Vote to test corporate water rights

By Ann S. Kim, Staff Writer; published May 11 by the Portland (ME) Press-Herald

A key battle in Maine's ongoing war over water will be decided in Wells on Saturday.

Voters at a town meeting will decide whether theirs will become the latest community to ban water extraction by companies like Poland Spring.

Rather than trying to regulate water extraction, the ordinance takes a "rights-based" approach by asserting that ecosystems have rights to exist, flourish and evolve naturally in town. Wells and any of its residents would have standing to seek damages in court against any company that interfered with those rights.

Under the ordinance, corporations would have no constitutional rights within the town. The Supreme Court has found that corporations have some constitutional rights – such as a right to free speech and against government taking of property without due process – but not others, such as the right against self-incrimination.

Two other Maine towns – Shapleigh and Newfield – used such an approach to adopt similar measures this year. The neighboring towns acted after Poland Spring, a subsidiary of Nestle Waters North America, started the process to drill test wells in search of a potential new water source.

In Wells, the controversy stems from a proposed 30-year contract between Poland Spring and the Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Wells Water District. Under that proposal – tabled indefinitely last summer because of a public outcry – the company would have been able to draw a maximum of 432,000 gallons a day from the Branch Brook aquifer. By comparison, the district's average daily water usage is about 2.8 million gallons, and peak use is about 7 million gallons a day.

The town attorney for Wells has advised selectmen that she believes the proposed rights-based ordinance violates federal and state constitutional principles, as well as state law and the town charter. Selectmen declined by a vote of 3-2 to put the ordinance on a town ballot, but supporters of the measure gathered enough petition signatures to force a town meeting.

The town's Ordinance Review Committee, meanwhile, is working on regulations for water extraction. A draft may be presented to selectmen May 27, said Bill Gosbee, the group's chairman.

The Pennsylvania-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund promotes the rights-based approach of the water ordinances and others dealing with issues ranging from sludge spreading to corporate agriculture to mining.

Regulatory schemes have failed to protect ecosystems and have instead helped "the corporate boys build a better permit," said Gail Darrell, the fund's community organizer in New England. A different view of nature – as something that must be able to preserve itself, rather than being plundered for profit – was needed, she said.

"If we treat nature as though it has rights, we can protect it," Darrell said. "So if a corporation understands, if it destroys nature, they have to fix it. They need to be responsible for the destruction."

Darrell questions why a corporation's goals should trump those of people when people are the source of governing power and corporations are only "creations of the state." She considers court decisions giving corporations constitutional rights "illegitimate."

"'Corporation' is not in our Constitution," she said.

While corporations are artificial legal entities, courts decide whether to treat them like people when it comes to constitutional rights, said H. Cabanne Howard, a University of Maine School of Law professor. No state or municipality has the authority to negate the rights that courts say corporations have, he said.

"You can't just pass a statute saying those decisions don't matter," he said.

Dave Owen, another Maine Law professor, said a local ordinance can't trump state law, which includes a regulatory scheme that allows the extraction of water by companies like Poland Spring, with certain limitations.

Owen, who specializes in environmental law, worked as a lawyer in California with environmental groups that tried to limit water extraction and with counties that defended groundwater management ordinances against constitutional challenges.

"The better approach, if this group is frustrated with that state scheme, would be to try to change it at the state level. Passing an inconsistent local ordinance would be only a symbolic act," Owen wrote in an e-mail message.

Leah Rachin, the attorney for Wells, says the ordinance would likely be found illegal in a challenge.

If the ordinance passes at the town meeting, she said, it could be challenged by a party that has standing, one that could point to a particular injury.

Selectmen would have the option to ask a court for a determination of the ordinance's legality, Rachin said.

Poland Spring would have no legal standing in Shapleigh or Newfield, where the company has no property or business operations, said Mark Dubois, the company's natural resource manager. More work has been done in Wells, he said, but it is too early to look into whether the company would have legal standing there.

In Pennsylvania, Belfast Township in Fulton County repealed its ban on corporate farming after the state attorney general's office took action.

The office targeted the ordinance, based on others by the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, because it tried to restrict activities allowed in the state constitution, said Nils Frederiksen, a spokesman for the office. Under a state law, the attorney general has the authority to challenge local ordinances that violate farming-related state laws.

Skip Clark of Wells, a supporter of the rights-based ordinance, worries that the water district could enter into a deal before residents fully understand the issue. In the meantime, he said, the rights-based ordinance offers protection.

"The courts decide it's not constitutional – that's no problem," he said. "It gains time for this entire issue to be thrashed out."

Read more!

Deseret News: Activists Calling for Uprisings for Causes

Published on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 by Deseret News (Utah)
by Elaine Jarvik
Marches, rallies and honks for peace are all good strategies — but they're not enough, say local activists who gathered Saturday to discuss tactics for social change. It's time now for something more, a kind of "peaceful uprising," they say.

The all-day conference at the University of Utah drew about 150 activists representing groups ranging from the Healthy Planet Mobilization Committee to a new group called Provo for Palestine. There were environmentalists, peace activists and union organizers. Panelists included former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson and Tim DeChristopher, the eco-saboteur who last month disrupted the Bureau of Land Management auction of oil drilling leases.

The "old model" of social activism hasn't proved effective, said DeChristopher, who appeared on two panels. "We have to convince leaders that there will be an uprising," he said. "Changing a light bulb is not an appropriate response" to the climate crisis.

After a day of panels and films, about 30 people attended the final, what-shall-we-do-now session, where they discussed their shared vision of a "just, sustainable and peaceful world" and the pros and cons of getting arrested for their causes. Sixteen of the 30 raised their hands "yes" when asked by attendee Caleb Proulx whether they would engage in that level of civil disobedience.

"Sometimes you're willing to do whatever it takes, and maybe that time is now," said longtime peace activist Diana Lee Hirschi, who was arrested in 1989 as part of a national campaign to stop production of the Trident missile system.

While marches and rallies are helpful, "we could do something that's creative and powerful," suggested Ashley Sanders, who helped organize the "alternative commencement" at BYU in 2007 to protest the traditional commencement address of Vice President Dick Cheney and was youth coordinator for Ralph Nader's 2008 presidential campaign.

Sanders suggested an "action" near the end of this year's legislative session. "We'll descend on the Capitol and hold an Athenian people's legislature," she said. She envisioned thousands of Utahns, perhaps wearing togas, frustrated by the laws being passed by the lawmakers and calling instead for ethics reform and clean air. She also pushed for civil disobedience, with the protesters asking for their own bills to be passed "or we're not leaving."

"That's a recipe for martyrdom," countered peace activist Dayne Goodwin, who drew the line at actions leading to arrests.

Seattle union organizer Paul Bigman told attendees earlier in the day that activists of all stripes need to "build coalitions," especially with the country's working class. Bigman took part in the 1999 civil resistance at the WTO meetings in Seattle. A screening of a feature movie based on that event, "Battle in Seattle," was also part of the weekend conference. While the movie was an adrenaline rush, real-life activism is "hard, hard work, and it goes on for a long, long time," Hirschi told conferencegoers.

A morning session on Saturday, "Activism in the Mormon Community" drew BYU and U. students. "It's a headache to be a progressive at BYU," said Shannon Clawson, "but there is such a strong community of people who are really passionate" about social justice.

Although the conference attendees didn't reach a consensus on specific actions for the near future, they did call attention to upcoming events: a four-hour civil resistance training led by Hirschi on Saturday, Feb. 21, from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Quaker Meeting House, 171 E. 4800 South; a climate change discussion with DeChristopher, author Terry Tempest Williams and Salt Lake City Council member Soren Simonsen at 7 p.m. the same day at the Salt Lake City downtown library; an environmental mass action in Washington, D.C., on March 2; and a multi-issue national action on April 4.

Upcoming events will be listed on the Web site of Utah Jobs with Justice.

Read more!

Ted Glick: Don't Just Mourn, Escalate

by Ted Glick

“In everyone’s life, at some time, our inner fire goes out. It is then burst into flame by an encounter with another human being. We should all be thankful for those people who rekindle the inner spirit.”
Albert Schweitzer

My Thanksgiving holiday and the days right after it weren’t the greatest, and it’s not because I didn’t enjoy spending time with my extended family in Pennsylvania. It’s because, literally right before I left home to drive there, I read a couple of emails about the intensifying climate crisis that had a deep personal impact. And then, upon arriving home afterwards, I found a couple more that only added to my feeling of, well, verging-upon-hopelessness, that’s the best way to describe it. Is it really too late? I kept wondering, all weekend and for most of last week.

One of the articles was a powerful piece by George Monbiot on November 25th focused on summer arctic ice sea melt and its connection to rising emissions of the greenhouse gas methane from melting permafrost in the northern latitudes. Another was a piece in the scientific journal, “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, which reported that it looks like the oceans--a major absorber, along with soil, of carbon out of the atmosphere--are acidifying 10 times faster than was originally predicted which, among other things, means that they are absorbing less carbon dioxide. A third article predicted that, primarily because the ocean is “filling up” with CO2, a larger volume of carbon emissions will stay in the atmosphere for a much longer time than has been the case up to now, thousands of years as compared to hundreds historically.

And my mood wasn’t helped by problematic reports from the opening of the International U.N. Climate Conference in Poland. One particularly troubling piece of news was that the leadership of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a well-connected, politically “moderate” group, was expressing public skepticism about, or even the importance of, negotiation of a stronger international climate treaty by the time of the next U.N. Climate Conference in late 2009.

Fortunately, and crucial to my finding the inner strength to keep going, the climate movement, both in the USA and internationally, is very much moving and growing. It’s a movement that may be mourning what is happening in the world because of the power of the oil and coal companies and governments subservient to them, but it is also a movement which is stepping up its tactics. It’s a movement that isn’t just mourning, it’s escalating.

In an article in the November 21st issue of the Christian Science Monitor, Brianna Cayo Cotter of the Energy Action Coalition is quoted, saying, “In the last year it just exploded and went from being a very sizable amount of people, several thousands of very active youth all around the country, to just hundreds of thousands of young people. I feel like the floodgates are about to open. We have the numbers. We have the skills. We have the passion.”

Thank God for the Energy Action Coalition and those who support them.

It is also heartening that this year’s 4th Annual International Day of Climate Action over this weekend saw upwards of 90 countries where actions happened, up from 70 last year.

Then there is the loosely-connected but concretely-effective no coal movement, made up primarily of local groups around the country that have been fighting to prevent new coal plants from being built. This no coal movement--connected through a nonewcoalplants email listserve--has helped to cut in half the number of new coal plants that were projected as being built in the USA as of less than two years ago.

Representatives of that movement met in Charleston, West Virginia about two weeks after the November elections to develop plans for stepping up--for escalating--its tactics. Out of this inspiring and productive meeting attended by over a dozen Appalachian groups and about the same number of national groups emerged the decision to organize an intensive campaign, “100 Days of Action to Move Beyond Coal.” Each day, from January 21st to April 30th, one or a dozen or more communities will make a call for an end to dirty coal-- from destructive coal mining to dangerous coal waste disposal. Citizens across the US will gather with friends to work for clean energy, demand that their politicians declare coal is dirty, or march in solidarity with communities impacted by coal mining, coal burning and coal waste disposal.

More information on this major initiative can by found by going to www.theallianceforappalachia.org.

Probably the biggest four days of the 100 Days campaign period will be the Feb. 27-March 2nd Power Shift 09 conference being organized by the Energy Action Coalition (EAC) at the Convention Center in Washington, D.C. A year ago, in November of 2007, EAC organized the first Power Shift conference, attended by 6,000 young people from around the country. The organizers of Power Shift 09 anticipate from 10,000-15,000 in attendance at this second youth climate conference.

In addition to speakers, workshops, skills-trainings and other conference activities, there will be two major actions on the final day, March 2nd. That morning conference participants will swarm all over Capitol Hill, demanding that the federal government get serious right now about strong action on the climate crisis. That afternoon 1,000 or more of them will risk arrest in a symbolic attempt to shut down a coal-fired power plant that supplies some of the power to the U.S. Capitol.

This action was initiated by Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network and is being co-sponsored by a growing number of other groups. The call for this event explains that the aim is to turn a new corner for the climate movement--we have already won the battles showing that climate change is real and that politicians and industry/people must act; now we are reflecting the urgency and depth of the required responses. Civil disobedience has played a vital role in every social movement for justice, and echoing the recent calls of people like Al Gore, James Hansen, Wendell Berry and others--we feel it is time to escalate our tactics and our demands, and show the new administration that the American people are demanding and taking action in response to the urgency and seriousness of the climate crisis.

To find out more and to get involved, write to matt.leonard@greenpeace.org or josh@ran.org.

Then there are developing plans for major actions in the fall. On an international level, there will be major demonstrations around the world during the 2009 U.N. Climate Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark. Groups in Europe have already begun meeting to plan large-scale nonviolent direct actions in Copenhagen, and it is likely that similar actions will develop in the USA and elsewhere.

There are also discussions beginning among U.S. climate activists about the idea of a national march on Washington that would involve hundreds of thousands of people, in either late spring or the fall.

As important as all of this escalated climate activity is, it is also important that the climate movement escalate its demands in response to the growing scientific evidence that dangerous climate change is speeding up.

Over the past several months, a number of individuals and organizations in the climate movement--James Hansen and Bill McKibben among the most prominent--have gone public calling for a system of carbon emissions reduction other than the “cap and trade” system. Cap-and-trade is currently supported by most established environmental organizations and almost all Congressional advocates of climate action.

“Cap and dividend,” or “cap and cash back,” or a revenue-neutral carbon tax--these are the different names for a similar system supported by Hansen, McKibben and others. The primary difference between this system and cap-and-trade is simple: there’s no trading involved, no opportunity for gaming the system. Instead, a steadily increasing price--a tax--is put on producers of oil, coal and natural gas, and the revenue raised from that tax is then either returned in total by way of dividends or rebates to individual taxpayers to help them deal with the rising costs of carbon-based fuels, or there’s a mix of dividends/rebates and government investments to help the shift to a green-jobs-creating, renewables-based economy.

This growing doubt about cap-and-trade is based upon hard evidence--the problems with the Kyoto Protocol and the European Union’s system, both of which are cap-and-trade--as well as the very real difficulties of generating enough political support in the U.S. Congress to pass cap-and-trade.

A December 2nd Reuters article by Timothy Gardner summarized the results of a recent General Accounting Office study:

The GAO report said some carbon offset investments’a central feature of cap-and-trade--went toward projects that probably would have happened otherwise. A key tenet of emissions markets is that such offsets help fight global warming only if they would not have occurred.

Some offset credits were awarded for projects that would have occurred even in the absence of the [the offset program], despite a rigorous screening process, the report said.

The GAO report urged Congress to consider that carbon offsets can undermine the integrity of a cap-and-trade system, given that it is not possible to ensure that every credit represents a real, measurable and long-term reduction in emissions.

The climate movement also needs to get behind the general goal of Al Gore’s proposal that the U.S. undertake an initiative to get 100% of our electricity from renewable energy within 10 years, by 2018. Gore has put forward a specific set of plans for how this objective can be achieved (see www.repoweramerica.org). Of political significance, a poll of hunters and fisherman this summer found that ¾ of them supported the goal of a 100% renewables electricity system by 2018.

Finally, and critically, the climate movement needs to do very broad outreach to a wide range of constituencies and groups. At the same time, those groups which do not see themselves as primarily climate groups need to realize that, in a very real sense, if we don’t get moving right now to solve the climate crisis on the scale needed, we’re going to be overwhelmed with an escalating series of climate disasters that will make forward progress on other fronts virtually impossible. The climate issue is literally everyone’s issue.

As importantly, the process of mobilizing the human, political, economic and spiritual resources to solve the climate crisis can lead us toward a very different kind of society, one in which social, economic, racial and gender justice is increasingly widespread, oil and resource wars are a thing of the past, and human solidarity and connection to the earth replaces competition and power-seeking as the root ethic of our culture.

Ted Glick is the Policy Director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network/U.S. Climate Emergency Council. More information can be found at www.tedglick.com.

Read more!

Naomi Wolf on Palin, the RNC police actions and the risks we face

This is not just another Palin hit piece, but important analysis, especially in light of the arrests of journalists at the Republican National Convention. Posted on Monday, September 22, on Naomi Wolf's blog at Huffington Post.

Please understand what you are looking at when you look at Sarah "Evita" Palin. You are looking at the designated muse of the coming American police state.

You have to understand how things work in a closing society in order to understand "Palin Power." A gang or cabal seizes power, usually with an affable, weak figurehead at the fore. Then they will hold elections -- but they will make sure that the election will be corrupted and that the next affable, weak figurehead is entirely in their control. Remember, Russia has Presidents; Russia holds elections. Dictators and gangs of thugs all over the world hold elections. It means nothing. When a cabal has seized power you can have elections and even presidents, but you [don't?] have freedom.

I realized early on with horror what I was seeing in Governor Palin: the continuation of the Rove-Cheney cabal, but this time without restraints. I heard her echo Bush 2000 soundbites ("the heart of America is on display") and realized Bush's speechwriters were writing her -- not McCain's -- speeches. I heard her tell George Bush's lies -- not McCain's -- to the American people, linking 9/11 to Iraq. I heard her make fun of Barack Obama for wanting to prevent the torture of prisoners -- this is Rove-Cheney's enthusiastic S and M, not McCain's, who, though he shamefully colluded in the 2006 Military Tribunals Act, is also a former prisoner of war and wrote an eloquent Newsweek piece in 2005 opposing torture. I saw that she was even styled by the same skillful stylist (neutral lipstick, matte makeup, dark colors) who turned Katharine Harris from a mall rat into a stateswoman and who styles all the women in the Bush orbit --but who does not bother to style Cindy McCain.

Then I saw and heard more. Palin is embracing lawlessness in defying Alaskan Legislature subpoenas --this is what Rove-Cheney, and not McCain, believe in doing. She uses mafia tactics against critics, like the police commissioner who was railroaded for opposing handguns in Alaskan battered women's shelters -- Rove's style, not McCain's. I realized what I was seeing.

Reports confirmed my suspicions: Palin, not McCain, is the FrankenBarbie of the Rove-Cheney cabal. The strategy became clear. Time magazine reported that Rove is "dialed in" to the McCain campaign. Rove's protégé Steve Schmidt is now campaign manager. And Politico reported that Rove was heavily involved in McCain's vice presidential selection. Finally a new report shows that there are dozens of Bush and Rove operatives surrounding Sarah Palin and orchestrating her every move.

What's the plan? It is this. McCain doesn't matter. Reputable dermatologists are discussing the fact that in simply actuarial terms, John McCain has a virulent and life-threatening form of skin cancer. It is the elephant in the room, but we must discuss the health of the candidates: doctors put survival rates for someone his age at two to four years. I believe the Rove-Cheney cabal is using Sarah Palin as a stalking horse, an Evita figure, to put a popular, populist face on the coming police state and be the talk show hostess for the end of elections as we know them. If McCain-Palin get in, this will be the last true American election. She will be working for Halliburton, KBR, Rove and Cheney into the foreseeable future -- for a decade perhaps -- a puppet "president" for the same people who have plundered our treasure, are now holding the US economy hostage and who murdered four thousand brave young men and women in a way of choice and lies.

How, you may ask, can I assert this? How can I argue, as I now do, that there is actually a war being ramped up against US citizens and our democracy and that Sarah Palin is the figurehead and muse for that war?

Look at the RNC. This is supposed to be McCain's America. But you see the unmistakable theatre of Rove's S and M imagery -- and you see stages eight, nine and ten of the steps to a dictatorship as I outlined them in The End of America. Preemptive arrest? Abusive arrest? "Newly released footage, which was buried to avoid confiscation, shows riot cops arresting and abusing a giant group of people for nothing."

Journalists were arrested -- for reporting. Amy Goodman and ABC producers were arrested. Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake and others were forced to lie face down as armed agents tied their hands behind their backs. The riot police wore the black S&M gear of the Rovian fantasy life and carried the four foot batons cops carry in North Korea. All this is not John McCain's imagery or strategy: it is Karl Rove's.

In McCain-Palin's America, citizens who are protesting are being charged as terrorists. This means that a violent war had been declared on American citizens. A well known reporter leaked to me on background that St Paul police had dressed as protesters and, dressed in Black -- shades of the Blackshirts of 1920 -- infiltrated protest groups. There were also phalanxes of men in black wearing balaclavas, linking arms and behaving menacingly -- alleged "anarchists." Let me tell you, I have been on the left for thirty years and you can't get three lefties to wear the same t-shirt to a rally, let alone link arms and wear identical face masks: these are not our guys. Agent Provocateurs framing protesters and calling protest "terrorism" constitutes step ten of a police state:

"In what appears to be the first use of criminal charges under the 2002 Minnesota version of the Federal Patriot Act, Ramsey County Prosecutors have formally charged 8 alleged leaders of the RNC Welcoming Committee with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism... [they] 7 1/2 years in prison under the terrorism enhancement charge which allows for a 50% increase in the maximum penalty."

"Paid, confidential informants... infiltrated the RNCWC on behalf of law enforcement. They allege that members of the group sought to kidnap delegates to the RNC, assault police officers with firebombs and explosives, and sabotage airports in St. Paul. Evidence released to date does not corroborate these allegations with physical evidence or provide any other evidence for these allegations than the claims of the informants. Based on past abuses of such informants by law enforcement, the National Lawyers Guild is concerned that such police informants have incentives to lie and exaggerate threats of violence and to also act as provocateurs in raising and urging support for acts of violence."

Under the Palin-Rove police state, you will see escalating infringements on your access to a free internet:

"Sarah Palin was baptized at Wasilla Assembly of God...Last Sunday our research team released a video, a ten-minute mini-documentary, focusing on the Wasilla Assemblies of God and the video seemed on the verge of a massive "viral" breakthrough when YouTube pulled it down, citing 'inappropriate content'. At the point the video was censored by YouTube it had been viewed by almost 160,000 people. The short of it is that YouTube has censored a video documentary that appeared to be close to having an effect on a hard fought and contentious American presidential election..."

Under the coming Palin-Rove police state, you will witness the plans now underway to bring Iraqi troops to patrol the streets of our nation. This is not McCain's fantasy: it is Rove's and Cheney's.

Under the Palin-Rove police state, there will be no further true elections. Mark Crispin Miller has done sensational and under-reported investigating to establish that -- as I warned -- indeed the GOP staffers on the US Senate Judiciary Committee have been [blog editor's note: this paragraph ends here on the HuffPo site].

The evidence is also buried on the Website of the Majority House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. [blog editor's note: this link, copied from the HuffPo site, goes to a .gif of a short horizontal line.]

WASHINGTON -- Republican staff members of the US Senate Judiciary Commitee infiltrated opposition computer files for a year, monitoring secret strategy memos and periodically passing on copies to the media, Senate officials told The Globe. >From the spring of 2002 until at least April 2003, members of the GOP committee staff exploited a computer glitch that allowed them to access restricted Democratic communications without a password. Trolling through hundreds of memos, they were able to read talking points and accounts of private meetings discussing which judicial nominees Democrats would fight -- and with what tactics.
-- "Senate panel's GOP staff spied on Democrats" By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | January 22, 2004

Do you think that spying like this will ever end under a Palin-Rove regime? Dream on. If she and McCain are elected, then every single strategy memo and speech and debate prep note from every opposition candidate from now and on into forever will be read by the regime in power while it is still in the computers of the challengers.

Under the Palin-Rove police state, citizens will be targeted with state cyberterrorism. Bruce Fein of the American Freedom Agenda, a former Reagan official, warned me three years ago that the Bush team went after a Republican who had crossed them through cyberstalking: they messed with his email, messed with his phones and I believe messed with his bank account -- he became a cyber-pariah, unemployable and haunted. With modern technology, there really is less place to hide from the state than there was in East Germany in the Cold War era. I remember feeling a chill: of course. That is the wave of the future once we breach the protections around citizens of FISA and the fourth amendment. That way lies the abyss for us all.

Am I trying to scare you? I am. I am trying to scare you to death and ask you to scare your Republican and independent friends most of all. How do you know when it is war on citizens? When there are mass arrests, journalists are jailed, the opposition is infiltrated, rights are stripped and leaders start to ignore the rule of law.

Almost everyone I work with on projects related to this campaign for liberty has been experiencing computer harassment: emails are stripped, messages disappear. That's not all: people's bank accounts are being tampered with: wire transfers to banks vanish in midair. I personally keep opening bank accounts that are quickly corrupted by fraud. Money vanishes. Coworkers of mine have to keep opening new email accounts as old ones become infected. And most disturbingly to me personally is the mail tampering I have both heard of and experienced firsthand. My tax returns vanished from my mailbox. All my larger envelopes arrive ripped straight open apparently by hand. When I show the postman, he says "That's impossible." Horrifyingly to me is the impact on my family. My childrens' report cards are returned again and again though perfectly addressed; their invitations are turned back; and my daughters many letters from camp? Vanished. All of them. Not one arrived. Try explaining that to a smart thirteen year old. Try explaining it in a way that still makes her feel secure and comfortable.

I am not telling you this because it's about my life. I am telling you this because it is about your life -- whoever you are, Conservative or Liberal, independent or evangelical. Your politics will not protect you in a police state. History shows that nothing protects you in a police state. This is not about my fear and anxiety: it is about what awaits you and everyone you love unless you see this for what it is:

Scharansky divided nations into "fear societies" and "free societies." Make no mistake: Sarah "Evita" Palin is Rove and Cheney's cosmetic rebranding of their fascist push: she will help to establish a true and irreversible "fear society" in this once free once proud nation. For God's sake, do not let her; do not let them.

Read more!

Critics see bailout as massive blank check

by Adrianne Appel
Published on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 by Inter Press Service

BOSTON - U.S. activist networks have shifted into high gear to protest the secretive 700-billion-dollar plan to bail out Wall Street, which they say is unfair to average citizens and a giveaway to banks.

"We're outraged," Gael Murphy, founder of Code Pink, told IPS. "We want to see the people who caused this problem and profited from it, pay for it," said Murphy, echoing the sentiment of many activists, and people in general, according to weekend polls.

The skeletal, three-page plan was fielded Friday by U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Jr. and would grant him the authority to purchase billions in bad debts on behalf of the U.S. public, now held by U.S. and foreign banks.

Paulson and Ben Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, say the U.S. must purchase the debts in order to keep the banking system from certain collapse.

The plan is now in Congress and may be approved as early as Friday, when lawmakers want to adjourn to go home and campaign for the November elections. Reports Monday indicated that lawmakers may alter the plan somewhat to include some oversight of the spending, and restrict bank CEO pay, which can stretch into the hundreds of millions.

Paulson, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs who owns $523.5 million in that company's stock, has said he is opposed to placing limits on bank CEO compensation.
While the lawmakers and finance officials met behind closed doors Monday, the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 372 points, and the price of oil shot up to 120 dollars per barrel. The Group of Seven finance ministers announced that they would keep a close eye on international markets and intervene as necessary to protect the international banking system.

Paulson's proposal does not describe which companies would benefit from his plan and by how much, and calls for no oversight.

"The lobbyists for the banking community are really out in force trying to get as much as possible for themselves," Dorene Isenberg, an economist and chair of the Economics Department at University of Redlands, in California, told IPS.

Code Pink and other groups organised throughout the weekend via phone, internet and late-night meetings, then hit the ground Monday morning and headed straight for the U.S. Treasury building. They made it there by rush hour.

"Stop Paulson's Plunder," blared just one of the large banners they held in front of the building. "Protect Main Street, not Wall Street," said another.

Members of Code Pink then went up to Capitol Hill, to encourage lawmakers to help homeowners facing foreclosure, cut bank CEO pay and boost the economy for the long term. The activists visited the leading banking lawmakers, Democrats Sen. Chris Dodd and Rep. Barney Frank.

Frank told the group of seven activists that he wants the plan to include protections for homeowners facing foreclosure, and to restrict bank CEO salaries, among other provisions, Murphy said.

Frank, known for his quick whit and sharp tongue, "became quite offended" when the activists explained they were visiting Frank out of concern that the Democrats not give in to pressure from lobbyists and the administration, as they have on other issues, Murphy said.

"He didn't like that," she said.

On Thursday, it's Wall Street's turn to hear directly from activists, when a large group from Move On, True Majority, Greenpeace, Code Pink, United for Peace and Justice and others will protest in New York City.

Other groups, like The Backbone Campaign, have already organised a petition drive on their website, calls to Congress and a conference call between activists and progressive economists to answer questions about the complex, near-meltdown of the U.S. economy.

"This is a 700-billion-dollar blank cheque for Henry Paulson to use any way he wants," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, during one such call.

Any bailout should be overseen by a board, not just Paulson, and help should be very targeted to those institutions that absolutely cannot help themselves, and that are necessary to keep the economy active, Baker said. The U.S. should insist that CEO pay be trimmed to 2 million dollars and that companies hand over part of any future profits as payback to taxpayers.

A payback is "a fine idea economically" but politically is very unlikely, Isenberg said.

Isenberg said it's possible that the added 700-billion-dollar debt will drag down the U.S. dollar, depending on how much confidence foreign investors maintain in the U.S. economy.

"It might lead to a further decline, that's truly possible," she said.

According to Doug Henwood, editor of Left Business Observer, the bailout will not shore up the U.S. economy. The economy is fundamentally weak because the average U.S. worker's standard of living shriveled during the past decade, and at the same time the markets are not creating enough good jobs.

Meanwhile, CEO salaries grew to excess and their income taxes were reduced, especially by the George W. Bush administration.

"We can talk about derivatives but there is a fundamental polarisation of income and wealth that contributed to this meltdown," Henwood said. "We need to get the incomes of the middle class and bottom up, by taking from the incomes at the top."

Read more!

‘Homegrown’ Suppression of Dissent

by Jules Boykoff

Published on Friday, November 30, 2007 by CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/15/30/5526/

Last month the U.S. House of Representatives flew a stealth mission under the mainstream media’s radar, passing startling legislation that targets constitutionally protected political speech and paves a path for the government’s suppression of dissent.

The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 would establish a ten-member National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism primarily comprised of Congress members. It would also give the Department of Homeland Security the power to create “a university-based Center of Excellence for the Study of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism” to “study the social, criminal, political, psychological, and economic roots” of U.S.-based radicalization and terrorism.

Despite its overwhelming support in the House–where it passed 404 to 6–this law is severely problematic in three main ways.

First of all, it’s superfluous. We don’t need more laws against “violent radicalization” and “homegrown terrorism.” We already have plenty of legislation outlawing murder, conspiracy, arson, and other crimes that the government often associates with terrorism, not to mention wide-reaching terrorism laws like the USA PATRIOT Act, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, and the Military Commissions Act, all of which can be applied to U.S. citizens.

As such, the bill is less an honest effort to combat actual terrorism than it is ideology-drenched window dressing designed to win political points and electoral votes.

Second, the measure takes aim at political speech that is protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution. Groups and individuals trying to further “political or social objectives” are explicitly the focus of the act, which brings up questions around the freedom of assembly.

From a judicial perspective, this bill is a constitutional challenge waiting to happen.

Sure the bill claims, “Any measure taken to prevent violent radicalization, homegrown terrorism, and ideologically based violence…should not violate the constitutional rights, civil rights, or civil liberties of United States citizens or lawful permanent residents.”

But given the actual text of the bill and the Bush administration’s penchant to engage in warrantless surveillance, this flimsy caveat assuring that dissent will not be suppressed is tantamount to saying “I don’t do cocaine, I just like the way it smells.”

Third, too often the bill employs alarmingly over-broad definitions. The bill states that “ideologically based violence” is “the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.”

It doesn’t take the imagination of an avant-garde poet to envision scenarios in which radical political dissidents could get sucked into the wide-swirling vortex of “ideologically based violence.”

What if protesters use their bodies during a direct action to take over an intersection or to block traffic, as anti-war activists in Olympia, Washington have done recently? Can this seriously be dubbed “homegrown terrorism”?

What about an anarchist who hurls a brick through a corporate window to make a political statement? Is this vandalism really “violent radicalization” or “homegrown terrorism”?

The bill also defines “violent radicalization” in part as “adopting or promoting an extremist belief system,” but what exactly is “an extremist belief system”? Anti-capitalism? Socialism? Anarchism? Neo-conservatism?

Even a cursory look backward through U.S. history reveals heroic figures who could be dubbed “violent radicals” or “homegrown terrorists” under the proposed bill, from U.S. revolutionaries like Sam Adams to gun-toting slavery abolitionists like John Brown to militant civil-rights organizers like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Shortly after the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1787, “What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?” The Senate, which is currently considering a virtually identical version of the bill, would do well to resurrect “the spirit of resistance” and finally say no to the Bush administration’s persistent whittling of our civil liberties.

The House roll call vote demonstrates that this is not a partisan issue. The bill’s supporters were obviously bi-partisan, but it’s important to note that opposition to the bill was also bi-partisan, with three Democrats and three Republicans voting against it.

Unlike the media–who have performed a mums-the-word blackout on the bill–concerned citizens from the left, right, and center must oppose this legislation before the Senate slots it into law. We need a nonpartisan groundswell to stand up to this newest onslaught against our civil liberties, before it’s too late.

Jules Boykoff is the author of Beyond Bullets: The Suppression of Dissent in the United States (AK Press, 2007). He teaches political science at Pacific University in Oregon.

Read more!

Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act Raises Fears of New Government Crackdown on Dissent

Listen to Segment || Download Show mp3
Watch 128k stream Watch 256k stream Read Transcript

Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/20/1458214

---

A little-noticed anti-terrorism bill quietly making its through Congress is raising fears of a new affront on activism and constitutional rights. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act was passed in an overwhelming 400 to six House vote last month. Critics say it could herald a new government crackdown on dissident activity under the guise of fighting terrorism. [includes rush transcript]

---

A little-noticed anti-terrorism bill quietly making its through Congress is raising fears of a new affront on activism and constitutional rights. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act was passed in an overwhelming 400 to six House vote last month. Critics say it could herald a new government crackdown on dissident activity and infiltration of universities under the guise of fighting terrorism. The bill would establish two government-appointed bodies to study, monitor and propose ways of curbing what it calls homegrown terrorism and extremism in the United States. The first body, a National Commission, would convene for eighteen months. A university-based "Center for Excellence" would follow, bringing together academic specialists to recommend laws and other measures.

Critics say the bill's definition of "extremism" and "terrorism" is too vague and its mandate even more broad. Under a false veil of expertise and independence, the government-appointed commissions could be used as ideological cover to push through harsher laws.

Following last month's approval in the House, the Senate version is expected to go before the Judiciary Committee this week.

• Jessica Lee, reporter for the Indypendent, published by the NYC Indymedia Center. Her latest article is called "Bringing the War on Terrorism Home: Congress Considers How to 'Disrupt' Radical Movements in the United States"
• Kamau Karl Franklin, Racial Justice Fellow at the NY-based Center for Constitutional Rights. He is also co-chair of the National Conference of Black Lawyers and serves on the Executive Committee of the National Lawyers Guild.

---

AMY GOODMAN: A little-noticed anti-terrorism bill, quietly making its way through Congress is raising fears of the new affront on activism and constitutional rights. The Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act was passed in an overwhelming 400-6 House vote last month. Critics say it could herald a new government crackdown on dissent and infiltration of universities under the guise of fighting terrorism. The bill would establish two government-appointed bodies to study, monitor, and propose ways of curbing what it calls homegrown terrorism and extremism in the United States. The first body, a national commission, would convene for 18 months. The university-based "Center for Excellence" would follow, bringing together academic specialists to recommend laws and other measures. Critics say the definition of extremism and terrorism is too vague and its mandate even more broad. Under a false veil of expertise and independence, they say, the government-appointed commissions could be used as ideological cover to push through harsher laws. Following last month's approval in the House, the Senate version is expected to go before the Judiciary Committee this week. Two guests join us now in the Firehouse studio. Kamau Franklin is an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. CCR has been closely following the measure. And Jessica Lee with us. She’s a journalist with the Indypendent, put out by the New York Indymedia Center. She has an extensive piece in the latest issue of the Indypendent. Its called "Bringing The War On Terrorism Home: Congress Considers How To 'Disrupt' Radical Movements In The United States." Jessica, let’s begin with you. Lay out what this bill is.

JESSICA LEE: Thank you for having me. When I first heard about this, I immediately did a Google news search and was alarmed to find that no media was talking about it whatsoever. So I looked into the bill and are two things that immediately jumped out of me. The first was that there is a broad use of definitions and the second is, who would they study? What does this mean? I would first like to point out the two definitions that many people I interviewed had problems with. And if you wouldnt mind me just reading them. The first is “violent radicalization”. This term means “the process of adapting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically-based violence to advance political, religious, or social change”. Many people I interviewed were very concerned about this. The second definition, which is “homegrown terrorism”, talks about the planned use, threatened use, of force or violence by a group to intimidate or coerce the government of the United States. When you think about these definitions, what does that mean? When you look at the activism going on today, is there planned use of force or coercion going on? When you look at what is going on in Olympia, with individuals sitting down and blocking war shipments. When you look at Code Pink going into Congress and disrupting activities. Could this be included in this definition? And that’s what I went out to try to find my article.

AMY GOODMAN: Kamau Franklin, your concerns?

KAMAU FRANKLIN: Somewhere, as Jessica stated, the broad definitions allow for new laws that can be passed. that can basically equate social justice activism and civil disobedience to terrorism in some ways. So in the past if someone got charged for blocking the street, there were charged with disorderly conduct, or obstruction of governmental administration. Now, after this commission is done, if new laws are passed, with the broadness of the definitions, the Feds can now say “well, wait a minute, you threatened the use of violence or threatened the use of force. And that by itself can mean that we can now charge you with federal terrorist crimes because we do not agree with the type of demonstration that you were doing, we don’t agree with the point of view that you were having”. So its the broad based-ness, the breadth, the scope of the inquiry, which is really threatening for potential activists, people concerned with social justice issues and civil libertarians, something people should really be concerned about.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the groups you see.

KAMAU KARL FRANKLIN: Well, I see groups as folks that are come out against the globalization, anti-globalization activists, social justice activists, animal rights activists. I think the breadth is [extounding] in terms of what can be covered. I dont think theres any limits placed on who can be targeted by this particular act. I think certain groups have already been singled out, like folks that are fighting against some of the globalization measures that are happening. And I think that is really going to be scary. Because The the sponsors of this bill are really targeting this sect more than targeting anything else.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the groups, Jessica. In particular, you’ve mentioned, for example, Critical Mass, the cycling movement all over the country.

JESSICA LEE: Right. When I started to look into this bill, what I found was a great influence by the Rand Corporation, which is a government affiliated think tank. Twice, Brian Michael Jenkins, who is an expert on terrorism, gave testimony in the House on this bill.

AMY GOODMAN: He is from the Rand Corporation.

JESSICA LEE: He is from the Rand, yes. They largely tried to push this bill through on this idea there are these extreme political Islamists in our country and they did not do a very good job stating the actual threat. But when you look through the Rand Corporation's other reports in 2005, they had a report called “Trends in Terrorism”. And they had one chapter called “Homegrown Terrorism Threats”. When you look in that chapter, there’s nothing about political Islamists. In fact, its all about anti- globalization people on the right and left side of the spectrum. The animal rights and the environmental movements; and anarchists. And to me I found that very interesting that that testimony was not mentioned at all when this bill was passed. That this legislation is not just gonna look at so-called violent, religious people, but also people who have been very strong opinions against this administration.

AMY GOODMAN: In terms of the Rand Corporation, it was Daniel Ellsburg who worked for the Rand Corporation, when he have that many thousands of pages on the history of the Vietnam war and the Pentagon papers. So Rand is the key -- what would you say, writer of the bill? And the Congressmember who’s most involved in this?

JESSICA LEE: Representative Jane Harmon, a Democrat from California, has had a lengthy relationship with the Rand Corporation. I called several times to get comment from the Rand Corporation, they said that their experts are out of town and unavailable due to the holidays. So I did not find out if they indeed did write the bill themselves. What we do know is that have a great influence and that they have had in the past.

KAMAU FRANKLIN: I just wanted to add to the Rand comment, particularly with Brian Michael Jenkins, supposed terrorist expert who’s mainly known according to Rand as someone who helped the United States in counter-insurgency measures in Vietnam, which is one of his claims to fame. In addition to that, he wrote a book and in his own book, I just want to quote that says "in their international campaign, the Jihadist will seek common ground with leftist, anti-American and anti-globalization forces who will in turn seek radical Islam comrades against a mutual foe." So I think what Jessica’s talking about, is that, the breadth of it is not focused in on supposed terrorists who are threatening the United States, but folks who have real concerns about where this country is heading, folks who express dissent in various different ways including demonstrations and marches. These are the folks who this bill potentially good target.

AMY GOODMAN: The Baltimore Sun has a column called "Here Comes the Thought Police."

KAMAU FRANKLIN: I think they’re saying “thought” because one of the important aspects of this bill, also, is to – it concentrates on the internet as a place where terrorist rhetoric or ideas have been coming across into the United States and to American citizens. If, once again, this bill reaches to become a law and that study is done, who is to say that now after the study is done, the recommendations wont get made to say “lets curb how the internet is being used, lets put filters on what gets to come into the country”. You spoke a little bit about al- Jazeera. Imagine after they take a look at this and how al-Jazeera is viewed, one particular area well say “let's stop that” – I mean they stopped that from coming in over a cable – but, “let’s stop that from coming from the internet”. That could be happening to thousands of web sites in the near future.

AMY GOODMAN: And local, federal cooperation among police, Kamau?

KAMAU FRANKLIN: Theres a New York study that was done that also was a basis for some of where this bill came from. These type of operations go hand-in-hand with of course, joint task force. So we truly would expect when they go around and seek out experts and they talk to folks that it would be talking to local police officials and looking for ways in which they can work together on this, where the local officials can seek federal funding and they will come out and try to use this and say “let's target these particular groups in our area that we know about”. Once again, no basis for terrorism, but “they’ve been dissenters, they have their internet sites reviewed and we dont like those”.

AMY GOODMAN: Jessica Lee, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act was passed in the house 400-6. That is a very big margin.

JESSICA LEE: Correct. It was actually passed under what is called the “Suspension of the Rules”, which is a provision the House uses to pass bills very quickly and these are usually bills deemed uncontroversial and do not need more debate. So we saw a quick vote. Six people voted against. One was presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich. He was unavailable for comment unfortunately. So what we're seeing not only the Republican congress giving the Bush administration swath of powers to confront the war on terrorism, but we are also seeing the democratically-led congress also extending these powers.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the Center for Excellence.

JESSICA LEE: It would be one of the – there’s already eight in existence, under the Department of Homeland Securityg, and they’re based in universities, they bring scholars together from around the country, that are “experts” in a bunch of different fields to study a particular thing. This is someone who would want to study the moment in which somebody who is a radical or extremist will turn from being peaceful, having those beliefs which are protected under the First Amendment, to when they might become violent. I found it very interesting because if you want to study the moment in which somebody is going to turn violent, don't you need to study them before they turned violent? If so, aren’t you studying First Amendment beliefs? I talked to a couple of scholars who study this type of thing. One is Braun Taylor who has studied the radical environmental movement for about 15 years, and he says if you really want to understand this stuff, you have to go into the field, make human interactions, build trust, and you have to talk to them. It takes a long time. These people are very wary to talk to academics in the first place. So we are seeing the Center of Excellence that is supposed to bring people together to study these very people that are skeptical of academics. Another interesting thing, the national commission which has mandated to produce three reports, each six months apart. The first report is supposed to come out after six months. How in the world can they possibly study these very complex issues? They want to study the social, criminal, political, psychological and economic roots of terrorism. How are they supposed to study this in six months and come up with these recommendations, which in fact, are going to be used to prevent, disrupt and mitigate domestic terrorism in six months?

AMY GOODMAN: Kamau Franklin, Center for Constitutional Rights, what are you doing about this?

KAMAU FRANKLIN: On our website, we have a lot more information about what this bill is. In fact, we have the different versions for people to start to view. We’re gonna call for some actions in the next couple of weeks. We probably agree that at this stage the Senate is also going to pass their version of the bill. What is really going to happen, where the fight’s really gonna start to take place is in the forming of this commission, watching this commission, responding to its inquiries. In fact, doing demonstrations against this commission. We think that is where the real fight will be now is in the grassroots who are gonna have to come out and really talk about how they think this commission will not really study terrorism but will study them. We want to provide as much information as we can on who should be the target of some of this work that will have to be done. So when people go to the website ccrjustice.org, they’ll start to find this information. In the next couple of weeks, we’ll rally start to target and hone in on who should be thought about.

AMY GOODMAN: Kamau Karl Franklin, Center for Constitutional Rights and Jessica Lee, journalist for the Indypendent. Thank you for being with us. This is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. I'm amy Goodman. When we come back, I will be joined by Marcel Khalife the Marcel.

Read more!