The NYC Labor Chorus performs at Cathay's Garden of Remem- brance to the Welsh Inter- national Brigade volunteers
(Below, right) Cathay's Castle
Cathay's Park, the Garden of Remem- brance
(below) Chorus member Georgia Weaver with a memorial to the Wales volunteers in the Inter- national Brigade
Closeup of the memorial plaque.
Well, I am going to address it, not specifically to Chairman [Max] Baucus [D-Montana], but let me just be very clear about this. This has been cast in the media, and probably seen by Republican consultants, as a Republican versus Democrat issue or conservative versus liberal issue. It’s not. When 72 percent of the American people, including more than 50 percent of Republicans, believe that they ought to have the choice between a public or a private system, this is not a liberal-conservative thing. This is whether you’re going to vote with the health insurance companies or whether you’re going to vote for what 72 percent of your constituencies want. That is what this vote is about.
Kirsty Williams (Liberal Democrat Wales Assembly Member for Brecon and Radnor- shire) with the New York City Labor Chorus. She is standing between Iluminada Ramirez and Bob Greenberg. Ann Gael (Back row, extreme left); Accompanist Dennis Nelson is over Williams right shoulder. The red-haired woman (three to the right of Kirsty Williams is Rosemary Butler, Deputy Presiding Officer of the Assembly (Labour/Newport West).
Kirsty Williams (center) and members of NYC Labor Chorus: (left to right) Ione Foote, Rona Armillas, Peter Schlosser (music director) and Barbara Bailey.
This is the last photo taken in Wales. It's the whole group (minus a few early escapees) With Martin Harris (the only one with a tie), our driver for most of the two weeks, and the bus on which we spent most of our time .I apologize to anyone who's hidden behind someone else.
And if Republicans, in 2010 and 2012, can point to the court and say Sotomayor is their kind of justice, and Scalia, Roberts, Alito and Thomas are our kind of justices, that will not be all bad.In other words, they know she's going to be confirmed, so they want to damage her as much as possible. We the people are just a roadblock on their way back to power. Or try the misnamed right-wing Committee for Justice' executive director Curt Levey:
Justice Douglas, Ramsey Clark and Jocelyn Elders, after all, did a whale of a lot of good for the Republican Party in days gone by.
The Committee for Justice has completed an extensive study of Judge Sotomayor's record, and we have determined that she is . . .It will be clear to anyone who has watched even a few minutes of the Sotomayor Senate confirmation theater that this is pure and unadulterated nonsense. First these people tried and failed to label President Obama a socialist and now they will fail again to label the Judge "ultra-left." There are a number of criticisms that Republicans have made against Stomayor. High up among these criticisms is the accusation that she is likely to apply "empathy" (heaven forfend a human judge) in msking her decisions. Here's what Michael C. Dorf said regarding the Supreme Court's "empathy" in the now infamous Ricci (firefighters) case:
1. Not qualified to serve as a Justice on the Supreme Court.
2. Rules according to her own ultra-left political views without regard to the law.
3. Has little respect for the Constitution of the United States, especially the Second Amendment.
In fact, a strong case can be made that Judge Sotomayor is the most radical nominee for the Supreme Court in U.S. history. This is a frightening prospect for freedom's survival in America.
Justice Ginsburg calls the majority on this point in her dissent, stating that it is understandable that her colleagues would have "sympathy" for the high-scoring white firefighters, given the effort they made, but that even under the majority's analysis, this fact has no legal relevance. In response, Justice Alito remarked that "‘sympathy' is not what petitioners have a right to demand. What they have a right to demand is evenhanded enforcement of the law." Yet, like the majority, Justice Alito never tried to explain how or why the time and effort expended by promotion applicants were relevant to the question of whether the department's decision to discard the test violated Title VII.To take this a step further, many people argue that the current right-wing dominated Supreme Court is the most activist court in recent times (as it was in changing the law to overturn Ricci).
"Sympathy," of course, is a close cousin of "empathy," an emotion that President Obama has said he values in a Justice, and a trait that has been ridiculed by some on the right as improper in judges. It is thus noteworthy that in Ricci, the conservative Justices appear to be the ones ruling based on sympathy (or empathy), even as they deny it.
Hi Everyone,
In its recent crackdown, the Iranian government--specifically the Security Police of the Revolutionary Guard--have once again detained my friend, Kian Tajbakhsh. As most of you know, Kian was one of four Iranian-American scholars detained and released in 2007. Kian is a humanistic and progressive-minded scholar who is not politically active and had chosen to try and stay in his country despite the risks.
The current unstable situation in Iran leaves Kian and all detainees in great danger. His family has asked for people to sign a petition at the web site below and I would appreciate it if you could do that. Please take a moment to sign the petition: http://www.freekian09.org/sign-the-petition/
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
From The Times
July 10, 2009
McNamara and the fog of war
Why Vietnam was President Lyndon Johnson's war
Sir, It would be more accurate to describe the Vietnam War as President Lyndon Johnson’s War (“From the fog of war came three hard truths”, Opinion, July 8).
I suspect that LBJ was responsible for pinning the “McNamara’s War” label on to Robert McNamara (obituary, July 7). He tried a similar thing with Senator William Fulbright, as evidenced by the acrimonious exchange in 1970 between former President Johnson and Fulbright. Johnson believed that the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, proposed by LBJ, and guided to passage by Senator Fulbright, in August 1964, and which committed US Armed Forces to military action against North Vietnam, was “misnamed” and should have been called the “Fulbright Resolution” because Fulbright, acccording to Johnson, “introduced it with his knowledge, with his approval, his consent”.
LBJ asked Congress for a resolution of intent based on false reports of “renewed hostile actions against US ships on the high seas in the Gulf of Tonkin” as a pretext for stepping up the war in Vietnam. Fulbright said in 1970 that he supported the resolution only because he believed the lies he had been told about the so-called attacks on US ships in Auguust 1964, which he descibed as “a phoney and a false”. LBJ sold the idea to Fulbright and others that if the resolution was passed quickly and unanimously it would be a warning to the North Vietnamese and that they would cease to infilitrate South Vietnam. Events proved otherwise.
President Kennedy, fully supported by Robert McNamara, intended to withdraw all US involvement from South Vietnam as indicated in the National Security Action Memorandum No 263 dated October 11, 1963. Kennedy’s intervention in this level of military jurisdiction would hardly have endeared him to those factions who wanted the war in Vietnam to continue and increase. President Kennedy was assassinated only weeks later.
President Johnson almost immediately reversed Kennedy’s plan to withdraw from Vietnam in National Security Action Memorandum No 273 dated November 26, 1963. It is inconceivable that Secretary of Defence McNamara had changed his mind about US policy in Vietnam by then. I do not think he ever did, but allowed President Johnson to prevail upon him, against his better judgment, to prosecute a war that was immoral and unwinnable. As McNamara confessed: “We were wrong, terribly wrong.” I believe that McNamara was of this opinion in 1963, and it is to his eternal shame that he did not resign his postion in the Johnson Administration on this issue.
Peter Henrick
Northfield, Birmingham
This photo and caption appear on CodePink's 
As of about half an hour ago, I became the co-sponsor of my first piece of legislation in the Senate. And it's something called the Employee Free Choice Act.That's a great beginning but we have to demand a great deal more from Senator Franken (That does sound good). He could become a real voice for progressive politics in this country - and boy do we need one. So take a moment and join American Rights at Work and many others of us and welcome him to his new job.
Rush Limbaugh is suggesting that President Barack Obama and his political operatives already are laying the groundwork for a third term.But the most interesting thing about this quote is that Limbaugh and his right-wing buddies are apparently conceding a second term to Obama in 2012. The other aspect of this nonsense is that clearly the right's strategy is to scare its constituency. That seems go be all they have. A third-Obama term, socialism, these are simply scare tactics being put out there by a bunch of manipulators. It will be interesting to see what these clowns come up with next.
'You have to wonder if Obama is just trying to lay a foundation for not being a hypocrite when he tries to serve beyond 2016,' Limbaugh told his national radio audience. 'I wouldn't be at all surprised if in the next number of years there is a move on the 22nd Amendment.'
Norman's annual public reading of the Constitution & Declaration of Independence will take place Saturday, July 4th, at noon in Central Park at Strawberry Fields, West 72nd Street entrance. Norman says, "I invite you to join us in Central Park to share in this wonderful experience. The 4th of July, Central Park, people celebrating the principles central to free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, equal protection under the law, due process of the law and other cornerstone American values-it will make you feel good." It's a free event!
Hoping you get this viewed and up soon (jet lag?):
Don DeBar is doing updates often on the seizure of the Free Gaza Movement ship (with Cynthia McKinney and about 19 more), and kidnapping, arrest in international waters. Info on demos too that are happening in NYC and DC:
www.wbaix.org WBAI-in-Exile.
Video of the meeting, combination of Harlem Tenants Council and Take Back WBAI, on June 27th, is on www.wbixradio.org
Great speakers: including Nelly Hester Bailey, Glen Ford, Lisa Davis (from Take Back WBAI) because it's about corporatisation of housing, radio, etc.
Don DeBar is producer of of both sites.
If it concerns you that America is sliding toward socialism, I hope you will join me in supporting a group I am leading to elect true conservatives to the U.S. Senate who will stand up and fight to save freedom.Obviously DeMint isn't the only extreme right-wing Republican to accuse the President of the U.S. of "socialism." It's their chosen strategy to get back into power. They simply don't understand how removed from the concerns of the American people they are and that is why they lost. When McCain/Palin were up against the wall, they kept yelling "socialism." The voters told them what they could do with their accusations and elected Obama and a Democratic Senate and House. But these tin-ear dummies are still yelling "socialism." What else does the DeMented DeMint have to say:
As you know, President Obama and congressional Democrats are ramming billions in bailouts, stimulus plans, and pork-barrel projects through Congress as fast as they can.So that's what they mean by socialism. I don't know what DeMint and his buddies were doing during grade school and high school history and civics; clearly not paying attention.
In Oklahoma, we are supporting the re-election bid of conservative U.S. Senator Tom Coburn. As I'm sure you know, Senator Coburn is a one-man pork-busting machine who has done more to protect American taxpayers from wasteful Washington spending than anyone in Congress.So now that we know who the boobs are, let's get busy.
In Pennsylvania, we are backing former Congressman Pat Toomey in his race to replace ultra-liberal Senator Arlen Specter, who helped President Obama pass the $1 trillion stimulus bill and recently switched parties to save his political hide.
In Florida, we have endorsed former Speaker of the House Marco Rubio who is running for the GOP nomination against Governor Charlie Crist. Rubio is a bright, articulate, and principled leader who has what it takes to win this important seat for conservatives.
Over 200,000 workers, mostly women of color, work as nannies, housekeepers, and elderly caregivers. They care for the most important elements of society: families and homes. Their work allows their employers to work with peace of mind. And they are vulnerable to some of the worst abuses imaginable and lack the power to negotiate for basic rights and benefits. Domestic workers need the urgent passage of the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights and they need your support now more than ever.Gloria Steinem, Barbara Ehrenreich, and other prominent New Yorkers will be on hand to distribute certificates of appreciation to ALL domestic workers who attend. The 12-hour program includes testimonies, music, poetry, street theater, community candle lighting ceremony, and much more! There will be simultaneous vigils in California.
Chipotle, how about some integrity for Florida's farmworkers?
For decades, Florida's farmworkers have faced terrible abuses and brutal exploitation. Workers earn sub-poverty wages for toiling 60-70 hours per week, and some have even been chained to poles, locked inside trucks, beaten, and robbed of their pay.
Chipotle, the country's fastest-growing fast food chain, claims to serve "food with integrity." But the company has turned its back on farmworkers demanding a lasting commitment to ending the brutal exploitation in Florida's fields.
Add your name to the open letter to Chipotle CEO Steve Ells demanding real "food with integrity" and an end to horrific working conditions.
A coalition of liberal groups has launched a $1.1 million television ad campaign to ratchet up pressure on senators who have not embraced the creation of a broad government-run health insurance plan.Obviously the more pressure we can put on these nine senators now, the greater chance we of moving them in a progressive direction. American's healthcare and democracy are at stake.
The ads begin airing on Friday and will run for 10 straight days.
The ad is running in the home states of eight members of the Finance panel: Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).
Of those senators, Lincoln, Wyden and Grassley are up for reelection in 2010.
The liberal coalition is also targeting Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who has voiced opposition to the so-called public health insurance option, and Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.). Hagan has voiced support for an alternative to the public option: health insurance co-ops, a plan pushed by Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.).
Honestly, I don't know what these Democrats are trying to achieve. Yes, some of the balking senators receive large campaign contributions from the medical-industrial complex - but who in politics doesn't? If I had to guess, I'd say that what's really going on is that the relatively conservative Democrats still cling to the old dream of becoming kingmakers, of recreating the bipartisan center that used to run America.I take it what "the bipartisan center" really means is a right-wing consensus, which doesn't take the wishes of the American people into account.
Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the health care system and are strongly behind one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll. The poll found that most Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so everyone could have health insurance and that they said the government could do a better job of holding down health-care costs than the private sector.As the lords and ladies of Congress decide, for whatever reasons, what healthcare reform they can tolerate (or their sponsors will allow them to support), there are two obvious victims of this betrayal - the health of the American people and democracy, neither of which, I suspect, are of great concern to the rulers. But as we consider for whom to vote in 2010 how candidates respond to the wishes of the people should take center stage.
(Friends - Akinlabi Mackall, a former WBAI Local Advisory Board member and longtime community activist with S.E.E.D.S., one of the endorsing groups of the Coalition to Take Back WBAI, asked that I forward this to the people on the Coalition's email list. Hopefully we can discuss this at tonight's meeting, which again, is as follows):
Tuesday, June 23, 6:30-10:00 PM
District Council 1707,
75 Varick St. (north of Canal St.), 14th fl
(A, C, E or 1 train to Canal St.)
Subject: Take Back WBAI: Proposed 3-Week New Member-Voter Registration Campaign
To: Justice & Unity Campaign
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 21:43:28 -0400
From: jaydub16@aol.com
The reversal of the last local station board (LSB) election result is crucial to the future of WBAI (as well as Pacifica). Now, as much as ever, we must practice at 'BAI what the Justice and Unity Campaign (J & U) has always "preached": engagement of the radio station with the voices from and righteous struggles of our communities. The present LSB majority is the opposite of what the station and our communities need. J & U's efforts to engage "the people" are on the right track, but more is called for; much more.
As you know, I've spoken to you about Justice & Unity organizing a focused, 3-week new member-voter registration campaign ending on the July 15th deadline.
Perhaps people in the Coalition to Take Back WBAI (CTBW) will support such a campaign. They were certainly energized at the rally last Wednesday. I think one thousand (1000) new member-voters is an ambitious yet achievable goal. I expect that 1000 "new" voters for our slate will make for a much needed, decisive win; even for potentially lower vote getters on our slate.
I suggest that the approach include the following:
1. CTBW, J & U and Friends immediately identify and engage 100 to 150 prospective small, medium and large groups, orgs and churches across the WBAI listening area (especially NY- NJ).
2. Identify a minimum of ten (10) --preferably twenty (20) -- core campaign coordinators, each assigned to about 10 groups, orgs and churches. These core coordinators would be responsible for overseeing / monitoring / tabulating the registrations of new member-voters by each of their assigned groups.
3. Depending on each group's size and the 'BAI member status of its own members, all the groups will be asked to focus its members and friends on doing all of the following (as appropriate):
(a) contributing $25 or volunteering for 3 hours and registering to become a new WBAI member-voter AND voting in a way that will ensure election of candidates committed to local autonomy and genuine engagement of underrepresented communities.
(b) getting three or more of their friends to do "a" above.
Given the time constraints and the very busy schedules of many of our folks, we need a team of core coordinators who can focus on this mini campaign. Obviously, each of the 10-20 core coordinators must be a self starter, organized and persistent. A dedicated email list for "core communications" might be useful; and 2 or 3 overall coordinators may help with the efficiency (ies) as well.
I am willing to contact the leaderships of the following 17 groups immediately, to request their commitment to participate in this proposed 3-week push:
BEPAA, BNYEE, CBJC, CEMOTAP, CSH, D-12, FFDMS, HCCLC, ICOPE, NAKO, NYABPsi, N-BUF (NY), NYSCKRS, Operation Power, Roots Revisited, Sankofa CEP, S.E.E.D.S., and a selection of churches.
New York, June 8, 2009 — Today [on the eve of the trial], the parties in Wiwa v. Shell agreed to settle human rights claims charging the Royal Dutch/Shell company, its Nigerian subsidiary, Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC or Shell Nigeria), and the former head of its Nigerian operation, Brian Anderson, with complicity in the torture, killing, and other abuses of Ogoni leader Ken Saro-Wiwa and other non-violent Nigerian activists in the mid-1990s in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta.
The settlement, whose terms are public, provides a total of $15.5 million. These funds will compensate the 10 plaintiffs, who include family members of the deceased victims; establish a Trust intended to benefit the Ogoni people; and cover a portion of plaintiffs’ legal fees and costs. The settlement is only on behalf of the individual plaintiffs for their individual claims. It does not resolve outstanding issues between Shell and the Ogoni people, and the plaintiffs did not negotiate on behalf of the Ogoni people.
To: WBAI management, staff, listeners and supporters
From: Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez, co-hosts of Democracy Now!
We have recently learned that starting this week, the new management at Pacifica station WBAI is shifting the broadcast time of Democracy Now! from its customary 9 a.m. slot to 8 a.m. We hear this change is part of a reorganization of programming that could end up eliminating the popular and long-running Wake Up Call program on WBAI.
This decision disturbs us deeply and we urge that it be reconsidered.
We fully recognize that any station broadcasting DN! has the right to choose the appropriate time slot for the show. In normal circumstances, we would even welcome the chance to have DN! air in that keyhour. But we believe this sudden change will only
exacerbate long-simmering internal divisions among Pacifica listeners and staff.
We are also dismayed by the recent firing of WBAI program director Bernard White. Every station management has the right and responsibility to hire and fire staff they feel most appropriate. But the removal of Bernard, as far as we can tell, lacked the basic due process any employee is entitled to under the law. Given Bernard's decades of devotion and dedication to BAI, the way he was treated lacked basic human consideration.
These latest actions, however, are only symptoms of a bigger problem.
Nearly a decade ago, an unprecedented listener movement won a great victory. It ousted a Pacifica board and management that had lost its way and forced a return to Pacifica's democratic founding principles. We were both proud to be part of that movement. Like many, we believed it a victory of historic proportions for media reform in America. But we have grown increasingly distressed since then as we have watched the Pacifica reform movement, once so powerful and united, fall into deeply divided and warring camps.
A governance structure that was meant to assure greater democracy turned out to breed greater factionalism. Many station managers and executives found it impossible to manage while they answered to daily monitoring requests from newly empowered community boards. Too many activists who had once blasted the old Pacifica national board for gagging dissident producers, for unjust firings, and for poor financial management, then turned around and adopted practices that were eerily similar once they gained positions of power. Legal costs skyrocketed as every action or firing by one group led to new law suits by those on the other side. And most unfortunately, charges of racism, elitism, narrow nationalism and opportunism have
become as much a part of the war of words at Pacifica these days as American missiles in Pakistan or Afghanistan.
In short, an extraordinary amount of time and energy has been spent in what resembles more like the perpetual feuds of a dysfunctional family. We urge our brothers and sisters to reject these deeply destructive tendencies. Pacifica, along with the progressive media of which it is such a vital part, cannot grow unless all of us learn to seek more common ground.
Democracy Now! was born and nurtured inside Pacifica. We still consider ourselves part of that family even though ours has been an independent show for years. Because of those deep ties, we urge that the scheduling of Democracy Now! not be used as a weapon by the current management of WBAI against its opponents.
In Struggle,
Amy and Juan
*The views expressed here are the individual opinions of Juan and Amy and do not necessarily reflect the views of the board and staff of Democracy Now!
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When I heard about Tiller’s murder, I knew pro-abortion zealots and FOX News haters would attempt to blame us for the crime and that is exactly what happened.A man is dead and when he heard about the murder all he could think about was how it would effect BillO', that's a level of self-involvement that's hardly believable. The object of rational people should not be to shut up O'Reilly and his lynch mob, but to make their irresponsible rantings irrelevant.
an Air France plane carrying 228 people from Brazil to France has gone missing over the Atlantic. A search and rescue mission is underway off the coast of Brazil.Does anyone else believe that the survivors of Air France Flight 447 landed on an island and are in for one hell of an experience. There might even be some time travel involved.
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| Tommy Haas GER | 2 | 77 | 7 | 4 | 0 | |||||||||||||
| Roger Federer SUI (2) | | 6 | 64 | 5 | 6 | 6 | ||||||||||||
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