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URGENT NODAPL solidarity action Wednesday 11/30:
DIVEST THE BANKS!
Idle No More SF Bay is organizing this Wednesday morning action. I hope many of you can come. If you are willing to be a monitor, read guidelines attached and emailinmsolidaritysf@gmail.com
Hi powerful women allies,
(and all allies in support!)
We ask for you all to come together once again for all our relations at Standing Rock
As we have seen this week with the horrible violence by law enforcement, a backwards move by the U.S.A
rmy Corps of Engineers announcing a plan to evict the Oceti Sakowin camp (from Treaty lands) rather than the DAPL permits, and the DAPL's announcement that it plans to drill under the Missouri River soon, it is urgent that we act now and that we act quickly. Another way to stop this project (and others threatening the land, air, water, nonhuman relatives) is to stop their financing - which is why we are targeting the banks. It is so urgent that we are planning this action for NEXT week! Please help us get a strong turnout of our communities divesting DAPL.
What we are asking:
Please join us and help spread the word about our next indigenous-led NODAPL BAY AREA WIDE solidarity action. Please REPLY and let us know if your group will be joining us on Wednesday, and how.
When
:
Wednesday 11/30 @ 8am-11am
Where
:
Meet at Justin Herman Plaza, SF (1 Market St. / Embarcadero bart)
What
:
Prayer Walk to several banking institutions funding the DAPL
***We are specially asking you to encourage your community members with accounts at Wells Fargo (Citibank - Bank of America - Chase - US Bank - Barclays - all other financiers) to consider divesting, and to contact us if they are willing to withdraw their money/close their accounts with us on Wed.11/30.
See Food & Watch for the entire list
Please help us post flyers
Please help us recruit a few volunteer monitors. Guidelines attached. Please contact us with their emails.
For more information, see:
Website: https://www.farewells fargo.com/
Flyers: Attached as documents. (Picture graphics at: https://www.farewellsfargo.com /new-page-1/)
The morning will begin with prayers for the water led by the women of Idle No More SF Bay. A teach-in will be conducted on why everyone needs to divest from the financial institutions funding the Dakota Access Pipeline. This will be followed by a prayer walk to several banking institutions funding the DAPL. Educational hand-outs will be available to pass out.
If you have any questions you can email us at inmsolidaritysf@gmail.com or call any of the women in Idle No More SF Bay (or 925-435-7934). Those of you whose phone contacts we have, we will be calling you to loop you in.
Thank you,
Idle No More SF Bay
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URGENT NODAPL solidarity action Wednesday 11/30:
DIVEST THE BANKS!
Idle No More SF Bay is organizing this Wednesday morning action. I hope many of you can come. If you are willing to be a monitor, read guidelines attached and emailinmsolidaritysf@gmail.com
Hi powerful women allies,
(and all allies in support!)
We ask for you all to come together once again for all our relations at Standing Rock
As we have seen this week with the horrible violence by law enforcement, a backwards move by the U.S.A
rmy Corps of Engineers announcing a plan to evict the Oceti Sakowin camp (from Treaty lands) rather than the DAPL permits, and the DAPL's announcement that it plans to drill under the Missouri River soon, it is urgent that we act now and that we act quickly. Another way to stop this project (and others threatening the land, air, water, nonhuman relatives) is to stop their financing - which is why we are targeting the banks. It is so urgent that we are planning this action for NEXT week! Please help us get a strong turnout of our communities divesting DAPL.
What we are asking:
Please join us and help spread the word about our next indigenous-led NODAPL BAY AREA WIDE solidarity action. Please REPLY and let us know if your group will be joining us on Wednesday, and how.
When
:
Wednesday 11/30 @ 8am-11am
Where
:
Meet at Justin Herman Plaza, SF (1 Market St. / Embarcadero bart)
What
:
Prayer Walk to several banking institutions funding the DAPL
***We are specially asking you to encourage your community members with accounts at Wells Fargo (Citibank - Bank of America - Chase - US Bank - Barclays - all other financiers) to consider divesting, and to contact us if they are willing to withdraw their money/close their accounts with us on Wed.11/30.
See Food & Watch for the entire list
Please help us post flyers
Please help us recruit a few volunteer monitors. Guidelines attached. Please contact us with their emails.
For more information, see:
Website: https://www.farewells fargo.com/
Flyers: Attached as documents. (Picture graphics at: https://www.farewellsfargo.com /new-page-1/)
The morning will begin with prayers for the water led by the women of Idle No More SF Bay. A teach-in will be conducted on why everyone needs to divest from the financial institutions funding the Dakota Access Pipeline. This will be followed by a prayer walk to several banking institutions funding the DAPL. Educational hand-outs will be available to pass out.
If you have any questions you can email us at inmsolidaritysf@gmail.com or call any of the women in Idle No More SF Bay (or 925-435-7934). Those of you whose phone contacts we have, we will be calling you to loop you in.
Thank you,
Idle No More SF Bay
North Dakota: Stop Using Cold Water to Blast Unarmed Protestors in Sub-Freezing Temperatures
13,333 SUPPORTERS
14,000 GOAL
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International Committee
for Peace, Justice and Dignity
Message from the National Boricua Human Rights Network
SIGN THIS PETITION NOW!
PLEASE FORWARD FAR AND WIDE WE ARE TRYING TO GET 100,000 SIGNATURES IN 30 DAYS.
Hi all:
We are asking all organizations, communities, unions, churches, activists, political parties- to CALL ON THEIR INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS to sign this petition and spread the word- this is a time-sensitive request!
We must try to achieve the signing of 100,000 signatures by December 11.
No matter how many petitions you have signed- SIGN THIS ONLINE PETITION and get everyone else to do the same. Do not let anyone tell you they have signed petitions or letters before- this is the one that will be highlighted.
WE ARE FREEING OSCAR LĂ“PEZ RIVERA
Coordinating Committee
National Boricua Human Rights Network
2739 W. Division Street
Chicago IL 60622
@free_olr
International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity
510-219-0092 | info@TheInternationalCommittee.org | Website
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Black Children Punished for Anthem Protests
After young 11 and 12-year-boys of the Beaumont Bulls football knelt during the anthem to protest police violence against Black youth, their local executive board canceled their entire football season, suspended the coaching staff, and threatened to arrest their parents if they attended any future games, practices or events.
For these young Black kids, the plight of injustice in America is their own. Instead of supporting the boys and their protests, their executive board and league officials abandoned them. The board has decided to strip these kids of the team that they love to punish them for asking for basic rights and dignities. This is about the board reinforcing that police violence in our communities doesn't matter, that our issues aren't important and that speaking onthem makes you subject to punishment.
These kids are brave for refusing to give in to the executive board and for standing against injustice. We need to support the fight of these children and show them that their protest is heard.
To the Beaumont Bulls Executive Board,
Immediately reinstate the Beaumont Bulls coaching staff, apologize to the boys and their parents, and allow them to finish their season.
Sincerely,
We need to support the fight of these children and show them that their protest is heard.
http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/black-children-punished-anthem-protests/?sp_ref=239333099.176.176140.e.558213.2&referring_akid=6495.1114646.XlU2ME&source=em_sp
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After young 11 and 12-year-boys of the Beaumont Bulls football knelt during the anthem to protest police violence against Black youth, their local executive board canceled their entire football season, suspended the coaching staff, and threatened to arrest their parents if they attended any future games, practices or events.
For these young Black kids, the plight of injustice in America is their own. Instead of supporting the boys and their protests, their executive board and league officials abandoned them. The board has decided to strip these kids of the team that they love to punish them for asking for basic rights and dignities. This is about the board reinforcing that police violence in our communities doesn't matter, that our issues aren't important and that speaking onthem makes you subject to punishment.
These kids are brave for refusing to give in to the executive board and for standing against injustice. We need to support the fight of these children and show them that their protest is heard.
To the Beaumont Bulls Executive Board,
Immediately reinstate the Beaumont Bulls coaching staff, apologize to the boys and their parents, and allow them to finish their season.
Sincerely,
We need to support the fight of these children and show them that their protest is heard.
http://act.colorofchange.org/sign/black-children-punished-anthem-protests/?sp_ref=239333099.176.176140.e.558213.2&referring_akid=6495.1114646.XlU2ME&source=em_sp
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. ARTICLES IN FULL
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL NOW!
FREE HEP-C MEDS FOR ALL INFECTED PRISONERS!
Rally and March
Friday December 9, Rally Oscar Grant Plaza, OAKLAND, 4pm
Followed by March to OPD Headquarters
Join us for a National Day of Action on December 9 to FREE MUMIA NOW!
and Demand: FREE HEP-C MEDS FOR ALL PRISONERS!
in coordination with his Philadelphia and New York supporters
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther who police tried to execute on the streets of Philadelphia in 1981, was framed by a racist judicial system and sentenced to death. Like other Black Panthers he was an innocent target of the FBI's repressive COINTELPRO campaign. From death row Mumia, became known as the "voice of the voiceless", exposing deplorable prison conditions and fighting racist police killings, imperialist wars and capitalist oppression. International protests got him off death row, but now they are trying to kill him by medical neglect. They are withholding life-saving Hep C medication he and 7,000 other Pennsylvania prisoners desperately need. After 35 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, it's time to mobilize to FREE MUMIA and other political prisoners like him now!
A recent US Supreme Court decision, "Williams vs. Pennsylvania" could open the door for Mumia's freedom but only if this fundamentally racist judicial system is confronted with mass protests like those that got him off death row. This decision ruled that a prosecutor cannot later sit as judge over the same defendant's appeal. This is exactly what happened in Mumia's case. On this basis Mumia's attorneys have filed a new legal action. If successful, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rulings that upheld his conviction would be overturned. Mumia could then re-appeal the issues of his innocence, jury bias and falsified evidence to win an outright dismissal of charges or get a new trial. Mumia was framed by corrupt cops, prosecutors, and judges for the murder of a policeman that he did not commit!!
We say: Free Mumia Now!
Endorsers for the December 9th Free Mumia Coalition:
Angela Davis; ANSWER Coalition; Anti Police-Terror Project; BAMN; Black Panther Commemoration Committee, NY; (Former) Black Panthers: Cleo Silvers, Eddie Conway, Larry Pinkney, William Johnson; Cal BSU; Code Pink, Freedom Socialist Party-Bay Area; Haiti Action Committee; International Action Center; John Brown Society; Justice for Palestinians-San Jose; Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal; Love Not Blood Campaign/Uncle Bobby; National Alumni Association of the Black Panther Party; Oakland Socialist Group; Oakland Teachers for Mumia; Oasis Hepatitis C Clinic; Occupy 4 Prisoners; Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression; Party for Socialism and Liberation; Peace and Freedom Party; Socialist Organizer; Socialist Viewpoint; Speak Out Now; Veterans for Peace – East Bay; Workers World Party
See you at Oscar Grant Plaza (City Hall), Oakland, 4 pm, December 9th
More Info: Tova, 510-600-5800; Jack, 510-501-7080; Gerald 510-417-1252
(This message from: Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal).
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FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL NOW!
FREE HEP-C MEDS FOR ALL INFECTED PRISONERS!
Rally and March
Friday December 9, Rally Oscar Grant Plaza, OAKLAND, 4pm
Followed by March to OPD Headquarters
Join us for a National Day of Action on December 9 to FREE MUMIA NOW!
and Demand: FREE HEP-C MEDS FOR ALL PRISONERS!
in coordination with his Philadelphia and New York supporters
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther who police tried to execute on the streets of Philadelphia in 1981, was framed by a racist judicial system and sentenced to death. Like other Black Panthers he was an innocent target of the FBI's repressive COINTELPRO campaign. From death row Mumia, became known as the "voice of the voiceless", exposing deplorable prison conditions and fighting racist police killings, imperialist wars and capitalist oppression. International protests got him off death row, but now they are trying to kill him by medical neglect. They are withholding life-saving Hep C medication he and 7,000 other Pennsylvania prisoners desperately need. After 35 years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, it's time to mobilize to FREE MUMIA and other political prisoners like him now!
A recent US Supreme Court decision, "Williams vs. Pennsylvania" could open the door for Mumia's freedom but only if this fundamentally racist judicial system is confronted with mass protests like those that got him off death row. This decision ruled that a prosecutor cannot later sit as judge over the same defendant's appeal. This is exactly what happened in Mumia's case. On this basis Mumia's attorneys have filed a new legal action. If successful, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court rulings that upheld his conviction would be overturned. Mumia could then re-appeal the issues of his innocence, jury bias and falsified evidence to win an outright dismissal of charges or get a new trial. Mumia was framed by corrupt cops, prosecutors, and judges for the murder of a policeman that he did not commit!!
We say: Free Mumia Now!
Endorsers for the December 9th Free Mumia Coalition:
Angela Davis; ANSWER Coalition; Anti Police-Terror Project; BAMN; Black Panther Commemoration Committee, NY; (Former) Black Panthers: Cleo Silvers, Eddie Conway, Larry Pinkney, William Johnson; Cal BSU; Code Pink, Freedom Socialist Party-Bay Area; Haiti Action Committee; International Action Center; John Brown Society; Justice for Palestinians-San Jose; Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal; Love Not Blood Campaign/Uncle Bobby; National Alumni Association of the Black Panther Party; Oakland Socialist Group; Oakland Teachers for Mumia; Oasis Hepatitis C Clinic; Occupy 4 Prisoners; Oscar Grant Committee Against Police Brutality and State Repression; Party for Socialism and Liberation; Peace and Freedom Party; Socialist Organizer; Socialist Viewpoint; Speak Out Now; Veterans for Peace – East Bay; Workers World Party
See you at Oscar Grant Plaza (City Hall), Oakland, 4 pm, December 9th
More Info: Tova, 510-600-5800; Jack, 510-501-7080; Gerald 510-417-1252
(This message from: Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal).
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Support Chelsea's petition to reduce sentence to time served
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Support Chelsea's petition to Obama:
Reduce sentence to time served
"New York Times, November 14, 2016 -- Chelsea Manning, who confessed to disclosing archives of secret diplomatic and military documents to WikiLeaks in 2010 and has been incarcerated longer than any other convicted leaker in American history, has formally petitioned President Obama to reduce the remainder of her 35-year sentence to the more than six years she has already served."
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Sign the whitehouse.gov petition in
support of Chelsea's request today!
Official clemency application from Chelsea Manning.
November 10, 2016
Also coverage by the Guardian and the New York Times. November 14, 2016
Washington DC action this Saturday!The White House Committee to Pardon Chelsea Manning invites you to join them this Saturday, November 19th from noon to 2pm in front of the White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC. They are calling on President Obama to pardon Chelsea Manning. Facebook page for more info.
Fort Leavenworth vigil this Sunday! The Kansas City Peace and Social Justice group is organizing a vigil for Chelsea this Sunday, November 20th at 2pm at the public right-of-way near the long driveway into Ft. Leavenworth, near Metropolitan & North 10th Street.
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Chelsea tried committing suicide
a second time in October
Chelsea has been informed that the Army will hold another disciplinary hearing on the second attempted suicide, which was prompted by the punishment given by the first disciplinary hearing following her initial suicide attempt.
New York Times
November 4, 2016
Chelsea Manning tried to commit suicide last month as she was starting a week of solitary confinement at the prison barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., her punishment for a previous attempt to end her life in July.
Ms. Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who is serving a 35-year sentence for leaking archives of secret documents to WikiLeaks, disclosed the attempted suicide, which took place Oct. 4, in a statement she dictated over the phone to a member of her volunteer support network. She asked that it be sent this week to The New York Times, according to members of the network who want to keep their identities private.
Chase Strangio, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer representing Ms. Manning, formerly known as Bradley Manning, confirmed the attempt, which raised new questions about the military's handling of the troubled soldier, dating to when she was permitted to deploy to Iraq and kept at her post in a secure facility despite signs of erratic behavior.
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Sign the whitehouse.gov petition in
support of Chelsea's request today!
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Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin "Rashid" Johnson featuring exchanges with an Outlaw Kindle Edition
by Kevin Rashid Johnson (Author), Tom Big Warrior (Introduction), Russell Maroon Shoatz(Introduction)
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http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B013RU5M4S
Join the Fight to Free Rev. Pinkney!
Click HERE to view in browser
http://www.iacenter.org/prisoners/freepinkney-1-28-15/
UPDATE:
Today is the 406th day that Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan
languishes in prison doing felony time for a misdemeanor crime he did not
commit. Today is also the day that Robert McKay, a spokesperson for the
Free Rev. Pinkney campaign, gave testimony before United Nations
representatives about the plight of Rev. Pinkney at a hearing held in
Chicago. The hearing was called in order to shed light upon the
mistreatment of African-Americans in the United States and put it on an
international stage. And yet as the UN representatives and audience heard
of the injustices in the Pinkney case many gasped in disbelief and asked
with frowns on their faces, "how is this possible?" But disbelief quickly
disappeared when everyone realized these were the same feelings they had
when they first heard of Flint and we all know what happened in Flint. FREE
REV. PINKNEY NOW.
Please send letters to:
Marquette Branch Prison
Rev. Edward Pinkney N-E-93 #294671
1960 US Hwy 41 South
Marquette, MI 49855
Please donate at http://bhbanco.org (Donate button) or send checks to BANCO:
c/o Dorothy Pinkney
1940 Union St.
Benton Harbor, MI 49022
Contributions for Rev. Pinkney's defense can be sent to BANCO at Mrs Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union St., Benton Harbor, MI 49022
Or you can donate on-line at bhbanco.org.
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State Seeks to Remove Innocent PA Lifer's Attorney! Free Corey Walker!
The PA Office of the Attorney General (OAG) filed legal action to remove Corey Walker's attorney, Rachel Wolkenstein, in November 2014. On Tuesday, February 9, 2016 the evidentiary hearing to terminate Wolkenstein as Corey Walker's pro hac vice lawyer continues before Judge Lawrence Clark of the Dauphin County Court of Common Pleas in Harrisburg, PA.
Walker, assisted by Wolkenstein, filed three sets of legal papers over five months in 2014 with new evidence of Walker's innocence and that the prosecution and police deliberately used false evidence to convict him of murder. Two weeks after Wolkenstein was granted pro hac vice status, the OAG moved against her and Walker.
The OAG claims that Wolkenstein's political views and prior legal representation of Mumia Abu-Jamal and courtroom arrest by the notorious Judge Albert Sabo makes it "intolerable" for her to represent Corey Walker in the courts of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
Over the past fifteen months the OAG has effectively stopped any judicial action on the legal challenges of Corey Walker and his former co-defendant, Lorenzo Johnson against their convictions and sentences to life imprisonment without parole while it proceeds in its attempts to remove Wolkenstein.
This is retaliation against Corey Walker who is innocent and framed. Walker and his attorney won't stop until they thoroughly expose the police corruption and deliberate presentation of false evidence to convict Corey Walker and win his freedom.
This outrageous attack on Corey Walker's fundamental right to his lawyer of choice and challenge his conviction must cease. The evidence of his innocence and deliberate prosecutorial frame up was suppressed for almost twenty years. Corey Walker must be freed!
Read: Jim Crow Justice – The Frame-up Of Corey Walker by Charles Brover
Go to FreeCoreyWalker.org to provide help and get more information.
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TAKE ACTION: Mumia is sick
Contact: Prison Radio (info@prisonradio.org)
Website:
Judge Robert Mariani of the U.S. District Court has issued an order in Mumia's case, granting Mumia's lawyers Bret Grote and Robert Boyle's motion to supplement the record. Hepatitis C is a progressive disease that attacks Mumia's organs, skin and liver. Unless the court orders the new hepatitis C treatment - one pill a day for 12 weeks, with a 95% cure rate - Mumia's health will remain at serious risk.
Take Action for MumiaCall prison officials to demand immediate treatment! |
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SUPPORTERS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, AND FREE QUALITY HEALTH CARE FOR ALL:
The Oasis Clinic in Oakland, CA, which treats patients with Hepatitis-C (HCV), demands an end to the outrageous price-gouging of Big Pharma corporations, like Gilead Sciences, which hike-up the cost for essential, life-saving medications such as the cure for the deadly Hepatitis-C virus, in order to reap huge profits. The Oasis Clinic's demand is:
PUBLIC HEALTH, NOT CORPORATE WEALTH!
WE DEMAND:
PUBLIC HEALTH, NOT CORPORATE WEALTH!
IMMEDIATE AND FREE TREATMENT FOR ALL HCV-INFECTED PRISONERS!
NO EXECUTION BY MEDICAL NEGLECT!
JAIL DRUG PROFITEERS, FREE MUMIA!
This message from:
Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610 • www.laboractionmumia.org
06 January 2016
Mumia Is Innocent! Free Mumia!
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Imam Jamil (H.Rap Brown) moved
Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin (H. Rap Brown) was moved by bus from USP Canaan in Waymart, PA. to USP Tucson, Arizona. His mailing address is: USP Tucson United States Penitentiary P.O. Box Tucson, AZ. 85734 (BOP number 99974555)
Sign the Petition:
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, THE Bureau of Prisons, The Governor of Georgia
We are aware of a review being launched of criminal cases to determine whether any defendants were wrongly convicted and or deserve a new trail because of flawed forensic evidence and or wrongly reported evidence. It was stated in the Washington Post in April of 2012 that Justice Department Officials had known for years that flawed forensic work led to convictions of innocent people. We seek to have included in the review of such cases that of Imam Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin. We understand that all cases reviewed will include the Innocence Project. We look forward to your immediate attention to these overdue wrongs.
ASAP: The Forgotten Imam Project
P.O. Box 373
Four Oaks, NC 27524
Signed,
Luqman Abdullah-ibn Al-Sidiq
https://www.causes.com/actions/1671495-the-forgotten-imam-jamil-abdullah-al-amin-h-rap-brown?utm_campaign=post_mailer%2Fcampaign_update.cb_71432&utm_medium=email&utm_source=causes
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Commute Kevin Cooper's Death Sentence
Sign the Petition:
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/petition.php
Urge Gov. Jerry Brown to commute Kevin Cooper's death sentence. Cooper has always maintained his innocence of the 1983 quadruple murder of which he was convicted. In 2009, five federal judges signed a dissenting opinion warning that the State of California "may be about to execute an innocent man." Having exhausted his appeals in the US courts, Kevin Cooper's lawyers have turned to the Inter American Commission on Human Rights to seek remedy for what they maintain is his wrongful conviction, and the inadequate trial representation, prosecutorial misconduct and racial discrimination which have marked the case. Amnesty International opposes all executions, unconditionally.
"The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." - Judge William A. Fletcher, 2009 dissenting opinion on Kevin Cooper's case
Kevin Cooper has been on death row in California for more than thirty years.
In 1985, Cooper was convicted of the murder of a family and their house guest in Chino Hills. Sentenced to death, Cooper's trial took place in an atmosphere of racial hatred — for example, an effigy of a monkey in a noose with a sign reading "Hang the N*****!" was hung outside the venue of his preliminary hearing.
Take action to see that Kevin Cooper's death sentence is commuted immediately.
Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence.
Following his trial, five federal judges said: "There is no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing."
Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt.
Tell California authorities: The death penalty carries the risk of irrevocable error. Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted.
In 2009, Cooper came just eight hours shy of being executed for a crime that he may not have committed. Stand with me today in reminding the state of California that the death penalty is irreversible — Kevin Cooper's sentence must be commuted immediately.
In solidarity,
James Clark
Senior Death Penalty Campaigner
Amnesty International USA
Kevin Cooper: An Innocent Victim of Racist Frame-Up - from the Fact Sheet at: www.freekevincooper.org
Kevin Cooper is an African-American man who was wrongly convicted and sentenced to death in 1985 for the gruesome murders of a white family in Chino Hills, California: Doug and Peggy Ryen and their daughter Jessica and their house- guest Christopher Hughes. The Ryens' 8 year old son Josh, also attacked, was left for dead but survived.
Convicted in an atmosphere of racial hatred in San Bernardino County CA, Kevin Cooper remains under a threat of imminent execution in San Quentin. He has never received a fair hearing on his claim of innocence. In a dissenting opinion in 2009, five federal judges of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals signed a 82 page dissenting opinion that begins: "The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man." 565 F.3d 581.
There is significant evidence that exonerates Mr. Cooper and points toward other suspects:
The coroner who investigated the Ryen murders concluded that the murders took four minutes at most and that the murder weapons were a hatchet, a long knife, an ice pick and perhaps a second knife. How could a single person, in four or fewer minutes, wield three or four weapons, and inflict over 140 wounds on five people, two of whom were adults (including a 200 pound ex-marine) who had loaded weapons near their bedsides?
The sole surviving victim of the murders, Josh Ryen, told police and hospital staff within hours of the murders that the culprits were "three white men." Josh Ryen repeated this statement in the days following the crimes. When he twice saw Mr. Cooper's picture on TV as the suspected attacker, Josh Ryen said "that's not the man who did it."
Josh Ryen's description of the killers was corroborated by two witnesses who were driving near the Ryens' home the night of the murders. They reported seeing three white men in a station wagon matching the description of the Ryens' car speeding away from the direction of the Ryens' home.
These descriptions were corroborated by testimony of several employees and patrons of a bar close to the Ryens' home, who saw three white men enter the bar around midnight the night of the murders, two of whom were covered in blood, and one of whom was wearing coveralls.
The identity of the real killers was further corroborated by a woman who, shortly after the murders were discovered, alerted the sheriff's department that her boyfriend, a convicted murderer, left blood-spattered coveralls at her home the night of the murders. She also reported that her boyfriend had been wearing a tan t-shirt matching a tan t-shirt with Doug Ryen's blood on it recovered near the bar. She also reported that her boyfriend owned a hatchet matching the one recovered near the scene of the crime, which she noted was missing in the days following the murders; it never reappeared; further, her sister saw that boyfriend and two other white men in a vehicle that could have been the Ryens' car on the night of the murders.
Lacking a motive to ascribe to Mr. Cooper for the crimes, the prosecution claimed that Mr. Cooper, who had earlier walked away from custody at a minimum security prison, stole the Ryens' car to escape to Mexico. But the Ryens had left the keys in both their cars (which were parked in the driveway), so there was no need to kill them to steal their car. The prosecution also claimed that Mr. Cooper needed money, but money and credit cards were found untouched and in plain sight at the murder scene.
The jury in 1985 deliberated for seven days before finding Mr. Cooper guilty. One juror later said that if there had been one less piece of evidence, the jury would not have voted to convict.
The evidence the prosecution presented at trial tying Mr. Cooper to the crime scene has all been discredited… (Continue reading this document at: http://www.savekevincooper.org/_new_freekevincooperdotorg/TEST/Scripts/DataLibraries/upload/KC_FactSheet_2014.pdf)
This message from the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. July 2015
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CANCEL ALL STUDENT DEBT!
Sign the Petition:
http://cancelallstudentdebt.com/?code=kos
Dear President Obama, Senators, and Members of Congress:
Americans now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. Eighty-six percent of that money is owed to the United States government. This is a crushing burden for more than 40 million Americans and their families.
I urge you to take immediate action to forgive all student debt, public and private.
American Federation of Teachers
Campaign for America's Future
Courage Campaign
Daily Kos
Democracy for America
LeftAction
Project Springboard
RH Reality Check
RootsAction
Student Debt Crisis
The Nation
Working Families
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Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson
|
Write: Lorenzo Johnson
DF 1036
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Rd.
Frackville, PA 17932
Email: Through JPay using the code:
Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC
or
Directly at LorenzoJohnson17932@gmail.com
freelorenzojohnson.org
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B. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Land Mine Casualties Jump 75% as Funding for Their Removal Declines
By RICK GLADSTONE NOV. 22, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/22/world/land-mine-casualties-annual-report.html?ref=world
Despite a global treaty that bans land mines, casualties from those weapons and other unexploded munitions lurking in current and past war zones rose sharply last year to the highest point in a decade, a monitoring group said Tuesday in its annual report.
The group, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, also said that financial contributions toward efforts to remove land mines plunged by nearly a quarter last year. It was the third consecutive annual decline in funding, imperiling a pledge by treaty members to complete mine clearance by 2025.
In another setback to the treaty's goals, the number of countries and areas where land mines are known to exist rose to 64 last year, from 61 in 2014, the report said. It attributed the increase to the use of antipersonnel mines in Nigeria, including improvised mines, and to new data on mines that had already been present in Palau and Mozambique.
The casualty increase was primarily because of the armed conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, according to the report, which said better availability of data on victims was also a factor.
It said that 6,461 people were known to have been wounded or killed by land mines and other explosive remnants of war in 2015. That was a 75 percent increase from 2014 and the highest reported casualty total since 2006's figure of 6,573.
"The decade-high number of new casualties caused by land mines and unexploded ordnance, and the continued suffering of civilians, more than a third of whom were children, proves again that these indiscriminate weapons should never be used by anyone," said Loren Persi Vicentic, one of the editors of the annual report, Landmine Monitor 2016.
The land mine treaty, which took effect in 1999, bans the use of mines and other victim-activated explosive devices placed on or under the ground. They are designed to detonate when a person unwittingly walks over them or is nearby, and they can remain lethal even after lying dormant for many years.
Land mines have long posed a safety threat to civilians, particularly children, who step on the explosives or find them, sometimes well after a conflict has ended.
Landmine Monitor 2016 was released in advance of the 15th meeting of countries that have signed the treaty. The meeting is to begin Monday in Santiago, Chile. At least 162 countries have signed the treaty. Thirty-five countries remain outside the treaty, including China, Russia and the United States. Most of them do not use or produce land mines.
More than 50 countries manufactured land mines before the treaty, a number that has since dwindled to 11. The Landmine Monitor report said the most active producers were India, Myanmar, Pakistan and South Korea.
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2) Trump Foundation Won't Pay Any of $25 Million University Settlement
By MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN NOV. 21, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/business/dealbook/trump-foundation-wont-pay-any-of-25-million-
university-settlement.html?ref=business&_r=1&mtrref=www.nytimes.com
Donald J. Trump's charitable foundation will not be paying any of the $25 million settlement to resolve a series of lawsuits concerning Trump University, the president-elect's defunct for-profit education venture that drew customer complaints about price gouging.
Representatives for Mr. Trump sent a one-paragraph letter on Friday to Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York State attorney general, stating that no funding for the settlement would come from "any charitable foundation or other charitable entity."
A copy of the letter, from Alan Garten, executive vice president and general counsel for the Trump Organization, was reviewed by The New York Times. Mr. Garten did not respond to a request for comment.
In the past, Mr. Trump has used money from his charitable foundation, the Donald J. Trump Foundation, to settle lawsuits arising from his business and personal activities. Last month, in the heat of the presidential campaign, The Washington Post reported that more than a quarter of a million dollars from Mr. Trump's charity had been used to settle legal disputes.
"Given Mr. Trump's reported history of using his charity's money to fund his and his businesses' legal settlements, we demanded written assurance that the Trump University settlement would not be paid for by any charitable entity," said Amy Spitalnick, a spokeswoman for the state attorney general.
Mr. Schneiderman sued Trump University in 2013, and his office helped negotiate the settlement, which also resolved two class-action lawsuits filed in federal court in San Diego. One of those suits was scheduled to go to trial in a few days. The settlement foreclosed the possibility of a potentially embarrassing situation for Mr. Trump as he moves forward in putting together his administration.
During the presidential campaign, Mr. Trump said he did not like settling lawsuits and insisted that students found Trump University to be "wonderful" and "beautiful." He took to Twitter early Saturday to say: "The only bad thing about winning the presidency is that I did not have the time to go through a long but winning trial on Trump U. Too bad!"
The lawsuits said that Trump University, which was in business from 2004 to 2010, cheated students out of thousands of dollars in tuition through high-pressure sales tactics and deceptive claims about the program. About 7,000 students will be eligible to recoup some of the money they spent on tuition. The settlement still requires the court's approval.
Some Trump University students paid as much as $35,000 in tuition. One of them, Jeffrey Tufenkian told The New York Times in 2011 that his experience at Trump University "was almost completely worthless." He said the program had wiped out much of his and his wife's savings.
It was not known whether an insurance policy taken out by Trump University would cover any part of the settlement.
Customarily, settlements can be taken as a tax deduction by a business, and that appears to be the case in this situation. However, a $1 million penalty for violating state education laws in New York, which is part of the settlement package, may not qualify for a deduction.
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3) Mr. Trump: I Am an Immigrant With a Criminal Record
By LUNDY KHOY NOV. 24, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/opinion/mr-trump-i-am-an-immigrant-with
-a-criminal-record.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-
heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.
nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=0
WASHINGTON — I arrived in the United States on Nov. 12, 1981, when I was 1. My parents had fled the Pol Pot genocide in Cambodia, in which over two million people were murdered. I was born in a refugee camp in Thailand before moving to California, and then Virginia.
None of these facts may seem important, but I assure you, they are. My parents and I were granted legal permanent resident status; my brother and sister, who were born here, are citizens. The three of us were typical American kids, eating Cheerios for breakfast and taking the bus to school. We went to Disneyland and religiously watched the Fourth of July fireworks from the beach. As a teenager I attended school dances in all of their crepe glory. I am not an American citizen, but there is no way I am not an American.
Donald J. Trump said that his administration will "get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, we have a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million." He continued, "We are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate. But we're getting them out of our country."
I'm not a gang member. I'm not a drug dealer. But I have a criminal record, and I'm afraid.
My parents were very strict when I was growing up. We were expected to come straight home after school to do our homework and then start on our chores. No extracurricular activities. Although it was a happy home, I struggled to find independence.
I think that's partly why, when I started college at George Mason University, I was very naĂŻve — and very foolish. My new friends introduced me to drugs. I had no idea of the consequences behind the choices I made.
In the spring of 2000, I was walking along the street with an American-born friend when we were stopped by a police officer. I was carrying seven tablets of Ecstasy. I was arrested for possession with intent to sell, which is a felony in Virginia. On the advice of my lawyer — and feeling that a trial would increase my family's suffering and embarrassment — I pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in jail. My sentence was suspended, so I spent only three months in the Virginia Department of Corrections. I then served four years on probation, and my level of supervision was gradually reduced as I demonstrated good behavior.
I used the freedom that was given to me to better myself. I moved back in with my parents, began working full time at a mortgage company, and enrolled at Northern Virginia Community College. I paid my taxes, contributed to society and tried to make my parents proud.
Then, in 2004, I went for what I thought was a routine visit to my probation officer. I had even brought along my most recent report card to show the growth I had made. What I encountered was a multitude of officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, instructing me to hand over my possessions and stand spread-eagle against the wall. As my probation officer gave me an apologetic look, they escorted me out of the office, handcuffed me and eventually took me to Hampton Roads Regional Jail, in southern Virginia.
I was dumbstruck. I had been following all the rules. I could not understand why I was being arrested again. Immigration officers eventually informed me that my conviction meant I would most likely be deported from the United States. For me this was a second punishment for the very same crime, and this one, though never discussed or even mentioned three years earlier when I pleaded guilty, was worse than the first.
If I was deported, I would be sent to Cambodia. But I had never even been to Cambodia! Our entire family had moved to the United States at this point; we knew no one there. I was terrified.
I was held in a detention center for nearly nine months before being released under the supervision of the immigration agency. I returned once again to college and started working at a university as an enrollment counselor. I married and had a son.
This spring, I received a pardon from the governor of Virginia that mentioned my "commitment to good citizenship." But immigration law is separate from criminal law, and my record still exists. Even though the state has forgiven my crime, the federal government could still decide to deport me. I am not eligible for citizenship.
Yes, I did make a mistake at a very young age. I fully understand that, but I have also embraced the tremendous consequences of that mistake. I served my time in jail without complaint. The only part of my punishment that I ask for leniency on is my deportation.
Deporting me may be within the authority of the law, but I implore Mr. Trump and his supporters to look past my mistakes. Every year I stay here is one more year I grow and acquire skills and knowledge that allow me to contribute more to this country. By giving me the tremendous opportunity to remain here, you would be allowing me to truly live how I've felt I've lived my entire life: as an American.
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4) In a California Valley, Healthy Food Everywhere but on the Table
By THOMAS FULLER NOV. 23, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/us/in-a-california-valley-healthy-food-everywhere-but-on-
the-table.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-
column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
SALINAS, Calif. — As Americans gather around Thanksgiving tables, chances are that the healthier parts of their menus — the tossed salads, broccoli casseroles or steaming bowls of roasted brussels sprouts — were grown here in the Salinas Valley.
A long strip of deep and fertile soil pinched by sharply rising mountains, the valley has more than doubled its output of produce in recent decades and now grows well over half of America's leaf lettuce.
Yet one place the valley's bounty of antioxidants does not often appear is on the tables of the migrant workers who harvest it.
Public health officials here describe a crisis of poverty and malnutritionamong the tens of thousands of farmworkers and their families who tend to the fields of lettuce, broccoli, celery, cauliflower and spinach, among many other crops, in an area called the salad bowl of the nation.
More than a third of the children in the Salinas City Elementary School District are homeless; overall diabetes rates are rising and projected to soar; and 85 percent of farmworkers in the valley are overweight or obese, partly because unhealthy food is less costly, said Marc B. Schenker, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who studies the health of farmworkers.
"The people who grow our food can't afford to eat it, and they are sicker because of it," said Joel Diringer, a public health specialist and advocate for farmworkers. "It's an incredible irony that those who work in the fields all day long don't have access to the fresh produce that they harvest."
For decades, the fields of the Salinas Valley have been a revolving door of migrants, from the Okies of John Steinbeck's writings to the Latin American immigrants who tend the fields today. Ninety-one percent of farmworkers in California are foreign born, primarily from Mexico, according to the United States Department of Labor.
While the valley's vegetables are reaching an ever-growing number of American households, public health officials say there are no signs of improvement in the living conditions and diets of farmworkers.
The popularity of sugary drinks and cultural preferences for filling but high-calorie foods like tacos and tamales contribute to the obesity of farmworkers and their families, public health officials say. Because an estimated half of agricultural workers in the Salinas Valley are in the country illegally, many do not have health insurance and go without treatment until symptoms become acute.
The combination of high rents and low incomes — wages typically fall in the range of $10 to $15 an hour — leaves farmworkers with minimal and often inadequate money for food and is a contributor to the housing crisis in Salinas.
Homelessness has risen so steadily in recent years that the Salinas City Elementary School District now has a liaison for students without permanent housing.
Cheryl Camany, the school district's homeless liaison, listed the types of dwellings where some farmworkers slept: "Tents, encampments, abandoned buildings," she said. "They could be living in a toolshed, a chicken coop."
Poverty and neglect among farmworkers is by no means new. Steinbeck, the valley's most famous native son, wrote in the 1930s about the "curious attitude toward a group that makes our agriculture successful."
"The migrants are needed, and they are hated," he wrote, a sentiment that residents here feel has been revived with the election of Donald J. Trump as president and his promises to deport undocumented workers.
At a diabetes and nutrition awareness class held at a nursery school in King City, overweight women from farmworker families were given a barrage of statistics on the dangers of poor diets, especially those excessive in sugar.
"Two in five Americans will develop diabetes," Lisa Rico, the instructor, told the class in Spanish. "But for us it's one in two."
The class was run by the Natividad Medical Foundation, a nonprofit that is part of Natividad Medical Center, a large hospital in Salinas.
Ms. Rico read to the class the findings of a survey of 1,200 young people in Monterey County, which includes Salinas: 72 percent of children under 10 years old and 83 percent of teenagers said they drank at least one soda a day; adolescents drank 4.5 times as many sugary drinks as water.
A study published in March by the U.C.L.A. Center for Health Policy Research reported that 57 percent of residents in Monterey County had diabetes or prediabetes, just slightly above the California average of 55 percent.
But Dr. Dana Kent, the medical director for health promotion and education at the Natividad Medical Foundation, said estimates among farmworkers might be low, especially among those who are undocumented and fearful to obtain medical services.
"We get a sense that there are a lot of people out there who are undiagnosed," Dr. Kent said.
On a recent afternoon, workers from Mexico and El Salvador harvested heads of iceberg lettuce in a field in Gonzales, a city in the heart of the Salinas Valley. The workers moved so quickly — slicing, trimming the outer leaves and putting the heads of lettuce into plastic bags — that they looked like actors in a film played at an accelerated speed.
Angelica Beltran, the supervisor, said her workers typically ate six to eight tacos while at work and had two or three sodas during their shift.
"No one drinks diet soda," she said. "It doesn't taste good."
Despite the frenetic pace of the work, farmworkers suffer from what Melissa Kendrick, the head of the Food Bank for Monterey County, calls the "obesity paradox of the poor."
"They are fat, yes, but they are malnourished because all they are eating is garbage," she said.
The consumption of cheap, starchy food has been a major contributor to the epidemic of obesity across America. But the rates among farmworkers here are significantly higher: 85 percent are overweight or obese compared with 69 percent nationally.
Some farmworkers in the Salinas Valley sleep next to the vegetables they cannot afford to buy.
In a row of dusty, barracks-style apartments straddled by railway tracks and vast fields of broccoli, Maria Hernandez, 60, pays $520 a month for two tiny rooms, each about 18 feet across. Her extended family are Mexican immigrants who have spent their lives farming and picking strawberries, celery and other crops. She became aware of the need to eat healthily when both her mother and her sister were diagnosed with diabetes.
"Although we are surrounded by it, we don't eat it because it's expensive," said Antonia Tejada, Ms. Hernandez's daughter, who works the night shift at McDonald's. "We will buy a big bag of beans instead of a little thing of broccoli for $2 that won't feed even one person."
Only an hour south of Silicon Valley, the Salinas Valley is a rural setting with urban prices.
Israel de Jesus, who works as an interpreter at the Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, crowded into a home that rented for $1,600 a month when he was doing farm work.
"There's no way to save money because of the bills and the rent," Mr. de Jesus said. "But you have to save money so you can make it through the winter."
Even when vegetables and other healthy foods are available or affordable, farmworkers sometimes opt for the satisfaction of comfort food.
Brigita Gonzalez rises every day at 3:30 a.m. to prepare food for her husband, who leaves for the fields an hour later. When she made him a salad once to accompany his tacos, he returned in the evening with the salad unfinished.
Ms. Gonzalez says her husband was needled by co-workers for eating a salad: "Everybody was like, 'What are you eating?'"
Ms. Kendrick of the food bank said demand was strong for healthy foods, cultural preferences notwithstanding. The food bank gives out about five million meals a year and is raising money to build a large food warehouse on a six-acre plot.
Ms. Kendrick, who previously worked in Silicon Valley, said she was motivated by the idea that malnutrition and hunger were fixable in a country with so much wealth.
"I've spent time in India, the Middle East, Southeast Asia — third world countries where poverty is everywhere," she said. "It's shocking when it's in your home state."
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5) Thanksgiving Turkeys May Have Been Tamed 1,500 Years Ago in Mexico
As Americans get ready to carve Thanksgiving turkeys, ponder this question: When was this famous fowl first tamed?
Archaeologists are not exactly sure, but recent research suggests that humans domesticated the big bird at least 1,500 years ago. The evidence comes from a clutch of intact eggs found in an old fortress in Oaxaca, Mexico. The researchers believe that the eggs, which date to between 400 and 500 A.D., were used by ancient people as some sort of ritualistic offering or sacrifice to their gods.
"Finding those eggs intact was mind-blowing," said Gary Feinman, an archaeologist from the Field Museum in Chicago. "I've been excavating for decades and I have never ever found intact eggs like that in that quantity ever."
Dr. Feinman and his colleagues uncovered several whole eggs buried together beneath two households in the Mitla Fortress in 2009. The fortress was once inhabited by the Zapotec people, a Mesoamerican civilization that was a neighbor of the Mayans, who lived there between 300 and 1,200 A.D. The Zapotecs were known to offer blood sacrifices, sometimes during important events such as burials, marriages and births, or for healing and agricultural rituals. Before constructing a new home, they would sometimes sacrifice a turkey hatchling, eat it and then bury its remains beneath the floors or within the walls.
"We were not surprised to find offerings per se, but we were surprised to find an offering of a cluster of turkey eggs," said Dr. Feinman.
They found four offerings and a grave that had turkey eggs and bones. The biggest offering contained five whole eggs and about seven baby turkey skeletons beneath the floor. The researchers said that in order for the residents to have both baby turkeys and turkey eggs within their houses, they must have been breeding and raising the birds nearby.
"It's the earliest solid evidence of domesticated turkey in southern Mexico that we have to date," Dr. Feinman said. He and his colleagues published their results in The Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports in a paper that was published online in July and will appear in print in an upcoming issue on turkey domestication.
Within the houses in Mitla Fortress, the team found several eggshells and more than 400 bones belonging to baby and adult turkeys. About a quarter of the bones were fashioned into tools or jewelry, but most appeared to have been discarded in trash pits. Turkeys weren't the only animals that the Mitla Fortress residents domesticated. They also raised dogs to eat and sacrifice.
Heather A. Lapham, an archaeologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and the lead author of the study, analyzed the bones and showed they belonged to turkeys. She and the other researchers also confirmed with a scanning electron microscope that the eggs were from turkeys as well. The team is still awaiting DNA analysis of the bones to determine which of the three subspecies native to Mexico the remains belong to.
The findings are the earliest evidence of tamed turkeys in southern Mexico, moving back the oldest known signs that turkeys were being raised by people. The oldest examples in northern Mexico date to around 500 A.D., although most archaeological evidence in the region does not appear until 900 A.D., according to the authors. In the Southwest United States some of the earliest domestic turkey evidence comes from sites that date to around 600 A.D.
The authors note that there was an older turkey bone found in a cave in southern Mexico that is dated to 180 A.D., but they argue that the evidence from that lone bone is not enough to suggest that it was domesticated instead of wild.
Joel L. Cracraft, curator of the department of ornithology at the American Museum of Natural History, was not involved in the study and said the paper provided clear evidence of turkey domestication by the Zapotecs some 1,500 years ago.
"It seems that it pushes domestication back another 100 to 200 years," he said.
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6) Mothers in Prison
"Prison got me sober, but it didn't get me anywhere."
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF NOV. 25, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/opinion/sunday/mothers-in-prison.
html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module
=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=
opinion-c-col-right-region
TULSA, Okla. — The women's wing of the jail here exhales sadness. The inmates, wearing identical orange uniforms, ache as they undergo withdrawal from drugs, as they eye one another suspiciously, and as they while away the days stripped of freedom, dignity, privacy and, most painful of all, their children.
"She's disappointed in me," Janay Manning, 29, a drug offender shackled to a wall for an interview, said of her eldest daughter, a 13-year-old. And then she started crying, and we paused our interview.
Of all America's various policy missteps in my lifetime, perhaps the most catastrophic was mass incarceration. It has had devastating consequences for families, and it costs the average American household $600 a year.
The United States has recently come to its senses and begun dialing back on the number of male prisoners. But we have continued to increase the number of women behind bars; two-thirds of women in state prisons are there for nonviolent offenses. America now incarcerates eight times as many women as in 1980, and only Thailand seems to imprison women at a higher rate.
And the situation may well worsen under the Trump administration; the president-elect's nominee for attorney general, Jeff Sessions, has in effect defended mass incarceration.
The global capital for female incarceration may be right here in Oklahoma, which incarcerates 142 out of every 100,000 women, about 10 times the rate of low-ranking states like Rhode Island and Massachusetts. I wouldn't argue that mass female incarceration is worse than mass male incarceration — they're both counterproductive — but the imprisonment of women has heartbreaking collateral damage, because women are disproportionately likely to be primary caregivers, and 60 percent of American women in state prisons have children under 18.
"There's a devastating impact on the children," said Amy Santee of the George Kaiser Family Foundation, which supports an alternative to imprisonment for women. "They're put in chaotic homes, they're more likely to be sexually abused, they're more likely to be imprisoned themselves."
Research shows that prison routinely fails at helping women straighten out their lives — although it does mess up their children.
"I felt my life was going to repeat my mom's, and it did," said Alisia Hunter, 37, who said her mother was imprisoned for financial offenses while she was a child. Hunter then ended up having a baby at age 16 by one of her father's buddies, and she soon began doing stints in prison for drug offenses.
"Prison got me sober, but it didn't get me anywhere," Hunter told me. Each time she went to prison, she would get clean, and then once out she would return to drugs.
She did try to get into a drug rehabilitation program. But the state, while willing to pay to imprison her, was unwilling to pay for drug rehab except for the most serious addicts; she didn't qualify.
One reason mass incarceration doesn't get fixed is that society regards felons with a mix of fear and contempt. In fact, the women should evoke sympathy; even more than male prisoners, they have been through the wringer.
A quarter of women in state prisons reported having been sexually abused as children, one 1999 Justice Department study found. A different study found that 43 percent of women in jails that were examined had serious mental health problems, and 82 percent had drug or alcohol problems.
Anessa Rabbit, 31, says she grew up in a family of addicts and was born with drugs in her system. I can't confirm her life story, but she told how she was molested by her father beginning when she was 7, began smoking methamphetamine daily when she was 11, moved in with a man when she was 13 and dropped out of school in the ninth grade.
Like many female felons, Rabbit seems to have gotten in trouble because of a boyfriend who manipulated her into committing crimes.
"He always put me in the position of doing the dirty work," Rabbit said, speaking of a boyfriend who used to choke and beat her when he wasn't coercing her to commit crimes. She says they committed robberies and other offenses, sometimes she at his behest; he ended up with a sentence of four years probation and she faced a possible sentence of 26 years in prison.
Prosecutors often understand what's going on but threaten the women with long sentences (sometimes based on conspiracy laws) to get them to testify against their men. That's how the criminal justice system works, but when the women refuse to cave, they go to prison for many years — and the guys then drop them.
When men are in prison, they seem to get visits frequently from girlfriends, who also add money into their commissary accounts so they can buy small items and make phone calls. But the prisoners and social workers I spoke to said that when women are imprisoned, they get fewer visitors and their accounts are often empty.
Mass incarceration also has an abysmal record. Recidivism is high, and imprisonment breaks up and impoverishes families. A newly published study from the Russell Sage Foundation found that incarceration of a family member is associated with a 64 percent decline in household assets, magnifying poverty and the race gap in America. And the 2.6 million American children who have a parent in prison or jail pay an enormous price — which, as Rabbit's story shows, isn't always necessary.
Rabbit was diverted from prison to a model program in Tulsa called Women in Recovery. (Hunter also is in the program.) It reduces the numbers of women in prison, saves money and has had remarkable success helping troubled women shake drugs and restart their lives.
It has a two-generation approach that works with both the women and their children. The program offers counseling, intensive support, coaching on budgeting and conflict resolution, and help getting high school equivalency diplomas, housing and jobs.
The upshot is that Rabbit has now been clean of drugs for nine months — the longest since she was a young child — and has a job in a warehouse with some prospects for promotion. She has custody on weekends of her son, 12, and daughter, 11, and is trying to rebuild relationships with them.
Women in Recovery programs last 17 months and cost $19,700 on average; after that, the woman is in a job, and recidivism over the next three years is just 4.9 percent. Without the program, the state might imprison the women for years at a much greater cost — and end up with a much higher recidivism rate.
So if we want to reduce female incarceration, we have a solution here in Tulsa that will also reduce crime and pay for itself.
I know some of you are glaring at this article and thinking: It's their own fault. If they don't want to go to prison, they shouldn't commit crimes!
That scorn derives partly from a misunderstanding of drug abuse, which is a central reason for mass female incarceration in America (and a major reason for mass incarceration of men as well, although to a lesser degree). As Dr. Vivek H. Murthy, the surgeon general, noted in releasing a major report this month: "It's time to change how we view addiction. Not as a moral failing but as a chronic illness." In short, we should think of drugs not primarily through the criminal justice lens but as a public health crisis.
If you think all this is just coddling criminals, consider for a moment Michelle Vavrick, 24. I can't independently verify her story, but her counselors believe it, and it tracks what many other women in her position have experienced.
Vavrick says she was raised in a chaotic and violent home with alcohol and drugs. Beginning at age 7, she says, a pedophile named Sean began picking her up at her house and taking her away to rape her on an almost daily basis. She responded by acting out, self-mutilating and becoming violent.
"At 10, I became uncontrollable," Vavrick remembered. "Sean and his friends would shoot me with heroin so they could do what they wanted to me. Six of them."
Vavrick self-medicated with alcohol and drugs, went through rehab programs that didn't work and ran away at 18. She lived on a park bench, sold sex, connected with a gang and robbed people. "I was a big ball of anger," she recalled. "I couldn't stand being in my own skin."
Last year she was finally arrested for drug running and faced a sentence of 15 years to life. Fortunately, she was diverted to Women in Recovery, underwent intensive cognitive processing therapy — and transformed. She has now been clean for 10 months and is warm and hopeful. Instead of sitting sullenly in a prison cell, she works in a bakery, loves it, and hopes to run her own bakery some day.
At one point when I was interviewing her about her past, she began crying. Alarmed, I quickly apologized, but she shushed me up. "This is progress," she said, beaming through her tears. She wants to let herself feel again.
Reporting these kinds of topics is often tough: I see people stuck in cycles of poverty, drugs and incarceration, with their children often headed in the same direction. Even well-meaning help is sometimes rejected, for we humans have an astonishing capacity for self-destructive behavior — just as society does, with policies like mass incarceration. That backdrop makes it exhilarating to see a program like Women in Recovery succeed, and an individual like Michelle Vavrick blossom through it into a new future.
"I know how precious my life is, and I never want to stick a needle in my arm again," she said. "I want to live."
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7) Donald Trump and the Lawsuit Presidency
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD NOV. 25, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/opinion/donald-trump-and-
the-lawsuit-presidency.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&click
Source=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-left-region®ion=
opinion-c-col-left-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-left-region&_r=
0&mtrref=www.nytimes.com&assetType=opinion
Donald Trump will take office as president facing a tsunami of litigation over his business practices and personal behavior. He may have settled the fraud suits involving Trump University, but at least 75 other lawsuits are underway against him or his companies, according to USA Today. Its investigation found more than 3,500 lawsuits over the past three decades, ranging from contract disputes to real estate battles to harassment and discrimination claims.
In short, Mr. Trump could find himself in a near-constant stream of court fights while he tries to focus on running the country. Even in advance of any decisions, there is a degree of poetic justice here, since the scorched-earth approach has long been standard practice for Mr. Trump; as a businessman, he thrived on no-holds-barred legal conflict and hauled out the heavy artillery for even minor disputes. Less than three weeks before the election, he threatened to sue at least 11 women who had recently come forward with allegations that he sexually assaulted them.
Now consider all the potential conflicts of interest if this litigiousness should come to, or from, the Oval Office. What happens if there is litigation involving a building he leases from the federal government? Or if the Internal Revenue Service — an executive-branch agency — recommends civil or criminal penalties based on an audit of Mr. Trump's taxes?
The Trump University lawsuits — two class actions filed in a San Diego federal court and a state fraud case brought by the New York attorney general, representing about 7,000 plaintiffs in all — show that these conflicts would not be limited to the federal government. Court documents revealed a dishonest operation that was marketed as a way for regular people to make lots of money by following Mr. Trump's "secrets" to real estate investing.
But according to Trump University employees, Mr. Trump's investing techniques were never part of the program. Instead, salespeople were trained to exploit vulnerable "students" by pressuring them to pay thousands of dollars to attend seminars and "personal mentorship programs," many run by people with little or no experience in real estate. One sales manager called the entire business model a "fraudulent scheme."
Mr. Trump initially said he would never settle the suits, a claim he has often made in other cases. But in fact, Mr. Trump settles lawsuits quite often — in more than one-third of the cases whose outcome is on the public record, according to an analysis by Bloomberg Politics. As soon as he was elected, he changed his tune on the Trump University suits, surely realizing that it would not look good for a sitting president to take the stand in his own defense against charges of fraud and racketeering.
Unsurprisingly, Mr. Trump presented this latest settlement — which did not require him to admit liability — as a personal sacrifice in the national interest. "The ONLY bad thing about winning the Presidency," the president-elect tweeted on Saturday, "is that I did not have the time to go through a long but winning trial on Trump U. Too bad!"
It is as if Mr. Trump views the courts as a casino: You win some and you lose some. But luckily for him, even when he loses, he wins: Most of the $25 million settlement will be a tax write-off.
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8) Power Imbalance at the Pipeline Protest
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD NOV. 23, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/opinion/power-imbalance-at-the-pipeline-protest.html
When injustice aligns with cruelty, and heavy weaponry is involved, the results can be shameful and bloody. Witness what happened on Sunday in North Dakota, when law enforcement officers escalated their tactics against unarmed American Indians and allies who have waged months of protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline.
They drenched protesters with water cannons on a frigid night, with temperatures in the 20s. According to protesters and news accounts, the officers also fired rubber bullets, pepper spray, percussion grenades and tear gas. More than 160 people were reportedly injured, with one protester's arm damaged so badly she might lose it.
The confrontation happened at Backwater Bridge, on a highway linking the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and Bismarck, N.D. Burned-out trucks and a police barricade have made the bridge impassable. Protesters say this is a needless threat to public safety — forcing emergency vehicles to detour about 20 miles — as well as a spiteful attempt to keep them away from the pipeline construction site. The violence erupted after some of the protesters tried to remove the truck carcasses on Sunday.
"We're just not going to let people or protesters in large groups come in and threaten officers, that's not happening," said the Morton County sheriff, Kyle Kirchmeier. The Sheriff's Department's Facebook pagelinked to a video of the armed and armored officers, the water cannon drenching the crowd, and a rock flying overhead.
The pipeline, all but built, is meant to ship crude oil from North Dakota to Illinois. Built almost entirely on private property, the pipeline crosses ancestral lands of the Standing Rock Sioux, passing less than a mile from the tribal reservation. Tribe members fear contamination of their drinking water and damage to sacred sites. They are trying to persuade the federal government to deny permits allowing the pipeline to cross the Missouri River near their reservation.
The department's video was meant to portray the protesters as dangerous troublemakers, but the photos and videos in news reports suggest a more familiar story — an imbalance of power, where law enforcement fiercely defends property rights against protesters' claims of environmental protection and the rights of indigenous people. American Indians have seen this sort of drama unfold for centuries — native demands meeting brute force against a backdrop of folly — in this case, the pursuit of fossil fuels at a time of sagging oil demand and global climatic peril.
The Army Corps of Engineers has called for more study and input from the tribe before it decides on whether to grant a permit. The pipeline company has asked a federal judge to give it the right to proceed with its plan to lay pipe under the river. There is no firm timeline for either decision.
In the meantime, President Obama could step in to protect everyone's safety and pressure the sheriff's officers to stand down. Barring that, resolute protesters, a heavily militarized police force unwilling to budge, a company that refuses to consider an alternate route and an onrushing Great Plains winter — how can this possibly end well?
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9) Race and Marijuana Arrests
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD NOV. 25, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/25/opinion/race-and-marijuana-arrests.html?rref
=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fnyregion&action=click&contentCollection=
nyregion®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=
4&pgtype=sectionfront&mtrref=www.nytimes.com&assetType=opinion
Mayor Bill de Blasio, who took office in 2014, has made some progress in cutting back on the unfair and sometimes illegal police practices under which thousands of New Yorkers are arrested every year for possessing trivial amounts of marijuana.
But despite research showing that whites and minority citizens use marijuana at similar rates, black and Latino New Yorkers are still far and away more likely to be singled out for low-level arrests that have little public safety value, but seriously damage their lives.
These petty possession cases are typically dismissed after the person stays out of trouble for a year. But during the waiting period, people with otherwise clean records can be denied jobs, housing or entry into the armed services.
This problem dates back to the 1970s, when affluent parents grew angry seeing the futures of their college-educated children ruined as a result of arrests for tiny amounts of marijuana. The New York Legislature responded to this anger by forbidding police officers from arresting people for small amounts of marijuana unless the drug was being smoked or displayed in public.
There were fewer than 1,000 such arrests in 1990. But eventually police officers began to illegally charge people with public display of marijuana after forcing them to remove the drug from their backpacks or pockets. In 2011, an astonishing 50,000 people were arrested on charges of public possession. The number began to plummet under Mayor Michael Bloomberg after the city instructed police officers to obey the state law.
There were just over 26,000 arrests in 2014 — the year Mr. de Blasio took office and introduced a policy under which people with tiny amounts of the drug were typically issued the equivalent of a traffic summons instead of being dragged through the legal system. Last year, there were about 16,600 such arrests.
But the racial disparity in arrests persists. A new analysis of state data by the Police Reform Organizing Project found that about 85 percent of those arrested over trivial amounts of marijuana in the first nine months of this year were black or Latino. It also shows that marijuana arrests edged up by about 12 percent in the first nine months of this year, as compared with the same period in 2015.
The Police Department attributes this racial disparity to the fact that black and Latino people tend to live in higher crime neighborhoods that are more heavily policed. But criminal defenders and police reform advocates have a different interpretation. They argue that, despite department policy, officers are still wrongly charging people with public possession, and that police officers turn a blind eye to marijuana use in affluent white areas while bearing down on it in minority communities.
The city's marijuana enforcement system is more sensible than it was five years ago. But the Police Department needs to get to the bottom of the racial disparity in arrests that continues to harm minority citizens and undermines faith in the fairness of the law.
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10) Wells Fargo Asks Court to Force Customers to Arbitration in Fake Accounts Cases
By REUTERS NOV. 24, 2016
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/business/wells-fargo-asks-court-to-force-customers-to-arbitration-in-fake-accounts-
cases.html?ref=business&_r=0&mtrref=www.nytimes.com
Wells Fargo has asked a Federal District Court to order dozens of customers who are suing the bank over the opening of unauthorized accounts to resolve their disputes in private arbitrations instead of court, according to legal documents.
The motion, filed in the United States District Court in Utah on Wednesday, is in response to the first-class action lawsuit filed against Wells since it agreed to pay $185 million in penalties and $5 million to customers for opening up to 2 million deposit and credit-card accounts in their names without their permission.
The scandal has shaken Wells, the third-largest American bank by assets. It has been put under tougher regulatory scrutiny, its chief executive, John Stumpf, has stepped down and its reputation has been damaged as it faces multiple inquiries.
Wells Fargo has begun an advertising campaign to win back customer loyalty in the wake of the scandal.
A spokesman for Wells Fargo declined to comment on the filing.
In a written response to questions from lawmakers, published last week, the bank said it would stand by its arbitration policy but is offering free mediation services to affected customers.
Mandatory arbitration rules inserted into account-opening agreements prohibit customers from joining class actions or suing Wells Fargo. Instead, the agreements require individual, closed-door arbitration.
Mandating arbitration when signing up for financial products has become standard practice after a Supreme Court decision in 2011 validated the practice. But customer advocates say it improperly denies customers the legal protections of court proceedings, such as the right to appeal, and helps to conceal corporate misconduct from the public and regulators because the related documents and hearings are not made public.
Customers trying to recover small sums of money are also unlikely to find lawyers to represent them in arbitration, critics say, and the cases do not set a legal precedent to help other affected individuals.
Last year, a court dismissed an earlier lawsuit against Wells Fargo, saying that customers had signed arbitration clauses when opening their accounts.
The bank has been criticized for its mandatory arbitration clauses from Democratic lawmakers in Congress, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is considering rules to prohibit banks, credit-card issuers and other companies from forcing customers to submit to arbitration and waive their right to join class-action lawsuits. But the bureau could find its powers scaled back by President-elect Donald J. Trump and a Republican-led Congress, according to members of both political parties, lobbyists and lawyers.
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11) Forest Fires Raging Across Palestine
Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh for Salem-News.com
The European pine tree, not indigenous to Palestine, is highly flammable.
Nov-25-2016 16:40 Follow @OregonNews
Fires ablaze in Palestine. |
(LONDON / BETHLEHEM) - Over 200 forest fires are raging in Palestine (now renamed the Jewish State of Israel including its occupied Palestinian territories). Many countries are helping put out the fires including four teams of Palestinian firefighters (no body helped Gaza when it was being fire-bombed by white phosphorous).
But the fascist racist government of "Israel" blamed the Palestinians for the fires! Even some decent Israelis pointed out that fires are raging across Western Asia (aka the "Middle East").
Here is a map (link) put out by one Israeli website of location of fires across the region including in Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey.
Perhaps coincidentally or otherwise, right after war criminal Netanyahu blamed Palestinians, new fires erupted near Palestinian communities. If you really want to know who is to blame for the damage, it is clearly Zionism as I wrote in many articles and books before.
In 1901 at the World Zionist Congress and despite objections of conscientious Jews, a Jewish National Fund (Keren Keyemet Li'Israel, or KKL) was establish to further "Jewish colonization" (the term they used) of Palestine.
One of the tasks was to raise money and they used the gimmick of collecting money for trees. Indeed they did plant trees but it was unfortunately the highly flammable European pine tree.
After 1948-1949 when some 500 Palestinian villages and towns were depopulated, their lands (cultivated with figs, almonds, olives and other trees) were razed to the ground and again resinous and inflammable pine trees were planted.
The same happened after 1967 when here Palestinian villages were demolished and their village lands planted with the same European pines, one of those villages is the biblical Imwas (see photos before and after here: freepaly.wordpress.com/tag/environmental-racism.
The choice of European pine trees was because a) they grow fast, b) they give a European look to the otherwise "Arab" landscape, c) their leaves on the ground make acidic preventing growth or regrowth of endogenous trees. In total, KKL boasts that it planted 240 million pine trees.
Resinous pine is like petrol and burns with a ferocity. This was not the only environmentally catastrophic decision by the Zionist movement in Palestine (others include draining the Hula Wetlands and the diversion of the water of the river Jordan and now the Red Sea-Dead Sea Canal).
Environmentally, the current fires are deadly to all living creatures regardless of their origins and they do spread t the remaining few indigenous forests and to human dwellings (Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Atheist without distinction).
We environmentalists (Palestinian and Israeli) have longed warned of the catastrophic consequences of politically driven decisions guided by colonial ideology but devastating to native animals and plants.
So here we are the remaining native Palestinians watching our lands go up in flames and being blamed for it. This is not unusual and we are the victims of others from long ago. We even paid the price of what happened in WWII (by Europeans to fellow Europeans).
I am thinking now if a meteor hits earth, we Palestinians will also pay a disproportionate price. 7 million of us are refugees or displaced people.
We in the Palestine Museum of Natural History and Palestine Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability (http://palestinenature.org) urge protection of our nature. Environmental conservation is a priority for all decent human beings including guarding biodiversity (and human diversity).
My presentation in Paris: DESCLAUX_SALACHAS/slideshow
How did Zionism became the dominant feature among Jews in the world?
Here is a clue from 1942 that, however, does not even mention that Palestine had its native population who are now mostly refugees or displaced people (7 million of 12 million native Palestinian Christians and Muslims). Thanks to this colonial ideology called Zionism...
"Zionism an Affirmation of Judaism / A reply by 757 Orthodox, Conservative and Reform Rabbis of America to a Statement Issued by Ninety Members of the Reform Rabbinate Charging That Zionism Is Incompatible with the Teachings of Judaism."
This statement is by "American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs New York 1942" [note that these Rabbis themselves use "colonial" without mentioning natives but that is typical of such movements but also note that they are responding to 90 decent Jewish Rabbis. Alas the struggle continues between the two camps I discussed in my last weekly email].
Stay human and come visit us
Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD (formerly of Yale and Duke universities) teaches at Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities in occupied Palestine and chairs the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People. Professor Qumsiyeh has authored over 110 scientific papers in areas of mammalogy, biology, and medicine including mammalian biology and evolution, clinical genetics, and cancer research. He has published over 100 letters to the editor and 30 op-ed pieces in International, national, regional and local papers on issues ranging from politics to environmental issues. His appearances in national media include the Washington Post, New York Times, Boston Globe, CNBC, C-Span, and ABC, among others. He is the founder and president of the Holy Land Conservation Foundation and ex-President of the Middle East Genetics Association, and Prof. Qumsiyeh won the Jallow activism award from the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee in 1998. Those are just a small list, visit Mazin Qumsiyeh's amazing and informative Website to learn more: qumsiyeh.org, and also pcr.ps.
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12) Even as Trudeau Reaches Out to First Nations, Mercury Rises
By STEPHEN MARCHE NOV. 27, 201
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/27/opinion/even-as-trudeau-reaches-out-to-first-nations-
mercury-rises.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module
=opinion-c-col-right-region®ion=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-
right-region&_r=0
Billy Gauthier, an Inuk artist who lives in Labrador on Canada's remote northeastern coast, began his hunger strike on Oct. 13 after a plate of salmon. The meal was highly symbolic.
The Nunatsiavut government in Labrador had released a study from a Harvard mercury researcher on the effects of the newly constructed Muskrat Falls dam. The study showed that water flooding the reservoir behind the dam would contain methylmercury levels "to the point that they exceed regulatory thresholds for exposure," building up over time in fish and other game consumed by the native population.
And so Mr. Gauthier refused to eat the fish that the Muskrat Falls project would contaminate. Thirteen days later, the provincial government promised to act on an independent assessment of the health risks to the people of Labrador, and Mr. Gauthier celebrated with a plate of arctic char.
He may have celebrated too soon. Already the government's commitment is looking doubtful, with Stan Marshall, the chief executive of Nalcor Energy, the company responsible for the dam, publicly playing down the methylmercury risks.
Muskrat Falls has brought up urgent questions for the country as a whole at a turning point in our relationship to First Peoples: How serious are we about the process of truth and reconciliation?
Muskrat Falls will affect three peoples — the Innu, the Nunatsiavut and the NunatuKavut — who will have to alter their diets, and as such their cultures. Methylmercury has a particularly strong effect on women and children and can lead to intellectual impairments and immune system problems. Some of the hydroelectric dams have already disrupted the hunting and fishing traditions of the Cree living nearby.
Justin Trudeau, who wears a shoulder tattoo based on the print "Raven Bringing Light to the World" by the Haida artist Robert Davidson, made truth and reconciliation with Canada's First Nations a priority of his election platform.
Since Mr. Trudeau's election a year ago, changes grand and subtle have been made. At Toronto schools, morning announcements begin with recognizing the original settlers of the land. "I would like to acknowledge that this school is situated upon traditional territories," it begins, before establishing which peoples the territories belonged to (in Toronto's case, the Mississaugas of the New Credit), and concluding, "I also recognize the enduring presence of aboriginal peoples on this land."
Other changes have been more material. In his cabinet, Mr. Trudeau appointed the first indigenous minister of justice in the country's history, Jody Wilson-Raybould, a woman who had served previously as regional chief of the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations.
This past summer, the Trudeau government announced a national inquiry into the continuing crisis of murdered and missing aboriginal women. The first Liberal budget added $8.4 billion over five years for indigenous community infrastructure, in order to bring "transformational change" in reserves across the country.
But in the middle of the well-intentioned festivities, the crisis in Muskrat Falls arrived like a bloody ghost, summoning up the very worst of Canadian history. Muskrat Falls echoes what the Canadian historian James Daschuk has called "the politics of starvation." In his 2013 study, "Clearing the Plains," Mr. Daschuk argued that famine was a conscious settlement strategy to "create ecological conditions in which disease exploded."
In a famous anecdote, Justin Trudeau's father, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, made the same point in a meeting with Marlon Brando when the American actor wanted to discuss native rights.
"There are differences in the way we treated our natives," he said. "You hunted them down and murdered them. We starved them to death."
A flip remark, but one based in history. Recent historical research has uncovered evidence that federal government officials, in remote communities in northern Manitoba in the 1940s, used malnourished indigenous peoples to test theories of vitamins. In 1947, they tested on 1,000 hungry children in half a dozen residential schools, deliberately withholding milk rations to get a "baseline reading" of the effects of malnutrition.
Nutritional questions have always been cultural questions for the indigenous peoples of Canada. Hunting and fishing are more than a traditional way of life. The land is the connection to the larger world and to history. High methylmercury levels would render the land untrustworthy. If you cannot trust the land, what can you trust?
When the Harvard study of Muskrat Falls was released, Nalcor initially proposed simply putting up advisory warnings to limit the consumption of fish. The company had resisted the obvious, expensive solution — clearcutting the land for the dam's reservoir and stripping the topsoil before flooding, which removes the buildup of methylmercury in organic matter.
"I'd like to say I was surprised, but I wasn't surprised," Mr. Gauthier declared, renewing his promise to resume the hunger strike if Nalcor failed to live up to its commitments.
Will Canada live up to its commitments? Mr. Trudeau represents a new generation in Canadian politics, literally and figuratively. He has brought in a new, much younger, team to Ottawa. That generation, like President Obama's eight years ago, came to power with the idea they were better than those who went before.
Now they are facing the oldest confrontation in Canadian history: the power of economic motives against indigenous claims to the land with the federal government in between as, at best, a dubious intermediary. Well-meaning phrases at the school announcements will not suffice. How can you atone for a crime while you're still in the middle of committing it?
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