2008 September 24

By Matthew Rothschild | The race boils down to racism. All things being equal, Barack Obama would win the presidency hands down.

We’re in the midst of two wars that aren’t going very well, despite the premature declarations of victory in Iraq.

And three out of every four Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction.

This should be a banner year for Democrats, and by all accounts, it will be—at least down ticket.

John McCain barely offers anything except the same old, same old Republican nostrums of less government, free trade, and lower taxes on business.

But in a weak economy, the last thing you want to do is cut government spending, since it will only deepen the downturn, as happened in the Great Depression. He painted Obama as a tax-hiking job killer, when in actual fact, Obama would give more tax breaks to the bottom 80 percent of Americans than McCain would, and they are the ones with the pent-up demand for goods who are most likely to spend the money the fastest, thus jump-starting the economy.

Not for nothing did McCain, early in the campaign, acknowledge that he doesn’t know much about economics.

On health care, he proposed zilch in his acceptance speech. All he said was: “My health care plan will make it easier for more Americans to find and keep good health care insurance.” He didn’t say what his plan was, or how it would accomplish that. And he resorted to the oldest canard about Democrats forcing “families into a government-run health care system where a bureaucrat stands between you and your doctor.”

Just about every American knows that right now an insurance industry bureaucrat or a hospital administrator stands between us and our doctors. And any American on Medicare can tell you that government-funded health care really works.

Leading Republicans at their convention, such as Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee, derided universal health care as some sort of—hold your breath now!—“European” idea.

Obama’s economic and health care proposals also fall short of what they should be, but they offer a chance to make people’s everyday lives better.

I especially dislike his vote on the FISA bill, his stance on gun control, his embracing the death penalty, his endorsement of nuclear power, and his studied naiveté about the U.S. empire.

In his acceptance speech, he said he wanted to return to the foreign policy consensus of the past few generations. What does that mean? Vietnam? Funding the contras? Training the death squads in El Salvador? The invasion of Grenada? Panama? Like many critics of the horrible Bush-Cheney regime, Obama assumes that the grotesqueries of empire started in 2001. Not so.

But these aren’t arguments the Republicans make. The only significant one they had against Obama was that he didn’t have the necessary experience in foreign and military policy. But McCain himself threw that away when he irresponsibly chose Sarah Palin as his Vice Presidential running mate. All she demonstrated at the Republican Convention was that she could do long derision.

So if the conditions are so ripe for an Obama victory, why is the race so close?

Because millions of white Americans, especially those who are forty-five and older, may not be able to bring themselves to vote for the black guy. It’s that simple.

I got an inkling of this in the spring when I went to give a talk in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, about an hour north of Milwaukee. At the dinner beforehand, I was sitting with three elderly white women, who told me they had never voted against a Democrat in their lives. But this time, they couldn’t vote for Obama.

One woman instantly said, “Race has nothing to do with it,” which I took to be a tell.

An article in the Wisconsin State Journal on July 20 mentioned Allan Peck, a white, fifty-year-old repairman from Beaver Dam, who said his friends think, “with a colored President,” the government “will lean more toward the colored people, and we’ll be a minority.”

JoAnn Wypijewski covered the Ohio Democratic primary for The Nation. A white man in a bar in Springfield, Ohio, told her: “I’m not going to vote for the nigger.” Another man from across the bar exclaimed that he knew he wasn’t voting for “the nigger.”

Kevin Merida of The Washington Post reported on the race issue in a May 13 story. Obama campaign workers were startled by the racism they encountered, he said. During the Pennsylvania primary, one woman working the phone bank to voters in Susquehanna County, which is 98 percent white, barely got anywhere. One caller told her: “Hang that darky from a tree.”

The article also mentioned a letter to the editor in a local Pennsylvania paper from Tunkhannock Borough Mayor Norm Ball, a Hillary Clinton supporter. He wrote: “There is so much that people don’t know about his upbringing in the Muslim world. His stepfather was a radical Muslim and the ranting of his minister against the white America, you can’t convince me that some of that didn’t rub off.”

These are not random and atypical responses. A New York Times/CBS poll in July asked white respondents if people they knew would cast a ballot for a black candidate. A whopping 19 percent said their friends would not.

The appeals to racism started subtly. Actually, they began not so subtly with Hillary Clinton, when she talked about “hard-working Americans, white Americans.” But on the Republican side, for a while, coyness was the order of the day. The McCain campaign discussed race explicitly only after Obama said he doesn’t look like other people on the dollar bill. The McCain folks were only too eager to say Obama was playing the race card. They also used all the talk about Obama being arrogant, or an elitist, or a celebrity as a cue for the unspoken epithet of “uppity.”

Then it was spoken. Representative Lynn Westmoreland, Republican from Georgia, called Obama “uppity.” When The Hill newspaper followed up by pointing out that the word was racially loaded, Westmoreland did not back off. “Uppity, yeah,” he said.
It’s likely to get uglier.

With Election Day approaching, McCain surrogates or supporters may not be able to resist the temptation to fan the flames of racism. Expect the snippets of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright to resurface. Expect video of Michelle Obama sounding militant. Expect disgusting ads about Obama’s admitted drug use as a very young man. Expect that picture of Obama in Muslim garb again.

Obama has only two hopes. One is that the economic conditions will be so dire that white Americans who harbor racism will throw it overboard. And the other is that these white Americans might want to show themselves—or more likely their children and grandchildren—that they are not as hidebound as they sometimes seem.

Smile please, you’re on 1,000 CCTV cameras

By Richard Down | ALMOST 1,000 local authority CCTV cameras provide surveillance on Merseyside as people go about their everyday lives, the Daily Post has found.

Additional CCTV cameras are located on Merseytravel trains and buses, more still monitor customers outside bars, while thousands more fill workplaces across the region.

A survey, as part of the Daily Post’s personal data special investigation, found there are 318 cameras owned and run by Liverpool Council, 110 by Wirral, 250 by Knowsley, 96 by Sefton, 80 by St Helens, and more than 100 by Chester.

In a sign of the growing use of CCTV, a national network of roadside cameras is planned that will capture around 50m licence plates a day.

It is understood the details captured by these cameras will be stored for five years at a new data centre in Hendon, north London. Police will be able to use the information for anything from investigating terrorism to low-level crime.

Civil liberties groups have warned that building a national database could significantly increase intrusion into individuals’ private lives.

The Home Office said the network of automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) enabled cameras will be up and running in all authorities, including Merseyside, by early in the New Year.

But none of the Merseyside councils has yet adopted this technology. Merseyside Police already has the right to remotely control council cameras on request.

More untaxed vehicles are being clamped or towed away on Merseyside than ever before thanks to a fleet of vans equipped with ANPR technology.

A total of 3,184 cars were seized in the 12 months to May, 2008, compared to 2,638 in the previous 12 months.

Police also found 200 kilos of cannabis resin in a van with an estimated street value of more than £1m after targeting a van on the A41 in Birkenhead with ANPR equipment.

Merseyside Police Assistant Chief Constable Simon Byrne said: “The use of ANPR is a key tool for the police in crime fighting technology.

“ANPR is only used to target vehicles where records indicate that an offence has been committed or there is evidence of criminal activity.

“The technology does no more than check the number plate against records and alert police where there is cause for concern.

Even without the advances in technology that integrating ANPR with the existing CCTV grid could provide, police and local authorities have begun to rely heavily on CCTV evidence in court.

The footage of England footballer Joey Barton’s violent attack in Church Street in Liverpool at 5am on December 27 last year helped secure a high- profile conviction.

A Liverpool Council spokesman said: “The CCTV system has been hugely successful in providing reassurance for members of the public and helping to cut crime significantly to make Liverpool one of the safest large cities in the country.

“In the city centre, the number of offences is at its lowest level for 10 years and has dropped by 40% since 2005.”

However, civil liberties groups have voiced concerns about building a national database – about who will have access to the data, and why records should be stored for so long.

Kiron Reid, a lecturer specialising in police powers at the University of Liverpool, said: “Government bodies are not good at protecting our public data.

“If the information is put on a database, it could end up being left on a laptop and falling into the wrong hands.”

Mike Kilroe, a senior lecturer in sociology and criminology at Liverpool Hope University, said: “The traditional view is that, if you’ve done nothing wrong, you’ve got nothing to hide.

In the case of council- run CCTV operatives, the government-run Security Industry Association acts as a watchdog which runs Criminal Records Bureau checks on employees.

The system is still open to abuse – in 2005, two Sefton council CCTV operators were jailed and another given community service for spying on a woman undressing in her flat in Aintree.

Council bosses made a substantial pay-out to the 25-year-old victim at the centre of the so-called Peeping Tom scandal.

ACC Byrne added: “There is a very strict management process in place to ensure that ANPR data is only used for policing purposes.”

Councils ordered to stop snooping on residents

Councils will be ordered to stop spying on local residents amid Government concerns over the continuing creep of the surveillance state.

The review was triggered by ministers’ concerns that incidents where council staff were found putting microchips into residents’ dustbins and tailing parents to school had eroded public support for the entire enforcement system.

Two-thirds of councils have taken up the snooping powers open to them under the Regulation of Investigative Powers Act since its introduction in 2000.

Ministers believe that while surveillance including covert cameras is sometimes necessary to detect offences such as fraud, it must only be used as a last resort and in the most serious cases.

They plan to issue guidance and set strict new limits to ensure that in future the RIPA powers are not used to tackle minor infringements or the law or local regulations.

John Healey, Local Government Minster, said: “My main concern is to tighten up the operation of the system so it can command the public confidence that is needed.

“Councils do need these powers, but they need to use them only when it is necessary and proportionate, and only if the information can not be found another way. They should not be used lightly, because their use is a serious business.”

A number of councils have been accused of snooping since the introduction of Ripa, often for putting microchips in rubbish bins to discover if items had been thrown away which should have been put out to be recycled.

Earlier this year, Poole council in Dorset defended its decision to tail three families as they walked with their children, to find out whether they had given a false address in order to appear within the catchments area of a popular school.

Under the new guidelines council staff will be warned that they should not generally use surveillance to check domestic waste or to detect low grade offending such as dog fouling or the misuse of disabled driver badges.

Instead, Ripa powers should be limited to serious cases, such as loan sharks, fly-tippers and rogue traders.

In Wolverhampton recently, covert cameras were used to catch fly-tippers who had vandalised CCTV, leading to the prosecution of an offender who had dumped 300 tyres, while Birmingham council was able to catch 150 loan sharks using communications surveillance.

Mr Healey said: “As well as being a matter of principle, the problem with using Ripa too freely is that every time one of these cases comes to light it leads to serious criminals like loan sharks and rogue traders rubbing their hands together.

“They know that growing public concern means councils are more reluctant to use the powers that they should quite rightly be deploying against proper crooks.

“As long as councils and other public bodies understand that they should be adopted only as a last resort, then we encourage their use in the right circumstances.

“These are heavy duty powers and they are needed to detect heavy duty crimes in cases were evidence can not be gathered in any other way.”

Climate change demo cost police £6m

The estimated cost of policing a week-long protest against climate change stands at just under £6 million, it has been disclosed.

Around £5.9 million has been spent policing the Camp for Climate Action event which was held last month close to Kingsnorth Power Station near Hoo, Kent.

The money, revealed to BBC South East following a Freedom of Information Act request, was spent on officers, accommodation, air support and planning.

But Kent Police expect the figure to rise further as invoices are still to be received from some suppliers, along with overtime claims from some officers.

The force said there are other potential costs to consider, arising from any litigation or other claims, that may take time to resolve.

A police spokesman said it was in negotiations with the Home Office about its contribution to the total cost, which is expected to be finalised in the next few weeks.

Of 100 people arrested during the gathering, 46 were charged, 22 were cautioned, three people were bound over to keep the peace and one person was found to be in breach of bail.

There were some 1,400 police officers from 26 forces deployed to the camp, according to Kent Police assistant chief constable Gary Beautridge.

The protest aimed to highlight opposition to a proposal to site Britain’s first coal-fired power station in more than 30 years at Kingsnorth.

It culminated in a mass day of action where attempts were made to shut down the plant, owned by energy company E.ON. The firm said protesters had not affected its power output.

Rights groups demonstrate outside UN

Amnesty International and human rights activists are expected to send a message to United Nations Security Council at a rally on Thursday evening urging the body to reject efforts to block indictment of Sudanese president Omar Al Bashir by International Criminal Court for war crimes and genocide in war torn Darfur region.

ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo has accused Sudan’s president of masterminding a campaign of rape, murder and deportation in volatile Darfur region.

A demonstration by activists will call on UN member states to stop delaying and keep promises they have made for more than a year to send 26,000 peacekeepers to protect civilians in Darfur.

Activists demand that 15 countries on UN Security Council not turn a blind eye to justice and accountability in Darfur crisis.

Amnesty International Executive Director Larry Cox said nobody should be protected from prosecution for most serious crimes committed in Darfur under international law.

Amnesty International also wants peacekeepers deployed without delay in Darfur region. “Delays in deployment are putting millions of lives at further risk in a region where hundreds of thousands of individuals have died in more than five years of unrelenting, horrific violence,” said Mr Cox.

“If attempts to block the ICC’s investigation of President Al Bashir succeed, it would set a dangerous precedent for others to try to undermine international law,” he said, stating that it would send a message that international community is not serious about ending impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Earlier this week, Sudanese officials were reported to have begun lobbying at United Nations to block ICC’s indictment on country’s longtime president.

Sudanese government is calling on UN Security Council to defer ICC proceedings using power granted to the council in ICC’s statute. African Union and League of Arab States have also joined in this effort.

Vienna Colucci, Director, International Justice, Amnesty International USA said deferral of investigations would undermine work established to curb human rights abuses.

United States, a permanent member of Security Council said it is unwilling to circumvent pursuit of justice and accountability in Darfur and has indicated support for ICC investigation.

Amnesty International has called on Zalmay Khalilzad, American ambassador to United Nations, to use his influence to prevent Security Council from obstructing the investigation.

Activists representing 15 organisations will erect 15 eight-foot-high silhouette figures blindfolded and carrying scales of justice.

Buy Your Poison - Aspartame, Diet Soda, Splenda

Dr. Leo Rebello | Chemist James Schlatter was working on an anti-ulcer drug candidate in the labs of G.D. Searle & Company. He was recrystallizing aspartame from ethanol when the mixture spilled on to the outside of the flask he was using. Some of the powder stuck to his fingers. When he licked his finger later, he realised the sweetness of aspartame.

The first report of the discovery of the artificial sweetener was in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. It stated: “We wish to report another accidental discovery of an organic compound with a profound sucrose (table sugar) like taste… Preliminary tasting showed this compound to have a potency of 100-200 times sugar depending on concentration and on what other flavors are present and to be devoid of unpleasant aftertaste.”

Since then Searle has amassed multi billion dollars in profits by selling aggressively this one product with total disregard to the evidence they have gathered that show how dangerous and toxic this chemical is to human beings.

Although multiple sclerosis is not a death sentence, Methanol toxicity is. Systemic lupus has become almost as rampant as multiple sclerosis, especially with Diet Coke and Diet Pepsi drinkers. The victim usually does not know that Aspartame is the culprit. Its continuous use irritates the lupus to such a degree that it may become a life-threatening condition [Ibid]

Patients with systemic lupus become asymptotic, once taken off diet sodas. In cases of those diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, most symptoms disappear. There are many cases where vision loss returned and hearing loss improved markedly. This also applies to cases of tinnitus and fibromyalgia [Ibid]

Those using Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc.) and suffer from fibromyalgia symptoms, spasms, shooting pains, numbness in legs, cramps, vertigo, dizziness, headaches, tinnitus, joint pain, unexplainable depression, anxiety attacks, slurred speech, blurred vision, or memory loss, probably have Aspartame poisoning [Ibid]

Sadly, modern medicine, a pseudo science, cannot diagnose people with Aspartame harm or diagnoses in error. There are many instances when diagnosis is totally off the mark, but each ‘one-disease, one-organ’ specialist goes on giving more and more medicines and creating more and diseases. Create-more-diseases-and-cash-on-it being the operating principle of disease-business and crap science. [Holistic Healing in Tropical Diseases, Dr. Leo Rebello, Natural Health Centre, Bombay, 2006]. Therefore, instead of running after these foolish ‘medicine men’ just stop drinking diet sodas and be alert for Aspartame on food labels.

Diet soda is not a diet product, but a chemically altered, multiple sodium (salt) and Aspartame-containing product that actually makes you crave for carbohydrates and gain weight. These products also contain formaldehyde, which stores in the fat cells, particularly in the hips and thighs; no wonder the American population is turning obese and/or suffering from cancers and diabetes [From FAT to Fit, Dr. Leo Rebello, (www.healthwisdom.org) ].

Formaldehyde is an absolute toxin and is used mainly to preserve ’tissue specimens’ in laboratories. Formaldehyde poisoning symptoms include local irritation of eyes, nose, mouth, throat, respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts, and central nervous system causing vertigo, stupor, convulsions, unconsciousness, renal damage.

Aspartame is especially dangerous for diabetics. Physicians who thought they had a patient with retinopathy in fact had patients with symptoms caused by Aspartame. The latter drives the blood sugar out of control. Thus diabetics may suffer acute memory loss due to the fact that aspartic acid and phenylalanine are neurotoxic. With diabetics, Aspartame passes the blood-brain barrier, attacks the neurons of the brain causing various levels of brain damage, seizures, depression, panic attacks, uncontrollable anger and rage [Taber's Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, First Indian Edition, 1990] .

Consumption of Aspartame causes these same symptoms in non-diabetics as well. Documentation and observation reveal that thousands of children diagnosed with ADD and ADHD have had complete turnarounds in behavior when these chemicals were removed from their diet. So-called ‘behavior modification prescription drugs’ (Ritalin and others) are no longer needed. Indeed, giving Ritalin for ADD and ADHD is “treatment worse than the disease” [Nature Cure and Yoga Therapy, Dr. Leo Rebello, 2004, 3rd ed.]

Methylphenidate (brand name Ritalin) was patented in 1954 by the CIBA pharmaceutical company (now Novartis), and most brand-name Ritalin is produced in the United States. Methylphenidate is a CNS stimulant. Reported methylphenidate abuse side effects include psychosis (abnormal thinking or hallucinations), insomnia, mood swings, mood changes, nervousness, stomach aches, diarrhea, headaches, decreased sex drive, lack of hunger, gum and skin bleeding and dry mouth [Online library of psychoactive plants, chemicals and related topics from (www.Erowid.org) ]. It is also complicit in stunted growth.

In the United States and worldwide, methylphenidate is classified as a Schedule II drug under the Convention of Psychotropic Substances because of its high addictive potential and consequent abuse [Wikipedia]. According to an article in the Los Angeles Times, “the uproar over Ritalin was triggered almost single-handedly by the Scientology movement.” The Citizens Commission on Human Rights, an anti-psychiatry group associated with Scientology, conducted a major campaign against Ritalin in the 1980s and lobbied Congress for an investigation. Ritalin’s less common side effects include palpitations, high blood pressure and tachycardia [Ibid]. Most child-patients were being ‘poisoned’ on a daily basis. The drug can cause mental retardation and other birth defects, if taken at the time of conception and early pregnancy [Ibid].

Children are especially at risk for neurological disorders and should never be given artificial sweeteners. There are many different case histories of children suffering grand mal-seizures and other neurological disturbances.

Aspartame was approved for use in dry foods in 1981 and in soft drinks in 1983. Late Senator Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio wrote and presented The Aspartame Safety Bill (S. 1554) in 1983 that would require label warnings on products containing Aspartame, especially regarding pregnant women, children and infants. A key element of Metzenbaum’s bill was labeling that would caution consumers how much aspartame they could ingest, the maximum allowable daily intake established by FDA, and a special warning for pregnant women. The bill stated that the warning information “be included on such labels and labeling in a manner which is the most useful to individuals who consume such food.” The bill mandated independent tests by the National Institutes of Health, focusing on brain chemistry, behavioral and neurological reactions, headaches, mood alterations, memory loss and effects on pregnant women and fetuses. It was killed by intense lobbying by the big pharma MNCs in cahoots with the American FDA [Ibid]. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration has long lost its reputation to be able to do its job.

Monsanto’s patent on Aspartame has expired. But there are over 5000 products in the market in USA alone that contain this deadly chemical and thousands more will be introduced. Monsanto, creator of Aspartame, funds the American Diabetes Association, the American Dietetic Association and the Conference of the American College of Physicians, a fact exposed by the New York Times: “These [organizations] cannot criticize any additives or convey their link to Monsanto because they take money from them and are required to endorse their products.” Also: “The chemical sucralose, marketed as ‘Splenda,’ has replaced aspartame as the no.1 artificial sweetener in foods and beverages. Aspartame has been forced out by increasing public awareness that it is both a neurotoxin and an underlying cause of chronic illness worldwide…”

But “chlorocarbons are never nutritionally compatible with our metabolic processes and are wholly incompatible with normal human metabolic functioning. Any chlorocarbons not directly excreted from the body intact can cause immense damage to the processes of human metabolism and, eventually, our internal organs.” The liver is a detoxification organ, which deals with ingested poisons and over time gets damaged beyond repair with such artificial chemicals. You buy the poison; you buy the disease.

According to PRNewswire-USNewswire, 11 August 2008, U.S. District Court Judge Dale S. Fischer has set 6 January 2009 as the starting date for a potentially landmark civil suit against Johnson & Johnson over its alleged false advertising of the artificial sweetener Splenda. The central issue before the court is whether the advertising of Splenda — a man-made chemical sweetener containing chlorine — makes consumers believe it is a natural product, by using tag lines like “Made from sugar, so it tastes like sugar,” and similar advertising.

Internal documents show Johnson & Johnson knew that its Splenda advertising was causing consumers to believe that Splenda is natural, though it is not. Rulings in France, Australia and New Zealand have found Johnson & Johnson’s advertising of Splenda to be deceptive, but the company continues advertising in the United States and is now the subject of legal scrutiny and public criticism.

Lead Sugar Association attorney Mark Lanier says: “Now we look forward to presenting the truth about Splenda to the jury and focusing on the very real effect of misleading advertising. We are confidant that the outcome will be a victory for consumers everywhere” [PR New and the Sugar Association].

Dr. Betty Martini, founder, Mission Possible International, who promotes the natural herb Stevia for diabetics in place of sugar, says “the controversy rages over Splenda (sucralose). Is it safe and natural like sugar or is it a chlorinated hydrocarbon? As lawsuits fly, consider the chemistry of this artificial compound.” She points out that the FDA denied approval of aspartame for 16 years since it was created and then caved in to political/economic pressure when Ronald Reagan brought Don Rumsfeld, CEO of the manufacturer, to Washington. A new FDA Commissioner appointed to approve it then became a consultant for NutraSweet’s public relations firm for $1000/day on a 10-year contract! She said this should have made the FDA more cautious the next time, but the FDA approved the toxic chlorocarbon Splenda without hesitation and without any long-term testing on human subjects.”

This shows how powerful drug and chemical lobbies are as responsible for letting loose the hounds of disease and death on an unsuspecting and uninformed public. It is time that people woke up to the dangers from the pharmaceutical mafia.

[The American model of Corporate Executives moving between Government, top universities, powerful think tanks or NGOs, is now being increasingly exposed in the U.S. as responsible for the stifling of opinion and dissent, and the complete perversion of public life. It has made American citizens guinea pigs in the hands of faceless corporate bureaucrats and soulless corporations, ensuing the very triumph of Mammon that the high values of civilization were supposed to prevent. This article aims to create public awareness about the known dangers of Aspartame, Diet Soda, Splenda and how MNCs mess up people's lives in cahoots with corrupt FDA authorities worldwide. Dr. Leo Rebello, Health Expert from Bombay, says that 'Health Care is Self Care, and Right to Health is akin to the Right to Life'. The State is duty-bound to play a positive facilitating role in this regard; but does it? - Editor]

Dr. Leo Rebello of Bombay has nearly three decades of clinical, teaching and research experience in Natural Medicine. See his website : (www.healthwisdom.org) .

Winter Soldier: Eye Witness Accounts of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

By John Stauber | Two years ago public revulsion against the Bush Administration’s unnecessary and disastrous attack and occupation of Iraq resulted in the Democratic Party taking control of the US Congress. But Nancy Pelosi and the new political leadership backed down before President Bush and refused to withhold funding for the war, while rhetorically denouncing it and thus playing to anti-war voters. The liberal lobby group MoveOn spent tens of millions of dollars on anti-war advertisements and door-to-door canvassing events as part of its partisan campaign to blame the war on the Republicans, while letting Democrats off the hook for giving Bush all the money he wanted to continue the occupation into next year.

Today as the 2008 election approaches, worry over Iraq has slipped down the public’s list of concerns while more immediate economic issues and the spectacular collapse of the Wall Street investment banks take center stage. However, one anti-war organization has proven especially tenacious, independent and committed to immediately bringing home troops from Iraq and making good to the Iraqi people, while taking care of the soldiers who fought the war. That organization is the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) composed of about a thousand soldiers who have recently served or are still serving in the US military.

IVAW has provided the courageous and true leadership that partisan lobbies like MoveOn lack, opposing the war-funding politicians of both parties. When the Democrats nominated Barack Obama in Denver, IVAW was there in the streets demanding a meeting with Obama’s people to press for an immediate end to the occupation. During the Republican Convention as John McCain was talking from the stage in St. Paul he was confronted with a lone soldier, IVAW’s Adam Kokesh, calling from the balcony and waving a sign of protest against the war. TV cameras briefly broadcast the protest of Kokesh, but quickly pulled away from the young soldier in the black IVAW tee shirt calling out to McCain.

Last March the IVAW spent its own money and time to organize an historic event, the Winter Soldier hearings held outside Washington DC, where soldiers testified to the atrocities and war crimes they witnessed or personally committed while in Iraq and Afghanistan. The emotionally moving and carefully vetted truth telling lasted for days. Thanks to Aaron Glantz, Aimee Allison and others at Berkeley radio station KPFA, the IVAW testimony was broadcast live and is today available free online for anyone to hear.

To its disgrace most of the mainstream corporate media ignored the hearings. The hard facts of the Iraq war, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed, the millions driven from their homes, the thousands of American dead and tens of thousands wounded, are simply not deemed appropriate and newsworthy by American news media. Indeed, the US media has pushed Iraq to the back pages and off the TV tube.

Not to be deterred, the IVAW continues to organize local and regional Winter Soldier hearings. I will be speaking at one hearing in Madison, Wisconsin, this Saturday September 27, addressing the propaganda role of the US media as a cheerleader for war. Available at the conference, hot off the printing presses, will be a new book that is the official account of IVAW’s brutally honest and deeply moving testimonies. Winter Soldier Iraq and Afghanistan was written by the Iraq Veterans Against the War and independent author and journalist Aaron Glantz.

This book reflects the IVAW belief often expressed by executive director Kelly Dougherty that “the only way this war is going to end is if the American people truly understand what we have done in their name.” It’s filled with gut wrenching personal stories and histories from the women and men who fought the war and still fight in the occupation of Iraq. A collection of testimonies, the book is itself one single testimony to the powerful truths of soldiers facing up to a war millions would rather ignore and that the corporate media and political establishment does not want to honestly discuss. This is a very important book, one that every American should read and share. America owes an unpayable debt to its soldiers, especially its anti-war soldiers in the Iraq Veterans Against the War who do not back down to political gamesmanship from either political party.
======
John Stauber, founder of the Center for Media and Democracy, is an unpaid advisor to Iraq Veterans Against the War.

London Protesters Demand an End to US Coups

Venezuela Analysis | Scores of solidarity campaigners picketed the US embassy in London on Wednesday night before a huge rally at the National Union of Journalists head office to demand an end to US interference in Latin America.

Responding to ongoing coup attempts in Bolivia and Venezuela, NUJ general secretary Jeremy Dear said that it was ironic that he was protesting outside the US embassy when its government had nationalised more of its economy in the last few days than Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had in the last decade.

“The US is standing up for privilege, for the interest of the few against the interest of the many and will go to any length to achieve it,” he stormed.

“It will go to the lengths that it did in Chile and will drown the revolution in blood if it gets the opportunity,” referring to the CIA-orchestrated coup against Salvadore Allende 35 years ago.

“But there is one big difference – we are prepared, we have learned the lessons and we are already organised.”

The 100-strong crowd chanted “No More Coups” and waved colourful solidarity banners as embassy workers left for the day.

Dozens of people made speeches in English and Spanish, with some making the point that, in the dying days of US President Bush’s regime, many people thought that he would attack Iran – yet it was clear that Latin America was the real target.

Loud cheers went up whenever speakers brought up the expulsion the US ambassador in Bolivia because of his links to coup-plotters and Venezuela doing the same in solidarity, with cries of “Yankee go home” filling Grosvenor Square.

At the NUJ headquarters, Bolivian ambassador Maria Beatriz Souviron explained how the traditional political system in Bolivia had been swept away with the election of Evo Morales.

“He has given people hope for the first time. There has not just been a change in who controls the state, but also a change in culture in a country that has been racist for so long.”

Bolivia Solidarity Campaign organiser Amancay Colque, who helped organise the actions with Hands Off Venezuela, brought harrowing news from the northern state of Pando, where the far-right governor threatened to split from Bolivia and had paid mercenaries to machine-gun rural workers loyal to Morales.

She explained how the elite was fuelling racism to try to divide Bolivians and that, in the right’s eastern stronghold of Santa Cruz, it was now impossible for an Aymara or Quechua indigenous Bolivian to walk down the street without being attacked.

John McDonnell MP pointed out that “what is happening is not a personal attack on Morales or Chavez but an attack on the seeds of socialism that they are spreading.

“What the US is terrified of is the prospect that socialism will catch light all across the Americas, so of course it has to go on the attack. But it is exactly for this moment that solidarity campaigns exist.”

Venezuelan charge d’affaires Felix Plasencia said that he was “honoured to stand with Bolivia as all Latin America struggles for dignity, sovereignty and independence. We have finally thrown off the US Monroe Doctrine that treated us as their ‘backyard’ for 200 years.

“The aim now is to extend this people’s power throughout Latin America and the solidarity shown to Bolivia as it fights back against counter-revolutionaries is a significant step in uniting our countries,” he added to great applause.

Cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes–”We fear another cover-up”

WSWS | Patricia da Silva Armani is the cousin of Jean Charles de Menezes. She spoke to the World Socialist Web Site on the eve of the coroner’s inquest convened into the innocent Brazilian’s brutal murder by a police gun squad.

On July 22, 2005, Jean Charles was shot to death on a tube train at Stockwell station by an anti-terrorist unit that was investigating the failed explosions on London’s transport system the previous day.

He had been covertly trailed by a police surveillance team as he left his home and made his way to work as an electrician. No attempt was made to detain him en route. At Stockwell station, some 26 minutes later, he was followed onto a train where, without warning, plainclothes, armed police officers grabbed Jean Charles, pinned him to the seat and pumped 11 bullets at point blank range into his body—7 directly into his head.

Even though it was quickly established that Jean Charles was innocent, police and government spokesmen and the media continued to claim that a suicide bomber had been shot. It subsequently transpired that claims that Jean Charles had behaved “suspiciously” and had sought to evade arrest—all used to justify the police’s decision to open fire—were lies.

Nonetheless, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) rejected any criminal proceedings against any of the officers directly involved in the shooting and those who commanded them, claiming that there was “insufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction.” Instead, last November, the police were found guilty under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 of “failing to provide for the health, safety and welfare” of Jean Charles.

This was despite the fact that the only justification for targeting Jean Charles was that he lived in the same block of apartments as someone under surveillance and had “Mongolian eyes” and the campaign of misinformation by the police in the hours following the shooting.

The coroner’s inquest is to be a purely “fact-finding” investigation, with the coroner, Sir Michael Wright, having told the jury that it is not a trial and is not supposed to apportion blame. The de Menezes family is, however, seeking a verdict of unlawful killing in order to pressure the CPS into prosecuting police officers involved in the killing.

Patricia: I remember Jean Charles as my best friend. He was very good with the family a hard-working man. He was my first cousin. My uncle, his father, was the brother of my Mum. We lived in different parts of the country. I lived in Sao Pao and he lived in Gonzaga. But every year, my family went to Gonzaga on holidays, and we always met on different family occasions. We were very close.

Patricia: For a better life. And to send money back to my aunt and my uncle back home.

Patricia: We were told that Jean Charles had been arrested. I was at work at that time.

He was an electrician, working in a building. At night, he worked washing up in a restaurant. I was a cleaner. I finished work and went back to my house. I met another cousin, who was very upset. She looked desperate.

She said, “Patricia, you have to calm down, because Jean Charles has been arrested.” I said, “Why? He hasn’t done anything.” They told me he had been accused of being a terrorist. I said, “What? That is not possible.” And I called Alex, another cousin, who was at the police station in Brixton. And he told me, “You should sit down because it is bad news, I think Jean Charles is dead. You should come to the police station.” I said, “You are lying, he cannot be dead.”

When I got to the police station, other cousins were there. I said, “Alex, what is happening?” And he said, “They do not assist us, they don’t help. They told us to go to hell.” So I said, “Well, now we are here, we are helping. So why won’t they talk to us?”

WSWS: How long was it between when Jean Charles was shot and when you were told about it?

Patricia: 27 hours. He was shot in the morning on Friday, and all day the press were saying the police have killed a terrorist. And I thought, oh, they have shot a terrorist! OK? And when we were told Jean Charles had been arrested, we didn’t connect it because the shooting had happened one day before. Terrible!

That day Jean Charles had not come home, but I thought he had gone out, to the bar, to a party, with his girlfriend…. I went to work the following day, and when I got back, my cousins were in my home to tell me that he had been arrested. I did not connect it, because they had been telling lies, lies, all the time.

WSWS: What did you think when the police came out with all these lies about him running, wearing a thick black jacket, and having jumped over the ticket machines? This after telling you he had been shot. What were you thinking at the time?

Patricia: I knew it was all lies, because I knew Jean Charles. He had been here four years, and many times he had been stopped by the police, many times. And he had no black jacket, no black jacket. And I was thinking, it is a lie, it is a lie.

Patricia: I hope that at this enquiry we will get the answer to our questions. How was it that Jean Charles was allowed to go all the way to Stockwell Station? The journey from the flat to Stockwell Station is a long way. Why didn’t the police stop him before? Why did the police let him get on the bus if they thought he was a terrorist? Why did the police let him inside the Metro? If they thought he had bomb, why did they let him carry on his journey? Did they know he was not a terrorist? This is my question, why?

Patricia: Maybe. I hope, but we fear another cover-up. We fear the inquest will not show the truth. But I am hoping, do you understand? I am hoping.

WSWS: The Independent Police Complaints Commission report that has come out has exonerated the police. They let the police go. They say they’ve done their job. In no case of a shooting of innocent people has any policeman ever been charged. The Crown Prosecution Service was also a cover-up. The only thing the police have been charged with is breaching Health and Safety regulations. Do you think the inquest is going to change that?

Patricia: Yes, yes, I know. It is all a cover-up. I think nothing happens in these cases because…. This fine on the police…this doesn’t work, the police have to pay to the state, but the state is the police and the police are the state.

WSWS: Do you think that the killing of Jean Charles was part of a broader attack on democratic rights? What do you think of the role of the police today?

Patricia: I think it will be bad if they don’t punish the police, because if they don’t punish them it could happen again.

Patricia: Yes, I believe that the human rights, socialist rights and democratic rights of people in this country are being undermined, are under attack. That’s wrong, because it is not their fault but the fault of people with power.

WSWS: The inquest is going to be a long one, but the police have been granted anonymity. They will be behind a screen in one part of the Oval cricket ground, giving evidence, and the family and everybody else will be at the other side. So how do you think truth will prevail?

Patricia: This is what worries us, scares us, that it is starting with this anonymity. We, the family can see their faces. But we will not know their names or anything about them. And the public, which for me is the most important thing, won’t even be able to see their faces.

WSWS: This shows it is political, not just mistakes by individuals, but the whole state defending its own. You are confronting not individual policemen, but the state apparatus defending its right to kill.

Patricia: I agree with what you say, because if the public cannot see even the faces of the officers, they can carry on. They will do it, because we know that the police’s shoot-to-kill policy is continuing. This policy gives them the right to kill, me, or you.

Patricia: The public must know the truth, the public must understand what happened. If there is no punishment, then it will happen again. I don’t think arresting them is the solution. They are not competent to do the work as a police force. I don’t ask for much. I don’t agree with those who say, oh you have to arrest, you have to kill¸ you have to do this or that. No, no, no, those policemen must be expelled from the police force because they have not the competence to do their job.

WSWS: Do you think that those who would replace them will not do the same if ordered to? The policy of shoot-to-kill is determined by individuals.

Patricia: This has to end. They need more training, better training. But I don’t think that the policy of shoot-to-kill will finish just by training. I think that the day the United States stops thinking that they have to own the world, to stop invading other peoples, I think many things will get better. And yes, Britain, too.

Patricia: My aunt and cousin, Jean Charles’s mother and brother, are coming on October 4. They will not be here for the opening of the inquest. Myself, my cousin Alexandro and other members of the family will be there. We would like you to come, but I don’t know if it is possible because there is only room for 150 people, I am not sure if this includes all the press. But the proceedings will be reported on a web site.

Patricia: Yes. When I heard the inquest was going to be held at the Oval, I thought great, great. The public, lots of people will be able to assist and see what happens. And then I was told, no, they are not opening up the Oval, just a small room. They want to control everything.

John Pilger: This conflict is repeating the historical patterns of imperialism

Veteran investigative journalist John Pilger is warning that the extension of the Afghanistan war into Pakistan has grim echoes of the past.

“There are striking parallels between US actions in Afghanistan and Pakistan with spread of Vietnam war into Cambodia and Laos,” he told Socialist Worker.

“Indeed, there is an historical pattern – whenever an imperial power gets stuck in one region, it will try to attack another, often disastrously. Caesar and Napoleon did just that.

“The Americans in Vietnam, deeply frustrated by a resistance they never bargained on, sought an easy conquest in Cambodia on a flimsy pretext. That was in 1970.

“The US invasion and carpet bombing of Cambodia acted as a catalyst for the rise and rise of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge forces. Without US secretary of state Henry Kissinger and president Richard Nixon, Pol Pot would not have succeeded.”

The Khmer Rouge emerged out of the chaos of the US war on Cambodia. Their rule was marked by brutality and mass murder. John Pilger warns that the US and its allies could do the same to Pakistan today.

“What George Bush and Dick Cheney are likely to achieve in Pakistan is the rise and rise of the Taliban and the rapid radicalising of ‘mainstream’ Islamic forces within the country.”

Pilger says the impact of these new wars is “likely to favour tough guy John McCain”. But he adds, “The longing for relief from war and insecurity in the US cannot be underestimated – and Barack Obama is likely to be the beneficiary of that, however undeserved.”

John Pilger will be presenting his film about Afghanistan, Breaking the Silence, in London on Friday of this week at a Socialist Worker Appeal event. He will be taking questions from the audience after the showing.

One reason why John made a film about Afghanistan was the difficulty of getting serious documentaries onto TV these days.

“In every survey of what the public wants from TV in Britain, the one constant is the demand for documentaries that make sense of the world,” says John.

“But TV bosses inevitably perceive ‘public taste’ in relation to ‘the market’. Big Brother may be mortally wounded in the ratings, but successors are being planned that are mutations of that form.

“That said, there are some marvellous documentary makers coming up, bypassing TV and heading straight for the cinema – which is where documentary began.”