Don’t Turn Your Back on Hillary Clinton or How Ray McGovern Evoked Hypocrisy in Real Time

71-year old peace advocate Ray McGovern, wearing a Veterans for Peace T-shirt, stood in the audience with his back toward Hillary Clinton as she gave a speech at Washington University on February 15th. McGovern’s stance, what he calls “silent witness”, was a protest of Mrs. Clinton’s support for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was not long before McGovern was assaulted and dragged out of the audience by two security men. “So this is America!” McGovern declared. “This is America!”

Mrs. Clinton may not have missed a beat in her speech but apparently missed the enormous irony of the moment. She was speaking in praise of the nobility and effectiveness of peaceful protest and the wrongness of aggressive governmental repression in the Middle East, all while Mr. McGovern was being roughed up before her and the audience’s eyes.

Mr. McGovern as quoted by Rob Kall:

"When Clinton started talking about how people beat up and arrested people in Iran, it gave some poetic justice, a great irony, to my standing there and what happened to me then, when she's talking about what happened in other countries and there I am being handled in a vicious way...God knows what would happen next. ..."

[snip]

"They grabbed me and the shock wore off. There was a real struggle. I shouted, 'This is America.' Then I said, 'Who are you?' This is a mystery to me. Who were they? The guy in the suit was the one who did the damage. He was brutal."

"They took me outside, put two sets of iron handcuffs that pierced my wrists. The bleeding went all over my pants. One guy said, "I pricked my finger" like it was his blood."

"I was bleeding in the car so I said 'I think you need to put some gauze on me.' They handed me to the DC police and they told I was being charged with disorderly conduct. I was booked, fingerprinted, mug shot taken. They put me in a little cell -- must be the same size as Bradley Manning's-- about six by four feet."

"It was about three hours that they held me until they let me out. I had to take a cab to the hospital where they x-rayed me, treated me and dressed my wounds. Then the doctors told me that since this was an assault on me, I had to inform the police about who had assaulted me. A little humor helped then."

Ray McGovern is a person of conscience who clearly has been walking the walk as well as talking the talk for peace for a long time. His 27-year experience in the CIA gives him a special savvy to the scope of horror of our military industrial security complex.

Ray McGovern’s issues with Clinton as quoted by Robert Parry:

"Hillary is the driving force, together with a few others, behind the war in Afghanistan. She's one of the big hawks in Iran. When I look at her and her husband that they don't know the first thing about war. I do and so do my fellow Veterans for Peace.

“I have to make clear that we Veterans for Peace think that her policies are an abomination to the nation, that they are at cross purposes to the country and not everybody should applaud and give her the idea that she's doing the right thing."

[snip]

"When people die because we have hypocrites at the top of our government, that compels me to make a statement in whatever way I can. It was not the theme of her speech that I was protesting. It was her war policies.”

The United States has trampled on the legitimate civil rights of its citizens of conscience protesting these wars (including the use of its high-tech spying) by justifying itself under the “the war on terror” cause Robert Parry asserts. That handy dandy catch-all for institutionalized evil, for the erosion of the bill of rights.

But US hypocritical, repressive behavior didn’t start there. Parry:

Over prior decades – indeed centuries – the U.S. government routinely has trampled on the rights of people in America and around the world, often crushing popular uprisings with the most brutal force.

Just last week, the United States wallowed in maudlin celebrations of Ronald Reagan’s presidency, which included sending weapons and money to help slaughter peasants, students and workers in Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua.

[See Consortiumnews.com’s “Ronald Reagan, Enabler of Atrocities.”]

Yet, Clinton whitewashed this bloody history as if the U.S. government has always been the great defender of people power resisting injustice.

“It is our values that cause these actions [in places like Egypt and Iran] to inspire or outrage us, our sense of human dignity, the rights that flow from it, and the principles that ground it,” Clinton said, without a word about America’s mixed record on these “values.”

Just minutes after McGovern had been dragged from the room and handcuffed, Clinton hailed the need for respecting different points of view and giving them space for their expression.

America’s people of conscience and ripening people of conscience need to fasten their seatbelts. The hypocrites at the top, slick-talking Secretary of State Clinton, President Obama, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, et al., talk the talk of freedom to polite applause while at the same time authorizing gratuitous, corporate-profiteering violence. They deserve all our backs in protest. These power players seem determined to provide those willing and ready to walk the walk of peace advocacy a brutal and bumpy, anti-free speech, anti-democracy ride.

I would like to see how McGovern's case evolves. What happens if you press charges against an assault by a security detail of Secretary of State Clinton when they have, at the same time, pressed charges against you? Do we have Ray McGovern's back, so to speak, on this? There is a letter/petition now circulating asking Secretary Clinton to offer Mr. McGovern an apology and a release from the charges against him, as well as to revoke her anti-whistleblower stances against Bradley Manning and Julian Assange.

Worth a signoff!

It includes these statements:

“Please put actions to your words by providing Ray McGovern, a 27 year veteran of the CIA who conducted daily security briefings of Presidents Reagan and H.W.Bush , with an apology. Also, please take action to have his charges dropped, as he should not be criminally prosecuted for exercising his freedom of speech.

In addition, please take the following actions to show you are serious about freedom of speech:

1. Contact Secretary of State Gates and ask that Pfc Bradley Manning be released from his pre-trial punishment – 8 months in solitary confinement – for allegedly providing the media with information about war crimes committed in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other crimes committed in U.S. foreign policy. Ask that the charges be dropped for this patriotic act which if true were an effort to improve U.S. foreign policy by making us live within the law and become a law-abiding nation.

2. Contact Attorney General Holder and ask that the investigation into Julian Assange and WikiLeaks be stopped. Assange, the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, is a journalist who has published many important documents in the last four years that have highlighted the abuse of nations and transnational corporations. The U.S. should not be stretching laws in order to punish a journalist exercising freedom of press and allowing Americans to know the truth of U.S. foreign policy.”

Critical Arab-US Moment Betrayed: Obama & Cong. Won’t Do Right Thing Re Jewish Settlements; Fear 2012 AIPAC Election Punishment

So, let’s get this straight. The United States officially -- at least rhetorically -- disapproves of illegal Jewish settlement expansion. Yet to do ANYTHING to support this position would mean substantial political blowback from AIPAC.

We all know to what degree the President and Congress will sell out the welfare of human beings, its own citizens, and, hell, the rest of the world’s, to protect their own jobs and power no matter what the depth of the sell out.

Even with the incredible wave of Arab individualism flooding forth now you would think the American President and Congress would be astute and responsible enough to give a reach out. I mean Cash for Clunkers and a hypocritical Cairo speech were Obama’s golden moments. That speech, in spite of its hypocrisy, probably planted some seeds of empowering hope and may even be in part responsible for the profound Arab movement right now.

WHAT AN OPPORTUNITY for the United States to endorse the spirit of democracy, even though democracy has left the building in terms of the United States, now run by a plutocracy, but still, the Arab world is fighting for the real deal democracy it assumes America still has.

What a shame that according to MJ Rosenberg the US intends to veto Thursday, today, a United Nations Security Council resolution, sponsored by 122 nations, condemning Israeli settlement expansion.

Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg told the House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee: "We have made very clear that we do not think the Security Council is the right place to engage on these issues."

The UN Security Council is not the right place? What bullshit.

Rosenberg:

First is the obvious. Opposition to Israeli settlements is perhaps the only issue on which the entire Arab and Muslim world is united. Iraqis and Afghanis, Syrians and Egyptians, Indonesians and Pakistanis don't agree on much, but they do agree on that. They also agree that the US policy on settlements demonstrates flagrant disregard for human rights in the Muslim world (at least when Israel is the human rights violator).

Accordingly, a US decision to support the condemnation of settlements would send a clear message to the Arab and Muslim world that we understand what is happening in the Middle East and that we share at least some of its peoples' concerns.

The settlement issue should be an easy one for the United States. Our official policy is the same as that of the Arab world. We oppose settlements. We consider them illegal.  We have repeatedly demanded that the Israelis stop expanding them (although the Israeli government repeatedly ignores us). The administration feels so strongly about settlements that it recently offered Israel an extra $3.5bn in US aid to freeze settlements for 90 days.

It is impossible, then, for the United States to pretend that we do not agree with the resolution (especially when its language was carefully drafted to comport with the administration's official position). So why will we veto a resolution that expresses our own views?

Steinberg says that "We do not think the Security Council is the right place to engage on these issues."

Why not? It is the Security Council that passed all the major international resolutions (with US support) governing Israel's role in the occupied territories since the first one, UN Resolution 242 in 1967.

So, voting for the resolution would serve US interests in the Middle East, but not serve Israel's interests as Israel sees it, so the President and Congress will ignore the welfare of its own people, the welfare of the Arab world and this golden opportunity to right a wrong it hypocritically maintains it recognizes but won’t support, because of their own narcissistic political ambitions.

The Washington Bubble is immune to the potential of world harmony. Imperial cronyism continues to prevail. The kleptocrats are calling the shots. Would that Obama had one molecule of Martin Luther King-ness, but that ship has sailed, hasn’t it? As for Congress, they are raping the American taxpayers for their corporate pimps. Why would they, too, give a serious damn about the world’s welfare?

National Green Party: Congrats to Egypt and What About Mubarak’s US $70 Billion Stash? (C’mon, Asset-Freezing Time!)

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Green Party of the United States congratulated the Egyptian people and called President Hosni Mubarak's resignation a huge step towards democracy, human rights, and stability for their country.

"The Egyptian revolution is a victory for the people of Egypt, and also the victory for an idea -- the idea that violent regimes can be overthrown through nonviolent means," said Romi Elnagar, member of the Green Party of Louisiana and wife and mother of Egyptian-Americans. "While police and rampaging pro-Mubarak thugs killed 350 and injured thousands more, the protesters themselves remained overwhelmingly peaceful."

US Greens hoped for an end to the 30-year-old 'emergency decree' and for a broad-based transitional government that embraced opposition parties, to begin the work of dismantling the brutally oppressive Mubarak regime. The next step will take place when the military relinquishes power and Egyptians establish a civil government with a constitution, free and fair elections, democratic institutions, and the means to solve problems like unemployment and poverty.

Greens also urged the Obama Administration to cooperate in an investigation of the alleged $70 billion that Mr. Mubarak's accumulated during his corrupt regime and to freeze any of his assets that are held in the US.

"We call on the US government to avoid meddling and respect the right of Egyptians to rule themselves. Aid for Egypt must be for humanitarian purposes, not military, and without strings attached. If the Obama Administration tries to press the new Egypt into subordination, to satisfy the US's strategic military and economic interests in the region, we will betray the Egyptian people and their right to democratic sovereignty," said Laura Wells, 2010 Green Party candidate for Governor of California.

US Greens noted that much of the conflict in the Middle East and resentment of the US by Egyptians and other populations in the region centers around the unresolved Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

"Since making its 1979 'cold peace' with Israel, the Egyptian government has supported Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine, most recently complying with the siege of Gaza, in return for billions in aid from the US. We look to the formation of a democratic Egypt which adheres to international law and reflects its citizens' long-standing opposition to Israel's oppression of Palestinians," said Dr. Justine McCabe, co-chair of the Green Party's International Committee.

(via email from Howie Hawkins, NY)

National White House Call-in Day to Support Bradley Manning, Thurs., Feb. 3-WH switchboard: 202-456-1414 (WH comments -456-1111)

From the Bradley Manning Support Network.

Call the White House Thursday to voice your support for accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower US Army PFC Bradley Manning, specifically that his human rights be respected by the Quantico, Virginia, brig authorities. Bradley has been held in solitary confinement-like conditions for over eight months, and his trial is still months away. This American citizen-soldier has been convicted of no crime, yet continues to endure inhumane conditions of pre-trial confinement like no other inmate at the Quantico brig. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs recently stated that the White House was not paying attention to Bradley Manning’s extreme confinement conditions, or the fact that recent pre-approved visitors of Bradley’s have been detained and interrogated by military police in order to block their scheduled visit. It is critical that we educate the White House of this ongoing injustice!

Recommended points to make:

• US Army PFC Bradley Manning, the accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower being held at the Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia, is an American citizen who is innocent until proven otherwise. Yet, he has been subjected to continuous illegal pre-trial punishment since his arrest in May 2010. Based on these abuses alone, Manning should be freed pending court martial.
• Military pre-trial confinement is supposed to be about ensuring a soldier’s presence at court martial, yet for eight months now Manning has been subjected to extreme pre-trial punishment through the arbitrary use of rarely applied regulations–specifically the “maximum security classification” and the “prevention of injury” order. If he is not freed pending court martial, then at the very least, Manning’s human rights need to be respected, and the illegal pre-trial punishment must end.
• The arbitrary restrictions placed on Manning, and no other inmates at Quantico, mean that: Manning is allowed no meaningful physical exercise, he is allowed no social interaction with other inmates, he is kept in his cell at least 23 hours per day, and he is not allowed out of his cell without restraints.
• If the charges against him are true, then Manning is a patriot acting to advance an informed democracy. There is no allegation that Manning did anything but share truthful information with the American public regarding the realities of our nation’s ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, with absolutely no benefit to himself, in order to spark public debate regarding foreign policy.

Remember to tell your friends about our call to action, spread it on Facebook, Twitter and via email.

The Bradley Manning Support Network: www.bradleymanning.org
Sign-up and join us: www.standwithbrad.org
Voters for Peace: http://votersforpeace.us/press/index.php?itemid=4663

Read more: http://www.bradleymanning.org/16081/national-white-house-call-in-day-to-support-bradley-manning/#ixzz1CvBHceNC
Again, Thursday, February 3rd, 2011, ?White House switchboard: 202-456-1414?(or White House comments: 202-456-1111)

Can Kucinich Drive A Stake Through the Zombie Heart of the Fed? (Part 1-Return to Jekyll Island)

Stop talking about Kucinich and the olive pit. Forget about the ride on Air Force One.

Kucinich has positioned himself to plunge a stake through the zombie heart of the arch enemy of American well being, The Federal Reserve Bank.

WE HAVE GOT TO HELP HIM AND PAY ATTENTION. The Bank Mafia of America has captured the minds, hearts and souls of almost all of our amoral leadership in the administration and Congress who have to a grotesque degree stopped watchdogging our rights and needs for a stunning amount of time now.

Abandon all hope that Obama or the legacy Democratic Party will rally to save Americans from economic terrorism. In fact, trust that they will rally to enable the economic terrorists.

We’ve got Dennis Kucinich. We’ve got Ron Paul. We’ve got the Green Party. We’ve got those citizens finally rising above the media-inflaming Blue v. Red, divide-up-and-conquer hype that is earnestly trying to distract America from its economic raping, from facing down the real enemy of Americans, the oligarchs.

I made up a riddle the other day. What’s the difference between a Republican and a Democratic politician? Answer: Whether the knife goes into your front or your back.

Kucinich’s bill, H.R. 2424, resonates Green Party values. It would bring sanity and wholesome, citizen-nurturing solvency to America. It requires our massive support and attention right now.

Ralph Nader asked the bottom line ultra-sensible question about the insurance industry capture of America during Obama’s, Congress’s and the media’s magnificent health care betrayal kabuki last year. Why are the “vendors” allowed to create the terms of American healthcare, terms that have destroyed, are destroying and will continue to destroy the well-being of most Americans?

Banks should also be providing a very much humbler role as “vendors” but are another cabal of profit-over-people monsters impacting more and more people with, again, let’s call it what it is, ECONOMIC TERRORISM.

At a Manhattan Greens forum last Wednesday, guest speaker Sue Peters laid out the incredible and enraging history of how a tiny but obscenely wealthy crew of the bankster mafia in America in 1910 managed to successfully capture the monetary system of America right under the clueless noses of the public.

Consider this quote shared by Ms. Peters:

"Whoever controls the volume of money in our country is absolute master of all industry and commerce...when you realize that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate." — James A. Garfield

According to Ms. Peters and some further revelations from Wikipedia, in November 1910, 7 men, a senator (majority leader of the Senate, Nelson Aldrich) and the assistant Secretary of the Treasury Dept. (A. Piatt Andrew) along with 5 of the countries’ leading financiers who represented 1/4 of the world’s wealth arrived at the “Jekyll Island Club” on Jekyll Island off of Georgia ("jackal" would be more appropriate in hindsight) to discuss the American banking system and monetary policy. This meeting would draw up the blueprint for the Federal Reserve System. The creation of a U.S. central bank. Senator Aldrich’s participation guaranteed that parts of the draft would be DIRECTLY incorporated into the 1913 Federal Reserve Act.

Wikipedia, btw, also reveals that Ben Bernanke stayed on Jekyll Island last year for two days in November, the same month of the original plotting, to commemorate the 100th year anniversary of that fateful meeting.

Forbes magazine founder Bertie Charles Forbes wrote:

Picture a party of the nation's greatest bankers stealing out of New York on a private railroad car under cover of darkness, stealthily riding hundred of miles South, embarking on a mysterious launch, sneaking onto an island deserted by all but a few servants, living there a full week under such rigid secrecy that the names of not one of them was once mentioned, lest the servants learn the identity and disclose to the world this strangest, most secret expedition in the history of American finance. I am not romancing; I am giving to the world, for the first time, the real story of how the famous Aldrich currency report, the foundation of our new currency system, was written... The utmost secrecy was enjoined upon all. The public must not glean a hint of what was to be done. Senator Aldrich notified each one to go quietly into a private car of which the railroad had received orders to draw up on an unfrequented platform. Off the party set. New York's ubiquitous reporters had been foiled... Nelson (Aldrich) had confided to Henry, Frank, Paul and Piatt that he was to keep them locked up at Jekyll Island, out of the rest of the world, until they had evolved and compiled a scientific currency system for the United States, the real birth of the present Federal Reserve System, the plan done on Jekyll Island in the conference with Paul, Frank and Henry... Warburg is the link that binds the Aldrich system and the present system together. He more than any one man has made the system possible as a working reality.

The meeting had to be clandestine since the mood of people, in fact, internationally, was anti-bank, anti-Wall Street, especially after the Panic of 1907. It was vital for the banksters to devise a highly slick program to seduce a country of citizens mandating quite the opposite of their scheme, that Congress shore up the checks and balances system in terms of the economy. Checks and balances? The banksters willed to dismantle them entirely and deliver the monetary system entirely into their unscrupulous, forever-profits-over-people control.

And so it happened. The same banker-prepared bank plan was presented to Congress by the head of the National Monetary Commission, Senator Aldrich.

This is yet another chapter beyond the Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton scenario. The power struggle between a citizens’ republic and a banking oligarchy.
Again, the public wanted sane and equitable monetary reform. What did Congress give them? Full out capture by the banksters and pretended it was reform. Sound familiar? The right to private ownership of the national treasury. Hello? Private individuals who thereafter controlled the nation’s money and credit. It was unconstitutional but, hey, look at the allergic to accountability, legality and all that is constitutional Obama administration.

Back then some very serious, resourceful, brave and noble farmer and small business populists fought hard against the travesty, but with a captured Congress and an obtuse and/or passive citizenry, what was to be done?

So the proverbial songs and dances of disinformation happened back then, similar to the ones now. They confused America and allowed Congress to totally defy the mandate of the people.

First, the pretense that the Federal Reserve Bank was to be controlled by Congress, even though the directors were to be chosen by the bankers at least indirectly under the auspices of the executive branch NOT the Congress. The “Federal Advisory Council” would then be chosen by the appointed directors of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks and these council members would remain UNKNOWN to the American people.

A second stage in the song and dance routine was to set up the pretense that the banking system was multi-branched and sole domination would not come from the New York cabal of bankers alone. Appearance vs. reality. Farmers, small businesses, their needs and the needs of other regions of the countries would not ever be a priority. The needs of the Eastern gated-community elite would always prevail. Class war it was and still is.

It is time to restore the American monetary system to its original and legitimate form. Ms. Peters reminded us that when Canada restructured their banking system for the citizenry not the profiteers, universal health care became a natural reality. Universal health care, in shameful, hold out America, is never going to happen with its present, debilitating debt-based economy.

A lot of other restorative things won’t happen here and a lot of worsening things will until the Bank Mafia is defeated and the banking industry is returned to limited and legitimate vendorship and not racketeering.

Kucinich has the answer -- THE RESCUE -- all typed up and entered into Congress. But we know what happened to Ron Paul’s efforts on this score, to disempower the Fed. If we don’t cover Kucinich’s back and DEMAND the legitimate return of the US monetary system to the control of a Congress serving the citizenry and not corporatist pirates, and that will take massive vigilance on our parts, we are dooming our country and future generations to third world serfdom to oligarchs.

The amiable Obama mouthing double-sided song and dance bipartisanship bullshit is desperately trying to keep the economy from foundational recovery as is most of Congress, beholding to the avaricious banksters. I agree with Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report. Obama is an “inside man” for the oligarchy. Some believe he is not that intentionally craven. Okay, maybe Obama with the corporatist elite is more like one of those doomed, delusional love addicts who believes it is possible to get “love from a psychopath.” Whatever. It still dooms us, doesn’t it? Chris Floyd christens Obama the “Continuer in Chief”. Absolutely! Where’s the change? Obama is the king of “shining on” the citizenry. And unbelievably too many keep showing up for another game of Lucy and the football. He talks about “puddles in heaven,” science fairs and a faster internet as the country descends into a quicksand of profound and multiple crises.

The citizenry is confused and betrayed by him and the disinformation campaigns of both legacy parties and the pimped out media continuously guaranteeing that Americans won’t recognize who the true villains are to their own demise. The pragmatic faux-progressives stridently battle fellow victims of the banksters. And then there are the fools who tilt at the non-malignant windmills of a non-existent specter of socialism. All this as soft fascism keeps on hardening in America. It would all be laughable if it weren’t so Orwellianly tragic.

The Kucinich bill could pull America out of its quicksand if we could collectively grasp it, literally and figuratively. Can we? What kind of a tipping point do we need? What kind of a “bottom” must America plunge to until it wakes up and acknowledges the enormous dysfunction of its governance. We can’t rely on a Congress to do the right thing by us on its own.

Robert Malin writes about Dennis Kucinich and his bill:

“As the nation struggles with long-term unemployment at rates not seen in generations, contracted credit and the hoarding of public dollars by the banks, Congressman Kucinich (D-OH) today introduced a dramatic new proposal to establish fiscal integrity, reassert Congressional sovereignty and regain control of monetary policy from private banks.  The National Emergency Employment Defense Act of 2010 would allow the federal government to directly fund badly-needed infrastructure repairs and fund education systems nationwide by spending money into circulation without increasing the national debt.  The bill would end the current practice of fractional reserve lending, whereby the economy depends upon private financial institutions to lend money into circulation.

Congressman Kucinich stated, “The staggeringly bad employment and economic numbers represent a massive problem which cries out for bold action.  Rather than crossing our fingers and hoping that banks will finally lend some of the billions of public dollars they haven’t thus far seen fit to lend, we can take action. My bill would replace the Federal Reserve System’s dependence on private banks to create credit.  In its place, a Monetary Authority under the Treasury Department would directly inject liquidity into the economy by purchasing much needed public infrastructure repair. Today, we have idle capital, millions of able-bodied but unemployed workers, unused equipment, and record low interest rates. These conditions are the best possible time to make a long-term investment in our nation’s infrastructure. My bill would do exactly that.” 

This is was part of a Kucinich press release about the Federal Reserve Bank in May of 2009:

"The Federal Reserve has been operating in a governmental netherworld, free from scrutiny or oversight. We know the Fed has printed and loaned trillions of dollars, but we don't know where the money went. This bill will finally provide some transparency," said Kucinich."

"Traditionally the Federal Reserve has limited itself to setting the federal funds rate target (the overnight interest rate that banks charge each other) by purchasing government securities. Since August 2007, the Fed has drastically expanded its role in our economic stability by enacting programs to print and lend trillions of dollars directly into the economy."

"Despite the fact that the Fed's actions are a centerpiece of our nation's response to our economic recovery, we know almost nothing about how the Federal Reserve has addressed the crisis. It's time investors and taxpayers obtained a clear picture," added Kucinich.

The Fed has enacted several new programs to address the financial system's crisis including the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility (TALF), the Mortgage Backed Securities Purchase Program, and a number of other emergency lending programs that are not subject to Congressional oversight.”

Robert Malin does an excellent job explaining Kucinich’s Bill to Restructure the Federal Reserve.

“Dennis Kucinich has prepared a bill that will return control of the monetary system to Congress as it is clearly stated in the constitution.  This presents an opportunity for Libertarians led by Ron Paul to get "Constitutionalists" on board with the Progressive Caucus to end the mismanagement of our currency by a banking monopoly, and to reinvest that money into America to repair the damage that the the "Federal Reserve" has done to the economy.  We need to move away from a debt based monetary system.”

From the bill:
 

17) The authority to create money is a sovereign power vested in the Congress under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

(18) The enactment of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 by Congress effectively delegated the sovereign power to create money, to the Federal Reserve system and private financial industry.

(19) This ceding of Constitutional power has contributed materially to a multitude of monetary and financial afflictions, including—

(A) growing and unreasonable concentration of wealth;

(B) unbridled expansion of national debt, both public and private;

(C) excessive reliance on taxation of citizens for raising public revenues;

(D) inflation of the currency;

(E) drastic increases in the cost of public infrastructure investments;

(F) record levels of unemployment and underemployment; and

(G) persistent erosion of the ability of Congress to exercise its Constitutional responsibilities to provide resources for the general welfare of all the American people.

Malin quoting Kucinich:

“Banks pyramided their value by spending money into existence, greatly inflating the value of bank holdings, inflating the value of their asset bases, enticing unknowing investors to participate in financing schemes like the bundling of subprime mortgages, and ultimately bringing undercapitalized banks and the entire financial system to the edge of ruin, creating circumstances where the taxpayers of  the United States were called upon to save the banks from their own imprudent money-issuing practices, misspending and mis-investments. The banks’ ability to create money out of nothing ultimately became the taxpayers’ liability, and raises a fundamental question about a practice of money creation which threatens the wealth of the American people.”

End of Part 1 of 2

ManhattanGreenSheet -- January 2011

THE MANHATTAN GREEN SHEET – JANUARY, 2011
(Information/Commentary compiled by one member of The Manhattan Green Party (www.manhattangreens.org, email: ManhattanGreens@gmail.com -- also visit www.greenparty.org).)

ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR JANUARY
STOP SCHOOL CLOSINGS/CHARTER TAKEOVERS!
Jan. 27th 4:30-6:30pm, City Hall Plaza, Near the Brooklyn Bridge (Trains 4, 5, 6, 2, 3, R, A, C) Stand up to privatization! Rally with students, parents, teachers, community members. (email gloriabrand2@gmail.com) Mayor Bloomberg's Department of Education plans to close 26 more schools this year. Bloomberg has played a shell game with our most vulnerable children, shuffling them around from closing school to closing school. This process has disproportionately affected students of color, only serving to further perpetuate a separate and unequal school system in New York City. In addition, the DOE plans to grant more public school space to charter schools through co-locations, undermining resources and pitting school communities against each other.

--------
April 9, 2011 National Antiwar Demonstrations in NYC and San Francisco, sponsored by the United National Antiwar Committee of NYC (contact mailto:acpollack2@gmail.com, mailto:UNACpeace@gmail.com or write UNAC at P.O. Box 123, Delmar, NY 12054 or call 518-227-6947. http://nepajac.org/April9NYCPeace.pdf. Bring U.S. Troops Home Now: Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan! End the sanctions and stop the threats of war against the people of Iran, North Korea and Yemen. No to war and plunder of the people of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa! End U.S. Aid to Israel! End U.S. Support to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and the Siege of Gaza! Trillions for jobs, education, social services, an end to all foreclosures, quality single-payer healthcare for all, a massive conversion to sustainable and planet-saving energy systems and public transportation and reparations to the victims of U.S. terror at home and abroad. End FBI raids on antiwar, social justice, and inter-national solidarity activists, an end to the racist persecution and prosecutions that ravage Muslim communities, an end to police terror in Black and Latino communities, full rights and legality for immigrants and an end to all efforts to repress and punish Wikileaks and its contributors and founders. Immediate end to torture, rendition, secret trials, drone bombings, death squads.

NEWS ABOUT THE GREEN PARTY

Arizona Green Party in response to Tucson: "Nonviolence is one of the Ten Key Values of the Green Party. We promote non-violent methods to oppose practices and policies with which we disagree, and will guide our actions toward lasting personal, community and global peace. Peace is not just the absence of violence; it is a willingness to resolve conflict in a constructive manner with a spirit of good will and respect. ... bloodshed and brutality are not replacements for compassionate dialogue and diplomatic actions."

Green Party Alex White will be running for Mayor of Rochester, NY. White opposes control of the city school district, and supports a return to neighborhood precincts for the Rochester Police Department.
Updates of 2010 from Ronald Hardy of “Green Party Watch” (http://www.greenpartywatch.org):

Re Cathie Black's appointment as Chancellor of New York City schools, Tom Siracuse, retired public school teacher, told reporters that to support his application for Black's former job at the Hearst Corporation he was reading a book. Gloria Mattera called it "an outrage that Mayor Bloomberg has handpicked Cathie Black and the State Education Commissioner granted her a waiver so she could be hired.

May 7, 2010, Caroline Lucas becomes first Green Member of Parliament in United Kingdom -- Ms. Lucas won a hotly contested race in Brighton Pavilion to become the Greens' first-ever member of parliament.

May 31, 2010, Green Party and Cynthia McKinney Condemn Freedom Flotilla Massacre. "The Green Party, led by 2008 Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney, has been vocal and active critics of Israel's war on the people of Gaza. Dr. Justine McCabe, co-chair of the Green Party's Intl. Committee: "We demand immediate action from the US, including emergency orders from President Obama to cut off all aid to Israel."

August 21, 2010, The Green Party performed very well in the federal elections in Australia, with Adam Bandt winning a seat outright in Melbourne with over 35% of the first-choice vote, and the Greens winning about 12% of the vote in the lower house.

Nov. 3, 2010, election returns resulted in the Green Party gaining ballot access through at least 2012 in two of the most populous, New York and Texas (though lost ballot access in Illinois and Wisconsin). In NY through to 2014, thanks to Howie Hawkins for Gov. earning over 50,000 votes. In Texas to Ed Lindsay for State Comptroller winning over 5% of the vote through 2012. Tom Clements, Green Party Senate Candidate in S.C., netted the greatest number of votes, 118,000, 9.37% of the total.

About PA State Assembly candidate (http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/) Hugh Giordano: "Hide your unions, Democrats, because the Green Party is coming to take them away. Hugh Giordano, a 26-year old, Roxborough native and food workers' union organizer for Local 152, ran on the Green Party ticket for a seat in the 194th. He lost, but garnered 18% of the vote (23% in Philly)--an unprecedented number for a third-party candidate. Giordano's words in a letter to union workers: "We owe the Democrats and Republicans NOTHING, because they have done NOTHING for our members, for our contracts, and for the movement. How much longer are we going to support a bunch of failures?" Hard working Giordano had many people come out for him. More from his letter: "Many labor unions still believe the Democrats are 'labor's friend'. Really? How can this be when they failed to pass EFCA, they bail out the super rich, failed to pass Single-Payer health care, pass horrible trade laws (NAFTA), attack pensions, and most of all -- are in the pockets of the same people we fight every day, the corporations! ... we CANNOT run as a Democrat or Republican; those two parties are too corrupted and entrenched. We must strengthen and build a THIRD PARTY! ... The corporate Democrats ONLY win because we fuel them, but then they turn their backs on us. ... The Green Party is the party of labor. They have a platform that is 100% pro-labor (repeal Taft-Hartley, NAFTA, and prosecute CEO's who break the law). (http://www.gp.org) ...It's time we make history and do the right thing."

NY Green Party issues being addressed in NY for 2011 include: a ban on hydrofracking for natural gas; education; state budge/progressive revenue options; single payer health care; climate change; and peace/cut the military budget.

Sam Smith of Progressive Review in CounterPunch (http://counterpunch.org/) writes in praise of the success of Green Party Fred Horch in Maine and the past success of John Eder there. "The big parties gave up human relationships long ago. Which is why we have such a hard time relating to them. But you can't text your way to the presidency, you can't Facebook a revolution and you can't save the planet with twitter. At some point real people have to join with, talk to, and help other real people."
UK Young Green membership spiked by 10% in just one weekend when Parliament voted to trebel the cap on university fees in England to 9000 pounds per year. The young people are abandoning their support for the Liberal Democrats.

GREEN ACTION OF THE MONTH

December 12, 2010-EMPTY PLATES SPECIAL: Take Care of the Hungry Not the Wealthy! Protest by Manhattan Greens, Union Square, NYC
Julia Williams, 12th US Congressional District, Detroit, MI in 2010 organized a state and national EMPTY PLATES protest: THE BEGINNING: ONE SMALL OUTCRY!!!! DEC. 12, 2010

“I call for all of us who reject the economic terrorism of our legacy parties to RISE UP and hit the pavement! I want to see grandmothers and mothers, grandfathers and fathers, children, union members, students, Greens, Socialists, any group that rejects the idea that forced starvation can in any way “be good for our country”, become a visible, palpable, physical presence, and demonstrate on December 12th! “

Following is part of "Empty Plates" protest flyer! We stapled green copies of it to empty white paper plates and handed them out. In the center of each paper plate we hand wrote "Fight Economic Terrorism: White House 1-202-456-1111, Call Congress 1-866-220-0044."

WE NEED TO TAKE CARE OF OUR HUNGRY, NOT OUR WEALTHY! TELL BARACK OBAMA, “USE AN EXECUTIVE ORDER TO START A WPA!”

Patrick Martin, WSW: “In a society which took seriously the value of human life and the future of its children, the spectacle of 50 million people at risk of hunger, including 1 million children, would be a social emergency. Given that the United States once boasted of its ability to feed the planet, the indifference to the growth of hunger at home is a national scandal.” A new report from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture reveals 50 million Americans exist under the poverty line and were too poor to buy adequate food last year. That is approximately 17.4 million families. More than a third of these households, with over one million children, were forced to skip meals. “

From the Dept. of Agriculture or Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine:
• Nearly 1 in 4 American children live in households that struggle to put food on the table. That’s 16.7 million children.
• Nearly 1 in 4 children in America is at risk of hunger. Among African-Americans and Latinos, 1 in 3. (16.7 million children)
• About half of all American children will receive SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program—Food Stamps) benefits at some point before age 20. Among African-American children, 90 percent will enroll in SNAP before age 20.
• 1 in 8 people is enrolled in SNAP. Nearly half are children.
• More than 90% of SNAP benefits are used up by the third week of the month.
• 1 in every 2 babies born in the United States is enrolled in WIC (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children).

Statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau, 2009.
• More than 1 in 8 people in the United States lives below the poverty line, which is $21,756 for a family of four in 2009. 1 in 5 children in the United States lives below the poverty line.
• Most Americans (51.4 percent) will live in poverty at some point before age 65.
• A person working full-time at the minimum wage earns $14,500 a year. The official poverty line for a family of three—one parent with two children—is $17,285.

From Bread for the World website: http://notes.bread.org/
• U.S. has gone from 1st to 9th place among nations in percentage of its population that graduates from college. U.S. 24th in the portion of children who have a high school degree. The main reason the U.S. economy was so dominant for much of the 20th century is because U.S. workers on the whole were so much better educated than other workers across the world.

GREEN QUESTIONNAIRE FOR THE MONTH
1) Briefly, how have you served Green Party in the past and/or how do you intend to serve it now?
2) What are the three most burning issues that you would like the Green Party to fight for?
3) Explain 3 ways Green Party can ramp up membership at local, state and/or national levels.
Please email answers to libbyliberalnyc@gmail.com.
***

GREEN CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING FOR THE MONTH

Howie Hawkins (Green candidate for NY Gov. 2012:

Today in America the best paid one-fifth of the population receives about one half of all national income, while the bottom one-fifth receives less than 4 per cent. The distribution of wealth in America is even more unfair. Here, the top one-half per cent of all property owners control over 25% of all wealth; while the top 5% sit on nearly 70% of wealth and property. What chance does the average person have for exercising his or her democratic rights under these conditions!

Behind this unfair distribution of wealth and income stand a few giant corporations who own or control nearly all newspapers, television networks and radio stations, movie companies, book publishers, and other sources of information and means of communication. Both of America's major political parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, are dependent on these corporations and the few super-rich individuals and families associated with them. In fact, nearly all major offices in the US government, whether elected or appointed, are filled by individuals from this corporate network. What chance does democracy have under such conditions? What chance do nature and the environment have?

Hawkins Recommends: 1) TAX THE RICH! 2) WPA-STYLE JOBS PROGRAM! 3) STATE SINGLE PAYER MEDICARE FOR ALL! 4) FULLY FUNDED PUBLIC SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES, END OF MAYORAL CONTROL, PREVENTION OF PROPERTY TAX CAP, CALL TO OPPOSE CHARTER SCHOOLS! 5) END DRONE STRIKES! 6) END SPYING, END CRIMINALIZATION OF POLITICAL DISSENT, END ATTACKS ON CIVIL LIBERTIES! 7) FULLY END THE ROCKEFELLER DRUG LAWS, INVOKE LEGALIZATION AND TAXATION OF DRUGS AND END MASS IMPRISONMENT OF NON-VIOLENT OFFENDERS! 8 ) END TORTURE! 9) END THE SCAPEGOATING OF MUSLIMS! 10) RAISE MINIMUM WAGE TO $12 AN HOUR! 11) BAN ON HYDRAULIC FRACTURING! 12) FOCUS ON CLEAN ENERGY PROGRAMS! 13) BAN ON GENETICALLY MODIFIED FOODS! 14) STRONG TENANT RIGHTS AND AFFORDABLE HOUSING! 15) BRING THE TROOPS HOME! END THE WARS NOW! CUT THE MILITARY BUDGET 50-75%! END ECONOMICALLY FORCED MILITARY ENLISTMENT!

Hawkins: the nation needs a new "New Deal," a "Green New Deal." It would include the promise of full employment with government as employer of last resort; a single-payer health plan; and full funding for education. He also called for an end to tuition in the city and state universities, a state bank to invest government funds and pension dollars, and a more progressive tax structure. (Hawkins as candidate for Governor had only 3 paid staffers, spent $50,000 in total on his campaign. Compare that to what the corporate-financed campaigns cost Paladino and Cuomo. Hawkins explanation as to why his campaign was not corporate-financed? “We want to be supported by the people, not the special interests.”)

Gloria Mattera … the four pillars of the Green Party: Non-violence and the demilitarization of the United States; social and economic justice; ecological wisdom; and grassroots participatory democracy.

[Betty] Davis, a retired school teacher and principal and veteran of the Ocean Hill/Brownsville fight for community control in the 1960s, said, "Cuomo's proposal for inter-school competition for performance grants is just going to be way for the state to force down the throats of reluctant parents, teachers, and school districts the agenda of Bush's No Child Left Behind and now Obama's Race to the Top. It's all about high-stakes testing and public school closings, charter school openings and privatization, mayoral control and union busting. The first thing the state needs to do is fully fund the public schools, particularly in inner cities and rural communities with limited property tax bases, as mandated by the Campaign for Fiscal Equity court decision.”

Green's Hawkins: Cuomo Solution to $9 Billion NY State Deficit? Rich Get $5 Billion Tax Break, State Workers Get 10,000 Layoffs!

This email came today from Howie Hawkins and the Green Party of New York:

Hawkins Opposes Cuomo's Proposals for Tax Cuts to the Rich, Job Cuts, Says Single Payer Health Care is the Solution to Medicaid

Howie Hawkins, the former Green Party candidate for Governor, said today that Cuomo's proposals to resolve the state's alleged $9 billion state budget deficit by giving a $5 billion tax cut for the wealthy and laying off more than 10,000 state workers was doomed to failure and would be rejected by state lawmakers.

Hawkins challenged Cuomo's claim of transparency, saying Cuomo's penchant for micromanaging was freezing out the public and was at least partially to blame for Cuomo's inability to attract qualified Commissioners and senior staff. Most of his Cabinet remains unfilled a month into his administration.

"Cuomo may have lowered the drawbridge to Fort Pataki but the King and his Court have retreated behind closed doors in the inner sanctum. Only the rich and powerful are granted an audience. You don't even know who the budget director is. If advocates want to meet with even middle level staff, they need the approval of the boys in the back room," noted Hawkins. "Even the so-called ethics reform and public campaign financing are being negotiated behind closed doors, without much sunshine."

Hawkins cited Cuomo's so-called Medicaid Restructuring Commission as an example of where special interests were given a front row seat by the Cuomo administration while consumers and the general public were left out in the cold. Medicaid is by far the biggest part of the state budget.

"The biggest problem with Medicaid is the out of control costs of the overall health care system. Despite the fact that the excessive profits, waste and inefficiencies of health insurance are the major reasons why our health care system performs so poorly despite spending far more money than other country, national Democrats recently decided to increase the power and central role of private insurance. If New York wants to control our health care budget, they need to follow the example of Vermont, which is trying to eliminate private insurance and control costs by moving to a single payer system," said Hawkins.

The Primary Care Coalition in NY estimates that overall state spending on health care could be reduced by $10 billion (or 6% of the total bill) through enhanced access to modern, coordinated primary care. Much of the spending on expensive in-patient care and medical treatments could be reduced or eliminated if robust primary care were available in every community. Achieving this can best be accomplished by the kind of coordinated planning environment that a unified single payer system would make possible.

A state funded study of various universal health care systems recently concluded that a single payer system would lower New York's health care costs by $28 billion annually by 2018 compared to the insurance mandate system just enacted by Congress. A recent Vermont study came to the same conclusion in that state, leading the Governor to push for adoption of a single payer system.

Hawkins did say that he was encouraged by Cuomo's acknowledgement in the State of the State address that prisons should not be a job development program. Downsizing the state's prison system to reflect the decline in the prison population and increased support for work release programs would save the state more than $300 million according to the Correctional Association. Hawkins would save additional money by diverting more non-violent offenders out of prisons into community restitution and ending the War on Drugs by decriminalizing or legalizing drug possession and focusing on drug treatment for addicts. The Correctional Association estimates that just repealing (not reforming) the Rockefeller Drug Laws alone would save $155 million per year.

Hawkins faulted both Cuomo and President Obama for failing to acknowledge that the country is in the midst of a great recession with poverty and unemployment at crisis levels.

"We need jobs now, not more promises of corporate subsidies and trickle down economics. New York should take the $14 billion we rebate to Wall Street speculators from the stock sales tax and invest that in a WPA style jobs program to provide half a million jobs right now for New Yorkers. Instead of more tax cuts for the wealthy, we should recapture the tax windfall they just got from Obama and balance the state budget. We should raise the state minimum wage to $10 an hour to stimulate the economy by putting more money into the hands of working people who will spend in buying local services and goods," added Hawkins, a co-chair of the state Green Party.

Cuomo is seeking to give a $5 billion tax cut to the state's wealthiest residents by ending the personal income tax surcharge on high incomes that was enacted by state lawmakers two years ago. Hawkins and the Green Party would go in the opposite direction, raising the tax rate for the state's wealthiest residents. He noted that the top 1% now receives 35% of all income in the state, up from 10% in 1980, according to a Fiscal Policy Institute analysis of state tax returns.

The Greens would also enact a carbon tax on fossil fuels to reduce greenhouse emissions while raising funds to invest in clean energy technology, green jobs, and a carbon-free economy within a decade.

"It is time for Wall Street to start bailing out Main Street," said Peter LaVenia, the other state party co-chair.

The Greens would provide local property tax relief through an expanded property tax circuit breaker; a state takeover of local Medicaid costs in conjunction with a state single payer program; and increasing local revenue sharing to comply with existing state law of 8% of state revenues.