Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 05.01.10

[David Shove (shove001]

             P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R   05.01.10

1. IWW labor march    5.01 1pm
2. CUAPB              5.01 1:30pm
3. Northtown vigil    5.01 2pm
4. Immigrant/march    5.01 2pm
5. Immigration/reform 5.01 2pm
6. ENP                5.01 6:30pm
7. Labor/BlackDog     5.01 6:30pm
8. Vandana Shiva/CTV  5.01 9pm

9. Stillwater vigil   5.02 1pm
10. Mayday parade     5.02 1pm
11. SugarBeets/labor  5.02 2pm

12. Muhcc           - UNANIMOUS single-payer vote Minneapolis city council
13. Mumia Abu Jamal - Time bombs
14. Karl Grossman   - Spill, baby, spill: blow out in the Gulf
15. Stephen Lendman - National Public Radio's (NPR) pro-Israeli bias
16. Bill Quigley    - Fed immigration enforcement is out of control
17. Frank Scott     - Wake up and smell the system

--------1 of 17--------

From: rodneykin [at] riseup.net
Subject: IWW labor march 5.01 1pm

CALL-OUT FOR LABOR FEEDER MARCH

This May Day, workers in the Twin Cities must stand in solidarity with the
immigrant rights movement.

The U.S. government's anti-immigrant policies are an issue for all working
people, whether we were born in this country or another.

ICE and other immigration authorities frequently use their powers to break
unions or deport workers who stand up for themselves. Immigration laws are
used to benefit the employing class by making undocumented workers
particularly vulnerable to retaliation by the bosses.

Faced with the government's inability to change its racist immigration
laws workers must demand immediate action from the Obama administration.

This Saturday, May 1st is the day we take to the streets to stand against
the continued criminalization of immigration in the United States.At the
same time we stand in solidarity with those who have come before us.

Since 1890, May 1st has been an international workers labor day. A day to
celebrate our history and to reaffirm our commitment to free ourselves
from wage slavery. For too long in this country, the bosses and their
cronies in the government have used national origin and racism as a
way to divide workers and pit us against each other. It's time that we
recognize the importance of solidarity and of the principle that an
injury to one is an injury to all.

This May Day a LABOR MARCH will begin in Phelps Park (39th and Park Av.)
at 1:00 pm and head to the immigration rally at Martin Luther King Park
(Nicollet Ave. between 41st and 42nd St.)

There we will form a WORKERS BLOC within the
INTERNATIONAL WORKERS DAY MARCH
and RALLY FOR IMMIGRANT AND WORKERS RIGHTS.

All workers, their families, and their allies are invited and welcome to
join us as WE MARCH FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

Immigration is a labor issue and labor is up in arms!
They cannot divide us with their borders...legalization now!


--------2 of 17--------

From: Michelle Gross <mgresist [at] visi.com>
Subject: CUAPB 5.01 1:30pm

Meetings: Every Saturday at 1:30 p.m. at Walker Church, 3104 16th Avenue
South http://www.CUAPB.org

Communities United Against Police Brutality
3100 16th Avenue S
Minneapolis, MN 55407
Hotline 612-874-STOP (7867)


--------3 of 17--------

From: Vanka485 [at] aol.com
Subject: Northtown vigil 5.01 2pm

Peace vigil at Northtown (Old Hwy 10 & University Av), every Saturday
2-3pm


--------4 of 17--------

From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Immigrant/march 5.01 2pm

Immigrant Rights March
Saturday, May 1, 2:00 p.m. Martin Luther King Park, 41st Street and
Nicollet Avenue South, Minneapolis.

Join others on International Workers Day to call for humane immigration
reform. The march organizers state, "Comprehensive immigration reform is
at a make or break point and we are going to be doing everything we can to
have the biggest march possible this year in support of legalization for
all and equal rights. The politicians in D.C. are talking about
immigration reform. Now is the time to say what kind of reform we want:
real legalization for all, workers rights and equal rights for all and an
end to immigration raids, deportations and discrimination."

Sponsored by: the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Coalition (MIRAC),
Mujeres en Liderazgo, Workers Interfaith Network, La Asemblea de Derechos
Civiles, Mujeres Levantando Mujeres, and FMLN-MN. Endorsed by: the WAMM
Immigration Committee and others. FFI: Call 651-389-9174.


--------5 of 17--------

From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Immigration/reform 5.01 2pm

March for Immigration Reform
Saturday, May 1, 2:00 p.m. Corner of Chicago and Franklin Avenues South,
Minneapolis OR Corner of Central and University Avenues Northeast,
Minneapolis.

Demonstrate in favor of humane immigration reform. Join the march at
either of the two starting points followed by a closing rally at Loring
Park in downtown Minneapolis. Wear white in unity with others. Sponsored
by: Minnesota Immigrant Freedom Network (MIFN). Endorsed by: the WAMM
Immigration Committee. FFI: Call 763-464-5828 or 763-464-5809.


--------6 of 17--------

From: jwilson [at] enp-news.org
Subject: ENP 5.01 6:30pm

Comrades and Friends of the Edgertonite National Party:

The next meeting will be held Saturday, 1 May 2010 from 6:30 to 8:00 PM at
Caffetto Coffee House, 708 W. 22nd St., Minneapolis, MN. This is on or
near Metro Transit Routes 2 and 4.

Topics of discussion include:
1. Making meeting dates and places more consistent
2. ENP policy regarding Native American land claims
3. Changing to a simpler Constitution
Please be there or be square!
Sincerely, John Charles Wilson National Chairman, ENP


--------7 of 17--------

From: Richard Broderick <richb [at] lakecast.com>
Subject: Labor/BlackDog 5.01 6:30pm

Saturday
"The Red & The Black"

Workers of the World Unite! - at the Black Dog Café in Saint Paul on May
1st at 6:30 p.m. for a spirited and informative celebration of the 120th
anniversary of the adoption of May Day as the official holiday of the
International Labor Movement.

Stories, poems, songs, video, art work, presentations about the ongoing
struggle for economic and social justice featuring: Spoken word by Anya
Achtenberg, Ed Bok Lee, Kyle Chase, Diane Jarvi, and Rich Broderick. Music
by The Fantastic Merlins and Diane Jarvi. Presentations by Dr. Stephan
Peter, faculty member in political science at Anoka-Ramsey Community
College and long-time May Day participant, and Members of the Minnesota
chapter of the I.W.W. on the attempted suppression of the Wobblies in the
early 20th century and the movement's current progress. Plus continuous
video feeds of May Day celebrations in Paris, Berlin and elsewhere.

The Red & The Black, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., the Black Dog Café, 308 Prince
St., (across from the St. Paul Farmer's Market), St. Paul. Free Admission.
On-street parking available, and off street parking behind the café, only
$1 for the evening. Call 651.228.9274 for further information.


--------8 of 17--------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: Vandana Shiva/CTV 5.01 9pm

Solidarious Minneapolis Television Network (MTN) viewers:
Sat (May Day!), 5/1, 9pm and Tues, 5/4, 8am
Dr. Vandana Shiva: Women and Water

World renown Indian physicist, ecologist, feminist, author and activist
Vandana Shiva speaks at the University of Minnesota about the intersection
of women and water rights. (part 1, filmed 3/25/10).


--------9 of 17--------

From: scot b <earthmannow [at] comcast.net>
Subject: Stillwater vigil 5.02 1pm

A weekly Vigil for Peace Every Sunday, at the Stillwater bridge from 1- 2
p.m.  Come after Church or after brunch ! All are invited to join in song
and witness to the human desire for peace in our world. Signs need to be
positive.  Sponsored by the St. Croix Valley Peacemakers.

If you have a United Nations flag or a United States flag please bring it.
Be sure to dress for the weather . For more information go to
<http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/>http://www.stcroixvalleypeacemakers.com/

For more information you could call 651 275 0247 or 651 999 - 9560


--------10 of 17--------

From: Women Against Military Madness <wamm [at] mtn.org>
Subject: Mayday parade 5.02 1pm

MayDay Parade and Festival: Walk with WAMM
Sunday, May 2 (Rain Date: Sunday, May 9), 1:00 to 7:00 p.m. Powderhorn
Park, 15th Avenue and 35th Street, Minneapolis.

Join fellow members, volunteers, interns, staff, and the Na'vi (Avatar)
puppets, and walk with WAMM in the annual MayDay Parade. Wear your WAMM
gear (shirts, visors, buttons). Please note that this is a low waste event
and there will be no distribution of flyers, candy, etc. Gather at Cedar
Field, 18th Avenue and 25th Street, Minneapolis (look for the WAMM signs)
at Noon. The parade will begin at 1:00 p.m. and end approximately two
hours later at Powderhorn Park, where a short ceremony will follow. Don't
miss the WAMM information booth at Powderhorn Park. Stop by and get your
photo taken with the Na'vi and to pick up a NO WAR sticker. Sponsored by:
In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre. Endorsed by: WAMM. FFI:
Visit www.hobt.org.

--
From: Blanche Hall <blanche.hall [at] gmail.com>

March in the May Day Parade for single-payer health care !
The 2010 MayDay Parade and Festival will be held on Sunday, May 2.
This year's theme:  UP ROAR:  The Year of the Tiger
--Burdens, Breaths, Death/Life/Cyclical nature

Noon: MayDay Parade participants assemble by section east of Bloomington
Avenue on 25th Street, between Bloomington and Cedar Avenue in South
Minneapolis.
1 pm: Parade begins at the corner of 25th Street East and Bloomington
Avenue South, and travels south on Bloomington to 34th Street East, where
the parade turns west towards Powderhorn Park, where the parade ends and
the MayDay Ceremony and Festival begins, at approximately 3pm.

All Interested individuals, groups please contact either Joel Albers at
joel [at] uhcan-mn.org or Carol halonen at Blanche.Hall [at] gmail.com so we can
coordinate and e-mail logistics, etc. or call 612-384-0973.

March in the Parade in the "join in" section toward the back, with our new
big, beautiful, colorful. single-payer themed banners that folks have
taken time to paint, our hospital bed dramatizing that we need a HC system
that's Alive and Well and not on life support, with health care
cheerleaders doing curbside cheers like "HMOs are jive talkin". So let us
know if you want to do any of these. We need HC Cheerleaders. So dig out
your walking sandals, tennis shoes, radical cheerleading attire, Single
Payer banners, old hospital beds, and what ever else you have in storage
-- Let's spend some time this summer letting everyone know that the
Single Payer movement is alive and well and that Obama care will send us
straight to h-e-double L .


--------11 of 17--------

From: Lydia Howell <lydiahowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: SugarBeets/labor 5.02 2pm

Labor's untold stories
Jim Norris: North for the Harvest
Sunday, May 2, 2 pm
Rice Street Branch Library, 1011 Rice St.*

/Sugarbeets/Author Jim Norris talks about his recent book, /North for the
Harvest: Mexican Workers, Growers, and the Sugar Beet Industry,/ which
examines the complex and often surprising relationships between the
participants in the sugar beet industry.


--------12 of 17--------

From: MN Universal Health Care Coalition <info [at] muhcc.org>
Subject: UNANIMOUS Single-Payer Vote Minneapolis City Council

The Intergovernmental Relations Committee of the Minneapolis City Council,
a committee consisting of the entire city council, voted unanimously this
morning, April 29th, to support the Minnesota Health Plan!  The
resolutionplaces the Minnesota Health Plan on the city council's
legislative agenda. The legislative agenda identifies the city's
legislative priorities at the state capitol.  Thank you to the Minneapolis
City Council members, especially IGR Committee Chair Elizabeth Glidden for
bringing this forward. Thank you to all of our supporters who made calls
or sent emails on short notice.

Read the resolution:
http://[www.ci.minneapolis.mn.us/council/2010-meetings/20100514/Docs/MN_Health_Plan_RESL.pdf

In case you missed the news, the Duluth City Council passed a similar
resolution on April 12th by a vote of 6-3!
Read more:
http://www.mnprogressiveproject.com/diary/5880/duluth-council-endorses-minnesota-health-plan

Join us to celebrate these successes and more at our Summer Celebration
and Fundraiser on June 10th, featuring inspiration and entertainment by T
Mychael Rambo, Papa John Kolstad, Senator Sharon Erickson Ropes and Donna
Smith of National Nurses United.  For information and tickets:
http://muhcc.org/upcomingevents/SummerCelebration


--------13 of 17--------

Time Bombs
By Mumia Abu Jamal
April 27, 2010
ZSpace Page

For many, the very mention of 'Bombs' puts one in mind of attacks by
terrorists -- although, in fact, the most well-known such attack, 9/11,
wasn't a bombing at all, but a series of plane-hi-jackings which were used
to target symbols of wealth and power.

But this isn't about such bombs.

It's about social, economic, and racial bombs -- ones long planted by
politicians who are now out of office; ones which we are seeing arise
today.

Millions of people are terrified, in deep fear of the bleakness of their
futures, as joblessness and even poverty threatens their dreams.

We are all witness to the vast amounts of wealth passed to the banks and
investment firms that caused the great economic upheaval of late 2008.
Public wealth went to private businesses in a way that was unprecedented,
even as public services got de funded, and as citizens who invested in
bogus stock scams got swindled, left broken and dazed.

And while corporate media types mock the tea parties, they miss the deeper
flood of fear -- driven by economic experiences -- that pervades the land,
feeding rivers and tributaries of racism, xenophobia, paranoia and hatred.

These poor, pale trees we see are the sproutings of the North American
Free Trade Agreement, that Clinton-signed and supported bill which saw the
leakage of manufacturing jobs to Mexico, and later to China. Those jobs,
once gone, are gone forever, for business, given the option of cheap,
non-unionized labor, will always go for it, for this simply means more
profits.

And while these politicians served their corporate paymasters well (who
are even rewarded when they leave office).

They served their constituents and voting publics poorly, setting them on
the grim road to economic and social disaster.

For, what future have they wrought?  The only viable jobs left are service
jobs - serving up burgers at McDonalds, or gigging as prison guards, or
soldiers in brainless wars abroad.

Schools are de funded, and college education increasingly becomes the
private preserve of the wealthy and well-to-do.

The bombs are ticking.


--------14 of 17--------

Spill, Baby, Spill
Blow Out in the Gulf
By KARL GROSSMAN
April 29, 2010
CounterPunch

The massive oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico formed as now an estimated
5,000 barrels of oil (210,000 gallons daily) gush to the surface following
an explosion at an oil rig is what other areas of the United States will
face under President Barack Obama's plan to open more offshore waters to
oil and gas drilling.

This could be the Atlantic which, in a speech last month, Obama proposed
be opened for drilling - despite decades of it being closed because of oil
and gas drilling constituting an environmental threat.

As an investigative reporter for the daily newspaper Long Island Press, in
1970 I broke the story about the oil industry seeking to drill in the
offshore Atlantic.

In years following, I probed the environmental consequences of offshore
oil and gas drilling finding, as Sarah Palin put it, "drill baby drill,"
coming with the the inevitability of "spill baby spill".

I got on the story after a tip from a fisherman who said he had seen in
the ocean east of Montauk - on the eastern tip of Long Island - the same
kind of vessel as he observed searching for oil when he was a shrimper in
the Gulf of Mexico.

I spent the day telephoning oil companies. PR people for each insisted
their companies were not involved in searching for oil in the Atlantic.
Several scoffed at the very suggestion. But at day's end, as I was walking
out of the office, there was a call from a PR guy at Gulf saying, yes,
Gulf was involved in exploring for oil in the Atlantic - as part of a
"consortium" of 32 oil companies. These included the companies which all
day issued denials. It was a first lesson in oil industry honesty, an
oxymoron.

I traveled on the issue including, in 1971, visiting the first drilling
rig set up in the Atlantic, off Nova Scotia. It was apparent on the rig
that the offshore drilling process is fraught with danger.

A rescue boat went round and round. Positioned on the rig were sealed
capsules - designed to eject workers. "We treat every foot of hole like a
potential disaster," explained the representative of Shell Canada.

An oil well blow-out is one thing on land and another entirely on water.
The Shell Canada official acknowledged that booms and other devices the
oil industry claimed - and still maintains - contain spills "just don't
work in over five foot-foot seas".

The Atlantic, off Nova Scotia or to the south off the United States, is
normally rough - over five foot seas are common.

Thus the oil could be expected in many if not most circumstances to hit
shore. But there are "stockpiles of clean-up material on shore," said the
man from Shell Canada. No," he said, "not straw as in the States. Here we
have peat moss".

I pored over records involving spillage and offshore drilling. They
reflected spillage as being chronic. According to Department of Interior
records, between 1971 and 1975 there were 5,857 spills totally 51,421
barrels of oil from operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

And, it was acknowledged, the offshore Atlantic is a far more precarious
place to drill. As the President's Council on Environmental Quality
declared in a 1974 report, "A major spill along the beaches of Cape Cod,
Long Island or the Middle or South Atlantic states could devastate the
areas affected. The Atlantic is a hostile environment for oil and gas
operations. Storm and seismic conditions may be more severe than in either
the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico. Recreational industries could be
hurt, especially where the character of the communities is one of
isolation, historic preservation or natural beauty. Outer continental
shelf oil and gas production will result in onshore development of huge
refineries, petrochemical complexes, gas processing facilities".

I traveled on the story - to Massachusetts where the Department of
Interior was planning to lease 882,443 acres of offshore Atlantic lands on
the George's Bank, one of the globe's foremost fishing grounds, for oil
and gas drilling.

I went to the Florida Keys in whose turquoise waters Interior would let
oil companies drill.

And I spent plenty of time in New Jersey - Interior held many of its
meetings involving Mid-Atlantic leasing in the state capital of Trenton.
In 1976, it leased 529,446 Mid-Atlantic acres to the oil industry for $1.1
billion. There was strong resistance up and down the Atlantic coast which
included lawsuits.

Various reports filed by Interior in response to the litigation admitted
major environmental consequences from the drilling. In one, in 1978, in
connection with the leasing of the 529,446 Mid-Atlantic acres, Interior
said: "Recovery of the affected area from a large spill will be slow,
probably requiring a minimum of ten years". For the anticipated 20-to-25
year lives of the fields, it forecast four large spills of more than 1,000
barrels, 58 spills of 50 to 1,000 barrels and 3,340 spills of up to 50
barrels.

Much of the Atlantic coast - like that of the Gulf of Mexico where oil
from the explosion at British Petroleum's Transocean Deepwater Explorer
rig is expected to arrive imminently - is composed of estuaries, bay backs
and miles upon miles of fragile wetlands, the spawning and feeding grounds
for the chain of marine life.  It's a "soft" coast that would absorb oil
like a sop rag.  There's no way to clean oil from wetlands, to clean it
off the bottoms of bays, no way to get it off bay bottoms where shellfish
live. [Oh well, who cares, kiss it goodbye, we mind-controlled Americans
don't have what it takes to stop them. Massive evil stares us in the face
and we shrug our shoulders. In the future when we're hungry, we can eat
oil-globs instead of fish. Yum yum. (Good with catsup). -ed]

The Department of Interior's 1978 Mid-Atlantic report warned that "adverse
effects on commercial fisheries will be encountered" which would include
"smothering of shellfish. Finfish and shellfish will suffer mortality from
oil spills and flavor may change because of tainting".

A leading scientist speaking out on off-shore Atlantic oil and gas
drilling was the late Dr. Max Blumer of the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institute. He also noted a human-cancer connection. Oil picked up on human
skin or taken in through the eating of marine life that had ingested oil
could be cancer-causing, he said. "When oil is spilled into the
environment we lose control of it," Dr. Blumer warned. Countermeasures are
"effective only if all the oil is recovered immediately after the spill.
The technology to achieve this goal does not exist".

It still does not exist.

Drilling of the Atlantic was stopped by Congressional action.

But that would end if Congress goes along with President Obama's
declaration in his March 30th speech that "my administration will consider
potential areas for development" for oil and gas drilling in the Mid- and
South-Atlantic, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the north coast of
Alaska. [Expletive deleted Obama. -ed]

Beyond the environmental devastation threatened, the drilling itself would
have a huge price: the cost of off-shore drilling is estimated at ten
times the cost of drilling for petroleum on land.

This would make for very expensive gasoline, oil requiring huge capital
and operating expenses to mine.the kind of money with which could vastly
expand our getting energy from the sun, the winds and other clean, safe,
renewable sources. But oil companies, being oil companies, are fixed on
their product.

Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New
York/College at Old Westbury, has focused on investigative reporting on
energy and environmental issues for more than 40 years. He is the host of
the nationally-aired TV program Enviro Close-Up (www.envirovideo.com) and
the author of numerous books.


--------15 of 17--------

National Public Radio's (NPR) Pro-Israeli Bias
by Stephen Lendman
April 29th, 2010
Dissident Voice

Since established in 1970, NPR ignored its public trust in favor of
privilege, corporatism, militarism, imperial wars, and Israel's vilest
crimes, including collective punishment, illegal occupation, targeted
killings, land theft, dispossessions, home demolitions, crop destruction,
mass incarcerations, torture, violence, and the 2008 - 09 Gaza war
inflicting mass deaths, permanent injuries, vast devastation, and human
misery against defenseless civilians, imprisoned under siege since June
2007, and afflicted by a dire humanitarian crisis as a result -
exacerbated by conflict and intermittent attacks, issues NPR ignores or
understates.

It's notorious for its biased, shoddy reporting, pseudo-journalism,
creeping commercialism, distracting non-news, and deceiving listeners it's
public, non-profit, and impartial. Savvy media consumers know better and
tune them out for delivering the same slanted coverage found on major
networks and in broadsheets like the New York Times, Washington Post, and
others - grossly favoring power, and when it comes to Israel its
interests matter. Palestinian ones don't, so news is carefully filtered to
distort facts, and report lies that when repeated enough become truths.

In its May/June 2004 issue, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)
asked "How Public Is Public Radio?" in examining its guest list choices -
on all issues (including Israel), mostly government officials, corporate
think tank representatives, professionals representing their interests,
and other elite sources, the public comprising a tiny 7%.

"For a public radio service intended to provide an independent alternative
to corporate-owned and commercially-driven mainstream media," it said,
"NPR is surprisingly reliant on mainstream sources, the public nearly
entirely shut out, and when included they're largely nameless 'people in
the street,' quoted in one-sentence sound bites with no impact".

In December 2001, FAIR's Seth Ackerman discussed the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict "Illusion of Balance" along with a companion November/December
2001 "Study of NPR's Coverage of Deaths in the Israeli-Palestinian
Conflict".

It found an 81% likelihood that an Israeli death would be reported
compared to 34% for a Palestinian. Among under age 18 Palestinians, only
20% were reported compared to 89% of Israelis, FAIR concluding that "being
a minor makes your death more newsworthy to NPR if you are Israeli, but
less" so, or not at all, if Palestinian.

The imbalance is far greater today with few, if any, Israeli deaths, many
Palestinian ones, but few ever reported and when done, it's dismissive,
brief, and/or falsified as to the cause.

FAIR October - February 2002 Action Alerts "repeatedly criticized NPR for
describing periods when only Palestinians were being killed". as times of
"relative calm (or) comparative quiet," - yet barely concealing outrage
about Israeli deaths, only caused in response to unreported IDF or
settler-initiated violence.

Mainstream US media, including NPR, suppress stories like the London
Guardian Rory McMarthy's on April 17, 2009 headlined, "Teargas canister
shot kills Palestinian demonstrator," saying "Bassem Abu Rahmeh is (the)
18th person to die since 2004 during demonstrations against (the) West
Bank('s)" Separation Wall.

Before being killed, Abu Rahmed begged Israeli soldiers not to shoot lest
they kill an Israeli, his last words in Hebrew being: "Officer, officer,
officer, listen, you killed an Israeli, wait a moment, wait a moment!"
Instead, a high-velocity gas canister hit him in the chest and killed him.

"The Israeli military said it was looking into the incident," of course,
meaning whitewash, cover-up, and exonerating soldiers to commit repeated
atrocities and get away with it - but try finding that explained on NPR or
any mainstream US news service where Palestinian suffering is a non-story.

On April 6, 2007, Felice Pace's CounterPunch article discussed NPR's
Weekend Edition, Saturday saying host Scott Simon "managed to do yet
another NPR (Middle East) News interview (March 31) in which he
completely ignores the central influence of the Palestinian People's
plight," affecting the entire region, contributing to its instability.

>From 1990-2009, Linda Gradstein was NPR's Israel correspondent, at the
same time accepting pro-Israeli organization honoraria, the Electronic
Intifada's Ali Abunimah and Nigel Parry reported on February 19, 2002 in
their article headlined, "Special report: NPR's Linda Gradstein takes cash
payments from pro-Israeli groups".

Despite a clear conflict of interest, professional ethics, and NPR policy,
she worked as a paid Israeli propagandist, EI writers concluding:

"for some reason or other, Gradstein (was) effectively exempt from NPR's
own regulations. These revelations only broaden existing concerns about
the integrity of NPR's Middle East reporting and honesty of Linda
Gradstein... the sad truth is that (she) rarely (met the minimum)
standards,... nor do other NPR reporters covering foreign or domestic
policies. They, like other major media reporters, are paid liars".

Jews claim all Jerusalem as its historic capital, Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu declaring, during a May 22, 2009 Jerusalem Day ceremony
(commemorating the city's 1967 reunification), that:

"United Jerusalem is Israel's capital. Jerusalem was always ours and will
always be ours. It will never again be partitioned and divided".

For Muslims, it's Islam's third holiest site, containing the 35-acre Noble
Sanctuary (al-Haram al-Sharif), including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of
the Rock. Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as its capital, yet Israel is
dispossessing them one settlement expansion and home demolition at a time,
world leaders turning a blind eye, letting it happen, despite disingenuous
opposition rhetoric often quoted in mainstream reports, including NPR.

On March 26, Mondoweiss.net published Henry Norr's article headlined,
"When it comes to E. Jerusalem, 'NPR' misleads and misinforms,". offering
examples from 22 recent broadcasts.

NPR calls the city ".Israel's capital," its "undivided (or) unified
capital," with a historic claim to it all. In contrast, Occupied East
Jerusalem is dismissed as "disputed territory," its final status "only
(to) be determined through negotiations" that may or may not occur, but
given how previous ones were structured it won't matter.

In three accounts, NRP quoted Netanyahu saying "The Jewish people were
building Jerusalem 3,000 years ago," despite Judaic roots dating only from
around 1,800 BC, the Old Testament calling Abraham the first Hebrew for
refusing to worship the period's common idols, and organized Judaism dates
from Moses around 1,500 BC.

One "Talk of the Nation" report featured an Israeli analyst saying East
Jerusalem settlement construction will continue because the entire city is
"the heart and soul of the Jewish people". Analyst James Fallows told
listeners that Israelis consider East Jerusalem settlements "necessary for
their survival".

Other reports described expropriated areas as idyllic "neighborhood(s),"
hilltop "communit(ies)," pious Jews there "focus(ing) on their religious
studies and pay(ing) little attention to the outside world". Their large
families require settlement expansions to accommodate them, so
Palestinians have to go, no matter that they and their ancestors lived
there for centuries.

Yet Israelis say East Jerusalem's 250,000 Palestinians have no historic
claim to the city they "want" for their "future state" and "aspire" to be
their capital - mindless that it already is and that no government,
including America, recognizes Jerusalem as Israel's capital or has an
embassy there.

The November 1947 UN Partition Plan (Resolution 181) designated Jerusalem
an international city under a UN Trusteeship Council, still binding today.
The 1949 UN Resolution 273 gave Israel UN membership conditional on its
implementing Resolutions 181 and 194 (December 1948) granting Palestinians
their universally accepted "Right of Return" - topics NPR never explains.

Though rarely discussed or reported, world governments and the
International Court of Justice (ICJ) consider East Jerusalem occupied.
Even the ICRC says so, calling Israeli actions there "illegal" under
international law, specifically the 1907 Hague Regulations and Fourth
Geneva's Article 49 stating:

"Individual or mass transfers, as well as deportations of protected
persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or
to that of any other country, occupied or not, are prohibited, regardless
of the motive". Neither shall "'The Occupying Power' deport or transfer
parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies".

In addition, numerous UN resolutions established "no legal validity" for
occupied land acquisitions or settlement building. When violations occur,
no nation may recognize or support them or the responsible state.

Further, the 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial
Countries and Peoples condemned "colonialism in all its forms and
manifestations," including settlements deemed to be illegal.

International laws are clear and unequivocal. NPR never reports or
explains them - that:

all Israeli settlements are illegal;
growing numbers of Jews oppose them;
many support the global BDS movement (boycott, sanctions, and divestment);
more now leave Israel than arrive; and
Palestinians are systematically persecuted, terrorized, and denied rights
afforded solely to Jews, and are being dispossessed of property they owned
and did "most of the building (on for) over the last 1,500 years".

Their voices are virtually shut out. Instead, feature interviews are
presented like All Things Considered host Robert Siegel's with Israel's US
ambassador Michael Oren, saying:

". Jerusalem is sovereign Israeli territory, and it has the same status as
Tel Aviv. And just as Israelis have a right to build anywhere in Tel Aviv,
they have a right to build anywhere in the city of Jerusalem".

Or another with Martin Indyk (former US Israeli ambassador and Netanyahu
brother-in-law) hyping Iran as an "existential threat" when last September
Reuters quoted Defense Minister Ehud Barak saying "Iran does not
constitute an existential threat to Israel. Israel is strong. I don't see
anyone who could pose an existential threat," though he called Iran a
challenge to the whole world without being more specific.

NPR pro-Israeli propaganda persists in deference to the Israeli Lobby and
its funding sources, much of it corporate, from special interest
foundations, and wealthy donors strongly supportive of Israel as are
virtually every member of Congress and all administrations, Republican and
Democrat.

No matter, according to a FAIR May 17, 2005 Action Alert headlined, "CPB
(the Corporation for Public Broadcasting) Turns to NPR as Latest 'Bias'
Target". It quoted a May 16 New York Times report about the CPB
considering "a study on whether NPR's Middle East coverage was more
favorable to Arabs than to Israelis - further evidence that the agency
intends to police public media for content it deems too ''liberal'.."

Past FAIR analyses clearly exposed NPR's pro-Israeli coverage - recently
more extreme, making it impossible for listeners to know truths NPR
suppresses, much like the New York Times and rest of America's print and
broadcast media, in contrast to Haaretz writers Amira Hass and Gideon Levy
who tell it heroically to Israeli and world readers.

A Final Comment

Among its 25 top 2005 censored stories, Project Censored's No. 11 pick
headlined, "The Media Can Legally Lie," a CMW Report, Spring 2003 by Liane
Casten titled, "Court Ruled that Media Can Legally lie". It covered a
unanimous February 2003 Florida Court of Appeals decision for Fox News,
saying no rule prohibits distorting or falsifying news.

It pertained to 1996 Jane Akre/Steve Wilson Fox affiliate WTVT, Tampa
reports on bovine growth hormone (BGH) dangers, Monsanto's hazardous to
human health genetically engineered milk additive. At first, the station
loved them, but headquarters Fox executives and their attorneys wanted the
reporters to admit falsifying evidence and produce bogus reports on BGH
safety.

They refused, threatened to inform the FCC, were fired, and sued - a
district court jury deciding on their behalf, awarding Acre alone $425,000
in damages. Fox appealed and won, the Appellate Court saying Acre wasn't
protected under Florida's whistleblower statute, it loosely interpreted to
mean employers must violate an adopted "law, rule, or regulation". Fox
simply followed "policy" entitling its stations to lie - whether on
product safety or falsifying facts about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

NPR and other US major media operations take full advantage, keeping their
listeners and readers in the dark and uninformed, while Palestinians are
systematically persecuted, out of sight and mind, except for people
concerned enough to learn the truth and tell it.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. Contact him at:
lendmanstephen [at] sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site and listen to The
Global Research News Hour on RepublicBroadcasting.org Mondays from
11AM-1PM US Central time for cutting-edge discussions with distinguished
guests. All programs are archived for easy listening. Read other articles
by Stephen.


--------16 of 17--------

Immigration Enforcement is Out of Control at the Federal Level
It's Not Just Arizona
By BILL QUIGLEY
SounterPunch
April 30 - May 2, 2010

While people protest the terrible Arizona state law that uses local law
enforcement to target immigrants, the federal government is expanding its
efforts to use local law enforcement in immigration enforcement and has
launched a major PR campaign to defend it.

One example of the out-of-control federal program occurred last week in
Maryland.  Florinda Lorenzo-Desimilian, a 26 year old married mother of
three, lives in Prince George's County Maryland.  Last week she was
arrested in her home by local police on a misdemeanor charge of selling $2
phone cards out of her apartment window without a license.  Ms.
Lorenzo-Desimilian was booked at the county jail.  During booking, she was
fingerprinted.  Local police sent her prints to the FBI who in turn
notified ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) that she had
overstayed her work visa.  Even though her three children are U.S.
citizens, ICE kept her in jail for two days and is now trying to deport
her.  This is the result of a federal ICE and Homeland Security program
called "Secure Communities" which is supposed to be targeting violent
criminals.  Instead, the program is really operating a dragnet scooping up
and deporting tens of thousands of immigrants, like Ms.
Lorenzo-Desimilian, who are no security risk to anyone.  Congress provided
funding to ICE and the Department of Homeland Security in 2008 to
"identify aliens convicted of a crime, sentenced to imprisonment, who may
be deportable, and remove them from the US once they are judged
deportable".  ICE says this program "supports public safety by
strengthening efforts to identify and remove the most dangerous criminal
aliens from the United States". However, ICE is not actually targeting
convicted criminal aliens, dangerous aliens, or even violent aliens.
They are targeting everyone.

ICE, through Secure Communities contracts with local law enforcement
offices, runs every accused person's fingerprints through multiple
databases regardless how minor the charges.  Thus, people like Ms.
Lorenzo-Desimilian are subject to ICE investigation, detention and
deportation.

Monday, forty-five people protested with the human rights organization
CASA Maryland against the ICE actions aimed at Ms. Lorenzo-Desimilian.
Maryland State Representative Del Victor Ramirez challenged the Secure
Communities sweeps in a statement to the Maryland Gazette. "She's not a
threat.  Should you really be deporting a nonviolent mother of three?
There are much bigger problems we could be using our resources for".
This ICE program is now operating in 165 jurisdictions in 20 states and
aims to be in partnership with every local law enforcement office in the
country in a few years.

ICE admits that in its first one year period almost one million people
were fingerprinted under this program.  About one percent, or 11,000
people, were identified as immigrants arrested - arrested not convicted -
for major crimes.  Most of the people deported by ICE were picked up for
minor or traffic charges and not violent crimes.  As the Washington Post
revealed in March, ICE has explicit internal goals to remove 150,000
immigrants through the "criminal alien removals" and to deport 250,000
others this year.  Basic information about the ICE Secure Communities
program has never seen the light of day.  Questions like what are the
error rates, what is the cost, how is oversight done, what about
accountability for racial profiling and other questions have not been
publicly disclosed.  That is why the National Day Laborer Organizing
Network, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Immigration Justice
Clinic of Benjamin Cardozo School of Law filed a federal Freedom of
Information Act case against ICE and others this week.

Protests aimed at the Secure Communities programs have occurred this week
in Houston, Washington DC, New York, Miami, Atlanta, Raleigh, San
Bernardino, and Maryland.  Critics say the program makes the public less
safe not more because it effectively blurs the role between local law
enforcement and ICE agents seeking to deport immigrants.  Protestors
challenge the program deports people before they are even found guilty of
committing a crime or even if the arrest was illegal or later dropped.
They seek a moratorium on all ICE-local law enforcement partnerships until
basic facts about the program are disclosed, debated and evaluated. They
created a website of information at http://uncoverthetruth.org

ICE responded to these protests with a six page internal media plan which
included targeted op-eds in "major newspapers in the right cities where
protests are planned".  The ICE media memo indicated it also arranged ICE
interviews with the New York Times, the Associated Press, La Opinion,
Telemundo and the BBC.

Regional ICE offices were directed to "reach out to English and Spanish
language reporters initially in the eight cities where protests are
planned Monday, April 23, to discuss the program and highlight its
successes in that local area".  The ICE memo listed sound bites and
talking points including "Secure Communities is not about immigration.
It's about information sharing with local law enforcement". The ICE media
plan also states incredibly, on page five, "To date, ICE has not received
any complaints of racial profiling".  That would be real news to people
across the country including Ms. Lorenzo-Similian and CASA Maryland.

As the Arizona experience shows us, combining local law enforcement and
federal immigration can prove to be quite toxic. Perhaps if ICE would stop
spending money on PR to defend its lack of transparency and spend it
instead on sharing information about the program so it could be fairly
evaluated, the public would be better served.

Bill Quigley is legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and
a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans.  His email is
quigley77 [at] gmail.com


--------17 of 17--------

Wake Up and Smell the System
by Frank Scott
May 1st, 2010
Dissident Voice

The main cause of the destruction of the planet Earth is capitalism.
 - Evo Morales

Not only is another world possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I
can hear her breathing.
 - Arundhati Roy

The president of Bolivia and the writer from India speak for the majority
population of earth which has born the brunt of the worst aspects of
western culture. They are sending a wake up call to humanity to solve our
existential problems as a race, the only one existing despite the
propaganda, ignorance and hatred dividing us into competing national and
ethnic entities that confuse learned culture with biological difference
and jeopardize our future in the process.

Capitalism is not responsible for every problem we face but it is
responsible for most of them. When a financial crisis in Europe has
nations near bankruptcy begging for help to save themselves from system
collapse, finance capitalism is at the root of their problem. When mining
disasters kill workers it is not the act of mining but industrial
capitalism's pursuit of profit at the cost of worker safety that is the
problem. And when off shore oil facilities sacrifice workers and cause a
spill which threatens massive ecological destruction it is not simply
extracting petroleum but the pursuit of private profit that puts life
second to financial gain that is the problem. When Morales speaks of the
threat to planet Earth, he means all of these things and more, and by
confronting the menace he aims to help create another world materially
that Roy speaks of poetically. That world is not only possible but
necessary if humanity is to have a future, but that future will not be
possible until we deal with the system of our past which weighs heavily on
our present and threatens to deny our future as a human race.

As subjects of western culture we need to understand that the age of
selfish consumptive competition has passed. Theories that rationalize
injustice in an objective reality of squalid poverty of billions for the
subjective benefit of minority millions will no longer appease global
majorities who suffer the wretched excess of the capitalist organization
of life. When present systemic stress has a relatively affluent minority
here in the USA acting like subjugated peasants under the rule of cruel
royalty, what might the mood be among those who have paid the price of
that minority's affluence?

American activists work to reform health care, military policy,
immigration and environmental laws and the civil rights of identity
focused groups. These and numerous other single issues are all vital to
reforming the system to meet human needs and the ideals of democracy. But
none of them do more than help selected minorities or confront problems in
isolation, often causing further social divisions in the process. This
system cannot be reformed by changing only one aspect of its increasing
signs of decline for the same reason that a failing machine cannot be
repaired by replacing one component part while neglecting its engine. The
engine of our system is capitalism; the pursuit of private profit through
the market under corporate control, free of any public intrusion save for
minor reforms that try to keep its most destructive tendencies from all
working simultaneously and destroying society in the process. But
destruction is what we face if we try to make society healthier by
segregating one group or aspect of its illness from the social body
without confronting the terminal social disease that escapes notice, is
hidden from notice, or is forbidden from being noticed.

Our public bailout of private capital is much greater than the 20th
century one that saved the system the last time it was threatened by its
internal dysfunctions. We are endlessly borrowing fabricated wealth from
ourselves to protect a materially crumbling imperial structure that
threatens to collapse on our heads. But more immediately, when legalized
gambling entities called private banks are given trillions of our dollars
to loan them back to us at exorbitant interest rates, Americans are being
robbed more blatantly than ever before in the most colossal act of
national plunder in our history.

That massive robbery has created a state of near social psychosis, but the
public's irrational reactions have been provoked by the irrational actions
of their system's rulers. When finance capital conducts terror attacks on
American workers, homeowners and pensioners, it is only doing what
industrial capital did in the past. Creating great profits for some by
causing great losses for others is what the system is supposed to do and
will continue doing until it is transformed or destroys itself and
everyone else in the bargain.

When NAFTA introduces cheaper corn into Mexico, throws farmers off their
land and then advertises for them to come to America as cheap labor on its
farms and in its mills, it is simply acting for private profit. And when
Americans surrender jobs and foot the social bills for the sudden entry of
tens of thousands of foreigners, both sides are being used to absorb loss.
But all too often the manipulated targets of wrath are either the profit
creating illegal immigrants or their loss sustaining critics, not the
capitalist system that created the problem.

It's time for humanity to act on teachings of social justice that are only
paid lip service now, if considered at all. The earth belongs to all of us
but if we keep treating it as though only some of us own it and are
privileged or chosen by some deity to exploit it for our benefit alone, it
will collapse under the weight of a burden it has never known before. The
sooner we acknowledge and deal with the fact spoken of by global leaders
like Evo Morales, the sooner we embark on the path to the future potential
for humanity spoken of by Arundhati Roy. Capitalism is the problem we
have. Democracy is the solution we need.

Frank Scott writes political commentary which appears in print in the
Coastal Post and The Independent Monitor and online at the blog
Legalienate.


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