Cuba: Still Much More Concerned with the Things That Truly Matter

Posted on September 3, 2008 by RagBlog


CUBA: Shoring Up the Educational System
By Patricia Grogg / August 29, 2008

HAVANA, Aug 29 — In the new school year, which begins next Monday, Cuba’s educational system will be trying out several changes aimed at overcoming the decline in the quality of teaching, blamed on a shortage of teachers and other problems.

“I am waiting to see what happens. My daughter begins secondary school now, and if she doesn’t get good teachers and her grades drop, I’ll have to find another school or pay for private tutoring. These are the most difficult years,” a Cuban journalist who asked to remain anonymous told IPS.

This week, Education Minister Ena Elsa Velázquez said there would be more teachers on the payroll this year. A shortage of more than 8,000 teachers, identified as one of the most pressing challenges facing the educational system, has begun to be reduced as a result of the return to the classroom of retired teachers.

Velásquez said that 4,948 retired teachers were returning to work, under a decree issued in mid-July by President Raúl Castro. The emergency measure offers retired educators the opportunity to continue drawing their pensions while teaching and earning a full-time salary.

“There will be 235,943 teachers working this year, 32,070 of whom are teachers-in-training. The exodus is 30 percent lower than last year, with nearly 2,000 fewer teachers filing for retirement,” said the minister, as reported by the local press.

There are 2,549,845 preschool, primary and secondary school students enrolled for the 2008-2009 school year in Cuba.

Velázquez also announced that teachers would be given more time to prepare their classes. “That was sorely needed. Now we can also dedicate more time to studying,” Kruskalia Masa, a 45-year-old primary school teacher, commented to IPS.

In her view, the quality of teaching in Cuba has gone down because teachers are given very little time to prepare their classes, a problem that only worsened as the number of educators shrank. “In addition, we will now have more assistants, who obviously don’t replace teachers, but do provide support for their work,” Masa added.

A report by the education minister on performance in the 2007-2008 school year states that among the main challenges that students in the first few years of secondary school must overcome are difficulties in spelling and writing, and poor reading habits.

Veláquez was named education minister in April after the sudden removal of Luis Ignacio Gómez, who headed the ministry for 18 years.

“He had lost energy and revolutionary consciousness,” wrote ailing former president Fidel Castro in a column in which he backed Gómez’s replacement.

The deterioration of education, especially due to the shortcomings of the teachers-in-training system, courses taught by video, and distance learning courses offered on television, was a frequent complaint voiced in the popular debates called by Raúl Castro in a key Jul. 26, 2007 speech, when he was still acting president.

Such criticism was also voiced at the 7th Congress of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) in April, by intellectuals like Alfredo Guevara, one of the veteran cultural leaders of the Cuban revolution.

“Can our primary, secondary and prep schools properly educate children and adolescents and thus lay the foundation for the future as they are at present, governed by misconceived criteria and practices that ignore elementary pedagogical and psychological principles and violate family rights?” he asked.

During the congress, which was held behind closed doors, Guevara also reportedly warned that the teacher-in-training programme has produced “young student teachers whose training is lacking and incomplete and whose maturity level is far short of what it should be.”

Teachers-in-training are used to complete the teaching staff of schools, which have also been equipped with TV sets, VCRs and computers as learning aids. The changes introduced include a reduction of video classes to half an hour, with 15 minutes left for the teacher to provide explanations.

“Television is a support for teachers, it should not replace us,” said Masa, who stressed that “a sense of vocation and dedication” are indispensable in her profession. “Unfortunately, the mass training of young people as teachers does not ensure that they all have these two qualities,” she added.

In the plans for the new school year, the main task of retired teachers who return to the classroom will be to supervise and advise the young teachers-in-training.

In Masa’s view, that is an “essential” step towards strengthening education in Cuba.

Education, which has been universal and free in Cuba since the 1960s, is considered one of the main accomplishments of the 1959 revolution. But like other sectors in Cuba, it was unable to escape the impact of the severe economic crisis that hit Cuba in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and East European socialist bloc.

Nevertheless, in the latest study on scholastic performance carried out by the Latin American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality of Education (LLECE), which is coordinated by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) regional bureau, Cuba was found to have the highest performance levels among the 17 nations studied in Latin America and the Caribbean.

In the study released in June, “Student achievement in Latin America and the Caribbean; Results of the Second Regional Comparative and Explanatory Study (SERCE)”, Cuba was the only country whose third-grade pupils attained math and reading scores more than one standard deviation higher than the regional average, that is, over 100 points above the 500 points representing the average of all the countries studied.

Source / IPS News

GRANMA: Maintaining Cuba’s Social Security and Welfare Commitments
By Maria Julia Mayoral / August 29, 2008

The Cuban government allocates a sizeable sum of the national budget to maintain the Social Security and Welfare System for its aging population.

TODAY, SIXTEEN PRECENT OF THE POPULATION IS 60 OR OLDER.

Neither of the two spheres lacked financial support during the economic crisis that besieged Cuba following the collapse of Socialist Eastern Europe and the economic hardships of an intensified US blockade. Far from diminishing, the budgetary allocations for the two continued to grow. In 2007, for example, their combined expenditures equaled 10.56 percent of the Gross Domestic Product.

The system currently in force offers protection to workers and their families and to the population in general. It covers risks and contingencies: industrial accidents, diseases, disability and maternity, death of workers, welfare, and old age.

According to statistics from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, there were 1,133,229 Social Security beneficiaries in 1990. At present, the figure of retirees alone is close to 1.6 million. Welfare is similarly on the rise.

Increased outlay is also due to the government’s decision to increase the still depressed incomes of retirees and other families receiving financial assistance. Thus, between 2004 and 2008, minimum Social Security and Welfare pensions increased 3.6 and 2.4 times, respectively.

It would be hard to find anyone in Cuba who differs on the need to continue raising pensions, but how can such huge expenditures be maintained or increased?

Today, 16.6 percent of the population is 60 or older and by 2050 this ratio could go over 30 percent. Aging, along with the notable decrease in birthrate would lead to having, in 2025, approximately 770,000 less people in the work force as compared to the present, if by then the norms established in the Social Security Law currently in force have not changed.

The reduction in the number of citizens in the work force (producers of good and services) and at the same time the increase of pensioners due to age is not a new problem. Cuba has been facing this for several decades now: in 1980, more than 238,000 young people arrived at working age, and during 2007 the figure dropped to approximately 166,000 as a result of the constant reduction of the birthrate. If this trend continues, under the current legislation more people could retire in a single year by 2020, than those incorporated into the work force.

It’s impossible to maintain such an imbalance. Therefore, the proposal to increase the retirement age and the years of service to deserve it, is part of the multiple alternatives the government is considering to achieve a better use of the country’s human resources. Otherwise, it would be harder for the Cuba to achieve greater economic development, which is the only way to continue supporting its high social expenditures, among them those of Social Security and Welfare.

The Cuban government will never negate its responsibilities. Neither budget cuts nor the privatization of social security —applied in many countries taking neo-liberal recipes as a starting point— will be resorted to here. Huge expenditures in the two spheres will continue to come from the wealth the working population is capable of creating. In this regard, the new Social Security Law, presently a bill, will now be discussed by workers throughout Cuban society. This, at a time when better organization and labor discipline are needed, as well as expanding payment systems according to results, coupled with increasing productivity and more rigorous management practices.

Source / United Black Untouchables Worldwide

Thanks to Mariann Wizard / The Rag Blog

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It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way

Posted on September 3, 2008 by RagBlog


Ecological Food For Thought … The Progress Of Destruction
By Jim Otterstrom / September 2, 2008

A friend once sent me a link to a composite photo of the nighttime lights of North America as seen from space.

She found the photo to be very comforting in the fact that she could see the lights of all the places in America where she had friends.

But I found the photo to have a somewhat opposite effect on my emotions. It caused a discomforting knot in my gut!

I saw the lights as countless gaping holes in the biotic communities of the continent I call home.

The more numerous, and brighter the lights, the bigger the holes in the living diversity of the natural world.

To most people, I suppose, these lights represent progress in the development of humankind.

But, to me, they dramatically illustrate the destructive imbalance between human organisms and our environments.

Where there are lights, there are buildings, shopping malls, sprawling suburbs, monstrous cities, millions of acres of roads slathered in asphalt & concrete, factories, plastic, landfills & waste management facilities, power generation plants, sewage treatment plants, schools, hospitals, prisons, machinery, automobiles, internal combustion engines, wrecking yards, toxic chemicals, pollution, oil fields, corporate headquarters & the seats of governments, police stations, courthouses, military bases and nuclear weapons facilities.

Every second of every day the exponential growth of our human creation lays waste to more of the biosphere as our species trudges forward in its relentless destruction of the planet.

What we’re doing to planet Earth literally mirrors what insects did to the leaf above. We are eating away large bits of our habitat, but, we have no other leaf, or, in our case, planet, to move to when this one is stripped bare.

The results upon the victim are similar to those of a plague of locusts or a rampantly malignant cancerous growth. And, unfortunately, our victim is this magnificent place we call home, the sole source of our sustenance.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Our imaginations are simply boxed-in, blinded by the overwhelming monolithic hierarchical structure of the civilization we were born into.

But things may be changing, as more and more people seem to be realizing that the way we live just doesn’t work, and doesn’t feel good either.

Life on Earth is a vast assemblage of complex organisms, but we’re all evolved from one single-celled common ancestor.

We are one family,

The Family Of Earth.

Our species lays claim to sentience, consciousness, and self-awareness.

So, as I daily witness the continuing degradation and destruction of the biosphere, the loss of diversity, of natural habitat, and the species who live there. I can’t help but sense that these holes in our biotic communities are also metaphors for holes our hearts, for the longing in our souls, our spirit. A longing to be whole, to be complete, to be home. And I believe that some of us are beginning to understand this, and that many more of us feel it subconsciously.

Yes, the future may yet hold a place for humanity, for the surviving descendants of the Agricultural, Industrial, and Petroleum Ages.

The Ages of Empire and World Domination.

Once the heavy burden of this all-consuming civilization is off our backs, perhaps the collective memories of our DNA, our native intuition, will help us remember that there are many ways to live.

And certainly, among those ways, there are some which are sustainable, that would allow our species to live, in much more realistic numbers, for many generations to come.

Nighttime Lights of North America (courtesy of NOAA)

This is not the photo my friend sent several years ago. That one had an all black background. But you get the idea…

Post Script

The leaf in the image at top is from a Hollyhock that’s growing near a faucet in the garden. It caught my eye, and my imagination, for several days before I realized what it reminded me of. I then decided to scan it and was moved to write this post.

Nature, speaking through me, I guess you might say.

Source / Earth Home Garden

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Nilin: Stopping Israel’s Plans to Steal Their Land

Posted on September 2, 2008 by RagBlog

Nilin, Palestine exchanges of “fire”

Palestinian village faces army reign of terror
By Jonathan Cook / September 2, 2008

NILIN — The window through which Salam Amira, 16, filmed the moment when an Israeli soldier shot from close range a handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian detainee has a large hole at its centre with cracks running in every direction.

“Since my video was shown, the soldiers shoot at our house all the time,” she said. The shattered and cracked windows at the front of the building confirm her story. “When we leave the windows open, they fire tear gas inside too.”

Her home looks out over the Israeli road block guarding the only entrance to the village of Nilin, located just inside the West Bank midway between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. It was here that a bound Ashraf Abu Rahma, 27, was shot in the foot in July with a rubber bullet under orders from an Israeli regiment commander.

The treatment of the family stands in stark contrast to the leniency shown to the soldier and his commander involved in that incident.

B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, has accused the Israeli army of seeking “revenge” for the girl’s role in exposing the actions of its armed forces in the West Bank.

It may also be hoping to dissuade other families from airing similar evidence of army brutality, particularly since B’Tselem began distributing dozens of video cameras to Palestinians across the West Bank.

Scenes captured on film of hooded settlers attacking Palestinian farmers near Hebron came as a shock to many early this summer.

The village of Nilin has been the focus of the Israeli army’s actions since May, when its 4,700 inhabitants began a campaign of mainly non-violent demonstrations to halt the building of Israel’s separation wall across their land.

After the wall is completed, the village will be cut off from 40 per cent of its remaining farmland, effectively annexing it to half a dozen large Jewish settlements that encircle Nilin. The settlements are all illegal under international law.

Several times a week the villagers, joined by small numbers of Israeli and international supporters, congregate in olive fields where bulldozers are tearing up the land to make way for the wall.

The people of Nilin have tried various non-violent forms of protest, including praying in the path of the heavy machinery, using mirrors to reflect sunlight at the construction workers, banging pots and pans, and placing rocks in the way of the bulldozers during the night.

The army has responded with tear gas and stun grenades, as well as on occasion, with rubber-coated steel bullets and live ammunition. Last month it was reported that Israel was also experimenting with a new crowd dispersal method called “skunk”, which involves firing a foul-smelling liquid at demonstrators.

In the past few weeks, two youngsters have been shot dead by the army, including one, Ahmed Moussa, who was 10. The army claimed he was throwing stones. An autopsy showed he was hit in the head by a bullet from an M-16 rifle.

This week a soldier fired from close range three rubber bullets at Awad Surur, a mentally disabled man, as he tried to prevent his brother from being arrested. Two bullets penetrated his skull, according to B’Tselem, which denounced the army as increasingly “trigger-happy” and “reckless”.

Salam’s family, like many other villagers, bear the injuries from attendance at protests. Most of her five brothers have been hit by rubber bullets, as has her father, Jamal Amira, 53. The army has sealed the village off on several occasions and, according to villagers, beaten and terrorised inhabitants.

Mr Amira is among at least 100 farmers whose livelihoods will be devastated by the wall. He will lose all 14 hectares of his land, fields on which his ancestors have made their living by growing olives, cucumbers, aubergine and tomatoes.

But Salam’s five-minute film of the roadblock incident, taken during a four-day curfew imposed on the village, has only intensified the family’s troubles.

Three days after the video was aired, the army arrested her father during a peaceful protest. He was the only one seized after the army claimed the demonstrators had entered a closed military zone. Mr Amira was also charged with assaulting a soldier.

He was held for three and a half weeks before an Israeli military judge rejected the army’s demand that he be remanded for a further three months until his trial.

In an almost unprecedented rebuke to the prosecution, the judge questioned the army’s case, saying he could see no evidence of an assault. He also asked why Salam’s father was singled out from all of those protesting.

Mr Amira’s lawyer, Gabi Laski, said the decision confirmed “our preliminary claim that the arrest was out of vengeance and punishment for the video filmed by the girl”.

Nonetheless, Mr Amira still faces a military trial. A report last year by Yesh Din, a human rights group, found that in only 0.25 per cent of cases heard by military tribunals was the defendant found innocent. Even if acquitted, Mr Amira is expected to face legal costs amounting to nearly US$10,000 (Dh36,700), a sum the family says it cannot pay.

In contrast, the two soldiers responsible for the shooting of the detainee at the roadblock have been reprimanded with the minor charge of “unbecoming conduct”. Neither will stand criminal trial. B’Tselem has called the decision “shameful”.

According to the legal group the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, the punishment under Israeli law for aggravated abuse of a detainee is seven years imprisonment. ACRI’s lawyers have submitted a petition arguing the lenient charge “transmits to officers and other soldiers an extremely grave message of contempt for human life”.

Lt Col Omri Borberg, the commander who gave the order to shoot Abu Rahma, resigned his post but was immediately moved sideways to a senior post in a different unit. In a show of support, Gabi Ashkenazi, the head of the army, said Lt Col Borberg may be reinstated to a command position.

Meanwhile, the villagers said the army’s behaviour would not dissuade them from protesting or cause them to renounce their commitment to non-violence.

Salah Hawaja, a protest organiser, said: “When we started our demonstrations, maybe 50 soldiers showed up. Now there are hundreds stationed permanently around us. Israel is treating us like a major war zone, even though we are using non-violence.

“The people of Nilin have accepted that the best strategy to stop Israel’s plans to steal our land and leave us inside a ghetto is non-violence,” said Mr Hawaja.

“We need to show the world who is the occupier and who the occupied. Israel understands how threatening this is, which is why it is using so much force against us.”

A fund has been established to help the Amira family. Donations can be sent to: Amira Legal Defense Fund, PO Box 1335, Kfar Saba, Israel 44113, made out to “Matte Hacoalitsia”. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal: donate.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

[This article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae), published in Abu Dhabi.]

Source / Information Clearing House

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Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman and Producers Released After Illegal Arrest at RNC

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman.

Goodman Charged with obstruction; Felony riot charges pending against Kouddous and Salazar
September 1, 2008

See videos of arrests and link to petition to ‘Stop the Arrests of Journalists,’ below.

ST. PAUL–Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and producers Sharif Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar have all been released from police custody in St. Paul following their illegal arrest by Minneapolis Police on Monday afternoon.

All three were violently manhandled by law enforcement officers. Abdel Kouddous was slammed against a wall and the ground, leaving his arms scraped and bloodied. He sustained other injuries to his chest and back. Salazar’s violent arrest by baton-wielding officers, during which she was slammed to the ground while yelling, “I’m Press! Press!,” resulted in her nose bleeding, as well as causing facial pain. Goodman’s arm was violently yanked by police as she was arrested.

On Tuesday, Democracy Now! will broadcast video of these arrests, as well as the broader police action. These will also be available on Democracy Now!.

Goodman was arrested while questioning police about the unlawful detention of Kouddous and Salazar who were arrested while they carried out their journalistic duties in covering street demonstrations at the Republican National Convention. Goodman’s crime appears to have been defending her colleagues and the freedom of the press.

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher told Democracy Now! that Kouddous and Salazar were arrested on suspicion of rioting, a felony. While the three have been released, they all still face charges stemming from their unlawful arrest. Kouddous and Salazar face pending charges of suspicion of felony riot, while Goodman has been officially charged with obstruction of a legal process and interference with a “peace officer.”

Democracy Now! forcefully rejects all of these charges as false and an attempt at intimidation of these journalists. We demand that the charges be immediately and completely dropped.

Democracy Now! stands by Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and condemns this action by Twin Cities’ law enforcement as a clear violation of the freedom of the press and the First Amendment rights of these journalists.

During the demonstration in which the Democracy Now! team was arrested, law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force against protesters and journalists. Several dozen demonstrators were also arrested during this action, including a photographer for the Associated Press.

Amy Goodman is one of the most well-known and well-respected journalists in the United States. She has received journalism’s top honors for her reporting and has a distinguished reputation of bravery and courage. The arrest of Goodman, Kouddous and Salazar and the subsequent criminal charges and threat of charges are a transparent attempt to intimidate journalists.

Democracy Now! is a nationally-syndicated public TV and radio program that airs on over 700 radio and TV stations across the US and the globe.

Source / Democracy Now

Stop the Arrests of Journalists. Sign the Letter.

Police in St. Paul arrested several journalists yesterday, including Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman and an AP photographer as they were covering protests of the Republican National Convention. And earlier this weekend, police raided a meeting of the video journalists’ group I-Witness with firearms drawn to arrest independent media, bloggers and videomakers.

Go here to sign petition.

Source / freepress.net

Amy Goodman Arrested at RNC

Democracy Now! Producer Nicole Salazar Arrested

Also see ‘Democracy Now!’ host back at work day after arrest by Anthony Lonetree / Star Tribune / September 2, 2008

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Preventive Detention Violates the 4th Amendment

Posted on September 2, 2008 by RagBlog

A documentary filmmaker screamed as he underwent treatment for pepper spray. Photo: Damon Winter/The New York Times

Preemptive Strikes Against Protest at RNC
by Marjorie Cohn / September 2, 2008

In the months leading up to the Republican National Convention, the FBI-led Minneapolis Joint Terrorist Task Force actively recruited people to infiltrate vegan groups and other leftist organizations and report back about their activities. On May 21, the Minneapolis City Pages ran a recruiting story called “Moles Wanted.” Law enforcement sought to preempt lawful protest against the policies of the Bush administration during the convention.

Since Friday, local police and sheriffs, working with the FBI, conducted preemptive searches, seizures and arrests. Glenn Greenwald described the targeting of protestors by “teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets.” Journalists were detained at gunpoint and lawyers representing detainees were handcuffed at the scene.

“I was personally present and saw officers with riot gear and assault rifles, pump action shotguns,” said Bruce Nestor, the President of the Minnesota chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, who is representing several of the protestors. “The neighbor of one of the houses had a gun pointed in her face when she walked out on her back porch to see what was going on. There were children in all of these houses, and children were held at gunpoint.”

The raids targeted members of “Food Not Bombs,” an anti-war, anti-authoritarian protest group that provides free vegetarian meals every week in hundreds of cities all over the world. They served meals to rescue workers at the World Trade Center after 9/11 and to nearly 20 communities in the Gulf region following Hurricane Katrina.

Also targeted were members of I-Witness Video, a media watchdog group that monitors the police to protect civil liberties. The group worked with the National Lawyers Guild to gain the dismissal of charges or acquittals of about 400 of the 1,800 who were arrested during the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York. Preemptive policing was used at that time as well. Police infiltrated protest groups in advance of the convention.

Nestor said that no violence or illegality has taken place to justify the arrests. “Seizing boxes of political literature shows the motive of these raids was political,” he said.

Further evidence of the political nature of the police action was the boarding up of the Convergence Center, where protestors had gathered, for unspecified code violations. St. Paul City Council member David Thune said, “Normally we only board up buildings that are vacant and ramshackle.” Thune and fellow City Council member Elizabeth Glidden decried “actions that appear excessive and create an atmosphere of fear and intimidation for those who wish to exercise their first amendment rights.”

“So here we have a massive assault led by Federal Government law enforcement agencies on left-wing dissidents and protestors who have committed no acts of violence or illegality whatsoever, preceded by months-long espionage efforts to track what they do,” Greenwald wrote on Salon.

Preventive detention violates the Fourth Amendment, which requires that warrants be supported by probable cause. Protestors were charged with “conspiracy to commit riot,” a rarely-used statute that is so vague, it is probably unconstitutional. Nestor said it “basically criminalizes political advocacy.”

On Sunday, the National Lawyers Guild and Communities United Against Police Brutality filed an emergency motion requesting an injunction to prevent police from seizing video equipment and cellular phones used to document their conduct.

During Monday’s demonstration, law enforcement officers used pepper spray, rubber bullets, concussion grenades and excessive force. At least 284 people were arrested, including Amy Goodman, the prominent host of Democracy Now!, as well as the show’s producers, Abdel Kouddous and Nicole Salazar. “St. Paul was the most militarized I have ever seen an American city to be,” Greenwald wrote, “with troops of federal, state and local law enforcement agents marching around with riot gear, machine guns, and tear gas cannisters, shouting military chants and marching in military formations.”

Bruce Nestor said the timing of the arrests was intended to stop protest activity, “to make people fearful of the protests, but also to discourage people from protesting,” he told Amy Goodman. Nevertheless, 10,000 people, many opposed to the Iraq war, turned out to demonstrate on Monday. A legal team from the National Lawyers Guild has been working diligently to protect the constitutional rights of protestors.

[Marjorie Cohn is president of the National Lawyers Guild and a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law and co-author of Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent (with Kathleen Gilberd), which will be published this winter by PoliPointPress. Her articles are archived at http://www.marjoriecohn.com/.]

Source / Common Dreams

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HEALTH CARE : Cure Worse Than the Disease?

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

SLEEVES UP. The elderly, who account for most influenza deaths, have been urged for decades to receive annual vaccinations. Photo by Mario Tama / Getty Images / NYT.

‘To be approved as a drug, harm must be proven’
By Janet Gilles / The Rag Blog / September 2, 2008

The New York Times has two articles undermining the present widespread belief in the American medical care system. It is not so much backed up by science as we would expect and hope, but rather backed up by the bottom line and corporate profits.

Our public health officials say that we can never achieve our health goals while we subsidize junk food, and now Lancet publishes research showing that a heart medicine taken by millions every day does not improve health but does contribute to cancer.

To be approved as a drug, harm must be proven. That is why you need a prescription. If it is harmless, no prescription needed, but on the other hand, without the pharmaceutical sales crew, there is not much chance your doctor will have heard about harmless remedies.

Cholesterol lowering:

For Widely Used Drug, Question of Usefulness Is Still Lingering / New York Times / September 1, 2008

And the futility of the flu vaccine:

Doubts Grow Over Flu Vaccine in Elderly / New York Times / September 1, 2008

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Austin CodePink : Newlyweds Join Republican Doin’s

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Newlyweds portrayed by Heidi and Jim Turpin of CodePink Austin. Photo courtesy of Heidi Turpin.

‘We were the only bride and groom there!’
By Susan Van Haitsma / The Rag Blog / September 2, 2008

I spoke by phone last evening with Austin CodePink member, Heidi Turpin, who is in the Twin Cities this week along with her husband, Jim to join in the demonstrations at the RNC.

Heidi and Jim were getting ready for a speaking event after the day’s big march and rally that drew thousands, the vast majority of whom marched peacefully as they had planned to do. Heidi said the march drew a lot of media, including a large contingent of foreign press.

CodePink activists had come from around the country to bring their trademark color, humor and street theatre to the RNC, including beautiful large puppets created especially for the events. Heidi and Jim as a McCain/Bush wedding couple were a popular draw for the cameras. “We were the only bride and groom there!,” Heidi said. Because she and Jim were wearing Bush and McCain masks (hard to talk when you are wearing a rubber mask!), they had prepared press cards to hand out, and she said they distributed about 80 of their cards to journalists who approached them.

Heidi reported seeing lots of riot police and police on bicycles, but she didn’t witness any arrests. Meanwhile, reports emerged that world-renowned journalist, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! was arrested in the afternoon along with two producers from her show. Goodman, highly respected for her calm, straightforward style, was trying to find out from police the status of her staff, who had been arrested and roughed up for simply trying to document police and demonstrator activity. Suddenly, she was abruptly arrested herself. Goodman and her staff were later released, and a segment on today’s Democracy Now! program will be devoted to a report about their experiences.

Among the marchers were members of Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War, who had just held their national conventions in the Twin Cities ahead of the RNC. Here is a good interview with a few of the several hundred VFP members who traveled to Minnesota for the convention and RNC demonstrations. The interview was aired on Democracy Now! and was conducted by another renowned investigative journalist, Jeremy Scahill.

[Susan Van Haitsma posts as makingpeace on Statesman.com. ]

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Same Path of Intervention and Domination in Iraq

Posted on September 2, 2008 by RagBlog

Raed Jarrar in the T-shirt that got him barred from a flight until it was covered

US-Iraqi agreement: leaked
By Raed Jarrar / September 1, 2008

I read about a leaked copy of the US-Iraqi agreement a few days ago when a radio station in Iraq mentioned some of its details, then it was mentioned in some Arab newspapers like Al-Qabas and Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. A couple of days ago, one Iraqi website (linked to an Iraqi armed resistance group) published the leaked draft on their web page for less than a couple of days before their website went offline. (Thankfully, I downloaded the 21 pages agreement and saved them before their server went down)

I spent this weekend translating it, and just finished now. you can read the 27 articles August 6th draft by clicking here or here or here. The title of this draft is “Agreement regarding the activities and presence of U.S. forces, and its withdrawal from Iraq”, but this is the same agreement that is referred to as a “status of forces agreement” or “SOFA” or framework or whatever. It’s the result of months of negotiations after Bush and Al-Maliki signed the “Declaration of Principles for a Long-Term Relationship of Cooperation and Friendship Between the Republic of Iraq and the United States of America” by the end of last year.

This leaked draft is a treasure of information. It’s the first time any document related to this topic is made public. It shows how weak the Iraqi negotiations team is (it is really pathetic to read their “suggestions” on how to fix the disaster of an agreement).

There are many outrageous articles in the agreement that violates Iraq’s sovereignty and independence, and gives the U.S. occupation authorities unprecedented rights and privileges, but what has draw my attention the most (so far) are three major points:

1- the agreement does not discuss anything about a complete US withdrawal from Iraq. Instead, it talks about withdrawing “combat troops” without defining what is the difference between combat troops and other troops. It is very clear that the US is planning to stay indefinitely in permanent bases in Iraq (or as the agreement calls them: “installations and areas agreed upon”) where the U.S. will continue training and supporting Iraqis armed forces for the foreseeable future.

2- the agreement goes into effect when the two executive branches exchange “memos”, instead of waiting for Iraqi parliament’s ratification. This is really dangerous, and it is shocking because both the Iraqi and U.S. executive branches have been assuring the Iraqi parliament that no agreement will go into effect without being ratified by Iraq’s MPs.

3- this agreement is the blueprint for keeping other occupation armies (aka Multi-national forces) in Iraq on the long run. This explains the silence regarding what will happed to other occupiers (like the U.K. forces) after the expiration of the UN mandate at the end of this year.

It is really disturbing to read how the U.S. government is still going down the same path of intervention and domination in Iraq.

This agreement will not be accepted by the Iraqi people and their elected representatives in the Iraqi parliament, and if the U.S. and Iraqi executive branches try to consider it valid anyway it will lead to more violence in Iraq.

Source / Raed in the Middle

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Gun-Toting Teachers in Texas

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer


‘The school board’s decision last year permitting teachers and staff to carry arms is ricocheting across the nation’
By Lisa Sandberg

HARROLD, Texas — Traci McKay was horrified when, on the first day of school last week, her 14-year-old daughter bounded through the front door of their home and breathlessly demanded, “Which teachers are carrying guns?”

It was a fair question. The girl’s rural North Texas school district had authorized some teachers to carry concealed pistols to class, the first district in the state, and perhaps the nation, to do so.

The school board’s decision last year permitting teachers and staff to carry arms is ricocheting across the nation and beyond, with media crews from as far as Italy descending on this community.

With Gov. Rick Perry giving an endorsement of sorts last week, saying all districts should have the power to decide who brings guns to schools, the issue is not likely to go away.

Supporters say the district is taking proactive steps to protect students against the threat, unlikely as it may be, of some armed thug coming to campus to do harm.

Detractors say the district is inviting into schools the dangers that exist outside school campuses.

Good guys vs. bad guys

The biggest champion of the school district’s policy, superintendent David Thweatt, said his goal is to arm the good guys in order to deter the bad who might want to turn tiny Harrold, with its 100 students, into the next Columbine, the Denver-area high school that was the site of the infamous 1999 shooting that left 15 dead, including the two student gunmen.

School massacres of the past have shown they can happen anywhere, Thweatt said.

Two geographic factors make Harrold’s school vulnerable, he said. It is only about 1,000 feet from the four-lane U.S. 287, yet it’s 18 miles away from the local Sheriff’s Office.

“I don’t want to call a parent and say, ‘Some bad guy came in, and your kid’s dead, and we didn’t have a good plan to prevent it,’ ” Thweatt said last week from his office.

It’s hard to know how Harrold’s staff feels about the district’s policy. None was authorized by Thweatt to discuss it.

Thweatt said he and the school board explored other options to protect Harrold’s kids, like hiring a security guard or allowing teachers to carry less lethal weapons like beanbag guns, tranquilizers and Tasers. But none seemed up to the task.

“You don’t take a knife to a gunfight,” Thweatt enjoys saying.

But not everyone is so sure.

“We’re not exactly a downtown metropolis, a seedbed of crime,” said Diane Brown, a Harrold resident whose two adult sons passed through Harrold’s schools. “We’ve lived here for 45 years and can’t recall the last houses that got burglarized.”

Wilbarger County Sheriff Larry Lee said the area suffers from some petty thefts but has no gang problem and little violent crime. The last couple of homicides?

“Now you’re making me think,” Lee said.

Among ‘the safest places’

Lee said that Thweatt isn’t unreasonable either when he talks about the school’s remote location. The 999-square-mile county is patrolled by no more than three deputies at any given time. Should his men be on the wrong side of the county during an emergency at Harrold’s school, it might take 25 minutes for them to arrive, Lee said.

According to the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun-control advocacy group, fewer than 1 percent of school-age homicide victims are killed on school grounds or on their way to or from school.

“Schools are amongst the safest places in America,” said Brian Siebel, senior attorney at the Brady Center. “Homicides at schools are the extraordinary, exceptional situation. Our no-gun policies are very effective.”

Texas outlaws firearms on school campuses “unless pursuant to the written regulations or written authorization of the institution,” which Barbara Williams, a spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Boards, said puts Harrold on solid legal ground.

Concerned about aiding potential enemies, Thweatt won’t say which teachers carry guns to class or even how many.

Lee said he had heard that four of the school’s 25 staff members had been cleared to carry arms.

Thweatt said teachers and staff must keep the loaded pistols attached to their bodies at all times. They must hold a concealed weapons license, then be approved by the board and go through additional training.

Ruth Edwards, 65, is elated by the idea of pistol-carrying teachers because she thinks it’ll keep her 8-year-old daughter, Katie, safe.

“It’s safety for her and peace of mind for me,” Edwards said.

But the idea of armed teachers has left some parents, like McKay, fuming.

“We pay teachers to educate, nothing more,” said McKay, 34, who has three children in the district.

Source / Houston Chronicle

Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

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Disclosures on Palin Raise Questions on Vetting Process

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Illustration by Bromley.

‘The questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention… brought anxiety to Republicans’
By Elisabeth Bumiller / September 1, 2008

ST. PAUL — A series of disclosures about Gov. Sarah Palin, Senator John McCain’s choice as running mate, called into question on Monday how thoroughly Mr. McCain had examined her background before putting her on the Republican presidential ticket.

On Monday morning, Ms. Palin and her husband, Todd, issued a statement saying that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter, Bristol, was five months pregnant and that she intended to marry the father.

Among other less attention-grabbing news of the day: it was learned that Ms. Palin now has a private lawyer in a legislative ethics investigation in Alaska into whether she abused her power in dismissing the state’s public safety commissioner; that she was a member for two years in the 1990s of the Alaska Independence Party, which has at times sought a vote on whether the state should secede; and that Mr. Palin was arrested 22 years ago on a drunken-driving charge.

Aides to Mr. McCain said they had a team on the ground in Alaska now to look more thoroughly into Ms. Palin’s background. A Republican with ties to the campaign said the team assigned to vet Ms. Palin in Alaska had not arrived there until Thursday, a day before Mr. McCain stunned the political world with his vice-presidential choice. The campaign was still calling Republican operatives as late as Sunday night asking them to go to Alaska to deal with the unexpected candidacy of Ms. Palin.

Although the McCain campaign said that Mr. McCain had known about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy before he asked her mother to join him on the ticket and that he did not consider it disqualifying, top aides were vague on Monday about how and when he had learned of the pregnancy, and from whom.

While there was no sign that her formal nomination this week was in jeopardy, the questions swirling around Ms. Palin on the first day of the Republican National Convention, already disrupted by Hurricane Gustav, brought anxiety to Republicans who worried that Democrats would use the selection of Ms. Palin to question Mr. McCain’s judgment and his ability to make crucial decisions.

At the least, Republicans close to the campaign said it was increasingly apparent that Ms. Palin had been selected as Mr. McCain’s running mate with more haste than McCain advisers initially described.

Up until midweek last week, some 48 to 72 hours before Mr. McCain introduced Ms. Palin at a Friday rally in Dayton, Ohio, Mr. McCain was still holding out the hope that he could choose a good friend, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, a Republican close to the campaign said. Mr. McCain had also been interested in another favorite, former Gov. Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania.

But both men favor abortion rights, anathema to the Christian conservatives who make up a crucial base of the Republican Party. As word leaked out that Mr. McCain was seriously considering the men, the campaign was bombarded by outrage from influential conservatives who predicted an explosive floor fight at the convention and vowed rejection of Mr. Ridge or Mr. Lieberman by the delegates.

Perhaps more important, several Republicans said, Mr. McCain was getting advice that if he did not do something to shake up the race, his campaign would be stuck on a potentially losing trajectory.

With time running out — and as Mr. McCain discarded two safer choices, Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, as too predictable — he turned to Ms. Palin. He had his first face-to-face interview with her on Thursday and offered her the job moments later. Advisers to Mr. Pawlenty and another of the finalists on Mr. McCain’s list described an intensive vetting process for those candidates that lasted one to two months.

“They didn’t seriously consider her until four or five days from the time she was picked, before she was asked, maybe the Thursday or Friday before,” said a Republican close to the campaign. “This was really kind of rushed at the end, because John didn’t get what he wanted. He wanted to do Joe or Ridge.”

In the final stages, two Republicans familiar with the process said, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, Rick Davis, emerged as a key advocate for Ms. Palin.

Mr. McCain’s advisers said repeatedly on Monday that Ms. Palin was “thoroughly vetted,” a process that would have included a review of all financial and legal records as well as a criminal background check. A McCain aide said the campaign was well aware of the ethics investigation and had looked into it.

“It was obviously something that anybody Googling Sarah Palin knew was in the news and there was a very thorough vetting done on that and also on the daughter,” the aide said.

People familiar with the process said Ms. Palin had responded to a standard form with more than 70 questions. Although The Washington Post quoted advisers to Mr. McCain on Sunday as saying Ms. Palin had been subjected to an F.B.I. background check, an F.B.I. official said Monday the bureau did not vet potential candidates and had not known of her selection until it was made public.

Mark Salter, Mr. McCain’s closest adviser, said in an e-mail message that Ms. Palin had been interviewed by Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr., a veteran Washington lawyer in charge of the vice-presidential vetting process for Mr. McCain, as well as by other lawyers who worked for Mr. Culvahouse. Mr. Salter did not respond to an e-mail message asking if Ms. Palin had told Mr. Culvahouse and his lawyers that her daughter was pregnant.

In Alaska, several state leaders and local officials said they knew of no efforts by the McCain campaign to find out more information about Ms. Palin before the announcement of her selection, Although campaigns are typically discreet when they make inquiries into potential running mates, officials in Alaska said Monday they thought it was peculiar that no one in the state had the slightest hint that Ms. Palin might be under consideration.

“They didn’t speak to anyone in the Legislature, they didn’t speak to anyone in the business community,” said Lyda Green, the State Senate president, who lives in Wasilla, where Ms. Palin served as mayor.

Representative Gail Phillips, a Republican and former speaker of the State House, said the widespread surprise in Alaska when Ms. Palin was named to the ticket made her wonder how intensively the McCain campaign had vetted her.

“I started calling around and asking, and I have not been able to find one person that was called,” Ms. Phillips said. “I called 30 to 40 people, political leaders, business leaders, community leaders. Not one of them had heard. Alaska is a very small community, we know people all over, but I haven’t found anybody who was asked anything.”

The current mayor of Wasilla, Dianne M. Keller, said she had not heard of any efforts to look into Ms. Palin’s background. And Randy Ruedrich, the state Republican Party chairman, said he knew nothing of any vetting that had been conducted.

State Senator Hollis French, a Democrat who is directing the ethics investigation, said that no one asked him about the allegations. “I heard not a word, not a single contact,” he said.

A number of Republicans said the McCain campaign had to some degree tied its hands in its effort to keep the selection process so secret.

“If you really want it to be a surprise, the circle of people that you’re going to allow to know about it is going to be small, and that’s just the nature of it,” said Dan Bartlett, a former counselor to President Bush.

Former McCain strategists disagreed on whether it would have been useful for Ms. Palin’s name to have been more publicly floated before her selection so that issues like the trooper investigation and her daughter’s pregnancy might have already been aired and not seemed so new at the time of her announcement.

“It’s a risk,” said Dan Schnur, a former McCain aide who now directs the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. “No matter how great the candidate, it’s a significant risk to put someone on the ticket” who hasn’t been publicly scrutinized.

“They obviously felt it was worth the risk to rev up the base and potentially reach out to Clinton supporters,” Mr. Schnur said.

Source / New York Times

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Georgetown : Ex UT Austin Top Cop Used Undercover Snoops Against Student Anti-War Groups

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Jeffrey Van Slyke when serving as police chief at University of Texas at Austin.

Georgetown paper calls Chief Jeffrey Van Slyke to task
By Scott Henson

Jeffrey Van Slyke, the former University of Texas Police Department chief who authorized undercover snooping on UT-Austin student groups, finds himself facing hard questions from a student newspaper in Washington D.C. about his policing record at UT in this high-impact piece from the Georgetown Voice.

Of the many regrettable UTPD episodes recounted in the story, perhaps the most controversial in an academic setting was Van Slyke’s admitted, repeated use of undercover officers and informants at UT-Austin to infiltrate anti-war and pro-choice student groups:

On Monday, Van Slyke would not rule out using student informants at Georgetown.

“What I’ve done on other campuses doesn’t necessarily mean that’s going to happen here, and my focus is on what’s best for Georgetown University,” he said.

Professor Tina Fryling, the chair of Mercyhurst College’s Criminal Justice Department and a specialist in criminal justice ethics, said she did not know how often informants and officers are used to report on campus groups.

“I would say it shouldn’t be common, because the whole point of having a college atmosphere is for people to explore their beliefs, their ideas, do whatever they need to do within a group,” she said.

Georgetown President John DeGioia said yesterday that he only approved of the use of student informants and infiltration in rare circumstances.

“I could probably count on one finger in 20 years of knowledge when we’ve been comfortable with having somebody engage in a way that would not be rather transparent,” he said. He added that he was not familiar with Van Slyke’s use of informants.

If nobody in the Georgetown University administration knew about UTPD’s political use of undercover snooping under Van Slyke’s watch, that means nobody bothered to perform any due diligence background check on the new chief. The incidents were nationally publicized; the first time happened within the month after 9/11, although the practice continued for years afterward. The Voice story shows a simple check of The Daily Texan archives would have revealed virtually all the controversies mentioned.

The student paper also contains an especially interesting passage based on Van Slyke’s recently completed Ph.D. dissertation, adding a coda to the incident that’s arguably the biggest public black mark on his stint at UTPD:

Van Slyke received his PhD in Education from UT last fall after successfully defending his dissertation about law enforcement ethics. In the dissertation, he describes unethical behavior he witnessed in university security forces: a cop plays Russian roulette with his revolver in front of colleagues, an officer and her boyfriend sneak into her boss’s office to “be tutored in biology,” and a policeman solicits prostitutes from his cruiser.

The dissertation also describes an incident of oral sex between a student and a campus police officer. In Van Slyke’s dissertation, an officer discovered a woman after her car hit a stop sign.

“As the officer assists the female student in removing her vehicle from the curb, he detects an odor of alcohol and determines that she is intoxicated. The officer also observes that the female student is scantly dressed and not wearing under garments,” the dissertation reads.

According to the dissertation, the woman then “engage[d] in oral sex with the officer” in a nearby parking garage. The officer eventually resigned after an internal investigation and was arrested for sexual assault, according to the dissertation.

The situation described in the dissertation bears similarities to an incident that occurred at UT in 2001, in which a UT student claimed that she was forced to perform oral sex on UTPD officer Sellers Bailey. In court, it was revealed that her blood-alcohol content at the time was 0.17. The officer was fired from UTPD (Daily Texan, May 2, 2003) and was eventually charged with sexual assault. He was later acquitted, in part because of his victim’s high BAC.

The victim also filed a lawsuit against Van Slyke and UT President Larry Faulkner, saying they had ignored warning signs about the officer, including a sexual harassment claim filed against Bailey by a female guard. The lawsuit against Van Slyke and Faulkner was settled out of court in 2004 (Daily Texan, June 18, 2004).

The story was accompanied with an editorial criticizing Van Slyke (who began his new job as Georgetown’s public safety chief on June 1 after most students were gone for the summer) for refusing to discuss his UT-Austin record or rule out using informants to infiltrate student groups at Georgetown.

Seeing these incidents compiled all together reminds this alum that, at the time these scandals occurred, the UT-Austin administration circled the wagons around Chief Van Slyke instead of reining him in, tacitly allowing tactics like undercover surveillance of political groups. Perhaps with the help of the student press, Georgetown administrators will be more aggressive holding Van Slyke’s feet to the fire.

Source / Grits For Breakfast / Posted August 29, 2008

Thanks to Carlos Lowry / The Rag Blog

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Latest from St. Paul : More Than 280 Arrested

Posted on September 2, 2008 by Thorne Dreyer

Police arrest a group of protesters along Shepard Road in St Paul on Monday, Sept. 1. Photo by Richard Sennott, Star Tribune.

Protesters at Republican Convention shout ‘our streets, their war’
September 1, 2008

Shouting “our streets, their war,” about 10,000 demonstrators — far fewer than the 50,000 some had predicted — flooded into downtown St. Paul’s narrow streets on the steamy first day of the Republican National Convention.

By Monday evening, authorities said 283 people had been arrested, including 129 on felonies. Dozens were pepper-sprayed and tear-gassed. One police officer was punched in the back, another suffered from heat exhaustion, and St. Paul hospitals reported nine minor injuries and several heat-related cases in emergency rooms.

While block after block of marchers chanted and peacefully waved signs, the carnival atmosphere turned increasingly ugly as Monday wore on. Before the bulk of the demonstrators finished their march, rogue bands of a few hundred protesters splintered off. Some smashed windows at Macy’s and a downtown bank building, others challenged police by blocking roads.

Hundreds of cops, sweltering in heavy riot gear, swept in to block streets and protect delegate buses as the St. Paul police requested help from 150 National Guard troops by 3 p.m.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman praised officers for showing restraint and said a small number of law-breaking demonstrators marred what was an otherwise peaceful day of free speech.

“Their efforts were nothing short of heroic,” Coleman said. “They did not fail. They did not take the bait.”
St. Paul Police Chief John Harrington said the trouble makers came from a half-dozen loosely organized groups totaling up to 180 people, representing a small fraction Monday’s turnout.

A cross-section of dissent
Protesters came from across the state and the country on what was expected to be the largest demonstration of a week filled with protests. They marched after a sun-drenched noontime rally on the state Capitol lawn, snaking down a route negotiated for months and circled in front of the Xcel Energy Center as delegates arrived for a session cut short by Hurricane Gustav.

Cu Nyugen, a Vietnamese native who lives in Minneapolis, brought his 12-year-old daughter, Mai, on the eve of her first day of sixth grade.

“It’s important for the younger generation to see and learn about different points of view,” Nyugen said.

Alberto Arenas, a professor at the University of Arizona, came from Tucson to let people know not all Arizonans support their senator’s presidential bid.
Bill Schuster, a Vietnam War veteran from Blaine, wanted “to do my part because I don’t like what’s going on and I don’t like us being in Iraq.”

Marie Williams, 77, of Minneapolis, carried a “Dissent is Patriotic” placard.

“I started coming to protests with Paul Wellstone and I haven’t stopped,” Williams said. “I can’t count up to 50,000, but this is a lot of people.”

Organizers’ hopes of 50,000 marchers fell short and some were disappointed by the turnout, wondering if the 90-degree heat, aggressive police tactics and President Bush’s cancellation thinned the crowd.

“I’m disappointed – this is far too few people,” said Lennie Major, a teacher from Mounds View. “We needed 10 times this many to make an impact, this will only be a blip.”

But P.J. Goodette, who came from San Jose, Calif., smiled as he waved a turquoise flag with a peace symbol and high-fived a line of Minneapolis police officers standing by their bicycles.

“I can feel it in the air,” he said. “Things are changing and I’m here because I want to be part of it.”

Escalating violence
The peaceful mood started to change after 1:30 p.m., when several groups broke off and began resisting police. At 3 p.m, about 250 people locked arms to block delegate buses near Robert Street and Kellogg Blvd.

In a standout with 100 police officers, authorities warmed them to disperse or they’d start launching tear gas. Minutes later, when the group refused to move, officers tossed in a dozen tear-gas canisters, prompting the crowd to retreat two blocks down.

Some demonstrators then attempted to line the street with obstacles, including newspaper bins, sand bags and trash cans. Witnesses said police also used concussion grenades and smoke bombs.

“Most of [the demonstrators] were pretty good,” said CarolLee Folsom , a bystander who used to work for the Ramsey County sheriff’s office. “But you don’t know what any of these people are going to do. And they warned them, so anybody that wanted to get out could have gotten out.”

Demonstrator Andrew Sigmundik, 18, disagreed and said the police were “aggressive” and went “overboard,” and that he witnessed “one guy in a wheelchair getting Maced and some other people getting hit by those police bats.

“Nobody was trying to cause destruction or violence,” he said. “The idea was to just block the streets. We were just trying to disrupt the delegation, and I think we succeeded.”

Harrington, the police chief, said the first illegal salvo happened about 11 a.m., when a Dumpster was shoved into an occupied squad car down W. 7th St.

“I’m not sure how anyone can say that’s protest,” said Harrington said.

About 2 p.m. protesters dropped bent nails into the intersection at 6th and Wacouta Sts. The group swelled to more than 200 as they turned up 4th St., tossing garbage cans and newspaper kiosks into the road.

Then a few marchers broke off and threw objects, shattering three windows in a bank building at 4th and Minnesota Sts. As sirens screaming in the distance drew closer, drowning out the shouting crowd, a masked marcher threw his bike in front of the lead squad car.

Others continued up 6th, closely pursued by more than a dozen slow-moving police cars. A few officers walked in front of the cars, clearing the barriers the marchers had thrown in the street. By 6th and Cedar, many of the marchers had moved to the sidewalk, and were beginning to disperse. A few smashed out three windows at the Macy’s store.

Many members of the group wore kerchiefs pulled up over their faces and one person jumped up and down a few times on the roof of a parked police car before breaking its windows, starting with the back.

After that, the group broke apart running in several directions. Some hid behind cars in a parking lot on that corner, until the commotion died down and then they calmly walked away.

Source / Star Tribune

Also see Thousands March Against War & McCain by John Nichols / The Nation

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