Final protest march at Republican National Convention features Mitt Romney effigy

Tampa, Florida -- They came from every direction: on bikes, on horseback, and on foot. 

 
Cops moved in, prepared for the final protest march on the RNC.  Ground zero is Gaslight Park and the path leading there is Franklin Street.

 In the rain they walked, arm in arm, hand in hand, a mass of humanity, mocking Mitt Romney and what they call "GOP greed".

 As the crowd grew, costumes and masks, signs and drums, signal the arrival of Mitt Romney's effigy.

They filed out to hit the streets, followed closely by a line of police.

Mitt Romney tells 533 lies in 30 weeks, Steve Benen documents them

Mitt Romney lies. A lot. He lies more than any other national candidate for office in my lifetime. And I was born before the Nixon administration.

This is documented. Proven. Validated, verified, demonstrated, catalogued and quantified. Mitt Romney lies.

Here are 30 — 30! — of Benen’s weekly “chronicling” posts. These are all backed up and sourced. These are not assertions, interpretations or allegations. These are facts, actual instances ...

Vietnam workers kept like slaves at factory in Russia

The BBC has found disturbing evidence of Vietnamese textile workers being kept in slave-like conditions at a Vietnamese-run factory in Russia.

Staff at Vinastar, a medium-sized business in the village of Savino south-east of Moscow, said they were being forced to work up to 18 hours a day, seven days a week.

They said they were poorly fed, beaten up regularly and forbidden to leave the factory premises.

"I have been working here for 18 months," said one of the factory workers, Nguyen Thi Bich Tuyen.

"I'm barely paid enough to afford two meals a day - a bowl of rice and some bread. We are often beaten up. Not so long ago, 20 people were beaten up."
By the time the BBC visited the factory last week, production had stopped but factory workers told us security guards were not allowing them to leave.

We found 75 people sharing four small rooms, two of which did not even have windows

Earlier this year, workers went on strike. Factory owners invited diplomats from the Vietnamese embassy to talk to staff but embassy officials simply reminded workers that they had signed a legally-binding contract and had to abide by its terms and conditions.

After this strike, according to factory workers, many of them were beaten up.

Weeks after the strike, and a few days after the BBC spoke to migrants, officials from the Russian migration service conducted a surprise raid on the premises of the factory.

They found 75 people locked up in four small rooms. None of the migrants had any documents on them.

The official who organised this raid, Konstantin Pavlov, said they had now contacted the police.

"What we saw at the factory," he said, "bore all the hallmarks of a criminal offence. An investigation is now under way."

The police investigation continues. Owners of the factory could, potentially, be charged for organising the employment of illegal migrants.

While Vinastar's workers are now preparing to go home, this factory was just one of dozens of similar sweatshops run by Vietnamese entrepreneurs in Russia.

The number of Vietnamese workers employed in Russia is likely to be in the thousands, with many of them facing conditions similar to what the BBC found at Vinastar.

Palestinian farmers ordered to leave lands

Israel sends written message to West Bank farmers giving them 45 days to leave lands and uproot palm trees.

Israeli authorities have given Palestinian farmers living in Jericho, in the occupied West Bank, an order to uproot palm trees they have grown and leave agricultural lands within 45 days.

The orders came in the form of letters sent to the farmers in an area known as “Area C” and gave the farmers an October 7 deadline to vacate their lands. 

Shawkat Housheyeh, a farmer who received an official warning letter to uproot his palm trees told Reuters news agency that the measure threatened the livelihood of thousands of farm workers in the Jericho area.

He called on the Palestinian Authority to fight the Israeli threat to Palestinians working on farms in the 3,000 dunams (about 741 acres) of Dier Hijlah and al-Zour.

"I hope that the [Palestinian] Authority will announce an emergency situation because this [the orders] threatens the 2,000 to 3,000 workers who work in this area," Housheyeh said.

There Are Now More Slaves Than at Any Point in Human History

Most of the time, the stories we hear about trafficking are of women and girls. But 20% of trafficking victims are men and boys.

There are more slaves today than at any point in human history – 27 million worldwide. The best numbers on the subject reflect that 1-1.2 million children are trafficked every year, and 100,000 human trafficking victims are currently in the United States. 

After drug dealing, human trafficking (both sex trafficking and trafficking for forced labor) is tied with the illegal arms industry as the second largest criminal industry in the world today, and it’s the fastest growing. 80% of trafficking victims are women and girls.

From my travels and research I’d guess that men are trafficked far more than women. Still, because my mind and emotions are most crushed by the sex trafficking of children, I have been surprised when I visit rescue shelters and, when I ask how many survivors are men, the staff members look at me and say, “They all are men.”

 

Labor trafficking is a brutal business that offers a low risk for the criminals. The story of boys and men being tricked or forced into slave labor camps and then beat mercilessly once there doesn’t  capture many headlines. 

 

Many still confuse it with separate issues. Make no mistake about it: These slavery rings are not synonymous with typical migrant worker rings whereby foreign workers enter a new country and are employed seasonally and paid meagerly.

 

We’re talking about the type of slavery most of our history books exposed us to, the stuff of movies, the stuff we think has passed, the stuff that can cripple cultures for generations or longer. 

 

I met one boy of 12 who was blindfolded and beat daily for three weeks so that he was sufficiently brainwashed by his “master” and would devote the rest of his healthy life to working for free. 

 

And it’s not all boys either. Most of the survivors I met are grown men – ranging from 25-45 – who, in an effort to better support their families, were sold a fake promise and then were sold into slavery rings. 

 

Many expressed embarrassment. Many said they could never tell their families what happened for fear of being regarded as weak, stupid and/or unmanly. 

 

Our soldiers (and men in general) have become notorious for not being able or wanting to open up about their mental disorders. 

 

The same can be assumed for male trafficking survivors.

Lonmin Marikana mine massacre

The massacre of 34, and almost certainly more, striking mineworkers at Marikana (together with more than 80 injured) on 16 August has sent waves of shock and anger across South Africa, rippling around the world. It could prove a decisive turning-point in our country's post-apartheid history.

Platinum rockdrillers work underground in temperatures of 40-45 degrees celsius, in cramped, damp, poorly ventilated areas where rocks fall daily. They risk death every time they go down the shafts. At Marikana 3000 mineworkers were and are striking for a wage increase from R4000 to R12,500 a month 

The cumulative evidence is that this was not panicky police firing at workers they believed were about to attack them armed with machetes and sticks. Why otherwise leave a narrow gap in the razor wire?

Why kill workers running away from the police lines? It was premeditated murder by a militarized police force to crush the strike, which must have been ordered from higher up the chain of command.

This is further confirmed by autopsies which reveal that most of the workers were shot in the back (Cape Times, 27/8/2012).

Because of the global capitalist crisis, with a slump in demand for new cars, the price of platinum has been falling, squeezing Lonmin's high profits.

 Lonmin refused to negotiate with the striking mineworkers, and instead threatened mass dismissals, a favorite weapon of mining bosses. 

They were losing 2500 ounces of platinum output a day, amounting to more than $3.5-million. It was in Lonmin's interest to smash the strike. A platinum CEO is quoted as saying that if the R12,500 demand was won “the entire platinum mining sector will be forced to shut down.” (New Age, 20/8/2012)

Romney - Pro Life .. or is he?

If Romney had a time machine, he'd use it to destroy these video clips


Let's be clear about one thing, folks: Mitt Romney is pro-life.

He wants the US supreme court to overturn Roe v Wade, the landmark ruling that legalised abortion in 1973. He believes that life begins at conception, and wants the constitution changed to reflect this. 

Again and again on the presidential campaign trail, he's made his position, um, clear.

Move Your Money

The Move Your Money project is a nonprofit campaign that encourages individuals and institutions to divest from the nation's largest Wall Street banks and move to local financial institutions. 

 
Little has changed to prevent another financial crisis or to end 'Too Big To Fail,' and with Congress unwilling to act, we are encouraging individuals to take power into their own hands by voting with their dollars and no longer contributing to a financial system that has led our country astray.

We are a campaign that gives people real, concrete actions they can take to create a more sane, stable and localized banking system.

Paul Ryan’s speech in 3 words

Paul Ryan’s speech in 3 words

Dazzling 
Deceiving 
Distracting

THE PAUL RYAN SELECTION

The Koch Brothers Get Their Man

 
My sources tell me David Koch played a key role in Ryan's selection and that Koch's wife Julia had been quietly lobbying for Ryan. The selection was cemented at the July 22nd fundraiser Koch held for Romney at the former's sumptuous Hamptons estate.

Koch pledged $100 million more to C-4 and Super PAC efforts for Romney for Ryan's selection. 

Chile education crisis: Water cannons and tear gas on the streets of Santiago

Clashes have broken out as tens of thousands of students and their supporters demanded improvements to Chile's public education system in the streets of Santiago. Police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse the most radical protesters.



The day’s protests drew over 150,000 people, according to organizers, while authorities put the figure at around 50,000.

This time, the ongoing public actions protesting the Chilean education system were supported by educators and labor unions. The movement demands the elimination of school fees and calls for public schools to be better funded by the state.

Watch the March on the RNC

Updated, 8/28: Lots more photos and video added below.

As of noon eastern, the March on the RNC has begun.

 The corporate media won't report on it, so follow and find livestreams on Twitter: #resistRNC #marchontheRNC #OccupyTheRNC #frnc, @OccupyRNC and @OccupyTampa.

The protest will continue throughout the week. Nonviolent direct action marches will take place every day at 10 am as an alternative to the official, barbed-wire enclosed “event zone” (cage) declared by the city and police to keep protesters far away from the eyes of the media, while the wealthy are given lavish parties and the ears of the politicians inside the heavily-guarded walls.

The city spent tens of millions of dollars on police equipment, including a tank, surveillance drones, and helicopters, with reinforcements from the Dept. of Homeland Security and National Guard

Protesters were kept far away from the convention and from media by barriers like this one, meaning reporters had to travel long distances to cover the actions or talk to demonstrators

#S17 Updates for the week of August 29th

As you read this, the whirring machinery of mass media is increasingly focusing the spotlight on Romney, Obama and the spectacle of elections.

A lot will be decided this November but almost none of it where the public can see. We receive an endless stream of TV commercials funded by SuperPac billionaires in lieu of a true democratic discourse. The 99% is left in the wake of campaign commercials acting as currency for both the candidates and the media charged with covering them for us.

If you want to have the greatest impact on our democracy, cast your ballot on September 17th - in the streets. Join us.

March on Wall St South – Mobilization info

There’s just a few days left until the March on Wall Street South mobilization kicks off! See below for a schedule of events and many other updates. You can also find transportation leaving from your area to bring folks to Charlotte!

Paul Ryan Speech Slams Obama For Wisconsin Factory That Closed Under Bush

Paul Ryan, repeating a line from his stump speech, slammed President Obama for failing to rescue an auto plant he visited in Wisconsin in 2008:

A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that GM plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said: “I believe that if our government is there to support you … this plant will be here for another hundred years.”  That’s what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn’t last another year.  It is locked up and empty to this day.  And that’s how it is in so many towns today, where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight.

Only problem -- the plant closed in 2008. As in, under President George W. Bush

Dispatches From the Republican National Convention

Here’s a list of some of the whoppers that Paul Ryan served up Wednesday night. 

 Rice got the best pre-Ryan reception, definitely, but these nights are rigged for the veep speeches. The lights dim a little. The floor gets packed—so packed that reporters were told to stay away, lest we violate fire codes, starting at 10:20 pm.

So I was in the cheap seats, not on carpet, when Ryan plowed through one of the more impressive strings of whoppers we've seen at this level. Ryan's been doling out chunks of this speech for weeks, which made the fibs sound even stranger.

In the spirit of the Internet, I will package them in listicle form ...

The Federal Bailout That Saved Mitt Romney

According to the candidate's mythology, Romney took leave of his duties at the private equity firm Bain Capital in 1990 and rode in on a white horse to lead a swift restructuring of Bain & Company, preventing the collapse of the consulting firm where his career began.

According to the candidate's mythology, Romney took leave of his duties at the private equity firm Bain Capital in 1990 and rode in on a white horse to lead a swift restructuring of Bain & Company, preventing the collapse of the consulting firm where his career began.

In fact, government documents on the bailout obtained by Rolling Stone show that the legend crafted by Romney is basically a lie. The federal records, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that Romney's initial rescue attempt at Bain & Company was actually a disaster – leaving the firm so financially strapped that it had "no value as a going concern." Even worse, the federal bailout ultimately engineered by Romney screwed the FDIC – the bank insurance system backed by taxpayers – out of at least $10 million.

California State Assembly passes resolution equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism

Schools out, but that didn't stop California's state assembly from passing Resolution HR35 buttressing a controversial report commissioned by the University of California that accuses students and faculty of contributing to an environment fostering anti-Semitism on campus.

The report's recommendations, which seek to limit criticism of Israeli state policies as a form of "hate speech", have been criticized as an assault on academic freedom and an attempt to limit student and faculty's first amendment rights to free speech.

There was no debate by lawmakers prior to approval, nor was Israel even mentioned during the introduction of the resolution.

Occupy Tampa

This is the police state currently showing its face in Tampa. Where several sources have estimated an upward of 10 to 1 police to protestor ratio.

So here is the real question. If Occupy and all other related activists groups have had no impact in this past year (as the mass media would have you believe) then why waste so many millions of tax payer dollars on security at the RNC? 

Furthermore, why bring the practical equivalent of a standing army for peaceful American activists in the first place? What type of government do we have that goes so far out of its way to stomp on first amendment rights through such a showing of force?

This is nothing but a downright attempt to quell our rights as citizens. It is surely an attempt to show strength when in reality it is the strongest symbol of the weakness and frailty of our current government. One that relies on force and fear to rule instead of tolerance and intelligence to govern. The marks of despots and tyrannical kings.

This most certainly is not a representation of the people's will as we should have under a representative republic. So I ask again with an upcoming election that many in the public sphere feel has no freedom of choice and that both parties lead to the same politics, (both parties being funded by many of the same private banking and corporate institutions) what type of government are we the people living under?

 

US burning money in Afghanistan

US burning money in Afghanistan

GMB & Shop Steward Network at Stratford Station in protest of Remploy cuts

GMB & Shop Steward Network at Stratford Station in protest of Remploy cuts.  Photos from Occupy London.

Protest gets vocal at Stratford... No ifs, no buts, no Reploy cuts.

#ONN #OLSX #ATOS #REMPLOY #ParaOlympics #2012 #Protest

Hundreds protest against Paralympics sponsor Atos as anger about its role in slashing benefits bill intensifies

Hundreds of disabled people stepped up protests against the Paralympics sponsor Atos today as anger about the company's role in slashing the benefits bill intensifies.

Protesters gathered at the French company’s UK Head Quarters in central London this afternoon to commemorate the thousands of people who have died after being declared fit to work. Disabled People Against Cuts activists also marched on Atos offices in Cardiff, Glasgow and Belfast as part of a week of direct action dubbed the Atos Games.

Italy miners barricade themselves underground with explosives

Up to 100 Sardinian miners armed with hundreds of kilograms of explosives have barricaded themselves nearly 400 meters underground in Italy's only coal mine to put pressure on the Rome government to protect its survival.

The miners from a 460-strong workforce seized 350 kilos of company explosives and locked themselves inside the Carbosulcis mine west of Cagliari overnight on Monday, one of them said, ahead of a government meeting this week to discuss the pit's future.

"We are worried that the mine may close. We are afraid for our jobs," said Sandro Mereu, 54, a miner who has worked there for 28 years.

"We are prepared to stay here until we hear a response from the government that secures the future of the mine. We will stay here indefinitely," Mereu told Reuters by telephone.

Hurricane Isaac and the Wonderful Wizards of GOP

Starring, left to right: Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin as the Scarecrow, heartless Paul Ryan as the Tin Man, presidential candidate Mitt Romney as Dorothy, weepy John Boehner as the Lion. Because he's just so cute, Mike Huckabee gets to be Toto.

MOVE YOUR MONEY

Occupy Wall Street comes home to roost with Congo's 'debt vultures'

Nowhere are the ill-gotten gains of the 1% more grossly apparent than in the activities of 'debt vulture' hedge funds

 Photo from Existence is Resistance

This article is the subject of a legal complaint from Peter Grossman.

This past Sunday, a deputation from Occupy Wall Street crossed the bridge from Manhattan and brought its protest to the Brooklyn residence of one of New York's "vultures" This type of vulture doesn't roost in a tree, but in a swish brownstone.

A "vulture" is a financial speculator who, as we recently reported, gets his hands on debts owed by desperately poor nations. The Brooklyn "vulture" targeted by OWS and Friends of the Congo is Peter Grossman. Two weeks ago, the Guardian exposed him as a financier who is demanding the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the world's poorest nation, pay $100m to the hedge fund he manages, FG Hemisphere.

Grossman, tipped off about the demonstration, was apparently absent from his brownstone. Police attended, but were content to spectate, hands off.

The OWS marchers had come at the call of Friends of the Congo. Ayman El-Sayed, a registered nurse who has worked in the medical tent at Occupy Wall Street, explained why:

"We want to connect what Peter Grossman is doing to the Occupy Wall Street movement – that he's a part of the 1% that's trying to rip off a nation; that Occupy Wall Street is a domestic issue, but we're trying to connect it to the international struggle as well – whether it's the people in the Congo, or people in Egypt, or anywhere else."

Millions for sponsorships and nothing for workers? Tell Adidas to pay up!

Adidas is having a banner year. The world’s second largest sporting goods manufacturer is expecting it highest sales figures ever, buoyed by multimillion dollar sponsorship deals with the London Olympics and the Euro 2012 tournament. 

Adidas is willing to pay a big premium to convince you that it values the Olympic ideals of international friendship and cooperation.

But Adidas is refusing to actually stand for those values. For less than the 2% of the cost of its Olympic sponsorship, Adidas could do right by thousands of workers who were illegally denied severance pay when their factory was unexpectedly shut down. Now we’re partnering with the Clean Clothes Campaign  to hold Adidas accountable.

Information and petition to sign here.

Adidas has put up an estimated US$122 to plaster its name all over the London Olympics, and it expects the sponsorship to yield billions in sales. 

But in a decision the Worker Rights Consortium has called “grossly irresponsible and immoral,” Adidas continues to refuse to offer just US$1.8 million in long-overdue severance pay to workers laid off from its shuttered Indonesian Supplier, PT Kizone.

For a year and a half, 2,800 ex-Kizone workers have been fighting for the severance pay they were promised when their boss suddenly closed the factory and fled the country.

After workers and their allies rallied across Indonesia, Europe, and North America, Adidas agreed to finally met with union representatives in June.

The company’s offer: food vouchers worth US$53 and valid only at one supermarket. For families facing difficulty covering rent and their children’s school fees this amounted to nothing more than an insult.

Tampa 2012: The Rise Of The Aging, Angry White Guy

The Republican National Convention is set to convene in Tampa this week.

While the formal job of the convention is to set a platform and nominate a presidential candidate, somehow the party is going to have to manage the deepening split between the hard right Tea Party activists and establishment Republicans. An early look at speakers and the party platform shows the Tea Party activists are winning.   To start, the party is set to adopt the most conservative platform in modern history. Notable policy positions include a constitutional amendment granting personhood to embryonic cells and banning abortion without exception while giving a high-five to those states who have adopted perverse “informed consent” laws that mandate transvaginal ultrasounds prior to an abortion.

The platform also explicitly denies statehood to Washington D.C. while loosening gun restriction in the District, explores a return to the gold standard and bans women from serving in combat and protects against the ever-increasing threat of sharia law.

Republicans also endorsed a broad replication of anti-immigration laws modeled after Arizona’s SB1070 and refuses to recognize same-sex couples.

Republican Convention Taking Place In City With America’s Highest Homeless Rate

As Republicans gather for their national party convention in Tampa, they will be aware of the stormy weather but may not see another issue clouding the city.

 The Tampa-St. Petersburg metropolitan area has the highest rate of homelessness in the nation, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness in a report issued earlier this year — 57 homeless for every 10,000 residents.

There are about 16,000 homeless people in the Tampa area, and one in five of them are children.

Presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney has not laid out any plans when it comes to combating homelessness. However, back in April, an NBC News reporter overheard Romney telling rich donors that he may eliminate the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which would bring an end to critical programs like Section 8 housing vouchers and community development block grants, assuming Romney didn’t just shuffle them around to another department.

The budget crafted by Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), could cause housing assistance to disappear for about one million households, according to HUD. GOP Gov. Rick Scott (R-FL) has also shown little sympathy for his state’s homeless population, proposing to completely zero out funding for homelessness prevention programs.

Meanwhile, the 2009 Recovery Act, almost uniformly opposed by Republicans, saved thousands of Americans from homelessness.

Infiltrating Groups, Demonizing ‘Anarchists’ & Chilling Dissent Ahead of the RNC

State-sponsored propaganda fills corporate and establishment news reports ahead of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Tampa, Florida. 

The word is that “improvised explosive devices” (IEDs) could be used by “domestic terrorists” at the RNC.

There also will likely be individuals who engage in “black bloc” tactics, cover their face with a mask or bandanna to “conceal their identity” and throw “Molotov cocktails, flaming torches or acid-filled eggs at law enforcement,” according to a joint bulletin from the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation. And the “anarchists” could come by sea, the Coast Guard reports.

Finally, what the national security state is permitted to use on citizens it reigns over at one so-called national special security event will be reused again.

This means the Occupy movement and others in Tampa can expect stops and searches of people, unreasonable seizures of personal property, obstruction of members of the press intent on covering and reporting on protests, the targeting and temporary detention of live streamers at gunpoint, the swarming of homes and churches where activists are known to be staying or gathering by riot patrol squads, preemptive arrests and the use of infiltrators or agents to separate out those who the state deems can be trusted to exercise their First Amendment right from those who cannot.

Spain’s Crisis Reignites an Old Social Conflict

Outmaneuvering the police, hundreds of jobless farmworkers charged through a hole in a fence and turned the manicured gardens of a vacant estate here in Spain’s agricultural heartland into a lively fairground of protest this week.

“We’re here to denounce a social class who leaves such places to waste,” said Diego Cañamero, the leader of the Andalusian Union of Workers, addressing the demonstrators who had occupied the property, the Palacio de Moratalla. For all of the estate’s grandeur, the owner, the Duke of Segorbe, lives in Andalusia’s capital, Seville, about 60 miles away. 

“Nobody lives here now, but the sprinklers are functioning and keeping the lawns beautifully green,” he observed. “Just imagine how many farming wages you could pay instead of using the money to water empty gardens.”

FBI and Corporate Media Team Up to Lay Groundwork for Crackdown on Convention Protesters

The FBI has leaked a document to the corporate media in order to lay the ground work for aggressive police crack downs against protesters at the RNC and DNC.  

 
The corporate media, as usual, plays its roll with no critical comments about the basis for the FBI's claims. We urge protesters to take an aggressively non-violent approach at the convention so that when the already planned police crackdown begins the police will be seen as abusing their power against non-violent Americans exercising their constitutional rights.

Court Blocks Planting of Genetically Engineered Canola in Oregon

The Oregon Court of Appeals has ordered a temporary halt to the state’s plan to allow genetically engineered (GE) canola to be planted in parts of the Willamette Valley, Oregon. 

The order is in effect until the court rules on a lawsuit filed by opponents of GE canola planting who say it threatens the state’s $32 million specialty seed industry. 

The lawsuit and court order are in response to new rules, not subject to required public comment, that would allow for the planting of GE canola in areas previously deemed off-limits.

Similar to the threat of pesticide drift faced by organic farmers, is the threat of genetic drift -typically pollen from a field of a GE crop being carried by wind or pollinators like honey bees, which are known to travel six miles or further.

While organic food is not currently tested for GE drift contamination the way it is spot-checked for pesticides, consumers paying a premium for organic food demand purity.

Therefore, the growing threat of genetic contamination is a serious issue facing organic farmers as well. This July, Beyond Pesticides joined with farmers and environmental groups across the country to appeal a February court ruling dismissing Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association et al v. Monsanto.

The plaintiffs in this case are suing preemptively to protect themselves from being accused of patent infringement should their crop ever become contaminated by Monsanto’s genetically engineered seed, something Monsanto has done to others in the past.

Help us protect organic integrity! Visit the Organic page and become a part of the efforts to protect the organic integrity.

Japanese Anti-Nuclear Movement Protest Entire Government | Aug. 24 2012 | Despite Police Limits

Japanese Anti-Nuclear movement refuses to give up despite continued limits placed on them by the Tokyo Metro Police. Thousands of people in attendance protesting in solidarity.

Tampa police prepare for Republican convention with crowd control measures

Ahead of the Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay, Florida, law enforcement agencies are stepping up security and imposing restrictions on some activities in the area. From Free Speech Radio News.

The US Coast Guard said Thursday it will enforce bans on loitering, stopping or anchoring boats near 15 bridges during the convention. The Tampa Police Department is also preparing for the conventions, including training officers to use bikes, horses and smoke bombs in crowd control.

FSRN’s Janelle Irwin has more on what local law enforcement has planned.

The Global Intelligence Files - WikiLeaks

On Monday February 27th, 2012, WikiLeaks began publishing The Global Intelligence Files, over five million e-mails from the Texas headquartered "global intelligence" company Stratfor. 

 The e-mails date between July 2004 and late December 2011.

They reveal the inner workings of a company that fronts as an intelligence publisher, but provides confidential intelligence services to large corporations, such as Bhopal's Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and government agencies, including the US Department of Homeland Security, the US Marines and the US Defence Intelligence Agency. 

The emails show Stratfor's web of informers, pay-off structure, payment laundering techniques and psychological methods.

UK banks and the debt crisis from War on Want

To mark the 30th anniversary of the Mexican debt default back in August 1982, we've unearthed this fantastic video on British banks' role in the debt crisis. 

Put together in 1986 by women's video collective Cinestra as part of War on Want's pioneering campaign Profits Out of Poverty, it explains how the big four high street banks (Nat West, Barclays, Lloyds and Midland) were responsible for fuelling the debt crisis that condemned millions in Latin America to poverty.

Old school and brilliant - watch and learn!

Eight BIG PROBLEMS with the “case” against Assange (MUST-READ by Naomi Wolf)

Something Rotten in the State of Sweden: 8 Big Problems with the ‘Case’ Against Assange by Naomi Wolf 

Exclusive to News from Underground

A Greenpeace Shoppers Guide

Because you have the right to know.

How to avoid genetically engineered food.

Fake Eco-Friendly Corporations Shell out Millions of $ to Stop GMO Labeling (Infographic)

By now most of us know of the enormous issue surrounding GMOs, GMO labeling, and California’s Proposition 37. Proposition 37, a bill that would require all genetically modified foods to be labeled in California, has gained tremendous support from the public. 

But while an overwhelming number of individuals want nothing more than GMO foods to be labeled, others are doing everything in their power to stop such a bill from existing. It isn’t surprising to see biotech giants like Monsanto go against Proposition 37 and GMO labeling, but do you have any idea who else is fighting Prop 37?

While $2.6 million had been raised so far supporting Prop 37, a whopping $23.5 million (for visual purpose: $23,000,000 dollars) has been donated to fighting Prop 37. Biotech giant Monsanto donated $4,208,000 alone. Here is a short list of the top deep-pocket anti-labelers and their respected donations.

• Monsanto – $4,208,000
• Pepsi Co. – $1,716,300
• Coca Cola – $1,164,400
• Congara – $1,076,300
• Kellogg – $632,500
• General Mills – $520,000

It may be surprising for those just getting into the organic lifestyle to see these major corporations putting forth hundreds of thousands or in some cases millions of dollars to fight the labeling of GMOs, but it is clearly ongoing.

Many companies selling organic products are actually owned by multi-national corporations; companies like Kashi, Cascadian Farm, and Santa Cruz Organic are actually child companies of giants like Kellogg, General Mills, and Smucker – all of which are against GMO labeling.

While these corporations are dumping millions of dollars to ensure the public doesn’t know about GMOs, millions of people are seeing who they truly are. Such publicity will only result in the massive loss of customers and an eventual disintegration of power. These corporations are trying to keep GMOs hidden from the public eye – it is time we stop supporting these companies, and spend our dollars with trusted companies.

The Courts Are Seriously Debating Whether Innocent Prisoners Should Be Kept in Jail on Technicalities

Yesterday, Michael Wayne Hash, who spent 12 years in a Virginia prison for murder, had all of the charges against him dismissed. A judge found him to be innocent. He's a free man. Not every innocent prisoner is so lucky.

Daniel Larsen, for example. As the LAT reports, he's in prison in California serving a life sentence thanks to the good old "three strikes" law. His first two strikes were burglary convictions; his third strike came when he was convicted of carrying a concealed knife in 1998, after police said they saw him toss a knife under a car after a bar fight.

Larsen's lawyer was incompetent. He called no witnesses on his behalf. A decade later, in 2008, a judge heard from three witnesses who said that another man, not Larsen, threw the knife under the car. A judge found that Larsen was innocent, and should be released.

However: prosecutors objected, naturally. Not only do they still believe that Larsen is guilty; their more pertinent argument is that he filed his legal paperwork woefully late, far past the mandatory deadline, and should therefore be kept in jail. The LAT sums up the legal dispute:

A 1995 U.S. Supreme Court decision said that prisoners found to be "actually innocent" should be released even if they had not followed all legal technical requirements. The next year, Congress passed a new law with stringent time limits on when inmates could file habeas corpus cases in federal court. But the nation's highest court has never ruled on whether those deadlines apply in cases in which there is evidence of "actual innocence." Appellate courts across the nation disagree on whether they do.

So, we are having a serious debate in the U.S. justice system over whether prisoners who have been found to be innocent should be kept in jail due to technicalities which having nothing at all to do with guilt or innocence. Which is why Daniel Larsen is still in jail today. And here we are.

BREAKING!!! THE NEWS DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE NEWS!!

The city of Los Angeles trims trees to get rid of the homeless. The homeless are guilty of one thing, existing.

Tapping Into the Land, and Dividing Its People

There is beauty on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation in Montana, but there is also oil, locked away in the tight shale rock thousands of feet underground. 

And tribal leaders have decided to tap their land’s buried wealth. The elders’ decision has divided the tribe while igniting a debate over the promise and perils of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in a place where many see the land as something living. Read more in "Tapping Into the Land, and Dividing Its People"

The move has divided the tribe while igniting a debate over the promise and perils of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in a place where grizzlies roam into backyards and many residents see the land as something living and sacred. 

Executive Excess 2012: The CEO Hands in Uncle Sam's Pocket

How our tax dollars subsidize exorbitant executive pay

In this latest Institute for Policy Studies Executive Excess annual report, our 19th consecutive, we take a close look at the most lucrative tax incentives and subsidies behind bloated CEO pay and highlight those executives who have reaped the highest rewards from tax code provisions that actively encourage outrageously disproportionate executive pay.

Green Party Nominates Jill Stein for President (CNN Video)

Green Party Presidential Nominee Jill Stein on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal

Pussy Riot: It took a bunch of bright, sassy women in colourful balaclavas to blow the lid off Putin's Russia

What Pussy Riot have done is show up the machinery of the state for what it is: scary, violent, punitive and male

 

They're now going to pay the price. Russian women's prisons are even harsher than the male ones.

The women have been depicted on state television as evil satanists and their lawyers fear for their safety. It's unlikely they'll stay in Moscow; like Khodorkovsky, they'll probably be shipped off to a far-off prison in Siberia away from family and friends, from their young children. 

It's not a joke. It's a brutal, nasty place, Putin's Russia. And because of Pussy Riot, we all now know that now

The treachery of Julian Assange - Another view

The WikiLeaks founder, far from being a champion of freedom, is an active danger to the real seekers of truth

Thirty years since Mexico’s default, Greece must break this sadistic debt spiral

We must retake control of our economies from the banks.

Mexico owed over $50 billion, 90% to foreign private creditors - primarily US, Japanese and British banks. These banks had gone on a lending binge during the 1970s using the profits oil exporting countries had deposited with them from the oil spike. American overspending, notably on the Vietnam War, was recycled as debt to the rest of the world and, to help this, controls on international movements of money were dismantled.

Just as in our current financial crisis, bank loans to Third World countries had tended to be organised through syndicates: loans were packaged up together and then lent on in one go. This bundling meant many banks felt no need to conduct their own risk assessment. Four of the fifteen largest lenders to Latin America by 1982 were British banks: Lloyds, Midland, Barclays, and Natwest. American lenders included Citicorp, Bank of America, and Chase Manhattan.

At the end of the 1970s the US Federal Reserve sprung the trap, massively hiking interest rates in order to save their banks from inflation. The costs for this move were pushed onto Third World countries like Mexico. Two years later, the inevitable happened.

In 1982 the IMF lent Mexico $4 billion, which went straight back out of the country to pay western banks - a perfect mirror of what is happening with so-called bail-outs to Greece and other Eurozone countries today. 

Today Greece, as well as other European countries, can share in the experience of Latin America from the 1980s. Then as now, bailout money was used to repay reckless banks, whilst austerity has served only to shrink economies and increase the relative size of the debt. Since 2010 the Greek government’s external debt has increased from 118% of GDP to 150% in 2012. The economy has shrunk by 15% since the start of 2010 and unemployment has reached 19%.

To repeat such failed policies is more than carelessness. The future of Europe’s economy, indeed the world economy, will be decided by a battle between the financial masters on the one side, and the peoples of the most indebted states in Europe on the other - Greece first. 

We either retake control of our economy from the banks, or we deepen an economic experiment which has had an incalculable cost in terms of the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. 

‘US instigating violent crackdown on whistleblowers, dissent’

With the world closely watching the rapidly developing case of Julian Assange, RT sat down with American author Naomi Wolf to discuss why journalists are finding it increasingly difficult to publish data the US government doesn’t want them to.

Time to Rebel! Five Ways We Can Break the Big Banks' Death Grip on the Economy

It is time to REBEL, against Wall Street and the big banks and to start fixing the economy and reclaim our democracy. There are five steps to this

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Assange Speech at Ecuador Embassy Full

Fukushima: They Knew

"Completely and Utterly Fail in an Earthquake" The Fukushima story you didn't hear on CNN

Here’s what we learned: Dick’s subordinate at the nuclear plant, Robert Wiesel, conducted the standard seismic review.

Dick then ordered Wiesel to change his report to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, change it from failed to passed. 

Dick didn’t want to make Wiesel do it, but Dick was under the gun himself, acting on direct command from corporate chiefs.

From The Notebook: Wiesel was very upset. He seemed very nervous. Very agitated. [He said,] “I believe these are bad results and I believe it’s reportable,” and then he took the volume of federal regulations from the shelf and went to section 50.55(e), which describes reportable deficiencies at a nuclear plant and [they] read the section together, with Wiesel pointing to the appropriate paragraphs that federal law clearly required [them and the company] to report the Category II, Seismic I deficiencies. 

Wiesel then expressed his concern that he was afraid that if he [Wiesel] reported the deficiencies, he would be fired, but that if he didn’t report the deficiencies, he would be breaking a federal law. . . . 

The law is clear. It is a crime not to report a safety failure. 

Why the hell would his company make this man walk the line? Why did they put the gun to his head, to make him conceal mortal danger? It was the money. It’s always the money.

Fixing the seismic problem would have cost the plant’s owner half a billion dollars easy.

There's Only One Solution That Might Fix Our Corrupt Financial System

Americans want their pound of flesh, and rightfully so. We’ve seen our bankers commit every kind of financial crime imaginable.  

They trade on insider information. They manipulate markets. They rig bets. They fix prices. They sell securities that are designed to fail so that they can bet against them.

launder money for rogue nations. They create too-big-to-fail banks that gamble with impunity knowing that we will bail them out again and again. 

And they collectively crashed the economy causing 8 million workers to lose their jobs.