On February 25, 2013, the Executive Board of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO
unanimously endorsed HR 676, Expanded and Improved Medicare for All, the
national single payer legislation recently reintroduced into Congress by
Rep. John Conyers, Jr. (D. MI).

George Nee, President of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO stated, “Year after
year America continues to spend more and get less in return for our broken
health care system, something must be done. The Rhode Island AFL-CIO
strongly supports single-payer national health care as a way to insure all
Americans, cut wasteful spending out of our health care system, and
contain costs in a system where prices are spinning out of control. All
Americans should have access to high quality affordable health care, that
does not jeopardize the financial or physical well-being of themselves,
their families, or the companies they work for.”

The vote followed a presentation on single payer health care by J. Mark
Ryan, MD, FACP, President of the state chapter of Physicians for a
National Health Program (PNHP). Dr. Ryan is an internist in Providence
where he provides primary care at the University Medicine Foundation. “I
was very impressed at how knowledgeable the Executive Board members were
about HR 676 and the benefits of single payer national health care,” Dr.
Ryan told the All Unions Committee.

The Rhode Island AFL-CIO is the umbrella organization for more than 250
local unions which represent over 80,000 working men and women across the
state. The story on the RI AFL-CIO website is here:
http://riaflcio.org/story/rhode-island-afl-cio-executive-board-adopts-resolutions

HR 676 would institute a single payer health care system by expanding a
greatly improved Medicare to everyone residing in the U. S.

HR 676 would cover every person for all necessary medical care including
prescription drugs, hospital, surgical, outpatient services, primary and
preventive care, emergency services, dental (including oral surgery,
periodontics, endodontics), mental health, home health, physical therapy,
rehabilitation (including for substance abuse), vision care and
correction, hearing services including hearing aids, chiropractic, durable
medical equipment, palliative care, podiatric care, and long term care.

HR 676 ends deductibles and co-payments. HR 676 would save hundreds of
billions annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the
private health insurance industry and HMOs.

In the current 113th Congress, HR 676 has 41 co-sponsors in addition to
Conyers.

HR 676 has been endorsed by 598 union organizations including 144 Central
Labor Councils/Area Labor Federations and 41 state AFL-CIO’s (KY, PA, CT,
OH, DE, ND, WA, SC, WY, VT, FL, WI, WV, SD, NC, MO, MN, ME, AR, MD-DC, TX,
IA, AZ, TN, OR, GA, OK, KS, CO, IN, AL, CA, AK, MI, MT, NE, NJ, NY, NV,
MA, & RI).

For further information, a list of union endorsers, or a sample
endorsement resolution, contact:

Kay Tillow
All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care–HR 676
c/o Nurses Professional Organization (NPO)
1169 Eastern Parkway, Suite 2218
Louisville, KY 40217
(502) 636 1551
Email: nursenpo@aol.com
http://unionsforsinglepayer.org
3/17/2013

by A. Shaw

The bourgeoisie and the bourgeois media argue that that the current Venezuelan Government is not a democracy because the government doesn’t respect the principle of rule of law, a principle that is fundamental to all democracies. The capitalist forces point to Article 233 of the Constitution as an instance of proletarian and revolutionary disregard for the rule of law.

The bourgeois media in Venezuela as well as abroad argue that, under Article 233 of the Venezuelan Constitution, the chair of the National Assembly, not the vice president of the country, becomes acting president for the 30-day period that precede the election of a new president to replace the old president who is permanently unavailable to serve as president.

Since D.Cabello chairs the National Assembly, reactionaries insist that Cabello, not former vice president N. Maduro, should be the acting president of Venezuela until a new president is elected in 30 days.

There is no question that the second paragraph of Article 233 says something like this. Here’s how the second paragraph of 233 puts it “When an elected President becomes permanently unavailable to serve prior to his inauguration, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days. Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the President of the National Assembly shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.”

Unquestionably, the death of a president is a permanent unavailability to serve. Hugo Chavez died on March 5 before his inauguration. Indeed, Chavez was never inaugurated for the current constitutional term of office — Jan. 2013 to Jan 2019. So, it seems that the second paragraph of Article 233 supplies some support for the view of the bourgeoisie.

The revolutionary proletariat and the mass of the proletarian media that has addressed the question point to the third paragraph of Art. 233 which says “When the President of the Republic becomes permanently unavailable to serve during the first four years of this constitutional term of office, a new election by universal suffrage and direct ballot shall be held within 30 consecutive days. Pending election and inauguration of the new President, the Executive-Vice President shall take charge of the Presidency of the Republic.”

So, the second paragraph of the article says the chair of the National Assembly becomes acting president when the the president-elect becomes permanently disabled before inauguration. The third paragraph of the article says, on the other hand, that the vice president becomes acting president if the president becomes permanently unavailable during the first four years of his constitutional term.

In another article, the Constitution mentions Jan. 10 of the first year of the constitutional term of president as BOTH a possible date for an presidential inauguration and as the date on which the first year of the constitutional term begins whether or not an inauguration occurs..

This suggests a reason for some of the confusion over Article 233. Hugo Chavez became permanently unavailable to serve BOTH before his inauguration and during the first four years of his constitutional term of office. So, both the second and third paragraphs of 233 are applicable to Chavez’s succession.

This situation can’t require the appointment of two acting presidents — that is, the appointment of the chair of the National Assembly due the absence of an inauguration and the appointment of the vice president due to the presence of the first four years of the constitutional term. The idea of appointing two acting presidents for a period of 30 days is ridiculous. Since both second and third paragraphs are applicable.

Thus, either paragraph can be applied.

The National Assembly and supreme court had to choose between the second and third paragraphs of 233. Both the Assembly and the Court chose the third paragraph and picked the vice president for acting president.

By Arthur Shaw

Article 229 of the Venezuelan Constitution says “A person holding the office of Executive Vice-President, Minister or Governor, or Mayor as of the date he announces his candidacy or at any time between such date and that of the Presidential election shall not be eligible for election to the office of President of the Republic.”

So, the Constitution disqualifies the holders of four offices — e.g., VP, minister, governor, and mayor — as presidential candidates.

The two major candidates are Nicolas Maduro, the socialist candidate, and Henrique Capriles, the capitalist candidate. There will be six other candidates on the ballot. But the other six candidates don’t have a ghost of a chance of winning on April 14.

Maduro, the proletarian candidate, holds the office of acting president since March 8th this year. He was sworn in as acting president three days after the death of President Hugo Chavez. Earlier Maduro served as executive vice president, one of the four offices that Art. 229 prohibits. Clearly, as a sitting VP, Maduro would have been disqualified under Art. 229 to run for president unless he stepped down before he announced.

Capriles, the bourgeois candidate, holds the office of governor of the state of Miranda. During the race between Capriles and Hugo Chavez for the office of president in 2012, Capriles, who was then governor of Miranda, temporarily stepped down and reassumed the office of governor of Miranda after his defeat by Hugo Chavez on Oct. 7, 2012.

Now, Capriles is hinting and acting as if he will refuse to step down as governor of the state of Miranda before the period beginning with the announcement of his candidacy for president and the April 14 presidential election. April 1 and 2 have been set for the dates of announcement for Capriles and Maduro respectively. So, Capriles may announce his candidacy as a deliberately unqualified candidate, provoking a constitutional crisis designed to de-legitimise succession.

A number of outlets of the bourgeois media in Venezuela and abroad argue that Maduro is disqualified because he is still the VP, a prohibited office under Art. 229. and because he will remain VP until another president is elected on April 14. This is of course the kind of crackpot argument that excites and attracts the bourgeois media.

Most of the opinion polls show Capriles presently about 13 points behind Maduro. The opinion polls have credibility because they correctly picked who would win the Oct. 7 presidential race between Capriles and Chavez and these polls correctly guessed the margin by which Capriles would lose to Chavez. In addition, these polls largely foresaw the outcome of the Dec. 2012 regional elections of 23 governor seats.

So, Capriles may figure he has nothing to lose by contriving his own disqualification as a candidate.

Neither the world bourgeoisie nor the mass of the bourgeois media abroad supported the 2005 lunatic idea of the Venezuelan capitalists demanding the boycotting of the 2005 legislative elections in order to de-legitimise Venezuelan democracy. Almost everybody, including the international bourgeoisie and its media, thought in 2005 that the boycotting Venezuelan capitalists were a bunch of fools after they adopted lunatic tactics.

Some observers believe Capriles is only playing around with self-disqualification in order to appease the kooks in the bourgeois-led coalition which supports Capriles. If this is the case, the kooks may be very upset if Capriles steps down as governor before he announces for president on April 1.

By Darrell Rankin, People’s Voice, March 16, 2013
http://www.peoplesvoice.ca/

Hundreds of delegates are expected to attend the Canadian Labour Congress’s largest-ever political action conference, which will plan how to defeat the Harper government, March 22-24 in Toronto.

The most highly managed conference will produce a life of its own when a government is ripping a country apart and selling it part by part. The Communist Party has called for a broad, political action conference for many years, and it is important that the most be made of it.

The conference’s success will be measured by how it organizes the fight, especially before the election, not just during the short stampede to the polls called the campaign period.

On the positive side, there is a focus on key issues like labour rights (the attack on the Rand formula and the closed shop), the Aboriginal question in the labour movement, creating industrial jobs, equality of women, child care, privatization, and green energy.

Some focus is on rebuilding once-vibrant coalitions, like those that thrived in the 1980s fighting against free trade and for nuclear disarmament. The new coalitions need to include those entering political life today, activists fighting for Aboriginal rights and the environment, students against tuition hikes, the Occupy movement.

Many CLC affiliates already have their separate campaigns targeting the Harper Tories. The problem for the CLC and this conference is to send a message: Bring these efforts together! Unite, locally and across Canada.

Local and regional coalitions will be a basis for strong Canada-wide coalitions; these played an important part defeating the Mulroney-Campbell Tories in 1993, and they are needed now.

There are difficulties. The agenda is heavy on workshops like working with media. No time is available for different movement caucuses to meet. The agenda has little or nothing for anti-war, environmental or anti-free trade movements, all historically connected to the labour movement. The lack of travel equalization, income-related fees, or billets makes it expensive for many activists outside Toronto.

The main thing, though, is that the conference is taking place. When hundreds of people start to talk, they can produce the sparks that will push the Tories to defeat. All popular movements in Canada need the active involvement of the labour movement as never before.

It will be hard to match the send-off to the Mulroney-Campbell government in 1993, when the CLC helped rally 100,000 people on Parliament Hill, through the anti-free trade Pro-Canada Network. Such rallies can and should take place again, this fall and before the election.

The Harper government is carrying out a vicious attack on the labour movement and workers as a whole. The time has come for more thought about stronger measures in the fightback, including work stoppages which are now common in many European and Asian countries.

The attack begs for political strikes in reply, even at a time when the economic struggle expressed by strikes or lockouts remains at historically low levels in Canada.

In 1988, the CLC targeted 50 Tory MPs for defeat in one of the Canada’s most important elections dealing with Canada-U.S. Free Trade. The next election is equally important. If the CLC will carry out a similar campaign next election, groups need to sign-up at the conference and get to work. Time is short.

There is no shortage of political action to take against the narrow, utterly selfish Harper Tory agenda which is leading us to disaster. Developing and mobilizing for a broad, emancipatory alternative, the CLC can help defeat Toryism and its big business agenda. If it’s done well, the defeat will last forever.

Darrell Rankin represented the Canadian Peace Alliance at the Pro-Canada Network, the Action Canada Network and the Solidarity Network. A short version of this is in People’s Voice, March 16, 2013.

Info: Darrell Rankin (204) 792-3371

This month a group of socialist and republican activists from a variety of backgrounds throughout Ireland came together in Dublin to establish the Peadar O’Donnell Socialist Republican Forum. The concept of the forum arose from a series of seminars that in turn had their origin in a symposium on “Republicanism in the Twenty-First Century” hosted by the Communist Party in September last year.

The aim of the forum is to promote the ideas of socialist republicanism, as best expressed by James Connolly, Liam Mellows, and Peadar O’Donnell. The forum is named after Peadar O’Donnell in recognition of his outstanding role as a union organiser, republican soldier, author, enemy of fascism, friend of the worker and small farmer, committed socialist, and lifelong activist for peace and against imperialism.

At a time when our people are being ground down daily by the brutalities of the bankrupt capitalist system and the inability of the two failed states in Ireland to provide any solution to their problems, the Peadar O’Donnell Forum believes that the time has come for a decisive break with the present system—or, as Connolly so memorably put it, to set about the reconquest of Ireland.

All Ireland is under the domination of global capitalism and imperialism, which exercises its control through the machinery of the European Union and IMF, the direct intervention of the British state, and overt and covert US influence. This control is exercised at every level and in every area of life—economically, socially, politically, ideologically, culturally, and environmentally—and is welcomed, endorsed and facilitated by the domestic capitalist class, north and south, who have long ago given up any thought of creating a society
that would “cherish all the children of the nation equally.”

Our children emigrate in their tens of thousands, while their parents labour ever-longer hours for lower wages—not to maintain jobs, health, education and essential social services for the people but to sacrifice those to further bolster the obscene wealth and protect the super-profits of global finance capital, the source and cause of the crisis.

The Peadar O’Donnell Forum believes that ways and means must be found to challenge this reality, to devise and develop campaigns and policies that take account of all these factors and that mobilise the people to take control of their own destiny and bypass corrupt politicians and the failed systems that they represent and to set about building a 32-county
socialist republic.

Towards this end, the forum has set itself the initial task of organising a number of seminars around the country, which can provide an opportunity for those who subscribe to the principles of the forum to come together and discuss the application of socialist republican ideas to the problems that confront us. It is also intended to publish the papers from the original seminars.

Support for these ventures is sought from all those who subscribe to the principles underpinning the forum and those that reflect the debates and discussion that have
taken place:

• active opposition to the rule of imperialism in Ireland, whether exercised through the diktats of the European Union and IMF over Dáil Éireann and through the British state and its client assembly in Belfast;

• support for the maintenance and protection of Irish neutrality, and solidarity with all those struggling against imperialism for peace, independence, and social progress;

• recognition of the essentially anti capitalist nature of our struggle: capitalism cannot and will not solve our problems;

• understanding that change can be brought about only by people themselves, in the first place by actively defending their immediate interests but more importantly by confronting and defeating this system and the forces and structures that defend it;

• accepting that, in the conditions existing in Ireland today, there is no place for militarism or the use of armed force and that the continued recourse to violence is harmful to the development and furthering of mass politics, playing into the hands of those who are
opposed to Irish independence and unity;

• believing that our vision of a united socialist Ireland can be brought about only by the unity in action of the people, north and south, Catholic, Protestant, and Dissenter; this necessitates active opposition to all forms of sectarianism and racism and the promotion of equality at all levels of society;

• recognition of the centrally important role of the trade union movement, uniting as it does within its ranks half a million workers of all religions and none, north and south, in public and in private sector employment; it must be won for active resistance to the current austerity and a return to the radical policies of Connolly and Larkin.

Finally, we strongly affirm our belief that the unity we seek is fundamentally a unity of the people and not merely the territorial integrity of the island.

Contacts
Tommy Mc Kearney 087 239 0750
Hugh Corcoran 0044 77 06391 728 (Belfast)
Eugene Mc Cartan 087 7525051

Here is a link to the movie “The revolution will not be televised”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Id–ZFtjR5c

By William Blum – Published March 11th, 2013
bblum6@aol.com

Hugo Chávez

I once wrote about Chilean president Salvador Allende:

Washington knows no heresy in the Third World but genuine independence. In the case of Salvador Allende independence came clothed in an especially provocative costume – a Marxist constitutionally elected who continued to honor the constitution. This would not do. It shook the very foundation stones upon which the anti-communist tower is built: the doctrine, painstakingly cultivated for decades, that “communists” can take power only through force and deception, that they can retain that power only through terrorizing and brainwashing the population. There could be only one thing worse than a Marxist in power – an elected Marxist in power.

There was no one in the entire universe that those who own and run “United States, Inc.” wanted to see dead more than Hugo Chávez. He was worse than Allende. Worse than Fidel Castro. Worse than any world leader not in the American camp because he spoke out in the most forceful terms about US imperialism and its cruelty. Repeatedly. Constantly. Saying things that heads of state are not supposed to say. At the United Nations, on a shockingly personal level about George W. Bush. All over Latin America, as he organized the region into anti-US-Empire blocs.

Long-term readers of this report know that I’m not much of a knee-reflex conspiracy theorist. But when someone like Chávez dies at the young age of 58 I have to wonder about the circumstances. Unremitting cancer, intractable respiratory infections, massive heart attack, one after the other … It is well known that during the Cold War, the CIA worked diligently to develop substances that could kill without leaving a trace. I would like to see the Venezuelan government pursue every avenue of investigation in having an autopsy performed.

Back in December 2011, Chávez, already under treatment for cancer, wondered out loud: “Would it be so strange that they’ve invented the technology to spread cancer and we won’t know about it for 50 years?” The Venezuelan president was speaking one day after Argentina’s leftist president, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, announced she had been diagnosed with thyroid cancer. This was after three other prominent leftist Latin America leaders had been diagnosed with cancer: Brazil’s president, Dilma Rousseff; Paraguay’s Fernando Lugo; and the former Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

“Evo take care of yourself. Correa, be careful. We just don’t know,” Chávez said, referring to Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa, the president of Ecuador, both leading leftists.

Chávez said he had received words of warning from Fidel Castro, himself the target of hundreds of failed and often bizarre CIA assassination plots. “Fidel always told me: ‘Chávez take care. These people have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat … a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what.” 1

When Vice President Nicolas Maduro suggested possible American involvement in Chávez’s death, the US State Department called the allegation absurd. 2

Several progressive US organizations have filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the CIA, asking for “any information regarding or plans to poison or otherwise assassinate the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, who has just died.”

I personally believe that Hugo Chávez was murdered by the United States. If his illness and death were NOT induced, the CIA – which has attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders, many successfully 3 – was not doing its job.

When Fidel Castro became ill several years ago, the American mainstream media was unrelenting in its conjecture about whether the Cuban socialist system could survive his death. The same speculation exists now in regard to Venezuela. The Yankee mind can’t believe that large masses of people can turn away from capitalism when shown a good alternative. It could only be the result of a dictator manipulating the public; all resting on one man whose death would mark finis to the process.

It’s the end of the world … again

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) recent convention in Washington produced the usual Doomsday talk concerning Iran’s imminent possession of nuclear weapons and with calls to bomb that country before they nuked Israel and/or the United States. So once again I have to remind everyone that these people – Israeli and American officials – are not really worried about an Iranian attack. Here are some of their many prior statements:

In 2007, in a closed discussion, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that in her opinion “Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel.” She “also criticized the exaggerated use that [Israeli] Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears.” 4

2009: “A senior Israeli official in Washington”, reported the Washington Post (March 5), asserted that “Iran would be unlikely to use its missiles in an attack [against Israel] because of the certainty of retaliation.”

In 2010 the Sunday Times of London (January 10) reported that Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam, war hero, pillar of the Israeli defense establishment, and former director-general of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission, “believes it will probably take Iran seven years to make nuclear weapons.”

January 2012: US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told a television audience: “Are they [Iran] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No, but we know that they’re trying to develop a nuclear capability.” 5

Later that month we could read in the New York Times (January 15) that “three leading Israeli security experts – the Mossad chief, Tamir Pardo, a former Mossad chief, Efraim Halevy, and a former military chief of staff, Dan Halutz – all recently declared that a nuclear Iran would not pose an existential threat to Israel.”

Then, a few days afterward, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, in an interview with Israeli Army Radio (January 18), had this exchange:

Question: Is it Israel’s judgment that Iran has not yet decided to turn its nuclear potential into weapons of mass destruction?

Barak: People ask whether Iran is determined to break out from the control [inspection] regime right now … in an attempt to obtain nuclear weapons or an operable installation as quickly as possible. Apparently that is not the case.

In an April 20, 2012 CNN interview Barak repeated this sentiment: “It’s true that probably [Iranian leader] Khamenei has not given orders to start building a [nuclear] weapon.” 6

And on several other occasions, Barak has stated: “Iran does not constitute an existential threat against Israel.” 7

Lastly, we have the US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, in a January 2012 report to Congress: “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.” … There are “certain things [the Iranians] have not done” that would be necessary to build a warhead. 8

So why, then, do Israeli and American leaders, at most other times, maintain the Doomsday rhetoric? Partly for AIPAC to continue getting large donations. For Israel to get massive amounts of US aid. For Israeli leaders to win elections. To protect Israel’s treasured status as the Middle East’s sole nuclear power.

Listen to Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at America’s most prominent neo-con think tank, American Enterprise Institute:

The biggest problem for the United States is not Iran getting a nuclear weapon and testing it, it’s Iran getting a nuclear weapon and not using it. Because the second that they have one and they don’t do anything bad, all of the naysayers are going to come back and say, “See, we told you Iran is a responsible power. We told you Iran wasn’t getting nuclear weapons in order to use them immediately.” … And they will eventually define Iran with nuclear weapons as not a problem. 9

Osama bin Laden, Bradley Manning, & William Blum

Bradley Manning has the charge of “Aiding the enemy” hanging over his head. This could lead to a sentence of life in prison. As far as can be deduced, the government believes that the documents and videos that Manning gave to Wikileaks, which Wikileaks then widely distributed to international media, aided the enemy because it put US foreign policy in a very bad light.

Manning’s attorneys have asked the prosecution more than once for specific examples of how “the enemy” (whoever that may refer to in a world full of people bitterly angry at the United States because of any of many terrible acts carried out by the US government) has been “aided” by the Wikileaks disclosures. Just how has the enemy made use of the released material to harm the United States? The government has not provided any such examples, probably because what really bothers Washington officials is the embarrassment they have experienced before the world resulting from the documents and videos; which indeed are highly embarrassing even to genuine war criminals; filled with violations of international law, atrocities, multiple lies to everyone, revelations of gross hypocrisy, and much more.

So our splendid officials are considering putting Bradley Manning in prison forever simply because they’re embarrassed. Hard to find much fault with that.

But now the prosecutors have announced that a Navy Seal involved in the killing of Osama bin Laden is going to testify at the court martial that bin Laden possessed articles about the Wikileaks documents that Manning leaked. Well, there must be a hundred million other people in the world who have similar material on their computers. The question remains: What use did the enemy make of that?

The Iraqi government made use of the material, inducing them to refuse immunity to US troops for crimes committed in Iraq, such as the cold-blooded murders revealed by the Wilileaks videos; this in turn led the US to announce that it was ending its military engagement in Iraq. However, Manning was indicted in May 2010, well before the Iraqi decision to end the immunity.

In January, 2006 bin Laden, in an audio tape, declared: “If Bush decides to carry on with his lies and oppression, then it would be useful for you to read the book ‘Rogue State’ [by William Blum], which states in its introduction … ” He then went on to quote the opening of a paragraph I wrote (which appears actually in the Foreword of the British edition only, that was later translated to Arabic), which in full reads:

“If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize – very publicly and very sincerely – to all the widows and the orphans, the impoverished and the tortured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. I would then announce that America’s global interventions – including the awful bombings – have come to an end. And I would inform Israel that it is no longer the 51st state of the union but – oddly enough – a foreign country. I would then reduce the military budget by at least 90% and use the savings to pay reparations to the victims and repair the damage from the many American bombings and invasions. There would be more than enough money. Do you know what one year of the US military budget is equal to? One year. It’s equal to more than $20,000 per hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born.

“That’s what I’d do on my first three days in the White House. On the fourth day, I’d be assassinated.”

Thus, Osama bin Laden was clearly making use of what I wrote, and the whole world heard it. And I was thus clearly “aiding the enemy”. But I was not prosecuted.

The United States would like to prove a direct use and benefit by “the enemy” of the material released by Wikileaks; but so far it appears that only possession might be proven. In my case the use, and presumed propaganda benefit, were demonstrated. The fact that I wrote the material, as opposed to “stealing” it, is irrelevant to the issue of aiding the enemy. I knew, or should have known, that my criticisms of US foreign policy could be used by the foes of those policies. Indeed, that’s why I write what I do. To provide ammunition to anti-war and other activists.

The Department of Justice and socialism
For many years when I’ve been asked to explain just what I mean by “socialism” I’ve usually replied simply: “Putting people before profits”. There are a thousand-and-one details that would have to be considered in a transformation from a capitalist society to a socialist society, but rather than going into all that it’s much simpler to leave it with just that motto, which expresses theessence of my socialist society. In any event, in that glorious future world things will evolve in ways that could not be wholly predicted. The structure could take any one of many forms, but the essence must remain the same if it’s going to be called socialist.

Thus was I both surprised and amused in reading a news article about the current trial in New Orleans which is attempting to determine, amongst other things, the extent of blame of various companies, particularly BP, involved in the 2010 historic accident which took the lives of 11 workers and dumped an estimated 172 million gallons of crude oil in the Gulf of Mexico. The US Justice Department attorney declared in his opening statement: “The evidence will show that BP put profits before people, profits before safety and profits before the environment.” 10

Well, imagine that. The Justice Department certainly captured the essence of corporate behavior. The attorney chose such words because he knew that the sentiments expressed would appeal to the average American sitting on a jury. The members of the jury would understand that BP had blatantly ignored and violated certain cherished ideals like people, safety and the environment. Prosecuting the corporation would sound fair and just to them.

Yet, when someone like me expresses such sentiments – and I have used the exact same words on occasion – I run the risk of being written off as an “extremist”, a “radical”, and other bad-for-you labels; not long ago it was “commie”.

The irony runs even deeper. If a corporation flagrantly ignores putting profits before everything else, stockholders can sue the executives.

This just in! The real reason the Pope resigned!
He’s losing his mind.

In January, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta met with Pope Benedict XVI to receive his blessing. Afterward, Panetta said the pontiff told him, “Thank you for helping to keep the world safe.” 11

The precious art of assassinating legally

Obama hopeium addicts can soon be expected to call for support of the president’s increasing use of drones for assassination on the ground of their being good for the environment. My White House agent informs me that Obama is going to announce that all American drones will soon be composed 85% of recyclable material and will be solar-powered. And each drone missile will have the following painted on its side: “He was a bad guy. Just take our word for it!”