OCTOBER 2005

This unusual e-mail page from America is perhaps the very first exhortation to protest

I ask this because I am aware from reading blogs that people realise that protest has to take a different course from street marches, which, having occurred in unprecedented strength internatioonally, have nevertheless been utterly ignored by the representatives of DEMOCRACY.

A different story may be told if the process of publicity is nearer to the image of the Shame and Blame Game. We may have to pay to get that publicity going but surely we must give it a try.In Europe here we have a barrister(Barroso) from Portugal planning to deregulate 64 points of legislation in the EU that were created for the safety of the working people, for domestic and childcare issues etc etc. Can we allow this to happen without protest, now that the proposed new EU Constitution has been trashed by mutual consent of members. Can we let this man try to force through its abandoned legislation potentials in a new way by "President's decree"?Jocelyn Braddell,editor.

The Bolton Precedent
(Below this article is a press release on the Lobby group round Abramoff in Washington that nabbed contracts in New Orleans before the floodwaters receded. This Lobby group is breaking open and a major player arrested, I include it in the interests of studying how Neocon groups arranged to get people in Govt. who get civil service posts - or giving crucial advice or planning services. JB editor.)
TAKE ACTION NOW at http://www.trotn.com

The first thing we need to understand is that we the people have the unilateral POWER, right now by ourselves, to stop John Roberts as chief justice of our Supreme Court. All that is required is the WILL for us to do it. He CAN be stopped.

The second thing we need to understand is that Roberts represents game, set and match for the dismantling of EVERY progressive court decision we hold so dear. He MUST be stopped.

Robert's proponents say that the president warned us he would put forward a judge in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. We all know their extreme biases. And yet in his hearing Roberts has repeatedly denied that he has any policy values of his own, just as he has denied that he was a member of the Federalist society (where he had a leadership role). Therefore, he is not only a reactionary ideologue, he is a LYING reactionary ideologue, a walking Trojan Horse of right wing policy initiatives. And that makes him all the worse.

HOW WE'RE GOING TO DO IT (a practical plan)

Let's get right to the HOW. There are 44 Democratic senators and one independent. Let us assume we will get no Republican votes against. It is pointless to appeal to their constituency, who are in fact in the minority if the truth be known. All we have to do is mobilize our OWN constituency. If we just do that we can have a filibuster and we WIN.

Mobilize means for us, ALL of us, to get serious about getting people to talk to their members of Congress. That is how the other side has always done it. This is what we must do:

1. WEB SITE ACTIONS

All progressive blogs must FEATURE a prominent Stop Roberts action center. If you have a web page of any kind, the absolute bare minimum is to have in the top fold of your main index page (if not on every page of your site) the toll-free Capitol telephone number (877-762-8762), plus an exhortation to call your senators specifically to oppose Roberts, and not in teeny-tiny type, but in large bold type that nobody could miss.

If you want to do more, we have a dedicated action page at http://www.trotn.com that you can link to. It will send a personal message directly to both of your senators, and at the same time you can automatically send a Letter to the Editor of your nearest daily newspaper all with just one click. If you have another action page somewhere you like post a PROMINENT featured link to that instead, but for heaven's sake DO something.

If you have a mailing list of any kind of your own opt-ins, do a mailing emphasizing the importance of this action and provide the toll-free number AND link to http://www.trotn.com. Direct email is one of the most effective tools for generating messages to Congress.

2. RADIO ACTIONS

All progressive radio personalities must dedicate part of EVERY show to giving out the toll-free Senate phone number (877-762-8762) and to rally your listeners to take action on this. Don't just assume people know it already or can find it on their own. PROMOTE it. Talk is not enough, not even close. We must convert advocacy into ACTION. In the same way that a single run of an ad on your radio station will not have sufficient impact standing alone, you must make this a recurrent theme of your show and keep REPEATING it, at least for the next week or so.

At the same time you can give out the URL of the main action page, http://www.trotn.com, or any other easy to say and remember web address you like, to get people to email or phone or fax their members of Congress. In addition all the other things above that apply to other web sites apply to you as well. Feature the Senate toll-free phone number and action links and do it prominently on your main page, your blogs, and ideally on ALL your pages at least in one of your side columns.

And as a listener of your favorite progressive radio show, call in. Encourage them to get on the case to give out the toll-free number, and to give out web links and post them on their sites. Talk about this on the air when they put you on.

We must communicate to our members of Congress in every way that this is a deal breaker for us. This particular nominee is a threat to absolutely anything else Congress might try to do in the future, as he UN-legislates from the bench. Any democrat who votes for this nominee or even for cloture must never hold public office in any capacity again and they must be made to understand this by our emails, our faxes, our phone calls, and our letters to the editor. We stopped Bolton (at least in the Senate) and we can and will stop this nominee as well. To any remaining doubting Thomas's we say this to you, "Defeatism is the treason of our own minds."

THE ARGUMENTS:

1. CONCEALMENT OF CRITICALLY RELEVANT DOCUMENTS

Some people thought that the compromise on the filibuster would doom any opposition to offensive nominees, and indeed, some very offensive ones were allowed to pass to obtain that compromise. And yet, just three days later the Senate sustained a filibuster of John Bolton (which continued to hold), on the grounds that the administration was refusing to disclose documents relevant to the consideration of the nominee. That is exactly the situation here. They have totally frustrated any meaningful opportunity to cross-examine this nominee by stonewalling access to any of his memos from the last 20 years, materials that previous administrations have always disclosed as to other Supreme Court nominees.

The senators on the other side and the nominee in particular have repeatedly complained about being asked about 20 year old documents. Well, guess what, because of the bad faith refusal of the administration to cooperate that's all we have to work from. Mr. Roberts the lawyer would never even consider trying a case without access to ALL the documents and evidence he had a RIGHT to review. And just like Bolton, this nominee must be rejected until and unless all relevant documents are produced.

2. AN UNPOPULAR PRESIDENT HAS NO PREROGATIVE

The primary argument we have heard from the other side is that he's the president's choice and that should be enough. They are saying in essence, "Ha, ha, we won the last election, too bad." And yet now, just 10 months later, Mr. Bush is the most UNPOPULAR second term president in history. His bad judgment in crisis after crisis has brought shame and destruction to our country and cost thousands if not tens of thousands of innocent American lives. There are now too many dead bodies for even them to hide, though they've tried that in New Orleans too. Bush's nominee Bolton, who he stubbornly rammed through over the objections of the good judgment of the Senate, has done nothing but create chaos and disruption at the UN already, to the dismay of even our closest ally, Great Britain. His selection of partisan cronies for FEMA management positions crippled that agency's ability to protect us. We no LONGER trust the choices of Mr. Bush.

If there were to be an election today, with his popularity in free fall, there is no doubt Bush would be soundly defeated. And by calling on people to contact their members of Congress, what we are doing is calling for a NATIONAL REFERENDUM, by email, by fax, by phone call and by letter to the editor, not only on this nominee, but on the Bush presidency. If the other side wants to rest their argument on whether this president has any mandate, then let us demonstrate just how little support Bush actually retains. Roberts will wreck the Supreme Court just as Bush has wrecked every other aspect of our lives, and we must speak out now to stop the looming catastrophe.

Indeed, even the last election would certainly have gone the other way had it not been for widespread vote fraud and suppression, COMBINED with the corrupt collaboration of the corporate mainstream media in suppressing or ignoring any stories negative to Bush's election prospects, and exaggerating the importance of any stories smearing his opponents. Just yesterday there was a story on the AP wire service with the headline "Roberts DODGES questions about abortion," and yet within hours the word "dodge" had disappeared from the Yahoo site and was REPLACED with a spin job using the word "rebuff" and the word "abortion" was gone too. This is scary, SCARY stuff. There's a Greek chorus out there of big media voices trying to sell the public on this nominee like it's a foregone conclusion, but still they have NOT heard from we the people yet. Be ye not conned, this is not over no matter what the talking heads say.

3. ROBERTS HAS NOT BEEN CANDID ABOUT HIS TRUE AGENDA

Who are they trying to kid? We ALL know exactly how Roberts is going to rule. He's going to vote AGAINST us, we the people, and in favor of every corporate special interest, in favor of absolute power for the chief executive, every single time and without exception. They know it, we know it, and Roberts himself knows it. That's why all the most extreme reactionaries in the country are so hot for this guy. And the shame of it is that this nominee will not even admit he has an opinion on PAST cases upon which we have come to trust on and rely. Even worse, for all his theoretical legal platitudes about stare decisis he has been breathtaking in leaving the door open that under him it would be open season on revisiting just about every progressive court decision of the last 100 years, if only a case were to come before him.

The Republican senators on the judiciary committee have repeatedly encouraged the nominee to NOT answer questions on the merits, to be evasive and call it integrity. Roberts has testified at length and said absolutely nothing of substance, like the enormously slick lawyer he is. But one interesting thing he did say is that as a lawyer he could take EITHER side of a case and make a reasonable argument. And you better believe that in ruling against us time after time, he will always find a CLEVER way to make extremism sound reasonable, and that is precisely why he is so dangerous. He said it is not the job of a lawyer to have a position on the issues, but ultimately it IS the job of a judge. The law is not just a mechanical exercise in applying precedents to the facts. All judges have values that they bring to every case, which they at last must fall back on. And in not disclosing the agenda that his entire career strongly suggests that he has, he does NOT deserve and cannot be trusted with the job of a Supreme Court judge, let alone chief justice.

The American people now understand that they were sold a dishonest bill of goods in the last election and are having big time buyer's remorse. As recently as a year ago Mr. Bush seemed to many like a wise and capable leader, but now many more realize the depth of his perverse bad judgment. The only reason why he has not ALREADY been called out for impeachment for his many crimes and catastrophes is because the Republican party cares more about their own power than the good of the American people. He has wrecked our economy, our budget, our military, and in the exercise of his criminal negligence now an entire major U.S. city. But still he will be removed eventually. It is not so easy to remove an equally destructive Supreme Court chief justice.

And superficially Mr. Roberts may seem like a nice, reasonable guy. That is the biggest lie of all. His hearing responses bear an uncanny resemblance to a press conference with Scott McClellan, only infinitely more smooth. He might as well have said over and over, "Again, we're not going to get into playing the agenda game." In fact, for all we know he is WORSE than the flaming reactionary that peeks through some of his early memos, he's just gotten a lot better at concealing it. A person who claims to stand for nothing is the very DEFINITION of someone with an agenda. If he would just be honest with the American people, we might consider him on that basis. His failure to evidence any such candor makes his rejection mandatory.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Nobody expected Roberts to beat himself. We all expected a masterful exercise in dodging any questions about what he really stood for. The reactionary elements who are pushing this guy were not going to repeat the Bork mistake, who spoke freely and was quite forthcoming about his positions on the issues, and who left a wide paper trail of statements, writings and speeches. Instead they have spent decades grooming a stealth candidate, with little visible record, and are trying to hustle him into the top slot of the Supreme Court before anybody else can get a handle on what they are really voting for.

Never before has a judge been pushed upward with such rash haste. The idea that a president with plummeting popularity should have carte blanche to appoint any closet reactionary he likes is absurd. We don't want a pig in a poke for chief justice. Give us a nominee for the Supreme Court with a track record. Give us a nominee with enough opinions out there so that we know who it is that is actually going to control every aspect of all of our lives for the rest of all of our lives. Tell your senators that if Roberts gets the job IT WILL SURELY COST THEM THEIR OWN. They will get the message and we will win.

We stopped Bolton and everyone thought it was a miracle. It was not. We generated 30,000 emails opposing Bolton, each to two senators. And we're going to stop Roberts, all we have to do is believe. It is said that evil can only prevail when good people do nothing.

TAKE ACTION NOW at http://www.trotn.com



or to get no more simply email to no_more@actspeak.com
extra tip from Geert Lovink:
Do Talk to Strangers: Encouraging Performative Ties to Create Advantage

<http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1285.cfm>

Imagine the following situation: You are a consultant who has just been assigned to a new project at your firm, and your first major presentation is in a week. Unfortunately, your client's problem isn't something you have any expertise in. Chances are, according to research by Sheen S. Levine, a professor at Singapore Management University who earned his PhD from Wharton, you would pick up the phone and make a call. In a recent study, Levine has found that often, what gives firms competitive advantage isn't just their repository of knowledge, but their use of "performative ties" -- those impromptu communications made by colleagues who are strangers in which critical knowledge is transferred with no expectation of a quid pro quo. Levine and others explain how performative ties function in daily practice and -- more importantly -- how managers can go about encouraging them.
 (This is how a major part of Irish social life exists, though often the stranger turns out to be part of a known network of relatives or friends or business connections.  It is the Irish effort to take part in Chaos Theory and find the Attracta....!! Jocelyn Braddell ,editor) 

September 20, 2005
0
CORRUPTION

Top Bush Official Arrested in Corruption Probe

David Safavian, who until Friday headed the "obscure but extremely important" federal procurement office in the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), was arrested yesterday, accused by federal agents of "lying and obstructing a criminal investigation into Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff's dealings with the federal government." In his position at the OMB, Safavian set purchasing policy for the entire government, and "had recently been working on developing contracting policies for the multibillion-dollar relief effort after Hurricane Katrina." His arrest -- the "first criminal complaint filed against a government official" in the ongoing Abramoff probe -- exposes a thicket of corruption involving Abramoff, leaders of the right-wing movement like Grover Norquist and Ralph Reed, and public officials at the very highest levels of government, including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX).

LYING ABOUT ETHICS TO SEND KICK-BACKS TO ABRAMOFF:The complaint filed by the FBI accuses Safavian of making "repeated false statements to government officials and investigators" about a golf trip with Abramoff to Scotland in 2002, when Safavian was chief of staff at the Bush administration's General Services Administration. In that position, "ethics rules flatly prohibited the receipt of a gift from any person seeking an official action by the agency," and before the golf trip, Safavian assured GSA ethics officers in writing that Abramoff "has no business before GSA." In truth, Safavian was already actively assisting Abramoff "acquire control of two federally managed properties in the Washington area;" a 40-acre plot that became the campus for a Hebrew school Abramoff founded, and office space that Abramoff was seeking to lease for his Indian tribal clients. Indeed, on the very same day Safavian sent the letter to the GSA ethics office, "he sent an e-mail to Abramoff from his home computer, advising him how to 'lay out a case for this lease.'" The day before he departed to Scotland, Safavian "arranged a meeting for Abramoff's wife and business partner with officials at GSA" to tour of one of the properties -- a tour that Abramoff suggested after being shown a map of the space in Safavian's office. And in an email to a colleague, Abramoff himself explained why he'd invited Safavian on the golfing trip: "Total business angle. He is new (chief of staff) of GSA."

TRAINED BY THE MASTER:  "Like Abramoff, Safavian is a veteran Washington player," the Washington Post reports. The two worked closely together at the lobbying firm Preston, Gates & Ellis, where "Abramoff schooled Safavian" and where they "jointly represented a broad swath of gambling interests." The two also held Shaw Environmental and Infrastructure (part of the Shaw Group) as a client, which is now represented by former FEMA chief and 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign manager Joe Allbaugh. (The Securities and Exchange Committee has launched an investigation into the Shaw Group for possible accounting irregularities, Newsweek reported this weekend. Shaw scored a $100 million no-bid Katrina contract "before the flood waters receded.") Safavian moved on to found Janus Merritt, a top-end lobbying firm, with "Abramoff's college roommate and conservative maverick Grover Norquist."

THE BUSH CONNECTION:  Some of Jack Abramoff's most heinous work was on behalf of the government of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. territory between Hawaii and the Philippines. Human "brokers" bring thousands there to work as sex slaves and in cramped sweatshop garment factories where clothes (complete with "Made in USA" tag) are made for several brand names. Working with Safavian, Abramoff lobbied various public officials, particularly Rep. Tom DeLay, to prevent any crack-down on the worker abuse on the island. In January 2001, when President Bush entered office, Abramoff wrote island officials, "Our standing with the new administration promises to be solid as several friends of the [Marianas] will soon be taking high-ranking positions in the Administration." He was right. Two members of Abramoff's lobbying team subsequently received positions in the Bush White House, one as assistant secretary of labor, and another -- David Safavian -- as chief of staff to the General Services Administration In the first 10 months of Bush's presidency, Abramoff and his lobbying team "logged nearly 200 contacts with the new administration." They pressed for "friendly hires" and lax labor laws with officials as high up as Attorney General John Ashcroft and policy advisers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, and it apparently worked: the islands "fended off proposals in 2001 to extend the US minimum wagr to island workers and gained at least $2 million more in federal aid from the administration." By mid-2003, Abramoff "had raised at least $100,000 for Mr. Bush's re-election campaign, becoming one of Bush's famed 'pioneers'"

THE MIKE BROWN OF CONTRACT PROCUREMENT:Two weeks after Safavian was confirmed in June 2004, Steven Kelman, the federal procurement administrator under President Clinton, told Government Executive magazine that Safavian "doesn't have a lot of background procurement, so the hope is that he's a good learner." Allan Burman, another former procurement chief, agreed: "I don't know where David Safavian comes out on [acquisition reform]." Even Angela Styles, who held the top acquisition post in the Bush administration until September 2003, said Safavian had "no apparent philosophy "on procurement issues.

ALL IN THE FAMILY: Safavian's arrest also places a spotlight on his wife, Jennifer Safavian, who works for Rep. Tom Davis (R-VA). Davis chairs the House Government Reform Committee, and Jennifer Safavian serves as chief counsel for oversight and investigations (she reportedly "has signed a recusal agreement that will keep her from looking into OMB and procurement matters"). Nevertheless, according to Hill columnist Josh Marshall, Rep. Davis pushed through several "made-to-order crony-empowerment (a.k.a., contracting deregulation and streamlining) provisions" in the Katrina emergency funding bills. When David Safavian was first nominated, the Federal Times warned that if he were confirmed, "it would be difficult to believe - if only because of appearances - that he or his wife's committee is acting independently of the other as each tends to the integrity of the federal procurement process."
.