North America

Ron Ridenour

Part III: My Cuba Years (1987-92)

(This article is Part II of journalist Ridenour’s political autobiography, "Solidarity and Resistance: 50 Years With Che.")

Grethe Porsgaard and I fell in love, in 1979. She was from Denmark and vacationing in Los Angeles. I traveled to her homeland, in 1980, where we married. At my behest, we made a go of it in her country. A major factor in that decision was that my former wife had taken our children, whose upbringing we had been sharing, from me, and had turned them against me. It would have been a negative way to begin a new love life living close to that madness. Although Grethe and I ended our marriage after several years, we remain friends.

Exciting times over here, to say the least! The June 14th Flag Day Rebellion against economic tyranny is growing much stronger and more rapidly than anticipated. As a small part of a decentralized movement, it’s hard to measure the overall impact, but my email inbox is exploding with support and interest. This movement is definitely succeeding in uniting people from all over the political spectrum. Hardcore progressives and libertarians have found common cause. Liberals who are sick of “spineless Democrats.” Conservatives who have had enough of “crony-capitalist and imperial Republicans.” Apolitical people who are sick and tired of living paycheck to paycheck, struggling to get by. The foreclosed upon. The unemployed. People desperately surviving off of food stamps.

By Dave Lindorff

It was just as recently as a year ago that the authorities in politics, business and academe were stating boldly and confidently that the nation's economy was on the mend, and that there was no chance of a backslide into recession again.

Take Lakshman Achuthan and Anirvan Banerji who are, respectively, co-founder and chief operating officer and co-founder and chief research officer of ECRI, the Economic Cycle Research Institute.

"The good news is that the much-feared double-dip recession is not going to happen," they said on CNN on Oct. 28, last year. "After completing an exhaustive review of key drivers of the business cycle, ranging from credit to inventories and measures of labor market conditions, we can forecast with confidence that the economy will avoid a double dip."

The big banks have sold us out.
Democrats and Republicans have sold us out.
No one is defending our interests.
Our future is going up in flames.

It’s time for us to stand up and defend ourselves.

Trillions of dollars in fraudulent activity by the big banks on Wall Street caused our current economic crisis. Paid off politicians from both parties, along with secret deals made by the Federal Reserve, gave trillions of taxpayer dollars and subsidies to the very people who caused our crisis. After taking our tax dollars, they had the audacity to give themselves all-time recording-breaking bonuses and consolidate wealth in unprecedented fashion within the economic top 0.01% of the population.

Marcelo Raimon, Proceso

WASHINGTON, 27 de mayo (apro).- Mientras el pasado miércoles 25 en Londres el presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, prometía --junto al primer ministro de Gran Bretaña, David Cameron--, “incrementar la presión” sobre el régimen libio, en Washington la Cámara de Representantes debatía intensamente la posibilidad de conceder al jefe de la Casa Blanca todavía mayores poderes para combatir al “terrorismo” en cualquier lugar del planeta.

El proyecto 1034 de la nueva ley de autorización de gastos para el ministerio de Defensa es tan ambigua, que hace posible la entrega al presidente de un permiso para llevar la guerra contra Al Qaeda donde sea, por lo que varias organizaciones de derechos civiles, como la American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lanzaron, por ahora sin suerte, una campaña urgente para presionar al Congreso.

The last ten years have witnessed an assault on the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans, led largely by the FBI. Appointed mere days before the 9/11 attacks, Director Robert S. Mueller III has guided the bureau through the resurrection of many long discredited practices from its COINTELPRO era. Yet, the Obama administration has proposed extending Mueller's term as FBI director. Congress should reject the proposal and insist on a nominee from outside the bureau to restore accountability, law and order.

By Mumia Abu Jamal

Listen to the audio.
Produced by Prison Radio.

I wonder sometimes if the average American stops, looks at the chaos in the world, and wonders, how did we get here?

Does she simply shrug it off as 'fate', shake the thought away, and go shopping at the mall in thrall to the new?

Does he put it down as a latter-day expression of the biblical proverb, 'there will be wars, and rumors of war', and turn to the latest game on ESPN and mist over the doubt, the fear, the dread?

In the absence of a draft, the imperial wars raging on the periphery are as distant as Mars; battles, bombings, death and dismemberments that can be flicked away as effortlessly as changing the channel.

Up to 27 million trapped in slavery worldwide: U.S.

By Catherine Hornby
ROME | Wed May 18, 2011
(Reuters) - Up to 27 million people are modern-day slaves, and migrants fleeing violence in North Africa are among those most at risk of being exploited, a senior U.S. official said on Wednesday.

Countries where migrants arrive should try to identify potential victims and protect them, rather than opting for immediate repatriation which often sends them back into the hands of human traffickers, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large Luis CdeBaca said.

Tens of thousands of migrants are fleeing turmoil in North Africa, with many trying to reach Europe by boat, but the problem of slavery exists all over the world and India, Thailand and Malaysia are among the worst-affected countries.

Please sign the petition calling for a 100% hand tally.

The recount of the Supreme Court election in Wisconsin is scheduled to start today, Wednesday, 27 April 2011. In part of the state the ballots will be hand counted and in the rest of the state the ballots will be machine counted. If the machines malfunction or have been tampered with, there will be major problems with declaring an official winner. The court order mandating partial hand tallying in the Supreme Court race recount must be changed to require 100% hand tallying across the state.

Although we will have a good comparison in the parts of those 31 counties that are ordered to conduct hand counts to the machine counts in those same counties on April 5th. If the results are not the same, the voting machines will be suspect. In the remaining 41 counties ordered to do machine counts, those official counts will be suspect if there are major differences between hand and machine counts in the 31 counties. Thus the entire recount process will be thrown into confusion.

The election will still not be decided. And the up to 16 state senate recall elections coming up will also be thrown into confusion: candidates will all have to decide whether to ask the courts to order hand tallying in all of those races. Thus we, as a state, must modify the court order mandating partial hand tallying in the Supreme Court race recount to require 100% hand tallying across the state.

Please sign the petition calling for a 100% hand tally and ask you friends to sign also.

Thank you!
Buzz Davis
Citizen

How do you get politicians living off legalized bribery to criminalize bribery? How do you persuade the corporate media to report on the interests of flesh-and-blood, non-corporate people? How do you take over a political party when the only other one allowed to compete is worse? These are not koans, but actual problems with a single solution.

It might seem like there are a million solutions: pass state-level clean election laws, build independent media, build a new party, etc. But the fundamental answer is that when the deck is stacked against you, you insist on a new deck. Power, as Frederick Douglas told us, concedes nothing without a demand. We cannot legislate our way out of plutocracy. Instead, we the people must seize power.

By David DeGraw, AmpedStatus Report - Contrary to rumors being spread around, I do not know what our friends at Anonymous have planned for Operation Empire State Rebellion (OpESR). However, I wholeheartedly agree with the goals they presented in their "Communication #1" video. They are very similar to reports I have been writing and the movement we have been calling for on our social network.

By John Grant

“And we never really face what is in front of us, never face what is inside our gutless language of cartels and drug lords and homeland security, never face that forces are unleashed on the land with names like poverty, a fix, murder, and despair, and our tools cannot master these forces. …Things happen and no one says much. Then after a while, no one admits the thing even happened.”

--Charles Bowden on life in Ciudad Juarez

US Ambassador to Mexico Carlos Pascual resigned last week after cables he sent were released by WikiLeaks suggesting he thought Mexican police and military forces were crippled by corruption.

Truth was no defense in Pascual’s case.

Physicians for Social Responsibility Calls for a US Moratorium on New Nuclear Reactors, Citing Medical Risks

Warns Any Radiation Exposure Is Unsafe

Washington, DC - March 19, 2011 – Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) today called for a nationwide
moratorium on new nuclear reactors in the United States and a suspension of operations at the nuclear reactors with a similar design as those involved in the disaster in Japan, as well as those on fault lines. PSR cited the medical risks associated with any level of radiation exposure regardless of how small. Lower doses result in less chance of harm than higher doses, but any dose level can put an individual at risk.

By Fatima Shaik

Isabel Wilkerson’s first book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, couldn’t have come out at a better time for black New Orleanians, who as 2010 statistics confirmed, but our own hearts knew, lost more than a third of our community in the last decade. As we reassess what we had – good and bad – what we miss and what matters, we may find instruction and solace in this book about a previous era of departures, comparing its lessons to our Diaspora.

The Warmth of Other Suns is a beautiful book. It opens with a quote from author Richard Wright: “I was leaving the South to fling myself into the unknown…respond to the warmth of other suns and, perhaps, to bloom.”

This photo of inmates from the Communications Management Unit in Terre Haute was taken in 2007. Among those pictured are (left to right, bottom row) Ibrahim al-Hamdi, Avon Twitty, Enaam Arnaout.

March 3, 2011 - Part 1 of a two-part series

Reports about what life is like inside the military prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay are not uncommon. But very little is reported about two secretive units for convicted terrorists and other inmates who get 24-hour surveillance, right here in the U.S.

By Maurizio Morselli

Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain: current events in these countries have triggered thoughts about my own country: the U.S.A.; although I often criticize some of our government’s policies, in the harsh mirror of these historic events, I have begun to see and praise the many superior qualities of my own Country’s government and its achievements. I see that we are superior indeed and at the risk of sounding like a blind nationalist, allow me to list just five (and there are many more) of the factors(all facts) that have allowed the USA to survive, thrive and triumph above all other nations:

(Reuters) - A crowd estimated at more than 70,000 people on Saturday waved American flags, sang the national anthem and called for the defeat of a Wisconsin plan to curb public sector unions that has galvanized opposition from the American labor movement.

In one of the biggest rallies at the state Capitol since the Vietnam War, union members and their supporters braved frigid temperatures and a light snowfall to show their displeasure.

by Linda Milazzo

Registered Nurse Estella Chavez (photo by Linda Milazzo)

By David DeGraw, AmpedStatus -- The Federal Reserve represents global banking interests who have overstepped their legal authority. Their Quantitative Easing program is an explicit violation of the Constitution. By deliberately devaluing the dollar and causing the price of basic necessities to rise, the Federal Reserve is, as a matter of strategic policy, sacrificing a significant percentage of the US population for the benefit of a few global bankers. In the process, they are also igniting a global currency war that threatens the security of the American people. In clear terms, the Federal Reserve’s actions represent a declaration of war against the people of the United States.

By Dave Lindorff

The three-decades-long murder case of Philadelphia journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has sat in solitary in a cramped cell on Pennsylvania’s death row for 28 years fighting his conviction and a concerted campaign by the national police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, to execute him, was back in court Tuesday, with a three-judge federal Appeals Court panel reconsidering its 2008 decision backing the vacating of his death sentence, on orders of the US Supreme Court.

By Linda Milazzo

At a time when Israel faces near universal condemnation for the May 30th killings of eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish American aboard the Gaza bound Mavi Marmara, and worldwide rebuke for its continued blockade of Gaza and ongoing expansion into Jerusalem and the West Bank, American midterm candidates still pandered for pro-Israel money and votes during this 2010 midterm election.

Cognizant of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's (AIPAC) financial support for American politicians who legislate on Israel's behalf, allegiance to Israel played a role in several of this year's races.

By David DeGraw, AmpedStatus -- The Obama referendum came in and he got what he deserved. When you run on change and leave the same criminals in positions of power and don’t hold anyone accountable for obvious crimes, and allow them to continue to commit those crimes, you deserve to lose your power. This is what happens when you put Tim Geithner and Larry Summers in charge of the economy, and support Ben Bernanke for reconfirmation as Chairman of the Federal Reserve. This is what happens when you keep Robert Gates as your Secretary of Defense and General Petraeus in charge of your wars. This is what happens when you lie to protect the interests of BP over the American people.

A short but good article pointing out two extremely important issues Not being talked about during this campaign cycle especially by those getting the most press {and their very own 24/7 cable channel hyping them}, the so called Mad electorate calling themselves the TEA party. Many, or most, are from the same that brought us these two long running occupations and are supporting those seeking representative jobs from the same political party with no ideology but quickly rubber stamped the credit card of dept and already have stated they won't Work for the Country, in no way to compromise but to raise the obstruction within!

Veterans know the benefits of conserving fuel

Speaking of 'teabagger' types {wingnuts} Not Demanding Sacrifice, this is printed in the UK Guardian, Not The U.S. Press!

Veteran affairs: now we must serve them

Uncle Sam is glad to wave the flag when sending soldiers to war, but patriotism means doing right by our veterans, too

Jesus Bocanegra, of McAllen, Texas, in front a painting of himself done while he was serving in Iraq in 2006. Bocanegra has been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, a result of his service in Iraq in 2003-04; an attempt to attend college was thwarted by his nervousness with crowds, a common symptom of PTSD. Photograph: Chris Hondros/Getty Images

An important report on a Europeans review of Veterans, U.S. Veterans Courts, PTSD and Justice and Help for!

This is the type of lead the rest of the World used to look to the U.S. for, we were never perfected but working that way, and many here were once so good at it. Sadly this issue is another that comes out of our recent failed policies of destruction and terror waged on others, DeJa-Vu all over again. But shows that those who deplored our actions recently, and have been turning their backs to us in many area's including economic, are finding some of the old America and it's once Leadership Role in the World Community as we try to rebuild what we've lost and move back in the right direction!!

North Wales MP's experiences of treatment of ex-servicemen and women in USA

Funny, Not, how we don't get these raids, DeJa-Vu from back in our times as to Non Violent Activism for Peaceful Policies, on what is blatantly stated on our media and in the general population by many, especially the last couple of years, pointing directly at instigating deadly and destructive violence which some have actually carried out, pointed at those doing and continuing to do!

Ill. anti-war activists targeted by FBI speak out

26 September 2010 - Two anti-war activists said Saturday that a 12-hour search of their Chicago home by the FBI was an attempt to intimidate them and silence the peace movement.

Joe Iosbaker and his wife, Stephanie Weiner, said the government targeted them because they've been outspoken against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S. funding of conflicts abroad. They denied any wrongdoing.

Wait a minute let me look, oh my god it's teabags bursting all over the place, what a freakin mess, gopher heads are turning red like their leaders rush, the beck, boehner and the hockey puck can't see Russia from her deck no more with all that screeching, whining and tears, as steam starts noisily wheezing out their ears from the mass once known as brain matter dissolves completely, 21st century christians? are seeking out their latest symbol to fall to their knees in front of and pray to be taken by the coming rapture. What could be bringing all this on?

Army Guard Gets Its First Muslim Chaplain