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SAVE RENT CONTROL! NO ON PROP. 98!
http://leftinsf.com/blog/index.php/archives/2492

READ PROP. 98 AND PLEASE NOTE THAT IT READS:

"- Government may not set the price at which property owners sell or lease their property."

THIS MEANS NO MORE RENT CONTROL!

Read the whole thing at: http://yesprop98.com/read/?_adctlid=v%7Cwynx8c5jjesxsb%7Cwziq39twoqov52

"Proposition 98, the California Property Owner & Farmland Protection Act is simple -- it provides property rights protections for all. Right now, government has the right to take private property - our homes, family farms, mom-and-pop small businesses - to build a sports stadium, big-box chain store, or a hotel. Politically connected special interests use and abuse government's power of eminent domain to take and develop private property. The is what the initiative does:

- Private property may not be taken by eminent domain for private use under any circumstances (i.e. to build a shopping center, auto mall or industrial park).

- Property may be taken by eminent domain only for public use (i.e. freeway construction, parks, schools).

- Property may not be taken by government and used for the same purposes (i.e. residential housing cannot be used for government housing).

- Family farms and open space are protected from seizures by government for the purpose of selling the natural resources.

- If a public agency takes property under false pretenses, or abandons its plans, the property must be offered for sale to the original owner at the original price and the property tax would be assessed at the value of the property when it was originally condemned.

- If farmers or business owners are evicted by eminent domain, they would be entitled to compensation for temporary business losses, relocation expenses, business reestablishment costs and other reasonable expenses.

- Government may not set the price at which property owners sell or lease their property.

...SECTION 6. EFFECTIVE DATE
The provisions of this Act shall become effective on the day following the election ("effective date"); except that any statute, charter provision, ordinance, or regulation by a public agency enacted prior to January 1, 2007, that limits the price a rental property owner may charge a tenant to occupy a residential rental unit ("unit") or mobile home space ("space") may remain in effect as to such unit or space after the effective date for so long as, but only so long as, at least one of the tenants of such unit or space as of the effective date ("qualified tenant") continues to live in such unit or space as his or her principal place of residence. At such time as a unit or space no longer is used by any qualified tenant as his or her principal place of residence because, as to such unit or space, he or she has: (a) voluntarily vacated; (b) assigned, sublet, sold or transferred his or her tenancy rights either voluntarily or by court order; (c) abandoned; (d) died; or he or she has (e) been evicted pursuant to paragraph (2), (3), (4) or (5) of Section 1161 of the Code of Civil Procedure or Section 798.56 of the Civil Code as in effect on January 1, 2007; then, and in such event, the provisions of this Act shall be effective immediately as to such unit or space."

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Mike Prysner (Part 1 and Part 2 -- please watch both parts. Wow! This is powerful testimony. Thank you, Mike Prysner! ...bw)
Winter Soldier Testimonies
http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2?abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=8795#video
or try:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iTdxBECos8

Winter Soldier Mike Prysner testimony, Pt1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4i5ZUfpxnV0&feature=related
Winter Soldier Mike Prysner testimony Pt2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iTdxBECos8&feature=related

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Tent Cities, USA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnnOOo6tRs8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmeHiFZUWtE&NR=1

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The Paris Commune Told in Pictures
http://www.katardat.org/marxuniv/2002-COMPARIS/comparis-text/comparis-strip.html

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"What are they recruiting for?
Murder, rape, torture, war!"

JROTC MUST GO!
March with us to demand:
No Military in our Schools!
Wednesday, March 19, 5 P.M.
Civic Center, (Near Grove Street) San Francisco

Join with parents, teachers, students, and anti-war activists who demand that schools are for teaching about life skills, not military careers. Together we must demand that the San Francisco school board end JROTC at the end of this current school year, as they originally voted to do in 2006, but then, this year, caved in to Pentagon pressure and voted to extend JROTC for another year—reversing their original, well thought-out decision.

When in 2006, San Franciscans voted overwhelmingly to get the military out of our schools, the school board followed through with a strong resolution stating in part:

"The SFUSD (San Francisco Unified School District) has restricted the activities of military recruiters on our campuses...JROTC is a program wholly created and administrated by the United States Department of Defense, whose documents and memoranda clearly identify JROTC as an important recruiting arm; and...JROTC manifests the military's discrimination against LGBT people..."

It is legally and morally repugnant for the school district to continue to facilitate the military’s access to our students and become fixtures in our schools! As this illegal war in Iraq enters its 6th year, and a war with Iran looms ahead, JROTC must go NOW!

Contact JROTC Must Go!
(415) 575-5543
Bjrotcmustgo@gmail.com

THE NEXT MEETING OF JROTC MUST GO!
TUESDAY, APRIL 1, 7:00 P.M.
GLOBAL EXCHANGE
2017 Mission St (@ 16th), San Francisco
For more information on how you can become involved contact:
Bonnie Weinstein, (415) 824-8730
Nancy Macias, (415) 255-7296 ext. 229

NEW DANGER: ASSEMBLY BILL NUMBER 2429

California Assembly Bill Number 2429.
Bill Number 2429 was introduced by Assembly member Strickland on February 21, 2008 in the California Legislature. "This bill would require that a school district that prohibits JROTC programs from being established or conducting activities on its campus or campuses, or that prohibits or hinders its pupils from participating in an off-campus JROTC program, be prohibited from expending state funds on any extracurricular activity, as defined." For more information see
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/0708/bill/asm/ab_24012450/ab_2429_bill_20080221_introduced.pdf

ASSEMBLY BILL No. 2429
California legislature—2007–08 regular session
Introduced by Assembly Member Strickland
February 21, 2008
An act to add Article 5 (commencing with Section 52760) to Chapter
11 of Part 28 of Division 4 of Title 2 of the Education Code, relating
to extracurricular activities.
Legislative counsel’s digest
AB 2429, as introduced, Strickland. Extracurricular activities: Junior
Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) programs.
Existing law establishes the public school system in this state, and,
among other things, provides for the establishment of school districts
throughout the state and for their provision of instruction at the public
elementary and secondary schools they operate and maintain. Existing
law establishes a public school funding system that includes, among
other elements, the provision of funding to local educational agencies
through state apportionments, the proceeds of property taxes collected
at the local level, and other sources. Existing law authorizes public
schools to sponsor various extracurricular activities for their pupils.
This bill would require that a school or school district that prohibits
Junior Reserve Officers’Training Corps (JROTC) programs from being
established or conducting activities on its campus or campuses, or that
prohibits or hinders its pupils from participating in an off-campus
JROTC program, be prohibited from expending state funds on any
extracurricular activity, as defined.
Vote: majority. Appropriation: no. Fiscal committee: no.
State-mandated local program: no.
99
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
123456789
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
SECTION 1. Article 5 (commencing with Section 52760) is
added to Chapter 11 of Part 28 of Division 4 of Title 2 of the
Education Code, to read:
Article 5. Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC)
Programs
52760. A school or school district that prohibits Junior Reserve
Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC) programs from being
established or conducting activities on its campus or campuses, or
that prohibits or hinders its pupils from participating in an
off-campus JROTC program shall be prohibited from expending
state funds on any extracurricular activity. As used in this article,
“extracurricular activity” includes, but is not necessarily limited
to, cultural activities such as dramatic or musical performances,
field trips, and interscholastic sports events, and payments made
to school personnel who provide supervision for those activities.
O
99
— 2 — AB 2429

and
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/pub/0708/bill/asm/ab_24012450/ab_2429_bill_20080225_status.html

Send a letter to the Board of Education
JROTC MUST GO!

Please expand upon or send the letter below to the members of the
San Francisco Board of Education declaring:

We/I demand that the San Francisco school board phase
out JROTC at the end of the current 2007-2008 school
year, as you voted to do in 2006.

The reasons for phasing out JROTC are laid out very
clearly in the 2006 resolution.

http://portal.sfusd.edu/data/board/pdf/memberreso/sanchez%20kelly%20sub%20motion%20jrotc%20to%20budget%2010%2018%2006.pdf
(see below)

"The SFUSD has restricted the activities of military
recruiters on our campuses...

"JROTC is a program wholly created and administrated
by the United States Department of Defense, whose
documents and memoranda clearly identify JROTC as an
important recruiting arm; and...

"JROTC manifests the military's discrimination against
LGBT people..."

Given the dangerous role that the U.S. military is
playing in the world today, and given the military's
ongoing discrimination against LGBT people, it would
be legally and morally repugnant for the school
district to continue to facilitate the military's
access to our students.

Send letters to: (please send copies to Bonnie Weinstein at giobon@comcast and Riva Enteen at riva187@yahoo.com

Mr. Norman Yee
YeeN1@sfusd.edu

Hydra Mendoza
MendozaH@sfusd.edu

Eric Mar, Esq.
mare@sfusd.edu

Kim-Shree Maufas
MaufasKS@sfusd.edu

Jane Kim
kimj7@sfusd.edu

Mark Sanchez
sanchezm5@sfusd.edu

Jill Wynn
wynnj@sfusd.edu

Norman Yee
YeeN1@sfusd.edu

Substitute Motion , As Amended
Adopted by the Board of Education at its Regular Meeting of November 14, 2006.

Subject: Resolution No. 65-23A1

PHASING OUT THE JROTC PROGRAM

- Mark Sanchez and Dan Kelly

WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District has banned educational partnerships with outside organizations that discriminate against any group based upon sexual orientation; and

WHEREAS: Civilian control of the military, and restriction of military involvement in civilian affairs is a fundamental characteristic of a healthy democracy; and

WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District has restricted the activities of military recruiters on our campuses; and

WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District has adopted violence prevention and conflict resolution strategies that promote non-violent behavior; and

WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District requires that teachers of all academic courses be fully credentialed; and

WHEREAS: JROTC is a program wholly created and administrated by the United States Department of Defense, whose documents and memoranda clearly identify JROTC as an important recruiting arm; and

WHEREAS: No other potential employer or recruiter is given such a high profile, nor such extensive contact with students; and

WHEREAS: JROTC instructors are not certificated teachers, and may not even possess a college degree of any kind; and

WHEREAS: The San Francisco Unified School District share of JROTC salaries is provided from central budget, while regular PE teachers are charged against each school’s site-based budget; and

WHEREAS: JROTC manifests the military’s discrimination against LGBT people by offering non-LGBT students preferential enlistment options; and

WHEREAS: JROTC is one of the largest after school activities at some High Schools; and

WHEREAS: The Board of Education has received extensive testimony that JROTC promotes self-esteem, community service, and academic and leadership skills; and

WHEREAS: Many other student extra-curricular activities also develop self-esteem, academic and leadership skills, and a commitment to service; and

WHEREAS: The California Education Code permits, and some SFUSD schools allow, students to receive PE credit for sports participation, independent study, or other classes deemed equivalent.

Therefore Be It Resolved: The Board of Education finds that credentialing requirements for academic instructors and courses are not met by the JROTC, except where specifically allowable as a substitute for Physical Education; and

Be it Further Resolved: The Board of Education finds that JROTC programs on campus constitute a form of military recruitment and are in violation of our policy governing fair access for recruiters on campuses; and

Be it Further Resolved: The Board of Education finds that the JROTC program violates our anti discrimination policies with regard to LGBT students and adults; and

Be it Further Resolved: The Board of Education finds that the funding mechanism of the JROTC creates inequities between High Schools in SFUSD; and

Be it Further Resolved: The Board of Education finds that the JROTC is an inappropriate extension of the nation’s military into the civilian sphere; and

Be it Further Resolved: The Board of Education hereby begins a two-year phase out of all JROTC programs in the SFUSD resulting in no JROTC classes in the 2008-2009 school year and beyond; and

Be it Further Resolved: No new JROTC units or programs may be initiated at any SFUSD schools, effective immediately; and

Be it Further Resolved: That SFUSD staff shall not direct or require that students enroll in JROTC as an alternative to PE, or for any other reason; and

Be it Further Resolved: The Board of Education will grant PE credits for sports participation, independent study, and other courses deemed appropriate, and requests staff to provide guidelines for Board approval by the first meeting in January 2007; and

Be It Further Resolved: That the Board of Education calls for the creation of a special task force to develop alternative, creative, career driven programs with the elements of the existing JROTC program that students have indicated important to them, which then will provide students with a greater sense of purpose and respect for self and humankind; and

Be It Further Resolved: That any new programs being implemented beginning academic year 2007-08 are evaluated before the end of the school year to test student satisfaction.

11/14/06

Please Note:

Taken up by the Curriculum and Program Committee on August 23, 2006. Substitute motion accepted by general consent of the Committee. Substitute Motion forwarded to the Board with a positive recommendation from Committee, and to be taken up for action at the September 12, 2006 Regular Board Meeting by a vote of 2 ayes (Mar and Kelly), and 1 nay (Lipson).

Taken up by the Budget and Business Services Committee on 10/18/06. Substitute motion, as amended, forwarded to the Board with a positive recommendation (2 ayes, l nay (Wynns) ). The Budget and Business Services Committee recommends to the Board that the intention of the original motion to develop an alternative program be addressed.

Substitute motion amended and adopted on 11/14/06.

JROTC FACT SHEET

On November 14, 2006 the San Francisco Board of Education approved phasing out JROTC in the schools over two years [see 65-23A1 - Phasing Out The JROTC Program at www.sfusd.gov]. The current Board has delayed implementation. The State Superintendent of Education Jack O’Connell is entertaining an exemption from State law, which will allow JROTC to continue to count as Physical Education credit.

Myth: JROTC doesn’t recruit, it teaches citizenship and leadership.
Fact: Between 35 - 50% of JROTC students who spend three or more years in the program join the military.

Myth: JROTC does not cost the district monies.
Fact: JROTC costs SFUSD almost $ 1 million per year in S.F. taxpayers’ monies. All taxpayers kick in another $750,000 each year through the Department of Defense subsidy. And this $1.75 million goes to a handful of high schools with JROTC programs, causing a funding inequity in the District.

Myth: JROTC doesn’t discriminate; LGBT students participate in JROTC programs.
Fact: There are three tangible benefits for JROTC participation which are denied LGBT graduates of JROTC: (1) enlistment at a higher grade of E2 or E3, meaning greater pay: (2) eligibility for ROTC scholarships and ROTC credit; and (3) eligibility for nominations to the military academies. It is against the law for openly LGBT high school graduates to serve in the US military. And SFUSD is discriminating in hiring staff instructors since they are retired commissioned or non-commissioned officer (i.e., lasted 20 years before being separated from the military), none of whom could have been openly LGBT people. That is discrimination.

Myth: The military provides educational opportunities and job skills that students need.
Fact: Only 12% of male veterans and 6% of female veterans use skills learned in the military in their current jobs. Soldiers must make a $1,200 non-refundable deposit to be eligible for G.I. Bill money starting the first year of service. From 1986 – 93 the military took in $720 million more from G.I.s in non-refundable deposits than it paid out in college benefits. Only 15% of those who pay into the G.I. Bill graduate with four-year degrees.

LET THEM KNOW JROTC MUST GO!

Mark Sanchez, President, at sanchezm5@sfusd.edu; Kim-Shree Maufus, Vice President at MaufasKS@sfusd.edu; Jane Kim at kimj7@sfusd.edu; Eric Mar at mare@sfusd.edu; Hydra Mendoza at MendozaH@sfusd.edu; Jill Wynns at WynnsJ@sfusd.edu; and Norman Yee at YeeN1@sfusd.edu.
S.F. Superintendent Carlos Garcia at 555 Franklin Street, San Francisco, CA 94102 and
State Superintendent Jack O’Connell at CDOE, 1420 N Street, Sacramento, CA 95814 (916) 319-0800

JROTC Must Go! - (415) 575-5543 - jrotcmustgo@gmail.com


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Call for an Open U.S. National Antiwar Conference
Stop the War in Iraq! Bring the Troops Home Now!
Join us in Cleveland on June 28-29 for the conference.
Crown Plaza Hotel
Sponsored by the National Assembly to End the Iraq War and Occupation
P.O. Box 21008; Cleveland, OH 44121; Voice Mail: 216-736-4704; Email: NatAssembly@aol.com
http://natassembly.org/thecall/

List of Endorsers (below call):
http://natassembly.org/thecall/

Endorse the conference:
http://natassembly.org/endorse/

THE PURPOSE OF THE CONFERENCE:

2008 has ushered in the fifth year of the war against Iraq and an occupation "without end" of that beleaguered country. Unfortunately, the tremendous opposition in the U.S. to the war and occupation has not yet been fully reflected in united mass action.

The anniversary of the invasion has been marked in the U.S. by Iraq Veterans Against the War's (IVAW's) Winter Soldier hearings March 13-16, in Washington, DC, providing a forum for those who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan to expose the horrors perpetrated by the U.S. wars. A nonviolent civil disobedience action against the war in Iraq was also called for March 19 in Washington and local actions around the country were slated during that month as well.

These actions help to give voice and visibility to the deeply held antiwar sentiment of this country's majority. Yet what is also urgently needed is a massive national mobilization sponsored by a united antiwar movement capable of bringing hundreds of thousands into the streets to demand "Out Now!"

Such a mobilization, in our opinion, commemorating the fifth anniversary of the war -- and held on a day agreeable to the IVAW -- could have greatly enhanced all the other activities which were part of that commemoration in the U.S. Indeed, a call was issued in London by the World Against War Conference on December 1, 2007 where 1,200 delegates from 43 nations, including Iraq, voted unanimously to call on antiwar movements in every country to mobilize mass protests against the war during the week of March 15-22 to demand that foreign troops be withdrawn immediately.

The absence of a massive united mobilization during this period in the United States -- the nation whose weapons of terrifying mass destruction have rained death and devastation on the Iraqi people -- when the whole world will mobilize in the most massive protests possible to mark this fifth year of war, should be a cause of great concern to us all.

For Mass Action to Stop the War: The independent and united mobilization of the antiwar majority in massive peaceful demonstrations in the streets against the war in Iraq is a critical element in forcing the U.S. government to immediately withdraw all U.S. military forces from that country, close all military bases, and recognize the right of the Iraqi people to determine their own destiny.

Mass actions aimed at visibly and powerfully demonstrating the will of the majority to stop the war now would dramatically show the world that despite the staunch opposition to this demand by the U.S. government, the struggle by the American people to end the slaughter goes on. And that struggle will continue until the last of the troops are withdrawn. Such actions also help bring the people of the United States onto the stage of history as active players and as makers of history itself.

Indeed, the history of every successful U.S. social movement, whether it be the elementary fight to organize trade unions to defend workers' interests, or to bring down the Jim Crow system of racial segregation, or to end the war in Vietnam, is in great part the history of independent and united mass actions aimed at engaging the vast majority to collectively fight in its own interests and therefore in the interests of all humanity.

For an Open Democratic Antiwar Conference: The most effective way to initiate and prepare united antiwar mobilizations is through convening democratic and open conferences that function transparently, with all who attend the conferences having the right to vote. It is not reasonable to expect that closed or narrow meetings of a select few, or gatherings representing only one portion of the movement, can substitute for the full participation of the extremely broad array of forces which today stand opposed to the war.

We therefore invite everyone, every organization, every coalition, everywhere in the U.S. - all who oppose the war and the occupation -- to attend an open democratic U.S. national antiwar conference and join with us in advancing and promoting the coming together of an antiwar movement in this country with the power to make a mighty contribution toward ending the war and occupation of Iraq now.

Everyone is welcome. The objective is to place on the agenda of the entire U.S. antiwar movement a proposal for the largest possible united mass mobilization(s) in the future to stop the war and end the occupation.

Join us in Cleveland on June 28-29 for the conference.

List of Endorsers
http://natassembly.org/thecall/

Join us in Cleveland on June 28-29 for the conference.
Sponsored by the National Assembly to End the Iraq War and Occupation
P.O. Box 21008; Cleveland, OH 44121; Voice Mail: 216-736-4704; Email: NatAssembly@aol.com

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For Immediate Release
UPDATE: SIXTH AL-AWDA CONVENTION TO MARK 60 YEARS OF PALESTINIAN NAKBA
Embassy Suites Hotel Anaheim South, 11767 Harbor Boulevard,
Garden Grove, California, 92840
May 16-18, 2008

The 6th Annual International Al-Awda Convention will mark a devastating event in the long history of the Palestinian people. We call it our Nakba.

Confirmed speakers include Bishop Atallah Hanna, Supreme Justice Dr. Sheikh Taiseer Al Tamimi, Dr. Adel Samara, Dr. Salman Abu Sitta, Dr. Ghada Karmi, Dr. As'ad Abu Khalil, Dr. Saree Makdisi, and Ramzy Baroud. Former Prime Minister of Lebanon Salim El Hos and Palestinian Legislative Council member Khalida Jarrar have also been invited.

Host Organizations for the sixth international Al-Awda convention include Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, Palestinian American Women Association, Free Palestine Alliance, National Council of Arab-Americans, Middle East Cultural and Information Center - San Diego, The Arab Community Center of the Inland Empire, Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid - Southern California, Palestine Aid Society, Palestinian American Congress, Bethlehem Association, Al-Mubadara - Southern California, Union of Palestinian American Women, Birzeit Society , El-Bireh Society, Arab American Friends of Nazareth, Ramallah Club, A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, International Action Center , Students for Justice in Palestine at CSUSB, Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA, Students for Justice in Palestine at UCR, Students for International Knowledge at CSUSB, Muslim Students Association at Palomar College, Muslim Students Association at UCSD, and Muslim Students Association at Mira Costa.

BACKGROUND

In May of 1948, with the support of the governments of the United States, Britain, and other European powers, Zionists declared the establishment of the "State of Israel" on stolen Palestinian Arab land and intensified their full-scale attack on Palestine. They occupied our land and forcibly expelled three quarters of a million of our people. This continues to be our great catastrophe, which we, as Palestinians with our supporters, have been struggling to overcome since.

The sixth international Al-Awda convention is taking place at a turning point in our struggle to return and reclaim our stolen homeland. Today, there are close to 10 million Palestinians of whom 7.5 million are living in forced exile from their homeland. While the Zionist "State of Israel" continues to besiege, sanction, deprive, isolate, discriminate against and murder our people, in addition to continually stealing more of our land, our resistance has grown. Along with our sisters and brothers at home and elsewhere in exile, Al-Awda has remained steadfast in demanding the implementation of the sacred, non-negotiable national, individual and collective right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands.

The sixth international Al-Awda convention will be a historic and unique event. The convention will aim to recapitulate Palestinian history with the help of those who have lived it, and to strengthen our ability to educate the US public about the importance and justness of implementing the unconditional right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands. With symposia and specialty workshops, the focus of the convention will be on education that lead to strategies and mechanisms for expanding the effectiveness of our advocacy for the return.

INVITATION

We invite all Al-Awda members, and groups and individuals who support the implementation of the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes of origin, and to reclaim their land, to join us in this landmark Sixth Annual International Convention on the 60th year of Al-Nakba.

MASS RALLY FOR THE RETURN TO PALESTINE

The convention will culminate in a major demonstration to mark 60 years of Nakba and to call for The RETURN TO PALESTINE. The demonstration will be held in solidarity and coordination with our sisters and brothers who continue the struggle in our beloved homeland.

DON'T DELAY! REGISTER TODAY!

Organizational endorsements welcome. Please write to us at convention6@ al-awda.org

For information on how to become part of the host committee, please write to convention6@ al-awda.org

For more information, please go to http://al-awda. org/convention6 and keep revisiting that page as it is being updated regularly.

To submit speaker and panel/workshop proposals, write to
info@al-awda. org or convention6@ al-awda.org

Until return,

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
Tel: 760-685-3243
Fax: 360-933-3568
E-mail: info@al-awda. org
WWW: http://al-awda. org

Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition (PRRC) is the largest network of grassroots activists and students dedicated to Palestinian human rights. We are a not for profit tax-exempt educational and charitable 501(c)(3) organization as defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States of America. Under IRS guidelines, your donations to PRRC are tax-deductible.

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SUPPORT THE DAY AFTER DEMONSTRATIONS TO FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL

SEE THE "TODAY SHOW" STORY ON MUMIA ABU-JAMAL - NOW ON YOUTUBE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz-NL0Ju6aE

From: LACFreeMumia@aol.com

A ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals on Mumia's case, based on the hearing in Philadelphia on May 17th 2007, is expected momentarily. Freeing Mumia immediately is what is needed, but that is not an option before this court. The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal calls on everyone who supports Mumia‚s case for freedom, to rally the day after a decision comes down. Here are Bay Area day-after details:

OAKLAND:

14th and Broadway, near the Federal Building
4:30 to 6:30 PM the day after a ruling is announced,
or on Monday if the ruling comes down on a Friday.

Oakland demonstration called by the Partisan Defense Committee and Labor Black Leagues, to be held if the Court upholds the death sentence, or denies Mumia's appeals for a new trial or a new hearing. info at (510) 839-0852 or pdcbayarea@sbcglobal.org

SAN FRANCISCO:

Federal Courthouse, 7th & Mission
5 PM the day after a ruling is announced,
or Monday if the decision comes down on a Friday

San Francisco demo called by the Mobilization To Free Mumia,
info at (415) 255-1085 or www.freemumia.org

Day-after demonstrations are also planned in:

Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Toronto, Vancouver
and other cities internationally.

A National Demonstration is to be held in Philadelphia, 3rd Saturday after the decision

For more information, contact: International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, www.mumia.org;
Partisan Defense Committee, www.partisandefense.org;
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC), www.freemumia.com;

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL IS INNOCENT!

World-renowned journalist, death-row inmate and political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal is completely innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. Mountains of evidence--unheard or ignored by the courts--shows this. He is a victim, like thousands of others, of the racist, corrupt criminal justice system in the US; only in his case, there is an added measure of political persecution. Jamal is a former member of the Black Panther Party, and is still an outspoken and active critic of the on-going racism and imperialism of the US. They want to silence him more than they want to kill him.

Anyone who has ever been victimized by, protested or been concerned about the racist travesties of justice meted out to blacks in the US, as well as attacks on immigrants, workers and revolutionary critics of the system, needs to take a close look at the frame-up of Mumia. He is innocent, and he needs to be free.

FREE MUMIA NOW!

END THE RACIST DEATH PENALTY!

FOR MASS PROTESTS AND LABOR ACTION TO FREE MUMIA!

In 1995, mass mobilizations helped save Mumia from death.

In 1999, longshore workers shut West Coast ports to free Mumia, and teachers in Oakland and Rio de Janeiro held teach-ins and stop-works.

Mumia needs powerful support again now. Come out to free Mumia!

- The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222, Oakland CA 94610
510.763.2347
LACFreeMumia@aol.com

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Center for Labor Renewal Statement and Call for the Elimination of Two-Tier Workplaces

On Saturday, January 26, 2008, over 80 U.S. and Canadian auto industry worker/activists met in Flint, Michigan, birthplace of militant unionism in the Auto Industry in the late 1903s. The agenda was how to measure and respond to the crippling impact of the 2007 auto industry collective bargaining agreements. The daylong discussions led to the issuance of the following Statement and Call for a:

Campaign to oppose two-tier wages

The United States has never been an equal opportunity society. During periods of intense collective struggle workers made economic gains, but sustained progress in equity distribution has not been achieved. Capital’s effort to exploit labor is never put on hold for long. Over the past 30 years corporate America, often supported by government, has engaged in an all-out assault on working people. That relentless campaign has increased and extended social inequality to levels many had not thought possible without triggering a concerted rebellion from the ranks of labor. Such an upsurge of resistance has not yet coalesced but there are indications that worker anger and disillusionment is rising.

Corporate aggression, particularly in historically well-organized, higher wage industries is increasingly tied to capital’s global restructuring agenda, which is capitalizing on the low standard of living prevalent in impoverished countries and regions around the world. The rising demand for U.S. worker concessions in such sectors as auto, metalwork, electronics, communications, etc. is part of that restructuring process and, unchallenged, sweeps all workers into a downward spiral of wage and working conditions. Employer claims that competition necessitates wage and benefit reductions in order to save jobs has become the weapon of choice. Workers are told they have to choose between massive reductions for future generations of workers or no job at all.

That this is happening in the most heavily unionized industries reveals the effectiveness of the corporate strategy to both disarm and attract many union leaders and some portion of the base to accept the proposition that pursuing their agenda of “competitiveness” is in our mutual interest. The U.S. labor leadership has not put forward any meaningful alternatives to global corporate restructuring. Embracing the companies’ “competitiveness” agenda is a flawed, if not fatal strategy.

The corporations are demanding, and the unions are accepting, permanent two-tier wage schemes whereby new hires work side by side with workers earning substantially higher wages for the same tasks. This new, generalized wage retreat comes after years of unresolved wage inequities that have disproportionately affected women and workers of color in U.S. workplaces. The introduction of both two-tier and “permanent temporary” workers in auto plants adds more layers of blatant discrimination. We must continue to fight against all forms of discrimination in two-tier wage structures, whether directed at workers of color or women, or now “the new hire” and the defenseless temp workers.

Our acceptance makes us an accessory to corporate divide and conquer schemes

Allowing the employers to expand inequality, rather then resolve it fosters additional resentment among workers and recklessly severs solidarity between generations. Two-tier wage agreements and the use of permanent temporary workers make the union partners in the business of exploiting workers.

Big Three auto contracts institutionalize second-class workers

In the 2007 Big Three auto negotiations the UAW, a once powerful wage and benefits pacesetter, agreed to a radically reduced two-tier wage and benefit package. The Big Three auto agreement cuts wages for new workers by up to 50 percent (67 percent if you include benefits) for doing the same work as current workers. The need to help the companies be more “competitive” to insure “job security” was the advertised selling point. The 25-year history of concession bargaining in auto has not stopped the massive decline in the ranks of the Big Three from 750,000 in 1979 when the concession era began to 170,000 today. Yet contract after contract during that period were heralded as “historic job security” agreements.

In 200 the UAW negotiated a Supplemental Two-Tier Wage Agreement for new hires at Delphi Corporation, a former GM Parts division, which had been “spun-off” as an independent parts supplier in 1999. Members of one UAW-Delphi Local, Local 2151 voted to appeal the International Union’s decision not to permit the thousands of Delphi union members to vote on the Supplemental Two-Tier Agreement, which affected them. In defense of their decision to evade ratification the UAW International Executive Board argued that the “future hire group is a null class.”

The segregation of future union members into a “null class” is a ruthless act of discrimination against an entire generation, and another example of the failure of competitiveness to secure jobs. Delphi subsequently used bankruptcy as a strategy to further restructure and destroy jobs and incomes. Within four years 27,000 out of 33,000 union members were eliminated at Delphi and the remaining workers were brought down to the lower wage and benefit scale.
Wage costs are not the problem

Wages and benefits of assembly workers account for less than 10 percent of the cost of a car and differentials between companies are not significant, especially since GM, Ford, and Chrysler’s competitors are primarily building cars inside the U.S. Furthermore, productivity in the auto industry has been rising rapidly: real output per worker has more than doubled since 1987. Even the Harbour-Felax Report—which analysts consider the industry bible on productivity—has acknowledged that: the Big Three has now largely eliminated the productivity gap with Japanese manufacturers.

In a globally restructured auto industry, it was inevitable that the Big Three would not sustain their monopoly control of the domestic market. Their arrogance toward foreign producers is only matched by their greed and arrogance toward consumers. This resulted in decades of marketing second rate, unimaginative, and shoddily engineered products at the same time union workers were making concessions allegedly to help them be more competitive. Yet, coming on the heels of the Delphi bankruptcy, the 2007 negotiations were pitched as if the sacrifices of workers was the only thing that could help the domestic auto manufacturers out of the “competitiveness” hole they’d dug themselves into. Making workers pay for the bosses’ mistakes is as much a national pastime as baseball.

The new-hire wage rates in UAW contracts with the Big Three automakers are now set below the average industrial wage in the U.S. which is already below that of other major developed countries. The competitive spiral will accelerate as foreign transplants are relieved of the pressure to match union wages. The failure to protect wages, benefits, and working conditions means that it will be even more difficult for the UAW to organize new workers. Yet the real answer to the “competitiveness” question lies in organizing the workers employed by the anti-union foreign owned producers and taking wages, benefits, and working conditions out of competition through solidarity-unionism.

For Canadian Auto Workers whose collective agreements with the same Big Three companies expire in September of 2008, the reduced new worker hire rate and permanent two-tier precedents set in the U.S. will represent a huge challenge. CAW members have traditionally resisted the concession patterns of their neighbors to the South; their continued resistance in their negotiations this Fall would be reinforced by a rising tide of opposition from U.S. auto workers to slashing wages and attacks on worker dignity.

The Japanese companies have already introduced the two-tier half-wage system in Japan. The threat of unionization had, until now, blocked their trying it here. But with the implementation of two-tier in the Big Three plants, they can now do the same in this country. Net result: no shift in relative competitiveness, but a destructive further lowering of wages for all auto industry workers.

Furthermore, now that the new hire wage rate is set below the industry average for the Big Three, workers in the auto parts supply industry will be confronted with a stark choice: accept lower wages or their jobs will be outsourced, or more correctly “re-insourced,” to the big auto companies at the radically reduced new lower tier wages. Once again the net result is zero security for workers and a further collapse in living standards. As part and parcel of the concessions mentality, the auto union failed to pursue its own longstanding demand for single-payer national healthcare (for all). Instead, they agreed to relieve Big Three automakers of billions of dollars in legacy costs for retiree healthcare protection by accepting responsibility for future coverage through an under-funded Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association, or VEBA.

The UAW is not the only union that has bargained away equality within the workforce. This trend is the deathwatch for the labor movement in our era. Union collaboration in wage discrimination for the sake of competitiveness is the counsel of despair. The future of active and retired workers is inextricably bound with the future of new workers. The segregation of future union members into a “null class” is an invitation for “payback” at some future time. If new hires are treated as a “null class,” one day they will in turn classify senior workers and retirees as a “null class.” There is no seniority date for dignity and should be no retirement from solidarity.

The corporate blitzkrieg on working people is subsidized with tax abatements while health, education, and social programs are slashed to the bone. The parrots of the status quo insist there is no alternative to an economic system that degrades workers, deprives the unfortunate of health care, undermines the security of the elderly, and desecrates the environment. It’s a lie. The degradation of the working class is chronic and contagious. We need strategic collective action with allies here and around the world.

History suggests that UAW members would have followed the lead of a progressive leadership to militantly resist the destruction of wage parity and other hard won gains in the workplace. But nearly 30 years of concession bargaining and yielding to the “logic of the competitiveness agenda” produced an opposite result.

Workers throughout all employment sectors face this same assault on wages, benefits, and working conditions in one form or another. It is time for all workers to reject the false logic of corporate competitiveness and reinvigorate the logic of solidarity.

Today, we stand at the crossroad knowing full well where both roads lead. One road leads to division, despair, and social isolation, and the other road points to hope, solidarity, and the dignity of collective struggle.
Call for national campaign

In conjunction with the Center for Labor Renewal, participants at the Flint, January 26, 2008 meeting issue the following Call:

In the face of the continuing assault on worker wages, benefits, and the quality of work life where rising economic injustice is destroying the stability and hopes of an increasing numbers of workers and their families, here and around the world; and where inequality and income discrimination are celebrated by a protected few at the desperate expense of so many others; we call on all workers of conscience everywhere to join a campaign to bring our collective strength and renewed solidarity to the struggle against the agenda of social devaluation and despair.

Workers in the auto industry have a critical role to play in this campaign given the destructive events in that industry which now, more than ever, seeks to validate the pitting of workers against workers, and communities against communities, and the glorification of the false dog-eat-dog, workplace agenda of the corporations today. In that world its “winner-take-all,” and the winner has been pre-determined. We call on all auto workers to reject all forms of wage discrimination and renew the fight for industrial democracy through worker solidarity, and to:

• Build within our workplaces, a movement against two-tier wages, and a renewal of solidarity unionism by means of varied communications vehicles including the internet; web sites; newsletters and plant gate handbills, etc.

• Promote crosscurrents of opposition against the creation of second-class workers in all workplaces.

• Where a two-tier system is in place, concretely demonstrate to the new workers that there is a strong base of resistance against the discrimination they face, and that we all need to remember the lesson that “an injury to one, is an injury to all.”

• Within the Big Three, or any auto workplaces, target the rejection of future agreements (2011 in the Big Three ) if they do not reverse the two-tier system.

• Promote internal democracy to encourage the inclusion and participation of the second tier workers alongside the entire rank and file to change the concessionary path followed by the current leadership.

Such a campaign will need mechanisms to facilitate links, exchange information, and assist in the coordination of future actions. Coming out of a meeting organized by the Center for Labor Renewal (CLR) of 80 activists in Flint, Michigan, the CLR commits to:

• Collect and develop material for building the necessary base in the workplace and its electronic dissemination. Assist in the development and proliferation of additional vehicles of communication.

• Develop an information clearinghouse to gather and disseminate reports and updates on local struggles and developments.

• Support regional forums to assist activists in developing the arguments and organizational capacities to build the solidarity program at the base

• Facilitate national meetings through which local activists can assess the campaign and collectively strategize on further events and actions.

• Promote the development of the analytical tools required by union activists to successfully integrate this campaign with a workers’ struggle that is increasingly global in dimension.

This fight is winnable. The U.S. working class needs a victory and it needs this victory in particular. The one-sided class war against workers has gone on far too long. The defeat of the two tier system is a crucial step in the struggle to address broader inequalities in our society. It’s time to draw the line.

—Center for Labor Renewal/

—Future of the Union/

—Factory Rat/

—Soldiers of Solidarity

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ARTICLES IN FULL:

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1) Costs Surge for Stocking the Pantry
By ANDREW MARTIN and MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
March 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/business/15consumer.html?ref=business

2) Through Bush-Colored Glasses
Editorial
March 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/opinion/16sun1.html?hp

3) Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11
Obama's Pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Has a History of What Even Obama's Campaign Aides Say Is 'Inflammatory Rhetoric'
By BRIAN ROSS and REHAB EL-BURI
March 13, 2008—
http://www.rightsidenews.com/20080315519/culture-wars/america-s-chickens-are-coming-home-to-roost.html
Check out: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4443230&affil=wabc

4) Measuring Wealth by the Foot
Backdrop
By PATRICIA KRANZ
March 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/business/16drop.html?ref=business

5) The B Word
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
March 17, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/opinion/17krugman.html?hp

6) Please get this Peltier info out there
From: Keith [mailto:rockartist1@earthlink.net]
Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2008 6:30 PM

7) Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace
By FELICITY BARRINGER
March 17, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/science/earth/17salmon.html?ref=science

8) The Case for Another Drug War, Against Pharmaceutical Marketers’ Dirty Tactics
By JANET MASLIN
March 17, 2008
Books of The Times
OUR DAILY MEDS
How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs
By Melody Petersen
432 pp. Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar Straus & Giroux. $26.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/books/17masl.html?ref=health

9) Examining the war in Iraq after 5 years
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, March 16, 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/16/MNS1VJAIG.DTL

10) New Jersey to Consider Health Plan to Cover All
“Of grave concern is the proposal’s underlying policy that seeks to shift the cost of coverage away from a shared responsibility between employers and employees,” said Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, executive director of New Jersey Citizen Action. “Senator Vitale’s proposal would have insurance costs borne solely by consumers and taxpayers.”
By DAVID W. CHEN
March 18, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/nyregion/18health.html?ref=nyregion

11) Queenfish: A Cold War Tale
By WILLIAM J. BROAD
March 18, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/18/science/18arctic.html?ref=science

12) Guantanamo, NY--USA v Hashmi
Lynne Stewart
lynneportia@earthlink.net

13) Estimates of Iraq War Cost Were Not Close to Ballpark
“Five years in, the Pentagon tags the cost of the Iraq war at roughly $600 billion and counting. Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist and critic of the war, pegs the long-term cost at more than $4 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office and other analysts say that $1 trillion to $2 trillion is more realistic, depending on troop levels and on how long the American occupation continues.”
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
March 19, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html?ref=world

14) Recession, Depression or Stagflation
of Another Kind
By the Editors
March/April 2008
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/

15) Disposable Children, Disposable Slaves
By Bonnie Weinstein
March/April 2008
http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/marapr_08/marapr_08_07.html

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1) Costs Surge for Stocking the Pantry
By ANDREW MARTIN and MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
March 15, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/business/15consumer.html?ref=business

The government announced Friday that the cost of food had gone up yet again. This came as no revelation to Bruce Newton, a single father of two children.

As he wheeled a cart full of groceries out of a Stop & Shop supermarket in Bloomfield, N.J., on Thursday night, Mr. Newton complained that the price of chicken had become “outrageous,” and eggs were so costly his mother sent him from store to store hunting for the cheapest ones. Essential breakfast items like milk, cereal and orange juice have become “so expensive, but what are you going to do?”

Mr. Newton’s pain is being felt in grocery checkout aisles across the country. Government figures released Friday showed that grocery costs had jumped 5.1 percent in 12 months, the latest in a string of increases. In fact, the nation is undergoing its worst grocery inflation since the early 1990s.

With a few exceptions, nearly every grocery category measured by the Labor Department, which compiles the official inflation numbers, has increased in the last year. Milk is up 17 percent, as are dried beans, peas and lentils. Cheese is up 15 percent, rice and pasta 13 percent, and bread 12 percent.

No food product has gone up as much as eggs, jumping 25 percent since February 2007 and 62 percent in the last two years.

“It’s a great time to be an egg farmer,” said Paul Sauder, a third-generation farmer in Lititz, Pa. His farm ships eggs to food service customers and grocery stores, including Stop & Shop. “We’ve never encountered this kind of run like we’ve had right now.”

While food costs increased, overall inflation held steady in February as the cost of gasoline declined that month, according to the latest Consumer Price Index, which the Labor Department updates monthly. That was an unexpected dose of good economic news that opens the door for more aggressive interest-rate cuts by the Federal Reserve, which is trying to head off a recession.

But many analysts do not expect the lower inflation rate to last. Gasoline prices turned around in March and are setting records every day, hitting a nationwide average of $3.28 a gallon in the most recent report by AAA, the automobile club. That puts more pressure on consumers’ pocketbooks as they muddle through an economic slowdown.

“It’s a temporary respite,” said John Lonski, chief economist at Moody’s Investors Service. “The renewed ascent of gasoline prices, if nothing else, promises a faster rate of inflation for March.”

Still, the flat reading on the Consumer Price Index was a welcome development after several months of steadily building price pressures. Consumer prices were unchanged in February, and the closely watched core index, which excludes the prices of volatile food and energy products, also stayed flat.

With the economy in a significant downturn, and possibly a recession, some had feared a repeat of 1970s-style stagflation. Inflation rose 0.4 percent in January and December, and economists had been bracing for another uptick last month.

Instead, the Labor Department report showed price declines across a broad range of consumer products, including clothing, personal computers and automobiles. The easing came despite a record-low dollar and a rise in the price of imports.

The March inflation report, due April 16, “will capture the extraordinary surge in oil, food and commodity prices that we’ve seen over the last few weeks,” said Joseph Brusuelas, chief United States economist at the research firm IdeaGlobal.

Lower inflation may encourage the Fed to lower interest rates more aggressively at its next scheduled meeting, on Tuesday. Rate cuts promote growth but can push prices higher, and the Fed has struggled to balance its attempts to stave off a recession with the brisk pace of inflation.

For the year, inflation is still running high. Compared with a year ago, consumer prices were up 4 percent in February, and the core index rose 2.3 percent, higher than the Fed’s comfort level.

If there is a silver lining in the food statistics it is that grocery prices did not increase as much in February (up 0.3 percent from the previous month) as they did in January (up 0.9 percent).

But Ephraim Leibtag, who tracks food prices for the Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service, said that with farm prices remaining near record levels, he was not optimistic that food prices would moderate in 2008. Instead, he predicted that food inflation would be at least as high as in 2007, perhaps higher.

Mr. Leibtag predicted that cereal and baking products would continue to increase because of steep prices for wheat; in fact, the price of cereal and bakery products increased 1.8 percent in February, the largest monthly gain since January 1975. Economists say higher food costs are being caused by rising energy prices, a weak dollar that encourages exports of American crops and food products, and soaring prices for farm commodities like milk, corn and wheat.

Whether eggs will continue to lead the way on prices remains uncertain. For the time being, farmers like Mr. Sauder are enjoying the high prices while they last.

“Two years ago, everyone was ready to give their farm away because they were all losing money,” Mr. Sauder said. “It goes in cycles.”

The sharp increase in egg prices was caused by a confluence of factors, among them a contraction of the industry because of the slump in 2005 and 2006 and a major increase in feed costs. About three-quarters of feed for laying hens is corn, and the price of corn has been driven up in part by government mandates for production of ethanol.

Gene Gregory, president and chief executive of the United Egg Producers, said feed costs have increased about $100 a ton in the last year, to $250. Because the cost of feed is so high and its future direction uncertain, many farmers have reduced the size of their flocks, he said.

“We are in uncharted waters,” Mr. Gregory said. “Egg producers are recognizing higher profits now than they have for many years. But we also realize these things change quickly.”

At the store in Bloomfield, shoppers complained the other night that food costs have left them reeling. “I’ve spent $300 in a matter of two weeks,” Roseann Fede said. “It used to be like $150. Milk, eggs, nonperishable things, everything has gone up in price.”

Jomarie and Rafaelito Ortiz emerged from Stop & Shop with a cart stuffed full of bags, mostly to feed their four teenage boys. Asked whether they have noticed a difference in their grocery bills, Ms. Ortiz said, “Are you kidding me?”

“Our food bills are $600, $700,” she said, explaining that they were closer to $400 a year or two ago. “The cereal was astronomical.”

Her husband agreed and suggested that they might be better off buying a few cows of their own. “The way food prices are going,” he said, “I’m going to buy a ranch.”

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2) Through Bush-Colored Glasses
Editorial
March 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/opinion/16sun1.html?hp

President Bush admitted on Friday that times are tough. So much for the straight talk.

Mr. Bush went on to paint a false picture of the economy. He dismissed virtually every proposal Congress is working on to alleviate the mortgage crisis, sticking to his administration’s inadequate ideas. And despite the rush of serious problems — frozen credit markets, millions of impending mortgage defaults, solvency issues at banks, a plunging dollar — he said that a major source of uncertainty today is whether his tax cuts, scheduled to expire in 2010, would be extended.

This was too far afield of reality to be dismissed as simple cheerleading. It points to the pressing need for a coherent plan to steer through what some economists are now predicting could be a severe downturn. Mr. Bush’s denial of the economic truth underscores the need for Congress to push forward with solutions to the mortgage crisis — especially bankruptcy reform to help defaulting homeowners. Lawmakers also must prepare to execute, in case it is needed, a government rescue of people whose homes are now worth less than they borrowed to buy them.

Mr. Bush said he was optimistic because the economy’s “foundation is solid” as measured by employment, wages, productivity, exports and the federal deficit. He was wrong on every count. On some, he has been wrong for quite a while.

Mr. Bush boasted about 52 consecutive months of job growth during his presidency. What matters is the magnitude of growth, not ticks on a calendar. The economic expansion under Mr. Bush — which it is safe to assume is now over — produced job growth of 4.2 percent. That is the worst performance over a business cycle since the government started keeping track in 1945.

Mr. Bush also talked approvingly of the recent unemployment rate of 4.8 percent. A low rate is good news when it indicates a robust job market. The unemployment rate ticked down last month because hundreds of thousands of people dropped out of the work force altogether. Worse, long-term unemployment, of six months or more, hit 17.5 percent. We’d expect that in the depths of a recession. It is unprecedented at the onset of one.

Mr. Bush was wrong to say wages are rising. On Friday morning, the day he spoke, the government reported that wages failed to outpace inflation in February, for the fifth straight month. Productivity growth has also weakened markedly in the past two years, a harbinger of a lower overall standard of living for Americans.

Exports have surged of late, but largely on the back of a falling dollar. The weaker dollar makes American exports cheaper, but it also pushes up oil prices. Potentially far more serious, a weakening dollar also reduces the Federal Reserve’s flexibility to steady the economy.

Finally, Mr. Bush’s focus on the size of the federal budget deficit ignores that annual government borrowing comes on top of existing debt. Publicly held federal debt will be up by a stunning 76 percent by the end of his presidency. Paying back the money means less to spend on everything else for a very long time.

The fiscal stimulus passed by Congress, and touted by Mr. Bush on Friday, could juice growth for a quarter or two later this year. But the economy’s fundamental weaknesses indicate that Americans are ill-prepared for hard times. That makes the need for clear-eyed policies all the more urgent. We need them from the president, Congress and the contenders for the White House.

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3) Obama's Pastor: God Damn America, U.S. to Blame for 9/11
Obama's Pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Has a History of What Even Obama's Campaign Aides Say Is 'Inflammatory Rhetoric'
By BRIAN ROSS and REHAB EL-BURI
March 13, 2008—
http://www.rightsidenews.com/20080315519/culture-wars/america-s-chickens-are-coming-home-to-roost.html
Check out: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=4443230&affil=wabc

Sen. Barack Obama's pastor says blacks should not sing "God Bless America" but "God damn America."

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama's pastor for the last 20 years at the Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago's south side, has a long history of what even Obama's campaign aides concede is "inflammatory rhetoric," including the assertion that the United States brought on the 9/11 attacks with its own "terrorism."

In a campaign appearance earlier this month, Sen. Obama said, "I don't think my church is actually particularly controversial." He said Rev. Wright "is like an old uncle who says things I don't always agree with," telling a Jewish group that everyone has someone like that in their family.

Rev. Wright married Obama and his wife Michelle, baptized their two daughters and is credited by Obama for the title of his book, "The Audacity of Hope."

An ABC News review of dozens of Rev. Wright's sermons, offered for sale by the church, found repeated denunciations of the U.S. based on what he described as his reading of the Gospels and the treatment of black Americans.

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people," he said in a 2003 sermon. "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

In addition to damning America, he told his congregation on the Sunday after Sept. 11, 2001 that the United States had brought on al Qaeda's attacks because of its own terrorism.

"We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye," Rev. Wright said in a sermon on Sept. 16, 2001.

"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost," he told his congregation.

Sen. Obama told the New York Times he was not at the church on the day of Rev. Wright's 9/11 sermon. "The violence of 9/11 was inexcusable and without justification," Obama said in a recent interview. "It sounds like he was trying to be provocative," Obama told the paper.

Rev. Wright, who announced his retirement last month, has built a large and loyal following at his church with his mesmerizing sermons, mixing traditional spiritual content and his views on contemporary issues.

"I wouldn't call it radical. I call it being black in America," said one congregation member outside the church last Sunday.

"He has impacted the life of Barack Obama so much so that he wants to portray that feeling he got from Rev. Wright onto the country because we all need something positive," said another member of the congregation.

Rev. Wright, who declined to be interviewed by ABC News, is considered one of the country's 10 most influential black pastors, according to members of the Obama campaign.

Obama has praised at least one aspect of Rev. Wright's approach, referring to his "social gospel" and his focus on Africa, "and I agree with him on that."

Sen. Obama declined to comment on Rev. Wright's denunciations of the United States, but a campaign religious adviser, Shaun Casey, appearing on "Good Morning America" Thursday, said Obama "had repudiated" those comments.

In a statement to ABCNews.com, Obama's press spokesman Bill Burton said, "Sen. Obama has said repeatedly that personal attacks such as this have no place in this campaign or our politics, whether they're offered from a platform at a rally or the pulpit of a church. Sen. Obama does not think of the pastor of his church in political terms. Like a member of his family, there are things he says with which Sen. Obama deeply disagrees. But now that he is retired, that doesn't detract from Sen. Obama's affection for Rev. Wright or his appreciation for the good works he has done."

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4) Measuring Wealth by the Foot
Backdrop
By PATRICIA KRANZ
March 16, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/business/16drop.html?ref=business

IN a shipyard in Germany, Blohm & Voss workers are building a mammoth yacht called the Eclipse.

Like many things in the secretive world of superyachts, its exact length is hard to pin down. So is the name of its owner, and the cost of building it.

But according to the Web site of The Yacht Report, one of several publications that track yachting with the same intensity that gossip magazines cover Hollywood hunks, the Eclipse is 531.5 feet long.

That’s six and a half feet longer than the Dubai, an 11,600-ton behemoth that now holds the record as the world’s largest yacht. Its owner is the ruler of Dubai, Sheik Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum.

The extra length on the Eclipse isn’t an accident. Supersized yachts are the latest examples of one-upmanship among billionaires, many of whom already own a private jet, a Rolls-Royce or two, and multiple mansions.

Despite fear of an economic recession and unrelenting job pressures among those who remain yachtless, there’s still a lot of money floating around the world. And as the superrich get richer, the size of yachts grows bigger and bigger, too.

“When a yacht is over 328 feet, it’s so big that you lose the intimacy,” says Tork Buckley, editor of The Yacht Report. “On the other hand, you’ve got bragging rights. No question, that’s a very strong part of the motivation.”

Who will be the one to wrest bragging rights from the sheik? Blohm & Voss, a leading shipbuilder, isn’t saying. According to an executive at a different yacht company, who requested anonymity because he was concerned about losing clients, it is being built for Roman Abramovich, a Russian tycoon.

Mr. Abramovich already owns the 282-foot Ecstasea and the 377-foot Pelorus, and Web sites that track yachts speculate that he may be the owner of a new 394-foot yacht called Sigma that resembles a battleship. A spokesman for Mr. Abramovich declined to comment.

Just four years ago, when Lawrence J. Ellison, the chief executive of the Oracle Corporation, took possession of the 454-foot Rising Sun, he gained crowing rights over Paul Allen, the Microsoft co-founder. Mr. Allen’s yacht, the Octopus, is relatively minuscule at 417 feet. (Since then, David Geffen, the Hollywood mogul, has bought a 50 percent share of the Rising Sun from Mr. Ellison.)

Many yacht owners are entrepreneurs or industrialists, rather than royalty or bold-faced names from Silicon Valley, according to yacht designers and builders. “One of my clients is a woman who started her own business and ended up making cocktail-type quiches sold through Costco and Wal-Mart,” said Douglas Sharp, who owns a yacht design company in San Diego.

Like Mr. Abramovich, a growing number of yacht buyers are from emerging markets. “There’s an incredible amount of disposable money in the world at the moment, and a lot of money is coming out of new markets like Russia and Ukraine, as well as India,” says Jonathan Beckett, chief executive of Burgess, a company that helps owners build and charter yachts. “These people have made a lot of money very quickly and have an appetite.”

According to ShowBoats International, a luxury yacht magazine, 916 yachts measuring 80 feet or longer — the traditional definition of a superyacht — were on order or under construction as of last Sept. 1, four times the number in 1997. The biggest gains were among the biggest yachts: 47 yachts were 200 to 249 feet long, up 68 percent from a year earlier, while 23 were 250 feet or longer, an increase of 28 percent.

“When I started in the early 1970s, a 60-foot boat was considered pretty large,” Mr. Sharp said. “A 150-foot boat was queen of the show in Monaco in 1982. In 2008, you wouldn’t be able to find that boat in the marina.”

Some new megayachts are so big that they have to dock in commercial ports. The growth in the number and size of yachts is also making it hard to find qualified crew members.

Still, many yacht owners trade in their boats every few years for bigger models.

“People want more toys to play with. That’s something that drives it,” says Wim Koersvelt, director of Icon Yachts in the Netherlands. “Gyms were unusual 20 years ago, and no yacht is being built now without a gym. They’re buying two- to four-person submarines, have four Jet Skis and little sailboats stored on board, as well as helicopter landing pads.”

It takes two to four years to build a yacht, and prices are rising so quickly that some owners are selling their boats before they’re even finished — for a tidy profit. Mr. Beckett of Burgess says prices have risen 10 percent to 20 percent in the past two years alone. He estimates that a yacht 328 feet long would cost about $230 million today, with prices rising to $650 million for a 500-foot yacht.

Some owners recoup part of their costs by chartering their yachts. Want to sail the Maltese Falcon, the innovative clipper ship built by Tom Perkins, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist? That will put you back around $539,000 to $555,000 a week, not counting expenses for fuel, food or crew. Or the Mirabella V, the elegant sloop owned by Joe Vittoria, the former chief executive of Avis Rent A Car System? That’s $325,000 to $375,000 a week, depending on the season.

There are no signs that demand will slacken. “There are 2,000 superyachts in the world today” over 120 feet long, “and nearly 200,000 people who could afford to buy them,” Mr. Beckett says.

The arms race in yachts echoes the competition among business titans in the last century to build the world’s tallest skyscraper. In his book “Mine’s Bigger,” David A. Kaplan describes the battle between Mr. Perkins and Jim Clark, the co-founder of three Silicon Valley companies, including Netscape, as they competed to build the world’s biggest sailing megayacht.

By the time Mr. Perkins completed his Maltese Falcon, measuring 288 feet, in 2006, it was substantially longer than Mr. Clark’s Athena if measured at the water line.

“Clark could console himself only with the fact that if you included his 33-foot stainless steel bowsprit as part of the length, then his was bigger than anybody else’s,” Mr. Kaplan writes.

Mr. Vittoria holds a different record. His 247-foot Mirabella V has a 292-foot mast — so tall that it can’t fit under the Golden Gate Bridge.

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5) The B Word
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Op-Ed Columnist
March 17, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/opinion/17krugman.html?hp

O.K., here it comes: The unthinkable is about to become the inevitable.

Last week, Robert Rubin, the former Treasury secretary, and John Lipsky, a top official at the International Monetary Fund, both suggested that public funds might be needed to rescue the U.S. financial system. Mr. Lipsky insisted that he wasn’t talking about a bailout. But he was.

It’s true that Henry Paulson, the current Treasury secretary, still says that any proposal to use taxpayers’ money to help resolve the crisis is a “non-starter.” But that’s about as credible as all of his previous pronouncements on the financial situation.

So here’s the question we really should be asking: When the feds do bail out the financial system, what will they do to ensure that they aren’t also bailing out the people who got us into this mess?

Let’s talk about why a bailout is inevitable.

Between 2002 and 2007, false beliefs in the private sector — the belief that home prices only go up, that financial innovation had made risk go away, that a triple-A rating really meant that an investment was safe — led to an epidemic of bad lending. Meanwhile, false beliefs in the political arena — the belief of Alan Greenspan and his friends in the Bush administration that the market is always right and regulation always a bad thing — led Washington to ignore the warning signs.

By the way, Mr. Greenspan is still at it: accepting no blame, he continues to insist that “market flexibility and open competition” are the “most reliable safeguards against cumulative economic failure.”

The result of all that bad lending was an unholy financial mess that will cause trillions of dollars in losses. A large chunk of these losses will fall on financial institutions: commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds and so on.

Many people say that the government should let the chips fall where they may — that those who made bad loans should simply be left to suffer the consequences. But it’s not going to happen. When push comes to shove, financial officials — rightly — aren’t willing to run the risk that losses on bad loans will cripple the financial system and take the real economy down with it.

Consider what happened last Friday, when the Federal Reserve rushed to the aid of Bear Stearns.

Nobody expects an investment bank to be a charitable institution, but Bear has a particularly nasty reputation. As Gretchen Morgenson of The New York Times reminds us, Bear “has often operated in the gray areas of Wall Street and with an aggressive, brass-knuckles approach.”

Bear was a major promoter of the most questionable subprime lenders. It lured customers into two of its own hedge funds that were among the first to go bust in the current crisis. And it’s a bad financial citizen: the last time the Fed tried to contain a financial crisis, after the collapse of Long-Term Capital Management in 1998, Bear refused to participate in the rescue operation.

Bear, in other words, deserved to be allowed to fail — both on the merits and to teach Wall Street not to expect someone else to clean up its messes.

But the Fed rode to Bear’s rescue anyway, fearing that the collapse of a major investment bank would cause panic in the markets and wreak havoc with the wider economy. Fed officials knew that they were doing a bad thing, but believed that the alternative would be even worse.

As Bear goes, so will go the rest of the financial system. And if history is any guide, the coming taxpayer-financed bailout will end up costing a lot of money.

The U.S. savings and loan crisis of the 1980s ended up costing taxpayers 3.2 percent of G.D.P., the equivalent of $450 billion today. Some estimates put the fiscal cost of Japan’s post-bubble cleanup at more than 20 percent of G.D.P. — the equivalent of $3 trillion for the United States.

If these numbers shock you, they should. But the big bailout is coming. The only question is how well it will be managed.

As I said, the important thing is to bail out the system, not the people who got us into this mess. That means cleaning out the shareholders in failed institutions, making bondholders take a haircut, and canceling the stock options of executives who got rich playing heads I win, tails you lose.

According to late reports on Sunday, JPMorgan Chase will buy Bear for a pittance. That’s an O.K. resolution for this case — but not a model for the much bigger bailout to come. Looking ahead, we probably need something similar to the Resolution Trust Corporation, which took over bankrupt savings and loan institutions and sold off their assets to reimburse taxpayers. And we need it quickly: things are falling apart as you read this.

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6) Please get this Peltier info out there
From: Keith [mailto:rockartist1@earthlink.net]
Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2008 6:30 PM

KFAI's Indian Uprising for March 16, 2008 from 7:00 - 8:00 p.m. DST #257

Leonard Peltier vs. FBI, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, Case
No. 07-1745MN, University of St. Thomas School of Law Frey Moot Courtroom,
Minneapolis, March 11, 2008.

Peltier was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a 1975 shootout on
the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota. But his supporters, including
some human rights groups, believe that he is innocent and that he was
targeted because of his political activism.

About 3,500 pages were turned over for Peltier's original trial in 1977. But
his attorneys have discovered over the years that the actual number of
documents the FBI has on Peltier is 142,579, said attorney Michael Kuzma.

Peltier has tried for nearly seven years to use the federal Freedom of
Information Act to get the tens of thousands of pages still being withheld.
"I just think this thing stinks to high heaven," Kuzma said after the
hearing. He told the court, "We still don't know the truth about what
happened back then."

Judge Lavenski R. Smith asked Kuzma what the remedy would be for Peltier.
Kuzma said the court should conduct "a full in-camera review of the
documents." When Smith expressed some disbelief at that idea, Kuzma added
that, if that were too burdensome, the court could focus on the documents
from 1977, of which Peltier has received none.

Tom Byron, an attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington,
D.C., argued that "there's no support" for an in-camera inspection of the
records. - St. Paul Pioneer Press excerpt,
http://www.twincities.com/ci_8539140?nclick_check=1
Court recording: http://8cc-www.ca8.uscourts.gov/OAaudio/2008/3/071745.MP3
Tonight our Guests are:

Michael Kuzma, Arguing attorney for Leonard Peltier; Sr. Legislative Assistant to City Council President, Buffalo, New York and keith rabin producer/co play write of the Stage Production

"My Life Is My Sun Dance" "www.mylifeismysundance.com

To help sponsor or support or for additional information
contact keith @ keith@mylifeismysundance.com

* * * *
Indian Uprising a one-hour radio Public & Cultural Affairs program relevant
to Native Indigenous people, broadcast each Sunday at 7:00 p.m. CST over
KFAI 90.3 FM Minneapolis and 106.7 FM St. Paul. Producer and host is
volunteer Chris Spotted Eagle. To receive or stop getting announcements:
radio@spottedeagle.org

For internet listening, visit www.kfai.org, click Play under ON AIR NOW or
for listening later via their archives, click PROGRAMS & SCHEDULE > Indian
Uprising > STREAM. Programs are archived only for two weeks.

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7) Chinook Salmon Vanish Without a Trace
By FELICITY BARRINGER
March 17, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/science/earth/17salmon.html?ref=science

SACRAMENTO — Where did they go?

The Chinook salmon that swim upstream to spawn in the fall, the most robust run in the Sacramento River, have disappeared. The almost complete collapse of the richest and most dependable source of Chinook salmon south of Alaska left gloomy fisheries experts struggling for reliable explanations — and coming up dry.

Whatever the cause, there was widespread agreement among those attending a five-day meeting of the Pacific Fisheries Management Council here last week that the regional $150 million fishery, which usually opens for the four-month season on May 1, is almost certain to remain closed this year from northern Oregon to the Mexican border. A final decision on salmon fishing in the area is expected next month.

As a result, Chinook, or king salmon, the most prized species of Pacific wild salmon, will be hard to come by until the Alaskan season opens in July. Even then, wild Chinook are likely to be very expensive in markets and restaurants nationwide.

“It’s unprecedented that this fishery is in this kind of shape,” said Donald McIsaac, executive director of the council, which is organized under the auspices of the Commerce Department.

Fishermen think the Sacramento River was mismanaged in 2005, when this year’s fish first migrated downriver. Perhaps, they say, federal and state water managers drained too much water or drained at the wrong time to serve the state’s powerful agricultural interests and cities in arid Southern California. The fishermen think the fish were left susceptible to disease, or to predators, or to being sucked into diversion pumps and left to die in irrigation canals.

But federal and state fishery managers and biologists point to the highly unusual ocean conditions in 2005, which may have left the fingerling salmon with little or none of the rich nourishment provided by the normal upwelling currents near the shore.

The life cycle of these fall run Chinook salmon takes them from their birth and early weeks in cold river waters through a downstream migration that deposits them in the San Francisco Bay when they are a few inches long, and then as their bodies adapt to saltwater through a migration out into the ocean, where they live until they return to spawn, usually three years later.

One species of Sacramento salmon, the winter run Chinook, is protected under the Endangered Species Act. But their meager numbers have held steady and appear to be unaffected by whatever ails the fall Chinook.

So what happened? As Dave Bitts, a fisherman based in Eureka in Northern California, sees it, the variables are simple. “To survive, there are two things a salmon needs,” he said. “To eat. And not to be eaten.”

Fragmentary evidence about salmon mortality in the Sacramento River in recent years, as well as more robust but still inconclusive data about ocean conditions in 2005, indicates that the fall Chinook smolts, or baby fish, of 2005 may have lost out on both counts. But biologists, fishermen and fishery managers all emphasize that no one yet knows anything for sure.

Bill Petersen, an oceanographer with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s research center in Newport, Ore., said other stocks of anadromous Pacific fish — those that migrate from freshwater to saltwater and back — had been anemic this year, leading him to suspect ocean changes.

After studying changes in the once-predictable pattern of the Northern Pacific climate, Mr. Petersen found that in 2005 the currents that rise from the deeper ocean, bringing with them nutrients like phytoplankton and krill, were out of sync. “Upwelling usually starts in April and goes until September,” he said. “In 2005, it didn’t start until July.”

Mr. Petersen’s hypothesis about the salmon is that “the fish that went to sea in 2005 died a few weeks after getting to the ocean” because there was nothing to eat. A couple of years earlier, when the oceans were in a cold-weather cycle, the opposite happened — the upwelling was very rich. The smolts of that year were later part of the largest run of fall Chinook ever recorded.

But, Mr. Petersen added, many factors may have contributed to the loss of this season’s fish.

Bruce MacFarlane, another NOAA researcher who is based in Santa Cruz, has started a three-year experiment tagging young salmon — though not from the fall Chinook run — to determine how many of those released from the large Coleman hatchery, 335 miles from the Sacramento River’s mouth, make it to the Golden Gate Bridge. According to the first year’s data, only 4 of 200 reached the bridge.

Mr. MacFarlane said it was possible that a diversion dam on the upper part of the river, around Redding and Red Bluff, created calm and deep waters that are “a haven for predators,” particularly the pike minnow.

Farther downstream, he said, young salmon may fall prey to striped bass. There are also tens of thousands of pipes, large and small, attached to pumping stations that divert water.

Jeff McCracken, a spokesman for the federal Bureau of Reclamation, which is among the major managers of water in the Sacramento River delta, said that in the last 18 years, significant precautions have been taken to keep fish from being taken out of the river through the pipes.

“We’ve got 90 percent of those diversions now screened,” Mr. McCracken said. He added that two upstream dams had been removed and that the removal of others was planned. At the diversion dam in Red Bluff, he said, “we’ve opened the gates eight months a year to allow unimpeded fish passage.”

Bureau of Reclamation records show that annual diversions of water in 2005 were about 8 percent above the 12-year average, while diversions in June, the month the young Chinook smolts would have headed downriver, were roughly on par with what they had been in the mid-1990s.

Peter Dygert, a NOAA representative on the fisheries council, said, “My opinion is that we won’t have a definitive answer that clearly indicates this or that is the cause of the decline.”

Carolyn Marshall contributed reporting.

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8) The Case for Another Drug War, Against Pharmaceutical Marketers’ Dirty Tactics
By JANET MASLIN
March 17, 2008
Books of The Times
OUR DAILY MEDS
How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves Into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs
By Melody Petersen
432 pp. Sarah Crichton Books/Farrar Straus & Giroux. $26.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/17/books/17masl.html?ref=health

By the time Melody Petersen gets around to interviewing Iowa’s state nosologist near the end of “Our Daily Meds,” the facts that she cites don’t even sound that grim. The nosologist’s job is to catalog Iowa’s deceased according to cause of death. He processes about 27,000 death certificates a year. And by his reckoning there were only five deaths caused by adverse reactions to prescription drugs in 2002. That low figure is jarringly out of whack with Ms. Petersen’s investigative reporting in an angrily illuminating book on drug-related corporate malfeasance and patient peril.

“Could drugs be killing people but escaping all blame, leaving them to harm even more Americans until someone, finally, catches on?” Ms. Petersen asks. Given the information that her book uncovers, this a purely rhetorical question. Her study cites reckless and questionable behavior in all aspects of drug companies’ research and marketing ploys, even if much of this is familiar territory. It has been explored by earlier crusaders (notably Marcia Angell in “The Truth About the Drug Companies”) and in Ms. Petersen’s own journalism. She spent four years as a reporter covering the drug industry for The New York Times.

The newer and scarier material in “Our Daily Meds” concerns the increasingly serious consequences of Americans’ dependency on prescription drugs. Disagreeing with Iowa’s nosologist, Ms. Petersen says the lethal consequences of overprescribed or misprescribed drugs are too readily accepted as “natural” death. She cites the unwillingness of pathologists to question the wisdom with which doctors dispense medications. The reluctance of hospitals to perform autopsies, she says, has impeded medical research into what these interactions can do.

“Our Daily Meds” begins by illustrating the established drug-company practices that have led to this sorry juncture. There is the rigging of studies, so that to be deemed “effective” a drug need only perform better than a sugar pill. There are the promotional strategies that evade the need for F.D.A. warnings by, say, planting logos for the sexual enhancement drug Viagra and the antidepressant Wellbutrin on Nascar vehicles. There is the co-option of doctors and university researchers by aggressive, payola-dispensing drug company representatives.

Ms. Petersen, who has done much of her digging with the help of obscure but gratifying corporate documents, even finds feedback from doctors about the bribe-style amenities offered by drug company junkets. (“Hotel too cold inside,” one said, in an evaluation of a June 1998 drug company program, adding, “Resort places preferred.” From a different doctor, miffed at the lack of a chauffeur at another event: “Hired car would have been much preferable.”

But she moves to weightier matters in assessing the directions in which heavy drug dependence is leading Americans. First of all there are the business strategies that have created illnesses out of what used to be facts of life, labeled them as syndromes, and have hooked customers into long-term use of medication to cure them. (Detrol, the obnoxiously advertised cure for what its manufacturer calls “overactive bladder,” is a case in point, especially since it can cause hallucinations that resemble symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.) Second, there are the economics of creating chronic consumers for marginally necessary drugs.

Irate as she is that in a period (1980-2003) when Americans doubled what they spent on cars they increased their spending on prescription drugs by 17 times, Ms. Petersen steps back to consider the long-term consequences of this shift in consumption. She notes that the first generation of children raised in front of ubiquitous, sunny drug-company advertisements (which became legal in 1997) has acquired the notions that prescription pills fix everything, and that they are less dangerous than street drugs. Then, looking to the elderly, she points out that increasing numbers of drugs are accumulating in these patients, with little regard for the consequences.

“As older patients move through time, often from physician to physician,” one doctor tells her, “they are at increasing risk of accumulating layer upon layer of drug therapy, as a reef accumulates layer upon layer of coral.” And when the side effects of sleeping pills or antidepressants mean more elderly people fall down, the solution is not likely to be the scaling back of such prescriptions. “Instead,” she writes, “the companies have used the statistics on falls to create a new blockbuster pharmaceutical market for drugs they claim will reduce the chances of breaking a bone.” The market for just two of these drugs, Fosamax and Actonel, is expected to be worth $10 billion by 2011.

Ms. Petersen compiles this data in anecdotal style, even though they would have hit harder in more crystallized, succinct form. But although she rambles and repeats herself at times, this material remains tough, cogent and disturbing enough to have a serious impact. So do her recommendations at the end of this chilling investigation.

Among them: Look at the pens and tissue boxes in your doctor’s office. If they feature drug ads, then a drug company representative has been courting your doctor, trying to influence the ways in which that doctor issues prescriptions. Don’t trust paid celebrity drug endorsements. Be aware that your symptoms may be caused not by illness but by medication, especially when more than one medication is involved. Ms. Petersen urges more study of these interactions, particularly on the part of police officers who can assess drunk drivers but not overmedicated ones.

“Our Daily Meds” also advocates more supervision of doctors’ research articles, many of which are ghostwritten by drug company spokesmen. It calls for drug watchdog agencies that are not overseen by the government, since government officials can so easily be lobbied. Most drastically, she advocates prison time for executives implicated in pharmaceutical crimes. But those crimes are part of a time-honored tradition. As a federal investigator put it in 1937, after a barely tested elixir killed as many as 30 percent of the people who took it: “Apparently they just throw drugs together and if they don’t explode they are placed on sale.”

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9) Examining the war in Iraq after 5 years
Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, March 16, 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/16/MNS1VJAIG.DTL

The war in Iraq has gone on for five years now, but there is almost no sign of it in the Bay Area, a region where 7 million people live.

There is a hillside full of crosses near the BART station in Lafayette, and the occasional war protest in Berkeley or San Francisco makes the papers and the television news. The only uniforms anybody sees on the streets are cops, or off-duty security guards.

People are worried about a recession, or gasoline prices. It is springtime and the hills are green. The war is far away and out of sight.

Michael Myatt, a retired Marine Corps general, remembers a sign he saw just outside the Camp Pendleton Marine base not long ago: "The Marines are at war. America is at the mall." Yet the war is a presence in the Bay Area, like an underground river, like a storm just off the coast, like a deadly illness that will not go away.

The Bay Area has a reputation for being a hotbed of anti-war sentiment, the legendary "Left Coast" where all the politicians are liberals and all the citizens are activists.

It is also the home of Travis Air Force Base, one of the country's largest with a direct role in Iraq, and a place where anti-war protesters plan to mark the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war with parades and demonstrations.

But mostly, Bay Area people seem to have put the war in the back of their minds. They are not indifferent about the war. They just don't want to think about it.

"I saw a young man in a cross between a gurney and a wheelchair the other day," said Nancy Fox, a Marin County consultant. "I thought maybe he was a casualty of the war. It was so painful to see him that I looked away.

"Have I marched against the war? Have I written the president? Yes. I don't know how to grapple with it. So I look away."

Nearly five years ago, March 20, 2003, on the day after American planes bombed Baghdad and American missiles mounted a failed "surgical strike" to kill Saddam Hussein, thousands and thousands of Bay Area people marched in protest against the war.

They came from all over; San Francisco's hotels were full. One of the protesters was Gen. Myatt's own daughter. Others brought small children so they could see history as it happened.

The protests got out of hand. Mobs surged up Fremont and Harrison streets in San Francisco, trying to shut down the Bay Bridge. Police read the riot act; 2,150 people were arrested in three days of protests in San Francisco.

They did not stop the war. It has gone on for five long years. In that time, the city has changed. Fremont and Harrison Streets, the top of Rincon Hill, where the protesters tried to stop the war, are now the site of a 64-story condo tower.

Richard Becker, national coordinator for the ANSWER coalition, which has organized many of the anti-war protests, has an office upstairs in an old building in San Francisco's Mission District, where he and his associates are planning a big demonstration in San Francisco on Wednesday, the fifth anniversary.

There are posters and signs all over his office. "End the War NOW!"

Becker's father served in World War II - and this war has lasted longer than his father's war.

Becker is no wild-eyed radical; he is bald, middle-aged, with glasses. He has studied the Middle East, and can cite the British experience in Iraq nearly 80 years ago.

He believes the war in Iraq and the projection of American power around the world are deeply wrong. American involvement in Iraq, he says, is "an enormous disaster."

Becker says people are hoping the presidential election will mean the end of the war, but he doesn't buy that