Hungary’s deputy prime minister, Tibor Navracsics, speaking at a conference in Budapest in early October, acknowledged his country’s responsibility for the Holocaust in Hungary. (Babette Rittmeyer/Lantos Foundation)
WASHINGTON (JTA) — Armed with a powerful New York public relations outfit and a pledge to commemorate the mass deportation of Hungarian Jewry, the Hungarian government is preparing to challenge what it says is an inaccurate image of a country lax in confronting home-grown extremism.
Ferenc Kumin, an adviser to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban who handles international communications, reached out to JTA last week to counter what he says are unfair perceptions of his government’s treatment of Jews and other minorities.
“In the American public discourse, there is a lot of talking of anti-Semitism and racism in Hungary and the connected concerns,” Kumin said in an interview. “We try to bring a realistic picture. We don’t want to say it’s not there. But in certain accounts this issue is exaggerated.”
Kumin’s outreach is part of an intense effort over the last month to push back against perceptions that Hungary has failed to address the rise of anti-Semitism — particularly the emergence of the extremist Jobbik party, which controls 47 of 486 seats in the parliament.
Deputy Prime Minister Tibor Navracsics told a conference on Jewish life and anti-Semitism in Budapest this month that it was time for Hungarians to accept their responsibility for their role in the Holocaust.
“We know that we were responsible for the Holocaust in Hungary,” he said. “We know that Hungarian state interests were responsible.”
Hungary also announced that 2014 would mark Holocaust Remembrance Year, 70 years after the deportation of at least 450,000 Hungarian Jews to the Nazi death camps. And on Monday, the government announced that it had hired Burston-Marsteller, a PR heavyweight based in New York, in part to reach out to the Jewish community.
But U.S. Jewish officials and Hungarian critics say the country’s issues with extremism run deeper and broader than its treatment of the Jews. Navracsic’s speech was a major step forward, they say, but it was just that — a step.
“The fact that he said clearly that we are responsible for the Holocaust here in Hungary was a powerful statement, but why was that dramatic?” wondered Rabbi Andrew Baker, the American Jewish Committee’s director of international affairs. “Most countries have come to recognize their responsibility.
“We need to keep those words in mind. But the question is will they rest as mere words, or do they become operational?”
Unlike Jobbik, Orban’s Fidesz party is not openly anti-Semitic. But in competing for voters, Baker said Fidesz flirts with themes that unsettle Hungary’s 100,000 Jews — for instance, reviving and honoring anti-Semitic figures associated with Miklos Horthy, the nationalist regent who ruled Hungary until 1944 and was allied for a time with the Nazis.
Michael Salberg, the Anti-Defamation League’s director of international affairs, praised Navracsic’s speech as “unambiguous” in its commitment to fight anti-Semitism, but added that the problem of extremism would not be excised simply by dealing with the Jewish issue.
“The real hard work is weaving this commitment into the social fabric, making it part of civil society’s commitment to improving democracy,” he said, noting that Hungary’s Roma minority continue to suffer discrimination and violent attacks. “What we see is a problem that goes beyond the Jewish community that needs to be addressed.”
Kumin said Jobbik and its anti-Semitism was marginal; Orban leads a coalition that controls 263 seats in parliament compared to Jobbik’s 47. And Kumin noted that Orban and his party have condemned every manifestation of anti-Semitism.
He acknowledged, however, that the image of Hungary as extremist was among the greatest obstacles to deepening ties with its most important ally, the United States, particularly as the country seeks new investment in its emergence from an economic crisis.
“We have to clarify these image problems,” Kumin said. “If we are able to do that, it can remain a well-functioning relationship.”
Judit Csaki, a Jewish critic of the Hungarian government, said its condemnations of anti-Semitism were mere theater designed to distract the world from laws being championed by Orban that weaken the constitutional courts and limit speech that threatens the “dignity” of the Hungarian nation.
The European Parliament has condemned the measures as anti-democratic, and the European Commission is considering legal action against the new laws.
“Their tactic is, as long as we are upset by the anti-Semitic comments made by Jobbik, at least we are not complaining about these attempts to criminalize the opposition,” Csaki said.
Andras Kovacs, who heads the Jewish Studies and Nationalism programs at Central European University in Budapest, said the government deserves credit for at least addressing the issue of anti-Semitism.
“The proportion of anti-Semitism in Hungary is higher than in other countries” in Europe, he said. “The declarations are there. Now let’s see what happens.”
The “shutdown” of the US government and the financial climax associated with a deadline date, leading to a possible “debt default” of the federal government is a money making undertaking for Wall Street.
A wave of speculative activity is sweeping major markets.
The uncertainty regarding the shutdown and “debt default” constitutes a golden opportunity for “institutional speculators”. Those who have reliable “inside information” regarding the complex outcome of the legislative process are slated to make billions of dollars in windfall gains.
Speculative Bonanza
Several overlapping political and economic agendas are unfolding. In a previous article, we examined the debt default saga in relation to the eventual privatization of important components of the federal State system.
While Wall Street exerts a decisive influence on policy and legislation pertaining to the government shutdown, these same major financial institutions also control the movement of currency markets, commodity and stock markets through large scale operations in derivative trade.
Most of the key actors in the US Congress and the Senate involved in the shutdown debate are controlled by powerful corporate lobby groups acting directly or indirectly on behalf of Wall Street. Major interests on Wall Street are not only in a position to influence the results of the Congressional process, they also have “inside information” or prior knowledge of the chronology and outcome of the government shutdown impasse.
They are slated to make billions of dollars in windfall profits in speculative activities which are “secure” assuming that they are in a position to exert their influence on relevant policy outcomes.
It should be noted, however, that there are important divisions both within the US Congress as well as within the financial establishment. The latter are marked by the confrontation and rivalry of major banking conglomerates.
These divisions will have an impact on speculative movements and counter movements in the stock, money and commodity markets. What we are dealing with is “financial warfare”. The latter is by no means limited to Wall Street, Chinese, Russian and Japanese financial institutions (among others) will also be involved in the speculative endgame.
Speculative movements based on inside information, therefore, could potentially go in different directions. What market outcomes are being sought by rival banking institutions? Having inside information on the actions of major banking competitors is an important element in the waging of major speculative operations.
Derivative Trade
The major instrument of “secure” speculative activity for these financial actors is derivative trade, with carefully formulated bets in the stock markets, major commodities –including gold and oil– as well as foreign exchange markets.
These major actors may know “where the market is going” because they are in a position to influence policies and legislation in the US Congress as well as manipulate market outcomes.
Moreover, Wall Street speculators also influence the broader public’s perception in the media, not to mention the actions of financial brokers of competing or lesser financial institutions which do not have foreknowledge or access to inside information.
These same financial actors are involved in the spread of “financial disinformation”, which often takes the form of media reports which contribute to either misleading the public or building a “consensus” among economists and financial analysts which will push markets in a particular direction.
Pointing to an inevitable decline of the US dollar, the media serves the interests of the institutional speculators in camouflaging what might happen in an environment characterized by financial manipulation and the interplay of speculative activity on a large scale.
Speculative trade routinely involves acts of deception. In recent weeks, the media has been flooded with “predictions” of various catastrophic economic events focusing on the collapse of the dollar, the development of a new reserve currency by the BRICS countries, etc.
At a recent conference hosted by the powerful Institute of International Finance (IIF), a Washington based think tank organization which represents the world’s most powerful banks and financial institutions:
“Three of the world’s most powerful bankers warned of terrible consequences if the United States defaults on its debt, with Deutsche Bank chief executive Anshu Jain claiming default would be “utterly catastrophic.”
This would be a very rapidly spreading, fatal disease, … I have no recommendations for this audience…about putting band aids on a gaping wound,” he said.
“JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon and Baudouin Prot, chairman of BNP Paribas, said a default would have dramatic consequences on the value of U.S. debt and the dollar, and likely would plunge the world into another recession.” (…)
Dimon and other top executives from major U.S. financial firms met with President Barack Obama and with lawmakers last week to urge them to deal with both issues.
On Saturday, Dimon said banks are already spending “huge amounts” of money preparing for the possibility of a default, which he said would threaten the global recovery after the 2007-2009 financial crisis.
Dimon also defended JPMorgan against critics who say the bank has become too big to manage. It has come under scrutiny from numerous regulators and on Friday reported its first quarterly loss since Dimon took over, due to more than $7 billion in legal expenses. (Emily Stephenson and Douwe Miedema, World top bankers warn of dire consequences if U.S. defaults | Reuters, October 12, 2013
What these “authoritative” economic assessments are intended to create is an aura of panic and economic uncertainty, pointing to the possibility of a collapse of the US dollar.
What is portrayed by the Institute of International Finance panelists (who are the leaders of the world’s largest banking conglomerates) is tantamount to an Economics 101 analysis of market adjustment, which casually excludes the known fact that markets are manipulated with the use of sophisticated derivative trading instruments. In a bitter irony, the IIF panelists are themselves involved in routinely twisting market values through derivative trade. Capitalism in the 21st century is no longer based largely on profits resulting from a real economy productive process, windfall financial gains are acquired through large scale speculative operations, without the occurrence of real economy activity. at the touch of a mouse button.
The manipulation of markets is carried out on the orders of major bank executives including the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas.
The “too big to fail banks” are portrayed, in the words of JPMorgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon’s, as the “victims” of the debt default crisis, when in fact they are the architects of economic chaos as well as the unspoken recipients of billions of dollars of stolen taxpayers’ money.
These corrupt mega banks are responsible for creating the “gaping wound” referred to by Deutsche Bank’s Anshu Jain in relaiton to the US public debt crisis.
Collapse of the Dollar?
Upward and downward movements of the US dollar in recent years have little do with normal market forces as claimed by the tenets of neoclassical economics.
Both JP Morgan Chase’s CEO Jamie Dimon and Deutsche Bank’s CEO Anshu Jain’s assertions provide a distorted understanding of the functioning of the US dollar market. The speculators want to convince us that the dollar will collapse as part of a normal market mechanism, without acknowledging that the “too big to fail” banks have the ability to trigger a decline in the US dollar which in a sense obviates the functioning of the normal market.
Wall Street has indeed the ability to “short” the greenback with a view to depressing its value. It has also has the ability through derivative trade of pushing the US dollar up. These up and down movements of the greenback are, so to speak, the “cannon feed” of financial warfare. Push the US dollar up and speculate on the upturn, push it down and speculate on the downturn.
It is impossible to assess the future movement of the US dollar by solely focusing on the interplay of “normal market” forces in response to the US public debt crisis.
While an assessment based on “normal market” forces indelibly points to structural weaknesses in the US dollar as a reserve currency, it does not follow that a weakened US dollar will necessarily decline in a forex market which is routinely subject to speculative manipulation.
Moreover, it is worth noting that the national currencies of several heavily indebted developing countries have increased in value in relation to the US dollar, largely as a result of the manipulation of the foreign exchange markets. Why would the national currencies of countries literally crippled by foreign debt go up against the US dollar?
The Institutional Speculator
JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank America, Citi-Group, Deutsche Bank et al: the strategy of the institutional speculators is to sit on their “inside information” and create uncertainty through heavily biased news reports, which are in turn used by individual stock brokers to advise their individual clients on “secure investments”. And that is how people across America have lost their savings.
It should be emphasized that these major financial actors not only control the media, they also control the debt rating agencies such as Moody’s and Standard and Poor.
According to the mainstay of neoclassical economics, speculative trade reflects the “normal” movement of markets. An absurd proposition.
Since the de facto repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act and the adoption of the Financial Services Modernization Act in 1999, market manipulation tends to completely overshadow the “laws of the market”, leading to a highly unstable multi-trillion dollar derivative debt, which inevitably has a bearing on the current impasse on Capitol Hill. This understanding is now acknowledged by sectors of mainstream financial analysis.
There is no such thing as “normal market movements”. The outcome of the government shutdown on financial markets cannot be narrowly predicted by applying conventional macro-economic analysis, which excludes outright the role of market manipulation and derivative trade.
The outcome of the government shutdown on major markets does not hinge upon “normal market forces” and their impacts on prices, interest rates and exchange rates. What has to be addressed is the complex interplay of “normal market forces” with a gamut of sophisticated instruments of market manipulation. The latter consist of an interplay of large scale speculative operations undertaken by the most powerful and corrupt financial institutions, with the intent to distorting “normal” market forces.
It is worth mentioning that immediately following the adoption of the Financial Services Modernization Act in 1999, the US Congress adopted the Commodity Futures Modernization Act 2000 (CFMA) which essentially “exempted commodity futures trading from regulatory oversight.”
Four major Wall Street financial institutions account for more than 90 percent of the so-called derivative exposure: J.P. Morgan Chase, Citi-Group, Bank America, and Goldman Sachs. These major banks exert a pervasive influence on the conduct of monetary policy, including the debate within the US Congress on the debt ceiling. They are also among the World’s largest speculators.
What is the speculative endgame behind the shutdown and debt default saga?
An aura of uncertainty prevails. People across America are impoverished as a result of the curtailment of “entitlements”, mass protest and civil unrest could erupt. Homeland Security (DHS) is the process of militarizing domestic law enforcement. In a bitter irony, each and all of these economic and social events including political statements and decisions in the US Congress concerning the debt ceiling, the evaluations of the rating agencies, etc. create opportunities for the speculator.
Major speculative operations –feeding on inside information and deception– are likely take place routinely over the next few months as the fiscal and debt default crisis unfolds.
What is diabolical in this process is that major banking conglomerates will not hesitate to destabilize stock, commodity and foreign exchange markets if it serves their interests, namely as a means to appropriate speculative gains resulting from a situation of turmoil and economic crisis, with no concern for the social plight of millions of Americans.
One solution –which is unlikely to be adopted unless there is a major power shift in American politics– would be to cancel the derivative debt altogether and freeze all derivative transactions on major markets. This would certainly help to tame the speculative onslaught.
The manipulation through derivative trade of the markets for basic food staples is particularly pernicious because it potentially creates hunger. It has a direct bearing on the livelihood of millions of people.
As we recall, “the price of food and other commodities began rising precipitately [in 2006], … Millions were cast below the poverty line and food riots erupted across the developing world, from Haiti to Mozambique.”
According to Indian economist Dr. Jayati Ghosh:
“It is now quite widely acknowledged that financial speculation was the major factor behind the sharp price rise of many primary commodities , including agricultural items over the past year [2011]… Even recent research from the World Bank (Bafis and Haniotis 2010) recognizes the role played by the “financialisation of commodities” in the price surges and declines, and notes that price variability has overwhelmed price trends for important commodities.” (Quoted in Speculation in Agricultural Commodities: Driving up the Price of Food Worldwide and plunging Millions into Hunger By Edward Miller, October 05, 2011)
The artificial hikes in the price of crude oil, which are also the result of market manipulation, have a pervasive impact on costs of production and transportation Worldwide, which in turn contribute to spearheading thousands of small and medium sized enterprises into bankruptcy.
Big Oil including BP as well Goldman Sachs exert a pervasive impact on the oil and energy markets.
The global economic crisis is a carefully engineered.
The end result of financial warfare is the appropriation of money wealth through speculative trade including the confiscation of savings, the outright appropriation of real economy assets as well as the destabilization of the institutions of the Federal State through the adoption of sweeping austerity measures.
The speculative onslaught led by Wall Street is not only impoverishing the American people, the entire World population is affected.
Michel Chossudovsky is an award-winning author, Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of Ottawa, Founder and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), Montreal and Editor of the globalresearch.ca website.
He is the author of The Globalization of Poverty and The New World Order (2003) and America’s “War on Terrorism”(2005).
His most recent book is entitled Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War (2011).
He is also a contributor to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. His writings have been published in more than twenty languages.
He can be reached at crgeditor@yahoo.com
http://drnikisahak.blogspot.de/2011/12/man-who-came-to-dinner-or-fck-you.html
The following is a chronicling of inmate M.O.’s entry into a now 16 years in Oregon’s various isolation units. Convicted of murder, he later assaulted a codefendant he claims wrongly pinned the blame on him and testified against M.O. in exchange for a reduced sentence. M.O. spent nine years in Oregon’s isolation units before being transferred to Oklahoma and New Mexico, where he has remained in solitary confinement. An earlier piece on his recent struggles with PTSD was published by Solitary Watch. –Sal Rodriguez
Exiled in Purgatory: Six in One Hand a Half Dozen in the Other
As I sat in my Black Box cell it wasn’t hard taking in the surroundings. There is a solid cement bunk. A ceramic sink that is encased in cement. A ceramic toilet encased in cement. The light is a bulb set into the wall with an opaque cover, which is in turn covered by a grill. It gives the cell a dark dim look. If you had a book you would hardly be able to read it. But you don’t. In the Black Box it is you and the voice in your head.
The first door is bars. Just a regular old cell front; but it extends another three feet to a second door. Solid, thick and sound proof. The guards shut it 24-7. They are supposed to do checks every 15 minutes but they don’t. You have no way to signal for help. No emergency call buttons. You’ll only see a guard when they open that door to give you a food tray. That’s when they’ll know if some ones dead, cut up or has some emergency.
I pace around my cell thinking about the assault on Dave. I don’t feel satisfied. A deep hate grows in me. A deep resentment. That feeling would continue to grow over the years, but the mustard seed of the incident with D is a root of it all. The Black Box becomes a comforting friend where I can talk to myself, reassure myself I did the right thing. Hate becomes an easy emotion. It can give you an energy, an outlet, a comfort. It is a blanket that wraps you warm in isolation.
By age 14 I was diagnosed with ADHD and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I was put in an inpatient Drug and Alcohol facility. By the time I had entered the military at 17 I had been in in-patient treatment centers twice and out-patient several times. One psychiatrist diagnosed me with “organic brain damage” before my murder trial. A term to this day I am not sure what it is. Nobody knew, or possibly didn’t care, that a person with a mental health background like mine could get worse by isolation. That is, in fact, what eventually did happen (but that’s my story to come).
After pacing back and forth in my cell (three steps forward, turn around, three steps back, turn around, repeat) I grew tired and thought of my girlfriend (who had just had my daughter only a few months before). I lay on my bunk and think about the last time I held her, made love to her. As the years went on even those memories fade and isolation holds only memories of other days of isolation.
I lay down to sleep. No sooner am I asleep than staff wake me up and tell me to “cuff up” I’m going out on an “emergency transport.” They hustle me to the intake area to put shackles on for the transport. As they are putting the shackles on the officer tells me if I “fucking move wrong” he’ll smash my head. He then brags to the other officers how the warden has got him off three prior excessive force allegations and is sure he’ll be beat the next one too.
As they walk me out to the van I am told I’m being transported to the Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP) with other “assholes.” OSCI wasn’t used to weapon assaults. Just gladiator fights. OSP didn’t care. The guards talk back and fourth. The excessive force bragger tells the other that next week he’s going to OSP’s hobby shop to have one of “the pieces of shit” make him a belt. The “pieces of shit” are the prisoners working in the hobby shop making leather goods. I know quickly guards see me as less than shit. My hate grows. I hate this guy’s voice, I hate the way he walks. I just hate. I picture smashing him in the face and smile to myself. Maybe even cut him up like D. Hate makes me smile.
The transport from OSCI to OSP is short. Just a few minutes across town. It’s late, after midnight. When we arrive at OP the guards there tell me they don’t have a cell open in Disciplinary Segregation right now so they had to put me in Special Management Unit (SMU) over the weekend. SMU is the isolation unit for the mentally ill. It is a fresh new Hell.
My experiences in SMU would fuel my hate, fertilize my contempt, and cut the last thread of sympathy I had.
Exiled in Purgatory: The Psych Ward
Within 24 hours of assaulting my codefendant I had gone from the Black Box Disciplinary isolation cell at OSCI to an after midnight transfer to the Psych Ward, better known as the Special Management Unit (SMU) at the Oregon State Penitentiary. The SMU was called Smoo (a pronunciation of the letters). If you were crazy you went to Smoo. I wasn’t in the unit for mental health needs but because OSP Disciplinary Segregation Unit (DSU) was full and didn’t have a cell available. As “overflow” I went to SMU.
You learn in prison that there is always a shortage of beds. In fact, it is one of the primary excuses prison administrators put forward in building new isolation units and ‘supermax’ facilities – the existing ones are full and they need more space for the new “hard core” felons who just can’t learn to behave…or so they argue. Isolation and the overall poor prison conditions are, in my opinion, the largest contributing factor in negative prisoner behavior.
In Smoo, it is a new kind of Hell. The cell is approximately 6½ feet long and 4½ feet wide. There is no place to walk or pace. You either stand at the door or window at the back of the cell or lay on your bunk. The toilet and sink are so close to the bed there are only inches from the bed. It is encased in cement. The prison loves encasing everything in cement. It is not sealed with a cement sealant. Lacking a sealant the cement has soaked up years of urine, feces, spit, puke, and whatever else finds its way to the cement thrown. The prison, every few years, paints the cement. It’s never cleaned, just painted over. Every time you squat over it you fear if your ass touches down it may not come back off.
I wasn’t given any blankets or pillow. Just two sheets and a mattress. The room has an old ancient heater. The window is covered with a thick metal screen which is open. Despite being mid-December and the window being open, I’m warm. For that I am grateful. I have no books or magazines, no other property, no hygiene (no toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, shampoo, etc.) It’s me, my two sheets, and time. I’m doing life, all I have is time.
I go back to my bunk and lift the mattress to put a sheet on it and it peels away like Velcro. The metal bunk is a “full restraint” bed used to restrain psychotic and suicidal prisoners. Usually they are left there for hours or days to urinate and defecate themselves. The bunk reeks of urine and looks as if the “yellow blob” is growing across it. I ask for cleaning supplies but in response the officer puts a piece of cardboard over my window – something I’d learn is routine when they don’t want to be bothered with things like sanitation or prisoner complaints. The cardboard would come off and on over the days following.
I lost track of time. I don’t know how long I was in that cell. No other prisoners were near me, empty cells on both sides. Across the hall was a female. I could hear her voice. Back then they brought the psychotic females to the Special Management Unit. She was yelling and screaming a lot talking incoherently at times. Sometimes a guard would talk to her, sometimes they just put cardboard over the window.
On one day she begins banging her head on the door. The cops rush her cell, strip her of all her clothing and four point strap her to the bed. One guard is on duty to watch her. Usually he sits in the office out of sight. This time he goes to her cell after all the other guards leave. I hear her talking in sexual tones, not to the guard but to “God,” she’s not praying, but telling God they want to fuck her in the ass. That they’re sinful. I look out my window and the guard has his hand in his pocket clearly masturbating.
I yell, “You sick fuck!” It scares him. He marches over to my door and without a word puts up the cardboard over my window. I go back to bed.
I’ve been isolated for days or weeks. You loose track of time in isolation. Some day’s fly by, others drag with no end. With no books I live in my mind. You loose track of time but in your mind reality blurs. I think of suicide. I have no voice. No one to hear my pain…
Exiled in Purgatory: The Walls
The walls. That is what they call the Oregon State Penitentiary (OSP). In less than 30 days I had gone from the assault on my codefendant, to the OSCI hole’s “Black Box,” to the OSP’s psych ward, to OSP’s hole. It was the beginning of a journey in isolation that would last for the next two decades.
I was in OSP’s old Disciplinary Segregation Unit (DSU). The walls, back then, was where hard cases were. This was my first time incarcerated. And I’d get “schooled” by the older cons, not the gladiators in the “kid camps.”
In the OSP hole there was both single and double cells. I was initially put in a double cell and given a cellie. During that time I met C, a guy only a few years older than me who had been down several ears and in the Intensive Management Unit (IMU), Oregon’s “supermax”. He would prepare me by explaining what to expect and how to cope with isolation.
Shortly after I got there C’s hole time was up and he went to general population. My next cellie wouldn’t prove to be so friendly and I grew tired of him within days which grew into open hostility. It was with him I learned how much fear a person can have if they believe they’ll be stabbed. I had a newly minted reputation of being a lifer with the willingness to hurt someone. That can have a lot of power in prison.
I didn’t know it then, but that reputation was a single brink in developing an “institutional personality”. In prison people often adopt and develop personalties, beliefs, and morals, such as the so-called “convict code,” that they never had prior to prison as a way to survive the hostile prison environment. More often than not prison administrators promote these attitudes. Being young and never having been incarcerated I was especially vulnerable to adopting institutional personality characteristics.
My new cellie constantly complained about paroling in three months and how his girlfriend is probably cheating on him. All the usual “short-timer” gripes. Serving a life sentence for a crime my codefendant committed, I wasn’t trying to hear some guy whine about a lousy three months in prison. I told him he had to get out of the cell or I’d end up stabbing him and he wouldn’t have to worry about parole.
In situations like this a prisoner would usually throw their tray on the tier and the cops would usually make them move to a single cell isolation cell for a disciplinary violation. Obviously throwing a tray is something the cops don’t like. The following morning after breakfast he takes his tray, throws it on the tier, and then crawls back into bed. When the cop comes by he tells me to pick the tray up and kicks it to my door. I tell him it’s not my tray so I’m not going to pick it up. He picks it up and moves on.
I berate my cellie as a coward, tell him he better stay up and claim the tray and get out. He assures me he will. Lunch comes, he throws the tray, and the cop, again, orders me to pick it up. When I refuse and tell him it’s not my tray he leaves. When he returns there are four guards with him. He asks what the problem is. My cellie tells him that it’s his tray. They order us both to back up and be handcuffed. We complied. At that point I’m thinking my cellie will be taken out. It never works out that way.
Rather than move my cellie they move me. The officer points at me and tells them to take me to the “Black Box”. One more time I find myself in the isolation of isolation. This time, however, it would last much longer than a few hours, and I’d be introduced to a New Hell called “Nutra Loaf.” But there are more vivid Hells ahead…
http://www.care2.com/causes/dispatches-from-the-war-on-women-american-nuns-hit-the-road.html
Welcome to Dispatches, your round-up of the latest news from the frontlines of the War on Women. Have a story from your state or an idea on how to push back? Share them here and fight back against the War on Women.
The American nuns deserve a whole lot of credit here. First they find themselves the target of attacks by the Vatican over their doctrinal fidelity and divided loyalties–the nuns spend most of their time on social justice issues like serving the poor while the bishops prefer to lobby against health insurance and hide pedophiles. But rather than slink away quietly as Rome told them to, they’ve decided to take their message directly to the flock. That’s right. A busload of nuns is taking a nine-state tour to highlight the social justice work they do. The tour will coincide with the bishop’s “Fortnight of Freedom” protest and organized civil disobedience around the health care bill– a week of openly and actively fighting for the right to deny lifesaving medical care based on personal prejudice. There really couldn’t be a starker contrast in approaches and positions then the bishops vs. the nuns. My money is on the nuns.
Continuing with the theme of revolution, Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) has called for one after Republicans blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act. Ladies, we all need to sign up.
The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists told Republican lawmakers to sit down, quiet up, and stop trying to play doctor with all the anti-woman legislating–in the New York Times no less.
I guess DC didn’t get the message because House Republicans are again offering a bill to target abortion access for the women in the District of Columbia.
Anti-abortion group Live Action released another in a series of sting videos designed to rally troops around the federal sex-selective abortion ban PRENDA but inadvertently ended up proving just how bad PRENDA is and how impossible these kinds of abortion bans are to police.
Check out this great three part conversation with trans feminist bloggers Emily Manuel, Monica Moldinado, Stephen Ira, and Avory Faucette.
Trans hate crime victim CeCe McDonald has been sentenced to 41 months in a men’s prison while the state makes its own determination as to her gender.
Minnesotans don’t seem as interested in banning same-sex marriage as supporters of the ban originally thought.
Depressed after the Wisconsin recall election even though the Democrats took the Senate? Don’t be.
A new study shows an enormous gender pay gap found at America’s venture capital firms.
Why are our schools for sale?
Lastly, meet the women and people of color who invented the internet.
Thanks for checking back and don’t forget to send in your stories, suggestions and comments. We’ll be back each weekday with the latest in the best and the worst from the War on Women. So long as the battle rages, we’ll cover the latest, so please check back!
Photo from Tobyotter via flickr.
JB Williams — What Bilderberg Secrets? Just Ask….
By J.B. Williams
June 2, 2012
NewsWithViews.com Please, read whole article there…
Not much really needs to be said in this particular column. For decades, Americans have been speculating about what takes place behind the closed doors of the secret meetings of the Bilderberg Group. This weekend, the group is holding its annual meeting at a Virginia Marriott Hotel. Forty-eight American citizens are named by the group as attending that meeting.
At the close of this weekend’s Virginia gathering of the global elite, all forty-eight U.S. attendees will know exactly what was discussed behind those closed doors and since those discussions directly impact the governance of the United States of America, the American people have every right to know what took place in those meetings.
In fact, the Freedom of Information Act covers the people’s right to know all information affecting their governmental policies and ultimately, every American citizen. If the American people really want to know what is taking place in those secret meetings, they need only ask.
While I’m sure there are attendees who are not listed on the Bilderberg Group official press release, here are the forty-eight American’s who are listed as attendees of this weekend’s event.
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Am J Epidemiol. 2012 Mar 15;175(6):519-26. doi: 10.1093/aje/kwr327. Epub 2012 Feb 13.
Bureau of Epidemiology Services, Division of Epidemiology, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Queens, NY, USA. slim1@helath.nyc.gov
FAKTENSUCHER PLUS: 