On Saturday, President Bush acknowledged that he had personally authorized a secret warrantless domestic surveillance program more than three dozen times since October 2001. Bush's actions run contrary to the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which forbids "unreasonable searches" and sets out specific requirements for warrants, including "probable cause." They demonstrate a dangerous disregard for the basic liberties that serve as our nation's guiding values. They are also in violation of federal law. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) makes it a crime, punishable by up to five years in prison, to conduct electronic surveillance, except as "authorized by and conducted pursuant to a search warrant or court order." Moreover, since 1978, 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2511(2)(f) has directed that Title III and FISA "shall be the exclusive means by which electronic surveillance...and the interception of domestic wire and oral communications may be conducted." The President's actions were not necessary; if he had legitimate concerns about FISA, "the appropriate response would have been to go to Congress and expand it, not to blatantly violate the law." Below, we debunk the administration's attempts to justify Bush's actions.

FACT: BUSH PROGRAM WOULD NOT HAVE PREVENTED SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS: Vice President Cheney said of the surveillance program, "It's the kind of capability, if we'd had before 9/11, might have led us to be able to prevent 9/11." This claim is false and sensational. The secret surveillance program authorized by President Bush did not provide the government with any new "capability." The government "already had the capacity to read your mail and your e-mail and listen to your telephone conversations. All it had to do was obtain a warrant from a special court created for this purpose. The burden of proof for obtaining a warrant was relaxed a bit after 9/11, but even before the attacks the court hardly ever rejected requests." Indeed, from 1979 to 2002, the FISA court issued 15,264 surveillance warrants. Not a single warrant application was rejected.

FACT: BUSH PROGRAM DID NOT IMPROVE SPEED OF OBTAINING WARRANTS: Another claim made by members of the administration is that President Bush needed "to skirt the normal process of obtaining court-approved search warrants for the surveillance because it was too cumbersome for fast-paced counterterrorism investigations." This argument has several flaws. For one, the New York Times notes, "government officials are able to get an emergency warrant from the secret court within hours, sometimes minutes, if they can show an imminent threat." More importantly, Section 1805 of the FISA Act states that the government can begin a wiretap as soon as it determines a need and can wait up to
72 hours before obtaining a warrant. The Bush administration "did not seek to do that under the special program."

FACT: DISCLOSURE OF PROGRAM DID NOT UNDERMINE NATIONAL SECURITY: After the New York Times published its story, President Bush and other top administration officials refused to confirm the existence of the surveillance program, arguing that doing so would endanger the American people. Bush said on Friday he wouldn't "comment about the veracity of the story...because it would compromise our ability to protect the people." Press Secretary Scott McClellan and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice both repeated this line. Within hours, however, President Bush not only confirmed the existence of the program in a Saturday morning address, but provided details about how it worked. In other words, the administration's initial refusal to comment was motivated by public relations, not security, concerns. The scope of surveillance under FISA -- which has long been public -- is the same under President Bush's secretive program.

FACT: RICE UNABLE TO EXPLAIN WHAT GAVE BUSH AUTHORITY TO EAVESDROP WITHOUT WARRANT: Yesterday, Condoleezza Rice was asked a simple question: what is the specific statute or law that gives President Bush the authority to eavesdrop on Americans without a warrant? She had no answer. Instead, Rice referenced unspecified "authorities that derive from his role as Commander in Chief and his need to protect the country," then explained she was "not a lawyer and I am quite certain that the Attorney General will address a lot of these questions." Indeed, Rice said several times that she is "not a lawyer." That fact is irrelevant. Rice was the National Security Adviser when President Bush authorized the NSA program, and said today that she was aware of Bushs decision at the time. Shouldn’t she know why it was legal?

FACT: SOME CONGRESSIONAL INTELLIGENCE OFFICIALS NOT TOLD OF PROGRAM: Yesterday, Condoleezza Rice defended the eavesdropping program by arguing that congressional leaders -- specifically "leaders of the relevant oversight intelligence committees" -- had been briefed on the NSA activities. This is apparently not true. At the time the program was initiated, the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee was former Sen. Bob Graham (D-FL). On Friday's "Nightline," Graham made clear he had never been briefed by the administration about the program: "There was no reference made to the fact that we were going to...begin unwarranted, illegal, and I think unconstitutional, eavesdropping on American citizens." Additionally, in a letter issued last night, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said she had been "advised by Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), Ranking Democrat on House Intelligence Committee, that the Bush Administration reversed its decision to brief the full House Intelligence Committee on the details of the activities."

FACT: IN CONFIRMATION HEARING, GONZALES DENIED BUSH WOULD ACT BEYOND CRIMINAL STATUTES: In a classified legal opinion, the administration argued the President had the power to order the warrantless search pursuant to his authority as commander-in-chief to wage war against al-Qaeda. During his Attorney General confirmation hearings in January 2005, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) asked Gonzales specifically whether the president "at least in theory [has] the authority to authorize violations of the criminal law under duly enacted statutes simply because he's commander in chief?" After trying to dodge the question for a time, Gonzales issued this denial: "Senator, this president is not ?I ?it is not the policy or the agenda of this president to authorize actions that would be in contravention of our criminal statutes." Later, Feingold asked Gonzales to "commit to notify Congress if the president makes this type of decision and not wait two years until a memo is leaked about it." Gonzales replied, "I will advise the Congress as soon as I reasonably can, yes, sir."


Informant: Scott Munson

As Tom DeLay became a king of campaign fundraising, he lived like one too. He visited cliff-top Caribbean resorts, golf courses designed by PGA champions and four-star restaurants all courtesy of donors who bankrolled his political money empire.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1425390


Informant: Bigraccoon

Die Presse, 19.12.2005

VON BENEDIKT KOMMENDA

Verwaltung und Justiz scheuen davor zurück, dem zunehmenden Einsatz der Funktechnologie entgegenzutreten, meint Umweltrechtler Ferdinand Kerschner. "Verwaltungsbehörden und Gerichte schieben das Problem wie eine heiße Kartoffel hin und her", sagte der Linzer Umweltrechtler Univ.-Prof. Ferdinand Kerschner. (c) APA

SALZBURG. Der letzte Schrei unter den Handy-Accessoires, die zur Zeit als Weihnachtsgeschenke beworben werden, hat Symbolcharakter: ein überdimensional wirkender knallroter Telefonhörer, der mit einem Spiralkabel nach Art der Festnetzapparate aus dem zweiten nachchristlichen Jahrtausend an ein Mobiltelefon angeschlossen wird. Geht es nach dem Willen und den Warnungen mancher Mediziner, sollte man sich verstärkt des guten alten Festnetzes besinnen: Denn die immer weiter verbreitete Funktechnologie berge Risken, deren sich die Benutzer von Schnurlostelefonen, Handys und Funknetzwerken (WLAN) zu wenig bewusst seien.

Unter dieser Prämisse stand die Podiumsdiskussion "Mobilfunk, Mensch und Recht", die das Österreichische Institut für Menschenrechte (ÖIM) am Freitagabend in Salzburg veranstaltete. Das Ergebnis vorweg: Die rechtlichen Mittel, gegen die angenommenen Gesundheitsgefährdungen vorzugehen, sind äußerst beschränkt.

"Verwaltungsbehörden und Gerichte schieben das Problem wie eine heiße Kartoffel hin und her", sagte der Linzer Umweltrechtler Univ.-Prof. Ferdinand Kerschner. Niemand wolle die Verantwortung übernehmen - aus einem einfachen Grund, so Kerschner: "Es geht um sehr viel Geld."

Dabei sind nach Aussagen Gerd Oberfelds, Umweltmediziner des Landes Salzburg, die nachteiligen Wirkungen - von Störungen des Wohlbefindens bis zum erhöhten Krebsrisiko - von Handys, Sendemasten und Heim-Funknetzen vielfach belegt. Oberfeld war auch im Sommer an der Warnung der Ärztekammer vor den Langzeitfolgen von Handy- und Schnurlostelefonie beteiligt - einer Warnung, die von der Mobilfunkindustrie als haltlos zurückgewiesen wurde.

Für Umweltrechtler Kerschner wäre es allerdings an der Zeit, gleichsam die Beweislast umzudrehen und Mobilfunkanlagen nur unter der Bedingung zu genehmigen, dass ihre Ungefährlichkeit nachgewiesen ist. In diesem Sinn habe sich auch der EuGH (C-127/02) für das "Vorsorgeprinzip" ausgesprochen, als er den Nachweis der Naturverträglichkeit der Herzmuschelfischerei im Wattenmeer verlangte. Was für die Herzmuschel gelte, müsse umso mehr für die menschliche Gesundheit gelten, meinte Kerschner.

Während es den Verwaltungsbehörden bei der Genehmigung von Sendeanlagen verwehrt sei, über Gesundheitsaspekte zu urteilen, bleibe noch die Möglichkeit, den "Belästigungsschutz" wahrzunehmen. Darüber hätte der Verwaltungsgerichtshof aber noch nicht entschieden, wobei Kerschners Hoffnungen nicht allzu groß sind.

Die ordentlichen Gerichte wiederum würden sich mit der Einhaltung von Grenzwerten begnügen, die nur den "Durchschnittsmenschen" und nicht auch Kinder, Alte und Kranke berücksichtigten. Deshalb plädiert Kerschner für einen neuen Ansatz: Wenn der Sendekegel eines Handymasts direkt auf ein benachbartes Grundstück gerichtet sei, dann könne man das als "unmittelbare Zuleitung" sehen, wie sie das ABGB - ursprünglich Abflussrohre und Ähnliches meinend - ohne Einwilligung des Nachbarn "unter allen Umständen" verbietet. "Man kann mit dem Nachbarn alles vereinbaren", sagt Kerschner, "aber man muss ihn fragen." Vom persönlichen Wohlbefinden abgesehen ist auch der Wert von Liegenschaften in der Nachbarschaft von Antennenmasten beeinträchtigt.

Univ.-Prof. Wolfram Karl, Leiter des ÖIM, und sein Mitarbeiter Eduard Christian Schöpfer bauen indes auf den Europäischen Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte. Ansätze sieht Karl in der Straßburger Judikatur zu dem Schutzpflichten des Staates im Zusammenhang mit dem Recht auf Leben und zum Recht auf Privat- und Familienleben. Schöpfer wirft angesichts der Schwierigkeiten bei der Geltendmachung von Abwehrrechten die Frage nach der menschenrechtlich garantierten "wirksamen Beschwerde" auf.

Nur ein einziges wurde - eher ungewöhnlich in einem Haus, wo die Menschenrechte und also auch die Fairness sehr viel zählen - vergessen: einen Vertreter der Mobilfunker auf das Podium einzuladen, der für die andere Seite das Wort hätte ergreifen können.

Omega siehe hierzu "Mobilfunk, Mensch und Recht" unter:
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1356123/

http://diepresse.com/Artikel.aspx?channel=e&ressort=r&id=527000&archiv=false

mit freundlichen Grüßen

Michael Meyer

michael_meyer@aon.at
Risiko Mobilfunk Österreich Plattform Sozialstaat Österreich - Netzwerk Zivilcourage
A - 5165 Berndorf, Stadl 4
Tel/Fax 0043 - 6217 - 8576

--------

Mobilfunk und Menschenrechte
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1238278/

Mobilfunk, Mensch und Recht
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1189695/

Verbraucherzentrale: Kein rechtlicher Schutz bei Mobilfunkgeschädigten
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1290252/

Opfer könnten vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof für Menschenrechte klagen http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1240497/

Please SAVE our Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Here is information to contact Senator Bill Nelson, he will do what is right!!!

His Washington D.C. office telephone is JAMMED!!!, but you can call his Coral Gables office it is open. I did!!

Alan Dicey


U.S. Senator Bill Nelson (D) Local Address
2925 Salzedo Street Miami, Florida 33134
(305) 536-5999 Fax: 305-536-5991

Washington Address
716 Hart Senate Office Building United States Senate Washington, D.C. 20510 Telephone: 202-224-5274 Fax: 202-228-2183
E-mail: billnelson.senate.gov/contact/index.cfm
E-Mail: senator@billnelson.senate.gov

München: Bayerischer Verfassungsschutz soll angeblich in CIA-Affaire verwickelt sein (20.12.05)

In den Fall des von der CIA entführten Deutsch-Libanesen Khaled el Masri soll einem "Focus"-Bericht zufolge auch das bayerische Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz (LfV) verwickelt gewesen sein. Demnach soll ein LfV-Mitarbeiter ein Dossier über El Masri einem Verbindungsbeamten des US-Geheimdienstes CIA übergeben haben. Das Landesamt wies die Behauptung als falsch zurück. Die FDP verlangte Aufklärung vom bayerischen Innenminister Günther Beckstein.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:
http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=12561

Ban Terminator News, December 2005

New Calls from Peasants and Small Scale Farmers to Ban Terminator

Take action in your community to endorse the campaign and add your statements against Terminator to these new resolutions from farmers and seed savers in Europe, Canada and South Africa:

1) European Seeds Seminar Calls for a Ban on Terminator, November 26

2) Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (Canada) Resolution to Endorse Global Campaign to Ban Terminator Technology, November 26

3) German Family Farmers Association, Living seeds instead of dead harvest - Stop Terminator Seeds, November 27

4) KwaNgwanase Farmers Organisation and Phadima Farmers Association, South Africa, Objections and Comments on Terminator Technology Gene, December 2

1) European Seeds Seminar Calls for a Ban on Terminator "Let's Liberate Diversity" Poitiers, France, 25th and 26th November 2005

Resolution to Call for a Ban on Terminator Technology because of its European and Global Impacts on Farmers, Food Sovereignty and the Environment

Participants at the European Seeds Seminar, who came from 15 European countries and 21 countries in other continents (1), meeting in Poitiers, France on 26th November 2005 supported the international campaign to Ban Terminator technology – its development, testing and commercialisation (2).

Terminator, a technology requiring multiple genetic modifications, will stop farmers from being able to save and reuse seed. It is designed to prevent farm-saved seed from germinating so that farmers have to buy new seeds each season. It has been developed to increase corporate control over seeds by the biotech companies. Terminator directly infringes Farmers’ Rights, undermines food sovereignty and presents a threat to farmers’ livelihoods and agricultural biodiversity.

The participants at the seminar:

- Opposed the use of Terminator or any other GURTs (Genetic Use Restriction Technologies) that would prevent farmers from saving and re-using seeds;

- Called on the European Patent Office to revoke the patent on Terminator technology granted to Delta & Pine Land and United States Department of Agriculture on 5th October 2005 (3);

- Rejected the false claim that Terminator technology could permit co- existence of conventional and GM crops – it cannot be a biosafety tool;

- Criticised the investment in research on Terminator technology which diverts funds and effort from agriculturally useful investigation;

- Called on peasants and rural peoples to actively expose and oppose Terminator technology and GM crops and intensify the struggle against imperialist globalisation and the agrochemical transnational corporations; and

- Called on their governments to: Ban Genetic Use Restriction Technologies (GURTs) and Terminator, and Defend the existing de facto moratorium on the development, testing and commercialisation of Terminator technology, in upcoming meetings of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in March 2006.

(1) At the seminar there were about 140 participants from national and international farmers’ organisations, NGOs, agricultural research organisations and national, regional and international civil society networks concerned with seeds, agricultural biodiversity, food and farming.

(2) See http://www.banterminator.org

(3) The Terminator patent, EP 0 775 212 B1, was granted by the European Patent Office on 5th October 2005 to US-based Delta & Pine Land (D&PL Technology Holding Company LLC ) and the United States of America, represented by the Secretary of Agriculture. According to further data bank research the patent was already granted in similar versions in the USA, further applications were filed in Australia, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Turkey and South Africa. A patent was also granted in Canada on October 11 2005.

Adopted at 16:15 on 26th November 2005, by unanimous vote in the final Plenary.

2) Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFA0)

Resolution to Endorse Global Campaign to Ban Terminator Technology. Passed November 26, 2005, Dixon’s Corners.

Whereas ecological farmers attempt to work with nature by using practices like encouraging biodiversity and,

Whereas ecological farmers often rely on on-farm resources like farm saved seed and,

Whereas past technologies offered to farmers like technology use agreements for GMOs, pesticides and chemical fertilizers perpetuate an agricultural model far removed from nature and damaging to the environment and,

Whereas Terminator technology or GURTs (Genetic Use Restriction Technologies) refers to plants that have been genetically modified to render sterile seeds at harvest and,

Whereas Terminator technology goes against the practice of farming with nature and gives seed multinationals increased control over farmers and,

Whereas the EFAO GMO policy includes a request to "Ban agreements and technology (e.g. Terminator type genes), which restrict farmers’ right to save, trade and reuse seeds."

Therefore be it resolved that the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario endorse the global campaign to ask all national governments, including Canada, and international bodies to ban terminator in order to ensure that the technology is never field tested or commercialized,

Be it further resolved that EFAO make its position known to the Canadian government and the general public.

Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFA0) 5420 Hwy 6 N. R.R. 5 Guelph ON N1H 6J2 (519) 822-8606

Accompanying Press Release December 8, 2005 Ecological Farmers Ask Canadian Government to Ban ‘Suicide Seeds’

At its recent Annual General Meeting the membership of the Ecological Farmers Association of Ontario (EFAO), passed a motion endorsing the global campaign asking all governments, including Canada, to ban terminator technology to ensure the technology is never field tested or commercialized. Terminator technology refers to plants that have been genetically modified to render sterile seeds at harvest.

Oxford county farmer and EFAO President, Ann Slater says, "By genetically modifying plants that cannot reproduce themselves, the biotechnology and seed corporations, with co-operation from governments, have completely disconnected the growing of food from the rhythm and cycles of nature. In addition, it threatens our seed, and ultimately, our food security by forcing farmers to purchase seed each year."

The official term for Terminator is Genetic Use Restriction Technology (GURTs) but the seeds produced through terminator technology are frequently referred to as ‘suicide seeds’ because of their inability to reproduce themselves. This technology was initially developed by seed company, Delta and Pine Land and the US government. The net result of this technology will be that farmers will be unable to replant harvested seed.

"The Canadian Government should be looking at whether this technology benefits farmers and society at large. I fear the motive of the companies is not to feed the world but to fatten their bottom lines." states Director Fran McQuail, from Huron County. " To me, Terminator technology is another genetic modification which might pollute the world's seed stocks the way some of the herbicide resistant genes have, and could potentially cause famine in regions where local food supplies are completely dependant on farm saved seed."

At this point, terminator technology has not been commercialized or field-tested - although trials are currently being conducted in greenhouses in the United States. Since 2000, there has been a de facto moratorium on the release of Terminator seeds under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. However, over the past year there has been a push to lift the moratorium.

Terminator technology will be discussed at meetings of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in early 2006. Environmental, peasant and citizen groups from across the world, including the EFAO are asking governments to use these meetings as an opportunity to ban Terminator and protect the livelihood of small- scale and family farmers around the world.

For more information contact: EFAO President, Ann Slater (519) 349-2448 EFAO Director, Fran McQuail (519) 528-2493

3) German Family Farmers Association Living seeds instead of dead harvest - Stop Terminator Seeds , Altenkirchen/ Hamm, 27.11.2005

The General Meeting of the German Family Farmers Association decides unanimously:

The Family Farmers Association in Germany supports the actions against Terminator and will contact all Farmers Associations in Germany to form a broad alliance against Terminator. The Family Farmers Association (AbL) condemns the technical assault on the fertileness of seeds and stands up for the right to save seeds. Reasons:

The Terminator-Technology manipulates crops like wheat, soy or canola in a way that the harvest becomes sterile and the fertileness of seed is destroyed. This Technology is complex and error-prone, but is advertised as a biological containment system to avoid cross- pollination and contamination. The introduction of Terminator- Technology, accompanied by sterile harvest, rules out the right and the possibility to save seed. Terminator aggravates the degree of dependence for farmers in the south and in the north and changes the agricultural system in a very important way. Food sovereignty and biodiversity are threatened by Terminator.

Developed ten years ago, Terminator-Technology is driven by Delta & Pine Land and the US-Government. They aimed to stop the possibility to save seeds. Through the concept of biological containment system they are trying to get Terminator-Technology accepted.

In February, the Canadian government tried to overturn the existing moratorium of the UN against Terminator. They are expected to try to open the door to Terminator during the upcoming meetings of the UN Convention of Biological Diversity in Spain and Brazil.

The international Campaign “Ban Terminator” started in Canada and gets now the first supports from German Organisations.

AbL-Bundesgeschäftsstelle, Bahnhofstraße 31, D-59065 Hamm/Westfalen Tel.: +49-2381 9053171, Fax: +49-2381 492221, E-mail: info@abl-ev.de

4) Objections and Comments on Terminator Technology Gene: Comments on above Technology Generated on 02 December 2005 by KwaNgwanase Farmers Organisation and Phadima Farmers Association

1. We disagree with the government proposal to guarantee this permit.

2. This will destroy our ecological system.

3. Our soil will become poor acidic, and will only produce only Gmo crops and our food systems is reduced. Our culture and seeds will be destroyed.

4. This technology is an enemy of nature and ecological system.

5. Farmers rights and cultural rights are not taken care of.

6. Food security systems operations are destroyed consumers will also dependent.

7. South African emerging farmers, commercial not be empowered only outside seed breeders are encouraged to monopolise our farming systems.

8. This technology uses chemical packages which destroys our environments and increase toxic elements in our Health systems.

9. We pledge to S.A Government to stop this technology in our country.

10. This is the way Government want to destroys and complete finishes our local seed varieties and our indigenous knowledge systems.

11. This is not natural and ethical.

12. This will create a nation without culture and poverty is promoted.

13. The KwaNgwanase "Inkosi" Tembe must call the ''imbizo'' for the community to verify and promote Tembe cultural values and activities, (Tembe Reinasance).

14. We must go to public to tell them about this technology and let them have a choice.

Die WTO-Ministerkonferenz hat den Industriestaaten mehr gebracht, als sie zugeben wollen.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/21/21616/1.html

Eigentlich hatte die US-Regierung den Irak wegen der Massenvernichtungswaffen angegriffen, jetzt lässt man die die angeblich für die Entwicklung von biologischen Waffen Verantwortlichen frei.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/21/21620/1.html

https://community.hsus.org/campaign/2005_ANWR

The last bill of the year for the Congress is the massive Department of Defense (DoD) spending bill, which funds the military and, in this case, other crucial national security issues such as disaster assistance and avian flu preparedness. Unfortunately, the Congress passed up a tremendous opportunity to pass a provision to limit the global trade in cockfighting birds--a well-established threat to transmit bird flu and a pathway to spread the deadly disease across the globe--and instead used the Defense spending bill to attach a controversial provision to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). The Senate will vote on this bill as soon as Wednesday, please tell your Senators to reject it.

https://community.hsus.org/campaign/2005_ANWR

Animal protection advocates were more than hopeful that the House would attach the relatively uncontroversial "Animal Fighting Prohibition Enforcement Act" (S. 382 and H.R. 817) to the DoD spending bill given that there were a raft of provisions attached to combat avian influenza and to prepare for the possibility of a pandemic. But not only was the anti-cockfighting bill not included, the committee reviewing the DoD appropriations bill went out of its way to explicitly state in a press release that it never intended to include any language related to anti-animal fighting efforts. Tell Congress to reject the DoD bill.

https://community.hsus.org/campaign/2005_ANWR

To add insult to injury, the committee then tacked on a controversial rider that opens the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration and drilling. The Arctic Refuge is home to hundreds of species of wildlife including polar bears, musk oxen, wolves, grizzly bears, and other wildlife species. The HSUS has long opposed drilling in the Arctic, and a measure that stirs such controversy and that has divided the country and the Congress should not be handled in this manner. Congress should be doing all it can to combat bird flu, not slipping in a controversial energy production plan in a wildlife refuge.

Do we have to wait for an outbreak of avian flu to occur in this country before we put an end to the barbaric cockfighting industry? Please act now! Call your U.S. Senators today. You can reach your Senators through the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. Not sure what to say? Click here to look up your Senators, see a sample phone call, and to send an email to your Senators.

https://community.hsus.org/campaign/2005_ANWR

The DoD appropriations bill will be up for a vote as soon as Wednesday. Tell your Senators to reject the final DoD appropriations bill because it includes Arctic drilling but does not include common-sense measures to help stop the spread of bird flu by cracking down on cruel cockfights. Urge your friends to take action, too.

Thank you for your action in these last critical hours. I know many of you are busy with holiday preparations, and I appreciate you taking time out for this important matter.

Sincerely,

Wayne Pacelle
President & CEO
The Humane Society of the United States

Copyright © 2005 The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS). All Rights Reserved.

The Humane Society of the United States | 2100 L Street, NW | Washington, DC 20037, humanelines@hsus.org | 202-452-1100 | http://www.hsus.org

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3814/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

In brief, we have found there is substantial evidence that the president, vice president, and other high-ranking members of the Bush administration misled Congress and the American people regarding the decision to go to war with Iraq; misstated and manipulated intelligence information regarding the justification for said war; countenanced torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, and other legal violations in Iraq; and permitted inappropriate retaliation against critics of their administration.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005Y.shtml

http://www.stopcorporateabusenow.org/campaign/exposebottledwater

Water is precious to all life on earth. But today, for more and more communities, safe water is increasingly scarce. Globally, more than a billion people don’t have access to enough safe water to drink.

From privatizing municipal water systems to bottling, marketing and selling water—giant corporations are turning water into a profit-driven commodity. Here in the U.S., the consumption of bottled water has more than doubled in the past ten years. The bottled water industry is manipulating consumers by positioning bottled water as healthy—when in reality bottled water threatens our health and our ecosystems, costs thousands of times what tap water costs, and undermines local democratic control over a common resource.

Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Pepsi are the three largest corporations behind the bottled water industry in North America. These corporations are manipulating consumers while degrading the environment and exercising greater corporate control over communities’ water systems and water sources. These corporations have a track record tainted with irresponsible and dangerous actions and are not shy about using political and economic influence to turn public water into private profit.

Take action today and tell Coke, Nestlé and Pepsi to stop misleading promotion of bottled water and to stop interfering in public policies that protect our water.

Send a letter to the following decision maker(s): The CEOs of Coke, Nestle and Pepsi

Below is the sample letter:

Subject: Water is a right, not a commodity

Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here],

The basic human right to water is at risk and people's lives are at stake. Over one billion people don't have access to safe water to drink and corporations are contributing to this problem by turning water into a profit-driven commodity.

I am joining thousands of other consumers worldwide calling on you to:

1. Stop misleading promotion of your bottled water brands
2. Stop interfering in public policies that protect water

When will you stop prioritizing short term gains over people and the environment? I await your prompt reply.

Sincerely,


http://www.stopcorporateabusenow.org/stopcorporateabuse/home.html

http://www.spiegel.de/panorama/0,1518,391506,00.html

(SPON) Amerikanische Polizei und Geheimdienste haben den Auftrag, Umweltschützer, sozial engagierte NGOs, FriedensaktivistInnen und Tierschutzgruppen im Rahmen der Antiterrorfahndung zu überwachen. Das berichtet aktuell die New York Times.

Der Überwachung unterliegen in den USA unter anderem Greenpeace, die Tierschutzorganisation Peta und die katholische Arbeitnehmerbewegung. Die katholischen Arbeitnehmer werden überwacht mit der Begründung, sie verfolgten eine "halbkommunistische Ideologie ". Die Freigabe der Dokumente, die dies enthüllen und von ihr an die New York Times übergeben wurden, war von der amerikanischen Bürgerrechtsbewegung durchgesetzt worden. Auch in Deutschland werden - dem US-amerikanischen Vorbild folgend - NGOs und andere Organisationen z.b. der Friedensbewegung als potenzielle Terrororganisationen überwacht. Vom Hamburger Verfassungsschutz wurde in diesem Zusammenhang insbesondere die Linkspartei als besorgniserregend eingestuft.


G.Wendebourg / metainfo hamburg

Link zum Beitrag / Hintergrundinfo oder Pressehinweis:
http://www.hh-online.com?lid=23285 und
http://links.net-hh.de?lid=23285

Infopool / metainfo hamburg www.hh-online.com

Tom Engelhardt writes that the attacks of 9/11 gave the Bush administration an opening to attempt to sweep away the last obstacles in the path of a presidency dedicated to the idea that no prohibition of any sort should stand in its way (or domestically, in the way of the Republican Party).

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005O.shtml

According to reports, early returns show a strong performance by the followers of the outspoken Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr. Some reports estimate Muqtada's nominees winning almost one third of the UIA slate.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005L.shtml

With tensions rising in the Capitol, Senate Democrats threatened on Monday to derail a $453 billion military spending bill over an Arctic oil drilling dispute, just hours after the House approved the measure in an all-night session that also included passage of a $40 billion budget-cutting bill.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005K.shtml

Counterterrorism agents at the Federal Bureau of Investigation have conducted numerous surveillance and intelligence-gathering operations that involved, at least indirectly, groups active in causes as diverse as the environment, animal cruelty and poverty relief, newly disclosed agency records show.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005J.shtml

Robert Byrd states that the president claims a boundless authority through the resolution that authorized the war on those who perpetrated the September 11th attacks. But that resolution does not give the president unchecked power to spy on our own people, to create covert prisons for secret prisoners, authorize the torture of prisoners to extract information from them, authorize running black-hole secret prisons in foreign countries to get around US law, or give the president the powers reserved only for kings and potentates.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005I.shtml

http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/crapo_s_2110

Anti-Endangered Species Bill in Senate

Ask Your Senators to Oppose S. 2110 Senate bill would gut Endangered Species Act

Late last week, Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) introduced a bill to radically undermine the Endangered Species Act. Senate bill S. 2110, cynically titled the “Collaboration and Recovery of Endangered Species Act,” would completely derail the endangered species listing program, remove protections for endangered species habitat, and cut federal oversight of projects that threaten endangered species. (A full explanation and full text of the Crapo bill is available at http://www.biologicaldiversity.org .)

We need you to call your senators and ask them to oppose S. 2110, Senator Crapo’s anti-endangered species bill! Contact your senator through the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121.

Crapo hopes to pass a Senate bill that would allow Congress to adopt the terrible Pombo anti-endangered species bill that passed the House this September. Crapo introduced his bill in the midst of Congress’s end-of-year rush to finish up work so they can leave town for the holidays. He is hoping to sneak this bill through the Senate Finance Committee in order to avoid the Environment and Public Works Committee that usually oversees endangered species issues.

Therefore, we need to raise the alarm: let your senators know they need to oppose this attack on the Endangered Species Act! Otherwise this terrible bill will get moving in the Senate under the radar. We need early and strong opposition to stop this bill before it ever gets off the ground.

Send a letter to the following decision maker(s): Your Senators

Below is the sample letter:

Subject: Please Oppose S. 2110 Anti-Endangered Species Bill

Dear [decision maker name automatically inserted here],

I want you to know that I strongly support the Endangered Species Act, and I oppose any measure that would undermine protections for America's endangered plants and wildlife. S. 2110, recently introduced by Senator Crapo, would completely derail the endangered species listing program, remove protections for endangered species habitat, and cut federal oversight of projects that threaten endangered species. I strongly urge you to support protections for endangered wildlife and plants and to oppose S. 2110. Thank you.

Sincerely,

By Bill Van Auken

20 December 2005

In his nationally televised address from the White House Oval Office Sunday night, George W. Bush reprised the barefaced lies, distortions and appeals to fear and political backwardness that characterized the last such speech delivered by the US president, announcing the onset of the unprovoked US "shock and awe" onslaught against Iraq 33 months ago.

This time around, however, Bush found himself compelled to argue against those who "conclude that the war is lost and not worth another dime or another day"-a description that applies to many millions of Americans. He was forced to acknowledge that the attempt to quell resistance to the US occupation has been "more difficult than we expected," and, while touting the turnout in Sunday's Iraqi parliamentary elections, he admitted that the vote "will not mean the end of violence."

Despite fleeting acknowledgements of massive popular opposition to the war, the essential message was that the administration has no intention of bowing to public opinion and withdrawing US troops. Rather, it plans to continue the slaughter in Iraq indefinitely in pursuit of the geo-strategic aims that motivated the war in the first place.

The speech was sandwiched between Bush's live radio address Saturday and a White House press conference Monday, both of which he used to defiantly defend his secret and illegal use of the National Security Agency to spy on US citizens, arguing for what amounts to dictatorial powers.

The media made much of Bush's admissions about "difficulties" and "setbacks," his claim to having heard those who "did not support my decision to send troops to Iraq" and what the Washington Post referred to as his "forthright statement" and "more humble tone."

These trappings of the speech, like Bush's elaborate hand gestures, were all crafted by his political handlers with the aim of deceiving a portion of the public. The essential content of the address was the defense of an illegal war based upon lies and an attempt to intimidate those who oppose it.

The essential framework of this defense was the same as that utilized to drag the American people into this war in the first place-the lie that the invasion of Iraq was a response to the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York City and Washington and constituted an essential battle in the "global war on terror."

The tragic events of September 11-and the Bush administration's manifest failure to take any action to prevent them-have never been seriously investigated, much less explained. One thing is certain, however: They were seized upon by the administration as a pretext for carrying out a war planned years before, which was aimed at imposing US domination over the Persian Gulf in order to seize control of its oil resources and secure a decisive strategic advantage over US capitalism's principal economic rivals.

Now Bush attempts to portray the war in Iraq as a confrontation between the US military and Al Qaeda terrorists who, if not defeated in Iraq, would soon be attacking the US. This is patent nonsense. The Pentagon and the CIA have repeatedly acknowledged that the resistance to the US occupation is a matter of Iraqis fighting to throw foreign invaders out of their own country. Tens of thousands have been killed or imprisoned by the US military in Iraq, yet only a handful of so-called "foreign fighters" have been counted among them.

"We do not create terrorism by fighting the terrorists," Bush declared in one of the more ignorant passages in his speech. "We invite terrorism by ignoring them. And we will defeat the terrorists by capturing and killing them abroad, removing their safe havens, and strengthening new allies like Iraq and Afghanistan in the fight we share."

But Iraq was no "safe haven" for terrorists before the US invasion. The relation between the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda was one of mutual hostility. And, as far as Iraq today is concerned, the occupation, as US military officers readily acknowledge, is most certainly producing tens and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who are prepared to wage an armed struggle against American troops. Relatives of the innocent civilians killed at roadblocks and by bombing attacks, massacred in sieges like Fallujah or imprisoned and tortured in Abu Ghraib and other US concentration camps provide an inexhaustible source of recruits for the resistance.

Connected to the lie about the war in Iraq's supposed connection to September 11 and terrorism is the assertion that the administration acted upon flawed intelligence. Bush acknowledged that the claims about "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq were false, only to dismiss this fact as irrelevant.

"Much of the intelligence turned out to be wrong. And as your president, I am responsible for the decision to go into Iraq," he said. "Yet it was right to remove Saddam Hussein from power."

The intelligence, however, was not merely "wrong," it was deliberately fabricated in order to provide a phony justification for the war-Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction-and to terrorize the American people into accepting it.

In his speech, Bush tried to explain away the manufacturing of false intelligence by claiming that Saddam Hussein had "systematically concealed those programs and blocked the work of UN weapons inspectors," and that "that many nations believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction."

The reality is that the weapons inspectors did the job that they were assigned, destroying all of Iraq's biological and chemical weapons stockpiles. As for other nations, the great majority viewed Iraq as posing no imminent threat, and therefore blocked the Bush administration's attempts to get the UN to authorize an invasion. The UN weapons inspectors themselves refuted the claims made by Washington.

Bush insists that the fact the war was waged on the basis of lies is of no consequence because the happy result is that the US intervention is establishing a "constitutional democracy at the heart of the Middle East" that "will serve as a model of freedom" for the region. This is also a lie.

First, the regime that is taking shape in Iraq-dominated by religious fundamentalists, torn by bitter sectarian divisions and ruling through the use of death squads and torture chambers-is hardly a model of democracy or freedom for anyone. Secondly, the US secures its interests throughout the region through the closest alliances with despots and dictators, from Saudi Arabia to Egypt to Pakistan.

The rest of the speech consisted largely of jingoistic bluster and attempts at political intimidation. The president employed his usual cheap trick of portraying any attempt to end a dirty war that has claimed the lives of nearly 2,200 American soldiers as a betrayal of the troops.

"Our troops in the field, who bear the burden and make the sacrifice, do not believe that America has lost," he said, adding, "We would undermine the morale of our troops by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed."

The morale of "our troops" found a more accurate expression during Vice President Dick Cheney's lighting visit to Iraq on the same day Bush gave his speech. Addressing US troops, Cheney-whose trip was conducted in secrecy and under extraordinary military protection-assured them the resistance was in its "last throes."

Press reports portrayed a sullen uniformed audience, however. Among those selected to address questions to the vice president was a Marine corporal who said to Cheney, "From our perspective, we don't see much as far as gains" in the war. "I was wondering what it looks like from the big side of the mountain."

Another Marine, asked the vice president, "Sir, what are the benefits of doing all this work to get Iraq on its feet?"

In its report on the meeting, the Associated Press provided a graphic illustration of the skepticism and outright hostility of many soldiers to the administration's war: "When he [Cheney] delivered the applause line, 'We 're in this fight to win. These colors don't run,' the only sound was a lone whistle."

Bush likewise used his prime time speech to brand anyone who opposed his declared policy of war until victory as a "defeatist," guilty of endangering "the security of our people."

The speech had the desired effect upon the Democratic Party, whose leadership has made it clear that it has no intention of mounting a challenge to Bush over the war. Leading Democrats praised Bush for his supposed new-found conciliation and "candor." A typical reaction was that of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, who said, "The president has reached out and spoken more directly than ever before about how we went to war and why it is important to achieve victory, a goal we all share."

In an interview with the Washington Post published last Friday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Democrat, California) made it clear that her declaration of support for a resolution put forward by Democratic Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania calling for a US military withdrawal in six months did not signal a party position. Rather, she said, Democrats' attitude toward the war would be a "matter of individual conscience." In other words, the party will do all in its power to downplay the war, which is overwhelmingly opposed by Democratic voters, in the 2006 midterm elections. The last thing the party leadership wants is for the elections to become a referendum on the war.

Despite the Democrats' support for the continuation of the war, the Bush administration is well aware that this bipartisan position is deeply unpopular among a vast section of the American population.

To counter this mass opposition, the administration has chosen to launch a campaign of fear-mongering coupled with calls for ever greater police state powers. This is the significance of its decision to go on the offensive over the revelations of the illegal domestic spying operation mounted by the National Security Agency under Bush's orders.

In a one-hour press conference Monday that was dominated by the NSA revelations, Bush mentioned the September 11 attacks at least 15 times, claiming that after the terrorist attacks, the US was at war, and that he required extraordinary powers to protect the American people. He insisted, essentially, that his constitutional role as "commander in chief" coupled with the Congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force against Al Qaeda gave him limitless power.

Earlier in the day, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in defending the NSA spying operation, dismissed concerns over the legality of domestic espionage by pointing out that the US Supreme Court had already upheld the president's power to declare US citizens "enemy combatants" and secretly detain them indefinitely without charges.

At the press conference, one reporter asked Bush, "If the global war on terror is going to last for decades, as has been forecast, does that mean that we're going to see, therefore, a more or less permanent expansion of the unchecked power of the executive in American society?"

Bush responded angrily to what he termed "ascribing some kind of dictatorial position to the president." As for checks on presidential power, he declared, there is the "check of people being sworn to uphold the law, for starters"-in other words, a government over whose activities there is no enforceable oversight and whose word is supposed to be accepted on faith by the people.

Bush reserved his greatest anger, however, for those in the Senate who, citing threats to civil liberties, blocked the reauthorization of provisions of the USA Patriot Act. "I want senators from New York or Los Angeles or Las Vegas to explain why these cities are safer" without the renewal of these measures, he said.

Speaking on Monday, Cheney made a similar criticism. Appearing on the ABC news program "Nightline," he declared, "What I'm concerned about . . . is that as we get farther and farther from 9/11 . . . we seem to have people less and less committed to doing everything that's necessary to defend the country."

Taken together, these statements have an ominous significance. Desperate regimes take desperate measures. Facing mass opposition and besieged on all sides by revelations of criminal activities ranging from torture to secret prisons to illegal spying, the Bush administration is responding with a drumbeat of warnings that September 11 could happen again. The question is whether this administration is preparing to either engineer or allow such an attack as a means of suppressing domestic dissent and furthering its policies of militarism abroad and reaction at home.

See also: Bush defends illegal spying on Americans: the specter of presidential dictatorship [19 December 2005] Pentagon's domestic spying operations target opponents of Iraq war [15 December 2005] Deal to renew USA Patriot Act extends police-state measures [13 December 2005]

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/bush-d20.shtml


Informant: Friends

"This shocking revelation ought to send a chill down the spine of every American." Senator Russell Feingold, December 17, 2005

The Nation:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/edcut?bid=7&pid=43492

(14 paragraphs) Executive Run Amok Spying and Lying

Katrina vanden Heuvel

BLOG | Posted 12/18/2005 @ 5:42pm

Under pressure from the White House, the New York Times withheld publication for a year of a report of illegal domestic surveillance of US citizens. Katrina vanden Heuvel writes that if information is the oxygen of democracy, the Bush Administration is trying to cut off the supply. Journalists and media organizations must find a way to restore their role as effective watchdogs, as checks on an executive run amok.

----------------------------------------------------

"This shocking revelation ought to send a chill down the spine of every American."

Senator Russell Feingold, December 17, 2005

As reported by the New York Times on Friday, "Months after the September 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency (NSA) to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying."

A senior intelligence officer says Bush personally and repeatedly gave the NSA permission for these taps--more than three dozen times since October 2001. Each time, the White House counsel and the Attorney General--whose job it is to guard and defend our civil liberties and freedoms--certified the lawfulness of the program. (It is useful here to note "The Yoo Factor": The domestic spying program was justified by a "classified legal opinion" written by former Justice Department official John Yoo, the same official who wrote a memo arguing that interrogation techniques only constitute torture if they are "equivalent in intensity to...organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.")

Illegally spying on Americans is chilling--even for this Administration. Moreover, as Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, told the Times, "the secret order may amount to the president authorizing criminal activity." Some officials at the NSA agree. According to the Times, "Some agency officials wanted nothing to do with the program, apparently fearful of participating in an illegal operation." Others were "worried that the program might come under scrutiny by Congressional or criminal investigators if Senator John Kerry, the Democratic nominee, was elected President."

It's always a fight to find out what the government doesn't want us to know, and this Administration and its footsoldiers have used every means available to undermine journalists' ability to exercise their First Amendment function of holding power accountable. But compounding the Administration's double-dealing, the media has been largely complicit in the face of White House mendacity. David Sirota puts it more bluntly in a recent entry from his blog: "We are watching the media being used as a tool of state power in overriding the very laws that are supposed to confine state power and protect American citizens."

Consider this: the New York Times says it "delayed publication" of the NSA spying story for a year. The paper says it acceded to White House arguments that publishing the article "could jeopardize continuing investigations and alert would-be-terrorists that they might be under scrutiny."

Despite Administration demands though, it was reported in yesterday's Washington Post that the decision by Times editor Bill Keller to withhold the article caused friction within the Times' Washington bureau, according to people close to the paper. Some reporters and editors in New York and in the paper's DC bureau had apparently pushed for earlier publication. In an explanatory statement, Keller issued the excuse that, "Officials also assured senior editors of the Times that a variety of legal checks had been imposed that satisfied everyone involved that the program raised no legal questions." This from a paper, which as First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus pointed out in a letter to editor "rejected similar arguments when it courageously pub;ished the Pentagon Papers over the government's false objections that it would endanger our foreign policy as well as the lives of individuals." The Times, Garbus went on to argue, "owes its readers more. The Bush Administration's record for truthfulness is not such that one should rely on its often meaningless and vague assertions."

Readers and citizens deserve to know why the New York Times capitulated to the White House's request? It is true that Friday's revelations of this previously unknown, illegal domestic spying program helped stop the Patriot Act reauthorization. But what if the Times had published its story before the election? And what other stories have been held up due to Adminsitration cajoling, pressure, threats and intimidation?

The question of how this Administration threatens the workings of a free press, a cornerstone of democracy, remains a central one. Every week brings new evidence of White House attempts to delegitimize the press's role as a watchdog of government abuse, an effective counter to virtually unchecked executive power.

Last month, for example, the Washington Post published Dana Priest's extraordinary report about the CIA's network of prisons in Eastern Europe for suspected terrorists. Priest's reporting helped push passage of a ban on the metastasizing use of torture. But, as with the New York Times, the Post acknowledged that it had acceded to government requests to withhold the names of the countries in which the black site prisons exist.

How many other cases are there of news outlets choosing to honor government requests for secrecy over the journalistic duty of informing the public about government abuse and wrongdoing?

Never has the need for an independent press been greater. Never has the need to know what is being done in our name been greater. As Bill Moyers said in an important speech delivered on the 20th anniversary of the National Security Archive, a dedicated band of truth-tellers, "...There has been nothing in our time like the Bush Administration's obsession with secrecy." Moyers added. "It's an old story: the greater the secrecy, the deeper the corruption."

Federation of American Scientists secrecy specialist Steven Aftergood bluntly says, "an even more aggressive form of government information control has gone unenumerated and often unrecognized in the Bush era, as government agencies have restricted access to unclassified information in libraries, archives, websites and official databases." This practice, Aftergood adds, "also accords neatly with the Bush Administration's preference for unchecked executive authority."

"Information is the oxygen of democracy," Aftergood rightly insists. This Administration is trying to cut off the supply. Journalists and media organizations must find a way to restore their role as effective watchdogs, as checks on an executive run amok.


Informant: Bob Reuschlein

From ufpj-news

The vice president is breathlessly rushing home to cast a tie-breaking vote to cut health care for the poor and disabled.

http://tompaine.com/uncommonsense/index.php#7077

by Frank O'Donnell, TomPaine.com

Today, the EPA unveils regulations that will shield the power industry from air pollution cleanup.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051220/the_unfriendly_skies.php

HLV INFO 190/AT

20-12-2005

Volker Hartenstein 12-12-05

Während 30 Jahren hat die WHO geleugnet, dass Passivrauchen schädlich sein könnte und der dafür bei ihr verantwortliche Professor kassierte für seinen Einsatz von der Tabakindustrie 4.5 Millionen Franken. Siehe http://www.gigaherz.ch/484

Wesentlich günstiger, so um die 150'000 Dollar, aber ebenso hinterlistig arbeitet heute der für elektromagnetische Umweltverschmutzung zuständige Lobbyist der Industrie bei der WHO, Dr. M. Repacholi. Die Konkurrenz unter den Elektrosmogleugnern ist halt enorm gross geworden. Verdienen tun sie allemal noch recht anständig. Siehe http://www.gigaherz.ch/973

Lesen Sie selber, wie Repacholi im Auftrag der Industrie die Eisbären in der Sahara gesucht hat, statt am Nordpol.

Alles andere ist am Leid elektrosensibler Mitmenschen schuld. Stress am Arbeitsplatz, falsche ergonomische Gestaltung des Arbeitsplatzes, psychiatrische Bedingungen, Luftverschmutzung bis hin zu flackerndem Licht, nur nicht die elektronagnetische Umweltverseuchung. Den Ärzten gibt er sogar den Rat, ja nicht die elektromagnetische Umgebung des Patienten verbessern zu wollen, sondern dessen Psyche. Elektrosensible Mitmenschen sind übrigens laut Repacholi keine Menschen sondern Individuen. Es ist halt schon so, dass man für die Eisbärensuche am besten ein Riesenkamel in die Wüste schickt. HU.J

Elektromagnetische Felder und die öffentliche Gesundheit
Elektro-Hypersensitivität WHO-Fact Sheet No. 296 Dezember 05

In einer Übersetzung von Evi Gaigg, dem Individuum, vom 14.12.05

weiter unter: http://www.gigaherz.ch/981

--------

WHO, EMF, Electromagnetic Radiation and Mobile Phones
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1194586/

Senator Stevens is now trying to sneak his ANWR drilling Christmas present to his oil corporation handlers into the Defense bill. He says if people want Katrina victims' aid approved they will have to roll over for this. What a sick thing to say! The response to the global warming that caused this catastrophe should be to accelerate destructive climate change even more?

Well, Maria Cantwell is not rolling over. She has sworn she will lead a FILIBUSTER to have this out of place language removed. We're not rolling over either. We will fight this last minute stunt until Santa Claus fires up his sleigh. Please call your senators at once at 888-355-3588 or 888-818-6641 and submit the action page at

ACTION PAGE: http://www.millionphonemarch.com/anwr.htm

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.

Powered by The People's Email Network Copyright 2005, Patent pending, All rights reserved

CounterPunch
by Mike Marqusee

12/19/05

Two pieces of legislation currently wending their way through Britain's Parliament illustrate how the war on terror is being used to dismantle the very freedoms it's supposed to secure. Both criminalise the expression of ideas and neither is likely to deal effectively with the problem it purports to address. They are opportunistic gambits, characteristic of a government whose moralistic bombast is in inverse proportion to the morality of its behaviour...

http://www.counterpunch.org/marqusee12192005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Common Dreams
by Bob Burnett

12/19/05

For five years citizens have suffered 'a long train of abuses and usurpations' by George W. Bush. This week brought the announcement that he authorized domestic spying on civilians without bothering to obtain court warrants. Bush admitted this, calling the eavesdropping 'crucial to our national security.' He didn't explain why he deemed it unnecessary to first get a warrant. These revelations were the latest in a series of outrages. ... President Bush's assertion of expanded Presidential authority is wrong legally and morally. There is no justification for torture of prisoners or spying on private citizens. Two hundred thirty years ago the Founders rejected similar activity, by another George. It was despotism then, it is despotism now. The conduct of the Bush Administration cannot be tolerated...

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1219-30.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Scripps Howard News Service
by Dale McFeatters

12/19/05

The eavesdropping by the NSA, where targets are chosen by shift supervisors, is overseen by no judge, court or senior Justice Department official. It may be a valuable tool in the war on terrorism; it might also be illegal and unconstitutional. It is Congress' responsibility to say yea or nay and, if yea, to lay down the specific ground rules, oversight and checks and balances to protect Americans' privacy and civil liberties. Give the government a power, and it will use it and likely eventually misuse it...

http://tinyurl.com/bojmh


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

CounterPunch
by John Blair

12/19/05

Civil disobedience is truly the most effective means of protest but it needs to be used in creative ways following the three following rules from my perspective: 1. It must always be NONVIOLENT. No one should ever be physically harmed in any way; 2. It is best when it is ACTIVE versus passive. Stealing shovels was likely more effective in making my point than it would have been if I had simply trespassed and sat down, waiting to be carried off by some cop who is paid to uphold the laws of the corporations. Action was what captivated the TV cameras and made the act a success. 3. It must be SYMBOLIC and easily understood, both in the reasons why it is being done and what larger goal is being pursued by the action...

http://www.counterpunch.org/blair12192005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Christian Science Monitor
by Suzanne Mettler

12/19/05

Our political leaders may aim to spread democracy abroad, but the lessening role of government in the lives of Americans -- as manifested by recent cuts to the federal budget -- does little to nurture the democratic process here at home. Although less severe than the earlier House version, the budget emerging from Congress reduces spending on social and educational programs while extending tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. These budget cuts continue a quarter century of governance guided largely by the idea that, in Ronald Reagan's words, 'Government is not the solution ... government is the problem.' But an assessment of these decades reveals that as government's role in citizens' lives diminishes, so, too, does active civic engagement. In the 1950s through the early 1970s, when government played a visible and positive role in the lives of Americans, large majorities -- according to the National Election Studies -- believed that it was something to trust, and was 'run for the good of all.' By contrast, only 30 to 40 percent of citizens today have the same trust...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1220/p09s02-coop.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

In These Times
by Mark Levine

12/19/05

In the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, President Bush told the world, 'We will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more.' But as is always the case in politics, the devil is in the details. When will it no longer be necessary for the United States to maintain troops in Iraq? And what does 'withdrawing troops' actually mean -- all troops or just most troops? According to Bush's newly released 'National Strategy for Victory in Iraq,' the most important goal of our presence in Iraq is to 'help people defeat the terrorists and build a democratic inclusive state.' But if by terrorism we mean the systematic threatening, torturing and/or killing of civilians to force them to accept a political or military situation they wouldn't otherwise sanction, then the United States has committed far more acts of terrorism and crimes against humanity than the insurgents in Iraq (with perhaps more than 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians and hundreds of billions of dollars in destruction and counting)...

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2441/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Human Events
by Bruce Bartlett

12/20/05

Last week, two new federal reports were published showing once again that the nation's fiscal position is dangerously out of whack. And by every measure, the situation has gotten substantially worse as a result of George W. Bush's policies. The first report is known as the 'Financial Report of the United States Government.' The latest is for fiscal year 2005, which ended on Sept. 30, and was published by the Treasury Department and the Government Accountability Office on Dec. 15. The summary shows a gross federal debt of $9.9 trillion, offset by assets of $1.5 trillion, for a net debt of $8.5 trillion. At the end of fiscal year 2001, the comparable numbers were $7.4 trillion for the gross debt, $926 billion for assets and a net debt of $6.5 trillion. Thus we see that the national debt has increased by $2 trillion on Bush's watch. However, because of accounting conventions, these figures greatly understate the rise of national indebtedness...

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=11005


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Salon
by Bruce Schneier

12/20/05

When President Bush directed the National Security Agency to secretly eavesdrop on American citizens, he transferred an authority previously under the purview of the Justice Department to the Defense Department and bypassed the very laws put in place to protect Americans against widespread government eavesdropping. The reason may have been to tap the NSA's capability for data-mining and widespread surveillance. Illegal wiretapping of Americans is nothing new. In the 1950s and '60s, the NSA intercepted every single telegram coming in or going out of the United States. It conducted eavesdropping without a warrant on behalf of the CIA and other agencies. Much of this became public during the 1975 Church Committee hearings and resulted in the now famous Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978... [subscription or ad view required]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/12/20/surveillance/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://www.fmnn.com/Analysis/47/3222/2005-12-19.asp?nid=3222&wid=47


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by US Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)

12/20/05

If we hope to pursue a more sensible foreign policy, it is imperative that Congress face up to its explicit constitutional responsibility to declare war. It's easy to condemn the management of a war one endorsed, while deferring the final decision about whether to deploy troops to the president. When Congress accepts and assumes its awesome responsibility to declare war, as directed by the Constitution, fewer wars will be fought. Sadly, the acrimonious blame game is motivated by the leadership of both parties for the purpose of gaining, or retaining, political power. It doesn't approach a true debate over the wisdom, or lack thereof, of foreign military interventionism and preemptive war...

http://www.antiwar.com/paul/?articleid=8277


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Foundation for Economic Education
by Becky Akers

12/19/05

The government suffers no shortage of gall. Barely a week after air marshals from the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) gunned down passenger Rigoberto Alpizar at Miami's International Airport, the agency announced that it will expand the reach of its marshal program. That's right: slaughter a man, then, while the investigation is still going on, seek new venues. The TSA is embarking 'on a three-day pilot project to test the agency's ability to assist State and local authorities by quickly deploying federal assets in response to a specific threat,' a press release said. No word on whether those threats include Americans who distress the Pentagon with their protests against the Iraq war, or homeowners who refuse to leave their property when eminent domain evicts them...

http://tinyurl.com/8e79n


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Reuters

12/19/05

The U.S. Congress' authorization of military force after the September 11, 2001, attacks also gave President George W. Bush the right to eavesdrop on people in the United States, U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said on Monday. 'Our position is that authorization to use force, which was passed by the Congress in the days following September 11, constitutes that other authorization ... to engage in this kind of signals intelligence,' Gonzales said. But he conceded: 'One might argue, now wait a minute, there's nothing in the authorization to use force that specifically mentions electronic surveillance.' He denied it was 'a backdoor approach,' saying: 'We believe Congress has authorized this kind of surveillance'... [editor's note: The arrogance of these people is astounding - MLS] [additional editor's note: Doesn't Gonzales know that that "congressional authorization of force" is quaint and obsolete? - TLK]

http://tinyurl.com/bk6db


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Yahoo! News

12/19/05

President Bush is making selective use of an opinion poll when he tells people that Iraqis are increasingly upbeat. The same poll that indicated a majority of Iraqis believe their lives are going well also found a majority expressing opposition to the presence of U.S. forces, and less than half saying Iraq is better off now than before the war. Bush frequently talks in general terms about millions of Iraqis 'looking forward to a future with hope and optimism,' as he put it in a news conference Monday. The previous evening, he was more specific in his televised address when he declared, 'Seven in 10 Iraqis say their lives are going well -- and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve even more in the year ahead.' He was referring to an ABC News poll conducted with Time magazine and other media partners before the Iraqi general elections last week...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051219/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_fact_check


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Boston Globe

12/19/05

Lawmakers from both parties yesterday questioned the legality of the Bush administration's secret wiretapping -- done without court approval -- of US citizens and foreign nationals, even as the White House continued to defend the intercepts as critical to stopping potential terrorist attacks. Three prominent Republican senators -- Arlen Specter, John McCain and Lindsey Graham -- appeared on Sunday talk shows and called for investigations into the matter, intensifying public pressure on the Bush administration, which has stuck by its decision to allow domestic spying. The senators said the wiretapping might violate the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which requires special federal court approval of any surveillance of US citizens conducted for intelligence purposes on American soil...

http://tinyurl.com/bdsfq


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Las Vegas Review-Journal

12/19/05

Accused of acting above the law, President Bush forcefully defended a domestic spying program on Monday as an effective tool in disrupting terrorists and insisted it was not an abuse of Americans' civil liberties. Bush said it was 'a shameful act' for someone to have leaked details to the media. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said it was 'probably the most classified program that exists in the United States government' -- involving electronic intercepts of telephone calls and e-mails in the U.S. of people with known ties to al-Qaida and other terrorist groups...

http://tinyurl.com/2346c


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Fairbanks News-Miner

12/20/05

House of Representatives approval of oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was less than five hours old Monday morning when senators took up the debate .... When the Senate opened its floor session at 9:30 a.m., Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., asked how his colleagues could even consider approving the same bill. The conference committee that merged the House and Senate versions Sunday clearly violated a Senate rule by adding the ANWR rider, he said. ... A successful point of order would block the bill's passage. To avoid that result, Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens and other pro-drilling senators are expected to try to reject the parliamentarian's ruling, a move that would mock the Senate's own rules, Feingold said. Stevens agreed that the Senate rule prohibits the addition of the ANWR language. However, he said, other rules also allow senators the flexibility to temporarily waive the restriction by rejecting the parliamentarian's decision...

http://www.news-miner.com/Stories/0,1413,113~7244~3173823,00.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Finally we have a Washington scandal that goes beyond sex, corruption and political intrigue to big issues like security versus liberty and the reasonable bounds of presidential power. President Bush came out swinging on Snoopgate - he made it seem as if those who didn't agree with him wanted to leave us vulnerable to al Qaeda - but it will not work. We're seeing clearly now that Bush thought 9/11 gave him license to act like a dictator, or in his own mind, no doubt, like Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/122005Z.shtml

Are we so screwed up that we can't take care of the poor, sick and elderly? We all pay a huge amount of taxes, including hidden taxes and yet the states and government are always crying poor mouth and blaming the poor. Where is all that money going? ........bd


Medicaid changes could hit the poor

Mon Dec 19, 2:48 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The spending bill approved by the House early on Monday and awaiting a Senate vote could increase the out-of-pocket costs of many of the poor people who rely on the joint federal-state program for their health care.

The legislation also tightens eligibility rules for long-term care. Medicaid pays for roughly half of nursing home bills.

The mostly Republican backers of the bill say the changes are necessary to preserve a financially beleaguered social program that has not been updated to keep up with the changes in U.S. health care.

Mostly Democratic critics say it shreds the health safety net for the most vulnerable Americans. The AARP is among the interest groups opposed to the health care legislation.

The net savings are $4.7 billion over five years, but run to around $23 billion over 10 years. The bill:

- Gives states more flexibility in deciding what health benefits to give to those on Medicaid although basic services will be required for children, pregnant women and senior citizens.

- Allows states to require poor people to pay more out of pocket for their care by increasing co-payments or premiums. Advocacy groups say this could cost $10 billion over a decade.

- Increases from three to five years the "look-back" period to see whether middle or upper income seniors had transferred or hidden assets to qualify for Medicaid coverage of nursing homes. It also disqualifies anyone with more than $750,000 in home equity from Medicaid eligibility.

- Changes the way Medicaid pays for medications, particularly generic drugs. Instead of using a formula known as "average wholesale price," which critics in both parties say bears little relationship to actual prices, the payments would be based on "average manufacturer's price" which would be publicly available. Starting in 2007, the federal government will not pay more than 250 percent of the AMP of the lowest-cost version of a generic drug.

- Requires states to use basic identification documents, like drivers licenses or passports, to better enforce current law and prevent illegal aliens from getting Medicaid coverage.

- Includes $2.14 billion to help Medicaid costs in states affected by Hurricane Katrina.

- Includes the Family Opportunity Act, which makes it easier for families to get health care for disabled or special needs children without being forced to remain in poverty or institutionalize their children.

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3809/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

Working through the night, the House early today voted to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling as part of a military measure and narrowly approved a $40 billion budget-cutting plan as bleary-eyed lawmakers concluded a marathon weekend session.

http://www.civilrights.org/issues/labor/details.cfm?id=38812


From Information Clearing House

America's business leaders supplied more than $75 million to return Mr. Bush to the White House last year - and he has paid dividends.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051218/NEWS09/512180341


From Information Clearing House

Today, Members of the United States Congress enjoy a vast web of perquisites that benefit them personally as well as professionally.

http://www.ntu.org/main/press.php?PressID=343


From Information Clearing House

U.S. officials have tried to demonize Evo Morales, a former leader of coca farmers and the country's first Indian leader, since he first came to prominence. He himself has called his Movement Toward Socialism a "nightmare" for Washington.

http://tinyurl.com/dkj54


From Information Clearing House

I wrote this post with a heavy heart, fully aware of the existence of millions of Americans who do not fit the gloomy picture the post portrays… but sometimes it may be more useful in the long run to face ugly conclusions.

http://iraquna.blogspot.com/2005/12/road-to-anti-americanism.html


From Information Clearing House

The history of guerrilla insurgencies is replete with groups that simulaneously fought on both the political and paramilitary fronts. Listen to how angry the Sunni politicians are, as they speak out in the wake of the elections, both at Bush and at the Shiites, and you get a sense of how detached the Bush administration remains from reality.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11339.htm

THE U.S. POLICY of "extraordinary rendition" has a human face, and it is mine.

By Khaled El-Masri

I am still recovering from an experience that was completely beyond the pale, outside the bounds of any legal framework and unacceptable in any civilized society. Because I believe in the American system of justice, I sued George Tenet, the former CIA director, last week. What happened to me should never be allowed to happen again.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11338.htm

http://www.counterpunch.org/jacobs12192005.html


Informant: John Johnson

From: "Kathy Guthrie" Friends Committee on National Legislation

Legislative Action Message

Save ANWR Today–Tomorrow Will Be Too Late! - FCNL

The Senate will decide the future of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), as early as tonight or tomorrow, and your senators will cast crucial votes. Please help to save ANWR today by calling them now!

Find the names and telephone numbers of your members of Congress by entering your zip code here:
http://capwiz.com/fconl/directory/congdir.tt Or call the Capitol Switchboard directly and ask to be connected to your members of Congress by name: 202-224-3121. Tell them to support the removal of ANWR from the military appropriations bill, H.R. 2863.

By contacting your senators today, you can persuade the Senate to stop its sneak attack on ANWR. After a failed attempt to pass drilling in ANWR through a filibuster-proof budget process, the Republican leadership shifted the ANWR measure into the military appropriations bill over the weekend. Your senators, regardless of their positions on the other measures contained within the military appropriations bill, now have the opportunity to require senate leadership to remove ANWR from the military appropriations bill. There is a strong chance that ANWR drilling can be blocked in the Senate if there is enough public outcry in the next 12 to 24 hours. You could make the difference.

Take Action

Your senators need to hear from you now to stop ANWR oil drilling!

Capitol Switchboard: 202-224-3121

Background

Drilling in ANWR furthers the dead-end energy policy of oil dependence. Promoting domestic oil production and consumption is no way to advance future peace and prosperity for our country. It makes our country and world less secure and is threatening to transform the global climate upon which we depend. Twenty-year government projections estimate U.S. oil consumption will rise sharply to 28 million barrels per day from the current rate of 20.5 million barrels per day. Many in Congress are wrongly focusing on domestic production’s potential to quench our growing thirst for oil, but the U.S. cannot possibly drill its way out of trouble. For long-term economic stability, national security, and to avoid future conflicts over energy the U.S. must reduce its oil dependence and consumption now.

Read an interfaith sign-on letter opposing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge-
http://www.fcnl.org/pdfs/Faith_Communities_ANWR_Letter.pdf

The Next Step for Iraq: Join FCNL's Iraq Campaign, http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/

Contact Congress and the Administration: http://capwiz.com/fconl/dbq/officials/


Friends Committee on National Legislation
245 Second St. NE, Washington, DC 20002-5795 fcnl@fcnl.org * http://www.fcnl.org phone: (202)547-6000 * toll-free: (800)630-1330

We seek a world free of war and the threat of war We seek a society with equity and justice for all We seek a community where every person's potential may be fulfilled We seek an earth restored.


Informant: Martin Greenhut

The unemployment rate among whites is holding steady at 4.3 percent, while the black unemployment rate climbed to a staggering 10.6 percent, according to the US Department of Labor. Black congressional leaders and some economists said the inability of black Hurricane Katrina evacuees to find jobs as a result of their displacement is a factor.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/121905LA.shtml

The catch-22 of the American healthcare system is that while many people work "for the insurance," when they become too sick to work and are most in need of that insurance, they are most at risk of losing it. This is particularly true of workers at small companies, which are not covered by existing laws protecting workers' rights.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/121905HA.shtml

Say Scientists

The world is now hotter than at any stage since prehistoric times, a top climatologist announced last week. His startling conclusion comes as NASA reported that 2005 has been the hottest year ever recorded. Research also shows that carbon dioxide levels in the air - the main cause of global warming - are higher now than at any time in the past hundreds of thousands of years.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/121905EC.shtml

The United States has not joined the Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gases, but the pact nevertheless is boosting sales for American companies that market "clean" energy technologies. The spread of renewable-energy standards, along with a surge in oil and gas prices, have triggered a boom in business for solar- and wind-energy companies.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/121905EA.shtml

White flags on top of houses and cars; plenty of American and Iraqi military vehicles; too many check points and blocks on the road; many frightening walking patrols; curfew after sunset; heaps and heaps of destroyed houses, shops, offices, the only bridge, hospitals and medical care centers; walls covered with bullets shots and election posters; and empty faces with bleak looks wandering in the streets. This is the picture of al-Qa'im after the "Steel Curtain" military operation began on November 5, 2005, with 3,000 American and Iraqi troops participating.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121905Q.shtml

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3810/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1219-34.htm



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

Sozialpolitische Aktionen und Proteste

Perspektiven der Proteste 2005ff.

Vorschläge für Aktionen im Frühjahr 2006

Jetzt ist Schluss! Aufruf der Gewerkschaftslinken, erstmals vorgelegt auf der Aktions- und Strategiekonferenz in Frankfurt am 19./20. November (pdf)
http://www.die-soziale-bewegung.de/2006/fruehjahrsdemo/JetztIstSchluss.PDF


Widerstand und Solidarität. Der am 10. Dezember 05 vom Aktionsbündnis Sozialproteste intern beschlossene und der Versammlung der Sozialen Bewegungen als Vorschlag für die gemeinsame Mobilisierung vorgelegte Entwurf (pdf)

http://www.die-soziale-bewegung.de/mails/Widerstand_und_Solidaritaet.PDF


Sozialpolitische Aktionen und Proteste 2005

Endlich: Randalierende Weihnachtsmänner

Weihnachtsmänner gegen Kameraüberwachung

„Samstag, der 17. Januar, 12 Uhr in Worms. Ganz Worms ist im Kaufrausch –ganz Worms? Eine Gruppe Weihnachtsmänner und –Frauen passt nicht so ganz in den vorweihnachtlichen Trubel... Sie tragen T-Shirts mit der Aufschrift „Weihnachtsmänner- und Frauen gegen Kameraüberwachung“ und einen schwarzen Balken, der sie – zumindest Ansatzweise – vor den etlichen Kameralinsen schützen soll, derer sie sich im Laufe Ihrer Tour ausgesetzt sehen werden…“ Bericht von „WWW“ vom 19.12.2005 bei indymedia

http://de.indymedia.org/2005/12/135426.shtml


Betrunkene Weihnachtsmänner randalieren ...

„Betrunkene Weihnachtsmänner sind "randalierend" durch das neuseeländische Auckland gezogen. Laut einem Sprecher der Gruppe wollten sie gegen "die Kommerzialisierung des Festes" protestieren. Die Gruppe taucht immer wieder weltweit auf. (…) "Santarchy" ist ein Wortspiel aus "Santa" und "Anarchy" und Name der seit einigen Jahren weltweit auftretenden Gruppe. Seit 1994 gab es immer wieder jährliche santarchy Aktionen. Vor allem in den USA - aber auch weltweit in London, Tokyo, Barcelona und zuletzt in Auckland, Neuseeland. Nur in Deutschland waren die verrückten Weihnachtsmänner scheinbar noch nicht…“ Bericht von „santarchy“ vom 18.12.2005 bei indymedia

http://de.indymedia.org/2005/12/135378.shtml


Aus: LabourNet, 20. Dezember 2005

Das Europäische Parlament hat die Bolkesteinrichtlinie für Januar von der Tagesordnung genommen. Damit läuft es jetzt auf Februar für die Abstimmung im Plenum des EP und für die Aktionen heraus. Diese Verschiebung ist auch Ergebnis der vielen Änderungsanträge und des Drucks in dieser Frage. Das Europaparlament will nun am 14. Februar 2006 die EU-Dienstleistungsrichtline in 1. Lesung beraten. Der Europäische Gewerkschaftsbund ruft die europäischen Arbeitnehmerinnen und Arbeitnehmer zu einer machtvollen Demonstration am 14. Februar 2006 in Straßburg auf. ver.di plant bereits am 11. Februar Aktionen. Siehe dazu

Breites Bündnis der sozialen Bewegungen und der DGB rufen zum Protest auf

„Stoppt die EU-Dienstleistungsrichtlinie am 11.02.2006. So lautet das Motto, zu dem neben vielen sozialen Bewegungen auch das Aktionsbündnis Sozialproteste zusammen mit dem Erwerbslosen Forum Deutschland aufruft. Auch der DGB wird sich an der Großdemonstration beteiligen und dazu aufrufen. Damit bereiten sich europaweit Gewerkschaften und soziale Bewegungen vor, die Bolkestein-Richtlinie zu stoppen. Gleichzeitig rufen das Aktionsbündnis Sozialproteste und das Erwerbslosen Forum Deutschland zu einer Großdemonstration gegen die Massenentlassungen und die Fortsetzung der Agenda-Politik durch die große Koalition auf und schlagen den 1. April 2006 vor…“ Gemeinsame Presseerklärung des „Erwerbslosen Forum Deutschland“, Bonn und des Aktionsbündnis Sozialproteste vom
18.12.2005

http://www.erwerbslosenforum.de/presse/18_12_05.pdf


Keine EU-Dienstleistungsrichtlinie ohne soziale Ausgewogenheit!

Der DGB-Bundesvorstand hat am 6. Dezember 2005 in Berlin eine Resolution zur EU-Dienstleistungsrichtlinie beschlossen:

http://www.dgb.de/presse/pressemeldungen/pmdb/pressemeldung_single?pmid=2695


Aus: LabourNet, 20. Dezember 2005

„Vom Monetarismus über Reagonomics und Thatcherismus dominieren seit bald drei Jahrzehnten Schattierungen des Neoliberalismus die westliche Wirtschafts- und Finanzpolitik. Privatisierung ist ihr Schlachtruf, die Senkung der Staatsquote ihr Programm. Mit allen Mitteln wird die Umleitung von möglichst viel Geld in die Kassen der Privatwirtschaft betrieben…“ Artikel von Thomas Barth und Oliver Schöller in Blätter für deutsche und internationale Politik Ausgabe 11/2005 http://www.blaetter.de/artikel.php?pr=2183


Aus: LabourNet, 20. Dezember 2005

http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/21/21615/1.html

Hongkonger Krokodilstränen. Die WTO-Ministerkonferenz hat den
Industriestaaten mehr gebracht, als sie zugeben wollen.
http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/21/21616/1.html

EU streut Brosamen um den großen Kuchen zu sichern
http://www.fian.de/fian/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=416


Aus: LabourNet, 20. Dezember 2005

Bush's Impeachable Offense:

Yes, the president committed a federal crime by wiretapping Americans, say constitutional scholars, former intelligence officers and politicians. What's missing is the political will to impeach him.

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,391808,00.html


From Information Clearing House

--------

Ivan Eland
Tue Dec 20, 2005 00:51

George W. Bush's Impeachable Offenses
December 19, 2005
Ivan Eland
http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1639

Several recent presidents could have been impeached for selected unconstitutional or illegal actions during their presidencies. But the sitting president, George W. Bush, may win the prize for committing the most impeachable offenses of any recent president.

Yet when one thinks of bad behavior leading down the road to possible impeachment, Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon come to mind first. Although Bill Clinton was impeached for having sex with an intern and then lying about it to a grand jury, a better case could have been made to impeach him for conducting an unconstitutional war over Kosovo without approval by Congress. The articles of Nixon’s impeachment centered on his use of illegal surveillance methods against political opponents and obstruction of justice and contempt of Congress in covering it up. His launching of an unconstitutional war in Cambodia without congressional approval was equally serious, but was left out of the articles. Curiously, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon’s predecessor, also used illegal surveillance activities against political rivals, but was not impeached.

Ronald Reagan, who is now a celebrated past president and icon of conservatives, justifiably feared impeachment for the Iran-Contra affair. He knowingly violated the Arms Export Control Act, a criminal statute, and sold arms to radical supporters of terrorists. His administration also unconstitutionally violated a congressional prohibition on providing money and support to the Nicaraguan Contra fighters. The Reagan administration’s violation of the Boland Amendment stuck a knife in the heart of the checks and balances system in the U.S. Constitution by circumventing Congress’s most important power—the appropriation of public monies.

George W. Bush is following in the footsteps of his predecessors, but may have left more tracks. For starters, invading another country on false pretenses is grounds for impeachment. Also, the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution essentially says that the people have the right to be secure against unreasonable government searches and seizures and that no search warrants shall be issued without probable cause that a crime has been committed. And the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requires that warrants for national security wiretaps be authorized by the secret FISA court. The law says that it is a crime for government officials to conduct electronic surveillance outside the exclusive purviews of that law or the criminal wiretap statute. President Bush’s authorization of the monitoring of Americans’ e-mails and phone calls by the National Security Agency (NSA) without even the minimal protection of FISA court warrants is clearly unconstitutional and illegal. Executive searches without judicial review violate the unique checks and balances that the nation’s founders created in the U.S. government and are a considerable threat to American liberty. Furthermore, surveillance of Americans by the NSA, an intelligence service rather than a law enforcement agency, is a regression to the practices of the Vietnam-era, when intelligence agencies were misused to spy on anti-war protesters—another impeachable violation of peoples’ constitutional rights by LBJ and Nixon.

President Bush defiantly admits initiating such flagrant domestic spying but contends that the Congress implicitly authorized such activities when it approved the use of force against al Qaeda and that such actions fit within his constitutional powers as commander-in-chief. But the founders never intended core principles of the Constitution to be suspended during wartime. In fact, they realized that it was in times of war and crisis that constitutional protections of the people were most at risk of usurpation by politicians, who purport to defend American freedom while actually undermining it.

The Bush administration’s FBI has also expanded its use of national security letters to examine the personal records of tens of thousands of Americans who are not suspected of being involved in terrorism or even illegal acts.

Apparently the president is also taking us back to the Vietnam era by monitoring anti-war protesters. Information on peaceful anti-war demonstrations has apparently found its way into Pentagon databases on possible threats to U.S. security.

Finally, the president’s policies on detainees in the “war on terror” probably qualify as impeachable offenses. The Bush administration decided that the “war on terror” exempted it from an unambiguous criminal law and international conventions (which are also the law of the land) preventing torture and inhumane treatment of prisoners. An American president permitting torture is both disgraceful and ineffective in getting good information from those held. Furthermore, the administration concocted the fictitious category of “enemy combatants” to deprive detainees of the legal protections of either the U.S. courts or “prisoner-of-war” status. The administration then tried to detain these enemy combatants, some of them American citizens, indefinitely without trial, access to counsel, or the right to have courts to review their cases.

All of these actions are part of President Bush’s attempt to expand the power of presidency during wartime—as if the imperial presidency hadn’t been expanded enough by his recent predecessors. President Bush usually gets the Attorney General or the White House Counsel to agree with his usurpation of congressional and judicial powers, but, of course, who in the executive is going to disagree with their boss? According to the Washington Post, the Bush administration describes the president’s war making power under the Constitution as “plenary”—meaning absolute. The founders would roll over in their graves at this interpretation of a document that was actually designed to limit the presidential war power, resulting from their revulsion at the way European monarchs easily took their countries to war and foisted the costs—in blood and treasure—on their people. Conservative Bob Barr, a former Congressman from Georgia who was quoted in the Post, said it best: “The American people are going to have to say, ‘Enough of this business of justifying everything as necessary for the war on terror.’ Either the Constitution and the laws of this country mean something or they don’t. It is truly frightening what is going on in this country.” Ivan Eland is a Senior Fellow at The Independent Institute, Director of the Institute’s Center on Peace & Liberty, and author of the books The Empire Has No Clothes, and Putting “Defense” Back into U.S. Defense Policy.

http://independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1639


Rep. John Lewis Congressman calls for Bush impeachment
http://www.house.gov/johnlewis/index.shtml


http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=96804;show_parent=1



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

http://www.boxer.senate.gov/news/record.cfm?id=249975

Tue Dec 20, 2005 01:17

Senator says she's asked for opinions on Bush impeachment

RAW STORY
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Senator_says_shes_asked_for_opinions_1219.html

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) has become the first in the Senate to raise consideration of impeachment of President George W. Bush for authorizing spying on Americans without warrants, RAW STORY has learned.

In a release issued this evening, Boxer said she's asked "four presidential scholars" for their opinion on impeachment after former White Housel counsel John Dean -- made famous by his role in revealing the Watergate tapes -- asserted that President Bush had 'admitted' to an 'impeachable offense.'

Boxer isn't the first congressmember today to float the word. Earlier today, Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) said Bush should be impeached if he broke the law in the spying program. The liberal California senator has tangled with Bush before -- earlier this year, she challenged the president's Ohio electoral votes.

Boxer's statement, acquired by RAW STORY, follows.

BOXER ASKS PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLARS ABOUT FORMER WHITE HOUSE COUNSEL’S STATEMENT THAT BUSH ADMITTED TO AN ‘IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE’

Washington, D.C.– U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) today asked four presidential scholars for their opinion on former White House Counsel John Dean’s statement that President Bush admitted to an “impeachable offense” when he said he authorized the National Security Agency to spy on Americans without getting a warrant from a judge.

Boxer said, “I take very seriously Mr. Dean’s comments, as I view him to be an expert on Presidential abuse of power. I am expecting a full airing of this matter by the Senate in the very near future.”

Boxer’s letter is as follows: #

On December 16, along with the rest of America, I learned that President Bush authorized the National Security Agency to spy on Americans without getting a warrant from a judge. President Bush underscored his support for this action in his press conference today.

On Sunday, December 18, former White House Counsel John Dean and I participated in a public discussion that covered many issues, including this surveillance. Mr. Dean, who was President Nixon’s counsel at the time of Watergate, said that President Bush is “the first President to admit to an impeachable offense.” Today, Mr. Dean confirmed his statement.

This startling assertion by Mr. Dean is especially poignant because he experienced first hand the executive abuse of power and a presidential scandal arising from the surveillance of American citizens.

Given your constitutional expertise, particularly in the area of presidential impeachment, I am writing to ask for your comments and thoughts on Mr. Dean’s statement.

Unchecked surveillance of American citizens is troubling to both me and many of my constituents. I would appreciate your thoughts on this matter as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Barbara Boxer
United States Senator

US SENATOR BARBARA BOXER
http://www.boxer.senate.gov/

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=96807;show_parent=1



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

http://tinyurl.com/96r5e



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

December 19, 2005 MEDIA ALERT: BRILLIANT FOOLS Harold Pinter, John Le Carré And The Media

Introduction - Factory Labels

The most effective way to control people is to control their assumptions about the world. The task of propaganda is to apply power-friendly labels and make them stick - it is the key to everything. The labelling factory par excellence - the machine that applies the right labels in the right way over and over again - is the mass media system.

Activists have lambasted governments, corporations, whole industries for decades, but they are swimming against a relentless tide. As has been demonstrated so clearly in Iraq, governments and businesses can do pretty much what they like just so long as the media factory is on hand to label it better: to label away the crimes, the lies, the outrage, the desperate need for change.

The media are, and always have been, the supreme obstacle to change. But you would not know it because all media corporations apply the same potent label to such a thought: 'Unthinkable.' Who Does John Le Carré Think He Is?

Naturally enough, high-profile reputations within the mainstream tend to attract negative media labels to the extent that an individual is honest in exposing the crimes of power. This becomes particularly striking when widely celebrated talents choose to focus their energies on political dissent. Then, suddenly, the brilliant become brilliant fools - egomaniacs whose craving for yet more attention lures them into realms of inquiry beyond their competence. Expert wordsmiths become childish scribblers. Sophisticated storytellers become gauche and witless. Even world-renowned scientists are suddenly unable to grasp the most elementary principles of scientific inquiry. The power of labelling appears to be without limit.

This labelling does not involve mere disagreement. As teachers of meditation have instructed for thousands of years, the mind is most effectively trained by constant repetition reinforced by emotion. If labelling is to be effective, it is important that embarrassment, revulsion and even disgust be generated in the public mind. This ensures that the required label is fixed both intellectually and emotionally, and recalled every time the target individual is remembered, seen or heard.

An example is the novelist David Cornwell, who writes under the pseudonym John Le Carré. For decades, Le Carré received exuberant praise for his spy novels - until he started to direct fierce criticism at US-UK foreign policy.

In reviewing Le Carré's novel Absolute Friends, the Sunday Telegraph wrote:

"The poor fellow harangues us about globalisation, about George Bush, about Washington neo-conservatives... With small sense of the ridiculous, he gives us a popular novel which nods gravely at the names of such as Noam Chomsky... including, yes, John Pilger.

"What turned this much-loved entertainer into a cosmic prophet? What's eating him? Who does 'John Le Carré' think he is?" ('Unsmiley person - a new book shows the skilled thriller-writer slipping still further into the slough of gravitas,' Sunday Telegraph, December 7, 2003)

The reviewer concluded: "It is sad, but scarcely tragic... The Spy Who Came in from the Cold will be read when most of today's polemics, including those of angry old David Cornwell, are quite forgotten."

The Sunday Times commented:

"Le Carré's anger comes across as a bit too raw to work as fiction, its rhetoric more in line with a Harold Pinter column than a Graham Greene novel.

"I finished Absolute Friends hoping that this greatest of all spy novelists writes for decades more, not only so he can keep creating characters like Mundy and Sasha, but also so that he can gain a more incisive perspective on our troubling times." (Stephen Amidon, 'Dispatches from an angry old man,' Sunday Times, December 14, 2003) Swallowing Pinter's Bile

Another example is the British playwright Harold Pinter, who was this month awarded the 2005 Nobel Prize for literature. Pinter is the first British winner since VS Naipaul in 2001.

Pinter has long been equally admired for his dramatic work and reviled for his political activism. Introducing his Nobel acceptance speech, playwright David Hare said:

"The theatre is what the British have always been good at. And nobody has so come to represent the theatre's strengths, its rigours, and its glories, as Harold Pinter." (Harold Pinter: Nobel prize speech, More4, December 10, 2005)

Reviewers speak in near-mystical terms of Pinter's brilliance. Leading theatre critic Michael Billington observed in the Guardian:

"Although he is best known as a dramatist and screenwriter, Harold Pinter is an equally remarkable director... As an actor, Pinter also possesses weight, authority and presence... Pinter's production of Joyce's Exiles was a masterpiece of psychological insight and dramatic timing." ('High-octane Harold,' The Guardian, February 5, 2005)

Pinter's use of sparse, menacing language in his drama is deemed the stuff of genius. But the labels applied to Pinter's anti-war poetry are different. These poems are "ludicrous, crass, offensive, second-rate, obscure-to-the-point-of-meaninglessness", Daniel Finkelstein declared in the Times: "The great dramatist has the right to intervene in politics, just as anyone else has. But he doesn't have the right to be taken seriously. Pinter simply has nothing interesting to say." (Finkelstein, 'Warning: what you are about to read is f****** poetic,' The Times, March 9, 2005)

Poet Don Paterson dismissed Pinter in the Guardian:

"To take a risk in a poem is not to write a big sweary outburst about how crap the war in Iraq is, even if you are the world's greatest living playwright. Because anyone can do that." (Chalotte Higgins, 'Pinter's poetry? Anyone can do it,' The Guardian, October 30, 2004)

We at Media Lens cannot say if it is true that Pinter's use of words is brilliant in his plays but absurd in his poems. But we are reminded of the treatment meted out to Les Roberts of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. Journalists everywhere deferred to Roberts as one of the world's leading epidemiologists when he estimated millions of deaths in the Congo in 2000 and 2001. But he was judged a fool guilty of schoolboy errors when estimating 100,000 civilian deaths since the March 2003 US-UK invasion of Iraq.

Simon Heffer wrote in the Daily Mail of Pinter:

"I don't begrudge Harold Pinter his Nobel prize. I have never seen why someone's political views - which in Pinter's case are verging on the barking - should disqualify them from acclaim in any field of the arts." (Heffer, 'David, don't be scared of the truth,' Daily Mail, October 15, 2005)

In The New York Times, James Traub declared that "Pinter's politics are so extreme ... they are almost impossible to parody." (Traub, 'Their Highbrow Hatred of Us,' New York Times, October 30, 2005)

Traub added, "it is hard to think of anyone save Noam Chomsky and Gore Vidal who would not choke on Pinter's bile".

The Times wrote that Pinter's recent output has consisted "almost entirely of rabid antiwar, anti-American and expletive-filled rants against the Iraq conflict. In his anger, Pinter is as spare with logic as he once was with language". ('... The Nobel Prize...for Literature...to Harold Pinter...Hmmm...,' Pause For Thought, The Times, October 14, 2005)

Tony Allen-Mills lamented in the Sunday Times:

"Among this year's Nobel laureates are several American scientists who are being rewarded for brilliant work. Yet their achievements appear destined to be overshadowed by a rant from a bolshie Brit." (Tony Allen-Mills, 'This Pinter guy could turn into a pain,' Sunday Times, November 6, 2005)

The Mirror reported Pinter's Nobel prize speech with the headline: "Pinter rant at 'brutal' US policy." (Mirror, December 8, 2005)

In the Independent, Johann Hari wrote an article titled: 'Pinter does not deserve the Nobel Prize - The only response to his Nobel rant (and does anyone doubt it will be a rant?) will be a long, long pause.' (Hari, The Independent, December 6, 2005)

It is significant that Hari described Pinter's speech as a "rant" before it had even been delivered - the label exists independently of the work, indeed of the author, in question. To subject power to serious, rational challenge is by definition to "rant". Hari commented:

"Ever since Pinter was a teenager, he has been relentlessly contrarian, kicking out violently against anything that might trigger his rage that day."

This is the standard, Soviet-style assertion that critics of power are afflicted by psychological disorder, with the concocted 'sins' of power randomly selected as a focus for neurotic ire.

Compare and contrast the above with a comparable dismissal in the Observer by Jay Rayner. The title of the article was 'Pinter of Discontent'. The subtitle read: 'Hated Pinochet; loathed Thatcher; doesn't like America; deplores Nato; is disgusted when his play doesn't get a West End run. Good old Harold - he's always bitching about something.' (Rayner, 'Pinter of discontent,' The Observer, May 16, 1999)

Rayner referred to Pinter's obsessive "bitching" nearly thirty times, using language like: "raging", "sound and fury", "growling", "outraged", "attacking", "hostility", "rowing", "ever ready to pick a fight", "yelling", "barracking", "fury" (again), "raging" (again).

Charles Spencer also pointed to the 'sickly' psychological roots of Pinter's politics:

"Right through his career, he has been fascinated by the relationship between victim and oppressor, the weak and the powerful, and his spare, clenched dialogue is full of insults, piss-takes and threats. From what one hears about Pinter the man, as opposed to Pinter the playwright, he's pretty good at menace in real life as well as on the stage." (Spencer, 'Happy birthday party for Harold Pinter,' Daily Telegraph, October 14, 2005)

Spencer lamented the influence of Pinter's "adolescent politics" on his plays.

A day later, Sam Leith also focused on Pinter's "menace" and rage:

"There has always been the permanent scowl; the finger-jabbing rage; the off-the-peg bohemianism of the uniform black polo-neck; the sense of vanity begging to be punctured." (Sam Leith, 'The childish urge to tease our greatest living playwright is much too delicious to resist,' Daily Telegraph, October 15, 2005)

One of us, David Edwards, has met Pinter several times. Below, we have provided a link to the full transcript of an interview Edwards conducted with Pinter in his London office in 1999. We invite readers to judge for themselves the truth of Pinter's "rabid", "barking", "adolescent" politics. Is he someone who "simply has nothing interesting to say"? Is he "as spare with logic as he once was with language"? Consider the claims of irrational rage, of extremist bile. Notice the rationality and precision of Pinter's political analysis. Notice the responses of one of the world's most famous writers - regularly denounced for his aggression and intolerance - to ideas and suggestions proposed by a younger and almost completely unknown writer.

To compare the above flood of insults and smears with what follows, we believe, is a revelation. To consider the robotically consistent nature of the smears - and how we find ourselves assuming that there must be something to them - reveals much about how freedom of expression is crushed in our society.

http://www.medialens.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4799#4799

Conclusion

It is a brutal fact of modern media and politics that honesty and sincerity are not rewarded, but instead heavily punished, by powerful interests with plenty at stake. It does not matter how often the likes of Pinter, Le Carré, Noam Chomsky and John Pilger are shown to be right. It does not matter how often the likes of Bush and Blair are shown to have lied in the cause of power and profits. The job of mainstream journalism is to learn nothing from the past, to treat rare individuals motivated by compassion as rare fools deserving contempt.

The benefits are clear enough: if even high-profile dissidents can be painted as wretched, sickly fools, then which reader or viewer would want to be associated with dissent? Then 'normal' - conforming, consuming, looking after 'number one' - can be made to seem healthy, balanced, sensible and sane. Historian Howard Zinn made the point well:

"Realism is seductive because once you have accepted the reasonable notion that you should base your actions on reality, you are too often led to accept, without much questioning, someone else's version of what that reality is. It is a crucial act of independent thinking to be sceptical of someone else's description of reality." (The Zinn Reader, Seven Stories Press, 1997, p.338)

The great task of propaganda is to make dissent seem unrealistic, embarrassing, and absurd.

It is worth considering the level of honesty of even those who buck this trend to some extent. Thus Mary Riddell commented in the Observer:

"On Wednesday morning, the finest living British playwright recorded, from his wheelchair, an acceptance speech for the greatest literary prize on earth. Anyone who wished to see an allusion to the talk, played in Sweden that day, would have searched BBC schedules in vain.

"He got no mention on either of the main television news programmes. Newsnight, voracious for culture, carried nothing. Pinter's speech would have been restricted to the satellite channel, More4, had Channel 4 not decided, at the last minute, to put out a midnight digest." (Ridell, 'Prophet without honour,' The Observer, December 11, 2005)

But Riddell was careful not to give the wrong impression to media colleagues and employers standing ready with their labels. She added on Pinter:

"He was disgraceful in his misreading of Slobodan Milosevic. The Stockholm speech included the puerile satire of Pinter at his worst."

Write to us at: editor@medialens.org

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Informant: Friends

Prof. Mohammed Yunus: "Grameen - eine Bank für Arme"

Lübbe Verlag, gebunden, 350 Seiten, 9,95 Euro

(ht) Einen bemerkenswerten Weg zur Beseitigung der vielerorts unsagbaren hygienischen, sozialen Lebensumstände beschreitet die vom Wirtschaftswissenschaftler Prof. Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh gegründete GRAMEEN-BANK (Grameen bedeutet übersetzt so viel wie "Dorf"). Mit Hilfe von Kleinstkrediten (ausschließlich) an Frauen, die Zusammenfassung von Kreditnehmern in solidarische Gruppen und unterstützende Schulungen hat diese Bank allein in Bangladesh bereits Millionen von Menschen einen Weg aus der allertiefsten Armut und Ausweglosigkeit gewiesen.

Die Grameen-Bank zeigt, dass Bankgeschäfte und soziale Verantwortung sich nicht unbedingt gegenseitig ausschließen müssen. Yunus beschreibt die Geschichte der Bank in seiner Biographie, die auch in deutsch unter dem Titel GRAMEEN - EINE BANK FÜR ARME erschienen ist.

Dieses Buch hat mich sehr bewegt, denn es zeigt einen Weg auf,
Menschen unter Wahrung ihrer Würde (!) effektiv zu helfen. Der
Autor lässt seine Leser an seinem Weg teilhaben: Die jahrelange
Suche nach einer gangbaren Lösung für die Menschen in den Slums
außerhalb des Universitätsgeländes und die Überwindung zahlreicher
Hindernisse. Vielleicht die wichtigste Botschaft des Buches: Der
Autor glaubt an das Gute im Menschen, an das Gute in den Kreditnehmern und die Rückzahlungsraten für nicht abgesicherte Kleinstkredite sind mit mehr als 98 % tatsächlich einfach phänomenal!

Leider war das Buch mehrere Jahre lang nicht lieferbar, da die
Restauflage vom Verlag nicht mehr angeboten wurde. Zusammen mit einigen Freunden hatte ich einen Teil dieser Restauflage aufgekauft, um das Buch wieder in Umlauf zu bringen. Es ist gebunden, hat einen schönen Schutzumschlag und ist eingeschweißt. Ursprünglich kostete es 42 DM, jetzt ist es zum Preis von 9,95 Euro erhältlich.

--> Weitere Infos:
http://www.tolzin.de/grameen.htm
http://www.grameen-info.org/ (englisch)

Bestellungen an: Neue Zeit Buchversand Joachim Rößger,
Bergstraße 5, 75245 Nussbaum, Tel. (0 72 37) 48 49 74
Fax (0 72 37) 48 49 73, neuezeitversand@yahoo.de


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

http://www.aerztezeitung.de/docs/2005/12/16/228a0204.asp?cat=/medizin/impfen


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

http://www.upi.com/ConsumerHealthDaily/view.php?StoryID=20051204-060313-6829r


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

http://www.kron-rolf.de/wolfrolf/Grippe_impfung.html


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/331/7529/1412
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/331/7529/1412#123609
http://www.healthday.com/view.cfm?id=529590


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-71613sy0dec04,0,6004666.story?coll=dp-widget-news


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

http://tinyurl.com/9aj9e

Mit Vogelgrippe infizierte Personen wurden wieder gesund
http://www.dieneueepoche.com/articles/2005/12/04/6870.html


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

Österreichische Radiosendung
http://vorarlberg.orf.at/magazin/klickpunkt/focus/stories/47750


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

http://www.thelancet.de/artikel/789289


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

http://www.impfkritik.de/forum/showthread.php?t=546


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

http://www.schweizerbauer.ch/htmls/artikel_7344.html


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

http://www.impfkritik.de/forum/showthread.php?t=544


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

Quelle: AEGIS Österreich, Email-Rundbrief vom 1.12.2005. http://www.aegis.at

Erstes Urteil gegen impfkritischen Arzt Berufsverbot gefordert. Urteil noch nicht rechtskräftig. Arzt geht in Berufung.

Dr. J. Loibner wurde am 29.11. 2005 auf Antrag des Disziplinaranwaltes von der Disziplinarkommission der Ärztekammer für Steiermark zu einer erschreckend hohen Strafe verurteilt. "Wegen seines Bemühens, Impfungen zu verhindern, bringe er die Gesundheit der Bevölkerung in Gefahr" argumentierte der Disziplinaranwalt. Um dieser Gefahr entgegen zu wirken, müsse eine exemplarische Strafe verhängt werden. Die Kommission schenkte dieser nicht zu beweisenden Behauptung Glauben und verhängte über J. Loibner ein Jahr Berufsverbot, bedingt auf 3 Jahre. In diesen 3 Jahren darf der disziplinarverurteilte Arzt keine kritische Äußerung bezüglich Schutzwirkung und Schäden durch Impfungen in der Öffentlichkeit äußern, sonst droht ihm ein weiterer Disziplinarprozess und endgültiges Berufsverbot. J. Loibner kündigte sofortige Berufung an, notfalls gehe er wie schon einmal mit Erfolg zum Verfassungsgerichtshof. Zweimal wurde er schon von derselben Behörde zu Unrecht verurteilt, jedes Mal wurde das Fehlurteil einmal in zweiter Instanz, ein anderes Mal vom Höchstgericht aufgehoben. Er vertritt die Meinung, dass ein höchst- gerichtliches Erkenntnis die Frage klären wird, ob Ärzte in Wissenschaft und Therapie autonom bleiben oder ob in Zukunft außermedizinische Gruppen bestimmen, was Ärzte zu meinen und zu tun haben. Er sieht dem Ausgang des Verfahrens mit Zuversicht entgegen. Es gibt kaum einen Juristen, der meint, dass dieses Urteil halten wird. Dr. J. Loibner sieht daher auch keinen Anlass sich einschüchtern zu lassen. Im Gegenteil, dieses Verfahren zeige auf, dass es an der Zeit ist, dass Ärzte ihre Position besser wahrnehmen und ihre Stellung in der Gesellschaft nicht billig preisgeben.

Ligist, 30.11. 2005

Dr. Johann Loibner

--> Pressemeldungen zum Thema Die Presse, Wien, 2.12.2005:
(mit sehr interessanten Diskussionsbeiträgen!)
http://www.diepresse.com/Artikel.aspx?channel=c&ressort=c&id=523753 ORF am 2.12.2005: http://steiermark.orf.at/stories/74105/


Aus: impf-report Newsletter Nr. 26/2005

The New Open Air Asylums

The Injustice of Corporate Profits by Pharma Companies and Mental Health 'Experts'

The Dangerous Practice of Prescription Drugs vrs Reality

Much ado is made about the increasing Mental Health problems and issues within the Western World. The following is a selection of sites that portray the Truth about the growing industry that is quite literally drugging the world for profit - and very little other good. It displays the immoral, unethical, uncaring, unthinking world of Corporate Profits and the complete lack of regard Profit Makers really have for man overall... what you don't know can kill you!

What is Mental Health - really?

Definitions of Mental health on the Web:

* the successful performance of mental function, resulting in productive activities, fulfilling relationships with other people and the ability to adapt to change and cope with adversity; from early childhood until late life, mental health is the springboard of thinking and communications skills, learning, emotional growth, resilience and self-esteem.

http://www.fountainhouse.org/moxie/resources/resources_glossary/index.shtml

* How a person thinks, feels, and acts when faced with life's situations. Mental health is how people look at themselves, their lives, and the other people in their lives; evaluate their challenges and problems; and explore choices. This includes handling stress, relating to other people, and making decisions.
http://www.dphilpotlaw.com/html/glossary.html

* A relatively enduring state of being in which an individual is reasonably satisfying to self, as reflected in his/her zest for living and feeling of self-realization. It also implies a large degree of adjustment to the social environment, as indicated by the satisfaction derived from interpersonal relationships, as well as achievements.
http://www.cmpmhmr.cog.pa.us/glossary.htm

* The capacity of an individual to form harmonious relations with his/her social and physical environment, and to achieve a balanced satisfaction of his/her own drives.
http://www.dph.state.ct.us/OPPE/sha99/glossary.htm

* The psychological condition of the mind.
http://www.century-health.com/glossary.asp

* Though many elements of mental health may be identifiable, the term is not easy to define. The meaning of being mentally healthy is subject to many interpretations rooted in value judgments, which may vary across cultures. Mental health should not be seen as the absence of illness, but more to do with a form of subjective well being, when individuals feel that they are coping, fairly in control of their lives, able to face challenges, and take on responsibility. ...
http://www.wfmh.org/wmhday/sec3_pt3_4_glossary.html

* Describes an appropriate balance between the individual, their social group, and the larger environment. These three components combine to promote psychological and social harmony, a sense of well being, self-actualization, and environmental mastery.
http://schizophrenia.atspace.org/glossary/

* the psychological state of someone who is functioning at a satisfactory level of emotional and behavioral adjustment.
http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

* A mental illness is a disorder of the brain that results in a disruption in a person's thinking, feeling, moods, and ability to relate to others. Mental illness is distinct from the legal concept of insanity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health

* Mental health, mental hygiene and mental wellness are all terms used to describe the absence of mental illness. By this definition, mental status has two possibilities: either health or illness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_health

How many Mental Health Patients are we REALLY looking at?

Mental Disorders in America Mental disorders are common in the United States and internationally. An estimated 22.1 percent of Americans ages 18 and older--about 1 in 5 adults--suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder in a given year. When applied to the 1998 U.S. Census residential population estimate, this figure translates to 44.3 million people. In addition, 4 of the 10 leading causes of disability in the U.S. and other developed countries are mental disorders--major depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Many people suffer from more than one mental disorder at a given time.
http://www.mhsource.com/resource/mh.html

* In 2003, an estimated 28 million adults received treatment for mental health problems in the 12 months prior to the interview. This estimate represents 13.2 percent of the population 18 years old or older and is unchanged from 2002.

* The most prevalent type of treatment in the adult population in 2003 was prescription medication (10.9 percent), followed by outpatient treatment (7.2 percent). An estimated 1.8 million adults ( 0.8 percent) were hospitalized for mental health problems at some time within the past 12 months.

* Among racial/ethnic groups, the rates of treatment for adults in 2003 were highest for those reporting two or more races (17.5 percent) and next highest for whites (15.3 percent). Other groups reported much lower rates of treatment ( 8.5 percent for blacks, 8.0 percent for Hispanics, and 4.9 percent for Asians). Among Asians, the overall treatment rate and the rate of outpatient treatment dropped from 2002 to 2003 (overall: 8.5 to 4.9 percent; outpatient: 6.7 to 3.1 percent).

* Adults in families receiving government assistance were more likely to receive treatment for mental health problems in 2003 (19.3 percent) than adults in unassisted families ( 12.3 percent). Adults in assisted families also were more likely than those in unassisted families to receive inpatient treatment, outpatient treatment, or prescription medication.

* Among the 5.5 million adults who did not receive treatment but perceived an unmet need for treatment in the past year, the following were the five most commonly reported reasons for not receiving treatment: cost or insurance issues ( 45.1 percent), not feeling a need for treatment (at the time) or thinking the problem could be handled without treatment (40.6 percent), not knowing where to go for services (22.9 percent), perceived stigma associated with receiving treatment ( 22.8 percent), and did not have time (18.1 percent). Less commonly reported reasons were "treatment would not help" (10.3 percent), "fear of being committed or having to take medicine" (7.2 percent), and reasons relating to access barriers other than cost ( 3.7 percent)

* In 2003, an estimated 5.1 million youths aged 12 to 17 received treatment or counseling for emotional or behavior problems in the year prior to the interview. This represents 20.6 percent of this population and is higher than the 2002 estimate of 4.8 million (19.3 percent)

* Among the 5.1 million youths receiving treatment in 2003, the most commonly reported sources were school counselors, school psychologists, or teachers (48.0 percent), as well as private therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, or counselors ( 46.1 percent). An estimated 467,000 youths, or 9.1 percent of those receiving treatment, were hospitalized for treatment of mental health problems.
http://www.oas.samhsa.gov/nhsda/2k3nsduh/2k3Results.htm#fig8.2

Top Ten Myths about Mental Illness

Myth #1: Psychiatric disorders are not true medical illnesses like heart disease and diabetes. People who have a mental illness are just "crazy." Fact: Brain disorders, like heart disease and diabetes, are legitimate medical illnesses. Research shows there are genetic and biological causes for psychiatric disorders, and they can be treated effectively.

Myth #2: People with a severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia, are usually dangerous and violent. Fact: Statistics show that the incidence of violence in people who have a brain disorder is not much higher than it is in the general population. Those suffering from a psychosis such as schizophrenia are more often frightened, confused and despairing than violent.

Myth #3: Mental illness is the result of bad parenting. Fact:Most experts agree that a genetic susceptibility, combined with other risk factors, leads to a psychiatric disorder. In other words, mental illnesses have a physical cause.

Myth #4: Depression results from a personality weakness or character flaw, and people who are depressed could just snap out of it if they tried hard enough. Fact: Depression has nothing to do with being lazy or weak. It results from changes in brain chemistry or brain function, and medication and/or psychotherapy often help people to recover.

Myth #5: Schizophrenia means split personality, and there is no way to control it. Fact:Schizophrenia is often confused with multiple personality disorder. Actually, schizophrenia is a brain disorder that robs people of their ability to think clearly and logically. The estimated 2.5 million Americans with schizophrenia have symptoms ranging from social withdrawal to hallucinations and delusions. Medication has helped many of these individuals to lead fulfilling, productive lives.

Myth #6: Depression is a normal part of the aging process. Fact:It is not normal for older adults to be depressed. Signs of depression in older people include loss of interest in activities, sleep disturbances and lethargy. Depression in the elderly is often undiagnosed, and it is important for seniors and their family members to recognize the problem and seek professional help.

Myth #7: Depression and other illnesses, such as anxiety disorders, do not affect children or adolescents. Any problems they have are just a part of growing up. Fact: Children and adolescents can develop severe mental illnesses. In the United States, one in ten children and adolescents has a mental disorder severe enough to cause impairment. However, only about 20 percent of these children receive needed treatment. Left untreated, these problems can get worse. Anyone talking about suicide should be taken very seriously.

Myth #8: If you have a mental illness, you can will it away. Being treated for a psychiatric disorder means an individual has in some way "failed" or is weak. Fact:A serious mental illness cannot be willed away. Ignoring the problem does not make it go away, either. It takes courage to seek professional help.

Myth #9: Addiction is a lifestyle choice and shows a lack of willpower. People with a substance abuse problem are morally weak or "bad". Fact: Addiction is a disease that generally results from changes in brain chemistry. It has nothing to do with being a "bad" person.

Myth #10: Electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), formerly known as "shock treatment," is painful and barbaric. Fact:ECT has given a new lease on life to many people who suffer from severe and debilitating depression. It is used when other treatments such as psychotherapy or medication fail or cannot be used. Patients who receive ECT are asleep and under anesthesia, so they do not feel anything. "These misconceptions can do irreparable harm to people with legitimate illnesses who should and can be treated," said Herbert Pardes, M.D., President of NARSAD's Scientific Council. "Research in brain disorders is flourishing, and we expect to see new and better treatments that will have the power to change lives and bring hope to many," said Lieber. In Harms Way: Suicide in America Suicide is a tragic and potentially preventable public health problem. In 2000, suicide was the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S. 1 Specifically, 10.6 out of every 100,000 persons died by suicide. The total number of suicides was 29,350, or 1.2 percent of all deaths. Suicide deaths outnumber homicide deaths by five to three. It has been estimated that there may be from 8 to 25 attempted suicides per every suicide death. 2 The alarming numbers of suicide deaths and attempts emphasize the need for carefully designed prevention efforts.
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/harmaway.cfm

UNSTABLE MINDS

Although he was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic over a decade ago, the family of Russell Weston Jr., the man accused of killing two police officers at the U.S. Capitol, never thought he was capable of violence. Elizabeth Farnsworth leads a discussion on what people should know about this mental illness.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec98/weston_7-27.html

Insanity on Trial? Mental Health Courts? Old News - what happened to that idea? In November 2000, U.S. President Bill Clinton signed into law America's Law Enforcement and Mental Health Project , a bipartisan bill introduced into Congress by two Ohio legislators -- Rep. Ted Strickland, a Democrat, and Sen. Mike DeWine, a Republican. The bill, which amended the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 to authorize the creation of 100 pilot mental health courts, was introduced just months after the Justice Department released a report indicating that fully 16 percent of those incarcerated in the nation's prisons and jails have been identified as mentally ill.

(3) estimates say 25 to 40 percent of America's mentally ill will come into contact with the criminal justice system, according to National Alliance for the Mentally Ill;
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c106:S.1865.ENR:

And today:

Mental Health Courts Mental Health Courts Program ( FY 2006 Call for Concept Papers) How To Apply in Grants.gov

Overview: The Bureau of Justice Assistance, in coordination with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration , is administering the Mental Health Courts Program. This program will fund projects that seek to mobilize communities to implement innovative, collaborative efforts that bring systemwide improvements to the way the needs of adult and juvenile offenders with mental disabilities or illnesses are addressed.
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/grant/mentalhealth.html

The Medications make you feel better - right? Mental Health Parity: Opening The Door To Patient Abuse, Deaths, Fraud

LOS ANGELES: The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR), a 33-year psychiatric watchdog, says that if unlimited mandated mental health parity is passed, there will be more widespread patient abuse and fraud. Already, the mental health industry defrauds the government up to $ 40 billion per year; between 1950 and 1990, the total number of inpatient deaths exceeded the number of Americans killed in 10 wars, including World Wars I and II, and the Vietnam and Korean Wars; today, there are up to 150 restraint deaths per year in psychiatric institutions and, as The New York Times exposed this week, 960 people died between 1995 and 2001 in New York group homes for the mentally ill—all without accountability. http://www.cchr.org/index.cfm/8165 Older mental health drugs risky for elderly: Anti-psychotic medications nearly double the risk of death, FDA warns: BOSTON - Older drugs designed to treat mental problems such as delirium, agitation and psychosis may be even more hazardous to the elderly than newer medicines that carry U.S. government warnings, a study showed on Wednesday.The Food and Drug Administration warned in April that newer "atypical" anti-psychotic medicines such as Johnson & Johnson's Risperdal and Eli Lilly & Co.'s Zyprexa nearly doubled the risk of death in elderly people with dementia. The study said those warnings should have been extended to older drugs such Haldol and Thorazine, available in generic form, because they posed a risk of death that was 37 percent higher than the atypical drugs.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10270033/

Canadian Regulators Withdraw ADD Drug Linked to 20 Sudden Deaths: Canadian regulators - but not the FDA - have withdrawn a Adderall, a pssychostimulant drug prescribed for children with so-called ADHD that has been linked to 20 sudden deaths linked to the drug - of which 14 were in children. "The adverse reactions were not associated with overdose, misuse or abuse of the drug, the department said."
http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/05/02/10a.php

Bush To Impose Psychiatric Drug Regime: Plans to screen whole US population for mental illness. According to a recent article in the British Medical Journal, US president George Bush is to announce a major "mental health" initiative in this coming month of July. The proposal will extend screening and psychiatric medication to kids and grown-ups all over the US, following a pilot scheme of recommended medication practice developed in Texas and already exported to several other states.
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2004/06/23/bush_to_impose_psychiatric_drug_regime.htm Executive Summary : The work of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health is a key component of President George W. Bush's New Freedom Initiative. In its final report to the President, the Commission called for nothing short of fundamental transformation of the mental health care delivery system in the United States-from one dictated by outmoded bureaucratic and financial incentives to one driven by consumer and family needs that focuses on building resilience and facilitating recovery. The following Federal Mental Health Action Agenda articulates specifi c, actionable objectives for the initiation of a long-term strategy designed to move the Nation's public and private mental health service delivery systems toward the day when all adults with serious mental illnesses and all children with serious emotional disturbances will live, work, learn, and participate fully in their communities.
http://www.samhsa.gov/Federalac tionagenda/NFC_execsum.aspx

Revised mental health bill fails to persuade patients or professionals: Lynn Eaton LondonThe latest government attempts to win over detractors of the controversial mental health bill, first proposed in 2002 but later withdrawn for redrafting after an outcry over its contents, seem to have failed at the first hurdle. When health minister Rosie Winterton launched the revised bill last week professionals and patients' groups protested that the changes still didn't go far enough.
http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/329/7467/640-a

The Medications are safe though - they have to be to get through the FDA, don't they?

Any medication can have side effects, which might be mild in one person or more pronounced in another. As an example, according to its manufacturer Eli Lilly and Company, "the side effects that people taking Prozac experience most include nausea, difficulty sleeping, drowsiness, anxiety, nervousness, weakness, loss of appetite, tremors, dry mouth, sweating, decreased sex drive, impotence, and/or yawning."
http://www.helpguide.org/mental/medications_depression.htm

FDA Public Health Advisory: Suicidality in Adults Being Treated with Antidepressant Medications Several recent scientific publications suggest the possibility of an increased risk for suicidal behavior in adults who are being treated with antidepressant medications. Even before these reports became available, the FDA began a complete review of all available data to determine whether there is an increased risk of suicidality (suicidal thinking or behavior) in adults being treated with antidepressant medications. It is expected that this review will take a year or longer to complete. In the meantime, FDA is highlighting that:

* Adults being treated with antidepressant medications, particularly those being treated for depression, should be watched closely for worsening of depression and for increased suicidal thinking or behavior. Close watching may be especially important early in treatment, or when the dose is changed, either increased or decreased.

* Adults whose symptoms worsen while being treated with antidepressant drugs, including an increase in suicidal thinking or behavior, should be evaluated by their health care professional.
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/advisory/SSRI200507.htm

FDA Public Health Advisory: Suicidality in Children and Adolescents Being Treated With Antidepressant Medications The risk of suicidality for these drugs was identified in a combined analysis of short-term (up to 4 months) placebo-controlled trials of nine antidepressant drugs, including the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and others, in children and adolescents with major depressive disorder (MDD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), or other psychiatric disorders. A total of 24 trials involving over 4400 patients were included. The analysis showed a greater risk of suicidality during the first few months of treatment in those receiving antidepressants. The average risk of such events on drug was 4%, twice the placebo risk of 2%. No suicides occurred in these trials. Based on these data, FDA has determined that the following points are appropriate for inclusion in the boxed warning: None of the drugs is approved for other psychiatric indications in children.
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/antidepressants/SSRIPHA200410.htm

A Note of Caution About Psychiatric Medications for Symptoms of Depression By Jeanne Segal Ph.D. I am a psychologist whose profession makes liberal use of antidepressant and other psychiatric medications for treating symptoms of depression and depressive disorders. I am also a mother who lost a cherished daughter to suicide after she became dependent on the use of antidepressant medications. When our eldest daughter, Morgan Leslie Segal, graduated from college in 1991, she was a healthy, active young woman who traveled independently all over the world. However, issues with shyness coupled with a desire to gain greater self-assurance led her into therapy with a licensed psychologist. Six months later, following a devastating break from a man she adored, she was given antipsychotic medication to help her cope with her grief. She later became depressed and was given a popular antidepressant concurrently.
http://www.jeannesegal.com/alternatives_depression/meds_depression_caution.htm

VA'S LACK OF ATTENTION TO MENTAL HEALTH CARE FOR VETERANS SPURS ACTION FROM SENATE VETERANS' COMMITTEE

2002 Issues of the Day: -Rockefeller Says That VA Must Make Mental Health Care a Priority-

WASHINGTON, D.C.– Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, expressed his concern today regarding the lack of attention the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is giving to mental health care for veterans. At a committee hearing this morning, Rockefeller emphasized the importance of making mental health care a priority, as well as his concerns that veterans with mental illness may not be getting the treatment they need.

"So often we forget that long after visible battle wounds are healed, many veterans continue to suffer, not physically, but mentally," Rockefeller said. "We need to make sure that VA is doing everything possible to guarantee that each and every veteran who needs mental health care is receiving that care, whether it is in West Virginia, Nebraska or Arkansas."

Over the past year, VA has treated over 700,000 veterans in speciality mental health services, with more than 455,000 of them suffering from service-connected mental illness. In West Virginia, approximately 1 in 5 patients seen in VA medical centers last year were treated for mental health disorders. Even though the statistics back up the high demand for mental health care, VA has reduced mental health care spending by 23 percent since 1996.
http://rockefeller.senate.gov/news/2002/pr072402c.htm

And....... 2005's Issues of the Day for the Veterans: December 11, 2005

Bush's VA Healthcare Budget a Recipe for Disaster

Republicans call it an increase – Vets' groups call it a "shell game" – Cuts in services and more vets add up to a VA healthcare crisis

by Larry Scott -- VA Watchdog dot Org

http://www.vawatchdog.org/milcom/bushsvahealthcarebudgetarecipefordis...

On November 30, President Bush signed the "Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2006." Much was said about the military and little was said about veterans. The President's only mention of veterans in his 474-word statement was, "The Act also provides funds to support the medical care and other needs of our Nation's veterans."

Why the deliberate lack of attention to the healthcare budget for the Department of Veterans' Affairs (VA)? Because it is a cause of great embarrassment to the Bush administration. This VA healthcare budget is such political bad news that the Bush appointees who run the veterans' agency won't even comment on it. Numerous requests for interviews have been met with, "No one is available."

Mental Health Issues are growing across the Western World, a new industry has been spawned and a whole new generation of 'professionally prescribed victims' birthed. The ones who really need the help to adjust - the Veterans, the homeless, the ones stuck in poverty have access to limited, socialised facilities and are frequently not warned of the potential side effects of the drugs prescribed. Often the Doctor is unaware of the side effects...

Given the rising rate of Mental Health and other adjustment issues within the returning Veterans, the figures above can only rise and continue to rise as the lack of support and real treatment continues to ripple through a whole community - from down time at work through personal issues through to extreme domestic violence, the community will pay the price of allowing these issues to be swept away while the chase for Bush Inc continues without let up...

The sheer number of 'new cases' per year suggests that Society itself is under duress, and at breaking point... it is estimated that approximately 25% of the Western populations are medicated for some Mental Health issue or another - and the rate of medicated children is rising... either our parenting skills are failing or our genes are mutating and turning out 'children with issues...' in ever increasing numbers annually... this alone should be concerning every level of society - they won't get any younger, they will become adults and given free will ... if a higher and higher per capita number of children per year suffer some form of 'behavioral or mental health issue...' - why isn't the question being asked: What are we doing to our kids to make them like this?

The issues are returning home every day in our Veterans - the injured ones obviously in need of support and help but those looking perfectly normal on the outside finding none available to help them adjust to the whole 'coming home' experience... while the population flay the Bush Inc Administration for its lies and deceptions and 'mistakes' - they seem to forget that the Servicemen saw their brethren die for those same lies, deceptions and mistakes and that is a great travesty against the valor of those men and women who went in uniform in the name of their Homelands Freedoms...

We expected them to follow orders and do their 'job' and 'defend the ideals' of the Homelands abroad - but they come home and they find that the Leaders are under fire, their support groups significantly and severely underfunded, the people in turmoil and the World standing mute and moot as the saga unfolds in the USA and when they speak out against this disaster and call for Truth and Justice and a restoration of Honor, they are met with little true support from the very Peoples they proposed to protect the ongoing security of...

How many of the returning Veterans from either war must commit suicide, or even more devastating - lose their mental control and kill their families - before they are given what they were promised as Soldiers for their Nations?

How many of them must stand and watch the People bleating platitudes at them and their alleged 'Job Description' - while they watch the President who sent them to War admit he ignored the very document they are sworn to protect - before the People themselves see them as humans, not just 'Soldiers'?

What would you want for your son or daughter, sent to a War that is proving to be contrived and deliberate and brutally unJustified - who stood in the Military Uniform of their Homelands, who took up arms in the name of their Homelands ongoing freedoms and liberties? Would you want them to be underfunded and not get the support that they were promised from the Nation as they put on that uniform?

It's not the Militarys Job Description to fight personal wars on behalf of greedy cartels who wrestle themselves into power over the People, the Homeland and the Resources of the Armed Services. Unless the Western World now openly has Armies for Hire - there is no Justified reason that the Veterans are unable to find the support they need - increasingly so as they take in the Truth of this War they fought in... and the People who they were allegedly fighting to protect!

http://www.lophatham.com

From Lo Phat Ham Forums

It would favor peace over war, trade over sanctions, courtesy over arrogance, and liberty over coercion. Article by Ron Paul.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul294.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig6/douglas5.html

--------

Victims of Creeping Fascism

By Charles Sullivan

Easily misled by false idols intoxicated with power and driven by insatiable greed, we are witnessing nothing less astonishing than the demise of the American experiment. Dreams of democracy, justice, peace and hope are receding into the dim recesses of ever more distant memory. We see them morphing into an Orwellian nightmare of monstrous proportions that promises to pursue us to our graves.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11341.htm

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3811/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

http://www.ucar.edu/news/releases/2005/permafrost.shtml


Informant: NHNE

Last Thursday I was arrested, with 18 others, in the Bangor office of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME). Pat Wheeler (Deer Isle) and I were the only two of our group to actually get into the office. The others had to sit in the hallway outside the door. (See photos at this link of us inside the office.) (More photos here - high resolution images available upon request)

http://www.paxchristimaine.org/SnoweEvent/index.html

We first had a rally outside the office where over 75 people listened to speakers. Near the end of the rally one of our folks read a letter to Snowe that called on her to publicly admit she had been lied to about the war; to stop the funding for the war; to bring the troops home now; and to declare that the war in Iraq is over. We also asked for a public town hall meeting to discuss the war. Over 450 people around the state had signed the letter.

A representative from the senators office was invited to respond and she began reading what turned out to be a November 22 letter from the senator that once again justified the Iraq war. (Our letter had been sent to the senator in advance so she could specifically comment on it. She did not address any of our concerns.)

As the senator's letter was being read I went up to the third floor office to check things out. I quickly discovered that the door had been locked and they did not intend on letting any of us into their office following the outside rally. Soon enough one of the senators staffers flew up the stairs, knocked on the door, and when his fellow staffers opened the door to let him in I stuck my foot in the door to keep it open. This move obviously was not greeted with great joy by the staffer and he told me that they'd let us into the office in a few minutes. I told him I was not born yesterday. I kept pressing my foot harder, pushing the door open bit by bit, and I was soon joined at the door by Pat Wheeler. We eased our way into the office and the staff quickly slammed the door shut and locked it. Soon about 50 of the folks from outside made their way up the stairs, followed by media people, and they began knocking on the door wanting in. The head of Snowe's office, Gail Kelly, kept yelling at us, "You are not going to take over my office" and then went to the door, opened it just a bit, and began yelling at the folks in the hallway that they had to leave. They did not leave and sat down and began singing.

Inside the office Pat and I took turns trying to communicate with the staff. It was not long before the police arrived to guard the door on the inside to make sure more of our group did not come into the office. Pat read a letter from a GI killed in Iraq, his last letter to his family. I read a speech by my hero Eugene Debs from June 16, 1918 when he spoke out against WW I. Debs was arrested and prosecuted under the Sedition Act for interfering with the draft and got a 10-year prison sentence and loss of his U.S. citizenship. (He ended up serving 2 years and 8 months in jail.)

Pat and I also joined in singing with the group outside the door and watched through the glass as more police arrived and began arresting the folks in the hallway. By 4:00 pm Pat and I decided to go out into the hallway and join the last of the group being arrested and we too handcuffed and taken to the Penobscott county jail. We had to pay a $40 bail bond and were all out by 7:00 pm. We have a January 20 arraignment in Bangor.

I went home with fellow jail-bird Dud Hendrick who lives on Deer Isle. I stayed with him and his wife Jean and then was joined by my partner Mary Beth on Saturday. Several others came as well and we had a wonderful gathering at the home of Pat Wheeler where she had us do an art project together and then we spent Sunday morning strategizing our next moves. We ended the meeting with a three-mile walk along the beautiful rocky coastline and then headed back home.

All in all it was an action-packed and moving few days. It was an honor to be in the midst of such great folks and I can say with confidence that we will not give up the important effort to end this illegal and immoral war in Iraq.

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space PO Box 652 Brunswick, ME 04011
(207) 729-0517 globalnet@mindspring.com
http://www.space4peace.org



http://space4peace.blogspot.com (Our blog)

Vladimir Bukovsky: So, why would democratically elected leaders of the United States ever want to legalize what a succession of Russian monarchs strove to abolish? Why would anyone try to "improve intelligence-gathering capability" by destroying what was left of it? I have no answer to these questions, but I do know that if Vice President Cheney is right and that some "cruel, inhumane or degrading" (CID) treatment of captives is a necessary tool for winning the war on terrorism, then the war is lost already.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121905H.shtml

On the normal scale of democratic values, setting wiretaps to spy on one's fellow citizens without a green light from the judiciary is not the most virtuous behavior; revealing the existence of such wiretaps is performance of an act of public health. But President Bush has decided to set this scale on its head and asks us to "trust me on spying."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121905C.shtml

Accounts from detainees at Guantánamo reveal that the United States as recently as last year operated a secret prison in Afghanistan where detainees were subjected to torture and other mistreatment, Human Rights Watch said.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121905B.shtml

OpEd News
by David Sirota

12/18/05

In the last 72 hours since the revelation that President Bush ordered illegal domestic surveillance operations, we have seen how the Republican spin machine has mastered the art of turning any and all controversies into questions of national security. You know the drill: those who are criticizing Bush's orders are billed as weak, soft on national security, or against domestic efforts to stop terrorism. Meanwhile, Bush is portrayed as the tough fighter of terrorism, willing to make the tough choices to defend America's national security. In short, his crimes are portrayed as badges of honor. There's just one problem: this isn't a question of whether America supports domestic surveillance operations against terrorists or not. This is a question of whether America supports those operations without requiring a warrant...

http://tinyurl.com/79xsh


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

12/16/05

It has been decades since legislatures have struck out daringly in some new and uncharted territory of social and economic management. For the most part, in the US, Europe, Russia, China, and Latin America, legislatures are constantly at work reforming the systems they created in the past rather than embarking on totally new ventures. And what are they working to reform? Sectors of governance that are not operating as they should due to dislocations, expense, perceived violations of fairness or some other consideration...

http://www.mises.org/story/1987


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Human Events
by Robert Novak

12/19/05

The House International Relations Committee last Thursday voted 24 to 19 to send to the House floor, 'without recommendation,' a resolution requiring President Bush to turn over documents relating to 16 words in his 2003 State of the Union Address. That actually killed the resolution. But the dead can rise again in Congress, and this corpse will. Thursday's vote marked the ninth time that Democrats had brought this matter before the International Relations Committee without success, and it will not be the last time. Democrats are obsessed with the president's 16 words on Jan. 28, 2003, that reported British intelligence saying Iraq sought uranium from Africa. This is the cutting edge of the Democratic contention that George W. Bush lied his country into war...

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=10977


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The Price of Liberty
by Lady Liberty

12/19/05

In George Orwell's classic '1984,' Big Brother was the personification of Big Government. He was always there to protect citizens and to steer them in the 'right' direction 'for their own good.' To maintain the status quo (i.e. government as the ultimate authority), Orwell's Big Brother did everything from rewriting history and redefining language to engaging in constant prophylactic surveillance of citizens on the streets and in their homes. In the world of '1984,' thorough records were kept on each and every citizen, and paranoia and fear alone ensured that Big Brother's control was absolute even when his technological eyes might randomly be turned elsewhere. Those few who dared rail against such things were re-educated using tools ranging from mere propaganda to outright torture. Is it any wonder, then, that more and more people are talking about Big Brother these days? If redefining words or rewriting history is 'Big Brotherish,' we must take note of recent developments...

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/05/12/19/ladylib.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/001736.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Naming names

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

12/19/05

Crime, as a popular American saying goes, does not pay. The criminals are eventually caught, exposed -- and made to pay the price. The only question is how much damage they can do in the interim. The damage to Iraq, and to the volatile situation in the Middle East, is considerable. We won't know for many years how many Iraqis died -- the United States military, while it keeps a count of its own war dead, doesn't bother counting dead Iraqis. We don't know the extent of the bombing -- except that it is being kept a secret. ... What we are facing is a conspiracy against humanity, a cabal motivated by an idea that is criminal in itself, and which consists of the assertion that the United States must run the world – for 'our own good,' of course. But that is what every tyrant and would-be conqueror has asserted in the past ...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8241


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

WorldNetDaily
by Vox Day

12/19/05

America was founded on the principle that it is right to sacrifice blood for liberty. It is telling that the Bush defenders make precisely the opposite argument, that it is right to sacrifice liberty in order to avoid the shedding of American blood. In this they are, like the Dear Leader, avowedly anti-American. That George Bush is in open and repeated violation of his oath to uphold and defend the Constitution is no longer debatable. In keeping with his many anti-constitutional actions, he has publicly declared that he has no way of knowing what is, and what is not constitutional...

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47970


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Detroit Free Press

12/17/05

Facing angry criticism and challenges to his authority in Congress, President Bush on Saturday unapologetically defended his administration's right to conduct secret post-Sept. 11 spying in the United States as 'critical to saving American lives.' Bush said congressional leaders had been briefed on the operation more than a dozen times. That included Democrats as well as Republicans in the House and Senate, a GOP lawmaker said. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said she had been told on several occasions that Bush had authorized unspecified activities by the National Security Agency, the nation's largest spy agency...

http://tinyurl.com/b2yfw


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Houston Chronicle

12/18/05

House Republican leaders worked late tonight on a bill that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in northern Alaska to oil and gas exploration. The GOP leaders had to quell a rebellion of moderate Republicans to pass a Defense Department spending bill that included language that would grant energy companies access to what's believed to be the largest, untapped oil deposit left onshore in the United States. The real battle could come this week over in the Senate, where Democrats have vowed to try to strip the drilling language from the legislation...

http://tinyurl.com/adkc6


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

USA Today

12/18/05

Republican congressional leaders agreed to trim deficits by $41.6 billion and sought to unlock the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling Sunday in a frenzied year-end bid to enact the core of a conservative agenda. 'We're going to move the nation's business' through Congress, vowed Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. But Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid accused the GOP of breaking Senate rules to suit their purposes, and threatened to slow action to a crawl. 'The arrogance of power of the Republicans ... is beyond my ability to comprehend,' he said....

http://tinyurl.com/dq6ks


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Las Vegas Review-Journal

12/18/05

The United States operated a secret prison in Afghanistan as recently as last year, torturing detainees with sleep deprivation, chaining them to the walls and forcing them to listen to loud music in total darkness for days, a human rights group alleged Monday. The prison was run near Kabul, Afghanistan's capital, New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report based on the accounts of several detainees at the U.S. prison for suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay...

http://tinyurl.com/732qn


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

CNN

12/18/05

Democratic House leaders called Sunday for an independent panel to investigate the legality of a program President Bush authorized that allows warrantless wiretaps on U.S. citizens, according to a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert. 'We believe that the President must have the best possible intelligence to protect the American people, but that intelligence must be produced in a manner consistent with our Constitution and our laws, and in a manner that reflects our values as a nation,' the letter says...

http://tinyurl.com/9cc3p


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

CNet

12/16/05

Handing a stiff rebuke to President Bush, the U.S. Senate on Friday refused to end the filibuster that is blocking a four-year extension of the Patriot Act. In a 52-to-47 vote, the Senate failed to reach the 60-person majority required to cut off a filibuster and force a vote on the Republican-backed extension of the portions of the controversial law that are set to expire on Dec. 31. The vote makes it more likely that lawmakers will enact an alternate proposal, backed by critics of the Patriot Act, that would extend those 16 sections for only three months. That would yield additional time for negotiations when senators return from their holiday vacation in January...

http://tinyurl.com/ajrlw


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Anbei der Artikel von Martin Runge in der aktualisierten Fassung.

http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/runge_beitrag_mf_esmog_politik_dez05.doc


Ursula Gessner

Mitarbeiterin Dr. Martin Runge, MdL

Vorsitzender des Ausschusses für Bundes- und Europaangelegenheiten, wirtschaftspolitischer Sprecher sowie Sprecher des Arbeitskreises Ökonomie und Ökologie von

BÜNDNIS 90/DIE GRÜNEN im Bayerischen Landtag, Medienrat
Maximilianeum
81627 München
Tel. 089/4126-2753
Fax 089/4126-1135

http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/ap/2005/12/18/ap2400133.html


Informant: Ted Glick

From ufpj-news

by John Prados, TomPaine.com

Bush is backed into a corner as a tsunami of evidence shows he lied to America.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051219/no_room_to_spin.php

by Aziz Huq, TomPaine.com

Congress should ask why the president ignored laws that protect Americans from government eavesdropping.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051219/license_to_spy.php

Without a serious leap of imagination, particularly with the list of those under surveillance not available to anyone outside the NSA and the Pentagon, it is also possible to project that political critics of the Bush administration could end up among those being tracked. The idea that all of this is being done to us in the name of national security doesn't wash; that is the language of a police state.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121905L.shtml

From a standoff over the Patriot Act to pushback from Capitol Hill on the treatment of detainees, secret prisons abroad, and government eavesdropping at home, tensions between the Bush White House and the Republican-controlled Congress have never been more exposed.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121905J.shtml

Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, is a three-year-old agency whose size and budget remain secret. It has grown from an agency that coordinated policy and oversaw the counterintelligence activities of units within the military services and Pentagon agencies to an analytic and operational organization with nine directorates and ever-widening authority.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121905I.shtml

Environmental concerns in Israel

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=95010

Annual Report Documents Increased Environmental Concerns
13:52 Dec 18, ‘05 / 17 Kislev 5766

(IsraelNN.com) An annual environmental study presented to President Moshe Katsav paints a discouraging picture regarding environmental realities.

The report states that a growing number of Israelis no longer trust the integrity of tap water and 72% of the population drinks bottled water. The study also points to growing concerns pertaining to the alarming increase in the placement of unauthorized cellular telephone antennas around the country due to health hazards associated with the antennas‚ electromagnetic emissions.

The report also cites the bleak realities surrounding the bottle deposit law, stating that most bottles are not recycled and the program has been a failure since its inception.

Environmentalists speak of an overall deteriorating state regarding the national environment, calling for more aggressive policies to protect natural resources.

Supplied by Sylvie

http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=351

THE BUSINESS OF VOTING

New York Times
December 18, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/18/opinion/18sun2.html

Diebold, the controversial electronic voting machine manufacturer, is coming off a tumultuous week. Its chief executive, Walden O'Dell, resigned. It was hit with a pair of class-action lawsuits charging insider trading and misrepresentation, and a county in Florida concluded that Diebold's voting machines could be hacked. The company should use Mr. O'Dell's departure to reassess its flawed approach to its business. The counting of votes is a public trust. Diebold, whose machines count many votes, has never acted as if it understood this.

Mr. O'Dell made national headlines when he wrote a fund-raising letter before the 2004 election expressing his commitment to help deliver the electoral votes of Ohio -- where Diebold is based, and where its machines are used -- to President Bush. Under pressure, Diebold barred its top officials from contributing to campaigns. But this month, The Plain Dealer in Cleveland reported that three executives not covered by the ban continued to make contributions to Republican candidates.

Diebold's voting machines have a troubled history. The company was accused of installing improperly certified software, which is illegal, in a 2002 governor's race in Georgia. Across the country, it reached a multimillion-dollar settlement with the California attorney general last year of a lawsuit alleging that it made false claims about the security of its machines. Last week, the top elections officer in Leon County, Fla., which includes Tallahassee, concluded after a test that Diebold machines can be hacked to change vote totals.

Diebold has always insisted that its electronic voting machines are so reliable that there is no need for paper records of votes that can be independently verified. Fortunately, the American people feel otherwise. Nearly half the states -- including large ones like California, New York, Illinois and Ohio -- now require so-called paper trails.

Paper trails are important, but they are no substitute for voting machine manufacturers of unquestioned integrity. As Diebold enters the post-O'Dell era, it should work to make itself worthy of the important role it now plays in American democracy.

-----------

COUNTY SAYS ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES CAN BE HACKED Associated Press December 15, 2005

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-12-15-opticalvoting_x.htm

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - Tests on an optical-scan voting system used around the country showed it is vulnerable to hacking that can change the outcome of races without leaving evidence of fraud, a county election supervisor said. The voting system maker, Diebold Inc., sent a letter in response that questioned the test results and said the test was "a very foolish and irresponsible act" that may violated licensing agreements.

Company spokesman David Bear did not return a phone call from The Associated Press seeking comment Thursday. Diebold's letter was written by its senior lawyer, Michael Lindroos, and sent to the state of Florida, Leon County and the county election supervisor, Ion Sancho.

Optical-scan machines use paper ballots where voters fill in bubbles to mark their candidates. The ballots are then fed into scanners that record the selections.

In one of the tests conducted for Sancho and the non-profit election-monitoring group BlackBoxVoting.org, the researchers were able to get into the system easily, make the loser the winner and leave without a trace, said Herbert Thompson, who conducted the test.

He also said the machine that tabulates the overall count asked for a user name and password, but didn't require it.

In the other test, the researcher who had hacked into the voting machine's memory card was able to hide votes, make losers out of winners and leave no trace of the changes, said BlackBox founder Bev Harris. The memory card records the votes of one machine, then is taken to a central location where results are totaled.

Sancho criticized the Florida Secretary of State's Office, which approves the voting systems used in the state, for not catching the alleged problems.

A spokeswoman for the secretary of state's office said any faults Sancho found were between him and Diebold.

"If Ion Sancho has security concerns with his system, he needs to discuss them with Diebold," spokeswoman Jenny Nash said.

The Miami Herald reported Thursday that Sancho scraped Leon's Diebold machines this week for a voting system from another manufacturer.

Many Florida counties switched to computer-based elections systems after the 2000 presidential election, when the cardboard punchcard ballots then in use were plagued by incomplete and multiple punches.

------------

EXCLUSIVE: SECURITIES FRAUD LITIGATION FILED AGAINST DIEBOLD, INC!

EIGHT CURRENT AND FORMER EXECUTIVES NAMED AS CO-DEFENDANTS, INCLUDING FORMER CEO O'DELL AND NEW CEO SWIDARSKI

CLASS ACTION SUIT ALLEGES FRAUD, INSIDER TRADING, MANIPULATION OF STOCK PRICES, CONCEALMENT OF KNOWN FLAWS IN VOTING MACHINES AND COMPANY STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS

By Brad Freidman BradBlog December 13, 2005

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002153.htm

The BRAD BLOG can now report that a Securities Fraud Class Action suit has been filed against Diebold, Inc. naming eight top executive officers in the company as co-defendants. The suit has been filed by plaintiff Janice Konkol, alleging securities fraud against the North Canton, Ohio-based manufacturer of Voting Systems and ATM machines on behalf of investors who owned shares of Diebold stock and lost money due to an alleged fraudulent scheme by the company and its executives to deceive shareholders during the "class period" of October 22, 2003 through September 21, 2005.

The suit was filed today in U.S. Federal District Court in Ohio and alleges the company "artificially inflated" stock prices through misleading public information designed to conceal the true nature of Diebold's financial and legal situation. The defendants are also alleged to have attempted to disguise well-known and ongoing problems with Diebold's Voting Machine equipment and software. Additionally, the suit alleges insider trading by defendants resulting in proceeds of $2.7 million. Remedies are sought under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

The suit, filed by the law firm Scott+Scott, LLC on behalf of Konkol and the plaintiff class, names former Diebold CEO and Chairman, Walden O'Dell as a co-defendant along with seven other current and former officers of the once-venerable company.

News of the pending litigation was first reported as imminent in an exclusive report by The BRAD BLOG late last week.

Yesterday, in a surprise announcement, O'Dell unexpectedly resigned from the company. A Diebold press release described O'Dell as leaving the company for "personal reasons". He was immediately replaced by the company's president and chief operating officer, Thomas W. Swidarski, who had directly overseen Diebold's Election Systems subsidiary division for some time. Swidarski is also named as a co-defendant in today's class action suit.

After news was released of weaker-than-expected third-quarter earnings on September 21, Diebold stock prices plummeted 15.5% in unusually heavy trading that resulted in a one day sell-off costing investors more than $40 million dollars. The complaint describes Diebold and the co-defendants as having "failed to disclose adverse facts known" to the company and that they "participated in a fraudulent scheme and course of business that operated as a fraud."

The suit, to be released in full by The BRAD BLOG shortly, (UPDATE: Full suit now available for download here) alleges Diebold and the eight co-defendants failed to alert investors to adverse facts known to the company, choosing instead to participate in a "fraudulent scheme and course of business" that operated as a fraud or deceit on the company's shareholders.

The suit describes the liabilities of the company and co-defendants as follows:

"Each defendant is liable for (a) making false statements, or (b) failing to disclose adverse facts known to him about Diebold. Defendants¹ fraudulent scheme and course of business that operated as a fraud or deceit on purchasers of Diebold publicly traded securities was a success, as it (a) deceived the investing public regarding Diebold¹s prospects and business;
(b) artificially inflated the prices of Diebold¹s publicly traded securities; (c) allowed insiders to sell over 51,000 shares of Diebold stock, for proceeds of $2.7 million; and (d) caused plaintiff and other members of the Class to purchase Diebold¹s publicly traded securities at inflated prices."

THE DEFENDANTS

Named as co-defendants in the suit along with former CEO O'Dell and new CEO Swidarski are President of International Operations, Michael J. Hillock; Senior Vice President of Customer Solutions, David Bucci; Interim Chief Financial Officer, Principal Accounting Officer and Controller, Kevin J. Krakora; Vice President and Chief Information Officer, John M. Crowther; Senior Vice President and CFO, Gregory T. Geswein; and President and COO, Eric C. Evans. (Titles applied to the named co-defendants during the class period. Evans, for example resigned from the company on the same day as the Sep. 21, 2005 announcement.) "Each individual defendant," the suit points out, "owed a duty to the Company and its shareholders not to trade on inside information."

The claim cites a number of allegedly misleading news releases pertaining to the fitness and security of election systems as contracted by Diebold in San Diego County in 2003; their settlement for $2.6 million with the state of California in 2004, wherein Diebold is alleged to have concealed "the dimensions and scope of internal problems at the Company" from investors; and an "astonishingly low and incredibly inaccurate" statement about "restructuring charges" in the Sep. 21 announcement.

Once again, quoting from the lawsuit:

"During the Class Period, defendants knew and concealed that:

"(a) the Company remained unable to assure the quality and working order of their voting machine products;

"(b) the Company lacked a credible state of internal controls and corporate compliance;

"(c) the 2004 settlement with the State of California served to conceal from investors the dimensions and scope of internal problems at the Company, impacting product quality, strategic planning, forecasting, guidance, internal controls and corporate compliance; and

"(d) the Company¹s "prediction" of astonishingly low and incredibly inaccurate restructuring charges for the entire 2005 fiscal year grossly understated the true costs defendants faced to restructure the Company.

The complaint alleges that the company lied to investors about the true costs of its restructuring activities, concealing the fact that Diebold was facing far worse restructuring issues than publicly represented -- indicative of far greater problems than the company was willing to reveal.

For example, the complaint indicates that the problems Diebold faced in California in 2004 were merely the tip of an internal structural iceberg which the company had sought to conceal from investors when they decided to make a settlement in the case. Investors could not know then that the problems revealed by the California litigation in 2004 were a sign of more and deeper internal problems to come. The settlement agreed to by Diebold in that case, the suit alleges, was meant to keep a lid on the larger dimensions of the problems, rather than indicating that the issues at stake had been fully resolved. Press materials released by the company announcing the settlement -- and included in the version of the complaint filed today -- seem to indicate otherwise to investors.

...THE INSIDER...

Additional facets of the company's internal structural problems were revealed in a series of previous BRAD BLOG articles reporting on an anonymous company insider we dubbed "DIEB-THROAT" who alerted us to the "Cyber Alert Warning" issued by a branch of the Dept. of Homeland Security in August of 2004. That warning concerned the vulnerability to hackers of Diebold's central vote tabulating software prior to last year's Presidential Election. The election watchdog organization BlackBoxVoting.org, who had first discovered the vulnerability, had also recently arranged for a computer security expert to successfully hack into actual Diebold voting machines used in Leon County, Florida without leaving any trace of the manipulation.

It was just several days after our first report on DIEB-THROAT that stock prices plunged at the company in September. Diebold attempted to blame their troubles, at the time, on bad weather in the gulf which lead our insider source to aver: "Using Hurricane Katrina is a poor excuse for bad products -- the last time this kind of deception occurred it was called Enron."

Internet news site, The RAW STORY recently ran their own interview with DIEB-THROAT revealing still more structural problems within the company and its voting division. The report explained that the company was "plagued by technical woes," even as a Diebold spokesperson claimed the 144-year old company "has a sterling reputation in the industry."

...THE PLAINTIFF...

Plaintiff Konkol, a just-retired 29-year public school employee from Central Wisconsin first invested in Diebold in 1999. She told The BRAD BLOG that she purchased the stock thinking, "ATM's that'd be the way to go." She originally invested $500 which eventually grew to $1400 before falling. She is also invested in Diebold via mutual funds held by the Wisconsin Education Union in which she is a member. Konkol, a 56-year old grandmother of three, recently returned from two weeks of volunteering on the Gulf Coast with several members of her Lutheran church. "We got a big group together and we went down to the Gulf to help out in Katrina."

"I believe in churches...I believe we should practice what we're preached to about," she told us. "I don't like it when big companies take advantage of us little people," she said. "I can't say that I'm anti-big business...I just want things to be fair."

It appears that Scott+Scott, the attorneys associated with the case, are just beginning to learn about the full scope of the fraud allegedly perpetrated by Diebold on investors. Amended complaints with additional details are expected to be filed in the weeks and months to come. Other law firms are also expected to file similar suits which will eventually be consolidated by the Federal District Court hearing the case. Indeed The BRAD BLOG has been contacted since filing our original report on this last week, by other firms who are said to be pursuing similar litigation against Diebold.

...THE REFORMERS...

As one of America's largest Voting Machine Companies (along with ES&S, they account for the tabulation of more than 80% of America's votes every election) Diebold has been the target of Election Reform advocates for their strong partisan support of Republican causes and candidates, a statement made prior to last year's Presidential Election to Republican fundraisers by O'Dell that he was committed to "delivering the state of Ohio" to George W. Bush, along with their reluctance to include verifiable paper ballots with their voting products and to make the source-code for their software open and available for public inspection.

A recent 100+ page GAO report, shamefully unreported by the mainstream media, confirmed many of the Election Reform advocates concerns about the security and vulnerability of Voting Equipment made by Diebold and other such companies. In California, a recent mock election test revealed that some 20% of Diebold touch-screen voting machines failed to operate as expected after being previous decertified for similar failures and vulnerabilities. Despite that, California's Republican Sec. of State Bruce McPherson remarkably is considering re-certifying those same machines in the state which Diebold has described as America's "largest voting market."

Diebold was one of seven major American Voting Machine companies named in Velvet Revolution's "Divestiture for Democracy" campaign launched on Presidents' Day last February. The campaign demanded accountability and openness by the Voting Machine Companies in what Velvet Revolution deemed a "patriotic duty" to "ensure free, fair and transparent elections" by the private companies entrusted with running our sacred public democracy. The BRAD BLOG is a co-founder of VelvetRevolution.us.

Konkol's complaint as filed today demands "a trial by jury."

The BRAD BLOG will of course, compile an extensive, accurate and verifiable paper trail in regards to this story as it continues to unfold...

UPDATE: Scott+Scott, LLC releases news of the case filing in a press release here:
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/051213/netu036.html?.v=32

FURTHER UPDATE: Reuters picks up the story http://tinyurl.com/7g4xz . Unable to get comment from Diebold.

UPDATE 12/14/05: A full copy of the complaint is now available for download here: http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002158.htm

------------

DEVASTATING HACK PROVEN - LEON COUNTY DUMPS DIEBOLD Black Box Voting December 13, 2005 Updated December 16, 2005

http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/1954/15595.html

Volusia County (FL) joins Leon in dumping Diebold. Due to contractual non-performance and security design issues, Leon County (Florida) supervisor of elections Ion Sancho has announced that he will never again use Diebold in an election. He has requested funds to replace the Diebold system from the county. On Tuesday, the most serious ³hack² demonstration to date took place in Leon County. The Diebold machines succumbed quickly to alteration of the votes. This comes on the heels of the resignation of Diebold CEO Wally O'Dell, and the announcement that stockholder's class action suits and related actions have been filed against Diebold by four separate law firms. Further ³hack² testing on additional vulnerabilities is tentatively scheduled before Christmas in the state of California.

Finnish security expert Harri Hursti, together with Black Box Voting, demonstrated that Diebold made misrepresentations to Secretaries of State across the nation when Diebold claimed votes could not be changed on the ³memory card² (the credit-card-sized ballot box used by computerized voting machines.

A test election was run in Leon County on Tuesday with a total of eight ballots. Six ballots voted "no" on a ballot question as to whether Diebold voting machines can be hacked or not. Two ballots, cast by Dr. Herbert Thompson and by Harri Hursti voted "yes" indicating a belief that the Diebold machines could be hacked.

At the beginning of the test election the memory card programmed by Harri Hursti was inserted into an Optical Scan Diebold voting machine. A "zero report" was run indicating zero votes on the memory card. In fact, however, Hursti had pre-loaded the memory card with plus and minus votes.

The eight ballots were run through the optical scan machine. The standard Diebold-supplied "ender card" was run through as is normal procedure ending the election. A results tape was run from the voting machine.

Correct results should have been: Yes:2 ; No:6

However, just as Hursti had planned, the results tape read: Yes:7 ; No:1

The results were then uploaded from the optical scan voting machine into the GEMS central tabulator, a step cited by Diebold as a protection against memory card hacking. The central tabulator is the "mother ship" that pulls in all votes from voting machines. However, the GEMS central tabulator failed to notice that the voting machines had been hacked. The results in the central tabulator read:

Yes:7 ; No:1

This videotaped testing session was witnessed by Black Box Voting investigators Bev Harris and Kathleen Wynne, Florida Fair Elections Coalition Director Susan Pynchon, security expert Dr. Herbert Thompson, and Susan Bernecker, a former candidate for New Orleans city council who videotaped Sequoia-brand touch-screen voting machines in her district recording vote after vote for the wrong candidate.

The Hursti Hack requires a moderate level of inside access. It is, however, accomplished without being given any password and with the same level of access given thousands of poll workers across the USA. It is a particularly dangerous exploit, because it changes votes in a one-step process that will not be detected in any normal canvassing procedure, it requires only a single a credit-card sized memory card, any single individual with access to the memory cards can do it, and it requires only a small piece of equipment which can be purchased off the Internet for a few hundred dollars.

One thousand two hundred locations in the U.S. and Canada use Diebold voting machines. In each of these locations, typically three people have a high level of inside access. Temporary employees also often have brief access to loose memory cards as machines are being prepared for elections. Poll workers sometimes have a very high level of inside access. National elections utilize up to two million poll workers, with hundreds or thousands in a single jurisdiction.

Many locations in the U.S. ask poll workers to take voting machines home with them with the memory cards inside. San Diego County (Calif) sent 713 voting machines/memory cards home with poll workers for its July 26 election, and King County (Wash.) sent over 500 voting machines home with poll workers before its Nov. 8 election.

Memory cards are held in a compartment protected by a small plastic seal. However, these simple seals can be defeated, and Hursti has found evidence that the memory card can be reprogrammed without disturbing the seal by using a telephone modem port on the back of the machine.

The Hursti Hack, referred to as ³the mother of all security holes² was first exposed in a formal report on July 4:

http://www.blackboxvoting.org/BBVreport.pdf

Diebold has insisted to county and state election officials that despite Hursti¹s demonstration, changing votes on its memory cards is impossible. (Public records from Diebold, including threat letter to Ion Sancho:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/10535.html )

On Oct. 17, 2005 Diebold Elections Systems Research and Development chief Pat Green specifically told the Cuyahoga County (Ohio) board of elections during a $21 million purchasing session that votes cannot be changed using only a memory card. (Video of Pat Green:
http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/2197/14298.html ) Over the objections of Cuyahoga County citizens, and relying on the veracity of Diebold¹s statements, the board has chosen to purchase the machines.

According to Public Records obtained by Black Box Voting, Diebold has promulgated misrepresentations about both the Hursti Hack and another kind of hack by Dr. Herbert Thompson to secretaries of state, and to as many as 800 state and local elections officials.

Stockholder suit filed by the law offices of Stull, Stull & Brady and also by Scott and Scott.

Stull Stull & Brady lawsuit:
http://www.bbvforums.org/cgi-bin/forums/board-auth.cgi?file=/8/15603.html

and:

http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002153.htm

Diebold CEO resigns:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=175001748

............

VOLUSIA COUNTY DUMPS DIEBOLD TOO Orlando Sentinel

DELAND -- Diebold voting machines will soon be history in Volusia County. After a nearly five-hour hearing today, County Council members voted to replace its Diebold machines with an entirely new system manufactured by Election Systems & Software.

The move, which will cost more than $2.5 million just for the equipment, was prompted by a federal mandate to buy at least one handicapped-accessible voting machine per precinct by Jan. 1. But the only such devices approved for use in Florida are ATM-like touch-screen machines that don't use paper ballots. But a majority of County Council members want devices that use paper.

The agreement approved Friday on a 4-3 vote allows the county to trade in the paperless touch screens for an ES&S-supported ballot-marking device with an accessible touch-screen called AutoMark if it gets approved for use in Florida. That would cost an additional $150,000.

If AutoMark certification doesn't happen by April 1, the county has the option to get out of the entire contract with ES&S and get a full refund.

Chairman Frank Bruno, Art Giles, Carl Persis and Dwight Lewis voted for the ES&S contract. Council members Joie Alexander, Bill Long and Dwight Lewis opposed it.

The vote ends a nearly year-old debate in Volusia County about how to comply with the federal Help America Vote Act, which mandates accessible voting devices.


Informant: NHNE

Take Action -- URGENT!!

Arctic Refuge Drilling Added to Unrelated Defense Bill -- Your Calls Still Needed

Last night pro-drilling members of Congress took the outrageous step of adding Arctic Refuge drilling to the unrelated appropriations bill that provides funds for the Department of Defense and relief for the states suffering from hurricane Katrina. The House leadership then pushed the bill, with Arctic Refuge drilling added, through the House of Representatives.

The bill now goes to the Senate. Please call your Senator immediately and let them know that they should do everything in their power to remove Arctic drilling provisions from the Defense Appropriations bill so that it can be passed.

Talking points are below. Phone calls are urgently needed. Even if you have never called Congress before, we ask you to do so today. And if you've called in the last few days, please do so again -- and then ask your friends and family to make calls as well.

The U.S. Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121, or you can look up your direct phone numbers for your Senators at:

http://action.wilderness.org/wilderness/leg-lookup/search.tcl

This maneuver, made on the brink of a holiday recess, is evidence that pro-drilling forces will go to any lengths to pass their controversial pet projects. They are willing to complicate the passage of funding for our troops and for hurricane relief to further their personal agenda.

The Senate can quickly call a halt to this pre-holiday brinksmanship and ensure passage of defense and hurricane relief funds by voting to reject the addition of Arctic Refuge drilling to this bill. There are likely to be several votes in the next few days that provide the opportunity to take the arctic drilling provisions out and move the defense and hurricane relief funding provisions expeditiously.

Talking Points for calls to your Senators:

If you've never called before, it's easy. You'll either leave a message with a staff member, or on a voice message machine. Some points to make:

* It is outrageous that Arctic Refuge drilling has been slipped into the defense appropriations bill. This kind of legislative action is the height of cynicism and bad politics. Major national policy priorities must not be hijacked for the sake of personal political agendas.

* Drilling proponents have shown time and again that they are willing to do or say anything to get their hands on the Arctic Refuge. Nevertheless, this takes them to a new low. It would be particularly tragic if one of our last wild places were sacrificed through such an unprincipled ploy.

* A vote to remove the arctic drilling provision does not threaten funding for the troops, but rather is a vote to move defense funding quickly and in the normal course of business.

* Please do everything in your power to remove this provision from the defense bill and show your constituents that these cynical, last minute maneuvers are not the way the Senate does business.

THANK YOU!!!


The Wilderness Society is a non-profit organization dedicated to conserving American wilderness. Our mission is to ensure that future generations will enjoy the clean air and water, wildlife, beauty, and opportunity for recreation and renewal provided by pristine forests, rivers, deserts, and mountains.

Bush-Regierung hat nach dem 11.9. die Überwachung der US-Bürger drastisch und teilweise heimlich ausgebaut, "watch lists" scheint es nicht nur für mutmaßliche Terrorverdächtige, darunter Friedensaktivisten, zu geben, sondern auch für Bücher.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/21/21603/1.html Die

This morning the House passed its version of the defense spending bill with an attached provision opening the Arctic Refuge to oil drilling. The bill also included $29 billion in aid for victims of Katrina and was considered "must pass" legislation. Alaska Senator Ted Stevens hopes to duplicate this feat in the Senate before the Christmas break. Stevens said: "the levees will be paid for when we drill in ANWR." Sen. McCain called the tactic "disgusting," but he will still hold his nose and vote for the package. "I can't not support funding of the war," he said.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121905Y.shtml

http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/schutz_vor_dect_telephonie_ip_nationalrat.doc

--------

DECT - Gesundheitsschäden durch DECT-Telefone
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/322063/

Grundschleppnetze: Greenpeace prangert "illegale Fischfangflotte" im Rostocker Hafen an (19.12.05)

Greenpeace-Aktivisten kennzeichneten am Montag im Rostocker Hafen fünf Fischtrawler als "illegal". Die Umweltschützer beschrifteten den Rumpf der rund sechzig Meter langen Schiffe und forderten die Bundesregierung auf, "die Piratenfischer" festzulegen. Der Grund für die Aktion: Im Hafen von Rostock werden nach Darstellung der Umweltschutzorganisation die Trawler derzeit fit für die nächste Saison gemacht, obwohl die Europäische Union und internationale Fischereiorganisationen sie als illegale Fischer gelistet hätten. "Die Trawler halten sich seit Jahren nicht an internationale Fischereiabkommen und zerstören mit ihren Grundschleppnetzen die Fischbestände und die Unterwasserwelt im Atlantik", so Greenpeace.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:
http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=12542

19.12.05

Mehrere Bundesländer zahlen Sozialhilfeempfängern in Heimen nach Angaben der Arbeiterwohlfahrt (AWO) dieses Jahr keine Weihnachtsbeihilfe. Nach Informationen der AWO gilt dies für die Länder Bremen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Baden-Württemberg, Hessen und in Oberbayern. Bislang erhielten Heimbewohner, die ein sogenanntes Taschengeld von 90 Euro im Monat für ihre persönlichen Bedürfnisse erhalten, zusätzlich eine einmalige Weihnachtsbeihilfe zwischen 30 und 35 Euro. Mit diesem Geld sollten den Heimbewohnern zusätzliche Ausgaben zu den Feiertagen ermöglicht werden, etwa Weihnachtspost, Telefonate oder Festtagsdekoration.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:
http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=12547

Kritik an Herstellern: Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz empfiehlt strahlungsarme Handys (19.12.05)

Handy-Käufer sollten beim Kauf eines Mobiltelefons unbedingt auf einen möglichst niedrigen Strahlungswert achten. Dies empfiehlt das Bundesamt für Strahlenschutz (BfS). Besonders wenn ein Kind oder Jugendlicher Empfänger des Telefons werden solle, sei dies wichtig, so die Behörde. Das Bundesamt stellt in seinem Internet-Angebot eine Liste mit den Strahlungswerten (SAR-Werten) vieler aktueller Mobiltelefone zur Verfügung. BfS-Sprecher Arthur Junkert forderte die Hersteller auf, die SAR-Werte anzugeben und strahlungsarme Handys mit dem Blauen Engel zu kennzeichnen. Doch leider boykottiere die Industrie das Umweltzeichen.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:
http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=12545

By boycotting US products, we want to put pressure on the US government to join the international community, complying with the rules of the United Nations and international law. With the military attack and invasion of Iraq in March 2003 the US acted as a rogue state.

Today more than ever US companies seem to have a major impact on the policy of the US administration. The US government policy has increasingly been marked by arrogance and self-interest:

We demand that the US:

Withdraw all forces of foreign military occupation from Iraq and respect the sovereignty of the Iraqi people, as well as their right to compensation for damage caused by the economic sanctions and Gulf Wars I & II;

Refrain from acts of aggression against other sovereign states and any nation or people;

Recognise the competence of the International Criminal Court to prosecute war criminals;

Stop the use of double standards! The US uses weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as an excuse for going to war, while it continues to maintain and develop its own massive stockpiles of WMDs (see following Treaties & graphic above);

Abandon their 'Star Wars' project (Ballistic Missile Defence) & reinstate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty;

Ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to ban nuclear weapon tests, respect the Non-Proliferation Treaty to stop the arms race, and move towards a Treaty for complete nuclear disarmament;

Ratify the Biological Weapons Convention Protocol, strengthen the Chemical Weapons Convention and ratify the Landmine Treaty;

Adopt the Kyoto protocol to stop global warming;

Stop forcing the hazardous use of GMOs (genetically modified food and farming) on the rest of the world;

Ratify the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the first global health and corporate accountability treaty.

The unilateral policies of the US must stop now and all US troops must leave Iraq immediately.

As consumers we do not want our money to be used to fuel wars, environmental destruction and human-rights violations.

This list has been set up to spread news on the boycott campaign to people have signed the pledge to boycott US products

http://www.motherearth.org/USboycott/

More info on the For Mother Earth website.

William Rivers Pitt writes: In my opinion, we need to fight, resist, refuse to subsidize Washington in every way, and we must immediately begin impeachment proceedings against this president, not only because he has clearly earned impeachment, but in order to revive a national awareness of the intent of the Founding Fathers to circumscribe centralized state power, and their vision of a free and peaceful Republic.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121905Z.shtml



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,391212,00.html

(SPON) Wie bekannt wurde, hat das Pentagon versucht, die öffentliche Meinung im Irak zu manipulieren durch bezahlte Artikel in Bagdader Zeitungen.

Darüber hinaus ist eine Imagekampagne geplant, um das Bild der US-Politik im Ausland zu verbessern: mit Methoden der psychologischen Kriegsführung.


G.Wendebourg / metainfo hamburg

Link zum Beitrag / Hintergrundinfo oder Pressehinweis:
http://www.hh-online.com?lid=23215 und
http://links.net-hh.de?lid=23215


Infopool / metainfo hamburg www.hh-online.com

19 Décembre 2005
http://www.next-up.org/main.php?param=international#31

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/dec2005/bush-d19.shtml


Informant: Friends

http://www.zeppscommentaries.com/VRWC/nytimes.htm


Informant: Friends

Published on Sunday, December 18, 2005
by the Los Angeles Times
Editorial

President Bush was cavalier on Friday night when he told Jim Lehrer on PBS that a report about the National Security Agency eavesdropping on U.S. citizens was "not the main story of the day." He is entitled to his own news judgment, but it reveals a lot about his willingness to disregard constitutional safeguards and civil liberties while pursuing the war on terrorism. To the rest of us, the revelation in the New York Times that the National Security Agency has been eavesdropping on people within the United States without judicial warrants was stunning. In one of the more egregious cases of governmental overreach in the aftermath of 9/11, Bush secretly authorized the monitoring, without any judicial oversight, of international phone calls and e-mail messages from the United States.

The news came on the same day that Congress voted not to extend controversial aspects of the soon-to-expire Patriot Act, and on the heels of disturbing reports that the Pentagon's shadowy Counterintelligence Field Activity office has been keeping tabs on domestic antiwar groups, including monitoring Quaker meetings, under the guise of protecting military installations. The program is reminiscent of official efforts to spy on antiwar groups in the 1960s.

The scandalous abuse of Americans' civil liberties in that period led in the 1970s to a new set of laws aimed at curtailing domestic espionage by intelligence agencies. To balance national security needs with our constitutional liberties, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act created secret "FISA" courts in which the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other federal agencies can covertly obtain warrants to eavesdrop on suspected spies (now terrorists too) in the United States. These courts are generally efficient and deferential to the government. Yet the Bush administration still opted to cut them out of the process in some cases; warrants are still sought to intercept all communications that took place entirely within the United States.

Some critics say the FISA courts are too slow to issue decisions in an environment in which every minute counts, and that Cold War laws are ill-suited for a war on amorphous terrorist cells. If that's the case, the administration and Congress should have worked together to alter the courts' procedures or to amend the law. Instead, the White House unilaterally opted to exempt much of its antiterrorism efforts from any kind of judicial oversight — just as it tried doing with its policies regarding detainees.

The Supreme Court has already reined in the executive branch on that score, and the NSA's eavesdropping, arguably a violation of both the law and the Constitution, may lead to even greater legal woes for the president. Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, called reports of the NSA practices clearly unacceptable and said he would hold hearings early next year. There will be plenty to ask about.

One early defense of the program is a claim by the administration that it had to be implemented quietly — the president authorized it in a classified order — because otherwise terrorists would be alerted to its existence and work to evade it. But those same suspected terrorists would have already known that they might be wiretapped with the aid of a secret warrant. What is the difference?

Last week may come to be seen as a tipping point in the public's attitude, one that will cause the administration to reverse its encroachment on rights in the name of security. The report of the NSA's unsupervised eavesdropping program helped defeat an extension of certain controversial provisions of the Patriot Act in the Senate on Friday.

Now even sympathetic lawmakers can be expected to view the Patriot Act more skeptically. The revelations about the NSA raise two fundamental questions about the administration's rationale for increased powers: If it's already spying on its own citizens, then why does it need the Patriot Act? Alternatively, if it's already spying on its own citizens, how can it be trusted with the Patriot Act? This administration has yet to fully acknowledge that with greater powers must come greater accountability.

As for the Defense Department's counterterrorism database, the Pentagon was forced on Thursday to acknowledge that it hadn't followed its own guidelines requiring the deletion of information on American citizens who clearly don't pose a security risk. Imagine that: a domestic military intelligence program that failed to abide by its own safeguards.

Given this administration's history, none of these developments is especially surprising. But the latest revelations may serve as a timely reminder of why the American constitutional system requires the judiciary — the third branch of government — to review the actions of the executive branch when necessary to protect the people's liberty.

Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times


Informant: John Calvert

Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
By JASON LEOPOLD

http://www.counterpunch.org/leopold12172005.html


Informant: Martin Greenhut

critics say
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/politics/content/state/epaper/2005/12/19/c1a_whistle_1219.html


Informant: Teresa Binstock

World Trade Organisation (WTO) officials released a draft text Saturday of the meeting's final outcome pact, although disagreements among the group's 149 member countries - most sharply between the richest and poorest - could still scuttle the document. Aileen Kwa of Focus on the Global South, a project of development policy research, anlaysis and activism is interviewed about her perspectives on the 44-page draft.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121805G.shtml

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful's nonprofit.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121805F.shtml

The Texas judge hearing a campaign- finance abuse case against former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said he won't yet rule on one of DeLay's motions, dealing a setback to the lawmaker's bid for a quick resolution of the case. So far Delay has denied wrongdoing and sought a quick trial so that he can have the chance to reclaim his majority leader position.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121805E.shtml

Matthew Rothschild discusses the recent report that Rumsfeld’s Pentagon is tracking lawful protests.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121805D.shtml

A senior at UMass Dartmouth was visited by federal agents two months ago, after he requested a copy of Mao Tse-Tung's tome on Communism called "The Little Red Book." He was visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said. The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121805C.shtml

After a series of embarrassing disclosures, including the existence of secret US prisons abroad, the CIA's detention overseas of innocent foreign nationals, and, last week, the discovery that the military has been engaged in domestic spying, Congress is reconsidering its relatively lenient oversight of the Bush administration.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121805B.shtml

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks of how the Bush administration has finally been pressured into backing a ban on cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners. He says what remains shocking about this embarrassing and distasteful national debate is that we had to have it at all.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/121805A.shtml

(NEW BOOK) "The Republican War on Science" by Chris Mooney

December 18, 2005

'The Republican War on Science,'
by Chris Mooney

Political Science Review
by JOHN HORGAN

Last spring, a magazine asked me to look into a whistleblower case involving a United States Fish and Wildlife Service biologist named Andy Eller. Eller, a veteran of 18 years with the service, was fired after he publicly charged it with failing to protect the Florida panther from voracious development. One of the first species listed under the Endangered Species Act, the panther haunts southwest Florida's forests, which builders are transforming into gated golf communities. After several weeks of interviews, I wrote an article that called the service's treatment of Eller "shameful" - and emblematic of the Bush administration's treatment of scientists who interfere with its probusiness agenda.

My editor complained that the piece was too "one-sided"; I needed to show more sympathy to Eller's superiors in the Wildlife Service and to the Bush administration. I knew what the editor meant: the story I had written could be dismissed as just another anti-Bush diatribe; it would be more persuasive if it appeared more balanced. On the other hand, the reality was one-sided, to a startling degree. An ardent conservationist, Eller had dreamed of working for the Wildlife Service since his youth; he collected first editions of environmental classics like Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring." The officials who fired him based their denial that the panther is threatened in part on data provided by a former state wildlife scientist who had since become a consultant for developers seeking to bulldoze panther habitat. The officials were clearly acting in the spirit of their overseer, Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton, a property-rights advocate who has questioned the constitutionality of aspects of the Endangered Species Act.

This episode makes me more sympathetic than I might otherwise have been to "The Republican War on Science" by the journalist Chris Mooney. As the title indicates, Mooney's book is a diatribe, from start to finish. The prose is often clunky and clichéd, and it suffers from smug, preaching-to-the-choir self-righteousness. But Mooney deserves a hearing in spite of these flaws, because he addresses a vitally important topic and gets it basically right.

Mooney charges George Bush and other conservative Republicans with "science abuse," which he defines as "any attempt to inappropriately undermine, alter or otherwise interfere with the scientific process, or scientific conclusions, for political or ideological reasons." Science abuse is not an exclusively right-wing sin, Mooney acknowledges. He condemns Greenpeace for exaggerating the risks of genetically modified "Frankenfoods," animal-rights groups for dismissing the medical benefits of research on animals and John Kerry
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/john_kerry/index.html?inline=nyt-per

or overstating the potential of stem cells during his presidential run.

In "politicized fights involving science, it is rare to find liberals entirely innocent of abuses," Mooney asserts. "But they are almost never as guilty as the Right." By "the Right," Mooney means the powerful alliance of conservative Christians - who seek to influence policies on abortion, stem cells, sexual conduct and the teaching of evolution - and advocates of free enterprise who attempt to minimize regulations that cut into corporate profits. The champion of both groups - and the chief villain of Mooney's book - is President Bush, whom Mooney accuses of having "politicized science to an unprecedented degree."

Some might quibble with "unprecedented." When I starting covering science in the early 1980's, Ronald Reagan

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/ronald_wilson_reagan/index.html?inline=nyt-per

was pushing for a space-based defense against nuclear missiles, called Star Wars, that a chorus of scientists dismissed as technically unfeasible. Reagan stalled on acknowledging the dangers of acid rain and the buildup of ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons in the atmosphere. Warming the hearts of his religious fans, Reagan voiced doubts about the theory of evolution, and he urged C. Everett Koop, the surgeon general, to investigate whether abortion harms women physically and emotionally. (Koop, though an ardent opponent of abortion, refused.) Mooney notes this history but argues that the current administration has imposed its will on scientific debates in a more systematic fashion, and he cites a slew of cases - including the Florida panther affair - to back up his claim.

One simple strategy involves filling federal positions on the basis of ideology rather than genuine expertise. Last year, the White House expelled the eminent cell biologist Elizabeth Blackburn, a proponent of embryonic stem-cell research, from the President's Council on Bioethics and installed a political scientist who had once declared, "Every embryo for research is someone's blood relative." And in 2002 the administration appointed the Kentucky gynecologist and obstetrician W. David Hager to the Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee of the Food and Drug Administration. Hager has advocated treating premenstrual syndrome with Bible readings and has denounced the birth control pill.

In addition to these widely reported incidents, Mooney divulges others of which I was unaware. In 2003 the World Health Organization and Food and Agricultural Organization (W.H.O./F.A.O.), citing concerns about rising levels of obesity-related disease, released a report that recommended limits on the intake of fat and sugar. The recommendations reflected the consensus of an international coalition of experts. The Sugar Association, the Grocery Manufacturers of America and other food industry groups attacked the recommendations.

William R. Steiger, an official in the Department of Health and Human Services, then wrote to W.H.O.'s director general to complain about the dietary report. Echoing the criticism of the industry groups, Steiger questioned the W.H.O. report's linkage of obesity and other disorders to foods containing high levels of sugar and fat, and he suggested that the report should have placed more emphasis on "personal responsibility." Steiger later informed the W.H.O. that henceforth only scientists approved by his office would be allowed to serve on the organization's committees.

In similar fashion, the Bush administration has sought to control the debate over climate change, biodiversity, contraception, drug abuse, air and water pollution, missile defense and other issues that bear on the welfare of humans and the rest of nature. What galls Mooney most is that administration officials and other conservative Republicans claim that they are guided by reason and respect for "sound science," whereas their opponents are ideologues peddling "junk science."

In the most original section of his book, Mooney credits "Big Tobacco" with inventing and refining this Orwellian tactic. After the surgeon general's office released its landmark 1964 report linking smoking to cancer and other diseases, the tobacco industry sought to discredit the report with its own experts and studies. "Doubt is our product," declared a 1969 Brown & Williamson memo spelling out the strategy, "since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the mind of the general public."

After the E.P.A. released a report on the dangers of secondhand smoke in 1992, the Tobacco Institute berated the agency for preferring "political correctness over sound science." Within a year Philip Morris helped to create a group called The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition (Tassc), which challenged the risks not only of secondhand smoke but also of pesticides, dioxin and other industrial chemicals. (The executive director of Tassc in the late 1990's was Steven Milloy, who now "debunks" global warming and other environmental threats in the Foxnews.com

http://foxnews.com/ column "Junk Science.") Newt Gingrich
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/g/newt_gingrich/index.html?inline=nyt-per>and

other Republicans soon started invoking "sound science" and "junk science" while criticizing government regulations.

A veteran tobacco lobbyist also played a role in the Data Quality Act, which Mooney calls "a science abuser's dream come true." Jim Tozzi, who served in the Office of Management and Budget before becoming a consultant for Philip Morris and other companies, helped draft the legislation and slip it into a massive appropriations bill signed into law in 2000, late in the Clinton administration. The act, which raises the standard for scientific evidence justifying federal regulations, is designed to induce what one critic calls "paralysis by analysis." While the law does not exclusively serve business interests (for example, Andy Eller successfully used it to challenge the Fish and Wildlife Service's policies on panther habitat), they have been its main beneficiaries. Already it has been employed by loggers, herbicide makers, manufacturers of asbestos brakes and other companies to challenge unwelcome regulations.

Mooney, who grew up in New Orleans, seems particularly incensed when he addresses the issue of global warming. He notes that Bush officials have repeatedly ignored or altered reports by the National Academy of Sciences, the E.P.A. and other groups tying global warming o fossil fuel emissions. Mooney devotes nearly a whole chapter to denouncing Senator Daniel Inhofe of Oklahoma, a Republican and chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, who once said human-induced global warming might be "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people." Republicans' "refusal to consider mainstream scientific opinion fuels an atmosphere of policy gridlock that could cost our children dearly," declares Mooney, who finished his book before Hurricane Katrina. I can only imagine how he feels now. Mooney implicates the news media in this crisis. Too often, he says, reporters covering scientific debates give fringe views equal weight in a misguided attempt to achieve "balance."

To back up this claim, Mooney cites a study of coverage of global warming in four major newspapers, including this one, from 1988 to 2002. The study concluded that more than 50 percent of the stories gave "roughly equal attention" to both sides of the debate, even though by 1995 most climatologists accepted human-induced global warming as highly probable. Mooney notes that one prominent doubter and sometime Bush administration adviser on climate change, the M.I.T. meteorologist Richard Lindzen, is a smoker who has also questioned the evidence linking smoking and lung cancer.

Mooney's critique has understandably annoyed some of his colleagues. In a review in The Washington Post, the journalist Keay Davidson faults Mooney for not acknowledging how hard it can be to distinguish good science from bad. Philosophers call this the "demarcation problem." Demarcation can indeed be difficult, especially if all the scientists involved are trying in good faith to get at the truth, and Mooney does occasionally imply that demarcation consists simply of checking scientists' party affiliations. But in many of the cases that he examines, demarcation is easy, because one side has an a priori commitment to something other than the truth - God or money, to put it bluntly.

Conservative complaints about federally financed "junk science" may ultimately prove self-fulfilling. Government scientists - and those who receive federal funds - may toe the party line to avoid being punished like the whistleblower Andy Eller (who was rehired last June after he sued for wrongful termination). Increasingly, competent scientists will avoid public service, degrading the quality of advice to policy makers and the public still further. Together, these trends threaten "not just our public health and the environment," Mooney warns, "but the very integrity of American democracy, which relies heavily on scientific and technical expertise to function." If this assessment sounds one-sided, so is the reality that it describes.


Informant: Bigraccoon

http://de.groups.yahoo.com/group/elektrosmog-liste/message/5798
http://de.groups.yahoo.com/group/elektrosmog-liste/message/5802
http://de.groups.yahoo.com/group/elektrosmog-liste/message/5805

-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Helmut Breunig familie@breunig-freiheit.de
Gesendet: Montag, 19. Dezember 2005 09:24
An: ines.buchmann@mk.niedersachsen.de
Cc: info@ndr.de

Betreff: Kultusminister lehnt Handyverbot ab / NDR Niedersachsen

Gewaltprävention als Marketingstrategie

Der Mobilfunknetzbetreiber Vodafone ist sowohl Initiator als auch Hauptsponsor eines Gewaltpräventionsprogramms, das als Pilotprojekt unter dem Namen "Buddy" an niedersächsischen Schulen durchgeführt wird. Vodafone freut sich auf der Internetseite des Kultusministeriums (Zitat)"über die Anerkennung, die das Konzept durch die Kooperation mit dem Land Niedersachsen erfährt".

Kultusminister Busemann lehnte nun den Vorschlag ab, nach den jüngsten Vorfällen von "happy slapping" in Münster und Bockenem mittels eines Handyverbots an Schulen das Filmen und Übertragen von Gewalt zu verhindern.

Unbesehen der inhaltlichen pädagogischen Diskussion zu dieser Frage, kann die Position des Kultusministers nicht als eine unabhängige Auffassung angesehen werden, denn das Kultusministerium hat sich durch die Kooperation mit Vodafone in dieser Angelegenheit seiner Bindungsfreiheit und damit seiner fachlichen Neutralität als Behörde beraubt.

Quellen:

http://www1.ndr.de/ndr_pages_std/0,2570,OID2102332_REF_SIX9,00.html
http://www.mk.niedersachsen.de/master.jsp?C=14014034&I=579&L=20


Helmut Breunig


----- Original Message -----
From: Buchmann, Ines
To: familie@breunig-freiheit.de
Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2005 9:29 AM
Subject: WG: Kultusminister lehnt Handyverbot ab / NDR Niedersachsen


Sehr geehrter Herr Breuning,

hier liegt wohl ein Irrtum vor. Nicht der Mobilfunknetzbetreiber Vodafone ist Initiator und Sponsor des Buddy-Projekts in Deutschland. Vielmehr ist das Buddy-Projekt in anderen europäischen Ländern und in den USA bereits seit langem erfolgreich im Einsatz, mit ganz unterschiedlichen Förderern. Es hat ähnliche Grundlagen wie das Projekt Lions Quest, welches von den Lions Clubs in Deutschland unterstützt wird. In Deutschland fördert die Vodafone Stiftung vor allem das Buddy-Projekt. Ein solches Förderangebot einer lt. Satzung gemeinwohlorientierten Stiftung abzulehnen, gibt es wohl keinen echten Grund. Wenn Herr Minister Busemann ein Verbot des Mitbringens von Mobiltelefonen in die Schule nicht als geeignete Lösung ansieht, um dem Problem des gefilmten Schlagens von Mitschülerinnen oder Mitschülern zu begegnen, hat das nicht das Geringste damit zu tun. Denn nicht die technischen Möglichkeiten sind das Problem, sondern der Umgang damit. Es gibt sehr viele Eltern, die Wert darauf legen, dass ihre Kinder sie erreichen können. Deshalb geben sie den Kindern auch bewusst ein Mobiltelefon zur Schule mit. Ich selbst mache das bei meiner Tochter auch, allerdings mit einer Prepaid-Karte, die sie sich selbst einteilen muss. Außerdem kann jede Schule in ihrer Schulordnung oder im Rahmen ihres individuellen Sicherheitskonzepts ein Verbot für Mobiltelefone beschließen. Es bedarf also keines zentralen Erlasses durch den Kultusminister.

Im Zusammenhang mit den Gewaltvorfällen, um die es in den letzten Tagen in den Medien ging, sei darauf hingewiesen, dass es fast immer um Vorfälle an Bushaltestellen oder im Schulbus ging, nicht in der Schule selbst. Ein Verbot von Mobiltelefonen hätte deswegen möglicherweise nicht einmal einen Effekt gehabt, ganz abgesehen von der pädagogischen Betrachtungsweise. Es ist doch besser, die Kinder lernen den verantwortungsvollen Umgang mit der Technik. Dazu gehört auch die Aufklärung über die Gefahr der Verschuldung bei ungehemmtem Telefonieren.

freundliche Grüße

Georg Weßling Pressesprecher fon: (05 11) 1 20 - 71 45 fax: (05 11) 1 20 - 74 51/52 mail to: georg.wessling@mk.niedersachsen.de


Kultusminister lehnt Handyverbot ab

----- Original Message -----
From: Helmut Breunig
To: Buchmann, Ines
Cc: georg.wessling@mk.niedersachsen.de
Sent: Tuesday, December 20, 2005 10:41 AM
Subject: Re: Kultusminister lehnt Handyverbot ab / NDR Niedersachsen

Gewaltprävention als Marketingstrategie

Sehr geehrter Herr Weßling,

gestatten, mein Name ist Breunig, nicht Breuning.

Meinen von Ihnen als Irrtum - wenn es sich denn um einen solchen handeln sollte - bewerteten Ausführungen, liegt folgende Formulierung auf der Internetseite des MK zugrunde: " Das Buddy-Projekt, 1999 initiiert und seither gefördert durch die Vodafone Stiftung Deutschland, soll zunächst an 100 ausgewählten niedersächsischen Schulen zum Einsatz kommen."
[ http://www.mk.niedersachsen.de/master.jsp?C=14014034&I=579&L=20 ]. Ihre Darlegung zur Sache vorausgesetzt erscheint dieser Satz interpretationswürdig.

Ihre weiteren Ausführungen beziehen sich fast in vollem Umfang auf eben jenen Gesichtspunkt, den ich explizit als nicht die Intention meiner Anmerkung betreffend gekennzeichnet hatte: "Unbesehen der inhaltlichen pädagogischen Diskussion zu dieser Frage...".

In diesem Sinne möchte ich noch einmal die grundsätzliche Frage in den Mittelpunkt rücken, die zu thematisieren meine Absicht ist: Kann eine Behörde Neutralität in einer Entscheidung bezüglich des Gebrauchs eines Gerätes (Verzicht auf Handy-Verbot an Schulen) für sich beanspruchen, wenn sie Sponsoring durch einen Betreiber einer betreffenden Dienstleistung annimmt? Der Verweis allein auf die Gemeinnützigkeit der Vodafone-Stiftung vermag nicht zu tragen, denn die Gemeinnützigkeit einer Stiftung schließt nicht von vorneherein grundsätzlich die Möglichkeit von Überschneidungen und Konflikten mit Geschäftsinteressen des Stifters aus.

Eine Bewertung im Einzelfall erscheint daher unumgänglich. Diese hat sich im vorliegenden Fall die Tatsache zu berücksichtigen, dass dem Betreiber ein Interesse an der Nutzung seiner Technik im Zusammenhang mit Bedrohungsängsten zuschreibbar ist, wie Sie es ja selbst für Ihre Person beschreiben. Für die Erfüllung eines persönlichen Sicherungsbedürfnisses liefert hier also dieselbe Dienstleistungsindustrie das Angebot auf dem Markt, die für die Gewaltprävention die Stiftungsmittel bereitstellt. Eine Kooperation mit einem entsprechenden Anbieter stellt mithin die Gewährung einer sachlichen Neutralität einer Behörde in Frage, die Gewaltprävention zu ihren Aufgaben zählt.

Insofern Sie die Art des Gebrauchs von Handys als Kriterium anführen, möchte ich fragen, ob das Kultusministerium zum Gebrauch von Handys an den Schulen selbst eine Position einnimmt; falls ja, welche?


Freundliche Grüße

Helmut Breunig


----- Original Message ----- From: "Weßling, Georg" To: 'familie@breunig-freiheit.de' Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2005 1:57 PM Subject: WG: Kultusminister lehnt Handyverbot ab / NDR Niedersachsen


Sehr geehrter Herr Breunig,

machen Sie es sich nicht ein wenig zu einfach, wenn Sie die pädagogische Fragestellung einfach ausblenden wollen? Es geht hier, wie eigentlich immer in der Schule, vorrangig um eine pädagogische Frage, nämlich ob das von Ihnen offenbar gewünschte landesweite Verbot von Mobiltelefonen in der Schule das Problem löst und weitere Gewalttaten verhindert. Deshalb muss eine Antwort des Kultusministers auch den pädagogischen Aspekt in erster Linie berücksichtigen. Klar ist, dass sich allein mit Verboten kein Problem lösen lässt. Auch ist keine Technik in sich böse. Es kommt doch wohl darauf an, wie und wozu sie genutzt wird. Sie unterstellen einen Zusammenhang, den es gar nicht gibt, wie Sie den folgenden Ausführungen unschwer entnehmen können.

Zum Thema Sponsoring in Schulen: Wir haben in Niedersachsen eine Erlassregelung dazu, die gut handhabbar ist. Im Grundsatz lautet sie: Sponsoring ist im Schulbereich dann zulässig, wenn der pädagogische Nutzen den Werbeeffekt für den Sponsor deutlich überwiegt. Das ist die Rahmenbedingung, die vom Kultusministerium vorgegeben ist. Im Einzelfall entscheidet die Schulleitung der jeweiligen Schule. Das sind sehr kompetente Leute, denen man das durchaus zutrauen kann. Das beinhaltet genau die von Ihnen doch geforderte Bewertung im Einzelfall.

In Niedersachsen gibt es zur Gewaltprävention nicht nur das Buddy-Projekt. Wir haben eine ganze Reihe von Initiativen, teils unterstützt von Vereinigungen wie dem Lions Club, von Stiftungen, aber auch von Wirtschaftsunternehmen wie zum Beispiel von den Energieversorgern Avacon oder EWE. Im Rahmen ihres individuellen Sicherheitskonzepts entscheidet jede Schule mit Beteiligung der Eltern- und der Schülervertreter, welches Präventionskonzept oder auch Streitschlichtungsprogramm sie für ihren Bereich als sinnvoll ansieht und umsetzt. Wir sind in Niedersachsen auf dem Weg zur Eigenverantwortlichen Schule. Deshalb soll und kann jede Schule selbst darüber entscheiden. Es bedarf keiner zentralen Regelung. Insofern wäre Ihre Frage an die Schulen zu richten, die sich bei uns für das Buddy-Projekt bewerben. Ihren Ansatz konsequent zu Ende gedacht: Müssten dann Schulen nicht auch den Strom abschalten, weil er von Energieversorgern geliefert wird, die zu den Förderern von Schulprojekten gehören?

Zur Nutzung von Mobiltelefonen in der Schule allgemein: Die Nutzung von Mobiltelefonen ist Teil der freien Entfaltung der Persönlichkeit und somit als Grundrecht durch Art. 2 I Grundgesetz geschützt. Daraus folgt, dass ein generelles Verbot durch das Kultusministerium ohne eine gesetzliche Legitimierung gar nicht möglich ist, jedenfalls wäre es gegen Elterneinspruch juristisch nicht durchsetzbar. Allerdings gibt es die Möglichkeit, in Einzelfällen Verbote auszusprechen, die aber jeweils einer Verhältnismäßigkeitsüberprüfung standhalten müssen. Es können also, wie Ihnen bereits mitgeteilt, per Schulordnung, im Rahmen des individuellen Sicherheitskonzepts oder per Einzelanweisung der Schulleitung Richtlinien zur Nutzung von Mobiltelefonen in der Schule ausgesprochen werden. Ein generelles Verbot der Nutzung auf dem Schulgelände dürfte nicht verhältnismäßig sein. Ein Nutzungsverbot während des Unterrichtes und eventuell in den kurzen Pausen ist sinnvoll für die ordnungsgemäße Unterrichts- und Erziehungsarbeit der Schule. Auch hier halten wir unsere Schulleitungen und unsere Lehrkräfte für kompetent genug, dies zu entscheiden und durchzusetzen. Auch die weit verbreitete Praxis, Mobiltelefone vor Klassenarbeiten und Prüfungen zum Schutz vor Täuschungsversuchen und der Beeinträchtigung von Mitschülern einzusammeln, ist durchaus als verhältnismäßig anzusehen. Eine landesweite Regelung ist aber nicht erforderlich.


Freundliche Grüße aus dem Niedersächsischen Kultusministerium Georg Weßling Pressesprecher fon: (05 11) 1 20 - 71 45 fax: (05 11) 1 20 - 74 51/52 mail to: georg.wessling@mk.niedersachsen.de

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MOBILFUNK lebt von den Jugendlichen
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1311157/

For those who have argued that the voices of we the people no longer count, we say witness the filibuster of the Patriot Act extension and the triumph of the McCain torture prohibition amendment.

TELL CONGRESS WE NEED REAL HEARINGS ON SPYING IN THE U.S. WITHOUT WARRANT

Considering that virtually every word out of the president's mouth for the last five years has been a certifiably pathological lie, one cannot fault those who suspect his angry and defiant defense of his secret campaign to spy on Americans is just another elaborate fiction. What has been the point of packing our courts with their reactionary partisan cronies if not to have them available to rubberstamp such an operation? The fact that they could not trust even one of their own handpicked legal kangaroos to authorize this is proof of just how out of control this rogue presidency is.

Remember this is from an administration that considers a handful of Quakers holding a peace meeting to be a "threat". It is but sheer, unmitigated gall to assert that this is in any way permissible under our Constitution, which for Bush is nothing more than a bothersome, inconvenient piece of toilet paper. In fact, according to White House insiders, in one of his recent abusive personal tirades Bush did indeed refer to our Constitution as "just a [profane expletive] piece of paper". It's long past time for Congress to pull this president back into the ballpark of democracy.

ACTION PAGE: http://www.millionphonemarch.com/fisa.htm

With the revelation of this latest abusive outrage, the last thing need we need is another panting reactionary lap dog to rule that the trashing of our Constitution is somehow OK after all. And in a frightening replay of the Roberts' confirmation amnesia of his membership in the right wing Federalist society, Alito claims not to remember his own membership in the Concerned Alumni of Princeton where he graduated in the last all white male class. Except that he TOUTED this on his job application to become a Reagan administration crony. And what were they so "concerned" about? Why, the admission of minorities and women of course! Please tell your senator that NO conservative is acceptable as a replacement for Sandra Day O'Connor

ACTION PAGE: http://www.nocrony.com

Just before he stormed away from the podium, Bush obstinately declared that he would continue to defy the law by authorizing a permanent campaign of warrantless searches as long as he was president. Fine, Mr. Bush, in that case you must no longer be president. You must be removed peacefully, and at the first democratic opportunity. If the case for impeachment were not already compelling, this must surely be the last straw for anyone who was giving you the benefit of a reasonable doubt. Let us tell the House to gird up its loins and draft the articles now.

ACTION PAGE: http://www.millionphonemarch.com/impeach.htm

Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours, and forward this message to everyone else you know.

Powered by The People's Email Network Copyright 2005, Patent pending, All rights reserved

A residents' group's claim for £43million in compensation has been knocked down to a £150 pay-off by officials investigating a mobile phone mast.

The Linden Garden Concerned Residents Group demanded the large sum as reparation for the drop in property prices that their homes will suffer when a Vodaphone mast is erected on top of Chiswick police station.

The group challenged Hounslow Council over the way it handled the planning application for the potential mast on the High Road, claiming it tried to prevent them from discussing the matter in an open forum.

They allege the council failed to put the issue before councillors on the Chiswick Area Committee and that officers' blunders meant vital communications were not replied to.

The application for the mast was allowed to pass through under permitted development orders'.

Group member John Hammond said: "Hounslow Council should rescind the order and let our councillors decide not just accept the decision of a non-elected officer.

"If the Vodafone installation goes ahead, it will be a massive eyesore on the High Road and for nearby residents.

"We remain firmly against the use of public property in this manner."

The group accused the council of maladministration and approached the local government ombudsman's office, which carried out a year-long inquiry.

The consequent local settlement report found the council's practices had raised a number of causes for concern.

However, the official investigating the residents' complaints skated over their multi-million compensation bid and denied their £20,000 expense claim. Instead he offered them £150.

A Hounslow Council spokesman said: "The ombudsman has not made any findings of maladministration against the council. The investigator did identify some minor areas of concern. The local government ombudsman is not a court of law.

"The ombudsman's role is to inform and educate councils, and we welcome findings that will help us to improve our systems and processes."

11:53am today

http://www.hounslowguardian.co.uk/news/localnews/display.var.663096.0.group_gets_150_not_43m.php

„Mehr Freiheit wagen“

„Die Schließung des AEG Werkes in Nürnberg zeigt uns deutlich, was die Bundeskanzlerin Angela Merkel in ihrer Regierungserklärung unter dem Motto „Mehr Freiheit wagen“ versteht. Für die Unternehmen bedeutet es die absolute Freiheit und für die Beschäftigten bedeutet es die „Freiheit“ von der Arbeit. Die einen können so ihre Profite in unvorstellbare Höhen treiben und die Beschäftigten werden in die Armut entlassen. Dass dies von der Politik durch Subventionen und Abschreibungen begünstigt, wird ist der eigentliche Skandal und zugleich die Stellschraube, an der wir drehen müssen….“ Erklärung der AG Betrieb & Gewerkschaft der PDS zur Schließung des AEG Werkes in Nürnberg vom 15.12.05 (pdf)

http://www.labournet.de/branchen/sonstige/aeg/bugadaus.pdf

Streik bei It.A Zeitarbeit

„Heute, Freitag um 11:00 Uhr, haben die in der FAU (Gewerkschaft für alle Berufe) organisierten Arbeiterinnen und Arbeiter sowie andere Beschäftigte einen Streik gegen die It.A Zeitarbeit in der Eschersheimer Landstraße 534 begonnen. Am Montag, 19.12. ab 11:00 Uhr wird dort die nächste Streikaktion stattfinden.“ Siehe dazu auch

Text des Flugblatts mit den Streikforderungen: „Nach endlosem Vertrösten und unzähligen Ausreden haben wir die Nase voll. Einige von uns können bereits Strom und Telefon nicht mehr bezahlen, andere haben nicht mehr genug Geld für die Miete. Deswegen streiken wir ab dem 16.12. gegen die Firma It.A Zeitarbeit - Rohrbach und Grun GbR in Frankfurt/M, Eschersheimer Landstr. 534….“ http://www.fau.org/artikel/art_051216-073508


(Dumping)Tarifverträge: CGB/IgZ/BZA... > Tarifverträge des DGB - Infos, Kommentare und Proteste

Zeitarbeitsfirma Manpower setzt DGB unter Druck

„Das Zeitarbeitsunternehmen Manpower fordert Korrekturen am Tarifvertrag mit dem Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB). Man stehe zwar zu dem DGB-Vertrag für Zeitarbeiter, sagte Manpower-Geschäftsführer Thomas Reitz der FTD. In vielen Regionen sei das Lohnniveau aber nicht mehr realistisch…“ Artikel von Maike Rademaker in FDT vom 15.12.05

http://www.ftd.de/ub/di/34855.html


Aus: LabourNet, 19. Dezember 2005

Welthandelsorganisation: Industriestaaten setzten bei WTO-Gipfel ihre Interessen durch. Demonstranten versuchten, Konferenzzentrum zu stürmen. Artikel von Andreas Behn, Hongkong, in junge Welt vom 19.12.05

http://www.jungewelt.de/2005/12-19/001.php


WTO in Hongkong: 900 Gefangene

„Am Ende der gestrigen Demo in Hongkong wurden 900 Menschen, v.a. koreanische BaeuerInnen und GewerkschafterInnen festgenommen. Etwa 200 weitere wurde die ganze Nacht eingekesselt und saßen heute morgen noch auf der Strasse von Polizisten umgeben. Sie mussten die Nacht auf der Strasse verbringen…“ Bericht von „b“ vom 18.12.2005 mit Protestadressen bei indymedia http://de.indymedia.org/2005/12/135336.shtml


Video: Demo in Hongkong: Die WTO versenken!

„Eine von der Hongkong Peoples Alliance organisierte Demonstration von Bauern-, MigrantInnen und Gewerkschaftern findet statt. Wütende und äusserst entschlossene DemonstrantInnen versuchen zum Konferenz-Zentrum vorzudringen…“ Video von radiohongkong

http://www.radiohongkong.de/clip.php?clipId=1263


Aus: LabourNet, 19. Dezember 2005

U.S. Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid called the Republican-led Congress "the most corrupt in history" on Sunday, and distanced himself from lobbyist Jack Abramoff, at the center of an escalating probe.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051218/pl_nm/congress_ethics_dc


From Information Clearing House

Tax forms: Frist's AIDS charity paid pals:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's AIDS charity paid nearly a half-million dollars in consulting fees to members of his political inner circle, according to tax returns providing the first financial accounting of the presidential hopeful's nonprofit.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11335.htm

UP to seven Australians have received kidney transplants from death-row prisoners executed in China, according to a report.

http://tinyurl.com/994sb


From Information Clearing House

Colombian President to U.S.: Stop Meddling:

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, one of Washington's best friends in South America, told the United States to stop "meddling" in his country's affairs after the U.S. ambassador urged him to take steps against corruption in regional elections.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051218/ap_on_go_pr_wh/colombia_us



Morales Aware of US Interference:

Evo Morales, the leading presidential candidate, said if he wins Sunday´s elections in Bolivia, he will seek balanced relations with the US, without submission, although he recognized the risk of Washington´s direct intervention.

http://tinyurl.com/ag8rx


From Information Clearing House

Bush And Cheney Call For The Right To Torture And Are Decisively and Correctly Rebuffed by the House.

http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20051216.html


From Information Clearing House

Got that, New York Times? You're endangering national security by telling senators what the executive branch, over which they have oversight, is doing. - Please don't burden them any more with the facts.

http://tinyurl.com/72rur


From Information Clearing House

Throughout 2004 information provided by former administration insiders revealed the Bush/Cheney administration entered into office with the intention of toppling Saddam.[1][2] Candidly stated, 'Operation Iraqi Freedom' was a war designed to install a pro-U.S. government in Iraq, establish multiple U.S military bases before the onset of global Peak Oil, and to reconvert Iraq back to petrodollars.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9698.htm

Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri has said Pakistan strictly opposes any expected US attack on Iran, and will stand by Iran if this extreme step is taken by Washington.

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/dec2005-daily/18-12-2005/main/main11.htm


From Information Clearing House

IRAN has shown through the actions of its hardline leadership that it cannot be trusted with technology that could lead to a nuclear weapon, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17608904-23109,00.html


From Information Clearing House

U.S. military officials in Iraq were fully aware that a Pentagon contractor regularly paid Iraqi newspapers to publish positive stories about the war, and made it clear that none of the stories should be traced to the United States.

http://tinyurl.com/a4dld


From Information Clearing House

By David Leppard

SPYMASTERS warned Tony Blair before the July 7 suicide bombings that Al-Qaeda was planning a “high priority” attack specifically aimed at the London Tube. A leaked four-page report by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), which oversees all spying, is the first definitive evidence that the intelligence services expected terrorists to strike at the Underground.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11333.htm

http://www.sundayherald.com/53385


Informant: root

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1419322


John Calvert

The Conservatives and Their Iranian 'Defector'
Gordon Prather on lying us into another aggression.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/prather/prather36.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-perlstein/i-didnt-like-nixon-_b_11735.html


Informant: Lew Rockwell

Tom Engelhardt on suspicious federal behavior.
http://lewrockwell.com/engelhardt/engelhardt145.html

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3805/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news