December 29, 2005
1. Be careful what you protest.
And what you doodle.
2. Impeachment? Seriously?
3. 2005 over, will 2006 be any better
for Iraq?
4. Interesting ideas about
what liberals could be proposing as a vision for change
5. Follow-up on WalMart
6. Bring on the rebels
*************
1. Domestic surveillance is more
widespread than we think.
Also, here is an item about the mis-use
of power and mis-directed anti-terrorism efforts of the Homeland
Security Dept and the FBI. Anyone who says that innocent people
have nothing to worry about is fooling themselves. PS - in case
you haven't heard, the college student made up the story about
being investigated for requesting Mao's Little Red Book
December 15, 2005
FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
PRESS CONTACTS:
Alexandra Gross, Shirin Sinnar: 415-543-9444
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights
Basim Elkarra: 916-441-6269
Council on American-Islamic Relations-Sacramento
FBI GRILLS ARAB-AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOLER
ABOUT 'PLO' DOODLE
Civil Rights Groups Demand School Board Hearing, Disciplinary
Action
In a letter sent today to the Elk Grove school board, the Lawyers'
Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area (LCCR)
and the
Sacramento Valley Chapter of the Council on American-Islamic
Relations
(CAIR-SV) criticized school officials for allowing FBI agents to
interrogate 16-year-old Munir Rashed without first notifying his
parents.
The FBI interview concerned a doodle of the word "PLO" (referring
to the
Palestine Liberation Organization) that Munir had scribbled on a
binder two
years earlier.
Administrators at Calvine High School violated an Elk Grove!
school board
policy that requires that a student's parents be informed when a
law
enforcement officer requests an interview on school premises.
Moreover,
the boy's family suspects that a teacher who had initially
confronted Munir
about the drawing reported him to the FBI, chilling his right to
freedom of
speech at school.
On September 27, 2005, Munir was pulled out of class and taken to
a room
where two men in suits were waiting to speak with him. After
identifying
themselves as FBI agents, the men asked Munir to recount an
incident that
had occurred two years earlier in a math class. Munir told the
FBI agents
that his teacher had chastised him for having scrawled the letters
"PLO" on
his binder. The teacher called the PLO a terrorist organization
and said
that anyone who supported them was a terrorist, and Munir defended
the PLO
as a legitimate political group that supported Palestinian rights.
The FBI then! followed up with further questions, asking how Munir
knew
about the PLO, whether he was familiar with the investigation of
several
Muslims in Lodi, whether he had ever traveled to Palestine, even
whether he
had pictures of terrorists on his cell phone. (In fact, Munir has
only a
picture of a mosque as his phone's background display.) The
entire
experience left Munir badly shaken, and he has since been hesitant
about
expressing his political views in any context.
2. Conyers is not fooling around, but there will
need to be a LOT of grassroots effort to get this off the ground.
Still, to hear the "I" word mentioned out loud by non-peaceniks is
a big deal. Barbara Boxer has written a letter to 4 presidential
scholars asking their opinions on impeachment, and Rep. John
Lewis has said he'd vote for impeachment if Bush broke the law
with this spying order. The third link is more analysis of the
impeachment scenario.
3. This website has dispatches from
Iraq - the folks interviewed in this piece are not very hopeful
for improvement.
4. This is an interview with Douglas
Massey who wrote a book outlining his ideas about how the liberals
need to embrace the market economy AND transform it, as a vision
for change. He has some interesting ideas.
5. This is an article about WalMart
international business practices and how they affect people all
around the globe. It lays out the dynamic of "eliminate local
business - impoverish local people - who therefore can only afford
WalMart pricing - thus preventing competition and ensuring the
WalMart monopoly.
6. People are looking at ways to put
pressure on Democrats from within the party - could be what it
needs to come out of the doldrums.
December 07, 2005
1. Political tipping point for Bush
and the Republicans
2. Two retired generals
3. Seymour Hersch on where the war is
headed
4. Poll of Iraqis
5. Pillaging of Iraq
************
1. Interesting analysis of the current
state of affairs vis-a-vis their plans to dominate the world and
Republicanize the whole US of A - how and why it is falling apart.
The wheels are coming off the bus - how long can it continue to
roll on just the rims?
2. This is a thoughtful analysis from
two retired generals, supporting our exit from Iraq. They address
both the consequences of staying and those of leaving.
3. This is a good article - info and
analysis from a variety of perspectives. We need to get out in
front of this air war thing, and start writing letters to the
editor etc about it before it really gets off the ground (pun
intended.)
4. This secret Ministry of Defense
poll shows how little support is out there for continued military
occupation of their country, as well as how little has been
accomplished in the area of reconstruction.
5. It isn't enough that we bomb and
kill them, we need to be sure the debt is crushing too.
November 25, 2005
1. Murtha - in case you missed it
2. Two Republicans break ranks
3. Wag the Dog scenarios
4. Desperate Republicans
5. Hope
****************
1. Murtha is a Democratic Hawk, but
he's calling for withdrawal from Iraq in 6 months. In case you
missed this story, check it out.
At the same time, some caution that we
not identify Murtha as a peace activist. Read this for a critique
of Murtha's position.
2. Wilkerson was Powell's right hand
man, and Brent Scowcroft worked for two Republican presidents.
Both of them are highly critical of the neo-cons and are saying so
quite directly.
3. Michael Klare writes about possible
"wag the dog" scenarios that could be employed to divert attention
from the Bush administration's many woes.
4. The Republicans are desperate,
apparently. One can only hope they are not totally over the edge.
5. Margaret Wheatley on the topic of
hope. Worth a read, I think.
November 17, 2005
1. CIA's secret gulags
2. Janis Karpinski speaking out
3. Military about to snap?
4. Lots of good threads here
5. Iraq on the record
***************
1. These overseas detention facilities
may be yet another point of extreme vulnerability for the Bush
Administration, from a legal point of view.
2. This is very interesting stuff,
what Janis Karpinski has to say about Abu Ghraib in this
interview. She is also writing a book.
3. Military insiders say the wheels
are coming off - the repeated deployments are taking a toll.
4. This column about doings in
Washington from the Wash Post has a lot of interesting threads.
Particularly encouraging is the stirring in Congress to press for
answers from Bush, and to take back a little of the power he has
seized.
5. Amidst all the administration
protestations about everyone having the same info, coming to the
same conclusions, etc, etc about Iraq, there is this report
prepared on request by Henry Waxman. It excludes statements that
were thought to be true at the time based on the info at hand, or
which were later proven to be untrue. It is a telling document,
indeed.
November 7, 2005
1. None so blind