By Dave Lindorff

New documents obtained from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security by the Partnership for Civil Justice and released this past week show that the FBI and other intelligence and law enforcement agencies began a campaign of monitoring, spying and disrupting the Occupy Movement at least two months before the first occupation actions began in late September 2011.

By John Grant

By Michael Caddell

… [Dr. Ann Kristin] Neuhaus wishes that she'd skipped the hearing.
 

Still Waitin’

A short film produced by

The Vietnam War Commemoration CORRECTION Project

To see the film, please go to:  www.ThisCantBeHappening.net

By Johnny Barber

Tuesday, November 6, 2012,  in Rockaway I was reminded of the aftermath of Katrina, the Rodney King riots and Iraq, Afghanistan, and particularly I was reminded of Gaza and the West Bank, where the 'aftermath' never comes, where just a continuous, unending calamity unfolds at the hands of America's 'democracy'.  

It was election day and  we drove past lines of hundreds of people waiting to vote. All that was missing was the blue ink to dip their fingers in and to hold up to the cameras with a smile.

We baked food to bring to hungry people who have been ignored and forgotten by our government.

Mostly they are poor people, many elderly people, many children.

By Dave Lindorff

Okay, the etch-a-sketch vulture capitalist who would have given us four years of that smarmy missionionary-at-your-door smile, was thankfully sent packing by the voters, and Barack Obama gets four more years in the White House.

By Ann Wright

It seems as though most Americans don’t know that the Obama administration has backed off its commitment to stop a Canadian oil firm from bringing dangerous and toxic tar sands from the fields in Alberta, Canada to oil refineries in Texas.  But in East Texas, the farm lands and forests have been seized for the Canadian company through eminent domain and are already being destroyed for the foreign pipeline.

Yesterday, October 24, Leslie Harris of Dallas, Texas and I visited the “boys” in the trees, the great activists who have been living in the trees along the Trans Canada Keystone XL pipeline that is carving a terrible scar in the countryside of East Texas.  Earlier in the day we had been meeting with dozens of Tar Sands Blockade (TSB) activists who are preparing campaigns in East Texas and Houston to challenge the XL pipeline.

Activism in the Air

By Linn Washington, Jr.

Much is rightly made of the ‘maverick’ character of former Pennsylvania U.S. Senator Arlen Specter in obituaries and other media coverage since his recent death.

That maverick streak certainly animated Specter’s December 2010 Farewell Speech from the Senate where he criticized the lack of civility currently rampant in that body plus assailed both political parties for perpetuating legislative gridlock and abuses of Senate rules.

http://davidswanson.org/tubeworld

New Book for Ages 6 to 10: Tube World

Tube World is the first children's book by David Swanson, author of several nonfiction adult books. The illustrations for Tube World are by Shane Burke.

Parents: Have your kids been tired in the morning?  Have you found wet bathing suits in their beds?  Do they know things about far-away places that you didn’t teach them and they didn’t learn in school?  Do children visiting your town from halfway around the world always seem to be friends with your kids, and to only be around during certain hours of the day?  You won’t believe the explanation, but your kids might grin and wink at each other if you read it to them.

Kids: Did you know the center of the Earth was hollow?  Do you know the words that can take you there, if you’re under the covers in your swimming suit and prepared for the trip?  Can you imagine traveling anywhere in the world where there’s a swimming pool — and being home again in time for breakfast?  If you haven’t been to Tube World yet, this book will tell you the secrets you need to know.  And it will tell you about some children who discovered Tube World and used it to make the whole world a better place.

Buy the PDF, EPUB (iPad, Nook, etc.), or MOBI (Kindle) from Ebookit.

The paperback has been published in two versions, one with slightly better color, slightly better paper, and a dramatically higher price.

Buy the standard paperback from Amazon,

(If you order from Amazon it will ship right away even if Amazon says it won't ship for weeks; it is print-on-demand.)

Buy the premium paperback from Amazon,

Your local independent bookstore can order the book through Ingram.

Anyone can order the book in bulk at the lowest possible price right here.

Buy PDF, Audio, EPUB, or Kindle for $8 right here:

http://davidswanson.org/tubeworld

Advance Praise for Tube World:

“This book will make you laugh till water comes out your ears!”--Wesley

“This story is super flibba garibbidy schmibbadie libbidie awesome, mostly!”--Travis

“The best part is we saved 2,000 islands and pretty much the whole world in our swimming suits!”--Hallie

About Shane Burke:
Shane Burke lives in Denver Colorado and has been drawing and painting since he could hold a pencil. He took private art lessons when he was young and began winning awards and contests by the age of seven. His first big commission came at age nine when he created artwork for a billboard near his home town of Tracy California. His greatest influences came from his grandfather and elementary school teachers. He loved watching his grandfather paint landscapes and wanted to be just like him. Shane is a creative day dreamer and at complete peace when putting ink to paper.  You can see more of Shane's work at www.beezink.com

By Dave Lindorff

Sometimes it takes a small tragedy to call attention to expose a much bigger one.

The small tragedy happened when Nicholas Ivey, a US Border Patrol agent, was shot dead on a dark night in rough terrain along the border with Mexico in Arizona, a state that has been obsessing about illegal border crossers coming into the US from Mexico seeking jobs.

By Clint Henderson

The internet is full of videos exposing police officers' use of excessive physical force when trying to apprehend or detain "potential criminals". Every year in fact there seems to be an increase in YouTube video uploads, video views, and news stories depicting this type of injustice.

By Dave Lindorff

The United States never misses an opportunity to castigate other countries for “uncivilized” behavior, and certainly there is enough of that to go around almost anywhere you look in the world. But there’s plenty of it here in the U.S. too.

OPEN LETTER TO THE CANADIAN PEOPLE AND GOVERNMENT

Dear Canadians,

We are writing you on behalf of thousands of military veterans in the United States who believe that Kimberly Rivera and her family should be allowed to remain in Canada.

As a U.S. soldier, Kimberly Rivera spent six months in Iraq where she witnessed the injustice caused by illegal U.S. war. Home on leave in the U.S., she decided that she could not in good conscience continue to be part of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Kimberly Rivera drove to Canada hoping to find a safe haven for herself, her husband, and their two young children.

Since arriving in Canada five years ago, the Riveras have had two more children, who are Canadian citizens by virtue of being born in Canada. How tragic it will be if these children are deported to the U.S. and then separated from their mother, who would be court-martialed and imprisoned.

Veterans For Peace includes members who fought in the Vietnam War, and also veterans who refused to go to Vietnam and found a safe haven in Canada.

We are extremely grateful to the Canadian people for providing us with sanctuary, along with so much understanding, love and care. Thirty thousand Americans who immigrated to Canada during the Vietnam War are now Canadian citizens who have led productive lives in the arts, academia, media, business and law.

We also want to thank the many Canadians who have supported our young men and women who did not want to return to the carnage of war in Iraq. According to polls, two-thirds of the Canadian people believe that U.S. war resisters should be allowed to remain in Canada. We are very grateful to the community groups, churches, unions, and Members of Parliament who have given so much support to these young people of conscience.

According to the UN Handbook on Refugees, soldiers who refuse to fight in wars that are widely condemned by the international community should be considered as refugees. Unfortunately, the Immigration and Refugee Board in Canada has yet to grant asylum to a single person who refused to kill in the war against Iraq, a war that has most certainly been condemned by peoples and nations around the globe.

Surely there are humanitarian grounds that the Canadian government might invoke to keep Kimberly Rivera and other Iraq and Afghanistan war resisters from being deported to certain imprisonment in the United States.

Veterans For Peace believes that nobody who conscientiously refuses to be part of war should be punished. At our recent national convention, we called on the U.S. government to grant an unconditional amnesty to all war resisters. We will be working toward this goal in the coming months. In the meantime, we call upon the Canadian government to show compassion for these courageous conscientious objectors.

Please do not deport Kimberly Rivera and her four young children to the U.S., where she will face persecution and imprisonment, and her children will experience the trauma of separation from their mother.

The mission of Veterans For Peace is to abolish war altogether. We believe that this goal can be realized and must be realized if human civilization is to survive. Those powerful people who pursue wars of mass destruction are the ones who should be punished, not the poor people we are forced to fight wars for the one percent.

We hope the Canadian government will do its best to represent the will of the peace-loving Canadian people. Please let Kimberly Rivera stay. You will be glad that you did.

Sincerely for Peace,

Leah Bolger, President
Gerry Condon, Board of Directors
Veterans For Peace

The decision by the Harper government to sever diplomatic ties with Iran and to expel all Iranian diplomats from Canada is a dangerous and unwanted escalation of the current crisis. The Canadian Peace Alliance condemns this decision and calls on the government of Canada to normalize relations and to call for a peaceful and negotiated settlement.

This is not the first time that the government of Canada has led the drive to war with Iran. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has stated publicly that Iran is the "greatest threat to world peace." The severing of diplomatic ties shows that, in fact, the Harper government is the real threat to peace and stability.

"The global community is calling for negotiation and dialogue to avert war," said Sid Lacombe, coordinator of the Canadian Peace Alliance. "Keeping diplomatic channels open for that discussion is an absolute prerequisite to finding a peaceful solution to the conflict. The Harper government has just told the world that they don't care for peace and are instead paving the way to war."

Iranian-Canadians also spoke out against the decision to sever ties.

"We are worried that these actions by the Harper government are a sign of imminent attack," said Niaz Salimi, president of the Iranian Canadian Community Council. "We are opposed to any actions which brings us closer to war."

A war with Iran would cause untold civilian deaths and could escalate into a much larger regional conflict. There is no credible evidence that Iran is using nuclear technology to create a weapon, yet the Canadian public is being asked, once again, to put its faith in fictitious claims about Weapons of Mass Destruction. The fact that no weapons were ever found in Iraq - and that the evidence of such a program was deliberately fabricated - renders any accusations against Iran extremely questionable.

This October 6th, Canadians will demonstrate their opposition to the possibility of war against Iran by joining anti-war events across Canada.
For more information, visit http://www.acp-cpa.ca.

By Dave Lindorff

Police brutality is in the news, thanks to the widespread availability of amateur video.

We've seen scene after scene of police beating the crap out of, and even shooting and killing unarmed or minimally dangrous students, women, old men and crazy people, many of them after they have been handcuffed and checked for weapons.

By John Grant

The patient, by the name of Israel, walks into the room and instantly bursts into a tirade of arguments conclusively proving his credentials, and says that he is better than everyone else.

-Ofer Grosbard

Israel On The Couch: The Psychology of the Peace Process

Americans have an Israel problem.

By Dave Lindorff

Sometimes a journalist just has to go with the story, even if it’s going all wrong. 

By Linn Washington, Jr.

Mumia Abu-Jamal, the internationally recognized American political prisoner, thwarted a Philadelphia judge’s secretive court order that could have eliminated his future appeal rights when he filed a last- minute motion on August 23rd challenging that order sentencing him to life-without-parole.

By Dave Lindorff

We’ve all heard it said by our teachers when we were in school, we’ve all heard it said by politicians, including presidents: “Democracies don’t start wars.”

Canadian troops and police were trained for two years by the international security contractor formerly known as Blackwater without the permission of the U.S. State Department.

The revelation is contained in U.S. federal court records, unsealed in North Carolina as part of a $7.5-million settlement of criminal charges against the company now called Academi LLC.

READ THE REST AT GLOBE AND MAIL.