‘UK government in blind panic over strike’
Press TV – November 25, 2011
The chief of UK’s leading civil service union has accused the government of being in ‘blind panic’ after Home Office asked some government employees to work as border officers during pension strikes planned for next week.
Selected groups of government employees were contacted to walk through picket lines and check passports as passengers arrive at airports and ports from abroad during the industrial action planned for November 30 by public sector workers against pension reforms, The Guardian reported on Thursday.
The crisis-hit British government hopes to make annual savings of 2.8 billion pounds (USD 4.3 billion) by 2014 through reducing pensions, while forcing employees to work for longer years. Many of the workers are already facing wage freezes.
The General Secretary of Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), Mark Serwotka said, “They are forcing people to work up to eight years longer, forcing people to pay thousands of pounds for less of a pension; it’s completely unfair.”
He criticized ministers for failing to prevent the move by calling unions in for urgent talks, despite months of warning about the strikes.
Serwotka noted that the government had been more interested in spinning over the issue rather than trying to handle the row, saying, “Yesterday in parliament it was revealed the prime minister misled parliament on the 2 November when he made claims about public sector pensions that have been shown to be false.”
“What that indicates is that rather than worry about the services on the day, rather than plan properly for 30 November, they have been engaging in a PR exercise putting out misleading information to try and force through damaging changes that are unfair. Less than a week before the strike, to suddenly turn round and act in a blind panic is completely irresponsible,” he added.
About four million public sector workers are expected to take part in the protest measure organized by Trade Union Congress (TUC), despite the government’s threats to cut the protesters’ pay and cancel out the concessions it has already made to them if they kept up the demonstrations for longer than 15 minutes.
Nuclear waste train brought to a stop
Morning Star | 24 November 2011
Militant anti-nuclear activists forced French authorities to halt a trainload of reprocessed nuclear waste near the German border today.
The train, en route from a nuclear waste processing site on the English Channel to a storage site in northern Germany, ground to a halt at Remilly junction.
Nuclear privateer Areva, French state rail firm SNCF and police are now deciding how to get the radioactive waste to its destination, given that thousands of activists are expected to try to stop it once it crosses the border.
The train loaded with uranium has been harassed by hundreds of activists since it set off from a depot in Valognes on Wednesday.
Riot police confronted 300 protesters in fields in Lieusaint village outside Valognes and fired tear gas at people waving banners reading: “Stop this radioactive train.”
It was not immediately clear if there were injuries.
Back to Tahrir Square
By ESAM AL-AMIN | CounterPunch | November 24, 2011
When former Vice President (and intelligence chief) Omar Suleiman announced on state television last February 11the transfer of power from Hosni Mubarak to the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), millions of Egyptians began celebrating in the streets the culmination of their revolution that rid them of their dictator. The demonstrators’ chant then was “the people and the army are one.” Indeed, the role of SCAF in refusing to crack down on protestors and forcing the resignation of Mubarak proved decisive in the three-week revolt.
Nine months later, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians are back in Tahrir Square and streets across the country. Ironically, their chant is now “The police and the army are one,” in a clear rejection of the violent tactics employed by the police against the demonstrators. In three days of confrontation since November 20 at least forty people were killed and more than 2,000 injured at the hands of the security forces. But this time the Egyptian youth will not pack up and go home. They are determined to reclaim their revolution and force the transfer of power from the military to a real civilian government.
But how did we get from there to here?
Shortly after Mubarak was deposed, SCAF promised to stay in power no longer than six months. It subsequently called for a popular referendum on March 19 that called for parliamentary elections, followed by writing a new constitution, and then presidential elections. Championed by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and other Islamic factions, the public approved the referendum with an overwhelming majority of 77 per cent, although secular parties wanted to first draft the constitution for the fear that Islamic parties would have an edge over them after the elections.
During this brief campaign it became clear to all political trends that the Islamically oriented parties, led by the MB, are better organized, well financed, and have the abilities and skills to mobilize the public to their cause. This fact prompted fear and panic not only from the secular, leftist, and liberal parties within Egypt but also from other Western powers led by the United States.
Furthermore, the traditional secular and liberal parties expressed their concern that if the elections were held soon, the Islamists were poised to win a large share of seats and dictate a new constitution that might curtail some freedoms or favor the application of Islamic laws. Despite the pronouncement by most Islamic parties, including the Freedom and Justice Party, the political arm of the MB, that the constitution writing committee would include all political parties and trends, most secular parties did not believe such assurances.
Throughout the summer most secular and liberal parties pressured SCAF to issue a decree that would impose supra-constitutional principles and thus foist them on the future parliament. The opponents of this argued that, on its face, this practice is undemocratic, usurps the rights of the people, and tramples upon their right to express their free will. They also argue that it is unnecessary since all parties have agreed on the nature of the state, namely to be a democratic and civil one.
Nevertheless, the proponents of this approach pushed hard to impose their vision. Consequently, Deputy Prime Minister Ali Al-Silmi, backed by SCAF, called for a conference of all political parties to approve his plan for the future constitution. But remarkably this document also called for a special constitutional privilege for the military, effectively according it a sovereign status. In effect, it called for its budget to be outside the purview of parliament and for a veto power over any strategic decision by the government. In short, it was similar to the role that the Turkish military played in the country since the military coup of 1960 until Prime Minister Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party was elected in 2002.
The rejection of Al-Silmi’s proposed document was swift and sweeping not only in principle by the Islamic parties, but also from other nationalist and secular parties because of its tilt towards the military. It was a disguised effort to keep the military outside the control and supervision of the future democratic institutions of the state.
But this was the latest episode of SCAF’s many attempts to manipulate the future course of Egypt. Since the very beginning it has been laggard in implementing the objectives of the revolution. The despised emergency laws were never repealed. While changing the name of the security apparatus, much of its senior personnel and tactics were retained. Over 12,000 civilians were charged and tried swiftly in military trials facing harsh sentences, while the most corrupt leaders of the Mubarak regime – including the deposed president and his sons- have been tried grudgingly in slow civilian courts.
Moreover, none of the reforms announced by SCAF came out of its own initiative. It either reluctantly adhered to final court rulings by the judiciary, or yielded to the demands of the people, built up over many weeks, eventually culminating in large demonstrations and sit-ins. To wit:
The sacking of Mubarak’s cabinet in favor of a new government supported by the people. The banning of Mubarak’s corrupt party and confiscating its assets. The dismissal of thousands of corrupt officials from local councils. The trial of senior leaders and ministers of the deposed regime. The opening of the Rafah crossing to ease the blockade on Gaza. Setting definite election dates after many delays. Changing elections laws to include parties’ list as well as individual candidates. Allowing expatriate citizens to vote outside of Egypt. Pointedly, none of these demands, as well as many others, were met without taking the matter to the streets. Often times, their decisions were too little too late, or with ineffective or inconsequential results.
For instance, all political parties have been calling for the activation of a law that bans from politics all individuals who were previously engaged in political corruption- effectively excluding all Mubarak’s Nationalist Democratic Party (NDP) officials. But SCAF dragged its feet for months while hundreds of those same NDP officials filed to contest the elections next week either as independents or as part of the lists of six new parties tied to the old regime. Ultimately, this past Monday, just one week before the elections, SCAF issued the Political Corruption Law that would make it almost impossible to impeach any candidate since they have to be disqualified only through the slow Egyptian judiciary.
Meanwhile, SCAF has been vulnerable to the tremendous pressures applied by foreign governments for different motives. Some Arab governments led by Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the U.A.E. used their financial leverage to bail out the deposed president by halting or slowing down his trial because of their strong ties to him. In addition, the U.S. and other Western countries insisted that SCAF give specific assurances regarding Western and Israeli interests, as well as secure certain concessions from the political Islamic parties. For example, under U.S. prodding, SCAF demanded and received assurance from the MB in late April that the group would not contest future presidential elections.
By June, SCAF was demanding that the group not advance one of its own to the position of Prime Minister, even if it won the elections. In August, the MB was told yet again that in any future government it should not push for senior posts such as foreign or interior ministries so as not to antagonize the West. While the group reluctantly agreed not to contest the posts of head of state or government, it was extremely dismayed and refused to adhere to further restrictions on its participation in politics.
Last July, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee earmarked $1.55 billion to Egypt on the condition that such aid should in part be used for “border security programs and activities in the Sinai” in order to insure Israel’s security concerns. It also directed that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton certifies the humiliating demand that the Government of Egypt (supposedly democratically elected) “is not controlled by a foreign terrorist organization, or its affiliates or supporters, is implementing the Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty, and is taking steps to detect and destroy the smuggling network and tunnels between Egypt and the Gaza strip.” Thus, when the Egyptian authorities acceded in late May to the demand by the Egyptian public to open the Rafah crossing and ease the blockade on Gaza, the crossing was closed again within just three days, due to U.S. and Israeli pressure. The status of the Rafah crossing is not currently very different from the Mubarak era.
By late September, SCAF finally set the parliamentary elections date for November 28. But it called for a staggered elections process to be implemented over three stages for the lower house as well as two stages for the upper house, effectively ending the elections process in March 2012. Many political parties and pro-democracy movements voiced their concerns that within such a system (with the banning of international elections monitors), the elections could be manipulated, especially when the same interior ministry (packed by Mubarak’s appointees) would supervise major parts of the electoral process.
To secure free and fair elections, SCAF started tacitly requesting concessions from the major political parties, especially the MB and other Islamically oriented parties. In return for their support of Al-Silmi’s supra-constitutional principles, SCAF pledged to guarantee free and fair parliamentary elections. But the MB and other Salafist parties refused even to show up to discuss the document. Meanwhile, other pro-democracy liberal and youth groups were extremely concerned about the extra constitutional powers given to the military in that document. Fearing the attempted power grab, most political parties and movements were actually united in their rejection, and called for a million-man demonstration in Tahrir square on Friday, November 18, insisting on the restoration of the objectives of the revolution. Recalling the early days of the revolution, hundreds of thousands of people gathered that afternoon not only in Tahrir, but also in other major cities including Alexandria, Suez, and across the Nile Delta.
After the impressive showing by all political factions: Islamic, secular, liberal, leftist, and youth groups, SCAF had no option but to withdraw the document. By Saturday, a few thousand activists from the youth movements that actually ignited the revolution last January, decided to stay in Tahrir square and stage a sit-in to demand the dismissal of the ineffective SCAF-controlled government, headed by Dr. Esam Sharaf since March, and call for the end of military rule.
That evening, for reasons that remain unclear, the security forces decided to evacuate the few thousand demonstrators by force. In doing so, they employed all the Mubarak-era tactics: teargas, rubber bullets, clubs, beatings, mass arrests, pepper spray, and physical and verbal humiliations. But the demonstrators refused to evacuate, fought back, and called for reinforcements after suffering many casualties. Within hours, Tahrir was again filled with tens of thousands of people raising their demands yet again.
If there was a lesson to be learned from the ousting of Mubarak, it was that when the people’s demands are denied, the ceiling of their demands are raised. By the third day of this manufactured confrontation, most political groups, with the exception of the MB, were not only protesting in Tahrir Square, but also across Egypt. The angry demonstrators now demanded the complete dismissal of the government, and the ouster of the military council to be replaced with an interim civilian presidential council.
The MB announced that although it supported the demands of the people it would not participate so as not to escalate the dangerous situation with the security forces. In its pragmatic calculation, the MB saw this latest episode as a deliberate attempt by the military to use the induced violence to postpone yet again the elections, which many believed the party would win. Similar to the agreement the MB struck with Suleiman in the days before Mubarak’s ouster, once again the MB thought of its immediate gains rather than the national consensus to force the end of military rule. As it reversed its decision last February within two days due to pressure from the streets, many of its members and supporters in the streets are openly demanding that they participate alongside the other young revolutionaries.
By Tuesday, November 22, SCAF head Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi and Chief-of-Staff Gen. Sami Anan, met with all political parties and prospective presidential candidates. After a five-hour marathon meeting, SCAF capitulated, and agreed to all the demands: To declare an immediate cease-fire; to release thousands of protesters that have been detained since Saturday; to treat all the injured and provide compensations to the families of the deceased; and to bring to justice all those responsible for the violence. On the political demands they further agreed to dismiss the government of Dr. Sharaf and appoint a national-unity government; to hold the elections on time starting next week; to guarantee free and fair elections; and to give a definite date for the transfer to civilian rule by holding presidential elections no later than June 30, 2012.
When Tantawi delivered his speech that evening by promising a new government, keeping the elections date intact, and the end of military rule by next June, people in Tahrir were no longer satisfied. They kept shouting, “You leave, we’re staying,” the same chant that eventually caught up with Mubarak.
The immediate problem now is the total lack of trust between the people in the streets and the military council. The people are tired of the cat and mouse game played by SCAF, where every major demand is only conceded through much struggle. Although it is true that SCAF was instrumental in accelerating the ouster of Mubarak, it is also now quite clear to the revolutionaries that SCAF has had a different agenda that oftentimes conflicts with the objectives of their revolution.
Now the revolutionaries have vowed to stay in Tahrir until SCAF cedes effective power long before next year to a new civilian national-unity government empowered to supervise the elections, supervise the writing of the constitution, and implement all their objectives without any interference or dictation by the military.
Esam Al-Amin can be reached at alamin1919@gmail.com
Note to Media: The UC Davis “Investigation” is not the Story
By Angus Johnston | Student Activism | November 20, 2011
The UC Davis story has gone global overnight. Here’s a taste of the morning papers:
- New York Times: UC Davis Calls for Investigation After Pepper Spraying
- BBC News: US University Investigates Campus Pepper Spray Use
- Washington Post: Investigation, Calls for Resignation Follow Spread of Calif. University Pepper Spray Video
- CNN: California University to Investigate Police Use of Pepper Spray
- Los Angeles Times: UC Davis Chief Launches Probe Into Pepper-Spraying of Occupy Protesters
But see what they all did here? They all led with Linda Katehi’s promised investigation of the incident, which she announced in a statement yesterday:
I am forming a task force made of faculty, students and staff to review the events and provide to me a thorough report within 90 days. As part of this, a process will be designed that allows members of the community to express their views on this matter. This report will help inform our policies and processes within the university administration and the Police Department to help us avoid similar outcomes in the future.
That’s it. That’s the entirety of the relevant portion of the statement. No word on how the task force will be constituted, what its composition will be, how its student and faculty members will be chosen. No hint that it will have any actual policymaking authority. And it’s got 90 days before it’s expected to report — does anyone really think that this situation is going to stay static until mid-February? Does anyone think that the release of this report is going to be a major event?
Come on.
I get why the press is going with this angle for their ledes. It sounds like a big deal. It sounds serious, momentous. And it’s something you can report without seeming to take sides. An investigation! A report! That’s just the thing to get to the bottom of this situation!
But here’s the thing. We’ve already gotten to the bottom of the situation. We know what happened. UC Davis police used unwarranted force on a group of peaceful student demonstrators in violation of university policy, and then top university officials lied about why. That’s the story. That’s the situation. If the task force reports that, they’ll be telling us all what we already know. If they don’t, they’ll be engaging in an act of utterly pointless misrepresentation.
A lot of important stuff happened yesterday. New videos emerged that helped to prove the university’s original cover story false. Katehi was asked to resign, by multiple people in multiple venues, and gave a series of not particularly forceful responses. University officials gave a press conference at which reporters greeted their continuing attempts to justify Friday’s violence with barely concealed scorn. And then Katehi hid from a peaceful crowd for two hours before emerging to slink back to her car in silence and shame.
All that stuff happened. And any of if would make a great lede.
Ten Things You Should Know About Friday’s UC Davis Police Violence
By Angus Johnston | Student Activism | November 20, 2011
1. The protest at which UC Davis police officers used pepper spray and batons against unresisting demonstrators was an entirely nonviolent one.
None of the arrests at UC Davis in the current wave of activism have been for violent offenses. Indeed, as the New York Times reported this morning, the university’s administration has “reported no instances of violence by any protesters.” Not one.
2. The unauthorized tent encampment was dismantled before the pepper spraying began.
Students had set up tents on campus on Thursday, and the administration had allowed them to stay up overnight. When campus police ordered students to take the tents down on Friday afternoon, however, most complied. The remainder of the tents were quickly removed by police without incident before the pepper spray incident.
3. Students did not restrict the movement of police at any time during the demonstration.
After police made a handful of arrests in the course of taking down the students’ tents, some of the remaining demonstrators formed a wide seated circle around the officers and arrestees.
UC Davis police chief Annette Spicuzza has claimed that officers were unable to leave that circle: “There was no way out,” she told the Sacramento Bee. “They were cutting the officers off from their support. It’s a very volatile situation.” But multiple videos clearly show that the seated students made no effort to impede the officers’ movement. Indeed, Lt. Pike, who initiated the pepper spraying of the group, was inside the circle moments earlier. To position himself to spray, he simply stepped over the line.
4. Lt. Pike was not in fear for his safety when he sprayed the students.
Chief Spicuzza told reporters on Thursday that her officers had been concerned for their safety when they began spraying. But again, multiple videos show this claim to be groundless.
The most widely distributed video of the incident (viewed, as I write this, by nearly 700,000 people on YouTube) begins just moments before Lt. Pike begain spraying, but another video, which starts a few minutes earlier, shows Pike chatting amiably with one activist, even patting him casually on the back.
The pat on the back occurs just two minutes and nineteen seconds before Pike pepper sprayed the student he had just been chatting with and all of his friends.
5. University of California Police are not authorized to use pepper spray except in circumstances in which it is necessary to prevent physical injury to themselves or others.
From the University of California’s Universitywide Police Policies and Administrative Procedures: “Chemical agents are weapons used to minimize the potential for injury to officers, offenders, or other persons. They should only be used in situations where such force reasonably appears justified and necessary.”
6. UC police are not authorized to use physical force except to control violent offenders or keep suspects from escaping.
Another quote from the UC’s policing policy: “Arrestees and suspects shall be treated in a humane manner … they shall not be subject to physical force except as required to subdue violence or ensure detention. No officer shall strike an arrestee or suspect except in self-defense, to prevent an escape, or to prevent injury to another person.”
7. The UC Davis Police made no effort to remove the student demonstrators from the walkway peacefully before using pepper spray against them.
One video of the pepper-spray incident shows a group of officers moving in to remove the students from the walkway. Just as one of them reaches down to pick up a female student who was leaning against a friend, however, Lt. Pike waves the group back, clearing a space for him to use pepper spray without risk of accidentally spraying his colleagues.
8. Use of pepper spray and other physical force continued after the students’ minimal obstruction of the area around the police ended.
The line of seated students had begun to break up no more than eight seconds after Lt. Pike began spraying. The spraying continued, however, and officers soon began using batons and other physical force against the now-incapacitated group.
9. Even after police began using unprovoked and unlawful violence against the students, they remained peaceful.
Multiple videos show the aftermath of the initial pepper spraying and the physical violence that followed. In none of them do any of the assaulted students or any of the onlookers strike any of the officers who are attacking them and their friends.
10. The students’ commitment to nonviolence extended to their use of language.
At one point on Thursday afternoon, before the police attack on the demonstration, a few activists started a chant of “From Davis to Greece, fuck the police.” They were quickly hushed by fellow demonstrators who urged them to “keep it nonviolent! Keep it peaceful!”
Their chant was replaced by one of “you use weapons, we use our voice.”
Six and a half minutes later, the entire group was pepper sprayed.
If you’d like to stay in the loop as I continue to cover this story, feel free to follow me on Twitter.
UC Davis: Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi
18 November 2011
Open Letter to Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi
Linda P.B. Katehi,
I am a junior faculty member at UC Davis. I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of English, and I teach in the Program in Critical Theory and in Science & Technology Studies. I have a strong record of research, teaching, and service. I am currently a Board Member of the Davis Faculty Association. I have also taken an active role in supporting the student movement to defend public education on our campus and throughout the UC system. In a word: I am the sort of young faculty member, like many of my colleagues, this campus needs. I am an asset to the University of California at Davis.
You are not.
I write to you and to my colleagues for three reasons:
1) to express my outrage at the police brutality which occurred against students engaged in peaceful protest on the UC Davis campus today
2) to hold you accountable for this police brutality
3) to demand your immediate resignation
Today you ordered police onto our campus to clear student protesters from the quad. These were protesters who participated in a rally speaking out against tuition increases and police brutality on UC campuses on Tuesday—a rally that I organized, and which was endorsed by the Davis Faculty Association. These students attended that rally in response to a call for solidarity from students and faculty who were bludgeoned with batons, hospitalized, and arrested at UC Berkeley last week. In the highest tradition of non-violent civil disobedience, those protesters had linked arms and held their ground in defense of tents they set up beside Sproul Hall. In a gesture of solidarity with those students and faculty, and in solidarity with the national Occupy movement, students at UC Davis set up tents on the main quad. When you ordered police outfitted with riot helmets, brandishing batons and teargas guns to remove their tents today, those students sat down on the ground in a circle and linked arms to protect them.
Without any provocation whatsoever, other than the bodies of these students sitting where they were on the ground, with their arms linked, police pepper-sprayed students. Students remained on the ground, now writhing in pain, with their arms linked.
What happened next?
Police used batons to try to push the students apart. Those they could separate, they arrested, kneeling on their bodies and pushing their heads into the ground. Those they could not separate, they pepper-sprayed directly in the face, holding these students as they did so. When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats. Several of these students were hospitalized. Others are seriously injured. One of them, forty-five minutes after being pepper-sprayed down his throat, was still coughing up blood.
This is what happened. You are responsible for it.
You are responsible for it because this is what happens when UC Chancellors order police onto our campuses to disperse peaceful protesters through the use of force: students get hurt. Faculty get hurt. One of the most inspiring things (inspiring for those of us who care about students who assert their rights to free speech and peaceful assembly) about the demonstration in Berkeley on November 9 is that UC Berkeley faculty stood together with students, their arms linked together. Associate Professor of English Celeste Langan was grabbed by her hair, thrown on the ground, and arrested. Associate Professor Geoffrey O’Brien was injured by baton blows. Professor Robert Hass, former Poet Laureate of the United States, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner, was also struck with a baton. These faculty stood together with students in solidarity, and they too were beaten and arrested by the police. In writing this letter, I stand together with those faculty and with the students they supported.
One week after this happened at UC Berkeley, you ordered police to clear tents from the quad at UC Davis. When students responded in the same way—linking arms and holding their ground—police also responded in the same way: with violent force. The fact is: the administration of UC campuses systematically uses police brutality to terrorize students and faculty, to crush political dissent on our campuses, and to suppress free speech and peaceful assembly. Many people know this. Many more people are learning it very quickly.
You are responsible for the police violence directed against students on the UC Davis quad on November 18, 2011. As I said, I am writing to hold you responsible and to demand your immediate resignation on these grounds.
On Wednesday November 16, you issued a letter by email to the campus community. In this letter, you discussed a hate crime which occurred at UC Davis on Sunday November 13. In this letter, you express concern about the safety of our students. You write, “it is particularly disturbing that such an act of intolerance should occur at a time when the campus community is working to create a safe and inviting space for all our students.” You write, “while these are turbulent economic times, as a campus community, we must all be committed to a safe, welcoming environment that advances our efforts to diversity and excellence at UC Davis.”
I will leave it to my colleagues and every reader of this letter to decide what poses a greater threat to “a safe and inviting space for all our students” or “a safe, welcoming environment” at UC Davis: 1) Setting up tents on the quad in solidarity with faculty and students brutalized by police at UC Berkeley? or 2) Sending in riot police to disperse students with batons, pepper-spray, and tear-gas guns, while those students sit peacefully on the ground with their arms linked? Is this what you have in mind when you refer to creating “a safe and inviting space?” Is this what you have in mind when you express commitment to “a safe, welcoming environment?”
I am writing to tell you in no uncertain terms that there must be space for protest on our campus. There must be space for political dissent on our campus. There must be space for civil disobedience on our campus. There must be space for students to assert their right to decide on the form of their protest, their dissent, and their civil disobedience—including the simple act of setting up tents in solidarity with other students who have done so. There must be space for protest and dissent, especially, when the object of protest and dissent is police brutality itself. You may not order police to forcefully disperse student protesters peacefully protesting police brutality. You may not do so. It is not an option available to you as the Chancellor of a UC campus. That is why I am calling for your immediate resignation.
Your words express concern for the safety of our students. Your actions express no concern whatsoever for the safety of our students. I deduce from this discrepancy that you are not, in fact, concerned about the safety of our students. Your actions directly threaten the safety of our students. And I want you to know that this is clear. It is clear to anyone who reads your campus emails concerning our “Principles of Community” and who also takes the time to inform themselves about your actions. You should bear in mind that when you send emails to the UC Davis community, you address a body of faculty and students who are well trained to see through rhetoric that evinces care for students while implicitly threatening them. I see through your rhetoric very clearly. You also write to a campus community that knows how to speak truth to power. That is what I am doing.
I call for your resignation because you are unfit to do your job. You are unfit to ensure the safety of students at UC Davis. In fact: you are the primary threat to the safety of students at UC Davis. As such, I call upon you to resign immediately.
Sincerely,
Nathan Brown
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Program in Critical Theory
University of California at Davis
Occupy Oakland Calls for TOTAL WEST COAST PORT SHUTDOWN ON 12/12
By OccupyWallSt | November 19, 2011
Proposal for a Coordinated West Coast Port Shutdown, Passed With Unanimous Consensus by vote of the Occupy Oakland General Assembly 11/18/2012:
In response to coordinated attacks on the occupations and attacks on workers across the nation:
Occupy Oakland calls for the blockade and disruption of the economic apparatus of the 1% with a coordinated shutdown of ports on the entire West Coast on December 12th. The 1% has disrupted the lives of longshoremen and port truckers and the workers who create their wealth, just as coordinated nationwide police attacks have turned our cities into battlegrounds in an effort to disrupt our Occupy movement.
We call on each West Coast occupation to organize a mass mobilization to shut down its local port. Our eyes are on the continued union-busting and attacks on organized labor, in particular the rupture of Longshoremen jurisdiction in Longview Washington by the EGT. Already, Occupy Los Angeles has passed a resolution to carry out a port action on the Port Of Los Angeles on December 12th, to shut down SSA terminals, which are owned by Goldman Sachs.
Occupy Oakland expands this call to the entire West Coast, and calls for continuing solidarity with the Longshoremen in Longview Washington in their ongoing struggle against the EGT. The EGT is an international grain exporter led by Bunge LTD, a company constituted of 1% bankers whose practices have ruined the lives of the working class all over the world, from Argentina to the West Coast of the US. During the November 2nd General Strike, tens of thousands shutdown the Port Of Oakland as a warning shot to EGT to stop its attacks on Longview. Since the EGT has disregarded this message, and continues to attack the Longshoremen at Longview, we will now shut down ports along the entire West Coast.
Participating occupations are asked to ensure that during the port shutdowns the local arbitrator rules in favor of longshoremen not crossing community picket lines in order to avoid recriminations against them. Should there be any retaliation against any workers as a result of their honoring pickets or supporting our port actions, additional solidarity actions should be prepared. In the event of police repression of any of the mobilizations, shutdown actions may be extended to multiple days.
In Solidarity and Struggle,
Occupy Oakland
– In Oakland: the West Coast Port Shutdown Coordinating Committee will meet on General Assembly days at 5pm before the GA to organize the local shutdown, and to network with other occupations.
BDS movement’s strength shown by pro-Israel groups launching defensive “BUYcott” days
By Adri Nieuwhof – The Electronic Intifada – 11/17/2011
Today, Kairos Palestine in Bethlehem released a statement on the Buy Israel activities of “an assortment of anti-Palestinian conglomerates” in the United Kingdom and the United States. The activities are organized in response to the increasing strength of the BDS movement.
United Kingdom
Saturday, 26 November has been declared a national BDS Day of Action in the United Kingdom. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is calling on supporters to focus action on supermarket chain Tesco. The company sells a wide range of Israeli goods and is the only supermarket in the UK that is openly selling illegal settlement goods. PSC states:
We are calling on all supporters of Palestinian human rights to get involved through a variety of actions – from street protests, e-lobbying, networking and social media sites – to get more people involved in the boycott movement and help bring an end to Israel’s occupation, just like the movement against Apartheid in South Africa.
This has prompted the Israel lobby in the UK to go on the defensive.
Luke Akehurst, Director of We Believe in Israel — which is supported by the Israeli Embassy in London, the Jewish National Fund and StandWithUs UK — has circulated a letter in response to the national BDS day in which he calls for two “BUYcott” days sponsored by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and StandWithUs UK, “to counter the Boycott of Israeli goods.” He shows his fear for BDS activism in the last sentence of his letter:
You are asked by the organisers not to promote this campaign on public forums, which would alert the Boycotters in advance and give publicity to the Boycott itself.
Akehurst invites people to challenge BDS day “by making an extra special effort to BUY Israeli goods, particularly in the days running up to Boycott day (26 November). Please play your part by encouraging others to buy Israeli products. Speak to branch managers to point out how valued Israeli products are.”
United States
In the United States, StandWithUs has put out a similar call on its website about the Buy Israel Week. Just like in the UK, the activity is planned in response to successful BDS activism in the US. Frances Zelazny, who came up with the idea, expressed her concerns by the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against apartheid Israel. The initiative is co-sponsored by nine Jewish newspapers throughout the country, including the New York Jewish Week. The Jewish National Fund signed on to take part in the Buy Israel Week campaign. Ahava and El Al are sponsors of the campaign.
The organizers are attempting to lure people into buying Israeli products with discount coupons from more than a hundred local merchants and Israeli retailers.
Police cracking down on media at OWS?
RTAmerica on November 17, 2011
Not only are police cracking down on the Occupy movement protesters but also on journalist. According to some reporters police have denied them access to cover the Occupy movement. In New York reporters with NYPD press passes are being physically removed from the scene and some even arrested.
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Book Review
Alarmist climate science as a textbook example of groupthink
By Paul MacRae | May 1, 2012
… Groupthink was extensively studied by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis and described in his 1982 book Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Decisions and Fiascoes.
Janis was curious about how teams of highly intelligent and motivated people—the “best and the brightest” as David Halberstam called them in his 1972 book of the same name—could have come up with political policy disasters like the Vietnam War, Watergate, Pearl Harbor and the Bay of Pigs. Similarly, in 2008 and 2009, we saw the best and brightest in the world’s financial sphere crash thanks to some incredibly stupid decisions, such as allowing sub-prime mortgages to people on the verge of bankruptcy.
In other words, Janis studied why and how groups of highly intelligent professional bureaucrats and, yes, even scientists, screw up, sometimes disastrously and almost always unnecessarily. The reason, Janis believed, was “groupthink.” He quotes Nietzsche’s observation that “madness is the exception in individuals but the rule in groups,” and notes that groupthink occurs when “subtle constraints … prevent a [group] member from fully exercising his critical powers and from openly expressing doubts when most others in the group appear to have reached a consensus.”[2]
Janis found that even if the group leader expresses an openness to new ideas, group members value consensus more than critical thinking; groups are thus led astray by excessive “concurrence-seeking behavior.”[3] Therefore, Janis wrote, groupthink is “a model of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members’ strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.”[4]
The groupthink syndrome
The result is what Janis calls “the groupthink syndrome.” This consists of three main categories of symptoms:
1. Overestimate of the group’s power and morality, including “an unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality, inclining the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their actions.” [emphasis added]
2. Closed-mindedness, including a refusal to consider alternative explanations and stereotyped negative views of those who aren’t part of the group’s consensus. The group takes on a “win-lose fighting stance” toward alternative views.[5]
3. Pressure toward uniformity, including “a shared illusion of unanimity concerning judgments conforming to the majority view”; “direct pressure on any member who expresses strong arguments against any of the group’s stereotypes”; and “the emergence of self-appointed mind-guards … who protect the group from adverse information that might shatter their shared complacency about the effectiveness and morality of their decisions.”[6]
It’s obvious that alarmist climate science—as explicitly and extensively revealed in the Climatic Research Unit’s “Climategate” emails—shares all of these defects of groupthink, including a huge emphasis on maintaining consensus, a sense that because they are saving the world, alarmist climate scientists are beyond the normal moral constraints of scientific honesty (“overestimation of the group’s power and morality”), and vilification of those (“deniers”) who don’t share the consensus. … Read full article
Blog Roll
Aletho News- CHD Scientist: CDC, FDA COVID Vaccine Safety Monitoring ‘Insulting, and Many People Are Injured’
- COVID Conniving Receives First Federal Indictment
- Iran Blockade Complications /Lt Col Daniel Davis & Nima Alkhorshid
- Pirates of Mediterranean: Israel does as it pleases in the Sea of Three Continents
- Minab children massacre not ‘unfortunate situation’ but ‘heinous war crime’: Tehran
- OPCW Forced To Pay Damages To Whistleblower Who Found Evidence Of False Flag In Syria
- Iran can thrive under blockade, the US and its allies cannot
- Iran slams US leadership, debunking fabrications, false war costs
- Here’s why Iran is sovereign and Germany is not
- Israel pours $730m into global propaganda machine as reputation collapses
- If Americans Knew
- Israeli Strikes Kill at Least 32 Across S Lebanon, Including Children – Amid “Ceasefire”
- Israel to pour $730m into propaganda arm amid reputational crisis
- Real Cost of Iran War Likely Double the $25 Billion Figure the Pentagon Gave to Congress
- Israel conducts farthest-ever strike in long history of attacks on Gaza humanitarian aid flotillas
- In Gaza, Israel commits 10+ ceasefire violations a day – Daily Update
- US ships 6,500 tons of munitions, equipment to Israel in 24 hours
- A New Library in Gaza Rises From the Ashes of Destruction
- Israel’s top Jewish religious body ‘refuses to condemn’ smashing of Jesus statue
- Nun assaulted in Jerusalem amid ‘pattern’ of anti-Christian attacks by Israelis
- Former Tik Tok official describes massive pressure from Israel lobby
- No Tricks Zone
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
- European Institute For Climate And Energy: “Climate Debate is Seldom About Science”
- New Study: The Climate May Be 5 Times More Sensitive To Solar Forcing Than Commonly Assumed
- EV Industry Reached $70 Billion In Losses In 2024 Due To Delusional Green Ideologies
- Reality Check: Maldives Have Actually Grown In Size Or Remained Stable Over Recent Decades
- Abrupt Climate Change Also Occurred NATURALLY In The Past …25 Times During Last Ice Age
- Cave Discovery Reveals Today’s Desert Climates Were Recently Far Warmer, Wetter, Teeming With Life
- German Expert: Heat Dome Led To Record Temps In Western USA…Warmer In 1934, 1936
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