Left News and Views

SAFER launched the SAFER Campuses Initiative earlier this month, just as students at two major universities were voting in favor of SAFER Campus Referendums and college presidents nationwide were receiving information about the “Emerald Initiative” — our latest project, which is designed to spark a major national debate about the relative safety of marijuana compared to alcohol and the insanity of laws and policies that steer people away from marijuana and toward drinking.

CLICK HERE or go to http://www.SAFERcampuses.org to check out our fantastic new Web site, watch the short (yet compelling) SAFER Campuses Initiative video, and read more about the this major national campaign and the latest developments.

Students adopt SAFER Referendums

This month, Purdue University and the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville became the latest colleges to adopt SAFER Referenda, calling on their schools to reduce university penalties for marijuana use so that they are no greater than those for alcohol use. This brings the total number of schools to adopt SAFER measures to 13 (including at least six of the 15 largest schools in the nation). SAFER worked closely with the Purdue and U of A chapters of NORML, who have already engaged in promising meetings with administrators regarding potential changes to campus policies.

Like past SAFER Campus campaigns, the Purdue and U of A efforts received substantial news coverage, including great stories in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette (the state’s largest newspaper) and the Lafayette Journal & Courier, and segments on several TV news channels and programs.

Please visit the SAFER news archive or the new SAFER Campuses Initiative site to view the latest news stories and video clips!

The Emerald Initiative unveiled

The Emerald Initiative is SAFER’s response to the “Amethyst Initiative” — a highly publicized call for “informed and dispassionate public debate” on lowering the legal drinking age (as a means for curbing binge drinking among college students), which has been endorsed by 130+ college presidents and chancellors around the nation. The Emerald Initiative calls on these same university leaders to endorse a similar statement in support of “informed and dispassionate public debate” on whether allowing students to use marijuana more freely could reduce dangerous drinking on and around college campuses.

The effort has already received attention from the media, including a great piece in Inside Higher Ed and coverage in the newspapers of various colleges, such as Princeton and UPenn. The Emerald Initiative will serve as a centerpiece for the SAFER Campuses Initiative alongside the growing number of schools taking up SAFER referendums and resolutions.

Sparking a much-needed debate

SAFER’s message — that marijuana is safer than alcohol, and people should not be driven to drink — is quickly becoming a part of the college drinking debate. Earlier this month, SAFER Executive Director Mason Tvert traveled to the University of Kansas, the site of a recent student alcohol overdose death, where he participated in a high-profile panel regarding binge drinking and efforts to address it. SAFER assisted the Drug Policy Forum of Kansas in organizing the alcohol awareness event, which featured a screening of “Death By Alcohol: The Sam Spady Story,” followed by a panel featuring Tvert along with KU’s Vice Provost responsible for alcohol-related programs, a representative of the KU Public Safety Office, a professor of preventive medicine from the KU Medical Center, and the head of the Kansas Licensed Beverage Association. The event was covered by local and campus news outlets.

The event at KU is just one example of how SAFER’s campus presence is expanding nationwide. Showings of “Death By Alcohol” paired with discussions involving SAFER were also held this month at the University of Colorado at Boulder (concurrently with the Conference on World Affairs) and at Colorado State University, where the panel included several of the CSU staff members responsible for alcohol- and drug-related issues and legal affairs. Tvert also visited and spoke at several other colleges this spring, including the University of Missouri, William Paterson University in New Jersey, and his alma mater, the University of Richmond in Virginia.

From the ACLU:

A federal judge has denied the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss or delay a challenge to the unlawful detention of Mohammed Jawad.

The ACLU, along with military defense co-counsel, represents Mohammed Jawad – one of two Guantánamo prisoners the United States has charged with war crimes for acts allegedly committed as juveniles – in a habeas corpus action. Jawad’s former military prosecutor, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, supports the ACLU’s legal challenge, and has stated that there is “no credible evidence or legal basis” to justify Jawad’s detention and prosecution, and that his release present no risk. The ACLU case seeks to challenge the basis of Jawad’s illegal detention and prosecution in the unconstitutional military commissions system in federal court.

Jawad has been in custody since he was captured when he was possibly as young as 14. He is accused of throwing a hand grenade at two U.S. service members and their interpreter in Afghanistan. He was captured by Afghan forces that threatened to kill him and his family if he did not confess. This confession, which a military judge later found was obtained through torture, continues to serve as a basis for his six-year long illegal detention at Bagram and Guantánamo.

Despite U.S. and international laws recognizing that juveniles are uniquely vulnerable and have a capacity for rehabilitation, Jawad has been subjected to torture, cruelty and harsh treatment in U.S. custody, which has resulted in severe and ongoing psychological harm. Just months after trying to commit suicide, he was subject to the military’s so-called “frequent flyer” program – a systematic sleep deprivation technique – and was moved 112 times, every 3-4 hours, in 14 days.

Jawad’s former lead military prosecutor, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, left the military commission in September 2008, because he did not believe he could ethically proceed with Jawad’s case. He submitted a 14-page statement in support of the ACLU’s challenge, describing the torture Jawad suffered in U.S. custody, and stating that the flaws in the commission system make it impossible “to harbor the remotest hope that justice is an achievable goal.”

The government’s continued detention and prosecution of Jawad in the military commissions system violates America’s values, the Constitution, and binding international obligations. He should be granted an opportunity to challenge the basis for his detention before a legitimate court.

In February, the government filed a motion continuing Bush administration efforts to deny Jawad his right to challenge his detention in federal court until after the Guantánamo military commission case against him is complete, even though President Obama has ordered a halt to all military commission proceedings.

A status hearing was scheduled for April 27. Attorneys on the habeas case are Jonathan Hafetz, Arthur Spitzer of the ACLU of the National Capital Area and U.S. Air Force Major David J. R. Frakt.

Hopefully, the ACLU will have an update on the case online soon.

I read this interesting article online:

Islamic feminists distinguish Islam from Muslims

Muslim women in seventh century enjoyed more rights than European counterparts in 19th century. By Amal Mohammed Al-Malki - DOHA

How is it that one religion – Islam – seems capable of undermining women and promoting them at the same time?

Anyone attempting to take stock of the position of women in the Muslim world cannot help but be confused. One finds stories in the media all the time about injustices committed against Muslim women, such as “honour” killings, child marriages and discriminatory legal judgments in matters of divorce, custody and inheritance.

On the other hand, one also comes across stories about the remarkable strides made by Muslim women in education, career development and political activism in countries as diverse as Bangladesh, Morocco and Turkey.

How can we make sense of such a dichotomous picture?

The answer is simple: by distinguishing the religion of Islam from the Muslims who practice it.

Isn’t that true of most, if not all, religions? The religion itself is not usually the issue. The problems arise from the extremists that exist in almost all faiths.

I think the real question is: How does your faith deal with it’s own set of crazies?

Do you work toward compromises with the extremists in your faith?

Are they ostracized and pushed out on the fringes?

Or are they given obscene amounts of attention, money and/or power?

Does your faith actively work to rein in the “lunatic” element, or are the crazies in control of the reins?

People should not be quick to point to the “nut jobs” on the other side until they have dealt with the “nuts” on their own side.

The U.S. Constitution protects suspects against unreasonable searches and seizures of evidence. That hasn’t stopped the high court’s conservative majority in recent years from siding with the police and cutting back on the rights of criminal suspects in car cases. Then came the case of Arizona v Gant.

Gant had a suspended driver’s license and an outstanding warrant for his arrest. Police officers were at his house looking for him when he drove up. Gant left his car and started walking toward the officer, who arrested him and placed him in the back of the patrol car. Officers then searched Gant’s car, where they found a handgun and a plastic bag of cocaine. The 4th Amendment generally prohibits warrant-less searches without probable cause.

Gant moved to suppress the admission of the handgun and cocaine, claiming that no exceptions to the 4th Amendment’s warrant requirement applied to the search. The trial court denied the motion and Gant was convicted on drug charges. The Arizona court of appeals reversed.

The SCOTUS concurred. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court reversed its longstanding bright-line rule, which permitted warrant-less car searches after an arrest, even when there was no concern for officer safety or the preservation of evidence.

Writing for the majority in this important decision, Justice Stevens held that the police may only search the passenger compartment of a vehicle, pursuant to the arrest of a recent occupant, if it is reasonable to believe that the arrested person might access the car while it’s being searched, or that the car contains evidence of the crime for which that person was arrested.

Scalia, concurring with the majority, wrote:

“I believe that this standard fails to provide the needed guidance to arresting officers and also leaves much room for manipulation, inviting officers to leave the scene unsecured (at least where dangerous suspects are not involved) in order to conduct a vehicle search. In my view we should simply abandon the Belton-Thornton charade of officer safety and overrule those cases. I would hold that a vehicle search incident to arrest is ipso facto “reasonable” only when the object of the search is evidence of the crime for which the arrest was made, or of another crime that the officer has probable cause to believe occurred. Because respondent was arrested for driving without a license (a crime for which no evidence could be expected to be found in the vehicle), I would hold in the present case that the search was unlawful.”

Does Spain have the authority to prosecute Americans for crimes that didn’t take place on Spanish soil?

Yes, by using “universal jurisdiction”, they can prosecute Bush administration officials for authorizing the torture policy at Guantanamo Bay. Universal jurisdiction has been used for many years to both investigate and prosecute foreign nationals for crimes that offend the sensibilities of the global community. U.J. is a critical legal tool used to hold accountable those who commit crimes against the law of nations, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, or any crime considered a crime against all, which any state is authorized to punish, as it is too serious to tolerate jurisdictional arbitrage.

According to Amnesty International, a proponent of universal jurisdiction, certain crimes pose so serious a threat to the international community as a whole, that states have a logical and moral duty to prosecute an individual responsible for it; no place should be a safe haven for those who have committed genocide, crimes against humanity, extrajudicial executions, war crimes, torture and forced disappearances.

Universal jurisdiction complements, but doesn’t supersede, national prosecutions. So if the United States were investigating the Bush officials, other countries would not consider prosecuting under universal jurisdiction.

Evidence that Bush officials set a policy that led to the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo continues to emerge. The release of additional graphic torture memos by the U.S. Department of Justice is imminent. If the United States refuses to investigate now, we have only ourselves to blame if some other country, like Spain, decides to do it for us.

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“When more of the people’s sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of a free government.”

–President Grover Cleveland (1837-1908)

“To tax the community for the advantage of a class is not protection: it is plunder.” –British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881)

“The difference between death and taxes is death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.” –American humorist Will Rogers (1879-1935)

“Rampant redistribution of wealth by government is now the norm. So is this: It inflames government’s natural rapaciousness and subverts the rule of law.”

–columnist George Will

I think it’s enlightening that the redistribution of wealth is a great evil when the money comes from the rich and goes to the poor, but as long as the redistribution of wealth favors the already wealthy, well then it’s a benefit to everyone. Bullshit. Giving more to those who already have too much is insane. Half of the top one percent of the US population controls almost all of our wealth. They have more money than anyone could possibly spend in several lifetimes.

Inequality is often justified as simply the market rewarding the most enterprising people. But the Institute for Policy Studies‘ Dedrick Muhammad has pointed out, “No one builds wealth alone…private wealth (savings, homeownership, investment wealth) is derived from a combination of individual activity and the commons.”

Indeed, such a huge disparity of wealth undermines the very idea of the commons, which is based on longstanding traditions of sharing and cooperative management of the resources upon which we all depend.

The rich like to claim that they “give back” the wealth our government has handed to them. The truth is, while the rich do make sizable contributions to charity, as a percentage of their income/wealth the rich give back a miniscule amount in comparison to the working poor; low-income people give almost 30 percent more as a share of their income. Of course, the working classes understand hardship and doing without, so they are better motivated to help people less fortunate than they. The majority of the wealthiest people in the country were born into their wealth, and simply have no concept of what life in the “real” world is like for people who weren’t born with silver spoons in their mouths. Why should they give “their” money to help those less fortunate?

At least I had not heard these two particular “theories”. I’m sure there are more out there, maybe someday we’ll all know what really happened on September 11, 2001. For now, I’ll keep reading and passing on the most interesting ideas I find. Here are two interesting ideas:

Theory Number 1:

Solutions Reply:

April 14th, 2009 at 7:17 pm

I have a chemical education background and have worked with cement products all of my life.

I mentioned earlier, that Portland cement used to make concrete and spray applied cementitous fireproofing contains Tri & Dicalcium silicates, along with the additives - micronized aluminum and iron oxide. These two(2) additives are added to the silicates when making Portland cement dust.

If you remove the Tri & Dicalcium silicates from common Portland cement, you have the exact elements of Nanothermite. So, I got to thinking since most all Portland cement these days are manufacture in 3rd world nations, it would be possible to blend just the additives(micronized aluminum & iron oxide) and bag it as Portland cement, as a black opps covert off shore weapons deal. The stuff would look identical to regular Portland cement dust or grout products and could be substituted for the cement used in spray applied cementituous fireproofing. To be honest and with 30 years in the business of dealing with and using cement based products, I think it’s entirely possible this could be done and that even a trained eye might not spot such a substitution.

If this were true, then during the asbestos abatement projects that were ongoing at the WTC, Nanothermite looking like spray applied fireproofing could have been used to re-encase the steel beams and columns that had been abated. Any asbestos abated steel members would require a 1″ to 2″ thick coating(full encasement) of a replacement type of spray applied fireproofing.

Using such a methos, it would be entirely possible to encase any large number of critical steel framing using Nanothermite mixed with mineral fibers and it would probably pass visual inspection and appear to be legitimate fireproofing.

I can’t prove this, but, the more I think about it, the more I think it’s really possible.

Perhaps we need to send Joe Wilson off shore to see if anyone was buying Portland cement additives(micronized aluminum & iron oxide) packed in common 94 lb. bags labeled as Portland cement. It would be entirely possible to ship this type of high temp explosive in Portland cement bags and incorporate it as spray applied fireproofing, as a substitute for cement grout used to make repairs that are actually temperature sensitive bombs, realizing that temperature sensitive bombs don’t need a fuse to go off, only heat above 500 f.

From: http://www.infowars.com/911-commission-counsel-government-agreed-to-lie-about-911/

Theory Number 2:

Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell about Cherry Marines Reply:

April 14th, 2009 at 4:17 pm

Ever hear of THE MANHATTAN PROJECT, JFK assassination, Area 51, etc.? I’d say the government is pretty damn good at having thousands of people who are loyal to them keep their mouths shut. They are brainwashed (like you) into believing that it is patriotic and “for the greater good” of society. The few that dare venture “off the reservation” are quickly handled by some major “skeletons” in their closet being leaked to the press, maybe a car crash, plane wreck, or other “accident” - or they are just eliminated.

Regarding the Pentagon “attack”. No pilot in the world has accepted the challenge from “Pilots for 9/11 Truth” to reenact a high-G 270 degree bank and maintain flight less than 100 feet above the ground. Why? Because it is IMPOSSIBLE!!!… Even in a simulator. Why does the FDR say the last registered height of Flight 77 was well over 200 feet before it “crashed”? Ooops! The Pentagon is only around 75 feet tall. The massive engines from a Boeing 757 were mostly steel and titanium. They apparently ‘evaporated’ on impact with the concrete walls. However, the soft aluminum nose/cockpit area busted through the concrete and continued busting through multiple concrete walls and reinforced columns until it busted out of the inner wall into the courtyard. Hmmm, that’s some scary-ass aluminum!?!? The tiny bit of aluminum wings/debris found outside of the Pentagon was picked up by a dozen or so guys in suits and disappeared. Imagine being able to fly a huge Boeing 757 into a 75-foot tall building at 400-500 MPH and not even hit the ground. That is LASER precision. Finally, if you were on the ground and a huge Global Hawk missile (look it up, they have a similar wingspan as a 757) came roaring just overhead at 400+ MPH, would you honestly know what the hell just flew by you???? NO WAY!!! You would be shaking the shit from your pant legs after you pulled yourself off the ground and saying “WTF was that?”

Global Hawk missile

…

…Fear-mongering is a tactical weapon used by elitists throughout history in an effort to rule the world……. Caesar, Attila the Hun, Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler, Kissinger, Bush, Obama, IMF masters, etc…

From: http://www.prisonplanet.com/911-commission-counsel-government-agreed-to-lie-about-911.html

Only the very naive would dispute that an agreement not to tell the truth is an agreement to lie.

In August 2006, the Washington Post reported, “Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.” The report revealed how the 10-member commission deeply suspected deception to the point where they considered referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.

John Farmer served as Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (officially known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States), and is also a former New Jersey Attorney General. He says that the government agreed not to tell the truth about 9/11, echoing the assertions of fellow 9/11 Commission members who concluded that the Pentagon were engaged in deliberate deception about their response to the attack. His new book, The Ground Truth: The Story Behind America’s Defense on 9/11, unveils how “the public had been seriously misled about what occurred during the morning of the attacks,” and Farmer himself states that “at some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened.”

The publisher of the book, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, states that, “Farmer builds the inescapably convincing case that the official version not only is almost entirely untrue but serves to create a false impression of order and security.”

Farmer is quoted in the Post article, stating, “I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described … the [Norad air defense] tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years. This is not spin. This is not true.”

You know you’re a terrible liar if a lawyer is calling you a liar.

Source

A national conversation has begun regarding our archaic drug laws. It is going on in state legislatures, like New York’s, where the draconian Rockefeller drug laws may finally be overturned; in other states, from coast to coast, a variety of marijuana decriminalization laws are being enacted. It’s even reached Congress, where Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter have proposed a major prison-reform package, which would directly address drug-sentencing policy.

But there are big issues here, issues of economy and simple justice, especially on the sentencing side. As Webb pointed out in a cover story in Parade magazine, the U.S. is, by far, the most “criminal” country in the world, with 5% of the world’s population and 25% of its prisoners. We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all drug arrests are marijuana-related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it non-federal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public.

The government is wasting our time and money by prohibiting marijuana:

• Cost of active law enforcement
• Cost of prosecution (and defense!) of accused offenders
• Cost of incarceration of convicted offenders
• Hundreds of millions of dollars in tax revenue, generated if drugs were legal and taxed
• Cost of foster care and social services for children of incarcerated offenders

Taxpayers are forced to pay billions of dollars to prosecute and incarcerate people for using marijuana. If marijuana were legal and regulated (like alcohol and tobacco) this money, plus tax revenues from marijuana sales, could be used for other purposes such as education and health care.

Marijuana, like tobacco and alcohol, can be abused. But prohibition is expensive and ineffective; education and regulation are better solutions. Regulating sales of marijuana and teaching people the truth about its health effects will allow us to minimize the harms and costs to society. We should have learned a lesson from history. Alcohol prohibition did not work, and there is no logical reason to believe that marijuana prohibition is a better idea. People have a basic right to make choices for themselves as long as their actions do not harm others. Responsible individuals in a free society should be allowed to choose whether or not they use marijuana.

On April 15, 2009, Tax Day, members of NORML presented a mock check to the U.S Treasury Department in the sum of $14 billion dollars. The check total represents the combined savings and tax revenues that would be generated by regulating the sale and production of cannabis like alcohol.

“We represent the millions of otherwise law-abiding cannabis consumers who are ready, willing, vocal and able to contribute needed tax revenue to America’s struggling economy,” NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre said at a press conference at the steps of the general post office in New York City. “All we ask in exchange for our $14 billion is that our government respects our decision to use marijuana privately and responsibly.”

But it’s not just NORML that is calling on lawmakers to tax and regulate marijuana. In today’s economic climate, the question is: who isn’t?

Late last month, during President Barack Obama’s first-ever Internet Town Hall, questions pertaining to whether legalizing marijuana like alcohol could help boost the economy received more votes from the public than did any other topic. The questions’ popularity — and the President’s half-hearted reply (”No,” he laughed.) — stimulated a torrent of mainstream media attention. In the past two weeks alone, commentators like David Sirota (The Nation), Kathleen Parker (Washington Post), Paul Jacob (TownHall.com), Clarence Page (Chicago Tribune), and Jack Cafferty (CNN) have all expressed sympathy for regulating pot. Even Joe Klein at Time Magazine weighed in on the issue, writing this month that “legalizing marijuana makes sense.”

According to a 2005 analysis by Harvard University senior lecturer Jeffrey Miron — and endorsed by over 500 distinguished economists — replacing pot prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation similar to that used for alcohol would produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year.

A separate economic analysis, conducted by George Mason University professor Jon Gettman in 2007, estimates that the total amount of tax revenue derived from cannabis could be far higher. According to Gettman, the retail value of the total U.S. marijuana market now stands at a whopping $113 billion per year. Using standard tax percentages obtained from the Office of Management and Budget, he calculates that the diversion of this market from the taxable economy deprives taxpayers of $31.1 billion annually.

Finally, taxing and regulating cannabis would have the added bonus of taking the production and trafficking of pot out of the hands of criminal enterprises and, increasingly, drug gangs. According to the Associated Press, marijuana is the “biggest source of income” for Mexican drug cartels. Legalizing pot would eliminate this primary income source for these cartels and, in turn, eliminate much of the growing violence and turf battles that currently surround the drug’s illegal importation from Mexico.

Any way you look at it, legalizing cannabis just “makes sense.” So why aren’t we doing it?

Source

You are invited to attend ... "CAPITALISM IS ORGANIZED CRIME" a conference taking place on SUNDAY, APRIL 19 in WASHINGTON, D.C.

You are invited to attend the “Capitalism is Organized Crime” conference taking place on Sunday, April 19 from 12:00 noon to 5:00 pm at the Festival Center, located at 1640 Columbia Rd. NW, between 16th and 17th Sts. (green line metro to Columbia Heights) in Washington, D.C.

*Please see below for the list of featured speakers.

Capitalism is a form of organized crime. The U.S. government is greasing the system’s wheels to ensure that banks and big corporations get trillions in bailout funds. Meanwhile, millions of workers are losing their jobs and homes. Deep cuts are gutting public education, making health care even less accessible and decimating much-needed social programs. Police brutality and racial profiling are rampant. Working-class people are being hit from all sides.

The conference will link the struggles against war and militarism with the fight for economic justice. This conference will be an important opportunity for political activists to meet, analyze, discuss and propose solutions. The conference organizers believe that a radical reorganization of society is necessary to meet the needs of the people rather than to maximize the profits of bankers and corporate executives who have driven society onto the path of endless war and economic suffering.

PRE-REGISTER for the April 19th Conference:
http://www.pslweb.org/registerDCconference

FEATURED SPEAKERS at the April 19th Conference will include:

* Marcos García, labor attache at the Venezuelan Embassy in Washington, D..C.
* Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, attorney and co-founder, Partnership for Civil Justice
* Brian Becker, National Coordinator, ANSWER Coalition
* Hodari Abdul-Ali, Chair of the Social Justice Task Force for MANA, the Muslim Alliance in North America
* Eugene Puryear, Howard University student, PSL 2008 Vice-Presidential Candidate
* Prof. Zachary Wolfe, George Washington University, chair of the Amicus Curiae Committee of the National Lawyers Guild
* Maurice Carney, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Friends of the Congo
* Muna Coobtee, ANSWER Coalition and Free Palestine Alliance
* Frances Villar, Senator and Senate Parliamentarian of Bronx Community College Student Government, Vice Chair for Legislative Affairs for University Student Senate of City University of New York (CUNY)
* James Circello, Iraq war veteran and co-coordinator of the Veterans and Service Members Task Force of the ANSWER Coalition
* Crystal Kim, PSL 2008 Candidate for D.C. Council At-Large

PRE-REGISTER for the April 19th Conference:
http://www.pslweb.org/registerDCconference

SCHEDULE for the day

11:00 am: Doors open for registration

12:00 noon - 2:00 pm: Panel I
Capitalism is Organized Crime

2:30 - 4:00 pm: Panel II
The Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism and for National Liberation

4:30 - 5:15 pm: Panel III
Is Socialism Possible in the United States?

PRE-REGISTER for the April 19th Conference:
http://www.pslweb.org/registerDCconference

$20 donation requested. No one turned away for lack of funds. Childcare available. Please call to reserve.

The April 19 “Capitalism is Organized Crime” Conference is hosted by the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL). The PSL is a member group of the ANSWER Coalition.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, click here:
http://www.pslweb.org/dcconference

Email: dc@socialismandliberation.org
Call: 202-543-4900

*Please forward this message widely to your friends, contacts, and email listserves, and post on MySpace, Facebook, blogs and discussion groups.

PRE-REGISTER for the April 19th Conference:
http://www.pslweb.org/registerDCconference

ECONOMICS 101 –  (U.S.A. CAN’T SAVE THE WORLD)
The Tampa Tribune Letter to Editor    Published: March 30, 2009

When (oh when!) will the U.S. Citizens and government of the United States learn the basic facts of personal and national economic life?

1.  Fact One, not everybody in a society, a nation, can be rich. If there were no people who needed to work to earn money, no one would make any products or perform any services.  If we were all rich, we would all be poor.  Would you want your garbage man or your auto mechanic to be so wealthy he didn’t need to work?

No, but I would like it if they didn’t charge me like they expected to get rich from my service/repair bills.

2. Fact Two, pyramid schemes always collapse, and the frantic investing in real estate and “flipping your way to wealth” of the recent past is simply a pyramid scheme.

My issue here is this: not everybody with “subprime” loans were looking to “flip” their way to wealth. We just wanted a decent house/home and neighborhood for our kids to grow up in. We don’t think we should have to pay Wells Fargo a quarter of a million dollars to buy a house that is only worth about sixty-five thousand. How does 250,000=65,000? We can’t even refinance to get out of this ridiculous “loan”. If we try to refinance, the penalties are crazy high, and there is no forgiveness on the interest. Even if we won the lottery and could pay off the principle amount on the loan, the loan is written so that we still have to pay the full interest amount. So Wells Fargo will get their 250,000 dollars from us one way or another. But they and the other banks/lenders like them need a government bailout? Bullshit!

3. Fact Three, you can’t painlessly and magically “spend” your way out of a recession/depression.  You have to work, scrimp, save and earn your way out of it.

My family has been working, scrimping, and trying to save since the last Great Depression. We still live below the poverty line, and I really don’t see that changing anytime soon. Stop lying and pretending the “American Dream” is anything other than a totally out-of-reach fantasy for the majority of Americans. If you are born poor in the U.S., odds are very, very high that you will die poor as well. College won’t save you, Work won’t save you. If you are really lucky and talented/gifted, you might find a way out of poverty. But for every one star athlete or rock star who climbs out of poverty, there are literally thousands more that will never have more than their parents did. In fact, many of them will have less than their parents did.

4. Fact Four, the current “stimulus” packages are simply the creation of fake, bogus money unbacked by any real worth or value.  All they will do is create massive debt and massive inflation that will bankrupt people who live on fixed incomes, as most retirees do.  Welcome to the economic ghetto, all you golden-agers who voted for “change”, you’re going to get it!

Where have you been? People on social security have been eating cat food for decades; the poor are already bankrupt and buried in debt. We already have to “work, scrimp, save, and earn” just to keep a roof over our heads and to feed our kids. It’s the middle class, who’ve gotten used to having extra, that will be hurting when they have to learn to do without. The “poor” know how to live without; poverty will do that to you. The “rich” on the other hand, have no idea how to go without; unless it’s morals and compassion, they know how to live without those two items.

5. Fact Five, the United States has only about four percent of the world’s population and about four percent of its livable land area.  We cannot support the rest of the world with foreign aid.  We can’t afford it.  We can’t save the world single-handedly; we’re too small.

I’ll give you this one. How can we save the world’s poor, when we can’t/don’t take care of our own poor?

6.  Fact Six, not everyone on this planet who is unhappy in their home country automatically has the right to come live in the U.S. and be supported by American taxpayers.  We are not being mean-spirited if we refuse to be guilt-tripped into giving away our country.  If we don’t control our borders, we are doomed.

Forget the illegal immigrants coming over the border, I’m more concerned with the criminals hidden amongst them. Immigrants built this country, and we need them. We learn and grow by adding new members to our country. But, we do need to control who comes in, where, and how. Open borders, at this point in history, are just stupid. There are too many people in the world who have axes to grind with our government’s policies.

7. Fact Seven, we cannot be the world’s military policeman.  Again, we just aren’t big enough.

The military/industrial complex would disagree with you there. They need us to keep acting like we’re the world’s enforcers, because that keeps them profitable.

8.  Fact Eight, illegal drugs are destroying our nation economically as well as physically and morally.  We need to find the courage to impose strong, draconian — even capital — punishment on anyone who passes illegal
substances to another person.

Are you high? We’ve had draconian laws (a pot smoker is arrested every 37 seconds in this country) and they have had no effect. If anything, drug use has worsened. I recommend doing some internet research, maybe read a couple of books on the subject that were actually written in the last decade. “Reefer Madness” is a sick joke, and I can’t believe anyone is still ignorant enough to believe that tripe. Maybe if our government hadn’t spent so much time and money bullshitting us about marijuana, we wouldn’t have the problems with cocaine, heroin, and meth that we do today.” If the government lies about how dangerous marijuana is, maybe they’re lying about the other drugs too.” Lack of credibility in one area often leads others to doubt your credibility in other areas.

9. Fact Nine, we can’t let an ever-growing percentage of our population live on welfare, live on the work of others.  Except in the case of people who are totally incapacitated, we have to have the “tough love” to say “those who don’t work, don’t eat,” and it’s their problem, not “society’s”.

Your lack of compassion leads me to think you must be a republican. And not the good kind like the Founding Fathers were, but the new kind who think their “God” gives them the right to dictate to the rest of us how we should live and who is “worthy” or not. I bet you believe the whole “welfare Cadillacs” myth too. Dude, you seriously need to spend some time relying on “welfare” before you start judging the people who have been forced by circumstances beyond their control to need welfare. It isn’t like you just walk into a government office somewhere and say, “show me the money”. I’ve had to use food stamps to feed my kids before, and it is a long, tedious, and utterly humiliating process that no one goes through unless they absolutely have no other choice. People who have never “been there, done that” need to shut the hell up and stop talking out of their ignorant asses. How about if all the rich schmucks who inherited their wealth lose it, since they didn’t actually “work” for it?

All of this is simply “Economics 101″ for today’s world.  If we don’t wake up and learn it quickly, we won’t have a country much longer. And we won’t deserve to.
–HUGH WILLIAMSON, Apollo Beach, Florida

I don’t know Mr. Williamson, and I have no idea where he earned his degree in economics. I do know that so-called economists are some of the evil jackasses who have managed to put our country in the toilet. So, I don’t think you should be bringing up econ.101 at this point.

I’m not sure how accurate this list is, but it makes for interesting reading.

Top 25 Censored Stories:

• #1. Over One Million Iraqi Deaths Caused by US Occupation Over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB).
• # 2 Security and Prosperity Partnership: Militarized NAFTA Leaders of Canada, the US, and Mexico have been meeting to secretly expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with “deep integration” of a more militarized tri-national Homeland Security force.
  
• # 3 InfraGard: The FBI Deputizes Business More than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to collect and provide information on fellow Americans.
  
• # 4 ILEA: Is the US Restarting Dirty Wars in Latin America? A resurgence of US-backed militarism threatens peace and democracy in Latin America.
  
• # 5 Seizing War Protesters’ Assets President Bush has signed two executive orders that would allow the US Treasury Department to seize the property of any person perceived to, directly or indirectly, pose a threat to US operations in the Middle East.
  
• # 6 The Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act In a startling affront to American freedoms of expression, privacy, and association, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act (H.R. 1955) passed the House on October 23, 2007, by a vote of 404–6.
• # 7 Guest Workers Inc.: Fraud and Human Trafficking While the guest worker program in the United States has been praised and recommended for expansion by President Bush, and is likely to be considered by Congress as a template for future immigration reform, human rights advocates warn that the system seriously victimizes immigrant workers.
• # 8 Executive Orders Can Be Changed Secretly On December 7, 2007, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, as a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, disclosed on the floor of the US Senate that he had declassified three legal documents of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) within the Department of Justice.
• #9 Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Testify Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are coming forward to recount the brutal impact of the ongoing occupations.
• # 10 APA Complicit in CIA Torture When in 2005 news reports exposed the fact that psychologists were working with the US military and the CIA to develop brutal interrogation methods, American Psychological Association (APA) leaders assembled a task force to examine the issue.
• # 11 El Salvador’s Water Privatization and the Global War on Terror
• # 12 Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From No Child Left Behind
• # 13 Tracking Billions of Dollars Lost in Iraq
• # 14 Mainstreaming Nuclear Waste
• # 15 Worldwide Slavery
• # 16 Annual Survey on Trade Union Rights
• # 17 UN’s Empty Declaration of Indigenous Rights
• # 18 Cruelty and Death in Juvenile Detention Centers
• # 19 Indigenous Herders and Small Farmers Fight Livestock Extinction
• # 20 Marijuana Arrests Set New Record
• # 21 NATO Considers “First Strike” Nuclear Option
• # 22 CARE Rejects US Food Aid
• # 23 FDA Complicit in Pushing Pharmaceutical Drugs
• # 24 Japan Questions 9/11 and the Global War on Terror
• # 25 Bush’s Real Problem with Eliot Spitzer

US Senators Introduce “National Criminal Justice Act of 2009″
Bill would “undertake a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system”

Washington, DC: Senators Jim Webb (D-VA) and Arlen Specter (R-PA), along with fifteen co-sponsors, have introduced legislation in Congress to critically evaluate America’s drugs and prisons policies. The bill, Senate Bill 714, the National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009, is now before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

As introduced, the proposal would establish a blue-ribbon commission to “undertake a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system; make findings related to current Federal and State criminal justice policies and practices; and make reform recommendations for the President, Congress, and State governments to improve public safety, cost-effectiveness, overall prison administration, and fairness in the implementation of the Nation’s criminal justice system.”

Specifically, the Commission will examine “current drug policy and its impact on incarceration, crime and violence, sentencing, and reentry programs, [including] an analysis of the general availability of drugs in our society, the impact and effectiveness of current policies on reducing that availability and on the incidence of crime, and in the case of criminal offenders, the availability of drug treatment programs before, during, and after incarceration.”

Marijuana Compounds Have “Palliative” And “Curative” Effects On Cancer

Salerno, Italy: Naturally occurring compounds in cannabis possess anti-tumor properties and present a novel approach for cancer treatment, according to a scientific review published in the February issue of the journal Best Practice & Research: Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Investigators at the University of Salerno in Italy report that cannabinoids limit cancer cell proliferation and induce tumor-selective cell death.

Cannabinoids inhibit “tumor growth and migration, angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels to cancerous tumors), [and] metastasis (the transfer of malignant cells from one site to another),” authors concluded. “Emerging evidence suggests that agonists of cannabinoid receptors … may offer a novel strategy to treat cancer.”

A 2008 review in the journal Cancer Research reported that the administration of cannabinoids halts the spread of a wide range of cancers, including brain cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer, pancreatic cancer, and lymphoma.

Hemp Farming Control Act Reintroduced In Congress

Washington, DC: Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX), along with ten co-sponsors, has reintroduced legislation in Congress that would allow for the commercial farming of industrial hemp. Hemp is a distinct variety of the plant species cannabis sativa that contains only trace (less than one percent) amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the primary psychoactive compound in marijuana.

House Bill 1866, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009, would exclude low potency varieties of cannabis from the federal Controlled Substances Act. If approved, the measure would grant state legislatures the authority to license and regulate the commercial production of hemp as an industrial and agricultural commodity.

Several states — including North Dakota, Montana, and Vermont — have enacted regulations to allow for the cultivation of hemp under state law. However, none of these laws can be implemented without federal approval. Passage of HR 1866 would remove existing federal barriers and allow states that wish to regulate commercial hemp production the authority to do so.

Since the fall of their government, much in Afghanistan for women has improved. Millions of girls now attend school and many women own businesses. Of the 351 Afghani parliamentarians, 89 are women. But Afghanistan is still a very conservative country and this law simply undermines all those gains. It also directly contradicts the freedoms guaranteed in the Afghan constitution, and the international conventions signed to guarantee the rights of women in that country. The Afghan constitution guarantees equal rights for women, but also gives the Shia community (around 10% of the population) the right to settle family law cases according to Shia law, or Sharia.

Many American military and our allies have paid, and continue to pay, a high price for Afghani women to be free. Wenny Kusuma, the head of the UN Development Fund for Women in Afghanistan, said a number of activists had already received death threats. “There’s no other country in the world where working for women’s rights puts you at a higher risk of death,” she said. Afghan women who campaigned against the legislation said they would keep up the pressure. MP Shinkai Karokhail, who described the law as “worse than the Taliban”, said: “I get around 12 calls a day threatening me, but I don’t even listen. I don’t care. I have been branded a bad Muslim. I have been accused of being against Shias. It’s not true. I am a woman and an MP.”

Americans should not be too eager to throw stones at this law. You know what they say about people who live in glass houses? Take this into consideration:

Until the late 1970’s, most states did not consider spousal rape a crime. Typically, spouses were exempted from the sexual assault laws. In the late 1970’s, feminists began efforts to change these laws. Currently, rape of a spouse is a crime in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The states used three different techniques for criminalizing spousal rape. The majority of states simply removed the marital rape exemption, without adding any other language. Other states replaced the exclusionary language with text specifying that marriage to the victim is not a defense. A few states created a separate offense of “spousal rape.” Progress has been made in the past 20 years towards eliminating exemptions for sex offenders who are married to their victims. However, differences in the treatment of rape of a spouse from that of non-spousal rape remain. These include: reporting requirements, requirements that the offender use force or threat of force, and the fact that some offenses contain exemptions for spouses. States may want to consider the status of their spousal rape laws and amend them to create protections for victims of spousal rape equal to those for other victims of sexual assault.

President Karzai underestimated the global attention that legalizing rape in Afghanistan would cause. Karzai’s rape law has now been put on hold.