THE LAWSON FILE: WEAPONS IN SPACE AND VOTING AGAINST OURSELVES...HUH?

On Monday, Feb. 11, 2008 several groups will come together to protest "the global terrorists Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, University of New Mexico and other war profiteers who are creating an arms race in space." The protest will take place at the Space Technology & Applications International Forum sponsored by the University of New Mexico’s Institute for Space and Nuclear Power Studies.

New Mexico is a major weapons development center for nuclear and space warfare planning.

Are you excited about spending billions of dollars to develop a whole new class of weapons to raid down destruction on us from outer space? I doubt it.

A recent survey found most Americans and Russians agree that their governments should work together to prevent an arms race in space. Large majorities in both countries favor unilateral restraint and a treaty to keep space free of weapons.

The WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 1,247 Americans and 1,601 Russians developed in conjunction with the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland (CISSM). Knowledge Networks in the United States and the Levada Center in
Russia conducted the interviews.

Majorities in both the United States (78%) and Russia (67%) say that as long as no other country puts weapons into space, their own governments should also refrain from doing so. Most Russians (72%) and Americans (80%) favor a new treaty banning all weapons in space.

The US poll revealed strong bipartisan consensus: majorities of both Republicans and Democrats believe the US should refrain unilaterally from deploying space weapons. There is also bipartisan backing for a treaty to ban these weapons, though support is higher among Democrats.

And yet our government(s) don't pay any attention to us...once again.

What about those who want to lead us after Bush is gone?

Well, I can tell you this, unfortunately Barack Obama, though he has called for a “worldwide ban on weapons to interfere with satellites and a ban on testing anti-satellite weapons,” does not endorse a ban on nuclear weapons in space as called for by virtually the entire international community. And, though critical of the enormous wastes incurred from Bush’s missile defense program, he has announced his support for the continued development of missile defense capabilities.

Hillary Clinton said in a recent debate she supported the multilateral international ban but committed herself only to constraining testing and deployment of weapons in space "as much as possible, while continuing to protect our satellites from any threats that remain."

In fact of the three Democratic contenders still left it is only John Edwards who has endorsed a multilateral international ban on space weapons with no qualifiers.

As for the GOP, don't even go there.

We live in what is supposed to be a democracy only the government and our elected leaders seldom pay much attention to what we think.

What's worse seldom do we pay much attention to what we think either. Time and again Americans vote for candidates and political partys with whom they disagree on major issues. Time and again Americans vote for someone because they seem likable or something.

We can blame it on the media, the system or whatever. Some of it we have to blame on ourselves.

The case of John Edwards seems to me to illustrate this point clearly. On almost all major issues Edwards is much more attuned with the so called "Democratic base" and is far and away the most progressive major candidate out there. Yet time and again when the votes are counted he finishes third. What is that all about? Admit it, working Americans agree with Edwards on virtually every issue, and yet they vote for someone else. Is that dumb or what? Am I missing something here? The corporate media (whose interests are threatened by Edward's populism as much as the next conglomerate) tells those Americas Edwards can't win. So the PEOPLE insure that and vote for someone else. Give me a break.

I know, I know there are a hoard of reasons why our electoral system is a big flop, but sometimes in the deep dark recesses of my mind I have to think that "we the people" are one of those reasons.

The following is from OpEd News.com.

RESEARCHING SPACE WAR IN NEW MEXICO
By Bruce K. Gagnon

For many years a peace group in Albuquerque, New Mexico has been teaching and organizing in their community about the Star Wars issue. Led by activists Bob Anderson and Jeanne Pahls, the group called Stop the War Machine, has developed considerable expertise about plans to move the arms race into space.

Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque is a key Star Wars research and development facility. The base hosts the military's Directed Energy and Space Vehicles directorates. The combination of both is called the Phillips Research Site.

The year 2007 marked the 10th anniversary of the Air Force Research Laboratory's consolidation of all air, space, and cyberspace technologies under one umbrella.

In 2007 the Directed Energy program boasted that their scientists and engineers had continued "to improve the nation's ability to use directed energies, such as high-energy lasers, high-powered microwaves and to precisely project these directed energies at the speed of light anywhere, at any time to detect, track, and deter or use lethal force to destroy any threats to the U.S. and the Warfighter."

Translation: The Pentagon is making progress with their testing program to fire lasers from earth to space, through space, and from space to the planet below.

Also in 2007 the directorate claims they "successfully attained full transmitting capacity of 180 antenna elements with a radiating power of 3,600 kilowatts at their Alaska program called high frequency active auroral program (HAARP)." This directed energy project is one that is believed to be testing the capability to lift the earth's ionosphere to manipulate global communications and modify weather.

In their October 26, 2007 Kirtland AFB newspaper called Nucleus, the Air Force bragged that they were "Leading the world in research and development for supremacy in the cosmos.....The use of ground based, airborne, and space-based directed energy weapons will alter current and future defense and warfare concepts."

In addition to Kirtland AFB, Albuquerque is loaded with key aerospace weapons corporations that are making big money by supplying the workforce and technologies for space war. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Raytheon now have huge production facilities in the city and even the University of New Mexico has become militarized as many departments at the institution receive funding to help provide basic research for these classified weapons programs. The growing secrecy on a public campus has been a key issue that Stop the War Machine has campaigned against.

On February 11 the Global Network and Stop the War Machine will organize a protest in Albuquerque at the annual meeting of the Space Technology & Applications International Forum. This event brings military, aerospace industry, academia, and NASA together to promote the nuclearization and weaponization of space.

These war making centers are growing all over the U.S. and around the world. It is crucial that we teach others about what is happening in our communities and that we publicly protest this consuming drive to endless war.

CHINESE PROTEST OLYMPIC POWER STATION

It wasn't the first time they've protested and it won't be the last. I'm talking about hundreds of Chinese citizens who are not thrilled with a power plant being built for the Olympics which happens to be in their neighborhood.

Like many Americans these Chinese worry about the affects of high voltage power lines near their homes. Protesters mentioned leukemia. Back in 2005 a study produced by the Childhood Research Group at Oxford University estimated that youngsters living within 200 meters (yards) of such lines were about 70 percent more likely to develop leukemia compared to those who lived beyond 600 meters.

At a similar protest more than a year ago Sun Jintang, one of the protesters said, "We are protesting against the power plant because it is too close to our residential area.

"We are afraid that the power plant will be harmful to the health of the residents."

The closest residential building to the plant is only 10 meters away, he said.

More than 3,000 residents, many of them retirees from the prestigious China Academy of Sciences, have signed a petition to protest the construction plan.

The power substation is one of four being built for the Olympic Games. But the other three stations are all being built on the "Olympic Green," a large park that will house several sports venues and the Olympic Village.


The following is from AFP.

Protesters block road in Beijing: report

Chinese police detained more than 20 people after "scores" of protesters blocked a major Beijing road in a rally against a power station being built for the Olympic Games, state press said Thursday.

The protest took place late Wednesday on the city's fourth ring road, near the site of the August 2008 Games, the Beijing News said.

Law enforcement officials were immediately dispatched to the scene, with 24 police vehicles surrounding the protesters and police detaining more than 20 demonstrators, who were placed under investigation, the paper said.

Traffic along the road was blocked for only about 10 minutes, it added.

Residents who live next to the Olympic Village have for years opposed the construction of a high-voltage power plant next to their housing complex, the paper said.

Their most recent rally was on December 30, 2007, it said.

In recent protests, the demonstrators have said they are worried that the high-voltage power lines leading in and out of the power station could lead to diseases such as leukaemia for over 900 residents living nearby.

The powerlines and towers also clutter up the view and open spaces around their apartment blocks, they said.

Beijing is investing about 40 billion dollars to upgrade its infrastructure for the Games.

Public unrest over such issues is increasingly common throughout China but relatively rare in Beijing, the capital and seat of government authority.

TEXAS DA SUSAN REED HAS LOST HER MARBLES

Police in San Antonio apparently missed the last decade or so and have busted some volunteers conducting a needle exchange program in their town. This despite the fact that health policy activists in Bexar County had swapped clean needles for dirty ones for years in San Antonio's poor neighborhoods. And despite recent legislation that said they could.

Police Officer Oscar Flores said in his report that he spotted a 2003 Chevrolet van parked at South Hamilton Avenue and Vera Cruz Street just before 4 p.m. Jan. 5, "with several known prostitutes and drug addicts next to the vehicle."

One of the activist, Flores wrote, showed him a typical syringe kit, and said he was "swapping syringes" with people on the street. He produced business cards of a sergeant working in the chief's office and Deputy Chief Ruben Garcia with the Bexar County Sheriff's Office, "stating he was given permission" to exchange syringes.

Bill Day, a co-founder of the nonprofit group Bexar Area Harm Reduction Coalition, and board members Mary Casey and Melissa Lujan were busted by the zealous Texas constables.

Day said, "Our volunteers regard their involvement as a Christian ministry work intended to alleviate egregious suffering and improve the lives of the least among us. The statement and actions of the district attorney have brought all needle exchange activities to a halt. As a result, we can expect transmission of hepatitis and HIV to increase."

Originally the charges were possession of drug paraphernalia which is a class C misdomenaor, but now the DA Susan Reed (pictured here wearing a swell hat) wants to make it a slightly different charge which is a more serious Class A misdemeanor, distribution of paraphernalia, which carries a punishment of up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

The blog Grits for Breakfast says looming over it all is a larger legal question, one that doesn't directly involve Day or his group.

Legislation passed last year authorized local health officials to organize a pilot syringe exchange program in Bexar County. It would be the first legally sanctioned program in Texas.

The program is stalled since the district attorney - Susan Reed again - declared her view that the legislation authorizing it is faulty. Speaking about needle exchange last August Reed told the San Antonio Express-News, “I’m telling [local officials], and I’m telling the police chief, I don’t think they have any kind of criminal immunity. That’s the bottom line. It has nothing to do with whether they do it or don’t do it – other than if you do it you might find yourself in jail.”

Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio and chair of the Senate Jurisprudence Committee commented on Reed's thoughts (if that is what they are). “This prosecutorial interpretation of the new law would create an absurd result,” Wentworth wrote, “in that it suggests the Legislature enacted the pilot program with the intent or awareness that it would place persons associated with the program in the position of committing a criminal offense under the [Texas CSA]."

Did I mention this guy is a Republican?

Both sides await an opinion from the attorney general's office.

Assistant Police Chief David Head said the legislation — if it survives the legal challenge — authorizes only Bexar County's health authority to run a syringe exchange program, not a privately run group like Day's.

Is there no real crime taking place in San Antonio or what?

In 2006 Texas spent more than $24 million toward caring for individuals with hepatitis C; in 2005, the state spent more than $86 million treating people with HIV/AIDS. In 2005, there were approximately 300,000 Texans living with hepatitis C.

But why do anything to try and help out seems to be the position of DA Reed.

By the way, you may have heard of DA Reed before. She played a key role in the controversial execution of a fellow named Ruben Cantu. The 1985 conviction and 1993 execution of Ruben Cantu became the subject of a series of investigative articles by Houston Chronicle reporter Lise Olsen in 2005 and 2006. In those articles, Olsen uncovered evidence that undermined the Cantu conviction. According to Olsen's articles, the jury Forewoman, the then-District Attorney, the trial Judge, the co-defendant, and the surviving victim have all expressed misgivings about the outcome of the Cantu case. The only evidence linking Cantu to the crime was the testimony of Juan Moreno, the surviving victim, but he has since recanted his testimony, claiming he had felt threatened by police.

As the current District Attorney, Susan Reed investigated the claims of wrongful conviction in the Cantu case and concluded that Cantu was justifiably executed in 1993 and that no credible evidence existed to support witnesses' innocence claims. Susan Reed was also the judge who rejected Cantu's appeal in 1988, and set his execution date in 1993.

Where do they find people like her?

The following is from the Houston Chronicle.

San Antonio needle-swap activists facing charges

Police said they will seek drug paraphernalia charges punishable by up to a year in jail for three activists who were caught handing out clean syringes in exchange for dirty ones.

The members of the nonprofit group Bexar Area Harm Reduction Coalition were cited Jan. 5 when a police officer saw them parked at a corner "with several known prostitutes and drug addicts next to the vehicle."

The police confiscated containers of clean syringe kits, while leaving them with the used syringes they'd collected.

An officer cited the three with possession of drug paraphernalia, a Class C misdemeanor punishable by a fine of up to $500. But police now say they will refile the case this week with District Attorney Susan Reed as a Class A misdemeanor, distribution of paraphernalia, which carries a punishment of up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

The defendants are Bill Day, 73, a co-founder of the nonprofit group, and two board members, Mary Casey, 67, and Melissa Lujan, 39.

"These are enormously decent, charitable people, and what's happening with them smacks of persecution," said Neel Lane, an attorney with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, which is representing the coalition at no cost.

The citations come as Bexar County health officials wait for a state attorney general's opinion on legislation passed last year authorizing the county to pilot a syringe exchange program.

Reed has warned local officials that the legislation doesn't shield participants from drug paraphernalia laws.

Texas is the only state that doesn't allow syringe exchange programs, which are meant to curb the spread of diseases like hepatitis and HIV among intravenous drug users.

Assistant Police Chief David Head said if the pilot program moves forward, the law would allow only Bexar County's health authority to run a syringe exchange program, and not a private group such as Bexar Area Harm Reduction Coalition.

Head denied Day's claim that he had been given permission by police to exchange syringes.

Day has been open about his group's work. He said the dirty needles are disposed of with the Metropolitan Health District.

The volunteers who work with the needle exchange program see it as a Christian ministry, intended to "improve the lives of the least among us," Day said.

WE NEED THE WOMEN'S LIBERATION MOVEMENT

It is (was) that time of the year when all the anti-abortion folks descent on the steps of whatever and wherever.

Last night in Washington the anti-abortion folks came face to face with women supporting abortion rights including some from Code Pink.

This seems to have pissed them off.

The article below is from a religious source which is anti-abortion. It was the only article I could find that mentioned anything about the little confrontation and, I have to admit, it was pretty balanced.

One thing the article mentions which I think is significant is how few pro-choice people showed up. Now, I grant you this isn't supposed to be the day millions turn out as someone from NOW replied.

BUT...

Where is the dynamic, grass roots, militant women's movement of the 60s and 70s. The women's liberation movement then didn't take crap and as a result it won so much for women that is now taken for granted by about everyone.

Months ago I wrote an article about how we needed a true Black Liberation Movement. Well, let me now add we need a true Women's Liberation Movement, too.

Too much is going on to leave it to what has become the oh so respectable "movements" of today.

Now, I ain't saying there isn't anything going on out there. There some damn fine, militant stuff that exists...but not nearly enough.

Women and African-Americans have seen so much of the gains made earlier rolled back especially these last eight years (but really the last two decades), and, god forbid, one of these nut jobs the GOP has running this year actually wins.

Reproductive rights are one of those rights that you'll really notice when their gone. They deserve to be fought for now just as they were fought for three and four decades ago...and that means on the streets not just in the courts.

Sisterhood IS Powerful!

The following is from Crosswalk.com .

Anti-War Code Pink Rallies with Pro-Abortion Protesters
Josiah Ryan

In a tense meeting at the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday night, pro-life and pro-abortion groups braved freezing winds and sleet to commemorate the 35th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that said abortion is a privacy right protected by the Constitution.

Several women from the feminist anti-war group Code Pink were among the group of 50 pro-abortion protesters, the latter of whom comprised members of the National Organization for Women, its Action division, and the Feminist Majority.

"With regard to the war and this issue, it's very much the same thing," Liz Hourican, a Code Pink activist told Cybercast News Service. "This is about basic human rights - standing here and being able to take care of women. Take care of women first. This is my body. I should have the decision over my body."

In addition to the Roe v. Wade anniversary, Tuesday was the annual March for Life, in which tens of thousands of pro-life activists marched along Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., and up Capitol Hill to the Supreme Court building.

Hourican further said that the war in Iraq needed to end before the issue of abortion should be tackled. "So if we are really thinking about 'thou shall not kill,' let's close down the war machine first," she said.

When asked if she would join the pro-life cause once the Iraq war was over, Hourican, however, said no. She told Cybercast News Service she would be willing to educate people and work with family planning groups that want to help women.

Code Pink was formed in 2001, during the days leading up to the war in Iraq. A statement on the group's Web site says its goals include ending the war in Iraq, stopping new wars, and promoting "life-affirming activities." The Code Pink women outside the Supreme Court were dressed in bright pink clothing and carried large signs bearing pro-abortion messages.

The activists from Action, the National Organization for Women, and the Feminist Majority, along with the few Code Pink women, gathered at 5 pm outside the Supreme Court to voice their support for Roe v. Wade, frequently chanting pro-abortion comments.

A few yards away, the Silent No More Awareness Campaign - a pro-life group comprised of women who have had abortions but now regret having done so - watched the pro-abortion demonstrators. The group's co-founder, Janet Morana, told Cybercast News Service that the difference in numbers between her group and the pro-abortion activists was significant.

"They are supposed to be so happy," said Morana. "Their signs say 'the 35th year anniversary of Roe,' and they are happy and celebrating. Well, if they are so happy, where are they?" in reference to the relatively few protesters.

But Melody Drnach, vice president of the Action arm of the National Organization of Women, said her organization works at the grassroots level.

"We only expected a couple dozen," she said. "If we want to organize a march, we bring out a million people. This is not traditionally a day we bring out the masses. Our members are in their local communities stressing the importance of protecting women's rights at a local level."

Hourican speculated that the difference in numbers was because religious universities had had bussed students in from around the country. "I saw thousands of busses today," she said. "My young women are all working. They are going to school. I would say when your school is bussing you in that it is easier than my friends who have to pay for their college."

Organizers outside the Supreme Court said that, by and large, courtesy was exercised by activists from both the opposing camps. However, protesters did shout at each other and occasionally crossed lines.

A human-ring formed by pro-abortion activists was encircled by pro-life activists, and several people even penetrated the circle with large signs bearing pro-life messages.

Drnach called that "bad manners," adding that one of the pro-life men had tried to knock a sign out of one of her protesters' hands. Morana complained that the pro-abortion group was trying to shout over the people in her rally. "I just wish they would listen," Morana said.

THE LAWSON FILE: PREDATORY LENDING - "IF THEY ARE GONNA DO THE CRIME, IT'S TIME THE REAL CRIMINALS DO THE TIME"

The following story below out of Boston is one I'd expect to be seeing replayed more and more. In that city when they came to take a woman's house away due to a bank foreclosure activists, family and friends surrounded the place and physically would not let it happen. The subprime mortgage lender backed down at the 11th hour today and postponed for now the foreclosure eviction.

What is going on across the country with these foreclosures is a crime. The crime, of course, is the predatory lending policies that led folks into the situation to begin with. Policies like the issuance of subprime loans have led to millions of American families losing their homes in the past decade."

Under a subprime loan, customers with low credit ratings are offered mortgages in return for high interest rates. Proponents have advocated subprime financing as a way for low-income residents to own their first home. It's a scam

One of the authors of a two year old study by the University of North Carolina's Center for Community Capitalism entitled, "The Impact of Predatory Loan Terms on Subprime Foreclosures: The Special Case of Prepayment Penalties and Balloon Payments" stated back in 2005, "The study demonstrates that subprime prepayment penalties and balloon payments place Americans at substantially greater risk of losing their homes. Given the significant financial and emotional costs associated with foreclosure on families and neighborhoods, policymakers should take note." Predatory lending is based on "deceptive and in some cases illegal practices to coerce borrowers into unfavorable mortgage agreements," according to the report. "Data suggest that low-income, elderly, and minority borrowers may be especially vulnerable to this type of lending because of their greater susceptibility to 'push marketing,' high-pressure sales pitches, lack of experience with mortgage lending, and urgent need for credit," states the study.

How many reports of mortgage brokers fudging applicants’ incomes on forms or ignoring them entirely—and rushing through approvals on loans that have little prospect of getting paid back have we now read about?

As the Freedom Socialist Newspaper explains, "Enticements include artificially low introductory "teaser" interest rates, "option" payment plans that can be lower than the monthly interest (never mind the principle on the loan) and often result in a borrower owing more on the mortgage than the house is worth, and getting prohibitive penalties for paying off loans early. Such terms can make it nearly impossible for people with Adjustable Rate Mortgages (ARMs) to refinance."

For borrowers, these sub-prime loans seem affordable at first, but then quickly become more than a household can bear.

We didn't need the study to know that. The banks and lending institutions were only too well aware. Mortgage loan companies and banks have made hundred of billions of dollars in profit by preying on people who would otherwise be shut out of the market.

Where was the government that is supposed to protect the people while all this has been going on?

The absence of lending policy regulations pushed forward by those famous "anti-government" conservatives encouraged the predatory lending practices that have left millions of Americans facing foreclosure.

The Daily Press in Newport News Virginia put it thus:

"The current sub-prime mortgage mess is simply the latest wreck on the highway. Banks have been left to their own devices, unchecked by government watchdogs or pesky regulations. Interest rates on millions of mortgages are set to accelerate in 2008. Defaults of $1 trillion are predicted –– affecting not only large institutions such as pension funds, hedge funds and universities but also countless average Americans. Hand-wringing time? Just consider these recent events:

• Moody's and other such agencies have threatened to downgrade the ratings of securities that are based on mortgages that allow accelerated payment.

• To avoid bankruptcy after its stock plummeted because of record-high foreclosures, Countrywide Financial is being acquired by Bank of America.

• Money managers including Bear Stearns and investment bankers Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Washington Mutual are under investigation for fraud.

• Of the nearly 3 million sub-prime adjustable-rate loans surveyed by the Mortgage Bankers Association, a record 18.81 percent are past due.

What clearer evidence do we need that markets do not regulate themselves? Yet the government response has been mostly timid.

The Fed's recent rules allow action against predatory lenders only on showing a "pattern and practice" of unlawful conduct; disclosures of "yield-spread premiums" –– kickbacks –– can still remain buried in a mountain of loan documents. Prepayment penalties make it nearly impossible for good-faith borrowers to get out from under bad loans. The Bush administration's voluntary mortgage-rate "freeze" will reach fewer than 25 percent of borrowers."

And while the mortagage crisis caused by predatory lending practices does affect people of all colors, there is most certainly a racial aspect involved here as well.

“It’s the ugly geographic pattern that we’ve seen before,” said Paul Collier, the director of litigation for Harvard Law School’s clinical program. “Sub-prime lending is narrowly focused on neighborhoods of color.”

According to Valerie Rawlston Wilson of the Urban League, home equity accounts for nearly 90 percent of black homeowners' total net worth. So as the housing market collapses, much of the trumpeted new wealth that has accumulated in black communities in recent decades will go with it.

Black Agenda Report points out a recent study, titled "Foreclosed: State of the Dream 2008," shows definitively that banks and other lending institutions trapped Blacks and Latinos in predatory lending schemes as a matter of policy. "Even a surface check of the demographics shows," the study says, "that, in city after city, a solid majority of subprime loan recipients were people of color." The very scope of the crime proves that the lending crisis is not the product of Black "culture," but the result of calculated policies, near-uniformly carried out by virtually all of the nation's mortgage lending institutions. This is institutional racism writ large, and indisputable.
And whatever plans (good or bad) are put forth by Presidential candidates, local governments, and Congress don't solve the situation for folks on the ground right now.

Only People Power can do that. Working class homeowners need to organize community committees to demand an end to foreclosures and zero tolerance to throwing families out of their homes. People need to do exactly what was done in Boston and stand in the way of the "law" and the lenders as they attempt to take away their neighbor's home.

It's time folks that we stand up and stay "Screw this crap." It isn't working folks who ought to be paying for this mess. Make those truly responsible, those who have made millions off our backs for so long now, pay for the hole they've dug and put so many working Americans in.

The following is from WBCV (Boston)

Mother Works To Save Dorchester Home

BOSTON -- A Dorchester mother fighting to keep her home received a reprieve Wednesday from an eviction deadline with the support of many local groups.

NewsCenter 5's Gail Huff reported that protesters created a human barricade around the front door at 26 Semont Road.

They refused to let a constable physically force Melanie Griffiths-Evans and her three teenage children from their Dorchester home. U.S. Bank foreclosed on the home in 2007.

Community activists, friends and family waited for the constable to show up at 9 a.m. Labor union leaders were also there to lend support.

"These banks, the way they are doing it right now, are vicious, and they could take your house right out from under you," said Ed Childs, of the Dining Services Union.

By 9:30 a.m., the constable did not show up at the home. Instead, he called Griffiths-Evans and said that he would not be coming Wednesday.

"In the future, I just hope that they'd be willing to negotiate. My intent was that they see me as a family, as people, and not as an account number. I think we've accomplished that," she said.

Inell Mendes is renter, and the bank has taken over her building, too.

"We really don't know what is going on. We are just waiting," she said.

"There's lots of absentee buildings being foreclosed, and the first the tenants hear about it is when they get an eviction notice from the bank. Probably at least 750 properties will be foreclosed in 2008, and so that is probably 1,500 plus families facing eviction," housing activist Steve Mecham said.

Copyright 2008 by TheBostonChannel.com.

FUNDAMENTALISTS IN AFGHANISTAN GET THEIR WAY...AGAIN

Here we go again. In the new Afghanistan a college student, Sayed Perwiz Kambakhsh (pictured here), has been sentenced to die for passing around a paper he got off the Internet that some say "humiliated" Islam.

The trial was held behind closed doors and without any lawyer defending him. His brother, fellow journalist Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, told Reporters Without Borders: "I saw my brother leave the court. He was very anxious. All the family was, too."

Prior to the court's ruling the Council of Mullahs had said Kambakhsh should be sentenced to death. The court was listening.

It isn't the end of the world to have your religion subject to criticism or even humiliated. It happens to all religions everywhere, thank god, and too often the clerics and clergy get bent all out of shape.

Usually you don't get sentenced to death, but...

Rhimullah Samandar, the head of the Kabul-based National Journalists Union of Afghanistan, said twenty-three year old student had been sentenced to death under Article 130 of the Afghan constitution. That article says that if no law exists regarding an issue, a court's decision should be in accord with Hanafi jurisprudence. Hanafi is an orthodox school of Sunni Muslim jurisprudence followed in southern and central Asia.

Samandar called for Afghan President Karzai to intervene.

"We completely condemn this trial," Samandar said. "It goes against the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press."

Reporters Without Borders said, "The calls for the death penalty for Kambakhsh highlight the growing influence of fundamentalist groups on intellectual debated. The blasphemy charges are an ill-disguised attempt to hide the desire of the local authorities to restrict press freedom."

At a news conference yesterday, Hafizullah Khaliqyar, the deputy provincial prosecutor in charge of the case, threatened to imprison all journalists who support Kambakhsh, adding that "Kambakhsh has confessed to the crime and must be punished."

Meanwhile, about 600 children under five die every day in Afghanistan due to pneumonia, poor nutrition, diarrhoea and other preventable diseases, according to the State of the World's Children 2008 report released by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) on 22 January.

Entitled Child Survival, the UNICEF report ranks Afghanistan as having the third highest infant mortality rate, after Sierra Leone and Angola. The country is ranked second in the world in terms of its maternal mortality rate with about 1,600 deaths per every 100,000 live births.

The following is from Canoe (Canada).

Afghan journalism student sentenced to death for paper 'against Islam'
By Amir Shah

KABUL, Afghanistan - An Afghan court on Tuesday sentenced a 23-year-old journalism student to death for distributing a paper he printed off the Internet that three judges said violated the tenets of Islam.

The three-judge panel sentenced Sayad Parwez Kambaksh to death for distributing a paper that humiliated Islam, said Fazel Wahab, the chief judge in the northern province of Balkh.

Wahab did not preside over the trial.

Kambaksh's family and the head of a journalists group denounced the verdict and said Kambaksh was not represented by a lawyer at trial. Members of a clerics council had been pushing for Kambaksh to be punished.

The case now goes to the first of two appeals courts. Kambaksh, who has been jailed since October, will remain in custody during appeal.

Wahab said he didn't have the details of the paper that Kambaksh circulated, other than that it was against Islam.

Kambaksh discussed the paper with his teacher and classmates at Balkh University. Several students complained to the government.

Kambaksh's brother, Yacoubi Brahimi, described Tuesday's proceeding as a "secret trial," saying the family did not know it had been scheduled.

Some have accused Kambaksh of writing the paper in question, but Brahimi said that his brother had simply printed it off the Internet.

Wahab said only President Hamid Karzai can forgive Kambaksh because he had confessed to violating the tenets of Islam.

THE LAWSON FILE: DO YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO CAN'T WAIT A DAY TO GET A GUN?

Those of you who read the Oread Daily on a regular basis (there must be one or two of you, at least) know that I am not an anti-gun person. I think there are good reasons in this day and age for citizens to own guns, even to carry them. I actually believe that if guns are outlawed only the people who really have a legitimate need for them won't have them. Also, there are so many guns out there right now, ain't nobody getting them back...and any government that could or would even try kinda scares me anyway.

And yes, guns kill people, but really without the finger of a killer on the trigger they don't much.

Okay, that takes us to the article below which details a debate in Virginia going on over closing the loophole that allows people to buy guns of all makes and kinds at gun shows from unlicensed dealers with no background check.

Now, I have never been able to figure out why people need assault rifles and the like. You can defend yourself with a lot less then that. And if you are a hunter, which I don't think you should be (although it is your right) you don't need an assault rifle to take down a deer.

I believe that most everyday run of the mill Americans, even though who own guns, have no problem with background checks which might keep weapons out of the hands of people with mental problems or legal backgrounds which mitigate against their ownership (something by the way which I think should be amended. I don't think everyone with any sort of criminal record at any time in their lives should be banned from gun ownership, but some do).

Now the argument against background checks at gun shows is that they might delay the purchase of a gun by a day. A day!!! I mean there aren't many times you need a gun in the next couple of hours. I would in fact be a little concerned about someone who needed a firearm like right now. If you happen to be facing some immediate threat, I'd suggest hiding out, calling the cops, or maybe a friend.

I think most Americans agree with me. There is a reasonable middle ground in the whole gun debate.

I've been criticized by rabid anti-gun control advocates for advocating that. They say everyone has the right under the Constitution to a gun right now and it shouldn't be up to the likes of me to say they don't.

My answer to them is "nuts to you." There are a hell of a lot of things that I don't think the likes of you should advocate that limit my rights in one way or another and that sure as hell don't stop you or your representatives from doing just that. I call upon you to make the argument on why someone can't wait for a background check to get a weapon. Don't give me the slippery slope argument, just answer the question.

One other thing, folks. I've been to gun shows in my life. There aren't just guns for sale. Drop by some of them and check out some of the "political" literature, bumper stickers and the like available next to the guns. One of the reasons why I think you should have a gun is because the people who put out and are pushing that far right wing (and sometimes racist) stuff have them.

The following is from the Danville Register & Bee (Danville, Virginia).

Targeting gun laws

People on both sides of the gun control debate clashed Monday as families and friends of Virginia Tech shooting victims and survivors of the tragedy flooded the Capitol in support of legislation designed to prevent criminals and the mentally ill from buying firearms at gun shows.

Tensions escalated as about 100 supporters of a bill that would close the so-called gun show loophole lay on the Capitol lawn to honor victims of gun violence. About 200 opponents surrounded the group holding signs that read, “Here Lie Disarmed Victims,” both sides jostled for turf and one gun-rights advocate fired questions at a survivor of the April 16 shootings.

“Today, united with the families of our fellow Virginians whose loved ones have been lost forever, we fight back for change!” protest organizer Abigail Spangler told supporters, many wearing ribbons in Tech’s colors of maroon and orange.

At issue was legislation that would require unlicensed sellers at gun shows to run criminal background checks on buyers. Such checks now are required only of federally licensed gun dealers.

Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 people at Tech before committing suicide, passed a background check and bought one gun from a store and a second online despite having been deemed mentally defective by a Virginia court. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has since signed an executive order requiring that anyone ordered by a court to get mental health treatment be added to a state police database of people barred from buying guns.

Colin Goddard, who survived despite being shot four times by Cho, was taken aback when a member of the Firearms Coalition approached him and said students could have stopped the rampage if they had been allowed to carry handguns on campus.

“I would have stopped him,” Jeff Knox, director of operations for the Manassas-based group told Goddard. “Because when I went to school, I carried a gun. It was legal, I did it.”

Goddard responded quickly.

“I feel sorry for you - the fact that you feel you need to protect yourself in every situation,” the Virginia Tech senior said. “You’re afraid of crazy situations happening. I’ve lived through this and I know that I can’t continue in my life afraid of things. Things are gonna happen out of my control.

“There are people within our society who we deem capable and correct, our police forces who are supposed to protect us - and I put my full trust in them.”

Goddard and fellow survivor Lily Habtu, both strong supporters of closing the loophole, watched the lie-in but did not join those on the ground.

“I was one of the people who were lying down when this happened,” Goddard said. “So I’ve done my lying down.”

Earlier in the day, families and friends of the Tech shooting victims packed the Senate Courts of Justice Committee’s public hearing on the gun show loophole legislation. Bill supporters outnumbered by about 3-1 opponents sporting buttons reading “Guns Save Lives.”

Sen. Henry Marsh of Richmond, the committee chairman and sponsor of the bill, said the panel would vote on the measure Wednesday. He said he wanted to give the public a couple more days to be heard on the issue. Similar legislation was killed quickly and with little explanation Friday by a House committee with a long history of resisting gun control.

Several law enforcement officers spoke in favor of the bill, but senators seemed most captivated by the testimony of Tech families.

“The heartache for these families will never, ever end,” said Lori Haas, whose daughter Emily survived two bullets fired into her head.

Opponents of the bill noted that Cho did not buy his weapon at a gun show, but supporters said that doesn’t matter. The idea, they said, is to be proactive and reduce the possibility of similar tragedies in the future.

“You can no longer say you have not been forewarned,” said Joseph Samaha of Annandale, whose daughter Reema was among those killed. “By voting ‘no’ you are doomed to relive history.”

Gun-rights advocates said the bill would be burdensome for law-abiding citizens and gun show promoters. Philip Van Cleave of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, responding to claims that a criminal background check takes no more than five minutes, said he recently bought from a federally licensed dealer at a gun show and had to wait until the next day to get his gun.

That brought a sarcastic “Awwww” from the audience and a sharp response from Senate Majority Leader Richard L. Saslaw, D-Fairfax.

“How onerous do you think this deal has been for that family sitting there,” Saslaw said, referring to one of the Tech families sitting behind Van Cleave.

Among those from law enforcement supporting the bill was Gerald Massengill, the former state police superintendent who headed the panel appointed by Kaine to investigate the shootings. The panel unanimously recommended closing the loophole.

“There’s another Cho out there,” Massengill said. “Where is that Cho ... going to get his weapon? I don’t know. But I know where he can go get it easily, with no questions asked.”

Habtu, 22, who was critically injured by bullets to her head and arm in the Tech shootings, said the issue is not about taking guns away from law-abiding citizens; it is about keeping weapons away from people like Cho.

“I’m still suffering now, and I still have a long way to go. I haven’t even begun my healing process,” she said after the lie-in. “So knowing all this, I do not want another person, another family, to go through this.”

WEEK OF PROTEST FOR JAILED STUDENTS IN IRAN

Join a week of protest in February for student activists jailed in Iran.

Since December dozens of student leaders and activists have been rounded up by the Ministry of Information of the Islamic regime of Iran. A good many of the detainees are being held in the notorious Evin Prison, and the whereabouts of the rest is unknown.

Numerous fabricated charges have been leveled at the students. The Ministry of Information has stated:

"The rioters had obtained bows and arrows and stones and made sonic hand grenades... The detainees had in their possession a significant amount of alcoholic drinks and illegal and immoral literature containing insults to the sacred". The Rajanews website, linked to president Ahmadinejad, has said: "Following extensive nationwide investigations of the universities by the security organisations, the core of the communists who had connections with aboard has been identified and arrested. The communist cell's plan was to create riots in the universities on 7th December by obtaining incendiary devices such as Molotov Cocktail and hand grenades to cause mayhem and disturbance".

Maryam Namazie writes:

"Although references to 'alcohol, banned literature, insulting sanctities, link to opposition groups abroad', etc. only demonstrates the depth of the oppressive nature of this regime, the mention of 'obtaining incendiary devices such as Molotov Cocktail and hand grenades' are dangerous security codes which have been used in the past to execute thousands of dissidents or to impose long-term prison sentences. The news of torture of students is most worrying. The world must react to this atrocity."

The following is from the website of human rights activist Maryam Namaazie.

Join a week of protest calling for the release of jailed students in Iran

During the past month-and-a-half a large number of university students have been arrested at universities or towns throughout Iran for the "crime" of defending human rights and humanist values through organising or taking part in December 7th (Student Day) actions. They are currently held in prisons, suffering various forms of abusive treatment. During this period, some of their families have been permitted only one short visit with their children. The families have also been under constant, intense emotional stress, while at the same time protesting the detention of their sons and daughters and demanding their immediate release.

Despite all the efforts made to free the jailed students, a large group of them are still held in solitary cells under inhuman conditions, and some of them have not yet been allowed any visitation with their families – not even a phone call.

We hereby appeal to people, institutions and organisations inside and outside Iran to continue their efforts and participate in the International Week of Action for the Release of Jailed Students in Iran during February 2 to February 9, 2008. Actively demonstrate your opposition to the students' incarceration and abuse. Celebrating National Students’ Day (December 7) is a right, and all imprisoned students must be released immediately and unconditionally.

Please send your letters of support here.

For more information, click here.

Signed by:
A group of parents of jailed students; groups of students at Allaame University, Polytechnic, Chamraan University (Ahvaz), Baahonar University (Shiraz), University of Mashad.

The names of the students:
1- Ali Salem (Masters of Polymers – Polytechnic)
2- Mohsen Ghamin (Polytechnic University)
3- Roozbe Saf-Shekan (Tehran University)
4- Yaser Pir Hayati -sadra– (Shahed University)
5- Milad Omrani
6- Anooshe Azadbar (Tehran University)
7- Elnaz Jamshidi (Communications, Azad University, Central Tehran)
8- Mehdi Gerayloo (Geophysics, Tehran)
9- Nader Ahsani (Mazandaran University)
10-Sayid Habibi (ex-member of the Central Council of Advare Tahkim Vahdat)
11- Behrooz Karimi-zade (Tehran University)
12- Keyvan Amiri Elyasi (Masters, Industry, Sharif Technical University)
13- Nasim SoltanBeygi (Communications faculty, Alame)
14- Mahsa Mohebbi
15- Okhtay Hosseni (Azad University)
16- Sayid Agham Ali
17- Behzad Bagheri (Tehran University)
18- Ali Kalayi
19- Amir Mehrzad
20- Hadi Salari (Rjaee University)
21- Farshid Farhadi Ahangaran(Rjaee University)
22- Amir Aghayi (Rajaee University)
23- Soroosh Hashempoor (Chamran University)
24- Mehdi Alahyari (Sharif University)
25- Bahram Shojaee (Tehran Azad University)
26- Abed Tavanche
27- Saeed Aqakhani
28- Peyman Piran
29- Majid Ashrafnejad (Rjaee University)
30- Mohammad Salehe Iuman
31- Sohrab Karimi
32- Farshad Dostipor
33- Javad Alizade
34- Morteza Eslahchi
35- Anahita Hoseini
36- Soroosh Sabet
37- Mohammad Porabdolah
38- Amin Ghazaee
39- Soroosh Dashtestani
40- Bijan Sabagh
41- Bita Samimi Zad
42- Kaveh Abaseian
43- Morteza Khedmatlou
44- Mosi Shirvani
45- Yaser Goli
46- Hana Abdi
47- Ronak Saffarzadeh
48- Sabah Nasri
49- Hedayat Ghazali
50- Ahmad Ghasaban
51- Ehsan Mansori
52- Majid Tavakoli

FARMERS ON THE MARCH IN THE PHILIPPINES

Thousands of anti-government protesters took to the streets in the Philippine capital on Tuesday as policemen and soldiers went on high alert amid fears of violence.

The demonstrators marched towards the Malacanang presidential palace to demand President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's ouster seven years after she was propelled to the top post by a military-backed mass uprising. They accused Arroyo of massive corruption, human rights abuses and failure to uplift the lives of the country's impoverished millions.

The bulk of the protesters were farmers who marched to Manila from nearby provinces. The group of several thousand farmers, activists and supporters left the Quezon Memorial Circle before dawn and set off for the small bridge in Manila near Malacanang Palace where 21 years ago, 13 peasants and activists were killed in what is now known as the Mendiola massacre (see collage pictured here).

The group was allowed to carry out its protest at a small school instead of on the bridge after thousands of "unarmed" Manila police backed by elite SWAT teams and riot police on stand-by refused to allow them access to it.

Farmers and militants said the event should be "considered a success, as more important than getting to the bridge, the message for genuine agrarian reform echoes clear and across the globe, people remembered the tragic events of 21 years ago."

Also, Inquirer.net reports hundreds of farmers in Iloilo, Cebu and Davao held protest actions on Tuesday to mark the 21st anniversary of the Mendiola massacre, in which 13 people were killed when security forces opened fire at protesters marching to Malacañang to demand agrarian reform.

In Iloilo City, protesters led by the Paghugpong sang mga Mangunguma sa Panay kag Guimaras (Pamanggas, United Farmers of Panay and Guimaras) marched along the main streets before holding a rally at the grounds of the Iloilo provincial capitol.

In Cebu, around 600 farmers and fishermen marched from Minglanilla town to Cebu City calling for genuine agrarian reform.

In Davao City, hundreds of farmers staged a rally in front of the Department of Agrarian Reform office.

Speakers at the Iloilo City protest took turns denouncing the government's Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP), which they said failed to address the farmers' clamor for land and government support to boost production.

What follows is from the Manila Bulletin.

Farmers end march to Mendiola

Around 800 peasants from Southern Tagalog (Region 4) ended yesterday their week-long march to Mendiola in Manila to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the "Mendiola Massacre" where 13 peasants were killed, seven of them from Laguna, in 1987.

The protesters, led by Katipunan ng mga Samahang Magbubukid sa Timog Katagalugan (KasamaTK), said they will continue the struggle for land that was the battlecry of peasants during the Mendiola Massacre.

"We remember the martyrs of the Mendiola massacre by giving them the highest tribute. They inspire us to be steadfast in our struggle for land despite threats and harassment from a fascist government," Orly Marcellana, secretary-general of Kasama-TK, said.

The peasants started their protest march on Jan. 16 in Nasugbu, Batangas. The peasants were able to pass through police blockades at the boundary of Alfonso and Tagaytay and at Pala-pala, Dasmariñas, Cavite.

Police also blocked the protesters at the boundary of Bacoor, Cavite, and Zapote, preventing two contingents from converging. The protesters endured rain and 10 hours of the blockade which lasted until 12 midnight before police allowed the protesters to converge.

The protesters exposed the continued landlessness of peasants under the "bogus" Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program. They called on communities they passed to support the Genuine Agrarian Reform Bill (House Bill 3059) filed by Rep. Crispin Beltran of Anakpawis.

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) yesterday vowed to finally work in earnest to improve tenure or leasehold arrangements for farmers and better conditions for farm workers on lands covered by the CARP that have not been acquired by the department.

Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser C. Pangandaman said that under the Land Tenure Improvement Program (LTIP), the new arrangements and conditions are aimed at improving the living conditions of the farmers and farm workers under fair arrangements with the landowners.

Pangandaman’s action was not applauded by thousands of farmers who had earlier picketed the DAR office in Quezon City and expressed indignation at the failure of the department to implement the CARP in large estates in Laguna, Quezon, Batangas, and Negros Occidental, especially in Hacienda Bacan, which is owned by the family of the First Gentleman, Atty. Jose Miguel "Mike" T. Arroyo, the President’s husband.

Members of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) claimed that land conversions, chronic absence of support services, and the run-down conditions of irrigation systems, along with farm-to-market roads that have not been built, all conspired to condemn peasants and farm workers to miserable lives.

Militant farmers want CARP to be scrapped and in its place a new scheme must be implemented that would distribute land to landless peasants for free, with government absorbing the cost, arguing that tenants had long paid their landowners through unequal sharing of produce and exploitative relations that force them to provide unpaid labor to landlords.

KMP claimed that up to 80 percent of peasants in Southern Luzon and other regions have not been covered by CARP and in many areas under the program, up to 35 percent of farmers had to sell their land or have them foreclosed by banks since they could pay amortizations.

WHO IS DOING WHAT TO WHO

There has been a bit in the news recently about Venezuela backing the FARC guerrillas. Colombia's government has accused Hugo Chavez of meddling in their little war.

Well, turn about is fair play, and the media in Venezuela is reporting now on right wing and druggie paramilitaries wrecking havoc in their country.

You won't see anything about that in the U.S. mainstream media.

As far back as 2004 the Venezuela has been trying to get someone's attention about the Colombian paramilitaries operating on their soil.

Also, in that year, the paras made headlines in Venezuela and around the world, when around 70 Colombian men were arrested outside Caracas, accused of being paramilitaries involved in a right-wing plot against the government of Hugo Chávez.

Anyway this new business follows on the heels of accusations by Venezuela that Colombia's U.S.-backed government is undermining efforts led by President Hugo Chavez to negotiate a prisoners-for-hostages swap with Colombia's largest rebel group.

Venezuela's government took aim at Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, issuing a statement that his government has ignored the plight of hundreds of rebel-held hostages and is obsessed with war.

«The Colombian government has reached the extreme of obstructing and sabotaging the humanitarian missions led by the international community, putting the lives if innocent people at risk,» Venezuela's foreign ministry said in its statement.

The following is from La Prensa Latina.

Colombian Paramilitary in Venezuela

Colombian paramilitary posses, present in Venezuelan rural zones for many years, are also penetrating the cities and control illegal activities in some neighborhoods, denounced local weekly Temas Friday.

In an article headlined "Venezuela: The Invasion Is On" Venezuelan intellectual Luis Brito assured that he had reports that paramilitary groups, mostly known as "paracos", are replacing illegal national gangs in the traffic of people, drugs, gambling and usurious loans.

Colombian gangs with training, organization, military armament and financial support from organized crime, replace thieves, and in the Venezuelan state of Zulia, have replaced national gangs lending money to street sellers.

Brito said that if the phenomenon spreads, another coup in Venezuela is possible, popular sectors will not be able to mobilize, as they did in 2002 to defeat the coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

He warned of the danger because of the proximity of Colombia, in an election year in the US, a country in which presidents strike at other countries as a sort of campaign propaganda.

HUCKABEE: A PROUD SON OF THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA

Okay folks, here is something a little different. The article which follows the introduction is from The Nation. The introduction, however, is not from me, but from One People's Project. Got it. Get it. Who needs me?

From One People's Project:

We knew it was going to happen, but it sucks that we had to be right. Even we wanted Mike Huckabee to be the nice guy he seems to be on the campaign trail. The problem with that is he is also a neo-con, and when you put neo-cons in South Carolina, where you just have to kiss the asses of neo-confederates, what is ugly about you comes out big time. Now the fact that Huckabee was the governor of a state that represents the Confederacy on it's flag should not be enough to indict the guy if it didn't indict Gov. Clinton. Remarks defending the Confederate flag - suggesting violence to do so - just before the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend - oughta do it though. Okay, so he says it's all in the spirit of not allowing others to tell South Carolina what to do. Considering we have heard that in the past not only from South Carolina but from Arkansas when they tried in vain to preserve Jim Crow, that sentiment is going to ring a little hollow. Tell ya what though, Mikey. Since you don't believe in telling South Carolina what to do, we guess that means you won't have much to say when New Jersey burns that flag, eh? This article is accompanied by a video shot in 2000 by DLJ of members of the People's Organization for Progress, NAACP, Anti-Racist Action and others burning a Confederate flag in Newark, NJ. It was burned in response to the controversy brewing at the time in South Carolina keeping the flag they hoisted in protest of the Civil Rights Bill on top of their Statehouse. It is one thing if someone as an individual wants to fly that flag, but it is quite another when it is going to represent everyone, including those who do not want to be associated with it. If Huckabee doesn't see that to be a problem, the closest he will get to the White House next year may be as a tourist.

From The Nation:

Mike Huckabee is a proud Christian fundamentalist.

But that's not the only faith the Republican presidential candidate preaches on the campaign trail.
He is, as well, a proud Confederate fundamentalist who wants there to be no doubt about his commitment to preserving the ugly symbols of slavery's defense.

Huckabee has in recent days been gleefully proposing a violent response to any "outsider" who might suggest that it is time to haul down the flag of treason that was flown by southern extremists who went to war against the United States in order to preserve the practice of human bondage.

Again and again on the campaign trail in South Carolina, the state that led the south into rebellion against the Union, Huckabee has gone out of his way to discuss and defend the "right" of southerners to fly the Confederate flag in official settings.

"You don't like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag," the former governor of Arkansas told a crowd in Myrtle Beach, where he was campaigning in advance of the state's Republican primary on Saturday. "In fact, if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole, that's what we'd do."
In Florence, he told his supporters that, "I know what would happen if somebody comes to my state in Arkansas and tells us what to do, it doesn't matter what it is, tell us how to run our schools, tell us how to raise our kids, tell us what to do with our flag -- you want to come tell us what to do with the flag, we'd tell them what to do with the pole."

Exactly when are political reporters going to acknowledge that the candidate they have presented to America as a charming, good-humored "nice guy" is running a "southern-strategy" campaign so extreme in its sensibilities, themes and language that it would have embarrassed George Wallace?

THE LAWSON FILE: HOW TO MAKE A BUCK OFF OF OLD FOLKS

Attention Baby Boomers, your attention please. Big moneyed interests are looking at your aging with glee. They plan to make a buttload of money off you and provide you with less then adequate nursing home care elder care, and assisted living at the same time.

Hell, they're at it right now with your folks and your siblings.

Just prior to Christmas, it was revealed that serious reprimands for dangerous conditions at nursing homes had increased 22 per cent over a six-year period ending in 2006. These citations can run the gamut from not providing patients their necessary meds, to cases of physical and sexual abuse of residents.

Still there are a lot of boomers reaching that age none of us planned on and the millionaires are ready.

The good news: at least, some folks have an eye out on the situation already.

Carlyle Group co founder David Rubenstein had his speech disrupted by protesters today at the Wharton Private Equity Forum in Center City Philadelphia today.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports Rubinstein's talk to more than 300 investors and students was delayed half an hour when two dozen activists from the Service Employees' International Union (SEIU) heckled the head of the $70 billion-asset investment firm, jostling Park Hyatt Hotel security, shouted and chanted from the balconies at the Park Hyatt in Philadelphia the minute he started speaking, and managed to unfurl banners despite the efforts of security to stop them.

The protest was sparked by Carlyle's take over of the nursing home company Manor Care.

Portfolio.com reports a delegation charged the stage with a megaphone and accused Rubenstein and Carlyle -- which recently acquired Manor Care-- of disregarding patient care and plotting layoffs.

"We take care of your parents and you don't care!" a protester shouted from the balcony.

Manor Care is a Toledo-based chain of 500 nursing homes, which Carlyle bought last month for $6.3 billion. It's one of the most recent of dozens of public companies that have been taken over by private equity firms like Carlyle, which invest money from pension funds, universities and other wealthy investors, and which don't have to report detailed financial results as public companies do.

The union charges that Carlyle is trying to make money through other people's suffering -- and indeed make some people's suffering worse in the pursuit of profits. The union's website dedicated to Carlyle and other private equity big shots states that it is "concerned that Carlyle's business practices may put everyday Americans at risk by endangering public services, imperiling the environment, jeopardizing the health of vulnerable senior citizens, and supporting human rights abuses abroad."

Manor Care workers worry Carlyle will cut spending at the residences in order to make the deal pay, said protester Tricia Miechur, who said she worked at a Manor facility in the Lehigh Valley. Speaking after the group left the hotel, she said coworkers have asked the SEIU to help form a union because they're worried Carlyle can't afford to improve both profits and patient care.

By the way, Rubinstein was a member of the Carter administration, and Carlyle formerly counted ex-President George H.W. Bush, former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci and other Washington insiders among its top officers, and military contractors among its clients according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Now back to the generic problem...or geriatric prolem...anyway our problem.

Private investment groups have been targeting some of the biggest nursing home concerns, in turn affecting the care of millions of patients. In addition to Carlyle’s purchases of HCR Manor Car, Genesis Healthcare Corp. agreed to be bought by private equity in January, and Beverly Enterprises went private in 2005 reports NewsInferno.com.

These guys aren't buying up nursing homes and the like for fun. Such purchases are made for the quick buck, where a new owner will gloss over problems and cut costs in order to improve profitability, then sell for a tidy sum. How do you cut costs? You and I know the answer to that one, don't we?

And yet no one is asking us what we think of all this.

Hmmm.

According to a New York Times investigation, as outlined in NewsInferno.com, facilities owned by private investment firms scored worse than national rates in 12 of the 14 indicators regulators use to track ailments prevalent in nursing homes. Both federal and state regulators told the New York Times that citations for quality-of-care deficiencies, like moldy food and restraining residents for long periods of time, rose at every large nursing home chain that was acquired by a private investment group

What's more, according to data attributed to the US Centers of Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMMS, the authority which regulates nursing homes in the United States), residents of nursing homes held by private equity suffer more from depression, loss of mobility and the loss of ability to bathe, and dress themselves.

Federal and state regulators have said that citations for things such as restraining residents for long periods, and the serving of moldy food have increased at every nursing home owned, and controlled by a private equity firm.

Gee whiz, makes you just long for those golden years, doesn't it?

But then America has always had such a glowing record when it comes to taking care of citizens who have worked hard for decades and can finally work no more.

Capitalism finds a way to make money off you one way or another.

Isn't that so cool?

The following somewhat confusingly written article is from DealBreaker.

The Fracas At Wharton

So how violent was the protest at Wharton's Private Equity and Venture Capital conference
today?

Accounts of the disruption vary, with some claiming that punches were thrown and others saying that it was just scuffling or jostling.

As we first reported this morning, shortly after David Rubenstein of the Carlyle Group had begun his keynote address, protesters from the Service Employees International Union swarmed the room, unfurling banners and shouting slogans, sometimes through a megaphone.

Eyewitness accounts report that around forty protesters were in the room (the Philadelphia Inquirer says only two-dozen), although protestors had been handing out fliers outside the event earlier. Rubenstein was described as “speechless” in the moments after the protests began.

“They looked like they are going to kill the guy [Rubenstein],” a witness said over email as it unfolded. “They are on both balconies and have control of the floor. No sign of security. The speaker is in shock. One thing we now know about the venture crowd; don't count on them in a fire fight. You'd be better off with Donald Duck as a wingman.”

After a short time, a dialogue of sorts—as much as any back-and-forth that involves bullhorns can be described as a “dialogue”—began between the protesters, the audience and Rubenstein, lasting for between ten and fifteen minutes.

"Rubenstein remained on stage and agreed to address questions from a woman with a mega-phone, who said she was a Manor Care employee, and lit into him," George White of the Deal reports.

“A spokesperson of sorts began a rather predictable dialogue with Rubenstein about Carlyle's two-week-old purchase of Manor Care,” one witness said.

"I think a remedial English course would be helpful," Rubenstein said to the female protester.

Some in the audience offered less jocular responses, verbally abusing the protesters.

“One person in the front row called one of our spokespeople a ‘fat cow,’” Jule Eisenhardt of SEIU told DealBreaker.

The situation grew tense as the confrontation continued. Unlike many events in the past that have been subject to similar protests recently undertaken by the SEIU, this one seemed capable of turning violent. Many students in the crowd seemed agitated that the conference was being disrupted.

“The crowd had a large number of students, who are less inhibited than the typical attendees at these conferences,” Eisenhardt said. “They are not that deep in the industry. Usually people just stand back and wait for security.”

Witnesses at the conference reported that the situation turned “violent” and described the situation as “out of control.” There were reports that punches were thrown but Eisenhardt denies these. Witnesses who spoke to DealBreaker did not see any punches. One witness said that after the event he was told by others that there were “fisticuffs” between protesters unfurling a banner from one of the balconies and a group that attempted to stop them.

“There was lots of shouting and jostling but nothing violent,” Eisenhardt says.

Police were summoned to the hotel but did not enter the room, according to Eisenhardt. She tells DealBreaker that no-one was arrested and the protesters left on their own accord as the hotel security presence increased after about 30 minutes.

Private equity has been the target of many protests in the last several months. The SEIU organized a protest in the Hamptons last summer, as DealBook reminds us, “where protesters pretended to be billionaires and expressed mock opposition to raising taxes on private equity fund managers.” Weeks later, a private equity conference at the Waldorf Astoria was disrupted by protesters.

Eisenhardt said that the SEIU had not given the press any advance notice of the protest so that the group could avoid being stopped by security. She explained the purpose of the protest to Dan Primack at PE Hub: “We want to show that private equity has a responsibility to the community, just as any other investment class or industry would have. Right now, Carlyle and Rubenstein are involved in a number of different companies where there are serious questions about how they’re handling that responsibility.”

WHITE SUPREMACISTS SAY THEY WILL BE COMING WITH GUNS TO JENA

The white supremacists coming to march in Jena, Louisiana on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day say they will be bringing guns with them. Richard Barrett, spokesman and attorney for the Mississippi-based Nationalist Movement, said, "We will be armed." The Nationalists' main speaker, Larry Darby, will be carrying his personal handgun to the event, Barrett said. Barrett added any kind of attempt by law enforcement officers to stop or search vehicles coming into the town for firearms wouldn't be tolerated.

The guy is obviously a fool in addition to a racist.

Meanwhile, the Shreveport Times reports opponents of the racists plans to march in Jena urged people Wednesday to take a stand against racism by opposing the procession.

A group called the January 21st Committee has issued a call for people to come to Jena.

"If we don't speak up and stand up, this horrific message will go unopposed," said Alice Woodward, of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), who spoke for other groups opposed to the white supremacist parade.

"If not us, who? If not now, when?"

Initial signatories to the January 21st Committee call include:

A group of 14 Jena residents Black and white, young and old, including two parents of the Jena Six

Addis Bey Ababa, People’s Hurricane Relief Fund organizer, Atlanta

Animas SDS (the Fort Lewis College [Durango CO] autonomous chapter of Students for a Democratic Society

Medea Benjamin, Cofounder CODEPINK* and Global Exchange*

Black Men 7, Eunice, Louisiana

Herb Boyd, The Black World Today, NY, NY

Reverend Raymond Brown, Community Activist, New Orleans

Marcus Coleman, President-National Action Network, Atlanta chapter* and 37 members and supporters attending the 1st NAN Atlanta meeting of 2008

C3 (Community, Concern, Compassion)/Hands Off Iberville, New Orleans

60 residents of Cabrini Green, Chicago

Carl Dix, Revolutionary Communist Party

Education Not Incarceration (San Francisco Chapter)

Miky Espinal, NY organizer for Health & Hospital Workers Union 1199*

Peggy Hendrix, member of Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Idress Stelley Foundation

International Socialist Organization, Madison Campus Branch

Thomas Kleven, Professor of Law, Thurgood Marshall School of Law*

Mayday New Orleans

Michael Novick, Anti-Racist Action, Los Angeles

NU Coalition to Free the Jena 6, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.

Don Paul, writer, musician, Housing is a Human Right, New Orleans

People Against Racist Terror

Don Rojas, The Black World Today, NY, NY

San Francisco Bayview Free The Jena Six Task Force

San Francisco Village Voice Community Radio, 105.5 FM

San Francisco Bayview Campaign to End the Death Penalty

Sankofa Community Empowerment

Sess 4-5, Nuthin But Fire Records, New Orleans

Adam Shapiro, “Current Events” on WRFG 89.3 FM Atlanta

Cindy Sheehan, Candidate for Congress, California's 8th district, mother of KIA soldier Casey Sheehan

Benetta Standly, Georgia Statewide Organizer, ACLU*

Student Organizers from University of California, PA and Howard University

Debra Sweet, Director, The World Can't Wait – Drive Out the Bush Regime

Everett Taasevigen

“Mzee” Leonard Tate, Millions More Movement Atlanta Chapter

Ms. Beauty Turner, National award-winning Journalist/Activist/Groundbreaking researcher, Founder of Poor People Millennium Movement

McNair Wagner, member Georgia Students for Sustainability

Cornel West

William Winters, Baton Rouge Activist

Alice Woodward and Hank Brown, Jena, LA correspondents for Revolution


The following is from UPI.

Group 'will be armed' for MLK protest

JENA, La., Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Protesters with the Nationalist Movement said they "will be armed" during marches in Louisiana protesting Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Richard Barrett, a spokesman for the "pro-majority" organization, said "we will be armed" for a protest of Martin Luther King Jr. Day marches that will also support six black Jena, La., teens charged with beating a white classmate, the Alexandria (La.) Town Talk said Thursday.

The remarks are in contrast to statements by the Nationalist Movement's lawyer, Gregory Aymond, who said Friday the group has "no intention" of carrying weapons following a successful lawsuit filed by the organization against the town of Jena regarding rally permit requirements, the newspaper report said.

The ruling, however, didn't address the organization's opposition to a ban on weapons during marches.

A release by the organization said attempts to search vehicles for firearms would be a violation of the court order.

THE LAWSON FILE: THE UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT WHO NEVER HEARD OF FREE SPEECH

So there is the guy at Valdosta State University in southern Georgia, a student, by the name of T. Hayden Barnes (pictured here), and he didn't like his University's plan to build a new parking garage costing $30 million. The $30 million would come from student fees.

So being a student at the Valdosta you'd figure he had the right to do what he did - put up flyers around the university in protest. He also sent out some e-mails including some to the university administration stating his position.

Guess what? Rather than ignore him or set up a meeting with concerned students, Valdosta State University, in Georgia, informed our student "radical", then a sophomore, that he had been “administratively withdrawn” effective May 7, 2007. In a letter apparently slipped under his dorm room door, Ronald Zaccari, the university’s president, wrote that Barnes “present[ed] a clear and present danger to this campus” and referred to the “attached threatening document,” a printout of an image from an album on Barnes’s Facebook profile. The collage featured a picture of a parking garage, a photo of Zaccari, a bulldozer, the words “No Blood for Oil” and the title “S.A.V.E.-Zaccari Memorial Parking Garage,” a reference to a campus environmental group and Barnes’s contention that the president sought to make the structures part of his legacy at the university.

And then, quite amazingly, the University of Georgia system upheld Zaccari's decision.

Now there are two things really wrong about this.

First, you'd be hard pressed to find any Americans out there (even in this day and age) who would tell you they think a college kid in Georgia ought to be thrown out of school for peacefully "protesting" a parking garage.

Second, the misuse of Facebook spots by school administrators of all stripes is getting out of hand and downright intimidating.

Of course, you would think that the president of a university would have heard of something called Free Speech, but then you have to remember that university presidents tend to think of themselves as intellectually above the rest of us and not to be questioned.

So I'm sure in this case Mr. U President would just tell you and me and Joe down the street that we haven't the brains to understand the issues and dangers involved which led him to crack down on this dangerous student.

Well, Mr. President, you've tackled a student who isn't impressed by your credentials or your position.

He's doing what all good Americans do in a case like this...he is going to court. (By the way coincidentally shortly after the suit was filed the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia reversed its earlier ruling against Barnes).

At the crux of what is now a federal lawsuit against Valdosta State, the document informing our student of his expulsion included a printout of an image posted on that Facebook profile as previously mentioned. Inside Higher Ed described the photo's contents:

"The collage featured a picture of a parking garage, a photo of Zaccari, a bulldozer, the words “No Blood for Oil” and the title “S.A.V.E.-Zaccari Memorial Parking Garage,” a reference to a campus environmental group and Barnes’s contention that the president sought to make the structures part of his legacy at the university."

As additional evidence of the threat posed by Barnes, the document referred to a link he posted to his Facebook profile whose accompanying graphic read: “Shoot it. Upload it. Get famous. Project Spotlight is searching for the next big thing. Are you it?” It doesn’t mention that Project Spotlight was an online digital video contest and that “shoot” in that context meant “record.”'

But how could we expect a university president to figure this one out?

Anyway this yutz of of president was also alarmed that Barnes’s Facebook profile stated, at one point, that he was “cleaning out and rearranging his room and thus, his mind, or so he hopes.” Scary stuff (well, to Zaccari anyway). The comments though were merely a status update, commonly used by Facebook members to update their friends on what they’re doing at a particular moment — whether literally or metaphorically.

But wait there is more to this story yet.

The university president did something here that should again concern every damn one of us. He found out that Barnes had availed himself of a counselor at the U. Again from Inside Higher Ed:

“Knowing that Barnes had availed himself of counseling services made available to all students by VSU, Zaccari secretly and repeatedly met with Barnes’s counselor seeking to justify his decision to expel him,” the lawsuit states. “What he learned from both the campus counseling center and from Barnes’s private psychiatrist who was consulted in the matter, however, was that Barnes had never exhibited any violent tendencies and that he did not represent any danger either to himself or to others. Quite to the contrary, despite a background in which he had been forced to cope with some difficult family issues from an early age, Barnes had developed into an engaged student, was a licensed and decorated emergency medical technician, and was politically aware and involved.”

Robert Corn-Revere, Barnes’s attorney and an adjunct scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute said, "“Sometimes there will come along a set of facts where you read it and you think, they couldn't’t possibly have done this. Then you look at it [and realize that] yes, they did.”

Oh, by the way, there is one piece of good news...President Zaccari has since announced his retirement.

The following is from The Red and Black (an independent newspaper serving the University of Georgia community).

Expulsion for protest unfair
By: Chris Chiego

What happens when a college student peacefully criticizes the actions of his university's administration? At Valdosta State University, new details are emerging in an incident that appears to offer a disturbing answer to that question.

After reading about this incident in numerous media sources, I examined publicly available documents to try to uncover an answer. However, what I found only exacerbated my concerns.

In what should be of interest to all University System of Georgia students who value their First Amendment rights, this case reveals major issues with how far freedom of speech extends on university campuses.

The incident began with the most American of traditions: a peaceful, spirited protest by a determined individual.

In a scenario reminiscent of Tate II, a new parking garage costing $30 million was announced for the VSU campus, to be funded with student fees.

T. Hayden Barnes, a VSU student, was angered by the garage and fought back peacefully and legally, sending e-mails to senior administrators and putting up fliers around campus protesting the garage.

Unfortunately for Barnes, his repeated letters roused the ire of VSU President Ronald Zaccari, who at the end of last spring semester personally ordered Barnes to be "administratively withdrawn" - expelled - specifically citing a collage Barnes posted on Facebook, which Zaccari claimed amounted to a "clear and present danger."

This collage includes images of a parking garage, Zaccari, a bulldozer and a sign that says "no blood for oil," among other environmental images. The title of the collage, "S.A.V.E.-Zaccari Memorial Parking Garage," apparently was a reference to Zaccari's desire to leave a legacy when he retired (he did so late last year), but I could not see any of the "clear and present danger" claimed by Zaccari. See for yourself online. (http://thefire.org/index.php/article/8530.html)

When Barnes appealed the decision to expel him to the University System of Georgia's Board of Regents, the same governing body that oversees our University, the regents defended Zaccari, claiming Barnes posed a danger to the safety of campus. To prove this charge, the regents cited two examples from Barnes' Facebook profile in a document submitted to the state Office of Administrative Hearings last fall.

According to this document, while Barnes' Facebook status stated he was "cleaning out and rearranging his room and, thus, his mind," Barnes posted a link to a Web site that included the tagline, "Shoot it. Upload it. Get famous." A reference to school shootings?

No, actually an ad for a photography contest, but apparently considered grounds for action against Barnes, as the regents document links that with the Virginia Tech shootings.

Last week, with the aid of the nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, Barnes filed a lawsuit alleging that his rights to free speech and due process were denied.

FIRE's president, Greg Lukianoff, had harsh words for VSU, decrying VSU's "concerted effort to silence and punish Hayden Barnes" as an "unconscionable attempt to violate his First Amendment rights."

Hopefully new details will emerge soon to clarify what happened at VSU, as taking out-of-context material from students' Facebook profiles to justify expelling them seems absurd.

The regents, which is meeting today, should give Barnes a fair hearing and transparently determine in a timely manner the merits of Barnes' case. Georgia's public university students should not have to worry whether speaking out against their administrators could lead to an untimely departure from college.

- Chris Chiego is a junior from Memphis, Tenn. majoring in international affairs and history.

TURKEY: MURDER TRIAL RAISES QUESTION OF POLICE COLLUSION AND PROSECUTORIAL INDIFFERENCE

Earth News writes today that one of the accused in the trial for killing three Christians (pictured here) in Turkey has called the suspected leader of the gang that carried out the attack a murderer.. Emre Gunaydin, 19, cut the throats of Tilmann Geske of Germany and Turkish national Necati Aydin, local media reported, citing testimony by defendant Hamit Ceker from Monday.

It was unclear who killed the third victim, Ugur Yuksel, who was also Turkish.

Ceker said that Gunaydin also gloated about having close contacts with the police chief in Malatya, south-eastern Turkey, where the trial is taking place. He testified he wanted to tell the police all the things Günaydın told him before the incident took place but another of the defendents told him that Günaydın was on good terms with the local police chief.

Since the trial opened in November, press reports have emerged alleging police collusion in the murders and accused prosecutors in the central Turkish city of Malatya of seriously mishandling the investigation. The allegations were brought by lawyers representing the families of the victims, based on evidence introduced to the court.

Hurryat reports according to some of the testimony offered up yesterday by one of the suspects in the case, part of the reason for the murders was the shared belief by the young men that "missionary activities in Turkey had reached dangerous levels."

The victims were tied to chairs in the offices of a small Bible- publisher, tortured with knives and then had their throats cut.

Lawyers representing the victims' families objected to the tone of the indictment and investigation, declaring that 16 of the 31 files focused on the religious activities of the Christian victims rather than on the murderers, who tied up, stabbed and slit the throats of Turkish converts Necati Aydin and Ugur Yuksel and German Christian Tilmann Geske.

According to an article on the Turkish Bianet (Independent News Net) the tone of the criminal investigation and biased reporting in the Turkish media marks “a dangerous shift of focus from the presumed perpetrators of a crime to conspiracy theories linking Christian missionaries and PKK [the separatist Kurdish Workers’ Party] activities.”

Zafer Üskül, head of Parliament's Human Rights Committee, talked to the journalists about the trial yesterday. He said, "Murders occurred in Malatya and a fundamental human right was violated. As the head of the Human Rights Committee I need to be informed about this case. One of the essential necessities of state secularism is to guarantee the freedom of religion. The state has to have an equal distance from all belief systems. However, these people were killed because of their beliefs. This is unacceptable," he said. Üskül also stated that Turkish society needed to be more tolerant about religious differences.

The following is from EurasiaNet.

TURKEY: MURDER CASES UNDERSCORE TROUBLES WITH JUDICIAL, POLICE REFORM
Yigal Schleifer: 1/16/08

The brutal murders of three Christians in a Bible publishing house last April in the central Turkish city of Malatya shocked many Turks. The country has continued to be scandalized by reports that have come to light amid the trial of the five people charged in the case. Among the more sordid allegations is that police officers may have colluded in the killings, and that investigators have mismanaged the criminal probe.

The killings of the Christians -- a German and two Turks -- occurred only a few months after the Istanbul murder of Hrant Dink, an outspoken Armenian journalist. Dink’s killing, the first anniversary of which will be commemorated on January 19, has also been surrounded by accusations of police and prosecutorial impropriety. The cases have led to renewed concerns about the continuing influence of rogue nationalist elements in Turkey’s security forces. They have also helped refocus attention on the conduct of the country’s police force and judiciary. Recent reports produced by international human rights groups argue that law-enforcement structures in Turkey are in urgent need of reform.

“Torture, ill treatment and killings continue to be met with persistent impunity for the security forces in Turkey,” Amnesty International said in a report released last summer. “The investigation and prosecution of serious human rights violations committed by officers of the police and gendarmerie are flawed and compounded by inconsistent decisions by prosecutors and judges. As a result, justice for the victims of human rights violations is delayed or denied.”

Dink’s murder on an Istanbul sidewalk was quickly followed up by reports that top police officials had been informed months before about a plot by Turkish nationalists to kill him. Meanwhile, a video showing several policemen proudly posing with the murder suspect – a 17-year-old from the Black Sea city of Trabzon – after he was caught soon surfaced after the murder.

In the Malatya case, press reports have indicated that the suspects, also young nationalists, had phone conversations with police officials, and possibly even with a prosecutor from Istanbul, in the months before the murders. Prosecutors have not followed up on these reports. The defendants’ trial began in late November.

According to various media accounts, police in Malatya are purported to have destroyed videotapes recorded in the hospital room of one of the accused, who injured himself during the crime. “The security forces and the judiciary here are protecting each other by not conducting a detailed investigation,” Husnu Ondul, head of the Human Rights Association (IHD), a Turkish watchdog group, told the English-language Today’s Zaman on December 8.

“The common point among all these similar incidents is this protection,” Ondul added.

Says Volkan Aytar, a researcher at the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV), an Istanbul-based think-tank: “There is a huge lack of transparency and a huge lack of accountability in the Turkish security services.”

In response to the questions swirling around the Malatya case, Turkish Interior Minister Besir Atalay announced in early December that two senior police officials would be conducting a probe. “Be sure of this: as a ministry, we will increase our transparency,” the minister told reporters.

Observers say that as shocking as the allegations of misdeeds in the Dink and Malatya cases have been, the fact that they are coming to light so quickly in itself represents a kind of step forward. “There have been a lot of political murders and crimes in the past in Turkey, but it was always very difficult to find out who did it,” says Hakan Bakircioglu, a lawyer who is monitoring the Dink murder trial on behalf of the slain journalist’s family.

“These two cases might be the first time we can find the murderers and maybe not catch, but at least touch, the members of state organizations who might be behind the crimes,” Bakircioglu added.

The Turkish police force has already taken some unilateral steps towards reform. Under one program, about 250 police officers over the last decade have been sent to study in the United States and European Union, where they obtained advanced degrees in criminal justice. Upon their return, it was envisioned that this corps of foreign-trained officers would play a key role in fostering a more transparent culture within the broader Turkish police force.

“There is no doubt that there has been an improvement in the last 10 years,” says Onder Aytac, a lecturer at Turkey’s national police academy in Ankara.

“But there is a kind of fighting between the old system and the new system,” he continued. “There are some people in the police force who are trying to go along the old way.”

Turkey’s judiciary, today seen as one of the pillars maintaining Turkey’s secular system, has also made some reform efforts. Over the last few years, more than 9,000 judges and prosecutors have undergone European Union-sponsored training concerning European human rights law. Turkey is a candidate for EU membership and is a member of the Strasbourg-based European Court of Human Rights.

Still, a recent survey of judges and prosecutors conducted by TESEV found that a majority still believe that the interests of the state take precedence over those of the individual. Of those surveyed, 51 percent said they believe human rights could pose a threat to state security. Only 28 percent said they didn’t. Meanwhile, 63 percent said they did not believe that Turkey’s EU-inspired reform process was benefiting the country.

“At the end of the day, we need judiciary reform and police reform,” says TESEV’s Aytar. “If that doesn’t happen, then we will have a very static bureaucracy that will not be able to adapt itself to the realities of a modern Turkey that is on its way to the EU.”


Yigal Schleifer is a freelance journalist based in Istanbul.