It's been a while that I watched BMJ. When I began watching tonight in the middle of the program I entered into President Johnson's conversation in 1965 with McNamara on escalation of the war, when the troops there were in the range of 45 thousands. I sat pinned down to my chair till the end of the program.
That "while" wiyhout BMJ was a wasted while. God bless Bill Moyers of the USA! fib
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This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers looked back some four decades to his experience as a member of President Lyndon Johnson’s administration. At the time, Johnson made a series of fateful decisions to escalate the war in Vietnam, where eventually over two million American military personnel would serve. Estimates indicate that nearly 60,000 U.S. troops – and more than a million Vietnamese – were killed during the course of the conflict.
With an eye on President Obama’s deliberations on whether to deploy more U.S. troops in addition to the 68,000 already in Afghanistan, Moyers presented a montage of recorded conversations and his personal memories of President Lyndon Johnson’s decisions to escalate the war in Vietnam. He said:
“Our country wonders this weekend what is on President Obama’s mind. He is apparently about to bring months of deliberation to a close and answer General Stanley McChrystal’s request for more troops in Afghanistan. When he finally announces how many, why, and at what cost, he will most likely have defined his presidency, for the consequences will be far-reaching and unpredictable. As I read and listen and wait with all of you for answers, I have been thinking about the mind of another President – Lyndon B. Johnson. I was 30 years old, a White House assistant, working on politics and domestic policy. I watched and listened as LBJ made his fateful decisions about Vietnam... Barack Obama is not Lyndon Johnson, Afghanistan is not Vietnam and this is now, not then. The situation is different. But listen – and you will hear echoes and refrains that resonate today.”
The nation is divided about America’s mission in Afghanistan. In a new WASHINGTON POST – ABC News poll, 55% of respondents expressed confidence that President Obama will pick a strategy that will work, but 52% said that the war in Afghanistan has not been worth fighting given the costs versus the benefits.
What do you think?
No comment. fib
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Leading Cuban dissidents cheer Obama's Nobel prize (AP) – 8 hours ago HAVANA
— Many of the 75 activists jailed in a 2003 Cuban government crackdown on political dissent are congratulating Barack Obama for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. In a letter released Monday to international journalists, 29 of those imprisoned six years ago said Obama "has become a global symbol, especially for us who, under difficult conditions, are defending Cubans' right to democracy."
In another letter, 21 of their wives, mothers and other female relatives also cheered Obama. Fifty-four dissidents remain imprisoned on allegations they conspired with the U.S. to topple Cuba's government. Those freed were granted medical parole or forced into exile in Spain. One was released after completing a six-year sentence.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jOSU7Ew6j4vlEn0d_L0eXG0A1w1gD9B9M09G0
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Zimbabwe News.Net
Sunday 11th October, 2009
Former Cuban president, Fidel Castro, has said he was obliged to acknowledge the Nobel Prize given to US President, Barack Obama, was a "positive measure," and especially important considering the "genocidal policies" of some former US presidents. He also said the decision was good compensation for the fact that the US had been defeated in Copenhagen when Rio de Janeiro was picked as a site for 2016 Olympic Games. In an article titled "Reflections," published on the Internet, 83-year-old Castro said while he did not always share the views of those who award the Nobel, Obama’s prize was "an appeal for peace and a search for solutions that lead to the survival of species." In his comments, he said: "Many will say that Obama has not yet earned the right to receive such a distinction. We prefer to see the decision as not so much a prize for the president of the US, but as a criticism of the genocidal policies pursued by a few presidents of that country, who led the world to the crossroads it is at today."
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http://www.zimbabwenews.net/story/553184
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No verbal comment. FIB
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August 9, 2009
Op-Ed Contributor
Is It Now a Crime to Be Poor?
By BARBARA EHRENREICH
IT’S too bad so many people are falling into poverty at a time when it’s almost illegal to be poor. You won’t be arrested for shopping in a Dollar Store, but if you are truly, deeply, in-the-streets poor, you’re well advised not to engage in any of the biological necessities of life — like sitting, sleeping, lying down or loitering. City officials boast that there is nothing discriminatory about the ordinances that afflict the destitute, most of which go back to the dawn of gentrification in the ’80s and ’90s. “If you’re lying on a sidewalk, whether you’re homeless or a millionaire, you’re in violation of the ordinance,” a city attorney in St. Petersburg, Fla., said in June, echoing Anatole France’s immortal observation that “the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges.”
In defiance of all reason and compassion, the criminalization of poverty has actually been intensifying as the recession generates ever more poverty. So concludes a new study from the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, which found that the number of ordinances against the publicly poor has been rising since 2006, along with ticketing and arrests for more “neutral” infractions like jaywalking, littering or carrying an open container of alcohol.
The report lists America’s 10 “meanest” cities — the largest of which are Honolulu, Los Angeles and San Francisco — but new contestants are springing up every day. The City Council in Grand Junction, Colo., has been considering a ban on begging, and at the end of June, Tempe, Ariz., carried out a four-day crackdown on the indigent. How do you know when someone is indigent? As a Las Vegas statute puts it, “An indigent person is a person whom a reasonable ordinary person would believe to be entitled to apply for or receive” public assistance.
That could be me before the blow-drying and eyeliner, and it’s definitely Al Szekely at any time of day. A grizzled 62-year-old, he inhabits a wheelchair and is often found on G Street in Washington — the city that is ultimately responsible for the bullet he took in the spine in Fu Bai, Vietnam, in 1972. He had been enjoying the luxury of an indoor bed until last December, when the police swept through the shelter in the middle of the night looking for men with outstanding warrants.
It turned out that Mr. Szekely, who is an ordained minister and does not drink, do drugs or curse in front of ladies, did indeed have a warrant — for not appearing in court to face a charge of “criminal trespassing” (for sleeping on a sidewalk in a Washington suburb). So he was dragged out of the shelter and put in jail. “Can you imagine?” asked Eric Sheptock, the homeless advocate (himself a shelter resident) who introduced me to Mr. Szekely. “They arrested a homeless man in a shelter for being homeless.”
The viciousness of the official animus toward the indigent can be breathtaking. A few years ago, a group called Food Not Bombs started handing out free vegan food to hungry people in public parks around the nation. A number of cities, led by Las Vegas, passed ordinances forbidding the sharing of food with the indigent in public places, and several members of the group were arrested. A federal judge just overturned the anti-sharing law in Orlando, Fla., but the city is appealing. And now Middletown, Conn., is cracking down on food sharing.
If poverty tends to criminalize people, it is also true that criminalization inexorably impoverishes them. Scott Lovell, another homeless man I interviewed in Washington, earned his record by committing a significant crime — by participating in the armed robbery of a steakhouse when he was 15. Although Mr. Lovell dresses and speaks more like a summer tourist from Ohio than a felon, his criminal record has made it extremely difficult for him to find a job.
For Al Szekely, the arrest for trespassing meant a further descent down the circles of hell. While in jail, he lost his slot in the shelter and now sleeps outside the Verizon Center sports arena, where the big problem, in addition to the security guards, is mosquitoes. His stick-thin arms are covered with pink crusty sores, which he treats with a regimen of frantic scratching.
For the not-yet-homeless, there are two main paths to criminalization — one involving debt, and the other skin color. Anyone of any color or pre-recession financial status can fall into debt, and although we pride ourselves on the abolition of debtors’ prison, in at least one state, Texas, people who can’t afford to pay their traffic fines may be made to “sit out their tickets” in jail.
Often the path to legal trouble begins when one of your creditors has a court issue a summons for you, which you fail to honor for one reason or another. (Maybe your address has changed or you never received it.) Now you’re in contempt of court. Or suppose you miss a payment and, before you realize it, your car insurance lapses; then you’re stopped for something like a broken headlight. Depending on the state, you may have your car impounded or face a steep fine — again, exposing you to a possible summons. “There’s just no end to it once the cycle starts,” said Robert Solomon of Yale Law School. “It just keeps accelerating.”
By far the most reliable way to be criminalized by poverty is to have the wrong-color skin. Indignation runs high when a celebrity professor encounters racial profiling, but for decades whole communities have been effectively “profiled” for the suspicious combination of being both dark-skinned and poor, thanks to the “broken windows” or “zero tolerance” theory of policing popularized by Rudy Giuliani, when he was mayor of New York City, and his police chief William Bratton.
Flick a cigarette in a heavily patrolled community of color and you’re littering; wear the wrong color T-shirt and you’re displaying gang allegiance. Just strolling around in a dodgy neighborhood can mark you as a potential suspect, according to “Let’s Get Free: A Hip-Hop Theory of Justice,” an eye-opening new book by Paul Butler, a former federal prosecutor in Washington. If you seem at all evasive, which I suppose is like looking “overly anxious” in an airport, Mr. Butler writes, the police “can force you to stop just to investigate why you don’t want to talk to them.” And don’t get grumpy about it or you could be “resisting arrest.”
There’s no minimum age for being sucked into what the Children’s Defense Fund calls “the cradle-to-prison pipeline.” In New York City, a teenager caught in public housing without an ID — say, while visiting a friend or relative — can be charged with criminal trespassing and wind up in juvenile detention, Mishi Faruqee, the director of youth justice programs for the Children’s Defense Fund of New York, told me. In just the past few months, a growing number of cities have taken to ticketing and sometimes handcuffing teenagers found on the streets during school hours.
In Los Angeles, the fine for truancy is $250; in Dallas, it can be as much as $500 — crushing amounts for people living near the poverty level. According to the Los Angeles Bus Riders Union, an advocacy group, 12,000 students were ticketed for truancy in 2008.
Why does the Bus Riders Union care? Because it estimates that 80 percent of the “truants,” especially those who are black or Latino, are merely late for school, thanks to the way that over-filled buses whiz by them without stopping. I met people in Los Angeles who told me they keep their children home if there’s the slightest chance of their being late. It’s an ingenious anti-truancy policy that discourages parents from sending their youngsters to school.
The pattern is to curtail financing for services that might help the poor while ramping up law enforcement: starve school and public transportation budgets, then make truancy illegal. Shut down public housing, then make it a crime to be homeless. Be sure to harass street vendors when there are few other opportunities for employment. The experience of the poor, and especially poor minorities, comes to resemble that of a rat in a cage scrambling to avoid erratically administered electric shocks.
And if you should make the mistake of trying to escape via a brief marijuana-induced high, it’s “gotcha” all over again, because that of course is illegal too. One result is our staggering level of incarceration, the highest in the world. Today the same number of Americans — 2.3 million — reside in prison as in public housing.
Meanwhile, the public housing that remains has become ever more prisonlike, with residents subjected to drug testing and random police sweeps. The safety net, or what’s left of it, has been transformed into a dragnet.
Some of the community organizers I’ve talked to around the country think they know why “zero tolerance” policing has ratcheted up since the recession began. Leonardo Vilchis of the Union de Vecinos, a community organization in Los Angeles, suspects that “poor people have become a source of revenue” for recession-starved cities, and that the police can always find a violation leading to a fine. If so, this is a singularly demented fund-raising strategy. At a Congressional hearing in June, the president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers testified about the pervasive “overcriminalization of crimes that are not a risk to public safety,” like sleeping in a cardboard box or jumping turnstiles, which leads to expensively clogged courts and prisons.
A Pew Center study released in March found states spending a record $51.7 billion on corrections, an amount that the center judged, with an excess of moderation, to be “too much.”
But will it be enough — the collision of rising prison populations that we can’t afford and the criminalization of poverty — to force us to break the mad cycle of poverty and punishment? With the number of people in poverty increasing (some estimates suggest it’s up to 45 million to 50 million, from 37 million in 2007) several states are beginning to ease up on the criminalization of poverty — for example, by sending drug offenders to treatment rather than jail, shortening probation and reducing the number of people locked up for technical violations like missed court appointments. But others are tightening the screws: not only increasing the number of “crimes” but also charging prisoners for their room and board — assuring that they’ll be released with potentially criminalizing levels of debt.
Maybe we can’t afford the measures that would begin to alleviate America’s growing poverty — affordable housing, good schools, reliable public transportation and so forth. I would argue otherwise, but for now I’d be content with a consensus that, if we can’t afford to truly help the poor, neither can we afford to go on tormenting them."
Barbara Ehrenreich is the author, most recently, of “This Land Is Their Land: Reports From a Divided Nation.”
Natalia Estemirova on Chechnya
Jul 23rd 2009
From The Economist print edition
IT WAS the kind of scene she had described many times. On July 15th at 8.30am, as she left her flat in Grozny, Natalia Estemirova was forced into a white Lada. She shouted that she was being kidnapped, but those who heard were too scared to report it. By the time her colleagues had found out, she was dead, murdered by three bullets in her chest and a control shot in the head.(...)
Destruction of the Abatwa (Pygmy) Culture
July 18, 2009 at 9:18am |
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“The Abatwa are an example of the phenomenon feared by Subcomandante Marcos and the indigenous communities of the Chiapas region of Mexico, that of being so marginalized as a people that you just don’t matter any more.”
The Destruction of the Abatwa (Pygmie) Culture, produced for the 28-minute weekly cable public access program Indymedia Presents, takes a look at the largely-unnoticed struggle of the Abatwa People, more commonly known as the Pygmies.
Modern Abatwa life is a far cry from the past, when they were respected for being highly skilled traditional hunters. Today the Abatwa they have been so completely marginalized it’s like they do not exist.
This has been especially the case since 1973, when the Abatwa were thrown off their lands for an animal preserve. “The unintended consequence of the environmental victory was great destruction to Abatwa culture, and the loss of many lives.”
21 years later, the British Empire’s historical interference in Rwandan culture triggered a genocide of the Tutsi by the Hutu. As we watched on in terror, as many as 1,000,000 people were killed.
Nobody ever seemed to notice that the Abatwa were among them. Even now, few have ever reported that they were also targeted by the Hutu. The few reports that do exist, estimate between 10,000 and 30,000 Abatwa died during the months-long genocide. These are the forgotten victims.
Not much has changed since then. With fears occasionally rising that the genocide could happen again, the Abatwa find themselves being dragged to extinction. They are losing one percent of their population each year, and miscarriages are frequent because the Abatwa’s health is so extremely low and they have little or no access to aid, medicine, or social supports.
Some groups doing their best to help, like Caurwa and the Health Development Initiative – but even so, the Abatwa’s struggle for life is a losing one.
The Destruction of the Abatwa (Pygmie) Culture is the second in a series of films by Patricia Boiko from Pepperspray Productions. The first program examined the genocide in Rwanda, and how people can heal from such wanton horror.
Caught in the Conflict______________________________________________________Civilians and the internationalsecurity strategy in Afghanistan
A briefing paper by ten NGOs operating in Afghanistan for theNATO Heads of State and Government Summit, 3-4 April 2009
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http://www.theirc.org/resources/2009/caught-in-the-conflict-afghanistan-report-april-2009-pdf.pdf
This week on the JOURNAL, Bill Moyers spoke with U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) about campaign finance reform and the prospects of Congress passing legislation to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.
Against intense opposition from banks and credit unions, Durbin has been working to pass a bill that would empower bankruptcy judges to reduce homeowners’ mortgage debt and help them to stay in their homes. Last week, 12 Democrats joined Senate Republicans to defeat the legislation.
Durbin said that banks caused the current recession and are now working against government policy that would help solve the economic crisis:
“It was clear to me that even though the mortgage foreclosure crisis is getting progressively worse in this country and is, I think, at the heart of our economic weakness, that the banks were unwilling to step in and really participate in finding a solution... Here we are in a recession brought on by these financial institutions [with] some very bad decisions that they’d made causing great pain and suffering for a lot of workers and businesses and homeowners across America. And yet when you sit down and talk about some fundamental reform of these financial institutions, so that people have a fighting chance when it comes to their credit cards, so that folks facing mortgage foreclosure have a final chance to maybe save their homes, basically the banks are gonna have the last word. It’s counterintuitive – the people who brought this crisis to us are the ones that are dictating policy.”
Some argue that well-intentioned but misguided government policies are partly to blame for the mortgage crisis and that further federal intervention in the housing market could make things worse. Steven Malanga of CITY JOURNAL wrote:
“Nearly a century of Washington’s efforts to promote homeownership has produced one calamity after another... As Washington grapples with the current mortgage crisis, advocates from both parties are already warning the feds not to relax their commitment to expanding homeownership – even if that means reviving the very kinds of programs and institutions that got us into trouble... Our praiseworthy initial efforts – to eliminate housing discrimination and provide all Americans an equal opportunity to buy a home – were eventually turned on their heads by advocates and politicians, who instead tried to ensure equality of outcomes... Political meddling in this vast marketplace has wreaked havoc time and again, and will continue to do so – if we let it.”
The USA has this chapter in its history as well. Canadians have apologized, Australians have apologized, the Pope has apologized! Time for us to say “we are sorry”! fib
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A retrospective of Inuit assimilation hits screens
18 hours ago TORONTO (AFP)
— A little known chapter in Canada's past, when it forcibly assimilated aboriginal youths by taking them away from their parents, was highlighted this week in a new documentary. "The Experimental Eskimos" screened for the first time at Toronto's Hot Docs Festival, the largest in North America. It tells the story of three adolescent boys who in l962 and l963 were sent to school in Ottawa, 2,900 kilometers (l,800 miles) south of their homes in the Canadian Arctic. Government documents show the purpose was to create leaders among a group that had only recently left their nomadic lives. "The question was, can Eskimos be civilized?" asked Peter Ittinuar, one of the men in the film. Addressing a Toronto audience after a packed screening of the film, he noted: "We were the guinea pigs." The tiny experiment eventually included some two dozen bright boys and girls who agreed to join the program.
On a broader scale, 150,000 Indian, Metis and Inuit, as they were later called, were forced into Christian Church-run boarding schools beginning in 1874 in an effort to integrate them into society. Survivors of the residential schools allege abuse by headmasters and teachers, who stripped them of their culture and language. They say their schooling left them disconnected from their families, communities and feeling "ashamed" of being born native. Ittinuar told AFP that Pope Benedict XVI's acknowledgment last week of Indian, Metis and Inuit students' suffering was "hugely significant -- it is connected to what we went through." Prime Minister Stephen Harper last year also apologized for the residential school abuses.
The three boys profiled in the film went on to become leaders who were instrumental in the creation of Nunavut, the world's largest self-governing aboriginal territory in Canada's far north. Footage from the l970s and l980s show the brash and articulate long-haired young men dressed in suits making their case to politicians, including then prime minister Pierre Trudeau. They succeeded in getting recognition within the constitution for Canada's first peoples. But the early years of being separated from their parents and uprooted from their culture took its toll.
In the film, the men speak of their anguished pasts, which included alcoholism, failed relationships, and run-ins with the law. "It took decades before I could tell my story as I lived it," recounts Zebedee Nungak, one of the three men shown in the film. "We have served as leaders and that's good. But each one of us has lived with addictions and dysfunctions." "At the time, you wonder why things are happening to you," remarked Ittinuar, who was Canada's first Inuit Member of Parliament. "The film has helped bring closure," he said, adding: "I'm OK -- I even play golf, and if that isn't middle class, what is." Ittinuar is now a negotiator at Canada's Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs. "I totally lost my language for awhile," said Eric Tagoona in the film. "I couldn't even talk to my parents." Tagoona insisted he was not going to consider himself a victim. Yet he is the most striking casualty. The former high powered lobbyist, who headed the national Inuit group, Inuit Tapirisat Kanatami, now lives as a hermit without a telephone in the isolated Arctic hamlet of Baker Lake.
Director Barry Greenwald told AFP the social experiment on the one hand did wrench the boys from their culture. "And this was at a time when young men are supposed to be learning traditional skills of hunting and building a kayak." When they returned, they were known as "The White Boys from Ottawa." On the other hand, they were given an education and a sophistication that enabled them to become leaders in a remarkably short time. "The big irony here is that the bureaucrats would never have predicted that these men were going to be the activists in the establishment of aboriginal rights." Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
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Washington "deeply, deeply" regrets the death of Afghan civilians killed by an air strike, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has said.
Red Cross officials believe dozens of civilians including women and children died in the strike which targeted Taleban fighters in Farah Province.
The civilians are said to have been sheltering from fighting at the time.
Mrs Clinton was speaking alongside the Afghan and Pakistani presidents who are in Washington to meet Barack Obama.
From The Times
May 5, 2009
Barack Obama hints at tougher line on Israel
"The Obama Administration has signalled a tougher approach towards Israel ahead of fresh talks on the Middle East peace process by insisting it must endorse the creation of an independent Palestinian state.
“Israel has to work toward a two-state solution,” declared Vice-President Joe Biden today in a speech to the annual conference of a powerful pro-Israel lobby group in Washington.
“You’re not going to like my saying this,” he warned the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) before adding that the Jewish state should not build any more settlements on Palestinian territory, and should “dismantle existing outposts and allow Palestinians freedom of movement”.
President Obama later held a White House meeting with Shimon Peres, his Israeli counterpart, who holds a largely ceremonial position. But the US Administration’s message appeared to be addressed to the new right-wing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who is due to visit the White House on May 18.(...)"
“The U.S. government has been turned into an engine that accelerates the wealth upwards into the hands of a few. . . . And now, the American people are about to pay the price of the collapse of the $513 trillion Ponzi scheme of derivatives. Yes, that’s half a quadrillion dollars.”
AFP covered a special presentation on the American Monetary Act in Washington on April 23, hosted by Kucinich and the American Monetary Institute, the premier organization for monetary reform in America.
Kucinich’s lovely wife Elizabeth introduced the speaker, Stephen Zarlenga, director of the institute, who has been described as the man who knows more about money than probably anyone else in the United States, and going back in history to the times of the ancient Spartans and the Roman republic.
At one point Zarlenga handed around to the audience a coin from ancient Rome (probably about 225 to 217 B.C.) called an aes grave, made of bronze and weighing about 274 grams. This, he explained, is an example of how money should be made, issued by the state, not by a private bank such as the Federal Reserve, and having a value assigned by law, rather than intrinsic value like gold or silver coinage. (Rome did produce gold and silver “bullion” coins, but only for trade with foreigners, not for use inside Rome.)
Zarlenga showed numerous slides to make monetary science clear to the audience, a mixture of the general public and congressional aides and interns. He pointed out that there has never been true monetary reform in America, which would consist of three elements:
1.)We need to nationalize the Fed;
2.) Banks would no longer issue credit into circulation as “money”;
3.) The government would spend new Treasury notes into circulation, to pay for needed infrastructure construction and repairs.
Until now, every attempt at real reform in America has been strangled in the cradle. Past voices for monetary sanity such as those of Reps. Louis McFadden and Jerry Voorhis were silenced.
Monetary reform has failed on a number of occasions in various countries when the reformers failed to implement all three of these elements, Zarlenga warned. For example, Britain nationalized the Bank of England in 1946, as William Temple called for in 1942, but because banks were allowed to continue to create money, within a few years everything was back to “business as usual” in Britain, and the British people enjoyed little benefit from the reform effort.
The one organization that has a reform program that is comprehensive and free of outside influence is the American Monetary Institute, which drafted the American Monetary Act. The act may be found on the Internet at: http://www.monetary.org/amacolorpamphlet.pdf .”
John Tiffany is the associate editor of TBR revisionist magazine.
(Issue # 19, May 11, 2009)
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
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Premiering April 27, 2009 on PBS - watch online now
Film Description
The Cherokee would call it Nu-No-Du-Na-Tlo-Hi-Lu, “The Trail Where They Cried.” On May 26, 1838, federal troops forced thousands of Cherokee from their homes in the Southeastern United States, driving them toward Indian Territory in Eastern Oklahoma. More than 4,000 died of disease and starvation along the way.
For years the Cherokee had resisted removal from their land in every way they knew. Convinced that white America rejected Native Americans because they were “savages,” Cherokee leaders established a republic with a European-style legislature and legal system. Many Cherokee became Christian and adopted westernized education for their children. Their visionary principal chief, John Ross, would even take the Cherokee case to the Supreme Court, where he won a crucial recognition of tribal sovereignty that still resonates.
Though in the end the Cherokee embrace of “civilization” and their landmark legal victory proved no match for white land hunger and military power, the Cherokee people were able, with characteristic ingenuity, to build a new life in Oklahoma, far from the land that had sustained them for generations.
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4020719354420953428
My O Friend emk says it is a must see!
in it:
"Populist lawyer, Gary Fielder, presents “The Gig Is Up: Money, the Federal Reserve and You. Live from Wolfe Hall at The University of Colorado School of Law, on December 4, 2008, Mr. Fielder, a criminal and constitutional lawyer from Denver, Colorado, presents a power point and video presentation on the creation of money with an historical analysis of our current banking system. With quotes from Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Abe Lincoln, Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and many others, Fielder makes his case to abolish the Federal Reserve and return to a sound and honest money system. Fractional Reserve Banking. Currency. Amero. World Government. International Banking. www.gigisup.net Produced by Jack Creamer, Side 3 Studios, Denver, Colorado. Video edits by Jonathan Ellinoff. Technical Assistant, Rye Miller. This video is for educational purposes only. Admission was not charged, nor will any effort be made to profit from its production or sale. The DVD is free.«
Email this video Report problem
Bruce Fein & Mark Danner
May 1, 2009
"This government does not torture people." So stated then-President George W. Bush, reaffirming what many would contend is a deeply-held American principle.
But what if the United States did torture? That is the national question raised anew by a Red Cross report (reproduced by THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS) and the recent declassification of Bush administration memos. The memos, written by the White House Office of Legal Council, provided legal guidance outlining acceptable interrogation techniques under U.S. and international law. But the Red Cross report, based on interviews with 14 high-value detainees, alleges that the use of these techniques did constitute torture. Additionally, President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have stated publicly that at least one of the techniques — water-boarding — constitutes torture.
Legal scholar Bruce Fein and journalist Mark Danner explain to Bill Moyers on THE JOURNAL that all of this creates a tricky legal and political situation for the President. Fein argues that President Obama, as head of the executive branch, is charged by the Constitution with enforcing the law, and must therefore pursue the allegations. And Danner points out that our nation cannot afford to ignore the political debate surrounding torture — the issue must confronted publicly.
Many people, though, think the costs of investigating the allegations would be too great.
In the WASHINGTON POST, David Broder argues: "That way, inevitably, lies endless political warfare. It would set the precedent for turning all future policy disagreements into political or criminal vendettas. That way lies untold bitterness -- and injustice."
But Fein rejects the notion that torture is a partisan policy dispute. Reacting to Karl Rove making a similar point on FOX NEWS, Fein told Bill Moyers on the JOURNAL: "That is nonsense on stilts. Torture is not a political issue. Torture is something prohibited under a treaty by the U.S. Senate. It was prohibited in the U.S. Criminal Code — a bill passed by the House and Senate, including Republicans."
In the WALL STREET JOURNAL, Peggy Noonan writes that public hearings would divide the country and "would be a self-immolating exercise that would both excite and inform America's foes. And possibly inspire them."
But according to Mark Danner, it is this very divisiveness that makes it such an important political issue. He believes addressing the political climate in which the U.S. government used these techniques is as important as investigating potential lawbreakers. Without publicly considering the costs and efficacy of torture, we cannot come to a national consensus, leaving the door open for prisoner abuse by this or future administrations.
Danner notes on THE JOURNAL that some sizable portion of the country agrees with Dick Cheney, who continues to argue that these tactics protected the country, and "that President Obama, in deciding not to torture, has left the country vulnerable to another attack." Danner continues, "that is present politics [...] and that's why this has to be confronted, not only legally [...] but politically, as well."
At the moment, the President has clearly stated he does not wish to pursue investigations. But a series of legal decisions may force his hand. A recent decision by a federal appeals court clears the path for a civil lawsuit brought by five men against an airline company they allege cooperated with the CIA to fly them to black sites where they were tortured. The court rejected an argument — first advanced by the Bush administration and reaffirmed by the Obama administration — that the case should be thrown out because it would reveal state secrets. Additionally, a Spanish judge confirmed that he will proceed with an inquiry into six top Bush administration officials on charges that they set up a systematic program of torture at Guantanamo.
His political law career would take him to various outlets, including general counsel of the Federal Communications Commission, followed by an appointment as research director for the Joint Congressional Committee on Covert Arms Sales to Iran. Mr. Fein has been an adjunct scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, a resident scholar at the Heritage Foundation, a lecturer at the Brookings Institute, and an adjunct professor at George Washington University.
Fein has also authored a number of volumes on United States Constitution, Supreme Court, and international law, as well as assisted three dozen countries in constitutional revision, including Russia, Spain, South Africa, Iraq, Cyprus, and Mozambique.
Fein's writing, devoted to legal and international affairs, has appeared in THE WASHINGTON TIMES, THE CAPITOL LEADER, THE LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER, SLATE.COM and THE DAILY BEAST, among others.
His books include THE SECRET WAY TO WAR: THE DOWNING STREET MEMO AND THE IRAQ WAR'S BURIED HISTORY (2006), TORTURE AND TRUTH: AMERICA, ABU GHRAIB AND THE WAR ON TERROR (2004), THE ROAD TO ILLEGITIMACY: ONE REPORTER'S TRAVEL'S THROUGH THE 2000 FLORIDA VOTE RECOUNT (2004) and THE MASSACRE AT EL MOZOTE: A PARABLE OF THE COLD WAR (1994). Danner was a longtime staff writer for THE NEW YORKER and is a regular contributor to THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS.
He is also professor of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley, where he directs the Goldman Forum, and the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs, Politics, and Humanities at Bard College.
Published May 1, 2009.
Guest photos by Robin Holland.
Dear Secretary Clinton,
I am writing in regard to your April 22 comments on Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. Your characterization of Israel's policy greatly understates the extent and impact of the border closure, which amounts to the collective punishment of Gaza's civilian population - a serious violation of international law. Instead of downplaying the consequences of this blockade, we ask that you use the influence of the United States and your office to press Israel to end this policy which purposefully punishes civilians as a way to pressure Hamas. We also urge you to press Egypt, which has largely cooperated with Israel's blockade, to allow humanitarian assistance through the Rafah crossing, which it controls.
Human Rights Watch recognizes Israel's right to defend itself against attacks by Palestinian armed groups in Gaza, and we have consistently condemned the continuing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and civilian property. But lawful means of self-defense do not include harming civilians in Gaza. In our view, the United States - Israel's most important political, military and financial backer - has an obligation to strongly criticize and disassociate itself from policies that constitute unlawful collective punishment.
At a House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing on April 22, in response to questions from Rep. Keith Ellison about the situation in Gaza, you replied that "the crossings are no longer completely closed [and] there are many items that are being transported through the crossings." You said that you had "urged the Israeli government to open the crossings as much as possible commensurate with its legitimate security needs." However, you added, "there are many items that are being transported through the crossings" into Gaza, and "a lot of what has been said was not permitted to cross is just not accurate."
Your suggestion that the blockade of Gaza is not as severe as "what has been said" seems to reflect a desire to minimize the severity of the blockade which continues to exact an enormous toll on Gazan civilians. Human Rights Watch researchers recently conducted a fact-finding mission in Gaza and saw firsthand this harmful impact, especially on women and children. Months after Israel's 22-day military campaign, vulnerable civilians continue to bear the brunt of severe restrictions on basic necessities and other needed supplies.
For example, Israel's border restrictions, which it tightened 22 months ago, are preventing the reconstruction of civilian structures and property that were destroyed or heavily damaged during the recent hostilities. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that the fighting destroyed or badly damaged 21,000 residences, and thousands of people remain homeless today because of Israel's ban on building materials, including concrete.
Other restrictions are even more arbitrary and unjustified by legitimate security needs. UNICEF, for example, is currently awaiting Israeli approval for eight categories of educational items needed in Gaza, including musical instruments, math kits, and sports clothes. Israeli media and human rights groups report that during the past month, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) prevented an Israeli vegetable growers' association from shipping pumpkins, kiwis and avocados to Gaza. The entry of food into Gaza continues to be highly restricted, as the IDF has not implemented a March 22, 2009 Israeli Cabinet decision promising to permit food to enter Gaza on an unrestricted basis.
In some cases, the Israeli restrictions on what can enter Gaza are placing even Israeli citizens at risk. According to the United Nations Mine Action Service, de-mining teams are still unable to bring into Gaza the explosives they need to destroy unexploded ordinance left over from the war. As a result, armed groups in Gaza apparently from Hamas have appropriated approximately 5,000 tons of unexploded weapons that the IDF had fired during the fighting, including high explosives, before de-mining teams could destroy the munitions. The explosives in these weapons might be used against civilians in Israel.
As you know, Israel continues to exercise full control of Gaza's borders and airspace, with the exception of the Rafah crossing with Egypt. While Israel is entitled to inspect goods entering Gaza, any restrictions should be for specific security reasons and not to block humanitarian aid or other necessary civilian goods. Overly broad restrictions on such basic goods violate international humanitarian law, which restricts a government with effective control over a territory from blocking goods essential to the survival of the civilian population.
The restrictions also violate Israel's duty as an occupying power to safeguard the health and welfare of the occupied population, and amount to collective punishment against civilians.
Israel has consistently failed to provide specific security justifications for its refusal to allow many basic goods to enter Gaza, or its restrictions on the types and quantities of civilian goods allowed in.
Security concerns also fail to explain Israel's refusal to open the Karni or Sufa crossings. If fully opened, the Karni crossing could securely process more aid shipments per day than any other crossing, thanks to security scanners donated by USAID that are currently sitting idle. Nor has Israel provided any security rationale for its ban on exports from Gaza for more than a year, with the exception of several truckloads of flowers to Europe.
The civilians affected by Israel's blockade include Gaza's 750,000 children. The Israeli offensive destroyed seven schools in northern Gaza and damaged 157 others, according to OCHA; meaningful repairs cannot be made unless Israel permits building materials to enter Gaza. According to UNRWA, 14 percent of water samples in Gaza are contaminated, and the number of cases of children under three years old with acute diarrhea passed the "alert" level in March. More than 22,000 children in Gaza still have no access to piped water.
The needs of the war-wounded and the chronically ill are also of notable concern. As of April 21, the UN reported that 65 "essential drug items" were still out of stock at Gaza's Central Drug Store, including medicines for chronic diseases. In February, Human Rights Watch interviewed a double-amputee who suffered "phantom pain" from his missing legs; his cousin, a pharmacist, said he needed pain medication that was not available.
On average, 132 trucks with goods entered Gaza each day in March, one-quarter of them with humanitarian aid. This marks an improvement of 17 percent from February, but remains far below the 475 daily trucks that entered Gaza prior to Hamas's takeover in June 2007. According to recent news reports, hundreds of truckloads worth of aid are "rotting" on the Egyptian side of the border.
The humanitarian aid and reconstruction material entering Gaza is far from enough, and US pressure is needed to ensure that Israel meets its obligations under international law, and that Egypt assists humanitarian deliveries to a civilian population in need.
Madame Secretary, the civilians of Gaza are suffering as a consequence of Israel's crippling blockade. Rather than minimizing their suffering, we hope you will use your influence to press Israel to end its blockade, and that your public comments will reflect this concern.
Sincerely,
Sarah Leah Whitson
Executive Director
Middle East and North Africa division
Episodes of American history on PBS now – not to be missed: “We Shall Remain!”
After the Mayflower
Tecumseh's Vision
Trail of Tears
Watch it here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/
Episode 3 “Trail of Tears” with Wes Studi, a Cherokee!
Wes Studi (Cherokee), Actor, “Major Ridge”
“Born in Norfire Hollow, Oklahoma, Wes Studi spoke only his native Cherokee language until the age of five. Early in his career, Studi submitted two short stories for a Cherokee Nation newsletter and at the request of his program director, expanded upon those stories and wrote the children’s books, The Adventures of Billy Bean and More Adventures of Billy Bean. Studi went on to pursue acting and first caught the attention of the public in Dances with Wolves, and then as Magua in The Last of the Mohicans. Studi has since appeared in more than fifty film and television productions.” Read about the cast here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/weshallremain/behind_the_scenes/episode_3_cast_bios#wStudi
This series needs 100,000 “Episodes”! At least. And always remember, President Obama is aka “Awe Kooda Bilaxpak Kuuxshish”:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/fib/gGxF9Z
In the Americas NAMES is serious stuff!! fib
Rock Cookie Bottom
#109! For this song, I took language directly from the torture memos. Lyrics below.
Buy this song for a buck!
the detainee is lying on a gurneythat’s inclined at an angle: 10 to 15 degreesa cloth is placed over the detainee’s facecold water is poured on the cloththe wet cloth createsa barrier through whichit is difficult or in some cases not possiblefor the detainee to breatheif the detainee makes an effort to defeat the technique by twisting his head to the side and breathingout the corner of his mouththe interrogator may cup his hands around the detainees nose and mouthin which case it would not be posible for him to breathe!As we explained in the Section 2340A Memorandum, “pain and suffering” (as used in Section 2340) is best understood as a single concept, not distinct concepts of “pain” as distinguished from “suffering”… The waterboard,which inflicts no pain or actual harm whatsoever,does not, in our view inflict “severe pain or suffering”. Even if one were to parse the statute more finely to treat “suffering” as a distinct concept, the waterboard could not be said to inflict severe sufering. The waterboard is simply a controlled acute episode, lacking the connotation of a protracted period of time generally given to suffering.
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http://www.rockcookiebottom.com/post/97815385/109-for-this-song-i-took-language-directly-from
