Street fighting on first day of general strike in Chile
Pagina/12* – August 24, 2011
At least 36 detained and one injured policeman resulted from clashes on the first day of a strike called called by the United Workers Central (CUT) in support of student demands for egalitarian public education and also to demand constitutional reform and changes to the tax system and labor laws.
Beginning in the early morning, barricades were installed at various points in Santiago and important intersections of the main traffic artery, Alameda Avenue, were blocked with burning tires. In outlying areas buses were prevented from departing.
“Very few parts have paralyzed traffic and there is some delay from the barricades,” said Transport Minister Pedro Pablo Errazuriz.
Early on, Deputy Interior Minister Rodrigo Ubilla, noted that both in Santiago and elsewhere in the country “there is a normal situation” and said that public transport operated in accordance with the usual schedules. While the Secretary General of Government, Andrew Chadwick, had indicated that they had “some small pockets but have not been of greater magnitude.”
On the other hand, the president of the CUT, Arturo Martínez, refuted the government saying that they have struggled to “demonstrate normality while the whole country now knows there is nothing normal.”
Deputy Interior Minister Rodrigo Ubilla urged the leadership of the CUT to allow citizens to travel to work, and said police “will act to clear” the barricades. The crackdown was carried out at the time of the lowest level of popularity for the Piñera government which has been beleaguered for months by student demands.
The police measure is supported by the government coalition, which includes the Socialist, For Democracy, Radical Social Democratic and Christian Democratic parties. The national government responded to the strike actions with the threat of the possible application of the Internal Security Act, which allows for the arrest of protesters.
* Translated by Aletho News
NATO armed rebels attack Venezuelan ambassador’s residence in Tripoli
TeleSURtv.net* | August 24, 2011
Venezuela’s ambassador in Libya, Tajeldine Afif, said Wednesday that his home in Tripoli was attacked by armed groups which fired shots into the air as they entered the scene. This action was condemned by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.
Tajeldine Afif said that “at the embassy as such nothing happened, what happened today in our home (was that) armed groups entered this morning to my residence, asked for me and began to carry off all the goods, cars, ransacked the house, left nothing and gave a few shots into the air,” he said.
He explained that at the time of the incident he was in the residence by himself and vigilant when the rebels “took some shots at the door and entered”.
Tajeldine condemned the facts and stressed that it was “a demonstration of the violation of international law.”
“This site is our territory, Venezuela. Which must be respected. The violation is done by groups armed by NATO against our sovereignty,” he asserted.
Earlier, President Hugo Chavez had considered the situation in Libya an outrage.
“Regardless of the situation in Libya nothing can justify this outrage, it is an outrage against the world and a threat to the world,” said the president.
Chavez made the remarks during a brief news conference at the Miraflores Palace (Government House) after bidding farewell to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
In the Libyan capital fighting continues on Wednesday after the advance of rebel forces of the National Transitional Council.
*Translation by Aletho News
UN bid ‘endangers Palestinian rights’
Ma’an – 24/08/2011
BETHLEHEM — The Palestinian team responsible for preparing the United Nations initiative in September has been given an independent legal opinion that reveals a high risk involved with its plan to join the UN.
An initiative to transfer the Palestinians’ representation from the PLO to a state will terminate the legal status held by the PLO in the UN since 1975 that it is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, according to the document.
Crucially, there will no longer be an institution that can represent the inalienable rights of the entire Palestinian people in the UN and related international institutions, according to the brief.
Representation for the right to self-determination will be gravely affected, as it is a right of all Palestinians, both inside and outside the homeland, the legal opinion says. This change in status will severely disenfranchise the right of refugees to return to their homes and properties from which they were displaced.
The seven-page legal opinion, obtained by Ma’an, was submitted to the Palestinian side by Guy Goodwin-Gill, a professor of public international law at Oxford University and a member of the team that won the 2004 non-binding judgement by the International Court of Justice that the route of Israel’s wall was illegal.
The Palestinian team, headed by Saeb Erekat, has been preparing an initiative that involves the replacement of the PLO at the UN, substituting it with the State of Palestine as the representative of the Palestinian people.
As an actual state will not be created in September, as Israel’s occupation continues, the debate is focused on whether membership should be requested from the Security Council or if the General Assembly should be asked to grant recognition of the state as “observer,” a status that conveys less than full UN membership.
Yet, no consideration of the dramatic legal implications for Palestinian rights have been discussed, which this legal brief says will occur if the PLO loses its status.
The brief is to “flag the matters requiring attention” so that a substantial amount of people who have interests in the right of return, for example, are not “accidentally disenfranchised.”
Also, the prospect of substituting the PLO with the State of Palestine raises “constitutional” problems in that they engage the Palestinian National Charter and the organization and entities which make up the PLO, he writes. Secondly, “the question of the ‘capacity’ of the State of Palestine effectively to take on the role and responsibilities of the PLO in the UN; and thirdly, the question of popular representation,” the opinion says.
Due to the constitutional structure of the PLO and the history of the Palestinian Authority, which was established by the PLO as a short-term, administrative entity, the PA “has limited legislative and executive competence, limited territorial jurisdiction, and limited personal jurisdiction over Palestinians not present in the areas for which it has been accorded responsibility,” it says.
The brief says the PA “is a subsidiary body, competent only to exercise those powers conferred on it by the Palestinian National Council. By definition, it does not have the capacity to assume greater powers.”
It cannot “‘dissolve’ its parent body, or otherwise to establish itself independently of the Palestinian National Council and the PLO. Moreover, it is the PLO and the Palestinian National Council which derive their legitimacy from the fact that they represent all sectors of the displaced Palestinian people, no matter where they presently live or have refuge.”
Particularly crucial are the scholar’s conclusions about the implications of the plan to substitute PLO representation in the UN with the Palestinian state for the Palestinians in the Diaspora. The majority of the Palestinian people are refugees, and all of them are represented by the PLO through Palestinian National Council.
“They constitute more than half of the people of Palestine, and if they are ‘disenfranchised’ and lose their representation in the UN, it will not only prejudice their entitlement to equal representation, contrary to the will of the General Assembly, but also their ability to vocalise their views, to participate in matters of national governance, including the formation and political identity of the State, and to exercise the right of return,” the legal briefing says.
Karma Nabulsi, a former PLO representative and now a professor at Oxford University, says she is familiar with the document. Palestinian officials have also seen the legal opinion, she says.
“Without question, no Palestinian will accept losing such core rights for such a limited diplomatic initiative in September,” she says. “First, we will not have liberated territory upon which to establish a State. But in losing the PLO as the sole legitimate representative at the UN, our people immediately lose our claims as refugees to be part of our official representation, recognized by the world.
“This is an urgent and critical issue for our whole people. We must ensure our representatives advance our rights in international forum, not weaken or endanger them. Of course now that the legal dangers have been raised so fully, I am confident the initiative will protect the status of the PLO as sole legitimate representative in the UN in order to advance the rights” of the Palestinian people.
She says Goodwin-Gill has defined and clarified the “red lines” in legal terms.
“The PLO is the representative of the people, not just a part of the people; the PLO is the architect and creator of the Palestinian Authority; that any change in who represents the people or a part of the people requires an expression of the popular will and international recognition,” she explained.
“Neither the Palestinian Authority nor the PLO can alter the role and structure of the PLO without the agreement of the entire Palestinian people. In any case, the PLO and the Palestinian people were not aware that by losing the PLO as representative at the UN, it would create such legal dangers. Now they are.”
She concluded: “Obviously, we need clarity from the PLO on this critical issue, and it is important that the Palestinian public everywhere, especially the refugees in the shatat, are given concrete reassurances that representation of their core rights — on both representation and right of return — will remain untouched in September.”
Interventionists Versus Non-Interventionists
Two distinct camps are forming to battle over Syria policy in Washington
Joshua Landis | Syria Comment | August 24th, 2011
The first is made up of the neocons, who are busy fitting the Arab Spring into US strategic interests as they see them. Bolton, Doran, and Abrams have been leading the charge in articulating this argument. (Bolton and Doran articles are copied below)
The second group are the “realists,” with a liberal coating. Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies has articulated a “don’t get involved” argument in the article copied below.
The first want to take down Assad’s Syria and the second do not. The first see it as a vital US strategic goal, the second do not. The first see it as part of a broader effort to help your friends and hurt your enemies. They see Israel and Saudi Arabia as America’s main friends in the region and want to build them up. They want to crush, Iran, Syria, Hizbullah, Hamas. Syria is important because of Iran, America’s number one enemy. They tend to depict the battle in the Middle East as a struggle between good and evil, and freedom versus tyranny. The second see shades of gray. They see an ugly civil war lurking behind the surface of democracy promotion and are not sure Washington would be wise to get sucked into further expensive commitments that have more to do with messy emerging national identities and less to do with US interests.
The neocons have a number of strengths. Clarity is first. Second is the nature of the Assad regime, which is oppressive and run by a family surrounded by a narrow elite, dominated by Alawis, who are a minority themselves and unpopular among a broad section of the Sunni population. The regime has failed to deliver sufficient economic growth to reverse the growing pool of unemployed youth and to raise the standard of living for most Syrians. The country is suffering from all the ills of a growing income gap, drought and bad policies. Reform has been too slow and many believe it will never come because of the vested interests of the narrow and highly corrupt elite at the top. A growing number of Syrians argue that the entire system must be destroyed and Syria must rebuild itself. Increasingly, leaders of the Syrian uprising are beginning to embrace the ideas being put forward by the neocons. In order to win full US backing, they are pushing for acceptance of a complete strategic reversal of Syria’s foreign policy goals.
The neocons are not advocating direct US military involvement in Syria today. They understand this is not politically feasible. But they are preparing the grounds for a much higher level of military commitment in the future. They understand full well that in order to take down the Assad regime and counter the force of the Syrian military, the Syrian opposition will need to develop a full military option. To do so, it will need major US and NATO backing. This will not be a fight for the feint of heart.
Their strategy for angling the US toward making such a commitment in the future is economic sanctions. Broad economic sanctions imposed on Syria by the EU would have major moral implications down the road. Should Syrians start to starve, as they surely would if real sanctions are imposed, the moral argument for intervention and military escalation would improve. Should the poorest and most vulnerable Syrians begin to expire, as happened in Iraq in the 1990s, military intervention would become necessary to end the suffering and starvation. Liberals would have to support the military option in such a case. Today, most do not. Sanctions imposed now will make military intervention in the future imperative. Liberals embraced the invasion of Iraq in large part because of the moral argument. Saddam was starving his people. It would be hard to resist such an argument.
European governments have so far resisted imposing blanket trade sanctions on Syria for this exact reason. Once we see European governments impose devastating sanctions on Damascus, we may safely assume that they have accepted the notion of greater military involvement down the line in order to solve the humanitarian problem that sanctions will create. Perhaps they will not support a ground invasion as was done in Iraq, but they could support establishing a no-fly-zone and arming and training a proper Syrian insurgency, as was done in Libya. Of course, in Syria it will be a much bigger and more expensive operation as Syria has no frozen assets that can be diverted to fund the opposition. The Syrian army is much tougher than Libya’s was.
The realists argue that the US should not get militarily involved. They argue that Assad is too strong. The US is trying to prune its military commitments not grow them. The Assad regime still has the support of important sections of the population. It is not a clear good versus evil battle but something reflecting deeper civil and sectarian divisions in Syria. The Syrian opposition is hopelessly divided. Perhaps it will develop a leadership, but that will take time and must be left to emerge organically for the time being. The US should not tie its cart so closely to Israel and Saudi Arabia because both countries are pursuing policies which are not good for US interests in the long run. What is more, the realists do not believe that the US should take sides on the broader religious war being fought between Shiites and Sunnis in the Middle East. The US wants to check Iranian power and dissuade it from going nuclear, but it does not want to enter into the religious war. Most importantly, the US has too many military commitments in the Middle East, a region that has sucked up far too much of Washington’s time and money over the last decade. Greater involvement in Syria is not popular. In the end, this is a Syrian battle and the US should not be trying to decide it.
News Round Up
US, allies all but rule out Syria military intervention
News agencies
The Nexus and the Olive Tree
BY MICHAEL DORAN | AUGUST 22, 2011Only 12% Americans Think U.S. Should Step Up Involvement in Syria
August 22, 2011New York Post: Facing facts on O’s Syria miscues
2011-08-24 | John Bolton
Moscow urges world community to bolster all-Syrian dialogue
August 23 – RIA Novosti
Syrian opposition moves towards setting up national council
The Guardian
The Libyan Soldier: The True Heroes of NATO’s War
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford – August 24, 2011
The story is not over – not by a long shot – but the saga of the Libyan resistance to the superpower might of the United States and its degenerate European neocolonial allies will surely occupy a very special place in history. For five months, beginning March 19, the armed forces of a small country of six million people dared to defy the most advanced weapons systems on the planet, on terrain with virtually no cover, against an enemy capable of killing whatever could be seen from the sky or electronically sensed. Night and day, the eyes of the Euro-American war machine looked down from space on the Libyan soldiers’ positions, with the aim of incinerating them. And yet, the Libyan armed forces maintained their unit integrity and personal honor, with a heroism reminiscent of the loyalist soldiers of the Spanish Republic under siege by German, Italian and homegrown fascists, in the late 1930s.
The Germans and Italians and Generalissimo Franco won that war, just as the Americans, British, French and Italians may ultimately overcome the Libyan army. But they cannot convey honor or national legitimacy to their flunkies from Benghazi, who have won nothing but a badge of servitude to foreign overseers. The so-called rebels won not a single battle, except as walk-ons to a Euro-American military production. They are little more than extras for imperial theater, a mob that traveled to battle under the protective umbrella of American full spectrum dominance of the air. They advanced along roads already littered with the charcoal-blackened bodies of far better men, who died challenging Empire.
One thing is sure: the Americans and Europeans have never respected their servants. The so-called rebels of Libya will be no different. Washington, Paris and London know perfectly well that is was their 18,000 aircraft sorties, their cruise missiles, their attack helicopters, their surveillance satellites and drones, their command and control systems, their weapons, and their money, that managed to kill or wound possibly half the Libyan army. Not the rabble from Benghazi.
The rebels should not take too seriously being fawned over by the ridiculous hordes of corporate media tourists that have come to Tripoli to record the five-month war’s finale. They are highly paid cheerleaders. And, although it may appear that they are cheering for the rebels, don’t be fooled – at the end of the day, the western corporate media only cheer for their own kind. They are celebrating what they believe is a victory over the Libyan demon they have helped to construct in their countrymen’s minds. Next year, rebel, that demon might be you.
Or next year, it might be many Libyans, including those who were no friends of Col. Moammar Gaddafi. The Americans treat their native minions like children in need of supervision – and there is a certain logic to this, since whoever would entrust his nation’s sovereignty and resources to the Americans is, surely, either exceedingly stupid, or hopelessly corrupt. But Libya’s honor and her place in history has already been secured by a small African army that held out nearly half a year against the NATO barbarians.
Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.
Israeli Hasbara Delegation Arrives In South Africa Amidst Protest
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | August 24, 2011
South African security forces were put on high alert this week as a delegation of former Israeli soldiers arrived as part of a campaign by an Israeli group to promote Israel through talks and events at university campuses worldwide.
The delegation was organized by the group ‘What Is rael’ (a play on the name Israel), which states on its Facebook page that the group aims to recruit “Students who consider themselves Zionists” to travel around the world to speak on campuses to challenge the global movement for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel.
According to Israeli activists, the group has ties to the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the Jewish Agency, which have both been recently promoting ‘hasbara’, or propaganda campaigns promoting Israel as democratic and diverse, to try to counter groups that have sprung up worldwide to voice opposition to Israeli policies and ongoing occupation of the Palestinian Territories.
The South African Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Working group announced that their research into the visiting delegation of twenty ‘students’ had found that “two of the Israeli student delegates claiming to be students worked at the Israeli parliament. One is a deputy spokesperson and another is an official policy advisor.”
After a call was issued by the South African Students Congress last week to boycott and oppose what they called a ‘propaganda’ tour, dozens of students showed up at the airport to protest the arrival of the ‘What Is rael’ delegation, forcing the Israelis to exit the airport under heavy security through a back exit.
At the delegation’s first stop, the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, they were met by a number of protests, including a flash mob ‘die-in’, in which students all fell to the floor at the same moment to represent Palestinians killed by the Israeli military. According to one protest organizer, several of the former soldiers involved in the delegation have publicly bragged of involvement in the 2008-9 Israeli invasion of Gaza in which over 1400 Palestinians were killed, 400 of them children.
The University of Witwatersrand student newspaper quotes Stephanie Hodes, from the South African Union of Jewish Student (SAUJS), which sponsored the delegation, as saying, “the protest was sad, they should rather come inside and eat falafel.” The falafel, a traditional food in Palestine and the rest of the Arab world, was being promoted at the event as an Israeli food, with no mention of its Arab origins.
South Africa has been a main organizing center for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, with activists who fought the racist system of apartheid in the seventies and eighties among the first to term Israel’s system of segregation, occupation and discrimination against Palestinians as an ‘apartheid’ system.
The Coalition of South African Trade Unions, COSATU, by far the nation’s largest, was one of the first trade unions to support the boycott of Israel, blocking Israeli ships from entering South African ports and preventing the import of Israeli goods.
Stop NATO’s gangsterism: US lawmaker
Press TV – August 23, 2011
A US lawmaker says NATO chiefs must be held responsible under the international law for the deaths of Libyan civilians to avoid the victory of a ‘new international gangsterism.’
“If members of the Gaddafi regime are to be held accountable, NATO’s top commanders must also be held accountable through the International Criminal Court for all civilian deaths resulting from bombing,” Democratic Representative Dennis Kucinich was quoted by AFP as saying on Tuesday.
Kucinich denounced NATO for exceeding the UN Security Council resolution which mandated a no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians, stating that the real aim of attacks were “regime change.”
If NATO commanders do not stand justice, we will see the victory of “a new international gangsterism,” the lawmaker said.
Kucinich has expressed opposition to the involvement of NATO and the United States in the Libya conflict.
UN Security Council members including Russia, China, Brazil, India and South Africa have also criticized the Western military alliance, saying NATO has gone beyond the UN mandate.
Colonel Roland Lavoie, a NATO spokesman for Libya’s Operation Unified Protector said on Tuesday that the alliance will continue to carry out its bombing campaign to the end of the ongoing conflict in the North African country.
“We will take out and strike at targets if they pose a threat to the civilian population,” Lavoie said at a news conference in Naples, Italy.
Since NATO took command of airstrikes on March 31, its warplanes have carried out 19,994 sorties including 7,541 strike sorties, a Reuters report published on August 23 said.
‘Politico’ features claim for Israeli sovereignty of W.B. where ‘Jews have been the majority’ since 1800s
By Philip Weiss on August 23, 2011
Josh Block used to work for AIPAC. Then he started a PR shop with Clintonite Lanny Davis, and now he’s at the Progressive Policy Institute. So he considers himself a liberal Democrat. And he gets a platform at Politico to spew falsehoods about Jewish numbers and sovereignty. This is what it means to be progressive in the U.S. establishment:
the fictional Palestinian state conjured up for the United Nations doesn’t meet international law standards. Its legislature hasn’t met in nearly five years; it can’t hold elections as required under its own law, and it doesn’t have defined territory — instead claiming land once held briefly by Jordan, where Jews have been the majority population since the 1800s, and now under Israeli sovereignty.
The Olive Revolution – Friday, August 26th
PRESS RELEASE
Olive Revolution – August 23, 2011
We from the Olive Revolution (popular revolution and national humanitarian non-armed revolution against the Israeli occupation) start the campaign ‘Knocking on Jerusalem’s Doors’ Part of Jerusalem week activities as a response to all the Israeli policies of Judaizing Jerusalem. We state that Jerusalem will remain the jewel of the Arabs and capital of our future country. Jerusalem is the symbol of our pride and our national dignity that’s why we are going to knock on its doors by popular demonstrations and non-violent activities which start with the Friday prayers on the 26th of August 2011. We are planning to knock on four doors:
1. The Northern section Qalandia.
2. The Western section of the Apartheid Wall in the village of Biddu, northwest of Jerusalem.
3. The Eastern door in Shufat.
4. The Southern door at Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem.
Members of the Legislative Council, Ministers, Members of the Central Committees & offices of political parties and factions will be present at the four doors.
We are also keen to organize a demonstration at Beit Hanoun set to take place simultaneously with ‘the people knocking on the doors’ of our beloved Jerusalem demonstrations.
Olive Revolution in coordination with the Central Committee for the right of return march declares that this event will take place within the week celebrating Jerusalem day/youm AlQuds in Palestine.
We would be honored by your participation; we welcome your ideas and suggestions for any further activities which express our appreciation and importance of the city of Jerusalem.
It’s an ongoing revolution until we achieve freedom, justice and peace for all.
Dark Horizon for Verizon
Ralph Nader | August 23, 2011
It was only a matter of time before the “pull down” NAFTA and WTO trade agreements on U.S. wages and jobs would be followed by “pull down” contract demands by U.S. corporations on their unionized workers toward levels of non-unionized laborers.
The most recent illustration of this three-decade reversal of nearly a century of American economic advances for employees is the numerous demands by Verizon
Here are just a few of the concessions the new Verizon CEO, Lowell McAdam, is insisting upon:
–More power to contract out and offshore jobs to add to the 25,000 already in that category; thereby undermining job security.
–a freeze on pensions;
–elimination of the sickness and death benefit program;
–reduction in sick days; and
–a major increase in employee contributions to and deductibles under their health insurance coverage.
Mr. Lowell McAdam would surely have trouble feeling the pain of his workers who brave the elements storm or shine to afford him a salary of over 1.5 million dollars PER MONTH plus perks and benefits.
Watching Verizon profits soar year after year, noticing Verizon stock rise faster than its competitors, knowing that the company’s top five executives took in over $250 million between them in the last four years, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) took their members on strike on August 7, 2011. “Unfair and unacceptable” was their cry on the picket lines up and down the east coast.
These workers pay their taxes. While the tax lawyers for their bosses have figured out how to turn Verizon into a vast tax escapee. According to the super-accurate Citizens for Tax Justice, Verizon Communications made a total of $32.5 billion dollars in pretax U.S. profits during 2008, 2009, 2010. Far from paying the maximum federal corporate income tax rate of 35 percent on these ample profits, Verizon’s federal income tax was negative $951 million or negative 2.9 percent!
Some of these saved tax revenues have been getting into expensive daily full page advertisements (not deductible it is hoped) in the Washington Post, The New York Times, and other large newspapers. Verizon’s brazen assertions reflect the limitless arrogance of a multinational behemoth.
Verizon headlines its ad with these words:
“They claim we’re asking union-represented employees to contribute to their own health care premiums. THEY’RE RIGHT. Verizon is proposing that its union-represented employees contribute more toward the cost of rising health care. 135,000 non-union Verizon employees already pay a portion of the healthcare premium. We’re just asking our union -represented employees to chip in like everybody else. We think that’s fair.”
There you have it – the “pull down” ultimatum to the level of the voiceless majority of Verizon workers. Of course Verizon bosses with their fat paychecks do not have to worry at all about co-payments and larger deductibles in their gold-plated health plan.
Another anti-union Verizon ad featured this assertion:
“They claim we want to strip away 50 years of contract negotiations. THEY’RE RIGHT. The union contracts that have expired were drafted over 50 years ago, when people still used rotary phones. Verizon is proposing to update the contracts in a reasonable manner to reflect the changing times.”
The CWA leaders recognize that some changes need to be made and have offered compromises. But fifty years ago, a telephone company CEO never dared pay himself anywhere near the multiple that today’s Verizon executives get compared to the average workers. Maybe then the CEO would get 20 times the entry level wage. Now it is between two hundred to four hundred times.
Verizon does have one last argument. At the bottom of each full-page ad, it describes exacting concessions from its workers as “all in an effort to best position Verizon to serve our customers.” Are those the same customers who are subject to all kinds of extremely one-sided fine print that spells suppression of rights, overcharges, termination fees, penalties and other straitjackets of contract serfdom? Are those the same customers who have to wait and wait to get their service and billing complaints addressed and questions answered? Are those the same customers who can never get Verizon to put what its spokespersons say on the phone in writing?
The CWA workers went back to their jobs on August 22, 2011. Verizon had threatened to cut off their medical, dental and optical benefits by August 31.Their 2008 contract continues until ongoing negotiations with the company are concluded for a new contract.
Verizon keeps saying that what they’re doing just “reflects the changing times.” The times are changing – skyrocketing executive pay packages and corporate profits – slashing benefits for the workers and their families – shredding of all moral authority by example from the top.
If negotiations break down in the coming weeks and the CWA goes out on strike again, consumer advocates and their organizations should make it explicitly clear that Verizon can’t excuse what they’re doing to workers in order to better “serve our customers.”
Verizon is going increasingly wireless. They are also going increasingly shameless!
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Does Kevin Barrett Seek to “Absolve Islam of a Terrible Crime”?
The Kevin Barrett-Chomsky Dispute in Historical Perspective – Last part of the series titled “9/11 and the Zionist Question”
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | August 28, 2016
Amidst his litany of condemnations, Jonathan Kay reserves some of his most vicious and vitriolic attacks for Kevin Barrett. For instance Kay harshly criticizes Dr. Barrett’s published E-Mail exchange in 2008 with Prof. Chomsky. In that exchange Barrett castigates Chomsky for not going to the roots of the event that “doubled the military budget overnight, stripped Americans of their liberties and destroyed their Constitution.” The original misrepresentations of 9/11, argues Barrett, led to further “false flag attacks to trigger wars, authoritarianism and genocide.”
In Among The Truthers Kay tries to defend Chomsky against Barrett’s alleged “personal obsession” with “vilifying” the MIT academic. Kay objects particularly to Barrett’s “final salvo” in the published exchange where the Wisconsin public intellectual accuses Prof. Chomsky of having “done more to keep the 9/11 blood libel alive, and cause the murder of more than a million Muslims than any other single person.” … continue
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