visit my website www.michaelmunk.com Picture Tribune Photo by L. E. Baskow An interview with  Michael Munk: theportlandalliance.org/munk	Munk's Musings...  a portal...   http://www.theportlandalliance.org/Munk Threats of military strikes against Iran have many of us concerned. We know peace is possible, but is another Middle East war probable? Iran Forum: Myths and Facts Saturday May 19, 2012, 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm First Unitarian Church 1211 SW Main, Portland, OR Three round table discussions: ** Iran - Myths & Realities This discussion will provide background on the current crisis and the geopolitics of sanctions on and war with Iran. **Friendships - Americans and Iranians Travelers to Iran will share their experiences. **The War at Home - Here and There This discussion features people who know first hand the toll that a war takes on societies here and there. Panelists will include: Farideh Farhi, Professor of Political Science at University of Hawaii and a public commentator on US-Iran relations Muhammad Sahimi, Professor of Engineering, USC and a columnist for PBS Frontline Tehran Bureau Robin Hahnel, Professor of Economics at Portland State University Kelly Campbell of Physicians for Social Responsibility Ahjamu Umi of Occupy Portland Ian LaVallee of Iraq Veterans Against the War A flyer is available on our website at http://www.pjw.info/iranforum051912.html Sponsored By: American Iranian Friendship Council (info@aifcpdx.org), Occupy  Portland, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility, Veterans for Peace, Peace and Justice Works Iraq Affinity Group, Peace Action Committee of the First Unitarian Church and Portland Peaceful Response Coalition. With financial support by the PSU Middle East Studies Center and through a Parsa Community Foundation grant. visit my website www.michaelmunk.com     First Mother's Day Proclamation (1870)   By Julia Ward Howe http://codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=217 Arise then...women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts! Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! Say firmly: "We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, For caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, Will be too tender of those of another country To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." From the bosom of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." Blood does not wipe out dishonor, Nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil At the summons of war, Let women now leave all that may be left of home For a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace... Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, But of God - In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask That a general congress of women without limit of nationality, May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient And the earliest period consistent with its objects, To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, The amicable settlement of international questions, The great and general interests of peace.       visit my website www.michaelmunk.com In response to growing pressure to provide more info about the regime’s drone attacks, Obama’s national security advisor asserts that “There is nothing in international law that bans the use of remotely piloted aircraft for this purpose or that prohibits us from using lethal force against our enemies outside of an active battlefield, at least when the country involved consents or is unable or unwilling to take action against the threat."    Remarkable! Evidently, the Obama regime acknowledges that international law does prohibit the use of such force in another country unless that country “consents or is unable or unwilling to take action against the threat.” Obama claims the authority to decide what constitutes a “threat” and whether another state is “unwilling” to take action against it.” Pakistan is the main victim of this policy as it once again complains pathetically about Obama’s latest drone attack. http://tribune.com.pk/story/372224/pakistan-lodges-formal-complaint-over-n-waziristan-drone-attack/   As Tom Engelhardt’s fine essay on Obama’s imperial powers notes:   “He has few constraints (except those he’s internalized). No one can stop him or countermand his orders. He has a bevy of lawyers at his beck and call to explain the “legality” of his actions. And if he cares to, he can send a robot assassin to kill you, whoever you are, no matter where you may be on planet Earth.”   It’s worth noting that the lawyer principally responsible for assuring Obama he could legally assassinate Americans abroad is David Barron, who played John Yoo’s role in the Office of Legal Counsel by writing the still secret 50 page authorizing opinion. Barron left that office to return to Harvard Law School. Seems that Berkeley and Cambridge harbor some sinister dudes.-MM   Read Tom’s essay here: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175535/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_a_global-profiling_president/?utm_source=TomDispatch&utm_campaign=08e5ce8a3e-TD_Engelhardt4_29_2012&utm_medium=email#more   visit my website www.michaelmunk.com Keystone union opponents include the Laborers, Teamsters and Building & Construction Trades which carry much more weight compared to union proponents --the relatively small Amalgamated Transit and Transport Workers. The leader of the Laborers denounced the two transport unions: "We're repulsed by some of our supposed brothers and sisters lining up with job killers like the Sierra Club and the Natural Resources Defense Council to destroy the lives of working men and women."   Trumka? "Unions don't agree among ourselves."   Do we see class conflict here? Environmentalists seem leery of unions and unions are buying the bosses’ line about  regulatory “job killers. The logic of capitalism sure has a way of splitting potential allies. Read on...http://www.thenation.com/article/167460/unions-and-environmentalists-get-it-together   www.michaelmunk.com from: Barbara G. Ellis   Mike Tabor (aka Joe Anybody), the videographer of OccupyPortland's Labor Solidarity Committee's  April 15 Long-Term Jobless Assembly, has emailed me that all you speakers' talks/Q&A discussions were just uploaded on YouTube.http://youtu.be/g9Fk5RTXLpI It's a nearly 3-hour (2:47) video.  The order of speakers is Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian, the keynoter; AFSCME Council 75's political consultant Mary Botkin on how to lobby a legislature; Independent party co-chair Dan Meek on how to start a minor party in Oregon; and Barbara Ellis on the WPA/Minnesota's Farmer-Labor party/Britain's Labor party. As Mike noted below the line, he's also uploading the video on a site called Archive. Moreover, he has DVDs available, but for all his time/energy/post-production work on this project he certainly deserves a per-copy charge. If you don't have his email address handy, his contact is:  z3cell@comcast.net.    OccupyPortland—and in particular the assembly's sponsors OP's Labor Solidarity Committee—thanks you speakers, for all your preparations/materials/ and taking out that gorgeous Sunday afternoon to address this fast-growing, major crisis the nation's political leaders are ignoring, just as they did in 1930+ until it exploded. We also thank those staffers from the venue, SEIU Local 503, who made its Portland facility available for the assembly and helped on Sunday's set-up.   All good wishes, Barbara G. Ellis, Assembly chair member, OP Labor Solidarity Committee There is no substantial difference between Obamacare and Romneycare. There is no substantial difference between Obama and Romney. They are abject servants of the corporate state. And if you vote for one you vote for the other. The Real Health Care Debate http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/the_real_health_care_debate_20120409/ VIA Lloyd K. Marbet Posted on Apr 9, 2012 By Chris Hedges The debate surrounding the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act illustrates the impoverishment of our political life. Here is a law that had its origin in the right-wing Heritage Foundation, was first put into practice in 2006 in Massachusetts by then-Gov. Mitt Romney and was solidified into federal law after corporate lobbyists wrote legislation with more than 2,000 pages. It is a law that forces American citizens to buy a deeply defective product from private insurance companies. It is a law that is the equivalent of the bank bailout bill—some $447 billion in subsidies for insurance interests alone—for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. It is a law that is unconstitutional. And it is a law by which President Barack Obama, and his corporate backers, extinguished the possibilities of both the public option and Medicare for all Americans. There is no substantial difference between Obamacare and Romneycare. There is no substantial difference between Obama and Romney. They are abject servants of the corporate state. And if you vote for one you vote for the other. But you would never know this by listening to the Democratic Party and the advocacy groups that purport to support universal health care but seem more intent on re-electing Obama. It is the very sad legacy of the liberal class that it proves in election cycle after election cycle that it espouses moral and political positions it will not pay a price to defend. And since we have no fight in us, since we will not punish politicians like Obama who betray our core beliefs, the corporate juggernaut rolls forward with its inexorable pace to cement into place our global neofeudalism. Protesting outside the Supreme Court recently as it heard arguments on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act were both conservatives from Americans for Prosperity who denounced the president as a socialist and demonstrators from Democratic front groups such as the SEIU and the Families USA health care consumer group who chanted “Protect the law!” Lost between these two factions were a few stalwarts who hold quite different views, including public health care advocates Dr. Margaret Flowers, Dr. Carol Paris and attorneys Oliver Hall, Kevin Zeese and Russell Mokhiber. They displayed a banner that read: “Single Payer Now! Strike Down the Obama Mandate!” They, at least, have not relinquished the demand for single payer health care for all Americans. And I throw my lot in with these renegades, dismissed, no doubt, as cranks or dreamers or impractical by those who flee into the embrace of empty political theater and junk politics. These single payer advocates, joined by 50 doctors, filed a brief to the court that challenges, in the name of universal health care, the individual mandate. “We have the solution, we have the resources and we have the money to provide lifelong, comprehensive, high-quality health care to every person,” Dr. Flowers said when we spoke a few days ago in Washington, D.C. Many Americans have not accepted the single payer approach “because people get confused by the politics,” she said. “People accept the Democratic argument that this [Obamacare] is all we can have or this is something we can build on. “If you are trying to meet the goal of universal health coverage and the only way to meet that goal is to force people to purchase private insurance, then you might consider that it is constitutional,” Flowers said. “Our argument is that the individual mandate does not meet the goal of universality. When you attempt to use the individual mandate and expansion of Medicaid for coverage, only about half of the uninsured gain coverage. This is what we have seen in Massachusetts. We do, however, have systems in the United States that could meet the goal of universality. That would be either a Veterans Administration type system, which is a socialized system run by the government, or a Medicare type system, a single payer, publicly financed health care system. If the U.S. Congress had considered an evidence-based approach to health reform instead of writing a bill that funnels more wealth to insurance companies that deny and restrict care, it would have been a no-brainer to adopt a single payer health system much like our own Medicare. We are already spending enough on health care in this country to provide high-quality, universal, comprehensive, lifelong health care. All the data point to a single payer system as the only way to accomplish this and control health care costs.” Obamacare will, according to figures compiled by Physicians for a National Health Plan (PNHP), leave at least 23 million people without insurance, a figure that translates into an estimated 23,000 unnecessary deaths a year among people who cannot afford care. Costs will continue to climb. There are no caps on premiums, including for people with “pre-existing conditions.” The elderly can be charged three times the rates provided to the young. Companies with predominantly female workforces can be charged higher gender-based rates. Most of us will soon be paying about 10 percent of our annual incomes to buy commercial health insurance, although this coverage will pay for only about 70 percent of our medical expenses. And those of us who become seriously ill, lose our incomes and cannot pay the skyrocketing premiums are likely to be denied coverage. The dizzying array of loopholes in the law—written in by insurance and pharmaceutical lobbyists—means, in essence, that the healthy will receive insurance while the sick and chronically ill will be priced out of the market. Medical bills already lead to 62 percent of personal bankruptcies, and nearly 80 percent of those declaring personal bankruptcy because of medical costs had insurance. The U.S. spends twice as much per capita on health care as other industrialized nations, $8,160. Private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume 31 percent of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single, nonprofit payer would save more than $400 billion per year, enough, the PNHP estimates, to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans. But as long as corporations determine policy, as long as they can use their money to determine who gets elected and what legislation gets passed, we remain hostages. It matters little in our corporate state that nearly two-thirds of the public wants single payer and that it is backed by 59 percent of doctors. Public debates on the Obama health care reform, controlled by corporate dollars, ruthlessly silence those who support single payer. The Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Max Baucus, a politician who gets more than 80 percent of his campaign contributions from outside his home state of Montana, locked out of the Affordable Care Act hearing a number of public health care advocates including Dr. Flowers and Dr. Paris; the two physicians and six other activists were arrested and taken away. Baucus had invited 41 people to testify. None backed single payer. Those who testified included contributors who had given a total of more than $3 million to committee members for their political campaigns. “It is not necessary to force Americans to buy private health insurance to achieve universal coverage,” said Russell Mokhiber of Single Payer Action. “There is a proven alternative that Congress didn’t seriously consider, and that alternative is a single payer national health insurance system. Congress could have taken seriously evidence presented by these single payer medical doctors that a single payer system is the only way to both control costs and cover everyone.” Occupy Portland Labor Solidarity Committee Job Finding Meeting   More Info: 503-239-9432 barbaragellis@earthlink.net  A job-finding meeting for the long-term unemployeds in  Multnomah’s East County and Clackamas county by OccupyPortland’s  Labor Solidarity committee has been set for Sunday afternoon, April  15. It will be held from 2 to 5 p.m. at SEIU Local 503’s  headquarters, 64th and SE Holgate boulevard. The purpose is to organize this sector of the unemployed into  obtaining public-works jobs in the Greater Portland area and Oregon  either by lobbying city and state officials and/or by starting a  Labor party advocating public-works jobs. OccupyPortland's current  focus is on East County and Clackamas County. It's part of the local  group's outreach to the most pressing needs of the 99% in the area:  unemployment. Speakers will be Oregon Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian  as keynoter; Mary Botkin, political coordinator for Council 75 of  Oregon’s AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal  Employees), on lobbying; Dan Meek, co-chair of the Independent Party  of Oregon, on how to start a party; and Barbara G. Ellis, journalist/ historian, on the WPA (Works Progress Administration) and  Minnesota’s Farmer-Labor party of the Great Depression era. Salon magazine, an influential online publication, recently quoted  Oregon’s Angus McGuire, communications director of SEIU Locals 49,  503’s We Are Oregon community program to help East County’s  unemployed. He saw “parallels with the Great Depression when  unemployed councils were pivotal to securing relief and jobs programs  as well as eviction defense on a mind-boggling scale.” New York City  councils quashed 77,000 evictions.  He indicated WAO polling of those  residents revealed a great “opportunity in organizing the  unemployed.” January figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics lists  1,100,000 people in the category of long-term unemployment (27+  months), officially called “discouraged workers.” Of that total,  638,000 are men, 421,000 are women, an overall increase of 6.6% over  the previous month. Oregon’s January statistics lists 15,900 long-term unemployed,  according to the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis.  It noted that  Oregon’s lower unemployment rate (8.9%) wasn’t “so much due to  improving labor market conditions, but rather due to people giving up  looking for work who are no longer counted among the unemployed.” Today’s political conditions mirror those of the Great Depression in  which President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Works Progress  Administration in May 1935 by Executive Order. Within seven months,  3,541,000 were on the WPA payroll. Jobs ranged from infrastructure  repair and construction to flood-control projects, building and  staffing thousands of schools, hospitals, and park systems. Today’s  additional possibility is in environmental areas.   TIME magazine noted in early February that the long-term unemployed  were at least 43% of the latest statistics (12,800,000) and predicted  that these “invisibles” will determine not just the economy and  stock market, but the November elections for president, Congress, and  state offices. Its business columnist noted: “The November elections  will likely be decided by swing states that have lots of  underemployed and discouraged workers” such as Pennsylvania, Ohio,  Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and Nevada. In Oregon, if those nearly 16,000 long-term unemployeds— as well as families and friends—take political action to obtain  public-works jobs prior to the November elections, they will make a  significant and positive change to the state’s unemployment situation. The Oregon Employment Department’s research division  reported that the state’s overall unemployment statistics for  January averaged 9.9%, but seven counties were at 12.0% to 14.6%:  Crook, Douglas, Grant, Harney, Jefferson, Lake, and Malheur. Crook  county had the highest number of unemployeds (14.6%), Clackamas and  Multnomah counties ranged from 8.0% to 9.9%. www.michaelmunk.com   US military occupation forces in Afganistan and Iraq under Commander-in-Chief Obama suffered 300 casualties in the period ending April 10, as the official casualty total for the Iraq and AfPak wars* rose to 112,983. The total includes 79,493 casualties since the US invaded Iraq in March, 2003 (Operations  "Iraqi Freedom" and "New Dawn"), and 33,490 since the US invaded Afganistan in November, 2001 (Operation "Eduring Freedom")   AFGANISTAN THEATER: US forces suffered 286 casualties in the week ending April 10, as the total rose to 33,490 including the new monthly report on those inflicted by "non-hostile" causes.  This includes 17,111 dead and wounded from "hostile" causes and 16,379 dead or medically evacuated (as of  April 2) from "non-hostile" causes.   IRAQ THEATER: Us forces suffered 14 "non hostile" casualties in the period ending April 10 as the total rose to 79,493. That includes 35,750 dead and wounded from what the Pentagon classifies as "hostile" causes and 43,743 dead or medically evacuated (as of  April 2) from "non-hostile" causes.   US media divert attention from the actual cost in American life and limb by reporting regularily only the total killed (6,412 - 4,488 in Iraq,1,924 in Afghanistan) but rarely mentioning those wounded in action (47,818--32,224 in Iraq, 15,594 in Afghanistan). They ignore the 58,753 (42,781 in Iraq,15,972 in AfPak (as of  April 2)  military casualties injured and ill seriously enough to be medivaced out of theater, even though the 6,412 total dead include 1,369 (962 in Iraq, 407 in Afghanistan) who died from those same "non hostile" causes, including 312 suicides (as of April 2) and at least 18 in Iraq from faulty KBR electrical work. *LIBYA :Operation "Odessy Dawn" launched in March, officially ended Oct 31, 2011 with no reported US casualties.     WIA are usually updated on Tuesday at www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf Non combat casualties are usually reported monthly at http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/castop.htm -------------------------------------------- visit the new photo gallery on my website www.michaelmunk.com Cheney cancels Canadian speech By: Staff Writer The Winnepeg Free Press, March 13, 2012 http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/breakingnews/Cheney-cancels-Canadian-speech-142458335.html?viewAllComments=y TORONTO -- Former U.S. vice-president Dick Cheney has cancelled a Canadian speaking appearance due to security concerns sparked by demonstrations during a visit he made to Vancouver last fall, the event promoter said Monday. Cheney, whom the protesters denounced as a war criminal, was slated to talk about his experiences in office and the current American political situation at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre on April 24. "After speaking with their security advisers, they changed their mind on coming to the event," said Spectre Live Corp.'s Ryan Ruppert, of Cheney and his daughter Elizabeth. "(They) decided it was better for their personal safety they stay out of Canada." Last Sept. 26, Cheney's appearance in Vancouver was marred by demonstrators who blocked the entrances to the exclusive Vancouver Club. visit the new photo gallery on my website www.michaelmunk.com Lake Oswego High: Racist Tweets are Only Tip of the Iceberg A racially insensitive, antagonizing environment has been the worst kept secret for generations By Bruce Poinsette The Skanner News, March 9, 2012 http://www.theskanner.com/article/Racist-Tweets-are-Only-Tip-of-the-Iceberg-2012-03-09 I wish I could say I was surprised to read that three football players from my Alma Mater Lake Oswego High School (LOHS) were suspended for targeting a former Black teammate with racist tweets, but I know better. I was watching from the bench on the infamous night when our crowd broke out into chants of "You can't read," and "Hooked on phonics," to taunt a Black Lincoln basketball player. It was an embarrassing time to say I represented LOHS and yet it provided a glimpse into the daily problematic behavior that is persistent throughout the school. As a Black student who went through the Lake Oswego (LO) school system, I've seen a culture of both systemic and overt racism that isolates students of color, especially Black. The town has the nickname "Lake No Negro" (or as one of the suspended football players put it, "Lake NoN****r") for a reason. According to Census Data, LO has a Black population of 0.7 percent. I've lived in LO all my life, written for the town newspaper, played in high school band and was on LOHS's only state championship basketball team, yet I still catch people pointing and staring at me like a zoo animal when I walk through town. When I was in school I stood out like sore thumb and was reminded of it all the time. In kindergarten, a Saudi student named Muhammad and I, the only two children of color in the class, were separated from the rest of the students and told we could play with blocks while the teacher taught the others how to read. My mother still gets upset when she remembers the class Reading Night and how I struggled in front of all my classmates and their parents. My kindergarten teacher would go on to suggest that I be held back, which my parents had to fight. This was just one of many instances where teachers had lower expectations of me than my white peers. In sixth grade I had to get 100 percents on every Wordly Wise test for five straight weeks to prove I deserved to be in an advanced group and was proficient enough in a textbook I had completed three years earlier at another school. I was told by a counselor that I "didn't look like a TAG student," when I applied for the Talented and Gifted (TAG) program in seventh grade. During high school basketball season, coaches didn't seem to care when other Black players were late or didn't attend classes, as long as they were eligible to play. As a junior I remember asking a spring league basketball coach to excuse me from a game (other players missed games for AAU and spring football practices with no punishment) so I could take my SATs. My minutes were drastically cut for the rest of the season. Unfortunately, the attitudes of offending adults seemed to manifest in students' daily interactions. The hallways and playgrounds were a hotbed for racist jokes and other offenses. I've lost count of the times I was told, "I didn't know you could talk like that," because I didn't sound like someone from a BET music video, which is sadly the only exposure many of my white peers had to Black people. Jokes that I only got into my advanced classes because of Affirmative Action were also a favorite of many students. What's disturbing is that while some people were mean spirited, the vast majority really didn't understand they were being offensive. The idea of respecting culture was a joke, both literally and figuratively. Meanwhile, any serious discussion of inequality by a minority was met with the accusation that "You must hate white people." Five years removed from high school graduation, I would be naive to think this culture of racial ignorance and white privilege has somehow been eradicated. Statements by school officials and parents trying to frame the football players' twitter comments as an isolated incident are misleading. A racially insensitive, antagonizing environment has been the worst kept secret for generations. This is an opportunity to be honest and address the root of intolerance in LO, rather than launch another public relations campaign that pretends race is not an issue in "Lake No Negro." It now appears that David J. Barron, now a Harvard law prof, (although its website does not mention his position as the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel acting head) is the "John Yoo" of the Obama administration. It was he, not Virginia Seitz, the current head of that office, who wrote and signed the infamous "Assassination Memo" of the OLC, according to anonymous sources who spoke with the New York Times last fall. Read it at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/world/middleeast/secret-us-memo-made-legal-case-to-kill-a-citizen.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all   It turns out that OLC has had numerous acting heads under Obama. Barron served from January 2009 to June 2010, replacing [unknown]. He was followed by Johnathan Cedarbaum until suceeded by Caroline Krass in December 2010, who reportedly quit in protest in June 2011 because Obama rejected her view that Obama's Libyan campaign was indeed a "war" that required congressional action. She was suceeded by Virginia Seitz, who was confirmed by the Senate as Assistant AG on June 30, 2011 and accoring to the DOJ website, is still in that position..   This corrects my previous suggestion that Seitz wrote the memo:        Virginia Seitz heads the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel, which provided Obama with >> the legal justification for assassinating US citizens on his order. Under >> the Bush administration this office became notorious for enabling torture >> under opinions written by staffer John Yoo and approved by Jay Bybee as >> OLC head. Yoo is still a law professor at UC Berkeley and Bybee was >> appointed by Bush to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ( Bybee is >> currently sitting in Portland). >> >> Stonewalling FOIA requests by the NYTimes and the ACLU, the Obama >> administration refuses to acknowledge that Seitz's OLC "assassination " >> document even exists. >> >> Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) has led the congressional challenge to the >> assassination program by demanding what he calls the "secret law" be made >> public. After AG Eric Holder failed to mention the OLC document in a >> speech yesterday (and refused to answer questions about it), Wyden >> declared: "These questions [about the program] should not be a matter of >> 'secret law' settled behind closed doors by a small number of government >> lawyers--every American has the right to understand when the government >> is allowed to kill them." >> >> The Obama adminsitration, which also relied on the OLC to claim that >> bombing Libya was not "war," asserts its killing of US citizens without >> due process was authorized by Congress when it signed off on the invasion >> of Afghanistan after 9/11 but refuses to make its legal reasoning public. >>   visit the new photo gallery on my website  www.michaelmunk.com On the other hand, Wyden leads a fight to get Obama to explain how he legally orders assassinations of US citizens. > Liberal media are always beating up the straw men and women of the > deranged Repubs but don't often note when they're joined by > Dems--especially designated liberals. > > Senate warmongers led by Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Graham (R-SC) have been > joined by almost one third of Senate in an "Israel First" demand --an even > more aggressive posture toward Iran than Obama has already adopted. As > Robert Perry points out > http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/18/lieberman-edges-us-to-war-with-iran/ > " the next preemptive war could be launched not against Iran for actually > building a bomb or even trying to build a bomb but rather for simply > having the skills that theoretically could be used sometime in the future > to build a bomb. The "red line" has been moved from some possible future > development to arguably what already exists." > > The Democratic warmonger cosponsors who include several "liberals" like > Wyden (OR) Brown (Ohio) Udall (Col) and Blumenthal (CT). Other Dems are > Casey (PA), (Maryland), Schumer and Gillibrand (NY), Nelson (FL) and > Nelson (Neb), Pryor (Ark), Menendez (NJ), Cardin and Mikulski (Md), > McCaskill (Mo), and Coons (Del). They join 14 of the most deranged Repubs > plus Collins (Me) and Brown (Mass). > > > > visit the new photo gallery on my website > www.michaelmunk.com "The revolution is not going to  come through the labor movement." And that is true, at least  in its current configuration. But the revolution that many  occupiers dream about can't happen without workers either.  If the Occupy movement keeps growing, then organized labor  will have to decide which side it is really on." The optimistic take should have also considered the often tense relation between Occupy and the traditionally militant ILWU in Occupy's efforts to shut down west coast ports in solidarity with its Longview WA local' struggle with scab herder EGT.-MM  What Occupy Taught the Unions  SEIU and others are embracing the movement that has  succeeded as they have faded  by Arun Gupta  Salon.com February 2, 2012  http://www.salon.com/2012/02/02/occupys_challenge_to_big_labor/singleton/ VIA Portside http://portside.org  Unions are in a death spiral. Private sector unionism has  all but vanished, accounting for a measly 6.9 percent of  the workforce. Public sector workers are being hammered by  government cutbacks and hostile media that blame teachers,  nurses and firefighters for budget crises. To counter this  trend organized labor banked on creating more hospitable  organizing conditions by contributing hundreds of millions  of dollars to the Democratic Party the last two election  cycles. In return Obama abandoned the Employee Free Choice  Act, which would have made union campaigns marginally  easier, failed to push for an increase in the minimum wage,  and installed an education secretary who attacks teachers  and public education.  The Obama administration's dismal record on labor issues has  been compounded by the rise of the Tea Party movement, which  portrays unions as public enemy No. 1, and the Supreme  Court's Citizens United decision, which opened the political  floodgates to corporate money. By last year, organized labor  realized that its days were numbered unless it took a  different approach.  So it went back to basics. Across the country unions threw  resources into community organizing, aiming to build a  broad-based constituency outside of the workplace for  progressive politics. In cities like Chicago, Philadelphia  and Portland, Ore., newly formed community groups found  ready support for organizing around issues of economic  justice, but they were stymied by a national debate  dominated by voices blaming government spending for an  economic crisis caused by Wall Street.  Occupy Wall Street changed that. It flipped the debate from  austerity to inequality, uncorked a wellspring of creative  energy and started taking creative risks that unions  typically shun. Within weeks unions adopted the 99 percent  versus the 1 percent and started organizing actions under  the Occupy banner. One labor leader said "the Occupy  movement has changed unions'" messaging and ability to  mobilize members. Union-affiliated organizers around the  country say it has helped workers win better contracts and  bolstered labor reformers.  While union organizers stress the importance of the  movement's autonomy, they are also joining in, providing  advice, experience, supplies and access to money and space.  Many believe, as one Chicago labor activist put it, that  "Occupy is too big to fail." In fact, the Occupy movement is  in the vanguard of labor, enticing workers into the streets,  making them negotiate harder and think bigger.  But the Occupy movement is also a double-edged sword. Some  observers say organized labor shares the blame for its  decline because unions treat members as clients who pay dues  in return for benefits, are riddled with self-serving  leaders, stuck in a busted collective bargaining system, too  close to Democrats and too willing to ally with big business  in return for jobs. If the Occupy movement revitalizes  labor, as the left did during the 1930s, then it could  invigorate rank-and-file militancy, foster internal  democracy and sweep out officials who protect their fiefdoms  and perks at the expense of fighting for the 99 percent.  "Point of no return"  Angus Maguire is communications director at We Are Oregon, a  community group active in Portland that was established last  summer by two Service Employees International Union locals.  In 2011, he says, "there was a general conversation  throughout SEIU, taking a sober look at the decline in labor  organizing. It was an explicit acknowledgment that if labor  doesn't change how it engages with people it would cease to  exist in a meaningful way. It was reaching a point of no  return."  In Oregon, SEIU locals 49 and 503, which represent more than  30,000 workers, decided they needed to organize non-union  members outside of the workplace "around the most pressing  issues relating to the economic crisis." The genial 35-year-  old father of two says, "We did a door-to-door outreach  campaign in East Portland, the poorest part of the city,  talking to people about unemployment and foreclosure."  Maguire says We Are Oregon's goals are twofold. "One is to  organize and achieve material wins. The second is to change  the political environment and conversation. When we started  last summer there wasn't much conversation in the media  around wealth disparity."  On the East Coast, Anne Gemmell, political director of Fight  for Philly, says the organization was founded in May by  labor and faith-based groups such as the SEIU, to organize  around issues of economic justice. One factor was Citizens  United, which she says "was a scary development for churches  and labor. If the gates are thrown wide open to corporate  money, then traditional organizing models could be in  danger."  Fight for Philly also began with a door-knocking campaign,  she says. "We were testing interest in fighting back against  inevitable service cuts as the economic meltdown hit  municipalities, and we had over 10,000 conversations." Fight  for Philly, she went on, is "trying to educate people that  the budget crisis is due to the 2008 economic meltdown  caused by banking and corporate greed, not by government  waste, fraud and mismanagement as many anti-government  voices would have the public believe." But last summer, she  explains, the media discussion "was all about austerity  debates, the super committee and how we are going to cut  social spending. It was not about growing inequality."  In stepped Occupy Wall Street on Sept. 17, but nearly every  left, progressive and labor group was skeptical or even  dismissive of the few hundred scruffy campers raging against  the machine in downtown Manhattan.  Some of the wariness stemmed from OWS's congenital aversion  to establishment politics. On the first day of the  occupation Zuccotti Park I talked to organizers, seasoned  and new, who were committed to radical democracy, skeptical  of electoral politics and opposed to capitalism. Their  politics couldn't have been more distant from unions like  the SEIU, Teamsters and United Auto Workers, which are top  down and centralized, joined at the hip with the Democratic  Party and eager, even desperate, to be the junior partner of  capital.  Even before Occupy Wall Street pitched its first tent, the  politics were so amorphous that one person kept blocking  outreach to unions on the grounds that it needed to attract  Tea Partyers. "When Occupy was conceived there was no  outreach to labor," says Ari Paul, a New York City labor  reporter. "They were hesitant to even let unions be a part  of it, because they were seen as bureaucratic and short-  sighted."  Jackie DiSalvo, who attended pre-occupation general  assemblies, helped change that by forming the labor outreach  committee the first week of OWS. She is a retired associate  professor of English who took part in the 1964 Mississippi  Freedom Summer.  "I was attracted to the movement because they adopted the  line of the 99 percent against the 1 percent," DiSalvo said  in an interview. "It was very class-conscious politics. I  thought the only way it was going to have any strength was  to have a working class and trade union base because they  bring resources, numbers and political realism. They would  give Occupy a broader constituency than the young people  sleeping in Zuccotti who were precarious workers, unemployed  or students."  For the first few days, however, the unions stayed away  because "the initial press reports were Occupy Wall Street  was a bunch of freaks," says DiSalvo.  On Sept. 22, five days after it began, Occupy Wall Street  received its first union backing: delegates from the City  University of New York's 25,000-member Professional Staff  Congress marched to the park in a show of support. Other  unions "were hesitant," says DiSalvo, "because they didn't  know who we were and what we were going to do, but they very  quickly got over their hesitancy and embraced us, endorsed  us, and provided support such as supplies, storage room,  printing literature and meeting space."  What changed?  On Saturday an unpermitted march that began at Zuccotti Park  swelled to more than 2,500 people as it coursed through the  streets of Lower Manhattan. It was set upon by riot police,  and in the first iconic incident of casual police violence  against occupiers, a commander was filmed pepper-spraying  women in the face who were standing on a public sidewalk.  The video of the women falling to the ground and screaming  in agony went viral. When I visited Zuccotti Park on Monday,  Sept. 26, it was bursting with occupiers and support. Unions  started showing up, and I heard the same story from two  reputable sources. A group of SEIU organizers with the  gigantic healthcare workers Local 1199 stopped by to deliver  blankets, ponchos, food and water. The labor organizers said  that the previous Friday they had been barred by their union  leadership from visiting the occupation, but now SEIU was on  board.  DiSalvo says, "It was the police attacks that made them  move. But it was also progressives in the unions who won the  leadership over." Over the next few months around 30 unions  endorsed Occupy Wall Street including SEIU and the AFL-CIO  executive board, whose president, Richard Trumka, traveled  to New York to meet with the labor outreach committee.  "Trumka felt that unions had been raising the point about  the growing inequality and the seizure of power of the  rich," says DiSalvo. "Occupy Wall Street was the first time  those issues received massive attention in the press. He  felt we were creating a lot of support for labor that they  were unable to generate because we broke through the media  blackout."  "Spillover effect"  There is widespread agreement that the Occupy movement has  directly benefited labor.  In Chicago an organizer with SEIU who wished to remain  anonymous called the Occupy movement "a game changer." He  said his union "recognized that it can no longer focus just  on what happens in the workplace. Our members who work in a  hospital go home to a community that is being devastated by  foreclosures and school closures."  The SEIU co-founded Stand Up! Chicago, which kicked off last  June with a protest against a convention for CFOs of major  corporations. When Occupy Chicago formed it coincided with  Stand Up! Chicago's week of actions last October in the  financial district. Occupiers were maintaining an around-  the-clock protest at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and  the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. The organizer says, "We  had this great synergy because we were doing actions in the  financial district and Occupy Chicago was right there and  would join us. They helped us get the attention of the press  in a way we wouldn't have otherwise."  "Occupy is a true left expression and expansion of free  speech," Anne Gemmell of Fight for Philly says. "We are  going to occupy this space until you pay attention to us. It  has empowered the organizations that do the door knocking,  phone calling and rally planning." She explains that the  occupation at Philadelphia City Hall helped workers in  contract negotiations. Gemmell says about 1,000 support  staff and stagehands "were in negotiations that were tense  and confrontational with the Kimmel Center, a major arts  center near the occupation." A week after Occupy  Philadelphia set up camp the workers won a contract on  better-than-expected terms. Following that victory 2,500  office cleaners who were negotiating with the management of  some 100 corporate high-rises around City Hall inked a  contract with wage increases for three years in a row.  "Occupy has a positive spillover effect, even if it's not  directly involved in the organizing campaign," says Gemmell.  "There were very few office cleaners or stagehands ...  sleeping in tents at city hall, but they are all part of the  99 percent and benefited from the new political climate that  occupations created."  "Thrown together"  Steve Early, a former union organizer and author of "The  Civil Wars in U.S. Labor," says, "I was encouraged by the  positive interaction between Occupy Wall Street and the  Communication Workers of America," which staged a 15-day  strike against Verizon last August. Early says after the CWA  called off the strike with inconclusive results, "the union  was struggling to find ways to take action against Verizon."  Because Zuccotti Park is close to the work locations of CWA  Local 1101, which was involved with the strike, CWA workers  were regulars at the occupation.  "Things have gotten so bad in the private state of Verizon  that workers are much more open to different viewpoints,"  says Early. "At Zuccotti, unemployed youth were being thrown  together with workers who've been with Verizon for 20 years  and are trying to hold on to their pay and benefits."  The cross-pollination aided dissidents in Local 1101 who had  been organizing for four years, Early says. "The reform  slate swept out the incumbents in the Local 1101 election  held in November. Their victory was positively impacted by  their work with the Occupy movement as well as other  organizations like Labor Notes and the Association for Union  Democracy." Early adds, "The synergy works best when there  is an organized group within the unions. The Occupy movement  needs someone to relate to within labor."  Early claims Occupy's ability to organize with labor is  hamstrung by the tendency of many unions to undermine rank-  and-file militancy and democracy. He says union attempts to  mobilize the public against corporations - like SEIU's Fight  for a Fair Economy campaign - have not resonated as well as  the more spontaneous and grass-roots activities of OWS.  A year ago the 2.1-million member union launched the Fight  for a Fair Economy to mobilize low-income workers in urban  areas against public sector cuts. The price tag for the  campaign was in the millions of dollars, according to the  Wall Street Journal. Early says, "The campaign looked good  on paper, but was top-down, staff-driven and a consultant-  shaped message that was boilerplate union rhetoric. The  ground troops for Fight for a Fair Economy did not have much  visibility."  As for another campaign run by the California Nurses  Association/National Nurses United, which called for a  financial transaction tax on Wall Street traders, Early says  it was "much more savvy and programmatic but it framed the  fight as `Main Street vs. Wall Street,' without actually  reaching many Main Streeters beside nurses themselves."  Early says contrast that with the Occupy movement. "It is  bottom up, decentralized, has much better framing and uses  direct action creatively. These unions and others have  glommed onto it and have adopted the 99 percent versus the 1  percent rhetoric."  Like many, Early sees potential for occupiers and unions to  learn from each other, but he puts the emphasis on the  workers themselves. He says, "Hopefully, rank-and-filers  will realize they don't need to wait for grand plans and  official orders from union headquarters. As Wisconsin  workers demonstrated a year ago, they can take their own  creative initiatives and have much more impact. Plus,  exposure to Occupy will hopefully foster more Madison-style  cross-union activity and bottom-up decision making. By  continuing to organize, agitate and educate around labor  issues - while learning from union members in the process -  occupiers can help spread an anti-capitalist message that is  relevant to day-to-day workplace struggles but very  different from the much fuzzier official messaging of  organized labor."  The Occupy movement's 99 percent message could prove  troublesome for labor leaders. Ari Paul argues. "There is a  limit to how much union leaders will fight the 1 percent  because they do depend on the 1 percent." By way of example  he points to the issue of healthcare: "One of the reasons  unions don't call for universal healthcare is because it is  more politically expedient to get companies to fund good  healthcare plans for union members who will keep voting you  into office."  DiSalvo echoes this sentiment. "The labor movement has  fairly narrow orientation of just fighting for their own  members' contract demands to the point they don't fight for  their own members when they become unemployed. They should  have set up an unemployed workers council by now."  That is a big question on many people's minds. While  organized labor is potentially a powerful force with 17  million Americans in unions, it's dwarfed by the more than  25 million people who are unemployed or can't get full-time  work.  "The labor movement has so far missed an opportunity in  organizing the unemployed and underemployed," admits Maguire  of We Are Oregon. He says there are parallels with the Great  Depression when unemployed councils were pivotal to securing  relief and jobs programs as well as eviction defense on a  mind-boggling scale. (Some historians claim that councils in  New York City moved 77,000 evicted families back into their  homes.) Maguire maintains, however, that there "are also big  differences today in terms of the political climate and  class consciousness. It's fair to say there is an  opportunity in organizing the unemployed, and no one  including the labor movement has figured out how to do  that."  Unions are trying to think more creatively. On Nov. 17, as  thousands of occupiers were trying to actually shut down  Wall Street, unions organized actions in three dozen cities,  focusing on shutting down bridges to highlight the crumbling  infrastructure across the United States and the jobs that  could be created by funding repair and rebuilding. Nearly  1,000 people were arrested in the peaceful sit-down protests  and some bridges shut down for hours, but the unions seem  afraid to escape the confines of the very system responsible  for their demise.  The aim was to put pressure on Congress to pass the Obama  administration's jobs bill that could be most charitably  described as inadequate. Paul, the labor reporter, notes  that many unions back corporations in the hopes of getting  union jobs: Carpenters and electricians unions in New York  City side with the real estate industry in support of mega-  construction projects and the United Steel Workers has been  pushing for World Trade Organization sanctions against China  over allegations of "unfair trade practices."  More broadly, Steve Early has taken SEIU to task for  collaborating with the healthcare industry against the  interests of its union members. And Paul notes that leaders  of New York's Transit Workers Union Local 100, which was one  of the first unions to endorse Occupy Wall Street, has not  actively challenged the investment banks that make hundreds  of millions of dollars in profit on the bonds New York State  relies on to fund mass transit. Paul says while Occupy Wall  Street has been calling for the public transit debt to be  canceled, TWU leaders "do not publicly criticize the Wall  Street banks too much because the same banks are managing  the workers' pensions."  Many union organizers counter that labor is in a different  position than the Occupy movement, but they can still work  together. An SEIU organizer in Chicago, who asked not to be  identified by name, says, "When you are a labor leader you  have to be very pragmatic because you are making decisions  about contracts, wages and healthcare that affect your  members. What's exciting about Occupy is that it doesn't  have those contradictions. Occupy doesn't have to have a  million conversations to mobilize its members. They just do  it."  Anne Gemmell seconds that. She sees Occupy benefiting labor  in part because it doesn't have any issues of potential  liability that a union with resources, members and paid  staff do. "There are no leashes holding Occupy's energy  back."  That energy will intensify this year. Occupy Los Angeles has  put out a call for a general strike on May Day. There are  plans for a month-long occupation of Chicago in May when the  rulers of the world come to town in the form of the G-8 and  NATO, and it seems likely that many occupiers will flock to  the Democratic and Republican national conventions next  summer.  Next fall the presidential election could see both sides at  odds as occupiers will be decrying both parties as  hopelessly corrupted by corporate dollars, even as organized  labor mobilizes tens of thousands of union members to get  out the vote for the Democrats and Obama.  The Chicago organizer says, "The revolution is not going to  come through the labor movement." And that is true, at least  in its current configuration. But the revolution that many  occupiers dream about can't happen without workers either.  If the Occupy movement keeps growing, then organized labor  will have to decide which side it is really on."  [Arun Gupta, a New York writer and co-founder of Occupy the  Wall Street Journal, covers the Occupy movement for Salon] visit the new photo gallery on my website www.michaelmunk.com   The article targets only Aero in its report on the "torture taxi"" business. But one of its links was to Portland-based Bayard Foreign Marketing, a CIA front managed by the late attorney Scott Kaplan. In 2004, it bought a Gulfstream V permitted to use U.S. military bases with the tail number N44982 (formerly N379P and N8068V) from another CIA front, Premier Executive Transport Services. The plane was used by the CIA to kidnapp suspected terrorists and deliver them to its secret torture chambers around the world. The Oregon Bar declined to discipline Kaplan in 2007, presumably for the same reason the article says another torture taxi company was let off the hook by the courts in 2008: the federal government pleaded a "state secrets" defense. That company, although not named in the article, was Jeppesen Travel Services, a Boeing subsidiary. Mike Turnauer Mike Turnauer has sent you the following story: McClatchy Washington Bureau Posted on Friday, Jan. 20, 2012 N.C. air transport company Aero has role in extraordinary rendition, report says By Jay Price SMITHFIELD, N.C. — With fresh ammunition from a University of North Carolina law school report, activists renewed their call Thursday for state officials to take legal action against Aero Contractors Ltd. For years the Johnston County, N.C., air transport company, which has links to the CIA, has been accused of being a taxi service for paramilitary teams that pick up terrorism suspects in one country and fly them to another where it's easier to interrogate and, perhaps, torture them. The process is known as extraordinary rendition. Law professor Deborah M. Weissman and members of the protest group North Carolina Stop Torture Now gave copies of their report to representatives of North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and Gov. Bev. Perdue on Thursday morning, then released it during a news conference at the Johnston County Airport, where Aero is based. Read More... visit the new photo gallery on my website www.michaelmunk.com Watch Youtube on the attempted disruption of the Seattle labor-Occupy meeting Jan 13 that shows the growing split between some ILWU leaders vs some of its locals,members and union supporters associated with Occupy (see attachment). From: carol isaac  January 14, 2012    Labor Temple in Seattle last Friday.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRFPz8qsc1k&feature=youtu.be www.michaelmunk.com visit the new photo gallery on my website   visit the new photo gallery on my website  Columbia River pilot wary of being caught in middle of EGT labor dispute By Erik Olson The [Longview] Daily News, January 12, 2012 http://tdn.com/news/local/columbia-river-pilot-wary-of-being-caught-in-middle-of/article_438ef59e-3d92-11e1-84ef-001871e3ce6c.htmlA veteran Columbia River pilot says he's concerned that he could be compelled to steer a ship to the EGT grain terminal at the Port of Longview - even if mass protests create a risky environment. Phillip Massey, 62, of Kalama, said he isn't taking sides in the ongoing labor dispute between union longshoremen and EGT. However, he said pilots could be caught in a pinch: They risk losing their licenses if they decline to pilot a vessel, and they risk possible retaliation from protesters if they do."I'm trying to navigate the middle," Massey said in an interview Wednesday. River pilots are the mandated guides for large vessels and freighters sailing on Columbia from Astoria to inland ports. Massey has worked as a Columbia River pilot since 1996 and spent 45 years in the maritime industry. He said he knows other pilots have expressed similar concerns, but he stressed that he does not speak for the Columbia River Pilots Association, which determines scheduling. The pilots are paid as independent contractors by the shippers. A large number of protesters is expected to greet the EGT ship. Massey said he's not concerned that local longshoremen will cause problems for the pilots, but fringe elements from the hundreds or even thousands of out-of-town protesters might resort to harassment even after the ship has come and gone. Also, a strong law-enforcement presence might add fuel to the fire, Massey said. If he's scheduled to pilot a ship headed for EGT, Massey said he would take into the account safety factors, such as whether any smaller ships are blocking the freighter, before deciding whether to pilot the vessel."If it's unacceptable, I don't think I would do it," he said. At the same time, Massey said he realizes the pilots have an important responsibility to provide service to all vessels, regardless of the cargo."Within the profession, I think we are pushing ourselves to provide the service. That's what we do, pilot the ships," Massey said. A date of the first ship's arrival to pick up grain from the EGT terminal has not been determined. The uncertain situation surrounding the EGT ship has little precedent on the Columbia River, but the rules for pilots are clear, said Kim Duncan,chairwoman of the Oregon Board of Maritime Pilots, a regulating agency."The pilot must board the ship. It's unequivocal. If someone defied that obligation, then there would be a disciplinary hearing," she said. Duncan added that pilots could lose their license or face lesser penalties for refusing to board the ship, even if they see possible safety hazards. The pilots' association is directing members to obey state law, according to Captain Paul Amos, the group's president."With our license comes an obligation to comply with the rules set by the Oregon Board of Maritime Pilots and we take that responsibility very seriously. If an individual pilot feels his or her safety is at risk, that is an issue between the individual pilot and the Board of Maritime Pilots to resolve," Amos said in a written statement. The U.S. Coast Guard will escort the EGT ship up the river to Longview, and local law enforcement also are expected to have a solid presence. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union has argued for about a year that EGT should be required to hire union longshore labor for the 25 to 35jobs inside the terminal. The company disagrees, and the dispute is expected to go before a federal judge this spring. ILWU workers have staffed all West Coast grain terminals since the 1930s,and union officials are concerned a loss at EGT would weaken their positions in future contract negotiations with other grain companies. The ILWU, Cowlitz-Wahkiakum Central Labor Council and Occupy Longview have put out nationwide calls to protest the arrival of the EGT ship. The labor groups, however, are urging their members to avoid blocking the ship or interfering with maritime commerce in any way. A federal judge has already has fined the union more than $300,000 for blocking grain deliveries by rail and allegedly damaging the terminal in defiance of a court order. Police have made more than 130 arrests of ILWU workers and supporters in connection with protests at the terminal. Occupy organizers say they hope to somehow thwart the loading of the grain ship by blocking access to the Port of Longview. The group's organizers say they are planning a peaceful protest, similar to a Dec. 12 demonstration that shut down the port for a half day. The Class War Has Begun (http://www.theportlandalliance.org/Munk) And the very "Class-less-ness" of our society makes the conflict more volatile, not less. by Frank Rich New York Magazine, Oct 30, 2011   * For details on the Portland reference, see the Portland Red Guide (site # 49, pp 62-63) For the rest of Rich's article, go to http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/10/30-4 During the death throes of Herbert HooverÙs presidency in June 1932, desperate bands of men traveled to Washington and set up camp within view of the Capitol. The first contingent journeyed all the way from Portland, Oregon,* but others soon converged from all over—alone, in groups, with families—until their main Hooverville on the Anacostia RiverÙs fetid mudflats swelled to a population as high as 20,000. The men, World War I veterans who could not find jobs, became known as the Bonus Army—for the modest government bonus they were owed for their service. Under a law passed in 1924, they had been awarded roughly $1,000 each, to be collected in 1945 or at death, whichever came first. But they didnÙt want to wait any longer for their pre–New Deal entitlement—especially given that Congress had bailed out big business with the creation of a Reconstruction Finance Corporation earlier in its session. Father Charles Coughlin, the populist “Radio Priest” who became a phenomenon for railing against “greedy bankers and financiers,” framed WashingtonÙs double standard this way: “If the government can pay $2  billion to the bankers and the railroads, why cannot it pay the $2 billion to the soldiers?"   [ MPI/Getty Images)] The Bonus Army veterans stage a mass vigil on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol in 1932. visit the new photo gallery on my website  www.michaelmunk.com   First The Oregonian ignores and then dismisses the ILWU's battle with the Portland scab herder EGT*and now pronounces its knee jerk contempt ("illegal and inexcusable" behavior) for the working class. Its prescription-- let a judge decide-- is based on the knowledge that pro-union judges are a rare as a doug fir in the Alvord desert.  Several years ago, the ILWU held its international convention in Portland.  After a session, the hundreds of delegates marched from the convention  hotel to support the pickets at Powell's Books on Burnsde. Police in riot  gear and nightsticks barred the street. The longshoremen led by their  president pushed right through the police line, which gave way and all  traffic stopped as the demo joined the picket line.  The reason the ILWU survived scabs, vigilantes and McCarthyism is that as  a militant union, they haven't lain down before the bosses' judges with  their injunctions and police enforcers. And that's why the "somebody" who  can answer the Oregonian editorial board's question is not a judge but  union members and supporters who practice the solidarity contained in the  old Wobbly slogan: "An injury to one is an injury to all." -MM  * for details, go to  http://streetroots.wordpress.com/2011/08/25/biggest-labor-struggle-in-years-ismissed-by-major-media/ *************************************************************** Longview needs a swift answer  By The Oregonian Editorial Board  September 25, 2011  http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2011/09/longview_needs_a_swift_answer.html  Yes or no, is a new terminal at the port obliged to use longshore union  workers?  They are literally fighting for jobs at the Port of Longview. The  pepper-spray arrests of longshore union leaders and other protesters  Wednesday was the latest spasm of violence surrounding a new $200 million  grain terminal on the Lower Columbia River.  Scores of members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local  21 have been arrested this month on charges of blocking trains, damaging  rail lines, spilling grain, threatening private security guards, and most  recently, assaulting police officers. That behavior is illegal and  inexcusable, and the blame belongs entirely with the union.  But it is the responsibility of the federal courts to resolve in a timely  manner the legal question at the heart of the incendiary dispute that has  passions running dangerously high not just at the port, but throughout  Longview and at ports elsewhere on the West Coast. Is Portland-based EGT,  the owner of the sophisticated new terminal, obliged under its lease with  the Port of Longview to use longshore union labor?  We'll not guess at the answer. But the stakes are high, and not just  because jobs are now so scarce. Since the 1930s, and the sometimes bloody  union battles of that era, the ILWU has handled grain at every major port  on the West Coast. If EGT breaks the longshore union's hold on grain at  the Longview port, it could embolden grain companies at other West Coast  ports to challenge one of the United States' most powerful unions.  This is a major economic issue potentially affecting the entire West  Coast, and it comes a crucial time for Northwest farmers trying to get  their wheat and other grain to market. However, the federal courts are  taking their sweet time with EGT's lawsuit against the port. The Longview  Daily News reports that a ruling isn't expected until sometime next  spring.  That's a mighty slow train to justice on an issue that threatens every day  to hurtle out of control, just as it did on Sept. 7 and 8, with hundreds  of union protesters stormed the EGT terminal. Again, there's no excuse for  the union's actions or for the smearing of the members of another union,  the Gladstone-based International Union of Operating Engineers Local 701,  which EGT's operating contractor has turned to for workers. The members of  the engineers union are not "scabs" or interlopers -- in fact, their  local's jurisdiction covers Southwest Washington, including the  Longview-Kelso area.  This is an issue that already has heated to a slow boil for a year. And it  has been more than nine months since EGT sued the port, arguing that it is  not bound by its lease to contract with the longshore union. And soon, it  will be three months since the port asked a federal judge to order EGT to  honor an agreement to hire Local 21 labor.  Longview shouldn't have to wait another six to nine months for an answer.  The community is burning through its limited law enforcement resources to  clear the way for grain trains to reach the EGT terminal. Last week there  were police in riot gear on hand from at least eight jurisdictions; police  even felt compelled to deploy an armored vehicle called the "Peacekeeper."  Cowlitz County Sheriff Mark Nelson had it right when he told The Daily  News, "The courts should recognize that this is not a situation that can  sit on a legal shelf for six to eight months. ... "Somebody needs to step  up and move this thing along."  That somebody is a federal judge.  visit the new photo gallery on my website  www.michaelmunk.com   ******************************************************************************** War update!  US military occupation forces in Iraq and Afganistan and attacking forces in Libya under Commander-in-Chief Obama suffered 111 combat casualties in the week ending March 22, as the official casualty total rose to 102,681. The total includes 77,833 casualties since the US invaded Iraq in March, 2003 (Operations  'Iraqi Freedom" and "New Dawn"), 24,848 since the US invaded Afganistan in November, 2001 (Operation "Eduring Freedom").and none since it attacked Libya (Operation "Odessy Dawn").this month. IRAQ THEATER: US forces suffered one combat casualty in the week ending March 22, as  the total rose to 77,833. That includes 35,553 dead and wounded from what the Pentagon classifies as "hostile" causes and 42,280 dead and medically evacuated (as of  Feb. 28) from "non-hostile" causes. NOTE: There are still 50,000 US troops in Iraq, but they rarely seek combat and remain in their bases most of the time. AFGANISTAN THEATER: US forces suffered 110 combat casualties in the week ending March 22, as the official total rose to 24,856 The total includes 11,848 dead and wounded from "hostile" causes and 13,008 dead and medically evacuated (as of  Feb 28) from "non-hostile" causes.  LIBYA THEATER The two air force officers in the downed F-15E were reportedly rescued but there was no information on whether they were injured.. US media divert attention from the actual cost in American life and limb by only reporting regularily the total killed (5,945 -4,444 in Iraq, 1,501 in Afghanistan) but rarely mentioning those wounded in action (42,732--32,051 in Iraq, 10, 681 in Afghanistan). They ignore the 55,287 ( 41,338 in Iraq, 13,008 in AfPak as of Feb 28) military casualties injured and ill seriously enough to be medivaced out of theater, even though the 5,945 total dead include 1,276 (942 in Iraq, 334 in Afghanistan) who died from those same "non hostile" causes, including 282 suicides (as of Feb 28) and at least 18 from faulty KBR electrical work. WIA are usually updated on Tuesday at http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf non combat casualties are usually reported monthly at http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/castop.htm  visit my website www.michaelmunk.com
	Please forward at will. This message from UFPJ legislative action shows Earl Blumenauer as a co-sponsor of Barbara Lee's "Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act," so if constituents contact him ask him also to vote for the Lee-Nadler-Stark amendment to the Continuing Resolution, they should also thank him for the co-sponsorship. None of the other Oregon House members (Wu, Schrader, DeFazio or Walden) are co-sponsors.   Chris Lowe Christopher Lowe         As of now, the House has still not voted on the Lee-Nadler-Stark amendment to the Continuing Resolution (which funds the government for the remainder of FY 2011.).This amendment would strike $90 billion from the $100 billion allotted for the war in Afghanistan, leaving $10 billion for the safe and responsible withdrawal of all US troops. ***There is still time to call your member of Congress to urge a "yes" vote on the amendment.  Capitol Switchboard: (202)-224-3121         On another front, Congresswoman Barbara Lee yesterday introduced her Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act, limiting funding to the safe and orderly redeployment of all US troops and military contractors. Thanksto the great work of folks on this list and other national peace groups, there are now 47 co-sponsors for this piece of legislation. The most recent list is pasted into the bottom of this email.         ***Please call your Representative today and  be sure to mention both items: a "yes vote on the Lee-Nadler-Stark Amendment to the CR and co-sponsorship of the Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act.  Capitol Switchboard: (202)-224-3121 Please keep us posted on responses  rustiandgael@unitedforpeace.org   Thanks to everyone for a great effort.   Rusti and Gael, co-conveners UFPJ-Legislative Working Group --------------------------------- Current original co-sponsors of the Responsible End to the War in Afghanistan Act in the 112th Congress are as follows: Rep. Karen Bass / Rep. Earl Blumenauer / Rep. Michael E. Capuano / Rep. Judy Chu / Rep. Yvette D. Clarke / Rep. William Lacy Clay / Rep. Emanuel Cleaver Rep. John Conyers Jr. / Rep. Elijah E. Cummings / Rep. Diana DeGette / Rep. Donna F. Edwards / Rep. Keith Ellison / Rep. Sam Farr / Rep. Bob Filner Rep. Barney Frank / Rep. Marcia L. Fudge / Rep. John Garamendi / Rep. Raul M. Grijalva / Rep. Colleen W. Hanabusa / Rep. Michael M. Honda Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. / Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee / Rep. Walter B. Jones / Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson / Rep. John Lewis / Rep. Zoe Lofgren Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich / Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney / Rep. Jim McDermott / Rep. George Miller / Rep. Gwen Moore / Rep. Grace F. Napolitano Rep. John W. Olver / Rep. Donald M. Payne / Rep. Chellie Pingree / Rep. Ron Paul / Rep. Linda Sanchez / Rep. Loretta Sanchez / Rep. Jan D. Schakowsky Rep. José E. Serrano / Rep. Jackie Speier / Rep. Pete Stark / Rep. Bennie G. Thompson / Rep. Edolphus Towns / Rep. Maxine Waters / Rep. Peter Welch Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey   visit my website www.michaelmunk.com within these red lines:   © 2007-2011 Michael Munk. All Rights Reserved.   Even after the popular rejection of several of their other middle east allies, Obama and his hired hand Susan Rice continue their invaluable service to the Israeli Lobby. Even his pleas to Abbas were rejected, and Obama stands isolated from the over 14 members of the Secuirty Council -MM     US vetoes UN vote on settlements Washington blocks resolution condemning Israeli buildings on Palestinian land as illegal and calling for quick halt.   Al-Jazeera, Feb 18,2011 http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/2011218201653970232.html     The United States vetoed a UN resolution Friday that would have condemned Israeli settlements as "illegal" and called for an immediate halt to all settlement building.   All 14 other Security Council members voted in favour of the resolution.   British Ambassador Mark Lyall Grant, speaking on behalf of his country, France and Germany, condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank. "They are illegal under international law," he said.   He added that the European Union's three biggest nations hope that an independent state of Palestine will join the United Nations as a new member state by September 2011.   The Obama administration's veto is certain to anger Arab countries and Palestinian supporters around the world. An abstention would have angered the Israelis, the closest US ally in the region, as well as Democratic and Republican supporters of Israel in the American Congress.   Washington says it opposes settlements in principal, but claims that the UN Security Council is not the appropriate venue for resolving the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.   US ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice told council members that the veto "should not be misunderstood to mean we support settlement activity.   "While we agree with our fellow council members and indeed with the wider world about the folly and illegitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity, we think it unwise for this council to attempt to resolve the core issues that divide Israelis and Palestinians," she said.   Pressure to drop resolution   Earlier, the Obama administration has exerted pressure on the Palestinian Authority to drop the UN resolution in exchange for other measures.   Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has refused Washington's request to withdraw a UN Security Council resolution demanding Israel to freeze settlement expansion on occupied Palestinian land.   The decision was made unanimously by the Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive and the central committee of Abbas's Fatah movement on Friday, at a meeting to discuss US President Barack Obama's appeal to Abbas by telephone a day earlier.   "The Palestinian leadership has decided to proceed to the UN Security Council, to pressure Israel to halt settlement activities. The decision was taken despite American pressure," said Wasel Abu Yousef, a PLO executive member.   Obama, who had said Israeli settlements in territories it captured in a 1967 war are illegal and unhelpful to the peace process, says the resolution could shatter hopes of reviving the stalled talks.   In a 50-minute phone call on Thursday, he asked Abbas to drop the resolution and settle for a non-binding statement condemning settlement expansion, Palestinian officials said.   'Goldstone 2'   "Caving in to American pressure and withdrawing the resolution will constitute Goldstone 2," said a Palestinian official, speaking on terms of anonymity before the meeting.   He was referring to the wave of protest in October 2009 accusing Abbas of caving in to US pressure by agreeing not to submit for adoption a UN report that accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes during the invasion of Gaza two years ago.   Abbas maintains he insisted on submitting the report. A second Palestinian official, speaking before the decision was formalised, said it would be "a political catastrophe if we withdraw this resolution".   "People would take to the streets and would topple the president," he said, noting the wave of protest in the Arab world that swept out the Egyptian and Tunisian presidents.   The Palestinians say continued building flouts the internationally-backed peace plan that will permit them to create a viable, contiguous state on the 1967 land, after a treaty with Israel to end its occupation and 62 years of conflict.   Israel says this is an excuse for avoiding peace talks and a precondition never demanded before during 17 years of negotiations, which has so far produced no agreement.   The diplomatic standoff is complicated by the effects of Middle East turmoil on the Arab League, whose members backed the resolution. Egypt, a dominant member, and Tunisia are preoccupied with their transitions from deposed autocracies, and protests are flaring in Libya, Yemen and Bahrain.   Washington is trying to revive peace talks stalled since September over Israel's refusal to extend a moratorium on settlement building and Abbas's refusal to negotiate further until the Israelis freeze the illegal buildings.   Obama initially pressured Israel to maintain the moratorium only to relent in the run-up to the 2010 US mid-term elections to avoid, some analysts said, alienating key voters.   Instead of the resolution, Obama told Abbas he would back a fact-finding visit by a delegation of the Security Council to the occupied territories.   One PLO official said the leadership was determined not to cave in "even if our decision leads to a diplomatic crisis with the Americans", adding: "Now we have nothing to lose."   Kristin Saloomey, Al Jazeera's correspondent in New York, said that the US has been doing everything it can to stop this vote from happening, including incentives and threats.   "Apparently Obama threatened [on the phone to Abbas] that there would be repercussions if this vote actually came to the floor of the UN Security Council," she said.   "Today secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, called president Abbas [to put on more pressure] but none of this is getting through to the Palestinians.   "Obama is facing intense domestic pressure not to support the vote. The US is in a tough position, they know that a veto is going to make them look very bad in the Arab world ... and also the rest of the world is really in support of this resolution.   "All of the Security Council members are on the record saying they are going to vote for this resolution including US allies".   Since 2000, 14 Security Council resolutions have been vetoed by one or more of the five permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States. Of those, 10 were US vetoes, nine of them related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.     visit my website www.michaelmunk.com
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