September 26, 2011 by mike.

There are reports of police assault on the occupation of Wall Street.   The first amendment grants us the right to assemble and speak out.  It’s a shame that this country has so little tolerance for first amendment rights.

I am reminded of the video I have seen from China when the military was streaming toward Tiananmen Square and the Chinese people flooded into the streets to slow the military, they pleaded with the soldiers to join the protest, to side with the people. The pleas were not heard.

It’s going to be hard for the protestors who occupy Wall Street to reach the police who are ordered to come in and disperse the crowds, but things change when the shock troops of the empire hear the message that peace, freedom, equality, justice are not always compatible with order.   We have to reach across the lines and ask the police to choose constitutional freedoms over order.

Posted in Financial Crimes, Friends and Heroes, News, Politics, Connect the Dots, Global Warming | Print | No Comments »

September 22, 2011 by mike.

What better place than Olympia to gather if the Washington State economy has put you on the street?  Come to Olympia to assemble and petition for redress of grievance.   Come and sit on the streets of Olympia as a demonstration and act of free speech.  Come to Olympia and greet the legislators and the policy makers who will have to step over you, or walk around you, as they move around in their daily lives.  The City of Olympia is criminalizing poverty in the downtown area, but the First Amendment comes in…    uh…  First!  We have the right to sit, recline, sing, grieve, and beg for good public policy in Washington State.  Come to Olympia.

If you get hassled by the Olympia Police Department for exercising your free speech rights, email the particulars:  Where, when, police officer name to olympiacopwatch@gmail.com and we will challenge the City and the Police Department to justify the violation of your first amendment rights.

I know that some folks get scared when they have to be close to houseless people.  I encourage those folks to come down to the Artesian Well during daylight and introduce themselves to the people who move through that setting.  There are lots of tattoos, piercings, and a fair amount of cursing, but there is also a lot of openness, music, support, and community. There are scary, dangerous folks everywhere, on the street, in the burbs, in the police force, but most of the folks everywhere are just human being like you and me.  Make the effort to connect and see what happens.  Stop thinking, “there but for the grace of God, go I” and start thinking “there by the grace of God, go I.” Really attempt to connect with the folks and see what happens.  If they ask you or tell you to leave them alone, leave them alone.  It ain’t rocket science.

I have no problem with an ordinance against aggressive panhandling.  I am politely asked to share what I have in my pocket on regularly and I share what I can.  When I say, hey, wish I could, but I am short, I almost always get an “ok, thanks” type of response.  I don’t want to be harassed when I say no, and it doesn’t happen to me. I suspect it doesn’t happen because I really engage with the people asking, I look them in the eye when I tell them I am short.  I don’t avoid the folks.  I treat them with respect and they respond in kind.

Although I am not keen on the whole idea of prohibition (I have some libertarian impulses) I think I am supportive of a ban on fortified wines in downtown.  I hope for a day when there alcohol, drug consumption and possession are not a crime and when the money saved from the “war on drugs” is redirected to substance abuse treatment on request, fully funded. I guarantee you that this approach to dealing with drugs will be more cost-effective and humane.

Come to Olympia.  I will see you in the streets.

Posted in Friends and Heroes, Politics, Mysticism, Connect the Dots, Small Foot Print | Print | 1 Comment »

August 23, 2011 by mike.

and Washington CAN had an image they wanted to share with Paul Allen, Jeff Bezos, Steve Balmer and a few others.

Don Smith has the story at Washington Liberals

Posted in Friends and Heroes, News, Politics, Connect the Dots | Print | 1 Comment »

June 5, 2011 by mike.

and B Media Collective descend and dance for justice.  B Media does some great work. Peace, justice, economic pressure. Boycotts work.

Posted in Friends and Heroes, News, Politics, Connect the Dots | Print | 1 Comment »

June 5, 2011 by mike.

I posted the first 4 points about organizing here.  This is my condensed presentation of the 14 pages, the full presentation that is available here.  This website title - The End of Capitalism - suggests that the folks behind this project are thinking like I am.  I think that unfettered capitalism, free market globalism, is an abject failure.  Read and think carefully.  I think that free market energy, style, human waves of fashion and style, free enterprise are forces like weather.  They do good things if they are harnessed and fettered. Free market globalism, the elevation of the free market as an end in itself, the commodification of the natural world, the exploitation of people and nature that is a natural byproduct of unfettered, unregulated free market economy is a bad thing.  Environmental degradation, exploitation of individuals are economic activities that can be very profitable. Regulation of free markets, of globalism, runaway capitalism must happen or we face a bleak future.  There are powerful, minority forces working against regulation and for profit as the primary goal.  I hope the end of that form of capitalism is coming.

Ok, back to the Organizing Points.  I did the first four points in Part I.  I expect this will take 3 parts, so here we go:  Part II.

5.  What Does Solidarity Mean, Especially with the Immigrant Justice Movement?

A. Solidarity is not just financial or administrative support of other people’s struggles but fundamentally recognizing the ways in which we all would benefit by the successes of movements of oppressed people

B. Demonstrating an active notion of solidarity where people with privilege don’t sideline themselves but instead endeavor the difficult task of both providing and respecting other’s leadership in the movement

C. Managing the conflict between political analysis and understanding of successful movement building strategies and letting local immigrant communities set the terms of their movement

6.  What Is the State of the Struggle Today, Particularly Internationally

A. National liberation struggles are not the primary mode of struggle today because capitalist globalization has weakened the state as a means of achieving self- determination

B. “Three-way fight” politics argue that the struggle today consists of the global capitalist/imperialist ruling class (of liberal, moderate, and conservative persuasions), the revolutionary left, and the revolutionary right (al-Qaeda, neo-Nazis, etc.) See www.threewayfight.blogspot.com for background
C. Recognizing ideas about direct and participatory forms of democracy that arise from local and indigenous traditions of self-governance and self-management and the under- theorized state of the the struggle

7.  How Do We Organize Simultaneously on Local, Regional, National, and International Levels?

A.  Many activists express the desire to organize as a national or international movement, but are not certain how to make the connections.

B.  We need to continue to make connections between groups that are arising and working toward closely aligned goals.

C. We can look at various organizations that have made headway with local, regional and inter/national organizing. These include Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that is largely active on college campuses, Northeast Federation of Anarcho-communists (NEFAC) that is active in union organization in Boston and Montreal, and Project South, a Black training and leadership development group based in Atlanta, that was key to the 2007 US Social Forum.

The underlying piece at the End of Capitalism is from November 2009 so it is a little dated.  The Social Forums and events like the April 2011 Power Shift conference may reflect the current best practice for organizing simultaneously at local, regional, national and international levels.

The solutions and changes that we desire require that we work in cooperative manner.  With an open attitude toward groups whose ideas and tactics may make us uncomfortable, but whose visions and goals are closely aligned with our own.  Liberals, progressives, radicals, whatever we choose to call ourselves are not a group that likes to walk in lockstep.  We must demonstrate solidarity and resist a puritanical call for any distinct set of ideas or tactics that are mandatory or absolutely prohibited.  I would suggest in this regard that points 3. C. and 3. E. are very important to keep in mind.

We must

3. C.   Maintain relationships with other activists and groups who may not have engaged in the same tactics but who remained committed and sympathetic

3. E. Build mass movements where militant tactics can be present without dividing the movement

I don’t need to stress 3. D. about helping increase militancy because I am pretty mainstream in my radicalism.  I am in touch with enough folks who share my visions and goals and are more militant in their tactics, so 3. D. is not critical to me.

I do not feel that I can tell the more militant that their tactics are wrong.  We face police in riot gear at peaceful demonstrations as a regular event.  We can get roughed up and arrested for dancing at the Jefferson Memorial.  We face an electoral system that is wildly degraded now by unlimited corporate money and that continues to resist the accountability of paper ballots that can be used to make sure that votes are counted accurately. In this environment, I am not certain about how we should proceed, but I think we liberals, progressives, and radicals need to proceed together, in solidarity.

Posted in Eco Criminals, Financial Crimes, Friends and Heroes, News, Politics, Small Foot Print, Connect the Dots, Global Warming | Print | 1 Comment »

June 1, 2011 by mike.

It can be done.  The world we want is available.  Vermont has enacted a single payer medical care system.  Right here in the US, a state has established the medical system that would fix so much that is wrong with our health care system.  I think we can count on the free market medical care and corporate insurance interests to do everything in their power to make this system fail.  There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.  Is this the time?  I hope so.

Some links to read more about this experiment:

• Stephen Lendman piece at South Bay Indy Media
• Green Mountain care piece in American Medical News
• The push back will look like this WSJ piece or worse, I will let you find the worse, it’s out there

This experiment and push toward socialized medicine is a david and goliath battle.  Enacting legislation like this is radical. What does it mean to be radical?  A couple of bits to consider:

• (esp. of change or action) Relating to or affecting the fundamental nature of something; far-reaching or thorough
• A person who advocates thorough or complete political or social reform; a member of a political party or part of a party pursuing such aims
• Of or relating to the root of something, in particular

Maintaining the roots of health care in the free market capitalism of health insurance profits, flattened tax rates, and annual CEO bonuses is not a reasonable formula for improving the health care system of the United States.  The change that is needed is radical.

Talking about commitment to a robust public option and failing to actually enact any public option is a capitulation to a health care system rooted in free market capitalism, a system that arguably profits from misery.  I want radical change.  I want a health care system rooted in an idea like Medicare for All.  Pose it as a pro-life scheme if you like.  I want fetuses to have Medicare coverage.

Is that radical?  I hope it is. I am a radical.

On to power generation:

Earth Times reports that Scotland has committed to 100% renewable energy grid by 2020.  That’s daring, courageous, and radical.  I am down with that.

The Beeb is covering the story that Angela Merkel has decided that nuclear power is not the future for Germany.  There is a strong environmental movement in Germany that has opposed nuclear energy.  The Chernobyl nuclear disaster gave that movement a lot of energy. The recent failure of planning and engineering at Fukushima has turned up the heat.  Merkel’s party lost recent elections and I think Merkel is making a politically wise and calculated decision.  The position that Merkel has staked out is radical.

What are the chances that the US could make these kind of radical decisions regarding power generation?  I make them slim to none.  American radicals live in the heart of the beast.

Che said he envied our position:  “I envy you. You North Americans are very lucky. You are fighting the most important fight of all – you live in the heart of the beast.” - Che Guevara

The fight does not have to be violent, unlawful, but it will be radical if it has any chance of effecting real change.  Thank you, Che, for reminding us why the struggle for radical politics is important.

One more quote from one of my heroes:

I. F. Stone- “The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing—for the sheer fun and joy of it—to go right ahead and fight, knowing you’re going to lose. You mustn’t feel like a martyr. You’ve got to enjoy it.”

It’s hump day, go get’m.

Posted in Financial Crimes, Friends and Heroes, News, Politics, Connect the Dots, Global Warming | Print | 2 Comments »

May 30, 2011 by mike.

June 10th update.  I understand that Jackie continues to be weak and is being released to return to Washington State for medical care.

June 5 Update:  Jackie was evaluated at the hospital and is well enough to remain at the prison at this time.  Thank you to all who called or emailed on Jackie’s behalf.
One consequence of the prison state is throwaway people.  A related consequence is institutional medical neglect.  A system that devalues people is not disposed to providing basic health care.
The US is a failed state with regard to its systems and policies of incarceration.

Best to all,

Mike
Still no medical care for Sister Jackie Hudson as far as we can determine. Read message below from Leonard at Ground Zero Center.

Important Note:  In between my emails please check in at the Disarm Now Plowshares Blog as I am posted brief updates there as I receive any new information to share.

Friends,

This has been, and continues to be, a difficult time for all of us who know and love Sr. Jackie Hudson.  First - Please know that there is an extraordinary convergence of people, including lawyers and physicians who are working virtually 24/7 on Jackie’s behalf.  As of this moment none of us has had direct contact with Jackie, and so we cannot confirm her present health status.  That having been said, here is what we know.

Since Sr. Carol Gilbert, who is also at Irwin County Detention Center, informed us (on May 29th) of Jackie’s severe chest pain and that nothing was being done for her medical condition, Joe Power-Drutis immediately set a process in motion to secure her transportation to a hospital to reserve proper medical care.  He contacted everyone possible, and engaged 2 physicians and 3 attorneys to engage directly with the prison staff.  The prison has been completely uncooperative, only saying that Jackie “was being taken care of.”  She is evidently in the prison medical facility (God only knows what that is like!!!).

At one point there was an indication that Jackie may have been transported to the local hospital and then returned to the jail.  However, a followup conversation with staff at the local hospital confirmed that Jackie has not been admitted there, and he staff indicated that theirs is the only hospital in the area.  There is absolutely no evidence that Jackie has been sent anywhere for proper medical evaluation.

The prison medical facility, as far as I know, is ill equipped to evaluate or treat Jackie’s possible medical condition and experts (MDs) agree that based on her presentation to prison medical staff, she should have been immediately transported to a hospital emergency facility for a thorough cardiac work-up.

Based on all the information we have received it appears that her treatment since her chest pain began, even beyond her basic medical needs, has been substandard and inhumane.

The legal team working on Jackie’s behalf includes Bill Quigley, Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights; Anabel Dwyer, lawyer and international human rights expert; and Blake Kramer, Tacoma-based attorney who has been deeply involved in defending the Disarm Now Plowshares.  I understand that the legal team is currently working every possible angle, and one involves getting the Judge for the Y-12 trial, which was the reason for Jackie’s current imprisonment, to order her release/transport to the hospital.

Another major concern and an egregious disregard for the rule of law is prison’s refusal to allow Jackie’s right to legal counsel.  Jackie’s court-appointed attorney, Brad Henry, found out at the jail that the Warden told all the staff at the jail that no information was to be given out about Jackie, including her appointed council. The prison is stonewalling every step of the way.

Beyond the obvious moral and ethical implications of the prison’s treatment of Jackie Hudson, it is evident that she is being deprived of her Constitutional rights as well as essential human rights.  This on top of Jackie’s very real status as a Prisoner of Conscience, quite literally a political prisoner in a nation that flouts both national law and international humanitarian law and then imprisons those who follow their conscience and the law to speak and act out to call on our nation to uphold these laws.

This maltreatment must not stand.  The people operating Irwin County Detention Center, a private, for profit prison, must be held accountable for their actions.  If this is how they treat Jackie, someone with a broad base of support,  I can only imagine the mistreatment of a vast number of prisoners who have no one to advocate on their behalf.  What of the forgotten???

Besides the work being done by this dedicated group to whom I’ve referred, many of you out there are working on Jackie’s behalf, and for this I thank you all!  We evidently flooded the prison phone line with calls, and I have no doubt that this has had an impact.  They know we are watching!  I have contacted the ACLU of Georgia, asking them to act on Jackie’s behalf.  We are working on alerting media locally(Georgia), regionally and nationally to Jackie’s plight, and will also be contacting members of Congress to act on her behalf.

What can you do to help Jackie?  For one thing, we can continue to call, fax and/or email the prison to let them know we are watching and demand that they send Jackie to the hospital.  The phone number is 229-468-4121. You may get a recorded message during some hours. There is also an email listed: info@irwincdc.com.   Fax is 229-468-4186  Additional phone numbers: Warden Barbara Walrath – warden of Irwin County Detention Center, 229-468-4120, Dr. Howard C. McMahan – Medical Director of Irwin County Detention Center, 229-468-5177.  If you get into a message system, LEAVE A MESSAGE! 

Here are some suggested talking points:

Sr. Jackie Hudson, who is in your care and for whom you are responsible, has had intense heart pain, which began Saturday afternoon.  She is being obstinately denied proper medical care.  Her symptoms suggest that she may have one or more occluded coronary arteries.  If this is the case, her heart, as a muscle, will progressively worsen in the hours and days to come.

Jackie must be taken to an emergency room immediately.  The Emergency Department at the Irwin County Hospital verifies that Sr. Jackie has not been taken to their hospital, and that there is no other local hospital to which she might have been taken.  They Emergency Department has been in contact with the ICDC to no avail.

Such treatment constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, and  if Sister Jackie is not moved to an emergency room immediately and suffers any negative medical consequences as a result I will hold Michael Croft Enterprises, operator of ICDC and in particular Warden Barbara Walrath and Medical Director Howard C. McMahon personally responsible.Those supporting Jackie Hudson must have direct access to her and her physicians so they know her whereabouts, her condition and her treatment.  These people include: Sue Ablao, Sr. Jackie’s housemate at Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, Poulsbo, WA; Frank Hudson, Sr. Jackie’s brother; Sister Nathalie Meyer O.P., provincial of the Dominican Sisters of Grand Rapids, Sr. Jackie’s religious order; and Brad Henry, Jackie’s attorney.

Send an email to (or call) any news media contacts you have, or even if you don’t have any you email the newsroom (look them up in the contacts section of that newspaper’s Website).

I understand that the Koinonia Partners community in Americus, Georgia, is planning a vigil at the prison tomorrow.

As I stay focused on dear Jackie’s immediate needs I find myself also focusing on a much broader issue.  Here is a person with so much support from so many wonderful people.  And yet, there is a huge percentage of the U.S. prison population (with the largest incarceration rate in the world) for whom there is no support.  What becomes of these forgotten prisoners when they become ill???  We will take up that issue once we get Jackie taken care of!!!

One last thing before I close; an excerpt from something by Liz McAllister and Chrissy Nesbitt of the Jonah House community that I find quite pertinent today:

Thanks to all who have offered to help in so many ways.  As bad as this all is, Jackie is surrounded by such a wonderful, loving community, and I can imagine that this knowledge is deeply embedded in Jackie’s heart and mind, and that it is a great comfort to her.

Peace,

Leonard  

Posted in Friends and Heroes, Defies Categories | Print | 1 Comment »

May 29, 2011 by mike.

Prisoner of conscience, Jackie Hudson, is at the Irwin County Detention Center and is having chest pains.  We need to put pressure on the facility to transfer Jackie to a hospital emergency room for evaluation right away.  The facility is reported to be monitoring Jackie’s condition, but has refused to transfer Jackie to an ER for evaluation.

Here is contact information for the Irwin County Detention Center:

Irwin County Detention Center
132 Cotton Drive, Ocilla, GA 31774
Telephone: 229-468-4121   

Website:  http://www.irwincdc.com/

email:   info@irwincdc.com

Thank you to Leonard at Ground Zero for sending out the call for help.

Posted in Friends and Heroes, Politics, Mysticism, Connect the Dots | Print | 1 Comment »

May 29, 2011 by mike.

Gil Scott-Herron died a few days ago.  If you are not familiar with his work, he is the grandfather, the god father of rap, hiphop, spoken word.

Here is a video of Gil talking about his work.

Gil is best known for the revolution will not be televised piece.

Posted in Friends and Heroes, Music, Politics, Connect the Dots | Print | 1 Comment »

May 14, 2011 by mike.

I am thinking about suggesting that the progressives, radicals, and rabble (that’s me) consider sending out an SOS. Yes, an emergency call.  I think we are there.

In this instance I think the SOS will be an emergency call for a Summer of Solidarity (think Summer of Love).

Those of us who voted in 2008 elected Obama as President and put him in charge of a democratic Congress and at the end of a two year session with that group we had an escalated war in Afghanistan, huge bailouts of Wall Street banks and traders, and a corporatist health care reform bill crafted on a table where single payer or even a public option had no place.

2010 elections gave us a tea party sweep of new corporatists idealogues in Congress who defy description or classification, but any way you look at this group, they are not good news.

In 2012, there will be 33 Senate seats up for election.  21 of those seats are now held by democrats and 2 by independents who lean left and 10 Senate seats now held by republicans will be for voter and Citizen United selection.  Bad as things may currently seem, they could get worse after November 2012.  That’s my take on the federal situation.

Budget woes from the Wall Street robbery of Main Street and the 2008 crash have created a state by state funding crisis that has become a golden opportunity for cuts to social welfare programs, for privatization and capitalist takeovers or dismantling of important public functions.  Tim Eyman has continued to hammer on the state budget in Washington to create a funding snarl that creates a new excuse for hammering on the middle class, the working poor, the disabled, the lowest 50% of the socio-economic scale (that’s me and most of my good friends).

That’s my take on the State level.

Folks can argue (and they do) that Obama and centrist democrats are so much better than the other real alternative, but I think it is difficult to argue that Obama is taking us in a progressive direction.  He has continued the imperial presidency, violates national and international law with the drone attacks on civilian populations in countries that we are not at war with.  He has arguably committed war and high crimes, most recently with the murder of the people (whoever they were) in the compound in Abbotabad, Pakistan.  So, even if you think this is better than the alternative, I will challenge you to persuade me that Obama is taking the country in the right direction.

Back to the Summer of Solidarity.

We wrapped up our Friday the 13th zombie crawl to the Olympia Capitol yesterday.  It was a good time, good food, good music, good cause, good company.  And there is reason to believe that the pressure that we have brought to bear on the Washington legislature is producing results.  A tax loophole ending bill made it out of committee yesterday on a straight party line vote and is heading to the floor for consideration. Would this have happened without the demonstrations, without the occupation of the Rotunda last month, without incessant pressure from the groups and individuals who have spent time in Olympia over the past couple of months?  I think not.

But, it’s small victories that we are achieving in a sea of big battles.  Environmental degradation, corruption of the political process by court decisions that find that money is speech and corporations are people, deregulation of markets and industries, wholesale class war on unions, teachers, the poor, the disabled?  It’s hard to see how a small legislative victory or two is going to turn the tide.  Still I think we are right to claim those small victories.  They are ours.

That’s as much as I have time for today.  I need to work on a few things around the home front as so much time and energy has been directed to the zombie event over the past couple of weeks.

I will tell you this much: a lot of the discussion is evolving toward creation of the alternative community.  The battle for good public policy is important and should continue for those who have the time and energy for it, but we also need to let the good times roll.  We need to step in and fill the vacuum that is created by the failure of public policy.  And we need to do it in the company of good friends, enjoying music, sharing food and really FREE (that’s you, Lee) market thinking and that is what I am thinking about when I start organizing myself around the idea of a Summer of Solidarity.

More tomorrow.  Love and peace to all of you who put energy into the activities in Olympia over the past two months.  I am optimistic because of your ideas, your ideals, and your energy.

Posted in Financial Crimes, Friends and Heroes, Politics, Connect the Dots, Global Warming, Small Foot Print, War Criminals | Print | 1 Comment »