Baltimore Nonviolence Center

How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the '1 Percent' by George Lakey

2012-01-28T07:42:00.001-05:00

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/26-3

Published on Thursday, January 26, 2012 by Waging Nonviolence

How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’

While many of us are working to ensure that the Occupy movement will have a lasting impact, it’s worthwhile to consider other countries where masses of people succeeded in nonviolently bringing about a high degree of democracy and economic justice. Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society and created the basis for something different.A march in Ådalen, Sweden, in 1931.

Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment. Unlike the Norwegians, the Swedes didn’t find oil, but that didn’t stop them from building what the latest CIA World Factbook calls “an enviable standard of living.”

Neither country is a utopia, as readers of the crime novels by Stieg Larsson, Kurt Wallender and Jo Nesbro will know. Critical left-wing authors such as these try to push Sweden and Norway to continue on the path toward more fully just societies. However, as an American activist who first encountered Norway as a student in 1959 and learned some of its language and culture, the achievements I found amazed me. I remember, for example, bicycling for hours through a small industrial city, looking in vain for substandard housing. Sometimes resisting the evidence of my eyes, I made up stories that “accounted for” the differences I saw: “small country,” “homogeneous,” “a value consensus.” I finally gave up imposing my frameworks on these countries and learned the real reason: their own histories.

Then I began to learn that the Swedes and Norwegians paid a price for their standards of living through nonviolent struggle. There was a time when Scandinavian workers didn’t expect that the electoral arena could deliver the change they believed in. They realized that, with the 1 percent in charge, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change.

In both countries, the troops were called out to defend the 1 percent; people died. Award-winning Swedish filmmaker Bo Widerberg told the Swedish story vividly in Ådalen 31, which depicts the strikers killed in 1931 and the sparking of a nationwide general strike. (You can read more about this case in an entry by Max Rennebohm in the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)

The Norwegians had a harder time organizing a cohesive people’s movement because Norway’s small population—about three million—was spread out over a territory the size of Britain. People were divided by mountains and fjords, and they spoke regional dialects in isolated valleys. In the nineteenth century, Norway was ruled by Denmark and then by Sweden; in the context of Europe Norwegians were the “country rubes,” of little consequence. Not until 1905 did Norway finally become independent.

When workers formed unions in the early 1900s, they generally turned to Marxism, organizing for revolution as well as immediate gains. They were overjoyed by the overthrow of the czar in Russia, and the Norwegian Labor Party joined the Communist International organized by Lenin. Labor didn’t stay long, however. One way in which most Norwegians parted ways with Leninist strategy was on the role of violence: Norwegians wanted to win their revolution through collective nonviolent struggle, along with establishing co-ops and using the electoral arena.

In the 1920s strikes increased in intensity. The town of Hammerfest formed a commune in 1921, led by workers councils; the army intervened to crush it. The workers’ response verged toward a national general strike. The employers, backed by the state, beat back that strike, but workers erupted again in the ironworkers’ strike of 1923–24.

The Norwegian 1 percent decided not to rely simply on the army; in 1926 they formed a social movement called the Patriotic League, recruiting mainly from the middle class. By the 1930s, the League included as many as 100,000 people for armed protection of strike breakers—this in a country of only 3 million!

The Labor Party, in the meantime, opened its membership to anyone, whether or not in a unionized workplace. Middle-class Marxists and some reformers joined the party. Many rural farm workers joined the Labor Party, as well as some small landholders. Labor leadership understood that in a protracted struggle, constant outreach and organizing was needed to a nonviolent campaign. In the midst of the growing polarization, Norway’s workers launched another wave of strikes and boycotts in 1928.

The Depression hit bottom in 1931. More people were jobless there than in any other Nordic country. Unlike in the U.S., the Norwegian union movement kept the people thrown out of work as members, even though they couldn’t pay dues. This decision paid off in mass mobilizations. When the employers’ federation locked employees out of the factories to try to force a reduction of wages, the workers fought back with massive demonstrations.

Many people then found that their mortgages were in jeopardy. (Sound familiar?) The Depression continued, and farmers were unable to keep up payment on their debts. As turbulence hit the rural sector, crowds gathered nonviolently to prevent the eviction of families from their farms. The Agrarian Party, which included larger farmers and had previously been allied with the Conservative Party, began to distance itself from the 1 percent; some could see that the ability of the few to rule the many was in doubt.

By 1935, Norway was on the brink. The Conservative-led government was losing legitimacy daily; the 1 percent became increasingly desperate as militancy grew among workers and farmers. A complete overthrow might be just a couple years away, radical workers thought. However, the misery of the poor became more urgent daily, and the Labor Party felt increasing pressure from its members to alleviate their suffering, which it could do only if it took charge of the government in a compromise agreement with the other side.

This it did. In a compromise that allowed owners to retain the right to own and manage their firms, Labor in 1935 took the reins of government in coalition with the Agrarian Party. They expanded the economy and started public works projects to head toward a policy of full employment that became the keystone of Norwegian economic policy. Labor’s success and the continued militancy of workers enabled steady inroads against the privileges of the 1 percent, to the point that majority ownership of all large firms was taken by the public interest. (There is an entry on this case as well at the Global Nonviolent Action Database.)

The 1 percent thereby lost its historic power to dominate the economy and society. Not until three decades later could the Conservatives return to a governing coalition, having by then accepted the new rules of the game, including a high degree of public ownership of the means of production, extremely progressive taxation, strong business regulation for the public good and the virtual abolition of poverty. When Conservatives eventually tried a fling with neoliberal policies, the economy generated a bubble and headed for disaster. (Sound familiar?)

Labor stepped in, seized the three largest banks, fired the top management, left the stockholders without a dime and refused to bail out any of the smaller banks. The well-purged Norwegian financial sector was not one of those countries that lurched into crisis in 2008; carefully regulated and much of it publicly owned, the sector was solid.

Although Norwegians may not tell you about this the first time you meet them, the fact remains that their society’s high level of freedom and broadly-shared prosperity began when workers and farmers, along with middle class allies, waged a nonviolent struggle that empowered the people to govern for the common good.

George Lakey is Visiting Professor at Swarthmore College and a Quaker. He has led 1,500 workshops on five continents and led activist projects on local, national, and international levels. Among many other books and articles, he is author of “Strategizing for a Living Revolution” in David Solnit’s book Globalize Liberation (City Lights, 2004). His first arrest was for a civil rights sit-in and most recent was with Earth Quaker Action Team while protesting mountain top removal coal mining. E-mail: glakey1@swarthmore.edu

Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable

2012-01-27T23:40:00.001-05:00

Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable

By Sarah van Gelder

You may remember that there was a time when apartheid in South Africa seemed unstoppable.

Sure, there were international boycotts of South African businesses, banks, and tourist attractions. There were heroic activists in South Africa, who were going to prison and even dying for freedom. But the conventional wisdom remained that these were principled gestures with little chance of upending the entrenched system of white rule.

“Be patient,” activists were told. “Don’t expect too much against powerful interests with a lot of money invested in the status quo.”

With hindsight, though, apartheid’s fall appears inevitable: the legitimacy of the system had already crumbled. It was harming too many for the benefit of too few. South Africa’s freedom fighters would not be silenced, and the global movement supporting them was likewise tenacious and principled.

In the same way, the legitimacy of rule by giant corporations and Wall Street banks is crumbling. This system of corporate rule also benefits few and harms many, affecting nearly every major issue in public life. Some examples:

§ Powerful corporations socialize their risks and costs, but privatize profits. That means we, the 99 percent, pick up the tab for environmental clean ups, for helping workers who aren’t paid enough to afford food or health care, for bailouts when risky speculation goes wrong. Meanwhile, profits go straight into the pockets of top executives and others in the 1 percent.

§ The financial collapse threw millions of Americans into poverty. 25 million are unemployed, under-employed, or have given up looking for work; four million have been unemployed for more than 12 months. Poverty increased 27 percent between 2006 and 2010. And students who graduated with student loans in 2010 had borrowed 5 percent more than the previous year’s graduating class—owing more than $25,000. Meanwhile, those who caused the collapse continue the same practices. And the unwillingness of the 1 percent to pay their fair share of taxes means the the public services we rely on are fraying.

§ Scientists say that we are on the brink of runaway climate change; we only have a few years to make the needed investments in clean power and energy efficiency. This transition could be a huge job creator—on the order of the investments made during World War II, which got us out of the Depression. But fossil fuel industries don’t want to see their investment in dirty energy undermined by the switch to clean energy and conservation. So far, by paying millions to climate deniers, lobbyists, and political campaigns, they’ve succeeded in stymieing change.

§ Agribusiness get taxpayer subsidies for foods that make us sick; for farming practices that destroy rivers, soils, the climate, and the oceans; and for trade practices that cause hunger at home and abroad.

§ Through ALEC, the private prison industry crafts state laws that boost the numbers behind bars, lengthen sentences, and privatize prisons.

§ Big Pharma jacks up prices; insurance companies raise premiums and delivers fewer benefits; the burden of inflated care drags down the economy and bankrupts families. But only a very few politicians stand up to the health care industry's war chests and advocate for Canadian-style single-payer health care, which would go a long way toward solving the cost problem.

§ Corporations and wealthy executives fund an army of lobbyists and election campaigns, spreading untruths and self-serving policy prescriptions.

It’s not that we, the people, haven’t noticed all this.

In a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, 77 percent of Americans said too much power is concentrated in the hands of a few rich people and large corporations. In a poll by Time Magazine, 86 percent of Americans said Wall Street and its lobbyists have too much influence in Washington.

And 80 percent of Americans oppose Citizens United, the pro-corporate Supreme Court ruling that turns two years old today. Eighty percent—that’s among Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.

Some say corporations have such a strong grip on politicians and big media that it is impossible to challenge them, no matter how many of us there are.

But I believe we can do it. In the past few months, YES! Magazine has been researching ways that ordinary people can challenge corporate power (look for strategies in our spring issue, out in February). And we found that there are actually a lot of tools at our disposal:

§ Corporations were created by public law to provide a public benefit. If we the people no longer feel that a corporation is providing a benefit—or if we feel that it is operating in a lawless and destructive manner—we can revoke their charter. That’s what Free Speech for People has asked the attorney general of Delaware to do to Massey Energy, which has been one of the worst culprits in mountaintop removal and which has operated its mines in a lawless and negligent manner, resulting in 29 deaths at the Upper Big Branch Mine.

§ We can insist that, in exchange for use of our public airwaves, broadcasters provide free airtime to candidates for public office. If they don’t need to raise millions for media buys, they don’t need to be as beholden to the 1 percent.

§ We can get our governments to quit banking with Bank of America and Chase, and start our own state banks—14 states, including California and Washington, are considering such a move. And while we're at it, we can localize food, energy, and other aspects of our economy so local, independent businesses and cooperatives can thrive.

§ We can stand up to specific parts of the corporate agenda by engaging in the sort of direct action that halted the KXL Pipeline.

§ We can call for a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, corporate personhood, and the ridiculous notion that money is the same thing as speech. So far, Los Angeles, New York City, and about 50 other towns and cities have done so far.

§ We can use mechanisms like clean elections, electoral transparency, citizen review of legislation, and recalls to keep corporate control of our democracy in check.

§ Finally, the reason I am most hopeful today: We can take a cue from Occupy Wall Street and continue to name the source of political corruption—something the political establishment and mainstream media have refused to do. We can occupy homes that are slated for foreclosure, as people have been doing all over the country. We can mic check places like Walmarts that intimidate and fire workers who want to unionize. We can set up tents in public places and in other ways join with the Occupy movement to take a stand for a world that works for the 100 percent—a world where we all benefit.

None of these actions will be easy. It will take time—potentially years of work—to make big change. But just as the legitimacy of apartheid crumbled well before the institutions of apartheid went down, the legitimacy of corporate rule is crumbling. So I’m convinced that, with you and me and all the others out there creating alternatives and taking a stand, we will see change.

Sarah van Gelder will deliver these comments at Seattle's rally on the second anniversary of the Citizens United ruling. Sarah is YES! Magazine's co-founder and executive editor, and editor of the new book: "This Changes Everything: Occupy Wall Street and the 99% Movement."

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/corporate-rule-not-inevitable-1327244206. All rights are reserved.

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

In Honduras, a Mess Made in the U.S.

2012-01-27T20:06:00.001-05:00

In Honduras, a Mess Made in the U.S.
Dana Frank, New York Times, January 26, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/opinion/in-honduras-a-mess-helped-by-the-us.html

SANTA CRUZ, Calif.

IT’S time to acknowledge the foreign policy disaster that American support for the Porfirio Lobo administration in Honduras has become. Ever since the June 28, 2009, coup that deposed Honduras’s democratically elected president, José Manuel Zelaya, the country has been descending deeper into a human rights and security abyss. That abyss is in good part the State Department’s making.

The headlines have been full of horror stories about Honduras. According to the United Nations, it now has the world’s highest murder rate, and San Pedro Sula, its second city, is more dangerous than Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, a center for drug cartel violence.

Much of the press in the United States has attributed this violence solely to drug trafficking and gangs. But the coup was what threw open the doors to a huge increase in drug trafficking and violence, and it unleashed a continuing wave of state-sponsored repression.

The current government of President Lobo won power in a November 2009 election managed by the same figures who had initiated the coup. Most opposition candidates withdrew in protest, and all major international observers boycotted the election, except for the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute, which are financed by the United States.

President Obama quickly recognized Mr. Lobo’s victory, even when most of Latin America would not. Mr. Lobo’s government is, in fact, a child of the coup. It retains most of the military figures who perpetrated the coup, and no one has gone to jail for starting it.

This chain of events — a coup that the United States didn’t stop, a fraudulent election that it accepted — has now allowed corruption to mushroom. The judicial system hardly functions. Impunity reigns. At least 34 members of the opposition have disappeared or been killed, and more than 300 people have been killed by state security forces since the coup, according to the leading human rights organization Cofadeh. At least 13 journalists have been killed since Mr. Lobo took office, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The police in Tegucigalpa, the capital, are believed to have killed the son of Julieta Castellanos, the rector of the country’s biggest university, along with a friend of his, on Oct. 22, 2011. Top police officials quickly admitted their suspects were police officers, but failed to immediately detain them. When prominent figures came forward to charge that the police are riddled with death squads and drug traffickers, the most famous accuser was a former police commissioner, Alfredo Landaverde. He was assassinated on Dec. 7. Only now has the government begun to make significant arrests of police officers.

State-sponsored repression continues. According to Cofadeh, at least 43 campesino activists participating in land struggles in the Aguán Valley have been killed in the past two and a half years at the hands of the police, the military and the private security army of Miguel Facussé. Mr. Facussé is mentioned in United States Embassy cables made public by WikiLeaks as the richest man in the country, a big supporter of the post-coup regime and owner of land used to transfer cocaine.

And yet, in early October, Mr. Obama praised Mr. Lobo at the White House for leadership in a “restoration of democratic practices.” Since the coup the United States has maintained and in some areas increased military and police financing for Honduras and has been enlarging its military bases there, according to an analysis by the Fellowship of Reconciliation. Congress, though, has finally begun to push back. Last May, 87 members signed a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calling for a suspension of military and police aid to Honduras. Representative Howard L. Berman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote to her on Nov. 28, asking whether the United States was arming a dangerous regime. And in December, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, and others obtained conditions on a small portion of the 2012 police and military aid appropriated for Honduras.

Why has the State Department thrown itself behind the Lobo administration despite brutal evidence of the regime’s corruption? In part because it has caved in to the Cuban-American constituency of Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, the Republican chairwoman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and her allies. They have been ferocious about Honduras as a first domino with which to push back against the line of center-left and leftist governments that have won elections in Latin America in the past 15 years. With its American air base, Honduras is also crucial to the United States’ military strategy in Latin America.

As Honduras plunges into a tragic abyss, it’s time to finally cut off all police and military aid. “Stop feeding the beast” is the way Ms. Castellanos, the academician whose son was killed, puts it. She, like other human rights advocates, insists that the Lobo government cannot reform itself.

The State Department is beginning to help address the situation behind the scenes. But Honduran human-rights activists, along with many of us in the United States who care about Honduras, do not believe that this administration can, or should, manage a cleanup of the very cesspool it helped to create by supporting a government that owes its power to a coup.

Instead, we need to respect proposals for alternative approaches that Honduran human-rights advocates and the opposition are beginning to formulate. These come from people who are still fighting against the coup and who continue to risk paying the price of being shot dead by state security forces.

They, not the State Department, have the right to lead their country forward.

Dana Frank, a professor of history at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is at work on a book about the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s cold-war intervention in the Honduran labor movement.

Mega Manufacturer Caterpillar Locks Out Workers to Force Pay Cuts While Making Record Profits

2012-01-27T16:29:00.001-05:00

Friends,

Is this a surprise that the company that seells its machine to the Israeli military is also rapacious to uts workers? A Caterpillar tracker killed Rachel Corrie and now the company is declaring on the workers. Shame.

Kagiso,

Max

Mega Manufacturer Caterpillar Locks Out Workers to Force Pay Cuts While Making Record Profits

By Pat Garofalo

Yesterday, ThinkProgress’ Tanya Somanader noted that Apple Inc. is breaking its profit record and sitting on nearly $100 billion in cash, while its Chinese laborers toil in unsafe and even deadly conditions. Here on the other side of the Atlantic, another huge company has decided to lock out its Canadian workers in an attempt to force them to accept pay cuts, even as it pulls in its own record profits:

Caterpillar reported a 36 per cent increase in after-tax profit for both the fourth quarter of 2011 and the full year 2011. Revenues for the year increased four per cent to $2.65 billion.

Despite the record profits, the company is pressuring its employees at the London [Ontario] locomotive plant to accept a pay cut from $32 per hour to $16.50. Caterpillar locked out the workers on Jan. 1 after union members rejected the pay cut.

While certainly not in the same league with Apple’s abuses, Caterpillar is just the latest company attempting to force workers to accept wage cuts at the same time its hauling in huge profits and paying its CEO millions. AT&T, Navistar, John Deere, and Wellpoint have all pulled the same trick in the last few years, laying off hundreds of workers. Caterpillar’s CEO, John Oberhelman, made $10.5 million in 2010.

“This is all about greed,” says Bob Scott, union chairman at the plant. “How are workers supposed to go back to earning wages last paid nearly 25 years ago, while the company is richer than ever?” CEOs today make about 343 times the amount earned by the typical worker.

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/mega-manufacturer-caterpillar-locks-out-workers-force-pay-cuts-while-making-record-profits-132768126. All rights are reserved.

"New law means stripping certain protestors of their rights"

2012-01-27T14:30:00.000-05:00

Jan. 26, 2012

National Catholic Reporter

"New law means stripping certain protestors of their rights"

By Jeff Dietrich - LACW

http://ncronline.org/news/politics/new-law-means-stripping-certain-protestors-their-rights

Habeas corpus, hocus pocus, whatever.

Most Americans haven't the slightest idea what this arcane Latin term

might mean or why it might be important to them, but it is the reason

why most of the cases against Occupy Los Angeles are being dismissed.

It is also the reason why President Barack Obama signed HR 155, the

National Defense Authorization Act, into law, giving the president and

the military the authority to hold U.S. citizens indefinitely without

charges and bringing them before a judge.

Although I have been arrested and jailed scores of times over the

years for civil disobedience, it was not until I was arrested and

jailed with 300 "occupants" of Occupy Los Angeles on Nov. 30, 2011,

that I had a renewed appreciation for habeas corpus.

Because of habeas corpus, jailers and clerks had to scurry with

unnatural speed to get all 300 of us to court or drop charges within

the required three days. Because of habeas corpus, the prosecuting

attorneys had to scramble to make their case and find witnesses within

the 30 days required for a "speedy trial." Because of habeas corpus¸

the arresting officers and their superiors had to cancel vacations,

change their schedules and postpone important meetings in order to

testify. Habeas corpus threw the whole system into disarray. When my

case came before the court, both prosecutor and judge were delighted

to offer me a "deal": plead guilty, get time served, no probation, no

fine, no court fees, just get the hell out of here. Best deal I ever

had from a prosecutor! As the saying goes, I "made out like a bandit."

On the other hand, Martha, my fellow community member, was not offered

a deal. But her trial was a profound affirmation of the Bill of Rights

and habeas corpus. Her public defender was brilliant. In her opening

statement, she told the jury that Martha Lewis did not break the law;

rather, Ms. Lewis rightfully understood herself and Occupy Los Angeles

to have been invited by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City

Council to be present on the City Hall plaza lawn. She said Martha was

only doing what every citizen in the United States had a right to do:

She was voicing her opinion in public space, and that activity is

guaranteed by the Constitution. She virtually canonized Martha as a

saint of the First Amendment who stood up against the police for the

rights of all U.S. citizens

After three days, Martha's case was dismissed because the prosecutors

were unable to present evidence against her. The officer who claimed

to have arrested her was not allowed to testify because he had not

been made known to the defense beforehand. No arresting officer, no

arrest, no case ... case dismissed. Some might say that the right to

habeas corpus and a speedy trial are a detriment to justice, because

these rights let guilty criminals like Martha and myself go free. They

would, of course, be in the same camp as the CIA, the military and the

president, who want to hold "terrorists" indefinitely.

There is a general public sense that we need protection from

terrorists, even if it means suspending habeas corpus. But I have been

identified by various federal prosecutors and the FBI as a domestic

terrorist -- a nonviolent terrorist, but a terrorist, nonetheless. And

some law enforcement agencies have begun to label the Occupy movement

as a terrorist organization. Anyone who takes a strong stand against

government and corporate policies can be labeled a terrorist and held

indefinitely. The foundational rights guaranteed by the Bill of

Rights, and even before that by the Magna Carta, have been put into

the hands of anonymous, unaccountable bureaucrats and administrators.

The vote in Congress to pass HR 155 was overwhelmingly positive, with

huge support on both sides of the aisle.

From a certain perspective, it is understandable that the president

and liberal Democrats might sell out basic constitutional rights to

"big government" and the maintenance of empire.

But it is ironic that Tea Party legislators would so freely trade the

values of security for the treasure of liberty they claim to hold so

dearly. Are they unaware that the perpetrators of the Boston Tea Party

were considered to be terrorists? And had things gone differently,

they might well have been jailed and hanged. But, even so, as citizens

of England, they would have been guaranteed the basic right of habeas

corpus. Even as "terrorists," they had a basic right to be brought

before a magistrate; they had a basic right to hear the charges

against them; they had a basic right to a speedy trial; they had a

basic right to subpoena witnesses in their defense; they had a basic

right to cross-examine the witnesses against them. Only those who have

put their bodies in places of peril, whether it be at Occupy Los

Angeles in 2011 or the Boston Harbor in 1773, can appreciate the right

of habeas corpus. Those who play-act in Revolutionary War uniforms are

willing to sell that right cheaply.

You have to put your body where your principles are. As labor

organizer César Chávez said upon breaking his historic 25-day fast in

1967: "We are poor ... but we have something the rich do not own, our

bodies and the justice of our cause." The truth is that the only thing

we really own is our body, and the only time that habeas corpus really

matters is when our bodies are hauled off by the authorities.

Hocus pocus is a medieval corruption of the Latin; it is the

"make-believe" that charlatan magicians conjure when they pull the

rabbit out of the hat. Habeas corpus is real; it means to "make the

body appear." When we put our bodies in peril, it is essential that we

do not disappear; it is essential that the authorities be required to

"make our bodies appear." Otherwise, we are mere rabbits in the hats

of charlatan bureaucrats, cops and presidents who can arbitrarily

choose to conjure us or not at their whim. May this not be so. May

this not be so.

Jeff Dietrich is a 40-year member of the L.A. Catholic Worker

http://lacatholicworker.org/

His most recent book, “Broken and Shared,” is published by Marymount Institute Press.

Baltimore Activist Alert

2012-01-27T11:59:00.001-05:00

Baltimore Activist Alert Jan. 27– Feb. 2, 2012

"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 and stickers

2] Web site for info on federal legislation

3] Join Nonviolent Resistance lists

4] Buy coffee through HoCoFoLA

5] Occupy Freedom Plaza is undergoing a transformation

6] Occupy Baltimore evicted—vows to stay relevant

7] Day to remember the downwinders - Jan. 27

8] White House vigil – Jan. 27

9] WIB Inner Harbor vigil – Jan. 27

10] WIB Roland Park vigil – Jan. 27

11] Justice for Palestine/Israel vigil – Jan. 27

12] Prosecute U.S. officials involved in torture -- Jan. 27

13] Silent peace vigil -- Jan. 27

14] Discussion of where to go with Occupy D.C. -- Jan. 27

15] Criminal Justice Forum – Jan. 27

16] Learn about THE ART OF PEACEFUL LIVING – Jan. 27-28

17] Ballroom dancing – Jan. 27

18] Farmer's Market – Jan. 28

19] Greening University – Jan. 28

20] Legislative Leadership Training – Jan. 28

21] Olney peace vigil – Jan. 28

22] Commemorate Egyptian Martyrs – Jan. 28

23] West Chester, PA demo – Jan. 28

24] Silent vigil at Capitol – Jan. 28

25] Social Justice readings – Jan. 28

26] Co-ops in D.C. – Jan. 28

27] Free Ivory Coast Now – Jan. 28

28] Alfalfa Club protest - Jan. 28

29] Urban Food Access – Jan. 29

30] Riddle of Arab Spring – Jan. 29

31] Get on Bridge for Peace – Jan. 29

32] Curiosity of Ben Franklin – Jan. 29

33] Passage on the Underground Railroad – Jan. 29

34] Murphy Initiative fundraiser – Jan. 29

35] Philadelphia Peace Vigil – Jan. 29

36] Red Emma's meeting – Jan. 29

37] Pentagon Vigil – Jan. 30

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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 donmuller@msn.com. 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 ncnrnotices-subscribe@lists.riseup.net. You will get a confirmation message once subscribed. If you have problems, please write to the list manager at ncnrnotices-admin@lists.riseup.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 Adela Hirsch, 5358 Eliots Oak Rd., Columbia, MD 21044. Be sure you indicate ground (G) or bean (B) for each type of coffee ordered. The coffee will arrive some time the following week and you will be notified where to pick it up. Contact Adela at 410-997-5662 or via e-mail at adela4peace@verizon.net.

5] – The occupation of Freedom Plaza, 14th & Pennsylvania Ave. NW, is in a state of flux. For recent developments, go to http://october2011.org/.

6] – Occupy Baltimore was evicted from McKeldin Square, Pratt and Light Sts. Participants indicate the operation will continue in some fashion. Sign up at http://groups.google.com/group/occupy-baltimore/. Ask for the digest or you get hundreds of emails.

7] – S.RES.330: A resolution designating January 27, 2012, as a national day of remembrance for Americans who, during the Cold War, worked and lived downwind from nuclear testing sites and were adversely affected by the radiation exposure generated by the above ground nuclear weapons testing. The Sponsor is Sen. Mike Crapo [ID], and it was passed on Nov. 16, 2011. Submitted in the Senate, considered, and agreed to without amendment and with a preamble by Unanimous Consent.

8] – A peace vigil takes place every Friday from noon to 1 PM at Lafayette Park facing the White House. Join the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker and friends. Contact Art Laffin: artlaffin@hotmail.com.

9] – Every Friday from noon to 1 PM, Women in Black, Baltimore, host a vigil at Pratt and Light Sts. in the Inner Harbor. Peace signs will be available. See http://www.peacepath911.com/ or write wibbaltimore@hotmail.com or call 410-467-9114.

10] – There is also a noon vigil on Jan. 27 at Roland Park Place at 830 W. 40th St. Call 410-467-9114.

11] – A vigil for Justice in Palestine/Israel (now in its 8th year) takes place every Friday from noon to 1 PM at 19th & JFK Blvd., Philadelphia (across from Israeli Consulate. It is sponsored by Bubbies & Zaydes (Grandparents) for Peace in the Middle East. Email cswartz@pil.net. Go to http://phillyjewishpeace.org/.

12] – There is a luncheon and panel discussion on "Indefensible: A Reference for Prosecuting Torture and Other Felonies Committed by U.S. officials following September 11th on Fri., Jan. 27 from noon to 1:30 PM at American Univ. Washington College of Law, Room 603, 4801 Massachusetts Ave. NW, WDC 20016-8180. The panel, which will be moderated by HRUSA's Allison Lefrak, will include Prof. Benjamin Davis of the Univ. of Toledo School of Law, Prof. David Crane of Syracuse Univ. College of Law, John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch, and Prof. Richard Wilson of Washington College of Law. RSVP to Gineen Cargo at cargo@wcl.american.edu.

13] – There is a silent vigil on Fri., Jan. 27 from 5 to 6 PM outside of Homewood Friends Meeting, 3107 N. Charles St., in opposition to war in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Placards say: "War Is Not the Answer." The silent vigil is sponsored by AFSC, Homewood Friends and Stony Run Meetings.

14] – On Fri., Jan. 27 from 5 to 8 PM, UDC Law School + Occupy DC: Where do we go from here? The discussion is at the UDC David A. Clarke School of Law, Room 406, 4340 Connecticut Ave. NW, WDC 20008. The UDC's law school recognizes that it shares many of the same principles of the Occupy movement, and believes that collaboration would be the perfect bridge between two visions for a better society.

While Occupy DC represents this generation's frustration and disillusionment with the status-quo, the law school embodies several decades of struggle for systemic change and the betterment of conditions for low-income DC residents. UDC's law school has historical knowledge of issues affecting DC communities, resources, and legal expertise that may bolster the outburst of creative, passionate energy that Occupy DC exemplifies. Enjoy food, live music, creative and artistic expression and focused discussions. Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/144947538953917/.

15] – Participate in a Criminal Justice Forum & watch a film: Ivy Meeropol's "Heir to an Execution" chronicles her effort to come to terms with the lives and deaths of her father's parents, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, executed as traitors in 1953 after being accused of relaying the secret of the atomic bomb to the Soviets. This gathering starts at 7 PM on Fri., Jan. 27 at St Stephens Church, 16 and Newton Sts. NW, WDC. Hear an update on the Bradley Manning/WikiLeaks case.

Invited speakers are Phil Fornaci (prisoner rights' lawyer), James R. Klimaski (Lawyer's Guild, private practitioner in military criminal and administrative law, John Kelly (coauthor of Tainting Evidence: Inside the Scandals at the FBI Crime Lab) and Jane Zara (activist, lawyer). Refreshments will be served. The suggested donation is $5.

16] – Allan Lokos, the author of Patience: The Art of Peaceful Living, comes to Breathe Books, 810 W. 36th St. for two days. On Fri., Jan. 27 from 6:30 to 8 PM, this is a chance to learn about his Saturday, Jan. 28 workshop and how you can learn to encourage patience in your life. Lokos will speak about the book, and offer tips on ways to be patient with yourself and others. Friday's event is free.

The Saturday workshop from 10:30 AM to 2:30 PM with the founder of the Community Meditation Center in New York City will encourage skills "to carve out a pathway to become a more patient person every day." A brunch at 10:30 AM at "The Corner" restaurant on 36th and Elm Sts.is also offered, whether separate or in conjunction with the workshop. The workshop is from 1 to 2:30 PM. The brunch alone (which includes the book) is $40. The workshop alone (including the book) is $40. It is $65 for the brunch, book and workshop. Call 410-235-7323 or go to http://www.breathebooks.com

17] – There is an opportunity to participate in ballroom dancing, usually every Friday of the month, in the JHU ROTC Bldg. at 8 PM. Turn south on San Martin Dr. from the intersection of Univ. Parkway and 39th St. Drive on campus by taking the third left turn. The next dance will be Jan. 13. Call Dave Greene at 410-599-3725.

18] – Go to the West Baltimore Farmer's Market for fresh fruits, vegetables, breads and other treats every Saturday from 8 to noon. CPHA has worked with the West Baltimore Marc TOD and Transit Inc. (WBMTTI) to establish a Farmer's Market at the West Baltimore Marc Train stop at Smallwood Road at Franklin and Mulberry Sts. Since opening in June, over 300 people buy fresh groceries there every Saturday morning. WBMTTI will continue to include the community in the transit-oriented developments on the west side and continue to improve the area around "the highway to nowhere" until it becomes the highway to somewhere. Go to www.cphabaltimore.org.

19] – On Sat., Jan. 28 from 9 AM to 12:30 PM at Sojourner Douglass College, near the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Citizens Planning & Housing Association, Inc., Parks and People's CGRN and Baltimore Green Space have teamed up to provide Baltimore with a Greening University. The morning of training is for both new and experienced gardeners and community professionals. Workshops and resource tables will detail the best practices for gardening and managing open spaces, led by Baltimore's premier gardening experts! Learning sessions will cover such topics as "Just Starting? You Need Site Evaluation!", "Soil: What Yours Has and What it Needs" and "Working with Community Associations." The suggested donation is from $1 to $3. Register at http://www.cphabaltimore.org/ayic-greening-university/.

20] – A job training program funded by federal transportation funds and organized by Maryland Department of Transportation begins this March! Beverly Swaim-Staley fulfilled her pledge for more jobs training! Now pass a law so that it will be funded permanently, no matter who is head of the Department of Transportation. A BRIDGE Job Legislative Leadership Training takes place on Sat., Jan. 28 from 9 AM to 2 PM at the First Baptist Church of Annapolis, 31 West Washington St., Annapolis, MD 21401. This Training is for those who want to master the legislative process in Annapolis so that legislation can be passed to get more Job Training resources for the people. Register at bridgemaryland@aol.com or 443-857-0831.

21] – 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. in Olney, MD. The next vigil is Jan. 21. Call Chuck Harker at 301-570-7167.

22] – The Alliance of Egyptian Americans (AEA) Mid-Atlantic Chapter will gather on Sat., Jan. 28 at 11 AM through 2 PM to celebrate the beloved martyrs of the January 25th revolution who were killed from Jan. 25, 2011 and until December 2011. The event takes place in Freedom Plaza, Washington DC - 13th St. NW & Pennsylvania Ave. NW. There will be a release of 300 balloons in the air with names of the martyrs. Contact: aminyam@gmail.com.

23] – 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.

24] – There will be a peace vigil on the West Lawn of the Capitol at noon on Jan. 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.

25] – Attend a reading that marks the launch of the Little Patuxent Review Winter 2012 Social Justice issue on Sat., Jan. 28 at 2 PM at Oliver's Carriage House, 5410 Leaf Treader Way, Columbia. It's the first issue guest-edited by local poet Truth Thomas, working with editor Laura Shovan.

Melinda Abbott, JoAnn Balingit, Dylan Bargteil, Ann Bracken, Susan Gabrielle, Stephanie Gibson, Jen Grow, Clarinda Harriss, Kathleen Hellen, Alan King, Michael Salcman, Lauren Schmidt, Jill-Ann Stolley, James Toupin, Susan Turner-Conlon and Patricia VanAmburg will present their work. Light refreshments will be served afterwards, when audience members will have the opportunity to meet the contributors. Call 410-730-7624 or go to http://littlepatuxentreview.org.

26] – A group of people interested in building a cooperative movement in DC will be holding a series of skillshares to learn more about cooperatives. Topics will include basic cooperative principles, what you need to start a cooperative, coop structures and models, the history of coops in DC and the US, ways cooperatives have been financed, and challenges cooperatives face. Anyone interested in cooperative development is welcome to join on Sat., Jan. 28 from 3:30 to 5:30 PM at the Emergence Community Arts Collective, 733 Euclid St. NW, WDC 20001. There is a suggested donation of $2 to help cover the costs of the space. Go to www.ecacollective.org.

27] – Conference Free Africa! Free Ivory Coast Now! On Sat., Jan. 28 from 2 to 7 PM at the Hilton, Embassy Suites, 900 10th St. NW, WDC 20001 (corner of 10th & K St.) Information will be shared about the situation in Ivory Coast and the reality of re-colonization of the African continent. Contact CRI PANAFRICAIN-USA at 240 483 9007 or crpanafricain3@gmail.com.

28] – The Alfalfa Club Protest Action will occur on Sat., Jan. 28 from 5 to 10 PM. Meet at McPherson Square, 15th St. NW, WDC. If there were ever an event that embodies what the Occupy movement stands against, this is it: Known as the Alfalfa Club (because of the plant's infamous thirst), a highly selective group of nearly 200 attendees, including CEOs, Supreme Court justices, Congresspeople and other extremely wealthy dignitaries will drink booze and feel self-important during the 99th gathering. Join a nonviolent crashing of the party.

29] – Usually, the Baltimore Ethical Society, 306 W. Franklin St., Suite 102, Baltimore, MD 21201-4661, meets on Sundays, and generally there is a speaker and discussion from 10:30 to 11:30 AM. On Sun., Jan. 29, the topic of discussion is "Urban Food Access in Baltimore" by Angela Smith, project director for Baltimore Food & Faith. Some of the issues she will discuss will be poor diet, lack of access to affordable and healthy food and possible solutions that could bring healthier options to the city at large. Call 410-581-2322 or visit www.baltimoreethicalsociety.org.

30] – There will be a presentation of "The Riddle of the Arab Spring" on Sun., Jan. 29 at 10:30 AM at the River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation, 6301 River Road, Bethesda, MD. Lawrence de Bivort, PhD, a specialist in Arab and Muslim affairs, will explain the daunting policy issues that the countries of the Arab Spring now face. He will talk about how to take the best of Islam and "modern ideas" and meld them into a productive, moral, and just society. In Fall of 2011, de Bivort was sent by the U.S. government to Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, where he carried out dozens of interviews on emerging political, economic, and social conditions and considered the changes needed for the success of US policies and actions in the area.. Call 301-229-0400 or visit www.RRUUC.org.

31] – Maryland Bridges for Peace welcomes you to stand for peace Sundays from noon (or thereabouts) to 1 PM on the Spa Creek Bridge in Annapolis. Contact Lucy at 410-263-7271 or mdbridgesforpeace@toadmail.com. Signs are not allowed to be on a stick or pole. If there is interest, people will be standing on the Stoney Creek Bridge on Fort Smallwood Road in Pasadena [410-437-5379 or magicalgodmom@aol.com]. Go to http://BridgePeace.blogspot.com/

32] – The Great Thinkers Discussion Series continues with "The Curiosity of Ben Franklin: Freethought and Citizenship." Baltimore Ethical Society Leader Hugh Taft-Morales will present the first in a series of conversations involving some of America's most important thinkers connected to humanism and freethought on Sun., Jan. 29 at 12:30 PM at the Baltimore Ethical Society, 306 W. Franklin St. Call 410-581-2322 or go to http://www.bmorethical.org.

33] – Passage on the Underground Railroad is on exhibit from Sun., Jan. 29 through Thurs., Mar. 22 at the Albin O. Kuhn Library Gallery, Univ. of Maryland Baltimore County, 1000 Hilltop Circle. Exhibit hours are Sundays & Saturdays, 1 to 5 PM and Mondays through Wednesdays and Fridays, noon to 4 PM and Thursdays, noon to 8 PM.

Tempe, Arizona-based artist Stephen Marc, tenured professor at the Arizona State Univ. Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, presents a lecture on his work on Mar. 7 at 4 PM in the Albin O Kuhn Library Gallery of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Dr. Marc's work documents his visits to Underground Railroad sites, from which he creates photo-montages combining both historic and new imagery dealing with the African-American experience in American society through the centuries. Call 410-455-3827 or go to http://aok.lib.umbc.edu/gallery.

34] – The Murphy Initiative for Justice Fundraiser with the Handel Choir of Baltimore is on Sun., Jan. 29 from 3 to 5 PM at St Mary of The Assumption Church, 5502 York Rd, Baltimore, MD 21212-3805. Come for the music - stay for crepes by Sofi's. There will be a silent auction with gift certificates to great venues in Baltimore, and sales of art work, signed books, yoga classes! Email rmthompson@missionhelpers.org.

35] – Every Sunday, 4 to 5 PM, there is a Quaker Peace Vigil at Independence Mall, N. side of Market between 5th and 6th Sts., Philadelphia. Call 215-421-5811.

36] – Red Emma's needs volunteers. Stop in to the weekly Sunday meeting at 7 PM at 800 St. Paul St. or email info@redemmas.org. The next meeting is Jan. 29. There is no meeting on the first Sunday of the month. Call 410-230-0450. If you would be interested in volunteering or becoming a collective member of 2640, send an email to 2640@redemmas.org.

37] – 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., Jan. 30, and it is sponsored by the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker. Call 202-882-9649.

To be continued.

A Judge in the Dock

2012-01-26T12:27:00.001-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/opinion/in-spain-baltasar-garzon-on-trial.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

January 25, 2012

A Judge in the Dock

By DAN KAUFMAN

IN October 1998, British police officers arrested the Chilean general Augusto Pinochet while he was recuperating from back surgery at a London hospital. They were acting on an international warrant issued by the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón seeking General Pinochet’s extradition to stand trial in Spain on charges of torture and murder. After a 17-month legal battle, General Pinochet was released on medical grounds, but Judge Garzón’s warrant paved the way for stripping the former dictator of immunity and prosecuting him in Chile.

Since the Pinochet arrest, Judge Garzón has indicted human-rights violators around the world. His actions helped make it possible to prosecute expatriate Rwandans for their role in the 1994 genocide and Chad’s former dictator, Hissène Habré, who was indicted for crimes against humanity by a Senegalese judge.

Yet Judge Garzón is now himself under legal attack for confronting Spain’s own dark history. He is on trial this week before the Spanish Supreme Court for daring to investigate crimes committed during the Spanish Civil War and the nearly four-decade dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco. The case against him is fueled by domestic political vendettas rather than substantive legal arguments and it could dramatically set back international efforts to hold human-rights violators accountable for their crimes.

In October 2008, in response to a petition from victims and relatives of those killed or tortured by Franco’s forces, Judge Garzón ordered the exhumation of 19 mass graves and charged Franco and his accomplices posthumously with the murder and disappearance of more than 114,000 people.

Shortly after Judge Garzón issued his edict, Spain’s chief prosecutor, Javier Zaragoza, challenged it, partly by claiming that it violated Spain’s sweeping 1977 amnesty law. This law, which the United Nations Human Rights Committee has urged Spain to repeal, was passed after Franco’s death in 1975 with the military’s support and forbade the prosecution of any crime “of a political nature” committed during the Franco years.

An appellate court ruled against Judge Garzón in late 2008 and the case appeared to be resolved. But several months after the ruling, two tiny far-right groups sued Judge Garzón for “prevarication” — knowingly overstepping his authority — in violating the amnesty law.

As international criticism grew, and supporters staged large protests backing Judge Garzón, the Supreme Court accepted two other spurious suits brought against him, despite the state prosecutor’s opposition to pursuing them.

Although Judge Garzón’s actions have always been controversial, they have been instrumental in the global fight against impunity. His pursuit of General Pinochet relied on universal jurisdiction, a legal principle asserting that heinous crimes like torture and genocide may be prosecuted in any country, regardless of who the victims or perpetrators were. Indeed, the current case against Judge Garzón shows just how necessary universal jurisdiction is when countries are unable to confront their own pasts.

Criminally charging judges for prevarication is extremely rare in Spain, and a conviction would disbar Judge Garzón for 20 years — effectively ending his career. The Supreme Court’s zeal to try him has little legal basis; rather, it reflects Spanish elites’ widespread unease with applying international legal principles to Spain’s conflicted history and a deep-seated animosity toward Judge Garzón that is as much personal as political.

While the Supreme Court has many justices appointed by the rightist Partido Popular (founded by one of Franco’s former ministers), Judge Garzón also has made powerful enemies on the left, because in the late 1980s he investigated government-backed death squads created to battle the Basque separatist group ETA. His findings helped bring down a Socialist government in 1996.

Judge Garzón’s prosecution has already had a chilling effect on worldwide efforts to hold human-rights violators accountable, and a conviction would be interpreted as an even stronger warning sign. According to Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch, the Haitian judge Carvès Jean is following Judge Garzón’s legal travails intently as he deliberates whether to indict Jean-Claude Duvalier for crimes against humanity or to adhere to Haiti’s statute of limitations, which would place those crimes off limits.

More disturbingly, due to Judge Garzón’s legal woes, the case brought by Franco’s victims and their families is now languishing. (The only exception is in Argentina, where a prominent human-rights lawyer, using universal jurisdiction, recently filed suit charging Franco with crimes against humanity.)

In his 2005 memoir, Judge Garzón wrote, “A system built on the corpses of those who are still awaiting justice so they can rest in peace is an illegitimate system and one that is condemned to eventually suffer the same fate.”

It would send a tragic and telling message to those victims — and others like them around the world — if the one person convicted for Franco’s crimes is the judge who dared to investigate them.

Dan Kaufman is a writer and musician.

They Will Say We Are Not Here

2012-01-26T10:47:00.001-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/opinion/they-will-say-we-are-not-here.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

January 25, 2012

They Will Say We Are Not Here

By KATHERINE FAIRFAX WRIGHT and MALIKA ZOUHALI-WORRALL

These are fragments of David Kato, glimpses of a Ugandan activist and friend who – one year ago today – was brutally murdered. These moments offer a perspective on the inner world that David shared with us, a world teeming with passion and relentless determination, good humor and vivid daydreams.

During our first days in Kampala, a member of Parliament told us, “there is no longer a debate in Uganda as to whether homosexuality is right or not – it is not.” From what we knew of the pending Anti-Homosexuality Bill – which proposed death for H.I.V.-positive gay men and prison for anyone who failed to turn in a known homosexual – we were tempted to believe him.

But David showed us a different reality. Initially, he played something of a fixer, our main liaison with the L.G.B.T., or “kuchu” community. We soon realized, however, that the man known as the “grandfather of the kuchus” was one of the most outspoken and inspired activists in East Africa. The more time we spent documenting his work, the more evident it became that, contrary to the M.P.’s claim, David and his fellow activists were, in fact, generating real debate in Uganda. Kampala’s kuchus had begun to dismantle the country’s discriminatory status quo, and were working tirelessly to change their fate and that of others across Africa.

Today, as we revisit our memories of David, we remember his fortitude and remarkable legal achievements, boldly guided by his vision of establishing a Ugandan gay village. But perhaps most of all we recall these words, spoken with more logic than defiance: “If we keep on hiding, they will say we are not here.”

Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall are the directors of “Call Me Kuchu,” a documentary film about David Kato, which will have its premiere at the Berlin Film Festival on Feb. 11, 2012.

The Pathology of Inequality

2012-01-25T23:50:00.001-05:00

Published on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 by Common Dreams

The Pathology of Inequality

by Paul Buchheit

Inequality is a disease of society, a cancer growing out of control at one end of the body while the rest of it withers away.

It's not just about the money, although income and wealth inequality have never been worse in the United States. It's also the pathological adherence to free market principles that have not worked for most of the country. And a bizarre idolization of the 'innovators' who have rigged the financial system in their favor.(Photo: AP/Richard Drew)

High-priced schemers and swindlers and scoundrels roam free on Wall Street, while the downtrodden are condemned for trying to survive. "If you steal $10 from a man's wallet," observed former Secretary of the Interior Walter Hickel, "you're likely to get into a fight, but if you steal billions from the the commons, co-owned by him and his descendants, he may not even notice."

If you steal $10 from a man's wallet...

-- Leandro Andrade is serving a life sentence in California for stealing five videotapes from a K-Mart. He was convicted under the state's three strikes law, after convictions for petty theft, burglary, and possession of marijuana. Justice David Souter noted that Andrade "committed theft of trifling value...with no violent crimes against the person."

-- Sisters Jamie and Gladys Scott received double life sentences in 1994 for an $11 armed robbery, the first criminal offense for either of them. They spent 17 years in jail.

-- As of 2003 in California there were 344 individuals serving sentences of 25 years or more for shoplifting as a third offense, in many cases after two non-violent offenses.

If you steal billions from the commons...

-- The savings and loan fraud cost the nation between $300 billion and $500 billion, about 100 times more than the total cost of burglaries in 2010. The financial system bailout has already cost the country $3 trillion.

-- Goldman Sachs packaged bad debt, sold it under a different name, persuaded ratings services to label it AAA, and then bet against it by selling it short. Other firms accused of fraud and insider trading were Morgan Stanley, Bear Stearns, Bank of America, Countrywide Financial, and Wells Fargo.

-- The New York Times reported in 2008 that the Justice Department had postponed the bribery or fraud prosecutions of over 50 corporations, choosing instead to enter into agreements involving fines and 'monitoring' periods.

America is suffering from a "pathology of inequality," a term coined by Chilean economist Fernando Fajnzylber with regard to third-world Latin American countries that seemed autocratic and poverty-stricken at the time, but many of whom are now less unequal than the United States.

One percent of our body doesn't feel the pain. American Psychological Association research indicates that wealthier people "may just not be as adept at recognizing the cues and signals of suffering because they haven't had to deal with as many obstacles in their lives."

As the body gets sicker, thinking becomes incoherent:

"The financial system led us into the crisis and it will lead us out." -- Goldman Sachs chairman Lloyd Blankfein. "Western-style private enterprise...will lead the world out of the mess it led the world into." -- Chicago Tribune. "If capitalism is perceived to not be working in America...it's because the system isn't capitalist enough." -- Rachel Marsden

And dementia sets in.

Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.

Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/25-8

Fallout from Fukushima No. 1 on rise/Nuclear plants pose risks to drinking water for Illinois

2012-01-25T21:54:00.001-05:00

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120125a8.html

The Japan Times

Fallout from Fukushima No. 1 on rise

Kyodo

The amount of radioactive materials released from the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant has risen this month compared with December, Tepco said.

The amount so far has come to 70 million becquerels per hour, compared with 60 million becquerels in December, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Monday, adding that the increase is attributable to the displacement of radioactive materials that had settled on facilities and equipment as a result of work conducted near reactors 2 and 3.

Tepco has recently probed the inside of the container vessel for the No. 2 reactor with an industrial endoscope and conducted scrap work around reactor 3.

While the amount of radioactive materials released from reactor 1 decreased to one-fifth the level in December, the amount of materials from the other two each increased by 10 million becquerels per hour, Tepco said.

The Japan Times: Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2012

- The Rock River Times - http://rockrivertimes.com -

Nuclear plants pose risks to drinking water for Illinois

Posted By Brandon Reid On January 25, 2012

Staff Report

CHICAGO — The drinking water for 652,000 people in Illinois could be at risk of radioactive contamination from a leak or accident at a local nuclear power plant, says a new study released Jan. 24 by the Illinois Public Interest Research Group Education Fund (Illinois PIRG).

Brian Imus, Illinois PIRG state director, explained: “The danger of nuclear power is too close to home. Nuclear power plants in Illinois pose a risk to drinking water for more than 600,000 Illinoisans. An accident like the one in Fukushima, Japan, or a leak could spew cancer-causing radioactive waste into our drinking water.”

The nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Japan, last year drew a spotlight on the many risks associated with nuclear power. After the disaster, airborne radiation left areas around the plant uninhabitable, and even contaminated drinking water sources near Tokyo, 130 miles from the plant.

According to the new report, “Too Close to Home: Nuclear Power and the Threat to Drinking Water,” the drinking water for 652,00 people in Illinois is within 50 miles of an active nuclear power plant — the distance the Nuclear Regulatory Commission uses to measure risk to food and water supplies.

Dr. Sam Epstein, a medical doctor and professor emeritus at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health, said: “This is an important study that underscores the dramatic risks nuclear plants pose to our health. Any radiation from a nuclear plant in Illinois would increase the risk of cancer and other serious illnesses.”

Radiation from a disaster like the one in Fukushima can contaminate drinking water and food supplies, as well as harm our health. But disaster or no disaster, a common leak at a nuclear power plant can also threaten the drinking water for millions of people. As our nuclear facilities get older, leaks are more common. In fact, 75 percent of U.S. nuclear plants have leaked tritium, a radioactive form of hydrogen that can cause cancer and genetic defects.

In December 2005, investigators found tritium in a drinking water well at a home near Braidwood Nuclear Generating Station in Illinois. Levels of tritium above the safe drinking water standard were found near the plant, and much higher levels were detected on the plant grounds. The leak was eventually traced to a pipe carrying normally non-radioactive water away for discharge.

David Kraft, director of the Chicago-based Nuclear Energy Information Service, a nuclear power watchdog organization, said: “Tritium should be considered a major problem issue with nuclear plants. Especially among the Great Lakes region’s 33 nuclear reactors, and especially with the Canadian CANDU reactors, which belch out many more times the tritium than do the U.S. reactors.”

Local bodies of water also play a critical role in cooling nuclear reactors and are at risk of contamination. In the case of the Fukushima meltdown, large quantities of seawater were pumped into the plant to cool it, and contaminated seawater then leaked and was dumped back into the ocean, carrying radioactivity from the plant with it. The Mississippi River provides cooling water for the Quad Cities Nuclear Plant in Illinois and could be at risk.

“With nuclear power, there’s too much at risk and the dangers are too close to home,” Imus said. “Illinoisans shouldn’t have to worry about getting cancer from drinking a glass of water.”

The report recommends the United States moves to a future without nuclear power by retiring existing plants, abandoning plans for new plants, and expanding energy efficiency and the production of clean, renewable energy such as wind and solar power.

To reduce the risks nuclear power poses to water supplies immediately, the report recommends completing a thorough safety review of U.S. nuclear power plants, requiring plant operators to implement recommended changes immediately and requiring nuclear plant operators to implement regular groundwater tests to catch tritium leaks, among other actions.

“There are far cleaner, cheaper and less-risky ways to get our energy,” said Max Muller with Environment Illinois. “Illinois and the United States should move away from nuclear power immediately and invest in safer alternatives such as efficiency and wind and solar power.”

The Illinois PIRG Education Fund is a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer advocacy group. Visit www.illinoispirg.org ^[1].

Environment Illinois Research and Policy Center is a statewide citizen-based environmental group working for clean air, clean water, and open spaces. Visit www.environmentillinois.org ^[2].

From the Jan. 25-31, 2012, issue

Article printed from The Rock River Times: http://rockrivertimes.com

URL to article: http://rockrivertimes.com/2012/01/25/nuclear-plants-pose-risks-to-drinking-water-for-illinois/

URLs in this post:

[1] www.illinoispirg.org: http://www.illinoispirg.org

[2] www.environmentillinois.org: http://www.environmentillinois.org

Radical Revolution USA

2012-01-25T17:12:00.001-05:00

Radical Revolution USA

By Bill Quigley

“I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1967

One. Human rights must be taken absolutely seriously. Every single person is entitled to dignity and human rights. No application needed. No exclusions at all. This is our highest priority.

Two. We must radically reinvent contemporary democracy. Current systems are deeply corrupt and not responsive to the needs of people. Representatives chosen by money and influence govern by money and influence. This is unacceptable. Direct democracy by the people is now technologically possible and should be the rule. Communities must be protected whenever they advocate for self-determination, self-development and human rights. Dissent is essential to democracy; we pledge to help it flourish.

Three. Corporations are not people and are not entitled to human rights. Amend the US Constitution so it is clear corporations do not have constitutional or human rights. We the people must cut them down to size and so democracy can regulate their size, scope and actions.

Four. Leave the rest of the world alone. Cut US military spending by 75 percent and bring all troops outside the US home now. Defense of the US is a human right. Global offense and global police force by US military are not. Eliminate all nuclear and chemical and biological weapons. Stop allowing scare tactics to build up the national security forces at home. Stop the myth that the US is somehow special or exceptional and is entitled to act differently than all other nations. The US must re-join the global family of nations as a respectful partner. USA is one of many nations in the world. We must start acting like it.

Five. Property rights, privilege, and money-making are not as important as human rights. When current property and privilege arrangements are not just they must yield to the demands of human rights. Money-making can only be allowed when human rights are respected. Exploitation is unacceptable. There are national and global poverty lines. We must establish national and global excess lines so that people and businesses with extra houses, cars, luxuries, and incomes share much more to help everyone else be able to exercise their basic human rights to shelter, food, education and healthcare. If that disrupts current property, privilege and money-making, so be it.

Six. Defend our earth. Stop pollution, stop pipelines, stop new interstates, and stop destroying the land, sea, and air by extracting resources from them. Rebuild what we have destroyed. If corporations will not stop voluntarily, people must stop them. The very existence of life is at stake.

Seven. Dramatically expand public spaces and reverse the privatization of public services. Quality public education, health and safety for all must be provided by transparent accountable public systems. Starving the state is a recipe for destroying social and economic human rights for everyone but the rich.

Eight. Pull the criminal legal prison system up and out by its roots and start over. Cease the criminalization of drugs, immigrants, poor people and people of color. We are all entitled to be safe but the current system makes us less so and ruins millions of lives. Start over.

Nine. The US was created based on two original crimes that must be confessed and made right. Reparations are owed to Native Americans because their land was stolen and they were uprooted and slaughtered. Reparations are owed to African Americans because they were kidnapped, enslaved and abused. The US has profited widely from these injustices and must make amends.

Ten. Everyone who wants to work should have the right to work and earn a living wage. Any workers who want to organize and advocate for change in solidarity with others must be absolutely protected from recriminations from their employer and from their government.

Finally, if those in government and those in power do not help the people do what is right, people seeking change must together exercise our human rights and bring about these changes directly. Dr. King and millions of others lived and worked for a radical revolution of values. We will as well. We respect the human rights and human dignity of others and work for a world where love and wisdom and solidarity and respect prevail. We expect those for whom the current unjust system works just fine will object and oppose and accuse people seeking dramatic change of being divisive and worse. That is to be expected because that is what happens to all groups which work for serious social change. Despite that, people will continue to go forward with determination and purpose to bring about a radical revolution of values in the USA.

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/radical-revolution-usa-1327509642. All rights are reserved.

President Obama's State of the Union: Ten Skirted Issues

2012-01-25T15:27:00.001-05:00

President Obama’s State of the Union: Ten Skirted Issues

By Nomi Prins

I confess; I expected to be bored out of my mind listening to President Obama’s campaign - I mean, State of the Union - I mean campaign, speech. I kept hoping some truly earth shattering story would sneak in there beforehand, like say some discovery that Mitt Romney had been having an affair with Newt Gingrich’s ex-wife while he was creating jobs at Bain capital, and we could all focus on that instead.

It turned out that my pre-determination proved accurate. I wonder if the members of Congress felt the same sense of same déjà vu that I did, as they were bopping up and down and applauding.

Obama's speech was a compilation of highlights from his past ones. One part optimism, two parts repetition equals one total uninspiring. Maybe it’s so boring, because it matters so little at this point. Taking away popularity polls, our national threshold for belief in hope or change has been trampled, not just because of Obama or Romney, but of the whole political apparatus that thrives on deflection of reality and posturing. We don’t have the same energy to expend listening to politicians, the endless spin that renders fact obsolete, responsibility absent, and true accomplishment, unnecessary.

We saw Optimistic Obama in his first address to Congress in 2009: “While our economy may be weakened and our confidence shaken; though we are living through difficult and uncertain times, tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before.”

We got Presumptuous Obama in 2010: “As we stabilized the financial system, we also took steps to get our economy growing again, save as many jobs as possible, and help Americans who had become unemployed.”

We watched Philosophical Obama in 2011: “We are the first nation to be founded for the sake of an idea -– the idea that each of us deserves the chance to shape our own destiny. That’s why centuries of pioneers and immigrants have risked everything to come here… The future is ours to win.”

Now, we had Campaigning on Fairness Obama. He returned to the roots of his pre-Presidential words, having accomplished little to attain the goal that his words implied. Here are ten things that President Obama skirted:

1) The cost of healthcare insurance. Obama tried to play both sides, slapping a populace spin on an insurance industry gift. “That’s why our health care law relies on a reformed private market, not a Government program.” He claimed he won’t “go back” on things like health insurance companies being able to cancel policies. He didn’t say that insurance premiums have already risen 22% in the past two years. Republicans hate Obama’s ‘signature’ healthcare reform bill because it unconstitutionally forces people to purchase insurance. Democrats support the bill because Obama passed it. The reality is – by the time it takes effect in 2014, premium costs may have doubled. Frame it however you want, that means health insurance could cost twice as much when this bill takes effect as it did before it was passed. Meanwhile, there are more people without insurance (because they can’t afford it) even though insurance companies can’t cancel policies or deny insurance for pre-existing conditions. This bill merely offers insurance companies a wider pool of customers, with a few restrictions on how much they can pillage them.

2) Student Loan Defaults. Obama claimed he wants to cap interest rates on student loans - which would be great, but can only work in this particularly low rate environment. He urged colleges to keep costs down – again, something that’s worked out really well when he’s mentioned it before. This year, student loan debt surpassed credit card debt, breaching the $1 trillion mark, at an average of more than $25,000 per student (and up 47% over a decade ago, not all under Obama, but a bi-administration problem is still a problem). Not surprisingly, student loan defaults rates have risen alongside this debt increase. Nearly 9% of loans defaulted in 2010, of those that began repayment in 2009, vs. 7% that began in 2008.) Obama didn’t mention this growing problem.

3) Youth unemployment. Obama took credit for the creation of 3 million jobs (I’m not going to debate that here). Regardless, youth unemployment is at its highest rate since 1948. The unemployment rate for those under age 25 is 18.1%, (31% for blacks) havin risen sharply since 2008. Do the math. High student loan debt + diminishing job prospects = bad ending. Work-study programs have to be intense to really alter that.

4) Big banks. The largest firms continue to grow their asset bases and fee extrapolation strategies from their captive customer base (If you’re say, a JPM Chase customer, it costs you $5 to extract your own money from a Bank of America ATM – both banks get a cut). It was Obama that re-confirmed Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke for another fourteen years (and yes, a bi-partisan Congress agreed), and who still keeps Treasury Secretary, Tim Geithner around. Both men were gung-ho about the merger mania that dotted Wall Street in the fall of 2008 and making the ‘too-big-to-fail” banks bigger, as they now are.

5) Small banks. President Obama didn’t address the smaller bank closings occurring because the big banks got disproportionate subsides;, 389 smaller banks (with $297 billion in assets) failed from 2009 to 2011. Like during the early years of the Great Depression, this means less choice for individuals, less loans for local businesses, and consolidation of influence and market share for the big banks – which comprise Obama’s largest bundling base.

6) Borrowers. Despite a few tepid programs to help homeowners, the sheer number of foreclosures is higher today than it was in 2008. There were a record number of foreclosure filings: 2.9 million in 2010 and 2.7 million in 2011. These are predicted to rise in 2012 amidst default surges and more lender notices than in 2011.

Why? Because Obama’s program (that was supposed to help 5 million borrowers, and helped half a million) had to be approved by the banks. Banks don’t like citizen aid programs, even if they screwed them to begin with by fueling a $14 trillion toxic asset pyramid repackaging risky (for people), high interest-bearing (for them). Obama said, “The banks will repay a deficit of trust”? What?! When?! Where?!

7) Recent regulator incompetence. Regulators looked the other way, Obama said, pre-crisis. But he mentioned nothing about the regulators giving a pass since; the SEC bestows banks settlements for fraudulent mortgage asset products, without extracting any admission of wrongdoing. He missed saying anything about the lack of related DOJ criminal indictments. The top five banks agreed to pay $1.149 billion to the SEC to settle subprime-mortgage related fraud charges, with no admission of guilt or criminal indictments. (The SEC settlement of $285 million with Citigroup was rejected by Judge Rakoff in November, 2011 and is being re-negotiated.) And Obama wants to create a Financial Crimes Unit? What’s the SEC supposed to be doing? or the DOJ? or the FBI?

8) MF Global and customer money. On the same topic – the deficit of trust thing: Obama avoided any talk about his buddy, Jon Corzine or MF Global, the nation’s eight largest bankruptcy. He didn’t point out how diabolical it was to use and ‘lose’ customer funds that were supposed to have been kept separate from bad bets. He didn’t suggest having a solid separation between customer money and financial firm money - as in - don't have it at the same firm. He claimed to ‘we will not bailout you out again” and yet, we still are.

9) Banks hoarding. Obama neglected to mention the $1.6 trillion that banks are stashing at the Fed in the form of excess (and interest-bearing) reserves, which do nothing for the Main Street economy. Meanwhile, small business loans are at a 12-year low, having shrunk continuously since 2008.

10) Obama conveyed that we dodged a bullet with getting the banking system under control. He didn’t note the rising risk in the banking system: the largest four US banks (JPM Chase, Citibank, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs) control nearly 95% of the US derivatives market, which has grown by 20% since just last year, to $235 trillion JPM Chase holds 11% of the world’s derivative exposure, Citibank, Bank of America, and Goldman comprise about 7% each. Goldman has 537 times as many (from 440 times last year) derivatives as assets and it’s still considered a bank holding company (as per Bernanke) that gets federal backing.

In all, the President's speech was reminiscent of George Clooney’s in Ides of March. We’ve heard it all before, maybe with slightly different words: America lost 4 million jobs before I got here, and another 4 million before our policies went into effect, but in the last 12 months, we added 3 million job. We must reduce tax loopholes, and provide tax incentives to businesses that hire in America. We must reform taxes for the wealthy (though he signed an extension of Bush’s tax cuts.) We must train people for an apparent abundance of expert jobs. We need more clean energy initiatives. We created regulations (big sigh of relief he didn’t use the word ‘sweeping’) to avoid fraudulent financial practices. We will help homeowners. Wall Street must ‘make up a trust deficit.” Like Jamie Dimon cares.

In other words, Obama gave Wall Street a pass, while waxing populace. Don’t get me wrong. I expected nothing different. I will continue to expect nothing different, when he gets a second term, given the lame duo the GOP favors his key contenders to be.

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/president-obama-s-state-union-ten-skirted-issues-1327508645. All rights are reserved.

In Shift, Police Say Leader Helped With Anti-Islam Film and Now Regrets It

2012-01-25T10:48:00.001-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/25/nyregion/police-commissioner-kelly-helped-with-anti-islam-film-and-regrets-it.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha29

January 24, 2012

In Shift, Police Say Leader Helped With Anti-Islam Film and Now Regrets It

By MICHAEL POWELL

The New York City police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, through a top aide, acknowledged for the first time on Tuesday that he personally cooperated with the filmmakers of “The Third Jihad” — a decision the commissioner now describes as a mistake.

The film, which says the goal of “much of Muslim leadership here in America” is to “infiltrate and dominate” the United States, was screened for more than 1,400 officers during training in 2010.

Deputy Commissioner Paul J. Browne told The New York Times on Monday that the filmmakers had relied on old interview clips and had never spoken with the commissioner.

On Tuesday, the film’s producer, Raphael Shore, e-mailed The Times and provided a date and time for their 90-minute interview with the commissioner at Police Headquarters on March 19, 2007. Told of this e-mail, Mr. Browne revised his account.

“He’s right,” Mr. Browne said Tuesday of the producer. “In fact, I recommended in February 2007 that Commissioner Kelly be interviewed.”

In an e-mail, Mr. Browne said that when he first saw the film in 2011, he assumed the commissioner’s interview was taken from old clips, even though the film referred to Mr. Kelly as an “interviewee.” He did not offer an explanation as to why he and the commissioner, on Tuesday, remembered so much of their decision.

The Police Department’s admission suggests a closer relationship between it and the provocative film, which has drawn angry condemnation from Muslim and civil rights groups, than officials had previously acknowledged.

Mr. Browne said that the director of the film, Erik Werth, whom he described as part of an “Emmy-nominated ‘Dateline NBC’ team and Clinton administration staffer on security matters,” asked to speak to the commissioner for a cable film on “foiled terrorist plots and the current threat matrix.”

Mr. Shore, in a follow-up e-mail, cast doubt on this explanation. “Mr. Browne,” he said, “was informed that the interview was for a documentary on radical Islam.”

In any case, Mr. Browne said, the commissioner was not pleased.

“Commissioner Kelly told me today that the video was objectionable,” he said, “and that he should not have agreed to the interview five years ago, when I recommended it.”

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said Tuesday that whoever showed the film to city police officers during training “exercised some terrible judgment.”

“I don’t know who,” he said. “We’ll find out.”

Much about the film remains mysterious, from its financing to how it ended up in a police training center. Tom Robbins, a former Village Voice columnist, first reported in January 2011 that the film was being shown to police officers. At that time, Mr. Browne described it as “wacky” and said it had been shown “a few times” to a relative handful of officers.

The Brennan Center for Justice at New York University Law School filed a Freedom of Information request in April 2011 seeking the release of internal Police Department memos concerning the training. The department responded to part of this request in the last few weeks.

The film, according to these memos, was shown on a “continuous loop” for between three months and a year to officers receiving antiterrorism training. The film, amid images of assassinations, bombings and executions, portrays many mainstream American Muslim leaders as closet radical Islamists, and states that their “primary tactic” is deception.

Mr. Shore, the producer, says that one of the more inflammatory images, of a black and white Muslim flag flying over the White House, was taken from an Islamist Web site.

Police officials stated in the internal memos that the movie apparently was obtained from a midlevel Department of Homeland Security employee, or a contractor for that agency. But although the Brennan Center has requested it, the Police Department has released no information on who made the decision to show the film. Nor has the department divulged how materials are chosen for training, and who vets them.

John Eligon contributed reporting.

"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

Baltimore Activist Alert - Part 3

2012-01-24T22:34:00.001-05:00

61] Stop spread of WMD -- Jan. 26

62] Prevent war in the Gulf – Jan. 26

63] Middle East Peace symposium – Jan. 26

64] Keystone pipeline debrief -- Jan. 26

65] Take Back the Land – Jan. 26

66] US, Central America & the Economy -- Jan. 26

67] Volunteers needed for MUPJ Conference – Apr. 20-21

68] CCAN is hiring

69] Support finishing film THE ACTIVISTS thru Kickstarter campaign

70] Sign up with Washington Peace Center

71] Fund Our Communities campaign

72] Submit articles to Indypendent Reader

73] Donate books, videos, DVDs and records

74] Do you need a television and/or a computer?

75] Join Global Zero campaign

76] War Is Not the Answer signs for sale

77] Click on The Hunger Site

78] Fire & Faith

79] Join Peace Park Antinuclear Vigil

-----

61] – On Thurs., Jan. 26 from 8:30 AM to noon, Bonnie Jenkins, State Department Coordinator for Threat Reduction Programs, and eight other speakers will be part of "Panel Discussions of the Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction." The event, sponsored by the Nuclear Policy Talks and the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies, will take place in the City View Room, 7th Floor, 1957 E St. NW, WDC. RSVP online at http://www.centerfornationalpolicy.org/ht/d/RegisterForEvent/i/35740/pid/209.

62] – On Thurs., Jan. 26 from noon to 1 PM, Afshon Ostovar, CNA Strategic Studies, Matthew Kroening, Council on Foreign Relations, and Alireza Nader, RAND Corporation, will explore "How to Prevent War in the Gulf: While Stopping Iran from Getting the Bomb." The exploration will take place at the Center for National Policy, Suite 333, 1 Massachusetts Ave. NW, WDC. RSVP online at http://www.centerfornationalpolicy.org/ht/d/RegisterForEvent/i/35740/pid/209.

63] – You are invited to attend the first monthly meeting of the "Harriet Fulbright Pathways To Middle East Peace Symposium And Roundtable Series" on Thurs., Jan. 26, 6 to 8 PM at the United Methodist Building, 100 Maryland Ave. NE, WDC. It is a short walk from the Union Station and Capitol South Metro stations. Dinner will be served.

Now more than ever, the time has come for an energized progressive civil society Middle East Peace movement that can work on multiple levels to help move the peace process forward. The tragic conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians must end, and the U.S. and the international community must assist the effort by engaging in robust international diplomacy. The majority of Israelis and Palestinians want peace and support the idea of a two-state solution that guarantees Israeli's security and the creation of an independent, democratic, viable Palestinian state.

At the Middle East Peace Symposium and Roundtable, we will engage in honest discussion about pathways to Middle East peace and the actions needed to arrive at workable solutions of the problems. RSVP by calling or emailing Mark Harrison at MHarrison@UMC-GBCS.ORG or 202-441-0605 ASAP.

64] – Keystone XL/Tar Sands Action Debrief is happening on Thurs., Jan. 26 from 6 to 8 PM at the Sierra Club Headquarters, 50 F St. NW, WDC. It's not every day that organizers take on the biggest corporate industry in the world and win. This campaign debrief will cover the final months of mass mobilization against the KXL Pipeline, addressing the political and organizing strategies that catapulted a relatively obscure infrastructure fight into a defining issue for the climate movement. Go to https://act.neworganizing.com/survey/NOF_Jan12_noKXL/?akid=1043.5430.1KfhlI&rd=1&t=1.

65] – Occupy to Liberate and Take Back the Land Movements is on Thurs., Jan. 26 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM at 1640 Columbia Road NW, WDC. The Institute for Policy Studies invites you to a cutting edge and interactive forum featuring Take Back the Land movement (TBL) leader, Max Rameau. Accompanied by video presentation, Max will lead a discussion about the historical context of this movement; an analysis of how the Occupy movement relates to TBL; and the differences, similarities, and synergies between this movement and TBL. An integral part of the discussion will be about race, class, and international issues. There is a suggested donation of $5 to help cover costs but no one will be turned away due to lack of funds. RSVP to netfa@ips-dc-org

66] – The U.S., Central America and the Global Economy is a Colloquium to be held at the Wheaton Library, 11701 Georgia Ave., Wheaton, MD on Thurs., Jan. 26 from 7 to 9 PM. The U.S. has played a major role in Central America's economy and politics for over 100 years, both overtly through military intervention and less obviously through political and economic manipulation. The people of Central America have resisted this interference, often at great cost. The speaker is international expert and activist Grahame Russell, and the moderators are Lindolfo Carballo of CASA de Maryland and Tim Willard of Peace Action Montgomery. Visit http://www.rightsaction.org/. This event is co-sponsored by Peace Action Montgomery http://peaceactionmc.org/ and CASA de Maryland http://www.casademaryland.org/.

67] – Volunteers are needed to help with the 27th Annual Maryland Peace and Justice Conference to be held on Friday and Saturday, April 20 & 21 at the Episcopal Cathedral Church of the Incarnation, 4 E. University Parkway, Baltimore, 21218. The theme is: "Peacemaking in the 21st century; 25 years of working for peace and justice in Maryland." Contact Paulette Hammond, secretary, MUPJ, at 410-747-3811 or phamm001@earthlink.net or paulette.d.hammond@questdiagnostics.com.

68] – CCAN is Hiring. Do you want to fight global warming while gaining valuable grassroots organizing knowledge and experience? If so, the Chesapeake Climate Action Network has the perfect internship for you. It is hiring interns for the spring semester to work out of the Takoma Park and Richmond offices. For ten years, CCAN has been working in Maryland, Virginia, and DC to fight climate change by standing up to polluters and working to pass clean energy policies. Call 1-240-396-1981.

69] – Melody Weinstein of www.melofilms.com notified me that the documentary film she has been working on with Michael Heaney is nearing completion. Titled "The Activists," it chronicles the anti-war movement over the last 10 years, and the major players in the movement. They have filmed us in Baltimore and D.C. and New York City and other places. After years of filming and researching, they look forward to showing the final cut in a few short months.

They have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for finishing the film and have until January 11 to reach the goal of 15K. To support the film, go to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/melofilms/the-activists-war-peace-and-politics-in-the-street.

70] – The Washington Peace Center has a progressive calendar & activist alert! Consider signing up to receive its weekly email: info@washingtonpeacecenter.org.

71] – Fund Our Communities campaign – is a new 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.

72] – The new Indypendent Reader is seeking articles for its web site at http://www.indyreader.org. Submit an article.

73] – If you would like to get rid of books, videos, DVDs or records, contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.

74] – Can you use a television set and/or a computer, monitor etc.? Contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.

75] – 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.

76] – 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.

77] – The Hunger Site was initiated by Mercy Corps and Second Harvest, and is funded entirely by advertisers. You can go there every day and click the big yellow "Give Food for Free" button near the top of the page; you do not have to look at the ads. Each click generates funding for about 1.1 cups of food. So consider clicking.

78] – Go online for FIRE AND FAITH: The Catonsville Nine File. On May 17, 1968, nine people entered the Selective Service Offices in Catonsville, Maryland, and burned draft records in protest against the war in Vietnam. View http://www.prattlibrary.org/digital/.

79] – 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.

Jobs Won't Come Back to America Until the Government Pushes Greedy Corporate Executives to Invest at Home

2012-01-24T13:02:00.001-05:00

Jobs Won't Come Back to America Until the Government Pushes Greedy Corporate Executives to Invest at Home

By Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog
Posted on January 23, 2012, Printed on January 24, 2012
http://www.alternet.org/story/153860/jobs_won%27t_come_back_to_america_until_the_government_pushes_greedy_corporate_executives_to_invest_at_home

Who should have the primary strategic responsibility for making American workers globally competitive – the private sector or government? This will be a defining issue in the 2012 campaign.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama will make the case that government has a vital role. His Republican rivals disagree. Mitt Romney charges the President is putting “free enterprise on trial,” while Newt Gingrich merely fulminates about “liberal elites.”

American business won’t and can’t lead the way to more and better jobs in the United States. First, the private sector is increasingly global, with less and less stake in America. Second, it’s driven by the necessity of creating profits, not better jobs.

The National Science Foundation has just released its biennial report on global investment in science, engineering and technology. The NSF warns that the United States is quickly losing ground to Asia, especially to China. America’s share of global R&D spending is tumbling. In the decade to 2009, it dropped from 38 percent to 31 percent, while Asia’s share rose from 24 to 35 percent.

One big reason: According to the NSF, American firms nearly doubled their R&D investment in Asia over these years, to over $7.5 billion.

GE recently announced a $500 million expansion of its R&D facilities in China. The firm has already invested $2 billion.

GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt chairs Obama’s council on work and competitiveness. I’d wager that as an American citizen, Immelt is concerned about working Americans. But as CEO of GE, Immelt’s job is to be concerned about GE’s shareholders. They aren’t the same.

GE has also been creating more jobs outside the United States than in it. A decade ago, fewer than half of GE’s employees were non-American; today, 54 percent are.

This is all good for GE and its shareholders, but it’s not necessarily good for America or American workers. The Commerce Department says U.S. based global corporations added 2.4 million workers abroad in first decade of 21st century, while cutting their US workforce by 2.9 million.

According to the New York Times, Apple Computer employs 43,000 people in the United States but contracts with over 700,000 workers abroad. It makes iPhones in China not only because of low wages there but also the ease and speed with which its Chinese contractor can mobilize their workers – from company dormitories at almost any hour of the day or night.

An Apple executive says “We don’t have an obligation to solve America’s problems. Our only obligation is making the best product possible.” He might have added “and showing a big enough profits to continually increase our share price.”

Most executives of American companies agree. If they can make it best and cheapest in China, or anywhere else, that’s where it will be made. Don’t blame them. That’s what they’re getting paid to do.

What they want in America is lower corporate taxes, less regulation, and fewer unionized workers. But none of these will bring good jobs to America. These steps may lower the costs of production here, but global companies can always find even lower costs abroad.

Global corporations — wherever they’re based — will create good jobs for Americans only if Americans are productive enough to summon them. Problem is, a large and growing portion of our workforce isn’t equipped to be productive.

Put simply, American workers are hobbled by deteriorating schools, unaffordable college tuitions, decaying infrastructure, and declining basic R&D. All of this is putting us on a glide path toward even lousier jobs and lower wages.

Get it? The strategic responsibility for making Americans more globally competitive can’t be centered in the private sector because the private sector is rapidly going global, and it’s designed to make profits rather than good jobs. The core responsibility has to be in government because government is supposed to be looking out for the public, and investing in public schools, colleges, infrastructure, and basic R&D.

But here’s the political problem. American firms have huge clout in Washington. They maintain legions of lobbyists and are pouring boatloads of money into political campaigns. After the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision, there’s no limit.

Who represents the American workforce? Organized labor represents fewer than 7 percent of private-sector workers and has all it can do to protect a dwindling number of unionized jobs.

Republicans like it this way, and for three decades have been trying to convince average working Americans government is their enemy. Yet corporate America isn’t their friend. Without bold government action on behalf of our workforce, good American jobs will continue to disappear.

Robert B. Reich has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He also served on President Obama's transition advisory board. His latest book is Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future. His homepage is www.robertreich.org.

Montana Takes on Citizens United/Dozens of Stranded Dolphins on Cape Cod Shores Perplex Rescuers

2012-01-24T11:11:00.001-05:00

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/opinion/montanas-challenge-to-citizens-united.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha211

January 23, 2012

Montana Takes on Citizens United

Two years ago, when the Supreme Court struck down bans on independent corporate and union expenditures in elections in the Citizens United case, Justice Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion claimed that money does not “give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.” While it might result in “influence over or access to elected officials,” he wrote, it is not the same as bribery.

Last month, in a 5-to-2 vote, the Montana Supreme Court rejected that misguided reasoning and upheld a part of a state anticorruption law banning corporations from making political expenditures from general treasuries. The court’s dissenters argued that Montana cannot ignore the Citizens United decision — and they may well be proved right when the case is appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Still, the majority and a dissenting opinion agree that Citizens United has given corporations enormous power barely distinguishable from bribery.

Montana has a long history of fighting political corruption. A century ago, state voters passed an initiative that banned corporate spending to help or hurt candidates for public office. They were responding to epic political corruption caused by the copper kings who controlled a big part of the state’s wealth.

The court’s majority in Western Tradition Partnership v. Montana ruled that Citizens United does not apply to Montana’s law because it is tailored to meet a compelling state interest and its burden on corporations’ “political activity or speech” is minimal — they can easily set up political action committees for contributions from officers and shareholders. The court also stressed the acute need to limit corporate influence in politics because elected officials shape policies that determine winners and losers in fights over the state’s natural resources.

In Citizens United, the conservative majority turned itself into a copper kings’ court. The Montana Supreme Court, faced with tangible effects of corporate electioneering, shows how that decision undermines the fight against political corruption — and can make it far worse.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/24/science/earth/influx-of-dolphins-stranded-on-cape-cod-perplexes-rescuers.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23

January 23, 2012

Dozens of Stranded Dolphins on Cape Cod Shores Perplex Rescuers

By JESS BIDGOOD

WELLFLEET, Mass. — When a single dolphin washed up on Cape Cod on Jan. 12, it was nothing out of the ordinary.

But eight days later, 81 more had been found stranded on this craggy coastline, according to the International Fund for Animal Welfare, bringing the weekly count unusually close to the 120 animals the group typically responds to in high stranding season, which typically runs from January to April. By Jan. 23, the count was 85.

“It’s just about as intense as I’ve ever experienced,” said Katie Moore, the manager of the mammal rescue and research team at the nonprofit fund, which employs six scientists to rescue dolphins and whales that find themselves the unwitting occupants of Cape Cod’s empty winter beaches.

It is common for dolphins to be corralled by the cape’s U-shape and flummoxed by its shallow inlets and extreme tides. In fact, Cape Cod is, like parts of New Zealand and Australia, a world hotspot for dolphin strandings.

But so many dolphins washing up in less than two weeks — 61 of which were dead, killed by stress or injuries from the stranding — has baffled researchers, who have been working relentlessly with volunteers to rescue as many as possible.

Six of those dolphins turned up on Thursday in “The Gut” of the Herring River, in Wellfleet, a waterway in the Cape Cod National Seashore that turns into a squelchy stretch of sticky mud at low tide. When researchers arrived, they found five live dolphins gulping for air with their blowholes, sounding like asthmatic humans. The sixth was dead. At the time, hundreds more dolphins were being coaxed out another part of Wellfleet Harbor by a small team of rescuers and its harbormaster.

“These animals seem to be coming from one large group,” Ms. Moore said as she drove to Wellfleet on Friday to monitor the harbor for more animals. “They’re all of the same species, and aerial views have seen large groups of 400 animals just off the cape.”

The question they cannot answer, Ms. Moore said, is why they are all here in the first place. “It’s driving us crazy that we don’t know,” Ms. Moore said.

Some believe it is simply a question of feeding, although Ms. Moore said that the empty stomachs found in the dolphins scientists have dissected suggest otherwise. The International Fund for Animal Welfare researchers are excited about new work recently presented at a conference by C. T. Harry, the assistant stranding coordinator, that suggests there may be a correlation between dolphin strandings and weather oscillations.

In some cases, a sick dolphin can lead its pod off course. But many of the dolphins, Ms. Moore said, have so far seemed healthy when they strand (apart from the stress they experience caused by the stranding itself).

That appeared to be the case for the dolphins in The Gut on Thursday. With the sky spitting snowflakes, rescuers quickly began working to take the animals, covered in blankets and looking every part like the mammals that schoolchildren love, back to safe waters.

But it is slow, backbreaking work. Each animal must be rolled onto a stretcher and then carried by up to nine people to a vehicle.

“Can we make it to the reeds? Are you going to be all right?” Mr. Harry said to the volunteers who helped him carry one dolphin, its tail dragging blood through reeds sprouting out of the mud, to an old truck.

The group hoisted the dolphin onto a pad inside, struggling to get the animal, which could weigh hundreds of pounds, high off the ground.

“Like you’re a Patriot linebacker!” said Larry Bessenger, a retired banking executive from North Eastham who says he would rather be here than in a boardroom.

Later, when a stressed dolphin’s thrashing tail appeared to endanger one of the scientists, Mr. Bessenger, who was kitted out in a dry suit designed for kayaking, dived on top of it. “It’s more fun than wrestling seals!” he said of the job he used to help with at the New England Aquarium.

Dedicated volunteers come out in droves to deal with strandings; the animal welfare fund says it has about 350 on its rosters. And they are needed: by the time each dolphin was driven over the sand dunes and up the road to a medical trailer, where they were given blood tests, hearing tests, ultrasounds and more, the fund scientists were exhausted. Their work would not be finished until they released the dolphins later that night.

“It’s a lot of work, it’s long days,” said Kat Rose, the stranding technician for the fund. “A lot of people, I think, are ready for a break.”

22 years in Prison for a "Crime of Compassion": The Case of Dr. Rafil Dhafir

2012-01-23T23:24:00.000-05:00

Taking Liberties: 22 Years Behind Bars For a “Crime of Compassion”

(this article appears in the Taking Liberties column of rabble.ca)

By Matthew Behrens

When former U.S. President George W. Bush descended on the

Regional Economic Summit in suburban Vancouver last October, there

was, understandably, no shortage of protesters, pleas for

indictments, and cries of “war criminal.” Left out of most news

coverage as well as activist communiqués, however, was any focus on

another former U.S. President who was tagging along, someone equally

deserving of such protest but who seems, remarkably, to get off

fairly lightly these days: Bill Clinton.

While Clinton’s own contributions to world warfare and

human misery were many – think the cruise missile attack on a vital

pharmaceutical plant in Sudan, the murderous bombing of the former

Yugoslavia and daily bombings of Iraq, cruise missiles lobbed into

Afghanistan and Pakistan, tightening the sanctions against the Cuban

people, failure to act to prevent the Rwandan genocide, and

legislation that doomed millions of Americans to ever deeper levels

of poverty – perhaps most infamous was his aw-shucks enforcement of

the devastating sanctions that resulted in the deaths of over one

million Iraqis.

That Clinton has far more Iraqi blood on his hands than

anyone in the George W. Bush administration is largely forgotten.

Yet report after report produced through the Clinton years tallied

the hundreds of thousands of premature deaths in Iraq, and by the

close of the decade, the word " genocide " began creeping into their

vocabulary. Enforced in part with $1 billion in Canadian military

muscle, sanctions that led to the monthly deaths of 5,000 Iraqi

children under the age of five provoked the high-profile resignations

of UN humanitarian coordinators Denis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck.

When Halliday resigned in 1998, he stated: "I've been using the word

'genocide' because this is a deliberate policy to destroy the people

of Iraq. I'm afraid I have no other view."

What was one to make of a policy that deliberately targeted

the importation of civilian goods that allegedly had “dual use,” from

pencils and baby dolls to eyeglasses and shampoo? The equipment

needed to fix electrical generating stations and water purification

systems destroyed during the 1991 U.S. and Canadian bombing runs of

Desert Storm was not permitted entry, so water-borne diseases ran

rampant. The medicines needed to treat the spike in cancer (a result

of tons of depleted uranium munitions dust that wound up in the Iraqi

soil, air and water) didn't get through either.

Clinton's Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, asked on

the CBS program 60 Minutes if the sanctions-related deaths of a half

million Iraqi children were worth it, famously replied, "We think the

price is worth it."

The people of Iraq were subjected to a Stalingrad-style

siege, and while the general responsible for that siege was charged

as a war criminal at Nuremberg, Clinton now struts about the world

stage as a self-styled “elder statesman” who runs a foundation where

he paints himself as the second coming of Mother Theresa. "In my

life now, I am obsessed with only two things: I don't want anybody to

die before their time, and I don't want to see good people spend

their energies without making a difference," Clinton says on his

website.

As Clinton rakes in $100,000-plus speaking fees for

trotting out such tripe, New York oncologist Dr. Rafil Dhafir, who

also believed no one should die before their time, especially in

Iraq, remains behind bars in one of the most brutal of U.S. prisons,

the Communication Management Unit in Terre Haute, Indiana (aka,

“Little Guantanamo.”). The CMU has been “home” to dozens of Muslims

arrested as part of post-9/11 racial profiling paranoia.

Dhafir was sentenced to 22 years for consciously violating

the sanctions against the people of Iraq. Many individuals and groups

who were not Muslim also violated the sanctions – fines were the

worst punishment directed at a number of groups – yet Dhafir, as the

driving force behind the Help the Needy Foundation, which provided

millions in aid, was the only one to suffer such a fate. Needless to

say, corporations that quietly went around the sanctions not for

humanitarian goals, but to profit from their relationship with the

Hussein dictatorship, did not face charges either.

Dhafir’s imprisonment began on the morning of February 26,

2003, when hundreds of federal agents swooped down on the community

of Syracuse, New York. They knocked down his door, pointed a gun at

his wife’s head, and ransacked his house, taking away any books

related to Islam while leaving behind the Bible and tomes on American

history.

Agents proceeded to terrorize patients at Dhafir’s clinic,

and interrogated almost 150 primarily Muslim Help the Needy donors

about how often they prayed, whether they had family in the Middle

East, and whether they celebrated Christmas.

Cynically framed as a terrorism-related arrest as the U.S.

prepared its invasion of Iraq, the first indictment of Dhafir

contained 14 charges of violating sanctions. But when he refused a

plea bargain, the government ratcheted up its already hyperbolic

case, alleging an additional 45 alleged breaches of various financial

laws related to the running of a charity as well as alleged Medicare

fraud. The non-sanctions charges were speciously vague, and related

to things like incorrectly filling out the complicated Medicare forms

(many doctors refuse to treat Medicare patients as a result of their

burdensome regulations, and even Medicare officials themselves

appeared confused about them during the trial). Charges also arose

from using another organization to issue Help the Needy’s tax

receipts, a not uncommon practice. In any event, most such “white

collar” cases, should they actually result in a trial, do not produce

such serious consequences.

As community members could testify, Dhafir was a hugely

generous person, and opened his office not in Syracuse, where he

could have made more money, but an hour away in Rome, New York, an

underserved community. His reputation for providing interest-free

loans, treating low-income patients, donating large chunks of money

for schools and mosques, and assisting newcomers to the US was

legendary.

But Dhafir’s refusal to be silent in the face of genocide

resulted in seven government agencies investigating Help the Needy

and intercepting his mail, email, faxes and telephone calls, bugging

his office and hotel rooms, combing through his trash, and also

conducting physical surveillance. They were unable to find any

evidence of terrorism links, yet the stench of such alleged

associations infused the trial as a result of headline grabbing

outbursts from New York Governor George Pataki and Attorney General

John Ashcroft.

After a six-week trial, Dhafir was convicted in February,

2005, though as the Syracuse New Standard pointed out, "The defense

was forbidden during the trial to tell the jury that the government's

investigation of Dhafir had apparently begun as a terrorism hunt, nor

was the defense allowed to argue that Dhafir had been selectively

prosecuted for alleged crimes that are relatively common and do not

usually result in criminal charges."

While further details of this railroad are available on

the website http://www.dhafirtrial.net/, Dhafir is now preparing to

head to court in early February seeking a resentencing that would see

him released for time served. During his time behind bars, Dhafir has

developed a range of debilitating conditions, from an untreated

hernia and diabetes to chronic gout, significant back pain, and

incipient cataracts. Even though he was originally sentenced to a

medium security prison within driving distance of his community, he

was transferred to the notorious CMU, where he could not have contact

visits, his freedom to worship was severely limited, phone calls were

rare, and he was harshly treated along with his fellow, isolated

inmates.

His lawyers will argue that median sentences for far more

serious offences, such as material aid to terrorists, money

laundering, and “national defence” cases, are all far lower than what

Dhafir has already served.

Over 60 letters of support from the US, Canada, UK,

Germany, and Ireland have been sent to the judge, including one from

Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire. Among those is one from

Linda Taffs, a 63-year-old grandmother in Victoria, BC, who wrote she

was one of those who took humanitarian supplies to Iraq in 1999 and

2003. She says she and fellow delegates “visited hospitals and

schools in Baghdad, Mosul and Basra. There was grief beyond words in

Iraq: I was heartbroken at what I witnessed there. Children were in

fact dying before my eyes,” she wrote, noting she could understand

what motivated Dhafir to undertake his Help the Needy commitment.

Taffs is proud to be associated with Dr. Dhafir and that

all-too-small honour roll of those who openly, proudly did what they

could to end the silent genocide taking place in Iraq in the decade

before Abu Ghraib and WMDs became the new backdrop for another

generation of suffering.

While supporters await the outcome of the resentencing for

what they call a “crime of compassion,” they ask that letters of

support be written to Rafil A. Dhafir, 11921-052, P.O. Box 33, Terre

Haute, IN 47808, USA.

Baltimore Nonviolence Center

How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the '1 Percent' by George Lakey

How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’

Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable

Corporate Rule Is Not Inevitable

In Honduras, a Mess Made in the U.S.

In Honduras, a Mess Made in the U.S. Dana Frank, New York Times, January 26, 2012 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/opinion/in-honduras-a-mess-helped-by-the-us.html

SANTA CRUZ, Calif.

Mega Manufacturer Caterpillar Locks Out Workers to Force Pay Cuts While Making Record Profits

Mega Manufacturer Caterpillar Locks Out Workers to Force Pay Cuts While Making Record Profits

"New law means stripping certain protestors of their rights"

Baltimore Activist Alert

A Judge in the Dock

A Judge in the Dock

By DAN KAUFMAN

They Will Say We Are Not Here

They Will Say We Are Not Here

By KATHERINE FAIRFAX WRIGHT and MALIKA ZOUHALI-WORRALL

The Pathology of Inequality

The Pathology of Inequality

Fallout from Fukushima No. 1 on rise/Nuclear plants pose risks to drinking water for Illinois

Radical Revolution USA

Radical Revolution USA

President Obama's State of the Union: Ten Skirted Issues

President Obama’s State of the Union: Ten Skirted Issues

In Shift, Police Say Leader Helped With Anti-Islam Film and Now Regrets It

In Shift, Police Say Leader Helped With Anti-Islam Film and Now Regrets It

By MICHAEL POWELL

Baltimore Activist Alert - Part 3

Jobs Won't Come Back to America Until the Government Pushes Greedy Corporate Executives to Invest at Home

Montana Takes on Citizens United/Dozens of Stranded Dolphins on Cape Cod Shores Perplex Rescuers

Montana Takes on Citizens United

Dozens of Stranded Dolphins on Cape Cod Shores Perplex Rescuers

By JESS BIDGOOD

22 years in Prison for a "Crime of Compassion": The Case of Dr. Rafil Dhafir

In Honduras, a Mess Made in the U.S.
Dana Frank, New York Times, January 26, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/opinion/in-honduras-a-mess-helped-by-the-us.html