Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Bradley Manning Defense
Information station at the SM and
Mar Vista Farmers Markets
TO HELP VOLUNTEER please email us at
pdwamerica@gmail.com
LINKS:
www.bradleymanning.org
www.CouragetoResist.org
www.wikileaks.ch - only working site is Swiss (CH)
www.KPFK.org
Snail Mail to Bradley Manning
c/o Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Avenue #41
Oakland, CA 94610
(Only a few "designated" people may send mail to Bradley)
ADVISORY Activists (Bradley Manning Defense):
Medea Benjamin, Code Pink: Women for Peace
Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, National Whistleblower Center
Daniel Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistleblower
Kathleen Gilberd, Co-Chair of the Military Law Task Force of the National Lawyers Guild
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and activist
Michael Moore, documentary filmmaker, author and activist
Jose Vasquez, Iraq Veterans against the War
Ann Wright, US Army Colonel (retired)
Kevin Zeese, co-founder and Executive Director,
Voters for Peace
Documentary FILM called "WIKI REBELS" made by Public TV
in Sweden (!) - recommended and available at www.KPFK.org
Bradley Manning Defense
SM-VENICE ACTION MEETING
SATURDAY JANUARY 8th
Location TBA
www.pdwamerica@gmail.com
Saturday, December 4, 2010
Wikileaks Exposes American Empire
By Medea Benjamin, Leslie Cagan, Tim Carpenter, Gael Murphy,
Cindy Sheehan, David Swanson, Debra Sweet
While only a tiny fraction of the U.S. diplomatic cables scheduled for publication by Wikileaks have thus far been made available, some conclusions can already be drawn. These cables and the Iraq and Afghan War Diaries provide an opportunity for Americans to see our government for what it is. Our government is seen here as controlling a global military and espionage empire that impacts every region of the globe and deceives its own population. Secrecy, spying, and hostility have infected our entire government, turning the diplomatic corps into an arm of the CIA and the military, just as the civilian efforts in Afghanistan are described by Richard Holbrooke, who heads them up, as "support for the military."
Secret war planning, secret wars, and lies about wars have become routine. The United States is secretly and illegally engaged in a war in Yemen and has persuaded that nation's government to lie about it. The United States has supported a coup in Honduras and lied about it. We have long known that the war on terrorism was increasing, rather than diminishing, terrorism. These leaks show Saudi Arabia to be the greatest sponsor of terrorism, and show that nation's dictator, King Abdullah, to be very close to our own government in its treatment of prisoners. He has urged the United States to implant microchips in prisoners released from Guantanamo. And he has urged the United States to illegally and aggressively attack Iran. Congress should immediately block what would be the largest weapons sale in U.S. history, selling this country $60 billion in weapons.
Congress should drop any idea of "updating" the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force to permit presidents to unconstitutionally launch more wars.
We see what sort of wars our allies urge on our presidents.
We learn that while dictators urge war, other branches of the same governments, the people, and the evidence weigh against it. We learn from a cable from last February that Russia has refuted U.S. claims that Iran has missiles that could target Europe. We learn from September 2009 that the United States and Britain planned to pressure Yukiya Amano, the then incoming head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to produce reports suggesting Iranian nuclear developments, whether or not merited by the facts, and that National Security Adviser Gen. Jim Jones proposed the propaganda strategy of baselessly tying Iran's nuclear program to North Korea's.
Much of the pressure for war appears to come from within the United States, whose representatives treat the entire world as a hostile enemy to be spied on, lied to, and exploited. The secrecy that permits this behavior must be broken if the United States' approach to the world is to change. Those who have helped to fulfill President Obama's campaign promise of transparency must be protected from his vengeance, while those who have abused positions of diplomatic trust to advance agendas of espionage and war planning must be held accountable.
While other countries may offer residency and protection to Wikileaks' Julian Assange, it is the United States that has most benefitted from his work. We encourage U.S. cities to offer him sanctuary. Our Department of Justice has granted immunity for aggressive War, kidnapping, torture, assassination, and warrantless spying, while pursuing the criminal prosecution of Bradley Manning for allegedly leaking materials to Wikileaks. Were our government to indict Assange or support the extradition or rendition of Assange from anywhere in the world to Sweden, while maintaining that his work and not the Pentagon's has endangered us, our nation's moral standing would reach a new low. Our government should cease any actions it is taking to prosecute Julian Assange for absurd criminal charges, to pressure Sweden to do so, or to sabotage Wikileaks' servers.
Coverups of leaks have a history in Washington of backfiring in the form of larger leaks and scandals. Our State Department should focus on diplomacy and mutually beneficial partnerships with the world community.The undersigned express our gratitude to those doing the job a representative government and an independent media are each supposed to do. We demand an end to all overt and covert wars, a ban on the use of State Department employees and contractors in spying or warfare, and a full investigation of the facts revealed in the Wikileaks cables.
We support the Protest of our current wars planned for December 16th, 10 a.m., at the White House.
Signed
Medea Benjamin, Leslie Cagan, Tim Carpenter, Gael Murphy, Cindy Sheehan, David Swanson, Debra Sweet, Ann Wright, Kevin Zeese
NO Pemanent Bases in Afghanistan
“I am appalled by Senator Graham’s comments supporting the indefinite presence of U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan. “Both the House and Senate
have passed, and President Obama has signed intolaw, on multiple occasions, legislation including provisions I authored prohibiting the establishment of permanent U.S. military bases in Afghanistan. “Rather than advocating for a permanent extension of the costly and counterproductive military occupation of Afghanistan, it is time to finally end America’s longest war and bring our men and women in uniform home.
“I will continue my work in Congress to ensure the United States lives up toPresident Obama’s pledge that ‘we do not want to keep our troops inAfghanistan. We seek no military bases there.’”
Congress Member Barbara Lee
Nicole Y. Williams
Communications Director
The Honorable Barbara Lee (CA-9)
2444 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
(202) 226-0323 (Direct)
(202) 579-1925 (Cell)
(202) 225-9817 (Fax)
**www.lee.house.gov *
Saturday, November 27, 2010
PORTUGAL GENERAL STRIKE
by Axel Bugge
Reuters - 24 November 2010
Portugal's biggest Unions went on their first joint general strike since 1988 today, hoping to weaken the Socialist government's resolve on implementing austerity measures meant
to tackle a debt crisis.
The country's two biggest Unions stopped trains and buses, grounded planes and halted services from healthcare to banking in protest against wage cuts and rising unemployment in western Europe's poorest country. Prime Minister Jose Socrates, whose government is struggling to quash speculation that Portugal will be the next in Europe to need a bailout after Ireland and Greece, has pledged to stay the course on wage cuts and tax hikes to cut the budget deficit.
As the strike kicked off, Portugal's largest exporter, Volkswagen's (VOWG.DE) Autoeuropa plant, halted production altogether. The plant produces up to 500 cars on an average day."The production line is completely shut, so we expect that no cars will be produced today," said Autoeuropa Union coordinator Calros Chora, adding that only a small part of the plant dealing with repairs would be open."There is a picket line outside, but they are letting people in and out," he said. Lisbon has been plastered with banners for weeks urging workers to join the strike.
The CGTP Union said all ports were now shut, and check-in counters at Lisbon's main airport was empty. National airline TAP has cancelled most flights. However no mass protests were expected on Wednesday.Roads in and around the capital Lisbon were choked with heavy traffic as many people chose to commute by car. Cafes and shops were open and vans delivered goods as usual. The Unions hope to tap into the growing dissatisfaction with the minority Socialist government's austerity measures, which also include across the board spending cuts in public services.
"It's the Workers who are paying for the crisis, not the Bankers nor the Shareholders of big companies," said Leandro Martins, a 65-year old Pensioner."This is a strike against rightist policies, to demand new policies serving the Portuguese people."Portugal has suffered from years of low growth - unlike other weak Euro economies such as Ireland and Spain that went from boom to bust - and waning competitiveness which economists say undermines its ability to ride out the debt crisis."Maybe the strike will not provoke radical changes in the austerity course the government has chosen, but it does represent an additional element of uncertainty in the already unstable setting in the country," said Elisio Estanque, a sociology researcher at the University of Coimbra.
The country's risk premium - or spreads on its bonds over safer German Bunds - hit a euro lifetime high on Nov. 11 and was close to that level on Wednesday, at 460 basis points. Even though the economy is growing this year, economists fear it will slide back into recession in 2011, as higher taxes and civil servant wage cuts of five percent bite into consumption. Unemployment, already at its highest since the 1980s at 10.9 percent, could rise further.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
JOB CREATION MACHINE
One of the most powerful forms of stimulus we could apply to our economy right now would be to lower the current Social Security retirement age from the current 65-67, to age 55.
And increase the benefits back to where they were in inflation-adjusted 1960s dollars by raising them between 10 to 20 percent (so people could actually live on Social Security).
The right-wing reaction to this, of course, will be to say that with fewer people working and more people drawing benefits, it would bankrupt Social Security and destroy the economy. But history shows the exact reverse.
Instead, it would eliminate the problem of Unemployment in the United States. All those Boomers retiring would make room in the labor market for all the recent high-school and college graduates (YOUTH) now finding it so hard to find a job.
Thom Hartmann goes on to discuss about how lowering the retirement age would open up thousands of jobs nationwide, and how wages for working class Americans have been devastated since the days of Ronald Reagan and our old pal Alan Greenspan started gutting Unions and trying to lower our standard of living.
In September of 2007, in an interview on C-SPAN for Book TV, Greenspan said: “We pay the highest skilled labor wages in the world. If we would open up our borders to skilled labor far more than we do, we would attract a very substantial quantity of skilled labor which would suppress the wage levels of the skilled, because the skilled are essentially being subsidized by the government, meaning our competition is being kept outside the country.”
It’s shocking that ideologues like Greenspan, Reagan, and Clinton believe this, but they do. And the only way to reverse the past 29 years of Reaganomics and Clintonomics is to tighten up the labor market again.
While a great start would be to pull out of our insane trade treaties and begin again protecting American manufacturers, that will take a decade for the impact to be truly felt even if we were to go back to our 1980 TARIFF levels today.
Thom finishes by stating that his plan would ultimately "take us to nearly ZERO
UNEMPLOYMENT and dramatically stimulate the economy."
Written by Thom Hartmann www.
ThomHartmann.com
Saturday, October 23, 2010
The General Strike in France
We've spent the last three days going from road block to road block,
together with teachers, railroad workers, truckers, nurses, etc.
As a result, all the petrol stations in a radius of 70 kms (50 miles)
are closed, completely out of gas.
Today, we got the main Teachers' Union to call on all striking teachers to come and
help block all the remaining fuel depots. The police can't intervene, because the
truckers have established road blocks on the major roads leading to the oil depot.
All 12 French oil refineries are on strike until next Friday. Many depots are
blocked. Half the train stations (including major ones) are closed. Truckers have
blocked the roads leading to the main production areas, and factories cannot
function because they lack raw material and pieces (they don't have any stocks of
materials stored because they believe storage costs money).
What is incredible is that despite the fact that there is no more oil
available, and therefore that people are blocked at home, a resounding
71% of the population approves of the strike (according to today's polls).
The movement is set to last at least another week. I spent the whole of
Sunday night with transport (railway and truckers) workers playing cards
and drinking beer. It was quite cold (2°C) around 4 AM, but the railroad
workers brought several truck-loads of "palettes" (empty wooden
containers) and we lit a mighty bonfire.
Workers are determined to fight until the bitter end. Workers who chose
not to go on strike are being encouraged to donate part of their salary
to the workers of the most "strategic" sectors, especially the Donges refinery.
Personally, this is my 6th day of Strike. The consensus now being that "revolving"
strikes (15% of the workforce on strike on a given day) would enable us to hold out
longer.
The support from "ordinary people" is astounding. When we block a
freeway, drivers often honk to support us, give us money, hand us daily
newspapers, even though we are effectively blocking them.
Anyway, the mood is indescribable. Workers from every sector are united
and determined, and for the first time, many workers can chat with
people employed in other industries knowing that they share a common
goal.
Victories for Progressives
by William Floyd
On October 2nd, the One Nation Rally in Washington DC unified organized
Labor and hundreds of PROGRESSIVE, Peace and Justice groups from
around the country. There is no stronger force in the America than
organized Labor, and our Progressive grass roots community movement.
Evidence: 200,000+/- Union and Progressive Protestors achieved:
Many Permanent War Machine and Wall Street Puppets Resign:
Rahm Emanuel (Obama's Gatekeeper excluding all Progressives)
Permanent War Gen. James Jones (Obama's National Security Advisor #1)
Permanent War leader Defense hawk Robert Gates will resign April 2011
Larry Summers, author of the Wall St. Crash via derivatives and swaps
Peter Orzag, key Budget advisor to Obama administration
Treasury Sec'y Geithner's 2 fresh appointees refused to work for him
David Axelrod, Obama Team's chief 2008 Election Advisor
There were no such widespread resignations from either the Bush-Cheney
crime regime, nor the Nixon-Kissinger international criminal syndicate.
Local Progress:
The Santa Monica Peace Club and national PDWA sent 75 Letters to Progressive Caucus
members at their home state offices. These letters concerned the waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer funds by the H. Clinton State Department trying to overthrow another democratic election in Venezuela.
Result:
Secretary of State Clinton did an about face and supported Equador's President Rafael Correa after the Police/Air Force coup d'etat.
Contrast this with Clinton's support for the S.O.A. murderers in the Honduran coup.
Also, Bob (Watergate) Woodward said that the White House wants to "Switch" H. Clinton with VP Joe Biden for the 2012 Election. Obama thinks he needs Clinton's supporters to win the Presidential race in 2012. And Joe Biden admits he always wanted to be an international player.
PROGRESSIVE DEMOCRATIC WORKERS for AMERICA (PDWA)
www . pdwamerica . blogspot . com