Mn-prog-events Mailing List: Progressive Calendar 07.06.10

[David Shove (shove001]

              P R O G R E S S I V E   C A L E N D A R    07.06.10

1. Haiti/CTV       7.06 5pm
2. Conversation    7.06 6:30pm
3. Amnesty Intl    7.06 7pm
4. Uhcan-mn        7.06 7:15pm

5. Alliant vigil   7.07 7am
6. Bill Hinkley    7.07 5pm
7. Merriam neigh   7.07 6pm
8. Pastors/peace   7.07 6pm
9. CRA meeting     7.07 6:30pm
10. Letters to ed  7.07 6:30pm
11. Palestine film 7.07 7pm Northfield MN

12. Christina Tobin - Green Party congratulated, Dem Party scolded
13. David Macaray   - Scapegoating civil servants/race to the bottom
14. David K Thomson - Toronto is the World/ defeat
15. Tom Burghardt   - Military spying and torture continues under Obama
16. ed              - Country-Western Song Title

--------1 of 16--------

From: Eric Angell <eric-angell [at] riseup.net>
Subject: Haiti/CTV 7.06 5pm

Dear St. Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN) viewers:
"Our World In Depth" cablecasts on SPNN Channel 15 on Tuesdays at 5pm,
midnight and Wednesday mornings at 10am, after DemocracyNow!  Households
with basic cable may watch.

Tues, 7/6 @ 5pm & midnight + Wed, 7/7, 10am
"Standing With Haiti"

In January, disaster hit the people of Haiti.  A 7.0 quake cost an
estimated 50,000 - 200,000 lives.  With guests Laura Flynn of the Aristide
Foundation and Rebecca Cramer of the Haiti Justice Committee, we go
in-depth to provide historical context as to why the earthquake was so
devastating.  We talk about US-Haiti relations, relief efforts and current
dangers facing the courageous people of Haiti. (4/10)


--------2 of 16--------

From: patty <pattypax [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Conversation 7.06 6:30pm

Tuesday, July 6, will be Open Conversation.
[Scripts may be provided for those who aren't up to improvisation. -ed]

The last Tuesday of July is The Little Book of the Odd Month Club and
we are reading Mountains Beyond Mountains, by Tracy Kidder.  The Story
of Paul Farmer and Partners in Health.  Then we have to pick out
another "little" book with meaning.  So, do you have one to suggest?

Pax Salons ( http://justcomm.org/pax-salon )
are held (unless otherwise noted in advance):
Tuesdays, 6:30 to 8:30 pm.
Mad Hatter's Tea House,
943 W 7th, St Paul, MN

Salons are free but donations encouraged for program and treats.
Call 651-227-3228 or 651-227-2511 for information.


--------3 of 16--------

From: Gabe Ormsby <gabeo [at] bitstream.net>
Subject: Amnesty Intl 7.06 7pm

Saint Cloud Area Amnesty International meets on Tuesday, July 6th, from
7:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the St. Cloud Public Library, 1300 W. St. Germain,
Saint Cloud. For more information contact Jerry Dirks, 320-251-6491 or
jerry.dirks [at] gmail.com.


--------4 of 16--------

From: Joel Albers <joel [at] uhcan-mn.org>
Subject: Uhcan-mn 7.06 7:15pm

due to the long july 4th holiday weekend, the next UHCAN-MN mtg is
scheduled for:

TUESDAY, July 6, 7:15pm, Walker Church, 3104 16 th ave s (1 block south of
lake str and bloomington ave) in Mpls, 55406.

Some issues to address include:
-Brief reportback of Pawlenty Free clinic action, Pride tabling, etc
- how to support the nurses strike
- how to keep single-payer at the forefront in the governor's race
- joining in Take Action's rally for the MN Health Plan, single-payer
on sunday, July 11

other items ?
joel 612-636-3838


--------5 of 16--------

From: AlliantACTION <alliantaction [at] circlevision.org>
Subject: Alliant vigil 7.07 7am

Join us Wednesday morning, 7-8 am
Now in our 14th year of consecutive Wednesday
morning vigils outside Alliant Techsystems,
7480 Flying Cloud Drive Eden Prairie.
We ask Who Profit$? Who Dies?
directions and lots of info: alliantACTION.org


--------6 of 16--------

From: Lydia Howell <lydiahowell [at] visi.com>
Subject: Bill Hinkley 7.07 5pm

Wednesday, July 7, 2010
5:00pm - 11:00pm
Memorial Celebration of the life of Bill Hinkley

Nicollet Island Pavilion
40 Power Street
Minneapolis MN

There will be a program honoring Bill, followed by music and shared
memories. There will be hors d'oeuvres and a cash bar.

There is a collection being taken up to help cover costs. Checks can
be made out to Judy Larson and sent to 1015 20th Avenue NE,
Minneapolis, MN, 55418. Money can also be sent via PayPal as a gift to
pegheads [at] aol.com. Any excess donations will be used to set up a
scholarship in Bill's name.

There are also volunteer needs for the day of the event, Wednesday,
July 7th. For more information about volunteering for the memorial,
please contact MJ Mueller at mj_mueller [at] hotmail.com.


--------7 of 16--------

From: "Krista Menzel (Merriam Park Neighbors for Peace)" <web [at] MPPeace.org>
Subject: Merriam neigh 7.07 6pm

Merriam Park Neighbors for Peace Meetings
First Wednesday of each month
6:00-7:45 p.m. (Note time change due to reduced library hours)
Merriam Park Library - Basement Meeting Room A or B
1831 Marshall Avenue (at Fairview Avenue), St. Paul, MN
Wednesday, July 7, 2010


--------8 of 16--------

From: Jason Stone <jason.stone [at] yahoo.com>
Subject: Pastors/peace 7.07 6pm

Benefit: 21st Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba Send-Off - Jul. 7
Jul 7 2010 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location details: Name of place or institution:
Plymouth Congregational Church
1900 Nicollet Avenue and Franklin Anevue
Minneapolis
Contact phone number: 612-721-8440

More information:
http://www.minnesotacubacommittee.com


--------9 of 16--------

From: Dave Bicking <dave [at] colorstudy.com>
Subject: CRA meeting 7.07 6:30pm

Just a reminder - the Mpls Civilian Police Review Authority (CRA) holds
their board meetings the first Wednesday of every month.  So that would be
tomorrow, Wednesday, July 7, 6:30pm in Room 333 of City Hall.  The website
says that the meeting will start at 5:30 this month, but that is for a
non-public section of the meeting (discussion of cases, or lawyer- client
relationship).  The public portion will start no earlier than 6:30pm.

It's always good to have public attendance, and any member of the public
has an opportunity to speak on any topic relevant to the CRA for 3 minutes
in the middle of the meeting.  I don't know exactly what will be on the
agenda this month.  But the most important thing facing the CRA board
right now is how to deal with the new requirement to release information
on the disposition of cases, whether they were sustained or not sustained.
For the last three years, the City Attorney has declared that that is not
public data - not even the Complainant was allowed to know the decision
made by the CRA about their case.  The CUAPB recently won a very favorable
ruling from the State Court of Appeals which declares the Mpls City
Attorney's Office to be wrong.  So now, there is a three-year backlog of
Complainants (and the public) to be notified of the outcome of their
cases.

Public attention and pressure is still a good thing to make sure that the
CRA board and staff deal with this in a timely way.  I hope to see at
least some of you there!

Dave Bicking 612-276-1213


--------10 of 16--------

From: Rowley Clan <rowleyclan [at] earthlink.net>
Subject: Letters to ed 7.07 6:30pm

WRITING LETTERS TO THE EDITOR   JULY 7th
Advice on how to write powerful and effective letters to the editor?!
Environmental activists are having a letter writing night on July 7th:

Some of Reed's friends who do work on environmental issues,
but peace, social justice and human rights activists are invited too!
Getting together to write letters to the editor
July 7th, 6:30-8:30pm
Sierra Club Office, 2327 East Franklin, Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55406
Why: Advice and encouragement on how to write letters to the editor and
get them published.


--------11 of 16--------

From: Bill McGrath <billmcgrath52 [at] gmail.com>
Subject: Palestine film 7.07 7pm Northfield MN

The award-winning movie, "Encounter Point," will be shown at 7 p.m.
Wednesday, at the Just Food Community Room, 516 Water Street, in
Northfield 55057.

The film is a true story about everyday leaders who refuse to sit back as
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict escalates.  "Encounter Point" is one of
three movies being shown this month by Northfielders for Justice in
Palestine/Israel. Information: Bill McGrath (507) 645-7660


--------12 of 16--------

Free and Equal Elections Congratulates Green Party of Texas, Scolds
Democratic Party
Christina Tobin
Email: christina [at] freeandequal.org

[Dem politicians seem most of the time very laid back, unexcitable,
willing to go with the flow, not get their panties in a twist. No health
care? Too bad. More and longer wars? So?
 But there is one topic that makes them all go ballistic and act as
nastily as possible - the Green Party. They HATE the Green Party and DO
everything possible to sabotage it. Red in the face, yelling, insinuating,
name-calling...
 Dems say, O you're just exaggerating, they're not so bad, where are your
facts, you must be a bit you know loony... And they usually can get away
with it, because the (corporate) press doesn't like the Greens either. So
here are some inconvenient facts for Dem unbelievers. -ed]

Free and Equal Elections Congratulates Green Party of Texas, Scolds
Democratic Party
Christina Tobin
Email: christina [at] freeandequal.org

AUSTIN, Texas - The Green Party of Texas has been facing Democratic Party
lawyers and court challenges to their ballot access for the November
election and The Texas Supreme Court released a ruling, July 2, 2010, that
denied Democratic Party efforts to block statewide Green Party candidates
from participating in this election.

Christina Tobin, founder and chair of Free and Equal Elections Foundation,
congratulates the Green Party of Texas on their win in the Texas Supreme
Court to place their statewide candidates on the ballot.

Covering the battle between the Green Party of Texas and the Democratic
Party over ballot access, The Wall Street Journal released three articles:
"Texas Democrats See Red Over Green Party's Ballot Coup," published June
15; "Texas Green Party Appeals Ballot Decision," published June 28; and
the latest article, "Texas Green Party Gets Favorable Ruling," published
July 2.

"Texas has unfair ballot access laws for independent and alternative
parties, like the Green Party of Texas," Tobin said. "In addition to
unfair ballot access laws, the Democratic Party is not acting democratic
with this effort to reduce voter choices. The Democratic Party is showing
a pattern of anti-democratic behavior in Texas and across this country
that all voters should be paying attention to. I know first-hand how Ralph
Nader's candidacies faced attacks from organized Democratic Party efforts
paid for by their typical corporate funders. It is a shame that the Texas
Democrats are playing the same legal games."

Free and Equal applauds Ralph Nader's recent efforts to hold the Federal
Election Commission (FEC) accountable for failing to do their jobs. Ralph
Nader is suing the FEC in the U.S. District Court of Washington D.C. with
Judge Henry H. Kennedy presiding.

"Once again, Ralph Nader is standing up against the powerful - in this
case, the corporate-controlled Democratic Party leadership," said David
Cobb, 2004 Green Party presidential nominee. "Although Ralph and I do not
agree on all matters, we both agree with the vast majority of Americans
that more choices at the ballot box is a good thing."

Ralph Nader's 31 page complaint shows that the FEC did not properly
investigate the Democratic National Committee (DNC) for their actions
towards keeping Ralph Nader off many state ballots in 2004. Nader
previously contended that the Democratic National Committee failed to
report millions of dollars spent by the DNC in a coordinated effort to
block Nader from getting on state ballots. Nader also questioned the DNC
using the services of legal corporations without reporting those donations
to the Democratic Party, a violation of federal campaign law.

"Ralph Nader's struggles with the Democratic Party in getting on state
ballots should be enlightening to everyone who believes in a free and
equal democracy," Tobin said. "The Democratic Party was not transparent
with their efforts to kick Ralph Nader off ballots. The same thing should
be feared with the Democratic Party efforts in Texas to remove the Green
Party. Voters deserve choices on their ballots, not the legal obstruction
and games the Democratic Party has been playing."

###

Free & Equal is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, public-policy advocacy
organization dedicated to protecting the rights of the politically
marginalized and disenfranchised, particularly those of third party and
Independent candidates.

The Free and Equal Elections Foundation | 407 S. Dearborn Street | Suite
1170 | Chicago | IL | 60605 fwd by Danene Provencher


--------13 of 16--------

Scapegoating Civil Servants
Race to the Bottom
By DAVID MACARAY
Weekend Edition
July 2 -5, 2010
CounterPunch

"Beggars don't envy millionaires; they envy other beggars who have better
shoes".
 -Bertrand Russell

With most states in the union now experiencing economic hardship (and
some, like my state of California, being billions of dollars in the red),
attention has been focused on the wages and pensions of public sector
employees - the cops, firemen, school teachers and civil servants who have
been around forever.

When things were going well, when states were flush with money, few people
envied, resented, or even paid much attention to the wages and pensions
these folks received.  Obviously, no one was getting rich working as a
court bailiff or clerk in the Department of Motor Vehicles; and even with
a decent pension, they had to put in their 25 or 30 years before
collecting it.

As far as most people were concerned if you came out of high school or
college and wanted a job in the public sector, more power to
you - undeniably, we needed those teachers and firemen - but no one was
gushing over those jobs.  And why weren't they gushing?  Because there was
nothing to gush over; clearly, the public sector wasn't the "fast track".

People didn't start resenting these jobs until recently; until the private
sector betrayed us; until America's private sector abandoned its
manufacturing base, cut back on medical coverage, cut back on stable
40-hour per week jobs, began using part-timers and temps, and eliminated
traditional retirement plans.  Only then did the perceptions begin to
curdle.

But let's be fair; these citizen-taxpayers have a legitimate gripe.  After
all, it's one thing to get laid off, lose your health insurance, watch
your retirement fund dry up, and find out, at age 52, that you're probably
too old to be readily rehired in a depressed job market.  But it's a whole
other deal to see people not only still employed and getting good
pensions, but getting those pensions with your tax dollars.

Labor unions aren't stupid.  They fully recognize that when things are
tough - when one in ten are out of work, when half the states in the union
are broke and the other half hanging on by their fingernails - attention
is going to be focused on the obvious targets.  And the obvious targets
are union people employed by state, county and municipal governments,
people still fortunate enough to be clinging to the middle-class.

While these workers don't deserve to be victimized, they accept
victimization as inevitable.  They realize taxpayers will blame them
before they'll look to Wall Street, corporate welfare, the defense
industry or the U.S. Congress.  They realize that payback will raise its
ugly head.  But even with their willingness to bite the bullet, one thing
still rankles these workers:  It's the revisionist history that's taking
place.

We need to be clear about the work.  No one was getting rich taking these
public sector jobs.  What they were doing was optimistically hoping to
enter the middle-class and remain in it - hoping to be able to afford a
home, educate their children, and retire in modest comfort.  Despite the
hyperbole and anecdotal exceptions, for the vast majority of public
workers, the pensions are decent but far from exorbitant.

Indeed, back in the day, these civil servants were viewed as having
"settled for less," as being far less ambitious than the go-getters among
us, as willingly relinquishing any chance of becoming wealthy or doing
anything exciting or glamorous or cool - relinquishing it in return for
the relative security of a boring, safe, nondescript job.

But now, in a frenzy of revisionist history, these jobs are being
portrayed as shady coups of some sort, as sinecures, as a freeloader's
passport to a life of leisure.  This is not only absurd, it's insulting.
The public sector is what it's always been.  The only thing that's changed
is the economy itself.  And with the American economy having been
systematically ravaged, these modest government jobs are going to look
very sweet.

With the taxpayer underwriting these jobs, it was only a matter of time
before envy and resentment - not to mention old-fashioned fiduciary
practicality - kicked in.  The really sad part is that we're going to be
jettisoning much of what's left of the middle-class.

David Macaray, a Los Angeles playwright, is the author of "It's Never Been
Easy:  Essays on Modern Labor". He served 9 terms as president of AWPPW
Local 672. He can be reached at dmacaray [at] earthlink.net


--------14 of 16-------

Toronto is the World
Defeat
By DAVID Ker THOMSON
CounterPunch
July 2 -5, 2010

This is the most cosmopolitan city in the world.  There are more different
kinds of people living close together here than anywhere else.

We won the battle of Toronto with empty hands and open hearts.  But we are
losing the war.

We have seen the future.  This is it.  More troops, more brutality, more
police pretending to be protestors and smashing whatever they want at
$80/hour, more acceptance from a population that will submit to any
limitation on its freedom as long as it can pay someone to make them feel
temporarily safe.

We were brave.  We have been hunted on our own turf like dogs.  We love
dogs, and find no animosity in our hearts even for the horses that bore
down on us over and over.

"Son," I've been saying to my tall fourteen-year-old, "we should do
something together as father and son.  Shoot some pool, maybe catch a
movie".  In the end, the bonding activity was to be hunted by cavalry and
foot soldiers amongst campus buildings in which I have often taught, near
Knox Church where pictures of our great great and great great great
grandfather hangs.  Our people have been protestant for a long time.  We
didn't go looking for trouble that day, but we dealt with it.

"Sons," I say to both my sons now, "I've got two words for you now:
Par-kour".  Things change.

We will probably not be so lucky again.  Many, many were not.  We honour
our fallen comrades.  "If you go a third day into that," my wife said,
"you will not come back".

They didn't teargas us because their horses were so thick in our midst. We
are Scottish from way back.  Scottish we are - when we are not the people
who have canoed the Great Lakes for five thousand years.  In either case
we knew and know what the English can do.  We remembered things from deep
down inside, the feel of being prey.  Above us a hawk flew.  Many of us
pointed up to it.

The fight must be waged with empty hands.  If we had done anything -
anything at all to even the odds and make it something like a fair fight
against these massively outfitted warriors - even so much as raising a
stick, they would have killed us on the spot.  We're not naive. We
understood that what we were in was a rout, a defeat, at best an organized
withdrawal.  That the only victory, if there could be one, would be on
camera for a world we could seduce away from football only with the
spectacle of our suffering.

And yet we understand today what the bourgeois left, with its stern and
pompous little warnings against what it calls violence, will only
understand when future generations look back at them in anger.  This is
why we do not chide any person who, hounded from pillar to post for the
crime of wishing to walk in her neighborhood, smashes the icons of our
capitalist basilica, our holy of holies, our glass, our possessions, our
things.

Is there anything more smug than bourgeois people offering to be
scandalized by broken glass?  The slightest disintegration of their
spectacle unnerves them.  "Violence!" they cry.

By violence, they do not wish to indicate the forty thousand children who
die each day from hunger and other capitalist depredations.  They do not
mean the millions of children forced each day into servitude around the
world to keep them in cargo.  By violence they mean the destruction of
objects. [And worse, showing disrespect and disobedience to the ruling
rich bastards. Like what I'm showing here. -ed]

"I agree with peaceful protesting," they say, like they're offering some
special indulgence, "but I think it's terrible when there's violence". Oh,
thank-you, Pope of Peoria.

It's pathetic.  Perhaps an undercover cop at $80/hour breaks the glass of
the American franchises or perhaps it's some kid who has understood
justice and decided to act.  That's not the important question.  The real
question is:  Why is the franchise there destroying the neighborhood and
leaving its backtrail of environmental filth in the first place?

To the tongue cluckers we say:  Do you think future generations will be as
indulgent with you as you are with yourselves, you pompous whitewashed
sepulchers?  Stop destroying the world, and we'll worry about some plate
glass later.

I have seen my ten-year-old attacked in broad daylight on a peaceful
afternoon by your police, I have seen the people falling under the horses,
I have seen peaceful people dragged down, beaten, and hauled off to face
what you call "justice".  Shame on you, giving your little sermons against
the iconoclasts.

Our group never broke anything, never offered the least resistance except
for shank's mare and a few eggs and the art of the skedaddle.  I would
have stopped anyone from molesting the shop of some small business person.
None of us were interested.

I remain absolutely committed to nonviolence (even this little formula
will not, I assure you, stand the test of time) and, for strategic
reasons, to not spending a lot of time smashing the machine.  But I do not
think future generations will be grateful for our nonviolence.  Your
platitudes about violence are your way of avoiding looking at the real
violence your system is causing every day.  You know you are doing wrong
with your commerce, yet you carry on destroying the world.  Stop it.  Wake
up.

There may be somewhere a full measure of pacifism, a cup of bravery and
truth a strong man might drain to the dregs, but it is not to be found in
the tidy little prissiness of those burgher kings, the bourgeoisie.

We're not fighting a few irritable fat cops with nightsticks anymore.  The
wall is impenetrable.  We are losing.  The leaders have floated to the top
as scum always does, and we are drowning.

* * *

Little Liam says he never dreams, but today three days after being
attacked he tells us of his night vision: a wall, a tower, a joker.  The
wall is the wall of giant men that suddenly raced at him without warning.
The tower is our city, the stronghold.  The joker is the man holding the
little sign, "Free Hugs," who is attacked and dragged under as the men
sprint at Liam.

But the joker has always been me, as well, Eva-Lynn points out.  I am the
jester, the juggler.  On another, far more innocent day - almost another
era it seems, though it was just 24 hours before - I did more juggling and
jesting and flower speeching than the hugs man, yet I was not crushed or
beaten.  Luck of the draw.  In fact, if the wall had attacked three
seconds later, my son would have seen his father dragged under, because I
had just stepped forward to hug the man of hugs.

Man of hugs, I salute you!  We are a mirror for each other.  If you get
out, find me!

We are defeated not by force of arms but by those who abide the law, who
welcome it, who know in their heart of hearts it is evil and not to be
abided, yet acclaim it anyway. [And those who vote lesser evil election
after each worse election, feeling "good" right _now_, but aiding the long
decline into fascism. -ed] By those in my extended family, for example,
who have given up being protestants, given up on Jesus smashing things in
the temple, given up on iconoclasm entirely, and gone with the Pauline
sycophantism for "kings and those in authority," as if the gospel were or
ever could have been conservative.  One loves one's family, but it doesn't
make it any easier to see them pledging allegiance to the false gods of
nation-states.

We are not defeated by the police, but by their keepers, the kind of
people who write to chide me for going for a walk with my children and
wife in my own land, on my own streets, telling me I am endangering them.
We are defeated by the law abiders.  Canadians love the law.  They love
the boot.  Perhaps this is why in the end their police are so much more
vicious than those of Argentina or America or England.  They abide, when
they ought not to.

The world is theirs and the fucked fullness thereof.  Wall upon wall of
police.  Gangs of blueshirts in the street.  Peace, peace they cry.  But
there is no peace when it's paid for in the blood of the world's children.

Leaderville is winning, its burgher kings are choking the world, and the
willing population bends to suck at the tube of its own spiritual
destruction.  As its gains the whole world, does it even know what it has
lost?

David Ker Thomson's description of how he stayed on his analyst's couch
talking about his mother while the building was under siege is at
Maisonneuve Magazine, where you can also find a link to the CP article
describing the attack on his son.  He wishes to thank the many people who
have written with encouragement.  He plans to respond to each email at
some point.  This is the first part of a two-part series, Defeat/Victory,
but the second portion may be delayed.   dave.thomson [at] utoronto.ca


--------15 of 16--------

Military Spying and Torture Continues Under Obama: CIFA's Nine Lives
by Tom Burghardt
July 5th, 2010
Dissident Voice

Despite promises to the contrary, the [worse than worthless -ed] Obama
administration has consolidated, even expanded privacy- and civil
liberties killing programs launched by the Bush government.

>From warrantless spying and driftnet surveillance to the indefinite
detention and torture of foreign suspects held in U.S. gulags, and from
the murderous drone wars in Pakistan to threats to assassinate American
citizens merely on the suspicion they might be terrorists, 18 months into
Obama's new "change" order, facts on the ground paint a grim picture
indeed.

As egregious as these central facts are in demolishing the veracity of the
President's long-forgotten campaign pledges, when it comes to enlisting
the services of defense and security corporations for waging America's
bogus "War On Terror 2.0.1," the current regime delivers!

 Spawned in Darkness, Nurtured by Corruption: the Counterintelligence
                           Field Activity

Nearly two years ago, Antifascist Calling reported that the Pentagon
shuttered its controversial spy shop, the Counterintelligence Field
Activity (CIFA), the military office launched in early 2002 in a now
infamous Directive from former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
and top aide, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, Stephen A.
Cambone.

Remember CIFA? Under Cambone's watch, the outsourced "activity" (some 70%
of the office's employees were contractors) was caught in flagrante
delicto spying on antiwar activists, people who attended peace rallies
outside military bases, and dispatched agents provocateurs into groups
opposed to military recruitment, including the Quakers. [Typical actions
of/for the ruling class -ed]

Before being run to ground after journalists exposed the shady operation,
CIFA had compiled a massive database on activists and other suspect heimat
citizens considered threats to the military. The Threat and Local
Observation Notice database, TALON/CORNERSTONE, became a Pentagon
repository for alarmist tittle-tattle and misinformation generated by the
office's army of corporate spies.

What was this Rumsfeldian satrapy doing with our hard-earned tax dollars,
lovingly doled out to their security partners? Why subverting our rights,
of course! TALON/CORNERSTONE reports subsequently published by The
National Security Archive are a chilling read and reveal a systematic
pattern of profiteering and lawbreaking by both the Pentagon and some of
the biggest firms servicing the secret state.

One CIFA-supported project, NBC Nightly News reported in 2005, was run by
security giant Northrop Grumman. Designated "Person Search," the
initiative included capabilities to search government and commercial
databases and was intended to "provide comprehensive information about
people of interest". Another program, stood up by Computer Sciences
Corporation (a firm now heavily-leveraged in the emerging "cybersecurity"
niche market) developed "systems able to detect, mitigate and investigate
insider threats," as well as to "identify and document normal and abnormal
activities and '.behaviors'".

By late 2005, TALON/CORNERSTONE had evolved into a joint military
intelligence and civilian law enforcement system for sharing information
held in Pentagon databases on "persons of interest" deemed "national
security threats". Project VOYAGER and the related Joint Protection
Enterprise Network were TALON subprojects deployed by military
counterspies to "enhance" coordination with local, state and federal law
enforcement agencies.

As investigative journalist Tim Shorrock revealed in his essential book,
Spies For Hire, amongst the upstanding corporate citizens pulling down
hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars were: the scandal-plagued MZM,
Inc., convicted fraudster Mitchell Wade's firm that bribed disgraced
congressman, Randy "Duke" Cunningham (R-CA) with antiques, cash, a yacht
and hookers in return for "earmarks" crafted by Wade, and Cunningham
associate, Brent Wilkes, the former CEO of ADCS, Inc. For their labors,
Cunningham and Wilkes earned eight year sentences in federal prison, while
Wade was rewarded with twelve years in the slammer and a big "thanks" for
"keeping us safe".

While MZM garnered the lion's share of publicity in the wake of the
Cunningham scandal, other, bigger players in the CIFA debacle escaped
media scrutiny, including: Lockheed Martin (America's No. 1 defense corp.)
for "CI operations and CI/Antiterrorism investigative support", U.S.
Investigations Services, a former subsidiary of the secretive Carlyle
Group for "technology protection and force protection missions". Analex
Inc., a subsidiary of the British security firm QinetiQ. After being
kicked to the curb when Rumsfeld was booted from the Pentagon, Cambone
became an executive vice president at QinetiQ and quickly "secured" a $30
million, five year contract to provide "a range of unspecified 'security
services'". to CIFA, according to CorpWatch' ManTech International for the
firm's work monitoring and searching intelligence and law enforcement
databases and providing "line analysis", data extraction and other
analytical methods" for senior DoD and other agency officials, Harris
Corp., a Florida based contractor that provided IT and professional
engineering services to CIFA to "support the protection of critical
research assets and technologies" for DoD. And last but certainly not
least, SRA International Inc., provided counterterrorism and
counterintelligence "analytical solutions" for CIFA and now, for the
Defense Intelligence Agency.

But that's all in the past, the tainted legacy of the discredited
Bush/Cheney era, right? Wrong!

      Next-Gen Counterspies with a new Mission: Torture

The CIFA brand may have been fatally wounded but its shameful bequest
lives on. DIA securocrats claimed that their new spy shop, the Defense
Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center (DCHC) would "combine
CIFA resources and responsibilities with longstanding DIA CI and HUMINT
capabilities". DCHC director, Army Maj. Gen. Theodore Nicholas said that
"the realignment of CIFA's functions and resources into DIA strengthens
the close historical and operational relationship between
counterintelligence and HUMINT".

The Washington Post reported at the time, that DCHC would carry out
"strategic offensive counterintelligence operations," but that the
enterprise would not target American citizens according to a spokesperson
for Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence, James R. Clapper, Jr.,
Obama's nominee for Director of National Intelligence.

The DoD stressed that "CIFA's designation as a law enforcement activity
did not transfer to DIA. The new center will have no law enforcement
function". In other words, DCHC supposedly will not spy on Americans. But
unlike its classified budget, talk is cheap and the devil is in the
details. In the intervening years since the center's stand-up, a few hard
facts have penetrated the penumbral shroud spread like giant bat wings
over the Pentagon, and what we've learned is that it's business as usual.

Last month, The Washington Post reported that the DIA "wants to open a new
repository for information about individuals and groups in what appears to
be a successor to a controversial counterintelligence program that was
disbanded in 2008".

According to SpyTalk blogger Jeff Stein, the "new Foreign Intelligence and
Counterintelligence Operation Records section will be housed in DIA's
Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center, or DCHC".
Surprise! Stein disclosed that "its records database - seems to be headed
to the new unit".

A June 15 notice posted on The Federal Register informs us that DCHC's
Foreign Intelligence and Counterintelligence Operation Records will house
information on "individuals involved in, or of interest to, DoD
intelligence, counterintelligence, counterterrorism and counternarcotic
operations or analytical projects as well as individuals involved in
foreign intelligence and/or training activities".

Accordingly, "categories of records may include identifying information
such as name, Social Security Number (SSN), address, citizenship
documentation, biometric data, passport number, vehicle identification
number and vehicle/vessel license data". In other words, under our current
"change" regime, the Pentagon's new secretive office will continue to
amass personal data on Americans, especially those engaged in legal
political activities such as protesting and organizing against the
Empire's illegal wars and occupations.

The purpose of such spying is to "document intelligence,
counterintelligence, counterterrorism and counternarcotic operations
relating to the protection of national security, DoD personnel, facilities
and equipment, to include information systems," and this information may
be disclosed outside DoD to "Federal, State, local, and tribal agencies
for the purpose of law enforcement, counterterrorism, counterintelligence,
counter narcotic activities and homeland security as authorized by U.S.
Law or Executive Order, or for the purpose of protecting the territory,
people and interests of the United States of America against breaches of
security related to DoD controlled information or facilities and against
terrorist activities".

With enough airspace to fly several squadrons of F-35s through with little
in the way of either congressional oversight or privacy protections, FBI
whistleblower and current policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties
Union, Mike German, told Stein that "it's a little hard to tell what this
is exactly, but we do know that DIA took over 'offensive
counterintelligence' for the DoD once CIFA was abandoned - it therefore
makes sense that this new DIA data base would be collecting the same types
of information that CIFA collected improperly, so Americans should be just
as concerned".

German told the Post that DoD has also started collecting so-called
Suspicious Activity Reports or SARs "which they share with federal, state
and local law enforcement through the FBI eGuardian system". Which is
another way of saying, armed with new Pentagon authorization, both TALON
and Project VOYAGER have been folded into the Bureau's already extensive
domestic surveillance operations.

Federal Computer Week reported in May that "Defense Secretary Robert Gates
has ordered the Defense Department to use the FBI's eGuardian suspicious
activity reporting system to record and track law-enforcement information
about potential threats against the military or military installations".

What type of information would enter the Pentagon's black box data
management system was not specified, however, "data will be entered into
eGuardian only by authorized personnel trained in the federal guidelines
and FBI procedures protecting civil liberties, Gates said, and data will
be reviewed to ensure that information based solely on ethnicity, race or
religion is not entered into the system".

One can only assume, given the fact that some 30% of DIA personnel and 70%
of DCHC's operatives are contractors, that SARs will be handled by many of
the same shady corporate outfits that "assisted" CIFA during the Bush
years. Indeed, CorpWatch has reported that DIA's principal contractors
currently include BAE Systems North America, Booz Allen Hamilton, Computer
Sciences Corporation, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Titan
Corporation, now a subsidiary of L-3 Communications, firms that designed
and ran CIFA's illegal programs.

While DIA spokesman Donald Black told Newsweek that "the new database
would not include the highly controversial aspects of TALON," two
anonymous "U.S. officials" told reporter Mark Hosenball "that while CIFA
had been disbanded on paper, many of its personnel and some of its
functions were transferred to DCHC. One of the officials said that DCHC is
now in the same office space that CIFA once occupied, in a complex near
suburban Washington's Reagan National Airport".

But wait, there's more!

Keeping America's "warfighters" safe from unruly mobs of antiwar
"anarchists" and Quakers aren't the only disreputable activities which the
Pentagon's new spy shop are busily engaged. While we're at it, let's add
torture to the mix!

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder disclosed in May that the DIA "runs a
classified interrogation facility for high-value detainees inside Bagram
Air Field in Afghanistan, defense and administration officials said, and
prisoners there are sometimes subject to tougher interrogation methods
than those used elsewhere".

While the Bagram "black jail" torture facility was previously thought to
be run by members of the Pentagon's secretive Joint Special Operations
Command (JSOC), Ambinder reports "it is manned by intelligence operatives
and interrogators who work for the DIA's Defense Counterintelligence and
Human Intelligence Center (DCHC). They perform interrogations for a
sub-unit of Task Force 714, an elite counter-terrorism brigade".

Although personnel at the facility are mandated to follow interrogation
guidelines listed in the Army Field Manual, The Atlantic revealed that
"under secret authorization, the DIA interrogators use methods detailed in
an appendix to the Field Manual, Appendix M, which spells out 'restricted'
interrogation techniques".

In other words, the same repulsive CIA-perfected techniques first
developed by MKULTRA and Project ARTICHOKE and summarized in the Agency's
torture manual, KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation, including
isolation, sleep deprivation and the use of mind-altering drugs are
currently being employed today as [human rights criminal -ed] Obama wages
his "right war".

While Ambinder employs the same euphemisms and weasel-words as his
colleagues over at The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The
Washington Post in describing Obama regime torture programs, psychoanalyst
and war critic Stephen Soldz is far less circumspect. "For those who think
that President Obama banned torture centers like this [Bagram's "black
prison"], think again". Writing on the Psyche, Science, and Society blog,
Soldz avers that "Obama's Executive Order only banned CIA secret prisons.
This administration thus intended from the beginning to maintain its
torture facility, only under a Defense Department label. Obama apparently
was thinking ahead".

A fierce critic of the American Psychological Association's (APA) tainted
record of collaborating with imperialist torture programs, Soldz writes
that "over the years" APA "has devoted considerable lobbying resources to
maintaining Congressional funding for CIFA. Now that CIFA has been folded
into DCHC in the Defense Intelligence Agency, the APA is lobbying Congress
for money for 'behavioral science' to support the DIA's military
intelligence activities".

Apparently such lobbying efforts have paid off rather handsomely.

As psychologist Jeffrey Kaye and investigative journalist H.P. Albarelli
revealed in a recent piece at Truthout, the mind-control legacy of the
CIA's Project ARTICHOKE is alive and well at Bagram's "black prison". Kaye
and Albarelli write that "interest in the use of drugs and mind control
techniques in military research and operations persists to the present
day. A November 2006 instruction from the Secretary of the Navy (3900.39D)
informs that the Undersecretary for the Navy would heretofore be the
'Approval Authority for research involving: (a) Severe or unusual
intrusions, either physical or psychological, on human subjects (such as
consciousness-altering drugs or mind-control techniques)'".

"Techniques" that most certainly have been employed at Bagram Air Base
under DCHC's baleful watch. Legal scholar and Harper's Magazine columnist,
Scott Horton adds that a top APA "research scientist," Susan Brandon, "who
worked in the Bush Administration's White House Office of Social and
Behavioral Sciences - had dealings with interrogation policy. She now
works for the Defense Intelligence Agency's (DIA), Defense
Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center (DCHC)".

As America's imperial wars and occupations bog down and the bodies pile
up, as unemployment and home foreclosures sky rocket, and as the Gulf of
Mexico is transformed into a vast aquatic dead zone courtesy of BP and
their friends in Washington, is it intemperate of me to ask Obama fans:
"How's that hopey-changey thing working out for ya?"

Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay
Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global
Research, an independent research and media group of writers, scholars,
journalists and activists based in Montreal, his articles can be read on
Dissident Voice, The Intelligence Daily and Pacific Free Press. He is the
editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance"
Planning, distributed by AK Press.


--------16 of 16--------


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 (After All I've Done For You)
 You Obama'd On Our Love


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