Tom Hayden's Blog, page 14

September Climate Protests & 350.Org: "Now They Act For Millions"

Hundreds of thousands will march at the United Nations September 21 when the UN opens its general assembly with a focus on averting catastrophic climate change. The rally may be the largest public outcry at the UN since the February 2003 rally against the Iraq War. 

Where the 2003 protests at least succeeded in preventing the UN from authorizing the American invasion of Iraq, this movement demands that the UN achieve an enforceable treaty to save the planet from escalating greenhouse gas emissions. The treaty process will include another huge gathering in Lima this December, and rapidly unfolding talks to culminate in Paris one year later. 

McGovern Demands Full Debate and Vote on Iraq

When Congress returns from recess on September 8, will they authorize the New Iraq War? That's the question some anti-war groups are asking their representatives now home in their districts. Rep. Jim McGovern is demanding "a full debate and a vote whether to authorize the war," which has been escalating during the Congressional absence. 

Andrew Bacevich on Iraq

I don’t pretend to understand the president’s thinking and certainly have no insider knowledge.  My general sense is this: the administration finds itself today with no operable strategy with respect to the Arab/Islamic world. The initiative symbolized by the Cairo speech back in 2009 yielded nothing.  The same applies to Kerry’s effort to bring closure to the “peace process” — the major diplomatic initiative of the second term.  In the meantime, the Arab Spring with all of its unexpected turns and repercussions finds the US and the world at large as spectators.  

The Alternatives in Iraq

Hillary Clinton's flapping of her hawkish wings only intensifies the pressure on President Barack Obama to escalate US military involvement in the sectarian wars of Iraq and Syria. Domestic political considerations already are a major factor in forcing Obama to "do something" to save the Yazidis, avert "another Benghazi," and double down in the undeclared Long War against Islamic fundamentalism.

LAPD Shouldn't Be Solely in Charge of Crime Stats

The Times once again is to be congratulated for uncovering a de facto LAPD cover-up of crime statistics in the City. The Times' reporters had to sift through 1,200 serious violent crimes to prove the pattern. Among many others, I have been pressing the City and Department for a decade to recognize the conflict of interest when the LAPD is simultaneously in charge making arrests and defining whether they are serious or minor. That gives power to the Department to an effect, manipulate crime data to promote either the image that violent crime is falling or rising. These barometers of public safety are so important to public safety that they should be calculated in a manner which is beyond public question. We should not be manipulated either by an exaggerated politics of fear or by sunny reassurances that our crime rates are falling due to successful city and police measures.

Manipulation of Crime Data in L.A.

The Times once again is to be congratulated for uncovering a de facto LAPD cover-up of crime statistics in the City. The Times' reporters had to sift through 1,200 serious violent crimes to prove the pattern. Among many others, I have been pressing the City and Department for a decade to recognize the conflict of interest when the LAPD is simultaneously in charge making arrests and defining whether they are serious or minor. That gives power to the Department to an effect, manipulate crime data to promote either the image that violent crime is falling or rising. These barometers of public safety are so important to public safety that they should be calculated in a manner which is beyond public question. We should not be manipulated either by an exaggerated politics of fear or by sunny reassurances that our crime rates are falling due to successful city and police measures.

Against U.S. Escalation in Iraq

The Obama administration seems poised to bomb insurgent-controlled areas of Iraq in another escalation of the deepening quagmire. The administration's reason is "humanitarian", a rationale which could have been given countless times before. Air strikes are unlikely to block the offensive by the extremists of ISIS who are bent on forming a sectarian Sunni Caliphata in the territory they have seized in Syria and Iraq.

If Obama uses U.S air power he will be rejecting a war powers resolution passed by 300 House of Representative members last week which requires a report to Congress and a limited timetable before an authorizing vote is required. Obama already has dispatched several hundred U.S troops as "advisers" to the faltering Baghdad army already trained and financed by US taxpayers. A majority of Democrats oppose executive action without congressional hearings and approval. Rep. Jim McGovern, primary author of the House resolution, predicted that military action might take place during the congressional recess.

The alternative is not "surrendering to terrorism", as the War Lobby claims. In Obama's calculation, apparently, it is simpler to fire bombs and missiles at the war zone than to threaten the authoritarian al-Maliki regime in Baghdad with a cutoff in funds unless they reach a power-sharing accommodation with the Sunni and Kurdish minority communities. Al-Maliki's stubborn insistence on disenfranchising and rounding up thousands of Sunnis in Iraq drove many of them into their present alliance with ISIS in the vast swath of territory linking southern Syria and northern Iraq. As long as al-Maliki remains in power, Iraq's Sunnis will have no incentive to rebuild a power-sharing state.#

A Labor-Neighbor Alliance to Fix L.A.

Los Angeles City unions today will assert a dramatic new approach to collective bargaining that goes beyond labor contracts to include collaborating with community organizations in a drive to "Fix LA." In addition to bargaining for their members on wages, hours, and working conditions, the new alliance will seek to bargain over the root causes of inequality and lack of a serious community voice in meeting neighborhood needs. 

Call it a Labor-Neighbor alliance. 

50 Years After Tonkin Gulf...

A federally-funded surge of Vietnam "memories" is beginning as the fiftieth anniversary of the August 1964 Tonkin Gulf "incident" nears. The question is how inclusive those memories will be? Will honoring the hundreds of thousands of Americans who served necessarily require an erasure of any discussion of the many My Lai massacres which occurred according to Nick Turse's new book, "Kill Anything That Moves?" Will the cover-up of what occurred in the Tonkin Gulf be portrayed accurately, or will the memories only compound the long chain of coverups leading to Nixon's downfall at Watergate?

Rumblings Against Wall Street Fees

[image error]Looking like scenes from a "Transformers" film about taking revenge on ruling tyrants, scores of Los Angeles garbage trucks circled City Hall on July 1, breaking political silence over what they call taxpayer subsidies to Wall Street. The protesters were demanding that city officials crack down on banks charging "predatory" transactional fees instead of slashing jobs and budgets for essential services. 

Council member Paul Koretz' motion demanding a renegotiation of excessive Wall Street fees passed a committee hearing unanimously as hundreds of labor and community activists protested outside backed by the rumbling of the green sanitation trucks.