tuesday may 26th

I just got the announcement that the decision will be made on TUESDAY MAY 26th at 10am. Spread the word! Meet at 10am at the California Supreme Court at 350 McAllister St at Civic Center Park. There will be a rally at San Francisco City Hall at 5pm. If you can't make it to San Francisco that day, there are events all over the state and country so check the Day of Decision website. For info on civil disobedience that may be going on check out One Struggle, One Fight.

some interesting statistics on wealth

Just picked up a new book and found this in the intro. This brings me up to 5 books I'm currently reading. I should start prioritizing because I've barely started all 5. The book was printed in 2006.

-The assets of the world's top three billionaires are greater than those of the poorest 600 million people on the planet.
-Globally, there are seventy thousand people who possess more than $30 million in financial assets. Half of the world's 587 billionaires are Americans, whose wealth increased collectively by $500 billion in 2003 alone. They posses the same amount of wealth as the combined gross domestic product of the world's poorest 170 countries combined.
-More than a third of the world's people, 2.8 billion, live on less than two dollars a day.
-1.2 billion people live on less than one dollar a day.

And some stats for the U.S.
-The average compensation in 2004 for the CEOs of the top 367 U.S. companies was $11.8 million, up from $8.1 million in 2003. On average, CEOs in 2004 made 431 times what a production worker made, up from a 107:1 ratio in 1990 and a 42:1 ratio in 1982.
-CEO pay has increased by 300 percent over the last fifteen years, whereas wages have increased in the same period by only 5 percent (and minimum wage workers have seen their pay fall by 6 percent). If wages had kept up with the percentage increase in CEO pay, in 2004 the average pay for production workers would have been $110,136, instead of $27,460.
-The top 20 perfect of American households control 83 percent of the nation's wealth, while the bottom 80 percent of Americans control only about 17 percent of the nation's wealth.
-A total of 34.6 million Americans in 2002, 12.1 percent of the population, lived below the official poverty line, and 8.5 million of them had jobs. Overall, black poverty is double that of whites.

election results

Here are the results of the California Special Election

Proposition 1A: Rainy Day Fund - Yes: 34.2%; No: 65.8%
Proposition 1B: Education Funding - Yes: 37.5%; No: 62.5%
Proposition 1C: Modernize Lottery - Yes: 35.4%; No: 64.6%
Proposition 1D: Child Services Funding - Yes: 34.3%; No: 65.7%
Proposition 1E: Mental Health Budget - Yes: 33.6%; No: 66.4%
Proposition 1F: Elected Official Salaries - Yes: 73.9%; No: 26.1%
[source]

Good thing California voters didn't pass these budget cuts.

Day of Decision

Sometime in the next two weeks the California Supreme Court will rule on the challenge to Proposition 8. The decision will be either next Monday or Thursday, or Tuesday or Thursday of the following week. You can sign up for a mobile alert here, which we will get 24 hours prior to the ruling. If the ruling upholds Prop 8 there will be civil disobedience organized by One Struggle, One Fight. Otherwise there will be a celebration. Come show your support! For more information visit the Day of Decision website.

torture used to tie 9/11 to Iraq

According to Colin Powell's former Chief of Staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, the Bush administration used torture to link Al Qaeda to Iraq. Wilerson states, "The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts. Of course later we learned that al-Libi revealed these contacts only to get the torture to stop." As we now know there was no Iraq/Al Qaeda link. Could the Iraq war been started without this link? Either way, this was one of the main arguments to start the war in Iraq. This man was tortured until he gave the information the administration needed to start an unjust war. With all the information coming out I hope Obama has no choice but to start a criminal investigation about torture and Iraq. Certain people should be punished for war crimes but I doubt anyone of importance ever will. More on what can be summed up as this week in torture.


First the "War on Terror" ended, now it may be the "War on Drugs." In an interview White House Drug Czar, Gil Kerlikowske said, "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them." The Obama administration has spoken of more sensible drug policies, we'll just have to wait to see how they're implemented. Will this be a drastic change or just a different choice of words? Operations in Afghanistan didn't change with the end of the "War on Terror."


An activist from Texas was sentenced 24 months in prison for preparing Molotov cocktails that were intended to be used for the 2008 Republican National Convention. I don't know what the guy's intention was, but it's people like this that really hurt progressive movements. This is fodder for the main stream media just so they can focus on the few violent people of any movement in an attempt to discredit it. Just like people who mindlessly start riots and protests, why can't these idiots realize they're doing more bad than good for the cause they claim to be supporting?

from the city where you put flowers in your hair

I spent most of the day sorting through pictures I've taken over the past month. Some of my favorites, all from various parts of San Francisco.

swedish socialist hell

Max sent me this Daily Show clip. I gotta get back to watching Daily Show, this is fucking hilarious. Even though Sweden isn't really socialist. Still... watch.

roundup: i wish Obama would listen to MLK

I'm going to try a more organized format for my roundups. And maybe something else to call it other than roundup.

Howard Zinn on Democracy Now: I Wish Obama Would Listen to Martin Luther King"
Some U.S. soldiers forced to ration water due to shortage
Homeless advocate caught eye of police Homeland Security coordinator
New York moves to be added to list of states cooler than California. Assembly passes gay marriage bill
Guns may be allowed back in national parks as part of credit card legislation
UCSB professor investigated for being critical of Israel

Historian and peace activist Howard Zinn is interviewed my Amy Goodman. One of the topics discussed is how Obama, like many, commends Martin Luther King on the civil rights movement, but does not take into account his ideas on peace and poverty. Zinn discusses how Martin Luther King, along with historical figures including Mark Twain and Helen Keller were radicals, yet history rarely mentions these parts.

Instead of Theodore Roosevelt, tell them about Mark Twain. Mark Twain—well, Mark Twain, everybody learns about as the author of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, but when we go to school, we don’t learn about Mark Twain as the vice president of the Anti-Imperialist League. We aren’t told that Mark Twain denounced Theodore Roosevelt for approving this massacre in the Philippines. No.

We want to give young people ideal figures like Helen Keller. And I remember learning about Helen Keller. Everybody learns about Helen Keller, you know, a disabled person who overcame her handicaps and became famous. But people don’t learn in school and young people don’t learn in school what we want them to learn when we do books like A Young People’s History of the United States, that Helen Keller was a socialist. She was a labor organizer. She refused to cross a picket line that was picketing a theater showing a play about her.

He goes on to say that presidents can't be relied upon. The people have to push leadership to get things done. On a side note, this is exactly what happened with Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the New Deal. History class would have you think he did it out of the goodness of his heart. It's true that he had more compassion to the labor movement than many other presidents, but it was organization and strikes that brought upon the New Deal. The same thing happened with the Civil Rights movement.

AMY GOODMAN: When Barack Obama was running for president, asked in the debates who would MLK endorse, who would Dr. King endorse, he said, “None of us.”

HOWARD ZINN: Yeah, that’s true, because King believed—and this actually is one of the themes of our people’s history, is that you cannot depend on presidents, and you cannot depend on elections and voting to solve your problems. People themselves, organizing, demonstrating, clamoring, they are the only ones who can push the President and push Congress into change. And that’s what we have to do now with Obama. We have to point to what Obama said in the course of the campaign, when he said we not only have to get out of Iraq, we have to get out of the mindset that brought us into Iraq. Obama, himself, has not gotten out of that mindset yet. And I think we, the people, have to speak to him about that.

I think too many people think electing Obama was end game. They have to realize it was just an opportunity, one that has to be taken advantage of.


The reports were shocking enough when it was revealed that soldiers in Iraq had shortages of body armor and unshielded hummers, but now reports come out that some are forced to ration and steal water leading to cases of dehydration. Some have gotten sick from drinking tap water. Camps have also had issues with water, with filthy water coming out of showers and sinks. Another shocking issue mentioned in the story, but not elaborated on, is how some of these camps look more like shopping malls, where "[y]ou can eat Subway, Burger King, you can buy a $1,200 Oakley watch, but you can’t have clean water to brush your teeth with? What's the real priority here?" Is it really appropriate for corporations to be making money off soldiers that are putting their lives in danger for the country? Another example that corporatism has gone too far where these companies see these troops as simply another market.


Another example of the "War on Terror" being used to target activists. In Fresno a homeless advocate was sent a letter from a Homeland Security coordination team with the Fresno police for taking pictures around the City of Fresno Corporate Yard, where belongings of homeless people were brought after a cleanup effort. The letter advised him to contact them next time he plans on visiting the grounds.


The New York state assembly passed a same-sex marriage bill. The bill will now move to the senate for a vote. New York governor David Paterson said he would sign the bill.


The amendment is bad enough, allowing loaded guns to be taken into national parks but how could a such a thing be attached to credit card legislation, something it has nothing to do with? Just another example on what's wrong with our legislative process. Completely unrelated things like this should not be grouped together.


Professor William Robinson has been targeted by the Anti-Defamation League for criticizing Israel's position on Gaza. Noam Chomsky states, "The course structure is up to the professor. Charges of “anti-Semitism” are part of the ADL’s long-standing strategy to equate any criticism of Israel with anti-Jewish bias."

roundup

First I'll start with a compelling, well written story on the Angola Three, members of the Black Panther Party who were put under solitary confinement for over a combined 100 years for their peaceful protests and organization in the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace were convicted of killing prison guard Brent Wallace even though there is no physical evidence linking them to the killing according to NPR.

An 18,000-acre former slave plantation in rural Louisiana, Angola is the largest prison in the US. Today, with African Americans composing over 75% of Angola’s 5,108 prisoners, prison guards known as “free men,” a forced 40-hour workweek, and four cents an hour as minimum wage, the resemblance to antebellum US slavery is striking.

[...]

Prison authorities sanctioned prisoner rape, and according to former Prison Warden Murray Henderson, the prison guards actually helped facilitate a brutal system of sexual slavery where the younger and physically weaker prisoners were bought and sold into submission. As part of the notorious “inmate trusty guard” system, responsible for killing 40 prisoners and seriously maiming 350 from 1972-75, some prisoners were given state-issued weapons and ordered to enforce this sexual slavery, as well as the prison’s many other injustices. Life at Angola was living hell—a 20th century slave plantation.

The Angola Panthers organized non-violent hunger strikes and work strikes in retaliation to these conditions. Prison authorities put them in solitary confinement to break their influence.


U.S. manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies have dumped at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that are often municipal sources for drinking water.

As part of its ongoing PharmaWater investigation about trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, AP identified 22 compounds that show up on two lists: the EPA monitors them as industrial chemicals that are released into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water under federal pollution laws, while the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as active pharmaceutical ingredients.

Currently municipalities do not test water for trace pharmaceuticals. Last year the Associated Press did an investigation finding trace pharmaceuticals in drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas. They concluded that 46 million people have drugs in their drinking water. Now it goes a step further, with these claims that companies are dumping these chemicals in waterways. Scientific studies have proven the effects these chemicals have on wildlife. Even though there are only trace amounts, you have to consider this is a mixture of drugs and trace amounts over a lifetime add up. For these reasons I try not to regularly drink tap water. Your Britta filter won't do a thing. Of course most bottling companies are no better and it's very difficult to find their filtering process. I recommend reverse osmosis which will filter these chemicals, as well as things like fluoride that you shouldn't be ingesting. I found that Alhambra drinking water is filtered through reverse osmosis so I purchase their 2.5 gallon jugs. The ultimate goal is to get my own reverse osmosis filtration system going, or purchasing drinking water from Berkeley Bowl in Berkeley, Ca that sells reverse osmosis filtered water, therefore reducing the use of disposable plastics.


U.S. media was all over criticizing the Iranian government for detaining American/Iranian journalist Roxana Saberi. Saberi was sentenced for 8 years, accused of being a U.S. spy. An order will immediately release her. Salon's Glenn Greenwald compares this case to cases of journalists being detained by the U.S. and how little media coverage there is. The media is the first to criticize a foreign government, but when it comes to criticizing the U.S. where they have some influence, they remain silent.


In another unwelcome move the Obama administration is leaning toward a decision to make it up the Federal Reserve when a firm is "too big to fail." This is worrisome since the Federal Reserve is a private/public institution with personal interests in the financial market. I see this as consolidating this power even further from the hands of the people than it already is. Not that the people had the power already, but at least the representatives that were elected could technically be held responsible for their decisions.


Law Professor Jonathan Turley stated that intervies Dick Cheney has done can be used against him in court by admitted the Bush administration knew about the details of the torture program and authorized it. Obama has mentioned he won't prosecute Bush officials but the political winds can always change.


Lawmakers in the lower house in France have passed a bill that would allow Internet connections to be cut of those who repeatedly download illegal music and movies. This is the first time such a bill has been passed. Critics say the bill would not allow offenders to challenge charges against them.


A U.S. soldier gunned down 5 fellow troops at a stress clinic in Baghdad. Hopefully this will further bring to light the stresses soldiers are facing these days from lengthy deployments. Will we see a resurgence of the post Vietnam years where soldiers are thrown to the streets to deal with their PTSD by themselves? I recommend watching Battle for Haditha which addresses this topic and stresses U.S. troops are under.


Conservative talk show host Michael Savage has been banned from Britain. What I find most interesting is that Savage is based in San Francisco and was part of leftist circles in his youth and at one time discussed medicinal benefits of marijuana. I think this shows how he is just an opportunist playing an act to make money.


After a year of President Medvedev Amnesty International says there have been no improvements with justice in Russia despite Medvedev's commitment to restore the rule of law. More interestingly, Medvedev has a LiveJournal. I would totally add him as my friend if it weren't all in Russian.

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