Speak Out Now!

Last week, hearings began on the Affordable Health Care Act, which has become known as “Obamacare”. The Supreme Court has convened to decide if the act, which requires individuals to purchase health care, is constitutional. This debate has become almost inescapable, dominating the headlines and news shows with the constant question – Will the Affordable Health Care Act be struck down by the Supreme court?

What they say is at stake are the lives of the 50 million uninsured Americans and many more who will go uninsured for some period of time. The Affordable Health Care Act supposedly addresses these people’s needs by demanding that all Americans take out a health care plan. It imposes some guidelines on the health care companies, imposing restrictions so that they can’t deny patients for pre-existing conditions, and increasing the number of years that young people can be on their parents’ health care plan by two years. Overall the Affordable Health Care Act will bring 23 million uninsured Americans under some health care plan.

At first the lines seem clearly drawn. On the one side is the Obama administration and the Democrats, trying for the first time in U.S. history to impose on the health care companies some kind of health care plan for the masses of uninsured people. On the other side are those who oppose the Affordable Health Care Act – mostly the Republican Party opponents of Obama. Their attitude? If you don’t have health care, and you develop health problems, it’s your own fault. The most important thing is to preserve the right of the health care companies to offer the kind of plans that they currently do, with constantly increasing premiums, and less and less actual health care. They scream about freedom, but the only freedom they are interested in is that of the corporations to exploit our needs for profit. Even the tiny restrictions that would be imposed under the Affordable Health Care act are too much for them. And of course the Republicans also want to score points against Obama for the coming election. For them, this debate is also a piece of political theater.

Today we are experiencing the most dramatic climate change in recorded history. We see it in the news everyday. Floods, droughts, wildfires, heat waves and cold snaps are becoming everyday events. In a recent survey over ten thousand scientists agreed that the cause of all this climate change is human activity. It’s clear that the way our global economy is being run, its dependence on fossil fuels, its destruction of Earth’s resources, and the overproduction and consumption of goods is driving us over a cliff. And scientists are now saying this could be the last decade before our planet goes beyond the point of no return.

Melting & Drowning

• The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have melted by 30% since 1972, and will drive global sea levels up by close to seven feet by the end of the century.
• Coastal floods that occurred every 100 years are now happening every ten years. Four million Americans are at risk in the Gulf States, New York and California.
• Rising seas are threatening island nations like the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, the Maldives the Seychelles, and Kiribati. By 2100 these countries will be under water.
• The Siberian permafrost, which stores frozen carbon, is melting at an alarming rate, releasing massive amounts of greenhouse gas.

Thirsty & Starving

• Glaciers from California to the Himalayas are quickly melting away, evaporating drinking water for nearly a third of the world’s population.
• Scientists have linked the current famine in Somalia to intense droughts in East Africa.
• Changing rain patterns and warming will cause a 35 percent drop in agricultural output in the U.S. over the next 70 years.

Extremes & Extinction

• 7 of 10 global disasters today are now climate change-related, meaning they are essentially man-made disasters.
• The 10 warmest years on record occurred between 1997-2008. The U.S. could warm by as much as 11 degrees by 2100, increasing droughts, heat waves and desertification.
• Mankind is unleashing the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history. Over a quarter of all living species will be extinct by 2050 at the current rate.

On February 26 in Sanford, Florida, George Zimmerman murdered unarmed 17-year old, Trayvon Martin on his way back from 7-Eleven during half-time of the NBA All-Star game, carrying iced-tea and Skittles. Zimmerman, the self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, spotted Martin and placed a 911 call to report who he said was “a real suspicious guy” in the area.

Zimmerman told the 911 dispatcher that “this guy looks like he’s up to no good…he’s a black male…and these assholes, they always get away.” At one point, Trayvon begins running away from who he must have thought was some crazy guy chasing him. Zimmerman left his vehicle to chase Trayvon on foot. Soon after police were at the scene pronouncing Trayvon dead.

Zimmerman was taken to the police station for questioning and said that he had followed, pursued, confronted and killed Trayvon all in self-defense. He says Trayvon punched him and jumped on top of him. This was enough for the police, and so Zimmerman was released and free to get back to patrolling the neighborhood again. As of this writing, he has yet to be charged with any crime.

Trayvon spent the next 24 hours in the morgue while his family desperately searched for him. The police decided it wasn’t worth checking Trayvon’s cell-phone to alert relatives. They assumed that the 17-year old Black teenager with his candy and tea was the aggressor, not the man who shot him, not the man who expressed his hatred of African Americans on the 911 call, not the man who chased Trayvon Martin down with a gun and shot him in the middle of the neighborhood.

The police say they did not have enough evidence to arrest Zimmerman. When Zimmerman referred to a Black 17-year old as “an asshole that always gets away” and then went chasing after him armed with a loaded 9mm gun, the police don’t think there is any evidence to suspect Zimmerman of murder. The police seem to share Zimmerman’s hatred of African American youth being in a gated community. Is there any doubt of the outcome if the roles were reversed? Imagine an African American teen killing a neighborhood watch volunteer and walking out of the police station completely free after only saying it was self-defense.

Zimmerman has been able to walk free after gunning down an unarmed 17-year old. The message is clear – the life of a young African American is not worth anything in this society; the law doesn’t apply when the victim is Black. This is the same racism behind the murder of unarmed 22 year old Oscar Grant by Oakland BART police, behind the murder of 19-year old Kenneth Harding by SF police, and the same racism that has taken the lives of countless others in this society everyday.

There’s no question that the murder of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy that could have been avoided. But it is not uncommon. The only reason this murder has gotten any attention at all is because the Martin family has refused to remain silent, inspiring thousands of others to organize protests across the country. Starting in Florida and spreading to New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Seattle, and San Francisco, thousands have gathered to express their outrage at this murder and the widespread racism and violence that underlies it.

People are taking to the streets not in mourning but in anger. And we all have a right to be angry. We have a right not to allow this murder to be ignored. We refuse to ignore the fact that George Zimmerman has been free to walk the streets for one month after gunning down Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman has been free to spend time with his family and is now hiding from any backlash while Trayvon Martin is no longer free to do anything.

We have a choice in the face of this assault on our families, our friends, our neighbors, our lives. We have a choice to stand together and raise our voices and show our strength and say we will not allow the murder of Trayvon Martin and the countless others to be forgotten. We cannot allow the dreams and hopes for a decent life to be stripped away from children and youth by the violence and racism in this society.

For the last week, the news headlines have focused on the atrocities perpetrated by an American soldier in Afghanistan. On Sunday, March 11, Staff Sergeant Robert Bales entered two Afghan villages and opened fire on the villagers there, killing 16 people in cold blood. The dead included nine children. After killing the villagers, Bales set some of their bodies on fire. As of this week, Robert Bales is in custody, awaiting trial for these atrocities.

The media and politicians ask how this could have happened. Bales was a so-called decorated soldier – a war hero. He received medals for his actions. But what do those things really mean? Let’s be honest. they mean that Bales killed people and saw people die around him. He is a product of war.

Robert Bales was part of a unit that shipped out from Joint Base Lewis-McChord south of Tacoma Washington. This isn’t the first time atrocities were committed by soldiers from this base. In 2010, three soldiers from Lewis-McChord were discovered to have formed a club called the “Kill Team”. They plotted and carried out the murder of Afghan civilians including a 15 year-old boy. These soldiers kept trophies from their murders, snapping photographs and posing with the dead bodies.

In fact, the military, with all its training and conditioning, is designed to create people like this. In order to brutalize people every day, soldiers must become cold-blooded and numb to atrocities. Robert Bales himself had seen eleven of his fellow soldiers die in front of him in Iraq, including his best friend. He had lost a leg in a gun battle. He received a traumatic brain injury, and believes he has an untreated piece of shrapnel in his head. And to add insult to injury he just received notice that his family was about to lose their home in foreclosure. How many soldiers have stories like these? Lewis-McChord base is notorious for atrocities committed by its soldiers, but it also has one of the highest suicide rates in the military. Are we surprised?

The only difference between what goes on every day in Afghanistan and what Robert Bales did is that most of the murders of Afghans by U.S. troops are planned and carried out under orders. They are not just individual outbursts of rage and violence.

What do you call it when the U.S. military fires a rocket into a wedding party in Kandahar killing 37 civilians including 23 children and ten women? Isn’t this murder? The military calls it “collateral damage.” And this is no isolated incident. U.S. unmanned drones have killed as many as 780 civilians including 160 children. Often the bodies of these civilians have been burned. And the strikes have not been limited to Afghanistan. Attacks have been carried out, in Pakistan as well. What is the difference between these murders and those committed by Robert Bales or the Kill Team? Certainly for the family and loved ones of the victims there is no difference.

An estimated 100,000 Afghans have been killed due to the U.S. war and occupation. The country has been wrecked and people suffer from lack of water and sanitation. One in five children born in Afghanistan dies before the age of five. Let’s call this what it is – mass murder perpetrated by the United States military. And for what? Afghanistan just happens to be crucial to the distribution of natural gas and oil in the world. The motive couldn’t be clearer. This war is nothing but cold blooded murder for profit on the part of the U.S. corporations and the government that serves them.

Robert Bales is probably guilty of the atrocities he is accused of. But to focus on these atrocities alone is to fail to see that they were caused by the war and occupation. And the truth is that the biggest mass murderers are the architects of the war and those who profit from it. Ordinary people have no interest in supporting a war which only serves the profits of the wealthy corporations. There is nothing which can justify this mass murder. And every day U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan it will continue. We should demand an immediate and complete end to this murderous war and occupation.

Since September 11, 2001, over two million Americans have been sent off to war in Iraq or Afghanistan. More than half of them have been deployed more than once, many four times, and some as high as eight times. But for those soldiers who return from war alive, the effects of the war follow them home, staying with them for the rest of their lives, often ripping them apart.

The Damage of War – Dead, Maimed, Injured

• Over 7100 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• More than 360,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have suffered brain injuries, nearly tripling over the past decade.
• Over 20 percent of US soldiers wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan have suffered blows to the face, neck or head.
• About 1,700 US soldiers have lost limbs in Iraq and Afghanistan, including seared skin, shattered bones and damaged internal organs.
• At least 18 percent of female and 20 percent of male soldiers returning from Iraq or Afghanistan have been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress disorder.

Lives Ripped Apart – Divorce, Unemployment, Homelessness, Suicide

• In 2011, the average unemployment rate for new veterans aged 18-24 was 30.2 percent.
• In 2009, 75,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffered from long-term unemployment, of more than six months.
• The divorce rate among military couples has increased 42 percent throughout the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
• For veterans who need help with basic daily functions, most often the responsibilities of caregiving fall on the spouse or parents.
• On any given night, over 70,000 veterans are homeless, living in emergency shelters, transitional housing, on the streets, in cars or abandoned buildings. That is about 12 percent of the total homeless population.
• Of the more than 30,000 suicides in this country each year, more than 20 percent of them are veterans.
• On average, 18 veterans commit suicide every day.

Politicians, including Obama, like to make statements about how important US soldiers are, how their lives are a priority to the country. In fact, the policy of the US military towards soldiers is outrageous: use them up and then thrown them away. Like the lives of Iraqis and Afghans, the lives of US soldiers don’t mean anything to the US military. These wars have destroyed the lives of millions of Iraqis and Afghans. And these wars are ruining the lives of the over 2 million US soldiers who’ve been forced to carry them out. These wars need to stop now!

Back in March 2003, when the US began bombing the people of Iraq, the Bush administration justified the war by a campaign of lies. The population of the US and the world were told over and over again that Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to the US, that his regime had weapons of mass destruction and was seeking to build nuclear weapons. All of this was one big lie to gain support for the US military to invade and permanently remain inside Iraq. And now, after nearly ten years of war, over one million Iraqis killed, Iraq has been ripped apart on the basis of these lies.

And today, the Obama administration thinks it can get away with this same tactic towards Iran. Just like the Bush administration, the Obama administration has been carrying out a campaign of lies leading up to a possible war on the people of Iran. Last week Obama said in a speech about Iran that “all options are on the table.” All options, he said, “includes all elements of American power… an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.” This was a clear indication that the US is prepared to wage war on Iran.

During the lead up to war with Iraq, when US intelligence analysts did not produce any evidence of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, the Bush administration just kept repeating the lie anyway, hoping the US population would believe it. Likewise, there have been several investigations into Iran’s nuclear energy program, along with reports from UN weapons inspectors on the ground in Iran – and not a single report shows that Iran is producing nuclear weapons. There have been two recent National Intelligence Estimates, reflecting the unanimous opinion of over 16 intelligence agencies in the US – both of them report that there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program. And just last month, top US intelligence chiefs reported to a Senate Intelligence Committee that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.

But every discussion coming from the media, from the Obama administration and from most of the Democratic and Republican Party politicians speaks about Iran as if it is a known fact that they are constructing nuclear weapons. But this is clearly nothing more than a way to lie to the US population in order to instill fear towards Iran, and try to build up support for a possible assault on the country. We should not fall into their trap of lies.

Even though there is no evidence of the Iranian regime attempting to construct nuclear weapons, that doesn’t mean the US has the right to attack Iran even if it did have nuclear weapons. The US has the world’s largest supply of nuclear weapons, more than enough to destroy most species on the planet, including humans, several times over. And the only country to have ever used nuclear weapons on another country is the United States. The US is in no position to criticize any country’s weapons program, let alone threaten war against them.

The reality is if the US does wage war on Iran it will not be because Iran has nuclear weapons but because Iran sits atop one of the world’s largest supplies of oil and natural gas reserves, which the US wants to control. And the US has made it absolutely clear, that its largest obstacle to these energy resources is the current Iranian regime. This is why the US wants to wage war – because they think war would oust the Iranian regime and pave the way for US control over Iran’s energy resources. All this talk of Iran posing a threat to the US is just an attempt by the Obama administration to gain support for a war.

We cannot let that support gather momentum. There is nothing to support about a potential destruction of another country and the people who live there. The Bush administration got away with carrying out a war of domination against Iraq. We must not let this administration think they can get away with carrying out another brutal war against Iran.

Another Spring, another robbery at the gas pump. But we aren’t being held-up at gunpoint by people in ski masks. The average price of gas has increased every day for the past thirty-six days. Currently, the average price of gas in California is around $4.29 a gallon. And we are being told to expect the price to reach $5.00 a gallon by the summer.

For most of us, an increase of just a few cents in the price of gas is enough to disrupt our lives. Our daily commute to work becomes more expensive. Visiting friends and family who live in other cities becomes more expensive. Going grocery shopping becomes more expensive. And whatever small amount we might have left over from our paychecks after we pay rent, pay bills, and buy groceries, quickly vanishes when gas prices go up. So, we are forced to put off camping trips with our families or even going out to dinner just so we can have enough gas in the car to get to work.

Meanwhile, as rising gas prices raise our daily stress, the bandits at the big banks and oil companies who are responsible for the rising prices are smiling and counting their profits. In the major newspapers and on TV, we are being told that the rising gas prices are the result of increasing tensions between Iran and the United States and Israel. We are told this might turn into a war and create a global shortage of oil. But all of this is just serving as an excuse and a cover for the fact that it is the gambling and hoarding of the big investment banks and oil companies that is driving up the price of gas.

When tensions between Iran and the US and Israel heated up, investors on Wall Street saw an opportunity. They used it as an excuse to begin buying up massive amounts of contracts for barrels of oil. These contracts allow them to sell barrels of oil at a fixed price in the future. These contracts are basically bets that the price of oil will go up. All this begins to push up the average price of oil.

And as the price of oil goes up, the big oil companies begin smelling profits and start hoarding the oil they already have in stock and keeping it off the market until they can sell it in the future¾after the price is sky high. The consequence of all this speculation and hoarding is transferred onto us at the gas pump.

The big banks and oil companies know that it’s easy to rob us at the pump. As gas prices increase, we don’t have the option of not driving our cars. Public transportation in most places in the US is not cheap or efficient. Funding for public transportation is being cut every year in order to fill local budget deficits. As a result, the cost of taking public transit is going up while services are being slashed.

Most of us also don’t have the option of driving cars that don’t use gas, such as electric cars. The oil companies have done everything they can to try and keep it this way. The technology to produce electric cars has been around for decades. But oil companies have blocked every attempt to mass-produce affordable electric cars.

We don’t have to tolerate living in an economy where our lives can be thrown into chaos because a handful of investors and corporations see an opportunity to steal even more from us. The resources exist to get us out of our cars and into cheap and fast public transportation. The resources and technology exist to create alternative sources of energy. The only obstacle that stands in our way is this system and the minority who profit from it.

March 8^th is celebrated around the world as International Women’s Day. It began in the United States but is now a day celebrated throughout the world to recognize the role women have played in history and to draw awareness to the situation of women. Despite the gains women have achieved in society, they still remain underpaid in the workplace, are overburdened with childcare and housework, and face discrimination and abuse on a daily basis. Here’s a look at the reality women face in our world today:

Sexual Violence

• Over 12 percent of women in the Congo have been raped¾that is 48 women every hour.
• In the US: one out of every three women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime, one out of five women have been raped in their lives, and one in four women have been the victims of severe physical violence by an intimate partner.
• A woman born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped than learning how to read. On average a woman is raped every 17 seconds in South Africa. While in the US, a woman is raped every two minutes.
• Between 2001 and 2009, 95,000 women have been raped in the ongoing conflict in Colombia.

Domestic Violence

• Domestic violence has killed 34 women in Minnesota in 2011, one woman every five days in Spain, and 10,000 women in Mexico over the past ten years.
• In 2010, 8,391 dowry death cases were reported in India, meaning a bride was burned every 90 minutes.
• Thousands of acid attacks occur every year in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and India among others¾70 percent of the victims are women and girls.

Trafficking and Slavery

• There are over 32 million people enslaved around the world in fields, factories, brothels and homes, where they are exploited for sex or labor¾74 percent of them are women and girls.
• More than two million women and children are sold into the sex trade every year.
• Eighty-three percent of all sex trafficking in the US is of girls, a majority of whom are 17 or under.

Exploitation at Home, Exploitation in the Workplace

• Today, women worldwide are paid 10 to 30 percent less than men for the same work.
• In the US, women are paid 20 percent less on average than men.
• In a review of 126 countries, in more than a third, women are prohibited from working in the same industries as men.
• In rural Malawi women spend over eight times more than men on the same domestic chores.
• Women in Sub-Saharan Africa spend about 40 billion hours a year collecting water.
• In the US, married women without children do 17 hours of housework a week while men do 7 hours.