain and pledging to continue the push for rapid passage of the Paulson plan.

Ever since Paulson presented his bailout plan last week, the Democrats have taken the lead in the drive to pass the necessary legislation. They have lavished praised on Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke, who testified before the House and Senate banking committees on Tuesday and Wednesday to promote the deal.

After Bush spoke Wednesday night, the Democratic chairmen of the banking committees went out of their way to praise him, presenting the spectacle of leaders of the nominal opposition party hailing the most hated president in modern American history for his efforts to carry out one of the most antidemocratic and reactionary measures in the history of the country.

Christopher Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, welcomed Bush’s speech as a “quantum leap forward” in gaining passage of the bailout.

Obama, for his part, has made the principal task of his campaign assuring Wall Street of his support for the bailout and his overall reliability as a defender of the interests of the financial elite.

This has opened the door for McCain and right-wing House Republicans to posture as opponents of Wall Street and identify themselves with massive popular opposition to the bailout. The faction of House Republicans who have denounced the measure represents right-wing libertarian elements within the party who identify social spending and government intervention in the capitalist “free market” with what they consider the ultimate evil—socialism. They base themselves on appeals primarily to middle class layers, utilizing anti-tax and nationalist demagogy as their stock in trade.

In opposing the bailout, they are, moreover, responding to bitter opposition to the windfall for Wall Street among their constituents. The media and politicians of both parties have acknowledged that there is massive popular opposition to the bailout scheme.

The Los Angeles Times on Thursday called the proposal “wildly unpopular.” The New York Times reported that the “delicate” negotiations between Paulson and congressional leaders were “complicated” by pressure on rank-and-file legislators “who were fielding torrents of complaints from constituents furious that their own money was going to be spent to clear up a mess created by high-paid financial executives.”

The newspaper gave several examples of lawmakers who have been inundated with hostile emails and phone calls over the past week. “Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California,” it noted, “has received nearly 17,000 email messages, nearly all opposed to the bailout, her office said. More than 2,000 constituents called Ms. Boxer’s California office on Tuesday alone; just 40 favored the bailout. Her Washington office received 918 calls. Just one supported the rescue plan.

“Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said he had been getting 2,000 email messages and telephone calls a day, roughly 85 percent opposed.”

What neither the media nor the politicians have pointed out is the brazen violation of any conception of democracy, even by the eviscerated and restricted standards of the American two-party system, represented by the enactment of such a momentous measure, which will impose massive burdens on the American people for decades to come, on the eve of a national election by a lame duck president and a Congress nearing the end of its tenure.

The Democrats’ rush to pass the bailout is driven by the most cynical calculations. They want the decision to be taken before the November elections, so that in the event they win, an Obama administration, with an increased Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, can claim that its hands are tied and it has no alternative but to pursue a right-wing policy of austerity, including savage cuts in social spending.

The Socialist Equality Party completely rejects the bailout of Wall Street and the entire framework within which the Bush administration and the Democratic Party seek to deal with the financial crisis. Our opposition has nothing in common with that of some of the most right-wing sections of the Republican Party.

The responsibility for the economic crisis rests with the capitalist system. The near-collapse of the American banking system has exposed not only the economic bankruptcy of the profit system, but also the fundamentally unrepresentative character of its political system.

This crisis is the product of the unbridled greed and criminality of the financial elite. More fundamentally, it is the outcome of the long-term decline and decay of American capitalism.

There is no progressive or democratic solution within the framework of this system. If the resources of the country must be mobilized to resolve the economic crisis and prevent a catastrophe, then they must be taken out of the hands of the financial parasites and placed under the democratic control of the working people.

The working class must be mobilized as an independent political force, in opposition to both parties of Wall Street, to establish a workers’ government and carry out the socialist nationalization, without compensation, of the banks and finance industry, so that the financial resources of the country can be allocated to meet to social needs of the people, rather than the money-mad strivings of a financial aristocracy.

Only on this basis can the urgent need be met for decent-paying jobs, retirement security, education, health care and high-quality housing for all.

This is the program of the SEP and our candidates for president and vice president, Jerry White and Bill Van Auken. We call on all those who agree on the need for a socialist alternative to support our election campaign and join the SEP.

To find out more about the SEP campaign, visit www.socialequality.com or contact us.

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Ralph Nader and Ron Paul Call for a Rejection of the Two Party System

Materpiscis — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 03:31:40 GMT

Ralph Nader and Ron Paul Call for a Rejection of the Two Party System

The event may have been largely ignored by the mainstream media, but Ron Paul hosted a press conference today that featured all of the major third party candidates, with the exception of Bob Barr, who is still trying to get Paul’s endorsement. The point of today’s event was to promote third party unity and call on Americans to reject the closed two party system.

“Pretending that a true difference exists between the two major candidates is a charade of great proportion. Many who help to perpetuate this myth are frequently unaware of what they are doing and believe that significant differences actually do exist. Indeed, on small points there is the appearance of a difference. The real issues, however, are buried in a barrage of miscellaneous nonsense and endless pontifications by robotic pundits hired to perpetuate the myth of a campaign of substance. The truth is that our two-party system offers no real choice. The real goal of the campaign is to distract people from considering the real issues,” Paul said.

“Today's coming together of third party candidates marks the beginning of the realignment of American politics. While Congressman Paul and I do not agree on all things -- such as health and safety regulations and health insurance systems and how to handle areas where the market fails or is not up to the task of getting the best outcomes for the American people -- on the overriding foreign policy, reckless waste financed by deficit spending, and civil liberties issues of the day, we stand together. He is a stalwart who has consistently stood up for what he believes in and never wavered when he is opposed by the legions of commercial interests and lobbyists that swarm the Capitol,” Ralph Nader said.

Paul talked about how our current system doesn’t represent most people, “The system we have today allows a President to be elected by as little as 32% of the American people, with half of those merely voting for the “lesser of two evils”. Therefore, as little as 16% actually vote for a president. No wonder when things go wrong, anger explodes. A recent poll shows that 60% of the American people are not happy with the two major candidates this year.”

http://www.politicususa.com/en/Nader-Paul-Two-Party-System

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McKinney and White on the economic crisis.

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:48:57 GMT

In the following two essays, Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney and Socialist Equality Party candidate Jerome White lay out their programs for the economic crisis.

Personally, I am not supporting the McKinney campaign because, among other things, she is running as a candidate of the capitalist Green Party and she does not advocate socialism except in a limited way for healthcare. It is my opinion that the deep and profound problems of this country can only be solved through public ownership of the financial institutions, energy industries, health services, and the means of production. It is also worth noting that she voted as a congresswoman for the war against Afghanistan, and while she now calls for a full and immediate pull-out from both Afghanistan and Iraq, her original vote for war reflects a dangerous lack of understanding of the true predatory nature of U.S. imperialism.

For these reasons, I'm instead giving critical support to the presidential campaign of the Socialist Equality Party, but I thought people would find both of these articles interesting.

-Steven Argue

Seize the Time!
An essay by Cynthia McKinney
September 19, 2008

We the people must now seize the time! We have always had the capability of determining our own destiny, but for various reasons, the people failed to elect the leaders who provided the correct political will. There was always some corporate or private special interest that stood in the way of the public good. And they always seemed to have the power of the purse to throw around and influence public opinion or our elected officials. The very foundation of the U.S. economy is crumbling underneath our feet. This represents a unique moment in U.S. history and we must now seize the time for self-determination--for health care, education, ecological wisdom, justice, and all the policies that will make a difference in the lives of the people including an end to all wars, including the drug war!

The crisis was staved off for a time for some of our major finance engines when they were able to obtain bridge funding from certain sovereign wealth funds. That option grows increasingly dim as The Federal Reserve is becoming the lender of last resort. This means that the people are becoming the owners of the primary instruments of U.S. capital and finance. This now means that the people have a say in how these instruments are to be used and what their priorities ought to be. The people should now have more say in how their tax dollars are spent and what the priorities of government and the public sector must be. We the people must now set our demands to ensure and promote the public good.

Now, as we ponder the importance of this moment to do good and serve the needs of the people, some politicians have already figured out their answer for us: win or steal the next election, prepare for more war, and leave it to others to try and figure out what to do next. While banks are failing all around us and the U.S. taxpayer is drenched with news of billion-dollar bailouts for *selected* companies, the Congress, which has utterly failed in its twin responsibilities of setting policy and Executive Branch oversight, plans to adjourn instead of setting new policies; lessening the impact of the economic freefall on innocent victims; or stopping war, expansion of war, new war, and occupation.

In a dizzying turn of recent events, we have all witnessed the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac mortgage providers, investment banks Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, and insurer American International Group (AIG), and other companies. So far, at least eleven banks have filed for bankruptcy this year. The case of the AIG bailout is particularly curious as Merrill Lynch was denied taxpayer largesse. I wonder if AIG was the selected company for bailout because of its relationship to the U.S. intelligence community and what others would discover if AIG's books were opened in an audit. The last person to get close to AIG and its shady operations was Eliott Spitzer.

But some more fundamental issues must be explored here, relating to the underlying assumptions that have guided U.S. political and economic activity, particularly over the last eight years.

The Bush Administration's "anything goes, just don't get caught" attitude has set the tone for what we are witnessing today. To be sure these problems didn't start in January of 2001, but they sure were allowed to accelerate during the George W. Bush Administration. For example, what tone was set when the Administration shipped $12 billion to Paul Bremer's provisional government in Iraq in cash on wooden pallets for Iraq reconstruction? No wonder $9 billion of it was "lost." What I'm constantly reminded of is that the money didn't just vanish, somebody got it. Now it's up to us to find out who!

However, the Administration's blatant disregard for good governance, the rule of law, standards of moral and ethical conduct, and even etiquette, when coupled with a laissez-faire, "go-along-to-get-along" attitude from Congress meant that no holes were barred and no hands were on the deck--a sure prescription for disaster.

In my reading over the course of the last few years, I had to become somewhat conversant with the language of the new economy: bundled mortgages, securitization, SPEs, SIVs, derivatives. But in addition to the old concepts that always seemed to be with us--predatory lending, redlining, no affordable housing amid "the housing bubble,"-- it soon became clear that basically folks had figured out a way to make money off of a ticking time bomb. Kind of like prisons for profit. And even though the Enron scandal was supposed to have cleaned up a lot of this, unfortunately, even Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac regularly engaged in some of these practices and that's why you and I own them today. I believe it is true that the very foundations of the U.S. economy and conventional political behavior have been shaken. Now is not the time for business as usual. And although this is by no ways exhaustive, here are a few things that I think the Democratic-led Congress could work on now instead of adjourning:

1. enactment of a foreclosure moratorium now before the next phase of ARM interest rate increases take effect;
2. elimination of all ARM mortgages and their renegotiation into 30- or 40-year loans;
3. establishment of new mortgage lending practices to end predatory and discriminatory practices;
4. establishment of criteria and construction goals for affordable housing;
5. redefinition of credit and regulation of the credit industry so that discriminatory practices are completely eliminated;
6. full funding for initiatives that eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in home ownership;
7. recognition of shelter as a right according to the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights to which the U.S. is a signatory so that no one sleeps on U.S. streets;
8. full funding of a fund designed to cushion the job loss and provide for retraining of those at the bottom of the income scale as the economy transitions;
9. close all tax loopholes and repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the top 1% of income earners;
10. fairly tax corporations, denying federal subsidies to those who relocate jobs overseas, repeal NAFTA.

And since the Congress plans to adjourn early and leave these problems to The Federal Reserve, The Federal Reserve should operate in the interests of the U.S. taxpayer and not the interests of the private, international bankers that it currently represents. This, of course means that The Federal Reserve, too, must undergo a fundamental ownership and mission change.

This crisis does not have to be treated as merely a "market correction," or the result of a few rotten apples in an otherwise pristine barrel. This crisis truly represents the opportunity to introduce fundamental changes in the way the U.S. economy and its political stewards operate. Responsible political leadership demands that the pain and suffering being experienced by the innocent today not be revisited upon them or the next generation tomorrow. But sadly, instead of affirmative action being taken in this direction, the Bush Administration ratchets up the drumbeat for war, Republican Party operatives busily remove duly-registered voters from the voter rolls, and our elected leaders in the Congress go home to campaign while leaving all of us to fend for ourselves. For the Administration and the Democrat-led Congress, I declare: MISSION UNACCOMPLISHED. For the public whose moment this is, I say: Power to the People!

***********
No return to the 1930s! For the public ownership of the banks!
Statement by SEP presidential candidate Jerome White
17 September 2008

The bankruptcy of Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers and the forced takeover of Merrill Lynch are the latest demonstrations of the collapse of American capitalism. All the lies and propaganda about the supposed infallibility of the “free market” are being discredited. The people of the US and the world are confronting a financial catastrophe on a scale not seen since the Great Depression.

What is revealed in this crisis is not merely the recklessness, incompetence and greed of America’s financial elite, but the failure of capitalism—an economic and political system that subordinates the needs of society to profit and personal enrichment.

Who is going to pay for this crisis? Here the US corporate and political establishment agrees: working people must accept a drastic reduction in their living standards to bail out the Wall Street investors and banking executives who are responsible for this debacle.

The American ruling class has for decades championed “private enterprise” and the wonders of the market as the pinnacles of human civilization, capable of solving all problems, while socialism has been denounced as evil and oppressive. Over the past 30 years, the operations of big business were deregulated—under both Republican and Democratic administrations—removing all legal restraints on corporate profit-making and the personal accumulation of wealth.

The ruling class responded to the crisis of American capitalism by carrying out a deliberate policy of deindustrialization, which wiped out millions of jobs and decimated cities like Detroit. Vast industrial resources were destroyed, and the savings of workers were plundered in order to free up capital for the most parasitic forms of financial speculation.

Increasingly, wealth was separated from the creation of real value. Corporate corruption and insider dealing became the norm, and vast fortunes were amassed in the hands of a small layer of the population.

The Financial Times recently reported that compensation for major executives of the seven largest US banks totaled $95 billion over the past three years, even as the banks recorded $500 billion in losses. Of course, neither Barack Obama or John McCain suggest that this money should be paid back.

Now that this orgy of financial speculation has produced a disaster, the corporations and banks are determined to roll back the conditions of the working class to the 1930s to pay for the crisis.

Obama and McCain are absolutely committed to the defense of capitalism and America’s financial elite. The next president—whether a Democrat or Republican—will move to gut entitlement programs such as Medicare and Social Security and support the corporate attack on jobs and living standards.

McCain’s sudden discovery of “greed” on Wall Street is laughable, coming as it does from a long-time defender of the US corporate establishment. Obama’s complaints about a lack of oversight ignore the role of the Clinton administration, whose policies helped fuel the speculative explosion and sub-prime mortgage crisis. Obama is a no less committed defender of the financial elite, receiving more campaign cash from Wall Street firms such as Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs than John McCain.

The Democratic candidate proposes no criminal investigations and refuses to hold anyone responsible, making his proposals for “regulation” thoroughly meaningless. In comments Tuesday, moreover, Obama declared his full support for the capitalist system, saying the “free market has been our engine of our progress,” which “rewarded the innovators and risk-takers.”

It is precisely these “risk-takers” and “innovators” who concocted the debt instruments and derivatives used to funnel billions into the hand of the wealthy. Meanwhile, the working class—which had been declared virtually obsolete in the “new economy”—is, as Marxists have always insisted, the only producer of real value.

It is indicative of the decrepit state of American democracy that the bailout of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, followed by Wall Street insurer AIG—which will essentially double the national debt while providing nothing for distressed homeowners—was taken without the slightest political debate or discussion. This underscores once again that behind the trappings of democracy, the American political system is a plutocracy, i.e., a government of, by and for the rich.

The alternative to capitalism and financial catastrophe is socialism—the reorganization of economic life to meet social needs and not private profit.

I call for:

* A public auditing of corporate finances and the personal accounts of the top management of the financial institutions over the past decade.

* The recovery of the vast sums of money that have been pocketed by the wealthy elite. Those responsible for the economic devastation must be brought to justice.

* A massive public fund to make whole all of the victims of predatory lending and the collapse of home values. All home foreclosures must be immediately halted, and funds made available to provide quality housing for all.

* Trillions of dollars for rebuilding basic industry, cities and the country’s infrastructure. This should be paid for through the establishment of a genuinely progressive tax system that drastically increases taxes on the wealthy, and through the dismantling of the gigantic US war machine.

* Transforming the giant banks and financial institutions into publicly owned and democratically controlled utilities, with measures taken to protect small shareholders. The financial resources of society—which are the product of the labor of millions of working people—must not be left in the hands of a financial aristocracy.

* Reorganizing the economy on the basis of a rational, democratic and egalitarian plan guided by the socialist principle of production for human need, not the enrichment of a wealthy elite.

Insofar as the Democrats even mention the economic crisis, it is to promote economic nationalism and the pitting of American workers against workers in other countries. In fact, the global consequences of the breakdown of American capitalism have demonstrated: (1) the integration of the world economy, and (2) the pressing necessity for the international unity of the working class in the struggle to defend jobs and living standards.

The SEP encourages all forms of mass opposition to attacks on social services, the gutting of jobs and the wave of home foreclosures. This crisis has proven that the capitalist class is unfit to direct economic and political life and that working people must establish genuine democratic control over society.

This requires a political break with the two parties of big business and the building of a mass political party of the working class fighting for a socialist alternative. I encourage workers and youth to support our election campaign, contribute to our fund and, above all, make the decision to join and build the Socialist Equality Party.

White Article from the World Socialist Website
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/sep2008/stat-s17.shtml

Distributed by Liberation News
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

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DNC Protest, Split, and the Principled Stand of Cynthia McKinney

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:59:24 GMT

DNC Protest, Split, and the Principled Stand of Cynthia McKinney

By Steven Argue

Protest plans have been in the works against the Democratic National Convention (DNC) for some time now, with organizers opposing the Democrat Party’s policies of war and occupation, backing of continued corporate policies that cause global warming, and their attacks on immigrants.

The people who have been organizing the protest schedule formed a coalition called Recreate ‘68. A rightward split has occurred in this coalition, and another group has also been formed called the Alliance for Real Democracy. The Alliance for Real Democracy is organizing their own separate events, one of which is a reception for Democrat Party delegates complete with drinks and BBQ.

The Alliance for Real Democracy is made up of the Colorado Green Party, Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice, the Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center, the American Friends Service Committee, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Colorado Street Medics, and Students for Peace and Justice.

While the Alliance for Real Democracy consists largely of white liberals who are trying to influence the hopelessly corporate run Democrat Party, Recreate ‘68 is made up primarily of minorities, socialists, anarchists, communists, and other radicals who have fewer illusions in reforming the Democrat Party and who instead want to organize the power of the people.

Glen Spagnuelo, spokesperson of Recreate ‘68, says he’s not bothered by the formation of the Alliance for Real Democracy, because both groups oppose the war in Iraq and neither is advocating a violent protest.

Yet, the Alliance for Real Democracy has gotten extensive coverage in the corporate media of Colorado for their violence baiting of Recreate ‘68. The stand of Recreate ‘68 is, however, one where they simply explain that they are not planning violence, but if the police attack them, they do not disavow the right of protesters to self-defense.

As Benjamin Whitmer of Denver explained in the letters column of the Rocky Mountain Times in a June 5, 2008 letter entitled, “Re-create 68 members aren't violent extremists”:

“I’m a little confused as to the media’s portrayal of Glenn Spagnuolo and the members of Re-create 68 as violent extremists. Though Mr. Spagnuolo is getting painted as Vlad the Impaler with a bag full of severed heads, I’ve yet to hear of him engaging in a single act of violent protest. Moreover, I’ve attended several Re-create 68 meetings – meetings which, it’s worth noting, are never without a media presence – and have yet to hear a single suggestion of violent protest from him or from anyone else attending.

“The controversy seems to stem from Re-create 68’s refusal to disallow the right to self-defense to its members. Re-create 68’s explanation of this refusal is clear. There will be people protesting with Re-create 68 arm-in-arm with their children and elders. In large part, these will be representatives of communities which have most suffered from the never-ending betrayal of the Democrats. To attempt to deny them the right to defend themselves is to deny a fundamental human right.”

Yet, the Alliance for Real Democracy is demanding everyone roll over and die when and if they are violently attacked by the police, and painting those who do not have such a commitment as “violent”. The coverage their denunciations have received in the corporate media play into the hands of government attempts to deny permits, and, ultimately plays into the hands of police violence if the government does decide to physically attack these protests. In fact, the Alliance for Real Democracy’s denunciations of the right to self-defense and denunciations of Recreate ‘68 as “violent” creates a ready made excuse for the police and government that may actually cause police violence.

In addition, the Green Party of Colorado has issued false statements to the press and all over the internet claiming that Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney will not be participating in the Recreate ’68 events. Here is one such statement from Dave Chandler, co-chair of the Colorado Green Party, Green Party candidate for U.S. Congress in the Seventh Congressional District, and supporter of a Denver ballot measure that would seize the vehicles of illegal immigrants:

“Cynthia McKinney, Green Party candidate for President, and Rosa Clemente, Green Party candidate for Vice President are NOT participating in any Recreate ‘68 activities. Both candidates, and the Green Party of Colorado, are refuting this announcement and are stating that neither candidate, nor the Green Party of Colorado, are in any way associated with Recreate ’68, nor will any of their candidates be speaking at or attending any event, nor are they in any way associated with the group Recreate ’68.”

This is a blatant lie. Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente will be speaking at the Recreate ’68 events.

Liberation News does not endorse the Cynthia McKinney campaign, partly because she is running on the Green Party ticket, a capitalist party. Yet, she has the right positions on many issues, and does show what a candidate who is not beholden to corporate interests can speak out on, such as for single payer healthcare, immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, and for freeing political prisoners in the U.S. like Mumia Abu-Jamal.

It is for these reasons, and the good principled stand that McKinney is taking on the protests at the Democrat National Committee, standing up to the leadership of the Green Party of Colorado, that Liberation News prints Cynthia McKinney and Rosa Clemente’s statement on the DNC in full:

*******
Open Letter from Cynthia McKinney

As the United States activated Navy ships and the Air Force to begin an airlift of non-specified goods into the former Soviet state of Georgia, and military exercises began in the Persian Gulf near Iran, I received communications from certain individuals among the Colorado Greens who were organizing campaign support events there, suggesting that I not participate in an anti-war program being organized by other individuals in Colorado.

Perplexed, I began to do my research to understand the nature of the fissure that I seemed to be placing myself in the middle of. The communications to me about not participating in one of the scheduled events became more and more shrill. The events ran through August 26th. When the lineup of speakers, including Rosa and me, was announced for the events in question, I received multiple communications stating in various ways that the sender from the Green Party of Colorado, was on the verge of desperation over the latter.

Within a few hours, I was reading messages stating that the Green Party of Colorado would be ruined if I participated in the End the Occupations/End the War march and rally slated to take place on the morning of August 24th on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol, or if Rosa participated in a Freedom March and Rally for Human Rights and Political Prisoners at Civic Center Park the following day.

An article appeared in a local Colorado newspaper stating that Rosa and I would not appear at the events for which we had been scheduled. Rosa responded to our Colorado Green Party contact that yes, indeed, we were appearing at the two events. Both Rosa and I then received messages demanding to know by a time certain what our plans were, and asserting that the Green Party of Colorado would be totally ruined if we associated with the group sponsoring the events. In addition, we were told that at least one resignation and sustaining membership would be tendered to the Party, and that Rosa and I could expect no support on the ground in Denver from the Green Party of Colorado, including a planned fundraiser and a place to stay.

Without receiving any additional response or information from either Rosa or I, the correspondent sent a message informing us that all Green Party of Colorado events previously scheduled for us had been canceled. Further, the message stated that ballot access petitioning by Green Party of Colorado would cease in neighboring Wyoming and that all efforts would be made to remove Rosa's and my names from the ballot in Colorado. The message also noted that the Colorado delegation overwhelmingly supported Elaine Brown at the Green Party Convention.

With the e-mail messages flying "fast and furious," I hope I have mentioned the highlights of this episode in somewhat chronological order. What Rosa and I would like to address now, is the ideological and rational order that produced this outcome. At the very first Green Party debate held in San Francisco earlier this year, I pleaded for unity of action and purpose as we face the challenges that confront us as a country. Rosa and I are proud to join with others who are sick and tired of war, occupation, human rights abuses, and the continued incarceration of our political prisoners. We are proud to join with others who are willing to do something about it. In the context of activities in Denver, that means cooperating with some organizations new to us and others with which Rosa and I have had a long-standing relationship. Let me explain some of those relationships.

I am proud to have received a Backbone Award from the Backbone Campaign, one of the co-participants of the anti-war, anti-occupation events in question, according to the organizers.

Rosa and I are pleased to have received the endorsement of M-1 of Dead Prez, who put out a video of endorsement and is rallying other conscious Hip Hop, Generation X voters to the Green Party with Rosa and I as its nominees. Rebel Diaz was on the stage with Rosa as she accepted her Green Party nomination for Vice President. Both Dead Prez and Rebel Diaz are participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.

Fred Hampton, Jr.'s mother, a victim of COINTELPRO, came to Georgia in the mid-1990s to help me gain reelection after a malicious redistricting case that went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Ward Churchill has traveled to my Congressional district to educate my former constituents on the COINTELPRO of yesterday and the COINTELPRO of today. Natsu Saito introduced me to other victims of COINTELPRO. I asked Kathleen Cleaver to co-author a report that was submitted to Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time of the World Conference Against Racism, on the unsolved murders of Black Panther Party members who were victims of COINTELPRO. Fred Hampton, Jr., Ward Churchill, Natsu Saito, and Kathleen Cleaver are all participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.

As a Member of Congress, I supported the release of all political prisoners and welcomed information from the American Indian Movement about Leonard Peltier. I have at many times in my political career been allied with the ACLU, and have always supported Pam and Ramona Africa and the MOVE Organization. The American Indian Movement of Colorado, King Downing of the ACLU, and Pam and Ramona Africa of MOVE are all participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.

Mumia Abu Jamal has endorsed the Power to the People Campaign and my Green Party candidacy. According to the organizers, Mumia will transmit a message to all of us participating in the events in question.

Finally, I have appeared on various stages with many Palestinians; I have proudly spoken at rallies organized by Larry Holmes. Debra Sweet with World Can't Wait was among the very first to my knowledge to organize around impeachment as an imperative and I support hers and all other impeachment groups in their efforts. And finally, I have known Ben Manski for a long time as a socially conscious activist who is also a member of the Green Party. According to the organizers, a Palestinian refugee is slated to speak at the events in question, as well as Larry Holmes, Debra Sweet, and Ben Manski.

Rosa and I have not been given any rational, ideological, or strategically-acceptable reason by the Green Party of Colorado to dissociate ourselves from the movement that this country so desperately needs and that these individuals and organizations participating represent, as we all attempt to hold the Democratic Party accountable for its complicity in all of the crimes of the Bush Administration. Therefore Rosa and I will keep our appointments in Denver and we hope that the members of the Green Party of Colorado will attend our sessions and listen to what we have to say. I have faith that by taking principled stands against war and occupation, human rights abuse, the prison-industrial complex, and in support of freedom for political prisoners, the Green party will emerge stronger.

Cynthia McKinney
Green Party Nominee for President of the United States

Rosa Clemente
Green Party Nominee for Vice President of the United States

*******
Liberation News endorses and encourages people to attend:
Recreate ‘68 Protest: Speakers and Free Concerts Schedule
http://recreate68.com/?p=135

FYI:
Alliance for Real Democracy: drinks and BBQ for Democrat Party delegates and their other scheduled events:
http://slapstickpolitics.blogspot.com/2008/07/alliance-for-real-democracy-dnc.html

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

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New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 06:44:35 GMT

New tribe against the occupation of Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

Massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan began in 1978 and continues to this day. The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill thousands of Afghan civilians and cause extreme suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrests and torture, and the general humiliation of the Afghani people.

As this author stated for Liberation News on September 12, 2001:

“Americans watched in horror as the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet it was a horror no different from what the U.S. government has done with it's bombing of civilian populations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. The U.S. bombings of just these countries, not to mention many other U.S. acts of war, murdered millions of civilians. Terror against civilians is never justified…

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen. With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing women for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate [oil pipeline] interests.” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2001

The Taliban was put in power by U.S. intervention. U.S. occupation today is a cause for war and continues to keep an extremely reactionary religious government in power. Afghanistan had secular governments with much wider women's rights before the U.S. began its massive intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970's. All U.S. imposed governments have been religious and anti-women. In Afghanistan, the Afghanis are better qualified to solve the problems caused by U.S. imperialism than U.S. imperialism is.

Yet rather than get out of Afghanistan Obama and McCain are proposing more troops, more helicopters, and more war.

NO TO THE BIPARTISAN OCCUPATION OF AFGHANISTAN!!!!

NO TO OBAMA and MCCAIN'S PROPOSED SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN!

U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!

http://tribes.tribe.net/outnow#

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Obama, the prince of bait-and-switch: Afghanistan

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 06:40:50 GMT

Obama, the prince of bait-and-switch
John Pilger

http://www.newstatesman.com/media/2008/07/pilger-obama-afghanistan-news

Published 24 July 2008

74 comments Print version Listen RSS I interviewed a woman who had lost eight members of her family, including six children to a US bomb - but mass murder in Afghanistan isn't news

On 12 July, the Times devoted two pages to Afghanistan. It was mostly a complaint about the heat. The reporter, Magnus Linklater, described in detail his discomfort and how he had needed to be sprayed with iced water. He also described the "high drama" and "meticulously practised routine" of evacuating another overheated journalist. For her US Marine rescuers, wrote Linklater, "saving a life took precedence over [their] security". Alongside this was a report whose final paragraph offered the only mention that "47 civilians, most of them women and children, were killed when a US aircraft bombed a wedding party in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday".

Slaughters on this scale are common, and mostly unknown to the British public. I interviewed a woman who had lost eight members of her family, including six children. A 500lb US Mk82 bomb was dropped on her mud, stone and straw house. There was no "enemy" nearby. I interviewed a headmaster whose house disappeared in a fireball caused by another "precision" bomb. Inside were nine people - his wife, his four sons, his brother and his wife, and his sister and her husband. Neither of these mass murders was news. As Harold Pinter wrote of such crimes: "Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest."

A total of 64 civilians were bombed to death while the Times man was discomforted. Most were guests at a wedding party. Wedding parties are a "coalition" speciality. At least four of them have been obliterated - at Mazar and in Khost, Uruzgan and Nangarhar provinces. Many of the details, including the names of victims, have been compiled by a New Hampshire professor, Marc Herold, whose Afghan Victim Memorial Project is a meticulous work of journalism that shames those who are paid to keep the record straight and report almost everything about the Afghan War through the public relations facilities of the British and American military.

The US and its allies are dropping record numbers of bombs on Afghanistan. This is not news. In the first half of this year, 1,853 bombs were dropped: more than all the bombs of 2006 and most of 2007. "The most frequently used bombs," the Air Force Times reports, "are the 500lb and 2,000lb satellite-guided . . ." Without this one-sided onslaught, the resurgence of the Taliban, it is clear, might not have happened. Even Hamid Karzai, America's and Britain's puppet, has said so. The presence and the aggression of foreigners have all but united a resistance that now includes former warlords once on the CIA's payroll.

The scandal of this would be headline news, were it not for what George W Bush's former spokesman Scott McClellan has called "complicit enablers" - journalists who serve as little more than official amplifiers. Having declared Afghanistan a "good war", the complicit enablers are now anointing Barack Obama as he tours the bloodfests in Afghanistan and Iraq. What they never say is that Obama is a bomber.

In the New York Times on 14 July, in an article spun to appear as if he is ending the war in Iraq, Obama demanded more war in Afghan istan and, in effect, an invasion of Pakistan. He wants more combat troops, more helicopters, more bombs. Bush may be on his way out, but the Republicans have built an ideological machine that transcends the loss of electoral power - because their collaborators are, as the American writer Mike Whitney put it succinctly, "bait-and-switch" Democrats, of whom Obama is the prince.

Those who write of Obama that "when it comes to international affairs, he will be a huge improvement on Bush" demonstrate the same wilful naivety that backed the bait-and-switch of Bill Clinton - and Tony Blair. Of Blair, wrote the late Hugo Young in 1997, "ideology has surrendered entirely to 'values' . . . there are no sacred cows [and] no fossilised limits to the ground over which the mind might range in search of a better Britain . . ."

Eleven years and five wars later, at least a million people lie dead. Barack Obama is the American Blair. That he is a smooth operator and a black man is irrelevant. He is of an enduring, rampant system whose drum majors and cheer squads never see, or want to see, the consequences of 500lb bombs dropped unerringly on mud, stone and straw houses.

Also see:

Obama Lays Out Plans for Continued War
by Steven Argue
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/07/14/18516240.php

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Obama Lays Out Plans for Continued War

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 16:10:47 GMT

Obama Lays Out Plans for Continued War

By Steven Argue

In a July 14, 2008 New York Times Op Ed, Barack Obama says:

"As I’ve said many times, we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. We can safely redeploy our combat brigades at a pace that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 — two years from now, and more than seven years after the war began. After this redeployment, a residual force in Iraq would perform limited missions: going after any remnants of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, protecting American service members and, so long as the Iraqis make political progress, training Iraqi security forces."

In other words, he does not plan to get all of the troops out of Iraq and he will only get most of the troops out in two years. And what does he explain he will do with these troops? Redeploy them. Redeployed where? His rhetoric has been clear: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran.

Obama goes on to call for a surge in Afghanistan as well as war in Pakistan:

"Ending the war [in Iraq] is essential to meeting our broader strategic goals, starting in Afghanistan and Pakistan [...] As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters [...]"

U.S. intervention has also been very bad for the people of Pakistan. It is US intervention that has kept a long series of dictators in power there. The US has no right to intervene against those fighting that dictatorship that it labels "terrorists". Likewise, it is US intervention in support of a long series of Pakistani dictators that is the cause of Bhutto's death, brutal repression against the majority, exploitation, and poverty, all of which has resulted in rebellion against the Pakistani government. The US has already harmed the Pakistani people enough with massive aid to dictators and would do more harm by sending in troops.

NO TO OBAMA’S PROPOSED MILITARY INTERVENTION IN PAKISTAN!

Massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan began in 1978 and continues to this day. The ongoing war in Afghanistan continues to kill thousands of Afghan civilians and cause extreme suffering due to horrendous injuries, the displacement of people from their homes and livelihoods, home invasions, sexual abuse, arbitrary arrests and torture, and the general humiliation of the Afghani people.

As this author stated for Liberation News on September 12, 2001:

“Americans watched in horror as the World Trade Center collapsed. Yet it was a horror no different from what the U.S. government has done with it's bombing of civilian populations in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Korea. The U.S. bombings of just these countries, not to mention many other U.S. acts of war, murdered millions of civilians. Terror against civilians is never justified…

“Today the clerical fascists of the Taliban rule Afghanistan. The CIA put them in power with billions of dollars in U.S. military aid. This massive U.S. intervention in Afghanistan was in opposition to the revolutionary PDPA government that came to power in 1978 on issues of promoting women’s rights and land reform. Literacy campaigns began teaching the poor and women how to read and write.

“Foreign religious fanatics and wealthy defenders of the old feudal system came together in a terrorist organization called the Mujahideen. With billions of dollars in assistance from the U.S. [starting under the Jimmy Carter presidency] these fanatical cutthroats waged a holy war that included killing women for teaching little girls how to read and write and throwing acid into the faces of women who had become liberated from the veil. The Taliban came to power as a result of this U.S. intervention.

“Will a U.S. war now against the Taliban and former CIA aid recipient Osama Bin Laden set things straight? No. It will be the people of Afghanistan who suffer death and destruction from war as the U.S. attempts to install a puppet government friendly to U.S. corporate (oil) interests.” Steven Argue, Liberation News, September 12, 2001

The Taliban was put in power by U.S. intervention. U.S. occupation today is a cause for war and continues to keep an extremely reactionary religious government in power. Afghanistan had secular governments with much wider women's rights before the U.S. began its massive intervention in Afghanistan in the 1970's. All U.S. imposed governments have been religious and anti-women. In Afghanistan, the Afghanis are better qualified to solve the problems caused by U.S. imperialism than U.S. imperialism is.

Yet rather than get out of Afghanistan Obama is proposing more troops, more helicopters, and more war.

NO TO OBAMA”S PROPOSED SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN!

U.S. OUT OF AFGHANISTAN NOW!

In addition, at AIPAC, Obama’s speech laid the groundwork for war with Iran:

“The Iranian regime supports violent extremists and challenges us across the region. It pursues a nuclear capability that could spark a dangerous arms race and raise the prospect of a transfer of nuclear know-how to terrorists. [...] The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat.”

A war on a major oil producing nation under the imperialist excuse of weapons of mass destruction. Sound familiar? Bush would have a good case for a charge of plagiarism against Obama.

And what will the Iranians think of more imperialist intervention?

In 1953 the CIA overthrew the democratically elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh in Iran and put the brutal dictatorship of the Shah in power. Mossadegh had plans to nationalize the Iranian oil fields, a plan that would have taken a good chunk of the oil profits out of the private control of major international oil companies. Such nationalizations have greatly helped people in other countries, such as Venezuela, where oil wealth is used to better the conditions of the poor and provide needed programs like healthcare.

The CIA sponsored overthrow of the Mossadegh government paved the way for 26 years of dictatorship under the U.S. backed Shah. Freedom of speech did not exist under the Shah, and the CIA participated in the torture of political opponents to the Shah. Meanwhile, U.S. oil corporations made massive profits from Iranian oil while the vast majority of the Iranian people lived in extreme poverty and did not benefit from the oil wealth.

The Iranian people rightly saw the Shah as a puppet of U.S. imperialism, and finally overthrew his dictatorship in 1979. Unfortunately, repression was so bad under the Shah that the only place that people could organize opposition was in the Mosques. This gave the Mullahs a tremendous advantage in taking control of the revolution. The Islamic nature of the revolution led to a deterioration of women's rights and socialists, many of whom had naively supported the Islamic Revolution, were executed by the clerical fascist state.

Despite the brutal nature of the new Iranian government, in that respect the same as the old regime the U.S. had supported, the U.S. was not satisfied. The new regime nationalized the Iranian oil fields under government control. In addition, the new government was full of anti-imperialist rhetoric and took American hostages; a natural result of 26 years of U.S. imposed dictatorship and exploitation. The U.S. government hated the Iranian revolution most for nationalizing the oil, and they feared that the Iranian Revolution may become an influence for similar anti-imperialist revolutions in the region.

As a result, the U.S. encouraged then ally, Saddam Hussein, to send Iraqi troops to invade Iran. During the war, the U.S. armed both sides, but most armed Iraq and provided Iraq with military intelligence. The Iraqi invasion of Iran began on September 22, 1980 and the war continued until 1988. As a result of the war, between half million and a million and a half people died. This U.S. support to Iraq also helped enable Iraq to murder between 50,000 and 100,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaign of 1988. At the time, the U.S. corporate media was silent about this crime, and only exposed it later when U.S. alliances changed.

So U.S. intervention against Iran imposed decades of dictatorship, repression, war, exploitation, poverty, and, just in the Iran-Iraq war alone, the deaths of around a million Iranian people. Like Iraq, U.S. troops on the ground in Iran will not be treated as liberators.

The Iranian working class has many scores to settle with their Iranian rulers, but as bad as the current regime in Iran is, Iranians need only look across the border into Iraq to see that U.S. occupation will be much worse. War, a puppet capitalist regime, a million dead, torture, millions of refugees, and an occupier mainly interested in privatization to loot resources. As Iraq shows, there is no liberation at the hands of U.S. occupation. And as the CIA’s Shah showed; there is no liberation under a U.S. imposed puppet. Only anti-imperialist socialist revolution can begin to solve the problems faced by women, ethnic minorities, and the working class of Iran.

NO TO OBAMA’S THREATS AGAINST IRAN!

U.S. HANDS OFF IRAN!

On Iraq, Obama has never promised to fully withdraw. In a debate in September 2007, when asked if he would have U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013 Barack Obama said "I believe that we should have all our troops out by 2013, but I don't want to make promises not knowing what the situation's going to be three or four years out." ("The Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC", New York Times 9/26/07).

The U.S. must leave by air, sea, and land as quickly as possible. U.S. imperialism has created a horrible situation, but that is no excuse to stay, and U.S. troops, Halliburton, etc. are only making matters worse. Over a million Iraqis are dead. These deaths are not just caused by the civil war that the U.S. has ignited, nor are they just caused by the death-squad government that the U.S. has put in power. U.S. guns and bombers are also the direct cause of a large number of deaths. Iraq needs to be turned over to the Iraqi people through immediate withdrawal.

In addition, Obama has directly supported the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq by voting in the Senate to fund it. If it were not for the Democrat votes in congress, the recent $162 billion dollars for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan would have never passed.

This most recent New York Times Op Ed from Obama continues on with a pro-war position. Obama is clear. He wants a gradual redeployment of the majority of troops to fight other wars while calling for continuing to keep some troops fighting in Iraq.

On Blackwater mercenaries fighting in Iraq, Obama also refuses to support a ban, and promised to continue to use Blackwater when he becomes president (Democracy Now!, June 2, 2008).

The US government has no right to be in Iraq murdering, torturing, and humiliating their people while making massive profits for the military industry and other contractors. The U.S. is attempting to privatize Iraqi oil to eliminate Iraqi control over this most important resource and give U.S. and British oil companies control over the oil. The puppet government the US has set up is a death squad government that should not be protected by U.S. troops. Continued occupation of Iraq is a continued attempt to subvert the national will of the Iraqi people and it must end immediately, yet Obama's plan is to only leave, partially, after a couple years, and this, assuredly, only after the oil law has been passed and oil ownership handed over to the multi-nationals. This, as Obama's own use of the term "redeployment" indicates, will free U.S. troops up for other oil wars.

NO TO OBAMA’S “PHASED REDEPLOYMENT”!

U.S. OUT OF IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN NOW!

U.S. HANDS OFF THE WORLD!

Another major cause for war in the Middle East is U.S. military support to the racist regime in Israel. Obama promises to continue this practice. At AIPAC Obama promised:

“Defense cooperation between the United States and Israel is a model of success, and must be deepened. As president, I will implement a Memorandum of Understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade — investments to Israel's security that will not be tied to any other nation. First, we must approve the foreign aid request for 2009. Going forward, we can enhance our cooperation on missile defense. We should export military equipment to our ally Israel under the same guidelines as NATO.”

This despite Israel’s recent war of aggression against Lebanon, a war that, if it were not for the heroic resistance of Hezbollah fighters, would have ended in another Israeli occupation like Israel’s brutal occupation of Lebanon that took place in the 1980’s. That occupation included crimes against humanity committed by Israeli and allied Christian Phalangists when they massacred thousands of Palestinians in cold-blood at the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps.

In addition, Obama’s speech made no reference to the suffering faced by the Palestinian people as a result of the creation and continuation of the Jewish state. Israel is a state that created a homeland for one people, through force and violence, by denying the homeland of Palestine’s original inhabitants. Also missing from Obama’s speech was the brutal blockade currently being carried out against Palestinians in Gaza. Obama expressed zero sympathy for the Palestinians and other Arabs, only promises to supply Israel with the weapons to kill more Arabs.

Massive U.S. military aid helps keep the repressive governments of Israel, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in power. Instead of promising more U.S. military aid, that aid should be cut off to better allow the people of the Middle East to decide their own future.

NO TO OBAMA’S PROMISE OF BILLIONS TO ISRAEL!

Another indicator of where Obama stands on imperialist war is how he sees the past wars of the United States. Of H. W. Bush and his war on Iraq Obama recently stated, "I have enormous sympathy for the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush. I don't have a lot of complaints about their handling of Desert Storm." (Barack Obama, from David Brooks article, "Obama Admires Bush, NY Times, May 16, 2008)

Leading up to that war, Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraqi Ramaila oil fields. Iraq saw this as theft. In addition, the Kuwaiti monarchy went against OPEC quotas and increased oil production by 40%, bringing down the price of oil on the world market, something Saddam Hussein called economic warfare.

Before Iraq invaded Kuwait, Saddam Hussein was, at that time an ally of the United States in the wars against Iran and the Kurds. He had received massive U.S. military backing in those wars. When he assembled troops on the Kuwaiti border, US ambassador April Glaspie met with Saddam Hussein and told him, "We have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait."

Saddam Hussein saw this as a green light from his powerful U.S. ally to invade Kuwait. Soon after, he did.

But Saddam Hussein was set up by the United States because the U.S. wanted a war. The reason for this was to prop up the profits of the military industrial complex. The Soviet Union had just fallen, and the military industries needed an excuse to keep spending billions of dollars of our tax dollars on the military.

Saddam Hussein was the perfect boogie-man to meet their needs. The U.S. corporate media pointed out that he had murdered tens of thousands of Kurds, never mentioning why they were silent when the operations were taking place with weapons supplied by the United States.

The U.S. corporate media also claimed that premature babies in Kuwait had been taken out of incubators and left to die so that the incubators could be shipped back to Baghdad. The whole story was a complete fabrication, and the corporate media even admitted it after the war, but the lie served its purpose in swaying many people who otherwise questioned going to war for the repressive Kuwaiti monarchy.

In addition, President H.W. Bush claimed as reason for war, "Within three days, 120,000 Iraqi troops with 850 tanks had poured into Kuwait and moved south to threaten Saudi Arabia. It was then that I decided to act to check that aggression." This was based on supposed Pentagon satellite photos. Yet, from commercial satellite photos acquired by the St. Petersburg Times, this was proven to be a lie, the desert Bush senior and the Pentagon referred to was nothing but empty desert.

While playing up false stories of baby killers and the new Hitler that was going to march across the Middle East, the U.S. corporate media ignored Kuwait’s theft of Iraqi oil as well the historic claim of Iraq to Kuwait, with Kuwait being a construct of British imperialism to divide the territory and limit Iraqi access to the sea.

In addition, the U.S. corporate media completely ignored the repressive nature of the Kuwaiti monarchy that U.S. troops were sent to fight and die for. The vast majority of those living in Kuwait were denied the right to vote and other more basic rights. This included women and people labeled foreigners, many of whom had been in Kuwait for generations. Some who had ancestors in Kuwait prior to 1920 were even denied Kuwaiti citizenship. Palestinian workers built modern Kuwait, but they were kept in second class status. This situation was so bad that many Palestinians aided the Iraqi troops and saw them as a liberation army. After the U.S. re-installed the monarchy, most Kuwaiti Palestinians were driven out of Kuwait.

For women in Kuwait the Iraqi invasion also brought hope. Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Under Saddam Hussein, over 50% of Iraqi doctors were women. Iraqi women were allowed to walk unescorted in the streets. They were allowed to drive. Iraqi women could even freely criticize men. In addition, Iraqi women had the right to work and control their own funds. This was in stark contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive monarchy of Kuwait where women had / have no rights what-so-ever.

In carrying out the war to defend the Kuwaiti monarchy the U.S. used depleted uranium (DU) weapons that have contaminated Iraqi water, soil, and food with radiation. This radiation has caused large numbers of birth defects and other diseases for the Iraqi people. In addition, U.S. soldiers were not given protection and, as a result, became ill in massive numbers with the symptoms of radiation poisoning. Like Agent Orange poisoning in Vietnam, the military brass pretended they had no clue to the cause of this illness that became dubbed “Persian Gulf War Syndrome”. Yet this was later exposed as a lie when reports were made public warning the military brass of the health risks of DU weapons before the war.

Government demographer Beth Osborn Duponte lost her job when she estimated the civilian loss of life in Iraq to be around 83,000, 13,000 directly from U.S. bombing and another 70,000 civilians dead as a result of U.S. targeting of civilian necessities such as water treatment facilities, medical facilities and supplies, and the electric power grid.

In addition, Duponte estimated deaths of Iraqi troops to be around 40,000. Many of the Iraqi troops killed were buried alive. In defense of U.S. actions Col. Lon Maggart said, "People somehow have the notion that burying guys alive is nastier than blowing them up with hand grenades or sticking them in gut with bayonets, well it's not."

So Obama has no problems with Bush targeting civilians, irradiating U.S. troops and the Iraqi people, burying people alive, lying to the American people, and re-installing a repressive monarchy in Kuwait. In addition, Obama wants to escalate the war in Afghanistan, send troops into Pakistan, is already threatening Iran with war, will never fully pull out of Iraq and only promises to pull out most troops in two years after an extended gradual re-deployment of troops to other wars, will continue to use murderous Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq, and promises billions in military aid to Israel. Enough said.

Obama will be nominated the presidential candidate of the Democrat Party on August 24-28 at the Democrat Party National Convention (DNC). In opposition to the DNC convention, protests are being organized, with organizers stating:

"On August 24-28, the ruling elite and their defenders will converge in Denver Colorado, in an attempt to recuperate the gains of global social movements and produce another myth of progress. Lip service to global warming, the economic crisis and the war will endow them with the magic to spread amnesia across the hearts and minds of North America... Outside those doors, however, so many will exclaim, smash and sing a harmonious ‘no.’...”

In addition, there will be protests at the equally pro-war Republican National convention being held September 1-4 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Although virtually ignored by the corporate press, there are other presidential candidates who are running in opposition to the Democrats and Republicans who are for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. These include Cynthia McKinney running on the Green Party ticket, Brian Moore of the Socialist Party, Gloria La Riva on the Party for Socialism and Liberation ticket, and Róger Calero on the Socialist Workers Party ticket. Corporate controlled elections and media assure that these authentic anti-war candidates will not get elected, but these candidacies do help expose people to positions of politicians not controlled by corporate interests and the pro-war Democrat Party machine. In addition, through some of these campaigns, more people become exposed to socialist ideas and the ideas of class struggle methods to bring about change.

A vote for Obama or McCain is a vote for war! So that's what, in active terms, you're really voting for when you vote Democrat or Republican. Those of us voting for third parties in order to try to help build the kinds of parties and ideas that would really bring change, and those of us refusing to vote in order to not participate in such a blatantly rigged system, neither will change the country through these up-coming elections either, but at least we won’t be dumb enough to vote for own oppressors and exploiters that are waging imperialist war. And we will not be drawn into making apologies for imperialist war politicians like Obama. Instead, we will have the sense to be working for something different.

And those of us in unions should be angry that our hard earned union dues are being squandered on the Democrat Party when that money should instead be put into stronger strike funds to strengthen our ability to fight for better contracts, for socialized medicine, and for bigger strikes against the wars.

Build the Anti-War Movement! For More Strikes for Immediate Withdrawal Like the May 1st ILWU Anti-War Strike That Shut Down 29 Ports! Support Soldiers Refusing to Fight Including the 10,000 U.S. Soldiers Who Have Gone AWOL! Build the Socialist and Anti-Imperialist Movements! U.S. Hands off Iran! U.S. Out of Iraq and Afghanistan Now!

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Join the Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

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US longshore union leader : "don't vote for Obama"

Sat, 12 Jul 2008 19:22:09 GMT

US longshore union leader : "don't vote for Obama"

SHORT VIDEO OF JACK HEYMAN'S COMMENTS ON OBAMA AT PERMANENT REVOLUTION WEEKEND SCHOOL IN LONDON

Try either of the links below for the video

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/?view=entry&entry=2202

http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/2202

Also from Jack Heyman, see:

Longshoremen to close ports on West Coast to protest war

http://uspolitics.tribe.net/thread/0de5539d-06be-406e-a4a8-e45eaef28b9f

******************************************

Distributed by Liberation News:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Message From Iraqi Resistance

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 21:20:07 GMT

While I have disagreements with the following group, they make many good points in this video, and I agree most fundamentally with the right of Iraqis to run their country as they see fit without the US occupation.

Message From Iraqi Resistance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccMuRyBnTIs&feature=related

The following are insane US troops caught on tape in Iraq. Would you want this occupation army in your country?

US Marines Throw Puppy Off Cliff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6zXpgcpW5w&feature=related

US Soldier on tape admits to rape and torture in Iraq!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3dvoBhevOQ&feature=related

Iraq - Soldiers shoot civilians
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWE5hu4z_8Y&NR=1

Abu Ghraib - Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz7UNxnOI3M&NR=1

American Soldiers attack on Terrorist sheep
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TQdgyEapvw&feature=related

KILL EVERYBODY: American soldier exposes US policy in Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwwMF6biCJU&feature=related

Iraqi Kids Begging For Water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSnHudm5Cmk&feature=related

Apache killing Iraqi Truck drivers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbVTfrm06v8&feature=related

Winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyRPYMTICRM&feature=related

Soldiers beat teenage Iraqis
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mnp0C0PNZT4&feature=related

US Soldiers Shoot A Dog!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bQU89FyVw0&feature=related

US soldiers Killing a wounded Iraqi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0qs71TYwoM&feature=related

American Soldiers having fun Killing Civilians in Iraq
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FD1jHueZZc&feature=related

American Soldiers Taunt Thirsty Iraqi Kids
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=667SaGS-Jqg&feature=related

US / British Troops Out of Iraq!

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Democrats back $162 billion more war funding

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:31:17 GMT

[The U.S. must leave by air, sea, and land as quickly as possible. U.S. imperialism has created a horrible situation, but that is no excuse to stay, and U.S. troops, Halliburton, etc. are only making matters worse. Over a million Iraqis are dead. These deaths are not just caused by the civil war that the U.S. has ignited, nor are they just caused by the death-squad government that the U.S. has put in power. U.S. guns and bombers are also the direct cause of a large number of deaths. Iraq needs to be turned over to the Iraqi people through immediate withdrawal. -Steven Argue]

Democrats back $162 billion more war funding

by Yosef M

News sources on the Web report that on Thursday, June 20, the US House of Representatives approved Iraq and Afghanistan war funding of $162 billion. The legislation was passed without any timetable for US military withdrawal from the two conflicts. The bill, supported by the US House Democratic leadership Pelosi and Hoyer, will fund US wars in the two Middle Eastern countries through the middle of 2009. House Democrats, who were sent to Washington with a single mandate from the US electorate in 2006, to extricate the US from the two wars in the Middle East, consistently support legislation to continue those very wars. The vote is instructive; it reflects the same pattern we saw in the passage of the government spying bill the next day. If the Democrats had voted as an opposition, against war funding, the bill would have failed to pass, with 188 Republicans in favor and 235 Democrats opposing. And there would have been nothing Bush could have done: he can veto what Congress passes, but no President can veto what Congress refuses to pass.

What happened instead is that 80 Democrats joined the Republicans to approve the funding and continue US wars of aggression against the long-suffering peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq. As has already been noted in the press, Bush's popularity has fallen to historic lows;
it is also true that a majority of US residents have opposed US intervention in Iraq for many years, a fact not reflected in the US press until after the Democratic sweep of Congress in the 2006 elections. As other people have noted, there is no way the thoroughly despised lame duck Bush can hurt Congressional Democrats now. If the Democrats go on funding Bush's wars, and they are and will, it is because they want to. All of which makes it inexplicable that most of the US "left" is ga-ga over the Democrats and their candidate this election year.

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the NEW feminists ~ YAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

lmbfreespirit — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 20:52:15 GMT

WE ARE: ladies, smart, we don't hate ALL men, we shave our legs and armpits~
~we HAVE to with the heat from global warming ;)* GIGGLE

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John Pilger: "From Kennedy to Obama; Liberalism's Last Fling"

Sat, 31 May 2008 19:47:55 GMT

ZNet
May, 31 2008

"What is Obama's attraction to big business? Precisely the same as Robert Kennedy's. By offering a 'new', young and apparently progressive face of the Democratic Party -- with the bonus of being a member of the black elite -- he can blunt and divert real opposition. That was Colin Powell's role as Bush's secretary of state. An Obama victory will bring intense pressure on the US anti-war and social justice movements to accept a Democratic administration for all its faults. If that happens, domestic resistance to rapacious America will fall silent." -- John Pilger
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From Kennedy To Obama; Liberalism's Last Fling
By John Pilger

In this season of 1968 nostalgia, one anniversary illuminates today. It is the rise and fall of Robert Kennedy, who would have been elected president of the United States had he not been assassinated in June 1968. Having travelled with Kennedy up to the moment of his shooting at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on 5 June, I heard The Speech many times. He would "return government to the people" and bestow "dignity and justice" on the oppressed. "As Bernard Shaw once said," he would say, "'Most men look at things as they are and wonder why. I dream of things that never were and ask: Why not?'" That was the signal to run back to the bus. It was fun until a hail of bullets passed over our shoulders.

Kennedy's campaign is a model for Barack Obama. Like Obama, he was a senator with no achievements to his name. Like Obama, he raised the expectations of young people and minorities. Like Obama, he promised to end an unpopular war, not because he opposed the war's conquest of other people's land and resources, but because it was "unwinnable".

Should Obama beat John McCain to the White House in November, it will be liberalism's last fling. In the United States and Britain, liberalism as a war-making, divisive ideology is once again being used to destroy liberalism as a reality. A great many people understand this, as the hatred of Blair and new Labour attest, but many are disoriented and eager for "leadership" and basic social democracy. In the US, where unrelenting propaganda about American democratic uniqueness disguises a corporate system based on extremes of wealth and privilege, liberalism as expressed through the Democratic Party has played a crucial, compliant role.

In 1968, Robert Kennedy sought to rescue the party and his own ambitions from the threat of real change that came from an alliance of the civil rights campaign and the anti-war movement then commanding the streets of the main cities, and which Martin Luther King had drawn together until he was assassinated in April that year. Kennedy had supported the war in Vietnam and continued to support it in private, but this was skillfully suppressed as he competed against the maverick Eugene McCarthy, whose surprise win in the New Hampshire primary on an anti-war ticket had forced President Lyndon Johnson to abandon the idea of another term. Using the memory of his martyred brother, Kennedy assiduously exploited the electoral power of delusion among people hungry for politics that represented them, not the rich.

"These people love you," I said to him as we left Calexico, California, where the immigrant population lived in abject poverty and people came like a great wave and swept him out of his car, his hands fastened to their lips.

"Yes, yes, sure they love me," he replied. "I love them!" I asked him how exactly he would lift them out of poverty: just what was his political philosophy?

"Philosophy? Well, it's based on a faith in this country and I believe that many Americans have lost this faith and I want to give it back to them, because we are the last and the best hope of the world, as Thomas Jefferson said."

"That's what you say in your speech. Surely the question is: How?"

"How? . . . by charting a new direction for America."

The vacuities are familiar. Obama is his echo. Like Kennedy, Obama may well "chart a new direction for America" in specious, media-honed language, but in reality he will secure, like every president, the best damned democracy money can buy.

As their contest for the White House draws closer, watch how, regardless of the inevitable personal smears, Obama and McCain draw nearer to each other. They already concur on America's divine right to control all before it. "We lead the world in battling immediate evils and promoting the ultimate good," said Obama. "We must lead by building a 21st-century military . . . to advance the security of all people [emphasis added]." McCain agrees. Obama says in pursuing "terrorists" he would attack Pakistan. McCain wouldn't quarrel. Both candidates have paid ritual obeisance to the regime in Tel Aviv, unquestioning support for which defines all presidential ambition. In opposing a UN Security Council resolution implying criticism of Israel's starvation of the people of Gaza, Obama was ahead of both McCain and Hillary Clinton. In January, pressured by the Israel lobby, he massaged a statement that "nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people" to now read: "Nobody has suffered more than the Palestinian people from the failure of the Palestinian leadership to recognise Israel [emphasis added]." Such is his concern for the victims of the longest, illegal military occupation of modern times. Like all the candidates, Obama has furthered Israeli/Bush fictions about Iran, whose regime, he says absurdly, "is a threat to all of us".

On the war in Iraq, Obama the dove and McCain the hawk are almost united. McCain now says he wants US troops to leave in five years (instead of "100 years", his earlier option). Obama has now "reserved the right" to change his pledge to get troops out next year. "I will listen to our commanders on the ground," he now says, echoing Bush. His adviser on Iraq, Colin Kahl, says the US should maintain up to 80,000 troops in Iraq until 2010. Like McCain, Obama has voted repeatedly in the Senate to support Bush's demands for funding of the occupation of Iraq; and he has called for more troops to be sent to Afghanistan. His senior advisers embrace McCain's proposal for an aggressive "league of democracies", led by the United States, to circumvent the United Nations.

Like McCain, he would extend the crippling embargo on Cuba.

Amusingly, both have denounced their "preachers" for speaking out. Whereas McCain's man of God praised Hitler, in the fashion of lunatic white holy-rollers, Obama's man, Jeremiah Wright, spoke an embarrassing truth. He said that the attacks of 11 September 2001 had taken place as a consequence of the violence of US power across the world. The media demanded that Obama disown Wright and swear an oath of loyalty to the Bush lie that "terrorists attacked America because they hate our freedoms". So he did. The conflict in the Middle East, said Obama, was rooted not "primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel", but in "the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam". Journalists applauded. Islamophobia is a liberal speciality.

The American media love both Obama and McCain. Reminiscent of mating calls by Guardian writers to Blair more than a decade ago, Jann Wenner, founder of the liberal Rolling Stone, wrote: "There is a sense of dignity, even majesty, about him, and underneath that ease lies a resolute discipline . . . Like Abraham Lincoln, Barack Obama challenges America to rise up, to do what so many of us long to do: to summon 'the better angels of our nature'." At the liberal New Republic, Charles Lane confessed: "I know it shouldn't be happening, but it is. I'm falling for John McCain." His colleague Michael Lewis had gone further. His feelings for McCain, he wrote, were like "the war that must occur inside a 14-year-old boy who discovers he is more sexually attracted to boys than to girls".

The objects of these uncontrollable passions are as one in their support for America's true deity, its corporate oligarchs. Despite claiming that his campaign wealth comes from small individual donors, Obama is backed by the biggest Wall Street firms: Goldman Sachs, UBS AG, Lehman Brothers, J P Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse, as well as the huge hedge fund Citadel Investment Group. "Seven of the Obama campaign's top 14 donors," wrote the investigator Pam Martens, "consisted of officers and employees of the same Wall Street firms charged time and again with looting the public and newly implicated in originating and/or bundling fraudulently made mortgages." A report by United for a Fair Economy, a non-profit group, estimates the total loss to poor Americans of colour who took out sub-prime loans as being between $164bn and $213bn: the greatest loss of wealth ever recorded for people of colour in the United States. "Washington lobbyists haven't funded my campaign," said Obama in January, "they won't run my White House and they will not drown out the voices of working Americans when I am president." According to files held by the Centre for Responsive Politics, the top five contributors to the Obama campaign are registered corporate lobbyists.

What is Obama's attraction to big business? Precisely the same as Robert Kennedy's. By offering a "new", young and apparently progressive face of the Democratic Party - with the bonus of being a member of the black elite - he can blunt and divert real opposition. That was Colin Powell's role as Bush's secretary of state. An Obama victory will bring intense pressure on the US anti-war and social justice movements to accept a Democratic administration for all its faults. If that happens, domestic resistance to rapacious America will fall silent.

America's war on Iran has already begun. In December, Bush secretly authorised support for two guerrilla armies inside Iran, one of which, the military arm of Mujahedin-e Khalq, is described by the state department as terrorist. The US is also engaged in attacks or subversion against Somalia, Lebanon, Syria, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Bolivia and Venezuela. A new military command, Africom, is being set up to fight proxy wars for control of Africa's oil and other riches. With US missiles soon to be stationed provocatively on Russia's borders, the Cold War is back. None of these piracies and dangers has raised a whisper in the presidential campaign, not least from its great liberal hope.

Moreover, none of the candidates represents so-called mainstream America. In poll after poll, voters make clear that they want the normal decencies of jobs, proper housing and health care. They want their troops out of Iraq and the Israelis to live in peace with their Palestinian neighbours. This is a remarkable testimony, given the daily brainwashing of ordinary Americans in almost everything they watch and read.

On this side of the Atlantic, a deeply cynical electorate watches British liberalism's equivalent last fling. Most of the "philosophy" of new Labour was borrowed wholesale from the US. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were interchangeable. Both were hostile to traditionalists in their parties who might question the corporate-speak of their class-based economic policies and their relish for colonial conquests. Now the British find themselves spectators to the rise of new Tory, distinguishable from Blair's new Labour only in the personality of its leader, a former corporate public relations man who presents himself as Tonier than thou. We all deserve better.

www.johnpilger.com

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New documentary on the environmental impacts of war

flaneuse — Wed, 28 May 2008 12:25:14 GMT

Last night I went to a screening of a very good documentary on the environmental impacts of war called Scarred Lands & Wounded Lives: The Environmental Footprint of War. With all the talk of peace and all the talk of environment, it's good that somone has pulled this info together in one place. It's not "light viewing" by any means, but it's not sensationalized either. I recommend it.

A trailer for the film can be viewed here:

http://www.ecology.com/tv/vidpages/scarredlandswoundedlives.html

I think a lot these days about how to cope with all this, to be excited at the possibility of real large-scale change (now that humanity's hand is increasingly being forced) or just depressed that it's unlikely we'll get it together in time to avert large(er)-scale disaster.

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Iraqi Oil Workers Tell Chevron "Hands Off Iraq"

Mon, 26 May 2008 22:20:06 GMT

Iraqi Oil Workers Tell Chevron "Hands Off Iraq"

In a letter to Chevron executives and shareholders (and to ExxonMobil, who meet the same day), Iraqi Oil Workers Unions call on Chevron to end the occupation and stop pushing for the Iraq Oil [Theft] Law. This message will be delivered by antiwar, environmenta, and labor organizers as a protest converges on Chevrons annual shareholder meeting. Their message is below. This event will be on Wednesday May 28, at 7am at Chevrons Corporate headquarters in San Ramon. For more information, see: http://bayareadirectaction.wordpress.com/2008/05/14/may-28-demand-justice-from-chevron/

******************
To: The Shareholders of ExxonMobil and Chevron Corporations and All Peace Loving People of the World

From: Hassan Juma’a Awad, President, Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions (IFOU)

We call upon the governments, corporations and other institutions behind the ongoing occupation of Iraq to respond to our demands for real democracy, true sovereignty and self-determination, free of all foreign interference.

Five years of invasion, war and occupation have brought nothing but death, destruction, misery and suffering to our people. In the name of our “liberation,” more than a million of our citizens have been killed or wounded, our nation’s schools, hospitals and other infrastructure have been destroyed, our neighbourhoods have been bombed, our homes have been broken into, our children have been traumatized, many of our family members and neighbours have been assaulted and arrested, our national treasures have been looted, and nearly twenty percent of our people have been turned into refugees.

The continued occupation fuels the violence in Iraq rather than alleviating it. The occupation has helped to foment and then exploit sectarian divisions and terror attacks where there had been none.

The Ba’athist legislation of 1987, which banned trade unions in the public sector and public enterprises (80% of all workers), is still in effect and continues to be enforced against us. Our union offices have been raided. Union property has been seized and destroyed. Our bank accounts have been frozen. Our leaders have been beaten, arrested, abducted and assassinated. Our rights as workers are routinely violated. This is an attack on our rights and the basic precepts of a democratic society. It is a grim reminder of the shadow of dictatorship still stalking our country.

We call upon you and all the world’s peace-loving peoples to help us to end the nightmare of occupation and restore our sovereignty and national independence so that we can chart our own course to the future.

1) We demand an immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from our country, and utterly reject the agreement being negotiated with the USA for long-term bases and a military presence. Iraq must be returned to full sovereignty.

2) We demand the passage of a labour law promised by our Constitution, that adheres to ILO principles to protect the rights of workers to organize, bargain and strike, independent of state control and interference and on which Iraqi trade unionists have been fully consulted.

3) We demand an end to meddling in our sovereign economic affairs by the International Monetary Fund, the USA and UK, and multinational energy corporations, and recognition that no major economic decisions concerning our services and resources can be made while foreign troops occupy our country.

4) We demand that the US government, oil companies and others immediately cease lobbying for the oil law which would fracture the country and hand control over our oil to multinational companies like ExxonMobil and Chevron. We demand that all oil companies be prevented from entering into any long-term agreement concerning oil while Iraq remains occupied. The Iraqi government must tear up the current draft of the oil law, and begin to develop a legitimate oil policy based on full and genuine consultation with the Iraqi people. Only after all occupation forces are gone should a long term plan for the development of our oil resources be adopted.

We seek your support and solidarity to help us end the military and economic occupation of our country.

We look forward to the day when we have a world based on co-operation and solidarity.

We look forward to a world free from war, sectarianism, competition and exploitation.

******************
Also See:

Take the Profit Out of Global Warming and War, Nationalize the Oil Industry
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/05/24/18501994.php

Clinton and Obama: Failures on War and Global Warming
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/02/10/18478172.php

Join the Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

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Take the Profit Out of Global Warming, Nationalize the Oil Industry

Sat, 24 May 2008 22:38:50 GMT

Take the Profit Out of Global Warming and War, Nationalize the Oil Industry

Global Warming, the Biggest Threat to Humanity and Other Living Things

By STEVEN ARGUE

In Myanmar the death toll from a cyclone is, according to the Red Cross, between 69,000 and 128,000 people, with many more deaths possible from disease and starvation. Adding to the ferocity of the storm’s impact has been the fact that much of the mangrove habitat that had protected the Myanmar coast has been cleared. In addition, with strong parallels to Bush’s refusal to accept thousands of well trained and well equipped aid workers who would have saved lives in New Orleans, the repressive capitalist government of Myanmar has hindered the ability of international aid workers to do what needs to be done to save lives in Myanmar.

Last year, China had their worst cyclone in over 50 years. Around the world, warmer oceans are increasing the frequency and severity of hurricanes, cyclones, and typhoons. This is happening because the world’s warmer oceans feed more moisture into these tropical storms. As a result, computer models of global warming also project hurricanes in places that haven’t had them in known human history. One of these projections was that hurricanes would form in the South Atlantic. Fitting predictions, the first ever known South Atlantic hurricane made landfall on southern Brazil in 2004.

Last year Tokyo had a warm winter, with no snow cover for the first time in recorded history.

California is having the driest spring in 150 years, with regular water shortages in the long-term projections as a result of global warming. Already, on May 22, a wildfire started in the Santa Cruz Mountains, burning thousands of acres and destroying homes. That fire has yet to be contained. With wildfires starting this early, there is reason to fear this upcoming fire season in California.

The Santa Cruz area has a Mediterranean climate. These climates are characterized by winter rainy seasons and dry summers. Places with Mediterranean climates around the world are facing dryer weather with more wildfires. This is also happening in Greece and Australia. Forests and chaparral are burning up as habitats are changing and adjacent deserts are expanding.

The ice sheets in the arctic are disappearing at an ever increasing rate, and some of the latest predictions now project the potential of northern summer ice sheets completely disappearing within six years, bringing on the extinction of the polar bear and other species. As the white ice and snow disappears, dark ocean absorbs more of the sun’s heat, and escalates the rate of global warming even further.

In 2005 the Amazon River basin faced a drought never seen in recorded history. For the first time in recorded history a stretch of the Amazon River went completely dry in 2005, with causes attributed to a combination of less rainfall, smaller glaciers in the Andes (as a result of melting), and deforestation. Computer models predict that the rains that are necessary for the continued flow of the Amazon River will dry up due to the warmth of the Atlantic Ocean, causing moisture to fall directly as rain into the Atlantic rather than being blown inland. In addition to these projections saying that the Amazon River will dry up as a result of global warming, they also say that the Amazon rainforest will begin a regression first to grassland ending with the massive desertification of the Amazon Basin within the next one-hundred years. This, and other processes of desertification around the world, will, like rising oceans, cause starvation, massive refugee crisis’s, and also cause mass extinction of plant and animal species. Presently, the trees of the Amazon Forest remove greenhouse carbon from the atmosphere, but as climate changes and the forest disappears, this process will reverse itself, and the region will be adding carbon to the atmosphere.

Today, every national academy of science of the industrialized world recognizes human caused global warming as a fact. These include the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences who explicitly use the word "consensus" on the issue.

Yet there are a few voices who claim that human caused global warming is a myth. Among these is the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a foundation funded by ExxonMobile. Under pressure, ExxonMobile declared they would no longer fund such groups. Yet, a study of ExxonMobiles tax returns showed they were lying and that they were still funding 14 other similar groups. Among these is the organization “Frontiers for Freedom” who recently issued a report that was dedicated to attacking Al Gore and global warming science.

The problem of global warming is one that will, and is, devastating the planet’s environment, causing mass extinction of species while also destroying agricultural and habitable land through rising oceans, more severe hurricanes, droughts, more unpredictable weather, increases in tropical diseases, the slowing of ocean currents causing year round freezing weather with a potential ice age in the northern hemisphere combined with higher temperatures closer to the equator, and the potential of runaway global warming with the melting of the ocean’s methane hydride that could actually cause the extinction of the human species as well as most other species on the planet.

The United States is still the biggest contributor to global warming in the world. Per capita, China has much lower carbon emissions than the United States. Likewise, historically their output is also much less than the United States. No country outdoes the extreme per-capita output of US consumerism, nor do they outdo the historic US output, output which stays in the atmosphere for a long time and continues to contribute to global warming today.

China needs to deal with their pollution too, but their carbon footprint per person is much, much lower than the United States. In addition, the growing output in China is, to a large extent, being done by US corporations who have moved to China, so once again, US capitalists are largely to blame, even for Chinese carbon output. Yet, the Chinese Communist Party’s abandonment of socialism, and lack of true workers democracy under one party Stalinist rule, is also part of the problem.

Despite the severity of this problem and the key role the United States has played in creating it, the U.S. government and corporate leaders do worse than nothing, and have blocked and sabotaged all potential solutions for the past fifty years up until the present.

The United States needs an emergency program to dramatically lower carbon emissions. Without it we are doomed. Yet both ruling capitalist parties in the United States have been in the back pockets of big oil and coal, and have refused to do anything. A first step to save the planet and end imperialist wars, once the people gain power, will be the nationalization of the energy industries.

The first scientist to discuss global warming was Swedish Chemist Svante Arrhenius, a chemist who made many discoveries essential to modern chemistry, who in 1896 warned that a doubling of the world's atmospheric carbon dioxide would increase the world's temperatures by five to six degrees Celsius. With catastrophic implications, this is very close to current predictions. By 1957, scientists Roger Revelle and Hans Suess at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography in California put out the first warnings about human caused global warming that were taken seriously by the scientific community. Yet, despite this information being readily available for fifty years, the U.S. government and U.S. corporations failed to act in a favorable way at that time, and presently they continue to be an obstacle to action on global warming.

The current lack of action is due to the massive profits that continue to be made by the big oil corporations, and the political strength they have in being able to buy the politicians in Washington. Nothing short of nationalizing the oil industry, a move that would take corporate profit out of continued greenhouse gas emissions, will break this country from its suicidal drive towards profits at the price of the destruction of the entire planet. Yet the nationalization of oil will not take place within the current power structure of a nation ruled by two capitalist parties that are only elected through the support of massive contributions from the extremely wealthy and the backing of the corporate media. Although there will be a hard struggle ahead, only a revolutionary democratic socialist movement that comes from below can achieve the transformations of the power structure needed to nationalize oil and save the planet.

Today, the full extent of the problem of human caused global warming is the focus of considerable scientific research. World temperatures have already increased significantly and are rising at an alarming rate. As global temperatures have risen, ice shelves and glaciers in the Arctic, Antarctic, and mountains have been rapidly melting. So much ice has melted and dropped in the Ocean that the maps of Antarctica have had to be redrawn. In Greenland, it has been found that the increased layer of melted water between glaciers and the ground below is in fact greatly increasing the speed in which glaciers slide into the ocean.

All of this increased water in the world’s oceans is causing sea levels to rise. The Pacific island nation of Tuvalu is projected to be the first island nation to be completely submerged by global warming. Rising saltwater has already destroyed crop land and is contaminating their ground water. As a result, Tuvaluans now only drink rainwater and have to import a much greater portion of their food than they did in the past. The nation of 9,300 has already begun a program of evacuating 75 people per year from their islands, with 3,000 Tuvaluans already living overseas. Not only is Tuvalu taking the question of global warming seriously enough to begin evacuation of their islands, their tiny poor nation has decided to spend the $1.5 million per year necessary to be members of the United Nations in order to advocate world action against global warming. While what is happening to Tuvaluans is alarming, the coming elimination of Tuvalu from the planet is just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the human and environmental crisis that will be caused by rising seas. As the trend continues, much of low lying nations such as Bangladesh and Vietnam are projected to be swallowed by rising waters, creating millions upon millions of refugees, and destroying some of the most productive crop land in the world, bringing with it a massive humanitarian crisis of refugees and starvation as well as the extinction of many species. In addition, low lying areas of the United States, such as Manhattan and Florida, will be submerged as well.

One disturbing theory regarding global warming makes the seemingly contradictory projection that global warming will trigger a new ice-age. Yet a large and growing body of scientific evidence does back this prediction. It is based on the fact that ocean currents in the Atlantic, including the Gulf Stream, are expected to disappear as a result of large amounts of fresh water melting and disrupting ocean currents. These currents move cold water from the north Atlantic south as well as warmer water north, mitigating what would be the extremes between both northern and southern climates. Twenty thousand years ago, at the height of the last ice-age, a reduction of ocean currents by two thirds drastically decreased the temperatures of the northern hemisphere and plunged much of North America and Europe into year-round winter. Already, measurements of ocean currents off of Greenland indicate that ocean currents there have decreased by 20%. The transformation of most of North America and Europe into frozen wasteland will, like rising oceans and desertification, cause mass starvation, a massive refugee crisis, and also cause mass extinction of plant and animal species.

Much of global warming is proceeding at even faster rates than original dire predictions, due to what are called positive feedback loops. These are phenomena that are caused by global warming on the one hand, and are accelerating global warming on the other. Among positive feedback loops is the melting of ice and snow. As more ice melts, warmth from the sun that was reflected back out of the atmosphere by light colored snow and ice; is more readily absorbed by newly exposed darker colored ground and ocean water. This is why the arctic is currently heating up at a much faster rate than anywhere else.

Carbon sinks, things that take global warming causing carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere, are also being destroyed by global warming. Fossil fuels (when they aren’t burned) such as oil and coal are the ultimate carbon sinks, where prehistoric carbon was moved out of the atmosphere through photosynthesis and buried in the ground. Unfortunately, as these fuel sources are burned, their carbon is now being released back into the atmosphere. Some other important carbon sinks are forests and peat bogs, where these plants take carbon dioxide out of the air and convert it into sugars, carbohydrates, and cellulose. While direct human destruction of forests and peat bogs for lumber, fuel, and cropland is destroying these important carbon sinks, so too do phenomena such as global warming caused desertification.

Another important carbon sink, caught in a global warming related positive feedback loop, are the activities of the ocean’s forams, tiny organisms that, in their massive numbers, use up vast amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide as it passes freely between the atmosphere and the oceans. When forams die, much of the carbon they’ve converted drops with their shells to the bottom of the ocean. Yet, this process is now being interrupted by the increased acidity of the oceans caused by the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and oceans. Forams are unable to function properly under these conditions of higher acidity and are thus removing less carbon from the atmosphere.

So a number of causes have been identified where increased carbon dioxide and increased global warming cause even more atmospheric carbon dioxide and more global warming. In addition, the most dire predictions dealing with positive feedback mechanisms is the melting of methane hydride on the bottoms of the world’s oceans. As the oceans heat up, the melting of this material will release methane gas into the atmosphere. Methane is a greenhouse gas that is even worse than carbon dioxide. A leading theory on the cause of the Permian extinction 251 million years ago, an extinction episode that killed off 95 percent of all species on earth, is that the extinction episode was first triggered by carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere by Siberian volcanoes for an extended period of time that led to global warming that reached temperatures high enough to melt methane hydride on the bottom of the oceans.

The combination of high carbon dioxide and methane gas concentrations in the atmosphere then dramatically increased the temperatures of the oceans, causing them to become anoxic. The oceans became anoxic because as water gets warmer it holds less oxygen. In addition, warmer ocean waters circulate less, moving less oxygenated water from the ocean’s surface deeper into the ocean.

Anoxic waters no longer support most advanced plants and animals, but they do support a number of species of bacteria that are adapted to such conditions. These bacteria include species that produce hydrogen sulfide as a waste product of their metabolism. Hydrogen sulfide is poisonous to humans and other organisms dependent on oxygen. It is thought that large amounts of hydrogen sulfide from the world’s heated anoxic oceans entered the atmosphere and killed off almost all life on land during the Permian Extinction. Human caused global warming today, if it is not stopped, may well set in motion the same series of events, and wipe out most species on earth, including the human race.

As U.N. secretary-general Ban told delegates at the December 2007 U.N. climate conference in Bali, "We are at a crossroad, one path leads to a comprehensive climate change agreement, the other to oblivion. The choice is clear." Yet despite a willingness on the part of a number of nations to take some action, and despite overwhelming scientific evidence, the United States, the worst polluter of gasses causing global warming in the world, refuses to sign on to international agreements limiting greenhouse gas emissions. While most environmentalists agree that these Kyoto protocols are not enough, the United States signing on to them would at least be a step in the right direction. If the United States continues to do nothing in regards to global warming except participate in denial while spewing the worst per-capita carbon emissions in the world, the human and environmental catastrophe of global warming will become much worse, and human extinction becomes more and more likely.

In advocating something be done, American environmentalists often point to many individual things people can do to slow one’s personal impact on global warming. These include driving less and generally using combustion engines less, recycling, becoming a vegetarian or vegan, consuming less, using solar or wind energy, planting trees, avoiding cutting down trees, and saving forests and peat bogs. All of these things are positive in reducing greenhouse gasses, and should be encouraged, but without the problem being tackled on a wider societal level, such individual actions amount to a mere drop in the bucket as petroleum and auto-industries sabotage wider solutions, and millionaires like Arnold Swartzenegger try to make up for what they apparently lack in their pants by driving around with his fleet of eight gas-guzzling hummers.

One wider societal solution would be converting the United States to electric cars, and making them more efficient with hybrid technology while also cleaning up the grid by converting more power sources to solar and wind generated power. This should be combined with providing much greater subsidies to mass transportation. Yet, the oil industry and other major corporations of the United States, along with their subservient politicians in both the Democrat and Republican Parties, have blocked every major step towards this kind of progress over the last 50 years.

As Alexandra Paul from Bay Watch stated in a PBS interview, “[…] power as in ‘the power structure’ is why we are still using gas in cars.” In the interview she described how GM decided not to re-lease her electric car, nor any other that they had leased out, and instead took all of these working cars back from their customers in 2002 and crushed them. Toyota also took similar actions destroying their electric vehicles in California at the same time. The only reason these companies ever produced and leased these cars was that they were forced to do so by a California law passed in the 1990’s. The law was inspired by the fact that cities like Los Angeles are over-polluted, largely due to combustion engines, and electric cars with energy coming from power plants produce fewer smog and greenhouse gas pollutants. Yet, when these companies were no longer legally forced to put out electric cars in order to do business in California, they stopped doing so and destroyed the ones they had already produced. When electric cars were on the market, they were available only for lease except a few that Toyota agreed to sell under public pressure. So, when the car manufacturers were no longer forced to have their popular electric cars out on the market, they not only stopped producing them, they took back the ones that were actively being leased and destroyed them.

The auto manufacturers claim that these cars were unpopular, and that is why they stopped producing them as soon as they could. Yet, when the cars were being leased there were waiting lists for the cars that were longer than what was available. The various manufacturers, in taking these vehicles off the road and destroying them, did so in order to destroy their very example as an alternative. This lets us in on a very important secret. Through their hostile actions against the electric car they have informed us that they are wed to the interests of the oil companies. This could be, in part, due to the fact that the planned obsolescence of cars with combustion engines is harder to engineer into electric cars. So these cars apparently didn’t break down enough to promote auto sales and auto parts sales. So the auto industry is involved in what amounts to, in terms of ethics, a criminal conspiracy to rip-off consumers and destroy the future of this planet in order to achieve short-term profits.

Just as capitalist ownership is blocking the production of electric cars, so to does capitalist energy ownership block the development and production of wide-scale wind and solar energy. As Monica Hill stated in the Freedom Socialist Newspaper:

“[...] it takes a great deal more labor and energy to harness wind and solar power, at present, than to extract oil. Oil men are clear on the subject. "Renewable energy," said former Exxon Mobil CEO Lee Raymond in the British newspaper Economist, is "a complete waste of money." When Raymond retired last December, Exxon Mobil reported profits of $36.1 billion — the largest in U.S. history. Raymond personally raked in $400 million that year. Clearly, when wind and solar power finally get developed, it won't be thanks to capitalist industry. There is no solution for skyrocketing consumer costs and plunging planetary health as long as control of the energy industry remains in the hands of the monster oil industry and its kindred financial and industrial monopolies.”

With the production of wind and solar, once again, capitalist ownership and capitalist profits are the barriers to the steps needed to save the planet.

Just as big oil profits from the destruction of the planet, they are also a major influence in the drive for war against countries that have eliminated private ownership of oil wealth. U.S. intervention against the popular democratic governments of Venezuela and Bolivia is increasing because these countries have nationalized their energy industries and are using oil profits for things such as education and healthcare, instead of that money going directly into the pockets of multi-national oil corporations. Similarly, oil was nationalized under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and oil revenues were used, in part, to benefit the Iraqi people. Now, under a U.S. imposed puppet government in Iraq, there have been attempts to privatize Iraqi oil fields, but resistance from Iraqi workers has so far prevented it. Once again, the drive for higher corporate oil profits is a destructive force for the world’s people and environment.

While the United States government has no right to intervene in other countries to tell them what to do with their own resources, especially when those countries are making better use of resources than would be done in the hands of U.S. and British oil companies, the U.S. also has no right to destroy the entire planet for the profits of a few oil companies. This, combined with the overwhelming corrupting power big oil has on U.S. politics leads one who is interested in the future of this planet to one inevitable conclusion. The oil industries of the United States need to be nationalized under the democratic control of the people.

While taking the profit out of war and environmental destruction through the nationalization of oil and other energy industries may sound logical to most people, inevitable questions naturally arise in people’s minds.

A common myth promoted by those who have profits to gain through private ownership is that private ownership is more efficient. Yet an honest look shows public ownership is always better. A good example is socialized medicine in Europe, which is much cheaper and better than American healthcare, resulting in giving countries like France, Germany, and the United Kingdom longer life expectancies and lower infant mortalities than the United States. Ending capitalist profit, a form of theft to line the pockets of the wealthy in the first place, is just plain more efficient.

Even public ownership of energy, on a small scale, isn’t without precedent in the United States. Electricity in Los Angeles is publicly owned. Because it is publicly owned, money isn’t being siphoned away in the form of profits going to shareholders and CEO’s. In addition, the bottom line is not the profits of shareholders and CEO’s. As a result, electricity is provided at rates much cheaper than in the rest of California, and it is done in a more environmentally friendly way. In fact, since electricity is publicly owned, people in LA were able to put an initiative on the ballot to shut down their nuclear power plants. The measure succeeded, and people in LA, while they are still forced to pay for the nuclear plants that were constructed and shut down, they still pay less for electricity due to the superior efficiency of ending corporate profit through public ownership.

In the United States, public ownership of the oil industry would not only take away profit incentives for war and environmental destruction, but money made from such enterprises could go towards human and environmental needs such as saving the environment, and towards healthcare and education, as nationalized oil money is used in Venezuela.

Yet Venezuela is also facing a crisis, both because the United States is hostile to what the revolutionary Chavez government is doing there with oil money, but also because there are still capitalists that control much of the Venezuelan economy. Through that control they are able to sabotage other sectors of the economy in their attempts to overthrow the Chavez government. Capitalist interference in food distribution has been one of the most recent acts of sabotage, where capitalists have had food stuffs that they were refusing to put on the shelves for sale. How Chavez deals with this, and other capitalist sabotage of the economy, will determine whether or not the Venezuelan Revolution survives.

Immediately after the Cuban Revolution, Castro and the rest of the Cuban revolutionary leadership was tested in a similar way. The first nationalizations by the Cuban revolutionary leadership were in agriculture. Before the revolution, under the U.S. backed Batista dictatorship, much of the Cuban land was owned by the American capitalist Rockefeller family through the United Fruit Company. Peasants worked for low wages on this land during the on season, and starved during the off-season. Immediately, upon taking power, the Castro government carried out their promise of land reform and United Fruit Company land was expropriated. Resources from sugar production were no longer used to only enrich the Rockefeller family, but instead used to bring food, education, and medicine to peasants and their children. Yet, the United States and American capitalists never forgave this intrusion on capitalist property, and American capitalists sabotaged production in other sectors of the economy, including by refusing to refine oil. In response, the Castro government nationalized the entire economy and announced the building of a socialist economy in Cuba.

This necessity of socialist revolutions to carry out sweeping nationalizations in order to stop capitalist sabotage of the economy was first recognized in 1905 by Leon Trotsky in his work “Results and Prospects” and later developed further in “The Permanent Revolution”.

It is through the Cuban nationalization of the entire economy that the Cuban revolution has not only been able to survive, but they have been able to implement socialist energy policies that are not based on profit, but are instead based on human and environmental needs. While Cuban socialized medicine has brought about a medical system that has produced a higher life expectancy and lower infant mortality than the United States, Cuba’s planned economy has also benefited the environment. It is as result of those policies and priorities that the World Wildlife Fund has said that Cuba is the only country with passing environmental policies in the world. Yet, those policies on one tiny island nation will not be enough to save the planet. As Fidel Castro stated at the U.N. in Rio in 1992:

“An important biological species is in danger of disappearing due to the fast and progressive destruction of its natural living conditions: mankind. We have now become aware of this problem when it is almost too late to stop it. It is necessary to point out that consumer societies are fundamentally responsible for the brutal destruction of the environment.”

Here, Castro is right, and Cuba does serve as a model. Yet, when we look at the Cuban model of socialism, we must pick and choose what aspects are healthy and which aspects should not be copied by other socialist revolutions.

While the Cuban socialism has achieved much, one key ingredient for a healthy society is missing. That ingredient is democracy. A similar observation was made of the Soviet Union in 1918 by German socialist leader Rosa Luxemburg. While being supportive of the Russian revolution, she was at the same time opposed to the dictatorial methods of the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky in the Soviet Union. Rosa Luxemburg instead advocated revolutionary democratic socialism.

The Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, were swept to power in a popular revolution that called for an end to the war with Germany, land reform, and socialism. Besides the betterment this revolution meant for the workers and peasants in general, including access to healthcare and education, giant strides forward were made for oppressed nationalities, Jews, women's rights, and gay rights. Before the revolution, under Czarist rule, Jews were routinely slaughtered in the thousands in government-sponsored pogroms. Peasants were the property of feudal landlords, and huge numbers of drafted young peasants were dying in the inter-imperialist war with Germany. This all ended with the Russian Revolution. In addition, gay rights and the right to abortion were legalized for the first time in any country with the birth of the Soviet Union and backward anti-woman practices such as bride-price and forced marriage were made illegal. Priorities were made of literacy and meeting the basic needs of the people. These were huge advances made by a revolution that had inherited a poor economically backward nation, soon to be further devastated by civil war and the invasion of many imperialist armies.

Yet, Rosa Luxemburg, while praising the advances made by the Russian Revolution, did not excuse the lack of democracy in the Soviet Union. She saw the Marxist concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in a completely different way than Lenin and Trotsky. She saw this simply as the toiling majority becoming the dictators over the capitalist minority that once held power. For that majority to actually be in charge, however, they would need democratic organs, universal suffrage, and democratic rights. For Lenin and Trotsky, the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" fit more into bourgeois models of individual dictatorship by those in power. As Rosa Luxemburg states in her 1918 work, the “Russian Revolution”:

“Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only a bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders with inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule [...] a dictatorship, to be sure, but not dictatorship of the proletariat [...].”

A different position by Lenin and Trotsky, more in league with that of Rosa Luxemburg, could have produced a much better and more open society that would have made Stalin's type of rise to power through skullduggery, corruption, and terror within the ranks of the party much more difficult.

Rosa Luxemburg did not see this question as being counterpoised between bourgeois democracy (democracy for the rich as we have in the United States) on the one hand (defended by fake "socialists" who had betrayed socialism and become administrators of capitalist exploitation and war), and dictatorial communism on the other. Instead, she rejected both and fought for a socialist society with nationalized industries where the working class has democratic control. It is this essential banner of revolutionary democratic socialism that must be fully revived in order to not repeat the mistakes of the past, and in order for people to take our movements for environmental survival and socialism seriously and want any part in them.

It was a very unfortunate error of history that the first socialist revolution was carried out with the anti-democratic errors of Lenin and Trotsky. Stalin amplified those errors for his own personal gain. Due to the influence of the Russian Revolution, both morally and financially, the undemocratic errors of the Russian Revolution were copied by most socialist revolutions after, including the Cuban revolution. While recognizing the advantages of the Cuban socialist model over U.S. imposed dictatorship and a corporate controlled economy, it is important not to repeat their undemocratic errors.

Yet, there is nothing inherently democratic about a private economy. As was shown in the example of publicly owned power in LA, with the ability of the people to shut down unsafe nuclear power plants, public ownership is more democratic than private ownership. Private ownership allows a few extremely wealthy people to control not only industrial policies where public input and control is essential for a healthy environment, but their private control of vast financial resources also gives them control of the two established political parties in the United States. Public ownership on a wider scale, with a broadly socialized economy, tied to full democratic rights and universal suffrage, will allow the United States to become a much more democratic country than it is today, and will allow the people of this country to begin the measures needed to save the planet.

Yet, while all of this may seem reasonable, it does beg the question, “How do you propose to gain such a far reaching goal in a country that has an entrenched power structure that is more engaged in privatization than nationalization?” This is the hardest question. It will take the organization of a revolutionary party firmly committed to these goals that is not interested in compromise with the current power establishment. The goal of such a party must be for power, but history has also shown that such parties and movements can become powerful enough at times to scare the power structure into making some of the needed reforms. Even relatively small parties that stick to radical convictions that seem to be on the very fringes can, in times of discontent and sudden revolutionary turmoil, become the majority. As issues worsen in the United States around war, environmental destruction, lack of healthcare, and a possible coming economic collapse, the possibilities of a sea-change in the relatively passive U.S. population becomes more and more likely.

It is with these understandings that the first steps are being taken to establish the Cool Earth Party on the principles of revolutionary democratic socialism, which includes the following demands:

1. Immediate action to save the planet by cutting greenhouse gas emissions!
2. Nationalize the Oil Industry, Other Energy Industries, and the Auto Industry!
3. U.S. Troops Out of Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, and the Philippines!
4. End US Military Aid to Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, and All Other Oppressive Governments in the World!
5. End US Imperialism!
6. For Socialized Medicine!
7. No to Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia!
8. For proportional democracy with guaranteed equal time for parties in the media, outlaw big campaign spending, and outlaw electronic voting machines (which are presently used to rig American elections).
9. For Class Struggle Methods to Achieve these Goals, Including Strikes, Mass Protests, Alternative Media, Acts of Conscience and Rebellion Within the US Military, and the Building of a Revolutionary Democratic Socialist Party.
10. Towards Revolutionary Democratic Socialism in the United States!

Such a party will necessarily start small. But, I think, time will tell that such an organization is not only essential for the survival of the planet, it is also an idea that can become popular quickly because it is an idea whose time has come.

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1950: 100,000 Executed by Imperialism's Korean Dictatorship

Mon, 19 May 2008 17:56:50 GMT

[The US war of aggression in Korea murdered 5 million Koreans. Part of that murder was the cold blooded executions of over 100,000 leftists and suspected leftists by the South Korean government in 1950. Over 54,000 U.S. soldiers died in the U.S. war to defend that murderous U.S. imposed regime. The following AP article exposes what many on the left have known about for decades, but has been hidden from the general public in the United States by the government and corporate media. -Steven Argue]

AP Probes 'Cold-Blooded Slaughter' in South Korea
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003805038

By CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, The Associated Press

Published: May 18, 2008 4:15 PM ET

DAEJEON Grave by mass grave, South Korea is unearthing the skeletons and buried truths of a cold-blooded slaughter from early in the Korean War, when this nation's U.S.-backed regime killed untold thousands of leftists and hapless peasants in a summer of terror in 1950.

With U.S. military officers sometimes present, and as North Korean invaders pushed down the peninsula, the southern army and police emptied South Korean prisons, lined up detainees and shot them in the head, dumping the bodies into hastily dug trenches. Others were thrown into abandoned mines or into the sea. Women and children were among those killed. Many victims never faced charges or trial.

The mass executions - intended to keep possible southern leftists from reinforcing the northerners - were carried out over mere weeks and were largely hidden from history for a half-century. They were ``the most tragic and brutal chapter of the Korean War,'' said historian Kim Dong-choon, a member of a 2-year-old government commission investigating the killings.

Hundreds of sets of remains have been uncovered so far, but researchers say they are only a tiny fraction of the deaths. The commission estimates at least 100,000 people were executed, in a South Korean population of 20 million.

That estimate is based on projections from local surveys and is ``very conservative,'' said Kim. The true toll may be twice that or more, he told The Associated Press.

In addition, thousands of South Koreans who allegedly collaborated with the communist occupation were slain by southern forces later in 1950, and the invaders staged their own executions of rightists.

Through the postwar decades of South Korean right-wing dictatorships, victims' fearful families kept silent about that blood-soaked summer. American military reports of the South Korean slaughter were stamped ``secret'' and filed away in Washington. Communist accounts were dismissed as lies.

Only since the 1990s, and South Korea's democratization, has the truth begun to seep out.

In 2002, a typhoon's fury uncovered one mass grave. Another was found by a television news team that broke into a sealed mine. Further corroboration comes from a trickle of declassified U.S. military documents, including U.S. Army photographs of a mass killing outside this central South Korean city.

Now Kim's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has added government authority to the work of scattered researchers, family members and journalists trying to peel away the long-running cover-up. The commissioners have the help of a handful of remorseful old men.

``Even now, I feel guilty that I pulled the trigger,'' said Lee Joon-young, 83, one of the executioners in a secluded valley near Daejeon in early July 1950.

The retired prison guard told the AP he knew that many of those shot and buried en masse were ordinary convicts or illiterate peasants wrongly ensnared in roundups of supposed communist sympathizers. They didn't deserve to die, he said. They ``knew nothing about communism.''

The 17 investigators of the commission's subcommittee on ``mass civilian sacrifice,'' led by Kim, have been dealing with petitions from more than 7,000 South Koreans, involving some 1,200 alleged incidents - not just mass planned executions, but also 215 cases in which the U.S. military is accused of the indiscriminate killing of South Korean civilians in 1950-51, usually in air attacks.

The commission last year excavated sites at four of an estimated 150 mass graves around the country, recovering remains of more than 400 people. Working deliberately, matching documents to eyewitness and survivor testimony, it has officially confirmed two large-scale executions - at a warehouse in the central South Korean county of Cheongwon, and at Ulsan on the southeast coast.

In January, then-President Roh Moo-hyun, under whose liberal leadership the commission was established, formally apologized for the more than 870 deaths confirmed at Ulsan, calling them ``illegal acts the then-state authority committed.''

The commission, with no power to compel testimony or prosecute, faces daunting tasks both in verifying events and identifying victims, and in tracing a chain of responsibility. Under Roh's conservative successor, Lee Myung-bak, whose party is seen as democratic heir to the old autocratic right wing, the commission may find less budgetary and political support.

The roots of the summer 1950 bloodbath lie in the U.S.-Soviet division of Japan's former Korea colony in 1945, which precipitated north-south turmoil and eventual war.

In the late 1940s, President Syngman Rhee's U.S.-installed rightist regime crushed leftist political activity in South Korea, including a guerrilla uprising inspired by the communists ruling the north. By 1950, southern jails were packed with up to 30,000 political prisoners.

The southern government, meanwhile, also created the National Guidance League, a ``re-education'' organization for recanting leftists and others suspected of communist leanings. Historians say officials met membership quotas by pressuring peasants into signing up with promises of rice rations or other benefits. By 1950, more than 300,000 people were on the league's rolls, organizers said.

North Korean invaders seized Seoul, the southern capital, in late June 1950 and freed thousands of prisoners, who rallied to the northern cause. Southern authorities, in full retreat with their U.S. military advisers, ordered National Guidance League members in areas they controlled to report to the police, who detained them. Soon after, commission researchers say, the organized mass executions of people regarded as potential collaborators began - ``bad security risks,'' as a police official described the detainees at the time.

The declassified record of U.S. documents shows an ambivalent American attitude toward the killings. American diplomats that summer urged restraint on southern officials - to no obvious effect - but a State Department cable that fall said overall commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur viewed the executions as a Korean ``internal matter,'' even though he controlled South Korea's military.

Ninety miles south of Seoul, here in the narrow, peaceful valley of Sannae, truckloads of prisoners were brought in from Daejeon Prison and elsewhere day after day in July 1950, as the North Koreans bore down on the city.

The American photos, taken by an Army major and kept classified for a half-century, show the macabre sequence of events.

White-clad detainees - bent, submissive, with hands bound - were thrown down prone, jammed side by side, on the edge of a long trench. South Korean military and national policemen then stepped up behind, pointed their rifles at the backs of their heads and fired. The bodies were tipped into the trench.

Trembling policemen - ``they hadn't shot anyone before'' - were sometimes off-target, leaving men wounded but alive, Lee said. He and others were ordered to check for wounded and finish them off.

Evidence indicates South Korean executioners killed between 3,000 and 7,000 here, said commissioner Kim. A half-dozen trenches, each up to 150 yards long and full of bodies, extended over an area almost a mile long, said Kim Chong-hyun, 70, chairman of a group of bereaved families campaigning for disclosure and compensation for the Daejeon killings. His father, accused but never convicted of militant leftist activity, was one victim.

Another was Yeo Tae-ku's father, whose wife and mother searched for him afterward.

``Bodies were just piled upon each other,'' said Yeo, 59, remembering his mother's description. ``Arms would come off when they turned them over.'' The desperate women never found him, and the mass graves were quickly covered over, as were others in isolated spots up and down this mountainous peninsula, to be officially ``forgotten.''

When British communist journalist Alan Winnington entered Daejeon that summer with North Korean troops and visited the site, writing of ``waxy dead hands and feet (that) stick through the soil,'' his reports in the Daily Worker were denounced as ``fabrication'' by the U.S. Embassy in London. American military accounts focused instead on North Korean reprisal killings that followed in Daejeon.

But CIA and U.S. military intelligence documents circulating even before the Winnington report, classified ``secret'' and since declassified, told of the executions by the South Koreans. Lt. Col. Bob Edwards, U.S. Embassy military attache in South Korea, wrote in conveying the Daejeon photos to Army intelligence in Washington that he believed nationwide ``thousands of political prisoners were executed within (a) few weeks'' by the South Koreans.

Another glimpse of the carnage appeared in an unofficial U.S. source, an obscure memoir self-published in 1981 by the late Donald Nichols, a U.S. Air Force intelligence officer, who told of witnessing ``the unforgettable massacre of approximately 1,800 at Suwon,'' 20 miles south of Seoul.

Such reports lend credibility to a captured North Korean document from Aug. 2, 1950, eventually declassified by Washington, which spoke of mass executions in 12 South Korean cities, including 1,000 killed in Suwon and 4,000 in Daejeon.

That early, incomplete North Korean report couldn't include those executed in territory still held by the southerners. Up to 10,000 were killed in the city of Busan alone, a South Korean lawmaker, Park Chan-hyun, estimated in 1960.

His investigation came during a 12-month democratic interlude between the overthrow of Rhee and a government takeover by Maj. Gen. Park Chung-hee's authoritarian military, which quickly arrested many then probing for the hidden story of 1950.

Kim said his projection of at least 100,000 dead is based in part on extrapolating from a survey by non-governmental organizations in one province, Busan's South Gyeongsang, which estimated 25,000 killed there. And initial evidence suggests most of the National Guidance League's 300,000 members were killed, he said.

Commission investigators agree with the late Lt. Col. Edwards' note to Washington in 1950, that ``orders for execution undoubtedly came from the top,'' that is, President Rhee, who died in 1965.

But any documentary proof of that may have been destroyed, just as the facts of the mass killings themselves were buried. In 1953, after the war ended in stalemate, after the deaths of at least 2 million people, half or more of them civilians, a U.S. Army war crimes report attributed all summary executions here in Daejeon to the ``murderous barbarism'' of North Koreans.

Such myths survived a half-century, in part because those who knew the truth were cowed into silence.

``My mother destroyed all pictures of my father, for fear the family would get an image as leftists,'' said Koh Chung-ryol, 57, who is convinced her 29-year-old father was innocent of wrongdoing when picked up in a broad police sweep here, to die in Sannae valley.

``My mother tried hard to get rid of anything about her husband,'' she said. ``She suffered unspeakable pain.''

Even educated South Koreans remained ignorant of their country's past. As a young researcher in the late 1980s, Yonsei University's Park Myung-lim, today a leading Korean War historian, was deeply shaken as he sought out confidential accounts of those days from ordinary Koreans.

``I cried,'' he said. ``I felt, 'Oh, my goodness. Oh, Jesus. This was my country? It was true?'''

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission can recommend but not award compensation for lost and ruined lives, nor can it bring surviving perpetrators to justice. ``Our investigative power is so meager,'' commission President Ahn Byung-ook told the AP.

His immediate concern is resources. ``The current government isn't friendly toward us, and so we're concerned that the budget may be cut next year,'' he said.

South Korean conservatives complain the ``truth'' campaign will only reopen old wounds from a time when, even at the village level, leftists and rightists carried out bloody reprisals against each other.

The life of the commission - with a staff of 240 and annual budget of $19 million - is guaranteed by law until at least 2010, when it will issue a final, comprehensive report.

Later this spring and summer its teams will resume digging at mass grave sites. Thus far, it has verified 16 incidents of 1950-51 - not just large-scale detainee killings, but also such events as a South Korean battalion's cold-blooded killing of 187 men, women and children at Kochang village, supposed sympathizers with leftist guerrillas.

By exposing the truth of such episodes, ``we hope to heal the trauma and pain of the bereaved families,'' the commission says. It also wants to educate people, ``not just in Korea, but throughout the international community,'' to the reality of that long-ago conflict, to ``prevent such a tragic war from reoccurring in the future.''

CHARLES J. HANLEY and JAE-SOON CHANG, The Associated Press
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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NYT: Obama admires Bush Sr.: ''no complaints about handling of Desert Storm"

Sat, 17 May 2008 18:40:04 GMT

Support for Empire is support for Empire -- any way you cut it. There's a reason Corporate American bankrolled Obama's campaign
...
**************
"I have enormous sympathy for the foreign policy of George H. W. Bush. I don't have a lot of complaints about their handling of Desert Storm."

Source:
- Barack Obama, from David Brooks article, "Obama Admires Bush, NY Times, May 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/16/opinion/16brooks.html?em&ex=1211169600&en=1577a90ae5048a04&ei=5087%0A

See:
Clinton and Obama: Failures on War and Global Warming
by STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/02/10/18478172.php

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Israel and the Ongoing Holocaust in Congo

Fri, 16 May 2008 18:17:59 GMT

[See link for citations. My answer to those who say the U.S. isn't doing enough in the Congo other parts of southern Africa: it is already doing too much –Steven Argue]

Gertler’s Bling Bang Torah Gang
Israel and the Ongoing Holocaust in Congo (Part 1)

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/02/gertlers-bling-bang-torah-gang/

by Keith Harmon Snow / February 9th, 2008

Maurice Tempelsman is one of the top funders of the Democratic Party who has funded Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Templesman was the unofficial ambassador to the Congo (Zaire) for years, but a new Israeli-American tycoon has replaced him. In the world of bling bling and bling bang, some things change, some stay the same. The CIA, the MOSSAD, the big mining companies, the offshore accounts and weapons deals—all hidden by the Western media. The holocaust in Central Africa has claimed some six to ten million people in Congo since 1996, with 1500 people dying daily.1 But while the Africans are the victims of perpetual Holocaust, the persecutors hide behind history, complaining that they are the persecuted, or pretending they are the saviors. Who is responsible?

For Israeli-American Dan Gertler, business in blood drenched Congo is not merely business, it is a quest for the Holy Grail. Young Dan Gertler goes nowhere—does nothing—without the spiritual guidance of Brooklyn-born Rabbi Chaim Yaakov Leibovitch, a personal friend of Condoleeza Rice.2 Gertler and Leibovitch are two of the principals behind a diamond mining company, Emaxon Finance Corporation, involved in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Gertler and gang won the majority rights to the diamonds from the state mining company, Société Minière de Bakwange, MIBA, found near the government-controlled town of Mbuji-Mayi, the rough diamond capital of the world.

Emaxon Finance Corp. has apparently out-maneuvered diamond competitors, especially the big rivals Energem and De Beers. Energem is one of the many shady mining companies connected to Anthony Teixeira, a Portuguese born businessman now residing in South Africa whose daughter married Congolese warlord Jean-Pierre Bemba. The warlord’s deadly battle in Congo in March 2007 was a bid between rival agents—Jean-Pierre Bemba and Joseph Kabila—to be the black gatekeeper for the mining cartels run by dynastic families like Templesman, Oppenheimer, Mendell, Forrest, Blattner, Hertzov, Gertler and Steinmetz, and for companies like NIKANOR, whose stock prices rose early in July 2006 in expectation of a July 30th “win” for Joseph Kabila.3 Africa Confidential called President Kabila’s 2003 visit to the Bush White House a “coup” for the Israeli diamond magnates Dan Gertler and Beny Steinmetz.

Canadian-based Energem, formerly DiamondWorks, is owned by British mercenary Tony Buckingham and its director/shareholders include Mario and Tony Teixeira, J.P. Morgan, and Gertler’s partner Israeli-American Beny Steinmetz (50%).4 Through subsidiary Branch Energy, the Energem-DiamondWorks gang has perpetuated war in 11 African countries.5 In December 2007, Energem re-launched itself on the London Stock Market with the newly laundered image of a renewable energy company. Regarding diamonds, it said only it “had decided to give up exploration rights in the Central African Republic.”6 The Energem spokesman explained that Tony Teixeira “had a clean bill of health” etc., etc. Of course, Energem “quit” the C.A.R. because Jean-Pierre Bemba marched his troops into C.A.R., where they raped and pillaged widely.7 Energem is still operating in Congo, but Dan Gertler is the new, unofficial ambassador to the Congo for the George W. Bush gang.

Gertler and partners like Beny and Danny Steinmetz, Nir Livnat, Chaim Leibovitz and Yaakov Neeman run a hornet’s nest of companies involved in African hotspots, including: Dan Gertler International (DGI), Steinmetz Global Resources, International Diamond Industries, NIKANOR and Global Enterprises Corporate.

“Dan Gertler is ‘the new kid on the block,’” writes Yossi Melman in Israel’s Haaretz news. “Bold, sophisticated, brutal, he is an adventurer with a short fuse.” Haaratz confirmed that Dan Gertler owns a complex network of interconnected companies, often registered in offshore tax havens and involved in India, Russia, Belgium and the United States, and that Dan Gertler is looking to God for guidance.8

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL

“In the diamond industry,” Melman wrote, “Gertler is considered something of an odd bird. He maintains few ties with the other merchants and is not very sociable… Alongside his business affairs, most of his energy is channeled into matters of faith. He is a donor to religious institutions and from time to time makes a pilgrimage to the rabbi he most admires, Rabbi David Abuhatzeira, from Nahariya, in order to consult with him and receive his blessing. Gertler is surrounded mostly by religious people and laces his speech liberally with praise to God.”8

In 2003, Condoleeza Rice, then Assistant to President Bush for National Security Affairs, introduced Dan Gertler and Chaim Leibovitch to U.S. official Jendayi Frazer, a Harvard Kennedy School affiliate and former National Security Council agent focused on Africa. On December 6, 2006, Frazer, then Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, was one of seven special Bush delegates sent to the inauguration of Congo’s newly installed President Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa.9

When Dan Gertler and Chaim Leibovitch and their friends visit the luxury Gertler villa in Lumumbashi, the capital of Katanga, Congo’s large southern province, their kosher meals arrive by private plane from Kinshasa. The special executive jet that flies their kosher meals a few hundred miles over the roadless Congo costs some $US 23,000 per trip.10

The average income for Congolese citizens each year—if they survive it—is about $95. Shootings at mining facilities and diamond mines are common, land is stolen from Congolese people, strikes are crushed by security forces that companies are partnered with, and black overseers of state terror routinely arrest and torture any vocal opposition—and sometimes disappear them—in support of white bosses. The Société Minière de Bakwange—MIBA— and the diamond fields of Mbuji-Mayi in Congo have a long history of bloodshed backed by Western powers, including Israel, from the beginning.11 Amnesty International points out that not a single state agent has ever been prosecuted for the extrajudicial executions of suspected “illegal” miners in Mbuji-Mayi.12

After a century of exploitation and slavery, we find MIBA consistently withholding payment of salaries to starving Congolese laborers and middle managers for months at a time. April and May 2007 saw strikes and protests leading to the Kabila government’s arbitrary arrest, detention and torture of trade union organizers like Leon Ngoy Bululu; police have also shot protestors.13 So-called ‘illegal’ diamond workers—disenfranchised local Congolese people forced into “criminal” activities to survive—were summarily executed on MIBA concessions in Mbuji-Mayi. MIBA security guards have also been sniping unemployed diamond miners.14

Meanwhile, Dan Gertler’s kosher meals depart Kinshasa, the capital of the big Congo, through the arrangements of Rabbi Chlomo Bentolila, high priest of the Chabad of Central Africa. Rabbi Chlomo Bentolila has been a Kinshasa Rabbi since 1991, and he was a spiritual force who survived the terrorism of the old dinosaur, Mobutu Sese Seko, the way most elites did: by working with him. Rabbi Bentolila is a member of the Chabad Lubavitch Global Emissary Network, headquartered in Brooklyn, New York, and his wife Miriam is the sister of Rabbi Mena’hem Hadad, a high priest in Brussels.15

“Kosher does not mean that a Rabbi blesses the food,” Rabbi Betolila corrected me, “but rather that the food was supervised by a Rabbinical Thora [sic] authority who sees that the ingredients were in accordance with the laws of Kashrut expressed in the Bible (Leviticus and Deuteronomy).”16

Dan Gertler often flies people into Congo, on his private jet, for sacred Jewish rituals. For the Bar Mitsvah of Rabbi Chlomo Bentolila’s son Binyamin Avrahim in June 2005, guests included eminent Rabbis, Hassidic singer Yoni Shlomo and special orchestra Yossef Brami, all arriving in “special flights” from Israel, New York and Brussels. The reception was held at the luxurious and exclusive Memling Hotel. Joseph Kabila sent a sizeable delegation but did not attend: his closest advisers provided a blessing on his behalf.17

The Gertler, Steinmetz and Templesman interests are advanced in part through the support of the Committee of the Jewish Community of Kinshasa—le Comité de la Communauté Israélite—that is tightly coordinated with the power structure in Kinshasa to exert influence and assure control of Israeli-Belgian-Anglo-American interests over the geopolitical arena.

From June 26-30, 2007, the Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa received a visit from the Israeli Ambassador Yaakov Revah, director of the Africa Department of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Revah also flew to Lumumbashi for meetings with Dan Gertler and his agents, including Moishe (Moses) Katumbi, the Governor of Katanga, and they most likely enjoyed a lovely, $23,000 kosher meal sent from the Chabad in Kinshasa.18 The Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa maintains very intimate political relations with President Joseph Kabila’s PPRD party, the People’s Party for Reconstruction and Democracy. On March 1, 2006, in a formal ceremony, the President of the Communaute Israelite de Kinshasa, Ashlan Piha, was awarded the Congo’s Medal of Civil Merit.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET

Before his assassination on January 16, 2001, Laurent Desire Kabila—the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)—made a deal with the Gertler gang that would play out in favor of the current President Joseph Kabila and, it seems, be a central factor in relation to both Congo’s ongoing war and the bloody warlord’s battle in Kinshasa in March 2007.19

Back in 2000, former Congolese president Laurent Kabila offered a monopoly on Congolese diamonds, and 88% of the proceeds, to Gertler’s International Diamond Industries (IDI) in exchange for Israeli military assistance to his new government.20 Top Congolese military officials apparently flew to Israel in 2000 to negotiate the deal. Gertler pledged military assistance to President Laurent Kabila through top Israeli officials.21

The original Gertler-Kabila deal fell through after Laurent Kabila was assassinated for not cooperating with the Great White Fathers of industry (January 2001), but Gertler and Leibovitch and their disciples formed another company, Dan Gertler International, and advanced their Congo plan.22 By 2002 Gertler’s company was the leading exporter of Congolese gems, controlling a diamond mining franchise worth about $US 1 billion annually.23

In 2003, the mighty Congolese diamond parastatal Societe Miniere De Bakwanga (MIBA)—which has been forever controlled by the Great White Fathers in Belgium, Israel and America—signed an exclusive contract with Gertler’s startup company, Emaxon Finance International. The deal involved Israeli’s Foreign Defense Assistance and Defense Export Organization (SIBAT), and high-level Israeli defense and intelligence officials. Gertler and his buddies reportedly bribed Congolese officials and Angolan generals who, on and off, have commanded Angolan Army troops protecting Kinshasa, Congo’s capital.21,24

Security for mining operations in Congo is provided by exclusive security companies like Overseas Security Services (OSS) one of the many DRC interests of Belgian billionaire tycoon Philippe de Moerloose. A member of the Kinshasa elite, de Moerloose supplies jets and other presidential toys to DRC President Kabila. In 2006, President Joseph Kabila’s campaign helicopter was at the centre of a legal battle involving Philippe de Moerloose.25 De Moerloose’s companies operated in Mobutu’s Zaire from at least 1991, backing state terrorism and Western corporate plunder that was rendered invisible by the Western media. De Moerloose is also an adviser to European Union (EU) Commissioner—and diamantaire—Louis Michel.

Dan Gertler and Philippe de Moerloose were, reportedly, the only two white men who attended the wedding of Joseph Kabila and the two clearly share interests in “security” provided by OSS at MIBA and elsewhere in Congo. The April 2003 secret agreement signed between the Gertler/Steinmetz company Emaxon Finance and the Kabila government involved MIBA and two de Moerloose companies, OSS-Congo and Demimpex, and other firms.

Overseas Security Services (OSS) operations are apparently grounded in the experience of top expatriate security operatives formerly involved with the biggest security firm in Mobutu’s Zaire.26 According to OSS public relations materials, “these persons have a not unimportant experience in the safety of this country.”26 Providing mine security, body-guard and protection services, OSS operates in Burundi, Ivory Coast, Rwanda, Dubai, South Africa, Republic of Congo (Brazzavile) and Belgium, placing them in cahoots with all sides warring and plundering eastern Congo today.27

Emaxon Finance International is a real gem, one of these octopuses of mining tangled up with interlocking companies and subsidiaries based in specious geographical offshore “tax havens” that work to shield from prosecution people who are responsible for money laundering, weapons and drugs operations, assassinations and other terrorism.

NIKANOR is registered as an Isle of Man (UK) company, an offshore tax haven that helps to conceal criminal activities and maximize profits. NIKANOR directors include Dan Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Israel (2001-2005) and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research under Madeleine Albright. NIKANOR partners include Mende and Moshe Gertner [sic], Israeli property tycoons with vast holdings in London who control 22 percent of NIKANOR. Another partner is Israeli-born Nir Livnat, managing director of Johannesburg-based Ascot Diamonds, a member of the Steinmetz Group of Diamond Companies, and a principal involved in numerous U.S.-based businesses from Miami to New York.28

THOU SHALT NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS

Back in 2001, when the Gertler enterprises surfaced in dirty diamond deals, public relations was handled by Lior Chorev, the “Special Strategic and Communications Consultant” to International Diamond Industries (IDI), and Chorev continued in this role to support Dan Gertler businesses.29 Today, Lior Chorev is partnered with the brothers Yuval and Eyal Arad as director-owners of the Israeli marketing and public relations firm, ARAD Communications.30

“We do work for Mr. Gertler on some of his business issues,” said Lior Chorev.31 ARAD’s many clients include Dan Gertler companies, Los Angeles-based Coral Diamonds and an Israeli aeronautics weaponry manufacturer producing Unmanned Aerospace Vehicles (UAVs)—robotic weapons and intelligence platforms like those being used against the people of Congo today.32 As a political strategist, Lior Chorev has worked for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.33 He has also participated in Israel-NATO defense planning conferences.34

Dan Gertler is close to Israeli politicians, especially Avigdor Lieberman, head of the right-wing Yisrael Beiteinu party, and he is very close to diamantaire Beny Steinmetz, a good friend of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Gertler’s inseperable friend, Chaim Leibovitz, is also very close to Lieberman, and was “a regular fixture” in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s offices.35

Beny Steinmetz is considered to be one of the richest billionaires in Israel. The Steinmetz Group, controlled with his brother Daniel, is one of the biggest clients of the de Beers diamond syndicate. Steinmetz is also involved in an Israeli real estate group that purchased the assets of the British Haslemere real estate company for $1.46 billion. Steinmetz’s real estate partners include the billionaire Israeli investors David and Simon Reuben, and the Saudi Arabian Olayan Group, an investment company that is deeply connected with Bechtel Corporation.36 The Steinmetz web site map of operations hides their involvement in war-torn Congo.37

Seems Dan Gertler’s land grabs and exclusion in Congo have a lot in common with the current crimes against humanity being committed by Israel through its illegal partition in the Middle East. On January 3, 2008, the Jerusalem Post reported that Lior Chorev was an integral part of past Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s advisers, and he was recently quoted to say that even though Sharon did not get to finalize Israel’s final borders (he suffered a debilitating stroke in 2006), the route of the security fence—which he decided—would ultimately serve as the basis for the border and as Sharon’s lasting legacy.38

“He felt he needed to set the border because he didn’t trust the younger generations,” Chorev was quoted to say. “He knew the fence route by heart and the reason for every stretch of land being on one side or the other.”38

In 2003, the U.N. Panel of Experts on war in Congo revealed that Emaxon Finance International is controlled by Israeli diamond traders Chaim Leibovitz and Dan Gertler.39 Emaxon lists as its address an office in Montreal, Canada, but Emaxon’s majority shareholder is listed as FTS Worldwide, a nebulous global corporation whose business address is that of a firm of lawyers, Mossack Fonseca & Company, in Panama City. FTS Worldwide is registered with the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission to lawyer Andre Zolty of Geneva Switzerland. A copy of the MIBA-Emaxon contract was signed on 13 April 2003 by Israeli-Americans Yaakov Neeman and Chaim Leibovitz.40

Yaakov Neeman is a founding partner of Herzog, Fox and Neeman, Tel Aviv, one of Israel’s top law firms, and he has held Israeli government cabinet and ministerial positions.41 Neeman is on the Advisory Board of Markstone Capital Group, a very influential group of investment bankers, with Eli Hurvitz. On the board of Israel’s Teva Pharmaceutical Industries with Eli Hurvitz is Northrup-Grumman director Philip Frost.42 Both Philip Frost and Maurice Templesman are top-level councilors for the American Stock Exchange. Eli Hurvitz sat on the International Advisory Counsel of Harvard University’s Belfer Center, 2002-2005, during the period when the Belfer Center and their intelligence operative Robert Rotberg formalized the “Kimberley Process” to officially whitewash blood diamonds.43 Yakov Neeman is also a governor of the World Zionist Organization and Jewish Agency for Israel.

One of the main objectives of the Kimberley Process, and the Harvard Belfer Center’s role, was to protect the South African Oppenheimer and De Beers diamond cartels and their leading buyers and agents like Maurice Templesman and Beny Steinmetz.44 Added to those diamond industry firms whitewashed by the Kimberley Process are all the Zionist diamond dealers and cartels that have risen like a phoenix out of the ashes of the Holocaust.

The Israeli-American enterprises of the Gertler/Steinmetz gang have proliferated and today are major shareholders or owners of diamond concessions in Congo’s Kasai province and copperbelt concessions in Katanga. The copperbelt is the big money in Congo. Copper prices recently hit an all time high due to monopoly control by corporations and new applications in transportation, aerospace and weaponry. Cobalt is used in dye and paint processes for manufacturing. More importantly, it is elemental to superalloys used for tank armor, spacecraft, turbines, ship hulls, ship hulls, blast furnaces, refineries, petroleum drilling rigs, nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Like coltan, or columbium-tantalite, cobalt is also used in cell phone batteries. The Katanga copperbelt is also rich in germanium, a rare metal used in optical fibers, infrared lenses and telecommunication satellites.45

The entire military-industrial-prisons complex revolves around minerals like cobalt, niobium and heterogenite (cobalt oxide), yet the truth about what happens to African people in lands taken over by these mining companies is hidden by the corporate media. More and more land is being stolen, more and more atrocities committed, with less and less transparency, and less and less accountability, and fewer and fewer voices for the voiceless. And, as usual, there are always a lot of empty promises.

THOUGH SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS

Over the past fifty years, elite Israeli nationals have perpetrated conflict and injustice in Africa, fueled by and for minerals. Operatives associated with the Israeli military or intelligence services—the Mossad—maintain strategic criminal syndicates in competition and in partnership with other syndicates involving men like Philippe De Moerloose, Louis Michel, Viscount Etienne Davignon, John Bredenkamp and Tony Buckingham.

Israeli trained shock troops became Mobutu’s bodyguards, with Mossad advisers. According to a report by the American Jewish Committee: after 1980 “Mossad agents, military emissaries, and a small group of private businessmen… replaced diplomats as Israel’s main interlocutors with African leaders and political (mainly opposition) groups.” The report cites rising involvement of private defense and security interests, especially in Angola, DRC and Central Africa Republic, since 1992.46

Israeli operatives and “businessmen” appear everywhere there is egregious suffering and dispossession. Dan Gertler’s forays into the bloody world of diamonds involve Israeli arms dealers Yair Klein, who is reportedly wanted by the U.S. for training Medellin drug-cartel militias in Colombia, and Dov Katz.47 Klein was convicted by Israel (1991) for his involvement with groups that targeted and assassinated Colombian politicians, journalists, and police. Jailed in Sierra Leone in 1999, Klein was a field representative for Gertler in war-torn Sierra Leone and Liberia. Gertler also mingles with the Russian Military Brotherhood, a group of “retired Russian generals whom Gertler describes as good friends.”48,49

Retired Israeli Defense Forces Colonel Yair Klein reportedly organized arms for diamonds networks in Sierra Leone and Liberia after President Charles Taylor was deposed. In 1999, Klein was arrested in Sierra Leone on charges of smuggling arms to the rebel Revolutionary United Front.50 The U.N. also documented collaborations between Sierra Leone’ rebels and Lazare Kaplan agent Damian Gagnon; Lazare Kaplan International is one of the organized crime syndicates of Jewish American Maurice Templesman.51

The Steinmetz Group of companies are also involved in the bloody diamond fields of Sierra Leone, along with Energem (formerly DiamondWorks), the company described above that is connected to the white mercenaries depicted in Hollywood’s Blood Diamond propaganda film.52 In December 2007, local people in Sierra Leone struggling to gain the smallest livelihood from their own resources were shot by police during peaceful protests against the Steinmetz-controlled Koidu Holdings site. It’s the same old local people’s story happening everywhere. These were people from communities driven off their own land by mining companies that promised the world, cajoled the trusting people, and gave nothing after. The Steinmetz gang called in the local paramilitary, a curfew was imposed and people were shot; the police, as usual, falsely claimed that protesters were armed.53

Like most mining mafias in Africa, the Israeli octopus—organized crime syndicates, offshore subsidiaries, interlocking directorships and affiliated mercenaries—has gripped the very heart of Congo like an octopus grips and stuns its prey. Mining regulates the pulse of Congo, and foreign mining companies with their black sell-out agents are sucking the blood out of the people and the wealth out of the land.

THOU SHALT NOT KILL

Beyond the intriguing Jewish rivalry for diamonds in the heart of darkness, this tale takes a chilling turn with the involvement of certain German firms and New York City lawyers. NIKANOR, another Gertler/Steinmetz company of dubious origins operating in DRC, has a subcontract with the notorious ThyssenKrupp conglomerate, a company comprised of two former Nazi weapons manufacturers linked to the New York law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, to Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., Lehman Brothers, Chase Manhattan Bank, J.P. Morgan, DuPont and IBM, in the great Nazi-American money plot.54

These companies were all behind the Jewish Holocaust. The infamous German Krupp firm is the industrial corporation that collaborated with former CIA director Allen Dulles and former U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Clients of the Dulles brothers’ law firm Sullivan and Cromwell included Adolph Hitler.54 Ted Terry, one of the senior counselors of the law firm Sullivan and Cromwell today, is also a director of a philanthropy called the Harold K. Hochschild (HKH) Foundation, named for the mining magnate behind AMAX, a company operating in the copperbelt in Zambia, but whose parent company, Phelps Dodge, operates in Katanga, Congo. Harold K. Hochschild was close to the CIA, and he appears to have backed the Katanga succession in the 1960’s just as Dan Gertler in recent years backed the reorganization of power in Congo by force. Sullivan and Cromwell was also the law firm for AMAX. 55,56

Brown Brothers Harriman & Company (BBH) was the primary Wall Street connection for German companies and the U.S. financial interests of Fritz Thyssen, an early financial backer of the Nazi party. BBH bought and shipped millions of dollars of gold, steel, fuel, coal, and U.S. treasury bonds to Germany. These were used to build Hitler’s war machine, and the ties proliferated even after the Nazi concentration camps began churning out skeletons. The horrors of the concentration camps at Auschwitz, Birkenau and Buckenwald became public knowledge long before they became public outrage. It is the same story for Congo.

A PRAYER FOR THE DEAD

There are no records or statistics of the numbers of people brutalized or killed in the diamond or cobalt mining areas, like Kolwezi, Mbuji Mayi, Tshikapa, Banalia, or Kananga in DRC, or Ndola in Zambia, and many of the victims of security abuses will never be known.

When Gertler and Steinmetz and their buddies came to Congo it was soon clear that they had to challenge Zimbabwean tycoons John Bredenkamp and Billy Rautenbach—two cronies of dictator Robert Mugabe involved in pillaging Congo and Zimbabwe for decades. The United Nations Panel of Experts on DRC named both men for plundering copper and cobalt from Katanga, and both deal globally in weapons. Bredenkamp is one of the fifty richest men in England and he reportedly owns a mansion several doors down from Margaret Thatcher’s residence in London.

On November 7, 2007 it was reported that Dan Gertler was instrumental in putting together a deal in which Katanga Mining Ltd. would buy rival NIKANOR for $2.1 billion and merge their adjacent mine projects in Congo to form the world’s largest cobalt company. Also announced was a joint venture between the Central African Mining & Exploration Company (CAMEC) and another Gertler-controlled firm called Prairie International Limited.

The CAMEC/Prairie joint venture will exploit DRC’s Luita copper processing facility, develop the Mukondo Mountain cobalt mine—called the world’s richest cobalt mine—and work on “other” exploration properties. Prairie is majority owned by the family of Dan Gertler. CAMEC is connected to Zimbabwean/South African/British tycoon Billy Rautenbach.57 The DRC government effectively banned controversial Zimbabwean businessman Billy Rautenbach from the country by declaring him persona non grata in July 2007, but this doesn’t seem to stop him from getting what he wants. Rautenbach is also wanted in South Africa on 300 charges of fraud, corruption and theft.

Rautenbach is a former motor car rally driver who controls a business empire in Southern and Central Africa through a British Virgin Islands company called Ridgepoint Overseas Development Limited. In 1998, the short-lived President of Congo, Laurent Kabila, named Rautenbach the managing director of La Générale des Carrières et des Mines (Gécamines), one of Africa’s biggest cobalt mines, the Katanga properties of the Union Miniere de Haut Katanga formerly developed by the Belgian colonial government. Rautenbach today is one of the Africa’s largest exporters of heterogenite (cobalt ore) from the DRC through his Congo Cobalt Company (CoCoCo), but he also has shares in two other lucrative DRC mining firms—Boss and Mukondo—which reportedly earn over US$100 million a month.58

While there has been a lot of Western media fanfare over the Kabila governments’ supposed “independent” review of mining contracts, little substantive change can be expected.59 Structural factors exploit the Congolese people and lands and benefit white businessmen, arms dealers, bankers, and their embraceable black agents. Big business benefits from perception management articles well-placed in media to give the impression that the international system is just, that there are watchdogs, checks and balances.

However, while the DRC and the World Bank present a propaganda front about their ostensible attention to mining reform and the new mining code, NIKANOR—Mining Journal reports—“is in the advantageous position of having entered into a post mining-code contract, ‘which makes us [NIKANOR] relatively comfortable’”60 In other words, the mining review is a sham, it may force some changes, but it will be cosmetic at best.

Dan Gertler and the Steinmetz Group’s partner Jewish-American Nir Livnat is also a director of Anglovaal Mining with Rick and Brian Menell and Basil Hersov of the South African Menell and Hersov dynasties.61 Hersov has been named as a beneficiary of fraud and racketeering involving British BAE Systems weapons deals with shady offshore companies.62

The octopus of South African connections is a story in itself, with links to top officials from Britain to Canada, like Canadian Senator J. Trevor Eyton, and offshore mining companies involved in all the big money (diamonds, gold, petroleum, cobalt) and big corporations with interlocking directorships: Coca Cola, Nestlé, General Motors, and the Bush-connected Barrick Gold Corporation. Barrick, of course, is partnered up with the Oppenheimer/De Beers firm Anglo-American Corporation at six sites in Africa, including Congo.

Rick Menell is a director of Bateman Engineering—owned by Benny Steinmetz—the junior partner of the NIKANOR projects in Katanga. Britain’s Earl of Balfour is a director of both Bateman and NIKANOR. Menell is also the director of Teal Exploration and Mining, whose directors include Joaquim Chissano, former President of Mozambique; Murray Hitzman, a Clinton administration official with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (1994-1996); Hannes Meyer, who worked with Anglo-Gold Ashanti in Congo, 1999-2006, when militias in Ituri were funded to get the gold out. Teal Exploration also has ties to Anvil Mining and Anglo-American Corporation.63

Brian Menell, Nir Livnat’s associate on the board of Anglovaal, is on the board of Energem (formerly DiamondWorks) with Tony and Mario Teixeira. The Livnat connection ties Teixeira into networks that have supported both Joseph Kabila and Jean-Pierre Bemba in Congo’s bloody wars. Energem is also involved in the trans-Uganda-Kenya pipeline, along with Nexant, a subsidiary of the deep intelligence and defense insider Bechtel Corporation.64

Brian Menell is also on the board of First Africa Oil, which operates in seven African countries, and First Africa Oil director John Bentley is a director of Osprey Oil and Gas, whose directors include Carol Bell, a director of the Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank. Bentley is also on the board of Adastra Minerals—formerly America Mineral Fields (AMF, AMFI, AMX), a company based in 1995 in Hope, Arkansas—and set up by Robert Friedland and Max and Jean-Raymond Boulle, notable “friends of Bill” Clinton. Since 1995, American Mineral Fields has been involved in Brazil, Russia, Norway, Zambia, Angola and the DRC. A criminal backer of the war in DRC, Jean-Raymond Boulle, who holds 36.4 % of the company stock, was the former General Director of De Beers in Zaire, part of the Templesman alliance of terrorism under the Mobutu regime.65,66

The Gertler/Steinmetz interests apparently curry huge favors with Congo’s number two most powerful man, Augustine Katumba Mwanke, one of Joseph Kabila’s closest allies and financiers, former Governor of Katanga (1998-2001) and director of Australia’s Anvil Mining. The UN Panel of Experts (2002) cited Mwanke for illegal arms deals and plunder of Congo: Mwanke negotiated arms purchases through Belgian banks and the DRC mining company MIBA.67 Reportedly, Mwanke personally clears $US 1,000,000 a day through his interests in Katanga mining deals.68

Anvil Mining has been involved in massacres in DRC.69 Anvil directors include former U.S. Ambassador Kenneth L. Brown, who served at U.S. embassies in Brussels, Kinshasa, Congo-Brazzaville and South Africa. Brown was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa (1987-1989) under George Schultz and George H.W. Bush and Director of Central African Affairs (1980-1981). The former top internal intelligence and security chief of the United Nations Observer’s Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUC) has been worked for Anvil mining in Katanga since 2006.70

THOU SHALT NOT RAPE AND PLUNDER

Gertler/Steinmetz interests have also been jostling for copper and cobalt concessions with Kinross-Forrest Group. Gertler has bought up or invested heavily in companies just to close them down. George Forrest also made the UN hit list of Congo’s looters and Forrest and his three sons helped bankroll Joseph Kabila’s 2006 election “victory”.71 George Forrest’s daughter is reportedly married to the son of Louis Michel. Malta and George Forrest are controlling directors in Katanga Mining Limited.

Born as Entreprise Générale Malta Forrest, the Belgian Forrest interests have been pillars of exploitation in Congo since at least 1922, when they launched mining operations in Katanga. Forrest’s Katanga Mining directors include: three Canadians; Congo’s Jean-Claude Masangu Mulongo, a former Governor of DRC and high official at the IMF and World Bank; and the current Governor of the Central Bank of DRC. The Forrest dynasty has munitions factories in Belgium and Kenya, and has partnered with OM-Group, in Ohio [USA], dealing in Congo’s cobalt and coltan. Forrest International also operates in Europe, Burundi—involving him on both sides of Congo’s bloody war—and the Middle East.72 Forrest interests in DRC include aviation, foods, plantations, construction, logging, copper and cobalt mining. Forrest companies are enmeshed in the coltan plunder in eastern Congo.

Katanga is the world’s richest mining metropolis, part of the vast copper belt that stretches across northern Zambia and southern Congo—and the home to unprecedented human misery due to state orchestrated repression and communities overrun with toxic mining, tuberculosis, cancers, immune disorders, racial discrimination and slavery. The Zambian copperbelt concessions over the border involve many of the same companies and interests mentioned above, and others.73

Workers and communities in and around these mines suffer all the standard treatable maladies (typhoid, malaria, tetanus, polio, malnutrition) as well. However, such stories are off the agenda for the North American, European, Japanese, Australian and Israeli media corporations providing the mainstay of English language indoctrination meant to instill racial superiority and a vast ignorance and obliviousness that leaves westerns populations shaking their heads and wringing their hands and clicking their tongues, while all the while wondering “what is to be done?” It does not cross people’s minds that their own hands are dirty, that their own consciousness has been falsified, as all the raw materials from Congo enrich the lives of people in the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel.

The immediate capital investment required for just one Gertler project in Katanga—the Komoto Oliveira Virgule (KOV) project—is reportedly $US 1.8 billion dollars, income to kick start billions of dollars of unused equipment mothballed in the middle Mobutu era. There are rumors that Bechtel is involved, but the KOV project involves ThyssenKrupp AG as a minor player.74

The Krupp firm is one of several German firms involved in the plunder in eastern Congo, exploitation which involves the DeutscheGesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit—GTZ—a “German technological cooperation agency” whose Supervisory Board has representatives of four Federal [German] Ministries.75 Krupp industries use coltan and cobalt for superalloys.76 Dr.-Ing. Ekkehard D. Schultz, a ThyssenKrupp director, is also a director of Bayer AG, the Germany firm whose subsidiary H.C. Starck was named for its involvement in the ongoing illegal plunder of coltan and cassiterite (tin) in eastern Congo. NIKANOR director Jay Pomrenze is also a consultant for the Deutsche Bank.77 Certain German and U.S. firms benefit from the military occupation of Rwandan-backed warlord Laurent Nkunda in North Kivu, DRC, where Nkunda controls the Lueshe niobium mine “owned” by Gesellschaft fuer Elektrometallurgie GmbH, a subsidiary of New York-based Mettalurg Group.78,79

HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER

Dan Gertler’s grandfather, Moshe Schnitzer (d. November 2007), was known in Israel as “Mr. Diamond;” in youth he joined the pre-state underground organization Etzel (Irgoun), an Israeli military cell self-defined as an “untra-nationationalist Jewish militia,” but one that committed acts of terrorism in service to the Israeli cause.8 Moshe Schnitzer assumed a major role in the Africa-Israeli diamond trade in the 1950’s in a partnership business called Schnitzer-Greenstein. Schnitzer later founded the Israel Diamond Exchange in Tel Aviv in 1960, which today brings Israel $14 billion annually in blood business, and is the country’s second-largest industry, but Israel’s top export. King Leopold III of Belgium decorated Schnitzer in recognition of his activities favoring the close relationship of Belgium, Israel and the DeBeers diamond cartels, and Schnitzer was also President of the Harry Oppenheimer Diamond Museum in Israel.80

The diamond jewelry trade in the United States is more than $30 billion annually, and 99%—everything that is not synthetic or artificial diamonds—involves blood diamonds and the above organized crime syndicates. Israel buys more than 50% of the world’s rough diamonds, and the U.S. buys two-thirds of these. The diamond factories are located in Nethanya, Petach Tikvah, Tel Aviv, Ramat Gan, Jerusalem, and other cities around the country, but most of the offices were in Tel Aviv in the financial district on Ahad Ha’am Street.81 Dan Gertler’s father, Asher Gertler, and his uncle, Shmuel Schnitzer, manage the original family business, and Shmuel is Vice-Chairman of the Belgian-based World Diamond Council—the entity that spends more money promoting the false image of “conflict-free” diamonds than it does helping any of the people dispossessed or brutalized by the diamond industry.48

On August 16, 2007, Rabbi Bentolila in Kinshasa received a communication asking: “What does the Torah say about men exploiting other men for vast profits while other men are starving and dying all around them? Is there some hierarchy to the Torah that suggests, for example, that black people or Africans are lesser beings, and therefore not to be a concern where profound profits are being made?”

There was no reply from Rabbi Bentolila, he was apparently busy readying for another Bar Mitsvah in Belgium. Unfortunately for Dan Gertler and his spiritual advisers, the Torah says that a Jew can keep a slave, but a Jew kept as a slave must be redeemed, and that—an empty, foolish justification for exploiting innocent people—is how religion falsifies spirituality.

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Police Break 60 Year Old Homeless Woman's Arm

Sat, 10 May 2008 19:04:15 GMT

[Donna Deiss is a politically active homeless woman in Santa Cruz, who was also an advocate for tenants rights before she was unfairly evicted. The homeless in Santa Cruz, as well as activists who criticize the local government, are often victims of police harrassment, false arrests, and police violence. -Steven Argue]

60 Year Old Homeless Woman Says Police Broke Her Arm
by Robert Norse
Saturday May 10th, 2008
Donna Deiss called in last night to report that yesterday around 5 PM, Officer La Moss (Badge #114) assaulted her, broke her arm, and then put her in handcuffs when he attempted to question her at Three Tree Lot near Lighthouse Field. Deiss was taken to the Watsonville hospital, had to wait hours for x-rays, whichconfirmed her arm was broken.
Deiss reported the following to me in a phone message last night and an e-mail this morning:

She was talking with friends yesterday on Westcliffe Drive near her RV. An undercover police officer, whom she later identified as Officer LaMoss, arrived in a black unmarked car and said he wanted to talk to her and others in the group. She read La Moss a statement from the ACLU about the rights of community members vis a vis the police and walked to her RV.

The cop followed her. She got in and tried to close the door. Le Moss, not saying she was under arrest or detained, reached in and grabbed her right arm, pinching the skin as he twisted it behind her back, breaking it. She screamed her arm was broken, but his response was to call for backup. 4 more police cars arrived. She continued screaming for 911 and finally paramedics showed up.

The police said they were impounding her RV, which she lives in.

She was taken to Watsonville hospital, waited hours for x-rays and painpills. She is charged with battery and an additional charge. X-rays confirm her arm was broken. She needs an attorney and community support.

This is an account from Donna Deiss (with someadditions from her friend Shane). Donna has previously been harassed by rangers as part of the 'clear out the hippies' campaign at Three Tree Lot and the other lots around Lighthouse Fields. Recently the City's Parks and Recreation Department had its 'No RVs' signs painted over by state Rangers, for apparently violating state law and policy regarding parking (i.e. RVS are allowed to park).

See related stories: 'Harassment of Homeless in RVs, a Letter from Donna Deiss' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/10/08/18452903.php ,

'Superintendant Hammack Stonewalls on RV Ban in Coastal Parking Lots' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/09/12/18447267.php , and

'Coastal Access Denied to Motorhomes and Trailers in Santa Cruz' at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/08/30/18444952.php for related stories.

HOMELESSNESS AND POLITICAL REPRESSION, THE GREEN PARTY FAILS THE TEST IN SANTA CRUZ by Steven Argue
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2001/12/5085.shtml

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ILWU to Shut Down Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan

Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:10:26 GMT

[Liberation News is in agreement with the following article of the Internationalist Group and both have also actively advocated these kinds of industrial actions.]

For Workers Strikes Against the War!

ILWU to Shut Down West Coast Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan

In a major step for the U.S. labor movement, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) has announced that it will shut down West Coast ports on May 1, to demand an immediate end to the war and occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan and the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the Middle East. In a February 22 letter to AFL-CIO president John Sweeney, ILWU International president Robert McEllrath reported that at a recent coast-wide union meeting, "One of the resolutions adopted by caucus delegates called on longshore workers to stop work during the day shift on May 1, 2008 to express their opposition to the war in Iraq."

This is the first time in decades that an American union has decided to undertake industrial action against a U.S. war. It is doubly important that this mobilization of labor's power is to take place on May Day, the international workers day, which is not honored in the U.S. Moreover, the resolution voted by the ILWU delegates opposes not only the hugely unpopular war in Iraq, but also the war and occupation of Afghanistan (which Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican John McCain all want to expand). The motion to shut down the ports also demands the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the entire region, including the oil sheikdoms of the strategically important Persian/Arab Gulf.

The Internationalist Group has fought from the moment U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan in September 2002 for American unions to strike against the war. Despite the fact that millions have marched in the streets of Europe and the United States against the war in Iraq, the war goes on. Neither of the twin war parties of U.S. imperialism - Democrats and Republicans - and none of the capitalist candidates will stop this horrendous slaughter that has already killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. The only way to stop the Pentagon killing machine is by mobilizing the power of a greater force - that of the international working class.

The action announced by the powerful West Coast dock workers union, to stop work to stop the war, should be taken up by unions and labor organizations throughout the United States and internationally. The ILWU should be commended for courageously taking the first step, and it is up to working people everywhere to back them up. Wherever support is strong enough, on May 1 there should be mass walkouts, sick-outs, labor marches, plant-gate meetings, lunch-time rallies, teach-ins. And the purpose of such actions should be not to beg the bourgeois politicians whose hands are covered with blood, having voted for every war budget for six and a half years, but a show of strength of the working people who make this country run, and who can shut it down!

Now is the time for bold class action. Opposition to the war is even greater in the U.S. working class than in the population as a whole, more than two-thirds of which wants to stop the war but is stymied by the capitalist political system. In his letter to Sweeney, the ILWU president asked "if other AFL-CIO affiliates are planning to participate in similar events." Labor militants should make sure the answer to that question is a resounding "yes!"

There should be no illusions that this will be easy. No doubt the Pacific Maritime Association (PMA) bosses will try to get the courts to rule the stop-work action illegal. The ILWU leadership could get cold feet, since this motion was passed because of overwhelming support from the delegates despite attempts to stop it or, failing that, to water it down or limit the action. And the U.S. government could try to ban it on the grounds of "national security," just as Bush & Co. slapped a Taft-Hartley injunction on the docks during contract negotiations in the fall of 2002, saying that any work stoppage was a threat to the "war effort," and threatened to occupy the ports with troops!

The answer to every attempt to sabotage or undercut this first labor action against this war, and against Washington's broader "war on terror" which is intended to terrorize the world into submission must be to redouble efforts to bring out workers' power independent of the capitalist parties and politicians. If the ILWU work stoppage is successful, it will only be a small, but very important, beginning that must be generalized and deepened. It will take industrial-strength labor action to defeat the imperialist war abroad and the bosses' war on immigrants, oppressed minorities, poor and working people "at home."

ILWU in the Forefront of Labor Action Against the War

Workers strike action against imperialist war isn't new - it just hasn't happened here for a long, long time. During World War I there were huge mass strikes in Germany against the battlefield carnage, culminating in the downfall of the kaiser in November 1918. A year earlier in Russia, working-class opposition to the war led to the overthrow of the tsar and the October Revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky's Bolsheviks. The Internationalist Group and League for the Fourth International call today for transport workers to "hot cargo" (refuse to handle) war shipments. In the early 1920s, Communist-led French dock workers did exactly that, boycotting ships carrying war materiel to suppress a colonial rebellion in the Rif region of Morocco, as they
also did during France's war in Indochina in the 1950s.

In the U.S., the ILWU struck in 1948 amid Cold War hysteria and in defiance of the "slave labor" Taft-Hartley Act to defend its union hiring hall against the bosses and government screaming about "reds" in the union leadership. In 1953, at the height of McCarthyite witch-hunting, the ILWU called a four-day general strike in Hawaii of sugar, pineapple and dock workers over the jailing of seven union members for being communists. During the Vietnam War, socialist historian Isaac Deutscher said that he would trade all the peace marches for a single dock strike. The ILWU was the first U.S. union to oppose the Vietnam war, but during war and especially during the 1971 strike union leader Harry Bridges refused to stop the movement of military cargo. (Ship owners made use of this by falsely labeling cargo as "military" to evade picket lines and undermine the strike.) This betrayal went hand in hand with a "mechanization and modernization" contract that slashed union jobs.

As the U.S.-led imperialist invasion of Iraq was looming, in January 2003 train drivers in Scotland refused to move a freight train carrying munitions to a NATO military base. The next month, Italian railroad unionists and antiwar activists blocked NATO war trains by occupying the rails. In the United States, ILWU dock workers were a target of "anti-terrorist" government repression, as police fired supposedly "less than lethal" munitions point blank at an antiwar protest on the Oakland, California docks, injuring six longshore workers and arresting 25 people (who eventually won their legal case against the police). And every year since the war started, the San Francisco/Oakland ILWU Local 10 has voted for motions for labor action against the war. Usually they were voted down at caucuses and conventions of the ILWU, but not this time.

Last May, Local 10 longshoremen and Local 34 ships clerks refused to cross picket lines set up by the Oakland Teachers Association and antiwar activists, defying arbitrators' orders by refusing to work ships of the notorious antiunion outfit, Stevedoring Services of America (see "Oakland Dock Workers Honor Picket, Shut Down War Cargo Shipper," The Internationalist No. 26, July 2007). In the aftermath of that action, the union issued a call for a Labor Conference to Stop the War that would "plan workplace rallies, labor
mobilizations in the streets and strike action against the war." The Call to Action stated:

"ILWU Local 10 has repeatedly warned that the so-called 'war on terror' is really a war on working people and democratic rights. Around the country, hundreds of unions and labor councils have passed motions condemning the war, but that has not stopped the war. We need to use labor's muscle to stop the war by mobilizing union power in the streets, at the plant gates and on the docks to force the immediate and total withdrawal of all U. S. troops from Afghanistan and Iraq."

As the conference date approached, the union was the target of several police attacks, including a vicious cop assault on two black dock workers from San Francisco working in the port of Sacramento. Some 250 demonstrators from every ILWU local in Northern California rallied in their defense outside the courthouse. Their trial to be set march 18 at a hearing will encounter even larger demonstrations.

The Internationalist Group and its union supporters helped build and attended the October 20 conference, along with some 150 labor and socialist activists from the Bay Area, elsewhere in California and across the country. At the meeting, a particular focus was resistance to the Transportation Workers Identification Card (TWIC), which threatens minority workers and the union hiring hall, and which the Democratic Party in particular has been pushing in order to carry out a purge of dock workers in the name of the "war on terror."
Not long after that conference, a federal judge ordered Local 10 elections canceled and replaced by a Labor Department-run vote, on the eve of 2008 contract bargaining. Federal agents even invaded the union hall to enforce their order. This action is a threat to the independence of all unions.

This set the stage for the recent longshore-warehouse caucus, which voted a motion for a 24-hour "No Peace, No Work Holiday" against the war. The resolution was introduced in Local 10 by Jack Heyman, who also presented the motion for the 24 April 1999 coast-wide port shutdown demanding freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther and renowned radical journalist who has been on Pennsylvania's death row for the last quarter century. Although the union tops maneuvered to prevent Heyman from being elected as a delegate to the Coast Caucus, the motion passed in Local 10. At the Caucus, the delegate from Local 34 referred to the October Labor Conference to Stop the War as the origin of the motion.

At the close of the Caucus on February 8, there was a vigorous debate on the resolution. The union tops tried to stop it, to no avail. They kept asking, "are you sure you want to do this action." The delegates overwhelmingly said "yes." Even conservative trade unionists, including veterans of the Vietnam War, were getting up saying the government is lying to us, we've had it with this war, we've got to put a stop to it now. So instead the bureaucrats tried to gut the motion, which was cut down from 24 hours to 8, and changed into a "stop-work" meeting (covered by a contract clause) instead of a straight-out shutdown, thinking that this would lessen opposition from the employers. In the end there was a voice vote and only three delegates out of 100 voted against.

The efforts to undercut the motion continue, as is to be expected from a leadership which, like the rest of the pro-capitalist labor bureaucracy, seeks "labor peace" with the bosses. In his letter to Sweeney, ILWU International president tried to present the action as an effort to "express support for the troops by bringing them home safely," although the motion voted by the delegates says nothing of the sort. Playing the "support our troops" game is an effort to swear loyalty to the broader aims of U.S. imperialism. It aids the warmongers, when what's needed is independent working-class action against the system that produces endless imperialist war. Yet despite the efforts to water it down and distort it, the May 1 action voted for by the ILWU delegates is a call to use labor's muscle to put an end to the war.

Mobilize Labor's Power to Defeat the Bosses' War!

For the West Coast dock workers union to shut down the ports against the war means a big step forward in the class struggle. The Internationalist Group has uniquely fought for workers strikes against the war, when all the popular-front "peace" coalitions dismissed this and even some shamefaced ex-Trotskyists refused to call for it, saying it had "no resonance" among the workers (see our October 20007 Special Supplement to The Internationalist, "Why We Fight For Workers Strikes Against the War [and the opportunists Don't]"). With signs, banners and propaganda we have sought to drive home the central lesson that it is necessary to defeat the imperialist war abroad and the bosses' war "at home" by mobilizing the power of the workers movement independent of and against the capitalist parties.

That means fighting the war mobilization down the line. First and foremost, this means actively joining the struggle for immigrant rights as the government turns undocumented working people into "the enemy within." Class-conscious workers should demand full citizenship rights for all immigrants. Last year, San Francisco Local 10 voted to stop work and join marches for immigrant rights on May 1, but this was opposed by the employers PMA and sabotaged at the last minute by the union tops. Shamefully, Local 13 in Los Angeles, a majority Mexican American port, made no protest when police attacked immigrant rights protesters that same day. Today, as the ICE immigration police stage Gestapo-style raids across the country, organized labor should take the lead in organizing rapid response networks to come into the streets to block the raids. Despite the campaign by the capitalist media and politicians to whip up anti-immigrant hysteria, there is widespread disgust among American working people toward the jackbooted storm troopers who are terrorizing immigrant communities.

At the same time, the unions should use the power to put a halt to the attacks on civil liberties which are part of the home front of the imperialist war. Driver's licenses with biometric data, TWIC identification cards with "background checks," warrantless spying and phone tapping, setting up special military tribunals for "trials" in which defendants are denied the right of habeas corpus, to know the "evidence" or even the charges against them - all these are part of a drive that is in high gear pushing the United States toward a full-fledged police state. There have been scores, perhaps hundreds of resolutions by unions and city, county and state labor bodies against the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act, showing that labor activists are well aware of the danger. But just as is the case with the countless union antiwar resolutions, there has been no labor action. It is commonplace in the labor movement to bemoan the lack of real action when Reagan broke the 1981 PATCO air traffic controllers' strike, paving the way for massive union-busting, takeaways and racist attacks all down the line. Let's not let the labor bureaucrats bury the vital struggles of today.

Now is the time to turn words into deeds, to speak to the capitalist rulers in the only language they understand. The imperialist war parties must be defeated by a class mobilization of the working people at the head of all the oppressed. The ILWU motion to stop work on May Day to put a stop to the war can provide working people everywhere with the opening to turn from impotent protest to a struggle for power. For that the key is to build a class-struggle workers party fighting for a workers government, for socialist revolution here and around the world, that will put an end once and for all to the system of endless war, poverty and racism.

This is an Article of the Internationalist Group:
www.internationalist.org

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SF May 1st Strike: Cynthia McKinney, Danny Glover and Cindy Sheehan speaking

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 18:47:29 GMT

PORT WORKERS MAY DAY ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Clarence Thomas and Jack Heyman, Co-Chairs
Phone: 510.333.4301 * Fax: 510.215.2800
Email: news@may1.org

MEDIA ALERT

April 23, 2008

The Port Workers May Day Organizing Committee is proud to announce that Cynthia McKinney, former Congresswoman from Georgia; Danny Glover, renowned actor and political activist; and Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star mother whose son Casey was killed in Iraq four years ago, will be among the featured speakers at our "No Peace, No Work" Holiday mobilization in San Francisco on May 1st.

The West Coast longshore workers have voted to stop work to protest against the ongoing war and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The Port Workers May Day Organizing Committee and the other rank-and-file committees in ports up and down the West Coast have received pledges of support from labor councils, local unions and anti-war, anti-racist, immigrant and other social justice organizations across the country and around the globe.

The "March with Longshore Workers" will assemble at 10:30 a.m. on Thursday, May 1st, at the Longshore (ILWU) hall at Mason & Beach, and will march down the Embarcadero for a noon rally at Justin Herman Plaza.

Also see:

ILWU to Shut Down Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/nobloodforoil/thread/f02f3fd2-9632-403e-8829-e3817def77c0

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Cindy Sheehan Letter in Support of ILWU Action on May 1

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:26:41 GMT

Dear Brothers and Sisters of the ILWU,

On behalf of myself and my congressional campaign, and in memory of my son Casey, I want to thank you for the principled and dignified action that you are taking on May 1st.

The exemplary resolution passed by your Longshore Caucus, and your decision to stop work on the West Coast docks on May 1, 2008 points the way for all of us who struggle to end the disastrous war and occupation of Iraq. This illegal and immoral war has been forced on us by the Republican administration, and has been funded enthusiastically by both the Democratic and Republican parties in Congress. The Democratic Party, under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi, continues a policy of full cooperation with and financial support for the Bush administration's war. While many Democrats will utter words that are critical of the highly unpopular war, their party simply will not use its political power to take any action to stop the carnage.

The ILWU has shown that it is an independent workers' union, morally superior to the Democratic Party in every respect. Once again, the Longshoremen of the West Coast are demonstrating that it is possible to oppose the war-mongering corporate politicians, and prevent them from dividing and conquering the movements of the workers and peoples. You Longshoremen have kept this powerful and noble tradition alive on their waterfront since the 1930s.

I want you to know that there is a congressional candidate in the Bay Area who supports you and your heroism. I thank you for refusing to load scrap iron for the Japanese invasion of China in the 30s. I thank you for your refusal to load bombs for the fascist dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet in 1978. I thank you for your support of the Charleston Five, the Liverpool Dockers, the Longshoremen of Australia, of Chile, and all the other workers of the world with whom you stand in solidarity.

I thank you for your heroic stop-work actions in defense of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Black labor journalist falsely accused of killing a police officer. I thank you for honoring the US Labor Against The War picket line against SSA on the Docks of Oakland in both 2003 and 2007.

I am offended by the arrogance, the chauvinism, and the sneering spitefulness that has been shown towards you by the Pacific Maritime Association and its member companies. If these employers had any sense of honor, they would be proud to cooperate with you on May 1st, and would eagerly join in your struggle to oppose this horrific war. My sympathy goes out to any workers who must negotiate the terms of their work against such cold and heartless war profiteers as the ones you bravely face in every contract negotiation. Their willful intransigence in the face of your principles should be enough to convince every honest elected official that your employers are bitter opponent of the people, and threats to the public good.

I will stand with you on May 1st in San Francisco and Oakland, and I encourage people everywhere to take up your call to resist the war. I will be with you on the picket line. I pledge to do whatever I can to aid and assist you in your noble effort, both on May 1st and in the days and weeks that follow.

An injury to one is an injury to all, and an injury to Longshoremen is an injury to me.

In Solidarity,

Cindy Sheehan
(cindy@cindyforcongress.org)

May Day protest
WHEN: 10:30 a.m., May 1, followed by a rally at noon.
WHERE: Longshore Union Hall, corner of Mason and Beach (near Fisherman's Wharf).
WHAT: March to a rally at Justin Herman Plaza along the Embarcadero.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.ilwu.org/ and www.transportworkers.org/ or call (415) 776-8100.

Also see:

ILWU to Shut Down Ports May 1 Demanding End to War in Iraq, Afghanistan
http://tribes.tribe.net/nobloodforoil/thread/f02f3fd2-9632-403e-8829-e3817def77c0

This has been distributed by Liberation News, subscribe free:
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http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

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Cynthia McKinney's Speech in Mexico City (April 4, 2008)

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 18:09:44 GMT

[reposted from Cynthia McKinney's website]

April 5, 2008
Mexico City

Here are my remarks:
Cynthia McKinney
Segundo Encuentro Continental de los Trabajadores
Mexico City, Mexico -- April 4, 2008

Brothers and Sisters in the Movement:

I am happy to be here in Mexico City where the people all over Latin America are on the move:

On the move for justice, self-determination, and peace.

I love that you have created a Power to the People movement with your votes that is stronger than the mightiest military force on the planet!

With the power of your vote you have taken your countries back.

Now, all we have to do is to count all the votes in the United States and Mexico!

In the 2000 U.S. Presidential election, an estimated six million people went to the polls and voted, but their votes weren't counted.

In 2000, and again in 2004, Democrats helped to install Republicans into power rather than fight for the victory that the voters had given them.

As a result of this kind of collusion, the Democratic majority in our Congress has failed to impeach Bush. They have failed to institute a livable wage, stop the multiple wars the U.S. is fighting right now, and they have failed to protect human rights anywhere in the world, including even at home.

That's why I left the Democratic Party.

I refused to become complicit in war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against the peace, spying on the American people, and ripping our Bill of Rights to shreds.

And so I declared my independence from the U.S. leadership that gave us tax cuts for the wealthy and a country 53 trillion dollars in debt and Hurricane Katrina.

To my brothers and sisters at this Conference and in the United States, I say:

Hands off Haiti!

Hands off Bolivia, Nicaragua, and Argentina now making a claim for the Falklands!

Hands off Venezuela and Ecuador!

No to Plan Mexico; No to Plan Colombia! Hands off Pemex!

And finally, it was on this date, 40 years ago, that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered.

We now know that Dr. King was murdered as part of a conspiracy that included his own government. Hatched in the bowels of the Pentagon, where so many other regime change operations have been hatched, the government of the United States launched regime change at home on Black America. We blacks in the United States have long known the pain and the consequences of having authentic leadership snatched from us; of having someone else pick our leaders before we pick them ourselves.

I am proud to join this international movement for self-determination; for justice and for peace. Despite today's difficulties, we must never let our dream be deferred. We in the U.S. gain inspiration from your successes here so we can carry the struggle to every nook and cranny of the United States.

¡Que vivan los pueblos de America!

-- Cynthia McKinney

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Join the new “Cool Earth Party” tribe

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 20:42:30 GMT

Join the new “Cool Earth Party” tribe

The Democrats and Republicans are the paid agents of the oil, armament, and insurance industries. Their continued rule of America will assure a future of more imperialist war, a healthcare system that doesn't work, and no meaningful action on global warming (the single biggest threat to the future of humanity and a healthy planet).

The Cool Earth Party is being established on the principles of revolutionary democratic socialism. We call for an end to the dictatorial power of the wealthy through the nationalization of major industries and for the establishment of a planned economy run to meet human and environmental needs. This socialist society must be established within the framework of full democratic freedoms and multi-party proportional democracy. To be truly Democratic all parties running in elections will be legally guaranteed equal time in the media, big campaign spending will be outlawed, and electronic voting machines (which are presently used to rig American elections) will be eliminated.

Upon taking power the Cool Earth Party will establish a system of socialized medicine for the United States, end all U.S. military occupations of other countries, end U.S. military aid to repressive governments, and nationalize the auto and energy industries to carry out immediate emergency measures to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Cool Earth Party
http://tribes.tribe.net/coolearth

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Biofuel Caused Hunger Brings Down Haitian Prime Minister

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:11:02 GMT

In this Liberation News Mailing:

1. Biofuel Caused Hunger Brings Down Haitian Prime Minister
2. UK Protests call for Biofuel Targets to be Scrapped
3. Other Suggested Reading

********************
Movement to cap food prices brings down Haiti's prime minister
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
By: Silvio Rodrigues
(Reprinted with permission of the Party for Socialism and Liberation)

Food crisis sparks mass demonstrations

Pressured by mass protests and riots against rising food prices, Haitian lawmakers dismissed Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis in hopes of defusing the crisis. Just days before, 16 of 27 Haitian senators signed a letter calling for the resignation of Alexis.

Demonstrations began on April 2 in Les Cayes, but quickly spread to other areas of the country. For several days, Haitians erected barricades of burning tires and old cars in the streets.

On April 8, thousands of Haitians marched to the presidential palace to protest the sharp increase in food staples and to demand the resignation of the President René Préval. (Utah Independent, April 8)

Demonstrators rammed the palace gates with a rolling dumpster in an attempt to storm the building. U.N. occupation forces in jeeps and assault vehicles responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Soon, the U.N. troops were overwhelmed by the size and fury of the crowds, who turned their anger against the surrounding stores. (Times Republic, April 8)

Opposition lawmakers spearheaded the vote against Alexis, a close ally of Préval, in hopes of mitigating popular anger and capitalizing on the crisis. Youri Latortue, nephew of former prime minister Gerárd Latortue, played a key role in the opposition campaign. Gerárd Latortue became prime minister following the 2004 coup against Aristide, working hand in hand with Washington and its imperialist allies. (Reuters, April 10)

Whether the opposition’s move will be effective remains to be seen. About 25 demonstrators gathered to chant "Aristide or death" outside the parliament following the vote. ""Alexis left? What's the difference?" asked a Haitian chicken vendor. (International Herald Tribune, April 12)

Alexis’ dismissal will do little to fill the stomachs of hungry Haitians. The poorest Haitians live on less than $2 a month. The country suffers from scarce arable land and imports most of its food, including more than 80 percent of its rice. (CTV News, April 12)

Cookies made from dirt, salt and shortening are a staple of the Haitian diet, costing only around 5 cents as of January. Doctors say that relying on the cookies for sustenance can be dangerous; for Haitians, they alleviate the pain caused by hunger. (National Geographic, Jan. 30)

The rising price of foodstuffs is a global phenomenon—protests have erupted in Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Burkina Faso and elsewhere.

The crisis springs from the inherent anarchy of capitalist production. Producers make economic decisions that affect the lives of billions with only their own short-term gains in mind. Among other factors, the growing demand for ethanol has shifted agricultural production away from food crops.

Because capitalists must constantly seek the most profitable alternatives in order not to be driven out of business by their competitors, they are unable to avoid such crises—or to offer a way out of them, for that matter. Subsidies or international "aid" are at times provided to temper popular unrest when it threatens imperialist interests.

It is hard to say whether such "relief" would appease the ire of Haitians at the present juncture. For the impoverished masses, the food crisis was the catalyst for an explosive outburst of deep-rooted hatred for the occupation. The February 2004 coup that toppled Aristide left an indelible mark in the consciousness of a people already well-familiar with imperialist intervention.

René Préval was elected to the presidency in 2006, supported by poor Haitians largely because of his past association with former president Aristide. At the time, two years had passed since the coup and Haiti was already under U.N. occupation. Some sectors of progressive and liberal opinion believed that the 2006 "democratic" elections indicated that things were getting better.

The imperialist occupation under the U.N. flag has continued throughout Préval’s presidency. One only remains in power under occupation by adhering to the framework stipulated by the occupiers. The Préval government has not—and cannot—end the imperialist occupation.

With neither the government nor the opposition offering a way out, poor and working Haitians are growing increasingly reliant on the most powerful force for change—themselves.

***************
UK Protests call for Biofuel Targets to be Scrapped

16 April 2008 joint press release by Biofuelwatch and Global Forest Coalition

London-There were demonstrations in London yesterday and groups across the UK also protested against the introduction of mandatory biofuel blending.

Outside Downing Street speakers from Friends of the Earth, Global Forest Coalition, GM Freeze, campaign against Climate Change and Biofuelwatch condemned the government's decision to go ahead with its biofuel policy against overwhelming evidence of catastrophic impacts on climate, communities, biodiversity and food security.

Other protests were held outside the constituency offices of Ruth Kelley, Secretary of State for Transport, and Hilary Benn, Secretary of State for the Environment. More protests took place at BP and Tesco fuel stations. BP and Tesco are two of the companies with significant investment in biofuels (also called agrofuels) from large-scale monocultures. They have been strongly lobbying for mandatory biofuel blending.

"The UK has chosen to ignore a vast mountain of evidence that biofuels are contributing to hunger, climate change, deforestation and human rights abuses," said Dr. Rachel Smolker, main author of "The Real Cost of Agrofuels." She continued, "Perhaps they are counting on new technologies using cellulose from wood and grasses, but these won't sidestep the problems either. Whatever feedstocks are used will result in further expansion of industrial monocultures, possibly including genetically engineered trees. The bottom line is that there is a limited amount of land available, a large population to feed and a desperate need to preserve remaining biodiverse ecosystems. Instead of focusing on improving efficiency and reducing consumption, the UK is mandating further destruction."

Almuth Ernsting from Biofuelwatch adds, "Protests against the agrofuel industry and this government's biofuel policies will not end. The government is talking about vague 'sustainability standards', whilst agrofuels are causing ever greater harm to the climate, to forests and other ecosystems, to communities in the global South, to biodiversity worldwide, and to food sovereignty and food security. We need a moratorium on all agrofuel incentives and targets to prevent those catastrophic impacts."

On 8 April, twenty-nine UK and international groups wrote to the UK government, calling for an agrofuel moratorium and demanding a suspension of the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation, and opposition to new EU biofuel targets - both the proposed 10% biofuel target in the Renewable Energy Directive, and the inclusion of biofuels in the draft new Fuel Quality Directive. Around 200 organisations from North and South have signed a call for an EU moratorium on agrofuels from large-scale monocultures, and there are separate calls for a U.S. agrofuel moratorium and for an African agrofuel moratorium, as well as growing number of declarations from the Southern groups that are deeply concerned about the impacts which biofuel policies in Europe, including in the UK, are having on their communities, food sovereignty and environment.

Contact:
Almuth Ernsting, Biofuelwatch, +44-1224-324797 (UK, any time)
Orin Langelle, Global Forest Coalition, +1.802.578.6980 (U.S., any time)

*************************************
3. Other Suggested Reading:

Biofuels and The Internationalization of Genocide
by Fidel Castro
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/abril/mier4/14refexf.html

Clinton and Obama: Failures on War and Global Warming
by Steven Argue
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/02/10/18478172.php

US Marines occupy Haitian capital amid charges Aristide was kidnapped
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/mar2004/hait-m02.shtml

***************
Subscribe free to Liberation News:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Engaged Ethics and Democracy Vs. the Total Society and the Rule of Arbitrary Law : Examples and References ( from Tribe Ethics and Morals )

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:24:54 GMT

Title "Engaged Ethics and Democracy Vs. the Total Society and the Rule of Arbitrary Law : Examples and References" ( from Tribe Ethics and Morals )

Keywords : universal human rights and "well-ordered societies", John Stuart Mill, United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and related treaties, Total Society ( Medieval Christianity, Radical Islam, Stalinism, Fascism, etc. ), internationally oriented democracy, Nobel Peace Laureates HH the Dalai Lama and Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi, Rio Earth Summit, Dr. Vandana Shiva and sustainable environmental democracy, prosocial behavior, Aquarian Conspiracy.

Summary: This is an brief overview of some of the main principles in universal human rights as related to Total Societies, with some key references to significant people and books. It is based on the concept that arbitrary and oppressive social order, whether politically or religiously based, is self-contradictory, unstable and irresponsible by definition, and that history shows Total Societies to be inherently dangerous and destructive, and that they can and must be fought when overly aggressive.

A counterpoint is outlined in terms of John Stuart Mill, key United Nation treaties and the necessity of balancing shared human and social concerns based on global interdependence and "inalienable" human rights ( as advanced primarily by references and citations to be followed up by interested readers ). The basic ideas of universal rights and responsibilities and "sustainable environmental democracy" are then put forward together. These are promoted as a necessary alternative to any and all total societies and as an alternative to advancing social and cultural destruction throughout the planet.

“Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania, 1759; (b1706 - d1790)

"Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power."
Aung San Suu Kyi, elected leader of Burma ( presently imprisoned by military junta ), Nobel Pease Laureate

"No defeat baby, no surrender."
Bruce Springsteen

"Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always." -- Mohandas K. Gandhi

"Today's world requires that we accept the oneness of humanity. . . In the context of our new interdependence, considering the interests of others is clearly the best form of self-interest." HH the Dalai Lama, Nobel Peace Laureate and Mahayana Buddhist teacher

Re TMIbo on Tribe Ethics and Morals:
"Evil is as evil does. I would define evil as that which seeks chaos over order. Or destroys order to create chaos, take your pick."

K T answers
Democracy is a kind of "social chaos", compared with Fascism, Stalinism, Medieval Roman Catholicism, and "Radical" Islam ( e.g. Afghanistan under the Taliban ), and the People's Republic of China. Those latter systems are all about social control of the many by the few, and their capabilities for crushing human rights are renowned throughout the world and throughout history. They also don't work, as history has shown again and again by the collapse of totalitarian regimes.

Know this: where books are burned or banned, individuals and groups are or will be jailed or banned or tortured or even burned to death. The Christian Middle Ages were also known as the Dark Ages, and a lot of the history represented the subjugation of pre Christian beliefs and lifeways, including the Burning Times, and also official Ex Cathedra opposition to scientific thought and research.

Thus, there is an obvious and inherent set of problems in elevating social order AS SUCH over AND ABOVE basic human freedoms such as democracy and freedom of speech, and that clearly includes so called moral or idealistic systems of belief or "faith based societies". . . even though basic freedoms are also problematical in practice.

So, a social system based on psychological or cultural control of private persons, one which opposes freedom of thought or belief( intellectual anarchy etc. ), will eventually progress towards tyranny unless opposed. It has happened all over the world in different ways. This is a now a major problem in the world today, with the rise of broadly based low-intensity to medium intensity paramilitary attacks on democratic societies and institutions worldwide.

We all have to pay attention to this, or eventually humanity can lose much or most that has been gained in progressive human culture and society, because progressive society and culture can be restricted or banned outright, as happens in one party or one religion states and social orders.

The first problem is
What is the social recourse for mistakes or bias or unlawful behavior by a ruling social order?
The second problem is
Who shall decide which kind of social order shall prevail?
The third problem is
What shall be done when a ruling social order determines to make war on another, outside social order?

After all, every one can see that Fascism, Stalinism, Medieval Roman Catholicism, and Sunni Islam, and Post-Marxist Chinese "Communism" are all fundamentally incompatible! Who then is to rule? "There can be no agreement on the basis of exclusivist dogmas. Each excludes the other." ( K T )

So to this we can add a fourth problem: Isn't it true that while claiming to support and maintain order, totalitarian systems actually create massive chaos and destruction?
This is clearly demonstrated in Cambodia under Pol Pot, in Afghanistan under Mullah Omar and the Taliban, in Germany under Hitler and the Third Reich, in Russia and Eastern Europe under Stalin, and in China under Mao during the Cultural Revolution.

And that is why the United Nations, following World War II, in 1948 approved the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ( See http://www.unhchr.ch/udhr/lang/eng.htm ) This reads in part,

"Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people. . ."

The "order over chaos" social alternatives to democratic society and human freedom, whether derived from religious or nationalist or internationalist dogma, ALL fully fit the definition of Total Society, in which the individual has few or no rights, and the state claims basically arbitrary control over the most essential aspects of human life and freedom.

This is a crucial point : absolutist or primarily one-sided social control is a form or mechanism that can be "religious", or "nationalist", or "internationalist". The *process* is what matters, *not* the dogmatic content per se. Such a process is what distorts and even destroys human society, specifically and especially while claiming to promote "coherence" and "order" and "harmony". Violent and arbitrary oppression of many diverse people both near and far is by definition the opposite of those claimed values.

That is, an authoritarian-leaning society or Total Society, to the extent that it is authoritarian or Total in practice, is
a) NOT well-ordered society
b) NOT designed to advance the good of its members and
c) NOT effectively regulated by a ( truly ) public conception of justice.

"Justice" means "rights" and the balancing of rights through corresponding responsibilities among people. This is well developed in the writings of John Stuart Mill. But a Total Society is one in which rights are arbitrarily abridged. It was not so long ago that the Civil Rights movement ( 19th and 20th C. ) brought upheaval to the American South.

Ironically, it was a broad and ever larger set of American citizens who worked for peace and freedom for blacks in the Southern states for blacks ( often illegally or under direct attack by police ), and many blacks were Christian but still oppressed by a basically Christian society / slave system that was clearly worse than Imperial Rome. In Rome, slaves could read and write, and some were Greek scholars. In the American South, black Christian slaves were not allowed to learn to read and write ( the Bible, etc. ) by their Christian masters. So that is an example of a Total Society in recent American history, and one that was conclusively overthrown.

In the above example, it is clearly unfair and therefore unreasonable that some Christians were allowed to go to school and some were not. That's arbitrary abridgement. Basic rights means no arbitrary abridgement, i.e. that the laws and basic rules of fairness apply throughout society, to all human beings.

The main point here is that laws and social systems are always distorted in total Societies, that basic rights are arbitrarily abridged so that the few apply law to the many, while basically remaining above the law. And that is the opposite of a reasonable civil society, whether it is Medieval Catholicism or Nazi Germany or black slavery in the American South or Stalinist control of Eastern Europe.

Rights fundamentally opposed by large scale religious and political organizations can include some or all of the following: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Association and Assembly, Freedom of Worship, Freedom of Political Self-Determination through Elected Representation. ( In fact, the Vatican did not formally acknowledge the legitimate rule of democracy until 1962. )

A key example of abridged rights is the "establishment" of Nazi rule in Germany. This was *not* authorized in the national German legislature, as many think. In fact, the National Socialist regime came to power in significant part by literally holding the German legislature hostage until that body resigned to Nazi rule. It was a state coup. How is that so called "order" IN ANY WAY legitimate? Since it is not, we can all agree that order and law are *not* the same thing as legitimacy, and can in fact promote the opposite.

Thus, a total society can be established by a social force that works like organized crime, and since large scale crime is inherently antisocial, this is contradicts the most basic notions of a well-ordered society.

When TMIbo ( on Tribe Ethics and Morals ) says "I would define evil as that which seeks chaos over order", this is a deep self contradiction. Clearly, the National Socialists sought "order", and their appeal to the German people was to lead the people from economic chaos and national weakness to strength and power. The Nazis represent an evil will to power, a power that claimed to protect the people from weakness and anarchy, but evil and self-defeating because universally destructive.

Historical perspective matters greatly in this discussion, and so do the perspectives of those who have worked long term and very effectively for peace and freedom, such as Mohandas Gandhi and Albert Einstein.

Dr Einstein said:
"Politics is a pendulum whose swings between anarchy and tyranny are fueled by perpetually rejuvenated illusions."
"The unlimited desire for ever greater power seeks to become active and aggressive wherever and whenever the physical possibility offers itself."
"Democratic institutions and standards are the result of historic developments to an extent not always appreciated in the lands that enjoy them."

TMIbo publically and clearly elevates "order" over "chaos", and we can all agree that the problem is not limited to Nazi Germany or to any one specific time or place. Feudal Totalitarian Christianity, Total Society in many Islamic Nations, National Socialism and Stalinist Dictatorship of the Proletariat emphasize "order" over "chaos" ( i.e. non-Christians or Freethinkers, the so-called "International Jewish Conspiracy", feminists and those who seek freedom from Islamic rule or jihad, etc. ).

We know this because all these institutions historically have emphasized war and bloodshed to subjugate or completely eliminate opposing positions, individuals, groups and even whole societies. Up through and including wholescale genocide. The Twentieth Century was largely largely dominated by Total Societies and their massive efforts to reshape the world into their own images, up through and including unlimited warfare ( along with contervailing forces such as the Allies in World War II ).

A casual, rough estimate of the 20th Century destruction of unarmed civilians under Communist rule ( in Russia, China, Cambodia ) runs from fifty million lives to eighty million lives, perhaps more. How is that "well-ordered" ? Yes, there is a strong sense of "order" in Marxist Stalinist rule, but the cost is astonishingly severe. And Communism still failed in Russia, throughout Eastern Europe, and so forth.

The same is true of Fascism in Spain and Germany. Yes, the Fascists ruled ( established and maintained complete "social order" ), but The Third Reich fell most spectacularly, even after amazing efforts to establish control over all of Europe, and so forth. Even after all the bloodshed of World War II, which claimed over thirty million lives.

Thus we can see the repeatedly demonstrated truth of Gandhi's statement that tyrants eventually fail. This means, more generally, that no Total Society ( such as Medieval Roman Catholicism, or Fascism, or Stalinism, or Radical Islam ) is inevitable, stable, or unassailable.

I argue the reverse: I will argue that all total societies, including Post Marxist Chinese Communism and Radical Islam, are inherently unstable and are doomed to failure. One basic reason for this is very simple: the more a violent social order succeeds, the more other societies will become concerned and seek to counterbalance naked aggression.

Another fundamental reason is that oppressive social orders fail to develop the potential of many or most of their members. For example, about 51% of the world's population is female, yet women are oppressed by Total Societies. ( See "The Trouble with Islam Today: A Muslim's Call for Reform in Her Faith", by Irshad Manji, and "Infidel" by Ayaan Hirsi Ali. )

That total societies are inherently unstable is demonstrated by much historical evidence. This is true of Ancient Rome and Medieval Spain, which were based on continuous conquest, which cannot always proceed. It is structurally true today becasue of fundamental ( and basically unresolvable ) problems within Post Marxist Communism and within Islam ( e.g. the Sunni Shia divide as seen historically, as well as in present day Lebanon, Iraq, and so forth ).

It has never been shown that any culture based on war or conquest is ever really sustainable as a whole. Although Sunni Islam and Shia Islam are both quite powerful today, they are not unified, and for many centuries they have fought each other. Thus to a significant extent, they weaken themselves and each other in overall terms.

Devolution of imperial power is well demonstrated in major cases, with the development of near democracy or effective democracy asa replacement. Witness the development of self-rule in India and the many countries which became free of 16th century Spanish rule ( see http://encarta.msn.com/media_461518061/spanish_empire.html ), or free of the British Empire and so on.

It is quite clear that the overall progression of human societies from the time of the Protestant Reformation to today is characterized by several trends:
1) the breakdown of large scale total societies, such as Medieval Catholism and royalist rule;
2) the breakdown of colonialism and international imperial rule;
3) the tremendous and widespread development of human rights efforts and organizations ( including nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs ) and progress towards universal human rights as principle, as model, and as main priority for large scale societies.

This is due to many major economic, cultural, and international factors, including the global rise of literacy and freer more powerful forms of communication and networking ( e.g. the internet ). It is also based on tested working models of democracy that balance rights and responsibilities through transparent and equitable means. These social models are in turn based on well developed definitions of "social contracts" as advanced by John Stuart Mill and others.

The point is to find and uphold a balance based on freedom and responsibility, consciously and mutually addressed. The claim is not that people and groups will in general come to "mutual understanding and consonance with other people" ( Einstein ), but rather all will have to come to terms with fair and reciprocal standards of rights and responsibilities which favor nor one group and which are as little arbitrary as possible, paricularly in terms of negative rights ( non-interference ).

But Non-interference is the opposite of social control as defined by any Total Society. Therefore it is in the interest of the many to seek the opposite of any one model for a total society. When the many can and do work together effectively, or at least begin to work together, then movement towards a total society can be slowed, or reversed, and basic freedoms strengthened or reestablished.

This means negotiated rights and responsibilities through a civil order that
a) accords equal rights to all individuals by default as a matter of course;
b) is negotiated through a system of law that is always independent of any specific political party ( e.g. the US Bill of Rights and the US Supreme Court );
c) is always independent of any specific religious system ( separation of church and state ), i.e. that fundamentally rejects Judaism, Christianity, Islam etc. as foundational to society and social agreements;
d) actively promotes peace and co-operation and democracy in all parts of the world
( e.g. the United Nations and interventions by democracy-backed peacekeeping forces - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peacekeeping ).

Furthermore, it also means, in our time,
e) the basic idea of "sustainable environmental democracy" as an alternative to any and all total societies based on squandering resources needed for future generations. This basic concept is called "intergenerational equity", or equity between generations. This has been developed by for example the Rio Earth Summit ( 1992 ) and environmental democracy has been advanced in particular by Dr. Vandana Shiva ( see following references ).

"Universal responsibility" and "universal human ethics" have been well communicated by for example HH the Dalai Lama, a Buddhist teacher awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He says
"Human beings by nature want happiness and do not want suffering. With that
feeling everyone tries to achieve happiness and tries to get rid of suffering, and everyone has the basic right to do this. In this way, all here are the same, whether rich or poor, educated or uneducated, Easterner or Westerner, believer or non-believer ... and so on. Basically, from the viewpoint of real human value we are all the same."-- His Holiness the Dalai Lama, from "Kindness, Clarity, and Insight."

( See also The Global Community & the Need for Universal Responsibility - by H.H. the Dalai Lama, Wisdom Publications, Boston, 1990. )

The point is that this kind of ethic is strongly prosocial, it actively seeks peace and freedom for all, not just this group or that. The alternative, isolationist viewpoint fails, just as failing to address the Nazi threat would have been a tragic failure for the US and others, just as failing to address the threat of Taliban style Islamic rule can become a major problem for any and all democratic societies.

HH the Dalai Lama belives in and works for peace. But peace is very different than pacifism. The Dalai Lama makes it very clear that he definitely supports the war effort that destroyed National Socialism in Germany. So did Dr. Albert Einstein.
Peace therefore is not the absence of war per se, it is the active promotion of freedom and democracy, including sometimes, acts of defensive warfare.

This is acceptable by definition at the United Nations, and it is only fair. It is universally agreed theat there is a need to fight for peace and freedom. This has major implications today in dealing with long-term aggressive and expansionist social orders that develop by swiftly or incrementally burying human rights. These must be dealt with using "scalable response".

There are several principal sets of documents that frame and illuminate the issues of negotiation based civil society. These include
1) "On Liberty and Utilitarianism" by John Stuart Mill
( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mill/ ) ;
2) the founding documents and historical development of democracy in the American Colonies, esp. the sources of American style democracy in the Iroquois Confederacy;
3) the founding documents and historical development of the United Nations
( see http://www.unhchr.ch/map.htm );

To these I would add several additional current sources:

1) information on Nobel Peace Prize Winner Aung San Suu Kyi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aung_San_Suu_Kyi
see also the book "Freedom From Fear and Other Writings", by Aung San Suu Kyi
http://www.amazon.com/Freedom-Fear-Other-Writings-Revised/dp/0140253173

2) information on the Nobel Peace Prize Winner HH the Dalai Lama
( e.g. "The Global Community" http://www.dalailama.com/page.75.htm )

3) The Rio Earth Summit documents and process
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_Summit

4) information and books related to Dr. Vandana Shiva
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vandana_Shiva

5) Aquarian Conspiracy, by Marilyn Ferguson
http://www.amazon.com/Aquarian-Conspiracy-Marilyn-Ferguson/dp/0874774586

But politics is not something that happens "out there". Professor Todd Gitlin famously pointed out that "politics isn't where you stand on the issues, politics is how you live your life". And that necessarily involves personal principles, models and priorities, not mere acknowledgement of social "realities" and "concerns". This is why I claim that the Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi are relevant. I will offer some words from Aung San Suu Kyi and Marilyn Ferguson on the inner ethic of progressive social change.

Freedom From Fear Speech, by Aung San Suu Kyi
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Burma/FreedomFromFearSpeech.html

". . .Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day. Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear ofdeath, fear oflosing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure.

"A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man's self-respect and inherent human dignity. It is not easy for a people conditioned by fear under the iron rule of the principle that might is right to free themselves from the enervating miasma of fear. Yet even under the most crushing state machinery courage rises up again and again, for fear is not the natural state of civilized man.

"The wellspring of courage and endurance in the face of unbridled power is generally a firm belief in the sanctity of ethical principles combined with a historical sense that despite all setbacks the condition of man is set on an ultimate course for both spiritual and material advancement. It is his capacity for self-improvement and self-redemption which most distinguishes man from the mere brute.

"At the root of human responsibility is the concept of perfection, the urge to achieve it, the intelligence to find a path towards it, and the will to follow that path if not to the end at least the distance needed to rise above individual limitations and environmental impediments. It is man's vision of a world fit for rational, civilized humanity which leads him to dare and to suffer to build societies free from want and fear. Concepts such as truth, justice and compassion cannot be dismissed as trite when these are often the only bulwarks which stand against ruthless power."

. . . . this is . . . For All Our Relations, and not least for the Dalai Lama and Aung San Suu Kyi. Sarva mangalam.

K T

"Our past is *not* our potential. In any given hour, with all the stubborn teachers and healers of history who have called us to our best selves, we can re-choose, to awaken. Awakening brings it's own assignments, chosen by us, unique to each of us. But whatever you have thought about yourself, and however long you may have thought it, you are not just "you". You are a seed, a silent promise. You are the conspiracy."
Marilyn Ferguson, the Aquarian Conspiracy

posted in Green Party - 3 replies

Looking for an Earth Woman Friendly community?

Temeluch — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 22:55:07 GMT

There is a Meeting of the Kindred Spirits coming up March 29th! And
we do need to see some more Positive well integrated Female Energy in
this group who can work closely with others.

http://edenvillage.net/18.htm

We are still looking to organize a group of volunteers to
help out some good folks one day out of the week, with some
organic gardening and we still do need someone to take Minutes
at the next meeting.

It would be possible, I would think, if there is a single female or
two out there who is cool about living closer to the Earth then
I may be able to provide a place for you to live, for
maybe 6 months out of the year up where I live in Northern
California.

If you can simply come to our next meeting on March 29th. - T

http://edenvillage.net/18.htm

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Conspiracy History compilation DVDs torrents

History — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 13:13:36 GMT

**************************************************

Greetings to all my relations.

This is the last step of our project History Watch. If History is
defined and known by the texts, we can now add to this definition the
recorded events of the filmed archives. Animated images are harder to
deny than printed words. Our objective is to spread out freely some of
the little broadcast, even hidden informations about our collective
History.

We put online a collection of 391 documentaries and other selected and
recut videos, to offer to a wide public the best of the infos
available on the net in english and in french. If you are interested,
you have the time, the right equipment and connection, all you have to
do is open the joint document and decompress it if needed (but normaly
your system should do it automaticaly). You'll find therein nine links
that will open the torrents for the nine DVDs we compiled (around 4.6
Gig each, for a total of a little over 41 G, being over 100 hours of
videos).

Otherwise, you can go directly to btjunkie.com and search for these titles.

11 Septembre 2001 - 9-11
Bush family & friends
Capitalist & Communist regimes
Capitalist conspiracy
Mind Kontrol - Secret Programs
New World Order - Secret Societies
Secret services - cover up - covert ops
Secret weapons - UFO
Terrorism Theories propaganda

Torrents are a system of peer to peer data transfer. The more people
download a torrent, the faster it spreads and the longer it stays on
the net. If you don't have a bittorrent software, we suggest that you
download uTorrent on utorrent.com. If you want to participate in
facilitating the diffusion of these infos about our collective
History, download these torrents on as many computers as possible,
whether it is in cybercafes. It takes one or two minutes to open up
the links and the downloading will keep proceeding on its own.

Please spread this out, take part in this action for social education
on a planetary scale. Thanks.

For more info: watch.history@gmail.com History Watch

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

I Am Running For President.

isis2005 — Fri, 29 Feb 2008 22:35:51 GMT

Dear Green Party,

I am sure you know it’s our time on the planet...our values are of SUPREME IMPORTANCE right now. I sincerely ask for your assistance -- I hope you can help me.

I have already been in contact with the GPUS Presidential Campaign Support Committee (PCSC), who are awaiting my 100 signatures to be Officially recognized as a Candidate for President.

Please, if you have time, check this link for a recent speech I gave in Salem Oregon:
www.youtube.com/user/mikevanh

If you feel you’d like to support me for President, please email me back with your name & in which state you’re registered Green. If you’d like, copy this letter to your contacts.

Here are my policies: www.peacechief.org/MITHRA.html

As many of you have lamented, we "could" be getting votes from both Republicans and Democrats, which is my intention. However, I feel the true beginnings are here on Tribe. Burner in the White House? Theme of Burning Man 2007: THE GREEN MAN, 2008: THE AMERICAN DREAM.

Please assist, if the Spirit Moves You.

Love Isis
(559) 301-3603

GREEN PARTY 2008

posted in Green Party - 1 reply

"Tribe" Backs Anti-Palestinian Racists

Sat, 23 Feb 2008 16:11:14 GMT

Message from "Free Palestine End Zionism" moderator:

This is being sent to you because you were a member of my tribe, Free Palestine End Zionism. I would like you to know that I was notified today by a representative of tribe.net that my tribe was "anti-semitic" and that they removed it!

I am sending this so you will know why the tribe does not exist any more and so you will bear witness to the evident censorship and lack of the freedom of speech on tribe.net, plus the fabricated excuse to silence my tribe.

posted in Green Party - 2 replies

Clinton and Obama: Failures on War and Global Warming

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 21:27:15 GMT

Clinton and Obama: Failures on War and Global Warming

By STEVEN ARGUE

Today, every national academy of science of the industrialized world recognizes human caused global warming as a fact. These include the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences who explicitly use the word "consensus" on the issue.

The problem of global warming is one that will, and is, devastating the planet’s environment, causing mass extinction of species while also destroying agricultural and habitable land through rising oceans, more severe hurricanes, droughts, more unpredictable weather, increases in tropical diseases, year round freezing weather with a potential ice age in the northern hemisphere combined with higher temperatures closer to the equator, and the potential of runaway global warming with the melting of the ocean’s methane hydride that could actually cause the extinction of the human species.

Despite the severity of the problem, and despite the United States being the biggest contributor to global warming in the world, the U.S. government and corporate leaders continue to do worse than nothing, through blocking and sabotaging all potential solutions for the past fifty years up until the present. This is due to the massive profits that continue to be made by the big oil corporations, and the political strength they have in being able to buy the politicians in Washington.

On the biggest question facing humanity, human caused global warming, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are ignoring the urgent proposals of global warming experts and instead put forward conservative proposals of carbon credit trading for big corporations and proposals for so-called “cleaner” fuels for cars. Carbon credit trading, giving big corporations the “right” to buy and sell the “right” to pollute, will undermine the ability to pass other legislation that can better curb carbon pollution. And the “cleaner” bio-fuels being proposed make no substantial difference because it takes energy involving carbon emissions to grow the plants used to make bio-fuels. In addition, rainforests that would help remove global warming causing carbon from the atmosphere are being cleared to grow bio-fuels. To make matters worse, converting food-stuffs and croplands to bio-fuels increases world food prices, causing increased world hunger.

What is really needed, as opposed to the pro-oil industry measures of Obama and Clinton, is an immediate emergency program to begin the process of reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 through converting to green technologies such as solar, energy conservation, and eliminating the combustion engine by going electric and cleaning up the grid. Such a program would also create jobs and could be paid for through cutting the military budget. To develop this program it will be important to nationalize the energy industries under the democratic control of society in order to run them for human and environmental needs, and to eliminate private energy’s corrupting influence on politics, where they promote policies of war and pollution. Socialists offer these real solutions. Meanwhile, the Democrats and Republicans have made human caused global warming a reality by promoting the policies that have caused it, even though the problem was known 50 years ago. Once again in this election, the Democrats have offered no real solutions to this problem that we are running out of time to address.

Just as the energy industries are promoting the destruction of the planet through carbon emissions, they, along with the powerful weapons industries, promote the mass murder of war as well.

In September 2007, when asked if he would have U.S. troops out of Iraq by 2013 Barack Obama said "I believe that we should have all our troops out by 2013, but I don't want to make promises not knowing what the situation's going to be three or four years out."

Similarly Hillary Clinton Said, “I agree with Barack” ("The Democratic Presidential Debate on MSNBC", New York Times 9/26/07).

The U.S. must leave by air, sea, and land as quickly as possible. Citing fear of violence and civil war is the oldest trick in the dirty book of imperialist oppression. U.S. imperialism has created a horrible situation, but that is no excuse to stay, and U.S. troops, Halliburton, etc. are only making matters worse. Over a million Iraqis are dead. These deaths are not just caused by the civil war that the U.S. has ignited, nor are they just caused by the death-squad government that the U.S. has put in power. U.S. guns and bombers are also the direct cause of a large number of deaths. Iraq needs to be turned over to the Iraqi people through immediate withdrawal.

Not only do Obama and Clinton make no promise to get out of Iraq, both have both voted for war appropriations. This puts them both in the position of having directly supported the war.

In addition, Clinton voted to invade Iraq. Obama was not yet in the Senate, so he didn’t vote on that resolution. Yet on the verge of the U.S. war of aggression against Iraq Barack Obama repeated Bush’s lies at an anti-war rally stating, “He [Saddam Hussein] has repeatedly defied UN resolutions, thwarted UN inspection teams, developed chemical and biological weapons, and coveted nuclear capacity.” (Obama, 10/2002 Speech, Federal Plaza)

Last year Hillary Clinton stated she has no remorse for her murderous decision of voting to invade Iraq saying, "Obviously, I've thought about that a lot in the months since. No, I don't regret giving the president authority because at the time it was in the context of weapons of mass destruction, grave threats to the United States, and clearly, Saddam Hussein had been a real problem for the international community for more than a decade." (Hillary Clinton, “No regret on Iraq Vote”, CNN.Com)

In trying to let themselves off the hook many Democrats claim that Bush "did not fairly represent intelligence". Feeble cries by these politicians today that their votes for war weren't their fault because they were lied to by Bush not only make them look stupid, they are an insult to the intelligence of the American people.

While the Democrats helped promote the lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq had no right to defend itself, Liberation News pointed out that it is the United States that has the weapons of mass destruction. Instead of war, we supported the right of Iraq to acquire the weapons necessary to defend themselves from U.S. aggression. There can be little doubt that if Iraq had acquired those weapons they might not be in the mess they are now.

Yet for the Democrats a Republicans Iraqi weapons were never the real motive for mass murder in Iraq. The capitalist ruling class, and their Democrat and Republican representatives, thought that they could use their superior military power to quickly move into Iraq and establish by force a stable neo-colonial puppet regime, and then make massive profits from the privatization of the Iraqi economy, especially oil. It is the failures of this imperialist plan, in the face of Iraqi resistance and growing unpopularity at home, that has forced some Democrats to pretend to distance themselves from the same Bush policies that they actually support.

Just as Liberation News opposes the U.S. occupation and corporate looting of Iraq, we also denounced the starvation blockade that was carried out through the UN by the Bill Clinton administration. That blockade cost the lives of about a million people, many of them children. While the number of deaths was partly due to the capitalist nature of Iraqi economy, and a socialist economy like that of Cuba could have made sure that everyone in Iraq had food, blame for this mass murder should also be put on the Bill Clinton administration. Likewise, it was this Clinton starvation blockade that also weakened Iraq for the Bush invasion.

Today, while the U.S. occupation of Iraq has murdered well over a million people and the U.S. starvation blockade of Iraq murdered a million or more, the U.S. government and its puppets in Iraq had the nerve to put Saddam Hussein on trial, and execute him, for propaganda purposes. Yet the worst crimes of the Saddam Hussein regime were also carried out when he was directly backed by the United States. In the 1980's the U.S. was giving massive military assistance to Iraq to help Saddam Hussein commit genocide against Kurds and carry out a bloody war with Iran at a time when Saddam Hussein was being used as an asset of U.S. imperialism in the Middle East. Likewise, the CIA helped Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party come to power, supplying them with the names of 5,000 socialists and labor leaders that the Ba'athists subsequently rounded up and executed.

Yet to those who claimed that an invasion of Iraq would be a chance for the U.S. to finally set things straight and set up a democracy in Iraq, Liberation News responded before the U.S. invasion saying:

"In the 1970s Iraq nationalized its oil fields. This helped the Iraqi people by taking a chunk of the profits made off of oil out of the hands of the international oil monopolies and instead keeping them in Iraq. This money helped pay for free healthcare and education. As such this was a socialist measure carried out by Saddam Hussein's capitalist government. It was also a measure that stood up to the interests of the rich and powerful nations. For both reasons, socialists supported the nationalization of Iraqi oil while those measures infuriated the imperialists...

"While defending Iraq against imperialist attack, and supporting their right to defend themselves, socialists also recognize that Saddam Hussein is a capitalist leader and that the Iraqi people have their own scores to settle with him. Yet any government set up by a US occupation army will not be democratic and will only lead to the privatization of the resources that American oil monopolies intend to steal..."

"U.S. imperialism will never solve the question of women's liberation in the Middle East. Unlike all of the US supported governments and forces in the Arab World, Iraqi women have many rights found nowhere else in the Arab World except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Over 50% of Iraqi doctors are women. Iraqi women are allowed to walk unescorted in the streets. They are allowed to drive. Iraqi women can even freely criticize men. In addition Iraqi women have the right to work and control their own funds. This is in stark contrast to the treatment of women under the repressive U.S. backed governments of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia where women have no rights what-so-ever.

"The U.S. ruling class hates governments like Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela who use the profits of their oil resources partly to benefit the people with social programs. Likewise, they love governments like that of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait that strip the people of all their rights and keep the oil profits in the hands of the international oil monopolies and their corrupt local servants. Today in the United States we face unemployment, homelessness, and a lack of health care. The billions of dollars the U.S. will squander on killing Iraqis to steal their resources should be spent to benefit the working class and poor of the United States instead." -From Liberation News: What Is Socialism, and Why We Oppose The Invasion of Iraq

What was predicted is reality. Those predictions were not from a crystal ball. They were accurate because they were based on the past behavior of U.S. imperialism. Today in Iraq the U.S. has set up a puppet Islamic government with functioning death squads and torture chambers. Socialists have been excluded from participating in elections and unarmed demonstrators have been shot down and murdered in the streets by U.S. troops and troops of the puppet Iraqi government. The puppet Islamic government also opposes women's rights and women's rights have deteriorated dramatically since the U.S. invasion. The rebuilding of basic infrastructure, such as electricity, has lagged way behind what was rebuilt by Saddam Hussein after the massive U.S. bombardment of Iraq in 1992. The invasion has also set off a civil war that, combined with U.S. bombings and other murder, has killed over a million Iraqis, and forced millions more to flee their homes as refugees.

With the exception of the privatization of Iraqi oil, all of the predictions have shown themselves to be true and the only reason that Iraqi oil isn't completely under the direct control of U.S. oil monopolies now is because of the union resistance of 23,000 organized oil workers as well as the general resistance by the Iraqi people to the idea of Iraq's resources being looted by U.S. corporations.

For the working class in the United States there is ever growing frustration with a war that is costing many lives and nearly half-a-trillion dollars while needed programs for healthcare, jobs, the environment, and disaster relief do not get the funding they need. Just as the new imperialist masters of Iraq have shown a criminal lack of interest in the rebuilding the Iraqi infrastructure, so too they left the people of New Orleans to die.

Yet for the ruling class, their failure in Iraq is not in the murderous, undemocratic, and anti-woman puppet regime they have set up and the money that has been squandered in doing it, but in the failure of that regime to deliver the stability needed to acquire the oil loot. They complain that oil production in Iraq is below prewar levels and the occupation by U.S. and British troops serve as targets for the insurgency.

The words of Hillary Clinton make abundantly clear that what she opposes is not the oil war itself, but the fact that Bush is not winning it:

"Let us not confuse the leadership's failures with either the remaining mission in Iraq or the war on terrorism or with our support for our troops. What we have here is a failure of leadership to accomplish that mission. What was hailed as our shortest war has now become one of our longest. What was hailed as a model of democracy teeters on the brink of complete anarchy. What was the leadership that quickly claimed credit for success has been lethargic in the face of misjudgments and setbacks." Hillary Clinton

Likewise, Barack Obama has made similar complaints, saying that Bush should have sent more troops into Iraq.

Unlike Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, socialists see nothing good that can come from the continuation of the U.S. war against Iraq. The U.S. occupation of Iraq is doing nothing for anybody except the capitalists that are profiting from the war and the tax dollars of the American people. We call for no support to the Democrats and we demand: Iraq to the Iraqis! U.S. Out Now!

Liberation News calls for ending the war and global warming through becoming better organized; building the mass movement in the streets; striking with political demands against arms producers and polluters; hot cargoing war materials on the docks, trains, and trucks as has been done on a few occasions along the west coast; becoming ungovernable; and building towards a general strike against the war. Likewise, we support the right of military personal to refuse orders and resist these wars. We support students, such as those at UC Santa Cruz who have repeatedly driven military recruiters off campus. And we call for the nationalization of the energy industry, building the socialist movement, voting socialist, and ultimately ending imperialism and environmental destruction through a socialist revolution holding high the principles of an egalitarian socialist economy used for human and environmental needs rather than profit, an economy controlled by the people through full democratic rights and universal suffrage.

Also see:

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States, and the Struggle to Achieve It By STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/02/18469739.php

Closing Our Eyes Won’t Make Racial and Ethnic Inequalities Disappear
by STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/21/18473855.php

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

posted in Green Party - 1 reply

Jesse Johnson, presidential candidate, to appear on national radio program Friday night

Joel — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 07:37:40 GMT

Why not Nader? Why Jesse Johnson? Find out why the Green Party might be Your party, this Friday on the Jim Bohannon Show!

February 7, 2008

Washington, DC -- Ralph Nader isn’t even a member of the Green Party, so why turn it over to him? Give yourself and the United States a real choice when it comes to 2008 presidential candidates, and learn about Jesse Johnson of the Green Party. Listen in as Jesse offers a fresh perspective on a cleaner, better, more stable future. Jesse will be speaking with national talk show host and radio legend Jim Bohannon this Friday night at 11 p.m. Eastern time, 8 p.m. Pacific time.

Give yourself and others a chance to experience an entirely new conversation. Find out how as Jesse Johnson goes coast to coast this Friday on the Jim Bohannon show. He’ll let you know about how we can clean up the environment, improve the economy by going green, help America to be a better world partner, and bring ethics, trust, and wisdom back to Washington.

“UNIFYING THROUGH COMMUNICATION” is Jesse’s creed. Make it yours, too, by listening and calling in. Just dial 1-866-50-JIMBO.

Go to http://www.westwoodone.com/stationfinder and click on the Jim Bohannon Show to find out where you can hear Jesse Johnson this Friday at 11 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Pacific.

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

California results with 95.9% in:

Wed, 06 Feb 2008 16:42:53 GMT

California results with 95.9% in:

Peace and Freedom Party:
Stewart A. Alexander (P&F) 282 5.4 %
Gloria E. La Riva (P&F) 1,057 20.4 %
John Crockford (P&F) 292 5.6 %
Stanley Hetz (P&F) 87 1.6 %
Brian P. Moore (P&F) 279 5.3 %
Ralph Nader (P&F) 2,090 40.2 %
Cynthia McKinney (P&F) 1,114 21.5 %

P&F Web Page
http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/

Green Party
Kent Mesplay (Grn) 564 2.0 %
Jared Ball (Grn) 444 1.6 %
Jesse Johnson (Grn) 506 1.8 %
Kat Swift (Grn) 843 3.0 %
Ralph Nader (Grn) 16,835 61.1 %
Elaine Brown (Grn) 1,259 4.6 %
Cynthia McKinney (Grn) 7,124 25.9 %

Green Party web page:
http://www.cagreens.org/

Propositions:

91 N Transportation Funds. 2,654,316 41.9% 3,674,380 58.1% Map
92 N Community Colleges. Funding. Governance. Fees. 2,783,544 42.6% 3,738,241 57.4% Map
93 N Limits on Legislators' Terms in Office. 3,071,170 46.5% 3,522,645 53.5% Map
94 Y Ref on Amd to Indian Gaming Compact: Pechanga 3,727,990 55.8% 2,959,696 44.2% Map
95 Y Ref on Amd to Indian Gaming Compact: Morongo 3,725,141 55.8% 2,953,405 44.2% Map
96 Y Ref on Amd to Indian Gaming Compact: Sycuan 3,707,573 55.7% 2,956,192 44.3% Map
97 Y Ref on Amd to Indian Gaming Compact: Agua Caliente 3,708,824 55.7% 2,952,036 44.3%

Democrat Party:
Barack Obama (Dem) 1,686,517 42.4 %
Hillary Clinton (Dem) 2,064,590 51.9 %
Mike Gravel (Dem) 6,467 0.1 %

DNC Disruption 2008
http://dncdisruption08.org/

Republican Party:
Mike Huckabee (Rep) 260,447 11.6 %
Duncan Hunter (Rep) 12,046 0.5 %
Alan Keyes (Rep) 9,265 0.4 %
Sam Brownback (Rep) 1,975 0.0 %
John H. Cox (Rep) 2,574 0.1 %
John McCain (Rep) 952,409 42.1 %
Ron Paul (Rep) 96,300 4.2 %
Mitt Romney (Rep) 765,355 33.9 %
Tom Tancredo (Rep) 3,225 0.1 %

RNC Welcoming Committee
http://www.rncwelcomingcommittee.org/

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

dbcsez: I'm Running

dbcsez — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 00:30:25 GMT

The official website is not yet in place, but please sample the prototype, and reply here with your thoughts.

http://www.dbcsez.com/dbcgreensenator/index.html

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Closing Our Eyes Won’t Make Racial and Ethnic Inequalities Disappear

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 21:59:44 GMT

Native Americans have been in the United States from the beginning, yet according to health and employment statistics, they, like other people of color, still have not achieved equality. For example, between 1998 and 2000 Native American infants in the United States were 1.7 times more likely to die than white infants in their first year of life (Tomashek et al.).

The Lakota, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota, who supported the culturally and politically nationalist American Indian Movement, faced brutal counter-insurgency tactics complete with FBI-armed and -trained death squads that murdered 61 political activists on the reservation between 1973 and 1976. As part of that terror war against America’s first nations, American Indian Movement member Leonard Peltier was framed by the FBI and remains in prison to this day.

*******************************

Closing Our Eyes Won’t Make Racial and Ethnic Inequalities Disappear

By STEVEN ARGUE

Republican candidate Ron Paul, exposed as having voted against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 that gave Blacks the right to vote; exposed for knowingly accepting a donation from former KKK Grand Dragon and Nazi Stormfront radio host Don Black; and exposed for having put out a racist-sexist-homophobic newsletter in his name for decades that opposed Martin Luther King and desegregation; now makes the claim, “I am the most anti-racist because I don’t see people in collective groups” (CNN). Interestingly enough, Nazi Stormfront members Don Black and David Duke make the same claims of not being racist (Stormfront). To them, the real racists are those who speak out against the inequalities suffered by people of color.

Racism and xenophobia take many forms, both subtle and overt. While overt racism and national chauvinism are still very much a problem in America, one of the most insidious forms of racism is promoted in the form of denying that these problems even exist. Ron Paul and Stormfront are on the fringes, yet this form of racism has become common place in the American corporate media and the mainstream politics of the Democrat and Republican Parties.

One case in point is Kotkin and Tseng’s Washington Post June 8, 2003 article, “For Young America, Old Ethnic Labels No Longer Apply”. It contains a bad argument based on a fundamentally false premise. That premise is the idea that because immigrants are becoming assimilated into the mainstream of U.S. culture, ethnic groups will no longer exist in the future. Based on this false premise the authors go on to make a number of unsound arguments about changes to education and business policies.

The idea that separate ethnicities will disappear due to the blending of immigrant groups into the mainstream misses two key aspects of American life. One is continued immigration and the other is continued racism. Neither of these fundamental aspects of American society are even remotely considered in the essay.

In a world where immigrants continue to flee the economic exploitation and political repression of U.S. imperialist hegemony in most of the third world, and as long as those immigrants continue to be accepted as a cheaper source of labor within the confines of U.S. borders by U.S. capitalists, immigration into the United States will not end. Thus, the authors’ assertion that the linguistic preferences of second and third generation immigrants for English “would seem to challenge the continued viability of programs such as bilingual education” is utterly absurd. Bilingual education helps ease immigrant children into a learning process that is made much more difficult by English-only education.

Another aspect of American culture not considered in the Washington Post essay is the deep and pernicious racism of this society. People of color are offered fewer opportunities in this society on many levels, including the opportunity to assimilate.

Blacks have been here for hundreds of years and they still, by and large, have not assimilated. They suffer over double the infant mortality of whites and by every other health and economic indicator are worse-off than whites. For Blacks in the United States between 1995 and 2002, the infant mortality rate was 13.9, more than double the rate of 5.9 for whites in the same time period (Center for Disease Control). Life expectancy of Blacks is 5 years less than whites, with 2005 statistics showing whites living on average to 78.3 years of-age and Blacks only living 73.2 years (CNN.com). Blacks also suffer double the unemployment of whites. Consistent with long-term ratios, 2002 statistics gave a white unemployment rate of 5.2 percent and a Black unemployment rate of 10.7 percent (Robinson).

These types of data are reflected in other populations of color in the Unites States as well. For instance, Native Americans have been in the United States from the beginning, yet according to health and employment statistics, they still have not assimilated either. For example, between 1998 and 2000 Native American infants in the United States were 1.7 times more likely to die than white infants in their first year of life (Tomashek et al.).

These sad realities, all too often ignored by the mainstream press, fly in the face of the Washington Post’s bold declaration of, “Welcome to post ethnic America.” It has an absurd bellicose ring to it, like George Bush declaring victory in Iraq in 2003.
It is from the fewer opportunities that many ethnic groups face that the cultural nationalism of oppressed groups arises. Yet these Washington Post authors, in ignoring these inequalities, along with pretending that new immigrants will not keep coming to the United States, see “cultural nationalists as a disease that infests most Chicano studies departments.” As opposed to seeing such manifestations as a healthy reaction to the racist, imperialist, and exploitative U.S. society, the authors instead blame the victims of this society that stand up for their culture and their rights. It is from such imaginary premises as the idea of ethnic divisions no longer playing a role in society, that the authors come to racist conclusions against those people of ethnic and racial groups that stand up for social justice for their groups.

Unfortunately, the Washington Post is not alone in seeing manifestations of cultural and political nationalism as a disease. It has long been U.S. government policy to treat people of color that stand up to American racism as a cancer.

The Lakota, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in North Dakota, who supported the culturally and politically nationalist American Indian Movement, faced brutal counter-insurgency tactics complete with FBI-armed and -trained death squads that murdered 61 political activists on the reservation between 1973 and 1976 (Churchill). As part of that terror war against America’s first nations, American Indian Movement member Leonard Peltier was framed by the FBI and remains in prison to this day.

Blacks have faced similar political repression in the United States, also orchestrated by the FBI. In the 1960’s and 70’s the U.S. government liquidated the Black Panther Party through the murders of 39 members, including the police shooting of Fred Hampton in his sleep, and through political frame-ups such as that of Geronimo (Ji Jagga) Pratt who was finally exonerated (i.e. found innocent) after 30 years in prison. Other framed Black Panthers still sit in prison and Black Panther Assata Shakur lives in exile, granted political asylum by Cuba, but with a one million dollar bounty put on her head by the U.S. government.

Immigrants who speak out are also caught in the government’s cross-hairs. Worst off in terms of political rights are Near and Middle Eastern immigrants, including U.S. citizens, who, in the eyes of the authorities, become too vocal about racism and U.S. imperialism. They are now labeled “enemy combatants” without cause and can disappear into America’s torture chambers or be outsourced for torture and murder by being shipped back to their native lands. Some have never been heard from again, with international human rights organizations denied documentation; while others reemerge after prolonged mistreatment such as Maher Arar, a leader of a mainstream Arab American advocacy group who was shipped to Syria by the U.S. government for torture (Klein). A clear message has been sent to Arab-Americans: watch your tongue or you’ll be the next Maher Arar.

Like the Washington Post, the U.S. government sees no need for these ethnic groups to stand up for themselves, and when they do they sometimes treat such manifestations as pest “infestations”, and the government sends in their FBI and local law-enforcement exterminators.

While the Washington Post article attacks Chicano studies departments, locally in Santa Cruz we have a similar example of racism in the media with the Santa Cruz Sentinel’s attacks on Latino Santa Cruz City Councilperson Tony Madrigal. The focus of these attacks are the fact that Tony Madrigal stood up for people of color, at least in a small way, by voting against increased police measures, including against triple fines, downtown on Halloween. Here is what Tony Madrigal said:

"I was really bothered by the fact that I witnessed a bunch of officers pat down a group of Latino youth that were standing on the sidewalk by, I think it was Community Television. They were standing by there. They weren’t doing anything. They were just watching everybody go by.

"They patted them all down, searched them, and then left them alone.

"I asked the guys 'Are you bothered by this? Are you okay?' They didn't want to do anything about it, but they did make a good point.

"They said "Look. They just patted us down but they are walking right past another group of kids who are making more noise than us. They don't look like us" implying that they were Latino.

"I just feel to a certain degree that there might be some racial profiling going on. And those issues do concern me. I don't think that’s what we're supposed to be doing on Halloween. I do understand there are all kinds of procedures the police department has to be going through and everything.

"I just think there is a different way to go about making downtown safe for Halloween." (Johnson)

In response, the Santa Cruz Sentinel declared in their September 16, 2007 editorial, “As We See It, Tony Madrigal’s Immature Remarks,” “Madrigal once again showed that he hasn’t grown into the office when he accused the Santa Cruz police of racial profiling.” Other eyewitnesses, including Mark Halfmoon, saw this same incident of racial profiling as well as other incidents that same night. Yet the editorial went so far as to suggest Tony Madrigal resign.

That same Sentinel editorial went on to claim that racial profiling does not exist, stating, “In fact, the city of Santa Cruz has done studies – with academic rigor – to examine arrest reports in order to find evidence of profiling. The data shows otherwise.” No further information is given on these studies, but the point is clear enough, Tony and other eyewitnesses have no right to believe their own eyes; the white power structure has done studies on itself and has declared this form of racism does not exist.

Likewise, the Sentinel, never friendly to reports of police abuse, criticizes Tony Madrigal for not reporting the incident earlier, stating: “It was irresponsible of him not to check out his information through the proper channels.” What are the proper channels? Presently the Citizen’s Police Review Board has been dissolved, partly at the urging of the Santa Cruz Sentinel. That leaves police Internal Affairs, notorious for exonerating their fellow officers, to investigate. The proper channels that the Sentinel has referred Tony to are in fact useless channels and, as Tony pointed out, the victims weren’t interested in pursuing the case. As an elected official, what is a more proper channel for Tony Madrigal to use than voting against expanded police powers and explaining his vote?

Inside of racist America, a mass incarceration of the poor, especially the poor of color, has taken place, while at the same time the multi-racial working class and poor are subjected to a lack of healthcare and dramatic drop in our standard of living. The inner cities of America have, by and large, been abandoned by the same capitalists that got rich off of the jobs that they have now exported, just as the victims of hurricane Katrina were left to die by this same racist system.

Yet the capitalists continue to profit off of this misery and “justify” it through racism. The capitalists profit from the mass incarceration of the poor through the prison industrial complex where they get almost free labor and they get additional money from the increasingly privatized prisons. A good percentage of those people being rounded up for these modern day plantations are people of color, while America’s racist police are now modern day slave catchers.

Likewise, the U.S. government practices racist policies against Near and Far Eastern immigrants as part of a wider policy of war, death, and profit, “justified” by racism. Want an example? Just look at Bush on Iraq. He repeatedly states that people from that part of the world “did” September 11. Yet when a reporter asked, “What did Iraq have to do with September 11?” Bush responded, “nothing.” Bush keeps repeating what seems like an obvious mistake to people that aren’t racists, but to the racists Bush’s argument makes perfect sense, people from that part of the world did it and any dead towel-heads will do.

Looking at the mainstream media in America, however, one would think that the question of racism in America has been solved. The truly shocking issues of racism are routinely glossed over, ignored, or denied. These Washington Post and Santa Cruz Sentinel articles are good cases in point. They argue that there is no racism, and promote hostility against those standing up against racism. When the Washington Post pretends that racial and ethnic equality have been achieved, one must question if they are living on the same planet, or just lying to achieve some other goal.

The Washington Post and Santa Cruz Sentinel are corporate newspapers. Like all of the mainstream media in this country they are corporate owned, and in addition, sell advertising to other corporations. As such, these papers are beholden to corporate interests, and do their duty spreading corporate propaganda on behalf of the ruling American capitalist class. That capitalist system was racist from birth in profiting from slavery and the mass murder of Native Americans, and profits from racism now through war, prisons, and paying less for the labor of immigrants and people of color.

While pretending to hold no bias, the bias of the Washington Post and Santa Cruz Sentinel are so pro-capitalist, pro-imperialist, and pro-racist that their main tactic of debate on these issues is to pretend the words that describe them don’t even exist. The most insidious racists in journalism are those who either ignore the problem or insist that problems of institutional racism do not exist.

It took a mass movement outside of the capitalist power structure to win the rights that people of color have achieved so far. Yet there is still a long way to go until we can declare victory and full equality. Closing our eyes will not make racial and ethnic divisions disappear. It will only be through recognizing the prevalent nature of problems such as racism and American nationalist chauvinism that we will be able to achieve equality and justice, not by glossing over these problems and pretending they don’t exist.

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

Works Cited:

They don’t send in e-mail well, but can be seen at: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/21/18473855.php

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Art in action book check it out

yeahright — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:43:03 GMT

Hi everyone,
My work is featured in this awesome book, Buy yours today $45 +tax SH from www.joemangrum.com and get a signed copy (personalized if you include your name etc. Its a very timely topic , climate change, funny how nobody is asking about it to our presidential hopefuls??
lets get the word out on climate change!

heres the details

In the environmental realm, science and art are inextricably linked. While science determines how we measure the health of our planet, art allows us to visualize our relationship to the natural world. Art in Action collects creative interpretations of the state of out planet in word and image by seventy-nine artists. These varied pieces express a profound appreciation for all species and landscapes, explore our natural world lost, despaired and reconstructed and describe the fantasy of paradises anew and gone awry.

From the expansive vision of Christo to the enlightened power of Olafur Eliasson, the art speaks to us in as many ways as there are artists. Each chapter asks us to celebrate, reflect, interact, protect and act, demonstrating the vast and rich web of life and the interconnectedness of it all. No book can change the natural world. But these stories and photographs can build awareness, the first critical step in changing our collective story from one that exploits and destroys nature for the benefit of humankind to one that nurtures and values the natural world.

Mia Hanak is the Founding Executive Director of the Natural World Museum, an organization committed to inspiring sustainable culture through the arts in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). She leads the team that produces the innovative Art for the Environment global exhibition series. She has been nominated by the American Association of Museums as a ?Museum Leader for the Next Generation.? She currently resides in San Francisco.

Randy Rosenberg is an artist and has also curated many art collections for international organizations including The World Bank, the International Finance Corporation and Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her traveling exhibitions include: The Missing Peace: Artists Consider the Dalai Lama and Envisioning Change; Attitudinal and Climate.

For more information, visit the Natural World Museum at artintoaction.org

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Green Presidential Campaigns

Shriekh — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 02:46:03 GMT

Question: Is a Green presidential campaign the best use of the Green Party's resources in 2008? What objectives should such a campaign aim to achieve?

If your answer to the above is "no," what might be the best use of the Green Party's resources in 2008?

posted in Green Party - 15 replies

How Israel Promotes Anti-Semitism

Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:29:03 GMT

How Israel Promotes Anti-Semitism
By STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/13/18472076.php

Today, in an attempt to smear me, posts have gone up all over the internet accusing me of being an anti-Semite. Pieces of the following essay are posted with other words inserted that are not my own. In addition, accusations have been made that I have attempted to delete the following essay from the public record. To contradict this smear tactic, and to prove that opposing Zionism is not anti-Semitic, I am reposting the entire essay in full.

I wrote the following essay early in 2001 as part of a discussion on the violence and repression taking place in Israel at the time. Yet, the essay is still entirely relevant, because it takes a historical look at the roots of the conflict, and discusses how the Zionist movement has been harmful to both Arabs and Jews alike.

How Israel Promotes Anti-Semitism (Part 1)

In this mailing: Pro-zionist Letter on Israel from Becky Johnson and Response by Steve Argue.

Letter to Editor,

You have to go back and read your history books. Palestine was the name the British gave to the mandate they took over (in typical British imperial fashion) from the crumbling Ottoman Empire. Palestinians at the time included everyone who lived there, including the Jews. Palestine ceased to exist when Israel was formed in 1948. The plan
from the UN was to have the state of Palestine right next to Israel. But all the Arab neighbors (and the Arab population within the borders of the new state of Israel) rejected this two state solution and responded by out and out war waged on the Israelis.

The Palestinians (Arabs who live or lived within the boundaries of Israel) didn't even start to call themselves that until 1968--- twenty years after the establishment of Israel. Basically the concept of Palestine is a manufactured one to drum up support for these Arabs and to decrease support for Israel by the claim that Israel is on THEIR land.

Remember, the Arabs and muslims [sic] who did not flee in 1948, but stayed in Israel have full citizenship, have freedom to practice their religion, own property, vote, have representation in the Knesset, and compose 18% of the population.

There is no Palestine. And there never was except as a British invention.

---Becky Johnson

Steven Argue responds:

Actually, history is one of my strong points. You state that I need to consult my history books, yet you make statements that are inarguably historically incorrect. Palestine was in existence as a recognized territory of the Ottoman Empire long before British control and even before the beginnings of Jewish colonization by the Zionist movement.

These inhabitants of the region also had Arab nationalist sentiments that opposed the control of the Ottoman Empire before the creation of the Zionist State and have since opposed many of the U.S., French, and British imposed kings, crown princes, emirs, sheiks, etc. that Zionists like to claim represent the aspirations of the Arab people.

Your attempt to deny a people of even the name of their homeland is consistent with an ideology that denies an entire people of the right to their homeland. The fact that bloody repression and horrible discrimination has driven the majority of Palestinians from large parts of their homeland without the right of return is not enough. The Zionist movement wants to wipe away the rightful name of the land they have conquered by re-writing history and denying there ever was a Palestine.

From its beginnings in the eighteen hundreds the Zionist movement had little concern for the Arab inhabitants of the Palestinian land they would settle. Instead, they appealed to imperialist powers as potential allies against the Arab people in setting up their Zionist state. For example, Zionist leader T. Herzl stated around 1897: "If his majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could undertake to regulate Turkey's finances. For Europe, we would constitute a bulwark against Asia down there; we would be the advance post of civilization against barbarism. As a neutral state, we would remain in constant touch with all of Europe, which would guarantee our existence" (Rodinson, "Israel a Colonial Settler State?").

By being “neutral”, Herzl is obviously referring to the Zionist dealings with powers of Europe, and not to the colonial "barbarians" already in and around the land he would settle and conquer.

An Arab leader in Jerusalem named Nassif Bey al-Khalidi who tried unsuccessfully to work out an agreement between Arabs and the Zionist movement warned the Zionists with the following statement, "Be very careful, Messieurs Zionists, governments disappear, but peoples remain. The Jewish immigrants came to Palestine believing it to be a desolate, sparsely inhabited country. They were too busy with their own business and too ignorant of Arabic to notice what was going on around them. Since it was the Turks who ruled Palestine, they turned all their attention toward the Turks. This did not make them popular with the Arabs" (Neville Mandel, "Chapters of Arab-Jewish Diplomacy 1918-1922").

The Jewish immigrants never became integrated in any way with the native Arab population. This was true economically, politically, socially, and linguistically. These Jewish immigrants were so separate from the Palestinian people that they were only Palestinian to the extent that they were physically living in Palestine.

It took the weakening of the Sultan during the First World War for Europe (specifically England) to move in and grant the colonial framework for Jewish colonization that aimed itself at the goal of an exclusively Jewish state. This framework was set forth in a British political charter in November 1917 called the Balfour Declaration which stated, "His Majesty's government views with favor the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."

Within this framework an exclusive Jewish state was the stated goal of all but a small minority in the Zionist movement, a goal that obviously would be at the expense of the Arab people already living in Palestine. In order to placate the Palestinians, however, the Balfour declaration stated, "It should be clearly understood that nothing should be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the non-Jewish communities in Palestine."

While Britain was trying to placate the Arabs, Zionist leader Jabotinsky was very clear on Zionist intentions, stating in 1923 in his Book the "Iron Wall", "There can be no discussion of voluntary reconciliation between us and the Arabs, not now, and not in the foreseeable future. All well meaning people, with the exception of those blind from birth, understood long ago the complete impossibility of arriving at a voluntary agreement with the Arabs of Palestine for the transformation of Palestine from an Arab country to a country with a Jewish majority. Each of you has some understanding of the history of colonization. Try to find even one example when the colonization took place with the agreement of the native population."

In understanding the existence of a Palestinian people and the struggles yet to come, Jabotinsky went on to state, "They have the precise psychology we have. They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux upon his prairie. Each people will struggle against colonizers until the last spark of hope that they can avoid the dangers of conquest and colonization is extinguished. The Palestinians will struggle in this way until there is hardly a spark of hope."

Jabotinsky's view, and the policy that would later be carried out against the Palestinians, could not be made any clearer than his following statement from the same writing: "We can not give any compensation for Palestine, neither to the Palestinians nor to the other Arabs. Therefore a voluntary agreement is inconceivable. All colonization, even the most restricted, must continue in defiance of the native population. Therefore it can continue and develop only under the shield of force which comprises an Iron Wall through which the Arab population can never break through. This is our Arab policy. To formulate it any other way would be hypocrisy."

In explaining the differences between Zionist factions in dealing with the Palestinians Jabotinsky stated, "Force must play its role - with strength and without indulgence. In this, in this there are no differences between our militarists and our vegetarians. One prefers an Iron Wall of Jewish bayonets; the other prefers an Iron Wall of English bayonets."

On these issues Rabbi Judas L. Magnes, President of the Hebrew University Jerusalem wrote, "by definition a Jewish state means that Jews will govern other people, other people who live in this Jewish state…Jabotinsky knew this long ago. He was the prophet of the Jewish state...In his early writings he said: 'Has a people ever been known to give up its territory of its own volition? Likewise, the Arabs of Palestine will not renounce their sovereignty without violence.'"

On the morals of Jabotinsky's plans and his desire to extinguish all hopes of the Palestinian people he is as clear in the "Iron Wall" as Hitler is of his intentions in "Mein Kampf" with Jabotinsky stating: "To the hackneyed reproach that this point of view is unethical, I answer 'absolutely untrue.' This is our ethic. There is no other ethic. As long as there is the faintest hope for the Arabs to impede us they will not sell these hopes - not for any sweet word nor for any tasty morsel, because this is not a rabble but a people, a living people. And no people makes such enormous concessions on such fateful questions, except when there is no hope left, until we have removed every opening visible in the Iron Wall."

In 1940 Jabotinsky states in "The Jewish War Front": "Since we have the moral authority for calmly envisaging the exodus of the Arabs, we need not regard the possible departure of 900,000 with dismay. Herr Hitler has recently been enhancing the popularity of population transfer."

While the Arabs of Palestine were extremely tolerant of the Zionists who were moving in to take their land and their hopes, the Zionist movement was never interested in forming any sort of alliance with the Arab people. Instead, the Zionist movement from its inception was openly anti-Arab and pro-imperialist, even though those same imperial powers were the same ones who were carrying out pogroms against the Jews in the ghettos across Europe. This pro-imperialist policy included close relations with the pogromist leaders of anti-Semitic Czarist Russia who murdered tens of thousands of Jews, and later Zionist support and deals that aided the fascist death camps of Nazi Germany.

Jews, in fact, are victims of Zionism along side Arabs. From the beginning of Hitler's seizure of power in 1933 the Zionist movement lent their support to the Nazis, support which lasted until at least 1944 when they aided Hitler's "final solution" in Hungary killing 800,000 Jews. On the surface, the idea of Zionist relations with the Nazis may sound illogical and seem made up. Those relations, however, are well documented.

Hitler seized power in 1933 with a clear fascistic program that called for the annihilation of all socialists, communists, labor leaders, and Jews. Despite this fact, the Zionist Federation of Germany sent the Nazi Party a memorandum on June 21, 1933 stating: "…a rebirth of national life such as is occurring in German life … must also take place in the Jewish national group. On the foundation of the new [Nazi] state, which has established itself on the principle of race, we wish to fit our community into the total structure so that for us, too, in the sphere assigned to us, fruitful activity for the Fatherland is possible…." (Brenner, Zionism, pg. 48)

The policy of supporting Hitler was later upheld at the World Zionist Organization Congress in 1933, where a motion to take action against Hitler was defeated 240 to 43. Thus, the Jewish boycott of the German economy at a time of economic weakness and vulnerability was broken with the World Zionist Organization's Anglo Palestine Bank resuming trade. In fact, the World Zionist Organization became the principal distributors of Nazi goods in Northern Europe and the Middle East.

Feivel Polkes was a member of Zionist leader Jabotinsky's Haganah militia. He was sent by Jabotinsky to Berlin to inform Nazi leader Adolf Eichman of his intention to spy for the S.S. in exchange for the release of the money of German Jews for use on the Zionist project. Zionist Feivel told Nazi Eichman, "Jewish Nationalist Circles are very pleased with the radical German policy, since the strength of the Jewish population in Palestine would be so far increased thereby that in the foreseeable future the Jews would reckon upon numerical superiority over the Arabs" (Brenner, "Zionism" pg. 99).

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's minister of propaganda, felt so fond of the Zionist movement and their close working relations that he wrote a 12 part report in Der Angriff (The Assault) praising the Zionist movement, and ordered a medallion struck with a swastika on one side and the Zionist Star of David on the other.

Collaboration included an agreement in Hungary between Zionist agent Dr. Rudolph Kastner and Nazi leader Adolph Eichman. Under the 1944 agreement the Nazis would murder 800,000 Hungarian Jews without Zionist interference and with complete silence from the Zionist movement. In exchange, 600 prominent Jews would be freed from Hungary. The Nazis then opened up a Rescue Department in Hungary headed by Kastner. These facts were exposed by a survivor named Malchiel Greenwald who was subsequently sued by the Israeli government, sued by the same leaders that had fashioned the deal made by Kastner in the first place.

Kastner's collaboration with the Nazis was confirmed with the Israeli court stating, "The sacrifice of the majority of the Jews, in order to rescue the prominents was the basic element in the agreement between Kastner and the Nazis. This agreement fixed the division of the nation into two unequal camps, a small fragment of prominents, whom the Nazis promised Kastner to save, on the one hand, and the majority of Hungarian Jews whom the Nazis designated for death, on the other hand." (Judgment given on June 22, 1955, Protocol of Criminal Case
124/53 in District Court, Jerusalem; cited in Ralph Schoenman’s “Hidden History of Zionism”)

The Zionists subsequently ignored a plan drawn up by the resistance that could have saved many, if not most, of Hungary's Jews. The Zionist silence and lack of action against Nazi atrocities in fact characterizes their stance throughout the entire holocaust. A plan, complete with maps, was drawn up that would blow-up railroad tracks to the death camps and crematoria and airdropped ammunition to the 80,000 Jews in Auschwitz. Part of the plan also included the parachuting of saboteurs to blow up the Auschwitz facility that was murdering 13,000 people a day. Had the Zionist movement not been so intent on fighting the Arabs, rather than the real anti-Semite butchers of Europe, they could have gathered the resources to carry out such operations. Likewise, Great Britain and the United States could have carried out the proposed measures as well, but chose not to save the Jews, and felt no pressure from the silent Zionist movement to do so.

This caused Rabbi Weismandel, who had drawn up the plans against Auschwitz, to ask of the Zionists in July 1944, "this special message to inform you that yesterday the Germans began deportations of Jews from Hungary. … The deported ones go to Auschwitz to be put to death by cyanide gas. This is the schedule, of Auschwitz from yesterday to the end: Twelve thousand Jews - men, women and children, old men, infants, healthy and sick ones, are to be suffocated daily. And you, our brothers in Palestine, in all the countries of freedom, and you ministers of all the Kingdoms, how do you keep silent in the face of this great murder. Silent while thousands upon thousands, reaching now to six million Jews, are murdered? And silent now, while tens of thousands are still being murdered or waiting to be murdered? Their destroyed hearts cry out to you for help as they bewail your cruelty. Brutal, you are and murderers, too, you are, because of the cold bloodedness of the silence in which you watch, because you sit with folded arms and do nothing, although you could stop or delay the murder of Jews at this very hour. You, our brothers, sons of Israel, are you insane?" (Shoenman, "The Hidden History of Zionism?")

The Zionists also opposed the immigration of Jews to other countries where they could escape extermination. Explaining their policy of pressuring Great Britain and the United States not to adopt immigration policies that would have saved the lives of Jews, Zionist leader Ben Gurion stated in 1938, "If I knew that it would be possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England and only half of them by transporting them to Eretz Israel, then I would opt for the second option" (Brenner, "Zionism", pg. 149).

The ability of the Zionist movement to sacrifice the lives of millions of Jews for the settling of Palestine had a consistent inner logic. That logic speaks volumes. While some of the first victims of these Zionist madmen were the Jewish people, the Palestinians were next. And today, the continued Zionist mistreatment of the Palestinian people is one of the biggest threats to the lives of Jewish people because some of the Arab victims of Zionism now do not differentiate between the crimes of Zionism and the Jewish people. In addition, the Israeli government aided in the formation of the anti-Semitic organization Hamas, and today uses their suicide bombings against civilians as a way to gain sympathy and support in the Zionist war against the Palestinian people (more on this later). Objectively, the Zionist capitalist state is, in fact, the common enemy of both Jews and Arabs.

In the 1940s Jews were only one third of the population of Palestine. The Arab majority had not yet been driven from their land. The British, in considering their entire imperial interests in the Middle East and their need for good relations with Arabs had backtracked from their original support of a Jewish state in Palestine. Thus the Zionist minority carried out a war of independence against Britain in order to set up the Jewish state. The Palestinian people, the majority of the population, were not consulted by the Zionists on what kind of future they would like to have for their homeland and had little involvement in the war, although a few did side with British forces.

After independence from the Britain in 1948, the Zionist state began a massive expropriation of Palestinian land that has not ended. Becky Johnson's claim that, "the Arabs and Muslims who did not flee in 1948, but stayed in Israel have full citizenship, have freedom to practice their religion, own property, vote, have representation in the Knesset, and compose 18% of the population" is so utterly untrue as to defy common sense. Besides defying the facts, which we shall establish, I ask why most of an entire people would voluntarily flee the land in which they had built flourishing towns, a rich agriculture, and a vibrant cultural life with nowhere else to go? The short answer is that they did not flee voluntarily. They had met the "Jewish bayonets" of Zionist Jabotinsky's "Iron Wall". To deny this fact comes in on the same level as those who deny the Holocaust of Europe.

The humiliating conditions of the Palestinian people were recently observed by former anti-Apartheid fighter Archbishop Desmond Tutu who wrote:

"I have been very deeply distressed by my visit to the Holy Land; it reminded me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like us when young police officers prevented us from moving about.

"On my visit to the Holy Land I drove to a church with the Anglican bishop in Jerusalem. I could hear tears in his voice as he pointed to Jewish settlements. I thought of the desire of Israelis for security. But what of the Palestinians who have lost their land and homes?

"I have experienced Palestinians pointing to what were their homes, now occupied by Jewish Israelis. I was walking with Canon Naim Ateek (the head of the Sabeel Ecumenical Centre) in Jerusalem. He pointed and said: 'Our home was over there. We were driven out of our home; it is now occupied by Israeli Jews.'

"My heart aches. I say why are our memories so short. Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?"

Although the Israeli government claims that Palestinians have the right to own property, this is a lie. Ever since 1948, Palestinians in Israel do not have the right to own land, because their land is often confiscated by force for Hebrew speaking settlement and agriculture. Water rights have been systematically cut off and diverted away from Palestinian lands and given to stolen Hebrew owned lands. Palestinian laborers are then denied by law the right to work the Hebrew owned agricultural lands, although they are sometimes illegally employed as cheap labor with no labor rights.

Palestinians do not have the right to freely travel. Reminiscent of chattel slavery, Palestinian families are often separated by Israeli officials who commonly do not grant necessary permits for Palestinians to enter neighborhoods or towns where wives, husbands, or children live. In contrast, the Hebrew speaking population has full rights to travel.

Palestinians often do not have the right to keep their own homes, which are often confiscated or bulldozed. The bulldozing of houses is a common punishment of families whose children are accused of throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. Recently, in Jenin, houses were bulldozed with people inside, an act that besides killing people, also made an estimated 4,000 people homeless.

Palestinians do not have the right to freedom of speech and regularly face arrest, torture, and even death for their political views. Even Hebrew speakers who support rights for Palestinians, or an end to Israeli wars, have, at times, had their press shut down by the Israeli government, or had their demonstrations attacked and beaten by Israeli soldiers.

Palestinians do not have the same right to an education as Hebrew speaking people, based on the fact that higher education is paid for through the forced military inscription of Hebrew speakers, while Palestinians are generally excluded from the military. While most Palestinians can’t serve, so-called “Israeli Arabs” have the choice of serving, but it would, in fact, make no sense for Palestinians to serve their military, since humiliation, brutality, and outright terror against Palestinians is a part of every day duty for an Israeli soldier. Likewise, few blacks served in the Apartheid military of South Africa. In Israel, this is used to deny Palestinians their right to education.

Those Palestinians who are then driven out of what was once Palestine usually are not allowed to return, while Jews who have never set foot in Israel are granted automatic citizenship, with the exception of two Jewish supporters of Palestinians named Ralph Shoenman and Mya Shone, who have the honor of not being allowed into Israel because of their excellent writings. Those Palestinians who are forced from Israel are often bombed by Israel in their refugee camps or massacred in other ways. In the 1982 case of the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon, Palestinians were rounded up and systematically slaughtered in the thousands by Israeli troops and their Phalangist Militia allies.

As survivor Mrs. Sersawi testified in a Belgium appeals court on the Israeli governments war crimes:

"The Lebanese forces militia [Phalangists] had taken us from our homes and marched us up to the entrance of the camp where a large hole had been dug in the earth. The men were told to get into it. Then the militiamen shot a Palestinian. The women and children climbed over bodies to get to this spot, but we were truly shocked by seeing this man killed in front of us and there was a roar of shouting and screams from the women. That's when we heard the Israelis on a loudspeaker shouting, 'give us your men.' We thought, 'thank God, they will save us.'

"We were told to walk up the road to the Kuwaiti Embassy, the women and children in front, the men behind. We had been separated. There were Phalangist Militiamen and Israeli soldiers walking alongside us. I could still see Hassan (her husband with whom she was 3 months pregnant) and Faraj (her brother-in-law). It was like a parade. There were several hundred of us. When we got to Cite Sportif, the Israelis put us women in a big concrete room and the men were taken to another side of the stadium. There were a lot of men from the camp and I could no longer see my husband. The Israelis went around saying 'Sit, sit.' It was 11 AM. An hour later we were told to leave. But we stood outside amid the Israeli soldiers, waiting for our men.

"Some men came out, none of them younger than 40, and they told us to be patient, that hundreds of men were still inside. Then about 4 PM an Israeli officer came out. He was wearing dark glasses and said in Arabic: 'What are you waiting for?' He said there was nobody left, that everyone had gone. There were Israeli trucks moving out with tarpaulin over them. We couldn't see inside. And there were jeeps and tanks and a bulldozer making a lot of noise. We stayed there as it got dark and the Israelis appeared to be leaving and we were very nervous. But when the Israelis had moved away, we went inside. And there was no one there. Nobody. I had been only three years married. I never saw my husband again."

Sabra and Shatila are only one of the massacres of people done by the Israeli government in the past 54 years of Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Today, all of the Palestinian towns of historic Palestine are either occupied by Israeli troops who are killing people, or surrounded by Israeli troops and tanks who are poised to attack. While Israeli troops are claiming that they are only killing combatants, Human Rights Watch has documented the following crimes in Jenin alone: murders of civilians including children, the old, and the disabled; summary executions; the bulldozing of houses with people in them; and the use of Palestinian civilians as human shields.

The cities of Ramallah and Jenin have been laid to waste by the Zionists just as the Nazis smashed the towns of Guarnica and Lidice in the name of collective punishment. Likewise, the heroic resistance of Palestinian fighters in the face of superior military force is reminiscent of the Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto and Vilna.

The Israeli offensive will not stop those willing to do suicide missions against civilians, attacks that are futile attempts to combat the genocide Palestinians face. The Israeli offensive does the opposite, in deepening the conditions that created suicide bombers in the first place. The anger created is by escalated Israeli murder is actually more likely to increase the number of tragic attacks on Hebrew speaking civilians. At the same time, Israel has not targeted the main base of the suicide bombers, Gaza, where Hamas is heavily organized. In fact, the murderous Israeli repression really isn't meant to stop attacks on Hebrew speaking civilians because these bombings by Hamas actually play right into the Zionist government's aims and objectives in dividing Arab and Hebrew speaking peoples, diverting international sympathy for the Palestinian cause, and potentially pushing for a “final solution” against the Palestinian people, and the Palestinian Authority, who the Israeli government consistently blame for the attacks by Hamas.

Hamas is an anti-Semitic fundamentalist religious organization that killed 150 Israeli civilians through suicide bombings between 1994 and 1998 alone. From its beginnings as the Mujama in the 1970s to this day, Hamas does not face the same kind of repression as any other Palestinian group. In addition, Hamas reportedly receives $28 million dollars a year from another key U.S. ally in the region, Saudi Arabia.

The U.S. and the Saudi Arabian monarchy work together closely to systematically loot Saudi Arabia's oil resources for the profits of U.S. oil monopolies, while the vast majority of the Saudi people live in poverty. In addition, the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and Hamas worked together closely in the U.S. war drive to destroy the left progressive PDPA government that held power in Afghanistan from 1978 to 1992. This was a war where the U.S. government and Saudi Arabia gave billions of dollars of military aid to Osama Bin Laden and the Islamic fundamentalists of the Mujahedin who were waging a holy war against the advances in women's rights, including women's literacy, that were occurring under the PDPA government. Tactics of the Mujahedin included throwing acid in the faces of women liberated from the veil and murdering women for teaching little girls how to read and write. Fearing a Mujahedin government right on its border, and defending the PDPA government from U.S. aggression, the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan in 1979. Although these Soviet troops were invited by the Afghan PDPA, U.S. propaganda called this a “Soviet invasion”.

An estimated 100,000 of the Islamic fundamentalists who fought in Afghanistan were recruited by the CIA outside of Afghanistan. Hamas participated in this activity. As John Cooley from ABC news pointed out on March 13th, 1996 in the International Herald Tribune:

"A key Hamas organizer was Abdallah Azzam. He was a tough, brilliant and charismatic Palestinian from Jordan. He supervised training for the CIA's Afghan guerrillas in Peshawar, Pakistan, where a car bomb killed him in 1989. In the earlier 1980s he toured the United States, recruiting Arab-Americans for the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan."

Just as the United States used Hamas against the Afghani people and the leftist PDPA government, Israel has used the religious fundamentalists of Hamas as a club against the socialist and secular nationalist movements in Palestine that Hamas has violently opposed. It is those secular and socialist movements that Israel has seen as more of a threat in terms of winning the masses of people, including Hebrew speakers, over to positions of sympathy and solidarity with the Palestinians. Hamas's suicide bombers against civilians instead serve Zionist interests in driving a larger wedge between Palestinians and Hebrew speakers, people who will need to unite against their common oppressor and killer, the Israeli Zionist government.

Early Israeli support for Hamas included in 1978 the granting of Mujama charitable status in Gaza while other organizations, especially political organizations as Mujama was, could not get such status. In 1979, Israeli collusion with the Mujama movement set up the Islamic University of Gaza, whose anti-PLO and anti-socialist slogan was: "How can uncovered women and men with Beatle haircuts liberate our holy places?" Students who did not tow the Islamic line were disciplined through brutal beatings and sometimes had acid thrown in their faces. In addition, Mujama mobs were allowed to violently attack and burn down PLO controlled institutions at a time when other street demonstrations were not allowed or tightly controlled by the Israeli authorities.

In 1979 the Mujama movement burned the Palestinian Red Crescent Society's (PRC) building to the ground. In response, the PRC issued the following statement, "The tacit approval of the authorities, if not their actual connivance in what happened, was displayed in their attitude of non-interference. While they usually display great alertness to combating even peaceful demonstrations of young students within schools, here they stood indifferently watching a violently destructive demonstration march to its objectives."

In 1988 Hamas was formed out of Mujama. While PLO supporters were organizing mass demonstrations in the streets, Hamas was instead focusing on shooting Israeli soldiers. Despite this fact, Hamas had top-level meetings with the Israeli government while that same government would not even meet with the PLO. Milton Edwards in "Islamic Politics In Palestine" noted the relationship:

"The relationship between Hamas and the Israeli authorities was, however, at the strongest during the second year of the Intifada. The Israelis had been quick to extend legitimacy status to Hamas in an attempt to marginalize the PLO. Leaders of Hamas were regularly filmed at meetings with top-level Israeli officials and the message the Israelis were sending out was that they regarded Hamas as the type of people with whom they could work…

"In addition the Israelis continued turning a blind eye to large amounts of money coming into the country destined for Hamas coffers, while at the same time stopping the flow of PLO funds in support of the
Intifada."

In 1994, Hamas began its indiscriminate attacks on Hebrew speaking people through suicide bombings. Those suicide bombings had been stepped up by Hamas in the beginnings of the Intifada 2 uprising in September 2000, but then ended due to an agreement between Arafat's Palestinian Authority and Hamas. While this agreement was in effect world attention became focused on the gunning down of Palestinian children by Israeli sharp shooters on the West Bank. For the Zionist government this was becoming a public relations disaster.

Israeli Prime Minister Sharon needed a new provocation he could use as propaganda to escalate the war against the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority (P.A.). To create this provocation he took action to end the truce between the P.A. and Hamas on ending the suicide bombings of civilians. On November 23rd Israeli security forces assassinated Hamas leader Mahmud Abu Hunud. On November 25th, 2001 right-wing Israeli journalist Alex Fishman accurately observed in the "Yediot Achronot", "Whoever gave the green light to this act of liquidation knew full well that he is thereby shattering in one blow the gentleman's agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority; under that agreement, Hamas was to avoid in the near future suicide bombings inside the Green Line."

Of course no one but Sharon could have given the green light for such an important operation. Sharon's provocation against the Hamas anti-Semites had its intended affect. Within days Hamas resumed attacks against Israeli civilians. In March a Hamas bomber killed 25 civilians in the Passover attack that was then used by Sharon as his excuse to attack the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority while leaving the Hamas stronghold of Gaza untouched.

The U.S. government's massive military support to the Zionist State and, to a lesser extent to the repressive Saudi Arabian monarchy, is responsible for the bloodshed in Palestine. The racist state of Israel currently receives 300,000 dollars per hour in U.S. military and economic aid. The F-16 bombers and Apache and Cobra helicopters used in the latest attacks are just some of the weapons used to kill Palestinians that are made in the United States.

Socialists stand for an end to U.S. military aid to Israel and all of the crowned princes, sheiks, emirs, and Islamic fanatics of the Middle East. We understand that these U.S. policies are the policies of both the Democrat and Republican Parties. Imperialist policy isn't the result of some misunderstanding by these parties of the wealthy. Instead, the repressive and genocidal policies of U.S. imperialism flow from the drive for profits by the rapacious U.S. capitalists that rule America and much of the world. From this understanding, socialists know that the only way we will get a just foreign policy, fair treatment of workers and the poor, and sound ecological policies, is through a socialist revolution in the United States.

---Steve Argue, for Liberation News

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No to Rightist Ron Paul, How We Can Really End the War

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 07:39:46 GMT

"I'd rather vote for something I want and not get it than vote for something I don't want, and get it." Socialist Anti-war Candidate Eugene Debs (who garnered nearly a million votes while he sat in prison for opposition to U.S. involvement in World War One).

"Opinion polls consistently show that only about 5 percent of blacks have sensible political opinions, i.e. support the free market, individual liberty and the end of welfare and affirmative action" wrote Ron Paul, who voted against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act in Congress, the act that gave Blacks the right to vote, quote from his “Ron Paul Newsletter”.

No to NYC Indymedia Censorship, How We Can Really End the War

By STEVEN ARGUE

Claiming that only an alliance with Ron Paul conservatives can end the war, New York City Indymedia volunteers have allowed blatant slander against Liberation News and have censored attempts to respond to those lies. Among the slanders posted were accusations that Liberation News is opposed to Ron Paul because we support Hillary Clinton and her healthcare program. I tried posting the following response, but it was censored on the site:

Ron Paul supporter: “it's pointed out that yes Ron Paul is a racist but Stevies candidate Hillary is even worse.”

Steven Argue: “I don’t support Hillary Clinton. Never have, but you don’t listen. This is pure slander.”

They then repeat their slander that I support Hillary Clinton for her healthcare plan saying, “It's pointed out that Stevie is willing to sacrifice liberty for a bogus health care plan”

Steven Argue: “Hillary Clinton opposes both socialized medicine and single payer healthcare. She supports insurance company healthcare, the kind that is killing untold millions in the United States. This is one of many reasons I oppose her.”

“And no, I don't see Clinton as a first step towards socialized medicine. Her promise to force people to buy insurance has nothing in common with socialized medicine, nor partially socialized medicine (i.e. single payer). I’m clear about this in my article:

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States, and the Struggle to Achieve It, By STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/02/18469739.php

“As for Ron Paul, he wants to privatize everything, including public education, Social Security, and Medicare, eliminate the Voting Rights Act and Roe V Wade in the name of "states rights", signed on to the "Marriage Protection Act", would eliminate every environmental and labor protection, etc. etc. etc. This is a prescription for the slavery of the majority to protect the “liberty” of a tiny handful of capitalists to exploit.

“I oppose both Hillary Clinton and Ron Paul. But I’ve already made that clear as being my position. These accusations are slanderous.”

Ron Paul supporter: “Then Stevie moves the goal posts again. Waaa. He's being censored.”

Steven Argue: “I repeatedly posted a response to the slander that I support Hillary Clinton’s healthcare plan, and the response is censored every time. I have no motive to make that up. I mentioned it because I wanted people to see my response. Frankly, I’m quite surprised it is happening. Let’s see if this one goes up.”

That response, as I feared, was also censored. Revealing the reasons behind the Ron Paul censorship at the site, the Ron Paul backers posted the following:

“Get off your sectarianism.

“What you don’t get is that there are only two ways we're going to end the occupation of Iraq:

“1.) A recession, and a bad one.

“2.) Convincing the vast majority of conservative Americans it's wrong. Ron Paul reaches these people. The guy with the Free Mumia shirt selling the "Socialist Worker" doesn't.

“To get anything done in a democracy you're going to have to work with people you don't agree with and people you might not even like. People in grown up countries do this all the time. They're called "coalitions".

“The Labor Party in Israel, for example, makes alliances with the ultra orthodox. The Liberal Democrats have made common cause with the Tories in the UK. The left made common cause with Vicente Fox to get the PRI out of power in Mexico.

“It's only in the puritan USA where everybody thinks you have to like all your political allies and agree with them on everything.”

Besides the fact that the majority of Americans already oppose the war; and besides the fact that these points show a total lack of understanding of the bourgeois nature of the coalitions in the countries mentioned; and besides showing a total lack of understanding of what it will take to end the war (I discuss this at the end of the article); New York City Indymedia’s lack of confidence in the ability of people to change has caused them to build a coalition with a capitalist politician who is a racist, homophobic, anti-worker, anti-environmental, bible thumping, sexist, anti-labor, anti-poor, free-market privatization fanatic. On top of that, they censor the left in order to achieve that coalition.

While a Ron Paul presidency would likely end the war, at what price would this come?

Ron Paul uses the term liberty a lot, so let’s take a look at what he means by liberty.

The liberty Ron Paul demands is:

The liberty of the capitalists to exploit without labor laws and environmental protections;

The "state’s right” to prevent Blacks from voting without the interference of the Voting Rights Act (voted against its renewal in Congress);

The "states right" to ban abortions without the interference of Roe v Wade;

The freedom of the government to deny same-sex rights (was an original sponsor of the "Marriage Protection Act");

The freedom of children not to attend schools (would abolish public education);

The freedom of the elderly and disabled to starve (would abolish Social Security);

The freedom of the sick to die (would abolish Medicare);

The freedom of the U.S. to destroy the planet without even the most basic limits on carbon emissions (opposes signing on to Kyoto and all other carbon limitations);

This is, in short, the liberty of a wealthy minority to make their money from the exploitation of labor and the environment with zero interference from labor laws, environmental laws, and the IRS. While his program is liberty for a minority of rich white heterosexual males, it is slavery for the majority.

Simply put, Ron Paul’s promises to end the war are not enough when one looks at the fact that he would eliminate two centuries of hard fought social progress in the United States.

Some of the anti-war backers of Ron Paul argue that we don’t have to worry about these things because Ron Paul will never be elected. They think that backing his campaign is a way to win over his supporters. What is clear is that such arguments could only come from people who are utterly lost and rudderless, which leaves unclear the question of what they are winning Ron Paul supporters over to. They are supporting a candidate whose program is George Wallace on crack cocaine! Yet, the ultimate absurdity is the fact that they are backing a candidate whose most reassuring feature is that he won’t get elected! Is this point lost on these people? And is the chance that their support may help him get elected a chance they really want to take? Nobody thought that third party candidate Jesse (the body) Ventura would get elected in Minnesota either, but he was, and as soon as he was elected he discarded his libertarian values on drug legalization and prostitution and instead proceeded to carrying out attacks on labor and carrying out disastrous cuts in education and other social spending.

Others argue that if Ron Paul is elected, he will easily be able to pull the troops out of Iraq, but congress will block him on the other issues. There is no doubt that they would block parts of Ron Paul’s program in order to prevent the social unrest such measures would cause, but with the ruling class’s desire to step up the exploitation of labor and the environment through eliminating regulation and through privatization, there can be little doubt that if he is able to maintain his presidency without being shot, aspects of Ron Paul’s domestic program would be implemented.

Today, in the United States we have two rightwing capitalist parties that rule. The activists who run New York Indymedia are floating around utterly lost and rudderless. On the one hand, their anarchist philosophy prohibits them from putting forward their own leadership or supporting socialist candidates; and on the other hand, they are stuck in the “real politic” of supporting “lesser evil” capitalist politicians. It is these characteristics that made them susceptible to being swept up on the Ron Paul band wagon. Despite their “libertarian” values of “freedom”, they have now taken this to the point where they are even willing to censor critics of Ron Paul on their website.

While Ron Paul, the only Republican candidate opposed to the war, is not worth supporting, the front running Democrats are also very bad. Clinton, Obama, and Edwards, are all pro-war. Both Edwards and Clinton voted for the war. Obama supporters claim that Obama never supported the war. While Obama was not yet in the Senate at the time of the Iraq war vote, Obama, Edwards, and Clinton have all voted for war appropriations. This puts them all in the position of having supported the war. Over a million Iraqis are dead due to the U.S. invasion and occupation, and billions of dollars have been squandered. Obama, by helping pay for the war, has his hands in this mass murder just as Clinton and Edwards do.

Obama’s Iraq War De-escalation Act of 2007 supposedly would have begun troop withdrawal in May 2007. Yet, it didn't call for full nor immediate withdrawal. In addition, under the bill, the withdrawal could be halted if the Iraqi government met a number of criteria laid out by the Bush administration. These included a broad number of things such as changes in the use of oil revenue, government reforms, an end to sectarian violence, and other economic and reconstruction criteria. In Obama’s bill we have a crystal ball into the future. The excuses laid out in the bill will be heard once again as Obama, Clinton, or Edwards explain why they are keeping the troops in Iraq for their entire presidency; that is unless other actions are taken by the people to stop the war.

This brings us to the fundamental question of how to stop the war. If we are to listen to the Ron Paul censors / supporters at NYC Indymedia the only thing we can do to stop the war is support Ron Paul or hope for (pray for?) economic collapse. Yet, this ignores other less damaging possibilities. These include the troops refusing to fight, a general strike, strikes against the movement of war materials, or socialist revolution.

1. The troops refusing to fight. This worked in the struggle to end the U.S. aggression against Vietnam. It was the socialist movement who were the primary organizers of the anti-Vietnam War movement. That movement, immediately after the government’s murders at Kent State in May 1970 had 8 million students out on strike, and some Universities, such a Berkley, were taken over by students and faculty as anti-war universities. After May 1970, the majority of those drafted were already opposed to the war before they got to Vietnam. Refusal to fight was widespread, and the fragging of pro-war officers was common. Nixon could not continue to wage a war with soldiers who refused to fight. This, along with the heroic resistance of the Vietnamese, brought an end to the war in Vietnam.

Troops refusing to fight also helped bring an end to Russian involvement in the First World War, and helped bring down two pro-war governments in 1917.

2. A general strike or strikes against the movement of war materials. Strikes with such political demands have a long history of success. France has many good social programs because the workers there were willing to shut down their country to achieve them; and they are still willing to do the same to protect those hard fought gains.

3. Socialist revolution. The October Russian Revolution achieved an end to Russian involvement in the First World War. This was a good thing, despite the undemocratic nature of the revolution. Learning from those lessons, Liberation News opposes the dictatorial system of one party rule and raises the banner of revolutionary democratic socialism, while at the same time learning from many of the revolutionary strategies of Lenin and Trotsky.

Protests, pickets, information distribution, building a socialist movement, and answering pro-Ron Paul and pro-Obama-Clinton-Edwards propaganda all help towards building the momentum needed in achieving the kinds of actions that can end the war. Putting support behind Ron Paul only helps an extreme rightwing movement achieve the mantel of leadership for an anti-war sentiment that already represents majority public opinion. In addition, backing a guy like Ron Paul who just crossed a picket line to appear on Jay Lenno’s “Tonight Show” destroys the anti-war strategy of reaching out to the working class, as does backing a racist candidate like Ron Paul hurt the ability to reach out to the multi-racial working class.

No to the Democrats and Republicans!

U.S. Out of Iraq Now!

No to Insurance Company Healthcare, For Socialized Medicine!

Save the Planet, Curb Carbon Emissions Now!

Vote Socialist, Build the Labor Movement, Build the Anti-War Movement, Build the Socialist Movement.

[Note, small changes were made to the response that was censored at NYC Indymedia to make it more readable within the format of this article. Those wishing to see the original version will be given it upon request. Likewise, anyone wishing further sources will be provided them upon request]

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Naomi Wolf's "The End of America"

dbcsez — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:05:33 GMT

A lot of you who are active in this tribe have probably already read it, but I have just finished--and been greatly inspired by--"The End of America: Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot." Naomi Wolf is an excellent writer, researcher, and analyst--not a declared Green, but perhaps she should be: I haven't found anyone who articulates better exactly what's wrong with the present regime, and she does not let the Democrats off the hook for the role they've played in enabling it.

Rather than conclude that America has fallen prey to fascism entirely, she identifies the Bush Administrations misdeeds as part of a "fascist shift," and identifies the ten steps that fascist and other dictatorships have used to consolidate power. Almost everything that the Bushies have done echoes steps taken by Nazis in Germany, Fascists in Italy (strangely no mention of Franco's Spain), Stalin's Soviet Union, Pinochet's junta in Chile, Cold-War Czechoslovakia, China during and after Mao, and some less obvious dictatorships mostly aided and abetted by the US.

Of course, American history is not without its fascistic tendencies, from John Adams's Alien and Sedition Acts to the Palmer Raids to the McCarthy reign of terror. The difference is that our history is that every time the Federal government has tightened the vise, people have worked successfully to regain freedoms and add more. Wolf worries that the proverbial pendulum might stop swinging, and people will not have the resources to fight for their liberties through democratic or other means. Furthermore, most will assume that they don't have to fight for their liberties, because the trappings of democracy will still be there, the security state will keep us safe from them evil terrorists, and we'll still have the entertainment we crave, so everything will still seem normal--until your peacenik brother-in-law is arbitrarily arrested in the middle of the night.

Here's a column by Wolf in the Guardian with a summary of the points in her book: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html

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Insane? Moi? Running for Senate from Texas

dbcsez — Thu, 10 Jan 2008 04:39:23 GMT

(This is transcribed from an e-mail that I sent to friends & family, cross-posted in my tribe blog and elsewhere.)

So I have told some of you some of this, some of you none of this, and some of you nearly all there is to know except that it's hard to remember so I'm putting it in the proverbial black & white.

On January 2, the deadline for registering, I got the form notarized and mailed to Green Party of Texas co-chair Doug Reber, expressing my desire to run for the Green Party's nomination for U.S. Senator. OK, maybe "desire" is too strong a word. I am a reluctant candidate for a number of reasons. I already have a full-time job and a lot of extracurricular activities that I enjoy. This may result in my giving up either some of those activities or a lot of sleep. Fortunately, the campaign will not start in earnest until March, and it could be over before June.

THE FIELD AND THE ODDS

To review high school civics, Texas, like all the other states, gets two seats in the U.S. Senate. We don't get an extra one just for being Texas. If Texas should ever subdivide--and snopes.com confirms that it could become five states--then the former Texas would be entitled to as many as ten senators.

Our current senators are Republicans Kay Bailey Hutchison, elected in 1993 to replace Lloyd Bentsen when he became Secretary of the Treasury, and John Cornyn, elected in 2002 to replace the not-so-shy and retiring Phil Gramm. Cornyn is up for re-election this year; Hutchison's current term expires in 2012. (I may have told some of you 2010, and I stand corrected.)

In 2000, the Democrats nominated perennial candidate and sacrificial lamb Gene Kelly to run against Hutchison, and did not field candidates for other statewide offices such as Texas Railroad Commission (which has little or nothing to do with railroads in any direct sense, but more about that some other time). This year, popular state legislator Rick Noriega looks like the favorite among Democratic contenders, and will run a serious race with real money. That will probably make it harder to reach my goal.

5% IS VICTORY

In essence, the goal of any Green running for statewide office in Texas is 5% of the vote. If any minor party's candidate draws 5% in a statewide race, that party does not have to gather petition signatures to be represented on the November ballot two years later. In 2000, the brand new Green Party of Texas had a successful petition drive and got a ballot line, defying all conventional wisdom.

With no Democrats running for Railroad Commission in 2000, both Green candidates for the Commission pulled about 9%, with Ralph Nader running for president. Senatorial candidate Doug Sandage got closer to 3%, with Gene Kelly siphoning off about 2 million votes (32%). So in 2002 the Greens got a guaranteed ballot line without having to petition.

For a variety of reasons, the Greens did not do as well in 2002, with no statewide candidate attracting much more than 1%. So we collected signatures in 2004--and failed to get enough. Same in 2006.

What is enough signatures? That is only part of the question. The formula is like this: Signatures must total 1% of the total vote count from the previous gubernatorial election. In recent years, that vote count has hovered around 4.5 million. So parties must obtain 45,000 signatures. These signatures must be those of registered Texas voters, with the address, zip code, and birthdate shown on their voter registration cards. These signers must not have voted in any party primary or attended any party's convention in that calendar year. And the party has 75 days to collect about 45,000 legitimate signatures.

It is a given that one-third of all the signatures on a petition will be invalid, whether because the address is incorrect, or the person is not really registered to vote in Texas, or the handwriting is illegible. So to be on the safe side, the party really needs to gather about 70,000 signatures between the week after the Texas primary and Memorial Day.

What makes this year different from previous petition drives is that we have some money to devote to it. We will be able to pay some of our less stalwart petitioners a dollar per signature, which is less than the standard set by independent candidates Richard S. "Kinky" Friedman and Carole Keeton "Grandma" Strayhorn in 2006, but more befitting the parsimony of the Greens. We also have better planning than in 2006, and we started that planning a lot sooner. If we do not get the required number of signatures, I would not run as a write-in candidate: too many dollars, not enough writer-inners.

WHY RUN FOR SENATE?

Why not?

Actually, I chose that office because it is the only statewide office for which I am qualified. As I am not an attorney with ten years' experience in the profession, I cannot run for state Supreme Court of Court of Criminal Appeals. Since I have no inside knowledge of the energy industry, I would look ridiculous running for the Railroad Commission seat; fellow Greenie Art Browning, a retired petroleum geologist, is taking that one on. That leaves U.S. Senate. I would feel more comfortably running for the House of Representatives, but since I am moving out of District 9 this year and haven't really established residency in District 7, that wouldn't be right. I actually take these residency guidelines seriously. Besides, the statewide offices are the ones that count toward legitimizing the Greens in Texas.

There actually is another Green listed as running for Cornyn's seat, Tom Davis of Travis County. But Doug Reber told me that Tom was not going to run "all-out." He still hasn't told me what "all-out" constitutes. Since I have no money of my own to spend on a campaign, I'll have to find a fund-raising wizard just to pay for bumper stickers and yard signs.

Money has been our problem since the beginning: we're not a wealthy bunch, and we can't afford professional tree-shakers to find wealthy benefactors. The Nader effect in 2000 helped a lot, since with or without the Green label he's a popular guy (though less popular among Democrats who mistakenly blame him for getting Boy George elected). The prospect of having former Rep. Cynthia McKinney as our standard bearer may work to our advantage this year.

Financial questions aside, I am the first to admit that I am not the ideal candidate. If I get to run, I plan to use my flaws to my advantage, though. I am of the people, complete with human imperfections. I don't even know where to buy the stuff that gives politicians helmet-hair. But also, I hope to get people to see that it's less about me than about the ideas--and appeal to their righteous anger that Republicans in Washington have trashed the Constitution, with a lot of Democrats acting as enablers.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

Send money! Don't break out your checkbooks just yet, because I don't have a campaign fund established. If you cannot donate funds, and you'll be in Texas this spring, you can help collect signatures to get Greens on the ballot. If you cannot do that, then you can sign the petition, as long as you meet the requirements. That means resisting the temptation to vote in a primary. The triple play--sending money, signing the petition, and collecting signatures from others--would certainly be welcome, too.

I'm going to bed now.
dbc

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

New here

Jenni — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 15:11:29 GMT

Hi!

I'm new to the tribe.

I'm a 21 y/o college student, majoring in wildlife management (Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in GA). I started getting interested in politics last year and found that the Green Party best fit my standards and values (primarily environmentalism). I'm entertaining the though of starting a Campus Greens club here at my college. Any advice or words of wisdom?

Thanks!
Jenni

PS - I heard on NPR this morning that China instituted a ban on the production and distribution of plastic bags. That's fantastic! I wish that would happen here in the US. Now Wal-Mart (at least the ones here) doesn't even have the option of paper bags anymore. That's a shame.

posted in Green Party - 1 reply

The Ron Paul “Revolution”, an Extreme Rightwing Threat

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 20:40:43 GMT

The Ron Paul “Revolution”, an Extreme Rightwing Threat

By STEVEN ARGUE

For the most part the Iowa caucuses were business as usual for the Democrat and Republican Parties. Among the Democrats, “Anti-war” and “pro-single payer health care” Democrat Dennis Kucinich put his support behind pro-war anti--single payer health care, Barrack Obama. Yet on the far right, anti-war Libertarian and Republican Ron Paul gained a stunning 10% of the vote.

Seeing the failure of the Democrats to deliver a candidate worth supporting; some left leaning individuals have been suggesting support to Ron Paul. One is anti-war Vietnam veteran Stan Goff, who suggested in his January 4, 2008 article ”Monkey Wrenching the System, Ron Paul’s Revolution” that people vote in the primaries for Ron Paul, switching party registration right away if they live in a state where such a move is necessary to vote in the Republican primaries.

At the root of the Ron Paul "revolution" is the dismantling of Social Security and the Department of Education as well as other basic social programs, and the elimination of worker and environmental protections. Advances like single payer health care? No way. Ron Paul's message is that you need to take care of yourself, and that there shouldn't be such government programs, nor such interference with private profit. While he puts forward reasons for not supporting going to war abroad, his domestic policies would ignite civil war at home.

In addition to pretending he's against all government, he's for outlawing abortion and supports the continued ban on same-sex marriage. He was one of the original co-sponsors of the "Marriage Protection Act".

He's also a religious extremist who thinks that creationism should be taught in the schools.

On race, Ron Paul was one of 33 Congress members to vote against the renewal of the Voting Rights Act, an act that was first passed to give Blacks in the south the right to vote. On a similar note, he says the Civil Rights Act violates the Constitution and impedes on individual liberties. Speaking of Blacks in Washington DC he states in campaign literature, "95 percent of African Americans in are semi-criminal or entirely criminal".

No wonder the American Nazi Party has close relations with him (see letter from Nazi Commander Bill White below). In addition, Ron Paul has the support of other white supremacists such as David Duke, and has knowingly taken donations from former KKK Grand Wizard Don Black.

Hell would freeze over before I'd support Ron Paul. And being an atheist; that will be a long time.

There are plenty of candidates to the left of the Democrats worth considering supporting who oppose the war, would preserve public education and Social Security, who would provide single payer or socialized medicine, and who aren’t raving racist, homophobic, and sexist “Libertarian” fanatics. Why not look at them rather than someone from the loony right?

I discuss some of the campaigns that may be worth supporting in the following article:

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States,
And the Struggle to Achieve It
By STEVEN ARGUE
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/01/02/18469739.php

Or here is a different version of the same article:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2008/01/93820.html

*****************
American Nazi Party Chief says Ron Paul is one of us

Bill White, commander of the American National Socialist Worker’s Party, aka The American Nazi Party, wrote the following on the Nazi Vanguard News Network:

Comrades:

I have kept quiet about the Ron Paul campaign for a while, because I didn’t see any need to say anything that would cause any trouble. However, reading the latest release from his campaign spokesman, I am compelled to tell the truth about Ron Paul’s extensive involvement in white nationalism.

Both Congressman Paul and his aides regularly meet with members of the Stormfront set, American Renaissance, the Institute for Historic Review, and others at the Tara Thai restaurant in Arlington, Virginia, usually on Wednesdays. This is part of a dinner that was originally organized by Pat Buchanan, Sam Francis and Joe Sobran, and has since been mostly taken over by the Council of Conservative Citizens.

I have attended these dinners, seen Paul and his aides there, and been invited to his offices in Washington to discuss policy.

For his spokesman to call white racialism a “small ideology” and claim white activists are “wasting their money” trying to influence Paul is ridiculous. Paul is a white nationalist of the Stormfront type who has always kept his racial views and his views about world Judaism quiet because of his political position.

I don’t know that it is necessarily good for Paul to “expose” this. However, he really is someone with extensive ties to white nationalism and for him to deny that in the belief he will be more respectable by denying it is outrageous — and I hate seeing people in the press who denounce racialism merely because they think it is not fashionable.

Bill White, Commander
American National Socialist Workers Party

*********
Poor Bill White. He’s having trouble with his brand of racism, anti-Semitism, mass extermination, and genocide not being "in fashion". But hey, you've got to thank the knuckleheaded Nazi for confirming our suspicions on Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan! -Steven Argue

Liberation News
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posted in Green Party - 1 reply

Brown Withdraws in Protest from Capitalist Green Party

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 18:27:14 GMT

ELAINE BROWN WITHDRAWS
FROM GREEN PARTY PRESIDENTIAL RACE
Renounces Green Party Membership

For Immediate Release
Brunswick, Georgia,
December 28, 2007
_____________________________

OPEN STATEMENT TO THE GREEN PARTY

As of today, I am no longer a candidate for the Green Party nomination for president of the United States, and I hereby resign from all affiliation with the Green Party. I believe the leadership of the Green Party of the United States has been seized by neo-liberal men who
entrench the Party in internecine antagonisms so as to compromise its stated principles and frustrate its electoral and other goals. They have made it impossible to advance any truly progressive ideals or objectives under the umbrella of the Green Party, and, thus, rendered it
counterproductive for me to go forward as a Green Party candidate or member.

I believe this small clique that has captured control of the Party has transformed it into a repository for erstwhile, disgruntled Democrats, who would violate the Party's own vision and sabotage the good will and genuine commitment of the general membership. Indeed, these usurpers foster a reactionary agenda, supporting partisans in and backers of the Bush wars and disavowing the Party's more progressive tenets in favor of promoting high-profile participation in the politics of the establishment.

This became clear to me almost from the moment I announced my candidacy in February of 2007. I intended using my campaign to bring large numbers of blacks and browns into the Party, particularly from the hood and the barrio—as would come to be reflected in the lists of supporters and delegates I've submitted in connection with my candidacy. As I asserted I would use the respect I enjoyed as a former leader of the Black Panther Party to do so, some in the hierarchy seemed utterly fearful of the prospect of a massive influx of blacks and browns into the Green
Party. Soon, there was wide circulation of false rumors that I was a one-time "government agent," which was intended to discredit my history in the Black Panther Party so as to undermine my potential influence.—And, since then, I have had to devote significant time and energy to addressing these lies.—What this effort revealed, though, was how the Green Party,
while advocating "diversity," remains dominated by whites. Indeed, the Party is able to count less blacks, browns and natives in its membership than our national population percentages and certainly less than the Democrats themselves.

In effect, the present Green Party leadership promotes a kinder, gentler capitalism, a moderated racism, an environmentally-sustainable globalism, which I cannot support. They are dedicated to the underside of the Party's platform, which falls short of repudiating the capitalist
state, source of all the social ills the Party would address. They equivocate by promoting "an economic alternative to corporate capitalism and a socialist state," advocate a "re-formulation" of the IMF, NAFTA, so forth, and advance the institution of "stakeholder capitalism."

On the other hand, they demonstrate a willingness to override the best of the Party's platform. My sharp criticism of high-profile Party members' support for the "three-strikes" crime laws, the sole basis for the inhumane mass incarceration of people in the United States, particularly blacks—the repeal of which the Party's platform advocates—has been met
with outright enmity. And, to divert attention from this and other critical issues, the leadership has employed chicanery in their promulgation of defamatory lies about me—which they finally extended to character assaults on my supporters and critics of their unscrupulousness.

It is my sincere belief that the Green Party as it now exists has no intention of using the ballot to actualize real social progress, and will aggressively repel attempts to do so. To remain in the fray or in the Party, then, would require a betrayal of my lifelong and ongoing commitment to serving the interests of black and other oppressed people by advancing revolutionary change in America.

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posted in Green Party - 1 reply

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States, and the Struggle to Achieve It

Thu, 03 Jan 2008 01:41:13 GMT

The Case for Socialized Medicine in the United States,
and the Struggle to Achieve It

By Steven Argue

As someone without healthcare, I support the idea of socialized medicine for the United States. Socialized medicine will bring healthcare to everyone. Besides legitimate self-interest, my personal position comes from being an advocate for social justice with a vision of an egalitarian society. As such, I not only see universal access to healthcare as a basic human right, I also see that socialized healthcare will mitigate some of the racial and class inequalities in our society. In addition, socialized medicine is cheaper than the costs of current system of for-profit capitalist healthcare. It also looses the profit motive of insurance companies to deny needed procedures. From this knowledge, and these personal convictions, I am strongly in favor of socialized healthcare in the United States like that established in Europe as well as established in Cuba with the 1959 revolution. Short of a fully socialized healthcare system I see that the single payer system (i.e. socialized health insurance run by the government), like in Canada, would be a significant step forward for the United States.

In the United States there’s a lot of confusion on terminology. With a system of socialized medicine hospitals are directly owned by the government and doctors are government employees. It’s a universal system where everyone is covered and all health care is paid for by the government. Under a single payer health care plan, health care is universal and paid for by the government, but it is a system still largely based on private hospitals and private physicians.

Two main arguments are encountered when discussing socialized medicine. One argument is that it will cost too much. The second argument is that socialized medicine doesn’t work to provide adequate healthcare. Neither argument stands up to scrutiny.
Socialized medicine and single payer medicine actually cost less than the United State’s current for profit capitalist health care system. Both statistics and common sense back this up.

According to statistics from 2003, the United States spends $5,711 per capita per year for health care while Canada spends about half of that, $2,998 per capita per year (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2007). In fact, the costs per capita are much cheaper in every other developed country with some form of socialized healthcare. In other examples Sweden spends $2,745, Germany $2,983, and the United Kingdom $2,317 (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2007). In addition, Cuba , with their well known socialized healthcare system, spent only $251 per capita on healthcare in 2006 (United Nations World Health Organization, 2006).

The reason socialized insurance is much cheaper and more efficient than private health insurance is because single payer eliminates the health insurance racket with all of its waste in capitalist profits, paperwork, and overpaid CEOs. In addition, such insurance practices as routinely denying needed medical procedures to keep profits up are eliminated, thus reducing capitalism as being the cause of death.

Socialized healthcare does work. It is working very well in Cuba. Cuban life expectancy in 2006 was 77.6 years, while the life expectancy of the United States for that same year was slightly less, 77.5 years (United Nations Development Program, 2006). It is interesting that poor Cuba with a history of poverty before their 1959 socialist revolution, and a devastating U.S. imposed economic blockade since, is able to provide good healthcare for everyone through socialized medicine. Cuba, unlike the United States, does not let people die in the emergency rooms without treatment, turn sick people away from receiving healthcare because they lack insurance, or allow insurance companies to decide, based on profit motive, whether the insured actually receive the care they paid for and need. The Cubans have done this by taking the profit out of illness and injury and providing healthcare as a basic human right.

Canada, like Cuba, has a higher life expectancy than the United States. In 2004 the life expectancy of Canada hit 80.2 years (Statistics Canada, 2004). With Canada’s socialized health insurance system, like Cuba’s socialized medical system, every single person is covered. In the United States 45.8 million Americans do not have health insurance (U.S. Department of Health and human Services, 2005).

On another key indicator of health, infant mortality, the United States is also nearly the worst in the developed world, only worse than the recently turned capitalist country of Latvia (Green, 2006). The infant mortality rate in the United States in 2002 was 7.0 deaths before the age of one per every 1,000 live births (Center for Disease Control, 2005). In comparison, other advanced countries with forms of socialized medicine and socialized health insurance have lower infant mortality. This includes rates per thousand births in Japan of 3.2, Germany with 4.4, Italy with 4.5, France with 4.6, and the United Kingdom with 5.6 (Treasury Board of Canada, 2003).

Cuba, with their system of socialized medicine has an infant mortality rate of 6.2 per thousand live births, a rate much lower the United States rate of 7.0 per every thousand live births (BBC News, 2002). This is also lower than every other Latin American country (BBC News, 2002).

The only other country in the Americas with an infant mortality lower than Cuba is Canada with their system of socialized health insurance. The Canadian infant mortality rate in the year 2000 was 5.3 (Treasury Board of Canada, 2003).

In addition, a United Nations report on the status of Native Americans in Canada has credited Canada’s relatively recently established socialized health insurance system with drastically reducing an extremely high infant mortality among Native Americans (United Nations, 1993). In 1979, that death rate for Canadian Native Americans was 27.6 per thousand live births, but by 1999 it had dropped to 8.0 deaths per thousand live births (Treasury Board of Canada, 2003). These improvements coincide with Canada’s passage of the Canada Health Act in 1984 that brought their socialized insurance system to the entire country at that time (Health Canada, 2002).

For Blacks in the United States between 1995 and 2002, the infant mortality rate was 13.9, more than double the rate of 5.9 for whites in the same time period (Center for Disease Control, 2005). Canadian statistics are a strong indication that a socialized insurance system in the United States could both decrease the infant mortality rate of the general population and dramatically decrease the infant mortality of oppressed and impoverished minorities such as Blacks, as it did for Canadian Native Americans.

The statistics show that socialized medicine is cheaper, saves lives, and helps alleviate class and racial inequalities in healthcare.

Prospects for Socialized and Single Payer Medicine

Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has declared, "It's time to provide quality affordable health care for every American, and I intend to be the president who accomplishes that goal finally for our country" (CNN.com). This is the same promise that Bill Clinton made when he ran for office in 1992.

After being elected, in Bill Clinton’s first State of the Union address, he said, “And on any given day, over 37 million Americans -- most of them working people and their little children -- have no health insurance at all.” Yet, despite Bill Clinton’s campaign promise of universal health care, his defeated proposal to congress would not have provided health care to every American, nor did it address the other fundamental problems of private health insurance. After his health care proposal was defeated, Clinton dropped the issue. In fact, the Bill Clinton administration was opposed to a bill for single payer health care introduced by Wellstone, Conyers, and Mcdermott that actually would have provided universal health care. By the time Bill Clinton left office, an additional three million more Americans were uninsured.

Today Republican candidate Mitt Romney has declared of Hillary Clinton’s promised health care plan, “It’s a European-style socialized medicine plan, that’s where it leads–and that’s the wrong direction for America” (Shulte).

Yet, unfortunately, Clinton’s plan has nothing in common with socialized medicine, neither of the European variety, nor the Canadian single payer. Her plan is to keep the broken and expensive capitalist system of health care, a system that keeps the insurance industry in charge of life and death questions of whether or not we receive health care when we need it.

In addition, the Clinton plan would make the purchase of health insurance by America’s uninsured mandatory for those who do not get insurance from their employer and who do not qualify for government assistance. Yet, the problem for America’s nearly 50 million uninsured is not that we don’t want to have insurance, the problem is that we can’t afford it. Clinton’s plan of making us criminals for not purchasing health insurance will not resolve this fundamental problem.

By making the purchase of health insurance mandatory Clinton makes the false claim that hers is a plan for universal health insurance as compared to the plan of Obama. Neither would provide universal health care. John Edwards has taken the absurdity of forced insurance purchases one step further, detailing a plan that would include the necessity of showing proof of health insurance at the time of paying taxes, with penalties for those who do not provide that proof.

In a similar fashion as Mitt Romney, Republican contender Rudolph Giuliani has extended false accusations of socialized medicine to other Democratic hopefuls stating, “Whether it’s HillaryCare or ObamaCare or EdwardsCare, the idea that it’s not socialized medicine is a trick. It’s a massive growth of government control of medicine” (Rovner).

The truth, however, is that the only presidential candidates of the Democrat and Republican Party that are for single payer health care are Democrats Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, and none are for full socialized medicine. The other major candidates, who oppose single payer, enjoy massive contributions from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries.

In addition to being excluded from money, the Kucinich and Gravel campaigns have also been excluded from debates. Most recently, for the 2008 election, CNN and the Des Moines Register made the decision to exclude both Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel from a key debate in Iowa. Yet Biden and Dodd, who are behind Kucinich in the national polls, but who reject single payer health care, were allowed into the debate. This kind of undemocratic shenanigan is to be expected of CNN, a corporate media source that was forced to publicly apologize for a number of lies they told about Michael Moore’s pro-socialized medicine film “Sicko”.

While Kucinich has alienated the corporate power structure with his stand for single payer health care, he has also alienated much of his natural base by voting for Bush’s “War on Terror”, voting for the U.S. travel ban against Cuba, and by voting against Mumia Abu-Jamal.

In 2001 Kucinich voted in favor of the US travel ban against Cuba. The travel ban does not allow U.S. citizens to spend any money in Cuba, basically making travel to Cuba illegal. It is under the travel ban that Michael Moore has been harassed by the U.S. government for bringing sick 9/11 rescue workers, who were unable to receive medical treatment in the United States, for medical treatment in Cuba. The United States has had hostile relations with Cuba ever since the 1959 Cuban revolution overthrew the U.S. backed Batista dictatorship, nationalized the United Fruit Company owned by the Rockefeller family, ended Jim Crow style racist segregation, and began providing free socialized health care and education.

In contrast to Kucinich’s support for U.S. measures against Cuba, Mumia Abu-Jamal recognizes the gains Cuba has made in areas such as health care. Of the U.S. and Cuban health care systems, Mumia Abu-Jamal stated May 2nd, 2003:

“What about the human right to health care? In the US, you can obtain excellent health care if you can afford it. Cuba, meanwhile, boasts the largest number of doctors per capita on earth. They provide medical care to people all around the world. Indeed, there are more Cuban doctors working in other countries than the UN’s World Heath Organization. Millions of men, women and children in this country have no medical insurance and no real prospect for decent medical care.” (Abu-Jamal 5/2/03)

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a political prisoner in the United States whose trial, according to Amnesty International, was not fair and “did not comply with international justice standards” (Amnesty International). Yet, in 2006 Kucinich voted to condemn the French City of St. Denis for naming a street after Mumia. The resolution boldly proclaimed Mumia’s guilt, despite international recognition of the injustice dished out to Mumia, and despite the fact that the courts are still reviewing the case. Despite the injustice represented by this resolution and despite 31 members of Congress voting against it, Kucinich voted for it.

Showing a similar lack of support for the needs of the people, Kucinich voted for Bush’s so-called “War on Terror”. This was a vote that effectively gave Bush the power to invade any country at any time. That vote could have been used for anything, and was used by Bush to invade Afghanistan. Likewise, despite pretending to be a peace candidate, Kucinich’s calls for a strong and efficient military do not address the fact that the United States is the most aggressive and dangerous nation in the world.

The tremendous lack of judgment on these three votes alone, along with Kucinich’s promotion of the pro-war, anti-single payer health care, and corporate controlled Democrat Party, have alienated the left from Kucinich’s campaign.

Presidential candidate Mike Gravel doesn’t have a recent voting record, but was actively opposed to the Vietnam War in Congress, voting to cut off funding for the war, and helping to release the Pentagon Papers that exposed many wrong doings by the U.S. government in Vietnam. On the issue of health care, Gravel states on his website that he proposes “a universal healthcare system that provides equal medical services to all citizens, paid for by a retail sales tax (a portion of the Progressive Fair tax)” (Gravel website). Yet, sales taxes are not fair taxes. They are regressive taxes that charge the poor a much higher percentage of their income than they charge the rich. While it is true that the rich are not paying their fair share under the current tax system, Gravel’s proposal is even worse.

Sadly for those who think solutions could come from the Democrat Party, Kucinich and Gravel are the best the Democrat Party could produce.

While the mainstream of the American political establishment rejects any form of socialized medicine, all political parties to the left of the Democrats and Republicans support some form of socialized medicine. This is true from the Green Party and Reconstruction Party to the various socialist parties who run candidates, including the Peace and Freedom Party, Socialist Action, Socialist Party, Workers World Party, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Freedom Socialist Party, Socialist Workers Party, and Socialist Equality Party.

Breaking from the pro-war anti-health care Democrat Party is former Georgia Democratic Congressperson Cynthia McKinney. In a video news release declaring her candidacy for president she says, “The Democrat is no different from their Republican counterparts, eat out of the hands of corrupt lobbyists and feed at the same corporate tough” (McKinney). McKinney is running for president on the Reconstruction Party ticket as well as in the Green Party primaries.

On health care McKinney states, "I've supported every universal single payer health care plan. She goes on to state, “People who rail against `socialized medicine' in Canada and the UK have to explain why life expectancy is longer in Canada and the UK, why infant mortality is lower in Canada and the UK" (Deeth). McKinney further denounces the war in Iraq stating that the money being squandered could be better used on social programs such as rebuilding New Orleans, child nutrition, and health care, stating in part, “one billion dollars a day can provide medical care for the 47 million Americans who don’t have health insurance” (McKinney).

Another Green Party candidate, Kent Mesplay, declares on his website:

“Medical attention is a human right not yet recognized by the United States government. Nearly every other industrialized country on the planet has National Health Care. We are tied with South Africa for last place. In the same manner that we have a socialized military that at best provides for some aspects of our physical security, single payer health insurance is necessary to ensure that all people within our borders receive at least a basic level of medical and dental care.” (Mesplay).

While this may be a good position on single payer health care, it ignores the fact that the U.S. military does not provide physical security to the people of the United States, but is instead used to kill and terrorize the people of the world for the security of the profits of American corporations.

Also supporting single payer health care, Green Party candidate Kat Swift states:

“Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, and other prominent Democrats are the greatest obstacle to universal health coverage. Except for a few mavericks like Rep. John Conyers [D-Mich.], who has regularly introduced single-payer bills, Democrats have joined Republicans in favoring HMO and insurance corporations over guaranteed publicly-financed quality health care for every American. It's a safe bet that the 2008 Democratic nominee will -- like Bill Clinton, Al Gore, and John Kerry before them -- follow the same pattern.”

Likewise, Green Party candidate Jared Ball, a Black free-lance journalist and college professor who calls for freeing Mumia Abu-Jamal, Leonard Peltier, and all political prisoners states, “Medicine for profit cannot be sustained as a model of managing health care for any progressive society” (Ball).

To the left of the Green Party is Elaine Brown, a former Black Panther Party member and activist for social programs for the poor and for prison reform. On health care she declares herself for, “Full and free health care for everyone, as exists in most civilized countries.”

Elaine Brown was a candidate for nomination as Green Party candidate for president until, on December 28, 2007, she broke with the Green Party, pointing out it was a capitalist Party and accusing the Green Party of racism. In her public statement Brown declared, "In effect, the present Green Party leadership promotes a kinder, gentler capitalism, a moderated racism, an environmentally-sustainable globalism, which I cannot support." On racism in the party she declared she intended to use her campaign “to bring large numbers of blacks and browns into the Party, particularly from the hood and the barrio” but that the Green Party “hierarchy seemed utterly fearful of the prospect of a massive influx of blacks and browns into the Green Party". Brown has given no indication that she now intends to continue her run as a candidate to the left of the Greens.

To the left of the Green Party are socialist candidates that call for full socialized medicine, like in Europe and Cuba, but who also see that single payer health care would be a step forward. These include likely Socialist Equality Party candidate Bill Van Auken, who calls for full socialized medicine, and says of the Canadian Single Payer system as an imperfect form of “socialized medicine”.

Likewise Peace and Freedom Party candidate and Socialist Party USA nominee for vice president, Stewart Alexander states,

“I favor a fully socialized medical care system, with as a first step a single-payer system similar to Medicare, but covering people of all ages. I favor eliminating the "co-pays" that are such a burden, and keep people from seeking needed care. We should take the profit out of the health-care system, and fully fund it. (The money now spent on health care in the USA is about twice as much per person as is spent in Western Europe, with less effective delivery of care. No additional money would actually be needed, but taxes on the wealthy few should be used initially to help fund improvements.) Eventually, I favor a fully-socialized system, funded from the surplus of the socialized economy, with an emphasis on prevention and public health.” (Alexander)

Also advocating full socialized medicine is Socialist Party USA nominee and Peace and Freedom Party candidate Brian Moore. In the California Voters Guide he states that he would, “establish guaranteed minimum income, housing and socialized healthcare for all”.

Not mentioning socialized medicine, but supporting single payer, Party for Socialism and Liberation nominee and Peace and Freedom Party candidate Gloria La Riva states, “The three main focuses of my campaign will be to oppose the racist attacks on immigrants; to propose a massive jobs program and increased social spending as an alternative to anti-crime hysteria and new prisons; and to give strong support for Single Payer Healthcare” (La Riva).

While generally being a good activist party, a strong concern among many on the left towards the Party for Socialism and Liberation is their uncritical support for undemocratic communist models, a problem that will cause many to instead vote for non-Stalinist candidates such as Stewart Alexander or Brian Moore in the Peace and Freedom Party primaries, or for other anti-Stalinist socialist parties that may run candidates such as the Socialist Equality Party, Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Action, or the Freedom Socialist Party.

In contrast to some of the anti-democratic positions of Gloria La Riva’s party, presidential candidate Stewart Alexander states,

“Socialism is the common ownership of the means of production, but I like to be more specific. There are, have been, and can be many forms of socialism, but I believe that the best, strongest and most beneficial form of socialism, the kind of socialism I personally work for, is common ownership of the economy coupled with its democratic control by working people.” (Alexander)

Obviously, there are clear alternatives to the capitalist Democrat and Republican Parties that are working hard to promote a workers agenda that includes either fully socialized medicine or single payer healthcare. Yet, almost all of the unions of the United States remain committed to endorsing and financing Democrats and only Democrats in elections. A good number of unions, such as the SEIU, even endorse Democrats that are opposed to single payer health care and help fund the same campaigns that are being funded by the big insurance companies. These endorsements of the anti-worker politicians of the Democrat Party are a blatant violation of the interests of the membership. Such endorsements hurt attempts at building alternative parties that represent workers interests, and hurt the ability of workers to protest and strike against such politicians that are not representing our interests. Some other unions, such as the California Nurses Association, take the stand of only endorsing candidates who support single payer health care. This is a step forward, but many on the left see that a full break by labor from the corporate controlled Democrat Party will be necessary.

Ultimately, what is needed is the building of a spirit of resistance among workers, the unemployed, and students, where we no longer passively agree to politicians and union leaders who pretend to be lesser evils, but are rarely even that. We must challenge and change the organizations we are part of, and when that fails, break away and build new ones. Most importantly, we must fully resurrect the use of political strikes and demonstrations to force the bosses and government to give us what we need, as is often done in countries with socialized medicine such as France. It is this kind of resistance that won socialized healthcare in Europe after the Second World War, and it will be this that will bring socialized medicine to the United States.

This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
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References:

Abu-Jamal, Mumia. "Mumia 5/2/03 Taped Commentary on Cuba." Radio4all and Prisonradio.org. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.iacenter.org/polprisoners/maj_cuba03.htm. Internet.

Alexander, Stewart. “Presidential Candidate Questionnaire” Socialist National Committee, Socialist Party. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://vote-socialist.org/p08/questionnaires/alexander.html. Internet.

Ball, Jared. “Healthcare.” Jared Ball for President Website. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.jaredball.com/?cat=12. Internet.

“Clinton Unveils Mandatory Health Insurance Program” CNN.com. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/17/health.care/index.html. Internet.

“Concluding observations of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Canada”. 6 March, 1993. United Nations Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:Jt9OTyVZWTYJ:www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/280a3783f5a26d09c12563e80058b47e%3FOpendocument+infant+mortality+ canada +%22united+nations%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=16&gl=us. Internet.

“Cuba Records Lowest Infant Mortality Rate”. BBC News. 3 January, 2002. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1739773.stm. Internet.

Deeth, John. "Cynthia McKinney Brings Green Campaign to Iowa City." Iowa Independent. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.iowaindependent.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=3D80FCACF0E1EC162CC087F14BCF9BC5?diaryId=1610. Internet.

Green, Jeff. “U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world, report says”. 10 May, 2006. CNN.Com. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/index.html. Internet.

Health Canada, Government of Canada. 25 November, 2002. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/nr-cp/2002/2002_care-soinsbk4_e.html. Internet.

“How Mike Stands on the Issues.” Mike Gravel ’08 Website. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.gravel2008.us/issues. Internet.

“Human Development Report”. 2006. United Nations World Health Organization. Accessed 23 September, 2007. Available from: http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/indicators/52.html. Internet.

La Riva, Gloria. “Gloria La Riva for Governor”. California Online Voting Guide. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://calvoter.org/archive/94general/cand/governor/lari/larispeech3.html. Internet.

Mesplay, Kent. “Healthcare”. Kent Mesplay for President. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.mesplay.org/healthcare.html. Internet.

McKinney, Cynthia. “Cynthia McKinney Announces Campaign for Presidency” McKinney for President 2008 Website. Accessed 2 January, 2008. Available from: http://www.runcynthiarun.org/node/25. Internet.

“Overview of the Uninsured in The United States, An Analysis of the 2005 Current Population Survey”. 22 September 2005. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed 23 September, 2007. Available from: http://aspe.hhs.gov/health/reports/05/uninsured-cps/index.htm. Internet.

“Presidents Report, Canada’s Performance 2003”. 2003. Treasury Board of Canada. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.tbs-sct.gc.ca/report/govrev/03/cp-rc-PR_e.asp?printable=True. Internet.

“Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Infant Mortality --- United States, 1995-2002”. 10 June 2005. MMWR Weekly. Center for Disease Control. Accessed 26 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5422a1.htm. Internet.

Rovner, Julie. “Socialized Medicine Belittled on Campaign Trail.” 6 December, 2007. NPR Morning Edition. Available from Physicians for a National Health Program: http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/december/socialized_medicine_.php. Internet.

Shulte, Elizabeth. "Hillary Clinton’s First Health Care Non-Reform." 27 September, 2007. Dissident Voice. Available from: http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/09/hillary-clintons-first-health-care-non-reform/. Internet.

“Snapshots: Healthcare Costs”. Kaiser Family Foundation. January 2007. Accessed 23 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm. Internet.

“Statistics Canada”. 20 December, 2006. The Daily. Accessed 23 September, 2007. Available from: http://www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/061220/d061220b.htm. Internet.

“USA: Mumia Abu-Jamal -- Overturning of death sentence falls short of full justice” 19 December, 2001. Amnesty International. Available from: http://www.amnesty.org/en/alfresco_asset/9e6893af-a3f9-11dc-9d08-f145a8145d2b/amr511832001en.html. Internet.

***************
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posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Cynthia McKinney for President?

LanSing — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 09:12:03 GMT

What do people think about Cynthia McKinney seeking the Green Party nomination for president?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynthia_McKinney

posted in Green Party - 3 replies

Gore Vidal on Kucinich

flaneuse — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 22:30:46 GMT

Thursday, December 20, 2007
Kucinich Excluded From Iowa Debate
by Gore Vidal
Truthdig - December 18, 2007

I don’t know how many of you were as appalled as I was at the way that the presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich was totally erased from the last Democratic debate held in Iowa. This was a decision that was made, I can tell, jointly by the one-time voice of AIPAC, Mr. Wolf Blitzer, and, at the same time, The Des Moines Register—or whatever it is called—a paper of no consequence for the United States of America.

Elements of right-wingism are keeping his voice from being heard, even though there are many millions of us (Kucinich is ahead of both Biden and Dodd in the national polls) out here who like to hear his voice. He is in the great tradition of the original People’s Party of the 1880s; he is in the tradition of George Washington and of Thomas Jefferson, and to silence him with a bunch of political hacks who have made such a mess of our political system, pretending these were the only voices who could talk as presidential candidates ... is it because of their campaign budgets?

Now, I know, as all of you know, that people can come in with millions of dollars, like Romney and so on, and can buy time in Iowa and in the North Pole or wherever it is they are running. They can buy it, but to get an honest member of Congress speaking out for the people of the country is a great and rare thing.

I have listened to many political debates in my lifetime, if I may pull rank because I have been around longer than anybody else, and here is a voice not only against the war but the entire course leading us to it. I haven’t heard anybody who has ever listened to Kucinich who didn’t say, “Oh yes, yes, what he says is true, but nobody will ever take him seriously.”

Well, of course nobody will ever take him seriously, because they won’t let him on TV to stand side by side with the other candidates—some of them attractive candidates but whose roots are not as deep as his in what we may call “American life.” Dennis Kucinich was brought up in poverty, something the other candidates talk about but he actually lived through. He has known poverty in the richest country on Earth, a country that is constantly boasting, that seems to be out of control with self-love. Well, I say let’s have less self-love and pay some attention to our serious critics—and he is one—and his is a voice that’s showing us how to get to the exit from the box that we are all in.

It is so typical for CNN, a lousy network, and whatever that awful newspaper is called. Do we want to listen to them at the close of a primary campaign in a key state? They have nothing to say of any interest, and so they eliminate any voice that might say something intelligent. I have never felt more ashamed being an American than when I saw how this debate was handled.

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posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Ohio Secretary of State confirms 2004 election could have been stolen

Alexander — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 17:02:50 GMT

Ohio Secretary of State confirms 2004 election could have been stolen
by Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman
December 14, 2007

Ohio's Secretary of State announced this morning that a $1.9 million official study shows that "critical security failures" are embedded throughout the voting systems in the state that decided the 2004 election. Those failures, she says, "could impact the integrity of elections in the Buckeye State." They have rendered Ohio's vote counts "vulnerable" to manipulation and theft by "fairly simple techniques."

Indeed, she says, "the tools needed to compromise an accurate vote count could be as simple as tampering with the paper audit trail connector or using a magnet and a personal digital assistant."

In other words, Ohio's top election official has finally confirmed that the 2004 election could have been easily stolen.

Brunner's stunning findings apply to electronic voting machines used in 58 of Ohio's 88 counties, in addition to scanning devices and central tabulators used on paper ballots in much of the rest of the state.

Brunner is calling for widespread changes to the way Ohio casts and counts its ballots. Her announcement follows moves by California Secretary of State Deborah Bowen to disqualify electronic voting machines in the nation's biggest state.

In tandem, these two reports add a critical state-based dimension to the growing mountain of evidence that the US electoral system is rife with insecurities. Reports from the Brennan Center, the Carter-Baker Commission, the Government Accountability Office, the Conyers Committee Task Force Report, Princeton University and others have offered differing perspectives that add up to the same conclusion.

Coming in the state that decided the 2004 election for George W. Bush, Brunner's confirmation of the electoral system's vulnerabilities adds huge new weight to the charge that the Buckeye State's vote count was stolen.

In a series of investigative reports dating to well before the 2004 election, the Columbus Free Press and Freepress.org have documented several dozen different means used by the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign to steal the official 2004 vote count.

The final official tally for Bush---less than 119,000 votes out of 5.4 million cast---varied by 6.7% from exit poll results, which showed a Kerry victory. Exit polls in 2004 were designed to have a margin of error of about 1%.

In various polling stations in Democrat-rich inner city precincts in Youngstown and Columbus, voters who pushed touch screens for Kerry saw Bush's name light up. A wide range of discrepancies on both electronic and paper balloting systems leaned almost uniformly toward the Bush camp. Voting procedures regularly broke down in inner city and campus areas known to be heavily Democratic.

In direct violation of standing federal election law, 56 of Ohio's 88 counties have since destroyed all or part of their 2004 election data. The materials were additionally protected by a federal court injunction in the King-Lincoln-Bronzeville federal civil rights lawsuit (in which we are attorney and plaintiff). To date, no state or federal prosecutions have resulted from this wholesale destruction of presidential election records, including 1.6 million ballots, cast and uncast, needed for definitive auditing procedures. However, two Cuyahoga County (Cleveland) election officials have been convicted of felony manipulation of an official recount. The Cleveland Plain-Dealer, the state's largest newspaper, recently editorialized that there is "no evidence" the 2004 election was stolen, but omitted mention of the destruction of the electoral records by more than half the counties in the state. The Plain-Dealer and other mainstream media have consistently ignored findings by the Free Press and others indicating widespread manipulation and theft of the kind Brunner has now confirmed was eminently do-able within the Ohio system.

Brunner says "the results underscore the need for a fundamental change in the structure of Ohio's election system to ensure ballot and voting system security while still making voting convenient and accessible to all Ohio voters." Among other things, she advocates replacing touch-screen machines with optical-scan units that include a paper balloting system.

The study was managed by the Battelle Corporation, and conducted by Columbus-based MicroSolved Inc., SysTest Labs of Denver along with a consortium of academic subcontractors. It was reviewed by a dozen county officials, and included scrutiny of voting systems produced by Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Hart Intercivic and Premier Election Solutions (formerly Diebold).

Brunner is the Democratic successor to Republican J. Kenneth Blackwell, who administered the 2004 election as Secretary of State while also serving as state co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign. The report comes as part of her pledge to guarantee a fair and reliable vote count in the upcoming 2008 presidential election.

Under Blackwell, Ohio spent some $100 million installing electronic voting machines as part of the Help America Vote Act, passed by Congress in the wake of the scandals surrounding the 2000 election. Former Ohio Congressman Bob Ney, HAVA's principle author, now resides in a federal prison, in part for illegalities surrounding his dealings with voting machine companies.

Blackwell, who was defeated in a 2006 race for the Ohio governorship, outsourced web hosting responsibilities for the 2004 vote count to a programming firm that also programmed the web site for the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign. Blackwell's chosen host site for the state's vote count was in the basement of the Old Pioneer Bank Building in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where the servers for the Republican National Committee, and the Bush White House, were also located.

Brunner has now recommended that all Ohio's voting be done on optical scan ballots, with reliance on central tabulation. Voters with disabilities could use AutoMark machines with bar coding devices that allow the marking of ballots with little or no additional assistance.

"It's a testament to our state's boards of elections officials that elections on the new (federally) mandated voting systems have gone as smoothly as they have in light of these findings," Brunner said.

Conversely, it is also a testament to the ease with which the 2004 election was stolen by election officials who had clear conflicts of interest aimed at keeping George W. Bush in the White House.

--
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman are co-authors of HOW THE GOP STOLE AMERICA'S 2004 ELECTION & IS RIGGING 2008 (www.freepress.org) and of WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO? (The New Press) with Steve Rosenfeld. THE FITRAKIS FILES are available at www.freepress.org, where this article first appeared. Wasserman's SOLARTOPIA! OUR GREEN-POWERED EARTH, A.D. 2030, is at www.solartopia.org.

http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2007/2920

posted in Green Party - 3 replies

Green Change

marnie — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 00:28:20 GMT

Hey Green tribe.

Check out www.greenchange.org.

Green Change is a community of people with Green values: justice, grassroots democracy, sustainability and non-violence. We work together to share Green art, politics and culture.

Our website has news, actions, music, videos, photographs, how to guides, fact sheets, Green laws and much more. Soon we will launch a social network for people with Green values. On our network, you will be able to organize groups, events and actions. You will be able to write blogs, post photos, share videos, chat and more.

Please let me know what you think of the site. If you like it, send it to your friends, families and Green groups.

Peace,
Marnie Glickman
Green Change
marnie@greenchange.org
www.greenchange.org

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

The Socialist Kurdish PKK Reject the Soviet Model

Sun, 23 Dec 2007 01:34:52 GMT

Turkey is now bombing and shelling Kurds in Iraq once again under the excuse of trying to destroy the PKK. This is a continuation of the horrible oppression and repression faced by Kurds that I wrote about in:

Kurdish Culture, Repression, Women’s Rights, and Resistance
http://people.tribe.net/steveargue2/blog/9e471dea-4791-4fb7-afe6-7a23f092e9dc

One of the criticisms I faced from those backing the repression against the Kurds was the fact that the PKK is a revolutionary socialist organization. An attempt was made to equate the leadership of the PKK with Stalin.

Yet, here is part of what the PKK says about the Soviet Union and socialism in their program:

"The Soviet Union has disappeared, the Soviet Bloc has dissolved itself, and there have been major developments in the socialist movement. The phase of Soviet-dominated socialism is finished. That was a phase of primitive and brutal socialism. Now, a new phase of socialism has begun, namely its rich phase. Our party is the embodiment of one of the most significant socialist movements during this new phase, and we plan to live up to our duties in our revolutionary work."

I have not seen a detailed analysis by the PKK of the Soviet model, but I see their rejection of that model as encouraging. The PKK are a popular group among Turkish Kurds that have gained that support through their struggle for socialism against the horrible oppression and repression faced by both Kurds and women in inside of Turkey. No matter what the position of the PKK on the Soviet Union or anything else, I support the Kurdish right, as an oppressed people, to self-determination.

The Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Lenin and Trotsky, were swept to power in a popular revolution that called for an end to the war with Germany, land reform, and socialism. Besides the betterment this revolution meant for the workers and peasants in general, including access to healthcare and education, giant strides forward were made for oppressed nationalities, Jews, women's rights, and gay rights. Before the revolution, under Czarist rule, Jews were routinely slaughtered in the thousands in government-sponsored pogroms. Peasants were the property of feudal landlords, and huge numbers of drafted young peasants were dying in the inter-imperialist war with Germany. This all ended with the Russian Revolution. In addition, gay rights and the right to abortion were legalized for the first time in any country with the birth of the Soviet Union and backward anti-woman practices such as bride-price and forced marriage were made illegal. Priorities were made of literacy and meeting the basic needs of the people. These were huge advances made by a revolution that had inherited a poor economically backward nation, soon to be further devastated by civil war and the invasion of many imperialist armies.

Yet, Rosa Luxemburg, a key leader of the German and international communist movement, while praising the advances made by the Russian Revolution, did not excuse the lack of democracy in the Soviet Union. She saw the Marxist concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" in a completely different way than Lenin and Trotsky. She saw this simply as the toiling majority becoming the dictators over the capitalist minority that once held power. For that majority to actually be in charge, however, they would need democratic organs, universal suffrage, and democratic rights. For Lenin and Trotsky, the concept of the "dictatorship of the proletariat" fit more into bourgeois models of individual dictatorship by those in power. As Rosa Luxemburg states in her 1918 work, the “Russian Revolution”:

Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only a bureaucracy remains as the active element. Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders with inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule [...] a dictatorship, to be sure, but not dictatorship of the proletariat [...].

A different position by Lenin and Trotsky more in league with that of Rosa Luxemburg would have produced a much better and more open society that would have made Stalin's type of rise to power through skullduggery, corruption, and terror within the ranks of the party much more difficult.

Rosa Luxemburg did not see the question as being counterpoised between bourgeois democracy (democracy for the rich as we have in the United States) on the one hand (defended by "socialists" who had betrayed socialism and become administrators of capitalist exploitation and war), and dictatorial communism on the other. Instead, she rejected both and fought for a socialist society with nationalized industries where the working class has democratic control.

It is this essential banner of democratic revolutionary socialism that is being revived in the struggle for human rights against brutal U.S. backed capitalist dictatorships and other capitalist governments in the struggle for human rights such as language rights, women's rights, medicine, food, clean drinking water, for environmental survival, an end to U.S. imposed wars, and an end to capitalist and imperialist exploitation. Forward in the struggle for democratic revolutionary socialism!

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Venezuelan and Bolivian Revolutions in Danger, U.S. Hands Off!

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 19:30:46 GMT

[Note: The following articles are reprinted from the November-December 2007 issue of The Organizer newspaper and are in agreement with Liberation News on these subjects. To order a sample hard copy of the Organizer, contact the phone numbers or email/snail-mail addresses listed below. To subscribe to Liberation News for free on-line, click on the link given, and follow the directions at the site.]

The Organizer Newspaper
P.O. Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.
Tel. (415) 641-8616; fax: (415) 824-1072.
email: <theorganizer@earthlink.net>

Liberation News
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

---

Venezuela - The "No" Wins the
Referendum on Constitutional Reform:
The Venezuelan Revolution Is in Danger

EDITORIAL

In the referendum that was held December 2 in Venezuela, called by President Hugo Chavez with the aim of reforming the Constitution, a majority went to the "No" advocated by the U.S. Embassy-supported opponents of Chavez.

There were 4,379,302 voters for the "Yes" and 4,504,354 for the "No" -- a difference of 124,962 votes. The abstention rate of 44.11% was much higher than the 25.3% for the presidential elections of December 2006, when Chavez won with 63% of the vote.

The reforms involved 33 articles of the Constitution and included such questions as the right of the president to seek re-election, the place and role of communal institutions, and the unity of the national territory.

Article 320 of the Constitutional Reform called for expanding the role of the State "for reasons of sovereignty, development and national interest -- to exploit the nation's oil and gas resources and to produce and control all services and goods of public interest and strategic character ... and to promote national manufacturing, making use of the raw materials derived from the exploitation of the country's natural resources."

Other articles called for reclaiming sovereignty over Venezuela's Central Bank, which till now has been under the control of the International Monetary Fund.

U.S. Campaign Against Venezuelan Revolution

For years, the U.S. government has waged a campaign aimed at removing the Chavez government from power. This campaign was stepped up many notches these past months. The U.S. government, the multinationals based in Caracas, the international media, and the majority of the private media in Venezuela (themselves controlled by foreign capital), all pursued an unprecedented smear campaign against the Chavez government, accusing Chavez of being a dictator who had planned to win the referendum by fraud.

There was a continuous and ever-louder threat of civil war had the "Yes" vote carried the day. This was not an idle threat. In Bolivia, the right-wing forces, backed by the U.S. Embassy, had risen up only 10 days before the Venezuelan referendum to deny Evo Morales's government the right to nationalize the nation's oil and gas reserves and to ensure that the Constituent Assembly could function by majority vote. The Bolivian oligarchy, at the behest of the U.S. government and oil transnational corporations, is staging daily riots to promote the secession of four oil-rich departments from Bolivia.

The attacks against the Constitutional Reform process in Venezuela are the continuation of an uninterrupted campaign waged by these right-wing forces against Hugo Chavez ever since he took office -- a campaign that includes two attempted coup d'etats (which were defeated by the mass mobilizations of the Venezuelan people), two lockouts imposed by the powerful bosses' federation (Fedecamaras), and an attempt to remove Chavez from office via a binding referendum in August 2005 (an attempt that also was defeated by the uprising of the people).

This heinous propaganda campaign was contradicted by the manner in which this referendum was carried out -- with full transparency of results and total freedom of expression and agitation. One should note that the same people who are screaming "dictator" in Venezuela recognized the legitimacy of Felipe Calderón in Mexico, the usurper who was "elected" only because of massive fraud.

It also should be noted that none of the presidents who joined the chorus to lambaste Chavez as a "dictator" -- beginning with George W. Bush -- have ever done what Chavez just did; that is, submit major policy decisions to a vote by the people. Did the American people ever get to vote on NAFTA or on the war in Iraq in a popular referendum?

But the offensive launched to destabilize the government was not only limited to propaganda. U.S. imperialism, particularly through the Colombian government, the principal exporter of many food staples to Venezuela, organized a boycott on the shipment of these basic staples to Venezuela -- a campaign not unlike the one deployed by the CIA to prepare the coup d'etat against Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973.

Why Have They Gone After Chavez?

The Constitution of 1999, defended today by those who rejected it at the time, establishes the public character of PDVSA, the big national oil company and the backbone of the nation. Chavez went further: he required oil multinationals to be part of mixed-investment companies where PDVSA holds a majority. And moreover, the Chavez government has used a large part of oil revenues for social spending: education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc.

According to a recent report issued by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), "Poverty in Venezuela has fallen by 31% over the course of the nine years of Chavez's government, and 'certain people still wonder why Chavez remains popular', an ECLAC official noted ironically." (Le Monde, December 2, 2007)

It's a fact: Poverty has dropped in Venezuela -- contrary to Brazil under the Lula government, which has followed IMF directives to the letter; contrary to Mexico under the fraudster Calderon, faithful ally of Bush; and even contrary to the countries of the European Union, where the number of poor people continues to rise as a result of the implementation of the "zero deficit" policy of the Maastricht Treaty.

For imperialism and all its defenders, it is intolerable that a government dares to nationalize, or re-nationalize, and invests billions of dollars toward meeting the needs of its population, to the detriment of financial markets and speculators. This is intolerable, and therefore everything must be done to stop it.

New Pressures to Derail the Revolution

Without a doubt, the "victory" of the opposition is going to be exploited to try to call into question all aspects of the revolution in progress in Venezuela, particularly the nationalization of oil, the measures on agrarian reform, and the re-nationalization of companies previously privatized in such sectors as iron and steel, as well as the larger freedoms at all levels won by the Venezuelan people.

Imperialism will now seek to derail the revolution by "legal" means, promoting "dialogue" and "reconciliation" and demanding the inclusion of opposition sectors within the government, thereby paving the way for Chavez's own defeat down the road. This does not, of course, preclude another coup attempt. U.S. imperialism cannot tolerate, and will not tolerate, a government that nationalizes oil, other natural resources, and abandoned factories, and that adopts measures of land reform, as Chavez has done.

In this framework, the integration of Venezuela into Mercosur, a measure promoted by Lula in Brazil, is aimed at "stabilizing" the situation in Venezuela -- meaning rolling back the revolutionary process and preventing it from moving forward toward socialism.

"The Opposition Did Not Win the Referendum, We Lost It" -- Chavez

Following the defeat of the "Yes" vote, Hugo Chavez explained on Venezuelan TV that the opposition did not win the referendum, it was the Bolivarian camp that lost the election.

Chavez pointed out that the opposition barely increased its vote totals -- a scant 150,000 votes -- from the 2006 presidential election. What made the difference was the abstention of about 2.9 million people who had voted for Chavez in 2006 but who refrained from voting in this referendum.

How to explain this abstention?

Chavez is correct when he notes that this referendum vote was held at gunpoint -- with the U.S. Embassy, the Spanish king and their puppets holding the gun at the Venezuelan people and threatening to shoot if the "Yes" had won. Clearly, the threat of civil war was a major factor. No one can doubt this for one minute. But is this all?

Unlike 2004, there was no visible mass enthusiasm in the streets during this referendum. A more somber mood seemed to prevail at the time of the vote. A discussion will be needed among revolutionists in Venezuela to address some of the following concerns expressed by workers before and after the referendum:

- The role of various governors, mayors and ministers linked to Chavismo, who have opposed independent struggles by the workers and peasants, who have been accused of corruption -- and many of whom did not even mobilize their base for the "Yes" vote.

- The Bolivarian government's push to create a single party linked to the State. (The government has announced that the Unified Socialist Party of Venezuela -- PSUV -- has more than 5 million members, yet the vote for the "Yes" on the referendum was just 4.38 million.)

- The attempts by the government to question the autonomy and independence of the trade unions.

- The decision to link Chavez's own continued tenure in office to the more fundamental reforms of the country's economic and financial institutions.

Addressing these issues, among others, openly -- and seeking collectively to forge the institutions of workers' and popular democracy -- will only strengthen the revolutionary process from within and enable it to more firmly withstand the pressures and attacks from imperialism, which are bound to increase.

One thing is certain, however. The Venezuelan Revolution is at a turning point.

Either it moves forward, reclaiming under democratic control all that was privatized, advancing to take control over key sectors of the economy that continue in private hands (banks, large corporations); or else it will move backward toward a pact with the local oligarchies, agents of imperialism, which will lead inexorably to the weakening of the Chavez government among its mass base, preparing the conditions for its removal from power.

In this struggle, we who live in the belly of the beast are unconditionally on the side of the Venezuelan people in defense of their conquests, and on the side of the government elected by the people, against any and every attempt by U.S. imperialism and its allies to undermine their sovereignty.

U.S. Hands Off Venezuela!

-- The Editors

***********************

Bolivia After the Constituent Assembly Vote:
U.S. & Oligarchy Step Up Separatist Offensive

Introductory note:

Following is the English translation of the statement issued Nov. 25, 2007 in Bolivia by La Chispa, the Bolivian sympathizing section of the Fourth International, regarding the recent developments in that country.

We want to remind you once again of the Bolivia Solidarity Fund that we have launched in the United States to help sustain -- and expand -- the activity of La Chispa in these decisive moments. Any donation, big or small, to this fund will go a long, long way.

You can donate through Paypal by clicking on the link below or you can send a check made payable to The Organizer (please specify Bolivia Fund at bottom of check) to:

P.O. Box 40009
San Francisco, CA, 94140

For more information or to donate online, visit:
http://www.revolution-youth.org/bolivia.php

Thanks in advance for your solidarity,
Eric Blanc
for Revolution Youth (USA) and Socialist Organizer

************************************

Declaration of La Chispa, the Bolivian sympathizing section of the Fourth International

(November 25, 2007)

- Now is the moment! All out against the separatist oligarchy!

- Unity of the workers, peasants, youth and their organizations in defense of the unity of Bolivia and the October Agenda!

Brothers and Sisters:

Bolivia is living through a crucial moment in its history.

The oligarchies, agents of imperialism, after having provoked the conflicts in Sucre by manipulating the theme of the transfer of the capital (from Sucre to La Paz), have now announced their decision to organize "civil disobedience" and not recognize the decisions taken by the majority of members of the Constituent Assembly (147 out of 255, that is, 57%) at the session on November 24 at the Military Academy in Sucre.

In the words of Costas, the mayor of Santa Cruz, they have decided to accelerate the implementation of their autonomous status -- in other words, they have decided to attempt to split Bolivia in order to maintain their privileges as the lackeys of imperialism.

The moment demands the widest unity of all sectors of the people to confront our common our enemy: the right wing and, behind this, imperialism. Our enemies aim to crush our advance toward the implementation of the Agenda of October (2003) and May-June (2005) -- that is, full nationalization of the natural resources, a Sovereign Constituent Assembly, agrarian reform, etc.

Our enemies aim to put an end to the revolutionary process of the vast majority of the exploited and oppressed in Bolivia -- as manifested in the uprisings of 2003 and 2005. They aim to bring us to civil war to carve up the nation!

The workers, the peasants, the youth, the native peoples of all departments and regions of the country want a united and sovereign Bolivia!

In the face of the separatist, pro-imperialist reaction, we must all join together to fight back!

The Bolivian Workers Federation (COB), the backbone organization of the working class, has the responsibility to call on all those who raise the banner of the Agenda of October, the government itself, the MAS, and all the organizations of the people, neighbors, peasants, native peoples, to jointly form a UNITED FRONT IN DEFENSE OF THE UNITY OF THE NATION AND THE OCTOBER AGENDA.

IT IS URGENT THAT A NATIONAL ASSEMBLY BE CALLED, with representatives of all the workers' and people's organizations, with elected representatives of all the sectors, the mines, the factories, the countryside, the universities, to take the necessary defense measures against the offensive of the pro-imperialist right-wing oligarchy!

The lessons must be learned from recent events!

The oligarchy, through its political parties (PODEMOS; UN) and its civic committees, have blackmailed the government elected by the Bolivian people and organized the referendum on autonomies in 2006 -- which was rejected through the victory of the NO. These same forces have sabotaged the Constituent Assembly through pushing for the rule of two-thirds voting, forcing the MAS and the representatives to accept their demands.

Now these forces, through their spokespersons -- Tuto Quiroga, Manfred Reyes Villa, Marincovick, etc. -- say that Evo Morales wants to impose a fascist dictatorship!

Making agreements with these people, like the MAS has been doing, only served to strengthen its separatist drive, which aims to hand over part of our Bolivia to imperialism.

The Constituent Assembly must continue to meet and must take decisions by absolute majority, which is a basic rule of democracy!

In order for the people to mobilize today against the attacks of the right wing, a Sovereign Constituent Assembly must adopt concrete measures that correspond to the Agenda of October:

- 100% nationalization of the oil, gas, and mines!
- Elimination of the latifundios. Land to the peasants and native peoples!
- No to autonomies! Respect the majority decision of the people in the July 2, 2006 referendum.
- Immediately abrogate all the conservative laws such as 21060 and renationalize the privatized companies!

But, we insist, that there is no task more urgent than UNITING ALL THE FORCES OF THE WORKERS, PEOPLE, NEIGHBORHOOD COUNCILS, YOUTH ORRGANIZATIONS, AND INDIGENOUS PEOPLES to smash the offensive to divide and destroy Bolivia.

We repeat: The Bolivian Workers Federation (COB) has the responsibility to be at the side of our peasants and indigenous peoples -- regardless of the political differences that exist with Evo Morales' MAS party. It is a burning need to forge this front, with all sectors of the people -- though the COB must maintain its political independence.

It is in this process that the Political Instrument of the Workers (a party which has been approved on paper time and time again by the congresses of the COB, the CODs, the CORs) can be built. This would be a party that represents the working class and its allies. But to reach this point, the broadest UNITED FRONT against the oligarchies and imperialism must be built today.

Brothers and Sisters:

What is happening in Bolivia has a direct relation to the struggle of the peoples of the world, particularly in Latin America, where the majority is resisting the policies of the destruction of nations pushed by U.S. imperialism!

Today, imperialism and its allies aim to isolate and defeat the revolutions under way in Venezuela and Ecuador and the workers' struggles in Peru, Brazil, Mexico and inside the United States itself.

Defeating the offensive of the oligarchy is not only the condition for continuing the struggle for the Agenda of October; it is also the condition for continuing the upward movement in the struggle of our peoples throughout the continent and the world!

The time is now!

- Unite against the oligarchy and imperialism!

- Faced with the Civil Disobedience of the Oligarchy, the Mobilization of the whole Bolivian people is needed!

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

PRESS STATEMENT: Revised 12.06.2007, Black File 7001, Freelance Journalist inside the Federal Witness Protection Program as a Non-Criminal Federal Witness.

Lee Vin Bah — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 14:49:14 GMT

PRESS STATEMENT: Revised 12.06.2007, Black File 7001, Freelance Journalist inside the Federal Witness Protection Program as a Non-Criminal Federal Witness.

Freelance Journalist inside the Federal Witness Protection Program as a Non-Criminal Federal Witness. “Black File 7001” is a work of investigative journalism that initially began in 1994. Early in 1999, I completed a covert assignment with the FBI lasting five years after having been previously requested to stand-down from a fulltime university curriculum with an inactive law enforcement background for possibly twelve months. Immediately thereafter I entered the Federal Witness Protection Program (WitSec) and ever since have continued to experience the U.S. government’s use of psychological torture practices and political retribution by the named agents and agencies of the U.S. government under the Bush-Cheney administration. Multiple actionable offenses have been committed under state, federal and international law while the culpable agents and agencies remain shielded from civil and criminal prosecution by the administration’s threat or issuance of national security letters, which prevent legal discovery and subvert the rule of law. The U.S. government does torture, I am one of its American victims and am requesting a humanitarian intervention before it is too late.

EDITORIAL FOREWORD:

Producing the report titled “Black File 7001” has experienced the threat or issuance of national security letters by the Bush-Cheney administration, a subordinate agent directly under the administration threatening me with the invention of a criminal charge if I publish and the suppression of this story by the same Democratic Congress that falsely promised an end to the money laundering operation in Iraq that remains perpetuated by the insidious genocide of our American military service members and other innocent human beings throughout the world.

As a former lifelong humanitarian member of what use to be the Republican Party until 2000 and a person who also voted for Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, I charge the neoconservatives with having filled the bowels of this Trojan Horse Republican Party with the stench of operating a continuing criminal enterprise under the guise of bringing democracy to the world.

The U.S. government infrastructure has been overthrown and this administration has declared constitutional civil war against the United States of America. The American people must organize in a lawful and peaceful revolution that mirrors and surpasses the civil rights era. We must march on Washington, D.C. and picket the corporate offices of the propaganda ministries to force their coverage of your protests and displayed messages.

It is critically important that before the next election we must demand Democratic Congressional members to openly support publically funded elections; not for profit universal healthcare; free or affordable higher education for all citizens; the meaningful development alternative fuel sources; the abatement of the conditions causing the honey bee populations from disappearing from around the world (later in the primary story I will invite you to read why noticing the smallest of G-d’s creatures holds the largest messages); and the criminal investigation of the named agents and agencies of the U.S. government under the Bush-Cheney administration regarding the Black File 7001 report.

Career politicians, regardless of political affiliations who fail the muster of the American people should be removed and replaced with genuine representatives before the next voting cycle.

Americans must become the partisans of liberty to reclaim the dream and promise of America and our inalienable rights as human beings. The jackbooted fascists of today must be prevented from emulating the treason of U.S. Senator Prescott Bush through their perversion of peace for the profits of war. The American mainstream has already been herded towards the invisible and tangible death camps of democracy. In those places you will endured conditions far worse than any physical torture where other Americans like me have been left for dead for over thirty years. These human beings of whom I speak are not criminals or terrorists; they are honorable American citizens who answered their country’s call to duty for special covert government service only to become a disposable population and the hidden dirty secret of the U.S. government.

Since 1970, one thousand and eighty (1,080) American citizens have existed as something cousin to death camp victims from the destructive effects of the Federal Witness Protection Program. These non-criminal federal witnesses and American veterans of voluntary covert government service became the unknowing test subjects in a clandestine torture experiment that exists as the precursor model for converting a freethinking U.S. civilian population into a self-consuming enslaved society. Within the death camp known as “WitSec” these human beings are subjected to the insidious methods of psychological torture that systematically erode the individual sense of self-identity until the will to live has been lost.

ABOUT ME:

My WitSec No. is 7001, I am a husband, father, writer, and freelance journalist who remained inside the Federal Witness Protection Program as a Non-Criminal Federal Witness and am now ready to surface under guarded conditions with the firsthand story of how a minority group of honorable American citizens are being psychologically tortured and politically persecuted by the U.S. government. Immediately I am seeking the support of the American public and progressive news media; the representation of a listed creative agent; contract negotiations with book publishers and the motion picture industry; a university initiative with an accredited school of journalism to include lecturing options and the sanitized conversion of my college records; and communication platforms with Ms. Oprah Winfrey and Mr. George Clooney via the Smoke House Studio.

By comparison to the physical injuries that I have endured from trauma and other accidents, the lasting effects of psychological torture are far worse. This form of torture is sourced from the fascist mindset of the named agents and agencies of the U.S. government under the Bush-Cheney administration through their commissions of actionable offenses and political retributions. As a veteran of voluntary covert government service who operated undercover for five years while contracted by the FBI as an agent of the federal government, I state unequivocally and categorically that the U.S. government does torture human beings. As an American citizen and non-criminal federal witness let the record show that I am declaring myself as a torture victim of the U.S. government. With my soul dying and the body giving signs that it wants to follow I offer that no truer words have ever been written than “give me liberty or give me death” or that “the worse death is a life without hope.”

Having previously been blessed with an out of body experience during trauma that was caused by the U.S. government and prior to my recovery in advance of relearning how to walk, I am not frightened by a natural death. The experience of dying for me confirmed the Socratic belief that the human soul is made of two parts with one half being a physical finite and the other a non-physical infinite. Life as seen from the eyes of the body is an illusion or one half of a duality. It was possible to see from two separate and paralleling perspectives at the same time. The physical world appeared normal while my body felt the tremendous force of being pulled into the earth. Initially from within the spiritual realm there was no ugliness, no beauty, no gender, and only muted colors with humanoid forms. Before I lost the sight of my physical body, the last human emotion that I felt was an all encompassing global pity that literally enveloped the earth with my living sentient energy. Soon I was sitting in space and the beauty of the earth returned with the comforting tenderness of a loving mother and at my back was the warmth of wisdom and strength from a fatherly sun. A few moments passed and my two halves were made whole again to continue the journey that brought me to this place of inhuman suffering.

In self-definition I am a Humanitarian-Universal-Infrastructuralist or a person who has spent a lifetime identifying and interrelating the commonalities between myself and all known sentient beings and other components within the universe from which to become more human.

My views of the current U.S. President and Vice President find them culpable for treason, egregious crimes against humanity and international terrorism while wearing a mask of insipid divinity. Clearly these judicially selected ten cent millionaires are criminal sociopaths who function from a series of learned behaviors used to produce a desired result while being incapable of recognizing any genuine sense of right and wrong.

These individuals and their followers bare the marks that brand their names with the gamatria of the most inhuman and deceptive beings that walk among us on the earth in legion with what some would call the antichrist. Although I have never considered myself worthy of the blessings, respectfully I believe that throughout my life there have been a number of occasions when my being was touched by the many faces of G-d. With all of that said, one should never confuse spiritual currency with political capitol since the latter is most often sourced from the abyss of false profits, which brought the genocide over six million Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals in Nazi Germany; the slaughter of tribal nations in America; the turning of human beings against their brothers and sisters throughout history; the selling of children, women and men as slaves; the gang rape and victimization of Arabic women who are then whipped as criminals; and the 911 terrorist attacks used to perpetuate war profiteering and oil piracy for those who drink from a rivers of human blood and suffering. Considering my temporary acquaintance with death, I believe the purest form of spiritual worship that collectively joins us with the universe is simply the individual act of at least attempting to recognize the human being in all people.

BLACK FILE 7001:

“Black File 7001” is a work of investigative journalism that began in 1994 as an academic prospectus with the goals of publishing books, producing movies, film documentaries, and developing a lecture syllabus with the thinking who better to teach than a person with skin in the game. While in a fulltime academic setting and shortly after beginning this protect, I discovered actionable intelligence that was brought forward for case installation at the federal level. Already possessing an inactive law enforcement background and specialized skill sets where few if any training manuals exist, the FBI requested my voluntary assistance for a projected twelve months. Five years later I completed the FBI undercover group one investigation having successfully penetrated four organized crime groups while never being afforded one day off for that entire period of time. Since other federal law enforcement agencies are not equipped to handle long duration personal security operations, I entered the Federal Witness Protection Program (WitSec) as a Non-Criminal Federal Witness in 1999. Nearly immediately after entering the WitSec the named agents and agencies of the U.S. government under the Bush-Cheney administration unthinkably began outing my active covert status. Since exiting the WitSec in good standing early in 2001, political retributions by the U.S. government have continued to terrorize me with actionable offenses and the tactics of psychological torture. These culpable acts additionally serve as a passive sanction for the assassination of an American citizen and a former covert agent of the federal government. This story is uncharted territory and I am unaware of any other writer/journalist who has actually penetrated this fraudulent clandestine federal program, which shrouds itself beneath an undeserved veil of secrecy that exists in the absence of public scrutiny and meaningful congressional oversight. The latter might explain why multiple action notices regarding this investigation have gone unanswered by the craven Democratic Congress that I helped elected to office with their false promise of ending the corporatist money laundering operation in Iraq.

Within the next 30 day or by New Year’s Day 2008, I will publish an extensive sanitized report that has been redacted from a much larger work. Please communicate with me and contact your local election campaign committees to demand that your congressional members take action in this matter.

American citizens are being used as the unknowing test subjects in a clandestine torture experiment shrouded within the Federal Witness Protection Program (WitSec). Non-Criminal Federal Witnesses (1,080) are a special minority class of American citizens in title only who are being used as a laboratory control sample for the applied tactics of terrorism and psychological torture (psyops) on a U.S. civilian population by the U.S. government.

Writing remains one of my two fragile anchors holding me to this world and a federal agent (L.H.M.) directly under the Bush-Cheney administration has telephonically communicated “you have a lot of people in high places afraid to death that you are going to destroy their programs…and if you publish a book, the government will invent a criminal charge against you.” After refusing not to publish with an invitation to that federal agent’s handlers to “go pound salt up their asses”, a series of actionable offenses were committed against me in political retribution under state, federal and international law. These same entities on several occasions have outed my classified status that with each culpable act, serves to intensify what has become a standing passive sanction for the assassination of an American citizen and former covert agent of the federal government.

As a physically disabled person from two trauma accidents caused by the federal government or incurred in the line of duty during covert government service, I applied for Social Security Disability Benefits (SSDB) through the required classified channels. This process required that I utilize my second WitSec Inspector (A.S.) and the Social Security Administration’s Sensitive Operations Division (SOD) that was established for persons in covert-ops, the CIA and the U.S. State Department working oversees. The Social Security Disability Benefits were authorized, but following my refusal not to publish the WitSec and SSA’s SOD conspired to punitively withdraw my SSDB. This occurred prior to beginning treatments for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma cancer in 2004. The government’s own federal court judge who heard the SSA case issued several letters of complaint to the Sensitive Operations Division, charging that office had provided the court with erroneous information and that the SOD’s delay in responding was contemptuous to the point of preventing a fair hearing. Two months past while the SOD and WitSec crafted their evidence and my SSDB’s claim entered the appeals stage. During the initial SSDB process, repeated telephonic conversations had been made with and between the WitSec and the SOD to insure that the production of the SSA documents would not out my covert status. After multiple assurances that complete security would be maintained, the WitSec and SOD deliberately or at the least through total gross incompetence filed documents that outed my covert status by commingling my identities in violation of several federal laws and a federal court seal. After the matter was sent to the SSA Hearing and Appeals Board where it remained for two years that federal agency notified my private attorney they had lost my classified government file in violation of the same laws allegedly protecting my covert status. A copy was returned by my attorney and two weeks later my benefits were denied again. The SSDB matter is pending on civil appeal to the federal court where I am certain it will be again denied by the government’s crafting of the evidence. Lastly the WitSec and SOD conspired to deconstruct my only viable work history by purging a covert front business located in Texas from the regular SSA computer system and additionally failed under contract to sanitize and convert my previous Social Security records into my new Jewish name. Allegedly I had been employed by that Texas front business for over a decade as a construction estimator that for all I knew might have found Dick Cheney answering the telephones on an earlier occasion. Following the WitSec and SOD’s punitive acts of political retribution, during two subsequent visits to the local SSA office the computer screen was so void of information that the office staffers contacted their supervisors to report they believed their computer system had been penetrated by hackers.

Prior to 911 and before the USDOJ had been prostituted by this corrupt administration, I was able to assist in the covert criminal prosecution of my first U.S. Deputy Marshal/WitSec Inspector (J.D.) for his theft of government funds.

After 911 and following my refusal not to publish under threat of the invention of a criminal charge by the U.S. government that same former WitSec Inspector/federal felon was released from prison and allowed to stalk me. While near death from chemotherapy and radiation treatments for Hodgkin’s Lymphoma cancer that same federal felon physically accosted me by the arm inside of a warehouse superstore. Thirty-six security notices went unanswered by the U.S. Marshals Service’s Federal Witness Security Program Headquarters.

The second WitSec Inspector (A.S.) eventually came to my home with a regular deputy marshal who did not have a WitSec security clearance, which further outed my covert status and sarcastically laughed that he had forgotten to tell me that the WitSec Headquarters’ mailing address had been changed after 911 and that under the new U.S. Patriot Act my only means of communicating with headquarters was directly through him. That WitSec Inspector continued to smile while stating that my classified information and security notices had been circulated by several staffers without WitSec clearances before it got to where I thought it was being sent. When asked about the other Deputy Marshal’s security clearance, the WitSec Inspector stated “owe I use non-WitSec personnel all the time to handle WitSec matters.” This same WitSec Inspector has committed multiple actionable offences and has outed my covert status numerous times while creating a growing mortal threat environment around my geographic location.

Many of the public self-aggrandizing claims and testimonials given before the U.S. Congress and published by the Federal Witness Protection Program will soon be debunked within my Black File 7001 report.

Following the WitSec and SOD’s removal of my work history with their deletion of the covert front business from the SSA computer system and even though I am a very capable and multitalented individual with strong skill sets, given this act and the government’s failure to perform under written contracts, I have been unable to find employment after submitting over 3000 job applications. However by comparison and in direct contrast to my own personal situation, the first WitSec Inspector (J.D.) after his release from federal prison for the theft of several thousand dollars in U.S. government funds is now gainfully employed and processing the private financial records of American citizens as a mortgage loan officer. Under this administration criminals and traitors are rewarded and the good servants of the American people become part of a disposable population.

Out of 18,000 federal witnesses, 16,920 are criminal and custodial federal witnesses and 1,080 of that total number are “non-criminal federal witnesses.” The six percent who are non-criminal federal witnesses are comprised of honorable American citizens from every cultural identity within our society. These same veterans of voluntary covert government service took that extra step above and beyond the call of duty to participate in our system while defending our constitutional democracy and the American people. Within that minority of six percent I am an even smaller number of non-criminal federal witnesses who entered covert government service with an inactive law enforcement background and specialized skill sets of a nature that possess few if any training manuals.

The ACLU of which I am a member has tried to bring four previous cases involving non-criminal federal witnesses through the Washington, D.C. office. With each lawsuit brought by the ACLU, the Bush-Cheney administration has issued national security letters to prevent the legal discovery of evidence and thus subverted the rule of law. However, in my possession is the actual physical evidence that includes but is not limited to federal court documents proving the outing of my covert status; the federal court documents of the first WitSec Inspector (J.D.); lawfully produced audiotape recordings of WitSec personnel and others; and the proof of warrantless wiretapping, data mining, the electronic theft of intellectual property; et al. One should remember General Douglas MacArthur’s island hopping campaign during WWII. As that relates to this matter, I am bypassing a slugfest with Goliath that would only serve to hold me in stasis with my foot in the courtroom door. Instead I invite all freethinking human beings to a Greek debate in the court of public opinion. Criticism and contemplation are necessary to keep a flourishing democracy alive. Let the U.S. government bring forth its best criminal cowards to stand on the square with me in open examination before the American people and the world.

THE TREASON OF CONDOLEEZZA RICE:

It is also my intention to challenge the blatant lies told before the U.S. Congress by Condoleezza Rice regarding the administration’s knowledge of events prior to 911 – the FBI and CIA did have operational joint counterterrorism taskforce offices since the mid 90s.

“A litany of lies about 911, Iraq and now Iran – There is one point that I am compelled to insert within this document beyond the scope of its primary focus and here seems as good a place as anywhere. A covert FBI Special Agent and former teammate in charge of two special operations groups who worked in the field with me and whom I supported in the hunt for Eric Robert Rudolph also known as the Olympic Park Bomber, revealed during the mid 90s that both the FBI and CIA had established joint counterterrorism taskforce offices to exchange foreign and domestic intelligence. This fact directly contradicts Condoleezza Rice’s testimony before congress regarding the August 6, 2001 PDB Briefing Report titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.”, during which Rice stated that a fractionalization existed between federal agencies, which prevented intelligence information from being communicated to the Bush administration. The most blatant lie came when Rice stated that no joint FBI/CIA taskforce offices existed before or during that time, while alleging joint taskforce offices were being established forthwith. Further supporting a charge of perjury against Condoleezza Rice and I believe grounds for treason, appears to be former CIA Director, George Tenet’s public testimony regarding actionable intelligence in July 2001 regarding Osama bin Laden’s plan to attack American targets using commercial jetliners. July 2001 marked the last time that I flew on a commercial aircraft on my way to lecture at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia and an occasion when I exchanged passing remarks with former U.S. Senator Gary Hart sitting near me. The actionable intelligence was clearly suppressed by the Bush-Cheney administration. In other words, given these facts and the known associations between the 911 Terrorists; the family of Osama bin Laden; the Saudi Arabian Royal family; the United Arab Emirates (poised to purchase 25% of Citibank and 40% of the U.S. and British Stock Markets); and the oil trading partners, personal friends and business associates within the Bush-Cheney syndicate it appears that the United States of America was allowed to be attacked by a foreign enemy to act as a protagonist event for the perpetuation of war profiteering and oil piracy. Therefore I strongly believe that if the unveiled enemies of the American people were not politically shielded, they would have already been prosecuted for treason, conspiracy, racketeering, money laundering, operating a continuing criminal enterprise, international terrorism, and crimes against humanity.”

SPECIAL NOTE CONCERNING IRAN:

Before the 2006 election the U.S. Intelligence agencies already knew that Iran did not have a “secret nuclear weapons program.” That report was presented to the Bush-Cheney administration and was politically suppressed with instructions given between the lines to craft new evidence. The facts are that Iran’s nuclear enrichment program has not been able to achieve a greater rate than 3.8% enrichment, which is even a lower percentage than what is required to bring a peaceful nuclear power plant online and far less than the enrichment level needed to produce a nuclear weapon. The psychology of substituting sexuality for the creation of illegal wars with oil rich sovereign nations, seems the iconic aphrodisiac of this administration when laminating that over sixty-eight elected Republican politicians have been charged and convicted of sexual crimes against children; that George W. Bush, a known cocaine user (sexual stimulant), deserted his post in the Air Nation Guard when they began drug testing; that both Bush and Cheney took multiple deferments from military service during Vietnam so that other Americans could die in their places; that Dick Cheney made use of a Freudian phallic extension in the form of a shotgun to shot his friend in the head during a hunting expedition; that Dick Cheney has a pneumatic penile implant to achieve an erection; and that the nude photograph of George W. Bush in college displays an unremarkable penis. Add these factors together with the absolute power over the U.S. military and the world will recognize a six headed monster with twelve hearts that numbers 666 and produces the political fodder that destroys the sovereign thought process, creates a toxic society and consumes the collective human soul. Plainly stated devil cannot exist without followers.

MY REQUEST TO MEDIA, UNIVERSITIES, PUBLISHERS, MOVIE PRODUCERS, AND THE WORLD OF HUMAN BEINGS:

While my reaching out might become the closing scene in a lifelong journey to become more human, knowingly I choose my own death over remaining a torture victim and slave within an uncultivatable existence where self-nurturing and remaining true to one’s own nature is an impossibility. The Democratic Congressional members that I helped elect have remained silent with the full knowledge of this matter and only a handful of good human beings seem to be listening for the moment. Already a subordinate federal agent directly under the Bush-Cheney administration has telephonically threatened that if I publish a book the government will invent a criminal charge against me. This is not the America that I defended and have nourished. Nevertheless if we are to remain a world of human beings, we the people must publically exam the U.S. government’s ongoing psychological torture of up to 1,080 Non-Criminal Federal Witnesses who are American citizens and your good neighbors. Currently I have established online locations on YouTube, Tribe.net, Comcast, and have posted on the message board at The Ed Schultz Show website where these American citizens can share their stories with other human beings and possibly begin to reclaim their individual sense of self-identity through these communication platforms. One non-criminal federal witness has already communicated they are hiding outside the U.S. to protect themselves from U.S. government torture. Recently I attempted to communicate with a well known actor’s movie studio and was informed that I must have a listed creative agent to represent my story before they will be legally able to communicate with me. Therefore and in as much that I would dare to hope to restore my own life back to the place where it should have already been, I am seeking the representation of a listed Creative Agent, Business Negotiations with members from the Publishing and Motion Picture Industries, and a University Initiative from an accredited School of Journalism where I might combine all of these components within a flourishing academic setting to create a lecture syllabus and continue writing. Please do not think me a selfish person, because I have remained one of the most extroverted and giving human beings you could ever know. This academic and professional prospectus has endured as my long-range plan since beginning this journalism project and is one of the few reasons why I have not ended my own life after experiencing something cousin to an extraordinary rendition to a clandestine blacksite torture facility that exists invisibly within the plain-sight of American society. Please do not let this story die with me and challenge the validity of any member of the Democratic Congress for their repeated failures to respond to several action notices regarding this matter.

Beyond the above I wish to offer one final piece of personal information. When I relocated to this area I had no intention of becoming involved with anyone and had anticipated reclaiming my academic standing to achieve my goals in life. While visiting a local bookstore and coffee house, I met the finest human being whom I have ever known and today that person is my wife. Together we raised our young child from her previous marriage and I have been blessed by the experience of being a father. Had it not been for my wife’s medical insurance I would not be here today writing this story. My wife retires at the end of this year and our child is now attending a university. What that means for me living on a fixed monthly annuity income and having been waited out by the WitSec while my saving depleted is that I will not be able to afford the additional $600.00 a month for my portion of the medical insurance policy. Further I have been unable to move in any direction to build the life that I wanted from the resulting harms caused by the WitSec cocoon that I will address in detail within the redacted report that follows. To protect my family and legally separate myself from my wife in the event of recurring illness, I am preparing to file the divorce papers on my desk. Never will I forgive or forget that the U.S. government under the Bush-Cheney administration has systematically deconstructed my family and prevented my equality as a person and an American citizen while psychologically torturing me in ways that have already killed other Americans who are non-criminal federal witnesses through suicide and medical neglect. This deconstruction of my family unit is comparatively symbolic to the overthrow of the U.S. government infrastructure by the international crime consortium and the same coconspiratorial war profiteers who attacked the United States of America on September 11, 2001. Having lived so long as the shell of an American citizen in title only, if I am unable to be made whole again in America, then as a torture victim and dissident under political persecution I am prepared to request asylum from the government of Canada. Should that fail and if I cannot be restored then I am ready to leave this world for the peace of oblivion and wish each of you mozel tov.

THE QUESTION HAS BEEN ASKED BY A GROWING NUMBER OF HUMAN BROTHERS AND SISTERS, WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP YOU?

First please do not attempt to send any money I believe that it is possible to earn a living with the years invested in this story and I prefer paying my own way, which has remained the purpose of my labors while enduring U.S. government torture. Profoundly from a place of extreme isolation your concerns are priceless gifts that have touched me deeper than words could possibly express and I truly feel your human warmth and compassion.

Beyond that human inclusion the most important act of support is not to let this story die from a lack of response or another empty promise by the congress just so this matter will be “disappeared” like the 1,080 American patriots who are non-criminal federal witnesses in the Federal Witness Protection Program. Please meditate for the good energy of the universe to encompass the lives of all human beings and continue to contact any person or organization who will if nothing else at least feel the truth of this torture story: Democratic Party headquarters around the nation; elected representatives who truly wish to remain in office; U.S. and international human rights organizations; members of the progressive news media (The Ed Schultz Show, Air America Radio, Democracy Now, The Nation Magazine, I.N.N. International News Net, Studs Terkel, the ACLU, Civil Rights Attorneys; etc.); the free and independent sovereign nations of the world (Vancouver BC, Canada, UK, Italy, Spain; etc.); the International Court of Justice aka the World Court and Cour internationale de Justice; and any other conduit of communication that might wish to know, share or actuate this true story.

Ms. Oprah Winfrey and Mr. George Clooney are two people whom I admire for their humanitarian and creative contributions to the world. With their support this story will not be silenced and human lives will be saved. Please send each of them “one” simple note requesting their support of the “Black File 7001” story and include my website and e-mail addresses. The movie “Syriana” spoke to me at a very personal level with Bob’s betrayal by the government he served that ultimately resulted in his death. Oprah Winfrey's all-girl leadership academy in South Africa is only one of the endless humanitarian contributions made to the world by this great human being. The education system has played a significant part of my life with a trilingual professional educator in my immediate family, a child currently attending a university and my own employment with the FBI in the third year of a fulltime academic curriculum. The purpose of that covert government service was initiated to prevent national and international organized crime organizations from distributing methamphetamine within the public school systems and throughout the United States of America.

For a time I prevented the false prophets who professed a love of children and humanity from preying on the innocent, but the “war on drugs” like the “war on terrorism” are only political mantras meant to perpetuate and fatten the cash cows of government profiteers.

PLEASE CONTACT MR. GEORGE CLOONEY WITH ONE LETTER ONLY:

Agent:
Mr. George Clooney
C/o Bryan Lourd
Creative Artists Agency
2000 Avenue of the Stars
Los Angeles, CA 90067
424.288.2000
424.288.2900 fax

Publicist:
Mr. George Clooney
C/o Stan Rosenfield & Associates
2029 Century Park East
Suite 1190
Los Angeles, CA 90067 USA
310.286.7474
310.286.2255 fax

Movie Studio:
Smoke House
Attn: Mr. George Clooney
C/o Warner Bros.
4000 Warner Blvd., Bldg. 15
Burbank, California 91522 USA
818.954.4840
818.954.4860 fax

PLEASE CONTACT MS. OPRAH WINFREY WITH ONE LETTER ONLY:

The Oprah Winfrey Show
Attn: Ms. Oprah Winfrey
http://www.oprah.com/email/email_landing.jhtml

BLACK FILE 7001 CONTACT INFORMATION:

E-mail:
BlackFile7001@comcast.net

Tribe.net:
http://people.tribe.net/49395906-0c49-4c98-b92a-79f37b7927cb

You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/BlackFile7001

Comcast: Currently blocking my ability to establish a website online.

The Ed Schultz Show (Message Boards – “The Media” Section)
http://www.bigeddieradio.com

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

New CIA Operation To Overthrow Chavez Exposed

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 17:09:14 GMT

CIA Operation "Pliers" Uncovered in Venezuela

Psyop aims to destabilize Venezuela and overthrow President Chavez

By Eva Golinger
11/29/07 "Global Research," --- - An internal CIA memorandum has been obtained by Venezuelan counterintelligence from the US Embassy in Caracas that reveals a very sinister - almost fantastical, were it not true - plan to destabilize Venezuela during the coming days. The plan, titled "OPERATION PLIERS" was authored by CIA Officer Michael Middleton Steere and was addressed to CIA Director General Michael Hayden in Washington. Steere is stationed at the US Embassy in Caracas under the guise of a Regional Affairs Officer. The internal memorandum, dated November 20, 2007, references the "Advances of the Final Stage of Operation Pliers", and confirms that the operation is coordinated by the team of Human Intelligence (HUMINT) in Venezuela. The memo summarizes the different scenarios that the CIA has been working on in Venezuela for the upcoming referendum vote on December 2nd. The Electoral Scenario, as it's phrased, confirms that the voting tendencies will not change substantially before Sunday, December 2nd, and that the SI (YES) vote in favor of the constitutional reform has an advantage of about 10-13 points over the NO vote. The CIA estimates abstention around 60% and states in the memo that this voting tendency is irreversible before the elections.

Officer Steere emphasizes the importance and success of the public relations and propaganda campaign that the CIA has been funding with more than $8 million during the past month - funds that the CIA confirms are transfered through the USAID contracted company, Development Alternatives, Inc., which set up operations in June 2002 to run the USAID Office for Transition Initiatives that funds and advises opposition NGOs and political parties in Venezuela. The CIA memo specifically refers to these propaganda initiatives as "psychological operations" (PSYOPS), that include contracting polling companies to create fraudulent polls that show the NO vote with an advantage over the SI vote, which is false. The CIA also confirms in the memo that it is working with international press agencies to distort the data and information about the referendum, and that it coordinates in Venezuela with a team of journalists and media organized and directed by the President of Globovision, Alberto Federico Ravell.

CIA Officer Michael Steere recommends to General Michael Hayden two different strategies to work simultaneously: Impede the referendum and refuse to recognize the results once the SI vote wins. Though these strategies appear contradictory, Steere claims that they must be implemented together precisely to encourage activities that aim toward impeding the referendum and at the same time prepare the conditions for a rejection of the results.

How is this to be done?

In the memo, the CIA proposes the following tactics and actions:

Take the streets and protest with violent, disruptive actions across the nation
Generate a climate of ungovernability
Provoke a general uprising in a substantial part of the population
Engage in a "plan to implode" the voting centers on election day by encouraging opposition voters to "VOTE and REMAIN" in their centers to agitate others
Start to release data during the early hours of the afternoon on Sunday that favor the NO vote (in clear violation of election regulations)
Coordinate these activities with Ravell & Globovision and international press agencies
Coordinate with ex-military officers and coupsters Pena Esclusa and Guyon Cellis - this will be done by the Military Attaché for Defense and Army at the US Embassy in Caracas, Office of Defense, Attack and Operations (DAO)

To encourage rejection of the results, the CIA proposes:
Creating an acceptance in the public opinion that the NO vote will win for sure
Using polling companies contracted by the CIA
Criticize and discredit the National Elections Council
Generate a sensation of fraud
Use a team of experts from the universities that will talk about how the data from the Electoral Registry has been manipulated and will build distrust in the voting system
The CIA memo also talks about:
Isolating Chavez in the international community
Trying to achieve unity amongst the opposition
Seek an alliance between those abstentionists and those who will vote "NO"
Sustain firmly the propaganda against Chavez
Execute military actions to support the opposition mobilizations and propagandistic occupations
Finalize the operative preparations on the US military bases in Curacao and Colombia to provide support to actions in Venezuela
Control a part of the country during the next 72-120 hours
Encourage a military rebellion inside the National Guard forces and other components
Those involved in these actions as detailed in the CIA memo are:

The CIA Office in Venezuela - Office of Regional Affairs, and Officer Michael Steere
US Embassy in Venezuela, Ambassador Patrick Duddy
Office of Defense, Attack and Operations (DAO) at the US Embassy in Caracas and Military Attaché Richard Nazario
Venezuelan Political Parties:
Comando Nacional de la Resistencia
Accion Democratica
Primero Justicia
Bandera Roja
Media:

Alberto Federico Ravell & Globovision
Interamerican Press Society (IAPA) or SIP in Spanish
International Press Agencies

Venezuelans:
Pena Esclusa
Guyon Cellis
Dean of the Simon Bolivar University, Rudolph Benjamin Podolski
Dean of the Andres Bello Catholic University, Ugalde
Students: Yon Goicochea, Juan Mejias, Ronel Gaglio, Gabriel Gallo, Ricardo Sanchez

Operation Tenaza has the objective of encouraging an armed insurrection in Venezuela against the government of President Chavez that will justify an intervention of US forces, stationed on the military bases nearby in Curacao and Colombia. The Operation mentions two countries in code: as Blue and Green. These refer to Curacao and Colombia, where the US has operative, active and equipped bases that have been reinforced over the past year and a half in anticipation of a conflict with Venezuela.

The document confirms that psychological operations are the CIA's best and most effective weapon to date against Venezuela, and it will continue its efforts to influence international public opinion regarding President Chavez and the situation in the country.

Operation Tenaza is a very alarming plan that aims to destabilize Venezuela and overthrow (again) its legitimate and democratic (and very popularly support) president. The plan will fail, primarily because it has been discovered, but it must be denounced around the world as an unacceptable violation of Venezuela's sovereignty.

The original document in English will be available in the public sphere soon for viewing and authenticating purposes. And it also contains more information than has been revealed here.

For the full text in Spanish, see: Operación Tenaza: Informe confidencial de la CIA devela plan de saboteo al referéndum del 2 de diciembre http://www.aporrea.org/tiburon/n105390.html

********

[Note: The following article appeared in Issue No. 2367 (Nov. 29 to Dec. 5, 2007) of Informations Ouvrières (Labor News), the publication of the Workers Party of France. The translation is by The Organizer newspaper.]

Venezuela: What's at Stake in the Dec. 2 Referendum?

By ANDREU CAMPS

A referendum on the reforms to the Venezuelan Constitution proposed by President Hugo Chavez will be held Sunday, December 2nd. The reforms involve 33 articles of the Constitution and include such questions as the right of the president to seek re-election, the place and role of communal institutions, the unity of the national territory, and the control by the State of the nation's natural resources.

U.S. imperialism and the Venezuelan oligarchy have been waging a virulent campaign for many months now against Article 230 of the Constitutional Reform, which stipulates: "The term of office of the president is seven years. The president of the Republic can be re-elected for a new term in office." This is a formulation that does not limit the number of terms a president can serve.

These attacks against the Constitutional Reform process are the continuation of an uninterrupted campaign waged by these right-wing forces against Hugo Chavez ever since he took office -- a campaign that includes two attempted coup d'etats (which were defeated by the mass mobilizations of the Venezuelan people), two lockouts imposed by the powerful bosses' federation (Fedecamaras), and an attempt to remove Chavez from office via a binding referendum in August 2005 (an attempt that also was defeated by the uprising of the people).

Again, over the past weeks, we have witnessed multiple armed confrontations in the universities, followed by an open provocation by the King of Spain during the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago [about which we reported in the last issue of our paper].

The People Will Vote for National Sovereignty

No one can doubt that on December 2nd, the Venezuelan workers, youth and people will vote against this new attempt by the reactionary forces to deny them their sovereignty and to overturn a government and president they have freely elected.

They will vote against the attempts by the oligarchy and all the reactionary forces to return Venezuela to its previous role as a servant of Washington.

They will vote to continue the nationalizations, so that their State oil company, PDVSA, does not return to the claws of the imperialist masters, so that the funds generated by the exploitation of the nation's natural resources can continue to benefit the working people and youth of Venezuela.

They will vote for Article 302 of the Constitutional Reform, which states: "The State reserves itself the right -- for reasons of sovereignty, development and national interest -- to exploit the nation's oil and gas resources and to produce and control all services and goods of public interest and strategic character. The State will promote national manufacturing, making use of the raw materials derived from the exploitation of the country's natural resources."

This means that Venezuela will not only be an exporter of raw materials, it will export finished and semi-finished products, including oil-based products.

They will vote so that, according to Article 303, "PDVSA and all its affiliates and concessions can not privatized -- neither fully nor partially."

They will vote, as stipulated in Article 307, to ban all large business interests whose actions are contrary to the social interests of the nation."

They will vote, as stipulated in Article 318, so "that the national monetary system seeks to attain the essential objectives of the socialist State and of the people's well-being, above all other considerations. The Executive Branch and the Central Bank of Venezuela, in full coordination, will set the counry's monetary goals. ... The Central Bank has no autonomy. Its functions are subordinate to the national economic policies and to the Plan of National Development."

This means that Venezuela will reclaim its sovereignty over its Central Bank, which has, up till now, been in reality under the control of the International Monetary Fund.

The mass of the population will vote December 2nd for national sovereignty and for a total break with all forms of subordination to imperialism.

----

Sidebar Article:

Control Over Oil and Gas Resources at the Center of the Constitutional Debate

The current Constitution of Venezuela was adopted through popular consultation in 1999, after the election to a Constituent Assembly in July of that year. The Constituent Assembly was convened after the victory by Chavez in the December 1998 presidential election.

In November 2001, under the implementation provisions of the newly adopted Constitution, the government decreed the full control by the State over PDVSA, the large corporation in charge of oil and gas extraction in Venezuela. This was a corporation that functioned hitherto as a sort of state within a state, with 70 percent of its profits invested in 200 corporations based in the United States.

This affirmation by the Chavez government of the national character of PDVSA was one of the main factors that led the U.S. Embassy, with the support of the Spanish Embassy, to carry out an attempted military coup on April 11, 2002 -- an attempt that was smashed by the revolutionary mobilization of the Venezuelan people.

Since the last election, the Chavez government has forced the multinational corporations that discover new oil fields to become mixed-capital enterprises, with majority ownership and control by PDVSA, thereby reinforcing the role of State in the extraction of the nation's oil resources Up till that point, these oil fields were not under State control.

A large percentage of the proceeds from Venezuela's hydrocarbons, now controlled by the State, can thus be invested in social programs -- called "missions" by the government -- such as education, healthcare, public housing and basic urban infrastructure.

These billions of dollars, no longer in the coffers of the multinational corporations, are now NOT under the aegis of the IMF and World Bank. This is what imperialism finds intolerable. -- A.C.

posted in Green Party - 1 reply

Granny D

Max — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 02:49:33 GMT

http://www.nh.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071101/NHM25/71029003/-1/NHM01

Elsewhere in this tribe, I suggested Granny D run as a Green presidential candidate in order to get the Greens on the ballots of some states that seem to be enforcing a two-party system. It wasn't till I did a search to see what she has been up to that I learnt she already threw her hat into the ring for the Senate.

She is a charming, articulate and passionate advocate for populist, progressive causes. The latest news about her gives me a shot of hope for our country.

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

HumanCAR on TV!!

djembemon — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 20:31:38 GMT

Promote sustainability!

Tonight on "Invention Nation" which will feature HumanCar airs 10:30 p.m. (pst) on the Science Channel. It will repeat at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday and at 3:30 p.m. Sunday!

www.humancar.com.

Check out this link to see some of our publicity:
http://www.bendbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071119/BIZ0102/711190360/1011&nav_category=

Check out:http://www.greenteamtv.com, http://www.greenearthvision.com, http://agreenevolution.blogspot.com, http://www.seriousyurts.com, http://www.greenmatecafe.com

Don't forget to PRE-ORDER!

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Tuva Camp 2008

Alexander — Sat, 17 Nov 2007 21:12:11 GMT

Dear Friends

Thank you for your interest to our music.

Last summer we held a throat singing camp in Tuva.

We had 14 students from around the world - 8 of them were from the US, 2 from Australia
2 from Denmark, 1 from France, 1 from England.
After arriving in Tuva, the students spent 1 week in Kyzyl, the capital city.
They were able to see many tourist attractions, see a Tuvan shaman,
and attend the Naadym - National Harvest Celebration.

The students then went on to spend 1 week in the deep taiga, with members of the Tuvan throat singing group Chirgilchin,
learning various styles of throat singing, traditional Tuvan instruments, as well as the Tuvan language.

This summer, we are trying to get 2 groups to go to Tuva again, in either June or July.

Please let me know if you have any further questions.

Please check our photos made by Russell Roesner - our student.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bertdanger/sets/72157602427847575/

Thank you
Alexander

www.purenaturemusic.com
www.chirgilchin.com

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

an exercise in futility or - - -

lorenzonine — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 03:32:47 GMT

a viable political party.
There is so little ( almost ZERO ) activity on any of the Green Party tribes.
I know I have made the right choice in becoming a member of the Massachusetts Green - Rainbow Party, am becoming more active in party events and feel a sense of urgency to see this parties power magnified.

What is going on with the people that have joined this party and own the ten key values?

I know we all know them but i feel a need to place them here and read them before I submit:

Grassroots Democracy

Every human being deserves a say in the decisions that affect their lives; no one should be subject to the will of another. Therefore we will work to increase public participation at every level of government and to ensure that our public representatives are fully accountable to the people who elect them. We will also work to create new types of political organizations that expand the process of participatory democracy by directly including citizens in the decision-making process.

Ecological Wisdom

Human societies must operate with the understanding that we are part of nature, not separate from nature. We must maintain an ecological balance and live within the ecological and resource limits of our communities and our planet. We support a sustainable society that utilizes resources in such a way that future generations will benefit and not suffer from the practices of our generation. To this end we must have agricultural practices that replenish the soil; move to an energy efficient economy; and live in ways that respect the integrity of natural systems.

Social Justice and Equal Opportunity

All persons should have the rights and opportunity to benefit equally from the resources afforded us by society and the environment. We must consciously confront in ourselves, our organizations, and society at large, barriers such as racism and class oppression, sexism and heterosexism, ageism and disability, which act to deny fair treatment and equal justice under the law.

Nonviolence

It is essential that we develop effective alternatives to our current patterns of violence at all levels, from the family and the streets, to nations and the world. We will work to demilitarize our society and eliminate weapons of mass destruction, without being naive about the intentions of other governments. We recognize the need for self-defense and the defense of others who are in helpless situations. We promote nonviolent methods to oppose practices and policies with which we disagree, and will guide our actions toward lasting personal, community and global peace.

Decentralization

Centralization of wealth and power contributes to social and economic injustice, environmental destruction, and militarization. Therefore, we support a restructuring of social, political and economic institutions away from a system that is controlled by and mostly benefits the powerful few, to a democratic, less bureaucratic system. Decision-making should, as much as possible, remain at the individual and local level, while assuring that civil rights are protected for all citizens.

Community Based Economics

We recognize it is essential to create a vibrant and sustainable economic system, one that can create jobs and provide a decent standard of living, for all people, while maintaining a healthy ecological balance. A successful economic system will offer meaningful work with dignity, while paying a "living wage" which reflects the real value of a person's work. Local communities must look to economic development that assures protection of the environment and workers' rights, broad citizen participation in planning, and enhancement of our "quality of life". We support independently owned and operated companies which are socially responsible, as well as co-operatives and public enterprises that spread out resources and control to more people through democratic participation.

Feminism

We have inherited a social system based on male domination of politics and economics. We call for the replacement of the cultural ethics of domination and control, with more cooperative ways of interacting which respect differences of opinion and gender. Human values such as equity between the -sexes, interpersonal responsibility, and honesty must be developed with moral conscience. We should remember that the process that determines our decisions and actions is just as important as achieving the outcome we want.

Respect for Diversity

We believe it is important to value cultural, ethnic, racial, sexual, religious and spiritual diversity, and to promote the development of respectful relationships across these lines. We believe the many diverse elements of society should be reflected in our organizations and decision-making bodies, and we support the leadership of people who have been traditionally closed out of leadership roles. We acknowledge and encourage respect for other life forms and the preservation of biodiversity.

Personal and Global responsibility

We encourage individuals to act to improve their personal well being and, at the same time, to enhance ecological balance and social harmony. We seek to join with people and organizations around the world to foster peace, economic justice, and the health of the planet.

Future Focus and Sustainability

Our actions and policies should be motivated by long-term goals. We seek to protect valuable natural resources, safely disposing of or "unmaking" all waste we create, while developing a sustainable economics that does not depend on continual expansion for survival. We must counter-balance the drive for short-term profits by assuring that economic development, new technologies, and fiscal policies are responsible to future generations who will inherit the results of our actions. Our overall goal is not merely to survive, but to share lives that are truly worth living. We believe the quality of our individual lives is enriched by the quality of all of our lives. We encourage everyone to see the dignity and intrinsic worth in all of life, and to take the time to understand and appreciate themselves, their community and the magnificent beauty of this world.

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Socialists?

clarence — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 06:33:53 GMT

The Socialist forum on this website is not active. I am thinking of starting a new socialist discussion forum.

Anyone interested?

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

NCEF! Media sabotaged! Hijacked by lone wingnut! Accused of fraud and embezzlement!

White Rabbit — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 03:41:23 GMT

NCEF! Media in Humboldt County, Ca. is accused of fraud and donation embezzlement. Caution! Do not support this lone wingnut's scam! Other legitamate groups exist in the area. Caution! Do not be fooled by NCEF! Media and his fraudulent outreach. Shunka Wakan exists completely seperate from any active affinity group. Read about how he perpetuated a lawsuit under the guise of EF! against a legitamate environmental nonprofit:

Dog Days
From: http://northcoastjournal.com/100407/cover1004.html
October 4, 2007
Money On Trees

Big cash nearly fell into Shunka Wakan's lap. Other Earth First!ers are kinda happy it didn't.

by Heidi Walters

As the jury trial for the civil suit Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation puttered to a start last week inside Courtroom 3 at the Humboldt County Courthouse, Shunka Wakan — a key witness for the plaintiff — spent mornings sitting on the hard wooden benches in the long hallway outside the courtroom. During breaks, Miller's attorney Linda Mitlyng, would come out of the courtroom to join him. But otherwise, as other people and their legal affairs swirled around him in a warm, odiferous bath of humanity, Shunka sat alone. Or, sometimes, he stood alone, straight-spined, his small, stocky body swallowed by the huge, stiff blue suit out of which his newly shorn, razor-scraped bald head poked vulnerably — as if, at any moment, the suit could gulp once more and he'd disappear completely. Always, he clutched a paper folder with a wolf's face on its cover.

The North Coast Earth First! Media guru had shaved off his woolly rust-tinged brown hair and beard the night before jury selection started, after discussing it with attorney Mitlyng. Now, it took an uncertain moment to recognize him. Then, of course: Shunka's light blue eyes in the pink-pale face, Shunka's closed-lip smile, Shunka's trademark husky murmur, "Mm-hmm, for sure," in response to a comment.

In Courtroom 3, the amiable but no-nonsense Judge Christopher Wilson's domain, the fate of a $185,000 donation dangled. Would the plaintiff, donor Kathryn Miller, prevail in her claim that the defendant, the Trees Foundation, was not in fact the intended recipient of her generous gift? That Shunka Wakan's NCEF! Media Center and the treesitters were? Or would the Trees Foundation convince the jury that, in fact, the money was intended all along for Trees, with no instructions attached for funneling it elsewhere?

Richard Idell, left, who is defending the Trees Foundation against a lawsuit filed by Kathryn Miller, confers with Doug Wallace, community support coordinator for Trees. Photo by David Lawlor.

In her opening arguments, Miller's attorney, Mitlyng, said the case came down to "fraud and broken promises." "She believed [Trees] would hold [the money] in trust, for the benefit of North Coast Earth First!" said Mitlyng. The defense's attorney, Richard Idell, countered in his opening argument that the donation was an unconditional gift and Miller never wrote letters of instruction — as Miller claims she did. "Ms. Miller ... didn't do anything. She took the check [from her mother's estate] and flipped it over and wrote on the back, 'Payable to the Trees Foundation,'" said Idell.

Miller's claim sought the return of her $185,000, plus interest.

Out in the hallway, Shunka waited to tell his side of the story. Maybe he thought about the magical donation that never materialized, and now probably never would. Maybe he thought about the other times he'd been in this courthouse — dozens of times, along with other activists, often before Judge Wilson, answering to charges of trespassing and other forms of civil disobedience in the woods. Likely, he wondered when they were finally going to call him in to testify — it was taking forever in there. He'd even sent out an e-mail prematurely to the several hundred subscribers to his NCEF! online group erroneously announcing he would be first up to testify.

By the end of Friday's court session, Miller was still on the stand. Perhaps Monday it would be Shunka's turn. Whenever it was, he would be testifying on Miller's behalf; but he wasn't a party to the lawsuit. And in the end, after hearing all of the evidence, the jury would be determining who was telling the truth about intentions and letters of instructions. Shunka was just there to provide context and evidence in a contract dispute.

But to a number of forest activists, including a half dozen or so who appeared in the audience last Friday to watch the trial unfold, that context matters more to them than the legal questions. They say this lawsuit has placed a strain on the environmental community that could do as much damage as an ill-felled redwood that takes down other giants in its descent. They disapprove of the lawsuit, and they blame Shunka for it. And, they say, it's just another example of how Shunka has commandeered the North Coast Earth First! identity and used it for purposes that nobody else in the amorphous but consensus-driven local Earth First! movement has agreed to.

"For a lot of us, when we read about the lawsuit, this is kind of like Shunka on trial," said long-time forest activist Deane Rimerman last Friday, calling from Olympia, Wash. "And, to what extent is he worthy of that money?"

Kathryn Miller wanted her money to go toward saving trees, she said on the witness stand last Thursday. The slender 59-year-old was dressed in a pink print skirt and white sweater, with her gray-streaked dark hair pulled back into a neat, thin braid tinted slightly green. (Little did the jury know that Miller had spent the night in jail, in blue jail duds, and then had been "dressed out," in court lingo, in her street clothes before being escorted into the court by the bailiff. Miller had been arrested the week before, on Sept. 17, when she arrived in civil court for the pre-trial readiness hearing; according to the misdemeanor criminal charges filed against her, Miller allegedly had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation all hours of the day and night.)

On the stand, Miller described how she became an activist. She remembered how, when she was a child in Orinda, her mother decided to stop spraying the beautiful oak trees on their property after reading Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. "And then, when my son was 9, we were watching the news on TV about the Chernobyl nuclear power plant meltdown. And my son said to me, 'I wish I'd never been born. I don't think I'll get to live a full life.'"

She protested the building of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. She started a peace action group in the late 1980s in San Jose. She did nonviolent protests at the Nevada Test Site. And in 1990, she came up with some of her fellow protestors to help set up the camp for Redwood Summer, and to take part in demonstrations. She's been on and off involved in Earth First! actions in Humboldt ever since, she said, including huffing in supplies for treesitters and huffing out their garbage. She'd also, at one point, bought a condo in Arcata.

In 2004, Miller sold her condo and bought an acre of farmland, already planted with coffee, in Guatemala. She put in fruit trees to shade the coffee. That same year, her mother, who lived in Sonoma, died. "The last time I saw her was in 2003," said Miller. "She told me when she died, she was going to leave me some money. I told her I'd use it to further my work for the forest. And she was pleased, because she loved the treesitters and the forest."

Shortly after learning of her mother's death, Kathryn Miller sought out Shunka Wakan in front of the food co-op in Arcata, where he "tabled" to raise funds for the North Coast Earth First! Media office — selling T-shirts, and stickers, offering pamphlets, accepting donations. She'd known Shunka for about five years, she said.

"I said to him, I was going to inherit some money: What was the best way to get that to the North Coast Earth First!?"

In the spring of 2005, Shunka Wakan was floating above the treetops. "I was so excited," the 32-year-old said in an interview a few weeks ago, sitting inside his tiny but colorful North Coast Earth First! Media office in Arcata, walls covered in art and topo maps — including one of Buckeye Mountain, where in 2000-2001, during the "Mattole Free State" action, Shunka and others hiked 14 miles through waist-high snowdrifts to save trees.

Kathryn Miller, he recalled, had come up to him excitedly as he walked along the sidewalk outside the Arcata Co-op and said, "I just donated $185,000 to North Coast Earth First!'"

She'd talked to him the year before about making the donation — she'd said she was anticipating an inheritance from her mother's estate, and she wanted to make a big donation to his group. He'd told her to make it through the Trees Foundation, which handled the NCEF! Media office's finances through an arrangement that had been established years ago. (The Trees Foundation is an umbrella organization formed in 1991 to assist smaller environmental groups. As a 501(c)3 nonprofit, it can accept large, tax-deductible donations on behalf of affiliates, and provide professional resources. And it can lead large campaigns, like the one to save the Headwaters Forest back in the '90s.)

Well, now she'd finally done it.

Miller and Shunka agreed to meet at Fiesta Café in Sunny Brae, so she could tell him how she wanted the money spent: She wanted, straight away, for someone to organize a mediated workshop for the local Earth First! activists on ageism and sexism, issues she thought were fracturing the movement. And, she wanted the bulk of the donation to help support the forest activists who blockade logging roads and hunker up in ancient redwoods to fend off loggers' saws.

Not long after, Shunka was on his way to have lunch with some folks from the Trees Foundation, where they'd talk about Miller's wishes.

"Our media outreach was going to get a big boost," Shunka said. "The donation would keep the EF! office going for many years. So I walked into the Wildflower Café feeling elated, thinking we got all this money."

Barbara Ristow and Doug Wallace of the Trees Foundation were there. "I was super excited," Shunka said, "and I said, 'This is great, this big donation. Isn't it wonderful?' We ordered food, and still I'm all excited, talking about the money, but I notice they're looking nervously at each other. [Finally], they said, 'Well, we're just shocked that you think this money was for you.' And I was like, 'I just met with the donor, and that's what she said.' And they're like, 'Well, let's go ahead and plan the workshop and deal with that later.' I remember that, because it put me at ease."

After that, Shunka said he gave Trees a list of people he thought might benefit from the mediator-run workshop. "Some were people I knew had beefs with me, but I was willing to bring 'em into the circle and talk about it."

According to some vague accounts, the workshop was a disaster. One person who was there claims that Shunka, at one point, pounded his fists on the floor, blustered, then got up and stormed out, yelling as he walked away. Shunka says that's overblown.

"The letter from Kathryn Miller to Barbara Bristow said she wanted the mediation to be a safe place, safe to be emotional," he said. "And I think people are saying 'I freaked out.' The freak-out reports are exaggerated. It's just part of this ongoing character assassination. People say I was 'red-faced.' But my face is naturally red."

In late 2005, while Shunka was in Seattle, a friend called him from Arcata to say a woman had come by asking for the office key. She had a list of equipment she wanted to take away. The friend didn't give her the key.

When Shunka got back from Seattle, he discovered his reimbursement funds from Trees had been "frozen." He also learned about a letter someone in the NCEF! movement had circulated for signatures and then sent to Mark Knipper, who handled the Trees Foundation transactions for the NCEF! Media office. It said, in essence, "We don't want Shunka running EF!"

"I called the Trees Foundation," Shunka recalled. "I was sick, it was the middle of the winter, I'm trying to table, it's raining, it's cold. And Barbara Ristow told me, 'You just need to have a meeting [with the other Earth First!ers] and come to a group consensus on what the Trees Foundation funding should be used for."

The meeting never happened — nobody could agree to meet, said Mark Knipper, also in an interview last week. Knipper is a social worker and a long-time activist who had been the contact person between Trees and NCEF! Media. "So it ate itself," Knipper said. "And although I'm former Navy, a mariner, I said I'm not going down with this ship. So I divorced myself from it ... and signed it all back to Trees."

The NCEF! Media office was dropped from the Trees Foundation altogether.

Shunka and the NCEF! Media office never did see any of the big donation. Miller didn't even know that, he said, until she phoned him up in the summer of 2006, more than a year after she made the donation, to ask about a guy named "Jungle," who had been reported as missing on the NCEF! hotline. Miller was spending much of her time in Guatemala now, where she was raising fruit trees; after she'd made her big donation, Hurricane Stan had struck — she spent the ensuing year mopping up the mess.

First, Shunka told her Jungle was still missing. Then he told her about the money.

"I said, 'Yeah, they told me it wasn't for us,'" said Shunka. "And she said, 'I meant for all of it to go to you guys.' She sounded real upset. And I was like, 'I knew it! I knew it!'"

Shunka tried to sue Trees in small claims court, but it went nowhere.

Miller filed a claim against the Trees Foundation on Oct. 5, 2006, in Humboldt County Superior Court, seeking the return of the $185,000 plus interest so she could distribute the money herself.

And if she wins? "She may just spread it out more," said Shunka. "She's got tree planting ideas. Maybe she could buy a grove. She'd maybe not give it all to Earth First! this time. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Trees blew for us."

On an uncomfortably hot afternoon last week, four forest activists who'd agreed to an interview for this story — Jeff, Shaggy, Sparrow and Farmer — sat on the ground at the Arcata Marsh next to a log bench on which a teeming crew of red ants worked a splintered notch. Someone had come along here in 1999 and carved a grouping of faces — bearded, grimacing, possibly mourning faces — onto the log and signed it Daniel. The carving had been drenched in red paint, and burnished by years of sitters.

"It kind of reminds me of the memorial for Gypsy," said one of them. "With the red paint."

Gypsy was the forest name of David Nathan Chain, who in September 1998, during an Earth First! action at Grizzly Creek, was crushed to death by a tree felled by an enraged logger. Farmer, actually, was there — he was just 16, but had a year of activism already under his belt. And Shunka was there — it was Shunka's first forest action.

Farmer, Shag, Sparrow and Jeff first made it clear that they spoke for themselves alone, although they participate in various forest defense affinity groups: Farmer works for the Mattole Wildlands Defense Group now, watchdogging the California Department of Forestry for new timber harvest plans, and keeping an eye on a Pacific Lumber Co. watershed analysis. Shag, who saw his first redwood about five years ago, helps keep the Fern Gully treesit village in Freshwater functioning. Jeff, who grew up in the high desert, and fell in love with the woods, works with the Nanning Creek treesit just outside of Scotia, as well as other groups. Sparrow, who was drawn to forest action because the cultural landscape was "like a folktale" he couldn't resist, is with the Fern Gully affinity group. These groups are all part of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association, a collective with a website but no formal structure.

The HFDA sprang into being six years ago — about the time the entity called North Coast Earth First! had essentially dissolved. It would take a book to describe that drawn-out dissolution — a book of lost causes, won causes, waning media interest, Judi Bari's death, Gypsy's death, ego-spurred squabbles, interpersonal catastrophes, a war overseas, hurricanes. And while the HFDA activists might still cherish the Earth First! name — the movement — in their hearts, it's now been further complicated by what you might call the Shunka effect.

"I still feel in many ways solidarity with the greater Earth First! movement abroad," said Farmer. "But in this county, in this climate, if you say you're with the North Coast Earth First!, many people associate you with North Coast Earth First! Media."

Shunka revived the North Coast Earth First! office around 2002. And he did what previous office managers had done — tabled, put out news releases, wrote articles for other publications. But it wasn't like the old days, in the '90s, when hundreds of people were getting arrested in forest actions and the jail support phone and legal resources were in constant use.

Shunka first worked in an office in Eureka, then later moved to Arcata. He called his outfit the NCEF! Media Center. For a time, he and other "affinity groups" tried to work together. But he alienated some people. He took over the North Coast Earth First! website. He controlled the North Coast Earth First! email list of 300 or more subscribers to the news alerts. He sent out press releases on his own.

"I felt the North Coast Earth First! Media Center was a unilateral effort on Shunka's part," said Farmer. Whereas, in the old days, "spokespeople were decided on by the group. And if you wrote an article it was passed by everyone. I feel Shunka appointed himself spokesperson at some point."

Many also claim they've been subject to a lashing anger from Shunka.

"I won't work with him because I pledge nonviolence in my actions," said Shag. "I don't believe he pledges the same thing. He has exhibited violent behavior towards me and towards other activists in my presence."

"He's a bear," said Jeff, making claw-fists with his hands.

But the sad thing is, all of this infighting probably has done nothing to help the actual trees. And the mediation workshop Kathryn Miller wanted didn't fix matters. Now, there was her lawsuit.

"When I heard about this lawsuit, I thought, the Trees Foundation does not deserve to be attacked in that way," said Farmer. "There's much bigger issues that need to be dealt with — with Maxxam and old-growth logging. ...If you look at Fern Gully and Nanning Creek (the Bonanza timber harvest plan), there's hundreds of old growth acres still standing whose fate is unclear."

Shag put it more bluntly: "If [Miller] knew Shunka and wanted to get the money to North Coast Earth First! Media, she should've given it to Shunka. But if she was trying to get it to treesits and forest defense, then the money went to the right place.

"My problem is this whole representation thing. There's people in the trees — how do you know who to get the money to, to help them?"

Shunka knows that a lot of fellow activists aren't happy with his role in the donation dispute. He also knows how some people talk about him and say he's hard to get along with. "I'm just standing up for the truth," he said. "And people don't like it. To me, it feels like a small clique of people who don't like me. I feel a lot of love and support in this community."

He certainly doesn't come off right away as someone who's angry, or who lashes out, or who locks the office and doesn't let people in. Why, recently, he helped a young woman hook up with the treesitters so she could learn the ropes. (Shaggy said that's proof Shunka doesn't have direct connections with the people doing direct action; but you can't deny it's a connection.)

It's probably a bad idea to ask Darryl Cherney, one of the founders of the local Earth First! movement, what he thinks of Shunka Wakan, whose real name is Jason Wilson. (Shunka tells a story of how he was named by a Lakota medicine man on the banks of the Cheyenne River in South Dakota in 1995. "Shunka Wakan," meaning "great dog," is only part of it. There's a secret part after that — altogether, his name means "the humble man called horse.")

"Shunka's a wingnut," Cherney said over the phone last Friday, sounding cheerfully vitriolic. "I have a 10-verse song about Shunka."

Here are the last few verses:

Who's at the co-op spanging a donation
Shunka, Shunka
Who's got a lawsuit 'gainst the Trees Foundation
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka
Who's gonna keep on fighting the fight
Shunka, Shunka
With four of his friends at swimmers delight
Shunka, Shunka
Shunka, Shunka (Shunka voice: It's the last of the revolution)

There's no other word for it but "mean." But Cherney and Shunka have history — not all of it sour. Cherney said Shunka laughed when he heard the song, at least the first time.

"I met Shunka in 1998," Cherney said. "And I know he knew Julia ["Butterfly" Hill, whom Shunka had come west to find]. That was a good thing, helping Julia. That was good Shunka."

Cherney had even pushed for Shunka to go to Houston to talk with Charles Hurwitz, whose Maxxam Corp. bought out the old Pacific Lumber company back in 1985 and quickly became the forest activists' number one villain. Shunka went.

But now? "The current status of Shunka and me," Cherney said, "is that Shunka has sent me five or eight or nine e-mails threatening to sue me. Shunka is a joke."

Cherney can talk for hours about the problems he's had with Shunka over the years. His main point, though, is what has Shunka done for the trees lately?

"My question is, where's your topo maps?" he asked. "Where's your wilderness preservation proposal? Where's your lobbyist team in Sacramento?"

It has to be that, on some level, even the people in the movement who don't like Shunka understand somewhat where he's coming from. So he's emotional. Passionate. Perhaps he's caught up so completely in the cause he can't let go. Or, who knows — maybe he's a phony, like he accused Knipper of being back in 2005.

But being a forest activist comes with perils beyond the obvious physical ones.

"I'm really trying to have compassion for Shunka, even though he's kind of attacked us," said Susy Barsotti by phone from Laytonville a couple of weeks ago. Barsotti is president of the Trees Foundation board, and she says the lawsuit has held Trees hostage, unable to function fully. "I've been mystified and dismayed that he's participated like this in the suit. But Shunka witnessed Gypsy's death. And I think he may have post-traumatic stress syndrome. I don't think he's recovered from it. And that can affect your behavior."

A number of people mentioned this, actually, about Shunka. And he often refers to Gypsy's death himself. In an article titled "What Luna has taught me," posted on the website of Julia "Butterfly" Hill's organization, Circle of Life, Shunka writes: "I decided to commit to doing ground support after witnessing the death of David Nathan "Gypsy" Chain on September 17, 1998 ... I remember looking across the valley as we hiked up that day, seeing the rolling hills of forests and clear-cuts, and thinking out loud, "That's why we're here!" Seeing Gypsy's life taken from him, and then seeing the corruption and lies of the Humboldt County Sheriffs ... really opened my eyes to the situation our old-growth forests face."

Later, he did ground support for Hill in her second year in Luna. And in the same article on her website, something else Shunka writes indicates how ready he was to devote himself to a cause: "Being on the support team was the top priority in my life, and I was happy knowing that everything else revolved around when I'd be needed for the next supply run. I never felt lost because I knew what I was doing. That was a feeling I had not felt in years, between feeling dissatisfaction with life in college, and then more dissatisfaction with life as a minimum-wage worker after college. Before joining Julia's ground support team I was unhappy, even to the point of tears, wondering if my entire life was going to be a minimum-wage nightmare ...."

Pure devotion, without benefit of a little hypocrisy, could drive anyone batty. Deane Rimerman, the activist from Olympia who said it is Shunka who is on trial, said it's not uncommon for intense, stressful movements like Earth First! to produce an army of walking wounded. And he's been around, in forest actions up and down the coast, for long enough to know; he was the one, in fact, who "got the maps and led the first hikers up to the hill" to the Gypsy Mountain campaign and Luna treesit.

"In the forest activist movement, there's very little that's rewarding," Rimerman said. "There's a lot of post traumatic stress syndrome. All of us get it. Once you've been through the court process, and the jail process, and seen 1,000-year-old trees get cut down that you really cared about and thought you could save — it's devastating."

That alone, setting aside the troubles with Shunka, could explain the many rifts that have occurred within the local EF! ranks over the years. Josh Brown, who moved to Humboldt in 1995 right before the peak of the Headwaters campaign, said one of the unique qualities of Earth First! is that it "is primarily a youth movement."

"A lot of people that come through are young, are passionate — and it's a wonderful thing," he said. They get thrown into leadership positions quickly — and then they get burned out. Many move quickly on to other things. Brown stayed in longer than most. "When I left [in 2001], I was 30 years old. And I'd been a full-time activist since I was 18."

Paradoxically, said Brown, the youthful draw and the departure of seasoned activists leaves the movement with "no elders to kind of sit around and coach the [new kids]."

The movement also draws strong personalities, he said. Tenacious ones, too, like Shunka's.

"Shunka, I think he really does have a big heart," said Brown. "And I think he does care for the forest."

Last Friday, following the morning session of Miller v. Trees, a group of the Humboldt Forest Defense Association activists stood on the courthouse steps talking. The door opened, and Shunka walked out and down the steps toward the group. They didn't greet him. After a time, he tried to talk to one of them, Jeff. Jeff walked away. Shunka followed him, then stopped and talked to another guy. Then he stood alone again.

From: http://northcoastjournal.com/101107/news1011.html

Trees Foundation Wins

October 11th, 2007

The jury in the civil case Kathryn Miller v. the Trees Foundation decided in favor of Trees, after deliberating all day Tuesday. (See "Money on Trees," Oct. 4).

Miller is the long-time forest activist who inherited a bundle from her mother and then signed $185,000 over to the Trees Foundation. In her lawsuit, she claimed she had intended the money to be passed through Trees to one of its affiliates, North Coast Earth First! Media, run by Shunka Wakan. She claimed she had made her intentions clear, verbally and in writing, and that Trees had agreed to the conditions, then broken its promise and kept the money. Trees denied making such promises, and said it had never seen any letters or heard of instructions to give the money to NCEF! Media. (Also, somewhat relatedly, in criminal court on Tuesday Miller pleaded no contest to charges that she had made annoying phonecalls to Barbara Ristow of the Trees Foundation.)

So, that's that. Now, there are only the pieces to pick up.

For Shunka Wakan — featured in last week's Journal as a central figure in a messy nest of infighting that has fractured the current ranks of local Earth First!ians — it could be a long, lonely patching together of lost friends and broken alliances. Not only did he and Miller lose their attempt to retrieve her donation, but now he's been banned from the North Coast Co-op.

Yes, that happened last week. It was Thursday, around 4:15 in the evening, and two activists with the Humboldt Forest Defense Association were tabling — hawking brochures and such — outside the Co-op. It's an activity Shunka himself has spent many a day doing in that very same spot, raising cash to pay for his NCEF!Media outreach work and other causes. And, well, these two fellows, Jeff and Farmer, were on Shunka's shit list, now. They'd spoken gently, but unfavorably, about Shunka's doings in the North Coast Earth First! arena — said he lashed out at people, said he commandeered NCEF! resources, and so forth. Here's a snippet of Jeff's account of what happened, which he sent to the NCJ in an e-mail on Friday:

"Shunka was removed from the Arcata Co-op yesterday after a scuffle with myself and another activist around 5 p.m. Well, he wasn't exactly removed, but APD was called. He was asked to leave after threatening to flip over the HFD donation table while stating he was 'like Jesus in the marketplace ...'"

Sue Coulter, manager of the Arcata Co-op, recounted on Friday how an employee walking by heard the argument and went inside to get her. "So I went out to talk to [Shunka], because it's not the first time we've had problems," she said. "Most of the time, he's fine. Most of the time, I stick up for him." One time, she said, she even called the police to protect Shunka after someone had threatened him. "But he gets into arguments. I tried to talk to him. I told him to leave. ... He was causing a scene, right by the door, and I can't have it. He refused to leave. ... I said, fine. I went into the store. He followed me into the store, and he was still yelling at me, 'Oh, now you're going to call the police on me.'" Coulter called the police, but Shunka left before they arrived.

Shunka, waiting in the courthouse for the jury verdict Tuesday, said Coulter did indeed ask him to leave and he did, indeed, refuse to. As for the HFD tablers, he said he merely asked them why they had Trees Foundation literature on their table. "I said, 'Why do you want to represent these people?'" And then, he said, "Jeff accused me of embezzling — he said this in public. He said, 'You've embezzled thousands of dollars from the Earth First! movement through the years.' And I complained to one of the employees who was walking by. Because that's serious, accusing someone of embezzling."

But Shunka said the whole thing's yet another attack on him. "I don't consider I was yelling. We were talking. I'm an emotional person, I concede to that. I speak from my heart. I don't scream at people. I would love to — but I don't."

In his email, Jeff with HFD predicted Shunka would leave town within weeks, if not sooner. But at the courthouse, even before the verdict, Shunka said he wasn't going anywhere.

"I'm just going to continue to run the Earth First! office and continue to call Humboldt County home," he said. He's also going to write a letter to the Co-op, complaining about how he gets scapegoated and booted out of there even when other people, he says, are the culprits. And, as for the Miller v. Trees case, he said, he and Miller may now take their complaint to another venue.

-- Heidi Walters

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Green - Rainbow, Massachusetts

lorenzonine — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 21:37:52 GMT

This is an invitation to join

http://tribes.tribe.net/greenrainbow

A forum to discuss local ( Massachusetts ) politics for Greens and people interested in the Green Party.

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Special message to the Green Party

shunka — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 04:39:41 GMT

Hello! My name is Shunka, and I've been working as a North Coast Earth First!er for over nine years. I was part of Julia "Butterfly" Hill's ground support team, an eyewitness to the murder of David "Gypsy" Chain, and am directly involved with the efforts to save Old Growth redwoods and Douglas fir trees, in Humboldt County, California.
I would like to appeal to the Green Party to help the efforts of North Coast Earth First!
I recently posted a message entitled "North Coast Earth First! needs your help." So far, I have received no response, and it's a bit disappointing, to say the least. I know that there are a lot of things going on, and people get bombarded by a lot of different causes, yet I'd ask you to take a minute to think about the Old Growth Redwoods. People are living in the tree-tops, at this very moment, risking their lives to protect these Old Growth trees, and they need your support.
I run an Earth First! office for the local movement, and have really been struggling to keep it open. The "North Coast Earth First! Media" office provides a place to do press releases and interviews, for media coverage, and also provides a space for tree-sitters to check their e-mail, call their friends and families, stash their backpacks while they're in town, and make outreach materials. In other words, it's a great resource for the tree-sitters, and for the movement as a whole.
I've been having a hard time keeping it open, though, and that's where I hope the Green Party can help. I've come up with an idea that I think could work, if we had the trust and participation of a lot of people. I call it the "$10-a-month support plan," and it's set up on our website, www.northcoastearthfirst.org, so that people can sign up for automatic monthly donations via PayPal. I've also created the option for smaller and larger increments, of $5, $20, & $50, to cater to individual levels of support.
Things have gotten really tough lately, and the winter rains have arrived, so getting out and fundraising as we normally do is limited and not very energy efficient. If we were able to establish a base of support of 100 people or more, then our movement would be set and we would be able to focus more attention on building up the defenses for the trees and spreading the word.
I hope that the Green Party can help...I've been posting pleas for help all over the internet, and haven't heard much back. I know that there's a lot of stuff on the internet, and that people get bombarded by advertising and tend to tune it out, yet I sincerely hope to appeal to the rebel in all of you, and ask you to throw a little support in the direction of North Coast Earth First!

Forever Wild,
Shunka Wakan

posted in Green Party - 3 replies

U.S. Backed Turkish Government Bombing Iraqi Kurds

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:11:15 GMT

With the genocidal U.S. backed Turkish government now bombing Iraqi Kurds, I thought it would be a good idea to repost my following article. -Steven Argue

Kurdish Culture, Repression, Women’s Rights, and Resistance

By Steven Argue

The Kurdish people number at an estimated at 25-30 million people. They live in eastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northeastern Syria, northwest of the Zagros Mountains in Iran, and in Armenia. They also have a large émigré population in Western Europe. With 4-5 million people and 15-20% of the population the Kurds are the largest non-Arab minority in Iraq (CIA Iraq, 2007). They are also the largest non-Turkish minority in Turkey comprising 20% of the population (CIA Turkey, 2007). The Kurdish speaking people are 9% of the Iranian population (CIA Iran, 2007). In Syria, the Kurds are the largest minority with about 1.75 million people comprising about 10% of the population (Lowe 2006). The rise of nationalist xenophobia and war in Armenia after the fall of the Soviet Union has pushed most Kurds out of Armenia, but around 30,000 Yezidi Kurds remain comprising about 1% of the population (CIA Armenia, 2007).

The language of the Kurds, called Kurdish, is distinct from the Persian of Iran, the Arabic of Iraq and Syria, and the Turkish of Turkey. Thus the common language of the Kurds both separates them from the dominant cultures in the nation-states where they live and unites the Kurdish people as a nationality without a nation-state.

While being distinct the Kurdish language is most closely related to Persian, yet the origins of the varied Kurdish culture is partially influenced by the absorption of characteristics of the differing nationalities and cultures that have historically surrounded them.

In terms of religion the Kurdish people are mostly Muslim with both Shia (primarily of the Alevi sect), Sunni (primarily Shafi’i). There is also a large Sufi influence among many Kurdish Muslims, often cited as a moderating influence on Islamic fundamentalism. A small number of Kurds are also Yezidi Muslims and Christians. The Kurds also have a history that has included secular and atheist political leaderships.

The differing Kurdish religious identities have, at times, been a political factor both in divisions among the Kurdish people and in divisions, which distinguish them from the dominant nationalities. The strong Kurdish national identity is based on mutual language and a history of oppression. These factors hold the Kurds together as a people.

For the Kurdish people outrageous acts of oppression in Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Armenia, and Syria have included mass murder, suppression of language rights, exploitation of Kurdish resources with nothing but poverty given in return, deprivations of national citizenships, and the brutal suppression of political representation.

Despite the oppression the Kurdish people have faced, they continue to speak their language and organize politically and, at times, militarily to fight back everywhere they continue to live as a native population.

The Kurdish people are, in fact, the largest national minority in the world that has no homeland. Yet, it is largely their mutual language as well as their mutual oppression and a large amount of mutual poverty (despite some class differences) that continues to unite the Kurdish people. They desire borders that would change the map of the Near East. A better understanding of the Kurdish people is a key to understanding the entire region.

Kurdish Language and Literature

While being most closely related to Persian; the language of the Kurds, called Kurdish, is distinct from the Persian of Iran, the Arabic of Iraq and Syria, and the Turkish of Turkey. Historically many Kurdish intellectuals have written both in Kurdish in as well as in the languages of the dominating cultures (Blau 2007).

Despite a long history of oppression that includes the banning of the written and spoken Kurdish word, the Kurdish people have a rich literary history. Ell Herirl (1425-1495) is the first well-known Kurdish poet (Blau 2007). He, like the many patriotic Kurdish poets that followed, wrote of his love of Kurdish lands and its women (Blau 2007).

Up until very recently the Kurdish language was brutally suppressed everywhere in its native range except the Soviet Republic of Armenia. Armenian Kurds enjoyed special status as an ethnic minority in the Soviet Union including special programs for economic development. The Kurdish language, far from being banned, enjoyed sponsorship through state-sponsored Kurdish radio, a Kurdish newspaper, and Kurdish cultural events. After the fall of the Soviet Union Armenian Kurds lost language rights and other protections and most Kurds have been forcefully deported or have fled to Germany and other west European countries as well as to Russia (Mehrdad [date?]).

In Turkey, the Kurdish language was illegal up until 1991 when political and armed struggle forced the Turkish government to recognize some Kurdish language rights. Kurds and international human rights organizations, however, still complain of an oppressive situation imposed by the Turkish government (Human Rights Watch 2006).

In Iraq, Saddam Hussein, as a U.S. backed ally at the time, is famous for committing mass murder against the Kurdish speaking population. Today Kurdish literature is still repressed with a number of Kurdish journalists jailed by what the Kurdish leftist opposition considers to be a puppet government of the United States and central government.

Iranian policy forbids the Kurdish language and has attempted to assimilate the Kurds into the dominant Persian culture. Besides the state of war between Iraq and the Kurds in the Iran-Iraq war, there was also a state of war between the Iranian government and Iranian Kurds at that same time. More recently in 2005 the Iranian government opened fire on Kurdish protesters with attack helicopters killing 20 and wounding 200 (Amnesty International 2005). Despite the attempts by the Iranian government to stomp out Kurdish culture, Kurdish literature and histories are available in Iran in both Kurdish and Persian (Blau 2007).

In Syria, the written Kurdish language has been banned since 1958. In 1987 that ban was extended to Kurdish music and Kurdish videos (Amnesty International 2005). Hundreds of thousands of native Syrian Kurds have no citizenship rights, the Kurdish flag is illegal (but still flown), and numerous acts of repression have been documented.

Due to the fact that Kurdish culture is horribly repressed in all of their native lands, today it is the Kurdish Diaspora living in Europe, the United States, and Australia that create most of the new Kurdish literature. This includes poetry, children’s books, newspapers, and magazines. Sweden, with a very enlightened policy towards immigrant populations, encourages Kurds and other groups to continue their languages and cultures and allocates a large amount of money to the relatively small Kurdish population for Kurdish language publications (Blau 2007). In addition works in the Kurdish language are being produced in other countries where funding is harder to come by.

The tenacity of Kurdish culture owes much to its extensive historic roots, pride of its people in their literature and language, and refusal to die in the face of attempts at forced assimilation and brutal repression.

Kurdish Modes of Production and Their Development

Kurdish lands are rich and productive, and they sustain the Kurdish people both through pastoral activity as well as through agriculture (Izady 1992). The gathering of wild nuts, berries, and truffles are also important sources of food and income for the Kurdish people, especially in forested regions (Izady 1992). In addition some of the Kurdish lands are rich in oil resources, but the Kurds have been denied access to this oil wealth.

It is established that a number of domestic animals as well as cereal crops used around the world were first domesticated in Kurdish lands (Izady 1992).

Kurdish pastoralism takes place primarily in areas not suitable for agriculture because they are too high in elevation, to steep, or too low in precipitation (Izady 1992). Pastoral activities were once nomadic, but now encompass only lands within a few days of permanent dwellings. As a result some lands that were traditionally grazed are no longer used (Izady 1992).

Kurdish lands grow large amounts of wheat, barley, rice, cotton, tobacco, sugar beets, olives, corn, sunflowers, soybeans, fruits, and nuts. Many of these are cash crops sold to other areas of the Near East where there is far less arable land (Izady 1992).

In many areas of Kurdistan agriculture is still practiced with ox, mule, or donkey drawn wooden ploughs (Jaff 2007).

A merchant class of Kurds has arisen since the 1950s making a living off of capitalist exchanges (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

While participating in the broader economy, household families are the most basic economic unit for rural Kurds. Such households are patrilocal containing the first son and his wife and their children. Households participate in reciprocal non-capitalist labor exchanges and share what the household earns. Urban Kurds often continue this family communal structure, but it sometimes falls apart in the face of wage earners no longer wishing to share their income (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

Many rural Kurds also seasonally participate in construction labor in the cities, bringing additional income back to their families (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

Reciprocal exchanges are not just confined to households. They also take place between neighbors and kin in a village, and are expected. These communal exchanges also take place among urban Kurds (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

In addition tribal Kurds are expected to work for landlords and tribal leaders, with durations of labor not clearly defined (Marriage and Family Encyclopedia 2007).

The labor structure in Kurdish villages reflects the labor-intensive, technologically primitive, agriculture forced on them by the neglect of the oil rich nations many Kurds are part of. Meanwhile, due to discrimination, the petroleum and mining operations in Kurdish areas rarely hire Kurds (Jaff 2007). This contributes to Kurdish poverty in regions that are rich in natural resources; fueling resentment and separatist desires.

Kurdish Sexuality, Birth, Domestic Life, Descent, and Kinship

The Kurdish people are organized in patrilineal clans (Refugee Health 2007). As such there is patriarchal control of marriage and property, with women treated in many ways like property. In addition, political status is often the product of patrilineal descent (Refugee Health 2007). It is a male dominated culture where female sexuality is repressed and women are oppressed.

Rural Kurdish women are allowed to mingle with males, but they are not allowed to make their own decisions regarding sexuality or husbands (Hassanpour 2001). Marriage for Kurdish women is a form of bondage traditionally decided upon by the male members of her family (Hassanpour 2001). These decisions have often been made in the girl’s childhood, and sometimes even before she is born (Hassanpour 2001). In Kurdish Iraq such practices of arranged marriage have been on the wane for a number of years, but family permission and payments for brides are still the rule (Refugee Health 2007).

Rural Kurdish marriages are patrilocal (Hassanpour 2001). The family receiving the bride pays the family she came from (Hassanpour 2001). This price is seen as payment for the labor that will be lost when she moves to live with the groom’s family (Hassanpour 2001). To hold onto the wealth of the village marriages within the village are preferred and marriages between first cousins are often arranged (Refugee Health 2007). Families also sometimes exchange sons and daughters with the same family to save on expenses (Refugee Health 2007).

The male families of urban Kurds do not pay a bride price at the time of marriage. Yet if the male decides to divorce the woman, his family is contractually obliged to pay her family. Urban Kurdish women are also not permitted to ask for a man’s hand in marriage, nor decide to divorce. Divorced women do not have a right to custody of the children (Hassanpour 2001).

Polygamy also sometimes occurs amongst Kurds. In such cases the wives are ranked in status by their age (Hassanpour 2001). While polygamy is not the norm, up to four wives are allowed (Refugee Health 2007).

Like marriage, men hold women’s sexuality under a strict ideal of shame and constraint, including virginity before marriage (Hassanpour 2001). This “ideal” is upheld under the threat, and use of, male violence against women. Such violence includes beatings, pouring acid on faces, shaving heads, and even “honor” killings where women are murdered to by family members to bring back the family’s good name (Kurdish Women’s Rights Watch 2007).

While Kurdish women may be murdered for adultery, no similar treatment is dished out to Kurdish men for the same act (Hassanpour 2001).

Kurds tend to see having large families as the ideal. This grows out of the material need for more laboring hands in the rural areas where most Kurds live, as well as from religious beliefs that consider birth control immoral by Islamic law. Yet there are growing numbers of young couples that ask aid workers for birth control. The birth of a child is celebrated with a feast. (Refugee Health 2007)

While the Kurdish people are oppressed and denied many fundamental rights, Kurdish women are doubly oppressed. While some Kurds have claimed better treatment of women than most of the Islamic world, treatment of Kurdish women does appear to have many similarities to those of the dominating cultures. One difference with Iranian treatment is that Kurdish women are not forced to wear the veil and are generally allowed freer movement than in many traditionally Muslim societies including Iran (Refugee Health 2007).

In Iraq, however, Kurdish women are not historically better off. Currently the Kurdish nationalist parties in power, working with the U.S. occupation, have done much to undermine the gains made for women’s rights during the rule of Saddam Hussein. Under Saddam Hussein’s secular government, Iraqi women had many rights found nowhere else in the historically Islamic world except in the Asian republics of the former Soviet Union. Over 50% of Iraqi doctors were women. Iraqi women were allowed to walk unescorted in the streets, to drive, to freely criticize men, and the right to work and control their own funds. Today the Kurdish parties that the U.S. has put in control of Iraqi Kurdistan are working towards adding brutally anti-woman Sharia (Islamic Law) to the constitution that would strip women of more rights. Similar moves are being made by the U.S. imposed central government in Iraq.

In Turkey, it is well documented that the Turkish government has routinely used rape as a weapon in the their counter-insurgency measures against Kurdish separatists (Hilton 2002).

There are many historical examples of Kurdish nationalists and communists speaking out for women’s rights (Hassanpour 2001). Additionally Kurdish parties in Iraq that advocate women’s rights, such as the Worker’s Communist Party of Iraq, have been excluded by the U.S. occupation from participation in elections. Besides in Iraq, the use by the United States of rightwing misogynist Islamic forces against socialists and nationalists with progressive stands on women is well established, with the U.S. bankrolling of the Mujahideen holy war against women’s rights in Afghanistan in the 1980’s being another well known example.

Kurdish women, with the exception of those that lived in Soviet Armenia, have not had the benefit of the feminist movements of the west nor the social revolutions of the Soviet Union and China that greatly advanced women’s rights in those societies. While not achieving perfection, the Chinese and Soviet revolutions outlawed forced marriages and made other giant strides towards women’s equality including in the areas of women’s education, employment, and reproductive rights.

While outsiders may find it easy to judge Kurdish treatment of women, it is worth noting that up until now the Kurdish nation has been denied the right to make any fundamental decisions regarding any policies in their land without outside control. Given the record of the dominating countries, including the United States, it appears that it is only within the context of Kurdish self-determination that the problems of women’s oppression can be solved by the Kurdish people themselves.

Kurdish Political Organization

The Kurdish people have organized themselves into many political organizations that advocate language rights, freedom from the social chauvinism and violence of the dominant cultures, Kurdish independence, and in many cases socialism. These Kurdish political organizations often exist in direct contradiction to widespread feudal village structures and the oppression of women.

The Kurdish Worker’s Party (KKP), one of the main Kurdish resistance groups in Turkey, sees the continuation of feudal political structures on the village level as being the result of oppression and exploitation from the Turkish State. The following emic from the program of the KKP spells out this point of view:
"National oppression exercised by Turkish state through massacres, compulsory resettlement and forced immigration goes on brutally. This oppression manifests itself economically in the fact that Kurdistan is a domestic market for Turkey, plundered and destroyed; politically in the fact that the Kurds are under the oppression of a foreign state, and denied of national sovereignty; and socially and culturally in the national humiliation and cultural backwardness created by continuing tribalism, widespread ignorance and forced assimilation." (The Kurdish Worker’s Party Programme)

The KKP is one of nineteen different Kurdish parties in Turkey (Turkey 2004). Of these thirteen have been declared illegal by the central government, including the KKP (Turkey 2004). On the other hand the Democratic People’s Party, one of the few legal Kurdish parties, does participate in Turkish elections (Turkey 2004). They are a member of the reformist and generally pro-capitalist Socialist International. Parties with stronger political programs for Kurdish independence and for socialism are banned and communities identified with them have faced brutal counter-insurgency methods that have included massacres, the raping of women, and execution of leaders.

In Iraq, two Kurdish parties, working with the U.S. occupation, rule Iraqi Kurdistan. These are the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), and three minor Kurdish parties that have participated in an electoral alliance with the PUK and KDP called National Democratic Kurdish List. In the Kurdish area the National Democratic Kurdish List received 89.55% of the vote in the 2005 elections (Iraq 2005).

While the 2005 vote may appear to show widespread support among Iraqi Kurds for the KDP – PUK –USA government, other reports contradict this. Mass protests have erupted in Kurdish areas against the occupation-imposed lack of electricity and water (Worker-Communist Party of Iraq 2007). In response the KDP – PUK –USA government has used violence against protesters and arrested a number of journalists (Worker-Communist Party of Iraq 2007). Involved in these protests is the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq, a political party with members across Iraq of all ethnicities that supports Kurdish rights. In Kurdistan the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq has protested U.S. policy on Kurdistan where they point out that although the Kurdish people in Iraq had gained a high level of economic independence in the last two decades, U.S. policy has in effect annexed Iraqi Kurdistan back into the central government (Worker-Communist Party of Iraq 2007).

Unlike the KDP and PUK, the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They did this while also opposing the government of Saddam Hussein. In addition the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq, at great risk to their lives, is carrying out a campaign in Kurdistan against the imposition of Sharia (Islamic Law) through the constitution of the puppet KDP and PUK government. They see this as horribly anti-woman and also argue that it will also further increase sectarian violence (Worker-Communist Party of Iraq 2007).

Syria has fourteen different Kurdish political parties (Syria 2004). These organizations are banned in a country where it is illegal to even raise the flag of Kurdistan, yet Syrian Kurds continue to struggle for a homeland.

Iran has five different Kurdish political parties (Iran 2004). These have been involved in a number of uprisings against the central government in the last few years that have faced brutal repression (Kamala 2004). One of these organizations leading the uprisings is the Kamala (Revolutionary Organisation of Toilers of Iranian Kurdistan), a socialist grouping that has been organizing armed struggle against the central Islamic regime. As strong advocates of women’s rights the Kamala were the first Kurdish organization to integrate women into their armed forces (Kamala 2004).

Prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution the Kamala was also one of many leftist and pro-woman organizations struggling against the brutal U.S. imposed monarchy of the Shah of Iran, but in a great tragedy for women and for Kurds, it was chauvinistic Islamists that got the upper hand (Kamala 2004). In their assessment of the Islamic regime the Kamala states, “The Iranian regime has imposed the a series of discriminative policies in Kurdistan, which has ultimately resulted in the military occupation of Kurdistan, widespread poverty amongst this massive population, the suppression of Kurdish culture, drug addiction (especially amongst youth), religious suppression, forced migration, imprisonment, terror, torture, and the Killing of whoever opposing these tyrannical policies."

Armenian Kurds have suffered as well. While Kurds were given special language rights in Soviet Armenia, after the capitalist counter-revolution Kurds in Armenia faced mass violence and forced deportations. I have found no evidence Kurdish political organization in Armenia today.

The fate of Armenia’s largely ethnically cleansed Kurds is what has been attempted by all other countries that dominate the Kurds, elimination of the Kurdish question through violence and forced assimilation. Yet there is stubborn resistance in the will of the Kurdish people that refuses to give up. Instead many Kurds become resistance fighters that are bold enough to see a redrawn map where Kurdistan gains its independence from Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. In addition many are also bold enough to see that future as one that ends feudal backwardness, promotes education, builds socialism, and brings equality for women.

The Socialization of Kurdish Children in Language and Culture

The defining trait of Kurdish culture is their language. The education of Kurdish youth in their native tongue is an essential component, not only in the preservation of Kurdish culture, but also simply in giving the best education to young Kurds. The reason for this is that young people often have many difficulties learning when they are taught in a foreign tongue.

In the early part of the 20th century British colonial authorities in charge of education in Iraq referred to the Kurdish language as “vernacular”. Their educational model was one of teaching in the Kurdish language only at the primary school level, with all higher education in Arabic (The Education of Kurdish Language, 1995-2003).

In 1926 the famous Kurdish nationalist Huzni Mukriyani suggested in a fictional conversation between a Kurdish father and son that ignorance was better than being taught in a foreign tongue. The father states, “My dear son, I like education and I am not an enemy of knowledge and enlightenment, but it is better for you to remain ignorant than to be unaware of your identity, not to study in your language and to serve the strangers...” (The Education of Kurdish Language, 1995-2003).

This emic view of Huzni Mukriyani’s of the over riding importance of children learning in Kurdish wasn’t just based on a nationalistic or romantic desire for cultural preservation, but also grew out of the practical desire of having Kurdish children be able to understand the language they were being taught in. This point was driven home in another line of the fictional conversation where the father states to his son, “You had better become a shepherd, [Or] do ploughing for me. These are better than taking lessons and not understanding them” (The Education of Kurdish Language, 1995-2003).

In the 1950’s, in Iraqi Kurdistan, demands by the Kurdish community for more education in Kurdish began to bear some fruit, but many instructors had difficulty teaching in Kurdish because they had been instructed in Arabic (The Education of Kurdish Language, 1995-2003).

In Turkey, Iran, and Syria education in the Kurdish language has been even more wanting. The Kurdish language was illegal in Turkey up until 1991 and education in the Kurdish language is still lacking (Human Rights Watch 2006).

Yet, as an oppressed people without many educational opportunities, Kurdish children continue to learn their language from their families and communities even when formal education is lacking. Thus, the Kurdish language continues to be passed on to the children, partly out of necessity, partly out of a nationalistic pride and refuses to die or be forcefully assimilated.

Religion In Kurdistan, Belief and Disbelief

Kurds practice a variety of monotheist religions including a number of varieties of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. In addition some Kurdish nationalist movements led by socialists have a strong history of atheism and secularism.

The wide variety of Kurdish religions is due, in part, to the absorption of differing religions from surrounding nationalities. These religions have moved through the region over differing historical times. The predominance of Islam began in the seventh century when most Kurds were converted (Encyclopedia Britannica 2007).

Most religious Kurds are Muslim of the Sunni denomination (Encyclopedia Britannica 2007). Kurdish Sunnis predominantly belong to the Shafi’I sect. Another Islamic denomination found among the beliefs of the Kurdish people is the Shia, primarily of the Alevi sect. A small number of Kurds are also Yezidi Muslims, Christians, and Jews.

There is also a large Sufi influence among many Kurdish Muslims, often cited as a moderating influence on Islamic fundamentalism in many areas, including the oppression of women. Others see that religious moderation; to the point it does exist among the Kurds, is the result of heavy influences from atheistic socialist forces leading many of the struggles against Kurdish national oppression.

While information on the rarest and most obscure religions is often very easy to come by, demographic assessments of atheism are difficult to nearly impossible to obtain for much of the world. This lack of important anthropological data is due, in part, to the fact that atheists are oppressed in much of the world and afraid to identify themselves when attempts are made at collecting such data. But, in addition, there is a glaring shortage of writings that attempt to look at the role of atheism on individual cultures. Perhaps this is due, in part, to the universality of atheism and its lack of quaint provincial deities, sects, or rituals as are found in the thousands of religions of the world.

A look at the political programs the socialists that are playing a leading role in the nationalist liberation movements of Kurdistan does, however, reveal a strong influence of atheism and secularism in their advocacy of women’s rights and opposition to Islamic Law.

It is a tendency found in many mainstream anthropological writings to play up the role of various religions in different societies while ignoring the influences of atheism. Yet it has been atheistic leadership that has led major advances in women’s rights for much of the world’s population. Well known examples are the Chinese and Russian revolutions that outlawed forced marriages, bride prices, and other manifestations of female slavery still suffered by most Kurdistani women.

Likewise it is popular groups with atheistic programs, such as the Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) in Turkey, that advocate full emancipation for women. As the PKK states in their program:

“All laws reflecting male domination should be annulled. Violence against women, all forms of control on women’s bodies and lives resulting from outdated custom and traditional habits, and bride’s price should be forbidden.” (KKP Program, 2003)

This program of the PKK is in stark contrast to the harsh anti-woman positions of the Islamic capitalist governments of Iran, Turkey, and Iraq.

While there is good reason to study the role of religions in various societies, anthropological studies are often incomplete if they ignore the role atheism. Kurdish society is no exception where religious belief is mixed with a strong peppering of disbelief.

U.S. Imperialism and the Kurdish Question

While the regime of Saddam Hussein was no friend to the Iraqi Kurdish people, this of course has nothing to do with why the United States government hated Saddam Hussein. This hatred by the U.S. capitalist government is not based on humanitarian concerns. They hated Saddam Hussein for the good things he did, such as the nationalization of Iraqi oil that benefited the people of Iraq by keeping oil wealth in the country for social programs and benefited of the Iraqi economy.

America’s so-called concern for human rights can be seen in the past US interventions in Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party first came to power in 1963. Immediately after taking power, based on lists provided by the CIA, they rounded up 5,000 leftists and trade-union leaders and murdered them. After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait we were shown pictures of Iraqi Kurds killed by poison gas in the U.S. media. What we were not told is why the US was silent when this was happening and the fact that the US supplied the gas to kill the Kurds and to kill Iranians in the Iran-Iraq war. While we are now told of the Iraqi repression of the Kurdish people we are not told of how the Turkish government is carrying out the same policies of genocide against the Turkish Kurds, and doing it with U.S. weaponry.

In addition to these proxy genocides by the U.S. government on the Kurdish people the U.S. government has participated directly in the war on Kurds. This occurred on February 15, 1999 when U.S. forces kidnapped Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan and turned him over to the genocidal Turkish government. Subsequently Abdullah Ocalan was sentenced to death for his role in defending Kurdish territory in Turkey from the murderous Turkish military. This U.S. kidnapping was admitted on CNN TV by former Turkish President and ethnic cleanser Suleyman Demiral.

Today, in Iraq, the basic question of Kurds getting a piece of the oil wealth is not on the imperialist agenda. Instead they are pushing through their puppet governments and outside pressure for the oil wealth to be privatized and turned over to U.S. corporations.

Many of the Kurds know that their national interests will never be served by the “liberating” forces of Turkey and Iran or British and American imperialism. This will only be established by the Kurds themselves and by the alliances they build with other anti-imperialist forces. British imperialism divided Kurdistan, a country with its own unique language and culture, into a minority inside the nations of Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran. Today the Kurds are the largest nation without a homeland in the world. Imperialism, with its motto of divide and conquer, never has and never will solve the Kurdish question. A free and united Kurdistan will only be born through a sweeping socialist revolution that overthrows the capitalist regimes of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Syria while challenging the military dictates of the United States.

The mutual language and oppression shared by the Kurdish people has solidified the Kurdish identity, even though they have differing religions, and even though they are spread out into five different countries of origin where they are an ethnic minority in each.

Facing violence and attempts at forced assimilation there is stubborn resistance in the will of the Kurdish people that refuses to give up. Instead many Kurds become resistance fighters that are bold enough to see a redrawn map where Kurdistan gains its independence from Syria, Iran, Iraq, and Turkey. In addition, many Kurds are also bold enough to see that future as one that ends feudal backwardness, promotes education, builds socialism, and brings equality for women.

This is an article of Liberation News, Subscribe Free:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news

References:

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http://www.kwrw.org/index.asp?id=83

Blau, Joyce. 2007. The Kurdish Language and Literature. Institut Kurde de Paris. http://www.institutkurde.org/en/language/ Internet.

Chivers, C. J.. Hundreds Disappear Into the Black Hole of the Kurdish Prison System in Iraq. New York Times, 12/26/2006, Vol. 156 Issue 53805, pA12-A12

CIA, The World Fact Book, Armenia. CIA. Feb. 8, 2007.
https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/am.html

CIA, The World Fact Book, Iran. CIA. Feb. 8, 2007. http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps35389/2001/ir.html

CIA, The World Fact Book, Iraq. CIA. Feb. 8, 2007. https://cia.gov/cia//publications/factbook/geos/iz.html

CIA, The World Fact Book, Syria. CIA. Feb. 8, 2007.
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https://cia.gov/cia//publications/factbook/geos/tu.html

Donovan, Shane. Kurdistan. Harvard International Review, Fall2006, Vol. 28 Issue 3. p8-8.

Gunter, Michael. The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development. Middle East Journal, Winter2007, Vol. 61 Issue 1, p167-168.

Gunter, Michael. The Kurdish Nationalist Movement: Opportunity, Mobilization and Identity. By: Middle East Journal, Winter2007, Vol. 61 Issue 1, p168-170.

Hassanpour, Amir. The (Re)production of Kurdish Patriarchy in the Kurdish Language. 2001. Accessed 5 April 2007. Available from:
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Hilton, Isabel. 28 May 2002. Turkey’s Record in Kurdistan is a Grim Warning for Afghan Women. The Guardian. Accessed 5 April 2007. Available from:
http://www.rawa.org/turkey2.htm

Human Rights Watch. Questions and Answers: Freedom of Expression and Language Rights in Turkey. 2006. Accessed 2 March 2007. Available from: http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/08/turkeyqa041902.htm. Internet.

Iran. Leftist Parties of the World. 15 July 2004. Accessed 24 April 2007. Available from: http://www.broadleft.org/ir.htm

Iran: Amnesty International calls for an urgent investigation into the killing of demonstrators. 5 August 2005. Amnesty International. Accessed 3 March 2007. Available from: http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGMDE130432005. Internet.

Iraq. Leftist Parties of the World. 02 October 2005. Accessed 24 April 2007. Available from: http://www.broadleft.org/iq.htm

Izady, Mehrdad. Kurdish Literature. Accessed 2 March 2007. Available from:
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Izady, Prof. M.R. 1992. Kurds, A Concise Handbook. Accessed 6 April 2007. Available from: http://www.kurdistanica.com/english/economy/agriculture/the_agriculture.html

Jaff, Dr, Akram. The Fractured Economy of Kurdistan. Accessed 6 April 2007. Available from: http://www.kurd.org/about/economy.htm

Kamala. 2004. Accessed 24 April 2007. Available from: http://www.komala.org/

Khan, Adnan. Kurds Matter. Maclean's, 12/25/2006, Vol. 119 Issue 51, p31-32.

Klein, Janet. Kurdish nationalists and non-nationalist Kurdists: rethinking minority nationalism and the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1909. Nations & Nationalism, Jan2007, Vol. 13 Issue 1, p135-153.

Kurdish Families - Kurdish Family And Households. 2007. Accessed 6 April 2007. Available from: http://family.jrank.org/pages/1025/Kurdish-Families-Kurdish-Family-Households.html

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posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Cynthia McKinney for President?

timmodee — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 16:09:41 GMT

I am in love with this idea! Where do I get my lapel pin?

posted in Green Party - 6 replies

WAKE UP ! ! !

lorenzonine — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 02:11:08 GMT

Is the Green party a sleeping giant or a misfire?
With issues such as catastrophic climate change and the sub prime mortgage scam being reported daily, what differences can a viable third party initiate and bring to fruition?

What can we possibly do?

posted in Green Party - 6 replies

Texas Greens' 2008 Ballot Access Drive (subject to minor revisions)

dbcsez — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 02:49:39 GMT

Here is an opportunity for a vacation that might earn you some money. In 2008, the Green Party of Texas will, assuming it has the bucks in the bank, try to equal its achievement of 2000 and secure a statewide ballot line. Greens and Green sympathizers are invited to collect signatures on the big petition that state law requires.

Here are some relevant facts that will be helpful to know if you decide to join us (and are rather interesting even if you decide to stay home):

1. We don't yet know just when this drive will take place, but there is a 75-day time frame that begins after precinct conventions are held following the party primaries. For quite a while, those primaries have been part of Super Tuesday in early March, and the 75-day window has been elapsing officially on the Tuesday after Memorial Day. As of now, the Texas primaries will be held on 4 March, which means the drive will end a week BEFORE Memorial Day.

2. The number of signatures that a party must obtain in that 75-day period is equal to 1% of the votes cast in the previous gubernatorial election. Total votes cast and counted in the 2006 governor's race was 4,399,116, meaning that we must get about 44,000 valid signatures.

3. The adjective "valid" is important. Under current law, the signatures must come from voters registered in Texas who a) did not vote in any party primary just held, and b) have not signed any party's Ballot Access petition. Also, the name, voting address, and date of birth provided must be legible and accurate in order to be counted. It is unclear whether signing another party's petition invalidates both or all signatures, or all but the first.

4. Normally, petition drives have a validity rate of 2/3. That means that to get 44,000 valid signatures, a party should strive to get 66,000 total. Put some padding into that as a precaution, and you wind up with a goal of 70-75,000 signatures, or close to one thousand signatures per day. Of course, these signatures do not come at a steady rate; the collection process begins slowly and accelerates until it fades or succeeds.

5. The petition is for statewide ballot lines*, which means certain elective offices in the state government, as well as the line for U.S. Senator and President/Vice President. If any candidate for statewide office draws more than 5% of the vote, the party gets to keep its ballot line for the next general election.

6. In 2000, with the possibility of having Ralph Nader at the top of the ballot, the newly established Texas Greens got the necessary signatures. Candidates for Railroad Commission and State Supreme Court, facing Republican incumbents with no Democratic opposition, grabbed about 9% (while the Nader/LaDuke ticket received just under 3% in Texas). This time around, smelling Republican blood, the Democrats plan to have candidates for all available offices.

7. You'd think it would be easy to find people who meet the criteria for signing the petition. The state has more than 10 million registered voters, and maybe 8 million of them skip the primaries entirely. But people are wary of putting their addresses on anything that might lead to a deluge of unsolicited mail. Telling them that use of the petition as a mailing list is against the law doesn't seem to assuage the justifiably suspicious voter.

8. In 2006, it was even more difficult when the high-profile Kinky Friedman campaign was collecting signatures, and many of Kinky's paid collectors were telling signers that they could not sign the Green petition if they had signed his, or vice versa. This story wasn't true, since Kinky (and Carole Keeton Strayhorn) ran independent campaigns, and the legal language says specifically that signing a PARTY's petition precludes one's signing that of another party.

9. Speaking of paid petitioners, we now reach the subject of how you can earn money, perhaps even pay for your travel or lodging, by spending spring break in Texas. Kinky and Grandma Carole paid people to collect signatures, up to $2 per line, valid or not. Some of Carole's petitioners would never have voted for her (a Republican former state comptroller), but they would certainly take her money. Either of them could buy the signatures required out of their own pockets. The Green Party is still working on building its war chest, and hopes to pay $1 per signature, possibly more.

10. If you cannot get to Texas next spring to collect signatures, we'll gladly take YOUR money. The current fund-raising drive is called "$10 from 10,000." With a budget of $100,000 for the Ballot Access Drive, we figure that if we can get 10,000 people, inside Texas or outside, to chip in the cost of a fancy martini plus tip, we could re-create the miracle of 2000 even without a Nader. Send your unwanted cash, or a check to the Texas Greens. You can even donate online: http://txgreens.org/ontheballot/ .

Wanna help? We'll train you, pair you up with an experienced petitioner, and pay you for your efforts. Good petitioners stationed at the right spots, like downtown festivals and outdoor performances, can collect 20 signatures per hour. You do the math. Or just come down and have some fun saving democracy.

* Here are the offices up for election in 2008: http://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/voter/2008offices.shtml . Of these, the statewide ballot lines are for President, U.S. Senator (John Cornyn's seat), one spot on the Railroad Commission, 3 spots on the Supreme Court, and 3 spots on the Court of Criminal Appeals. The Texas Greens have one possible candidate for the Chief Justice spot on the Supreme Court; of course several Greens from across the USA, including kat swift of San Antonio http://www.bexargreens.org/katforprez/, would like to run for the presidency.

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

JESUS CHRIST+JESU KRISTE+YESHUA HAMASHIACH+JESUS CHRISTUS+JESU KRISTU+ISOUS HRISTOS

Sun, 23 Sep 2007 06:27:01 GMT

JESUS CHRIST+JESU KRISTE+YESHUA HAMASHIACH+JESUS CHRISTUS+JESU KRISTU+ISOUS HRISTOS

Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of this prophesy and keep those things which are written in it; for the time is near. REVELATION 1:3

And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy one thousand two hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth." REVELATION 11:3

He who testifies to these things says, " Surely I am coming quickly." Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus! The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. REVELATION 22:20-21

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Everyone, has the responsibility to find the truth for themselves. What is stated below, must be researched and verified, so that every individual can then decide to accept, or discard it as myth. The only truth is God the Father, the Son our Lord Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. Read the Bible, pray to the Holy Spirit for guidance and our Lord Jesus Christ will not abandon you, but will place the truth in your heart.

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We must not try to copy the world, but be different to it, as the example set by our Teacher, our Lord Jesus Christ. Being the same as the world, sharing its base values, being part of the fashion trends, is all part of Satan's system (Sex changes that are taking place ever more frequently and therefore not knowing anymore who is a man or a woman). The Pope of Rome is one of Satan's instruments (the Papists have immense power and wealth, our Lord Jesus Christ was humble and owned nothing). Talmudists/Zionists want to rebuild Solomon's Temple and proclaim their own false king of the world (there is only one King of the Jews and Orthodox Christians and that is our Lord Jesus Christ). Their power base is the U.S.A (Superpower of the world). They contol many governments, banks, newspapers, television stations (the media in general), etc. We must not forget the very elusive and cunning Masonic Lodges which form part of Satan's means to spread anti-Christian and heretic information. Television and video has been one of the most powerful tools of Satan, which has ruined the ethics which sustained our youth and the family unit. With pornography in all its forms, men have been misled and subsequently their women, a whole generation of our youth and their families have been devoured by Satan. We have forgotten about God, the Bible and prayer and have allowed ourselves to go down the road to hell and have fallen into Satan's trap (in other words we are slaves to flesh and our desires). Hedonism is the aim of humanity.

The group that is attempting to rule the world, consists of three member countries, U.S.A, Europe and Japan (3 presidents). Their central control, consists of 32 members (of the 29, 8 are Americans; 9 from Japan; 12 from the European Union (contolled from Belgium/Luxembourg). Head of the 3 member group is Rockefeller (his head quaters is in Rhodes, Greece; his specific influence is in the U.S.A and E.U). Whoever does not obey the orders of this group are murdered. Death is the penalty for disobedience. Another Satanic "club" is called, Bildeberg. They can destroy any government and put a new one together again. They can make a country vanish and create a new one too. 200 members, which include intelligence agencies (CIA; BIA; BND (Ger.); SIB (Ital.); SPELA (Fra.)). There are members who are involved with NATO and hold important positions in the US administration, etc. They hold an extremely harsh stance against the East, especially with Russia because of its Christian Orthodox heritage. They exterminate/demolish any opposition.

An enemy going back thousands of years is head quatered in China (the Himalayas/Tibet). The Seljuks come from that region, who are the ancestors of the Turks, who attacked and oppressed Christian Orthodoxy in Asia Minor and Greece. The Turks/Jews have tried many times to wipe out the Greeks and Christian Orthodoxy. They call the Greeks and Christian Orthodoxy, the people of the "Blue Trigramaton" (which is refering to the Holy Light that emenates from our Lord Jesus Christ's tomb). The roots of martial arts is that region spoken of above. Martial arts are Satanic and anti-Christian and yet has our youth spellbound under the innocent guise of sport/fitness. In the Himalayas there is a glass pyramid (Sambala), it has many entrances. This is where the White Brotherhood is based. It's aim is to destroy all the world's religions except its own. It has more power than the U.S.A. It has more resources at its disposal than all the governments in the world. It has infiltrated and controls many governments and religions (Roman Catholics, Protestants and Judaism). The First and Second World Wars were masterminded by them. They are going to start the Third World War too. The White Brotherhood works with the Bildeberg club and all the others. They are assisted by the Zionists. They created Hitler and introduced the Swastika (broken cross, that is what it means). Hirohito of Japan was responsible for a massive bloodbath, but he was not punished like the others, after the Second World War because he was a member of the world ruling 3 member group mentioned above. Grey Wolves (Turkish Muslims), are connected to the White Brotherhood. Only Grey Wolves members may rule Turkey. They must always mantain a harsh stance against Greece/Christian Orthodoxy (Turgut Ozal, was exterminated for his softer stance).

The White Brotherhood want to destroy the followers of Jesus Christ. They call His followers, bipods or two-legged ones. Their methods are many: thirst, hunger on a worldwide scale. All plants and forests must be destroyed. Wars, so as to ensure maximum slaughter. They refer to humanity as a chicken breeding farm. They destroy humanity with drugs; they have contaminated our drinking water (it has been doctored with medication); our food is also contaminated and our clothes too from the fancy washing powders that we use (that is why everyone is getting ill and they don't know why). Thirst on a worldwide scale, for eg.. Euphrates to be dried up because of Turkey, which will lead to a confrontation with Iran/Syria. Hunger, for eg., Russia was the world's wheat provider, even the U.S.A relied on her. The White Brotherhood ensured that Russia would starve. In Moscow young women give themselves for a plate of food. Homosexuality, the U.S.A being its banner. One can go on and on, but there will be no end then. It is devestating. But do not despair, if you are a follower of our Lord Jesus Christ because He has defeated Satan and the world.

(This is a summarized version and a translation of a tape recording in Greek, from a Greek Orthodox perspective ofcourse, given to me by a Monk at Calvary/Golgotha in Jerusalem, Christmas, 2001. I cannot divulge any names, nor my own because this is a very dangerous subject. You will have to verify the truthfullness of the matter yourself. Please excuse my errors of spelling or other. May God forgive me if I am wrong about any of this, but I do it with honest intentions. God bless you. From a humble follower of our Lord Jesus Christ.)

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"These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." JOHN 16:33

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"LORD JESUS CHRIST, HAVE MERCY ON ME."

posted in Green Party - 2 replies

Green Songs of Patriotism

Shriekh — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 19:26:59 GMT

The last refuge of scoundrels, someone called it. Patriotism, often made synonymous with nationalism.

The negative stereotype of patriotism has to do with expressions of hatred. I will wrap myself in an American flag and vent my hatred of liberals, Mexicans, Arabs, European intellectuals, feminists, or any other group or nation whose opinions conflict with mine. It wins votes. Why is that?

Those who burn the flag are appealing to patriotism, too, just in a different way. They are striking at the symbol of patriotism - the flag itself - because they know it is an emotional target. Again, hatred: hatred of the United States's painful and complex history, hatred of oligarchy, hatred of corporate hegemony, hatred of the suffering of so many people past and present, and the damage done to a beautiful country.

This kind of patriotism is a divisive thing, and it is used that way in elections. It is especially useful in our two-party system (which, by the way, is not Constitutionally-mandated, nor necessarily a good thing).

Moreover, I don't believe this is actually what people want, even though patriotic rhetoric and symbolism gets a huge response from voters. People want a candidate for government to care about them, and to care for where and how they live.

The values of the Green Party are essentially patriotic, in the most positive sense. If the Greens disdain to use the language of patriotism, they will always have to overcome suspicion and thus play into the hands of Republicans and Democrats, who will portray the Greens as "out of touch with the mainstream" and contemptuous of "normal values."

It's amazing that the Greens want to run national political campaigns, and they still haven't caught on to this: The Greens can honestly present themselves as MORE patriotic than a Democratic-Republican duopoly completely sold out to corporations and their lobbyists.

The Greens should unashamedly embrace patriotism as a love of the United States, of its landscape and its people. Yes, love. Affectionate love and stern love alike. A deep respect and love for neighborhoods and communities, for meaningful work, for healthy streams and air, for the legacy that will be inherited by generations to come.

The parties that sponsor welfare for immensely profitable corporations are not patriotic. The parties that send our children (or our parents) into ignoble wars overseas under false pretenses are not patriotic. The parties that sell out our great-grandchildren's future and soil their streams and deplete resources they will need, assuming we are not interested in making changes in our own lifestyle, are not patriotic.

The party that loves and believes in democratic processes; that believes people will make good and just decisions about their neighborhoods (certainly better than a CEO who has never even been to their town and sees it only as a mine to be exploited); that thinks families deserve meaningful work and medicine and good, nutritious food; that loves the landscape and the music and the rich colors and languages of our public; that wants justice and decency for every person here; that wants to give them useful tools and then get out of the way so people can pursue life, liberty, and happiness; is genuinely patriotic and damn it, they should be. Give us more of that patriotism.

If the Green Party is going to squander its money on national campaigns - and I still think they should be focusing intently on broadening its local office-holders, and maybe sending some Congressfolk to Washington - then it should embrace the language of true, positive patriotism.

A beautiful country can be very mixed up, and ours has been from the beginning (tragically so), and yet the foundation for something deeply beautiful exists here. Otherwise there would be no outrage. In no way does patriotism compromise criticisms of our current system, nor should those criticisms be muted. Wendell Berry, highly critical of the North American economy and its destruction of landscape and rural life together, writing from his farm in Kentucky, is a deeply patriotic voice in our culture. Far from despair, he is still writing - and arguing - out of love for a beautiful country.

That, to me, is patriotism. It is time for the Greens to sing love songs, instead of only appealing to the intellect. We have to connect with Americans who think they are fundamentally different than us, and show them that we actually know and like them, their kids, respect their faith and their parents' values, and like this country just as much as they do. Because all of that ought to be true. Otherwise, how well would we represent them?

We are doing this for THEM, right?

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

The Balance: the antidote to the extremes of Capitalism...

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:55:50 GMT

Hey guys!

I have only recently joined Tribe, when I searched for Spiritual Anarchism. I've been a member of Zaadz - my zaadz profile can be found at lucidit.zaadz.com - for a little while, and have just started a discussion pod called "The Antidote". This pod centres on Spiritual Anarchism, however Gaia is central to my philosophy, and this weekend I have written two essays for this pod which focusses on the inescapeable effects of humanities unceasing bid to exert control over reality, and why we try to do so in the first place. If you're interested in checking out the discussions that may arise on my pod it can be found at this address: pods.zaadz.com/spiritual_anarchism

I want as many people as possible to read these essays, so I am posting them wherever possible. Any comments or ideas, supportive or critical, are very welcome. I will soon be posting a third essay, which I'm currently working on called "Why where we are today was INEVITABLE from the beginning, and what we can do to avoid it…"

All my writings are centred around my framework of understanding which is based primarily in spiritual insight. This framework naturally entails the Oneness of being but approaches it from the perspective of a natural balance between order and chaos which I feel in integral to understanding the problems we face today. My belief is that we need to move towards a society characterized by "Spiritual Anarchism", which would entail letting go of the extremes or power and control, and returning to the natural balance between order and chaos. In fact I feel that this is the ONLY way the earth will survive and that it is the natural next step in evolution.

The writing I have posted below is the second of two essays that I have written. The first, "Spiritual Anarchism: no self, no rule, no place" sets up this framework of understanding from which my other writings arise. The second essay (below) is longer and applies this framework to the destructive effects of capitalism. The essay I am currently working on is going into even more detail, and elucidates a theory that I feel proves why Spiritual Anarchism is the only true way to avert disaster.

Peace,

Andy ;o)

----------------------------------

CAPITALISM: A STATE OF EXTREMES…

Capitalist society, as it presently is, is built from extremes. The order, and rigidity, of control imposed upon its gaseous (to continue the theme from my previous post) opposite of chaos; the conflict of which it channels towards its own agenda, through competition, and through the vehicle of the free-market and corporate consumerism. Such polarized extremes continually push each other further and further away from each other, and, as such, these extremes are tearing the world apart.

ROUNDING UP 'THE BEWILDERED HERD'…

It is believed that consumerism gives us choice, which we then, in some way - possibly with the intention of those in power - confuse with freedom. In reality, such choices are fuelled by rampant desire, which is nurtured by the Capitalist system. Consumerism, governed, as it is, by a neo-liberal free-market economy, can be understood as a form of anarchy. As such, the power of the patriarchal, hierarchical structure that is Capitalism is built upon its polar opposite of chaos.

Why do I say that consumerism can be equated with anarchy? The negative definition of anarchy suggests, to quote the Oxford English dictionary, “a state of disorder due to the lack of any form of government or control”. Under ‘neo-liberal ideology' - the current zeitgeist in the political world - the aim is to free the market economy - which is powered by consumerism - from any human intervention or regulation that might hinder it and slow it down. In other words the market is becoming more and more subject to no-rule. The literal translation of the word ‘anarchy' just happens to be ‘no-rule'. In terms of the dictionary definition of anarchy, why is disorder believed to be the result of non-government? Noam Chomsky parodies this view-point beautifully, when he sums up why true democracy is not allowed in Western society, in his short book “Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda”:

“There's even a kind of compelling moral principle behind it. The compelling moral principle is that the mass of the public are just too stupid to be able to understand things. If they try to participate in managing their own affairs, they're just going to cause trouble. Therefore, it would be immoral and improper to permit them to do this. We have to tame the BEWILDERED HERD, not allow the bewildered herd to rage and trample and destroy things. It's pretty much the same logic that's says it would be improper to let a three-year-old run across the street. You don't give a three-year-old that kind of freedom because the three-year-old doesn't know how to handle that freedom. Correspondingly, you don't allow the bewildered herd to become participants in action. They'll just cause trouble.”

(Chomsky, 2002, p19-20, my emphasis)

Chomsky's use of the, somewhat amusing phrase, the ‘bewildered herd' originates, as he describes, with Walter Lippmann. Lippmann was a leading liberal democratic theorist, and “the dean of American journalists, a major foreign and domestic policy critic” (Chomsky, 2002, p14) during the early twentieth century. To Lippmann, the ‘bewildered herd' were “the majority of the population … we have to protect ourselves from ‘the trampling a roar of a bewildered herd'” (Chomsky, 2002, p16). That's enough quotes from Chomsky - I'm sure you get the picture - but I really do love his light-hearted take on it! ;o)

SELF 1 - OTHER 0: THE 'BLACK AND WHITE' OF IT…

It all boils down to a conflict of desire. To the individual whose perception is divided so starkly, and stereotypically, between ‘self' and ‘other', the unpredictable nature of the ‘other' becomes a threat to, amongst other things, that person's most primal desire - to survive. As such, there are always those who, thinking themselves superior in mind and heart - when compared to those ‘barbarian hoards' who, lusting for sex and slaughter, are lost in a haze of carnal instincts - will always try to impose their desires for order, and security, over others. I know I conjure some vivid extremes here, but this is just to illustrate the gist of such mindset, the delusions from which all yearnings for order spring.

Such perceptions begin with the division between ‘inner' and ‘outer', which is followed by attachment to self. Self is equated with all that is ‘good', whilst anything ‘outside' that self is a potential threat to its existence, and therefore ‘bad'. Survival - due to dependence our environment - dictates that anything ‘outside' this self must be divided into the myriad world that is all those things that are beneficial (food, friends etc.), and all those things that are threat (lions, enemies etc. unless you can eat them of course!). As Lao Tzu says of reality in the first verse of the Tao te ching, “Named, it is the mother of the ten thousand things” (translation by Sam Hamill).

As a matter of survival people have come together to form societies, which have developed through shared cultures of ‘good' and ‘bad' to which each member of that society learns to relate; to BELIEVE in. In the apparent interests of social order, certain ‘interior' traits have also been dictated as ‘good' or ‘bad', whereby all those perceived ‘negative' aspects - such as the desire for sex - are repressed, and then projected onto others in the ‘outside' world, which tends to lead to the ‘criminality' and persecution of those unfortunate individuals.

When you think about it, we're not all that much different from computers after all; we are programmed with the same binary code consisting of zeroes and ones: 0 for bad, 1 for good! It's always a good thing when you team wins 1 - 0! ;oD

In a dualistic world of myriad potential threats to a separate individual self, the more people who share the same cultural do's and don'ts the safer we feel. The trouble with this approach is that, on such a huge and diverse planet, there are inevitably other cultures whose do's and don'ts, who's cultural beliefs, will conflict with our own. And so, through society, the dominance of the individual ego gives rise to the dominance of the collective ego; a MUCH more dangerous and destructive affair.

When reality is viewed, and adhered to, as being cleaved between polar opposites the only outcome can be the conflict, and destruction, that arises from such distorted perception. This is why, at the hands of Capitalism and its free-market business interests, we are dragged into wars against an unknown chaotic ‘enemy', who is ‘a threat to our way of life'. At the same time, whilst we fight a war on that front, we are dragged over the cliff into the chaotic abyss of global warming, the mother of all Humanitarian, and environmental disasters.

NURTURING CHAOS: PLAYING WITH FIRE…

The world view taken by Capitalism - along with many other rigid institutionalized structures - seems to be that all of reality is characterized by complete chaos. The modern/post-modern Capitalist method of dealing with this situation is both subtle and ingenious. Rather than impose totalitarian, coercive rule of the minority elite over the masses it, instead, nurtures an ILLUSION of freedom. In doing so it harnesses the chaotic extreme, through subversive methods of control for its own benefit; the consequence of which, is to push us into deeper control over reality, whilst simultaneously pushing us deeper into chaos.

In ‘Western' society we are encouraged to seek our own individuality; a notion fostered by the individualistic preaching's of consumer culture. It seems in our society, that we are free to go about our business, to do whatever we want, and we're encouraged to HAVE whatever we want. All that is asked of us is our allegiance, and we will be rewarded with the means to fulfil our dreams. In other words we are encouraged to fulfil our passions and desires, as long as we don't overstep the mark, whereupon we will be punished. To achieve our desires - driven by individualistic self-interest - we are pitted against each other in heated economic competition. We are encourage to attempt to out-do each other, the achieve dominance, trying in vain to climb an endless ladder of materialism, in the hope of heavenly fulfilment. In reality most people get very little in return, and heavenly fulfilment is ever elusive.

This to me sounds like a chaotic display of anarchy. Capitalism is a culture of addiction, born from the anarchy and suffering of the masses. Capitalism is therefore powered by conflict and chaos, which is channelled through the control mechanism of a neo-liberal free-market economic structure. And who reaps the benefits? It is of course widely known that the poverty gap is ever on the increase; a gap that becomes increasingly globalized in its nature. Capitalism is a system in which the few benefit from the suffering of the many. In such a system, you will NEVER find the elite few willing to clean the public toilets, to sweep the streets, to work endless hours of slave labour in the suffocating depths of a factory repetitively sowing the same logo on a never-ending mountain of shoes…

Desire, then, is one of a twin foundation, and force behind the Capitalist system. The twin sibling of desire, of course, is fear; fear of the ‘other', fear of chaos, fear of death. Capitalism plays first, and foremost, upon our fear - and desire - for survival, in that it robs us of our right to survive - by denying access to the basic means of subsistence - and then demands we work in order to win it back! The original thief! Secondly, through consumer culture it plays on the unfathomable desires of the masses for momentary self-gratification, the desire for meaning and fulfilment, and this is all, ultimately, for the benefit of the few, and their insatiable desire for profit and power.

THE REAL 'THREAT TO OUR WAY OF LIFE'…

To fulfil our desires Capitalism churns up all of natures resources, and is throwing the entire, incredibly finely balanced Gaean system into turmoil. As elucidated by James Lovelock, life on this planet has arisen through a complex, self-balancing system, in which every living creature depends on every other. It's is as if the earth itself were a living organism. Just as our bodies are made from an awe-inspiring, diverse, interdependent matrix of living cells, so all life on earth, comes together with every geological and atmospheric element to form a self regulating system. All parts depend on the whole, and the whole depends on all parts. Lovelock called this system Gaea, the Greek name for the earth Goddess; Mother Earth.

We are told the fear the ‘threat to our way of life' posed by an unknown few in far off lands, when the awful truth is that our OWN way of life is THE biggest threat to our OWN way of life! Our way of life is a threat to ALL life! It has been realised that the stability of the Gaean system increases with the level of diversity that produces it. Through our actions, facilitated by our economic system, we are destroying that diversity and stability, and therefore the balance of the earth system. Think about it; the more tent poles that holds up your tent, the more stable it is. As soon as you start to take away those tent poles, to fuel your fire, the more likely it is to collapse, and it's pretty safe to say it certainly won't withstand the storm!

CAPITALISM: A SPLIT PERSONALITY…

The twin turbo engine of our way of life is fear and desire, and therefore we are ever seeking to gain more and more control, and therefore power, over the reality in which we live. Capitalism is all about ownership and control of resources, and is ever seeking to extend this power further and further over reality; even genes, the very building block of life are now under threat. It's as if humanity, through fear of death, and self attachment, is unconsciously trying to conquer all of phenomenal reality so that death may, somehow, be averted. In other words it's as if we are trying to become God. This endeavour is powered by the anarchic conflict and chaos of the free-market economic system, to which human beings are merely another commodity; some might say slaves. The market economy is fed by the unrestrained human desires engendered by consumerism, as well as the anarchic conflict through competitive self interest that is channelled into this system. Capitalism, is built on the suffering of humans, the suffering of animals; the suffering of the entire planet.

THE STEAM ENGINE…

An analogy that I like to imagine to understand this state of affairs - again using water - is that Capitalism is like a steam engine. Again society is like water. For one reason or another, some water particles feel threatened by all the other water particles. And so to contain this threat, and thus protect themselves, they have realised they can exploit the very nature of all the other water particles for their own personal gain. So a small number of people, or particles of water, have built an engine; this rigid structure - or thought system - of Capitalism, has been built around the rest of the water, trapping it inside. This represents the fact that the right to survive has been taken away from us, and this instantly plays on our fears and desires. Suddenly the water begins to heat up - through the afforesaid emotive forces - and turns into gas, trying to escape its constraints, however there is no escape. In this chaotic gaseous form, all the particles are now in conflict with one-another, and with the system, and as the heat rises, the energy builds, the gas expands, the piston starts to move, and the wheels of the engine slowly begin to turn. Once consumerism enters the picture, the trapped gas heats up further, the engine flies along and now the particles who built the engine seem to be getting somewhere, whilst the rest of the particles trapped inside are going nowhere. Unfortunately, to save money and maximize profit the builders of the engine decided not to fit it with breaks, and concerned only for short term gain they never thought to look far enough ahead to see what direction they were headed in; they just sat back and enjoyed the ride. Had they have been wiser, they would have noticed this track just happens to lead straight over a cliff! Today it's plain to see that the leap in power and control that was the industrial revolution, and which began with the steam engine, has set us on the trajectory we are currently headed: straight into the arms of chaos!

Of course another BRILLIANT, and well-known, allegory for this situation is the Matrix. The Wachowski Bro's are genius! ;o)

TIME TO WAKE UP!

The position we are now in, headed into a future that threatens total chaos, is a direct result of this system of ever deepening power and control over reality, based as it is on dualistic, polarized thinking. As I described in my last post reality is a complex balance between order and chaos. This is illustrated perfectly in the concept of the Gaean earth system, which proves that reality is NOT total chaos, as Capitalism would seem to assume. Instead there is a natural self regulating order that, in the face of changing conditions, the whole system regulates itself in an effort to maintain the perfect conditions for life. The Sun has steadily been increasing in temperature since the beginning of its existence, and, somehow, for billions of years Gaea has, overall, managed to maintain the temperature within a certain range that is conducive to life; a few degrees to far either way and all life would have been lost. There have been many mass-extinctions but, with each extinction, the diversity of life-forms has increased to make the system more stable. This has all been the result of a natural, self regulating balance. The worry now, however, is that because the of the temperature the Sun has now reached, if Gaea loses her stability, she may not be able to pull it back. The human mind, in its egoic thirst for control, is tearing out the heart, the lungs, and all of Gaea's other vital organs, and so the vital balance is being lost. If we do not URGENTLY change our ways the entire system will collapse and an inescapable wave of chaos and destruction will sweep over us.

Capitalism is just one system of power amongst many - which follow in the footsteps of a long family tree - which, deluded by dualistic notions of existence, seeks to escape the threat of chaos into the seemingly secure arms of order and control; but there is no escape. Of all the systems, however, Capitalism seems to be the most malevolent. Order and chaos are two sides of the same coin; the level of order we are willing to maintain should be measured by the level of chaos we are willing to face. If this planet is to survive then we need to return to the natural, complementary, interdependent balance that is found, in nature, on the middle path between this apparent duality. Rather than be constantly chased BY our fears, we need to chase AFTER our fears, for this approach will lead us to the middle, where we find our fears recede. Capitalism, on the other hand, is built from extremes, and as such it weighs a heavier and hevier burden on the cycle of life that is Gaea.

RESTORING THE BALANCE…

I used to think of myself as an Anti-Capitalist, but now I am realizing it does no good to oppose it. Anti-Capitalists can find themselves at the opposite extreme of total chaos, and anarchy, or they simply end up replacing one rigid structure - of power and control - with another, which experiments in Communism have proved. In my view, the best approach is to recognise Capitalism - or any other rigid thought structure for that matter - for what it is; to see its true nature, and then to simply let go, and search, instead, for an alternative path through the middle. I think this is the best approach for anyone; rather than fight the system, see it in the light of truth, and let go, so that it no longer has hold over our hearts and minds. Of course, this is not an easy option to take, especially since this system saturates everyday life, but we can, with effort, learn to loosen its grip over our lives. To do so, is to take a more responsible and independent, autonomous, approach to our way of life, that also realises our interpendence with each other, and with our planet. It inevitably invites uncertainty into our lives, but this is the nature of THE BALANCE, the middle path between order and chaos; it is about letting go of our attachment to a false sense of certainty, which in reality, does not exist. We need to realise that the 'opposites' of order and chaos are complemetary and interdependent, and without either of them nothing would exist; they are not enemies, they are friends, and so we need to learn to befriend chaos. In doing so, we discover the path through the middle, where people can be united in the path of love, instead of the path of fear. This is ‘Spiritual Anarchism'; to let go of extremes, whereupon we find true freedom, peace and love.

SPIRITUAL ANARCHISM AND THE PATH TO UTOPIA: NO SELF, NO RULE, NO PLACE…

Spirit, has negative connotations for some people, however we do not need to believe in an otherworldly force to realise that there is an inner human spirit that yearns for freedom, peace and love. Anarchism also has negative connotations for some people but anarchism simply means ‘no rule', it means that every person allows every other person the freedom to live their lives, and to express themselves, however they choose. And when Anarchism is fused with the compassion of the heart, of the human spirit, there is little need to worry that such people would take their freedom to extremes. Therefore ‘Spiritual Anarchism' is a dual term that when brought together means the same non-dual phenomenon. It implies both subjective and objective freedom; the cessation of attachment to extremes, and the unification of the ‘inner' and ‘outer' within the Oneness of non-dual reality.

Peace,

Andy ;o)

NB: I realise that in saying, rather than fight it we should simply see Capitalism for what it is and let go of it, it might sound as though I am saying we should not march and campaign against the injustices that take place it its hands. This is not so and we should continue to advocate such causes. I think the most effective action we can take is to spread awareness, to expose capitalism for what it is in all it's destructive nature; to awaken people to the ways in which they are enslaved by it, the ways they can stand up to it, and ultimately to free themselves from it, and reclaim their lives. The more people that are awakened to this message, and then having freed themselves from it, the more it will lose its grip. Of course, I'm pretty sure it will not go down without a fight!

————–

References:

Chomsky, N. (2002) Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda, New York, Seven Stories Press.

Lao Tzu, Translated by Hamill, S. (2007) Tao Te Ching: A New Translation, Boston & London, Shambhala.

If you want to learn more about the interesting subject of Gaea Theory then it's definitely worth checking out the following two books, from which I learned what I know:

Harding, S. (2006) Animate Earth: Science, Intuition and Gaia, United Kingdom, Green Books.

Stephen Harding writes a brilliant book that elucidates vividly the self regulating cycles that take place on our planent, which come together to form the Gaean system. Harding brilliantly combines the dryness of science with the compassion of the human heart. He asks us once again to view our planet as our animistic, living, Mother Earth, so that we find the compassion and thus the motivation to act.

Lovelock, J. (2006) The Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth is fighting back and how we can save humanity, London, Penguin Books.

It was James Lovelock who stumbled upon Gaea theory, and although it was, unsurprisingly, rejected my many scientists initially, he a fought for its recognition. As a result of Lovelocks efforts Gaea Theory is now widely accepted by scientists as the way in which the earth evolved, and regulates itself to protect all life on this planet. I have to say, I do not agree with all of Lovelocks suggestions to save the planet - namely his controversial advocacy of Nuclear Technology - but on the whole, this book is definitely a valued read.

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Spiritual Anarchism: no self, no rule, no place...

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:51:51 GMT

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Greens and peaceful anarchy

Tue, 11 Sep 2007 05:52:33 GMT

How do the greens and libertarians compare? Do Greens believe in total freedom of the individual to do whatever they see fit for themselves without causing harm to others. Such as doing your drug of choice and not have to worry about going to jail or being subject to random piss tests. I even think if possible, why not combine the best points of all parties as long as they don't conflict and create an Independent Freedom Party. Why can't all us little parties combine forces(votes), and take down the big boys? That Is one thing we all have in common is that we want something new, Right?

posted in Green Party - 3 replies

Hi Guys,

Grant — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 18:15:11 GMT

Hi Guys,

I have added an Energy Efficiency section to my website- Comments/Suggestions would be great.

Link: http://www.worldofrenewables.com/EnergyEfficiency/index.html

Grant Rowe

World of Renewables
grantrowe@worldofrenewables.com

posted in Green Party - 0 replies

Oakland proposed for Green Party 2008 Presidential Nomination Convention

dmacleay — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 13:56:28 GMT

Oakland proposed for Green Party 2008 Presidential Nomination Convention
Today, 6:53 AM

Below are the 4 websites for 2008 Green Party Convention Proposals

The forth one is Alameda County Greens proposing either Oakland or Berkeley

Posted by: "Leslie Bonett" lesliebonett@sbcglobal.net lesliebonett
Mon Jul 30, 2007 11:11 pm (PST)
These are the websites for the 4 Proposals to Host 2008 Presidential Convention:
Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit OR Oakland/Berkeley??

The National Committee will be considering this proposal in a week or two.
They already have our 2-page proposal, the website, as well as Oakland Convention Bureau booklets we distributed in Reading.
I'd like to post a top 10 reasons for California, in conjunction with the local organizers - Greg, et al
What do you think is key or most convincing to mention?

Send to the list; perhaps an interesting discussion ...
Leslie

www.gpus2008.mngreens.org/

www.greenconvention2008.com/

www.detroitgreens.org/anm08/

rachel.cagreens.org/oakland/...tion.html

posted in Green Party - 2 replies