JESSE JACKSON – Republicans on the campaign trail denounce Obama’s health-care reforms as a virtual threat to the Republic. It’s “socialized medicine,†“a job killer,†“a government takeover of health care.†All the Republican candidates for president promise to repeal it, and Republican legislators are virtually united in trying to do so.
Author: Oregon PeaceWorks
The Big Money Behind State Laws
NY TIMES EDITORIAL – It is no coincidence that so many state legislatures have spent the last year taking the same destructive actions: making it harder for minorities and other groups that support Democrats to vote, obstructing health care reform, weakening environmental regulations and breaking the spines of public- and private-sector unions. All of these efforts are being backed — in some cases, orchestrated — by a little-known conservative organization financed by millions of corporate dollars.
Keystone XL Pipeline Will Cost 20,000 Jobs Per Year
MARK WIGG – Canada has a surplus of crude oil and the US is pretty much their only market. About 20% of our oil now comes from Canada. According to today’s Toronto Globe and Mail (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/crude-glut-in-us-suppresses-canadian-oil-prices/article2330013/) , we are paying $30 less per barrel for tar sands oil because they have no place else to sell it. This is why oil companies want the Keystone XL Pipeline. They want to export oil from Texas.
ALEC Education “Academy” Launches on Island Resort
DUSTIN BIELKE – Today, hundreds of state legislators from across the nation will head out to an “island” resort on the coast of Florida to a unique “education academy” sponsored by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). There will be no students or teachers. Instead, legislators, representatives from right-wing think tanks and for-profit education corporations will meet behind closed doors to channel their inner Milton Friedman and promote the radical transformation of the American education system into a private, for-profit enterprise. (ALEC has claimed no corporate reps will be there but it has refused to let the press attend to see this claim for itself.)
Federal Jury Says Cops Can’t Arrest People for Recording Police Encounters
JACOB SULLUM – Last week a federal jury in Oregon awarded damages to an environmental activist who sued the city of Eugene after a police officer seized his video camera and arrested him for wiretapping. In March 2009, Josh Schlossberg was distributing leaflets outside Umpqua Bank in downtown Eugene when Sgt. Bill Solesbee told him to move along. Schlossberg replied that his lawyer had advised him he was not breaking any laws. Solesbee then entered the bank and came back out. When he approached Schlossberg again, Schlossberg took out his camera and announced that he was recording the encounter.
Chicago Prepares an Iron Fist for NATO/G8 Protests
BRIAN TERRELL – On January 25, the host committee for the G8/NATO summit in Chicago in May unveiled a new slogan for the event, “The Global Crossroads.†The mood of the organizers is upbeat and positive. This is a grand opportunity to market Chicago with an eye for the tourist dollar and the city is ready, the committee assures us, to deal with any “potential problems.â€
Pentagon Seeks Mightier Bomb vs. Iran
ADAM ENTOUS – Pentagon war planners have concluded that their largest conventional bomb isn’t yet capable of destroying Iran’s most heavily fortified underground facilities, and are stepping up efforts to make it more powerful, according to U.S. officials briefed on the plan.
Audit: U.S. Defense Department Can’t Account for Billions for Iraq
JOSH LEVS – The U.S. Defense Department cannot account for about $2 billion it was given to cover Iraq-related expenses and is not providing Iraq with a complete list of U.S.-funded reconstruction projects, according to two new government audits.
Oil and Water Wars Ahead in the Geo-Energy Era
MICHAEL T. KLARE – Welcome to an edgy world where a single incident at an energy “chokepoint†could set a region aflame, provoking bloody encounters, boosting oil prices, and putting the global economy at risk. With energy demand on the rise and sources of supply dwindling, we are, in fact, entering a new epoch — the Geo-Energy Era — in which disputes over vital resources will dominate world affairs.
Chris Hedges: Why I’m Suing Barack Obama
CHRIS HEDGES – Attorneys Carl J. Mayer and Bruce I. Afran filed a complaint Friday in the Southern U.S. District Court in New York City on my behalf as a plaintiff against Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to challenge the legality of the Authorization for Use of Military Force as embedded in the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by the president Dec. 31.
Local View: U.S. Military – Global Warming is Real
TIM RINNE – Skeptics of human-caused climate change unremittingly contend that the science is inconclusive and the debate still is unsettled. The U.S. military, on the other hand, entertains no such doubts.
The Man Who May Bring the Banksters to Justice (If They Don’t Break His Knees First)
MILES MOGULESCU – New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman may go down in history as the most important public official in reforming the corrupt financial system that caused the great Financial Crisis of 2008 and holding the perps responsible — if he can hold out against pressure from Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, and the Obama administration to give Wall Street a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.
Charlottesville, Va., City Council Passes Resolution Opposing War on Iran
DAVID SWANSON – The City Council of Charlottesville, Virginia, home of Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, and the University of Virginia, passed on Tuesday evening, January 17, 2012, a resolution believed to be a first in the country, opposing the launching of a war on Iran, as well as calling for an end to current ground and drone wars engaged in by the United States and urging Congress and the President of the United States to significantly reduce military spending.
Defense Act is Unconstitutional
BRIAN J. TRAUTMAN – Each year, Congress authorizes the budget of the Department of Defense through a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The NDAA of 2012, however, is unlike any previous ones. This year’s legislation contains highly controversial provisions that empower the Armed Forces to engage in civilian law enforcement and to selectively suspend due process and habeas corpus, as well as other rights guaranteed by the 5th and 6th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, for terror suspects apprehended on U.S. soil.
Victory Against Tar Sands Pipeline
FRANCES BEINECKE – Let’s face it: Big Oil is used to getting its way. But not any more. President Obama has just rejected a permit for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline — a project that promised riches for the oil giants and an environmental disaster for the rest of us.
Peace Writing Contest for Oregon High School Juniors and Seniors Now Open
PRESS RELEASE – Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility announces its fourth annual Greenfield Peace Writing Contest for 11th or 12th grade students in Oregon. Students may enter by submitting an original piece of fiction, poem, or essay (maximum 600 words) reflecting on the following question:
U.S. Troops Going to Israel
GLOBAL NETWORK – In one of the most blacked-out stories in America right now, the US military is preparing to send thousands of US troops, along with US Naval anti-missile ships and accompanying support personnel, to Israel. It took forever to find a second source for confirmation of this story and both relatively mainstream media outlets are in Israel.
Slip-Sliding to War with Iran
ROBERT PARRY – With the typical backdrop of alarmist propaganda in place, the stage is now set for a new war, this time with Iran. The slightest miscalculation (or provocation) by the United States, Israel or Iran could touch off a violent scenario that will have devastating consequences.
NDAA: Congress Signed Its Own Arrest Warrants
NAOMI WOLF – I never thought I would have to write this: but – incredibly – Congress has now passed the National Defense Appropriations Act, with Amendment 1031, which allows for the military detention of American citizens. The amendment is so loosely worded that any American citizen could be held without due process.
Hackers Reveal Personal Data of 860,000 Stratfor Subscribers
KEN DILANIAN – A computer hacking group has revealed email addresses and other personal data from former Vice President Dan Quayle, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, and hundreds of U.S. intelligence, law enforcement and military officials in a high-profile case of cyber-theft.
Protesters Played Important Role in Ending Iraq War
MADELYN HOFFMAN – As 2011 ends, it is time to reflect upon continuing U.S. involvement in overseas wars and the impact that involvement has here at home. It is a good time to reflect on the role that protest played in getting us here and what those protests still want to achieve so the U.S. is genuinely safe and secure.
Six Tricks Corporate Elites Use to Hoard All the Wealth
LES LEOPOLD – Day in and day out we are told that if the government doesn’t tighten its belt, we’re all headed for debtor’s prison. Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are under attack. State budgets are in disarray. Teachers and firemen are getting canned. Public services are slashed. This is the new America and we’d better get used to it, the pundits proclaim. You would think we were a poor country.
Uncle Sam is Making the Wrong Choices
NORMAN SOLOMON – On a recent day in Petaluma, two very different events spotlighted grim results of upside-down priorities from the federal government.
Upwards of 600 people gathered for an early breakfast at the Veterans Memorial Hall to raise money for the Committee on the Shelterless (COTS), a nonprofit organization that last year sheltered nearly 2,000 individuals, served more than 127,000 hearty meals and distributed 800,000 pounds of food to the needy.
Where Next for Occupy?
CHARLES EISENSTEIN – Occupy has awakened a potent energy that had been lying dormant. It has made activists of people of a new generation, and brought renewed hope to veterans of past movements. Unlike earlier protest movements, it has not objected to any specific policy, such as segregation or the Vietnam War. It is a protest against a condition of society, highlighted by the maldistribution of wealth and debt whose symbol is Wall Street, that goes deeper than anything the Occupiers can easily name. As we say, no demand is big enough.
If You Care About Keystone and Climate Change, Occupy Exxon
PAUL LOEB – It seemed like the afterthought in the payroll tax cut extension fight, a small consolation prize to the Republicans on what should have been the easiest of bi-partisan votes. But the two-month clock is now ticking on whether Obama will approve the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada’s environmentally disastrous tar sands. If we want him to make the right decision and deny the permit, maybe it’s time to Occupy Exxon, with creative protests at local Exxon/Mobil stations.
Bring the War Dollars Home
BETSY CRITES – The withdrawal from Iraq is to be celebrated like a migraine that finally subsides. It is what the majority of Americans have long asked for through pollsters and by their election of a president who promised to get us out.
Occupy Wall Street Trims Beaks of Congo’s ‘Debt Vultures’
GREG PALAST – This past Sunday, a deputation from Occupy Wall Street crossed the bridge from Manhattan and brought its protest to the Brooklyn residence of one of New York’s “vultures” This type of vulture doesn’t roost in a tree, but in a swish brownstone.
Sustainability Reporting Enters New Phase, Say Experts
GLOBAL REPORTING INITIATIVE – Reporting corporate economic, environmental and social performance is entering a new phase, moving from a pioneering and experimental practice to become standard practice, say sustainability reporting experts. The number of reports continues to increase, as does the variety of organizations that report, according to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI)’s Year in Review 2010/11.
Two Parties, One Approach to Climate Science
PETER FRUMHOFF AND KERRY EMANUEL – One of us is a Republican, the other a Democrat. We hold different views on many issues. But as scientists, we share a deep conviction that leaders of both parties must speak to the reality and risks of human-caused climate change, and commit themselves to finding bipartisan solutions.
Why ‘We The People’ Must Triumph Over Corporate Power
BILL MOYERS – Rarely have so few imposed such damage on so many. When five conservative members of the Supreme Court handed for-profit corporations the right to secretly flood political campaigns with tidal waves of cash on the eve of an election, they moved America closer to outright plutocracy, where political power derived from wealth is devoted to the protection of wealth. It is now official: Just as they have adorned our athletic stadiums and multiple places of public assembly with their logos, corporations can officially put their brand on the government of the United States as well as the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the fifty states.
Durban Deal Will Not Avert Catastrophic Climate Change, Say Scientists
FIONA HARVEY – Scientists and environmental groups warned that urgent action was still needed to rescue the world from climate change, despite the deal sealed on Sunday morning in Durban after two weeks of talks. Andy Atkins, executive director of Friends of the Earth, said: “This empty shell of a plan leaves the planet hurtling towards catastrophic climate change.
Walmart Heirs Have Net Worth Equal to All the Bottom 30 Percent of Americans
PAT GARAFALO – Income inequality in the U.S. is currently the highest its been since the 1920s, with the 400 richest Americans (who are all billionaires) having as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent of Americans combined. And as it turns out, just one wealthy family has managed to amass a fortune equal to that of the combined net worth of the bottom 30 percent of Americans — the Waltons, heirs to the Walmart fortune
ALEC Assists Right Wing Corporations in Suppressing the Colored Vote
COLOR OF CHANGE.ORG – For years, the right wing has been trying to stop Black people, other people of color, young people, and the elderly from voting for partisan gain — and now some of America’s biggest companies are helping them do it.
LA and Occupy LA Agree: It’s Time to End Corporate Personhood
BROOKE JARVIS – On December 3, just two days before Occupy L.A. was evicted by police, the General Assembly of the occupation passed a unanimous resolution calling for a constitutional amendment to end corporate personhood.
Occupy Our Homes
J.A. MYERSON – Yesterday, no one had lived in 702 Vermont Street for three years. Vermont Street sits in East New York, the Brooklyn neighborhood where foreclosures are five times more frequent than in the rest of the state. Today, Alfredo and Tasha and their son and daughter moved in, with the help of a number of friends whom they’d never met. Some were from the advocacy groups Picture the Homeless and Vocal New York, others were clergy or members of the city council.
Is Your Cell Phone Spying on You?
JIM COOK – Many people have cell phones. Many of those love their phones, and some are so attached to them that they should seriously consider a surgical implant. I am not one of this crowd and, when I was working, only carried a cell phone under protest and rarely turned it on. I figured “why make myself available day and night to any fool who can dial a phone?”
Where Were You When They Crucified My Movement?
CHRIS HEDGES – The Occupy movement is the force that will revitalize traditional Christianity in the United States or signal its moral, social and political irrelevance. The mainstream church, battered by declining numbers and a failure to defiantly condemn the crimes and cruelty of the corporate state, as well as a refusal to vigorously attack the charlatans of the Christian right, whose misuse of the Gospel to champion unfettered capitalism, bigotry and imperialism is heretical, has become a marginal force in the life of most Americans, especially the young.
How About Sending Social Services to Occupy Encampments Instead of Police?
MICHAEL LERNER – Call Mayor Bloomberg of NYC, Mayor Jean Quan of Oakland, or whoever is your mayor and suggest that they support the Occupy movement by providing encouragement to social workers, teachers, clergy and others to go down to the Occupy encampments and volunteer time and energy to help those who badly need this support!!
Occupy the Next Level: Four Ideas for the Movement
JOSH HEALEY – Over the last two weeks, mayors across the country (apparently coordinated by the FBI) shut down many of the largest Occupy encampments, including in New York, Oakland, Portland, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, and more. Police arrested hundreds of peaceful activists, inevitably leaving clouds of pepper spray and millions of dollars in their wake. While I fully condemn the police raids, I also think they offer us an opportunity to move to the next stage: it’s time to Occupy more than just tents.
WMO: 2011 One of the Hottest Years on Record
JON HERSKOVITZ – The world is getting hotter, with 2011 one of the warmest years on record, and humans are to blame, a report by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Tuesday. It warned increasing global average temperatures were expected to amplify floods, droughts and other extreme weather patterns.
Don’t Sit This One Out – What’s Your Vision for Occupy Wall Street?
MICHAEL MOORE – This past weekend I participated in a four-hour meeting of Occupy Wall Street activists whose job it is to come up with the vision and goals of the movement. It was attended by 40+ people and the discussion was both inspiring and invigorating. Here is what we ended up proposing as the movement’s “vision statement” to the General Assembly of Occupy Wall Street:
Wall Street Battle Plan to Address Occupy Leaked
SAM GEDULDIG, ET AL – [Leaked memo] Leading Democratic Party strategists have begun to openly discuss the benefits of embracing the growing and increasingly organized Occupy Wall Street {OWS) movement to prevent Republican gains in Congress and the White House next year. We have seen this process of adopting extreme positions and movements to increase base voter turnout, including in the 2005-2006 immigration debate.
Human Development Report Calls for Inclusive, Sustainable Development
ETHICAL MARKETS – Norway, Australia, and the Netherlands lead the world in the 2011 Human Development Index (HDI), while the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, and Burundi are at the bottom of the Human Development Report’s annual rankings of national achievement in health, education, and income, released today by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
GTO: Give Thanks for Occupy
TYGER RICARD – We are told, and have come to accept, that the Occupy movement lacks focus, direction, and purpose. How can a group be successful without a linear plan and a list of demands? How does camping in a park solve the world’s problems? Onlookers often say that in the last two months, Occupy has yet to accomplish anything. As we come to Thanksgiving, however, I want to offer seven reasons to give thanks for the Occupy movement.
Occupy Wall Street – Something Happening Here
TOM CORDARO – The weekend of Oct. 15-16 my daughter Angela and I had the privilege of attending the Pax Christi Metro New York Fall Assembly where I gave the keynote address. As you might expect a lot of the conversation focused on the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement that started in Zuccotti Park near Wall Street.
Gregory Franck-Weiby Remembered
IN MEMORIAM – Memorial Services are scheduled for Saturday, December 3, 2011, for Gregory Paul Franck-Weiby, Silverton-area artist, numismatic master and peace activist who died at about 3 a.m. Friday, November 11, 2011 after suffering a massive stroke the previous Wednesday. He was 61.
This Is What Revolution Looks Like
CHRIS HEDGES – Welcome to the revolution. Our elites have exposed their hand. They have nothing to offer. They can destroy but they cannot build. They can repress but they cannot lead. They can steal but they cannot share. They can talk but they cannot speak.
Bloomberg Personifies What the Occupation Opposes
GLEN FORD – It was never in the cards for a plutocrat mayor to long tolerate a movement whose essential logic is the dissolution of his class. “If the Occupy Wall Street movement has been about anything, it is the absolute necessity to rid the nation – and the world – of the collective tyranny of the Bloombergs, the dictatorship of the moneyed classes.†The next phase of the movement must more self-consciously “have, at least, the goal of shutting down the infernal machines of capital.â€
Is the Pipeline Victory a Turning Point for the Climate Movement?
TED GLICK – Two days ago I was convinced that the amazing Keystone XL pipeline victory won by the North American climate movement on November 10 was going to be, without question, a pivotal turning point. Today, having thought more about it, I’d say it’s more like somewhere between “maybe†and “probably.â€
Corporate Media Stumped on How to Cover the Occupy Movement
RUSS BAKER – Conventional journalism is increasingly irrelevant in a time of crisis. We find abundant proof in a recent column from the New York Times’ so-called “Public Editor,†who is supposed to somehow magically represent the public interest and rarefied ethical values to the rest of the paper.