Winter Soldier
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In the Other Press...
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To alleviate the problem of articles from other press sources being reposted on this IMC site, this section allows users to link to articles published elsewhere, and to contribute and read comments on those pieces. [Posting a new item has been removed in this static archive of the site.] |
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Semiotic Sequences and Cultural Appropriation |
Submitted by: peptide / 13 Jul 2006
Publisher: Cleaves Publishing
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I have recently discovered that donning a cleaner's garb or waiter's apron is a passport to a wealth of knowledge. A very rich harvest of information is available to every non-descript person in a service industry. A typical but dated example (I do not wish to compromise my current activities) would be an overheard conversation between two bankers regarding the then new strategy of reducing (their) costs while simultaneously narrowing the options/freedoms of the population. The banks and other large financial institutions decided that it was far more expedient and profitable to run their businesses utilising a strategy of perpetual debt rather than temporary debt. 'Joe and Josephine' citizen were about to become perpetual debtors or economic slaves. |
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News: GLBT/Queer |
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Be Careful If You're Going To Jerusalem Gay Pride |
Submitted by: Reuters / 13 Jul 2006
Publisher: Reuters
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Gays going to Jerusalem Gay Pride are being targeted for DEATH by orthodox rabbi\'s!
Reuters newswire.
Prize offerred to whoever kills gay person Escalation in haredi resistance to WorldPride Parade in Jerusalem: Flyers denouncing parade distributed in mailboxes promise NIS 20,000 to \'whoever causes death to one of Sodom and Gomorrah people\' Neta Sela Haredis take on WorldPride Parade: In protest of the 2006 WorldPride Parade, scheduled to take place in Jerusalem on August 10, hundreds of letters, advocating \"death to Sodomites\", were distributed to Jerusalem mailboxes on Tuesday morning. They promised NIS 20,000 to \"anyone who brings about the death of one of the residents of Sodom and Gomorrah.\" The letter appeals to residents of the capital: \"don\'t let them teach our children their impure ways.\" The anonymous letter also suggests using Molotov cocktails against marchers and adds instructions as to how to make them at home. The explosives are nicknamed \"Shliesel Special\", in honor of the Haredi protester who disrupted the Jerusalem Pride Parade last year by stabbing three marchers. The letter goes on to say, \"During this parade, 300,000 corrupt animals are anticipated to march through the holy city of Jerusalem, waiting avidly for the chance to put themselves on display before our children and our sacred Torah. They will try as hard as they can to defile as many of our innocent children as they can.\" Members of the \'Red Hand for Redemption\', who penned the letters, are unknown among the Haredim. Sources in the community told ynet that, to them, the letters seem like more a teenager\'s \"practical joke\" and said that \"this is not the way of a community in the midst of a struggle.\" Jerusalem city councilman Sa\'ar Netanel (Meretz) said in response that \"this is a worrying escalation and a license to kill. It needs to shock and appall everyone and cause everyone to ask himself whether he wants Jerusalem to take on the image of extremists who forget all humanity or to take on the image of marchers who only as for patience, tolerance and pluralism.\" While denying responsibility for the violent letters, the Haredi community has distributed formal flyers in protest of the parade. The flyers contain implicit criticism of Shas as \"representatives of religious parties trying to appease the international storm regarding this issue by negotiating to change the location of this defilement to Tel Aviv.\" The flyers, hung all over the neighborhood, appeal to the Haredi community as well: \"anyone with the ability to do so has the duty to do everything he can to smash the jaws of evil in any way that he can.\" The document was signed by the leading rabbis of the Haredi community. Monday night, Jerusalem city councilman Sa\'ar Netanel (Meretz), arrived at Meah Sha\'arim and was chased out by furious residents. Netanel, the owner of a gay bar who is working with the Open House to organize the World Pride events, explains that he arrived in the neighborhood with a camera crew \"to document the anti-Parade flyers and the whole phenomenon in general.\" Netanel told ynet that he didn\'t think his arrival in the neighborhood would constitute a particular problem \"because we arrived on a weekday, not during the Sabbath, so as not to create a needless uproar. It never occurred to us that anything would happen but, much to our surprise, within two minutes, Hassidic residents crowded around us and threatened us that, if we did not leave immediately, they would chase us out with stones. Since neither the crew nor I wanted to cause a commotion, we got into the car in order to leave.\" He continues, \"Despite this, some of the Haredim tried to prevent our exit. In the end, we got out safely.\" Aaron (fictional name), a resident of Meah Sha\'arim tells that one of the residents recognized Netanel and immediately chased him out with shouts of \'Gevald\'. \"Meah Sha\'arim is a lion\'s den,\" he warns. \"People like him are forbidden to enter here. Why does he have to come specifically and on purpose to Meah Sha\'arim?\" Netanel describes the experience as frightening and adds, \"If I would have imagined that it might end this way, I never would have gone there at all.\" But he wonders: \"How is it that a person is forbidden to film in the street? My conclusion is that they have no god.\" The Meah Sha\'arim neighborhood is considered the sanctuary of the Haredi community, many of whom are deeply opposed even to the existence of the state of Israel out of the belief that Zionism, because of its merging of Judaism and secularism, is heresy. In recent weeks, with August looming ever closer and the WorldPride events, including the pride parade, still scheduled to take place in Jerusalem as planned, rabbis declared a total war against the events out of their belief that homosexuality is an abomination. |
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News: GLBT/Queer |
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Executive branch to block the release of information in any civil suit |
Submitted by: lords&kingsRbuttfuckers / 13 Jul 2006
Publisher: lords&kingsRbuttfuckers
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Never passed by Congress, the state-secrets privilege has its roots in English common law and was cemented into American jurisprudence by a landmark 1953 Supreme Court case titled U.S. v. Reynolds. In Reynolds, the widows of three men who died in a mysterious Air Force crash sued the government, and U.S. officials quashed the lawsuit by claiming that they couldn't release any information about the accident without endangering national security. The Supreme Court upheld the claim, establishing a legal precedent that today allows the executive branch to block the release of information in any civil suit -- even if the government isn't the one being sued.
"It is an area of the law where the degree of deference from the court to the executive is at its highest," said Justice Department attorney Peter Keisler, who argued Friday that the case must be dismissed because its basic allegations can't be addressed without harming national security. |
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News: Human Rights |
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With Jobs to Do, Louisiana Parish Turns to Inmates |
Submitted by: artful dodger / 12 Jul 2006
Publisher: New York Times
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LAKE PROVIDENCE, La.  At barbecues, ballgames and funerals, cotton
gins, service stations, the First Baptist Church, the pepper-sauce
factory and the local private school  the men in orange are everywhere.
Many people here in East Carroll Parish, as Louisiana counties are
known, say they could not get by without their inmates, who make up
more than 10 percent of its population and most of its labor force.
They are dirt-cheap, sometimes free, always compliant, ever-ready and
disposable.
You just call up the sheriff, and presto, inmates are headed your way.
"They bring me warm bodies, 10 warm bodies in the morning," said Grady
Brown, owner of the Panola Pepper Corporation. "They do anything you
ask them to do."
It is an ideal arrangement, many in this farming parish say.
"You call them up, they drop them off, and they pick them up in the
afternoon," said Paul Chapple, owner of a service station.
National prison experts say that only Louisiana allows citizens to use
inmate labor on such a widespread scale, under the supervision of local
sheriffs. The state has the nation's highest incarceration rate, and
East Carroll Parish, a forlorn jurisdiction of 8,700 people along the
Mississippi River in the remote northeastern corner of Louisiana, has
one of the highest rates in the state.
As a result, it is here that the nation's culture of incarceration
achieves a kind of ultimate synthesis with the local economy. The
prison system converts a substantial segment of the population into a
commodity that is in desperately short supply  cheap labor  and
local-jail inmates are integrated into every aspect of economic and
social life.
The practice is both an odd vestige of the abusive convict-lease system
that began in the South around Reconstruction, and an outgrowth of
Louisiana's penchant for stuffing state inmates into parish jails  far
more than in any other state. Nowhere else would sheriffs have so many
inmates readily at hand, creating a potent political tool come election
time, and one that keeps them popular in between.
Sometimes the men get paid  minimum wage, for instance, working for
Mr. Brown. But by the time the sheriff takes his cut, which includes
board, travel expenses and clothes, they wind up with considerably less
than half of that, inmates say.
The rules are loose and give the sheriffs broad discretion. State law
dictates only which inmates may go out into the world (mostly those
nearing the end of their sentences) and how much the authorities get to
keep of an inmate's wages, rather than the type of work he can perform.
There is little in the state rules to limit the potential for a sheriff
to use his inmate flock to curry favor or to reap personal benefit.
"If you talk to people around here, it is jokingly referred to as
rent-a-convict," said Michael Brewer, a lawyer and former public
defender in Alexandria, in central Louisiana. "There's something
offensive about that. It's almost like a form of slavery."
That is not a view often expressed in East Carroll Parish.
"I've been at cocktail parties where people laugh about it," said
Jacques Roy, another Alexandria lawyer. "People in Alexandria clamor
for it. It's cheaper. I've always envisioned it as a who-you-know kind
of thing."
The prisoners are not compelled to work, but several interviewed here
said they welcomed the chance to get out of the crowded jail, at least
during the day. Still, Mr. Brewer said, "if one of them were to refuse,
you can imagine the repercussions."
Nearly half of Louisiana's prisoners are housed in small parish jails,
a policy that saves the state from building new prisons and is
lucrative for sheriffs, handsomely compensated for the privilege.
"They're making a ton of money," said Burk Foster, former
criminal-justice professor at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and
author of the recent textbook "Corrections." The sheriffs are paid
$22.39 per prisoner per day for accommodating their charges in
facilities of often rudimentary construction.
The accommodations here appear to be made of no more than corrugated
metal. "Hey man, we're sleeping on the floor," an inmate called out
from behind the fence at the parish jail last week, before a visitor
was shooed away by an angry guard.
Exactly how much the sheriffs pocket, however, is unclear.
"Sheriffs deliberately obscure from the public how much money they're
making," said Mr. Foster, a leading expert on Louisiana prisons.
A spokeswoman for the state corrections department said she could not
respond to the idea that sheriffs profited from housing state inmates.
The sheriff here, Mark Shumate, did not reply to phone calls and
messages, but one of his investigators, Brandon Wiltcher, had an
explanation for the popularity and pervasiveness of inmate labor here.
"It's just such a shortage of people who will work, or that can work,"
Mr. Wiltcher said.
This parish, the poorest in Louisiana, lost 20 percent of its free
population from 1980 to 2000. The inmate population, however, grew.
Mr. Shumate is a very big man in these precincts of lush green corn,
cotton and soybean fields that stretch into a horizon shimmering in the
heat. Residents say his inmates cook hamburgers for community
get-togethers; they are in the concession stand at children's baseball
games; they dig graves, mow roadsides and roof churches.
"They are a constant fixture and presence, at each of these community
events," said Danny Terral, who works in his family's farm-supply
business. "I daresay I haven't been at a community event where it's not
been, those orange shirts."
They build dugouts and tend the athletic fields  free  at Briarfield
Academy, a private school here. "They did an excellent job," said the
school's principal, Morris Richardson, adding, "We try to provide their
lunch for them."
Mr. Wiltcher, of the sheriff's office, said there was nothing wrong
with helping out the private school without charge.
"It's not only used at this private school, it's used parishwide," he
said of inmate labor. "Since it's used for everyone who needs it, I
don't see where there would be a problem with it."
The churches, too, are grateful beneficiaries. "They sent me prisoners
for a month" for menial chores at the First Baptist Church, said
Reynold Minsky, also chairman of the local levee board. "All completely
free," Mr. Minsky added. "It's a real good deal. Everybody is tickled."
Many here view the inmates essentially as commodities, who can be
returned behind bars after the agricultural season is over, and the
need for labor is reduced.
"Good thing about it, wintertime, you can lock them up  put them in
cold storage," said Billy Travis, a farmer and police juror, as county
commissioners here are known. "I call it deep freeze."
Right on the main road into town, at the base of the levee, up from the
Economy Inn and the Scott Tractor Company, the quasi-employment agency
behind concertina wire is neither out of sight nor out of mind. At
midday, passing motorists can spot its residents, out for a brief
exercise spell. "They got D.O.C. mixed in with parish prisoners,"
another inmate complained, referring to the State Department of
Corrections inmates who mingle freely with those who have committed
lesser local crimes.
At Lake Providence Country Club one afternoon last week, during a
Rotary Club meeting, the talk was of organizing a midsummer fish fry.
"I imagine the sheriff can do that," one man called out. "I hear the
sheriff does a really good job," another said.
Outside the worn little town, a succession of empty storefronts and
others headed that way, inmates can be spotted clearing up the remains
of a ruined church off a hot country road, while a deputy lounges in
the shade; picking up trash; and clearing undergrowth from roadsides
with heavy equipment.
Up the road, toward the Arkansas line, a half-dozen or so are at work
in the stifling production-line room of the small pepper-sauce plant,
sweating alongside the free laborers. Another is fixing up a house next
door that Mr. Brown bought to rent out.
The factory owner sings his praises, calling him reliable, trustworthy,
honest. The inmate, Roy Hebert  he says he is in for forgery  beams.
"Mr. Brown, he takes care of me," Mr. Hebert said. |
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News: Human Rights : International |
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The Palestinian Catastrophe, Then and Now |
Submitted by: yo / 11 Jul 2006
Publisher: tom dispatch
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"For the Palestinians, Omer's cry speaks to a collective understanding: That the world sees
the life of an Arab as infinitely less valuable than that of an Israeli; that no amount of suffering by innocent Palestinians is too much to justify the return of a single Jewish soldier. This understanding, and the rage and humiliation it fuels, has been driven home again and again
through decades of shellings, wars, and uprisings past," writes Sandy Tolan. |
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News: Human Rights |
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A Nuremberg chief prosecutor says Bush can be prosecuted for war crimes |
Submitted by: yo / 11 Jul 2006
Publisher: truthout.org
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Interviewed from his home in New York, Ferencz laid out a simple summary of the case:
"The United Nations charter has a provision which was agreed to by the United States formulated by the United States in fact, after World War II. Its says that from now on, no nation can use armed force without the permission of the U.N. Security Council. They can use force in connection with self-defense, but a country can't use force in anticipation of self-defense. Regarding Iraq, the last Security Council resolution essentially said, 'Look, send the weapons inspectors out to Iraq, have them come back and tell us what they've found - then we'll figure out what we're going to do. The U.S. was impatient, and decided to invade Iraq - which was all pre-arranged of course. So, the United States went to war, in violation of the charter."
It's that simple. Ferencz called the invasion a "clear breach of law," and dismissed the Bush administration's legal defense that previous U.N. Security Council resolutions dating back to the first Gulf War justified an invasion in 2003. Ferencz notes that the first Bush president believed that the United States didn't have a U.N. mandate to go into Iraq and take out Saddam Hussein; that authorization was simply to eject Hussein from Kuwait. Ferencz asked, "So how do we get authorization more than a decade later to finish the job? The arguments made to defend this are not persuasive."
The suggestion that the Bush administration's conduct in the "war on terror" amounts to a string of war crimes and human rights abuses is gaining credence in even the most ossified establishment circles of Washington. Justice Anthony Kennedy's opinion in the recent Hamdan v. Rumsfeld ruling by the Supreme Court suggests that Bush's attempt to ignore the Geneva Conventions in his approved treatment of terror suspects may leave him open to prosecution for war crimes. As Sidney Blumenthal points out, the court rejected Bush's attempt to ignore Common Article 3, which bans "cruel treatment and torture [and] outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment."
And since Congress enacted the Geneva Conventions, making them the law of the United States, any violations that Bush or any other American commits "are considered 'war crimes' punishable as federal offenses," as Justice Kennedy wrote.
George W. Bush in the dock facing a charge of war crimes? That's well beyond the scope of possibility … or is it? |
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News: War and Militarism |
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Hate Groups Are Infiltrating the Military, Group Asserts |
Submitted by: yo / 07 Jul 2006
Publisher: nyTimes
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"We've got Aryan Nations graffiti in Baghdad," the group quoted a Defense Department investigator as saying in a report to be posted today on its Web site, www.splcenter.org. "That's a problem." |
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News: Human Rights : Politics |
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Historical Context on Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza |
Submitted by: yo / 07 Jul 2006
Publisher: truthout.org
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Reports issued before May of this year describe Gaza's situation in dire terms. In one of the most densely populated areas on earth, two-thirds of Gaza's population live below the poverty level. There are acute shortages of food, fuel and water. Malnutrition and disease are rampant among the young and, for the most part, only basic medical services are available.
This crisis in Gaza predates Hamas's victory in 2006. For the first twenty-five years of Israel's occupation (1967-1993) Gaza was a place of misery. As Sarah Roy brilliantly describes in her book, The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of Re-development, Israel ruthlessly suppressed Gaza's people, while denying them economic growth opportunities. During this time, no infrastructure (sewers, paved roads, etc.) was built and the population was reduced to, in the words of one Israeli Minister, "hewers of wood, and bearers of water," i.e., demeaning day labor employment in Israel.
Gaza's only hope after the Oslo Accords were signed in 1993 was that its economy and infrastructure could be developed and opened up to the outside world. While many in the West blamed Palestinian Authority (PA) mismanagement, the facts point in a different direction. It was the persistence of the occupation from 1994-2005 that resulted in Gaza's continued stagnation. Despite "peace on paper," Israel retained an iron grip on Gaza. Settlements remained, as did the physical division of Gaza, north from south and from the rest of Palestinian lands and the outside world. Being denied access and egress meant difficulty in importing and exporting and, therefore, no economic development.
When Israel unilaterally redeployed from Gaza in 2005, the situation deteriorated even further. While Israel was able to project its removal of 7000 settlers as a "painful sacrifice for peace," by refusing to coordinate their departure with the PA or even to honor the agreement they negotiated with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (that should have guaranteed movement in and out of Gaza), Israel left behind disarray and an angry and impoverished population. By tightening their external controls on the tiny strip, Israel, in effect, created one of the world's largest prison camps. Inside Gaza, Palestinians were "free," troubled only by their own poverty and armed gangs. Like prisoners, they could have occasional visitors and receive gifts - but, for the most part, they remained cut off from the outside world.
The economy, already crippled, worsened. With Israel refusing to open Gaza's borders to goods, small Palestinian factories that had once sub-contracted with larger Israeli firms were forced to close. And this summer, tens of millions of dollars of Palestinian produce rotted at the check points because Israel refused to allow them to be exported.
With the election of Hamas in January 2006, Gaza's situation became worse still. Having been reduced to dependency on international donors for most of its operating budget, the Hamas-led PA now lost even that. Tens of thousands of civil servants (the largest group of salaried workers in the area) now receive no income. Hospitals provide only basic services, with critically-ill patients or those requiring emergency care are left untreated, unless in a moment of largesse, Israel decides to grant them admission.
Recognizing the need to resolve, at least, the crisis created by Israel's and the West's refusal to deal with the Hamas government, Palestinian leaders from across the political spectrum launched a number of initiatives in May and June. These were efforts to create a new national consensus that, it was hoped, could lead to a new non-Hamas government that might allow aid to be restored.
It was at this point that violence flared up again. Israel's repeated assassinations of militants, done with callous disregard for nearby civilians, resulted in the death of dozens of innocents (many of them children). These attacks were met by daily Qassam rocket attacks on an Israeli city just beyond Gaza's borders. And then came the deadly June 25th attack on an Israeli military post and the capture of Shalit.
Israel's response has been an overwhelming, though measured, display of force. Stunned by negative reactions to their killing of Palestinian civilians in earlier attacks, Israel has mainly focused its strikes on Palestinian installations: the power plant, bridges, ministries, a university, and various offices. But it has been the state of siege, resulting in the complete suffocation of Gaza, that has taken the biggest toll. The pre-existing humanitarian crisis in Gaza has now been magnified, with hospitals and social service agencies reporting new casualties resulting from alarming shortages of food, fuel and medicine.
[more if you follow the link] |
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