Charter School Controversy - and Re-education programs in MI and MO

W has been putting out some fascinating stuff about education and youth that I see as so completely connected.

First of all, they did a great piece on the controversy surrounding charter schools, which have been a hallmark of Obama's education reform program. Articles in both the Boston Globe (here) and the Hartford Courant (here) outline conflicting sentiments in the communities most affected by charter school expansion. A major critique is that not all charter schools are actually better! The Courant article cites evidence from Philadelphia where a study showed that charter school students actually did not perform better than regular public school students. Also, the Globe article points out that in Boston (which has one quarter of the country's charter schools) non-English speakers are remarkably underserved; they make up less than 4% of charter school students despite being one fifth of all public school students.

From RaceWire:

Education historian Diane Ravitch says the question isn't regular versus charter schools, but an issue of social priorities:

We can't solve our problems by handing them off to businesses and community groups. Some schools will claim success by excluding the students who are hardest to educate; others will claim success by drilling children endlessly on test-taking skills.

What should we do? We must strengthen — not abandon — public education....

We evade our responsibility to improve public education by privatizing public schools. In doing so, we undermine the egalitarian promise of public education, thus guaranteeing that many children will continue to be left behind.

Even a charter school with a social mission of promoting economic and racial equity still runs up against the limits posed by selectivity and exclusion. The rush to expand this model across the country may renew, and redefine, the question of separate but equal.

I find this really interesting especially after talking to a friend of mine's older brother who is about to start teaching math in a new Philly charter school - I guess I'll have to ask him about what his experience is like, but he described a really energetic, young group of teachers that will have the ability to work with a smaller group of students than your average public Philadelphia high school. Clearly both benefits and drawbacks.

RaceWire also recently had a really interesting article about re-education programs in MI and MO about the history of racism and anti-indigenous sentiment, respectively. They say:

The new curriculum is designed to inform youth about the history of racial discrimination as well as to provide an understanding of the continued relevance of social movements today.

Um, not to get overly enthusiastic here but.. HELL. YES. It's absurd that students aren't learning about this already and while we'll see how it plays out I can't help but be excited that state governments are finally recognizing the importance of history in modern day struggles and tensions... and recognizing the need to be talking about this in our classrooms with our youth.

That is, of course, if our youth even get to the classroom. In New York, it seems that increasing numbers of children are being locked up in juvenile detention centers for mental health issues and other needs. "In New York State, 54 percent of children in the general population are Caucasian, 20 percent are Latino, 18 percent are African-American, and 6 percent are Asian. In contrast, of the girls admitted to the Lansing and Tryon facilities over the last three years, 54 percent are non-Hispanic African-American, 19 percent are classified as Hispanic, 23 percent are non-Hispanic White, and none is Asian. 10 girls, or 3 percent of the total, are Native American.... Since 1995, African-American boys and girls have consistently accounted for close to 60 percent of children taken into [Office of Children and Family Services] custody." Obviously this filters directly into New York's expansive prison system, and from the sound of these "juvenile centers" it seems as if these children are not socialized for any other kind of life. From RaceWire:

The Department of Justice’s extensive investigation of four of New York’s juvenile detention facilities sheds chilling light on a system plagued by unaccountability and abuse. The new report, released today, documents the routine use of excessive force by staff, which has traumatized and even broken the bones of children while authorities looked the other way. “Anything from sneaking an extra cookie to initiating a fistfight may result in a full prone restraint with handcuffs,” the investigators found.

So who are these kids? In 2006, Human Rights Watch profiled two of the detention centers investigated by the Justice Department, Tryon and Lansing, where teenage girls were detained for both violent and nonviolent infractions. Often, they were refugees of the foster care system, arrested after spending most of their lives cycling through the homes of strangers. Many began their path to “delinquency” in school, where “zero tolerance” security tactics were used to keep disobedient kids in line. Drugs and mental health problems drove many children into detention, after poverty and isolation from the healthcare system had kept them shut out of early treatment programs.

As the Times reported earlier this month, juvenile detention has become a makeshift "asylum" for children whose mental health needs have been neglected in their communities, due to poverty and social disinvestment.

If you can stomach the full article it can be accessed here.

Psych Relief Finally On Its Way for Vets

The NYTimes reported today that (finally!) regulations may be changing for veterans in need of psychiatric care. Thus far, soldiers and former soldiers have had to "prove" their need for such care through documentation of their experiences in combat, which is (needless to say) ridiculous and with a marked LACK of understanding about what exactly mental illness is. For the full article read here. One fascinating report indicates that as many as 20% of soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq suffer from PTSD.

The problems surrounding soldiers and their psychological states are myriad. This article on what happens to soldiers gone AWOL, from TomDispatch a while back (now linked through Common Dreams), talks about the conditions under which AWOL soldiers are imprisoned. Military industrial complex and prison industrial complex collapse and become one. Almost poetic. Mostly just frustrating and upsetting. It makes me wonder if everyone doesn't see these connections, too, and why the masses aren't demanding CHANGE right now!!!!! Or if they are, how the dominant patriarchy manages to keep it stifled and hidden...I know that millions of Americans are affected by these situations far more than I am, in my little bubble of privilege... AH

In related news, all of the Hawaiian female inmates in a Kentucky prison are being removed from the Otter Creek Correctional Center after widespread documentation of serious sexual abuse. Kentucky is one of the only states in which sex between a prison guard and an inmate is a misdemeanor rather than a felony, and at least five correctional officers (including one chaplain) has been proven, at this point, to have had sex with the women at Otter Creek. (For the full NYTimes article read here.)

Interestingly, the discourse in the NYTimes article and how officials are explaining this absurd abuse of power is how problematic private, for-profit prisons are and how they lack transparency... as if government run prisons are these oases of justice and rehabilitation. And while the article explains WHY Hawaiian women are in Kentucky prisons (lack of adequate funding and beds in HI, for example) they don't really even begin to talk about the tensions that can emerge and how the rape of Hawaiian imprisoned women fits into a history of violence and repression (sexual and otherwise) against indigenous women in the Americas. I guess that would be expecting too much from the NYTimes... but it's disturbing in the implication that your average privileged Times reader is not encouraged to examine this as anything more than a glitch in the system rather than an example of what the system requires.

(Note: While the article doesn't specify that the women are indigenous Hawaiians, I have to assume that some of the victims are, considering the disproportionate numbers of native Hawaiians who are locked up in the U.S. today.)

Making Money Change!

We are thrilled to announce that registration is open for the 2009 Making Money Make Change retreat - and that our keynote speaker will be Adrienne Maree Brown!!!

Making Money Make Change 2009: Community Alternatives For Economic Transformation
November 12-15, 2009
Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, Falls Village, CT

Please help spread the word about the Making Money Make Chage (MMMC) 2009 gathering by forwarding this to your email networks. You can help young people with wealth move from isolation to community, from inaction to action, and help increase their giving of money, time and energy toward social justice.

To register for this year's MMMC, go to http://www.makingmoneymakechange.org

What is MMMC?

Making Money Make Change (MMMC) is a national, multiracial gathering for young people with wealth (ages 18-35) who believe in social change. MMMC is a confidential space to explore issues related to wealth, privilege, philanthropy, and participation in grassroots movements for justice and equality. Through workshops, discussions, and community-building activities participants support, challenge, and inspire each other to align their resources with their values and work for personal and societal transformation. While the majority of participants are young people with wealth, social movement leaders and nonprofit practitioners from other class backgrounds are invited to speak, facilitate sessions, and participate in the entire retreat. MMMC is co-sponsored by four national social change organizations: Tides Foundation, Funding Exchange, Third Wave Foundation, and Resource Generation.

Generally, MMMC participants feel like they have or will have access to more resources than they need. “Wealth” is self-defined by those who participate, and the amount of wealth people have access to varies greatly. Young people with wealth are racially diverse and their money comes from many sources including inheritances, earnings, lottery winnings and legal settlements. Some people who are involved have access to philanthropic resources (for example, as board members of family foundations), but may not have access to personal wealth.


2009 Theme: Community Alternatives For Economic Transformation

Our 12th annual retreat brings us together at a moment framed by financial crisis. How are communities responding? How are people working together to create alternatives to unjust and unsustainable economic arrangements? What are the roles of cross-class movements in working towards social, racial, environmental and economic justice?


Keynote: Adrienne Maree Brown

Adrienne Maree Brown is the executive director of The Ruckus Society, which brings nonviolent direct action training and action support to communities impacted by economic, environmental and social oppression. She sits on the boards of Allied Media Projects and the Center for Media Justice (and just stepped down from the boards of Wiretap Magazine and the Brower Center), and is a participant in Somatics and Social Justice. Adrienne facilitates the development of organizations throughout the movement (most recently Young Women’s Empowerment Project, New Orleans Parents Organizing Network, ColorofChange.org and Detroit Summer). A co-founder of the League of Pissed Off/Young Voters and graduate of the Art of Leadership and Art of Change yearlong trainings, Adrienne is obsessed with learning and developing models for action, community strength, movement building and transformation.


Location:

The retreat will take place at the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center in Falls Village, Connecticut, accessible by a 25-minute shuttle ride from Metro North Railroad-Wassaic and a two and a half hour drive from New York City. The retreat center sits on 450 rural acres in northwestern CT, is environmentally friendly and serves food from local organic growers when possible including food grown on their organic farm. The retreat center is wheelchair accessible. For more about the Retreat Center, see their Web site at http://www.isabellafreedman.org/

If you have questions about MMMC, please e-mail Stephanie Yang, Retreat Director, at sydconsulting@gmail.com


Thank you,

The Making Money Make Change Planning Committee
Anthony Colón
Theo Yang Copley
Elokin
Eliot Estrin
Elspeth Gilmore
Nikki Morse
Matt Osborn
Naomi Sobel
Monica Simpson
stephanie yang

Canada Tar Sands Pipeline Plan to Go Forward

I know I'm a couple days behind on this but the analysis is what interests me even more than how disgusting this plan to pipe more oil in from the tar sands of Canada is. For a full article on the plan read here. Basically, the US State Department has OK'ed a multibillion dollar pipeline that will carry crude oil from Canadian oil sands (in Hardisty, Alberta) to refineries in the continental US (in Superior, Wisconsin). The pipeline will be 1,000 miles long and will "advance the strategic interests of the United States." That is to say, getting oil from Canada, a staunch ally, is better than getting it from some unstable Middle Eastern country or something like that. The environmental implications are formidable, however:

"The State Department has rubber-stamped a project that will mean more air, water and global warming pollution, particularly in the communities near refineries that will process this dirty oil," said Earthjustice attorney Sarah Burt. "The project's environmental review fails to show how construction of the Alberta Clipper is in the national interest. We will go to court to make sure that all the impacts of this pipeline are considered."

The environmental and native groups point out that "Tar sands development in Alberta is creating an environmental catastrophe, with toxic tailings ponds so large they can be seen from space and plans to strip away the forests and peat lands in an area the size of Florida."

"In addition," they argue, "greenhouse gas emissions from tar sands production are three times that of conventional crude oil and it contains 11 times more sulfur and nickel, six times more nitrogen and five times more lead than conventional oil. These toxins are released into the U.S. air and water when the crude oil is processed into fuels by refineries."

The coalition says this decision contradicts President Obama's promise to cut global warming and America's addiction to oil while investing in a clean energy future.

"The tar sands pipeline connects U.S. refiners and consumers with the dirtiest, most carbon-intensive crude oil on earth," said Kevin Reuther, Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy's legal director.

Native Canadian groups have come out in firm opposition to the exploitation of the tar sands as well. Members of the Cree aboriginal people are joining Climate Camp protests in London to bring attention to corporate Britain's involvement in the tar sands of Canada. Eriel Tchekwie Deranger, from Fort Chipewyan, a centre of Alberta's tar sands schemes, said: "British companies such as BP and Royal Bank of Scotland in partnership with dozens of other companies are driving this project, which is having such devastating effects on our environment and communities. Read more here.

Also, a group of tribal members have gathered nearly 700 signatures on a petition to hold a referendum on the Leech Lake tribal council's agreement to allow the line through tribal land.

"We are saddened by the news that the Presidential Permit was signed today," said Marty Cobenais of the nonprofit Indigenous Environmental Network, based in Bemidji, Minnesota.

"The voices and rights of the Leech Lake Band members are not being listened to by the Obama Administration. According to the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Constitution they are allowed to hold a referendum vote and allow the members to decide to accept the agreement with Enbridge or not.

"If they vote against the agreement, the pipeline route would have to go around the boundaries of the Leech Lake Reservation, which would require a new Environmental Impact Study, plus other permits including a new Presidential Permit," said Cobenais.

The project was approved before all the federal regulations are completed, he said. "The Bureau of Indian Affairs is still waiting to receive a completed application from Enbridge Energy and the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe to begin their approval process for allotment lands affected by these pipelines."

I wonder what will happen...

Re-Enactment of Vietnam War in PA? Really???

Steven Low reports on an event almost too ridiculously offensive to possibly be true: a re-enactment of the Vietnam War taking place in Boalsburg, PA:

Attention all Asians: Avoid Pennsylvania.

Last month, white men in Boalsburg, PA—military enthusiasts—orchestrated a public display of “hide and seek” or what Vietnamese people during the 60s and 70s may have observed: the indiscriminate mass murder of their people and the raping of girls. I guess in the age of political correctness we should say, the Vietnam War.

Alpha Company, as they call themselves, which is comprised mostly of men who never served in the Vietnam War, actors reenacted a scene from the Vietnam War: a patrol into Viet Cong, controlled territory. Why? To celebrate the bravery of Vietnam vets.

Vets like John McCain who displayed his courage by dropping bombs on men, women and children from 30,000 feet in the air. You’re a real bad ass, John. Push them buttons on people you can’t see.

The show comes courtesy of the Pennsylvania Military Museum.

For the full Racewire article read here, for the AP article read here.

All I have to say? WOW.

An Interesting Argument for Boycotting Israel

by Neve Gordon
Original article here.

Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv, and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokesperson, a British actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.

Not surprisingly, many Israelis -- even peaceniks -- aren't signing on. A global boycott can't help but contain echoes of anti-Semitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one's own nation.

It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.

I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country's future.

The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews -- whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel -- are citizens of the state of Israel.

The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbors do not grow up in an apartheid regime.

There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.

The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a bi-national democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.

The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem, and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest can return to the new Palestinian state.

Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, "on the ground," the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality.

Ideologically, the two-state solution is more realistic because fewer than 1% of Jews and only a minority of Palestinians support binationalism.

For now, despite the concrete difficulties, it makes more sense to alter the geographic realities than the ideological ones. If at some future date the two peoples decide to share a state, they can do so, but currently this is not something they want.

So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?

I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.

It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.

I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.

In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organizations from all over the world formulated the 10-point Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign meant to pressure Israel in a "gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity." For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel in order to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.

Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians -- my two boys included -- does not grow up in an apartheid regime.

This article orginally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
Neve Gordon is the author of "Israel's Occupation" and teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel.

Hunger and Poverty

The UN reported that its goal of halving the number of people living in poverty by 2015 is unlikely to be reached due to several factors including the economic climate and, more dramatically, the predicted continued rates of population growth. (Read more here.) The world population is expected to reach 7 billion at some point in 2011.

Meanwhile, a separate UN report says that due to population growth in Asia, specifically, the continent is at risk for a major hunger crisis and the resulting social upheaval. Hundred of billions of dollars needs to be invested in infrastructure, especially in irrigation systems:

India, China, Pakistan and other large countries avoided famines in the 1970s and 1980s only because they built giant state-sponsored irrigation systems and introduced better seeds and fertilisers. But the extra 1.5 billion people expected to live on the continent by 2050 will double Asia's demand for food, says the report from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the World Bank-funded International Water Management Institute (IWMI).

A combination of very little new land left for cultivation, an increasingly unpredictable climate and water supplies stretched to the limit means the only realistic option to feed people in the future will be better management of existing water supplies, according to the report.

For the full article see here.

SO LETS GO DO THAT!!! I'd be surprised if it happens though, for some reason or another.. call me cynical.

Some Good News Re: Mother Earth

Finally! An Obama action I can get pumped up over! Our president is taking action to protect millions (up to 58 million!) of acres of forest! Read a press release from the Wilderness Society about it here.

Also the horrendous and exploitative conglomerate Nestle is getting feedback on its destructive practices where it hurts - in the wallet! Food and Water Watch reported a 2.4 percent dip in sales of Nestle products - the company's water products (including Poland Springs, Deer Park, Arrowhead, etc.) dropped 3.7 percent, which is unprecedented! GO RESPONSIBLE CONSUMERS GO!

And the UN is considering legislating water as a human right, which would have considerable legal repercussions, especially in countries where water supplies are drained and the natural ability to produce clean water is stymied (think Fiji). Apparently PepsiCo and Connecticut Water have already adopted "fair water" practices that can set good examples for other corporations. (For the full article read here.)

Free Shifa!

Thanks Cris, for sending me this petition:

TO THE PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA AND ERIC HOLDER, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED STATES

We are writing to you because the Obama Administration has pledged to end torture, uphold human rights, and restore the integrity of the Constitution in the U.S. justice system. As people who share your willingness to work for real and long-lasting change, we urge you to investigate the case of Ehsanul Islam Sadequee, Shifa, to determine if there is any basis to continue to hold him other than misplaced and arbitrary discrimination based in racial and religious profiling.

On 17 April 2006, Shifa a citizen of the United States by birth, was kidnapped a few days after his wedding from Bangladesh by government agencies under the direction of the Bush administration. He was kept in an undisclosed location for 4 days before FBI authorities blindfolded and extradited him to the U.S. He was stripped of his clothes and severely abused by U.S. federal authorities.


More recently, at the federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia, Shifa was subjected to physical violence and attacked by an inmate and traumatized from psychological torture at the prison. Since then, his health has deteriorated markedly, with loss of weight, and he has developed some new, possibly life- threatening health problems. No attempt has been made by the prison staff to address these medical problems, and his deteriorating health may become a serious crisis if he does not receive adequate health care immediately.

He has been living in a cell for three years that is approximately 8 feet by 12 feet. He is in that cell for at least 23 hours per day. Many days he remains in the cell for 24 hours. He can not have normal pens or pencils. He cannot make phone calls to his family, except on rare occasions. Shifa has been convicted of no crime. Yet, he has served three years in the most onerous prison conditions that this country has to offer.

His pretrial punishment is not limited to the isolation cell. When he meets with counsel he is shackled. His hands are cuffed. His waste is encircled with chains. He can barely write. His lawyers are required to turn the pages of documents for him to read. He is not permitted to hand his lawyers any paper. His lawyers are not permitted to hand him any paper to take back to his cell.

Shifa is a gentle, compassionate, and peaceful spirit in the community. He worked with several non-profit organizations that work to end violence in the South Asian community in Atlanta. While the previous government’s case relies substantially on innuendo and “guilt by association,” Shifa’s First Amendment rights to free speech and practice his Muslim faith, his Fifth Amendment right to due process of law, and his Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment have been violated viciously.

We believe Shifa is innocent of any crime, and has been detained by the Bush administration solely because of his faith and belief in Islam. We believe that the case against him lacks merit and warrants review. The prolonged 3-year inhumane detention in solitary confinement without a trial is a violation of his Constitutional rights and is excessive punishment to secure a guilty plea for a young man who has yet to be proven guilty of even the most minor offense.

We believe the U.S. Department of Justice, under the Bush administration, succumbed to post-9/11 illegal injunctions and set aside the United States Constitution and a long legal tradition of due process and respect for our constitutional rights to target primarily against people of color, immigrants, and other South Asians, Arabs and Muslims.


Shifa, like all people of the world, deserves his freedom and constitutional rights. Shifa has been stripped of his constitutional rights because he is a strong, religious and spiritual Muslim American. We grieve for each American who has been treated in this way, for each life that has been harmed, injured and tortured under the Bush administration. We urge the Honorable President to stay true to his promise of restoring the integrity of our Constitution by reviewing the merits of Shifa's case, releasing him from prison, and returning him to his family.

In summary, we ask that you:
* Ensure that Shifa gets the medical care he needs.
* Ensure that Shifa is able to freely practice his religion whether he is in prison or not.
* Review merits of Shifa's case and release him from prison.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned
The Free Shifa Campaign
freeshifa@gmail.com
Atlanta, GA

To sign the petition click here, for more on Shifa's situation click here.

Also, Democracy Now did an exclusive on another Islamophobic ongoing incident, the case of Youssef Megahed, who was acquitted by a jury of his peers on criminal charges only to be immediately rearrested for the same charges by ICE. For that report watch or listen here.

This is clearly a growing trend. Cris also sent me this link to an article about seven Muslims being arrested by the FBI in North Carolina and their struggle against blatant discrimination and racism.

It is unsurprising that in this climate of fear in the US, especially with our waging wars on predominantly Muslim countries, anti-Muslim sentiment should be emerging. When every day we're told that the terrorists are out to get us, no wonder cops call someone with a Koran "a Taliban" (see Megahed story).

Obviously this is inexcusable on an institutional and personal level, however, and the only way I can see around it is total abolition, de-militarization, and concrete steps towards humanizing those around us. Recently the DoD refused to even give a list of names of the people it has imprisoned at the imfamous Bagram prison in Afghanistan! Names are the first step towards humanizing people and showing that their lives are valued... hiding who they are interning is despicable. (For the press release from the ACLU read here.)

Responsible Drinking Takes on a Whole New Meaning

In the past when I've heard people talk about drinking responsibly they usually mean don't drink and drive, or don't drink and have sex, or don't drink too much -- but apparently responsibility re: what you drink has a whole additional set of social implications. In this blog post about the union-busting practices of beer corporations, Ben Dangl makes a convincing argument against the major beer brands. Also, I suppose buying/drinking local products is just always a good rule of thumb. But it will never cease to amaze me how the decisions we make in our consumption have repercussions on a global scale. I was reading today about the Israeli cosmetic company AHAVA (a word meaning love in Hebrew) and its practices of exploiting land in the Occupied Territories to make its luxury Dead Sea Salt products. (For the article click here.) Anyway, I'll keep it to beer today:

Why We Should All Boycott Union Busting Beer Corporations

Aug 10, 2009 By Ben Dangl

When Obama sat down for a beer in the White House Rose Garden with Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley, they all turned their backs on the smaller, craft brewers of the country. Obama chose Bud Light, Gates asked for Red Stripe, and Crowley drank Blue Moon.

One of the major craft brewers based where I live in Vermont is Magic Hat, a brewery with a delicious array of brews. That brewery issued a press release following the "Beer Summit" explaining, "Craft Brewers the country over are chagrined by the President's choice to consume a beer owned by a company based outside of America's borders. Bud Light, owned by Belgium-based AB InBev, and Blue Moon, owned by London-based SAB MillerCoors, together control 94% of the beer market in the United States. However, the United States boasts over 1,500 craft brewers, the majority being made up of small Main Street Businesses that employ less than 50 people."

This encounter at the Rose Garden provides a perfect time to reflect on why we should all boycott the beer monopolies of the world.

One reason to boycott large breweries is the union busting, right wing culture that dominates some of the biggest breweries in America. Yuengling, America's oldest brewery, and Coors, America's biggest brewery, both offer insights into the ugly political and labor practices of this multi-billion dollar industry.

In 2007 Yuengling owner Dick Yuengling told his workers, "the writing was on the wall" and that if they didn't get rid of the union he would close the brewery and open up shop in a location in the southern US where labor was cheaper. Faced with the choice of looking for work in an area with few jobs, the workers decided to kick the union out.

At the time, Patrick Eiding, then-president of the AFL-CIO union in Philadelphia said of Mr. Yuengling, "If he doesn't want union people, then I would say union people shouldn't drink his beer."

Municipal worker Don Long said he would follow along with the boycott, explaining that Yuengling "doesn't care for his workers -- he just cares about how much money he can make."

I've joined in a boycott against this beer, and have convinced some of my friends to do so as well. But it's really Coors Brewing Company that takes the cake for supporting conservative causes and busting unions.

Over the years the Coors family has contributed handsomely to plenty of conservative projects and organizations. Reading about their family's philanthropy is like reading a history of the right wing in America.

Joseph Coors was an advisor to Ronald Reagan, provided the founding grant to the infamous Heritage Foundation as well as the right wing Free Congress Foundation, which asks the following question on its website: "Will America return to the culture that made it great, our traditional, Judeo-Christian, Western culture?" If not, the US will, revert to "no less than a third world country."

Joseph Coors really put his money where his right wing heart was when he donated a $65,000 plane to the Contras in the covert US war against the Nicaraguan Sandinistas in the 1980s. It's high time to raise a glass of non-Coors beer in solidarity with the Sandinistas. But here's another reason to boycott America's most successful brewing company; their union busting.

In 1977, in Colorado, home to the company's brewery, Coors hired scabs to replace workers on strike at the plant. Jeff Coors, the president of the family company at the time, told the Los Angeles Times that he wouldn't back down because agreeing to union demands was like "inviting the Russians in to take over America."

But the family's repression of workers' rights didn't stop there. Annika Carlson writing about the Coors' legacy at Campus Progress, says, "Until 1986, prospective Coors employees were sometimes required to take lie detector tests, answering questions about their sexual orientation, communist leanings, and how often they changed their underwear."

In 2004, when Peter Coors, the chairman of the Coors Brewing Company ran for Senate as a Republican from Colorado, local union leaders were quick to criticize the company's poor labor relations. Steve Adams, the president of the Colorado AFL-CIO at the time, told USA Today, "Peter Coors is a Republican, and there are very few Republicans who support workers' rights. The Coors company track record is not friendly to workers' rights." To this day, many of Denver's 23,000 Food and Commercial Workers union still boycott Coors beer due to the company's crackdowns on labor rights in the 1970s.

You can show that drinking is a very political act by turning your back on the big breweries. Or, as Carlson says about Coors, "When cracking open a cold one, remember to toast the things that make the Coors family great: union-busting, lie-detecting, Heritage-funding, double-talking and, of course, its beer."


Benjamin Dangl is the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia (AK Press). He is the editor of TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events, and UpsideDownWorld.org, a website covering activism and politics in Latin America. Contact: Bendangl(at)gmail(dot)com

The Use of Tasers

Salon Blogger Digby wrote today about tasers and their (mis)use by American police. While acknowledging that it is better for police to be armed with tasers than with real guns, Digby brings up important examples of the blatant violations of civil liberty through the use of tasers that police have perpetrated:

Last week there were three taser episodes that made the rounds on the internet. (There may have been more, but these were the three most discussed.) The first was of a drunken, belligerent man at a baseball game who after 41 seconds of discussion was tasered while sitting in his seat. Indeed, the video shows that the taser threw him down onto the cement steps where he rolled down several. Since this scene must have happened literally thousands of times over the years, you have to wonder what they must have done in the past. Somehow I doubt they pulled out a gun and shot them.

The second incident was this sad tale of a man who allegedly refused to come out of a store restroom. Police blew pepper spray under the door, kicked it open and instantly tasered the man. It was only afterward that they discovered he was deaf. Police tried to book the man anyway, but the magistrate refused to accept the charges.

It was the third incident, however, that should get civil libertarians' serious attention. It featured an Idaho man on a bicycle who happened to ride past a police stop in progress on the side of the road. He had nothing to do with the stop, but was pulled over by the police and told to produce his ID. He said, correctly, that he had no legal obligation to produce ID and the police insisted he must. The situation escalated and he demanded that they call a supervisor to the scene when the police said they were going to arrest him. He ended up being tasered seven times -- you can hear him moaning in pain on the tape at the end. (In an especially creepy moment, the police try to confiscate the tape of the incident.)

Now, many people will say that he should have just showed his ID, that it's stupid to confront police, that like Henry Louis Gates you get what you deserve if you mouth off to the cops. And on a pragmatic level this is certainly true (although I would reiterate what I wrote here about a free people not being required to view the police in the same way they view a criminal street gang, which is to say in fear.) But the fact remains that there is no law against riding a bicycle without ID, and there is no law against mouthing off to the police. Certainly, there can be no rationale behind using a weapon designed to replace deadly force seven times against someone under these circumstances.

These are just three incidents that happened last week. There's nothing special about them. They happen every day. Even this horrific scene, which is so shockingly authoritarian (excuse the pun) that it makes you feel sick, is not unusual:

A former Southern Virginia University and Brigham Young University adjunct professor of political philosophy and jurisprudence, Dr. Lowery entered the Utah Third District courtroom alone on November 22, 2004, to make oral argument before Judge Anthony Quinn. Two Salt Lake County Deputy Sheriffs sat at the back of the courtroom, one on each side of the door. Other deputies were in the foyer of the courtroom. No members of the public were present.

Dr. Lowery suffered from major depression, bipolar disorder, paranoia disorder, delusional disorder, and psychotic disorder. Judge Quinn granted one of Dr. Lowery's motions made under the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title II, which allowed for reasonable modifications of court rules, policies, or practices in order to accommodate Dr. Lowery's multiple mental disabilities.

Near the end of his oral argument, the traumatic content of the argument moved Dr. Lowery into moderate mania, and he characterized a previous crabbed ruling by Quinn as "bullshit."

Impatient for the speech to end, Judge Quinn took that as an opportunity to order the bailiffs to take the professor into custody and cool him off.

The plaintiff's state of agitation was caused by his mental disabilities. The deputy sheriffs' approach only caused the situation to escalate. As five or more Salt Lake County deputy sheriffs/bailiffs seized Lowery from behind, he shouted, "I am cooled off; I deserve to be heard. I deserve to be heard, your Honor, and you are violating my access to due process at this very moment. I am not violent and --"

Judge Quinn interrupted him with ordering the bailiffs to take Dr. Lowery to a holding cell. A split second later -- unclear whether following the judge's orders or acting on his own accord, a bailiff sent 50,000 volts of incapacitating electricity into the lower back of the unsuspecting professor. As the courtroom video shows, nothing in Dr. Lowery's behavior suggests that the bailiffs had any reasonable motive to believe they or the judge were in physical danger.

Yet the taser gun fired more than once.

The repeated electric shocks blew Dr. Lowery over the podium, and he landed face down on the floor, with two bailiffs on his back. The electric blasts caused Dr. Lowery's bowels to empty twice. He screamed, "Help me!" while he complied with a bailiff's order to stay on his belly, neither capable nor willing to offer resistance. Then, suddenly, he went unconscious.

Remembering they were still on camera, the bailiffs shouted at Dr. Lowery to not resist again (though his resistance was only instinctive) and threatened him with more electrocution. When they realized that he could no longer hear them, they dragged the man across the floor, put him in a chair, and massaged his heart. One bailiff called for paramedics. [...]

Since no one but the victim and the abusers were in the courtroom, this crime remained unknown to the public until recently.

Also, some people do actually die from being tasered. Anyway, the evidence that Digby presents is a compelling case against the police being armed with taser guns. Honestly, for me it is evidence that police shouldn't be armed! They so more often than not end up abusing the power of their weapons against innocent or harmless civilians... Anyway, for the full post (which I found on Commondreams) read here.

Wealth for the Common Good Speaks Up

This is what's up:

Upper-income earners who actually want to pay higher taxes have launched a public campaign calling for an immediate rollback of the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush.

The group, which calls itself Wealth for the Common Good, believes that people who have taxable income of more than $235,000 a year should support restoring their top federal income tax rate to 39.6 percent from 35 percent - and now, not in 2011, when the higher rate is scheduled to return anyway.

From their Web site:

"Our country is facing the worst economic challenge since the Great Depression and an urgent need to make a long overdue investment in bringing jobs and stability back to our communities. This investment should be paid for, in part, by repealing the Bush-era tax cuts our country cannot afford.

"Those of us with taxable incomes over $235,000 benefited from the upside of the economy during the last decade and profited for eight years from a 2001 tax cut. Now is the time to give back.

"We would see a minimal tax increase - from 35 (percent) to 39.6 (percent), a rate still far lower than the one under President (Ronald) Reagan - but the increased revenue would raise an estimated $43 billion per year."

The group's founders include Chuck Collins, who inherited some of the Oscar Mayer meat fortune and who has long been involved in agitating on income-inequality issues.

He may be best known for co-writing the 2003 book "Wealth and Our Commonwealth: Why America Should Tax Accumulated Fortunes" with Bill Gates Sr. The book made the case for retaining the federal estate tax.

This month, Wealth for the Common Good sent its request, including a petition with more than 1,000 signatures, to President Obama and to House and Senate leaders.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/08/09/BU9S1915CD.DTL#ixzz0NppZ5jUi

Why Our Criminal Justice System OBVIOUSLY Has Nothing to do with Justice

The irony and counter-intuitiveness of our prison industrial complex and criminal processing system is overwhelming now, more than ever. And now, more than ever, I am convinced that the only way we will ever escape the demons we are creating and learn to look each other in the eye and treat each other like HUMAN BEINGS is complete and total prison abolition. A new start, a new way of understanding ourselves, understanding the word 'community' and understanding how to love and respect one another.

Today, hundreds of California inmates rioted (for ELEVEN HOURS) in the Reception Center West at the California Institution for Men in Chino. No one was killed but hundreds were wounded and those wounded were disproportionately Black and Latino. Guess what our government is gonna do? CHARGE THEM WITH ADDITIONAL CRIMES... lengthen their sentences. Yea, that makes sense... how??? Read the full NYTimes article here (Of course, it isn't easy getting out either with unemployment being what it is - the latest on unemployment from Racewire here.)

Another article that made me cry was about a sixteen-year-old mentally ill boy named Donald, who has been locked up for two years because of a breaking-and-entering charge despite his diagnosis of several serious mental health disorders. They put him in juvie because they thought he'd get the best treatment there, but have KEPT him there because of violence he has inflicted on himself, on animals, and his attempt to fight a guard. Can anyone not understand that these are clear indications that a violent padded cell is SO CLEARLY not working for this ill PERSON?!? Sorry for the caps but it is just so obvious... and frustrating. And disappointing. And typical. The NYTimes reports:

As cash-starved states slash mental health programs in communities and schools, they are increasingly relying on the juvenile corrections system to handle a generation of young offenders with psychiatric disorders. About two-thirds of the nation’s juvenile inmates — who numbered 92,854 in 2006, down from 107,000 in 1999 — have at least one mental illness, according to surveys of youth prisons, and are more in need of therapy than punishment.

“We’re seeing more and more mentally ill kids who couldn’t find community programs that were intensive enough to treat them,” said Joseph Penn, a child psychiatrist at the Texas Youth Commission. “Jails and juvenile justice facilities are the new asylums.”

At least 32 states cut their community mental health programs by an average of 5 percent this year and plan to double those budget reductions by 2010, according to a recent survey of state mental health offices.

Juvenile prisons have been the caretaker of last resort for troubled children since the 1980s, but mental health experts say the system is in crisis, facing a soaring number of inmates reliant on multiple — and powerful — psychotropic drugs and a shortage of therapists.

In California’s state system, one of the most violent and poorly managed juvenile systems in the country, according to federal investigators, three dozen youth offenders seriously injured themselves or attempted suicide in the last year — a sign, state juvenile justice experts say, of neglect and poor safety protocols.

In Ohio, where Gov. Ted Strickland, a former prison psychologist, approved a 34 percent reduction in community-based mental health services to reduce a budget deficit, Thomas J. Stickrath, the director of the Department of Youth Services, said continuing cuts would swell his youth offender population.

“I’m hearing from a lot of judges saying, ‘I’m sorry I’m sending so-and-so to you, but at least I know that he’ll get the treatment he can’t get in his community,’ ” Mr. Stickrath said.

But youths are often subjected to neglect and violence in juvenile prisons, and studies show that mental illnesses can become worse there.

This trap that we're put into - this epistemological resignation, leads us to think that more legislation and more criminalization are the only way. Racewire recently did a great writeup of how hate crime legislation does not effectively counter hate crimes at all and rather contributes to the expansion of the prison and police systems. We need something else. And we need it now.

Backlash

New American Media reports that more undocumented Chinese immigrants are entering the US through Mexico, Obama vows to "reform" the immigrant detention complex in the US (NYTimes article here) and RaceWire did a compelling piece on two permanent residents, Elliot Granade and Alexander Alli, caught up in the immigrant detention system in Pennsylvania for committing non-violent crimes. Racewire reports:

On any given day—DHS detains more than one thousand noncitizens in jails across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, particularly in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.... many are lawful permanent residents who are detained for months, if not years, while the immigration courts and federal courts resolve their cases. Yet they never receive a custody hearing to determine whether their prolonged detention is even necessary. Indeed, many choose to abandon their meritorious cases because they cannot endure the prospect of being locked up indefinitely.

We are struggling so hard with this, we are violating constitutional and basic human rights daily, and yet still no one seems capable of looking below the surface at what is causing the situation in the first place! About taking responsibility for the monster we have created through, for example, imperialist attitudes and policies in the region. That's just for starters... oh I could go on.

Sustainable Prisons? (From Liza Bean)

Thanks Liz for showing me this:

You probably don’t use the words “sustainability” and “prison” in the same sentence very often. The housing and feeding of inmates requires huge amounts of water and energy, though, and generates tons of waste. The Sustainable Prisons Project, a partnership between the Washington State Department of Corrections and the Evergreen State College, works to make prisons more efficient… and perhaps even reduce recidivism rates by providing “green collar” training to inmates.

Started in 2004 as a simple project to use dwindling water resources at the Cedar Creek Corrections Center more efficiently, the project now involves food production, recycling, composting, and even beekeeping. Plans for the project include not only building on progress at Cedar Creek, but also expanding the program to three other facilities. The program is even working with national organizations like the Nature Conservancy to protect and restore endangered prairie perennials.

DOC officials see the project as a true win-win: not only can the system save money, but also address mental health challenges and recidivism among inmates by providing them with meaningful work that engages them in issues which extend beyond the prison walls.

Is it time to start using “sustainability” and “prison” in the same sentence more often? Is this a sensible investment in both resource efficiency and prisoner rehabilitation? Let us know what you think…

For the original post and photos see http://www.sundancechannel.com/sunfiltered/2009/08/prison-life-sustainable-prisons-project/.

A New Modified Super-Corn?

Next spring, farmers in Canada will be able to sow one of the most complicated genetically engineered plants ever designed, a futuristic type of corn containing eight foreign genes.

With so much crammed into one seed, the modified corn will be able to confer multiple benefits, such as resistance to corn borers and rootworms, two caterpillar-like pests that infest the valuable grain crop, as well as withstanding applications of glyphosate, a weed killer better known by its commercial name, Roundup.

But a controversy has arisen over the new seeds, which were approved for use last month by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency: Health Canada hasn't assessed their safety.

The health agency said in response to questions from The Globe and Mail that it didn't have to do so, because it is relying on the two companies making the seeds, agriculture giants Monsanto Co. and Dow AgroSciences LLC, to flag any safety concerns. But the companies haven't tested the seeds either, because they say they aren't required to.

The companies have checked the safety of each of the eight genes one at a time in individual corn plants, but haven't done so when they combined the foreign matter together in one seed, says Trish Jordan, a spokesperson for Monsanto Canada Inc.

"Every single one of the traits has been tested singly, and it has gone through the complete rigorous regulatory review process," Ms. Jordan said.

When the eight traits were subsequently combined into one seed through conventional breeding techniques, there was no trigger for an additional safety assessment, she said.

But the companies', and Health Canada's, position is disputed by opponents of genetically modified foods and consumer safety advocates, who say guidelines from the UN's food standards commission, Codex Alimentarius, recommend such testing, even when the novel traits are introduced through normal plant breeding.

Michael Hansen, senior scientist at Consumers Union, a U.S. advocacy group, says he's worried that combining a large number of foreign genes could lead to the creation of allergens or other deleterious substances in food that don't occur when only one gene is involved.

The government's decision to leave the safety testing to the companies is like "putting the fox in charge of the hen house," Mr. Hansen said.

For the full article read here.

Honestly, anything that Dow and Monsanto do scares the crap out of me. For some reasons why read this. Or go see FoodInc or just google Monsanto and Dow. Seriously insane stuff.

CA To Reduce Prison Population!

California, one of the most formidable prison systems in the world, has been ordered by a federal court to reduce its inmate population of 150,000 by 40,000 — roughly 27 percent — within two years.

Obviously Schwartzenegger et al are protesting and saying they will appeal but the decision is noteworthy! A step towards recognition that closing prisons and releasing human beings from their cages does not mean chaos and mayhem! A step toward abolition, at least in my (optimistic) book.

Read more in the SF Chronicle or the NYTimes.

What the Tel Aviv Killings Might Say

I thought that Chernus raised some really important points in this article, and his questions certainly don't have easy answers. What do you think?

Tel Aviv Murder Reflects Israeli Fears

by Ira Chernus

Why is the murder of gays in Israel different from all other anti-gay violence? That's the question I asked myself after a gunman killed two and injured fifteen at a gay youth center in Tel Aviv. As the father of a young gay man, I was horrified. As a Jew, I was appalled.

But as an activist for Jewish-Palestinian peace, I was perplexed. I wondered whether homophobia in Israel might somehow be connected to Israel's many years of conflict with its Arab neighbors, its 42 years as an occupying power, and all the violence that Israel has perpetrated as well as endured over those years.

Israel is not an especially virulent hotbed of anti-gay prejudice. Israeli police don't attack gay pride marchers on orders of the government, as police in some other countries do. The orthodox Judaism that is the source of most Israeli homophobia is no more reactionary than the conservative brands of religion that feed homophobia in other nations.

In fact, religious reactionaries in Israel probably get less public respect than they do in the United States. And in Israel it's just one religious faction stirring up prejudice against gays, while in the U.S. we have a whole interfaith coalition doing that odious job.

Nevertheless Israel is a unique case, because its political culture has revolved for so long around fear of, and enmity toward, Arabs, especially Palestinians. In the past, out-of-the-blue shootings like the one last week in Tel Aviv have always been motivated by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israeli peace activists have long warned that the moral callousness bred by the occupation and its violence would come home to roost in Jewish Israeli life. Might this attack be evidence that they were right? We can't know for sure until the murderer is identified. Even then, it will hardly be plausible to claim that Israel's policies of domination and violence caused the Tel Aviv murderer to act. Nor do those policies in any way directly cause homophobia in Israel.

The connection is more subtle. It's about what happens when fear becomes the foundation of public life. Israeli political culture is pervaded by insecurity about the nation's very existence. That insecurity is hardly realistic. Israel has by far the strongest military in its region and still enjoys strong backing from the world's only superpower. The fear that an independent Palestine could destroy Israel is about as realistic as the fear that equal rights for gays would destroy the Israeli -- or American -- family as we know it.

But when insecurity takes hold of a society, reality checks have little effect. That's why many Israelis can make the most absurd claims about Palestinians, just as many homophobes make absurd claims about gays and lesbians, or anyone who doesn't fit their rigid gender stereotypes.

Stereotyping is a huge part of the problem in both cases. Israelis too often make sweeping claims about "the Palestinians," as if the millions of Palestinians were all part of a Borg-like monolith (and, unfortunately, too many Palestinians are equally prone to stereotype "the Israeli"). Similarly, anti-gay forces around the world promote sweeping, often ludicrous, generalizations about homosexuals.

There's a close link between the stereotyping and the fear. Why do insecure people resort to stereotypes? And why are those people often so conservative, even reactionary, in their politics? Lots of studies have been devoted to those questions.

A few years ago, a team of psychologists looked at all the studies done over a half-century and found that they generally point to the same conclusions.

Virtually all of the motives that lead people to be conservative "originate in psychological attempts to manage uncertainty and fear. These, in turn, are inherently related to the two core aspects of conservative thought-resistance to change and the endorsement of inequality. The management of uncertainty is served by resistance to change insofar as change (by its very nature) upsets existing realities and is fraught with insecurity. Fear may be both a cause and a consequence of endorsing inequality; it breeds and justifies competition, dominance struggles, and sometimes, violent strife."

In other words, conservatives want to live in a world where the differences between people are fixed, clear-cut, and organized into simplistic hierarchies of better and worse, because they think that will keep them safe. So they want their world organized by the most basic hierarchy of all: "We are better than them."

Who the "we" and "them" are is a secondary matter. It could be straights versus gays, or Israelis versus Palestinians, or Jews versus Arabs, or any other convenient pair of opposites. Any dichotomy will do, as long as it can make life seem simple, unchangeable, and therefore secure.

Stereotyping is a key to this psychological strategy. It turns complicated three-dimensional people into simplistic two-dimensional images, and that makes the world seem more manageable. When the stereotypes of "them" are negative (as they almost always are) they justify the belief in inequality and the superiority of "our kind of people," which is essential to conservatism.

As the psychologists noted, this claim of superiority breeds and justifies competition, domination, and sometimes violence. It's easy to imagine that the Tel Aviv killer felt fully justified. There's plenty of evidence that Israeli Jews dominating and doing violence against Palestinians -- most of it, though not all, on the orders of the state -- often feel fully justified. After all, "the Palestinians want to destroy Israel"; that's the stereotype on which most Israeli policy is based.

Beneath that stereotype lies an irrational fear so deep that columnist Doron Rosenblum in Israel's leading newspaper, Ha'aretz, calls it paranoia. In fact Rosenblum writes of "at least two outstanding traits of Israeliness: aggressiveness and paranoia," and adds what all the psychological studies confirm: Those two traits "reflect two sides of the same coin."

To repeat, none of this suggests that Israel's policies of domination and violence caused the Tel Aviv murder or Israeli homophobia. But the murder can serve as a mirror, in which Israelis, American Jews, and all of us can see what happens when irrational fears of change and difference take over, whether in an individual mind or a whole society.

We here in the U.S. have plenty of irrational fears of our own to deal with. And we have plenty of groups actively preying on those fears to advance their agendas, including anti-gay-rights groups and Jewish groups supporting right-wing Israeli policies.

On the Jewish side, the latest case in point is a letter circulating in the U.S. Senate, calling on President Obama to "press Arab leaders to consider dramatic gestures toward Israel" to advance the peace process.

The letter, initiated by Senators Evan Bayh and James Risch and signed so far by five others, is the top item on the "Take Action" page of the website of AIPAC (the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee). It has all the hallmarks of previous Congressional letters that have been written in AIPAC's office. It's no stretch of the imagination that this letter, too, was written by the premier American-Jewish fear-mongering lobby.

As the Jewish peace group Brit Tzedek v'Shalom tells its members: "There is nothing wrong with calling on all parties in the Middle East to step up to the plate. This is, in fact, President Obama's approach. ... The problem with the Bayh-Risch letter is what is intentionally left out: the need for a complete Israeli settlement freeze to help move the peace process forward."

In fact, the letter makes it sound like Israel has already taken major steps in the service of peace while Arabs have done nothing. Read the Arab League's peace plan, now waiting seven years for a response from Israel, alongside reports of Israeli plans to expand settlements and block peace initiatives, to see how misleading this view is. Once again, fear and the conservatism it breeds can crowd out reality, even at the highest levels of government.

The ultimate tragedy of every right-wing strategy, whether anti-gay, anti-Palestinian, or anti-whatever, is that it's doomed to fail. Trying to prevent change, conservatives only engender conflict that is bound to lead to more change. Trying to control others, conservatives only insure that the world will grow even further out of their control. The idea of staying safe by preventing change and complexity is always an illusion.

But it's an illusion that dies hard. And while it is slowly dying, its victims -- in Tel Aviv, the Occupied Territories, and all over the globe -- are dying too.
Ira Chernus is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Read more of his writing on Israel, Palestine, and American Jews at http://chernus.wordpress.com.

Healthcare Shortfalls

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 31, 2009
2:03 PM


CONTACT: National Organization for Women (NOW)
Mai Shiozaki, 202-628-8669, ext. 116; cell 202-641-1906
NOW Outraged at House Vote on Abortion Coverage -- Women's Rights Traded Away
WASHINGTON - July 31 - NOW is outraged to learn that the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed an amendment excluding abortion services from the "essential" health benefits package as defined by the government. Under this amendment, subsidies used to help pay insurance premiums for low-income people could not be used for abortion services. The New York Times reports that "insurers must use money from private sources to pay for any abortions."

"Reproductive health care is a fundamental right. Any health care plan that does not cover the full range of reproductive services, including abortion, discriminates against women," said NOW President Terry O'Neill. "Once again, our representatives are giving in to the right wing by trading away women's rights. Well, I have a message for them, our reproductive rights are not theirs to give away."

O'Neill noted that a majority of voters support coverage for abortion services, with only about a quarter opposed to using tax dollars to pay for abortion. In addition, a recent study found that most people in the U.S. with employer-based insurance currently have coverage for abortion. "Don't low-income people deserve the same level of coverage as other people in this country?" asked O'Neill. "Our lawmakers should be ashamed of themselves for perpetuating class-based and gender-based biases as they attempt to 'reform' our broken health care system."
###
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Also, the Black Agenda Report's Bruce Dixon wrote a scathing piece on Top Ten Ways To Tell Your President & His Party Aren't Fighting For Health Care For Everybody. Number 4 hits especially hard:
#

The president and his party have received more money from private insurers and the for-profit health care industry than even Republicans, with the president alone taking $19 million in the 2008 election cycle alone, more than all his Repubican, Democratic and independent rivals combined.

Democratic senator Max Bacaus got $1.1 million in 2008. Democratic senators Harkin, Landreau and Rockerfeller each got over half a million, and Senator Durbin got just under half a million. Other Democratic senators got a little less. Four Democrats in the House, Rangel, Dinglell, Udall and Hoyer got over half a million apiece in 2008, with other Democrats not far behind.

Is there any wonder that the insurance companies, like the drug companies are also running “bipartisan health care reform” commercials using the president's exact language?

But all are worth reading and really worrysomep.

Correction

Yesterday I said two families but that was misleading. 50 Palestinians were evicted.

From Democracy Now:
Israel Evicts 50 Palestinians from Home in East Jerusalem

Israeli police have evicted more than fifty Palestinians, including nineteen children, from their homes in East Jerusalem after an Israeli court ruled their homes were owned by Jewish settlers. The court’s ruling was based on nineteenth century documents. The eviction has been widely condemned by the international community, including the United Nations and the Obama administration. The British consulate said it was “appalled” by the court’s decision. In a statement, the consulate said, “These actions are incompatible with the Israeli professed desire for peace. We urge Israel not to allow the extremists to set the agenda.”

Hatem Abdel Qader, a leader of Fatah in Jerusalem: “For sure, the battle in Sheikh Jarrah has not ended. There are confiscation orders for twenty-eight houses. Three of them have already been carried out. There is a battle to save the other houses. We will be firm in this battle on a political, social and legal level. There is an Israeli project in Sheikh Jarrah which aims to remove this neighborhood and connect it with Shepherd Hotel and the Mufti neighborhood and to locate a huge settlement close to the Old City of Jerusalem in order to make the Old City of Jerusalem Jewish.”

Home is Where You're Forced From

Israel evicts two Palestinian families from their East Jerusalem homes after they lost a legal battle to stay. This is a clear signal that the Israeli government is going to support the gradual but forceful Jewish takeover of the Arab quarter. For the full NYTimes article see here.

Also, American families continue to be forced from their homes due to foreclosure and the ever-worsening housing crisis. In this article from the Guardian, Dean Baker suggests an alternative:

There is an easier route. In recognition of the extraordinary situation created by the housing bubble and its collapse, Congress could approve a temporary change to the rules governing the foreclosure process. This change would give homeowners facing foreclosure the right to stay in their homes, paying the market rent for a substantial period of time (eg seven to 10 years).

This change would have two effects. First, it would immediately give housing security to the millions of families facing foreclosure. If they like the house, the neighbourhood, the schools for their kids, they would have the option to remain there for a substantial period of time.

Also by keeping homes occupied, this rule change can help prevent the blight of foreclosures that has depressed property values in many areas. Vacant homes are often not maintained and can become havens for drug use and crime.

The other effect of a right-to-rent rule would be that it would give lenders substantially more incentive to modify a mortgage. Under the rule, the lender could still carry through with the foreclosure process and take possession of the house. The lender would also be free to resell the property, but the former homeowner would still have the option to remain as a tenant, paying the market rent for the period specified in the law.