This article was sent to me by Marlene Bradley. She lives and works in Schenectady. Her son, also a "Matt", works for Ralph Nader in DC and was one of those illegally arrested.

City to Pay $1 Million Over Arrests at Protest

By Jenna Johnson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 2, 2007; B04

The D.C. government has agreed to pay $1 million to a group of people who claimed they were illegally arrested during a protest in the city five years ago.

U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan signed off yesterday on a judgment that settles a suit filed on behalf of more than 120 demonstrators and bystanders -- the latest payout by the city for police actions during the Sept. 27, 2002, demonstrations against the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and the planned Iraq invasion.

Sullivan declared the arrests "null and void" and ordered police to expunge any records of them.

The settlement was the largest to date stemming from the controversial mass arrests that day. The city had agreed to pay more than $640,000 to settle lawsuits filed by 14 others who said they were illegally rounded up by police.

A larger class-action lawsuit is pending, covering more than 400 people who say they were illegally arrested at Pershing Park.

Charles H. Ramsey, who was police chief at the time, initially defended the arrests but later acknowledged that they were improper. Police failed to order the crowds to disperse or warn that they faced arrest.

Yesterday's developments came in a case filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of the National Capital Area and the National Lawyers Guild. The plaintiffs were arrested during marches on Connecticut Avenue NW between K and L streets, and near Vermont Avenue and K Street. Some were bystanders caught in the commotion.

Most were charged with parading without a permit, said Arthur Spitzer, an ACLU legal director.

Plans call for each plaintiff to get at least $6,000. Sixteen plaintiffs who gave depositions or testified will get an additional $5,000 apiece. The rest of the money will go toward attorney and legal fees.

Several of those arrested said that although the outcome brings closure, it doesn't erase what happened that day from their minds.

Sofiya Goldshteyn, then a George Washington University student from Ukraine, never made it to her work-study job that day. Instead, she said, she endured plastic handcuffs that were too tight, hunger, filthy water, cold concrete floors, strip-searches and fear that she would be deported.

Videographer Robin Bell, 28, had his press credentials ripped off by police.

"Because we were showing people getting arrested on national TV, we got a little extra treatment," he said yesterday.

Former law enforcement officer Joel Diamond, 63, is still upset that he couldn't participate in the weekend's demonstrations because he was in jail for almost two days. "This is not America," he said.

Rebekah Rice, 53, was watching the protest march with her then-16-year-old niece when the two were arrested and held for 36 hours by officers who she said looked like "giant bugs or Darth Vader" in their riot gear. Each year since, Rice, a teacher in Upstate New York, had to report and explain the arrest on her annual contract.

Her niece, Catherine Burgin, had promised her parents that she wouldn't do anything that would get her arrested.

"Suddenly, they just swarmed us," said Burgin, 21. "Anyone who wanted to leave couldn't."

Come to Step It Up 2007 Glens Falls

Glens Falls Step It Up 2007: Building a Cool City

Sponsored by the City of Glens Falls, the Unitarian Church, Rock Hill and Barton Inc.

How can we cope with Global Warming as individuals, as a city, through local, state and federal governments?

Everyone is invited: Bike, roller-blade, walk, car-pool, take the bus to downtown Glens Falls (don't get left behind)

At the Farmers Market - 10 to 12 AM

Entertainment by Bill Campbell, biking info/tips – meet people who use their bikes to commute, local food snacks, solar oven cooking, biodiesel info-samples, get to know the Toyota Prius hybrid car (with Jim Stegman)

Noon
Rally for the planet at City Park
Remarks by Lisa Manzi for Kirstin Gillibrand, Betty Little & Teresa Sayward (invited)

Mayor Roy Akins: Making Glens Falls a Cool City
Entertainment 11:30, C.E. Skidmore

Meet a Honda Insight hybrid car (with Michael D’ella Bella)

Activities for children, group photo, awards made to people who use their bikes to commute.

At The Wood Theater 1 pm - 5 pm

1 pm Author Jim Kunstler: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the 21^st Century

2 pm Video-tour of Barton Mines building w/ Jim McAndrews & Green Builders

3 pm Gro-Solar: The Carbon Challenge

4 pm Local Agriculture as Part of the Solution with Organic Farmer, Seth Jacobs

Tabling at the Wood Theater 1 pm - 5pm

NYSERDA: Learning How to Save Energy, Money and the Environment, Red Fox Books (booksigning by Jim Kunstler, The Long Emergency), Exhibits by Gro-Solar, Thermal Associates, NYSERDA, Commmunity Energy, GF Electric, Green Builders

At Aimie’s Dinner & Movie:

5:45 pm Leonardo DiCaprio's new global warming film “The Eleventh Hour” premieres

At Rock Hill Cafe

7:30 pm Live N' Local (Premiere)

The first event to herald the beginning of a free weekly showcase of local talent and local food every Saturday night. The first Live N'Local features the local Green band, Three Dimensional Figures. A Free loaf of Rock Hill Spelt Bread (a local organic bread made by local bakers) for all attendees.

Dodging Impeachment

The following is a wonderful piece by Ralph Nader. While I wholeheartedly agree that Bush and Cheney and their evil cohorts should rot in prison til the end of their days, I also must believe that the responsibility to effect this impeachment lies solely on the shoulders of the Democratic Party. Any peace and justice advocate who pressures real progressives to take time out of their busy schedule to call or write the corporate Dem who "took over" in 2006 thinking this will have some sort of effect on them are unbelievably naive. It is a huge waste of time, at best. At worst, it is a purposeful diversion which takes time away from more pressing and possible matters (like national health care, the illegal occupation of Iraq and local political races). The Democrats who voted for the war will simply continue to fund and support it while talking to their constituencies about how their "hands are tied". These are not the people's representatives. They represent "those that brung 'em" to paraphrase the late great Molly Ivins. They are certainly not going to impeach their war profiteering buddies in the Oval Office.


Published on Saturday, October 13, 2007 by CommonDreams.org www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/13/4512

Dodging Impeachment by Ralph Nader

The meeting at the Jones Library in Amherst, Massachusetts on July 5, 2007 was anything but routine. Seated before Cong. John Olver (D-MA) were twenty seasoned citizens from over a dozen municipalities in this First Congressional District which embraces the lovely Berkshire Hills.

The subject-impeachment of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney.

The request-that Cong. Olver join the impeachment drive in Congress.

More than just opinion was being conveyed to Cong. Olver, a then 70 year old Massachusetts liberal with a Ph.D. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. These Americans voted overwhelmingly during formal annual town meetings in 14 towns and two cities in the First District endorsing resolutions to impeach the President and Vice President.

Presented in the form of petitions to be sent to the Congress, the approving citizenry cited at least four “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

They included the initiation of the Iraq war based on defrauding the public and intentionally misleading the Congress, spying on Americans without judicial authorization, committing the torture of prisoners in violation of

both federal law and the U.N. Torture Convention and the Geneva Convention, and stripping American citizens of their Constitutional rights by jailing them indefinitely without charges and without access to legal counsel or

even an opportunity to challenge their imprisonment in a court of law. Forty towns in Vermont and the State Senate had already presented their Congressional delegation with similar petitions.

Impeachment advocates reported the results to Cong. Olver from each town meeting. Leverett’s vote was 339-1; Great Barrington was 100-3. No vote in any of the towns or cities was less than a two-third majority “yes” in favor of impeachment, according to long-time activist, Atty. Robert Feuer of Stockbridge, Mass.

With three fourths of reports completed Cong. Olver, who voted against the war, raised his hand and said, “Spare me, I know full well the overwhelming majority of my constituency is in favor of impeachment.” He then told them he would not sign on to any impeachment resolution whether against Bush or against Cheney (H.Res. 333 introduced by Cong. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH)). He was quite adamant.

In taking this unrepresentative position, Rep. Olver’s position was identical to that of the House Democratic leadership and many of his Democratic colleagues.

The Democratic Party line on impeachment is that Bush and Cheney are the most impeachable White House duo in American history (they believe this privately). The Democrats do not want to distract attention from their legislative agenda, and need Republican votes for passage. Moreover, they do not have the votes to obtain the requisite two-thirds of the members present for conviction in the Senate.

Strangely, none of these excuses bothered Republicans when they impeached Bill Clinton in the House for lying under oath about sex and proceeded to a full trial in the Senate where they failed to get the required votes. Can

Clinton’s “high crimes and misdemeanors” begin to compare with this White House crime wave?

The last question to Cong. Olver was from a young veteran back from Iraq and Afghanistan. “What could we possibly do to bring you around to our way of thinking,” he asked?

Cong. Olver’s response, after several seconds of silence, was “You have to prove to me that impeachment will not be counterproductive.”

Members of Congress should apply the same standard to themselves that they like to apply to members of the Executive and Judicial branches-namely to honor their oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. That Oath is

supposed to transcend political calculations.

Maybe the Democrats think that Bush and Cheney are such wild and crazy guys that a serious impeachment drive in Congress would provoke the two draft-dodgers to launch a military emergency, strike Iran or otherwise generate a crisis, based on their continual fulminations about the “war on terror,” that would engulf the Democrats and throw them on the defensive for 2008.

In short, the Democrats may be viewing Bush and Cheney as being so defiantly, aggressively impeachable on so many counts as to be unimpeachable. That is, with the White House harboring so much political nitroglycerine, don’t even try to remove it. Such a cowardly position would make quite a precedent for future Presidents who want to illegally elbow out the other two branches of government and our Constitution.

Ralph Nader is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book is The Seventeen Traditions.

Seven Straight Nights

Check it out! The Post Star actually gave advance coverage to a progressive event sponsored by people without money! Way to go Post Star! Thank you!

Sexual rights rally to be held in city park

Updated: Friday, October 5, 2007 3:48 PM EDT

GLENS FALLS A rally by heterosexual people in support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer community will be held at 4 p.m. Sunday in Glens Falls City Park.

The event, titled, "Seven Straight Nights for Equal Rights," will feature "straight" people speaking out in support of the LGBTQ community. The rally will take place in the park at the corner of Ridge and Maple streets.

The Glens Falls demonstration is a part of Seven Straight Nights, a nationwide event in support of the LGBTQ community. "Straight allies" (open-minded non-LGBTQ people) are encouraged to attend to show their support for their friends, family and neighbors.

"The presence of straight allies at the event will make a public statement to the Glens Falls community, a statement that says that there are in fact straight people in this area who welcome people of all sexualities and genders into the community," organizers said in a press release.

Representatives from all sexualities and genders are encouraged to attend as well.

Guest speakers include Matt Funiciello, local business owner and activist; Diane Root, a priest from Vermont who performs civil unions; Kate E. Austin, who will read a poem by lesbian poet and activist Andrea Gibson; CE Skidmore, Post-Star writer and local musician, who will speak and perform songs; and Neal Herr, who will perform a song about non-nuclear families.

The event will be followed by a movie about LGBTQ issues entitled, "After Stonewall," showing at Rock Hill Bakehouse Cafe, 19 Exchange St., Glens Falls.

For more information, visit www.sevenstraightnights.org or http://tinyurl.com/2rnmbc

The Crash of the Democratic Party

A Great Piece From the Progressive Review

THE CRASH OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY

Sam Smith

If the latest Washington Post poll proves accurate, the Democratic Party as a serious alternative to the GOP is finished. It is not just that a perennially dissembling and once almost prosecuted candidate came in miles ahead of Barrack Obama and John Edwards. The real tragedy is to be found in the reasons respondents gave for their support.

For example, Democrats favored Hillary Clinton to deal with health care by a two to one margin over Obama and Edwards combined - an absurd judgment given her previous health care legislation that was laughably incompetent and confusing as she attempted to conceal its gifts to the insurance industry. There are only two possible explanations for such a masochistic choice: deep denial or deep ignorance and they probably both play a role.

57% of Democrats said HR Clinton has the best chance of being elected even though current polling has all three front runners coming out about the same. For example, the heavily pro-Clinton Washington Post headlined her 8 point lead over Giuliani without mentioning that Edwards had scored a 9 point lead in another recent poll.

Further, Clinton's supposed electability is based on the assumption that the GOP will not mention all the dirty laundry in HRC's past - including matters now hidden in Justice Department files. The Republican strategy - which the media has given great aid and comfort - is to keep quiet until the Democrats are irretrievably in the Clinton trap. In fact, some on the right are already having a hard time hiding their enthusiasm: Matt Drudge featured Clinton's wipe out lead in the Post poll with big type and red ink and George Bush is even sending her advice on how to handle Iraq.

By 52% to 39% Clinton beats both Obama and Edwards as the one best able to deal with Iraq, even though she is clearly the one with the worst record of doing so this far.

By the same margin, she is the one who Democrats think best represent the core values of the party. This may be tragically true in contemporary terms, but before her husband took office the party had dramatically different - and better - values.

The only First Lady ever to face possible criminal indictment even farcically leads the others as the one best able to deal with corruption in Washington.

And worst of all, not only is she considered more inspiring than Obama and Edwards but she is considered more trustworthy.

This is a party that doesn't need a candidate; it desperately needs a therapist.

If Hillary Clinton wins the nomination it will be the end of the modern Democratic Party - the period of both its greatness and its popularity. Her husband began the serious dismantling of the party - particularly its commitment to social democracy - and produced for it the greatest loss of elected offices under an incumbent president since Grover Cleveland.

Hilary Clinton will complete the job. If she wins the nomination there will no longer be a real Democratic Party; it will be reduced a subculture of de facto Republicans who support abortion and affirmative action.

Just look at those round her: there isn't one major figure directly involved in her campaign who represents the spirit or the substance of a decent and progressive Democratic Party. It is a cadre of cynical manipulators and fund raisers with dubious pals.

This incredible destruction of the party took place in less than two decades, in part thanks to a number of factors beyond the Clintons:

- The rise of the delusional myths of neo-robber baron capitalism that, among other things, taught voters to choose between competing political CEOs rather than among real issues.

- The trivialization of politics by television and other media in which the future of our nation and our planet was reduced to just another game show or daytime serial.

- A sycophantic Washington press corps that brazenly boosted those politicians with whom it felt socially and culturally most compatible. The media has repeatedly covered up for the Clinton, most recently by failing to inform its audience of HRC's sordid past.

- The stunningly incompetent handling of Congress by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

- The underlying force driving many Democrats in office: fear. Fear of the Christian right, fear of seeming weak, fear of Karl Rove and so forth. By their words they try desperately to seem not afraid, but by these same actions they confirm the critics' view that they are cowards.

But the Clintons played a major part as well, primarily because they have been the preeminent political con artists of modern times.

The Clintons belong to a long American tradition of snake oil salesmen, road gamblers and fake evangelical prophets. The thing these all had in common: those they purported to help or deal fairly with invariably came out the short end. With card sharks or door to door hustlers, the culture suffered but did not shake. But the Clinton as the first of the disreputable breed to actually run the country.

Bill Clinton at least came by his skill naturally. When Bill Clinton is 7, his family moved from Hope, Arkansas, to the long-time mob resort of Hot Springs, AR. Here Al Capone was said to have had permanent rights to suite 443 of the Arlington Hotel. Clinton's stepfather was a gun-brandishing alcoholic who lost his Buick franchise through mismanagement and his own pilfering. His mother was a heavy gambler with mob ties. According to FBI and local police officials, his Uncle Raymond -- to whom young Bill turned for wisdom and support -- was a colorful car dealer, slot machine owner and gambling operator, who thrived (except when his house was firebombed) on the fault line of criminality.

The media forgot to tell you this, but knowing it helps one understand why Bill Clinton is such a better con artist than his wife and why Hillary Clinton constantly gets caught in petty dishonesties, cheap machinations and artificial cackles. It wasn't natural; she had to learn the trade from Bill.

Now, one could go on for 500 more pages on this topic but here's the problem: hardly any of those Democrats who think HR Clinton is the most honest of the major candidates would absorb the information and alter their opinion because the Democratic Party has transformed itself from a political organization into a sort of EST for political junkies.

So it looks like it may be over. Yes, an unanticipated scandal could still emerge. The good people of Iowa and New Hampshire could take the Democratic Party back. HR Clinton might move from embarrassing cackles to indefensible contortions.

But if nothing major happens, you can say good bye to the modern Democratic Party the day that HR Clinton is nominated. You will then be faced not with a choice, but a threat - not unlike one from the capo who tells you: stick with us and your friends and family will be safer and we won't take as much from you as the other mob. This isn't politics; it's thuggery. And that's what our politics have become

T.U. reprints AP story. Post Star ignores soldiers, as usual

While only a handful of us ventured to Syracuse for the rally, we met up with about 3,000 of our brothers and sisters in the peace movement to support about 25 active duty soldiers, members of the Fort Drum chapter of Iraq Veterans Against War (IVAW). We (and they) were also joined by about 100 members of Veterans For Peace. Green veterans were there in full force as well, represented by Bob Gumbs, a Gulf War vet and Green congressional candidate. The Times Union (at least) reprinted the lazy, inadequate AP fluff piece on the rally which I have copied below. The Glens Falls Post Star totally ignored our veterans as they are pro-WAR and anti-SOLDIER.

Peace,

Matt Funiciello

Peace rally organizers say thousands turned up at event

Associated Press
Last updated: 9:32 p.m., Saturday, September 29, 2007

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- About 2,500 antiwar protesters marched through Syracuse on Saturday, calling for an end to the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The rally began at 1 p.m. at the Everson Museum of Art. It ended more than three hours later after a march of 1.6 miles to Walnut Park and another rally. Blocks of SU students joined the chanting, singing, banner-carrying marchers as they came near the campus.

The rally was organized by the Syracuse Peace Council, Service Employees International Union 1199 and Syracuse University Student Peace Action Network. Three buses full of members of the SEIU 119 came from New York City and Boston.

John Burdick of the Syracuse Peace Council, an organizer, said groups came from New York and New England, with an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 in attendance. "That number would make it one of the largest mobilizations since the Vietnam War," he said.

Angela Morano, 57, of Saugerties, said "this is nice, but it's not enough. It's not enough of us on the street."

Morano, who protested during the Vietnam War, said "we are much too peaceful protesters now."

David Lester, 26, of Syracuse, was part of the protest. The Nottingham High School graduate served in Iraq with the 82nd Airborne Division.

"We want to let the people still serving and the people at Fort Drum who don't understand this war to know they are represented," Lester said. "They are not alone."

Ben Winters, 23, of Albany, heard about the protest on the Internet and came.

"I have come to support the cause," Winters said. "I used to go here (to SU). This is much bigger than rallies two or three years ago."

Burdick said the rally marks a big change in logistics.

"It used to be that we'd travel to the bigger cities, New York and Washington, D.C., for these rallies," Burdick said. "It's time for us not to wait for the big cities. Now, they're sending buses up to us."

Betty Wood, 65, of Blodgett Mills, brought five quilt banners with her to the parade. Each had the 170 faces of U.S. soldiers from New York state who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since fighting began. Wood has gotten up to April. She's behind by half a banner.

She chokes up when she's asked why she did it.

"The photos of the flag-draped coffins coming back from over there became classified," said Wood, fighting back tears. "These soldiers became numbers. They deserved to have faces."

An evening panel discussion at the university's Hendricks Chapel was to include Scott Ritter, a former U.S. Marine and United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998; Dr. Dahlia Wasfi, who spent her childhood in Iraq; and Jimmy Massey, a former Marine and founding member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.