Obama wants his Katrina kept on QT

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Eric Verlo

President Obama rationalizes not prosecuting his Bush predecessors because he wants to look forward not back. Who knew that he meant “back” to the future as well? The Obama administration has get-out-of-jail-free cards for Goldman Sachs et al, and they’re already fouling the evidence that could be used against BP. It serves BP’s interest to pretend their Gulf spill is spewing only five thousand barrels a day. Now even the government is pretending everyone is too busy with the cleanup to measure exactly. It can’t be for want of a lesser-decimal soundbite, experts have the blowout pinned at a similar-syllable’d four million gallons per day.

The government and BP’s incuriosity ignores current estimates that the flow of crude oil escaping the well is between 76,000 and 104,000 barrels, 95,000 being the mean which yields a figure of 1/3 of the Exxon Valdez disaster PER DAY.

Of course as the spill grows to round Florida and reach Cuba and the Atlantic coast, the White House is prepared to forecast that the flow has gotten worse. So far chemical dispersants are diluting the muck that is the public’s only measure of the catastrophe.

The Miami Herald quotes Houston engineer and blogger Bob Cavnar who suggests that industry approximations which the media has been parroting are simply bullshit:

“I’m sitting here looking at it right now, and it ain’t 5,000 barrels a day, I’ll guarantee it … In Houston, there’s about 125,000, 150,000 engineers. And all the engineers can calculate what the flow is.”

William Blum – Anti-Empire Report

Posted on January 6, 2010 by NMT

Here’s William Blum’s latest essay, on Lincoln Gordon, Brazil, Cuba, and the 2009 Nobel Laureate, reprinted from www.killinghope.org.

THE ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT
By William Blum, January 6, 2009

The American elite

Lincoln Gordon died a few weeks ago at the age of 96. He had graduated summa cum laude from Harvard at the age of 19, received a doctorate from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, published his first book at 22, with dozens more to follow on government, economics, and foreign policy in Europe and Latin America. He joined the Harvard faculty at 23. Dr. Gordon was an executive on the War Production Board during World War II, a top administrator of Marshall Plan programs in postwar Europe, ambassador to Brazil, held other high positions at the State Department and the White House, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, economist at the Brookings Institution, president of Johns Hopkins University. President Lyndon B. Johnson praised Gordon’s diplomatic service as "a rare combination of experience, idealism and practical judgment".

You get the picture? Boy wonder, intellectual shining light, distinguished leader of men, outstanding American patriot.

Abraham Lincoln Gordon was also Washington’s on-site, and very active, director in Brazil of the military coup in 1964 which overthrew the moderately leftist government of João Goulart and condemned the people of Brazil to more than 20 years of an unspeakably brutal dictatorship. Human-rights campaigners have long maintained that Brazil’s military regime originated the idea of the desaparecidos, "the disappeared", and exported torture methods across Latin America. In 2007, the Brazilian government published a 500-page book, "The Right to Memory and the Truth", which outlines the systematic torture, rape and disappearance of nearly 500 left-wing activists, and includes photos of corpses and torture victims. Currently, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is proposing a commission to investigate allegations of torture by the military during the 1964-1985 dictatorship. (When will the United States create a commission to investigate its own torture?)

In a cable to Washington after the coup, Gordon stated — in a remark that might have had difficulty getting past the lips of even John Foster Dulles — that without the coup there could have been a "total loss to the West of all South American Republics". (It was actually the beginning of a series of fascistic anti-communist coups that trapped the southern half of South America in a decades-long nightmare, culminating in "Operation Condor", in which the various dictatorships, aided by the CIA, cooperated in hunting down and killing leftists.)

Gordon later testified at a congressional hearing and while denying completely any connection to the coup in Brazil he stated that the coup was "the single most decisive victory of freedom in the mid-twentieth century."

Listen to a phone conversation between President Johnson and Thomas Mann, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, April 3, 1964, two days after the coup:

MANN: I hope you’re as happy about Brazil as I am.

LBJ: I am.

MANN: I think that’s the most important thing that’s happened in the hemisphere in three years.

LBJ: I hope they give us some credit instead of hell.¹

So the next time you’re faced with a boy wonder from Harvard, try to keep your adulation in check no matter what office the man attains, even — oh, just choosing a position at random — the presidency of the United States. Keep your eyes focused not on these "liberal" … "best and brightest" who come and go, but on US foreign policy which remains the same decade after decade. There are dozens of Brazils and Lincoln Gordons in America’s past. In its present. In its future. They’re the diplomatic equivalent of the guys who ran Enron, AIG and Goldman Sachs.

Of course, not all of our foreign policy officials are like that. Some are worse.

And remember the words of convicted spy Alger Hiss: Prison was "a good corrective to three years at Harvard."

Mothers, don’t let your children grow up to be Nobel Peace Prize winners

In November I wrote:

Question: How many countries do you have to be at war with to be disqualified from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Five. Barack Obama has waged war against only Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. He’s holding off on Iran until he actually gets the prize.

Well, on December 10 the president clutched the prize in his blood-stained hands. But then the Nobel Laureate surprised us. On December 17 the United States fired cruise missiles at people in … not Iran, but Yemen, all "terrorists" of course, who were, needless to say, planning "an imminent attack against a U.S. asset".² A week later the United States carried out another attack against "senior al-Qaeda operatives" in Yemen.³

Reports are that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Norway is now in conference to determine whether to raise the maximum number of wars allowed to ten. Given the committee’s ignoble history, I imagine that Obama is taking part in the discussion. As is Henry Kissinger.

The targets of these attacks in Yemen reportedly include fighters coming from Afghanistan and Iraq, confirmation of the warnings long given — even by the CIA and the Pentagon — that those US interventions were creating new anti-American terrorists. (That’s anti-American foreign policy, not necessarily anything else American.) How long before the United States will be waging war in some other god-forsaken land against anti-American terrorists whose numbers include fighters from Yemen? Or Pakistan? Or Somalia? Or Palestine?

Our blessed country is currently involved in so many bloody imperial adventures around the world that one needs a scorecard to keep up. Rick Rozoff of StopNATO has provided this for us in some detail.⁴

For this entire century, almost all these anti-American terrorists have been typically referred to as "al-Qaeda", as if you have to be a member of something called al-Qaeda to resent bombs falling on your house or wedding party; as if there’s a precise and meaningful distinction between people retaliating against American terrorism while being a member of al-Qaeda and people retaliating against American terrorism while NOT being a member of al-Qaeda. However, there is not necessarily even such an animal as a "member of al-Qaeda", albeit there now exists "al-Qaeda in Iraq" and "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula". Anti-American terrorists do know how to choose a name that attracts attention in the world media, that appears formidable, that scares Americans. Governments have learned to label their insurgents "al-Qaeda" to start the military aid flowing from Washington, just like they yelled "communist" during the Cold War. And from the perspective of those conducting the War on Terror, the bigger and more threatening the enemy, the better — more funding, greater prestige, enhanced career advancement. Just like with the creation of something called The International Communist Conspiracy.

It’s not just the American bombings, invasions and occupations that spur the terrorists on, but the American torture. Here’s Bowe Robert Bergdahl, US soldier captured in Afghanistan, speaking on a video made by his Taliban captors: He said he had been well-treated, contrasting his fate to that of prisoners held in US military prisons, such as the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "I bear witness I was continuously treated as a human being, with dignity, and I had nobody deprive me of my clothes and take pictures of me naked. I had no dogs barking at me or biting me as my country has done to their Muslim prisoners in the jails that I have mentioned."⁵

Of course the Taliban provided the script, but what was the script based on? What inspired them to use such words and images, to make such references?

Cuba. Again. Still. Forever.

More than 50 years now it is. The propaganda and hypocrisy of the American mainstream media seems endless and unwavering. They can not accept the fact that Cuban leaders are humane or rational. Here’s the Washington Post of December 13 writing about an American arrested in Cuba:

"The Cuban government has arrested an American citizen working on contract for the U.S. Agency for International Development who was distributing cellphones and laptop computers to Cuban activists. … Under Cuban law … a Cuban citizen or a foreign visitor can be arrested for nearly anything under the claim of ‘dangerousness’."

That sounds just awful, doesn’t it? Imagine being subject to arrest for whatever someone may choose to label "dangerousness". But the exact same thing has happened repeatedly in the United States since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. We don’t use the word "dangerousness". We speak of "national security". Or, more recently, "terrorism". Or "providing material support to terrorism".

The arrested American works for Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), a US government contractor that provides services to the State Department, the Pentagon and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). In 2008, DAI was funded by the US Congress to "promote transition to democracy" in Cuba. Yes, Oh Happy Day!, we’re bringing democracy to Cuba just as we’re bringing it to Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2002, DAI was contracted by USAID to work in Venezuela and proceeded to fund the same groups that a few months earlier had worked to stage a coup — temporarily successful — against President Hugo Chávez. DAI performed other subversive work in Venezuela and has also been active in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other hotspots. "Subversive" is what Washington would label an organization like DAI if they behaved in the same way in the United States in behalf of a foreign government.⁶

The American mainstream media never makes its readers aware of the following (so I do so repeatedly): The United States is to the Cuban government like al-Qaeda is to the government in Washington, only much more powerful and much closer. Since the Cuban revolution, the United States and anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the US have inflicted upon Cuba greater damage and greater loss of life than what happened in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Cuban dissidents typically have had very close, indeed intimate, political and financial connections to American government agents. Would the US government ignore a group of Americans receiving funds or communication equipment from al-Qaeda and/or engaging in repeated meetings with known leaders of that organization? In the past few years, the American government has arrested a great many people in the US and abroad solely on the basis of alleged ties to al-Qaeda, with a lot less evidence to go by than Cuba has had with its dissidents’ ties to the United States, evidence usually gathered by Cuban double agents. Virtually all of Cuba’s "political prisoners" are such dissidents.

The Washington Post story continued:

"The Cuban government granted ordinary citizens the right to buy cellphones just last year." Period.

What does one make of such a statement without further information? How could the Cuban government have been so insensitive to people’s needs for so many years? Well, that must be just the way a "totalitarian" state behaves. But the fact is that because of the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, with a major loss to Cuba of its foreign trade, combined with the relentless US economic aggression, the Caribbean island was hit by a great energy shortage beginning in the 1990s, which caused repeated blackouts. Cuban authorities had no choice but to limit the sale of energy-hogging electrical devices such as cell phones; but once the country returned to energy sufficiency the restrictions were revoked.

"Cubans who want to log on [to the Internet] often have to give their names to the government."

What does that mean? Americans, thank God, can log onto the Internet without giving their names to the government. Their Internet Service Provider does it for them, furnishing their names to the government, along with their emails, when requested.

"Access to some Web sites is restricted."

Which ones? Why? More importantly, what information might a Cuban discover on the Internet that the government would not want him to know about? I can’t imagine. Cubans are in constant touch with relatives in the US, by mail and in person. They get US television programs from Miami. International conferences on all manner of political, economic and social subjects are held regularly in Cuba. What does the American media think is the great secret being kept from the Cuban people by the nasty commie government?

"Cuba has a nascent blogging community, led by the popular commentator Yoani Sánchez, who often writes about how she and her husband are followed and harassed by government agents because of her Web posts. Sánchez has repeatedly applied for permission to leave the country to accept journalism awards, so far unsuccessfully."

According to a well-documented account⁷, Sánchez’s tale of government abuse appears rather exaggerated. Moreover, she moved to Switzerland in 2002, lived there for two years, and then voluntarily returned to Cuba. On the other hand, in January 2006 I was invited to attend a book fair in Cuba, where one of my books, newly translated into Spanish, was being presented. However, the government of the United States would not give me permission to go. My application to travel to Cuba had also been rejected in 1998 by the Clinton administration.

"’Counterrevolutionary activities’, which include mild protests and critical writings, carry the risk of censure or arrest. Anti-government graffiti and speech are considered serious crimes."

Raise your hand if you or someone you know of was ever arrested in the United States for taking part in a protest. And substitute "pro al-Qaeda" for "counterrevolutionary" and for "anti-government" and think of the thousands imprisoned the past eight years by the United States all over the world for … for what? In most cases there’s no clear answer. Or the answer is clear: (a) being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or (b) being turned in to collect a bounty offered by the United States, or (c) thought crimes. And whatever the reason for the imprisonment, they were likely tortured. Even the most fanatical anti-Castroites don’t accuse Cuba of that. In the period of the Cuban revolution, since 1959, Cuba has had one of the very best records on human rights in the hemisphere. See my essay: "The United States, Cuba and this thing called Democracy".⁸

There’s no case of anyone arrested in Cuba that compares in injustice and cruelty to the arrest in 1998 by the United States government of those who came to be known as the "Cuban Five", sentenced in Florida to exceedingly long prison terms for trying to stem terrorist acts against Cuba emanating from the US.⁹ It would be lovely if the Cuban government could trade their DAI prisoner for the five. Cuba, on several occasions, has proposed to Washington the exchange of a number of what the US regards as "political prisoners" in Cuba for the five Cubans held in the United States. So far the United States has not agreed to do so.

Notes

Michael Beschloss, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes 1963-1964 (New York, 1997), p.306. All other sources for this section on Gordon can be found in: Washington Post, December 22, 2009, obituary; The Guardian (London), August 31, 2007; William Blum, "Killing Hope", chapter 27 ^↩

ABC News, December 17, 2009; Washington Post, December 19, 2009 ^↩

Washington Post, December 25, 2009 ^↩

Stop NATO, "2010: U.S. To Wage War Throughout The World", December 30, 2009. To get on the StopNATO mailing list write to r_rozoff@yahoo.com. To see back issues: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/^↩

Reuters, December 25, 2009 ^↩

For more details on DAI, see Eva Golinger, "The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela" (2006) and her website, posting for December 31, 2009 ^↩

Salim Lamrani, professor at Paris Descartes University, "The Contradictions of Cuban Blogger Yoani Sanchez", Monthly Review magazine, November 12, 2009 ^↩

http://killinghope.org/bblum6/democ.htm ^↩

http://killinghope.org/bblum6/polpris.htm ^↩

Anti-Castro blogger Yoani Sanchez hears from Obama ahead of Fidel

Posted on November 23, 2009 by Eric Verlo

Havana pseudo-blogger Yoani Sánchez has the ear of President Obama, what a surprise. In the wake of not being able to travel to the US to receive an astroturf accolade from Columbia University, then a much ballyhooed —but uncorroborated— story of Cuban police making her late for a counter-revolutionary “pro-democracy” rally, the ordinary Cuban who wires her posts to her Miami-based anti-Castro blog posed “my seven questions” for President Obama, and lo, received his answers. She showed up Fidel Castro himself, who posed seven questions to candidate Obama in May 2008, because he’s still waiting.

Read Ms Sánchez’s dismissible PR tracts elsewhere. Let’s look at what Comrade Fidel was asking. Why would Obama have trouble summoning answers to these questions?

Is it right for the president of the US to order the assassination of any one person in the world, whatever the pretext?

Is it ethical for the president of the US to order the torture of other human beings?

Should state terrorism be used by a country as powerful as the US as an instrument to bring peace to the planet?

Is an Adjustment Act, applied as punishment to only one country, Cuba, in order to destabilize it, good and honorable when it costs innocent children and mothers their lives?

Are the brain drain and the continuous theft of the best scientific and intellectual minds in poor countries moral and justifiable?

Is it fair to stage preemptive attacks?

Is it honorable and sane to invest millions and millions of dollars in the military-industrial complex, to produce weapons that can destroy life on earth several times over? Is that the way in which the US expresses its respect for freedom, democracy and human rights?

Although condemned by US diplomats, the brief detention of Ms Sánchez may yet prove to have been a fabrication. Wanna wager the Maria Moors Cabot Prize from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism is funded by Zionists? I’m always puzzled by what horse Israel could have in the South America or Caribbean races, but they do.

Top 10 secret armies of the CIA

Posted on October 12, 2009 by NMT

Found this on the web, will try to retrace provenance, worth a read: The United States have a well known history of providing military support to countries in need. But from time to time, the US Government has provided secret forces. While many are successful, there have also been a number of failures. This is a list of the ten top secret armies of the CIA.

1. Ukrainian Partisans
From 1945 to 1952 the CIA trained and aerially supplied Ukranian partisan units which had originally been organised by he Germans to fight the Soviets during WWII. For seven years, the partisans, operating in the Carpathian Mountains, made sporadic attacks. Finally in 1952, a massive Soviet military force wiped them out.

2. Chinese Brigade in Burma
After the Communist victory in China, Nationalist Chinese soldiers fled into northern Burma. During the early 1950s, the CIA used these soldiers to create a 12,000 man brigade which made raids into Red China. However, the Nationalist soldiers found it more profitable to monopolise the local opium trade.

3. Guatemalan Rebel Army
After Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz legalised that country’s communist party and expropriated 400,000 acres of United Fruit banana plantations, the CIA decided to overthrow his government. Guatemalan rebels were trained in Honduras and backed up with a CIA air contingent of bombers and fighter planes. This army invaded Guatemala in 1954, promptly toppling Arbenz’s regine.

4. Sumatran Rebels
In an attempt to overthrow Indonesian president Sukarno in 1958, the CIA sent paramilitary experts and radio operators to the island of Sumatra to organise a revolt. With CIA air support, the rebel army attacked but was quickly defeated. The American government denied involvement even after a CIA b-26 was shot down and its CIA pilot, Allen Pope, was captured.

5. Khamba Horsemen
After the 1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet, the CIA began recruiting Khamba horsemen – fierce warriors who supported Tibet’s religious leader, the Dalai Lama – as they escaped into India in 1959. These Khambas were trained in modern warfare at Camp Hale, high in the rocky mountains near Leadville, Colorado. Transported back to Tibet by the CIA operated Air American, the Khambas organised an army number at its peak some 14,000. By the mid-1960s the Khambas had been abandoned by the CIA but they fought on alone until 1970.

6. Bay of Pigs Invasion Force
In 1960, CIA operatives recruited 1,500 Cuban refugees living in Miami and staged a surprise attack on Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Trained at a base in Guatemala, this small army – complete with an air force consisting of B-26 bombers – landed at the Bay of Pigs on April 19, 1961. The ill-conceived, poorly planned operation ended in disaster, since all but 150 men of the force were either killed or captured within three days.

7. L’armee Clandestine
In 1962, CIA agents recruited Meo tribesmen living in the mountains of Laos to fight as guerrillas against Communist Pathet Lao forces. Called l’armee Clandestine, this unit – paid, trained, and supplied by the CIA – grew into a 30,000 man force. By 1975 the Meos – who had numbers a quarter million in 1962 – had been reduced to 10,000 refugees fleeing into Thailand.

8. Nung Mercenaries
A Chinese hill people living in Vietname, the Nungs were hired and organised by the CIA as a mercenary force, during the Vietnam war. Fearsome and brutal fighters, the Nungs were employed throughout Vietnam and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Nungs proved costly since they refused to fight unless constantly supplied with beer and prostitutes.

9. Peruvian Regiment
Unable to quell guerrilla forces in its eastern Amazonian provinces, Peru called on the US for help in the mid-1960s. The CIA responded by establishing a fortified camp in the area and hiring local Peruvians who were trained by Green Beret personnel on loan from the US army. After crushing the guerrillas, the elite unit was disbanded because of fears it might stage a coup against the government.

10. Congo Mercenary Force
In 1964, during the Congolese Civil War, the CIA established an army in the Congo to back pro-Western leaders Cyril Adoula and Joseph Mobutu. The CIA imported European mercenaries and Cuban pilots – exiles from Cuba – to pilot the CIA air force, composed of transports and B-26 Bombers.

11. The Cambodian Coup
For over 15 years, the CIA had tried various unsuccessful means of deposing Cambodia’s left-leaning Prince Norodom Sihanouk, including assassination attempts. However, in March, 1970, a CIA-backed coup finally did the job. Funded by US tax dollars, armed with US weapons, and trained by American Green Berets, anti-Sihanouk forces called Kampuchea Khmer Krom (KKK) overran the capital of Phnom Penh and took control of the government. With the blessing of the CIA and the Nixon administration, control of Cambodia was placed in the hands of Lon Nol, who would later distinguish himself by dispatching soldiers to butcher tens of thousands of civilians.

12. Kurd Rebels
During the early 1970s the CIA moved into eastern Iraq to organize and supply the Kurds of that area, who were rebelling against the pro-Soviet Iraqi government. The real purpose behind this action was to help the shah of Iran settle a border dispute with Iraq favourably. After an Iranian-Iraq settlement was reached, the CIA withdrew its support from the Kurds, who were then crushed by the Iraqi Army.

13. Angola Mercenary Force
In 1975, after years of bloody fighting and civil unrest in Angola, Portugal resolved to relinquish its hold on the last of its African colonies. The transition was to take place on November 11, with control of the country going to whichever political faction controlled the capital city of Luanda on that date. In the months preceding the change, three groups vied for power: the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). By July 1975, the Marxist MPLA had ousted the moderate FNLA and UNITA from Luanda, so the CIA decided to intervene covertly. Over $30 million was spent on the Angolan operation, the bulk of the money going to buy arms and pay French and South African mercenaries, who aided the FNLA and UNITA in their fight. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, US officials categorically denied any involvement in the Angolan conflict. In the end, it was a fruitless military adventure, for the MPLA assumed power and controls Angola to this day.

14. Afghan Mujaheedin
Covert support for the groups fighting against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began under President Jimmy Carter in 1979, and was stepped up during the administration of Ronald Reagan. The operation succeeded in its initial goal, as the Soviets were forced to begin withdrawing their forces in 1987. Unfortunately, once the Soviets left, the US essentially ignored Afghanistan as it collapsed into a five-year civil war followed by the rise of the ultra-fundamentalist Taliban. The Taliban provided a haven for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

15. Salvadoran Death Squads
As far back as 1964, the CIA helped form ORDEN and ANSESAL, two paramilitary intelligence networks that developed into the Salvadoran death squads. The CIA trained ORDEN leaders in the use of automatic weapons and surveillance techniques, and placed several leaders on the CIA payroll. The CIA also provided detailed intelligence on Salvadoran individuals later murdered by the death squads. During the civil war in El Salvador from 1980 to 1992, the death squads were responsible for 40,000 killings. Even after a public outcry forced President Reagan to denounce the death squads in 1984, CIA support continued.

16. Nicaraguan Contras
On November 23, 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed a top secret National Security Directive authorising the CIA to spend $19 million to recruit and support the Contras, opponents of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. In supporting the Contras, the CIA carried out several acts of sabotage without the Congressional intelligence committees giving consent – or even being informed beforehand. In response, Congress passed the Boland Amendment, prohibiting the CIA from providing aid to the Contras. Attempts to find alternate sources of funds led to the Iran-Contra scandal. It may also have led the CIA and the Contras to become actively involved in drug smuggling. In 1988, the Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism, and International Operations concluded that individuals in the Contra movement engaged in drug trafficking; that known drug traffickers provided assistance to the Contras; and that ‘there are some serious questions as to whether or not US officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war effort against Nicaragua’.

17. Haitian Coup
In 1988, the CIA attempted to intervene in Haiti’s elections with a ‘covert action program’ to undermine the campaign of the eventual winner, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Three years later, Aristide was overthrown in a bloody coup that killed more than 4,000 civilians. Many of the leaders of the coup had been on the CIA payroll since the mid-1980s. For example, Emmanuel ‘Toto’ Constant, the head of FRAPH, a brutal gang of thugs known for murder, torture, and beatings, admitted to being a paid agent of the CIA. Similarly, the CIA-created Haitian National Intelligence Service (NIS), supposedly created to combat drugs, functioned during the coup as a ‘political intimidation and assassination squad.’ In 1994, an American force of 20,000 was sent to Haiti to allow Aristide to return. Ironically, even after this, the CIA continued working with FRAPH and the NIS. In 2004, Aristide was overthrown once again, with Aristide claiming that US forces had kidnapped him.

18. Venezuelan Coup Attempt
On April 11, 2002, Venezuelan military leaders attempted to overthrow the country’s democratically-elected left-wing president, Hugo Chavez. The coup collapsed after two days as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets and as units of the military joined with the protestors. The administration of George W. Bush was the only democracy in the Western Hemisphere not to condemn the coup attempt. According to intelligence analyst Wayne Madsen, the CIA had actively organised the coup: ‘The CIA provided Special Operations Group personnel, headed by a lieutenant colonel on loan from the US Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to help organise the coup against Chavez.

Roberto Arango and Jose, here in Colorado Springs we miss you two guys immensely!

Posted on August 2, 2009 by Tony Logan

roberto arango It has been almost one month since Layla and I returned to Colorado Springs after our vacation in Colombia, and 2 months since we visited the small town located close by the high mountains called El Cocuy. The El Cocuy region is notable because these mountains are much more beautiful and spectacular than those found here in Colorado, and can be reached quite easily from Miami, Florida after a cheapie flight to Bogota and a mere 12 hour bus trip that well may be the most scenic bus ride you will ever go on.

Take all the hiking and mountain climbing equipment you will need because you probably cannot find it there in El Cocuy to purchase or rent. Maybe in the other small town nearby called Guican, though I rather doubt it?

We did not actually go into the highest area where the snow topped mountains are, because we had neither the time, equipment, nor patience to get in. Traveling with my 12 year old daughter, I had to take her needs into account, and climbing the highest mountains just was not what she had in mind at the time. Instead, she wanted to keep traveling with a 19 year British kid named Max, who was on a controlled and packed schedule that involved bussing off as quick as possible to meet up with another acquaintance.

What made the trip to El Cocuy most memorable to me was the hospitality of Roberto Arango and his friend, fellow musician Jose. After we got off the bus to El Cocuy, we managed to stumble across the plaza to an almost abandoned looking building that is in fact Roberto’s home, though he rents off beds to visiting travelers in need of a room for a week or a night. But he did not just rent us a room, but most enthusiastically offered to play us an on-the-spot concert, too! He and Jose were drinking some wine and were playing their songs and they continued playing for us their beautiful music for over an hour plus. You can see Roberto and Jose starting about 3 minutes into this youtube tape Around “El Cocuy” Mountains

Notice the paintings and beautiful garden in the background? Roberto Arango is also a very good painter and these are his works. In addition, he graduated with a degree in horticulture and in the inside plaza of his house was a full grown and beautiful garden! The paintings were way too large for us to cart back to the US, PLUS I was traveling while broke otherwise I might have tried doing just that. They were that good!

If you are interested in going to those high peaks around the area and want to get more info about what they are like, then just search Guican and El Cocuy on youtube to pull up some videos of those who have already done these treks. But for myself, the main reason to go back for me would be to revisit with my good friends, Roberto and Jose. Thanks, Guys, for having made our time spent with you the highlight of our visit to Colombia! Thanks, Roberto, and I hope to visit with you once again. And YES, Jose, your compact disc has been a big hit with my wife as I had thought it would be. She plays it constantly.

No. 1 domestic terrorist Daniel McGowan

Posted on June 19, 2009 by Eric Verlo

The Huffington Post published a letter by ELF/ALF political prisoner Daniel McGowan, who is allowed to send one letter per week from CMU36, the controversial “Communication Management Unit” whose cover-name is USP Marion. According to McGowan, prison guards call it the “I Unit,” which probably does not stand for illegal.

As of May 2009, I have been at USP Marion’s “Communication Management Unit,” or CMU, for roughly nine months and now is a good time to address the misconceptions (and the silence) regarding this unit. I want to offer a snapshot of my day-to-day life here as well as some analysis of what the existence of CMUs in the federal prison system implies. It is my hope that this article will partially fill the void of information that exists concerning the CMU, will help dispel rumors, and will inspire you to support those of us on the inside fighting the existence of these isolation units — in the courts and in the realm of public opinion.

It is best to start from the beginning — or at least where my story and the CMU meet. My transfer here is no different from that of many of the men here who were living at Federal Correctional Institutions (normal prisons) prior to the genesis of the CMUs. On May 12, 2008, on my way back from a decent lunch, I was told to report to “R&D” (receiving and discharge). I was given two boxes and half an hour to pack up my meager possessions. After complying I was placed in the SHU (secure housing unit or “hole”) and put on a bus the next day. There was no hearing and no information given to me or my attorneys — only after a day was I told I was on my way to Marion, Illinois’ CMU.

Hearing the term “CMU” made my knees buckle as it drummed up some memory I had of the infamous “control units” at Marion (closed in 1995 and replaced by Florence ADX: the lone Federal “Supermax” prison). Then it hit me. The lawyers, in challenging the application of the terrorist enhancement in my case, made the prescient argument that if I receive the enhancement, the Bureau of Prisons (BoP) would use that to place me in the CMU at FCI Terre Haute, Indiana (at the time just 5 months old). In fact, on the way to FCI Sandstone in August 2007, I not only saw the CMU but met one of its residents while in transit. Let me back up and offer a brief history of the Communication Management Units.

The CMU I reside in, at USP Marion, received its first prisoner in May 2008 and when I arrived, held about 17 men, the majority of whom were Muslim. Currently, the unit has 25, with a capacity of 52 cells. In April 2009, we received seven new people, all of whom were from the CMU at FCI Terre Haute. The unit is overwhelmingly Muslim with 18 men identifying as such. Most, but not all of the prison, have so-called terrorism cases. According to a BoP spokesperson, the unit “will not be limited to inmates convicted of terrorism-related cases through all of the prisoners fit that description.” Others have prison disciplinary violation or allegations related to communication and the misuse of telephones etc. Here, almost everyone has a terrorism related case — whether it is like my case (destruction of property characterized as “domestic terrorism”) or conspiracy and “providing material aid” cases.

Before the Marion CMU opened, there was the original CMU, opened in December 2006 at the former death row at FCI Terre Haute. According to early articles, the unit was intended for “second tier terrorism inmates, most of them Arab Muslims and a less restrictive version of the Supermax in Florence, Colorado.”

Additionally, BoP Director Harley Lappin, in a July 2008 hearing on the 2009 BoP budget request, said of the CMUs, “A lot of the more serious offenders, terrorists, were housed at ADX Florence. So, we are ramping up two communications management units that are less restrictive but will ensure that all mail and phone calls of the offenders are monitored on a daily basis.”

Terre Haute’s CMU has 36 men (27 of whom are Muslim) and is roughly comparable to Marion’s CMU. The rest of this place focuses on the latter, in which I have resided and of which I have seen firsthand.

You may be curious about just what a CMU actually is. From my correspondence, I can tell that many correspondents do not know much about what goes on here. I hope this can clear up any misperceptions. According to the BoP,

The CMU is [sic] established to house inmates who, due to their current offense of conviction, offense conduct or other verified information, require increased monitoring of communication between inmates and persons in the community in order to protect the safety, security, and orderly operations of Bureau facilities and protect the public…The CMU is a self-contained general population housing unit.

There are, of course, alternate views to the above definition including the belief that the CMUs are Muslim units, a political prisoner unit (similar to the HSU operated by the BoP in the 80’s, and a punishment unit.

The CMUs have an extremely high Muslim population; here at Marion, it is 65-75%. An overrepresentation of any one demographic in a prison raises constitutional issues of equal protection as well as safety issues. Nowhere in the BoP will you find any group represented in such extreme disproportion. To counter these claims, the BoP brought in a small number of non-Muslims to be used as proof that the units are not strictly Muslim (an interesting note is that some of the Muslim men here have cases unrelated to terrorism). Does the inclusion of six people that are non-Muslim really negate the claim of segregation though? What are the criteria for determining who comes to the CMU? The BoP claims there are 211 international terrorists (and 1000 domestic terrorists) in their system. Yet, the CMUs have no more than 60 men at the present time. Where are the rest of these people? How does the BOP determine who of those 1200 are sent to a CMU and who to normal prisons? These are questions that need to be asked — in court and in the media.

Many of the men here (both Muslim and non) are considered political prisoners in their respective movements and have been engaged in social justice, religious organizations, charities and humanitarian efforts. Another conception of the CMU is that it is a location designed to isolate us from our movements and to act as a deterrent for others from those movements (as in “step outside the line and you too will end up there”). The intended effect of long-term housing of this kind is a profound sense of dislocation and alienation. With your mail, email, phones, and visits monitored and no human touch allowed at the visits, it is difficult to feel a connection to “the streets.” There is historical evidence of the BoP utilizing political prisons — despite the fact that the Department of Justice refuses to acknowledge the concept of political prisoners in US prisons, choosing to call us “criminal” instead.

The Lexington High Security Unit (HSU) was one such example. Having opened its 16-bed facilities in 1988 and housing a number of female political prisoners, the HSU functioned as an isolation unit — underground, bathed in fluorescence, and limited interaction with staff. In the opinion of Dr. Richard Korn, speaking on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, the unit’s goal was “…to reduce prisoners to a state of submission essential for their ideological conversion. That failing, the next objective is to reduce them as efficient, self-directing antagonists. That failing, the only alternative is to destroy them by making them destroy themselves.”

After an arduous campaign by human rights advocates and supporters, the BoP capitulated, stating it would close its facility (when it did not, it was sued). The judge ruled that the plaintiffs were illegally designated based on their past political affiliations, statements and political beliefs. The unit was closed and the women were transferred to other prisons.

The correlations between the HSU and CMU are many and seem to have some of the same goals as well as methods used to designate us here. Knowing they are dealing with people committed to ideals and the movements they are a part of, we were placed here in order to weaken those connections and harm our relationships. An example is the horrendous strain that the CMU puts on our familial relations — especially our marriages. It was certainly considered by the architects of the CMU that preventing visits that allow human touch for long-term prisoners would have a disastrous impact on our relationships and would lead to weaker inmates.

Finally, the CMU can be viewed as “the stick” — a punitive unit for those who don’t play ball or who continue to express political beliefs anathema to the BoP or the US government. Although I am not aware of the BoP’s criteria for sending people here (due to their refusal to release specific CMU information), it is curious who is and who is not here. Out of roughly 18 codefendants in my criminal case, I am the only one at a CMU (the remainder of them are at low and medium security prisons). The same goes for a member of the SHAC7 campaign, Andrew Stepanian, one of 6 defendants in his case who was sent here for the last 6 months of his sentence. Other men here have codefendants at the Terre Haute CMU while others have codefendants at normal federal prisons. Despite numerous Freedom of Information Requests, the BoP refuses to grant the documents that specify the rules governing transfer to the CMU. Remember, hardly any of the men here have received any disciplinary violations and some have been in general population over 15 years! How can someone be okay in general population for that long and then one day be seen as a communication threat?

So, I have hypothesized about the goals of the CMU. Let me discuss the many problems and injustices associated with the existence of the CMUs.

Due process
More appropriately, a lack thereof. A term I never thought much about before my imprisonment, due process is:

…the conduct of legal proceedings according to established rules and principles for the protection and enforcement of private rights, including notice and the right to hearing before a tribunal [my emphasis] with the power to decide the case.

I was moved from FCI Sandstone, against my will and at a moment’s notice, with no hearing and thus no chance to contest the reason for my transfer. A FOIA request recently received states I was redesignated May 6th, my transfer was signed the next day and I was moved on May 13th with the reason given as “program participation”. Since I got here, I have not had a hearing to contest the claims made in the “Notice to Inmate of Transfer to CMU, ” some of which were woefully inaccurate. Instead, I was told I can utilize the administrative remedy process (which I have done to no avail) and request a transfer after 18 months of “clear conduct”.

The irony is that all prisoners who violate prison rules are subject to a series of disciplinary hearings in which they could offer their defense. For legal units such as Florence ADX (Supermax) or the control unit program, there exists a codified set of rules and hearings for transfer to these locations. The BoP has deliberately ignored this process and has instead transferred us to this special, brand-new CMU without due process. My notice of transfer was given to me 12 days after I arrived!

Similar to the callous disregard for due process (and the US Constitution), there is no “step down” process for the CMU. Unlike the ones that exist at Florence ADX, control units or even the gang units, the CMU has no stages, no requisite amount of time we are to spend here before being sent back to a normal prison.

Because these preceding programs are specifically for prison misbehavior, there is a logical and orderly way to finish the program and eventually transfer. For us, the BoP has set up a paradox — if we are here for our offense conduct, which we cannot ever change, how can we reasonably leave the unit? In its “Admissions and Orientation” guide for Marion’s CMU, here is what they say:

Every new commitment to the CMU will be evaluated by his unit team regarding his suitability for incarceration in this institution. If, for some reason, the inmate is deemed not acceptable for confinement in this unit, he will be processed as expeditiously as possible…

[I am still roughly 10 months from my 18-month period in which I must wait before requesting a transfer. Considering the fact that all my remedies have been denied, I am not hopeful about this.]

CMU as Secret
In addition to the due process and transfer issues, there is the secretive and illegal manner that the CMU was created (Note: for historical perspectives, it needs to be stated that the CMU was established roughly halfway through the second term of George W. Bush and his Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.)

In April 2006, the BoP proposed a “Limited Communication for Terrorist Inmates” policy, which suggested new restrictions for “terrorists” and “terrorism related inmates” such as:

1) One 6-page letter per week.

2) One 15-minute phone call a month.

3) One 1-hour visit a month.

A coalition of civil rights organizations signed a letter of protest criticizing the proposed rules and raising numerous constitutional, practical and ethical objectives. The outcry appears to have caused the BoP to reconsider it and just 6 months later, open the CMU at FCI Terre Haute quietly. Since the BoP never sought public comment on the new CMU, it certainly appears to be a violation of the Administrative Procedural Act (APA), an argument a federal judge in Miami raised in response to a prisoner’s legal challenge to transfer to the CMU.

The unit is functionally an open secret. While the BoP circumvented the standard public comment (and feedback process), it has sought to get around this by describing the CMU as a “self-contained general population unit,” implying that the unit is legally and penally no different than a normal unit at an FCI. There is no mention of the CMU on the BoP’s website (ww.bop.gov) or USP Marion’s subpage on the same site. You will not find extensive Congressional hearings on the subject — other than a July 2008 subcommittee hearing in which it appears that the BoP director was not fully forthcoming on the CMU36. Letters here are stamped “USP Marion,” not CMU, and the unit is called “I Unit” by staff. (An interesting anecdote: while on transit in Winter 2009, I met men from the FCI here and asked them what they knew about I Unit. Without hesitation, they said, “That’s where the terrorists are.” They informed me this is what BoP Staff routinely told them.)

Media queries are met with silence or vague information. Requests by the media to interview me by coming to Marion have been denied — due to it “being detrimental to the safety, security and good order of the institution.” There still is no Program Statement on the CMU — a legal requirement, outlining the specific rules of the CMU and its designation criteria.

Because of this, and the general refusal of the BoP to hand over relevant documents through FOIA, it is impossible to determine the specific reasons why one is sent here — and thus, how to contest this process. In effect, the CMU was created on the fly, with no eye toward legality; they are free to operate it in whatever manner they choose.

Communication Management (The Promotion of Isolation and Alienation)
The most painful aspect of this unit, to me, is how the CMU restricts my contact with the world beyond these walls. It is difficult for those who have not known prison to understand what a lifeline contact with our family and friends is to us. It is our link to the world — and our future (for those of us who are fortunate enough to have release dates). Prison authorities and architects are well aware that those with strong family ties and in good communication with their loved ones are well behaved and have significantly lower rates of recidivism. The BoP, in theory, recognizes this by claiming they try to situate us within 500 miles of our homes. Mostly, this is a cruel farce for many prisoners — I have not been within 1000 miles of my family in 2 years.

The most Orwellian aspects of the CMU are in how they manage our communications:

A) Telephones- at my previous prison, I was able to use the phones for 300 minutes a month — days, nights, weekends and holidays — basically at any point I was not in my housing unit (6am-10pm). Here, we receive one 15-minute phone call a week. The call can only take place between 8am and 2:30pm, never on weekends or holidays and must be scheduled one and a half weeks in advance (we can choose a back-up number to call but if neither picks up, we don’t get a call). The call is live-monitored and recorded. Not only do we receive one fifth of the minutes granted to other federal prisoners but the call is also very trying for our families — all of whom have day jobs and many of whom have children in school. The CMU requires calls be made in English only — a difficult demand considering over half of the men here speak English as a second language (this restriction is not present at other federal prisons).

B) Visits- At FCI Sandstone, I received up to eight visiting days a month (56 hours) — contact visits in which I could embrace my wife, play cards with my nieces and share vending machine food with my visitors. These visits were my lifeline. I got about twelve of them in eight months and it aided in my adjustment to prison.

The CMU restricts our visits to one four-hour non-contract visit a month. One short visit through two inches of plate glass with cameras hanging overhead and my visitors stuffed in a four-and-a-half by three-and-a-half-foot stuffy booth — a tight squeeze for two. The visits can only take place on weekdays from 8am-2pm — no more Christmas or Thanksgiving visits — and worse, no physical contact (Consider what it would be like to have no contact with your loved ones. What if you couldn’t hug or kiss your lover, partner, wife, husband? What would that do to you?) I find myself riddled with guilt when I ask friends to spend $500 to fly across the country, drive three hours (and repeat) for a four-hour non-contact visit. I’m lucky though, having people who will do this. Many of the men here can’t afford it or don’t want to subject their children to this reality.

C) Mail- We can only send out mail once a day and we cannot visit the mail room to send out packages. We are one-hundred-percent reliant on the one staff person who deals with our mail to do so and sending a box home is a laborious procedure. We must leave our envelopes unsealed so that staff can read, copy, scan and send to whatever other agency studies our correspondence. A letter to NYC takes roughly seven to nine days (which should take five). Letters sent abroad, especially those not written in English, could take a month or more — a common complaint of some of my fellow prisoners.

Staff here has an interesting reading of the rules governing legal mail leading to the charge that they open our legal mail (this is the subject of an administrative remedy I filed with the BoP Central Office in Washington DC). The rule states that the lawyer’s name must be clearly identified and that the envelope must say “Special Mail- Open only in the presence of inmates” and yet staff has opened my legal mail that said “Law Offices of Jane Doe” stating that it should have said, “Jane Doe, Attorney at Law”! The staff looks for any reason to disqualify our legal mail as protected and gather intelligence this way. In doing so, they violate the sanctity of the attorney-client confidentiality principle.

Most of my violations have been petty — a package has more than twenty pieces of paper or a friend kindly enclosed stamps. A few instances though amount to censorship and a limiting of political expression and dialogue. See Appendix B for a detailed discussion of these instances.

D) Media Contact- Although requests have been made to interview people in the CMU, none have been granted to date. This is a violation of the spirit of the BoP’s own media policy. There is an imperative on the Bureau’s part to control and ultimately suppress information on the CMU from making it to a mass audience.

Daily Life at the CMU
Neither one of the two CMUs were built for long-term habitation. The Marion CMU was the site of the Secure Housing Unit (SHU), the USP that closed here in 2005. Terre Haute’s CMU is in “D-wing” — the site of the former federal death row.

The CMU was seemingly converted to its current use with the addition of televisions, steel tables, and new wiring and yet it is not suitable for long-term use due to its “open cell” design (i.e. with bars). With 25 prisoners, our movements are restricted to two housing ranges (hallways about 100 by 12 feet); a recreation range where we also eat (consisting of seven cells with a computer, typewriter, barber shop, religious library, social library, art room and recreational equipment); and a small rec yard (all concrete, a lap equals one-eighteenth of a mile, four cages with two basketball hoops, one handball court, a weather awning with tables and some sit-up benches). We are lucky to be visited daily by a resident bird population of doves and blackbirds, and overhead, the occasional hawk or falcon (ironically, as I write this, I overhear warnings from staff that if we continue to feed the birds, we will receive violations). The appearance of the yard with its cages, concrete, and excessive barbed wire has earned it nickname “Little Guantanamo” (of course a punitive unit with seventy-five percent Muslims also contributes to the name as well).

The conditions here are not dire — in fact, the horror stories I have heard over the last two years have convinced me it is far worse at many prisons and yet, I believe it is important to be descriptive and accurate — to dispel fears (about violence, for instance) but also to demonstrate just how different life is for us at the CMU.

There are many things we lack here that other prisons in the federal system have to offer:

1- A residential drug/alcohol program- despite at least one person here having completion of it ordered by the court.

2- Enough jobs for the prisoners here- There is not nearly enough jobs for all the men here and most are extremely low paying.

3- UNICOR- This is Federal Prison Industries which has shops at many federal prisons (including this one outside the CMU). These jobs pay much more, allow men to pay their court fees, restitution and child support and, as the BoP brags, teaches people job skills.

4- Adequate educational opportunities- Until recently, we did not have GED or vocational programs. Due to inmate pressure and persistence, we now have both of those as well as a few prisoner-taught classes but no college courses at all.

5- Access to staff on a daily basis- At other federal prisons, you are able to approach staff members at lunch every day, including the Warden. Here, we get (at most) two quick walk-throughs a week, usually taking place early in the morning. You are often left waiting days to resolve a simple question.

6- Law library access- We have a very small law library here with only twenty-five percent of the books required by law. We can only request books twice weekly and those are only delivered if the other nine hundred prisoners at the adjacent Medium are not using them. We lack Federal Court and Supreme Court reports as well as books on Immigration Law (fifty percent or more of the men here face deportation). This lack of access makes for an arduous and ineffective research path.

7- Computers- We have four computers for our email system (two for reading, one for printing and one that we were told would be for legal but it still isn’t working). Unlike my previous prison, where we had forty computers with a robust computer-class program, or like other prisons that teach a vocational computer course, we have no such thing.

8- Access to general population- Being in an isolation unit makes for a situation in which we cannot have organized sports leagues and tournaments due to not having enough people at all. This may not seem crucial but sports are a very useful diversion from the stress of prison life and separation.

After reading the preceding sections, perhaps like me you are wondering what really is the purpose of the CMU. In short, the SMU is Florence ADX-LITE for those men whose security points are low and present no real problems to staff. From my interactions with the men here, I can say with certainty, that people here are remarkably well-behaved and calm — many without any disciplinary violations. If these men, like myself, don’t get in trouble, and have been in the system for some time, why are we here? Consider my case.

My short time in prison prior to coming to the CMU consisted of two months at MDC Brooklyn and eight months at FCI Sandstone. I had never gotten in trouble and spent my days as a clerk in psychology, working toward a Master’s degree, reading, writing and exercising. My goal was to get closer to home and my loved ones. In April 2008, I filed a “hardship transfer” request due to my mother’s illness and her inability to travel to Minnesota to visit me. I had my team meeting, and my security points were lowered. Weeks later, I was moved to the CMU.

The irony is that I was moved to the CMU to have my communication managed, but what changed in that one year to justify this move? If I was a danger, then why did the BoP house me in a low-security prison? The same applies to many of the men here– some have been in general population for twenty years and then suddenly a need to manage their communication is conjured up. During my pre-CMU time, I had used 3500 phone minutes and sent hundreds of letters. If there was a problem with my communication, shouldn’t the BoP have raised this with me? My notice stating their rationale for placing me here attributed it to me “being a member and leader in the ELF and ALF” and “communicating in code.” But if this is true, then shouldn’t I have been sent to the CMU as soon as I self-reported to prison in July 2007?

The CMUs were crafted and opened under the Bush administration as some misguided attempt to be tough on the “war on terror.” This unit contains many prisoners from cases prosecuted during the hyper-paranoid and over-the-top period after 9/11 and the passage of the USA Patriot Act.44 The number of prosecutions categorized as terrorism-related more than doubled to reach 1,200 in 2002. It seemed that every other week, there was some plot uncovered by overzealous FBI agents — in Lackawanna, NY, Miami, FL, Portland, OR, and Virginia and elsewhere (never mind the illegal wiretaps and unscrupulous people used in these cases). These cases may not be headlines anymore but these men did not go away — they were sent to prison and, when it was politically advantageous for Bush, transferred to the CMUs. The non-Muslim populations of these units (although definitely picked judiciously) were sent there to dispel charges that the CMUs were exclusively Muslim units.

The codified rationale for all prisoners being transferred here are “contact with persons in community require heightened control and reviews” and “your transfer to this facility for greater communication management is necessary to the safe, secure, and orderly function of Bureau institutions…” Should an increase in monitoring of communication mean a decrease in privileges? If the goal is to manage our contact with the outside world, shouldn’t the BoP hire enough staff so that we can maintain the same rights and privileges as other prisoners (since the party line is that we are not here for punishment)? The reality is the conditions, segregation, lack of due process and such are punishment regardless of whether the BoP admits it or not.

Forward!
Where to from here, then? Does the new President and his Attorney General take issue with segregation? Will Obama view the CMU, as he did with Guantanamo Bay, as a horrible legacy of his predecessor and close it? Many people are hopeful for an outcome like that. On April 7th, 2009, Mr. Obama, while in Turkey, said, “The United States will not make war on Islam,” and that he wanted to “extend the hand of friendship to the Muslim world.” While that sounds wonderful, what does that look like in concrete terms? Will he actualize that opinion by closing the CMU? Or will he marry the policy of Bush and condone a secret illegal set of political units for Muslims and activists? What of the men here? Will he transfer us back to normal prisons and review the outrageous prosecutions of many of the CMU detainees? If it can be done with (former) Senator Ted Steven’s case, it can be done here.

While lawsuits have been filed in both Illinois and Indiana federal courts, what is needed urgently is for these units to be dragged out into the open. I am asking for your help and advocacy in dealing with this injustice and the mindset that allows a CMU to exist. Please pursue the resource section at the end of this article and consider doing something. I apologize for the length of this piece — it was suggested to me (by people way smarter than myself) that it would be best to start from the beginning and offer as many details as possible. I hope I gave you a clearer idea of what’s going on here. Thank you for all your support and love — your letters are a bright candle in a sea of darkness.

They wanted to ‘Save Darfur’ but are promoting using White Phosphorous on Gaza instead!

Posted on January 13, 2009 by Tony Logan

olive tree It seems that many of those who wanted to ‘Save Darfur’ are now actually out there supporting Israel and its daily bombardment of Gaza’s civilian population with thousands of half-ton explosives, cluster bomblets, and White Phosphorus shells, many if not most, made in the USA! What a puzzle?

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden is one of those notables since he’s been a long time Zionist and demander of increased US military aggression against Sudan, but the group of newly gung-ho genocide advocates against the Palestinians also includes Hillel, the largest Jewish student group around the world. They fairly recently made ‘Saving Darfur’ the major focus of their political work. Now they have returned to the ‘Saving the Jewish State’ theme by killing Palestinians which is their #1 cause once again. See their website for the position Hillel Endorses JCPA Support for Israel. Now check out their ‘Save Darfur’ campaign for calling for military intervention by principally the US and Britain into Africa. Never Forget. Save Darfur and never save Iraq, Afghanistan, or Somalia, let alone Gaza?

OK, let’s go on over to another US group advocating vocally to ‘Save Darfur’, the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum down in Miami, Florida of all places. What are they up to? Just check on CONSCIENCE at their website to see if they have located any problems in the world today other than Darfur? Oops, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Congo, Gaza are all missing! Gaza civilians not a problem for them…. ??? Neither are Armenians, Native Americans, nor Black African slaves. What holocausts? I guess there was only one with maybe an add on of Darfur? I’m surprised, in fact. Well they are worried about the Chechens, too, it seems. Just to be fair…

There are many others out there who wanted to ‘Save Darfur’. Some of them are the local peace do-nothings at the Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission here in Colorado Springs allied with United for Justice and Peace nationally, which has had many a member concerned about ‘Saving Darfur’. So much so that they actually held a rally or two to show their desire for more intervention by the US government. I remember seeing some of them in tears even.

Today I’m not sure where they have disappeared to? White phosphorus and Gaza just not their thing I guess? Neither is Somalia, Congo, Afghanistan, nor really even Iraq! Funny group of people. They never really seem to get it together to demonstrate for anything other than themselves? Always fundraising though. Got some money for their office people? Staff salaries are always important! They may or may not show up at the next rally against war? You never know with these folk?

What about the group Stop Genocide Now? What did you find other than their concern about Darfur? They claim to be the following…

‘Stop Genocide Now (SGN) is a grassroots community dedicated to working to protect populations in grave danger of violence, death and displacement resulting from genocide.’

Only Darfur seems to be where they have found this ‘population’ though. Go figure? ‘Genocide’ seems to be only in Darfur? That’s amazing!

OK, I’ll stop here. I think the reader has gotten the picture by now. ‘Save Darfur’ as a rallying point really is not about saving people that much by promoting peace in the civil wars of Sudan. There is another and rather well kept hidden agenda behind this campaign, and the fact that so many groups have a blind side about this hidden agenda they are supporting is quite telling.

For many of these folk, Darfur is on the back burner and blasting away at Gaza is primary. Don’t worry though, since they’ll all be back urging humanitarian intervention quite soon. Oh wait! Supporting the US-Israeli war on Palestinians is seen by many of these people as being humanitarian interventionism. Ain’t that right, Willy Pete? Where else will they go next?

“Because you have drowned others, you were drowned…” –Rabbi Hillel

STATEMENT BY NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TO END THE IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN WARS AND OCCUPATIONS

Posted on November 27, 2008 by Tony Logan

STATEMENT BY NATIONAL ASSEMBLY TO END THE IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN WARS AND OCCUPATIONS Issued 10/23/08 SUPPORT CALL FOR UNITED MASS MOBILIZATIONS IN MARCH, 2009 IN WASHINGTON , D.C. AND OTHER CITIES

The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations welcomes the ANSWER Coalition’s call for UNITED mass mobilizations in Washington, D.C. and other cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and Miami, on March 21, 2009, marking six years of war and occupation and demanding Bring All the Troops Home Now! We also welcome UFPJ’s call for a week of Washington , D.C. mobilizations during the same period to demand an end to the war in Iraq now.

These actions are necessary and need not be contradictory, as long as there is unity in supporting them. However, a divided movement is a weakened movement. At this time, more than ever, the movements for peace and social justice must work in concert to bring the full force of opposition to the government’s criminal and destructive policies into the streets. It would be a tragic setback if all organizations and constituencies do not come together to act in a unified show of strength and determination in March.

The National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations was formed to promote a united, democratic, independent and mass action antiwar movement to bring the troops home now. Our objective was to do all in our power to achieve this by the Spring of 2009. It now appears that this critical objective is within reach.

We strongly urge and will participate in the formation of an ad hoc national coalition to make the March 21 actions a true expression of the opposition of this country’s majority to U.S. wars and occupations. The National Assembly will make every effort to bring such a coalition into fruition and to urge all Assembly supporters to actively participate in the proce

See National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations for more info.

Not Sons of Bitches, Dems are bitches

Posted on September 30, 2008 by Eric Verlo

When the Democrats were the minority they seemed so weak. Now in the Majority they’re positively wimps. Pundits tell us it’s a lack of leadership. Why would the corporate media overlook who’s at the whip? It would seem clear that the corporations writing the legislation, funding the campaigns, and paying for the free lunch, are driving the agenda. The GOP is paid to play the white hats, and when a bill is unpopular, the Dems are pushed forward to play the creeps.

On the proposed bailout ripoff, the Dems were not the sons of bitches, they’re just the bitches. I heard a Dem scare-mongeree explain that in spite of loathing the idea of a solution which benefited the wrong people, the bailout was our only option. “All economists agree we have to do this” he said, ignoring quite a few who have urged the opposite. The interviewer interrupted to announce, this just in, the vote had failed and as a result the DOW had plunged by 700 points. She wanted his response: “Oh. My. God.”

As Bush and his GOP team stand in the shadows, the Democrats are thrust forward to “lead” the support for this criminal legislation. Whether the bill won or lost, either way the Democrats would come out looking like shits.

I’m reminded about how an invading army flushes out defenders still hiding. Send your captives into the buildings to spring the booby-traps. Make them open the doors to draw the fire. Among thugs in prison the dirty work is done by the bitches.

Except for Democracy Now, the media won’t report the authentic Democratic efforts to lead. Here’s Dennis Kucinich on the floor of Congress speaking against the bailout and asking: why, why why:

“The $700 billion bailout for Wall Street, is driven by fear not fact. This is too much money in too a short a time going to too few people while too many questions remain unanswered.

Why aren’t we having hearings on the plan we have just received? Why aren’t we questioning the underlying premise of the need for a bailout with taxpayers’ money?

Why have we not considered any alternatives other than to give $700 billion to Wall Street? Why aren’t we asking Wall Street to clean up its own mess?

Why aren’t we passing new laws to stop the speculation, which triggered this? Why aren’t we putting up new regulatory structures to protect investors? How do we even value the $700 billion in toxic assets?

“Why aren’t we helping homeowners directly with their debt burden? Why aren’t we helping American families faced with bankruptcy. Why aren’t we reducing debt for Main Street instead of Wall Street?

Isn’t it time for fundamental change in our debt based monetary system, so we can free ourselves from the manipulation of the Federal Reserve and the banks?

Is this the United States Congress or the board of directors of Goldman Sachs? Wall Street is a place of bears and bulls. It is not smart to force taxpayers to dance with bears or to follow closely behind the bulls.”

Michael Moore is more charitable about the Democrats’ actions yesterday. Here’s his update:

Friends,

Everyone said the bill would pass. The masters of the universe were already making celebratory dinner reservations at Manhattan’s finest restaurants. Personal shoppers in Dallas and Atlanta were dispatched to do the early Christmas gifting. Mad Men of Chicago and Miami were popping corks and toasting each other long before the morning latte run.

But what they didn’t know was that hundreds of thousands of Americans woke up yesterday morning and decided it was time for revolt. The politicians never saw it coming. Millions of phone calls and emails hit Congress so hard it was as if Marshall Dillon, Elliot Ness and Dog the Bounty Hunter had descended on D.C. to stop the looting and arrest the thieves.

The Corporate Crime of the Century was halted by a vote of 228 to 205. It was rare and historic; no one could remember a time when a bill supported by the president and the leadership of both parties went down in defeat. That just never happens.

A lot of people are wondering why the right wing of the Republican Party joined with the left wing of the Democratic Party in voting down the thievery. Forty percent of Democrats and two-thirds of Republicans voted against the bill.

Here’s what happened:

The presidential race may still be close in the polls, but the Congressional races are pointing toward a landslide for the Democrats. Few dispute the prediction that the Republicans are in for a whoopin’ on November 4th. Up to 30 Republican House seats could be lost in what would be a stunning repudiation of their agenda.

The Republican reps are so scared of losing their seats, when this “financial crisis” reared its head two weeks ago, they realized they had just been handed their one and only chance to separate themselves from Bush before the election, while doing something that would make them look like they were on the side of “the people.”

Watching C-Span yesterday morning was one of the best comedy shows I’d seen in ages. There they were, one Republican after another who had backed the war and sunk the country into record debt, who had voted to kill every regulation that would have kept Wall Street in check — there they were, now crying foul and standing up for the little guy! One after another, they stood at the microphone on the House floor and threw Bush under the bus, under the train (even though they had voted to kill off our nation’s trains, too), heck, they would’ve thrown him under the rising waters of the Lower Ninth Ward if they could’ve conjured up another hurricane. You know how your dog acts when sprayed by a skunk? He howls and runs around trying to shake it off, rubbing and rolling himself on every piece of your carpet, trying to get rid of the stench. That’s what it looked like on the Republican side of the aisle yesterday, and it was a sight to behold.

The 95 brave Dems who broke with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd were the real heroes, just like those few who stood up and voted against the war in October of 2002. Watch the remarks from yesterday of Reps. Marcy Kaptur, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Dennis Kucinich. They spoke the truth.

The Dems who voted for the giveaway did so mostly because they were scared by the threats of Wall Street, that if the rich didn’t get their handout, the market would go nuts and then it’s bye-bye stock-based pension and retirement funds.

And guess what? That’s exactly what Wall Street did! The largest, single-day drop in the Dow in the history of the New York Stock exchange. The news anchors last night screamed it out: Americans just lost 1.2 trillion dollars in the stock market!! It’s a financial Pearl Harbor! The sky is falling! Bird flu! Killer Bees!

Of course, sane people know that nobody “lost” anything yesterday, that stocks go up and down and this too shall pass because the rich will now buy low, hold, then sell off, then buy low again.

But for now, Wall Street and its propaganda arm (the networks and media it owns) will continue to try and scare the bejesus out of you. It will be harder to get a loan. Some people will lose their jobs. A weak nation of wimps won’t last long under this torture. Or will we? Is this our line in the sand?

Here’s my guess: The Democratic leadership in the House secretly hoped all along that this lousy bill would go down. With Bush’s proposals shredded, the Dems knew they could then write their own bill that favors the average American, not the upper 10% who were hoping for another kegger of gold.

So the ball is in the Democrats’ hands. The gun from Wall Street remains at their head. Before they make their next move, let me tell you what the media kept silent about while this bill was being debated:

1. The bailout bill had NO enforcement provisions for the so-called oversight group that was going to monitor Wall Street’s spending of the $700 billion;

2. It had NO penalties, fines or imprisonment for any executive who might steal any of the people’s money;

3. It did NOTHING to force banks and lenders to rewrite people’s mortgages to avoid foreclosures — this bill would not have stopped ONE foreclosure!;

4. It had NO teeth anywhere in the entire piece of legislation, using words like “suggested” when referring to the government being paid back for the bailout;

5. Over 200 economists wrote to Congress and said this bill might actually WORSEN the “financial crisis” and cause even MORE of a meltdown.

Put a fork in this slab of pork. It’s over. Now it is time for our side to state very clearly the laws WE want passed. I will send you my proposals later today. We’ve bought ourselves less than 72 hours.

Yours,
Michael Moore

No blank-check bailout for Wall Street

Posted on September 25, 2008 by NMT

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO – Organizations in Southern Colorado will participate in a National Day of Action in opposition to the no-strings attached, $700 billion corporate bailout plan advanced by President Bush and Treasury Secretary Paulson. A press conference will take place 2PM on Thursday, Sept. 25 in front of the Department of Human Services Sand Creek Office at 1635 South Murray Blvd., Colorado Springs.

From the LOCAL PRESS RELEASE:

“We believe the bailout is wrong headed – it’s low-wage working families struggling to make ends meet, who will most suffer the consequences of this kind of bad economic policy,” said Dennis Apuan, community leader and Democratic candidate for Statehouse, District 17. “We must press on our elected officials to ensure that families do not have to make impossible choices between feeding their children, heating their homes and filling their prescriptions. We need leaders who know how to respond to the growing need in our communities – lost jobs, threatened homes, and surging food and energy prices,” Apuan added.

The National Day of Action will feature more than 75 press conferences, demonstrations and other public events throughout the United States. Some of the events are being held by local and national organizations; others will be citizen-organized, involving taxpayers angered by the proposed corporate bailout, as introduced in Congress. The local event will include a voter registration drive and sign-up opportunities to volunteer in community civic engagement.

“With so many of the citizens and residents of House District 17 suffering from the downturn in the economy, it is important that they have a voice in these ill-advised corporate bailouts,” said Rosemary Harris, President of the Colorado Springs Branch NAACP. “This is a diverse community, with people from all racial, social and economic backgrounds. Our lives matter. Our voices matter. And our vote is our true voice. Registering voters who will determine the future policies and future leaders of this House District, this state, and this country is perhaps the best way to respond to the actions of those in Washington,” Harris added.

Among the leaders of the national organizing effort are TrueMajority.org, US Action Education Fund, ACORN, Campaign For America’s Future, Coalition on Human Needs, Military Spouses For Change, National Priorities Project and many others.

From the INDYPENDENT’s Arun Gupta, the ORIGINAL EMAIL CALL-OUT:

NO BAILOUT FOR WALL STREET
Protest on Wall Street this Thursday at 4pm!
Call to Self-Organize

This week the White House is going to try to push through the biggest robbery in world history with nary a stitch of debate to bail out the Wall Street bastards who created this economic apocalypse in the first place.

This is the financial equivalent of September 11. They think, just like with the Patriot Act, they can use the shock to force through the “therapy,” and we’ll just roll over!

Think about it: They said providing healthcare for 9 million children, perhaps costing $6 billion a year, was too expensive, but there’s evidently no sum of money large enough that will sate the Wall Street pigs. If this passes, forget about any money for environmental protection, to counter global warming, for education, for national healthcare, to rebuild our decaying infrastructure, for alternative energy.

This is a historic moment. We need to act now while we can influence the debate. Let’s demonstrate this Thursday at 4pm in Wall Street (see below).

We know the congressional Democrats will peep meekly before caving in like they have on everything else, from FISA to the Iraq War.

With Bear Stearns, Fannie and Freddie, AIG, the money markets and now this omnibus bailout, well in excess of $1 trillion will be distributed from the poor, workers and middle class to the scum floating on top.

This whole mess gives lie to the free market. The Feds are propping up stock prices, directing buyouts, subsidizing crooks and swindlers who already made a killing off the mortgage bubble.

Worst of all, even before any details have been hashed out, The New York Times admits that “Wall Street began looking for ways to profit from it,” and its chief financial correspondent writes that the Bush administration wants “Congress to give them a blank check to do whatever they want, whatever the cost, with no one able to watch them closely.”

It’s socialism for the rich and dog-eat-dog capitalism for the rest of us.

Let’s take it to the heart of the financial district! Gather at 4pm, this Thursday, Sept. 25 in the plaza at the southern end of Bowling Green Park, which is the small triangular park that has the Wall Street bull at the northern tip.

By having it later in the day we can show these thieves, as they leave work, we’re not their suckers. Plus, anyone who can’t get off work can still join us downtown as soon as they are able.

There is no agenda, no leaders, no organizing group, nothing to endorse other than we’re not going to pay! Let the bondholders pay, let the banks pay, let those who brought the “toxic” mortgage-backed securities pay!

On this list are many key organizers and activists. We have a huge amount of connections – we all know many other organizations, activists and community groups. We know P.R. folk who can quickly write up and distribute press releases, those who can contact legal observers, media activists who can spread the word, the videographers who can film the event, etc.

Do whatever you can – make and distribute your own flyers, contact all your groups and friends. This crime is without precedence and we can’t be silent! What’s the point of waiting for someone else to organize a protest two months from now, long after the crime has been perpetrated?

We have everything we need to create a large, peaceful, loud demonstration. Millions of others must feel the same way; they just don’t know what to do. Let’s take the lead and make this the start!

AGAIN:
When: 4pm – ? Thursday, September 25.
Where: Southern end of Bowling Green Park, in the plaza area
What to bring: Banners, noisemakers, signs, leaflets, etc.
Why: To say we won’t pay for the Wall Street bailout
Who: Everyone!

PETITION LETTER from 200 ECONOMISTS:

To the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President pro tempore of the Senate:

As economists, we want to express to Congress our great concern for the plan proposed by Treasury Secretary Paulson to deal with the financial crisis. We are well aware of the difficulty of the current financial situation and we agree with the need for bold action to ensure that the financial system continues to function. We see three fatal pitfalls in the currently proposed plan:

1) Its fairness. The plan is a subsidy to investors at taxpayers’ expense. Investors who took risks to earn profits must also bear the losses. Not every business failure carries systemic risk. The government can ensure a well-functioning financial industry, able to make new loans to creditworthy borrowers, without bailing out particular investors and institutions whose choices proved unwise.

2) Its ambiguity. Neither the mission of the new agency nor its oversight are clear. If taxpayers are to buy illiquid and opaque assets from troubled sellers, the terms, occasions, and methods of such purchases must be crystal clear ahead of time and carefully monitored afterwards.

3) Its long-term effects. If the plan is enacted, its effects will be with us for a generation. For all their recent troubles, America’s dynamic and innovative private capital markets have brought the nation unparalleled prosperity. Fundamentally weakening those markets in order to calm short-run disruptions is desperately short-sighted.

For these reasons we ask Congress not to rush, to hold appropriate hearings, and to carefully consider the right course of action, and to wisely determine the future of the financial industry and the U.S. economy for years to come.

Signed (updated at 9/25/2008 8:30AM CT)

Acemoglu Daron (Massachussets Institute of Technology)
Adler Michael (Columbia University)
Admati Anat R. (Stanford University)
Alexis Marcus (Northwestern University)
Alvarez Fernando (University of Chicago)
Andersen Torben (Northwestern University)
Baliga Sandeep (Northwestern University)
Banerjee Abhijit V. (Massachussets Institute of Technology)
Barankay Iwan (University of Pennsylvania)
Barry Brian (University of Chicago)
Bartkus James R. (Xavier University of Louisiana)
Becker Charles M. (Duke University)
Becker Robert A. (Indiana University)
Beim David (Columbia University)
Berk Jonathan (Stanford University)
Bisin Alberto (New York University)
Bittlingmayer George (University of Kansas)
Boldrin Michele (Washington University)
Brooks Taggert J. (University of Wisconsin)
Brynjolfsson Erik (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Buera Francisco J. (UCLA)
Camp Mary Elizabeth (Indiana University)
Carmel Jonathan (University of Michigan)
Carroll Christopher (Johns Hopkins University)
Cassar Gavin (University of Pennsylvania)
Chaney Thomas (University of Chicago)
Chari Varadarajan V. (University of Minnesota)
Chauvin Keith W. (University of Kansas)
Chintagunta Pradeep K. (University of Chicago)
Christiano Lawrence J. (Northwestern University)
Cochrane John (University of Chicago)
Coleman John (Duke University)
Constantinides George M. (University of Chicago)
Crain Robert (UC Berkeley)
Culp Christopher (University of Chicago)
Da Zhi (University of Notre Dame)
Davis Morris (University of Wisconsin)
De Marzo Peter (Stanford University)
Dubé Jean-Pierre H. (University of Chicago)
Edlin Aaron (UC Berkeley)
Eichenbaum Martin (Northwestern University)
Ely Jeffrey (Northwestern University)
Eraslan Hülya K. K.(Johns Hopkins University)
Faulhaber Gerald (University of Pennsylvania)
Feldmann Sven (University of Melbourne)
Fernandez-Villaverde Jesus (University of Pennsylvania)
Fohlin Caroline (Johns Hopkins University)
Fox Jeremy T. (University of Chicago)
Frank Murray Z.(University of Minnesota)
Frenzen Jonathan (University of Chicago)
Fuchs William (University of Chicago)
Fudenberg Drew (Harvard University)
Gabaix Xavier (New York University)
Gao Paul (Notre Dame University)
Garicano Luis (University of Chicago)
Gerakos Joseph J. (University of Chicago)
Gibbs Michael (University of Chicago)
Glomm Gerhard (Indiana University)
Goettler Ron (University of Chicago)
Goldin Claudia (Harvard University)
Gordon Robert J. (Northwestern University)
Greenstone Michael (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)
Guadalupe Maria (Columbia University)
Guerrieri Veronica (University of Chicago)
Hagerty Kathleen (Northwestern University)
Hamada Robert S. (University of Chicago)
Hansen Lars (University of Chicago)
Harris Milton (University of Chicago)
Hart Oliver (Harvard University)
Hazlett Thomas W. (George Mason University)
Heaton John (University of Chicago)
Heckman James (University of Chicago – Nobel Laureate)
Henderson David R. (Hoover Institution)
Henisz, Witold (University of Pennsylvania)
Hertzberg Andrew (Columbia University)
Hite Gailen (Columbia University)
Hitsch Günter J. (University of Chicago)
Hodrick Robert J. (Columbia University)
Hopenhayn Hugo (UCLA)
Hurst Erik (University of Chicago)
Imrohoroglu Ayse (University of Southern California)
Isakson Hans (University of Northern Iowa)
Israel Ronen (London Business School)
Jaffee Dwight M. (UC Berkeley)
Jagannathan Ravi (Northwestern University)
Jenter Dirk (Stanford University)
Jones Charles M. (Columbia Business School)
Kaboski Joseph P. (Ohio State University)
Kahn Matthew (UCLA)
Kaplan Ethan (Stockholm University)
Karolyi, Andrew (Ohio State University)
Kashyap Anil (University of Chicago)
Keim Donald B (University of Pennsylvania)
Ketkar Suhas L (Vanderbilt University)
Kiesling Lynne (Northwestern University)
Klenow Pete (Stanford University)
Koch Paul (University of Kansas)
Kocherlakota Narayana (University of Minnesota)
Koijen Ralph S.J. (University of Chicago)
Kondo Jiro (Northwestern University)
Korteweg Arthur (Stanford University)
Kortum Samuel (University of Chicago)
Krueger Dirk (University of Pennsylvania)
Ledesma Patricia (Northwestern University)
Lee Lung-fei (Ohio State University)
Leeper Eric M. (Indiana University)
Leuz Christian (University of Chicago)
Levine David I.(UC Berkeley)
Levine David K.(Washington University)
Levy David M. (George Mason University)
Linnainmaa Juhani (University of Chicago)
Lott John R. Jr. (University of Maryland)
Lucas Robert (University of Chicago – Nobel Laureate)
Luttmer Erzo G.J. (University of Minnesota)
Manski Charles F. (Northwestern University)
Martin Ian (Stanford University)
Mayer Christopher (Columbia University)
Mazzeo Michael (Northwestern University)
McDonald Robert (Northwestern University)
Meadow Scott F. (University of Chicago)
Mehra Rajnish (UC Santa Barbara)
Mian Atif (University of Chicago)
Middlebrook Art (University of Chicago)
Miguel Edward (UC Berkeley)
Miravete Eugenio J. (University of Texas at Austin)
Miron Jeffrey (Harvard University)
Moretti Enrico (UC Berkeley)
Moriguchi Chiaki (Northwestern University)
Moro Andrea (Vanderbilt University)
Morse Adair (University of Chicago)
Mortensen Dale T. (Northwestern University)
Mortimer Julie Holland (Harvard University)
Muralidharan Karthik (UC San Diego)
Nanda Dhananjay (University of Miami)
Nevo Aviv (Northwestern University)
Ohanian Lee (UCLA)
Pagliari Joseph (University of Chicago)
Papanikolaou Dimitris (Northwestern University)
Parker Jonathan (Northwestern University)
Paul Evans (Ohio State University)
Pejovich Svetozar (Steve) (Texas A&M University)
Peltzman Sam (University of Chicago)
Perri Fabrizio (University of Minnesota)
Phelan Christopher (University of Minnesota)
Piazzesi Monika (Stanford University)
Piskorski Tomasz (Columbia University)
Rampini Adriano (Duke University)
Reagan Patricia (Ohio State University)
Reich Michael (UC Berkeley)
Reuben Ernesto (Northwestern University)
Roberts Michael (University of Pennsylvania)
Robinson David (Duke University)
Rogers Michele (Northwestern University)
Rotella Elyce (Indiana University)
Ruud Paul (Vassar College)
Safford Sean (University of Chicago)
Sandbu Martin E. (University of Pennsylvania)
Sapienza Paola (Northwestern University)
Savor Pavel (University of Pennsylvania)
Scharfstein David (Harvard University)
Seim Katja (University of Pennsylvania)
Seru Amit (University of Chicago)
Shang-Jin Wei (Columbia University)
Shimer Robert (University of Chicago)
Shore Stephen H. (Johns Hopkins University)
Siegel Ron (Northwestern University)
Smith David C. (University of Virginia)
Smith Vernon L.(Chapman University- Nobel Laureate)
Sorensen Morten (Columbia University)
Spiegel Matthew (Yale University)
Stevenson Betsey (University of Pennsylvania)
Stokey Nancy (University of Chicago)
Strahan Philip (Boston College)
Strebulaev Ilya (Stanford University)
Sufi Amir (University of Chicago)
Tabarrok Alex (George Mason University)
Taylor Alan M. (UC Davis)
Thompson Tim (Northwestern University)
Tschoegl Adrian E. (University of Pennsylvania)
Uhlig Harald (University of Chicago)
Ulrich, Maxim (Columbia University)
Van Buskirk Andrew (University of Chicago)
Veronesi Pietro (University of Chicago)
Vissing-Jorgensen Annette (Northwestern University)
Wacziarg Romain (UCLA)
Weill Pierre-Olivier (UCLA)
Williamson Samuel H. (Miami University)
Witte Mark (Northwestern University)
Wolfers Justin (University of Pennsylvania)
Woutersen Tiemen (Johns Hopkins University)
Zingales Luigi (University of Chicago)
Zitzewitz Eric (Dartmouth College)

Supposedly liberal New York Times spreads fascist filth around country

Posted on September 15, 2008 by Tony Logan

borat A spokesperson there said the (New York) Times last Sunday inserted 145,000 DVDs (of “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,”) in its papers delivered in the following markets: Denver, Miami/Palm Beach, Tampa, Orlando, Detroit, Kansas City, St Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee/Madison. Note: These are all in swing states…

See America’s oldest journal covering the country’s newspaper industry full report about the so-called ‘Clarion Fund’ titled UPDATE: Newspapers Deliver Millions of ‘Terror’ DVDs to Subscribers — In ‘Swing States’ That is, they are delivering DVDs targeting a religious group with racist and US Christian nationalist filth urging yet more war, bloodshed, and Christian religious hatred directed against the Muslim World.

What is most disgusting about this material is the projectionism onto others of their own motives as authors of this DVD. The makers of the DVD urge Christian Americans to stop what they say is a Muslim effort to take over the entire world. Isn’t this exactly what Christian Americans advocate in American foreign policy, where they see American Christians as God’s chosen people and are encouraging a war to help America run the entire world for the supposed future benefit of Christianized America?

So here is the supposedly liberal (in the eyes of Christian Jihad Crusaders) New York Times spreading the Chruistian Fascist Movement’s racial and religious intolerance around our country. And this supposedly liberal paper is doing it to help along the campaign of John McCain, too!

John McCain is trying to create a war hysteria in this country against both the Muslim World and Russia, and the NYT is aiding and abetting the effort. Go figure? Maybe this paper with the liberal reputation is not that liberal at all? Not too liberal to help spread fascist hate mongering against an ethnic and religious minority in our country?

The New York Times is really a paper that totally sucks, Liberals. Why do you read it when it acts most like Fox News most of the time? You liberal dumbasses make conservatives actually believe that The New York Times is a liberal paper when it most certainly … well… really most certainly is not! Stop buying the damn thing! It’s boring, too, … and racist. Of course, many of you liberals are just that as well.

OBSESSION: anti-Islamic documentary is 2006 Zionist election year propaganda

Posted on September 13, 2008 by Eric Verlo

COLORADO SPRINGS- If you’re not going to watch the propaganda on CNN/FOX/”24″ they’ll bring it to you! Inserted in this morning’s Gazette was OBSESSION: RADICAL ISLAM’S WAR AGAINST THE WEST, a DVD distributed by The Clarion Fund and promoted by Alan Dershowitz. Why a free copy of a 2006 crockumentary now? This “non-partisan organization devoted to educating the public about national security issues” wants us to check out www.radicalislam.org because “it’s our responsibility to ensure we can all make an informed vote in November.” And the DVD insert went to newspapers in SWING STATES!

The DVD wrapper features a blurb by Michael Medved, the pro-war Zionist cloaked as mild-mannered film critic. Says Medved, “Obsession is one of the most powerful, expertly crafted and undeniably important films I’ve seen this year…” No mention that the year was 2006, and the made-for-a-previous-US-election quasi-documentary has already been widely debunked as racist propaganda. An executive producer of “24” intones: “… required viewing for everyone.”

Oh, and of course Edmund Burke’s helpful nudge: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Bad enough that this insert went to the Gazette’s 100k readership, it also went out with the newspapers below. This is more than the FREEDOM COMMUNICATION chain, it includes the NYT and the WSJ.

Do you detect a Swing-State pattern where Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia predominate?

Paid Advertising Supplement to: Akron Beacon, Altoona Mirror, Ann Arbor News, Blade, Bucks Co. Courier Times, Centennial Citizen, Chronicle of Higher Education, Cincinnati Enquirer, Claremont Review, Clovis News Journal, Columbus Dispatch, Daily Camera, Daily Commercial, Daily Nonpareil, Dayton Daily News, Denver Post, Des Moines Register, Detroit Free Press, Erie Times-News, Examiner, Flint Journal, Florida Times-Union, Fort Collins Coloradoan, Ft. Lauderdale El Sentinel, Ft. Meyers News Press, Gazette, Grand Rapids Press, Greeley Tribune, Green Bay Press-Gazette, Hobbs News-Sun, Iowa City Press Citizen, Janesville Gazette, Journal News, Journal Times, La Crosse Tribune, Lansing State Journal, Las Vegas Review-Journal/Sun, Miami-El Nuevo Herald, Miami Herald, Middletown Journal, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Morning Call, Morning Journal, Nevada Appeal, New Appeal, New Hampshire Union Leader, News-Leader, New York Times, Ocala Star Banner, Orlando Sun Sentinel, Palm Beach Post, Patriot-News, Philadelphia Inquirer, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Portsmouth Herald, Quad-City Times, Reading Eagle, Reno Gazette-Journal, Repository, Rio Rancho Observer, Sioux City Journal, South Bend Tribune, South Florida Sun-Sentinel, St. Petersburg Times, Sun-Gazette, Tallahassee Democrat, Tampa Tribune, Toledo Blade, Tribune, Tribune-Review, Vindicator, Virginian-Pilot, Wall Street Journal, World Jewish Digest.

The Blue states of Iowa, New York and Wisconsin seem also to have been targeted…

I’ve got a few documentaries to recommend for everyone. In particular Colorado Springs. First, how about FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO about the means American Fundamentalist Churches sow division and hatred between peoples. Its climax is set in the Springs, but no local commercial movie theater will dare screen the film. It did visit Colorado College, so we’ll have more to report on the film and its director later.

FOR THE BIBLE TELLS ME SO -Trailer

Next, a recent investigation into the forces moving behind the sensationalizing of NINE/ELEVEN. It’s called FABLED ENEMIES and you can view it online.FABLED ENEMIES
Also online is an investigation of the tragedy of the USS Liberty, an American Navy surveillance ship that had the misfortune to witness the Israeli preemptive attack on Egypt in 1967. LOSS OF LIBERTY recounts how Israeli jets were forced to attack the Americans to cover their tracks, killing 34 sailors and wounding 171, and the US administration had to cover-up the incident because it was determined to keep portraying Israel as America’s ally.LOSS OF LIBERTY

Index to Not My Tribe mastheads

Posted on August 3, 2008 by NMT

A few words about the changing NMT masthead. This is a partial listing of what we are not. Themes include war, environmental devastation, and the soulless invasion of man’s spirit. Special attention to riot police, Chinese repression, offshore drilling, and Las Vegas.

Guernica
Crazed warriors
AU peacekeepers
Pershing cavalry
CSPD tear gas 2003
Reenlistment Iraq
Fallujah offensive
Navy Seal divers
National Guard Kent State
Black Hawk helicopters
Helmeted riot police
Mexican riot police
Miami riot police
NYPD blue
Monster truck airborne
Lurking crocodile
Gestapo dead-checking
Chinese riot police
Debutante prom dresses
Cog wheels
Reef bleaching
Traffic exhaust
Mall of America
Gridlock on 405
Excavation
Chinese oil field
Landfill dump
Critical Mass vs NYPD
Mexican city
Tract housing sprawl
Chinese recruits
Shanghai cityscape
Chinese police
Beijing police exercises
Beijing Olympic security
Beijing riot police
Chinese Segway assault
Beijing smog
Forbidden City
Tiananmen Square standoff
Canadian oil rigs
Offshore oil rigs
Chinese oil platforms
Oil rig sunset
Irish offshore rigs
Three offshore oil rigs
Santa Barbara rig spill
Aerial view of spill
Four offshore oil rigs
More offshore platforms
Offshore oil spill
Oil tanker spill
Oil spill close-up
Oil spill clean-up
Oil rigs illuminated
Motorcycles in motorcade
Open pit mining
Long Beach oil derricks
Signal Hill oil
Early industrial pollution
Vegas circa 1950
Vegas downtown
Vegas circa 1980
Vegas neon
Vegas strip
Blackjack table
Neon cityscape
Los Angeles smog
Southern Cal suburb
Mall
Hazmat fire
Iraq salute
Redeployment
Enlistment oath
Police funeral motorcade
Tiananmen soldiers
Factory hog farming
Cattle feed lot
Caged chickens
Poultry processing
RNC riot sticks
Riot gas
DNC Denver
DNC Denver
DNC mounted
DNC Denver
DNC Denver
DNC Denver
DNC Denver
RNC Minneapolis
Army pledge
Junior Marines
Junior Marines
Junior Marines
Junior Marines
Vacant parking
Hi-tech border patrol
Bishops
Boxing
DNC beating
Military academy
Military fitness
Marching
Church and Tank
Bomber
Chinese soldiers
Putin between 41 and 43
President
Zionists
Roadside harassment
Food processing plant
Cheerleaders
National anthem
Boots
Shorts
Conference table
Food packing
Streetwalkers
Tanning bed
Theater seating
Lonely reef
Monster truck
Motorization
Coral bleaching

Ralph in Kangaroo Land

Posted on July 11, 2008 by Tony Logan

Kangaroo courtship Ralph Kohlmann presides over Kangaroo Land, Cuba (Guantanamo). Try finding anything much about this Marine Colonel though? He’s top secret!

Recently, Judge Marine Colonel Kohlmann has been warning Kangaroo Land captives that, even as their own lawyers, they can’t see or challenge classified evidence until their trial. Hard to defend oneself from getting the death penalty without knowing what the Pentagon claims is ‘evidence’ if you can’t actually see the ‘evidence’ against you, one would think? But this is military law (JAG) and that is the law of the land in Kangaroo Land, Cuba.

For more info on Kangaroo Land. Strangely, the Miami newspaper has pulled the complete article! I wonder if the Pentagon had anything to do with that? The Pentagon does run happenings in Kangaroo Land, Cuba after all.

Try 9/11 plotters tell Guantanamo judge of legal woes over at the LA Times perhaps? Interesting place, this Kangaroo Land… where torture is law, and law is torture.

Judge Coronel Ralph has been at work in Kangaroo Land for some time. Strange though, there is hardly any info about the guy on the INTERNET. Go figure? Here in this article, read what ‘Muhammad’ had to say about the Ralph back in 2006 ...Lawyer pleads Fifth in dramatic hearing at Guantanamo Bay

And that’s about it in info for this shadow ‘judge’, Marine Coronel Ralph, executioner, judge, and jury of Kangaroo Land, Cuba. Wikipedia can’t find nothing on the guy either! Does it make you proud to be an American?

Take a close look at Kangaroo Land! This is how our country runs ‘legally’
with shadow ‘judges’ , shadow law, and Kafka on hand, in Kangaroo Land, Cuba.

Stop the War in Iraq and BTTHN

Posted on June 30, 2008 by NMT

Open National Conference to Stop the War in Iraq and Bring the Troops Home Now
Cleveland, Ohio, June 28-29, 2008

National Assembly Endorser List (Partial Listing)
( * = organization or position for identification only)

1. Cindy Sheehan, Gold Star Families for Peace*
2. Howard Zinn, Author, Historian, Social Critic, Political Scientist, Playwright
3. U.S. Labor Against the War (USLAW)
4. Veterans for Peace
5. Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Utah Chapter
6. National Lawyers Guild
7. North Shore AFL-CIO Federation of Labor (Formerly Cleveland AFL-CIO)
8. Donna Dewitt, President, South Carolina AFL-CIO*
9. Navy Petty Officer Jonathan W. Hutto, Author of “Anti-War Soldier” and Co-Founder of Appeal For Redress*
10. Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, Los Angeles, CA
11. Progressive Democrats of America
12. A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism)
13. The Iraq Moratorium
14. United Teachers Los Angeles
15. Northeast Ohio Anti-War Coalition (NOAC)
16. Ramsey Clark, former U.S. Attorney General
17. Green Party of Ohio
18. Progressive Action, a coalition of the Duluth Central Labor Body, Democratic Farmer-Labor Party, and the Duluth Area Green Party
19. Scott Ritter
20. Anti-War Committee of the Thomas Merton Center, Pittsburgh, PA
21. Colia Lafayette Clark, Chair, Richard Wright Centennial Committee, Philadelphia, PA
22. Ohio State Council UNITE HERE
23. Women Speak Out for Peace and Justice – the Cleveland Branch of Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
24. Chris Silvera, Secretary-Treasurer, Teamsters Local 808*, Long Island, NY
25. Cleveland Peace Action
26. Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, Palo Alto, CA
27. Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition (STWC)
28. John W. Braxton, Co-President, American Federation of Teachers Local 2026*; Faculty and Staff Federation of Community College of Philadelphia*
29. Eduardo Rosario, Executive Board, NY City Chapter – Labor Council for Latin American Advancement*
30. RI Mobilization Committee to Stop War and Occupation
31. Steve Early, Member, National Writers Union/UAW*, Labor Journalist
32. Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace
33. Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee
34. Cynthia McKinney, Former Congresswoman from Georgia
35. Allen Cholger, United Steelworkers Union Staff Representative*, Southfield, MI
36. Malcolm Suber, Reconstruction Activist; 2007 City Council Candidate in New Orleans, LA
37. Greg Coleridge, Coordinator, Northeast Ohio Anti-War Coalition; Economic Justice & Empowerment Program Director, Northeast Ohio American Friends Service Committee
38. Marilyn Levin, Member, Coordinating Committee, Greater Boston United for Justice with Peace; Founder, Middle East Crisis Coalition
39. Jeff Mackler, Founder, Mobilization for Peace, Jobs and Justice, San Francisco, CA
40. Jerry Gordon, former National Co-Coordinator of the Vietnam-era National Peace Action Coalition (NPAC); Member, U.S. Labor Against the War Steering Committee, Cleveland, OH
41. Barbara Lubin, Director, Middle East Children’s Alliance
42. Jamilla El-Shafei, Kennebunkport, Maine, (the Kennebunkport Peace Department)
43. Mumia Abu-Jamal
44. Alan Netland, President of the Duluth Central Labor Body and AFSCME Local 66*
45. Will Rhodes, Chair, Minnesota 8th Congressional District, Green Party; Steering Committee of the Duluth Area Green Party
46. Leonard Weinglass, Attorney for the Cuban Five
47. Gail Schoenfelder, Co-Chair, Clayton-Jackson-McGee Memorial; Board Member of the Duluth League of Women Voters*
48. California Peace and Freedom Party
49. Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network
50. Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice of Northern Utah
51. Alan Benjamin, Member, Executive Board, San Francisco Labor Council; Member, National Steering Committee, U.S. Labor Against the War
52. Rev. Dr. Diana Gibson, Co-Director, Council of Churches of Santa Clara County, San Jose, CA*
53. Sacramento Chapter, Labor Council for Latin American Involvement (LCLAA), AFL-CIO, Sacramento, CA
54. Iranians for Peace and Justice, CT and Texas Chapters
55. Youth Against War & Racism, MN
56. Samina Faheem, Executive Director, American Muslim Voice
57. National Education Association Peace and Justice Caucus
58. Union de Trabajadores Inmigrantes (Union of Immigrant Workers), Madison, WI
59. The L.A. Palestine Labor Solidarity Committee, Los Angeles, CA
60. San Jose Peace and Justice Center
61. Andy Griggs, Board of Directors, United Teachers Los Angeles; Chair, National Education Association Peace and Justice Caucus; Continuations Committee, American Federation of Teachers Peace and Justice Caucus*; Steering Committee Member, U.S. Labor Against the War, Los Angeles, CA
62. Office of the Americas, Los Angeles, CA
63. Fernando Suarez del Solar, Founder and Director, Guerrero Azteca Peace Project Escondido, CA
64. Doug Bullock, 1st Vice President, Albany Federation of Labor and Member of the Albany County Legislature
65. Arlington (MA) United for Justice with Peace
66. Sarah Martin, Member, Women Against Military Madness, MN
67. Paul Krehbiel, Iraq Moratorium, Los Angeles, CA
68. Sharon Smith, Haymarket Books
69. Francesca Rosa, Member SEIU Local 1021, Delegate, San Francisco Labor Council*, Member, Bay Area Labor Committee for Peace and Justice*
70. National Benedictines for Peace
71. Elizabeth Aaronsohn, Professor of Education and Faculty in the Peace Studies Program*, Central CT State University, New Britain, CT
72. Adirondack Progressives
73. Pam Africa, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Move Organization
74. AfterDowningStreet.org
75. Kali Akuno, Member, Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Gulf Coast Reconstruction Movement activist, New Orleans, LA*
76. Richard Brooks Alba, Co-Chair Emeritus, SF Pride at Work (AFL-CIO), Berkeley, CA
77. Mike Alewitz, Labor Art and Mural Project, New Britain, CT
78. All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (G-C), Washington, D.C.
79. Stephen Allen, Steve Allen Painting, Akron, OH
80. Alliance for Global Justice
81. Dr. Sabah Alwan, Associate Professor of Leadership & Organizational Behavior, College of St. Scholastica, Duluth, MN
82. American Federation of Musicians Local 1000, NY, NY
83. Andy Anderson, Veterans for Peace, Chapter 80
84. Jeff Anderson, Duluth City Councilor
85. Thomas Atwood, Community Organizer, Peninsula Interfaith Alliance (PICO); Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Redwood City, CA*
86. Mark Bailey, member and seminary student, United Church of Christ*, Elyria, OH
87. Jared A. Ball, Producer, Independent/Mixtape Journalism: FreeMix Radio, Words, Beats and
Life Global Journal of Hip-Hop Culture, Washington, D.C.*
88. Russ Banner, Co-Coordinator, Pax Christi – Manasota Chapter, FL
89. Hans Barbe, Iraq Moratorium, Students for a Democratic Society, Grosse Pointe Park, MI
90. Ana Barber, UTLA Board of Directors, Long Beach, CA
91. Bay Area United Against the War
92. Karen Bernal, International Longshore Workers Union Project Organizer, San Francisco, CA
93. Dennis Bernstein, Producer Flashpoint/KPFA Radio, Berkeley, CA
94. Marcia Bernsten, North Shore Coalition for Peace & Justice, Evanston, IL
95. Prof. Hal Bertilson, Professor of Psychology and UWS Psychology Program; Coordinator; Member, Amnesty International; Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Duluth Peace and Justice Committee
96. Thomas Bias, President, Northwest New Jersey Peace Fellowship
97. Stephen Bingham, Attorney, Political Activist, San Francisco, CA
98. Bloomington Peace Action Coalition, Nashville, IN
99. Roy Blount, President, Taxi Workers Alliance of Pennsylvania
100. Iver Bogen, Progressive Action Secretary, Duluth, MN
101. Scott Bol, St. Croix Valley Peacemakers, Stillwater, MN
102. Bolivarian Circle of Los Angeles “Ezequiél Zamora”, Sherman Oaks, CA
103. Blasé Bonpane, Director, Ofice of the Americas, Los Angeles, CA
104. Theresa Bonpane, Executive Director, Office of the Americas, Los Angeles, CA
105. Boston May Day Coalition, http://www.bostonmayday.org
106. Laura Bothwell, Founder of the St. Scholastica College Democrats; Former Director, Programs at the Columbia Univ. Center for the Study of Science and Religion; NY, NY
107. Frank Boyle, Wisconsin State Representative, 73rd Assembly District
108. Patrick Boyle, Progressive Action Steering Committee, Duluth, MN
109. Heather Bradford, Co-Founder, Students Against War, College St. Scholastica
110. Lenni Brenner, Author, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators
111. Lyn Broach, Steve Allen Painting, Akron, OH
112. Brooklyn Greens, Brooklyn, NY
113. Don Bryant, President, Greater Cleveland Immigrant Support Network
114. Cafe Intifada, Los Angeles, CA
115. California Federation of Teachers
116. Joseph Callahan, member, Coalition to March on the Republican National Convention & Stop the War; Iraq Peace Action Coalition; Twin Cities, MN*
117. Campaign for Labor Rights
118. Campus Antiwar Network
119. Campus Anti-War Network, Fordham University Chapter
120. Michael Carano, Ohio Progressive Democrats of America State Co-Coordinator
121. Patrick Carano, Ohio Progressive Democrats of America State Co-Coordinator
122. Steve Carlson, Peace North, Northern Wisconsin Coordinator for the Iraq Moratorium Project
123. Mary Carmichael, Northwoods People for Peace, Ironwood, MN
124. Tim Carpenter, National Director, Progressive Democrats of America
125. Central CT State University Progressive Students Alliance, New Britain, CT
126. Central CT State University Peace Studies Program, New Britain, CT
127. Central Ohioans for Peace
128. Chapter 39 (Northeast Ohio) Veterans for Peace
129. Chatham Peace Initiative
130. Chelsea Unièndose en Contra de la Guerra, Chelsea, MA
131. Chicago Coalition Against War and Racism, Chicago, IL
132. Chicago Labor Against the War, an affiliate of U.S. Labor Against the War
133. Chicago Socialist Party
134. Chippewa County Anti-War Coalition, Dafter, MI
135. Jim Ciocia, Staff Representative, Ohio Council 8, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)*, Cleveland, OH
136. Citizen Soldier
137. Cleveland Middle East Peace Forum
138. Coalition for World Peace (CFWP) – An affiliate of UFPJ, Los Angeles, CA
139. Code Pink, Pittsburgh Chapter
140. Columbus Campaign for Arms Control/For Mother Earth
141. Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES – Los Angeles, CA)
142. Common Ground Relief/New Orleans – Malik Raheem, Co-Founder
143. Dave Conley, Douglas County Board Supervisor, WI
144. Jan Conley, Founder and President of Environmental Assn. for Great Lakes Education
145. Polly Connelly, International Representative, United Auto Workers (retired), Tucson, AZ
146. Cliff Conner, Author, “A People’s History of Science” New York, NY
147. Victor Crews, Utah Jobs with Justice, Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice, United for Peace and Justice Steering Committee Member
148. Cuba Solidarity, NY, NY
149. Tony Cuneo, Duluth City Council*
150. Denise D’Anne, Senior Action Network, San Francisco, CA*
151. DailyRadical.org, Boston, MA
152. Alan Dale, member, Iraq Peace Action Coalition, MN
153. Warren Davis, Former International Executive Board Member, United Auto Workers, Cleveland, OH
154. De Kalb Interfaith Network for Peace and Justice, De Kalb, IL
155. Declaration of Peace – San Mateo County, San Mateo, CA
156. Declaration of Peace, Bloomington, IN
157. Democratic Socialists of Central Ohio
158. Jesse Diaz, Jr., University of California, Riverside; Political Action Committee – La Hermandad Mexicana Transnacional, Riverside, CA
159. Ron Dicks, International Vice President, Western Region, International Federation of Professional and Technical Employees (IFPTE), San Francisco*
160. Different Drummer
161. Frank Dorrell, Addicted to War, Los Angeles, CA
162. Doug Dowd – Political economist, author, professor, Bologna, Italy
163. Dubuque Peace & Justice, Dubuque, IA
164. Mark Dudzic, National Organizer, Labor Party*
165. Larry Duncan, Labor Beat Co-Producer, Chicago, IL
166. East Central Ohio Green Party
167. Jebb Ebben, lead vocal of The Dear Astronaut band, Milwaukee, WI
168. Charlie Ehlen, Member, Veterans for Peace, Glenmora, LA
169. El Militante Sin Fronteras
170. Erie Benedictines for Peace, PA
171. Every Church a Church of Peace (Duluth, MN area chapter)
172. Farid Farahmand, Iranians for Peace, New Britain, CT
173. Christian Fernandez, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition
174. Bob Fertik, founder of Democrats.com
175. Jeanne Finley, Albany, NY
176. First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto, CA
177. Milton Fisk, South Central Indiana Jobs with Justice; Emeritus Prof. of Philosophy, Indiana Univ.- Bloomington
178. Jon Flanders, member and past president IAM Local Lodge 1145; Trustee, Troy Area Labor Council, NY
179. Carlos Flores, Secretary-Treasurer, Graphic Communications Conference-IBT Local 4N*
180. Focus the Nation, Portland, OR
181. Folk the War, Kent, OH
182. Dennis Foster, Westlake, OH
183. Christine Frank, Climate Crisis Coalition of the Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN
184. FreedomJournal.Tv, Akron, OH
185. Freedom Socialist Party, Seattle, WA, Henry Noble, National Secretary
186. Frente de Mexicanos en el Exterior/FME (Front of Mexicans Aboard), Sacramento, CA
187. Anna Fritz, Retiree, Cleveland Heights, OH
188. Emily Gaarder, Assistant Prof. of Sociology/Anthropology, Univ. of MN-Duluth, MN
189. GABNet, a Philippines women’s organization
190. Dennis Gallie, Member UAW Local 235, St. Louis, MO*
191. Sharla Gardner, Duluth City Councilor and Former Executive Board Member of AFSCME Local 66, Duluth, MN
192. Christine Gauvreau, Organizing Committee, CT United for Peace*
193. Gay Liberation Network, Chicago, IL
194. Paul George, Director, Peninsula Peace and Justice Center, Palo Alto, CA
195. Mirène Ghossein, member of Adalah-NY: Coalition for Justice in the Middle East*, WESPAC (Westchester County Peace and Action Network)*
196. Isaac Alejandro Giron, Chairman of the SLC Autonomous Brown Berets
197. Martin Goff, Minnesota UNITE HERE Organizer*
198. David Goldberg, UTLA Treasurer, Los Angeles, CA
199. Sam Goldberger, We Refuse to Be Enemies, West Hartford, CT*
200. Marty Goodman, Transport Workers Union Local 100*, NY, NY, former Executive Board member
201. Dayne Goodwin, Secretary, Wasatch Coalition for Peace and Justice, Salt Lake City, UT
202. Steve Gordon, Former President of UTU Local 1732 & Lead Vocalist for the bands Workerand Black Market Bombs, Conway, SC
203. Kevin Gosztola, Author for OpEdNews; member, Peace Movement
204. Grandmothers for Peace, Northland Chapter
205. Grandmothers for Peace International, Elk Grove, CA
206. Greater Glastonbury for Peace and Justice, Glastonbury, CT
207. Green Party of Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY
208. Green Party of Rhode Island, Providence, RI
209. Suzanne Griffith, Professor of Counseling, Univ. of Wisconsin-Superior; Member of Women in Black
210. Guerrero Azteca Peace Project, Escondido, CA
211. Cheryl Gustafson, Western University (Salt Lake City) Community Relations*
212. Ioanna Gutas, Middle East Crisis Committee, New Haven, CT*
213. Guyanese American Workers United, New York, NY
214. Jim Hamilton, St. Louis; Member, State Executive Board of American Federation of Teachers, MO*
215. Carol Hannah, Peace North, Hayward, WI
216. Mo Hannah, Ph.D., Chair, Battered Mothers Custody Conference
217. John Harris, Co-Founder, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition, Boston, MA; Co-Founder, Chelsea Uniéndose en Contra de la Guerra, Chelsea, MA; Regional Coordinating Committee member, New England United*
218. Alan Hart, Managing Editor, UE News, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE)*
219. Hawaii Solidarity Committee, NY, NY
220. Rose Helin, Former President, Students Against War, Univ. of Wisconsin-Superior
221. Stan Heller, The Struggle Video News Network, West Haven, CT*
222. Melissa Helman, former School of the Americas Protest Prisoner of Conscience, Ashland, WI
223. Inola F Henry, UTLA Board of Directors, Los Angeles, CA
224. Laura Herrera, Co-Coordinator, The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Northern California
225. Fletcher Hinds, Vietnam Veteran, MN Veterans & Military Families for Progress*, Duluth, MN
226. Fred Hirsch, Plumbers and Fitters Local 393 Executive Board; Delegate to the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, San Jose, CA*
227. Suzanne and William Hodgkins, Niskayuna, NY
228. Marvin Holland, http://www.homestationonline.org, Jersey City, NJ
229. Julie Holzer, Staff Representative, District 12, United Steelworkers Union*
230. Dr. Bill Honigman, Progressive Democrats of America, California State Coordinator, Laguna Hills, CA
231. Kathleen Hopton, Mentor, OH
232. Houston Coalition for Justice Not War, Houston, TX
233. Humanity, Asheville, NC
234. Jeff Humfeld, Board of Directors, KKFI Community Radio, Kansas City, MO*
235. ICUJP-Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, Los Angeles, CA
236. Interfaith Council for Peace in the Middle East, Cleveland, OH
237. International Socialist Organization (ISO)
238. Iraq Peace Action Coalition, Twin Cities. MN
239. Khalil Iskarous, Middle East Crisis Committee, New Haven, CT*
240. lbrahim Jibrell, Trinity College Antiwar Coalition, Hartford, CT*
241. Jeni Johnson, Former News Editor for the Promethean newspaper
242. Laurie Johnson, Former Duluth City Councilor; Business Agent AFSCME Council 5, Duluth, MN
243. Peter Johnson, Progressive Action Steering Committee & Duluth Professional Firefighters Union*, Duluth, MN
244. Todd Jordan, Future of the Union, UAW Local 292*, Kokomo, IN
245. Paul Kangas, Vice President, Veterans for Peace
246. Kansas City Labor Against the War, a U.S. Labor Against the War affiliate
247. Dan Kaplan, Executive Director, AFT Local 1493; San Mateo (CA) Community College Federation of Teachers*
248. David Keil, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition; New England United*
249. Kemetic Inst, Columbus, OH
250. Kent State Anti-War Committee, Kent, OH
251. Sky Keyes, CT United for Peace, Middletown, CT
252. Tim Kettler, Secretary, Green Party of Ohio
253. Joel Kilgour, Truth in Recruiting Committee, Duluth, MN
254. John Kirkland, Stop the War Committee, Carpenters Local 1462*, Bristol, PA
255. Philip Koch, Professor, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD
256. Dr. Gary Kohls, Every Church a Church of Peace
257. Bob Kosuth, Steering Committee of the Northland Anti-War Coalition
258. Gene Kotrba, Northeast Ohio Anti-War Coalition (NOAC), Berea, OH
259. Dennis Kucinich, U.S. Representative, Lakewood, OH
260. Rev. Kurt Kuhwald, Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto, Palo Alto, CA*
261. Rick Kurki, Board Member of the Tyomies Society, Highbridge, WI
262. Zev Kvitky, President, SEIU Local 2007, Stanford, CA
263. La Hermandad Transnacional , Los Angeles, CA
264. Ray LaForest, International Haiti Support Network, New York, NY
265. Lake Superior Greens
266. Werner Lange, Professor of Sociology, Edinboro University of Pennsylvania*
267. Ben Larson, Singer for the band Crew Jones
268. Prof. Mark Lause, Department of History, University of Cincinnati
269. Peter LaVenia, Co-Chair, New York Green Party
270. Paul Le Blanc, Prof. of History, LaRoche College; Member, Anti-War Committee, Thomas Merton Center, Pittsburgh
271. James Marc Leas, National Lawyers Guild
272. Fernando B. Ledezma, UTLA Board of Directors, El Monte, CA
273. Rosemary Lee, Member, CFT Civil, Human and Women’s Rights Committee*, Los Angeles,
CA
274. Pat Levasseur, East Coast Director, Lynne Stewart Defense Committee; former political prisoner, Ohio 7
275. Libertarian Party of Northeast Ohio
276. Liberty Street Agitators, Ann Arbor, MI
277. Jack Lieberman, Jewish Arab Dialog Association*, Miami , FL
278. Jerimarie Liesagang, CT Transadvocacy Coalition, Hartford, CT
279. Peter Linebaugh, Author, Magna Carta Manifesto
280. Michael Livingston, Professor of Psychology, St. John’s University, Collegeville, MN
281. Janet Loehr, Middle East Peace Forum, Cleveland, OH
282. Joe Lombardo, Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace and Coordinator, Northeast Peace and Justice Action Coalition
283. Los Altos Voices for Peace, Los Altos, CA
284. Jennifer Lyon, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW)*, Las Vegas, NV
285. David Macko, Chairman, Libertarian Party, Northeast Ohio*, Solon, OH
286. Dorotea Manuela, Co-Coordinator, Boston May Day Coalition, Boston, MA
287. Jorge Marin, Circula Bolivarimo – Martin Luther King, Jr.*, Boston MA
288. Jennifer Martin-Romme, Editor, Zenith City Weekly Newspaper
289. Logan Martinez, Green Party West Central Ohio
290. Jamshid Marvesti, M.D., Author of four books, most recently “Psycho-Political Aspects of Suicide Warriors, Terrorism and Martyrdom,” Manchester, CT
291. James Mattingly, Kaukauna, WI
292. Mayday Books, MN
293. Bob McCafferty, Andover, NJ
294. Prof. Bud McClure, Faculty Against War, Univ. of Minnesota-Duluth
295. Rick McDowell, Belmont, ME
296. Kay McKenzie, Douglas County Board Supervisor, WI
297. Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice, Detroit, MI
298. The Middle East Crisis Committee, CT
299. Mimbrez Publishers, Oklahoma City, OK
300. Judy Miner, Office Coordinator, Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice*, Madison, WI
301. Minnesota Labor Against the War
302. Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
303. Suren Moodliar, Mass Global Action*
304. Hal Moore, Progressive Action Treasurer, Duluth, MN
305. More than Warmth, Nashville, TN
306. Tess Moren, Intl. Peace Studies Student Assn., Univ. of Wisconsin-Superior
307. Dorinda Moreno, Co-Moderator, indyiraqaction; Convenor, Fuerza Mundial Collaborative, Santa Maria, CA*
308. Amy Moses, Leader, Young Adult Group, of the 1st Unitarian Universalist Society of SF
309. Denis Mosgofian, Graphic Communications Conference-IBT Local 4N, past president,
current Delegate to San Francisco Labor Council*
310. Peter and Gail Mott, Co-Editors INTERCONNECT: (national newsletter)
311. David Moulton, Loaves & Fishes Catholic Worker Community, Duluth, MN
312. MoveOn/East Bay, Barrington, RI
313. Bill Moyer and The Backbone Campaign
314. Jorge Mujica, March 10 Coalition*
315. MJ Muser, World Can’t Wait-Cleveland
316. Muslim Solidarity Committee
317. Muslim Youth Brotherhood for Political Action (MYB). Chaplin, CT
318. My Homework Channel, Cambridge, MA
319. National Network on Cuba, San Francisco, CA
320. Native Earth Education Project, Shelburne, MA
321. Kamran Nayeri, Political Economist, University of California
322. Near West Citizens for Peace and Justice
323. Neighbors for Peace, IL
324. Nevada Workers Against the War, Las Vegas, NV
325. New England United
326. New York State Greens/Green Party of New York, New York, NY
327. Nicaragua Network
328. Mary Nichols-Rhodes, Ohio Progressive Democrats of America State CD Organizer
329. Victor Nieto, President of Lodge 1043 Transportation and Communications Union*, Bronx, NY
330. North Shore Coalition for Peace and Justice, IL
331. Northland Anti-War Coalition
332. Jim Northrup, Native American Playwright, Poet, Author and Syndicated Columnist of Column “Fond du Lac Follies”
333. NY Metro Raging Grannies, New York, NY
334. Ohio State Labor Party
335. Barb Olsen, President, Progressive Action, Political Commentator for KUMD-FM Radio and Political Columnist for the Reader Weekly Newspaper
336. Bill Onasch, Midwest Chapter Representative, Labor Party Interim National Council*
337. Steve O’Neil, St. Louis County Board Commissioner, Duluth, MN.
338. Organized Workers for Labor Solidarity, Seattle, WA
339. Debbie Ortman, National Field Director of the Organic Consumers Assn.; Former Hermantown, MN City Councilor; President, Duluth League of Women Voters
340. Our Spring Break, Washington D.C.
341. Pan-African Roots, Washington, D.C.
342. Jeff Panetiere, Western Connecticut State Univ. Youth for Justice, Danbury, CT*
343. Parma Democratic Committee, Hilton, NY
344. Pax Christi Northern California, San Jose, CA
345. PDX Peace Coalition, Portland, OR
346. Peace & Social Justice Committee*, La Roche College, Pittsburgh, PA
347. Peace Action of San Mateo County, San Mateo, CA
348. Peace and Freedom Party, Sacramento, CA
349. Peace and Justice Center of Eastern Maine, Bangor, ME
350. PeaceMajority Report, Lindenhurst, IL
351. Josh Pechthalt, UTLA/AFT Vice President, Los Angeles, CA
352. Paula J. Pedersen: Assistant Professor of Psychology, Univ. of MN-Duluth
353. Penn Action, Pittsburgh, PA
354. Helen Pent, President, Northland College Student Assn.
355. People of Faith CT, West Hartford, CT
356. Peoples Fightback Center, Cleveland, OH
357. John Peterson, National Secretary, U.S. Hands Off Venezuela
358. Millie Phillips, Editorial Board, The Organizer Newspaper*
359. Physicians for Social Responsibility, Hudson-Mohawk Chapter
360. Jan Pierce, Retired National Vice President – Communications Workers of America District One
361. Angela T. Pineros, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition
362. Larry Pinkney, Black Activist Writers Guild & Columnist, Twin Cities, MN*
363. Andy Pollack, Adalah–NY: Coalition for Justice in the Middle East,* Brooklyn, NY
364. Joseph Pollard, Transport Workers Union Local 100*, NY,NY
365. Portage Community Peace Coalition, Brady Lake, OH
366. Michael L. Postell, Transport Workers Union Local 250A, Chairperson, Green Division, San Francisco Municipal Railway*, San Francisco, CA
367. Dolores Perez Priem, Iraq Moratorium and UUs for Peace, San Francisco, CA
368. Progressive Action Steering Committee, Duluth, MN
369. Progressive Democrats of America Los Angeles (PDALA) Los Angeles, CA
370. Progressive Democrats of America – Ohio
371. Progressive Peace Coalition, Columbus, OH
372. Radical Women, San Francisco, CA
373. Radio Free Maine, Augusta, ME
374. Dr. Chengiah Ragaven, Professor of International Relations, Central CT State Univ., New Britain, CT*
375. Rainbow Affinity Tribe/Yippies, Brooklyn, NY
376. Walter Raschik, Host, Walt Dizzo Show on KUWS-FM Radio
377. Jack Rasmus, Co-Chair, Natl. Writers Union, UAW Local 1981, Richmond, CA*
378. Sami Rasouli , Founder & Director, Muslim Peacemaker Teams*, Najaf, Iraq
379. Austin Reams, Oklahoma City, OK
380. Revolutionary Workers Group, San Francisco, CA
381. Rogelio Reyes, California Faculty Association, Calexico, CA *
382. Sergio Reyes, Co-Coordinator, Boston May Day Coalition
383. Marc Rich, Delegate, LA County Federation of Labor
384. Walter Riley, Civil Rights Attorney, Political Activist, San Francisco, CA
385. Adam Ritscher, Douglas County Board Supervisor; Northland Anti-War Coalition
386. Christopher Robinson, Cambridge, MA
387. Rockland Coalition for Peace and Justice, Chestnut Ridge, NY
388. Lorena Rodriguez, International Partnership Coordinator of the Student Trade Justice Campaign, Duluth, MN/Montevideo, Uruguay
389. Mike Rogge, Co-Founder, Students Against War, College of St. Scholastica.
390. Al Rojas, Coordinator, FME (Front of Mexicans Abroad), Sacramento, CA
391. Emma Rosenthal, Los Angeles, CA
392. Martin Rosner, NY Social Activist
393. Donald Rucknagel, M.D., Ph.D., Cincinnati, OH
394. Barb Russ, Progressive Action, Duluth, MN
395. Carl Sack, Northland Anti-War Coalition, former Northland College Student Senator
396. Sacramento for Democracy, Sacramento, CA
397. Sundiata Sadiq, Former President, Ossining, NY NAACP
398. San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice, San Diego, CA
399. San Mateo County Central Labor Council AFL-CIO, Foster City, CA
400. Ajamu Sankofa, National Conference of Black Lawyers*, Brooklyn, NY
401. Tony Saper, ATU Local 1287 Representative to the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance, Kansas City, MO
402. Evan Sarmiento, Outreach Coordinator, Greater Boston Stop the Wars Coalition
403. Renee Saucedo, Director, La Raza Centro Legal; Member, SEIU Local 1021, San Francisco*
404. Fred Schnook, former Mayor of Ashland, WI.
405. Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone, Co-producers, Taking Aim-WBAI Radio-NY, Vallejo, CA
406. Paul Schrade, former International Executive Board Member, United Auto Workers, Los Angeles, CA
407. John Schraufnagle, Northland Anti-War Coalition, Superior, WI
408. Michael Schreiber, Editor, Socialist Action, San Francisco, CA
409. Rodger Scott, Delegate and Past President, American Federation of Teachers Local 2121, City College of San Francisco
410. Mary Scully, member, Iraq Peace Action Coalition, Twin Cities
411. Steve Seal, UTLA Board of Directors/Chair, Human Rights Committee*, Los Angeles, CA
412. Vann Seawell, Assistant Director, UNITE HERE, Columbus, OH
413. Leonard Segal, UTLA Board of Directors, Northridge, CA
414. Rob Segovia-Welsh, Agriculture Rural Labor Inspector for the State of North Carolina
415. Dallas Sells, Director, Ohio State Council, UNITE HERE
416. Shaker Heights High School Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), Shaker Heights, OH
417. Peter Shell, Anti-War Committee of the Thomas Merton Center, Pittsburgh, PA
418. Adam Shils, Vice-President, Aptakisc Education Association (NEA)*
419. Shura Council, Anaheim, CA
420. Joel Sipress, Duluth Area Green Party, former candidate for MN State Senate, Duluth, MN
421. Debbie Ginsberg Smith, Social Activist, New York
422. Michael Steven Smith, Co-Producer, Law and Disorder, WBAI radio
423. Social Action Committee, Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Redwood City, CA
424. Social Action Committee, West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church, Rocky River, OH
425. Socialist Action
426. Socialist Alternative
427. Socialist Organizer
428. Socialist Party, Boston
429. Socialist Party of CT
430. Socialist Party of Massachusetts
431. Socialist Party USA (National Committee)
432. Socialist Viewpoint
433. Solidarity, Detroit, MI
434. Asiyahola Somburu, Co-Chair of the Emerging Black Leadership Symposium
435. Gary Sorenson, President of Veterans for Peace, Chapter 80
436. South Dakota A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, Brandon, State Council
437. Southeast Minnesota Alliance of Peacemakers, Rochester, MN
438. Mark Stahl, Event Coordinator, Rhode Island Community Coalition for Peace
439. Lynne Stewart, Lynne Stewart Organization, NY, NY
440. Judith Stoddard, First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco*
441. Students for a Democratic Society, Kirtland, OH
442. Students for Change, Norwich, CT
443. Hal Sutton, Member, UAW Local 1268 Retirees Chapter, Rockton, IL*
444. David Swanson, Washington Director, Democrats.com and of Impeachpac.org; Co-Founder, AfterDowningStreet.org
445. Shakeel Syed, Executive Director, Shura Council, Culver City, CA
446. Teach Peace Foundation
447. Tennessee Code Pink, Summertown, TN
448. Texans for Peace, Austin, TX
449. Linda Thompson, Guilford Peace Alliance, AFSCME Retirees, CT United for Peace
450. Sara Thomsen, singer/songwriter, South Range, WI
451. Gale Courey Toensing, Editor, The Corner Report, NW CT and Member, Middle East Crisis Committee, CT*
452. Troops Out Now Coalition, New York, NY
453. Troy Area Labor Council, Troy, NY
454. Jerry Tucker, former International Executive Board Member, United Auto Workers, St. Louis, MO
455. Twin Cities Peace Campaign-Focus on Iraq
456. Twin Cities Year 5 Committee to End the War Now
457. U.S. Hands Off Venezuela
458. Imam Warith Deen Umar, Chaplain for 25 years in New York state prisons
459. United Educators of San Francisco
460. Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Redwood City (entire congregation), Redwood City, CA
461. University of Toledo Anti-War, Toledo, OH
462. Upper Hudson Peace Action, Albany, NY
463. Utah Jobs with Justice, Salt Lake City
464. Utah Peace & Freedom Party, Salt Lake City, UT
465. James E. Vann, Architect; Co-Founder, Oakland Tenants Union, Oakland, CA
466. Chuck Vaughn, UTLA Board of Directors, Pico Rivera, CA
467. Venezuela Solidarity Network
468. Veterans for Peace, Chapter 80
469. Veterans for Peace, Chapter 118, Utah
470. Veterans for Peace – Chapter 153, Iraq Moratorium Project, Peace North, Hayward, WI
471. Carlos Villarreal, Executive Director, National Lawyers Guild*, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter
472. Voters Evolt!, Long Beach, CA
473. Voters for Peace, Baltimore, MD
474. Julie Washington, UTLA Elementary Vice President, Los Angeles, CA
475. Washington Peace Center, Washington D.C.
476. Harvey Wasserman, Founder of Solartopia.org, Bexley, OH
477. WE Project, Los Angeles, CA
478. Carl Webb, Iraq War Veteran; Texas National Guard
479. Tegan Wendland, Douglas County Board Student Representative, WI
480. Coly Wentzlaff, Students for Peace, Univ. of Minnesota-Duluth
481. West Shore Unitarian Universalist Church Social Action Committee, Rocky River, OH
482. Don White, Peace and Justice Activist, Los Angeles, CA
483. Craig Wiesner, President, MicahsCall.org, Palo Alto, CA*
484. David Wilson, Nicaragua Solidarity Network of Greater New York*, NY,NY
485. Marcy Winograd, President, Progressive Democrats of Los Angeles*, Los Angeles, CA
486. Dorothy Wolden, Events Coordinator for the Northland Chapter of Grandmothers for Peace and former Douglas County Board Supervisor, WI
487. Women Against War, Capital District, New York
488. Women for Democracy and Fair Elections, Chicago, IL
489. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Peninsula Branch, Palo Alto, CA
490. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Pittsburgh Chapter, Pittsburgh, PA
491. Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, U.S. Section; Philadelphia, PA
492. Kent Wong, Founding President of the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance, Los Angeles, CA
493. Worker to Worker Solidarity Committee, Tucson, AZ
494. Workers International League (Socialist Appeal)
495. World Prout Assembly, Highland Heights, KY
496. Mark Wutschke, UTLA Board of Directors, Los Angeles, CA
497. Gustav Wynn, Writer & Contributing Editor, OpEd News, NY,NY
498. Carol F. Yost, Member, ADALAH-NY Coalition for Justice in the Middle East* Steering Committee Member, Private Health Insurance Must Go Coalition*
499. Youth for International Socialism
500. Marela Zacarias, Founder of Latinos Against the War, Hartford, CT

Life not that great in the US for many Hispanic immigrants

Posted on June 11, 2008 by Tony Logan

”I hate Fidel Castro, but does that mean I should work in a cafeteria?” she said. “I am 44 years old, and the first and only time in my life I went hungry was in the United States. Here (in Cuba), I live in a four-bedroom house and have a car. Over there, I had to live in an apartment the size of a table.”

That was a brief excerpt from an article in the reactionary American paper, the Miami Herald… Some Cuban emigrants head back home

Yes, the fact of the matter is that life in the us is not that great for many, many Latin American immigrants, and they would be much happier if the US government would just stop fucking over their own home countries. That, of course, the US corporate elites that run the US will never, ever do. Their profits are dependent on running much of the rest of the world into the ground.

I just got back from visiting such a country, the country of Nicaragua, which the US has been destroying for many long decades. I will write more about what I saw and experienced in the weeks ahead, for Nicaragua is a prime example of why we must oppose the despicable bipartisan foreign policies of the US government. You might be planning to desperately vote for Barack Obama hoping for some sort of change towards decency? You are just being manipulated and deluding yourself if you think that the ‘defeat’ of the Republicans is all that is really necessary, for much more must be accomplished before change can come about.

Cuba is no absolute paradise, but compared to countries like Nicaragua it certainly is a paradise. At least the people do not have to live in squalor and misery even though the US has spent decades trying to break the people by waging an economic war on them. That is no small accomplishment!

Viva Cuba!

To Recreate 68 at the Denver DNC is not a call to incite a Rumble in the Jungle

Posted on April 22, 2008 by Eric Verlo

Free the Conspiracy Eight Contrary to the hype it is encouraging, RECREATE-68 does not want to recreate the violent clashes of the 1968 Democratic National Convention. That would have to be up to the police. While we know the Chicago Seven (+1) and their cohorts did not go quietly, it is now also well admitted that the violence in 1968 was perpetrated by the Chicago police without provocation.

I don’t think anyone wants to relive that brutality again, especially as riot police today have much more debilitating and potentially lethal weaponry. Recent demonstrations, as in Seattle against the WTO and in Miami against the FTAA, have seen militarized police force used against a well intended, if obviously outraged, outcry.

Last week at a public debate against Denver City Councilman Charlie Brown, Recreate-68 event coordinator Glen Spagnuolo made clear that they are not interested in receiving a beating or permanent injury at the hands of overzealous police. Of course the catch-phrase “recreate 68” does titillate with accompanying slogans like “Do It in Denver,” but this is done to pique people’s interest, and it has accomplished that.

Recreate-68 is determined to get people engaged with the DNC, in the streets, instead of in front of their televisions as passive spectators to the usurping of their power. The Democrats are party to continued funding of the war, raiding the US treasury for the rich, denying Americans universal health care, taking away our civil liberties with the Patriot Act, and colluding with murder, torture and profiteering. If the American people go along with these crimes, they are accomplices. Too bad they are also the victims. Official channels do not permit people to raise their voices above a silent consent. The DNC in August, in Denver, is opportunity knocking in the streets.

When party organizations admonish you to work through the system, they perpetuate their power to deny progressive reforms. The will of the people has only ever expressed itself through protest. Democracy, Human Rights, Abolition, Suffrage, Child Labor, Civil Rights, Pacifism. We have only made these gains by collective action. A redress of grievances is what it’s called in the constitution. I can just hear Democratic representatives saying, “oh we can’t go that that far, we could never get elected if we advocated for such extremist reforms.” They are undoubtedly right, because real reform is always up to you. But as much as Obama can urge you to feel hopeful, “you” doesn’t mean you voting for a representative who is promising you in actuality nothing.

Recreate 68 is about recreating the sense of connectivity Americans held in 1968, when young and old put their bodies into the line of fire desperate to bring an end to the disastrous Vietnam War. The people’s movement of the sixties had been growing, led by men soon assassinated. Students were rioting in London and Paris, and Cassius Clay was suspended from boxing for having declared himself a conscientious objector. By 1968 people understood that nothing would change unless they did it themselves.

Today we are into the sixth year of the Iraq War and there is no American antiwar momentum to speak of. There are diverse projects on the internet and in sporadic protests, but the US effort is a pitiable movement compared to the public outcry overseas.

Particularly lacking are young people. You may say it is because there is no draft, but enough are still volunteering to fight. I rather think that the youthful opposition is absent because of No Child Left Behind. Our children are being educated to be uncritical thinkers, in particular, narcissists and apolitical bubble babies with no immunity to corporate misinformation. They may be cynical, and clever by half, to the extent that they lack a social conscience. As a result, their forever adolescent thinking that nothing can touch them keeps them civically disengaged until it is too late and they are indebted to the machine.

The youthful cynicism which the slick corporate media celebrates as hip irreverence keeps kids from caring for their fellow people, and certainly holds them from believing that anything they do can make a difference. Look at the average age of the typical social activists. They’re past middle age. Is this a coincidence?

Young Americans, even up to age thirty something, are so jaded to have become tragically ineffectual. Electoral politics might be the extreme of their participation, and look where it will get them, against fraudulent pollsters and rigged voting systems.

I’m curious about what will happen in Denver if Recreate-68 is able to mobilize the youth. Perhaps kids will only be able to express themselves as Grand-Theft-Auto and Half-Life have taught them, as our soldiers are doing, cast adrift in Iraq. In that case, the disembodied violence to which we carelessly expose them will have come home to roost. If Denver becomes a riot, it is a development I think we will need to face.

For my part, I hope we can recreate 68. Let’s break through the media moratorium on the social issues important to us. Let’s remind the TV populace that we want to hold at least our Democratic Party politicians accountable to listen to our needs. If the candidates will not, and we’ve already learned that someone like Dennis Kucinich cannot get the nomination, perhaps the party system is too phony to matter.

What if the Democrats are only shills for the Republicans in charge? I believe the Democratic convention might only be setting up a candidate to lose to John McCain. For example, do you think Americans are ready to elect a woman or a black man to the presidency? I’d like to think so too, but I have a feeling the media is prepared to inform us in November, “oh, so close but no cigar!” Who is suggesting that Americans are past the gender or race card? Is it the corporate media, tool of the rich white man? Since when did the average American TV viewer wise up? George W. Bush’s approval rating was already at a dismal low when Americans reelected him in 2004. This, even after televised debates showed unequivocally that Bush was the dunce everyone remembered from the back of their classroom. Even if Bush didn’t really win in 2004, as in 2000, at least there were enough dumb white voters to make it look legitimate. Are those constituents going to vote for an unexperienced, non-veteran non-white Obama? Those errant voters are still out there, you see them, they still have W-04 stickers on their cars. And the the black box vote counting, voter registration and poll both gate-keeping are still in the hands of Republicans.

If the Democratic Party really hopes to represent the people, it has to do much better. If the Democratic Party is not prepared to offer Americans a real alternative to the corrupt misrepresentation in Washington, we can find better entertainment with the charades of the WWWF. Should the Dems hear this from you? Is your representative listening or still asking you to show patience? Take him or her to the mat, in Denver, in August.

White on Black- Mia Farrow Saves Darfur

Posted on January 26, 2008 by Tony Logan

Mia Farrow and her ‘Save Darfur’ campaign is coming to town in Colorado Springs! Here is Mia Farrow- Black on White in person blowing bubbles of concern to the children there in Darfur. It feels so good!

Those Mean Baddies in Kampuchea kicked her out of their country though. Apparently they didn’t really like her feel good American attitude about foreign affairs? Go figure? Ungrateful Cambodians… Don’t they know what the US has done for them?

But Mia knows that it is those mean ol’ Arab horsemen that are to blame for the problems of the world! She is not acting this time. Think goodness we can have the US State Department and Miami’s Holocaust Museum alongside Mia saving little children out there. It feels so good! Bad Chinese and Bad Arabs be damned! It’s super hero America to the rescue once again!

The Lysol toilet bowl game

Posted on January 1, 2008 by Marie Walden

You probably know that I’m a big sports fan. I grew up watching football with my dad and cut my teeth on the traditions, the rivalries, the pageantry of college football. Rose Bowl corporate logo Some of my fondest memories are of college bowl games that were played during the holiday season. Bowl games presented matchups that were not seen in the regular season. From the weary television console came team histories, funny mascots, famous coaches, bright college colors, and excited pennant-waving crowds. It seemed to me that life came to a halt while the entire world focused on football for a few days.

The Tournament of Roses game, now known as the Rose Bowl, started in 1902. It was a classic East-West battle, and was the only bowl game held outside of the South until 1971. Paired with the beautiful early morning parade, it has been part of every New Year’s Day that I can remember.

In 1933, the first Orange Bowl game was played. Its purpose was to draw attention to the unknown city of Miami and help build a tourism
industry. Next came the Sugar Bowl (1935, New Orleans), the Sun Bowl (1936, El Paso), the Cotton Bowl (1937, Dallas), and the Gator Bowl (1946, Jacksonville).

The associations behind these bowl games had altruistic beginnings. Most benefited charities, many which were recently formed to help people in the wake of the Great Depression. Today they still have 501(c)(3) status but their exempt purpose is fuzzier, bringing economic impact to a particular area. Most current bowls still contribute a large portion of revenue to worthy causes. For example, the Gator Bowl gives 75% of game revenue to support educational pursuits in Jacksonville. Of course they do, and I’m sure the money is put to good use. But if hard truth be told, I’ll bet that much of the money given to charity is a payout to preserve their nonprofit status, to keep the IRS at bay.

The late 1950s saw a proliferation of new bowl games hoping to make money from television coverage. The first bowl game to sell corporate naming rights was the US F&G Sugar Bowl in 1988. The move generated an adverse reaction from the public. No matter, it has now become commonplace. I personally loathe each and every corporation that co-opts tradition in the name of profit. Naming rights are even sold for half-time reports. The most memorable was an attempt to reach out to female viewers, the Stayfree Maxi-pad Half-time Report. At least that one made me laugh. I can’t say the same for my dad who quickly left to stir the chili.

I suppose I should be more understanding. With competition from the new bandwagon bowl games, which offer team payouts in the millions, the old timers have to play by the same rules. After all, bowls can’t make money if the teams don’t show up. And the impoverished state-sponsored universities aren’t willing to be pawns in someone else’s money-maker.

As with so many of our cherished cultural traditions, all has been reduced to greed. Corporate greed, state-supported university greed, individual greed.

It’s said that money is the root of all evil. I don’t think so. Money can do much good as the original intent of college bowl series illustrates. The Lockheed Martin Holy Bible actually says that the love of money is the root of all evil. The perversion of college bowls is but a small and insignificant example of what’s become a global truth.

The names have been changed to expose the guilty:
Rose Bowl presented by Citi
FedEx Orange Bowl
Allstate Sugar Bowl
Brut Sun Bowl
AT & T Cotton Bowl
Konica Minolta Gator Bowl
Capital One Bowl (formerly the Citrus Bowl)

Why?

Posted on November 17, 2007 by Tony Logan

Black Americans are getting sick and fed up with the entire racist criminal injustice system of the US. Still fresh in memory is the picture of White cops with guns turning back Blacks trying to cross the Mississippi Bridge to get out of New Orleans. In mind, too, is the new blatantly open use of torture not only of American military held POWs, but also of Black common folk held in US prisons around the country.

Thousands marched against racial profiling this week In D.C., their protest fed by the movement to defend the Jena Six. Why?

Why? is the question that was asked in Miami this week, too, and got a young man shot down by the police there. Why? too another taser death, not just in Canada, but in Miami that same week, this time of a Black man? Why? Black Agenda Report reports these stories of the Miami events. Executed ‘Walking While Black’ in Miami

Why? The answer is simple. We live in a world ruled by corporations run by Whites of privilege. They control and run a police and judicial system run and controlled by Whites of privilege, too. We live in a US privleged White world where a White privileged and dominated system arrests and tortures prisoners of color without any sense of the human indecency of their actions, fed by an even larger White community that cheers this on. We live in a racist US society.

Nothing that much has changed from the past. MLK’s ‘dream’ is still a dream and not any reality. That is the answer to Why?

For Black Americans especially there is no national security under the so-called national security state. Instead, it is a state of criminal injustice Blacks live under and promises of change for the better cannot be fed when all the recent changes have been for the worse. Racial injustice cannot be disappeared, when class injustice is the norm.

The Woolseys- a Mom and Pop War Profiteering Team

Posted on October 2, 2007 by Tony Logan

Suzanne Woolsey is vice chair of the Colorado College Board of Directors. Her husband will be speaking this Thursday at the school, and all three of their kids graduated from there. The following opinion piece by Evelyn Pringle is reprinted in whole below.

January 17, 2005
Mom & Pop War Profiteering Team – Woolseys
By Evelyn Pringle
Miamisburg, Ohio

The Defense Policy Board (DPB) is a hand-picked group of 30 people that advises Bush administration officials on matters such as whether and when to go to war, or not. The current group was selected by Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Douglas Feith, and approved by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Everyone who is anyone in the arms and defense industry knows that palling up to DPB members is the ticket to getting a Pentagon contract.

Shortly after the war in Iraq began, the April 10, 2003 New York Times pointed out that several board members stood to benefit financially from the war. It reported that the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) documented that 9 of the members were “linked to companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts in 2001 and 2002.”

Promote War & Garner Positions For Profits

One of the members mentioned who stood to profit was R. James Woolsey. In addition to being a member of the DPB, Woolsey also sits on Navy and CIA advisory boards; and he is also a founding member of the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), a private group that was specifically set up by Bush in 2002, to find ways to increase public support for a war against Iraq.

Let me say right here and now that I think bold lines are crossed when people like Woolsey, who promote a specific war, financially benefit from their successful promotion. There should be a law that requires a standard recusal from all war profits by any policy advisor who advocates sending our young men and women off to die in that same war.

And I don’t know about anybody else, but I’ve never heard of our government forming a group of promoters to rally support for a war before. I dare anyone to try and convince me that this war profiteering scheme wasn’t well planned and managed from the get-go.

Mom & Pop Team Of War Profiteers

I would rate the husband and wife team of James and Suzanne Woolsey up there as one of the most blatant examples of war profiting that I‘ve ever seen. They both remain policy advisors on Iraq, even though they both work for private firms that do business there. James has long wanted to use US military might to transform the Middle East. “And he has pushed for war with Iraq as hard as anyone, even before the terrorist attacks of Sep 11, 2001,” according to the April 8, 2003 Global Policy Forum.

That’s right – long before 9/11. In January 1998, James signed the now infamous letter to Clinton from the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) calling for regime change in Iraq (which Clinton trashed). In 1998, he also successfully lobbied to pass the Iraq Liberation Act (ILA), which allocated nearly $100 million for the Iraqi opposition, mainly the Iraq National Congress (INC), headed by none other than Ahmed Chalabi.

9/11 – Gift To Profiteering Team

The lobby for the war in Iraq immediately moved into high gear after 9/11. Within days, the DPB convened to discuss how they could use 9/11 to justify a war in Iraq. James was sent overseas to try to find a link between Saddam and bin Laden. He returned with the tale that an unnamed source had told the Czech intelligence that in April, 2001, he had observed a meeting between the lead 9/11 skyjacker and an Iraqi agent in Prague.

Even though the tale was deemed not credible by US, British, Israeli, and French, intelligence agencies, it became the basis of a major neo-con disinformation campaign against Saddam on cable news shows and editorial pages in major US newspapers.

James himself wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal that said a foreign state had aided Al Qaeda in preparing the 9/11 attacks and pointed to Iraq as the prime suspect. In fact, James even went so far to allege that Saddam was behind the 1993 WTC bombing and the anthrax letters sent out after 9/11. In large part, the propaganda campaign was successful. A poll conducted in late 2002, showed that over half of those polled believed that Saddam was somehow linked to 9/11.

Woolsey & Chalabi – Secret Long-Time Buddies

Just when I think I have seen every dirty filthy angle by which money can be made in the war profiteering trade, something else turns up. I recently discovered a little tid-bit that I was unaware of. In addition to getting $100 million tax dollars allocated for the INC and Ahmed Chalabi in 1998, James also became lawyer and adviser to Iraq’s “President in Waiting” in the same year.

With the help of the media, James must have forgot to mention this obvious conflict of interest while he was alleging collusion in 9/11 between Chalabi’s enemy Saddam and bin Laden. This relationship definitely should have been made public before the war began because of its relevance to the truth or falsity of the justification given for waging war in Iraq to begin with.

Back in 1998, Chalabi sought legal help from Woolsey to secure the release of 6 of his INC associates from the detention center in Guam, even though the CIA said they were threats to US interests. James successfully freed Chalabi’s minions and mowed a path for the so-called Iraqi defectors to feed bogus information to US intelligence teams.

The false information about WMDs and collusion between Saddam and bin Laden, that originated from the relationship of Chalabi and Woolsey, along with the resulting diversion of financial and military resources to Iraq, and away from the real terrorist bin Laden, has left the US with a limited ability to project military power anywhere else in the world. Any unexpected conflict would be a disaster with the military so overstretched in Iraq, and it looks like in large part, we can thank Woolsey and Chalabi for this predicament.

And as it turns out the CIA was right. One of men Woolsey freed, Aras Habib Karim, went on to become Chalabi’s Chief of Intelligence, and has since leaked classified information to Iran, and is currently under investigation by the FBI. I wonder if James is representing the guy now?

James & Booz Allen Hamilton

At the same time that they were advocating for war in Iraq, its more than obvious that James and Suzanne Woolsey were positioning themselves for a future in defense-related firms, with an eye on the anticipated war profits.

James is a shining example of how the revolving door policy works in Washington. Although he left his position as director of the CIA in 1995, he remained a senior advisor on intelligence and national security policies.

And he also now works for several private firms that do business in Iraq. According to Citizens for Public Integrity, in July, 2002, James joined Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm that “had contracts worth more than $680 million” that year.

In May, 2003, in his capacity as a vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton, James was a featured speaker at a seminar entitled “Companies on the Ground: The Challenge for Business in Rebuilding Iraq.” He spoke of the potential business opportunities in the reconstruction of Iraq and how Bush planned to steer the contracts to US companies. Approximately 80 corporate executives paid $1100 to listen to what he had to say.

May, 2003 was only 2 months after the war began. If not for his advisory positions in the Bush administration, how would James possibly be able to put together a investor seminar with information on how to make money in Iraq?

In addition, “Booz Allen is a subcontractor for a $75-million telecommunications project in Iraq. The company does extensive work for the Defense Department as well. Recently, the Navy awarded it $14 million in contracts,” according to the Aug 15, 2004 LA Times. In true Dick Cheney style, James said in an interview that “he had not been involved in Booz Allen’s Iraq contracts,” the Times reports. But then it really doesn’t matter whether he was involved in a particular contract or not, because as a Vice President of the firm, he benefits from profits resulting from all contracts.

Besides his recent statement to the Times belies the title of his own May, 2003 seminar which was: “Companies on the Ground: The Challenge for Business in Rebuilding Iraq.” What is he trying to say? That he never got paid for speaking at that seminar? That none of the 80 executives that attended ever contacted Booz work in Iraq? Yea right. James & Paladin Capital Group

James positioned himself all over the map. He is now a principal in the Paladin Capital Group, another defense-related firm. In part, here is how the firm describes itself on its web site, Paladin Homeland Security Fund, L.P. Investment Strategy

As widely reported in public media, billions of dollars are being appropriated by the United States and foreign governments for replenishment of military stockpiles, deployment of new means to create more secure societies and creation of new standards, equipment, technologies and policies for coping with and recovering from the myriad forms of terrorism and attack. … the General Partner believes that the Federal and State governments … and indeed governments throughout the world, will look to … private enterprise to address these issues. The General Partner believes that the private sector thus will look to expend billions of dollars to execute defense and security plans for security in the public sector and to deploy growth equity to produce the products and services that non-governmental organizations will require.

Fund Management

Operation of the Fund starts with an experienced management team. … additional individuals who have prominent and distinguished records in relevant fields, including security, defense and information and technology sciences, have associated with Paladin Capital in connection with the Fund. These additional principals of the Fund include R. James Woolsey, …

The Fund’s Principals have extensive domestic and international experience in fund investments and in originating, underwriting, closing, monitoring and exiting investments similar to those that are proposed for the Fund. The additional Principals, including Mr. Woolsey, … have extensive and distinguished track records in service within the security, defense and related fields.

Investment Guidelines Characteristics

Small to medium-sized, worker-friendly companies with the following characteristics: Must relate to defense, prevention, coping or recovery from disaster. Dual use: commercial and government applicability for products and services.

Surely no one could ever allege a possible conflict of interest between James serving on 3 defense-related boards (Navy, DPB, & CIA) with the US government and his involvement with this firm.

Global Options – James & DPB Member Livingstone

James is also plugged into Global Options, which is headed by his fellow DPB member Neil Livingstone. In addition to sitting on the DPB, Livingstone has served as a Pentagon and State Department advisor and has long called for overthrowing Saddam.

Livingstone was already promoting war against Iraq back in 1993, when he wrote an editorial for Newsday that said the US “should launch a massive covert program designed to remove Hussein.” Well 11 years later, it looks like he finally got his wish, and just like his pal James, Livingstone is a regular speaker at investment seminars on Iraq.

Global Options provides contacts and consulting services to firms doing business in Iraq and “offers a wide range of security and risk management services,” according to its website. Although James admits that he is a paid advisor at Global Options, he again says the work he does at the firm does not involve Iraq. And of course I believe him (not).

Suzanne – Better Half Of Profiteering Team

From 1993 – 2003, Suzanne was an executive with the National Academies, an institution that advises the government on science, engineering, and medicine. There’s probably no big money to be made in that position and that’s probably what motivated Suzanne seek a more potentially profitable government position.

And she sure found one. According to the Aug 15, 2004 LA Times, Suzanne is a trustee of a little-known arms consulting group that had access to senior Pentagon leaders directing the Iraq war.

Although she had zero experience with military or national security matters, in 2000 she became a trustee at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a nonprofit corporation paid to do research for the Pentagon. During the attack against Iraq, the IDA provided senior Pentagon officials with assessments of the operation.

Through this position, Suzanne had unlimited insider access to valuable information. For instance, the Times reported that in a June 3, 2003, briefing, Brigadier General Robert Cone of the Army, described the group‘s operation. ”This team did business” within the Army Central Command ”on a daily basis, by observing meeting and planning sessions, attending command updates, watching key decisions being made, watching problems being solved, and generally being provided unrestricted access to the business of the conduct of this war,” Cone said, according to a transcript of the session.

The question is did Suzanne use the info to benefit the family business? I’ll let the reader be the judge. She was appointed to “Fluor’s board in January 2004, while Fluor and a partner, AMEC, were competing for two federal contracts to do reconstruction work in Iraq. A little more than a month after she was named, Fluor and AMEC got both contracts, with a combined value of $1.6 billion,” according to the LA Times.

Although a Fluor official refused to discuss why Suzanne was chosen for the job, the official confirmed SEC filings that show, “Fluor pays outside directors (like Suzanne) $40,000 a year, plus stock options and additional fees for attending meetings,” the Times reports.

As for the financial worth of her stock in the company, its looking good. Fluor’s stock has risen steadily since the war in Iraq began. The Times reports that in August, 2004, it was $45 a share, up from a little more than $30 a share in March 2003. Reports filed with the SEC show Suzanne owns 1,500 shares of Fluor stock.

With Fluor making a bundle, it only stands to reason that all the more money can be funneled back into the Woolsey piggy bank. SEC filings show that Fluor reported that its revenue for the first quarter of the current fiscal year from work in Iraq totaled ”approximately $190 million. There was no work in Iraq in the comparable period in 2003,” reports the Times.

I would be willing to bet that any defense related firm would have given an arm and a leg to find out what was being said during those IDA meetings and war planning sessions. Oh of course I’m not suggesting that Suzanne was feeding Fluor information before she came on board and that‘s why she was hired. But at the same time, its sure difficult to think of any other reason why she would be hired.

Here’s another profiteering trick that I would never have thought of. Suzanne even managed to get paid while she gathered the insider information. Tax records show that in 2003, she was paid $11,500 for serving on the IDA. Who wouldn’t want this gal on their team?

The overlapping public and private associations of the Woolsey’s are merely 2 examples of the all too familiar pattern in the Bush administration, in which people who play key roles in advising officials on policies, are involving themselves financially with firms in related fields. And it should be noted that the profiteering is certainly not limited to war policies. Its rampant in every area of policy within the Bush administration.

Long-Term War – Thriving Family Business

Hands down, James should be awarded a plaque for being the #1 Iraq War Monger, and it should say: “What could be more sickening than a war-hungry non-combatant? A war-hungry non-combatant reaping profit from the blood of slaughtered women, children and men of Iraq,” (Bill Berkowitz).

War-hungry James is still hard at it; promoting war for as far as the eye can see. On August 15, 2004, the LA Times reported that, “Last month, Woolsey appeared at a … news conference to announce the creation of a group called the Committee of the Present Danger, which he said would attempt to focus public attention on the threat ”to the US and the civilized world from Islamic terrorism.”

On September 29, 2004 he participated in a forum entitled: “World War IV: Why We Fight, Whom We Fight, How We Fight,” sponsored by the Committee on Present Danger and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. I wonder how many people who went to the polls on Nov 2, 2004, realized that a vote for Bush meant rubber-stamping more of World War IV?

Plan To Destroy and Conquer Iraq

The Iraqi citizens had no say-so in the Bush administration’s decision to bomb the hell out of their country and the Iraqi people, now suffering the most as a result of the war, are not allowed to be involved in making decisions about the reconstruction of Iraq.

In comments that could have been made yesterday, Naomi Klein described what would happen to the Iraqis under Bush’s war plan in the April 14, 2003 issue of the Guardian, “A people, starved and sickened by sanctions, then pulverized by war, is going to emerge from this trauma to find that their country had been sold out from under them. They will also discover that their new-found “freedom” – for which so many of their loved ones perished – comes pre-shackled by irreversible economic decisions that were made in boardrooms while the bombs were still falling. They will then be told to vote for their new leaders, and welcomed to the wonderful world of democracy. ”

Every one of her predictions has come true and Iraqis may be worse off than we realize. Klein reports that on October 13, 2004, Iraq’s “health ministry issued a harrowing report on its post-invasion health crisis, including outbreaks of typhoid and tuberculosis and soaring child and mother mortality rates,” while at the same time the “State Department announced that $3.5 billion for water, sanitation and electricity projects was being shifted to security.”

How can anybody in their right mind expect the Iraqi people to be grateful to America for all this good fortune?

Stop The War Profiteering

It seems to me that we’ve taken our eye off the ball here. Granted, the web of corruption is bad enough in itself, but too little consideration is being given to the Iraqi lives at stake. Every profiteering dollar bilked or wasted is a dollar that could be spent on improving Iraq’s basic living conditions like getting water, sanitation and electricity up and running again, or training Iraqi police and military forces, or developing jobs for Iraqis.

Instead our tax dollars are being funneled back to profiteers like the Woolseys, over the backs of not only our dead soldiers; but over 100,000 dead Iraqis as well. The administration had the chance to rebuild Iraq, and at the same time earn the trust of the Iraqi people, but instead it chose to rape and torture innocent Iraqi prisoners, raid the reconstruction fund, and deprive the Iraqis of everything essential to normal human life. The blatant acts of corruption by the occupational authority and US contractors have given the Iraqis every reason under the sun to mistrust the motives of Americans who say they want to help rebuild their country. And how can we expect their opinions to change as long as the obvious corruption continues?

If we ever expect to regain the trust of Iraqis, we have to stop the Woolseys, and others like them, who engage in this filthy, disgusting trade. For starters, I say all Bush war profiteers should be given 2 options: they can either recuse themselves from advising government officials on any matter of national security period, or they can donate all profits made through affiliations with defense-related companies to soldiers wounded in the war and families of soldiers killed in the war.

While this would definitely be a good first step, I won’t hold my breath while waiting to see which option the greedy war-mongers choose.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0501/S00107.htm

Pop goes the US housing bubble- pop goes Colorado’s, too

Posted on September 18, 2007 by Tony Logan

First all, there is not just a US housing bubble that is ‘deflating’, there is also a world real estate bubble. It is well burst by now in Japan, and the bust of Japan’s over inflated housing market was one of the prime causes of the crash of that economy more than a decade ago. Japan still has not yet recovered.

Before the market burst in Japan, Americans were scared that they were being economically bypassed by Japan. Then as the US bubble fully inflated there has been American euphoria that our economy appeared so strong. Today there is mainly fear about the US economic future. Things look grim.

Though Colorado is not yet considered one of the US real estate’s metro ‘dead zones’ like Boston, Miami, San Diego, etc., we can see how the bubble has sprouted across the Colorado landscape. Everywhere, there is new ugly housing that has just recently been built on the outskirts of the major Colorado metropolitan areas. Easy come, easy go.

I think of these areas as instant slums. There are few trees, no community, and long commutes amongst and across this plasticized landscape. Meanwhile, there are FOR RENT signs in the older neighborhoods, as people foolishly went rushing off to buy that new, but inferior, housing in the slurbs..

They often bought it with money they just are not going to have, but thought that their ‘investment’ had to just go up, up, up! It doesn’t, and if people begin to lose their jobs they will soon go bankrupt and be unable to pay the mortgage. So much for ‘investment’…

Imagine a near future where many of these shoddy housing areas will be full of vacated properties. Houses that were poorly built in the first place, will begin to fall into quick disrepair. Pop goes the US housing bubble and pop shall go Colorado’s development bubble, too. This is a poor way to plan (if it can be called planning?) communities. Speculation (haste) makes waste, and the landscape will look even more bare than it does now while the development is still fairly new.

Even worse, the housing bubble was built on cheap gasoline and ample supply. That just is not going to be the case, and the US government effort to rob and control the remaining world supplies of underground petrol by military force, are just adding to the economic chaos we will have to soon endure.

Genocide remembrance for Jews only

Posted on April 15, 2007 by Eric Verlo

Daniel Pearl’s name is being added to the Miami Beach Holocaust Memorial. Said the murdered journalist’s father, “the same forces that killed my grandparents in Auschwitz, the forces of hatred, are still operating in our world in the 21st century — and Danny is one of the victims.” Say What?!

Pearl is the first non-Holocaust victim to be added to the list. No one’s been added from among the victims of genocides which have ensued after WWII either. Gypsies, for example, who died along with Jews, Gays and Communists in the German extermination camps, suffer relentless persecution still, but none have been added to the list.

Said the chair of the Holocaust Memorial committee,

“Daniel really died for basically one reason, and basically the same reason 6 million others did, and that was for the crime of being a Jew.”

Though Israel’s criminal acts of genocide against the Palestinians and Lebanese may invite some to think otherwise, nowhere is it a crime to be Jewish.

Daniel Pearl was not the first or last Jew to visit Pakistan. Will no one consider the obvious offense Pearl’s captors would have taken? Daniel Pearl was writing about Islamic militancy for the leading jingoist Neocon pro-Israel warmonger yellow-press newspaper of all, the Wall Street Journal.

Are they ‘Green’, or just the same old corporate cons?

Posted on April 1, 2007 by Tony Logan

A lot of energy is now being put into painting corporations ‘Green’. Here in Colorado Springs, we have a local daily rag that is so fossilized that it resists doing even that, and instead is still trying to deny that there are any ecological problems at all. But this is a trench (stance) increasingly unable to be adequately defended by corporate America, so mostly they have retreated into a new trench laid a way back from the previous one of pure denial.

The second trench is painted ‘Green’ in a much louder manner than paraders did at the St Pat’s Day events around the globe, but is there anything real about the ‘Green’ of corporate America? Is the leopard really losing its grimey spots, and being turned into a nice green pussy cat of environmental responsibility? Is Dupont going ‘responsible’, say?

Check out what Fidel Castro has to say about American plans for biofuels. It turns out that he is alive after all, so reactionaries everywhere, your tickets to go down to Miami to celebrate his death with the Cuban-CIA rif-raf will just have to be put on hold once again. Maybe you can get your money back still? Oh, but you have waited so long…. for Castro to be murdered, or just expire on his own. Instead, you wake up and find that he is doing the Al Gore Tango instead! And more convincingly than Al himself does, too. How you must weep and wail!

Evo Morales leads Bolivia out of US orbit

Posted on February 21, 2007 by Tony Logan

The Miami Herald has just published an interesting interview with Evo Morales, Bolivia’s new president, and it looks like Che Guevarra might have succeeded after all.

If I had a dollar for all the times I have heard people say that socialism or communism doesn’t work I would be rich. These people never complain about capitalism not working though when they spout off their Western World shopping mall common horse sense. opinions. But can anybody really say that capitalism has worked well for the indigenous people’s of the Americas, or the indigenous people of anywhere for that matter? We could go on here, too. Did capitalism work for Europe’s Jewish population? Awe blame it on the Muslims’ though, that’s the new vogue!

These new South American leaders like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are about the brightest rays of hope we have in the world today. Thank God that Bolivia has a leader now that wants to take Bolivia out of the US orbit. There’s nothing to be gained by continuing down that dead end alley followed for so long in the past. Viva Sud America Libre!

Now if we could only begin to liberate the brain dead zombies of the USA, too. We have to do it before they eat the rest of the planet alive.

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