Take Action: Thank Rep. Kucinich for His Statement on the Nakba

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Take Action

During an otherwise hum-ho Congressional “debate” featuring dozens of Representatives giving speeches and statements full of unadulterated praise for Israel and its achievements, one Member of Congress responded to our call to remember that Israel’s 60^th anniversary is also the 60^th anniversary of the Nakba, the forced exile of Palestinians from their homeland and the dispossession of Palestinians from their properties.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich delivered an impassioned and perhaps unprecedented statement in Congress in support of Palestinian human rights, which we reprint in full below.

Our letter of thanks to Rep. Kucinich reads in part, “Thank you for your profound commitment to human rights, for your recognition of the historical injustices that Israel has inflicted and continues to inflict on the Palestinian people, for your awareness that U.S. policy toward Israelis and Palestinians must promote “peace with justice”, and for your willingness to speak the truth when many of your colleagues in Congress would prefer to sweep it under the rug.” To read the entire letter, please click here.

Please take a moment to thank Rep. Kucinich for supporting Palestinian human rights by calling him at 202-225-5871, faxing him at 202-225-5745, or sending him an email below.

Take Action

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Thanks to http://chet-justice.blogspot.com/

Congressional Record, April 22, 2008, Page: H2522

Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, today I join my colleagues in Congress in celebrating Israel’s accomplishments over the past 60 years. I am happy to be co-sponsor of this congratulatory resolution. However, like many Israelis and Palestinians, I have concerns about Israel’s future, its stability, its security and the prospect for peaceful coexistence for both Palestinians and Israelis. One of those concerns relates to the ongoing lack of resolution on the dispossession of Palestinian property and the dislocation of Palestinians after Independence. It must be remembered that about 700,000 Palestinians became exiled. Much Arab property was appropriated. And about 500 Arab villages were destroyed. On December 11, 1948, the United Nations passed Resolution 194, affording Palestinian refugees the right to return to their homes in Israel, or to compensation for their property should they choose not to return. To this day, the mandate of U.N. Resolution 194 has not been fulfilled. Unfortunately, this failure remains as one of the most significant barriers to the realization of a two-state negotiated solution.

I am also concerned for those Palestinians who did not flee and who became Israeli citizens after Independence. According to the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, today there exist 20 Israeli laws which explicitly discriminate against the Palestinian minority in Israel, who constitute 20 percent of its population. In its 2005 Annual Report, the U.S. State Department said that “[There is] institutionalized legal and societal discrimination against Israel’s [Arab] Christian, Muslim and Druze citizens. The government does not provide Israeli Arabs with the same quality of education, housing, employment and social services as Jews.”

Finally, Israel has a right to security and a right to defend itself. Accordingly, I am concerned that the 40 year military occupation of the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem has been and continues to be brutal and unjust and undermines the security of Israel. It is a fact that the government of Israel continues to support the construction of settlements on Palestinian land, perpetuating the consequences of dispossession and exile. Additionally, I am concerned that the government of Israel has increased the number of checkpoints which destroy a viable Palestinian economy and a vibrant civil society. I am concerned that the Israeli government has erected a wall, often on Palestinian land, that divides Palestinians from Palestinians, rather than divide Israel from the West Bank. As stated by Judge Elaraby of the International Court of Justice in his 2004 Advisory Opinion on the legality of Israel’s separation barrier, “The fact that occupation is met by armed resistance cannot be used as a pretext to disregard fundamental human rights in the occupied territory.” This conundrum of a dialectic of conflict further separates Israelis and Palestinians alike from hopes for peace.

H. Con. Res. 322 eloquently states the many reasons why I celebrate Israel’s accomplishments and I sincerely wish it a bright future. I only wish to add that, in my opinion, and in the opinion of many Israelis and Palestinians as well, Israel’s future will be bright only if it includes an open dialogue with Palestinians, a respect for human rights and international law, and a society built on coexistence and tolerance. Israelis and Palestinians deserve to live in peace with justice and I encourage the United States government to help Israel achieve that so the joy of future anniversaries will be unalloyed.

I support the resolution in the spirit of reconciliation to which we must all inevitably turn, to achieve peace and justice with our brothers and sisters from whom we may be estranged.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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Nancy Pelosi on Larry King Live (vids) + Nancy Pelosi’s Day Job by Cindy Sheehan

Dandelion Salad

Latest news from the campaign: On The Ballot, Officially

VOTERSTHINKdotORG

Speaker Nancy Pelosi Likes President Bush

April 24, 2008
CNN Larry King Live

partial transcript

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The Real Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Dandelion Salad
featured writer
April 24, 2008

Nancy Pelosi’s Day Job

“I don’t even think about it much. You know, I have a day job.”
Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Cindy Sheehan’s candidacy, Larry King Live, April 24, 2008

I arrived home from Oakland where I had just been doing my day/night job and I turned on the TV in time to see the end of the Larry King interview with my Congressional opponent, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca). I sat on my couch, switched on the TV, and there she was. I watched for a few seconds while she blamed George Bush for taking the billions of dollars that she gives him every six months (like clockwork) to continue the explicitly illegal and infinitely immoral occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Then, out of the clear blue, Larry asked her about my candidacy. This was the first time, to my knowledge that she has been publicly confronted about me. I have never seen her without her mask on and last night was no exception. She talked about my candidacy reflecting the dissatisfaction of the American public with the war and when he asked her if she was surprised that I had chosen her to run against, she condescendingly said the above.

First of all, I hope she makes the most out of her “day job” for the next eight months or so, because the people of San Francisco are going to remove her and hire me in November. The current issue of San Francisco Magazine asks this compelling question on the cover: “Has Speaker Pelosi been a failure?” The article then pretty much allows the Speaker, in interview style, to come to her own conclusion that she has not been a failure, but if that were true, our troops would be out of Iraq, BushCo would be out of the White House and our country would not be in a devastating recession as we speak.

Nancy Pelosi counts as two of her major “accomplishments” things that most people consider weak at best and pandering at most. In her 100 hours agenda, she did get an increase in the Federal minimum wage to $7.25 by next summer. The New York Times called it a “major victory” for low-income workers. By next summer, with the weekly increase of $84.00, low-income workers may be able to fill their gas tanks and buy a bag of groceries. In 2003, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimated in a report called “2003 Poverty Guidelines” that a living wage for a family of four was $8.85 an hour. The “generous” increase in the minimum wage level doesn’t even bring workers up to 2003 poverty levels when the cost of living is becoming prohibitive for nearly everyone except the wealthy who profit from federal tax cuts to compensate for having to pay their employees a higher, but still near-slave wage.

In a current ad campaign, Nancy sits on a love-seat with Newt Gingrich yammering about working together to create a better ecology, however her Congress passed another, too-little/too-late bill to benefit corporations while harming our environment and future. By 2017 all autos sold in the US must have a minimum of 35 mile per gallon standard. This is her one piece of environmental legislation that is a success for automakers, but again, we the people suffer. Wars for oil are literally sucking the life out of our communities while the pollution is choking the air we breathe. I bet everyone who owns a car right now wishes they could get 35 miles per gallon, at least, and many do! The technology is there and if we must drive and it seems like most of us must, it’s time to give some kind of credit, maybe in the form of down payment assistance, or lower interest rates on loans for “gas guzzler” exchanges. BushCo did the same for people who wanted to buy SUVs…let’s have a reverse exchange and conserve our resources for once!

Ms. Pelosi’s most abject failure of her “day job” besides having an open Gucci purse (fund the war contrary to American opinion or common sense), policy is her disappointing and traitorous act of taking impeachment “off the table.”

On May 1st, 2006, long before she picked up the Speaker’s gavel, she made the pronouncement that would negatively impact history and give BushCo carte blanche to commit their high crimes and misdemeanors and crimes against humanity. Moreover, it was in 2002, as reported by the Washington Post (December 8, 2007) that in performance of her “day job” duties, Ms. Pelosi was briefed on torture and did not object to the inhumane and ineffectual path that our nation was stepping off on. She has not called for the restoration of habeas corpus, Kyoto or FISA and has not called for the repeal of the Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act, Protect America Act or the authorization for BushCo to unilaterally attack any country that they unilaterally perceive as a threat to, not Americans, but American interests abroad.

There are probably many “day jobs” that Nancy Pelosi qualifies for, but representing the people of San Francisco is not one of them. She opposes universal, single-payer health care and has promoted and voted for “free” trade agreements that are the major contributing factors to environmental degradation, job loss, or job insufficiency, and to the food riots happening all over the globe today: coming next to a community near you.

81% of Americans think this nation is on the wrong track and the 19% who don’t, belong to the country clubs and board rooms with people that have the last names of Pelosi, Bush and Cheney—and the rest see this as a “hallelujah” moment for the second coming of Jesus—Nancy Pelosi’s day job is to co-pilot the USA to destruction with George Bush as the pilot.

All I can say is, don’t spend your “economic stimulus” all in one place and while the “bread” of the Romanesque empire is hitting your mailbox you can entertain yourself with the circus of American Idol.

It’s time we hire new pilots for our ship of state: obviously the old ones have lost OUR course. I hope Nancy keeps underestimating and dismissing the people’s campaign to eject her out of the co-pilot seat. Maybe her mask will finally drop when our dose of reality kicks in!

Go to www.CindyforCongress.org to comment on this blog or donate to defeat the status quo.

h/t: www.michaelmoore.com/

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Impeach Pelosi Petition

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Evidence-based Bombing By Scott Ritter

Dandelion Salad

By Scott Ritter
ICH
04/26/08 “The Guardian”

By publishing intelligence on a possible Syrian nuclear facility, the US has endorsed after the fact Israel’s illegal use of force in attacking it

It looks as if Israel may, in fact, have had reason to believe that Syria was constructing, with the aid and assistance of North Korea, a facility capable of housing a nuclear reactor. The United States Central Intelligence Agency recently released a series of images, believed to have been made from a videotape obtained from Israeli intelligence, which provide convincing, if not incontrovertible, evidence that the “unused military building” under construction in eastern Syria was, in fact, intended to be used as a nuclear reactor. Syria continues to deny such allegations as false.

On the surface, the revelations seem to bolster justification not only for the Israeli air strike of September 6 2007, which destroyed the facility weeks or months before it is assessed to have been ready for operations, but also the hard-line stance taken by the administration of President George W Bush toward both Syria and North Korea regarding their alleged covert nuclear cooperation. In the aftermath of the Israeli air strike, Syria razed the destroyed facility and built a new one in its stead, ensuring that no follow-up investigation would be able to ascertain precisely what had transpired there.

Largely overlooked in the wake of the US revelations is the fact that, even if the US intelligence is accurate (and there is no reason to doubt, at this stage, that it is not), Syria had committed no crime, and Israel had no legal justification to carry out its attack. Syria is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and under the provisions of the comprehensive safeguards agreement, is required to provide information on the construction of any facility involved in nuclear activity “as early as possible before nuclear material is introduced to a new facility”. There is no evidence that Syria had made any effort to introduce nuclear material to the facility under construction.

While the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the global watchdog responsible for the implementation of nuclear safeguards inspections, has pushed for the universal adherence to a more stringent safeguards standard known as the “additional protocol of inspections”, such a measure is purely voluntary, and Syria has refused to sign up to any such expansion of IAEA inspection activity until such time as Israel signs the NPT and subjects its nuclear activities to full safeguards inspections. While vexing, the Syrian position is totally in keeping with its treaty obligations, and so it is Syria, not Israel, that was in full conformity with international law at the time of Israel’s September 6 2007 attack.

The United States and Israel contend that the Syrian-North Korean construction project was part of a covert nuclear weapons programme. However, even the United States admits that the facility under construction in Syria lacked any reprocessing capacity, meaning its utility for producing plutonium for a nuclear bomb was nil. Rather than serving as the tip of the iceberg for a nuclear weapons programme, it seems more likely that the Syrian facility was intended for the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

Following the same path as Iran, Syria most probably was positioning itself to present the world with a fait acompli, noting that the current US-Israeli posture concerning the regime in Damascus would not enable Syria to pursue and complete any nuclear programme declared well in advance. By building the reactor in secret, Syria would be positioned to declare the completed facility to the IAEA prior to the introduction of any nuclear material, and then hope to hide behind the shield of the IAEA in order to prevent any Israeli retaliation.

But this is all speculation. By bombing the Syrian facility, Israel not only retarded any Syrian nuclear ambition, peaceful or otherwise, but also precluded a full, definitive investigation into the matter by the international community. Perhaps fearful that Syrian adherence to the NPT would underscore its own duplicity in that regard, the Israeli decision to bomb Syria not only allowed the Syrian effort to be defined as weapons-related (an unproven and unlikely allegation), but by extension reinforced the Israeli (and American) contention that the nuclear activity in Iran was weapons-related as well.

The international debate that has taken place about the Syrian facility shows how successful the Israeli gambit, in fact, was, since there is virtually no discussion about the fact that Israel violated international law in attacking, without provocation, a sovereign state whose status as a member of the United Nations ostensibly affords it protection from such assault. The American embrace of the Israeli action, and the decision to produce intelligence information about the nature of the bombed facility at this late stage in the game, only reinforces the reality that the United States has turned its back on international law in the form of arms control and non-proliferation agreements.

The Bush administration seeks to use the alleged Syrian nuclear facility as a lynchpin in making its arguments against not only the Iranian nuclear programme, but also to scuttle the current discussions with North Korea over its nuclear weapons activities. Having embraced pre-emptive war as a vehicle to pursue its unilateral policy of regime change in Iraq (and having sold that conflict based upon hyped-up weapons of mass destruction charges), it should come as no surprise that the Bush administration would seek to support, and repeat, past patterns of behaviour when pursuing similar policies with Syria, Iran and North Korea.

Truth, and the adherence to international law, have never been an impediment to implementation of American policy objectives under the Bush administration.

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

US ship confronts boats in Gulf + Iranian Boats shot at by U.S. Navy (video)

An Act Of War – Interview: Seymour Hersh

US rebuked Over Syria Nuclear Case + Syrian Nukes: the Phantom Menace

Syrian ambassador rejects US nuclear charges + The Taming of the Assad (lion) (vids)

US Statement on Alleged Syria Nuclear Links

Syria Statement on US Nuclear Claim

US claims North Korean link to Israeli bombing of Syria (+ video)

Syrian ambassador rejects US nuclear charges (video)

The Pentagon Strangles Our Economy: Why the U.S. Has Gone Broke

Dandelion Salad

By Chalmers Johnson
ICH
26/04/08 “Le Monde”

The military adventurers in the Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups thought that they were the “smartest guys in the room” — the title of Alex Gibney’s prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neoconservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination.

High prices & less land keep Haiti hungry (vid) + The Black Hole of Debt

Dandelion Salad

AlJazeeraEnglish

The rising cost of food is one reason that Haitians are going hungry. The other is a lack of land to grow crops.

Deforestation has destroyed much of the farming land once used by Haiti’s rural communities.

Al Jazeera’s Mike Kirsch looks at an environmental problem that’s further fuelling Haiti’s food crisis.

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The Black Hole of Debt

By Nick Dearden
http://www.counterpunch.com
April 25, 2008

Haiti is in Crisis Because It Can’t Feed Itself. Meanwhile, It is Sending Millions Abraod in Loan Payments

In recent weeks, Haiti has been gripped by violent protest yet again. And yet again the inhabitants of this impoverished country are suffering the most brutal consequences of the fallout of the global economic crisis. This time it is the rise in global food prices, which has sparked riots in Port au Prince, Haiti’s capital, where UN peacekeepers used rubber bullets and tear gas against protesters attempting to storm the presidential palace. Days later the prime minister was fired.

It is therefore particularly appropriate that on Tuesday this week -the anniversary of the death of Haiti’s dictator, Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier – hundreds of debt campaigners fasted for Haiti’s debt to be cancelled. Haiti’s fate has been tied up with the issue of international debt more than any other country. Despite the fact that it’s debt is illegitimate by any standards and despite Haiti’s sorry position as the poorest country in the western hemisphere, it still owes $1.3bn. Every year debt repayments flow from Haiti to multilateral banks, just as its resources once enriched the French empire.

Haiti became the world’s first republic to outlaw slavery, after the slave population led a struggle for independence which they won in 1804. However, in 1825, in return for recognition, the new state promised to pay its former French overlords compensation amounting to $21bn in today’s money. It did not finish paying this debt until 1947. Calls for restitution have been consistently rejected by French governments.

…continued

see

America’s Role in Haiti’s Hunger Riots

Global Famine? Blame the Fed By Mike Whitney

Crisis in Food Prices Threatens Worldwide Starvation: Is it Genocide?

Global Food Crisis: Hunger Plagues Haiti & the World by Stephen Lendman

Food – The Ultimate Weapon Of The Ruling Elite

Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide & the Politics of Containment Part I

Haiti: Damning the Flood, Part II by Stephen Lendman

Fueling Food Shortages by Ralph Nader + Harry Chapin: Cats In The Cradle

Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader
Friday, April 25. 2008

Where is Harry Chapin when you need him? The popular folk singer (Cat’s in the Cradle), who lost his life in an auto crash 27 years ago, was an indefatigable force of nature against hunger—in this country and around the world.

To hear Harry speak out against the scourge of hunger in a world of plenty was to hear informed passion that was relentless whether on Capitol Hill, at poverty conferences or at his concerts.

Now the specter of world hunger is looming, with sharply rising basic food prices and unnecessary food shortages sparking food riots in places like Haiti and Egypt. Officials with the U.N.’s World Food Program (WFP) are alarmed. The WFP has put out an emergency appeal for more funds, saying another 100 million humans have been thrown into the desperate hunger pits.

Harry would have been all over the politicians in Congress and the White House who, with their bellies full, could not muster the empathy to do something.

Directly under Bush and the Congress is the authority to reduce the biggest single factor boosting food prices—reversing the tax-subsidized policy of growing ever more corn to turn into fuel at the expense of huge acreages that used to produce wheat, soy, rice and other edibles.

Corn ethanol is a multifaceted monstrosity—radiating damage in all directions of the compass. Reducing acreage for edible crops has sparked a surge in the price of bread and other foodstuffs. Congress and Bush continue to mandate larger amounts of subsidized corn ethanol.

Republican Representative Robert W. Goodlatte says: “The mandate basically says [corn] ethanol comes ahead of food on your table, comes ahead of feed for livestock, comes ahead of grains available for export.”

Corn growing farmers are happy with a bushel coming in at $5 to $6—a record.

A subsidy-laden, once-every-five-years farm bill is winding its way through Congress. The bill keeps the “good-to-fuel” mandates that are expanding corn acreage and contributing to a rise of global food prices.

Of course, more meat diets in China, futures market speculation, higher prices for oil and some bad weather and poor food reserve planning have also contributed to shortages and higher prices.

But subsidized corn ethanol gets the first prize for policy madness. It not only damages the environment, soaks up the water from mid-west aquifers, scuttles set asides for soil conservation, but its net energy equation qualifies for collective insanity on Capitol Hill. To produce a gallon of ethanol from corn requires almost as much energy (mostly coal burning) as it produces.

Designed to alleviate oil imports, hold down gasoline prices and diminish greenhouse gases, corn ethanol has flopped on all three scores.

Princeton scholar Lester Brown, an early sounder of the alarm of global food shortages and higher prices, writes in Science Magazine “that the net impact of the food-to-fuel push will be an increase in global carbon emissions—and thus a catalyst for climate change.”

Can Congress change course and drop its farm subsidy of corn ethanol this year? Observers say, despite the growing calamities and the real risk of severe malnutrition, even starvation in Africa, Congress will do nothing.

Farm subsidies, once installed, are carved in stone—unless there is enough outcry from food consumers, taxpayers and environmentalists. They are paying from the pocketbook, from their taxes and health. That should be enough motivation, unless they need to see the distended stomachs of African and Asian children on the forthcoming television news.

Unless we wake up, we will continue to be a country stuck in traffic—in more ways than one.

Don’t rely on the election year political debates to pay attention to destructive corn ethanol programs. For years I have been speaking out against this boondoggle, while championing the small farmer in America, but no one in positions of Congressional leadership has been listening.

They must be waiting for the situation to get worse before they absorb a fraction of Harry Chapin’s empathy and care.

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Harry Chapin: Cats In The Cradle

4sforbes

Added: September 16, 2007

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

Bill Moyers Journal: Hunger in America + Exposé Farm Subsidies + Soup Kitchen

Brazil bans rice exports, protests in Peru (video)

Global Famine? Blame the Fed By Mike Whitney

America’s Role in Haiti’s Hunger Riots

Financial speculators reap profits from global hunger

Crisis in Food Prices Threatens Worldwide Starvation: Is it Genocide?

Siege continues in Iraq as US escalates threats against Iran

Dandelion Salad

By Joe Kay
wsws.org
26 April 2008

The United States military’s brutal offensive in Sadr City continued this week, with overnight raids killing dozens of people, including many civilians. The US offensive against the impoverished Baghdad neighborhood of 2 million people is entering its second month.

The direct target of US operations in Sadr City is the Mahdi Army militia led by Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr’s followers are drawn from the largely working class Shiite population in Sadr City. He also has substantial support in southern Iraq, including Basra. The recent wave of violence in Iraq was triggered last month, when the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki launched an offensive, backed by the US, against Sadr’s forces in Basra.

According to media reports, the US military killed at least 11 people in Sadr City on Thursday night, and wounded another 74. “Criminals” have replaced “terrorists” as the label affixed by the US military to those it has slaughtered, but many are ordinary civilians. According to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP), a Sadr City medic “said the dead included four old men, two women and a child” and that women and children were among the wounded.

The US military is employing helicopters armed with Hellfire rocket missiles to terrorize the population of Sadr City and target anyone it claims may be preparing rockets or roadside bombs.

According to figures tabulated by AFP from reports by the Iraqi government and the US military, at least 383 people have been killed in Sadr City over the past month. This figure, however, substantially underestimates the real death toll, since it is based only on official reports.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has reported that the main market in Sadr City has been severely damaged in the fighting, exacerbating food and water shortages. Several hospitals have also run out of supplies while attempting to treat the wounded.

…continued

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

see

Inside Iraq: Media influence on Iraq?

US ship confronts boats in Gulf + Iranian Boats shot at by U.S. Navy (video)

Joint Chiefs Chairman Says U.S. Preparing Military Options Against Iran

US prison population dwarfs that of other nations

Dandelion Salad

by Adam Liptak
Global Research, April 24, 2008
International Herald Tribune – 2008-04-23

The United States has less than 5 percent of the world’s population. But it has almost a quarter of the world’s prisoners.

Indeed, the United States leads the world in producing prisoners, a reflection of a relatively recent and now entirely distinctive American approach to crime and punishment. Americans are locked up for crimes — from writing bad checks to using drugs — that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries. And in particular they are kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners in other nations.

Criminologists and legal scholars in other industrialized nations say they are mystified and appalled by the number and length of American prison sentences.

The United States has, for instance, 2.3 million criminals behind bars, more than any other nation, according to data maintained by the International Center for Prison Studies at King’s College London.

China, which is four times more populous than the United States, is a distant second, with 1.6 million people in prison. (That number excludes hundreds of thousands of people held in administrative detention, most of them in China’s extrajudicial system of re-education through labor, which often singles out political activists who have not committed crimes.)

San Marino, with a population of about 30,000, is at the end of the long list of 218 countries compiled by the center. It has a single prisoner.

The United States comes in first, too, on a more meaningful list from the prison studies center, the one ranked in order of the incarceration rates. It has 751 people in prison or jail for every 100,000 in population. (If you count only adults, one in 100 Americans is locked up.)

The only other major industrialized nation that even comes close is Russia, with 627 prisoners for every 100,000 people. The others have much lower rates. England’s rate is 151; Germany’s is 88; and Japan’s is 63.

The median among all nations is about 125, roughly a sixth of the American rate.

There is little question that the high incarceration rate here has helped drive down crime, though there is debate about how much.

Criminologists and legal experts here and abroad point to a tangle of factors to explain America’s extraordinary incarceration rate: higher levels of violent crime, harsher sentencing laws, a legacy of racial turmoil, a special fervor in combating illegal drugs, the American temperament, and the lack of a social safety net. Even democracy plays a role, as judges — many of whom are elected, another American anomaly — yield to populist demands for tough justice.

Whatever the reason, the gap between American justice and that of the rest of the world is enormous and growing.

It used to be that Europeans came to the United States to study its prison systems. They came away impressed.

“In no country is criminal justice administered with more mildness than in the United States,” Alexis de Tocqueville, who toured American penitentiaries in 1831, wrote in “Democracy in America.”

No more.

…continued ww.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8801

FAIR USE NOTICE: This blog may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

Inside Iraq: Media influence on Iraq?

Dandelion Salad

AlJazeeraEnglish

This week Inside Iraq examines media coverage of the Iraq war and its influence.

Bill Moyers Journal: Reverend Jeremiah Wright (videos)

Dandelion Salad

Bill Moyers Journal
April 25, 2008
PBS

More than 3,000 news stories have been penned since early April about Jeremiah Wright and Barack Obama. But behind the five second loop is a man who has preached three different sermons nearly every Sunday since 1972. In his interview on BILL MOYERS JOURNAL, Reverend Wright discusses what drew him to the pulpit and the recent controversy surrounding him.

…continued

Bill Moyers interviews the Reverend Jeremiah Wright in his first broadcast interview with a journalist since he became embroiled in a controversy for his remarks and his relationship with Barack Obama. Wright, who retired in early 2008 as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, where Senator Obama is a member, has been at the center of controversy for comments he made during sermons, which surfaced in the press in March.

Video link and transcript

Part II

Video link and transcript

see

Reverend Jeremiah Wright: Religious Freedom Versus State Religion, Ethics, Politics & Strategy

Barack Obama’s pastor Wright’s Sermon (video)

Was Rev. Wright wrong? (video)

God Damn America – The Fear of a Mortal Empire by Manila Ryce (video)

Hope, Change, and Pissing in the Wind By Patrice Greanville & Jason Miller

Obama on Race in America + A More Perfect Union (videos + transcript)

Obama-Barack

Israel rejects Hamas truce offer (video)

Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews

Hamas offers a six-month ‘calm,’ but Israel signals it won’t follow suit.

Brazil bans rice exports, protests in Peru (video)

Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews

Africa, Latin America to be short 500K tons of rice as Brazil becomes latest country to ban rice exports…