July 14, 2013

it's been a long a long time comin but i know a change is gonna come oh yes it will

i go to the movie and i go downtown
somebody keep telling me don't hang around
it's been a long a long time comin
but I know a change gonna come
oh yes it will

July 10, 2013

That claim seems arise from the fertile imaginations at Legal Schnauzer

In late 2008, Amy Goodman had a guest who claimed Rove had gone to Sweden in the summer of 2008 to help dismantle the welfare state:

Bush, Rove Tied to Effort to Dismantle Sweden’s Social Welfare Program
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2008
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/12/9/bush_rove_tied_to_effort_to

Five years later, the Swedish welfare state has not been disassembled to my knowledge

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 2010
Is Karl Rove Driving the Effort to Prosecute Julian Assange?
http://legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2010/12/is-karl-rove-driving-effort-to.html

Legal Schnauzer in late 2010 used the 2008 Goodman interview as the only actual "evidence" in its speculation that Rove was behind the Assange prosecution. Unfortunately, Legal Schnauzer badly garbled the facts, and treated the Goodman interview as TWO interviews, one in 2008 and another in 2009. This suggests a rather sad inattention to detail -- and it suggests that Legal Schnauzer is not particularly attentive or careful in its readings

And, of course, it would have been astonishingly prescient of Mr Rove to visit Sweden in the summer of 2008, anticipating that Mr Assange would be in Sweden in the summer of 2010. But in fact the 2008 Goodman interview doesn't mention Assange at all

Rove did briefly visit the RW Timbro Think Tank in Sweden in the summer of 2008. His visit was covered by Sweden's TV-4. Before that, he seems to have visited briefly in the 1980s:

... Timbro has invited one of the America's leading strategists and campaigners, Karl Rove, to this year's political week in Almedalen. We face an historic presidential election in the United States and interest is huge in Sweden. Just a Newsweek, Wall Street Journal and Fox News Channel regard Karl Rove as a valued expert commentator, we put a high value on his insights and perspectives on American politics, says Billy McCormac, Communications Timbro. Karl Rove will speak at an event in Visby ...
Karl Rove gästar Almedalen 2008
12 JUNI, 2008
http://timbro.se/artiklar/karl-rove-gastar-almedalen-2008

... From Per Heister, former CIO of the Conservatives, I learned that Rove was here for "one or two days" in the early 1980s, to teach the Conservatives about fundraising, one of Rove's specialties. Per Heister sounds almost amused by our brief conversation.
-What are your malicious plans with this information? I think I know who you are, he asks.
No plans at all, is my answer ...
2005-02-04
Vad gjorde Karl Rove hos moderaterna?
http://www.aftonbladet.se/ledare/fredagmed/article263312.ab;jsessionid=18DDC39A6395DE3460E75BE7E83092B5.mobila

July 9, 2013

There were multiple suggestions of suicidal intent:

Officer: Suicide led to wariness about Bradley Manning
2:29 p.m. EST November 28, 2012
... Oltman and others have testified that psychiatrists who examined Manning at Quantico repeatedly recommended that his conditions be eased. But Oltman, whose command included the brig, said he was skeptical about at least one of those recommendations because another detainee had killed himself in December, 2009, after his custody status was reduced based upon the advice of the same doctor, Navy Capt. William Hochter, the psychiatrist assigned to the brig ...
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/11/28/bradley-manning-trial/1732263/

Bradley Manning testifies about detention in Wikileaks case: 'I totally started to fall apart'
By Courtney Kube, NBC News
29 Nov 2012 8:39pm, EST
... He said that on June 30, 2010, he had a mental break from reality. Manning said that he doesn't remember yelling uncontrollably, screaming, mumbling, or making a noose out of his bedsheets, describing everything from those hours as foggy and hazy. Manning acknowledged that he "certainly contemplated" suicide ... Manning said he was "elated" to be back on U.S. soil ... Manning answered a question about any suicidal tendencies by saying that he is "always plotting, but never acting" ... That statement would haunt him for the duration of his time at Quantico. Manning was placed on suicide risk when he arrived at Quantico ...
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/11/29/15551532-bradley-manning-testifies-about-detention-in-wikileaks-case-i-totally-started-to-fall-apart?lite

Bradley Manning says he considered suicide while in military custody
By Larry Shaughnessy, CNN Pentagon Producer
updated 7:10 AM EST, Fri November 30, 2012
... He contemplated suicide in Kuwait ... "The degree of concern of his safety and security was higher than anything I'd previously seen," Hocter said of Manning's time at Quantico ... To show he wasn't a danger, Manning said he told a non-commissioned officer in the brig at one point that he could have used the "waist band of my underwear or my flip flops" to hurt himself, but hadn't done so ...
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/29/justice/manning-wikileaks

Bradley Manning’s noose shown at hearing
By JOSH GERSTEIN | 11/30/12 1:36 PM EST Updated: 11/30/12 6:21 PM EST
FORT MEADE, Md. — Military prosecutors unveiled a dramatic exhibit Friday to illustrate why officers were legitimately concerned that accused WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning might commit suicide while he was in custody: a salmon-colored bedsheet that had been knotted into a noose. Army Maj. Ashden Fein pulled the noose from a paper bag shortly after beginning questioning Manning during a pretrial hearing on his claim that the strict conditions he was subjected to for nearly nine months at a Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. amounted to unconstitutional punishment ...
http://www.politico.com/story/2012/11/bradley-mannings-noose-shown-at-hearing-84455.html

Wikileaks informant Bradley Manning: a 'history of self-harm and suicidal thoughts'
By ASSOCIATED PRESS REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 21:47 EST, 2 December 2012 | UPDATED: 20:55 EST, 5 December 2012
... Jordan said under cross-examination by defense attorney David Coombs that besides the mental-health report, he considered evidence that Manning had contemplated suicide after his arrest in Iraq in May 2010. The evidence included a noose Manning had fashioned from a bedsheet while confined in Kuwait, and a written statement he made upon arrival at Quantico in July 2010 that he was 'always planning and never acting' on suicidal impulses ... Jordan said he considered the opinion of the brig psychiatrist, Navy Capt. William Hocter, that Manning was no longer at risk of self-harm. But Jordan said the weight he gave to Hocter's views was tempered by the fact that another detainee had recently killed himself after his custody status was reduced on Hocter's advice ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2242098/Wikileaks-informant-Bradley-Manning-history-self-harm-suicidal-thoughts.html

July 9, 2013

I'm not conflating the terms:

... Glenn Greenwald’s third party dreamin ...
At a talk given the day after the 2010 election .. Greenwald gave a talk at the University of Wisconsin, and expressed the hope that Democrats might suffer the same fate in 2012 ... But it was his approach to politics that got members of the Young Americans for Liberty — a Paulite Libertarian group that co-sponsored the event — excited:

... He said Democrats have stigmatized the idea of supporting third parties or not voting at all ... He .. praised not just Wikileaks and Bradley Manning .. but also tea partyers who strike fear into the hearts of politicians by “acting very threateningly,” and “taking guns and machine guns” to their protests ...
http://blog.reidreport.com/2011/04/re-rise-of-the-naderites-glenn-greenwalds-third-party-dreamin/

Edward Snowden Is A Ron Paul Supporter
The Huffington Post | By Amanda Terkel
Posted: 06/10/2013 9:46 am EDT | Updated: 06/11/2013 11:02 am EDT
... Snowden .. is a fan of former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) ... Snowden donated $250 to the libertarian's presidential campaign twice in 2012. Paul has long railed against government secrecy and intrusion into private life. Snowden told The Guardian that he voted for a third-party candidate in 2008 ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/edward-snowden-ron-paul_n_3414992.html

Have We All Been Fooled By Edward Snowden?
Author: T. Steelman July 6, 2013 10:49 am
... His disdain of President Obama and his policies was apparent and he bitched about them with “increasing frequency.” But there are two issues where, I believe, where Snowden’s true colors shine very clearly. This is one:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/07/06/have-we-all-been-fooled-by-edward-snowden/

Bruce Fein Joins Ron Paul 2012 Campaign
46 Responses
by RonPaul.com on August 25, 2011
... The Ron Paul 2012 Presidential Campaign announced today that .. Bruce Fein will join the campaign as senior advisor on legal matters ...
http://www.ronpaul.com/2011-08-25/bruce-fein-joins-ron-paul-2012-campaign/

July 6, 2013

Lisbon airport was affected by multiple strikes in June, including the General Strike on 27 June.

Recovery has sometimes been slow

... Friday, June 28 Today we learned Lisbon airport is still in a state of confusion ...
http://www.easytravelreport.com/AIRPORTS/Lisbon-Portela-Strike-Lisboa-Sacavem.html

Among the effects, the airport has sometimes recently actually run low on fuel as a result, as in this story from mid-June:

... "There are no (fuel) supplies for airplanes at Portela airport, only for emergency, military and state flights," the spokesman said ...
Lisbon airport runs out of fuel, blames strike
LISBON, June 11 | Wed Jun 11, 2008 4:33pm IST

I haven't followed this closely, but there seem to have been several strikes affecting the airport in the second half of June, and the combined effect might have produced a substantial backlog in routine operations orders, especially if the Portuguese are good about honoring picket lines. It might be natural for Portugal not to want to advertise such difficulties in detail. The Portuguese say that they informed Bolivia on Monday that landing at the Lisbon airport would impossible and that they went several rounds with the Bolivian on this, with the Bolivians continuing to insist on a landing in Lisbon, before Bolivia finally filed a flight plan overflying Portugal and refueling in the Canary Islands. Portugal says there was never any problem with overflight permission

June 30, 2013

This became clear to me when I tried to check Greenwald's claims about Swedish extradition law

David Allen Green, at the New Statesman -- where the editor Jemima Khan had put of some of Assange's bail money -- wrote two quite informative columns Legal myths about the Assange extradition and The legal mythology of the extradition of Julian Assange

Mr Greenwald disliked Mr Green's claims in the first column and wrote a response

The New Statesman must correct its error over Assange and extradition
... Green claimed that "<i>t would not be legally possible for Swedish government to give any guarantee about a future extradition, and nor would it have any binding effect on the Swedish legal system in the event of a future extradition request" ...This is completely and unquestionably false ... Mark Klamberg – a professor of international law at the University of Stockholm – ... dissects Sweden's extradition law and makes Green's error as clear as it can be ...

Klamberg then tweets:
@ggreenwald is only qouting half of my statement and distorts my conclusion http://gu.com/p/3ax4a/tw @davidallengreen
https://twitter.com/Klamberg/status/239028648424898560

Klamberg then followed up with a lengthy blog post:

Sequencing and the discretion of the Government in Extradition cases
The problem is that Greenwald earlier and later in the same text argues for a sequence that would put the Government before the Supreme Court. In essence he is arguing that the Government should have the first and the last say with the Supreme Court in the middle. That would make the Supreme Court redundant which is contrary to the sequence that is provided for in the Extradition Act which I have tried to describe. It may also violate the principle of separation of powers.

At the time I looked into this, a number of tweets and emails were available by web-search, between various persons involved in this exchange, but it was not easy to sort it all out: Greenwald IMO has a habit of selectively quoting people out of context and then aggressively denying that he misrepresented what they were saying. I've just posting here enough of what I can easily reconstruct to show that Greenwald (1) misrepresented Klamberg's views and (2) knew soon after that Klamberg complained Greenwald misrepresented Klamberg's views (see the tweet page above) -- and as far as I can tell, Greenwald never admitted anywhere that he had misrepresented Klamberg's views

June 25, 2013

Barrett Brown is Anonymous

From a tiny Uptown apartment he's organizing a worldwide collective of hackers that brought down HBGary and helped overthrow the government of Tunisia
by Tim Rogers
Published 3.23.2011
From D Magazine APR 2011

... then he mentions that he went to Preston Hollow Elementary School with George W. Bush’s twin daughters ...

He grew up comfortably in Highland Park. His father, Robert Brown, hailed from East Texas and came from a family of means. “I made a lot of money when I originally came to Dallas,” Robert says. “I eventually had $50 million in real estate holdings all across the state ...

... he read voraciously on his own, diving into Ayn Rand .. while he was still in middle school ...

... there is a third drawback to Brown’s new, more visible role in Anonymous ... Brown .. has taken to calling enemies of Anonymous and certain federal authorities (sometimes one and the same) to tell them how cool he is. Of course, that’s not what he explicitly says. He says he’s calling to help. A few weeks ago, he talked to a woman in the NSA. He says he contacted her as a courtesy, to let them know that Anonymous had a copy of Stuxnet ...

http://www.dmagazine.com/Home/D_Magazine/2011/April/How_Barrett_Brown_Helped_Overthrow_the_Government_of_Tunisia.aspx?page=2



So mebbe he's just another spoiled libertarian brat from Highland Park

June 25, 2013

The 2011 report is titled

Report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment

The Addendum A/HRC/19/61/Add.4 consists of 81 pages detailing the Special Rapporteur's correspondence with governments. Under the heading United States of America, there are two paragraphs concerning Mr Manning. Paragraph (a), titled

UA 30/12/2010
Case No.USA 20/2010
State reply:27/01/2011
19/05/2011 Allegations of prolonged solitary confinement of a soldier charged with the unauthorized disclosure of classified information

indicates that the Special Rapporteur was investigating a complaint that

... Mr. Manning was held in solitary confinement for twenty-three hours a day following his arrest in May 2010 in Iraq,and continuing through his transfer to the brig at Marine Corps Base Quantico. His solitary confinement -- lasting about eleven months -- was terminated upon his transfer from Quantico to .. Fort Leavenworth on 20 April 2011 ...

which he investigated because

... solitary confinement can amount to a breach of .. the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and .. of the Convention against Torture ...

For the investigation

... the Special Rapporteur requested an opportunity to interview him ... The US Government authorized the visit but .. could not ensure that the conversation would not be monitored. Since a non-private conversation with an inmate would violate the terms of reference applied universally in fact-finding by Special Procedures, the Special Rapporteur had to decline the invitation ...

The Special Rapporteur then reiterates

... imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone .. not .. found guilty of any crime is a violation of .. physical and psychological integrity as well as .. presumption of innocence. The Special Rapporteur again renews his request for a private and unmonitored meeting with Mr. Manning to assess his conditions of detention ...

Paragraph (b) notes his further request for an unmonitored meeting with the prisoner produced no official response

Personally, I believe the US government should have granted the Special Rapporteur's request for an unmonitored meeting, but my concern (regarding the failure to do so) is ameliorated somewhat the fact that Mr Manning has access to an attorney who can meet with him unmonitored and who would be in a position to raise any maltreatment issues. The most that can be said to date in this regard, however, is that 112 days have been removed from whatever sentence Manning ultimately receives, on the grounds that

... Manning's confinement was "more rigorous than necessary" ...<and> ... "became excessive in relation to legitimate government interests" ...
Judge reduces Bradley Manning's possible sentence
AP/ January 8, 2013, 4:38 PM

which falls rather short of the claim Manning has been tortured

June 22, 2013

Here is something nice for you to read: The judicial authority in Sweden -v- Julian Paul Assange

Findings of facts and reasons

Howard Riddle
Senior District Judge (Chief Magistrate)
Appropriate Judge
24th February 2011
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/Misc/2011/5.html

June 9, 2013

Class analysis was a brilliant idea, and it is still very useful, provided

we avoid the standard cartoon misrepresentations of it and get down to the hard nuts-and-bolts work of applying it

A first point is to understand what a class is: it is a collection of people who have similar circumstances and occupy a similar structural position in the economy. For this reason, the members of a class have similar material interests

In particular, one will not really understand the power of class analysis, if one insists on grossly over-simplifying it as (say) the working-class versus the capitalists. The modern economy is international, and the circumstances and structural position of (say) a Chinese electronics worker, who lives in barracks and works long days assembling products for consumer markets elsewhere, are simply not the same circumstances and structural position that most DUers enjoy

A second point is to understand the relationship between class and consciousness: people naturally view the world from the perspective of their own circumstances and position, and members of a class are likely to interact mainly with other members of the same class, so a common consciousness of the world will emerge -- but this development of consciousness is also affected by traditions, current culture, and mass propaganda, among other influences

In particular, a class may not spontaneously develop a coherent and realistic consciousness of its own circumstances and position relative to other classes, nor does a class necessarily develop a useful analysis of its interests and how to promote those interests

A third point is to understand that class analysis is not intended to be an academic exercise in abstract thinking about universal categories: it is intended to be a scientific tool that helps movements organize for change. Saying that it is a scientific tool means that it is to be applied in a cyclical scientific manner, by: forming an idea about how the social and political worlds work; seeing what actions the idea suggests; experimentally checking whether the action actually seems to lead to progress in the effort to obtain change; then revising the idea based on the ways it seemed to work and the ways it seemed to fail; and seeing what next actions are suggested by the revised idea ...

In particular, class analysis is to be conducted together with ongoing organizing and ongoing struggle for social and political change, not separate from such struggles, and it brings with it the presupposition that real social and economic change always involve economic rearrangements. And since it involves experiments with organizing people, it cannot ignore the presuppositions they bring to their struggle from their traditions, the current culture in which they function, and the influences mass media has upon them

A fourth point is to understand that consciousness can be manipulated and often is, sometimes more deliberately, sometimes less deliberately: some people profit by current social, political, and economic arrangements, while others are exploited by their circumstances. Those who profit from current circumstances will naturally promote social theories that justify current circumstances, sometimes by indifference, sometimes by cynical calculation. Such manipulations are ongoing; they are constantly reinvented; and they may assume surprising and unexpected forms

In particular, historical racism in the United States has been very closely associated with certain economic arrangements, propped up by law and violence, that continually enforced a social hierarchy forcing African-Americans to the very bottom of the economic ladder. Jim Crow laws were not simply about prejudice against blacks: the laws created an instantly identifiable underclass and kept their wages artificially low. The victims of this system therefore needed to dismantle not only the system of economic exploitation; they also needed to discredit the racial theories that were used to justify the exploitation. This racial tactic is also visible in the Juan Crow system