UNDERNEWS: September 21, 2011

How to tell radical Muslims from radical Republicans

Sam Smith

Radical Muslims used bombs, planes and small arms to kill and injure Americans; radical Republicans use the budget process.

Radical Muslims oppose Christianity; radical Republicans give it a bad reputation.

Radical Muslims practice Sharia law; radical Republicans don’t care about laws.

Radical Muslims would like to overthrow Western democracy; radical Republicans show them how.

Radical Muslims caused death and injury to 9/11 responders; radical Republicans refused to provide them with medical care.

Radical Muslims ignore climate change; radical Republicans believe it doesn’t exist.

The radical Muslim critique of America tends to be generic; the radical Republican critique of America targets specific groups such as blacks, gays, homeless, immigrants, public workers, etc. until there's nothing much left but radical Republicans.

Radical Muslims want Americans out of the Mid East; radical Republicans want Americans out of Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, public schools etc.

Radical Muslims blow up our military tanks, trucks and troops but only after radical Republicans (and Democrats) put them where they can.

Radical Muslim men wear skullcaps or kufiyas; radical Republican men prefer to show off their hair to prove that their heads aren’t completely empty.

Bin Ladin is dead and gone; Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann are alive and still at large

Pocket paradigms

The system that envelopes us becomes normal by its mere mass, its ubiquitous messages, its sheer noise. Our society faces what William Burroughs called a biologic crisis -- "like being dead and not knowing it." The unwitting dead -- universities, newspapers, publishing houses, institutes, councils, foundations, churches, political parties -- reach out from the past to rule us with fetid paradigms from the bloodiest and most ecologically destructive century of human existence. What should be merely portraits on the wall of our memories run our lives still, like parents who retain perpetual hegemony over the souls of their children.. - Sam Smith

Study: Closing marijuana dispensaries increased crime

Washington Post - A new study showed that when hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries were closed last year in Los Angeles crime rates rose in surrounding neighborhoods, challenging claims made by law enforcement agencies that the storefronts are magnets for crime. The report by the nonprofit RAND Corp. reviewed crime reports for the 10 days prior to and the 10 days after city officials shuttered the clinics last summer after a new ordinance went into effect. The analysis revealed that crime increased about 60 percent within three blocks of a closed dispensary compared to the same parameters for those that remained open.

The out of touch GOP

Sixty-six percent say that they backed increasing income taxes on individuals earning over $200,000 and families earning at least $250,000, while only 32 percent were opposed.

Leading American failures to gather in Washington

From an actual news release

Announcing the Third Annual Washington Ideas Forum on October 5 and 6, 2011 --Connecting the Leaders of Today with the Ideas of Tomorrow--

Washington, D.C. (September 21, 2011) – The Atlantic, in partnership with the Aspen Institute and the Newseum, will present the third annual Washington Ideas Forum on October 5 and 6, 2011, in the nation's capital. Through a series of headline interviews, a cross-section of leaders from government, business, education, and the media will engage in a high-level, 360-degree analysis of the year that has passed and the year that lies ahead.

Confirmed newsmakers joining in the discussions include: Vice President Joe Biden; Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH); NBC News President Steve Capus; former Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter and co-author Liz Cheney; White House Chief of Staff William Daley; Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner; film director Alex Gibney; Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser to President Barack Obama; Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of State; MSNBC's Chris Matthews; Brian Moynihan, President and CEO of Bank of America; Pervez Musharraf, former president of Pakistan; CBS News President David Rhodes; economist Alice Rivlin; Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL); Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee; Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia; Google's Eric Schmidt; ABC News President Ben Sherwood; ExxonMobil Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson; and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa of Los Angeles.

"The Washington Ideas Forum has quickly established itself as an excellent venue for policy makers and prominent thinkers to debate and discuss serious challenges facing the country," said James Bennet, editor of The Atlantic. "We're excited to once again join with the Aspen Institute and the Newseum, and we look forward to the conversations that will emerge this year."

Elizabeth Baker Keffer, president of AtlanticLIVE added, "We have assembled a stellar lineup of more than 60 speakers¬business and civic leaders, plus leading journalists from every major network and top print and radio outlets. The Washington Ideas Forum will once again be a destination event this fall."

"It is true to the spirit of the Aspen Institute that we bring together leaders of different ideologies, industries, and backgrounds for the kind of vibrant yet civil exchange that is so sorely lacking today," said Walter Isaacson, CEO of the Aspen Institute. "I could not be more pleased that we're partnering with The Atlantic and the Newseum again for this important event."

The editorial board for the 2011 Washington Ideas Forum is comprised of David Bradley, James Bennet, Shelby Coffey, Margaret Carlson, and Steve Clemons. Presenting underwriters include Allstate, Bank of America, Comcast, ExxonMobil, Thomson Reuters, UTC, and Siemens.

Obama fails to deal with unreasonable losses forced on Postal Service

Allison Kilkenny, Truthout - President Obama announced in his deficit reduction proposal Monday that he supports allowing the US Postal Service to stop delivering mail on Saturdays, among other revenue-generating proposals, such as allowing post offices to sell items other than stamps.

Strangely, while the president did make reference to refunding the $6.9 billion the Postal Service made to the Federal Employees Retirement System, he failed to address the $50 billion to 75 billion in overpayments to the Civil Service Retirement System..

Audits performed by the Postal Service's Office of Inspector General and the autonomous Postal Regulatory Commission both confirmed that the Postal Service has been bleeding money by overpaying into worker pension funds, placing the figure at between $50 billion and $75 billion.

The New York Metro Area Postal Union, APWU, and AFL-CIO view this failure to focus on an obvious way to save the USPS as a sign of ineptitude, a nefarious desire to see one of America's oldest public services destroyed, or an unhealthy mixture of both

Howard Dean says small business will bail out of private healthcare

Washington Examiner - Former Democratic National Committee Chairman, and doctor, Howard Dean backed a McKinsey & Co. survey that found that almost a third of private-sector employers will drop their employee health insurance coverage when Obamacare's government-managed insurance exchanges come online.

Dean told Morning Joe, "The fact is it is very good for small business. There was a McKinsey study, which the Democrats don't like, but I do, and I think its true. Most small businesses are not going to be in the health insurance business anymore after this thing goes into effect."

The reason Democrats fought so hard to dismiss the McKinsey survey when it was released is because its conclusion undermines two major claims Obama made during health care debate: "If you like your health plan, you can keep it" and "It will not add one penny to the deficit."

The Congressional Budget Office premised their Obamacare score on the assumption that only 7 percent of employers would drop their employee health plans. If the percentage is closer to the 30 percent, as the McKinsey survey results predict, Obamacare's price tag would rise by almost $1 trillion.

Class warfare

I hear all this, you know, “Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.”¬No!

There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody.

You built a factory out there¬good for you! But I want to be clear.

You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for.

You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate.

You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for.

You didn’t have to worry that maurauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did.

Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea¬God bless. Keep a big hunk of it.

But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

- Elizabeth Warren

Lloyds' mysteriously drops suit against Saudi Arabia over 9/11

Pittsburgh Live - Less than two weeks after filing a federal lawsuit in Johnstown, a London-based group of insurers has dropped its claim that Saudi Arabia and several Saudi organizations should be held responsible for insurance claims related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Lloyd's Syndicate 3500, part of the company more commonly known as Lloyd's of London, filed a notice on Monday that it was voluntarily dismissing its lawsuit. The dismissal is "without prejudice," which means the group can refile the lawsuit.

The defendants included the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia & Herzegovina, Saudi Joint Relief Committee for Kosovo and Chechnya, Saudi Red Crescent Society, the Saudi-based National Commerce Bank, Al Rajhi Banking and Investment Co. and three Saudi citizens connected to the organizations.

The notice filed by Stephen Cozen, a Philadelphia lawyer representing the group, doesn't provide a reason for the dismissal. Cozen, in an e-mail, declined comment.

Rhonda Wasserman, a University of Pittsburgh law professor, said the voluntary dismissal is a mystery because it doesn't seem to fit any of the usual reasons for dropping a lawsuit.

Pocket Paradigms

There is a lusty tradition in American politics of citizens of disparate sorts, places, and status coming together to put power back in its proper place. At such times, the divides of politics, the divisions of class, the contrasts of experience fade long enough to reassert the primacy of the individual over the state, democracy over oligopoly, fairness over exploitation, and community over institution. This could be such a time if we are willing to risk it, and one of the soundest way to start is to trade a few old shibboleths for a few new friends.. - Sam Smith

A peace activist named Tony Bennett

ABC News - American icon Tony Bennett took to the airwaves at Sirius Radio to promote his new album, “Duets II,” but it’s what he said about war, peace, terrorism, and who was to blame for the Sept. 11 terror attacks that could get people talking.

Sitting down with Howard Stern on Monday, the 85-year-old singer dodged questions about his sex life and prior drug use. He did so with a laugh, but matters about the U.S. military and 9/11 were fair game, and on these topics the Grammy winner held little back.

Beginning with his service in World War II, Bennett said that his experiences as a teenager in combat forever changed his position on war.

“I’m anti-war,” he said. “It’s the lowest form of human behavior.”

Drafted by the U.S. Army in November 1944, Bennett served as an infantryman in Europe, moving across France, and later into Germany.

“The Germans were frightened. We were frightened. Nobody wanted to kill anybody when we were on the line, but the weapons were so strong that it overcame us and everybody else.”

Bennett credited the Army with allowing him to study singing under the GI Bill. He also admitted that his two years of service gave him enough time to witness the horrors of war.

“The first time I saw a dead German, that’s when I became a pacifist,” he said.

He told Stern that he was left forever shaken by the sight of death.

“It was a nightmare that’s permanent,” he said. “I just said, ‘This is not life. This is not life.’”

Bennett, 65 years after leaving his military life behind, has sold over 50 million albums and developed definite opinions about other wars involving the United States.

“To start a war in Iraq was a tremendous, tremendous mistake internationally,” he said.

Stern then asked Bennett about how America should deal with terrorists, specifically those responsible for the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.

“But who are the terrorists? Are we the terrorists or are they the terrorists? Two wrongs don’t make a right,” Bennett said.

In a soft-spoken voice, the singer disagreed with Stern’s premise that 9/11 terrorists’ actions led to U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“They flew the plane in, but we caused it,” Bennett responded. “Because we were bombing them and they told us to stop.”

Following seconds of silence, Stern said that his guest was “making some good points.”

Before leaving, Bennett recalled an evening in 2005 when he was honored at the Kennedy Center. Meeting President George W. Bush at the event, the singer said that the commander-in-chief shared his opinion about the Iraq War.

“He told me personally that night that, he said, ‘I think I made a mistake,’” Bennett said.

Bennett believed that the president made this revelation because “he had a special liking to me.”

45 progressive leaders seek primary challenges to Obama

Common Dreams - Progressive leaders led by Ralph Nader and Cornel West unveiled a proposal today to challenge President Obama in the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries in 2012.

The proposal, which has been endorsed by over 45 leaders, seeks to have a slate of six candidates run against President Obama, each representing a field in which Obama has never clearly staked a progressive claim or where he has drifted toward the corporatist right.

“Without debates by challengers inside the Democratic Party’s presidential primaries, the liberal/majoritarian agenda will be muted and ignored,” said Ralph Nader.

Signatories include James Abourezk, Gar Alperovitz, Edgar Stuart Cahn, Ronnie Dugger, Chris Hedges, Hazel Henderson, Lewis Lapham, Carol Miller, Erich Pica, and Gore Vidal,

853,838 arrested for using a drug leas dangerous than whiskey

NORML - Police made 853,838 arrests in 2010 for marijuana-related offenses, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report. The annual arrest total is among the highest ever reported by the agency and is nearly identical to the total number of cannabis-related arrests reported in 2009.

According to the report, marijuana arrests now comprise more than one-half (52 percent) of all drug arrests in the United States. An estimated 46 percent of all drug arrests are for offenses related to marijuana possession.

TSA’S latest way of screwing up air travel

Boston Channel - New security procedures being tested at Logan International Airport caused significant backups at security checkpoints Thursday, according to airlines. Backups lasted for about four hours after the Transportation Security Administration began testing a procedure that requires more human interaction between security agents and passengers.
The process takes about 30 seconds, but it caused many passengers to be delayed. TSA agents engaged in "chat downs" while checking their IDs and boarding passes.

An airline worker said the lines were the worst he had seen in 30 years, but the TSA said they were pleased with how the pilot program has gone over the last month and in time it will help them decide who needs more screening and who needs less.

Obama digs deeper into Iraq and Afghanistan

Huffington Post - U.S. diplomats, military advisers and other officials are planning to fall back to the gargantuan embassy in Baghdad -- a heavily fortified, self-contained compound the size of Vatican City. The embassy compound is by far the largest the world has ever seen, at one and a half square miles, big enough for 94 football fields. It cost three quarters of a billion dollars to build (coming in about $150 million over budget). Inside its high walls, guard towers and machine-gun emplacements lie not just the embassy itself, but more than 20 other buildings, including residential quarters, a gym and swimming pool, commercial facilities, a power station and a water-treatment plant.

Glenn Greenwald, Salon - As the Obama administration announced plans for hundreds of billions of dollars more in domestic budget cuts, it late last week solicited bids for the construction of a massive new prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, The administration unveiled plans for "the construction of Detention Facility in Parwan, Bagram, Afghanistan" which includes "detainee housing capability for approximately 2000 detainees." It will also feature "guard towers, administrative facility and Vehicle/Personnel Access Control Gates, security surveillance and restricted access systems." The announcement provided: "the estimated cost of the project is between $25,000,000 to $100,000,000."

Recovered history: One who saw the bubble early

Back in 2003, we ran excerpts from a speech by Carlyle Group's co-founder David Rubenstein - obtained by Suzan Mazur - in which he explained how George Bush got bounced from the Carlyle board. Recently, Mazur found another interesting part of the speech given to the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association, LACERA had $95 million in Carlyle, then the "world's largest private equity firm," and Rubenstein warned those attending the meeting of LACERA 's Board of Investments about the next bubble bursting, saying, "something is going to break in five years." He offered further explanation off the record.

Did Rubenstein foresee the mortgage catastrophe and 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers? And was anyone from LACERA's BOI curious enough to take Rubenstein up on his offer for a private chat? Apparently not, since LACERA lost almost half its treasure when the housing bubble burst. CalPERS -- California Public Employees' Retirement System -- lost even more.

David Rubenstein - "I think you should recognize, though, that the history of investing over thousands of years is that there always will be bubbles. And bubbles will always burst. No matter what you think is the greatest investment vehicle, the greatest idea over a period of time -- if too much money goes into it, it will burst. And I don't know when the next bubble is going to burst or what it's going to be but something is going to break in 5 years. I can give you my view of what it'll probably be, but I'll do it off-record."

How Bush got bounced from the Carlyle board

Elizabeth Warren shows Democrats how to do it

Another example of why Obama’s First Wimp strategy was such a failure. If you want to win, act like it.

Business Insider - Elizabeth Warren has had an incredibly successful launch to her Senate campaign and actually leads Scott Brown now by a 46-44 margin, erasing what was a 15 point deficit the last time we polled the state in early June.

Warren's gone from 38% name recognition to 62% over the last three months and she's made a good first impression on pretty much everyone who's developed an opinion about her during that period of time. What was a 21/17 favorability rating in June is now 40/22- in other words she's increased the voters with a positive opinion of her by 19% while her negatives have risen only 5%.

Whistleblowers link drug cartels to cops, public officials

Raw Story - Two former law enforcement officials who worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as confidential informants on probes into police corruption have come forward with allegations of drug cartel ties to top cops, judges and elected officials.

Greg Gonzales, a retired sheriff's deputy, and Wesley Dutton, a former New Mexico livestock investigator, told The El Paso Times that the FBI uncovered some "big names" in the course of one investigation, but it was dropped without result.

Both men helped with several investigations during their 18 months as confidential informants, the report says, including one that ended with the arrest of FBI special agent John Shipley, who was allegedly selling guns to cartel members.

But far from a sole bad apple, these two whistleblowers claim drug cartels wield tremendous influence over law enforcement and elected officials, even throwing fundraisers and parties attended by "bankers, judges, and law enforcement officers." Large campaign contributions, they added, have been made to help influence key appointments.

And perhaps one of the most outrageous claims in their report: law enforcement is said to have personally escorted drug shipments, dropped from small aircraft onto private ranches near the border, to their next stops along the distribution chain.

Postal Service demonstrations September 27

Click to find location of demonstration in your congressional district

One drug arrest every 19 second, 1.6 million last year.

Local heroes; Washington Democrats support legal pot

Seattle Post Intelligencer - By a 75-43 vote, Washington state Democrats voted Saturday to endorse Initiative 502, which would legalize marijuana with distribution and sales put under control of the Liquor Control Board. The party’s state committee adopted a resolution claiming that “thousands” of Washington citizens are “arrested, prosecuted and convicted for simple marijuana possession each year, wasting millions of dollars in police, court and jail resources.” The resolution said legalization would yield the state $215 million each year in much-needed income, with $80 million going to the state general fund and $135 million used for substance abuse control.

If there's going to be class warfare, here's a map of the battlefronts

Expose of working conditions at Amazon warehouse

Pocket Paradigms

We live now with dishonest politics, disinformed and disinforming media, disconnected cultures, disjointed economics, dysfunctional communities and disrespected citizens. To attempt to repair such conditions without a morally conscious politics makes as much sense as trying to revive a body without a heart. This is not romanticism, idealism or naivete, just basic political anatomy. That we have come to accept a politics that offers no choice save between our acquisition of abusive power or our submission to it speaks only to the depths of our delusion; it says nothing about that which is possible. - Sam Smith

American Scorecard: What's getting better, what's getting worse

RECORDS SET IN 2011

GETTING WORSE

Record Bad
SAT reading score: record low by the class of 2011
Number in poverty: record percent & number
Number and percent using food stamps
Percent of Forbes richest 400 making money from money: 25% now vs 8% in 1982
Housing building permits lowest on record
Housing price collapse
Percent of young people with jobs record low
Number not in labor force record hiigh
Percent of American men employed: record low
Black-white wealth gap worst on record

The real American story

http://www.offthechartsblog.org

Black
Black unemployment worst since 1984

Economy
A third of American middle class in the 1970s has fallen out of it
Food prices: biggest rise since 1974
Middle class income less than in 1971
Share of U.S. taxes paid by corporations from 30% in 1950s to 7% in 2009
Cars sold in U.S. down 29% in 2010 from 2005

Education
80,000 elected school boards in 1950, 14,000 today

Health
The share of Americans without health insurance rose to 16.3 percent in 2010, from 13 percent ten years earlier.
Percent on Medicaid 1 in 50 in 1965, 1 in 5 now
Percent of Americans without health insurance up 24%

Housing
Homeowner's average percent of equity in home lowest since world war ii house purchases down 39% in 2010 from 2005

Housing starts lowest since 1984

GETTING BETTER

Record Good
Lung cancer rates among women declining for first time. Men's rate continues to fall.
Longevity

Getting better

Black
Growth in black businesses 60% since 2002

Crime
Violent crime is down for the fourth straight year. Property crime is down for the 8th straight year.

Health
Cancer survival rates improved 20% 2001-2007
Lung cancer rates among women declining for first time
The number of children under five who die each year has plummeted from 12 million in 1990, to 7.6 million last year, the UN says.

Justice
Percent of police officers assaulted least since 1987
Crime rate lowest in 40 years

Transportation
Highway deaths lowest since 1949RD

Bookshelf: The Collapse of American Criminal Justice

The Collapse of American Criminal Justice
William Stuntz

Lincoln Caplan, Democracy Journal - Crime began to plummet in the United States more than 15 years ago, defying all predictions. It did so for nearly a decade. It happened in every part of the country and in every category of crime. While the rate of decline has leveled off in recent years, to many this social achievement has meant that the country need not worry about crime anymore: The problem has been solved. That view is wrong. In reality, the problem simply exists in two places most Americans (and the media) don’t often bother to look: in crime-ridden sections of cities where minorities live, and in the overcrowded prison system that gives America the world’s highest rate of incarceration. The good news masks an ever-worsening tragedy in criminal justice.

The black homicide rate across the nation is six times that of the white rate. Chicago’s Washington Square neighborhood is poor and close to 100 percent black. The city’s Hyde Park neighborhood is affluent and mostly white. The homicide rate in the first is 26 times that of the second.

The most compelling explanation for the different crime patterns for blacks and whites is the effect of the criminal justice system’s breakdown on poor young black men, who have continued to commit crimes at a high rate, including violent ones, especially against blacks, and who regard the system as dramatically unfair and unworthy of their respect. The rate of imprisonment among white men is the highest it has been in American history, yet the rate is seven times higher among black men.

In his posthumously published book, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice, William Stuntz argues that reform today should involve putting more control over decisions about what and who should be punished¬and for how long¬in the hands of neighborhoods most hurt by crime and decimated by punishment. It should, he writes, involve many more cops on the street and many fewer convicts in prison.

But the book is less a blueprint for how to make things right than an explanation of what went wrong over the past century. Its value comes from seeing American criminal justice whole, in an elaborate analysis of a complex system, and challenging the theories of retribution and deterrence that lead to an emphasis on punishment and that have dominated thinking about the field for the past generation.

Recovered History: The Attica that wasn't

Sam Smith

Forty years ago this month, on September 13, 1971, 500 New York state troopers stormed Attica Correctional Facility on orders from Governor Nelson Rockefeller to end a four-day standoff following a prisoner revolt that included the taking of hostages. The police fired 2,200 bullets in nine minutes and before it was over 29 inmates and ten guards were dead and at least 86 others were wounded. One year later, there was a prisoner revolt at the Washington, DC Jail during which the director of DC Corrections and a number of guards were taken hostage. But, unlike Attica, no one was killed. Perhaps this is why so few remember what happened on a night when judges, politicians, U.S. Marshals, prisoners, and hostages all gathered in Courtroom 16 to see what could be done - brought together by a single judge who wasn't afraid to talk when others wanted to shoot. The peaceful resolution of the DC Jail uprising was one of the most extraordinary stories I ever covered and my contemporary account follows.

THE CAST

Marion and Mary Treadwell Barry are civil rights leaders. Marion serves on the School Board and is one of the most popular leaders in the city. He will later serve on the City Council and as mayor.

Walter Fauntroy is the city's non-voting delegate to Congress.

Tedson Meyers, who is white, and Willie Hardy, who is black, serve on the DC City Council, a body appointed by President Richard Nixon.

Luke Moore is a popular local black figure, later U.S. Marshall for the city.

Charles Halleck is a white judge in the Superior Court, the son of a former Republican Speaker of the House.

Del Lewis is a black civic leader, later head of the local telephone company and then president of NPR.

Petey Greene is a black activist.

Judge William Bryant is a highly respected black judge.

Kenneth Hardy is the DC Corrections chief, being held hostage by the rebellious prisoners.

Walter Washington is the appointed mayor-commissioner. Four years earlier he had avoided bloodshed in the 1968 disturbances by refusing orders from the White House to shoot rioters.

Sterling Tucker is the city council chair.

Joe Yeldell is a member of the city council.

The courtroom, number 16, is crowded. Prisoners, lawyers, Marion and Mary Barry, Walter Fauntroy, Tedson Meyers, Willie Hardy, Luke Moore, Charles Halleck, Del Lewis, Petey Greene. People talking during the hearing, witnesses saying things seldom heard in court . . . When Judge William Bryant recesses court, people smoke in the courtroom . . . Ken Hardy, DC Corrections chief, hostage, is there, but you don't notice him at first. . . William Brown, facing an armed robbery charge, gets up before the judge and tells him of the inequities in his case:

Judge Bryant: The moving finger having writ, I can't erase it.

Brown: I knew there was nothing that could be done for it. I'm thinking of the others - the little baby brothers of mine.

Bryant: The problem is that so many baby brothers have put people at the end of a pistol and shot them.

Brown: Then the alternative is to ruin them for life (Turns to audience, voice rising) You say nothing can be done about it. Our little babies are over at the jail and it's really pitiful. You say they put a gun in their hand. No. Y'all put a gun in his hand. 'Cause all you do is talkin', talkin' talkin'. You gonna put a gun in a 15 year old's hand and the police will kill him like that boy with the bicycle. We're tired over at that jail. A rat will get tired and come out of his hole knowing that death awaits him. We don't want to harm Mr. Hardy. We love Mr. Hardy. We don't want to kill nobody. We don't want to hurt nobody. We are tired of people putting us in positions where we act like animals . . . Fauntroy, it was the first time we seen him. Walter Washington wasn't concerned. Marion Barry came right away - he always comes but he doesn't have the power . . . We're going to keep on, and keep on, and keep on until somebody die. Then they gonna say, 'Wow , they were serious.'

Applause, right-ons, a warning from the judge.

Another prisoner: "What we came here for and what we're getting is two different things. Nobody thinks this is real. We didn't come down here to rap with you on your high pedestal. This was like a dry run." . . .

Hardy is leaving the courtroom, looks awful. Petey Greene is helping him.

Outside a TV man tries for an interview. Greene screams at him: "The inmates let him go. That's how good he is. Man's up all night and you talk about motherfucking cameras." Greene is crying. Hardy is on his way to a hospital with what seems to be a heart attack . . .

Back at the jail, prisoners and other hostages await word of the emergency court hearing that had been called following the rebellion early that morning.

Recess. Everyone is tired. Eyes seem to stare without seeing. Jail guard hostages sit at counsel table glum and silent . . .

Judge Halleck starts to rap with some of the prisoners: "The first man who gets a hose on them, you get a habeas corpus and come into my court and I'll stop it."

Says a prisoner: "They don't pay any attention to courts. They're ignorant over there."

Halleck to prisoner waiting eight months for trial: "Sixth Amendment guarantees right of speedy trial." To another: "Last Friday I had fifty felony cases." Learn later that Halleck offered to go down to jail to speed up processing of complaints . . .

Sterling Tucker comes over, "The guards are talking about going out. Nobody is listening to them" . . .

Reporter says there's word of a disturbance over at the Women's Detention Center.

Prisoner comes up to reporter: "Did you say they had another riot?" "Over at the Women's Detention Center." "Oh yeah, right on!"

Mother of youth in jail opens up. She has six children 22 to 16. She was separated from her husband when the baby was one year old. Now the baby is in D.C. Jail, swept up in the trouble. The mother works two jobs, one twelve hours a day, another on weekends. The kid is locked up on a charge of having raped and strangled a 7-year-old girl. Been over at the jail 2 months waiting trial. Kid was run over by a car when he was little. Never seemed quite right since. Only child to get into serious trouble. "If he didn't do it, they should find the one who did ," the mother says. "If he did it, I want him to be punished but I want him to get help." . . .

A few days later the Post would interview the mother of the victim. She has eight children, twenty down to ten. "I tried to raise them right. Many times I told them how easy it is to get in trouble and how hard it is to get out. And then I tell them, if you do get in trouble don't call momma, 'cause there's nothing I can do."

The prisoners have their say. Judge Bryant offers to fix things up a bit. Just a bit. Segregate the juveniles. Do something about food and temperature. Hurry up the suit against the jail now pending In his court. Is it enough to save the hostages?

Back to the jail. The prisoners go in a white bus. The crowd outside the jail is smaller than it had been earlier in the day.

Wait.

Rumor that cellblock #2 has been seized. Wait to hear that denied. Joe Yeldell shows up with a psychiatrist to begin screening inmates to see who belongs at St. E's [the mental hospital] . . . That's about 10:33 p.m. . .

Ken Kennedy, Northeast factotum, waits along the police line. Earlier he'd been inside. "Congresswoman Chisholm played a great role," he says. Kennedy had brought six inmates from Lorton to the jail to help in the negotiations.

11:35 p.m. Mary Treadwell Barry comes out from the jail. "They want two brothers from the black press." "What does that mean?" asks a white reporter.

Decide on one black reporter from print media and one from TV. Problem with TV crews. Union rules call for three and at best only one is black.

WTTG recruits a black minister behind the police line to serve as light man. Others follow suit. Union technicians are getting uptight. Crowd gathers around Mary Barry. Union man returns to police lines: "They've agreed to pay one day's pay to a sound man and electrician at NBC and WTTG." Susan Truitt of WTTG covers herself: "If I don't get sound on film [from the amateur operator], I'm not paying for a soundman. " . . . Nine hostages and a frigging union dispute is going on outside . . .

Deputy Chief Owen Davis is playing out his role of being the top bully on the force, threatening a reporter who stood in the wrong place. But this is a sensitive situation, requiring subtlety, and they're keeping Davis out of the foreground.

Now here's Marion Barry. They're going to let all the reporters in. "Show your press passes and go in quietly. Nothing is happening in there. Don't rush in."

Into an anteroom behind the front door. The door locks behind us. A dozen CDU men with tear gas are lounging in the room. The door to the visitors' rotunda opens and there are the prisoners; the lawyers rushed down by Judge Bryant - 30 or 40 of them including James Heller and Ralph Temple of the ACLU; District Building types like Dugas, Duncan and Yeldell; Walter Fauntroy and Sterling Tucker; negotiators Ron Goldfarb and Julian Tepper; guards; cops; all milling around a cavernous room under huge, bad 1940's murals including one of raising the flag at Iwo Jima.

The echo is jamming out the voice of the prisoner who is on a table trying to explain that the man beside him had been beaten by a prison guard while the court hearing was in progress. They're mad. What is happening? A turn for the worse? Why are we in there? Why are some of the most powerful and some of the weakest men in the city wandering around this towering hall listening to each other, shouting at each other? It's like one of Fellini's movies. And there's nobody around to explain. Why have the prisoners seemed to be talking sense and the unjailed seemed bound and gagged?

There's a news conference going on, but you have to be at mike's length to catch the words. There's a prisoner yelling at jail head, Anderson McGruder, who's not saying anything back . . .

No it's not a movie. But the set of a movie, maybe about Attica, during a break. In real life, congressmen, councilmen and newsmen don't mill around a jail hall with two hundred prisoners. Prisoners don't go up to the jailer like at some reception and tell him off . . .

The press has regrouped. Standing on a table, you can see a guard talking to the mikes: "I feel okay. They treated me all right." The hostages are being released. It is real, after all. Julian Tepper says the inmates lived up to every commitment. They released the hostages because "we promised to stay until their problems were dealt with." Earlier that day Charles Rodgers, deputy chief of corrections, had said, "If there's one shot, we're going in there and shoot all 182 of them [inmates in the rebellious cellblock]. Now negotiator Tepper is hugging Rodgers.

Time to go home . . . What had happened? Was it a real event - or just a commercial from the dispossessed - "We'll be back after this brief reminder from the prisoners at the D.C. Jail." Was it a victory for the jailed or a successful exercise in crisis management . . . Shirley Chisholm was beautiful. Marion and Mary were. So were Tepper, Hardy, Goldfarb, Petey Greene. "Judge Bryant, handled it beautifully," said a civil rights lawyer. Beautiful. Beautiful. Unless you are still in cellblock I. . . .

What's beautiful about bailing out bureaucrats or a Congress too scared or mean to introduce simple decency to the city jail? It was just a dirty business compelled by the need to save ten lives. Ms. Chisholm, the Barrys, Tepper, Petey Greene don't want cheers; they want something done about the jail.

Plurality of Americans support Palestinian state

Tilam Olam -A BBC global poll of 19 countries including the U.S. found that overall 49% backed statehood and 21% opposed. In the U.S. it was 45% for and 36% against. In France, Germany and Britain, support was over 50% and opposition ranged from 20-28%. Overall, 30% of all respondents said either their country should abstain or could not give a definitive answer. Unfortunately, one country missing from the poll appears to be Israel.

Palestine

Richard Silverstein, Tkun Olam - There are two groups who see the goal of the [Israeli] BDS movement as the destruction of Israel: anti-Zionists and right-wing Israelis. That ideological dichotomy is remarkable and indicates that while one group opposes and another supports BDS, they both agree it will have the same outcome.

What is the BDS movement to those who support it partially or in full? For anti-Zionists and Israeli nationalists it is a means to hasten Israel’s destruction. For everyone else (including progressive Zionists like myself) it is a way to end the occupation and hasten Israel’s transformation into a “state for all its citizens.” The difference between these two approaches is wide and the arguments between both camps rage.

Reviewing the BDS website, it lists three main points in its political platform:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall

2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Frankly, I don’t see any way that these demands threaten the existence of Israel. Yes, they would threaten the existence of the type of state Israel is now; that is, an ethnocracy in which Jews have superior rights. But in the Israel that I envision, in which there is full protection of ethnic majority and minority citizens, their religion and culture, and all have equal rights, BDS does not threaten such a nation. . .

There needs to be in Israel more of a sense of Israeliness, and less of a sense of Jewishness as a substitute for Israeliness. Israeli Jews should have a religious identity, but that identity should not substitute for a national identity. The same should hold true for Israeli Palestinians who are Muslim or Christian.

Yes, Israel has stood for much that is evil including the Nakba and the Occupation. Yes, Israel was conceived in the sin of expulsion and exile of nearly 1-million of its Palestinian residents. But that doesn’t mean I conceive of a future state that eradicates everything from its past that relates to Israel as a Jewish homeland.

Israel, as I’ve written before, must be a homeland for Jews just as it is a homeland for Palestinians. There should be no conflict there. That is why I feel comfortable continuing to call myself a (progressive) Zionist, just as I believe Israeli Palestinians should feel comfortable calling themselves Palestinian nationalists. The problem for both these nationalisms is when they seek to cancel out the other. That cannot happen if Israel is to survive. . .

On the spectrum between the hopeful and hopeless regarding Israeli Palestinian-Jewish relations, I come down in the middle. While I believe that there is a very real capacity for violence between the two ethnic groups and that Israel will have to be radically transformed (but not destroyed) in order to fully realize the democratic rights of this minority, I do not believe either that Israel must end or that a civil war is inevitable before Palestinians become equal. . .

Israel can accommodate the Arab minority without losing its character as a Jewish and democratic state, and the Arabs can fulfill most of their demands without transforming Israel into a full bi-national state. Moderating Israel’s Jewish and Zionist character, consolidating its democracy, and forming a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza are compatible with the visions of both sides.

Pocket paradigms

GK Chesterton the British liberal and populist, argued that the only place a practical politician could start was with the ideal. Any other commencement of the political journey invites the creation of illogical and unsatisfactory remedies. The ideal provides a constant and necessary navigational marker from which one can compute a compromise's true cost in distance and time. Without such a marker, a purposeful trip becomes mere random motion. In politics, this can -- over the years -- produce directionless compromises lumped upon each other leaving us finally, with a system that nobody wanted.. - Sam Smith

German Greens shaking up establishment

NY Times - A string of Green Party victories and strong electoral showings across Germany, from the conservative south to the port cities of the north, are helping to redefine politics among voters who are increasingly losing faith in the more established parties.

Although their roots are on the left, the Greens are being increasingly embraced by voters on the right, successfully tapping into a German strain of conservationist conservatism by opposing highways and the demolition of old buildings. It has benefited both from the slow collapse of European socialism and the rising awareness of renewable technologies that have brought even once-skeptical businesspeople into the fold.

With this potent coalition of voters, the Greens surprised Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party when it took control of the affluent southern state of Baden-Württemberg this spring, which is akin to capturing the Texas statehouse. In the process, the party proved it was a force to be reckoned with in German politics, where one in five voters now say they support the Greens.

The German Greens also have served as the spearhead of a global coming out for other Green parties. In Brazil’s presidential election last year, the Green Party candidate won nearly 20 million votes to place third in the first round. The Green Party in Colombia was founded just two years ago, but in 2010 saw its candidate for president place second.

Republicans want your Social Security to crash with the stock market

One Texas town has had 100 days of 100 degree temperature

Meanwhile. . .

Great moments in political consistency

Hours after delivering a White House speech that called on wealthy Americans to pay higher taxes, President Barack Obama dined with some of these very Americans in New York. He was expected to raise more than $2 million for his reelection campaign.

Internet sightings

CranberryPerson: I hate to brag, but my eight year old is already writing apology letters to his teachers at a sixth grade level.

Polls

A Gallup poll finds the computer, restaurant, internet, farming and grocey businesses the most popular among Americas. At the bottom of the list: federal government, oil and gas, real estate, healthcare, banking an legal.

Process psychopathy

The number of pages of federal regulations in the Federal Register has risen from from 170,325 in the 1960s to 730,176 in the 2000s.

Word

I refuse to believe corporations are people until Texas executes one. --Ara Rubyan

Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is 100% - R.D. Laing

Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders - Albert Camus

Furthermore . . .

The best science video we've seen in a long time

Cell owners between the ages of 18 and 24 exchange an average of 109.5 messages on a normal day¬that works out to more than 3,200 texts per month¬and the typical or median cell owner in this age group sends or receives 50 messages per day (or 1500 messages per month).

Muhammad Ali had the danger of being the first black president all figured out.

Russian talk shows more exciting than ours

US ranks 25th in internet speed

Barack Obama's Twitter account ranks just behind that of those other great sources of reliable information: Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber.

A Christmas card for 2012

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