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marmar
marmar's Journal
marmar's Journal
December 6, 2013
Published on Dec 5, 2013
http://www.democracynow.org - Fast-food workers are walking off the job in about 100 cities today in what organizers call their largest action to date. Today's strikes and protests continue a campaign that began last year to call for a living wage of $15 dollars an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. Early this morning, Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman and Hany Massoud headed to Times Square in New York City where a group of McDonald's workers were joined by a crowd of hundreds of supporters to kick off their strike. We hear voices from the protest and speak to Camille Rivera of United New York, part of the newly formed New Day New York Coalition, which has organized this week of action to fight income inequality and build economic fairness.
"We Can't Survive on $7.25": Fast Food Workers Kick Off National Day of Action for Higher Pay
Published on Dec 5, 2013
http://www.democracynow.org - Fast-food workers are walking off the job in about 100 cities today in what organizers call their largest action to date. Today's strikes and protests continue a campaign that began last year to call for a living wage of $15 dollars an hour and the right to form a union without retaliation. Early this morning, Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman and Hany Massoud headed to Times Square in New York City where a group of McDonald's workers were joined by a crowd of hundreds of supporters to kick off their strike. We hear voices from the protest and speak to Camille Rivera of United New York, part of the newly formed New Day New York Coalition, which has organized this week of action to fight income inequality and build economic fairness.
December 6, 2013
.......(snip).......
JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: So we wanted to give you a chance to kind of give some context to the increasing use of low-wage workers across America and other countries and the protest against that trend. And a big, a major driving force for these protests--and it's been--this has been used to kind of criticize them as well--are major unions like SEIU. But major unions weren't always interested in organizing these low-wage workers. What's brought about this change?
LEO PANITCH, PROF. POLITICAL SCIENCE, YORK UNIVERSITY: Well, you know, I think people are missing, in all the attention that's being paid to the vastly growing inequality in the United States and other Western capitalist countries, that the fundamental reason for it is not some shift in taxes, but the fundamental reason for it has been the defeat of trade unionism in the United States and elsewhere, at least since the early 1980s. Insofar as there was a tendency to the equalization of incomes--and it by no means went all that far in the postwar period--it was because for a few decades after 1945, trade unions were strong vis-à-vis their employers. And that had to do with some legal rights they'd won. It also had to do with the wage militancy of those unions and their ability to coerce corporations to pay workers higher wages, better benefits, give them more secure employment. And the reason that CEOs didn't pay themselves the astronomical amounts they pay themselves today was precisely because of the bad example it set in terms of the next collective bargaining round.
Now, what has happened everywhere, although especially in the United States, is that unions have been defeated. That was a concerted effort on the part of employers through the 1970s and 1980s. It was aided by the Federal Reserve's very high interest rate policy, which purposely drove up unemployment. And in driving up unemployment, it gave the unions a loss of nerve.
And it was added to by such actions by the Reagan administration as the ending of the PATCO strike, the strike of the air traffic controllers, and the imprisonment of their members. And this was a union that had voted Republican in 1980. It voted for Reagan in 1980. And it had to do with a shift of a good deal of industry to the American South, to those states where there were so-called right-to-work provisions, i.e., right to not belong to a union--right of employers to prevent you joining a union is what it really means. And then it had to do with the fact that so much of the enormous growth in retail services in the United States--and elsewhere, but especially the United States--has taken place in jurisdictions where it is difficult to unionize, especially, again, in the American South. And that then has spread like wildfire around the country and capitalism more broadly. That's the fundamental reason for the growth in inequality.
The tax system only tinkers with the incomes we get in the labor market. It can adjust those. It can make some slight--have some effect on them, whether taxation is more or less progressive. But the main fundamental reason has to do with the incomes that people get in the labor market. .........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/20462-how-the-defeat-of-trade-unionism-gave-rise-to-low-wage-jobs
How the Defeat of Trade Unionism Gave Rise to Low-Wage Jobs
.......(snip).......
JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: So we wanted to give you a chance to kind of give some context to the increasing use of low-wage workers across America and other countries and the protest against that trend. And a big, a major driving force for these protests--and it's been--this has been used to kind of criticize them as well--are major unions like SEIU. But major unions weren't always interested in organizing these low-wage workers. What's brought about this change?
LEO PANITCH, PROF. POLITICAL SCIENCE, YORK UNIVERSITY: Well, you know, I think people are missing, in all the attention that's being paid to the vastly growing inequality in the United States and other Western capitalist countries, that the fundamental reason for it is not some shift in taxes, but the fundamental reason for it has been the defeat of trade unionism in the United States and elsewhere, at least since the early 1980s. Insofar as there was a tendency to the equalization of incomes--and it by no means went all that far in the postwar period--it was because for a few decades after 1945, trade unions were strong vis-à-vis their employers. And that had to do with some legal rights they'd won. It also had to do with the wage militancy of those unions and their ability to coerce corporations to pay workers higher wages, better benefits, give them more secure employment. And the reason that CEOs didn't pay themselves the astronomical amounts they pay themselves today was precisely because of the bad example it set in terms of the next collective bargaining round.
Now, what has happened everywhere, although especially in the United States, is that unions have been defeated. That was a concerted effort on the part of employers through the 1970s and 1980s. It was aided by the Federal Reserve's very high interest rate policy, which purposely drove up unemployment. And in driving up unemployment, it gave the unions a loss of nerve.
And it was added to by such actions by the Reagan administration as the ending of the PATCO strike, the strike of the air traffic controllers, and the imprisonment of their members. And this was a union that had voted Republican in 1980. It voted for Reagan in 1980. And it had to do with a shift of a good deal of industry to the American South, to those states where there were so-called right-to-work provisions, i.e., right to not belong to a union--right of employers to prevent you joining a union is what it really means. And then it had to do with the fact that so much of the enormous growth in retail services in the United States--and elsewhere, but especially the United States--has taken place in jurisdictions where it is difficult to unionize, especially, again, in the American South. And that then has spread like wildfire around the country and capitalism more broadly. That's the fundamental reason for the growth in inequality.
The tax system only tinkers with the incomes we get in the labor market. It can adjust those. It can make some slight--have some effect on them, whether taxation is more or less progressive. But the main fundamental reason has to do with the incomes that people get in the labor market. .........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://truth-out.org/news/item/20462-how-the-defeat-of-trade-unionism-gave-rise-to-low-wage-jobs
December 6, 2013
from truthdig:
Poverty Wages in the Land Of Plenty
Posted on Dec 4, 2013
By Amy Goodman
The holiday season is upon us. Sadly, the big retailers are Scrooges when it comes to paying their staffs. Undergirding the sale prices is an army of workers earning the minimum wage or a fraction above it, living check to check on their meager pay and benefits. The dark secret that the retail giants like Wal-Mart don’t want you to know is that many of these workers subsist below the poverty line, and rely on programs like food stamps and Medicaid just to get by. This holiday season, though, low-wage workers from Wal-Mart to fast-food restaurants are standing up and fighting back.
“Wal-Mart was put in an uncomfortable spotlight on what should be the happiest day of the year for the retailer,” Josh Eidelson told me, reporting on the coordinated Black Friday protests. “These were the largest protests we’ve seen against Wal-Mart ... you had 1,500 stores involved; you had over a hundred people arrested.” Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer, with 2.2 million employees, 1.3 million of whom are in the U.S. It reported close to $120 billion in gross profit for 2012. Just six members of the Walton family, whose patriarch, Sam Walton, founded the retail giant, have amassed an estimated combined fortune of between $115 billion-$144 billion. These six individuals have more wealth than the combined financial assets of the poorest 40 percent of the U.S. population.
Wal-Mart workers have been organizing under the banner of OUR Walmart, a worker initiative supported by the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Workers have taken courageous stands, protesting their employer and engaging in short-term strikes. Wal-Mart has retaliated, firing many who participated. One of those fired was Barbara Collins, who worked for eight years at the Wal-Mart in Placerville, Calif.
“I was terminated for speaking out,” Collins told us on “Democracy Now!” On Nov. 18, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that the strikes were protected worker actions. Collins, who was speaking to us from Bentonville, Ark., where she was protesting Wal-Mart at its world headquarters, told us: “The NLRB ruling is just overwhelming. We are really excited that they found that we’re telling the truth, that they broke the law, and we want to be reinstated.” .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/poverty_wages_in_the_land_of_plenty_20131204
Amy Goodman: Poverty Wages in the Land Of Plenty
from truthdig:
Poverty Wages in the Land Of Plenty
Posted on Dec 4, 2013
By Amy Goodman
The holiday season is upon us. Sadly, the big retailers are Scrooges when it comes to paying their staffs. Undergirding the sale prices is an army of workers earning the minimum wage or a fraction above it, living check to check on their meager pay and benefits. The dark secret that the retail giants like Wal-Mart don’t want you to know is that many of these workers subsist below the poverty line, and rely on programs like food stamps and Medicaid just to get by. This holiday season, though, low-wage workers from Wal-Mart to fast-food restaurants are standing up and fighting back.
“Wal-Mart was put in an uncomfortable spotlight on what should be the happiest day of the year for the retailer,” Josh Eidelson told me, reporting on the coordinated Black Friday protests. “These were the largest protests we’ve seen against Wal-Mart ... you had 1,500 stores involved; you had over a hundred people arrested.” Wal-Mart is the world’s largest retailer, with 2.2 million employees, 1.3 million of whom are in the U.S. It reported close to $120 billion in gross profit for 2012. Just six members of the Walton family, whose patriarch, Sam Walton, founded the retail giant, have amassed an estimated combined fortune of between $115 billion-$144 billion. These six individuals have more wealth than the combined financial assets of the poorest 40 percent of the U.S. population.
Wal-Mart workers have been organizing under the banner of OUR Walmart, a worker initiative supported by the United Food and Commercial Workers union. Workers have taken courageous stands, protesting their employer and engaging in short-term strikes. Wal-Mart has retaliated, firing many who participated. One of those fired was Barbara Collins, who worked for eight years at the Wal-Mart in Placerville, Calif.
“I was terminated for speaking out,” Collins told us on “Democracy Now!” On Nov. 18, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that the strikes were protected worker actions. Collins, who was speaking to us from Bentonville, Ark., where she was protesting Wal-Mart at its world headquarters, told us: “The NLRB ruling is just overwhelming. We are really excited that they found that we’re telling the truth, that they broke the law, and we want to be reinstated.” .....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/poverty_wages_in_the_land_of_plenty_20131204
December 6, 2013
DEMOCRACY BORN IN CHAINS:
SOUTH AFRICA’S CONSTRICTED FREEDOM
In January 1990, Nelson Mandela, age seventy-one, sat down in his prison compound to write a note to his supporters outside. It was meant to settle a debate over whether twenty-seven years behind bars, most of it spent on Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town, had weakened the leader’s commitment to the economic transformation of South Africa’s apartheid state. The note was only two sentences long, and it decisively put the matter to rest: "The nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industries is the policy of the ANC, and the change or modification of our views in this regard is inconceivable. Black economic empowerment is a goal we fully support and encourage, but in our situation state control of certain sectors of the economy is unavoidable."3
History, it turned out, was not over just yet, as Fukuyama had claimed. In South Africa, the largest economy on the African continent, it seemed that some people still believed that freedom included the right to reclaim and redistribute their oppressors’ ill-gotten gains.
That belief had formed the basis of the policy of the African National Congress for thirty-five years, ever since it was spelled out in its statement of core principles, the Freedom Charter. The story of the charter’s drafting is the stuff of folklore in South Africa, and for good reason. The process began in 1955, when the party dispatched fifty thousand volunteers into the townships and countryside. The task of the volunteers was to collect "freedom demands" from the people—their vision of a post-apartheid world in which all South Africans had equal rights. The demands were handwritten on scraps of paper: "Land to be given to all landless people," "Living wages and shorter hours of work," "Free and compulsory education, irrespective of colour, race or nationality," "The right to reside and move about freely" and many more.4 When the demands came back, leaders of the African National Congress synthesized them into a final document, which was officially adopted on June 26, 1955, at the Congress of the People, held in Kliptown, a "buffer zone" township built to protect the white residents of Johannesburg from the teeming masses of Soweto. Roughly three thousand delegates— black, Indian, "coloured" and a few white—sat together in an empty field to vote on the contents of the document. According to Nelson Mandela’s account of the historic Kliptown gathering, "the charter was read aloud, section by section, to the people in English, Sesotho and Xhosa. After each section, the crowd shouted its approval with cries of ‘Afrika!’ and ‘Mayibuye!’"5 The first defiant demand of the Freedom Charter reads, "The People Shall Govern!"
.....(snip).....
The ANC base, however, proved distinctly more unruly—which created a need for yet more discipline. According to Yasmin Sooka, one of the jurors on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the discipline mentality reached into every aspect of the transition—including the quest for justice. After hearing years of testimony about torture, killings and disappearances, the truth commission turned to the question of what kind of gestures could begin to heal the injustices. Truth and forgiveness were important, but so was compensation for the victims and their families. It made little sense to ask the new government to make compensation payouts, as these were not its crimes, and anything spent on reparations for apartheid abuses was money not spent building homes and schools for the poor in the newly liberated nation.
Some commissioners felt that multinational corporations that had benefited from apartheid should be forced to pay reparations. In the end the Truth and Reconciliation Commission made the modest recommendation of a one-time 1 percent corporate tax to raise money for the victims, what it called "a solidarity tax." Sooka expected support for this mild recommendation from the ANC; instead, the government, then headed by Mbeki, rejected any suggestion of corporate reparations or a solidarity tax, fearing that it would send an anti-business message to the market. "The president decided not to hold business accountable," Sooka told me. "It was that simple." In the end, the government put forward a fraction of what had been requested, taking the money out of its own budget, as the commissioners had feared. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2011/02/democracy-born-chains
Naomi Klein article from 2011 about the Shock Doctrining of post-apartheid South Africa
excerpted from 'The Shock Doctrine'DEMOCRACY BORN IN CHAINS:
SOUTH AFRICA’S CONSTRICTED FREEDOM
Reconciliation means that those who have been on the underside of history must see that there is a qualitative difference between repression and freedom. And for them, freedom translates into having a supply of clean water, having electricity on tap; being able to live in a decent home and have a good job; to be able to send your children to school and to have accessible health care. I mean, what’s the point of having made this transition if the quality of life of these people is not enhanced and improved? If not, the vote is useless.
—Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, 20011
Before transferring power, the Nationalist Party wants to emasculate it. It is trying to negotiate a kind of swap where it will give up the right to run the country its way in exchange for the right to stop blacks from running it their own way.
—Allister Sparks, South African journalist2
In January 1990, Nelson Mandela, age seventy-one, sat down in his prison compound to write a note to his supporters outside. It was meant to settle a debate over whether twenty-seven years behind bars, most of it spent on Robben Island off the coast of Cape Town, had weakened the leader’s commitment to the economic transformation of South Africa’s apartheid state. The note was only two sentences long, and it decisively put the matter to rest: "The nationalisation of the mines, banks and monopoly industries is the policy of the ANC, and the change or modification of our views in this regard is inconceivable. Black economic empowerment is a goal we fully support and encourage, but in our situation state control of certain sectors of the economy is unavoidable."3
History, it turned out, was not over just yet, as Fukuyama had claimed. In South Africa, the largest economy on the African continent, it seemed that some people still believed that freedom included the right to reclaim and redistribute their oppressors’ ill-gotten gains.
That belief had formed the basis of the policy of the African National Congress for thirty-five years, ever since it was spelled out in its statement of core principles, the Freedom Charter. The story of the charter’s drafting is the stuff of folklore in South Africa, and for good reason. The process began in 1955, when the party dispatched fifty thousand volunteers into the townships and countryside. The task of the volunteers was to collect "freedom demands" from the people—their vision of a post-apartheid world in which all South Africans had equal rights. The demands were handwritten on scraps of paper: "Land to be given to all landless people," "Living wages and shorter hours of work," "Free and compulsory education, irrespective of colour, race or nationality," "The right to reside and move about freely" and many more.4 When the demands came back, leaders of the African National Congress synthesized them into a final document, which was officially adopted on June 26, 1955, at the Congress of the People, held in Kliptown, a "buffer zone" township built to protect the white residents of Johannesburg from the teeming masses of Soweto. Roughly three thousand delegates— black, Indian, "coloured" and a few white—sat together in an empty field to vote on the contents of the document. According to Nelson Mandela’s account of the historic Kliptown gathering, "the charter was read aloud, section by section, to the people in English, Sesotho and Xhosa. After each section, the crowd shouted its approval with cries of ‘Afrika!’ and ‘Mayibuye!’"5 The first defiant demand of the Freedom Charter reads, "The People Shall Govern!"
.....(snip).....
The ANC base, however, proved distinctly more unruly—which created a need for yet more discipline. According to Yasmin Sooka, one of the jurors on South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the discipline mentality reached into every aspect of the transition—including the quest for justice. After hearing years of testimony about torture, killings and disappearances, the truth commission turned to the question of what kind of gestures could begin to heal the injustices. Truth and forgiveness were important, but so was compensation for the victims and their families. It made little sense to ask the new government to make compensation payouts, as these were not its crimes, and anything spent on reparations for apartheid abuses was money not spent building homes and schools for the poor in the newly liberated nation.
Some commissioners felt that multinational corporations that had benefited from apartheid should be forced to pay reparations. In the end the Truth and Reconciliation Commission made the modest recommendation of a one-time 1 percent corporate tax to raise money for the victims, what it called "a solidarity tax." Sooka expected support for this mild recommendation from the ANC; instead, the government, then headed by Mbeki, rejected any suggestion of corporate reparations or a solidarity tax, fearing that it would send an anti-business message to the market. "The president decided not to hold business accountable," Sooka told me. "It was that simple." In the end, the government put forward a fraction of what had been requested, taking the money out of its own budget, as the commissioners had feared. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2011/02/democracy-born-chains
December 6, 2013
In 1986, Nelson Mandela -- the former president of South Africa who died Thursday at the age of 95 -- was serving the 23rd year of what would ultimately be a 27-year prison sentence. The Western world was finally acknowledging the true horrors of Apartheid, a system of racial segregation that denied basic rights to blacks -- including citizenship and the right to vote -- and brutally oppressed a generation of South Africans fighting for equality.
In the U.S. Congress, lawmakers were ready to show their opposition to the South African regime with the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, a bill that imposed tough sanctions and travel restrictions on the nation and its leaders, and called for the repeal of apartheid laws and release of political prisoners like Mandela, then leader of the African National Congress (ANC).
The measure passed with bipartisan support, despite strong and largely Republican opposition. President Ronald Reagan was among those most opposed to the bill, and when he finally vetoed the measure over its support of the ANC, which he maintained was a "terrorist organization," it took another vote by Congress to override it. Among the Republicans who repeatedly voted against the measure was future Vice President Dick Cheney, then a Republican congressman from Wyoming.
Cheney's staunch resistance to the Anti-Apartheid Act arose as an issue during his future campaigns on the presidential ticket, but the Wyoming Republican has never said he regretted voting the way he did. In fact, in 2000, he maintained that he'd made the right decision. ...........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/05/dick-cheney-nelson-mandela-terrorist_n_4394071.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037
Dick Cheney Didn't Regret His Vote Against Freeing Nelson Mandela, Maintained He Was A 'Terrorist'
In 1986, Nelson Mandela -- the former president of South Africa who died Thursday at the age of 95 -- was serving the 23rd year of what would ultimately be a 27-year prison sentence. The Western world was finally acknowledging the true horrors of Apartheid, a system of racial segregation that denied basic rights to blacks -- including citizenship and the right to vote -- and brutally oppressed a generation of South Africans fighting for equality.
In the U.S. Congress, lawmakers were ready to show their opposition to the South African regime with the Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, a bill that imposed tough sanctions and travel restrictions on the nation and its leaders, and called for the repeal of apartheid laws and release of political prisoners like Mandela, then leader of the African National Congress (ANC).
The measure passed with bipartisan support, despite strong and largely Republican opposition. President Ronald Reagan was among those most opposed to the bill, and when he finally vetoed the measure over its support of the ANC, which he maintained was a "terrorist organization," it took another vote by Congress to override it. Among the Republicans who repeatedly voted against the measure was future Vice President Dick Cheney, then a Republican congressman from Wyoming.
Cheney's staunch resistance to the Anti-Apartheid Act arose as an issue during his future campaigns on the presidential ticket, but the Wyoming Republican has never said he regretted voting the way he did. In fact, in 2000, he maintained that he'd made the right decision. ...........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/05/dick-cheney-nelson-mandela-terrorist_n_4394071.html?ncid=txtlnkushpmg00000037
December 5, 2013
from In These Times:
How the FBI Conspired to Destroy the Black Panther Party
The assassination of BPP leader Fred Hampton 44 years ago was just the beginning.
BY G. Flint Taylor
[font size="1"]Included in the FBI's file on the Black Panther Party was a floor plan of Hampton's apartment specifically identifying the bed where he slept. (People's Law Office)[/font]
On Dec. 4, it will have been 44 years since a select unit of 14 Chicago police officers, under the direction of Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan, executed a predawn raid on a West Side apartment that left Illinois Black Panther Party (BPP) leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark dead, several other young Panthers wounded and seven raid survivors arrested on bogus attempted murder charges. Though Hanrahan and his men claimed there had been a shootout that morning, physical evidence eventually proved that in reality, the Panthers had only fired a single shot in response to approximately 90 from the police.
In the wake of the raid, Illinois BPP Minister of Defense Bobby Rush stood on the steps of the bullet-riddled BPP apartment and declared that J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were responsible for the raid. At the time, Rush had no hard proof to back up his claims. Over the course of the next eight years, however, activists and lawyers, myself included, would eventually discover the truth: The FBI had, in fact, played a central role in the assassinations, and Hanrahan’s initial lies were only the top layer of what proved to be a massive cover-up.
The first evidence to support Rush’s allegation surfaced in March 1971, when a group of anonymous activists who called themselves the “Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI” broke into a small FBI office in Media, Pa. to expropriate more than 1,000 documents. In doing so, the Commission exposed the FBI’s “COINTELPRO” program, a secret counterintelligence program created to, as the L.A. Times put it in 2006, “investigate and disrupt dissident political groups in the United States.“ According to the Commission’s purloined documents, Hoover had directed all of the Bureau’s offices to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize” African-American organizations and leaders, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Nation of Islam, Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown.
Two years later, it was publicly revealed in an unrelated case that Chicago Black Panther Party Chief of Security William O'Neal was a paid informant for the FBI. At the time, I was a young lawyer working with my colleagues at the People’s Law Office on a civil rights lawsuit we had filed on behalf of the Hampton and Clark families and the survivors of the December 4th raid. We quickly subpoenaed the Chicago FBI’s Black Panther Party files. In response, the FBI produced a small number of documents that included a detailed floor plan of the BPP apartment specifically identifying the bed where Hampton slept, which O’Neal had supplied to Hanrahan before the raid by way of his FBI control agent. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15949/how_the_fbi_conspired_to_destroy_the_black_panther_party/
How the FBI Conspired to Destroy the Black Panther Party
from In These Times:
How the FBI Conspired to Destroy the Black Panther Party
The assassination of BPP leader Fred Hampton 44 years ago was just the beginning.
BY G. Flint Taylor
[font size="1"]Included in the FBI's file on the Black Panther Party was a floor plan of Hampton's apartment specifically identifying the bed where he slept. (People's Law Office)[/font]
On Dec. 4, it will have been 44 years since a select unit of 14 Chicago police officers, under the direction of Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan, executed a predawn raid on a West Side apartment that left Illinois Black Panther Party (BPP) leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark dead, several other young Panthers wounded and seven raid survivors arrested on bogus attempted murder charges. Though Hanrahan and his men claimed there had been a shootout that morning, physical evidence eventually proved that in reality, the Panthers had only fired a single shot in response to approximately 90 from the police.
In the wake of the raid, Illinois BPP Minister of Defense Bobby Rush stood on the steps of the bullet-riddled BPP apartment and declared that J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were responsible for the raid. At the time, Rush had no hard proof to back up his claims. Over the course of the next eight years, however, activists and lawyers, myself included, would eventually discover the truth: The FBI had, in fact, played a central role in the assassinations, and Hanrahan’s initial lies were only the top layer of what proved to be a massive cover-up.
The first evidence to support Rush’s allegation surfaced in March 1971, when a group of anonymous activists who called themselves the “Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI” broke into a small FBI office in Media, Pa. to expropriate more than 1,000 documents. In doing so, the Commission exposed the FBI’s “COINTELPRO” program, a secret counterintelligence program created to, as the L.A. Times put it in 2006, “investigate and disrupt dissident political groups in the United States.“ According to the Commission’s purloined documents, Hoover had directed all of the Bureau’s offices to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize” African-American organizations and leaders, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Nation of Islam, Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown.
Two years later, it was publicly revealed in an unrelated case that Chicago Black Panther Party Chief of Security William O'Neal was a paid informant for the FBI. At the time, I was a young lawyer working with my colleagues at the People’s Law Office on a civil rights lawsuit we had filed on behalf of the Hampton and Clark families and the survivors of the December 4th raid. We quickly subpoenaed the Chicago FBI’s Black Panther Party files. In response, the FBI produced a small number of documents that included a detailed floor plan of the BPP apartment specifically identifying the bed where Hampton slept, which O’Neal had supplied to Hanrahan before the raid by way of his FBI control agent. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15949/how_the_fbi_conspired_to_destroy_the_black_panther_party/
December 5, 2013
Repeal occurred at 4:31 p.m. on December 5, 1933, ending 13 years, 10 months, 19 days, 17 hours and 32.5 minutes of Prohibition.
[font size="4"]"What America needs now is a drink" declared President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the end of Prohibition.[/font]
I'll have one of these:
80 years ago, FDR said something that has tremendous resonance.......
http://prohibitionrepeal.com/history/fastfacts.aspRepeal occurred at 4:31 p.m. on December 5, 1933, ending 13 years, 10 months, 19 days, 17 hours and 32.5 minutes of Prohibition.
[font size="4"]"What America needs now is a drink" declared President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the end of Prohibition.[/font]
I'll have one of these:
December 5, 2013
from In These Times:
The ‘Axis of Evil’ Returns
The hypocritical U.S. policy towards Iran.
BY Noam Chomsky
An interim agreement on Iran's nuclear policies that will provide a six-month period for substantive negotiations was announced on November 24.
Michael Gordon, a reporter for the New York Times, wrote, “It was the first time in nearly a decade, American officials said, that an international agreement had been reached to halt much of Iran's nuclear program and roll some elements of it back.”
The United States moved at once to impose severe penalties on a Swiss firm that had violated U.S.-imposed sanctions. “The timing of the announcement seemed to be partly intended to send a signal that the Obama administration still considers Iran subject to economic isolation,” Rick Gladstone explained in The Times.
The “landmark accord” indeed includes significant Iranian concessions–though nothing comparable from the United States, which merely agreed to temporarily limit its punishment of Iran. ..........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15950/rouge_leader/
Noam Chomsky: The ‘Axis of Evil’ Returns: The hypocritical U.S. policy towards Iran
from In These Times:
The ‘Axis of Evil’ Returns
The hypocritical U.S. policy towards Iran.
BY Noam Chomsky
An interim agreement on Iran's nuclear policies that will provide a six-month period for substantive negotiations was announced on November 24.
Michael Gordon, a reporter for the New York Times, wrote, “It was the first time in nearly a decade, American officials said, that an international agreement had been reached to halt much of Iran's nuclear program and roll some elements of it back.”
The United States moved at once to impose severe penalties on a Swiss firm that had violated U.S.-imposed sanctions. “The timing of the announcement seemed to be partly intended to send a signal that the Obama administration still considers Iran subject to economic isolation,” Rick Gladstone explained in The Times.
The “landmark accord” indeed includes significant Iranian concessions–though nothing comparable from the United States, which merely agreed to temporarily limit its punishment of Iran. ..........................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15950/rouge_leader/
December 5, 2013
from In These Times:
How the FBI Conspired to Destroy the Black Panther Party
The assassination of BPP leader Fred Hampton 44 years ago was just the beginning.
BY G. Flint Taylor
[font size="1"]Included in the FBI's file on the Black Panther Party was a floor plan of Hampton's apartment specifically identifying the bed where he slept. (People's Law Office)[/font]
On Dec. 4, it will have been 44 years since a select unit of 14 Chicago police officers, under the direction of Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan, executed a predawn raid on a West Side apartment that left Illinois Black Panther Party (BPP) leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark dead, several other young Panthers wounded and seven raid survivors arrested on bogus attempted murder charges. Though Hanrahan and his men claimed there had been a shootout that morning, physical evidence eventually proved that in reality, the Panthers had only fired a single shot in response to approximately 90 from the police.
In the wake of the raid, Illinois BPP Minister of Defense Bobby Rush stood on the steps of the bullet-riddled BPP apartment and declared that J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were responsible for the raid. At the time, Rush had no hard proof to back up his claims. Over the course of the next eight years, however, activists and lawyers, myself included, would eventually discover the truth: The FBI had, in fact, played a central role in the assassinations, and Hanrahan’s initial lies were only the top layer of what proved to be a massive cover-up.
The first evidence to support Rush’s allegation surfaced in March 1971, when a group of anonymous activists who called themselves the “Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI” broke into a small FBI office in Media, Pa. to expropriate more than 1,000 documents. In doing so, the Commission exposed the FBI’s “COINTELPRO” program, a secret counterintelligence program created to, as the L.A. Times put it in 2006, “investigate and disrupt dissident political groups in the United States.“ According to the Commission’s purloined documents, Hoover had directed all of the Bureau’s offices to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize” African-American organizations and leaders, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Nation of Islam, Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown.
Two years later, it was publicly revealed in an unrelated case that Chicago Black Panther Party Chief of Security William O'Neal was a paid informant for the FBI. At the time, I was a young lawyer working with my colleagues at the People’s Law Office on a civil rights lawsuit we had filed on behalf of the Hampton and Clark families and the survivors of the December 4th raid. We quickly subpoenaed the Chicago FBI’s Black Panther Party files. In response, the FBI produced a small number of documents that included a detailed floor plan of the BPP apartment specifically identifying the bed where Hampton slept, which O’Neal had supplied to Hanrahan before the raid by way of his FBI control agent. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15949/how_the_fbi_conspired_to_destroy_the_black_panther_party/
How the FBI Conspired to Destroy the Black Panther Party
from In These Times:
How the FBI Conspired to Destroy the Black Panther Party
The assassination of BPP leader Fred Hampton 44 years ago was just the beginning.
BY G. Flint Taylor
[font size="1"]Included in the FBI's file on the Black Panther Party was a floor plan of Hampton's apartment specifically identifying the bed where he slept. (People's Law Office)[/font]
On Dec. 4, it will have been 44 years since a select unit of 14 Chicago police officers, under the direction of Cook County State's Attorney Edward Hanrahan, executed a predawn raid on a West Side apartment that left Illinois Black Panther Party (BPP) leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark dead, several other young Panthers wounded and seven raid survivors arrested on bogus attempted murder charges. Though Hanrahan and his men claimed there had been a shootout that morning, physical evidence eventually proved that in reality, the Panthers had only fired a single shot in response to approximately 90 from the police.
In the wake of the raid, Illinois BPP Minister of Defense Bobby Rush stood on the steps of the bullet-riddled BPP apartment and declared that J. Edgar Hoover and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were responsible for the raid. At the time, Rush had no hard proof to back up his claims. Over the course of the next eight years, however, activists and lawyers, myself included, would eventually discover the truth: The FBI had, in fact, played a central role in the assassinations, and Hanrahan’s initial lies were only the top layer of what proved to be a massive cover-up.
The first evidence to support Rush’s allegation surfaced in March 1971, when a group of anonymous activists who called themselves the “Citizens’ Commission to Investigate the FBI” broke into a small FBI office in Media, Pa. to expropriate more than 1,000 documents. In doing so, the Commission exposed the FBI’s “COINTELPRO” program, a secret counterintelligence program created to, as the L.A. Times put it in 2006, “investigate and disrupt dissident political groups in the United States.“ According to the Commission’s purloined documents, Hoover had directed all of the Bureau’s offices to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit and otherwise neutralize” African-American organizations and leaders, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the Nation of Islam, Martin Luther King, Stokely Carmichael and H. Rap Brown.
Two years later, it was publicly revealed in an unrelated case that Chicago Black Panther Party Chief of Security William O'Neal was a paid informant for the FBI. At the time, I was a young lawyer working with my colleagues at the People’s Law Office on a civil rights lawsuit we had filed on behalf of the Hampton and Clark families and the survivors of the December 4th raid. We quickly subpoenaed the Chicago FBI’s Black Panther Party files. In response, the FBI produced a small number of documents that included a detailed floor plan of the BPP apartment specifically identifying the bed where Hampton slept, which O’Neal had supplied to Hanrahan before the raid by way of his FBI control agent. ......................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://inthesetimes.com/article/15949/how_the_fbi_conspired_to_destroy_the_black_panther_party/
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