| PEACE ACTION FOR A SANE WORLD, the nation's largest grassroots peace network, with chapters and affiliates in over 30 states, organizes our grassroots network to place pressure on Congress and the Administration through write-in campaigns, Internet actions, citizen lobbying and direct action. Through a close relationship with progressive members of Congress, we play a key role in devising strategies to move forward peace legislation, and as a leading member of United for Peace and Justice and the Win Without War coalition, we lend our expertise and large network to achieving common goals. Real change comes from the bottom up. We're committed to educating and organizing at the grassroots level. Peace Action Youngstown , Ohio chapter since 1989, merges the organization's national mission with efforts to build community peace and social justice programs, including neighborhood restoration and the arts. Together, we have the power to be the change we wish to see in the world. |
| FOR MORE THAN 30 YEARS, WE'VE WORKED FOR PEACE THROUGH COMMUNITY COMMITMENT, ISSUES INTERCHANGE AND ARTS PRESENTATIONS |
| IF YOU WANT IT... JOHN LENNON |
| POLITE SAVAGE PERFORMANCES at the Peacehouse Saturday August 9th 15 60 75 Numbers Band |
Robert Kidney, Numbers Band founder, has been honored by receiving the Cleveland Art Prize 2012 for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts. |
| WAR IS OVER |
| "No matter how cynical you get, it's almost impossible to keep up." - Lily Tomlin |
| PEACE ACTION YOUNGSTOWN contact us~therese@paytown.org |
| Way Worse Than a Dumb War: Iraq Ten Years Later Phyllis Bennis- The Nation Editor’s Note: This statement on the tenth anniversary of the launch of the Iraq War was signed by Phyllis Bennis, John Cavanagh and Steve Cobble (Institute for Policy Studies); Judith LeBlanc and Kevin Martin (Peace Action); Laura Flanders (GritTV); Bill Fletcher (The Black Commentator); Andy Shallal (Iraqis for Peace); Medea Benjamin (Code Pink); Michael T. McPhearson and Leslie Cagan (United for Peace and Justice); Michael Eisenscher (US Labor Against the War) and David Wildman. All organizations for identification only. It didn’t take long for the world to recognize that the US invasion and occupation of Iraq constituted a dumb war, as then Senator Barack Obama put it. But “dumb” wasn’t the half of it. The US war against Iraq was illegal and illegitimate. It violated the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and a whole host of international laws and treaties. It violated US laws and our Constitution with impunity. And it was all based on lies: about nonexistent links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, about never-were ties between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, about Iraq’s invisible weapons of mass destruction and about Baghdad’s supposed nuclear program, with derivative lies about uranium yellowcake from Niger and aluminum rods from China. There were lies about US troops being welcomed in the streets with sweets and flowers, and lies about thousands of jubilant Iraqis spontaneously tearing down the statue of a hated dictator. And then there was the lie that the US could send hundreds of thousands of soldiers and billions of dollars worth of weapons across the world to wage war on the cheap. We didn’t have to raise taxes to pay the almost one trillion dollars the Iraq war has cost so far, we could go shopping instead. But behind these myths the costs were huge—human, economic and more. More than a million US troops were deployed to Iraq; 4,483 were killed; 33,183 were wounded and more than 200,000 came home with PTSD. The number of Iraqi civilians killed is still unknown; at least 121,754 are known to have been killed directly during the US war, but hundreds of thousands more died from crippling sanctions, diseases caused by dirty water when the US destroyed the water treatment system and the inability to get medical help because of exploding violence. And what are we leaving behind? After almost a decade the US finally pulled out most of its troops and Pentagon-paid contractors. About 16,000 State Department-paid contractors and civilian employees are still stationed at the giant US embassy compound and two huge consulates, along with unacknowledged CIA and FBI agents, Special Forces and a host of other undercover operatives. The US just sold the Iraqi government 140 M-l tanks, and American-made fighter jets are in the pipeline too. But there is little question that the all-encompassing US military occupation of Iraq is over. After more than eight years of war, the Iraqi government finally said no more. Their refusal to grant US troops immunity from prosecution for potential war crimes was the deal-breaker that forced President Obama’s hand and made him pull out the last 30,000 troops he and his generals were hoping to keep in Iraq. But as we knew would be the case, the pull out by itself did not end the violence. The years of war and occupation have left behind a devastated country, split along sectarian lines, a shredded social fabric and a dispossessed and impoverished population. Iraq remains one of the most violent countries in the world; that’s the true legacy of the US war. We owe a great debt to the people of Iraq—and we have not even begun to make good on that commitment. The US lost the Iraq War. Iraq hasn’t been “liberated.” Violence is rampant; the sectarian violence resulting from early US policies after the 2003 invasion continues to escalate. Of course we didn’t bring democracy and freedom to Iraq—that was never on the US agenda. The failure to “liberate” Iraq cannot be the basis for assessing the war. The real assessment must be based on whether the war achieved the goals that the Bush administration and its neo-conservative, military CEO and Pentagon profiteering partners established for this war: Consolidating permanent US control over Iraq’s oil. Nope, US oil companies are just some of the myriad of foreign oil interests in Iraq’s oil fields. Leaving behind a pro-US, anti-Iranian government in Baghdad. Hardly, Prime Minister al-Maliki is barely on speaking terms with anyone in Washington. Guaranteeing permanent access to US bases in Iraq. Not even close, all but two of the 500 plus US bases and outposts were either closed down or turned over to the Iraqi military. Ensuring that a post-war Iraqi government would allow the US to use Iraq as a jumping off point to attack Iran. No way, despite continuing billions of dollars of our tax money, the Iraqi government today is allied more closely to Iran than the US. In the buildup to the war, too many media, government officials, academics and others allowed fear to curb their tongue or their eagerness to curry favor with those in power to stifle their speech. This remains a crucial lesson as we stand up to the escalation of Obama’s drone war and continue to challenge those who call for war against Iran. The war in Iraq began with significant support, with many people accepting the false claims that this new war would bring security to a still-frightened US public. But that support did not last long. Within the first years, pro-war assumptions had been reversed, and by the end, the anti-war movement and escalating casualties had turned around public opinion so thoroughly that overwhelming majorities admitted the war in Iraq was wrong and should never have been fought in the first place. And this war showed us our power. It proved the possibility of globalizing opposition even before the war began. The mobilization of February 15, 2003, when the broad United for Peace and Justice coalition joined with allies around the world on the day the world said “No to War!” February 15 created what The New York Times called “the second super-power,” ready to challenge the US drive towards empire. Our movement changed history. While we were not able to prevent the invasion of Iraq a month later, that mobilization proved the illegality of the war. It demonstrated the isolation of the Bush administration, pulled governments and the United Nations into a trajectory of resistance, helped prevent war in Iran and inspired a generation of activists, including some of those who, eight years later, would create the Arab Spring in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. The US troops left behind a devastated, tortured Iraq. What they didn’t leave behind is one dollar for reparations or compensation. That battle still lies ahead. The US war in Iraq may be over, but we owe an apology to all those who suffered from the war. And that apology must be grounded in recognition of our enormous debt to the people of Iraq, a debt for which compensation and reparations are only a start. Our real obligation, to the people of Iraq and the region and the rest of the world, is to transform our government and our country so that these resource-driven wars, shaped by lies and fought for power and for empire, whether in Iran or somewhere else, can never be waged again Read more: http://www.thenation.com/blog/173396/way-worse-dumb-war- iraq-ten-years-later#ixzz2UK5b0Fvc |
Noam Chomsky
Marijuana and a New
York State of Mind
Friday, 10 January 2014 10:27
By Aaron Cantu, Truthout
When it comes to marijuana legalization,
politicians in New York are feeling the
pressure. Colorado is currently unveiling
the world's first nonmedical,
state-regulated cannabis industry, other
states legislatures are displaying signs of
following in its footsteps, and public
opinion has shifted to heavily favor
changing laws around pot. At long last,
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
performed a complete 180 on the issue of
medical cannabis last week, announcing
plans to allow 20 hospitals statewide to
prescribe the plant. A year earlier, he'd
vowed to veto any such legislation. (This
previous position is not out of sync with
New York's overall practices regarding
marijuana: City police arrest more people
for pot possession than any other crime.)
The governor's change of heart comes on
the heels of a more progressive bill
introduced in December by Senator Liz
Krueger, which calls for the complete
legalization of cannabis in New York and
the formation of an industry similar to the
nascent one in Colorado. According to two
different polls, majorities of New Yorkers
favor both measures.
Yet as many New York legislators push for
a reorientation, a cadre of conservative
drug warriors in the senate have
positioned themselves firmly against any
adjustment of antiquated marijuana laws -
even when these changes would save the
state money on costs of incarceration and
allot police attention to more pressing
matters.
New York's marijuana prohibition history is
rife with contradictions. In 1977, the state
legislature ostensibly reduced the penalty
for carrying 25 grams or less of marijuana
to a noncriminal violation. However, this
longstanding policy hasn't resulted in
fewer arrests: Nearly 40,000 people in
New York City alone were arrested for
possession in 2012, the vast majority
black and Latino. That same year, in a
bizarre case of déjà-vu, the New York
legislature considered a bill to
decriminalize the possession of cannabis -
implicitly admitting the impotence of the
former measure - only for the legislation to
be killed.
Why, despite an evolving national
temperament on cannabis, have New York
legislators remained so stubborn on the
issue? And why have most states lagged
so far behind public opinion in their efforts
to roll back marijuana bans? To answer
this question, it is necessary to examine a
federal law passed by the US Congress in
the 1980s that gave law enforcement
agencies everywhere a moneyed interest
in perpetuating all aspects of the war on
drugs, including marijuana prohibition.
Policing for Profit
In the waning days of President Ronald
Reagan's tenure, Congress bolstered its
quixotic mission to eradicate drug usage
by doubling down on its financial
commitment to local law enforcement. This
measure, called the Byrne Memorial State
and Local Law Enforcement Assistance
Program, encouraged agencies across the
country to put more resources toward drug
policy enforcement, in return for more
cash and equipment from the federal
government. As Michelle Alexander
explains in her book, The New Jim Crow,
"This money . . . resulted in the
proliferation of narcotics task forces,
including those responsible for highway
drug interdiction."
Under the program, states and
municipalities compete for the funds by
submitting yearly applications to the
federal government. Although the funds
can be put toward several different
functions, including drug treatment, nearly
three-quarters of all awarded funds go
generally toward "law enforcement" for
drug enforcement purposes. From Eric
Blumenson and Eva Nilsen, authors of
Policing for Profit: The Drug War's Hidden
Economic Agenda: Byrne grant recipients
are required to use these funds to fight
the war on drugs. The Byrne Program is
now the primary federal program that
funds the state and local war on drugs . . .
Byrne grants have altered the law
enforcement landscape . . . most notably
in the proliferation of multijurisdictional
drug task forces, now collectively the
largest funding category in the federal aid
program.
The money isn't apportioned to strict
categories. "[With Byrne grant money,
the police] can buy all kinds of stuff -
police cars, bullet proof vests, computers,
bullets, overtime - buy whatever they
want," said Harry Levine, a sociology
professor at Queens College, CUNY and
coauthor of Marijuana Arrest Crusade, in a
conversation with Truthout. However,
Levine explained, every police department
that receives Byrne grants must file a
report to the federal government at the
end of each year "showing what it is they
have done with the Byrne grant money to
reduce the drug problem." Although none
of these reports are available for public
review, from the ones that Levine has
seen, police departments across the
country report their drug busts not by type
or even charge, but crudely, "by the
pound." That means what matters most for
a local police department to secure
precious federal dollars is the raw volume
of narcotics seized, a figure fattened by
marijuana arrests, which account for 52
percent of all drug arrests nationwide.
The basic financing scheme for drug law
enforcement has not changed significantly
since Blumenson and Nilsen published
their report in 1998 - in fact, it is more
intimately woven into the budgetary
considerations of local precincts than ever
before, especially after President Obama
infused the Byrne grant program with $2
billion dollars as part of his signature
recovery act in 2009. After eight years of
dwindling funds for the program under
President Bush, the current president
reinvigorated it, and by extension,
renewed the commitment of New York law
enforcement agencies to the drug war -
most recently with a $25 million reward in
2012.
Byrned in New York
Of the millions in grant money doled out to
New York law enforcement two years ago,
nearly $10 million went to the New York
State Division of Criminal Justice Services.
The division's application for the funds
notes that the state legislature has the
responsibility of handing out two-thirds of
the money to local law enforcement. The
Byrne grant application implies an
expectation of consistent funding within
the state's law enforcement agencies:
It is expected that both houses will
continue to be responsive to constituent
demands and needs and will fund a broad
array of programs consistent with their
longstanding patterns.
One of the most pervasive "patterns" in
the way New York polices its communities
is how large a portion of overall arrests is
comprised of marijuana arrests year after
year. In 2010, the last year for which data
is available, over 100,000 arrests were
made throughout the state for mere
possession of marijuana - a charge that
accounts for, incredibly, about a quarter of
all misdemeanor arrests in the state that
year. Marijuana possession arrests are far
and away the most frequent charge meted
out by New York police, and the rate has
steadily increased since 2001, indicating
that law enforcement agencies have
integrated a program for marijuana
persecution as part of their overall
strategy to sustain Byrne grant funds.
There is a dearth of available public
information to confirm whether or not high
numbers of marijuana arrests are used by
local law enforcement to solicit bigger
grants from the federal government, but a
strong inference can be made with what
information is available. Particularly
suggestive are the ties of anti-marijuana
legislators in the New York Senate to
policing lobbies.
Marijuana Crusaders
When Democrats in the New York State
Assembly passed a bill in early 2012 to
decriminalize possession of up to 25
grams of marijuana - the same amount
that had already been "decriminalized" 35
years earlier - Senator Greg Ball was
aghast.
"In a community where we have children
dying from drugs and alcohol it is simply
unconscionable that any legislator would
even consider decriminalizing marijuana,"
he stated in a press statement at the time.
Aside from his concern for the children,
Senator Ball has another stake in the drug
war: He receives thousands of dollars in
financial backing from the Police
Association of Yonkers, the union
representing the local agency awarded
$155,521 in Byrne grant money in 2012.
It is difficult to confirm whether the number
of marijuana arrests resolutely determines
the federal rewards accrued by the city of
Yonkers, but considering that
misdemeanor drug charges were the city's
highest registered charge that year, it's
not far-fetched to assume that marijuana
arrests are part of the department's
"longstanding pattern" for which it collects
Byrne money.
Senator Ball is not alone in his backing
from policing lobbies with a financial
interest in sustaining marijuana
prohibition. Senator Dean Skelos, the
majority leader in the Senate, also
opposed the measure, citing an absurd
fear of New Yorkers "walk[ing] around with
10 joints in their ear." Skelos received
$10,000 in campaign finances from the
New York Police Investigators Association,
a collective of investigators spread out
across the state who also gave a
significant sum of money to drug warrior
and former sheriff Senator Patrick Gullivan.
Public records reveal that nearly all of the
Republicans who opposed the 2012 bill to
decriminalize small amounts of cannabis
receive backing from state law
enforcement unions. Senator John
Flanagan receives thousands of dollars
from multiple police unions, as does
Senator Kemp Hannon, Senator Thomas
Libous, Senator Joseph Robach, Senator
Thomas O'Mara, Senator Andrew Lanza,
Senator Martin Gold, and Senator George
Maziarz.
As for senate Democrats, many
representing poorer urban communities
most affected by marijuana sentencing
laws, the majority supported the
decriminalization bill. None have the sort of
deep ties to policing unions that senate
Republicans have, although not all on the
right are beholden to these groups -
Republican Mark Grisanti was one of the
lead champions of the measure, remarking
that the bill would alleviate the "racial
disparities" surrounding possession
charges in New York. Grisanti is distinct
from his fellow conservatives in that he
receives no campaign financing funding
from unions representing law enforcement
agencies.
With the Senate GOP so firmly opposed to
a decriminalization bill that did nothing but
parrot the terms of an already-existing law,
it goes without saying that they reacted to
Senator Liz Krueger's December bill, the
Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act,
with outright patronization. "We're focused
on cutting taxes to create new jobs . . .
Senate Democrats, it would appear, have
other priorities," said Senate GOP
spokesman Scott Reiff. (The bill would, in
fact, correct a policy that has "led to
hundreds of millions of [tax] dollars in
policing and court costs and incalculable
damage to the lives of hundreds of
thousands of New Yorkers," in the words
of civil rights organizer Alfredo
Carrasquillo.)
Yet no matter how well articulated the
benefits of marijuana legalization - or even
modest decriminalization - are,
conservative senators in New York will
have their judgment clouded by monetary
incentives that can be traced back to the
federal government's complex drug war
financing scheme. For a look at how
deeply this dynamic can affect state drug
policy, one needs to look at the handful of
Western states that have attempted to
rescind cannabis prohibition in recent
years.
In 2010, California considered a measure
to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana
through an industry model similar to the
one now active in Colorado. The measure
failed to pass, and much of the opposition
can be traced to a well-financed
opposition campaign headed by a police
association lobbyist named John Lovell.
According to Republic Report, "Lovell's
[lobbying] firm was paid over $386,350
from a wide array of police associations,"
and the measure ultimately failed to
garner enough votes in the state. The
California Police Chief Association spent
more than any other group to finance the
defeat of Proposition 19.
Similarly, in Colorado, 13 law enforcement
groups allied themselves with Smart
Colorado, a group that spearheaded
opposition to Amendment 64, the bill that
legalized cannabis. In Washington, where
Initiative 502 passed the same day as its
twin measure in Colorado, the Council of
Metropolitan Police and Sheriffs
(COMPAS) a major police lobby in the
state, had publicly endorsed unsuccessful
gubernatorial candidate (and major
marijuana opponent) Rob McKenna for
governor in 2012. However, police unions
in Washington were noticeably less
zealous in their fight against reform, owing
to the sense of doom that permeated
through precincts on the eve of the
legislation's passage.
"My opinion is everybody's running for
political cover on this because they think
it's going to pass," said Spokane County
Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich to The
Spokesman-Review at the time. Most of
the Sheriff's colleagues were silent on the
issue, and the opposition campaign
received significantly less financing than
the one to propose it - which may be
indicative of how popular pressure can
trump money-driven political motives.
As Albany moves quickly on two new pot
initiatives this year, it is likely that New
Yorkers will continue to relax their
disposition toward cannabis, especially if
the experiments in other states continue to
unfold without a hitch. Unlike many
lawmakers in the state senate, voters do
not have a moneyed incentive to oppose
drug reform - in fact, reforming marijuana
laws is likely to save them about $430
million annually in New York City alone,
according to a report by the city's
Comptroller's Office. While federal grant
money compels state police agencies to
string along senators like drug-warrior
marionettes, the free-moving zeitgeist will
go where it wishes, and if that happens to
be away from the draconian pot laws of
the past, then lawmakers will have no
alternative but to catch up.
York State of Mind
Friday, 10 January 2014 10:27
By Aaron Cantu, Truthout
When it comes to marijuana legalization,
politicians in New York are feeling the
pressure. Colorado is currently unveiling
the world's first nonmedical,
state-regulated cannabis industry, other
states legislatures are displaying signs of
following in its footsteps, and public
opinion has shifted to heavily favor
changing laws around pot. At long last,
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo
performed a complete 180 on the issue of
medical cannabis last week, announcing
plans to allow 20 hospitals statewide to
prescribe the plant. A year earlier, he'd
vowed to veto any such legislation. (This
previous position is not out of sync with
New York's overall practices regarding
marijuana: City police arrest more people
for pot possession than any other crime.)
The governor's change of heart comes on
the heels of a more progressive bill
introduced in December by Senator Liz
Krueger, which calls for the complete
legalization of cannabis in New York and
the formation of an industry similar to the
nascent one in Colorado. According to two
different polls, majorities of New Yorkers
favor both measures.
Yet as many New York legislators push for
a reorientation, a cadre of conservative
drug warriors in the senate have
positioned themselves firmly against any
adjustment of antiquated marijuana laws -
even when these changes would save the
state money on costs of incarceration and
allot police attention to more pressing
matters.
New York's marijuana prohibition history is
rife with contradictions. In 1977, the state
legislature ostensibly reduced the penalty
for carrying 25 grams or less of marijuana
to a noncriminal violation. However, this
longstanding policy hasn't resulted in
fewer arrests: Nearly 40,000 people in
New York City alone were arrested for
possession in 2012, the vast majority
black and Latino. That same year, in a
bizarre case of déjà-vu, the New York
legislature considered a bill to
decriminalize the possession of cannabis -
implicitly admitting the impotence of the
former measure - only for the legislation to
be killed.
Why, despite an evolving national
temperament on cannabis, have New York
legislators remained so stubborn on the
issue? And why have most states lagged
so far behind public opinion in their efforts
to roll back marijuana bans? To answer
this question, it is necessary to examine a
federal law passed by the US Congress in
the 1980s that gave law enforcement
agencies everywhere a moneyed interest
in perpetuating all aspects of the war on
drugs, including marijuana prohibition.
Policing for Profit
In the waning days of President Ronald
Reagan's tenure, Congress bolstered its
quixotic mission to eradicate drug usage
by doubling down on its financial
commitment to local law enforcement. This
measure, called the Byrne Memorial State
and Local Law Enforcement Assistance
Program, encouraged agencies across the
country to put more resources toward drug
policy enforcement, in return for more
cash and equipment from the federal
government. As Michelle Alexander
explains in her book, The New Jim Crow,
"This money . . . resulted in the
proliferation of narcotics task forces,
including those responsible for highway
drug interdiction."
Under the program, states and
municipalities compete for the funds by
submitting yearly applications to the
federal government. Although the funds
can be put toward several different
functions, including drug treatment, nearly
three-quarters of all awarded funds go
generally toward "law enforcement" for
drug enforcement purposes. From Eric
Blumenson and Eva Nilsen, authors of
Policing for Profit: The Drug War's Hidden
Economic Agenda: Byrne grant recipients
are required to use these funds to fight
the war on drugs. The Byrne Program is
now the primary federal program that
funds the state and local war on drugs . . .
Byrne grants have altered the law
enforcement landscape . . . most notably
in the proliferation of multijurisdictional
drug task forces, now collectively the
largest funding category in the federal aid
program.
The money isn't apportioned to strict
categories. "[With Byrne grant money,
the police] can buy all kinds of stuff -
police cars, bullet proof vests, computers,
bullets, overtime - buy whatever they
want," said Harry Levine, a sociology
professor at Queens College, CUNY and
coauthor of Marijuana Arrest Crusade, in a
conversation with Truthout. However,
Levine explained, every police department
that receives Byrne grants must file a
report to the federal government at the
end of each year "showing what it is they
have done with the Byrne grant money to
reduce the drug problem." Although none
of these reports are available for public
review, from the ones that Levine has
seen, police departments across the
country report their drug busts not by type
or even charge, but crudely, "by the
pound." That means what matters most for
a local police department to secure
precious federal dollars is the raw volume
of narcotics seized, a figure fattened by
marijuana arrests, which account for 52
percent of all drug arrests nationwide.
The basic financing scheme for drug law
enforcement has not changed significantly
since Blumenson and Nilsen published
their report in 1998 - in fact, it is more
intimately woven into the budgetary
considerations of local precincts than ever
before, especially after President Obama
infused the Byrne grant program with $2
billion dollars as part of his signature
recovery act in 2009. After eight years of
dwindling funds for the program under
President Bush, the current president
reinvigorated it, and by extension,
renewed the commitment of New York law
enforcement agencies to the drug war -
most recently with a $25 million reward in
2012.
Byrned in New York
Of the millions in grant money doled out to
New York law enforcement two years ago,
nearly $10 million went to the New York
State Division of Criminal Justice Services.
The division's application for the funds
notes that the state legislature has the
responsibility of handing out two-thirds of
the money to local law enforcement. The
Byrne grant application implies an
expectation of consistent funding within
the state's law enforcement agencies:
It is expected that both houses will
continue to be responsive to constituent
demands and needs and will fund a broad
array of programs consistent with their
longstanding patterns.
One of the most pervasive "patterns" in
the way New York polices its communities
is how large a portion of overall arrests is
comprised of marijuana arrests year after
year. In 2010, the last year for which data
is available, over 100,000 arrests were
made throughout the state for mere
possession of marijuana - a charge that
accounts for, incredibly, about a quarter of
all misdemeanor arrests in the state that
year. Marijuana possession arrests are far
and away the most frequent charge meted
out by New York police, and the rate has
steadily increased since 2001, indicating
that law enforcement agencies have
integrated a program for marijuana
persecution as part of their overall
strategy to sustain Byrne grant funds.
There is a dearth of available public
information to confirm whether or not high
numbers of marijuana arrests are used by
local law enforcement to solicit bigger
grants from the federal government, but a
strong inference can be made with what
information is available. Particularly
suggestive are the ties of anti-marijuana
legislators in the New York Senate to
policing lobbies.
Marijuana Crusaders
When Democrats in the New York State
Assembly passed a bill in early 2012 to
decriminalize possession of up to 25
grams of marijuana - the same amount
that had already been "decriminalized" 35
years earlier - Senator Greg Ball was
aghast.
"In a community where we have children
dying from drugs and alcohol it is simply
unconscionable that any legislator would
even consider decriminalizing marijuana,"
he stated in a press statement at the time.
Aside from his concern for the children,
Senator Ball has another stake in the drug
war: He receives thousands of dollars in
financial backing from the Police
Association of Yonkers, the union
representing the local agency awarded
$155,521 in Byrne grant money in 2012.
It is difficult to confirm whether the number
of marijuana arrests resolutely determines
the federal rewards accrued by the city of
Yonkers, but considering that
misdemeanor drug charges were the city's
highest registered charge that year, it's
not far-fetched to assume that marijuana
arrests are part of the department's
"longstanding pattern" for which it collects
Byrne money.
Senator Ball is not alone in his backing
from policing lobbies with a financial
interest in sustaining marijuana
prohibition. Senator Dean Skelos, the
majority leader in the Senate, also
opposed the measure, citing an absurd
fear of New Yorkers "walk[ing] around with
10 joints in their ear." Skelos received
$10,000 in campaign finances from the
New York Police Investigators Association,
a collective of investigators spread out
across the state who also gave a
significant sum of money to drug warrior
and former sheriff Senator Patrick Gullivan.
Public records reveal that nearly all of the
Republicans who opposed the 2012 bill to
decriminalize small amounts of cannabis
receive backing from state law
enforcement unions. Senator John
Flanagan receives thousands of dollars
from multiple police unions, as does
Senator Kemp Hannon, Senator Thomas
Libous, Senator Joseph Robach, Senator
Thomas O'Mara, Senator Andrew Lanza,
Senator Martin Gold, and Senator George
Maziarz.
As for senate Democrats, many
representing poorer urban communities
most affected by marijuana sentencing
laws, the majority supported the
decriminalization bill. None have the sort of
deep ties to policing unions that senate
Republicans have, although not all on the
right are beholden to these groups -
Republican Mark Grisanti was one of the
lead champions of the measure, remarking
that the bill would alleviate the "racial
disparities" surrounding possession
charges in New York. Grisanti is distinct
from his fellow conservatives in that he
receives no campaign financing funding
from unions representing law enforcement
agencies.
With the Senate GOP so firmly opposed to
a decriminalization bill that did nothing but
parrot the terms of an already-existing law,
it goes without saying that they reacted to
Senator Liz Krueger's December bill, the
Marijuana Regulation and Taxation Act,
with outright patronization. "We're focused
on cutting taxes to create new jobs . . .
Senate Democrats, it would appear, have
other priorities," said Senate GOP
spokesman Scott Reiff. (The bill would, in
fact, correct a policy that has "led to
hundreds of millions of [tax] dollars in
policing and court costs and incalculable
damage to the lives of hundreds of
thousands of New Yorkers," in the words
of civil rights organizer Alfredo
Carrasquillo.)
Yet no matter how well articulated the
benefits of marijuana legalization - or even
modest decriminalization - are,
conservative senators in New York will
have their judgment clouded by monetary
incentives that can be traced back to the
federal government's complex drug war
financing scheme. For a look at how
deeply this dynamic can affect state drug
policy, one needs to look at the handful of
Western states that have attempted to
rescind cannabis prohibition in recent
years.
In 2010, California considered a measure
to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana
through an industry model similar to the
one now active in Colorado. The measure
failed to pass, and much of the opposition
can be traced to a well-financed
opposition campaign headed by a police
association lobbyist named John Lovell.
According to Republic Report, "Lovell's
[lobbying] firm was paid over $386,350
from a wide array of police associations,"
and the measure ultimately failed to
garner enough votes in the state. The
California Police Chief Association spent
more than any other group to finance the
defeat of Proposition 19.
Similarly, in Colorado, 13 law enforcement
groups allied themselves with Smart
Colorado, a group that spearheaded
opposition to Amendment 64, the bill that
legalized cannabis. In Washington, where
Initiative 502 passed the same day as its
twin measure in Colorado, the Council of
Metropolitan Police and Sheriffs
(COMPAS) a major police lobby in the
state, had publicly endorsed unsuccessful
gubernatorial candidate (and major
marijuana opponent) Rob McKenna for
governor in 2012. However, police unions
in Washington were noticeably less
zealous in their fight against reform, owing
to the sense of doom that permeated
through precincts on the eve of the
legislation's passage.
"My opinion is everybody's running for
political cover on this because they think
it's going to pass," said Spokane County
Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich to The
Spokesman-Review at the time. Most of
the Sheriff's colleagues were silent on the
issue, and the opposition campaign
received significantly less financing than
the one to propose it - which may be
indicative of how popular pressure can
trump money-driven political motives.
As Albany moves quickly on two new pot
initiatives this year, it is likely that New
Yorkers will continue to relax their
disposition toward cannabis, especially if
the experiments in other states continue to
unfold without a hitch. Unlike many
lawmakers in the state senate, voters do
not have a moneyed incentive to oppose
drug reform - in fact, reforming marijuana
laws is likely to save them about $430
million annually in New York City alone,
according to a report by the city's
Comptroller's Office. While federal grant
money compels state police agencies to
string along senators like drug-warrior
marionettes, the free-moving zeitgeist will
go where it wishes, and if that happens to
be away from the draconian pot laws of
the past, then lawmakers will have no
alternative but to catch up.
| Life in the Electronic Concentration Camp: The Many Ways That You're Being Tracked and Controlled Fri, 10 Jan 2014 By John W Whitehead, Rutherford Institute | News Analysis A security camera doesn’t respond to complaint, threats, or insults. Instead, it just watches you in a forbidding manner. Today, the surveillance state is so deeply enmeshed in our data devices that we don’t even scream back because technology companies have convinced us that we need to be connected to them to be happy.”—Pratap Chatterjee, journalist What is most striking about the American police state is not the mega- corporations running amok in the halls of Congress, the militarized police crashing through doors and shooting unarmed citizens, or the invasive surveillance regime which has come to dominate every aspect of our lives. No, what has been most disconcerting about the emergence of the American police state is the extent to which the citizenry appears content to passively wait for someone else to solve our nation’s many problems. Unless Americans are prepared to engage in militant nonviolent resistance in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi, true reform, if any, will be a long time coming. Yet as I detail in my book A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, if we don’t act soon, all that is in need of fixing will soon be unfixable, especially as it relates to the police state that becomes more entrenched with each passing day. By “police state,” I am referring to more than a society overrun by the long arm of the police. I am referring to a society in which all aspects of a person’s life are policed by government agents, one in which all citizens are suspects, their activities monitored and regulated, their movements tracked, their communications spied upon, and their lives, liberties and pursuit of happiness dependent on the government’s say-so. That said, how can anyone be expected to “fix” what is broken unless they first understand the lengths to which the government with its arsenal of technology is going in order to accustom the American people to life in a police state and why being spied on by government agents, both state and federal, as well as their partners in the corporate world, is a problem, even if you’ve done nothing wrong. Indeed, as the trend towards overcriminalization makes clear, it won’t be long before the average law-abiding American is breaking laws she didn’t even know existed during the course of a routine day. The point, of course, is that while you may be oblivious to your so-called law-breaking—whether it was collecting rainwater to water your lawn, lighting a cigarette in the privacy of your home, or gathering with friends in your backyard for a Sunday evening Bible study—the government will know each and every transgression and use them against you. As noted by the Brookings Institution, “For the first time ever, it will become technologically and financially feasible for authoritarian governments to record nearly everything that is said or done within their borders — every phone conversation, electronic message, social media interaction, the movements of nearly every person and vehicle, and video from every street corner.” As the following will show, the electronic concentration camp, as I have dubbed the surveillance state, is perhaps the most insidious of the police state’s many tentacles, impacting almost every aspect of our lives and making it that much easier for the government to encroach on our most vital freedoms, ranging from free speech, assembly and the press to due process, privacy, and property, by eavesdropping on our communications, tracking our movements and spying on our activities. Tracking you based on your consumer activities: Fusion centers, federal-state law enforcement partnerships which attempt to aggregate a variety of data on so- called “suspicious persons,” have actually collected reports on people buying pallets of bottled water, photographing government buildings, and applying for a pilot’s license as “suspicious activity.” Retailers are getting in on the surveillance game as well. Large corporations such as Target have been tracking and assessing the behavior of their customers, particularly their purchasing patterns, for years. In 2015, mega-food corporations will be rolling out high-tech shelving outfitted with cameras in order to track the shopping behavior of customers, as well as information like the age and sex of shoppers. Tracking you based on your public activities: Sensing a booming industry, private corporations are jumping on the surveillance state bandwagon, negotiating lucrative contracts with police agencies throughout the country in order to create a web of surveillance that encompasses all major urban centers. Companies such as NICE and Bright Planet are selling equipment and services to police departments with the promise of monitoring large groups of people seamlessly, as in the case of protests and rallies. They are also engaging in extensive online surveillance, looking for any hints of “large public events, social unrest, gang communications, and criminally predicated individuals.” Defense contractors are attempting to take a bite out of this lucrative market as well. Raytheon has recently developed a software package known as Riot, which promises to predict the future behavior of an individual based upon his social media posts. Tracking you based on your phone activities: The CIA has been paying AT&T over $10 million per year in order to gain access to data on Americans’ phone calls abroad. This is in addition to telecommunications employees being embedded in government facilities to assist with quick analysis of call records and respond to government requests for customer location data. They receive hundreds of thousands of such requests per year. Tracking you based on your computer activities: Federal agents now employ a number of hacking methods in order to gain access to your computer activities and “see” whatever you’re seeing on your monitor. Malicious hacking software can be installed via a number of inconspicuous methods, including USB, or via an email attachment or software update. It can then be used to search through files stored on a hard drive, log keystrokes, or take real time screenshots of whatever a person is looking at on their computer, whether personal files, web pages, or email messages. It can also be used to remotely activate cameras and microphones, offering another means of glimpsing into the personal business of a target. Tracking you based on your behavior: Thanks to a torrent of federal grants, police departments across the country are able to fund outrageous new surveillance systems that turn the most basic human behaviors into suspicious situations to be studied and analyzed. Police in California, Massachusetts, and New York have all received federal funds to create systems like that operated by the New York Police Department, which “links 3,000 surveillance cameras with license plate readers, radiation sensors, criminal databases and terror suspect lists.” Police all across the country are also now engaging in big data mining operations, often with the help of private companies, in order to develop city-wide nets of surveillance. For example, police in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, now work with IBM in order to “integrate new data and analytics tools into everyday crime fighting.” Tracking you based on your face: Facial recognition software promises to create a society in which every individual who steps out into public is tracked and recorded as they go about their daily business. The goal is for government agents to be able to scan a crowd of people and instantaneously identify all of the individuals present. Facial recognition programs are being rolled out in states all across the country (only twelve states do not use facial recognition software). For example, in Ohio, 30,000 police officers and court employees are able to access the driver’s license images of people in the state, without any form of oversight to track their views or why they’re accessing them. The FBI is developing a $1 billion program, Next Generation Identification, which involves creating a massive database of mugshots for police all across the country. Tracking you based on your car: License plate readers, which can identify the owner of any car that comes within its sights, are growing in popularity among police agencies. Affixed to overpasses or cop cars, these devices give police a clear idea of where your car was at a specific date and time, whether the doctor’s office, the bar, the mosque, or at a political rally. State police in Virginia used license plate readers to record every single vehicle that arrived to President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2009 from Virginia. They also recorded the license plates of attendees at rallies prior to the election, including for then- candidate Obama and Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. This data collection came at the request of the U.S. Secret Service. Incredibly, Virginia police stored data on some 8 million license plates, some for up to three years. Tracking you based on your social media activities: The obsession with social media as a form of surveillance will have some frightening consequences in coming years. As Helen A.S. Popkin, writing for NBC News, has astutely observed, “We may very well face a future where algorithms bust people en masse for referencing illegal ‘Game of Thrones’ downloads, or run sweeps for insurance companies seeking non-smokers confessing to lapsing back into the habit. Instead of that one guy getting busted for a lame joke misinterpreted as a real threat, the new software has the potential to roll, Terminator-style, targeting every social media user with a shameful confession or questionable sense of humor.” Tracking you based on your metadata: Metadata is an incredibly invasive set of data to have on a person. Indeed, with access to one’s metadata, one can “identify people’s friends and associates, detect where they were at a certain time, acquire clues to religious or political affiliations, and pick up sensitive information like regular calls to a psychiatrist’s office, late-night messages to an extramarital partner or exchanges with a fellow plotter.” The National Security Agency (NSA) has been particularly interested in metadata, compiling information on Americans’ social connections “that can identify their associates, their locations at certain times, their traveling companions and other personal information.” Mainway, the main NSA tool used to connect the dots on American social connections, collected 700 million phone records per day in 2011. That number increased by 1.1 billion in August 2011. The NSA is now working on creating “a metadata repository capable of taking in 20 billion ‘record events’ daily and making them available to N.S.A. analysts within 60 minutes.” Tracking you from the skies: Nothing, and I mean nothing, will escape government eyes, especially when drones take to the skies in 2015. These gadgets, ranging from the colossal to the miniature, will have the capability of seeing through the walls of your home and tracking your every movement. To put it bluntly, we are living in an electronic concentration camp. Through a series of imperceptible steps, we have willingly allowed ourselves to become enmeshed in a system that knows the most intimate details of our lives, analyzes them, and treats us accordingly. Whether via fear of terrorism, narcissistic pleasure, or lazy materialism, we have slowly handed over our information to all sorts of entities, corporate and governmental, public and private, who are now using that information to cow and control us for their profit. As George Orwell warned, “You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.” Thus, we have arrived in Orwell’s world. The question now is: will we take a stand and fight to remain free or will we go gently into the concentration camp? |
| Commemorating" the Vietnam War: One Marine's Perspective By Camillo Mac Bica, Truthout | Op-Ed March 29 has been designated "Vietnam Veterans Day,” according to a proclamation issued by President Obama in 2012. The Vietnam War, according to the proclamation, "is a story of patriots who braved the line of fire, who cast themselves into harm's way to save a friend, who fought hour after hour, day after day to preserve the liberties we hold dear." Now I have no problem acknowledging the debt owed to all whose lives were affected by this war, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians and Americans alike. What I find intolerable, even disgraceful, however, is that even 50 years later, our leaders are incapable of telling the truth about the war and choose rather to perpetuate the lie that these "sacrifices," at least those of the Americans, were "to preserve the liberties we hold dear." Such rhetoric - although perhaps inspiring to some - hinders reconciliation, dishonors the veteran, and damages the moral integrity of this nation. As we embark upon a congressionally mandated 13-year-long commemoration, probably "celebration" would be more accurate, of the 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War, I feel a responsibility, as a veteran of that war, to contribute a perspective I fear will be ignored willfully at the official commemoration web site. I am certain that there are as many perspectives as there are individuals who served, observed, protested against and supported that very divisive war. Consequently, I offer no guarantee that my observations, interpretations and conclusions about the war are definitive, or better than those of someone with a profoundly different recollection and analysis. What I offer in this essay, then, is my personal narrative and a perspective on the Vietnam War by a former Marine Corps officer, Vietnam veteran and philosopher who has spent many years studying the theory of war, diverse historical accounts of the Vietnam war and, perhaps more to the point, contemplating a life profoundly impacted by the experience. My hope is to tell the truth as I see it and offer an analysis of the war that counters what I fear is the goal and purpose of this proclamation and commemoration. That is, to continue to perpetuate, if not ratchet up, the lie of 50 years ago and the mythological portrayal of the Vietnam War as justifiable, necessary and in the national interest. Childhood Memories: Learning About War I was born in Brooklyn, New York. My parents, like most immigrants at the time, were grateful to be living in this land of "unlimited opportunity." Influenced by Catholic school education, John Wayne movies and John F. Kennedy's admonishment to "ask what you can do for your country," I grew up stridently patriotic with a strong sense of duty to God and to country. The Old Ones As the old men played Briscola, a card game of Sicilian origin, they smoked DiNobli cigars and drank Caffe' Corretto, a grappa-laced espresso, in small cups. The cigar smoke lay heavy in the room, dispersing the glow of the single light bulb that hung precariously over the table. They spoke in broken English of coming to America. Some came illegally. Most flirted a bit with the mafia, and all worked hard to support their families in a difficult job market for laborers. Nervous and excited, I listened attentively, from a safe distance, hidden behind the old green sofa. On most occasions I was quickly discovered. And after a good-natured reprimand and a gentle "boot in the ass," I was sent on my way. On a few occasions, however, my perseverance was greatly rewarded. For reasons I can only speculate about, no one seemed to notice my presence. Even as a 10-year-old, I realized that this was a special place and I had no business eavesdropping on such privileged conversation. As they consumed the potent coffee, barriers lowered and the discussion, at least as I remember it, invariably turned to their experiences during the Second World War and the Korean conflict. Despite being immigrants, all were drafted into the American military. I listened intently as my father, while contemplating his next discard, recalled his experiences as a US Army interpreter fighting through the villages and countryside of Sicily, the land of his birth. Somberly, he described in great detail how American artillery and bombing had devastated the village in which he was born. How he had been torn between strong feelings of patriotism for his adopted homeland and a deep sense of shame and guilt he felt for the deaths of innocent villagers, some of whom had been his neighbors. I learned also that my Uncle Gasper, a SeaBee, had narrowly escaped being killed by a Japanese sniper while building an airfield on Guadalcanal. Uncle Tony, nicknamed "Squint Eye," but only addressed as such by a few of his closest friends, told of nearly being blinded by shrapnel during a kamikaze attack against his minesweeper in the South Pacific. What impressed me most, I think, was hearing my Uncle Joe relate, with great emotion, the heroic last stand of the Marines at the frozen Chosin Reservoir in Korea. I was amazed to see this very strong, austere and stoic man cry when he described gently holding a fellow Marine in his arms as the dying man gasped his last breath. As I listened to their stories, despite my young age, I empathized with their obvious pain and grief. Surely, the Old Ones were aware of my presence behind the old green sofa. I often wondered why, on those few occasions, I was allowed to remain and witness such intensely personal discussions of aspects of their lives they kept so well hidden from all except those who shared similar experiences. Perhaps they thought it important that I know the family history. In my more whimsical moments, however, I fancy that they were trying to educate me and make me aware of war's realities. In my youth, I was fascinated and exhilarated by war. Because of what I had learned from my hiding place behind the old green sofa, however, I was also wary of its devastating effects. War was an enigma I wished I could have discussed with the Old Ones. My concerns could never be addressed, however, as I realized the inappropriateness of discussing such matters outside the sanctuary of "the warrior's circle." Confronting the Vietnam War In 1968, America was at war. Communism was the menace; Vietnam, the focal point of the confrontation between good and evil, the domino of choice that must, at all costs, remain standing. To the Vietnamese, however, it was a continuing struggle against another in a seemingly endless series of colonial or occupying powers intent upon denying them independence, national unity and self-determination. To Americans, it was portrayed as a grass-roots struggle between north and south, a noble and necessary intervention to exorcize pervasive evil seeking world domination. Ultimately, however, it was a disaster, a quagmire, an immoral, illegal, unnecessary and divisive war few chose to fight, so many were conscripted. "The unwilling, led by the unqualified, doing the unnecessary for the indifferent and the ungrateful." Anonymous Grafitti As a consequence of the draft, many young Americans were confronted with a profound social and moral dilemma. Whether to severely disrupt their lives, possibly shame themselves and their families by expatriating - fleeing to Canada - or risk injury or death by answering the call, becoming a warrior and, in the view of many, a murderer, or an accessory to murder. However, I had an additional option. Upon graduating from college, I could have availed myself - quite rightly, my parents believed - of the deferment from military service offered to teachers at the time - a testimony, I guess, to the importance of education in creating the "Great Society" that Lyndon Johnson had hoped would be the legacy of his administration. Further, because the teaching position was at an "inner-city school," the social importance of such an undertaking, I reasoned, justified accepting the deferment. In truth, such rationalization was unnecessary, because avoiding military service was quite common and un-noteworthy, especially for the wealthy and the influential. For me, however, to remain at home while others fought and died in my place was cowardice. More importantly, it was an affront to the parents of my childhood friend Ralphie, who, a few months earlier, had dutifully, albeit reluctantly, sent their son to war. All they received in return were fragments of bone and sinew and a form letter from the president of the United States expressing the nation's regrets and gratitude for Ralphie's heroic sacrifice in behalf of freedom and democracy. Code words for a mistake, a paranoia-driven crusade against contrived evil that demanded the life of their child. As I watched the drama of Ralphie's funeral unfold, I remembered playing stickball on East 87th Street not many years before. I smiled, recalling how a foul ball had broken Eddie's mother's window and how Ralphie had quickly handed me the bat before shrewdly escaping to the sanctuary of Anthony's garage. No one believed I wasn't the culprit, until Ralphie abandoned his hiding place and with cobwebs hanging from his forehead, bravely admitted to the deed. As they lowered Ralphie's casket into the ground, I drifted among a tangle of childhood memories - ring-a-levio, kick- the-can on humid summer nights, and riding our bikes down "suicide hill." Ralphie was 20 years, 6 months and 2 days old when war ended his life. The lesson I learned from Ralphie's death was that in war young people die and old people grieve. The rational response would probably have been to put the tragedy behind me, to accept the deferment and go on with my life. But those were not rational times. Instead, I enlisted in the Marine Corps - understanding full well that a trip to Vietnam was guaranteed. I was excited and could not wait to tell my Uncle Joe. I thought for sure he would be pleased, proud that his nephew chose to emulate him and become a Marine. As I gave him the good news, I studied his time-worn face for approval. I sensed, perhaps for the first time, an uncharacteristic vulnerability, even frailty. He seemed much older than his years. "Why you do that?" he said as our eyes finally met. Without waiting for a response, he kissed me on both cheeks. "Che Dio vi benedica" were his last words to me as he turned and walked away. Rendered speechless by what had occurred, I didn't even think to return the blessing or to say goodbye. Soon after I had arrived in Vietnam, I learned my Uncle Joe had died. In retrospect, I'm not really certain why I decided not to accept the deferment. Perhaps, it was patriotism, or bravado, or even to avenge my friend's death. Or perhaps it was just to fulfill my destiny as a warrior and heir apparent to the legacy of the Old Ones. I left on July 5, 1968, for Marine Corps officer training at Quantico, Virginia. What I failed to realize at the time, however, was that I was leaving behind, forever, all that I had cherished and held sacred for the past 21 years. Most tragically, I was leaving behind the innocence of my youth. The Experience of War Marine Corps training was truly a life-altering experience. What ultimately enables a Marine to ignore the ethical limits normally placed on the use of violence – to kill and to die in battle – is not abstract ideology, or even patriotism, but rather a personal code of honor, self-respect, loyalty and accountability to one's comrades. I learned my lessons well and readily embraced the mythology of the warrior. Upon completion of my training, I felt part of a proud and chivalrous tradition, a select brotherhood of noble and courageous knights, empowered by God and country to exorcize the demonic agents of evil. I was prepared to kill and to selflessly sacrifice my life, if need be, for right and for good. After Ralphie's death and the sacrifices of the Old Ones, how could I do anything less? Soon after arriving in Vietnam, however, I learned that no one is truly prepared for the horror, inhumanity and destruction of "demythologized" war. Fear, inevitably, is the myth breaker, restoring to war a reality that is bleak, uncompromising and hellish. "My first experience of war was not auspicious. As mortar rounds walked in upon us, like giant steps of death and destruction, I was mesmerized by excitement and fear. Frozen in place, gauging the next footfall, I was pushed, rather unceremoniously, into a sandbagged bunker, more to clear the escape route than from a concern for my well-being. All that I had learned forgotten, I burrowed, wormlike, into the muddy bottom, seeking sanctuary, cursing my inability to disappear into the earthen mother's womb." (war journals, Bica, C.C., 1969) Despite my childhood fascination and Marine Corps indoctrination, I was never enthusiastic about war. Even those more motivated than I, those who viewed war as a means for advancement, lacked fervor for this particular enterprise. Yet men turned easily into killers, shedding a young lifetime of humanity and compassion. In a brief moment of frenzy, killing became orgasmic, and death, performance art. "A body of a dead Viet Cong sapper stood upright impaled in layers of concertina wire marking the no-man's land that surrounds the perimeter of a firebase north of Danang. Killed trying to breech the base's defenses, his catatonic body adorned by holiday revelers with Christmas decorations and a sign, soiled with blood and entrails, wishing all peace and good will from the United States Marines. As we passed and entered the base, few even took notice. I heard one young Marine, newly arrived in country, whisper to no one in particular, "Ho, fucking ho, fucking ho." The innocence of youth dies quickly when killing becomes a rite of passage." (war journals, Bica, C.C., 1969) The reality of the situation on the ground failed to match the rhetoric of our leaders. I felt a moral uneasiness with both the purpose of the war and the manner in which it was conducted. Because attrition became the strategy and the goal - seemingly the only strategy and goal - and identification of the enemy problematic, killing became indiscriminate and all too easy. Dying became routine, purposeless and seemingly inevitable ... and Ralphie's death all the more tragic. But yet, "With the Marine Corps Hymn lingering in the background of my mind, I persevered, like Sergeant Stryker charging valiantly up Suribachi, dying quickly, quietly, gently, and without pain or regret. In truth, most linger, scream for their mothers like children, first imploring God to let them live, then begging for death to end their suffering. Final glances exchanged eyes burned deeply into my soul. Faces of the soon to be dead, I'll remember for the rest of my life." (war journals, Bica, C.C., 1969) Patriotic hymns and anthems fade quickly amid the screams of the mutilated and the dying. As the warrior's mythology crumbled, I felt an overwhelming burden of responsibility, no longer to Corps and country but to those whose lives depended upon my abilities and decisions. I saw Ralphie in each of their young faces, made empty and hardened by war, and was deafened by the heartbreaking and poignant cries of parents pleading for the lives of their children. Survival was all that really mattered. What I failed to realize at the time, however, was that, at least in spirit, we were all already dead. War usurps the omnipotence of god, the power over life and death, and makes it anathema. Some found such power exhilarating. I knew people like that, didn't like them much. Thought them lucky, though, as killing and dying meant nothing. In a perverse way, they enjoyed it, enjoyed the jazz, the excitement, the power. Intoxicated by war, such men hated to see it end. For me, the war never ends. For the remainder of my time in country, I struggled with the conflicting responsibilities of an officer of Marines in war and of safeguarding the lives of those entrusted to my care. Tragically, what mattered least in this moral equation were those we were allegedly there to liberate and to protect. They became expendable as dead Vietnamese posed no threat to our survival and satisfied the military demand for body count. Like most, I did what "had to be done," and this is something I will live with for the rest of my life. ... All of war is atrocity. We often hear our military and political leaders speak of our nation's uncompromising commitment to the international and moral laws of war and rules of engagement. Such talk, however, is, in reality, part of the mythology, necessary to maintain a guise of legality and morality and to allow our national conscience to remain clean. As is clear from history, law as it applies to war, is merely a tactic of advantage, having relevance and application only should belligerent nations find such law and restrictions advantageous to the achievement of some important national goal or purpose. But when perceived political or military interest comes in conflict with legal and moral principles, it is inevitably the former that prevails. How else could one explain the systemic incineration of hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children as a consequence of the saturation and nuclear bombing of cities during World War II, while, at the same time, countries doing the bombing condemned the genocide of Nazi death camps. How else can one explain torture, "targeted" drone assassination and signature strikes during the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, etc., while the perpetrators condemn the terrorism of al Qaeda. Make no mistake, however. Few if any go to war to murder innocent people. Most exert great effort, often at considerable personal risk, to protect the innocent and conduct themselves with decency and integrity. Unfortunately, either under the rubric of "supreme emergency," as was the case in World War II, or because of the morally untenable conditions of guerrilla and/or counterinsurgency warfare as in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, soldiers inevitably become the unwitting instruments of slaughter. Such occurrences are always tragic and regrettable but never more so than when war is misguided and unnecessary. Those removed from the chaos and confusion of the battlefield are understandably appalled by what, from their perspective, constitutes brutality and murder. When public outrage demands justice, it is invariably the warrior who is held accountable while those who initiated the war or who supported or did little or nothing to stop it are themselves absolved of responsibility and permitted to continue their charade of moral awareness and concern as they sit in judgment of our actions. We are the victims of their hypocrisy, the scapegoats for the inevitable affront to the national conscience and the sacrificial lambs sent to slaughter in retribution for our collective guilt and inadequacies. In fact, no one knows the sacrilege of war better than we who must fight it and then have to live with the memories of what we have done and what we have become. "The monster and I are one. I have feasted upon the flesh of decaying corpses and with their blood have quenched my thirst. The transformation is complete and I can never return. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa." (war journals, Bica, C.C., 1969) The Aftermath of War All who are touched by war are tainted. Upon my return to the the United States world, I felt a stranger in my own home, disoriented and adrift between the world I recognized as my place of origin - although now quite alien - and the world of killing and destruction of which I was a part. "Things were different . . . or maybe I was different. As much as I had come to hate the war, there at least I felt I belonged. I knew what was expected of me, and I had become proficient at fulfilling those expectations. Here I am a misfit, an aberration, isolated and alone." (postwar journals, Bica, C.C., 1971) Vietnam was the defining experience of my life. Although physical wounds may heal, the emotional, psychological and moral injuries of war linger and fester. Vietnam forever pervades my existence, condemning me to continually relive and question the past. Inevitable concerns of those who participate in an enterprise whose primary - no, sole - function is to take life and cause others to die. Despite the urging of well-meaning friends and loved ones, I can never forget Vietnam nor put it behind me. No one truly recovers from war. No one is ever made whole again. The best that can be hoped, I think, is to achieve a degree of benign acceptance. To that end, I strive each day to forgive and absolve myself of guilt and to live with the wounds of war that will never heal. "The endless screams of the dying forever echo in my mind. A sacrificial offering of virgins to placate the elder gods. I've become an atheist." (postwar journals, Bica, C.C., 1971) Of late, I think often of Ralphie and his parents, of ring-o-levio, and bike rides down "suicide hill." I often think too of the Old Ones, and sometimes, while deep in thought, or, perhaps, lost in a daydream, I can almost smell the faint aroma of DiNobili cigars and alcohol-tinged espresso. For a fleeting moment, I am 10 years old again, watching and listening from behind the old green sofa. But now the exhilaration, awe and wonder I enjoyed as a child is gone as I have learned the reality of war. I think of the Old Ones, still with admiration, but now tempered by understanding and sadness for all they had endured. I know now the true cost of war and the burden of life in its aftermath. I realize as well that all war is profane - and unnecessary war is sacrilege. And perhaps worst of all, I know the frustration of having to sit idly by, helpless, as it all happens again. I mourn young lives devastated by war. I see Ralphie in each of their faces and am deafened by the screams of devastated loved ones. Never had I missed the Old Ones more, especially my father. Never were my Uncle Joe and the Marine who died in his arms at the Chosin more clearly in my mind. Postscript Perhaps war is a reality that will not soon go away, and sacrifices on the field of battle will again be required. But rather than "commemorate" and "celebrate" Vietnam with lies, let us end the mythologizing of war and demand truth. Let us question war's purpose and necessity and ensure a clarity of vision rather than the blind compliance some wish to portray as patriotism. Let us ensure that war remains a means of last resort and that no other person will again have to kill, die or grieve the loss of their son or daughter for a cause that is misguided. Let us demand accountability for war criminals who dare to initiate such wars and connive to use deception and myth to encourage participation and support. Let us make this our legacy and celebrate peace rather than war. Camillo "Mac" Bica, PhD, is a professor of philosophy at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is a former Marine Corps officer, Vietnam veteran, longtime activist for peace and social justice, and the coordinator of the Long Island Chapter of Veterans for Peace. |
| Subsidies and Indemnity Fracking: Poster Child for the Corporate Welfare State by KEVIN CARSON CounterPunch Jul26,2014 Just about every week another story comes to my attention confirming the complete and total government-dependency of fracking — beloved of so many self-proclaimed “free market” advocates on the libertarian right. Something about eminent domain to build the pipelines, or liability caps for spills, or regulatory approval of unsafe pipelines superseding tort liability for negligence, and ad nauseam. I have another couple of them right here. First, an article in Monthly Review (Lauren Regan, “Electronic Communications Surveillance,” July/August) describes the revolving door of personnel between federal law enforcement and the oil and gas industry’s private goon squads, and how “the U. S. government has colluded with private corporations and extractive industries to ratchet up their COINTELPRO-esque tactics upon climate justice activists.” The fossil fuel industries like to spin off private “security” and “public relations” firms (often staffed by retired federal and state cops) to spy on perfectly legal activist groups, infiltrate and disrupt them, and give intelligence to PR staff — who then cook up scary “fact sheets” to discredit activists to both media and law enforcement. Extractive corporations like TransCanada also give PowerPoint presentations to various levels of law enforcement advocating surveillance and prosecution of activists as “terrorists” — something the cops are all prepared to eat up, what with the proliferation of “Fusion Centers” looking for stuff to panic over. The other item: According to a study by Katie Keranen of Cornell University, almost all of the 2,500 small earthquakes in Oklahoma in the past five years have been the result of high pressure wastewater injections related to fracking. The change of stress on existing fault lines from the injection of water can trigger them — with water travelling along fault lines and causing earthquakes up to 22 miles away. And other states — Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, Ohio — have also seen sharp rises in small earthquakes corresponding to the introduction of fracking there. Youngstown, Ohio — which hadn’t previously been bothered by earthquakes — was hit by 109 of them in 2011 following the creation of an injection well. Somehow I’m guessing even the minor structural damage to homes from thousands of earthquakes in five states, breakage of possessions, and the like, would cumulatively amount to a significant sum of money — enough to have a real impact on the bottom line of an industry that has problems with financial sustainability as it is and is highly reliant on a bubble financing Ponzi scheme. And we haven’t even gotten into the poisoning of groundwater from injection of toxic chemicals into geologically unstable areas. At every step of the way, the state steps in to subsidize the operating costs of the fossil fuel industry, steal land for it to build pipelines on, and indemnify it against liability through regulatory preemption of tort law or even flat out statutory caps on liability for damage. And yet self-proclaimed libertarians like the Koch Brothers and much of the right-wing libertarian think tank and periodicals establishment loudly proclaim their support for fracking and Keystone in the name of the “free market.” Sorry, folks. Fracking and pipelines have nothing to do with the free market. They’re creations of the state from beginning to end. Kevin Carson is a senior fellow of the Center for a Stateless Society (c4ss.org) and holds the Center’s Karl Hess Chair in Social Theory. |
| Peace, Salaam, Shalom - NOW! Please call the White House to protest Israel's attack on Gaza (including now, a ground invasion). 202.456.1111 is the number. Demand a ceasefire and an end to U.S. taxpayer-funded weapons and military aid to Israel. Some sorely needed good news, House passes the bipartisan McGovern-Jones-Lee resolution which requires the President to seek Congressional authorization before deploying armed services engaged in combat operations in Iraq. |
The Punishment of Gaza
Washington
is Complicit in
Israel’s Crimes
by PAUL FINDLEY
July 26th CounterPunch
While viewing the massacre of
Gazans, you may wonder why 1.8
million Arabs are crowded on that
tiny strip of seashore and are being
bombed day and night into death
and ruins by Israel’s powerful military
machine. A glimpse of history is
timely.
Facts set forth below are little known
in America:
Sixty years ago 800,000 Arabs fled
their ancestral homes in rural
Palestine fearing death as a Jewish
onslaught obliterated without a trace
over 500 Arab towns, villages and
hamlets. Massacres were reported.
Those who fled are forbidden to
return home.
Fifty years later, a survey show the
refugee problem staggering:
766,000 in Gaza; 741,000 in Jordan;
408,000 in Syria; and 144,000 in
Egypt; smaller numbers in other
Arab states.
Gaza soon become a part of Israel
Occupied Palestine. Refugees and
their descendants struggle there for
survival. Israeli controls are brutal.
Potable water is nearly gone. Most
of the population depends for
survival on food and water
distributed by United Nations
officials. If supplies are not
increased starvation—not just
malnutrition–is certain. Arabs
huddle behind high fences equipped
with Israeli remote- controlled
machine guns. A gate that once
served as an occasional opening to
freedom is now kept locked by the
government of Egypt at Israel’s
request.
Gaza has long been described as
the largest open-air prison in the
world.
Israeli punishment of Gazans
became more severe seven years
ago when theuy exercised the right
of self-determination by electing the
Hamas Party to manage local affairs.
Once Hamas took control in Gaza,
Israel and the U.S. government
conspired in a sustained but
unsuccessful attempt to destroy the
organization. Hamas was reelected
to a second term and recently
achieved a cooperative
arrangement with the Fatah
organization that maintains a
measure of authority in the West
Bank.
Infuriated because all gates stay
closed, Hamas sends rockets over
the fence. They do little damage but
incite Israelis to launch heavy lethal
bombing. Revenge is not
commendable, but I understand why
people penned up like cattle may
welcome pain and discomfort for
their oppressors.
The current assault on Gaza is Israel’
s third in seven years. This is the
first time Hamas has used sustained
rocket fire, but it is no match for
Israel’s artillery, missiles and bombs.
Thanks to U.S. taxpayers, Israel has
high tech missiles that shoot down
Hamas rockets while still in the air.
Hamas has no such defense, in fact,
no defense at all.
The late radical Rabbi Meir Kahane,
wrote a book titled “They Must Go.”
In it he contended that all Arabs
must be removed from Palestine so
an all-Jewish Eretz Israel, the dream
of Zionism, can come into being.
Eretz Israel consists of entirety of
Palestine, including the West Bank,
East Jerusalem and Gaza, plus the
Golan Heights, long a part of Syria,
exactly the Arab territory Israel now
controls.
All Arabs are not gone, but nearly
two million are imprisoned in Gaza.
Elsewhere in Occupied Palestine,
4.2 million Arabs are abused and
denied basic liberties. Their
property and livelihood are steadily
being seized by Israel to provide
illegal housing for Jews-only
settlements. These Arabs are
squeezed into an ever-shrinking part
of their birthright. More than one-
half of the Palestinian West Bank is
now populated by more than
500,000 Israeli settlers. Zionist
dreamers can boast they are more
than halfway toward their dream.
Who is responsible for this tragic
treatment of Palestinians? If you
ponder that question, bear in mind
that Israel could not possibly commit
this criminal behavior without
automatic, unqualified, U.S.
government support year after year.
Pro-Issrael lobby pressure controls
all major news media. Congress
behaves like a committee of the
Israeli parliament. No president
since Dwight Eisenhower has had
the courage to stand up to Israeli
wrongdoing. Those who know the
truth are afraid to speak out for fear
of paying a heavy price– maybe loss
of employment.
All citizens of the United States must
face the truth: Our government is
complicit in in Israeli crimes against
humanity. This is an election year.
We should elect a Congress that will
suspend all aid until Israel behaves.
The bloody standoff in Gaza will stop
if Israel opens the gate to Egypt and
keeps it open. When that happens
Arabs living there can “breathe
free,” a precious right our Statue of
Liberty proclaims for all humankind.
Paul Findley served as a member of
United States House of
Representatives for 22 years. His
books include ”Deliberate
Deceptions: Facing the Facts About
the U.S.-Israeli Relationship.”
Washington
is Complicit in
Israel’s Crimes
by PAUL FINDLEY
July 26th CounterPunch
While viewing the massacre of
Gazans, you may wonder why 1.8
million Arabs are crowded on that
tiny strip of seashore and are being
bombed day and night into death
and ruins by Israel’s powerful military
machine. A glimpse of history is
timely.
Facts set forth below are little known
in America:
Sixty years ago 800,000 Arabs fled
their ancestral homes in rural
Palestine fearing death as a Jewish
onslaught obliterated without a trace
over 500 Arab towns, villages and
hamlets. Massacres were reported.
Those who fled are forbidden to
return home.
Fifty years later, a survey show the
refugee problem staggering:
766,000 in Gaza; 741,000 in Jordan;
408,000 in Syria; and 144,000 in
Egypt; smaller numbers in other
Arab states.
Gaza soon become a part of Israel
Occupied Palestine. Refugees and
their descendants struggle there for
survival. Israeli controls are brutal.
Potable water is nearly gone. Most
of the population depends for
survival on food and water
distributed by United Nations
officials. If supplies are not
increased starvation—not just
malnutrition–is certain. Arabs
huddle behind high fences equipped
with Israeli remote- controlled
machine guns. A gate that once
served as an occasional opening to
freedom is now kept locked by the
government of Egypt at Israel’s
request.
Gaza has long been described as
the largest open-air prison in the
world.
Israeli punishment of Gazans
became more severe seven years
ago when theuy exercised the right
of self-determination by electing the
Hamas Party to manage local affairs.
Once Hamas took control in Gaza,
Israel and the U.S. government
conspired in a sustained but
unsuccessful attempt to destroy the
organization. Hamas was reelected
to a second term and recently
achieved a cooperative
arrangement with the Fatah
organization that maintains a
measure of authority in the West
Bank.
Infuriated because all gates stay
closed, Hamas sends rockets over
the fence. They do little damage but
incite Israelis to launch heavy lethal
bombing. Revenge is not
commendable, but I understand why
people penned up like cattle may
welcome pain and discomfort for
their oppressors.
The current assault on Gaza is Israel’
s third in seven years. This is the
first time Hamas has used sustained
rocket fire, but it is no match for
Israel’s artillery, missiles and bombs.
Thanks to U.S. taxpayers, Israel has
high tech missiles that shoot down
Hamas rockets while still in the air.
Hamas has no such defense, in fact,
no defense at all.
The late radical Rabbi Meir Kahane,
wrote a book titled “They Must Go.”
In it he contended that all Arabs
must be removed from Palestine so
an all-Jewish Eretz Israel, the dream
of Zionism, can come into being.
Eretz Israel consists of entirety of
Palestine, including the West Bank,
East Jerusalem and Gaza, plus the
Golan Heights, long a part of Syria,
exactly the Arab territory Israel now
controls.
All Arabs are not gone, but nearly
two million are imprisoned in Gaza.
Elsewhere in Occupied Palestine,
4.2 million Arabs are abused and
denied basic liberties. Their
property and livelihood are steadily
being seized by Israel to provide
illegal housing for Jews-only
settlements. These Arabs are
squeezed into an ever-shrinking part
of their birthright. More than one-
half of the Palestinian West Bank is
now populated by more than
500,000 Israeli settlers. Zionist
dreamers can boast they are more
than halfway toward their dream.
Who is responsible for this tragic
treatment of Palestinians? If you
ponder that question, bear in mind
that Israel could not possibly commit
this criminal behavior without
automatic, unqualified, U.S.
government support year after year.
Pro-Issrael lobby pressure controls
all major news media. Congress
behaves like a committee of the
Israeli parliament. No president
since Dwight Eisenhower has had
the courage to stand up to Israeli
wrongdoing. Those who know the
truth are afraid to speak out for fear
of paying a heavy price– maybe loss
of employment.
All citizens of the United States must
face the truth: Our government is
complicit in in Israeli crimes against
humanity. This is an election year.
We should elect a Congress that will
suspend all aid until Israel behaves.
The bloody standoff in Gaza will stop
if Israel opens the gate to Egypt and
keeps it open. When that happens
Arabs living there can “breathe
free,” a precious right our Statue of
Liberty proclaims for all humankind.
Paul Findley served as a member of
United States House of
Representatives for 22 years. His
books include ”Deliberate
Deceptions: Facing the Facts About
the U.S.-Israeli Relationship.”