Targeting Civilians: Israel's Specialty

Friday, November 16, 2012

Targeting Civilians: Israel's Specialty

Targeting Civilians: Israel's Specialty

Bullies choose easy adversaries to pummel. Equal fights are shunned. It's the same in schoolyards or battlefields.

America and Israel operate this way. They avoid foes able to give as much as they take. Rogue governments never say they're sorry.

During Cast Lead in January 2009, Professor Jeremy Salt wrote "A Message to the brave Israeli Airmen." His comments apply to what's now ongoing.

What’s it like firing missiles at people you can’t see, he asked?

Does it help being unable to see who you're killing?

Is your conscience eased by inflicting disproportionate force on people unable to fight back and civilian infrastructure?

Are you comfortable about slaughtering civilian men, women, children, and infants?

Does this weigh on your conscience, or are you at ease?

Do you sleep well or have nightmares about men, women and children you killed at home, in beds, kitchens, living rooms, schools, mosques, at work, or at play?

Do farmers in their fields, mothers with children, teachers in classrooms, imams in mosques, children at play, the elderly, frail or disabled threaten your security?

Do you ever question what you’ve done and why?

Have you no shame, no sense of decency, no idea of the difference between right and wrong?

Do you know the law? If so, why do you violate it? Doing so makes you complicit in crimes of war and against humanity? Do you know that?

Do you blindly follow orders or have a mind of your own?

Have you murdered civilians before?

Will you do it again if ordered?

Will you keep following orders blindly or do the right thing?

"Brave" Israeli airmen, soldiers, sailors, and other security force personnel are cowards. They've acted lawlessly for decades.

Palestinian suffering is a way of life. Imagine living every day not sure if you'll live or die. Imagine young children growing up this way. Do Israeli children know what Palestinian ones endure? Are they told? Do they care? Do their parents?

Israel's moving thousands of troops and heavy weapons to Gaza's border. Mossad-connected DEBKAfile said:

"Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz and the high IDF command are pushing for the ground operation, Stage B of the Pillar of Cloud operation, to start without delay. The prime minister and defense minister prefer to wait."

Another potential holocaust looms. Civilians always suffer most. Israel and America willfully target them. It part of the imperial strategy of both countries. Human lives don't matter, just conquest, dominance, and exploitation.

Cast Lead took a terrible toll. Missiles, bombs, shells, and illegal weapons were used against defenseless people. Mass slaughter and destruction followed.

Horrific crimes of war and against humanity were committed. Responsible officials remain unaccountable. Security Council no-fly zone protection wasn't ordered.

Over 1,400 Gazans perished. More than 80% were civilians. Over 300 were children. Around 5,300 were injured. Over 1,600 were children or infants. Israel willfully targeted them.

Neighborhoods, schools, universities, mosques, hospitals, UN facilities, fishing boats, civilian factories and workshops, municipal buildings, charitable foundations, civilian infrastructure, and other noncombatant sites were bombed and shelled.

Farmland was bulldozed. Power facilities and irrigations systems were destroyed. International leaders were indifferent about human slaughter and suffering. Only three low-level Israeli soldiers received punishments too minor to matter.

The al-Samouni family lost 27 members. Salah Talala al-Samouni saw his mother blown apart. Rocket and shell fire killed his two-year old daughter, father, aunt, cousin, and entire family. Media scoundrels said nothing. They support Israel's worst crimes.

Under siege, Gazans haven't recovered from Cast Lead. Now they face the prospect of more war perhaps worse than 2008-09.

International leaders share culpability through silence, indifference, and/or complicity. Washington is involved in all Israeli wars. Weapons, munitions and funding are supplied. Political support is given.

Obama told Netanyahu, go ahead and bomb and shell at will. Call it "self-defense" and pretend no one knows it's not. On November 15, the Senate unanimously passed a non-binding supportive resolution. Not a single profile in courage expressed opposition.

AIPAC thanked Obama and Senate members for supporting Israel. Gazan civilians and resistance fighters are maliciously called terrorists. They're heroes, not criminals.

On November 14, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) national director Abe Foxman expressed support for Israeli bombing and shelling, saying:

"Israel has shown tremendous restraint in the face of the unceasing rocket and mortar fire launched from Gaza. This operation is directly targeting the leadership responsible for these attacks, as well as the warehouses and facilities housing their weapons."

"No country in the world would stand by and tolerate such attacks on more than a million civilians."

"The international community has a clear obligation to condemn these attacks and to support the actions taken by Israel against Hamas and other terror organizations operating in Gaza as Israel carries out its basic duty to defend its civilian population."

For almost a century, ADL fronted for Jewish supremacy. It backs occupation harshness. It's mindless about Palestinian suffering. It conducts smear campaigns against critics.

Its entire history is loathsome. Israeli crimes are called self-defense. It plays the same blame the victim game as Israel, Washington, AIPAC, and other Zionist organizations. Only Jewish rights matter. Palestinians are criminalized for defending themselves.

Israel agreed to halt military operations during Egyptian Prime Minister Hersham Kandil's visit. He and Egyptian cabinet ministers arrived in Gaza Thursday. He'll return Friday. Israeli attacks continued.

At Al Shifa Hospital, Kandil visited victims. He denounced Israeli attacks, saying: "This tragedy cannot pass in silence, and the world should take responsibility for stopping this aggression." Cairo will try to mediate a truce, he added.

Since Saturday, two dozen or more Palestinians have been killed. Over 200 others were injured. Some reports say up to 250. Many are in serious condition. Dozens of air strikes continue. Death and injury numbers may rise exponentially. Current figures underestimate the toll because some victims lie beneath rubble.

The International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) said Israel conducted 30 sorties in less than 30 minutes on Friday. At 10PM Thursday, the IDF said it struck 70 targets in the previous hour.

Civilian sites and government buildings were bombed and shelled. Two UN schools were struck. Heavy damage was reported. The Ahrar Center for Detainees' Studies said a church under construction was targeted.

IMEMC said, "Children, infants, women and elderly are among the casualties, including children whose bodies were severely mutilated and burnt due to Israeli shells. A pregnant woman and her unborn fetus are among the killed."

Gazan resistance fighters said they won't honor truce conditions as long as Israel keeps killing Palestinian men, women, children, infants, and the elderly. On Thursday evening, a Beit Hanoun home was bombed. Three children died. One was nine years old.

A 10-month old infant was killed when another home was struck. Through early Friday morning, at least eight children, a pregnant woman, and two elderly men died.

Thirty thousand IDF reservists were called up. Military leaves were cancelled. Tanks, armored vehicles, and troops are mobilizing on Gaza's border. Invasion looks ominously likely.

On November 16, Mathaba said the Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) War Crimes Commission (KLWCC) "received numerous complaints on the atrocities and possible war crimes committed against the Palestinian people."

On November 20 and 21, two days of open hearings will be held.

Commission members include former Magistrate Musa Ismail, former Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Dean Zulaiha Ismail, Center for Global Research Director Michel Chossudovsky, and two former Iraq UN humanitarian coordinators - Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday.

On November 16, Alternative News.org headlined "No safe haven: Civilians under attack in the Gaza Strip." An eyewitness visited Al Shifa Hospital. Many injured Gazans are in serious condition.

Forty-year old Salem Waqef suffered brain injury. He's in a coma on a ventilator. It's unclear if he'll survive.

Ten-month old Haneen Tafesh was admitted unconscious. She suffered a skull fracture and brain hemorrhage. She's also in a coma on a ventilator. Doctors said her condition deteriorated since admitted. Hours later she died.

Ahmed Durghmush suffered brain trauma. Shrapnel penetrated his skull. Brain matter protruded from his head wound. His condition also deteriorated after surgery.

Throughout Thursday, emergency room staff were handling numerous arrivals. Injuries range from easily treatable to severe to life threatening.

Justice Ministry public information director, Khalid Hamad, was at home when shelling targeted a neighbor's house. Israel "targeted civilians deliberately," he said. "The Israeli forces don't make mistakes."

Thirteen-year old Duaa Hejazi was brought in "bleeding a lot." She sustained upper body shrapnel wounds. Pieces are still embedded in her chest. She sent a message to other Gazan children, saying:

"I say, we are children. There is nothing that is our fault to have to face this. They are occupying us and I will say, as Abu Omar said. If you’re a mountain, the wind won’t shake you. We’re not afraid. We’ll stay strong."

Al Shifa director general Dr. Mithad Abbas explained the dire conditions under which hospital staff must cope, saying:

"When those cases arrive at our hospital, it is not under normal circumstances. They come on top of the siege, the blockade, which has resulted in a lack of vital medicines and required medical supplies."

Al Shifa lacks essential medicines, some equipment and supplies. They include antibiotics, IV fluid, anesthesia, gloves, catheters, external fixators, Heparin, sutures, detergents and spare parts for medical equipment.

Power outages exceed 12 hours daily. Small amounts of fuel maintain operations at those times. Dr. Abbas said his supply will be exhausted in days if current conditions continue.

He doesn't know where the next missile or shell will strike. Perhaps Al Shifa will be targeted. Israel considers all civilian sites fair game.

On November 15, the Global BDS Movement issued the following statement in part:

"Stop a New Israeli Massacre in Gaza: Boycott Israel Now!"

Despite biased Western media reports, Israel "initiated and escalated this new assault on the eve of its upcoming parliamentary elections, underlining the time-honored Israeli formula of Palestinian bodies for ballots."

"Israel will continue its belligerence, aggression and state terrorism unless it is made to pay a heavy price for its crimes against the Palestinian, Lebanese and other Arab peoples."

"It is high time for BDS against Israel. This is the clearest path to freedom, justice and equality for Palestinians and the entire region."

At issue also is a pending November 29 vote on Palestinian UN non-member observer status. Israel and Washington have gone all out to subvert it. Member States have all the more reason to support Palestine. In less than two weeks we'll know.

Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah urged Arab leaders to use all means to halt Israeli attacks on Gaza.

"No one is telling Arab countries today, 'Please go open your borders and begin the operation to liberate Palestine.' What we want is to end the attack on Gaza."

This is everyone's battle…We're not asking you for a solution. We're asking for effort."

"Some say the Arabs don't have the courage to stop oil production. Decrease your oil exports or raise the price a little and you will shake the United States. You will shake Europe."

"Brothers, if you can't cut off oil, decrease your production or raise the price. Put on some pressure. No one is calling for armies or tanks or planes."

Nasrallah called Israel's Gaza attack "criminal aggression." Multiple crimes of war and against humanity are committed.

Much is at stake in Palestine, the region and beyond. Washington's aggressive wars continue. New ones are planned. Israel's a key partner. Both countries have imperial agendas. War features prominently in achieving them.

Michel Chossudovsky calls attacking and invading Gaza "part of the broader US-NATO-Israel military agenda." Based on what's happened post-9/11, expect the worst ahead.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

His new book is titled "How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion and Class War"

http://www.claritypress.com/Lendman.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour

The real news coming out of Florida's fields today... Workers learn about their rights under the Fair Food Program during a worker-to-worker education session on an Immokalee area farm. An article in The Atlantic by food writer Barry Estabrook, "Tomato School: Undoing the Evils of the Fields," reports on a recent education session and the impact of the Fair Food Program on the Florida tomato industry, describing the industry's trajectory from "one of the most repressive employers in the country... to being on the road to becoming the most progressive group in the fruit and vegetable industry." Farm labor advances under Fair Food Program spark call for Thanksgiving Supermarket Week of Action For many years, farmworkers from Immokalee traveled the country speaking with consumers in churches and synagogues, university classrooms and community centers, with one goal – to inform people about the brutal reality of exploitation behind the tomatoes in their tacos, burgers, and produce aisles. And for years, a battle raged between the CIW and the Florida tomato growers over that reality, with workers fighting to expose the truth and growers struggling to keep it under wraps. While the fighting continued, the conditions only grew worse. From Conflict to Collaboration in the Fields But that all changed almost two years ago to the day, when, on November 16th, 2010, the CIW and the FTGE signed an historic agreement to work together to build the Fair Food Program, the CIW’s ambitious plan to harness the power of every major level of the supply chain – from consumers and retail buyers at the top to growers and farmworkers at the bottom – to construct a verifiable, enforceable, and sustainable system for social responsibility... Visit the CIW website for more on the quiet revolution of the Fair Food Program and the call to action for the Thanksgiving week of protests and delegations!

Labor activists stand up for independent politics
Posted by Jill Stein for President 2631.80pc on November 03, 2012 · Flag

If you are a labor activist who would like to sign this statement, please contact us.

labor-greens-network-masthead.png

Working Americans and organized labor face an unprecedented bipartisan attack by the Democrats and Republicans in this November’s elections.

As long-time labor activists, we urge a vote for the Green Party national ticket of Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala.

The cornerstone of Jill Stein's Presidential campaign is a Green New Deal.

The Green New Deal includes strong support for workers’ rights, including the rights to a living wage, to a safe workplace, to fair trade, and to organize a union at work without fear of firing or reprisal. It supports real financial reform, not only to make the rich and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes, but to establish democratic control of our economy rather than leaving Wall Street in the driver's seat.

For more than three decades, there has been bipartisan agreement to shift more income and wealth to the richest Americans, while living standards for the rest of us have declined. Income inequality has reached levels not seen since 1927 – right before the Great Depression. The economic crisis caused by the greed and misdeeds of Wall Street resulted in a trillion-dollar bailout of bankers, while the housing foreclosure crisis was ignored.

With more than 25 million Americans out of work, the response of politicians at the state, local and national level has been to cut spending for education, housing, and the safety net, threatening cuts to Social Security and Medicare in order to protect tax cuts for the rich and wasteful military spending. Democrats like Governor Cuomo in NY have joined with Republicans like Governor Walker in Wisconsin to make public employee unions into public enemy number one, seeking to slash pensions and wages while laying off teachers and other workers.

Democrats are always the “friend” of labor – during election season. Yet it was Bill Clinton who gave us NAFTA. The Southern wing of the Democrats in 1947 gave us the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act – and they have defeated changes to it ever since.

Barack Obama promised a $10/hour minimum wage and the Employee Free Choice Act for majority card-check union recognition – but failed to push either once elected.

The labor movement in every other industrial nation has built its own political party, independent of corporate money and control. They have organized the working class majority to take political power for the benefit of workers and economic justice. They have secured single-payer health care, affordable public transit, free public college education, secure pensions, four to six weeks of paid vacation for all workers, paid maternity and free sick leave, and labor laws that protect their rights to organize and strike.

It is time for labor to practice the politics of courage, rather than the politics of fear and appeasement. We must support candidates who back labor when they run against the two corporate parties. We urge a vote for Jill Stein and the Green New Deal and Economic Bill of Rights this November.

Yours in Solidarity,

Jim Moran, Director (retired), Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health

Justin Harrison, CWA Local 13000 Unit 1 President

Christopher Fons, Milwaukee Teachers Education Association Milwaukee, WI

Allan Herman, IATSE Local 927 Executive Board member

Steve Edwards, President, AFSCME Local 2858 Chicago IL

Tom Crean, chapter leader, United Federation of Teachers, New York City

Marty Harrison, Executive Board member TUHNA/PASNAP (Temple University Hospital Nurses Association/ Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals)

David Myron, Michigan Education Association (MEA/NEA); Former Local President, Perry Education Association

Mike McCallister, National Writers Union Local 1981, Former Chair, South Central Wisconsin Labor Party

Charlie Hoyt, Labor Activist, New York City

Hugh Giordano, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 152 Mays Landing, New Jersey

Sunyata Altenor, CWA Local 1032 New York City

Marsha Niemeijer, CWA Local 1032 New York City

David Williams Chicago Library Employees 1215 Chicago, IL

Tom Neilson, American Fed. of Musicians Local 1000, SEIU Local 509 Watertown, MA

Tim Pagel, Teamsters Local 988 Houston Texas

Charles Post, Professional Staff Caucus New York City

Warren Davis, American Federation of Government Employees Local 2006 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (retired)

Eric Hoyt, Graduate Employees Organization, Amherst, Massachussetts

Karen Young, Newspaper Guild, CWA Local 3 New York City

Frank Jackson, GEO-UAW 2334 Amherst, MA

Howie Hawkins, Teamsters Local 317 Syracuse, New York

Barry Eidlin, United Faculty and Academic Staff, Madison WI

Marie Stolzenburg, Teaching Assistants Association, AFT Madison, WI

Nick Limbeck, Chicago Teachers Union, Chicago, IL

Irwin Nack, AFT Local 1796 Oakland, NJ

Jim Howe, CWA Local 3108 Orlando, FL

Mark Dunlea, Hunger Action Network, New York City

Alex Kantrowitz, Teamsters Local 700 Chicago, IL

Ron Dicks, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, San Francisco, CA

Ashok Kumar, Labor Activist, Former member Dane County Board, Madison, WI

Brian Rothgery, Labor Activist, Milwaukee, WI

Michael Childers, Catholic Scholars for Worker Justice, AFT 223 Milwaukee WI

Patrick Burke, Western Mass. Jobs with Justice, Springfield, MA

Charles Levenstein, Massachusetts Teachers Association (retired)

Isaac Silver, Labor Activist, Chicago, IL

Jonathan Fluck, Actors' Equity Association, New York City

Danielle Albert, Labor Activist, New York City

Chris Robinson, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 Philadelphia, PA

Trudy Quaif, Public Employees Federation steward (retired), Albany, NY

George McAnanama, Transport Workers Union Local 100 (retired) New York City

Jonathon Flanders, International Association of Machinists, LL 1145 Troy, NY

Neal Pritchard, United Steel Workers Local 1000, Corning NY

John Ailey, Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR), IL

Mike Whalen, UNITE-HERE, Local 17 (retired) St Paul, Minnesota

Gordon McClelland, Labor Educator, Carpenters (retired), Guilderland NY

Francesca Gomes, Delegate, United Federation of Teachers, Brooklyn, NY

Genevieve Morse, Shop Steward CSU, Massachusetts Teachers Association,
National Education Association

Kshama Sawant, American Federation of Teachers Local 1789, Seattle, WA

Sarah & Ben Manski, American Federation of Teachers, Madison, Wisconsin

Seamus Whelan, MNA/NNU Massachusetts Nurses Association/ National Nurses United

Frango Akrivos, Teamsters Local 1L New York City

Greg Beiter, Shop Steward, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587



*Organizations are listed for identification purposes only.



For further reading:

Labor Day message: Winning labor's battles requires independent politics, 9/2/2012

Workers deserve a raise, not anti-labor legislation, 1/11/2012

Stein calls Obama "win-win" Colombia trade agreement a "lose-lose" for workers, 4/16/2012

Stein backs worker power on Indiana, Ohio tour, 2/3/2012

Solidarity with Indiana workers, 2/6/2012

Gainesville Sun: Hundreds join in May Day rally, march, 5/1/2012

Statement on International Migrants Day, 12/19/2011

The Green New Deal

Please forward this email widely to your lists, and to anyone active in the labor movement. If you are a labor activist who would like to sign this statement, please contact us.

Dear Danny --

Working Americans and organized labor face an unprecedented bipartisan attack by the Democrats and Republicans in this November’s elections.
As long-time labor activists, we urge a vote for the Green Party national ticket of Jill Stein and Cheri Honkala.

The cornerstone of Jill Stein's Presidential campaign is a Green New Deal.
The Green New Deal includes strong support for workers’ rights, including the rights to a living wage, to a safe workplace, to fair trade, and to organize a union at work without fear of firing or reprisal. It supports real financial reform, not only to make the rich and large corporations pay their fair share of taxes, but to establish democratic control of our economy rather than leaving Wall Street in the driver's seat.

For more than three decades, there has been bipartisan agreement to shift more income and wealth to the richest Americans, while living standards for the rest of us have declined. Income inequality has reached levels not seen since 1927 – right before the Great Depression. The economic crisis caused by the greed and misdeeds of Wall Street resulted in a trillion-dollar bailout of bankers, while the housing foreclosure crisis was ignored.

With more than 25 million Americans out of work, the response of politicians at the state, local and national level has been to cut spending for education, housing, and the safety net, threatening cuts to Social Security and Medicare in order to protect tax cuts for the rich and wasteful military spending. Democrats like Governor Cuomo in NY have joined with Republicans like Governor Walker in Wisconsin to make public employee unions into public enemy number one, seeking to slash pensions and wages while laying off teachers and other workers.

Democrats are always the “friend” of labor – during election season. Yet it was Bill Clinton who gave us NAFTA. The Democrats in 1947 gave us the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act – and they have defeated changes to it ever since.
Barack Obama promised a $10/hour minimum wage and the Employee Free Choice Act for majority card-check union recognition – but failed to push either once elected.
The labor movement in every other industrial nation has built its own political party, independent of corporate money and control. They have organized the working class majority to take political power for the benefit of workers and economic justice. They have secured single-payer health care, affordable public transit, free public college education, secure pensions, four to six weeks of paid vacation for all workers, paid maternity and free sick leave, and labor laws that protect their rights to organize and strike.

It is time for labor to practice the politics of courage, rather than the politics of fear and appeasement. We must support candidates who back labor when they run against the two corporate parties. We urge a vote for Jill Stein and the Green New Deal and Economic Bill of Rights this November.
Yours in Solidarity,
Jim Moran, Director (retired), Philadelphia Area Project on Occupational Safety and Health

Justin Harrison, CWA Local 13000 Unit 1 President
Allan Herman, IATSE Local 927 Executive Board member
Steve Edwards, former president, AFSCME Local 2858 (ret.) Chicago IL

Tom Crean, chapter leader, United Federation of Teachers, New York City
Marty Harrison, Executive Board member TUHNA/PASNAP (Temple University Hospital Nurses Association/ Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals)
David Myron, Michigan Education Association (MEA/NEA); Former Local President, Perry Education Association
Mike McCallister, National Writers Union Local 1981, Former Chair, South Central Wisconsin Labor Party
Charlie Hoyt, Labor Activist, New York, NY
Hugh Giordano, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 152 Mays Landing, New Jersey
Sunyata Altenor, Committee of Interns and Residents New York City
Charles Post, Professional Staff Caucus New York City
Warren Davis, American Federation of Government Employees Local 2006 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (retired)
Eric Hoyt, Graduate Employees Organization, Amherst, Massachussetts
Karen Young, Newspaper Guild, CWA New York, NY
Frank Jackson, GEO-UAW 2334 Amherst, MA
Howie Hawkins, Teamsters Local 317 Syracuse, New York
Barry Eidlin, United Faculty and Academic Staff, Madison WI
Marie Stolzenburg, Teaching Assistants Association, AFT Madison, WI
Nick Limbeck, Chicago Teachers Union, Chicago, IL
Mark Dunlea, Hunger Action Network New York, NY

Ron Dicks, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, San Francisco, CA

Ashok Kumar, Labor Activist, Former member Dane County Board, Madison, WI

Brian Rothgery, Labor Activist, Milwaukee, WI

Patrick Burke, Western Mass. Jobs with Justice, Springfield, MA

Charles Levenstein, Massachusetts Teachers Association (retired)

Isaac Silver, labor activist, Chicago, IL
Jonathan Fluck, Actors' Equity Association, New York City

Danielle Albert, Labor Activist, New York City

Chris Robinson, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1776 Philadelphia PA

Trudy Quaif, Public Employees Federation steward (retired), Albany, NY

George McAnanama, Transport Workers Union Local 100 (retired) New York City

Jonathon Flanders, International Association of Machinists, LL 1145 Troy, NY

Neal Pritchard, United Steel Workers Local 1000, Corning NY

John Ailey, Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees (SOAR), IL

Mike Whalen, UNITE-HERE, Local 17 (retired) St Paul, Minnesota

Gordon McClelland, Labor Educator, Carpenters (retired), Guilderland NY
Francesca Gomes, Delegate, United Federation of Teachers, Brooklyn, NY

Genevieve Morse, Shop Steward CSU, Massachusetts Teachers Association,
National Education Association
Kshama Sawant, American Federation of Teachers Local 1789, Seattle, WA
Sarah & Ben Manski, American Federation of Teachers, Madison, Wisconsin
Seamus Whelan, MNA/NNU Massachusetts Nurses Association/ National Nurses United
Frango Akrivos, Teamsters Local 1L New York

Greg Beiter, Shop Steward, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 587
*Organizations are listed for identification purposes only.

For further reading:
Labor Day message: Winning labor's battles requires independent politics, 9/2/2012
Workers deserve a raise, not anti-labor legislation, 1/11/2012
Stein calls Obama "win-win" Colombia trade agreement a "lose-lose" for workers, 4/16/2012
Stein backs worker power on Indiana, Ohio tour, 2/3/2012
Solidarity with Indiana workers, 2/6/2012
Gainesville Sun: Hundreds join in May Day rally, march, 5/1/2012
Statement on International Migrants Day, 12/19/2011
The Green New Deal

---

Please take an immediate step by making a donation: http://www.jillstein.org/donate
Authorized and paid for by Jill Stein for President
PO Box 260217, Madison, WI 53726-0217
http://www.JillStein.org

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World Events Calendar About the Globalist You might be a socialist if… An interview with Kshama Sawant by Sarah Stuteville · October 30, 2012 · 15 Comments Fliers for Kshama Sawant, a socialist candidate running for state legislature, are plastered around Capitol Hill (Photo courtesy votesawant.org) Kshama Sawant is a pretty cool lady. She’s a socialist who won the opportunity to challenge entrenched State House Speaker Frank Chopp to represent the 43rd Legislative District as a write-in candidate in the primaries. She teaches economics at Seattle Central Community College (she’s got a PhD!) And she’s a great example of how third party candidates aren’t all variations on that Goodspaceguy. She has a dog named “Che,” makes fun of Marxists (“they all talk too much”) and has a uniquely socialist perspective on the Globalist-y aspects of the upcoming local elections. She’s also super laid back about things not going according to plan. I first heard of Sawant through the bright yellow and pink “Vote Sawant” posters I’d seen all over Capitol Hill. When I found out she had grown up in Mumbai, India I figured the Seattle Globalist had to meet her. We agreed to meet at B&O Espresso for a coffee. But when I arrived there I couldn’t get my 1990 Cutlass Sierra Oldsmobile to turn off (seriously, the key just wouldn’t turn!) and had to introduce myself – the Cutlass idling around the corner – with “Hi, I’m Sarah Stuteville, you must be Kshama, any chance you know something about cars?” She didn’t, but she was eager to help. She jiggled the key, banged on the dashboard and ultimately looked up the nearest mechanic on her smartphone. Embarrassed, I offered to reschedule our interview but Sawant was up for the adventure. Once the car was deposited with a head-scratching mechanic and we’d found a new cafe, Sawant opened with proof that she sees the political in everything, “I could not make a better case than this for fully functional public transit.” Sawant sports her Socialist Alternative colors at the 2012 Slutwalk Seattle (Photo courtesy votesawant.org) I knew I was in for an interesting cup of coffee. What international perspective do you bring to these local elections? I grew up in India. I didn’t grow up poor myself, but I wasn’t rich either and one all-consuming question that I was consumed with from a very young age, maybe 8 or 9 was ‘why do we have so much inequality and poverty?’ The answers I got were so dissatisfying, ‘oh this is fate or they didn’t work hard enough,’ it’s the same kind of nonsense in the US. On first arriving in the US: When I came to the US I expected it to be very prosperous, but what was most telling to me as an international person was to come here and see the same problems here but to a smaller magnitude… and really that’s what led me to have more of a critique of capitalism. Are we experiencing an international moment of capitalist critique, especially among young people? The issues in Egypt and Tunisia were sort of universal, they were unemployment, youth dissension, look how common this theme is right? It’s running throughout the globe. Students are dealing with the double whammy of bleak job prospects and huge debt. There are cracks appearing in the American Dream and young people are realizing ‘I’m going to have a worse lifestyle than my parents, who already had to work so hard to get what little they had.’ Why didn’t you go into politics in India? Why the US instead? The reason I did not go into politics there was because none of the political options I saw [were what I was looking for]. They only play lip service to the issues that people care about, they co-opt [people’s] movements and use them for their votes but otherwise disregard them. A young Sawant supporter hands out literature on Capitol Hill. A rare grassroots write-in campaign earned her over ten percent of the primary vote. (Photo courtesy votesawant.org) Is Socialism as stigmatized in India as it is in the US? In other countries Socialism is not tarred with the same stigma that it is here in the US. The US is a special case…but I would say that the younger generations in the US are now moving away from that stigma and actually seeing the system collapse around themselves. On a Socialist future: In a future world I don’t think there should be any borders. Nationality has no place in human society…I know it sounds like an extreme thing, but the point is that nationhood and national pride and patriotism is often being used to take young people to war–mostly young poor kids to fight the rich man’s war. As long as you’re thinking about these things in terms of America or India then you’re not able to see that ‘hey, I have my brother and sister in India that are facing the same conditions and we need to come together.’ On Seattle: It’s great to come to a place like Seattle because you fit right in, because there are people from everywhere, everyone fits in and that’s what we want the world to be. Sawant and a supporter at the 2012 Seattle Slutwalk. (Photo courtesy votesawant.org) Sawant is willing to think about how radically different the world could be, not in the sound bites and platitudes of your usual politician, but even in the concrete terms of our own city. She says that there are intermediate steps required to move a society towards socialism (she cites ending budget cuts, racial profiling, the “racist war on drugs” and addressing homelessness as concrete examples) but walking around Capitol Hill after our coffee (my car problem still far from solved) Sawant openly muses about how Seattle might change under socialism. She points out that coffee shops (because they’re a kind of public space) never have the stunning views of wealthy homes and high-powered offices and imagines the old mansions of Millionaire Row publicly owned and turned into shared housing. “When things are exquisitely beautiful and rare,” she argues, “they shouldn’t be privately owned,” She has me imagine how my own life might change (more shared labor, more healthy food, less anxiety about how to pay for those car repairs) and laughs saying, “Seattle is so beautiful, all it needs is Socialism.” This post was produced with support from CityClub. The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of CityClub. Sarah Stuteville is a print and multimedia journalist whose work has been published by the Seattle Times, Global Post, the Seattle Weekly and KUOW. She’s a cofounder of the Common Language Project and the Seattle Globalist. Stuteville won the 2011 Sigma Delta Chi Award for magazine writing. In addition to reporting, Sarah teaches entrepreneurial journalism at the University of Washington. This interview was edited for clarity and length.

Yarra elections: One in five people vote socialist across city

Yarra elections: One in five people vote socialist across city

Socialists increase vote and retain Stephen Jolly’s seat
October 27 saw elections take place across Victorian councils. The Socialist Party stood five candidates in the City of Yarra municipality which is located in the inner north of Melbourne.
The press widely reported these elections being some of the ‘dirtiest’ in recent times. In many electorates reports of stolen ballots, scuffles between candidates, and misrepresentations of party affiliations were the dominant focus.
By Socialist Party reporters Melbourne
In contrast, the Yarra Council election was much more political. It was one of the few places where there were genuine differences between the candidates: the choice in Yarra was between the Socialist Party and the establishment forces of the Labor Party, Greens and right-wing independents.
The Socialist Party had two sitting Councillors going into the election. Stephen Jolly was first elected in 2004 with 12.34% and was re-elected in 2008 after topping the polls with 29.18%. Anthony Main was elected in early 2011 after a Labor Councillor resigned. Main polled 5.55% and was elected on preferences.
The Council has 9 seats divided into 3 separate wards (3 seats in each ward). To be elected candidates need to win 25% plus 1 vote. Preferences are allocated until 3 candidates in each ward reach this target. The goal of the Socialist Party in this election was to retain Stephen Jolly’s seat in the Langridge ward and to increase our vote and deepen our support base in the other two wards, Nicholls and Melba.
It was clear on election day that many people voted for Labor or the Greens on the basis of state or federal issues. As the Socialist Party does not have the same national profile as these parties, we needed to actively win every vote we received.
We were also up against difficult objective conditions for socialists given the fact that the mining boom in Australia is giving people a false sense of security about the state of the economy and the system in general.
However, at a national level there is much disappointment in the federal Labor government. While the Greens are in de facto coalition with Labor they have been able to maintain an illusion of distance to some extent. Because of this they are still seen by many as a progressive alternative to the two major parties. However, there have also been some swings against the Greens in recent elections in various parts of Australia.
On Yarra Council the Greens and the Labor Party have also been in coalition from 2008 – 2012. They have shared the position of Mayor and have jointly voted for neo-liberal budgets. They have overseen year on year over inflation rate rises, cuts to some services and the attempted sell off of Council assets – although they claimed the opposite during the campaign!
In the lead up to the election the Greens were desperately trying to decouple themselves from Labor. To this end they had some success. Labor has been faring poorly in the polls nationally and the Greens recognised that if they were seen to be in partnership they too could lose support.
While in coalition locally, federally and in some states, in the inner suburbs of Melbourne the Greens are the major electoral challenger to Labor. The area of Yarra is part of the federal seat of Melbourne – the only lower house seat that Labor has lost to the Greens. The difference in Yarra compared to other inner city Councils is that it is also the only place that the Greens face a credible left-wing challenge in the Socialist Party.
Left-wing challenge to the Greens
It was clear from the election results that the work of the Socialist Party in the area is starting to become more widely recognised. For over 25 years now we have been involved in community campaigns in the area. Since 2004 we have also been the voice of opposition in the Council Chamber.
In this election, city wide, we managed to increase our vote from 12.16% in 2008 to 19.59% in 2012, with almost one in five people across the municipality voting socialist. This is by far the best result achieved by socialists anywhere in Australia in recent history.
Given that many people do not follow politics at a local level we see our vote as much more conscious than the votes for the other parties. While there is a layer who vote for the Socialist Party because we are anti-capitalist, most people who vote for us do so because they have been touched by our work or appreciate our local campaigning.
Our long term and consistent approach to community campaigning has meant that we have been successful in eating into the electoral support of the Labor Party and the Greens. Our highest votes were recorded at the booths where public housing tenants voted in big numbers, most of whom previously voted Labor.
At the Fitzroy Town Hall pre-poll booth near the Fitzroy estate we won 38.2%. At Collingwood College near the Collingwood estate we won 37.9% and at the Richmond estate, the biggest public housing estate in Victoria, and a stronghold of the Labor Party, we won an impressive 26% of the vote.
The Labor vote across Yarra went down by 1.88% while the Socialist Party vote increased by 7.43%. The Greens managed to increase their vote by 6.65% but this was largely due to the fact that they appealed to a more conservative constituency.
Many of the Greens candidates were extremely right-wing and would find themselves just as much at home in the Liberal Party. In fact one Greens candidate proudly described himself a Green with Liberal Party values while another was a former CEO.
Despite winning almost 20% of the vote the Socialist Party was rewarded with only 1 seat on the Council. In contrast the Labor Party won only 24.83% and was rewarded with 3 seats.
Langridge ward

Stephen Jolly, standing for the Socialist Party in the Langridge ward increased his vote to an impressive 34.24%. He topped the polls for the second time in a row. Stephen is by far the most popular Councillor at Yarra and is widely respected for his many years of struggle in the area.
Second elected in the Langridge ward was the lead Greens candidate, and the 2012 Labor Party Mayor scraped into the final spot on preferences. In the Langridge ward the Labor vote was reduced by 2.4%. With just a few hundred more votes it would have been possible for our second candidate, Mel Gregson, to be elected on preferences. Together Mel Gregson and Stephen Jolly won 37.06% of the vote – the highest of any party.
Melba ward
Our other sitting Councillor Anthony Main stood in the Melba ward this time around. The Socialist party has never had a Councillor on this area. It is also the area of Yarra where the Labor Party is strongest.
Anthony was asked by the party to change from Nicholls to the Melba ward given the huge amount of inappropriate development taking place in the area and the utter incompetence of the right-wing Labor, Greens and Independent Councillors. The Socialist Party Councillors have initiated and been involved in campaigns in this area, particularly in struggles between ordinary residents and big developers. In 2008 we polled a mere 2.13% in this ward.
This was always going to a difficult position to win but given the circumstances we did extremely well. Anthony polled 11.74% of the vote beating two sitting Councillors including a former Mayor. The first position was won by the Labor Party. Uniquely they managed to increase their vote, partly through the luck of appearing on the top of the ballot paper but largely because of the absence of the ‘ALP endorsed’ Independent that stood in 2008.
The Greens also managed to increase their vote – in this case by 15.14%. It seemed that the Greens won most of this increase from a conservative layer who voted for one or another of the right-wing Independents last time around.
The Labor Party won the first seat in Melba with the Greens winning the second. The third spot ended up being a close race between Anthony Main from the Socialist Party and Phillip Vlahogiannis, a right-wing Independent.
There was much speculation during the campaign about the motivations of Vlahogiannis. He claimed to stand against inappropriate development and against the overuse of parking waivers in new blocks of units, yet he decided to preference the Labor Party – the party who stand for exactly the opposite!
To make matters worse he was also photographed handing out Labor Party how-to-vote cards at a pre-polling booth. This suggests that he may be a Labor Party ‘stooge’ candidate, put there to edge out Labor’s opponents. Unfortunately these facts were ignored by the mainstream media and he managed to avoid any serious criticisms during the campaign.
He managed to win a significant vote amongst the large Greek community and received preferences from another right-wing Independent and from the Labor Party. This pushed him just in front of Anthony Main, winning him the last spot in the Melba ward.
Nicholls ward
The Nicholls ward was where we won our second Council seat via a count back in 2011, winning 5.55% in the last election. Due to the work that we have done in this area over the past two years, our candidates Chris Dite and David Elliott managed to almost double our vote to 10.81%.
Again a few hundred more votes at the expense of the Labor Party in this ward could have seen Chris Dite elected on preferences. In the end the Greens won the first position and right-wing Independent Jackie Fristacky won the second position. The Labor candidate scraped into the last spot on preferences and thanks to an advantageous position on the ballot paper, despite seeing Labor’s vote drop by 5.15% since 2008.
Mass campaign
While most of our vote came from a conscious layer of supporters our election campaign played a significant role in popularising our ideas and consolidating our support. Over the course of about 2 months we managed to letterbox over 90,000 leaflets and knock on the doors of almost 15,000 homes. We did regular street stalls and put up thousands of posters across the municipality.
All up more than 150 people helped during the campaign. Alongside our polling both volunteers, letterboxers and door knockers, dozens of musicians, comedians, DJs, film makers and artists helped with fundraising and publicity for the campaign.
Our long term work and active campaigning in Yarra has meant the term socialism has been rebranded in the area. Rather than socialist ideas being seen as a relic of the past, Socialist Party members are seen as the best fighters against big developer greed, for more council services and as the best representatives of ordinary people residents and public housing tenants.
In 2002 three Socialist Party candidates won 3.5% across Yarra. In 2004 our three candidates won 4.5% and in 2008 we won 12.1%. Our vote this year of nearly 20% clearly shows that people are not afraid of socialist ideas if they are explained clearly and made relevant to people’s everyday lives.

The Socialist Party will continue to play a role in all the major struggles in Yarra and continue to win support for socialist ideas amongst a growing layer of people. While campaigning Councillors can play a useful auxiliary role, as we have shown in Yarra, real change happens when people organise and mobilise in their workplaces, in their communities and on the streets.
The challenge ahead for the Socialist Party is expand this work, side by side with building our organisation so that we can spread these examples beyond Yarra. Stephen Jolly will continue to be the voice of opposition to the establishment parties inside the Council Chamber and we will continue to campaign on the ground.
This election demonstrated that a small party like ours is able to win significant support on the basis of socialist ideas and action. This shows the potential a new mass workers party would have, with the support of left-wing unions, community groups and other activists, to replicate this success on a much wider scale.
More and more people are becoming fed up with the rightward drift of the Labor Party and the inaction of the Greens. As the mining boom winds down and economic conditions begin to worsen a growing number of workers and young people are recognising the need for an alternative way of running society. We consider our work in Yarra an important contribution towards building the political alternative that is necessary.

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From The Pen Of Joshua Lawrence Breslin- When Horses Were Smarter Than Men-Steven Spielberg’s“War Horse”

Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for Steven Spielberg’s War Horse.

DVD Review

War Horse, starring horses, Jeremy Irvine, Emily Watson, directed by Steven Spielberg, DreamWorks Pictures, 2011

What is there not to like about a movie (even if based, or maybe particularly because it is based on a children’s novel) about a man (okay, a boy starting out) and his horse, their bonding together, their trials and tribulations and their successes (if that is an appropriate term in the midst of bloody carnage).Well, nothing, nothing on this good green earth (and the slice of England portrayed in the film is a very good example of that).

Nothing, except man getting in the way of an obviously smarter member of the animal kingdom, one Joey the horse. Why? Well, man and horse come of age just around the time of World War I when “civilized”Europe decided that a war to end all wars (they came up a little short, about 300 plus wars somewhere on the planet short since, on that proposition) was necessary to sort things out. So England and its colonies, France and its colonies, Russia and its colonies, and German and its colonies, decided to tear up half of continental Europe to see who the king hell king was anyway. And this war to end all wars happened to occur at just that point when humankind had exponentially increased its technological capacity to kill, to murder, and to maim at will.

But not at 2012 levels, so one Joey the horse got “drafted” into the war and wound up “serving,” one way or the other, both sides as beast of burden. But modern wars are not kind to those military whizzes who lived (pardon the expression) in the “horse and buggy era,” in the thinking of the last war, and so produced sickeningly destructive trench static warfare complete with barbed wire, maddened gas attacks, cavalry charges against fixed machine gun positions and used horse, including Joey (and his horse friend) to lug artillery into position. Madness, pure and simple.

And that is where Joey, unlike the Brits, Germans, etc. showed he was smarter than all those guys who knowingly and hopelessly kept going up over those bloody trenches without a murmur. When he had the chance he ran like hell, he“deserted” like any sane person would. And lived to tell about it (or have it told). Chalk one up for the horse set. And see this film as we near the one hundredth anniversary of the start of World War I in 1914.

From The Partisan Defense Committee

Workers Vanguard No. 1012	9 November 2012

Free the Class-War Prisoners!

27th Annual PDC Holiday Appeal

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

This year marks the 27th Holiday Appeal for class-war prisoners, those thrown behind bars for their opposition to racist capitalist oppression. The Partisan Defense Committee provides monthly stipends to 16 of these prisoners as well as holiday gifts for them and their families. This is a revival of the tradition of the early International Labor Defense (ILD) under its secretary and founder James P. Cannon. The stipends are a necessary expression of solidarity with the prisoners—a message that they are not forgotten.

Launching the ILD’s appeal for the prisoners, Cannon wrote, “The men in prison are still part of the living class movement” (“A Christmas Fund of our Own,” Daily Worker, 17 October 1927). Cannon noted that the stipends program “is a means of informing them that the workers of America have not forgotten their duty toward the men to whom we are all linked by bonds of solidarity.” This motivation inspires our program today. The PDC also continues to publicize the causes of the prisoners in the pages of Workers Vanguard, the PDC newsletter, Class-Struggle Defense Notes, and our Web site partisandefense.org. We provide subscriptions to WV and accompany the stipends with reports on the PDC’s work. In a recent letter, MOVE prisoner Eddie Africa wrote, “I received the letters and the money, thank you for both, it’s a good feeling to have friends remembering you with affection!”

The Holiday Appeal raises the funds for this vital program. The PDC provides $25 per month to the prisoners, and extra for their birthdays and during the holiday season. We would like to provide more. The prisoners generally use the funds for basic necessities: supplementing the inadequate prison diet, purchasing stamps and writing materials needed to maintain contact with family and comrades, and pursuing literary, artistic, musical and other pursuits to mollify a bit the living hell of prison. The costs of these have obviously grown, including the exponential growth in prison phone charges.

The capitalist rulers have made clear their continuing determination to slam the prison doors on those who stand in the way of brutal exploitation, imperialist depredations and racist oppression. We encourage WV readers, trade-union activists and fighters against racist oppression to dig deep for the class-war prisoners. The 16 class-war prisoners receiving stipends from the PDC are listed below:

*   *   *

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a former Black Panther Party spokesman, a well-known supporter of the MOVE organization and an award-winning journalist known as “the voice of the voiceless.” Last December the Philadelphia district attorney’s office announced it was dropping its longstanding efforts to execute America’s foremost class-war prisoner. While this brings to an end the legal lynching campaign, Mumia remains condemned to spend the rest of his life in prison with no chance of parole, despite overwhelming evidence of his innocence.

Mumia was framed up for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and was initially sentenced to death explicitly for his political views. Mountains of documentation proving his innocence, including the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, shot and killed Faulkner, have been submitted to the courts. But from top to bottom, the courts have repeatedly refused to hear the exculpatory evidence.

The state authorities hope that with the transfer of Mumia from death row his cause will be forgotten and that he will rot in prison until he dies. This must not be Mumia’s fate. Fighters for Mumia’s freedom must link his cause to the class struggles of the multiracial proletariat. Trade unionists, opponents of the racist death penalty and fighters for black rights must continue the fight to free Mumia from “slow death” row in the racist dungeons of Pennsylvania.

Leonard Peltier is an internationally renowned class-war prisoner. Peltier’s incarceration for his activism in the American Indian Movement has come to symbolize this country’s racist repression of its native peoples, the survivors of centuries of genocidal oppression. Peltier’s frame-up for the 1975 deaths of two marauding FBI agents in what had become a war zone on the South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation, shows what capitalist “justice” is all about. Although the lead government attorney has admitted, “We can’t prove who shot those agents,” and the courts have acknowledged blatant prosecutorial misconduct, the 68-year-old Peltier is still locked away. Peltier suffers from multiple serious medical conditions and is incarcerated far from his people and family. He is not scheduled to be reconsidered for parole for another 12 years!

Eight MOVE members—Chuck Africa, Michael Africa, Debbie Africa, Janet Africa, Janine Africa, Delbert Africa, Eddie Africa and Phil Africa—are in their 35th year of prison. They were sentenced to 30-100 years after the 8 August 1978 siege of their Philadelphia home by over 600 heavily armed cops, having been falsely convicted of killing a police officer who died in the cops’ own cross fire. In 1985, eleven of their MOVE family members, including five children, were massacred by Philly cops when a bomb was dropped on their living quarters. After more than three decades of unjust incarceration, these innocent prisoners are routinely turned down at parole hearings. None have been released.

Lynne Stewart is a radical lawyer sentenced to ten years for defending her client, a blind Egyptian cleric imprisoned for an alleged plot to blow up New York City landmarks in the early 1990s. For this advocate known for defense of Black Panthers, radical leftists and others reviled by the capitalist state, her sentence may well amount to a death sentence as she is 73 years old and suffers from breast cancer. Originally sentenced to 28 months, her resentencing more than quadrupled her prison time in a loud affirmation by the Obama administration that there will be no letup in the massive attack on democratic rights under the “war on terror.” This year her appeal of the onerous sentence was turned down.

Jaan Laaman and Thomas Manning are the two remaining anti-imperialist activists known as the Ohio 7 still in prison, convicted for their roles in a radical group that took credit for bank “expropriations” and bombings of symbols of U.S. imperialism, such as military and corporate offices, in the late 1970s and ’80s. Before their arrests in 1984 and 1985, the Ohio 7 were targets of massive manhunts. Their children were kidnapped at gunpoint by the Feds.

The Ohio 7’s politics were once shared by thousands of radicals during the Vietnam antiwar movement and by New Leftists who wrote off the possibility of winning the working class to a revolutionary program and saw themselves as an auxiliary of Third World liberation movements. But, like the Weathermen before them, the Ohio 7 were spurned by the “respectable” left. From a proletarian standpoint, the actions of these leftist activists against imperialism and racist injustice are not a crime. They should not have served a day in prison.

Ed Poindexter and Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa are former Black Panther supporters and leaders of the Omaha, Nebraska, National Committee to Combat Fascism. They were victims of the FBI’s deadly COINTELPRO operation under which 38 Black Panther Party members were killed and hundreds more imprisoned on frame-up charges. Poindexter and Mondo were railroaded to prison and sentenced to life for a 1970 explosion that killed a cop, and they have now spent more than 40 years behind bars. Nebraska courts have repeatedly denied Poindexter and Mondo new trials despite the fact that a crucial piece of evidence excluded from the original trial, a 911 audio tape long-suppressed by the FBI, proved that testimony of the state’s key witness was perjured.

Hugo Pinell, the last of the San Quentin 6 still in prison, has been in solitary isolation for more than four decades. He was a militant anti-racist leader of prison rights organizing along with George Jackson, his comrade and mentor, who was gunned down by prison guards in 1971. Despite numerous letters of support and no disciplinary write-ups for over 28 years, Pinell was again denied parole in 2009. Now in his 60s, Pinell continues to serve a life sentence at the notorious torture chamber, Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit in California, a focal point for hunger strikes against grotesquely inhuman conditions.

Send your contributions to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013; (212) 406-4252.

Dear Friend,   Monday, November 19, at 5:30PM, Boston University School of Law will host a screening the film "Doctors of the Darkside." A panel discussion on doctors' role in the US's torture programs will follow. The panel will feature BU Law alum, Cmdr. Suzanne Lachelier, a lawyer and Commander with the US military, as well as Kristine Huskey, Director of Physicians for Human Rights' anti-torture program and Boston University School of Public Health professors Dr. Michael Grodin and George Annas. Exploring the legal and medical dimensions of the use of torture and the war on terror, the panelists will discuss current efforts in the legislature to address doctors' complicity. Join us Monday, November 19, at 5:30PM in Room 1270 at the Boston University School of Law, 765 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA 02215. The event is free and open to the public. There is limited seating, so please arrive early. Refreshments will be provided. Tickets may be reserved with registration online. View the "Doctors of the Darkside" website for additional information. Hope to see you there, Samantha A. Peetros Communications Specialist Bill of Rights Defense Committee 8 Bridge Street, Suite A, Northampton, MA 01060 www.bordc.org info@bordc.org Telephone: 413-582-0110 Fax: 413-582-0116

Bradley Manning acknowledges act of conscience

Bradley Manning acknowledges act of conscience Hundreds rally for Bradley at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Army PFC Bradley Manning, awaiting trial for allegedly sharing thousands of classified documents with the transparency website WikiLeaks, offered to accept responsibility for a narrow set of offenses within the currently charged offenses this week during a pre-trial hearing at Fort Meade, Maryland. “PFC Manning is not pleading guilty to the specifications as charged by the Government,” noted PFC Manning’s attorney David Coombs on his blog. Nor is he “submitting a plea as part of an agreement or deal with the Government.” “Like most supporters, I’ve backed Bradley Manning on the belief that he was the heroic whistle-blower in question,” explained Jeff Paterson of the Bradley Manning Support Network. “Now that Bradley appears to have acknowledged this in court, its reason to redouble efforts to support him leading up to his February court martial.” If Bradley’s plea offer is accepted, the parties would likely be able to bypass weeks of forensics testimony that would be required to prove Bradley accessed and/or transmitted the classified documents at issue. The court martial proceedings might then focus on what Mr. Coombs has long contended: That the release of these documents brought little to no harm to U.S. national security, and that PFC Manning’s motives, if he did release them, were to expose crime, fraud, corporate malfeasance, and abuse. Read more... Take action November 27th - December 3rd November 27-December 2, 2012, Bradley Manning's defense will be facing off with the military prosecution in Ft. Meade to argue that all charges be dismissed because of "unlawful pretrial punishment". At this extremely important hearing, Bradley's lawyer David Coombs will focus on the abuse Bradley endured in Quantico, VA, which was declared by UN Chief Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez to be "cruel, inhuman and degrading." We are calling for rallies at local military recruiting offices and U.S. embassies during this hearing. Go here to learn more. Following the hearing, on December 3, at 7pm EST, defense lawyer David Coombs will make his first ever public appearance to provide an overview of pending defense motions before the court and other facts regarding U.S. v. Manning. This event, taking place at All Soul's Church in Washington DC, will also be live-streamed atbradleymanning.org We ask that you consider organizing a group viewing of the presentation. Go here to register, if you wish to host a public event. Donate now to the Bradley Manning defense fund. For more information about the defense fund click here. Report from the courtroom At this week’s motions hearing for Bradley Manning, the government called three witnesses to the stand to testify regarding the defense’s motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy trial. On Wednesday, Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, Investigating Officer for Manning’s Article 32 pretrial hearing, explained why he excluded several days in December 2011 from Manning’s speedy trial clock – some were federal holidays, he took his son to a swim meet one weekend, and for the others he simply went to work at his civilian job for the Department of Justice instead. Almanza also said he would’ve accepted witness testimony regarding the classification of documents, which would have obviated the long wait for Original Classification Authorities to submit their reviews. Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, at right, as I.O. of Bradley's pretrial hearing in December 2011. (Sketch by William J. Hennessy Jr.) Bert Haggett, information security official for the Army, testified to explain the classification review process and his role in handling documents in Manning’s case. Haggett examined classified documents and determined to which government agencies to refer them for review. He tried to justify the extremely long review process, saying that it could take upwards of a full year. Also of interest Wednesday was the briefly mentioned plea offering that Manning has submitted. Manning is offering a plea by exceptions and submissions to lesser-included offenses (notably, he’s not pleading to anything the government is charging him with). The court will rule on whether to accept these as lesser-included offenses, and what the maximum punishments are for several offenses. This plea offering isn’t legally binding: if the court rejects the offer, Manning can withdraw it without conceding guilt. On his blog, defense lawyer David Coombs announced that Manning has decided to be adjudicated by military judge Col. Denise Lind at trial, instead of a military jury. On Thursday, Col. Carl Coffman – Special Court Martial Convening Authority – testified all day about his approval and exclusion from the speedy trial clock of the government’s many pre-arraignment delays. Coffman revealed that he made almost no effort whatsoever to expedite the classification process, relying solely on vague updates from the prosecution and signing off on government-written approval memos with little consideration for Manning’s right to a speedy trial. Bradley will return to court November 27-December 2 to resume portions of the speedy trial litigation and to litigate the Article 13 motion to dismiss for unlawful pretrial punishment. The remainder of the speedy trial motion will conclude December 10-14, at Ft. Meade. Notes from day 1. Notes from day 2.

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