See also: Criminalizing of Dissent: Defend the RNC 8! by Coleen Rowley
Criminalizing of Dissent: What Would Thomas Jefferson Do? by Coleen Rowley
http://www.terrorizingdissent.org/
Terrorizing Dissent Part 1
Fall in St Paul
Vodpod videos no longer available.
.
h/t: Coleen Rowley
By Mike Whitney
November 11, 2008 “Information Clearinghouse”
“Let Obama use his clout to end the occupation and dismantle the settlement project. Let him remember that human and civil rights also apply to the Palestinians, not only to black Americans” Gideon Levy, Haaretz News
Yasir Arafat died on November 11, 2004. Author Sonja Karkar has written a tribute to the man who–more than any other–embodied the struggle of the Palestinian people. For more than 40 years he fought against Israeli occupation hoping to establish his dream of a Palestinian state. In her article “”Don’t forget Palestine” Karkar says:
“Much will be written and analyzed about Arafat and his deeds, but for the Palestinian people, Arafat will always remain a hero…. This small man who was able to command the world stage for his beleaguered people, who could excite passions in men who served with him in the grimmest of battles, and who could to the last, hold together the Palestinian factions, rivalries and differences inherent in any society, deserved to see the peace he sought and negotiated. He didn’t. However, he did see out the terms of nine US presidents and eleven Israeli prime ministers and came closer to peace and the Palestinian dream than anyone had ever thought possible. He had tried everything and to the end kept the olive branch firmly in his grasp. Tragically, for all of us, it fell from his dying hand and the world lost the real peacemaker in the Middle East.”
Arafat chose to stay with his people and face the daily hardship of foreign occupation (in his battered Ramallah compound, the Muqu’ata) rather than live in luxory in exile. He was a real patriot and is still revered as the “father of his people”. Now, four years after Arafat’s death, there’s growing hope that the election of Barak Obama will create new opportunities for peace in the 6 decades long Israeli/Palestinian conflict. An article published Israel’s YNET News states that Obama’s advisers have been secretly communicating with leaders in Hamas. According to the YNET report:
“Ahmad Yousuf, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh’s political advisor, said that during the recent US presidential race a secret meeting between senior Islamist group figures and advisers to President-elect Barack Obama was held in Gaza.
“We were in contact with a number of Obama’s aides through the Internet, and later met with some of them in Gaza, but they advised us not to come out with any statements, as they may have a negative effect on his election campaign and be used by Republican candidate John McCain (to attack Obama),” Yousuf said in an interview with London-based Arabic-language newspaper Al-Hayat, published Tuesday.
Yousuf said Hamas’s contact with Obama’s advisers was ongoing, adding that he was still on good terms with some of the aides he had befriended while residing in the US.”
The policy Obama will instate in the Middle East will differ from that of his predecessor George W. Bush, although it is clear that the region and the Palestinian issue will not be at the top of his agenda,” Yousef told Al-Hayat, “(the president-elect) will focus more on the economic crisis, Iraq and Afghanistan.” (ynet news)
At the very least, this article shows that Obama not only wants to break with Bush’s policies, but also respects the results the Palestinian elections which put Hamas in power. It also suggests that Obama may put pressure on Israel to lift the blockade of food and medical supplies to the Gaza Strip and suspend its policy of “targeted assassinations” until meetings between the two parties can be convened. Still, there are many critics of Obama (myself included) who are pessimistic about “real change” due of the power of the Jewish lobby (AIPAC) and its advocates in the US House and Senate. The appointment of the “hawkish” pro-Israel Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff is further proof that Obama has no intention of taking a more balanced approach to Middle East policy.
Journalist Hasan Afif El-Hasan summed it up like this in his recent article, “For Palestinians, There Are Two Obamas”:
“There are two Obamas, the old and the candidate, separated by the moment when Obama decided to run for president. The old Obama had Palestinian friends and he sympathized with the Palestinians, but the candidate Obama sided with the hard-line APAC, denied he had Palestinian friends and blamed the persecution of the Palestinians on the victims themselves.
He supported Israel’s policy in the occupied land including the Gaza siege and starvation its people in defiance of international laws and moral rules as self-defense and he endorsed keeping Jerusalem united under Israeli rule. He never criticized the settlements, the apartheid wall, the roadblocks and checkpoints. Obama even justified the Israeli 2006 war against Lebanon and the massacres of Lebanese civilians as self-defense. John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt wrote that Obama was “unequivocal in his praise for Israel and made it manifestly clear that he would do nothing to change the US-Israeli relationship”. After Obama’s speech to AIPAC convention, Haaretz wrote, “He sounded as strong as Clinton, as supportive as Bush, as friendly as Guiliani”. During his last visit to Israel, Obama spent two days meeting leaders of Israel’s major parties, spent only 45 minutes talking to the Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas with no news conference and refused to visit refugee camps. He expressed deep sympathy with the Israeli victims of the conflict and nothing for the Palestinians. (For Palestinians, There Are Two Obamas, Hasan Afif El-Hasan)
Consumer activist and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader is equally skeptical of Obama’s credibility on the Palestinian/Israeli issue. In his “Open Letter to Senator Barack Obama”, Nader derides Obama for his wishy-washy approach to the conflict and challenges him to be resolute in defense of justice.
“To advance change and hope, the presidential persona requires character, courage, integrity—not expediency, accommodation and short-range opportunism……You know quite well that only when the U.S. Government supports the Israeli and Palestinian peace movements, that years ago worked out a detailed two-state solution (which is supported by a majority of Israelis and Palestinians), will there be a chance for a peaceful resolution of this 60-year plus conflict. Yet you align yourself with the hard-liners, so much so that in your infamous, demeaning speech to the AIPAC convention right after you gained the nomination of the Democratic Party, you supported an “undivided Jerusalem,” and opposed negotiations with Hamas—the elected government in Gaza. Once again, you ignored the will of the Israeli people who, in a March 1, 2008 poll by the respected newspaper Haaretz, showed that 64% of Israelis favored “direct negotiations with Hamas.” Siding with the AIPAC hard-liners is what one of the many leading Palestinians advocating dialogue and peace with the Israeli people was describing when he wrote “Anti-semitism today is the persecution of Palestinian society by the Israeli state.”
During your visit to Israel this summer, you scheduled a mere 45 minutes of your time for Palestinians with no news conference, and no visit to Palestinian refugee camps that would have focused the media on the brutalization of the Palestinians. Your trip supported the illegal, cruel blockade of Gaza in defiance of international law and the United Nations charter. You focused on southern Israeli casualties which during the past year have totaled one civilian casualty to every 400 Palestinian casualties on the Gaza side. Instead of a statesmanship that decried all violence and its replacement with acceptance of the Arab League’s 2002 proposal to permit a viable Palestinian state within the 1967 borders in return for full economic and diplomatic relations between Arab countries and Israel, you played the role of a cheap politician, leaving the area and Palestinians with the feeling of much shock and little awe.
Israeli writer and peace advocate—Uri Avnery—described Obama’s appearance before AIPAC as one that “broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning, adding that Obama “is prepared to sacrifice the most basic American interests. After all, the US has a vital interest in achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace that will allow it to find ways to the hearts of the Arab masses from Iraq to Morocco. Obama has harmed his image in the Muslim world and mortgaged his future—if and when he is elected president.,” he said, adding, “Of one thing I am certain: Obama’s declarations at the AIPAC conference are very, very bad for peace. And what is bad for peace is bad for Israel, bad for the world and bad for the Palestinian people.” (Open Letter to Senator Barack Obama, Ralph Nader)
Author Abdul Basit is less strident than Nader and helps to put the present crisis in historical context so that readers can understand how apprehensive, but hopeful Palestinians are with the change of administrations in Washington. Basit invokes the language of Martin Luther King to drive home his point that Palestinians are victims of the same discrimination and oppression that blacks suffered in the United States.
“The Arab-Israeli conflict has been the central issue that has influenced the US foreign policy for the last 60 years and can be rightly considered as the mother of all tribulations. Most of the conflicts and hostilities particularly in the Middle East region during second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty-first century have their roots in this crisis. This conflict including the question of Palestinian self-determination have directly or indirectly ignited other conflicts including the Lebanon crises, the war on terrorism, invasion of Kuwait and the subsequent two Gulf Wars, the deteriorating relationship with Iran and emerging nuclear showdown. This has also preoccupied the successive US presidents and will continue to haunt your presidency. In fact, the Middle East crisis has engulfed the whole world including the very stability of United States. This crisis has also deteriorated the relations between the communities of three major religions, namely Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities. If this issue remains unresolved it will not only further destabilize the relationship between the Palestinian and Jewish societies, but will also have negative effect on the American nation.
The question is why has it remained unresolved and smoldering for last many decades?
The main reason for the complexity in finding solution to the Palestinian crises is because of the lopsided solutions put forward by previous administrations as a result of the undue influence of certain religious lobby, vote-bank politics and internal political compulsion. This unwarranted influence and compulsions have blinded the successive administrations to the reality and hindered and misguided their effort in resolving this conflict. Instead, the policies of these administrations only created more mistrust and tensions between Palestinian and Israeli community. The punishment and sanctions that is being imposed on Gaza Strip by the same apostles of democracy who are hell-bent on installing democratic governments in the Middle East, because the Palestinian people utilized their legal democratic right of electing the Hamas government, proves the contradiction of the US foreign policy. The cataclysmic human and material sufferings inflicted by the Israeli regime on the people of Gaza strip with the endorsement and support of the Mahmoud Abbas and the Bush Administration, have only created more dissent and violence.
This unresolved crisis had ignited many new conflicts that have spread globally resulting in far- reaching consequences much beyond the borders of the Middle East region. If you want to make a difference from your predecessors and find solution to this crisis, you have to be bold enough to tread a different approach and overcome the internal compulsion and undue influence of these religious lobbies and address the issue based on justice for all and appeasement of none. The solution to crisis is important for world peace and well being and good relationship between Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities worldwide.
Mr. President, on this joyful occasion of your election as President, I want to take this opportunity to inform you that we as the people of the Third World and Middle East countries too have a collective dream….We have a dream that one day from the mountains, valleys and the olive and almond farms of the West Bank to Gaza that are currently sweltering under injustice, persecution and sufferings, the sons of the invaded and the sons of the invaders will sit together on the table of brotherhood while their children go to schools together to build a bright future without fear and insecurity. (Mr. President, We Too Have A Dream, Abdul Basit)
Finally, journalist Aijaz Zaka Syed ends on a more positive note saying that Obama has a chance to repair America’s image in the world and restore its honor by simply re-committing to its own stated principles and demonstrating those beliefs in its foreign policy; particularly in regards to the people of the Middle East.
“An Obama victory offers America an incredible opportunity to rediscover itself as the land of the free, the original promised land that has for long inspired men and women everywhere with dreams of freedom, democracy and prosperity.
Not long ago, America was lionized as the champion of freedom and democracy here in the Middle East too. The people here saw America as the ultimate utopia and loved everything that it stood for. Today, calling someone American or pro-American is akin to abuse. No prizes for guessing who got America here. This worldview can change overnight if you have a President Obama in the Oval Office.” (Waiting for Obama”, Aijaz Zaka Syed)
On this–the anniversary of the death of Yasir Arafat–what better tribute to the man than some positive sign that the Palestinians will be helped by Washington to achieve their goal of establishing an independent state. It all starts with Obama and the hope that he will defend the voiceless victims of repression who desperately want peace and a better future for their children.
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
Between Hope and Reality – An Open Letter to Barack Obama By Ralph Nader
Obama’s chief of staff choice favors compulsory universal service
More info: G-20 Summit: Next Step to Global Economic Gulag
Vodpod videos no longer available.
.
This is a very interesting and revealing video I got from http://www.youtube.com/purdysw, and was originally posted by http://www.youtube.com/aodscarecrow
I’m sorry about the sudden unexpected ending, the video was obviously cut short. But the info is so real and powerful that it needs to be heard by as many people as possible. Only then can we hope to make the world a better place.
————————————–Lost in all the Obama furor, the world’s leading economic powers — the so-called G-20 nations — are quietly laying plans for a November 15th summit in Washington, D.C., that may effect a revolution in world finance and global governance, a revolution with potentially much greater long-term impact on America than anything on President-elect Obama’s agenda.
According to an AP report, “EU leaders are set to call on the Nov. 15 summit to agree immediately on five principles: submit ratings agencies to more surveillance; align accounting standards; close loopholes; set banking codes of conduct to reduce excessive risk-taking; and ask the International Monetary Fund to suggest ways of calming the turmoil.”
Warning
This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.
A journey through U.S. history, from the American Revolution to the Obama victory, set to a November 4, 2008 impromptu recording of the The People Sang, written and performed by John Caelan. The compilation was created by John, reflecting his intended meaning of the song verse by verse: We don’t need a new revolution; we’re in the one that never ends.
by Steven Jonas, MD
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Buzzflash.com
November 11, 2008
Straws in the Wind: Murdoch
If your neck got turned around watching “Fox and Friends” on the Fox “News” Channel almost immediately following the Obama victory, you are likely not alone. I can’t say that they did a 180-degree turn, but they went at least 90 degrees, at least in what I saw. No more Ayers/Rezko/Wright 24/7. All of a sudden they were doing three things. The President-elect was being treated with a modicum of respect. They were back to spending lots of time on “schoolgirl gets dumped from school bus two miles from home” stories. The “anti-Democrat Party” red meat that they regularly feed their loyal listeners (such as the soon-to-be-former Vice President) came in smaller amounts and was hardly so red anymore.
Why, one might ask? Since, in the New York City area at least, there was a similar change in tone at the F “N” C’s sister organ, the New York Post, it is fair to surmise that the hand of the uber-owner of both, Rupert Murdoch, was reaching down the chain of command. Murdoch knows the political climate has changed in Washington, possibly for some time to come. For a variety of reasons (primarily related to his hopes for the reinvigoration of American capitalism that could come only with the election of Barack Obama, not with John McCain), he would like to be on good terms with the new administration. And hey, if Mr. Murdoch can be on friendly terms with real Communists (or at least people who call themselves Communists) in China, how can he not get round to being on good terms with good capitalists (even if some of his minions label them as reds — they’re not) right here in the US of A.
Palin on Africa
So as far as we know, Gov. Palin really didn’t know that Africa is a continent, not a country, and she really couldn’t name off the top of her head the three countries that are parties to NAFTA. Her denials about the leaked reports of her intellectual inadequacies were made in general, not specific terms. Isn’t just awful that the Republican candidate for the vice presidency has such an abysmal level of general knowledge, especially when it comes to geography? (At least she knew the big country on the other side of the Bering Strait — you can’t actually see the mainland — is Russia.) But let’s stop for a moment to reflect that one candidate for the Republican nomination, Gov. Mike Huckabee, couldn’t exactly place Afghanistan, and that the Republican Presidential candidate for the presidency at one time said that Iraq and Afghanistan bordered on each other. So let’s not be too hard on Palin. Her past running mate and a possible future one don’t do too well on geography either. Perhaps that’s just a modern Republican-candidate trait.
Obama and Afghanistan
We hear things are getting worse and worse in Afghanistan. A recent National Intelligence Estimate (AP/Yahoo! News, Oct. 9, 2008) concluded that it is heading for a “downward spiral.” During the presidential campaign, President-elect Obama said on numerous occasions that he would “send more troops” to Afghanistan and would “do something about Pakistan.” Whether this was real, well thought-out policy or more of a cojones show for the crowd and the Republican Scream Machine we don’t know. However, we do know that one of Obama’s principal foreign policy advisors is Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, a foreign policy anti-Soviet hard-liner who was President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor.
The Afghan/Soviet battle of the 1980s was not “Charlie Wilson’s War” from the outset although it became that later, under Reagan, a convenient way to make sure that there was no apparent link between the Reaganite policy and Carter’s (which were actually the same). In 1978, a communist-led coup had overthrown the Afghan monarchy. Soviet assistance to native, especially anti-British, forces in the country dated back to the early days of the USSR. Thus they moved quickly to support the new government, but there was significant resistance to it in various parts of the country. By 1979, the Afghan government was requesting Soviet military aid, in progressively larger amounts. U.S. support for the anti-Soviet resistance began during this time. It was recommended to President Carter by none other than Dr. Brzezinski, who correctly predicted that if the resistance were maintained, Afghanistan would eventually become the “Soviet Union’s Viet Nam.” That it did was a major factor in the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
One wonders what Dr. Brzezinski is advising Pres.-elect Obama to do about Afghanistan. Let’s hope that it is not to do what the Senator said he would do, during the campaign. Otherwise, sure as shootin’, Afghanistan will become Obama’s Iraq. Within the past month, the Taliban have proposed peace talks with the NATO forces currently fighting in their country. They offered up front, as part of a deal, to cut their ties to al-Qaeda. To be effective, such an agreement would have to enforceable, but that could likely be worked out. Such an agreement would surely make it much easier to come to an agreement with Pakistan for how to go about stabilizing their Northwest Frontier. The President-elect will have to move in this direction just as soon as he firms up an agreement with the Iraqis for the complete withdrawal of American forces in that country. If he does not, and falls into the former “Brzezinski Trap” in Afghanistan just as the Soviet Union did, the irony of such a happening would be the least of its long-term negative outcomes.
Steven Jonas, MD, MPH is a Professor of Preventive Medicine at Stony Brook University (NY) and a www.TPJmagazine.us Contributing Author; a regular Columnist for BuzzFlash; a Special Contributing Editor for Cyrano’s Journal Online; a Contributing Columnist for the Project for the Old American Century, POAC; and a Featured Writer for Dandelion Salad https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/.
see
Eric Margolis: Bush admin has left Obama an international ‘mess’ + When Camelot meets Gitmo
What Obama win means + Obama and global security with Jonathan Schell
Warning
.
This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.
Mosaic needs your help! Donate here: http://linktv.org/contribute
“Bombs Kill At Least 28 in Baghdad,” Al Arabiya TV, UAE
“Iraqi Refugees Forced to Live Illegally in Lebanon,” Baghdad TV, Iraq
“Israel Suspends Fuel Supplies to Gaza,” Al Jazeera TV, Qatar
“Israelis Evict Disabled Palestinian From Home,” Abu Dhabi TV, UAE
“Israelis Mark 13th Anniversary of Rabin Killing,” IBA TV, Israel
“Electing the Mayor of Jerusalem,” Al Jazeera English, Qatar
“Juniper Trees Becoming Extinct in Morocco,” Dubai TV, UAE
Produced for Link TV by Jamal Dajani.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
Updated: added more videos; see below
Obama’s foreign policy challenge
Eric Margolis: Bush admin has left Obama an international ‘mess’, with Russia at the top of the list
Nov. 11, 2008
HOW THIS WORKS
America needs change, big change. Now it’s time to get specific. Let’s tell President Obama what we need him to do.
Step 1. Watch the video introduction
Step 2. Create an account
Step 3. Endorse or suggest priorities
Step 4. Sort list below (drag & drop)
Step 5. Invite others to joinThe more people who endorse a priority, the higher it rises in the charts.
The more people who join the network, the more clout we will have with the President and the media.
YOUR PRIORITIES
Join the network to set your own priorities for America. It’s free and only takes a minute. Start here → http://whitehouse2.org/
h/t: Rev Canna Divinorum Mescalito de Phalaris Shroom
***
What are YOUR priorities for Obama’s first 100 days?
http://whitehouse2.org/ White House 2 let’s people set their priorities for the next president’s first 100 days. It adds up everyone’s priorities and creates one list on the homepage of the top 25.
This is a very simple and direct way for Americans to come together to discuss the change we need and communicate it to the President and the media.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
.
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
Sign Petition for a Monetary System That Puts People First – Open Letter to G-20
End The FED: November 22, 2008
Richard C. Cook
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
richardccook.com
November 11, 2008
An Open Letter Regarding the Upcoming G-20 Meeting in Washington, D.C.
To add your name, register, log in, and sign the petition.
The International Monetary System Should Serve the People of the World, Not Enslave Them
We have noted with deep interest and concern that leaders of the G20 are meeting in Washington, D.C., November 15th for the “Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy.” Such a summit is surely needed, but not just to fix the catastrophically failing world financial system. No matter how much tinkering around the edges the leaders might engage in or how many bailouts are provided to financial institutions, we all recognize that nothing worthwhile will have been accomplished without a paradigm shift in the relationship between finance and the daily lives of the citizens of the globe. Continue reading
The U.S. want to deploy ABM radar in Czech Republic to spy on Russia in the first hand, told Miloslav Vlcek, speaker of the Czech Chamber of Deputies to RT in an exclusive interview.
Vodpod videos no longer available.
.
see
Obama versus Medvedev: Nuclear Standoff in New Europe by Mike Whitney
Vodpod videos no longer available.
.
Countdown: No Decision On Detainees’ Trials
Keith reports on the latest news that the Obama administration has not yet decided how the detainees at Gitmo should be tried. Keith talks to Charles Swift about what closing Gitmo would mean and how these people might be tried.
***
ACLU Calls On Obama To Close Guantánamo On Day One Of Presidency
Group Launches Campaign Urging New Administration To Restore Fundamental Rights And Reclaim America’s Moral Leadership
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
11/10/2008
NEW YORK – The American Civil Liberties Union launched a new campaign today calling on President-elect Barack Obama to close the Guantánamo Bay prison and end the military commissions on Day One of his presidency.
Obama, as a candidate, pledged to “close Guantánamo, reject the Military Commissions Act and adhere to the Geneva Conventions.” In a full page ad in the New York Times today, the ACLU urges Obama, as president, to fulfill those promises and immediately restore America’s moral leadership in the world.
“There is no room for patience or delay in these areas. We have to hold President-elect Obama’s feet to the fire if we’re going to turn hope into reality,” said Anthony D. Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU. “We hope that President-elect Obama, as soon as he is sworn in, will take bold action and sign an executive order closing Guantánamo and ending the sham military commissions there. It is time to restore American values of justice, due process and human rights.”
In addition to ordering the closure of Guantánamo, the ACLU calls on President-elect Obama to sign Day One executive orders banning the use of torture and abuse and ending the practice of extraordinary rendition.
“We welcome the end to a Bush administration that is leaving behind a disastrous legacy of civil liberties violations, abuse of power and executive overreaching, yet there is no room for complacency,” said Romero. “We are hopeful that President Obama will honor the U.S. Constitution and passionately promote all the rights for which it stands.”
In addition to the ad in the New York Times, the ACLU launched a new Web site where it will premiere a series of short videos about Guantánamo produced in partnership with Brave New Foundation, a leading producer of online videos about today’s most pressing issues. The videos will feature interviews with attorneys, former prison guards and released prisoners, some of whom will be speaking publicly for the first time.
“We’ve all seen the reports in the news about the tragedy that is Guantánamo Bay,” said Robert Greenwald, president of Brave New Foundation. “But Americans haven’t yet heard it directly from those who were there. The ACLU is pioneering the use of new media in their work and we are so proud to be a part of it. They’re planning to release these videos in full public view on the Internet, representing a major step forward in terms of transparency on this issue in particular and on government policy in general. The ACLU and Brave New Foundation are taking a first, big step out of the secrecy of the Bush era.”
On November 13, the ACLU will hold a nationwide telephone town hall with supporters and activists from across the country to discuss the state of civil liberties transitioning from the Bush administration to the Obama administration. The call will be moderated by Romero and Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office. A question and answer period will follow the discussion.
More information about the town hall is available online at: www.aclu.org/townhall
The new ACLU Web site goes live with the first video today at: www.closegitmo.com
Romero has posted a statement about the ACLU’s campaign at: blog.aclu.org/2008/11/10/obama-close-gitmo-on-day-one-you-can-do-it-weve-got-your-back/
see
Marriage has reached its sell by date By Roland Michel Tremblay
Dandelion Salad 