Patrick Dodd and Friends: News You Can Use
Cynthia McKinney and the Spirit of Humanity Crew are captured and detained by the Israel Navy - July 2, 2009
Israeli Occupation Forces have kidnapped 21 Human Rights workers aboard the Free Gaza boat, Spirit of Humanity, including Nobel laureate Mairead Maguire & former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Cynthia-McKinney-and-the-S-by-Cynthia-McKinney-090630-401.html
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Cynthia-McKinney-and-the-S-by-Cynthia-McKinney-090630-401.html
Single Payer VS. Public Option: Lessons learned from the V.A. system - June 30, 2009
While I keep hearing people who have never used the system point to the V.A. Medical system as “socialist”, many of us who have to use the system know better. “Socialist” medical care mandates that we ALL have equal access to quality care. Single Payer is closer to socialized medical care in this sense than the VAMC system. On the other hand, those of us old enough to remember the old state hospital systems know that the V.A. is more like a Public Option, in several important ways.
1. It creates a medical system that delivers care that is unevenly distributed. V.A. care is harder to access in rural areas than in big cities.
2. V.A. care in the cities is often linked to teaching institutions where veterans “medical care” is driven by the needs of students to learn, rather than the health of the veteran. Patients often get “care” they do not need for the sake of educating students. Providers who are also teaching/research faculty often reduce patients to a pool of lab rats and breathing cadavers, as medical staff can play it fast and lose with little fear of lawsuits.
3. The V.A. system often allows people to perform procedures that would not be considered qualified in a private facility, such as a “Tech”, (a C.N.A. with a week of special training) performing and teaching a procedure as dangerous as a colonoscopy.
4. Under funding in the V.A. system often results in the failure to treat minor conditions that will lead to major problems in time.
Those calling the V.A. system “socialist”, and point to it as an example of quality government provided medical care have limited understandings of the V.A. system. The gender inequality, the abuse of patient autonomy, and more, abuses that admittedly also goes on in the public sector is hyperbolized in the V.A. system. If a “public option” is passes, we can expect that:
1. Insurance companies will make sure that public option care is inferior care
2. The public option will be under funded and funding will be subject to political whims
3. A two tear medical system will be established where one groups health is subjugated to rationing, an abusive load of students, understaffing, improper staffing, neglect of minor medical conditions that turn in to major medical conditions. In our current medical system those with the money to sue are treated one way, those perceived to have less resources another. A public option system will not change this reality. Medical Care systems that treat all patients equally as we would with single payer or a non-profit national health care system that most of the developed world enjoy, tend to be much less abusive and much more responsive to patients rights and needs.
4. A one-payer system will offer more choice not less; we only have to demand that choice. In these other countries, homeopathic medical care is often used rather than expensive, often less effective and more dangerous pharmaceuticals. More preventive care is offered. If patients rights are violated it is a political rather than a civil or private matter. Bottom line is patients have more power when we all are in the same boat together and thus are encourage and empowered to act together.
1. It creates a medical system that delivers care that is unevenly distributed. V.A. care is harder to access in rural areas than in big cities.
2. V.A. care in the cities is often linked to teaching institutions where veterans “medical care” is driven by the needs of students to learn, rather than the health of the veteran. Patients often get “care” they do not need for the sake of educating students. Providers who are also teaching/research faculty often reduce patients to a pool of lab rats and breathing cadavers, as medical staff can play it fast and lose with little fear of lawsuits.
3. The V.A. system often allows people to perform procedures that would not be considered qualified in a private facility, such as a “Tech”, (a C.N.A. with a week of special training) performing and teaching a procedure as dangerous as a colonoscopy.
4. Under funding in the V.A. system often results in the failure to treat minor conditions that will lead to major problems in time.
Those calling the V.A. system “socialist”, and point to it as an example of quality government provided medical care have limited understandings of the V.A. system. The gender inequality, the abuse of patient autonomy, and more, abuses that admittedly also goes on in the public sector is hyperbolized in the V.A. system. If a “public option” is passes, we can expect that:
1. Insurance companies will make sure that public option care is inferior care
2. The public option will be under funded and funding will be subject to political whims
3. A two tear medical system will be established where one groups health is subjugated to rationing, an abusive load of students, understaffing, improper staffing, neglect of minor medical conditions that turn in to major medical conditions. In our current medical system those with the money to sue are treated one way, those perceived to have less resources another. A public option system will not change this reality. Medical Care systems that treat all patients equally as we would with single payer or a non-profit national health care system that most of the developed world enjoy, tend to be much less abusive and much more responsive to patients rights and needs.
4. A one-payer system will offer more choice not less; we only have to demand that choice. In these other countries, homeopathic medical care is often used rather than expensive, often less effective and more dangerous pharmaceuticals. More preventive care is offered. If patients rights are violated it is a political rather than a civil or private matter. Bottom line is patients have more power when we all are in the same boat together and thus are encourage and empowered to act together.
Will the health care bosses get their way? The Democrats are letting the health care industry dictate the terms of "reform." - June 30, 2009
WARNING: THE federal government is poised to commit robbery. And the poor, defenseless victim is...the health insurance industry.
Say what?
That's what top executives of the health care industry and the politicians who represent them want you to believe about the Obama administration's health care reform proposal--because the White House is promoting (with a lot of qualifications) the so-called "public option": a government-run program that the uninsured could choose in order to get coverage.
"We don't believe that it is possible to create a government plan that could operate on a level playing field," moaned Karen Ignagni, president of the insurance industry's lobbying group, and Scott Serota, president of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, in a letter to senators. "Regardless of how it is initially structured, a government plan would use its built-in advantages to take over the health insurance market."
Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele agreed. "When President Obama says public option, he means government-run health care," Steele said in a statement. "Without question, the government takeover of health care will diminish individual freedom and quality in our health care system. Republicans want real health care reform not another government takeover that Americans simply cannot afford."
These health care industry giants claimed to be so worried about the impeding "takeover" that they offered to change their rules a little bit--for instance, offering to rethink their highly profitable policy of charging sick people higher premiums than well people.
But the offer came with a catch. In return, they want a guarantee that every American will have to buy health insurance--to make up for the profits they might lose by insuring people who actually need health care.
The discussion exposes the boundless greed of the insurance industry--that they openly discuss overcharging sick people without the slightest embarrassment.
"[T]hey confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors," former Cigna senior executive Wendell Potter said in testimony before a Senate committee June 24. "They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment."
Yet these are the people that the Obama administration is bargaining with over health care reform. As the debate rages in Congress, more and more Democrats are publicly insisting that they won't allow any federal health plan to take away the industry's advantages.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE TRUTH is that these companies bought their seat at the table--with millions of dollars in political contributions. According to a recent report released by Common Cause, insurers, drug producers and other parts of the health industry have made over $372 million in campaign contributions to lawmakers since 2000. And nearly half of that--$178 million--has gone to members of House and Senate committees that oversee health programs.
If there was ever a truly bipartisan effort in Washington, this is an example. According to a report by the Center for Responsive Politics, "Starting in the 2008 election cycle, the health sector has given more money to Democrats--who had seized control of Congress in 2006--than to Republicans...This was the first time since the 1992 election cycle, right before the Clinton administration's failed health care reform attempt, that the health sector made Democrats its financial darlings."
In return, the health care industry is getting to dictate the terms of health care "reform."
In the name of finding so-called middle ground, Obama and the Democrats are focusing on compromises that the health care industry can be happy with. As a result, they are arriving at a policy that is far less ambitious then what people expected from Obama when he was running for office--and nothing at all like what people actually need.
Even without the compromises, the so-called "public option" would leave intact the insurance industry's predatory role in the employer-based system, which covers a majority of Americans.
The alternative that could solve the health care crisis is a single-payer system, where the government covers everyone under an expanded Medicare-like system--and the insurance companies are cut out. But Obama and the Democrats insist that single-payer is "off the table."
Yet the administration is sending signals that it won't even stand up for its half-measures.
"We've not gotten as far as we've gotten by drawing bright lines in the sand," Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod said on Meet the Press, when asked about whether the administration will insist on a public option.
"The bill will be bipartisan by definition," Axelrod said. "The Senate health committee accepted 82 Republican amendments. Republican ideas will be included with this process; we hope it will come with Republican votes as well."
The administration is characterizing all this as necessary so that some form of reform legislation will pass. But, at some point, you have to ask: Should we want a "reform" that won't change anything to pass?
As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote: "It would be a crushing blow to progressive hopes if Mr. Obama doesn't succeed in getting some form of universal care through Congress. But even so, reform isn't worth having if you can only get it on terms so compromised that it's doomed to fail."
The Democrats shouldn't be allowed to pretend that they are compromising with conservatives to get the best health plan possible for working people--not when the health care industry hasn't been asked to compromise on its multibillion-dollar profits.
Say what?
That's what top executives of the health care industry and the politicians who represent them want you to believe about the Obama administration's health care reform proposal--because the White House is promoting (with a lot of qualifications) the so-called "public option": a government-run program that the uninsured could choose in order to get coverage.
"We don't believe that it is possible to create a government plan that could operate on a level playing field," moaned Karen Ignagni, president of the insurance industry's lobbying group, and Scott Serota, president of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, in a letter to senators. "Regardless of how it is initially structured, a government plan would use its built-in advantages to take over the health insurance market."
Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele agreed. "When President Obama says public option, he means government-run health care," Steele said in a statement. "Without question, the government takeover of health care will diminish individual freedom and quality in our health care system. Republicans want real health care reform not another government takeover that Americans simply cannot afford."
These health care industry giants claimed to be so worried about the impeding "takeover" that they offered to change their rules a little bit--for instance, offering to rethink their highly profitable policy of charging sick people higher premiums than well people.
But the offer came with a catch. In return, they want a guarantee that every American will have to buy health insurance--to make up for the profits they might lose by insuring people who actually need health care.
The discussion exposes the boundless greed of the insurance industry--that they openly discuss overcharging sick people without the slightest embarrassment.
"[T]hey confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors," former Cigna senior executive Wendell Potter said in testimony before a Senate committee June 24. "They look carefully to see if a sick policyholder may have omitted a minor illness, a pre-existing condition, when applying for coverage, and then they use that as justification to cancel the policy, even if the enrollee has never missed a premium payment."
Yet these are the people that the Obama administration is bargaining with over health care reform. As the debate rages in Congress, more and more Democrats are publicly insisting that they won't allow any federal health plan to take away the industry's advantages.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
THE TRUTH is that these companies bought their seat at the table--with millions of dollars in political contributions. According to a recent report released by Common Cause, insurers, drug producers and other parts of the health industry have made over $372 million in campaign contributions to lawmakers since 2000. And nearly half of that--$178 million--has gone to members of House and Senate committees that oversee health programs.
If there was ever a truly bipartisan effort in Washington, this is an example. According to a report by the Center for Responsive Politics, "Starting in the 2008 election cycle, the health sector has given more money to Democrats--who had seized control of Congress in 2006--than to Republicans...This was the first time since the 1992 election cycle, right before the Clinton administration's failed health care reform attempt, that the health sector made Democrats its financial darlings."
In return, the health care industry is getting to dictate the terms of health care "reform."
In the name of finding so-called middle ground, Obama and the Democrats are focusing on compromises that the health care industry can be happy with. As a result, they are arriving at a policy that is far less ambitious then what people expected from Obama when he was running for office--and nothing at all like what people actually need.
Even without the compromises, the so-called "public option" would leave intact the insurance industry's predatory role in the employer-based system, which covers a majority of Americans.
The alternative that could solve the health care crisis is a single-payer system, where the government covers everyone under an expanded Medicare-like system--and the insurance companies are cut out. But Obama and the Democrats insist that single-payer is "off the table."
Yet the administration is sending signals that it won't even stand up for its half-measures.
"We've not gotten as far as we've gotten by drawing bright lines in the sand," Obama's senior adviser David Axelrod said on Meet the Press, when asked about whether the administration will insist on a public option.
"The bill will be bipartisan by definition," Axelrod said. "The Senate health committee accepted 82 Republican amendments. Republican ideas will be included with this process; we hope it will come with Republican votes as well."
The administration is characterizing all this as necessary so that some form of reform legislation will pass. But, at some point, you have to ask: Should we want a "reform" that won't change anything to pass?
As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote: "It would be a crushing blow to progressive hopes if Mr. Obama doesn't succeed in getting some form of universal care through Congress. But even so, reform isn't worth having if you can only get it on terms so compromised that it's doomed to fail."
The Democrats shouldn't be allowed to pretend that they are compromising with conservatives to get the best health plan possible for working people--not when the health care industry hasn't been asked to compromise on its multibillion-dollar profits.
A statement by a U.S. Political prisoner - June 30, 2009
People who love freedom
June 30, 2009
Leonard Peltier, one of America's longest-serving political prisoners, has spent 34 years of his life behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. He was an active member of the American Indian Movement in the 1970s and was framed for the murder of two FBI agents on the Lakota Sioux Pine Ridge reservation in June 1975.
On July 28, Peltier will come before a parole hearing. Supporters are mobilizing a campaign of letter-writing and petitioning in an effort to free him. He wrote the following statement to his supporters on June 26.
Leonard PeltierLeonard Peltier
GREETINGS MY friends and relatives,
I want to start off this statement or speech or whatever you want to call it by saying again as I've said before: thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting me and for standing up for right wherever you are. I can't express to you in words how extremely grateful I am not just to the people of America, but to the people all over the world, who have supported the cause of Indian people and myself.
I know a lot of you have given up a lot to help so many in my predicament. Daily I am made aware of political prisoners around the world. Many who have been killed or tortured or who knows what for trying to right the wrongs in their area, country or nation.
I have been asked to make statements in support of other movement people around the world from time to time, South America, Europe and other places. People who love freedom, people who love the earth, people who love their family, people who love the freedom to make their own choice with their own resources, and all indigenous people--we share a common bond. The bond of brother-and-sisterhood, the bond of believing there is a greater power than ourselves. And I don't mean some government power; I mean the greatest power in all the universe, the Creator Himself.
We also as human beings upon this earth have to recognize that there have always been those who suffer from an illness called greed. They have an appetite for gaining material wealth that is never satisfied. They have an appetite for land that is never satisfied. And the most common symptom of their illness is indifference to the suffering they cause with their quest.
These people are the ones that have identified themselves as our common enemy. It is so terrible that, under the guise of religion and shouting freedom, they pit one people against another. This isn't something new. All down through history, it has taken place. All down through history, there have been men, spiritual men, holy men, great thinkers and philosophers who have tried to unite us against this common enemy.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
TODAY, MY brothers and sisters, I want you to know that, if nothing else, if we don't unite against the destruction against the Mother Earth, we will have a common future that is void of clean air, clean water and basic freedoms. We must reach our hands out to embrace others to the cause of life. We must do our best from where ever we are with whatever tools available to enhance and further our quality of life.
We must find a way to break down the barriers that divide one people from another. We must find the things we have in common and find ways to solve our differences as basic humanity. We must evolve to a higher level of thinking or to, as you might say, a traditional level of thinking which obviously is superior to what they call progress today.
Our traditional values taught us to live in harmony with Earth, the greatest manifestation of the Creator that we have to relate to. Our traditions taught us to respect our bodies, the greatest gift we have or possess as an individual. Our traditions taught us to preserve the environment for our children and all our future generations. As a member of the American Indian Movement, these values are what we were about. Poverty isn't solved by money, poverty is solved by attitude.
The problems we have today among all our people are caused by attitude. They are caused by an attitude that was given to us in boarding schools and on reservations that were nothing more than concentration camps in the past. They are attitudes by people who came to us talking to us about God and wanting us to embrace their version of religion, and as one brother said once, "They told us to bow our heads, and when we looked up our land was gone, our culture was gone, our children was gone, our way of life was gone." And now the air itself is dwindling.
I have been in this cage for some 34 years and though I have been caged, I have sought the spirit in prayer of our brother the eagle, I have sought to have an overview of things for as anyone can see I don't have the freedom to examine life from a close perspective. And from this distant view, abstract view, this detached view, at times I get to see the destruction and divisiveness that these political powers that have scattered us for so long have involved themselves in promoting among our people.
I don't know if it is because I am older now or because my future is so uncertain or if through some spiritual inspiration I deeply want to say so much. I deeply want to move you to do something to save our earth and our children and our children's future. I didn't get to raise my children; I haven't got to really know them, or my children's children. I may never get to, but I love them all just the same. And I love life as much as anyone on the outside. And I don't know how long I will walk this cage.
Some days, I feel quite healthy and energized and some days I feel like the 64-year-old man that I am. I'm always hopeful that I will be free at some point, perhaps in the latter part of July after my parole hearing, and perhaps I won't. The people that hold me, the FBI and the conglomerate corporations that have for so long controlled the resources of this country and others, and for so long have done their best to stifle, to denigrate, and to vilify the voice of the oppressed, are some of the most-formidable well-funded political people on Earth. I was told that the FBI themselves are some 10,000 strong.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I AM but a common man, I am not a speaker but I have spoken. I am not all that tall, but I have stood up. I am not a philosopher or poet or a singer or any of those things that particularly inspire people, but the one thing that I am is the evidence that this country lied when they said there was justice for all. I am the evidence that they lied when they extradited me from Canada. I am the evidence that they can lie at your trial, they can manufacture evidence at your trial, they can intimidate witnesses at your trial, they can have back-room conversations and agreements with the judge at your trial.
I am the evidence that the attitude, the powers that be still hold us in a grip. They hold us in an emotional grip. They hold us in a poverty grip. They hold us in a cultural deprivation grip. I could go on and on about the things that go on that weigh so heavily against our people, but the bottom line is my case is well documented by court after court after court, by hearing after hearing after hearing, by statement after statement after statement.
And we as a people are the evidence that this country fails to keep its treaties, this country fails to keep its word. This country has failed to follow its own Constitution--the treaty between the people and the government. We are that evidence. I am nothing more than evidence. That is why people all over the world and here at home have supported the cause of justice in my case. In my particular situation I can't say that there will ever be any level of justice.
They cannot give back the 34 years of life that have been taken from me. They cannot give back the life of Joe Stuntz that they took June 26, 1975. They cannot give back the lives of the 60-something people that they directly or indirectly caused the deaths of. They cannot give back the thousand upon thousands of Indian people that were killed and abused since the inception of this government.
But the one thing we can do, we must do, is find a way to change their attitude. My brother Leonard Crow Dog once said, "If you want to change the white man, you have to change his religion." And religion is a word that means how you do something on a regular basis; most generally it is associated with your spirituality. Perhaps with global warming as it is, and the changes in the weather patterns and the questionable future that faces the earth, they will start to listen. Maybe they will reach back and embrace the words of our people, foretold again and again.
We must live the way that the Earth will renew itself every spring. We must help them reach back. We must speak to them at every opportunity. We must make an effort to reach back ourselves to our own cultural values. And in doing so, we can start to solve the many destructive challenges we face. We must more than ever before find a way to heal the wounds of our children and prevent the social illnesses that are so prevalent across our reservations and communities.
We have the tools, we have the teachings, we have the philosophies, we have the culture, we have the artists, we have the singers, we have the philosophers, I could go on and on but in essence what I am trying to say is it is imperative that we bring together all our resources to enhance the future for our children in a way that they themselves can further the healthy teachings of our culture and way of life; and in doing so I have no doubt that we can change the world.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
IF I am freed next month, or if I die in prison, remember my words and remember we are evidence that the Creator made a beautiful people a people that respected the Earth and nature and each other. We are evidence on every level of goodness that when the Creator made us He meant for us to be free. All our traditions have taught us this way. And even this very form of government that exists today was copied from our people.
Our people with our foods, our medicines, belief in freedom and the right to choose have influenced the world. It's too bad they didn't adopt a healthy attitude that we had toward the Earth, or an attitude of respect for us the first keepers of this portion of the Earth. If there is something about me that this government can point at and say is wrong, or any person say is wrong, I will by my own choice, if it proves to be fact, seek to fix it myself. But I also want to remind them the policies that have been in place for so long have made us what we are today. The policies that have been in place for so long, have created another reservation called Iraq and another reservation called Afghanistan, and the list goes on and on--you see, what's happening over there is what happened here, and all down through North and South America.
I am just a common man and I am evidence that the powers that put me here would like to sweep under the carpet. The same way they did all of our past leaders, warriors and people they massacred. Just as at Wounded Knee, the Fifth Cavalry sought its revenge for Custer's loss and massacred some 300 Indian men women and children, then gave out 23 Medals of Honor and swept the evidence of their wrongdoing aside.
Perhaps this statement is somewhat more lengthy than the others I've made; perhaps it is some things I should have said before and perhaps more, if so I hope you will forgive me. I recently was thought to be having a heart attack because of pain in my chest. After having been beaten and kicked and stomped in the last year, I am not quite sure what was causing the pain. I had never been beaten, kicked and stomped like that before. And also I have never been 64 years old before. The one thing all this did for me is it really brought home my sense of mortality.
I don't want to spend the rest of my life in this prison. And I don't want you to spend the rest of your life in some prison of the mind, heart or attitude. I want you to enjoy your life.
If nothing else give somebody a hug for me and say, "This is from Leonard."
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier
June 30, 2009
Leonard Peltier, one of America's longest-serving political prisoners, has spent 34 years of his life behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. He was an active member of the American Indian Movement in the 1970s and was framed for the murder of two FBI agents on the Lakota Sioux Pine Ridge reservation in June 1975.
On July 28, Peltier will come before a parole hearing. Supporters are mobilizing a campaign of letter-writing and petitioning in an effort to free him. He wrote the following statement to his supporters on June 26.
Leonard PeltierLeonard Peltier
GREETINGS MY friends and relatives,
I want to start off this statement or speech or whatever you want to call it by saying again as I've said before: thank you, thank you, thank you from the bottom of my heart for supporting me and for standing up for right wherever you are. I can't express to you in words how extremely grateful I am not just to the people of America, but to the people all over the world, who have supported the cause of Indian people and myself.
I know a lot of you have given up a lot to help so many in my predicament. Daily I am made aware of political prisoners around the world. Many who have been killed or tortured or who knows what for trying to right the wrongs in their area, country or nation.
I have been asked to make statements in support of other movement people around the world from time to time, South America, Europe and other places. People who love freedom, people who love the earth, people who love their family, people who love the freedom to make their own choice with their own resources, and all indigenous people--we share a common bond. The bond of brother-and-sisterhood, the bond of believing there is a greater power than ourselves. And I don't mean some government power; I mean the greatest power in all the universe, the Creator Himself.
We also as human beings upon this earth have to recognize that there have always been those who suffer from an illness called greed. They have an appetite for gaining material wealth that is never satisfied. They have an appetite for land that is never satisfied. And the most common symptom of their illness is indifference to the suffering they cause with their quest.
These people are the ones that have identified themselves as our common enemy. It is so terrible that, under the guise of religion and shouting freedom, they pit one people against another. This isn't something new. All down through history, it has taken place. All down through history, there have been men, spiritual men, holy men, great thinkers and philosophers who have tried to unite us against this common enemy.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
TODAY, MY brothers and sisters, I want you to know that, if nothing else, if we don't unite against the destruction against the Mother Earth, we will have a common future that is void of clean air, clean water and basic freedoms. We must reach our hands out to embrace others to the cause of life. We must do our best from where ever we are with whatever tools available to enhance and further our quality of life.
We must find a way to break down the barriers that divide one people from another. We must find the things we have in common and find ways to solve our differences as basic humanity. We must evolve to a higher level of thinking or to, as you might say, a traditional level of thinking which obviously is superior to what they call progress today.
Our traditional values taught us to live in harmony with Earth, the greatest manifestation of the Creator that we have to relate to. Our traditions taught us to respect our bodies, the greatest gift we have or possess as an individual. Our traditions taught us to preserve the environment for our children and all our future generations. As a member of the American Indian Movement, these values are what we were about. Poverty isn't solved by money, poverty is solved by attitude.
The problems we have today among all our people are caused by attitude. They are caused by an attitude that was given to us in boarding schools and on reservations that were nothing more than concentration camps in the past. They are attitudes by people who came to us talking to us about God and wanting us to embrace their version of religion, and as one brother said once, "They told us to bow our heads, and when we looked up our land was gone, our culture was gone, our children was gone, our way of life was gone." And now the air itself is dwindling.
I have been in this cage for some 34 years and though I have been caged, I have sought the spirit in prayer of our brother the eagle, I have sought to have an overview of things for as anyone can see I don't have the freedom to examine life from a close perspective. And from this distant view, abstract view, this detached view, at times I get to see the destruction and divisiveness that these political powers that have scattered us for so long have involved themselves in promoting among our people.
I don't know if it is because I am older now or because my future is so uncertain or if through some spiritual inspiration I deeply want to say so much. I deeply want to move you to do something to save our earth and our children and our children's future. I didn't get to raise my children; I haven't got to really know them, or my children's children. I may never get to, but I love them all just the same. And I love life as much as anyone on the outside. And I don't know how long I will walk this cage.
Some days, I feel quite healthy and energized and some days I feel like the 64-year-old man that I am. I'm always hopeful that I will be free at some point, perhaps in the latter part of July after my parole hearing, and perhaps I won't. The people that hold me, the FBI and the conglomerate corporations that have for so long controlled the resources of this country and others, and for so long have done their best to stifle, to denigrate, and to vilify the voice of the oppressed, are some of the most-formidable well-funded political people on Earth. I was told that the FBI themselves are some 10,000 strong.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
I AM but a common man, I am not a speaker but I have spoken. I am not all that tall, but I have stood up. I am not a philosopher or poet or a singer or any of those things that particularly inspire people, but the one thing that I am is the evidence that this country lied when they said there was justice for all. I am the evidence that they lied when they extradited me from Canada. I am the evidence that they can lie at your trial, they can manufacture evidence at your trial, they can intimidate witnesses at your trial, they can have back-room conversations and agreements with the judge at your trial.
I am the evidence that the attitude, the powers that be still hold us in a grip. They hold us in an emotional grip. They hold us in a poverty grip. They hold us in a cultural deprivation grip. I could go on and on about the things that go on that weigh so heavily against our people, but the bottom line is my case is well documented by court after court after court, by hearing after hearing after hearing, by statement after statement after statement.
And we as a people are the evidence that this country fails to keep its treaties, this country fails to keep its word. This country has failed to follow its own Constitution--the treaty between the people and the government. We are that evidence. I am nothing more than evidence. That is why people all over the world and here at home have supported the cause of justice in my case. In my particular situation I can't say that there will ever be any level of justice.
They cannot give back the 34 years of life that have been taken from me. They cannot give back the life of Joe Stuntz that they took June 26, 1975. They cannot give back the lives of the 60-something people that they directly or indirectly caused the deaths of. They cannot give back the thousand upon thousands of Indian people that were killed and abused since the inception of this government.
But the one thing we can do, we must do, is find a way to change their attitude. My brother Leonard Crow Dog once said, "If you want to change the white man, you have to change his religion." And religion is a word that means how you do something on a regular basis; most generally it is associated with your spirituality. Perhaps with global warming as it is, and the changes in the weather patterns and the questionable future that faces the earth, they will start to listen. Maybe they will reach back and embrace the words of our people, foretold again and again.
We must live the way that the Earth will renew itself every spring. We must help them reach back. We must speak to them at every opportunity. We must make an effort to reach back ourselves to our own cultural values. And in doing so, we can start to solve the many destructive challenges we face. We must more than ever before find a way to heal the wounds of our children and prevent the social illnesses that are so prevalent across our reservations and communities.
We have the tools, we have the teachings, we have the philosophies, we have the culture, we have the artists, we have the singers, we have the philosophers, I could go on and on but in essence what I am trying to say is it is imperative that we bring together all our resources to enhance the future for our children in a way that they themselves can further the healthy teachings of our culture and way of life; and in doing so I have no doubt that we can change the world.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
IF I am freed next month, or if I die in prison, remember my words and remember we are evidence that the Creator made a beautiful people a people that respected the Earth and nature and each other. We are evidence on every level of goodness that when the Creator made us He meant for us to be free. All our traditions have taught us this way. And even this very form of government that exists today was copied from our people.
Our people with our foods, our medicines, belief in freedom and the right to choose have influenced the world. It's too bad they didn't adopt a healthy attitude that we had toward the Earth, or an attitude of respect for us the first keepers of this portion of the Earth. If there is something about me that this government can point at and say is wrong, or any person say is wrong, I will by my own choice, if it proves to be fact, seek to fix it myself. But I also want to remind them the policies that have been in place for so long have made us what we are today. The policies that have been in place for so long, have created another reservation called Iraq and another reservation called Afghanistan, and the list goes on and on--you see, what's happening over there is what happened here, and all down through North and South America.
I am just a common man and I am evidence that the powers that put me here would like to sweep under the carpet. The same way they did all of our past leaders, warriors and people they massacred. Just as at Wounded Knee, the Fifth Cavalry sought its revenge for Custer's loss and massacred some 300 Indian men women and children, then gave out 23 Medals of Honor and swept the evidence of their wrongdoing aside.
Perhaps this statement is somewhat more lengthy than the others I've made; perhaps it is some things I should have said before and perhaps more, if so I hope you will forgive me. I recently was thought to be having a heart attack because of pain in my chest. After having been beaten and kicked and stomped in the last year, I am not quite sure what was causing the pain. I had never been beaten, kicked and stomped like that before. And also I have never been 64 years old before. The one thing all this did for me is it really brought home my sense of mortality.
I don't want to spend the rest of my life in this prison. And I don't want you to spend the rest of your life in some prison of the mind, heart or attitude. I want you to enjoy your life.
If nothing else give somebody a hug for me and say, "This is from Leonard."
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse,
Leonard Peltier
SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER ROAD SHOW TO TRAVEL FROM BORDER TO BORDER JULY 2-27, 2009 - June 30, 2009
"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most
shocking and inhumane."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
As the debate on how to resolve the nation’s health care crisis continues, one
singular answer has been widely ignored in the public debate, despite its popular
appeal: a progressively financed, comprehensive, universal health care system –
otherwise known as single-payer. That didn’t sit well with Pittsburgh activist and
labor singer Anne Feeney. She says she’s been ‘comforting the afflicted and
afflicting the comfortable’ with her music since 1968.
Frustrated that patients, nurses and doctors have been largely excluded from the
debate, Feeney and almost four dozen professional musicians decided to launch
the Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show. Modeled after the traveling
chautauquas of the 1930s, these concerts will take place nightly and run from
San Diego, CA to Bellingham, WA. “This is a pivotal moment in our nation’s
history. It’s a great opportunity for Americans to improve the health of the nation
and bring quality health care to everyone in the United States. We’re on the road
– entertaining, mobilizing, educating, inspiring and energizing folks on this
chance of our lifetime,” says Feeney. Some musicians will sing at one location –
others, like David Rovics, Brian QTN, Green Mountain Grass and Citizens’ Band
will do several shows. Jason Luckett, a Los Angeles based singer-songwriter
who has been described as “Billy Bragg meets Stevie Wonder” will do the entire
tour with Feeney. Several of the shows are being presented by physicians.
The two-hour concerts feature lots of community singing, humor, harmonizing
and jamming. The shows are sponsored by the California Nurses’ Association-
National Nurses’ Organizing Committee, Universal Health Care for Oregon, Jobs
with Justice, The Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care, the Solidarity
Education Fund, Physicians for a National Health Plan and Unions for Single
Payer HR 676. The musicians are traveling with lots of information to distribute
on national health care. Their slogan is “Everyone In! Nobody Out!”
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show Web Site
Get Involved for Single Payer Health Care:
http://unionsforsinglepayerhr676.org/
All Unions Committee for Single Payer HR 676
http://www.laborforsinglepayer.org/
Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care
http://www.medicareforall.org
Medicare for All
http://www.singlepayernow.net
Single Payer Now
http://www.calnurses.org/nnoc
National Nurses Organizing Committee
http://www.healthcare-now.org
Healthcare-NOW!
www.pnhp.org
Physicians for a National Health Program
http://www.pdamerica.org
Progressive Democrats of America
shocking and inhumane."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
As the debate on how to resolve the nation’s health care crisis continues, one
singular answer has been widely ignored in the public debate, despite its popular
appeal: a progressively financed, comprehensive, universal health care system –
otherwise known as single-payer. That didn’t sit well with Pittsburgh activist and
labor singer Anne Feeney. She says she’s been ‘comforting the afflicted and
afflicting the comfortable’ with her music since 1968.
Frustrated that patients, nurses and doctors have been largely excluded from the
debate, Feeney and almost four dozen professional musicians decided to launch
the Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show. Modeled after the traveling
chautauquas of the 1930s, these concerts will take place nightly and run from
San Diego, CA to Bellingham, WA. “This is a pivotal moment in our nation’s
history. It’s a great opportunity for Americans to improve the health of the nation
and bring quality health care to everyone in the United States. We’re on the road
– entertaining, mobilizing, educating, inspiring and energizing folks on this
chance of our lifetime,” says Feeney. Some musicians will sing at one location –
others, like David Rovics, Brian QTN, Green Mountain Grass and Citizens’ Band
will do several shows. Jason Luckett, a Los Angeles based singer-songwriter
who has been described as “Billy Bragg meets Stevie Wonder” will do the entire
tour with Feeney. Several of the shows are being presented by physicians.
The two-hour concerts feature lots of community singing, humor, harmonizing
and jamming. The shows are sponsored by the California Nurses’ Association-
National Nurses’ Organizing Committee, Universal Health Care for Oregon, Jobs
with Justice, The Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care, the Solidarity
Education Fund, Physicians for a National Health Plan and Unions for Single
Payer HR 676. The musicians are traveling with lots of information to distribute
on national health care. Their slogan is “Everyone In! Nobody Out!”
Sing Out for Single Payer Road Show Web Site
Get Involved for Single Payer Health Care:
http://unionsforsinglepayerhr676.org/
All Unions Committee for Single Payer HR 676
http://www.laborforsinglepayer.org/
Labor Campaign for Single Payer Health Care
http://www.medicareforall.org
Medicare for All
http://www.singlepayernow.net
Single Payer Now
http://www.calnurses.org/nnoc
National Nurses Organizing Committee
http://www.healthcare-now.org
Healthcare-NOW!
www.pnhp.org
Physicians for a National Health Program
http://www.pdamerica.org
Progressive Democrats of America
Oregon Nurses, Green Party And Lane County Dems Support Single Payer Solution - June 23, 2009
Terrific news! It is so much fun to see this movement really taking off. Wow.
Down here near the state-line... our Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice Coalition is gearing up for the growing Single Payer campaign with 2 events right around the corner.
1) We will promote Single Payer when we march along our float in Ashland's July 4th parade see our entry last year here- http://rogueimc.org/en/2008/07/13203.shtml
2) July 7, 6pm we will be hosting the SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER ROAD SHOW at the Unitarian Church in Ashland.
SOJwJ has 18 member organizations and that includes ONA and the Jackson County Green Party. The County Democratic Party has not yet joined but we have great support from our progressive Dems!
Wes Brain
The Oregon Nurses Association, the Pacific Green Party of Oregon and the Democratic Party of Lane County are the first organizations in Oregon to publicly support a single payer health care solution to America's/Oregon's moral and economic health care crisis. They constitute the first three member organizations of the Oregon Coalition for a Single Payer Solution. Hooray! Bravo! and Congratulations to these courageous organizations.
Send words of encouragement here:
Oregon Nurses Association - http://oregonrn.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=173
Pacific Green Party of Oregon - http://www.pacificgreens.org/cat-get-involved/contact-us/
Democratic Party of Lane County - http://www.dplc.org/officials.htm
Do you belong to an Oregon group - political, fraternal, religious, arts, sports, neighborhood, business, non-profit, union, any kind of group, that supports a single payer health care solution to America's/Oregon's moral and economic health care crisis? If you do tell me about it ASAP. I'll publish your group in future Oregon Health Watchers and it will become part of the Oregon Coalition for a Single Payer Solution.
President Barak Obama cannot succeed in bringing universal equal access to the same level of health care to all Americans/Oregonians, including veterans, unless he not only supports but fights like hell to achieve a single payer system. The so-called "public option plan" is a half-way, half-assed measure that cannot solve America's/Oregon's moral and economic health care crisis. Help send Barak Obama this message by way of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders who is on the right track. Contact Sanders here and vote for a single payer solution:
http://sanders.senate.gov/petitions/index.cfm?uid=7fd59f2e-88e1-477a-8eaf-762a5b050809
Now is the time to stand up and be counted
Richard Ellmyer
Oregon Community Health Care Bill author and project champion
President, MacSolutions Inc. - A Macintosh computer consulting business providing web hosting for artists and very small businesses.
Writer/Publisher - Oregon Health Watchers - Published on the Internet (http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/health.html) and distributed to thousands of readers interested in public health care policy in Oregon.
Note To Readers:
This message is sent to you and thousands of others because of a mutual interest in health care policy in Oregon. To unsubscribe from Oregon Health Watchers, E-mail to: healthcomments@goodgrowthnw.org with Remove in the subject. Requests for removal MUST be made from or include the same email address to which Oregon Health Watchers was sent in order to be found and deleted.
If you are having a technical problem please send administrative queries to Oregon-Health-Watchers-request@goodgrowthnw.org. Send reader comments to healthcomments@goodgrowthnw.org
Chair, Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice
Down here near the state-line... our Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice Coalition is gearing up for the growing Single Payer campaign with 2 events right around the corner.
1) We will promote Single Payer when we march along our float in Ashland's July 4th parade see our entry last year here- http://rogueimc.org/en/2008/07/13203.shtml
2) July 7, 6pm we will be hosting the SING OUT FOR SINGLE PAYER ROAD SHOW at the Unitarian Church in Ashland.
SOJwJ has 18 member organizations and that includes ONA and the Jackson County Green Party. The County Democratic Party has not yet joined but we have great support from our progressive Dems!
Wes Brain
The Oregon Nurses Association, the Pacific Green Party of Oregon and the Democratic Party of Lane County are the first organizations in Oregon to publicly support a single payer health care solution to America's/Oregon's moral and economic health care crisis. They constitute the first three member organizations of the Oregon Coalition for a Single Payer Solution. Hooray! Bravo! and Congratulations to these courageous organizations.
Send words of encouragement here:
Oregon Nurses Association - http://oregonrn.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=173
Pacific Green Party of Oregon - http://www.pacificgreens.org/cat-get-involved/contact-us/
Democratic Party of Lane County - http://www.dplc.org/officials.htm
Do you belong to an Oregon group - political, fraternal, religious, arts, sports, neighborhood, business, non-profit, union, any kind of group, that supports a single payer health care solution to America's/Oregon's moral and economic health care crisis? If you do tell me about it ASAP. I'll publish your group in future Oregon Health Watchers and it will become part of the Oregon Coalition for a Single Payer Solution.
President Barak Obama cannot succeed in bringing universal equal access to the same level of health care to all Americans/Oregonians, including veterans, unless he not only supports but fights like hell to achieve a single payer system. The so-called "public option plan" is a half-way, half-assed measure that cannot solve America's/Oregon's moral and economic health care crisis. Help send Barak Obama this message by way of Vermont senator Bernie Sanders who is on the right track. Contact Sanders here and vote for a single payer solution:
http://sanders.senate.gov/petitions/index.cfm?uid=7fd59f2e-88e1-477a-8eaf-762a5b050809
Now is the time to stand up and be counted
Richard Ellmyer
Oregon Community Health Care Bill author and project champion
President, MacSolutions Inc. - A Macintosh computer consulting business providing web hosting for artists and very small businesses.
Writer/Publisher - Oregon Health Watchers - Published on the Internet (http://www.goodgrowthnw.org/health.html) and distributed to thousands of readers interested in public health care policy in Oregon.
Note To Readers:
This message is sent to you and thousands of others because of a mutual interest in health care policy in Oregon. To unsubscribe from Oregon Health Watchers, E-mail to: healthcomments@goodgrowthnw.org with Remove in the subject. Requests for removal MUST be made from or include the same email address to which Oregon Health Watchers was sent in order to be found and deleted.
If you are having a technical problem please send administrative queries to Oregon-Health-Watchers-request@goodgrowthnw.org. Send reader comments to healthcomments@goodgrowthnw.org
Chair, Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice
OHSU prof linked to CIA torture - June 17, 2009
by Michael Munk
Wed, Jun 17, 2009
Joseph Matarazzo retired from OHSU in June 2007. From 1957 to !996, he = was head of the Department of Medical Psychology and then Professor of = Behavioral Neuroscience until retirement to emeritus status. A former = APA president, both he and his wife, Dr Ruth Matarazzo, received = Presidential Citation at the 2007 convention of the American = Psychological Association. He was a member of the Spokane torture = consulting firm Mitchell Jensen's board and a CIA professional standards = board.=20
From Jane Mayer's interview with CIA director Panetta = http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/22/090622fa_fact_mayer?current= Page=3Dall
"In April, Panetta fired all the C.I.A.'s contract interrogators, = including the former military psychologists who appear to have designed = the most brutal interrogation techniques: James Mitchell and Bruce = Jessen. The two men, who ran a consulting company, Mitchell, Jessen & = Associates, had recommended that interrogators apply to detainees = theories of "learned helplessness" that were based on experiments with = abused dogs. The firm's principals reportedly billed the agency a = thousand dollars a day for their services. "We saved some money in the = deal, too!" Panetta said. (Remarkably, a month after Obama took office = the C.I.A. had signed a fresh contract with the firm.)=20
According to ProPublica, the investigative reporting group, Mitchell and = Jessen's firm, which in 2007 had a hundred and twenty people on its = staff, recently closed its offices, in Spokane, Washington. One employee = was Deuce Martinez, a former C.I.A. interrogator in the black-site = program; Joseph Matarazzo, a former president of the American = Psychological Association, was on the company's board. (According to = Kirk Hubbard, the former head of the C.I.A.'s research and analysis = division, Matarazzo served on an agency professional-standards board = during the time the interrogation program was set up, but was not = consulted about the interrogations.)=20
Lawsuits against abusive contractors remain a possibility, and any one = of them could expose a line of authorizations leading directly up the = chain of command at the C.I.A., and into the Bush White House. George = Brent Mickum IV, a lawyer representing Abu Zubaydah, a C.I.A. prisoner = who was repeatedly waterboarded, said, "I'd like to sue Mitchell and = Jessen in a minute." (Mitchell was an adviser on Zubaydah's = interrogation.) After Zubaydah was waterboarded, his lawyers say, his = mental state deteriorated, and he has since been prescribed the = antipsychotic drug Haldol.=20
visit my website www.michaelmunk.com
Wed, Jun 17, 2009
Joseph Matarazzo retired from OHSU in June 2007. From 1957 to !996, he = was head of the Department of Medical Psychology and then Professor of = Behavioral Neuroscience until retirement to emeritus status. A former = APA president, both he and his wife, Dr Ruth Matarazzo, received = Presidential Citation at the 2007 convention of the American = Psychological Association. He was a member of the Spokane torture = consulting firm Mitchell Jensen's board and a CIA professional standards = board.=20
From Jane Mayer's interview with CIA director Panetta = http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/22/090622fa_fact_mayer?current= Page=3Dall
"In April, Panetta fired all the C.I.A.'s contract interrogators, = including the former military psychologists who appear to have designed = the most brutal interrogation techniques: James Mitchell and Bruce = Jessen. The two men, who ran a consulting company, Mitchell, Jessen & = Associates, had recommended that interrogators apply to detainees = theories of "learned helplessness" that were based on experiments with = abused dogs. The firm's principals reportedly billed the agency a = thousand dollars a day for their services. "We saved some money in the = deal, too!" Panetta said. (Remarkably, a month after Obama took office = the C.I.A. had signed a fresh contract with the firm.)=20
According to ProPublica, the investigative reporting group, Mitchell and = Jessen's firm, which in 2007 had a hundred and twenty people on its = staff, recently closed its offices, in Spokane, Washington. One employee = was Deuce Martinez, a former C.I.A. interrogator in the black-site = program; Joseph Matarazzo, a former president of the American = Psychological Association, was on the company's board. (According to = Kirk Hubbard, the former head of the C.I.A.'s research and analysis = division, Matarazzo served on an agency professional-standards board = during the time the interrogation program was set up, but was not = consulted about the interrogations.)=20
Lawsuits against abusive contractors remain a possibility, and any one = of them could expose a line of authorizations leading directly up the = chain of command at the C.I.A., and into the Bush White House. George = Brent Mickum IV, a lawyer representing Abu Zubaydah, a C.I.A. prisoner = who was repeatedly waterboarded, said, "I'd like to sue Mitchell and = Jessen in a minute." (Mitchell was an adviser on Zubaydah's = interrogation.) After Zubaydah was waterboarded, his lawyers say, his = mental state deteriorated, and he has since been prescribed the = antipsychotic drug Haldol.=20
visit my website www.michaelmunk.com
The Cost Conundrum What a Texas town can teach us about health care. - June 17, 2009
The Cost Conundrum
What a Texas town can teach us about health care.
What a Texas town can teach us about health care.
Volunteer Policing Bad Idea - June 17, 2009
With issues like health care, corporate welfare, war profiteering, and more I never gave volunteer police much thought. That changed over the last couple of weeks due to two different events. One had to do an old story I found regarding an incident where a male officer engaged a 17-year-old DUI in a high-speed chase through downtown Medford, presumably to impress an unauthorized female volunteer police “ride along”. The chase ended in the death of the 17 year old and a 26 year old his car struck. The officer left the scene of the accident after notifying dispatch he would not be filling out a report (likely due to his right not to incriminate himself) taking the unauthorized rider home. Other behaviors of the officer before, during, and after the chase and accident made it very clear that his character was not of the quality to which any police department employee should rise. I did not think much about the wisdom of police departments employing volunteers while researching this story as my focus was on the bad judgment, dishonesty, and other bad behaviors of the officer, the focus of my research at the time. However, before two weeks had passed a volunteer working with a Sheriffs department in a nearby town drew attention to himself. Some friends and I were working on a music video for a TV production class. A woman coming into her shop asked us what we were doing; we informed her we were working on a video. She asked me three times what we were doing there and each time I simply answered, “working on a video”; her tone of voice and body language left me with the impression any further conversation was not going to be helpful, so we went about our business and ignored her. She came out while we were filming and took down my license plate number. We quickly decided the best plan of action was to continue ignoring her. Then an old man, who seemed drugged and rather nonsensical, came up and again started taking down my plate number. Now I was really starting to feel harassed, so I went up to him, noticed he had an ID card clipped to his shirt identifying him as a volunteer for the sheriffs department. He is going on about how his wife called him because I had the gall to park behind her shop. He said we had not business being there, unless we had a shop. I asked him what he was talking about, and please read the sign on the wall to me. He continued to go on about his wife, daughter, their shop and our lack of rights. He seemed to be implying we were loitering. At this time, Charles stepped in pointed out that we were Dutch Bros customers, and were they not part of the plaza? He refused to answer the question, now very agitated that not only a woman, but a black man was questioning is authority to dictate who has rights and who does not on public property. I told him that more than his vigilantly effort to illegally drive people out of a public parking space his wife would like to claim, this could be an act of chilling free speech, something for which he could be sued. My bad boy talent at this point are pocking fun at the guy, asking him if he gets a “volunteer gun with that volunteer badge”, and the like, I asked them not to poke sticks at the bear. They lowered their voice but continued to enjoy each others company at his expense. It kept up moral and I still had to deal with the police now showing up, so taking any blows from their verbal fencing was his problem. He did set himself up. Charles and I explained what we were doing to the police; that we were not violating the law, as we understood it; they agreed we were not violating any law. They asked for my I.D., which I refused to provide, noting I was not driving at the time, but did provide my name, D.O.B., and phone number. One cop went over and seemed to have little success trying to explain to this old man that he could not go about running people out of a public parking space just because his wife had to walk a few paces to get to her shop.
Makes one think. How often do volunteers contribute to problems within police departments? Deaths of young people, violations of peoples civil rights, vigilante harassment; perhaps volunteer policing is not a good idea. Perhaps Medford and Grants Pass should reconsider.
Makes one think. How often do volunteers contribute to problems within police departments? Deaths of young people, violations of peoples civil rights, vigilante harassment; perhaps volunteer policing is not a good idea. Perhaps Medford and Grants Pass should reconsider.
Urge the Obama Administration to Protect Our Forests - June 17, 2009
and Cancel the WOPR
Before leaving office, the Bush administration — in a blatant attempt to increase logging of old-growth forests on behalf of their friends in the timber industry — enacted a last-minute plan eliminating many forest protections on Bureau of Land Management lands in western Oregon. Called the Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR or Whopper), the scheme would open up thousands of acres of old-growth forests protected by the Northwest Forest Plan to logging — with devastating impacts on the many species that depend on these majestic forests for their survival, including the Pacific fisher, northern spotted owl, and marbled murrelet.
Overall, the WOPR allows the timber industry to nearly double its logging on public lands in western Oregon, despite numerous scientific studies concluding that these dramatic increases in logging will hurt clean water and healthy streams, contribute to global warming, push fish and wildlife toward extinction, and destroy much of Oregon's remaining mature and old-growth forests.
In the next few weeks, Interior Secretary Salazar will decide whether to defend Bush’s plan in court or to do the right thing and withdraw it. President Obama and Secretary Salazar have pledged to restore scientific integrity and ethical responsibility to public lands management. Eliminating the WOPR would show real commitment to fulfilling that promise.
Please take a moment now to urge Secretary Salazar to withdraw the WOPR and protect the mature and old-growth forests of western Oregon…Click here.
Here is more you can do to Urge Obama to Cancel the WOPR!
Urge national organizations or those outside Oregon to take immediate action!
The Obama administration & Dept. of the Interior appointees are reviewing the WOPR through late July, and its options include to cancel the WOPR. National lobby groups are calling for protection of our forests' carbon reserves. We need reserves for biodiversity and carbon storage.
Please contact this key official appointed to review the WOPR:
Ned Farquhar
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management
PHONE: 202-208-6734
FAX: 202-208-3619
EMAIL: ned_farquhar@ios.doi.gov
Please also call U.S. Sens. Wyden and Merkley (Oregon), as well as Sens. Murray and Cantwell, and ask them to urge Sec. of the Interior Ken Salazar to cancel the WOPR
Before leaving office, the Bush administration — in a blatant attempt to increase logging of old-growth forests on behalf of their friends in the timber industry — enacted a last-minute plan eliminating many forest protections on Bureau of Land Management lands in western Oregon. Called the Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR or Whopper), the scheme would open up thousands of acres of old-growth forests protected by the Northwest Forest Plan to logging — with devastating impacts on the many species that depend on these majestic forests for their survival, including the Pacific fisher, northern spotted owl, and marbled murrelet.
Overall, the WOPR allows the timber industry to nearly double its logging on public lands in western Oregon, despite numerous scientific studies concluding that these dramatic increases in logging will hurt clean water and healthy streams, contribute to global warming, push fish and wildlife toward extinction, and destroy much of Oregon's remaining mature and old-growth forests.
In the next few weeks, Interior Secretary Salazar will decide whether to defend Bush’s plan in court or to do the right thing and withdraw it. President Obama and Secretary Salazar have pledged to restore scientific integrity and ethical responsibility to public lands management. Eliminating the WOPR would show real commitment to fulfilling that promise.
Please take a moment now to urge Secretary Salazar to withdraw the WOPR and protect the mature and old-growth forests of western Oregon…Click here.
Here is more you can do to Urge Obama to Cancel the WOPR!
Urge national organizations or those outside Oregon to take immediate action!
The Obama administration & Dept. of the Interior appointees are reviewing the WOPR through late July, and its options include to cancel the WOPR. National lobby groups are calling for protection of our forests' carbon reserves. We need reserves for biodiversity and carbon storage.
Please contact this key official appointed to review the WOPR:
Ned Farquhar
Deputy Assistant Secretary for Land and Minerals Management
PHONE: 202-208-6734
FAX: 202-208-3619
EMAIL: ned_farquhar@ios.doi.gov
Please also call U.S. Sens. Wyden and Merkley (Oregon), as well as Sens. Murray and Cantwell, and ask them to urge Sec. of the Interior Ken Salazar to cancel the WOPR
"BECOMING A SWEATFREE COMMUNITY" - June 17, 2009
CITY OF ASHLAND SET TO ADOPT SWEATSHOP-FREE PROCUREMENT POLICY
WHERE: ASHLAND CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS, 1175 EAST MAIN STREET
WHEN: JUNE 16, 2009, MEETING STARTS AT 7PM
By adopting a sweatfree resolution in December, 2008 the city council
set the stage for Ashland, Oregon to join a cutting-edge movement that
is picking up steam and building sweat-free communities all across the
country. For consideration at the Tuesday June 16 city council
meeting Ashland proposes strong policy with the following statement:
The City will use its purchasing procedures and spending authority to
promote the improvement of working conditions in the world by avoiding
the acquisition of uniform and clothing items that cannot be certifed
as being the product of a "sweat free" environment (not the product of
sweashop labor as defined in Resolution 2008-45, attached).
Ashland's campaign for the adoption of a sweatshop-free procurement
policy has been a project of Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice
(SOJwJ). SOJwJ chair Wes Brain comments: "It has been a year since
we started the Ashland Sweatfree Campaign and several things have come
together for Ashland to make this choice to move to become sweat-shop
free." Sweatfree Communities is a budding nationwide campaign which
has been highlighted in the Pacific Northwest in Portland, Oregon
where innovative cutting-edge policy has led the way in the non-
sweatshop procurement movement. Taxpayers in Portland flat out don't
like public dollars supporting sweatshops and Ashlanders
overwhelmingly agree. We don't want to purchase cheap garments that
are worn by our police and firemen if they are produced in conditions
that exploit workers including children and otherwise violate
international labor law."
As for the future of the Sweatfree Communites movement in Oregon: The
Portland Sweatfree Campaign showed Ashland a vision and provided the
boost to become sweatshop-free, and now the Jobs with Justice
coalition in Eugene is interested in a campaign, too. At the same
time sweatfree activists are now talking to state government officials
about Oregon adopting a sweatshop free procurement policy following
the example of eight other states. "The movement is taking off like
wildfire", states Brain.
Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice has led the Ashland Sweatfree
Campaign. The following campaign committee members are all Ashland
residents. Pam Vavra, Jason Houk, Brenda Gould, Rich Rohde, Steve
Ryan, Eric Navickas and Wes Brain.
Queries for additonal information can be made to:
Wes Brain
Chair, Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice
brain@mind.net
541-482-6988
or
Brenda Gould
Secretary, Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice
whitebarkpine@gmail.com
541-301-3337
BACKGROUND & ADDITIONAL RESOURCE MATERIALS FOLLOW
Proposed Ashland Administrative Policy, Resolution 2008-45 and
"Council Communication" for 6/16/09 meeting
http://ashland.or.us/Page.asp?NavID=11975
Sweatfree Communites webpage
http://www.sweatfree.org
WHERE: ASHLAND CITY COUNCIL CHAMBERS, 1175 EAST MAIN STREET
WHEN: JUNE 16, 2009, MEETING STARTS AT 7PM
By adopting a sweatfree resolution in December, 2008 the city council
set the stage for Ashland, Oregon to join a cutting-edge movement that
is picking up steam and building sweat-free communities all across the
country. For consideration at the Tuesday June 16 city council
meeting Ashland proposes strong policy with the following statement:
The City will use its purchasing procedures and spending authority to
promote the improvement of working conditions in the world by avoiding
the acquisition of uniform and clothing items that cannot be certifed
as being the product of a "sweat free" environment (not the product of
sweashop labor as defined in Resolution 2008-45, attached).
Ashland's campaign for the adoption of a sweatshop-free procurement
policy has been a project of Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice
(SOJwJ). SOJwJ chair Wes Brain comments: "It has been a year since
we started the Ashland Sweatfree Campaign and several things have come
together for Ashland to make this choice to move to become sweat-shop
free." Sweatfree Communities is a budding nationwide campaign which
has been highlighted in the Pacific Northwest in Portland, Oregon
where innovative cutting-edge policy has led the way in the non-
sweatshop procurement movement. Taxpayers in Portland flat out don't
like public dollars supporting sweatshops and Ashlanders
overwhelmingly agree. We don't want to purchase cheap garments that
are worn by our police and firemen if they are produced in conditions
that exploit workers including children and otherwise violate
international labor law."
As for the future of the Sweatfree Communites movement in Oregon: The
Portland Sweatfree Campaign showed Ashland a vision and provided the
boost to become sweatshop-free, and now the Jobs with Justice
coalition in Eugene is interested in a campaign, too. At the same
time sweatfree activists are now talking to state government officials
about Oregon adopting a sweatshop free procurement policy following
the example of eight other states. "The movement is taking off like
wildfire", states Brain.
Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice has led the Ashland Sweatfree
Campaign. The following campaign committee members are all Ashland
residents. Pam Vavra, Jason Houk, Brenda Gould, Rich Rohde, Steve
Ryan, Eric Navickas and Wes Brain.
Queries for additonal information can be made to:
Wes Brain
Chair, Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice
brain@mind.net
541-482-6988
or
Brenda Gould
Secretary, Southern Oregon Jobs with Justice
whitebarkpine@gmail.com
541-301-3337
BACKGROUND & ADDITIONAL RESOURCE MATERIALS FOLLOW
Proposed Ashland Administrative Policy, Resolution 2008-45 and
"Council Communication" for 6/16/09 meeting
http://ashland.or.us/Page.asp?NavID=11975
Sweatfree Communites webpage
http://www.sweatfree.org