By Tom Hayden
March 9, 2010

Published by The Nation

It’s been a long winter for the peace movement. Waiting for Obama has proved fruitless. The Great Recession has strengthened Wall Street and diverted attention from the wars. The debate over healthcare still won’t go away and has demoralized progressive advocates. Given a chance to exit from Afghanistan when the Karzai election proved to be stolen, President Obama escalated anyway, but also promised to “begin” exiting almost before an opposition could mobilize at home. Read the rest of this post »

by Ann Wright
Published on Thursday, December 10, 2009 by CommonDreams.org

No doubt at the instigation of the Israeli government, the Obama administration has authorized the United States Army Corps of Engineers to design a vertical underground wall under the border between Egypt and Gaza.

In March, 2009 the United States provided the government of Egypt with $32 million in March, 2009 for electronic surveillance and other security devices to prevent the movement of food, merchandise and weapons into Gaza. Now details are emerging about an underground steel wall that wil be 6-7 miles long and extend 55 feet straight down into the desert sand.

The steel wall will be made of super-strength steel put together in a jigsaw puzzle fashion. It will be bomb proof and can not be cut or melted. It will be “impenetrable,” and reportedly will take 18 months to construct. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8405020.stm)

The steel wall is intended to cut the tunnels that go between Gaza and Egypt.

The tunnels are the lifelines for Gaza since the international community agreed to a blockade of Gaza to collectively punish the citizens of Gaza for their having elected in Parliamentary elections in 2006 sufficient Hamas Parliamentarians that Hamas became the government of Gaza. The United States and other western countries have placed Hamas on the list of terrorist organizations.

The underground steel wall is intended to strengthen international governmental efforts to imprison and starve the people of Gaza into submission so they will throw out the Hamas government.

Just as the steel walls of the US Army Corps of Engineers at the base of the levees of New Orleans were unable to contain Hurricane Katrina, the US Army Corps of Engineers’ underground steel walls that will attempt to build an underground cage of Gaza will not be able to contain the survival spirit of the people of Gaza.

America’s super technology will again be laughed at by the world, as young men dedicated to the survival of their people, will again outwit technology by digging deeper, and most likely penetrating the “impenetrable” in some novel, simple, low-tech way.

I have been to Gaza 3 times this year following the 22-day Israeli military attack on Gaza that killed 1,440, wounded 5,000, left 50,000 homeless and destroyed much of the infrastructure of Gaza. The disproportionate use of force and targeting of the civilian population by the Israeli military is considered by international law and human rights experts as as violations of the Geneva conventions.

When our governments participate in illegal actions, it is up to the citizens of the world to take action. On December 31, 2009, 1,400 international citizens from 42 countries will march in Gaza with 50,000 Gazans in the Gaza Freedom March to end the siege of Gaza. They will take back to their countries the stories of spirit and survival of the pople of Gaza and will return home committed to force their governments to stop these inhuman actions against the people of Gaza.

Just as American smart bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq have not conquered the spirit of Aghans and Iraqis, America’s underground walls in Gaza will never conquer the courage of those who are fighting for the survival of their families.

One more time, the American government and the Obama administration has been an active participant in the continued inhumane treatment of the people of Gaza and should be held accountable, along with Israel and Egypt for violations of human rights of the people of Gaza.

Ann Wright is a retired US Army Reserve Colonel and a former U.S. diplomat who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq. She served in as a US diplomat in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia, Afghanistan and Mongolia. She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience” . Her March 19, 2003 letter of resignation can be read at http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0303/032103wright.htm.

Published by PR Newswire.

Hours after formalizing the birth of the largest union and professional organization of registered nurses in U.S. history, National Nurses United hit the ground running Tuesday with the selection of an executive director, Rose Ann DeMoro, and its first public action, a protest at the headquarters of the Arizona hospital association.

DeMoro, who has served since 1993 as executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, a role she will continue, is also a national vice president of the AFL-CIO. She was named at the inaugural meeting late Tuesday afternoon of the new NNU board of the new 150,000-member organization.

One of the most prominent voices in labor and healthcare in the U.S., DeMoro for eight straight years has been named among the 100 most powerful people in healthcare by the industry trade publication Modern Healthcare, was cited among the Most Influential Women in America by MSN, and among “America’s Best and Brightest” by Esquire magazine. Under her stewardship, CNA/NNOC passed the nation’s first RN staffing ratio law and led an internationally renown campaign against California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger when he tried to roll back the law.

The NNU board, which also took office Tuesday, comprises leaders of the three founding organizations, United American Nurses, Massachusetts Nurses Association, and CNA/NNOC. New board members include the NNU national officers–the Council of Presidents Deborah Burger (California), Karen Higgins (Massachusetts), and Jean Ross (UAN), and NNU Secretary Treasurer Martha Kuhl (California).

They are joined on the board by vice presidents, Zenei Cortez (California), Bernadine Engeldorf (Minnesota), Sandra Falwell (Washington, DC), Diane Goddeeris (Michigan), Linda Hamilton (Minnesota), Geri Jenkins (California), Margie Keenan (California), Brenda Langford (Illinois), Malinda Markowitz (California), Trande Phillips (California), and Beth Piknick (Massachusetts). The four officers and Goddeeris were named to the NNU Executive Committee.

At its initial meeting, the NNU board promised to move quickly on an ambitious agenda of organizing non-union RNs across the nation, defending and advancing the interests of direct-care RNs and patients, establishing a more influential voice for RNs in Washington, and passing key patient care reforms, such as national nurse to patient ratios, and building stronger international ties with nurses around the world.

To help announce the arrival of NNU, delegates to the founding convention rallied and picketed outside the Phoenix offices of the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association Tuesday. They emphasized that nurses would step up efforts to challenge hospital industry attacks on nurses rights, economic and workplace standards, patient care conditions, opposition to ratios and other critical legislation, and work to pass the Employee Free Choice Act to enhance the ability of nurses and other working people to form unions.

“We’re here to send a signal to the Arizona hospital association and the American hospital industry. We will not be silenced, we will not be stopped,” said Ross in keynoting the rally. “Hospital associations around the country oppose safe staffing legislation that guarantees patients the care the care they need, and with their allies intimidate RNs when we try to organize a union. That intimidation must stop.”

“We know that union RNs provide quality care, better care because we have real power on our units, to speak out and advocate for our patients,” said Ross. “We also know that America is hurting. As nurses we see the consequences every day. We know that at the heart of the current crisis is the stagnation of wages, the erosion of living standards, and the loss of buying power for American workers that has coincided with three decades of attacks on the rights of American workers to form unions and bargain collectively.”

“When workers have a greater voice to lift up their standards, all of America prospers. That’s why we need the Employee Free Choice Act, to restore balance to our system of labor law. The greatest economic stimulus, economic recovery plan would be to restore the right for more American workers to form unions and raise standards for themselves and their families and their communities,” Ross said.

Bringing an Arizona focus to the rally were Rebekah Friend, Secretary-Treasurer, Arizona AFL-CIO, Arizona RN Debbie Rice, and Dan O’Neil, of Progressive Democrats of America. “It is an honor to speak at the very first public action of National Nurses United,” said Rice. “On behalf of Arizona nurses, we want to thank you for building a national organization for RNs and giving us the leadership and encouragement to keep on fighting for nurses and patients.”

“We know the consequences of bottom line medicine, that puts our patients at the mercy of protocols designed to meet budgets rather than patient needs,” said Higgins. “We know what happens when hospital and insurance companies collude to barter human lives for money - people suffer and the executives and the corporations prosper. We know what works, and we will not go away until we win the protections our patient need.”

DeMoro, who opened the rally and later closed the convention, praised the delegates for their work and their commitment to building a monumental movement of direct-care RNs. “RNs can be the most powerful voice in this country. It is our responsibility, as NNU, to be agents of change, to be the warriors we’ve admired in history, to inspire the nurses of this country that this is their home.”

EDITORIAL - New York Times
Published: June 5, 2009

This week, in Washington and cities across the nation, immigrant advocates, clergy members and labor and business leaders have been meeting to press their case for comprehensive immigration reform. Hopes have been raised before and repeatedly dashed. But this year there is a chance — if the White House provides real leadership and Congressional leaders show the courage and sense they have previously lacked.
President Obama has pledged his support for reform that includes a path to citizenship for the undocumented. At the same time, his administration has not done nearly enough to moderate enforcement policies that unfairly target citizens and legal residents — often because they are Hispanic — while feeding the fear and hopelessness of illegal immigrants as they await the opportunity to get right with the law.
The Department of Homeland Security has been pressing ahead with the old Bush administration playbook of tightening the screws on the 12 million undocumented, particularly by lengthening the long arm of local law enforcement. Make no mistake: Stronger and more effective immigration enforcement should be a pillar of any reform plan. But stricter enforcement must be coupled with a path to legalization. And poorly designed enforcement without stringent checks on errors and abuse is a remedy worse than the disease.
The homeland security secretary, Janet Napolitano, is sticking with the 287(g) program, which deputizes local police departments to enforce immigration law, despite all-too-frequent errors and abuses. Despite community outrage over racial profiling and indiscriminate “crime sweeps” in Maricopa County, Ariz., by the notorious sheriff, Joe Arpaio, he remains a member in good standing of Ms. Napolitano’s enforcement team.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is expanding its Secure Communities program, which automatically checks the immigration status of everyone booked in jail. That sounds benign, but advocates have raised legitimate concerns over its lack of oversight and internal controls. Any blanket checks of arrestees, both innocent and guilty, could easily provide cover to police departments that use neighborhood sweeps and mass arrests as a pretext to “cleanse” communities of unwanted immigrants — not just violent criminals, but harmless housekeepers, day laborers and gardeners.
There could be no quicker way than this to erode the hard-won advances in community policing, through which law enforcement agencies rely on the trust and cooperation of the people they protect.
There is a grim contradiction at work here, with the Obama administration simultaneously, and self-destructively, twisting the dials of hope and fear.

Approximately 80 Arizonans joined thousands of single-payer supporters in a nationwide week of action to support improved Medicare for all (HR 676). Single-payer activists gathered all over the country to say “Healthcare, yes; Insurance companies, no.”
See the videos from the Rally at Harry Mitchell’s office on May 30, 2009:
Dr. Weisbuch Speaks at 5/30/09 Rally at Harry Mitchell\'s Office
David Glenn at 5/30/09 Rally at Harry Mitchell\'s Office
Dr. Jordan at 5/30/09 Rally at Harry Mitchell\'s Office
AZ CD5 Constituents at 5/30/09 Rally at Harry Mitchell\'s Office
The People Speak at 5/30/09 Rally at Harry Mitchell\'s Office

By Medea Benjamin

Obama will give a major policy talk at Cairo University on June 4, intended to start mending the rift between the United States and the Arab world. During the Bush years, many Arabs turned against the United States because of the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as the abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Graib. But the issue that is really at the crux of the tensions with the United States is the intractable conflict between Israel and Palestine, and what many perceive as a one-sided U.S. policy in support of Israel.

The Obama administration has taken a positive stand on the Israeli settlements, calling for a complete freeze. “[Obama] wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not ‘natural growth’ exceptions,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told reporters.

But the administration has said almost nothing about the devastating Israeli invasion of Gaza that left over 1,300 dead, including some 400 children. To many in the Middle East, this is an unfortunate continuation of past policies that condemn the loss of innocent Israeli lives, but refuse to speak out against the disproportionately greater loss of Palestinian lives at the hands of the Israeli military.

The Israeli invasion of Gaza began on December 27, 2008, when Obama had just won the election but had not yet taken office. While he spoke out against the November 26 Mumbai terrorism attack, he refused to even call for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying coldly, “When it comes to foreign affairs it is particularly important to adhere to the principle of one president at a time.”

Once inaugurated, Obama appointed George Mitchell as a special peace envoy and immediately sent him on a “listening tour” to key places in the Middle East—except Gaza. Mitchell returned for a second trip to the region in late February, visiting Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Israel and the West Bank but once again bypassing Gaza. The same thing happened on his third trip in April.

Hillary Clinton has never visited war-torn Gaza. She promised $300 million for rebuilding, but the aid won’t get to Gaza as long as the administration insists on dealing only with Mahmoud Abbas and his Palestinian Authority in the West Bank while shunning Hamas, which controls Gaza and was democratically elected.

Obama won great support from the American people during the presidential campaign when he said that America must talk to its adversaries, without preconditions. But his administration now puts ridiculous conditions on talking to Hamas: It must recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept previous international agreements. Israel, on the other hand, does not have to recognize Palestine, renounce violence or abide by past agreements. Putting preconditions on just one side of the conflict makes it impossible to move a peace process forward.

Read the rest of this post »

Hear Congressman Raul Grijalva as he spoke to the Progressive Caucus of the Arizona Democratic Party on May 9, 2009 at the State Committee Meeting in Tucson, Arizona.
Arizona Congressman Grijalva 5-9-09

Dan O’Neal - PDA Arizona State Co-Coordinator
January 25th 2009

Phoenix - Progressive activist and former Pima Country Chair Paul Eckerstrom upset Arizona Democratic Party Chair Don Bivens in his bid for re-election at the Saturday, January 24, 2009 reorganization meeting of the ADP State Committee in Phoenix. The ballroom at the Wyndham Hotel virtually exploded with unexpected glee and shock as the vote count was announced. Eckerstrom beat the incumbent state chair by a comfortable 324-255, sending shock waves throughout the Democratic Party establishment and challenging the grassroots to step up and intensify their activity in the movement for change.

“This is nothing short of a revolution, the winds of change were heard in Washington, D.C., and across the country with Obama and now here in the Arizona Democratic Party” voiced one enthusiastic Arizona Democratic Progressive Caucus (AzDPC) member after the vote.

Eckerstrom, a Tucson public defender, didn’t decide to run against Bivens until Saturday morning. He first announced his candidacy during a meeting of the Progressive Caucus.

“I was driving up here and had no intention of running for state-party chair,” Eckerstrom told the Arizona Republic immediately after the vote. “I had no intention of running, I’m as surprised as everyone else.”

At the AzDPC meeting Eckerstrom voiced strong opposition to the party’s leadership on a variety of issues but was particularly angered that the party was not taking a leading voice against widespread cuts in education being proposed by Republicans in the state legislature. Then he dropped the bomb–announcing his challenge to the leadership. The 80 delegates in the room cheered their approval, and Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) State Coordinator Dan O’Neal, who chaired the Progressive Caucus meeting, was reeling from the announcement when he said, “ Wow, that certainly adds a whole new agenda item to our meeting.” As the meeting continued many activists left the room to gather support and prepare for the upcoming floor fight.

With less then two hours to organize the opposition vote, Eckerstrom and progressive activists from all over the state hopped from caucus to caucus hitting the African American, Labor, Hispanic, LBGT and Election Integrity caucuses with the message for change.

Newly elected Arizona Corporation Commission member and former State Senator Sandra Kennedy and current Arizona House Representative Phil Lopes put Eckerstrom’s name into nomination from the floor. Kennedy is a member of both the African American and Progressive caucuses in the ADP. Lopes is the former minority leader of the Arizona House who has a single-payer Arizona Healthcare bill being blocked by the Republicans in the House.

Bivens, with the party establishment behind him, gave a rather moderate campaign speech, pointing out the ADP’s successes and downplaying the major problems. Eckerstrom in contrast launched into a rip-roaring, systemic, point by point, what is-the-problem-and-how-we-need-to-fix-it speech. His passionate oration was drowned out by the cheers and standing ovation of hundreds of state committee delegates, reminiscent of Dennis Kucinich’s “Wake up America” speech at the Denver National Convention. In this case it was clearly “Wake Up Arizona Democratic Party”–it’s time for a change.

The stunning upset was fueled by grassroots dissatisfaction over the ADP leadership policies in the last election cycle. The party leadership used a “targeted” Legislative District election strategy and conservative messaging approach that just didn’t work. Also, a major point of contention with the grassroots was a Maricopa County-centric approach to organizing, leaving counties and Democrats outside the Phoenix area out of communication and out of the loop during the 2008 elections. Many Democratic candidates were completely ignored by the party, including two congressional candidates and the down-ticket Democrats in red districts.

While the ADP under Bivens leadership out-raised the Republicans in fundraising in the last election, the party still lost seats in the State Legislature and faced major setbacks in the key Maricopa County races for County Attorney and Sheriff. Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, now part of the Obama administration, Party Chair Bivens, and most Arizona Democratic Party leaders would not endorse or campaign for Dan Saban, who ran a courageous campaign against the notorious right-wing racist Republican Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Eckerstrom, along with party activists from Tucson to Flagstaff, AzDPC, PDA, DFA, and other progressives, have been calling for a “30 LD-15 county strategy” and a more inclusive grassroots campaign in line with Howard Dean’s “50 State Strategy.” On Saturday the frustration with the top-down politics boiled over and change at the top was the result.

“We definitely need a State Chair that is responsive to ALL Democrats in Arizona –now it’s time to unify and move forward,” said PDA State Co-Coordinator and Phoenix Chapter leader Virginia Hauflaire after the meeting. Speaking for Progressive Democrats of America in Arizona, she continued, “We in PDA pledge our support and will work hard along with our new Chair Paul Eckerstrom. We will continue to speak out about healthcare, education, energy policy, immigration reform and other issues that resonate with the people of Arizona. We are dedicated to helping organize the grassroots, build the ADP and mobilize the people of Arizona for the challenges ahead as we march to greater gains in 2010.”

By Medea Benjamin
http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/01/end-the-occupat.html

Under the disastrous Bush years, the U.S. military invaded a country that posed no threat to the United States, destroyed its infrastructure and plunged it into chaos. This led to the death and displacement of millions of Iraqis, squandered the lives of more than 4,000 U.S. troops and robbed our Treasury of billions of much-needed dollars.

Now that President Obama inherits George W. Bush’s legacy, he must make it perfectly clear to the Iraqis, the Americans and the world that he intends to keep his campaign promise to oversee a complete, orderly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq no later than May 2010. Why?

The Iraqis want us out, as evidenced by poll after poll and the recent debate in the Iraqi parliament over the Status of Forces Agreement. The Iraqi people will vote on this agreement in July and will only pass it if the Iraqis are convinced that U.S. troops will soon be gone.

The American people want our troops out. The best reflection of this is that they elected Barack Obama to lead us out of Iraq. Obama needs to find solutions to the meltdown of the U.S. economy, not continue to waste billions of tax dollars occupying Iraq.

The presence of U.S. troops ensures ongoing violence by attracting armed opposition and postpones the day of reckoning among Iraqi factions. Sticking to a timeline will force the Iraqi government and the different ethnic and religious groups to negotiate power-sharing agreements.

Iraqi neighbors and the international community will feel obligated to engage in diplomatic and reconstruction efforts only if they understand the U.S. is serious about leaving. Chaos in Iraq is not in the interest of any nation, especially Iraq’s neighbors. Obama must immediately bring them into the transition process.

Obama’s administration needs to dramatically shift the image of the United States in the Muslim world. The unjustified U.S. invasion of an Arab nation has been a powerful tool in the recruitment of violent anti-American groups. This can and must be turned around, and leaving Iraq will help.

Obama must quickly show a radical change in policy by ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq (including military contractors), resettling the enormous refugee population it helped create, committing to diplomacy and rebuilding this war-torn nation.

Medea Benjamin is co-founder of CODEPINK: Women for Peace and Global Exchange.

by Jimmy Carter - Jan. 8, 2009 10:11 AM
Special to The Washington Post

I know from personal involvement that the devastating invasion of Gaza by Israel could easily have been avoided.

After visiting Sderot last April and seeing the serious psychological damage caused by the rockets that had fallen in that area, my wife, Rosalynn, and I declared their launching from Gaza to be inexcusable and an act of terrorism. Although casualties were rare (three deaths in seven years), the town was traumatized by the unpredictable explosions. About 3,000 residents had moved to other communities, and the streets, playgrounds and shopping centers were almost empty. Mayor Eli Moyal assembled a group of citizens in his office to meet us and complained that the government of Israel was not stopping the rockets, either through diplomacy or military action.

Knowing that we would soon be seeing Hamas leaders from Gaza and also in Damascus, we promised to assess prospects for a cease-fire. From Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was negotiating between the Israelis and Hamas, we learned that there was a fundamental difference between the two sides. Hamas wanted a comprehensive cease-fire in both the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis refused to discuss anything other than Gaza.

We knew that the 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza were being starved, as the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food had found that acute malnutrition in Gaza was on the same scale as in the poorest nations in the southern Sahara, with more than half of all Palestinian families eating only one meal a day.

Palestinian leaders from Gaza were noncommittal on all issues, claiming that rockets were the only way to respond to their imprisonment and to dramatize their humanitarian plight. The top Hamas leaders in Damascus, however, agreed to consider a cease-fire in Gaza only, provided Israel would not attack Gaza and would permit normal humanitarian supplies to be delivered to Palestinian citizens.

After extended discussions with those from Gaza, these Hamas leaders also agreed to accept any peace agreement that might be negotiated between the Israelis and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who also heads the PLO, provided it was approved by a majority vote of Palestinians in a referendum or by an elected unity government.

Since we were only observers, and not negotiators, we relayed this information to the Egyptians, and they pursued the cease-fire proposal. After about a month, the Egyptians and Hamas informed us that all military action by both sides and all rocket firing would stop on June 19, for a period of six months, and that humanitarian supplies would be restored to the normal level that had existed before Israel’s withdrawal in 2005 (about 700 trucks daily).

We were unable to confirm this in Jerusalem because of Israel’s unwillingness to admit to any negotiations with Hamas, but rocket firing was soon stopped and there was an increase in supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel. Yet the increase was to an average of about 20 percent of normal levels. And this fragile truce was partially broken on Nov. 4, when Israel launched an attack in Gaza to destroy a defensive tunnel being dug by Hamas inside the wall that encloses Gaza.

On another visit to Syria in mid-December, I made an effort for the impending six-month deadline to be extended. It was clear that the preeminent issue was opening the crossings into Gaza. Representatives from the Carter Center visited Jerusalem, met with Israeli officials and asked if this was possible in exchange for a cessation of rocket fire. The Israeli government informally proposed that 15 percent of normal supplies might be possible if Hamas first stopped all rocket fire for 48 hours. This was unacceptable to Hamas, and hostilities erupted.

After 12 days of “combat,” the Israeli Defense Forces reported that more than 1,000 targets were shelled or bombed. During that time, Israel rejected international efforts to obtain a cease-fire, with full support from Washington. Seventeen mosques, the American International School, many private homes and much of the basic infrastructure of the small but heavily populated area have been destroyed. This includes the systems that provide water, electricity and sanitation. Heavy civilian casualties are being reported by courageous medical volunteers from many nations, as the fortunate ones operate on the wounded by light from diesel-powered generators.

The hope is that when further hostilities are no longer productive, Israel, Hamas and the United States will accept another cease-fire, at which time the rockets will again stop and an adequate level of humanitarian supplies will be permitted to the surviving Palestinians, with the publicized agreement monitored by the international community. The next possible step: a permanent and comprehensive peace.

The writer was president from 1977 to 1981. He founded the Carter Center, a nongovernmental organization advancing peace and health worldwide, in 1982.