Northbay MDS meeting agenda (work in progress)
for Tuesday, June 30th, 2015
Voting members and organizations are asked to provide agenda topics no later than Monday evening.
Individual members are encouraged to take action, to sign petitions and make donations.
PASSED, 2) That the Northbay MDS sign the Honduras Solidarity Network petition
The US government continues to militarize its foreign and domestic policies on behalf of the military and prison industrial complexes, for the benefit of transnational corporations. June 28 marks the sixth anniversary of the US-supported military coup in Honduras, a country that exemplifies the moral bankruptcy of this policy, and serves as a warning for what is happening in our own communities.
Circulate the petitions in your community to take a stand, and to build opposition to militarization.
* Online petition [SOAW.org/honduraspetition]
* Printable petition (B/W) [http://is.gd/kyLUPo]
* Printable petition (Color) [http://is.gd/24rdxj]
PASSED, 3) That the Northbay MDS donate to Greg McCain's fundraiser for Human rights accompaniment in Honduras [crowdrise.com/humanrightsobservationhonduras/fundraiser/gregmccain]: I have been volunteering in Honduras as a long term on-the-ground human rights monitor for 3 years. In that time I have accompanied the peasant farmers (campesinos) in the northern Aguán Valley as they struggle for a sustainable livelihood. I have twice been present during the exhumations of campesinos who violently lost their lives at the hands of the private guards of Corporation Dinant, a large African Palm producing company that acquired much of their land through swindles and bribery. The Honduran Military and Police have also actively sought to criminalize the campesinos, and the Honduran government has denied the campesinos of sustainable markets syphoning of aid to give to the large corporations. I have also been present at numerous evictions, monitoring the violent behaviour of the police and military as well as the privet guards. I have accompanied campesinos to police stations to monitor how they were being treated and took their testimonies of the violent evictions. I also go to courthouses to monitor the process of the judicial system, one that is heavily weighted against the poor and is there to further enrich the ruling elite. On several occasions I have accompanied people who needed to flee the region or country because of death threats or actual attacks. Many of these occurred after the person went to the Public Prosecutor to file a complaint of receiving a death threat. The Public Prosecutor almost never investigates these complaints and are often working in tandem with those making the threats. I have also been accompanying the Political Prisoner Jose Isabel "Chabelo" Morales who has been unjustly incarcerated for close to 7 years. The Supreme Court has annulled his conviction TWICE, but he remains in prison waiting for seemingly endless retrials. It is a clear example of the criminalization of campesinos. The donations that I receive enable me to continue the much needed accompaniment of those who are sturggling for dignity and justice against a corrupt government that has the full support and financial aid of the US government.
PASSED, 4) That the Northbay MDS supports the International Peoples' Tribunal being organized by BAYAN, USA, a coalition of Filipino groups along with other organizations. The tribunal will take place in Washington, DC, July 16 - 18. The Tribunal will hear testimony about crimes against the Filipino people by President Benigno S. Aquino and the U.S. Government as represented by President Barack Obama. For information on the proceedings, the Jurors, the cases to be heard, the human rights and social justice organizations that are conveners of the tribunal, please go to: [InternationalPeoplesTribunal.org]
The Northbay MDS is asked to promote the results of the proceedings in our media, including on our FM radio news hour, and inquire on scheduling an interview with a member of BAYAN.
PASSED, 6) That the Northbay MDS support the campaign to Free Simon Trinidad (aka Ricardo Palmera) by signing their petition and inquiring about an interview on our FM radio news program.
* More information [freericardopalmera.org], archived homepage [archive.is/7uDNA]
* Printable petition [http://is.gd/96pGA2]
Hosted by Dr.G., Minister of Information of the Northbay MDS.Tune in Thursdays 4 to 5pm (PST), at 89.5FM in the northeast San Pablo Bay Area, or on a Smart Phone[link], Desktop U-stream [link], Live Mp3 (.pls) stream [link], Netbook [link]. Be a Community Journalist with our Community Journalist's Notebook [link]. Send news & info to [NorthbayMDS@) gmail.com]! Northbay Uprising News scripts [link]. Archived webpages at (archive.org) and at (archive.today) are available even if the original is taken down. News links are provided for educational purposes only, and do not constitute an endorsement of political tendencies, or, of foreign governments.
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Interview with... Dave Ransom, of the New Press newspaper in the Northbay, and the People's Tribune national newspaper, to talk about the New Class of workers being displaced from the advancement of robotics in the workplace, and what this means for YOUR future!
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InDIYpendent Media
Spotlight from the Northbay Uprising Media Collective
Nuclear Resister E-bulletin
* May 2015 [archive.is/vlxNw]: "Sabotage conviction overturned; Sr. Megan, Michael and Greg released from prison!"; "Five nuclear abolitionists arrested at Mother’s Day action at Trident sub base" ; "Please support imprisoned anti-nuclear and anti-war activists – The Nuclear Resister needs YOU!"
* April 2015 [archive.is/9dwOb]: "Nuclear abolitionists block doors to the U.S. Mission to the U.N.; 22 arrested" ; "Sixteen arrested stopping traffic at busy main gate of California drone base" ; "Faslane nuclear weapons base blockade results in 34 arrests"
CCDSLinks: Radical Ideas for Radical Change
* "Police Violence: From One Outrage to the Next..." and other stories (2015-06-12) [archive.is/iWYhM]
The Soapbox People's Network
* "Scumbags of a Feather" (2015-06-14) [archive.is/eUQaj], Cindy Sheehen interviews Ray O' Light about the corporatist power-grab that is the TPP, and how Republicans are being used to give Obama the cover ("look at what those evil Republicans are up to") to pass a law that will benefit the global-elite and hurt the "99%" .
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ACTION HEADLINES! Stories are reviewed and provided by Northbay MDS Committees and Affiliates
Music to read the news with... press play... it's time for the Revolution.
information collected by the SOLANO PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM COALITION
[www.ussocialforum.net]
USLAW is organizing this San Jose workshop: The Path to a Sustainable, Demilitarized and Just Economy [https://www.ussocialforum.net/node/528]
Friday, June 26 from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m.,at UFCW Local 5 (240 S. Market Street, San Jose) The antiwar and environmental movements both talk about "just transition", but only in relation to their own issues. This workshop will explore how to bring antiwar, environmental, labor and racial & economic justice movements together to struggle for a common just transition to an economy that is sustainable, demilitarized, equitable and just - one that provides a decent standard of living for everyone.
Participants will define what a "just transition" might be and how to unite their movements to fight for it. How can we create the economy we want - one that is free from dependence on fossil fuels, the military-industrial complex, exploited labor and racial barriers - without making those who now work in those sectors and the community dependent on them road kill on the road to a new economy?
What is the US Social Forum? The third US Social Forum will be an important step in our struggle to build a powerful multi-racial, multi-sectoral, inter-generational, diverse, inclusive, internationalist movement that transforms this country and changes history.
The US Social Forum (USSF) is a movement building process. It is not a conference but it is a space to come up with the peoples’ solutions to the economic and ecological crisis. The USSF is politically and economically independent, and is led by impacted communities. We are not beholden to the power structure, nor to the large institutional funders (sometimes described as the "non-profit industrial complex"). We certainly welcome institutional funders to collaborate with us, but we do not allow fundraising tail to dictate our work.
We must declare what we want our world to look like and we must start planning the path to get there. The USSF provides spaces to learn from each other’s experiences and struggles, share our analysis of the problems our communities face, build relationships, and align with our international brothers and sisters to strategize how to reclaim our world.
Where is the US Social Forum being held?
June 24-28: In San Jose the Forum will be centralized at Washington United Youth Center, 921 S. First St, in San Jose along with series of community venues and spaces.
On the Edge of Silicon Valley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDq23hwy2co
Shamako Noble: [408-624-2999] Executive Director, National Coordinator, US Social Forum
[http://www.ussocialforum.net]
http://www.ussfphilly.org]
http://www.ussfsanjose.com]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKjKkFNnaS8]
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* Communities in Resistance
Please help Pedro Canales of Zacate Grande, HN come to the United States to
accept the first Communities in Resistance Award, which seeks to celebrate
the struggle of communities as they fight for their survival in the face of
globalization in post-coup Honduras. The International Committee of the
National Lawyer's Guild has agreed to host Pedro as he receives the award
at their reception during the 2015 Law for the People Convention
<https://www.nlg.org/2015-law-people-convention> in Oakland this October.
Funds are currently being raised to support his travel to and from the
United States as well as to facilitate a small speaking tour in the Bay
Area, New England, and New York.
You can support Pedro's travel here:
https://org2.salsalabs.com/o/7315/donate_page/communities-in-resistance
The community of Zacate Grande has fought their eviction by Miguel Facusse
<http://www.soaw.org/about-us/equipo-sur/263-stories-from-honduras/4085-zacategrantethreats>
and Dinant corporation for several years. As a neighbor of Amapala, the
proposed site of one the first ZEDEs
<http://panampost.com/belen-marty/2015/05/13/honduras-presses-ahead-for-zede-liftoff-in-june/>,
Zacate Grande is threatened with even more imminent eviction, and the
residents, and community leaders like Pedro, will likely face even greater
threats of violence and other coercion than before
<http://www.resistenciahonduras.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2682:pedro-canales-en-riesgo--sabotean-su-vehiculo-y-hombres-armados-lo-amenazan&catid=95:resistencia&Itemid=334>.
Please help Pedro spread the word.
Any questions may be directed to Tyler Ingraham at Tyler.Ingraham@gmail.com.
Tyler is a law student and research assistant for Profession Lauren
Carasik, as well as a Haywood Burns Fellow with the National Lawyers Guild.
He is very interested in finding potential locations for Pedro to speak in
Boston and New York and points in between following the NLG Conference.
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The Los Angeles affiliate to the Friends of the World Peace Council. Find us on the web at [lapeacecouncil.org] [facebook.com/groups/losangelespeacecouncil]. Our mission is to build an anti-imperialist United Front organization to defeat the fascist danger as it is manifested in Ukraine and Venezuela. Our objective is to smash NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the greatest threat to peace. Want to help? Join with us! E-mail us at [lapeacecouncil@) outlook.com] to get started!
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* "LET’S STOP TPP IN ITS FAST TRACK! TPP: ECONOMIC EMBODIMENT OF THE U.S. EMPIRE’S WAR AT HOME AND ABROAD" (2015-05-29, Revolutionary Organization of Labor) [archive.is/E4ki5]
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Comments on the United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC) Conference [UNACpeace.org]
Just one month ago, the United National Antiwar Coalition held a unique national gathering. Under the main theme of "Stop the Wars at Home and Abroad" the conference was able to pull together diverse struggles against U.S. wars on a global scale while giving full attention to the uprising against police violence. Panelists linked labor and community struggles against austerity and the growing cost of U.S. wars. Despite the diverse topics the conference was cohesive and the mood was overwhelmingly enthusiastic and reflected great determination to build unity and resistance.
We are encouraged by the strong turnout of over 400 activists, who registered from 29 states representing 116 different organizations. Delegates also came from Canada, Britain, Germany and Ukraine as well as a number of now-U.S.-based activists representing struggles in their home countries of Colombia, Haiti, Honduras, Iran, Mexico, Palestine, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Syria and Venezuela. The conference also received solidarity messages from Cuba, Ireland, New Zealand and Russia. A beautiful 32 page conference journal included solidarity greetings from hundreds of organizations and individuals.
Conference participants took part in six plenary session and 28 workshops. The entire conference was also seen by thousands of others who watched or listened to the conference by video or audio livestream.
You can see videos of the plenary sessions and a few of the workshops and other events on our Conference Website [archive.is/ZrPeF] where they are identified by the original schedule which functions as a menu. Here you can find videos and sound recordings suitable for radio. The Action Plan that came out of the Conference is also on the Conference Website along with links [archive.is/3VclN].
On the home page of the UNAC Peace Website you can read a detailed report of the events of the conference along with the videos of the conference and information about UNAC’s other activities.
Here are report backs by some of our guests:
* The New Jersey Journal, a local newspaper printed a great article about the conference, by Rev. Alexander Santora, “Faith Matters: Jersey City group envisions peace, works to make it real” . It ran in the hard copy paper as well as on the internet [archive.is/kSJ79].
* Bruce Gagnon of Keep Space for Peace, Organizing Notes: Notes on the UNAC Conference [archive.is/GQaiU]
* Socialist Action: "UNAC Conference Draws 400 Activists" [archive.is/gpm01]
* Workers World: "Conference: ‘End wars at home and abroad’ " [archive.is/DEEkD]
* Fight Back News: "United National Antiwar Coalition conference a big success" [archive.is/v3ibq]
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* "The ISO and the war on Syria: Silly and shameful" (2013-09-11, fightbacknews.org) [archive.is/ZtFkY], an article showing how even certain anti-war groups adopt the USA State Department's party-line.
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* "IRAQI UNIONS STILL NEED OUR SOLIDARITY" message of solidarity (2015-06-06, USLaborAgainstTheWar.org):
You will have to search very hard to find any mention of the Iraqi labor movement or worker struggles in the U.S. media (including most progressive media). But the class struggle is alive and well in Iraq!
Iraqi unions are involved in a multi-front war of their own.
First, they must battle their government, which continues to enforce a union-hostile Saddam-era labor law that forbids public sector and public enterprise workers from organizing a union or negotiating over the terms of their employment. Even though their new constitution recognizes the right to organize, more than a dozen years after their "liberation", Iraq unions are still fighting to get Parliament to enact a new labor law that fully respects the right of all workers to organize and bargain in the unions of their choice.
Second, they are fighting to defend Iraq's natural resources and public assets from exploitation by multinational corporations that flocked to Iraq on the heels of the U.S. military to pillage and plunder in Iraq's new U.S.-imposed "open for business" economy.
Third, they are engaged in daily struggles with their employers to protect their health and safety, obtain timely payment of their wages, respect their rights and resolve their grievances.
Fourth, they must work to avoid being sucked into the sectarian conflict between Sunnis, Shi'ites and Kurds. Iraqi unions remain committed to a non-sectarian democratic pluralist labor movement and civil society, with respect for the rights of all, in a unified sovereign country.
Fifth, they now are also forced to confront and defend themselves from foreign terrorists like the so-called Islamic State, al Qaeda and other salafist extremists. Their workplaces have come under attack. Their homes and families are threatened. Their leaders have been kidnapped and murdered.
Iraqi unions need our help and solidarity.
Solidarity with the Iraqi labor movement has been a hallmark of USLAW's work since its founding in 2003. We set up the Iraq Labor Solidarity Fund to provide concrete aid to Iraqi unions and to underwrite the cost of sending delegations to and bringing delegations from Iraq.
USLAW sent its first delegation to Iraq in 2003 just months after the invasion to establish contact with Iraqi unions that were forming and organizing in the wake of the downfall of Saddam Hussein. Other delegations followed in 2004, 2009 and 2012. USLAW brought Iraqi union leaders to the US in 2005, 2007, 2009 and 2013. Learn more by clicking Our Work->International Solidarity->Iraq Labor Solidarity on the USLAW website. [uslaboragainstwar.org/section.php?id=8]
YOUR DONATION WILL HELP IRAQI
UNIONS SUSTAIN THEIR STRUGGLE!
Donate here: [actionnetwork.org/fundraising/make-a-contribution-to-us-labor-against-the-wars-iraq-labor-solidarity-fund?can_id=cb390bb7c415707b78c58de901e8e704]
* "Making a Comeback Iraq’s Labor Unions" (2010-02-19, counterpunch.org) [archive.is/wzorc]
* "IN IRAQ, PUBLIC-SECTOR WORKERS STAND UP FOR THEIR RIGHTS" (2015-03-18, solidaritycenter.org) [archive.is/hFpc8]
* "USLAW May Day 2015 Message to Iraqi Unions" (2015-05-01) [archive.is/0xB93]
* "More than 10 years of change in Iraq and still the laws of the Saddam dictatorship hang on the necks of workers and their union organizations" (2015-05-13, solidaritycenter.org) [archive.is/OsSTI]
* "17,000 Iraqi workers threaten strike over unpaid wages, austerity and threat of privatization" (2015-05-29, solidaritycenter.org/iraq-trade-union-bulletin) [archive.is/OT5LH]
* "Iraqi Workers and Their Unions under ISIS" (2015-05-29, solidaritycenter.org) [archive.is/cr59F], original (.pdf) [is.gd/ZQgoxt]
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* "Pelosi urges Dems to vote against defense bill" (2015-06-10, thehill.com) [archive.is/yg2wN]. USLaborAgainstWar.org writes: The GOP wants to pour tens of billions of dollars more than the president requested into the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) budget that is supposed to be used only to pay the costs of war. This will create a giant slush fund the military brass can use to purchase things that should be paid from its base budget. The Pentagon budget has NEVER been audited. It is riddled with waste, fraud and abuse. There is more than enough money in its base budget to pay for whatever the Pentagon needs, while social services, jobs programs, public infrastructure and other programs to meet vital human needs are being starved.
* "Pentagon looks at reoccupying Iraqi bases" (2015-06-11, ft.com) [archive.is/BlsSR]
* "US mission could expand to more bases in Iraq: Pentagon" (2015-06-11, AFP Newswire) [archive.is/ISGdD]
* "The Future of Outsourced Warfare" (2015-06-12, whowhatwhy.org) [archive.is/4bnDS]. whowhatwhy.org writes: Blackwater may have become a symbol of all that can go wrong when government contractors outnumber trained military personnel, but what really happened in the killing fields of Iraq and Afghanistan? WhoWhatWhy’s Jeff Schechtman sits down with Blackwater founder Erik Prince to discuss the history and future of “outsourced” warfare.
* "Why the war in Iraq was fought for Big Oil" (2013-04-15, cnn.com) [archive.is/ulACb]
* "Fewer in U.S. View Iraq, Afghanistan Wars as Mistakes" (2015-06-12, gallup.com) [archive.is/ZQukn]. whowhatwhy.org writes: They say that hindsight is 20/20, but it looks like Americans didn’t get that memo. Over the last year the number of Americans who see the two wars as a mistake has dropped rather sharply, from 57% to 51% on Iran, and 49% to 42% on Afghanistan. And Democrats are part of that trend… which bodes well for Hillary Clinton and the question of her support for Iraq.
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* "Why Is Washington Still Pushing for War With Russia? Despite today’s vote in the House to bar US funding to a neo-Nazi Ukrainian militia, the ‘war party’ continues to rattle its sabers over Ukraine" (2015-06-11, thenation.com) [archive.is/brgLH]
* "Hillary Clinton Labels Russia, Iran, N Korea ‘Traditional Threats’ to US" (2015-06-14, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/EfFpT]
* "Confused by Own Propaganda: Americans Ready to Go to War With Russia" (2015-06-014, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/wsZCz] [begin excerpt]: According to the latest poll conducted by the Pew Research Center, a US independent fact tank, many NATO countries are reluctant to defend their allies against Russia with the exception of the United States and Canada: over 50 percent of Americans and Canadians would not oppose going to war with Russia. [end excerpt]
* "Public in NATO countries against arming Ukraine: poll" (2015-06-10, AFP Newswire) [archive.is/DmZDF]
* "Putin Says US Imperial Footprint Unmatched: 'Draw a Map and See' " (2015-06-09, commondreams.org) [archive.is/cLVle] [begin excerpt]: Responding to ongoing brinkmanship between the United States and his country, Russian President Vladimir Putin dared reporters to publish a map of the two nations' global military footprints and then "see the difference."The comments came over the weekend as G7 leaders assembled in Bavaria, Germany—a meeting which, prior to the recent upheaval in Ukraine, would have also included Russia. On Monday, U.S. President Barack Obama closed the summit by saying that the Russian leader was aiming to "recreate the Soviet empire."G7 leaders stood united in their threat to increase sanctions against Russia if the conflict in Ukraine escalates."Does he continue to wreck his country’s economy and continue Russia’s isolation in pursuit of a wrong-headed desire to recreate the glories of the Soviet empire?" Obama asked in his closing remarks. "Or does he recognize that Russia’s greatness does not depend on violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries?" However, Obama's accusations of Russia violating the "sovereignty of other countries" are striking in light of the United States' own military strategy, which Putin highlighted days earlier in a Saturday interview with the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera."U.S. military spending is higher than that of all countries in the world taken together," Putin said. "The aggregate military spending of NATO countries is 10 times, note—10 times higher than that of the Russian Federation."Outside of what he described as the "remnants" of Soviet-era armed forces in Tajikistan, Armenia, and zones with high terrorist threat such as the Afghanistan border and Kyrgyzstan, Putin said that "Russia has virtually no bases abroad.""We have dismantled our bases in various regions of the world, including Cuba, Vietnam, and so on," he said.And despite statements about Russian aggression, this draw-down highlights a policy that "in this respect is not global, offensive or aggressive.""I invite you to publish the world map in your newspaper and to mark all the U.S. military bases on it," Putin continued. "You will see the difference."Amid the verbal sparring match, the U.S. military also took steps to increase pressure on the ground.On Friday, U.S. Strategic Command announced that three nuclear-capable B52 bombers were being deployed in addition to two B2 bombers to the United Kingdom for exercises to demonstrate "the United States’ ability to project its flexible, long-range global strike capability" in training missions over the Baltic states and Poland.
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* "The Truth About Diego Garcia And 50 Years of Fiction About an American Military Base" (2015-06-14, tomdispatch.com) [archive.is/uIJA4]
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* "Washington’s death squads" (2015-06-09, wsws.org) [archive.is/v4Vlg] [begin excerpt]: In a lengthy article published Sunday, the New York Times provided a glimpse into the criminal and grisly methods employed by Seal Team 6, a secret unit within the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).
The unit was made famous by the phony accounts of its assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, cover stories that were blown last month by veteran journalist Seymour Hersh, who exposed the operation as the cold-blooded murder of an unarmed and decrepit individual who had been fingered by Pakistani intelligence.
What the Times account makes clear—whatever the newspaper’s intentions and its undoubted vetting of its material with the Pentagon and the White House—is that in the pursuit of its global interests, the United States government has become ever more dependent upon the murderous operations of secret death squads.
The newspaper quotes a Pentagon spokesman as saying that the number of missions carried out by Seal Team 6 and other special operations units has risen to the “tens of thousands” since 2001. The victims killed by Seal Team 6, whose very existence the US military refuses to acknowledge, number in the thousands, the vast majority of them unidentified individuals with no link to any plot or threat against the US itself. [end excerpt]
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This essay was first published by antiwar.com in April 2001, barely 5 months before the September 11, 2001 attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.
It was subsequently published by Global Research when the site was launched in September 2001.
What is of utmost significance is that US military operatives on contract the Pentagon were involved in providing support to separatist forces with links to al Qaeda.
* "US Finances Ethnic Warfare in the Balkans" (2001-04-03, by Michel Chossudovsky, Emperor'sClothes.com) [archive.is/bsyLx] [begin excerpt]: While Washington supports the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, it is at the same time – behind the scenes – funneling money and military hardware to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) now engaged in a border war with the Macedonian Security Forces. In a cruel irony, Washington is arming and advising both the KLA attackers and the Macedonian defenders under military and intelligence authorization acts approved by the US Congress. Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI), a mercenary outfit on contract to the Pentagon, is helping Macedonia – as part of a US military aid package – "to deter armed aggression and defend Macedonian territory." But MPRI is also advising and equipping the KLA, which is responsible for the terrorist assaults. In this war, the American military-intelligence apparatus is pulling strings "on both sides of the fence." What is the hidden agenda?
"[The] United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same human values and principles ... Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values."(Senator Joseph Lieberman, quoted in the Washington Post, 28 April 1999) [end excerpt]
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* "Wanted: NGO Whistleblowers" (2015-06-15, thesaker.is) [archive.is/xyGEv] [begin excerpt]: NGOs operate as the vanguard for regime change operations, and they’ve usually embed themselves within the state’s social fabric long before the directive is given to launch their coup attempt. Often times, they may not explicitly operate as an open force of anti-government activity, instead choosing misleading names that associate their brand more with social work than political agitation. This is also seen through their promoted activities, which seek to exude a ‘neutral’ vibe such as feeding the jobless and sheltering the homeless. Via these disarming mechanisms, they’re able to expand their web of support and dupe advocates into believing in the non-political nature of their activities. In and of itself, there’s nothing necessarily ‘illegal’ about this process, no matter how unethical it may be for a political organization to hide behind the veneer of social activity, but the problem becomes paramount when such a front organization is under foreign influence.
Foreign-funded political NGOs hiding behind a social mask clearly have ulterior motives, and it’s their secretive intentions and connections with various intelligence agencies that worry state leaders. They know that a widely established and highly ‘reputable’ social NGO could already impact the public discourse, and if such an organization suddenly decides to politicize itself, it’s likely that most of their recruits and broad network of supporters will follow in tune, thereby creating a sizeable political movement supposedly out of ‘nowhere’. In reality, that was the intent all along – to politicize a disparate network of seemingly unconnected social NGOs into a unified political force of regime change – but if the public and its decision makers aren’t aware of this ahead of time, the resultant black hole of social chaos can be strong enough to pull in more supporters while simultaneously collapsing the central gravity of state power.
The key innovation here was the unveiling of a hybrid strategy that used a Color Revolution as the basis for sparking an Unconventional War, as was seen in Libya and is still ongoing in Syria. The same thing was attempted in Ukraine shortly before the February 2014 coup, when the western reaches of the country were in full-scale armed rebellion against Kiev. The US already indoctrinated the global masses to accept such a scenario through Newsweek’s announcement that Ukraine was on the verge of actual civil war. As a double innovation, however, sniper attacks were ordered in the capital at the same time that part of the country was gearing up for a total revolt, and this double whammy of pressure broke the personal resolve of Yanukovich in resisting the regime change operation. As a result, he unexpectedly capitulated to the Color Revolutionaries, but in a move that no one could have anticipated, the ‘opposition’ staged a coup not even 24 hours after the ink was dry on Yanukovich’s surrender agreement. This surprise regime change success canceled the Unconventional War plans being hatched in Western Ukraine, but it’s salient to note that had it not been for the unforeseen sniper attacks and consequent coup, the US was ready to turn Ukraine into Syria via the application of its hybrid regime change warfare that was originally spearheaded by foreign-funded anti-government NGOs.
[end excerpt]
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BAY AREA SOLIDARITY
Updates on campaigns for for Peace, Justice, & Freedom across the greater Bay Area, Norcal, and Socal
* " 'From the Ground Up': A National Action Plan for Community Policing and Racial Justice" (2015-06-11, commondreams.org) [archive.is/oDVIc]
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Justice 4 DEMOURIA HOGG, assassinated by OPD on 6-6-15 [facebook.com/groups/391651944353829]
* "Family grieves for man shot and killed by Oakland police" (2015-06-08, mercurynews.com) [archive.is/g1qJQ]
* "Shot for Sleeping in His Car: Vigil for Demouria Hogg" article and photos (2015-06-14, by Daniela Kantorova) [archive.is/kr8Qh]
* "Shot while sleeping in car: rally & vigil for Demouria Hoggs" event page [archive.is/nCeTj], twenty photos [archive.is/hXIXR], two photos [archive.is/kMYVA].
* #BlacklivesmatterOakland, fourty-five photos [archive.is/xBD8g]: Oakland came out tonight to pay respect to the Hogg Family and their friends. Demouria Hogg was murdered by a Oakland Police officer on June 6, 2015. Community members came together in remembrance and solidarity while demanding Justice. #shutitdown
Coalition on Homelessness writes [facebook.com/CoalitionOnHomelessness]: 70% of homeless people were denied the #Right2Rest and forced to move from a public space in the past year. Join us next Thursday, when we release our report, Punishing the Poorest: How SF's Criminalization of Homelessness Perpetuates Poverty.
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The Justice for Kenneth Harding campaign will be honoring the anniversary of his death in San Francisco Bayview in July.
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As we all gather to watch our Oakland Warriors beat the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals, we gotta give a shout out to the Oracle Arena/Coliseum workers and the surrounding East Oakland residents who make the games possible. These folks are at the heart of our hometown pride, and are at the center of the Coliseum City development project which is coming to a critical head this week!
The heart and soul of Oakland is at stake with this massive development on public land with public money. The developer, New City LLC, is turning in their draft development plan next week. We must hold New City and our elected leaders accountable to our community's needs: good jobs, affordable housing, clean air, and accessible trainsit. Join EBASE and our Oakland United Coalition partners for a press conference before Tuesday's big game.
What: Oakland United Rally re: Coliseum City
When: June 16th, 4pm-5:30pm
Where: Oakland City Hall
And meet some of our community's real players!
Johnny Stake, 33-year Coliseum worker, lifelong East Oakland resident, and UNITE HERE 2850 member: “People are commuting further and further because they getting pushed out. But when people can afford to live where they work, it enhances the neighborhood; people have a sense of the community; and it builds our people and our businesses up so we have a sense of pride.”
Esther Goolsby, lifelong Oakland resident and Community for a Better Environment leader: "This is about creating a healthy community – health goes beyond just being able to go to the doctor, it’s about having a good job to take care of your family; affordable housing so people have a stable place to live; and clean air, parks, and sidewalks so that we have places to exercise."
Meet Esther, Johnny and hundreds of other Coliseum area residents and workers on the 16th! And GO WARRIORS!
Jahmese Myres, Campaign Director
The Oakland United Coalition represents thousands of residents, workers, youth, and faith leaders, and includes ACCE, Building Trades Council, CJJC, CBE, EBASE, EBHO, FAME, Public Advocates, OCO, SEIU-USWW, UPM, and UNITE HERE Local 2850.
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* Protest Herbicide Spraying By Caltrans and the Poisoning Of Basket Weaving Materials and Traditional Native American Medicines and Foods [archive.is/cwNKy]: Demonstrate! at the Northcoast Regional Water Board, Santa Rosa on the Morning of June 18.
(5550 Skylane Blvd., Santa Rosa)
Caltrans is planning to spray 94 acres of wetlands with glyphosate (Round Up) and Imazapyr over a three year period to eliminate Himalayan blackberries on the mitigation parcels of the Willits Bypass Project. This is a part of building up what is called “mitigation credits” for the destruction of wetlands. They will receive a credit for each acre of wetlands destroyed by construction for each acre sprayed with pesticides.
Their crazy scheme goes like this: After conducting the largest destruction of wetlands in the past 50 years in the state of California, they are going to attempt to recreate wetlands by bulldozing land to create ponds to retain water and building up large mounds of earth by dumping tons of soil and replanting native plants. They also plan to remove non-native invasive plants such as Himalayan blackberries, but to do the latter they say will require them to use pesticides. This spraying of blackberries is part of their compensation for over 2,000 ancient oaks they cut and the many native plants destroyed to build the Bypass.
Further, as mitigation for the destruction of ancestral Pomo cultural sites by Caltrans in this project, they have proposed granting an access easement to the mitigation lands to local tribal gatherers of basket weaving materials, traditional foods and medicine. Gathering on sprayed lands poses a health hazard to the gatherers and to the quality of the water in the creeks that run throughout the mitigation lands. Our Indian basket weavers when peeling willow branches insert them into their mouths and have encountered mouth and throat rashes when harvesting from pesticide sprayed areas. Caltrans should receive no mitigation credits for exposing our gatherers to toxic harm.
Info: SOLLV.org
* "We won!" (2015-06-10) [www.vallejopatientscoalition.com]: The fight for cannabis has been going on for decades and along the way there have been huge victories. Those huge victories would not have been possible without the many small victories along the way. Last night a handful of people showed up at the city council meeting and once again changed the minds of the council. The council was prepared to vote on a fee structure for the medical cannabis dispensaries that was completely unrealistic and unfair. This fee structure woul...d have made it impossible for all but the largest, wealthiest of the dispensaries to apply for licenses. After hearing from the patients that this would raise the price of medicine and likely put an end to compassion programs in Vallejo, the council (including Mayor Davis) agreed that the proposed fee structure was unfair and voted unanimously to table the fee structure until June 23rd. They have instructed staff to come up with more realistic numbers that allow all dispensaries the opportunity to participate in the application process.
This small victory is further proof that together we can change what is happening in Vallejo. Together we can save the dispensaries that so many of us depend on. If you've been waiting to get in this fight the time is now. Don't stand by and let the city council shut down our dispensaries and turn their noses up at our perfectly good tax dollars. Stand up today!! Join the Vallejo Patient's Coalition and the dispensaries as we continue to fight this injustice. Sign the petition, get involved!! You really can make a difference!!
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* "Syracuse activist leaders under attack" (2015-06-11, answercoalition.org) [archive.is/bwd0Z], Take Action [answercoalition.org/syracuse_activst_leaders_under_attack_take_action]:
The Syracuse Police Department has outrageously charged two political organizers and activists with protesting without a permit. Derek Ford, of the ANSWER Coalition, and Reverend Lemorris Dexter, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, both received court summons on May 30. The summons were in reference to a protest and march that took place on April 30 in solidarity with the Baltimore rebellion.
The march was organized by THE General Body, a militant student group at Syracuse University, and supported by the ANSWER Coalition and SCLC. The action began at SU and proceeded to downtown, stopping by the local police station and making its way to the Jerry Rescue monument, which was erected to commemorate a bold rescue of a fugitive slave in 1851.
Both Ford and Rev. Dexter appeared for an arraignment in City Court on June 9. They are charged with violating local ordinance 16-35(b), which states that “No persons, society or organization of any name or nature shall assemble, congregate, parade or march in or through any of the streets of the city without first securing a permit therefor in accordance with this section.” They both pled not guilty, and a pre-trial conference has been set for July 8 at 1:30 p.m.
This is a blatant campaign of intimidation against two outspoken leaders who each represent organizations that have consistently fought against police brutality in the city. This is evidenced by the fact that Ford and Rev. Dexter were the only ones charged with the violation, even though over 100 people participated in the march. Further, this is a rather obscure ordinance, and no activists or organizers in the city can recall anyone ever being charged with violating it in the past. Even the city clerk at the courthouse remarked that she had worked there over 15 years and had never heard of such an ordinance.
The Syracuse city and student community has mobilized to support Ford and Rev. Dexter, with several people showing up for their arraignment. We are asking all of our members and supporters to sign the petition to drop the charges against Ford and Rev. Dexter and to stay tuned for additional action alerts.
Read a report about the June 9 court appearance from The Daily Orange, the independent campus newspaper of Syracuse University: "Solidarity march participants plead not guilty to violating permit law" [archive.is/n0oGd].
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SOLANO PEACE & FREEDOM PARTY [SolanoPFP.blogspot.com] Use the ballot for our own People's candidates and legislation, campaign for the future!
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TOWARDS REVOLUTIONARY SOLUTIONS
* " 'The State Targeted the Panthers Because We Were Socialists, Not Because We Were Armed' - Eddie Conway on Reality Asserts Itself; Mr. Conway says the Panthers were also a threat because they recognized the humanity of and worked with all ethnic groups" (2014-10-03) [archive.is/0i45E] [begin excerpt]:
PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: Welcome back to Reality Asserts Itself on The Real News Network. We are continuing our discussion with former Black Panther Eddie Conway, who was released six months ago from prison after serving 44 years for supposedly killing a police officer, but a crime that anyone I know that's look at the situation [would say is] a crime he didn't commit. Thanks for joining us.
JAY: We're picking up a conversation about the Panthers and the split that took place. There was a section that wanted to continue and further develop a more militant armed struggle--they called it armed self-defense--and a section that wanted to push more in terms of community organizing, even, I think, had an electoral strategy. Tell us a little bit about it. And where were you in the split?
EDDIE CONWAY, FMR. BLACK PANTHER PARTY MEMBER, BALTIMORE CHAPTER: Well, I sided with Oakland. I was already in prison at that point anyway. I think that probably occurred in '71, maybe, perhaps, is when that particular split happened, right? I had always considered organizing in the community, the survival programs, as the way in which we needed to develop support and not only take care of the community, but have the community also take care of us, in terms of helping us create our health clinics, etc. Right? I think the police certainly had the--COINTELPRO played a key role in creating that split and fomenting violence around the issue, because basically they worked--we had an international--the Black Panther Party at that time had chapters in 37 states, but it also had an international section in Africa, in Algiers. Eldridge Cleaver was there, Kathleen Cleaver was there, a number of our people were there. We were working with the PLO at the time. There was a European section in Scandinavia. And I think the Panthers that were out of the country, some of them were being trained by the PLO, some of them were out of the country for various reasons, either wanted or they fled arrest, etc. Some of them were out of the country as the results of airplane hijacking and that kind of stuff. And I think that group that was out of the country was--in interacting with the PLO and interacting with other guerrilla groups in Africa, became more radicalized in terms of armed struggle, the necessity for armed struggle here in America. And then the assassination of some of our key members kind of aggravated that whole situation. We had key members assassinated in L.A, we had key members assassinated in Illinois, we had key members assassinated in New York. And the people out of the country that were advocating armed warfare was looking at that as a need to respond to that kind of stuff.
JAY: What do you think was the role of COINTELPRO, the police infiltration, in terms of this?
CONWAY: Well, they did--one, they did the assassinations. I mean, they were directly involved in the assassination in L.A. with our key leaders. They end up being sued and end up paying $2 million for their involvement in the assassination of Fred Hampton and our Illinois leaders.
JAY: Yeah, shot in his bed while he's sleeping.
CONWAY: Yeah. Yeah. And they end up had to pay $1.8 million to the survivors because it was proven that the government had actually violated the civil rights of everybody.
JAY: I mean, partly what you thought then, but also what you think now, assessing the situation, what is the relationship, do you think, between armed self-defense, community organizing, and what happened there? I mean, certainly what electrified people about the Panthers wasn't just the breakfast program. It was the fact that they took up this banner of armed self-defense. If it had been just the breakfast program, it probably wouldn't have had the same impact that it did. On the other hand, it was such a threat to the state that it brought on an enormous assault. So what was right or wrong about it? I mean, how does this--.
CONWAY: Well, there's three things that's got to be factored in here. First, there were other armed self-defense groups all over America--the American Nazi Party, the Ku Klux Klan, the states' right parties, white supremacy, all kinds of militant white groups all around America, armed, openly carrying arms.
JAY: But they don't threaten the status quo the way armed black people do.
CONWAY: They don't, because they weren't black. So black was one of the key factors that was frightening. But also having a philosophy of socialism was also a factor that was very frightening, because the example the Black Panther Party set in its socialist programs was a threat to the structure of capitalism in America, and in the world, in fact. So that was scary. The other thing was the ability of the--because there were other armed black groups. There were black self-defense groups all over the black community. But it was only the Panthers that were working with white groups and that was working with Mexicans and that was working with Puerto Ricans and that was working with the American Indians and that was working with the Asians. And all of those different groups imitated the Black Panther Party and their thing. The Brown Berets, they armed theirself to protect their community, and the American Indian movement, or what we call "red beret", they did the same thing. The Young Lords, they did the same thing. And the White Panthers, which people don't even probably even know exist, they did the same thing. But other white--the White Patriot Party, other groups did the same thing. They armed theirself and used the Black Panther Party as a template to do programs in their communities. That was the threat, the threat of all of these different people from all of these different communities working together.
JAY: The Panthers could become the core of a revolutionary movement.
CONWAY: Yeah. And so that was a threat. And it is those three things, pretty much, that created the kind of reaction that made the government say, well, okay, we need to destroy this organization.
JAY: When you look back, could that have been avoided? And what I mean by that, I mean the amount of infiltration, the amount of--the way they were able to get such factional fighting going. Did the armed--I know a lot of the kind of more adventurous armed actions were encouraged by the cops, but might there have been away to prevent that?
CONWAY: Well, looking back with hindsight from where I sit right now, I don't think it would have been possible to stop the destruction of the Black Panther Party. Historically, if you look back all the way back to slavery, say, for instance, any time there had ever been any organized black activities just for human rights, just for recognition of peoplehood, there has always been an concerted effort, either through the community or through the government, to destroy whether it was the maroon communities or whether it was a black community, Wall Street, say, for instance, in Oklahoma, whatever--or Rosewood; you name it--community that stood up and declared that they were humans and they needed to be treated like other human beings and they was going to take care of theirself, those communities were always destroyed. I think all the efforts historically in America has been that white supremacy have organized to destroy any real effort for black people to gain power and gain control over their community, because there's an economic relationship that means that if black people gain power and gain control of their community, white people don't get the benefit from that. [end excerpt]
* "Ready to Fight: Developing a 21st Century Community Syndicalism" (2015-01-23, anarchiststudies.org) [archive.is/Yl3m7]
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CHICANO POWER! LUCHA PARA LA NUEVA AZTLAN!
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SOLIDARITY WITH THE NEW AFRICAN NATION!
Black Power! Revive the Community! Defend the Nation!
* "Baltimore to Detroit - Summer is near, organize to resist" (2015-05-07, m1aa.org) [archive.is/JMyGv] * "Setting fire to the noose: The Baltimore Rebellion & the more to come" (2015-05-07, blackrosefed.org) [archive.is/e4o1j]
* "We Support the Uprising in Baltimore" (2015-04-30, ideasandaction.info) [archive.is/kqbSp]: This is a war that will not end. It is only growing more deadly. In 2013 767 people were killed by police (64 a month, most of the them African Americans); in 2014 1101 people were killed by police (92 a month, most of them African Americans); in the 4 months of 2015 380 people have so far been killed police, (95 a month, most of them African Americans).
The militarization of the police has had a predictable outcome: the police are now behaving like the military would in their policing function. The rules of martial law are now (unofficially) in effect and anyone who violates those laws is The Enemy; the “insurgents”; the “terrorists” etc. and subject to summary execution. If by chance that person happens to be a Black Man, so much the better. The role of the police, their true role, has always been to protect the property of the Master Class from any defilement by rebel slaves.
Now, thanks to the grassroots organizing of the Black Lives Matter movement, people have risen up and are fighting back as best they can. In Baltimore the people are taking the fight to the oppressors. We can only hope this flame spreads like wildfire, and that the murderous police forces feel the heat in Philadelphia, New York, Memphis and Los Angeles, and all the other places they have decided to engage in ethnic cleansing.
In America, the capitalist system was founded on slavery and white supremacy. The only way to end the insanity of white supremacy is to end the American capitalist system. We need to build a new society, one based on true egalitarianism, where everyone, EVERY ONE, is actually and finally equal forever.
* " 'It’s right to rebel!' Salt Lake City stands with Baltimore" (2015-05-10, fightbacknews.org) [archive.is/YiwwE]
* "Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia supports struggle in Baltimore" (2015-05-10, fightbacknews.org) [archive.is/eGnDo]
* "Baltimore – Right to Rebel" (2015-05-01, speakout-now.org) [archive.is/LBZzK]
* "Black Protests vs. White Riots" [youtube.com/watch?v=HGJMgCn0fQs]
* "Blackhawks fans riot and for some reason it's not sensationalized by the media" (2015-06-17, boingboing.net) [archive.is/cXlmn]
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* (2015-04-23 observation by Joseph Anderson):
It's like Jim Crow never ended -- and, despite entertainment TV window-dressing, Oprah, and Obama, we know that for the majority of Black or Brown people, it never did. Read " 'Running While Black': Protests Swell over Death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore Police Custody" (2015-04-23) [web.archive.org/web/20150426065931/http://www.democracynow.org/2015/4/23/running_while_black_protests_swell_over#].
It's like Jim Crow never really ended. The notorious place names used to be Selma, Montgomery, Little Rock, Birmingham, Jackson, Memphis, etc. Now it's Ferguson, New York, Philadelphia, Oakland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, St. Louis, Madison, Milwaukee, Baltimore (not only Freddie Gray, but even Cops Beat Woman For Filming Another Beating! [archive.is/18eSN]), etc
Listen to "Baltimore" by Nina Simone: [youtube.com/watch?v=Gie_BZoxoxo], with video from "The Wire", or the long version [youtube.com/watch?v=jl7JH0Y8HF4], Lyrics to the song "Baltimore":
"Beat-up little seagull, On a marble stair, Tryin' to find the ocean, Lookin' everywhere. Hard times in the city, In a hard town by the sea, Ain't nowhere to run to, There ain't nothin' here for free. Hooker on the corner, Waitin' for a train, Drunk lyin' on the sidewalk, Sleepin' in the rain. And they hide their faces, And they hide their eyes, 'Cause the city's dyin', And they don't know why. Oh, Baltimore, Man, it's hard just to live, Oh, Baltimore, Man, it's hard just to live, just to live. Get my sister Sandy, And my little brother Ray, Buy a big old wagon, Gonna haul us all away. Livin' in the country, Where the mountain's high, Never comin' back here, 'Til the day I die. Oh, Baltimore, Man, it's hard just to live, Oh, Baltimore, Man, it's hard just to live, just to live."
Also, for those who haven't seen it yet, "Be Free", performed by J. Cole's on The David Letterman Show (Dave knew what Cole was going to be singing his anthem to Ferguson, etc.): [youtube.com/watch?v=_0LNMviSTTg]
For more almost unbelievable examples read this story I came across:
* "12 Shocking Examples of Police Brutality...Just This Month" (2013-06-07, alternet.org) [archive.is/WrBWo].
And so it be's...
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* "As Gawker Unionizes, Labor Adapts: As digital media gets its first big union shop, one labor powerhouse is betting on nonunion organizing for a U.S. workforce with less factory workers and more Uber drivers" (2015-06-04, .buzzfeed.com) [archive.is/sJAt]
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* "San Francisco Teachers Elect Reformers to Lead Union" (2015-06-12, labornotes.org) [archive.is/xAgeY]
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* "Justice for Fermin: Boycott El Super" (2015-06-12, calaborfed.org) [archive.is/TW7OC]
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* "You can save farm workers’ lives this summer" [archive.is/7JEDn], donate to La Causa! [secure.ufw.org/page/contribute/heat15] [begin excerpt]: This past weekend, temperatures in the San Joaquin Valley exceeded 100 degrees. And farm workers were out there laboring to harvest the food we eat. Jose Sanchez has worked in the tomatoes since he was young. He tells us, “Once I worked with a crew of 90 people, and it was so hot that day that we just ran out of water. The company is required to always provide water for the workers. But that was a very difficult day for us because, for a while, we had no water to drink. Worst of all was that the company insisted we keep working, as we waited for the foreman to return with more water. Within the first 10 minutes without water, many of my crewmates began to feel the effects of heat.” Jose is glad about the agreement between the UFW and CAL-OSHA to improve the heat laws. “I am also glad that the new changes will penalize more those employers who do not obey our new heat laws.”
Antonia Osorio has been working in the grape industry for more than 5 years. “During the summer it gets very hot and the companies do not respect the laws. We do not get any training on what to do if someone in the crew gets sick because of the heat. Sometimes we do not get shade to rest when we do not feel well … I am afraid to get sick because of the heat and to not come back to my home to my daughters and my husband.” She believes things will be getting better soon. “Thanks to the United Farm Workers because they do not stop fighting for all farm workers. They have just won new laws in our favor.”
Following a series of farm worker heat deaths, we helped convince California to issue the first standards in the nation in 2005 protecting farm workers during times of extreme temperatures. There have been at least 26 farm worker heat deaths since 2004. In 2010, Constantino Cruz was one of those victims. His brother Juan tells us, “It's hard to think and see your brother like this … We never thought that this would be the death of him. That [Costantino] would go to work during a day with very hot temperatures and he would die. It's not fair that they take advantage of workers.” We have had to comfort farm worker families mourning the needless deaths of their loved ones from exposure to extreme heat in the fields -- an experience we never want to have to repeat. * "Settlement of UFW lawsuit is big victory against heat deaths" (2015-06-12, UFW.org):
¡Si Se Puede! Thousands of concerned men and women across America joined our campaigns to protect farm workers from dying or becoming ill from extreme heat. Yesterday in Fresno, we joined families of workers who have perished from the heat to announce settlement of lawsuits filed in 2009 and 2012 that will improve protection for farm workers through new joint and mutual efforts by the state of California and the UFW. We are so very proud of our role in ensuring farm worker safety from California's often brutal sun. Many of us with the UFW have too often had to comfort farm worker families mourning the needless deaths of their loved ones from exposure to high temperatures in the fields. It is now our hope that we will not have to repeat those experiences. The announcement in Fresno comes as harvest seasons have begun in many parts of California and as we are experiencing the first really hot weather of the year. Farm workers must do hard physical labor in temperatures that approach or exceed 95 degrees. Farm workers shouldn’t have to risk death or illness from extreme heat when reasonable measures can easily prevent such tragedies. Protections for workers will improve as a result of this settlement. We want to share some of the news stories about the settlement that went all over the nation plus videos from the announcement and background information.
* UFW President Arturo S. Rodriguez on heat settlement. June 11, 2015 [youtube.com/watch?v=mnhjttfvklc]
* UFW information page about Heat Deaths in the field [archive.is/E2uYu]
* "California settles heat-death lawsuits, agrees to improve" (2015-06-11, AP Newswire) [archive.is/9ApmX]
* "Better Enforcement of Farmworker Heat Rules as UFW and Brown Administration Settle Lawsuit" (2015-06-11, huffingtonpost.com) [archive.is/STPbR]
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* "Did Gerawan really fire a farm worker for whistling?" (2015-06-10, UFW.org) [archive.is/jF7UW]: Foremen at giant Gerawan Farming Inc. commonly whistle so workers know it's time for them to take their legally required work breaks. Gerawan worker Rafael Marquez told ALRB investigators on April 23, 2015, he noticed workers in other crews were taking their breaks so he whistled to notify the foreman of his crew that it was also time for their break. The next day he was suspended. Then he was fired.
Why was Rafael Marquez really fired? State prosecutors offer a very different story in official court documents asking a Fresno County Superior Court judge to order that Gerawan reinstate Rafael Marquez. The general counsel of the Agricultural Labor Relations Board asserts that Gerawan fired Marquez because:
• He was a member of the union negotiating committee and "participated in approximately 18 negotiations sessions" with the company.
• Marquez "regularly wore a UFW button or t-shirt, distributed flyers to Gerawan workers during break times, and would speak with workers about the benefits of a [union contract], openly engag[ing] in these activities" in front of Gerawan foremen.
• Marquez also "became one of the named plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against Gerawan, which alleges violations of minimum wage laws."
• ALRB prosecutors say Marquez was fired "for having engaged in union activities and for having testified against Gerawan’s interest at an ALRB hearing over alleged lawbreaking by Gerawan."
The state of California has gone to Superior Court in Fresno County, asking a judge to order Gerawan to stop breaking the law and to reinstate Rafael Marquez to his job.
However, this takes time, and time is the one thing workers don't have. Every minute that Rafael is not back to work intimidates other workers who worry they will be retaliated against if they show their support for the UFW.
It's time for the retailers who sell Gerawan's produce to step in. Kroger—whose supermarkets include Kroger, City Market, Dillons, Food 4 Less, Fred Meyer, Fry's, Harris Teeter, Jay C, King Soopers, QFC, Ralphs and Smith's—is one of the largest retailers of Gerawan products. It's time for Kroger to demand that Gerawan respect the law and ensure there is no discrimination against UFW supporters.
TAKE ACTION [action.ufw.org/page/speakout/whistling]
* "Human Rights Under Attack in the City of Santa Cruz" (2015-06-09, by Dennis Etler ) [archive.is/3Lnap] [begin excerpt]: The impending closure of the Homeless Services Center (HSC), due to the withdrawal of State administered federal emergency funds, will deprive the homeless of Santa Cruz their basic human rights. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a founding document of the UN to which the United States is a signatory, states unequivocally that, “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.” The United States is not a poor, developing country, but the self-avowed richest nation on Earth. It is deemed exceptional and indispensable by our leaders, but it can't supply necessary, minimal services such as shelter, meals, showers, toilet facilities and a secure place to store personal belongings and receive mail, to its most disadvantaged citizens. [end excerpt]
* "Community control of the police demanded in Chicago" (2015-06-15, fightbacknews.or) [archive.is/ZDUBH]
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Are you friends with Vallejo Purple Kush? This is a picture of killer cop Sean Kenney the murderer of Mario Romero Anton Barrett and Jerimiah Moore. Vallejo Purple Kush says that this is his picture. If this is his picture then he is the police. This page has claimed to support justice for Mario Romero but that is a lie [archive.is/ZqRej].
Vallejo Purple Kush has erased his facebook page, but google.com's cache shows it existed [archive.is/W76xR], screengrabs , an unused twitter.com account .
Justice 4 DARNELL BENSON ! SFPD, SF Sheriff, SFDPH, tell the TRUTH ! [facebook.com/groups/680472312059260]: Darnell Benson, an African American male, was discovered by his family, on life-support on April 6, 2015 brain dead as a result of respiratory / cardiac arrest.
Darnell was arrested on Kiska Road on April 3, 2015... He was taken to jail for an alleged ‘traffic warrant’
the dispatch call was designated a ‘psych hold’, AKA "5150",
A 5150 call is where the suspect is considered either dangerous to himself or others.
Proper procedure is to take a 5150 patient once in custody to Psych Emergency at SFGH.
Instead, the police took Darnell Benson to County Jail #1 (CJ1).
While in the custody of the SFPD / San Francisco Sheriff’s Department between 12:31 - 12:55, there would have been a 5 to 6 minute "scuffle", during or after which Darnell was hogtied, in a prine position, with a mask over his face. Darnell became "less responsive" and an ambulance was called.
A top administrator at the Sheriff Dept. told Derrick, Darnell's brother, that it was a gross mistake on the part of the SFPD to have taken Darnell to CJ1.
after seeing the nurse at the SFSD, Darnell's custody status finally changed again n to 5150.
Transportation from (CJ1) to General Hospital was arranged by by SFPD.
The unthinkable happens next:
While being escorted to a ‘squad car’ by the SFPD a ‘scuffle’ takes place for approximately five to six minutes.
Police claim Darnell "became agitated and began to resist".
Darnell is rendered ‘limp + unresponsive’(ICU ADMISSION NOTE)
Darnell was in a ‘4 point restrained hold,
his hands handcuffed to his back & shackled feet,
with a face mask over his face.
EMTs injected Darnell with 5mg intravenously with a powerful sedative called ‘VERSED.’
The inpatient initial visit report generated by SF General Hospital clearly shows that Darnell had a past medical history with the following conditions: PTSD, paranoid schizophrenia, PSA, HTN, Asthma, Migraines, Brain Aneurysm, and RLE.
While the use of the drug is safe for patients who have been SCREENED and had their medical histories reviewed, why couldn't AMR contact SF General Hospital for Darnell's past medical history?
what is the primary cause of Darnell's death ?
A severe head trauma incurred during the 5 to 6 minute "scuffle"?
(there was huge bruising on his forhead and right cheek)
Positional asphyxia while being hogtied compounded by mask over face ?
Administration of a large dose of Versed without priorly checking Darnell's vital signs or checking on his medical HX on the ambulance computer ?
At any rate, a father, a brother, a son, a friend's life has been stolen, and his grieving family deserves the truth !
* "This Oakland Police Killing was NOT a Standoff ; Contrary to Main Stream Media headlines plastered across the internet, there was NO standoff between an unconscious man now known to be Demouria Hogg of Hayward, CA and Oakland police" (2015-06-08, wecopwatch.org) [archive.is/gmNcN]
* four photos [archive.is/yvtNt]: Darnell Benson an African American male discovered on Life-Support on April 06, 2015 at General Hospital. According to numerous hospital reports Darnell was left "limp + unresponsive" after a "six minute scuffle" while being transported to a squad car in the Sally Port area of County Jail #1 425 7th Street at the San Francisco Sheriff's Department. Investigators have concluded visual evidence is consistent with being "dragged while handcuffed" TELL THE TRUTH - SFPD - YOU ASSULTED DARNELL FOR 6 MINUTES WHILE HANDCUFFED ·
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* "Police Department Communications Center Upgrades" (2015-06-12, Vallejo City Manager’s Bi-Weekly Report [cityofvallejo.net/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=255829]:
The Vallejo Police Department’s communication center recently underwent a significant upgrade to its “911 System.” The previous system was in desperate need of repairs and system upgrades. Over the last several months, outdated and defective phone lines were replaced to accommodate the new equipment and software upgrades. New monitors were also added to compliment the new interface and to handle the graphic imagery that the new system offers.
Upgrades also include a new “Quality Assurance Maintenance Program.” Provided by AT&T, the maintenance program ensures that the V.P.D. communications center has a dedicated and trained technical service representative on call who is prepared to address any technical issues that may be encountered by the center at any time. The program is crucial in the event the center encounters any communication issues that would prevent it from responding to the needs of the community.
The cost of the new system and repairs to the 911 System was covered by a $300,000 grant from the 911 Emergency Communication Branch of the State Department of General Services.
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On Monday, June 15 at 11:30AM there will be a press conference to expose the systematic cover-up of the execution of Pedie Perez, 24 year old, unarmed citizen who was murdered by Richmond Police Officer Wallace Jensen September 14, 2015. It will be held at 725 Court St in Martinez, CA. The father, mother and immediate family of Pedie Perez, along with members of the Oscar Grant Committee, will be present at this press conference.
On Jan 20, 2015, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s office released a 3-page report completely exonerating Officer Wallace Jensen of any wrongdoing in the shooting of Pedie Perez:
“We conclude that ... the officer acted in lawful self- defense, Based on our review, we believe the officer’s actions constitute Justifiable Homicide.”
However, the District Attorney's report merely repeats the coached testimony that Officer Jensen narrated when he was sequestered at a local hotel with his attorney, Teri Leone of the Police Legal Defense Fund. There were at least three other eye witnesses to the shooting, two of which were interviewed by District Attorney's office, but their interviews concerning the incident are not recounted or dealt with in any way in the report.
However citizens investigating the incident have subsequently interviewed the eye witnesses and found that the witnesses agreed that Pedie Perez did NOT attack the officer, did NOT try to seize his weapon, and was in no way a reasonable threat to Officer Wallace. Some footage of the eye witnesses recountings of the incident can be seen in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRA9oQmVgb4
Although the DA's report claims that Pedie Perez attacked the police officer, according to Officer Jensen’s own testimony at the Coroner’s inquest (Dec 10, 2014), it was Jensen that attacked Perez while Perez was walking away:
While Jensen tried to contact another officer on police radio, he said Perez got up and walked away, even though the officer said he had told Perez he was not free to go.
“Fuck this. I’m out of here,” Jensen said he recalled Perez saying.
Jensen grabbed Perez from behind and swept out his legs, knocking him to the ground, he said.
Perez got back to his feet. The officer said he radioed for backup and knocked Perez down again, this time from the front with something like a “judo throw.”
The District Attorney's report states that the office must be guided by the “law that states that the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Officer Jensen's actions were not in self-defense” but the report in no way even discusses two eye witnesses that claim that his actions were absolutely NOT in self-defense. Their narratives have been excluded, but in fact their testimony should be considered by a trier of fact who should make the determination of whether they are credible in a legal proceeding. At least two eye witnesses contradict Officer Jensen's story, providing ample grounds to initiate a prosecution of the officer for murder in this case.
For more information and photos, please contact:
The Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression
http://www.oscargrantcommittee.org *** OscarGrantCommittee.ogc@gmail.com
Telephone: Gene Ruyle (510) 332-3865 *** Rick Perez (510) 220-4096
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* "The Incredibly True Capers of the LAPD’s Secret Police: Part One" (2015-06-14, jasmyneacannick.com) [archive.is/crGP2]
* "Ezell Ford’s Shooting Death Shines Light on LAPD Brutality" (2015-06-10, truthdig.com) [archive.is/dUAwU]
* "ALERT! LAPD & Minutemen maneuvering to upend Justice for Ezell Ford campaign! Counter-Protest at Newton Station/Minutemen Press Conference 5pm Monday 6/8!" (2015-06-04, Coalition for Community Control Over the Police):
Tea Party Minuteman and Right Wing terrorist, David Hernandez, has announced on his Facebook page that LAPD Newton Division is preparing for the release of the findings of the LAPD’s “investigation” into their murder of Ezell Ford to the Police Commission, to occur either Tuesday June 9 or June 16.
Hernandez chairs the San Fernando chapter of “Churches for Action,” a right wing “Faith Based” network promoting on Facebook events such as: MOTORGOSPEL Peace March; An Alternative Response To Ferguson [vimeo.com/121423850], and Tea Party Assemblywoman Patty Lopez [During her campaign, Patty Lopez surrounded herself with Tea Party-aligned conservatives, even seeking campaign advice from Republicans, as reported in the Sacramento Bee. One of her biggest supporters and advisors is David Hernandez, a 9-time Northeast SF Valley political candidate who has had affiliations with the Minutemen, a right-wing anti-immigrant organization that promotes hate and violence against Latinos. [archive.is/cCJn3].
Hernandez was feature speaker with Ted Hayes during a Minutemen action who physically attacked Jubilee Shine for protesting their 2006 racist, anti-immigrant rally in Leimert Park [he can be seen at 1:30 of this Lou Dobbs video [youtube.com/watch?v=iLcXcUhEL30] as Shine is assaulted.], and who returned in 2007 to march down Crenshaw Blvd with Hayes and the KKK, only to be stonewalled by a militant Black, Brown and Community Alliance from entering Leimert Park.
“Churches for Action” was briefed today by Captain Jorge R. Rodriguez, Commanding Officer of Newton Division, according to Hernandez, to enlist their support in inoculating the community in advance of the release of the investigation’s findings. Hernandez says Commander Rodriguez and “Churches for Action” will conduct a “pre-release press conference” 6pm, Monday, June 8th, at Newton Police Station, 3400 S. Central Ave.
The Coalition for Community Control Over the Police calls for ALL CONCERNED MEMBERS OF THE COMMUNITY to attend and protest this dangerous alliance between the Minutemen and LAPD in angling to paint the South Central community as dangerous and violent, and therefore deserving of police and right wing terrorism. Any concern that an “in policy” finding will be used to promote violence should be reserved for the police officers who initiated the violence, and those who will interpret such a finding as a “green light” to escalate violence against the community.
We continue to demand IMMEDIATE PROSECUTION BY D.A. JACKIE LACEY, who is hiding behind these prolonged, fake “investigations,” when she can bring charges at any moment, as did her courageous Baltimore counterpart, Marilyn Mosby.
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* "Family Raided by SWAT and Dog Shot for Not Paying Utility Bill" (2015-06-05, thefreethoughtproject.com) [archive.is/iZJYD]
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Domestic Security Agencies and private-sector partners
* "USA Police State Celebrated as 'Defense of Freedom' " (2015-06-07, by William Boardman) [archive.is/9blDB]
* "Obama Orders Secret Surveillance Court to Ignore Lower Court Decision and Spy on Americans Illegally" (2015-06-12, by J. D. Heyes) [archive.is/XdkHN]
* " ‘Hostile to privacy’: Snowden urges internet users to get rid of Dropbox" (2014-10-12, rt.com) [archive.is/pA4oZ] [begin excerpt]: Edward Snowden has hit out at Dropbox and other services he says are “hostile to privacy,” urging web users to abandon unencrypted communication and adjust privacy settings to prevent governments from spying on them in increasingly intrusive ways.
The whistleblower believes one fallacy in how authorities view individual rights has to do with making the individual forsake those rights by default. Snowden’s point is that the moment you are compelled to reveal that you have nothing to hide is when the right to privacy stops being a right – because you are effectively waiving that right.
“When you say, ‘I have nothing to hide,’ you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about this right.’ You’re saying, ‘I don’t have this right, because I’ve got to the point where I have to justify it.’ The way rights work is, the government has to justify its intrusion into your rights – you don’t have to justify why you need freedom of speech.”
In particular, Snowden advised web users to “get rid” of Dropbox. Such services only insist on encrypting user data during transfer and when being stored on the servers. Other services he recommends instead, such as SpiderOak [spideroak.com], encrypt information while it’s on your computer as well.
“We're talking about dropping programs that are hostile to privacy,” Snowden said.
The same goes for social networks such as Facebook and Google, too. Snowden says they are “dangerous” and proposes that people use other services that allow for encrypted messages to be sent, such as RedPhone [ssd.eff.org/en/module/how-use-redphone-android] or SilentCircle [silentcircle.com]. [end excerpt]
* "Amid Torture, Experts Say CIA's Other Crime Was 'Human Experimentation' " (2015-06-15, commondreams.org) [archive.is/t8fWi], read the CIA document [scribd.com/doc/268722667/Human-experimentation-and-the-CIA]
* "CIA Mind Control Experimentation and 'Intrusive Spying' ” (2015-06-16, by Stephen Lendman) [archive.is/q5d9v]
* "The Executive Summary: Neuropsychological and Electronic No-Touch Torture Report, Based on 'The Torture Memos' and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Declassified 'Torture Report' " (2015-04, by Dr. Robert Duncan) [archive.is/3D6rh]
Pigs in Space! Private partners are able to "secretly" send nano-satellites into orbit.
* "Garvey Spacecraft selects Pacific Spaceport Complex" (2015-06-16) [archive.is/gqARe]
* "Two honest Google employees: our products don't protect your privacy" (2011-11-02, paranoia.dubfire.net) [archive.is/T4lxG]
* "ACLU docs reveal real-time cell phone location spying is easy and cheap" (2012-04-03, paranoia.dubfire.net) [archive.is/MLIsP]
* "The known unknowns of Skype interception" (2012-07-26, paranoia.dubfire.net) [archive.is/Qcqzg]
* "Over 20 fake mobile phone towers found in UK" (2015-06-11, presstv.com) [archive.is/bUXEb] [begin excerpt]: More than 20 fake phone poles, which are said to be tools to spy on public communications, have been found in the United Kingdom, according to a new investigation. The investigation was conducted by the UK-based Sky News, and its findings were released on Wednesday. The poles, which were found in London, have on them tools known in the communications industry as International Mobile Subscriber Identity, also known as Stingrays. It was the first time such espionage tools were detected in the country. According to the investigation, the fake communication posts are actually intercepting phone calls and collecting all their data. [end excerpt]
* "200 detainees on hunger strike in AZ; solidarity protest Monday" (2015-06-14, fightbacknews.org) [archive.is/sxHQL]
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* "40 Reasons Our Jails and Prisons Are Full of Black and Poor People; These are our brothers and sisters and cousins and friends of our coworkers" (2015-06-05, alternet.org) [archive.is/DIuoS] [begin excerpt]: The US Department of Justice (DOJ) reports 2.2 million people are in our nation’s jails and prisons and another 4.5 million people are on probation or parole in the US, totaling 6.8 million people, one of every 35 adults (.pdf) [is.gd/4KWvNq]. Most of the people inside are poor and Black [archive.is/fT2QZ]. It is not just about crime. Our jails and prisons have grown from holding about 500,000 people in 1980 to 2.2 million today. The fact is that crime rates have risen and fallen independently of our growing incarceration rates [archive.is/83v71]. Police discriminate. The first step in putting people in jail starts with interactions between police and people. From the very beginning Black and poor people are targeted by the police. Police departments have engaged in campaigns of stopping and frisking people who are walking, mostly poor people and people of color, without cause for decades. [end excerpt]
* "The death of Kalief Browder" (2015-06-10, wsws.org) [archive.is/hm7hX] [begin excerpt]: The suicide of Kalief Browder, who at 16 was accused of stealing a backpack and thrown into New York’s Rikers Island prison, where he was tortured and starved in solitary confinement without ever having been convicted of a crime, has exposed before the world the barbarity of America’s “justice” system.
Kalief’s three-year imprisonment was documented last year in a Pulitzer Prize-nominated exposé in the New Yorker magazine, which chronicled his struggle to adjust to life outside of prison after having been psychologically shattered by three years of incarceration at Rikers Island.
Kalief’s attorney and friend, Paul V. Prestia, spoke movingly about the young man’s death in a Los Angeles Times interview. “I think what caused the suicide was his incarceration and those hundreds and hundreds of nights in solitary confinement, where there were mice crawling up his sheets in that little cell… Being starved… That was the pain and sadness that he had to deal with every day, and I think it was too much for him.”
The treatment of Kalief is not an aberration at the infamous Rikers facility. The New York Times reported that over 11 months in 2013, 129 inmates sustained “serious injuries” in altercations with prison guards. According to an internal report obtained by the Associated Press in March 2014, nearly one-third of Rikers inmates had suffered a blow to the head by guards.
Kalief’s case is only the latest in an endless series of atrocities and human rights violations committed in the vast US prison system, the biggest and most densely populated in the world. On Friday, the state of Texas executed Lester Bower, 67, who became the oldest person to be executed in the US since the reinstatement of capital punishment in 1976. Bower had spent more than three decades on death row, including more than 14 years in solitary confinement.
Bower’s conviction was based entirely on circumstantial evidence, and when new exculpatory evidence emerged, a judge denied a retrial on the absurd grounds that while the evidence “could conceivably have produced a different result at trial, it does not prove by clear and convincing evidence that [Bower] is actually innocent.” [end excerpt]
* "Kalief Browder, Albert Woodfox and the Torture of Solitary Confinement" (2015-06-11, commondreams.org) [archive.is/Ohf7y]
* "Widow Of Prison Guard Killed In Angola 3 Case Wants Accused Killer Released; In a statement to BuzzFeed News, Leontine “Teenie” Rogers said she wants Louisiana to stop blocking a judge’s order to release the man accused of killing her husband in 1972. Each of Albert Woodfox’s two convictions in the case have been overturned, but an appeals court Friday extended an order blocking his release" (2015-06-11, buzzfeed.com) [archive.is/sN93u]
* "COINTELPRO order called off search for Omaha policeman’s killer" (2015-06-17, Michael Richardson) [archive.is/G7zO3]
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* "Teaching About Political Prisoners Will Get You Fired! An Exclusive with Marylin Zuniga" (2015-06-10, imixwhatilike.org) [archive.is/QbVaJ]: Marylin Zuniga gives this exclusive interview after being fired for teaching about political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal during Black History Month. Video [youtube.com/watch?v=R1b4hogvO7U]
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* "End All Youth Detention and Torture at Rikers Island Now" (2015-06-12, huffingtonpost.com) [archive.is/A2lQQ]
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Speaking Against Solitary Confinement: Alex Sanchez, Executive Director for Homies Unidos, speaks in front of parole office. Homies Unidoes writes: "We are raising funds to launch the first Central American Youth Conference, which intends to bring health services, mental health providers and art and culture to refugee youth from Central American, to welcome them into our communities to let them know that they are not alone. [hipgive.org/project/central-american-refugee-youth-conference]. We are dedicated to helping our youth in the Central Community of Los angeles with our intervention, prevention and reentry efforts. Currently we are focused in the Central American Refugee youth to get the support they need to be able to transition to their new communities. By implementing the Joven Noble curriculum, a character development program, in four school we were able to graduate 58 youth as of these year. We need to welcome these youth into our communities, that's why Hispanics in Philanthropy and the California Community Foundation are helping us raise the funds to launch the first Central American Youth Conference in September 19, 2015. Help us make it happen."
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"Thoughts on our Agreement to End Hostilities (AEH)"
By Kijani Tashiri Askari and Akili Castlin
The Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary defines the word "hostility" as being :
1.) A hostile state, condition , or attitude; enmity; antagonism; unfriendliness
2.) A hostile act
3.) Opposition or resistance to an idea, plan project, etc.
4.) a) acts of warfare, b) war
So our initial question to the people is: "What does hostility mean to you"? During the formulation phase of constructing our position on this issue, a wise man was asked his thoughts on our ?Agreement to end Hostilities? (AEH) and he stated:
"The inclusion of the Agreement to end race-based hostilities to our struggle against California?s solitary confinement policies, represents a qualitative leap of the insight of all prison nationalities, and unites us beyond the fight to free ourselves from CDCR?s torture units. Its promise may foreshadow the triumph of prisoners? quests for full human recognition."
It has been said that the average human being should be able to hold their breath under water for at least 2 minutes without suffering any injury to the brain. But imagine being forcibly held under water for 10 to 40 plus years straight, without being able to come up for air! It is impossible to ignore the potential psychological trauma involved in this process. But, nonetheless, we prisoners have continued to struggle to come up for air, to only be repeatedly held down, and forced back under water by the corrupt and powerful hands of the CDCR!!
WE CAN'T BREATHE!!!
History has always proven to be a viable guide, with making qualitative assessments in relation to where we have been, and with what lies ahead in the course of our struggle. Therefore, it is only appropriate that we highlight the essence of our human suffering with examples from our history in CDCR's solitary confinement units.
In the 1960s, we prisoners were suffocating under the inhumane and deplorable conditions in Soledad's O-Wing, [1] where prisoners were routinely placed in these strip/quiet cells amidst the foul stench of urine and human feces. In most instances, human waste laid bare on the floor for all to see. And you could forget about the prison guards giving us anything to clean up the human waste, especially when you factor in how the prison guards wouldn't give us toilet paper to wipe ourselves or flush our floor-based toilets on a regular basis, which could only be done by them. I mean, the prison guards wouldn't even give us drinking water!! These contradictions brought about a rescue boat in the form of Jordan v. Fitzharris [2]. But it did not contain any life preservers because no sooner than when the Federal Court ruled these conditions to be unconstitutional, CDCR made no changes to improve the quality of life in O-Wing for the captive prisoner class.
WE CAN'T BREATHE!!!
In the 1970s, we prisoners were suffocating under the inhumane conditions of being deprived of outdoor exercise and access to natural sunlight. Our means of exercise consisted of being let out of our cells to occupy a space in front of it that was no bigger than a public sidewalk. In Spain v. Procunier [3], the court ruled these conditions to be unconstitutional and set forth the mandate of prisoners in solitary confinement receiving at least 10 hours of outdoor exercise a week. But 36 years later, in 2015, Warden Holland of CCI Tehachapi has admitted that this prison is ill-equipped to meet the mandate of 10 hours of outdoor recreation. In other words "caged monkeys" in a zoo are receiving more outdoor exercise and natural sunlight than us!!
WE CAN'T BREATHE!!!
In the 1980s, we prisoners were suffocating under the deplorable and outright inhumane conditions at Old Folsom and San Quentin State Prisons. These conditions consisted of extreme cold weather during winter months due to prison guards using their guns to shoot out the windows in the housing units. Rat feces circulated throughout the plumbing system, meaning that the designated shower areas for prisoners were inclusive of this kind of filth!! Once again, a rescue boat appeared on the horizon in the form of Toussaint v. McCarthy [4], where the federal court attempted to take previous rescue efforts a step further by not only ruling these conditions to be unconstitutional, but also issuing a "permanent injunction," that mandated these conditions to be immediately changed!! However, instead of any changes coming about, CDCR surreptitiously transferred prisoners out of Old Folsom and San Quentin en masse to Tehachapi, DUI-Tracy, Soledad State Prison, etc. Thus, nullifying the injunction.
WE CAN'T BREATHE!!!
In the 1990s we witnessed the expansion and usage of solitary confinement units (e.g., "Supermax control units") take flight, wherein CDCR's objectives became ever more apparent in the form of population control. Our suffocation was two-fold!! On the one hand, a culture of police beatings (e.g., "excessive force") was finally exposed to the public in Madrid v. Gomez [5], where prisoner Vaughn Dortch was forced into a tub of boiling hot water and had his skin ripped off of him in the most barbaric fashion possible!! Prisoner Greg Dickerson was shot in the chest and stomach area at point blank range in his cell with a 38 millimeter gas gun via the false assertion of being non-cooperative with prison guards.
While on the other hand, prisoners were being forced to become informants for the state, in order to be released from solitary confinement via "the CDCR Inquisition" program. This practice was exposed as being an "underground policy" in Castillo v. Alameida [6], because CDCR never promulgated it through the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to make it an actual policy. The Castillo case also brought about the 6-year inactive gang status reviews, which meant prisoners were led to believe we could be released from solitary confinement after 6 years. These reviews were a complete sham!! as we prisoners had absolutely no constitutional protections under this process, wherein hardly any prisoners were released from SHU. But more importantly, this rescue boat was doomed from the time it left the docks, as it has now been revealed that Castillo is a pig collaborator by becoming an informant for CDCR in the current class-action lawsuit of Ashker v. Brown, et. al. [7], that has been mounted against the current conditions of solitary confinement.
WE CAN'T BREATHE!!!
It is through this spiral of development, that the AEH became manifest in October of 2012. So in reflecting upon our collective struggle, in being unable to breathe for over a half-century of pure torture!! It is hard to not think of Eric Garner, in the minutes right before his demise, when he uttered the words: "I CAN'T BREATHE!!!"
It is this reality that we prisoners remain confronted with when put into the perspective of why we ended our hostilities. As it amounts to freedom or death!! It is every prisoner's aspiration to be liberated from prison. Our AEH puts us in a viable position for this to happen, especially when we consider how CDCR has routinely denied us parole, for simply being interned to indefinite solitary confinement status as alleged gang members, without a single act of violence to support their position. This speaks to the importance and the manner in which every prisoner has honored and adhered to our AEH. This is commendable on all fronts!! Our exemplary conduct has made CDCR completely powerless over us, as we have successfully taken away the fodder that used to fuel their political rhetoric in labeling us the "worst of the worst." Our unity now qualitatively threatens the political, social, and economic stability of CDCR which is why their Counter Intelligence Unit (IGI) is issuing all of these bogus CDC-115 rule violation reports (RVRs) for promoting gang activity.
Our fortitude and resolve of continued unity ensures that our demand in wanting to be liberated from prison will no longer fall on deaf ears!! As power concedes nothing without a demand!! We now have the power to change the course of history with CDCR's routine parole board denials, just as we have done in building a movement around abolishing all solitary confinement units. We must begin a similar process in mobilizing our families on this very issue. But until then, "WE CAN'T BREATHE" must become our mantra going forward, as we prisoners refuse to ease up on the powers that be, until every prisoner is able to breathe by being liberated from these prisons!!
WE CAN'T BREATHE!!!
For more information contact us at:
Kijana Tashiri Askari s/n Marcus Harrison
#H54077
4B-8C-101
P.O. Box 1906
Tehachapi, CA 93581
Akili Castlin
#J99402
4B-8C-106
P.O. Box 1906
Tehachapi, CA 93581
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!!!
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articles recommended by the SAN PABLO BAY ECOLOGICAL PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION Campaigns, info, and more [SanPabloBayEPA.blogspot.com]
* "Fish declines linked to effects of excess nutrients on coastal estuaries; Offshore fisheries that depend on the health of fish nurseries in coastal estuaries are adversely affected by excess nutrients in runoff from land" (2015-06-08, ucsc.edu) [archive.is/EbWGN]
* "Wildlife refuges grapple with California drought’s impact" (2015-06-12, sfchronicle.com) [archive.is/2Qgg4]
* "Blame the drought: Wildlife disappearing in Tulare Basin" (2015-06-12, sfchronicle.com) [archive.is/k0IkQ]
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Health and the Human Ecology Monopolists enforce a regime that does not recognize the natural right to health and life
* "Pfizer ‘Hid Link’ Between Anti-Depressants and Birth Defects" (2015-06-09, by Anthony Gucciardi) [archive.is/5xpIQ]
* "Ignoring Reality, Subverting Morality: GMOs and the Neoliberal Apologists" (2015-06-14, by Colin Todhunter, globalresearch.ca) [archive.is/KLuX6]
* "The Monsanto We Know and “Love” Could Soon Be “Dead”. CEO Says Name Change Could Be Coming Soon" (2015-06-09, by Nick Meyer) [archive.is/3tiLX]
* "Monsanto Now Billing Itself as a “Sustainable Agriculture Company”, but is anyone really buying this?" (2015-06-12, by Christina Sarich) [archive.is/iF04n]
* "German Companies Stop Sales of Monsanto’s “Roundup” Herbicide" (2015-06-09, Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten) [archive.is/lmNet]
* "MSM and Biotech Try to Re-Brand GMO’s Due to Negative Response" (2015-06-14, by Christina Sarich) [archive.is/XtkcY]
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Save The Birds [link]! and the Bees [link]! A campaign to preserve and expand the habitat and populations of pollinators in the San Pablo Bay Area.
* "Bee populations face another threat: aluminum" (2015-06-05, UPI Newswire) [archive.is/KziJv]
* " 'On the Offensive' Against Monsanto, France Removes Roundup from Store Shelves" (2015-06-15, commondreams.org) [archive.is/O9JqT]
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* "Nuclear power station cancer warning: Breast cancer rates are FIVE TIMES higher at Welsh plant - and twice as high at Essex and Somerset sites, experts reveal" (2015-06-09, dailymail.co.uk) [archive.is/6kz9j]
* "Japan Delays Removal of Fuel Rods From Fukushima Power Plant by 3 Years" (2015-06-12, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/E3h3n]
* "Japan Speeds up Return of Fukushima Refugees to Cut Down on Compensation" (2015-06-13, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/jhSCr]. When the Chernobyl nuclear power plat melted down in 1986, the old Socialist Republic of Belarus would not allow people to return as long as the radiation was deadly, and paid for new housing ad provided jobs for all who were displaced, something the capitalist empire of Dai Nippon (Japan) is refusing to do, despite having more than enough money.
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* "New Research Debunks Medical Marijuana Opponents’ Biggest Argument" (2015-06-17, onepennysheet.com) [archive.is/0XbFN]
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articles recommended by the Committee for ANIMAL RIGHTS Protect Earth's Sentient Life!
* "Eastern Puma Declared Extinct, Removed From Endangered Species List" (2015-06-16, Center for Biological Diversity) [archive.is/0iRyV]
* "Tanzania elephants suffer 'catastrophic decline' " (2015-06-02, AFP Newswire) [archive.is/b60NO] [begin excerpt]: Elephant census figures released by Tanzania show a "catastrophic decline" of around 60 percent over the last five years, leading wildlife trade monitoring group TRAFFIC said Tuesday.
"The government's figures show Tanzania lost tens of thousands of elephants over the past decade," said Steven Broad, TRAFFIC's executive director.
"It is incredible that poaching on such an industrial scale has not been identified and addressed before now."
Census figures released by Tanzania's government on Monday showed a decline from 109,051 in 2009 to 43,330 in 2014, according to the group. [end excerpt]
* "Chimpanzee flexibly use facial expressions and vocalizations" (2015-06-10) [archive.is/ilyWJ]
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They don't want to feel "bad" and just want to be positive, so they will look the other way when a private death-squad kills a community organizer, and, feigning cynicism, believe everything the monopolist media says about all enemies of the establishment, domestic and foreign.
Capitalist propaganda dictates that business suffers under regulations that stifle economic growth. The following is but one example showing that the opposite is true, that regulations are not enforceable on something as important as building and housing safety. Note that the legal system is structured so that even if a domicile is built so that it kills people, the owner or construction company cannot be sued. Also, the owner is the most powerful private economic bureaucracy chartered in the USA.
* "As Berkeley orders removal of second balcony, questions over quality of construction at Library Gardens" (2015-06-17, berkeleyside.com) [archive.is/xQjjw] [begin excerpt]:
Crews planned to take down another balcony at Library Gardens on Wednesday, after the city of Berkeley on Tuesday ordered it to be removed. Inspectors determined that the third-floor balcony “was structurally unsafe and presented a collapse hazard endangering public safety.”
The finding that yet another balcony in Library Gardens may have been in danger of collapsing is focusing attention on the quality of the construction of the complex, which was built from 2005 to 2007 by TransAction Companies.
And the sight of what remained of the balcony that sheared off the wall Tuesday morning was shocking: pieces of decaying beam dotted with a white substance that some speculated might be mold.
Gene St. Onge, an Oakland civil and structural engineer, said water seepage appears to have been the cause of the balcony collapse. It was probably caused by improperly applying the waterproofing system, he said.
If water damage was the cause of the disaster, who is to blame? The architect who designed the building? The developer, who hired the contractor? The contractor who hired the carpenters and the subcontractors who installed the steel, the stucco, the weatherproofing? BlackRock, who purchased Library Gardens from a now-defunct limited partnership called Library Gardens LLC? Greystar, the company that is managing the apartment complex for the limited partnership, Granite Library Gardens LP, that owns the property? Or the city of Berkeley for not finding the defect that may have led the balcony to collapse?
Williams said one thing is clear: the city of Berkeley and its building inspectors are not liable.
“Building inspectors are not responsible because they have government immunity,” said Williams.
But the building code says even if a building inspector has missed a problem in construction, the builder is liable for all defects, said Williams.
Williams said virtually everyone else involved in the construction of Library Gardens could probably be named in a lawsuit, including those who framed the building, put in membranes, flashing, exterior siding and the stucco, among others.
The list also includes the developer, TransAction Companies, which formed a limited liability corporation, Library Gardens LLC, to build the apartment complex. That LLC has disbanded, but Williams said if he were the attorney for the families of the young people who died, he would go after the individual members of the LLC.
“They always think they have created this LLC that gets them off the hook, but it does not,” he said.
Suing BlackRock and its subsidiary, Granite, which owns the property, and Greystar, which manages it, is more problematic. They would be liable only if they knew there was a problem with the balcony and neglected to address it. Then they would be negligent and vulnerable to a lawsuit. Since the building is only 8 years old, they may not have been aware of problems, he said.
The developer behind the project, John DeClercq, who worked as senior vice president for TransAction Companies, defended the quality of the building’s construction Tuesday. He said the general contractor had assembled a respected group of subcontractors. [end excerpt]
* "Six who died in Berkeley: Young students in their prime" (2015-06-16, berkeleyside.com) [archive.is/skhbH]. These people died so that a construction company could pocket a few extra thousand dollars.
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* "Nazis With Benefits: Report Reveals US Paid Over $20Mln to SS War Criminals" (2015-05-31, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/juJrd] [begin excerpt]: More than 130 people suspected of collaborating with the Nazis and committing war crimes during the Second World War reportedly received more than 20 million dollars in social security benefits from US authorities. The war criminals include former members of the SS, which was responsible for many crimes against humanity under Himmler's command during World War II. They also include former concentration camp workers, puppet administrators of Nazi-controlled areas, and company executives who made use of slave labor. According to the report, about 5.7 million dollars went to individuals who were deported for having committed war crimes on behalf of the Third Reich. More than 14 million dollars in social benefits were paid to those who were not deported, but who were found to have directly assisted the Nazis in war crimes during the time when millions of Jews were killed in the Holocaust. The report comes seven months after the publication of an investigation by the Associated Press, which revealed the Justice Department used a legal loophole to persuade suspected Nazis to leave the United States in exchange for social security benefits. [end excerpt]
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The Republican Party is attacking labor unions by labeling them "Nazis"!
* "House Republican compares unions opposing TPP trade pact to Nazi propagandists" (2015-06-12, rt.com) [archive.is/hcyTb]
* "Rep. Schweikert compares unions to Nazis ... really" (2015-06-12, azcentral.com) [archive.is/KXQbW]
This accusation is inspired by the evidence presented among "conservative" white American nationalists, as shown in the following examples.
* "UFWA Flag Inpired by Nazis - United Farm Workers" [youtube.com/watch?v=nBfC50tgBLE]
* "Chicano Park & the Cult of Aztlán" (stop-obama-now.net) [archive.is/dGyns]
* "Nazi Origins of Chicano Nationalism" (stop-obama-now.net) [archive.is/y9eJ2]
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* Michigan: "A Magical Mystery Tour of American Austerity Politics; One State’s Attempt to Destroy Democracy and the Environment" (2015-06-09, tomdispatch.coma) [archive.is/j4yp5]
* "After Cutting Taxes On The Rich, Kansas Will Raise Taxes On The Poor To Pay For It" (2015-06-16, onepennysheet.com) [archive.is/rDa5Q]
I've been lectured by Republican Party members ten-years ago about the miracle of Supply-Side tax cuts, with the same exact language in the following comic strip! This "experimental" economic regime was designed in the 1950s, but was officially begun by 1983 under the regime of the Republican Party with President Ronald Reagan, and over three decades later, our quality of life generally has gotten way worse than what is presented in Republican Party propaganda. There is no guiding ideology in the Republican Party, like its controlled opposition the Democrat Party, it is absolutely controlled by an unelected economic bureaucracy dominating the USA, which hires marketing agents to piece together a "conservative" platform in order to gain enough voters to legitimize the dictatorship, even if the amount of eligible voters who vote for the Republican Party in elections is less than 20%!
* "Comic strip Doonesbury tackles Kansas school funding and budget deficits; Comic strip envisions conversation between student and Trickle-Down Dick" (2015-06-07, cjonline.com) [archive.is/LQj5x], full comic strip at this link [archive.is/VehbM].
Republican Party members are influential in many monopolist media outlets, especially newspapers, and Doonesbury had been repeatedly censored by them during 2012, for example, when the comic strip editorialized about the plans of the Republican Party for invasive laws against women seeking reproductive control and medical procedures, such as fetal abortion.
* "The Doonesbury Comic Strip Republicans Don’t Want You To See: The Tuesday Edition" (2012-03-13) [web.archive.org/web/20120315195359/http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/03/13/the-doonesbury-comic-strip-republicans-dont-want-you-to-see-the-tuesday-edition/]
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* "Private companies hold Shreveport, La. hostage" (2015-06-10, liberationnews.org) [archive.is/rignk] [begin excerpt]: Residents of Shreveport, La. are no strangers to flooding. This is not due to being located on the banks of the Red River, but rather to the irresponsible amount of power over its infrastructure the city has given to private enterprise.
Major projects in the city must be supervised by financial advisers supplied to the government by a private firm hired by the city. In 2013, this made any financial decision-making incredibly difficult when the City Council refused to re-hire Grigsby and Associates, putting several projects on hold, including the expansion of Ockley Ditch, a drainage canal.
Since the flooding in 2008 which swept away two cars in a six foot wall of water, residents have been fighting to upgrade the city’s drainage system, especially Ockley Ditch. Some had hoped that things would begin to change.
Then in 2013 came the financial adviser fiasco as the government looked for other options and work ceased on several projects and investments around the city. Now, in 2015, seven years after the flooding, the city is finally ready to tackle to Ockley problem—if only they can reach an agreement with Sears—which owns a private parking lot providing access to the canal. [end excerpt]
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The international "Triad Treaties" currently being negotiated by the Obama administration are the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the Trade-in-Services Agreement (TISA). If these three agreements become law, they will fundamentally alter global governance in favor of multinational corporations and big finance and will set our work for social, economic and environmental justice back decades at a time when we can't afford that if we want a livable future.
* "How Obama’s ‘Trade’ Deals Are Designed to End Democracy" (2015-06-14, by Eric Zuesse) [archive.is/HKegy]
* "TTP, TTIP, TISA: Stop Obama’s Insane “Legacy” Trade Deals" (2015-06-13, by Eric Zuesse) [archive.is/3TjDh]
Secret TPP 'trade assistance' rider includes $700 million in proposed cuts to Medicare!
* "Leaked TPP Trade Bill Healthcare Annex. De Facto Privatization of Medicare" (2015-06-12, by Stephen Lendman, globalresearch.ca) [archive.is/61iFm]
* "Unions, Seniors Groups Urge Congress Not To Cut Medicare To Fund Trade Assistance" (2015-06-09, huffingtonpost.com) [archive.is/h97hu] [begin excerpt]: An already difficult road for the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the House of Representatives got bumpier on Monday, as controversial Medicare cuts were brought into the mix.
Labor unions and senior citizens' groups are launching efforts to lobby House members against a bill that includes $700 million in proposed cuts to Medicare reimbursements for doctors and hospitals. The cuts would be used to fund a $2.5 billion extension of Trade Adjustment Assistance funding, which aids workers who lose their jobs as a result of trade deals. The TAA extension accompanies legislation known as Trade Promotion Authority, which gives President Barack Obama the ability to "fast-track" trade deals, including TPP, a controversial trade agreement between the United States and 11 Pacific Rim nations.
The Huffington Post has obtained exclusive access to two letters, both sent to House members on Monday, one from labor unions (.pdf) [is.gd/KqigvV] and one from a number of seniors groups (.pdf) [is.gd/C3UGHa]. Both letters condemn the use of Medicare cuts to fund TAA, and urge representatives to vote against the extension if it is not funded independently. The opposition of labor unions and other liberal interest groups, who normally support TAA, speaks to just how much more controversial the trade legislation -- which already faces the opposition of House members in both parties -- has become thanks to the proposed Medicare cuts. [end excerpt]
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* "Doctor who trained U.S. troops suspended for macabre techniques" (2015-06-08, reuters.com) [archive.is/QGEYU]
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* "Arne Duncan’s Patently False Promise to Forgive Student Debts at For-Profit Schools" (2015-06-09, blackagendareport.com) [archive.is/Tqks8] [begin excerpt]: Arne Duncan, President Obama’s Secretary of Education, claims his department is prepared to forgive the debts of thousands of students who attended the Corinthian Colleges, the for-profit rip-off conglomerate that filed for bankruptcy last month. Duncan chose his words carefully, claiming that the federal government is putting together a process that would forgive the loans of any student who can show that she had been defrauded by any college – Coriinthian or some other school.
Duncan is, of course, lying. His own department estimates it would cost as much as $3.5 billion to provide debt relief to the 350,000 students that have had the misfortune to attend Corinthian schools over the past five years. And Corinthian wasn’t the top dog in the for-profit education scam. Phoenix University, owned by the huge Apollo chain of con artists, had an enrollment of 600,000 five years ago, and still processes the checks of a quarter million victims a year. Forgiving the debts of all the students that have been victimized by the for-profit college industry would cost many tens of billions of dollars – far more than what’s left of the nation’s welfare program. We know that Arne Duncan was making no such commitment on behalf of an administration that loves austerity just as much as the Republicans do.
Arne Duncan is lying when he says the administration will hold for-profit colleges “accountable.” These criminal enterprises are creatures of the federal government. The for-profit school industry has no reason to exist except to suck up federal education moneys while destroying the hopes and credit of desperate, largely Black and brown people. The Education Department acts as the bill collector for the industry, enforcing the terms of student debt. Enforcers for loan sharks don’t give debt holidays to the masses of victims.
Arne Duncan’s boss, President Obama, knows that the $1.2 trillion national student debt looms as a huge campaign issue, and that his political soul-mate, Hillary Clinton, will need every Black and brown vote to win in 2016. They know that a new movement is emerging, energized by young people who are especially outraged at the astronomical cost of education, including the inferior education provided by for-profit schools, which charge two to four times the tuition of public colleges. The collapse and bankruptcy of Corinthian Colleges brought the issue to a head. Arne Duncan is attempting to deflect the damage by setting up a mechanism to allow former students to petition for debt relief. It’s like a safety valve, but not too much money will be allowed to escape, and the for-profit education industry will be protected from the worst consequences of its crimes.
But, what will replace Corinthian colleges, and the other scam schools that are teetering on bankruptcy? The answer is: more for-profit schools, repackaged and rebranded – because neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have any intention of reinvigorating public education in the United States. For-profit colleges, like charter public schools, are a capitalist’s dream: the public pays the cost, and private corporations make the profits. And the people’s dreams go up in smoke. [end excerpt]
* "One Nation, Under Sedation: Medicare Paid for Nearly 40 Million Tranquilizer Prescriptions in 2013; Congress wouldn’t allow Medicare to pay for benzodiazepines such as Xanax and Ativan until 2013. Now, the medications are among the most prescribed in its drug program" (2015-06-10, propublica.org) [archive.is/sq0Sc]. whowhatwhy.org writes: In 2013, Medicare opened its expansive prescription drug program—and Uncle Sam’s sizable wallet—to Valium, Xanax and Ativan for the first time. One year later, Uncle Sam dropped a cool $377 million on the powerful drugs. And generic versions of the drugs skyrocketed up the list of the 32 most-prescribed medications covered by Medicare’s “Part D” plan. This is your country on drugs. Any questions?
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Two Party Dictatorship
* "Magna Carta celebrates 800th birthday — How far has liberty come?" (2015-06-15, whowhatwhy.org) [archive.is/ARYEI]. On the 800th anniversary of the signing of the Magna Carta, a bipartisan group of worried senators serve a reminder that no president is above the law. The only problem is that the Congress has been long usurped by Executive Power. But while the senators target one single piece of legislation, they ain't saying a damn thing about the ruin caused by our economic dictators, and the New Jim Crow continues unaccounted for.
* "Clinton Cash Goes Missing for a Controversial 2014 NYU Speech" (2015-06-11, wallstreetonparade.com) [archive.is/2nMs5] [begin excerpt]: New York University, which has been rocked by revelations of providing multi-million dollar residences, forgivable mortgages, and sweet-deal, in-house financing for luxurious vacation homes to an elite group of staff and faculty, is now linked to the Hillary and Bill Clinton cash-by-the-truckload scandal.
According to an analysis by the Washington Post, since leaving the White House in January 2001, Bill Clinton was paid $104.9 million for speaking fees through January 2013 when Hillary stepped down as Secretary of State. In addition, their nonprofit, the Clinton Foundation, has reported over $2 billion in donations from corporations and foreign governments around the world. In May, Hillary released a new financial disclosure form in conjunction with her candidacy for President. That form covered the period from January 2014 through May of this year, showing that the Clintons earned an additional $25 million for speeches.
On May 21 of this year, the Clinton Foundation revealed that there was an additional $26.4 million in speaking fees that had been paid to Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton that had not previously been broken out to the public because the fees had been donated to the Clinton Foundation. The payments came from universities, foreign sources, and corporations. The Foundation said the funds had previously been reported to the IRS as “revenue” rather than donations and that is why the donors’ names had not previously been reported. [end excerpt]
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State Media Watch
Conservatives would actually believe that a "Liberal Media" news host would eject a conservative guest for not speaking politically correct views. This has, of course, never happened (as far as i can tell) except on the conservative Fox News, where fear mongering against the "Liberal Media" presents a persuasive argument to their viewers in support of the very same behavior, as seen in the following example.
* " 'You're Outta Here, Son': Josh Fox Kicked Off Fox News Over Fracking Report; Host shuts down interview in response to environmental activist and director of Gasland exposing misleading coverage of EPA fracking study" (2015-06-10, commondreams.org) [archive.is/AyeAT], video [youtube.com/watch?v=fgOtgIQwI7Q]
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GEOPOLITICAL NEWS Provided by Northbay MDS Committees, and the 5th World News service [FifthWorldNews.blogspot.com], including Institutions of Self-Government not recognized by the United Nations.USA State Dept.'s legal statement supporting unilateral declarations of independence (2009-07) [.pdf link]: "The legal principle of territorial integrity does not prevent non-state entities from peacefully declaring its independence." Legal mandate set by the UN International Court (2010-07-22) [archive.today/mc6sX]: "No general prohibition may be inferred from the practice of the Security Council with regard to declarations of independence,” and “General international law contains no prohibition on declarations of independence."
WORLD FASCISM WATCH Documenting the global economic dictatorship
* "Pillage and Class Polarization: The Rise of 'Criminal Capitalism' " (2015-06-11, by Prof. James Petras) [archive.is/kbEp9]
* "IMF Report Admits IMF's Obsession with Capitalism Is Killing Prosperity; 'By releasing this report, the IMF has shown that 'trickle-down' economics is dead; you cannot rely on the spoils of the extremely wealthy to benefit the rest of us' " (2015-06-16, commondreams.org) [archive.is/Qevsx]
* "Even IMF Knocks “Trickle-Down” Economics, Says Poor People Should Be Paid More Money" (2015-06-16, onepennysheet.com) [archive.is/Fuvjd]
* "Millionaires control 41% of world's wealth, expected to take more" (2015-05-15, cnbc.com) [archive.is/NTHeM]. whowhatwhy.org writes: A new report indicates that the number of millionaires is growing fast. In 2014, the global engine of wealth created 2 million new millionaires for a total of 17 million worldwide. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. But the problem is that they now control 41% of $164 trillion in global private wealth, which is an increase of 40% over the previous year. And the report predicts that will rise to 46% by in 2019. So, it’s not just that there are more rich people. It’s that rich people are hoarding more and more of the world’s wealth.
* "Growth Continues, but Skies Are Not All Blue for Wealth Managers" (2015-06-15, bcg.com) [archive.is/RiDR7], more about the published report [archive.is/EEWLH].
* "Driver-less Vehicles Have a Huge Downside" (2015-06-12, dissidentvoice.org) [archive.is/DXf9z]: Many people are excited about the prospect of having a self-driven car. They envision sitting comfortably in the vehicle, reading their paper, or catching up on work.
Experts are telling us that there will be millions of fewer road deaths and, once the technology is developed, probably big financial savings.
At first glance, it sounds great, and after a long period of adjustment, it no doubt will mean big gains for us all.
But for several years there will be a huge downside. Businesses are licking their chops, looking forward to having fleets of self-driven vehicles. Millions of truckers will lose their jobs.
I am no fan of trucking – the goods in most of those damn monsters damaging our highway should be moved by rail.
Here’s the coming threat: In Canada alone, there are more than 600,000 mostly men employed to drive motorized vehicles. This includes 260,000 truck drivers, 90,000 delivery and courier drivers and 97,000 heavy equipment operators.
The transition is already taking place. In Australia, mining giant Rio Tinto has a fleet of three dozen autonomous, driverless haul trucks working at locations across the country. They’re all controlled remotely from Perth, nearly a thousand miles from the mines. The vehicles use a combination of sensors to navigate around, primarily radar and GPS.
One of the companies developing the technology is Caterpillar, much hated in Canada because it abandoned its operations here. Here in Canada, Suncor Energy has been testing driverless giant vehicles at its tar sands locations, and this week entered into a five-year agreement with a Japanese manufacturer to purchase new heavy haulers for its mining operations. All the new trucks will be “autonomous-ready,” meaning they are capable of operating without a driver.
Suncor will save millions of dollars, but for the company’s roughly 1,000 heavy-haul truck operators, the prospect of driverless trucks has raised more immediate fears of significant job losses. The company says that at least 800 people will lose their jobs.
Meanwhile, a business group is researching the feasibility of a driverless trucking corridor that would be built between Canada and Mexico.
So think of job losses multiplying many times when this technology moves across the country. Unless the resulting unemployment is managed properly by government – and I’m not holding my breath – this could be the equivalent of the thousands of angry and unemployed men who came back to Canada after the Second World War.
* "Deutsche Bank CEOs “Shown Door” – World’s Largest Holder of Derivatives In Trouble?" (2015-06-08, zerohedge.com) [archive.is/e90yE]
* "The Evolution Of The Oil Weapon" (2015-06-01, oilprice.com) [archive.is/jRciv]
* "Here are all the CEOs and politicians going to the top secret Bilderberg Conference this week" (2015-06-10, businessinsider.com) [archive.is/DSlj5]. whowhatwhy.org writes: Some of the biggest wigs in the world will gather this week in Austria to discuss politics, foreign policy and economics free from the constraints of public scrutiny or oversight from journalists. Speculation about the nature of the annual get-together of ultra-elites is fueled by its decidedly anti-democratic secrecy. But the guest list is not a secret and it features such luminaries as Henry Kissinger, convicted leaker Gen. David H. Petraeus, Fmr. Treasury Secretary Robert E. Rubin and Google CEO Eric E. Schmidt.
* "Never mind the G7 or Davos, it's Bilderberg time" (2015-06-11, AFP Newswire) [archive.is/P2PuR]
* Official meeting page [archive.is/otzb3]
* "Convicted Criminal David Petraeus to Represent US at Bilderberg; Former CIA boss excused from prison crucial to Bilderberg mass surveillance agenda" (2015-06-10, by Kurt Nimmo) [archive.is/klTGS]
* "Bilderberg chooses Hillary Clinton for 2016" (2015-06-09) [web.archive.org/web/20150610031333/http://www.dcclothesline.com/2015/06/09/bilderberg-chooses-hillary-clinton-for-2016]
* " ‘Bathed In Blood’ World Bank’s Business-Lending Arm Backed Palm Oil Producer Amid Deadly Land War" (2015-06-10, projects.huffingtonpost.com) [archive.is/JcqRI]. whowhatwhy.org writes: Since 2004, almost 200 World Bank-supported projects led to physical or economic displacement of local populations. Perhaps the bloodiest example is in Honduras, where one of Latin America’s biggest producers of palm oil—Corporación Dinant—is locked in a land battle with locals. It is also the beneficiary of some $15 million in direct loans—plus another $70 million funneled through a Honduran bank—from the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a little-known arm of the World Bank that lends to private companies.
* "These Are Global Banking’s Winners and Losers Since the Crisis" (2015-06-10, bloomberg.com) [archive.is/cCFeq]. whowhatwhy.org writes: Really, they are all “winners” inasmuch as they still exist despite their roles in creating the crisis, profiting off the collapse and, in recent years, paying billions of dollars in fines for foreclosure fraud, securities fraud, market manipulation and currency manipulation. But some “win” more than others, and this list shows the fraudsters at UBS topping the “market value” list, followed by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.
* "Treasury Reveals What JPMorgan Was Really Doing With London Whale Trades" (2015-06-15, wallstreetonparade.com) [archive.is/Wpa7p]
* "Billionaire Bunkers: Exclusive Look Inside the World's Largest Planned Doomsday Escape" (2015-06-12, forbes.com) [archive.is/z2oLe]. During the 1990s, USA agents became "self-made" billionaires by picking from among the most exclusive portfolios of properties "owned" by an international mafia, gained from the coups against the socialist republics of Europe. This doomsday bunker is a example of this same billionaire istinct, where they can't part with their money, but they can get away with benefiting from "socialist construction".
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Weapons for a New World Order
* "New ‘deep learning’ technique enables robot mastery of skills via trial and error" (2015-05-21, berkeley.edu) [archive.is/MjxMT]
* "Robots Can Recover From Damage in Minutes, UW Researcher Helps Demonstrate" (2015-05-28, uwyo.edu) [archive.is/mzu20]
* "RoboSimian Drives, Walks and Drills in Robotics Finals" (2015-06-09, jpl.nasa.gov) [archive.is/MMv7Y]
* "Helping robots handle uncertainty" (2015-06, robotics.mit.edu) [archive.is/5Mcxn], the work was funded by Boeing.
* "Boeing to Build Third All-Electric Propulsion Satellite for ABS" (2015-06-12, boeing.mediaroom.com) [archive.is/wQdq4] [begin excerpt]: Boeing is on contract to build ABS-8, the third all-electric propulsion 702SP (small platform) satellite for ABS, a commercial satellite provider based in Bermuda and Hong Kong. This satellite will expand broadcast and enterprise services to Australia, New Zealand, the Middle East, Russia, South Asia and Southeast Asia.
* "Navy's electro-optic systems get support from CACI International" (2015-06-10, UPI Newswire) [archive.is/230r2]
* "Faster Than Light: China's Hypersonic WU-14 Getting on Pentagon's Nerves" (2015-06-14, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/LwPtI]
* "Russia Develops 'Microwave Gun' Able to Deactivate Drones, Warheads" (2015-06-15, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/JRxnu]
* "Russia to kill drones, missiles with 10km-range super-high frequency cannon" (2015-06-15, rt.com) [archive.is/Ngt0P]
Canada, Quebec, & the federation of First Nations
* "Children should trump communism for victims memorial in Ottawa" (2015-06-04, ctvnews.ca) [archive.is/3QA2d]
* "Harper's voter suppression plan: Coming soon to a polling station near you" (2015-06-15, rabble.ca) [archive.is/YHeH9]
* "Canada Politics: Deception and Betrayal in the Conservative Party" (2013-06-08, globalresearch.ca) [archive.is/97wel] [begin excerpt]: This week’s programme looks back ten years to the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada’s leadership race of 2003 which turned out to be the party’s last before it merged with the rival Canadian Alliance, led by leader Stephen Harper.
The current Conservative Party has been racked with accusations of scandal and corruption. At least three Canadian Senators, hand-picked by the Prime Minister, are having their housing and living expenses reviewed, two Conservative Members of Parliament are being taken to task for improper accounting of their election expenses, and a court case recently determined that “there was an orchestrated effort to suppress votes during the 2011 election campaign by a person with access to the CIMS database” which is “maintained and controlled by the CPC (Conservative Party of Canada)”.
And notoriously, one of the Prime Minister’s staffers cut Senator Mike Duffy a personal cheque for $90,000 to make up for the funds the Senator owed.
This is astonishing behaviour for a political party which rose to power in 2006 promising accountability and integrity in office.
But David Orchard and his supporters questioned the ethics of the party a long time ago. Orchard contested the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party back in 2003. Orchard relied on the support of grass-roots people, myself among them, who were opposed to government policies on free trade, environmental neglect, and Canadian support for imperial wars abroad.
It was through Orchard’s support that Peter Mackay became leader of the party. Mackay then betrayed the condition of Orchard’s support by orchestrating a merger with the right-wing US-Republican style Canadian Alliance Party, which was then led by Stephen Harper.
This betrayal, in addition to some of the other shenanigans which played out in the months during the leadership campaign and leading up to the vote to merge the parties in December provides a critical context for assessing this party’s commitment to ethics, responsible conduct and fair play.
Orchard, and many other traditional Progressive Conservatives, saw the Canadian Alliance as out of sync with the traditional trajectory of the PC Party, the Party which established Canada as a nation in 1867. The PCs historically championed Canadian sovereignty. The Canadian Alliance advocated closer political and economic ties with the United States. [end excerpt]
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* "Canadian prime minister backs right-wing regime in Ukraine" (2015-06-08, wsws.org) [archive.is/77typ]
* "Canada’s Harper Government Provides Military Training to Neo-Nazi Ukraine National Guard" (2015-06-08, by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky) [archive.is/IsnFX]
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* "Big Brother, eh?" video [submedia.tv/stimulator/2015/05/30/big-brother-eh]:
This week we break Bill C-51, down Klanada’s sinister new law, that would give the Canucks increased spying powers over its population. On the break, long standing hip-hop act Onyx, returns with “Fuck The Law.” We wrap things up with an interview with Antoine, a computer security ninja, about how we can protect ourselves from surveillance.
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* "Quebec: Breaking the spiral of austerity" (2015-06-14) [archive.is/h6l8A] [begin excerpt]: The provincial government conducts a liberal policy of acquired breakages and favors multinationals. In response, the Quebecois social movement reacts.
The Liberal government of Quebec due to the destruction of social gains priority. Austerity, nothing else that neoliberal measures at great speed, the course is chosen by the Prime Sinister and his gang. Drastic cuts in education, health, child care, funding for community groups, associations and neighborhood, everything goes.
However, there are still public money for multinationals. Thus, billions of dollars are and will be invested in the Plan Nord project (a large project of extractivism in the northern territories). Mining companies will benefit from transport infrastructure and subsidies from public funds. This is also the government that has to pay the bill for decontaminating already exploited mining sites. On that date, the sum of 1.2 billion Canadian dollars (1.12 billion euros).
Height of deceit, the Plan Nord is a territory that belongs to First Nations: the Cree, Inuit, Atikamekw and Innu Anishinabeg. These have never ceded their lands. The project is therefore on stolen land. The message is clear: the government would favor a destructive extractive economy of our environment and our lives, rather than to finance public services and social programs. After over four hundred years of colonialism, the reports of the State is still part of a single dynamic operating.
Before such finding, among students, feminists, union and community are mobilizing to fight a war in the government, leading figure of the application of neoliberal schemes.
The student movement began walking this spring. Tens of thousands of students are currently on strike to protest against austerity measures introduced. Multiple unions and community groups have already established social strike mandates a day for May 1. [end excerpt]
===*===*===
* "Native American tribes start yearly harvest of eel-like fish" (2015-06-12, AP Newswire) [archive.is/jclUI]: They dove into the cold waters, emerging with writhing, eel-like fish in hand and thrusting them into nets.
Thus began Northwest Native American tribes' annual lamprey harvest at a rushing, 40-foot waterfall about 15 miles south of Portland.
The jawless, gray fish are a traditional food source for tribal members in the Columbia River Basin, which stretches from the Oregon coast to Canada and into Idaho, Montana and Washington. Lampreys grow to about 2 feet long and are prized for their rich, fatty meat.
On Friday, adults, teens and children from the Umatilla and Warm Springs reservations in Oregon and the Yakama reservation in Washington crawled over slippery rocks and waded through icy pools to reach the lampreys' hiding spots. The fish latch onto rocks in Willamette Falls with their round, toothy mouths.
"Our people have always come here, generation after generation," said Bobby Begay, a Warm Springs tribal member who drove more than a 100 miles to the falls from his village of Celilo.
Begay, 46, has attended the harvest for more than 40 years. He is teaching his children and nephews how to navigate the rocks and where to find the biggest catch.
"The same fishing holes my grandfather showed me, his father and grandfather showed him, and I showed my kids," he said.
Lampreys taste best when roasted over an open fire, Begay said. They also can be dried or frozen for later use. The fish harvested this month will be distributed to tribal elders and used for ceremonial purposes, he said.
In previous generations, lampreys were abundant up and down the Columbia River and its tributaries. Biologists have estimated at least a million once were crossing Bonneville Dam on the Columbia east of Portland.
But their numbers have dwindled over the past 30 years because of the dams and toxins such as pesticides. About 20,000 remain, said Brian McIlraith with the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission.
Willamette Falls is the last place where the fish can be caught by the hundreds.
Tribes have been instrumental in advocating for lamprey restoration, and the government has started paying attention. That's because lampreys also offer an alternate food source for sea lions and other predators that otherwise would be munching on threatened salmon.
Tribes have received funding and run research and recovery projects. They truck lampreys past dams and have pushed for construction of ramps to help the fish navigate the structures.
They're also looking at breeding lampreys in a hatchery, but that's not the preferred method, said tribal elder Donnie Winishut Sr., who observed the harvest to assure safety.
"We would rather see them grow in a natural way," Winishut said. "It's good to see the young people coming to the falls and learning our tradition, and I hope they can continue coming here to catch the fish."
---
* " ‘We love being Lakota’: native autonomy in Pine Ridge" (2015-04-12, roarmag.org) [archive.is/NVrgb]
* "Lying to Children About the California Missions and the Indians" (2015-03-23, zinnedproject.org) [archive.is/htqS7]
* "Indian killers: Police violence against native people" (2015-06-09, by David Correia) [archive.is/KAmqU] [begin excerpt]:
In April 1974, three white high school students from Farmington, New Mexico murdered three Navajo men, Benjamin Benally, John Harvey, and David Ignacio. The teenagers bludgeoned the faces of the three men, and caved in their chests with basketball-sized rocks. They exploded firecrackers on their bodies and tried to burn off their genitalia. When authorities found the men, they were burned and beaten beyond recognition.
The brutal murders were nothing new in Farmington, where white high school students had been known to sever the fingers of inebriated Navajo men and display them proudly in their lockers at school. Murdering and torturing Navajo men and women in the border towns that surround the reservation even has its own name: Indian Rolling.
Protests erupted in the wake of the murders and lasted for months. One of the protest leaders, John Redhouse, explained Indian Rolling as a kind of blood sport:
“We didn’t see the murders as the act of three crazy kids. We saw it as a part of a whole racist picture. For years it has been almost a sport, a sort of sick, perverted tradition among Anglo youth of Farmington High School, to go into the Indian section of town and physically assault and rob elderly and sometimes intoxicated Navajo men and women of whatever possession they had, for no apparent reason, other than that they were Indians.”
Indian Rolling is another word for lynching, and it’s a part of everyday life in Indian Country. According to a 2004 report by the US. Department of Justice, Native people experience violence at rates twice that of the rest of the population. The vast majority of this violence, more than 70%, is committed by persons of a different race. This is particularly true in New Mexico where, according to a 2003 study by the New Mexico Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Native people experience “acts of ethnic intimidation; threats of physical violence, assaults, and other potential hate crimes” as part of everyday life in border towns like Gallup, Farmington and Albuquerque.
Just this past summer, in the early morning hours of July 19, 2014, three Albuquerque teenagers wandered the back alleys of their neighborhood looking for homeless men to beat up. For months, in gangs of three and sometimes more, they hunted Native homeless men in a blood sport of violent beatings.
On that morning, they found three Navajo men sleeping on mattresses in the weeds of a vacant Westside lot. They gathered up broken cinder blocks and bashed in the heads of two of the men, Allison Gorman and Kee Thompson. A third man escaped. The boys finished Gorman and Thompson with metal poles. The survivor told police the boys had done this before and the boys—the oldest was 18 and the youngest 15-years old—admitted to police that they sought out Native, homeless men to victimize.
The only exceptional thing about these brutal murders is how common they are in New Mexico. In the towns that border New Mexico’s many Indian reservations, Native people are more likely to be poor, more likely to be incarcerated and more likely to experience violence than any other group. Since July of 2013, in Gallup alone, more than 170 Navajo citizens have died of unnatural deaths.
Albuquerque is just as violent for Native people. Of the estimated 25,000 Native people living in Albuquerque, 13 percent are chronically homeless like Gorman and Thompson. And many of them live in a part of town that Albuquerque police call the “War Zone.” According to the homeless Native people who live in that part of town, it’s a war waged by police against Native people.
A few blocks from the Albuquerque Indian Center — a place where homeless Native people can get a free lunch, connect with social services, and even pick up their mail — one man told me he’s constantly harassed and that it often comes at the hands of the police, not teenagers, “You know I’m an alcoholic and I drink on the streets, and [the police] picked me up and they brought me all the way down to the Bio Park and they beat me up, while I was in handcuffs, and then they unhandcuffed me and let me go.”
A few blocks away another man who told me, “I was walking on the street and [a cop] was following me. I’d go down the alley and he’d follow me. ‘Why don’t you go back to the Rez? You’re not welcome here in Albuquerque,’ he told me.”
A Jicarilla Apache man named Natani at a homeless tent camp had the same experience. “This is ours, our land,” he said. “And the cops they’ll say things like ‘Why do you want to bring the reservation our way?’”
When I asked how often harassment turns violent, he gave me an impatient look. “It’s usually,” he said. He showed me his wrists. They were covered in scabbed-over wounds. They were from handcuffs, he said. He pulled off his sunglasses. One eye was red and swollen. “They maced me in this eye. They walked up to me from behind and maced me like this,” he said, as he put his hand inches from my eyes to show me how it was done. “How common is this? Does this happen to everyone?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “They handcuff you and then they beat you and then they take you to the hospital and say something like ‘We found him this way.’”
Days later near the Indian Center one woman told me a cop recently slammed her head to the pavement. “Then he just got back in his car and drove away.” Her friend described constant harassment. “They pull up and tell us to leave or they’ll arrest us for loitering,” she said. I asked where this happens. “Everywhere,” she said, “even when we’re waiting at the bus stop.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Native Americans make up 0.8 percent of the population, but comprise nearly two percent of the victims of police violence, a rate greater than any other racial group. And while police kill young black men more than any other group, they kill Native Americans at a higher rate.
Much of this violence happens in New Mexico, the state with the highest rate of police killing in the United States in 2014. And among New Mexico’s police departments, the Albuquerque Police Department has the highest rate of fatal police shootings, and one of the highest in the country. More than 20% of homicides in Albuquerque in 2014 were committed by police officers. Since 2010, Albuquerque cops have shot nearly 50 people, killing 28.
Navajo leaders sent the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission to Albuquerque in December to investigate last summer’s double murder. But commissioners were equally as interested in police violence. They scheduled a public hearing at the Albuquerque Indian Center on the treatment of Navajo citizens by Albuquerque law enforcement. Leonard Gorman, the executive director of the Commission, began the hearing by reminding people of the problem. “The role of the police is supposed to be to protect and serve, but our people tell us that we need to protect ourselves from the police.”
The first person to testify described constant harassment by Albuquerque police, “I was the Indian, so I was the bad guy, I guess. The police aren’t going to help us. They don’t care.”
Another person testified about police harassment of Native homeless people, saying “It happens whether we’re homeless or not. The danger is everywhere. But the homeless are just easier targets. Someone was shot to death on the streets recently and no one even heard about it. It wasn’t reported.”
According to a Department of Justice investigation, the Albuquerque Police Department routinely engages in unconstitutional policing and frequently employs unjustified fatal force. But its scathing report from last April made no mention of violence against Native people. As recently as February of this year, Albuquerque Mayor Richard Berry, who refused to attend the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission hearing, told a local radio station that police violence in Albuquerque has nothing whatsoever to do with race.
Asked what explains the police violence and the indifference to Native suffering in New Mexico’s border towns, Natani had a simple answer. “Prejudice,” he said. “It’s all the same from Farmington to Albuquerque. It goes a long way.”
===*===*===
Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
* "New WikiLeaks cable reveals US embassy strategy to destabilize Chavez government" (2013-04-04, rt.com) [archive.is/pWpu0]
---
Republic of Cuba
* "US Allocates 'Democracy Funds' for Cuba" (2015-06-13, telesurtv.net) [archive.is/qnQhz]
---
Pluri-National State of Bolivia
* "Bolivia Set to Sign Cooperation Deal With Russia's Rosatom" (2015-06-07, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/qoeC5]
---
* "Ecuador proposes moderate tax increase on rich, right wing runs amok" (2015-06-16, peoplesworld.org) [archive.is/FDiw1]
* "Rafael Correa’s Push to Incense the Oligarchy" (2015-06-15, counterpunch.org) [archive.is/jGdT7]
---
Republic of Nicaragua
===*===*===
United States of Mexico
* "In foul mood, Mexican voters ponder how to send message in Sunday elections" (2015-06-05, mcclatchydc.com) [archive.is/yCWjv] [begin excerpt]: Voter discontent in Mexico is high, and a debate rages over how best to send the political class a message of disgust in Sunday’s midterm elections.
Some academics, artists and protesters urge the nation’s 83.5 million voters to nullify or deface their ballots, even holding up signs along Mexico City’s main boulevard this week calling for such action.
Others exhort voters to take advantage of a newly opened electoral system and shun traditional party politicians, perhaps electing an independent for the first time as governor of one of Mexico’s most prosperous states. [end excerpt]
* "Voting stations set on fire in several Mexican states today. Elections in Tixtla were declared void because over 20% of the polling stations burned" four photos (2015-06-07) [archive.is/0rgO4]
Central America, an "Economic Sacrifice Zone"
* "Wave of Protests Spreads to Scandal-Weary Honduras and Guatemala" (2015-06-12, nytimes.com) [archive.is/LGdvV]
InSight Crime criticizes the failure of the Northern Triangle's governments to fight human trafficking.
[http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/human-trafficking-northern-triangle]
Republic of Honduras [northbaymds.blogspot.com/2014/10/world-fascism-watch-honduras.html] Most of the comments are collected from the daily "Presente Honduras Digest", and from the "Honduras Solidarity Network" listserve, authored by experts in geopolitics and history of Latin America. Libre is the "leftist" party working to uphold human rights and sovereignty, JOH is the dictator of Honduras supported by the USA.
* "Hillary Clinton sold out Honduras: Lanny Davis, corporate cash, and the real story about the death of a Latin American democracy. Want to know why Clinton's State Dept. failed to help an elected leader? Follow the money and stench of Lanny Davis" (2015-06-08, salon.com) [archive.is/tsTL7]. whowhatwhy.org writes: Salon’s story centers on the military coup in Honduras that removed President Zelaya, although Zelaya resisted the coup. That’s when Hillary’s State Department and long-time Clintonista Lanny Davis sprung into action—launching a seemingly coincidental PR offensive attacking the intransigence of the elected president in the face of the military coup. Alas, President Zalaya raised the minimum wage, and that didn’t sit well with Honduran elites or, it seems, with the Business Council of Latin America—the group that hired Davis to sell the coup here in the US.
* "With White House Bid Underway, Clinton Role in Honduras Coup Raises Key Concerns" (2015-06-09, commondreams.org) [archive.is/xbWG7]
From Congressional Research Service
Honduras: Background and U.S. Relations
Peter J. Meyer
Analyst in Latin American Affairs
May 20, 2015
http://fas.org/sgp/crs/row/RL34027.pdf
---
Here are a few photos from the demo in San Francisco protesting the raising of money for Charter Cities [archive.is/4AGrn]. Selections include the Panelists [archive.is/XPYy2], propaganda showing the cities as a capitalist paradise [archive.is/U9coW], protesters [archive.is/UxKge], protest signs [archive.is/jSlBe] [archive.is/BUjRn]
* HN gov't denies having been invited to Monday's Seasteading event. Check out the statement on the Honduran government's ZEDE website [archive.is/fqXL3].
OFRANEH reports in the recently held conference on ZEDE in San Francisco.
Mario Perez, the current poster-boy of the National Party, was linked to drug trafficking in a report by the National Bureau Against Drug Trafficking (DNLCN). This happened already in 2012, and even though the National Party new about this, they presented Perez as its main congressman in Santa Barbara and later made him secretary of Congress.
http://criterio.hn/diputado-nacionalista-mario-perez-senalado-como-narcotraficante-en-informe-de-la-dnlcn/
"The arrest of a special investigations agent wanted for extradition by the United States over alleged connections to Honduran drug kingpins the Valles casts a new light on the ongoing failures of attempts to weed out police corruption in Honduras."
http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/arrest-police-wanted-extradition-us-shows-failings-honduras-reforms
---
* "Honduras May 2015 International Week Against Forced Disappearances Past and Present — Impunity Remains" (2015-06-17, Honduras Delegation) [archive.is/lgRYP]
Honduras Culture and Politics offers a great analysis on the failure to fight corruption in Honduras.
http://hondurasculturepolitics.blogspot.ch/2015/06/ebal-diaz-weve-already-contained.html
* "End impunity: Corruption continues to affect the health of Hondurans" (2015-06-10, fidh.org) [archive.is/ShkpA]
Criterio interview one of the protesters from last Friday who spoke with US ambassador James D. Nealon. According to the protester, Nealon told them that the US would support an International Commission against Impunity were the Honduran government to request one.
http://criterio.hn/comunidad-internacional-lista-para-apoyar-la-cicih-nealon/
The Alliance for Peace and Justice (APJ) proposes to create a so-called
'Acci?n Anticorrupci?n en Honduras (AACH)' in the hope to create a
culture of transparency and to combat impunity. Nevertheless, they still
push for a Honduran International Commission against Impunity (CICI).
Omera Rivera, meanwhile, wants a group of international public
prosecutors to support the Honduran MP.
Javier Suazo offers an analysis of the recent statement by US ambassador
James D. Nealon to support a CICI for Honduras.
Javier Suazo shows the link between the social benefit scheme 'Bono Diez Mil' and the protest marches currently held in Honduras. A further march abroad has been announced - this time people will take to the streets in New York to protest corruption and impunity in Honduras.
http://www.alainet.org/es/articulo/170242
Cholusat Sur published the arrest warrant against businessman Shucri Kafie, whose company DIMESA was apparently involved in the corruption scandal.
Cholusat Sur also claims that Shucri Kafie will be freed soon due to a deal between JOH, Mauricio Oliva and the Supreme Court.
http://cholusatsur.com/noticias/segun-requerimiento-fiscal-shucri-kafie-participo-en-actos-ilicitos/
http://cholusatsur.com/noticias/sobreseimiento-definitivo-para-shucri-kafie-luego-de-un-acuerdo-politico/
The man responsible for negotiating the highway toll system in Honduras
has been arrested in Panam? for corruption.
The Regional Alliance for Freedom of Expression and Information
criticizes the missing transparency and public participation in the
election of IACtHR and IACHR members.
US ambassador James Nealon accussed journalist Esdras Amado Lopez of spreading false accusations. Lopez claims that USAID money was diverted to the JOH campagin. Lopez reacted by publishing the scanned document online.
* [http://cholusatsur.com/noticias/embajador-de-los-estados-unidos-james-nealon-ataca-periodista-de-honduras-esdras-amado-lopez/]
* [http://criterio.hn/pleito-entre-diputado-y-periodista-esdras-amado-lopez-y-embajador-estadounidense/]
C-Libre denounces the recent statement by US ambassador against journalist Amado Lopez.
* [http://www.clibrehonduras.com/alerta/embajada-estadounidense-calific%C3%B3-de-c%C3%ADnico-periodista-hondure%C3%B1o]
* Honduras: USAID Funds Allegedly Used to Finance Ruling Party Campaigns.
Attached is the letter from COPECO showing the allocation of USAID funds to various National Party operatives in various departimentos in Honduras. Esdras Armado Lopez, a journalist with TV channel Cholusat Sur, and a LIBRE Deputy in Congress, stated that he wanted to bring this document to the US Embassy's attention in order for them to verify its authenticity and/or investigate if USAID funds were embezzled to fund NP campaigns in the run up to the 2013 elections.
US Ambassador James Nealon quickly went on the defensive and attacked Armado Lopez. In an official statement from the Embassy, as well as on the official US Honduran Ambassador Twitter feed, Nealon stated, "Cinical efforts likes those of Mr. Armado Lopez to involve the US in the politics of Honduras are lamentable..." (retch!).
Nealon goes on to say that USAID funds have not gone to COPECO for 15 years since Hurricane Mitch. Which raises the question why Lisandro Rosales, who at the time of the letter (July 2012) was Director of COPECO, would state in the letter that the funds were being diverted from USAID monies allocated for disater relief.
Of course, this wouldn't be anything uncommon, for USAID to be involved covertly or overtly in antidemocratic manipulations.
http://cholusatsur.com/noticias/embajador-de-los-estados-unidos-james-nealon-ataca-periodista-de-honduras-esdras-amado-lopez/
---
In the newest report by the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression
of the IACHR, Honduras is criticized among other things for its recently
passed State Secrecy Bill.
* "How hitmen and high living lifted lid on looting of Honduran healthcare system: The shooting of a travel agent, prosecutors believe, links the luxury lifestyles of officials with the theft of hundreds of millions from the social security system in a scandal threatening President Juan Orlando Hernández’s hold on power" (2015-06-10, theguardian.com) [archive.is/F2lSw]
The IHSS corruption scandal spreads even more, as sports journalist
Henry G?mez admitted that he received checks from the IHSS.
The corruption case seems to have united the political opposition.
Mauricio Villeda, the president of the Liberal Party, announced their
participation at the protest marches today.
In Congress, the Multiparty Commission presented its first report. Of
course it only mentions Ricardo ?lvarez, the current vice-president, in
the IHSS case. It seems that the National Party has found its scape goat
and JOH won't be touched...for the moment.
Meanwhile, the MP continues to go after former members of the Zelaya
administration for the so-called 'fourth ballot box' case.
While the spotlights are on the IHSS, JOH decided yesterday in an extraordinary meeting to privatize the distribution of medicine.
http://criterio.hn/se-viene-privatizacion-en-la-entrega-de-medicinas/
Miguel Aguilar, the president of the National Electric Energy Company's labor union (STENEE), announced that some 1000 employees will be fired and that this could endanger the Honduran power supply.
http://www.web.ellibertador.hn/index.php/noticias/nacionales/163-honduras-mil-empleados-seran-despedidos-de-la-empresa-de-electricidad
---
* "Honduras: Radio Reporter Theatened With Death in Aguan" (2015-06-14, Greg McCain):
Radio Progreso is reporting that on Friday June 12th after the torch march in Tocoa, C?sar Obando Flores was threatened by a police officer and another man in civilian clothes who was later identified as a police officer. C?sar is a reporter with Radio Progreso in the Agu?n as well as with Radio La Voz Popular del Agu?n. He had a gun held to his head and was threatened with death if he continued to report about the IHSS corruption scandal as well as about the protests regarding the mining projects in the area, and additionally for reporting favorably about the campesino movement.
The offices of the journal Comando Maya was assaulted and trashed on May 31.
http://www.clibrehonduras.com/alerta/sabotean-y-asaltan-sala-de-redacci%C3%B3n-de-peri%C3%B3dico-alternativo
Honduriaro has been the victim of hackers, apparently because it
informed on the IHSS corruption scandal.
In the Bajo Agu?n region, the journalist Cesar Obando Flores was
threatened by a police officer for having reported on the
anti-corruption protest marches.
In a press conference yesterday, C-Libre denounced the ongoing
stigmatization of journalists in Honduras.
"The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) denounces and condemns the violation of the right to health for all Hondurans caused by the serious cases of corruption at the IHSS.
The Nationalist congressman Karlo Villatoro claims that the current head of the Liberal Party, Benjam?n Bogr?n, had received 15 million Lempiras in bribes. Of course he directly uses this claim to denounce opposition politicians who march against corruption.
Radio Progreso describes the threat of privatization that Honduran
students face.
Criterio reports on some further irregularities in the education system.
The Protests haven't stopped in Honduras and according to Criterio, they
even have grown in size.
The latest march ended in front of the US embassy, where the protestors
demanded from US ambassador James D. Nealon that he demands from the
Honduran government more stringent anti-corruption policies.
To geht a better idea of the scope of the protests, the last link leads
to a video by HispanTV.
Radio Progreso outlines the condition under which a dialogue between the
government and the protestors could begin.
Meanwhile, Libre thanks the Honduran students for its important role in
the protests.
Pasos de Animal Grande spoke with several participants of the protests
on their views.
The lawyer Mario Urqu?a warns of the danger of letting the protestors be
divided into different group, a tactic chosen by the Honduran government.
El Libertador reports that the Honduran police is spending more than a 100 million Lempiras per year for renting its cars by the company Econo Renta Car.
http://www.web.ellibertador.hn/index.php/noticias/nacionales/130-fabuloso-negocio-de-tasa-de-seguridad-hondurena-en-alquiler-de-patrullas
---
El Libertador shows in a new article the brutal control of the Maras in Comayag?ela .
http://www.web.ellibertador.hn/index.php/noticias/nacionales/132-ni-leggins-ni-cabello-rubio-pandillas-aterrorizan-a-mujeres-hondurenas
---
A new article on Pasos del Animal Grande outlines how government policies endanger the freedom of expression of the Honduran indigenous people.
http://www.pasosdeanimalgrande.com/index.php/en/investigaciones/item/836-gobierno-pone-en-peligro-de-extincion-la-libertad-de-expresion-y-de-informacion-en-los-pueblos-indigenas-y-negros
---
ICIJ and The Huffington Post continue with its report on forced displacement caused by World Bank lending. This time they take a closer look at Honduras and its Bajo Agu?n region.
http://projects.huffingtonpost.com/worldbank-evicted-abandoned/honduras-international-finance-corp-backed-palm-oil-producer?goal=0_ffd1d0160d-63b91bbbe1-100355165&mc_cid=63b91bbbe1&mc_eid=2c23b64989
Javier Suazo writes about the problems with the implementation of IMF-policies in Honduras.
http://www.alainet.org/es/articulo/170284
Juan Orlando Hernandez joins a "World Hunger" press conference at National Press Club.
* "World leaders join universities presidents in global mobilization for a zero hunger world" (2015-06-17, press.org) [archive.is/CwQnt]
---
Defensores en Linea writes about the difficult situation in the Honduran South.
http://www.defensoresenlinea.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3562:el-nuevo-mapa-del-sur-amenaza-los-derechos-humanos&catid=42:seg-y-jus&Itemid=159
---
* "Hondurans march in New York against corruption" (2015-06-13, laprensa.hn) machine translated [archive.is/7rXOJ].
* PRESS RELEASE "Hondurans protest in New York: March of torches"
Seven billion Lempiras, (Lempiras is the national currency of Honduras) the equivalent of 350 million dollars, stolen from the Honduran Social Security Institute and nearly 3000 deaths caused by this scam, was the straw that broke the camel in a country marked by high levels of corruption and which has provoked the indignation of the Honduran people, beyond political partisanship and whom for several days have been demonstrating in the streets across the country in what is already known as "March of the torches".
They are demanding the resignation of the president of the republic, Juan Orlando Hernandez, who admitted that his party (The National Party) received Social Security money that led him to the presidency in a fraudulent campaign.Thus, it has also come to the United States (where approximately one million Hondurans live) and in different cities, Hondurans are protesting not only for an investigation of the massive corruption, but for justice to be done, given that the economy of Honduras is partly sustained by immigrant's remittances, and from US government's support to the dictatorship
in Honduras using the US taxes paid by the people in this country. The general cry of the people in the rallies is that the Interamerican Court against Impunity (CICI) comes to Honduras and installs its offices to make a professional investigation of this corruption, stop the impunity and to demand the punishment of the guilty as well as the return of the stolen funds. In New York, we cordially invite your communication media and hope that you become our voice of the human demands we make on the international community and we thank you for circulating this invitation to:The March of torches in the Big Apple. Saturday June 13, 2015
---
Garifuna nation within the Republic of Honduras
* "The Garifuna community of Barra Vieja on trial for defending ancestral territory (UPDATE)" (2015-06-05): The hearing for the case against the Garifuna community of Barra Vieja resumed yesterday afternoon after hours of waiting. The verdict is expected to be delivered at 3pm today. In its communication, [https://www.facebook.com/groups/862195690459745/permalink/980885901924056] OFRANEH states that the State of Honduras persists in "refusing to recognize the community and the indigenous status of the Garifuna people." For more information on the case, see PROAH's blog:The Gar?funa community of Barra Vieja on trial for defending ancestral territory [https://hondurasaccompanimentproject.wordpress.com/2015/06/03/the-garifuna-community-of-barra-vieja-on-trial-for-defending-ancestral-territory/] and Dina Meza's latest article [http://www.pasosdeanimalgrande.com/index.php/es/contexto/item/825-dilatacion-e-injustica-contra-pueblo-garifuna-a-pocas-horas-de-un-veredicto-ilegal-contra-barra-vieja/825-dilatacion-e-injustica-contra-pueblo-garifuna-a-pocas-horas-de-un-veredicto-ilegal-contra-barra-vieja]
UPDATE: Two hours ago, the Court in Tela aquitted 66 Garifuna members from the community of Barra Vieja who were charged with land usurpation. Carlos Castillo, President of the Barra Vieja community speaking to Radio Progreso stated, "Justice was done because the land belongs to us". See more on [https://www.facebook.com/RadioProgresoPaginaOficial#] and the Interview of Miriam Miranda, OFRANEH coordinator: [http://t.co/O9Y8wLxjof]
[http://www.pasosdeanimalgrande.com/index.php/es/contexto/item/825-dilatacion-e-injustica-contra-pueblo-garifuna-a-pocas-horas-de-un-veredicto-ilegal-contra-barra-vieja/825-dilatacion-e-injustica-contra-pueblo-garifuna-a-pocas-horas-de-un-veredicto-ilegal-contra-barra-vieja]
Even after a victory before court, the Gar?funa community in Barra Vieja
still faces various threats.
A conference on Gar?funa culture was held in Honduras.
* "Where Ecocide Turns Into Genocide: The War in Colombia and Why It Continues" (2015-06-12, counterpunch.org) [archive.is/iGg0U]
* "Commanders of Colombia’s ‘battalion of death’ arrested for killing 72" (2015-06-09, colombiareports.com) [archive.is/Stk9p]
---
Towards a Bolivarian Republic of Colombia
* "Is Nicaragua giving FARC leaders citizenship as shield against US and ICC charges?" (2015-06-11, colombiareports.com) [archive.is/PIkXp]
===*===*===
Towards a People's Republic of the Andes (Peru, Ecuador) [movadef.net]
* "Protests against Peru's Tia Maria Mine bolstered by international solidarity" (2015-06-11, peoplesworld.org) [archive.is/LIXK5]
* "Peru’s story haunts the TPP" (2015-06-09, thehill.com) [archive.is/gsypm]
===*===*===
* "Jason Hirthler: 'Algeria is another African target of the West' " (2015-06-12, mohsenabdelmoumen.wordpress.com) [archive.is/aoVy2]
* "Soco International Accused of Paying Bribes for Congo Oil Exploration" (2015-06-12, corpwatch.org) [archive.is/udZMT]
===*===*===
European Union (EU) / NATO Documenting economic and political trends across the EU jurisdictions, and international operations, map [archive.is/iqAFG]
The USA directs the EU to "play along" with the destruction of Ukraine.
* "Russian state assets in Belgium ‘to be seized as Yukos compensation’ – reports" (2015-06-18, rt.com) [archive.is/n4mts]
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United Kingdom of Great Britain (UKGB)
* "UK government, Murdoch press smear of Edward Snowden unravels" (2015-06-16, wsws.org) [archive.is/iprwv]
* "Five Reasons the MI6 Story is a Lie" (2015-06-14, craigmurray.org.uk) [archive.is/Nu6YG]:
The Sunday Times has a story claiming that Snowden’s revelations have caused danger to MI6 and disrupted their operations. Here are five reasons it is a lie.
1) The alleged Downing Street source is quoted directly in italics. Yet the schoolboy mistake is made of confusing officers and agents. MI6 is staffed by officers. Their informants are agents. In real life, James Bond would not be a secret agent. He would be an MI6 officer. Those whose knowledge comes from fiction frequently confuse the two. Nobody really working with the intelligence services would do so, as the Sunday Times source does. The story is a lie.
2) The argument that MI6 officers are at danger of being killed by the Russians or Chinese is a nonsense. No MI6 officer has been killed by the Russians or Chinese for 50 years. The worst that could happen is they would be sent home. Agents’ – generally local people, as opposed to MI6 officers – identities would not be revealed in the Snowden documents. Rule No.1 in both the CIA and MI6 is that agents’ identities are never, ever written down, neither their names nor a description that would allow them to be identified. I once got very, very severely carpeted for adding an agents’ name to my copy of an intelligence report in handwriting, suggesting he was a useless gossip and MI6 should not be wasting their money on bribing him. And that was in post communist Poland, not a high risk situation.
3) MI6 officers work under diplomatic cover 99% of the time. Their alias is as members of the British Embassy, or other diplomatic status mission. A portion are declared to the host country. The truth is that Embassies of different powers very quickly identify who are the spies in other missions. MI6 have huge dossiers on the members of the Russian security services – I have seen and handled them. The Russians have the same. In past mass expulsions, the British government has expelled 20 or 30 spies from the Russian Embassy in London. The Russians retaliated by expelling the same number of British diplomats from Moscow, all of whom were not spies! As a third of our “diplomats” in Russia are spies, this was not coincidence. This was deliberate to send the message that they knew precisely who the spies were, and they did not fear them.
4) This anti Snowden non-story – even the Sunday Times admits there is no evidence anybody has been harmed – is timed precisely to coincide with the government’s new Snooper’s Charter act, enabling the security services to access all our internet activity. Remember that GCHQ already has an archive of 800,000 perfectly innocent British people engaged in sex chats online.
5) The paper publishing the story is owned by Rupert Murdoch. It is sourced to the people who brought you the dossier on Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, every single “fact” in which proved to be a fabrication. Why would you believe the liars now?
There you have five reasons the story is a lie.
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Republic of France
* "Tafta: The other world mobilizes" (2015-06-16, Alternative Libertaire) machine translation [archive.is/h8XMm]
* "Against fascism, one solution: popular resistance! Social and libertarian revolution!" (2015-06-14) machine translated [archive.is/2K92x]: There are two years almost to the day, Clement Meric, libertarian, antifascist comrade and trade unionist, died at the hands of a few thugs of fascist organization Third Way. As a provocation, his killers were released a little over a year after his death, under the pretext that they do not represent a sufficient danger to society.
Fascism not a danger?
When comrades are killed like Clement ... No danger!
When others were stabbed or beaten to the release of a concert in Lyon ... Not as a threat?
When in Calais, high school girls are beaten up to the release of their establishment for their commitment to the migrant that squats were burned and activists followed and threatened danger ... Not!
When it pulls the gun on a benefit concert to undocumented migrants in Clermont or distributing leaflets in Lyon ... No danger!
When homophobic violence, lesbophobic, transphobic explode following protests against marriage for tou-te-s ... No danger!
When aggression veiled women are becoming more frequent ... No danger!
When Islamophobia and anti-Semitism grew and threaten more daily all those and all those who do not fit the profile dictated by the national ideology ... No danger!
Hard to deny that fascism as a political movement organized to conduct a policy of terror on the ground of the street is a reality more and more daily for many of us activists, women, trans, national minorities and sexual minorities, especially since the beginning of the crisis. If we do not design the jail as a solution, while fascist freedom is thus a danger against which we must organize.
The republic does not protect us from fascism!
We do not care if the FN is a Republican party or not or if the UMP facade redone using that name. We have no respect for the system they are trying to sell us as the solution against fascism. The republic, left and right, it's a long time already it pursues racist policies, its police kill and is covered by his righteousness (as for murderers of Zyed and Bouna last month), his whole model it oozes inequality legitimate and it organizes. The links between the republican police and fascist groups were found. For many years, the states that claim to be democratic repress our struggles, Fleeing the fighting and suicide of the most determined freedom, as our comrade Bar iS Ataman there is now one year.
If we are fighting fascism, it is because under his mask anti-system, it is only the extreme remedy of preserving the dominant privileges privileges racist, sexist, class privileges. Pointing to sexual or national minorities, as in the murder of Brahim Bourram, fascism divides the oppressed and away from the condition of their release: their alliance against their common enemies, states and bourgeoisies.
We will not choose between the plague and cholera!
Since January of acts of terror carried out by religious fascists, it summons us to place ourselves behind the republic and patriotism. But for us, the unity, the hatred of the other, widespread surveillance, the ban on demonstrations for any suspected or convicted person does not make us dream! Against fascism, whether nationalist or religious, we can only rely on ourselves:
We organize to act directly!
People's self-defense! social response!
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Republic of Lithuania
* "Lithuania Just Casually Mentioned The Possibility Of Blockading Kaliningrad" (2013-10-02, forbes.com) [archive.is/clxFO]
* "Lithuania threatens to take Russian region hostage, demands changes in foreign policy" (2013-10-02, rt.com) [archive.is/rQY2A]
* "From Siberia to Kaliningrad: the fledgling independence movements gaining traction in Russia" (2014-08-15, theguardian.com) [archive.is/vqaWE]
* "Russia 'practically' at war with Europe, says Lithuanian president as Ukraine accuses Putin’s tanks of flattening border town" (2014-08-30, dailymail.co.uk) [archive.is/6wMtD]
* "Kaliningrad: Achilles’ Heel for the West" (2015-01-13, theglobalist.com) [archive.is/JAeen]
* "Lithuania prepares for a feared Russian invasion" (2015-03-16, reuters.com) [archive.is/9Xuz4]
* "Poland And Lithuania Wary Of Kaliningrad Being Base Of Next Move From Russia" (2014-03-18, ibtimes.com) [web.archive.org/web/20150418195827/http://www.ibtimes.com/poland-lithuania-wary-kaliningrad-being-base-next-move-russia-1561963]
* "Russia's militarization of Kaliningrad - sign of forthcoming military stand-off?" (2015-04-05, en.delfi.lt) [archive.is/rfwTS]
* "NATO is Ready to Snatch Kaliningrad From Russia – Lithuanian Media" (2015-06-11, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/tkQVg]
* "Lithuania army website hack hoax reveals 'NATO plans to annex Russia's Kaliningrad’" (2015-06-11, rt.com) [archive.is/VEXuI]
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Republic of Greece
* "Merkel is scared to death of a Grexit. Makes bizarre statement that Greece will be like Kosovo if it defaults" (2015-06-13, hellenicinsider.com) [archive.is/Q1uL5]. "Does that mean NATO will bomb Greece into the stone age and turn it over to organ-harvesting mafia terrorists?" - Mark Sleboda
* "Syriza: Plunder, Pillage and Prostration: How the ‘Hard Left’ Embraces the Policies of the Hard Right" (2015-06-15, by Prof. James Petras, globalresearch.ca) [archive.is/ZwSLg]
===*===*===
Republic of Ukraine (EU / NATO associate state)
* "Maidan 3? Protesters set up tents on Kiev's main square, urge govt to deliver on promises" (2015-06-08, rt.com) [archive.is/4IEau]
* "Swiss institute publishes study on corruption in Ukraine, before and after Euromaidan" (2015-06-11, strategic-culture.org) [archive.is/WAunF]
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* " 'Human rights” imperialism in Ukraine" (2015-06-12, wsws.org) [archive.is/oCUwk]
* "Ukraine and the Apocalyptic Risk of Propagandized Ignorance" (2015-06-26, warisacrime.org) [archive.is/Nf4Zk]
* "No to repression against journalists in Ukraine!" Appeal to journalists and writers of the world (2015-05-15, Union Borotba) [archive.is/6RMea]
* "In Ukraine, opportunist 'left' adapts to fascism" (2015-06-15, by Union Borotba) [archive.is/vsrCP]
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* "Brothers in Arms: Two Kiev Officials Defect to Fight for Lugansk" (2015-06-15, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/AYtKE]
* "Ukrainian diplomat and secret agent stationed in France decided to return to Lugansk' (2015-06-15, novorossia.today) [archive.is/D6sMJ]:
A worker of Ukrainian embassy in Paris and an agent of the Intelligence Service of Ukraine informed the media about their refusal to keep their positions due to disagreement with the policy of Kiev authorities at a press-conference in Lugansk.
According to former agent of Intelligence Service Aleksey Miroshnichenko he and his brother Yuriy, who worked in Ukrainian embassy in Paris, made a willful decision to return to the LPR.
“We did not provide [Kiev] with any intelligence data and weren’t going to. This was our free-will decision, no one forced us. we can no longer put up with what is going on in Ukraine. Traitors, fascists, and secret services agents made a lodgement there and are leading the country to the breakdown”, — Miroshnichenko said.
He is sure that all those, who are willing to return to the LPR and did not kill civilians should not fear to come back. “I and my brother had long been wishing to return to the homeland. We had been waiting for the occasion and working out plans in order to do it simultaneously”, — the ex-agent said.
According to Miroshichenko, deliberate extermination of the inhabitants of Donbass became the last straw for them. “Too many children died. No one expected that such things could be happening in our country. Although they call it an anti-terrorist operation, this is outright genocide. Those people, who live there, think it is inadmissible”, — Miroshnichenko said in accordance with the Lugansk Information Center.
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* "Saakashvili: 20 Years Needed to Reach Social Level of Yanukovych’s Ukraine" (2015-06-14, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/4rB7t] [begin excerpt]: "Now Ukraine is the poorest country in Europe. If the collapse of the economy suddenly stops, and Ukraine develops by four percent annually, we will reach the level of 2013 in 20 years," the former Georgian president said. "Only in 20 years will we return to the figures of Yanukovych's Ukraine," he concluded. The ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014 plunged the country into a civil war, caused economic collapse and led to the drastic impoverishment of Ukrainians. The average life span in Ukraine is 71 years, which means that not all of those who are a little over 50 now will see their situations improve, Timer said.
* The Saker interviews Michael Hudson about Ukraine's default and what it means to the global economic regime (2015-06-10, thesaker.is) [archive.is/WUf5A]
* "Ukraine Labor Dares Operation Vulture" (2015-06-07) [web.archive.org/web/20150608070224/http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31227-ukraine-labor-dares-operation-vulture] [begin excerpt]: Ukraine’s collapse since the February 2014 coup has become an umbrella for grabitization. Collateral damage in this free-for-all has been labor. Many workers are simply not getting paid, and what they actually are being paid is often illegally low. Employers are taking whatever money is in their business accounts and squirreling it away – preferably abroad, or at least in foreign currency.
Wage arrears are getting worse, because as Ukraine approaches the eve of defaulting on its €10+ billion London debt, kleptocrats and business owners are jumping ship. They see that foreign lending has dried up and the exchange rate will plunge further. The Rada’s announcement last week that it shifted €8 billion from debt service to spend on a new military attack on the country’s eastern export region was the last straw for foreign creditors and even for the IMF. Its loans helped support the hryvnia’s exchange rate long enough for bankers, businessmen and others to take whatever money they have and as many euros or dollars as they can before the imminent collapse in June or July.
In this pre-bankruptcy situation, emptying out the store means not paying workers or other bills. Wage arrears are reported to have reached 2 billion hryvnia, owed to over half a million workers. This has led the Federation of Trade Unions of Ukraine to picket against the Cabinet of Ministers on Wednesday (May 27). More demonstrations are scheduled for the next two Wednesdays, June 3 and 10. According to union federation Deputy Head Serhiy Kondratiuk, “the current subsistence wage of UAH 1,218 is 60% less than the level set in Ukrainian law, which is confirmed by the calculations if the Social Policy Ministry. … the subsistence wage in the country should exceed UAH 3,500 a month, but the government refuses to hold social dialog to revise standards.” [end excerpt]
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* "Fifth military conscription drive in Ukraine produces worst results yet" (2015-06-13) [archive.is/rJQUQ]
* "Will Poland Train OUN Militants?" (2015-06-10, strategic-culture.org) [archive.is/4C34Q] [begin excerpt]: The Poland's Defense Ministry says it plans to train about 60 Ukrainian army instructors this year, including NCOs of OUN battalion (OUN-the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists). The training sessions would take place in Poland in June, September and October. Several other NATO members are also joining the NATO program known as the Defense Education Enhancement Program - DEEP. Its aim is to bring Ukraine's forces up to the standards of the Western alliance. Tomasz Siemoniak, Polish Minister of National Defence, has already discussed the issue with General Mieczysław Gocuł, Chief of the General Staff of the Polish Armed Forces. 10 Ukrainian servicemen are tocome on June 29, with 20 more to follow in September and 30 in October.
Poles perceive the OUN as a terrorist organization involved in mass murder of civilians during WWII acting hand in hand with Ukrainian policemen and German fascists. OUN militants perpetrated assassinations of Polish politicians in the period between the two wars. The organization took part in the Volyn massacre in 1945 and attacks against Polish servicemen in late 1940s – early 1950s. Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski, a Polish Catholic priest, author and activist, is known for his uncompromised position on the policy of making advances to Ukrainian nationalists. According tohim, the Polish Minister of Defense desecrated the memory of those who lost lives in the fight against Ukrainian nationalists and terrorists. He called on the Minister to resign on moral grounds [archive.is/H2qih].
The plans to train Ukrainian nationalists have become public domain. The military rushed to refute the fact. They said the information about OUN fighters was false, as well as the news about training the fighters of Ukrainian battalions manned by nationalists, such as Aidar, Azov, Kharkiv, Prikarpatye and others. But the Polish Ministry of Defense confirmed the fact that the Ukrainian regular military are included into the training program [archive.is/HJHdV]. [end excerpt]
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* "U.S. House Admits Nazi Role in Ukraine" (2015-06-12, consortiumnews.com) [archive.is/z9CYP]
* "U.S. House Passes 3 Amendments By Rep. Conyers To Defense Spending Bill To Protect Civilians From Dangers Of Arming and Training Foreign Forces" (2015-06-11, conyers.house.gov) [archive.is/C4WBb] [begin excerpt]: Late yesterday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives considered H.R. 2685, the “Department of Defense Appropriations Act of 2015.” During consideration of the legislation, Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) and Congressman Ted Yoho (R-Fla.) offered bipartisan amendments to block the training of the Ukrainian neo-Nazi paramilitary militia “Azov Battalion,” and to prevent the transfer of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles—otherwise known as Man-Portable Air-Defense Systems (MANPADS)—to Iraq or Ukraine. “If there’s one simple lesson we can take away from US involvement in conflicts overseas, it’s this: Beware of unintended consequences. As was made vividly clear with U.S. involvement in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion decades ago, overzealous military assistance or the hyper-weaponization of conflicts can have destabilizing consequences and ultimately undercut our own national interests,” said Rep. John Conyers. “I am grateful that the House of Representatives unanimously passed my amendments last night to ensure that our military does not train members of the repulsive neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, along with my measures to keep the dangerous and easily trafficked MANPADs out of these unstable regions.” [end excerpt]
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* "Neo-Nazis Receive Medals From Kiev After Being Condemned by US Congress" (2015-05-15, russia-insider.com) [archive.is/wu6Dw]
* "Pentagon: US does not train nationalist battalion 'Azov' " (2015-06-16, nahnews.org) [archive.is/xxp6m].
Gunnar Angeles asks: What kind Ukrainian Ultranationalist Neo-Nazi Banderite poses in front of Azov Battalion and Misanthropic Division flags while wearing a Mario and Yoshi shirt?
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* "Left Forum, 2015: Nazism In Ukraine" [http://youtu.be/L5SKNTjNNK0]
Left Forum panel, May 30, 2015, "Is Nazism Raising Its Ugly Head in Ukraine Today" Chaired by Angelo D'Angelo, with Prof Barry Lituchy and Martin Sawma
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* "The Fascist Kernel of Ukrainian Genocidal Nationalism" [web.archive.org/web/20150614041522/http://newcoldwar.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Grzegorz-Rossoliński-Liebe-The-Fascist-Kernel-of-Ukrainian-Genocidal-Nationalism.pdf]. This study briefly presents the history of the radical form of Ukrainian nationalism, paying special attention to the geopolitical circumstances which formed this movement. Then, it analyzes some aspects of this phenomenon, such as its main ideologists, racism, antisemitism, religion, rituals, leaders, concepts of revolution, and the ethnic, political and mass violence conducted before, during, and after the Second World War. This short monograph argues that the extreme and genocidal form of Ukrainian nationalism did have a fascist kernel and should be considered a form of European or East-Central European fascism. Nevertheless, because of the specific cultural, social, and political Ukrainian circumstances, the radical form of Ukrainian nationalism differed from better-known fascist movements such as German National Socialism or Italian Fascism, and thus it requires a careful and nuanced investigation.
* "America’s longtime support for Ukrainian fascists" (2015-06-10, by Wayne Madsen) [archive.is/etZwa]
* "Seven Decades of Nazi Collaboration: America’s Dirty Little Ukraine Secret; An interview with Russ Bellant, author of 'Old Nazis, the New Right, and the Republican Party' " (2014-03-18, fpif.org) [archive.is/b5Wqq]
===*===*===
* Details of Donetsk and Lugansk constitutional proposals to Ukraine, " ‘SEPARATE REGIONS WITH SPECIAL STATUS’ " (2015-06-09) [archive.is/KQgkL]
* "Zakharchenko: ‘We fight for our independence, not for autonomy’ " (2015-06-10, southfront.org) [archive.is/ToQ4f]
* "War on Donbass Resumes, Western Media Remains Silent" (2015-06-11, journal-neo.org) [archive.is/Bze5M]
* "Donbass protests demand justice for victims of U.S.-Ukraine war" (2015-06-03, workers.org) [archive.is/MLCLM]
* "We've got over 150 ethnic groups living side by side in Donbass. It doesn't matter if your Jewish, Tatar, Uzbek, Tajik, Georgian, Abkhazian, Ossetian, Russian, or Ukrainian. People view this land as their home. There's no ethnic division. There's the understanding that we are Donbass." - Alexander Zakharchenko [archive.is/qvKCL]
Ukrainian blogger Artur Senko, doubting Kiev official propaganda, personally came to Donetsk to see who shells Donetsk. And witnessed that it is really not true that 'the rebels shell and fire themselves there', as constantly states Kiev media - report Ukrainian (Kharkiv) site Nahnews.
* "A blogger from Vinnitsa personally convinced that the APU fire at Donetsk" (2015-06-14, nahnews.org) machine translated [archive.is/wuK5F]. Videos [youtube.com/watch?v=1FgPOSUp8jQ] [youtube.com/watch?v=UNOnmEOiKO4] [youtube.com/watch?v=KFFNQ6r5-hg]
"The rebel-held city of Gorlovka (Horlivka) has been subjected to frequent shelling as a result of the Ukrainian authorities' brutal military campaign. OSCE visits to the city have been highly selective and its reports incomplete and apparently censored. Here's a video of one of such visits (notice the attitude of one of the OSCE observers and her repeated threats to "leave"). Here's what OSCE's mission in Ukraine wrote about the visit afterwards (http://www.osce.org/ukraine-smm/164126 ): "In Horlivka [...] the SMM was approached by around 70 local inhabitants, visibly upset and distressed and verbally aggressive and critical towards the SMM. Some members of the crowd made violent threats. The SMM left the scene after the OSCE flag was broken off the vehicle and thrown to the ground."
The full video can be found at its original source (Gorlovka's Channel 6): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWw7S...
PS After we reached out to a number of OSCE contacts about clear lack of integrity in their published report, they did add more information...backdating it on the next day's report."
* "The fight against fascism, not in the past, but the task of today", Statement of Communist and workers' parties in the Donetsk and Lugansk meeting May 4-7, 2015:
70 years ago Hitlerite fascism and its allies of the Anti-Comintern Pact was defeated and. A decisive contribution to this victory was by brought the Soviet Union - the world's first dictatorship of the proletariat. In leading and inspiring this role. the Bolsheviks, especially the Communist Party, sacrificed to the cause of victory the lives of nearly three million party members and of five million young communists from the Leninist Komsomol.
One of the richest countries of imperialism in the last century hatched a plan to use as the tool of fascist violence against Bolshevism and the Comintern. But these plans of the imperialists did not come true. The fascist beast was so disgusting and uncontrollable that bourgeois democracy’s largest countries were forced to join in the war and help the Soviet Union. In most countries, the masses organized groups of the Resistance to Fascism, and these movements were headed mostly by communists. By and large, the Second World War, to the Soviet Union -- the Great Patriotic War, was of a class character and ended with the victory of the forces of socialism, the creation of the world socialist system.
For almost half a century of its existence the socialist camp, headed by the Soviet Union, deterred aggression and imperialism and protected lives without major imperialist wars. But local wars continued. After the destruction of the USSR and the temporary defeat of socialism the aggressiveness of the imperialists is increasing every year. The financial capital of the imperialist countries increasingly decides the fate of other nations, resorting to open terrorist dictatorships, including by organizing coups and their support of forces coming to power in these countries. They control reactionary forces, that is, using the methods of fascism in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and other countries. It is a manifestation of the last decades of the struggle for spheres of influence and markets, of new claims for world domination. In the land of the former Soviet Union, capitalism has brought a cycle of wars (Karabakh, Sumgait, Tajikistan, Transnistria, Abkhazia, Chechnya, Georgia, Ossetia, Ukraine, and others.).
Today, in all capitalist countries they have implemented reactionary measures against the workers, suppressing the labor movement, implementing a policy of anti-communism. Simultaneously, the imperialist interests collide in the territories of another series of countries, as is happening today in Syria and Ukraine. In Ukraine, with the support of US imperialism and the EU they are struggling against the imperialism of the Russian Federation. They implemented an unconstitutional coup which brought to power a coalition of nationalist pro-fascist forces. Today, these forces control the country with a policy of open terror and killing political opponents, and protesters burning people alive. Unfortunately, the long-conciliatory politics of the Communist Party, limited exclusively to parliamentary methods, led the workers of Ukraine to be organizationally divided and ideologically disarmed by these events. However, in the territory of Donbass the fascist junta encountered the resistance of residents, mostly miners, workers, tractor drivers and other layers of workers, as well the help of volunteers coming to them from Russia and other countries.
On the part of the official Ukrainian government, it brought back to life the darkest, most obscurantist forces of nationalism, including the patent ideological followers of Bandera and supporters of punitive detachments of UNA-UNSO during the Second World War.
In the people’s republics of the Donbass resistance is conducted mainly by the workers, who are forced to seek the assistance of the Russian bourgeois rule. The Russian regime under the pressure of public opinion, as well as defending the interests of the Russian capital, is leading the bargaining with the West with Ukraine; this assistance is strictly restricted in the mode in which it is provided.
Today prisoners of the "Minsk truce" to the world, of course, they will not be. There is an accumulation of forces of Ukrainian regime, supplies of arms and military assistance by experts from the West. The People's Republics of Lugansk and Donetsk, in turn, are not going to give up and say that the world is not possible without the Nazis.
The place of this manifestation of fascism is Ukrainian. Based on the composition of performers and content of their nationalist fervor – they are Ukrainian. By nationality of the leadership, which seized power for the
oligarchic elite, they are Ukrainian. But the masterminds of fascism are sitting in banks and the US and EU governments.
On the 70th anniversary of victory over fascism imperialists of all countries are rewriting the history of this victory for themselves; they whitewash the past and encourage current fascism. Bourgeois power, under the Russian flag, fought on Hitler's side, is trying to assign to itself the victory of the Soviet people over fascism, the most infamous product of imperialism, and in fact, it turns out that the bourgeois powers are celebrating their current victory of imperialism over the Soviet people. What the bourgeoisie and the capitalists congratulate each other. In Russia, as in other countries, there is growing evidence of the manifestations of fascism in the form of a growing anti-communism and anti-Sovietism, in the form of denigration of the Soviet period, in the form of destruction of monuments to Lenin and, above all, in the form of strengthening anti-labor policies. The imperialists of all countries conduct a joint struggle against the possibility of socialist revolution. They do so in varying degrees, but together they are encouraging fascism.
The communist and workers' parties, participating in the meeting and supporting the anti-fascist struggle of the people of Donbass, state their categorical protest of the rise of fascism and the strong willingness to fight the resurgent brown plague. At the same time the Communists know that they can put an end to fascism forever only by ding away with capitalism.
To this fight we will devote all our activity and life.
Workers of all countries, unite!
Signed by: the Communist Worker’s Organization of the Lugansk People’s Republic, the RCWP=CPSU, the Belarus Communist Worker’s Party, the CP of Italy, Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan, representatives of communist organizations working in Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, the CP of Bulgaria, the Hungarian Workers' Party, the Union of Revolutionary Communists of France, the New Communist Party of Yugoslavia.
The document is open for signature by all parties.
People's Republic of Lunghask (LPR, or LNR; Luhansk, Lugansk)
* "Students in Lugansk appeal for peace" (2015-06-14, newcoldwar.org) [archive.is/hFQKa], video [youtube.com/watch?v=BCizSt3zaoo]: The following video message from students in Lugansk, eastern Ukraine, escaped our attention earlier. Although it was issued four months ago, it is just as timely now as it was then. The students ask viewers to listen to their appeals for peace. “And if you want to know the situation here, come visit to learn the truth.”
One student explains,”How strange to have reached such mechanisms as war. How strange that a chief, as if a beast, sits above it all, not afraid of war.”
Another says, “How strange it is that people went to war for pitiful money…
“If you really want to know the truth, it is here. A civil war is taking place.”
The video concludes, “You still have doubts and are researching? The truth is here.”
* (2015-06-17) Exactly one year ago in Lugansk were killed a reporter and video engineer Kornelyuk RTR Igor Anton Voloshin, targeted by the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
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occupied People's Republic of Kharkov (KPR, or KNR)
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occupied People's Republic of Odessa (OPR, or ONR) / People's Republic of Bessarabia
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occupied People's Republic of Transcarpathia
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Moldovan Republic of Pridnestrovie (Transnistria, Trans-Dniestr, Transdniestria, or Transdnieper)
* "Transnistria Worried About Ukrainian Army Mobilization Near Its Borders" (2015-06-11, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/1TocL]
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Attacks against the People's Republics of Novorossiya (a daily calender)
* Appeal of Donetsk Foreign Ministry: "Kiev has violated the ceasefire 544 times in last three weeks" (2015-06-12) [archive.is/kUyoU]
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Novorossiya Armed Forces (NAF) Operations
Alexey Markov, Communist militia commander of the Novorossiyan Armed Forces
Interview with commissar from Unit 404, Alexey Markov, about the future of Communism.
Veronika Yukhnina www.facebook.com/veronika.yukhnina
Enable subtitles clicking on the button
See also
Alexey Markov: Unit404 www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQPyy6JS370
Alexey Markov: Enemy Within www.youtube.com/watch?v=anDqlOEdWNk
Alexey Markov: Story of a Death www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGoVeEfDvJs
* Givi Donetsk Airport update [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvbOzmwN9wk]
* Givi militiaman was killed by a direct hit [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJdLt8JqMm4]
He actually phoned the Ukrainian TV, while it was announcing his untimely demise.. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-zKtfUolu4]
* "Givi on his "death" and current situation" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QikR6toQO_8]
This day interview 12.30 in Donetsk time 16.06.2015! [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol9_1zWPSGc]
journalists from ukraina.ru called him on his mobile and asked what was that fuss about, he answered that the whole thing was complete nonsense, he and all of his battallion were safe and alive.
That's favourite thing of Ukrainian media - when there is nothing to post/report about they "kill" somebody from Novorossia leaders. The headings are like: Terorist Givi is killed, smashed and eaten by dogs! or Motorola, the Russian terrorist is dead hurray! But there may be variants: Zakharchenko took refuge to Russia, this is THE END of the so called Novorossia hurray etc
* "There's a truth in those false reports of Givi's being killed or wounded: with them Kiev admits the bombardment" (2015-06-15) [archive.is/NtbQm]
* "Riga Threatens Black Lenin With 10 Years in Prison for Fighting in Donbass" (2015-06-13, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/W0veZ] [begin excerpt]: Earlier, Riga issued a warrant for the arrest of Ayo Beness "for sedition", as the outspoken activist called for the restoration of the Soviet Union.
The son of a Ugandan father and a Russian mother, Ayo Beness was born in Latvia, studied biology and journalism, and lived in the United Kingdom. He has held the role of Secretary of the Communist party of Great Britain and considers himself a Bolshevik. He supports socialist political forces in Latvia and wants Riga to secede from NATO and the EU. Ayo Beness has been fighting for the independence of Donbass in the ranks of Interbrigades — international military units. In early June he said he was appointed a deputy commander for political affairs in one of the LPR units and was promoted to the rank of sergeant. [end excerpt]
* "Meet the 'Black Lenin' Fighting for a Free Donbass" (2015-04-07, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/nCLqr]
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Federation of Russia
* "Three Million Russians Fall Into Poverty as Crisis Bites" (2015-06-11, themoscowtimes.com) [archive.is/32EbQ]
* "US Government Documents Prove It Conclusively - Putin Was NOT 'Chosen' by the Oligarchs; Declassified US government documents finally bury myth of Berezovsky hand-picking Putin and show Putin was always his own man" (2015-06-14, russia-insider.com) [archive.is/lkyAf]
* "Kiev Claims Nuclear Facilities in Crimea Belong to Ukraine" (2015-06-12, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/YJnsV]
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Russian Repression Report: Actual incidents and false stories explained
* "Russia, June 14 in St. Petersburg hosted the rally against political repression against anarchists and anti-fascists" (2015-06-14) machine translation [archive.is/nzHuT]: We present our small photo from the rally [https://www.facebook.com/AutonomousAction/posts/986023188104625]. During the picket, we chanted slogans of solidarity with our comrades repressed, namely: ---- - With Alex "Socrates" Sutugoy, serving unjust sentences in prison near Irkutsk, ---- - With Alexander "Tundra" Kol'chenko, who is now in jail in Moscow, and in respect of which the fabricated criminal case under article "terrorism" ---- - With our friends from the Czech Republic, for which the police started a real terror, fabricated case of the alleged attempted arson train NATO, proudly calling it an operation # Fenix ---- ... And after the official event, a group of anti-fascists attempted to block traffic on one of the central streets of St. Petersburg. With this action we want to draw people's attention to the problem of political repression in the country. During the action was not detained any one activist.
Let the cops and the capitalists know that our solidarity stronger than your prisons!
More photos: [https://vk.com/avtonom_org?w=wall-30606852_149746], [https://vk.com/avtonom_org?w=wall-30606852_149747]
===*===*===
Eurasian Union (EEU) / Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)
===*===*===
Republic of Turkey (NATO member state)
* "Rosatom, Mitsubishi, Areva Nükleerc Companies in our neighborhood!" (2015-06-15) [archive.is/TZvfG]
===*===*===
Republic of Iraq
* "Through the Glass Darkly: Tariq Aziz and Iraq’s Tragedy" (2015-06-10, by Binoy Kampmark, globalresearch.ca) [archive.is/IcC9c]
* "Obituary - Tariq Aziz, Former Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq" (2015-06-11, brussellstribunal.org) [archive.is/fktJX]
===*===*===
* "The ghost children of Homs, Syria" (2015-06-09, mashable.com) [archive.is/ayH2u]
* "Syrian Druze Fighting Israeli-backed Al Qaeda" (2015-06-15, by Reme Sakr, globalresearch.ca) [archive.is/mL94S]
* "Fabrication in BBC Panorama's 'Saving Syria’s Children' "
Correspondence with the BBC over allegations that the Panorama documentary 'Saving Syria's Children' broadcast on 30 September 2013 included staged sequences purporting to show the aftermath of an alleged incendiary bomb attack on an Aleppo school on 26 August 2013
[archive.is/BFwD0]
On 29 August 2013, as the UK House of Commons vote on possible military intervention in Syria was closing, BBC News at Ten broadcast a report by Ian Pannell and cameraman Darren Conway, who were working on a forthcoming BBC Panorama programme about Syria, which claimed that a Syrian fighter jet had dropped an incendiary bomb containing a “napalm-like” substance – possibly thermite – on the playground of an Aleppo school.
The report contained harrowing scenes of teenage boys and young men, their skin apparently in tatters, racing into what the report describes as “a basic hospital funded by handouts” to be treated for burns. In one particularly disturbing scene a tableau of young men writhe, drool and groan, seemingly in great distress.
On further viewings, however, this scene in particular is strikingly odd. The young men are quiet and mostly static until spotting the camera upon them, at which point the central figure (Mohammed Asi) raises his arm and the group instantly becomes animated and begins groaning in unison. [end excerpt]
* "War Propaganda and 'Dirty Lies' support the 'Dirty War on Syria' " (2015-06-08, by Prof. Tim Anderson) [archive.is/KGbpf]:
Next came brave Syria, which has resisted at terrible cost; but the propaganda war runs thick.
Few in the west seem to be able to penetrate it.
What was at first said to be a nationalist and secular ‘revolution’ – an uprising against a ‘dictator’ who was killing his own people – is now led by ‘moderate rebels’ or ‘moderate Islamists’.
The extremist Islamists, who repeatedly publicise their own atrocities, are said to be a different species, against whom Washington finally decided to fight. Much of this might sound ridiculous to the average educated Arab or Latin American, but it retains some appeal in the west.
War Propaganda and Dirty Lies supports Dirty Wars
Repeated dirty lies feed the dirty war on Syria but, after a while, we can recognize some patterns:
===*===*===
Global Islamic Caliphate / Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL ; ISIS)
* "Jihadists' slave markets sell girls at any price: UN envoy" (2015-06-08, AFP Newswire) [archive.is/H4uvz]
* "As Western Aid Bolsters Islamists, The Resistance Axis Fights Back; Recent Rebel Gains a Result of US Support to Extremists" (2015-06-08, undergroundreports.blogspot.de) [archive.is/l5v6j]
* "Bilderberg Kingpin Henry Kissinger Admits ISIS Gets Its Weapons from US" (2015-06-12, by Kurt Nimmo) [archive.is/smHeY]
* "Western ISIS adventurism, Israel behind Hamas - new Assange revelations" (2015-03-24, rt.com) [archive.is/zBVTi]
* "US Intelligence Responds ''No Comment'' To Questions Of Support for ISIS" (2015-06-08, by Brandon Turbeville) [archive.is/fi2KS]
* "ISIS Colonel was Trained By Blackwater and U.S. State Department for 11 Years" (2015-06-11, theantimedia.org) [archive.is/QlFen]
===*===*===
* "A call from Rojava to participate in the anti authoritarian anti-capitalist anti-patriarchal struggle" (2015-06-14, facebook.com/AnarchismandRojava) [archive.is/sPHjS]
* "Radicalising Democracy: Power, Politics, People and the PKK" (2015-03-17, researchturkey.org) [archive.is/nIqbd]
* "Kurdistan: After Kobané, hope" (2015-05-03, Alternative Libertaire) machine translated [archive.is/t46zU]
* "Rojava - Revolution between a rock and a hard place" (2015-05-02, Irish Anarchist Review) [archive.is/D4vOR]
===*===*===
* "Netanyahu Says it's Anti-Semitism to Accuse Israel of War Crimes or Violating Human Rights" (therealnews.com) [archive.is/Mieq5] [begin excerpt]:
SHIR HEVER, ECONOMIST, ALTERNATIVE INFORMATION CENTER: This conference was organized by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It's called the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism. It took place between May 28 and May 30 [archive.is/O9C9A].
And this is a very interesting development for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel, because the ministry is very concerned about the kind of criticism that is growing around the world regarding Israel, the apartheid system, the abuse of Palestinian human rights, the mass use of violence against innocent civilians. And that is, of course, something that is being manifested also with the boycott movement, the boycott, divestment, sanction movement, or BDS. And this conference was supposed to be about something else. It was supposed to be about anti-Semitism.
Now, usually the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at least in the past several years, tried to make it very clear that they don't accuse everyone who criticizes Israel of anti-Semitism, because this sort of argument tends to backfire. Most of the people who express such criticism against Israel on basis of Israel's violations of human rights are people who are defenders of human rights and would also defend the rights of Jews against attacks based on their race or religion.
Basically they're saying that those who criticize Israel, those who accuse Israel of crimes are in fact anti-Semites. So this is--I think in many ways it shows that the Israeli ministry is running out of excuses, running out of ideas.
This was a very high-level conference. Many very important speakers were invited. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, gave the opening speech, and in the speech he said that there are three vilifications. And he listed those three. He said the first one was that Israel is accused of committing war crimes. The second one: Israel is accused of not wanting peace. And the third one: Israel is guilty of violating the human rights of Palestinians.
So these three accusations are not vilifications at all. In fact, they are well-documented and well-proven accusations based on international organizations, as well as on many Israeli organizations that say the very same thing. I think most Israelis would actually agree that the Israeli government is not really interested in peace, and yet they continue to vote for it. The fact that the Israeli army committed war crimes has been well established by, for example, the Goldstone Commission, which was actually headed by a Jewish Zionist. The fact that Israel is guilty of violating human rights is even periodically repeated by the U.S. Department of State.
an interesting document, although it's interesting mainly because of what it doesn't include, and that is a document about online anti-Semitism, which actually talks about various homepages or Facebook profiles which have anti-Semitic contents in them. Well, I don't think it's very surprising that such things exist on the web. But the fact that it takes such a central place in a conference hosted by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a way shows that they really don't have much content to talk about.
But when it comes to strategy, when it comes to how they're going to deal and act regarding anti-Semitism, suddenly the target changes, and instead of targeting anti-Semitism, they start to target the BDS movement.
The Israeli strategy on dealing with BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) is threefold. It has three layers. One of the layers is about quantity rather than quality. That means that they're investing large amounts of money. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recently dedicated $6 million for--in budget to fund various organizations. They're called GONGOs, which is government organizations, non-government organizations, or GONGO, which means organizations that pretend to be civil society organizations but are actually funded by government, which would promote Israel's message. They're paying people to write topics in websites and news sites to promote Israel's message. So they're trying to fill the web with their content. I think it's very easy for anyone to go in, to do a search. And if you do a search on various topics that are controversial, you will find a lot of pro-Zionist content, because this is paid content.
The second layer of strategy that was promoted in this conference and promoted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is to change the subject. That means that instead of talking about the occupation, instead of talking about apartheid, about the rights of Palestinians under Israeli law and so on, which is, of course, a topic that would embarrass pro-Israeli speakers very much, they say, let's change the topic and talk about things like Israeli technology, so as if--if Israel has very advanced technology, that somehow would convince people not to boycott Israel or not to make Israel accountable for its crimes.
This is something that we've seen quite a lot. Even when Stephen Hawking decided to cancel his visit to Israel as an act of protest, the argument that was made against him, that he's using a chip that was produced in Israel, and because of that he's being a hypocrite and he shouldn't boycott Israel.
So changing the subject is a strategy that has been recommended to the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs by marketing specialists that got a lot of money from the ministry to promote their strategy, and the ministry has wholeheartedly adopted this policy. If you go into websites of various Israeli embassies around the world, you will see that their news release talk about Israeli technological innovation all the time, and they're not even trying to engage in a discussion about the peace process, about Palestinian rights, about the occupation, and so on.
So the third level that is promoted by this conference, and also by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is intimidation, basically to threaten pro-Palestinian activists or BDS activists with some kind of retaliation or a action by the Israeli army or the Israeli Mossad. The Israeli military has created a new unit to track BDS activists online and their activities. And the Mossad has also vowed to become active in tracking activists who criticize Israel.
And the point in this is to intimidate activists and try to deter them from getting involved, building on the procedure of the Israeli intelligence as very effective and very violent. I don't think it's very likely that the Mossad is going to try to assassinate BDS activists or to directly harm them, because, of course, this policy will backfire and only make the criticism against Israel more powerful. But they're hoping that just by making the threat they can deter people from making any criticism whatsoever.
And I think it's very interesting that they're making that sort of threat against activists at the same time that their argument is, we are going to try to--Israel is a democracy, Israel has freedom of speech. Well, it's freedom of speech, but if you criticize Israel, then there is a military unit that's going to track you and follow what you say. So that I think kind of shows their desperation as well.
What's most interesting about this is that we have all these arguments that are--these three arguments that are made by this conference, and we see them all the time in the media. It's called called by Israeli speakers Hasbara. Hasbara means explanation. And they repeat these three strategies, which are quantity over quality, changing the subject, and talking about technology instead of the occupation, and intimidation, threatening those people who criticize Israel.
But there's a fourth one that we don't see. And the fourth one is what we would expect to see, which is Israel trying to argue that their policies are right. We don't see the Israeli government trying to say, we have a right to occupy these territories, or Palestinians are actually treated fairly by the Israeli government, because they know this argument doesn't fly. They know that nobody will buy it. The facts are extremely clear against them. And more than anything, this attests to the growth and the strengthening of the BDS movement. [begin excerpt]
* "Israel hints at legal measures against BDS" (2015-06-10, middleeastmonitor.com) [archive.is/9WHvb]
---
* "The Illegitimacy of Israel’s Colonisation of Land in Arab East Jerusalem, the Palestinian West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights" (2015-06-14, by Anthony Bellchambers, globalresearch.ca) [archive.is/OV80S]
* "Two pools, two worlds of news coverage" (2015-06-09, beirutreport.com) [archive.is/CPNEx] [begin excerpt]: Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem revealed that a large crowd of Israeli settlers accompanied by dozens of well-armed police and military troops expelled Palestinians from a public pool near Hebron. And this wasn’t some lone crazy/racist cop, it was a whole brigade of machine-gun toting military officers that carried out the ethnic expulsion under the cover of martial law harking back to America’s Jim Crow south.
15-year-old Ibrahim Abu Tabikh told B’Tselem: “…one of the soldiers ordered us to get out of the water. I refused and stood by the edge of the pool. Another soldier came up to me, pointed his gun at me, and shouted at me to get out of the water quickly. Muhammad and I got out of the water because I was afraid of the soldiers.” [end excerpt]
* "Soldiers Expel Palestinians from Pool in Area A to Enable Settlers to Bathe Undisturbed" (2015-06-07, btselem.org) [archive.is/NG11s]
* (2015-06-01) Letter from B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories [archive.org/details/BTselems_letter20150601]:
According to testimonies gathered by B’Tselem and reports by tourist enterprises
operating from settlements in the southern Hebron Hills, on 7 April 2015, during the
Passover holidays, the Susiya Tour and Study Center held an event at Birkat alKarmil
– a park that lies in Area A of the West Bank, close to the Palestinian town of
Yatta.
B’Tselem’s investigation found that before the settlers arrived there, some 200
Palestinians were enjoying the park’s lawns and pool. At about 2:00 P.M.,
approximately 1,000 settlers arrived at the pool together with dozens of soldiers,
Border Police, and representatives of the Civil Administration. The security forces
ordered the Palestinian bathers to leave the pool and remain only on the perimeter of
the park. They allowed the settlers, however, free and exclusive use of the rest of the
park. At about 5:30 P.M., the settlers and the security forces left the area. According
to publications by the event organizers, this is not the first time such an incident has
taken place at the site and previous tours of this kind were also coordinated with the
Israeli security forces.
---
* "Saudi Arabia to allow Israel use of its airspace to strike Iran" (2015-02-27, rt.com) [archive.is/ehd7f] [egin excerpt]: Saudi Arabia has reportedly agreed to let Israel use its airspace to attack Iran if necessary, in exchange for “some kind of progress” on the Palestinian issue, Israel’s Channel 2 TV station quoted an unnamed European official as saying.
“The Saudis have declared their readiness for the Israeli Air Force to overfly Saudi air space en route to attack Iran if an attack is necessary,” the report stated. In return for cooperation, Saudi Arabia wants to see some “progress” on the Palestinian issue.
The move will reportedly allow Israel to bomb targets in Iran by offering a shortcut, which will save fuel and time.
The Saudi position was confirmed during multiple diplomatic talks, according to the TV report. “The Saudi authorities are completely coordinated with Israel on all matters related to Iran,” the European official from Brussels was quoted as saying.
The report also revealed that the two states share intelligence when it comes Iran’s nuclear program.
There are no diplomatic ties between the two states, but there have been various reports in the past that Riyadh and Jerusalem have been cooperating when it comes to Iran and its uranium enrichment program. [end excerpt]
---
* "If Jews leave, Europe will face ‘economic disaster’, Jewish leader warns" (2015-03-10, rt.com) [archive.is/T7pYI] [begin excerpt]: European leaders should be quick in adopting real measures to counter anti-Semitism or witness Jews leave, taking away their money and businesses, says the President of the European Jewish Congress (ECJ).
"This minority is going in case authorities are not delivering some real, real stuff," Kantor told Reuters. "This minority is going to leave Europe, definitely because this question just now in every Jewish family in Europe: to leave or to stay.” [end excerpt]
---
World Jewish Diaspora and history a section dedicated to the culture and stories of a global nation
===*===*===
State of Palestine, exile community, and occupied territories [english.palinfo.com]
* "Statistics warn of imminent explosion to rock Gaza (report)" (2015-06-07, english.palinfo.com) [archive.is/AEsok]
10.000 people everiday want to work in Foxconn. They are looking for a window to jump off? No! They want a good job and high salary. Eight times higher than in Bengladesh, four times higher than in India. In 1980 salaries was was lower in China than in these countries. In 1980, at the start of reforms Bengladesh was better than China. But, I agree none are comparing their wages to people in Bangladesh. They compare their actual wages to 2013 chinese wage. Plus 7%!!! They compare to 2005 wages: Plus 300%.
* "To Build Socialism We Must First Develop the Productive Forces" (1980-04, dengxiaopingworks.wordpress.com) [archive.is/fgPau]
* "The poet who died for your phone" (2015-06-10, chuangcn.org) [archive.is/tGp8e]
* "Researchers synthesize magnetic nanoparticles that could offer alternative to rare earth magnets" (2015-06-01, vcu.edu) [archive.is/fEMMD]
* "Trade and Trouble: What China Can Learn from the 1640 Economic Bust" (2015-06-07, foreignaffairs.com) [archive.is/0bHHm]
* "China to have 'veto power' over infrastructure bank" (2015-06-09, AFP Newswire) [archive.is/lUKQN]
* "China plans to turn Lenin's birthplace into red tourism destination" (2015-06-15, tourism-review.com) [archive.is/2zz32] [begin excerpt]: China seeks to develop Ulyanovsk, a Russian city, into Mecca of tourism as part of the multibillion dollar ideological tourism industry. A memorandum of understanding for creating “red tourism” zones in Ulyanovsk, revolutionary politician Vladimir Lenin’s birthplace, is to be signed in the summit to be held on June 28 by Russia’s and China’s state tourism departments. Lenin, born as Vladimir Ulyanov, later on adopted Lenin as his political name.
China has been promoting “red tourism” since 2004 through the country’s official tourism body. Russia’s adoption of this concept in Ulyanovsk could help the struggling town to reap some amount of financial benefits.
However, the town is at crossroads currently because of the differences between its pre-Soviet roots and current Soviet-era heritage as well as the debate raging between the people and government of the region as regards renaming the city. A large part of Simbirsk, the city's old name, with many churches was razed to the ground in order to build the Lenin memorial museum complex that documents the life history of the revolutionary leader. The clergy belonging to Russian Orthodox Church and the conservative residents want to restore the old charm of the city.
Russia and “Red Tourism”
Muscovites may not be very enthusiastic about the mausoleum of Lenin, first leader of the Soviet Union, but many from the provincial towns of Russia throng the Red Square every day to visit his resting place. Of late, more and more Chinese have started visiting the Red Square too.
Zhu Shanzhong who was the deputy head of State Tourism Administration in China in 2009 said that millions of people in China, middle-aged as well as elderly, who grew up reading Soviet literature and watching Soviet movies, want to visit Russia to soak in the Soviet legacy and that the expansion of “red tourism” into Russia serves to excite them.
The popularity of “red tourism” among China’s youth is also on the rise. They often visit historical sites, donning Chinese Communist Party symbols and People's Liberation Army uniforms. China is planning to expand “red tourism” activities within the country and into Russia in the wake of the approaching 100th anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution.
New Economic Opportunities
Ulyanovsk, known for its automobile industry and the legendary UAZ military jeeps, is also considered to be the capital of the aerospace industry. The Soviet Union’s collapse and cutting back on military procurement greatly impacted the industrial climate in the city. The city’s population fell by as much as 10 percent during the period between 1996 and 2011.
Actually, Ulyanovsk is already a tourist destination. The sprawling Lenin Memorial Museum complex in the city includes the Pribylovskaya House where Lenin was born. The construction of the complex was completed in the year 1970, in time for Lenin’s 100th birth anniversary.
Ideological Struggle
The move of China's Xiangtan, Mao Zedong’s birthplace, to establish ties with the Ulyanovsk region of Russia could counter the plans of the governor of Ulyanovsk to rename the town to its pre-1924 name of Simbirsk. According to Governor Sergei Morozov, the city could be renamed as Simbirsk, but the region could keep its name Ulyanovsk, as in the case of Leningrad region and St. Petersburg.
* "China launches space junk monitoring center" (2015-06-09, china.org.cn) [archive.is/iT8ri], to track USA & other hostile micro-satellites and satellite-killers.
* "China cites 'tremendous' human rights progress in report" (2015-06-08, AFP Newswire) [archive.is/zUyRN]
* "China, How it is - Public Transport" [youtube.com/watch?v=lRqy_obORjU].
Even if you don't care about how public transportation works in China, watching this video gives you a good look around Shenzhen. For being the most capitalistic city in China (a Special Economic Zone and also right next to Hong Kong) it still looks like a modern socialist city.
Chinese public transportation is used by people of all walks of life (the most privileged and the lesser privileged) in China because it is very modern, efficient and extremely cheap. Even someone who doesn't like China must admit that the public transportation in China is superior to American public transportation.
* Allen P. writes: So often I am asked about religious oppression in China. I can say I have not experienced it. Today my HS class said 'goodbye' to an exchange student returning to Central America. One girl offered to sing her a song. When I recognized it as 'Amazing Grace' I whipped out my phone to record it [facebook.com/allen.peyton/videos/1051759018225139]. Some public school students have invited me to Christmas & Easter services. They are not hiding from the public eye.
Adam L. adds: If there is religious oppression (at least of Christians), then I haven't seen it. There are 3 churches in my small city, and one of those is a huge, new church with impressive architecture.
* "Grapes of Wrath: Muslim wine ferments divisions in China" (2015-06-04, AFP Newswire) [archive.is/HrjHq]
* "Thousands of Hong Kong residents remember Tiananmen crackdown" (2015-06-04, Deutsche Presse-Agentur) [archive.is/5RCR4] [begin excerpt]: Thousands of Hong Kong residents on Thursday took part in a candlelight vigil at Victoria Park to remember those who died in China’s Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, while the city grapples with its own democratic aspirations. The bloody crackdown in Beijing that took place on June 4, 1989, saw an unknown number of people killed while lobbying for democracy, against the rule of the Communist party.
The day the tanks rolled in and the army opened fire on students is a taboo subject on the mainland. Hong Kong is the only place in China where people are able to openly discuss what happened that day.
Tiananmen Mothers, a group of women whose children were killed during the massacre, in a letter published by Human Rights in China, demanded a list of the dead, compensation for their families and the punishment of those responsible for the massacre.
The current leaders of China “should also bear historical responsibility for their predecessor’s crimes,” the group said. [end excerpt]
* "Tiananmen Square Massacre is a Myth, All We're 'Remembering' are British Lies" (2015-06-04, International Business Times, ibtimes.co.uk) [archive.is/wejmt]: Gregory Clark is a former Australian diplomat, Chinese-speaking correspondent and university president resident in Japan. He can be found at [www.gregoryclark.net].
June 4, 2014 will for many mark the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. What it should actually mark is the anniversary of one of the more spectacular UK black information operations -- almost on a par with the mythical Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The original story of Chinese troops on the night of 3 and 4 June, 1989 machine-gunning hundreds of innocent student protesters in Beijing's iconic Tiananmen Square has since been thoroughly discredited by the many witnesses there at the time -- among them a Spanish TVE television crew, a Reuters correspondent and protesters themselves, who say that nothing happened other than a military unit entering and asking several hundred of those remaining to leave the Square late that night.
Yet none of this has stopped the massacre from being revived constantly, and believed. All that has happened is that the location has been changed – from the Square itself to the streets leading to the Square.
The original story began with a long article in English, published six days later in Hong Kong's South China Morning Post, by an alleged protester whose whereabouts have never been ascertained. Anonymously planted stories are a favourite technique of UK black information authorities, but this did not stop it from being front-paged by the New York Times on June 12, together with photos of blazing troop-carrying buses and followed up by Tankman [archive.is/8Od6p] – the photo of a lone student allegedly trying to stop a row of army tanks from entering the Square. The myth of an unprovoked massacre has since taken root.
True, no one denies that large numbers of citizens and students were killed near the Square by soldiers seemingly out of control. But why?
Let's go back to those photos of the burning buses. The popular view is that they were torched by angry protesters after the shooting began. In fact they were torched before. The evidence? Reports of charred corpses being strung up beneath overpasses (one photographed by Reuters remains unpublished), and photos of badly burned soldiers seeking shelter in nearby houses. Soldiers in that kind of situation tend to go out with guns blazing – just ask the good citizens of Fallujah, Iraq.
Fortunately we also have the hourly reports from the US Embassy in the Beijing, available on the Internet, to tell us what actually happened. They note that originally the Beijing authorities had wanted to send in unarmed troops to clear the Square of remaining students as the protests were beginning to wind down. Blocked by the crowds, armed troops were bused in and this time they were blocked by crowds with petrol bombs, with ugly results. Even so, some units tried to restrain the out-of-control solders. And an embassy report of students killing a soldier trying to enter the Square could explain some of the carnage on its periphery.
As for Tankman, we now know from the cameraman himself that his widely-publicised photo was taken from his hotel window the day AFTER the riots, and the tanks were going away from, not into, the Square.
A detailed report by the authoritative Columbia Journalist Review, 'The Tiananmen Massacre Myth and the Price of a Passive Press' has since noted the media preference for blood and gore stories. But none of this seems to have dented the credibility of the Tiananmen massacre story.
True, some of the blame also lies with Beijing. Its campaigns to hunt down student protest leaders and to blame everything on anti-regime plots have not created a good impression. But it may have its reasons. Out of frustration as their long protest began to dissipate, some of the student leaders had called for action by the angry crowds still around the Square. And how did some in those crowds have access to petrol bombs – a weapon not used by Chinese rioters and allegedly responsible for over 400 vehicles being destroyed?
The regime had tolerated the protesters by allowing them to occupy its central square for six weeks. Its party general secretary had tried in vain to negotiate with them. And it later regretted how its lack of crowd control equipment meant it had had to rely on untrained soldiers. But then again, none of this would have happened if the regime itself had not been at fault in the past.
The words of well-known Taiwan-born writer Hou Dejian, who had been on the hunger strike on the Square to show solidarity with the students, says it all: "Some people said that 200 died in the Square and others claimed that as many as 2,000 died. There were also stories of tanks running over students who were trying to leave. I have to say that I did not see any of that. I myself was in the Square until 6:30 in the morning.
"I kept thinking -- are we going to use lies to attack an enemy who lies?"
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Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and Russia-China relations
* "Russia Gets Very Serious on De-dollarizing" (2015-06-06, journal-neo.org) [archive.is/B4844]
* "Russia, China Mull Cooperation on Nuclear Energy in Third Countries" (2015-06-02, sputniknews.com) [archive.is/sSToc]
* "China PLA squad heads to Belarus for joint drills" (2015-06-15) [archive.is/gpYA8]
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Republic of the Union of Myanmar
* "American plan for a South Asian “Kosovo” in Rohingyaland" (2015-06-09, orientalreview.org), part 1 [archive.is/2bEtQ], part 2 [archive.is/8rCx0]. [begin excerpt]: As complex as it may appear at times, the main consistency of US foreign policy is that it covers its pursuit of geopolitical self-interest with humanitarian and democratic rhetoric. There’s always an ulterior motive behind the US lecturing countries about ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’, and those two key words should raise immediate red flags to any concerned decision makers in the targeted state that the US is addressing. Being the expert image manipulator that it is, the US never shies away from exploiting human tragedy for its own strategic ends, a lesson that everyone would do well remembering when considering the Rohingya issue in Myanmar. While there certainly are some legitimate grievances that the Rohingya are leveling against the authorities, it’s evident that the US is already exploiting them for its own geopolitical ends. Washington wants to establish a military presence in the Bay of Bengal in order to control China’s pipelines through Myanmar (both of which go through Rohingya-inhabited Rakhine State), but in order to get to that point, it first needs for the Rohingya to have their own autonomous or independent government there. [end excerpt]
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Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in northern Korea
Info collected by Juche-Buddhism Friendship Society, for Peace through Knowledge! [Juchebuddhism.blogspot.com]
* "Alejandro Cao de Benos Interview with Criminology and Justice" (2015-06-15, kfausa.org) [archive.is/q9jMq] [begin excerpt]:
Q. Going on issues more directly related to the object of study of criminology, what you think are the main problems of crime that currently exist in North Korea?
A. The crime is very low due to several factors, first the existence of homogeneity in not allowing social class differences.Furthermore the use of media and artistic medium as authentic public classrooms to motivate and educate people on the positive values of human beings, and finally the absence of direct or indirect external influence that could encourage antisocial or criminal behavior imitation.
Compared to any other country it is very rare to observe these cases, but the theft would be the most common.
Q. In Criminology has been analyzed, in the case of the former Soviet countries, how brutal crime increased when diluted the Soviet Union in 1991. Do you see major differences between the problems of crime in North Korea and in Western countries?
R. Of course, are radically different. In Spain and other Western countries the pursuit of material wealth and competition are often the backbone of life. In countries as were the USSR and other socialist system, the message is unity, harmony and work for national prosperity. The compensation of the effort is rewarded by a meritocratic system, mainly medals or positions of greater responsibility.
In addition the government is responsible for not promoting art or entertainment related to gratuitous violence. An example in the West is the game GTA (Grand Theft Auto), which has usually been selling and is in its fifth installment. I recommend you try it. When a young man of 13 years must dive into a ‘world’ in which amasses money by illegal races, docking stations or killing rival clans, it is easier than in a tense moment, and if he gets a crossbow in the real world , end up killing someone.If guns are in their respective sports clubs and the kid does not learn that kind of behavior, the crime hardly occur. [end excerpt]
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From NORTH AMERICA TO NORTH KOREA
It is now finally confirmed: Laibach is going to North Korea!!! In August 2015, Laibach will become the first such band ever to perform in the secretive Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, a reclusive garrison state as well-known for its military marches, mass gymnastics and hymns to the Great Leader, as for its defiant resistance to Western popular culture. The concerts are currently scheduled for the 19th and 20th of August. More information will follow in the upcoming days.
* "Announce ‘The Liberation Day Tour’ – Performing in Pyongyang, North Korea" [archive.is/EBJVF]
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Didn't they get kicked out Yugoslavia for dressing like Nazis? Then again I heard they played in Croatia dressed as Chetkins and Serbia dressed as Ustache. I get the whole Neo-Fascist parody thing, but aren't there Communist bands out there that just play revolutionary music? It seems like a lot Slovenians are more into being cultural-political trolls for shock value (Slavoj Zizek) rather doing anything consistently revolutionary. Are they going to perform in Pyongyang dressed as US or Japanese soldiers?
Most "defectors" presented by the USA or RoK are later unmasked as fakes, or, worse, want to return to the DPRK after experiencing the capitalist dictatorship. The following defector is regarded as genuine, which makes his stories not only insightful, but less likely to be unmasked as falsified.
* "North Korean Defector Opens Up About Long-Held Secret: His Homosexuality" (2015-06-05, nytimes.com) [archive.is/PCfyX]
* "Openly gay defector sheds insight into North Korea; Jang’s autobiographical novel “A Mark of Red Honor” sheds rare insight into everyday life in North Korea and social attitudes toward homosexuality in the isolated country" (2015-05-05, UPI Newswire) [archive.is/t9zcn]
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Commonwealth of Australia
* " 'The Terrorist Imaginary': Australia’s Tony Abbott and the ISIS Phenomenon" (2015-06-12 by Binoy Kampmark, globalresearch.ca) [archive.is/L2MEw]
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* "Australia, The First Genocide" (2015-05-13, Aotearoa Workers Solidarity Movement) [archive.is/NOIVE] [begin excerpt]: Recently Pope Francis caused a stir when he described the mass killing of Armenians by the Turks in 1915 as the first genocide of the 20th Century. In the context of the anniversary of World War 1, this was timely and not entirely wrong. Genocide had occurred. His fault was in labelling it as the first of the 20th Century. Namibians attempted a correction by referring to the Herero and Namaqua Genocide of 1904 and 1905 as the first of that century. They were wrong too. The first genocide was already under way in Australia when the 20th Century began. ---- From the moment white settlers landed in Australia the indigenous people were ruthlessly driven off their land and hunted down like animals. The last Aboriginal hunt was in 1910 in Tasmania. By then up to 90% of some tribes had been wiped out by introduced diseases, particularly smallpox. An indication of how swift the population decline was, is revealed by the fact approximately 314,000 Aborigines lived in Australia about the time Cook landed in Botany Bay (though some estimates put the figure between 500,000 and 700,000 people) but only 74,000 were alive by 1933.
When Australia became a Dominion in 1901 Aborigines were meant to be Australians with full rights in theory but in reality they were denied the basic rights enjoyed by others. An indication of how much they had been cut out of mainstream society is the fact it wasn’t until 1967 that Aborigines were included in the Australian census!
Aborigines were mostly confined to reservations located in remote places where the land could not be developed, such as desert areas. They faced widespread discrimination in housing, jobs and access to basic services including education and health care. They were denied access to social welfare assistance. Their children could be seized with little or no justification and placed in homes where physical and sexual abuse were common in what became known as the Stolen Generations.
It wasn’t until 1962 that they were granted the right to vote in federal elections. Reformists with a vote fetish would do well to notice that this did not noticeably improve their situation. Even to this day they are subjected to widespread police brutality, high imprisonment and discrimination in jobs and housing, as documented by various Amnesty International and United Nations reports. [end excerpt]
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* "The Forgotten Tradition of French Sovietism" (anarkismo.net) [archive.is/GgyaM] [begin excerpt]: To an English-speaking outsider, the French anarchist movement - as distinct from the Francophone anarchist movement in North Africa, Vietnam, etc - is often viewed as the "mother" movement because of the massive CGT union federation which, under anarchist sway, amalgamated with the local Bourses du Travail in 1895, establishing an "apolitical" model of mass anarchosyndicalism that was replicated in Fracophile countries such as Poland and most of Europe and lands as far away as Brazil, Egypt and Senegal.
The French movement proved to be one of the largest, most influential and most durable of all anarchist movements; and apart from its suppression for four years during the Vichy era, it has operated uninterrupted from its rise in the trade unions of the First International in 1868 until today, where it still maintains a 24-hour radio station, several small anarchosyndicalist unions, research institutes, publishing houses, and a significant interlocking set of counter-cultural networks.
So for a French-speaker, seen from within, the movement while no longer hegemonic in the French labour movement as it was from 1895-1920, can even today provide a totally immersive socio-political experience. Which for a researcher often makes it difficult to see the wood for the trees. What makes the task more difficult is that the movement fragmented in 1920 and subsequently, faced with the prestige of post-1917 Bolshevism, so keeping an eye on *all* the different factional organisational responses to that is rare. [end excerpt]
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* "Nazi king? Fascist sympathizer Edward VIII wanted Britain bombed, historian claims" (2015-06-09, rt.com) [archive.is/X7ewD]
* "Vases, Tea Sets, Cigars, His Own Watercolours" (2009-04-09, lrb.co.uk) [archive.is/8KptR] [begin excerpt]: Hitler’s relationship with the old German elites. From the very beginning, as Fabrice d’Almeida shows in his fascinating study, Hitler networked with considerable success among the great and the good. His early sponsors included the Bechsteins, owners of the piano company. They invited him to receptions at their house in Munich and showered him with gifts, including his first luxury car, a red Mercedes worth 26,000 marks. Elsa Bruckmann, who was born Princess Cantacuzene of Romania, introduced Hitler to the wealthy industrialists who frequented the ‘salon Bruckmann’ and presented Hitler with his first riding whip (until that point, he had carried a cane). Indeed, all three of Hitler’s prized leather whips were presents from high society ladies. Throughout the 1920s, his access to elite society steadily increased. There was no need for Hitler to assimilate himself to the social norms of his hosts, for his attractiveness lay precisely in his louche, somewhat uncouth manners and the ‘aroma of adventure’ that surrounded him. There was an undeniable frisson in welcoming a guest who left his revolver and bodyguards at the door when he entered a salon.
The Nazi movement acquired supporters as high up in the traditional social elite as it was possible to go. Among Hermann Göring’s close associates was Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, son of the Kaiser, who became interested in Nazism in 1926 and joined the Stormtroopers in 1930. Through August Wilhelm, Göring gained access to his brother Crown Prince Wilhelm von Preussen, and to the princes of Hessen, Christoph and Philipp. Göring was renowned (and resented by some Nazis) for his sycophantic attraction to the high-born, but he was not alone. Himmler, too, targeted the nobility, in the firm belief that they embodied the principles of selective breeding espoused by his SS. By 1938 nearly a fifth of all senior SS officers were titled noblemen (the figure for the lower officer ranks was 10 per cent). From a sample of 312 families of the old nobility, the Freiburg historian Stephan Malinowski found 3592 individuals who joined the Nazi Party, including 962 who did so before the seizure of power in January 1933. These noble Nazis included members of the oldest and most distinguished East Elbian families: the Schwerins supplied 52 party members, the Hardenbergs 27, the Tresckows 30, and the Schulenburgs 41.
The very highest-born families, descendants of the ruling dynasties of the German principalities, were especially susceptible to the party’s appeal. Duke Ernst August of Braunschweig (who was married to one of the princesses of Prussia) was a regular donor to the party and a close associate of several Nazi leaders (though he never became a card-carrying Nazi); Duke Carl Eduard von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha (a grandson of Queen Victoria, born Prince of Great Britain and Ireland, and known to his British friends as Charlie Coburg) joined the party in 1933 and became an SA-Gruppenführer in 1936. Some princely families flocked to the party en masse – 14 from the House of Hesse, ten from the Schaumburg-Lippes, 20 from the Hohenlohes and so on. In all, it seems that between a third and half of the eligible members of German princely families joined the party. As the American scholar Jonathan Petropoulos observed in his study of the princes of Hessen, if princes had constituted a profession, ‘they would have rivalled physicians as the most Nazified in the Third Reich (doctors’ membership peaked in 1937 at 43 per cent)’. Reck-Malleczewen himself was confronted with the extent of elite support when he visited a Berlin nightclub early in 1939 and found it heaving with ‘young men of the rural nobility, all of them in SS uniforms’.
Read "Royals and the Reich: The Princes von Hessen in Nazi Germany" (Oxford, 544 pp., £20, May 2006). [end excerpt]
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* "Glenn Beck’s favorite Nazi Beck has endorsed a book by the late Elizabeth Dilling. Now he should read the 1943 book that exposed her ilk" (2010-06-07, salon.com) [archive.is/J6b5a]
* "More on Glenn Beck's new favorite anti-Semitic author, Elizabeth Dilling" (2010-06-04, mediamatters.org) [archive.is/92fyS]
* "Meet the man who changed Glenn Beck’s life: Cleon Skousen was a right-wing crank whom even conservatives despised. Then Beck discovered him" (2009-09-16, salon.com) [archive.is/fQ0K3]
* "The Communist Attack on the John Birch Society" (1963, by Cleon Skousen) [archive.is/MJ6EX]. The source material for the mythology of "Communist" oppression of the white Christian conservative in the USA, through "Communist" control over that the monopolist media.
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* "The Meaning of World War II—An Anarchist View" (2015-06-09, by Wayne Price) [archive.is/zgKPr]
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* "Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II – Part I" book by William Blum (.pdf) [http://is.gd/S7OZ26]:
COLD WAR INTRIGUE: OPERATION SPLINTER FACTOR
Jozef Swiatlo surfaced at a press conference in Washington on 28 September 1954. Swiatlo was a Pole, he had been a very important one, high up in the Ministry of Public Security, the secret police. The story went that he had defected in West Berlin the previous December while on a shopping trip, and now the State Department was presenting him to the world to clear up the mystery of the Fields, the American citizens who had disappeared in 1949. Swiatlo revealed that Noel Field and his wife Herta had been arrested in Hungary, and that brother Hermann Field had suffered the same fate in Poland at the hands of Swiatlo himself, all in connection with the trial of the leading Hungarian Communist. The State Department had already dispatched strong letters to the governments of Hungary and Poland (1).
There is an expanded and more sinister version of the Jozef Swiatlo story. This story has Swiatlo seeking to defect to the British in Warsaw back in 1948 at a time when he was already in his high security position. The British, for various reasons, turned his case over to the United States and, at the request of Allen Dulles, Swiatlo was told to remain at his post until further notice.
Dulles was not yet director of the CIA, but was a close consultant to the Agency, had his own men in key positions, and was waiting only until November for Thomas Dewey to win the presidential election and appoint him to the top position. (Harry Truman's surprise re-election postponed this for four years, but Dulles did become Deputy Director in 1951.)
Noel Field, formerly a State Department Foreign Service Officer, was a long-time Communist fellow-traveler, if not a party member in the U.S. or Europe. During WWII his path converged with Dulles' in intrigue-filled Switzerland. Dulles was an OSS man, Field the representative of the Unitarian Church in Boston helping refugees from Nazi occupation. Field made it a point to particularly help Communist refugees, of which there were many, as Communists were second only to Jews on the German persecution list. The OSS aided the operation financially; the Communists in turn were an excellent source of information about happenings in Europe of interest to Washington and his allies.
Toward the end of the war, Field induced Dulles to provide American support for a project which placed agents in various European countries to prepare the way for the advancing Allied troops. The men chosen by Field, unsurprisingly, were all Communist and their placement in certain Eastern European countries helped them get their hands on the reins of power long before non-Communist forces were able to regroup and organize themselves.
It could be concluded from this that Allen Dulles had been duped. Added to this was the fact that the OSS, under Dulles' direction and again with Field involved, had financed the publication of a clandestine newspaper inside Germany; anti-fascist and left-wing, the paper was called Neues Deutschland, and immediately upon liberation became the official newspaper of the East German Communist Party.
After the war these incidents served as jokes which intelligence services of both East and West could and did appreciate. Before long, the joke fell heavily upon Noel Field.
In 1949 when Field visited Poland he was regarded with grave suspicion. He was seen to have worked during the war in a position which easily could have been a front for Western espionage, a position which brought him into regular contact with senior Communist Party members; and he had, after all, worked closely with Allen Dulles, famous already as a spymaster, and the brother of John Foster Dulles, prominent in the “liberation” of the Soviet bloc nations. At the time of Fields arrival in Poland, Jozef Swiatlo was looking to implicate Jakub Berman, a high party and state official of whom Swiatlo was suspicious and detested. It was his failure to convince the Polish president to act against Berman that reportedly drove Swiatlo to defect the year before. When Noel Field wrote to Berman asking his help in obtaining a job in Eastern Europe, Swiatlo learned of the letter and saw his chance to nail Berman.
But first Noel Field had to be established as an American spy. Given the circumstantial evidence pointing in that direction, that would not be too difficult for a man of Swiatlo's high position with U.S. intelligence, Swiatlo couldn't very well be exposing him since the Polish security officer was now himself an American agent. Accordingly, he sent his first message to the CIA, describing his plan about Berman and Field and the harm it could do to the Communist Party in Poland. He concluded with: “Any objections?”
Allen Dulles had none. His reaction to Swiatlo's message was one of the pleasure and amusement. The time had come to settle accounts with Noel Field. More importantly, Dulles saw that Swiatlo, using Noel Field, “the American spy” as a bludgeon could knock off countless leading Communist officials in the Soviet bloc. It would put the whole of the bloc into a state of acute paranoia and set off a wage of repression and Stalinist tyranny that could eventually lead to uprisings. Dulles called his plan Operation Splinter Factor.
Thus it was that Jozef Swiatlo was directed to find spies everywhere in Eastern Europe. He would uncover American plots and British plots,“Trotskyist” conspiracies and “Titoist” conspiracies. He would report to Soviet secret police chief Lavrenti Beria himself that at the center of the vast network was a man named Noel Haviland Field.
Field was arrested and wound up in a prison in Hungary, as did his wife Herta when she came looking for him. And when his brother Hermann Field sought to track down the two of them, he met the same fate in Poland.
Swiatlo was in a unique position to carry out Operation Splinter Factor, Not only did he have the authority and command, he had the files on countless Communist Party members in he bloc countries. Any connection they had with Noel Field, anything that Field had done, could be interpreted to show the hand of American intelligence or an act of real or potential subversion of the socialist states. The Soviets and Stalin himself were extremely interested in he “Fieldists.” Noel Field had know everyone who was anyone in the Soviet Bloc.
Just in case the level of paranoia in the infant, insecure governments of Eastern Europe was not high enough, a CIA double agent would “corroborate” a vital piece of information, or introduce the right rumor at the right time; or the Agency's Radio Free Europe would broadcast certain tantalizing, seemingly coded messages; or CIA would direct the writing of letters from”East European expatriates” in the US to leading Communists in their homelands, containing just the bit of information, or the phrase, carefully designed to lift the eyebrows of a security officer.
Many of the victims of Swiatlo's purges were people who had spent the war years in the West rather than in the Soviet Union and thus had crossed Field's path. These were people who tended to be more nationalistic Communists, who wanted to put more distance between their countries and the Soviet Union as Tito had done, and who favoured a more liberal regime at home. Dulles brushed aside the argument that these were people to be supported, not eliminated. He felt that they were potentially more dangerous to the West because if their form of Communism were allowed to gain a foothold in eastern Europe then Communism might become respectable and accepted; particularly with Italy and France threatening to vote Communist into power, Communism had to be shown at its worst.
There were hundreds of trials all over Eastern Europe “show trials” and lesser spectacles-in which the name of Noel Field played an important part. What Operation Splinter Factor began soon took on life of its own; Following the arrest of a highly-placed person, others fell under suspicion because they knew him of had been appointed by him; or any other connection to an arrested person might serve to implicate some unlucky soul.
Jozef Swiatlo had his counterpart in Czechoslovakia, a man firmly entrenched in the upper rungs of the Czech security apparatus. The man, whose name is not known, had been recruited by General Reinhard Gehlen. the former Nazi intelligences chief who went to work for the CIA after the war,
Czechoslovakia was the worst case. by 1951 an unbelievable 169,000 card-carrying members of the Czech Communist Party had been arrested - ten percent of the entire membership. There were tens of thousands more in Poland, Hungry, East Germany, and Bulgaria. Hundreds were put to death, others died in prison or went insane (2).
After Swiatlo defected in December 1953, East European intelligence services realized that he had been working for the other side all along. Four weeks after Swialto held his Washington press conference, the Polish government announced it was releasing Hermann Field because investigation had revealed that the charges that had been brought again him by “an American agent and provacateur,” Jozef Swialto, were 'baseless' (3). Field was paid $50,000 for his imprisonment as well as having his convalescence at a sanitarium paid for (4).
Three weeks later Noel and Herta Field were released in Hungary. The government in Budapest stated that it could not justify the charges against them (5). They were also compensated and chose to live in Hungary.
Once Noel field had been officially declared innocent, the case of countless others in East Europe had to be reviewed. First in trickles, then in rushes, the prisoners were released. By1956 the vast majority stood outside the prison walls.
In 1955 East Europeans could be found at Fort Bragg, North Carolina training with the green berets, learning guerrilla warfare tactics, hopefully to be used in their native lands (6).
By the following year hundreds of Hungarians, Rumanians, Poles and others were being trained by the CIA paramilitary specialists at a secret installation in West Germany. When, in 1956, the uprising in Hungary occurred, these men, according to the CIA, were not used because they were not yet ready (7), but the agency did send its agents in Budapest into action to join the rebels and help organize them (8). In the meantime, Radio Free Europe was exhorting the Hungarian people to continue their resistance, implying that American military assistance was on the way. It never came.
There is no evidence that Operation Splinter Factor contributed to the Hungarian uprising or to the earlier ones in Poland and East Germany. Nonetheless the CIA could point to all the cold war, anti-Communist propaganda points it had won because of the witchhunts in the East. A(n) (im)moral victory.
Foototes:
1. New York Times, 29 September 1954.
2. The story of Operation Splinter Factor comes from the book of the same name by Steven Stewart published in London in 1974. Steven, a veteran British journalist and currently editor of the Mail on Sunday (London), provides much greater detail than my short summary. He presents a strong case, and one has to read the entire book to appreciate this, but his central thesis remains undocumented. Steven states that this thesis- Allen Dulles instigating Jozef Swialto to use Noel Field in the manner described- comes with personnel interviews with former members of the CIA, the SIS (British Secret Intelligence Service) and other people involved in the conspiracy who insisted on remaining anonymous. Flora Lewis, who wrote the definitive work on Noel Field, Red Pawn: The Story of Noel Field (New York 1965; published in London the same year as The Man Who Disappeared; The Strange History of Noel Field), stated in her book that she ran into an “official barrier of silence” when she requested information from American, Swiss, French, British, and German intelligence centers on even “plain questions of dates and places." And she was not inquiring about Operation Splinter Factor per se, which she knew nothing about, only about Noel Field a decade after he'd been released. Similar, the U.S. government, without exception, flatly refused her assess to Swialto.
3. New York Times, 25 October 1954, p. 1.
4. Ibed., 19 February 1955, p. 1.
5. Ibed., 17 November 1954, p. 1.
6. Ibed., 30 August 1955, p. 1.
7. ibid., 30 November, 1976.
8. Stephen Ambrose, Ike's Spies (Doubleday & Co., New York, 1981) pp.235, 238.
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Sean Gervasi: How US Terminated USSR [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9_aYcpxClA]
UN propaganda expert reveals details in 1992 of RAND Think Tank plan under Reagan to bring down USSR
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ACTION CALENDER
A list of gatherings, workshops, and educational events in the greater Bay Area region
“Listen Up Mayors: Humanity First!"
The 83rd Annual Conference of Mayors
June 19th – June 22nd
San Francisco’s Mayor Ed Lee is hosting the 83 rd Annual Conference of Mayors. Around 250 Mayors, their families and corporate sponsors will be in attendance.
This is an opportunity to raise issues Locally and Nationally, that are of concern to us, The People, that the mayors have resisted and refused to act upon, or have acted on against our interest. For Instance: "Black Lives Matter" ~ Police Militarization and Excessive Use of Force~Racism ~ Gentrification of our Communities ~ Homelessness ~ Privatization of our Commons ~ Homophobia and Trans-phobia ~ Immigration ~ the Environment ~ Corporate Greed ~ the People's taxes being spent on wars enriching the 1% and not serving the needs of the people and more.
Info: [facebook.com/pages/Listen-UP-Mayors/480905948741853]
Schedule of Actions (more info to be added; schedule subject to changes) ** June 19, Friday, 10:00am – 12Noon ~ Arms Are for Hugging Not Policing
Hilton Union Square (outside), 333 O’Farrell St., SF.
Codepink’s Hug-in Creative Action
[www.facebook.com/events/1640911552786936]
** June 19, Friday. 10:30am ~ Stop Mass Incarceration Demo at Police Chief Task Force Workshop
** June 19, Friday 5:30pm ~ March from Mission District to SF City Hall to “Counter Gala”
Organized by: Stop Mass Incarceration
** June 19, Friday – 6:30pm ~ “Counter GALA”
Civic Center –outside (Polk Street Side of City Hall)
1 Carleton B Goodlett Place, SF
Mayor Ed Lee is hosting a “Welcome Gala” inside City Hall for the mayors. This is also the SF City Hall Centennial. We will have the Bay Area Light Brigade,Bay Area Stop Mass Incarceration, Food & more.
** June 20, Saturday, 6:30am – 8:30am ~ Greet the Mayors on the Golden Gate Bridge
Visitor’s Center – outside, southeast end of eastern walkway
Golden Gate Bridge, SF
Radical sunrise Yoga and Dance
** June 20, Saturday 11:00 am ~ March From SF City Hall to Union Square Hilton Hotel
Meet at SF City Hall (Polk St. side)
March to the Tenderloin Police Station, through the Tenderloin then through to Hilton Hotel. Sponsor: Stop Mass Incarceration. Info: bob71947@aol.com
** June 20, Saturday, 11:00am ~ Rally & March on the US Conference of Mayors!
Powell & Market Sts. (Cable Car turn-around), SF
[www.facebook.com/events/1538047549818265]
** June 20, Saturday, 7:00pm ~ CaliforniaAcademy of Science
Golden Gate Park, SF
