“Non separation,” interconnection overcomes despot

Transcribed, re-reported, edited by Carolyn Bennett

Physicist, environmental activist Dr. Vandana Shiva talked this week with GRITtv host Laura Flanders about criminal destruction of the corporate state, what underlies it, and how to overcome it. She ended the interview with these requisite principles.

Governance where you have control of your own life

Ability to create, to make, to produce

Courage to say, no, to unjust law

She said the real laws we need to obey “are the laws of nature for ecological sustainability; and the laws of human community for democracy, equality, dignity across races, across gender ….”

In the course of her conversation with Laura Flanders, Dr. Shiva laid out the marriage of a despot, corporation and state, its oppressive globalization, and the worldview that underlies and perpetuates it.  

“We really need to recognize that the corporation is a fiction that has been created and assigned a human personality,” which now “dispossess people of their democratic rights and [tries] to dispossess nature of her rights.”

Corporations abandoned Americans long ago and Americans must see this and set about building “their own economies [and rebuilding] democracy as a living democracy in this country.”

The world at mercy of corporations must make a choice.

Look in any direction of life and you will see “corporations trying to appropriate people’s economies” — [farming and farmland, seeds and food, water and water supply, taking from people and their land and selling it back at prohibitive prices]. “We have a food dictatorship. We have a seed dictatorship. We have a water dictatorship. We are being offered a dictatorship over life—and not for life impermanence, but life for a short time. …”

Corporations also set about “to destroy democracy because no democracy would say, ‘take away our seeds,’ ‘give us more nuclear,’ ‘give us more toxics.’ Every democracy would vote for sanity” so the corporations must destroy democracy.”

Unless people protect the richness of nature’s diversity bequeathed by our ancestors and defend our freedom, we will continue under the dictatorship. “We are,” Dr. Shiva said, “at a watershed in human evolution” wherein “we will either defend the rights of people and their life,” and in doing so “dismantle rights corporations have assigned to themselves — or corporations will, in the next two or three decades, destroy this planet in terms of human possibility.”

Oppressive globalization, what underlies it

“In the last two decades of globalization,” Dr. Shiva, said, “I have seen more destruction than in all of my life. Globalization as we see it today is a corporate globalization.” Corporations “belong to no man, no country. They have no loyalty to anyone except their business side, their profits; and the profits today are scales of profits [unimaginable].” They are “criminal profits — profits being extracted at the cost of life.…”

The contemporary framework is of, by and for the corporation, the corporate state (a marriage of corporation and state), rooted in a “mechanical,” separatist, Apartheid worldview.

“You have a mechanical worldview,” she says, “which is precisely the kind of worldview that is causing the problem, an idea of separation: an idea of separation between people, an idea of separation between humans and nature. That idea of separation had a name in South Africa: it is called Apartheid, which means separate.

What overcomes it?

“We need to overcome the Apartheid we have established (1) against nature and (2) against ordinary people who are being told ‘your life doesn’t count.’ If you can’t make a living, if you are a farmer fighting for you life, we will shoot you dead.…”

Power vested in the state joined with private corporations must bear a requisite amount of societal responsibility. The corporate state, government married to big money and serving big money, a central feature in corporate globalization, must shoulder responsibility.

We need a new ethos, a worldview that sees what Shiva terms “non locality”— “everything is related, nothing separate.” Corporations no longer separate from society but are part of society, not in the abstract sense of the corporation, but in terms of the individuals — responsible and liable, as individuals are responsible and liable. We must “reinvent businesses into the human community and the human community into the earth community. This is the non separation we have to see — connection, interconnection, relationship — the quantum leap humanity must make.”     

Sources and notes

“Vandana Shiva: Understanding the Corporate Takeover— Dr. Shiva has been fighting corporate takeover in every area in her native India, combating a nuclear plant one week and patented, genetically modified seeds another. She [joined] Laura Flanders in studio to advise American activists how they can fight the merging of corporations and government here at home and around the world,” April 30, 2011, http://grittv.org/2011/04/30/vandana-shiva-understanding-the-corporate-takeover/

Dr. Vandana Shiva is author of

Staying Alive: Women, Ecology, and Development (2010)

Soil Not Oil: Environmental Justice in an Age of Climate Crisis (2008)

Manifestos on the Future of Food and Seed (with Carlo Petrini and Jamey Lionette, 2007)

Earth Democracy: Justice, Sustainability, and Peace (2005)

Water Wars: Privatization, Pollution, and Profit (2002)

Stolen Harvest (2001)

GRITtv

A daily 30-minute current affairs program incorporating viewer-submitted content, grassroots activism, and a positive, progressive message that aims to go beyond the one-way format of traditional media, GRITtv talks with people commercial media ignore. “Independent filmmakers and journalists, activists, and the smartest thinkers and doers of our time are part of the conversation.” Launched on May 12, 2008, GRITtv reaches millions of viewers weekly on Free Speech TV on Dish network (9415) and DirecTV (348)  on cable and public television stations nationwide, and anytime, anywhere online, http://grittv.org/about

Laura Flanders

Founder and host of GRITtv, Laura Flanders is a long-time journalist, author and media activist.  She was also founding director of the Women’s Desk at the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR); for more than 10 years, she produced and hosted CounterSpin, FAIR’s nationally syndicated radio program. Before GRITtv, she had launched and hosted ‘Your Call’ on public radio KALW in San Francisco and RadioNation on Air America Radio.

Laura Flanders is author of Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species and Blue Grit: Making Impossible, Improbable, and Inspirational Political Change in America. She is editor of At the Tea Party: The Wingnuts, Whackjobs and Whitey-whiteness of the New Republican Right … and Why we Should Take it Seriously. Twitter is @GRITlaura

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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Marshall sees through sentimental journey

Feminist Peace Network founder Lucinda Marshall’s “Cup of Rancid Tea” puts “savior” Mortenson and his three cups in perspective

Edited excerpt by Carolyn Bennett

“In a country that has spent the last 10 years fighting wars we cannot win,” Marshall begins, “and which have cost so much, in every sense of the word — it is understandable that Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea describing the journey that led him to want to build schools, especially for girls, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, struck a chord.

“It was a story that many wanted to believe.  We wanted there to be a romanticized way that the white colonizer could convince the dark heathens that we would save them. We needed a Lawrence of Arabia-looking hero and Mortenson fulfilled our fantasy.…

“[T]he Mortenson story is merely a variation of the ‘we are better than everyone else therefore we must save them and show them the wisdom of our ways’ mythology that poisons so much of our public dialog.”

However, let us remember, Marshall says, “that Mortenson is hardly the first person to observe that educating children, especially girls, is a very effective way to better society.  Human rights groups have been saying this six-ways-to-Sunday for a very long time.

“If we truly bought into this theory, we would be spending a great deal more on education and a great deal less on military action.

“Women’s rights groups such as RAWA [Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan] were operating schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan long before Mortenson showed up to discuss the matter with male warlords and elders of remote villages — the very same warlords and elders who threaten RAWA [Afghan activist, feminist, leader Malalai Joya] and its work.

“RAWA  operates on very minimal funds, faces great danger, usually the disapproval of elders and warlords and only generates niche support in [the United States] while  Mortenson catches the attention of the whole country — for the simple reason that we were brought up to believe that this was the model of heroism that will save the world.”

Marshall suggests that we are in this respect delusional. Mortensen’s tea saves nothing nor will a brand of anachronistic nonsense save anything, least of all the world.

Sources and notes

 “A cup of rancid tea” (Lucinda Marshall), April 24, 2011, http://www.feministpeacenetwork.org/2011/04/24/a-cup-of-rancid-tea-2/

Andy Worthington on Guantanamo files, Lucinda Marshall on Greg Mortenson” —

CounterSpin (4/29/11-5/5/11), http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4280

Lucinda Marshall

Writer, speaker Lucinda Marshall is the Director of the Feminist Peace Network (FPN) she “founded in December 2001 as a virtual ‘room of our own’ where women concerned about how the impending U.S. invasion of Afghanistan (and later Iraq) would impact women’s lives could share their thoughts and ideas for action in a safe, supportive space.”  Initially focusing on militarism, Marshall has expanded the work to address “other terrorism, the systemic global pandemic of misogyny and violence against women.” http://www.feministpeacenetwork.org/about/lucinda-marshall/

“Fake feminist bona fides— HRClinton’s State Department strikes again —bans Afghan MP/women’s rights activist until pushed to lift ban”  (Todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com Friday, March 25, 2011, http://todaysinsightnews.blogspot.com/2011/03/fake-feminist-bona-fides.html

Sources and notes

“Four things you can do about Malalai Joya’s Visa Denial,” (ACTION ALERT: AWM News, Campaigns), March 18, 2011, http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/?p=1258

Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)

RAWA is the oldest political/social organization of Afghan women struggling for peace, freedom, democracy and women's rights in fundamentalism-blighted Afghanistan since 1977, http://www.rawa.org/index.php

Independent-minded Afghan feminist, activist, Member of Parliament Malalai Joya is a vocal defender of human rights, a passionate opponent of fundamentalism, and a fearless advocate of a civic Afghan culture. Malalai Joya is author of A Woman among Warlords: the Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice

“Speaking truth to warlords Banned Afghan MP Malalai Joya on her country’s corruption, the bravery of women and being squashed between two powerful forces,”

http://www.montrealmirror.com/2009/111909/news1.html

“U.S. Reverses Visa Denial to Afghan Activist,” March 25, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/25/headlines

Afghan Women’s Mission

The Afghan Women’s Mission was founded in January 2000 by a small group of Americans to support the humanitarian and political work of RAWA. Projects include many programs run by Afghan women including Malalai Clinic, schools, orphanages, agricultural programs, demonstrations and functions in support of women’s and human rights. We are an all-volunteer organization based in the United States.

The Afghan Women’s Mission was founded in response to the compelling need for adequate hospital facilities near Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. Their first undertaking was the re-opening of the Malalai Hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. This flagship project was effectively started in late 2001. In 2005, Malalai Hospital was transitioned into Malalai Clinic in Khewa refugee camp, http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/?page_id=2

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]

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Collusion keeps spilling, spinning, drilling, destroying

Oil industry, Government against common defense, general welfare 

“In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, there was no country in the world that governed with separated and divided powers providing checks and balances on the exercise of authority by those who governed. A first step toward such a result was taken with the Declaration of Independence in 1776, which was followed by the Constitution drafted in Philadelphia in 1787. In 1791 came the Bill of Rights. Each had antecedents back to the Magna Charta and beyond.” [Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice of the United States 1969-1986]

From policy analyst, author and activist Antonia Juhasz’s April article “Voices from the Gulf Oil Disaster” Excerpt and editing with end comment by Carolyn Bennett

Deepwater Horizon “lost a game of chicken with the Macondo oil well — the ‘Well from Hell.’ Oil buried 18,500 feet below the ocean’s surface fifty miles off the Louisiana shore had made it clear time and again that it had no intention of being pumped out of the earth.…”

The fourth largest corporation in the world, third largest oil company, British Petroleum or BP, “refused to listen” and Government regulators, “playing out their overly intimate and trusting relationship with the oil industry, rubber-stamped every cost-cutting and progressively deadly decision.”

Eleven men died. The Deepwater Horizon capsizing released BP’s oil and gas monster into the Gulf of Mexico. …

“Five million barrels of oil and some 500,000 tons of gas were released. Ripped out of the earth’s core, forced out of the well, the oil and gas exploded into the U.S. Gulf of Mexico spewing forth in a torrent as much as 80,000 barrels of oil a day strong. The monster laid forth a deadly rampage that would take it across the Gulf and onto the beaches, wetlands, and shores of four states.

“Both BP and the Obama administration did their best to hide the truth”  — It was well over a month before the public was let-in on the secret of the full size of the monster — and then they assured us that the monster was gone long before this was so…. “Though the administration launched a historic response effort in the wake of the disaster including tens of thousands of government employees, national guardsmen, and military personnel who made heroic sacrifices, the ultimate failure of the administration was its attempt to make the whole thing disappear from public sight and mind — whether through propaganda or dispersants.”

The ‘cure’ proved to be worse then the disease. “Nearly two million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants were simultaneously mixed into the water and sprayed from the air, while at least 410 fires were ignited on the water’s surface to burn the oil away.

The consequences for those living in, on, and from the water have been profound, ongoing, deeply interrelated.

“Thousands of animals have died, including sperm whales, endangered sea turtles, dolphins, fish, and birds — among them Louisiana’s State Bird, the brown pelican. The entire food chain has been affected. The long-term effect on countless species and their habitats remains an open question.”

The administration left far too much of the response effort to BP. It relinquished to a corporation what should have been the duty of government: “to determine life and death decisions about public health, worker safety, economic livelihoods, the environment, and entire ecosystems. …” The administration instead “minimized the size and significance of the disaster” and in doing so “played into the hands of [effectively colluded with] an oil industry working to ensure that no meaningful long-term policy changes emerge.…”

What happened to the promise of 1787?

 “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish this CONSTITUTION …” [Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America]

“… [I]t is time to call for a full moratorium on offshore drilling to ensure such an event never occurs again,” Antonia Juhasz concludes. “We must demand immediate financial compensation to those whose lives and livelihoods continue to be devastated.” We must also demand the immediate start of Gulf restoration.

Burger continued —

“The work of 55 men at Philadelphia in 1787 marked the beginning of the end of the concept of the divine right of kings. In place of the absolutism of monarchy, the freedoms flowing from this document created a land of opportunities… 

“It is important that all who love freedom have an appreciation and understanding of our national heritage—a history and civics lesson for all of us.” [Warren E. Burger, Chief Justice of the United States 1969-1986, Chairman of the Commission on the Bicentennial of the United States Constitution]

Sources and notes

“Voices from the Gulf Oil Disaster — It is the largest oil disaster in U.S. history (Antonia Juhasz), http://www.tyrannyofoil.org/article.php?id=776; Antonia Juhasz on Twitter: ww.twitter.com/AntoniaJuhasz

Guardian UK: “Obama administration accused of helping BP hide the oil in the Gulf — The Macondo well is plugged but environmental groups say government agencies are still helping BP play down the spill” (Suzanne Goldenberg, U.S. environment correspondent, guardian.co.uk), September 17, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/envir

Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Antonia Juhasz, who talks about the economic and political power of the oil industry to weaken regulations on drilling safety — and the widespread belief that the current spike in oil and gas prices is due to oil market manipulation and speculation. Juhasz is author of Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill, http://tyrannyofoil.org/article.php?id=780

Between the Lines – “Economic and Political Power of Oil Industry Succeeds in Weakening Deep Water Drilling Regulations” (Scott Harris interview with Antonia Juhasz, Between the Lines, RealAudio   MP3), April 27, 2011, http://btlonline.org/2011/seg/110506cf-btl-juhasz.html

Antonia Juhasz

Policy analyst, author and activist Antonia Juhasz is a leading oil industry expert and critic who also specializes in international trade and finance policy.  Juhasz is Director and Founder of the Energy Program at Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based human rights non-profit organization.

She is the lead author and editor of the 2009 and 2010 editions of “The True Cost of Chevron: An Alternative Annual Report.” In addition to Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill, she is author of The Tyranny of Oil: the World’s Most Powerful Industry, and What We Must Do To Stop It. Antonia Juhasz holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in public policy from Georgetown and Brown universities. 

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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Shuffling War, Terror Cabinet

Securing status quo at 1600 Pennsylvania

Editing, end comment by Carolyn Bennett

U.S. President Barack Obama is shifting CIA Director Leon Panetta to head Defense, Gen. David Petraeus to head the CIA, and proposing U.S. Marine General John Allen to replace Petraeus as U.S. commander in Afghanistan.

In comments today on Democracy Now, former CIA analyst Ray McGovern said he thinks the president has “made a terrible mistake.”

The CIA’s Analysis Division (distinct from its operations division) last year made two insightful estimates on Afghanistan and Pakistan, McGovern said — “though you wouldn’t know from reading the New York Times or listening to Hillary Clinton —

[The United States] … will never prevail [in Afghanistan] unless we can get the Pakistanis to seal the border and really cooperate with us [and]

… [T]here isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that we [the U.S.] can persuade Pakistanis to cooperate with us because they see their interests in Afghanistan in a completely different way. It has to do with India.

“And nothing [U.S. Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton or [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral] Mike Mullen can say to the Pakistanis is going to persuade them [the Pakistanis] that they should not really worry about India [and] should worry just about terrorists. It isn’t going to work.”

As to Panetta’s claim his sending drone missiles on to Afghanistan and Pakistan is protecting the United States, McGovern asks —  

“Tell me how that works. Would some senator please ask Panetta ‘How does it work?’ How are you defending the United States?” What Panetta is really doing is “creating more terrorists,” McGovern says, “and that’s provable by just the interrogators who interrogate people caught in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Question: “‘Why did you come there?’”

Answer: “‘We came there because of the drones.

Answer: “‘We came there because of Guantánamo.

Answer: “‘We came there because of Abu Ghraib.’

“We create our own terrorists,” McGovern continues.

“Panetta is not and Petraeus is not going to be able to tell the President that — because he [Gen. David Petraeus] is not a disinterested party. What the President is entitled to is an unbiased, tell-it-like-it-is opinion. He won’t get that from Petraeus.”

“I think from that point of view Obama has made a terrible mistake.”

The status quo holds: “Our young people are being chewed up — sent over there by a poverty draft,” an unconscionable happening — “not to mention what’s happening to the militants that are being subjected to drone and other attacks.”  

Unconscionable indeed is the endless bleeding, the trauma to and displacement of Afghan and Pakistani civilians, the protracted destabilization of the entire Middle East, Persian, South Central Asia region.

Sources and notes

Democracy Now April 28, 2011, "Former CIA Analyst Ray McGovern: Petraeus Will Expand Pro-War Agenda as New CIA Director," http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/28/former_cia_analyst_ray_mcgovern_petraeus

Ray McGovern is a former senior CIA analyst whose duties with the agency included preparing the President’s [under George H.W. Bush] Daily Brief and chairing National Intelligence Estimates. McGovern is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.

CIA chief Leon Panetta a year ago was quoted saying, “We have a responsibility to defend this country, and that’s what we’re doing and anyone who suggests that somehow, you know, we’re employing other tactics here that somehow violate international law are dead wrong. What we’re doing is defending this country. That’s what our operations are all about.”

During his tenure as CIA chief, Democracy Now reports, Panetta in the past two years “has led a massive escalation of the use of unarmed drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2008, the U.S. carried out 35 drone strikes in Pakistan. In 2010, Panetta’s first full year as CIA director, at least 117 strikes occurred. Panetta in the above quote was defending “the legality of the drone attacks.”

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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NC workers, supporters March on Reynolds

farm labor organizing committee announces

Justice for Tobacco Farmworkers

End human rights abuses

Farmworkers raise voices May 6 in demonstration at RJ Reynolds meeting

Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) labor, faith, civil rights, campus, and community-wide supporters on May 6, 2011, “will be inside and outside of RJ Reynolds’ shareholders’ meeting calling on the tobacco giant to end human rights abuses in their supply chain. …”

“In these times of attacks on working people —from Wisconsin to North Carolina,” the group says — it is crucial “to stand together in solidarity.”

March and Rally at Reynolds American Annual Shareholders’ Meeting

North Carolina demonstration detail

10:00 a.m. Meet at Lloyd Presbyterian Church

 748 N Chestnut St., Winston Salem, NC 27101

10:30 Demonstration at Reynolds

11:30 Rally at 4th and Trade Streets followed by march through downtown Winston Salem.  March will end back at Lloyd Presbyterian.

Transportation:

Email flocnc@floc.com if you need a ride!  Bus leaves from the Dudley office, carpools  organized from various points around the state

Bus leaves the Toledo FLOC office Thursday night, returns after the march on Friday —  Contact Beatriz Maya at 419-243-3456 ext. 6 or bmaya1@floc.com to reserve your seat

Volunteers: contact 919-731-4433 or flocnc@floc.com..

Host house meeting: contact flocnc@floc.com for more information.

http://supportfloc.org/marchonreynolds2011.aspx

Concerning its Reynolds Campaign, FLOC argues —  

“Big tobacco companies are among the richest parties in American agriculture.  RJ Reynolds is one of the largest tobacco corporations in the world, with annual profits of more than $2 billion….

“They have constructed a supply system that benefits themselves, at the expense of those who produce their leaf products. This includes both farmers and farmworkers….

“There are only a few large companies that purchase NC tobacco and they use their power to set the terms and prices for the farmers who grow their tobacco. These terms and prices directly affect the earnings and working conditions of field workers. With their wealth and industry power, companies like RJ Reynolds could be part of the solution, but have instead attempted to hold themselves out to the public as passive purchasers of tobacco.…

“Reynolds executives, who can receive up to $60 million a year in bonuses, claim to be committed to corporate social responsibility, but their list of ‘stakeholders’ excludes those at the bottom of their supply chain, the farmworkers.”

  

Source 

Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC, AFL-CIO) — challenging the deplorable conditions of the broader workforce that remains voiceless, powerless, and invisible to mainstream America...”

http://supportfloc.org/ReynoldsAmericanCampaign.aspx

Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC) Movement — began in the mid-1960s, when Baldemar Velásquez convinced a small group of migrant farmworkers in northwest Ohio to come together for their common good. Initial successes generated strong reactions in the agricultural industry, which has been structured to benefit those at the top, while exploiting those who labor at the bottom. It took several years for FLOC to build a base among farmworkers in the area.

Since then, FLOC has built a membership of tens of thousands of migrant farmworkers by incorporating two key principles:

1.     Farmworkers need a voice in the decisions that affect them—

Allowing workers to form a union and collectively bargain with their employer is the only way to address the huge imbalance of power and provide an effective structure for self-determination

2.     Bring all parties to the table to address industry wide problems —

Multi-national corporations have created a supply system that enriches its executives at the expense of those who work in the fields.

These corporations have the wealth and power to change the harsh realities that many farmworkers face.

FLOC seeks a structure where all those in the system (corporations, growers, and farmworkers)  work together to solve problems

Historically, this is the only solution that has made a real difference in farmworkers’ conditions and lives. http://supportfloc.org/aboutus.aspx“

Also in the news archived at Free Speech Radio News — “In the U.S., protesters demand better conditions for tobacco farm laborers,” April 27, 2011, http://fsrn.org/audio/us-protestors-demand-better-conditions-tobacco-farm-laborers/8427

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]

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May First Marches USA

answer national announces —

International Workers’ Day

Marches, Rallies for

Immigrant and Workers’ Rights

Legalization now!

Stop deportations and attacks on workers!

Jobs, peace and justice for all!

The ANSWER Coalition is supporting and helping to organize the May 1 demonstrations.

Tens of thousands of immigrants and working families of all backgrounds, community organizations, labor unions and many others will take to streets across the United States Sunday to demand legalization for all immigrants and to stop the deportations and attacks on workers.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

10:00am: Gather at the Corner of Olympic & Broadway, Downtown Sponsored by May Day 2011 Los Angeles Coalition, which includes: Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, Full Rights for Immigrants Coalition, MIWON, CHIRLA, KIWA, SEIU, LIUNA, AFL-CIO West, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, FIRM, UCLA Labor Center, COFEM, ANSWER Coalition, Immanuel Presbyterian Church, National Lawyers Guild, Islamic Circle of North America, CLUE, Students Fight Back (Pasadena CC, Cerritos, CSU Long Beach, CSU Fullerton, Los Angeles CC, Harbor College, Long Beach CC, Santa Monica College, Comites de Base del FMLN, Danza Azteca Cuauhtemoc, Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional, Frente Unido de Pueblos/United Front of the Peoples of the Americas, Bantay Pilipinas, AF3IRM (Association of Filipinas, Feminists Fighting Imperialism, Re-feudalization, and Marginalization), Committee to Save Casa Mexicana, Corazon del Pueblo, Party for Socialism and Liberation, Echo Park Community Coalition, Alliance for Just and Lasting Peace in the Philippines, KmB Pro-People Youth, Ecumenical Fellowship for Justice and Peace, March Forward!, Communities United for Justice, Free Palestine Alliance, Students for Justice in Palestine, Estancia High School Peace Club, Coalición por la Paz y Democracia en Honduras, Frente Hondureño de Resistencia Popular, Inland Empire Rapid Response Network, Topanga Peace Alliance, Islamic Shura Council of Southern California and many others.

Volunteers needed! To get involved, contact: answerla@answerla.org, 213-251-1025

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA

11:30am: Assemble on 24th and Mission
12:00noon: March to Civic Center
1:00pm-3:00pm: Rally at Civic Center Sponsored by the May Day Coalition

Volunteers needed! To get involved, contact: answer@answersf.org, 415-821-6545

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

2:00pm: Gather at Union Park(Corners of Lake and Ashland)

3:00pm: March to Pilsen Organized by the Chicago May Day Organizing Group. Endorsers include: Moratorium on Deportations Campaign, Biblioteca Popular, Committee Against the Militarization of our Youth (CAMi), Albany Park, North Park, Mayfair Neighbors for Peace and Justice, AFSCME Local 2081, Teamsters Local 743, Labor Committee on Immigrant Worker Rights, ANSWER Chicago, Chicago Jobs with Justice, Immigrant Solidarity Dupage, Teachers for Social Justice-Chicago, Justice Mission, La Villita, Chicago Facebook Community, Movimiento Migrante Mesoamericano, Red Migrante, The Chicago Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, The Coalition of Utah Progressives (CUP), International Socialist Organization, Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign, Socialist Workers Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation

Volunteers needed! To get involved, contact: answer@chicagoanswer.net, 773-463-0311

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

1:00pm: Rally at Foley Square

*Meet up with ANSWER at 12:30pm at Worth and Centre (north end of Foley Square)

Sponsored by the Alliance for Labor & Immigrant Rights & Jobs for All, a coalition of many unions, community and other organizations

Volunteers needed! To get involved, contact: nyc@answercoalition.org, 212-694-8720

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

3:00pm: Gather at McKeldin Square(SE corner of Light St. and E. Pratt St., by the flag pole nearby the Inner Harbor)

Volunteers needed! To get involved, contact: baltimore@answercoalition.org, 443-759-9968

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS

Boston: 12:00noon - Rally at the Rose Kennedy Greenway Park (across from the Haymarket T Station, in the corner of Cross and Hanover Sts.).

After the rally, take the T to East Boston (see below for details).

Organized by the Boston May Day Committee (Mass. Global Action, ANSWER Coalition, Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Alternative, Socialist Party, July 26 Coalition, Tecschange, Latinos for Social Change) and endorsed by many organizations.

East Boston: 2:00pm - March from Liberty Plaza in Central Square to Chelsea City Hall                             

Everett: 2:00pm - March from Everett City Hall to Chelsea City Hall        

Chelsea: 3:00pm-5:00pm - Rally at Chelsea City Hall

Organized by the May 1 Coalition of Chelsea, East Boston, and Everett

Volunteers needed! To get involved, contact: boston@answercoalition.org, 857-334-5084

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT

11:00am: Rally at City Hall The rally will be followed by a march through the city. The march will end back at the annual May Day Festival on the Green, which will feature political speakers, artists, musicians and information tables.

Volunteers needed! To get involved, contact: connecticut@answercoalition.org, 203-903-4480

SYRACUSE, NEW YORK

5:00pm-7:00pm
Plymouth Church: 232. E. Onondaga St.Open house in celebration of International Workers' Day

with music, refreshments, and workers' stories

Organized by the Workers' Center of Central New York

Volunteers needed! To get involved, contact: syracuse@answercoalition.org, 315-491-6987

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA

Monroe Park (VCU Campus)

3:00pm: Music and Gathering

4:00pm: Rally and Speakers

5:00pm: Parade

6:00pm: Closing Ceremonies

Organized by 2011 Richmond, Virginia May Day

Volunteers needed! To get involved, contact: dc@answercoalition.org, 202-265-1948

ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO

1:00pm: Starting from the Rosario Chapel (in front of De Vargas Mall)

Ending in rally and lunch at De Vargas Park (Next to Our Lady of Guadalupe Church)

Sponsored by Somos' Worker's Committee

Volunteers needed! To get involved, contact: abq@answercoalition.org, 505-268-2488

Source

ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition, April 27, 2011, http://www.answercoalition.org/national/news/may-1-immigrant-rights-demos.html

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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Chernobyl 25 evokes, mourns Hiroshima/Nagasaki to Fukushima

Never-safe always deadly plutonium-powered, radioactive — Unnecessary for fulfilling world energy needs

Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

One million people died because of Chernobyl

One millionth of a gram of plutonium will cause cancer

Each reactor in Fukushima has 250 kilos of plutonium

Nuclear cooling pools contain 12-foot rods that can
kill with a dose of minutes

Reactor core contains 1000 times the material in the Hiroshima bomb

Turkish food is highly radioactive

Forty percent of Europe is radioactive

European food is highly radioactive

Bioaccumulation is occurring

Cancer could take 5-60 years to manifest

Dr Helen Caldicott

Nuclear power and its deadly dangers are unnecessary. … The issue of switching to safe, clean energy is not technological but political.

The problem is vested interests —

·       Government agencies that push nuclear power, notably, in the United States, the national nuclear laboratories and the entity that owns them

·       Department of Energy (headed currently by a former national nuclear laboratory director)

·       Nuclear industry as it seeks to profit from selling nuclear technology, despite the cost in people’s lives

These same entities are pushing nuclear power worldwide as evidenced by General Electric’s involvement in the construction of Japanese reactors and the U.S.-India Nuclear deal. 

China and other emerging nations also are expanding plans for nuclear power despite the horrific memories of Chernobyl, now Fukushima.

Disgracefully demanding nuclear power on earth and in space has been U. S. President Barack Obama.

Since taking office as president, he has reversed the position he espoused as candidate for the presidency. Even in the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, the U.S. president seeks to ‘revive’ the nuclear industry using billions of taxpayer dollars to build new nuclear plants. This administration has been pushing also to ‘revive’ the use of nuclear power in space by restarting U.S. production of Plutonium-238 for use on space devices.

The Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space is calling for —

End of nuclear power on earth

·       Although the nuclear establishment claims this is impractical, it is not

·       In the U.S. where nuclear power provides 20 percent of the electricity, there is a 20 percent reserve capacity in the electrical system. All 104 U.S. nuclear plants could — and must — be immediately shut down

·       The reserve capacity can deal with their absence

·       A concentrated effort could — and must — be made to swiftly bring the safe, clean energy technologies on line

·       Instead of promoting nuclear power expansion globally, the nuclear power industry should be dismantled or converted to a green technology industry

 

End of nuclear power in space

·       Accidents such as the 1964 SNAP-9A disaster in which a plutonium-powered satellite fell from orbit, disintegrating and spreading plutonium widely have demonstrated the folly of using nuclear power overhead

·       This plutonium release has been seen to cause an increase in lung cancer on earth   

Closure of all national nuclear laboratories

·       Nuclear laboratories have been breeding grounds for developing lethal atomic energy — on earth and in space

·       An effort is under way in Washington to cut back federal government spending

·       Closure of all national nuclear laboratories is a federal government activity that must be cut back —among them a string of national nuclear laboratories including Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, Lawrence Livermore, Idaho, Sandia, Brookhaven, Lawrence Berkeley, Argonne that spend  billions upon billions in taxpayer money annually while developing deadly nuclear technology

We all live in Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Fukushima — unless the nuclear juggernaut is stopped.

During the World War II Manhattan Project, scientists working at laboratories secretly set up across the United States built atomic weapons, journalist Karl Grossman writes. “By 1945, [the Project] employed 600,000 people and spent billions of dollars. Two bombs were dropped on Japan. With the war’s end, the Manhattan Project became the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and more nuclear weapons were built. … Many of the scientists and government officials did not want to see their jobs end. Corporations that were Manhattan Project contractors — notably General Electric and Westinghouse — did not want to see their contracts ended.…”

The reality is “nuclear power can never be made safe.… The problem is radioactivity—unleashed with the splitting of the atom. All nuclear power plants produce radiation as well as radioactive poisons like the Cesium-137, Iodine-131 and Strontium-90 that have been, and continue to be, spewed from the Fukushima plants.  Upon contact with life, these toxins destroy life.

Nuclear power plants—all 443 on the earth today—should be closed and no new ones built, Grossman writes.

Major studies have concluded that safe, clean, renewable energy technologies like solar, wind (now the fastest growing energy source and cheaper than nuclear) and geothermal can provide all the energy the world needs—energy without lethal radioactivity, energy we can live with.

Sources and notes

Dr Helen Caldicott

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMXvpWoHzeE&feature=player_embedded

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread693448/pg1

“Global Network Statement on Japanese Nuclear Disaster,” April 8, 2011,

http://www.space4peace.org/articles/statement_on_japanese_nuclear_disaster.htm

Helen Caldicott, MD, physician, author, speaker

Medical and Nuclear Education/Public Advocacy United States

Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR): Founder and President, 1978-1983; President Emeritus, 1983-Present

Women’s Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND): Founder, 1980

Nuclear Freeze Voter Initiative Campaign: Co-Leader, 1980

STAR (Standing For Truth About Radiation) Foundation: Co-Founder, 1997; President, 1999-2000

Nuclear Policy Research Institute: President, 2001- Current

Australia and New Zealand: Initiated movement against French atmospheric tests, 1971-72

Led education campaign among Australian labor unions about medical and military dangers or uranium mining, 1975-1976

Led public New Zealand education campaign, with Dr. William Caldicott, resulting in the official New Zealand nuclear-free policy, 1982

Founded Green Labor, a new section within Australian Labor Party, 1988

Ran as Independent Candidate for Australian Federal Parliament, 1990

Founding Patron, Parents Protecting Our Children Against Radiation, Lucas Heights, NSW, 1998

Founder, Our Common Future Party (OCF), Australia 2000

http://www.helencaldicott.com/about/cv/

“Nuclear Power Can Never Be Made Safe,” April 25, 2011, http://karlgrossman.blogspot.com/

On Flashpoints — Karl Grossman, “Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know about Nuclear Power” and Chernobyl: A Million Casualties; Bruce Gagnon—Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space — Tuesday April 26, 2011, Pacifica/KPFA Flashpoints program, http://www.flashpoints.net/

Karl Grossman is journalism professor in the American Studies department at the State University of New York/College at Old Westbury.  For more than 15 years he hosted the television program Enviro Close-Up and has written and narrated television documentaries for EnviroVideo www.envirovideo.com including “Nukes In Space….”  Grossman is Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power; Power Crazy; and The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet, http://www.karlgrossman.com/

Bruce Gagnon is coordinator of the Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space. He offers his reflections on organizing and the state of the United States’ declining empire in “Organizing Notes,” http://space4peace.blogspot.com/; http://www.blogger.com/profile/10845856861232395427

Bruce Gagnon (Maine) serves as Secretary/Coordinator of the Global Network  and has been working on space issues for the past 25 years. He helped create the Global Network in 1992. Gagnon is author of Come Together Right Now: Organizing Stories from a Fading Empire. For 15 years, he coordinated the Florida Coalition for Peace and Justice and was trained as an organizer by the United Farmworkers Union. He is a member of Veterans for Peace — globalnet@mindspring.com; http://www.space4peace.org/board.htm

Board of Directors and Advisors of the Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space:

Bob Anderson (Stop the War Machine, New Mexico)

Dr. Helen Caldicott (Pediatrician/Anti-nuclear activist, Australia)

Sung-Hee Choi (Artist/teacher/activist, South Korea)

MacGregor Eddy (Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom, California)

Stacey Fritz (No Nukes North, Alaska)

Atsushi Fujioka (Professor of Economics Ritsumeikan University, Japan)

Bruce Gagnon (Global Network Coordinator, Maine)

Holly Gwinn Graham (Singer/songwriter/activist, Washington)

Karl Grossman (Professor of Journalism SUNY/College of Old Westbury, New York)

Regina Hagen (Darmstadter Friedensform, Germany)

Matthew Hoey (Military Space Transparency Project, Massachusetts)

Filip Ilkowski (Lecturer Political Science/History Warsaw University, Poland)

Helen John (Peace activist, England)

Dr. Michio Kaku (Professor Theoretical Physics CUNY, New York)

Tamara Lorincz (Halifax Peace Coalition, Canada)

Dr. Hannah Middleton (Anti-Bases Campaign Coalition, Australia)

Agneta Norberg (Swedish Peace Council, Sweden)

Lindis Percy (Campaign for the Accountability of American Bases, England)

J. Sri Raman (Movement Against Nuclear Weapons, India)

J. Narayana Rao (All India Peace & Solidarity Organization, India)

Tim Rinne (Nebraskans for Peace, Nebraska)

Makiko Sato (Anti-nuclear activist, Japan)

Wolfgang Schlupp-Hauck (Friedenswerkstatt Mutlangen, Germany)

Alice Slater (Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, New York)

Koji Sugihara (No to Nukes & Missile Defense Campaign, Japan)

Bill Sulzman (Citizens for Peace in Space, Colorado)

Jan Tamas (Humanist Party, Czech Republic)

Dr. Dave Webb (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, United Kingdom)

Carol Urner (Women’s International League for Peace & Freedom, Oregon)

Loring Wirbel (Citizens for Peace in Space, Colorado)

Lynda Williams (Physics teacher/activist, California)

Wooksik Cheong (Peace Network, South Korea)

Hibiki Yamaguchi (People’s Plan Study Group, Japan) 

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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"Peshawar Declaration"—anti-War on Terror, Drones

Compiled and edited by Carolyn Bennett

Peshawar Declaration April 24, 2011

“Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf congratulates the people of Pakistan for their massive participation … a reflection of the nation’s consensus [demanding] an end to the murderous drone attacks  — characterized by the UN as extra judicial killings — resulting in loss of innocent life.

“The momentous Peshawar Dharna was the first public show of resolve on the road to regaining Pakistan’s lost sovereignty. 

“At the conclusion of the Dharna, the people, by a show of hands, unanimously passed the Peshawar Declaration, which demands the following of the Government of Pakistan:

Immediately implement the joint resolution of Parliament on the ‘War on Terror’

End the [hypocritical] double-faced policy and bring before parliament all past and present agreements/understandings with the U.S. government on the ‘war on terror’ 

The PTI [Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf] demands of the Supreme Court to urgently

Hear the drone attacks petition filed by the PTI and hold a judicial inquiry under the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to ascertain the legitimacy of the drone attacks under our Constitution and also determine the scale of human loss and establish scope of compensation to the victims and their families.

Ensure immediate access of media and human rights organizations to FATA to independently assess the human and material losses suffered by the people due to the drone attacks.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf also demands of the Supreme Court to urgently hear the petition filed by the PTI regarding the drone attacks.

In case drone attacks continue and these demands are not met by the government, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf demands:

The resignation of this government which has failed to protect the life and liberty of its citizens, and

The PTI shall with the support of the people block all supply routes of NATO trucks to Afghanistan

Sources and notes

Peshawar Declaration https://insaf.pk/News/tabid/60/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/6236/Concluding-Resolutions-of-PTI-Dharna.aspx

Democracy Now headlines April 25, 2011 — Pakistani demonstrators blocked a key NATO supply route to Afghanistan on Sunday in a major protest against U.S. drone strikes inside Pakistan. Thousands of NATO trucks were held up by the rally, which was organized by the famous Pakistani cricket-player-turned-politician, Imran Khan “Pakistan: NATO Supply Route Blocked by Drone Strike Protesters,”

Headlines for April 25, 2011, http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/25/headlines/pakistan_nato_supply_route_blocked_by_drone_strike_protesters

India Daily  — Tehreek-e-Insaf chief Imran Khan has said that if the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)-led federal government fails to stop U.S. drone strikes within 30 days, protesters will block all NATO supply routes across the country. …

“Activists from Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI) and some other parties staged a sit-in on the highway leading to Afghanistan through the Pashtun tribal region of Khyber… Imran warned that protesters would march to Islamabad to force the government to take a stand on the issue if drone strikes continue. “Imran Khan sets 30 days deadline over U.S. drone strikes” (from ANI), April 25, 2011, http://www.dailyindia.com/show/436477.php

Dharna: a fast held at the door of an offender as an appeal for justice

Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf (PTI), its slogan: “Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem”

Ideology excerpt: 

“As a nation we cannot progress as long as our economy depends on handouts from international lenders and donors. 

 “The policies of international lenders have strangulated the capacity of the ordinary citizen to live a life of dignity. We must strive for self-reliance. The goal of self-reliance does not in any way imply that we isolate ourselves from the global economy. It only shows our conviction that by restoring the trust of the people in public institutions we can harness their potential and mobilize them for a better tomorrow. 

 “We offer a new and credible leadership that is committed to restoring Pakistan's political and economic sovereignty by building a new bond of trust between the government and the people. Only through the active participation of the people can we collectively mobilize our human and material resources to forge ahead on the road to a confident and self-reliant nation. 

“We are committed to political stability through credible democracy, transparency in government and accountability of leadership. We believe in federalism and functional autonomy to the provinces. 

 “We strive for a moderate society that banishes hatred and religious bigotry. We focus on addressing the root causes of religious extremism, which are injustice, poverty, unemployment, and illiteracy while Islam and the Two-Nation Theory remain the bedrock of Pakistan's foundations, religious dogma must not be used to whip up passions to create fear in society. On the contrary, a truly Islamic society advocates tolerance, moderation and freedom to practice the religion of one’s choice without fear. Sectarianism is a curse that must be eliminated from society.”

 FATA

FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) is a semi-autonomous tribal region in the northwest of Pakistan, lying between the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Balochistan, and the neighboring country of Afghanistan. FATA comprises seven Agencies (tribal districts) and six Frontier regions or FRs. The territory is almost exclusively inhabited by Pukhtoon (Pathan) tribes which are predominantly Sunni Muslims by faith. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federally_Administered_Tribal_Areas

Imran Khan

In an attempt to fight corruption and bring the rule of law, Imran Khan (b. 1952 in Lahore, Pakistan, where cricket was a great part of his family life) formed the political party Pakistan Tehreek-E-Insaf (PTI) or Movement for Justice.

From November 2002 to October 2007, he represented Mianwali as a member of the National Assembly.  On April 27, 2008, Khan’s brainchild, a technical college in the Mianwali District called Namal College, was opened. Namal College was built by the Mianwali Development Trust (MDT), as chaired by Khan, and was made an associate college of the University of Bradford in December 2005. Also in December 2005, he was appointed as Chancellor of the University of Bradford in UK, acting as an ambassador for the University in the UK and overseas.

Under the umbrella of the Mianwali Development Trust (MDT) and as a philanthropist and a Member of Parliament, Imran has undertaken a number of initiatives to address  many economic and social challenges including steering improvements in literacy, community organization, health, access to credit, encouragement of corporate investment, and education. https://insaf.pk/AboutUs/Leadership/tabid/141/agentType/ViewSearch/CustomFieldIDs/14/Default.aspx?SearchValues=Imran+Khan+

"Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leadership approaches the people with sincerity and a sense of history and pledges commitment to:

Freedom from Political, Economic and Mental Slavery — A self reliant modern Islamic Republic
Freedom from Injustice — Inexpensive and quick dispensation of justice
Freedom from Poverty — 50 percent increase in per capita income in 5 years
Freedom from Unemployment — Two million new jobs every year
Freedom from Homelessness — 2.0 [like]- new housing units every year and complete ownership rights to millions living in Katchi Abadis
Freedom from Illiteracy — Full literacy in 5 years
Freedom to Generate Wealth
Freedom from Fear — Complete Freedom of thought and expression
Freedom for Women — Free education up to Matric for girls from poor households.
Equal right for minorities — no religious discrimination" 

https://insaf.pk/AboutUs/Ideology/tabid/139/Default.aspxwww.insaf.pk is the only Official Website of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf. "All other websites have been declared illegal and the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf has disassociated itself from them. The party does not take any Financial, Political and Administrative responsibility of the activities generated through these illegal websites."

Karāchi—

City and capital of Sindh province in southern Pakistan, Karāchi is the country’s largest city and principal seaport and is a major commercial and industrial centre. Karāchi is located on the coast of the Arabian Sea immediately northwest of the Indus River Delta. The city proper covers an area of 228 square miles (591 square km), while the metropolitan area of Greater Karāchi spreads out over an area of 560 square miles.

“… With the city’s infrastructure already overburdened to the breaking point, fully one-third of new arrivals [are] forced to take up residence in urban shantytowns known as katchi abadis, which ordinarily lack power, running water, or sanitation. Delivery of basic city services remains an ongoing problem for Karāchi, Pakistan, into the 21st century.” [Britannica note]

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Bennett's books available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; The Book Den, Ltd.: BookDenLtd@frontiernet.net [Danville, NY]; Talking Leaves Books-Elmwood: talking.leaves.elmwood@gmail.com [Buffalo, NY]; Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza: http://www.bhny.com/ [Albany, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY]; LONGS’ Cards and Books: http://longscardsandbooks.com/ [Penn Yan, NY]
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