We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.
I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.
December 2008 archive
Dec 19 2008
Part of a letter
Dec 19 2008
Open All Night Thread
Dec 19 2008
Brutal violence against gays, trans, etc.
Lest we forget:
The number of reported attacks against LGBT people increased 24 percent in 2007 over 2006, and they were expected to jump in 2008, said Sharon Stapel, executive director of the New York City Anti-Violence Project.
Not everything in the gay, lesbian, transgender, and otherwise queer world is about marriage and inauguration prayers. But understanding these things in the context of fear and violence can help us come to terms with the anger and frustration that a lot of queer voters are facing. Follow me below for more stories and statistics.
Dec 19 2008
mail list
Jérôme Guillet
[email protected]
[email protected] turk
Downing st
FDL
Crooks and liars
America blog
DU
The field
Digg etc.
Dec 19 2008
New School University students in NYC have occupied bldg, demanding resignations and policy changes
(NB: Sent out via CodePink listserv)
Action is going on NOW, if you are local PLEASE GET OUT IN THE STREETS!
They need local NYC based support, if someone wants to cut and paste this to the Orange Beelzebub or any other forum by all means do so.
From: m burgess
Date: Thu, Dec 18, 2008 at 4:09 PM
Subject: activists needed: 65 fifth ave (between 13 & 14th)Last night, the NSU students took over the cafeteria in the building at 65 5th avenue (between 13 and 14). This morning, the administration prevented anyone from entering the building. Things got ugly when the police arrived with NSU Present Kerrey. (Only one student was arrested.) The cops have come and gone and come back again. After closing off the building, the admin finally let people withh ids back in. CLearly, they’re stumped about what to do. Civil Rights people, lawyers, press are here. The international action center is here. The students need more numbers to protest in front of the building. They’re calling for anti-war groups for support. The faculty (senate, all divisions and union of part-time faculty) overwhelmingly support No Confidence in Kerrey or Vice Pres J. Murtha, and the students are speaking to this and to larger issues, namely Kerrey’s support of the war, socially irresponsible investments and requesting removal of L-3 Communications chair from the NSU executive board. Please spread the word. The students are doing a nice job. They plan to stay until conditions are met. They could reallly use some support out front this afternoon, and into the night!
New School Building Occupied
To members of Campus Antiwar Network
Ian Chinich
Today at 12:54amI am currently sitting inside a barricaded room with a large number of students at the New School. The students have occupied the building and are refusing to leave until their demands are met. They want the resignation of the director of L-3 Communications from their board of governors in addition to stopping tuition increases, and divulging investment information.
We need support. We need food… we need media support… we need help spreading the word… we need you to occupy your schools and your work places… A number of students from other schools in the area have come to help us hold this space.
So far the police have not forced their way in….. security has padlocked the fire escape to prevent more of us from getting in…a security guard attempted to enter over our barricades in the front to listen in but he was surrounded…… we are holding our ground and we are holding out…. we shall see what happens in the morning…Come to 14th street and 5th ave….. NOW!!!!…
NY Times coverage here.
Some videos:
Dec 18 2008
Four at Four
-
The Guardian reports Iraqi journalist says sorry for throwing his shoes at Bush. It would seem the Iraqis have beat an apology out of Muntazer al-Zaidi.
According to Yasin Majeed, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s media adviser, Zaidi wrote in a letter that his “big ugly act cannot be excused,” but begged for forgiveness. “”I remember in the summer of 2005, I interviewed your excellency and you told me, ‘Come in, this is your house.’ And so I appeal to your fatherly feelings to forgive me.”
Zaidi’s family says he suffered a broken arm and other severe injuries after he was dragged away struggling and screaming by Iraqi security officers and US secret service agents. They say he is in hospital in the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad. Zaidi was brought before a judge on Tuesday and admitted “aggression against a president,” a crime that could carry a 15-year sentence, officials said.
Four at Four continues Wall Street bonuses, late boomers going to Washington, hard times facing the solar power industry, and the space shuttle is for sale.
Dec 18 2008
Citizens Petition for a Special Prosecutor to Investigate War Crimes …updated W/revisions
Dear Attorney General Designate Holder,
We the undersigned citizens of the United States hereby formally petition you to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.
These crimes are being euphemistically referred to as “abusive interrogation techniques” by such respected figures as Senator John McCain. These are euphemisms for torture. Torture is a War Crime. Waterboarding is a War Crime. The CIA has admitted waterboarding detainees. Recently, Vice President Cheney has brazenly admitted authorizing the program that lead to waterboarding, other forms of torture too numerous to list, and ultimately, the deaths by homicide of detainees.
As Major General Antonio Taguba, the Army general who led the investigation into prisoner abuse at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison has stated:
“After years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”
The Washington Post recently summarized the Senate Armed Services Committee Report on detainee treatment thusly:
A bipartisan panel of senators has concluded that former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other top Bush administration officials bear direct responsibility for the harsh treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and that their decisions led to more serious abuses in Iraq and elsewhere.
Given the overwhelming amount of evidence, accusations, and admissions of War Crimes; evidence, accusations, and admissions that are only excused by thinly veiled euphemism and the weak and self-serving and widely disputed legal arguments commissioned by the Bush Administration to retroactively exculpate itself from legal jeopardy, we the undersigned citizens demand that a full and thorough investigation be implemented and pursued immediately upon your taking office. And that it be pursued no matter where it may lead and no matter what the political implications may be.
America is a representative democracy. The actions of our government officials are done in the name of the Citizens of the United States. War Crimes have been done in our name. Torture has been done in our name. The only way to clear our name of War Crimes is to repudiate them through the aggressive prosecution to the full extent of the law of each and every official who participated or authorized these War Crimes.
Dec 18 2008
How to Fight Slippery Roads and Vampires
Governments at all levels around the country are facing severe budget problems, and that includes the city of Ankeny, IA. Ankeny shares a problem with lots of other cities — a lack of road salt. As our friends at the Salt Institute know, road salt is spread on roads to help melt ice and snow. It can be a big expense for city governments, and a snowy winter last year hit city government budgets hard and created a road salt shortage heading into this winter:
Some towns are paying as much as $170 a ton as salt prices nationwide soar because of shipping problems and surging demand. Hoping for the best – but preparing for the worst – communities are making plans to stretch supplies by mixing salt with sand, brine or even beet juice.
Ankeny, unfortunately, does not have a lot of spare beet juice lying around. But they do have a Tone’s Spices plant. And Tone’s just happened to have 9 tons of excess garlic salt lying around which they graciously donated to the city of Ankeny.
Dec 18 2008
They are the Branches, We are the Tree
This essay is in support of the petition announced in buhdydharma’s Cheney Throws Gauntlet, Admits to Authorizing Murder…Now What?.
There has been endless talk about Pelosi taking impeachment off the table, the complicit Dems and corrupt Repubs, the wretched SCOTUS, the debauched and criminal Executive Branch.
The bottom line is that none of our elected and appointed representatives have, in these past eight years, stood up to this gang of crooks in an effective manner, no one in power has been able to stop them or hold them accountable for their criminal actions.
We are in the surreal position of seeing Democrats, including Obama, speaking out about a corrupt Governor, saying he should step down, be impeached, and yet maintaining a horrible silence about a corrupt and criminal Executive Branch.
Dec 18 2008
Veterans Disability Lawsuit Tossed, Again
Yesterday another Class Action Lawsuit was presented this time at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, the previous was presented a few months back in California federal court on complaints from Veterans of OIF and OEF, and others, as to disability payments delayed and or denied.
When we returned from Vietnam many of the Vietnam Vets, needing care at Veterans clinics and Veterans Hospitals as well as attempting to file and receive disability benefits of already diagnosed Occupation Theater physical and mental ailments went through much of the same treatment. Those coming back and developing very serious ailments from coming in contact with heavily sprayed area’s of the Defoliants, mostly Agent Orange, were not only denied benefits and treatment the Government and Chemical Companies Denied they were hazardous to humans. We are going through the same All Over Again.
Dec 18 2008
IMF Chief Warns (rather Wants) Food Riots
Most people think the IMF is saving the world but we think the IMF is enslaving the world. Does the head of a globalist organization have a soul?
I think not, see definition sociopath. Yes, I am with the most extreme of anti-globalist reactionaries.
http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html
Another name which comes up in this is Gerald Calente.
http://www.trendsresearch.com/
Dec 18 2008
Docudharma Times Thursday December 18
The Bush Lying Tour Continues
Maybe Your City Is Next?
35 Iraq Officials Held in Raids on Key Ministry
By CAMPBELL ROBERTSON and TARIQ MAHER
Published: December 17, 2008
BAGHDAD – Up to 35 officials in the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior ranking as high as general have been arrested over the past three days with some of them accused of quietly working to reconstitute Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, according to senior security officials in Baghdad.The arrests, confirmed by officials from the Ministries of the Interior and National Security as well as the prime minister’s office, included four generals, one of whom, Gen. Ahmed Abu Raqeef, is the ministry’s director of internal affairs. The officials also said that the arrests had come at the hand of an elite counterterrorism force that reports directly to the office of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki.
The involvement of the counterterrorism unit speaks to the seriousness of the accusations, and several officials from the Ministries of the Interior and National Security said that some of those arrested were in the early stages of planning a coup.
Spinning Quirky Yarns
Film Industry in Small Indian Textile Town Makes Low-Budget Parodies Of Bollywood Smash Hits With a Lot of Heart, Local Flavor and Ingenuity
By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, December 18, 2008; Page A19
MALEGAON, India — Past a narrow alleyway filled with sleeping goats, water tanks and women washing clothes, Shaikh Nasir’s modest home is a landmark. This is where he thinks up new ways to make the people of this grim textile town laugh.Nasir is the father of a homegrown film industry that is famous for its parodies of blockbuster movies from Bollywood, India’s Hindi film capital.
USA
Dollar’s Slump Erases Months Of Solid Gains
By Anthony Faiola
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 18, 2008; Page A01
The dollar yesterday staged one of its biggest one-day drops against the euro and fell to a 13-year low against the Japanese yen as near-zero interest rates and the Federal Reserve’s plan to print vast sums of cash dilute the value of the greenback.The drops dramatically accelerated the dollar’s reversal of fortune over the past three weeks after months of solid gains. The slide underscores the risks the Federal Reserve is taking to jump-start the U.S. economy through aggressive monetary policy.
On Monday, the Fed cut its target for the federal funds rate, at which banks lend to each other, from 1 percent to a target range of 0 percent to 0.25 percent, and effectively vowed to print as much money as it needs to try to pull the United States from a worsening recession.