08.Dec.2012 - Police State Laboratory, Housing Crisis, Fast Food Strike, Palestine and the Intifada, Speechless in Gaza, Big Media Shouldn't Get Bigger, NO to Drones, Stop Those Israeli Settlements, Global Warming Failure, Another Drone Captured, Manning Treatment a Blemish on America's History, Are Nativity Displays Constitutional? (and much more!) PLUS: "Coca-Cola Case" Documentary

Police State Laboratory

One victim among many more
Danny Katch talked to Rockaways resident Kizzy Parsons about the hardships she and her children have had to endure in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
http://socialistworker.org/2012/12/05/one-victim-among-many-more

Making an affordable housing crisis worse
Don Lash looks at the impact of the Sandy disaster on New York's public housing.
http://socialistworker.org/2012/12/04/making-a-housing-crisis-worse

Striking the fast-food giants
Peter Rugh reports from New York City on a day of walkouts at fast-food restaurants--another step in what organizers call the largest union drive in fast-food history.
http://socialistworker.org/2012/12/03/striking-the-fast-food-giants

Palestine and the Intifada
Anthony Arnove, author of Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal, tells the story of the Palestinian uprising that shook Middle East politics starting 25 years ago this month.
http://socialistworker.org/2012/12/06/palestine-and-the-intifada

An Economy That Works for the Middle Class Won’t Happen on Its Own

A vital goal of economic policy should be to raise the living standards of the millions of American households who have seen their wages and living standards stagnate or decline over the last few decades. Fundamental to this is an economy that produces good, well-paying jobs. The biggest obstacle to this, currently, is the jobs crisis driven by a shortfall in aggregate demand. Additional factors though, written into our current policies, mean that even when the economy does recover, there is no reason to believe that the jobs it produces will actually be well-paying jobs.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/06-4

Speechless in Gaza

Gazans in the medical field have been working in unimaginable circumstances for years.  During Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, “17 health personnel were killed and 26 injured. In total, 29 ambulances were damaged or destroyed by bombs or crushed by armoured vehicles, while 48 per cent of Gaza’s 122 health facilities were either directly or indirectly hit by shelling.” 

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/06-1

A Letter To Chevron’s CEO:
Your Business Is Creating A Climate ‘Incompatible With An Organized Global Community’

From: David Fenton
To: John Watson, CEO of Chevron

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/12/06-2

Bernie Sanders on Why Big Media Shouldn’t Get Bigger

Watch the full interview this weekend on Moyers & Company. Click here to find show times and channels in your area.

Sleeping Giant Says No To Crowd Control Drones

Coal Export Threatens the Northwest

How Obama Could Stop Those Israeli Settlements
Olmert may be overstating things, but not by much. Certainly Netanyahu's settlement surprise isn't the show of gratitude Obama had reason to expect after the US voted with Israel against Palestine's bid for nonmember observer status at the UN--a bid so reasonable and innocuous that Israel and the US, in opposing it, were in a minority of 9 out of 147 voting nations. And some of those 9 were on our side only because of American arm twisting.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33240.htm

U.S. Failure To Act Swiftly On Global Warming Imperils The U.S. And The World
http://www.countercurrents.org/ross061212.htm

Another Drone Captured: Washington Feels Trepid
http://www.countercurrents.org/ziabari061212.htm

Israel And Palestine: Man In Search Of Humanity
http://www.countercurrents.org/khawaja051212.htm

‘Meshnet’ the new ‘parallel Internet’? Or are more extreme measures needed?

Israel’s Lesson to Palestinians: Build More Rockets?
“We want them to know that when they attack us mercilessly, when they treat us like animals, we will fight back,” says one young Palestinian.
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/israels-lesson-palestinians-build-more-rockets

Bradley Manning Lawyer: Soldier's Treatment a Blemish on Nation's History

avid Coombs, the civilian lawyer representing Bradley Manning at his court martial for supplying WikiLeaks with a trove of US state secrets, has described the soldier's treatment in solitary confinement at Quantico marine base as criminal and a blot on the nation's history.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/323-95/14865-bradley-manning-lawyer-soldiers-treatment-a-blemish-on-nations-history

ARE NATIVITY DISPLAYS CONSTITUTIONAL?
Although the First Amendment forbids the government from establishing religion, once again this holiday season, cities and counties across the country will be displaying nativity scenes to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ on government property. Nativity scenes (also known as crèches) have no place on government property. Indeed, the Supreme Court has held that stand-alone religious holiday displays violate the Establishment Clause. That much is clear.

http://www.americanhumanist.org/HNN/details/2012-12-are-nativity-displays-constitutional

Elizabeth Warren Finally Gets Her Shot to Fight Wall Street, Head-On

fter making her name defending the little guy from the greedy clutches of Wall Street's worst villains, Elizabeth Warren will finally have the chance to grill the country's top bankers face-to-face. The new Senator-elect from Massachusetts will get a seat on the Senate Banking Committee after all,reports Ryan Grim at The Huffington Post. Warren served as a civilian on Congress' TARP oversight panel, but was denied the chance to be the first director of the agency she created-the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau-because her nomination wasn't going to make it through the Senate. Now she'll be the one blocking appointments and scolding witnesses from the other side of the hearing room once the new Congressional term begins in January.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/14867-elizabeth-warren-finally-gets-her-shot-to-fight-wall-street-head-on

G4S equips the apartheid wall, Israel confirms

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/adri-nieuwhof/g4s-equips-apartheid-wall-israel-confirms

Too Embarrassing For Fox News

Tensions mount as UN climate talks near end

A Sign That Obama Will Repeat Economic Mistakes

A woman who would be an excellent choice as the most experienced as well as principled candidate to head the SEC or Treasury is Sheila Bair, former head of the FDIC, who labored to protect consumers rather than undermine them. Indeed, her outstanding book “Bull by the Horns,” chronicling her fight in the last two administrations to hold the banksters accountable, should be required reading for the president and those who are advising him on selecting his new economic team. 

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/a_sign_that_obama_will_repeat_economic_mistakes_20121207/

Fox News Host Tells Female Victims of Violence to ‘Make Better Decisions’

Former Bush administration White House press secretary Dana Perino has some advice for female victims of violence: In order to avoid getting hurt, “make better decisions.” The co-host of Fox News’ “The Five” made the eyebrow-raising, victim-blaming remark Wednesday during a segment about Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Javon Belcher, the NFL player who allegedly murdered his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, before driving to Arrowhead Stadium and killing himself last weekend.

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/fox_news_host_tells_female_victims_of_violence_to_make_better_decision_2012/

New study of blasphemy law around the world
According to a Pew Forum study released last week, eight out of 45 European countries have blasphemy laws on their books while 35 of them have laws against the defamation of religion in general or hate speech against members of a faith. The eight countries with blasphemy laws are Denmark, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands and Poland. A blasphemy law in England and Wales was scrapped in 2008.
http://www.secularism.org.uk/news/2012/12/new-study-of-blasphemy-law-around-the-world

Israeli Soldiers Kidnap Four Children In Hebron

Israeli soldiers kidnapped, on Thursday evening, four children in Ash-Shuhada’ Street, in the center of Hebron city, and the nearby Beit Ummar town, in the southern part of the West Bank, and released two of them later on, but refuse to release the remaining two.

http://occupiedpalestine.wordpress.com/2012/12/07/israeli-soldiers-kidnap-four-children-in-hebron-dci_palestine-unicef-amnesty/

‘Israel disrespects international community’

What Living On $7 An Hour Actually Means For Working People 

Comparing Conservative and Progressive Investment in America’s Youth

The Millennial generation is the largest, most diverse, and most progressive generation in American history. Young Americans between the ages 12 and 29 comprise the Millennial generation and, as of this year, represent a full quarter of the voting-age American public; in total, 46 million Americans are considered Millennials. In 2012 they surpassed the 39-million-strong bloc of voters older than 65, and by the 2020 election, when all Millennials will have reached voting age, they will total 90 million eligible voters—or 40 percent of the electorate. In the 2012 elections the group’s national turnout of roughly 50 percent meant their 18-percent share of the electorate surpassed the 16-percent share of the electorate for those voters older than 65. This also demonstrates the significant work that remains to be done to ensure more than half of Millennials vote in the future.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/progressive-movement/report/2012/12/06/47100/comparing-conservative-and-progressive-investment-in-americas-youth/

8 Ways Police Can Spy on You Without a Warrant

There are plenty of ways for law enforcement, from the local sheriff to the FBI, to snoop on the digital trails you create every day.

http://www.alternet.org/8-ways-police-can-spy -you-without-warrant

DOCUMENTARY OF THE DAY:

The Coca-Cola Case

Social|02 Dec, 2012|Buy the DVD|No Comments|Add to Playlist|90 mins

Exactly how companies treat people, especially the third world. In this feature documentary, German directors and Carmen García Gutiérrez present a sharp indictment of Coca-Cola empire and torture alleged abduction and murder of union leaders trying to improve working conditions in Colombia, Guatemala and Turkey. The filmmakers are labor rights lawyers Daniel Kovalik and Terry Collingsworth and activist of the Stop Killer Coke! campaign, Ray Rogers, in his attempt to keep the giant U.S. company beverage multinationals responsible in this battle, the legal and human rights. Many union leaders in the Colombian bottlers of Coca-Cola have been killed. Hundreds of other Coke workers have been tortured, kidnapped and / or illegally detained by violent paramilitaries, often working in close collaboration with the addresses of the sites.

02.Dec.2012 - NYC Shutting Down Occupy Sandy Relief, Organizing McDonalds and WalMart, Banksters = 4th branch of Government? Palestinian Statehood, Modern Day Slavery Victory, Tale of Lost American Liberty, Israel to Expand Settlements, Anti-Choice Zealots, Secret Watergate Files Released, more.

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NYC Threatens to Shut Down Occupy Sandy Relief Sites

While the history of relief efforts for Sandy victims in places such as Staten Island and Red Hook is still being written, a move on Friday by New York City will probably go down as one of the stupidest moves any governmental authority EVER made

http://my.firedoglake.com/tobywollin/2012/12/01/nyc-threatens-to-shut-down-occupy-sandy-relief-sites/

Israel Pushes New Settlement Homes After UN Palestine Vote

he Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has ordered the construction of thousands of new homes in Jewish settlements in the occupied territories in what will be widely interpreted as retaliation for the United Nations vote to recognise a Palestinian state on Thursday.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/330-131/14813-israel-pushes-new-settlement-homes-after-un-palestine-vote

Israel/Palestine
No more slaughter in Gaza!
http://www.socialistworld.net/doc/6045

Boy Scouts America: Anti Gay, Anti Atheist (BSA Blog Carnival)

The Boy Scouts Association of America not only promotes religion within their ranks, it explicitly states that without God in their lives, the children could never grow to become good people. This comes from the Boy Scout Handbook, in an archived version of the BSALegal.org website

http://martinspribble.com/archives/3554

Organizing McDonalds and Walmart
hat does the drama in Washington over the "fiscal cliff" have to do with strikes and work stoppages among America's lowest-paid workers at Walmart, McDonald's, Burger King, and Domino's Pizza? Everything.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/14814-organizing-mcdonalds-and-walmart

Will the West Survive Climate Change?
This year, summer came on like a grudge, with record-breaking heat, inescapable drought, and the sense that the effects of climate change had arrived - and that life in America's mythic frontier might never be the same.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/271-38/14812-will-the-west-survive-climate-change

Are Banksters and the Fed Becoming the Fourth Branch of Our Government?

Despite its pathetic propaganda encouraging us to practice doublethink, the Federal Reserve freely admits that it is privately owned, is a monopoly empowered by Congress, and that it operates independently from -- above? -- Congress and the president.   Yet it pays its private undisclosed shareholders/owners huge rewards . . that it extracts from U.S. taxpayers!

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Are-Banksters--the-Fed-Be-by-Richard-Clark-121201-585.html

For Amish, fastest-growing faith group in US, life is changing
As the Amish population in the US grows – forecast to hit 1 million by 2050 – the decline of farmland is forcing the community to spread to new areas and to evolve its agrarian culture.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2012/1130/For-Amish-fastest-growing-faith-group-in-US-life-is-changing

Is it Time for Evangelicals to Stop Opposing Gay Marriage?

I asked this question of Jim Daly – head of Focus on the Family — about eighteen months ago.  Jim is a famously irenic figure: earnest, thoroughly likable, palpably compassionate, and absolutely devoted to causes such as adoption and immigration reform and opposing human trafficking.  He also helms an organization that, its reputation on the Left notwithstanding, devotes the vast majority of its resources into serving families and children and only a tiny proportion to political advocacy.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2012/11/26/is-it-time-for-evangelicals-to-stop-opposing-gay-marriage/

Now What? The State Of Palestinian Statehood

The United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a resolution Thursday that changed Palestinians' status to a "non-member observer state." It's a significant step in Palestinian-Israeli relations, but whether backward or forward depends on who's talking.

http://www.npr.org/2012/12/01/166313016/the-state-of-palestinian-statehood

Is The Voting Rights Act Outdated?

For more than four decades, the Voting Rights Act never lost a court decision as it cut a path for minorities' increased participation in elections.

http://www.npr.org/2012/12/01/166226641/is-the-voting-rights-act-outdated

Revolution is female: the uprising of women in the Arab world
The Arabic word for revolution, thawra, has a female gender. So does the word ’huriya (freedom), and so does the word intifada (uprising). Sara Abbas talks to the social media revolutionaries behind The Uprising of Women in the Arab World, a facebook group that is taking patriarchy head-on
http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/sara-abbas/revolution-is-female-uprising-of-women-in-arab-world

A victory against modern day slavery
The ILO Domestic Workers Convention was unthinkable just a few years ago. It represents the culmination of years of effort by domestic workers, advocates, and officials to shine a spotlight on a long-ignored but significant sector of the workforce, says Nisha Varia
http://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/nisha-varia/victory-against-modern-day-slavery

Abortion Rates Drop By 5 Percent In US

Good news! The US abortion rate fell 5 percent between 2008 and 2009. Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published the details for 2009, the most recent year for which statistics are available, and noted that this was the biggest one-year decline in at least a decade.
http://www.care2.com/causes/abortion-rates-drop-by-5-precent-in-us.html

Bradley Manning: A Tale of Liberty Lost in America
Over the past two and a half years, all of which he has spent in a military prison, much has been said about Bradley Manning, but nothing has been heard from him. That changed on Thursday, when the 23-year-old US army private accused of leaking classified documents to WikiLeaks testified at his court martial proceeding about the conditions of his detention.
http://prisonradio.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/bradley-manning-a-tale-of-liberty-lost-in-america/

Science, an essential part of culture
When peace was restored after the end of the Second World War, 44 countries convened in London to debate how to reconstruct educational systems and to enable countries to work together. Spurred on by France and Britain, the delegates decided to create an organization that would embody a culture of peace with the ultimate aim of preventing another world war. This was originally intended to be an educational and cultural organization, but two British biologists, Julian Huxley and Joseph Needham, proposed adding science to its agenda.
http://areycorneja.wordpress.com/2012/12/02/science-an-essential-part-of-culture/

Israel to expand settlements after UN vote on Palestine

The right-wing Zionist government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has issued the go-ahead for the construction of 3,000 new housing units in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank and is putting 1,000 more on a fast track for permits. These moves are in retaliation for the United Nations General Assembly vote late Thursday night recognizing the Palestine Liberation Organization as a nonmember state.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/dec2012/pale-d01.shtml

What's Next for Anti-Choice Zealots?

After an election night thrashing, the movement hopes to make its message more palatable to the public.

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/whats-next-anti-choice-zealots

8 Reasons Wall Street Greed Is the Cause, and the Solution, To Phony Fiscal Cliff Crisis

Big Finance is once again getting a free pass.

http://www.alternet.org/economy/eight-reasons-wall-street-greed-cause-and-solution-phony-fiscal-cliff-crisis

Strike Launches Largest Union Drive in US Fast Food History

hile the emblems of Wendy's, McDonald's, KFC, Domino's and other greasy dynasties are hard to escape in the American landscape, those who cook, clean, ring up orders and otherwise serve as the fulcrum of these franchises often go unnoticed. These workers, however, were hard to miss today as they stepped off burger assembly lines across New York City and into the street, picketing in front of their workplaces. The strike, which took place at numerous restaurants across the city, is the start of the largest effort to unionize fast food workers in American history. Organizers are calling the campaign Fast Food Forward.

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/315-19/14801-strike-launches-largest-union-drive-in-us-fast-food-history

Watergate Scandal: Secret Files Released
he US government has released more than 850 pages from the Watergate political scandal, providing new insights on privileged legal conversations and prison evaluations of several of the burglars in the case. A federal judge had decided earlier in November to unseal some material, but other records still remain off limits.

http://rsnorg.org/news-section2/318-66/14824--watergate-scandal-secret-files-released
New Orleans: Blaming the victims

The Army Corps of Engineers caught in (another) lie

Strategic Maneuvers

The Revolving Door from the Pentagon to the Private Sector

The sinking of the Titanic

If you ever thought the story sounded fishy...

Richard Dawkins: Now Praise Intelligent Design Bloomberg Praises ‘Occupy Sandy,’ Then Sends Police To Shut It Down

Occupy - The Movement And The Music - Spring 2013

Hundreds of Fast Food Workers Strike for Living Wage, Inspired by Wal-Mart Strike

US fiscal cliff could put economy into recessions

Breaking.. Laureates demand Nobel rescind Peace Prize to EU: time to award medals to Manning?

Marriage Equality Causes Fox News Analyst To Freak Out

DOCUMENTARIES OF THE DAY:

Cults: Dangerous Devotion

Religion|04 Nov, 2012|Buy the DVD|No Comments|Add to Playlist|90 mins

Video Not Working?

The Ascent of Money

History|04 Nov, 2012|Buy the DVD|No Comments|Add to Playlist|240 mins

Video Not Working?

18.Nov.2012 - Attacks on Gaza, Atheist Group Sues IRS, Targeting Civilians, Dissecting IDF Propaganda, Poverty & the 2-Party System, Right-Wing Myths Debunked, Ancient Aliens Debunked, Climate Change Opportunity, Fiscal Cliff Explained

Gaza, November 2012 @ News.Ph.MSN.com

Attacks On Gaza: What Israel Doesn’t Want You To Know

There’s a reason that pictures are cropping up with Israelis holding signs in support of Palestinian rights. There’s a reason that Jewish organizations such as Jewish Voice For Peace and the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions are fighting for the rights of Palestinians. The reason is that the truth about the official Israeli narrative is coming out–too slowly, to be sure, but inevitably, given technological advances in communication.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/11/16/attacks-on-gaza-what-israel-doesnt-want-you-to-know/

Atheist Group Sues IRS Over Defiant Churches’ Tax Exempt Political Speech

How can it be that the IRS quickly discovers that my husband has mistakenly claimed the wrong number of exemptions on his W2 form, but completely fails to notice over 1,000 evangelical churches ostentatiously defying them in broad daylight? Last October, over 1,000 conservative churches across the US participated in October 7th’s “Pulpit Freedom Sunday” to endorse GOP former Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney, and to protest a 1954 Internal Revenue Service regulation banning direct endorsements of political candidates from tax-exempt religious institutions — even though these churches are perfectly free to endorse whomever they want, as long as they stop claiming tax-exempt status.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/11/16/atheist-group-sues-irs-over-defiant-churches-tax-exempt-political-speech/

Targeting Civilians: Israel's Specialty

Bullies choose easy adversaries to pummel. Equal fights are shunned. It's the same in schoolyards or battlefields. America and Israel operate this way. They avoid foes able to give as much as they take. Rogue governments never say they're sorry.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33063.htm

Dissecting IDF Propaganda: The Numbers behind the rocket attacks
Israeli spokespeople frequently remind the world that a million Israeli citizens are within range of Gaza rockets, twelve thousand of which have been fired into Israel in the last twelve years, inflicting thousands of injuries and several dead.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33062.htm

Stop Pretending the US is an Uninvolved, Helpless Party in the Israeli Assault on Gaza
The Obama administration's unstinting financial, military and diplomatic support for Israel is a key enabling force in the conflict.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33061.htm


Why Fox News and the Wall Street Journal Reward Their Pundits for Being Wrong About Everything

Something is deeply amiss when completely misjudging the election can get you touted as a sharp thinker in the conservative media world.
http://www.alternet.org/media/why-fox-news-and-wall-street-journal-reward-their-pundits-being-wrong-about-everything

Poverty and the American two-party system

Nearly 50 million people are living in poverty in the United States. This was the dire news delivered eight days after the presidential election in a report from the US Census Bureau.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/nov2012/pers-n17.shtml

How the Left Can Become a True Political Force to Be Reckoned With

We need to assert a new culture of organizing capable of meeting the demands it will place on us, and now is the time to begin.

http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/how-left-can-become-true-political-force-be-reckoned

10 Right-Wing Election Myths Debunked by Reality in 2012

The conservative information bubble has popped.

http://www.alternet.org/10-right-wing-election-myths-debunked-reality-2012

Living With the Contradictions: A Human Potential Visionary Talks About Our Infinite Potential and How We Also Block Progress

Joseph Chilton Pearce, one of the elders of the human potential movement, lives with the contradiction that everything is possible, yet nature's plan has gone awry.

http://www.alternet.org/culture/living-contradictions-human-potential-visionary-talks-about-our-infinite-potential-and-how

Benjamin Franklin’s New Desk: The 2012 Ed Likover Memorial Lecture

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Ancient Aliens Debunked - Full movie

The Fiscal Cliff Explained

Code Pink: Stop the Drones Die-In

Bailout Of The People, By The People.

Gaza Battle Everyone's Battle: Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah

Survivors of Israeli attack on Gaza says bombs continued to fall on the al-Shoja’iya neighborhood as civilians raised white flags