Hi. Whether the votes of the American people gave Democrats cover for doing the right thing or put the fear of God into many, it is clear that we're in a period where mass action, voting, marching, and otherwise has made this a reality. The dog wagging the tail, for a change. IMO, how long this lasts will be directly proportional to our out-front participation in the process. And there's so much more to do and can do, with the will and the money not squandered for blood and oil. Why not raise the minimum wage to $9/hour - indexed for inflation, single-payer health care and quality child-care for all, as Katha Pollitt has written. Nicaragua, the 2nd poorest country in the America's has just restored free health care and education - with help from Cuban doctors and educators, but isn't inter-national sharing a better system than slaughtering and dominating? And spending $1 to $2 trillion on destroying lives and a nation? Insanity.
Anyway, the 100 hours accomplishments are welcome, can go much deeper and broader, and it's up to us to help finish off this war and roll on. Ergo, the 'Massive March' in DC, sister versions sprouting throughout the country, including LA: http://LinuxBeach.net/mailman/listinfo/jan27action I'll report on today's meeting, with speakers selected, et al, but I can tell you the organizational endorsement list is skyrocketing with folks coming from across So. Calif. It looks healthy, interesting and very big, even before this week of media and broad public notice. Ed PS: At the very bottom, a just-received click-on video of Pete Seeger performing 'Bring 'em Home,' in 1969. It's wonderful to see Pete in his prime with a superb performance, a great song, in a time of war. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011907R.shtml The Next 100 Hours By William Rivers Pitt t r u t h o u t | Columnist Friday 19 January 2006 Something really weird is going on here. All of a sudden, the folks in Congress are behaving as if they actually represent ... well ... the people. Aren't they supposed to be hauling water for President Bush? What happened to all those arm-twisting, rule-changing, ethics-shredding shows on C-SPAN? Oh, wait. That's right. November happened. The "100 Hours" legislative push commemorating the Democratic takeover of the House concluded yesterday. In what actually amounted to 87 hours of bill-passing, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her newly empowered crew passed a slew of bills that accomplished two signal goals: They helped actual people, and they simultaneously served up a walloping dose of Listerine to get the taste of the last twelve years out of our mouths. Among the bills passed this week was a boost to the federal minimum wage, an expansion of embryonic stem-cell research, a law allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug companies, a cut in student-loan interest rates, an implementation of port security rules, a move to recoup billions of dollars in lost royalties from oil and gas companies, and a rollback of tax breaks for that industry. Translation: They helped poor people, sick people, old people, students and national security, while getting back some of the taxpayer cash frittered away by the loose-handed oil boys in Washington. Crazy stuff. The Senate, which tends to move at a far more glacial pace, got into the act as well. According to the Washington Post, the Senate "approved 96 to 2 expansive legislation to curtail the influence of lobbyists, tighten Congressional ethics rules and prevent the spouses of senators from lobbying senators and their staffs. The Senate legislation ... would ban gifts, meals and travel funded by lobbyists, and would force lawmakers to attach their names to special-interest provisions and pet projects that they slip into bills. Lawmakers would have to pay charter rates on corporate jets, not the far-cheaper first-class rates they pay now." The timing of the passage of this legislation was cute. Newspapers across America carried a headline announcing it, with the headline "Ex-Ohio Representative Ney Sentenced to 30 Months" just beneath. Ney, you will recall, was one of the representatives caught up in the astonishing Jack Abramoff bribery scandal. The sentence, as it turns out, was harsher than the one recommended by prosecutors in the case. Before anyone in the Democratic caucus breaks an arm patting himself on the back, however, one all-important area must be addressed. The Democrats campaigned on all the issues they managed to legislate this week, including ethics reform, but the issue of Iraq and their promises about same stood out above all else. At this moment, their intentions towards addressing this problem remain murky. A majority of Americans want the United States to begin actively removing itself from that conflict, and also want a clear plan as to how this will be accomplished. Bush, for his part, wants nothing to do with the will of the people, and is planning to "surge" more than 20,000 troops into the region. The Democratic reaction, thus far, has been a non-binding resolution against the war from the Senate, and a promise from Speaker Pelosi not to cut the war funding in the House. The Senate resolution seems to make some amount of sense. There can be no military or tactical solution to Iraq without the political will to find one, and that political will is absent in the White House. It will take more than angry Democrats to create this will. Republican rank-and-file members will have to defect from Bush's plans, and this resolution appears to be a first step towards gathering a loud bipartisan consensus that things must change. It was, after all, three Republicans who convinced Nixon to leave office after all that shouting from the other side of the aisle. The Pelosi promise to leave funding for the Iraq occupation unmolested, however, is troubling. People want the war stopped and the troops brought home, and the purse strings are the most effective way to accomplish this. Setting a firm date for the cessation of funds creates a hard line that cannot be crossed, and would require the administration to actively begin preparations for an end to our involvement in the conflict. Pelosi's promise removes that very large club from the arsenal. There is more to this, of course, than simple political cowardice. Democrats who don't want to empower the "You don't support the troops!" demagoguery that is sure to come in the wake of any meddling with the war budget. "Stop funding the war" is easy to say, but the gritty details of a budget like this complicate matters. Killing the Iraq budget could also kill funding the rehabilitation of wounded veterans, health benefits and other vital programs embedded in the bill. Beyond the threat of political browbeating lives the actual threat of screwing the very soldiers the Democrats wish to help. Democratic Representative Charles Rangel nailed the problem in his usual blunt fashion. "If my black ass was in Korea during the war and people got fed up with it," said Rangel, "and they cut off the money so I couldn't get some snowshoes or underwear, well, goddamn, you are cutting the wrong people." It comes down to this. If Pelosi and her people are unwilling to navigate the dangerous waters surrounding the Iraq budget, they had better be prepared for a loud roar of outrage from the base of the party. Further, if they have chosen to leave aside the most direct way to end the war, their main task now is to come up with an equally effective plan to terminate the occupation. If the Democrats merely shrink from this tough fight, they will have proven to be as cowardly and tone-deaf as the fellow bunkered down at 1600 Pennsylvania. The 100 Hours thing was a good start, and it will help people. Let's see what the next 100 hours brings. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author. His newest book, House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation, will be available this winter. PoliPointPress. *** Please forward widely! MARCH ON WASHINGTON TO END THE WAR! Saturday, January 27 Assemble 11:00AM on the Mall between 3rd and 7th Streets Rally 11:00AM-1:00PM March kicks off at 1:00PM Full schedule of weekend events We will be posting maps, parking information and more details on our website very soon! Transportation information Housing board Grassroots Lobby Day -- Monday, Jan. 29 Spread the word! Make a donation Dear friend of United for Peace and Justice, A week from now people from throughout the country will start boarding buses and trains for their long trips to the nation's capital. Others will get up early on Saturday morning to make sure they're part of what promises to be one of the most important mobilizations against the war in Iraq. In our national office the phones are ringing off the hook. Several national news outlets are planning to cover the march; others are doing stories on the march this week and next. Over the next eight days we need to get thousands more leaflets into people's hands and make hundreds of phone calls to get the word out. We need to pay for a stage, a public address system, and a riser for the media to broadcast the rally. We need to raise $25,000 over the next week to pay for these costs. Your contribution can help make the difference in whether we have a large expression of popular opposition to the war or a truly massive peace march. Can you make a donation today? Everyone -- whether you are joining us in DC on Jan. 27th or are not able to make the trip -- can help us put these funds together. In fact, if each of you getting this message can take a moment right now to make a donation we could put all of our energy into the final organizing efforts that will culminate in a history making march for an end to the war in Iraq. Please do what you can: No contribution is too small, and certainly no donation is too large! And it is easy to make this donation. You can do it by using our secure online donation page. Or you can call our office to make a credit card donation at 212-868-5545. Or you can write a check and send it through the mail. (Checks should be made out to UFPJ and mailed to us at PO Box 607, Times Square Station, NY, NY 10108. Checks of at least $100 are tax-deductible if made out to our fiscal sponsor, A.J. Muste Memorial Institute, and mailed to the same address above.) However you do it, please make your donation today. Thank you so much for the support you've given in the last year and for the generous donations you will make to contribute to the success of the Jan. 27th demonstration. Check our website for updates and details about the Jan. 27 march on Washington, DC, and the other activities planned for next weekend. ACTION ALERT * UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545 To subscribe, visit www.unitedforpeace.org/email *** Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 17:11:24 -0500 (EST) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Prensa Latina, Havana http://www.plenglish.com Sandinista Govt Restores Free Education and Healthcare Managua, Jan 17 -The reestablishment of free education and medical assistance, one of the campaign promises of present Sandinista President Daniel Ortega, is coming into fruition in Nicaragua. In the case of education, new Minister Miguel de Castilla told school directors it was prohibited to receive payments for registration, scholar materials and other services or devices. Parents will not have to pay the quotas requested during recent years as contributions for reparation of those institutions. As a result of the measures to guarantee free education, an increase of registrations is expected beginning in the 2007 academic year that starts in late January. Nearly a million children were prevented from accessing the educational system because their parents could not afford the costs demanded by the public schools, and they will be immediately inserted into the national teaching system. In order to face the possible wave of students, the Nicaraguan Education Ministry intends to hire 900 new teachers and non-degreed personnel will support teaching activities if needed, Castilla pointed out. The lack of facilities will not hamper the development of the process as they are ready to put schools under trees or awnings of the sports fields until the needed centers are built. Another important measure is the announcement of the elimination of private health services in the country s public hospitals. Patients will not have to pay for medicines, surgery or clinical tests within the state centers, the Health Ministry confirmed. hr ccs isn nm *** ----- Original Message ----- From: Judy Branfman Sent: Friday, January 19, 2007 8:24 PM Subject: Seeger video: Bring 'Em Home >From a DJ friend in CT - <below is a link forwarded to me for viewing a vintage TV performance by Pete Seeger singing "Bring "em Home". It is quite impressive: This is a clip from a TV show *37 years ago*. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZK1g69iHu1Q&mode=related&search= >> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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