http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/24466-focus-f-35-burns-on-runway-during-testing
Boardman writes: "Troubles never seem to end for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Not yet fully operational, the nuclear-capable fighter-bomber recently had different test versions either leak oil in flight or burst into flames on takeoff."
All F-35s remain grounded. (photo: Air Force)
F-35 Burns on Runway During Testing
By William Boardman, Reader Supported News
27 June 14
One $100 million Air Force plane leaks oil, another bursts into flame
Troubles never seem to end for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Not yet fully operational, the nuclear-capable fighter-bomber recently had different test versions either leak oil in flight or burst into flames on takeoff.
The F-35 is the world’s most expensive weapons system – $400 billion and counting. The estimated lifetime cost of this military-industrial project is $1.5 trillion. The F-35 is already close to a decade behind schedule and its cost is already more than twice the original estimate. The Pentagon has lowered its performance specs and it’s still years from being operational.
On June 22, at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, an F-35A was taking off on a routine training flight when the tail of the plane burst into flame. The pilot aborted the takeoff and escaped from the cockpit. A ground crew extinguished the fire with foam. There were no injuries, but the $100 million plane was possibly destroyed, according to officials.
All twenty-six F-35s at Eglin were grounded after the fire, while the Air Force tried to figure out why the plane had ignited. Air Force spokesperson Lt. Hope Cronin called the fire “significant,” but the cause is yet unknown. F-35s at other bases continue to fly.
Earlier this month, on June 13, the entire F-35 fleet (more then 100 planes at this point) was grounded because an F-35 was leaking oil in flight. The Air Force, the Marines, and the Navy each have a variation of the F-35 that range in estimated cost from $98 million (Air Force) to $104 million (Marines) to $124 million (Navy).
So far, this story has been managed by the Air Force and, to a lesser extent, Lockheed Martin, the plane’s manufacturer. Early reporting came from military-industrial-friendly outlets like the U.S. Naval Institute News and Defense News. According to the former, “This is the first incident this severe for the JSF [F-35] during the life of the tri-service program.”
When the L.A. Times told the story, the paper used only official information. The Motley Fool, referring to corporate hopes that F-35 sales would “catch fire,” took a more irreverent view with this headline:
Lockheed Martin Corporation's F-35 Fighter Jet Catches Fire – In a Bad Way
Lockheed Martin hopes to sell more than 5,000 F-35s to the U.S. and other governments. In the past two years, several of those other governments have expressed concern about the plane’s value, with some governments cutting back or cancelling orders. As Motley Fool analyzed it:
What is clear is that the news out of Florida constitutes a significant PR snafu for Lockheed – and potentially a setback to a program that’s expected to eventually produce upward of $1 trillion in revenues for Lockheed Martin.
To make those potential revenues actual, Lockheed Martin must spend more time building new aircraft, and less time helping the Air Force fix problems with the aircraft it’s already bought and paid for. And with nearly 40% of all potential worldwide sales of the aircraft expected to come from international customers, getting revenues flowing will also require Lockheed to maintain enthusiasm for the plane among potential buyers.
Even though the F-35 has been in production since 2006, the plane is still in its test phase. Lockheed Martin is the prime contractor for the F-35, but these recent problems suggest the company is having quality-control problems with subcontractors. The tail fire is thought to have started in the F-35 tail engine, designed by Pratt & Whitney (a unit of United Technologies). The oil leak, found on at least three F-35, stems from an oil flow management system produced by United Technologies, which also assembles the engine.
British debut for F-35 scheduled for July 4
Bad enough to have the world’s most expensive weapons system still dysfunctional after more than a decade, but these particular dysfunctions have come uncomfortably close to the F-35’s first overseas performance before Queen Elizabeth at the official naming ceremony of a new British aircraft carrier, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, on July
4. To make their first overseas appearance, three F-35s will be flying across the Atlantic Ocean.
According to a “Marine Corps centric blog,” SNAFU, it’s a “zany idea to fly prototype F-35B airplanes across the Atlantic for a ceremony.” But it explains:
The Brits want the F-35B as part of the ship’s complement. The United Kingdom is the only “tier one” partner on the F-35 development program, which means it’s kicked in some serious money for the F-35 development which started in 2001. They’ve also gained about fifteen percent of the manufacturing pie, with BAE Systems having completed the manufacture of 150 F-35 rear fuselages and tail sets already….
Originally the UK wanted 138 planes, but that has been decreased to 48 probably for cost reasons as with others. The UK owns (sort of) three F-35B now, and has been planning to order 14 more since at least last October…. Now we hear that this fateful announcement for the UK to “order” fourteen more (they have three) faulty F-35B prototypes will be made at the HMS QE naming ceremony where F-35B will be part of the ceremony! Ta-da …
But it’s not funny. No matter who originated the idea for this cheap political stunt, it has no doubt affected the decision not to ground the F-35 fleet after the fire at Eglin, even as they seek the root cause. This puts other pilots at risk.
For all its technology, the F-35 cannot fly in bad weather.
Even before the recent oil leak and fire episodes, the F-35B (Marine edition) was scheduled to fly for the Queen only if the weather was good. (Another of the plane’s shortcomings is that it can’t fly with complete safety in the rain.) Pushing for the F-35’s presence was BAE Systems, one of the plane’s subcontractors and the prime contractor for the new carrier. F-35s aren’t expected to fly to or from the Queen Elizabeth itself before 2018 at the earliest.
Assuming the F-35 fly-by at the carrier-naming ceremony comes off without a hitch, the F-35 is scheduled to participate in two subsequent British air shows, the Royal International Air Tattoo (July 11-13) and the Farnborough Air Show (July 14-20). Then the planes will fly back across the Atlantic. These appearances were announced in April.
After taking all this into account, SNAFU wonders:
After this fire [at Eglin], so soon after the grounding of the fleet [for the oil leak], the question becomes clear. Why is the Pentagon ignoring common safety measures all for a publicity stunt in Europe?
Is the program on such shaky ground in the UK that a cancellation of the performance would kill the UK buy? Is the defense ministry so desperate that they would endanger their pilots for an air show?
The answer appears to be yes. Tech is now more important than the lives of our pilots. Some skepticism is available from an Australian paper:
In Australia, where the government is also expected to buy F-35s, the Herald Sun refers to the F-35 as “our trillion-dollar turkey” and treats the plane’s recent difficulties disdainfully as just more of the same. But the paper also reports that shortly before the F-35 caught fire, so did another, unrelated stealth aircraft. Earlier in June, a prototype Sukhoi T-50 Russian fighter had one of its two engines catch fire in flight, but managed to land safely. The right engine burned away part of the plane’s fuselage.
On June 26, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) issued a report on the 2015 defense spending bill recently passed by the House. The report criticized $6 billion more in spending on the underperforming F-35 and supported spending on the relatively cost-effective A-10 Warthog (for close air support to ground troops) that the Obama administration wants to cut.
The F-35 has long been controversial in Vermont, where Stop the F-35 activists have spent years trying to keep the Pentagon plane from basing the plane in the middle of Vermont’s most populous and only urban area. Nevertheless the Air Force has decided to bring the plane to Burlington, with the full backing of Vermont’s Democratic leadership and no dissent from Republicans or even Independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Vermont Democrats – from Senator Patrick Leahy, Representative Peter Welch, Governor Peter Shumlin, Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger, legislative leaders and members, with few exceptions – have goose-stepped in locked formation in support of this Pentagon wet dream of having a single flying computer of a plane that can accomplish any mission the Army, Navy, or Marines can dream up.
Republican senator John McCain, not exactly averse to American weapons of mass destruction, calls the F-35 “one of the great, national scandals that we have ever had, as far as the expenditure of taxpayers’ dollars are concerned.”
And speaking of taxpayers’ dollars, the BBC reported on June 26 that Iraq had bought 36 U.S. F-16s for its skimpy Air Force, but that the U.S. had been slow in delivering them. Now, running out of patience and wanting airstrikes against its rebels, the Iraqi government has bought “a number of used Sukhoi fighter jets from Russia and Belarus.” Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki said the planes could be flying missions within a few days.
The Sukhoi fighter is no F-35, for which Iraq should probably be grateful.
________________________________________
William M. Boardman has over 40 years experience in theatre, radio, TV, print journalism, and non-fiction, including 20 years in the Vermont judiciary. He has received honors from Writers Guild of America, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Vermont Life magazine, and an Emmy Award nomination from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
© 2014 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Sunday, June 29, 2014
The U.S.-Mexico Border - A Constitution-Free Zone
Published on Portside (https://portside.org)
The U.S.-Mexico Border - A Constitution-Free Zone
David Bacon
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Stand - ACLU Magazine
Under the Fourth Amendment, the people of the United States are not supposed to be subject to random and arbitrary stops and searches. But within 100 miles of a U.S. border, these rules don't apply.
Border Patrol agents park on a hilltop and watch anyone near the border wall.
Last July, a worker phoned Alejandro Valenzuela, a young staff member at the Southside Workers Center in Tucson, Arizona. The police were at his home, the worker said, and were detaining him for deportation. Valenzuela and a friend drove over to observe - "to make sure his rights were being respected." Over the next half hour the police grew increasingly hostile, demanding identification from Valenzuela, despite the fact that he was not driving the car, which was parked at the curb. They then detained Valenzuela and the worker.
Police then drove the two to Border Patrol headquarters. Neither was ever arrested or accused of a crime. Valenzuela was detained and intensively questioned for five hours, and finally released only when he could show he qualified for Deferred Action, which allows undocumented young people (DREAMers) to apply for deferred deportation and work authorization.. The worker was eventually deported.
"On the street we get stopped and questioned because of the way we look," Valenzuela charges. "It's racial profiling." On his behalf the ACLU filed the first challenge to section 2B of Arizona's infamous SB 1070 "Show me your papers" law, which went into effect in September 2012. It authorizes police to enforce immigration law, and the ACLU argues it "unconstitutionally authorizes and encourages illegal police practices ... the South Tucson police officers' actions amounted to false arrest, violated Alex's right to equal protection of the law and trampled his right to be free from unreasonable seizures."
Tucson is sixty miles from the Mexican border, within a 100-mile zone where immigration authorities say important due process rights can be suspended. "SB 1070 interacts with this 100-mile area to enable these rights violations," explains James Lyall, ACLU staff attorney in Tucson. "It's easy for police to stop people on a pretext, detain them longer than permitted, and turn them over to the Border Patrol." The Valenzuela suit was one of the first actions taken by the ACLU Border Litigation Project, launched to document and litigate civil and human rights cases on the U.S. Mexico border.
Enforcing the "Zone"
Outside of communities like Tucson, the existence of a 100-mile "Constitution-free zone" is not well known. "There, the longstanding view [established in court rulings] is that the normal rules do not apply," according to the ACLU. "For example, the authorities do not need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a 'routine search.'" As of 2008, the zone potentially covered a staggering 197.4 million people-two-thirds of the U.S. population, including nine of the country's 10 largest cities.
In Arizona, the impact is magnified by Federal enforcement and state legislation. Isabel Garcia, Legal Defender for Pima County (which includes Tucson), explains, "In Arizona we've become a laboratory for every kind of anti-immigrant, anti-human [rights] piece of legislation." She points to Proposition 100 that amended the state constitution in November 2006 to permit the detention without bail of any undocumented immigrant accused of a felony. Under state legislation, a felony now includes using a fictitious document or a Social Security number belonging to another person.
The Project has documented other instances of immigration-related police misconduct beyond the 100-mile zone. They include an elderly Latino citizen jailed by Mesa police after picking a bottle from a trashcan, a passenger in a car stopped for a broken taillight taken to immigration authorities by Casa Grande police, a woman interrogated about immigration status after calling Tucson police about domestic violence, and a legal resident questioned about his status by Phoenix police while picking up his impounded car.
ACLU attorney Christine Sun calls the cases "representative of policing problems throughout Arizona." Lyall testified before the Tucson City Council, noting that in May, Federal District Court Judge Murray Snow ruled that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, using policies like those in Tucson, was guilty of systematic and unconstitutional racial profiling.
The ACLU of Arizona made 20 recommendations for changes in Tucson's police practices. The most basic were to prohibit police "from questioning crime victims and witnesses about their immigration status," from "extending any stop or detention solely to await a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or ICE response," requiring officers to contact their supervisors before questioning people about immigration status, and to document "the reasons such questioning is believed necessary." According to Arizona Public Media, the council unanimously approved council member Regina Romero's motion to ask police to put public safety above checking immigration status.
The constitution-free zone starts here.
Detained and Demeaned
In October, the ACLU demanded an investigation of the Border Patrol, citing five examples of unlawful stops by roving patrols within the 100-mile zone. Although U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) claims broad authority to conduct searches here, the ACLU complaint responds that "the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures extends to protect against unlawful investigatory stops." Some of the documented mistreatment clearly exceeds this standard.
In May, Clarisa Christiansen was stopped by the Border Patrol n the desert west of Tucson, 40 miles north of the border, while driving her five- and seven-year-old children home from school. All are citizens, yet she was threatened with a Taser and knife, forced from her vehicle, interrogated, and left beside the road with a slashed tire.
In April, a Native American woman was tailgated by a Border Patrol vehicle, dragged from her pickup, threatened and manhandled, interrogated and ridiculed, and detained for over an hour on the Tohono O'odham reservation. Other Native Americans have told her of similar treatment.
In March, a tourist from Oregon was threatened, detained and falsely accused of drug possession after hiking at the Fort Bowie Historical Site. A drug-sniffing dog did hundreds of dollars of damage to his car, but when his insurance company sought reimbursement, the CBP claimed the Federal Tort Claims Act "bars recovery for property damaged by CBP employees while the property is under detention."
In May, a Latino citizen farmer was followed and detained on his property by Border Patrol agents holding automatic weapons. Agents trespass frequently, the family complains.
Two years ago, Suzanne Aldridge was stopped just outside of Bisbee, Arizona, 30 miles from the border, dragged from her car, handcuffed, and groped by a Border Patrol agent. Ten vans of agents, police and sheriffs searched her car with a drug-sniffing dog without her consent. She tried to file a complaint, but was given the runaround by CBP representatives.
In September, the ACLU of Washington and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project settled a lawsuit challenging CBP's roving patrols on the Olympic peninsula, which lies within the 100-mile zone. As in Arizona, the Border Patrol conducted arbitrary vehicle stops, prolonged detentions and other forms of mistreatment. Fourth Amendment protections still apply, the settlement says. "Border Patrol officially agreed to follow the Constitution and not racially profile Latinos and other minorities ... People should not have to fear that they could be stopped and questioned without reason any time they drive or are passengers in cars," said Sarah Dunne, legal director of the ACLU-WA.??
The Heavy Price of Immigration Enforcement
In testimony to September's Congressional ad-hoc hearing on border security, the ACLU detailed other areas in which the Border Patrol violates constitutional rights.
In Arizona ports of entry, a May ACLU complaint documented 11 cases involving "unprovoked assaults and verbal abuse, the unwarranted use of handcuffs and shackles, extended and recurring detention, invasive searches, property destruction and confiscation, and denial of food, water and legal representation."
At the state's 11 CBP checkpoints, border residents report numerous unlawful searches, detentions, threats and abuse. The vast majority of detentions are for petty crimes, not immigration, and Federal authorities dump those cases on local courts. Says Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada. "They tell us, 'If you don't take them, we're going to take your [Federal law enforcement] funding away.'"
Abuse in CBP custody is rampant. A recent University of Arizona report revealed that 11 percent of deportees reported physical abuse by U.S. authorities, 23 percent experienced verbal abuse, 45 percent received insufficient food, 39 percent had their possessions confiscated and 29 percent had their identification documents taken and not returned.
The worst abuse is deadly. Since 2010, 20 people have died as a result of CBP use of force. Sixteen-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez-standing on Mexico soil-was shot seven times in the back in 2012 by an agent firing across the border at Nogales, Arizona. Nineteen-year-old Carlos LaMadrid was shot four times in the back while running toward Mexico at Douglas. Ramses Barron Torres was shot while simply standing in Mexico. The Department of Justice would not prosecute agents in the LaMadrid and Barron killings, and is still investigating the death of Elena Rodriguez.
One other product of the Constitution-free zone is the Operation Streamline courtroom, where every day 70 young people are brought before a Federal District Court judge, chained at their wrists, waists and ankles, and pressured into pleading guilty to criminal charges of illegal entry or reentry. "These proceedings offend fundamental principles of due process," the ACLU testified.
"We just closed our post office in Tucson because it cost $14 million a year to run, and lost 400 jobs," charges Garcia. "We closed eleven schools because the Tucson district had a shortfall of $17 million. Yet we pay Corrections Corporation of America $11 million a month to house these migrants."
The ACLU testimony made seven recommendations for humane reform. They include increasing CBP oversight, preventing excessive use of force, reducing the high number of border crossing deaths, increasing detention standards and inspections, discouraging local and state authorities' involvement in immigration enforcement, abolishing the Operation Streamline court, and reducing CBP's "zone of authority" from 100 miles to 25 miles from the border.
Tucson résidents protest Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio over his abuse of immigrants.
Let Them Go!
In October, community anger in Tucson finally boiled over when police stopped a car in front of the Southside Worker Center. The ACLU and other organizations charge that, especially since passage of S 1070, police often find pretexts to stop vehicles they believe are carrying undocumented people, and then hold them for deportation.
In this case, police called the Border Patrol after detaining the car's occupants, who then put them into a CBP truck. A local migrant family organization, Corazon de Tucson (Tucson's Heart), urged people to come protest. In an act of civil disobedience, some 60 people surrounded the vehicle carrying the two detained migrants. People from the nearby Presbyterian Church came out in support. They peacefully held hands, chanting, "Let them go!" as the Border Patrol and police responded by shoving people and using pepper spray. Eventually the two were taken to detention.
Alejandro Valenzuela says, "We're tired of being arrested for no reason. These were people we knew. We wanted to prevent them from being taken from their community and family." Three days later, in further civil disobedience, demonstrators blocked busses taking detainees into the Federal courthouse, chaining themselves to their wheels. The day's session of the Operation Streamline court was cancelled, and 17 demonstrators were arrested. Similar acts of civil disobedience, blocking busses carrying people for deportation, have taken place in Phoenix, San Francisco, Chicago, San Diego and Austin, among other cities. They respond to the fact that in the last five years, two million people have been deported from the U.S.
In December, Tucson Congressman Raul Grijalva was one of 27 signing a letter to President Obama opposing mass deportations. "Criminalizing American families or giving local law enforcement the responsibility to choose who stays and who goes is not the right option," they said. Whether in court, in Congress or in the streets, the denial of rights in Arizona is being challenged and that challenge is growing.
Three facts about the Constitution-Free Zone
Fact 1
In the "Constitution-free zone," Border Patrol agents don't need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a "routine search." All travelers crossing a border are assigned a risk assessment score that will be retained for 40 years.
Fact 2
The Border Patrol can put a checkpoint anywhere in the Constitution-free zone (think Fifth Avenue!). "One hundred air miles is still, technically, the border," says Leslie Lawson from the Nogales Border Patrol Station. Everyone at a checkpoint must answer questions about citizenship status.
Fact 3
The Constitution-free zone extends 100 miles from any U.S. border. Two-thirds of the U.S. population (197.4 million in 2008) lives within this zone, which includes nine of the 10 largest metropolitan areas, and the entire populations of: Connecticut, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Rhode Island; and over 90 percent of: California, Maryland, New York, Vermont and Washington.
________________________________________
Articles win Awards of Excellence
"Standoff in the Strawberry Fields," which was run by Al Jazeera last fall, and "US-Style School Reform Goes South", which ran in The Nation in last spring, won 2014 Awards of Excellence in Freelance Journalism given by the Guild Freelancers of the Pacific Media Workers Guild in San Francisco. David Bacon was also given the Raul Ramirez Journalist of the Year Award.
David Bacon radio review of the movie, Cesar Chavez [1]
Interviews with David Bacon about his new book, The Right to Stay Home:
Book TV: A presentation of the ideas [2] in The Right to Stay Home at the CUNY Graduate Center
KPFK - Uprisings with Sonali Kohatkar [3]
KPFA - Upfront with Brian Edwards Tiekert [4]
Photoessay: My Studio is the Street [5]
Photoessay: Mexico City marches against NAFTA and to protect its oil and electricity [6]
Nativo Lopez dialogues with David Bacon [7] on Radio Hermandad
The Real News: Immigration Reform Requires Dismantling NAFTA and Respecting Migrants' Rights [8]/ Immigrant Communities Resist Deportations [9]
Books by David Bacon
The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration [10] (Beacon Press, 2013)
Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants [11] (Beacon Press, 2008)
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
Communities Without Borders [12] (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border [13] (University of California, 2004)
For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org [14]
Source URL: https://portside.org/2014-06-28/us-mexico-border-constitution-free-zone
Links:
[1] https://soundcloud.com/kpfa-fm-94-1-berkeley/upfronts-david-bacon-reviews-film-on-cesar-chavez-and-the-grape-strike
[2] http://booktv.org/Watch/14961/The+Right+to+Stay+Home+How+US+Policy+Drives+Mexican+Migration.aspx
[3] http://uprisingradio.org/home/2013/09/27/the-right-to-stay-home-how-us-policy-drives-mexican-migration/
[4] https://soundcloud.com/kpfa-fm-94-1-berkeley/david-bacon-on-upfront-9-20
[5] http://artofthecommune.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/my-studio-is-the-street-photoessay-by-david-bacon/
[6] http://desinformemonos.org/2014/02/veinte-anos-de-tlc-veinte-anos-de-resistencia/
[7] http://radiohermandad.blogspot.com
[8] http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10938
[9] http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10933
[10] http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2328
[11] http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002
[12] http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575
[13] http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html
[14] http://dbacon.igc.org
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
The U.S.-Mexico Border - A Constitution-Free Zone
David Bacon
Sunday, June 1, 2014
Stand - ACLU Magazine
Under the Fourth Amendment, the people of the United States are not supposed to be subject to random and arbitrary stops and searches. But within 100 miles of a U.S. border, these rules don't apply.
Border Patrol agents park on a hilltop and watch anyone near the border wall.
Last July, a worker phoned Alejandro Valenzuela, a young staff member at the Southside Workers Center in Tucson, Arizona. The police were at his home, the worker said, and were detaining him for deportation. Valenzuela and a friend drove over to observe - "to make sure his rights were being respected." Over the next half hour the police grew increasingly hostile, demanding identification from Valenzuela, despite the fact that he was not driving the car, which was parked at the curb. They then detained Valenzuela and the worker.
Police then drove the two to Border Patrol headquarters. Neither was ever arrested or accused of a crime. Valenzuela was detained and intensively questioned for five hours, and finally released only when he could show he qualified for Deferred Action, which allows undocumented young people (DREAMers) to apply for deferred deportation and work authorization.. The worker was eventually deported.
"On the street we get stopped and questioned because of the way we look," Valenzuela charges. "It's racial profiling." On his behalf the ACLU filed the first challenge to section 2B of Arizona's infamous SB 1070 "Show me your papers" law, which went into effect in September 2012. It authorizes police to enforce immigration law, and the ACLU argues it "unconstitutionally authorizes and encourages illegal police practices ... the South Tucson police officers' actions amounted to false arrest, violated Alex's right to equal protection of the law and trampled his right to be free from unreasonable seizures."
Tucson is sixty miles from the Mexican border, within a 100-mile zone where immigration authorities say important due process rights can be suspended. "SB 1070 interacts with this 100-mile area to enable these rights violations," explains James Lyall, ACLU staff attorney in Tucson. "It's easy for police to stop people on a pretext, detain them longer than permitted, and turn them over to the Border Patrol." The Valenzuela suit was one of the first actions taken by the ACLU Border Litigation Project, launched to document and litigate civil and human rights cases on the U.S. Mexico border.
Enforcing the "Zone"
Outside of communities like Tucson, the existence of a 100-mile "Constitution-free zone" is not well known. "There, the longstanding view [established in court rulings] is that the normal rules do not apply," according to the ACLU. "For example, the authorities do not need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a 'routine search.'" As of 2008, the zone potentially covered a staggering 197.4 million people-two-thirds of the U.S. population, including nine of the country's 10 largest cities.
In Arizona, the impact is magnified by Federal enforcement and state legislation. Isabel Garcia, Legal Defender for Pima County (which includes Tucson), explains, "In Arizona we've become a laboratory for every kind of anti-immigrant, anti-human [rights] piece of legislation." She points to Proposition 100 that amended the state constitution in November 2006 to permit the detention without bail of any undocumented immigrant accused of a felony. Under state legislation, a felony now includes using a fictitious document or a Social Security number belonging to another person.
The Project has documented other instances of immigration-related police misconduct beyond the 100-mile zone. They include an elderly Latino citizen jailed by Mesa police after picking a bottle from a trashcan, a passenger in a car stopped for a broken taillight taken to immigration authorities by Casa Grande police, a woman interrogated about immigration status after calling Tucson police about domestic violence, and a legal resident questioned about his status by Phoenix police while picking up his impounded car.
ACLU attorney Christine Sun calls the cases "representative of policing problems throughout Arizona." Lyall testified before the Tucson City Council, noting that in May, Federal District Court Judge Murray Snow ruled that Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, using policies like those in Tucson, was guilty of systematic and unconstitutional racial profiling.
The ACLU of Arizona made 20 recommendations for changes in Tucson's police practices. The most basic were to prohibit police "from questioning crime victims and witnesses about their immigration status," from "extending any stop or detention solely to await a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) or ICE response," requiring officers to contact their supervisors before questioning people about immigration status, and to document "the reasons such questioning is believed necessary." According to Arizona Public Media, the council unanimously approved council member Regina Romero's motion to ask police to put public safety above checking immigration status.
The constitution-free zone starts here.
Detained and Demeaned
In October, the ACLU demanded an investigation of the Border Patrol, citing five examples of unlawful stops by roving patrols within the 100-mile zone. Although U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) claims broad authority to conduct searches here, the ACLU complaint responds that "the Fourth Amendment's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures extends to protect against unlawful investigatory stops." Some of the documented mistreatment clearly exceeds this standard.
In May, Clarisa Christiansen was stopped by the Border Patrol n the desert west of Tucson, 40 miles north of the border, while driving her five- and seven-year-old children home from school. All are citizens, yet she was threatened with a Taser and knife, forced from her vehicle, interrogated, and left beside the road with a slashed tire.
In April, a Native American woman was tailgated by a Border Patrol vehicle, dragged from her pickup, threatened and manhandled, interrogated and ridiculed, and detained for over an hour on the Tohono O'odham reservation. Other Native Americans have told her of similar treatment.
In March, a tourist from Oregon was threatened, detained and falsely accused of drug possession after hiking at the Fort Bowie Historical Site. A drug-sniffing dog did hundreds of dollars of damage to his car, but when his insurance company sought reimbursement, the CBP claimed the Federal Tort Claims Act "bars recovery for property damaged by CBP employees while the property is under detention."
In May, a Latino citizen farmer was followed and detained on his property by Border Patrol agents holding automatic weapons. Agents trespass frequently, the family complains.
Two years ago, Suzanne Aldridge was stopped just outside of Bisbee, Arizona, 30 miles from the border, dragged from her car, handcuffed, and groped by a Border Patrol agent. Ten vans of agents, police and sheriffs searched her car with a drug-sniffing dog without her consent. She tried to file a complaint, but was given the runaround by CBP representatives.
In September, the ACLU of Washington and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project settled a lawsuit challenging CBP's roving patrols on the Olympic peninsula, which lies within the 100-mile zone. As in Arizona, the Border Patrol conducted arbitrary vehicle stops, prolonged detentions and other forms of mistreatment. Fourth Amendment protections still apply, the settlement says. "Border Patrol officially agreed to follow the Constitution and not racially profile Latinos and other minorities ... People should not have to fear that they could be stopped and questioned without reason any time they drive or are passengers in cars," said Sarah Dunne, legal director of the ACLU-WA.??
The Heavy Price of Immigration Enforcement
In testimony to September's Congressional ad-hoc hearing on border security, the ACLU detailed other areas in which the Border Patrol violates constitutional rights.
In Arizona ports of entry, a May ACLU complaint documented 11 cases involving "unprovoked assaults and verbal abuse, the unwarranted use of handcuffs and shackles, extended and recurring detention, invasive searches, property destruction and confiscation, and denial of food, water and legal representation."
At the state's 11 CBP checkpoints, border residents report numerous unlawful searches, detentions, threats and abuse. The vast majority of detentions are for petty crimes, not immigration, and Federal authorities dump those cases on local courts. Says Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada. "They tell us, 'If you don't take them, we're going to take your [Federal law enforcement] funding away.'"
Abuse in CBP custody is rampant. A recent University of Arizona report revealed that 11 percent of deportees reported physical abuse by U.S. authorities, 23 percent experienced verbal abuse, 45 percent received insufficient food, 39 percent had their possessions confiscated and 29 percent had their identification documents taken and not returned.
The worst abuse is deadly. Since 2010, 20 people have died as a result of CBP use of force. Sixteen-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez-standing on Mexico soil-was shot seven times in the back in 2012 by an agent firing across the border at Nogales, Arizona. Nineteen-year-old Carlos LaMadrid was shot four times in the back while running toward Mexico at Douglas. Ramses Barron Torres was shot while simply standing in Mexico. The Department of Justice would not prosecute agents in the LaMadrid and Barron killings, and is still investigating the death of Elena Rodriguez.
One other product of the Constitution-free zone is the Operation Streamline courtroom, where every day 70 young people are brought before a Federal District Court judge, chained at their wrists, waists and ankles, and pressured into pleading guilty to criminal charges of illegal entry or reentry. "These proceedings offend fundamental principles of due process," the ACLU testified.
"We just closed our post office in Tucson because it cost $14 million a year to run, and lost 400 jobs," charges Garcia. "We closed eleven schools because the Tucson district had a shortfall of $17 million. Yet we pay Corrections Corporation of America $11 million a month to house these migrants."
The ACLU testimony made seven recommendations for humane reform. They include increasing CBP oversight, preventing excessive use of force, reducing the high number of border crossing deaths, increasing detention standards and inspections, discouraging local and state authorities' involvement in immigration enforcement, abolishing the Operation Streamline court, and reducing CBP's "zone of authority" from 100 miles to 25 miles from the border.
Tucson résidents protest Phoenix Sheriff Joe Arpaio over his abuse of immigrants.
Let Them Go!
In October, community anger in Tucson finally boiled over when police stopped a car in front of the Southside Worker Center. The ACLU and other organizations charge that, especially since passage of S 1070, police often find pretexts to stop vehicles they believe are carrying undocumented people, and then hold them for deportation.
In this case, police called the Border Patrol after detaining the car's occupants, who then put them into a CBP truck. A local migrant family organization, Corazon de Tucson (Tucson's Heart), urged people to come protest. In an act of civil disobedience, some 60 people surrounded the vehicle carrying the two detained migrants. People from the nearby Presbyterian Church came out in support. They peacefully held hands, chanting, "Let them go!" as the Border Patrol and police responded by shoving people and using pepper spray. Eventually the two were taken to detention.
Alejandro Valenzuela says, "We're tired of being arrested for no reason. These were people we knew. We wanted to prevent them from being taken from their community and family." Three days later, in further civil disobedience, demonstrators blocked busses taking detainees into the Federal courthouse, chaining themselves to their wheels. The day's session of the Operation Streamline court was cancelled, and 17 demonstrators were arrested. Similar acts of civil disobedience, blocking busses carrying people for deportation, have taken place in Phoenix, San Francisco, Chicago, San Diego and Austin, among other cities. They respond to the fact that in the last five years, two million people have been deported from the U.S.
In December, Tucson Congressman Raul Grijalva was one of 27 signing a letter to President Obama opposing mass deportations. "Criminalizing American families or giving local law enforcement the responsibility to choose who stays and who goes is not the right option," they said. Whether in court, in Congress or in the streets, the denial of rights in Arizona is being challenged and that challenge is growing.
Three facts about the Constitution-Free Zone
Fact 1
In the "Constitution-free zone," Border Patrol agents don't need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a "routine search." All travelers crossing a border are assigned a risk assessment score that will be retained for 40 years.
Fact 2
The Border Patrol can put a checkpoint anywhere in the Constitution-free zone (think Fifth Avenue!). "One hundred air miles is still, technically, the border," says Leslie Lawson from the Nogales Border Patrol Station. Everyone at a checkpoint must answer questions about citizenship status.
Fact 3
The Constitution-free zone extends 100 miles from any U.S. border. Two-thirds of the U.S. population (197.4 million in 2008) lives within this zone, which includes nine of the 10 largest metropolitan areas, and the entire populations of: Connecticut, Delaware, Washington, D.C., Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Rhode Island; and over 90 percent of: California, Maryland, New York, Vermont and Washington.
________________________________________
Articles win Awards of Excellence
"Standoff in the Strawberry Fields," which was run by Al Jazeera last fall, and "US-Style School Reform Goes South", which ran in The Nation in last spring, won 2014 Awards of Excellence in Freelance Journalism given by the Guild Freelancers of the Pacific Media Workers Guild in San Francisco. David Bacon was also given the Raul Ramirez Journalist of the Year Award.
David Bacon radio review of the movie, Cesar Chavez [1]
Interviews with David Bacon about his new book, The Right to Stay Home:
Book TV: A presentation of the ideas [2] in The Right to Stay Home at the CUNY Graduate Center
KPFK - Uprisings with Sonali Kohatkar [3]
KPFA - Upfront with Brian Edwards Tiekert [4]
Photoessay: My Studio is the Street [5]
Photoessay: Mexico City marches against NAFTA and to protect its oil and electricity [6]
Nativo Lopez dialogues with David Bacon [7] on Radio Hermandad
The Real News: Immigration Reform Requires Dismantling NAFTA and Respecting Migrants' Rights [8]/ Immigrant Communities Resist Deportations [9]
Books by David Bacon
The Right to Stay Home: How US Policy Drives Mexican Migration [10] (Beacon Press, 2013)
Illegal People -- How Globalization Creates Migration and Criminalizes Immigrants [11] (Beacon Press, 2008)
Recipient: C.L.R. James Award, best book of 2007-2008
Communities Without Borders [12] (Cornell University/ILR Press, 2006)
The Children of NAFTA, Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border [13] (University of California, 2004)
For more articles and images, see http://dbacon.igc.org [14]
Source URL: https://portside.org/2014-06-28/us-mexico-border-constitution-free-zone
Links:
[1] https://soundcloud.com/kpfa-fm-94-1-berkeley/upfronts-david-bacon-reviews-film-on-cesar-chavez-and-the-grape-strike
[2] http://booktv.org/Watch/14961/The+Right+to+Stay+Home+How+US+Policy+Drives+Mexican+Migration.aspx
[3] http://uprisingradio.org/home/2013/09/27/the-right-to-stay-home-how-us-policy-drives-mexican-migration/
[4] https://soundcloud.com/kpfa-fm-94-1-berkeley/david-bacon-on-upfront-9-20
[5] http://artofthecommune.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/my-studio-is-the-street-photoessay-by-david-bacon/
[6] http://desinformemonos.org/2014/02/veinte-anos-de-tlc-veinte-anos-de-resistencia/
[7] http://radiohermandad.blogspot.com
[8] http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10938
[9] http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10933
[10] http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2328
[11] http://www.beacon.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=2002
[12] http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=4575
[13] http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/9989.html
[14] http://dbacon.igc.org
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Baltimore Activist Alert - June 30 - July 2, 2014
Baltimore Activist Alert June 30 – July 6, 2014
"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours." - Martin Luther King Jr.
Friends, this list and other email documents which I send out are done under the auspices of the Baltimore Nonviolence Center. Go to www.baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com. If you appreciate this information and would like to make a donation, send contributions to BNC, 325 East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218. Max Obuszewski can be reached at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski [at] verizon.net.
Tune into the Maryland Progressive Blog at http://mdprogblog.org.
1] Books, buttons & stickers
2] Web site for info on federal legislation
3] Join Nonviolent Resistance lists
4] Buy coffee through HoCoFoLa
5] See THE EXONERATED – through July 6
6] Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity – through Aug. 31
7] Marc Steiner on WEAA – June 30 – July 4
8] Hearing about the family shelter – June 30
9] Ian Schlakman, Green Party, announces his run for U. S. House of Representatives – June 30
10] Planning meeting for the People's Climate March – June 30
11] Discussion with Barbara Arnwine – June 30
12] Pledge of Resistance/Fund Our Communities meeting – June 30
13] LGBT community marks the 50th Anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act – June 30
14] Celebrate D.C.'s minimum wage increase – July 1
15] Protest at the Federal Communications Commission – July 1
16] Philadelphia Peace Vigil – July 1
17] "No Drone Research at JHU" – July 1
18] Split This Rock fundraiser – July 1
19] Monthly pet bereavement support group meeting – July 1
20] 38th anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1976 decision in Gregg V. Georgia – July 2
-----
1] – Buttons, bumperstickers and books are available. “God Bless the Whole World, No Exceptions” stickers are in stock. Donate your books to Max. Call him at 410-366-1637.
2] – To obtain information how your federal legislators voted on particular bills, go to http://thomas.loc.gov/. Congressional toll-free numbers are 888-818-6641, 888-355-3588 or 800-426-8073. The White House Comment Email is accessible at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.
3] – THE ORGANIZING LIST will be the primary decision-making mechanism of the National Campaign of Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR]. It will be augmented by conference calls and possibly in-person meetings as needed. It will consist of 1 or 2 representatives from each local, regional, or national organization (not coalitions) that wishes to actively work to carry out the NCNR campaign of facilitating and organizing nonviolent resistance to the war in Iraq. To join the ORGANIZING List, please send your name, group affiliation, city and email address to mobuszewski at Verizon dot net. Different local chapters of a national organization are encouraged to subscribe.
THE NOTICES LIST will include only notices of NCNR actions and related information and is open to any interested person to subscribe. It will be moderated to maintain focus & will include periodic notices about getting involved in NCNR national organizing. To join the NOTICES List, send an email message to mobuszewski at Verizon dot net.
4] – You can help safeguard human rights and fragile ecosystems through your purchase of HOCOFOLA Café Quetzal. Bags of ground coffee or whole beans can be ordered by mailing in an order form. Also note organic cocoa and sugar are for sale. For more details and to download the order form, go to http://friendsoflatinamerica.typepad.com/hocofola/2010/02/hocofola-cafe-quetzal-order-form-2010.html. The coffee comes in one-pound bags.
Fill out the form and mail it with a check made out to HOCOFOLA on or before the second week of the month. Be sure you indicate ground or beans for each type of coffee ordered. Send it to Francine Sheppard at 5639B, Harpers Farm Rd., Columbia 21044. The coffee will arrive some time the following week and you will be notified where to pick it up. Contact Francine at 410-992-7679 or FrancineMSW@aol.com.
5] – Enjoy “The Exonerated,” a thrilling docudrama by the Vagabond Players. The play transports viewers into the hearts and minds of 6 death row inmates who are actually innocent. It is thought provoking and provocative, and will make viewers recognize the madness of a death penalty. The performances will continue through July 6 at 806 S. Broadway. Call 410-563-9135 or go to http://vagabondplayers.org.
6] – See the exhibit Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity, which
delves into the various ways technology affects lives through the perspective of inventors, futurists and 40 plus visionary artists. The intent is to bring new thoughts on artificial intelligence, robotics, genetics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, and big data, and you can see it through August 31 at the American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Hwy. Call 410-244-1900. Go to http://avam.org. A ticket costs $20.
7] – The Marc Steiner Show airs Monday through Friday from 9 to 11 AM on WEAA 88.9 FM, The Voice of the Community, or online at www.weaa.org. The call-in number is 410-319-8888, and comments can also be sent by email to steinershow@gmail.com. All shows are also available as podcasts at www.steinershow.org.
8] – Get over to the Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Ave. NW on Mon., June 30 from 11 AM to 1PM for a hearing about the family shelter in room 500. It will address two items: 1 -- the proposal to build a playground at the facility and 2 -- the dignity of homeless families. Those who wish to testify should contact Mr. Malcolm Cameron of the Committee on Human Services at mcameron@dccouncil.us or at 202-724-8191.
9] – On Mon., June 30 at 11 AM at the War Memorial Plaza in Baltimore, Ian Schlakman will be formally announcing his campaign for United States House of Representatives, District 2. Schlakman, of Baltimore, will be officially accepting the nomination of the Maryland Green Party as its candidate for the 2nd District U.S. House race.
Supporters will join Ian Schlakman as he makes his campaign announcement on the lawn of War Memorial Plaza. He will also be available for interviews at 218 East Lexington St., Suite 203 at 1 PM. Go to http://marylandgreenparty.org. Call 443-240-6915.
10] – Join a planning meeting for the People's Climate March, happening September 20th-21st in NYC, on Mon., June 30 from 5 to 6 PM at 420 7th St. In September, world leaders are coming to New York City for a historic summit on climate change. With our future on the line and the whole world watching, we’ll take a stand to bend the course of history. Together, we’ll take to the streets to demand the world we know is within our reach: a world with an economy that works for people and the planet. Make the world safe from the ravages of climate change and a place with good jobs, clean air, and healthy communities for everyone. Contact Elise Shulman at eliseshulman@gmail.com.
11] – On Mon., June 30 from 6 to 7:30 PM hear a discussion with Barbara Arnwine, president & executive director of the national Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, in Room 505, 4340 Connecticut Ave. NW. She is internationally renowned for contributions on critical justice issues including the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1991 and creation of the renowned 2011 Voting Rights “Map of Shame.” A graduate of Scripps College and Duke University School of Law, she continues to champion civil rights and racial justice issues nationally and internationally in the areas of housing and lending, community development, employment, voting, education, and environmental justice. Ms. Arnwine’s work also includes immigrant rights, judicial diversity, criminal justice reform, racial profiling and health care disparities. Contact Professor John Brittain at JBrittain@udc.edu.
12] – The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore usually meets on Mondays at 7:30 PM, and the meetings take place at Max’s residence. The next meeting will be on Mon., June 30, and it is the last meeting at Roundhill Road. The proposed agenda will include news that Max has moved, a report on the appeal of the conviction of the CIA Five, anti-drone activities, including the arrests at the NSA on May 3, the July 4 visit to the NSA, a report on the conference in Chicago, FREEDOM SUMMER, and the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration. Call 410-366-1637 or email mobuszewski at verizon.net for directions.
13] – On Mon., June 30 at 8:30 PM, mark the 50th Anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as LGBT community activists will gather at the MLK Memorial, 1964 Independence Ave. SW, to herald LGBT civil rights heroes Bayard Rustin & Eleanor Roosevelt, and call on Congress to "ADD 4 WORDS" "sexual orientation, gender identity" (SO&GI) -- to America's nondiscrimination laws. The event also launches a new nationwide coalition - The Equality Pledge Network - based on The Pledge for Full LGBT Equality, supported by over 245 organizations in 44 states. This campaign is all volunteer and represents the vanguard strategy of the LGBT movement. The vigil will include singing, community hugs, and an open forum for speeches on the topic of full and equal LGBT civil rights, as a human rights imperative and public health emergency. Bring RAINBOW colored items, FLASH LIGHTS, and posters with the slogan “ADD 4 WORDS." Visit http://bit.ly/Add4WordsDCjune30.
14] – On Tues., July 1 at 11 AM, the Paid Sick Days for All Coalition, Respect DC and the Wage Theft Coalition are celebrating D.C.'s minimum wage increase and expansion of the paid sick days law! The D.C. minimum wage will go up to $9.50 an hour on July 1st and is on its way to $11.50 in 2016. The paid sick days law newly covers tipped restaurant workers and allows all workers to use accrued sick leave after only 90 days on the job. Join a press conference at Flava, 618 T St NW. Afterwards, help canvass businesses in the Shaw neighborhood to ensure business owners know requirements of the law and workers’ know their rights.
15] – Interested in the future of the internet? On Tues., July 1, CODEPINK will be at the Federal Communications Commission, 445 12th St. SW, at noon for a picket and street theater performance of “Which Side Are You On, Tom?” A co-sponsor is Popular Resistance, which means lots of fun with singing, dancing and a tug of war between the people and the telecom giants. RSVP at info@popularresistance.org. You can also join a rehearsal at the CODEPINK house on Mon., June 30 at 6:30 PM at 1241 Evarts St. NE, WDC.
16] – Each Tuesday from 4:30 - 5:30 PM, the Catholic Peace Fellowship-Philadelphia for peace in Afghanistan and Iraq gathers at the Suburban Station, 16th St. & JFK Blvd., at the entrance to Tracks 3 and 4 on the mezzanine. The next vigil is July 1. Call 215-426-0364.
17] – Vigil to say "No Drone Research at JHU" each Tuesday at 33rd & North Charles Sts. Join this ongoing vigil on July 1 from 5:30 to 6:30 PM. Call Max at 410-366-1637.
18] – Dine at the Roti Mediterranean Grill, 1629 K St. NW, WDC, on Tues., July 1 from 6 to 8 PM to help raise money for Split This Rock (www.splitthisrock.org), a DC non-profit that calls poets to a greater role in public life and fosters a national network of socially engaged poets. Building the audience for poetry of provocation and witness, it explores and celebrates the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for change. Roti will donate 20% of what is spent by patrons participating in the fundraiser to Split This Rock. To ensure that your purchase is credited correctly, you'll need to present a flyer for the fundraiser to the cashier. A Split This Rock representative will be outside of the restaurant or you can contact Camisha Jones at Split This Rock (camisha@splitthisrock.org).
19] – Andrew Mazan leads a free monthly pet bereavement support group that meets the first Tuesday of every month at 7 PM at Baltimore Humane Society, 1601 Nicodemus Road. RSVP at 410-833-8848. Private counseling is also available. Go to http://www.baltimorehumane.org.
20] – Wed., July 2 is the 38th anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1976 decision in Gregg V. Georgia, in which new death penalty laws were upheld and state-sponsored prisoner killings were allowed to resume. The vigil at the Supreme Court will end that evening. A closing circle will begin at 11:15 PM so people can share about their experiences with the group. At 12:01 AM on Thursday, they will break the fast with a meal, prepared by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, outside the court.
To be continued.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
"I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours." - Martin Luther King Jr.
Friends, this list and other email documents which I send out are done under the auspices of the Baltimore Nonviolence Center. Go to www.baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com. If you appreciate this information and would like to make a donation, send contributions to BNC, 325 East 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218. Max Obuszewski can be reached at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski [at] verizon.net.
Tune into the Maryland Progressive Blog at http://mdprogblog.org.
1] Books, buttons & stickers
2] Web site for info on federal legislation
3] Join Nonviolent Resistance lists
4] Buy coffee through HoCoFoLa
5] See THE EXONERATED – through July 6
6] Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity – through Aug. 31
7] Marc Steiner on WEAA – June 30 – July 4
8] Hearing about the family shelter – June 30
9] Ian Schlakman, Green Party, announces his run for U. S. House of Representatives – June 30
10] Planning meeting for the People's Climate March – June 30
11] Discussion with Barbara Arnwine – June 30
12] Pledge of Resistance/Fund Our Communities meeting – June 30
13] LGBT community marks the 50th Anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act – June 30
14] Celebrate D.C.'s minimum wage increase – July 1
15] Protest at the Federal Communications Commission – July 1
16] Philadelphia Peace Vigil – July 1
17] "No Drone Research at JHU" – July 1
18] Split This Rock fundraiser – July 1
19] Monthly pet bereavement support group meeting – July 1
20] 38th anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1976 decision in Gregg V. Georgia – July 2
-----
1] – Buttons, bumperstickers and books are available. “God Bless the Whole World, No Exceptions” stickers are in stock. Donate your books to Max. Call him at 410-366-1637.
2] – To obtain information how your federal legislators voted on particular bills, go to http://thomas.loc.gov/. Congressional toll-free numbers are 888-818-6641, 888-355-3588 or 800-426-8073. The White House Comment Email is accessible at http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/.
3] – THE ORGANIZING LIST will be the primary decision-making mechanism of the National Campaign of Nonviolent Resistance [NCNR]. It will be augmented by conference calls and possibly in-person meetings as needed. It will consist of 1 or 2 representatives from each local, regional, or national organization (not coalitions) that wishes to actively work to carry out the NCNR campaign of facilitating and organizing nonviolent resistance to the war in Iraq. To join the ORGANIZING List, please send your name, group affiliation, city and email address to mobuszewski at Verizon dot net. Different local chapters of a national organization are encouraged to subscribe.
THE NOTICES LIST will include only notices of NCNR actions and related information and is open to any interested person to subscribe. It will be moderated to maintain focus & will include periodic notices about getting involved in NCNR national organizing. To join the NOTICES List, send an email message to mobuszewski at Verizon dot net.
4] – You can help safeguard human rights and fragile ecosystems through your purchase of HOCOFOLA Café Quetzal. Bags of ground coffee or whole beans can be ordered by mailing in an order form. Also note organic cocoa and sugar are for sale. For more details and to download the order form, go to http://friendsoflatinamerica.typepad.com/hocofola/2010/02/hocofola-cafe-quetzal-order-form-2010.html. The coffee comes in one-pound bags.
Fill out the form and mail it with a check made out to HOCOFOLA on or before the second week of the month. Be sure you indicate ground or beans for each type of coffee ordered. Send it to Francine Sheppard at 5639B, Harpers Farm Rd., Columbia 21044. The coffee will arrive some time the following week and you will be notified where to pick it up. Contact Francine at 410-992-7679 or FrancineMSW@aol.com.
5] – Enjoy “The Exonerated,” a thrilling docudrama by the Vagabond Players. The play transports viewers into the hearts and minds of 6 death row inmates who are actually innocent. It is thought provoking and provocative, and will make viewers recognize the madness of a death penalty. The performances will continue through July 6 at 806 S. Broadway. Call 410-563-9135 or go to http://vagabondplayers.org.
6] – See the exhibit Human, Soul & Machine: The Coming Singularity, which
delves into the various ways technology affects lives through the perspective of inventors, futurists and 40 plus visionary artists. The intent is to bring new thoughts on artificial intelligence, robotics, genetics, nanotechnology, 3D printing, and big data, and you can see it through August 31 at the American Visionary Art Museum, 800 Key Hwy. Call 410-244-1900. Go to http://avam.org. A ticket costs $20.
7] – The Marc Steiner Show airs Monday through Friday from 9 to 11 AM on WEAA 88.9 FM, The Voice of the Community, or online at www.weaa.org. The call-in number is 410-319-8888, and comments can also be sent by email to steinershow@gmail.com. All shows are also available as podcasts at www.steinershow.org.
8] – Get over to the Wilson Building, 1350 Pennsylvania Ave. NW on Mon., June 30 from 11 AM to 1PM for a hearing about the family shelter in room 500. It will address two items: 1 -- the proposal to build a playground at the facility and 2 -- the dignity of homeless families. Those who wish to testify should contact Mr. Malcolm Cameron of the Committee on Human Services at mcameron@dccouncil.us or at 202-724-8191.
9] – On Mon., June 30 at 11 AM at the War Memorial Plaza in Baltimore, Ian Schlakman will be formally announcing his campaign for United States House of Representatives, District 2. Schlakman, of Baltimore, will be officially accepting the nomination of the Maryland Green Party as its candidate for the 2nd District U.S. House race.
Supporters will join Ian Schlakman as he makes his campaign announcement on the lawn of War Memorial Plaza. He will also be available for interviews at 218 East Lexington St., Suite 203 at 1 PM. Go to http://marylandgreenparty.org. Call 443-240-6915.
10] – Join a planning meeting for the People's Climate March, happening September 20th-21st in NYC, on Mon., June 30 from 5 to 6 PM at 420 7th St. In September, world leaders are coming to New York City for a historic summit on climate change. With our future on the line and the whole world watching, we’ll take a stand to bend the course of history. Together, we’ll take to the streets to demand the world we know is within our reach: a world with an economy that works for people and the planet. Make the world safe from the ravages of climate change and a place with good jobs, clean air, and healthy communities for everyone. Contact Elise Shulman at eliseshulman@gmail.com.
11] – On Mon., June 30 from 6 to 7:30 PM hear a discussion with Barbara Arnwine, president & executive director of the national Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, in Room 505, 4340 Connecticut Ave. NW. She is internationally renowned for contributions on critical justice issues including the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1991 and creation of the renowned 2011 Voting Rights “Map of Shame.” A graduate of Scripps College and Duke University School of Law, she continues to champion civil rights and racial justice issues nationally and internationally in the areas of housing and lending, community development, employment, voting, education, and environmental justice. Ms. Arnwine’s work also includes immigrant rights, judicial diversity, criminal justice reform, racial profiling and health care disparities. Contact Professor John Brittain at JBrittain@udc.edu.
12] – The Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore usually meets on Mondays at 7:30 PM, and the meetings take place at Max’s residence. The next meeting will be on Mon., June 30, and it is the last meeting at Roundhill Road. The proposed agenda will include news that Max has moved, a report on the appeal of the conviction of the CIA Five, anti-drone activities, including the arrests at the NSA on May 3, the July 4 visit to the NSA, a report on the conference in Chicago, FREEDOM SUMMER, and the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Commemoration. Call 410-366-1637 or email mobuszewski at verizon.net for directions.
13] – On Mon., June 30 at 8:30 PM, mark the 50th Anniversary of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, as LGBT community activists will gather at the MLK Memorial, 1964 Independence Ave. SW, to herald LGBT civil rights heroes Bayard Rustin & Eleanor Roosevelt, and call on Congress to "ADD 4 WORDS" "sexual orientation, gender identity" (SO&GI) -- to America's nondiscrimination laws. The event also launches a new nationwide coalition - The Equality Pledge Network - based on The Pledge for Full LGBT Equality, supported by over 245 organizations in 44 states. This campaign is all volunteer and represents the vanguard strategy of the LGBT movement. The vigil will include singing, community hugs, and an open forum for speeches on the topic of full and equal LGBT civil rights, as a human rights imperative and public health emergency. Bring RAINBOW colored items, FLASH LIGHTS, and posters with the slogan “ADD 4 WORDS." Visit http://bit.ly/Add4WordsDCjune30.
14] – On Tues., July 1 at 11 AM, the Paid Sick Days for All Coalition, Respect DC and the Wage Theft Coalition are celebrating D.C.'s minimum wage increase and expansion of the paid sick days law! The D.C. minimum wage will go up to $9.50 an hour on July 1st and is on its way to $11.50 in 2016. The paid sick days law newly covers tipped restaurant workers and allows all workers to use accrued sick leave after only 90 days on the job. Join a press conference at Flava, 618 T St NW. Afterwards, help canvass businesses in the Shaw neighborhood to ensure business owners know requirements of the law and workers’ know their rights.
15] – Interested in the future of the internet? On Tues., July 1, CODEPINK will be at the Federal Communications Commission, 445 12th St. SW, at noon for a picket and street theater performance of “Which Side Are You On, Tom?” A co-sponsor is Popular Resistance, which means lots of fun with singing, dancing and a tug of war between the people and the telecom giants. RSVP at info@popularresistance.org. You can also join a rehearsal at the CODEPINK house on Mon., June 30 at 6:30 PM at 1241 Evarts St. NE, WDC.
16] – Each Tuesday from 4:30 - 5:30 PM, the Catholic Peace Fellowship-Philadelphia for peace in Afghanistan and Iraq gathers at the Suburban Station, 16th St. & JFK Blvd., at the entrance to Tracks 3 and 4 on the mezzanine. The next vigil is July 1. Call 215-426-0364.
17] – Vigil to say "No Drone Research at JHU" each Tuesday at 33rd & North Charles Sts. Join this ongoing vigil on July 1 from 5:30 to 6:30 PM. Call Max at 410-366-1637.
18] – Dine at the Roti Mediterranean Grill, 1629 K St. NW, WDC, on Tues., July 1 from 6 to 8 PM to help raise money for Split This Rock (www.splitthisrock.org), a DC non-profit that calls poets to a greater role in public life and fosters a national network of socially engaged poets. Building the audience for poetry of provocation and witness, it explores and celebrates the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for change. Roti will donate 20% of what is spent by patrons participating in the fundraiser to Split This Rock. To ensure that your purchase is credited correctly, you'll need to present a flyer for the fundraiser to the cashier. A Split This Rock representative will be outside of the restaurant or you can contact Camisha Jones at Split This Rock (camisha@splitthisrock.org).
19] – Andrew Mazan leads a free monthly pet bereavement support group that meets the first Tuesday of every month at 7 PM at Baltimore Humane Society, 1601 Nicodemus Road. RSVP at 410-833-8848. Private counseling is also available. Go to http://www.baltimorehumane.org.
20] – Wed., July 2 is the 38th anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1976 decision in Gregg V. Georgia, in which new death penalty laws were upheld and state-sponsored prisoner killings were allowed to resume. The vigil at the Supreme Court will end that evening. A closing circle will begin at 11:15 PM so people can share about their experiences with the group. At 12:01 AM on Thursday, they will break the fast with a meal, prepared by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, outside the court.
To be continued.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Protest at the NSA/Potluck picnic/Protesters Fly Blimp Over NSA Data Center in Utah
Friends,
While our protest will be land-based, join the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore in its annual Fourth of July trek to protest at the National Security Agency. This is Interdependence Day, and the criminal activity of the NSA must be challenged. Car pooling will begin at 10 AM on Fri., July 4 for the demonstration from 11 AM to noon. Call for information about the car pooling—410-366-1637—or use the Canine Road entrance to meet at 11 AM in the visitor’s parking lot at Fort Meade. Email mobuszewski@verizon.net.
DID YOU KNOW 34 million people will be traveling more than 50 miles this Fourth of July. You don't want to be with them. Instead, come to a cookout and get a report from the 30th National Convention of the CPUSA on Fri., July 4 from 5 to 8 PM at the home of Cindy and Sharon, 115 Springside Drive, Timonium 21093.
The three delegates from Baltimore who attended the Chicago convention will try to convey the enthusiasm of the delegates and national / international guests involved in the upsurge of people’s struggles, including young people working in the low-wage worker campaign which the Party is helping to build. Join the discussion of how the movements and the Communist Party of Maryland can be most effective in growing and helping to unite these struggles, including the challenge of this fall’s elections. Bring a dish or beverage to share. RSVP at 443-604-2298.
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/323-95/24480-protesters-fly-blimp-over-nsa-data-center-in-utah
Dobner writes: "Three activist groups flew a blimp emblazoned with the words 'Illegal Spying Below' over the National Security Agency's data center in Utah on Friday in protest against the federal government's mass surveillance programs."
Greenpeace flew a blimp above the NSA data center in Utah. (photo: Greenpeace)
Protesters Fly Blimp Over NSA Data Center in Utah
By Jennifer Dobner, Reuters
27 June 14
Three activist groups flew a blimp emblazoned with the words "Illegal Spying Below" over the National Security Agency's data center in Utah on Friday in protest against the federal government's mass surveillance programs.
The one-hour flight over the high-tech facility was launched by the environmental group Greenpeace, digital rights activists the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a conservative political organization, the Tenth Amendment Center.
The 135-foot-long (41-meter-long) blimp, which is owned by Greenpeace, was adorned with a sign that read, "NSA Illegal Spying Below."
In an email to Reuters, the agency declined to comment. But a spokesman did note there is no restricted airspace over the data center, housed on the grounds of the Utah National Guard's Camp Williams, in Bluffdale, 23 miles (37 km) south of Salt Lake City.
The facility, which the NSA says provides the government with intelligence and warnings about cyber security threats, is thought to be the agency's largest data storage center.
The blimp protest coincided with the launch of an online campaign that rates members of Congress on actions the activists say either further or stop data collection efforts by the NSA.
Greenpeace said the report cards on the site standagainstspying.org were created by analyzing NSA reform bills in Congress and weighting proposals on the degree to which they would end mass data collection.
"Our right to privacy is not a partisan issue. It's a human rights issue," said Michael Boldin, founder of Tenth Amendment Center, which advocates for decentralized government.
"This coalition gives great hope for the future because it shows that people across the political spectrum can set aside differences to work together."
© 2014 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
While our protest will be land-based, join the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore in its annual Fourth of July trek to protest at the National Security Agency. This is Interdependence Day, and the criminal activity of the NSA must be challenged. Car pooling will begin at 10 AM on Fri., July 4 for the demonstration from 11 AM to noon. Call for information about the car pooling—410-366-1637—or use the Canine Road entrance to meet at 11 AM in the visitor’s parking lot at Fort Meade. Email mobuszewski@verizon.net.
DID YOU KNOW 34 million people will be traveling more than 50 miles this Fourth of July. You don't want to be with them. Instead, come to a cookout and get a report from the 30th National Convention of the CPUSA on Fri., July 4 from 5 to 8 PM at the home of Cindy and Sharon, 115 Springside Drive, Timonium 21093.
The three delegates from Baltimore who attended the Chicago convention will try to convey the enthusiasm of the delegates and national / international guests involved in the upsurge of people’s struggles, including young people working in the low-wage worker campaign which the Party is helping to build. Join the discussion of how the movements and the Communist Party of Maryland can be most effective in growing and helping to unite these struggles, including the challenge of this fall’s elections. Bring a dish or beverage to share. RSVP at 443-604-2298.
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/323-95/24480-protesters-fly-blimp-over-nsa-data-center-in-utah
Dobner writes: "Three activist groups flew a blimp emblazoned with the words 'Illegal Spying Below' over the National Security Agency's data center in Utah on Friday in protest against the federal government's mass surveillance programs."
Greenpeace flew a blimp above the NSA data center in Utah. (photo: Greenpeace)
Protesters Fly Blimp Over NSA Data Center in Utah
By Jennifer Dobner, Reuters
27 June 14
Three activist groups flew a blimp emblazoned with the words "Illegal Spying Below" over the National Security Agency's data center in Utah on Friday in protest against the federal government's mass surveillance programs.
The one-hour flight over the high-tech facility was launched by the environmental group Greenpeace, digital rights activists the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a conservative political organization, the Tenth Amendment Center.
The 135-foot-long (41-meter-long) blimp, which is owned by Greenpeace, was adorned with a sign that read, "NSA Illegal Spying Below."
In an email to Reuters, the agency declined to comment. But a spokesman did note there is no restricted airspace over the data center, housed on the grounds of the Utah National Guard's Camp Williams, in Bluffdale, 23 miles (37 km) south of Salt Lake City.
The facility, which the NSA says provides the government with intelligence and warnings about cyber security threats, is thought to be the agency's largest data storage center.
The blimp protest coincided with the launch of an online campaign that rates members of Congress on actions the activists say either further or stop data collection efforts by the NSA.
Greenpeace said the report cards on the site standagainstspying.org were created by analyzing NSA reform bills in Congress and weighting proposals on the degree to which they would end mass data collection.
"Our right to privacy is not a partisan issue. It's a human rights issue," said Michael Boldin, founder of Tenth Amendment Center, which advocates for decentralized government.
"This coalition gives great hope for the future because it shows that people across the political spectrum can set aside differences to work together."
© 2014 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Oil and Gas Industry Buys Colorado Fracking Election
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/271-38/24486-oil-and-gas-industry-buys-colorado-fracking-election
Wockner writes: "In what may have been the most expensive and farce of an election in the history of Colorado, the oil and gas industry has likely spent $1 million to buy a fracking election in the city of Loveland, Colorado."
The anti-fracking fight continues in Colorado where 53,000 active wells are splattered across the landscape and about 3,000 new wells are drilled every year, many of those in suburban neighborhoods like Loveland. (photo: Circle of Blue)
Oil and Gas Industry Buys Colorado Fracking Election
By Gary Wockner, EcoWatch
27 June 14
In what may have been the most expensive and farce of an election in the history of Colorado, the oil and gas industry has likely spent $1 million to buy a fracking election in the city of Loveland, CO. When the votes were tallied last night for a two-year fracking moratorium in Loveland, “no” votes squeaked out a victory by a 10,844 to 9,942 margin, getting just 52 percent of the vote.
The industry has so-far reported spending more than $375,000 on those 10,844 votes, but massive unreported spending that exploited a loophole in the Colorado campaign finance law ruled the election. As long as the industry’s ads didn’t say “vote for” or “vote against,” they didn’t have to report their spending. That resulted in a deluge of an aerial attack of TV ads, radio ads, newspaper ads and inserts, and mailers that inundated voters in Loveland. Residents reported getting one and sometimes two mailers a day over the last three weeks, many including bucolic photos of pristine Colorado landscapes while hailing positive aspects of fracking.
Anti-fracking activists from a local group Protect Our Loveland spent about $7,500 trying to pass the moratorium. In the end, Protect Our Loveland was likely outspent by a 100 – 1 margin by the most profitable industry on the planet.
At the same time that the industry bought the election, it also fought fiercely to manipulate the election date and process. Anti-fracking activists in Loveland gathered the signatures and tried to place the vote on the ballot in November of 2013 at the same time that anti-fracking elections swept neighboring cities of Fort Collins, Boulder, Lafayette and Broomfield in Colorado’s “Frack Zone.” But, the oil and gas industry sued in court to get the election postponed and bullied the Loveland City Council into delaying the vote. A couple months later, a judge ruled against the industry and the city and forced the election to occur. An industry-friendly city council then cherry-picked a date—June 24—for the election that coincided with the hotly contested Republican Governor’s race in Colorado, thus ensuring a large turnout of very conservative voters.
The anti-fracking fight continues in Colorado where 53,000 active wells are splattered across the landscape and about 3,000 new wells are drilled every year, many of those in suburban neighborhoods like Loveland. But, one thing is clear: the oil and gas industry will do anything, say anything and spend anything to force fracking down the throats of citizens. If you’re involved in the fracking fights in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas or California, be forewarned—this industry is fighting for its life and you will have to fight for yours, too.
© 2014 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Wockner writes: "In what may have been the most expensive and farce of an election in the history of Colorado, the oil and gas industry has likely spent $1 million to buy a fracking election in the city of Loveland, Colorado."
The anti-fracking fight continues in Colorado where 53,000 active wells are splattered across the landscape and about 3,000 new wells are drilled every year, many of those in suburban neighborhoods like Loveland. (photo: Circle of Blue)
Oil and Gas Industry Buys Colorado Fracking Election
By Gary Wockner, EcoWatch
27 June 14
In what may have been the most expensive and farce of an election in the history of Colorado, the oil and gas industry has likely spent $1 million to buy a fracking election in the city of Loveland, CO. When the votes were tallied last night for a two-year fracking moratorium in Loveland, “no” votes squeaked out a victory by a 10,844 to 9,942 margin, getting just 52 percent of the vote.
The industry has so-far reported spending more than $375,000 on those 10,844 votes, but massive unreported spending that exploited a loophole in the Colorado campaign finance law ruled the election. As long as the industry’s ads didn’t say “vote for” or “vote against,” they didn’t have to report their spending. That resulted in a deluge of an aerial attack of TV ads, radio ads, newspaper ads and inserts, and mailers that inundated voters in Loveland. Residents reported getting one and sometimes two mailers a day over the last three weeks, many including bucolic photos of pristine Colorado landscapes while hailing positive aspects of fracking.
Anti-fracking activists from a local group Protect Our Loveland spent about $7,500 trying to pass the moratorium. In the end, Protect Our Loveland was likely outspent by a 100 – 1 margin by the most profitable industry on the planet.
At the same time that the industry bought the election, it also fought fiercely to manipulate the election date and process. Anti-fracking activists in Loveland gathered the signatures and tried to place the vote on the ballot in November of 2013 at the same time that anti-fracking elections swept neighboring cities of Fort Collins, Boulder, Lafayette and Broomfield in Colorado’s “Frack Zone.” But, the oil and gas industry sued in court to get the election postponed and bullied the Loveland City Council into delaying the vote. A couple months later, a judge ruled against the industry and the city and forced the election to occur. An industry-friendly city council then cherry-picked a date—June 24—for the election that coincided with the hotly contested Republican Governor’s race in Colorado, thus ensuring a large turnout of very conservative voters.
The anti-fracking fight continues in Colorado where 53,000 active wells are splattered across the landscape and about 3,000 new wells are drilled every year, many of those in suburban neighborhoods like Loveland. But, one thing is clear: the oil and gas industry will do anything, say anything and spend anything to force fracking down the throats of citizens. If you’re involved in the fracking fights in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas or California, be forewarned—this industry is fighting for its life and you will have to fight for yours, too.
© 2014 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
What We Can Learn From Lawrence of Arabia
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/24652-bill-moyers-essay-what-we-can-learn-from-lawrence-of-arabia
What We Can Learn From Lawrence of Arabia
Saturday, 28 June 2014 10:00 By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Moyers & Company | Video Report
British Army File photo of T.E. Lawrence. (Photo via CC)
As fears grow of a widening war across the Middle East, fed by reports that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) envisions a region-wide, all controlling theocracy, we found ourselves talking about another war. The Great War – or World War I, as it would come to be called — was triggered one hundred years ago this month when an assassin shot and killed Austria's Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Through a series of tangled alliances and a cascade of misunderstandings and blunders, that single act of violence brought on a bloody catastrophe. More than 37 million people were killed or wounded.
In America, if we reflect on World War I at all, we think mostly about the battlefields and trenches of Europe and tend to forget another front in that war — against the Ottoman Empire of the Turks that dominated the Middle East. A British Army officer named T.E. Lawrence became a hero in the Arab world when he led nomadic Bedouin tribes in battle against Turkish rule. Peter O'Toole immortalized him in the epic movie, "Lawrence of Arabia."
You may remember the scene when, after dynamiting the Hijaz railway and looting a Turkish supply train, Lawrence is asked by an American reporter, "What, in your opinion, do these people hope to gain from this war?"
"They hope to gain their freedom," Lawrence replies, and when the journalist scoffs, insists, "They're going to get it. I'm going to give it to them."
At war's end, Lawrence's vision of Arab independence was shattered when the Versailles peace conference confirmed the carving of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine into British and French spheres of influence; arbitrary boundaries drawn in the sand to satisfy the appetites of empire – Britain's Foreign Office even called the former Ottoman lands "The Great Loot."
The hopeful Lawrence drew his own "peace map" of the region, one that paid closer heed to tribal allegiances and rivalries. The map could have saved the world a lot of time, trouble and treasure, one historian said, providing the region "with a far better starting point than the crude imperial carve up." Lawrence wrote to a British major in Cairo: "I'm afraid you will be delayed a long time, cleaning up all the messes and oddments we have left behind us."
Since 2003, as the reckless invasion of Iraq unfolded, demand for Lawrence's book, "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" increased eightfold. It was taught at the Pentagon and Sandhurst — Britain's West Point — for its insights into fighting war in the Middle East. In 2010, Major Niel Smith, who had served as operations officer for the US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center, told The Christian Science Monitor, "T.E. Lawrence has in some ways become the patron saint of the US Army advisory effort in Afghanistan and Iraq."
But then and now, Lawrence's understanding of the ancient and potent jealousies of the people among whom he had lived and fought generally was ignored. In 1920, he wrote for the Times of London an unsettling and prophetic article about Iraq – then under the thumb of the British. He decried the money spent, the number of troops and loss of life, and warned that his countrymen had been led "into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information.... Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It... may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster."
Not for the last time in the Middle East would disaster come from the blundering ignorance and blinding arrogance of foreign intruders convinced by magical thinking of their own omnipotence and righteousness. How soon we forget. How often we repeat.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
What We Can Learn From Lawrence of Arabia
Saturday, 28 June 2014 10:00 By Bill Moyers and Michael Winship, Moyers & Company | Video Report
British Army File photo of T.E. Lawrence. (Photo via CC)
As fears grow of a widening war across the Middle East, fed by reports that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) envisions a region-wide, all controlling theocracy, we found ourselves talking about another war. The Great War – or World War I, as it would come to be called — was triggered one hundred years ago this month when an assassin shot and killed Austria's Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo. Through a series of tangled alliances and a cascade of misunderstandings and blunders, that single act of violence brought on a bloody catastrophe. More than 37 million people were killed or wounded.
In America, if we reflect on World War I at all, we think mostly about the battlefields and trenches of Europe and tend to forget another front in that war — against the Ottoman Empire of the Turks that dominated the Middle East. A British Army officer named T.E. Lawrence became a hero in the Arab world when he led nomadic Bedouin tribes in battle against Turkish rule. Peter O'Toole immortalized him in the epic movie, "Lawrence of Arabia."
You may remember the scene when, after dynamiting the Hijaz railway and looting a Turkish supply train, Lawrence is asked by an American reporter, "What, in your opinion, do these people hope to gain from this war?"
"They hope to gain their freedom," Lawrence replies, and when the journalist scoffs, insists, "They're going to get it. I'm going to give it to them."
At war's end, Lawrence's vision of Arab independence was shattered when the Versailles peace conference confirmed the carving of Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine into British and French spheres of influence; arbitrary boundaries drawn in the sand to satisfy the appetites of empire – Britain's Foreign Office even called the former Ottoman lands "The Great Loot."
The hopeful Lawrence drew his own "peace map" of the region, one that paid closer heed to tribal allegiances and rivalries. The map could have saved the world a lot of time, trouble and treasure, one historian said, providing the region "with a far better starting point than the crude imperial carve up." Lawrence wrote to a British major in Cairo: "I'm afraid you will be delayed a long time, cleaning up all the messes and oddments we have left behind us."
Since 2003, as the reckless invasion of Iraq unfolded, demand for Lawrence's book, "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" increased eightfold. It was taught at the Pentagon and Sandhurst — Britain's West Point — for its insights into fighting war in the Middle East. In 2010, Major Niel Smith, who had served as operations officer for the US Army and Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Center, told The Christian Science Monitor, "T.E. Lawrence has in some ways become the patron saint of the US Army advisory effort in Afghanistan and Iraq."
But then and now, Lawrence's understanding of the ancient and potent jealousies of the people among whom he had lived and fought generally was ignored. In 1920, he wrote for the Times of London an unsettling and prophetic article about Iraq – then under the thumb of the British. He decried the money spent, the number of troops and loss of life, and warned that his countrymen had been led "into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information.... Things have been far worse than we have been told, our administration more bloody and inefficient than the public knows. It... may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure. We are today not far from a disaster."
Not for the last time in the Middle East would disaster come from the blundering ignorance and blinding arrogance of foreign intruders convinced by magical thinking of their own omnipotence and righteousness. How soon we forget. How often we repeat.
This piece was reprinted by Truthout with permission or license. It may not be reproduced in any form without permission or license from the source.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Baltimore Activist Alert - June 29 - August 10, 2014
63] Fast to abolish the death penalty - June 29 – July 2
64] “Yoga: Body and Mind” – June 29
65] Peace and Pancakes – June 29
65] Film "Al Helm (The Dream): Martin Luther King in Palestine" – June 29
66] "Potluck Poetry: Voices of African and Asian Diasporas" – June 29
67] “Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition” – June 29
68] Ring of Fire zine anthology – June 29
69] Pentagon Vigil – June 30
70] Protest at the NSA – July 4
71] Cookout – July 4
72] Save the date! - Aug. 10
73] Support a Peace Camp
74] Ronda Cooperstein on social media
75] Sign up with Washington Peace Center
76] Join Fund Our Communities
77] Donate books, videos, DVDs and records
78] Do you need any book shelves or file cabinets?
79] Join Global Zero campaign
80] War Is Not the Answer signs for sale
81] Join Peace Park Antinuclear Vigil
------
62] – On Sun., June 29 at 12:01 AM on the Supreme Court steps, the Death Penalty Abolitionist Action Group will vigil through Wed., July 2, all day. For these four days, death penalty abolitionists from around the country will gather at the steps of the Supreme Court to call for an end to capital punishment in the United States. It is an energizing grassroots week of training, advocacy, action, community and education. Tens of thousands of tourists and locals, from all over the U.S. and throughout the world, pass by the vigil and table, so the opportunity for dialogue and discussion at a real grass-roots level is invaluable to the movement. Go to http://www.abolition.org/fastandvigil/register.html.
63] - Usually, the Baltimore Ethical Society, 306 W. Franklin St., Suite 102, Baltimore 21201-4661, meets on Sundays, and generally there is a speaker and discussion from 10:30 AM to noon. On Sun., June 29, the platform address is “Yoga: Body and Mind.” After last summer’s successful seated-yoga program, Hugh Taft-Morales will offer another supplemented with more personal insights into the benefits of increased harmony between the body and mind he attains through his modest yoga practice. Wear comfortable clothes if you want to participate in some gentle poses. Call 410-581-2322 or email ask@bmorethical.org.
64] - Join the Kadampa Meditation Center for Peace and Pancakes on Sundays at 10:30 AM at KMC Maryland, 2937 North Charles St. All are invited to participate in guided meditation and chant praying for world peace. There will be a talk based on Buddhist thought followed by brunch. Call 410- 243-3837. Brunch is $5.
65] - On Sun., June 29 from 2 to 4 PM, Jewish Voice for Peace - DC Metro Chapter invites you to a special screening and discussion of the new film by the award-winning filmmaker Connie Fields: "Al Helm (The Dream): Martin Luther King in Palestine" at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Meeting Room A-5, 901 G St. NW, WDC 20001. Use the Metro at Gallery Place or Metro Center. Light refreshments will be served.
An African-American gospel choir travels to the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories to sing in a play about Martin Luther King Jr. and the American civil rights struggle. During their visit, Juliano Mer-Khamis, the director of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, is assassinated, sending shock-waves throughout Palestine and the world. Over the course of the choir’s journey, a deeply personal and cultural exchange takes place, and pre-conceived notions on the part of the choir’s members and the Palestinians who meet and work with them are radically transformed.
“Nothing lights a fire like a dream deferred.” -Bernice Johnson Reagon. “If you don’t have anything worth dying for, find something.” -Martin Luther King Jr. Call 240-425-7581 or email jvpdcmetro@gmail.com. Visit http://www.JewishVoiceforPeace.org/DCMetro/.
66] - Enjoy the Teahouse Commons (near the Washington Monument) at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall on Sun., June 29 from 4:15 to 5:30 PM. Come out to listen or even tell your own story at the Teahouse Commons, adjacent to the Washington Monument as Busboys and Poets presents "Potluck Poetry: Voices of African and Asian Diasporas." Take in the words and sounds served up fresh by local Asian and Africa diaspora artists, including Bomani Armah, G. Yamazawa, Farafina Kan African Drumming Ensemble, the South Asian Performing Arts Network, Pages Matam and 2 Deep the Poet. This program highlights a diverse array of cultural flavors combining D.C.'s own folk art, spoken word, with global musical traditions.
67] – On Sun., June 29 at 7 PM, there is a chance to watch “Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition” at D.C. Pink House, 1241 Evarts St. NE, WDC 20018. This acclaimed new release pulls back the curtain on Charles and David Koch, yanking them out of the shadows and exposing them for what they are: a self-interested, ultraconservative demolition crew hell-bent on crushing the Affordable Care Act, Social Security and the Environmental Protection Agency. RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/249793788560671/?ref=3&ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular.
68] – ET Russian (aka Hellery Homosex) presents the Ring of Fire zine anthology on Sun., June 29 at 7:30 PM @ Red Emma's, 30 W. North Ave., Baltimore 21201. This is a collection of the zine from the late 1990s by ET Russian (aka Hellery Homosex), and features new material never before published. Ring of Fire is honest, engaging, and ahead of its time. Through black and white ink drawings, comics, linoleum block print portraits, essays, interviews and erotica, this collection explores the intersections of art, bodies, healthcare, ability, gender, race, community, class, healing and the politics of work. Call 443-602-7585. Go to http://www.redemmas.org.
69] -- There is a weekly Pentagon Peace Vigil from 7 to 8 AM on Mondays, since 1987, outside the Pentagon Metro stop. The next vigil is Mon., June 30, and it is sponsored by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. Email artlaffin@hotmail.com or call 202-882-9649.
The vigil will be outside the Pentagon's south Metro entrance and in the designated "protest zone" behind bicycle fences across from the entrance to the Metro. By Metro, take Yellow Line and get out at the "Pentagon" stop. Do not go to the Pentagon City stop! Go up south escalators and turn left and walk across to protest area.
By car from D.C. area, take 395 South and get off at Exit 8A-Pentagon South Parking. Take slight right onto S. Rotary Rd. at end of ramp and right on S. Fern St. Then take left onto Army Navy Dr. You can "pay to park" on Army Navy Dr., and there is meter parking one block on right on Eads St. Payment for both of these spots begin at 8 AM. No cameras are allowed on Pentagon grounds. Restrooms are located inside Marriott Residence Inn on corner of S. Fern and Army Navy Dr.
70] – Join the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore in its annual Fourth of July trek to protest at the National Security Agency. This is Interdependence Day, and the criminal activity of the NSA must be challenged. Car pooling will begin at 10 AM on Fri., July 4 for the demonstration from 11 AM to noon. Call for information about the car pooling—410-366-1637—or use the Canine Road entrance to meet at 11 AM in the visitor’s parking lot at Fort Meade. Email mobuszewski@verizon.net.
71] – DID YOU KNOW 34 million people will be traveling more than 50 miles this Fourth of July. You don't want to be with them. Instead, come to a cookout and get a report from the 30th National Convention of the CPUSA on Fri., July 4 from 5 to 8 PM at the home of Cindy and Sharon, 115 Springside Drive, Timonium 21093.
The three delegates from Baltimore who attended the Chicago convention will try to convey the enthusiasm of the delegates and national / international guests involved in the upsurge of people’s struggles, including young people working in the low-wage worker campaign which the Party is helping to build. Join the discussion of how the movements and the Communist Party of Maryland can be most effective in growing and helping to unite these struggles, including the challenge of this fall’s elections. Bring a dish or beverage to share. RSVP at 443-604-2298.
72] – SAVE THE DATE!!!!! Get over to "Family Fun" night to raise funds for Dr. Mutulu Skakur and the development of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to free our Political Prisoners/Prisoners of War. It will take place at Skateland North Point, 1113 Old North Point Rd., Baltimore 21222, on Sun., Aug. 10 from 4:30 to 7:30 PM. Admission is $10 which includes skate rental. Contact Abdul-Jabbar at 610.621.0699 (Maryland State Jericho). Go to http://mutulushakur.com/site/.
73] – Can you help out the Nawal G. Rajeh Peace Camp? Nonviolence and positive conflict resolution is taught to children while providing them a summer camp, fun experience. This year's camp is for four weeks at the 29th Street Community Center in the Harwood neighborhood and three weeks at the Drs. Camille and Bill Cosby Community Center at St. Frances Academy in Johnston Square, both East Baltimore neighborhoods.
There will be morning classes to help the young persons, ranging in age from 5 to 12 years old, retain their school based skills writing about "peace heroes" and reading books that encourage positive communication. The afternoons will be filled with activities such as swimming, art, music and free time in the gyms. Some 70 children will attend the camp. Can you make a contribution to support the Nawal G. Rajeh Peace Camp of 2014 and reach out to your network of friends? Funds will be used toward instruction in yoga, drumming, dance and art.
Greater Homewood Community Corporation will serve as the fiscal agent for Peace Camp. Checks should be made out to By Peaceful Means and mailed to GHCC, 3503 N. Charles St., Baltimore 21218. Help keep children out of the extreme heat of the summer sun and from the dangerous bullets flying freely in our inner-city neighborhoods. Help make peacemakers, while keeping them safe.
74] -- Ronda Cooperstein has taken to social media, and is recording her opinion pieces on You Tube. Check out her latest essay - THE WASHINGTON POST WITH TOAST: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffj-Scno-5Q.
75] -- The Washington Peace Center has a progressive calendar & activist alert! Consider signing up to receive its weekly email: info@washingtonpeacecenter.org.
76] -- Fund Our Communities campaign is a grass roots movement to get support from local organizations and communities to work together with their local and state elected officials to pressure Congresspersons and senators to join with Congresspersons Barney Frank and Ron Paul, who have endorsed a 25% cut to the federal military budget. Bring home the savings to state and county governments to meet the local needs which are under tremendous budget pressures. Go to www.OurFunds.org.
77] -- If you would like to get rid of books, videos, DVDs or records, contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.
78] -- Can you use any book shelves? Can you use any file cabinets? Contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.
79] -- Join an extraordinary global campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons: http://www.globalzero.org/sign-declaration. A growing group of leaders around the world is calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons and a majority of the global public agrees. This is an historic window of opportunity. With momentum already building in favor of Zero, a major show of support from people around the world could tip the balance. When it comes to nuclear weapons, one is one too many.
80] -- WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER signs from Friends Committee on National Legislation are again for sale at $5. To purchase a sign, call Max at 410-366-1637.
81] – A Peace Park Antinuclear Vigil takes place every day in Lafayette Park, 1601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 24 hours a day, since June 3, 1981. Go to http://prop1.org; call 202-682-4282.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.
"One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better" - Daniel Berrigan
64] “Yoga: Body and Mind” – June 29
65] Peace and Pancakes – June 29
65] Film "Al Helm (The Dream): Martin Luther King in Palestine" – June 29
66] "Potluck Poetry: Voices of African and Asian Diasporas" – June 29
67] “Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition” – June 29
68] Ring of Fire zine anthology – June 29
69] Pentagon Vigil – June 30
70] Protest at the NSA – July 4
71] Cookout – July 4
72] Save the date! - Aug. 10
73] Support a Peace Camp
74] Ronda Cooperstein on social media
75] Sign up with Washington Peace Center
76] Join Fund Our Communities
77] Donate books, videos, DVDs and records
78] Do you need any book shelves or file cabinets?
79] Join Global Zero campaign
80] War Is Not the Answer signs for sale
81] Join Peace Park Antinuclear Vigil
------
62] – On Sun., June 29 at 12:01 AM on the Supreme Court steps, the Death Penalty Abolitionist Action Group will vigil through Wed., July 2, all day. For these four days, death penalty abolitionists from around the country will gather at the steps of the Supreme Court to call for an end to capital punishment in the United States. It is an energizing grassroots week of training, advocacy, action, community and education. Tens of thousands of tourists and locals, from all over the U.S. and throughout the world, pass by the vigil and table, so the opportunity for dialogue and discussion at a real grass-roots level is invaluable to the movement. Go to http://www.abolition.org/fastandvigil/register.html.
63] - Usually, the Baltimore Ethical Society, 306 W. Franklin St., Suite 102, Baltimore 21201-4661, meets on Sundays, and generally there is a speaker and discussion from 10:30 AM to noon. On Sun., June 29, the platform address is “Yoga: Body and Mind.” After last summer’s successful seated-yoga program, Hugh Taft-Morales will offer another supplemented with more personal insights into the benefits of increased harmony between the body and mind he attains through his modest yoga practice. Wear comfortable clothes if you want to participate in some gentle poses. Call 410-581-2322 or email ask@bmorethical.org.
64] - Join the Kadampa Meditation Center for Peace and Pancakes on Sundays at 10:30 AM at KMC Maryland, 2937 North Charles St. All are invited to participate in guided meditation and chant praying for world peace. There will be a talk based on Buddhist thought followed by brunch. Call 410- 243-3837. Brunch is $5.
65] - On Sun., June 29 from 2 to 4 PM, Jewish Voice for Peace - DC Metro Chapter invites you to a special screening and discussion of the new film by the award-winning filmmaker Connie Fields: "Al Helm (The Dream): Martin Luther King in Palestine" at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, Meeting Room A-5, 901 G St. NW, WDC 20001. Use the Metro at Gallery Place or Metro Center. Light refreshments will be served.
An African-American gospel choir travels to the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories to sing in a play about Martin Luther King Jr. and the American civil rights struggle. During their visit, Juliano Mer-Khamis, the director of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin, is assassinated, sending shock-waves throughout Palestine and the world. Over the course of the choir’s journey, a deeply personal and cultural exchange takes place, and pre-conceived notions on the part of the choir’s members and the Palestinians who meet and work with them are radically transformed.
“Nothing lights a fire like a dream deferred.” -Bernice Johnson Reagon. “If you don’t have anything worth dying for, find something.” -Martin Luther King Jr. Call 240-425-7581 or email jvpdcmetro@gmail.com. Visit http://www.JewishVoiceforPeace.org/DCMetro/.
66] - Enjoy the Teahouse Commons (near the Washington Monument) at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall on Sun., June 29 from 4:15 to 5:30 PM. Come out to listen or even tell your own story at the Teahouse Commons, adjacent to the Washington Monument as Busboys and Poets presents "Potluck Poetry: Voices of African and Asian Diasporas." Take in the words and sounds served up fresh by local Asian and Africa diaspora artists, including Bomani Armah, G. Yamazawa, Farafina Kan African Drumming Ensemble, the South Asian Performing Arts Network, Pages Matam and 2 Deep the Poet. This program highlights a diverse array of cultural flavors combining D.C.'s own folk art, spoken word, with global musical traditions.
67] – On Sun., June 29 at 7 PM, there is a chance to watch “Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition” at D.C. Pink House, 1241 Evarts St. NE, WDC 20018. This acclaimed new release pulls back the curtain on Charles and David Koch, yanking them out of the shadows and exposing them for what they are: a self-interested, ultraconservative demolition crew hell-bent on crushing the Affordable Care Act, Social Security and the Environmental Protection Agency. RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/249793788560671/?ref=3&ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular.
68] – ET Russian (aka Hellery Homosex) presents the Ring of Fire zine anthology on Sun., June 29 at 7:30 PM @ Red Emma's, 30 W. North Ave., Baltimore 21201. This is a collection of the zine from the late 1990s by ET Russian (aka Hellery Homosex), and features new material never before published. Ring of Fire is honest, engaging, and ahead of its time. Through black and white ink drawings, comics, linoleum block print portraits, essays, interviews and erotica, this collection explores the intersections of art, bodies, healthcare, ability, gender, race, community, class, healing and the politics of work. Call 443-602-7585. Go to http://www.redemmas.org.
69] -- There is a weekly Pentagon Peace Vigil from 7 to 8 AM on Mondays, since 1987, outside the Pentagon Metro stop. The next vigil is Mon., June 30, and it is sponsored by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. Email artlaffin@hotmail.com or call 202-882-9649.
The vigil will be outside the Pentagon's south Metro entrance and in the designated "protest zone" behind bicycle fences across from the entrance to the Metro. By Metro, take Yellow Line and get out at the "Pentagon" stop. Do not go to the Pentagon City stop! Go up south escalators and turn left and walk across to protest area.
By car from D.C. area, take 395 South and get off at Exit 8A-Pentagon South Parking. Take slight right onto S. Rotary Rd. at end of ramp and right on S. Fern St. Then take left onto Army Navy Dr. You can "pay to park" on Army Navy Dr., and there is meter parking one block on right on Eads St. Payment for both of these spots begin at 8 AM. No cameras are allowed on Pentagon grounds. Restrooms are located inside Marriott Residence Inn on corner of S. Fern and Army Navy Dr.
70] – Join the Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore in its annual Fourth of July trek to protest at the National Security Agency. This is Interdependence Day, and the criminal activity of the NSA must be challenged. Car pooling will begin at 10 AM on Fri., July 4 for the demonstration from 11 AM to noon. Call for information about the car pooling—410-366-1637—or use the Canine Road entrance to meet at 11 AM in the visitor’s parking lot at Fort Meade. Email mobuszewski@verizon.net.
71] – DID YOU KNOW 34 million people will be traveling more than 50 miles this Fourth of July. You don't want to be with them. Instead, come to a cookout and get a report from the 30th National Convention of the CPUSA on Fri., July 4 from 5 to 8 PM at the home of Cindy and Sharon, 115 Springside Drive, Timonium 21093.
The three delegates from Baltimore who attended the Chicago convention will try to convey the enthusiasm of the delegates and national / international guests involved in the upsurge of people’s struggles, including young people working in the low-wage worker campaign which the Party is helping to build. Join the discussion of how the movements and the Communist Party of Maryland can be most effective in growing and helping to unite these struggles, including the challenge of this fall’s elections. Bring a dish or beverage to share. RSVP at 443-604-2298.
72] – SAVE THE DATE!!!!! Get over to "Family Fun" night to raise funds for Dr. Mutulu Skakur and the development of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to free our Political Prisoners/Prisoners of War. It will take place at Skateland North Point, 1113 Old North Point Rd., Baltimore 21222, on Sun., Aug. 10 from 4:30 to 7:30 PM. Admission is $10 which includes skate rental. Contact Abdul-Jabbar at 610.621.0699 (Maryland State Jericho). Go to http://mutulushakur.com/site/.
73] – Can you help out the Nawal G. Rajeh Peace Camp? Nonviolence and positive conflict resolution is taught to children while providing them a summer camp, fun experience. This year's camp is for four weeks at the 29th Street Community Center in the Harwood neighborhood and three weeks at the Drs. Camille and Bill Cosby Community Center at St. Frances Academy in Johnston Square, both East Baltimore neighborhoods.
There will be morning classes to help the young persons, ranging in age from 5 to 12 years old, retain their school based skills writing about "peace heroes" and reading books that encourage positive communication. The afternoons will be filled with activities such as swimming, art, music and free time in the gyms. Some 70 children will attend the camp. Can you make a contribution to support the Nawal G. Rajeh Peace Camp of 2014 and reach out to your network of friends? Funds will be used toward instruction in yoga, drumming, dance and art.
Greater Homewood Community Corporation will serve as the fiscal agent for Peace Camp. Checks should be made out to By Peaceful Means and mailed to GHCC, 3503 N. Charles St., Baltimore 21218. Help keep children out of the extreme heat of the summer sun and from the dangerous bullets flying freely in our inner-city neighborhoods. Help make peacemakers, while keeping them safe.
74] -- Ronda Cooperstein has taken to social media, and is recording her opinion pieces on You Tube. Check out her latest essay - THE WASHINGTON POST WITH TOAST: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffj-Scno-5Q.
75] -- The Washington Peace Center has a progressive calendar & activist alert! Consider signing up to receive its weekly email: info@washingtonpeacecenter.org.
76] -- Fund Our Communities campaign is a grass roots movement to get support from local organizations and communities to work together with their local and state elected officials to pressure Congresspersons and senators to join with Congresspersons Barney Frank and Ron Paul, who have endorsed a 25% cut to the federal military budget. Bring home the savings to state and county governments to meet the local needs which are under tremendous budget pressures. Go to www.OurFunds.org.
77] -- If you would like to get rid of books, videos, DVDs or records, contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.
78] -- Can you use any book shelves? Can you use any file cabinets? Contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.
79] -- Join an extraordinary global campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons: http://www.globalzero.org/sign-declaration. A growing group of leaders around the world is calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons and a majority of the global public agrees. This is an historic window of opportunity. With momentum already building in favor of Zero, a major show of support from people around the world could tip the balance. When it comes to nuclear weapons, one is one too many.
80] -- WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER signs from Friends Committee on National Legislation are again for sale at $5. To purchase a sign, call Max at 410-366-1637.
81] – A Peace Park Antinuclear Vigil takes place every day in Lafayette Park, 1601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 24 hours a day, since June 3, 1981. Go to http://prop1.org; call 202-682-4282.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.
"One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better" - Daniel Berrigan
Friday, June 27, 2014
Artisanal Union-Busting
Published on Portside (https://portside.org)
Artisanal Union-Busting
http://inthesetimes.com/article/16664/whole_foods_artisanal_union_busting
Chris Lehmann
Thursday, June 5, 2014
In These Times
[Reprinted with permission from In These Times [1]. All rights reserved.]
Don't look now, but Whole Foods seems to be interpreting the "whole planet" part of its corporate branding as a Manifest Destiny-style call to market conquest. In an exhaustive Fortune [2] magazine cover story this April, "Whole Foods Takes Over America," Beth Kowitt explained that the high-end grocer has quietly bulked up into one of America's leading retail food chains, with plans to operate 1,200 stores over the next few years (counting stores in the UK and Canada). The chain has seen its revenues double and its profits triple since 2007, Kowitt reports, and has lately taken to launching new stores in low-income shopping areas, such as Detroit, Newark and the South Side of Chicago.
On one level, it's heartening that more choices to purchase quality, non-industrial food have penetrated into lower-income neighborhoods. However, Whole Foods is far from a model of progressive values. Founded and run by John Mackey, a recovered hippie and especially dogmatic libertarian in the Randian grain [3], the chain has notoriously lowballed health benefits and campaigned to crush anything resembling a union [4] organizing drive among its more than 70,000 employees. "The union is like having herpes," organic baron Mackey infamously announced [5]. "It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover."
Lately, however, aggrieved Whole Foods employees have been fighting back against the company's crude anti-union calumnies. In two Chicago stores, workers have staged wildcat strikes and walkouts [6] to protest what they say are draconian attendance policies and unfair dismissals of workers. In one high-profile action in February, front-end cashiers and customer service crew at one Whole Foods walked out to protest the firing of a single mother [7] who had missed work to care for her son after the polar vortex forced public schools to close.
One of the lead organizers in Chicago has been Trish Kahle, a history graduate student at the University of Chicago who began working at the Lincoln Park Whole Foods in March of 2012. Kahle quit her job this past winter when, as she explains, she had several work absences arising from a bicycling accident. To return to work, she would have had to present a doctor's note, but she could not afford a doctor's appointment - she hadn't been able to afford the company health insurance plan because of its high out-of-pocket costs.
Though she no longer works for Whole Foods, Kahle is still pushing for union recognition there, in conjunction with Chicago's Fight for 15 campaign [8], which is seeking a citywide living wage of $15 an hour and the right to form unions without retaliation. But while the workers in Chicago have won some qualified victories, like time off for Thanksgiving [9], the specter of a management crackdown is ever-present. Several workers charge that four employees at the Boystown store were dismissed for their union activities, although the store gave the workers other reasons. (Whole Foods did not respond to a request for comment.)
These bracing stories strike a dissonant note in Whole Foods' branding as a shop that caters to the compassionate social sensibilities of the enlightened food consumer.
Still, just as Upton Sinclair's 1906 exposé of Chicago's meat-packing industry, The Jungle, helped launch the federal regime of food safety enforcement, so might today's Chicago uprising in the heart of the fair-trade consumer revolution create some long-overdue consciousness-raising in the food-buying public, which has tended to uncritically accept the Whole Foods company line that a union would drive its already pricey offerings higher still.
One of the store's pet designations for its lovingly curated foodstuffs is "artisanal" - which, in terms of labor history, unwittingly aligns the store's stock displays with the skilled workers who founded the first medieval guilds that would later serve as models for mass unionism. So next time you're shelling out a small fortune for a bag full of exotic produce and hand-crafted cheeses, let the store's management know that a real artisanal store experience would include collective bargaining rights for the company's workforce.
[Chris Lehmann, is a contributing editor of In These Times, an editor of Book Forum and the Baffler and the author of Rich People Things (Haymarket, 2011). He is now working on a book about American religion and the money culture.]
Portside is proud to feature content from In These Times [1], a publication dedicated to covering progressive politics, labor and activism. To get more news and provocative analysis from In These Times, sign up [10] for a free weekly e-newsletter or subscribe [11] to the magazine at a special low rate.
Source URL: https://portside.org/2014-06-27/artisanal-union-busting
Links:
[1] http://inthesetimes.com?utm_source=reprint&utm_medium=article_link&utm_campaign=portside
[2] http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2014/04/28/toc.html
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/business/02bbt.html?_r=2&
[4] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/04/are-starbucks-and-whole-foods-union-busting
[5] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/04/100104fa_fact_paumgarten
[6] http://www.salon.com/2013/11/27/breaking_whole_foods_workers_striking_for_right_to_stay_home_on_thanksgiving/
[7] http://www.salon.com/2014/02/05/thats_cold_whole_foods_polar_vortex_firing_spurs_chicago_strike/
[8] http://fightfor15.org/en/homepage/
[9] http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15943/how_chicago_whole_foods_workers_won_back_thanksgiving
[10] http://inthesetimes.com/newsletters?utm_source=reprint&utm_medium=article_link&utm_campaign=portside
[11] http://inthesetimes.com/subscribe?utm_source=reprint&utm_medium=article_link&utm_campaign=portside
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Artisanal Union-Busting
http://inthesetimes.com/article/16664/whole_foods_artisanal_union_busting
Chris Lehmann
Thursday, June 5, 2014
In These Times
[Reprinted with permission from In These Times [1]. All rights reserved.]
Don't look now, but Whole Foods seems to be interpreting the "whole planet" part of its corporate branding as a Manifest Destiny-style call to market conquest. In an exhaustive Fortune [2] magazine cover story this April, "Whole Foods Takes Over America," Beth Kowitt explained that the high-end grocer has quietly bulked up into one of America's leading retail food chains, with plans to operate 1,200 stores over the next few years (counting stores in the UK and Canada). The chain has seen its revenues double and its profits triple since 2007, Kowitt reports, and has lately taken to launching new stores in low-income shopping areas, such as Detroit, Newark and the South Side of Chicago.
On one level, it's heartening that more choices to purchase quality, non-industrial food have penetrated into lower-income neighborhoods. However, Whole Foods is far from a model of progressive values. Founded and run by John Mackey, a recovered hippie and especially dogmatic libertarian in the Randian grain [3], the chain has notoriously lowballed health benefits and campaigned to crush anything resembling a union [4] organizing drive among its more than 70,000 employees. "The union is like having herpes," organic baron Mackey infamously announced [5]. "It doesn't kill you, but it's unpleasant and inconvenient, and it stops a lot of people from becoming your lover."
Lately, however, aggrieved Whole Foods employees have been fighting back against the company's crude anti-union calumnies. In two Chicago stores, workers have staged wildcat strikes and walkouts [6] to protest what they say are draconian attendance policies and unfair dismissals of workers. In one high-profile action in February, front-end cashiers and customer service crew at one Whole Foods walked out to protest the firing of a single mother [7] who had missed work to care for her son after the polar vortex forced public schools to close.
One of the lead organizers in Chicago has been Trish Kahle, a history graduate student at the University of Chicago who began working at the Lincoln Park Whole Foods in March of 2012. Kahle quit her job this past winter when, as she explains, she had several work absences arising from a bicycling accident. To return to work, she would have had to present a doctor's note, but she could not afford a doctor's appointment - she hadn't been able to afford the company health insurance plan because of its high out-of-pocket costs.
Though she no longer works for Whole Foods, Kahle is still pushing for union recognition there, in conjunction with Chicago's Fight for 15 campaign [8], which is seeking a citywide living wage of $15 an hour and the right to form unions without retaliation. But while the workers in Chicago have won some qualified victories, like time off for Thanksgiving [9], the specter of a management crackdown is ever-present. Several workers charge that four employees at the Boystown store were dismissed for their union activities, although the store gave the workers other reasons. (Whole Foods did not respond to a request for comment.)
These bracing stories strike a dissonant note in Whole Foods' branding as a shop that caters to the compassionate social sensibilities of the enlightened food consumer.
Still, just as Upton Sinclair's 1906 exposé of Chicago's meat-packing industry, The Jungle, helped launch the federal regime of food safety enforcement, so might today's Chicago uprising in the heart of the fair-trade consumer revolution create some long-overdue consciousness-raising in the food-buying public, which has tended to uncritically accept the Whole Foods company line that a union would drive its already pricey offerings higher still.
One of the store's pet designations for its lovingly curated foodstuffs is "artisanal" - which, in terms of labor history, unwittingly aligns the store's stock displays with the skilled workers who founded the first medieval guilds that would later serve as models for mass unionism. So next time you're shelling out a small fortune for a bag full of exotic produce and hand-crafted cheeses, let the store's management know that a real artisanal store experience would include collective bargaining rights for the company's workforce.
[Chris Lehmann, is a contributing editor of In These Times, an editor of Book Forum and the Baffler and the author of Rich People Things (Haymarket, 2011). He is now working on a book about American religion and the money culture.]
Portside is proud to feature content from In These Times [1], a publication dedicated to covering progressive politics, labor and activism. To get more news and provocative analysis from In These Times, sign up [10] for a free weekly e-newsletter or subscribe [11] to the magazine at a special low rate.
Source URL: https://portside.org/2014-06-27/artisanal-union-busting
Links:
[1] http://inthesetimes.com?utm_source=reprint&utm_medium=article_link&utm_campaign=portside
[2] http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2014/04/28/toc.html
[3] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/business/02bbt.html?_r=2&
[4] http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/04/are-starbucks-and-whole-foods-union-busting
[5] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/01/04/100104fa_fact_paumgarten
[6] http://www.salon.com/2013/11/27/breaking_whole_foods_workers_striking_for_right_to_stay_home_on_thanksgiving/
[7] http://www.salon.com/2014/02/05/thats_cold_whole_foods_polar_vortex_firing_spurs_chicago_strike/
[8] http://fightfor15.org/en/homepage/
[9] http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/15943/how_chicago_whole_foods_workers_won_back_thanksgiving
[10] http://inthesetimes.com/newsletters?utm_source=reprint&utm_medium=article_link&utm_campaign=portside
[11] http://inthesetimes.com/subscribe?utm_source=reprint&utm_medium=article_link&utm_campaign=portside
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Baltimore Activist Alert - June 27-28, 2014
50] Taking Action for Animals – June 27 - 30
51] “Considerations for the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Multilateralization, National Perceptions and Confidence Building” -- June 27
52] Nonviolent Peaceforce -- June 27
53] Witness Against Torture in D.C. – through June 30
54] Stand Up Against Cove Point – June 27
55] Pax Christi USA Momentum 2014 – June 27
55] Taking Action for Animals -- June 27 - 30
56] Olney Peace vigil – June 28
57] West Chester, PA demo – June 28
58] Silent peace vigil – June 28
59] Stop the Drone War Command Center – June 28
60] See “12 Years a Slave” – June 28
61] Film “Peace Unveiled” – June 28
62] Fast to abolish the death penalty - June 28
----
50] – Are you going to Taking Action for Animals from Fri., June 27 through Mon., June 30? If so, stop at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine exhibit table at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mt. Vernon Place NW, WDC 20001. The focus will be on animals used in experiments. See the Tail of Toxics animation about the inherent flaws of animal tests and the modern testing paradigm that will produce safer chemicals and a healthier environment. One lucky visitor to the booth will win a cruelty-free gift basket! Call 202-686-2210, email info@pcrm.org or visit www.pcrm.org.
51] – On Fri., June 27 from 8:30 to 11 AM, hear a discussion with Hossein Mousavian, former head of Foreign Relations Committee of Iran’s National Security Council, Yun Zhou, Harvard University, and Christopher Paine, Natural Resources Defense Council, about “Considerations for the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Multilateralization, National Perceptions and Confidence Building.” The event is sponsored by the Global America Business Institute and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and will take place at the Quincy Hotel, 1823 L St. NW, WDC. RSVP to Alan Ahn at emailalanahn@thegabi.com.
52] – The need for violence prevention and peacekeeping responses continues to rise in conflict situations around the world. One of the cutting edge, evidence-based practices in the field is unarmed civilian peacekeeping by non-governmental organizations. Mel Duncan from Nonviolent Peaceforce will reflect on the experience, opportunities, and need to support this practice on Fri., June 27 from 10 to 11:30 AM at the Stimson Center, 1111 19th St. NW, 12th floor. Karen Volker from Cure Violence will then offer a public health perspective and discuss the technique of “violence interruption.” RSVP to Eli McCarthy at emccarthy@cmsm.org.
53] – Witness Against Torture is in Washington, D.C. through Mon., June 30. WAT members are sleeping at Saint Stephens on Fri., June 27. There is the Friday Fast for Justice, and WAT members will be at the White House at noon to vigil with the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. On Sat., June 28, there will be a 24-hour vigil at the White House. The group will stay at The Peace Oasis from Saturday at 6 PM until Sunday evening. Call 216-496-2637.
On Sat., June 28 after the White House vigil, the WAT crew will move to the Peace Oasis. On Sun., June 29, the group will move back to St. Stephens. On Mon., June 30 the WAT people will join the Pentagon action with the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. Go to www.witnesstorture.org.
54] – Join the Faith Community to Stand Up Against Cove Point on Fri., June 27 from noon to 1:30 PM at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First St. NE, WDC. Use the Union Station Metro stop. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Environmental Assessment claimed that the liquified natural gas project at Cove Point would have no "significant" impacts on the environment or human health. Over the last few weeks, 150,000 people across the country spoke out against the proposed facility and demanded a full Environmental Impact Statement to ensure real scrutiny of this project's impacts. RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/797040853641458/?context=create&source=49. The protest is a project of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington. Call 202-709-7641 or email program@gwipl.org.
55] – On Fri., June 27 from 6 to 9 PM, get over to Pax Christi USA Momentum 2014 featuring Mary Meg McCarthy, director of the National Immigrant Justice Center and Pax Christi USA’s 2013 Teacher of Peace recipient, and Sr. Simone Campbell of Network, who will be doing a presentation on immigration reform. And DREAMERS will share their experiences. This event will be held at Trinity University, 125 Michigan Ave. NE, WDC. A $50 contribution is asked of each person, and this includes dinner. Register at http://paxchristiusa.org/programs/momentum-2014/.
56] – Friends House, 17715 Meeting House Rd., Sandy Spring, MD 20860, hosts a peace vigil every Saturday, 10:30 to 11:30 AM, on the corner of Rt. 108 and Georgia Ave. [Route 97] in Olney, MD. The next vigil is June 28. Call Chuck Harker at 301-570-7167.
57] – Each Saturday, 11 AM – 1 PM, Chester County Peace Movement holds a peace vigil in West Chester in front of the Chester County Courthouse, High & Market Sts. Go to www.ccpeace.org. Email ccpeacemovement@aol.com.
58] – There will be a peace vigil on the West Lawn of the Capitol at noon on Sat., June 28. Look for the blue banner with the message, "Seek Peace and Pursue It.--Psalms 34:14." The vigil lasts one hour and is silent except when one responds to the occasional questions. Go to http://www.quaker.org/langleyhill/seekpeace.htm or email seekpeacevigil@yahoo.com.
59] – Stand against U.S. military action in Iraq and the engulfing fires of war...the threat of air strikes and drone attacks commanded from the continental U.S. and sites like the one being established in Horsham, PA. Iraq is on the brink of drone strikes. Don't add fuel to the fires in Iraq! Stand against the drone war command center in Horsham as each day brings us closer to it being fully 'operational': remote controlled killing. Is this what we've become? NO! We can do better.
Demonstrate to Stop the Drone War Command Center at the Horsham Air Guard Station on Sat., June 28 from noon to 2 PM at Route 611/Easton Road and County Line Road, Horsham, PA. The vigil takes place on the last Saturday of the month. Go to http://www.brandywinepeace.com/events/ or call 610-544-1818.
60] – The Organization of United People will feature “12 Years a Slave” with a discussion to follow. Refreshments will be served during the film at St. Stephens Church, 1525 Newton St. NW on Sat., June 28 from 1 to 4 PM. Email organizationoup@gmail.com.
61] – Be at the Southeast Library, 403 7th St. SE (Eastern Market Metro, Orange/Blue Line) on Sat., June 28 from 3 to 5 PM to see the screening of the documentary film “Peace Unveiled” and enjoy a discussion with Zohra Rasekh, an author and accomplished public health, human rights, and foreign policy expert who was Afghanistan’s first ever representative to the U.N.’s committee overseeing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The film and discussion is hosted by Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) U.S., D.C. Branch. Refreshments will be provided. Contact Rachel Nagin at events.wilpf.dc@gmail.com or 216 965 6235.
When the U.S. troop surge was announced in late 2009, women in Afghanistan knew that the ground was being laid for peace talks with the Taliban. The film follows three women (a savvy parliamentarian in Herat, a women’s rights advocate in Kandahar, and a young activist living in a traditional family in Kabul) who immediately began to organize to make sure that women’s rights don’t get traded away in the deal. Convinced that the Taliban will have demands that jeopardize women’s hard-earned gains, they maneuver against formidable odds to have their voices heard.
62] – On Sat., June 28 at 9:30 PM, the Death Penalty Abolitionist Action Group will have a "Last supper" at Kelly's Irish Times, 14 F St. NW, WDC 20001. All Fast and Vigil participants are responsible for paying for their own food and drink. This is a gathering for an evening of food and drink before fasting starts. Everyone is welcome, including event participants, fasters, non-fasters, and guests and friends that you want to invite. RSVP at http://www.abolition.org/fastandvigil/register.html.
Then at 11:40 PM head over to the Supreme Court for a midnight opening gathering to start the fast together. The Court is a half-mile walk (10 minutes) from the last supper venue. The Fast continues through July 2.
To be continued.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
51] “Considerations for the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Multilateralization, National Perceptions and Confidence Building” -- June 27
52] Nonviolent Peaceforce -- June 27
53] Witness Against Torture in D.C. – through June 30
54] Stand Up Against Cove Point – June 27
55] Pax Christi USA Momentum 2014 – June 27
55] Taking Action for Animals -- June 27 - 30
56] Olney Peace vigil – June 28
57] West Chester, PA demo – June 28
58] Silent peace vigil – June 28
59] Stop the Drone War Command Center – June 28
60] See “12 Years a Slave” – June 28
61] Film “Peace Unveiled” – June 28
62] Fast to abolish the death penalty - June 28
----
50] – Are you going to Taking Action for Animals from Fri., June 27 through Mon., June 30? If so, stop at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine exhibit table at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mt. Vernon Place NW, WDC 20001. The focus will be on animals used in experiments. See the Tail of Toxics animation about the inherent flaws of animal tests and the modern testing paradigm that will produce safer chemicals and a healthier environment. One lucky visitor to the booth will win a cruelty-free gift basket! Call 202-686-2210, email info@pcrm.org or visit www.pcrm.org.
51] – On Fri., June 27 from 8:30 to 11 AM, hear a discussion with Hossein Mousavian, former head of Foreign Relations Committee of Iran’s National Security Council, Yun Zhou, Harvard University, and Christopher Paine, Natural Resources Defense Council, about “Considerations for the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Multilateralization, National Perceptions and Confidence Building.” The event is sponsored by the Global America Business Institute and the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, and will take place at the Quincy Hotel, 1823 L St. NW, WDC. RSVP to Alan Ahn at emailalanahn@thegabi.com.
52] – The need for violence prevention and peacekeeping responses continues to rise in conflict situations around the world. One of the cutting edge, evidence-based practices in the field is unarmed civilian peacekeeping by non-governmental organizations. Mel Duncan from Nonviolent Peaceforce will reflect on the experience, opportunities, and need to support this practice on Fri., June 27 from 10 to 11:30 AM at the Stimson Center, 1111 19th St. NW, 12th floor. Karen Volker from Cure Violence will then offer a public health perspective and discuss the technique of “violence interruption.” RSVP to Eli McCarthy at emccarthy@cmsm.org.
53] – Witness Against Torture is in Washington, D.C. through Mon., June 30. WAT members are sleeping at Saint Stephens on Fri., June 27. There is the Friday Fast for Justice, and WAT members will be at the White House at noon to vigil with the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. On Sat., June 28, there will be a 24-hour vigil at the White House. The group will stay at The Peace Oasis from Saturday at 6 PM until Sunday evening. Call 216-496-2637.
On Sat., June 28 after the White House vigil, the WAT crew will move to the Peace Oasis. On Sun., June 29, the group will move back to St. Stephens. On Mon., June 30 the WAT people will join the Pentagon action with the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. Go to www.witnesstorture.org.
54] – Join the Faith Community to Stand Up Against Cove Point on Fri., June 27 from noon to 1:30 PM at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, 888 First St. NE, WDC. Use the Union Station Metro stop. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Environmental Assessment claimed that the liquified natural gas project at Cove Point would have no "significant" impacts on the environment or human health. Over the last few weeks, 150,000 people across the country spoke out against the proposed facility and demanded a full Environmental Impact Statement to ensure real scrutiny of this project's impacts. RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/797040853641458/?context=create&source=49. The protest is a project of the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington. Call 202-709-7641 or email program@gwipl.org.
55] – On Fri., June 27 from 6 to 9 PM, get over to Pax Christi USA Momentum 2014 featuring Mary Meg McCarthy, director of the National Immigrant Justice Center and Pax Christi USA’s 2013 Teacher of Peace recipient, and Sr. Simone Campbell of Network, who will be doing a presentation on immigration reform. And DREAMERS will share their experiences. This event will be held at Trinity University, 125 Michigan Ave. NE, WDC. A $50 contribution is asked of each person, and this includes dinner. Register at http://paxchristiusa.org/programs/momentum-2014/.
56] – Friends House, 17715 Meeting House Rd., Sandy Spring, MD 20860, hosts a peace vigil every Saturday, 10:30 to 11:30 AM, on the corner of Rt. 108 and Georgia Ave. [Route 97] in Olney, MD. The next vigil is June 28. Call Chuck Harker at 301-570-7167.
57] – Each Saturday, 11 AM – 1 PM, Chester County Peace Movement holds a peace vigil in West Chester in front of the Chester County Courthouse, High & Market Sts. Go to www.ccpeace.org. Email ccpeacemovement@aol.com.
58] – There will be a peace vigil on the West Lawn of the Capitol at noon on Sat., June 28. Look for the blue banner with the message, "Seek Peace and Pursue It.--Psalms 34:14." The vigil lasts one hour and is silent except when one responds to the occasional questions. Go to http://www.quaker.org/langleyhill/seekpeace.htm or email seekpeacevigil@yahoo.com.
59] – Stand against U.S. military action in Iraq and the engulfing fires of war...the threat of air strikes and drone attacks commanded from the continental U.S. and sites like the one being established in Horsham, PA. Iraq is on the brink of drone strikes. Don't add fuel to the fires in Iraq! Stand against the drone war command center in Horsham as each day brings us closer to it being fully 'operational': remote controlled killing. Is this what we've become? NO! We can do better.
Demonstrate to Stop the Drone War Command Center at the Horsham Air Guard Station on Sat., June 28 from noon to 2 PM at Route 611/Easton Road and County Line Road, Horsham, PA. The vigil takes place on the last Saturday of the month. Go to http://www.brandywinepeace.com/events/ or call 610-544-1818.
60] – The Organization of United People will feature “12 Years a Slave” with a discussion to follow. Refreshments will be served during the film at St. Stephens Church, 1525 Newton St. NW on Sat., June 28 from 1 to 4 PM. Email organizationoup@gmail.com.
61] – Be at the Southeast Library, 403 7th St. SE (Eastern Market Metro, Orange/Blue Line) on Sat., June 28 from 3 to 5 PM to see the screening of the documentary film “Peace Unveiled” and enjoy a discussion with Zohra Rasekh, an author and accomplished public health, human rights, and foreign policy expert who was Afghanistan’s first ever representative to the U.N.’s committee overseeing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). The film and discussion is hosted by Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF) U.S., D.C. Branch. Refreshments will be provided. Contact Rachel Nagin at events.wilpf.dc@gmail.com or 216 965 6235.
When the U.S. troop surge was announced in late 2009, women in Afghanistan knew that the ground was being laid for peace talks with the Taliban. The film follows three women (a savvy parliamentarian in Herat, a women’s rights advocate in Kandahar, and a young activist living in a traditional family in Kabul) who immediately began to organize to make sure that women’s rights don’t get traded away in the deal. Convinced that the Taliban will have demands that jeopardize women’s hard-earned gains, they maneuver against formidable odds to have their voices heard.
62] – On Sat., June 28 at 9:30 PM, the Death Penalty Abolitionist Action Group will have a "Last supper" at Kelly's Irish Times, 14 F St. NW, WDC 20001. All Fast and Vigil participants are responsible for paying for their own food and drink. This is a gathering for an evening of food and drink before fasting starts. Everyone is welcome, including event participants, fasters, non-fasters, and guests and friends that you want to invite. RSVP at http://www.abolition.org/fastandvigil/register.html.
Then at 11:40 PM head over to the Supreme Court for a midnight opening gathering to start the fast together. The Court is a half-mile walk (10 minutes) from the last supper venue. The Fast continues through July 2.
To be continued.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Wednesday, June 25, 2014
World Must Act Within 5 Years to Save Oceans From Pollution and Overfishing
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/24416-world-must-act-within-5-years-to-save-oceans-from-pollution-and-overfishing
Excerpt: "The world's oceans need saving from pollution and overfishing, and an independent panel warned on Tuesday that urgent action was needed within five years."
We are running out of time to save our oceans. (photo: Shutterstock)
World Must Act Within 5 Years to Save Oceans From Pollution and Overfishing
By Agence France-Presse
24 June 14
The world’s oceans need saving from pollution and overfishing, and an independent panel warned on Tuesday that urgent action was needed within five years.
The Global Ocean Commission said cutting down on single-use plastics products, restricting fishing on the high seas, and establishing binding regulations for offshore oil and gas exploration are key parts of the rescue plan.
In all, the former heads of state and business leaders offered eight proposals for ocean health in their report, “From Decline to Recovery – A Rescue Package for the Global Ocean.”
“The ocean provides 50 per cent of our oxygen and fixes 25 per cent of global carbon emissions. Our food chain begins in that 70 per cent of the planet,” said Jose Maria Figueres, co-chair of the commission and a former president of Costa Rica.
“Unless we turn the tide on ocean decline within five years, the international community should consider turning the high seas into an off-limits regeneration zone until its condition is restored.”
The plan called for an immediate cap on government subsidies for fishing on the high seas, and an end to them within five years.
Since only 10 nations engage in high seas fishing, the move will primarily affect the United States, European Union, China and Japan.
“About 60 per cent of such subsidies directly encourage unsustainable practices, and without them, high seas fisheries would not be financially viable,” said the report.
The high seas are the waters that fall beyond the national jurisdiction of countries, making up 64 percent of the ocean’s total surface area and half the biological productivity of the entire ocean, according to the report.
The commission said the lack of jurisdiction over these waters is a big problem, and called for a new agreement to be negotiated under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Such an accord should make ocean health a priority, protect the high seas from wasteful exploitation and allow for the establishment of marine protected areas.
“The high seas are like a failed state. Poor governance and the absence of policing and management mean valuable resources are unprotected or being squandered,” said David Miliband, co-chair of the commission.
“The high seas belong to us all. We know what needs to be done but we can’t do it alone. A joint mission must be our priority.”
The commission also called for mandatory tracking of all vessels fishing on the high seas, measures to end plastics pollution, and binding standards for the regulation and control of offshore oil and gas exploration and exploitation.
The Global Ocean Commission was launched in February 2013 to address the threats facing the global ocean, and originated as an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
© 2014 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Excerpt: "The world's oceans need saving from pollution and overfishing, and an independent panel warned on Tuesday that urgent action was needed within five years."
We are running out of time to save our oceans. (photo: Shutterstock)
World Must Act Within 5 Years to Save Oceans From Pollution and Overfishing
By Agence France-Presse
24 June 14
The world’s oceans need saving from pollution and overfishing, and an independent panel warned on Tuesday that urgent action was needed within five years.
The Global Ocean Commission said cutting down on single-use plastics products, restricting fishing on the high seas, and establishing binding regulations for offshore oil and gas exploration are key parts of the rescue plan.
In all, the former heads of state and business leaders offered eight proposals for ocean health in their report, “From Decline to Recovery – A Rescue Package for the Global Ocean.”
“The ocean provides 50 per cent of our oxygen and fixes 25 per cent of global carbon emissions. Our food chain begins in that 70 per cent of the planet,” said Jose Maria Figueres, co-chair of the commission and a former president of Costa Rica.
“Unless we turn the tide on ocean decline within five years, the international community should consider turning the high seas into an off-limits regeneration zone until its condition is restored.”
The plan called for an immediate cap on government subsidies for fishing on the high seas, and an end to them within five years.
Since only 10 nations engage in high seas fishing, the move will primarily affect the United States, European Union, China and Japan.
“About 60 per cent of such subsidies directly encourage unsustainable practices, and without them, high seas fisheries would not be financially viable,” said the report.
The high seas are the waters that fall beyond the national jurisdiction of countries, making up 64 percent of the ocean’s total surface area and half the biological productivity of the entire ocean, according to the report.
The commission said the lack of jurisdiction over these waters is a big problem, and called for a new agreement to be negotiated under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
Such an accord should make ocean health a priority, protect the high seas from wasteful exploitation and allow for the establishment of marine protected areas.
“The high seas are like a failed state. Poor governance and the absence of policing and management mean valuable resources are unprotected or being squandered,” said David Miliband, co-chair of the commission.
“The high seas belong to us all. We know what needs to be done but we can’t do it alone. A joint mission must be our priority.”
The commission also called for mandatory tracking of all vessels fishing on the high seas, measures to end plastics pollution, and binding standards for the regulation and control of offshore oil and gas exploration and exploitation.
The Global Ocean Commission was launched in February 2013 to address the threats facing the global ocean, and originated as an initiative of the Pew Charitable Trusts.
© 2014 Reader Supported News
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Baltimore Activist Alert - June 25 - 29, 2014
26] 17th Annual June Survivors' Week – June 25
27] "Retrospective Illusions? Nuclear Lessons from French Memory" – June 25
28] Re:Imagining Our Stories with Center for Story-Based Strategy – June 25
29] See a screening of "Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition – June 25
30] Hear Jon Gnarr, the anarchist mayor of Reykjavík – June 25
31] "Toward a Comprehensive, Effective Nuclear Deal with Iran?" – June 26
26] – On Wed., June 25 from 8:30 AM through Sun., June 29 at 10 PM, celebrate the 17th Annual June Survivors' Week. The theme is "Building Bridges Together." During the week we will have different workshops, a human rights training, a Congressional visit, a 12 hours vigil in front of the White House and a hearing at the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. Survivors and prominent human rights experts will speak at workshops and at the Tom Lantos Commission. Go to http://www.tassc.org/node/139.
TASSC, the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, is holding its 17th Annual June Survivors’ Week June 25 to 29. With the theme “Building Bridges Together,” the week includes an education day on Wed., June 25 and a White House vigil on Sat., June 28. Contact TASSC at info@tassc.org or 202-529-2991.
27] – On Wed., June 25 from 11 AM to 12:30 PM, Benot Pelopidas, University of Bristol, and Garret Martin, European Institute, will address "Retrospective Illusions? Nuclear Lessons from French Memory" at the Wilson Center, Fifth Floor, Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, WDC. RSVP http://pages.wilsoncenter.org/140625RetrospectiveIllusions_NPIHPEventSingleSpeaker_ModelEvent_ModelEvent_Registration.html.
28] – At Bread for the City, SE Center, 1640 Good Hope Rd. on Wed., June 25 from noon to 2 PM, join Bread for the City, Healthy Affordable Food for All, DC Place Matters & Service to Justice for the first workshop in a three part series called: Re:Imagining Our Stories with Center for Story-Based Strategy. Certificates will be given for attendance at all three trainings. Contact Joni at 202-553-7248 or jpodschun@breadforthecity.org.
29] – On Wed., June 25 at 7:30 PM, see a screening of "Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition" at the Baltimore Ethical Society, 306 W. Franklin St., Suite 102, Baltimore 21201-4661. "Billionaires David and Charles Koch have been handed the ability to buy our democracy in the form of giant checks to the House, Senate, and soon, possibly even the Presidency. The last time we exposed the Koch Brothers' dealings to the world we here at Brave New Films wound up in their crosshairs. They produced online ad campaigns attacking us, but, it takes more than a banner ad to slow us down.
We've reissued Koch Brothers Exposed in an updated version, Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition, to shine a light on them. We've delved even deeper into where their money is going, who their money is hurting, and how much they are making during this whole process leading up to the 2014 Elections."
Screenings at the BES Ironweed Film Club are free and open to the public. Donations are requested for refreshments. The Club meets at 7:30 PM on the 4th Wednesday of each month. Contact Emil Volcheck at volcheck@acm.org.
30] – Jon Gnarr, the anarchist mayor of Reykjavík, presents "Gnarr: How I Became the Mayor of a Large City in Iceland and Changed the World" on Wed., June 25 at 7:30 PM @ Red Emma's, 30 W. North Ave., Baltimore 21201. The memoir of the retiring mayor of Iceland's largest city will be sold. Gnarr founded Iceland’s “Best Party” in 2009, in the wake of the country’s economic collapse, to satirize his country’s political system. He campaigned, and won, on a platform of free towels for public pools, a polar bear for the zoo, and a drug-free Parliament “by 2020.” Call 443-602-7585. Go to http://www.redemmas.org.
31] – On Thurs., June 26 from 10 AM to noon, Daryl Kimball, Greg Thielmann and Kelsey Davenport, Arms Control Association, and Frank von Hippel, Princeton University, take on "Toward a Comprehensive, Effective Nuclear Deal with Iran?" The discussion is sponsored by the Arms Control Association, and will take place at Carnegie Endowment, Choate Room, 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, WDC. RSVP at https://www.armscontrol.org/civicrm/event/register?reset=1&id=32.
To be continued.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
27] "Retrospective Illusions? Nuclear Lessons from French Memory" – June 25
28] Re:Imagining Our Stories with Center for Story-Based Strategy – June 25
29] See a screening of "Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition – June 25
30] Hear Jon Gnarr, the anarchist mayor of Reykjavík – June 25
31] "Toward a Comprehensive, Effective Nuclear Deal with Iran?" – June 26
26] – On Wed., June 25 from 8:30 AM through Sun., June 29 at 10 PM, celebrate the 17th Annual June Survivors' Week. The theme is "Building Bridges Together." During the week we will have different workshops, a human rights training, a Congressional visit, a 12 hours vigil in front of the White House and a hearing at the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. Survivors and prominent human rights experts will speak at workshops and at the Tom Lantos Commission. Go to http://www.tassc.org/node/139.
TASSC, the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, is holding its 17th Annual June Survivors’ Week June 25 to 29. With the theme “Building Bridges Together,” the week includes an education day on Wed., June 25 and a White House vigil on Sat., June 28. Contact TASSC at info@tassc.org or 202-529-2991.
27] – On Wed., June 25 from 11 AM to 12:30 PM, Benot Pelopidas, University of Bristol, and Garret Martin, European Institute, will address "Retrospective Illusions? Nuclear Lessons from French Memory" at the Wilson Center, Fifth Floor, Reagan Building, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, WDC. RSVP http://pages.wilsoncenter.org/140625RetrospectiveIllusions_NPIHPEventSingleSpeaker_ModelEvent_ModelEvent_Registration.html.
28] – At Bread for the City, SE Center, 1640 Good Hope Rd. on Wed., June 25 from noon to 2 PM, join Bread for the City, Healthy Affordable Food for All, DC Place Matters & Service to Justice for the first workshop in a three part series called: Re:Imagining Our Stories with Center for Story-Based Strategy. Certificates will be given for attendance at all three trainings. Contact Joni at 202-553-7248 or jpodschun@breadforthecity.org.
29] – On Wed., June 25 at 7:30 PM, see a screening of "Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition" at the Baltimore Ethical Society, 306 W. Franklin St., Suite 102, Baltimore 21201-4661. "Billionaires David and Charles Koch have been handed the ability to buy our democracy in the form of giant checks to the House, Senate, and soon, possibly even the Presidency. The last time we exposed the Koch Brothers' dealings to the world we here at Brave New Films wound up in their crosshairs. They produced online ad campaigns attacking us, but, it takes more than a banner ad to slow us down.
We've reissued Koch Brothers Exposed in an updated version, Koch Brothers Exposed: 2014 Edition, to shine a light on them. We've delved even deeper into where their money is going, who their money is hurting, and how much they are making during this whole process leading up to the 2014 Elections."
Screenings at the BES Ironweed Film Club are free and open to the public. Donations are requested for refreshments. The Club meets at 7:30 PM on the 4th Wednesday of each month. Contact Emil Volcheck at volcheck@acm.org.
30] – Jon Gnarr, the anarchist mayor of Reykjavík, presents "Gnarr: How I Became the Mayor of a Large City in Iceland and Changed the World" on Wed., June 25 at 7:30 PM @ Red Emma's, 30 W. North Ave., Baltimore 21201. The memoir of the retiring mayor of Iceland's largest city will be sold. Gnarr founded Iceland’s “Best Party” in 2009, in the wake of the country’s economic collapse, to satirize his country’s political system. He campaigned, and won, on a platform of free towels for public pools, a polar bear for the zoo, and a drug-free Parliament “by 2020.” Call 443-602-7585. Go to http://www.redemmas.org.
31] – On Thurs., June 26 from 10 AM to noon, Daryl Kimball, Greg Thielmann and Kelsey Davenport, Arms Control Association, and Frank von Hippel, Princeton University, take on "Toward a Comprehensive, Effective Nuclear Deal with Iran?" The discussion is sponsored by the Arms Control Association, and will take place at Carnegie Endowment, Choate Room, 1779 Massachusetts Ave. NW, WDC. RSVP at https://www.armscontrol.org/civicrm/event/register?reset=1&id=32.
To be continued.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Monday, June 23, 2014
The Ghoulish Face of Empire
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_ghoulish_face_of_empire_20140623
The Ghoulish Face of Empire
Posted on Jun 22, 2014
By Chris Hedges
Anti-war protesters, wearing masks depicting former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, right, former U.S. President George W. Bush, center, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, pose for photographers. AP/Lefteris Pitarakis
The black-clad fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, sweeping a collapsing army and terrified Iraqis before them as they advance toward Baghdad, reflect back to us the ghoulish face of American empire.
They are the specters of the hundreds of thousands of people we murdered in our deluded quest to remake the Middle East. They are ghosts from the innumerable roadsides and villages where U.S. soldiers and Marines, jolted by explosions of improvised explosive devices, responded with indiscriminate fire. They are the risen remains of the dismembered Iraqis left behind by blasts of Hellfire and cruise missiles, howitzers, grenade launchers and drone strikes. They are the avengers of the gruesome torture and the sexual debasement that often came with being detained by American troops. They are the final answer to the collective humiliation of an occupied country, the logical outcome of Shock and Awe, the Frankenstein monster stitched together from the body parts we left scattered on the ground. They are what we get for the $4 trillion we wasted on the Iraq War.
The language of violence engenders violence. The language of hate engenders hate. “I and the public know what all schoolchildren learn,” W.H. Auden wrote. “Those to whom evil is done do evil in return.” It is as old as the Bible.
There is no fight left in us. The war is over. We destroyed Iraq as a unified country. It will never be put back together. We are reduced—in what must be an act of divine justice decreed by the gods, whom we have discovered to our dismay are Islamic—to pleading with Iran for military assistance to shield the corrupt and despised U.S. protectorate led by Nouri al-Maliki. We are not, as we thought when we entered Iraq, the omnipotent superpower able in a swift and brutal stroke to bend a people to our will. We are something else. Fools and murderers. Blinded by hubris. Faded relics of the Cold War. And now, in the final act of the play, we are crawling away. Our empire is dying.
We should have heeded, while we had a chance, the wails of mothers and fathers. We should have listened to the cries of the wounded. We should have wept over the bodies of Iraqi children lined up in neat rows in the morgues. We should have honored grief so we could honor life. But the dance of death is intoxicating. Once it begins you whirl in an ecstatic frenzy. Death’s embrace, which feels at first like sexual lust, tightens and tightens until you suffocate. Now the music has stopped. All we have left are loss and pain.
And where are the voices of sanity? Why are the cheerleaders of slaughter, who have been wrong about Iraq since before the invasion, still urging us toward ruin? Why are those who destabilized Iraq and the region in the worst strategic blunder in American history still given a hearing? Why do we listen to simpletons and morons?
They bang their fists. They yell. They throw tantrums. They demand that the world conform to their childish vision. It is as if they have learned nothing from the 11 years of useless slaughter. As if they can dominate that which they never had the power to dominate.
I sat in a restaurant Thursday in Boston’s Kenmore Square with military historian Andrew Bacevich. You won’t hear his voice much on the airwaves. He is an apostate. He speaks of the world as it is, not the self-delusional world our empire builders expect it to be. He knows war with a painful intimacy, not only as a Vietnam combat veteran and a retired Army colonel but also as the father of a U.S. Army officer killed in a 2007 suicide bombing in Iraq.
“In the 1990s there was a considerable effort made in the military, but also in the larger community of national security experts scratching their heads and [asking] what are the implications of all this technology,” he said. “They conceived of something called the Revolution in Military Affairs—RMA. If you believed in the Revolution of Military Affairs you knew that nothing could stop the United States military when it engaged in a conflict. Victory was, for all practical purposes, a certainty. People like Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, and I expect Dick Cheney also, bought this hook, line and sinker. You put yourself in their shoes in the wake of 9/11. An attack comes out of Afghanistan, a country frankly nobody cares about, and you conceive of this grand strategy of trying to transform the Islamic world. Where are we going to start? We are going to start by attacking a country [Iraq]—we had it under surveillance and sanctions for the past decade—where there is a bona fide bad guy to make a moral case and where we are confident we can make short work of this adversary, a further demonstration that the American military cannot be stopped. They utterly and totally miscalculated. Iraq is falling apart. And many of these people, either in government or outside of government, who were proponents of the war are now advocating for a resumption of the American war. Not one of them is willing to acknowledge the extent of that military miscalculation. Once you acknowledge it, then the whole project of militarizing U.S. policy towards the Greater Middle East collapses.”
Bacevich blames the concentration of power into the hands of the executive branch for the debacle. He said that since the Kennedy administration “the incoming president and his team, it does not matter which party, see the permanent government as a problem. If we [the new officials] are going to get done what we want to get done we have to find ways to marginalize the permanent government. This has led to the centralization of authority in the White House and means decisions are made by a very small number of people. The consultation becomes increasingly informal, to the point it is not even documented.”
“I do not think we even know when the decision to go to war with Iraq was actually made,” Bacevich said. “There is no documented meeting where [President George W.] Bush sat down with how many people—six, 10, 25—and said, ‘Let’s vote.’ The decision kind of emerged and therefore was implemented. Why would you operate that way? You would operate that way if you viewed the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the CIA and the State Department as, in a sense, the enemy.”
“The invasion of Iraq was intended to be a catalyst,” he said. “It was supposed to be the catalyst that would enable us ... to change the region. It turned out to be the catalyst that resulted in destabilization. The big question of the moment is not what can we do or is there anything we can do to salvage Iraq. The question is to what degree have our actions resulted in this larger regional mayhem. And to the extent they have, isn’t it time to rethink fundamentally our expectations of what American power, and particularly American military power, can achieve?”
“We need to take a radically different course,” Bacevich said. “There is an analogy to be made with Great Britain in the wake of World War I. It was in World War I that Britain and France collaborated to dismantle the Ottoman Empire to create the new Middle East. While on the one hand there was an awareness that Britain was in decline, at the level where policy was made there was not a willingness to consider the implications of that fact.
It took World War II to drive it home—that the [British] empire was doomed. I think that is where we are.” Out of this decline, Bacevich said, is emerging a multipolar order. The United States will no longer be able to operate as an unchallenged superpower. But, he said, similar to the condition that existed as the British Empire took its last gasps, “there is very little willingness in Washington or in policy circles to take on board the implications multipolarity would call for in terms of adjusting our policy.”
The inability to adjust to our declining power means that the United States will continue to squander its resources, its money and its military.
“By squandering power we forfeit our influence because we look stupid and we bankrupt ourselves,” Bacevich said. “We will spend $4 trillion, not dollars spent in the moment but dollars we will have spent the last time the last Afghanistan veteran gets his last VA check. That money is gone forever. It is concealed because in the Bush administration’s confidence that victory would be easily won the government did not bother to mobilize the country or increase our taxes. We weaken ourselves economically. People complain about our crappy infrastructure. Give me $4 trillion and I probably could have fixed a couple of bridges. And we must never forget the human cost. Lives lost, lives damaged. And in these two wars [Afghanistan and Iraq] there does seem to be this increase in PTSD that we don’t know what to do about. It is a squandering of human capital.”
Bacevich said the “military mind-set” has so infected the discourse of the power elite that when there is a foreign policy problem the usual response is to discuss “three different courses of military action. ... Should it be airstrikes with drones? Should it be airstrikes with manned aircraft? Special operations forces? Or some combination of all three? And that’s what you get.” The press, he said, is an “echo chamber and reinforces the notion that those are the [only] options.”
The disintegration of Iraq is irreversible. At best, the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunnis will carve out antagonistic enclaves. At worst, there will be a protracted civil war. This is what we have bequeathed to Iraq. The spread of our military through the region has inflamed jihadists across the Arab world. The resulting conflicts will continue until we end our occupation of the Middle East. The callous slaughter we deliver is no different from the callous slaughter we receive. Our jihadists—George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Thomas Friedman and Tommy Franks—who assured us that swift and overwhelming force in Iraq would transform the Middle East into an American outpost of progress, are no less demented than the jihadists approaching Baghdad. These two groups of killers mirror each other. This is what we have spawned.
And this is what we deserve.
AP/Lefteris Pitarakis
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
The Ghoulish Face of Empire
Posted on Jun 22, 2014
By Chris Hedges
Anti-war protesters, wearing masks depicting former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, right, former U.S. President George W. Bush, center, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, pose for photographers. AP/Lefteris Pitarakis
The black-clad fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, sweeping a collapsing army and terrified Iraqis before them as they advance toward Baghdad, reflect back to us the ghoulish face of American empire.
They are the specters of the hundreds of thousands of people we murdered in our deluded quest to remake the Middle East. They are ghosts from the innumerable roadsides and villages where U.S. soldiers and Marines, jolted by explosions of improvised explosive devices, responded with indiscriminate fire. They are the risen remains of the dismembered Iraqis left behind by blasts of Hellfire and cruise missiles, howitzers, grenade launchers and drone strikes. They are the avengers of the gruesome torture and the sexual debasement that often came with being detained by American troops. They are the final answer to the collective humiliation of an occupied country, the logical outcome of Shock and Awe, the Frankenstein monster stitched together from the body parts we left scattered on the ground. They are what we get for the $4 trillion we wasted on the Iraq War.
The language of violence engenders violence. The language of hate engenders hate. “I and the public know what all schoolchildren learn,” W.H. Auden wrote. “Those to whom evil is done do evil in return.” It is as old as the Bible.
There is no fight left in us. The war is over. We destroyed Iraq as a unified country. It will never be put back together. We are reduced—in what must be an act of divine justice decreed by the gods, whom we have discovered to our dismay are Islamic—to pleading with Iran for military assistance to shield the corrupt and despised U.S. protectorate led by Nouri al-Maliki. We are not, as we thought when we entered Iraq, the omnipotent superpower able in a swift and brutal stroke to bend a people to our will. We are something else. Fools and murderers. Blinded by hubris. Faded relics of the Cold War. And now, in the final act of the play, we are crawling away. Our empire is dying.
We should have heeded, while we had a chance, the wails of mothers and fathers. We should have listened to the cries of the wounded. We should have wept over the bodies of Iraqi children lined up in neat rows in the morgues. We should have honored grief so we could honor life. But the dance of death is intoxicating. Once it begins you whirl in an ecstatic frenzy. Death’s embrace, which feels at first like sexual lust, tightens and tightens until you suffocate. Now the music has stopped. All we have left are loss and pain.
And where are the voices of sanity? Why are the cheerleaders of slaughter, who have been wrong about Iraq since before the invasion, still urging us toward ruin? Why are those who destabilized Iraq and the region in the worst strategic blunder in American history still given a hearing? Why do we listen to simpletons and morons?
They bang their fists. They yell. They throw tantrums. They demand that the world conform to their childish vision. It is as if they have learned nothing from the 11 years of useless slaughter. As if they can dominate that which they never had the power to dominate.
I sat in a restaurant Thursday in Boston’s Kenmore Square with military historian Andrew Bacevich. You won’t hear his voice much on the airwaves. He is an apostate. He speaks of the world as it is, not the self-delusional world our empire builders expect it to be. He knows war with a painful intimacy, not only as a Vietnam combat veteran and a retired Army colonel but also as the father of a U.S. Army officer killed in a 2007 suicide bombing in Iraq.
“In the 1990s there was a considerable effort made in the military, but also in the larger community of national security experts scratching their heads and [asking] what are the implications of all this technology,” he said. “They conceived of something called the Revolution in Military Affairs—RMA. If you believed in the Revolution of Military Affairs you knew that nothing could stop the United States military when it engaged in a conflict. Victory was, for all practical purposes, a certainty. People like Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, and I expect Dick Cheney also, bought this hook, line and sinker. You put yourself in their shoes in the wake of 9/11. An attack comes out of Afghanistan, a country frankly nobody cares about, and you conceive of this grand strategy of trying to transform the Islamic world. Where are we going to start? We are going to start by attacking a country [Iraq]—we had it under surveillance and sanctions for the past decade—where there is a bona fide bad guy to make a moral case and where we are confident we can make short work of this adversary, a further demonstration that the American military cannot be stopped. They utterly and totally miscalculated. Iraq is falling apart. And many of these people, either in government or outside of government, who were proponents of the war are now advocating for a resumption of the American war. Not one of them is willing to acknowledge the extent of that military miscalculation. Once you acknowledge it, then the whole project of militarizing U.S. policy towards the Greater Middle East collapses.”
Bacevich blames the concentration of power into the hands of the executive branch for the debacle. He said that since the Kennedy administration “the incoming president and his team, it does not matter which party, see the permanent government as a problem. If we [the new officials] are going to get done what we want to get done we have to find ways to marginalize the permanent government. This has led to the centralization of authority in the White House and means decisions are made by a very small number of people. The consultation becomes increasingly informal, to the point it is not even documented.”
“I do not think we even know when the decision to go to war with Iraq was actually made,” Bacevich said. “There is no documented meeting where [President George W.] Bush sat down with how many people—six, 10, 25—and said, ‘Let’s vote.’ The decision kind of emerged and therefore was implemented. Why would you operate that way? You would operate that way if you viewed the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the CIA and the State Department as, in a sense, the enemy.”
“The invasion of Iraq was intended to be a catalyst,” he said. “It was supposed to be the catalyst that would enable us ... to change the region. It turned out to be the catalyst that resulted in destabilization. The big question of the moment is not what can we do or is there anything we can do to salvage Iraq. The question is to what degree have our actions resulted in this larger regional mayhem. And to the extent they have, isn’t it time to rethink fundamentally our expectations of what American power, and particularly American military power, can achieve?”
“We need to take a radically different course,” Bacevich said. “There is an analogy to be made with Great Britain in the wake of World War I. It was in World War I that Britain and France collaborated to dismantle the Ottoman Empire to create the new Middle East. While on the one hand there was an awareness that Britain was in decline, at the level where policy was made there was not a willingness to consider the implications of that fact.
It took World War II to drive it home—that the [British] empire was doomed. I think that is where we are.” Out of this decline, Bacevich said, is emerging a multipolar order. The United States will no longer be able to operate as an unchallenged superpower. But, he said, similar to the condition that existed as the British Empire took its last gasps, “there is very little willingness in Washington or in policy circles to take on board the implications multipolarity would call for in terms of adjusting our policy.”
The inability to adjust to our declining power means that the United States will continue to squander its resources, its money and its military.
“By squandering power we forfeit our influence because we look stupid and we bankrupt ourselves,” Bacevich said. “We will spend $4 trillion, not dollars spent in the moment but dollars we will have spent the last time the last Afghanistan veteran gets his last VA check. That money is gone forever. It is concealed because in the Bush administration’s confidence that victory would be easily won the government did not bother to mobilize the country or increase our taxes. We weaken ourselves economically. People complain about our crappy infrastructure. Give me $4 trillion and I probably could have fixed a couple of bridges. And we must never forget the human cost. Lives lost, lives damaged. And in these two wars [Afghanistan and Iraq] there does seem to be this increase in PTSD that we don’t know what to do about. It is a squandering of human capital.”
Bacevich said the “military mind-set” has so infected the discourse of the power elite that when there is a foreign policy problem the usual response is to discuss “three different courses of military action. ... Should it be airstrikes with drones? Should it be airstrikes with manned aircraft? Special operations forces? Or some combination of all three? And that’s what you get.” The press, he said, is an “echo chamber and reinforces the notion that those are the [only] options.”
The disintegration of Iraq is irreversible. At best, the Kurds, the Shiites and the Sunnis will carve out antagonistic enclaves. At worst, there will be a protracted civil war. This is what we have bequeathed to Iraq. The spread of our military through the region has inflamed jihadists across the Arab world. The resulting conflicts will continue until we end our occupation of the Middle East. The callous slaughter we deliver is no different from the callous slaughter we receive. Our jihadists—George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Thomas Friedman and Tommy Franks—who assured us that swift and overwhelming force in Iraq would transform the Middle East into an American outpost of progress, are no less demented than the jihadists approaching Baghdad. These two groups of killers mirror each other. This is what we have spawned.
And this is what we deserve.
AP/Lefteris Pitarakis
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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