A 10-Year Standoff in Texas Raises Thorny Issues
"A Decade of Defiance"
By Larry Keller
Intelligence Report
Winter 2009


TRINIDAD, Texas — It was Christmas Eve 1999, but John Joe Gray wasn't consumed with the holiday spirit. When the car in which he was a passenger was pulled over for speeding by two Texas state troopers near Palestine, in Anderson County, he was packing a loaded handgun in a shoulder holster. He had no permit for it.

One of the troopers ordered Gray out of the car. He either refused or was slow to respond. When the troopers tried to remove him, Gray resisted, was handcuffed and a scuffle ensued. The cops said he bit one of them and tried to grab the other's gun.

"Somehow, his hand got in my mouth," Gray said in a radio interview eight months later. "I bit down and I wouldn't let go. They sprayed me with the pepper spray three times." He was arrested and jailed.

Two weeks later at a bail hearing, Gray promised the judge he would appear at future court hearings if he bonded out of jail. He denied or downplayed the prosecutor's questions about his purported involvement in antigovernment militias and a plot to bomb a Texas interstate highway. "I'm a member of the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, king of kings and lord of lords," he said.


John Joe Gray
Judge Jim Parsons granted the lower bail, but with conditions. One was that neither Gray nor anyone in his family keep firearms on their 47-acre rural compound alongside the Trinity River just outside the town of Trinidad in Henderson County, the next county north of Anderson. "I don't want these officers to go out there and have to arrest him at this compound and be confronted by a bunch of firearms," the judge said.

Gray posted bail and went home. Two months later, the father of six with no prior criminal record sent a letter to authorities: If your deputies come onto my property, bring body bags. Gray had perhaps 16 other people, including several grandchildren, living at his modest home and outbuildings at the time. Armed family members, including Gray's wife, Alicia, took turns patrolling the property. That worried authorities — so much so that even when Gray began skipping court appearances, they didn't go arrest him.

"They were pretty well fixed up with weapons," recalls Howard "Slick" Alfred, the Henderson County sheriff at the time. "They had better weapons than we had. There was children in there. He was kind of hiding behind those kids. I didn't want another Waco kind of deal." And it's not as if Gray was a threat to the community, Alfred adds. "He's not hurting anybody over there."

Now approaching 10 years of self-imposed house arrest, Gray, 60, and various family members remain secluded in the verdant countryside outside this town of 1,100 in the undulating terrain of East Texas. The family has no electricity, no phone, no running water, and hasn't had for nearly a decade. Instead, they get by with wood-burning heaters, a generator, kerosene lamps, water drawn from the river — and occasional handouts from friends and sympathizers.


Keith Tarkington lost his two sons, then aged 2 and 4, when his estranged wife Lisa Gray snatched them and took them to her father's compound in early 2000.
Not only has Gray escaped prosecution on a felony charge, he may also have helped a daughter defy a court order giving custody of her two children to her ex-husband. Gray's oldest son avoided a misdemeanor prosecution for hitting and kicking that ex-husband's truck, so fearful are authorities of a confrontation with the Gray clan. Gray also is several years delinquent on property taxes. The county has sued for payment and conceivably could sell his land to recover the money owed — but the sheriff's office finally quit trying to serve court papers on him after three attempts last year.

Gray poses a quandary for authorities: How do you arrest a heavily armed, government-hating religious zealot when trying to do so might cause a bloodbath? And what sort of message does it convey to not apprehend an accused lawbreaker? While tax-dodging, money-laundering "sovereign-citizen" extremists claiming they are subject only to God's laws are imprisoned across the nation, John Joe Gray remains free. He has thwarted four Henderson County sheriffs so far. "I see no reason right at this minute to storm a compound where officers could get killed," says the current sheriff, Ray Nutt. "My position is to sit and wait."

Shades of Gray
Even before his arrest and indictment on charges that included assaulting a trooper, Gray, who was a self-employed carpenter, was known as a fervently religious, far-right militiaman. He hosted gatherings of the Texas Constitutional Militia, an outfit formed on the first anniversary of the conclusion of the 52-day standoff between federal agents and heavily armed members of the Branch Davidian religious sect in Waco 78 miles away, which ended catastrophically in 1993 with 80 men, women and children dying in an inferno. He was involved with the secessionist group, Republic of Texas, which had its own seven-day standoff with Texas Rangers in 1997, after its leader and several followers kidnapped a neighbor couple at gunpoint. Gray left the group, he said at his 2000 bail hearing, because "they was not of God. They did not go of God's ways."
At that hearing, Anderson County District Attorney Doug Lowe asked Gray about documents found in the car he was riding in that included plans to make a bomb and place it on a Dallas interstate, as well as instructions on urban survival, including the use of terrorist bombs and booby traps. It belonged to the car's driver, Gray maintained. Lowe asked about him being arrested on the grounds of the Capitol in Austin for carrying a weapon. Didn't happen, Gray said. And those phone calls threatening an attack on the jail unless he was released? Somebody, Gray claimed, "is trying to set me up."


Signs like this one, along with several that are more threatening, mark the perimeter of John Joe Gray's 47 acres in Henderson County, Tex. Many militia enthusiasts fear that vaccines are part of a murderous government conspiracy.
Gray also was affiliated with the Oregon-based Embassy of Heaven, which describes itself as a group of "peculiar people" who are citizens of heaven obeying the government of God, not secular authorities. The church opposes divorce and remarriage, lawyers and courtrooms. It shuns politics and elections and believes that the United States is a "pervert nation." The church issues business and driver's licenses, passports and license plates to be used instead of those offered by government. They aren't legal, of course, and before his felony arrest, Gray was cited for attempting to use an Embassy of Heaven driver's license and tag. He failed to show up for his court appearance on that, too. At the time of his arrest, neither he nor his wife, Alicia, had valid driver's licenses, his attorney told the judge in his criminal case.

Harold Colvin has been a barber in Trinidad for 51 years, and, before the dust-up with the law, John Joe Gray was one of his customers. He remembers a humorless man who grew increasingly odd. "At one time he was an average Joe Blow," says Colvin, an affable man with a full head of white hair who charges $7 for a haircut. "He had funny ideas. His were mostly religious. He said he wasn't going to pay any taxes … regardless of what the law said."

Gray's former son-in-law, Keith Tarkington, recalls Gray and other family members cutting up their Social Security cards and mailing the pieces to the Social Security Administration, advising that they no longer wanted to be part of the system. (So-called sovereign citizens, radical antigovernment activists, similarly claim to have no obligation to pay taxes or obey federal laws. Famous examples of such "sovereigns" include the Montana Freemen, who had their own 81-day standoff with federal authorities in 1996.) When he holed up on his land, Gray had lots of food stored. He began stockpiling earlier in 1999, Tarkington says, because like many in the militia movement, Gray believed that "Y2K" — the changeover of millennia on Jan. 1, 2000 — would produce cataclysmic events.

Today, Gray continues to stiff Henderson County on property taxes. He has been delinquent since 2004 on taxes on his home and land on Old River Road, which has a market value of $151,690, according to records. As of November 2008, he owed $10,149, according to the tax assessor's office. He also hasn't paid taxes since 1995 on an undeveloped parcel he owns elsewhere in the county, even though the bill is less than $6 a year. He is $176 in arrears, records show. "He's just a different kind of person," says former sheriff Alfred, 76, who retired in 2000. "He's got an entirely different philosophy than most of us."

No Regrets
In recent years, Gray and his family have lived in obscurity. It wasn't always so. In August 2000, Austin, Texas-based radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones told his audience he had received a tip that federal agents were preparing to attack Gray's compound in armored vehicles. Reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post and other media outlets descended on tiny Trinidad for a confrontation that never came.
That same month, three armed men ventured into a neighboring pasture at dusk and destroyed a surveillance camera and video transmitter that authorities had placed in a horse trailer, before retreating to the Gray property. And later that year, Chuck Norris, martial artist, actor, right-wing Christian book author and fellow Texan, met with Gray at his ranch and offered to get him free legal representation in an attempt to end the standoff. "There's two people that family looks up to: Mel Gibson and Chuck," an intermediary said. But even Norris couldn't resolve the impasse.

"God's word is the sole guide for our family," Alicia Gray said in a press release in 2000. "Our faith in God is strong and unbending … [O]ur resolve is without compromise."

Her husband seconded those thoughts. "The Lord teaches to protect my property and family with every means I can, and that is what I will do," he told an interviewer.

Citing the Waco fiasco, Alfred opted to wait Gray out. "What I hope is, we get a call either from him or somebody close to him, saying he wants to surrender," his chief deputy, Ronny Brownlow, said at the time. "Time is on our side." Brownlow succeeded Alfred as sheriff, and now he, too, has retired.

So Gray is left alone. "I feel like everyone should abide by the same law," says Colvin, his former barber. "I don't like what the law has let him get away with. I could do the same thing. But most of us wouldn't go that far."

Doug Lowe, the district attorney, says he isn't concerned that the hands-off approach will encourage other antigovernment diehards to follow Gray's example. "I don't regret not having a Waco," he says. Authorities have declined to make a martyr of Gray in the eyes of other antigovernment zealots, he notes. "They get more press when police make the siege. Eventually, the law catches up to these people."

Stealing the Children
That approach has embittered Tarkington, who was married to one of Gray's daughters. Lisa Gray left Tarkington after less than four years of marriage and took their sons, aged 2 and 4 at the time, to her father's compound. "When we was dating, I knew he [Gray] was a little bit different," Tarkington, 43, says. "It took him two years to convince my wife she was better off living with him than me."
Tarkington visited the Gray compound in 1999 trying in vain to talk to his wife and see his sons. "Don't you worry about your wife and kids. We'll take care of them," he quotes his former father-in-law as telling him. During one visit in October 1999, John Joe Gray's eldest child, Jonathan, or "Bubba," vandalized his truck, Tarkington says. Jonathan Gray was charged with criminal mischief, a misdemeanor. But the charge was dropped nearly three years later. The reason given by the prosecutor? He couldn't obtain identifying information about Jonathan Gray such as his birth date and driver's license number. The court file, however, includes a document with Jonathan Gray's birth date.

Tarkington filed for divorce and got a court order for custody of the boys. There was one problem. With no proof that his children were living at the Gray compound, he couldn't get the Henderson County Sheriff's Department to serve the document authorizing them to remove the boys from their mother's custody. Since it was a civil matter, they couldn't go on Gray's land. They left the paperwork on a fence post.

Alfred, the former sheriff, says people friendly to law enforcement visited the Gray compound back then, but told authorities that they didn't see the children. "Nobody could ever find out if those kids were there," he says. The current sheriff, Ray Nutt, says he has no information of the whereabouts of Tarkington's boys.

Tarkington spends much of his time nowadays at his parents' home in Gun Barrel City, 16 miles from the Gray family compound, pestering law enforcement agencies to arrest Gray. "A troop of Boy Scouts could do a better job," he says with disgust. "The police have done everything they can to protect John Joe Gray." He and others believe that his ex-wife and sons are now likely living in another state.

Sheriff Nutt says he sympathizes. But he also implies that Tarkington has become obsessed with Gray. "Sometimes his focus is more on Joe Gray than his children," he says. "He wants someone to assault that compound."

'We Are Militia'
Old River Road deteriorates from asphalt to hard sand and rocks as you draw nearer to John Joe Gray's home. Pastures of tall grass behind barbed-wire fences line each side. Cattle graze, and a lone gray horse ambles homeward. A couple of dreary old trailers squat in the grass, and a red barn stands nearby. Gray's property is just ahead. Perhaps 20 goats belonging to him mill about the road, momentarily blocking a car's progress. Jonathan Gray, 37, is on sentry duty, sitting in a pasture near the road, keeping an eye out for any unwelcome visitors one day late in August. It is 100 degrees.
Soon, he comes down the road to investigate why somebody has stopped outside the entrance to the compound. He's wearing a baseball cap, gray T-shirt and jeans. A pistol — in violation of the nearly 10-year-old court order — is strapped to one hip, a knife hugs the other. With his beard and mustache and hazel eyes, he resembles his father. Minutes later, a brother, Timothy, 32, and a young woman appear at the fence to stare at the stranger.

Near the driveway leading to the house hidden beyond a grove of trees, are handmade signs: "We Are Militia And Will Live Free Or You'll Die," reads one. "Militias are the people," Jonathan Gray explains. "Thomas Jefferson said every 75 years the people need to rise up and straighten the government out."

Other signs proclaim: "Disobedience to Tyranny is Obedience to God!" and "Vaccinations Equal Annihilation." Hanging from a tree is a noose and yet another sign: "Solution To Tyranny."

Day after day, month after month, this is where John Joe Gray, his wife and others have hunkered down. Property records show that the two-story, three-bedroom main house contains about 1,300 square feet. There are two tiny residential outbuildings, and a barn with two add-ons.

Jonathan Gray declines to say how many people live on the property. (Sheriff Nutt's estimate is 10 or 11.) Nor will he say if his sister, Lisa, or her children are among those living on the property.

The Law Enforcement Conundrum
Although only John Joe Gray faces an outstanding felony charge, Jonathan Gray says no one in the family ventures off their land. He suggests they might be arrested and charged with aiding and abetting the family patriarch if they did. Some folks in these parts are skeptical — they suspect that John Joe Gray probably sneaks away from time to time. "He can cross the river and be in a different county," Tarkington says.
In fact, it probably would be easy for anybody to leave the compound to buy fuel, clothing or medicines. Sheriff Nutt says that since he took office in January, his deputies have not conducted surveillance on the property.

Not that there is much to entice Gray into Trinidad anyway. The two-block "business district" is all but dead. The bank — gone. Billie's Fried Pies -— closed. Trinidad General Store, John D's T.V., Food Mart — all empty. Not much is left other than the tiny City Hall and adjacent police department, plus Harold Colvin's barber shop, which is nothing more than a modest aluminum shed. If Gray got to craving a meal in a restaurant, the Dairy Queen on the highway would be the only game in town.

All but about 15 of the Grays' 47 acres flood from time to time, says Jonathan Gray between spits of tobacco juice. "We grow what we can." Two donkeys grazing nearby are used to plow what tillable land there is, he says. The family also has plenty of game to shoot — deer, rabbits and squirrels. And from time to time, he says, friends and sympathizers drop off food and other supplies.

If living without central heat and air or a modern home-entertainment system is a hardship, Jonathan Gray — a father of four — isn't admitting it. "Your body can get used to anything," he says. He and his brother Timothy seem surprised when asked what they do for fun. "What do you mean by fun?" Timothy asks. They do play an occasional game of dominos, Jonathan says. "Dad does a lot of listening to the shortwave," he adds.

The family does not miss attending church, or need to do so, Jonathan Gray says. "What is a church but a building? What do they do in church? Pray. That's all we gotta do here, is read the Word. We go by the Bible."

When the visitor asks to speak with John Joe Gray, Timothy Gray walks up the driveway and returns minutes later. His father would not talk, he says, because the Intelligence Report wrote in 2000 that the family members were terrorists. (This is untrue.) He also ordered his sons to say no more. But does John Joe Gray intend to live out his remaining years in isolation here? "For now," Jonathan says cryptically.

So the wait goes on. Sheriff Nutt concedes that perhaps Gray should have been nabbed early on. Alfred, the sheriff when the stalemate began, isn't so sure.

"I was in law enforcement for 42 years, and I always tried to do the right thing," he says. "His case has always been a snag on me. At the time, it just didn't seem the right thing to do because of the [potential] useless waste of life. I don't know if it was the right thing to do. I feel like it was."

Beck, Birchers to Converge at Conservative Conference

-splcenter.org/hatewatch-
by Larry Keller on January 26, 2010

The John Birch Society, whose conspiracy theories eventually became so fantastic that it faded into irrelevance, has edged back toward the mainstream – or at least the mainstream of conservative thought. It’s listed as one of 87 co-sponsors of next month’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference [CPAC] in Washington, D.C. The conference is “the year’s must-attend event for the Republican establishment,” says POLITICO.com. Speakers at the Feb. 18-20 conference include Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Tim Pawlenty – all potential GOP presidential candidates in 2012.


The fanatically anticommunist John Birch Society was founded in 1958 by Robert Welch, who declared that President Dwight Eisenhower was a “dedicated, conscious agent of the Communist conspiracy.” By 1961, when John F. Kennedy was president, the U.S. government was 50 to 70 percent communist controlled, Welch claimed. The Birchers have long maintained that the United Nations aims to establish a “one-world socialist government.” Today’s conspiracy zealots call it the New World Order.


The Birch Society also opposed the civil rights movement in the 1960s, in part because of a belief that communists had infiltrated it. The organization was against fluoridation of municipal water systems, claiming it was a communist plot to poison America.

The Birchers have tempered their tone since those days. The society’s website talks now of a belief in “limited government” and “personal freedom” – catch words of many conservatives. Still, the Birch Society makes it clear that most of today’s Republicans aren’t conservative enough. “As many JBS members realize, true conservative leaders are hard to find nowadays, especially in a movement dominated by neoconservatives and RINOs [Republicans in Name Only],” a recent society press release stated. The organization will have a double booth at CPAC, “offering educational and promotional materials” and streaming live video.

The Birch Society isn’t the only far-right, conspiracy-minded group or individual invited to CPAC. Another co-sponsor is Oath Keepers, the antigovernment organization composed mostly of active-duty law enforcement and military, as well as veterans. Its members pledge to defy 10 orders, including orders to place U.S. citizens in detention camps and orders to confiscate food or property.

Another CPAC sponsor is Eagle Forum, founded by Phyllis Schlafly. Among other things, she has promoted the North American Union conspiracy theory that claims the United States will forsake its sovereignty in a merger with Canada and Mexico. She also wrote a book, A Choice, Not an Echo, that suggested a conspiracy theory in which the Republican Party was secretly controlled by elites who were dominated by members of the Bilderberger banking conference. [The annual, secretive, invitation-only Bilderberger conferences are attended largely by politicians, bankers and business moguls].

Yet another CPAC sponsor is Accuracy in Media, a far-right media watchdog that claimed Vince Foster, deputy White Counsel to Bill Clinton, was murdered and that it was covered up. Many prominent conservatives who were hardly fans of Clinton said there no evidence of murder. Foster’s death was ruled a suicide. AIM also has asserted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has Marxist ties and that the United Nations is planning to impose a one-world government. More recently, AIM’s editor, Cliff Kincaid, promulgated the unfounded theories of the “birther movement.” The birthers claim President Obama is not a U.S. citizen and is, therefore holding office illegally.

Then there is CPAC’s keynote speaker: Fox News personality Glenn Beck. He signed a petition demanding a probe into whether the Bush administration was involved in the 9/11 attacks. He perpetuated the conspiracy theory (before finally debunking it) that the U.S. government may be building detention camps in which to place citizens in the event of national turmoil. And he suggested that Obama has deliberately implemented policies that will force young people to go to work at ACORN and Americorps.

In other words, he fits right in with many others attending the conference.

M.I.A., Paper Planes

Truth
Geoffery Chaucer

Flee fro the prees and dwelle with sothfastnesse;
Suffyce unto thy thing, though it be smal,
For hord hath hate, and climbing tikelnesse,
Prees hath envye, and wele blent overal.
Savour no more than thee bihove shal,
Reule wel thyself that other folk canst rede,
And trouthe thee shal delivere, it is no drede.
Tempest thee noght al croked to redresse
In trust of hir that turneth as a bal;
10 Gret reste stant in litel besinesse.
Be war therfore to sporne ayeyns an al,
Stryve not, as doth the crokke with the wal.
Daunte thyself, that dauntest otheres dede,
And trouthe thee shal delivere, it is no drede.
That thee is sent, receyve in buxumnesse;
The wrastling for this world axeth a fal.
Her is non hoom, her nis but wildernesse:
Forth, pilgrim, forth! Forth, beste, out of thy stal!
Know thy contree, look up, thank God of al;
20 Hold the heye wey and lat thy gost thee lede,
And trouthe thee shal delivere, it is no drede.
Therfore, thou Vache, leve thyn old wrecchednesse;
Unto the world leve now to be thral.
Crye him mercy, that of his hy goodnesse
Made thee of noght, and in especial
Draw unto him, and pray in general
For thee, and eek for other, hevenlich mede;
And trouthe thee shal delivere, it is no drede.

US halts Haiti victim evacuations in 'medical bill row'
Page last updated at 21:19 GMT, Saturday, 30 January 2010

Hundreds of quake victims have been flown to the US for treatment

The US military has stopped evacuating Haitian earthquake victims to the US in a reported dispute over medical costs. Flights stopped on Wednesday because some hospitals were reluctant to take patients from Haiti, a US military official told the New York Times. A doctor in the quake zone warned 100 of his patients would die in the next 48 hours unless they were airlifted.

Meanwhile, only women will be allowed to collect food from new UN distribution sites in Haiti's capital. Hundreds of patients with spinal injuries, burns and other wounds have been evacuated to the US since the 12 January quake that killed up to 200,000 people.

'Reaching saturation'

We have 100 patients who will die in the next day or two if we don't Medevac them
Dr Barth Green
Doctor in Haiti

Confirming the flights had stopped, US Transportation Command spokesman Capt Kevin Aandahl said on Saturday: "Apparently, some states were unwilling to accept the entry of Haitian patients for follow-on critical care. "We manage air evacuation missions, but without a destination to fly to we can't move anybody. If we don't have permission to bring them, or they won't take them in, we can't fly the mission. It's pretty simple."

He declined to say which states did not want to accept patients. A spokesman for Florida Governor Charlie Crist said he was not aware of any hospital in his state refusing patients. More than 500 quake victims have been treated so far in Florida hospitals, according to the New York Times. In a letter on Tuesday to US Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Mr Crist asked the federal government to activate the National Disaster Medical System, which usually pays for victims' care in domestic disasters.

He warned: "Florida's healthcare system is quickly reaching saturation, especially in the area of high-level trauma care."

Women-only

The Republican governor's letter noted the system was already under strain because of the winter influx of elderly people. Dr Barth Green, who is involved in the relief effort in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, warned that his patients needed to get to better hospitals. "We have 100 critically ill patients who will die in the next day or two if we don't med-evac them," Dr Green, chairman of the University of Miami's Global Institute for Community Health and Development, told AP news agency.

Among the patients was a five-year-old girl suffering from tetanus in a small leg wound. She would die within a day unless evacuated, Dr David Pitcher, a medic at the institute's temporary field hospital at Haiti's international airport, told AP. Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme said it had set up 16 distribution points in Port-au-Prince which would open on Sunday and reach many more hungry Haitians.

But only women will be allowed in to collect rations, because, the WFP says, this has proved that's the best way to get food to the people who need it. Men will be encouraged wait outside the distribution centres to accompany women after they have been given rations, because lone women would be more vulnerable to attack. The World Food Programme is also starting to hand out food coupons entitling each family to collect 25kg (55lb) of rice rations, designed to last two weeks.

The Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is an international convention adopted in 1979 by the United Nations General Assembly. Described as an international bill of rights for women, it came into force on 3 September 1981. The United States is the only developed nation that has not ratified the CEDAW.

The crime of apartheid is defined by the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court as inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime."

The International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) is a United Nations convention. A second-generation human rights instrument, the Convention commits its members to the elimination of racial discrimination and the promotion of understanding among all races. Controversially, the Convention also requires its parties to outlaw hate speech and criminalize membership in racist organizations. The Convention also includes an individual complaints mechanism, effectively making it enforceable against its parties.

Convention against Discrimination in Education is a convention adopted by UNESCO in 1960 aiming to combat segregation and discrimination in the field of education.

In the Hindu religion, Brahman is the unchanging, infinite, immanent, and transcendent reality which is the Divine Ground of all matter, energy, time, space, being, and everything beyond in this Universe.


Several mahā-vākyas, or great sayings, indicate what the principle of Brahman is:

prajnānam brahma - "Brahman is knowledge"
ayam ātmā brahma - "The Self (or the Soul) is Brahman "
aham brahmāsmi - "I am Brahman"
tat tvam asi - "Thou art that"
sarvam khalv idam brahma - "All this that we see in the world is Brahman",
sachchidānanda brahma - "Brahman or Brahma is existence, consciousness, and bliss".

NeoFascism,Hate,notreligion

Certain contemporary religious movements and groups that represent forms of clerical or theocratic neofascism, including *Christian Identity in the United States; some militant forms of politicized Islamic fundamentalism; Hindu nationalism in India (Sangh Parivar); and some neopagan alternative religions advocating white supremacism.

*Christian Identity is a label applied to a wide variety of loosely affiliated believers and churches with a racialized theology. Many promote a Eurocentric interpretation of Christianity.

What Obama's speech means for policymakers
The president pitches a long list of initiatives in the State of the Union. The economy and job creation top his priorities.
By Peter Nicholas

January 30, 2010


Reporting from Washington - In his State of the Union speech, President Obama spooled out a long list of proposals to lift the economy, create jobs and carry out his broader policy agenda. Some of the ideas are new; others had been announced. The following is a summary of the initiatives cited in the speech and where they stand:

The economy and jobs

* To ease unemployment, Obama urged Congress to pass a jobs bill. The House narrowly passed a $174-billion measure in December, but the Senate has yet to act. The bill is one of Obama's main vehicles for jump-starting employment, which is the centerpiece of his 2010 agenda.

* Obama proposed routing $30 billion to community banks so they can lend to small businesses. The money would come from repaid bailout funds from the financial sector, and congressional approval would be required. Even after the bailout of the banking industry, small businesses contended that credit dried up, making it difficult to operate. The speech was the first time Obama attached a specific dollar amount to the planned redirection of bailout funds. The White House said it would release more details in the coming weeks.

* Obama announced a National Export Initiative meant to help farmers and small businesses tap overseas markets, with increased funding for export marketing programs. Overall, Obama wants to double U.S. exports over the next five years, an ambitious goal last achieved in the 1970s. He suggested that his administration would work on forging trade pacts to open more markets, especially in fast-growing Asia. But key members of his party have balked at passing free-trade deals with South Korea, Colombia and Panama -- three nations that he referred to by name in his speech.

* Obama mentioned a 10-year fee on large banks to recoup taxpayer money that was spent to bail out the financial sector. He formally introduced the fee Jan. 14, and he intends to incorporate it in the 2011 federal budget, which he'll release Monday. With the public deeply unhappy about Wall Street bonuses, Obama is using the fee in part to try to assuage concerns that he is too cozy with the banking establishment.

Middle-class aid

* Obama rolled out a package of measures aimed at easing the financial burdens of middle-class families feeling pressed by the economy. Before the State of the Union address, aides previewed these steps, which include curbing borrowing costs for student loans; increasing the child-care tax credit; setting up automatic IRAs for workers; and ramping up refinancing programs to make home ownership less costly. The White House would not disclose the cost, saying that number will be included in the 2011 budget released next week.

Also on the to-do list

* Obama renewed a pitch for a "comprehensive energy and climate bill" -- code words for a bill that carries a carbon cap -- as a mechanism to spur clean-energy job creation. He also called for new nuclear plants, clean coal development and offshore oil and gas drilling -- sweeteners that Senate Republicans are demanding before they'll consider a climate change bill.

* Obama, for the first time, put a timetable of this year for overturning "don't ask, don't tell," the 1993 law prohibiting gays from serving openly in the military. Reversing the policy was an Obama campaign promise and priority for liberal Democrats.

At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will outline steps the Pentagon is taking to prepare for a change in the law. Gates will not present a legislative proposal but will explain how the Pentagon intends to advise Congress on changing the law and how the department will try to anticipate unintended consequences of a policy change. Although some in the military remain skeptical of allowing gays to serve openly, defense officials insist the top brass want to make sure the commander in chief's will is carried out.

peter.nicholas@latimes.com

Jim Tankersley and Julian E. Barnes in the Washington bureau contributed to this report.


Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

The biggest full moon of 2010

Andrew Fazekas
for National Geographic News
Published January 29, 2010

The biggest full moon of 2010 will rise in the east tonight, and it'll appear with a bright sidekick: Mars will cozy up just to the left of the supersize moon. January's full moon is also called the wolf moon, according to Native American tradition associating this month's full moon with wolves howling in the cold midwinter. (Take a moon myths and mysteries quiz.) The 2010 wolf moon will appear 30 percent brighter and 14 percent larger than any other full moon this year, because our cosmic neighbor will actually be closer to Earth than usual. The moon will be at its closest perigee—the nearest it gets to our planet during its egg-shaped orbit—for 2010 at 4:04 a.m. ET Saturday, reaching a distance of 221,577 miles (356,593 kilometers) from Earth.

At its farthest from Earth, the moon is said to be at apogee. Perigee and apogee each happen generally once a month, but the moon's wobbly orbit means that the satellite's exact distance at each of those events varies over the year. The moon's phase can also be different during each apogee and perigee. "This month has the largest full moon of 2010, because it coincides with the special moment when the full moon happens to occur on the same day as it is at perigee," said Marc Jobin, an astronomer at the Montréal Planetarium. And in a remarkable coincidence, Mars is at opposition tonight—directly opposite to the sun in the sky—so that as the sun sets in the southwest, Mars rises in the northeast.

Around opposition, the red planet gets closest to Earth. This year Mars swung by at just 61 million miles (98 million kilometers) on January 27, and it will still appear remarkably bright during tonight's sky show. "To the naked eye it will appear as a bright, orange-colored star right next to the full moon—the pair will jump out at you for sure," Jobin said.

Full Moon Illusion


Because this unusually close perigee is happening during a full moon, it is expected to have an effect on Earth's tides.

These effects should be modest, most likely measurable in inches, although perigee tides can be higher if there happens to be a storm surge at the same time. As for observing the effects of perigee on the moon itself, most casual observers should notice an obvious difference in the moon's apparent size as it rises above the eastern horizon, Jobin said.

That's when an optical illusion usually comes into play that makes any full moon seem larger, since the moon is set against familiar Earthly objects rather than appearing high in the empty sky. "The combination of the two effects—perigee and moon illusion—will be really be noticeable and spectacular near the horizon," Jobin said.
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Obama, GOP Confront Political Gridlock in Rare Q&A

Darkness falls on Hania
By Nikos Konstandaras
Tuesday January 19, 2010

Something frightening is happening in Hania, Crete. The Etz Hayyim Synagogue has been firebombed twice in 11 days and the incidents met mostly with indifference from the local community – a stance that is at odds with the values of a city that prides itself on its liberalism and tolerance of other cultures. The arsonists have not been identified, but it is believed they belong to far-right circles. In a city that does not have a strong extreme right-wing tradition, the first attack on January 5 could have been an isolated incident. The second, last Friday, shows that the arsonists could strike again with impunity.

There has been a string of recent attacks on monuments commemorating the long presence of Jews in Greece, so brutally wiped out by the German occupation. Every act of anti-Semitism – just like every act against the “Other” – should be cause for concern and should be condemned, but it can also be partly explained by the rise of far-right elements in the past few years and the legitimization of their credo by the media.

The perpetrators seem to enjoy a strange kind of impunity when they turn toward a Jewish target. This too, however, can be explained: Let’s not kid ourselves, hostility between Greeks and Jews dates back to Hellenistic and Roman times. But there were also many centuries of peaceful coexistence. With the destruction of the Jewish community of Crete in 1944, one would have thought that the least the Cretans could do was honor the memories of their compatriots. Instead, driven by anger at Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, “progressive” local leaders and the Church of Greece opposed the renovation of the synagogue.

Hania does not have a Jewish community to “make waves.” The attacks, therefore, are rooted in the Nazi-inspired concept of “collective responsibility” and pure hatred. Whatever damage the stones of the old temple suffer, what will sink Hania into darkness is that so many people are prepared to forget the past and tolerate violence and bigotry.

BanksyFilm.watch

Philippine massacre exposes political underworld
00:28 GMT, Thursday, 21 January 2010
By Alastair Leithead
BBC News, Maguindanao

Elections and violence go together in the Philippines, but the massacre of 57 people on a small, secluded hilltop in Maguindanao province, on the south island of Mindanao, at the end of last year took it to a new level.

The gruesome images filmed in the immediate aftermath betray the brutality with which the largely female members of a politically-ambitious family and 32 journalists were kidnapped and assassinated.

At the local market, justice campaigners sell DVDs of the raw video footage eerily set to Maguindanao freedom songs.

They leave little to the imagination.

Muslim women shot in the groin, in the face, in the head; bodies crumpled and bloodied in the back of bullet-sprayed vehicles; and a man seemingly shot as he tried to run away.

Doomed convoy

On 23 November last year, Ismael "Toto" Mangudadatu's wife and her aides drove through a rival family's turf to register his name for the forthcoming local elections.

“ Many journalists sacrificed their lives here, but this is my second life and I am ready to sacrifice it for the sake of press freedom ”
Aquiles Zonio Daily Inquirer correspondent
Also in the convoy was a large group of journalists. Although aware of the danger, they felt safety in numbers.

Aquiles Zonio, a correspondent with the national newspaper, the Philippine Daily Inquirer, was delayed and missed the convoy. A forgotten laptop charger saved his life.

"A hundred heavily-armed men stopped the convoy and took them off the main road. Then they were mowed down with high-powered firearms," he said.

He showed me the mass grave where many of the bodies and the vehicles were found, crushed and buried by an earthmover.

Dozens of heavily-armed soldiers escorted us to the site and stood guard. Two months on, it is still a dangerous place.

So far only one man has been charged with multiple counts of murder - Andal Ampatuan Junior, a local mayor and member of a powerful mafia-like family that ran Maguindanao province.

At a bail hearing in Manila, he sat quietly in court, handcuffed and surrounded by police. He pleaded not guilty.

An eyewitness described how he had watched the mayor start the shooting.

'Patronage politics'

Two hundred other members of the clan and their supporters have been arrested. The guns uncovered during a brief period of martial law are evidence of the private army they were allowed to run.

"The Ampatuans are still the warlords of this province - they have around 3,000 armed followers and are above the law," said Mr Zonio.

Police and military vehicles stand in the compound marked "seized evidence" - local officers have been accused of an element of complicity in the killings.

"No effort will be spared to bring justice to the victims and hold the perpetrators accountable to the full limit of the law," President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo promised, but many feel she owes the Ampatuans for election victories in 2004 and 2007.

Maguindanao is one of the poorest parts of the country and so the grand, high-walled and gaudy Ampatuan family mansions stand out even more.

They are a sign of the wealth and power these families have allegedly been allowed to acquire in exchange for delivering votes and political support to the leadership in Manila.

Their private armies were encouraged to fight the overlapping insurgencies which have added to the decades of lawlessness in this part of Mindanao.

"It's a typical phenomenon in the Philippines. Power is held by a few families and the president relies on these few families to be elected on a nationwide basis. It is patronage politics," said Harry Roque, a prosecution lawyer acting for a number of the dead journalists.

"To give you an idea of how valuable the Ampatuans are to the president, in the last election the administration made sure that none of the opposition candidates for senator even got a single vote in Maguindanao," he said.

Family campaign

The families of those killed are leading a campaign to ensure justice is done.

Twelve of the journalists are buried in one small cemetery plot - their matching headstones neatly arranged in three rows of four.

Some of the families came to lay flowers and light candles.

Among them was Nancy de la Cruz, whose daughter Gina has left behind five children; Louisa Subang, whose husband Ian was killed on their wedding anniversary; and Myrana Reblando, whose husband Alejandro, known as Bong, was killed.

She broke down by the graveside as she remembered seeing the video footage of the massacre scene.

"I am always asking why did they do that to them? They were helpless people just doing their jobs," she said.

Perilous time

A recent report described the Philippines as the most dangerous country in the world for journalists - worse even than Iraq or Afghanistan.

Many have been killed for exposing the activities of these powerful families.

Mr Zonio is not going to stop his lucky escape affecting his work: "Nobody is safe in this country - I myself, I feel it," he says.

"Many journalists sacrificed their lives here, but this is my second life and I am ready to sacrifice it for the sake of press freedom, for the sake of democracy."

The brazen scale of this massacre and the crude attempt to cover it up shows the impunity with which these families have been allowed to operate.

This time it appears the warlords have gone too far for the government to ignore, but taming powerful families in the long term is a much bigger challenge.

Uzbek rape claims prompt UN call
Rustam Qobil
2010/01/22 16:11:13 GMT
BBC Uzbek

The UN is calling for an investigation into allegations of systematic rape and torture in Uzbekistan's justice system. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, says he has seen reports of police torture and rape. He has called on the government to let him go to Uzbekistan to investigate. There have been previous reports that torture was routinely used in prisons. Uzbek officials said they are investigating one case, but have made no further comment.

Mr Nowak's comments have been backed by human rights groups in Uzbekistan. They say that torture and abuse by police and investigating authorities are tacitly encouraged by senior government officials.

No justice

Families of victims say there is a culture of impunity, where police officers allegedly rape detainees without being punished. Rayhon Soatova is in prison in Uzbekistan. Her family told the BBC that she and her two sisters were attacked by a group of drunken policemen who detained them for hooliganism last May.

They say Rayhon was gang raped by police officers while in detention. She then became pregnant and recently had a baby girl in jail. “ Rayhon described her ordeal to a police investigator. Instead of helping, he too, raped her ”

Abdusamat Brother of alleged rape victim

Her older sister was also allegedly gang raped and is still in prison. The family says the youngest sister was beaten and tortured until she fainted. She has now been released from jail, but has spent time in a mental hospital and has since been expelled from university. The women's brother, Abdusamat, says his sisters were initially reluctant to say what really happened to them. But then a few months later, "Rayhon described the ordeal to a police investigator. Instead of helping, he too, raped her," says Abdusamat.

"There is hope that we can prove Rayhon's case, because she became pregnant after the rape, but we cannot prove torture or the rape of my two other sisters," he adds.

Government reaction

In a rare move, the Uzbek authorities told the family they are investigating Rayhon's case. The family wants a DNA test to be conducted, but officials have not responded to the demand.

Vasila Inoyatova, the director of the Uzbek Human Rights Group Ezgulik, welcomed the investigation but admitted that "we don't know if anyone will be punished as a result. It has never happened in Uzbekistan before".

Ezgulik has received more than a dozen similar complaints over the past few years. Most victims decide not to go public for fear of being isolated and stigmatised in a deeply traditional society, says Ms Inoyatova.

The UN Special Rapporteur, Manfred Nowak, says that impunity is another huge problem.

"As long as people know they have nothing to fear, and that is the reality in Uzbekistan so far, it is very difficult to take effective preventive measures," he explains.

He says he is happy to investigate rape allegations by asking the Uzbek government to invite him for a fact-finding mission.

"I am ready, I also communicated that to the government repeatedly, for a follow-up mission in this particular case because I receive such conflicting information."

But so far Mr Nowak has not received an invitation.

What is that in your hand?
-- It is a branch
Of What?
-- Of the Tree of Liberty
Where did it first grow?
-- In America
Where does it bloom?
-- In France
Where did the seed fall?
-- In Ireland
When will the moon be full?
-- When the four quarters meet

--Original Declaration of the United Irishmen--
United Irish catechism reported from the Cloyne are of County Cork in December 1797. (Note the "four quarters" being reference to the four provinces of Ireland uniting.)

Obama Assails Supreme Court Ruling On Political Advertising
JANUARY 23, 2010, 6:00 A.M. ET

WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--U.S. President Barack Obama used his weekly radio address on Saturday to assail a Supreme Court ruling this week clearing the way for corporations to spend freely on political advertisements, calling it a big victory for special interests and "devastating to the public interest." He added that his administration is working with Congress to develop a bipartisan legislative solution to override the ruling.

"The last thing we need to do is hand more influence to the lobbyists in Washington, or more power to the special interests to tip the outcome of elections," Obama said in his address.

The Supreme Court ruling, narrowly decided on a 5-4 vote, overturned restrictions on campaign financing contained in a law written by Sens. John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Russ Feingold (D., Wisc.), finding them to be an unconstitutional limit on free speech. Obama expressed concern that the decision "opens the floodgates for an unlimited amount of special interest money in our democracy," including by foreign corporations with an interest in the outcome of U.S. elections.

"This ruling strikes at our democracy itself," said Obama.

Obama objected to giving more voice to powerful interests, predicting that would make it much harder for Congress to enact health care reform, financial reforms, and measures to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. He said his administration is working on a response with members of Congress from both political parties and that "it will be a priority for us until we repair the damage that has been done."

Concerns about corporate influence on politics aren't new, as President Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican, fought to limit special-interest spending and influence over American political campaigns early in the 20th century, Obama recalled. He said Roosevelt's message still rings true in an era of mass communication, and vowed that "as long as I'm your President, I'll never stop fighting to make sure that the most powerful voice in Washington belongs to you."

The president contrasted the Supreme Court's stance with that taken by his administration, saying that his White House has "closed the revolving door" between government and special-interest lobbying and has barred gifts from federal lobbyists to executive branch officials. And, for the first time, Obama said his administration is publicly disclosing the names of those who visit the White House each day, a list that includes lobbyists.

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R., Ohio) delivering the GOP response, concentrated his remarks on Republican candidate Scott Brown's victory this week in a Massachusetts special election to fill the U.S. Senate seat previously held by Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Democratic party icon who died last year. Brown, a little-known state senator, defeated state attorney general Martha Coakley, 52% to 47%.

"For months now, a political rebellion has been brewing--one born from the American people's opposition to greater government control over our economy and their lives," said Boehner. That rebellion prompted Brown's victory over his Democratic opponent in a state that has long been a Democratic stronghold and "gives us new hope that common sense will prevail," he added.

Brown's win may undercut congressional support for Obama's agenda, including an overhaul of U.S. health care, and Boehner expressed concern that congressional Democrats might try to "pull out all the stops to try and shove through this government takeover of health care." He warned: " If there's a sweetheart deal that needs to be cut, Democrats will cut it. And if there's a vote that needs to be bought, they'll buy it."

The House GOP leader suggested the Obama administration and congressional Democrats consider an alternative in which they work with Republicans on health-care changes backed by the GOP, such as allowing people and businesses to buy health insurance across state line and to crack down on "junk lawsuits that contribute to higher health care costs."

-By Judith Burns; Dow Jones Newswires, (202) 862-6692; judith.burns@dowjones.com

Fined $25m by the US federal court for funding a terrorist organisation, Chiquita, the US-based banana distribution company, is now facing a number

MGMT, KiDs

Three States of Hate:
MSU-YAF Part of Skinhead’s Campus Speech Operations
--Spartanedge--

Philip Rodney Moon


On Oct. 26, 2007 Nick Griffin, the Chairman of the British National Party, spoke at MSU. Griffin has a history of anti-Semitism, Holocaust Denial and racist remarks. The event on campus was sponsored by the Michigan State University Young Americans for Freedom (MSU-YAF), the first university affiliated hate group listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

But MSU-YAF wasn’t alone in arranging the event. Griffin’s MSU speech was part of a larger three-university speaking tour for the British political leader. Before speaking at MSU, Griffin spoke at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas and Clemson University in Clemson, S.C. Behind all three events was one man, Preston Wiginton.

The Griffin tour coincided with, but was not part of, Islamofacist Awareness Week, a nationwide event arranged by conservative David Horowitz. Horowitz condemned the event by Griffin because of Griffin’s past statements denying the Holocaust.

I. Background

Wiginton and MSU-YAF Chair Kyle Bristow had known each other before the Nick Griffin speech. In Sept. 2007, MichiganMessenger.com reported that Bristow and Wiginton were co-administrators in two Facebook groups, “The American Patriot Movement” and “Jobs a White Man Won’t Do.” Both groups were anti-immigration groups with white nationalist leanings.

Despite this report, Bristow welcomed Wiginton and Griffin to campus. In a press release for the event Bristow said that YAF was honored to bring Nick Griffin to campus. Bristow hasn’t publicly changes his stance on Wiginton, even though in the week after bringing Griffin to MSU, Wiginton went to Russia to attend an anti-immigrant rally. The International Herald Tribune reported:

“As Preston Wiginton, a white supremacist from Texas, stepped forward to address thousands of Russian nationalists at a rally Sunday in Moscow, he lifted his black cowboy hat high in the air.

‘I'm taking my hat off as a sign of respect for your strong identity in ethnicity, nation and race,’ he said, exposing his close-cropped head to a freezing drizzle.

‘Glory to Russia,’ Wiginton, 43, said in broken Russian, as the crowd of mostly young Russian men raised their right hands in a Nazi salute and chanted ‘white power!’ in English.”



Chcck out the Google Map

II. Trouble in Texas

The Nick Griffin speech at MSU was not the first college event arranged by Wiginton. As far back as 2005 Wiginton was going to campus to promote his white nationalist views against non-white immigration.

Wiginton took part in arranging a speaking tour for author Frosty Wooldridge, an anti-immigration author and activist.

The purpose of the tour was to gather signatures on a petition against Texas House Bill 1403, a law which gave children of illegal immigrants in-state college tuition rates if they had graduated from a Texas high school and lived in the state for three years.

Wiginton was by Wooldridge’s side at the stops on the tour. Wooldridge faced protests from pro-immigrant groups, and conservative groups as well. At the University of Houston College Republicans joined with College Democrats to oppose Wooldridge’s petition. Student Government Association Speaker Pro-Tem Mark Annas, a member of the UH College Republicans, told the University of Houston student newspaper the Daily Cougar.

"He called and asked if I would sponsor his petition against the bill, and I said ‘no way,'" Annas said. "College Republicans won't support something that prevents people from getting an education."

The College Republicans weren’t the only group to get an invitation to host Wooldridge. David Morris, then Chairman of the Young Conservatives of Texas at Texas A&M University, received an invitation from Wiginton. Morris wrote in the Texas A&M Battalion about the invitation:

“He assured me that he had already spoken to the state officers of YCT and received permission to have similar events sponsored across Texas. With that assurance in mind, I went about setting up the speaking event.

It occurred to me to check up on Preston before I finalized the event, so I called the state officers to talk to them about it and, to my suprise [sic], they had never heard of Preston Wiginton and, in fact, had no idea what I was talking about.”

In a phone interview Morris explained why he looked into Wiginton before the event.

“It’s just that I didn’t want to host an event about someone I had never heard of,” Morris said.

Morris was not on campus the day of the Wooldridge event, but another member of the Young Conservatives of Texas went to observe. Morris said Wiginton was handing out literature opposing immigration on racial and ethnic grounds, which was not what the event had been advertised as. Morris said he was approached later by Wiginton during the university open house.

“We had our university open house at the event for all the organizations. He came up and wanted to talk to me and basically bragged about all the events he had hosted. He told me ‘I’ve even had skinheads at my events’” Morris said.

Morris said he didn’t approve of Wiginton’s methods or events.

“I have a very negative opinion about him. He was not straightforward about the event and felt he had to lie about our state offices giving him approval,” Morris said.

Morris wasn’t the only one who opposed Wiginton’s role in the tour. At the University of Houston, The Daily Cougar wrote an editorial, opposing Wooldridge’s stance on immigration but approving of the way he handled himself.

“Wooldridge never even delivered a speech, opting to carry on a few quiet conversations with protesters. Whether it was self-preservation or a genuine desire for intelligent discourse motivating him, Wooldridge tried to keep things civil, unlike the event's organizer, Preston Wiginton. If Wooldridge's relative respectfulness wasn't an act, he proved himself better than the vitriolic hate-mongers who share his extreme views on immigration”

By 2007 Wiginton had enrolled at Texas A&M and begun a campaign to push his white nationalist views. Wiginton posted on Stormfront about his challenge to Dr. Tito Guerrero, Associate Provost of Diversity at Texas A&M, to debate Jared Taylor.

Wiginton attended a diversity symposium set up to address racial tension at the university. Wiginton protested parts of the speech. The Battalion reported:

“[Wiginton] interrupted Feagin's explanation that racism on an institutional level occurs only by white people.

“Sir, you're lying and I'm having a hard time listening to this,” interjected Preston Wiginton. “I hate to see young minds get lied to.”

Wiginton later said he was not a racist but that he was a racial realist who believes that genetics and behavior make people different. About 20 students and community members approached Wiginton following the symposium to express their disapproval of his disruption.

Wiginton, class="storybody" working with the Aggie Independents, also hosted Nick Griffin at Texas A&M.

III. Shenanigans in South Carolina

Preston Wiginton’s next campus speech came on April 9, 2007. Wiginton, working with the Clemson Conservatives, hosted Jared Taylor, the editor of the white nationalist Web site American Renaissance.

Taylor spoke about multiculturalism as a weakness to the country and claimed that racial segregation was a natural state of being.

Preston Wiginton wrote in the online comment section of the Clemson newspaper, The Daily Tiger, praising the way the students at Clemson handled the event.

He also posted on the white supremacist Web site Stormfront (under the name ruskybound) calling for donations to support more speeches by Jared Taylor for fall 2007.

The speech was aided by Nathanael Strickland, a Clemson student with a history of anti-Semitic remarks and white supremacy beliefs. Clemson’s The Tiger reported him as being fundamental in arranging the speech. Strickland would be even more important when Griffin was looking for schools to host Nick Griffin’s American tour.

Griffin’s speech in Clemson almost didn’t happen. According to the White nationalist Western Voices World News, conservative groups backed out of sponsoring Griffin when they discovered parts of his past. But the event did go on.

“Thanks to one dedicated student the show will go on,” the article said.

A FOIA request to Clemson University for reservation documents showed that one student to be Nathanael Strickland.

IV. Why Universities?

Wiginton’s work setting up speakers at universities has come to the attention of civil rights groups such as the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.

Carrie Waggoner, assistant director of the Michigan Region for the Anti-Defamation League, said that Wiginton was likely trying to draw attention to his ideas by hosting events on campus.

“He is likely trying to draw attention to and support for his point of view on immigration and white nationalism,” Waggoner said. “Ideas like Holocaust denial and white nationalism/white supremacy are not generally accepted by academia but may be discussed as concepts in a classroom setting.”

Waggoner couldn’t speak to the immigration debate issues, but said there were also strong pro immigrant views as well. Waggoner said that the message Wiginton was trying to send did concern the Anti-Defamation League.

“The ADL is a strong supporter of the First Amendment, so we recognize and support Mr. Wiginton’s right to express his point of view and to organize these events,” Waggoner said. “However, ADL finds it very troubling that such anti-immigrant and anti-Semitic rhetoric is being expressed on our campuses. It is important for students, faculty and community members to speak out against hate speech and make it known that they do not support these types of speakers.”

Wiginton declined to be interviewed for this article.

Questions? Comments? Contact Philip Rodney Moon at moonphil@msu.edu

Racist Group Plans to Run Candidates Nationwide
by Heidi Beirich

--Hatewatch--

January 19, 2010

The co-founder of the American Third Position (ATP), white supremacist Los Angeles lawyer William Daniel Johnson, says his new California-based group plans to run as many candidates for political office around the country as it can muster.

In an interview with Hatewatch last week, Johnson said that he intended to qualify “high-level people,” meaning prominent white nationalists, for campaigns on the ATP ticket in a large number of states. He did not elaborate on what states or offices, or precisely when, but said that that would be decided in coming months.

ATP was created last October. It was reportedly brought together by members of Freedom 14, a racist skinhead group in Orange County, Calif., who initially formed a group called the Golden State Party to run candidates. But that group collapsed when reports surfaced about the criminal past of its leader, and so the Freedom 14 members decided to create a replacement group — the American Third Position.

Johnson told Hatewatch that he was invited by acquaintances to the October meeting, where he says he met for the first time the man who would join him in founding and leading the ATP — Kevin MacDonald, a psychology professor at Cal State Long Beach who has become a darling of the radical right since penning an anti-Semitic trilogy of books. MacDonald, who did not respond to requests for comment, was named director, in effect co-leader with Johnson, of the ATP. That was quite a leap for MacDonald, who has hobnobbed with many racists but until accepting his new position had not moved into overt racist activism.

For his part, Johnson is a long-time racist activist. In 1985, he wrote a book under the pseudonym James O. Pace called Amendment to the Constitution. It proposed a constitutional amendment to repeal the 14th and 15th amendments (respectively, making freed slaves citizens, and prohibiting the denial of the right to vote based on race) and replace them with the “Pace Amendment.” That amendment would only have allowed whites “in whom there is no discernible trace of Negro blood” to be U.S. citizens. Hispanic whites, Johnson added in a generous moment, might also be granted citizenship, but only if their “appearance [is] indistinguishable from Americans whose ancestral home is in the British Isles or Northwestern Europe.”

Johnson, saying he preferred being called “racially aware” to being labeled a “racist,” told Hatewatch that he knows movement heavyweight and former Klan boss David Duke. Johnson attended a 2005 function held by Duke’s European Unity and Rights Organization. (Duke is also linked to MacDonald. As revealed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Duke apparently lifted entire sections of his book Jewish Supremacism from MacDonald’s infamous trilogy.) But Johnson denied Internet rumors that he was a long-time member of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, or even a major Alliance splinter group, National Vanguard. Johnson did say he had purchased books from the Alliance and knew people who were members.

MacDonald, in addition to taking on leadership of the ATP, has been becoming active in the white supremacist movement in other ways as well. He recently launched his own hate website, The Occidental Observer. And he has been making the rounds of hate radio, appearing on Jim Giles’ “Radio Free Mississippi” show in December and James Edwards’ “The Political Cesspool” last week.

Russia's 'YouTube policeman' held
By Richard Galpin
BBC News, Moscow
2010/01/22 15:50:05 GMT



A Russian police officer who posted a video on the internet alleging the police force in his home town was corrupt has been arrested.

Alexei Dymovsky, who became widely known after speaking out on video-sharing site YouTube in November, has been charged with fraud and corruption. Mr Dymovsky, from southern Russia, had already been fired from his job.

He had earlier said the authorities wanted to silence him and get revenge for what he had done.

In the video, he spoke out about corruption and illegal activities within the police force in his home town, saying he could no longer tolerate being told to arrest innocent people to meet monthly targets.

Popular video

He went on to make a direct appeal to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to clean up the law enforcement agencies. It caused a sensation in a country where challenging the authorities is not only highly unusual, but can also prove to be extremely dangerous.

The video registered more than a million hits.

It will come as little surprise to people here that he has now been arrested on charges which carry a maximum of six years in prison.

When the charges were first brought against him, Mr Dymovsky told the Reuters news agency that the authorities wanted to silence him and get revenge for what he had done. Ironically, just days after he posted his video, the interior minister in charge of the nation's police force admitted it had been turned into a criminal business.

Profit over people

--globalissues.org--

As the world globalizes, multinational corporations are also coming under more scrutiny, as questions about their accountability are also being raised.

In some cases, some corporations have lobbied their governments to aggressively support regimes that are favorable to them. For example, especially in the 1970s and 80s, some tacitly supported dictatorships as they could control their own people, be more easily influenced and corrupted, allow conditions like cheap labor and sweatshops, and so on. This is less practical today as a company’s image with such associations can more readily be tarnished today. Increasingly then, influence is being spread through lobbying for global economic and trade arrangements that are more beneficial to themselves.

This can be accomplished through various means including:

-Tacitly supporting military interventions (often dressed in propaganda about saving the people from themselves, or undoing a wrong in the other country and so on)

-Pushing for economic policies that are heavily weighted in their favor

-Foreign investment treaties and other negotiations designed in part to give more abilities for corporations to expand into other poorer countries possibly at the expense of local businesses.

-Following an ideology which is believed to be beneficial to everyone, but hides the realities and complexities that may worsen situations. These ideologies can be influential as some larger corporations may indeed benefit from these policies, but that does not automatically mean everyone else will, and power and such interests may see these agendas being pushed forth more so.

However, with this expansion and drive for further profits, there has often come a disregard for human rights. In some cases, corporations have been accused for hiring local militaries to subdue and even kill people who are protesting the effects and practices of these corporations, such as the various controversies over oil corporations and resource and mineral companies in parts of Africa have highlighted.

As globalization has increased in the past decade or two, so has the criticisms. Whether it is concerns at profits over people as the driving factor, or violations of human rights, or large scale tax avoidance by some companies, some large multinationals operating in developing countries in particular have certainly had many questions to answer.

The pressure to compete has often meant fighting against social clauses and policies that may lead to more costs for the company where other companies may not be subject to the same restrictions. The fear of losing out in competition then drives many companies to a lower common denominator rather than a higher one.

And so there is a downward pressure on worker’s wages and their working conditions because they are such major costs for many operations.

Many multinationals encourage the formation of export processing zones in developing countries which end up being areas where worker’s rights are reduced. This way they are able to play off countries against each other; if one tries to improve worker or living standards in some way, the company can threaten to move operations to another zone in another country. Some developing countries such as China also benefit from this arrangement as it makes them more competitive in international markets.

Side Note»
For many, the implication for this situation is that the right to form unions need to be supported. The topic of unions can cause debate and resentment from companies and free trade advocates.

On the one hand unions are supposed to represent worker’s and their rights. Without unions in some sectors workers have little ability to demand fairer conditions and pay from a more influential and powerful employee.

On the other hand, in an increasingly globalized world, companies struggle to compete with each other, especially where standards vary.

The enormous labor costs means that companies from countries with higher standards are at a competitive disadvantage. Rather than a global effort to improve working conditions for everyone, it seems easier—and more profitable—for companies and countries to argue for lower conditions.

The political effect of this is also increased control and influence; with less organized labor force, the political power is more firmly in the hands of a few powerful elite.

It is quite easy to demonize unions as well because the disruption they can cause (e.g. if the union is for some public service) can easily be shown to be a hindrance for the general population. Media coverage often looks at the inconvenience of the general population and hints at the unreasonable demands unions make.

(As a Human Rights Watch report details, it is not just developing countries where this problem exists; even the United States suffers from the denial of such rights.)

Lobbying at international institutions such as the World Trade Organization also helps them see more favorable conditions and the companies with more money can wield more influence, creating an imbalanced playing field, as opposed to a level one which they publicly argue for.

Despite the rhetoric of many corporations signing up to human rights related pacts and agreements, their lack of real commitment is still apparent, and, as mentioned by the previous link, “[w]hat is more, reveals the Washington D.C.-based IPS in a recently released report, ‘Top 200: The Rise of Corporate Global Power’, leading corporations have fiercely opposed attempts that require them to ‘achieve a higher level of transparency.’” [You can see the actual report from this link as well.]

DEFINING THE WORLD’S PUBLIC PROPERTY
Le Monde Diplomatique
A global public good

Who does knowledge belong to?

When intellectual property increases the price of vital drugs ten fold, sentencing millions of sick Africans to death, this is not just a hypothetical question. The future of the world economy and of part of humanity now hangs on the answer. Computing, agro-industry, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and communications lead the way in the "information revolution". The rise of these activities has brought with it an ever greater need for a check to be kept on new inventions. If such a virtual product as knowledge, which is by nature copiable, is to be turned to profit, its dissemination must be controlled and an artificial scarcity created that allows a price to be set. Such is the primary objective of intellectual property law, together with a concern to protect the "moral" rights of authors over the future of their works (literary and artistic property), to protect the consumer (trade marks) or to limit recourse to industrial secrecy by publishing the detail of inventions (patents).

In an attempt to keep pace with these developments, following the trend in the United States the World Trade Organisation and the World Intellectual Property Organisation have launched themselves into a frenzy of legal activity to "strengthen" the rights of owners in order to ensure they get a return on their investment and thereby, in theory, stimulate world growth.

But a number of factors stand in the way of this. First, as the United Nations Development Programme points out, many of today’s developed nations which are so keen to see intellectual property rights strengthened had very vague rules when their own national industries were being built. They only changed their tune when they became exporters of technology. By amassing intellectual property rights over the whole of knowledge (from photographic archives to the human genome, from software to drugs), the richest countries, which are also the ones with the most highly developed legal systems (the US employs one third of the world’s lawyers) are making sure they have control over vast swathes of future output.

Secondly, the appropriation of knowledge by private firms is not always legitimate. Both technological research and cultural production feed primarily on knowledge shared by the whole of society. But there are for the most part no mechanisms for promoting and defending the public domain of knowledge, little thought having been given to what might be called "global public goods" (1).

Current thinking about the ownership of this common wealth of humanity is embryonic. The American lawyer James Boyle compares it to 1950s thinking on the environment: a few commentators are sounding the alarm about particular issues but are not yet in a position to make a connection between them (2). But the matter needs to be discussed urgently if we are to put a stop to the sequestration of knowledge by private interests (see articles by Philippe Quéau and Martine Bulard).

Ph. R.
(1) Inge Kaul, Isabelle Grunberg, Marc A. Stern (ed.), Global Public Goods: International Cooperation in the 21st Century, UNDP - Oxford University Press, New York and Oxford, 1999.

(2) James Boyle, "A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism for the Net?", http://www.wcl.american.edu/pub/faculty/boyle/

Bolivia: More Women in Parliament, With Their Own Agenda
by Franz Chávez (la paz)

Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Inter Press Service

An unprecedented 28 percent of seats in Bolivia's new parliament will soon be occupied by women. Female lawmakers have already launched a battle for women to serve in half the posts in the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government.

One indication of women's increased influence was the election Tuesday of Ana María Romero to preside the Senate, the first woman in this country's parliamentary history to do so. Re-elected President Evo Morales said it was a step towards gender parity in the powers of government.

The bicameral Plurinational Assembly is the new legislative branch under the constitution that came into force 11 months ago, and replaces the Congress that met for 184 years. The constitution, re-written by a constituent assembly 33 percent of whose members were women, has re-founded the Bolivian state.

Romero, a member of the governing leftwing Movement Toward Socialism (MAS), was elected by 35 out of the 36 senators, 10 of whom belong to opposition parties, which shows the consensus of support for this veteran journalist who was formerly Peru's first Ombudsperson (1998-2003), another fact mentioned by Morales.

Lidia Gueiler is the only other woman to have attained leadership in Congress. In 1979 she presided over the lower house, and from 1979 to 1980 she was Bolivia's interim president.

Parliament will have its opening session Friday, when 50-year-old indigenous trade union leader Morales, who has governed since January 2006, will be sworn in for a second term as president.

Even before their official installation, the 46 new women lawmakers have been under pressure from grassroots women activists to adopt an agenda in favour of gender parity, including the goal of women holding half the positions in the branches of government, and a series of bills to improve women's lot.

Bolivian women have formed more than 200 organisations that belong to the non-governmental Coordinadora de la Mujer, and are proposing a package of draft laws drawn up by trade unions, campesino (small farmer) and feminist organisations, which the 33 women lawmakers belonging to MAS have already promised to support in parliament.

The other 13 women in parliament were elected by three opposition parties. There are 166 parliamentary seats, of which 115 were won by MAS. The senate has 36 members and the lower house 130, of whom half (65) are elected by direct personal vote, and the remainder from party lists of candidates.

The total number of women in the new parliament will be twice that in the last legislature of the old Congress, which had only 22 women members, equivalent to 14 percent of its 157 seats.

Bolivia has a population of 10.4 million, half of whom identify themselves as indigenous people, and 33.5 percent live in rural areas.

Fighting for their Rightful Place

The Movement of Women Present in the History of the Struggle for Inclusion, Diversity and Interculturalism has worked strenuously since 2006 to promote the inclusion of women in the reconstructed state, and its first achievement was the high proportion of women in the constituent assembly that re-wrote the constitution.

It also managed to secure a measure of equity in the electoral laws applied for the first time in the December elections, which stipulate the alternation of male and female candidates on party electoral lists. However, it failed to achieve nomination and election of women candidates in the hoped-for proportion of 50 percent in the lower house, because of lack of support from the political parties.

The giant leap in women's share of parliamentary seats is the result of the pressure and action of some 200 organisations, Mónica Novillo, in charge of advocacy and lobbying for the Coordinadora de la Mujer, said at a Dec. 14 meeting of women's organisations and new women lawmakers.

But parliamentary action for expanded rights for women and greater equity in public office will still face opposition from lawmakers cast in a patriarchal mould, the substitute lawmaker for the department (province) of La Paz, Elizabeth Salguero, told IPS.

In the previous legislature, Salguero chaired the Commission on Human Rights and she advocated a law against political violence on gender grounds, to protect women elected to municipal and national office. But the bill was not passed.

Meanwhile, representatives of the main women's trade union organisation, the 'Bartolina Sisa' Trade Union Federation of Indigenous Campesina Women of Bolivia, are demanding gender equity in the Morales government to be appointed in early February.

In his first government, only four out of 20 ministerial posts went to women, although the president has promised to increase their share in his new cabinet.

This will be the first test of the executive branch's response to the demands of organised women's groups for a greater share of power and progress towards half the decision-making posts in the state apparatus, the justice system, municipalities and provinces.

'But basically, without education there can be no rights, no creation or defence of human rights,' Cristina Barreto, a leader of the 'Bartolina Sisa' Federation in La Paz, told IPS emphatically.

'We must provide a plurinational education, in several languages,' she urged women lawmakers, exhorting them to work night and day 'until we get rid of consumerist, theoretical education,' in line with Morales' stated vision for change.

'In rural areas, girls attend school up to third grade, but today all children must have the opportunity to complete their secondary education,' otherwise economic and industrial development will be impossible, she said.

Barreto gave several examples of discrimination against women. She complained that teachers expel pregnant teenage girls from school, 'but not the boys who get them pregnant.'

'Some employers make women workers sign a pledge that they will not get pregnant during the period of their contract,' but this must change. The state should give tax breaks to companies who employ the most women and respect their rights, Amalia Coaquira told IPS.

Coaquira is a leader in the Bolivian National Federation of Self-Employed Women Workers, an organisation created in response to the impact of the free-market policies implemented in Bolivia between 1985 and 2005, which forced thousands of women into the informal sector, mainly working as street vendors for the sake of their own and their families' survival.

New labour laws stipulating equal wages for men and women, providing protection against workplace and sexual harassment, including self-employed women workers in the social security system, and recognising the economic value of work in the home, are Coquira's recommendations to the women lawmakers.

'Homemakers never get to retire on a pension, they are just assumed to go on and on,' she complained.

Land and women's aspiration to property titles in their own right are the main aims of the National Indigenous Women's Federation, whose representative Blanca Cartagena placed the issue firmly on the parliamentary list of pending tasks.

According to the government, 10,299 land titles were granted to women between 2006 and 2009, representing a total of 164,401 hectares. But Cartagena underscored the urgent need to give preference to women heads of family, especially those who are without family support or are extremely poor.

'I want to take direct action; I can do a lot and contribute to several development approaches,' the lawmaker for Beni province, Ingrid Zabala, confidently told IPS.

An agronomist ('ingeniera agrónoma') who has specialised in social and agricultural research, Zabala has scored a political coup in an area that is one of the most conservative and least receptive to ideas of gender equity. Not only is she a woman, she also belongs to MAS, which is unpopular in Beni and other eastern Bolivian provinces.

Zabala says she will work in parliament against violence and discrimination, and for equal rights and respect for the environment. She has already proved her tenacity in battles against corruption as a professor at the José Ballivián Autonomous University in Beni.

She says she became aware of the different faces of discrimination from childhood, when her family would not allow her to make friends with campesina girls wearing traditional indigenous skirts, or when she had to change the title page of her thesis where she had used the word 'ingeniera' (a female engineer), instead of 'ingeniero' (a male engineer) to specify the degree she was a candidate for.

Bolivia's new women lawmakers have a difficult road ahead as they continue to seek ways of putting into practice the changes that, so far, have only been written into the constitution.


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Original source: Inter Press Service