It's three years since Obama promised to close Guantánamo.
Sign the petition at "We the People" urging him to honor his promise. 25,000 signatures are needed by February 6 to secure a response, so please sign up, and spread the word.
http://www.facebook.com/events/305742392811934/
Saturday, February 4
Rally and March
Meet at NOON
Powell and Market Streets
San Francisco
In many
ways, U.S. war on Iran has already begun.
The
United States and Israel, both of which have nuclear weapons, say they will
stop at nothing to keep Iran from having a nuclear program, even though the
U.S. Secretary of Defense says Iran won't have nuclear capability anytime soon.
The U.S.
has begun harsh economic sanctions that can destroy the Iranian economy, and
the lives of millions of Iranians through depriving them of food, medicine and
electricity. Either the U.S. or Israel is killing Iranian scientists in car
bombings. U.S. surveillance drones are flying over Iran, in violation of its
sovereignty. 3 U.S. carrier groups are right off Iran's shore. And secret U.S.
commando operations are in the country.
Will we
allow another U.S. war based on lies?
Iraq is
devastated from decades of U.S. military intervention and sanctions that took
the lives of hundreds of thousands of children, and led to 4.5 million people
being driven from their homes. Afghanistan, the poorest country in the world,
is being destroyed by the richest.
Let the
whole world see that we will not let the U.S. rain death, destruction and
devastation onto yet another country and further inflame a dire situation in
the Middle East. One thing we know is that when people stand up together to
resist the crimes of their government like the courageous protesters of the
Arab Spring and the Occupy movement, something beautiful can emerge.
http://www.facebook.com/events/305742392811934/
Saturday, February 4
Rally and March
Meet at NOON
Powell and Market Streets
San Francisco
Saturday, February 4
Rally and March
Meet at NOON
Powell and Market Streets
San Francisco
The campaign to free Bradley Manning
Courage to Resist project director and Bradley Manning Support Network campaign organizer Jeff Paterson will provide a multi-media presentation to include:
- An overview of US v. Bradley Manning
- His report from the Fort Meade courtroom where Bradley had his first court hearing after 18 months of pre-trial confinement
- Updates on the international grassroots campaign
- An opportunity to make a tax-deductible donation to Bradley's defense fund, which in addition to supporting public education efforts is responsible for 100% of Bradley's legal expenses
- Introduction to the new Courage to Resist book, About Face: Military Resisters Turn Against War--from Army Lt. Ehren Watada to PFC Bradley Manning, and two dozen other stories. Published by PM Press, September 2011.
Contact Courage to Resist for more information regarding specific events.
For daily updates on the campaign to save Bradley Manning, visit
www.bradleymanning.org
"some of us are capable of objecting to grave injustices even when they don't directly affect us -- Glenn Greenwald
As we head into Election Year, there is an increasingly common, bizarre and self-evidently repellent tactic being employed by some Democratic partisans against those of us who insist that issues like indefinite detention (along with ongoing killing of civilians in the Muslim world) merit high priority. The argument is that to place emphasis on such issues is to harm President Obama... while helping competing candidates who vehemently oppose such policies. Thus, so goes this reasoning, to demand that issues like indefinite detention and civilian deaths be prioritized in assessing the presidential race is to subordinate the importance of other issues...
"President Obama... will forever be known as the president who
signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law," said Anthony D.
Romero, ACLU executive director."The statute is particularly dangerous because
it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and
future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield.
The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in
court, in Congress, or internationally."
"If you think Weimar Republic Germany is a long time ago and far away so it can't happen here, you are wrong. It can happen here, and unless something is done to stop it, it almost surely will happen here. It is happening already -- Thurman Hubbard
David Gespass, president of the National Lawyers Guild, calls this bill an "enormous attack on the U.S. and our heritage" and a "significant step" towards fascism.
Defence Act Affirms Indefinite Detention of U.S. Citizens
see also The Fast Hardening of Soft Fascism
"President Obama, who endorsed protection for courageous whistleblowers during his campaign, has been both unwilling to investigate crimes of the Bush administration and most willing to invoke the Espionage Act of 1917...
Former CIA analyst Mel Goodman speaks at Illinois State University. (Photo by Ryan Denham/WJBC)
c/o Huffington Post:
The Senate passed a defense bill Thursday that authorizes indefinite detentions of American terrorism suspects, coincidentally acting on the controversial measure on the 220th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights.
The bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, passed 86 to 13 and is expected to be signed quickly by President Obama, who withdrew a veto threat against the bill Wednesday. Six Democrats, six Republicans and one independent opposed the bill.
For Occupiers questioning which side the cops are on, the following should help resolve that debate:
Getty Images
University of California, Berkeley students set up tents after a general assembly voted to again occupy campus as part of an "open university" strike in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement on Nov.15, 2011 in Berkeley, California. Teach-outs, workshops, public readings, and marches culminated in an attempt to re-establish an Occupy Cal encampment that was shut down by police last week. Police raided the new encampment this morning.
http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Police-Raid-Occupy-Cal-134027458.html
A protester is carried out of the bank after refusing to stand as she is arrested inside the Bank of America in the financial district, Wednesday November 16, 2011 in San Francisco, Calif. The arrests happened after hundreds of students marched through the streets of San Francisco.
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/11/16/MNDP1M07K8.DTL#ixzz1dveZRl3x
On Tuesday, November 15th, the Berkeley City Council passed, with an 8-1 vote, a resolution urging President Obama to order the army to allow Bradley Manning to have "official" visits with Juan E. Mendez, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Congressperson Dennis Kucinich, member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, and Amnesty International. All have been denied "official," private visits, free of monitoring or audio or video surveillance and recording, with Bradley Manning...
917 Washington Street
Oakland
... and all others
forming occupations in the Bay Area and beyond. They have not resigned
themselves to accepting the way the world is, but are boldly exposing the
towering crimes and audacious lies of this nation's financial and political
elites.
Their actions are an
extremely welcome development and a gust of fresh air in the
suffocating and poisonous atmosphere that the major parties, the Tea Partiers,
and their billionaire sponsors have been propagating and imposing, in this, the
"land of the free."
We protest all the
crimes of a system that relies on war,
torture, unmanned drone attacks, secret operations and police brutality to
maintain Empire in the interest of America's richest 1%.
And call
on all people to stand with these path-blazing youth and those oppressed by our
government, here and around the world. Put your energies, your funds, your
thoughts, and your bodies on the line to give voice to the most exploited,
ignored, and oppressed who have suffered under the U.S. government's economic,
military, and social crimes here and around the globe.
The future is unwritten...
which one we get is up to us.
National Website
Local Contact
San Francisco, CA 94103
sf@worldcantwait.org
415-864-5153
