Afghanistan War, CIA Sponsored Terror, Civil Liberties, FBI Intrusion, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Updates:
———
Historic Strike – Privatizing Puerto Rico; Bar Association Dismantled.
Public services grinded to a halt on October 15 in Puerto Rico as a massive one day general strike brought more than 100 thousand people to protest the lay off of about 17 thousand of Puerto Rico’s public employees. The demonstration shut down all state-owned enterprises including the island’s schools and colleges. The airport remained opened, while tens of thousands were reported to converge on San Juan’s Plaza Las Americas.
Main labor organizations, the General Workers Union and the All Puerto Rico for Puerto Rico Coaltion supported the general strike. In May of this year, the Puerto Rican government laid off nearly 8 thousand employees and then hired about 3 thousand temporary teachers and assistants. Union leaders claim that Governor Luis Fortuno is planning to privatize government services. Outrage to the proposed layoffs have rippled into New York City, amid second largest community of Puerto Rican people.
Attorney Judith Berkan:
- Public worker dismissals at almost 25 thousand.
- Any agencies who deal in service to the poor or working class in Puerto Rico
- Two days before the strike, the governor signed and passed a bill aimed at dismantling the Bar Association
- After the massive first strike there have been daily strikes
- They want to return us to the days of the Oligarchy, concentrating wealth into the hands of a few while the remainders pick up the crumbs
- Protesters: Students from every university, every sector of the labor movement, the religious sector, cultural organizations, 700 school principals.
- There were 2000 janitors in the schools, right now there are no janitors in the schools of Puerto Rico and that’s going to be privatized.
- Two thousand school janitors were fired in the middle of the swine flu scare. The government plans to put these jobs out to bid for private companies.
- The atitude is . . . we’re doing this and the rest of you be damned.
- Puerto Rican government: Marcus Rodriguez Ema brought in again whose forte has always been privatization. He said on a radio station that if there was any blockage of commerce that it could be brought under the Patriot Act. He said that they are terrorists and they’re trying to block commerce.
- The way they framed it, if you stop commerce, particularly, the docks and the airports, that would be sanctionable under federal law.
- There have been a number of very offensive comments by the people in charge. Calling community leaders leeches, lowlifes, openly.
- The legislation has cut off funding for the Bar Association in Puerto Rico.
- I think the militancy will continue, we have not seen the last of general strikes here.
Guest – Attorney Judith Berkan, is a partner in the San Juan law firm of Berkan/Mendez. She specializes in government misconduct litigation and employment discrimination cases. Berkan worked as an attorney in New Haven, Connecticut before going to Puerto Rico as the staff attorney for the Puerto Rico Legal Project of the National Lawyers Guild, now the Puerto Rico Civil Rights Institute. For twenty-seven years, she has been teaching, primarily in the Constitutional Law area, at the Inter American University Law School in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
A frequent speaker and author of many articles on civil rights issues, she was the President of the Human Rights Commission of the Puerto Rico Bar Association in the mid-1990’s and a member of the Commonwealth Supreme Court’s task force on gender discrimination.
——–
Guantanamo Update: 223 people left in Guantanamo, 97 are Yemeni.
Alla Ali Bin Ahmed was among the 98 remaining Yemeni prisoners let go from Guantanamo Bay prison. In May of this year, a judge reviewed the government’s classified evidence again Ahmed, and ruled that his incarceration had never been justified. Never been justified? Yet, he remained like many Yemenis in Guantanamo Prison. Earlier this year, the Center for Constitutional Rights called for all Yemeni detainees to be released and repatriated. In a media statement, CCR attorney Pardiss Kabriaei, said ” More than one-third of the prisoners at Guantanamo right now are from Yemen. Most have been detained without any charge and in brutal conditions for over six years. It is unacceptable that the Yemeni and U.S. governments have not come to an agreement to bring these men home. There is absolutely nothing which should prevent their return to Yemen.” Law and Disorder March 2009 Interview with Pardiss
Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei:
- This is the part of Guantanamo that is about accountability.
- A case filed in 2008 on behalf of 2 men that died in Guantanamo on June 2006
- We brought this case against 20 officials, including Rumsfeld and Michael Leonard, Jeffrey Miller, people who were in charge of and approved torture techniques.
- U.S. Army General Bantz John Craddock who introduced a policy of force feeding in Guantanamo whereby detainees are literally strapped into chairs that are called restraint chairs, strapped in at five points, while a tube is forced up their nose and down their stomachs and formula is pumped into them for about an hour
- also named are physicans who knew by virtue of reports from the Red Cross.
- Center for Constitutional Rights – When Healers Harm – A focus on the accountability of medical personnel in Guantanamo who have a professional duty and oath to protect the health and well-being of men.
- It took 2 years for the military to conduct its investigation of these suicides.
- We filed Monday Oct 6, a motion to dismiss, they want to get rid of the case essentially, under the point that reporting claims of abuse are barred under the Military Commissions Act of 2006
- There is a provision in it Section 7, we’re challenging the constitutionality of that provision, the provision in the Military Commissions Act of 2006, that prevents detainees to bring lawsuits against the United States, the first time this MCA, has been asserted, now under the Obama Administration.
- Mohammed al Qahtani video tapes documents the torture he was experiencing, forced nudity, prolonged solitary confinement, using dogs and sexual abuse. Those are the methods that were approved by Donald Rumsfeld in 2002
- January deadline to close Guantanamo is not going to be met, according to US Attorney Gen. Holder
- 223 people left in Guantanamo, 97 are Yemeni.
- Federal judges have ruled on some 30 cases, that there is no lawful basis to hold them, yet of 30, 19 remain in Guantanamo. (Kuwaitis / Yemenis)
- Not the worst of the worst left in Guantanamo, it is nationality.
- There are innocent people who have been in prison for 8 years, it’s not a solution to sit back any longer.
- Guantanamo may stay open a few months past January and then transfer prisoners to the US.
Guest – Pardiss Kebriaei, Staff Attorney with the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative, at the Center For Constitutional Rights.
—————————————————————————
Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Truth to Power
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Host Updates:
———————————————
Gaza Update: Code Pink Member Kitt Kittredge
Last month, the United Nations commission released the Goldstone Report, a scathing six hundred page account detailing how Israel committed war crimes against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. South African Judge Richard Goldstone who headed the report says the Israeli Defense Force and Israeli commanders must stand trial for war crimes committed during Operation Cast Lead earlier this year. Recently, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would never allow any Israel’s leaders or soldiers to be put on trial for war crimes. He called the Goldstone report a kangaroo court against Israel. War crimes are war crimes as many see it.
Meanwhile, living conditions in the Gaza Strip deteriorate, salt water has contaminated a large percentage of drinking water, damaging kidney function among the Palestinian children. Many who can afford it are trying to leave the region. To give us an update on the living conditions, we catch up with Code Pink member Kitt Kittredge, who has recently returned from Gaza.
Kitt Kittredge:
- It turned my stomach to think that we were handing off a less better world to our children
- So I thought I should step into the more active role of a concerned citizen and I found Code Pink.
- The conditions are deteriorating, it is a place under siege as you know, I consider it a very slow, deliberate strangulation of Palestine. Because it is a slow strangulation, it doesn’t make the news as would a total annihilation
- The biggest thing is they’re demoralized, depressed and diminished sense of hope.
- Unemployment is up more than it was in March, and women are bearing the burden of that.
- Goods are less available, and they are extremely expensive, Israel determines what goes in and when.
- Less than 15 percent of what is really needed.
- The water out of the tap is salty, the showers are cold. The salt water is coming into the wells, the desalinization plant was destroyed, and now the children are drinking the salt water, and they have severe kidney damage.
- It was very exciting to go to Gaza in September and work with the Palestinians on the Gaza Freedom March scheduled for December 31, 2009
- International Surge To End the Siege – GazaFreedomMarch.org
Guest – Kitt Kittredge – Code Pink member, recently returned from the Gaza Strip.
———–
Decriminalization of Drug Possession
Decriminalization of drug possession has now gone into effect for 150 million Latin Americans. Earlier this month, Mexico decriminalized the possession of a small amount of all drugs and days later, the Argentine Supreme Court declared unconstitutional their own law that criminalized drug possession. Embedded in the recent legislation, Mexico’s decriminalization laws also allow for state and local authorities to arrest and prosecute drug offenders and allows them to make undercover drug buys.
“What’s happened in Mexico and now Argentina is very consistent with the broader trend in Europe and Latin America in terms of decriminalizing small amounts of drugs and promoting alternatives to incarceration and a public health approach for people struggling with drug addiction,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. International Drup Policy Reform Conference Nov 12 – 14, 2009.
Ethan Nadelmann:
- I think people understood that this was a good idea all along, sensible re-prioritization of police resources, treat addiction as a health issue, not a criminal issue.
- Many people who are getting away with drug possession don’t really have a drug problem and shouldn’t be a concern of the state.
- It doesn’t require people to be tossed into rehab regardless if whether or not they have a drug problem
- This applies to any drug (Mexico law)
- It’s part of that human rights, civil liberties tradition that exists in various languages in many parts of the world.
- Two thirds of Americans say, someone who’s been picked up on possession of drugs and clearly has an addiction, should not be sent to jail,
- More than 70 percent of the American people say that a small amount of marijuana possession should be decriminalized
- My job is to mentor and hand off the baton to the second and third generation,
- I look at drug policy reform as a movement for individual freedom and social justice
- New York City, marijuana arrest capital of the world / 40,000 marijuana arrests per year / Targeting young black and brown men
- Easy arrests, easy overtime pay, not contributing to public safety in any way even as its really screwing with hundreds and thousands of peoples lives.
Guest – Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance says that the global consensus on drug policy is changing as countries seek to counteract prison overcrowding, rise in organized crime and drug violence.
——–
Food Not Bombs Surveillance: Criminalizing Lawful Non-violent Protest
Since 9/11, the government has stepped up its surveillance of a range of individuals and organizations, including volunteer-based groups. After providing free vegetarian food in hundreds of communities worldwide, Food Not Bombs has found itself a part of the domestic terrorism dragnet. Co-founded by Keith McHenry and seven friends, the group is dedicated to non-violent social change, and recovers food that would otherwise be discarded to serve hot free meals to the homeless, disaster survivors, rescue workers and others.
Keith McHenry – Food Not Bombs:
- We started out in Cambridge, MA. I was a produce worker and I was throwing out a lot of produce every morning. It occurred to us that we could take some of that produce and give it to battered women shelters and homeless shelters.
- We could also promote vegetarian eating and animal rights.
- We now share vegetarian meals in a thousand cities every week. We’re in Iceland, Poland has 12 chapters.
- I got arrested in 1988 for serving food without a permit. I ended up facing 25 to life under California’s 3 strikes law. They didn’t mind that we were feeding people, but we were making a political statement and that’s not allowed.
- Political Statement: Money and resources can go more toward feeding the hungry, healthcare and education. Diverting some of the money from the military to domestic human needs.
- Anonymous people would go to the state government, or city officials in different communities and file complaints against us.
- In Albuquerque, New Mexico, we started to get fined 500.00 a day, everyday we served, because of this anonymous complaint.
- We found out that it was military personnel who objected to our statement.
- In Flagstaff, Arizona, you can serve the food but you can’t have the Food Not Bombs banner and literature.
- Last week in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, similar complaints. Turned out the anonymous tipster was the manufacturer of landmines. This was a quarter mile away from where we were sharing free meals.
- A Lancaster health department official came by, without a thermometer to test the pH of the food, and said it was fine we were feeding people we had to get rid of the literature.
- We’re seeing this all over, including letters from the state of New Mexico, ordering me to stop all chapters serving free food.
- In Connecticut, I started getting emails ordering to stop all chapters.
- I think its the federal government, Homeland Security, and the intelligence unit of Chevron Oil, have all been involved in harrasing Food Not Bombs.
- We were first declared a terrorist organization in 1988.
- I’ve been under intense stress for a number of years, with informants trying to force me out of Food Not Bombs.
- I lost a couple of friends, who had committed suicide, as a result of this tension created in San Francisco, Food Not Bombs in particular.
- When I was facing the 3 strikes case in California, there was a man who turned out to be an FBI agent, was hanging out with my wife.
- He was hanging out at the California street bus stop, and he became friends with my wife, and ended up having an affair with her, during the time I was incarcerated and we had no idea whether I would get out of prison.
- Everything that we were saying in our house was being monitored.
- In one case, my home phone had become a pay phone. The Food Not Bombs hotline. To dial out, he was asked to deposit 35 cents. I would dial 611 Pacific Bell phone repair and they would tell me it was a pay phone.
- We’ve had a huge number of informants joining Food Not Bombs.
- When someone at a Food Not Bombs meeting is joking about violence, you have to distance yourself from that person. You don’t need to call them out and say you’re an infiltrator.
Guest – Keith McHenry, co-founder of Food Not Bombs. Keith has been arrested more than 100 times for making a political statement of sharing free food in San Francisco and he has spent more than 500 nights in jail for peaceful protest.
———————————————
Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Lawsuit Brought Against Former US Attorney General John Ashcroft
Last month, a major decision written by a federal judge gives a lawsuit standing that was brought against former US Attorney General John Ashcroft for the illegal and unconstitutional detention of American Muslims. The lawsuit was brought by Abdullah al-Kidd, an American citizen and African American who had coverted to Islam. In 2003 Al-Kidd was arrested, and detained under abusive conditions without evidence that he did anything wrong. The lawsuit points at the way John Ashcroft abused the material witness statute to “preventively detain” American Muslims. Ashcroft uses the statute as a pretext to arrest American Muslims without sufficient evidence to establish probable cause. This suit will be a key lawsuit when President Obama presents a proposal for a “preventive detention system.”
Lee Gelernt:
- Federal Appeals court recognized the abuse of the material witness statute under Ashcroft.
- Material witness statute, rarely used, limited purpose before 9/11. If the witness would not testify and needed testimony, they would arrest witness get testimony then release person.
- If its taking too long, get the person’s deposition, because you simply cannot hold a witness for a long time, because they’re completely innocent.
- After 9/11 the government used the material witness statute on Muslim men who were suspicious and no probable cause. Probable cause is the bedrock of this country. Mere suspicion is not enough.
- It turned out that dozens and dozens of men were arrested as mere witnesses, held for months under the most harsh conditions. They have to be unwilling to be a witness, you don’t simply arrest a witness, obstensibly.
- Abdullah al-Kidd, born in Kansas, spent some time in Los Angeles, and mostly in Seattle. African American born in the United States. His father is a supervisor at the Chino Correctional Institute in California. His mother has done work for IBM for the last thirty years.
- He was a football player, went to University of Idaho on a football scholarship. Right before 9/11 he converted to Islam, and started working for charitable organizations. After 9/11 he was under surveillance, then arrested, held for 16 days under the very abusive conditions. Restricted for 14 months.
- FBI agents went to magistrate saying Al-Kidd had a one-way ticket to Saudi Arabia, it turns out after spending time in detention, that it was a round-trip coach ticket.
- The agents also did not tell the magistrate that he cooperated with the FBI and a native born citizen.
- Lawsuit is against Attorney General in a personal capacity and two FBI agents who submitted an affadavit, the United States and 3 Wardens. Settled lawsuit against the 3 wardens.
- FBI Director Mueller, went before Congress to report on the recent successes of the terrorism fight. The first person Mueller mentions is Kalik Sheikh Mohammed, the second person is Abdullah al-Kidd.
- Bedrock principle: You’re innocent unless the government has probable cause (objective reasonable belief) not law enforcement acting under suspicion. In other countries, people can be arrested on suspicion.
Guest – ACLU Attorney Lee Gelernt, the Deputy Director of the Immigrants’ Rights Project. He has litigated many cases including the Detroit Free Press v. Ashcroft and North Jersey Media Group v. Ashcroft, which involved challenges to the government’s post-September 11 policy of holding secret deportation hearings.
———
FOIA Lawsuit to Make Public the FBI’s Domestic Investigative Operational Guidelines
Last month, a Muslim civil rights group filed a lawsuit against the FBI’s refusal to make public its surveillance guidelines of civic and religious organizations in connection with criminal investigations. The group Muslim Advocates, a national legal and educational organization filed a Freedom of Information Act suit against the Department of Justice. The lawsuit is seeking the text of the Domestic Investigative Operational Guidelines. The quote DIOGs which went into effect last December are practical manual interpreting revised surveillance guidelines. The interesting part of this story is that civil rights groups including Muslim Advocates were shown drafts of the FBI surveillance guidelines but were not given a copy.
Farhana Khera:
- Agent are provocateurs sent into mosques. Muslim Americans should not have to look over their shoulders while they’re praying.
- Suspicion based on not wrongdoing and criminality, but religion. What concerns us is the set of guidelines issued during the waning days of the Bush Administration, that further and potentially expand FBI powers.
- We were able to see those guidelines in a meeting with the FBI, but not keep a copy of the guidelines. Those guidelines went into effect 1-2 weeks after that meeting.
- We sought formal channels to get a copy of those guidelines then filed a FOIA request.
- It’s been almost a year later, and we still have not got a copy of the guidelines.
- We would hope that the FBI would be working in consistence with the President’s committment to greater transparency
- The FBI said our request is under review and may be redacting or blacking out sections of the guidelines.
- We think the public has a right to know how the powers of the FBI have been expanded and are wielded in our name. What we saw in the draft guidelines were “gathering data about racial and ethnic communities” Geo-mapping of communities.
- Changes made to FBI guidelines under former Attorney General Ashcroft allow line agent FBI to make decisions based on limited evidence of criminality. One example, a prominent Pakistani physician made pro-democracy comments for Pakistan in a US newspaper. Days later he was visited by the FBI who wanted to ask him general political questions about Pakistan and Pakistani leaders.
- Check out Muslim Advocates “Got Rights?” Video.
Guest – Farhana Khera, first Executive Director of Muslim Advocates and the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML). Prior to joining Muslim Advocates and NAML in 2005, Ms. Khera was Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights. In the Senate, she worked for six years directly for Senator Russell D. Feingold (D_WI), the Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee. Ms. Khera focused substantially on the USA PATRIOT Act, racial and religious profiling, and other civil liberties issues raised by the government’s anti_terrorism policies since September 11, 2001. She was the Senator’s lead staff member in developing anti_racial profiling legislation and organizing subcommittee hearings on racial profiling.
Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Iraq War, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Surveillance, Truth to Power
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Updates:
—
G20 Protest Permit Lawsuits : First Amendment Rights Challenge – Jules Lobel
G20 lawsuits filed to allow for peaceful demonstration challenged critical First Amendment rights. The right to demonstrate. Lawsuits filed on behalf of 6 activist groups including Code Pink, requested permits, such as permits to use public parks. The lawsuit brought against the city of Pittsburgh and the US Secret Service states protesters will engage in peaceful, constitutionally protected expressive activities. Jules Lobel, professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh had said to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “When you have reports of huge numbers of police coming in, it suggests they plan to cordon off much of Pittsburgh and prevent meaningful protest.”
Jules Lobel:
- Oppressive environment in Pittsburgh once G20 was announced.
- Heavy police presence, roads are closed, 4 to 5 thousand police from out of Pittsburgh
- Classified as a National Security event, meaning the US Secret Service controls what’s going to happen
- Protest groups sent in applications for permits in July and August. The city, either did not respond or stall granted peaceful permits. Groups with long histories of non-violent protests, artists, ecumenical groups, environmental groups that wanted to set up a sustainability fair.
- Code Pink wanted to set up a tent city in the major park of downtown Pittsburgh. Bail Out The People
- We went to court because for a long time, the city would not give these groups a permit.
- In the lawsuit, we demanded that the city give a permit to the groups they’ve been negotiating with and allow the groups to use the park downtown for its protests.
- As soon as we filed suit the city negotiated much more reasonably, but still refused to grant Code Pink their permit to use the downtown park two days before G20. The court could not find a compelling reason why Code Pink could not use the park, and were granted a permit and had a wonderful tent city in the park.
- Its always a fight now to get permits, and the courts usually win when they defer to the invocation of national security.
- We also asked for overnight camping, far away from the convention center, again, no security concerns.
- The group feeds demonstrators, they grow organic food, they run a bus on organic fuel, an environmentally safe and sound operation. Here’s what happened:
- Police were suspicious, the first thing they did was give them a ticket and impounded their bus for parking the bus more than 12 inches from the curb. They got the bus back, paying 220.00.
- Some industrial artists rented out their lot to the group and allowed buses (which had kitchens in them) to park there. The next day 20 police in full riot gear, broke into the place and demanded to search without a warrant
- The artist who owns the lot after arguing with police, finally allowed the police to search, they found nothing.
- Then they sent out building inspectors to where the people were staying and threatened the artists to get rid of these people or face a 1000.00 a day fine. (These are people who are coming to give out free food)
- They then went to a black community, found an abandoned school and the owner said you can stay here.
- Before they could pull their buses in, a police and many police cars, stopped them and searched everyone and the buses again. Giving citations for parking wheel up on curb, and saying they needed a bus driver to drive commercial vehicle (their bus)
- They pressured the owner of the abandoned school, and finally they had to move again. They found a church, the police followed them there. The police tried to get the pastor to evict them, but he wouldn’t.
- A lawsuit was brought for pattern of harassment and the judge said you can sue for damages after the G20 Summit.
Guest – Jules Lobel, Vice President of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Professor of Law at the University of Pittsburgh. Through the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights, Jules Lobel has litigated important issues regarding the application of international law in the U.S. courts. In the late 1980’s, he advised the Nicaraguan government on the development of its first democratic constitution, and has also advised the Burundi government on constitutional law issues.
—
The New Domestic Order: Domestic Workers Unite
Domestic workers in New York City are pushing for the passage of their own “Bill of Rights” style protection. Most domestic workers are under paid in the United States, and now for many its especially difficult to make ends meet. New York’s domestic workers are calling for their own government bailout. The growing movement is made up mostly of women, it’s multi-ethnic, from countries such as the Philipines, Barbados, Trindad, Jamaica and Nepal. Some workers were abuse, others have been let go from their jobs without notice or proper compensation. The ranks of domestic-worker activists are filled with globalization’s refugees writes Lizzy Ratner, correspondent with the Nation Magazine.
EVENT: Damayan Migrant Workers Association is organizing a workshop on unemployment benefits. October 3, (1-4PM) Held at 53-22 Roosevelt Avenue, Woodside, Queens.
Lizzy Ratner / Linda Abad:
- Linda Abad: Member of the Damayan Migrant Workers Association working with Domestic Workers Alliance and Domestic Workers United campaigning for the passage of the New York Bill of Rights.
- New York Bill of Rights, fair labor standards, recognition, and win respect and dignity for the work force for women and some men who work in the homes of American families.
- There are 200 thousand domestic workers in New York City and about 15 percent are Filipino domestic workers like me. I’m a part-time housekeeper for a couple on the West Side
- I was a government employee in the Philippines, I had a home and 2 children. Income was too low to support family. My first job in the U.S. I worked for a family with 3 children in a big house. I started at 7AM and ended at 9PM. It was a big home, I had to take care of children, cook meals. I was getting 225.00 a week.
- When you’re working in the privacy of homes, you do not have a network, organization.
- Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, passed the assembly now, not the Senate.
- Most domestic workers don’t know that under New York law, after working 44 hours, you get time and a half
- Nine out of 10 domestic workers do not get health insurance, we really need it. We’re exposed to sick children, hazardous cleaning chemicals.
- The inclusion bill in the New York State assembly does not have health coverage. Many domestic workers work off the books. Domestic Workers United large group of Caribbean and Latina domestic workers.
- Lizzy Ratner: I was lucky enough to accompany (as a journalist) a large, large group of domestic workers and allies to Albany in Spring 2008. What I saw inspired me and much of what I learned horrified me. This was the fourth year of pushing for the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights. If you want rights for domestic workers, you have to organize and begin to change the laws.
- There was a sense of rebellious exuberance, defiance. Led by women, by women of color, by immigrants, documented and undocumented. Domestic workers have organized in California, Texas, Seattle, Miami, Maryland and New York
- The United States has come a long way in creating a civilized country, but somehow it’s difficult for lawmakers to see the righteousness of giving dignity and fair standard to this labor force.
- September 29, another trip to Albany to put pressure on the New York State Senate
Guest – Lizzy Ratner, journalist/correspondent with the Nation Magazine. Linda Abad, domestic worker and organizer for the Damayan Migrant Workers Association.
——————————————————————–
Censorship, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Updates:
——
United Nations Goldstone Report on Gaza: Operation Cast Lead
Last week, the United Nations commission released a six hundred page report (PDF) that says Israel committed war crimes against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. South African Judge Richard Goldstone who headed the report also says that Israel committed crimes against humanity during the Operation Cast Lead in late December and January. The report also states that the Palestinians committed war crimes by firing rockets into southern Israel. The report confirms that Israel fired the chemical agent white phosphorous in civilian areas, and intentionally fired high-explosive artillery shells upon hospitals. It also claims that Israel used Palestinian civilians as human shields and deliberately attacked Palestinian food supplies in Gaza.
Professor Richard Falk:
- The report is a real milestone in holding the Israeli government accountable at least at the level of affirming facts for its behavior in the occupied territories. A great contribution to the Palestinian Solidarity Movement.
- I think the report went a little too far in the objective view, while it didn’t treat them equally, the report gave a lot of detail on the rockets that were fired from Gaza, and allowed a certain impression of symmetry to be formed, which I think is very misleading.
- The rocket fire is a war crime and should be condemned but at the same time, there was a cease fire in 2008 where the rocket fire was reduced virtually to zero. Hamas tried to extend that cease fire, Israel basically broke it and refused to extend it.
- Reasons why Israel broke cease fire: It occurred near Israeli elections, change in leadership in the US, overcoming the impression of Israeli defeat in the Lebanon conflict of 2006
- Israel kept pressing for an opportunity to show it is a formidable power that shouldn’t be challenged, and in that sense the message was as much to Iran as the Palestinians.
- The report discuss in detail the various incidents in factual detail and confirmed what had been alleged earlier. Attacking civilians who are in complete vulnerability.
- It was the indiscriminant and disproportionate character of the use of force by Israel, that is the focus of the condemnation that is at the core of the report. The report confirms what had been a journalistic consensus.
- The report gives credibility to universal jurisdiction. Universal jurisdiction initiatives are appropriate given the findings of the report. The international criminal court may not be available, but there are other possibilities for ending Israeli impunity and one of them is universal jurisdiction. Countries can push for universal jurisdiction in holding certain Israelis accountable.
- The report will help legitimize the BDS movement. The blockade still in place.
Guest – Professor Richard Falk, Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights who has been barred entry to Israel. He’s Professor of International Law at Princeton, will be the Council’s special investigator of Israeli behavior in the territories and this has incited furious objections from Yitzhak Levanon, the Israeli ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva. Falk replaced South African John Dugard, a veteran anti-apartheid activist.
—————————–
Capitalism Hits The Fan: A Jobless Economic Recovery
Nearly a year ago, the US government seized mortgage banks Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, within a week investment bank Lehman Brothers went bankrupt that triggered a global financial panic. In the months that followed financial markets tumbled worldwide. With trillions vaporized from the world economy, the US is partnering with G20 groups to create global rules that will govern finance. The US economy is just now showing signs of recovering from one of its deepest economic recession ever.
Rick Wolff:
- False euphoria about recovery, gamblers come into the market, believing it won’t go lower.
- Typically however there’s another leg down, we have people investing in a way expecting the market to drop.
- The whole world went into the toilet (economically) and the Chinese government stock market doubled?
- The Chinese miracle is based on exports, but in order to have exports, the rest of the world has to be able to buy. The rest of the world has been in the greatest depression at least since the second world war
- How can the Chinese keep producing if the rest of world in which they sold, can’t buy?
- My theory is that if the Chinese allow their system to collapse they’d have a domestic impossibility, socially and politically. The Chinese are basically continuing production and storing it. Hold it, and hope against hope, warehouses of toys and everything. Revealed: The ghost fleet of the recession anchored just east of Singapore
- Two bubbles, the Chinese bubble and the US treasury bubble.
- The Federal Reserve prints money, that’s voted on by the Federal Reserve boards. This way they avoid the unpleasantness of having to tax people or borrowing from the private sector
- One out of 15 people in the US labor force today is unemployed (Bureau of Labor Statistics)
- Roughly 59 percent of the US is working, every conceivable worker that can be laid off, is being laid off.
- Is this a real recovery? New businesses? Yes, but workers taking it on the chin.
- American businesses are discovering everywhere, that the future growth is elsewhere, it’s not in the U.S.
- The American working class is being pushed down, with the unemployment, the foreclosures.
- In China and other countries that are desperately poor, there’s a small growing income rich, technical industry, since that’s the only growth anywhere in the world economy, it’s what everyone is excited about, and where everybody is gearing.
- The Obama Administration ought to question the assumption of focusing all their efforts on restoring credit markets and shoring up banks, bailing out busted insurance companies, etc.
- Roosevelt hired millions people in the depths of the depression to work on a whole host of projects, Obama hasn’t done a thing about that, nothing.
- Capitalism Hits the Fan, you can follow how the crisis happened, why it took the forms it did, literally, month by month how it was happening, think about it as a critical analysis, of how we had this crisis, why its not responding to the government, why it is so powerful and global in nature.
Guest – Rick Wolff, Professor of Economics at University of Massachusetts at Amherst. In his new book Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About, Rick takes the reader back to 2005 and step by step reveals how policies, economic structures and wage to profit systems led to a global economic collapse. His books is complimented by the film Capitalism Hits the Fan.
———————————————————————————-
Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, FBI Intrusion, Human Rights, Iraq War, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power, War Resister
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
New Time: Law and Disorder Broadcasts at 9AM on WBAI Listen here
Updates:
- 9-11 Anniversary/ Patriot Act / AUMF / Preventive Detention /Surveillance
- North Carolina terrorists / Consequences of cooperating with FBI
- Spanish prosecution update / Change in universal jurisdiction law / Trying to narrow law at behest of Israelis and Chinese
—–
Rethinking Afghanistan
Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates affirmed the US miltary commitment in Afghanistan, as thousands of additional troops are deployed. To give us a perspective we are joined by Norman Soloman, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. Solomon is also the author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” and has written several articles about his experiences in Afghanistan. Solomon has returned from a visit to Kabul in late August. His articles have detailed the war torn landscapes, stunning civilian casualties and the desperate living conditions of Afghani children. Previous Law and Disorder Shows on Afghanistan
Norman Solomon
- It’s worse than the mainline media would tell us.
- People who do go to Afghanistan, travel in a bubble, taken around by the Pentagon and learn very little, often not speaking to any Afghans who aren’t part of Karzai government.
- The intention of the Obama Administration is to wage war in Afghanistan, and humanitarian aid and assistance is an after thought.
- It’s in the foreground for PR, but the suffering is way beyond the number of people killed that’s being reported
- Afghans are outraged at the US killing civilians and outraged at the air war
- There are no Al-Qaeda in in Afghanistan, that’s been true for a while.
- This is a prescription for endless war, repetition compulsion.
- The agenda is less defensive and high blown, they have to do with geo-political positioning which is primary.
- Recommended Book: Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia.
- Afghanistan War is a humanitarian disaster that continues to unfold.
- The solution has to do with humanitarian and military activity being inverted.
Guest – Norman Solomon, executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy. Solomon is also the author of “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.” and has written several articles about his experiences in Afghanistan. Solomon returned from a visit to Kabul in late August.
—–
T.Bishop – photo by: Eric Thompson
The Will To Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan
The majority of the United States has opposed the continued occupation of Iraq and as the Pentagon decides to send more US troops to Afghanistan, there is a growing public distrust surrounding this recent escalation of war. Is there also a growing resistance among the ranks of US soldiers? The mainstream media has failed to report on the increasing number of soldiers taking a public stand and finding ingenious ways to express defiance. Author Dahr Jamail has compiled a report of dissent within the military in his recent book The Will To Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. Watch Winter Soldier Coverage
Dahr Jamail:
- In the last decade, 50 thousand troops have gone AWOL. In 2007, a 42 percent increase of troops going AWOL in the US Army. Nearly 8 thousand troops each year going AWOL.
- Increase in troops contacting groups such as Courage To Resist and IVAW
- Soldiers resisting are often quickly processed through to shut them up
- Massive escalation in Afghanistan – more than 60 thousand troops. 131 thousand troops still in Iraq.
- McCrystal was advised that after the surge is done, add 45 thousand more troops.
- Lack of quality treatment for PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury are not lost on the military, they know and understand.
- The Will To Resist focuses on active duty troops and veterans, the lead chapter is about resistance on the ground in Iraq.
- Search and avoid missions, IED lottery, we would find an open field, park there and call in every hour, saying yes we’re still looking for weapons caches.
- We often see a demoralized unit being sent in to an extremely bad situation, when it gets time to gear up, the troops are sitting there and the commander sees them and rather than risk media exposure, he’ll cancel the mission.
- A lot of people still in Canada.
- Soldiers are not informed that they can refuse an unlawful order and that they can apply for conscientious objector status. Two resisters from Fort Hood, SP4 Victor Augusto and Sgt Travis Bishop.
Guest- Dahr Jamail, he currently writes for the Inter Press Service, Le Monde Diplomatique, and many other outlets. His stories have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald in Scotland, Al-Jazeera, the Guardian, Foreign Policy in Focus, and the Independent.
————————————————————————–
