Discomfit Magazine

2012-01-29T13:36:00.001-06:00

January 26, 2012
Dear Friend,
Happy 39th anniversary of Roe v. Wade , the monumental U.S. Supreme
Court decision legalizing abortion throughout the United States! Abortion is
a simple medical procedure that is vital for women to exercise any form of
control over their lives. But despite its safety and legality, the fight for full
reproductive health care for all women continues.

Last year a record 135 new provisions related to reproductive rights were
passed in the United States, including bans on funding, prohibitions against
abortion after a certain gestation period, forced waiting periods, and
mandatory ultrasounds. When abortion is unavailable or unaffordable, it is
poor women who suffer because they can't pay the medical fees and travel
costs, or take the time to overcome all the outrageous barriers that have
been devised by opponents of women's equality.

But there's good news too. Reproductive rights advocates are mobilizing.
Last summer, activists converged in Maryland to defend Dr. LeRoy Carhart
and the Germantown Reproductive Health Services from Operation
Rescue harassment. Recently, voters in Mississippi rejected a "fertilized-
egg-as-person" amendment to the state constitution that would have
effectively banned abortions and many forms of contraception. New
legislation has been introduced in Washington State to require private
insurance plans to cover abortion if they cover maternity care. Young
feminists in the Occupy movement are embracing the fight for reproductive
justice and gender equality.

Where to next? With a presidential election looming, the pressure is
increasing to "elect Democrats to protect us from Republicans." This is an
often tried and always failed approach. The Democratic Party is a capitalist
party that maintains loyalty to its investment base, not the voter base. The
wealth of the 1% rests on the second-class status of women, queers and
people of color. Corporate America's massive profits demand the super-
exploitation of women providing free labor in the home (cooking, cleaning,
care of the young, sick and elderly) and cheap labor on the job.

Many hoped President Obama would be different; that he would champion
women's equality. Instead, his policies have repeatedly sided with the far
right. Federal health reform sacrificed abortion coverage. In December, the
Obama Administration took the unprecedented step of overruling the Food
and Drug Administration's decision to remove age restrictions on Emergency
Contraception. These are not isolated incidents. Jodi Jacobson's article in
Conscience Magazine, "Is Obama Prochoice? " concludes that "the
President has presided over the greatest erosion to women's reproductive
health and rights in the past 30 years, and a continuing degradation of our
rights at the state level."

Welcome to Brownbackistan!

Instead of diverting energy into electing Democrats, feminists should
continue the momentum of the vibrant Occupy movement and demand
what workingclass women and men need - things like healthcare (with
full reproductive services), food, social services, housing, and union-wage
jobs. We must look beyond politics-as-usual to support socialist or anti-
capitalist candidates who will take action in the interest of the 99%.

Let's make the next year one of tremendous growth for the movements
for equality and justice!
In struggle,
Anne Slater
National Organizer
Radical Women

_________

National Radical Women
747 Polk Street, San Francisco, CA 94109
Phone 415-864-1278 * Fax 415-864-0778
RadicalWomenUS@gmail.com
www.RadicalWomen.org

Donations are needed and appreciated. Please contribute online or mail a
check, payable to "National Radical Women" to 5018 Rainier Ave. S.,
Seattle, WA 98118.

_________

Breaking News & Commentary from Citizen's For Legitimate Government, 13 Jan 2012

2012-01-14T10:16:00.000-06:00

http://www.legitgov.org

All links are here:

http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

U.S. troops quietly surge into Middle East 12 Jan 2012 The Pentagon has quietly shifted combat troops and warships to the Middle East after the top American commander in the region warned that he needed additional forces to deal with Iran and other potential threats, U.S. officials said. Marine Corps Gen. James Mattis, who heads U.S. Central Command, won White House approval for the deployments late last year after talks with the government in Baghdad broke down over keeping U.S. troops in Iraq, but the extent of the Pentagon moves is only now becoming clear. The Pentagon has stationed nearly 15,000 troops in Kuwait, adding to a small contingent already there. The new units include two Army infantry brigades and a helicopter unit - a substantial increase in combat power after nearly a decade in which Kuwait chiefly served as a staging area for supplies and personnel heading to Iraq.

U.S. Sends Top Iranian Leader a Warning on Strait Threat 13 Jan 2012 The Obama administration is relying on a secret channel of communication to warn Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that closing the Strait of Hormuz is a "red line" that would provoke an American response, according to United States government officials. The officials declined to describe the unusual contact between the two governments, and whether there had been an Iranian reply. Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said this past weekend that the United States would "take action and reopen the strait," which could be accomplished only by military means, including minesweepers, warship escorts and potentially airstrikes.

Iran to probe N-assassination via IAEA 13 Jan 2012 Iran's permanent envoy to International Atomic Energy Agency says the country will follow up the recent assassination of nuclear scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan through the IAEA. Ali Asghar Soltanieh said Friday that he has already written a letter to the Non-Aligned Movement countries for the condemnation of the terrorist attack in Iran and will also follow up on this issue at the IAEA. Soltanieh added that assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists will have no affect on the Iranian nation's resolve to insist on its right to using various technologies, including nuclear technology.

Iran blasts US, UK for N-assassination --'The Uk is responsible for such acts of terror.' 13 Jan 2012 Iran's Foreign Ministry has blasted the US and UK governments for their obvious roles in assassinating Iranian scientist Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan in two strongly-worded protest notes. Ahmadi Roshan was assassinated on Wednesday, after an unknown motorcyclist attached a sticky bomb to his car near Allameh Tabatabaei University in Tehran, killing him instantly. The note to the UK Ministry of Foreign Affairs pointed to the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists that immediately followed the remarks of head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) John Sawers, who discussed the launch of intelligence operations against Iran.

Leader: CIA, Mossad behind Iran killing 12 Jan 2012 Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has condemned the US and Israeli spy agencies, CIA and Mossad, for the recent assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist. "This cowardly [act of] terror, whose perpetrators and plotters will never dare to confess to their dirty and hideous crime or accept responsibility for it, has been carried out by the planning or support of CIA and Mossad [spy] services, like all other crimes of the network of international state terrorism," said Ayatollah Khamenei late on Thursday in a message of condolence on the death of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan.

Met to probe Libyan rendition claims 12 Jan 2012 No British spies will be charged over alleged complicity in the torture of terror suspects but a new investigation will look into allegations of rendition in Libya, it has been announced. Several MI5 and MI6 agents were at the centre of criminal investigations into the treatment of former detainees, including UK resident Binyam Mohamed. Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay claim British security and intelligence officials colluded in their torture and abuse while they were held at the controversial detention centre... But a joint statement by Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Keir Starmer QC and the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) confirmed that no individuals had been charged in relation to Operations Hinton and Iden. However, the MPS will now investigate two cases of alleged rendition of Libyan nationals.

British spies await findings of torture probe 12 Jan 2012 British spies will discover later whether they will face charges over their alleged complicity in the torture of terror suspects. Several MI5 and MI6 agents are understood to be at the centre of criminal investigations into the treatment of former detainees, including UK resident Binyam Mohamed. Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay claim British security and intelligence officials colluded in their torture and abuse while they were held at the controversial detention centre.

MI5 and MI6 expected to be cleared of torture allegations 11 Jan 2012 MI5 and MI6 are expected to be cleared of allegations that they were complicit in torture after a four year investigation. Despite years of allegations against the security and intelligence services by terrorism suspects, Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service have now concluded that there is no case to answer, sources have told the Daily Telegraph. Both the police and Kier Starmer, the Director of Public Prosecutions, are to make a statement explaining the decision.

Lawsuit demands that Obama administration release Guantanamo torture tapes By Tom Carter 12 Jan 2012 A lawsuit filed Monday by lawyers for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in federal court in New York demands that the Obama administration turn over video tapes documenting the torture of Mohammed al-Qahtani at the US military prison in Guantanamo. The videotapes requested by the CCR constitute important evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and could serve as the basis for criminal indictments of top US military and civilian officials. The CCR made a formal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for the tapes last year, but the Obama administration refused to turn them over.

Guantanamo Bay remains open 10 years on 11 Jan 2012 Amnesty International calls on the US government to end indefinite detentions in Guantanamo, as the prison reaches its 10th anniversary. In a new report, Guantánamo: A Decade of Damage to Human Rights, the charity said the treatment of Guantanamo detainees underlined reasons why the detention centre continued to represent an attack on human rights. The charity said the failure to close the Cuba-based detention centre represented "a toxic legacy for human rights". Of the 171 men still held at the camp, at least 12 were in the original group first transferred to Guantanamo on 11 January, 2002.

Four US suspects nabbed in Baghdad --The US Embassy in Baghdad has declined comment on the incident, which is seen as a violation of a security pact signed between Baghdad and Washington. 12 Jan 2012 Iraqi authorities have detained four armed American nationals over what the officials described as "suspicious" activity in the capital, Baghdad, Press TV reports. Iraqi sources said the suspects, including two women, were arrested on Thursday as they were found traveling in a BMW car with a local license plate, instead of diplomatic registration. The US nationals were wearing flak jackets and were armed with pistols -- equipped with silencers -- and automatic weapons when they were arrested in a Shia neighborhood in central Baghdad.

US Marines grilled over abuse video 14 Jan 2012 US investigators have identified the four Marines seen urinating on Afghan corpses in an inflammatory video and expect to bring charges against them soon, a senior military official told FOX News Channel today. The online video showed the US troops urinating on three bloodied corpses, and one of the men, apparently aware he was being filmed, saying: "Have a great day, buddy," referring to one of the dead. All four are from a sniper unit in the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines based at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, the official said, noting that the two who were questioned by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service are on active duty.

US Marines identify Afghanistan 'urination' troops 13 Jan 2012 At least two of four US Marines shown in a video appearing to urinate on Taliban corpses have been identified, a Marine Corps official has told the BBC. The video, which was posted online, purports to show the Marines standing over the bodies of several Taliban fighters, at least one of whom is covered in blood. The BBC says the official would not confirm the Marines' whereabouts, but reports suggested the unit involved was based at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina - a major military base.

Another day, another US war crime: Video allegedly showing US troops urinating on bodies of Taliban fighters 12 Jan 2012 This video shows what are alleged to be American forces in Afghanistan urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban fighters land laughing. The film is being investigated by the US Marine Corps. If it proves to be authentic, desecration of corpses will be regarded as a serious crime [WARNING: This video contains graphic images.]

Military court orders release of IDF soldier suspected of passing info to rightists --IDF paratrooper Amichai Zoaretz was arrested earlier this week and questioned by military police; Zoaretz expressed strong anti-Arab and anti-leftist sentiments on Facebook. 12 Jan 2012 A military court in Jaffa on Thursday ordered the release from detention of an Israel Defense Forces paratrooper suspected of passing military information to right-wing activists in the West Bank. Amichai Zoaretz serves in Paratrooper Battalion 890 and has recently filled a combat support role at the battalion headquarters following an injury. He was arrested earlier this week and questioned by military police.

Loggers 'burned Amazon tribe girl alive' 10 Jan 2012 Loggers in Brazil captured an eight-year-old girl from one of the Amazon's last uncontacted tribes and burned her alive as part of a campaign to force the indigenous population from its land, reports claimed on Tuesday night. The child was said to have wandered away from her village, where around 60 members of the Awá tribe live a primitive life in complete isolation from the modern world, and fallen into the hands of the loggers. Luis Carlos Guajajaras, a local leader from a separate tribe, told a Brazilian news website that they tied to her a tree and set her alight as a warning to other natives, who live in a protected reserve in the north-eastern state of Maranhão. [Hopefully, the indigenous people are using any and *all* tactics against these sociopaths, including, of course, ARMED resistance.]

U.S. Coast Guard will escort ship into Port of Longview, as Occupy movement plans big protest --'The Coast Guard is definitely going to be involved in making sure the port is safe.' 06 Jan 2012 (WA) The U.S. Coast Guard will escort the first ship coming to the EGT grain terminal at the Port of Longview this month, and the Occupy movement and local labor groups say they are planning to greet the vessel with a massive protest. The Coast Guard will deploy one or two vessels to escort the grain ship up the Columbia River, with more on call if necessary, said Lt. Lucas Elder, a spokesman for Coast Guard's Portland-based marine safety unit. Other law-enforcement agencies will also be present, he said.

Court rejects petition from WikiLeaks, Julian Assange 11 Jan 2012 The U.S. military's highest appeals court has rejected a petition by WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange to give their lawyers guaranteed access to the Army's legal proceedings against the Army intelligence analyst accused of leaking thousands of military reports and diplomatic cables, Pfc. Bradley Manning. WikiLeaks and Assange argued they deserved a permanent seat at the recent investigative hearing in Manning's case because of an ongoing criminal investigation targeting Assange and his global transparency website... However, in an order Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces denied the petition without comment.

Bradley Manning moves step closer to full court martial --Investigating officer in pre-trial hearing recommends that 22 charges against WikiLeaks suspect be referred to military trial 12 Jan 2012 Bradley Manning, the US soldier accused of having been the source of the massive WikiLeaks dump of state secrets, is one step closer towards the possibility of spending the rest of his life in military confinement after the officer who presided over his pre-trial hearing recommended he be sent to a full court martial. Colonel Paul Almanza, the investigating officer at last month's hearing in Fort Meade, Maryland, has written to his superiors recommending that all 22 charges against Manning be referred to a general court martial – the most serious military trial.

Abandoned by British justice: Student faces 10 years in U.S. jail for setting up 'illegal' website (in a chilling echo of Gary McKinnon) --'Quiet and vulnerable' man could spend ten years in high-security American jail after he lost fight against extradition yesterday 14 Jan 2012 A British student faces up to a decade in a U.S. prison for actions which are not even a crime in the UK. Campaigners say Richard O'Dwyer, 23, is being abandoned by his country in the same way as computer hacker Gary McKinnon. Mr O'Dwyer is accused of listing places where films and TV programmes could be illegally downloaded, on a website he ran from his university bedroom in Sheffield... The case has chilling similarities with the attempt by the U.S. to extradite Asperger's sufferer Mr McKinnon, who hacked into Pentagon computers from his north London bedroom.

FBI agent admits deleting emails amid terror probe --FBI agent was member of so-called "dirty" team that did an initial intelligence-gathering interview of Ahmed without reading him his Miranda rights 12 Jan 2012 An FBI agent testified Thursday that she deleted potentially sensitive emails covering several months when she was helping spearhead an investigation of a terror suspect. Defense attorneys have sought to examine FBI emails to see if they reveal agents skirted interrogation rules in the case of Mohamed Ibrahim Ahmed, an Eritrean man charged in Manhattan federal court with supporting terrorism. Ahmed's lawyers have asked U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel to bar statements made by Ahmed while he was detained in Nigeria in 2009 before being turned over to U.S. authorities.

Fears over outbreak after 12 infected with new swine flu strain in U.S. 12 Jan 2012 Twelve Americans have been reported infected with a mutating and now possibly human-to-human transmitted form of the H1N1 Swine Flu virus called H3N2v. An investigation undertaken by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention found that human infections of these viruses followed contact with swine as well as through 'limited human-to-human transmission.' 'While there is no evidence that sustained human-to-human transmission is occurring, all influenza viruses have the capacity to change and it's possible that this virus may become widespread,' the CDC explained through their website.

Fukushima eyes checking radiation in breast milk for 10,000 mothers 12 Jan 2012 Fukushima Prefecture plans to test for radioactive contamination in breast milk samples from about 10,000 mothers residing in the prefecture, home to the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, prefectural officials said Thursday. While details, including how and when to implement the survey, have not been finalized, the plan will offer the tests to mothers who wish to participate. Many mothers have expressed concerns about breast-feeding their babies amid fears that their milk may be contaminated by radioactive materials released into the air and sea by the Fukushima plant.

Iodine pills should be distributed to households near nuclear plants: experts 12 Jan 2012 The intake of potassium iodine tablets immediately after a nuclear accident is effective in preventing the thyroid from being exposed to radiation, and they should be distributed to households near nuclear power plants in advance, a recent nuclear safety commission proposal suggests. The plan was put together by a subcommittee of the Nuclear Safety Commission (NSC) and was released on Jan. 12.

9 eurozone nations downgraded by S&P 13 Jan 2012 Standard & Poor's said Friday that it has downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro area governments, including AAA-rated France and Austria. S&P lowered its rating for Italy, Spain, Portugal and Cyprus by two notches. The move means Italian bonds are now rated BBB+, dangerously close to the junk bond level that could make it even harder for the government to raise money. France's top-tier credit rating was lowered by one notch to AA+, said S&P.

Judge: John Edwards Has Life-Threatening Condition 13 Jan 2012 A federal judge says she has two letters from a cardiologist saying ex-presidential candidate John Edwards has a life-threatening condition that will require surgery in February. The letters were revealed during a hearing Friday to consider whether the 58-year-old ex-North Carolina Senator would go on trial later this month for alleged campaign finance violations. Attorneys for Edwards were seeking a 60-day delay to allow time for Edwards to recover. The judge delayed the trial to March 26.

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Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens for Legitimate Government 26 Dec 2011

2011-12-27T10:34:00.000-06:00

http://www.legitgov.orgAll links are here:
http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Yakuza's Debtors Forced to Work at Fukushima Daiichi? 26 Dec 2011 According to a book recently published by Tomohiko Suzuki, a freelance journalist who went undercover as a laborer at Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant for two months this year, people who were unable to repay loans from Yakuza gangs were forced to work at the site as a means of repaying their debts. Tokyo Electric issued a refutal, calling the claim that organized crime would be allowed to influence the recruitment process "groundless". With the assistance of a particular organization, Suzuki was able to get employment at Fukushima Daiichi during July and August of this year, until his identity was discovered.

WikiLeaks' Assange may face espionage charges in US 25 Dec 2011 Julian Assange may face espionage charges in the US after prosecutors in the case of Private Bradley Manning revealed evidence of the WikiLeaks boss' alleged role in stealing secret military documents. During this week's hearing into the Manning case at Fort Meade, WikiLeaks' lawyers produced online chat logs which purport to show that the 40-year-old Australian coached Manning on how to break passwords and gain anonymous access to military computer networks, The (London) Times reported. The chat logs - revealed in the US military court on Thursday - represent the first evidence the US government has produced alleging that Assange helped Manning, 24, remove and transmit files from a top-secret facility in Iraq, the report said.

Assange may be investigated over theft of US military secrets 26 Dec 2011 New claims have emerged that Australian WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange played a role in stealing US military secrets which he published online. The former hacker was accused by lawyers in the US of coaching Private Bradley Manning on how to crack passwords and hack into military computer networks. During Manning's pre-trial hearing in Fort Meade, last week lawyers produced logs of online chats that show Assange played a role in Manning uploading 700,000 stolen military documents which were passed on to WikiLeaks. US government digital forensic experts who examined Manning's computer found communications between him and an online chat user identified as Julian Assange, who guided Manning to break "hash codes".

'Anonymous' hackers hit US security firm Stratfor 25 Dec 2011 The activist hacker group Anonymous says it has stolen thousands of emails, passwords and credit card details from a US-based security think-tank. The hackers claim they were able to obtain the information because the company, Stratfor, did not encrypt it. They say Stratfor's clients include the US defence department, law enforcement agencies and media organisations. The Austin-based company says it has suspended the operation on its servers and email.

'Anonymous' claims to have hacked U.S.-based security think tank --Hackers promised a week full of Christmas-inspired assaults 25 Dec 2011 Hackers on Sunday claimed to have stolen a raft of e-mails and credit card data from U.S.-based security think tank Stratfor, promising it was just the start of a weeklong Christmas-inspired assault on a long list of targets. Members of the loose-knit hacking movement known as "Anonymous" posted a link on Twitter to what they said was Stratfor's tightly-guarded, confidential client list. Among those on the list: The U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force and the Miami Police Department. [Awesome!]

'Afghan civilians killed for no reason' 24 Dec 2011 US-led foreign forces have killed dozens of civilians in Afghanistan without any reasons, a fact-finding team appointed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai has revealed. Tahir Safi, an advisor to Karzai, told reporters on Saturday that one child, who had climbed a tree on December 13, was among the 21 civilians killed by US-led forces. "Our delegation found that a child who went up a tree to collect leaves for sheep was killed in the bombing by the NATO chopper without any pre-coordination with the Kandahar administration," Safi said. "The child's father rushed to the bombing site with other family members as another chopper of the international forces dropped other bombs," he added.

20 killed in suicide bombing in Afghanistan 26 Dec 2011 At least 20 people, including a member of parliament, were killed in a suicide bombing on a funeral ceremony in Afghanistan's northern Takhar province on Sunday afternoon. More than 50 people who were injured in the blast have been shifted to a hospital in the provincial capital and are receiving treatment. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. [Blackwater's typically a safe bet.]

MP among scores killed in Afghanistan bombing 26 Dec 2011 A suicide bomber has attacked a funeral in north-eastern Afghanistan, killing at least 19 people, including an MP and wounding dozens of others. The attacker detonated his vest after mourners gathered for the funeral of a government official in Taluqan city, the capital of Takhar province. "We have 19 dead including an MP, Abdulmutalib Baig, and about 40 wounded, mostly civilians," said Takhar provincial governor Abdul Jabar Taqwa. "I was also invited to this ceremony but I didn't go. The target was either me or the MP."

7 killed, dozens hurt in Iraq bombing 26 Dec 2011 At least seven people have been killed and 32 others injured in a car bombing near the Iraqi interior ministry in the capital, Baghdad. The bombing was carried out at about 7:30 a.m. local time (0430 GMT) in the Bab al-Sharji area in central Baghdad. Last Thursday, dozens of people were also killed and scores of others wounded in ten bombing attacks that rocked nine neighborhoods in Baghdad.

Iran defeats mock enemy in E-war 25 Dec 2011 The Iranian military has tested its most modern home-manufactured electronic warfare gear and defeated mock enemy on the second day of massive Velayat 90 naval exercise. During the second day of the maneuvers, different classes of frigates and submarines, sophisticated and technologically advanced ground-to-sea missile systems, advanced equipment used for communication and the exchange of intelligence were successfully tested and utilized along with modern electro-optical systems. Meanwhile, counterattacks against possible dive bombers, exchange of logistics and deep sea patrol were carried out on Sunday.

Troops attack protesters in Yemen capital 24 Dec 2011 More than 100,000 protesters who entered Yemen's capital Saturday after a 4-day march from another city were attacked by elite troops loyal to outgoing President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who opened fire with guns, water cannons and tear gas. Medical officials said at least three protesters were killed. The crowd of protesters had marched from Taiz, a city that has been a major opposition center 170 miles to the south. The protest, called the March of Life, aimed to put pressure on the country's new government not to grant Saleh immunity from prosecution. The violence underlined the continuing turmoil in Yemen even after Saleh signed a U.S.- and Saudi-backed deal last month by which he handed his powers to his vice president and committed to step down completely in return for immunity.

Russia test-fires two nuclear missiles 14 Dec 2011 The Russian military has successfully test-launched two intercontinental nuclear-capable missiles, the defence ministry said. The Bulava missiles were fired from a submarine in the White Sea on Russia's northwest coast and the test "went as planned," Lieutenant Colonel Igor Konashenkov told Russian news agency Ria Novosti.

Nuclear sub narrowly avoided collision in Strait of Juan de Fuca - newspaper report 24 Dec 2011 Port Angeles, WA - A nuclear-powered submarine narrowly avoided colliding with a cargo ship in the Strait of Juan de Fuca in October, according to the Navy Times. The newspaper reported Wednesday that the USS Kentucky, a ballistic-missile sub based at Bangor, was traveling at periscope depth when it came within 900 yards of a 839-foot-long cargo ship on Oct. 12. The officer of the deck had failed to check for other vessels while making a course change, the Navy Times said. Both ships turned to avoid colliding.

Pentagon Finds No Fault in Ties to TV Analysts 25 Dec 2011 A Pentagon public relations propaganda program that sought to transform high-profile military analysts into "surrogates" and "message force multipliers" for the Bush regime complied with Defense Department regulations and directives, the Pentagon's inspector general has concluded after a two-year investigation. The inquiry was prompted by articles published in The New York Times in 2008 that described how the Pentagon, in the years after the Sept. 11 attacks, cultivated close ties with retired officers who worked as military analysts for television and radio networks. The articles also showed how military analysts affiliated with defense contractors sometimes used their special access to seek advantage in the competition for contracts.

Congress calls on Twitter to block Taliban 25 Dec 2011 US congressmen are calling on Twitter to block Taliban propagandists from the micro-blogging site. Senators want to stop feeds which boast of insurgent attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan and the casualties they inflict. Aides for Joe Lieberman, chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said the move was part of a wider attempt to eliminate violent Islamist extremist propaganda from the internet and social media. [Lieberman's just jealous because the Taliban has more Twitter followers than he does.]

CIA watchdog OKs New York police partnership 23 Dec 2011 The CIA says its inspector general has found nothing wrong with the spy agency's close partnership with the New York City Police Department. The inspector general concluded that no laws were broken and no evidence exists that the CIA was conducting forbidden domestic spying. [LOL.] The inspector general decided to do a preliminary investigation after a series of stories by The Associated Press revealed how, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks the CIA helped the NYPD build domestic intelligence programs that were used to spy on Muslims.

CDC: We are tracking swine flu virus in five states and we expect more [LOL! Of course you do, since you created it.] 24 Dec 2011 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Friday that it has identified the second case of human infection of swine flu. Since August, 12 people have been infected with the virus, called H3N2, in Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. CDC officials announced that they found another case of human infection with a swine-origin H3N2 virus, this time in a child from West Virginia.

Justice Dept. rejects South Carolina voter ID law 23 Dec 2011 The Justice Department has rejected South Carolina's voter-identification law, saying it discriminates against minorities. Gov. Nikki Haley [R-Sociopath], who signed the bill into law, called the decision "outrageous," The State reports. State Attorney General Alan Wilson (R) said he'll appeal, saying the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld a similar voter ID law in Indiana. The Justice Department said that during an appeal the South Carolina law would be "legally unenforceable."

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Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!

2011-12-22T21:11:00.002-06:00

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3855193302956006702

Occupied Pig Roast Spoof

2011-12-17T10:06:00.001-06:00

Victor Coronado: "Cuba - In Their Own Words" @ Latino Rebel

2011-12-12T18:51:00.000-06:00

Our strength will lie in sovereignty, development and equity
• Speech by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the Councils of State and Ministers at the Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), Caracas, Venezuela, December 2, 2011, Year 53 of the Revolution
(Typescript version- Council of State)

(Click here to link to original source.)

COMPAÑERO Hugo Chávez Frías, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela;

Dear Presidents, Prime Ministers, and Heads of delegations:

In the first place, we greet the Venezuelan sister people and the Bolivarian Revolution. Venezuela has received us today with hospitality and pride, in the year celebrating the bicentenary of its independence and is offering us this opportunity for the governments of all of Latin America and the Caribbean to meet together.

We have the privilege to be present at a founding event of great significance. With the decisions we are adopting here and the joint work of the last three years, we are vindicating more than two centuries of struggles and hopes. Coming thus far has cost effort, but also blood and sacrifice.

The colonial metropolises of the past and the imperial powers of today have been the enemies of this undertaking. They have attempted to defy the body of ideas of Simón Bolívar who, with farsightedness, affirmed, "The unity of our peoples is not a simple illusion of men, but the inexorable decree of fate."

The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States is our most precious work. Symbolically, it consolidates the concept of a united and sovereign region, committed to a shared destiny.

In strategic terms, it gives us the political instrument required for combining our resolve, respecting diversity, solving differences, cooperating for the wellbeing of our peoples and acting in solidarity with one another. Its success will depend on the nature and wisdom of its members, the 33 independent nations situated between the Río Bravo and Patagonia.

Our strength will lie in sovereignty, development and equity and the prosperity with justice of the citizens of this vast and rich region will depend on that. We do not have a fully homogenous body of ideas, nor do we agree on all political positions. This is part of the reality and we must work with that in a climate of respect and cooperation.

We live in an area free of nuclear weapons, a privilege enjoyed by very few regions of the world. It is a fundamental contribution to the cause of humanity for the total elimination of this threat, which is endangering human survival.

We must aspire to also declare ourselves, one day in the not too distant future, a territory free of foreign military bases, as an additional contribution to regional identity.

The common heritage of our lands and seas emcompasses exceptional natural riches which, utilized in a sustainable way, with responsibility and solidarity, offer future generations the basis for a future of prosperity and justice. We have a diverse and interrelated culture, with indigenous ancestral values. There also exists an insufficiently utilized technical and scientific potential.

Despite all of this and not insignificant economic growth figures, Latin America and the Caribbean, with more than 20 million square kilometers of area and more than 580 million inhabitants, is advancing slowly and has not managed to overcome the deformations blocking its development.

We inhabit the region of the world considered to have the greatest inequality in terms of distribution of wealth. Together with the recognition that we have borne the effects of the global economic crisis in better conditions, there also exists the great breach signified by the extreme concentration of wealth in a few hands in the face of the immense poverty of the majority.

The prosperity of our region is dependent on a solution to this problem.

Currently, there are 180 million poor Latin American and Caribbean people, 72 million of them living in extreme poverty. This is a tragedy which will not be solved even if we meet all the Millennium Development Goals established by the United Nations.

Today, poverty is affecting 81 million of our children and 13 million of them do not even have access to adequate nutrition, in a region which produces more food than it requires. These children are the creditors of this region’s future. We are their debtors.

The recent economic development of Latin America and the Caribbean shows that, despite the profound crisis, revenue from exports has grown, principally of basic products; that the burden of the foreign debt, although unjust and crushing, has been lighter; and that the accumulation of reserves has increased.

This panorama gives us an opportunity if we act with responsibility and a genuine spirit of solidarity.

And it is in this spirit that we must face the situation in Haiti, which represents a test for all of us. Latin America and the Caribbean have a historic and ethical responsibility to this sister republic, the first to attain its independence from the colonial yoke in our region where, led by slaves, the first revolution in the history of humanity took place. Haiti requires and deserves our efforts to contribute, with more substantial contributions, to its reconstruction and development, with strict adherence to the will of its government and the needs of its people.

In our case, as we stated at the last Cancun Summit in February 2010, and confirm today, "Cuban collaboration and its modest effort will remain in Haiti for as many years as necessary, if the government of this nation wishes it. Our country, heavily blockaded, has no excess of resources, rather it lacks everything, but it is disposed to share its poverty with those who have less, in first place with those who currently most need it on the continent."

I recall that on one occasion when I visited Ecuador, during one of the many international meetings which we have convened, I took advantage and visited the Chapel of Humankind, founded by that magnificent painter of the continent, Osvaldo Guayasamín, and was very impressed by a sign expressing a thought which wasn’t his – according to his older son – and which was on one of the walls of this extremely important cultural and historical center. The sign read, "When I was a child, I cried because I had no shoes, until one day I saw a child who had no feet." I wish to say that, however difficult a country’s situation is, however complex and great our poverty is, there is always someone poorer than us, there is always a child without feet who doesn’t need shoes.

Dear colleagues:

We have assumed the commitment to firmly oppose any attempt at the destabilization of the constitutional order in our countries.

This is not a fortuitous statement, but one of genuine response to the coup d’état against Venezuela in 2002, and then the oil coup, the Santa Cruz sedition in Bolivia, the military coup perpetrated in Honduras, the attempted coup in Ecuador and constant acts of destabilization against legitimately constituted governments, firmly committed to their people’s demands for social justice, defenders of the sovereignty of their countries and expressions of the purest and most effective democracy.

The nature and motivations of those who promote those attacks on sovereign institutionalism and against the constitutional rights of the peoples are known to us. It is also known that they receive the support of the United States and certain European governments, as well as the complicity of powerful private organizations in the information and advertising industry.

I recall that during a meeting we had in Nicaragua, in the capital, Managua, related to similar recent events in Central America, I realized when I spoke, what a coincidence that all these attempts have been against ALBA countries! And I turned to President Correa, who was on my left, and said, "You’ll be the next one." He looked at me in surprise, as if to say, "But, why?" he himself and you know why.

It is the fight between materialistic oligarchical interests, supported by transnational capital, and the legitimate rights of the peoples. It would be a serious error to ignore the fact that Latin America and the Caribbean have changed, that they cannot treat us as in the past. It has cost us hard work to confront the burden of colonialism and neocolonialism and a strong regional determination to defend our hard won independence must be expected. The Bicentenary Charter which we adopted today must be assumed as an expression of this reality.

Beyond our regional environment, we share a complex world in upheaval, in which the peoples are rebelling against injustices – what we are seeing in Europe and in other parts of the world and in the United States itself demonstrates that – imperialist policies of plunder, the concentration of wealth, corruption and the abuse of power. It is a phenomenon particularly expressed in the North of Africa, the Middle East, almost all of Europe and North America. It is an expression of the collapse of merciless neoliberal economic models already experienced and repudiated in our region.

It is also a world in which the major powers are violating international law, exercising their domination through the use of force and attacking sovereign nations hiding behind pretexts and manipulation.

In Libya, NATO has committed an international crime which is now threatening to become a model. (Firework explosions are heard)

That’s the war Chávez is waging on mosquitoes or I don’t know what! (Chávez tells him that it is a firework display in Caracas in honor of CELAC)

To the shame of the United Nations, defenseless cities have been bombed for eight consecutive months, massacring civilians, destroying social services, mutilating the infrastructure and making hundreds of thousands of people homeless or refugees.

For Cuba, the attitude of the United States is nothing new. It is the same as always. We have spent more than 50 years standing up to hostility and aggression. We are enduring the most all-encompassing and lasting economic, commercial and financial blockade ever imposed on any country. Our region knows that and has resolutely and consistently spoken out against it, for which we Cubans express our gratitude to all of you.

I am going to end by reading a paragraph I included, then took it out, but after what Chávez has said, I shall read it.

I wish to thank yesterday’s meeting of foreign ministers for their generous statements about Cuba and the recommendation of a future Cuban presidency of CELAC in 2013. I was going to leave it until tomorrow or after you, presidents, prime ministers and heads of delegation had spoken; but Chávez, the president of Venezuela, the host country, pulled out agreements here, made me vote, I agreed, I voted and now I interpret… I already asked Correa if he is in agreement with this kind of vote, on granting Cuba the celebration of the next CELAC [Summit], after Chile.

In this case, I give thanks not only to the foreign ministers, but to all the presidents, prime ministers and heads of delegation present.

Finally, how were things left, Correa? You are in agreement, as Chávez would say, right?

Are you all in agreement or shall I withdraw this paragraph? I do not want to express my thanks and after that have someone put up their hand and say, No, I am not in agreement.

(Chávez confirms that they will be in Cuba in 2013).

Well, then we will keep it in.

Many thanks to all of you. (Applause)

We acknowledge the tremendous effort displayed by Venezuela in creating the bases for and organizing this Summit, as well as the leadership of President Hugo Chávez Frías in bringing us to this point, toward such promising results for the future of the region, and his contribution to the integration of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Within the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, Cuba will work with dedication, altruism and commitment for the unity of our peoples, for a future of peace and social justice, and for the irrevocable undertaking of consolidating the full independence of what José Martí defined for the future as "Our America."

Thank you very much (Applause)

Translated by Granma International

Musician Ian Fisher's Newsletter, Tour Dates in Europe

2011-12-07T09:26:00.000-06:00

Hey Everybody!

2011 is slowly coming to an end and, as you could tell from my monthly updates, I've played a few concerts in our last trip around the sun. To be exact, I've played 76 concerts in 9 countries in the last 11 months.

I'm going to keep this message short and just say thank you all for supporting me through 2011 and if any of you are in Copenhagen, Berlin, Hamburg, or Dublin, then it would be great to see you at my 77th, 78th, 79th, and/or 80th concert of the year!

All the best from Berlin,

ian

----------------------------------------------------------

Concerts in Nov/Dec/Jan:

Dec. 9 @ Backstage at K.I.B in Copenhagen, Denmark

Dec. 14 @ Intersoup in Berlin, Germany

Dec. 15 @ KNUST with Tim Neuhaus in Hamburg, Germany

Dec. 21 @ Litton Lane in Dublin, Ireland

------ 2012 -----

Jan. 23 @ Pony Bar in Hamburg, Germany

Jan. 24 @ Prinz Willy in Kiel, Germany

Jan. 26 @ Hasenschakel in Hamburg, Germany

Jan. 27 @ Enstation Sehnsucht in Wuppertal, Germany

Jan. 28 @ Raststätte in Aachen, Germany

Feb. 3 @ De Bakkerij in Castricum, The Netherlands

Feb. 4 @ livingroom concert in Hoogeveen, The Netherlands

Feb. 5 @ Oude Kerk in Scheemda, The Netherlands

IAN FISHER MUSIC LLC - 650 POINTE BASSE DR. STE. GENEVIEVE, MO 63670

Letter from Frank Schaeffer: "Sex, Mom and God on CSpan's Book TV" @ Discomfit Magazine

2011-12-07T09:09:00.001-06:00

Hi Frank Schaeffer here, I wanted to let you know that I'll be on Book-TV on C-Span this Sunday (Dec 11) at 1 AM and 10 PM Eastern Time. (Not too bad for central-to-western time zones!)

I'd be very grateful if you'd watch and/or pass on the information to your friends.

I'll be talking about my "fall from grace" as the evangelicals would have it, or my discovery of sanity as I see it.

The program is about my latest book in the God Trilogy: "Sex, Mom and God" and much more besides.

Please watch and if you have the knowhow please post the show on YouTube too! Book-TV posts links on their website to watch if you miss the show.

Have a great Christmas,

Very Best,

Frank

"The Winter of Our Occupation ... a Proposal from Michael Moore." @ Discomfit Magazine

2011-12-07T06:59:00.001-06:00

Tuesday, December 6th, 2011

Friends,

And now it is winter. Wall Street rejoices, hoping that the change of seasons will mean a change in our spirit, our commitment to stop them.

They couldn't be more wrong. Have they not heard of Washington and the troops at Valley Forge? The Great Flint Sit-Down Strike in the winter of 1936-37? The Michigan Wolverines crushing Ohio State in the 1950 Blizzard Bowl? When it comes to winter, it is the time historically when the people persevere and the forces of evil make their retreat!

We are not even 12 weeks old, yet Occupy Wall Street has grown so fast, so big, none of us can keep up with the hundreds of towns who have joined the movement, or the thousands of actions -- some of them just simple ones in neighborhoods, schools and organizations -- that have happened. The national conversation has been irreversibly changed. Now everyone is talking about how the 1% are getting away with all the money while the 99% struggle to make ends meet. People are no longer paralyzed by despair or apathy. Most know that now is the time to reclaim our country from the bankers, the lobbyists -- and their gofers: the members of the United States Congress and the 50 state legislatures.

And they're crazy if they think that a little climate chaos (otherwise known as winter in the 21st century) that they've helped to bring about is going to stop us.

I would like to propose to my Occupying sisters and brothers that there are many ways to keep Occupy Wall Street going through the winter months. There is perhaps no better time to move the movement indoors for a few months -- and watch it grow even bigger! (For those who have the stamina to maintain the outdoor occupations, by all means, keep it up -- and the rest of us will do our best to help you and keep you warm!)

The winter gives us an amazing opportunity to expand our actions against the captains of capitalism who have occupied our homes with their fraudulent mortgage system which has tossed millions of families out onto the curb; a cruel health care system that has told 50 million Americans "if you can't afford a doctor, go F yourself"; a student loan system that sends 22-year-olds into an immediate "debtors' prison" of working lousy jobs for which they didn't go to school but now have to take because they're in hock for tens of thousands of dollars for the next two decades; and a jobs market that keeps 25 million Americans un- or under-employed -- and much of the rest of the workers forced to accept wage cuts, health care reductions and zero job security.

But we in the Occupy Movement reject this version of the "American Dream." Instead, I suggest we shift our focus for this winter to the following actions:

OCCUPY THE WINTER
A proposal to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street from Michael Moore
1. Occupy Our Homes. Sorry, banks, a roof over one's head is a human right, and you will no longer occupy our homes through foreclosure and eviction because well, you see, they are our homes, not yours. You may hold the mortgage; you don't hold the right to throw us or our neighbors out into the cold. With almost one in three home mortgages currently in foreclosure, nearing foreclosure or "underwater," the Occupy Movement must form local "Occupy Strike Forces" to create human shields when the banks come to throw people out of their homes. If the foreclosure has already happened, then we must help families move back into their foreclosed homes -- literally (see this clip from my last film to watch how a home re-occupation is accomplished). Beginning today, Take Back the Land, plus many other citizens' organizations nationwide, are kicking off Occupy Our Homes. Numerous actions throughout the day today have already resulted in many families physically taking back their homes. This will continue every day until the banks are forced to stop their fraudulent practices, until homeowners are allowed to change their mortgage so that it reflects the true value of their homes, and until those who can no longer afford a mortgage are allowed to stay in their homes and pay rent. I beseech the news media to cover these actions -- they are happening everywhere. Evictions, though rarely covered (you need a Kardashian in your home as you're being evicted to qualify for news coverage) are not a new story (see this scene I filmed in 1988). Also, please remember the words of Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur of Toledo (in 'Capitalism: A Love Story'): Do not leave your homes if the bank forecloses on you! Let them take you to court and then YOU ask the judge to make them produce a copy of your mortgage. They can't. It was chopped up a hundred different ways, bundled with a hundred other mortgages, and sold off to the Chinese. If they can't produce the mortgage, they can't evict you.

2. Occupy Your College. In nearly every other democracy on the planet, students go to college for free or almost free. Why do those countries do that? Because they know that for their society to advance, they must have an educated population. Without that, productivity, innovation and an informed electorate is stunted and everyone suffers as a result. Here's how we do it in the U.S.A.: make education one of our lowest priorities, graduate students who know little about the world or their own government or the economy, and then force them into crushing debt before they even have their first job. That way has really worked well for us, hasn't it? It's made us the world leader in … in … well, ok, we're like 27th or 34th in everything now (except war). This has to end. Students should spend this winter doing what they are already doing on dozens of campuses -- holding sit-ins, occupying the student loan office, nonviolently disrupting the university regents meetings, and pitching their tents on the administration's lawn. Young people -- we, the '60s generation, promised to create a better world for you. We got halfway there -- now you have to complete the job. Do not stop until these wars are ended, the Pentagon budget is cut in half, and the rich are forced to pay their taxes. And demand that that money go to your education. We'll be there with you on all of this! And when we get this fixed and you graduate, instead of being $40,000 in debt, go see the friggin' world, or tinker around in your garage a la the two Steves, or start a band. Enjoy life, discover, explore, experiment, find your way. Anything but the assistant manager at Taco Bell.

3. Occupy Your Job. Let's spend the winter organizing workplaces into unions. OR, if you already have a union, demand that your leaders get off their ass and get aggressive like our grandparents did. For chrissakes, surely you know we would not have a middle class if it weren't for the strikes of the 1930s-1950s?! In three weeks we will celebrate the 75th anniversary of the workers in my hometown of Flint, Michigan taking over and occupying the General Motors factories for 44 days in the dead of winter. Their actions ignited a labor movement that lifted tens of millions out of poverty and into the middle class. It's time to do it again. (According to the Census Bureau and the New York Times, 100 million Americans either live in or near poverty. Disgraceful. Greed has destroyed the core fabric of our communities. Enough!) Here are two good unions to get your fellow workers to sign up and join: UE and SEIU. The CWA are also good. Here's how to get a quick primer in organizing your place of employment (don't forget to be careful while you do this!). If your company is threatening to close down and move the jobs elsewhere, then it's time to occupy the workplace (again, you can get a lesson in how to successfully occupy your factory from my movie).

4. Occupy Your Bank. This is an easy one. Just leave them. Move your checking and your credit card to a nonprofit credit union. It's safe and the decisions made there aren't based on greed. And if a bank tries to evict your neighbor, Occupy the local branch with 20 other people and call the press. Post it on the internet.

5. Occupy the Insurance Man. It's time to not only stand up for the 50 million without health insurance but to also issue a single, simple demand: The elimination of for-profit, privately-controlled health insurance companies. It is nothing short of barbaric to allow businesses to make a profit off people when they get sick. We don't allow anyone to make a profit when we need the fire department or the police. Until recently we would never allow a company to make a profit by operating in a public school. The same should be true for when you need to see a doctor or stay in the hospital. So I say it's long overdue for us to go and Occupy Humana, United Health, Cigna and even the supposed "nonprofit" Blue Crosses. An action on their lawns, in their lobbies, or at the for-profit hospitals -- this is what is needed.

So -- there are my ideas for the five places we can Occupy this winter. Help the foreclosed-upon to Occupy their homes. Occupy your college campus, especially the student loan office and the regents meetings. Occupy your job by getting everyone to sign a union card -- or by refusing to let the CEO ship your job overseas. Occupy your Chase or Citi or Bank of America branch by closing your account and moving it to a credit union. And Occupy the insurance company offices, the pharmaceutical companies' headquarters and the for-profit hospitals until the White House and Congress pass the true single-payer universal health care bill they failed to pass in 2010.

My friends, the rich are running scared right now. You need no further proof of this than to read this story from last week. The Republicans' top strategist met privately with them and told them that they had better change their tune or they were going to be crushed by the Occupy Wall Street movement. They didn't have to change their greedy actions, he assured them -- just the way they talk and PR the situation. He told them never to use the word "capitalism" -- it has now been made a dirty word by the Occupy movement, he said. Only say "economic freedom" from now on, he cautioned. And don't criticize the movement -- because the majority of Americans either agree with it or are feeling the same way. Just tell the Occupiers and the distressed Americans: "I get it." Seriously.

Yes, in just 12 short weeks we have killed their most sacred word -- Capitalism -- and we have them on the run, on the defensive. They should be. Millions are coming after them and our only goal is to remove them from power and replace them with a fair system that is controlled by the 99%. The 1% have been able to get both political parties to do their bidding. Why should only 1% of the population get to have two parties -- and the rest of us have none? That, too, is going to change. In my next letter, I will suggest what we can do to Occupy the Electoral Process. But first we must start with those who pull the strings of the puppets in the Congress. That's why it's called Occupy Wall Street. Always better to deal with man in charge, don't you think?

Let's Occupy the Winter! An #OWS Winter will certainly lead to a very hopeful American Spring.

Yours,

Michael Moore
MMFlint@MichaelMoore.com
@MMFlint
MichaelMoore.com

George Kenney: "Podcast Interview: Lord Robert Skidelsky, Keynes Biographer" @ Electric Politics

2011-11-27T07:23:00.001-06:00

Dear Michael,

I really hope you like this one. Part of its charm, I think, is that we madly stammer at each other -- proving that I'm not the only one who speaks this way in certain situations! :)

Lord Skidelsky, or Robert, as he graciously allowed, understands John Maynard Keynes and Keynesian economics better than most economists, having written the definitive biography of Keynes. The book we refer to here is a more recent synopsis/application in light of the current crisis.

My only frustration with this interview is that it is much too short: Robert was literally out the door for a meeting with the Chancellor of the Exchequer and could not delay. An hour with him, or more, would have been ideal but I'm still happy to settle for half an hour. Hopefully, when his next book is published I'll be able to interview him again and have more time -- and then venture into more strategic questions about the wisdom and even the possibility of endless economic growth…

I managed, btw, to ask him a question about the nature of money and, all too briefly, have my suspicions confirmed. I'm still working on finding a guest to talk about what money is, and hope to have that arranged in January.

With this podcast the season is over for the year. I'll resume production mid-January 2012 but haven't yet decided exactly when. I'll post advance notice, however, on the EP site.

Stay safe, have a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and a wonderful holiday season.

All the best!

g. @ Electric Politics

Lawrence Sustainability Network Calender Events, 25 November, 2011

2011-11-26T08:48:00.000-06:00

LAWRENCE

SUSTAINABILITY

NETWORK

November 25, 2011

A SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

The City of Lawrence and Douglas County have made 12 sites available for community members to use during the 2012 growing season. The Common Ground Program makes municipally owned land available for license for the cultivation and sale of plants, herbs, fruits, flowers, or vegetables, either as for-profit or not-for-profit enterprises. The program is intended to assist initiatives for the development of urban agriculture and community gardens in the City of Lawrence and Douglas County, increasing local food production, and providing community benefits.

Growers and gardeners can apply for a license to use these sites – which range in size from 0.3 to 20 acres – for $1 per acre per year. In exchange, program participants will propose a “Community Benefit Plan.” Examples of community benefits include donation of produce to local food pantries, participation in educational outreach programs, etc. Participants in the program will also provide annual reports to City and County Commissioners and feedback to help refine this pilot program.

The city and county released the Request for Applications (RFA) last Monday, and seek applications from qualified individuals, businesses, and/or nonprofit organizations. Applications for the sites are due by 5 p.m. on Friday, December 16. The Douglas County Food Policy Council will review the applications, and submit recommendations for City and County Commissioners to review by late January.

Local community members are strongly encouraged to submit individual applications and/or develop partnerships with local community organizations.

The Request for Applications can be accessed here:

http://www.lawrenceks.org/common_ground

Information about the Douglas County Food Policy Council:

http://www.douglas-county.com/sites/fpc

For more information contact: Eileen Horn, sustainability coordinator, ehorn@lawrenceks.org or (785)330-3121

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

LSN is an all-volunteer organization

dedicated to learning how to live lightly and sustainably.

Sustainability requires that we restore biodiversity and environmental health, strengthen relationships within and among human communities, insist on democratic decision-making at all levels of governance, insure social and economic equity for all, promote peaceful conflict resolution, and reorient our aims from growth to stability and justice. It means living within our means today and protecting the interests of future generations. LSN supports the efforts of individuals and organizations that work toward these goals.

Send announcement of your sustainability-related events to

info@lawrencesustainability.net

Amy Goodman: "Goldfinger eats Congo: Greg Palast 'Vultures Picnic' Tour"

2011-11-26T08:33:00.002-06:00

Goldfinger eats Congo

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!...

"Top funders of the Republican Party have demanded that two African nations pay them over half a billion dollars.... Is one of these vulture's claims based on a stolen security, criminally transferred to an American financier called 'Goldfinger'? Greg Palast, author of the new book, Vultures' Picnic, investigates for BBC Television and The Guardian."

Greg Palast reporting from Kinshasa, Congo; Sarajevo, Bosnia; and Brooklyn, New York

If God doesn't give a rat's ass about The Vulture, and what he does for a living, and what he's done for Africa, why should I?

The thought struck me while sitting here, coffee getting cold, in my old Toyota, trying to look invisible, staked out in front of 300 Dekalb Avenue. It's just after dawn here in Brooklyn, New York, and I'm hoping that Peter Grossman, a Wall Street star, will pop out of his posh brownstone for a jog or a cup of joe. Then I can jump him. He's on the look-out for me because I'd already jumped his crony, Goldfinger, the man who's making Grossman stunningly rich.

Grossman's riches, nearly $100 million for his firm, FG Management, come from the Congo. I was just there in Congo, two days before this stake-out, at a cholera quarantine center in the capital, Kinshasa.

Besides lots of cholera, Congo has lots of cobalt. Grossman has, through a crazy legal loophole in British law, waylaid a payment of $80 million to the African government for a shipment of cobalt from a government-owned mine.

Grossman is a "vulture," the name Wall Street gives, with an affectionate smile, to those who somehow can get their hands on old, forgotten debts of desperately poor nations—Congo, Zambia, Peru, and Liberia are cases I've investigated—which they pick up for pennies on the dollar of face value.

When —usually after a Bono concert— Western nations forgive debts owed by these poor countries, the nation receiving this aid is now ripe enough, and flush enough, for attack by the Vulture who demands many a pound of flesh for the debt he suddenly brandishes.

In Grossman's case, his company FG paid about $3 million for a debt Zaire (now Congo) owed Yugoslavia (now Bosnia). A court on the tiny island of Jersey, a tax haven in the English Channel, has ordered Congo to turn over the $80 million the African nation has in a bank account there, the payment for the cobalt. Furthermore, Congo must pay an additional $20 million to Grossman if the Africans can find it.

If that seems weird and nuts to you, it is. The United Kingdom and other nations bar collections by vultures against poor countries where Western government treasuries have agreed to give up their own claims. However, Vulture Grossman was free to pounce on Congo in Jersey, a pseudo-colony of Britain, because Britain's Parliament failed to include the magic words, "and Jersey" in its anti-Vulture law.

Question: How did Vulture Grossman get his hands on Congo's debt to Bosnia? That's what, while suppressing my need to urinate, I was waiting in the Brooklyn cold to ask him.

Here's what I can piece together: Only three days before I was in the Congo cholera clinic, I was in the office of the chief of financial police in Sarajevo, Bosnia. With master sleuth Drew Sullivan of the Sarajevo Center for Investigative Reporting, we tracked down the police report asserting that the nation's own prime minister had slipped control of the debt to one Michael Sheehan, a.k.a. Goldfinger who, for a fee, passed it from the Bosnia state power company to Grossman.

Goldfinger. We meet again. The Bond-movie Goldfinger is a Girl Scout compared to the real one. He's the man I discovered four years ago who paid off the President of Zambia to shaft his own nation out of its AIDS medicine money. The FBI and I have been discussing Goldfinger.

In Sarajevo, the Bosnian police chief told me the little hand-to-hand-to-hand business with the Congo debt was a crime, and the (now former) prime minister, a man named Nedzad Brankovic, should be in prison. The cops have written out the criminal complaint, but prosecutors have yet to touch the powerful politician.

I got to the man who blew the whistle on Brankovic, Brigadier-General Izet Spahic. He'd worked out a deal for the Bosnia power company (desperately broke) to make power pylons for the Congo (desperately broke). The project would generate electricity, clean water and profits for both countries.

It was quite a heart-warming story of two nations coming out of civil wars, with a combined total of four million dead, helping each other. But when it was discovered that the Vulture at 300 Dekalb Avenue in Brooklyn had secretly seized control of the debt between the nations, the electricity deal was off.

I went by the Bosnia pylon-making factory. It was now shut and its several thousand workers gone. At least there's no cholera.

The Brigadier was furious. He asked me, how could these people think about making a profit off of civil war, poverty and unimaginable suffering?

Well, General, When do humans grow feathers and claws?

It's a question I'm going to ask Vulture Grossman when he comes out because the Guardian and BBC Newsnight want me to ask.

For myself, the Vulture's answer is inconsequential.

I assume that after we break our story, the British Parliament will move to close the loophole it so glaringly left open to the Vulture; and the US Congress will at least pretend to consider anti-vulture legislation now languishing in some committee.

But I think the focus on Grossman and his fellow carrion chewers is distracting. The destruction of Bosnia's power-pylon industry was the direct consequence of privatizing it, bringing the free market to socialist Yugoslavia and Brankovic to power, allowing him to buy and sell debt securities on the de-regulated world financial market.

It was the privatization of Congo's state cobalt mine and the looting of its riches, all at the behest of the World Bank, IMF and privateers, that drained Congo's treasury.

Grossman is just the re-po man, the latest of the financial carnivores who've bitten into Congo and Bosnia—and Greece and Detroit.

Grossman's vulture operation is just over the bridge from Occupied Wall Street, occupied at the bottom by protesters, "The 99%," and occupied at the top by The One Percent, those who kill economies for a profit.

It's easy to target Grossman. But Vultures can only feast when the system kills, when, for easy profits, economies are turned into rotting carcasses.

****

Greg Palast is the author of Vultures' Picnic: In Pursuit of Petroleum Pigs, Power Pirates and High-Finance Carnivores, released this week in the US and Canada by Penguin.

You can read Vultures' Picnic, "Chapter 1: Goldfinger," or download it, at no charge: click here.

WBAI will launch Palast's new book in New York City on December 5. Get your tickets here.

Get info here on these tour cities:

Chicago - Nov 28 & 29
Madison - Nov 30
Albuquerque - Dec 1
Santa Fe - Dec 2
New York - Dec 5
Washington, DC - Dec 6
Houston - Dec 8
Baltimore - Dec 9
Burlington VT - Dec 12
Atlanta - Dec 15

***

Subscribe to Palast's Newsletter and podcasts.
Follow Palast on Facebook and Twitter.

GregPalast.com

TRNN Weekly Roundup November 20 - November 26, 2011

2011-11-26T08:26:00.000-06:00

Does Smaller Government Create More Jobs?
Bob Pollin: There is no evidence that austerity and cuts to social programs creates jobs
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November 25
	Thanksgiving and Undocumented Farm Workers Frank Bardacke: Millions of undocumented farm workers produce much of America's food Go to story \| Go to homepage

November 24
	Global Recession Looms as Euro Crisis Deepens Costas Lapavitsas: Crisis deepens as Germany fails to sell-out 10 year bonds; the public must take over the financial system Go to story \| Go to homepage

Egyptian Protests Rage On
Egyptians say this is not a second revolution, it's a continuation of the first one
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November 23
	Meet Jihan Hafiz and Reed Lindsay A special show with Cairo Correspondents Jihan Hafiz and Reed Lindsay speaking about covering the Egyptian Revolution and Jihan's recent detention while covering the Gaza flotilla Go to story \| Go to homepage

"When the World Outlawed War"
David Swanson discusses his book about the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact and how it makes current wars illegal
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November 22
	Million Man March for a Civilian Led Government â The Military Council is preserving the system which did not fall with Mubarakâ Go to story \| Go to homepage

November 21
	Cairo Protests "To Save the Revolution" Jihan Hafiz reports that dozens killed as Egyptians demand a civilian government Go to story \| Go to homepage

Will 50% Cuts "Hollow Out" the Military?
Jo Comerford: With the Super Committee deadlocked, the triggered cuts to military spending in 2013 will not affect real US security
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The Super Committee and the Attack on Labor
Michael Hudson: Austerity and recession used to lower wages
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Is Canada's Gold Corp. Good for Guatemala? Pt2
Lyuba Zarsky: Environmental and health effects are a violation of human rights
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Egyptians Document Tahrir Police Violence
From Cairo to Alexandria, Egyptians have captured images of rampant police violence using handheld video cameras and mobile phones
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November 20
	Maher Arar on Syrian Conflict Maher Arar updates his case and discusses the struggle in Syria Go to story \| Go to homepage

Euro Crisis, Neo-Liberalism
and Undoing the Welfare State
Gerry Epstein: German elite profited from the
Euro Zone, now wants to use crisis to undo
welfare state and privatize
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"We Are the One Per Centers!" @ The New Yorker Magazine

2011-11-21T23:03:00.000-06:00

Shouts & Murmurs

We Are the One Per Cent

by John Kenney November 28, 2011

Average wealth of the top 1 percent was almost $14 million in 2009, according to a 2011 report from the Economic Policy Institute.
—Washingtonpost.com.

“Shit is fucked up and bullshit.”
—Sign seen at the Occupy Wall Street protest in lower Manhattan.

We, too, have mobilized.

We come from near and far, by any means necessary, some on private jets, others on extremely large private jets.

But you will not find us sleeping in a park and waiting in line at a Burger King to urinate. Have you heard of Mustique? Because that’s where we have mobilized. Don’t bother trying to Google Earth us, though, because we have proprietary military software that prevents you from doing so.

Our numbers may be smaller than those demonstrating in New York and other cities, but we are still a movement, coalesced around a cause, sleeping two and sometimes three people to a villa.

Perhaps you are wondering what our cause is. Perhaps you’re wondering why we, the richest people on the planet, have come together. Perhaps you’re curious whether what we’re undertaking couldn’t technically be called a vacation. These are all good questions.

We’re angry. We’re angry at something we’re calling “imagined frustration.” By this we mean that, except for Congress, the White House, banks, major lobbyists, and the editorial boards of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal, no one is listening to us. And we’re tired of it.

You claim to know something about us. You think we are rich beyond comprehension, that we can do anything we please at any time, go anywhere we want at a moment’s notice, wander the earth in a state of constant bliss, enjoying abundant and fabulous sex. Perhaps you do know us.

There are those in the more liberal press who have questioned whether the wealthiest one per cent truly understand how difficult life is for so many Americans right now, and to that we would say— Oh, look, someone just brought in lobster and a Bollinger Grande Année.

Except for money and the almost unnatural flawlessness of my skin, we are no different, you and I. I don’t know who you are or what you look like or how much money you have in the bank. Nor does it matter. Because we’re just men. Unless you are a woman. Or a child. Or a pony. But ponies don’t read magazines, do they? Unless they’re precocious ponies, like Mister Ed. And he wasn’t real. But I think you get my point. And that is: we are the same, except for the coarseness of the skin on your elbows. Do you know that feeling, upon waking at 4 A.M., heart racing, your mind looking twenty, thirty years down the road, wondering how you are going to make ends meet? Worrying about what would happen if you lost your job, asking yourself how you’re going to pay for your kids’ college or retire? Well, I don’t. But I read a story about it once and remember thinking, I’m so glad that’s not me.

What do we want?

Here is our manifesto, still very much a work in progress, as it’s cocktail hour and several of our protesters are out at the pool:

—All wealth should be shared equally among the wealthy.

—Eradicate poverty. (Note: Maybe a clearer way to say this would be “Eradicate the poor.” Need to discuss.)

—End business as usual. (Note: Several members like the sound of this, but they don’t know what it means. A suggestion has been made to add the word “hours” after “business.”)

—Implement a rule whereby the public cannot look at us and must keep a distance of at least twenty feet at all times.

Yes, I have more things—more homes and cars and planes and art and underground passages and satellites and private militias and a person whose only job is to grow hair that is genetically identical to my own. But when you take off your pants and I take off my pants and we stand facing each other as naked as the day we were born, except for socks, all I would ask is that you feel my skin and tell me it’s not the softest skin you’ve ever felt on a man. And also realize that we are the same, except for the fact that I have four submarines.

Shit is fucked up and bullshit.

We agree.

Except that we would substitute “money” for “shit,” “awesome” for “fucked up,” and “squash courts” for “bullshit,” and add the words “cannot be used for more than ninety minutes. Please respect club rules. Thank you.” ♦

ILLUSTRATION: Laurie Rosenwald

Uncle Academic: "First Amendment Under Siege - OWS" @ Save The News

2011-11-21T18:04:00.002-06:00

From what's going on lately, you'd think we're living in Syria.

Mayor Bloomberg's First Amendment Problem (with link to video in which a reporter films his own arrest).
Reporters Say Police Denied Access to Protest Site

I urge you to consider signing the petition linked to below.

-- Uncle Academic --

Mayors: Protect Press Freedom in Your Cities.

Dear Readers,

Early Tuesday morning, the New York Police Department forcibly evacuated Zuccotti Park, home of the Occupy Wall Street movement. The move provoked a clash not only with protesters but with the press. In what appears to have been a coordinated effort to block coverage of the raid, the police barred many journalists from reporting on the police action.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the police kept the media away “to prevent a situation from getting worse and to protect members of the press.”

But according to the New York Times, one journalist told a police officer “I’m press!” and the officer just responded “Not tonight.”

If the mayor of our country's largest city thinks protecting the press means silencing them, we're in big trouble. And he’s not alone. Police harassment of the media has been reported during "Occupy" protests in Chicago, Denver, Oakland, Portland and beyond. Arrests of journalists continued throughout the week as protesters took to the streets nationwide.

It’s time to tell mayors across the country to uphold our press freedoms.

Tell Mayor Bloomberg and the U.S. Conference of Mayors to publicly commit to defending the First Amendment and letting journalists do their jobs.

The NYPD is using more than words to fight journalists. Since Tuesday, 13 reporters have been arrested, another was put in a choke hold, another was beaten with a baton and others were subjected to police harassment.

In fact, since the birth of the Occupy Wall Street movement two months ago, 26 journalists have been arrested^{2, 3} and countless others have been roughed up, tear-gassed and pepper sprayed. There have even been reports of police using high-powered strobe lights to disable video cameras and block people from recording their actions.

Demand that all U.S. mayors publicly commit to protecting freedom of the press.

Please sign this action and we will deliver your letter to Mayor Bloomberg and the Conference of Mayors and demand that they drop all charges and make this crucial commitment to upholding the First Amendment.

The freedom of our press is fundamental to our identity as Americans. As elected representatives charged with serving the people, our mayors must rein in these aggressive and violent tactics by local law enforcement.

Please take action right now.

Josh Stearns
Associate Program Director
Free Press
www.freepress.net

P.S. Great news: If we raise $300,000 by Dec. 31, 2011, two longtime supporters will kick in an additional $300,000. Donate today and your gift will pack double the punch in the fight to protect the First Amendment and journalists everywhere. Thank you!

1. Brian Stelter, "Reporters Say Police Denied Access to Protest Site," New York Times, Nov. 15, 2011: http://act2.freepress.net/go/7342?akid=3075.9479476.IO7dP3&t=13

2. See a list of all journalists arrested at Occupy events since September, plus related videos and articles. http://act2.freepress.net/go/7343?akid=3075.9479476.IO7dP3&t=15

3. See a statement from the Society of Professional Journalists condemning the arrests. http://act2.freepress.net/go/7344?akid=3075.9479476.IO7dP3&t=17

Fightin' Cock Flyer: Brian Stelter: "U. C. Davis Calls for Investigatio...

2011-11-21T09:24:00.000-06:00

Fightin' Cock Flyer: Brian Stelter: "U. C. Davis Calls for Investigatio...: Video Went Viral From 300,000 Views to over 460,000 In One Hour! Update : According to the person who posted this at YouTube: The officer...

Uncle Academic's "Walter Benjamin, Capitalism as a Religion & NPR on Ayn Rand"

2011-11-21T04:19:00.002-06:00

On Capitol Hill, Rand's 'Atlas' Can't Be Shrugged Off

In the 1950s, Rand felt that her ideal of unfettered capitalism was missing in politics. But today, her ideas are alive and well-represented in the U.S. Capitol. Her philosophy has sunk so deeply into our political thought, many people don't even recognize it as hers anymore.

Contains AR interview with Mike Wallace from the 50s and an audio clip of her testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee (20 Oct 1947)

TRNN Weekly Roundup Nov. 13 - 19 @ Discomfit Magazine

2011-11-19T10:59:00.000-06:00

TRNN Debate on Austerity and the Eurozone
Paulo Manasse and Mark Weisbrot debate the Euro crisis, post Berlusconi and Papandreou
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Tens of thousands return to Tahrir for "Friday of One Demand"
Tens of thousands of protesters massed in central Cairo's Tahrir Square on Friday for one of the biggest demonstrations since the January uprising that brought down President Hosni Mubarak.
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November 18
	"Occupy" Actions Across the Country In DC and other cities, demonstrators rally at bridges Go to story \| Go to homepage

NYPD Aid Protesters in Shutting Down Stock Exchange
Voices from Zuccotti Park: why arenâ t people too big to fail?
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TRNN Debate on the IAEA Iran Report
Beeman and Spector: Does the IAEA report on Iran prove the existence of a nuclear weapons program?
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November 17
	Palestinian "Freedom Riders" Challenge Segregation Drawing a comparison to American civil rights fighters, Palestinian activists boarded Israeli settler buses in the West Bank. Go to story \| Go to homepage

IAEA Iran Report Fit Facts to Strengthen Hardliners
Robert Kelley Pt2: The report misleads and manipulates facts in attempt to prove a forgone conclusion
Go to story | Go to homepage

November 16
	Eviction Reinforces OWS Determination Occupy Wall Street supporters will attempt to shut down Wall Street and New York subways Go to story \| Go to homepage

Occupy Protestors Vow to Return
Concerted attack on occupy movements took place after 18 mayors held a conference to discuss a coordinated strategy
Go to story | Go to homepage

November 15
	Former IAEA Inspector: Misleading Iran Report Proves Nothing Robert Kelley: Latest IAEA report recycles old intelligence and is meant to bolster hard liners Go to story \| Go to homepage

Is Canada's Gold Corp. Good for Guatemala?
Lyuba Zarsky: 85% of gold revenues leave the country, where majority live in poverty
Go to story | Go to homepage

The Maspero Massacre: What Really Happened
28 killed and 30 awaiting military trials as protesters marched to state TV building
Go to story | Go to homepage

November 14
	The Militarization of Pakistanâ s Economy Shahrukh Rafi Khan: The Militaryâ s dominant role in Pakistanâ s politics supported by its economic power Go to story \| Go to homepage

Occupy Wall Street Declares Goldman Sachs Guilty
General Assembly holds mock trial and journalist Chris Hedges reads indictment accusing Goldman Sachs of financial crimes against humanity
Go to story | Go to homepage

Austerity and the Destruction of Democracy
Rob Johnson: Austerity policies in Europe threaten a deformation of democracy and the rise of ultra-nationalist forces
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November 13
	IAEA Iran Report Spins Intelligence Gareth Porter: Dubious intelligence used as pretext for tougher sanctions Go to story \| Go to homepage

Doha Debates: Egypt Military Does Not Want Real Reform

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George Kenney: "Podcast Interview: Admiral Bobby Ray Inman" @ Electric Politics

2011-11-19T06:04:00.001-06:00

Dear Michael,

I wanted to get at the problem of reducing nuclear weapons from a conservative point of view and was fortunate enough to be able to interview Admiral Bobby Ray Inman (Ret.). Although he's not a 'Global Zero' person -- which I am -- he thinks our nuclear arsenal could safely be drastically reduced and that so-called investments in new generations of nuclear weapons are a waste. Considering that the Navy has about as much to do with nuclear weapons strategy as the Air Force, coming from such a senior former officer this is an important, well-informed opinion, not to be disregarded lightly. He says he doesn't, btw, think that we're about to launch a war against Iran -- and I hope his assessment is correct! We talk about several other issues including Fourth Amendment rights (where we partly agree) and torture (where we fully agree). To the end he sings the praises of the Constitution but I didn't have the heart to tell him I'm for rewriting it; if he ever learns about my views I hope he won't be terribly disappointed…

I tried, btw, to steer our conversation into a few directions he didn't want to go but out of respect I gave up whenever I encountered real resistance. One question in particular I'd wanted to try on him was something along the lines of: 'the lead pilot in Israel's 1981 raid on Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor was a fellow named Col. Aviem Sella, who later recruited Jonathan Pollard -- Pollard, of course, spied for Israel from within the Naval Intelligence Service which you had formerly led -- do you think that this was pure coincidence or could it have been personal payback for your decision to no longer give Israel access to satellite imagery after the Osirak raid?' That would have been getting deep down into the weeds but might have elicited a frank assessment regarding whether Israel could be a trustworthy interlocutor on nuclear issues. And I would have been very interested in whether he thought that Bob Gates, by unrealistically inflating the Soviet threat for political purposes, thereby effectively downgraded the priority of nuclear nonproliferation -- but that particular question I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have approved. Anyhow, he steered away from all such controversies, usually several jumps before I got to them. It was, I thought while we were talking, almost as though he had a sixth sense about what was next.

As always, if you like the show please forward the link.

Best,

http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2011/11/accelerated_ideas.html

2011-11-19T04:08:00.001-06:00

Blackwater Shoots Itself in the Foot

by Lunch_Meat • Nov 17, 2011 • with 6 Comments

Introduction

Well, that kind of says it all, doesn’t it?

I’m still kind of in the dark, I really don’t know what I did. One night, Rigger82 calls me over to his house and hands me this… Maybe it was payback for the time I stenciled “USMC” across his driveway, or maybe that time I scored a headshot on him in Battlefield 3 with a tank I stole from his base. Either way, payback is a bitch. I’m sorry.

Blackwater was released just a few weeks ago on October 25th. I’m not quite certain what prompted former Blackwater USA (now Xe Services) CEO Erik Prince to approach 505 Games and Zombie Studios with this idea, and I sure as hell would like to know who thought this one through and said “Hell yeah, that sounds good!” Scratch that, I don’t want to know, some mysteries are better left unanswered. As games go, well this one strikes new ground. I have never played anything so bad, it made me want to channel Darth Vader and force choke the developers. This is no soup sandwich, this is a full six course meal of horseshit, and you get the choice nugget.

Concept

Some time ago, following a few rather public incidents, Erik Prince resigned as Blackwater’s CEO. The company was rebranded Xe Services, and continues to operate as a Private Military Company. Prince retained rights to the Blackwater name, however, and decided to relaunch the brand…as a Kinect game. Well, to be fair if you visit the new Blackwater website, you can also get a coffee mug or a tactical Blackwater beer koozie. The Blackwater towels aren’t up yet, and you can find a picture of a knife, but those aren’t available either. They take Visa, Mastercard and Discover.

The story is set in a fictional North African town of Harri in the equally fictitious country of Limbano. You control Agile-22, a four man squad of Blackwater operatives who, from looking at them, are all related somehow to a Fallout Bobblehead. The team consists of Devin, Baird (whose name constantly sounds like “beard” and since he has one, is fitting), Smash (who has the obligatory Security Contractor bald head and goatee) and Eddi, who remembered his name is supposed to have an “e” in it, but not how many. The team drives up in it’s convoy of Black SUVs, because those never stand out when you are in a tactical environment, and meets with their point of contact, a Sikh in cammies. I don’t know, could happen, he’s not wearing any U.N. insignia so I figure the local North African Sikh community is proud, but they might be riled to find out the voice actor is probably the same guy who does the voice of Apu Nahasapeemapetilon in The Simspons.

The first mission involves escorting an aid convoy. During the scene, the members of Agile-22 joke with each other. Smash stands in the open sun roof canopy of his SUV, one hand on his hip, shotgun resting over his shoulder in a fine display of muzzle and tactical awareness. “Hey, I’m riding shotgun, WITH a shotgun!” he says, and the crowd goes wild…The jokes just keep on coming, but the humor remains behind.

The convoy comes under attack, and you can almost hear the sound effects guy rattling a piece of aluminum while saying “boom” in the microphone. What follows next is a quick engagement with an army of look alike insurgents, all wearing khaki tactical vests and red shirts. The bad guys move in and out of screen like sliding range targets as your player feed confirms your score, +10 Militia Killed…The game moves on to several other missions, all aimed at protecting aid workers and dignitaries amid the backdrop of internal strife in a nation overrun by a warlord.The various scenarios are all fairly realistic, in that they could happen, but the delivery is rather like watching the Three Stooges read the Gettysburg Address. Sadly, what might have been a decent FPS title for the Kinect ends up becoming a chest thumping, media whoring propaganda piece that ends up sucking hind tit on a bull.

Graphics

Blackwater uses the Unreal Engine, and I am thinking Epic should find a way to disavow any connection to this game whatsoever, or at least institute a new clause in their licensing contracts, call it “The Blackwater Effect.” The characters all look like they were drawn for a 1970s cartoon, with heads so disproportionate to their bodies they look like dashboard collectibles. All of the models are flat, featureless, and look interchangeable with any number of other characters. The explosions are laughable, as well as the claims that the game features a destructible environment. If this were the first title by developer Zombie Studios, I might be tempted to give it a pass, but it is not. What they need to do is fire every damn person who worked on the graphics, and replace them with finger painting 4 year olds, that way the quality will improve a bit.

Sound

Whether it is the bad, over the top acting, or too dramatic music, this game should serve as a training tool for gamers and developers alike as glistening example of what not to do. IF, after this review you simply have to go out and buy this game, do yourself the favor and disable the subtitles. Hearing the voice overs is bad enough, but reading them is the next thing to torture. And me without my Kinect waterboard…

Gameplay

In addition to the standard Campaign mode, we are blessed with Quick Play and Competition maps. The Competition Maps consists of three different map areas, and are able to accommodate players numbering from 1 to 8. I didn’t have a chance to try this one out, so I can’t speak on it, turns out there are not a lot of folks interested in playing Blackwater. In Quickplay you can access any of the maps you have already played, or go to the Training Camp to learn the controls.

Blackwater uses the Xbox 360 Kinect sensor, but you can also play with a standard controller. Using the Kinect to play the game is like trying to open a can of peas with one chopstick and a can of Wesson. It’s sloppy, unresponsive and pointless. The aiming reticle jumps around so much, anyone not watching you would think you are having a seizure. The point of aim is way off, even after tuning the sensor and working within the game’s menu to adjust settings, I still found that pointing my hand AT the target did not translate to an accurate aim. Bottom right somehow is the middle, and I wonder if instead of my hand, the game is programmed to track my elbow. Switching over from the Kinect to the standard controller is no good either, your aim improves and the reticle stops dancing like an overworked stripper, but you lose the ability to move in the game effectively. By the time it is all done, you wish your controller had a wire so you could choke someone out. When you do somehow manage to get close to what you are aiming at, it locks on and you fire after a pause.

That brief pause part, that is what bothers me. The game’s home page touts employing realistic tactics to handle potentially lethal scenarios. The only thing realistic, is that your expectations should be low. The pause in between acquiring your target and actually putting rounds downrange is enough to infuriate anyone who has ever handled a weapon.

Replayability

No.

Value

The only value in this game is comedy, or perhaps the joke you will get out of it if you buy it for someone else. At 30 bucks you can kiss my ass.

Final Intelligence Report

The development team of Blackwater, as well as the supposed technical consultation that went into this steaming pile of tripe, have taken all their hard work and given us something to laugh at. This game is an insult to the gaming and military community. Erik Prince has tried to give the Blackwater name a better image, but instead turned it into a bad joke delivered by a stuttering comedian with lockjaw.

From: admin@blackwaterwatch.net

Date: November 18, 2011 10:54:01 AM CST

To: blackwaterwatch@blackwaterwatch.net

Subject: [Blackwaterwatch] Privatizing Liberty

Privatizing Liberty

Richard (RJ) Eskow

Consultant, writer and Senior Fellow, Campaign for America's Future

Posted: 11/17/11 09:17 PM ET

As Mayor Bloomberg's forces swooped down on Occupy Wall Street, news reports described the "hundreds of police and private security guards" who had re-taken Zuccotti Park. Those private guards were used against public citizens who had been exercising their civil liberties in a public area.

That's not just wrong. It's un-American.

This incident holds an important lesson for anyone who loves our freedoms: when something public is made private, our liberties are privatized, too. And privatized liberty isn't liberty at all.

Privatizing Liberty

Zuccotti Park. New Yorkers knew it as Liberty Plaza Park for nearly half a century. Like other sites in New York, the plaza was created through an agreement between the city and a private company, United States Steel, that wanted to erect a building that exceeded the city's height limits. So the city made them a deal: you can take up more than your share of the public skyline, but in return you have to give the city some open space at ground level.

This wasn't a gift. It was a fair exchange between two parties, a private corporation and the people of New York. The people gave up a chunk of their skyline, and the owner agreed to provide an open -- and, by agreement, fully public -- space in return. New York City makes these deals fairly often. The plazas created by these agreements are called "privately owned public spaces," or "POPS," and the city has lots of them.

The Mayor may want to read that phrase again: it doesn't say "privately owned private spaces." Both the owner and the city are obligated to keep them for public use, in the public sphere, with all the laws and freedoms that apply to public space.

The park's current owner, Brookfield Properties, rebuilt the park with private donations after it was damaged in the 9/11 attacks. With Mayor Bloomberg's permission, they also overstepped tradition and the bounds of propriety by renaming the park -- not for the thousands of innocent people who died that day, but for their own chairman.

The symbolism is perfect: they replaced a treasured word for freedom with the name of a rich guy who'd done nothing to create the park. With the Mayor's blessing, they literally privatized the word "liberty."

Like I said, perfect. Tragic, but perfect.

Private Dicks

Brookfield overstepped its bounds when its CEO sent the mayor a letter saying that the Occupation "violates the law, violates the rules of the Park, deprives the community of its rights of quiet enjoyment to the Park, and creates health and public safety issues." Those aren't decisions a private company, even an owner, should make about a public space. They are judgments an elected official makes on behalf of a free citizenry.

This week Bloomberg and Brookfield have used the park's semi-private status as an excuse to invade a public space with a private security force. Whoever these guys were -- besides rude and uncivil -- they served as a kind of Blackwater militia, but targeting New Yorkers instead of Iraqis. (At least Brookfield says it fired the guard who called a citizen a "faggot.")

When it comes to privatization, it seems the Mayor has boundary issues. He has repeatedly used the park's private ownership status to claim that the public has fewer rights there than it does in other public spaces. That's false. But then, that's the problem with "public/private partnerships." The "public" partner always gets rolled the public one.

But then, that's how these people are. Give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile. The lesson of Zuccotti Park is: never give them an inch.

Thin Blue Line, Thick Green Wallets

News reports noted the presence of two different groups, New York City police officers and private security guards, but in some ways that's become a distinction without a difference. The NYPD is frequently rented by the same Wall Street banks that broke the law, crashed the economy and got away with it. As Pam Martens reported in Counterpunch, Rudy Giuliani created an operation called the "Paid Detail" unit that turns New York's Finest into a "rent-a-cop" service for anyone with the money to pay for it.

And who has more money in New York than the banks? As Martens reports, companies like Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, and the New York Stock Exchange have rented the Thin Blue Line with the cash from their Thick Green Wallets. Even after the Stock Exchange was found to have illegally taken over public streets and walkways and "created a public nuisance," nobody was fined or arrested.

But then, it must be hard for a cop to arrest anybody that he sometimes has to address as "boss." Maybe that's one of the reasons why a retired Philadelphia police officer, Capt. Ray Lewis, was willing to be handcuffed and arrested by fellow officers during the protest. Capt. Lewis called their rationale for arresting him a 'farce' and promised to return.

(photo by permission of the photographer, Lauren Thorpe)

New York isn't the only city that rents out its police force. But the financial capital of the nation bears moral and civic responsibilities that Mayors Guiliani and Bloomberg have disrespected and violated. The photograph of Capt. Lewis is like an image of law enforcement's honor, handcuffed by the mercenary instincts of Gracie Mansion's two most recent occupants.

Checkbook Democracy

But then, why would Michael Bloomberg be expected to understand that privatization is undemocratic? He "privatized" the electoral process, one of our most sacred democratic institutions, by buying himself the mayoralty. And he spent unprecedented levels of campaign cash from his personal billions to do it. Then, when he didn't like the term limits that the people of New York had decreed for their mayor -- well, he "privatized" that, too.

But this isn't really about Michael Bloomberg. Despite his reputation for healthy self-regard, even the billionaire mayor is only a symptom of a much larger problem. Rich people have been buying elections for so long that it's become the newest form of self-indulgence, conveying even more status than a Citation jet or a private island. Public office is the newest must-have item for the excessively vain and excessive well-to-do, a kind of vanity press for the self-published authors of their own meritless political careers. Bloomberg is merely today's most conspicuous, extravagant, and fiscally irresponsible member of an increasingly ordinary club.

You don't have to be a billionaire to run for office these days, of course. But if you're not, you'll spend most of your time begging them for money. No wonder the 1 percent call all the shots in government. They own it.

I've always thought it would be a good idea if elected officials wore the insignia of the corporations that sponsor them, the way race car drivers do.

Sold American

Republicans want to privatize Social Security and Medicare. The Bush and Obama Administrations have privatized law enforcement on Wall Street by asking banks to police themselves. And during the devastating San Diego fires, residents learned that AIG had created a private fire department that saved the homes of its clients while other nearby houses burned.

Privatized police. Privatized fire departments. Privatized prisons. Privatized armies of Halliburton and Blackwater soldiers. When for-profit companies perform government functions, they'll do it in a way that makes them money. That's not hard to understand, but our "leaders" keep doing it anyway.

Why? Because they've privatized their consciences, too.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rj-eskow/privatizing-liberty_b_1100606.html

Sustainability Action Network News, Lawrence Chapter, 25 Oct 2011

2011-10-25T01:26:00.001-05:00

WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
25 October 2011

"It's too bad that everyone who has a solution for everything is at home commenting on the Internet." - Aaron Karo

This "4th Estate" alternate media doesn't come cheaply. PLEASE DONATE TODAY. Mail your 501(C)(3) tax deductible donations to:
Sustainability Action Network,P.O.Box 1064, Lawrence KS 66044.

________________________________________________

COMPLETE STREETS POLICY AT LAWRENCE CITY COMMISSION
Tuesday, 25 October 2011, 6:30pm
Lawrence City Hall, 6th & Massachusetts St., Lawrence KS 66044

What are complete streets you ask? Complete Streets enable equal and safe access for all user, pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities. Auto-centric streets would be redesigned to incorporate a range of features: bicycle lanes, pedestrian islands, bus shelters, traffic calming, sidewalks with curb cuts, etc.

The Lawrence Complete StreetsCommittee has been working with the City Planning Office for about a year to develop a policy that will guide city street design and construction to be complete streets. The Sustainability Action Network has a representative sitting on this committee. Many communities in Kansas and the nation have adopted such policies. But the devil is in the details, and our policy should be more than lip service. The public is encouraged to attend this meeting to comment to the Commission. Read the policy at - Complete Streets Policy_25Oct11.
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"FOOD PRODUCTION: FOOD FORESTS" ¤ KANSAS PERMACULTURE INSTITUTE
Wednesday, 26 October 2011, 6:00-9:00pm - $$
Dreher 4-H Building, Douglas County Co-op Extension, 2110 Harper St., Lawrence KS

This lecture is part of a nine lecture series offered weekly and taught by Steve Moring of Vajra Farm Permaculture Center. All lectures are open to the public. This session will describe the concept of polyculture forest garden systems. Food forests involve creating plant associations of trees, shrubs, and berries into "guilds", arranged by size, height, and sun-orientation, called "stacking". The emphasis will be on the development and maintenance of nut and fruit tree food forests. The lecture will be followed by a viewing of the film "Establishing a Food Forest" by Geoff Lawton. A percentage of the fees will support the Kaw Permaculture Collaborative and it's parent organization, the Sustainability Action Network. For more info contact Steve Moring at (785)691-7305 or <moringse@gmail.com >.
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FOOD NOT LAWNS COMMUNIVERSITY CLASS ¤ SECTION #2306A

4th session, Wednesday, 26 October 2011, 7:00-9:00pm - $$
UMKC School of Medicine, Theatre C, first floor, 24th & Charlotte, KCMO

Not just another gardening class, "Food Not Lawns" will help youturn your lawn into a garden and your neighborhood into a community. Our goals are to help increase local food security, improve your diet, beautify your surroundings, and reduce pollution and energy use. Topics include: whole system design, garden preparation, permaculture, and water wise gardening and planting and free resources (see Food Not Lawns KC). The Food Not Lawns KC Collaborative has been working to transform Kansas City into a paradise garden one lawn at a time since 2007. CONVENER: Steve Mann (816)352-9213. E-mail: steve@prairietrading.com. Enroll here: https://ecomm2.umkc.edu/commu/SearchDetail.aspx?id=852
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KKFI COMMUNITY RADIO ¤ ECOLOGICAL SHOWS THIS WEEK
Listen at KKFI-FM 90.1, or web-streaming at http://www.kkfi.org/

Tuesday, 25 October 2011, 9:00am ¤ If You Love This Planet
Dr. Helen Caldicott's program will feature Dr. Ian Fairlie, a radiobiologist from Great Britain. His area of expertise is the dosimetric impacts of nuclear reactor emissions. He has written extensively on epidemiology, studies of child leukemia's near nuclear facilities, and the hazards of tritium.

Wednesday, 26 October 2011, 9:00am ¤ Alternative Radio
Economist Richard Wolff examines the Systemic Crisis of Capitalism. "Today's economic crisis is the most severe since the Great Depression. What are its root causes? If we tinker with some reform measures, pass some legislation, a tax cut here, a little stimulus package there and everything will be hunky-dory. Will it? It's long past time to examine Capitalism itself."

Friday, 28 October 201, 9:30am ¤ Bioneers Radio Series

Bioneers presents "Taking Back the Country from the Nation: Finding the Light in the Shadows". Has "analysis paralysis" sapped our energy and determination to transform a failing world? Can we cut through the tangle to actually act to make a positive difference? Can we turn our vices into virtues? Though Hillman's approach may sound paradoxical, his destination is the deeper understanding that leads to real transformation--and to transformative action.

Monday, 31 October 201, 6:00pm ¤ locally produced Eco-Radio KC

Host, Richard Mabion will have his second installment of environmental issues for Blacks in the U.S. He'll have guests Shery Green, of Rethink Inc, and John Burris, a long time community activist.
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FUKUSHIMA DAI-ICHI NUCLEAR DISASTER ¤ DAY 221

We missed this last month, but the Japanese people are not buying their corporate government line about nuclear safety. The lessons of Hiroshima and now Fukushima are reverberating widely. On 19 September 2011, tens of thousands rallied in Tokyo for Japan's government to abandon atomic energy in the wake of the Fukushima nuclear accident. According to the AP article, one of the speakers from Fukushima Prefecture, "Reiko Muto, described herself as a 'hibakusha', an emotionally laden term for survivors of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Before the disaster, this earthquake-prone country derived 30 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. An AP-GfK poll showed that 55 percent of Japanese want to reduce the number of nuclear reactors in the country." More at - Tens of Thousands March Against Nuclear Power in Tokyo.

We suggest readers avail themselves of reports from the following sources. Japan Focus - Japan Focus, Nuclear Information and Resource Service - Nuclear Crisis in Japan - Updates, Reader Supported News - Disaster In Japan - 11 March 2011, and Fairewinds Associates - Fukushima Updates.

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SOIL BIOLOGY AND COVER CROP SCHOOL
Thursday, 27 October 2011 - $$$
Green Cover Seeds, 932 Road X, Bladen, NE 68928
(1 mile south and 1 1/2 miles east of Bladen, NE)

This the fourth annual Cover Crop School will be taught by Dr. Jill Clapperton, a Rhizosphere Ecologist who operates Earthspirit Land Resource Consulting in western Montana. Her area of research studies soil food webs, nutrient cycling, soil fauna-plant disease interactions, rhizosphere interactions, and soil biodiversity. The course will also include demonstration plots of over 80 different cover crop species and mixes on various soil types, soil pit analysis, and no-till seeding equipment. Green Cover Seed is a family business that emphasizes building soil fertility through cover crops and no till methods. To register, go to Cover Crop School registration.
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"RAINFOREST ETIQUETTE IN A WORLD GONE MAD" ¤ SUPRABHA SESHAN
Thursday, 27 October 2011, 7:00pm
Lawrence Public Library Auditorium, 7th & Vermont St., Lawrence KS 66044

Much of India's Western Ghat Mountains along the Arabian sea coast have been destroyed by colonial policies, development schemes, and a growing population. The fragments that remain support precious habitats for indigenous life, but they are threatened by growing urbanization. Suprabha Seshan is an ecologist and educator at the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, a forest garden in the Western Ghat mountains of Kerala, India. Her talk explores the intertwined lives of the plants, animals, and people of northern Kerala and the two contrasting aspects of nature that ecosystem gardeners work with: resilience and fragility.
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"SWALES, TERRACES, WATER CATCHMENTS" ¤ KANSAS PERMACULTURE INSTITUTE
Wednesday, 2 November 2011, 6:00-9:00pm - $$
Dreher 4-H Building, Douglas County Co-op Extension, 2110 Harper St., Lawrence KS

This lecture is part of a nine lecture series offered weekly and taught by Steve Moring of Vajra Farm Permaculture Center. All lectures are open to the public. This session will cover a critical component of any site design, that of maximizing water absorption and minimizing run-off. Several techniques can be used to modify the terrain as needed, and they are best done at the outset before any planting takes place. Water catchments can be roofs with tank storage, or ground basins like ponds or water gardens. Swales and Key Lines are water channels that spread run-off horizontally by gravity. Terraces are on-level contours that slow the down-hill flow of water. The lecture will be followed by a viewing of the film "Water Harvesting" by Geoff Lawton. A percentage of the fees will support the Kaw Permaculture Collaborative and it's parent organization, the Sustainability Action Network. For more info contact Steve Moring at (785)691-7305 or <moringse@gmail.com >.
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KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE PROTEST TO ENCIRCLE WHITE HOUSE
Sunday, 6 November 2011
1600 Pennsylvania Ave., District of Columbia

350.org will encircle the White House to demand that President Obama reject the Keystone XL pipeline. View this video by Mark Ruffalo at Occupy Wall Street describing how petroleum corporations have addicted us to oil so they can line their pockets with $billions, and rallying for the human chain around the White House - Mark Ruffalo's video and November 6th at White House.

Several other other options are available before Obama's decision.

The 350.org site has many choices - November 6 Tar Sands Action.
And - You can phone President Obama: no Keystone XL Pipeline.
The EPA must weigh in too - Ask Lisa Jackson to oppose Keystone X.

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"THE ECONOMICS OF HAPPINESS" ¤ A FILM OF SOLUTIONS FOR TRANSITION
Monday, 7 November 2011, 7:00pm
Lawrence Public Library Auditorium, 7th & Vermont St., Lawrence KS 66044

This film brings a positive message about how a grassroots movement for localization is bubbling up from the cracks of a faltering global economy in every corner of the world. It is produced by Helena Norberg-Hodge of the International Society for Ecology and Culture, a not-for-profit working for the strengthening of local communities and economies, emphasizing education for action, moving beyond single issues to look at the more fundamental influences that shape our lives. Preview it here - the Economics of Happiness. Brought by Prairie Moon Waldorf School and co-sponsored by Sustainability Action Network and Films For Action.

"This film presents the localization movement as a systemic alternative to corporate globalization, and a strategy that brings community and meaning to our lives." - Joanna Macy, author World as Lover, World as Self.

"A remarkable new documentary... Get a copy of this DVD. Then get the kids. Pull them away from their smartphones and video games... And show them this movie." - Russell Mokhiber, editor ofThe Corporate Crime Reporter
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LAWRENCE SUSTAINABILITY ADVISORY BOARD

Wednesday, 9 November 2011, 5:30pm
K.U. Center for Design Research, 2544 Westbrook Circle, Lawrence KS 66045.

The November agenda is not yet available. The S.A.B. meets monthly to discuss any and all aspects of furthering sustainability policies and practices by the City of Lawrence government and private persons. The public is welcome. Minutes are finalized in about a month after each meeting http://www.lawrenceks.org/wrr/envadvisoryboard
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KANSAS CITY ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT COMMISSION
Wednesday, 9 November 2011, 4:00-6:00pm
Mid America Regional Council, Rivergate Center 2nd floor, 600 Broadway, KC MO

The Environmental Management Commission promotes environmental awareness and resource efficiency to the City's leaders and staff, to assist the progress of Kansas City toward sustainability. The General public is encouraged to attend and observe meetings and to join and participate in its efforts. More information is at KC Environmental Mgt Commission

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"SUSTAINABLE ARCHITECTURE" ¤ KANSAS PERMACULTURE INSTITUTE
Wednesday, 9 November 2011, 6:00-9:00pm - $$
Dreher 4-H Building, Douglas County Co-op Extension, 2110 Harper St., Lawrence KS

This permaculture lecture is part of a nine lecture series, and will be taught by Steve Moring with the assistance of Michael Almon and Michael Morley. All lectures are open to the public. This will be a comprehensive survey of the construction of energy efficient structures using sustainably produced materials and integrated into the permaculture landscape. We will explore the construction of passive solar, attached solar greenhouse, berm, cob, cord wood, straw bale, and SIPS structures. The lecture will be followed by a viewing of the film "Green Architecture". A percentage of the fees will support the Kaw Permaculture Collaborative and it's parent organization, the Sustainability Action Network. For more info contact Steve Moring at (785)691-7305 or <moringse@gmail.com >.
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TRANSITION KAW VALLEY MEETING

Thursday, 10 November 2011, 7:00pm

Delaware Street Commons, 822 East 13th St., Lawrence KS 66044

The Transition Kaw Valley workshop series is underway. The recent Food Canning workshop and Sheet Mulching workshop were great successes. If you would like to help organize one of the following workshops, please attend the meeting:

Home Energy Conservation/Weatherization - 12 November
Stocking the Pantry - 10 December
Cold Frame construction - 21 January
Garden Planning & Seed Order - 18 February
Raised Bed Gardening - 10 March
Rocket Stove - date TBA
Solar Food Dehydrator - date TBA
Permablitz - date TBA
Water Purification & Storage - date TBA

Transition Kaw Valley is a wide range of folks from neighborhoods, churches, and civic groups whose goal is to create a relocalized, sustainable community from the grassroots up. Transition US has just officially recognized T.K.V. as the 100th local initiative in the country! For more info, e-mail . To get on the S.A.N. Transition Kaw Valley list-serv, join at Transition Kaw Valley discussion.

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ENERGY SAVING WEATHERIZATION WORKSHOP ¤ TRANSITION KAW VALLEY
Saturday, 12 November 2011, 1:00-5:00pm
location TBA, Lawrence KS 66044

Transition Kaw Valley will hold a Home Energy Conservation/Weatherization workshop as part of our ongoing series. Danny Veerkamp, LEED AP, a state energy auditor, will demonstrate and discuss ways to make your home more energy efficient. Hands on projects will be included along with classroom instruction. Don't miss a chance to save yourself money this winter! For more information, contact Michael Almon at .
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THE DRIVE TO ELECTRIFY OUR CARS ¤ JOHN KURMANN & CRAIG VOLLAND
Wednesday, 16 November 2011, 7:00pm
location TBA, Lawrence KS 66044

Two Kansas City climate activists, John Kurmann and Craig Volland, will team up for a presentation on the coming revolution for electric automobiles. Virtually every auto company in the world is on schedule to introduce either a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV), a plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV), or an plug-in all electric vehicle (PEV). This talk is sponsored by the Sustainability Action Network.

The Nissan Leaf and Chevrolet Volt are now available in select U.S. markets, and the Chinese Geely is now selling in north Africa and South America. The Japanese electric Tata Nano EV will soon be marketed in India. And Siemens has partnered with Volvo (bought by Geely) to develop an electric Volvo. Sustainable Business News has reported that worldwide sales of electric vehicles will reach 13.9 million units by 2017 - 14 Million Electrified Vehicles by 2017.
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SUSTAINABILITY ACTION NETWORK MEETING

Sunday, 20 November 2011, 6:30pm
Community Mercantile class room, 901 Iowa St., Lawrence KS 66044

Local Solutions for Transition to a Sustainable Economy
The meeting agenda will include:

organize & fund raise for Spring permaculture PDC course
Annual Campaign kick-off
S.A.N. 2012 Annual Meeting planning
Transition Kaw Valley - the 100th local initiative in the U.S.
community workshops: rocket stove, solar food dehydrator, cold frames, bat houses, etc.
S.A.N. web site: update the content, pay pal, etc.

Please join us
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DOUGLAS COUNTY FOOD POLICY COUNCIL
Monday, 21 November 2011, 7:00pm
location to be determined - Lawrence, KS 66046

The Food Policy Council seeks to identify the benefits, challenges and opportunities for a successful, sustainable local food system. By advising the Douglas County Commission on public policies that will support local producers,preserve local agricultural resources and land, and create more local jobs, the F.P.C.. hopes to improve the community's access to a local food supply and distribution networks. For more info go to Dg County Food Policy Council.

We welcome suggestions for Newsletter items. Please send items to
or .

Join the Sustainability Action Network by clicking this link - Become a Member of S.A.N. - and follow the instructions. The S.A.N. mission is to bring awareness of the global crisis caused by climate change, energy vulnerability and economic instability to communities in the Kansas River bioregion, and the tools needed to re-skill and re-localize our economy and create a more socially just and ecologically sustainable world.

Current S.A.N. projects include:

1) Transition Kaw Valley - initiating transition to a relocalized post-carbon economy, and municipal-level Peak Oil response planning - Transition Kaw Valley

2) Kaw Permaculture Collaborative and Kansas Permaculture Institute - developing skills and resources for polyculture sustainable food production - Kaw Permaculture Collaborative

3) Eco Village Land Trust - Designing and focalizing a sustainable intentional community near Lawrence.

4) Growers' Land Trust - organizing interested stakeholders to acquire prime farmland in the urban fringe for land-based economic development and regional food security.

5) Weekly Newsletter - informing and encouraging others to become active in the Sustainability Action Network, or other action driven groups.

6) Water Rights and Watersheds - protecting the water commons, the source of all life, from privatization and contamination, and restoring our watersheds.

7) Electric & Human Powered Vehicles - promoting neighborhood electric vehicles and utility tricycles, including infrastructure and pro-active regulations.

8) Energy Conservation & Renewables - advancing a green economy through decentralized renewable energy and conservation.

9) Collaboration with sister organizations - such as: Films for Action; The Light Center eco-village; Kaw River Valley Food System farm-based economic development; Transition Kansas City; Citizens for Responsible Planning; Kansas River Valley Growers fighting for local water rights; national efforts by the Sustainable Energy Network; the Kansas City Food Circle, the All Species Project, and more.

To subscribe to this newsletter, please click this link »Subscribe to the Sustainability Newsletter. Enter your name and e-mail address, and follow the instructions. The system will send you a confirmation message with a "Confirmation Link" which you MUST click in order to complete your subscription confirmation. If you don't get the confirmation message, check in your junk mail folder for blocked as spam.

Sustainability Action Network, P.O. Box 1064, Lawrence, KS 66044, USA

Lawrence Sustainability Network Calender Events, 19 October 2011

2011-10-20T09:51:00.000-05:00

LAWRENCE

SUSTAINABILITY

NETWORK

OCTOBER 19, 2011

INDEX

Below, you will find more information on the following events:

Oct. 20-22: Lawrence Fall Compost Sale

Oct. 22: EcoParents' Fall Children's Clothing Swap

Oct. 25: VegLawrence Vegan Potluck

Nov. 4: Annual Book Exchange and Chocolate Potluck

Donate to Just Food

Every Saturday at noon until November 19th, Douglas County Extension Master Gardener volunteers will collect donated produce from the generous vendors at the Lawrence Farmers Market which is immediately delivered to the Just Food Food Bank at 11th and Haskell. If you would like to purchase extra produce at the Farmers Market or bring produce from home and share it with those in need, you can drop off your donations at the main Farmers Market tent at the south side of the Market.

Sustainability Calendar

Thursday-Saturday, Oct. 20-22, 2011 (see below for times)

City of Lawrence Fall Compost Sale

1420 E. 11th Street

The City of Lawrence announces the schedule for Fall Compost Sale for Lawrence residents: October 20 (8am-3pm), Friday, October 21 (8am-3pm), and Saturday, October 22 (8am-4pm). may close early if supply is depleted).

The Compost Sale will take place at the City's Wood Recovery and Composting Facility, located at 1420 E. 11th Street, east of 11th and Haskell, over the railroad tracks. Citizens may either load their own material or have it loaded by tractor into pickups and small trailers. The City cannot load trucks with ladder racks. The cost of the compost will be $10 per truckload (more for larger trucks or trailers) and free for all self-loaders. Cash only, please. This compost is not intended for commercial applications, but rather for the citizens of Lawrence. Dump truck quantities are not allowed.

For further information, please contact the City's Waste Reduction and Recycling Division at 832-3030 or visitwww.LawrenceRecycles.org.

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Saturday, October 22, 2011, 1-3pm (Early Check-in at 12:30)

EcoParents' Fall Children's Clothing Swap

Lawrence Public Library: 707 Vermont

If you've been to a swap before, you know the rules. Bring in your CLEAN children's clothing that is in GOOD condition and trade for something different. Girls and boys clothing and shoes and maternity wear will be accepted. No accessories, toys, or old baby gear, please. You'll get to take those back home with you.

The swap is free although we are asking for a $1.00 per person donation at the door to help cover the costs for the vent.

The event starts at 1:00 but you can come at 12:30 to check in. When checking in, we will count the number of items you bring and give you that number of "tickets" which will be your swap currency. At 1:00 you can start shopping. When you are done simply bring your selected items and tickets to the check out. We'll verify that you are leaving with the same number of items you came with and you can go. If you would like to shop but don't have anything to swap, we will sell tickets for a nominal fee ($1.00 - $2.00). All proceeds will be used to offset costs for the event.

Here are the rest of the rules:

1. This is a one-to-one swap. In other words, if you bring in 3 items, you can exchange them for three other items. If you bring in items but don't see anything you would like to take, you must still leave what you have brought.

2. All items must be in CLEAN, wearable condition. They don't have to be perfect but please don't bring items that have obvious stains holes, or are very shabby. If an item isn't in good enough condition to wear to school or Grandma's house you shouldn't bring it. If we determine that an item is not in good enough condition to swap, you may either take it back home with you or leave on the free table. Any items not accepted will not count as part of your swap total.

3. Small items like socks and underwear can be put in quart sized ziplock bags and will count as one item. Again, please only bring itmes that are clean and in good condition. All items (other than those in bags) will count as one ticket regardless of size. Also safety pin together all parts to any sets, i.e. pajamas, shorts/shirts, etc.

4. We will only take boys and girls clothing and shoes (infant sizes through teens) and maternity wear. No blankets, toys, or any other baby gear.

5. All items left at the end of the day will be donated to an area community center, school, or other non-profit (Penn House, SSL, etc.). You may not come back to retrieve your old items.

Also - we are looking for clothing donations and volunteers! If you can't attend but have clothes you are willing to donate, please email and we'll make arrangements to pick them up. We want to have a good selection for people to choose from.

We will also need people to help out the day of the swap. If you want to volunteer, let us know here or email us atlawrenceecoparents@gmail.com. In exchange for volunteering, you will be able to "shop" before the doors open on the 22nd and through out the event. We will need people there starting at 11:00 to help set up and check people in, to help direct "traffic", and to help tear down after the event.

We hope to see everyone there!

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Tuesday, October 25, 2011 at 6pm

VEG Lawrence Vegan Potluck

1204 Oread, ECM

Being vegan helps heal the earth, saves the lives of animals, improves health, and helps bring peace and nonviolence to the world.

This month we thought we'd spend some time sharing ideas for future VegLawrence events, speakers, and activities. If you can't make it and have some suggestions, please email them to Judy (see email below) or post on the VegLawrence facebook page.

Fun, food, and friends: VEGLawrence vegan potlucks are here to provide a way to get together to share friendship, food, recipes, information, and good times. Everyone is welcome. It is sponsored by Animal Outreach of Kansas (AOK). ECM has a large dining room and kitchen that we use for the potlucks. We will pass around an envelope for donations to ECM to help them with their expenses and their many great projects.

To find out more, what to bring, etc. please go to: Facebook www.tinyurl.com/VegLawrence and the AOK website,www.animaloutreach-ks.org

Child care is available for a small fee. See Sammi Farb at the potluck for information.

Hope to see you there.

Judy Carman judycarman@ymail.com

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Friday, November 4, 2011, 5:30pm

Books for Baby’s Bums: Annual Book Exchange and Chocolate Potluck

Lawrence Visitor’s Center (Train Depot)

How’s it work, you ask??

1. Donate all those books (non-fiction, fiction, children’s), dvds, cds, tapes you’ve enjoyed (the good ones - ones you think someone else might want - not the moldy old textbooks no one bought at the last garage sale!)

2. Bring diapers to donate to the Diaper Closet at The Ballard Center - especially sizes 3,4, & 5. Not only will these diaper donations go to The Ballard Center, this year, ALL proceeds from the book sales will go to them as well…..thus, Books for Baby’s Bums. Get it??????

3. Pick up new-to-you books for only $1 each.

4. Bring your favorite chocolate to share. We’ll have wine, cheese and fruit.

5. See the unveiling (and selling) of the new 100 Good Women T-shirt!!!!

6. Tell everyone you know—bring friends, family (adults only, please).

Questions? Want to help? Call a board member or go to www.100goodwomen.org

or Facebook at “One Hundred Good Women”

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LSN is an all-volunteer organization

dedicated to learning how to live lightly and sustainably.

Send announcement of your sustainability-related events to

info@lawrencesustainability.net

Daily Bleed, 20 October 2011 @ Discomfit Magazine

2011-10-20T09:46:00.000-05:00

Buffeted against the storm's sullen breath
the lark rises
over the grey dried grasses
rises & sings.

— Herbert Read, from
"The Contrary Experience,"
A World Within A War (1945)
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/ReadHerbert.htm

Full Bleed on your radar screen,
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/1020.htm

Blips,

OCTOBER 20

ARTHUR RIMBAUD
Gay French poet, gunrunner, anarchist activist,
bad boy of Paris.

Feast Of No Excuse For A Feast.

Revolution Day ( Guatemala).

Change Your Oil Day. (Your hair will look better.)
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/images/BB/oil-drilling-phillips-rig4.jpg

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1854 -- Arthur Rimbaud lives...Published his first poem
at age 16, quit writing at age 20. Precocious boy-poet
of French symbolism, wrote some of the most remarkable
poetry & prose of the 19th century before he abandoned
writing for gun-running.

"Rimbaud ... very simply tried to
take the pretensions of poetry seriously & to
re-form art so that it could alter the meaning
of relaity. He decided this was a hoax & an
activity beneath the dignity of grown
men...However, he almost succeeded, &
poetry will never be the same again."

— Kenneth Rexroth, Classics Revisited
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/RexrothKenneth.htm
http://www.levity.com/corduroy/rimbaud.htm

"rimbaud. no more the daring young horseman
of high abyssinian plateau.
such ardor is petrified forever."

— Patti Smith, "rimbaud dead"

1874 -- Modernist composer Charles Ives lives
Uses `strange time.' When friends were heckling at a
dissonant performance of works by Charles Ruggles,
Ives got up & shouted,

"Hey, shut up you sissies. Why don't you use
your ears like men!"

1895 -- Gaston Leval, libertarian/writer, lives.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/LevalGaston.htm

1916 -- US: Appearing in court to testify on behalf of
Bolton Hall, anarchist-feminist Emma Goldman is
arrested for having distributed birth control information
...Her friend Margaret Sanger is also arrested, on the
26th, for distributing birth control information.

1923 -- Beat poet & antiauthoritarian Philip Whalen lives,
Portland, Oregon.

1924 -- The "First Colored World Series" of baseball is
held in Kansas City, Mo. The series was organized by the
famed Rube Foster.

1926 -- US: Good Ol'Days?: Labor activist, anti-militarist
& socialist Eugene Debs dies. His "radical" reforms
included an eight-hour workday, pensions, workman's
compensation, sick leave, social security ...
Ran for president from his jail cell.
[Seems to us it's the elected ones should be ensconced
in the hoosegow].

(Debs is)... a lawbreaker at large, & enemy of
the human race ... Debs should be jailed, if there
are jails in his neighborhood, & the disorder his
bad teaching has endangered must be
squelched."

— "The New York Times" editorial, 1894

1932 -- Michael McClure, beat poet, lives

Grew up in Seattle, & was fascinated by nature
& wildlife & expected to become a natural
scientist. Participated in a poetry workshop with
Robert Duncan, & was sucked into the emerging
Beat vortex of the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance.

http://www.litkicks.com/MichaelMcClure/

1945 -- Spain: "El Quico" & two other anarchist guerrillas,
Jaime "Abisinio" Pares Adán & Juan "Roget" Salas Millón,
at the request of Committee of Resistance of the CNT,
bust three prisoners out of jail.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/SabateFrancisco.htm

1947 -- US: HUAC opens hearings into
alleged Communist influence in Hollywood.

"Many writers continued their Hollywood careers
under pseudonyms, or "fronts," sometimes with
comic results. Alfred Levitt, for example,
screenwriter of "The Boy with Green Hair"
(1948), relates how a story conference got off on
the wrong foot when he was addressed by four
different names."

The HUAC hearings were degradation ceremonies.
Their job was not to legislate or even to discover
subversives (that had already been done by the
intelligence agencies & their informants) so much as it
was to stigmatize.
http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/navasky-chap10.html

1956 -- Poland: Anti-Stalinist wave. See also the 23rd.

1985 -- France: Libertarian songster Jean-Roger
Caussimon dies.

I do not want to be a poet...

I try to write songs!

Jean-Roger Caussimon est un très grand poète.
Léo Ferré a bien de la chance de l'avoir rencontré !

— Charles Trenet

I spent a lot of my time in Paris...scouring the flea markets
& used record stores for old albums, taping my friends'
collections, & trying to decipher the more
obscure, slangy lyrics.

It's a rich, fascinating world,
from nineteenth-century cabaret singers like Aristide
Bruant (the guy with red scarf and black cape pictured
on the well-known Toulouse-Lautrec poster, which was
commissioned to advertise the café where Bruant
performed his own songs), through the tragic-sordid
chansons réalistes (Fréhel, Damia, early Piaf) and upbeat
music hall artists (especially the delightfully zany Charles
Trenet) of the 1930s, to the postWorld War II renaissance
of great poet-singers: Georges Brassens (the greatest,
ranging from worldly-wise elegies to outrageous satirical
humor), Anne Sylvestre (a lovely lyricist, somewhat
reminiscent of early Leonard Cohen or Joni Mitchell),
Léo Ferré, Jean-Roger Caussimon, Jacques Brel,
Guy Béart, Félix Leclerc; along with many excellent
interpreters of earlier material, of whom my favorite is
Germaine Montero.

— Ken Knabb, Confessions of a Mild-Mannered
Enemy of the State

http://www.bopsecrets.org/PS/autobio3.htm
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/gallery/galleryindex.htm#Ferre

1990 -- US: Rallies against the Gulf War in 22 cities.

"We have heard that a half million
children have died (as a result of
sanctions against Iraq). I mean, that is
more children than died in Hiroshima.
&, you know, is the price worth it?"

Albright, effervescent liberal, replied:

"I think this is a very hard
choice, but the price, we
feel that the price was worth it."

1993 -- Serbia: Women In Black attacked by paramilitaries
during weekly anti-war vigil, Belgrade.

"DO NOT SPEAK FOR US, WE WILL SPEAK FOR OURSELVES"

http://flag.blackened.net/agony/kosovo.html

1994 -- Guatemala: US activist Jennifer Harbury initiates new
hunger strike at US Embassy in Guatemala City to force disclosure
of her disappeared husband's fate.

2001 -- England: London's 20th annual @ Bookfair.

Be here or be square...

http://www.anarchistbookfair.org/
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/images/BB/StickerBookFair.jpg

_________________

— anti-CopyRite 1997-3999, more or less

Daily Bleed: 12, Oct. 2011 - MOSES HARMAN

2011-10-12T09:44:00.000-05:00

Daily Bleed, in full,
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/1012.htm

excerpts,

OCTOBER 12 -- MOSES HARMAN
"Lucifer" editor, agrarian anarchist,
paradigm of male feminism.

ANNIVERSARY OF THE BATTLE OF THE COWSHED
(Orwell, 1984).

INTERNATIONAL MOMENT OF FRUSTRATION.

SCREAM DAY: 30-Second Global Scream at 1200
hours GMT.

Latin America: "DIA DE LA RAZA" celebrates
Columbus' first landing as the beginning of a new
'race' from the fusion of Spanish & Indian blood.

COLUMBUS/ANTI-COLUMBUS DAY.
"Have it Your Way" — McWendy's slogan

______________________________

1492 -- Arawaks discover Columbus: invader, slaver,
thief, murderer, liar, madman. He & his crew signal the
start of the European invasion of the Americas with rape
& pillage which continues to this day.

"We could subjugate them all..." Columbus wrote.

"Would imperial Chinese or Turks have been less lethal
had they "discovered America''? All three empires
regarded aliens as less than human & therefore as
legitimate prey..."

— Fredy Perlman,
The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/PerlmanFredy.htm
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/perlman-fredy/1984/nationalism.htm

1694 -- Matsuo Basho, great Japanese haiku poet, dies.

1859 -- He abolishes Congress.

His Imperial Majesty, Norton I, has issued the
following edict, which he desires the
Bulletin to spread before the world. Let her rip! ...

WE do hereby abolish Congress...
& WE order & desire the representatives of all
parties interested to appear at the Musical Hall of this
city on the first of February next, & then & there take
the most effective steps to remedy
the evil complained of.

1860 -- France: Emile Pouget lives.
Gets eight-year prison sentence for his
participation with anarchist Louise Michel in
unemployed activities when bakeries were plundered.
Founded "Le Père Peinard". Wrote numerous books
& pamphlets, including Direct Action (1910), & Sabotage.

"Since the day a man had the criminal ability to
profit by another man's labor, since that very same
day the exploited toiler has instinctively tried to give
to his master less than was demanded from him.
In this wise the worker was
unconsciously doing SABOTAGE..."

1863 -- Death of Lazarus, dog & faithful companion to
Norton I, Emperor of the United States &
Protector of Mexico, in October, exact day unknown.

Twain wrote to his editor, William Howells, suggesting
that the Emperor would make a fine subject for a book...
Twain was able to complete two novels: Huckleberry
Finn which featured a lost Dauphin & The Prince &
the Pauper, a story of confused identities.
Through these, he paid homage to the man he'd known.

http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/EmperorNorton/nortonAnitarCache.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Norton

1873 -- Switzerland: The famed Russian revolutionary,
Mikhail Bakunin retires from the struggle & resigns from
the anarchist Jura Federation.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/Bakunin.htm

1886 -- Norway: The anarchist author Hans Jaeger, writing
from prison during this month, describes his Edvard Munch picture
"Hulda" in the first number of his periodical "Impressionisten".
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/JaegerHans.htm

1896 -- Eugenio Montale lives, Genoa. Italian poet, prose
writer, editor & translator who won the
Nobel Prize for literature in 1975.

1896 -- Johann Most, German-American anarchist, &
Emma Goldman's former mentor, denounces her.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/GoldmanEmma.htm
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/MostJohann.htm

1903 -- Anton Chekhov completes work
on The Cherry Orchard.

1913 -- Francisco Ferrer Memorial meeting held in
New York City. Emma Goldman is one of the speakers.
The memorial meetings have been
held every year since his murder in Spain.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/FerrerFrancisco.htm

1920 -- Italy: Armando Borghi, general secretary of the
Unione Sindicale Italiana (USI) & militant anarchist,
arrested in Milan by some order dating from July 20, but
which had not been executed before. An effort to bust the
300,000 strong union.
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/BorghiArmando.htm

1924 -- Anatole France dies at 80 in La Béchellerie, near
Tours, three years after receiving the Nobel Prize for
Literature. His funeral is the first national one accorded a
writer since that of Victor Hugo in 1885.
http://www.chez.com/robysavia/france.html

1925 -- Panama: 600 US marines land & take over police
duties in Panama City during a strike & rent riots to —
okay, altogether now, say it with me —

"to protect U.S. interests".

Very good!! But a little louder next time,
with more conviction, puleeze...

1932 -- Dick Gregory lives. Comedian, activist, civil
rights supporter, & nutrition advocate.

1950 -- US: American Legion convention calls for concentration
camps for US Communists & the atom-bombing of the Soviet Union.

1960 -- Sole Brother?: Khruschev bangs shoe on desk at the U.N.

1961 -- To Protect & To Serve?:
FBI launches Socialist Worker Disruption Program.
Freedom is a wonderful thing.

1967 -- "A Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority",
appears in NY Review of Books. In response to the
Vietnam War, 2,000 sign it, including academics,
clergymen, writers.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/series/pt_01.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/vietnam/trenches/mylai.html

1970 -- Lt. William Calley court-martialled for
massacre of 102 civilians in My Lai during Vietnam
War. He gets his wrists slapped, a year under house arrest..

1992 -- Rallies, protests & arrests throughout the Western
Hemisphere mark the 500th anniversary
of the beginning of the European invasion of the
Americas & genocide of its native peoples.

2002 -- Bangladesh: Feminist author Taslima Nasrin is
sentenced to one year in jail in absentia for criticizing Islam.

2009 -- "¿Dave¿ Dave's Not Here, Man!" —
Out back having his birthday cake & eating it too.
Auntie Dave plunges head-long into the ice cream.

2010 -- Chile: The first of 33 miners retrieved after being
trapped underground for over two months following the
Copiapó mining disaster at the notorious 121-year-old
San José copper–gold mine.

============

Aged Pueblo Indian to Carl Jung:

"Their eyes have a staring expression; they
are always seeking something; they are
always uneasy & restless. We do not know
what they want. We do not understand them.
We think that they are mad."

============

— anti-mad, 2011, in perpetuity & forevermore, more or less

Breaking News & Commentary from Citizens for Legitimate Government, 06 Oct 2011

2011-10-07T02:33:00.001-05:00

Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens for Legitimate Government

06 Oct 2011 - Early Edition

http://www.legitgov.org

All links are here:

http://www.legitgov.org/#breaking_news

Occupy Main Street By Michael Rectenwald 06 Oct 2011 The deregulation, the bailouts, the hoarding, the investment boycott, the austerity measures, the imperialist wars, the political and economic inaction and indifference – these are all symptomatic of the same crisis and cannot simply be attributed to individual character flaws or even to political desiderata. Certainly the system produces the very monsters and policies that the protesters declaim. But their existence and behavior is an utterly predictable product of objective historical conditions.

Outraged protesters clash with police in Greece By Jonathan Woods 05 Oct 2011 Riot police engaged protesters in Athens, after a small group of protesters started throwing rocks in Syntagma Square on Wednesday. Meanwhile, thousands of striking workers marched to parliament, protesting austerity measures. (Photo essay)

Occupy Wall Street Arrests; Fox 5 Crew and Protesters Hit by Pepper Spray, Batons --Protest broadens scope 06 Oct 2011 While covering the Occupy Wall Street protests on Wednesday night, Fox 5 photographer Roy Isen was hit in the eyes by pepper spray from a police officer and Fox 5 reporter Dick Brennan was hit by an officer's baton. The protests on Wall Street continued to grow all day. The rallies and their participants are showing no signs of slowing down. In the evening, crowds surged past barriers and NYPD officers moved in to contain the protesters. Officers, many wearing white shirts [although donning black shirts would have signalled a wardrobe more reflective of their behavior] indicating supervisor rank, swatted protesters with batons and sprayed them with mace, video from the scene showed.

Thousands march in Occupy Wall Street protest 05 Oct 2011 Thousands of people waving signs and chanting slogans marched Wednesday afternoon from Occupy Wall Street's encampment in Lower Manhattan's financial district to Foley Square in front of the courthouse to press their anti-greed message. It was by far the biggest march yet in New York since the movement began Sept. 17 and was helped by the presence of people representing various labor groups, among them transportation union workers, nurses and teachers.

The political issues in the fight against Wall Street By Bill Van Auken 05 Oct 2011 The Occupy Wall Street protest, now in its third week, has struck a powerful chord throughout the US, with similar occupations developing in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and other cities and towns across the country. The demonstrators and their demand for social equality have given expression to the growing hostility of millions towards capitalism, the banks and the corporations, and the burning need for jobs, decent living standards and a guarantee of health care, education and other basic social necessities.

'Occupy Boston' protesters set up tent city By Kate Randall 05 Oct 2011 "Occupy Boston" protesters have set up a tent city in response to the Wall Street protests in New York. About 200 people have been camping out overnight in Dewey Square, opposite South Station and the Federal Reserve building in Boston’s financial district... "Occupy Boston" reached an agreement with the Conservancy Trust, which owns the private land where the action is taking place, to set up the camp.

Occupy Philly Takes a Stand Against "Corporate Greed" --Protesters are critical of politicians in Washington and Harrisburg. 06 Oct 2011 Several hundred people rallied outside Philadelphia City Hall on Thursday as part of an Occupy Philadelphia rally modeled after the ongoing protest on Wall Street in New York. The crowd began gathering on Thursday morning and swelled through the noon hour. The event on Dilworth Plaza was a mix of speakers, demonstrators carrying signs, chanting and some musicians. An afternoon march was planned around City Hall, with police on standby to temporarily stop traffic in Center City.

Occupy Wall Street spreads to Philadelphia, 250 at City Hall 06 Oct 2011 Occupy Wall Street-style protesters swarmed Philadelphia City Hall Thursday with messages of anger and hope. An estimated 250 people amassed on the 15th Street side, holding banners, picket signs and props. Teresa Shoatz of West Philadelphia held a poster-board sign saying, "Jail bankers for fraud."

Los Angeles lawmakers cheer on protesters outside City Hall 04 Oct 2011 During Tuesday's Los Angeles City Council meeting, a speaker stood and told lawmakers they were ignoring an obvious fact: "You are surrounded by tents." He was referring to the large group of protesters camped a few hundred feet away, on a grassy lawn outside City Hall. The group, which calls itself Occupy L.A., has been there since Saturday in a demonstration against economic policies that benefit corporations and the wealthiest Americans. The speaker, John Walsh, invited the council members to tour the tent city outside. So when the meeting adjourned, several of them did.

Nurses to Join March on Wall Street October 5, Demand Wall Street Transaction Tax – an 'FTT' 03 Oct 2011 National Nurses United, the largest union and professional association of nurses in the US – with 170,000 members, will be represented at the Wall Street March on October 5 by contingents including from Maryland, Pennsylvania, California, Washington, D.C., Illinois and New York. NNU is joining other unions, organizations and community groups in support of Occupy Wall Street. NNU is pressing for a financial transaction tax (FTT) which was in effect in the US from 1914 to 1966.

'Occupy DC' protesters rally in Freedom Plaza 06 Oct 2011 A couple of hundred social justice protesters launched an "occupation" of Freedom Plaza Thursday, the area's first major demonstration against rising inequality since the Occupy Wall Street movement began last month in New York and spread around the country. Decrying corporate greed, ineffective political leaders and a rising gap between the haves and the have nots in the United States, protesters unfurled sleeping bags and raised tents in the public plaza in the shadow of the White House, vowing to stay indefinitely -- or until their voices are heard.

October 6: Occupation of Washington DC begins (october2011.org) 05 Oct 2011 Starting on October 6, 2011, thousands of concerned Americans will assemble in Freedom Plaza, in Washington DC to take control of our country and our lives. We will occupy the plaza and hold a People's Assembly where we come up with just and sustainable solutionsto the crises we face and demand that these solutions be presented and that the people's needs be addressed. [Citizens for Legitimate Government endorses the October 6 events. CLG is building toward Seize DC, spring 2012!]

Bank of America website remains down [Anonymous, why not make sure it *stays* down?] --Speculation swirls as angry customers try to withdraw their money 04 Oct 2011 There is a lot of speculation about why Bank of America's website remains down as outraged customers try to get their money out of the bank following an increase in fees. Adding to the frustration, BofA's home page has an error message and the online service has been slow since Friday, sending thousands of customers to the web to complain and petition the fees.

CLG needs your support.
http://www.legitgov.org/donate.html
Or, please mail a check or money order to CLG:
Citizens for Legitimate Government (CLG)
P.O. Box 1142
Bristol, CT 06011-1142
Contributions to CLG are not tax deductible.

Feel free -- and CLG encourages you -- to forward this newsletter to your lists and friends!

Those who wish to be added to the list can go here: http://www.legitgov.org/#subscribe_clg and add your name.

Carl Stanley: "Mick Jones" @ Sabotage Magazine

2011-10-04T22:02:00.000-05:00

David Rovics, Troubadour: "Occupy Wall Street!" U.S. & Canada Tour Schedule

2011-10-04T21:59:00.002-05:00

Hi folks in the US & Canada,

Tomorrow I'll be in DC for the protests in Freedom Plaza on the 10th
anniversary of the US occupation of Afghanistan (and a pre-protest event
tomorrow evening at Busboys & Poets). After that I'm heading to Florida,
Texas, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, North Carolina, Michigan,
Ontario, Minnesota, Manitoba, Quebec, Nova Scotia and Oregon...

If anybody in any of those places I'm heading to is involved with any of
the various Occupy Wall Street encampments and you want to make plans for a
slightly-less-than-impromptu free midnight concert at the camp, let me
know! Details for the next month of touring around North America below
(including some new bits that weren't set up last time I emailed you all).

Hope to see you on the road and in the streets! Occupy Wall Street! Jail
the bankers! Tax the rich! No more evictions! Housing and health care
are human rights! Speaking of which, check out Cheri Honkala's "no
evictions" campaign for Sheriff of Philadelphia: www.cherihonkala.com

David
www.davidrovics.com

Tuesday, October 4th, 7 pm
Benefit for Cheri Honkala for Sheriff Campaign!
718 Market St.
Philadelphia, PA

Wednesday, October 5th, 6 pm
Kickoff event for the following day's protests...
Busboys and Poets
1025 5th Street Northwest
Washington, DC

Thursday, October 6th, noon
Stop the Machine PROTEST RALLY!
Freedom Plaza
Washington, DC

Tuesday, October 11th, 9 pm
Civic Media Center
Gainesville, FL

Wednesday, October 12th, 8 pm
Benefit for St. Pete for Peace with Jun Bustamonte opening!
Cafe Bohemia
St. Pete, FL

Thursday, October 13th, 8 pm
Benefit for WMNF with Jun Bustamonte opening!
The Roosevelt 2.0
1812 15th Street North
Tampa, FL

Friday, October 14th, 8 pm
Concert for WSLR-LPFM, at their new station location, with Jim Glover
opening!
525 Kumquat Court
Sarasota, FL

Saturday, October 15th, 7 pm
Benefit for KPFT with me and a bunch of other bands! (I go on around 9:45.)
Dan Electro's
1031 E. 24th St.
Houston, TX

Monday, October 17th, 7 pm
Foam Coffee and Beer
3359 S. Jefferson Ave.
St. Louis, MO

Tuesday, October 18th, 7:30 pm
Studio 360
109 N. Crawford
Norman, OK

Wednesday, October 19th, 7 pm
LunaBread
3144 E. 15th S.
Tulsa, OK

Thursday, October 20th, 7 pm
Otherlands Coffee Bar
Memphis, TN

Sunday, October 23rd
Cecil Bothwell campaign event wth me, Chuck Brodsky and more!
Grey Eagle Tavern and Music Hall
Asheville, NC

Tuesday, October 25th
The FM Lounge
Windsor, Ontario

Wednesday, October 26th, 6:30
Vitali Student Lounge
Wemple Building
King's University College
266 Epworth Ave.
London, Ontario

Thursday, October 27th, 7:30 pm
Benefit for Marie Mason
First Unitarian Universalist Church of Detroit
4605 Cass Avenue
Detroit, MI

Friday, October 28th
House concert in Roger's Park
Chicago, IL

Saturday, October 29th
Charlie Chaplin Auditorium
St. Augustine's College
Chicago, IL

Sunday, October 30th, 7 pm
All Nations Church
1515 East 23rd Street
Minneapolis, MN

Tuesday, November 1st
Winnipeg, Manitoba

Friday, November 4th
The Company House
Gottingen
Halifax, Nova Scotia

Sunday, November 6th, 7 pm
Palestine solidarity event with various performers, short films, including
me for a half hour set...
DB Clarke
Concordia University
Montreal, Quebec

International Public Relations: #50 in The Great Mind Series, Robert Koehler, Oct. 16th

2011-09-30T02:49:00.002-05:00

Ilene Proctor Proudly Presents #50 in the Great Mind Series

Robert Koehler

The Most “ blatantly relevant” Author in America. Famed Nationally Syndicated Journalist and Peace Journalism Pioneer "

Courage Grows Strong at the Wound by Robert C. Koehler

Published by Xenos Press, with a foreword by Marianne Williamson

When: Sunday, October 16, 2011

Where: Jan and Jerry Manpearl 939 San Vicente Blvd

Santa Monica, CA. 90402

310) 458-7213\

(310) 614-4586

Moderator: Karel is a syndicated talk show host with a show heard on KGO AM 810 San Francisco as well as in five other markets (KRXA, KGOE, KYNS, KJRB, Green1640 Atlanta). Karel continues his #1 talk show at Citadel/ABC's flagship station, KGO AM 810 San Francisco (#1 overall station) and made history for KFI AM 640 Los Angeles.

Time:11:00 AM

Refreshments served – $20.00 ADA and PDLA members $15.00

Please RSVP via email: proctor@artnet.net

Courage Grows Strong at the Wound by Robert C. Koehler

Published by Xenos Press, with a foreword by Marianne Williamson

The book fuses 140 short essays, which originally ran as syndicated columns — or prayers disguised as op-eds — into several narratives, which range from the intensely personal to the acutely political. The essays bleed grief and joy. I began writing them about a year after my wife died of cancer. They wander the terrain of a lost man trying to single-parent a teenage daughter. They move to 9/11 and its aftermath, the war on terror. Along the way they pause at Osco checkout lines, neighborhood yard sales, the miracle of a newborn in my arms and many other places. The book is about the quest for both inner and outer peace, the urgency of both, and the fragile future we are giving birth to.

“Koehler’s points are made with a combination of journalistic acumen and spiritual precision. He takes you by the brain and will not let you go to sleep, will not let you shut down, will not let you look away – and yet, in the same essay – will not let you lose hope, and will not let you stop believing in the spirit of goodness that lies within us.” – from the foreword, by Marianne Williamson

Comments about Courage:

"So much you articulate is so familiar to me but has been without words for so long. I wonder how many of us there are? Lots, I bet. May your heart touch millions through your book. It is very healing." — J.B.

"So I am on the train with tears in my eyes picturing you running to find Alison with fuchsia hair. Maybe reading your book on the train will require large sunglasses." — R.W.

"By the way, I’m truly loving your book. Ripped through Part 1, blubbering a lot, highlighting much, and recently began Part II. I’m enjoying getting to see your innate wacky sense of humor. It’s a wonderful book." — L.G.

"I am using this book as a daily reader for inspiration, challenge, comfort and all the other dimensions you have offered us. Thanks for giving us hope and encouragement!" — C.S.

About Bob Koehler: I’ve been a Chicago journalist for over 30 years and consider myself a peace journalist. Since 1999, I’ve written a nationally syndicated column or Tribune Media Services. This column, which I have described as “part political brawl, part secular prayer,” can be found at commonwonders.com. I’ve been called lots of things over the course of my career, but my favorite is this: blatantly relevant.

Recent Articles

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The Old Integrity

The old order and the old integrity slowly collapse, but the statues remain, and the words. How odd they sound:

“The founder of the University of Chicago, John D. Rockefeller, on December 13, 1910, made provision for the erection of this chapel and thus defined its purpose: As the spirit of religion should penetrate and control the university, so that building which represents religion ought to be the central and dominant feature of the university group. Thus it will be proclaimed that the university is dominated by the spirit of religion. All its departments are inspired by religious feeling, and all its work is directed to the highest ends.”

...read more

The Theology of Armageddon

The woo-woo nuttiness of it all defies the imagination, beginning with the idea of a course in “Nuclear Ethics and Nuclear Warfare” at Vandenberg Air Force Base.

Nuclear ethics?

Does that mean no nuclear weapons should ever be used to promote sexual harassment?

...read more

Captives to the Logic of Violence

A decade later. The abyss keeps deepening, the wars keep squandering our blood and treasure beyond all logic except the logic of violence.

What ended on Sept. 11, 2001, it sometimes seems, was human evolution.

Suddenly, an irreparable schism opened between those in power and the rest of humankind, and a decision fell into place that war for profit would never end — and there was nothing to be done about it, as the corporate media conveyed to the world with a knowing shrug. What fell into place was armed insanity as perpetual background noise, and any reach toward global community, understanding and forgiveness went on permanent hold.

...read more

Internal Combustion

What entitlement! I hit the gas, power off to my destination. No one asks me whether the trip is serious or banal, necessary or foolish, conscious or impulsive. I just go, ripping up the miles as though they were daydreams. The engine purrs. My name is Everyman, and I have the power of gods.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not addicted or anything. I can get off oil whenever I want to. On the other hand, I may be willing to sacrifice 740,000 acres of pristine boreal forest in Northern Canada — part of one of the largest intact ecosystems left on the planet — along with, oh, 166 million birds, and all the remaining caribou in Alberta, before I do. Tough call.

...read more

Common Sense in a Coma

“Then there is the issue of how the Afghans will be able to pay for their greatly enlarged police and military, which by some estimates will require $10 billion a year to sustain come 2014 — 10 times the Afghan government’s annual tax revenues.”

Of all the ironic absurdities and preposterous twists in the war on — I mean the war to promote — terror, this quote from the New York Times back in April, which I came upon as I was researching something called the Strategic Partnership Declaration between the United States and Afghanistan, felt the most like a mugging.

...read more

Equal and Opposite Lunacy

As crashing economies and austerity measures slap ever more ferociously at the lives of the vulnerable and disenfranchised, the Western world, with all its hidden poverty and institutional racism, may continue to convulse.

The riots that broke out in London over the weekend and spread throughout Great Britain, triggered by the controversial police killing of a 29-year-old man, have sent shockwaves in all directions. Who knew things were so unstable, that Britain’s struggling neighborhoods were just one incident away from such destructive lunacy?

...read more

The Sky Is Weeping

When our lives are torn open, when the worst possible thing happens, what we have, finally, are our roses and our courage.

“I chose to stay in Oslo the entire week. It has felt like the most natural thing to do. I have never experienced any place any time in my life with such a complete absence of aggression. It feels like the city itself has gone into a peaceful place.”

...read more

Blaming the Muslims

“I saw people being shot. I tried to sit as quietly as possible. I was hiding behind some stones. I saw him once, just 20, 30 meters away from me. I thought ‘I’m terrified for my life,’” the young survivor said to a Reuters reporter. “I thought of all the people I love.”

And there’s the moment, in all its politics and horror: no more than this. Young adults — teenagers — being stalked and methodically murdered at their bucolic summer camp on Utoya Island in Norway. In God’s name, why?

...read more

Military-Industrial Journalism

Rupert Murdoch’s specialty has been the practice of journalism in cynical mockery of our thirst for knowledge.

Suddenly it’s clear to everyone.

Hacking a missing teenager’s cell phone? Deleting calls, interfering with the desperate search for her whereabouts? Tapping the phones of terrorist victims, dead soldiers? What kind of newsroom culture could possibly value the intimate tidbits of unbearable worry and sorrow thus obtained? What kind of organization would call it “news”?

...read more

Panetta’s Gaffe

Leon Panetta, on his first visit to Iraq as secretary of defense last weekend, reached for a Bush moment ten years too late.

“The reason you guys are here is because on 9/11 the United States got attacked,” he said to the assembled troops at Camp Victory in Baghdad, according to the Washington Post. “And 3,000 Americans — 3,000 not just Americans, 3,000 human beings, innocent human beings — got killed because of al-Qaida. And we’ve been fighting as a result of that.”

...read more

The Five-Fingered Ways of Knowing

“We are a people who never made singing or dancing an unrespected way of knowing. All of the five-fingered ways of knowing remained open to us.”

For anyone trapped in Western consciousness, here’s some good news. The Earth has nearly completed a revolution around the sun since Woman Stands Shining, a.k.a., Pat McCabe, a Navajo writer and scholar, spoke those words at the 12th Language of Spirit Conference. That means the 13th annual conference — a dialogue “exploring the nature of reality,” among aboriginal scientists, scholars, healers and artists and their Western counterparts in a wide array of fields — is coming up soon.

...read more

The End Times

“All the evidence shows that we are nearing the end of man’s tragic experiment in independence from God.”

Wow, I thought. They get it. And suddenly I felt a burst of solidarity with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The words are from one of their tracts, which was given to me because I have this passion for talking about God — a wild glee, almost, for stepping up to The Big Serious and wrestling theology with the neighborhood proselytizers.

...read more

Mohammed at Four O’Clock

What’s so funny about …?

Oh, let’s say, a Muslim guy walking through the airport, or the bride of Frankenstein … or saliva. It’s all there — and more! — at an exhibit called “What Makes Us Smile?” at Baltimore’s American Visionary Art Museum, which I saw with my daughter a few days ago. Even though the world is still caught in the jaws of hell, I decided to write about this raw celebration of humor because the tears of amazement and joy that flowed as I walked through it felt like my definition of peace.

...read more

Predator Syndrome

There are twenty thousand nuclear weapons on the planet, a quarter of them ready for launch at a moment’s suicidal impulse, aimed at countries that stopped being enemies two decades ago. It’s six minutes to midnight. “Disarmament” has as much cachet in America’s corridors of power as “socialism.”

And the U.S. House, bless its evil heart, has just sliced the Achilles tendon of peace. It recently passed the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011, which has many seriously worrisome provisions, two of which stand in stark, grinning contrast to one another.

...read more

A Bad Day That Never Changes

I get so soul-sick of the war news because it’s a bad day that never changes. Over the weekend, NATO kills 14 people in an airstrike in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. Ten of them are children. President Karzai cries, “No more!” A NATO spokesperson pats him on the head, regretfully shrugging that the alliance works hard to “limit” civilian casualties.

Oh sacred Earth . . .

...read more

Ignorant Certainty

Now that the end of the world didn’t happen, I can’t stop thinking about it. What chutzpah, what a diminished worldview, not simply to make such a prediction, but — even more incomprehensible, to my relentlessly self-questioning mind — to know you’ll be among the saved.

In 1011, a guy like Harold Camping would probably have been able to generate more panic than bemusement. A millennium later, with science taught in the public schools and all, we have a little more collective resistance to such thundering certainty leaping from highway billboards. I confess, however, to feeling a deep, reptilian tug last Friday morning, as I saw the sign — SAVE THIS DATE, MAY 21, 2011, CHRIST IS COMING — while driving through eastern Wisconsin. Yikes, that’s tomorrow.

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Raw Heart

Frank Ferrante, an overweight guy with deep spiritual wounds and an enormous sense of humor, thought he was signing onto a sort of vegan life fix: 42 days of raw foods, a shot of liquefied wheatgrass every morning, exercise, weigh-ins, holistic medical exams, weekly colonics, daily affirmations. And then all of a sudden he’d be thin and happy.

But transformation isn’t a technical fix. What Frank learned — and what we learn as well as we travel the journey with him in a powerful, intensely honest documentary called May I Be Frank — is that transformation turns you inside out.

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Wanted Dead or Alive

When President Obama, summing up the killing of Osama bin Laden, said, “Justice has been done,” the problem wasn’t simply that he misspoke — justice, after all, can only emerge at the end of an impartial judicial proceeding — but that, in so misspeaking, he hit the emotional bull’s-eye.

“Justice has been done.”

We got him, America! Oh yeah, sweet! Who can’t feel the pop of satisfaction in those words? “He should have said, ‘Retaliation has been accomplished,’” Marjorie Cohn pointed out recently at Common Dreams, and that’s true, of course, but the president wasn’t summoning the dry, sober rule of law. He was evoking, just as George W. Bush did before him, the Wild West, America’s deepest font of mythology, where justice, you know, comes from the muzzle of a revolver. As with Geronimo, so with Osama: Wanted Dead or Alive.

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The Unholy Grail

Perhaps the eeriest thing about Osama bin Laden’s death is how little it means.

Yeah, I know: “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” The raid on the devil’s compound outside Abbottabad, Pakistan this week apparently kick-started our patriotic fervor, which had been languishing over the course of a pretty bad decade of military quagmire and economic collapse. Killing Osama — turning him, as the New York Times put it, into “a tall, bearded man with a bloodied face and a bullet in his head” — brought back a rush of national purpose and glory.

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The Sacred and the Dead

How do values enter politics?

The Bolivian national legislature, pressured by a movement of indigenous people and small farmers, may be about to birth a stunning global precedent in the creation of an environmentally sane future: establishing legal rights for Mother Earth.

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Duck and Cover

“Within 10 seconds the fire that wiped out the city came after us at full speed. Everyone was naked. Bodies were swelling up. Some people were so deformed I couldn’t tell if they were male or female. People died screaming, ‘Please give me water!’

“There was nothing to eat, not even garbage, in the burned down city.”

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Autocratic Deafness

The Arab Spring — which indeed is a global spring — is a struggle, an upheaval, for fundamental justice and humanity. That’s the problem.

We —the Washington Consensus, the post-colonial West, the world’s military and economic overlords — have no more enthusiasm for this awakening, this cry for genuine democracy and equitable distribution of resources, than the tottering autocrats of the Middle East, most of whom (exception: Muammar Gaddafi) are our allies.

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A Vortex of Death and Wealth

Whatever the strategic — and humanitarian — considerations behind NATO/U.S. intervention in Libya, a larger force utterly indifferent to both, and seldom sufficiently newsworthy to merit mention, unites tyrant and rescuer and keeps the world tangled in an endless cycle of hellish violence far beyond the scope of the conflict that generates it.

I’m talking about the global arms trade, for which wars large and small, whatever their cause, whatever their “legitimacy,” are necessities without which the goods would not move. They’re also more than that, but not the sort of thing we salute or honor with granite statuary.

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Insanity Dawn

As the Tomahawk missiles, our million dollar babies, rained down on Gaddafi’s army and who knows what else these past couple weeks, I couldn’t help but feel the clenched American fist protruding over global events again.

Yeah, we’re back, world. How tragic that bellicose Republicans, in their indiscriminate hatred of Obama, have had to excuse themselves from the celebration, but still, Libya ain’t Egypt, and America is in its groove again, unwavering in its commitment to freedom. No hedged bets, no sir, not this time, not when freedom’s prelude is bombs, invasion and war.

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The Healing Walls

“There’s something about creating beauty that reaches people and that in the end gives us hope that things can change. . . . It shifts the consciousness of a neighborhood.”

Sometimes people really mean what they say.

An extraordinary documentary, “Concrete, Steel and Paint,” takes us on a journey of transformation — and it goes the long way, the honest way, through the shoals of anger and mistrust that separate social opposites. The film is about prisoners in a maximum security facility outside Philadelphia. It’s also about crime victims, women and men damaged — driven, in some cases, to the edge of “why go on living?” — by the murder of a loved one, by sexual assault, by some deep violation.

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You Can’t Kill an Idea

The crowds keep swelling, as though awareness, determination – humanity itself – were rising up from the earth. Einstein observed that we can never solve problems at the same level of thinking that created them. I hear the resonance of a new moral intelligence asserting itself, on the streets of the Middle East, in the United States and around the world.

“You can kill a man,” said Medgar Evers, “but you can’t kill an idea.”

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The Tunisia Effect

On one weekend in February of 2003, an estimated 10 million people in 60 countries took to the streets to protest the looming Iraq war. Never before in history had there been such massive, public opposition to a war before it began. But the war began anyway and the people — their numbers misreported in much of the media by a factor of ten, their opposition seemingly irrelevant — went away.

Are they back now?

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Discovering Fire

“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Egyptians lock arms, a dictator tumbles. Let’s think about this, shall we? How could such a thing have happened? I ask this knowing the hard part is just beginning. The hard part is always just beginning.

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A Truth More Powerful Than an Army

It was just a routine murder.

Last June, police accosted a young man at an Internet café in the city of Alexandria. He had just filmed their drug deal, or he simply refused to show them his ID. Whatever the provocation — accounts vary — they slammed his head against the table, dragged him outside as he screamed, beat him viciously for 20 minutes. That was that. You can pick up the body later.

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Discomfit Magazine

Breaking News & Commentary from Citizen's For Legitimate Government, 13 Jan 2012

Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens for Legitimate Government 26 Dec 2011

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays!

Occupied Pig Roast Spoof

Victor Coronado: "Cuba - In Their Own Words" @ Latino Rebel

Musician Ian Fisher's Newsletter, Tour Dates in Europe

Letter from Frank Schaeffer: "Sex, Mom and God on CSpan's Book TV" @ Discomfit Magazine

"The Winter of Our Occupation ... a Proposal from Michael Moore." @ Discomfit Magazine

George Kenney: "Podcast Interview: Lord Robert Skidelsky, Keynes Biographer" @ Electric Politics

Lawrence Sustainability Network Calender Events, 25 November, 2011

Amy Goodman: "Goldfinger eats Congo: Greg Palast 'Vultures Picnic' Tour"

TRNN Weekly Roundup November 20 - November 26, 2011

November 25

November 24

November 23

November 22

November 21

November 20

"We Are the One Per Centers!" @ The New Yorker Magazine

We Are the One Per Cent

by John Kenney November 28, 2011

ILLUSTRATION: Laurie Rosenwald

Uncle Academic: "First Amendment Under Siege - OWS" @ Save The News

Fightin' Cock Flyer: Brian Stelter: "U. C. Davis Calls for Investigatio...

Uncle Academic's "Walter Benjamin, Capitalism as a Religion & NPR on Ayn Rand"

TRNN Weekly Roundup Nov. 13 - 19 @ Discomfit Magazine

November 18

November 17

November 16

November 15

November 14

November 13

George Kenney: "Podcast Interview: Admiral Bobby Ray Inman" @ Electric Politics

Blackwater Shoots Itself in the Foot

Introduction

Concept

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Final Intelligence Report

Privatizing Liberty

Richard (RJ) Eskow

Sustainability Action Network News, Lawrence Chapter, 25 Oct 2011

Lawrence Sustainability Network Calender Events, 19 October 2011

Daily Bleed, 20 October 2011 @ Discomfit Magazine

Daily Bleed: 12, Oct. 2011 - MOSES HARMAN

Breaking News & Commentary from Citizens for Legitimate Government, 06 Oct 2011

Carl Stanley: "Mick Jones" @ Sabotage Magazine

David Rovics, Troubadour: "Occupy Wall Street!" U.S. & Canada Tour Schedule

International Public Relations: #50 in The Great Mind Series, Robert Koehler, Oct. 16th

Occupy Wall Street Live Stream