| |
| If you received this message from a friend, you can sign up for Join Together News Updates. |
What is Patriotism
Go down to the bottom to see postings in alphabetical order
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Drug Policy Newsletter
March Against Poverty
Press Release
From James Hartline, Candidate
San Diego City Council - District 3
May 6, 2008 (10am.pst)
March Against Poverty, Two Events, May 8th and May 15th, 12noon both days
City Heights Retail Village, Fairmount Ave. & University Ave. (in front of Albertsons)
200 San Diegans will be participating during the two events.
James Hartline, candidate for the San Diego City Council, District 3, will be participating in a two-part community event to bring public awareness to the grave conditions of poverty and environmental contaminations that are devastating the District 3 community of City Heights. 200 San Diegans have signed up to join candidate James Hartline for two "March Against Poverty" events that will occur on Thursday, May 8, 2008 and Thursday, May 15, 2008. Both events will begin at 12noon in front of the Albertsons Grocery Story located in the City Heights Retail Village. The City Heights Retail Village is located at the corner of Fairmount Ave. and University Ave.
While wealthy politicians like San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders live in District 3, just a few blocks away from City Heights, hundreds of City Heights families will send their kids to bed without nutritious dinners. Within a few blocks of City Heights, million dollars homes are located in Mayor Sanders' neighborhood of Kensington. While these homes are reminders of the vast wealth that is concentrated within District 3, hundreds of City Heights children are suffering with chronic asthma because there is mold covering hundreds of apartment buildings and homes in the poverty-stricken areas of City Heights.
In addition to all of the overwhelming poverty that is unneccesarily plaguing City Heights, parents are now forced to forego buying basic food purchases at Albertsons, the only major retail grocery store in City Heights. Albertsons is aware that they are the only store that many of the mothers in City Heights can easily get to, yet they continue to drastically mark up their prices on basic food items. This is one of the most grievous examples of corporate greed being inflicted upon the poorer families in San Diego.
In 2006, Supervalu and CVS purchased Albertsons for $17.4 billion. With that purchase, Wholesaler Supervalu said it would triple its retail operations to 2,656 stores with an estimated $44 billion in revenues by adding the 1,124 stores in Albertsons' portfolio, including Acme Markets, Bristol Farms, Jewel-Osco, Shaw's Supermarkets and Star Markets. That makes Supervalu the second-biggest grocer behind Kroger Cos., with 2,510 supermarkets and 792 c-stores and sales of $45.8 billion for the first nine months of fiscal 2005.
James Hartline and the large contingent of concerned San Diegans will be marching on behalf of the families in City Heights who are crying out for help in this time of great financial distress. Up to this point, those cries for help have fallen on the deaf ears of the San Diego City Council and the mayor's office. Councilwoman Toni Atkins has been the District 3 Councilwoman for nearly eights years. During that time, millions of tax dollars have been poured into one of Councilwoman Atkins' favorite projects, the San Diego Gay and Lesbian Center, located in the District 3 neighborhood of Hillcrest. While the Gay and Lesbian Center has received millions of dollars thanks to Councilwoman Atkins, City Heights families have continued to suffer malnutrition, devastating poverty, an epidemic of mold-causing asthma, gang-related crimes, and non-existent business investments within City Heights.
The March Against Poverty events to be held on May 8th and May 15th will involve over 200 marching citizens during the two day event, as well as a number of candidates for public office and supporting churches. 200 T-Shirts with "March Against Poverty" printed on them have been donated for the two events.
For further information or interviews:
James Hartline
office: 619-255-9378
cell: 619-793-9661
March Against Poverty
Sponsorship & Supporters List
James Hartline, Candidate, San Diego City Council, District 3
Priscilla Schreiber, Member, Grossmont Union High School District
Gregory Thompson, Candidate, Governor, State of Missouri
Bill Daniel, Candidate, San Diego City Council, District 7
Diane Chapman, Owner, Flex Systems, Inc.
The Hillcrest Mission
California Christian News
The San Diego Christian Chamber of Commerce
Harar Ethiopian Cafe
Serra Mesa Christian Fellowship
Mid-City Christian Fellowship
Calvary Temple Assembly of God
America Asleep Know More
Coach Dave Daubenmire
Monday, May 5, 2008
Solar Power
| ||||||||||||
Blackwater
Dear Friends,
Blackwater is Back!!!
City of San Diego issued a secret permit to Blackwater to operate a private "vocational school" in 61,000 square foot building near the border.
We know that Blackwater trains mercenary killers for hire, that is not a vocation. They scour the world for recruits from former death squads. We stopped them in Potrero, we must stop them in Otay Mesa!
Please send message to the mayor. We must not let Blackwater get a foothold in SD
to call the mayor's office: 619-236-6330
kevinfaulconer@sandiego.gov,
donnafrye@sandiego.gov,cityattorney@sandiego.gov,toniatkins@sandiego.gov
To learn more about Blackwater go to Jeremy Scahill's book: Blackwater http://www.blackwaterbook.com/
From: Jess Durfee, for Courage Campaign [mailto:info@couragecampaign.org]
Subject: Mayor Sanders: Expose Blackwater's bait-and-switch - Say NO to Blackwater on our border!!!
 |
My name is Jess Durfee. I am the Chair of the San Diego County Democratic Party.
The Courage Campaign asked me to write this message to the people of San Diego about Blackwater's shocking new plan to build a base of operations in Otay Mesa, just three blocks from the Mexican border.
False pretenses. Bait-and-switch. Trojan horse. Take your pick of descriptions to explain Blackwater securing a city permit for its "vocational training school" -- a "school" that won't be open to the general public.
That's simply Blackwater's way of doing business. By using trojan-horse corporate shells like "Southwestern Law Enforcement" and "Raven Development Group" to obtain their permit, Blackwater is using false pretenses to evade public scrutiny.
The worst part? The "Blackwater bait-and-switch": Using Iraq profits to subsidize a base of operations in San Diego with millions of your tax dollars.
Enough is enough. It's time for San Diego's elected officials to take a stand and kick Blackwater out of San Diego County for good. If the people of Potrero can do it, so can we.
The one man standing in the way of Blackwater is Mayor Jerry Sanders. He has the power -- under San Diego's "strong mayor" system -- to launch a full investigation into the false pretenses Blackwater used to obtain a "vocational trade school" permit for their 61,600-square-foot facility.
We all know that Blackwater is the "Enron" of private security contractors, more than willing to exploit Californians in the pursuit of profit. Do we really want these notorious mercenaries as our neighbors, bait-and-switching San Diego with an eye to eventually landing border security contracts?
As I wrote to Mayor Sanders in the letter linked above:
"This isn't the first time that Blackwater has tried to hold itself above the law, and it probably won't be the last. As ABC News recently reported, 'Blackwater has been accused of tax fraud, improper use of force, arms trafficking and overbilling connected to its work for the U.S. government in Iraq. A grand jury, federal prosecutors and congressional investigators are all currently probing allegations against the company.'"
As many Democrats, Republicans and Independents agree, Blackwater is undermining our troops in Iraq and our security at home. And now it appears to be using false pretenses to establish a dangerous foothold inside our community to privatize our border security operations. The only way we'll know is if our Mayor launches a full investigation immediately.
It's time for Mayor Sanders to stand up for San Diegans by standing up against Blackwater.
Please sign this letter to the Mayor today and tell your friends. Before it's too late.
Thank you for everything you are doing to make sure San Diego continues to be "America's Finest City".
Jess Durfee
Chair
San Diego County Democratic Party
Chair
San Diego County Democratic Party
P.S. Thank you to all the folks in San Diego who came out last Friday to Congressman Bob Filner's rally and press conference at the site of Blackwater's planned facility in Otay Mesa. We had a great turnout in what could be the beginning of a movement to finally kick Blackwater out of town for good and change San Diego politics forever.
Yahoo! News Story - Mildred Loving, matriarch of interracial marriage, dies - Yahoo! News
Walter Davis, Jr. (caligentlman@yahoo.com) has sent you a news article.
(Email address has not been verified.)
------------------------------------------------------------
Personal message:
(Email address has not been verified.)
------------------------------------------------------------
Personal message:
Mildred Loving, matriarch of interracial marriage, dies - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080505/ap_on_re_us/obit_loving
============================================================
Yahoo! News
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Poverty
Important Announcement from the desk of James Hartline For City Council
We Will Save San Diego, California For The Glory Of God!
We have purchased 200 t-shirts for our upcoming March Against Poverty thanks to a gracious and supportive donor.
Each t-shirt is red with the slogan "March Against Poverty" on the front and James Hartline Ministries on the back.
Each person that participates in the March Against Poverty will receive a free t-shirt.
Will you please help us to get the free t-shirts to participants?
And will you get your friends, family members and church members to join James Hartline and many faithful citizens as they make a stand for the poor in the City Heights area of San Diego's District 3.
This is our time to show the world that Christians care about the poor and needy. And this is a big opportunity for San Diego's faithful Christians to stand with James Hartline in the biggest campaign event of the year in San Diego, California.
The March Against Poverty will occur on Thursday, May 8, 2008 from 12noon - 1pm.
Participating Churches include:
Calvary Temple Assembly of God
Mid-City Christian Fellowship
Lake Murray Church
The event will start in front of the Albertson's Grocery Store in the City Heights Retail Village parking lot. The event will only last one hour, but the impact on our city will last a life time.
To get free t-shirts and to reserve your spot please contact:
James Hartline 619-255-9378
James Hartline 619-255-9378
cell: 619-793-9661
Friday, May 2, 2008
Barack Obama's pastor's statement re HIV/AIDS
“After such knowledge, what forgiveness?” T.S. Eliot
Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington on April 28, during which he was asked about his earlier statement that the US government had invented the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, “as a means of genocide against people of color”.
Wright did not offer any kind of evidence to support his claim. Even more important, the claim makes little sense. Why would the US government want to wipe out people of color? Undoubtedly, many government officials, past and present, have been racists, but the capitalist system at home and its imperialist brother abroad have no overarching ideological or realpolitik need for such a genocide. During the seven decades of the Cold War, the American power elite was much more interested in a genocide of “communists”, of whatever color, wherever they might be found. Many weapons which might further this purpose were researched, including, apparently, an HIV-like virus. Consider this: On June 9, 1969, Dr. Donald M. MacArthur, Deputy Director, Research and Engineering, Department of Defense, testified before Congress:
Within the next 5 to 10 years, it would probably be possible to make a new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organisms. Most important of these is that it might be refractory [resistant] to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease. Whether the United States actually developed such a microorganism and what it did with it has not been reported. AIDS was first identified by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1981. It’s certainly possible that the disease arose as a result of Defense Department experiments, and then spread as an unintended consequence.
If you think that our leaders, as wicked as they are, would not stoop to any kind of biological or chemical warfare against people, consider that in 1984 an anti-Castro Cuban exile, on trial in a New York court, testified that in the latter part of 1980 a ship traveled from Florida to Cuba with “a mission to carry some germs to introduce them in Cuba to be used against the Soviets and against the Cuban economy, to begin what was called chemical war, which later on produced results that were not what we had expected, because we thought that it was going to be used against the Soviet forces, and it was used against our own people, and with that we did not agree.”
It’s not clear from the testimony whether the Cuban man thought that the germs would somehow be able to confine their actions to only Russians. This was but one of many instances where the CIA or Defense Department used biological or chemical weapons against Cuba and other countries, including in the United States against Americans, at times with fatal consequences.
[Although it is not mentioned here there have been federal lawsuits filed against the United States which provided direct and undisputible evidence that the US government did in fact develop the HIV virus. For more information and documentation see http://www.boydgraves.com/. I have personally met, interviewed and spent some time with Dr. Graves and personally seen the evidence. - Laura]
Barack Obama’s pastor, Jeremiah Wright, held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington on April 28, during which he was asked about his earlier statement that the US government had invented the HIV virus, which causes AIDS, “as a means of genocide against people of color”.
Wright did not offer any kind of evidence to support his claim. Even more important, the claim makes little sense. Why would the US government want to wipe out people of color? Undoubtedly, many government officials, past and present, have been racists, but the capitalist system at home and its imperialist brother abroad have no overarching ideological or realpolitik need for such a genocide. During the seven decades of the Cold War, the American power elite was much more interested in a genocide of “communists”, of whatever color, wherever they might be found. Many weapons which might further this purpose were researched, including, apparently, an HIV-like virus. Consider this: On June 9, 1969, Dr. Donald M. MacArthur, Deputy Director, Research and Engineering, Department of Defense, testified before Congress:
Within the next 5 to 10 years, it would probably be possible to make a new infective microorganism which could differ in certain important aspects from any known disease-causing organisms. Most important of these is that it might be refractory [resistant] to the immunological and therapeutic processes upon which we depend to maintain our relative freedom from infectious disease. Whether the United States actually developed such a microorganism and what it did with it has not been reported. AIDS was first identified by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 1981. It’s certainly possible that the disease arose as a result of Defense Department experiments, and then spread as an unintended consequence.
If you think that our leaders, as wicked as they are, would not stoop to any kind of biological or chemical warfare against people, consider that in 1984 an anti-Castro Cuban exile, on trial in a New York court, testified that in the latter part of 1980 a ship traveled from Florida to Cuba with “a mission to carry some germs to introduce them in Cuba to be used against the Soviets and against the Cuban economy, to begin what was called chemical war, which later on produced results that were not what we had expected, because we thought that it was going to be used against the Soviet forces, and it was used against our own people, and with that we did not agree.”
It’s not clear from the testimony whether the Cuban man thought that the germs would somehow be able to confine their actions to only Russians. This was but one of many instances where the CIA or Defense Department used biological or chemical weapons against Cuba and other countries, including in the United States against Americans, at times with fatal consequences.
[Although it is not mentioned here there have been federal lawsuits filed against the United States which provided direct and undisputible evidence that the US government did in fact develop the HIV virus. For more information and documentation see http://www.boydgraves.com/. I have personally met, interviewed and spent some time with Dr. Graves and personally seen the evidence. - Laura]
The Anti-Empire Report
Read this or George W. Bush will be president the rest of your life
By William Blum
www.killinghope.org
5/1/08
Since I gave up hope, I feel better.
“More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”
– Woody Allen
Food riots, in dozens of countries, in the 21st century. Is this what we envisioned during the post-World War Two, moon-landing 20th century as humankind’s glorious future? It’s not the end of the world, but you can almost see it from here.
American writer Henry Miller (1891-1980) once asserted that the role of the artist was to “inoculate the world with disillusionment”. So just in case you — for whatever weird reason — cling to the belief/hope that the United States can be a positive force in ending or slowing down the new jump in world hunger, here are some disillusioning facts of life.
On December 14, 1981 a resolution was proposed in the United Nations General Assembly which declared that “education, work, health care, proper nourishment, national development are human rights”. Notice the “proper nourishment”. The resolution was approved by a vote of 135-1. The United States cast the only “No” vote.
A year later, December 18, 1982, an identical resolution was proposed in the General Assembly. It was approved by a vote of 131-1. The United States cast the only “No” vote.
The following year, December 16, 1983, the resolution was again put forth, a common practice at the United Nations. This time it was approved by a vote of 132-1. There’s no need to tell you who cast the sole “No” vote.
These votes took place under the Reagan administration.
Under the Clinton administration, in 1996, a United Nations-sponsored World Food Summit affirmed the “right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food”. The United States took issue with this, insisting that it does not recognize a “right to food”. Washington instead championed free trade as the key to ending the poverty at the root of hunger, and expressed fears that recognition of a “right to food” could lead to lawsuits from poor nations seeking aid and special trade provisions.
The situation of course did not improve under the administration of George W. Bush. In 2002, in Rome, world leaders at another U.N.-sponsored World Food Summit again approved a declaration that everyone had the right to “safe and nutritious food”. The United States continued to oppose the clause, again fearing it would leave them open to future legal claims by famine-stricken countries.
Along with petitioning American leaders to become decent human beings we should be trying to revive the population control movement. Birth rates must be radically curbed. All else being equal, a markedly reduced population count would have a markedly beneficial effect upon global warming and food and water availability (not to mention finding a parking spot and lots of other advantages). People, after all, are not eating more. There are simply more/too many people. Some favor limiting families to two children. Others argue in favor of one child per family. Still others, who spend a major part of each day digesting the awful news of the world, are calling for a limit of zero. (The Chinese government recently announced that the country would have about 400 million more people if it wasn’t for its limit of one or two children per couple.)
And as long as we’re fighting for hopeless causes, let’s throw in the demand that corporations involved in driving the cost of oil through the roof — and dragging food costs with it — must either immediately exhibit a conspicuous social conscience or risk being nationalized, their executives taken away in orange jumpsuits, handcuffs, and leg shackles. The same for other corporations and politicians involved in championing the replacement of food crops with biofuel crops or exploiting any of the other steps along the food-chain system which puts bloated income ahead of putting food in people’s mouths. We’re not speaking here of weather phenomena beyond the control of man, we’re speaking of men making decisions, based not on people’s needs but on pseudo-scientific, amoral mechanisms like supply and demand, commodity exchanges, grain futures, selling short, selling long, and other forms of speculation, all fed and multiplied by the proverbial herd mentality — a system governed by only two things: fear and greed; not a rational way to feed a world of human beings.
The Wall Street Journal reports that grain-processing giant Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. said its quarterly profits “jumped 42%, including a sevenfold increase in net income in its unit that stores, transports and trades grains such as wheat, corn and soybeans. … Some observers think financial speculation has helped push up prices as wealthy investors in the past year have flooded the agriculture commodity markets in search of better returns.” At the same time, the French Agriculture Minister warned European Union officials against “too much trust in the free market. We must not leave the vital issue of feeding people to the mercy of market laws and international speculation.”
It should be noted that the price of gasoline in the United States increases on a regular basis, but there’s no shortage of supply. There are no lines of cars waiting at gas stations. And demand has been falling as financially-strapped drivers cut back on car use.
By William Blum
www.killinghope.org
5/1/08
Since I gave up hope, I feel better.
“More than any time in history, mankind now faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”
– Woody Allen
Food riots, in dozens of countries, in the 21st century. Is this what we envisioned during the post-World War Two, moon-landing 20th century as humankind’s glorious future? It’s not the end of the world, but you can almost see it from here.
American writer Henry Miller (1891-1980) once asserted that the role of the artist was to “inoculate the world with disillusionment”. So just in case you — for whatever weird reason — cling to the belief/hope that the United States can be a positive force in ending or slowing down the new jump in world hunger, here are some disillusioning facts of life.
On December 14, 1981 a resolution was proposed in the United Nations General Assembly which declared that “education, work, health care, proper nourishment, national development are human rights”. Notice the “proper nourishment”. The resolution was approved by a vote of 135-1. The United States cast the only “No” vote.
A year later, December 18, 1982, an identical resolution was proposed in the General Assembly. It was approved by a vote of 131-1. The United States cast the only “No” vote.
The following year, December 16, 1983, the resolution was again put forth, a common practice at the United Nations. This time it was approved by a vote of 132-1. There’s no need to tell you who cast the sole “No” vote.
These votes took place under the Reagan administration.
Under the Clinton administration, in 1996, a United Nations-sponsored World Food Summit affirmed the “right of everyone to have access to safe and nutritious food”. The United States took issue with this, insisting that it does not recognize a “right to food”. Washington instead championed free trade as the key to ending the poverty at the root of hunger, and expressed fears that recognition of a “right to food” could lead to lawsuits from poor nations seeking aid and special trade provisions.
The situation of course did not improve under the administration of George W. Bush. In 2002, in Rome, world leaders at another U.N.-sponsored World Food Summit again approved a declaration that everyone had the right to “safe and nutritious food”. The United States continued to oppose the clause, again fearing it would leave them open to future legal claims by famine-stricken countries.
Along with petitioning American leaders to become decent human beings we should be trying to revive the population control movement. Birth rates must be radically curbed. All else being equal, a markedly reduced population count would have a markedly beneficial effect upon global warming and food and water availability (not to mention finding a parking spot and lots of other advantages). People, after all, are not eating more. There are simply more/too many people. Some favor limiting families to two children. Others argue in favor of one child per family. Still others, who spend a major part of each day digesting the awful news of the world, are calling for a limit of zero. (The Chinese government recently announced that the country would have about 400 million more people if it wasn’t for its limit of one or two children per couple.)
And as long as we’re fighting for hopeless causes, let’s throw in the demand that corporations involved in driving the cost of oil through the roof — and dragging food costs with it — must either immediately exhibit a conspicuous social conscience or risk being nationalized, their executives taken away in orange jumpsuits, handcuffs, and leg shackles. The same for other corporations and politicians involved in championing the replacement of food crops with biofuel crops or exploiting any of the other steps along the food-chain system which puts bloated income ahead of putting food in people’s mouths. We’re not speaking here of weather phenomena beyond the control of man, we’re speaking of men making decisions, based not on people’s needs but on pseudo-scientific, amoral mechanisms like supply and demand, commodity exchanges, grain futures, selling short, selling long, and other forms of speculation, all fed and multiplied by the proverbial herd mentality — a system governed by only two things: fear and greed; not a rational way to feed a world of human beings.
The Wall Street Journal reports that grain-processing giant Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. said its quarterly profits “jumped 42%, including a sevenfold increase in net income in its unit that stores, transports and trades grains such as wheat, corn and soybeans. … Some observers think financial speculation has helped push up prices as wealthy investors in the past year have flooded the agriculture commodity markets in search of better returns.” At the same time, the French Agriculture Minister warned European Union officials against “too much trust in the free market. We must not leave the vital issue of feeding people to the mercy of market laws and international speculation.”
It should be noted that the price of gasoline in the United States increases on a regular basis, but there’s no shortage of supply. There are no lines of cars waiting at gas stations. And demand has been falling as financially-strapped drivers cut back on car use.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Healing
Healing
Corruption
Corruption in the Senate
Compassion
Compassion
Raise the Minimum Wage
Capitolism
Hypocrits
Are these Your Heros?
National shame
Farouk Al Nasser
Farouk Al Nasser at NCCPJ
Victor Calle
At NCCP April 2008
Gore Vidal and Floyd Morrow
April Fundraiser in San Diego
Tanja and Cindy Sheehan
Fund raiser for Cindy April 2008
CITN
The Citizens' Internet Television Network
CITRad
The Citizens' Internet Radio Network
Save America
Save America
Fighting
Fighting
Believe
Believe
We Are All One
We Are All One
Secular Humanism
Secular Humanism
Change the System
Change the System
A Lie Does Not Become the Truth
A lie does not become the truth
Coexist
Coexist
Bankers
Bankers
Fetus Rights
Fetus Rights
The Earth Was Created
The Earth Was Created
Lessons
Lessons