Unbossed and unbought
news and information you can use
Vol. 14 No. 47…Dedicated to the Dialogue on
Race…November 21, 2011
Venue for an Artist
Downsizing
By Jenny Walker
How much work will be done
once all the workers are laid off?
Who will fit all the fragments
together to form your "bottom line"?
Who will know how to make
your copier copy and your fax fax,
unstuck sticky projects
and translate "idea" into "project done"?
And who will be there to make you look good?
Who will need assistance
instead of being your assistant?
And who will pay to meet that need?
We have watched cartoon
Cartoon Network
American Idol
and Fox News
while our civil liberties were locked up
our investments gutted
our Social Security shredded….
We are told: "you can't win if you don't play"
But , if we sit and wait for "our number,"
our number will be up…..
Haven't we played
long enough?
About Me: A long-time activist (since the '60s,
although now less organizationally-related,
Colonel Morris D. Davis
Born July 31, 1958
in 
justice
in 1980. He received his law degree in 1983 from North Carolina Central
University School of Law in
From June 1992 to
July 1995,
In October 2007,
Colonel Davis resigned from his position as chief prosecutor mere hours after
he was informed that controversial General Counsel William Haynes would be his
superior. Colonel Davis objected to the use of evidence obtained by torture and
the growing political interference in the military commissions. In a statement
regarding his resignation,
In
August 2010, Colonel Davis became the executive director of the Crimes of War
Education Project, a nonprofit organization that seeks to increase
understanding of the laws of armed conflict worldwide.
An Air Force judge
advocate for 25 years, who retired as a Colonel,
Since retiring from
the military,
Perfecting a More Perfect
By Morris Davis
My father was a 100 percent disabled veteran of World War II. He left home a
healthy man in the prime of life and returned seriously disabled by a broken
back during a training accident. My earliest memories are of him going to the
Bowman-Gray Hospital at Wake Forest University for multiple surgeries, spending
weeks at home in bed in a full-body plaster cast, his back and leg braces and
crutches, and the hand-controls that let him drive without using the gas or
brake pedals. Like many of his generation - and like many of the men and women
I see now at
Robert
Hutchins, former Dean of the
I believe that
living in a democracy is a privilege, not a right, and each citizen has a duty
to do his or her part to ensure the privilege isn't lost to future generations.
That was a lesson I learned from my father. I joined the Air Force a few months
after he died and served for 25 years, in part because of his example.
Volunteers for
military service aren't apathetic or indifferent about democracy. They pledge
to support and defend the Constitution, and many make the ultimate sacrifice; I
saw proof every morning when I drove by the white stone markers aligned in rows
at
It says something
when we cast nearly as many votes to select the next American Idol as we do to
select the next American president, when more can name the "Plus
Eight" that belong to Jon and Kate than the eight members of the Supreme
Court remaining when Justice John Paul Stevens (Navy veteran) retires, and when
Tiger Woods wrecking his marriage and his SUV is the lead story on the national
news. Too many of us are too absorbed with the superficial world of celebrities
and the schadenfreude of their calamitous lives.
The most basic duty
of citizenship is participation, something Americans do less than citizens of
most other countries. Almost all eligible voters in
I'm involved in the
Coffee Party, a group that promotes civil discussion about issues and greater
public participation in the political process. I don't believe any political
party or any group along the ideological spectrum has a monopoly on good ideas,
and I believe we should be able to discuss issues and ideas without hurling
insults and threats. We seem to lose sight of the fact that we're all in this
together.
We have the power
and the ability to prove Hutchins wrong and to advance the ideal the Founding Fathers
envisioned - continuing to perfect the union, doing justice, insuring domestic
tranquility, providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare,
and passing these privileges along to those that follow - if we just have the
will.
Black
By Bill Fletcher, Jr., and Carl Bloice, and
Jamala Rogers
In the face of the deployment of 100 
is
the outcry?
It
is no rhetorical flourish to say that the foreign policy of the Obama
administration, far from representing a qualitative break with that of the Bush
administration, has proven in most spheres to be continuity. This in no way
means that the same verbal belligerence is at play. In fact, the policy is more
akin to that followed by former President Bill Clinton in that there is more of
an effort to collaborate with other imperial allies in our aggression rather
than the unilateralism that was very characteristic of President George W.
Bush. Nevertheless, what we are not seeing is anything approaching a
transformation of relations between the
Instead we have seen
the escalation of war in 
(Afghanistan/Pakistan)
with the regular drone attacks taking place in both countries and the increase
in terrorist activity within
Well,
this is a partial list, but the point here is that there is something very
wrong in Obama's foreign policy, yet you would not know that from Black
America's response. Foreign policy is not being debated on most African
American talk radio programs 
and
very rarely do we hear African American commentators in the mainstream media
address the limitations of
This relative
silence appears to be rooted in the same general problem that has afflicted
Black America since the election of Obama: a belief that criticism and pressure
is somehow destructive and disloyal. One can only conclude this in light of the
fact that on most foreign policy matters Black America has shown an historic
identification with the struggles for liberation and independence, especially
in Asia, Africa and
We
are not waving our fingers at anyone. Rather we are suggesting that this is a
dangerous course of action because it represents a failure to recognize that
the Obama administration is not about one individual named Barack Obama. It is
an administration overseeing policies, many historically rooted, in the
objective of building and sustaining global domination. In other words, this
goes way beyond a question of Obama's personal views and beliefs and speaks to
the sort of administration that he constructed, including who were named top
officials and who were excluded.
By remaining silent
in the face of
Paradoxically, it is
probably time for us to rethink Obama's remarks at the Congressional Black
Caucus banquet in September. When he said African Americans needed to stop
complaining and put on our marching boots, many people became upset and felt
insulted. But let's think about this for a moment. Too many of us have been
content to complain--sometimes bitterly--in private about what we fail to see
from the Obama administration. So, maybe it is time to put on those marching
boots, indeed, and march in protest not only against the demonic activities of
the Republicans but as well against US aggression carried out by the first
African American President of the USA?
If not now, when? If
not you (us), who? (Source:
http://www.zcommunications.org/black-america-and-obama-s-foreign-policy-by-bill-fletcher-jr)
US Drones Killing
Children in
By Pratap Chatterjee
A week ago I joined a group of elders and dozens of other young men who had
traveled from Waziristan, in northern
Among
the group was Tariq Aziz, a quiet 16-year-old, who had come after he received a
phone call from a lawyer in
We met for a grand
dinner in the conference hall of a luxury hotel. And the next day we all met
again at an official meeting - a 'Waziristan Grand Jirga'. I filmed Tariq Aziz
as he walked in with his friends. Each of them pressed their right palms on the
chest of each of the elders who lined up to meet them.
Tariq was proud to
be part of this meeting. About 18 months earlier, in April 2010, his cousin
Aswar Ullah was killed by a missile fired from a drone as he rode a motorcycle
near Norak. Tariq, like all of us,
listened intently to the speakers, who included the politician and former
cricketer Imran Khan. What none of us
could have imagined was that 72 hours later, this football-loving teenager
would himself be killed by a CIA drone, along with his 12-year-old cousin Waheed
Khan.
Tariq and Waheed's
death brought the total number of children killed in drone strikes to 175,
according to the Bureau's own findings. As part of an ongoing investigation,
the Bureau has documented 306 drone strikes that have killed between 2,359 and
2,959 people. Over 85% of them have been launched by the administration of
President Barack Obama.
Akbar says that the
CIA had every opportunity to meet with Tariq, if they wanted to, when he
visited
Mumtaz Khan, Tariq's
father, has flown back from the
The CIA has secretly
agreed changes to how it conducts its drone war in 
the
Wall Street Journal.
Last month, the
Bureau reported the 300th strike of the CIA's seven-year drone campaign, and Bureau
reporter Chris Woods suggested in an analysis piece that the pattern of recent
strikes suggests the CIA has changed tactics to focus on killing senior
militants, or High Value Targets. The Wall Street Journal's report appears to
confirm this.
The changes include
the State Department having more influence in strike decisions, Pakistani
leaders being told about strikes in advance more often, and the CIA holding off
from strikes when Pakistani officials are visiting the
'The bar has been
raised. Inside CIA, there is a recognition you need to be damn sure it's worth
it,' the Journal quotes a senior official saying.
The military and
National Security Advisor Tom Donilon are increasingly critical of strikes
targeting large groups, as they fear the Pakistani authorities may respond by
cutting off vital supply routes into Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, senior
State Department officials have been critical of the strikes' impact on
diplomacy with
The White House has
instigated an appeals process, giving the State Department more influence in
deciding when to strike, although the CIA director still makes the final
decision, the Journal claims. There has been no fixed policy towards smaller
strikes, or targeted attacks on High Value Targets. (Source: www.alternet.org/story/152987/)
Meet the 0.01 Percent: War Profiteers (Excerpts)
By Robert Greenwald
There's the top 1% of wealthy Americans (bankers, oil tycoons, hedge fund
managers) and there's the top 0.01% of wealthy Americans: the military
contractor CEOs.
If
you've been following the War Costs campaign, you already know that these
corporations are bad bosses, bad job creators and bad stewards of taxpayer
dollars. What you may not know is that the huge amount of money these
companies' CEOs make off of war and your tax dollars places them squarely at
the top of the gang of corrupt super-rich choking our democracy. These CEOs
want you to believe the massive war budget is about security -- it's not. The
lobbying they're doing to keep the war budget intact at the expense of the
social safety net is purely about their greed.
In many areas,
including yearly CEO salary and in dollars spent corrupting Congress, these
companies are far greater offenders than even the big banks like JP Morgan
Chase or Bank of America.
The top 0.01% of
earners makes at least $9.14 million per year, a rarefied strata of income that
includes defense company CEOs and Wall Street bank chieftains alike. But a
deeper dive demonstrates how defense companies outpace the big banks' knack for
enriching themselves at the expense of everyone else.
Military Contractor
CEO Pay in 2010: Northrop Grumman CEO Wes Bush $22.84 million; Lockheed Martin
CEO Robert Stevens $21.89 million and Boeing CEO James McNerney $19.4 million.
Just to put that in
context, consider how these annual payoffs compare to the people we're used to
thinking of as poster children for the top 1 percent: Financial Sector CEO Pay
in 2010: JP Morgan Chase CEO James Dimon $20.81 million, Wells Fargo CEO James
Stumpf $18.97 million, and Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan $1.94 million.
Considering how they
stack up to financial sector heads, war industry CEOs aren't just members of
the 1%, they're the super-elite, the one-hundredth of a percent.
Disgusted by the
overwhelming corporate influence in Congress? Look no further than the military
contractor companies, whose flagship companies spend enough on lobbying to
dwarf even financial sector titans.
The war industry
gets away with blowing our money on job-killing spending because it can bend
Congress to its whim. In the process, the industry is like a vacuum sucking up
brain power and engineering resources that could and would establish and grow
entirely new wholesome industries. It's no surprise that Americans confront a
9.1% unemployment rate and an underemployment rate flirting with 20 percent
this year.
Want to know where
all the money went that could be putting people back to work or keeping US
manufacturing industries competitive? The war industry CEOs dumped lobbying
cash on Congress and diverted all that wealth to their private bank accounts.
Read this article in
its entirety at www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/27/1030632/-Meet-the-001-Percent:-War-Profiteers.
Then, check out www.commoncause.org/defensesupercommittee,
which shows the grip the war profiteers have on the super committee that is
supposed to come up with a deficit reduction plan.
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and
Telephone Calls
Email http://www.thinkprogress.org...Defense Contractors Pay Little To No
Corporate Income Tax 
While
Earning Billions...By Pat Garofalo...Last week, Citizens for Tax Justice
released a report showing that 30 major corporations have paid no income taxes
for the last three years, as they made $160 billion. CTJ looked at 280
companies in the Fortune 500, and found that "while the federal corporate
tax code ostensibly requires big corporations to pay a 35 percent corporate
income tax rate, on average, the 280 corporations in our study paid only about
half that amount." In fact, over the last three years, only two industries
-- retail and health care -- paid an effective tax rate of 30 percent or more.
American defense manufacturers pay an average annual tax rate of 17.5 percent,
placing them in a class with some of the nation's least-taxed sectors like
information technology, telecommunications, financial services and
energy...Boeing came in with the lowest tax rate among defense firms at -1.8
percent. Boeing has been outspoken about its desire to see the corporate tax
rate cut, even as it pays nothing in taxes. Prominent Republicans like House
Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) have joined Boeing's griping about
corporate taxes, ignoring that the company doesn't actually pay them.
Email www.commondreams.org...Bloomberg Personifies What the Occupation
Opposes...By Glen Ford...
the
tents and other materials of Occupation from
Email
www.oldelmtree.com...The Embers of Their Own Demise...By David Glenn Cox...Good
morning and 
welcome
to the dawn of the police state, not the beginning of the police state, but its
dawn. If you have been looking for an event which in your mind would signal the
dawn of the police state, you need look no further than
Email
http://uruknet.com...Prosecutor: "A Pair of Testicles Fell Off the
President After Election Day"...By Jason Leopold...Morris Davis speaks
bluntly about some 
of
President Barack Obama's policy decisions. "There's a pair of testicles
somewhere between the Capital Building and the White House that fell off the
president after Election Day [2008]," said Davis, an Air Force colonel who
spent two years as the chief prosecutor of Guantanamo military commissions,
during an interview at his Washington, DC, office over the summer and in email
correspondence over the past several months. "He got his butt kicked. Not
just with