Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter

01-23-12 Activist Newsletter

2012-01-23T17:03:00.001-05:00

Jan. 23, 2012, Issue #174
HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER
jacdon@earthlink.net, P.O. Box 662, New Paltz, NY 12561
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CONTENTS

1.   A QUOTE WORTH REMEMBERING
2.   A NEW YEAR OF TOUGH TIMES AHEAD
3.   WASHINGTON'S FALSE IRAN HYPE
4.   OBAMA SIGNS INDEFINITE DETENTION LAW
5.   THE FBI'S NEW SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM
6.   LOCAL MOVEMENT NEWS
7.   ALBANY AND OTHER NYS OCCUPIERS FIGHT ON
8.   GOP PRIMARY: AN INCOMPETENT CLOWN SHOW
9.   DIRE WARNING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE
10. NO CHANGE IN CLIMATE CHANGE EFFORTS
11. CHINA'S BOOMING GREEN TECHNOLOGY
12. GUERRILLAS AMBUSH INDIAN POLICE
13. EU DENOUNCES ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS
14. THE IMPACT OF ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS
15. RECENT ARTICLES WORTH READING
16. DOMESTIC NEWS BRIEFS
17. A NEST EGG FOR EVERY BABY?

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1. A QUOTE WORTH REMEMBERING

The Great American boxer Muhammad Ali, 70 years old this month and suffering from Parkinson's Disease, will be remembered for many things — mainly his accomplishments in the ring but not least for his humor and for a remark he once made about his own boxing skills that someone turned into a popular rhyme; "Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad Ali, float like a butterfly, sting like a bee." In our view his best moment was in 1967 when he conscientiously refused to be drafted into the Army to fight in the unjust war against Vietnam, even at the cost of public condemnation and being stripped of his World Heavyweight Championship title. We always thought his best quote was from the same era about the South Vietnam National Liberation Front, sometimes called the Viet Cong: "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.... No Viet Cong ever called me nigger."
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2. A NEW YEAR OF TOUGH TIMES AHEAD
By Jack A. Smith, Activist Newsletter

The new year has dawned upon a deeply troubled America. Times are not good in the "best of all possible" nation states, which has suddenly discovered that the seven league boots with which it is accustomed to stride the globe have become ill-fitting and down at the heels.

In recent years, particularly since the onset of the Great Recession, it has become clear to many Americans that their country is composed of two different societies with clashing interests — a very small minority in possession of great wealth and power, and everyone else, with some getting by and many falling by the wayside.

As a consequence, large numbers of people now perceive to one degree or another that big money not only manipulates most elections but influences a great many of the politicians and bureaucrats who craft legislation and execute the policies of the U.S. government. Awareness is spreading that crony capitalism —the corporations, banks and Wall Street — controls the economic system which shapes the political system where decisions are made.

But the beat goes on, of course, until mass consciousness transforms into mass action.

In domestic politics, 2012 opened with the Republican Party's three-ring circus in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the initial contests to select a presidential nominee. On display is the most bizarre collection of clowns in recent political history. At this stage the battle is between Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney, who is still favored for now. The struggle within the GOP between ultra right and ultra right "lite" will be determined soon, signaling the start of the best election money can buy.

Which ever party wins in November — and we think President Barack Obama will be reelected — the contest is not between right and left but between right/far right and center right. No matter what the result, progressive change will not be the product. The best outcome might simply be keeping the crazies at bay.

In international affairs, the year opened with U.S. cannon shots aimed just above the heads of America's evidently multifarious enemies, identified as being mainly in Asia and the Middle East, warning them not to mess with Uncle Sam, as though they were about to.

As the shots reverberated, the American people were told:

"Good morning, everybody. The United States of America is the greatest force for freedom and security that the world has ever known. And in no small measure, that’s because we’ve built the best-trained, best-led, best-equipped military in history — and as Commander-in-Chief, I’m going to keep it that way...."

These "reassuring" but misleading hyper-nationalist words from the Commander-In-Chief were expressed Jan. 5 during a visit to the Pentagon to explain Washington's dangerous new war policy. A secondary purpose of the plan is to facilitate Pentagon spending cuts in the next decade, but future allocations will not drop one penny below George W. Bush's bloated war budgets.

Abruptly, the U.S. is supposed to be confronted with a "threat" from China, necessitating that the Pentagon surround that country with even more of its far superior weaponry, more troops, battle fleets heading in closer proximity, surveillance aircraft, space weapons and long range nuclear missiles.

All this is part of Obama recent "pivot" to Asia, as though we ever left, the main goal being to weaken China within its own natural sphere of interest in order to secure Washington's need to remain global top dog. China is no military threat to the U.S. today or in the future, given the Pentagon's two-decade head start in all the technologies of conflict, and the fact that America's war budget is and will remain many times that of China.

In addition, there seems to be an imminent "threat" to our way of life from Iran, as well as the continuing "threat" to U.S. democracy from some poor tribes in Afghanistan.

Actually, according to "Sustaining U.S. Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense," the document explaining the new war plan, the U.S. faces additional "threats" throughout the world, specifically including (aside from those mentioned): Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and "elsewhere" (our guess is Africa, where Obama's already inserting troops). Primary regions to worry about, says the Pentagon plan, are South Asia, Middle East, Asia-Pacific, Northeast Asia, Eurasia, Southeast and East Asia, plus future, unforeseen demands.

Despite all these "threats," which are largely invented to justify war spending and keep the American people supportive of the militarism that now pervades our society, Obama twice mentioned in his speech the "tide of war" is receding. But if that is true, why station 40,000 troops in countries around Iraq after withdrawal? Why deploy attack-ready bombers and Navy aircraft carriers near Iran? Why keep nearly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and make demands on Kabul to allow thousands more to remain indefinitely after the planned "withdrawal" in 2014?

The U.S.-Israeli crusade against Iran may result in an attack this year. The New York Times reported Jan. 12 on an "accelerating covert campaign against Iran consisting of assassinations and bombings. The campaign, which experts believe is being carried out mainly by Israel, apparently claimed its latest victim Jan. 11 when a bomb killed a 32-year-old nuclear scientist in Tehran’s morning rush hour."

On Jan. 14, Iran charged the U.S. and Israel were behind the scientist's murder. That same day the Wall Street Journal reported that the White House was worried that Israel will attack Iran before the U.S. gives a go-ahead. But four days later the Times reported Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared "any decision on a possible pre-emptive military strike on Iranian targets was 'very far off.'" Stay tuned, the year's just started.

The American people are supposed to be safer this new year because President Obama just signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act allocating $662 billion in military spending in 2012 (plus an equal amount for other "national security" purposes in other budgets).

Civil liberties groups criticize the Pentagon bill because it also authorizes an "indefinite detention" clause that is one more step toward a police state. Obama's civil liberties record is worse than that of his predecessor because he retained Bush's excesses and added his own.

A few days after Obama's bragging about the "best-trained" military, the Pentagon and the secretaries of defense and state were forced to publicly apologize in the wake of an international uproar over circulation of a video showing four U.S. Marines jovially urinating on the corpses of Taliban suspects. A couple of days later a U.S. military legal officer recommended that PFC Bradley Manning face a court martial for transferring documents including evidence of U.S. war crimes to the whistle blowing website WikiLeaks. And so it goes, day by day into 2012.

Washington maintains that the Great Recession ended in June 2009 and the economy is on the mend. Stock prices are up, corporate profits are zooming, and the wealthy are exhausting the nation's supply of money bags.

The corporations, banks and Wall St. have been abundantly helped through the tough times by the Obama Administration, but little help has trickled down to average working families. Recession conditions will continue in 2012 for much of the "bottom" 80% of the U.S. population, including high unemployment, more foreclosures, and stagnant wages. Half the families in our Land of Opportunity are low income or poor.

Early in January, the new Pew Research Center survey of 2,048 adults contained a most unusual result. It found that 66% of the people in our "classless society" believe there are “very strong or strong conflicts between the rich and the poor" in the U.S. This is big news, evidently based on growing comprehension of what are in fact class differences.

The top 1% now possess more than 50% of all privately held assets in the U.S. (Assets are everything you own including cash, car and house minus debts.) The top 20% possess 85% of all assets. This means the bottom 80% of the people have accumulated only 15% of the assets (including the bottom 40%, who have no assets at all because they owe more than they own).

However, there is one aspect of our system that is said to prove beyond doubt that all Americans — rich and poor alike — are actually equal in our society where it really counts. We speak of each citizen's right to vote in the quadrennial selection of a Commander-in-Chief, known popularly as the presidential election.

President Obama has transformed his rhetoric into that of liberal populism for the duration of the campaign. He now talks about having government intervene to help reduce inequality and help build a more "equitable" society, not that it's going to happen. He now even tut-tuts about crony capitalism.

Obama sure sounds even more progressive than when he was a "change-we-can-believe-in" candidate in 2008. This was before governing as a center-right patron of the ruling establishment for the last three years, ignoring poor, low income and minority Americans as though they didn't exist, initiating a completely failed program for the millions who have been foreclosed, and changing little to nothing, even in his first two years when the Democrats controlled the House as well as the Senate.

Probable opponent Romney has undergone a similar opportunist transformation in the opposite direction in order to obtain the GOP nomination. He's now campaigning as a right/far right populist this year after governing Massachusetts as a healthcare moderate conservative and who earlier supported abortion, and gun control, among many flip-flops. Gingrich has always been an ultra-reactionary hypocrite going back to the early 1990s in the House, and hasn't seen the need to adopt a new persona for 2012.

The main reason we believe Obama will be reelected has nothing to do with his record as president. It is that the Republicans have gone so far to the political right, and have acted like such obstructionist buffoons in Congress, that the crucial independent vote will lean toward the center-right. The Democratic leadership hopes Gingrich becomes the candidate because he'll campaign as a far rightist while they fear Romney may moderate some of his rhetoric. But even so, Obama's nearly $1 billion war chest should finish him off.

Assuming Obama does return to power, we know now, as in the 2008 campaign, that a "liberal" will not be occupying the Oval Office for the next four years. The pro-99% rhetoric will stop at the second term White House door.

American politics is quite different today than when the Democratic Party adopted a center left configuration for a few years in the 1930s and 1960s. However, in terms of the gradations of political "evil," the center right is a "lesser evil" to the right/far right, given the two conservative options for electing a president offered the American people by those who run the show, though it’s a dismal commentary on democracy.

In the present era it is certainly legitimate to worry about the direction American politics is heading domestically, coupled with a probable global future of more wars, more poverty and environmental disaster. We worry deeply about the problems that will confront our and all today's children and grandchildren.

However, we retain unshakable confidence in what the masses of people can accomplish under difficult conditions when they become united, organized, disciplined and committed to the struggle for a better, equal and cooperative society, and a peaceful, environmentally sustainable world.

This option for substantive transformation beckons. It is the objective requirement of our times if we are to avoid a catastrophe down the road. A decisive turn to the left is essential and possible. It could revolutionize society and change the world to benefit all the people.
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3. WASHINGTON'S FALSE IRAN HYPE
By Juan Cole

The announcement of the Iranian government that it will activate its Fordow nuclear enrichment site has predictably drawn forth a new round of war propaganda from the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. In contrast, the Chinese media accurately report Iran’s affirmation that the new site will be subject to UN inspections and so is perfectly legal.

Ironically, what Clinton says is diametrically opposite from the repeated assurances given by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, that Iran is not trying to construct a nuclear warhead. True, he put it in a misleading way, saying that Iran “is not yet building a bomb,” as though it is only a matter of time.

But in order to build a bomb, Iran would have to deny access to UN inspectors and, well, initiate a program to build a bomb. That it has not done so is covered up in mainstream U.S. political and journalistic discourse, to the point where the New York Times had to apologize for stating (contrary to Panetta) that Iran has a nuclear weapons program (it does not, as far as anyone can tell).

And now, it turns out, the Obama administration is even willing to admit the truth. The sanctions regime on Iran is not even primarily about the civilian nuclear enrichment program (to which Iran has a right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), but about causing the regime to collapse.

I think blockading a civilian population for the purpose of instituting regime change in a state toward which no authorization of force has been issued by the UN Security Council may well be a war crime. Even advocating a war crime can under some circumstances be punishable, as happened at the Nuremberg trials.

Unlike Israel (Egypt 1956, 1967; Lebanon 1982, 2006) or the U.S. (Iraq 2003), Iran has not unilaterally attacked a nation that had not attacked it, and Iran has not occupied other states’ territory. Both Israel and the U.S. have stockpiles of nuclear warheads. Iran doesn’t have a single one and doesn’t even have a nuclear weapons program. Since Iran has not attacked anyone (and hasn’t done so for over a century), and since the UNSC has not authorized the use of force against Tehran, it would be illegal under the UN Charter for the U.S. or Israel to attack Iran....

[Antiwar.com reports that "In a closed-door parliamentary meeting on Jan. 10, Israel’s military chief of staff Lieutenant-General Benny Gantz said Iran should expect 'continuing and growing pressure from the international community and things which take place in an unnatural manner.' This was widely interpreted as referring to covert acts of sabotage and violence in Iran."]

Clinton says that the Fordow enrichment facility near Qom was not declared as it should have been, but rather was revealed by U.S. satellite surveillance. But after it was declared, the then head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, was allowed to inspect it and found nothing there, just “a hole in the mountain.” This finding suggests that Iran was within its rights not to declare it was opening a new enrichment site, since it had not done so, just dug a hole in a mountain. There was no nuclear material there when ElBaradei visited in fall, 2009.

The Iranians say that they will try to enrich to 19.75% at the Fordow site. This enrichment level is still that of low enriched uranium (LEU), and is the level of enrichment necessary for fuel for Iran’s medical reactor, which produces isotopes for treating cancer. Iran had acquired fuel for the medical reactor, which was given to it by the United States, from Argentina. But it has run out, and Argentina got out of that business. It is not clear why the West wants Iranian cancer victims not to have access to isotopes for radiation treatment.

While enriching to 19.75% LEU is an increase in Iran’s enrichment capabilities, it is nowhere near the 95% generally needed to make a bomb. Moreover, Iran says it is not trying to get a bomb, and the IAEA has acknowledged repeatedly that no nuclear material has been diverted from the civilian program. If Iran does not permit inspections of Fordow, now that would be suspicious and really would be a violation of NPT obligations. But they seem perfectly willing to let inspectors in.

Clinton said, “There is no plausible justification for this production. Such enrichment brings Iran a significant step closer to having the capability to produce weapons-grade highly enriched uranium.” But every clause of this statement is false.

— Jan. 12, http://www.juancole.com
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4. OBAMA SIGNS INDEFINITE DETENTION LAW
By the Activist Newsletter

Civil liberties organizations are appalled by President Obama's decision to sign into law the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) including a provision for indefinite detention that in effect suspends habeas corpus for some, a heretofore sacrosanct aspect of American democracy.

The bill primarily authorizes $662 billion in military spending through 2012, and includes sanctions on Iran's oil exports that amount to a declaration of economic war, as well as allowing arbitrary and indefinite military detention of Americans and others.

The Chief Executive approved the legislation Dec. 31 despite opposition to the detention provision from his principle national security officers — Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

Obama could have vetoed the bill, insisting the offensive section be dropped, as was his earlier intention. He could have prevailed, despite grumbling from Republican politicians, because Pentagon money bills and anti-Iran sanctions receive the highest priority.

This being an election year when Democratic voters have no viable alternative, the President evidently calculated that his political career, if not democracy, would benefit from an indulgence in George W. Bush-style anti-terrorist bravado pleasing to conservatives.

Obama justified his further erosion of civil liberties by issuing a signing statement claiming "serious reservations with certain provisions that regulate the detention, interrogation, and prosecution of suspected terrorists." He suggested his government, however, would not implement the outrageous codicil, while hardly unaware succeeding administrations will ignore his empty pledge.

All prominent civil liberties organizations criticized the law as unconstitutional as well as shockingly misguided. Many progressive and left voices characterized the legislation as bad as or worse then the freedom-corroding Patriot Act, which Obama supports, and a step toward a police state.

The Center for Constitutional Rights announced that it "strongly condemns the U.S. Congress for passing, and President Obama for signing, the... NDAA, which effectively endorses war without end and makes indefinite military detention without charge or trial a permanent feature of the American legal system. This is the first time since the McCarthy Era that Congress has written indefinite detention into law. We had hoped that President Obama... would uphold his promise to veto this radical law that threatens to roll back both decades-old legislation enacted to combat McCarthy-era excesses and 19th-century limitations on domestic military policing.

"The NDAA reauthorizes and extends [Bush's] Authorization for Use of Military Force, which has been used to justify the detention of men at Guantánamo without charge or trial for the past 10 years. The NDAA also goes further and broadens the range of activities that warrant indefinite detention to include undefined ‘substantial support’ for terrorism. In addition, the NDAA contains no geographic limitation and allows the president to indefinitely detain even American citizens."

The American Civil Liberties Union declared that any military detention of American citizens or others within the United States was unconstitutional and illegal, including under the NDAA. In addition, the breadth of the NDAA’s detention authority violates international law because it is not limited to people captured in the context of an actual armed conflict as required by the laws of war.

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

“We are incredibly disappointed that President Obama signed this new law even though his administration had already claimed overly broad detention authority in court. Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today...."

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

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges has filed suit against President Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to challenge the legality of authorizing the military to jail anyone throughout the world, including U.S. citizens, on the grounds of suspected terrorism. "It’s clearly unconstitutional," Hedges says. "It is a huge and egregious assault against our democracy. It overturns over 200 years of law, which has kept the military out of domestic policing."

The Senate passed the bill with the detention clause by vote of 86-13 Dec. 15. Only six Democrats voted no. They were: Durbin, Illinois; Harkin, Iowa; Cardin, Maryland; Franken, Minnesota; Merkley and Wyden, Oregon.

The House approved the bill a day earlier, 283-136, with 190 Republicans voting yes, and 43 no. Democrats were split 93 yes, 93 no. In the New York House delegation, 11 Democrats voted no. They were (by Congressional District): 6-Meeks, 8-Nadler, 10-Towns, 11-Clarke, 12-Velazquez, 14-Maloney, 15-Rangel, 16-Serrano, 21-Tonko, 22-Hinchey, 28-Slaughter. All 8 New York Republicans voted yes, as did 10 Democrats.
— J.A.S.
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5. THE FBI'S NEW SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM
By Tana Ganeva

The FBI claims that their fingerprint database (IAFIS) is the "largest biometric database in the world," containing records for over a hundred million people. But that's nothing compared to the agency's plans for Next Generation Identification (NGI), a massive, billion-dollar upgrade that will hold iris scans, photos searchable with face recognition technology, palm prints, and measures of gait and voice recordings alongside records of fingerprints, scars, and tattoos.

Ambitions for the final product are candidly spelled out in an agency report: "The FBI recognizes a need to collect as much biometric data as possible within information technology systems, and to make this information accessible to all levels of law enforcement, including International agencies." (A stack of documents related to NGI was obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights and others after a FOIA lawsuit.)

It'll be "Bigger -- Better -- Faster," the FBI brags on their Web site. Unsurprisingly, civil libertarians have concerns about the privacy ramifications of a bigger, better, faster way to track Americans using their body parts.

"NGI will expand the type and breadth of information the FBI keeps on all of us," says Sunita Patel of the Center for Constitutional Rights. "There should be a balance between gathering information for law enforcement, and gathering information for its own sake."

—For the rest of this AlterNet article, including specific details about the FBI's techniques, go to http://www.alternet.org/story/153664/
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6. LOCAL MOVEMENT NEWS

MID-HUDSON ACTIVIST GALE MCGOVERN DIES — Ulster County peace and justice activist Gale McGovern died Dec. 27. She was 73. We worked with Gale on several causes over the years, and had great respect for her continual activism and courage, not least because she required crutches or a wheelchair to get to meetings and demonstrations.

Gale was born in Quincy, Mass., graduated from Boston University in the 1960s, and settled in New York City as a book editor. While there she participated in various movements and campaigns. She was a lesbian, and at the time was a member of the Gay Activists Alliance and the Daughters of Bilitis. She fought for equality for lesbians and gays the rest of her life.

Gale eventually moved to the Hudson Valley in the early 1980s and resumed the activism she had temporarily suspended for several years. Her final residence was in Olivebridge.

It's impossible to list all the peace and justice causes Gale supported. She was a staunch backer of political prisoners Mumia Abu-Jamal and Native American Leonard Peltier, among others. She was at just about every large antiwar protest we organized in the region. She demanded rights for the disabled, and woe betide organizers of movement events that did not offer wheelchair access.

Gale was in the front lines championing New Paltz Mayor Jason West for presiding over allegedly "illegal" public solemnization ceremonies in 2004 for 25 gay couples who sought this form of union before same-sex marriage became legal in New York state. (Within a week he was charged with 19 misdemeanor counts of "solemnizing marriages without a license," but the charges were dismissed.)

For many years Gale was active with the Caribbean and Latin America Support Project, and was involved with Middle East Crisis Response. She was a long-time backer of liberal Rep. Maurice Hinchey. A couple of years ago she worked to save the Rosendale Theater, among so many other activist ventures. We will announce when a memorial service is to be held for this extraordinary woman somewhere in Ulster County.
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ROCKLAND COUNTY VIGIL ENDS — After nine years and one month, the popular weekly two-hour antiwar vigil on Saturdays at the corner of Route 59 and Middletown Rd. in Nanuet, N.Y., has closed down. The vigil, sponsored by the Rockland Coalition For Peace & Justice, began months before Washington's unjust and illegal invasion of Iraq when President Bush's nefarious intentions became obvious.

Coalition members decided to end the vigil when U.S. troops withdrew from Iraq at the end of December. Members of the group indicate they will remain engaged in work for peace and justice. Several other long-term weekly peace vigils in the Hudson Valley region are continuing to witness against Washington's continuing wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan, drone attacks in several other countries, and increasing intimations of wars to come.
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OCCUPY ORANGE COUNTY — A new Occupy group will hold its first organizational meeting at the Mulberry House in Middletown at 6:30 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 2. Other regional Occupy efforts we know of are in Albany, New Paltz, and Poughkeepsie.

Organizers say the meeting "will be a celebration of the huge [Occupy] successes of the past year, a pep rally to keep our spirits high for the challenges that lie ahead, and an opportunity to learn first hand from experienced Occupiers what it's like on the ground (sometimes literally) at an Occupy site. There will be great food, music, and speakers from unions and community groups."

Local sponsoring organizations so far include the Democratic Alliance, Community Voices Heard of Newburgh, Orange County Peace and Justice and the Hudson Valley Activist Newsletter.
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BILL MOYERS IS BACK — The very best of the liberal commentators has returned to public television after his long-running PBS program, Bill Moyers Journal, ended in April 2010. The new one hour program, Moyers & Company, is distributed to stations free by American Public Television, not PBS, but it is being carried by some — though not all — PBS stations.

Channel 13 in New York City, which is available on cable in the Hudson Valley region, is broadcasting the program, though not on prime time. However, the program available at 6 p.m. Sundays; 10 p.m. Mondays and 4:30 a.m. Wednesdays. (Check the listings to be sure.) His first two programs were terrific. Repeats are available at the website, http://billmoyers.com/.

One hour a week of Moyers on TV, and five hours a week (an hour a day, Monday-Friday) of Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman and her associates is the best progressive news/informational programming you will find in America. DN! may be obtained on several Hudson Valley radio programs or TV, radio and print all days via http://www.democracynow.org/.
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7. ALBANY AND OTHER NYS OCCUPIERS FIGHT ON
By the Activist Newsletter (adapted from several sources and an AP article)

Since their rough eviction from a park near the state Capitol on the first day of winter, the Occupy Albany movement has regrouped out of a storefront a few blocks away, where members meet and organize protests and marches to help correct what they consider American democracy bent to favor the rich.

The Albany occupiers and their supporters conducted a demonstration Jan. 20 outside the Foley Federal District Courthouse as part of actions in many cities to protest the 2nd anniversary of the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court decision granting corporations the same rights as people, with no limit on political contributions. The rally endorsed a constitutional amendment clarifying that corporations are not persons, and also backed public financing of elections. MoveOn was a co-sponsor.

Members of Occupy Syracuse, 20 of whom were evicted by police from their encampment at 3:35 a.m. Jan. 19, likewise promised to regroup and continue protesting without their tents, as did Occupy Poughkeepsie some weeks earlier. The Poughkeepsie group just conducted four days of marches and meetings, Jan. 14-17, including the daytime re-occupation of Hulme Park, where their tents once stood.

The Syracuse encampment was torn down after 110 days in Perseverance Park, appropriately between the 1%-dedicated Merrill Lynch and Chase Bank buildings. Democratic Mayor Stephanie A. Miner ordered the eviction a few days earlier, arguing that the alleged use of propane to heat the freezing tents was a hazard.

On Dec. 18, after many safety inspections every two hours, Deputy Fire Chief Stephen Cavuto said there was no immediate safety concern at Occupy Syracuse, but several hours later the police were sent in. There was no serious violence, though seven people were arrested for illegally erecting tents in the city. According to Occupy Syracuse, Mayor Miner never objected to the tents in several previous face to face meetings.

Authorities have been evicting occupiers in tent encampments in scores of cities and towns throughout the U.S. since the Occupy movement was born in September. In New York City, where more than 700 marchers were arrested Oct. 1, the Occupy Wall Street protesters were evicted by police from Zuccotti Park and the Manhattan encampment taken down Nov. 15. Occupy Wall Street remains active without its tents.

In two other major New York State cities —Buffalo and Rochester — officials have allowed demonstrators to continue camping. Initially, 48 were arrested in Rochester for curfew violations. A judge is considering whether to dismiss charges. Authorities last month dismantled a second Buffalo encampment a few blocks from the first one.

In Albany, as in dozens of U.S. cities since last March, demonstrators set up camp in a local park last Oct. 21. Albany officials let the occupiers stay in Academy Park even though Gov. Andrew Cuomo insisted state police enforce an 11 p.m. curfew in adjacent state-owned Lafayette Park, where more than 130 people have been arrested for trespassing and disorderly conduct. Albany County District Attorney P. David Soares has declined to prosecute peaceful protesters.

The Occupy Albany tents vanished Dec. 22 when Albany police, armed with a court order, closed down the encampment after a two-month occupation. That sparked a spontaneous evening protest march around downtown Albany with the last big tent carried by about 75 protesters. It ended back in the park, where police wrestled the tent away. A handful of demonstrators were pepper sprayed by a policeman on horseback. Four protesters were arrested.

City officials said protesters can stay in Academy Park and exercise their First Amendment rights, but they can't pitch tents, and the group has continued its activities in the park and elsewhere. Occupy members have been turning up at other rallies, including the "People's State of the State," also in the city's Academy Park, where groups urged raising the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $10. The next day, Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver said raising that wage would be a top legislative priority for his Democratic majority.

Occupy Albany is now headquartered in a small office on a downtown street of mostly residential brownstones. The movement's name is stenciled on the window and a poster next to it says, "Tax the 1 percent." Fliers are neatly laid out on a table, protest signs stacked against a wall, and one utilitarian desk has a computer, connected to the Internet where the movement maintains a Web site and Facebook page and uses other social networks to connect.

About 15 volunteer lawyers have been doing Occupy Albany's legal work, now challenging the order by state Supreme Court Justice Joseph Teresi to end the encampment, trying to get the case moved to federal court, and defending arrested protesters.

"We're in it for the long term," said Colin Donnaruma, one of the protesters pepper sprayed during a confrontation with police when the outdoor encampment was dismantled. "The movement isn't contingent on physically occupying a place."
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8. GOP PRIMARY: AN INCOMPETENT CLOWN SHOW
By Glenn Greenwald

American presidential elections are increasingly indistinguishable from the reality TV competitions drowning the nation's airwaves. Both are vapid, personality-driven and painfully protracted affairs, with the winners crowned by virtue of their ability to appear slightly more tolerable than the cast of annoying rejects whom the public eliminates one by one. When, earlier this year, America's tawdriest (and one of its most-watched) reality TV show hosts, Donald Trump, inserted himself into the campaign circus as a threatened contestant, he fitted right in, immediately catapulting to the top of audience polls before announcing he would not join the show.

The Republican presidential primaries – shortly to determine who will be the finalist to face off, and likely lose, against Barack Obama next November – has been a particularly base spectacle. That the contest has devolved into an embarrassing clown show has many causes, beginning with the fact that GOP voters loathe Mitt Romney, their belief-free, anointed-by-Wall-Street frontrunner who clearly has the best chance of defeating the president.

In a desperate attempt to find someone less slithery and soulless (not to mention less Mormon), party members have lurched manically from one ludicrous candidate to the next, only to watch in horror as each wilted the moment they were subjected to scrutiny. Incessant pleas to the party's ostensibly more respectable conservatives to enter the race have been repeatedly rebuffed. Now, only Romney remains viable. Republican voters are thus slowly resigning themselves to marching behind a vacant, supremely malleable technocrat whom they plainly detest.

In fairness to the much-maligned GOP field, they face a formidable hurdle: how to credibly attack Obama when he has adopted so many of their party's defining beliefs. Depicting the other party's president as a radical menace is one of the chief requirements for a candidate seeking to convince his party to crown him as the chosen challenger. Because Obama has governed as a centrist Republican, these GOP candidates are able to attack him as a leftist radical only by moving so far to the right in their rhetoric and policy prescriptions that they fall over the cliff of mainstream acceptability, or even basic sanity.

In July, the nation's most influential progressive domestic policy pundit, New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, declared that Obama is a "moderate conservative in practical terms." Last October, he wrote that "progressives who had their hearts set on Obama were engaged in a huge act of self-delusion," because the president – "once you get past the soaring rhetoric" – has "largely accepted the conservative storyline."

Krugman also pointed out that even the policy Democratic loyalists point to as proof of the president's progressive bona fides – his healthcare plan, which mandates the purchase of policies from the private health insurance industry – was designed by the Heritage Foundation, one of the nation's most rightwing thinktanks, and was advocated by conservative ideologues for many years (it also happens to be the same plan Romney implemented when he was governor of Massachusetts and which Newt Gingrich once promoted, underscoring the difficulty for the GOP in drawing real contrasts with Obama).

How do you scorn a president as a far-left socialist when he has stuffed his administration with Wall Street executives, had his last campaign funded by them, governed as a "centrist Republican", and presided over booming corporate profits even while the rest of the nation suffered economically?

But as slim as the pickings are for GOP candidates on the domestic policy front, at least there are some actual differences in that realm. The president's 2009 stimulus spending and Wall Street "reform" package – tepid and inadequate though they were – are genuinely at odds with rightwing dogma, as are Obama's progressive (albeit inconsistent) positions on social issues, such as equality for gay people and protecting a woman's right to choose. And the supreme court, perpetually plagued by a 5-4 partisan split, would be significantly affected by the outcome of the 2012 election.

It is in the realm of foreign policy, terrorism and civil liberties where Republicans encounter an insurmountable roadblock. A staple of GOP politics has long been to accuse Democratic presidents of coddling America's enemies (both real and imagined), being afraid to use violence, and subordinating U.S. security to international bodies and leftwing conceptions of civil liberties.

But how can a GOP candidate invoke this time-tested caricature when Obama has embraced the vast bulk of George Bush's terrorism policies; waged a war against government whistleblowers as part of a campaign of obsessive secrecy; led efforts to overturn a global ban on cluster bombs; extinguished the lives not only of accused terrorists but of huge numbers of innocent civilians with cluster bombs and drones in Muslim countries; engineered a covert war against Iran; tried to extend the Iraq war; ignored Congress and the constitution to prosecute an unauthorized war in Libya; adopted the defining Bush/Cheney policy of indefinite detention without trial for accused terrorists; and even claimed and exercised the power to assassinate U.S. citizens far from any battlefield and without due process?

Reflecting this difficulty for the GOP field is the fact that former Bush officials, including Dick Cheney, have taken to lavishing Obama with public praise for continuing his predecessor's once-controversial terrorism polices. In the last GOP foreign policy debate, the leading candidates found themselves issuing recommendations on the most contentious foreign policy question (Iran) that perfectly tracked what Obama is already doing, while issuing ringing endorsements of the president when asked about one of his most controversial civil liberties assaults (the due-process-free assassination of the American-Yemeni cleric Anwar Awlaki). Indeed, when it comes to the foreign policy and civil liberties values Democrats spent the Bush years claiming to defend, the only candidate in either party now touting them is the libertarian Ron Paul, who vehemently condemns Obama's policies of drone killings without oversight, covert wars, whistleblower persecutions, and civil liberties assaults in the name of countering terrorism.

In sum, how do you demonize Obama as a terrorist-loving secret Muslim intent on empowering U.S. enemies when he has adopted, and in some cases extended, what was rightwing orthodoxy for the last decade? The core problem for GOP challengers is that they cannot be respectable Republicans because, as Krugman pointed out, Obama has that position occupied. They are forced to move so far to the right that they render themselves inherently absurd.

— Glenn Greenwald is a Constitutional law attorney and a popular contributing writer at Salon.com. and frequent guest on Democracy Now. He has written four books so far: "How Would a Patriot Act?" (2006), "A Tragic Legacy" (2007), "Great American Hypocrites" (2008), and "With Liberty and Justice for Some" (2011).

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9. DIRE WARNING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE
By Activist Newsletter

The major industrialized countries of the world must take swift and substantial measures to sharply reduce greenhouse-gas emissions or a climate-change disaster is unavoidable.

According to the authoritative Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Jan. 10: "The global community may be near a point of no return in efforts to prevent catastrophe from changes in Earth's atmosphere.

"The International Energy Agency projects that, unless societies begin building alternatives to carbon-emitting energy technologies over the next five years, the world is doomed to a warmer climate, harsher weather, droughts, famine, water scarcity, rising sea levels, loss of island nations, and increasing ocean acidification.

"Since fossil-fuel burning power plants and infrastructure built in 2012-2020 will produce energy — and emissions — for 40 to 50 years, the actions taken in the next few years will set us on a path that will be impossible to redirect. Even if policy leaders decide in the future to reduce reliance on carbon-emitting technologies, it will be too late."

The United States — the world's most influential country and also the greatest emitter of greenhouse gases historically and today on a per capita basis — has been egregiously derelict in mitigating the impending crisis (see UN climate conference article below).

In 2002, 75% of the American people correctly believed human activity to be mainly responsible for global warming, and constituted a potentially powerful constituency for taking bold measures to drastically reduce climate change.

But today — although 99% of the global scientific community adhere to this position — the number of Americans who do so has dropped to 44%. This is mainly because of duplicitous propaganda from Big Business, the Republican Party, and right wing ideology. But the lackadaisical attitude of the Obama Administration is a factor as well. President Obama has never utilized the White House "bully pulpit" to galvanize the American people into action on this issue in the face of continual conservative climate change denial.

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10. NO CHANGE IN CLIMATE CHANGE EFFORTS
By Friends of the Earth International

The UN climate talks in Durban, South Africa, were a failure and take the world a significant step back by further undermining an already flawed, inadequate multilateral system that is supposed to address the climate crisis.

Developed countries engaged in a smoke and mirrors trick of delivering rhetoric but no action, failed to commit to urgently needed deep emissions cuts, and even backtracked on past commitments to address the climate crisis.

Participants from 191 countries and the European Union attended this important Nov. 28-Dec. 9 international meeting. The official name of the gathering was the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the 7th Session of the Conference of the Parties serving as the Meeting of the Parties (CMP7) to the Kyoto Protocol.

The outcome of the Durban talks — heralded by some as a step forward — in fact amounts to:

• No progress on fair and binding action on reducing emissions.
• No progress on urgently needed climate finance.
• Increased likelihood of further expansion of false solutions like carbon trading.
• The further locking in of economies based on polluting fossil fuels.
• The further unraveling of the legally-binding international framework to deliver climate action on the basis of science and equity.

While there was resistance from developing countries to the destructive proposals on the table in Durban, the final Durban outcome amounts to:

1. A new “Durban Platform” which will delay climate action for a decade. Instead of implementing the existing, ambitious and equitable negotiating roadmap that was agreed in Bali four years ago, a new process to launch negotiations for a new treaty was agreed in Durban.

2. A substantial weakening of the Kyoto Protocol, the only existing international framework for legally-binding emissions reductions by rich industrialized countries. These countries are responsible for three quarters of the emissions in the atmosphere despite only hosting 15% of the world’s population. The second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol has still not been formally agreed and would only cover the European Union and a handful of other developed countries.

3. Drastically insufficient targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions which are largely responsible for global warming. Taken alongside the expansive loopholes agreed to in Durban that serve to help countries avoid emissions cuts, these paltry pledges actually mean a likely net increase in emissions between now and 2020.

4. A shift of the burden for climate action to developing countries, which have done the least to cause global warming, have the least resources to combat it, and face the additional burden of having to address pressing poverty alleviation and development needs.

5. Absolutely no progress on urgently-needed, new and additional public finance for developing country climate action and adaptation measures to protect vulnerable communities from climate impacts. The Green Climate Fund was approved but with no means by which to fill the coffers and a provision agreed to that could allow multinational corporations and private financial actors to directly access the fund.

6. The increased likelihood of new opportunities for carbon trading, a destructive false solution to the climate crisis which locks in climate inaction, drives land grabbing and displacement of communities, and could contribute to another global financial collapse.

“Developed countries, led by the United States, accelerated the demolition of the world’s international framework for fair and urgent climate action. And developing countries have been bullied and forced into accepting an agreement that could be a suicide pill for the world,” said Nnimmo Bassey, Chair of Friends of the Earth International.

He continued “On the eve of the climate talks, hundreds of families in Durban lost their homes and some even their lives in devastating flooding. From the Horn of Africa to Thailand to Venezuela to the small island state of Tuvalu, hundreds of millions of people are bearing the brunt of the climate crisis they did not create. The lack of progress in Durban means that we are even closer to a future catastrophic 4 to 6 degrees Celsius of warming, which would condemn most of Africa and the small island states to climate catastrophe and devastate the lives and livelihoods of many millions more around the world.”

According to Climate Justice Now!, a broad coalition of social movements that attended the conference, "decisions resulting from the UN COP17 climate summit in Durban constitute a crime against humanity.... The world’s polluters have blocked real action and have once again chosen to bail out investors and banks by expanding the now-crashing carbon markets — which like all financial market activities these days, appear to mainly enrich a select few.

Janet Redman, of the Washington-based Institute for Policy Studies charged: “What some see as inaction is in fact a demonstration of the palpable failure of our current economic system to address economic, social or environmental crises. Banks that caused the financial crisis are now making bonanza profits speculating on our planet’s future. The financial sector, driven into a corner, is seeking a way out by developing ever newer commodities to prop up a failing system.”

Who is to blame? The disastrous Durban outcome is attributable to a combined effort by the governments of rich industrialized countries, most notably the U.S., Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Russia and the European Union. The United States is most to blame, as it has been the most powerful driver in the dismantling of the legally-binding framework for developed country emissions reductions. It refused to take on emissions reduction commitments under the Kyoto Protocol, and has attempted to replace this system with a weaker, ineffective system of voluntary pledges.

Canada, Japan, Russia, Australia and New Zealand have pursued a similar agenda of trying to escape their legal and moral obligation to act first and fastest to cut their emissions. Canada, Japan and Russia have refused outright to emissions cuts under the Kyoto Protocol second commitment period, and Australia and New Zealand have made their commitments conditional, leaving the European Union and a handful of other developed countries covered by the agreement in Durban.

The European Union, heralded as a climate leader and the savior of the Durban talks, had an agenda filled with false promises. The EU was a key architect of the new “Durban Platform” that will delay action for 10 years, lock in low ambition and deliver a weaker, less effective system than the Kyoto Protocol. The EU’s strategy in Durban was to split the group of developing countries and force emerging economies like India and China, with hundreds of millions of people still below the poverty line, to take on unfair responsibilities for tackling the climate crisis. The EU also blocked progress in closing dangerous loopholes in existing emissions targets, and was the principle driver of the push to expand destructive carbon trading.

The huge influence of corporate polluters and other corporate and financial vested interests over the positions of governments is the underlying reason why Durban’s outcome was so disastrous. The pressure and influence of these interest groups undermines the ability of ordinary citizens and civil society to hold our governments to account for their action on climate and their positions in the international climate negotiations....

Many developing country negotiators expressed growing concerns as the talks progressed. The Africa Group (comprising the 54 countries in Africa), India, Venezuela, Bolivia, the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Nicaragua and a number of small island states all pushed back against the destructive proposals being advanced. But developing countries were coerced into having to accept a “take it or leave it” package to save the Kyoto Protocol and the Green Climate Fund and failed to stand strong and united against the disastrous final outcome of the talks. One of the most vocal critics, India, caved at the last minute to demands by the US and other developed countries that provisions to safeguard an equitable approach to tackling the climate crisis be excluded from the Durban agreement....

Clearly, there is a need to radically transform our global economy to create a more just and sustainable world. We need dramatic cuts in emissions on the basis of science and equity and a transformation in our economies to make this a reality.

Developed countries also have a moral and legal obligation to honor their climate debt and provide adequate public finance to developing countries to develop sustainably and protect the vulnerable from climate impacts.

A strong and fair UN agreement on climate is essential, and to get it we will work with others to strengthen the movement for justice in all countries and hold our governments to account to ensure that politics works for people and the planet, not for profit.

— Friends of the Earth International, which authored most of this article, is one of several progressive environmental organizations that were strongly critical of the Durban conference along lines similar to those noted here. The website is http://www.foei.org/.
— Another critique of interest, with links to several of the important documents considered in Durban — "How to not tackle climate change and call it a success" by Nele Marien — is at http://www.nelemarien.info/.

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11. CHINA'S BOOMING GREEN TECHNOLOGY
[We are reprinting this article from Foreign Affairs online because it is one of the few published in the U.S. that depicts the many advances in green technology and greenhouse gas reduction taking place in China. Near the end it begins to worry about the impact this will have on U.S. "competitiveness" and the "economic and security implications of China's innovation" — a concern we would have restyled had it been our piece. The author leads the Carbon Management Program at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.]

By S. Julio Friedmann

For energy enthusiasts, China has become the main event. The country uses more energy and emits more greenhouse gas than any other on Earth. Its production of power is booming, too. Every year, China generates nearly 100,000 megawatts more than the previous year — more than the total generated by California or Texas. The scale of the accompanying infrastructure change is staggering: every week, a new large coal plant opens somewhere in China. This has led to widespread pollution, health problems, and environmental degradation — to the cost to the Chinese economy of about 11% of GDP.

But this is not the same old cautionary tale of dirty development: China has taken these challenges, and the need for energy and 20 million new jobs per year, as a spur to invest in clean technology. Indeed, with the government putting over $50 billion into clean energy R&D every year, China has become a global hub for energy innovation.

The country's progress is driven by a combination of government mandate and direct investment. Examples are many. A 2007 law required 4% gains in energy efficiency each year through 2012, including in the transportation and industrial sectors. Since then, total efficiency in the power sector has increased by nearly 10% and is likely to continue rising. Such mandates have been matched by requirements for sulfur emissions control and cleaner water, the closure of many low-efficiency coal mines and cement plants, and new investment in solar, wind, and other renewable power.

To all this, China's 12th five-year-plan, introduced earlier in 2011, added goals for developing clean technology indigenously. Mostly these innovations will be for domestic use, although there is growing interest in international export markets for clean tech. Many state-funded projects now require that 80% of the technology used be indigenous. Two agencies are responsible for overseeing compliance. First is the National Energy Administration (NEA), which approves the financing and construction of virtually every large energy project. Second, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) runs the more than 100 Chinese academies that conduct clean tech research. In 2010, China funneled tens of billions for green innovation through these two organizations.

Massive state investment has allowed Beijing to do what private industry around the world cannot. Power and energy production requires massive upfront capital investments; the total cost for building individual novel solar, nuclear, or wind power facilities often exceeds $1 billion. The high expense makes such projects risky for capital markets around the world, not to mention for most private firms. Often, private banks only want to be fast followers and invest in second-generation plants, not first-generation plants with a new design. NEA and MOST backing helps projects clear this hurdle.

A good example is Huaneng, the world's largest power company, which generates about 160,000 megawatts of power per year — 30% more than Texas. Every year, it adds 13,000 megawatts of new generation — about the same as Massachusetts' current generation. To meet the government's many clean energy mandates, Huaneng plans to install windmills capable of generating 10,000 megawatts per year (close to the total of U.S. wind power) and solar panels capable of generating 10,000 megawatts per year (greater than the U.S. total). By 2025, Huaneng expects to add more than 50,000 megawatts of hydropower and 10,000 megawatts of nuclear power. Meanwhile, it will continue to add nearly 50 megawatts of coal power.

Beyond producing energy, Huaneng innovates through its Clean Energy Research Institute, which is funded by its own revenues and NEA and MOST. It has designed and built two major indigenous clean coal technologies in the last decade. The first is a gasifier that turns coal into synthetic gas with high efficiency and ultra-low pollution. The second is a new capture technology that strips CO2 out of coal plant emissions. It is apparently the world's largest post-combustion carbon capture facility — and its cheapest. The deadlines set by the government mandates brought these projects to life in just three years and have already led to international licensing agreements and new proposed projects in North America and Europe.

Other companies, too, are developing clean tech from scratch, both for domestic use and for export. The XinAo Group, Shenhua, State Grid, and CNOOC, all major Chinese energy firms, have created their own innovation enterprises undergirded by the financial power of their parent companies and the state. Their efforts include solar thin-films, biofuels, batteries, efficient vehicles, coal-to-liquids, shale gas, and smart grids. In many cases, Chinese companies have even formed joint ventures with firms in the United States to accelerate development and Western commercialization. For example, Lishen, one of the world's largest battery companies, has embarked on a $7 billion development drive to improve battery technology on its own, with licensing agreements in the United States.

At the same time, China has started to repatriate Western-educated Chinese nationals, especially those who have worked at Western energy firms (GE, Dow, DuPont, Areva) or are leading scientists and engineers at Western universities (Johns Hopkins, MIT, Stanford, and USC, among others). When they return to China, they are given staffs of hundreds, multimillion-dollar budgets, and aggressive delivery timelines. Sometimes called "sea turtles" (for returning to the shores of their birth), they bring a Western innovation strategy to Chinese design, and are paired with the intellectual and financial resources needed to bring designs to life.

In many ways, China's green dreams are good news.

Consider the impact on the environment. Together the United States and China account for 40% of emissions, 40% of energy consumption, and 50% of global coal use. Nothing other countries do on this issue can match the impact of the actions (or inaction) of the United States or China. Without Washington and Beijing leading the way, the world will not mitigate the worst consequences of climate change. In this context, any Chinese investment in clean tech is a global good.

Many U.S. businesses will benefit, too. For one, Chinese investment in green tech is already creating jobs in the United States. Thanks to Chinese partnerships with GE, Applied Materials, Duke Energy, and others, those companies have been able to build plants, hire people, demonstrate technology, and underwrite projects. Further, U.S. companies benefit directly from Chinese research. For example, FutureFuels, a U.S. energy company in Pennsylvania, is deploying a novel clean-coal plant that Huaneng first tested and developed. Once operational, the plant could carry the smallest carbon footprint of any coal or gas plant in the eastern United States. And it would create with it thousands of jobs in southern Pennsylvania's Rust Belt, besides.

Beyond that, U.S. companies and consumers will benefit indirectly from having access to lower-cost technologies that have already been tested on a large commercial scale, speeding the implementation of more efficient and sustainable energy technologies in the United States. So, too, will partnerships between the two countries. These commercial agreements have already started to lay a foundation of trust, absolutely essential for future U.S.-China government agreements in trade, climate, and other key areas.

At the same time, China's green innovation raises questions about U.S. and European competitiveness. For years, the West believed that its economic advantage was its ability to invent products that could be sold to eastern markets. Successive governments sold innovation as a pathway to job creation and prowess in manufacturing. However, if the West buys Chinese clean tech, that narrative reverses. It also raises the specter of permanent loss of manufacturing for some heavy equipment, technology development, and high-value innovation.

One might ask, as well, whether all this will truly address China's challenges. Air quality improvement is still localized and slow, and concerns about particulates and mercury remain. Fuel shortages of all kinds, including coal, gas, and gasoline, persist, raising local and global prices despite China's impressive gains. And some in China have tried to force burgeoning commercial partnerships to start committing to intellectual property agreements that chill innovation and trade. Trade and monetary imbalances could also be magnified by Chinese clean tech exports, as could concerns for worker safety.

Ultimately, China's clean energy investment and deployment will dominate climate and trade trajectories for decades — whatever the effects on commerce, industry, energy, and even human rights and monetary policy. The scale of its effort simply dwarfs every other on earth. That is good news for the oceans and the atmosphere, but also gives pause to the 5.5 billion people on this planet who don't live in China. For them, the economic and security implications of China's innovation drive are yet to be seen.

—http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/136761/s-julio-friedmann/how-chinese-innovation-is-changing-green-technology
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12. GUERRILLAS ASMBUSH INDIAN POLICE
[The following brief article needs some background for many readers who are unfamiliar with the long armed uprising in India, a regional economic powerhouse but a society of grave poverty for the multitudes where, for instance, up to 50 million child laborers earn a pittance for their survival. We include links to two articles below about the nature of the struggle.]

By Associated Press

PATNA, India: Suspected Maoist rebels triggered a powerful land mine Jan. 21 that killed 13 policemen in eastern India, a top police official said. At least two other policemen were injured in the explosion that blew up their minibus in Jharkhand state, police superintendent G.K. Rath said.

The officers had conducted a routine search for rebel hideouts in a remote, densely forested region and were returning from the operation when the blast occurred. Police sealed off the district and launched a massive hunt for rebels active in the area.

The rebels have been fighting the government for more than four decades, demanding land and jobs for landless farmers, the poor [and an end to the corporate theft of territories inhabited by indigenous people].

Often referred to as Naxalites, for the village of Naxalbari in neighboring West Bengal state where the movement began in 1967, the fighters were inspired by Chinese revolutionary leader Mao Zedong and are currently active in 20 of India's 28 states [under the flag of the Communist Party of India-Maoist, to distinguish them from two other communist parties active in the country].

— Further reading:
"Walking With The Comrades," by the great Indian author Arundhati Roy http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?264738, and CNN's "Maoists Being Forced Into Violence?" (Interview with Arundhati Roy), http://www.countercurrents.org/roy160410.htm
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13. EU DENOUNCES ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS
By Donald Macintyre, The Independent (UK), Jan. 14

The Palestinian presence in the largest part of the occupied West Bank has been, "continuously undermined" by Israel in ways that are "closing the window" on a two-state solution, according to an internal European Union report viewed by The Independent.

The report, approved by top Brussels officials, argues that EU support, including for a wide range of building projects, is now needed to protect the rights of "ever more isolated" Palestinians in "Area C" — the sector that includes all 124 Jewish settlements — illegal in international law – and which is under direct Israeli control. It comprises 62% of the West Bank, including the "most fertile and resource rich land."

With the number of Jewish settlers now at more than double the shrinking Palestinian population in the largely rural area, the report warns bluntly that, "if current trends are not stopped and reversed, the establishment of a viable Palestinian state within pre-1967 borders seem more remote than ever."

The 16-page document is the EU's starkest critique yet of how a combination of house and farm building demolitions; a prohibitive planning regime; relentless settlement expansion; the military's separation barrier; obstacles to free movement; and denial of access to vital natural resources, including land and water, is eroding Palestinian tenure of the large tract of the West Bank on which hopes of a contiguous Palestinian state depend....
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14. THE IMPACT OF ISRAELI SETTLEMENTS

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) published a brief report Jan. 10 titled "The Humanitarian Impact of Israeli Settlement Policies." Here is an excerpt:

Settlements are illegal under international law. The seizure of land for settlement building and future expansion has resulted in the shrinking of space available for Palestinians to sustain their livelihoods and develop adequate housing, basic infrastructure and services. The failure to respect international law, along with the lack of adequate law enforcement vis-à-vis settler violence and takeover of land has led to a state of impunity, which encourages further violence and undermines the physical security and livelihoods of Palestinians.

• Since 1967, Israel has established about 150 settlements (residential and others) in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in addition to some 100 “outposts” erected by settlers without official authorization.

• The settler population is estimated at approximately 500,000; its rate of growth during the past decade stood at a yearly average of 5.3% (excluding East Jerusalem), compared to 1.8% by the Israeli population as-a-whole
(ICBS).

• While fenced or patrolled areas of settlements cover three percent of the West Bank, 43% of the West Bank is off-limits for Palestinian use because of its allocation to the settlements' local and regional councils.

• Virtually all of the land viewed by Israel as public or “state land” (27% of the West Bank) has been allocated to settlements, rather than for the benefit of the local population (B’Tselem).

• About one third of the land within the settlements' outer limits is privately owned by Palestinians, according to official Israeli land records (Peace Now).

• Over 60% of the Palestinian-owned structures demolished in 2011, due to the lack of permit, were located in areas allocated to settlements.

• In 2011, five Palestinians (including two children) were killed and over 1,000 injured (of whom nearly a fifth were children) by Israeli settlers or security forces in incidents directly or indirectly related to settlements, including demonstrations.

• Over 90% of Israeli police investigations into incidents of settler violence during the past six years (2005-2010) were closed without indictment (Yesh Din).

• More than 500 internal checkpoints, roadblocks and other physical obstacles impede Palestinian movement inside the West Bank, including access of children to schools; they exist primarily to protect settlers and facilitate their movement, including to and from Israel.

• The location of settlements was the major consideration behind the deviation of the Barrier’s route away from the Green Line; once complete, about 80% of the settler population will live in settlements located on the western (“Israeli”) side of the Barrier.

— For the full 2-page OCHA text including a settlement map: http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_settlements_FactSheet_January_2012_english.pdf.

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15. RECENT ARTICLES WORTH READING

1. "A Mistaken Case for Regime Change in Syria" — If you think you know all that's going on in Syria based on your familiarity with American (or British) print and TV mass media, think again. You may only know the half of it. Author Aisling Byrne, writing from Beirut in Asia Times suggests regime-change is the U.S.-backed goal, and presents a well documented challenge to the propaganda that infuses much of the news coverage. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NA05Ak03.html.

2 "The Myth of 'Isolated' Iran" — an article by Pepe Escobar that touches many bases about Iran and the world situation that also refutes the myth that U.S. diplomacy has "isolated" the Tehran government. "Iran may be 'isolated' from the United States and Western Europe," writes Escobar, "but from the BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa] to NAM (the 120 member countries of the Non-Aligned Movement), it has the majority of the global South on its side. And then, of course, there are those staunch Washington allies, Japan and South Korea, now pleading for exemptions from the coming boycott/embargo of Iran’s Central Bank." It's worthwhile mentioning by name, though they are in NAM, five countries with which we share the Western Hemisphere that are friendly to Iran — Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Cuba and Nicaragua. Several other hemispheric nations are at least not enemies. http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175490/

3. "Why Socialism Polls Well" — especially among youth and African Americans, who view socialism favorably by 49% and 55% respectively, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. This is the subject of analysis by Peta Lindsay, a young woman candidate for U.S. President in this year's election on the ticket of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. "Our wages are going down while the cost of living goes up," she writes. "The explosive growth of the Occupy Wall Street movement forced the mainstream media to acknowledge this truth. Young people have been sold out by this system, and we are becoming more and more willing to fight back. We want peace, we want equality, we want jobs, and we want the wealth that our labor creates to be used to provide the things that our people need. We want socialism." It's at http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/why-do-young-people-in-the-us.html

4. "From Behind the Iron Door" — A new article by Native American activist Leonard Peltier, who has been wrongfully imprisoned in the U.S. for 36 years in an 8x6 foot cell. Leonard is one of our country's best known political prisoners. His statement is at http://www.pslweb.org/liberationnews/news/from-behind-the-iron-door.html. If you are not familiar with the case of this fighter for the rights of indigenous Americans go to his website at http://www.leonardpeltier.net/theman.htm.

5. "World Peace Hanging by a Thread" — written Jan. 12 by former Cuban President Fidel Castro about his meeting with Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Cuba this month: "I am convinced that Iran will not commit any rash actions that might contribute to setting off a war. If a war were to be unleashed, it would inevitably be completely as a result of the recklessness and congenital irresponsibility of the Yankee Empire. I believe that the political situation surrounding Iran and the associated risks of a nuclear war that involves us all... because they threaten the very existence of our species." Most of the article is a discussion of the world situation, region by region. http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/01/world-peace-hanging-by-a-thread/.
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16. DOMESTIC NEWS BRIEFS

•• PERRY SCOFFS AT DESECRATION: In an interview with CNN’s State of the Union Jan. 14, Republican Gov. Rick Perry blasted the Obama Administration for its criticism of U.S. Marines videotaped urinating on the corpses of three slain Afghans, saying that it proved Obama’s “disdain for the military.”

“These kids made a mistake,” insisted Perry of the grotesque incident, adding that “to call it a criminal act is over the top.” U.S. military officials have promised a full investigation of the video, though so far they have not filed charges. Just Imagine Perry's thundering indignation had Taliban fighters dishonored the cadavers of American Marines.

The desecration of corpses during a war is considered a serious crime both under the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions. (AN, based on Antiwar.com.)

•• DOOMSDAY CLOCK CLOSER TO DISASTER — "Inadequate progress on nuclear weapons reduction and proliferation, and continuing inaction on climate change," prompted the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Jan. 10 to push the hands of the famous Doomsday Clock to 11:55 p.m., one minute closer to midnight.

The Doomsday Clock expresses how close this group of scientists believes humanity is to catastrophic destruction, symbolized by midnight on the clock. The group monitors the means humankind could use to obliterate itself. First and foremost, these include nuclear weapons, but they also encompass climate-changing technologies and new developments in the life sciences that could inflict irrevocable harm.

The last time the Doomsday Clock minute hand moved was in January 2010, when it was pushed back one minute from five to six minutes before midnight. The clock's hands have been adjusted 20 times since its inception in 1947, when the clock was initially set to seven minutes to midnight. (From Environmental News Service.

•• STATES ABRIDGED ABORTION RIGHTS IN 2011 — Lawmakers across the nation passed a record number of reproductive health and rights-related provisions in 2011. A new report from the Guttmacher Institute reports that three dozen states enacted 135 measure— “an increase from the 89 enacted in 2010 and the 77 enacted in 2009.” Sixty-eight percent of the provisions — 92 in 24 states — restricted access to abortion services. (Full article: http://www.alternet.org/story/153689/24_states_enacted_92_abortion_restrictions_in_2011)

•• America Is Not Broke — The Institute for Policy Studies has just published new 20-page report that challenges the budget-cutting premise that America cannot afford Medicare or adequate funding for schools, etc. The report argues that "the current fiscal challenge poses an opportunity to harness our country’s ample but misdirected resources in ways that will make us stronger." The Activist Newsletter would slash Pentagon and national security budgets far more and increase taxes on the wealthy higher than the report recommends, but it's a good start. A PDF of the America is Not Broke is at http://www.ips-dc.org/reports/america_is_not_brokehttp://www.ips-dc.org/reports/america_is_not_broke.
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17. A NEST EGG FOR EVERY BABY?

Every year since 2004, The Boston-based United for a Fair Economy has presented a report on the "State of the Dream," coinciding with M.L. King's birthday. The 2012 report is titled "The Emerging Majority." Commenting on the new publication, the "Too Much" column had this to say (with minor editing):

In the two decades between 1948 and 1968 — years that saw the income gap between America’s rich and everyone else narrow significantly — the income gap between black and white Americans also narrowed.

According to United for a Fair Economy the typical African American family in 1948 made 53 cents for every dollar of typical white family income. In 1968, the median black family was making 60 cents for every dollar that went to the median white family.

But that progress has ended. By 2010, typical African American and Latino families made only 57 cents for every typical white family dollar.

And wealth disparities run far wider, especially since the Great Recession hit. Between 2005 and 2009, the wealth of the typical U.S. white family dropped 16% to $113,149. The typical black family net worth dropped 53%, to $5,677 — and the typical Latino household net worth sank 66%, to $6,325.

These figures ought to send a shudder through anyone who worries about America’s future. "Thirty years from now," the report points out, "people of color will collectively represent the majority of the U.S. population. If we continue along the same governing path, the racial economic divide will remain in 2042 and, in many regards, will be considerably worse."
This means the majority of America’s young people will be growing up in economically insecure households.

So what do we do as a nation? The 2012 State of the Dream suggests we take actions similar to what the U.S. accomplished after World War II.

The government made public investments to help working families accumulate enough household wealth to “cushion the blow of a layoff, enable someone to take time off from work to return to school or care for an ailing parent, or be used as seed money to start a new business.”

Those public investments that America made after World War II — in everything from housing to education — worked marvelously well. But not for families of color. Black veterans, for instance, couldn’t take full advantage of the GI Bill because most colleges either discouraged or refused to accept black applicants. Historically black colleges simply didn’t have enough seats.

State of the Dream 2012 urges a package of new initiatives that would essentially amount to a new GI Bill — for everybody [not only veterans]. The package, United for a Fair Economy notes, would include programs like “KidSave” and “individual development accounts,” or IDAs.

IDAs offer matching funds that can give lower-income families greater incentive “to save and build wealth,” and some IDA programs already exist in a handful of communities. “KidSave” would establish for every newborn child a small trust fund that could later be tapped, as the child enters adulthood, for college, job training, or a home down payment.

Stiff taxes on America’s wealthy, notes the new State of the Dream, could go a long way to help finance the KidSave-like efforts America needs to revitalize the nation's beleaguered middle class and close the racial wealth gap.

America’s 400 richest currently hold $1.53 trillion in personal wealth, Forbes reported this past September, a total of 12% up from the previous year — and 608% more than the combined wealth of the Forbes 400 in 1982, after adjusting for inflation. A 10% tax on just the wealth of the Forbes 400 could raise enough money to bankroll a $35,000 KidSave nest-egg for every baby born this year in the United States. Dr. King would approve, having once said: “A society based on making all the money you can and ignoring people’s needs is wrong.”

— Link to the full 50-page State of the Dream 2012 report: http://faireconomy.org/enews/dr_kings_dream_in_30_years

01-10-12 Activist Calendar

2012-01-11T18:14:00.001-05:00

HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST CALENDAR

Jan. 10, 2012, Issue #675

Send event announcements tojacdon@earthlink.net

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Dedicated to Helping Build Activist

Movements in the Hudson Valley

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NEW ACTIVIST EVENTS

NOTE: This is an addition to ourextensive January calendar sent Jan. 4, and may be located directlybelow this posting.

Wednesday, Jan. 11, NEW PALTZ: Ananti-fracking rally will be held 10-11:15 a.m. outside the Departmentof Environmental Conservation complex at 21 South Putt Corners Rd.,just south of Main St., and a block west of Thruway exit 18. Today isthe DEC's last day of public comment on proposals that could lead tothe start of hydraulic fracturing to recover natural gas resourcessecreted in shale in various sectors of New York State. A pressconference will take place during the rally. According toFrackAction, which is sponsoring this and similar events across thestate: "We'll send Governor Cuomo and the DEC a clear message —the majority of New Yorkers are against fracking, the grossly flawedSGEIS must be withdrawn, we want a permanent ban on fracking in NewYork State, and we need to transition to a real green economy now."(SGEIS is the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statementthat the anti-fracking movement opposes.) Information,john@frackaction.com, http://www.salsalabs.com/?email.

Saturday to Tuesday, Jan. 14-17,POUGHKEEPSIE: Occupy Poughkeepsie is organizing four days of localaction, with a differently themed march and rally each day startingat Hulme Park. Information,http://www.occupypoughkeepsie.org/upcoming_events.

Sunday, Jan. 15, ROSENDALE: America'sleading independent filmmaker John Sayles will attend a special 7:15p.m. screening at the Rosendale Theater of his 2010 film "Amigo,"about the U.S. war to colonize the Philippines in the early 1900s —an imperialist event about which most Americans know little tonothing. Sayles will be joined by longtime creative partner andproducer Maggie Renzi to introduce the film and lead a Q&A afterthe screening. Sayles will sign purchased copies of his book, "AMoment in the Sun," on which Amigo is based. All proceeds willbenefit The Rosendale Theatre Collective, a not-for-profitorganization. Among the director's 17 feature films are "TheReturn of the Secaucus Seven," his 1979 debut film thatenergized the nascent independent film movement, "Baby It'sYou," "The Brother from Another Planet," "Matewan,""Eight Men Out," "Passion Fish," "LoneStar," "Sunshine State," "Casa de los Babys"and "Honeydripper." Tickets are available at the door for$7, $5 members. The theater is at 408 Main St., and directions are athttp://rosendaletheatre.org/directions/, Information, (845) 658-8989.

Monday, Jan. 16, ALBANY: The 14^thAnnual MLK Labor Celebration, titled “Together We Vote, Together WeWin — Your Vote is Your Voice,” will take place 10 a.m.- 3:30p.m. at W.S. Hackett Middle School, 45 Delaware Ave. Join localresidents and peace/justice groups for this free event, and lunchwill be provided. Information, msfinn123@yahoo.com,http://www.frackbustersny.org/criminalization-law.html.

Friday, Jan. 20, RHINEBECK: The talkedabout documentary on education, "Race to Nowhere, The Dark Sideof America’s Achievement Culture," will be screened at 7 p.m.at Rhinebeck High School Auditorium on North Park Rd., followed by apanel discussion. We're told: "The film examines systemicpressures on children and families and is a call to mobilize parents,educators, and policy makers to challenge current assumptions on howto best prepare our youth to become healthy, bright, contributing andleading citizens." Sponsors of this free event are the CommunityCoalition for Rhinebeck Youth, and the Rhinebeck and Red Hook ParentTeacher Student Organizations.

Information about the film,http://www.racetonowhere.com; about theCoalition,http://www.rhinebeckyouth.org.

Saturday, Jan. 28, MILLBROOK: "OccupyWall Street: An Historical Perspective" is the topic of lectureand discussion sponsored by Occupy Wall Street and the WeekendEdition (an upstate Occupy contingent). This free, public 10 a.m.-1p.m. event will be at Millbrook Public Library, 3 Friendly Lane.Information, (845) 677-6233, labinotto@msn.com.

01-04-12 Activist Calendar

2012-01-04T11:03:00.000-05:00

HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST CALENDAR
Jan. 4, 2012, Issue #674
Send event announcements to jacdon@earthlink.net
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Dedicated to Helping Build Activist
Movements in the Hudson Valley
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Thursday, Jan. 5, DELMAR: Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace will host a discussion, "Occupy... The Future," at 7 p.m. at the Bethlehem Public Library, 451 Delaware Ave. Shanna Goldman, Dan Morrissey, Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace member Joe Lombardo, and other participants in Occupy Albany will discuss the Occupy movement in general and issues specific to Albany. They will tell where the movement originated, the methods used for making decisions, and some of the results of Occupy actions. Information: (518) 466-1192.

Thursday, Jan. 5, NEW PALTZ: Occupy New Paltz and supporters will demonstrate at the Chase Bank Main St. and Plattekill Ave. (across from the library), 4-5 p.m. They say: "Let's chase out Chase! They are one of the biggest crook banks in the world." Bring your own sign, if possible.

Thursday, Jan. 5, SAUGERTIES: Esopus Creek Conservancy and Frack Free Catskills will screen the Academy Award winning documentary "Gasland" at 6 p.m. at the Senior Citizen Center, 207 Market St. This film shows the environmental impacts of an industry gone wild, with total disregard for the environment. Gas companies have touted hydraulic fracturing (fracking) as an environmentally safe method to extract natural gas from shale formations. The film shows that this is not the case. Many cases of groundwater pollution, disease, and now earthquakes plague this industry. A Q&A with Kathy Nolan from Catskill Mountainkeeper, and a public comment writing session will follow. Light refreshments will be served at this free and public event. Information, (845) 246-0664.

Thursday, Jan. 5, POUGHKEEPSIE: Dutchess County Peace Coalition will show the documentary "The One Percent" at the Crafted Kup, 44 Raymond Ave. at 7 p.m. This documentary explores the enormous wealth of 1% of the U.S. population, who in 2004 owned 42% of the nation's assets. Interviews with Nicole Buffet, daughter of Warren Buffet, Steve Forbes, Milton Friedman, Bill Gates Sr., Robert Reich, Ralph Nader, and many others, as director Jamie Johnson manages to butt heads with the elite, showing his knowledge and humor. He also takes a tour of a dilapidated housing project in Chicago, rides around with an enlightened taxi driver, and sees the human toll of the unfair economics of the Florida sugar industry. Johnson's film is at its most powerful when it reveals how the super-rich work to preserve their economic and political dominance. As a member of the "Johnson & Johnson" family, he gets rare access to an exclusive wealth conference at which the rich learn strategies for preserving their fortunes, and learns the personal management styles of some of the country's wealthiest employers. This free and public event is part of Dutchess Peace Coalition's "Give Peace a Film" series. A collection will be taken for Occupy Poughkeepsie. Information (845) 876-7906.

Saturday, Jan. 7, ALBANY: Occupy Albany — which was evicted by city officials from its two-month presence in Academy Park — has called for a regional rally starting at 3 p.m. today "to respond with one voice of protest to the city’s unjust actions." It will take place, naturally enough, at Academy Park, near the State Capitol building. The sponsors say: "Occupy Albany's encampment stood strong for two months as a platform for economic justice and political equality. We implore our allies from labor, faith, progressive organizations and community groups to join us for a rally, speak-out, and candle light vigil. Please spread the word among your networks. We want the size of this event to match the amazing level of community support we've felt for months.." Information, jlombard@nycap.rr.com.

Monday, Jan. 9, OLD CHATHAM: Old Chatham Quaker Meeting will host a screening of "Not Just a Game" at the Powell House Quaker Conference and Retreat Center, 524 Pitt Hall Rd., off County Rt. 13, at 8:45 p.m. This film looks at the confluence of sports, politics, racism, militarism, and an unrealistic standard of masculinity, which result in rampant homophobia and sexism both on and off the field. Free and public event, with refreshments and a moderated discussion after the film. Information, (518) 766-2992, for directions, http://www.oldchathamquakers.org.

Wednesday, Jan. 11, WASHINGTON: A demonstration deploring the 10th anniversary of the U.S. prison camp in Guantánamo will take place here today from noon to 2 p.m., beginning with a rally at Lafayette Square, across from the White House, followed by the formation of a human chain along Pennsylvania Ave. toward the Capitol. The event is sponsored by a large coalition of human rights organizations. They say, "Our goal is to have at least 2,771 people — representing those still held outside the law at Guantanamo and Bagram [another prison in Afghanistan] — in the human chain. We need your support." Participants are encouraged to wear orange or black and bring signs that say “No Guantánamo. No Torture. No Excuses!” There will be a charter bus from New York City and back at a cost of $30. (Reservations will be taken by Amnesty International until the end of Jan. 5. For a seat contact (212) 633-4215 or tmcharris@aiusa.org.

Thursday, Jan. 12 and 26, WOODSTOCK: Middle East Crisis Response, a group of Hudson Valley residents joined in protest against policies of Israel and the United States, will hold its twice monthly meeting these evenings at the Woodstock Public Library, 5 Library Lane. Information, (845) 876-7906. http://www.mideastcrisis.org.

Thursday, Jan. 12, NEW YORK CITY: The State Assembly Standing Committee on Energy will conduct a public hearing regarding the potential closure of the Indian Point Energy Center at 10 a.m., in the Assembly Hearing Room at 250 Broadway (Manhattan), room 1923. The two active nuclear reactors at Indian Point Energy Center in Buchanan, N.Y. (next to Peekskill and close to New York City) are licensed until 2013 and 2015 by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Entergy Corporation, which operates these facilities, seeks permission from the NRC to continue for 20 more years.

Friday, Jan. 13, TROY: Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace will host a discussion, "The Meaning of Occupy Wall Street for the Left," featuring political science professor Jodi Dean at Oakwood Community Center (formerly Presbyterian Church), 313 10th St. Author of many books, Dean is currently teaching at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva N.Y. Information, (518) 505-0948. Sponsored by Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace, The Media Alliance, and Verso Books.

Saturday, Jan. 14, WASHINGTON D.C. and elsewhere: "Jobs, Not Jails!" is the slogan of demonstrations today in opposition to the prison/industrial complex, the "War on Drugs," prison conditions, and the racist disproportion of African Americans incarcerated in the U.S. From the organizers: "We are calling on people throughout the country to stand up Jan. 14 on the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend against the brutal, profit-driven prison-industrial complex. In Washington D.C., we will be holding a march and rally against mass incarceration starting at 11 a.m. at 7th and P St. NW., and we are asking you to join us with events in your city." Sponsored by the ANSWER. Coalition, Ceasefire: Don't Smoke the Brothers and Sisters, Political Education and Action Committee-Howard University, New Jim Crow Movement, Party for Socialism and Liberation, and more. Information, jobsnotjails@gmail.com, http://www.answercoalition.org/national/events/march-rally-jobs-not-jails-01-14-2012.html.

Sunday, Jan. 15, WOODSTOCK: The theme of this town's 22nd Annual Birthday Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is "If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress." This free public event begins at 2 p.m. at the Woodstock Community Center on Rock City Rd. Speaking will be Rev. Dr. Modele Clarke, New Progressive Baptist Church, Kingston; Pam Africa, of Family and Concerned Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal; Albert Cook, New Paltz High School teacher of Black history; Norm, Occupy Poughkeepsie; and the Woodstock Town Supervisor. There will be performances by the Redwing Blackbird Theater lead by artist/puppeteer Amy Trompetter; Afro-Caribbean, reggae, rock and hip hop singer Taina Asili (also representing Occupy Albany); protest singer Debra Burger; and Kevin of Philadelphia MOVE with a new song dedicated to political prisoner Mumia-Abu Jamal. The sponsors are Martin Luther King Jr. Planning Committee, Haitian People's Support Project and the Town of Woodstock. Information, (845) 679-5884, (845) 679-7320.

Monday, Jan. 16, POUGHKEEPSIE: The Real Majority Project's 17th Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. March for Social and Economic Justice begins with a 10 a.m. rally at Smith Metropolitan AME Zion Church at 124 Smith St. At 11 a.m. participants will march to the Dutchess County Office Building, 22 Market St., followed by a walk to Holy Light Pentecostal Church at 33 Clover St. for refreshments and discussion. Among the speakers will be Councilwoman Ann Perry, community activist Mae Parker-Harris, and county legislator Joel Tyner. Information, http://www.facebook.com/events/219856948093858/.

Monday, Jan. 16, BEACON: The Rivertown Kids invite you to their Fifth Annual Martin Luther King Day Celebration for Social Justice, which starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Howland Cultural Center, 477 Main St. There will be many singers and entertainers including The Rivertown Kids (Chris Ruhe, Pete Seeger and Sarah Underhill). The event will benefit the Cultural Center and there is a $10 minimum donation. Information, (845) 831-4988.

Friday, Jan. 20, MILLBROOK: The dangers and politics of climate change is the topic of a 7 p.m. lecture by Duke Univ. Professor Emeritus of Geology Orrin H. Pilkey and environmental artist Mary Edna Fraser, who collaborated on the new book "Global Climate Change: A Primer." A book signing will follow the talks. The free public event takes place in the Cary Institute auditorium, 2801 Sharon Turnpike (Rte. 44). Information, call (845) 677-7600, ext. 121, freemanp@caryinstitute.org.

Saturday, Jan. 21, ALBANY: A documentary about the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, "Freedom Riders," will be screened at 7:30 p.m. at First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, 405 Washington Ave. This film shows the actions of the multiracial movements of activists who challenged racist segregation in the interstate transportation system. They went together in small mixed race groups, and sat where they chose on buses and trains, while demanding equal access to restaurants and waiting rooms. Based on the book, "Freedom Riders: 1961, and the Struggle for Racial Justice" by historian Raymond Arsenault. Honest Weight Food Co-op will provide free refreshments. Sponsored by the Solidarity Committee of the Capital District, Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace, and Upper Hudson Peace Action. Information (518) 466-1192, tquaif@yahoo.com, http://www.bethlehemforpeace.org.

12-21-11 Activist Newsletter

2011-12-21T16:02:00.009-05:00

December 21, 2011, Issue #173
HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER
jacdon@earthlink.net, P.O. Box 662, New Paltz, NY 12561
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CONTENTS

1. WHAT BUSH TOLD US ABOUT IRAQ
2. THE U.S. AND IRAQ AFTER THE WAR, Part 1
3. THE U.S. AND IRAQ AFTER THE WAR, Part 2
4. THE USSR: GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
5. WAR ON IRAN HAS ALREADY BEGUN
6. VENEZUELA SUMMIT EXCLUDES U.S.
7. NEW BOOK SHOWS HOW U.S. TARGETS DISSENT
8. THE 1% ELECTION: THEIR BREAD, OUR CIRCUS
9. CONGRESS ATTACKS DRINKING WATER
10. JOBS AND MILITARY SPENDING

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A QUOTE WORTH SHARING:
Noam Chomsky: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
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1. WHAT BUSH TOLD US ABOUT IRAQ
By Activist Newsletter

[NOTE: The U.S. is getting out of Iraq after nearly nine years, but how did it get in? It was obvious by September 2002 that President George W. Bush was going to attack, and the peace movement, led by ANSWER, started organizing big time. There were demands for peace throughout the U.S. when the House and Senate passed legislation in mid-October giving Bush authority to unilaterally declare war if he thought it necessary. He invaded several months later in March. Part of what induced Congress and millions of Americans to approve a preemptive war was a peculiar speech Bush delivered Oct. 8 so full of lies and transparent efforts to frighten people that we wrote a brief story in the Oct. 15, 2002, Activist Newsletter that included an introduction and quotes from Bush. It was titled "A Presidential Ghost Story" since the Halloween decorations were already up. Here's the text.]

President Bush's speech Oct. 8 defending his intention to launch a "preemptive" war with Iraq sounded like a Halloween ghost story calculated to scare the daylights out of guileless children.

The term "terror" or "terrorist" was employed 35 times; "weapons" — for use against the United States — 33 times; "threat," to America, 17 times. Weak and wounded Iraq was virtually portrayed as a military superpower about to conquer the world.

Among the missing words was any mention of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, who have evaded capture [in Afghanistan] along with most leading operatives of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, much to the embarrassment of the White House war room. As a consequence, the two leaders — identified by Bush as enemies number one and two just a few months ago — have evidently been metamorphosed by the White House propaganda apparatus into Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who Bush assured the world was also "a student of Stalin." Al Qaeda itself was mentioned seven times, but only in reference to the Iraqi leader, not to the former "Evil One," bin Laden.

Reduced to its simplistic scare-story essentials, the following excerpts from Bush's speech tell his version of the age-old story of good against evil — the Crusading Avenger Vs. the Bogeyman of Baghdad. It's a great tale to tell the kids on Halloween in a couple of weeks. Douse the lights, ignite a single candle, sit in the shadows, and begin:

"I want to take a few minutes to discuss a grave threat to peace and America's determination to lead the world in confronting that threat.... [Iraq] possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. It has given shelter and support to terrorism and practices terror against its own people....

"We are resolved today to confront every threat from any source that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.... [The] Iraqi dictator must not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons.... Iraq's weapons of mass destruction are controlled by a murderous tyrant.... The same tyrant has tried to dominate the Middle East...and holds an unrelenting hostility toward the United States....

"Saddam Hussein is a homicidal dictator who is addicted to weapons of mass destruction.... If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous weapons today, and we do, does it make any sense for the world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and develops even more dangerous weapons? .... We're concerned that Iraq is exploring ways of using [aerial vehicles] for missions targeting the United States.

"Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliances with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without leaving any fingerprints.... Confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror.

"If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year. And if we allow that to happen, a terrible line would be crossed. Saddam Hussein would be in a position to blackmail anyone who opposes his aggression. He would be in a position to dominate the Middle East. He would be in a position to threaten America and Saddam Hussein would be in a position to pass nuclear technology to terrorists.

"Our enemies would be no less willing, in fact they would be eager, to use biological or chemical or a nuclear weapons. Knowing these realities, America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun, that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.... We have every reason to assume the worst and we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring.

"Some have argued we should wait, and that's an option. In my view it's the riskiest of all options because the longer we wait, the stronger and bolder Saddam Hussein will become.... There can be no peace if our security depends on the will and whims of a ruthless and aggressive dictator.... Failure to act would embolden other tyrants, allow terrorists access to new weapons and new resources, and make blackmail a permanent feature of world events. The situation could hardly get worse...."

At this point the kids at your Halloween gathering should be scared stiff. Then put on your Saddam Hussein mask, walk into the light, and shout "Boooooo." After the children run home in panic, put on your George Bush mask and start shooting.
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2. THE U.S. AND IRAQ AFTER THE WAR
Part 1 — Obama's interpretation of the war
By Jack A. Smith, Activist Newsletter

President Obama bid farewell to the Iraq war after nearly nine years of conflict in a Nov. 14 speech to troops of the 82nd Airborne at Ft. Bragg, N.C. He virtually damned the war with the faintest of praise.

The problem was that he couldn't claim victory and had to conceal an historic defeat — but at least it wasn't his war, as Afghanistan has become.

Meanwhile in Iraq, a perhaps inevitable major political crisis is brewing between the Shi'ite-led government and Sunni ministers in the regime.

The war was a fiasco for the Pentagon and a roadside bomb for America's international reputation. Obama thus resorted to conveying a deceptively selective history of former President George W. Bush's Iraq misadventure. Deploying the language of omission, ultra-patriotism, and gushing praise for the troops, Obama managed to smother the truth about the war's origins, conduct and ending.

Most Americans have long tired of the Iraq occupation, not least because the war hadn't touched most people. It was a credit card war that will burden future generations with debt, not them, and the troops were volunteers, not conscripts. People often waved the flag with gusto and participated in pro-forma displays of support for the troops and concern for their families, but not much more. Reporting about the official war-ending, flag-lowering ceremony in Washington Dec. 15, Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service noted that "hardly anyone here seemed to notice, let alone mark the occasion in a special manner."

A majority of Americans opposed the bipartisan war — almost 70% today — and they have done so for years, although a much smaller number took to the streets where it counts. Many millions protested the war even before it began. Some 500,000 went to Washington in the cold of January 2003 to demonstrate against going to war two months before Washington's "shock and awe" bombardment of Baghdad. The mass antiwar movement remained large and viable for several years, but dissipated, except for the dedicated left and pacifists, when Democrat Obama won the 2008 election. The movement had a much larger impact on public opinion and government policy than has been recognized.

In his speech Obama made no mention of such highlights as the nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, the shame of Abu Ghraib, or the astonishing cost of the war. He couldn't even point to any concrete military accomplishments. The vaunted 2007-8 "surge" concocted by Gen. David Petraeus was not evoked, perhaps because its main element consisted of paying the insurgents $30 million a month to stop fighting, which doesn't say much about the Pentagon's prowess. At that time some 170,000 U.S. troops maintained over 500 bases in Iraq against up to 20,000 decentralized irregular guerrillas without any of the accoutrements of modern warfare.

Instead of facts the president resorted to embellishing trifles and vacuous tributes to the troops: "The most important lesson that we can take from you is not about military strategy — it's a lesson about our national character." "As your commander-in-chief I can tell you that [the war] will indeed be a part of history." "Now, we knew this day would come. We've known it for some time. But still, there is something profound about the end of a war that has lasted so long."

Obama characterized the withdrawal as a "moment of success." To the uninformed this may imply some kind of victory, but it simply means the troops were withdrawn without incident.

At the beginning, the Bush Administrated estimated the war would end in victory in three months. Bush claimed victory on May 1, 2003, with his infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech from an aircraft carrier. It groaned to an ambiguous finale in 105 months. The combined length of America's participation in World Wars I and II was 64 months.

The best Obama could say about one of Washington's longest wars was that "American troops... will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high." He couldn't call it a victory, but "heads held high" is supposed to rule out the perception of defeat.

But defeat is the only suitable word. Any war between a rich, overwhelmingly powerful state deploying a military juggernaut and a small poor state with a broken army that ends in a stalemate after nearly nine years is a humiliating defeat. It is being covered up, but in time we assume historians will unite around this verdict.

The White House and Pentagon fear that public awareness of a defeat in either Iraq or Afghanistan may generate another "Vietnam Syndrome." After that ultimately unpopular and vigorously protested war ended in triumph for the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam and D.R. Vietnam in 1975 — the American people were obviously disinclined to countenance another major war of choice in a foreign venue, especially against a developing country in Asia that doesn't directly threaten the U.S.

This didn't prevent the right-wing Reagan Administration from invading and walking over two tiny, weak countries (Grenada and Panama) and from supporting counter-insurgency campaigns in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, South Yemen, and elsewhere in the 1980s, but it took 16 post-Vietnam years (1976-1991) before the Pentagon was politically able to openly engage in a major war involving hundreds of thousands of troops (Iraq War I, otherwise known as the Gulf War).

Washington has been engaged in hot, cold or surreptitious wars for 70 years, presently spending $1.4 trillion a year on its military and national security budgets, and has provided no evidence it will stop. As such it is essential to maintain the public belief that the U.S. military is the best in the world (a frequent Obama mantra) , and that Vietnam was an inexplicable fluke or largely the fault of civilian leadership.

Obama sought to compensate for being unable to claim victory by referring to the "extraordinary achievement" of the American troops, saying, "today we remember everything that you did to make it possible." The "it" was not defined. Indeed, "Because of you, because you sacrificed so much for a people that you had never met, Iraqis have a chance to forge their own destiny." He went on to call the U.S. military "the most respected institution in our land."

Presidential praise of the Ft. Bragg troops for "serving with honor [and] patriotism" deserves some comment.

There are those who maintain that it is as impossible to serve "with honor" in a dishonorable preemptive war — an unjust, illegal, and immoral war of choice for geopolitical advantage and access to oil — as in any grossly dishonorable enterprise, civilian or military.

They ask, can one participate with honor — even with bravery or at least showing up and following the leader — in a civilian gang attack on innocent people, or for burning down a block of urban housing, or for acts of vandalism in a rural village? Is doing so any different in a criminal war while waving the national colors to advance the interests of what is today termed "the 1%"?

How do conventional criminal deeds differ from the massive criminality of U.S. imperialism in invading a country half-way around the world that was no danger to America or any other country, destroying its civil infrastructure, killing between 600,000 and a million Iraqis and causing three to four million people to become refugees? (Some estimates of Iraqi dead are 100,000 "or more." The higher figures, maintained over the years not just from newspaper accounts, derive from the British medical journal The Lancet and other independent sources.)

And what is "patriotic" about taking part in crushing a much smaller and virtually defenseless country already suffering from an earlier war and a dozen years of killer sanctions that were responsible for the deaths of yet another million Iraqis, half of them children, according to the UN?

Government hyper-patriotic propaganda probably did convince many of the military volunteers that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that threatened America and that the Iraqi government played a role in 9/11, but these lies were exposed at least seven years ago. The soldiers, including the large number of men and women who joined primarily to obtain employment, or earn money for college, or escape poverty, or to avoid a dead-end future are daily subject to the Pentagon's rah-rah version of its rationale for the war.

The U.S. military did have its members who served with honor and patriotism. Alleged WikiLeaks whistleblower PFC Bradley Manning is an outstanding example. He is essentially on trial for exposing war crimes. Others include those who joined Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) or March Forward, another veteran group, who turned against and condemned the conflict and devoted themselves to working for peace. Also, we assume there were many soldiers who consciously avoided harming civilians and performed acts of kindness as well.

But an undetermined number of U.S. soldiers were involved in reprehensible treatment of civilians in Iraq, or openly displayed contempt for Iraqi customs and beliefs — often with the approval of their officers. The public testimony of IVAW members a couple of years ago was chilling, as well as the many revelations of murder and abuse that have managed to become known to the media, such as the Haditha massacre of dozens of Iraqis in 2005. As U.S. troops were leaving Iraq this month, secret military testimony about the Haditha tragedy was discovered among papers in a junkyard where they were supposed to have been burned.

President Obama's most bizarre statement at Ft. Bragg occurred when he declared that "what makes us special as Americans [is that] unlike the old empires, we don't make these sacrifices [during the Iraq war] for territory or for resources. We do it because it's right."

Being an empire of a new type, the U.S. did not plan to transform Iraq into an old-type colony. Bush's intention in invading was to convert Iraq into a subservient satellite. Washington already had handpicked a puppet regime of exiles to take over. The next step was to use a swift Pentagon victory as a jumping off point for bringing about regime change in Iran and other countries. This was supposed to be the culmination of America's geopolitical ambition to rule over the entire petroleum-rich Persian Gulf region and entire Middle East. One byproduct was to enhance the position of U.S. corporations. Another was to denationalize the oil reserves mainly to benefit American oil companies if possible.

The invasion quickly succeeded. Given the imbalance of power how could it not? But much else of Bush's imperialist adventure turned out to be a huge exploding cigar in Uncle Sam's unsuspecting face, at a cost at least $5 trillion (when future decades of veterans' benefits and interest payments are included). Obama knows this, of course, just as he knows it's ridiculous to depict U.S. foreign policy as selfless. But he has a major defeat to cover up, and the fact that the troops withdrew with heads held high doesn't entirely do the trick.

It's true Obama opposed the war as a member of the Illinois state legislature, though he was fairly quiet as a U.S. Senator and voted in favor of funding the incredibly expensive calamity year after year. During the 2008 campaign his critique of the Iraq conflict was a major factor in the defeat of warhawk Sen. Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, and helped his election victory.

Both Democratic superstars now are leading hawks on behalf of keeping Iraq under Washington's thumb, and for the Afghan war, the drone attacks on Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere, NATO's regime-change war in Libya, threats against Iran, the suppression of the Palestinians, support for pro-U.S. dictatorships, and most recently the dangerous new policy of "containing" China.

(To be continued)
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3. THE U.S. AND IRAQ AFTER THE WAR
Part 2 — Iraq's future and U.S. intentions
By Jack A. Smith, Activist Newsletter

President Obama emphasizes that he ended the Iraq campaign but he actually fulfilled the withdrawal agreement to pull out by the end of 2011 that was signed in December 2008 by outgoing President Bush and the Baghdad government. The Bush Administration labored long to compel President Nouri al-Maliki to agree that many thousands of U.S. troops could remain in the country after the bulk of forces withdrew, but the Iraqi leader ultimately refused. As a compromise the concord contained a stipulation allowing U.S. troops to remain if requested by Iraq's government.

The Obama Administration then applied pressure on Maliki to "request" that 20,000 or so American troops remain indefinitely, but its plans fell through in October. Reflecting the views of the Iraqi people, Baghdad politicians insisted that only a small number of troops may remain to train the Iraqi army. They added, however, that the troops would now be subject to the Iraqi legal system if they broke laws. The U.S. does not permit this in the many countries where its military is stationed. Washington thus was obliged to give up on retaining the troops.

The decision was an important setback for the Obama administration but a victory for Iraqi independence and a most agreeable outcome for neighboring Iran, which has considerable influence in Iraq. Washington's principal concern is that Shi'ite Iran and majority Shi'ite Iraq will in time enter in a close and relatively powerful alliance that would oppose U.S. hegemony in the Persian Gulf, perhaps backed by China and Russia.

According to IPS news analyst Gareth Porter Dec. 16: "The real story behind the U.S. withdrawal is how a clever strategy of deception and diplomacy adopted by Prime Minister Maliki in cooperation with Iran outmaneuvered Bush and the U.S. military leadership and got the United States to sign the U.S.-Iraq withdrawal agreement."

Iran, which supported Bush's overthrow of Ba'athists, is a country against which Washington has held a grudge since 1979 when a popular revolution ousted the Shah of Iran, occupied the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 62 American personnel for 14 months. The Shah was reinstalled on the Peacock Throne in 1953 by the U.S. and UK after they arranged for a monarchist coup against the democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, crushing Iranian democracy but denationalizing the country's petroleum fields to benefit British and American oil companies.

The U.S. and Israel (which had very close relations with the Shah's regime) have long been seeking the opportunity to replace the anti-imperialist Islamic regime with a pro-American government, lately with threats of war, subversion, support for opposition elements, and ever tightening extreme sanctions in response to unproven allegations that Iran is constructing a nuclear weapon.

Obama told the troops that "Iraq is not a perfect place... but we're leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government that was elected by its people.... This is an extraordinary achievement... and today we remember everything that you [the troops] did to make it possible."

After the first false justifications for the invasion were exposed, and the Pentagon was settling in for a long occupation since notions of quick victory had had gone up in smoke like a bombed out Iraqi home, Bush Administration neoconservatives discovered that the "real" reason for the war was to "democratize" Iraq.

Iraq had been a one-party state run by the secular Ba'ath Party with Saddam Hussein as the president. Hussein crushed the Communists, then the left and other vocal opponents and organizations. The Ba'athists brooked no political opposition. They favored the minority Sunni over the majority Shi'ite Muslims. Hussein led Iraq into an unjust, unnecessary war against Shi'ite Iran throughout the 1980s, with U.S. backing.

Domestically, the Ba'athists embraced a program of social services for the people. Oil reserves and certain enterprises had been nationalized and profits provided a broad array of support for the masses, such as subsidized food. Iraq boasted the best public educational system in the Middle East. It maintained a far-reaching national healthcare system for all citizens. Iraqi women were considered to be the most equal and liberated in the Arab world. Internationally, the Ba'ath Party practiced an anti-imperialist foreign policy. For many years it upheld Pan-Arabism until its decline throughout the region, and was critical of Israel and supported the Palestinian people until the end.

Historically the U.S. supported and continues to back several dictatorships in the Middle East. It's 30-year tacit alliance the Mubarak regime in Egypt (and current backing for the quasi-military junta now in power) was hardy the worst. What set Iraq apart for Washington was its strategic geopolitical position, opposition to certain U.S. goals in the vicinity, possession of great petroleum resources, anti-Israel focus, and by 2003 its helpless military vulnerability.

Today after 20 years of U.S. wars, Iraq is a ruin. The country was virtually crippled after the destruction caused by Washington's first Iraq war in 1991 followed by debilitating sanctions and occasional bombings until the second war which started in March 2003.

The education system has been shattered. Healthcare is now poor to nonexistent for much of the population. Many rights for women have been wrenched away. Infrastructure is a wreck. Energy from the battered electrical grid remains sporadic or not available. Businesses and a number of government tasks have now been privatized to the detriment of the people. Oil has been denationalized. Poverty and inequality are widespread. Corruption is endemic. The new "democratic" political system is frequently undemocratic, and great injustices exist throughout society. Torture is a frequent tool of the police.

In addition, Washington's divide-and-conquer tactics have greatly exacerbated religious tensions, leading to near civil war at one point, and engendered the continual terrorist violence that exists to this day. The war opened the door for al-Qaeda terrorists to enter Iraq for the first time, and they are still there. The Ba'athists in power would not tolerate their presence, but the chaos of the occupation was a virtual invitation. Divide-and conquer also increased national and gender antagonisms.

America's formal war is now over but it hardly is the last of the U.S. in Iraq. Obama told the troops that "We're building a new partnership between our nations." The Bush Administration's initial "partnership" was based on becoming a virtual behind-the-scenes government in Baghdad — one of its many failures.

But Washington retains considerable power in Iraq — from economic support and credits, to arms sales, military training, trade opportunities, a connection to America's many allies and dependencies in the Middle East and worldwide and more.

Part of that partnership is the newly built largest embassy in the world and a staff of nearly 17,000. This includes a security force of over 5,000 personnel, and 150-200 U.S. troops remaining in Iraq as part of a "normal embassy presence." (By comparison, the capital city of Albany, N.Y., with a population of nearly l00,000, is served by 340 police officers.) It has been reported that much of the diplomatic staff works with Iraqi government departments or is engaged in activities for the U.S. intelligence network.

Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, long a critic of the U.S. occupation and a friend of Iran, argues the embassy contingent and security detachments are far too large, indicative of Washington's intention to play a major role in Baghdad. He told Al-Arabiya TV Nov. 3 that the "American occupation will stay in Iraq under different names."

The embassy's main responsibilities seem to be to keep the new Iraqi government in check, to protect American commercial interests, to monitor and diminish Iranian influence, to distance Iraq from present-day Syria, to keep China and Russia at bay, to contact dissidents, to gather intelligence and to discourage Iraqi criticism of Israel.

The Obama Administration is strengthening the U.S. military machine in the wake of events in Iraq. Secretary of State Clinton announced recently: “We will have a robust continuing presence throughout the region, which is proof of our ongoing commitment to Iraq and to the future of that region."

The Associated Press reported that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta " expects about 40,000 U.S. troops to be stationed across the Middle East after they are pulled out of Iraq." The Pentagon wants to station some in Kuwait, next to Iraq, and intends to keep a substantial force in Afghanistan after the 2014 withdrawal, close to Iran and China. In addition the U.S. Navy is expected to increase the number of warships in the region.

The New York Times reports that "the administration is also seeking to expand military ties with the six nations in the Gulf Cooperation Council — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman. While the United States has close bilateral military relationships with each, the administration and the military are trying to foster a new “security architecture” for the Persian Gulf that would integrate air and naval patrols and missile defense."

Ironically, these six oil-rich U.S. allies, led by ultra-reactionary Saudi Arabia, offer their people less freedom and rights for women than Iraq under the Ba'athist government, but neither Washington nor the mass media single them out for criticism or demonize their leaders.

Iraq's future is a great unknown. The Sunni-Shi'ite split is far worse today than before Washington interfered. The immediate crisis is that the political system seems ready to explode. As the New York Times reported Dec. 20:

"The Shiite-dominated government ordered the arrest of the Sunni vice president [Tariq al-Hashimi] accusing him of running a death squad that assassinated police officers and government officials.... A major Sunni-backed political coalition said its ministers would walk off their jobs." Speaking later in the day from the safety of the Kurdish north (where he intends to stay for the time being), Hashimi "angrily rebutted charges that he had ordered his security guards to assassinate government officials, saying that Shi'ite-backed security forces had induced the guards into false confessions." Three of the guards confessed to the charges and the video was played on nationwide TV.

Even before this latest predicament, Washington's imposed "democracy" obviously was very fragile. Some quarters have predicted a possible future civil war or an eventual three-way separation of the country into independent Kurd, Sunni and Shi'ite entities, a situation that would not necessarily displease the Obama Administration if the Iraqi government cannot be brought to heel, particularly in relation to Iran.

The Iraqi military is loyal to the Maliki government, but its deportment in relation to successor regimes or in a serious political crisis hasn't been tested. It cannot be ignored that it has been trained, equipped and influenced by the Pentagon, which would be derelict had it not developed close ties to elements in the command apparatus. The semi-independent Kurds in the north are protected by the U.S. now. Their goal is complete independence in what they call Kurdistan. America will use them as a wedge, but it has sold out Kurd aspirations before and may do so again if conditions warrant.

The U.S. can still stir up lots of trouble in Baghdad by siding with and financing this or that political faction, religious community or ethnic group — a practice at which it has become adept. It has the entire country under intense air, sea and land surveillance, with spies and informants in every branch of government, political party and the military. Key telephones are tapped and computers are hacked. The entire region is encircled with U.S. military might.

The U.S. government does not intend to let Iraq get away, unless it becomes a subordinate ally. Now one knows what comes next.

In many ways — despite one-party rule and a ruthless leader capable of tragically counterproductive decisions (the invasions of Iran and Kuwait, for instance) — the masses of Iraqi people were better off before America's two decades of pain, destruction and chaos. The Bush and Obama Administrations, echoed by the mass media, have always sought to depict the majority of Iraqis as favorable to the occupation, but this was merely propaganda aimed at domestic public opinion. Most Iraqis are very happy the U.S. is finally gone, but of course they are worried about what the future holds.

They have been living in a hell, and are now closer to emerging, but still have many problems to overcome before they break out.
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4. THE USSR: GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
By Activist Newsletter

The Soviet Union imploded 20 years ago this month. In a statement Dec. 15, reported AFP, "Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says he regrets that the leaders of the USSR did not fight to the last to prevent its collapse two decades ago." Mikhail Gorbachev was president at the time.

Answering questions on Russian television he declared: "The USSR should have started timely economic reforms and changes as well as reforms to strengthen democratic change in the country. They should have consistently, fearlessly and steadfastly — without burying their heads in the sand or waving their arses in the air — fought for the territorial integrity of our country."

How do the Russian people feel about this? An opinion poll in Russia a few months ago by the Pew Global Attitudes Survey contained some interesting results, and then a big surprise.

Some 60% said they were "satisfied" in the new Russia; 65% thought the economic situation was good; 70% said "ordinary people" were helped by the changes since 1991; 61% said their standard of living had improved; 69% have "enhanced pride" in their country.

But, when asked "is it a great misfortune that the Soviet Union no longer exists?" 50% said "yes," 35% said "no." The rest were undecided.

Asked, "What is more important for a society — Freedom from state interference or the state insuring that no one is in need? 69% chose the state caring for all its people; 25% preferred a lack of "state interference."

Of course this does not necessarily mean that most Russians want to restore the former system, which probably would require another revolution, though a significant minority do. The New York Times reported last August that "A recent poll by the Levada Center, a respected polling agency, found that 20% of Russians share [a] wish for a return of the Soviet Union," The Communist Party, incidentally, made some gains in the recent parliamentary election, gathering 20% of the vote in this month's election.

Internationally, the implosion of the Soviet Union left the U.S. as the world's remaining superpower. Instead of reverting to a permanent peacetime economy and activities, a now unrestrained Washington vastly increased its spending on war and national security over the years. It has been throwing its military weight around the world ever since, from the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 to the bombing of Libya this year, and implicit threats of bombing Iran, to bring about regime change.

The U.S. withdrew its occupation forces from Iraq this month after almost nine years of unjust war, and as compensation is now strengthening its military position throughout the Middle East. The 10-year-old Afghan war has been expanding since President Obama took command, extending into western Pakistan.

America's Cold War against Russia modified but never ended. Efforts to "contain" and weaken the country continued in modified form ever since it dissolved two decades ago, particularly as NATO camps ever closer to Russian territory (contrary to an explicit U.S. promise that the organization would not expand "one inch to the east"), and as Washington moves ahead with placing anti-missile systems near its borders.

The Obama Administration's new Asia policy, announced last month, appears to be a first step in a new Cold War with China. The Bush Administration seemed to be starting a Cold War with China when it entered the White House but pulled back after 9/11. It resumed in a couple of years but the effort collapsed by the end of 2006 when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was ousted and neoconservatism entered terminal decline in the Bush White House. Obama's efforts may be more serious, aimed at solidifying America's global dominance by degrading China, particularly within its own regional sphere of influence in East and Central Asia.

It is politically logical that Washington's new maneuver against Beijing will draw China and Russia closer together, along with some rising countries, in opposition to America's unipolar world leadership.

— Our analysis of Obama's new China policy will appear soon.
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5. WAR ON IRAN HAS ALREADY BEGUN
By Seumas Milne

They don't give up. After a decade of blood-drenched failure in Afghanistan and Iraq, violent destabilization of Pakistan and Yemen, the devastation of Lebanon and slaughter in Libya, you might hope the U.S. and its friends had had their fill of invasion and intervention in the Muslim world.

It seems not. For months the evidence has been growing that a U.S.-Israeli stealth war against Iran has already begun, backed by Britain and France. Covert support for armed opposition groups has spread into a campaign of assassinations of Iranian scientists, cyber warfare, attacks on military and missile installations, and the killing of an Iranian general, among others.

The attacks are not directly acknowledged, but accompanied by intelligence-steered nods and winks as the media are fed a stream of hostile tales — the most outlandish so far being an alleged Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. — and the western powers ratchet up pressure for yet more sanctions over Iran's nuclear program.

The British government's decision to take the lead in imposing sanctions on all Iranian banks and pressing for an EU boycott of Iranian oil triggered the trashing of its embassy in Tehran by demonstrators last week and subsequent expulsion of Iranian diplomats from London.

It's a taste of how the conflict can quickly escalate, as was the downing of a U.S. spy plane over Iranian territory at the weekend. What one Israeli official has called a "new kind of war" has the potential to become a much more old-fashioned one that would threaten us all.

Last month the Guardian was told by British defense ministry officials that if the U.S. brought forward plans to attack Iran (as they believed it might), it would "seek, and receive, UK military help," including sea and air support and permission to use the ethnically cleansed British island colony of Diego Garcia [in the Indian Ocean].

Whether the officials' motive was to soften up public opinion for war or warn against it, this was an extraordinary admission: the Britain military establishment fully expects to take part in an unprovoked U.S. attack on Iran — just as it did against Iraq eight years ago.

What was dismissed by the former foreign secretary Jack Straw as "unthinkable," and for Prime Minister David Cameron became an option not to be taken "off the table," now turns out to be as good as a done deal if the U.S. decides to launch a war that no one can seriously doubt would have disastrous consequences. But there has been no debate in parliament and no mainstream political challenge to what Straw's successor, David Miliband, this week called the danger of "sleepwalking into a war with Iran," That's all the more shocking because the case against Iran is so spectacularly flimsy.

There is in fact no reliable evidence that Iran is engaged in a nuclear weapons programme. The latest International Atomic Energy Agency report once again failed to produce a smoking gun, despite the best efforts of its new director general, Yukiya Amano — described in a WikiLeaks cable as "solidly in the U.S. court on every strategic decision."

As in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, the strongest allegations are based on "secret intelligence" from western governments. But even the U.S. national intelligence director, James Clapper, has accepted that the evidence suggests Iran suspended any weapons programme in 2003 and has not reactivated it.

The whole campaign has an Alice in Wonderland quality about it. Iran, which says it doesn't want nuclear weapons, is surrounded by nuclear-weapon states: the U.S. — which also has forces in neighboring Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as military bases across the region — Israel, Russia, Pakistan and India.

Iran is of course an authoritarian state, though not as repressive as western allies such as Saudi Arabia. But it has invaded no one in 200 years. It was itself invaded by Iraq with western support in the 1980s, while the U.S. and Israel have attacked 10 countries or territories between them in the past decade. Britain exploited, occupied and overthrew governments in Iran for over a century. So who threatens whom exactly?

As Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, said recently, if he were an Iranian leader he would "probably" want nuclear weapons. Claims that Iran poses an "existential threat" to Israel because President Ahmadinejad said the state "must vanish from the page of time" bear no relation to reality. Even if Iran were to achieve a nuclear threshold, as some suspect is its real ambition, it would be in no position to attack a state with upwards of 300 nuclear warheads, backed to the hilt by the world's most powerful military force.

The real challenge posed by Iran to the U.S. and Israel has been as an independent regional power, allied to Syria and the Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas movements. As U.S. troops withdraw from Iraq, Saudi Arabia fans sectarianism, and Syrian opposition leaders promise a break with Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas, the threat of proxy wars is growing across the region.

A U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran would turn that regional maelstrom into a global firestorm. Iran would certainly retaliate directly and through allies against Israel, the U.S. and U.S. Gulf client states, and block the 20% of global oil supplies shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. Quite apart from death and destruction, the global economic impact would be incalculable.

All reason and common sense militate against such an act of aggression. Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel's Mossad, said last week it would be a "catastrophe." Leon Panetta, the U.S. defense secretary, warned that it could "consume the Middle East in confrontation and conflict that we would regret."

There seems little doubt that the U.S. administration is deeply wary of a direct attack on Iran. But in Israel, Barak has spoken of having less than a year to act; Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, has talked about making the "right decision at the right moment"; and the prospects of drawing the U.S. in behind an Israeli attack have been widely debated in the media.

Maybe it won't happen. Maybe the war talk is more about destabilization than a full-scale attack. But there are undoubtedly those in the U.S., Israel and Britain who think otherwise. And the threat of miscalculation and the logic of escalation could tip the balance decisively. Unless opposition to an attack on Iran gets serious, this could become the most devastating Middle East war of all.
— This article appeared in the Guardian (UK), 12-7-11
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6. VENEZUELA SUMMIT EXCLUDES U.S.
By Federico Fuentes

A summit of huge importance was held in Venezuela on Dec. 2-3. Two hundred years after Latin America’s independence fighters first raised the battle cry for a united Latin America, 33 heads of states from across the region came together to form the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC).

For Latin America, the summit represented a further step away from its traditional role as the United States’ backyard and its emergence as a player in its own right in international politics.

The importance of this new institution in world politics cannot be overstated. The combined gross domestic product of the countries within CELAC make it the third-largest economic powerhouse in the world. It is also home to the world’s largest oil reserves and the first and third largest global producers of food and energy, respectively.

CELAC also builds on existing inter-regional bodies and experiments. These include the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), UNASUR’s Defense Council, the Bank of the South (which only awaits the approval of the Uruguayan parliament in order to bring to life a bank that will count on $20 billion for development projects), and the establishment of trade mechanisms between some countries that replace the U.S. dollar with local and new regional currencies.

Another important integration initiative is the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), a nine-nation anti-imperialist bloc initially formed in 2004 by socialist governments of Cuba and Venezuela.

CELAC explicitly excludes the US and Canada.

However, Cuba, which has been excluded from the Organization of American States (OAS) for daring to challenge the U.S. empire and carry out a revolution, was not only included but selected to host the 2013 CELAC Summit. Chile had already been selected to host next year's.

Some are already arguing the consolidation of CELAC will represent the final nail in the coffin of the Organisation of American States (OAS), traditionally dominated by the powerful neighbors up north.

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa said on Nov. 29: “We believe we need a profound change in the inter-American, basically Latin American, system because the U.S.’s gravitational power [within the OAS] is clear. We need another system... where we discuss our problems in the region, not in Washington [the headquarters of the OAS], where institutions that are removed from our vision, traditions, values and needs are not imposed on us.”

The same day, Bolivian Vice President Alvaro Garcia Linera said the summit would represent “a meeting of the peoples, defending our destiny without tutelage, without patronage, so that together we can find a solution to our problems, without the presence of the U.S.”

The step comes at a time when U.S. economic and political power is in decline and the European Union is on the verge of collapse....

Latin America is in a unique position given the global context, marked by three key features: “It maintains a dynamic of regional convergence while all other [continents] are suffering from violent centrifugal forces; until now it has suffered less as a result of the recession in the imperialist centers; [and] within this heterogeneous convergent whole exists a vital nucleus that, faced with the collapse of capitalism… has raised the banner of 21st century socialism.”....

That the summit was held in Venezuela represented a double blow to U.S. interests. Having waged a relentless campaign to destroy Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution, the fact it was chosen to host the summit undermines the lies peddled by Washington and the corporate media that Venezuela is isolated in the region.

Furthermore, the presence of a fully recovered Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, whose bout with cancer early this year forced the summit to be postponed from July, has dashed hopes that health issues could succeed were U.S.-backed coups and destabilization plans against the Chavez government have failed.

— This article is an excerpt of a report appearing in Australia's Dec. 3 Green Left Weekly. The entire article is at http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/49664.
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7. NEW BOOK SHOWS HOW U.S. TARGETS DISSENT
By Justin D. Martin

"Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in 21st-Century America," By Michael Ratner and Margaret Ratner Kunstler, The New Press, 176 pages, $17.95.

A number of 20th Century legal decisions helped establish the U.S. as having one of the freest press systems on earth. In 1925, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the First Amendment protects citizens not only from federal abridgment of speech, but also from interference by state governments. In 1931, the Court largely declared prior restraints to publication unconstitutional. In the 1960s, the Court made it splendidly difficult for public officials to successfully sue journalists for libel.

Nonetheless, the book Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in 21st-Century America, by Michael Ratner and Margaret Ratner Kunstler, reminds us why scores of countries are typically cited as having freer media environments than the U.S. The landmark Supreme Court decisions listed above protect freedoms to publish and speak, but they do not guarantee protection from all forms of government mischief after dissent occurs. Indeed, the Court’s 1925 decision in Gitlow v. New York ruled that, while the First Amendment protects citizens from some abuses by state governments, citizens may still be punished for speech “inimical to the public welfare, tending to corrupt public morals, [or] incite to crime or disturb the public peace.”

The United States vigorously protects what citizens can say — but after dissenting speech is aired, the government’s responses to these activities, including covert surveillance of citizens, can be constitutionally dubious. Hell No reminds us why the U.S. isn’t really even close to being the world’s chief guardian of free speech (in 2010, Freedom House listed 23 countries as having greater press freedom than the U.S., while Reporters Without Borders counted 19. The laurel for greatest press freedom usually goes to Finland or Norway). Although the book is geared more toward radical political activists than journalists, it jolts all readers awake with an icy reminder that the U.S. government often monitors and even punishes dissent.

Since 2008, the Ratners point out, the FBI’s authority to investigate the provenance of dissenting speech has dramatically expanded. The FBI’s so-called Mukasey guidelines, conjured by the former attorney general of the same name and adopted whole ham by the Obama administration, give the government extraordinary power to secretly investigate citizens over even lawful activity related to foreign affairs. The Mukasey guidelines themselves acknowledge that the FBI may use espionage to siphon from citizens information related to foreign affairs, even if the “information so gathered may concern lawful activities.”

Such an investigation, the Ratners point out, can target “anyone with any connection to a foreign policy issue — even a professor writing about a foreign country.” (Gulp). Not only is this constitutionally suspect, but it would appear to also violate the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which embraces the “freedom to hold opinions without interference… regardless of frontiers.” And, of course, using covert surveillance in response to lawful speech violates not only the First Amendment, but also the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures.

Reporters in the U.S. can be incarcerated for thorough reporting and keeping promises to confidential sources. When I taught journalism at the American University in Cairo, my non-American students were shocked to learn that journalists in the U.S. could be, and in some cases are, jailed for refusing to reveal to grand juries the identities of confidential sources in their reporting. I’ve used the Borders & Bylines column (in the Columbia Journalism Review) to cry foul on free speech shortcomings in many countries, including Israel, Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt, and Kuwait, and these countries are indeed hard-core offenders, but my own country does plenty to speech that defiles its Constitution. Hell No is an important reminder of this.

The Ratners warn that with the blessing of the Patriot Act, the FBI and other federal agencies can distribute “National Security Letters” and, with no judicial oversight, subpoena from banks, libraries, and phone companies sensitive information about people who may be under no criminal investigation whatsoever. This is one of the most seamless ways that the U.S. government can “legally” obtain information about dissenters of which it is wary. The U.S. government mails nearly a thousand National Security Letters every week. Look out.

To be sure, there are a number of ways in which the U.S. does lead the world in freedom of speech. It is literally legal to advocate anarchy and the violent overthrow of the U.S. government, and dissidents can be rather specific in their rally cries as long as their plans aren’t “imminent.” Additionally, I don’t know of a country that protects more false and hateful speech, such as Holocaust denial and the defamation of dead soldiers, than the U.S. Fabricating news in the United States, while a journalistic death wish, is not generally illegal.

I personally haven’t had federal, state, or local governments interfere with, or retaliate against, my reporting. I routinely get pulled aside at U.S. airports because my passport has lots of squiggly stamps, and it’s highly possible, due to the overbroad nature of the Mukasey surveillance guidelines and the fact that I spent years reporting in the Arab world as a young man, that I’ve been placed under federal surveillance at one time or another, but I’m not aware of it.

Nonetheless, the U.S. targets speech in a number of significant ways. The record of the United States on free speech is similar to our performance on education; we lead developed nations in some ways, such as in the quality of our research universities, but by other measures, say, eighth-grade math and science, we’re noticeably behind. With regard to free speech, Hell No: Your Right to Dissent in 21st-Century America chronicles our most serious demerits.
— From Columbia Journalism Review (12-7-11)
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8. THE 1% ELECTION: THEIR BREAD, OUR CIRCUS
By Tom Engelhardt

Sometimes words outlive their usefulness. Sometimes the gap between changing reality and the names we’ve given it grows so wide that they empty of all meaning or retain older meanings that only confuse us. “Election,” “presidential election campaign,” and “democracy” all seem like obvious candidates for name-change.

I thought about this recently as President Obama hustled around my hometown, snarling New York traffic in the name of Campaign 2012. He was, it turned out, “hosting” three back-to-back fundraising events: one at the tone Gotham Bar and Grill for 45 supporters at $35,800 a head (the menu: roasted beet salad, steak and onion rings, with apple strudel, chocolate pecan pie, and cinnamon ice cream — a meal meant to “shine a little light” on American farms); one for 30 Jewish supporters at the home of Jack Rosen, chairman of the American Jewish Congress, for at least $10,000 a pop; and one at the Sheraton Hotel, evidently for the plebes of the contribution world, that cost a mere $1,000 a head. (Maybe the menu there was rubber chicken.)

In the course of his several meals, the president pledged his support for Israel (in the face of Republican charges that he is eternally soft on the subject), talked about “taxes and the economy” to his undoubtedly under-taxed listeners, and made this stirringly meaningless but rousing comment: “No matter who we are, no matter where we come from, we're one nation. We're one people. And that's what's at stake in this election."

Outside his final event, Occupy Wall Street protesters saw something else at stake, dubbing him the “1% president.” The end result from a night’s heavy lifting: $2.4 million for his election campaign and the Democratic National Committee, nowhere close to 1% of what they will need for the next year.

These were the 67th, 68th, and 69th fundraisers attended by Obama so far in 2011, or the 71st, 72nd, and 73rd. (It depended on who was counting.) In either case, we’re talking about approximately one fundraiser every five days, a total of 6% of the events in which Obama took part in this non-election year.

Think about that. You vote for the president to spend some part of 20% of his days raising money for his own future from the incredibly wealthy. Or put another way, the Washington Post now estimates that if you add in the non-fundraising, election-oriented events that involve him — 63 so far in 2011 — perhaps 12% of his time is taken up with campaign efforts of one sort or another; and this is what he’s been doing 12 to 24 months before the election is scheduled to happen.

New York being the home of... gulp... Wall Street (1%! 1%!), Obama doesn’t exactly have it to himself. Mitt Romney was heading into town on December 14th for his own rousing round of four fundraisers. One at the Waldorf Astoria will be hosted by — you can’t be balder than this — four JPMorgan Chase executives, including James B. “Jimmy” Lee, Jr., the vice chairman of the company and the “banker who battled the Obama administration over the restructuring of Chrysler LLC.” And oh yes, Romney leads Obama in funding support from billionaires, 42 to 30 (with Rick Perry taking third place at 20).

In the 2008 election, JPMorgan employees gave $4.6 million to the candidates of their choice, coming in behind only Goldman Sachs and Citigroup on The Street. Now that, I would say, is actual electoral power. Perhaps it wouldn't be too much of an exaggeration to say that the voting that matters most takes place at those fundraisers, not in the booths where, billions of dollars in attack ads later, the usual hoi polloi pull the handles on electoral slot machines.

In ancient Rome, the emperors provided the capital’s inhabitants with “bread and circuses.” Ever since, that combination has been shorthand for rulers buying off the ruled with the necessities of life and spectacle.

In Rome, that spectacle involved gladiatorial and other elaborate games of death that took place in the Coliseum. In this age, our rulers, the 1% whose money has flooded the electoral cycle, are turning the election itself into our extended circus. This year, a series of Republican televised “debates” have glued increasing numbers of eyeballs to screens — and not just Republican eyeballs, either. Everyone waits for the latest version of a reality show to produce the next cat fight, fabulous gaffe, late-night laugh line, confession, denial, scandal, or plot twist, the next thumbs up or, far better, thumbs down on some candidate’s increasingly brief political life in the arena.

Think of it as their bread and our circus. Who can doubt that, like the crowds of Rome once upon a time, we await the inevitable thumbs-down vote and the YouTube videos that precede and follow it with a kind of continuing bloodlust? The only problem: however strange all this may be, it’s not, at least in the old-fashioned sense, an election nor does it seem to have much to do with democracy. The fact is that we have no word for what’s going on. Semi-democracy? Unrepresentative democracy? 1% democracy?

Of course, we still speak of this as a presidential election campaign, and it’s true that 11 months from now more than 60% of the voting age population will step into polling booths across the country and cast ballots. But let’s face it, if this is an election at all, it’s certainly one stricken with elephantiasis. Once, as now, a presidential race had primaries, conventions, campaigning, mudslinging, and sometimes even a few debates, but all of this had limits. In recent years, the limits — almost any limits — have been disappearing. Along the way, the process has expanded from an eight-month-long affair that most voters only began to attend to sometime in the fall of election year to a perpetual campaign, perpetually discussed, reported on, and displayed.

The primaries, for instance, have been on a forced march toward ever-earlier dates. Iowa’s — actually a “caucus” — is now on January 3rd of election year and the first official primary, New Hampshire’s is on January 10th. (Over the years, it’s repeatedly had to move its date forward from March to hold onto that status.) This time around, the “debates” leading up to the primaries began last May; previously meaningless party “straw polls,” covered as monumental events by hundreds of reporters, accompanied them; the first of a World War I-style barrage of attack ads was launched in the same period, and the opinion polls on various constellations of likely (or unlikely) candidates — what Jonathan Schell once called our “serial elections” — preceded everything, accompanied by endless media speculation about them.

It's an ever-expanding system, engorging itself on money and sucking in ever larger audiences. It’s the Blob of this era. In fact, the next campaign now kicks off in the media the day after (if not the day before) the previous election ends with speculation (polls soon to follow) handicapping the odds of future candidates, none yet announced.

Once upon a time, the perpetual candidate — former Minnesota governor Harold Stassen was the classic example — proved a kind of running joke. No longer. Now, the president himself essentially begins his campaign for a second term almost as soon as he enters the Oval Office.

Similarly, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, the media-anointed Republican nominee of this electoral cycle, has in fact been running for president since at least 2006. It's been his only real “job” since leaving the governorship in 2008. In his life, he is now the embodiment of the perpetual candidate, and yet even those who make him the butt of endless TV jokes don’t find that fact strange or particularly worthy of comment.

Everywhere you care to look, the expansion of the presidential race is evident. In the fall of 1948, in an election he was supposed to lose, Democratic President Harry (“give ‘em hell”) Truman barnstormed the nation by train, decrying a “do-nothing Congress.” By comparison, President Obama has been out this fall — the equivalent of 1947 — on what is clearly the campaign trail denouncing his own version of a do-nothing Congress. And that’s only a start when it comes to turning election “year” into Election Life.

On money, the sky’s the limit. In 2000, the total federal election season cost $3 billion; in 2008, more than $5 billion, of which an estimated $2.4 billion went into the presidential campaign. With the Supreme Court having made it easier for outside money to pour in, thanks to its Citizens United decision, funding for campaign 2012 is expected to pass $6 billion and could even top $7 billion. The Obama campaign, which raised $760 million in 2008, is expected to pass the billion-dollar mark this time around (with money already pouring in from the financial and banking sector on which candidate Mitt Romney is also heavily reliant).

TV advertising alone, which topped $2.1 billion in 2008, is expected to reach or exceed $3 billion this time around. These are, of course, staggering sums. Already the attack ads, mostly on the president, mostly from the sort of Super PACs that Citizens United let loose in the land, are zinging away far in advance of any previous presidential campaign season. According to the Washington Post, $23 million worth of attack ads have come and gone, half of that from Karl Rove’s American Crossroads. And as one analyst quoted by the New York Times put it, “These dollar figures we’re talking about now are going to seem quaint in a few months. And they’ll seem really quaint in eight or nine months.”

For comparison’s sake, back in 1976, in the era when pundits were first beginning to write about presidential elections as perpetual campaigns, the total spending of presidential candidates Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter was $66.9 million [AN: that equals about $660 million in 2011 dollars, roughly $330 million each].

This inundation of money has also meant an inundation of lobbyists. President Obama officially refuses to take campaign contributions from lobbyists. The New York Times recently reported, however, that 15 of his top “bundlers,” who give their own money and solicit that of others for the campaign — none registered as federal lobbyists — are “involved in lobbying for Washington consulting shops or private companies,” and they are raising millions for him. A June report from the Center for Public Integrity concluded: “President Obama granted plum jobs and appointments to almost 200 people who raised large sums for his [2008] presidential campaign, and his top fundraisers have won millions of dollars in federal contracts.”

And the 2012 Republican field of presidential contestants puts Obama in the shade. They seem determined to campaign cheek to jowl with as many lobbyists as they can corral. More than 100 federal lobbyists have already contributed to Mitt Romney’s campaign, while Rick Perry has evidently risen to candidate status on the shoulders of Mike Toomey, a former gubernatorial chief of staff, friend, and money-raising lobbyist whose clients “have won $2 billion in [Texas] state government contracts since 2008.” And that’s only scratching the surface.

In the meantime, a national machinery has been set up to staff that perpetual campaign. By early October (again 2011, not 2012), according to the New York Times, the Obama campaign had opened offices in 15 states, had paid employees in 38 states, and had a Chicago headquarters with a paid staff of 200. Thirteen months before the actual election, the Obama campaign and the Democratic National Committee had already shelled out “close to $87 million in operating costs.” At this point, there is no Republican equivalent, as the many Republican candidates are still involved in the struggle for the nomination, while Obama, as vulnerable a president as we’ve seen in our time, miraculously lacks even a symbolic primary challenger....

It’s clear enough — or should be by now — that the electoral process has been occupied by the 1%; which means that what you hear in this “campaign” is largely refracted versions of their praise, their condemnation, their slurs, their views, their needs, their fears, and their wishes. They are making money off, and electing a president via, you. Which means that you — that all of us — are occupied, too.

So stop calling this an “election.” Whatever it is, we need a new name for it.

— Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s as well as The End of Victory Culture, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. His latest book, The United States of Fear (Haymarket Books), has just been published. — http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175478/
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9. CONGRESS ATTACKS DRINKING WATER
By Sharon Guynup

This year, residents of Midland, Texas sued Dow Chemical for dangerous levels of hexavalent chromium in their drinking water. Chromium-6 is a cancer-causing chemical made infamous by Julia Roberts' film, "Erin Brockovich." There are currently no drinking water standards for chromium-6, and the chemical industry is delaying a new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assessment labeling it a potent carcinogen.

This is far from an isolated scenario, threats to the public drinking water supply are national in scope. From the 1950s to the 1980s, trichloroethylene, a carcinogenic metal degreaser, lurked, undetected, in the drinking water at North Carolina's Fort Lejeune - affecting up to one million marines and their families.

California's San Joaquin River and San Francisco Bay Delta are contaminated with selenium and mercury. Atrazine, an agricultural weedkiller, frequently pollutes groundwater across the Midwest corn-belt. Las Vegas tap water contains radium. Across Florida, pesticides taint a public water system serving nearly 10 million people.

And in the Northeast, millions living along New York's Hudson River and New Jersey's Passaic River struggle with the industrial legacy of toxic PCB and dioxin pollution. [Activist Newsletter: In addition, the Northeast, Texas and other states are faced with present problems and potential havoc to drinking water caused by hydraulic fracturing to obtain natural gas.]

Americans overwhelmingly want such problems solved. Safe drinking water was of serious concern to 84% of respondents in a recent Gallup poll that also ranked water pollution as the top U.S. environmental concern.

Ensuring that Americans have clean water has been an effort with strong bipartisan support for four decades. President Richard Nixon and Congress established the EPA in response to growing public demand for cleaner water, air and environment. The Clean Water Act followed in 1972, and the Safe Drinking Water Act in 1974.

But today there is a deep disconnect between escalating public concern and government action. Numerous bills passed this year by the Republican-led House of Representatives bash well-established scientific evidence, attempting to dismantle or delay regulations that safeguard America's water, food, air and environment.

The current war on clean water is part of a Republican deregulation agenda that screams "job killer!" at any environmental protection effort.

Both Senate and House Republicans make no secret of their ultimate goal: to end all environmental regulation and abolish the Environmental Protection Agency. "EPA is a rogue agency," Nebraska Republican Representative Lee Terry recently told the Associated Press.

Texas Governor Rick Perry opened his presidential campaign by saying the agency "won't know what hit 'em" if he is elected president.

But, as David Goldston, a Natural Resources Defense Council researcher, notes, "They're changing fundamental laws, not just blocking regulations."

The REINS Act, which passed the House of Representatives on Dec. 7, is among the most draconian of these new initiatives.

By a vote of 241 to 184, the House approved the Regulations from the Executive In Need of Scrutiny Act, which would require an up-or-down vote in Congress on all rules with an annual economic impact of $100 million or more proposed by regulatory agencies.

Four House Democrats voted for the bill: John Barrow of Georgia, Dan Boren of Oklahoma, Mike McIntyre of North Carolina, and Colin Peterson of Minnesota.

The REINS Act has been flying under the media radar, embedded in both Senate and House plans for "job creation." It would require a Congressional vote on any regulation with an annual economic impact of $100 million or more - that's 50 to 100 votes per year - creating a scheduling nightmare that would make passage of any new federal regulation virtually impossible.

Under the Act, if one house rejected or failed to vote on a rule within 70 working days, it would "be dispatched to the regulatory graveyard," notes "The Washington Post." REINS would return environmental regulation to 1890s standards - when corporations polluted with impunity.

While advertised as money savers, these attempts at deregulation are thinly-veiled corporate giveaways that will bolster industry profits at the expense of our families' health. These attacks on Clean Air and Clean Water act protections, if passed, would cause tens of thousands of premature deaths annually.

Bipartisan analyses have repeatedly shown that the cost of environmental regulation is exponentially cheaper than the costs of toxic cleanup and medical care.

European Union companies are required to provide data on chemicals they produce, detailing risk to human health and the environment. But in the United States, it's the EPA's job to evaluate the 80,000 chemicals listed in the Toxic Substances Control Act database.

In 2008, experts told Congress that "most states do not have the resources or expertise to independently develop drinking water regulations and therefore look to EPA to conduct the necessary research and collect the data and information needed to make regulatory decisions."

Public systems provide drinking water to 90% of U.S. residents.

The need for regulation is clear. The Centers For Disease Control and Prevention's 2009 biomonitoring report painted a chilling picture of toxic exposure, finding 212 chemicals in people's bodies, 75 of which had never before been measured in Americans.

One of them, perchlorate, was found in every person tested. Perchlorate is a component of rocket fuel and other explosives that can impair nervous system development in babies and children - and it pollutes drinking water in 26 states.

But EPA is under intense pressure from Congress and corporate lobbies not to do its job. As a result, millions of us ingest toxic traces of pesticide, rocket fuel, arsenic, heavy metals, and industrial and waste treatment chemicals each day. Not because they're safe, but because EPA has only gotten around to testing 114 of the 315 pollutants found in U.S. tap water. There are no standards for the rest.

Even small residues of some pollutants can, over time, cause cancer, nervous system damage, birth defects — or spark other serious health problems.

Earlier this year, a scathing report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, criticized the EPA, highlighting long-standing problems identifying and regulating dangerous contaminants. A 2009 study by the American Society of Civil Engineers gave American drinking water infrastructure an overall grade of D-.

EPA finally established safety limits for perchlorate in 2010 — the first chemical the agency has regulated in 15 years. Since 1996, the underfunded and resource-strapped agency has reviewed just 138 chemicals, and failed to set drinking water safety standards for any of them. These chemicals collectively pollute the drinking water of over 110 million Americans.

Health and environmental watchdog groups are pressuring EPA to meet its Congressionally-mandated duty to enforce clean water laws and insure that America's public drinking water is safe and free from dangerous chemicals.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson openly admits such failings. In a New York Times interview she agreed that the nation's water doesn't meet public health goals, and that enforcement of water pollution laws is unacceptably low.

In January, Jackson unveiled a new, streamlined Drinking Water Strategy that will regulate toxins by chemical groups rather than individual compounds. At the top of the list are 16 volatile organic compounds known to cause cancer, including benzene and petroleum products. The plan would, in theory, speed research and regulation of hazardous industrial contaminants.

For the conceivable future, it seems likely that both Congress and EPA will continue to get failing marks for their protection of the nation's drinking water.

In the meantime, filtering water is the best bet — not drinking bottled water, which many mistakenly believe is pure. In most cases, it is just bottled tap water with the addition of chemicals that leach from the plastic bottles. Chemicals can be removed from drinking water through various types of water filters, reverse osmosis, and distillation.

— From the Environment News Service Dec. 8 in cooperation with Blue Ridge Press
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10. JOBS AND MILITARY SPENDING
By Nathan Rosenblum

A new report from the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst shows how the money spent on the U.S. military could have been used for job creation. “The U.S. Employment Effects of Military and Domestic Spending” is an update of an earlier work by Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier.

According to the report, the U.S. government spent about $689 billion on the military in 2010. The approximately equal annual amount spent on national security (such as nuclear weapons, America's 16 different spy agencies and the Homeland Security apparatus, among other expenses) is not included.

The report contains an analysis of the effects of $1 billion spent creating military and military related jobs (war manufacturing) and jobs in non-military civilian occupations. The military work produced fewer jobs —11,200. Non-military jobs amounted to 16,800. In healthcare the $1 billion produced 17,200 jobs; in education, 26,700.

Overall wages and benefits are slightly less for non-military employment, but this is frequently balanced out in a number of non-military occupations.

Although considerably more jobs may be created in non-military work, it's doubtful Congress will actually reduce spending for the military and increase it for civilian needs, except perhaps by slicing absolutely redundant war expenses. Military instillations or related operations such as factories making weapons and supplies are located in every Congressional district. While Democratic and Republican lawmakers have been stressing cuts, the military is largely off limits, as it has been for the last 70 years. There have been gestures toward reductions, such as after the Cold War ended in the early 1990s, but the funding was soon restored and greatly increased.

12-09-11 Activist Calendar

2011-12-09T15:47:00.006-05:00

HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST CALENDAR
December 9, 2011, Issue #673
Send event announcements to jacdon@earthlink.net
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Dedicated to Helping Build Activist

Movements in the Hudson Valley

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The Activist Newsletter will be posted next week. The main article analyzes the journey of President Obama to Asia, noting that Washington's on-again, off-again Cold War against China evidently is on again (for the third time since 1949). Another article will discuss Washington's virtual war against Iran.
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REGIONAL OCCUPY GROUPS

ALBANY: Mayor Jennings is demanding that the Albany encampment near the State Capitol be disbanded by Dec. 22. Occupy events are still taking place. The website has details: http://occupyalbany.org/. A petition to the Mayor to withdraw his order may be signed at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/allowalbanyoccupation/.

POUGHKEEPSIE: Police evicted the Occupy encampment here at 3 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 7, nearly three months since it began. No one was harmed. Participants are sticking together and plan to continue taking action, including efforts to return to the park. Information is at http://www.occupypoughkeepsie.org/. The Poughkeepsie Journal article about the eviction, a subsequent rally later that day, and the group's future plans is at http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/article/20111208/NEWS01/312080022/Evicted-protesters-say-movement-will-go-on.

NEW PALTZ: Some 60 people met Dec. 8 and decided to form a community-student Occupy group, which will have its first action Saturday, Dec. 10 (below).

HUDSON VALLEY: A website carries information about the Occupy groups in the Valley and also has links to various Occupies throughout New York State. It is at http://www.occupyhudsonvalley.org/.
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NEW EVENTS

Saturday, Dec. 10, NEW PALTZ: A march, rally and possible occupation somewhere in the village will kick off at 12 noon from in front of the Chase Bank branch at 2 Plattekill Ave. (at Main St., across from Starbucks and the Elting Library.) The event may end up at Peace Park in front of Village Hall or nearby. A few days ago at the SUNY campus, students formed an Occupy group that demanded an extension of campus library hours, and immediately gained their objective.

Saturday, Dec. 10, NEW ROCHELLE: Women in Black will hold a Palestine Solidarity Vigil 2-3 p.m. on Main St. and Memorial Highway. The event is sponsored by WESPAC and CodePink Westchester. Information, ceilie@aol.com, (914) 654 8990.

Saturday, Dec. 10, POUGHKEEPSIE: A Climate Justice Summit, hosted by Clearwater, will take place 9 a.m.-1:15 p.m. at the Catharine St. Community Center, 69 Catharine St. (Use the 152 Mansion St. entrance). We're told: "The summit will provide the community with examples of potential careers, especially green jobs, which address the dual challenges of climate justice and difficult economic times. The program will showcase eight projects in climate-change mitigation and adaptation developed by Climate Justice Councils in Poughkeepsie, Kingston, Peekskill, and Beacon. The event is free, but registration is required at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ClimateJustice. Information, Karla Raimundi at karla@clearwater.org, (845) 265-8080.

Sunday, Dec. 11, NEW YORK STATE: Today's a good day to take an easy step to oppose fracking. Following the plea of the anti-fracking movement in New York State, over 10,000 people have signed a letter to Gov. Cuomo to withdraw the revised draft Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement (SGEIS). For online information and a link to the collective letter, go to http://www.toxicstargeting.com/MarcellusShale/cuomo/coalition_letter/2011, then click on Sign the Letter.

Tuesday, Dec. 13, ALBANY: The influence of big money in political campaigns, a high-cost factor that immeasurably cheapens democracy, will be the subject of a presentation by Jessica Wisneski, the Legislative and Campaigns Director of Citizen Action of N.Y. She will discuss an approach to electing candidates that keeps them from becoming obligated to wealthy individuals and corporations, called "Voter Owned Elections" or "publicly financed elections." From the organizers: "Political campaign finance in N.Y. and the U.S. boils down to legalized bribery. Imagine a system where politicians respond to voters instead of donors, are being elected and making real positive changes — it's possible, come learn more." This 4-5:30 p.m. free event takes place on the Concourse Level (indoors, underground) of Empire State Plaza in downtown Albany (directions, [518] 474-2418). It is sponsored by Occupy Albany. Information, markalban1@earthlink.net, (518) 466-9339.

Tuesday, Dec. 13, ROSENDALE: There will be a "Teach-in on the criminalization of Hydrofracking," 7-9 p.m., at the Canal Town Alley Art Center, 402 Main St. Fracking is a dangerous method of extracting natural gas that may, among other problems, destroy water supplies. Speakers will focus on N.Y. Public Law #1, a bill in the state legislature, which will criminalize hydrofracking. A local group, SPAN (Sovereign Peoples' Action Network), is organizing the event. Information, http://www.facebook.com/events/314965808527513/.

Tuesday, Dec. 17, WOODSTOCK: Starting at 12 noon there will be a "gathering to show local support for the beleaguered OWS movement, with speeches and a discussion forum" on the Village Green, 6 Tinker St. Information, martin.michaels@hws.edu.

Saturday, Dec. 17, ALBANY: A 2006 documentary, perspicaciously titled "The One Percent," will be screened at 7:30 p.m. at First Unitarian Universalist Society of Albany, 405 Washington Ave. This 80-minute film was directed by Jamie Johnson, who, according to the program notes, "is a young heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune [who] takes a look at the increasing gap between rich and poor in the United States. A fitting prelude to the current Occupy Wall Street movement, Johnson explores the political, moral, and emotional rationale that enables a tiny minority of Americans, the one percent, to control nearly half the wealth of the entire United States. The film includes interviews with Bill Gates Sr., Nicole Buffett, Milton Friedman, Robert Reich, Ralph Nader, and others." It's free and public and sponsored by the Solidarity Committee of the Capital District, Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace, and Upper Hudson Peace Action. Information, dbull34@verizon.net, (518) 426-0883.

Tuesday, Dec. 20, POUGHKEEPSIE: The Real Majority Project holds its 16th annual Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa Holiday Interfaith Candlelight Vigil for Economic Justice at 5:30 p.m. in front of the County Office Building, 22 Market St. Speakers include Rabbi Paul Golomb, Rev. Gail Burger, Rev. Blake Rider, Richard Hathaway from Poughkeepsie Friends Meeting, Ann Perry, Pat Lamanna, Mae Parker-Harris, and county legislator Joel Tyner, the organizer. Information, joeltyner@earthlink.net.

10-28-11 Activist Calendar

2011-11-28T14:52:00.000-05:00

HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST CALENDAR
November 28, 2011, Issue #672
Send event announcements to jacdon@earthlink.net
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Dedicated to Helping Build Activist
Movements in the Hudson Valley
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1. Activist events usually slow down around mid-December for the holidays and the academic winter break and pick up again at the end of January unless there are exceptional circumstances.
2. Note we have repeated the early December "Howard Zinn" events from our last calendar.
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ACTIVIST EVENTS
Tuesday, Nov. 29, Loch Sheldrake (Sullivan County Community College campus): Opponents of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) to extract natural gas plan to attend a regional public hearing taking place at the Seelig Theatre on campus, 112 College Rd. There will be two meetings, 1-4 p.m. and 6-9 p.m., organized by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. We understand an anti-fracking rally will take place in late morning before the 1 p.m. meeting. A moratorium on drilling expired July 1 but further action has been delayed until after several public meetings are held and the results are evaluated. Gov. Cuomo favors drilling, as do a number of business interests. A developing movement of New Yorkers is opposed on the grounds that extracting natural gas, a fossil fuel contributing to global warming and other environmental degradations, is a particular danger to the water supply. The process involves injecting deadly chemicals into the ground under high pressure. A number of groups, such as Catskill Mountainkeeper, Frack Action, Food & Water Watch and United for Action, are involved in encouraging activists to attend the public meetings, which have drawn many opponents to a series of such events around the state. A number of people are car pooling, and a couple of seats remain leaving from New Paltz around 10 a.m. Carpool phone, (845) 255-5779. Information, http://www.nyagainstfracking.com.

Tuesday, Nov. 29, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): A free public viewing of "You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train," the biographical film of the late progressive activist Howard Zinn, will be screened at 7:30 p.m. in Lecture Center 104. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Wednesday, Nov. 30, POUGHKEEPSIE (Vassar Campus): Author, television commentator, and Princeton Professor Cornel West will discuss poverty, economic injustice and social change in the U.S. during a lecture titled "The End of Oligarchy: On Spirituality, Citizenship, and the New Democracy." West, a well known left political activist, co-hosts a nationally syndicated radio show "[Tavis] Smiley and West" and frequently appears on various TV news programs. He has written 19 books, including "Race Matters" (1993) and "Democracy Matters: Winning the Fight Against Imperialism" (2004). This free public event will be held at the Vassar College Chapel at 8 p.m. Free tickets are available on a first come, first served basis at the information desk in the College Center of Vassar's Main Building Monday-Friday from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Directions, http://www.vassar.edu/directions.

Wednesday, Nov. 30, NEW PALTZ (SUNY Campus): The documentary, "The City Dark" will be screened at 7:30 p.m. in Lecture Center 102. The film examines the effects of light pollution and a disappearing night sky throughout the planet. While exploring the threat of killer asteroids in Hawaii, tracking hatching turtles on the Florida coast, rescuing injured birds on the streets of Chicago, filmmaker Ian Cheney asks the question, "Do we need the dark?" He unravels the implications of 24/7 light worldwide, which include an increase in breast cancer rates due to exposure to light at night, and a generation of children without a view of the universe above. The film features beautiful astrophotography, with a cast of scientists, historians, philosophers, and lighting designers. Following the screening, telescopes will be available outside the Lecture Center for public use, with the planet Jupiter being the brightest object in the current night sky. Other bright objects include Orion's Belt, Rigel, Betelgeuse, and the Pleiades. All of them are visible in a dark sky with only the human eye. This is a free public event, sponsored by the Physics and Astronomy Dept. Campus map, http://www.newpaltz.edu/map/.

Wednesday, Nov. 30, COBLESKILL: The documentary, "Capitalism Hits the Fan - Richard Wolff on the Economic Meltdown" will show at 7 p.m. at Golding Park Community Center, 103 High St. (off N. Grand St.). In the film, University of Massachusetts Economics Professor Wolff chronicles the events causing the current financial crisis, while examining the structures of American style capitalism. Wolff traces the genesis of the crisis to the 1970s, when middle class wages came to a standstill, and workers were forced into the downward spiral of debt that culminated in the recent mortgage meltdown. Tracing a larger historical and methodological architecture, the professor argues that the current bailouts, stimulus packages, and calls for market regulation insufficient, suggesting that more fundamental change is necessary to avoid future catastrophes. This is a free and public event, with a discussion to follow. Sponsored by Peacemakers of Schoharie County. Information, (518) 287-1771, kchawk@midtel.net.

Wednesday, Nov. 30, ALBANY: "The Militarization of American Society and the Erosion of Civil Liberties" is the topic of a 6:30 p.m. panel discussion in Emerson Hall, First Unitarian-Universalist Society of Albany, 405 Washington Ave. Since 9/11 Americans have witnessed and been the victims of a serious erosion of civil liberties in the name of "national security" through the Bush and now the Obama Administrations. The panel will focus on areas of our society that have been the most affected by militarization. A Q&A period will follow the panel discussion. Panelists include: Tom Burke of the Committee to Stop FBI Repression; Jeanne Finley, a writer/editor/photographer who was an original member of the Muslim Solidarity Committee; Colin Donnaruma, president of the Capital Region Chapter of the NYCLU; Marwa Elbially, a 2010 graduate of Albany Law School, where she was student editor of the Government Law and Policy Journal. Information, Cathy Callan at callanca@gmail.com, (518) 439-8115.

Wednesday, Nov. 30, ALBANY: A free public showing of the film "Miral" begins at 6:30 p.m. at the Albany Public Library, Pine Hills Branch, 517 Western Ave. The movie is based on the autobiographical novel by Rula Jebreal, and stars award-winning actress Freida Pinto ("Slum Dog Millionaire"). It provides "deep personal insight into life and conflict in Israel and Palestine." The drama is centered on an orphaned Palestinian girl growing up in the wake of Arab-Israeli war who finds herself drawn into the conflict. At the age of 7 following her mother's death, Miral is sent to an orphanage by her father. Brought up safely inside the institution's walls, she is naive to the troubles that surround her. Then, at the age of 17, she is assigned to teach at a refugee camp where "she is awakened to the reality of her people's struggle." The showing is sponsored by the Palestinian Rights Committee. Information, (518) 465-5425, prcalbany@gmail.com, http://PalestinianRightsCommittee.org/.

Wednesday, Nov. 30, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): "The People Speak," a film screening of the dramatic staging of Howard Zinn’s "People’s History of the United States," directed by Anthony Arnove, will begin at 4:30 p.m. in CSB Auditorium (public and free). Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Thursday, Dec. 1, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" — a film screening with presentations by Profs. Donna Flayhan, Jerry Persaud and Daniel Schackman (Communication and Media) — takes place in CSB Auditorium starting at 5 p.m. (public and free). Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Thursday, Dec. 1, POUGHKEEPSIE: Dutchess Peace Coalition will screen the documentary, "Inside Job" at Crafted Kup, 44 Raymond Ave. at 7 p.m. This Academy Award-winning film exposes the architecture of the financial crisis of 2008, which resulted in millions of people losing their homes and jobs, at a cost of $20 trillion to the American public. The film is described by director Charles Ferguson as being about the consequences of the systemic corruption in the financial services industry. Ferguson explores how changes in the policy environment and banking practices helped create the financial crisis. "Inside Job" was well received by film critics who praised its pacing, research, and exposition of complex material. Though this is a free and public event, there will be a collection taken up for the Occupy Poughkeepsie encampment. Information, (845) 876-7906.

Thursday, Dec. 1, PITTSFIELD, Mass.: Occupy Berkshires presents John C. Bonifaz, a constitutional and voting rights attorney, who will speak about a Constitutional Amendment which will declare that corporations are not people. The talk, entitled, "We The People, or We The Corporations? — A Constitutional Amendment Campaign to Restore Democracy to the People," will take place at ITAM Lodge, 93 Waubeek Road, at 7 p.m. Bonifaz is the co-founder and director of Free Speech for People, a national campaign to enact a 28th Amendment to the Constitution, which makes it clear that corporations are not people with Constitutional rights. The speaker will also discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the conversation it has created nationwide about corporate greed and its subversion of democracy. A suggested donation of $10 is recommended. Information (413) 528-0248.

Thursday, Dec. 1, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): "Howard Zinn and Racial Justice" — a panel discussion by the Black Studies faculty — starts at 7:30 p.m. in Lecture Center 102. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Friday, Dec. 2, ROCK TAVERN: The Social Action Committee of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation will conduct a forum on "Fossil Fuel — Looking Deeply At Who We Are, And What We Are Doing," at the Unitarian Universalist Meeting House, 9 Vance Rd, at 7 p.m. If you are concerned about fossil fuels, mountain-top removal, gas drilling, hydrofracking, tar sands pipelines, and the lack of initiatives to seek alternatives to this destruction of our environment, this meeting's for you. Information, Verne M. Bell at (845) 569-8965.

Saturday, Dec 3, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): "Intervals of Change: Students, Music, Protest" — musical performances by student groups — will start at 4 p.m. at the Honors Center in College Hall. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Sunday, Dec. 4, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): There will be a "Puppet Procession Across Campus" starting at 2:30 p.m. by the Redwing Blackbird Theater and students, culminating in a puppet show based on Howard Zinn’s "People’s History" and inspired by Occupy Wall St. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Sunday, Dec. 4, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): "Honoring Howard Zinn: An Historian Who Made History" — Talks by Noam Chomsky and Anthony Arnove begin at 4 p.m. in Lecture Center 100. This will be Chomsky's first local talk in least 20 years, and we anticipate a large crowd. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map. Sponsors of this event and most of the SUNY NP programs from Nov. 14: College of Liberal Arts & Sciences; Departments of Anthropology, Art, Black Studies, Communication and Media, English, History, Political Science and International Relations, Secondary Education, Sociology, Theatre Arts; The Honors Program; Programs in Linguistics and Women’s Studies; Major Connections Program. Campus map, http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Monday, Dec. 5, OLD CHATHAM: The Old Chatham Quaker Meeting will present the documentary, "Inside Job," at the Powell House Quaker Conference and Retreat Center, 524 Pitt Hall Rd. (off County Rt. 13). This film exposes the truth behind the economic crisis of 2008. It traces the rise of a rogue industry, and destructive relationships which have corrupted politics, regulation, and academia. Narrated by Matt Damon, Inside Job attempts to provide a comprehensive portrayal of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. This film reveals the progressive deregulation of the financial sector since the 1980s, whose "innovations" have produced crisis upon crisis, each worse that its predecessor. Despite the fraud and abuse of the system not one person has been incarcerated for these crimes. The director, Charles Ferguson, hopes that his film will enable everyone to understand the fundamental nature and causes of these crimes. There will be a discussion, with refreshments served, after this free public film. Information, (518)766-2992. Directions, http://www.oldchathamquakers.org.

Tuesday, Dec. 6, ROSENDALE: The Mid-Hudson Valley Amnesty Club will host the screening of the documentary, "Which Way Home" at the Rosendale Theatre, 408 Main St., at 7:15 p.m. This event focuses on the human rights of immigrants, with particular emphasis on the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act, first proposed in the Senate in August 2001, and reintroduced in May this year. This bill provides conditional permanent residency to certain illegal aliens of good moral character who graduate from American high schools, arrived in the U.S. as minors, and lived in the country continuously for at least five years prior to the bill's enactment. The film follows several unaccompanied child migrants as they travel north from Mexico on a freight train called "The Beast." The filmmaker tells the stories of children like Olga and Freddy, 9 year old Hondurans who are trying to reach their families in Minnesota, and Jose, a 10 year old El Salvadoran who has been abandoned by smugglers, only to end up in a Mexican detention center. As the U.S. builds a wall between itself and Mexico, "Which Way Home," shows the personal side of immigration through the eyes of these courageous and resourceful children. The film will be followed by a panel discussion featuring Ilgu Ozler, Associate Professor of Political Science at SUNY New Paltz, Sunita Bose, Associate Professor of Sociology at SUNY NP, and Betsy Palmieri, Executive Director of the Hudson Valley Community Coalition. The event's sponsors will also have materials on hand for attendees to write letters for Amnesty International's global "Write for Rights" campaign. Information, Ilgu Ozler at ilgu_ozler@yahoo.com.

Saturday, Dec. 10, POUGHKEEPSIE: The Climate Justice Summit and Showcase of Possibilities will take place at the Catharine St. Community Center, 69 Catharine St., 9 a.m.-1:15 p.m. This networking event will showcase eight projects in climate change mitigation and adaptation developed by Climate Justice Councils in Poughkeepsie, Kingston, Beacon and Peekskill. It will feature inspiring examples of green jobs which effectively address the challenges of climate justice and difficult economic times. To register online, http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ClimateJustice. Contact Karla Raimundi at (845) 265-8080, or karla@clearwater.org for more information.

Tuesday, Dec. 20, BEACON: Scenic Hudson kicks off its Naturalist Lecture Series with, "The Genesis of our River from Ice Age to Invasion," at Scenic Hudson's River Center at Long Dock Park, Long Dock Rd. from 6:30-8 p.m. This presentation features the NYSDEC's Hudson River Estuary Program Naturalist Tom Lake, who will reveal the geological forces that shaped the Hudson Valley from the height of the last Ice Age, 20,000 years ago, to the first Native Americans and Europeans whose interaction impacted the evolving landscape. Information, contact Scenic Hudson Parks Event and Volunteer Coordinator, Anthony Coneski at (845) 473-4440, ext. 273, aconeski@scenichudson.org.

11-16-17 The Nov. 17 Occupy Protests

2011-11-16T10:28:00.003-05:00

11-16-11 Activist Calendar
HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST CALENDAR
November 16, 2011, Issue #671
Send event announcements to jacdon@earthlink.net
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Dedicated to Helping Build Activist
Movements in the Hudson Valley
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This special calendar updates our full November calendar of Nov. 2 below. Check out this earlier calendar for all the events.
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INTERNATIONAL DAY OF MASS ACTION NOV. 17

The Occupy movement — focusing on the gross economic, political and social inequality that exists in the United States — will conduct protests in many cities Thursday, Nov. 17. This will mark the second month since this movement began with the Occupy Wall Street encampment. It will also constitute a demonstration of perseverance and outrage in response to the evidently coordinated city and state crackdowns on the movement in New York City, Oakland, San Francisco, Denver, Portland, Albany and many, many other locations.

The two biggest actions closest to the Hudson Valley region are in Albany and New York City, both of which are being supported by many organizations. Here is the schedule as it appeared today at http://occupyalbany.org/, and http://occupywallst.org/. Smaller protests will be taking place in some other Valley towns. Check the NYC/Albany websites for later announcements.———————————————————————

ALBANY NOV. 17, 12 noon to 4 p.m. (and longer if you wish)

On this day, according to, Citizen Action of New York, "Occupy, labor, and community groups will converge in Albany to call on New York State's government to put the interests of the public before corporate profits and stop business as usual."

Supporters of the Occupy Albany movement from a number of upstate cities and towns (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, etc.) will converge on the state capital for a joint demonstration in and around Academy Park, on the corner of Washington Ave. and Eagle, near the capitol building.

12 noon: Joint rally/assembly at Occupy Albany in front of the Old Academy Bldg. by the Joseph Henry monument.

12:30 p.m. March to a nearby corporate lobby office to protest role of big money in politics.

1 p.m. March into the NYS Capitol Bldg., 2nd Floor to Gov. Cuomo’s office where hundreds of letters will be delivered protesting his economic policies.

1:30 p.m. Hold a “people’s assembly/session” outside of the Senate lobby on the 3rd floor of the Capitol where lobbyists traditionally gather to influence lawmakers.

"Visitors and occupiers from other occupations are invited to attend the day's events and, if possible, the Occupy Albany General Assembly that night, meet with our working groups, and camp out with us."
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NEW YORK CITY, NOV. 17, all day

According to the Occupy New York website:

"Enough of this economy that exploits and divides us. It's time we put an end to Wall Street's reign of terror and begin building an economy that works for all. We will gather in Liberty Square at 7 a.m. before the ring of the Trading Floor Bell, to prepare to confront Wall Street with the stories of people on the frontlines of economic injustice. There, before the Stock Exchange, we will exchange stories rather than stocks. Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park), is at Liberty St., between Broadway and Trinity Pl., two blocks from Wall St.

"3 p.m. We will start by Occupying Our Blocks! Then throughout the five boroughs, we will gather at 16 central subway hubs and take our own stories to the trains, using the People's Mic. (Check the website for exact locations.)

"5 p.m. Tens of thousands of people will gather at Foley Square (just north of City Hall on Centre St.) in solidarity with laborers demanding jobs to rebuild this country's infrastructure and economy. A gospel choir and a marching band will also be performing.

"Afterwards we will march to our bridges. Let's make it as musical a march as possible - bring your songs, your voice, your spirit! Our Musical on the bridge will culminate in a festival of light as we mark the two-month anniversary of the #occupy movement, and our commitment to shining light into our broken economic and political system."

End

11-13-11 Activist Newsletter

2011-11-12T23:32:00.006-05:00

November 13, 2011, Issue #172
HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER
jacdon@earthlink.net, P.O. Box 662, New Paltz, NY 12561
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CONTENTS

1. IRREVERSIBLE CLIMATE CHANGE LOOMS

2. PIPELINE PROTEST ENCIRCLES WHITE HOUSE

3. SUCCESS FOR OAKLAND OCCUPIERS

4. OWS AND THE WAR AGAINST THE POOR

5. HOW THE 1% GOT RICHER

6. WILL CUOMO BREAK THE PUBLIC UNIONS?

7. U.S. NIGHT RAIDS KILLED 1,500 AFGHAN CIVILIANS

8. JAILED FOR SAILING TOWARD GAZA

9. POLITICALLY MOTIVATED PIETY

10. THE SCHOOL TO PRISON PIPELINE

11. HUGE INCREASE IN GLOBAL WARMING GASES

12. "OVERPOPULATION" AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS

13. SAVE THE PLANET, REDUCE MEAT CONSUMPTION

14. CIA SAYS U.S. EXAGGERATED SOVIET WAR POWER

15. OBAMA'S ARC OF INSTABILITY

16. INTERNATIONAL NEWS IN BRIEF

17. DOMESTIC NEWS IN BRIEF

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1. IRREVERSIBLE CLIMATE CHANGE LOOMS
By Jack A. Smith, Activist Newsletter

The Obama Administration has largely remained passive about the critical imperative to reduce greenhouse gases to limit catastrophic global warming.

Washington continues to insist upon exercising world leadership in all key global endeavors, including the environment, but has failed dramatically in terms of climate change.

In fact, the White House is greatly expanding U.S. access to fossil fuel energy sources even as scientific and environmental organizations are intensifying their warnings about the need to immediately reduce greenhouse gas carbon emissions that are warming the planet.

Although the U.S. recently has ranked second to China in fossil fuel burning, it is by far the greatest polluter of the atmosphere in the last century and a half. Given the differences in population, America still uses three times more per capita than China.

White House policy is fixated on reducing dependence upon Middle Eastern oil and gas by greatly increasing the extraction of fossil fuels closer to home — mainly a vast increase in natural gas production from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) throughout the United States, expanded drilling for offshore oil, and importing dirty tar sands oil from Canada.

While increasing the development and use of global warming fuels, President Obama is advancing no significant program to replace high carbon emitting fossil fuels with renewable non-carbon solar and wind power.

The U.S. government is subsidizing some major "green" corporations, providing them with nearly no-risk guarantees for developing solar and wind, but this remains a relatively minor enterprise. Progress made so far is being stalled by the unexpected abundance (and thus cheaper price) of domestic natural gas secreted in shale, more secure oil reserves than anticipated, and the probability of reduced federal and state subsidies.

In a major statement from London Nov. 9, the International Energy Agency (IEA) called for a "bold change of policy direction toward the use of low-carbon fuels within the next five years. If the major industrial states do not do so quickly, the world will lock itself into an insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system," which is precisely what the Obama Administration is doing.

This recommendation seeks to prevent the rise in global temperatures in this century from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius, which is based upon keeping carbon emissions in the atmosphere below 450 parts per million (ppm). Anything above the target standards will cause irreparable damage to life on Earth.

According to many scientists and environmental groups these standards are inadequate, and that 350 ppm is the maximum amount that can be accommodated without causing a disaster. Atmospheric carbon, which occurs naturally, has reached dangerous levels due to industrialization. It has increased from 280 ppm at the beginning of the industrial era to approximately 392 ppm today, which is why it is said warming is well underway and its effects are being felt throughout the world.

Introducing the new report, IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven declared, "Growth, prosperity and rising population will inevitably push up energy needs over the coming decades.... Governments need to introduce stronger measures to drive investment in efficient and low-carbon technologies."

The Environment News Service reports that the "agency's warning comes at a critical time in international climate change negotiations, as governments prepare for the annual UN climate summit in Durban, South Africa, Nov. 28-Dec. 9. 'If we do not have an international agreement whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door will be closed forever,' IEA chief economist Fatih Birol warned.'" (The main goal of the 17th climate summit is to agree on a resolution to replace the Kyoto Protocols, which will expire next year.)

The IEA describes itself as "an autonomous organization which works to ensure reliable, affordable and clean energy for its 28 member countries and beyond." Its members represent the world's leading capitalist countries. Greenpeace and some other environmental groups are critical of the group's approval of tar sands oil, lower carbon fuels and nuclear energy. The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are not IEA members.

Reporting Oct. 26 on America's hunt for more carbon-emitting fuels, the New York Times quoted Daniel Lashof, director of the climate program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, as declaring: "Giving new life to fossil fuels is a devil’s bargain, probably making solutions to climate change, and the development of renewable energy, even more difficult. Not only are you extending the fossil fuels era, but you are moving into fossil fuels that are dirtier and release more carbon pollution in the process of extracting and using them."

The Obama Administration has been leaning toward approving a $7 billion investment in a pipeline to transport Canadian tar sands oil to Texas but encountered a fusillade of activist opposition from the environmental movement in recent months. Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, has declared that "Tar sands oil is the dirtiest oil on Earth." Dr. James Hansen, NASA’s top climate scientist, says that fully developing the tar sands in Canada would mean “essentially game over” for the climate.

Environmental movement criticisms have been compounded by objections from residents of Nebraska with concerns that pipeline spills might pollute the irreplaceable Ogallala aquifer, which occupies 10,000 square miles north to south from South Dakota to Texas and is a major source of water for the High Plains.

In August and September 1,200 anti-tar sands activists were arrested for offering civil disobedience in front of the White House. On Nov. 6, 12,000 people surrounded the presidential mansion demanding an end to construction of the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Texas.

Four days later, President Obama announced that his final decision would now be postponed until months after next year's elections, implying that the pipeline route might have to circumnavigate the immense aquifer.

Some environmental groups have interpreted Obama's delay as a victory, suggesting that the project is being abandoned, but this view is too optimistic. The White House seeks abundant and stable supplies of oil for the next several decades from sources other than (or in addition to) the volatile Middle East, and tar sands oil from nearby friendly Canada is a most attractive alternative. Canadian oil has been entering the U.S. for many years in existing pipelines, and this is continuing. In all probability, some version of Keystone will greatly increase the supply.

Environmentally-concerned Americans have also launched campaigns against fracking, mainly because of the danger to water supplies inherent in an extraction method that requires the high pressure injection of deadly chemicals deep underground.

The Obama Administration is so intent upon vastly increasing natural gas production that it has been brushing objections aside, as have state governors — such as New York State's Andrew Cuomo — who argue that what really matters are the additional jobs and tax revenue from massive fracking operations.

Advocates of natural gas argue that burning gas for electricity emits 30% less carbon dioxide than oil, and about 45% less than coal. But recent studies have shown that the process of fracking releases sufficient stores of methane into the atmosphere to compensate for any reduction in carbon from natural gas. Methane creates a greenhouse heat trap about 20 times greater than carbon dioxide. The gas industry maintains that the reduction in emissions from natural gas "outweighs" the detrimental effects of methane.

The N.Y. Times article points out that "Temporary or permanent fracking bans have been put in place in New York, New Jersey and Maryland. Other states are toughening drilling regulations, and the industry is responding with tighter wastewater management, while the Environmental Protection Agency is expected to complete a study on fracking next year. Nevertheless, gas shale drilling appears likely to continue at a fast pace in the most important gas-producing states.

"The rest of the world is watching. Moratoriums have been put in place in parts of France, Germany, South Africa and the Canadian province of Quebec; Britain, Ukraine and other countries are moving cautiously forward. Still, the Energy Department projects that gas from shale could account for 14% of global supplies by 2030, with as many as 32 countries having production potential."

If world countries, led by the U.S., continue to disregard environmental objections to fracking, enhanced natural gas production combined with a major increase in oil production by the U.S., will further subvert incentives toward ending use of fossil fuels. So far, shale gas extraction in the U.S. has increased 500% in the last five years, and that's just the beginning.

Quoting Ivan Sandrea, president of the Energy Intelligence Group, the Times concluded its article with these words: "The fossil fuel age will be extended for decades. Unconventional oil and gas are at the beginning of a technological cycle that can last 60 years. They are really in their infancy."

It has been five months since Democratic former Vice President Al Gore stuck his neck out in an article he wrote for Rolling Stone by publicly criticizing Democrat Obama for inaction on reducing America's addiction to fossil fuels. So far, Obama has done nothing but live up to Gore's critique:

"President Obama," he declared, "has thus far failed to use the bully pulpit to make the case for bold action on climate change.... The president made concessions to oil and coal companies without asking for anything in return. He has also called for a massive expansion of oil drilling in the United States, apparently in an effort to defuse criticism from those who argue speciously that 'drill, baby, drill' [a conservative slogan] is the answer to our growing dependence on foreign oil."

Washington's refusal to take more than token steps to alleviate global warming would be relatively inconsequential were the U.S. a much smaller player on the world stage. But American governments have insisted for decades — based on economic strength and unparalleled military power — on being recognized as the world's dominant and irreplaceable hegemonic state. Uncle Sam's leadership is enormously influential, especially in the industrialized world, and America's sluggish response toward global warming is a global disincentive toward taking speedy, responsible and united action.

U.S. financial institutions, corporations, and the wealthiest proportion of its population are "deeply invested in an energy sector dominated by fossil fuels, and actively hostile to alternatives," economist Paul Krugman noted recently. These powerful elements are not prepared to accept the economic and political rearrangements required to transform America into an environmentally sound society of minimal carbon usage and many other ecological safeguards.

Such a transformation involves greater government investments, potentially smaller profits for many years, strategic alterations in the country's disproportionate consumption of resources and products, and substantial changes beyond today's gridlocked and essentially conservative political process.

In effect — given its disinclination to interfere in the workings of America's neoliberal capitalist economy, even to protect all life on Earth — Washington's continuing unipolar leadership is guiding the world toward irreversible climate change.

The U.S. may change its ways, but economic and political realities suggest an alteration of this magnitude is hardly on the foreseeable agenda. Climate change, however, is taking place now. At issue are two necessities: (1) strengthening of the environmental and social change movements in the U.S., and (2) a dramatic initiative by other powerful countries and regional blocs to take significant concerted global action to save the Earth regardless of Washington's dithering.

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2. PIPELINE PROTEST ENCIRCLES WHITE HOUSE
By Arnesa A. Howell, Grist

WASHINGTON: Up to 12,000 protesters converged on the nation's capital Nov. 6 to press President Obama to block construction of the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport tar sands oil from Canada to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico. Four days later, President Obama announced he would delay a decision about the pipeline until after next year's election.

The rally, which culminated in a human ring encircling the White House, was a sequel to an August-September civil disobedience campaign outside the presidential mansion during which 1,252 protesters were arrested.

By 1 p.m., throngs of demonstrators — wearing bright orange vests emblazoned with the words "STOP the Pipeline" — were already congregating at Lafayette Square Park across from the White House. Protesters from across the country and Canada waved signs opposing Keystone XL and chanted: "Hey Obama, we don't want no climate drama!"

The rally unfolded with a bevy of environmental leaders, social activists, politicians, and citizen advocates: actress Gloria Reuben and actor Mark Ruffalo, Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Jody Williams [of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines], civil rights activist Dick Gregory, and others. Together, they voiced opposition to a pipeline that activists argued would have dire consequences: jeopardizing sources of fresh drinking water, damaging the ecosystem, and imperiling the climate.

"Worst of all about the pipeline is it will deepen our dependency on oil, contributing to ever-worsening climate chaos," said Peter Wilk, executive director of Physicians for Social Responsibility. "When we pull carbon out of the ground, it has to go somewhere. When we burn it in the form of fuel oil and gasoline, it winds up going into the atmosphere. The extreme weather events of the past year are not mere coincidence."

The rally drew supporters of all ages, ethnicities, and beliefs — and for some, proved to be a family affair. Luis Ramos Iukivuel of New York brought his 9-year-old daughter, Ananí Ramos, to the protest. "I raised her in the indigenous way to respect Mother Earth, her family, and her community," says the father, who is Taino [a native people of the Caribbean region].

At 3 p.m. protesters dispersed to form the symbolic circle around Obama's residence. Under the eyes of city police and the Secret Service, the crowd flooded the streets surrounding the White House while clapping and chanting. A caravan hauled a gigantic replica of a pipeline with the words "STOP the XL Pipeline" painted in bold white lettering on the side.

"It was a grand slam home run," Bill McKibben, a key organizer of the event, said as dusk approached and the rally ended. "This was an amazing day to be up there with every part of the progressive coalition. These are the people who put Barack Obama in office. If he can't hear this, then he can't hear anything."

Obama reportedly missed most of the protest because of a golf outing. Shortly after 5 p.m., McKibben announced from the podium that the presidential motorcade was passing Lafayette Square Park. The crowd responded with a cry of "Yes we can — stop the pipeline!"

From the Activist Newsletter:

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would carry dirty tar sands oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico. A rupture in the pipeline could cause a BP-style oil spill in America’s heartland, over the source of fresh drinking water for 20 million people.

The State Department was originally designated to make the decision on tar sands, and favored the pipeline. But the White House has been the target of increasing pressure to halt the project from environmentally concerned organizations and from Nebraskans fearing pipeline spills might pollute the irreplaceable Ogallala aquifer. By delaying a final decision for over a year, Obama sought to avoid criticism from environmentalists that might undermine his reelection campaign.

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3. SUCCESS FOR OAKLAND OCCUPIERS
By Liberation News

Around 25,000 people participated in a general strike in Oakland, Calif., on Nov. 2, called by the Occupy movement. The strike shut down the Port of Oakland, as well as many businesses throughout the city.

A week earlier, Oct. 25, the police attacked the Occupy Oakland encampment and nearly killed Scott Olsen, an Iraq war veteran, during a pro-occupy protest. Since that time, Occupy Oakland has increased in size and militancy. The Occupiers retook their camp.

Across the bay, the San Francisco police were forced to back down from a planned raid on Occupy San Francisco. Throughout Bay Area occupations in recent days a new chant became commonplace: “This system has got to die! Hella, Hella Occupy!” [Hella is originally a San Francisco word meaning "really," or "a lot of something" or "something good," according to the Urban Dictionary.]

When the Oakland occupation began on Oct. 10, it was composed of 10 tents. By the time of the raid, the size of the camp had grown to roughly 100 tents. Since the camp has been reclaimed, it has swelled to 175 tents.

The occupiers have enjoyed an increase in public support since retaking their camp, which was made clear by the many people from the city bringing donations, and residents hanging signs in their windows that read “We support Occupy Oakland!”

The idea started circulating inside the camp to invite the city’s residents to demonstrate their support by participting in a one-day, citywide general strike and marching to the Port of Oakland, the fifth busiest port in the United States, to shut down its night shift. The event was widely promoted on Facebook and Twitter.

By morning, thousands of people had gathered around City Hall and Oscar Grant Plaza, the site of the Occupy Oakland camp. Many businesses had to shut down for lack of staffing. Some 360 teachers from the Oakland school district attended the strike.

A multinational crowd gathered under huge banners overlooking major intersections that read “Occupy the banks,” “Death to Capitalism” and “Long live the Oakland Commune.”

In a sign that the Occupy movement might be beginning to address issues of gentrification, one of the many marches of the day protested the closings of five Oakland schools, all in oppressed neighborhoods. The march began from Laney Community College and ended at the Board of Education. Members of a primarily African American and Latino contingent spoke about how the school closings would negatively affect their communities.

Three banks in the vicinity of the occupation did not open for the day. A Citibank that did open had its entrance blocked by around 100 protesters.

At 2 p.m., 3,000 participants took off on a “March Against Capitalism” through the downtown area. Teachers, parents, children, college students and other workers of all ages took to the streets. Among those leading the march was an ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) contingent with a banner that read: “Stop the War on Working People!”

ANSWER activists led chants such as, “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!” and “We are the 99 percent!” The spirited protesters marched past several banks, including Wells Fargo and the Bank of America. When they passed by the banks, they yelled out, “Close it down!” Visibly absent were the police; yet marchers maintained order and safety as demonstrators were directed back to Oscar Grant Plaza.

Indeed, the police seemed surprisingly absent until the evening. It was later discovered, however, that several undercover police were disguised as “anarchists.” The mainstream press would later report that there were isolated cases of vandalism perpetrated by “anarchists.”

At 4 and 5 p.m., two different demonstrations, each of roughly 10,000 people, marched to the Port of Oakland. Protesters blocked the entrances with chain link fencing. A contingent of San Francisco State University students, led by Party for Socialism and Liberation member Omar Ali, raised a banner reading “In solidarity with Egypt!”

By 10 p.m., it was announced that the night shift at the port had been canceled. The day shift was not canceled, but had only been partially operational as so many port workers had participated in the strike.

Around 11 p.m., some protesters began occupying the now vacant Travelers Aid building close to the Occupy campsite. The building had previously housed the Travelers Aid Society, a charitable organization that provided shelter for homeless people and those traveling on a low budget and that had been foreclosed. The occupiers decided to restore the building to its original purpose and seize it as a shelter. Once inside, the occupiers erected barriers in front of the entrances.

The Oakland police attacked the building and retook it, arresting around 80 occupiers. The police also tear-gassed the camp late that night, severely injuring at least one protester. Occupy Oakland, however, was no smaller by sunrise.

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4. OWS AND THE WAR AGAINST THE POOR
By Frances Fox Piven

We’ve been at war for decades now — not just in Afghanistan or Iraq, but right here at home. Domestically, it’s been a war against the poor, but if you hadn’t noticed, that’s not surprising. You wouldn’t often have found the casualty figures from this particular conflict in your local newspaper or on the nightly TV news. Devastating as it’s been, the war against the poor has gone largely unnoticed — until now.

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has already made the concentration of wealth at the top of this society a central issue in American politics. Now, it promises to do something similar when it comes to the realities of poverty in this country.

By making Wall Street its symbolic target, and branding itself as a movement of the 99%, OWS has redirected public attention to the issue of extreme inequality, which it has recast as, essentially, a moral problem. Only a short time ago, the “morals” issue in politics meant the propriety of sexual preferences, reproductive behavior, or the personal behavior of presidents. Economic policy, including tax cuts for the rich, subsidies and government protection for insurance and pharmaceutical companies, and financial deregulation, was shrouded in clouds of propaganda or simply considered too complex for ordinary Americans to grasp.

Now, in what seems like no time at all, the fog has lifted and the topic on the table everywhere seems to be the morality of contemporary financial capitalism. The protestors have accomplished this mainly through the symbolic power of their actions: by naming Wall Street, the heartland of financial capitalism, as the enemy, and by welcoming the homeless and the down-and-out to their occupation sites. And of course, the slogan “We are the 99%” reiterated the message that almost all of us are suffering from the reckless profiteering of a tiny handful. (In fact, they aren’t far off: the increase in income of the top 1% over the past three decades about equals the losses of the bottom 80%.)

The movement’s moral call is reminiscent of earlier historical moments when popular uprisings invoked ideas of a “moral economy” to justify demands for bread or grain or wages — for, that is, a measure of economic justice. Historians usually attribute popular ideas of a moral economy to custom and tradition, as when the British historian E.P. Thompson traced the idea of a “just price” for basic foodstuffs invoked by eighteenth century English food rioters to then already centuries-old Elizabethan statutes. But the rebellious poor have never simply been traditionalists. In the face of violations of what they considered to be their customary rights, they did not wait for the magistrates to act, but often took it upon themselves to enforce what they considered to be the foundation of a just moral economy.

A moral economy for our own time would certainly take on the unbridled accumulation of wealth at the expense of the majority (and the planet). It would also single out for special condemnation the creation of an ever-larger stratum of people we call “the poor” who struggle to survive in the shadow of the overconsumption and waste of that top 1%.

Some facts: early in 2011, the U.S. Census Bureau reported that 14.3% of the population, or 47 million people — one in six Americans — were living below the official poverty threshold, currently set at $22,400 annually for a family of four. Some 19 million people are living in what is called extreme poverty, which means that their household income falls in the bottom half of those considered to be below the poverty line. More than a third of those extremely poor people are children. Indeed, more than half of all children younger than six living with a single mother are poor. Extrapolating from this data, Emily Monea and Isabel Sawhill of the Brookings Institution estimate that further sharp increases in both poverty and child poverty rates lie in our American future....

Poverty was on the rise before the Great Recession hit. Between 2001 and 2007, poverty actually increased for the first time on record during an economic recovery. It rose from 11.7% in 2001 to 12.5% in 2007. Poverty rates for single mothers in 2007 were 49% higher in the U.S. than in 15 other high-income countries. Similarly, black employment rates and income were declining before the recession struck.

In part, all of this was the inevitable fallout from a decades-long business mobilization to reduce labor costs by weakening unions and changing public policies that protected workers and those same unions. As a result, National Labor Board decisions became far less favorable to both workers and unions, workplace regulations were not enforced, and the minimum wage lagged far behind inflation.

Inevitably, the overall impact of the campaign to reduce labor’s share of national earnings meant that a growing number of Americans couldn’t earn even a poverty-level livelihood — and even that’s not the whole of it. The poor and the programs that assisted them were the objects of a full-bore campaign directed specifically at them.

This attack began even while the Black Freedom Movement of the 1960s was in full throttle. It was already evident in the failed 1964 presidential campaign of Republican Barry Goldwater, as well as in the recurrent campaigns of sometime Democrat and segregationist governor of Alabama George Wallace. Richard Nixon’s presidential bid in 1968 picked up on the theme.

As many commentators have pointed out, his triumphant campaign strategy tapped into the rising racial animosities not only of white southerners, but of a white working class in the north that suddenly found itself locked in competition with newly urbanized African-Americans for jobs, public services, and housing, as well as in campaigns for school desegregation. The racial theme quickly melded into political propaganda targeting the poor and contemporary poor-relief programs. Indeed, in American politics “poverty,” along with “welfare,” “unwed mothers,” and “crime,” became code words for blacks.

In the process, resurgent Republicans tried to defeat Democrats at the polls by associating them with blacks and with liberal policies meant to alleviate poverty. One result was the infamous “war on drugs” that largely ignored major traffickers in favor of the lowest level offenders in inner-city communities. Along with that came a massive program of prison building and incarceration, as well as the wholesale “reform” of the main means-tested cash assistance program, Aid to Families of Dependent Children. This politically driven attack on the poor proved just the opening drama in a decades-long campaign launched by business and the organized right against workers.

This was not only war against the poor, but the very “class war” that Republicans now use to brand just about any action they don’t like. In fact, class war was the overarching goal of the campaign, something that would soon enough become apparent in policies that led to a massive redistribution of the burden of taxation, the cannibalization of government services through privatization, wage cuts and enfeebled unions, and the deregulation of business, banks, and financial institutions.

The poor — and blacks — were an endlessly useful rhetorical foil, a propagandistic distraction used to win elections and make bigger gains. Still, the rhetoric was important. A host of new think tanks, political organizations, and lobbyists in Washington D.C. promoted the message that the country’s problems were caused by the poor whose shiftlessness, criminal inclinations, and sexual promiscuity were being indulged by a too-generous welfare system.

Genuine suffering followed quickly enough, along with big cuts in the means-tested programs that helped the poor. The staging of the cuts was itself enwreathed in clouds of propaganda, but cumulatively they frayed the safety net that protected both the poor and workers, especially low-wage ones, which meant women and minorities. When Ronald Reagan entered the Oval Office in 1980, the path had been smoothed for huge cuts in programs for poor people, and by the 1990s the Democrats, looking for electoral strategies that would raise campaign dollars from big business and put them back in power, took up the banner. It was Bill Clinton, after all, who campaigned on the slogan “end welfare as we know it.”

The war against the poor at the federal level was soon matched in state capitols where organizations like the American Federation for Children, the American Legislative Exchange Council, the Institute for Liberty, and the State Policy Network went to work. Their lobbying agenda was ambitious, including the large-scale privatization of public services, business tax cuts, the rollback of environmental regulations and consumer protections, crippling public sector unions, and measures (like requiring photo identification) that would restrict the access students and the poor had to the ballot. But the poor were their main public target and again, there were real life consequences — welfare cutbacks, particularly in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program, and a law-and-order campaign that resulted in the massive incarceration of black men.

The Great Recession sharply worsened these trends. The Economic Policy Institute reports that the typical working-age household, which had already seen a decline of roughly $2,300 in income between 2000 and 2006, lost another $2,700 between 2007 and 2009. And when “recovery” arrived, however uncertainly, it was mainly in low-wage industries, which accounted for nearly half of what growth there was. Manufacturing continued to contract, while the labor market lost 6.1% of payroll employment. New investment, when it occurred at all, was more likely to be in machinery than in new workers, so unemployment levels remain alarmingly high. In other words, the recession accelerated ongoing market trends toward lower-wage and ever more insecure employment.

The recession also prompted further cutbacks in welfare programs. Because cash assistance has become so hard to get, thanks to so-called welfare reform, and fallback state-assistance programs have been crippled, the federal food stamp program has come to carry much of the weight in providing assistance to the poor. Renamed the “Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program,” it was boosted by funds provided in the Recovery Act, and benefits temporarily rose, as did participation. But Congress has repeatedly attempted to slash the program’s funds, and even to divert some of them into farm subsidies, while efforts, not yet successful, have been made to deny food stamps to any family that includes a worker on strike.

The organized right justifies its draconian policies toward the poor with moral arguments. Right-wing think tanks and blogs, for instance, ponder the damaging effect on disabled poor children of becoming “dependent” on government assistance, or they scrutinize government nutritional assistance for poor pregnant women and children in an effort to explain away positive outcomes for infants.

The willful ignorance and cruelty of it all can leave you gasping — and gasp was all we did for decades. This is why we so desperately needed a movement for a new kind of moral economy. Occupy Wall Street, which has already changed the national conversation, may well be its beginning.

— Frances Fox Piven, a long time fighter for economic and social justice, author and a left public intellectual is on the faculty of the Graduate School of the City University of New York. TomDispatch Nov. 6, 20113

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5. HOW THE 1% GOT RICHER
By Richard Wolff

The just-released Congressional Budget Office (CBO) report, "Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007," supports a basic claim of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement sweeping the country: that deep economic inequality is corrupting politics, culture and American society as a whole.

CBO reports are almost universally considered and relied upon as epitomes of non-partisan research. Simply put, the CBO report shows that over the last quarter century (1979 to 2007, to be exact), the top 1% of income earners enjoyed far, far bigger real income gains than the other 99%. As a result, the share of total income earned by the top 1% rose dramatically — doubling from 10% to 20% — at the expense of falling shares of income for all of the other 99% of the U.S. population.

No wonder the OWS movement showed genius in crafting and adopting the slogan "We are the 99%." No wonder polls already show a majority of Americans expressing sympathy with the OWS movement barely five weeks after it was born — a stunning achievement relative to comparable mass movements in U.S. history.

The CBO numbers teach some basic lessons. First, the last 30 years of ideological preaching about the superiority of private, deregulated, market-driven capitalism served to enable and mask one of the largest and fastest upward redistributions of income in modern history. The gap between the tiny rich minority and everyone else widened dramatically. The CBO report thus documents the actual class war over recent decades: the real winners and losers. The report thereby exposes the absurdity of the recent bleats from the 1% denouncing modest efforts to limit their huge gains as — horror of horrors — "class war."

Second, the CBO report shows that the U.S. government's transfer payments (social welfare supports for the poor, social security and Medicare spending, and so on) did not offset the upward redistribution of income to the richest 1%. Nor did the federal tax structure. The 1% used its growing wealth to make government taxing and spending policies aid, rather than constrain, the class war they pursued so systematically. The CBO report concludes that the top 1% was the only portion of the total income-earning U.S. population to experience a sharp rise in its share of the total U.S. income taking into account all federal transfers and taxes. Indeed, the top 1%'s share of income rose further after all transfers and taxes are taken into account than before taking them into account. Federal spending and taxing policies were thus complicit in furthering this last generation's sharp turn toward greater income inequality.

Third, the CBO report documents that alongside the staggering fact and impact of the current economic crisis – the second major collapse of capitalism in the last 75 years – there was the preceding and equally staggering fact of massive upward redistribution of income. How are these two facts related? The answer is not difficult to discern.

The 99% were falling ever further behind the top 1%. The latter's exploding luxury consumption shaped tastes and standards defining the "American dream." With real wages stagnant in the U.S. since the 1970s, the 99% tried to reach or keep the dream by sending more family members out to work more hours, and borrowing ever larger amounts, over the last 25 years. Eventually, their exhaustion and stress from increased work, coupled with unsustainable levels of accumulated household debt (for homes, college expenses, automobiles and credit cards), brought the economy to the brink of crisis.

Meanwhile, the speculative excesses of the 1% who were enjoying unprecedented income and wealth gains took the U.S. economy over the brink. Such consequences of a falling share of the national income for 99% of the U.S. population were key contributors to the current crisis – and are key contributors to its depth and duration. In sum, the last generation's upward redistribution of income helped to cause the current global capitalist meltdown.

To fully appreciate the social impact of the fast-deepening income inequality, it needs to be seen alongside the equally fast-deepening wealth inequality in the U.S.. If citizens here possess any appreciable wealth, it takes the form of their homes. U.S. housing prices have fallen through the crisis (since 2007). Over the same time, the rising use of home equity as collateral for loans has cut the portion of home values owned by occupiers, while raising the portion owed to banks. The combination of falling home prices and falling owners' equity in those homes yields another massive upward redistribution of wealth. That is because stock markets "recovered" – thanks to massive infusions of government money into financial institutions. Wealth in the form of stocks and bonds thus rose relative to wealth in the form of home ownership. Stock and bond ownership is highly concentrated in the U.S., much more so than home values. The result is deepening inequality of wealth distribution alongside greater income inequality.

The claims and promises of U.S. capitalism to be an engine that builds and sustains a vast "middle class" and that constantly "delivers the goods" seem more hollow today than ever. Questions, criticisms and opposition bubble up across the country. The CBO report reflects, as well as documents, the underlying economic realities. However inadvertently, it thereby supports the rising tide of protest.

— Richard Wolff is professor of economics emeritus at the University of Massachusetts, and is a visiting professor at the New School University, New York City. This article appeared Oct. 26 in Guardian (UK).

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6. WILL CUOMO BREAK THE PUBLIC UNIONS?
By Andy Coates, Labor Notes

ALBANY, Nov. 3: While Midwest governors who attacked public workers last winter are seeing tremendous public opposition, New York’s Andrew Cuomo continues to be buoyed by high approval ratings.

The irony has not escaped members of the Public Employees Federation (PEF), the 55,000-member union of New York’s professional, scientific, and technical workers. They have worked under the threat of layoffs since the summer, when they rejected the Democratic governor’s concessionary contract. In re-vote Nov. 3, members ratified the contract by a vote of 27,718 to 11,645.

Cuomo ran for office on a deep austerity agenda, promising to downsize and consolidate state agencies by as much as 20%. Once installed, he asserted that New York’s public employees owed the state $450 million in annual givebacks. The legislature then wrote this anti-union “necessity” into the state budget.

At the same time, he refused to renew a millionaires’ tax that would have generated $5 billion next year, many times more than Cuomo was demanding from public employees. In other words, Cuomo’s own decisions helped deepen the fiscal crisis he now wants public employees to fix.

If the concessions weren’t ratified, Cuomo threatened up to 9,800 layoffs. As contract negotiations appeared to be going nowhere, PEF began to mobilize in June . While PEF rallied, the leadership of the 66,000-member Civil Service Employees Association quit the game, granting the state a five-year giveback contract in exchange for skimpy protection against immediate layoffs. CSEA represents clerical, health care, transportation, and court workers in the state.

Soon a contract along the same lines was thrust on PEF. The governor ordered layoffs of hundreds of PEF members, using them as hostages to heighten the tension.

“We will not be bullied or coerced into a contract that does not meet our members’ needs,” read the July 1 PEF headquarters statement. But PEF reached a tentative agreement extremely similar to CSEA’s. In exchange the laid-off PEF members were reinstated.

The agreement contained a three-year wage freeze, nine furlough days, higher health care costs, and a “no layoff” pledge similar to CSEA’s — which says layoffs due to “material or unanticipated changes” are allowed. (Layoffs resulting from Cuomo’s hand-picked austerity commission will also be permitted.)

The PEF membership originally rejected the deal in September, 54% to 46% in a 70% turnout. Both Cuomo and union headquarters were taken aback.

The governor noted that the PEF executive board had voted by a 3 to 1 margin to send the agreement to members. He immediately retaliated, targeting 3,496 PEF members for layoff in mid-October. Like Connecticut’s Democratic governor, whose public employees also turned down a concessions contract this summer, Cuomo demanded the union grant him a do-over.

The offer to withdraw layoffs in exchange for a successful re-vote brought PEF's leaders scrambling back to the bargaining table. The governor said they could “tweak” the deal, so long as it was “revenue neutral.”

A few days before layoffs were to begin, a second tentative agreement was reached. The governor proclaimed that givebacks were unchanged. This time the executive board voted 5 to 1 in favor.

The official PEF rallying cry was “Vote Yes to Save Jobs.” A campaign to convince the rank and file has employed automated calls, town hall conference calls, phonebanking, special division meetings, and flyers distributed by union officials and staff. Pressure on the rank and file had been stronger during the re-vote.

An opposition group, calling themselves PEF Proud, called for rejection of both tentative agreements. The group leafleted co-workers and maintains a blog, which has seen its vote-no flyers downloaded thousands of times. The group argued the union should fight to renew the millionaires’ tax instead.

Meanwhile, the number of layoffs seemed mostly to do with influencing the chances of ratification. Management settled scores, targeting PEF activists and leaders for layoff, whether they were for or against the contract. (Management gained either way.)

On top of all this stands the fact that the state workforce has been downsized steadily for two decades, while wages and benefits have remained flat at best.

Not only have public employees done more with less for a long time, their wages and benefits, when matched for age, gender, and education, remain significantly less than private sector wages and benefits.

Propaganda about "greedy state workers" has particularly rankled public employees who have sacrificed their careers to serve the public, often suffering disrespect from incompetent public agency leaders whose job credentials amount to political cronyism.

Cuomo put PEF members just where he wants them: damned if they do and damned if they don’t. State law prevents a strike by public sector workers, so his layoff threats forced PEF officials into classic concession bargaining, with the union negotiating against itself.

This is all according to plan. Cuomo aims to enlist public sector union officials in his campaign to downsize public services. If (or really when) Cuomo’s austerity commission follows through on his pledge to chop up to 20% of the workforce, unions will see mass layoffs, speed-ups, and privatization. Cuomo will insist union officials go along quietly.

To get there Cuomo aims to housebreak the unions one by one, first CSEA, now PEF, later the university professions, Transport Workers, and so on.

Whether the unions can buck the governor’s agenda remains to be seen. Thanks to the Occupy Wall Street movement, Cuomo's assertion that public employees “owe” New York $450 million per year in givebacks appears increasingly ridiculous. Their health care and pensions certainly didn’t trash the economy.

Here in Albany protesters have renamed Cuomo “Governor 1 Percent” because he continues to refuse to tax New York’s millionaires. The opening has been created for PEF and the other public sector unions to join in the cry, “We Are the 99 Percent!” An increasingly restive rank and file is ready to answer.

—Andy Coates is a doctor at the state psychiatric hospital in Albany and a steward and council leader of Division 231 of the Public Employees Federation (AFL-CIO). This article appeared in Labor Notes Nov. 3 (http://labornotes.org)

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7. U.S. NIGHT RAIDS KILLED 1,500 AFGHAN CIVILIANS
[Following is an excerpt of a longer article produced Nov. 4 by of Inter Press Service. A link to the full article is at the end.]
By Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON: United States Special Operations Forces (SOF) killed over 1,500 civilians in night raids in less than 10 months in 2010 and early 2011, analysis of official statistics on the raids released by the U.S.-North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) command reveals.

That number would make U.S. night raids by far the largest cause of civilian casualties in the war in Afghanistan.... Except for a relatively few women and children killed by accident, the civilians who died in the raids were all adult males who were counted as insurgents in press releases and official data released by the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF)....

A minimum of 1,588 people (2,844 total killed minus the 1,256 targets in the lethal raids) were killed in the raids even though they weren't targeted.

Not every one of the untargeted individuals killed in night raids was a non-combatant civilian. But the socio-cultural and physical setting of the raids guarantees that the percentage of civilians in that total is extremely high.

Within the Afghan compounds that are the physical targets of U.S. night raids live extended family households that normally include not only the male head of family and his wife, but his brothers, sons and cousins and their families.

In Afghanistan, every adult Pashtun male has a weapon in his home, and is obliged by the ancient code of conduct called "Pashtunwali" to defend his home, his family and his friends against armed intruders. In a typical extended family compound, several males have weapons.

As a result, the non-targeted civilians killed in night raids have invariably been either close relatives or neighbors who come out to assist against an armed assault.

SOF commanders and the command and staff of the ISAF have essentially denied all civilian deaths in night raids, except for women and children, by counting all adult males killed in raids as insurgents....

— full article, http://atimes.com/atimes/south_asia/mk04df02.html

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8. JAILED FOR SAILING TOWARD GAZA
By Medea Benjamin and Robert Naiman

Two boats full of courageous passengers were on their way to Gaza when they were intercepted on Friday, Nov. 4, by the Israeli military in international waters. We call the passengers courageous because they sailed from Turkey on Nov. 2 with the knowledge that at any moment they might be boarded by Israeli commandos intent on stopping them — perhaps violently, as the Israeli military did in 2010 when they killed nine humanitarian aid workers on the Turkish boat named Mavi Marmara.

The boats — one from Canada and one from Ireland — were carrying 27 passengers, including press and peace activists from Ireland, Canada, the United States, Australia, and Palestine. They were unarmed, and the Israeli military knew that. They were simply peace activists wanting to connect with civilians in Gaza, and the Israeli military knew that. Yet naked aggression was used against them in international waters — something that is normally considered an act of piracy.

The passengers on the boats were sailing to Gaza to challenge the U.S.-supported Israeli blockade that is crippling the lives of 1.6 million Palestinian civilians in Gaza. They were sailing to stand up against the power of the Israeli government that has been violating the basic rights of the 5.5 million Palestinians that live inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders or in the Occupied Territories....

The blockade of Gaza’s civilians is an extreme example of unaccountable power. Palestinians in Gaza aren’t allowed to vote for Israeli or American politicians. But due to political decisions taken in Israel and the United States, Palestinians in Gaza are prevented from exporting their goods, traveling freely, farming their land, fishing their waters or importing construction materials to build their homes and factories.

We have been to Gaza before, where we have seen the devastation firsthand. We have also been to Israel and the West Bank, where we have seen how the Israeli government is detaining Palestinians at checkpoints, building walls that cut them off from their lands, demolishing their houses, arbitrarily imprisoning their relatives and imposing economic restrictions that prevent them from earning a living. We have seen how Palestinians, like people everywhere, are desperate to live normal and dignified lives.

A UN Report released in September found that “Israel’s oppressive policies [in Gaza] constitute a form of collective punishment of civilians,” that these policies violate both international humanitarian and human rights law, and that the illegal siege of Gaza should be lifted....

The Israeli military stopped these two small ships carrying peace activists to Gaza, but they won’t stop the Palestinians who are demanding freedom, and they won’t stop the solidarity movement. We won’t stop challenging the blockade on Gaza’s civilians — by land and by sea– until the blockade falls. And we won’t stop challenging the denial of Palestinian democratic aspirations until those aspirations are realized.

—Activist Medea Benjamin is a cofounder of both CODEPINK and the international human rights organization Global Exchange. Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy.

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9. POLITICALLY MOTIVATED PIETY
By Simon Brown, Americans United

The U.S. House of Representatives voted Nov. 1 to approve a resolution which reaffirms “In God We Trust” as the official motto of the United States and encourages the display of that motto in public schools and other government buildings.

The vote on H. Con. Res. 13, was one sided: 396 representatives voted in favor, 9 voted against, 2 voted “present” and 26 did not vote. The “no” votes came from Reps. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.), Justin Amash (R-Mich.), Judy Chu (D-Calif.), Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), Mike Honda (D-Calif.), Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), Bobby Scott (D-Va.) and Pete Stark (D-Calif.).

Nadler was the lone voice of dissent to speak on the House floor ahead of the vote.

“Today we are returning to irrelevant issues that do nothing to promote economic growth to put Americans back to work,” Nadler said. “We’ve seen this before. In the 107th Congress, we passed a bill to reaffirm the phrase ‘one nation under God’ in the Pledge of Allegiance and reaffirm the national motto. We went so far as to reenact into law word for word the existing law making ‘In God We Trust’ the national motto, just to be sure. No one had threatened it. No one had said ‘it’s not the national motto.’

"This resolution today, which has no force of law, simply restates the national motto once again," Nadler noted. "Why have my Republican friends returned to an irrelevant agenda? Why are we debating non-binding resolutions about the national motto? The American people are demanding action on the president’s jobs legislation. And yet here we are back to irrelevant issue debates, the kind of thing people do when they have run out of ideas."

Following the vote, Scott issued a statement in which he condemned the resolution as both a misplaced priority and an affront to the Constitution.

"Today,” he said, “we face the highest deficit in U.S. history; an unemployment rate of 9.1% and a growing number of people losing access to unemployment insurance each day; schools that lack the resources to give our students a proper education; 17.2 million households that are food insecure; and children who by the very circumstances of their birth are injected onto a cradle to prison pipeline. Instead of facing these challenges and creating jobs to help the American people make sure they have a roof over their head and food on their table, we are debating whether or not to affirm and proliferate a motto that was adopted in 1956 and is under no threat of attack.

“In addition to diverting attention away from substantive issues, the resolution is unconstitutional,” Scott continued. “When we were sworn in as members of Congress, we took an oath to uphold the Constitution. This resolution is inconsistent with that oath and therefore I voted 'no' on the resolution."

As the lone Republican to break ranks, Amash’s vote was the most surprising. He explained his decision on his Facebook page:

“The fear that unless ‘In God We Trust’ is displayed throughout the government, Americans will somehow lose their faith in God, is a dim view of the profound religious convictions many citizens have,” Amash said. “The faith that inspired many of the Founders of this country – the faith I practice – is stronger than that. Trying to score political points with unnecessary resolutions should not be Congress's priority.”

As Scott said, “In God We Trust” did not become the “official” motto of the United States until 1956. When Congress chose to create that motto, it created confusion about other, much older mottos, such as E Pluribus Unum (“Out of Many, One”), which appears on the Great Seal of the United States, and Novus Ordo Seclorum (“A New Order of the Ages”), which is found on the dollar bill.

No country needs three mottos (or even one), and clarifying which of the three is the “true” motto seems petty right now. Beyond that, despite the intentions of the House, this vote settles nothing because the resolution is non-binding and it hasn’t been taken up by the U.S. Senate, President Obama or anyone else.

— From the Activist Newsletter: On a related matter, is the U.S. a "Christian nation"? Religious Right activists and right-wing television preachers often claim that the United States was founded to be a Christian nation. Americans United for Separation of Church and State has published a brief historical article concluding the U.S. "was not founded to be an officially Christian nation or to espouse any official religion." The article is available at http://www.au.org/resources/publications/is-america-a-christian-nation.

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10. THE SCHOOL-TO-PRISON PIPELINE
By Taurean K. Brown

If we were all honest with ourselves, I am sure that we could recall a momentary lapse into delinquency at some point in our childhood, whether it was throwing a temper tantrum over a puzzle piece or being a smart alec to a teacher. These very same delinquencies today can now land a child in jail.

As a former educator in an inner-city school populated almost entirely by black students, I know too intimately the disheartening effects of this course of action on students. Children of color, particularly those with special needs, are disproportionately being funneled into detention centers and alternative schools — a practice known as the “School-to-Prison Pipeline.”

I have witnessed first-hand my own student, in desperate need of social services, carted off in handcuffs for an offense that could have been avoided by a little care and concern from the administration. I have encountered ordinary teenagers whose lives were so consumed by the criminal justice system that they barely ever attended school and now boast reading levels so low that they are technically classified as mentally retarded. Once students are propelled down the pipeline, the effects are virtually irreversible — their contact with the criminal justice system brands them with a scarlet letter that creates barriers to re-entry into traditional schools, puts them behind their peers, and haunts them later in life as they may drop out, or be denied student loans, public housing, or occupational licenses.

Judge Steve Teske of Clayton County, GA, has been a vocal critic about the criminalization of children for minor school infractions, asserting that “[z]ero tolerance is zero intelligence.” While educators often feel impotent in the face of such a daunting struggle, it is refreshing and encouraging to see that the legal world, from litigators to the bench, has adopted the cause and is making strides to reform school discipline around the country. The Washington Post recently published a story about how Judge Steve Teske has used his influence to raise awareness of the “School-to-Prison-Pipeline.” In his days as a juvenile judge in Clayton County, Georgia, Judge Teske witnessed school-based offenses soar from 46 in 1995 to over 1,200 in 2003 — 95% of which were misdemeanors. This prompted him to meet with educators, law enforcement officers, social service and mental health counselors, parents, and students to encourage them to devise a new protocol for handling minor offenses. Between 2003 and 2010, Clayton County experienced a 70% decrease in school referrals to juvenile court.

The ACLU has also been instrumental in the School-to-Prison Pipeline reform efforts. Together, the ACLU and NYCLU are suing the City of New York on behalf of middle and high school students in NYC public schools, challenging the unconstitutional policies and practices of NYPD’s School Safety Division. Officers have been known to routinely and unlawfully arrest children for minor violations of school rules that do not amount to criminal activity, and to frequently detain these students off school grounds. Officers are also known to use excessive force against children — pushing, shoving, grabbing and striking them to the point that medical care or hospitalization is required.

Our country’s growing reliance on zero-tolerance has created a trend in public education to remove and exclude “difficult” children for single occurrences of what is often minor misconduct. This trend, however, really only detracts from the real, underlying issue, which is that many of these children are vulnerable or troubled and need help. School discipline should be about behavior modification and coping mechanisms. Arrest should be a last resort.

— The author is associated with the ACLU's Racial Justice Program.

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11. HUGE INCREASE IN GLOBAL WARMING GASES
By the Associated Press, Nov. 3, 2011

The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide has jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S. Department of Energy has calculated — a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing human-made global warming.

The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's an increase of 6%. This means that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case outlined by climate experts just four years ago. "The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

It is a "monster" increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate Department of Energy figures in the past. Extra pollution in China and the U.S. account for more than half the increase in emissions last year, Marland said.

"Really dismaying," Granger Morgan, head of the engineering and public policy department at Carnegie Mellon University, said of the new figures. "We are building up a horrible legacy for our children and grandchildren."

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"OVERPOPULATION" AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS
By Ian Angus and Simon Butler

The United Nations says that the world's population has just reached 7 billion people this month. The approach of that milestone has produced a wave of articles and opinion pieces blaming the world's environmental crises on overpopulation. In New York's Times Square, a huge and expensive video declares that "human overpopulation is driving species extinct." In London's busiest underground stations, electronic poster boards warn that 7 billion is ecologically unsustainable.

In 1968, Paul Ehrlich's bestseller The Population Bomb declared that as a result of overpopulation, "the battle to feed humanity is over," and the 1970s would be a time of global famines and ever-rising death rates. His predictions were all wrong, but four decades later his successors still use Ehrlich's phrase — too many people! — to explain environmental problems.

But most of the 7 billion are not endangering the earth. The majority of the world's people don't destroy forests, don't wipe out endangered species, don't pollute rivers and oceans, and emit essentially no greenhouse gases.

Even in the rich countries of the Global North, most environmental destruction is caused not by individuals or households, but by mines, factories, and power plants run by corporations that care more about profit than about humanity's survival.

No reduction in U.S. population would have stopped BP from poisoning the Gulf of Mexico last year.

Lower birthrates won't shut down Canada's tar sands, which Bill McKibben has justly called one of the most staggering crimes the world has ever seen.

Universal access to birth control should be a fundamental human right — but it would not have prevented Shell's massive destruction of ecosystems in the Niger River delta, or the immeasurable damage that Chevron has caused to rainforests in Ecuador.

Ironically, while populationist groups focus attention on the 7 billion, protestors in the worldwide Occupy movement have identified the real source of environmental destruction: not the 7 billion, but the 1%, the handful of millionaires and billionaires who own more, consume more, control more, and destroy more than all the rest of us put together.

In the United States, the richest 1% own a majority of all stocks and corporate equity, giving them absolute control of the corporations that are directly responsible for most environmental destruction.

A recent report prepared by the British consulting firm Trucost for the United Nations found that just 3,000 corporations cause $2.15 trillion in environmental damage every year. Outrageous as that figure is -- only six countries have a GDP greater than $2.15 trillion -- it substantially understates the damage, because it excludes costs that would result from "potential high impact events such as fishery or ecosystem collapse," and "external costs caused by product use and disposal, as well as companies' use of other natural resources and release of further pollutants through their operations and suppliers."

So in the case of oil companies, the figure covers "normal operations," but not deaths and destruction caused by global warming, not damage caused by worldwide use of its products, and not the multi-billions of dollars in costs to clean up oil spills. The real damage those companies alone do is much greater than $2.15 trillion, every single year.

The 1% also control the governments that supposedly regulate those destructive corporations. The millionaires include 46% of members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 54 out of 100 senators, and every president since Eisenhower.

Through the government, the 1% control the U.S. military, the largest user of petroleum in the world, and thus one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Military operations produce more hazardous waste than the five largest chemical companies combined. More than 10% of all Superfund hazardous waste sites in the United States are on military bases.

Those who believe that slowing population growth will stop or slow environmental destruction are ignoring these real and immediate threats to life on our planet. Corporations and armies aren't polluting the world and destroying ecosystems because there are too many people, but because it is profitable to do so.

If the birthrate in Iraq or Afghanistan falls to zero, the U.S. military will not use one less gallon of oil.

If every African country adopts a one-child policy, energy companies in the U.S., China, and elsewhere will continue burning coal, bringing us ever closer to climate catastrophe.

Critics of the too many people argument are often accused of believing that there are no limits to growth. In our case, that simply isn't true. What we do say is that in an ecologically rational and socially just world, where large families aren't an economic necessity for hundreds of millions of people, population will stabilize. In Betsy Hartmann's words, "The best population policy is to concentrate on improving human welfare in all its many facets. Take care of the population and population growth will go down."

The world's multiple environmental crises demand rapid and decisive action, but we can't act effectively unless we understand why they are happening. If we misdiagnose the illness, at best we will waste precious time on ineffective cures; at worst, we will make the crises worse.

The "too many people" argument directs the attention and efforts of sincere activists to programs that will not have any substantial effect. At the same time, it weakens efforts to build an effective global movement against ecological destruction: It divides our forces, by blaming the principal victims of the crisis for problems they did not cause.

Above all, it ignores the massively destructive role of an irrational economic and social system that has gross waste and devastation built into its DNA. The capitalist system and the power of the 1%, not population size, are the root causes of today's ecological crisis.

As pioneering ecologist Barry Commoner once said, "Pollution begins not in the family bedroom, but in the corporate boardroom."

— Ian Angus and Simon Butler are the co-authors of "Too Many People? Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis." This article appeared in Grist Oct. 26.

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13. SAVE THE PLANET, REDUCE MEAT CONSUMPTION
By Heather Moore

There are currently about 7 billion people on this planet, and experts predict that there will be at least 9 billion by 2050. Global meat consumption is projected to double by then too. The Earth simply cannot sustain so many meat-eaters.

A recent report by the Worldwatch Institute's Nourishing the Planet project shows that global meat production increased by 2.6% in 2010. Worldwide meat production has tripled over the last four decades and increased 20% in the past 10 years. Much of the meat is produced in industrialized countries. The average American eats twice as much meat as the average person worldwide. According to Worldwatch President Robert Engelman, the "world's supersized appetite for meat" is one of the main reasons why greenhouse-gas emissions are still increasing rapidly.

If we want to halt climate change — as well as conserving fossil fuel, water, land and other resources — we must at least cut back on the amount of meat we eat. Pigs, chickens, cows, sheep and other animals raised for food produce approximately 130 times as much excrement as the entire U.S. human population. Just one cow can produce 140 pounds of manure a day. Animal waste releases powerful greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere. The livestock sector is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous oxide, greenhouses gasses that are 25 and 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide, respectively.

These greenhouse gasses wreak havoc on the climate, ultimately causing coastal flooding, forest fires, volatile food prices, public health problems, and other environmental issues that, in turn, impact our economy as well....

But we can reduce greenhouse-gas emissions right now simply by eating more meatless meals. When the Environmental Working Group calculated the ecological impact of various conventionally grown foods, they found that if every American stopped eating meat and cheese for even just one day a week, it would be the same as if we collectively drove 91 billion fewer miles a year. Meat and dairy products require more resources and cause more greenhouse-gas emissions than do plant-based foods, according to a 2010 United Nations Environment Programme report. The report concludes that "a substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products."

This has been the consensus of many studies on the connection between diet and climate change. One study, conducted by German scientists from the Institute for Ecological Economy Research, even indicates that the volume of greenhouse gasses caused by a vegan's diet is seven times smaller than the volume of emissions caused by a meat-eater's diet.

The popular "Meatless Mondays" campaign, which was launched in the United States in 2003 by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is now active in 21 countries. If we want to combat the harmful environmental and economic effects of rising global meat consumption, we must all observe "Meatless Mondays" on other days too. Many Americans have already cut back on meat—and that’s a great start—but imagine what a difference it would make for the environment, animals and our health if everyone went vegan.

A more extensive and broader article on this topic titled "Diet for an Endangered Planet" appeared in the Jan. 24, 2009, Activist Newsletter. (Go to blog index to the right, click on 2009, then on Jan. 24.)

— Heather Moore is on the staff of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA).

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14. CIA SAYS U.S. EXAGGERATED SOVIET WAR POWER
By John Glaser

Declassified CIA documents reveal that the United States drastically overestimated the number of Soviet missiles in the beginning of the Cold War arms race in the 1950s and 1960s.

During the so-called Missile Gap period, American politicians and the public believed that the Soviet Union had hundreds of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), outmatching the U.S. in bombing capabilities. But over 189 documents were recently released which "showed the Soviets didn’t really have an advantage, " Chief of the CIA’s Historical Collections Division Bruce S. Barkan said.

John F. Kennedy showed himself stronger on defense by hyping this "gap" when debating Richard Nixon for the presidency, and continued to inflate the threat during his term. But one of the documents from Sept. 21, 1961, debunked this theory, providing evidence that the Soviets only had four ICBMs.

During the Eisenhower administration, there was a concern about a "bomber gap, " that the Soviets had more bomber aircraft than the U.S. The CIA discredited this and by 1957, the bomber gap concept turned into the missile gap.

The government has a record of inflating security threats and parallels can be drawn with today’s supposed threats. Iran is consistently hyped as a major threat, specifically a nuclear threat, despite leaked intelligence that there is no nuclear weapons program. Before the 2003 US invasion, the threat from Iraq too was inflated, to tragic effect. Similarly, terrorism is recognized by many experts as a much weaker threat than Washington makes it out to be.

Overestimating the Soviet threat during the Cold War not only led to an enormous and unnecessary build-up of arms, it served as the justification for various deadly wars abroad and the loss of civil liberties at home. Today’s threat inflation has similar consequences in both foreign and domestic policy.

— From Antiwar.com, Sept. 28.

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15. OBAMA'S ARC OF INSTABILITY
By Nick Turse

It’s a story that should take your breath away: the destabilization of what, in the Bush years, used to be called "the arc of instability. " It involves at least 97 countries, across the bulk of the global south, much of it coinciding with the oil heartlands of the planet. A startling number of these nations are now in turmoil, and in every single one of them — from Afghanistan and Algeria to Yemen and Zambia — Washington is militarily involved, overtly or covertly, in outright war or what passes for peace.

Garrisoning the planet is just part of it. The Pentagon and U.S. intelligence services are also running covert special forces and spy operations, launching drone attacks, building bases and secret prisons, training, arming, and funding local security forces, and engaging in a host of other militarized activities right up to full-scale war. But while you consider this, keep one fact in mind: the odds are that there is no longer a single nation in the arc of instability in which the United States is in no way militarily involved.

"Freedom is on the march in the broader Middle East, " the president said in his speech. "The hope of liberty now reaches from Kabul to Baghdad to Beirut and beyond. Slowly but surely, we're helping to transform the broader Middle East from an arc of instability into an arc of freedom. "

An arc of freedom. You could be forgiven if you thought that this was an excerpt from President Barack Obama’s Arab Spring speech, where he said "[I]t will be the policy of the United States to… support transitions to democracy. " Those were, however, the words of his predecessor George W. Bush [on Feb. 24, 2006]. The giveaway is that phrase "arc of instability, " a core rhetorical concept of the former president’s global vision and that of his neoconservative supporters.

The dream of the Bush years was to militarily dominate that arc, which largely coincided with the area from North Africa to the Chinese border, also known as the Greater Middle East, but sometimes was said to stretch from Latin America to Southeast Asia. While the phrase has been dropped in the Obama years, when it comes to projecting military power President Obama is in the process of trumping his predecessor.

In addition to waging more wars in "arc " nations, Obama has overseen the deployment of greater numbers of special operations forces to the region, has transferred or brokered the sale of substantial quantities of weapons there, while continuing to build and expand military bases at a torrid rate, as well as training and supplying large numbers of indigenous forces. Pentagon documents and open source information indicate that there is not a single country in that arc in which U.S. military and intelligence agencies are not now active. This raises questions about just how crucial the American role has been in the region’s increasing volatility and destabilization.

Given the centrality of the arc of instability to Bush administration thinking, it was hardly surprising that it launched wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and carried out limited strikes in three other arc states — Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia. Nor should anyone have been shocked that it also deployed elite military forces and special operators from the Central Intelligence Agency elsewhere within the arc.

In his book The One Percent Doctrine, journalist Ron Suskind reported on CIA plans, unveiled in September 2001 and known as the "Worldwide Attack Matrix, " for "detailed operations against terrorists in 80 countries. " At about the same time, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld proclaimed that the nation had embarked on "a large multi-headed effort that probably spans 60 countries. " By the end of the Bush years, the Pentagon would indeed have special operations forces deployed in 60 countries around the world.

It has been the Obama administration, however, that has embraced the concept far more fully and engaged the region even more broadly. Last year, the Washington Post reported that U.S. had deployed special operations forces in 75 countries, from South America to Central Asia. Recently, however, U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye told me that on any given day, America’s elite troops are working in about 70 countries, and that its country total by year’s end would be around 120. These forces are engaged in a host of missions, from Army Rangers involved in conventional combat in Afghanistan to the team of Navy SEALs who assassinated Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, to trainers from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines within U.S. Special Operations Command working globally from the Dominican Republic to Yemen.

The United States is now involved in wars in six arc-of-instability nations: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen [and now Uganda]. It has military personnel deployed in other arc states, including Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, and the United Arab Emirates. Of these countries, Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates all host U.S. military bases, while the CIA is reportedly building a secret base somewhere in the region for use in its expanded drone wars in Yemen and Somalia. It is also using already existing facilities in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates for the same purposes, and operating a clandestine base in Somalia where it runs indigenous agents and carries out counterterrorism training for local partners.

In addition to its own military efforts, the Obama administration has also arranged for the sale of weaponry to regimes in arc states across the Middle East, including Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. It has been indoctrinating and schooling indigenous military partners through the State Department’s and Pentagon’s International Military Education and Training program. Last year, it provided training to more than 7,000 students from 130 countries. "The emphasis is on the Middle East and Africa because we know that terrorism will grow, and we know that vulnerable countries are the most targeted, " Kay Judkins, the program’s policy manager, recently told the American Forces Press Service.

According to Pentagon documents released earlier this year, the U.S. has personnel — some in token numbers, some in more sizeable contingents — deployed in 76 other nations sometimes counted in the arc of instability: Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, Syria, Antigua, the Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

While arrests of 30 members of an alleged CIA spy ring in Iran earlier this year may be, like earlier incarcerations of supposed American "spies ", pure theater for internal consumption or international bargaining, there is little doubt that the U.S. is conducting covert operations there, too. Last year, reports surfaced that U.S. black ops teams had been authorized to run missions inside that country, and spies and local proxies are almost certainly at work there as well. Just recently, the Wall Street Journal revealed a series of "secret operations on the Iran-Iraq border " by the U.S. military and a coming CIA campaign of covert operations aimed at halting the smuggling of Iranian arms into Iraq.

All of this suggests that there may, in fact, not be a single nation within the arc of instability, however defined, in which the United States is without a base or military or intelligence personnel, or where it is not running agents, sending weapons, conducting covert operations — or at war.

Just after President Obama came into office in 2009, then-Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair briefed the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Drawing special attention to the arc of instability, he summed up the global situation this way: "The large region from the Middle East to South Asia is the locus for many of the challenges facing the United States in the twenty-first century." Since then, as with the Bush-identified phrase "global war on terror," the Obama administration and the U.S. military have largely avoided using "arc of instability," preferring to refer to it using far vaguer formulations.

During a speech at the National Defense Industrial Association's annual Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Symposium earlier this year, for example, Navy Admiral Eric Olson, then the chief of U.S. Special Operations Command, pointed toward a composite satellite image of the world at night. Before September 11, 2001, said Olson, the lit portion of the planet — the industrialized nations of the global north — were considered the key areas. Since then, he told the audience, 51 countries, almost all of them in the arc of instability, have taken precedence. "Our strategic focus," he said, "has shifted largely to the south... certainly within the special operations community, as we deal with the emerging threats from the places where the lights aren't."

More recently, in remarks at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., John O. Brennan, the assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, outlined the president’s new National Strategy for Counterterrorism, which highlighted carrying out missions in the "Pakistan-Afghanistan region " and "a focus on specific regions, including what we might call the periphery — places like Yemen, Somalia, Iraq, and the Maghreb [northern Africa]. "

"This does not, " Brennan insisted, "require a ‘global’ war" — and indeed, despite the Bush-era terminology, it never has. While, for instance, planning for the 9/11 attacks took place in Germany and would-be shoe-bomber Richard Reid hailed from the United Kingdom, advanced, majority-white Western nations have never been American targets. The "arc " has never arced out of the global south, whose countries are assumed to be fundamentally unstable by nature and their problems fixable through military intervention.

A decade’s evidence has made it clear that U.S. operations in the arc of instability are destabilizing. For years, to take one example, Washington has wielded military aid, military actions, and diplomatic pressure in such a way as to undermine the government of Pakistan, promote factionalism within its military and intelligence services, and stoke anti-American sentiment to remarkable levels among the country’s population. (According to a recent survey, just 12% of Pakistanis have a positive view of the United States.)

A semi-secret drone war in that nation’s tribal borderlands, involving hundreds of missile strikes and significant, if unknown levels, of civilian casualties, has been only the most polarizing of Washington’s many ham-handed efforts. When it comes to that CIA-run effort, a recent Pew survey of Pakistanis found that 97% of respondents viewed it negatively, a figure almost impossible to achieve in any sort of polling.

In Yemen, long-time support — in the form of aid, military training, and weapons, as well as periodic air or drone strikes — for dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh led to a special relationship between the U.S. and elite Yemeni forces led by Saleh’s relatives. This year, those units have been instrumental in cracking down on the freedom struggle there, killing protesters and arresting dissenting officers who refused orders to open fire on civilians. It’s hardly surprising that, even before Yemen slid into a leaderless void (after Saleh was wounded in an assassination attempt), a survey of Yemenis found — again a jaw-dropping polling figure — 99% of respondents viewed the U.S. government’s relations with the Islamic world unfavorably, while just 4% "somewhat " or "strongly approved" of Saleh’s cooperation with Washington.

Instead of pulling back from operations in Yemen, however, the U.S. has doubled down. The CIA, with support from Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service, has been running local agents as well as a lethal drone campaign aimed at Islamic militants. The U.S. military has been carrying out its own air strikes, as well as sending in more trainers to work with indigenous forces, while American black ops teams launch lethal missions, often alongside Yemeni allies.

These efforts have set the stage for further ill-will, political instability, and possible blowback. Just last year, a U.S. drone strike accidentally killed Jabr al-Shabwani, the son of strongman Sheikh Ali al-Shabwani. In an act of revenge, Ali repeatedly attacked one of Yemen's largest oil pipelines, resulting in billions of dollars in lost revenue for the Yemeni government, and demanded Saleh stop cooperating with the U.S. strikes.

Earlier this year, in Egypt and Tunisia, long-time U.S. efforts to promote what it liked to call "regional stability" — through military alliances, aid, training, and weaponry — collapsed in the face of popular movements against the U.S.-supported dictators ruling those nations. Similarly, in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, popular protests erupted against authoritarian regimes partnered with and armed courtesy of the U.S. military. It’s hardly surprising that, when asked in a recent survey whether President Obama had met the expectations created by his 2009 speech in Cairo, where he called for "a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world, " only 4% of Egyptians answered yes. (The same poll found only 6% of Jordanians thought so and just 1% of Lebanese.)

A recent Zogby poll of respondents in six Arab countries — Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates — found that, taking over from a president who had propelled anti-Americanism in the Muslim world to an all-time high, Obama managed to drive such attitudes even higher. Substantial majorities of Arabs in every country now view the U.S. as not contributing "to peace and stability in the Arab World. "

U.S. interference in the arc of instability is certainly nothing new. Leaving aside current wars, over the last century, the United States has engaged in military interventions in the global south in Cambodia, Congo, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Egypt, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Iraq, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Panama, the Philippines, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Somalia, Thailand, and Vietnam, among other places. The CIA has waged covert campaigns in many of the same countries, as well as Afghanistan, Algeria, Chile, Ecuador, Indonesia, Iran, and Syria, to name just a few.

Like George W. Bush before him, Barack Obama evidently looks out on the "unlit world" and sees a source of global volatility and danger for the United States. His answer has been to deploy U.S. military might to blunt instability, shore up allies, and protect American lives.

Despite the salient lesson of 9/11— interventions abroad beget blowback at home — he has waged wars in response to blowback that have, in turn, generated more of the same. A recent Rasmussen poll indicates that most Americans differ with the president when it comes to his idea of how the U.S. should be involved abroad. Seventy-five percent of voters, for example, agreed with this proposition in a recent poll: "The United States should not commit its forces to military action overseas unless the cause is vital to our national interest." In addition, clear majorities of Americans are against defending Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and a host of other arc of instability countries, even if they are attacked by outside powers.

After decades of overt and covert U.S. interventions in arc states, including the last 10 years of constant warfare, most are still poor, underdeveloped, and seemingly even more unstable. This year, in their annual failed state index — a ranking of the most volatile nations on the planet — Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace placed the two arc nations that have seen the largest military interventions by the U.S. — Iraq and Afghanistan — in their top 10. Pakistan and Yemen ranked 12 and 13, respectively, while Somalia — the site of U.S. interventions under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, during the Bush presidency in the 2000s, and again under Obama — had the dubious honor of being number one.

For all the discussions here about (armed) "nation-building efforts" in the region, what we’ve clearly witnessed is a decade of nation unbuilding that ended only when the peoples of various Arab lands took their futures into their own hands and their bodies out into the streets. As recent polling in arc nations indicates, people of the global south see the United States as promoting or sustaining, not preventing, instability, and objective measures bear out their claims. The fact that numerous popular uprisings opposing authoritarian rulers allied with the U.S. have proliferated this year provides the strongest evidence yet of that.

With Americans balking at defending arc-of-instability nations, with clear indications that military interventions don’t promote stability, and with a budget crisis of epic proportions at home, it remains to be seen what pretexts the Obama administration will rely on to continue a failed policy — one that seems certain to make the world more volatile and put American citizens at greater risk.

— Nick Turse is the associate editor of TomDispatch.com and a senior editor at AlterNet. His latest book is The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan (Verso). This article appeared Sept. 18 at http://www.alternet.org/story/152458

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16. INTERNATIONAL NEWS IN BRIEF
By the Activist Newsletter

•• AN APOLOGY, NEARLY 60 YEARS TOO LATE: The Guatemalan government a has formally apologized to the family of former President Jacobo Arbenz — 57 years after the CIA-instigated the coup that ousted the democratically-elected leader from office. Arbenz's main "crime" was threatening to nationalize the powerful Rockefeller-owned United Fruit Company.

At a ceremony in late October, President Alvaro Colom asked Arbenz’s family for forgiveness. Speaking at the event, Arbenz’s son, Juan Jacobo, called on the United States to follow suit. After the coup, the people of Guatemala experienced 36 years of violent abuse and military atrocities by Washington-supported dictators and right wing death squads. Well over 100,000 civilians — mostly poor indigenous people — were slaughtered over the years.

Ironically, a former general during the years of rightist dictatorship — Otto Pérez Molina — was elected president Nov. 6. According to the New York Times Pérez Molina was selected in a low-turnout election in hopes "that he can defeat the forces now tearing this country apart — the interwoven threats of random crime, gangs, Mexican drug cartels and complicit government officials and companies." (Edited from Democracy Now and the NYT.)

•• CLIMATE CHANGE ENDANGERS GLOBAL SOUTH — Countries in the global south face the highest risks from rising sea levels, floods, dangerous heat and other climate change impacts, according to a world survey aimed at guiding city planners and investors. The study by the UK risk analysis and mapping firm Maplecroft, released on Oct. 25, listed the 10 most vulnerable countries in this order: Haiti, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Madagascar, Cambodia, Mozambique, D.R. Congo, Malawi, and the Philippines.

The survey also ranked the top-20 fastest-growing cities and megacities in terms of extreme climate change risk by 2020. Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, is the megacity most at risk with an "extreme" ranking. Other megacities at extreme or high risk include Manila (Philippines), Kolkata (formerly Calcutta, India), Jakarta (Indonesia), Kinshasa (D.R. Congo), Lagos (Nigeria), Delhi (India) and Guangzhou (China). Miami is judged at a high risk as is Singapore, while New York and Sydney were considered medium risk.

•• COLOMBIAN GUERRILLA LEADER KILLED —The killing of the top commander of Colombia’s largest guerrilla group dealt what might be the most severe blow yet to the four-decade-old insurgency, but security experts said Nov. 5 that the rebels still had the ability to regroup and carry on the fight.

Elite Colombian forces had been hunting the commander, Alfonso Cano, 63, since he took over the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) three years ago, before they killed him near a rebel camp in the remote southwest on Nov. 4....

The rebels have suffered numerous setbacks in recent years....[but they have] been able to carry out deadly attacks on Colombia’s security forces. In the space of a few days last month, one attack attributed to the group killed 10 soldiers in the province of Nariño and another killed 10 soldiers near the border with Venezuela. (New York Times.)

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17. DOMESTIC NEWS IN BRIEF
By the Activist Newsletter

•• DROP 'BROOKLYN BRIDGE' ARREST CHARGES — Attorneys from the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF) requested in a letter Nov. 10 that New York City District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. dismiss all charges against the 700+ demonstrators who were subject to mass false arrest on the Brooklyn Bridge on Oct. 1 be dismissed.

The letter states that the trap-and-arrest tactic used by police is unlawful and unconstitutional, and that the mass arrest was devoid of probable cause. Citing relevant constitutional law and cases dealing with similar illegal mass arrests, as well as entrapment and the legal requirements for "fair notice," the letter provides the legal basis for the complete dismissal of charges.

Announcing their action, the PCJF said: “Those who were arrested and handcuffed, had their free speech activities stopped, spent hours being held and processed by the NYPD, are now being required by the DA’s office to suffer the hardship of returning to court for appearances, to obtain defense counsel, and to go to trial should they opt to defend themselves, even though there is no lawful basis for the arrests."

•• MUMIA'S DEATH SENTENCE THROWN OUT — The Supreme Court has upheld a lower-court ruling throwing out the death sentence of former Black Panther and acclaimed author Mumia Abu-Jamal. The high court left in place lower-court rulings that would allow a new jury to determine if Mumia will face execution or serve life in prison. The Supreme Court’s Oct. 11 decision means that for the prosecutors to try to reimpose the death penalty against Mumia they would have to order a new sentencing trial. That poses a risk to the prosecutors, as a sentencing trial would give Mumia an opportunity to expose the illegal conduct of the state in the original trial.

It is recognized by millions of supporters around the world that Mumia was framed for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, who was shot during a traffic stop of Mumia's younger brother. Mumia was arrested at the scene and convicted of first-degree murder a year later.

Mumia has exhausted his appeals on that conviction, despite strong evidence of his innocence and grievous misconduct by the judge and prosecutor during the trial. Mumia’s death sentence was thrown out by federal district judge William Yohn in 2001 because the trial jury was given improper instructions in the sentencing phase. Yohn ordered a new sentencing trial, but Philadelphia prosecutors and politicians challenged his decision to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The prosecutors lost and appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. (From LiberationNews.org.)

•• GAY MALES EXPERIENCE JOB DISCRIMINATION — A new study has found openly gay males are 40% less likely to be granted job interviews than their heterosexual counterparts. Published in the American Journal of Sociology, the study is said to be the first of its kind to investigate discrimination against gay males seeking jobs. Researchers conducted the study by sending two nearly identical resumes to more than 1,700 white-collar job openings across the United States, with the lone difference being that one mentioned the applicant’s membership in a gay organization while in college. (From Democracy Now.)

•• SOLDIER JUSTIFIES AFGHAN KILLINGS — An Army staff sergeant accused of masterminding the murders of three Afghan civilians for "sport" gave his first public comments about the case at his court martial Nov. 4. He denied involvement in any plot but acknowledged he sliced fingers off their corpses — "like keeping the antlers off a deer you'd shoot."

Wearing his green uniform decorated with service ribbons, Staff Sgt. Calvin Gibbs of Billings, Mont., contradicted the accounts of co-defendants and fellow soldiers who portrayed him as an imposing, bloodthirsty sociopath. He told the judges at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., that each of the killings was legitimate.

Gibbs is the highest-ranking of five soldiers charged in the killings, which took place in January, February and May of last year. Prosecutors said Gibbs and his co-defendants slaughtered the victims with grenades and powerful machine guns during patrols in Kandahar province then dropped weapons near their bodies to make them appear to have been combatants. (AP, Nov. 5)
(end)

11-02-11 Activist Calendar

2011-11-02T23:14:00.006-04:00

HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST CALENDAR
November 2, 2011, Issue #670
Send event announcements to jacdon@earthlink.net
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Dedicated to Helping Build Activist

Movements in the Hudson Valley

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NOTE: From Nov. 14 to Dec. 4 there will be a number progressive events directly and indirectly honoring the late left activist and intellectual Howard Zinn at SUNY New Paltz, including a talk by Noam Chomsky. They are all listed below.
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But first...
PUBLIC OPINION BACKS IDEAS OF PROTEST MOVEMENT

Repeated public opinion polls show that the Occupy Wall Street protest and growing 99 Percent movement are attracting public support. Here’s the rundown of several new public opinion polls compiled by the Center for American Progress on Oct. 27:

82% of New York State voters think it’s OK for the Occupy Wall Street protesters to protest.
58% of New York State voters agree with the views of the Wall Street protesters.
46% of Americans think the 99 Percent movement “reflect[s] the views of most Americans,” compared to just 34% who say it does not.
43% of Americans agree with the views of protesters, compared to just 27% who disagree.
70% of Americans have heard “a lot” or “some” about the 99 Percent Movement.
67% of Americans think it would be a “bad idea” to lower taxes on large corporations.
66% of Americans think the distribution of money and wealth in this country should be “more evenly distributed among more people.”
65% of Americans think taxes should be raised on millionaires.
66% of New York State voters support a millionaire’s tax.
69% percent of Americans think that the policies of the Republicans in Congress “favor the rich.”
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"OCCUPY" ACTIONS IN THE HUDSON VALLEY

The Occupy Wall Street/99 Percent movements are conducting demonstrations throughout the United States and internationally. In the Hudson Valley region, at least 15 cities and towns have experienced "occupation" protests — Albany, Beacon, Gardiner, Glens Falls, Kingston, Liberty, Monroe, New Paltz, Nyack, Pine Bush, Poughkeepsie, Saratoga Springs, Saugerties, Woodstock, and Yonkers. Mostly, these events have been one-day occasions but there are longer-term encampments in Albany and Poughkeepsie (and off course New York City to the south, where this movement originated Sept. 17).

We urge our readers to support all such manifestations, especially the encampments where expressions of solidarity are extremely important for morale and perseverance.

• POUGHKEEPSIE: At Hulme Park, on the corner of Market Church Sts. General assembly is at noon and 7 p.m. daily. Many people will be joining the Poughkeepsie group on Saturday Nov. 12 for a march and rally, see below. (http://occupypoughkeepsie.org/)
• ALBANY: At Academy Park, on the corner of Washington Ave. and Eagle, near the capitol building. (http://occupyalbany.org/)
• NEW YORK CITY: At Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park), Liberty St., between Broadway and Trinity Pl. (http://occupywallst.org/)

For more information on these and all other occupations, worldwide, http://www.occupytogether.org/
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OTHER EVENTS

Thursday, Nov. 3, NEWBURGH: Dr. Sacha Spector, Scenic Hudson’s director of Conservation Science, will discuss what the latest climate change projections mean for the Hudson Valley, and how avoiding the worst impacts can improve the security and financial future of communities and their citizens. The free public event lasts from 5-6 p.m. at the Desmond Campus for Adult Enrichment, 6 Albany Post Rd. Information, aconeski@scenichudson.org, (845) 473-4440, ext. 273.

Thursday, Nov. 3, TROY (Russell Sage College): Journalist and author Andrew Revkin will discuss "Writing about Science for an Audience of Humanists" starting at 7:30 p.m. at Bush Memorial, 65 First St. Revkin has written for Discover magazine, Science Digest, and hosts his "Dot Earth" blog on the N.Y. Times Op-Ed section. Information, https://www.sage.edu/newsevents/events/?event_id=257799&date=2011-11-03.

Thursday, Nov. 3, DELMAR: Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace sponsors a free public screening of the documentary, "Hidden Battles," at the Bethlehem Public Library, 451 Delaware Ave., 7-8:45 p.m. The film documents the psychological impact of killing as portrayed by five soldiers: a female Sandinista rebel, an Israeli officer, a Palestinian member of Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a Vietnam vet, and a U.S. veteran of the Somalia conflict. These soldiers reveal intimate memories about the central act of war — the killing of another human being. A discussion will follow the film. Information, (518) 466-1192, jlombard@nycap.rr.com, http://www.bethlehemforpeace.org.

Thursday, Nov. 3, POUGHKEEPSIE: The Dutchess Peace Coalition will sponsor the free screening of the film "What Would Jesus Buy?" at Crafted Kup, 44 Raymond Ave. (near Vassar College), starting at 7 p.m. This film follows the Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping Gospel Choir as they travel around the country to save Christmas from the "Shopocalypse." Free and public. Information, (845) 876-7906.

Friday, Nov. 4, NEW YORK STATE: In America, 68,842 bridges are structurally deficient. Meanwhile, 9.1% of Americans are jobless. In New York State, 2,088 bridges are deficient — with more than 15 million vehicles crossing those bridges every day, and 8% of New Yorkers are jobless. The AFL-CIO is urging people to contact their members of Congress — today or in the next week or two — to support investing in bridges, transit, rail, airports, highways, schools and the rest of our failing infrastructure, putting the jobless to work in the process. To send a message to Congress, click on http://act.aflcio.org/c/18/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2880.

Saturday, Nov. 5, RHINEBECK: The annual dance to benefit needy children in Larreynaga, Nicaragua, starts at 7:30 p.m. at Church of the Messiah Parish Hall, 6436 Montgomery St. This event — sponsored by Mid-Hudson/Larreynaga Sister City, Dutchess Peace and Church of the Messiah — features live Latino dance music provided by the group "Cuboricua," dance demonstrations, door prizes, and light refreshments. The cost is $20 per person. Bring a non-perishable food item for the church pantry for a free door prize ticket. Reservations suggested (845) 876-3779.

Saturday, Nov. 5, TROY: Occupy Troy has called for a general assembly starting at 3 p.m. at Riverfront Park. We're told: "Citizens of Troy plan to assemble downtown to discuss grievances and solutions to the systems that create and reinforce inequalities in our society on a local and national scale."

Saturday, Nov. 5, NEW YORK CITY: An "Evening of Solidarity with the Cuban Five" begins at 7 p.m. at the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Labor Center, 310 W. 43rd St. (between 8th and 9th Aves.). The five Cubans infiltrated right wing anti-Cuba groups in Florida in order to report upon planned terrorist activities. (Over 3,000 Cubans have been killed in U.S.-backed attacks by these groups since the 1959 Cuban Revolution.) When the five Cubans detected a plot, Havana then informed Washington. The U.S. responded by arresting the anti-terrorists, and they have been in American prisons for 13 years so far, not even allowed to have visits from their families. Speakers at the meeting include Richard Klugh, member of the Cuban Five legal team; Thenjiwe McHarris, Amnesty International; Gloria La Riva, National Committee to Free the Cuban Five; Rev. Luis Barrios, IFCO/Pastors for Peace; Alicia Jrapko, International Committee to Free the Cuban Five; and Michael Tarif Warren, civil rights attorney. There is a $10 suggested donation at the door — but "no one turned away for lack of funds." The evening is sponsored by The July 26 Coalition, Casa de las Americas, the National Network on Cuba, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, and the International Committee to Free the Cuban Five. Information, ANSWER Coalition, (212) 694-8720, nyc@AnswerCoalition.org.

Saturday, Nov. 5, BEACON: MoveOn is initiating nationwide actions at over 200 branches of big banks, emphasizing the damage they have done to the economy and local communities. The demonstrators also encourage customers of major banks to move their money to smaller institutions. In Beacon the protest will be at the Chase Bank, 404 Main St., 11. a.m. Says MoveOn: "The big banks may have massive marketing machines and spend huge advertising dollars, but that can't compete with a group of community members in front of their branches across the country, telling their friends and neighbors that this bank can't be trusted because it's firing tens of thousands of people, foreclosing on our neighbors, and helped crash our economy."

Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 5-6, POUGHKEEPSIE (Vassar College campus): See and purchase Local and imported fair traded crafts, food, and specialty items at the Fair Trade Bazaar, taking place at The Aula, Vassar College, on Raymond Ave. Featuring live music and organic refreshments from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, and until 3 p.m. on Sunday. Information, patla@hvc.rr.com.

Sunday, Nov. 6, NEW PALTZ to WASHINGTON: Demonstrators plan to encircle the White House today to tell President Obama to reject Keystone XL — the planned pipeline that will transport environmentally "dirty" oil extracted from the Tar Sands of northern Canada to Texas. A bus chartered by the Sierra Club will transport activists to D.C. leaving from the New Paltz Thruway park and ride at 6 a.m. and returning around midnight. The cost of a ticket will be from $20 roundtrip. For tickets contact Joanne Steele immediately, sierraclubjoanne@gmail.com, or (845) 338-0300. People are also carpooling from the Mid-Hudson region. If you are interested contact Richard Parisio the New Paltz Climate Action Coalition, rparisio@hotmail.com. According to 350.org, the main sponsor of the event, "over 4,000 people have signed up to join the action. With scandals around Keystone XL brewing, and momentum shifting in our direction, we need to make this action as big as possible." If you are going, remember Daylight Saving Time ends today so turn your clock back one hour.

Sunday, Nov. 6, NEW PALTZ: "Debunking the Insanity of the Debt Hawks" is the topic of a 6-8 p.m. free public talk by Brent Kramer, longtime activist, CUNY economics professor, and research associate at the Fiscal Policy Institute. (An optional potluck begins at 5 p.m.) The venue is New Paltz Village Hall, 25 Plattekill Ave., a block south of Main St. (Rt. 299). Park in the Village Hall lot. Sponsored by the Caribbean and Latin America Support Project. Information, (845) 255-0113.

Monday, Nov. 7, POUGHKEEPSIE: Help plan antiwar and anti-military recruitment actions at the Dutchess Peace monthly meeting at the Unitarian Fellowship, 67 Randolph Ave, 7-8:30 p.m. Information, (845) 876-7906, http://www.dutchesspeace.org.

Wednesday, Nov. 9, ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON (Bard College campus): Bassam Haddad, director of the Middle East Studies Program and teacher of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University, will speak on the topic of "Syria and Arab Uprisings" starting at 7 p.m. For building location, (845) 758-6822. Information, http://www.bard.edu/hrp.

Wednesday, Nov. 9, INTERNATIONAL: Today begins the Week Against the Apartheid Wall, referring to the barrier Israel erected to separate itself from the Palestinian West Bank, lasting until Nov. 16. For details, http://www.stopthewall.org/week-against-apartheid-wall.

Thursday, Nov. 10 and 24, WOODSTOCK: Middle East Crisis Response, a group of Hudson Valley residents joined in protest against policies of Israel and the United States, will hold its twice monthly meeting these evenings at the Woodstock Public Library, 5 Library Lane. Information, (845) 876-7906. http://www.mideastcrisis.org.

Friday, Nov 11, NORTH TROY: Vietnam war veteran and antiwar/anti-imperialist activist S. Brian Willson will speak from 7-9 p.m. at The Sanctuary for Independent Media, 3361 6th Ave. Willson, who lost his legs while blocking a munitions train in 1987, will give a Veterans Day talk and sign his new book. Willson’s appearance is part of a national tour he is conducting on two prosthetic legs and a three-wheeled handcycle, to promote the ideas of a right livelihood and a simpler lifestyle that are set forth in his recently published book, "Blood on the Tracks." A $5 donation is requested. Sponsored by Rensselaer Neighbors for Peace. Information, (518) 272-2390, schris.christianson@gmail.com, http://www.mediasanctuary.org/node/3146.

Saturday, Nov. 12, POUGHKEEPSIE: Today is the day to join with the activists of Occupy Poughkeepsie for a march in solidarity to oppose gross economic inequality and political domination of the United States by finance capital, big corporations, the wealthiest 5% of the American people and their most influential minions in the legislative and executive branches of the federal and state governments. Assemble at Hulme Park (corner of Market and Church Sts., about a quarter-mile east of the Mid-Hudson Bridge), where the local encampment is situated, for the 12 noon to 2 p.m. march and rally, which will be followed by a general assembly. Information, http://occupypoughkeepsie.org/.

Saturday, Nov. 12, NEW ROCHELLE: Women in Black will hold a 2-3 p.m. vigil in support of Occupy Wall Street and a Free Palestine, Main St. and Memorial Highway, sponsored by WESPAC and CodePink. Information, (914) 654-8990, ceilie@aol.com.

Saturday, Nov. 12, MILLBROOK: The Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies is organizing a "Full Moon Ecology Walk" on the internal paved roads of its large wooded acreage. "Guests will be treated to the sights and sounds of nature at dusk," starting at 6:30 p.m. Cary educators will be the guides. It's free and public. "All ages are welcome to participate; long pants, hiking shoes, binoculars, and flashlights are recommended. The walk will begin at our main campus parking area, located at 2801 Sharon Turnpike (Route 44). In the event of heavy rain, the program will be cancelled." Information, http://www.ecostudies.org/.

Monday, Nov. 14, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): Abigail Robin, a retired SUNY NP professor, will discuss "Emma Goldman NOW!" — the life of the famous revolutionary anarchist (1869 –1940) and her relevance today. This free public talk will begin at the Honors Center at 5 p.m. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map. Information, (845) 257-3456.

Monday, Nov. 14 to Thursday, Dec. 10, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): "Windows in the Wall," an exhibition of photos from the West Bank by artist and activist Rebecca Heyl, will be shown at the Sojourner Truth Library. There will also be an exhibition of social documents titled Just Text. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Wednesday, Nov. 16, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): "Noam Chomsky and Linguistic Theory" is the subject of a 4 p.m. talk by Linguistics Professor Oksana Laleko in Lecture Center 104. This is a side of the well known left social critic and public intellectual not often known by activists. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Thursday, Nov. 17, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): Frank Morris, the vice chairman of Sierra Club's N.Y. State Chapter, will discuss "Unifying the Environmental Perspective: Ecologic Solutions for the 21st Century," 4:30-6:30 p.m. in Lecture Center 104. He will touch upon climate change, the environmental crisis, threats to life from pollution, and the dangers associated with natural gas extraction and use. This free public event is sponsored by the Sociology Dept. Information, Irwin Sperber, (845) 257-2772, sperberi@newpaltz.edu. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Friday, Nov. 18, ROCK TAVERN: The documentary "Before Stonewall" will be screened at 7 p.m. at 9 Vance Lane, sponsored by the Social Action and Welcoming Committees of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Rock Tavern. This film, to be followed by a discussion, describes the repressive atmosphere that existed prior to the Stonewall uprising in 1969 and the subsequent movement for gay rights. Free and public. Information, Verne M. Bell at (845) 569-8965, or Athena Drewes (845) 496-5322.

Monday, Nov. 21, NEW PALTZ to TRENTON: Attention anti-fracking activists: The fate of fracking in the Northeast may be determined very soon. For New Yorkers, the problem isn't only Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who strongly favors the use of dangerous hydraulic fracturing to extract natural gas from upstate Marcellus Shale. The Delaware River Basin Commission, comprising representatives from four states (New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware) and the federal government, will vote today on whether to allow fracking in the river's watershed, which supplies drinking water for more than 15 million people. A charter bus will be leaving New Paltz at 6:30 a.m., bringing activists to Trenton, N.J., where events begin at 8 a.m. at the War Memorial and continue at the commission meeting. The boarding location is the New Paltz Thruway park and ride, just off Rt. 299. Transportation is being organized by the local Food and Water Watch. The cost is $30 for the roundtrip. For reservations, http://action.foodandwaterwatch.org/p/salsa/event/common/public/index.sjs?event_KEY=72090. Information, George Koury, (845) 657-8308, prosper@hvc.rr.com.

Thursday, Nov. 24, AMERICA: Today is Thanksgiving, a traditional day for family and friends to get together. This year, how about a vegetarian or vegan meal for the holidays? There are endless entries under "vegetarian thanksgiving dinner" on Google with thousands of recipes. Why a meatless Thanksgiving? Aside from health and environmental reasons, we'll quote Farm Sanctuary, an organization for the protection of farmed animals: "Dark, dirty warehouses. Crowds of animals in distress. Mutilated beaks and toes. Sick, injured birds left to suffer and die without anyone to help them. These are not the kinds of images we tend to conjure when we think about Thanksgiving, yet they are indicative of the reality faced by more than 46 million turkeys slaughtered every year in the U.S. for this holiday alone [all told throughout the year, about 300 million turkeys are raised for slaughter in our country].... The more our fellow citizens learn about the cruelty that goes on behind the closed doors of factory farms, the less sense it makes that we feast on these maligned birds as symbols of gratitude, and the more natural it becomes to spare a life in the spirit of thankfulness that shines this time of year."

Friday Nov. 25, NORTH AMERICA: Tired of all the hype, rushing and consumerism beginning today, the day after Thanksgiving (known as Black Friday), which is supposed to be the biggest shopping day of the year? Join people around North America for the annual Buy Nothing Day. Instead of just buy, buy, buy for the holidays, perhaps there are other options. Check out http://www.buynothingchristmas.org/alternatives/index.html for substitutes to commercial gifts this season. In Europe Buy Nothing Day is Saturday the 26th, so you may wish to make it a two-day escape from our consumer culture and credit card usury.

Tuesday, Nov. 29, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): A free public viewing of "You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train," the biographical film of the late progressive activist Howard Zinn, will be screened at 7:30 p.m. in Lecture Center 104. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Wednesday, Nov. 30, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): "The People Speak," a film screening of the dramatic staging of Howard Zinn’s "People’s History of the United States," directed by Anthony Arnove, will begin at 4:30 p.m. in CSB Auditorium (public and free). Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Thursday, Dec. 1, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): "Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media" — a film screening with presentations by Profs. Donna Flayhan, Jerry Persaud and Daniel Schackman (Communication and Media) — takes place in CSB Auditorium starting at 5 p.m. (public and free). Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Thursday, Dec. 1, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): "Howard Zinn and Racial Justice" — a panel discussion by the Black Studies faculty — starts at 7:30 p.m. in Lecture Center 102. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Saturday, Dec 3, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): "Intervals of Change: Students, Music, Protest" — musical performances by student groups — will start at 4 p.m. at the Honors Center in College Hall. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Sunday, Dec. 4, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): There will be a "Puppet Procession Across Campus" starting at 2:30 p.m. by the Redwing Blackbird Theater and students, culminating in a puppet show based on Howard Zinn’s "People’s History" and inspired by Occupy Wall St. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map.

Sunday, Dec. 4, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): "Honoring Howard Zinn: An Historian Who Made History" — Talks by Noam Chomsky and Anthony Arnove begin at 4 p.m. in Lecture Center 100. This will be Chomsky's first local talk in least 20 years, and we anticipate a large crowd. Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map. Sponsors of this event and most of the SUNY NP programs from Nov. 14: College of Liberal Arts & Sciences; Departments of Anthropology, Art, Black Studies, Communication and Media, English, History, Political Science and International Relations, Secondary Education, Sociology, Theatre Arts; The Honors Program; Programs in Linguistics and Women’s Studies; Major Connections Program.

10-23-11 Activist Newsletter

2011-10-23T15:46:00.016-04:00

October 23, 2011, Issue #171
HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST NEWSLETTER
jacdon@earthlink.net, P.O. Box 662, New Paltz, NY 12561
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CONTENTS

1. GET A JOB! GET A JOB!

2. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, FOR SOME

3. PLANNED PARENTHOOD: 95 YEARS OF PUBLIC SERVICE

4. AFGHAN WAR REMAINS ENDLESS,
WHILE OBAMA'S IRAQ PLAN FAILS

5. AMERICA'S FOUR LONG IMPERIALIST WARS

6. CLIMATE ACTION RALLIES CIRCLE GLOBE

7. PROTESTS CONDEMN AFGHAN WAR

8. FRED SHUTTLESWORTH: FREEDOM FIGHTER

9. CANADIANS ARRESTED IN TAR SANDS PROTEST

10. INTERNATIONAL NEWS IN BRIEF

11. U.S. CONS POOR WORKERS, FAMILIES

12. CAN CAPITALISM HALT CLIMATE CHANGE?

13. CLIMATE CHANGE DRIVES ANIMAL MIGRATIONS

14. AMNESTY BLASTS CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE

15. BEWARE OF ATTENDING 'WRONG SCHOOL'
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1. GET A JOB! GET A JOB!
By the Activist Newsletter

Some students at the elite Wharton Business School in Philadelphia evidently are unaware that there is massive unemployment in the United States — or perhaps they simply don't care, to the point of derision.

This revelation became clear Oct. 21 when hundreds of "99 Percent" movement participants arrived at the school, which is part of the University of Pennsylvania, after Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) canceled his speech there, apparently to avoid encountering dissidents.

As the protesters entered the Wharton School and chanted about economic justice, a number of students appeared on a balcony above the hall. These students began chanting repeatedly and in unison, "Get a job! Get a job!"

The demonstrators came from groups including Occupy Philly, Americans United for Change, Philadelphia AFL-CIO, Fight for Philly, SEIU PA State Council, Protect Your Care, Keystone Progress, Moveon.org, NCPSSM, Progress Now, and AFSCME

According the reporter Zaid Jilian writing of the incident for Think Progress: "While the students who jeered the protesters certainly do not necessarily represent all Wharton students, it’s important to understand the context of the elite status they likely either come from or graduate into. Wharton graduates much of the nation’s corporate elite, with the median starting salary for an MBA graduate being $145,000 — six times the poverty level for a family of four.

"The school’s Board of Overseers is staffed with multiple Goldman Sachs executives and high-ranking employees of a wide variety of financial firms. Meanwhile, its Graduate Executive Board is staffed with senior employees of Bank of America, Blackstone Financial Management, and PMC Bank. Wharton’s endowment is $888 million, greater than that of many large public universities. Essentially, the students jeering the protesters represented the future financial elite."

Due to the stagnant economy, about 28 million American workers are either jobless or work part time but need full time work. For virtually all of them, getting a job is a constant preoccupation.

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2. IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE, FOR SOME
By the Activist Newsletter

The U.S. economy may be stagnant following the Great Recession, and millions of American families are experiencing hardship, but Forbes magazine reported recently that the total wealth of the nation's richest 400 families — all billionaires — jumped 12% this year. The combined assets of the 400 amount to $1.53 trillion. This nearly equals the GDP of Canada.

According to the annual World Wealth Report from Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, the U.S. had 3.1 million millionaires in 2010, up from 2.86 million in 2009. The latest figure tops the pre-crisis peak of 3 million. About 35,400 Americans have wealth of over $50 million.

The Economic Policy Institute revealed recently that only the richest 5% of the American people are getting much richer. The progressive thinktank reported:

"Wealth is now lower for the typical household than it was a generation ago in 1983, while the wealth at the upper end expanded a great deal.... All of the gains in wealth accrued to the upper fifth, with 40.2% percent of the gains going to the upper 1% and 41.5% going to the next wealthiest 4% of households. This translated to gains of $4.5 million per household in the richest 1%, and a gain of roughly $1.2 million per household in the next richest 4%.

"In other words, the richest 5% of households obtained roughly 82% of all the nation’s gains in wealth between 1983 and 2009. The bottom 60% of households actually had less wealth in 2009 than in 1983, meaning they did not participate at all in the growth of wealth over this period."

Meanwhile, the Census Bureau reported Sept. 12 that 2.6 million more Americans became poor last year, meaning 46.2 million people now live below the poverty line in the U.S. This is the highest number in the 52 years that such figures have been published.

The Wall St. Journal wealth blog reported Oct. 19 "that the millionaires and billionaires now control 38.5% of the world’s wealth." According to the latest Global Wealth Report from Credit Suisse, the 29.7 million people in the world with household net worths of $1 million (representing less than 1% of the world’s population) control about $89 trillion of the world’s wealth. That’s up from a share of 35.6% in 2010."

At the same time, according to the UN, over 2.5 billion human beings survive on less than $2 a day. Of this number, about 1.4 billion exist in indescribable poverty on less than $1.25 a day.

The wealth of global millionaires grew 29% last year — about twice as fast as the wealth in the world as a whole. The U.S. has been the largest wealth generator over the past 18 months. There are now 84,700 people in the world worth $50 million or more, 29,000 people world-wide worth $100 million or more, and 2,700 worth $500 million or more.

The enormous disparity in wealth and poverty, and the subsequent misery of billions of people, is the direct product of the global capitalist economic system. Yet, to even identify this obvious cause (much less take political action to change the economic structure of society) is rarely mentioned in America lest it invite unpopularity, censure or state repression. This should provide pause to contemplate the limitations of democracy, as well as those of the capitalist system.

The Occupy Wall Street and 99 Percent movements are taking steps that to an extent challenge this system, and we support them, recognizing there's a long struggle ahead that will form and re-form the tactics and strategy of rebellion until victory.
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3. PLANNED PARENTHOOD: 95 YEARS OF SERVICE
By the Activist Newsletter

Planned Parenthood reached the grand old age of 95 on Oct. 16 — having survived generations of abuse from backward social elements who either opposed sex education, contraception or the right of women to choose abortion, or all three.

To this day reactionary political elements in Congress, inspired by the votes and financing of the religious right, are still attempting to defund and cripple this crucially important organization, and continue to come too close to attaining their objectives. This is despite the fact that much of Planned Parenthood's services consist of routine health care.

On Oct. 13, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 358, an extreme anti-choice bill, by vote of 251-172. According to NARAL, "the bill would allow a hospital to refuse a woman life-saving, emergency abortion care even if she will die without it. On top of that, it effectively would ban insurance coverage of abortion in state health-insurance exchanges, denying abortion coverage to millions of women."

As the New York Times put it Oct. 15: "Unable to overturn Roe v. Wade, anti-abortion campaigners have worked in recent years within Congress and state legislatures, many of which have become increasingly conservative, to make gaining access to the procedure as difficult as possible. Around the country, state legislatures from Arizona to Kansas have passed sweeping measures this year intended to make it more onerous for Planned Parenthood clinics to stay open."

So we say "happy birthday and a long life" to Planned Parenthood, and a big thanks to Margaret Sanger (1883-1966) — a true hero of our times — who founded what became Planned Parenthood in 1916. This dedicated woman was jailed eight different times for distributing birth control information and for opening the first clinic for birth control (in Brooklyn).

Throughout these 95 years the strongest opponents of Planned Parenthood and its services remain the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church and various fundamentalist Protestant denominations and some other religious sectors, which constitute the movement opposing family planning.

Margaret Sanger minced no words in identifying and castigating the regressive role of religion in attempting to suppress various aspects of birth control for women: "If Christianity turned the clock of general progress back a thousand years," she said, "it turned back the clock two thousand years for women."

— Of the six House members from Hudson Valley Congressional Districts 17 to 22, four opposed anti-choice H.R. 358 and two voted in support. The two are Republican Reps. Nan Hayworth (NY-19 CD) and Christopher Gibson (NY-20 CD).
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4. AFGHAN WAR REMAINS ENDLESS,
WHILE OBAMA'S IRAQ PLAN FAILS
By Jack A. Smith, the Activist Newsletter

The 10th anniversary of Washington's invasion, occupation and seemingly endless war in Afghanistan was observed Oct. 7, but despite President Barack Obama's pledge to terminate the U.S. "combat mission" by the end of 2014, American military involvement will continue many years longer.

The Afghan war is expanding even further, not only with increasing drone attacks in neighboring Pakistani territory but because of U.S. threats to take far greater unilateral military action within Pakistan unless the Islamabad government roots out "extremists" and cracks down harder on cross-border fighters.

Washington's tone was so threatening that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had to assure the Pakistani press Oct. 21 that the U.S. did not plan a ground offensive against Pakistan. The next day, Afghan President Hamid Karzai shocked Washington by declaring "God forbid, If ever there is a war between Pakistan and America, Afghanistan will side with Pakistan.... If Pakistan is attacked and if the people of Pakistan needs Afghanistan’s help, Afghanistan will be there with you.”

At the same time, Washington has just suffered a spectacular setback in Iraq, where the Obama Administration has been applying extraordinary pressure on the Baghdad government for over a year to permit many thousands of U.S. troops to remain indefinitely after all American forces are supposed to withdraw at the end of this year.

President Obama received the rejection from Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki Oct. 21, and promptly issued a public statement intended to completely conceal the fact that a long-sought U.S. goal has just been obliterated, causing considerable disruption to U.S. plans. Obama made a virtue of necessity by stressing that "Today, I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year."

This article will first discuss the situation in Afghanistan after 10 years, then take up the Iraq question and what the U.S. may do to compensate for a humiliating and disruptive rebuff.

The United States is well aware it will never win a decisive victory in Afghanistan. At this point, the Obama Administration is anxious to convert the military stalemate into a form of permanent truce, if only the Taliban were willing to accept what amounts to a power sharing deal that would allow Washington to claim the semblance of success.

In addition President Obama seeks to retain a large post-"withdrawal" military presence throughout the country mainly for these reasons:

• To protect its client regime in Kabul led by President Karzai, as well as Washington's other political an commercial interests in the country, and to maintain a menacing military presence on Iran's eastern border, especially if U.S. troops cannot now remain in Iraq.

• To retain territory in Central Asia for U.S. and NATO military forces positioned close to what Washington perceives to be its two main (though never publicly identified) enemies — China and Russia — at a time when the American government is increasing its political pressure on both countries. Obama is intent upon transforming NATO from a regional into a global adjunct to Washington's quest for retaining and extending world hegemony. NATO's recent victory in Libya is a big advance for U.S. ambitions in Africa, even if the bulk of commercial spoils go to France and England. A permanent NATO presence in Central Asia is a logical next step. In essence, Washington's geopolitical focus is spreading from the Middle East to Central Asia and Africa in the quest for resources, military expansion and unassailable hegemony, especially from the political and economic challenge of rising nations of the global south, primarily China.

There has been an element of public deception about withdrawing U.S. "combat troops" from Iraq and Afghanistan dating from the first Obama election campaign in 2007-8. Combat troops belong to combat brigades. In a variant of bait-and-switch trickery, the White House reported that all combat brigades departed Iraq in August 2010. Technically this is true, because those that did not depart were simply renamed "advise and assist brigades." According to a 2009 Army field manual such brigades are entirely capable, "if necessary," of shifting from "security force assistance" back to combat duties.

In Afghanistan, after the theoretical pullout date, it is probable that many "advise and assist brigades" will remain along with a large complement of elite Joint Special Operations Forces strike teams (SEALs, Green Berets, etc.) and other officially "non-combat" units — from the CIA, drone operators, fighter pilots, government security employees plus "contractor security" personnel, including mercenaries. Thousands of other "non-combat" American soldiers will remain to train the Afghan army.

According to an Oct. 8 Associated Press dispatch, "Senior U.S. officials have spoken of keeping a mix of 10,000 such [special operations-type] forces in Afghanistan, and drawing down to between 20,000 and 30,000 conventional forces to provide logistics and support. But at this point, the figures are as fuzzy as the future strategy." Estimates of how long the Pentagon will remain in Afghanistan range from 2017 to 2024 to "indefinitely."

Obama marked the 10th anniversary with a public statement alleging that "Thanks to the extraordinary service of these [military] Americans, our citizens are safer and our nation is more secure"— the most recent of the continuous praise of war-fighters and the conduct of these unnecessary wars from the White House since the 2001 bombing, invasion and occupation.

Just two days earlier a surprising Pew Social Trend poll of post-9/11 veterans was made public casting doubt about such a characterization. Half the vets said the Afghanistan war wasn't worth fighting in terms of benefits and costs to the U.S. Only 44% thought the Iraq war was worth fighting. One-third opined that both wars were not worth waging. Opposition to the wars has been higher among the U.S. civilian population. But it's unusual in a non-conscript army for its veterans to emerge with such views about the wars they volunteered to fight.

The U.S. and its NATO allies issued an unusually optimistic assessment of the Afghan war on Oct. 15, but it immediately drew widespread skepticism. According to the New York Times the next day, "Despite a sharp increase in assassinations and a continuing flood of civilian casualties, NATO officials said that they had reversed the momentum of the Taliban insurgency as enemy attacks were falling for the first time in years.... [This verdict] runs counter to dimmer appraisals from some Afghan officials and other international agencies, including the United Nations. With the United States preparing to withdraw 10,000 troops by the end of this year and 23,000 more by next October, it raises questions about whether NATO’s claims of success can be sustained."

Less than two weeks earlier German Gen. Harald Kujat, who planned his country's military support mission in Afghanistan, declared that "the mission fulfilled the political aim of showing solidarity with the United States. But if you measure progress against the goal of stabilizing a country and a region, then the mission has failed."

According to Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is a critically important "long term commitment" and "we’re going to be there longer than 2014." He made the disclosure to the Senate Armed Services Committee Sept. 22, a week before he retired. In a statement Oct. 3, the Pentagon's new NATO commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John Allen, declared: "The plan is to win. The plan is to be successful. And so, while some folks might hear that we're departing in 2014... we're actually going to be here for a long time."

Lt. Gen. John Mulholland, departing head of U.S. Army Special Operations Command, told the AP Oct. 8: "We’re moving toward an increased special operations role...,whether it’s counterterrorism-centric, or counterterrorism blended with counterinsurgency." White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said in mid-September that by 2014 "the U.S. remaining force will be basically an enduring presence force focused on counterterrorism." Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta strongly supports President Obama's call for an "enduring presence" in Afghanistan beyond 2014.

Former U.S. Afghan commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was fired last year for his unflattering remarks about Obama Administration officials, said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations Oct. 6 that after a decade of fighting in Afghanistan the U.S. was only "50% of the way" toward attaining its goals. "We didn’t know enough and we still don’t know enough," he said. "Most of us — me included — had a very superficial understanding of the situation and history, and we had a frighteningly simplistic view of recent history, the last 50 years."

Washington evidently had no idea that one of the poorest and least developed countries in the world — a society of 30 million people where the literacy rate is 28% and life expectancy is just 44 years — would fiercely fight to retain national sovereignty. The Bush Administration, which launched the Afghan war a few weeks after 9/11, evidently ignored the fact that the people of Afghanistan ousted every occupying army from that of Alexander the Great and Genghis Kahn to the British Empire and the USSR.

The U.S. spends on average in excess of $2 billion a week in Afghanistan, not to mention the combined spending of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, but the critical needs of the Afghan people in terms of health, education, welfare and social services after a full decade of military involvement by the world's richest countries remain essentially untended.

For example, 220,000 Afghan children under five — one in five — die every year due to pneumonia, poor nutrition, diarrhea and other preventable diseases, according to the State of the World’s Children report released by the UN Children’s Fund. UNICEF also reports the maternal mortality rate with about 1,600 deaths per every 100,000 live births. Save the Children says this amounts to over 18,000 women a year. It is also reported by the UN that 70% of school-age girls do not attend school for various reasons — conservative parents, lack of security, or fear for their lives. All told, about 92% of the Afghan population does not have access to proper sanitation.

Even after a decade of U.S. combat, the overwhelming majority of the Afghan people still have no clear idea why Washington launched the war. According to the UK's Daily Mail Sept. 9, a new survey by the International Council on Security and Development showed that 92% of 1,000 Afghan men polled had never even heard of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon — the U.S. pretext for the invasion — and did not know why foreign troops were in the country. (Only men were queried in the poll because many more of them are literate, 43.1% compared to 12.6% of women.)

In another survey, conducted by Germany's Konrad Adenauer Foundation and released Oct. 18, 56% of Afghans view U.S./NATO troops as an occupying force, not allies as Washington prefers. The survey results show that "there appears to be an increasing amount of anxiety and fear rather than hope."

Perhaps the most positive news about Afghanistan — and it is a thunderously mixed "blessing" — is that the agricultural economy boomed last year. But, reports the Oct. 11 Business Insider, it's because "rising opium prices have upped the ante in Afghanistan, and farmers have responded by posting a 61% increase in opium production." Afghani farmers produce 90% of the world's opium, the main ingredient in heroin. Half-hearted U.S.-NATO eradication efforts failed because insufficient attention was devoted to providing economic and agricultural substitutes for the cultivation of opium.

Another outcome of foreign intervention and U.S. training is the boundless brutality and corruption of the Afghan police toward civilians and especially Taliban "suspects." Writing in Antiwar.com John Glaser reported:

"Detainees in Afghan prisons are hung from the ceilings by their wrists, severely beaten with cables and wooden sticks, have their toenails torn off, are treated with electric shock, and even have their genitals twisted until they lose consciousness, according to a study released Oct. 10 by the United Nations. The study, which covered 47 facilities sites in 22 provinces, found 'a compelling pattern and practice of systematic torture and ill-treatment' during interrogation by U.S.-supported Afghan authorities. Both U.S. and NATO military trainers and counterparts have been working closely with these authorities, consistently supervising the detention facilities and funding their operations."

In mid-September Human Rights Watch documented that U.S.-supported anti-Taliban militias are responsible for many human rights abuses that are overlooked by their American overseers. At around the same time the American Open Society Foundations revealed that the Obama Administration has tripled the number of nighttime military raids on civilian homes, which terrorize many families. The report noted that "An estimated 12 to 20 raids now occur per night, resulting in thousands of detentions per year, many of whom are non-combatants." The U.S. military admits that half the arrests are "mistakes."

Meanwhile, it was reported in October that in the first nine months this year U.S.-NATO drones conducted nearly 23,000 surveillance missions in the Afghanistan sky. With nearly 85 flights a day, the Obama Administration has almost doubled the daily amount in the last two years. Hundreds of civilians, including nearly 170 children, have been killed in the Afghan-Pakistan border areas from drone attacks. Miniature killer/surveillance drones — small enough to be carried in backpacks— are soon expected to be distributed to U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

So far the Afghanistan war has taken the lives of some 1,730 American troops and about a thousand from NATO. There are no reliable figures on the number Afghan civilians killed since the beginning of the war. The UN's Assistance Mission to Afghanistan did not start to count such casualties until 2007. According to the Voice of America Oct. 7, "Each year, the civilian death toll has risen, from more than 1,500 dead in 2007 to more than 2,700 in 2010. And in the first half of this year, the U.N. office reported there were 2,400 civilians killed in war-related incidents."

At minimum the war has cost American taxpayers about a half-trillion dollars since 2001. The U.S. will continue to spend billions in the country for many years to come and the final cost — including interest on war debts that will be carried for scores more years — will mount to multi-trillions that future generations will have to pay. At present there are 94,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan plus about 37,000 NATO troops. Another 45,000 well paid "contractors" perform military duties, and many are outright mercenaries.

Washington is presently organizing, arming, training and financing hundreds of thousands of Afghan troops and police forces, and is expected to continue paying some $5 billion a year for this purpose at least until 2025.

The U.S. government has articulated various different objectives for its engagement in Afghanistan over the years. Crushing al-Qaeda and defeating the Taliban have been most often mentioned, but as an Oct. 7 article from the Council on Foreign Relations points out: "The main U.S. goals in Afghanistan remain uncertain. They have meandered from marginalizing the Taliban to state-building, to counterinsurgency, to counterterrorism, to — most recently — reconciliation and negotiation with the Taliban. But the peace talks remain nascent and riddled with setbacks. Karzai suspended the talks after the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the government's chief negotiator, which the Afghan officials blamed on the Pakistan-based Haqqani network. The group denies it."

There is another incentive for the U.S. to continue fighting in Afghanistan — to eventually convey the impression of victory, a domestic political necessity.

The most compelling reason for the Afghan war is geopolitical, as noted above — finally obtaining a secure military foothold for the U.S. and its NATO accessory in Central Asian backyards of China and Russia. In addition, a presence in Afghanistan places the U.S. in close military proximity to two volatile nuclear powers backed by the U.S. but not completely under its control by any means (Pakistan, India). Also, this fortuitous geography is flanking the extraordinary oil and natural gas wealth of the Caspian Basin and energy-endowed former Soviet Muslim republics such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

In Iraq, the Obama Administration's justification for retaining troops after the end of this year was ostensibly to train the Iraqi military and police forces, but there were other reasons:

• Washington seeks to remain in Iraq to keep an eye on Baghdad because it fears a mutually beneficial alliance may develop between Iraq and neighboring Iran, two Shi'ite societies, weakening American hegemony in the strategically important oil-rich Persian Gulf region and ultimately throughout the Middle East/North Africa.

• The U.S. also seeks to safeguard lucrative economic investments in Iraq, and the huge future profits expected by American corporations, especially in the denationalized petroleum sector. Further, Pentagon and CIA forces were stationed in close proximity to Iran's western border, a strategic position to invade or bring about regime change.

Under other conditions, the U.S. may simply have insisted on retaining its troops regardless of Iraqi misgivings, but the Status of Forces compact governing this matter can only be changed legally by mutual agreement between Washington and Baghdad. The concord was arranged in December 2008 between Prime Minister Maliki and President George W. Bush — not Obama, who now takes credit for ending the Iraq war despite attempting to extend the mission of a large number of U.S. troops.

At first Washington wanted to retain more than 30,000 troops plus a huge diplomatic and contractor presence in Iraq after "complete" withdrawal. Maliki — pushed by many of the country's political factions, including some influenced by Iran's opposition to long-term U.S. occupation — held out for a much smaller number.

Early in October Baghdad decided that 3,000 to 5,000 U.S. troops in a training-only capacity was the most that could be accommodated. In addition, the Iraqis in effect declared a degree of independence from Washington by insisting that remaining American soldiers must be kept on military bases and not be granted legal immunity when in the larger society. Washington, which has troops stationed in countries throughout the world, routinely insists upon legal exemption for its foreign legions as a matter of imperial hubris, and would not compromise.

The White House has indicated that an arrangement may yet be worked out to permit some American trainers and experts to remain, perhaps as civilians or contractors. Shi’ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, a staunch opponent of the U.S. occupation, has suggested Iraq should employ trainers for its armed forces from other countries.

Regardless, the White House is increasing the number of State Department employees in Iraq from 8,000 to an almost unbelievable 16,000, mostly stationed at the elephantine new embassy in Baghdad's Green Zone quasi-military enclave, in new American consulates in other cities, and in top "advisory" positions in many of the of the regime's ministries, particularly the oil ministry. Half the State Department personnel, 8,000 people, will handle "security" duties, joined by some 5,000 new private "security contractors."

Thus, at minimum the U.S. will possess 13,000 of its own armed "security" forces, and there's still a possibility Baghdad and Washington will work out an arrangement for adding a limited number of "non-combat" military trainers, openly or by other means.

In his Oct. 21 remarks, Obama sought to transform the total withdrawal he sought to avoid into a simulacrum of triumph for the troops and himself: "The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops.... That is how America's military efforts in Iraq will end."

Heads held high, proud of success — for an unjust, illegal war based on lies that took over a million Iraqi lives and created over 4 million refugees! It has been estimated that the final costs of the Iraq war will be $5 trillion to $7 trillion when the debt and interest are finally paid off decades from now.

If President Obama is reelected— even should the Iraq war actually be over — he will be coordinating U.S. involvement in wars and occupations in Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and now Uganda (where American 100 combat troops have just been inserted), plus various expanding drone campaigns, and such adventures as Washington's support for Israel against the Palestinians and for the Egyptian military regime against popular aspirations for full democracy, followed by the backing of dictatorial regimes in a half-dozen countries, and continual threats against Iran.

Washington's $1.4 trillion annual military and national security expenditures are a major factor behind America's monumental national debt and the cutbacks in social services for the people, but aside from White House rhetoric about reducing redundant Pentagon expenditures, overall war/security budgets are expected to increase over the next several years.

The Bush and Obama Administrations have manipulated realty to convince American public opinion that the Iraq and Afghan wars are ending in U.S. successes. Washington fears the resurrection of the "Vietnam Syndrome" that resulted after the April 1975 U.S. defeat in Indochina. The "syndrome" led to a 15-year disinclination by the American people to support aggressive, large-scale U.S. wars against small, poor countries in the developing third world until the January 1991 Gulf War, part one of the two-part Iraq war that continued in March 2003.

According to an article in the Oct. 9 New York Times titled "The Other War Haunting Obama," author, journalist and Harvard emeritus professor Marvin Kalb wrote: "Ten years after the start of the war in Afghanistan, an odd specter haunts the Obama White House — the specter of Vietnam, a war lost decades before. Like Banquo’s ghost, it hovers over the White House still, an unwelcome memory of where America went wrong, a warning of what may yet go wrong."

This fear of losing another war to a much smaller adversary — and perhaps suffering the one-term fate of President Lyndon Johnson who presided over the Vietnam debacle — evidently was a factor behind President Obama's decision to vastly expand the size of the U.S. military commitment to Afghanistan and why the White House is now planning a long-term troop presence beyond the original pullout date.

Today's combat directly touches the lives of only a small minority Americans — militarily members and families — and much of the majority remains uninformed or misinformed about many of the causes and effects of the Iraq/Afghan adventures. Obama may thus eventually be able to convey the illusion of military success, which will help pave the way for future imperial violence unless the people of the United States wise up and act en masse to prevent future aggressive wars.
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5. AMERICA'S FOUR LONG IMPERIALIST WARS
By the Activist Newsletter

Among the many factors about the Bush-Obama wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that Washington and the commercial mass media tend to conceal is that that they have lasted far longer than the U.S. prefers to acknowledge, and are among America's four longest imperialist wars.

For instance, the Afghan war is said to be 10 years old but it's actually a 24-year conflict if you count the 14 years of phase one of this two-part involvement — 1978-92 — when the U.S. funded, equipped and trained reactionary mujahedeen and warlord forces that fought against a left wing government in Kabul and its Soviet protectors.

This U.S./Saudi Arabian-financed/Pakistan-backed war resulted in the defeat of the Afghan left regime in 1992, years after Soviet forces withdrew. It also led to the creation of al-Qaeda and in propelling the Taliban to power in 1995, leading to phase two when the Bush Administration invaded Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center instead of relying on international police action to dismantle the small terror network.

In addition to destroying the left regime, the fundamentalist forces and their U.S./Saudi backers also crushed its extensive reforms to end extreme female subjugation in Afghanistan. One of the Bush Administration's justifications for bombing and invading the country in 2001 was to "liberate" Afghan women from male domination — but 10 years later the situation remains dreadful.

The concurrent Iraq war is considered to be eight years and seven months old but has been going on for almost 21 years. It began when the U.S. launched the Persian Gulf war in January 1991 to punish Iraqi President Saddam Hussain for invading Kuwait, a tiny, neighboring oil-rich monarchy. Kuwait was part of Iraq's Basra province until it after World War I when British imperialism turned it into a colony, now independent. Iraq never accepted the colonial maneuver, and in 2000 tried to get it back — a disastrous move based on Hussain's belief that Washington, which supported his earlier war against Iran, would at ignore Baghdad's Kuwait adventure.

The Gulf War lasted only 42 days, during which the U.S. Air Force conducted 110,000 bombing and strafing attacks. The bombers destroyed most of Iraq's civilian infrastructure — from water, electrical and gas lines, to housing, factories, schools, and hospitals. About 125,000 Iraqi troops and 100,000 civilians were killed. U.S. forces suffered 113 soldiers killed in action, plus 35 from "friendly fire."

But the war didn't end with Iraq's defeat. The U.S. and Britain enforced killer sanctions and a no-fly zone, backed up with frequent bombings, for over a dozen years until sanctions ended with the Bush Administration invasion of March 19, 2003. According to the UN over a million Iraqi's died from 1991 to 2003 — half of them young children — from hunger, disease and exposure due to the sanctions.

At least another million Iraqi's died as a result of the invasion and occupation from March 2003 to today, and over four million are refugees in Iraq or nearby countries, out of a population of 25 million. Washington to this day depicts the Iraqi people as pleased and even happy that the U.S. invaded and rid the country of President Hussein — after a 21-year toll of two million dead and terrible destruction.

Officially, the Vietnam war lasted almost nine years (1964-1973), but it continued for 21 years (1954-1975). The U.S. supported the restoration of French colonial control of Vietnam and all of Indochina after the defeat of Japanese imperialism in 1945 that had earlier displaced French rule. By 1954, Washington officially acknowledged there were 352 Americans in Vietnam in the Military Assistance Advisory group supporting the French against liberation forces led by the Vietnamese Communist Party. The liberators defeated the French army at the historic battle of Dien Bien Phu that same year. When Paris withdraw all remaining French troops in April 1956, according to John Prados in "Vietnam: The History of an Unwinnable war, 1945-1975" (2009), "their departure made America South Vietnam's big brother," i.e., overlord and military protector against the popular forces in the U.S-dominated southern half of the country.

By June 1962, 9,700 U.S. "military advisers" plus a large number of CIA agents were training and fighting to support the corrupt U.S.-backed right wing South Vietnamese government, at which time President Kennedy's Defense Secretary, Robert McNamara, announced that "every quantitative measure shows that we're wining the war." By April 1969, when the number of U.S. troops attained their apogee — 543,482 — Washington was obviously losing. American troops pulled out in 1973 — the alternative was crushing defeat and political catastrophe — although the CIA and military personnel remained in U.S.-South Vietnamese territory assisting the conservative government in Saigon until April 1975 when the entire country was liberated. The U.S. lost 58,000 soldiers. Millions of Vietnamese civilians and soldiers were killed.

American history books suggest the U.S. aggressive war against the Philippines (that is, the Philippine War of Independence from Spain and ultimately from the clutches of racist, imperial America) lasted three years (1899-1902) but it actually took Washington 14 years to smash the impendence movement and colonize the region, at a cost of a million Filipino lives. Washington "granted" independence to the Philippines after World War II. Thanks to the U.S. government/mass media miseducation system, most Americans today have no knowledge of this entire incident, any more than they truly comprehend most of Washington's imperialist wars, from the attack on Mexico in 1848 and resulting land-grab to the 2011 U.S./NATO war for regime change in Libya.

There are many paradoxes to America's 24-year engagement in Afghanistan aside from it having given rise to al-Qaeda and what ultimately metamorphosed into the self-defeating folly known as the Bush-Obama "war on terrorism." Perhaps the most interesting irony stemmed from President Jimmy Carter's decision to support the fundamentalist forces in the late 1970s after the left government in Kabul began implementing progressive reforms. The purpose of the secret U.S. support was to induce Moscow to send in troops to protect its neighboring friendly government.

Carter’s national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, finally acknowledged Washington's deed 20 years later in a 1998 interview in the French periodical Le Nouvel Observateur. Questioned about Washington’s intervention. He declared:

"According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahidin [the collective name of the Muslim fighters] began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan.... But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 [nearly six months before the Soviet intervention], that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. On that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention....We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would."

Asked if he had any regrets about denying Moscow’s assertion that it had intervened to save the Kabul government against a U.S.-sponsored war, the former national security adviser responded: "Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap — and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: Now we have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war."

Had Washington not supported the fundamentalist forces for decades, the Kabul government may have been able to hold its own without requesting Soviet intervention. This could have meant no eventual Taliban takeover, and perhaps no al-Qaeda and no 9/11.
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6. CLIMATE ACTION RALLIES CIRCLE GLOBE
By Environmental News Service

More than 2,000 "Moving Planet" clean-energy demonstrations took place today around the world last month — in all 50 U.S. states and in 175 countries.

"The planet has been stuck for too long with governments doing nothing about the biggest problem we've ever faced," said Bill McKibben, founder of the nonprofit 350.org, the international climate campaign coordinating the Sept. 24 demonstrations.

The campaign is named after the safe upper concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, 350 parts per million. Right now, the atmosphere contains 392 ppm of the greenhouse gas.

"This is the day when people will get the Earth moving, rolling towards the solutions we need," McKibben said.

In the United States, there are more than 700 events in all 50 states. Highlights include a 2,000 person bike ride from Boulder to Denver, Colorado; a 5,000 person rally in Seattle with Mayor Mike McGinn; a massive bicycle parade in San Francisco; and a rally at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

At the UN rally, speakers included Vice President Mohammed Waheed Hassan of the Maldives, a Pacific island nation at risk of becoming uninhabitable due to coastal erosion and sea level rise. Also on the podium at the UN's Dag Hammarskjold Plaza was NASA climate scientist Dr. James Hansen, Laura Flanders of GritTV, and a delegation of indigenous leaders from across the United States.

In Boston, 3,000 people marched and rally at Columbus Waterfront Park.

In Chicago, 500 people protested at a coal plant in Downtown Chicago with Greenpeace Executive Director Kumi Naidoo, who said: "Moving Planet, is a global expression of unity, urgency and purpose to show political and business leaders they need to move from rhetoric to action. Today, we're beginning to move in the right direction."

In Colorado, some 3,000 cyclists rode their bikes from Boulder to Denver, protesting coal plants along the way.

In Minneapolis, 2,000 people rode their bikes to Minneapolis State Capitol to call for clean-energy legislation.

In San Francisco, 5,000 people took to the streets to ride bikes and march to City Hall to hear from McKibben and from Sierra Club Executive Director Mike Brune.

"People in record numbers are waking up to the fact that since too few of our elected leaders in Congress are actually leading, we're going to have to," McKibben said. "The truth is, we've got lots of work to do to solve the climate crisis: big polluters are doing everything in their power to delay real climate action, and they are spending huge amounts of money to distort the truth and block progress. But this weekend's events can show the world that a vibrant movement is coming to life - and that people everywhere are ready to do whatever it takes to move the world beyond fossil fuels."

International events included a march through downtown Cairo, Egypt; a 500 person cycle rally in Delhi, India; the formation of a giant, human bicycle in London, and on the Pacific island of Tuvalu disaster drills and swimming lessons.

From Sydney, Australia, Blair Palese tweets, "More than 200 on Bondi Beach in Sydney flying kites that said "Yes Price Pollution!" As the nation waits for a Parliamentary vote on an emissions trading scheme, 43 events around Australia showed large-scale public support for action!"

Photos from the day's events were displayed on a giant screen outside the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, reminding leaders the world expects progress at climate negotiations in South Africa this November-December and the Rio+20 Earth Summit next June.

— To view some extraordinary photos from Sept. 24, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/350org/sets/72157627713917562/detail/. They give a real sense of the breadth of this movement.
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7. PROTESTS CONDEMN AFGHAN WAR
By the Activist Newsletter

Demonstrations, "die-ins," marches and occupations took place across the U.S. Oct. 7 and 8 marking the 10th anniversary of the Afghanistan war. Occupy Wall St. contingents participated in a number of the actions. The ANSWER Coalition initiated many of the events. Here are six brief reports:

In SAN FRANCISCO, 800 protesters gathered in a spirited opening rally at the Federal Building featuring speakers from several groups including Chito Cuellar, head of the Hotel Division of UNITE HERE! Local 2, and Steve Patt, National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. Demonstrators took to the streets with such chants as "Occupation is a crime from Iraq to Palestine! " and "Money for jobs and education, not for war and occupation! " At Powell and Market Sts., protesters engaged in a "die-in" symbolizing the human cost of this needless war.

The march continued to the Grand Hyatt in solidarity with the picketing hotel workers who have been struggling for a contract, chanting, "We’re gonna boycott! We’re gonna shut it down! San Francisco is a union town! " A rally followed, then the marchers headed to the Financial District for a final rally that drew nearly 2,000 people, according to ANSWER organizers.

In WASHINGTON, D.C., Saturday, Oct. 8, a series of marches protested war and militarism through tourist-filled downtown areas. The nation's capital is the venue of the Stop the Machine coalition, which began a long-term occupation of Freedom Plaza Oct 6, and the Occupy DC encampment at McPherson Sq. Both groups participated in the demonstrations.

The largest march began at McPherson Sq., that included participants from the occupation the Wisconsin state capitol building earlier this year, and members of the antiwar veterans group March Forward!, among others, who hiked to Freedom Plaza to pick up other protesters.

The march of about 2,000 passed through a busy downtown to positive receptions from workers and tourists on its way to the National Air and Space Museum. They had planned to enter the museum to protest an exhibit about the unmanned aerial drone attack vehicles that currently terrorize the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere.

Upon reaching the museum, security guards attacked the front of the march with pepper spray. This led to an impromptu occupation of the museum entrance, which forced its closure for two hours. A second march of combined Stop the Machine and Occupy DC members took a circular route to a brief really outside the White House in order to pass through busy neighborhoods, where they received further encouraging responses.

Albuquerque, Oct. 8: Over 300 protesters gathered in front of the University of New Mexico bookstore in Albuquerque for a march and rally to protest the 10th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan, and to demand an end to corporate greed and corruption. The protest was called by the Albuquerque Coalition Against the Wars, which included ANSWER, Stop the War Machine and Vets for Peace. The militant demonstration was also supported and attended by scores of participants of Occupy Albuquerque, part of the national movement.

Chicago, Oct. 8: Occupy Chicago protesters joined a mass march on the 10th anniversary of the Afghan war. In total, 2,000 people participated in a day of opposition to Wall Street’s wars. Among the popular chants were "People over Profits, Troops Out Now!" and "How Do We Get Our Jobs Back: Tax, Tax, Tax the Rich! " The march was popular with onlookers, especially on State St., a working-class shopping area. When marchers starting chanting "Off the sidewalk and into the streets, " more than a few people joined the march.

Los Angeles, Oct. 7: Some 400 people gathered to condemn the Afghan war, organized by the ANSWER Coalition. The crowd was multinational and young with some members of Occupy LA joining the action, connecting the wars abroad to Wall Street profits at home. Speakers included Jim Lafferty, director of the National Lawyers Guild, and Blase Bonpane from the Office of the Americas. Protesters held a "die-in" at the peak of the demonstration to symbolize the massive loss of life in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Syracuse, N.Y., Oct. 8: Over 100 people here solidarity with the local Occupy Wall Street movement calling for an end to economic inequality, corporate greed and U.S. occupations overseas. The protesters, including a ANSWER contingent, marched through downtown, passing towering bank buildings and boarded-up businesses. The group loudly proclaimed, "We are the 99 percent, " as many passing cars honked in support. The march ended with a rally at the Occupy Syracuse encampment at Perseverance Park.
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8. FRED SHUTTLESWORTH: FREEDOM FIGHTER
By Eugene Puryear, Liberation News

Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth, stalwart civil rights movement leader, died Oct. 5 at the age of 89. Shuttlesworth rose to prominence by continuing civil rights activity in Alabama following the 1956 banning of the NAACP by state officials.

Present at virtually every major event in Alabama civil rights history of the 1950s and 1960s, Shuttlesworth gained broad respect for his willingness to brave the gravest of consequences with no regard to his own life. Most noted for his role in Birmingham’s 1963 "Children’s Crusade," Shuttlesworth was an important supporter of the Freedom Rides. He also accompanied Autherine Lucy as she enrolled as the first Black student at the University of Alabama in 1956.

A two-time victim of bombings and numerous beatings, Shuttlesworth once survived a bomb attack in which six sticks of dynamite were used. When he attempted to enroll his daughters at an all-white school, he was beaten multiple times with chains and brass knuckles, and by his own account was "almost at death’s door. " On the militant, aggressive edge of the non-violent section of the movement, Rev. Shuttlesworth sought to inspire bold action, which also gave him a reputation as a sometime abrasive ally.

Rev. Shuttlesworth was born in the Alabama backwoods in 1922 to a family that made a living sharecropping and bootlegging. In 1940, he was convicted of running a still and received two years probation. Throughout the 1940s, he moved around the state working as a truck driver and cement worker. Towards the end of the decade, he settled into full-time preaching, got married and built his own home out of scrap. By 1953, Shuttlesworth was pastor at Birmingham’s Bethel Baptist church, and an active member of the state’s NAACP.

In 1956, however, the NAACP was effectively banned in Alabama and wound down operations. Already frustrated by organizational obstacles in the NAACP, Shuttlesworth seized the opportunity to fill the void in Alabama with a new civil rights organization, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Later in the decade, he was central to the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Stressing the need for mass action, Shuttlesworth fearlessly engaged in actions of small groups and sometimes of just himself, looking to inspire others..

Shuttlesworth was often at odds with the urban Black elites who had made their own accommodation with Jim Crow. He and other civil rights leaders devoted to mass action to smash segregation had to look to the broad mass of working-class and poor Blacks and grade-school youth, buoyed by college crusaders. The domestic workers, the sharecroppers and the high school students who filled jails — these were the backbone of the Alabama struggle in the early 1960s.

Shuttlesworth’s centrality to the Birmingham movement made him a crucial ally of the Freedom Riders in 1961. The Freedom Rides electrified the nation as groups of students braved threats and violence to test court rulings on desegregation in interstate travel. On Mothers Day, May 14, the Freedom Riders arrived in Birmingham. For weeks prior, Shuttlesworth had warned of a Klan ambush, the threat of which was an open secret in the city.

Birmingham was known at that time as a seat of Jim Crow terrorism, with one of the South’s most vicious law enforcement officials, Eugene "Bull" Connor. Connor had begun his career breaking strikes and hounding communists in 1930s Birmingham, and was a zealous opponent of civil rights activity. Connor and the Klan were determined to stop the Freedom Rides in Birmingham, so Connor promised the KKK 15 minutes of complete freedom to attack the Freedom Riders in the bus terminal.

Once the melee began, Shuttlesworth’s home became an impromptu mobilization center that people at the bus station called for help; it was where reinforcements were dispatched and where protesters who escaped the violence sought shelter. Organizers from Shuttlesworth’s ACMHR rescued Freedom Riders trapped in and near the bus terminal. Shuttlesworth went on helping coordinate logistics with student leaders in Nashville as well as getting arrested himself in a struggle that kept the Freedom Rides going.

Shuttlesworth is most associated with his role in the events around the "Children’s Crusade" of 1963. With his developed network in the city, Shuttlesworth joined with Martin Luther King Jr. to turn Birmingham into a watershed moment for the movement. In his words, "We were trying to launch a systematic, wholehearted battle against segregation, which would set the pace for the nation. "

However, the movement was slow to pick up momentum, with almost uniform opposition from the urban Black elites, optimistic that the triumph of white liberals in recent elections would usher in an era of slow and steady desegregation. Students from elementary to high school, not content to wait and skeptical of promises from politicians, became increasingly involved in the movement. They filled jails to their capacity and scandalized the world as pictures of dogs and fire hoses being unleashed on children filtered out through the media.

While leading one protest, Shuttlesworth was hit in the chest and taken away in an ambulance. Upon hearing that news, Bull Connor publicly remarked that he wished Shuttlesworth had been taken away in a hearse. It was Connor, however, who was carted off as the Birmingham movement broke down the wall of segregation and electrified the civil rights movement, injecting the issue into the center of the nation's consciousness.

Rev. Shuttlesworth remained involved in civil rights issues, including a failed attempt at reinvigorating the SCLC, basing himself out of Cincinnati. Unfortunately, in 2004 he lent his name to an effort to block a gay rights ordinance. He died in Birmingham, where he had relocated following a stroke in 2008, leaving behind a legacy with much to admire and emulate.
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9. CANADIANS ARRESTED IN TAR SANDS PROTEST
By the Activist Newsletter

OTTAWA — About 200 people were arrested at Parliament Hill Sept. 26 as they attempted to stage a sit-in in the House of Commons to protest drilling for "dirty" oil in tar sands.

Protestors were blocked from entering by fenced barricades and over 50 RCMP officers.
Most were released with a trespassing violation. It was the largest climate-related civil disobedience action in Canadian history. It took place as hundreds of supporters participated in a solidarity rally that continued throughout the day.

The action was a follow up to two-weeks of protests outside the White House that resulted in the arrest of 1,252 people in late August/early September.

"Today’s protest was a turning point when people in Canada from coast to coast to coast stood together against the tar sands and for a clean energy future that promotes climate justice," said Keith Stewart of Greenpeace Canada who was arrested on the Hill.

"The movement against the tar sands and [conservative Prime Minister Stephen] Harper’s reckless agenda will continue to grow as long as our government ignores its responsibilities to protect our environment and our communities and continues to be the mouthpiece for the destructive tar sands industry."

"The action on parliament hill was a true blue and green event, " said Maude Barlow with the Council of Canadians. "Today, labor, environmental and Indigenous leaders stood together to push this government to turn away from the tar sands and towards a green energy future."

Those arrested included Barlow, David Coles (Energy and Paperworkers Union), Tony Clarke (Polaris Institute), Keith Stewart (Greenpeace) and George Poitras (former Chief of the Mikisew Cree).

"What we saw today is that concern about the impact the tar sands is having on land, air, water and communities spans generations, cultures and social backgrounds," said Clayton Thomas Mueller with the Indigenous Environmental Network. "Native communities should not be sacrifice zones. The people of Fort Chipewyan deserve justice and we deserve a future that prioritizes the health of our environment and all our communities."

The principal point of the rally and civil disobedience was to urge Harper to turn away from a destructive tar sands industry and start building a green energy future that promotes climate justice, respects Indigenous rights and prioritizes the health of the environment and communities.

Harper's Conservative Party government lashed out at the demonstrators and critics of its environment record as "extremists who want to kill Canadian jobs."

If approved this year by the Obama administration — and it appears to be headed in that direction — the multi-billion dollar Keystone XL project, proposed by Alberta-based TransCanada, would provide a new 1,860 mile route for about 700,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta's tar stands to 15 refineries on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

The province of Alberta and Canadian government officials have touted the project for its economic benefits, including thousands of new jobs in both countries, but environmental groups have turned the project into a debate over expansion in the tar sands sector — which requires large amounts of water, land and energy to extract synthetic oil from Alberta and Saskatchewan's northern bitumen deposits.

—Information from Council of Canadians, Montreal Gazette, other sources.
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10. INTERNATIONAL NEWS IN BRIEF
By the Activist Newsletter

•• MORE U.S. WEAPONS FOR DICTATORSHIP — The Obama Administration has finalized the sale of $53 million worth of weapons and military equipment to the dictatorship in Bahrain, despite months of widespread human rights abuses against peaceful protesters, it was reported Oct. 18. The package includes armored vehicles, high-tech TOW and bunker buster missiles, anti-tank rocket launchers, and tens of millions of dollars of spare parts and military communications equipment.

The Pentagon has long cut deals with Bahrain in weaponry, recently sending dozens of American tanks, armored personnel carriers, helicopter gunships, thousands of .38 caliber pistols and millions of rounds of ammunition, from .50 caliber rounds used in sniper rifles and machine guns to bullets for handguns.

The Sunni monarchy in Bahrain has committed serious crimes against the majority Shi'ite population , including harsh violence on demonstrating civilians, mass detentions, torturing prisoners, targeting medical professionals for treating injured protesters, cracking down on freedom of the press, and more. Washington has supplied the dictatorship with over $92 million in aid since President Obama took office, with another $26.2 million slated for next year. (Information from Antiwar.com.)

•• AMERICAN TROOPS IN UGANDA — President Obama announced Oct. 14 he is sending about 100 U.S. combat troops to Africa to hunt down and fight the leaders of the Christian rebel militant group the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in and around Uganda. He said the troops would "provide assistance to regional forces that are working toward the removal of Joseph Kony [head of the LRA] from the battlefield.”

The president aside “I believe that deploying these U.S. armed forces furthers U.S. national security interests and foreign policy and will be a significant contribution toward counter-LRA efforts in central Africa,” He did not explain why a rebel group in Uganda is a concern for U.S. national security.

Obama’s claim that the LRA is a legitimate national security concern is presumably supposed to simply be accepted without any evidence or explanation; truth by presidential decree. But it is also notable how quickly and easily, in disregard for the Constitutional requirements, the President can send American troops to far off places without Congressional approval. (From Antiwar.com.)

•• GUERRILLA ATTACK IN COLOMBIA — The leftist Colombian guerrilla organization FARC attacked a government military unit Oct. 21, killing 10 soldiers and wounding six near the Pacific port of Tumaco. According to AP, "Despite major security gains against rebels over the past decade, they retain the ability to mount hit-and-run attacks, in large part due to Colombia’s rugged mountains and thick jungles.... Several hundred security force members are killed annually" in the decades-long struggle waged by FARC, which stands for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

•• SOUTH CHINA SEA DISPUTE EASES — China and Vietnam have signed an agreement to manage a sometimes bitter dispute over the South China Sea. The deal outlines a series of measures, including a hotline to deal with emergencies and a provision for authorities from both countries to meet twice a year.

This agreement comes after months of tension over who has sovereignty over this contentious body of water. Ships from the two counties clashed a few months ago - and there were anti-China demonstrations in Hanoi.

The South China Sea potentially holds vast oil and gas reserves, and is an important shipping route. Any final agreement on maritime borders should be based on international law, the deal says - and be acceptable to both sides. (From BBC, Oct. 12.)

•• ARTCIC ICE IS MELTING FAST— There is probably less ice floating on the Arctic Ocean now than at any time since a particularly warm period 8,000 years ago, soon after the last ice age. The underlying cause is believed by all but a handful of climatologists to be global warming brought about by greenhouse-gas emissions. Yet the rate the ice is vanishing confounds these climatologists’ models. These predict that if the level of carbon dioxide, methane and so on in the atmosphere continues to rise, then the Arctic Ocean will be free of floating summer ice by the end of the century. At current rates of shrinkage, by contrast, this looks likely to happen some time between 2020 and 2050. (From The Economist, Sept. 23.)
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11. U.S. CONS POOR WORKERS, FAMILIES
By the Activist Newsletter

Washington's methods of measuring both the minimum wage and the poverty line are way out of date in each case, to the detriment of tens of millions of American workers and poor families.

"The current value of the minimum wage is well below its historic peak in the late 1960s," according to the Economic Policy Institute on the basis of the inflation-adjusted value of the minimum wage since 1960: "When adjusted for inflation, the minimum wage was worth $8.54 per hour in 1968, compared to the current minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. (New York State's minimum wage is more than 21% below its peak value in 1970, which was $9.23 in today’s dollars.) Based on a typical, 2,000-hour work year, the 1968 inflation-adjusted minimum wage would equate to an annual salary of $17,080 per year, versus $14,500 for today’s minimum wage."

In reality the minimum wage is woefully substandard, and 67% of the American people — according to Public Religion Research Institute's respected American Values Survey last November — support an increase to $10 an hour. But an increase won't happen anytime soon, even though it would act as a substantial stimulus to the depressed U.S. economy. It took over 10 years achieve the last boost to $7.25. Many congressional Republicans oppose any increase and some such as the Tea Party's Rep. Michele Bachmann and libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, both of whom seek the GOP presidential nomination, want to abolish the minimum wage altogether.

Washington probably skews poverty statistics even more than the minimum. Here's how it's done, according to the National Center for Children in Poverty (NCCP), a leading public policy center dedicated to promoting the well-being of low-income families and children:

"According to the federal poverty guidelines, the poverty level is $22,050 for a family of four, $18,310 for a family of three, $14,570 for two and $10,830 for one. The poverty guidelines are used to determine eligibility for public programs.

"The current poverty measure was established in the 1960s and is now widely acknowledged to be outdated. It was based on research indicating that families spent about one-third of their incomes on food — the official poverty level was set by multiplying food costs by three. Since then, the same figures have been updated annually for inflation but have otherwise remained unchanged.

"Yet food now comprises only one-seventh of an average family’s expenses, while the costs of housing, child care, health care, and transportation have grown disproportionately. Most analysts agree that today’s poverty thresholds are too low. And although there is no consensus about what constitutes a minimum but decent standard of living in the U.S., research consistently shows that, on average, families need an income of about twice the federal poverty level to meet their most basic needs.

"Failure to update the federal poverty level for changes in the cost of living means that people who are considered poor today by the official standard are worse off relative to everyone else than people considered poor when the poverty measure was established. The current federal poverty measure equals about 29% of median household income, whereas in the 1960s, the poverty level was nearly 50% of the median.

"The European Union and most advanced industrialized countries measure poverty quite differently from the U.S. Rather than setting minimum income thresholds below which individuals and families are considered to be poor, other countries measure economic disadvantage relative to the citizenry as a whole, for example, having income below 50%."
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12. CAN CAPITALISM HALT CLIMATE CHANGE?

[John Bellamy Foster, the author of several important books and numerous articles on ecology and the editor of Monthly Review magazine, was interviewed recently by Peter Boyle for Australia's Green Left Weekly newspaper about the impact of the global financial crisis on capitalism’s response to climate change. Here are excerpts from his reply. See links below for his writings.]
By John Bellamy Foster

The global financial crisis has now turned into a global stagnation that is affecting the economies of the triad (the United States, Europe and Japan) and much of the rest of the world. Under these circumstances, the capitalist system is unlikely to respond to climate change at all. As in every economic crisis, there will be a tendency toward increased environmental deregulation, not environmental regulation.

The only good news from an environmental standpoint is that the slowdown in economic growth diminishes the rate of impact on the environment. Nevertheless, to the extent that public attention is diverted from climate change as an issue, necessary actions are not taken while the overall problem gets worse.

The truth is that the capitalist system is unable to respond to climate change: either in periods of prosperity or stagnation, and in the latter case everything but the latest stock quotes and profit figures recede into the background.

The deficit reduction drive [in the U.S.] will pull the economy down further. At the same time it means that the state cannot be a force for carrying out the kinds of changes that would help the environment.

For example, the budget deal reportedly slashed $1.5 billion dollars from Obama’s high speed train project (designed to reduce dependence on cars). Since this was the only really important positive climate change measure that the Obama Administration put through the slashing of it is quite symbolic....

In terms of the wider population in the United States, I would say that the primary issue in the country is jobs, and climate change is a political non-issue, so that while [climate] denialism is considered a political asset on the right, liberals see no percentages in pursuing the matter and are inclined to downplay it, except when directly addressing environmentalist audiences.

The Obama administration of course has no policy at all to speak of with respect to climate change and now seldom mentions it at all. More important for Obama is expanding energy sources: oil from deep sea drilling, coal, nuclear, shale oil, etc, as a means of leveraging economic growth, and, more immediately, gaining corporate backing.

In other words, the situation in the United States seems to confirm that there is no hope to be found at present anywhere in the system where climate change is concerned.
Environmentally, the entire planet is threatened on an ever increasing scale, while planetary systems have proven themselves to be vulnerable in ways that we previously failed to appreciate. At one time, we could afford to ignore what humanity could do to the Earth in a mere 12 months. Those days are now gone. Changes that previously defined geological history are now occurring on the level of decades.

The further we go down the path of "business as usual" the greater the social and ecological revolution we will need to pull the planet out of this impending disaster.

— Of Foster's multitude of writings on the question of capitalism and ecology, we found his two recent books the most useful: "The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet" and the just published "What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know about Capitalism." Information at http://monthlyreview.org/press/.
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13. CLIMATE CHANGE DRIVES ANIMAL MIGRATIONS
By the Activist Newsletter from various sources

Global warming is causing animals and plants to migrate further up mountains and away from the equator in attempts to avoid the higher temperatures associated with climate change, scientists have found in an exhaustive survey of nearly 1,400 species.

Commenting editorially on the survey Sept. 27, the New York Times declared: "A rapid reduction in greenhouse gas emissions is tragically unlikely. We are holding the future of every species on this planet — including ourselves — hostage."

The rate of movement is on average up to three times faster than previously expected for species migrating towards the poles and about twice as fast for organisms that are migrating further up the sides of mountains, according to I-Ching Chen, a researcher at Taiwan's Academia Sinica and the study's lead author.

A major review of the distribution of animals and plants, published in the journal Science in mid-August, found wide variations between individual species but taken as a group there appears to be unequivocal evidence that climate change is the cause of the mass movement, said Professor Chris Thomas of the University of York.

"Species of animals and plants have been moving their distributions away from the equator and towards the poles much faster than previously realized, he said. "In fact species are moving northward in the northern hemisphere and southward in the southern hemisphere on average at a rate of about 11 miles per decade.... This has been going on for the last 40 years and is set to continue for at least the rest of the century.

"It's just a phenomenal rate of movement of the whole of biological life away from the equator towards the poles. How do we know it's related to climate change? Well partly because there is no other reasonable explanation for why everything should be moving to higher elevations and to higher latitudes, but also because we find the rate of movement is greater in the regions that have experienced the most warming," Professor Thomas explained.

The migration isn't universal, said Chris Thomas, a biologist at Britain's University of York and the project's leader. About a quarter of the roughly 1,500 species examined in the study moved toward warmer latitudes, in some cases due to the loss of habitat or man-made obstacles such as belts of farmland that prevented them from following other animal life north.

One of the faster moving species is the British spider silometopus, Thomas said. In 25 years, the small spider has moved its home range more than 200 miles north, averaging 8 miles a year, he said.

Stanford University biologist Terry Root, who wasn't part of this study but praised it as clever and conservative, points to another species, the American pika, a rabbitlike creature that has been studied in Yellowstone National Park for more than a century. The pika didn't go higher than 7,800 feet in 1900, but in 2004 they were seen at 9,500 feet, she said.
— Information, from The Independent, AP, CNN and the New York Times.
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14. AMNESTY BLASTS CLERGY SEXUAL ABUSE
By the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)

NEW YORK — Amnesty International Ireland’s release Sept. 26 of a major human rights report on clergy sexual abuse marks another important step in the journey towards holding Vatican officials accountable for the systematic and widespread concealing of rape and child sex crimes throughout the world.

Indeed, as Amnesty makes clear in more than 400 pages of documentation, the abuse of children "included acts that amounted to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment." The Amnesty International report, titled "In Plain Sight: Responding to the Ferns, Ryan, Murphy and Cloyne Reports," includes a summary of four previous investigations into abuse by clergy in Ireland.

These reports were included in the CCR’s Sept. 13 International Criminal Court filing against the Pope and top Vatican officials, seeking accountability for clergy sexual abuse. The CCR submitted 22,000 pages of evidence and says "the ICC filing is only a small fraction of the evidence already available."

According to Colm O’Gorman, executive director of Amnesty International Ireland, "The abuse of tens of thousands of Irish children is perhaps the greatest human rights failure in the history of the state. Much of the abuse described in the Ryan Report meets the legal definition of torture under international human rights law."

The report makes clear what happens when governmental authorities cede their responsibility to respect, protect and fulfill the rights of vulnerable children and adults to a church that can’t be trusted with it, or with their children.
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15. BEWARE OF ATTENDING 'WRONG SCHOOL'
By Rania Khalek

Kindergartener A.J. Paches was kicked out of Brookside Elementary School earlier this year because his homeless mother used a friend's address to register him in the wealthy district of Norwalk, Connecticut. After expelling A.J., Norwalk authorities charged his mother with first-degree larceny for enrolling her son under a false address, a felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

Sadly, A.J.'s story is not unique. He is one of several low-income students whose parents use the residence of a relative or friend to provide their children with educational opportunities that are severely lacking in poor districts. In the recession era of budget deficits and cuts to public education, wealthy school districts are cracking down hard on these families, going to extreme lengths to identify the kids and prosecute the parents.

One popular method is to offer bounties to tipsters who report students who turn out to be illegally enrolled. As of 2008, the Bayonne Board of Education in New Jersey offers a $100 bounty for tips about students suspected of lying about their residency. In the middle-class suburban enclave of Clifton, New Jersey, the bounty is set at $300 for informants who correctly report a boundary hopper. According to the New York Times, the district immediately follows up with a visit by an "attendance officer " to the suspected students home.

In anticipation of the growing demand for residence verification, private companies like VerifyResidence.com and LiarCatchers.com are offering their investigative services aimed directly at public school districts. According to its Web site, VerifyResidence.com not only offers residence audits, but also surveillance stakeouts by investigators using "the latest in covert video technology and digital photographic equipment to photograph, videotape, and document subject activity when logistically possible. "

Perhaps more shocking than the invasive surveillance techniques schools are using to identify these students, are the punishments they dish out to parents.

Take the case of Kelley Williams-Bolar, an African-American single mother living in the housing projects of Akron, Ohio. She made national headlines in January when she was convicted on two felony counts of tampering with court records and sentenced to 10 days in jail with three years probation for illegally enrolling her kids in the predominately white and higher-quality school district next door.

Fearing for the safety of her two daughters in the Akron school district, Williams-Bolar used her father’s address in the nearby suburban district of Copley-Fairlawn to enroll her children in what she believed was a better performing and safer school environment. In handing down what many considered a harsh sentence, Judge Patricia Cosgrove specifically noted that the court was making an example out of Williams-Bolar "so that others who think they might defraud the school system perhaps will think twice. "

Williams-Bolar had been working as a teacher’s aide in the Akron city school district while taking night classes to earn a teaching degree. Two felony convictions would likely have jeopardized a future teaching career. Fortunately, Ohio Governor John Kasich intervened by reducing her charges to misdemeanors, calling it "a second chance " rather than a pass. However, other parents facing similar circumstances haven’t been as lucky.

In April, the Stamford Advocate, a local Connecticut paper, reported that 33-year-old Tanya McDowell, a homeless single mother from Bridgeport, Connecticut, was arrested for registering her 5-year-old son for kindergarten in the affluent school district of Norwalk by using the address of her son’s after-school babysitter, Ana Rebecca Marquez. McDowell is currently facing up to 20 years in prison for first-degree larceny and conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny along with a $15,000 fine, which is supposedly to reimburse Norwalk for the cost of educating her son.

Regarding McDowell’s charges, Norwalk Mayor Richard Moccia said, "This now sends a message to other parents that may have been living in other towns and registering their kids with phony addresses," suggesting that the reason for the prosecution has more to do with making an example out of McDowell than seeking restitution or justice.

In the meantime, McDowell’s son, now 6, is staying with his grandmother while his mother is in jail awaiting trial. McDowell is receiving support from both the NAACP and the Connecticut Parents Union (CTPU), an education advocacy group.

Gwendolyn Samuel, founder of CTPU, told me that Ana Marquez, the babysitter who allowed McDowell to use her address, "got hit the hardest." After the Norwalk Housing Authority evicted Marquez for fraud, her two young children, ages 4 and 6, were removed from her custody by the Department of Children and Family Services for a week. The family was then left homeless, shuffling from shelter to shelter for months. Meanwhile, the housing authority seized Marquez’s household belongings, which it has yet to return.

Due to the trauma endured by Marquez and her small children, who are now living with relatives in Florida, the CTPU has filed a lawsuit against the Norwalk Housing Authority on their behalf. Samuel is adamant about assisting Marquez in seeking damages from the housing authority for their reckless handling of her case....

CTPU has also been working to pass a legislative amendment that would prohibit the arrest of parents who lie about where they live to provide their children with a better education.

The striking disparities in school quality between rich and poor neighborhoods aren’t exactly a secret. Any person who has stepped foot inside a wealthy suburban public school and an inner city public school would have to be blind not to recognize the differences in class and race. But for those who haven’t seen it for themselves, the willingness of parents to risk breaking the law to send their kids to better schools should serve as a window into the inequalities that permeate the American public school system. Hiring detectives to videotape kids at the bus stop and throwing parents in jail is not going to change that.
— Rania Khalek is an associate writer for AlterNet, where this article appeared Oct. 19.

10-04-11 Activist Calendar

2011-10-04T12:44:00.004-04:00

HUDSON VALLEY ACTIVIST CALENDAR
Oct. 4, 2011, Issue #669
Send event announcements to jacdon@earthlink.net
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Dedicated to Helping Build Activist
Movements in the Hudson Valley
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THE WALL STREET OCCUPATIONS

"Occupy Wall Street" demonstrations are breaking out in many U.S. cities following the example set by the occupation of Liberty Square (Zuccotti Park) in New York City that began last month and is still going strong. The big Washington action — months in preparation — will begin on Thursday, Oct. 6 (see below).

On Oct. 5 there will be a solidarity march in New York City sponsored by a number of labor and community groups — see below, including buses from Albany, Highland and Rock Tavern — in support of Occupy Wall Street.

Two events earlier this year — the uprisings in the Arab countries, combined with the right wing attack on the union movement and public sector workers in Wisconsin and the dramatic fight-back by workers and community people — have inspired anti-establishment activism throughout the United States, which contributed to the current demonstrations.

The are many issues behind the various Occupy Wall Street protests. In general the actions are the product of several decades of increasing right wing domination of the American political system, stagnant wages and incomes for the working class and lower middle class, burgeoning poverty, historic economic inequality and the dissipation of the so-called "American Dream" (i.e., possible upward mobility and at least superficial equality).

These social deficits have been exacerbated by the Great Recession, extreme unemployment and underemployment, and the reluctance of the two ruling parties to take the steps necessary to alleviate the increasing immiseration of America's working families. Meanwhile, an enormously wealthy but small minority whistles an idle tune as it inventories the daily-expanding assets of the upper class, much to the justified irritation of public sentiment. And lurking in the background are two potentially toxic realities: the precarious position of U.S. and European capitalism, combined with Washington's declining global hegemony, a volatile mixture which may provoke greater international instability and wars.

It is too early to predict whether the Wall Street Occupations have staying power, or what such power might amount to politically, not least because of the presently decentralized and often explicitly "leaderless" nature of some of the protests. At the least they will shake things up even more, a most positive development. At best, given the immense contradictions within American society today, the growing oppositional force may become a step toward the rebuilding of a needed mass left political movement in our country.

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ACTIVIST EVENTS

Wednesday, Oct. 5, NEW YORK CITY: A labor and community movement-sponsored march and rally in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators will take place this afternoon. The legal march will leave from City Hall Park (250 Broadway in Manhattan) at 4:30 p.m. heading for Liberty Square/Zuccotti Park (Liberty St. and Broadway), three blocks north of Wall St. A rally and other events will take place at the park until 7 p.m. The march is sponsored by about 35 labor and liberal organizations, including: TWU Local 100, SEIU 1199, CWA 1109, RWDSU, Communications Workers of America, United Auto Workers, United Federation of Teaches, CUNY Professional Staff Congress, National Nurses United, Writers Guild East, CWA Local 1180, Working Families Party, Coalition for the Homeless, NYC Coalition for Educational Justice, New Deal for New York Campaign, National People's Action, Labor-Religion Coalition (NYS), Citizen Action of NY, MoveOn.org, Common Cause NY, 350.org.
Information, http://occupywallst.org/, https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=282473051782707.

Wednesday, Oct. 5, HIGHLAND to NYC: There will be bus available to bring some Mid-Hudson activists to the Occupy Wall Street solidarity march. It will be leaving from the park and ride in Highland (Rt. 9W and Rt. 299) sponsored by the Labor Religion Coalition. Arrive at the park and ride no later than 12:15 p.m. The requested cost is $20 a seat (though it's a sliding scale downward or upward, depending on what you can pay). Sandwiches will be provided but bring snacks, etc. If you wish to take this bus, call Move-On's Dan Vollweiler at (518) 334-6928 to let him know you want a seat, since they may be scarce. The march is intended as a show of support, not an act of civil disobedience. The event lasts from 4:30-7 p.m. The bus will leave by 8 p.m.

Wednesday, Oct. 5, ALBANY to NYC: The bus making a pickup in Highland (above) originates from the Capital District, leaving at 11 a.m. from NYSUT headquarters, 800 Troy-Schenectady Rd., Latham. For seating arrangements, contact Sara Niccoli, Labor-Religion Coalition, saran@labor-religion.org, (646) 229-1091.

Wednesday, Oct. 5, ROCK TAVERN to NYC: A Teamster union bus from Orange County bringing labor and community supporters to the New York City solidarity march will depart at 1 p.m. from Local 44515, Stone Castle Rd. RSVP: Sandy Shaddock at( 845) 567-7760 to reserve a seat as seating is limited.

Wednesday, Oct. 5, NEW PALTZ. ALBANY and NEW YORK STATE: State University of New York students from several locations, joined by students from some City University of New York campuses, are planning a statewide walkout/teach-in today in opposition to increased tuition and fees, and cutbacks in services and staff. They are part of a new organization titled New York Students Rising. SUNY New Paltz students will leave classes noon-3 p.m., meeting in front of the Humanities Bldg. Information, http://www.nystudentsrising/.

Wednesday, Oct. 5, ALBANY: A documentary titled "Budrus: It Takes a Village to Unite the Most Divided People on Earth" will be screened 6:30-8:30 p.m at Albany Public Library, Pine Hills Branch, 517 Western Ave. The film focuses on a Palestinian town threatened by the Separation Barrier wall. A discussion will follow this free public event. Information, http://palestinianrightscommittee.org, zalatwi@hotmail.com, (518) 465-5425.

Thursday, Oct. 6, WASHINGTON: "Stop the Machine! Create a New World!" is the call to a mass nonviolent action beginning today at Freedom Plaza (13th St. and Pennsylvania Ave. NW) and continuing for as long as activists are willing to sustain the protest — days, weeks or much longer. Some will offer civil disobedience, others will not. People are attending from throughout the U.S. We're told dozens of activists from the Hudson Valley will take part.
• Politically, the specific demands upon the U.S. government are: "Tax the rich and corporations; End the wars, bring the troops home, cut military spending; Protect the social safety net, strengthen Social Security and improved Medicare for all; End corporate welfare for oil companies and other big business interests; Transition to a clean energy economy, reverse environmental degradation; Protect worker rights including collective bargaining, create jobs and raise wages; Get money out of politics."
•This action is being organized by the October 2011 Coalition, composed of "groups who advocate for peace and social, economic and environmental justice, in a sustained occupation and nonviolent resistance to Stop the Machine! Create a New World! What is the machine? Corporatism and militarism. What new world is possible? One in which people's needs are more important than corporate profits, in which we unite our struggles for jobs, education, housing, healthcare and human rights in which we are freed to implement solutions for a peaceful, just and sustainable world." A great many details are available at the coalition's website, http://www.October2011.org, from a schedule of events to FAQs, information about sleeping arrangements, transportation and much more. Information, info@october2011.org.
• ANSWER and other groups are taking part in a rally at the Federal Building in San Francisco Oct. 6 in solidarity with the start of the Oct. 6 “Stop the Machine” action in Washington.

Thursday, Oct. 6, WOODSTOCK: "The Power of Water in N.Y. — Transition to Preparedness" is the title of a "panel discussion to help communities move toward preparedness and a sustainable, water-secure future." This free public event, sponsored by Transition Woodstock, will be held 7:30-9:30 p.m., at the Reform Church, 16 Tinker St. Panelists include Mary McNamara, Lower Esopus Watershed Partnership; Wolf Bravo, founder, Sustainable Urubamba; Russel Urban-Mead, hydrogeologist. Information, Vickie Anne O'Dougherty, (845) 679-2135.

Thursday, Oct. 6, ALBANY: The State Assembly Environmental Conservation committee holds a public hearing on hydraulic fracturing at 9:30 a.m. in the Legislative Office Building's Harrison Room. The meeting is expected to attract an audience opposed to "fracking," the dangerous method employed to extract natural gas from Marcellus Shale deposits in New York State. A number of anti-fracking groups are expected to attend the hearing. FrackAction is organizing a bus from NYC. We understand carpool information from the Mid-Hudson Valley is available from joanwalker@gmail.com.

Friday, Oct. 7, SEVERAL CITIES: The Bush Administration launched its unjust invasion and occupation of Afghanistan exactly 10 years ago today. The ANSWER Coalition has organized a number of demonstrations demanding an immediate end to U.S. aggression, which has been widened by the Obama Administration, in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and elsewhere. ANSWER is also organizing for UNAC's Oct. 15 protests in several cities.

Friday, Oct. 7, MILLBROOK: Economist, Pavan Sukhdev will speak about the green economy at the Cary Institute, 2801 Sharon Tpk. (Rt 44) at 11 a.m. Sukhdev, former head of the United Nations Environment Program, is the lead author of the report, "Towards a Green Economy." He will explore how the greening of economies is an engine for growth, a source of employment, and a means of alleviating poverty. Free and public. Information, (845) 677-7600, ext. 121, freemanp@caryinstitute.org.

Friday, Oct. 7, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): This is Local Food Week — Farmfest — in New Paltz Village. Free food and live music will available for all at the Old Main Quad, 1-5 p.m. (Campus map: http://www.newpaltz.edu/map/.) There's also fundraising and an art raffle for the local Gardens for Nutrition and New Paltz Flood Aid. Information, farmfestnp@gmail.com, http://www.npfarmfest.blogspot.com/.

Saturday, Oct. 8, NEW YORK CITY: "Indian Point is Old, Dangerous, and Unnecessary — Tell Cuomo to Shut it Down Now!" is the slogan of a 12-2 p.m. rally outside Gov. Cuomo's office, 633 Third Ave. and 41st St. in Manhattan. Indian Point, of course, is the Hudson Valley's very own nuclear power facility, in close enough proximity to New York City to the south and the Mid-Hudson region to the north to cause a calamity should it ever melt down. (It's situated on the Hudson River shore near Peekskill — and two earthquake fault lines!) Speakers include radio host Gary Null and author Chris Williams. Sponsored by The Progressive Radio Network, Indian Point Safe energy Coalition and Stop Indian Point Now. Information, http://progressiveradionetwork.com.

Thursday, Oct. 13, TROY: To commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Patriot Act, ACLU President Susan N. Herman will speak about the negative impact on civil liberties of this Bush Administration initiative, now carried forward by the Obama Administration. The venue is the Sanctuary for Independent Media, 3361 6th Ave. (at 101st St.), beginning at 7 p.m. A $10/$5 donation is requested. Information, (518) 272-2390, info@MediaSanctuary.org, http://www.MediaSanctuary.org.

Saturday, Oct. 15, ALBANY: There will be a peace march and rally to mark the 10th anniversary of the unjust U.S. invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and drone attacks in adjacent western Pakistan. There will be speakers, live music. Peace and justice organizations are welcome to table at this event, which will be held 12 noon-2 p.m. in Townsend Park — the triangle where Central Ave. converges with Washington Ave. adjacent to Henry Johnson Blvd. (across from the Social
Justice Center). The sponsor is Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace. Information, (518) 439-1968, http://www.bethlehemforpeace.org.

Saturday, Oct. 15, WASHINGTON: A Rally and March for Jobs and Justice, backed by labor, religious, community, and civil rights groups begins at 11 a.m. the Sylvan Theatre at 15th and Independence, followed by a march to the just-opening Martin Luther King Jr. Monument. The event has been initiated by the National Action Network, led by Rev. Al Sharpton, and co-sponsored by Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, and Lee Saunders, secretary treasurer of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The march to the King Memorial — at Ohio Drive SW and West Basin Drive SW —will begin round 1 p.m. Speakers include Weingarten, Sharpton, and radio personality Tom Joyner. Several unions are helping organize this event, including the New York State United Teachers, which is organizing buses leaving from many of the union’s 16 regional offices very early Saturday morning.

Saturday, Oct. 15, KINDERHOOK: A 1 p.m. union-backed "Rally for American Jobs" is scheduled outside Rep. Chris Gibson's office, 2 Hudson St., demanding that he vote for President Obama's American Jobs Act. Information, esoto@hvalf.org, (845) 567-7760,
http://www.hvalf.org.

Sunday, Oct. 16, MILLBROOK: Since the Hudson Valley is one of the most Lyme disease-prone areas of the U.S. this educational hike in the woods may be of interest to a number of readers: The Cary Institute’s Dr. Rick Ostfeld and his research team will discuss how the interactions among acorns, mice, deer, and ticks influence the risk of Lyme disease. This free public 1 p.m. event begins at the Cary East (Gifford House) parking area, 2917 Sharon Turnpike (Rt. 44). Ostfeld has spent more than 20 years studying the ecology of Lyme disease. He will share his insights with participants through a series of informative outdoor stations. Learn the major players in the Lyme disease story as well as research techniques. Participants should bring drinking water and wear socks, sturdy shoes, and long pants. In the event of heavy rain, the program will be cancelled. Reservations are requested. Register on line at http://ecologyoflymedisease.eventbrite.com.

Sunday, Oct. 16, WASHINGTON: A 313-mile "Right to Know" march that began from the Brooklyn, N.Y., Flatbush Food Co-op Oct. 1 will arrive here today on World Food Day as part of a campaign demanding the labeling of genetically engineered food. The event will culminate in a 2 p.m. rally at Lafayette Park, across from the White House, that will "last into the evening with amazing musicians and speakers." Marchers are conducting meetings at natural food stores and co-ops during their journey. According to the organizers: "Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) endanger our health, the environment, and our farmer’s livelihoods. For too long, biotechnology companies like Monsanto have lobbied against labeling products containing their patented plants — plants which are specially designed to be sprayed with cancer-causing weed-killers, and plants which produce pesticides in every one of their cells." Information about GMOs, the march and how to take part, http://right2knowmarch.org.

Monday, Oct. 17, NEW PALTZ (SUNY campus): Kristin Kimball, author of "The Dirty Life: On Farming, Food, and Love," will offer a free public lecture 7 p.m. in the Coykendall Science Building Auditorium. She will be speaking along with her husband, farmer Mark Kimball, a central character in her autobiographical book, which chronicles Kristin Kimball’s transition from a Harvard-educated New York City journalist to a partner in an ambitious sustainable agriculture experiment. The event is sponsored by the SUNY New Paltz Environmental Task Force, the Department of English, the Department of Sociology, and the Environmental Studies Program, with the support of the Provost’s Office and Campus Auxiliary Services. Information, (845) 257-3447.

Friday, Oct. 21, TRENTON, N.J.: Opponents of hydraulic fracturing are planning to protest here today at the Delaware River Basin Commission's special meeting to vote on opening the Delaware River Watershed to fracking. The commission is gathering to “consider adoption of the regulations” to lift the current moratorium on high-volume hydraulic fracturing for methane gas in the Delaware River Basin. The regulations would cover natural gas drilling at an estimated 22,000 gas wells in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware on land that drains into the Delaware River, which provides drinking water to 15 million people in the four states, including Philadelphia. The Delaware Riverkeeper Network and Protecting Our Waters are encouraging activists to attend 10 a.m.-12 noon meeting the Patriot's Theater, 1 Memorial Drive. A bus will bring people from Philadelphia. According to Josh Fox, the director of "Gasland," the recent documentary that exposed the grave dangers of fracking for natural gas, "If they are going to start drilling, we're going to shut them down." He spoke at an anti-fracking rally last month that drew over a thousand demonstrators in Philadelphia. Information, http://protectingourwaters.wordpress.com/.

Saturday, Oct. 22, ESOPUS: Scenic Hudson reports: "Due to recent storm surges and years of wear and tear, we’re beginning to lose the Hudson River shoreline along Esopus Meadows Preserve. Help us save this fragile, ecologically important land the natural way — by planting trees whose strong roots will prevent erosion" — 10 a.m.-1 p.m. at Esopus Meadows Preserve, River Rd. Volunteers are asked to "Wear long pants and sturdy closed-toed shoes or hiking boots. Bring plenty of water, bug spray and gloves, if you have them. We’ll furnish all tools and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation will supply 100 trees. Minors must be accompanied by an adult. Information, including meeting place, Hudson Parks event coordinator Anthony Coneski, aconeski@scenichudson.org, (845) 473-4440, ext. 273, http://www.scenichudson.org/parks/esopusmeadows.

Thursday, Oct. 27, PURCHASE (Manhattanville College campus): Police reform, racial profiling and the controversial practice of stop-and-frisk will be the topics of this year's Annual Henry Schwarzschild Memorial Lecture at Reid Castle, 2900 Purchase St. The featured speaker is Robert Gangi, senior policy advocate for the Urban Justice Center and former executive director of the Correctional Association of New York who has fought throughout his career for the humane treatment of prisoners and the protection of their rights. Gangi is currently leading the Police Reform Organizing Project (PROP), a new initiative of the Urban Justice Center. This free public event is sponsored by The New York Civil Liberties Union and the Connie Hogarth Center for Social Action. Information, (914) 997-7479, lberns@nyclu.org.
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