http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz-X4tottu4&feature=related
http://ivaw.org/occupy-big-oil-confronting-big-oils-disasters
Excerpt:
Occupy Big Oil!! Confronting Big Oil's Disasters
The Social Justice team at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Boulder, with KGNU Radio, the Boulder Bookstore, and Iraq Veterans Against the War, invite you to the Second Sunday Public Forum (admission free to all):
Occupy Big Oil! Confronting Big Oil's Disasters
with Antonia Juhasz, oil and energy policy analyst, author, activist & IVAW advisory board member
Antonia Juhasz will discuss her latest research and writing into Big Oil's most serious crimes from the current financial crisis, to the BP Gulf oil spill, to wars for oil in the Persian Gulf, and what can be done to change course.
Juhasz will be joined by a representative from Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Event Address
Unitarian Universalist Church of Boulder
5001 Pennsylvania Avenue
Boulder, CO 80303 See map: Google Maps
Date/Time
Sunday, November 13, 2011 - 9:00pm
Points of Contact
Kelly Dougherty, kellydough@gmail.com, (719) 660-8106
Excerpt:
Occupy Boulder Rally and March with Author Terry Marshall
Saturday, Nov 12 at 11:00 AM
Boulder Bandshell
Broadway and Canyon, Boulder, CO 80302 [MAP]
Building a Dream: the Power of Non-Violent Protest. March starts at 12:00 PM, and the General Assembly starts at 1:00 PM.
Terry Marshall has been dubbed "Rural Colorado's hometown revolutionary" by the Denver Post. For more information, go to http://www.occupyboulder.org/ and http://www.terrymarshall-speaker.com/. Add to my calendar
TO VOLUNTEER:
Public Forum: Occupy Big Oil! Confronting Big Oil's Disasters
Sunday, Nov 13 from 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
5001 Pennsylvania Ave, Boulder, CO 80303 [MAP]
The Social Justice team at Unitarian Universalist Church in Boulder, with KGNU Radio, Boulder Bookstore, and Iraq Veterans Against the War, invites you to the Second Sunday Public Forum: Occupy Big Oil! Confronting Big Oil's Disasters, with Antonia Juhaszm oil and energy policy analyst, author, and activist.
Admission free to all. Doors open at 6:30pm, Program and Presentation: 7:00-8:30pm, Reception and Booksigning: 8:30-9:00pm Add to my calendar
Excerpt:
Excerpt:
Occupy Boulder looking at daily rallies
Posted: 10/27/2011 09:00:17 PM MDT
If you go What: Occupy Halloween
When: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday
Where: Broadway and Canyon Boulevard
Details: OccupyBOULDER on Twitter or Facebook
When: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday
Where: Broadway and Canyon Boulevard
Details: OccupyBOULDER on Twitter or Facebook
A committee representing Occupy Boulder has proposed the protesters begin daily downtown rallies to increase the movement's presence in the city.
The proposal calls for protesters to rally at the intersection of Broadway and Canyon Boulevard from noon to 6 p.m. everyday, indefinitely. The idea came up at an Occupy Boulder general assembly Thursday night in Sister Cities Park.
According to a show of hands, a vast majority of the two dozen or so people at the assembly agreed with establishing a more permanent presence, though a starting date for the occupation has not yet been established.
Excerpt:
IVAW to march for Occupy Oakland again
November 11th, 2011
So Ouccpy Oakland is going to be marching with IVAW today in protests against Oakland Police Force. It seems that Scott Olsen will be speaking at the event.
As part of Veterans Day, veterans will be leading a march against police brutality on November 11th, 2011 in Oakland. We will start with a press conference and rally with an update and statement from Scott Olsen at Oscar Grant Plaza starting at 4pm.
We welcome all veterans of the 99% to lead the way and all supporters to join us as we march the streets. We march not only for injured veterans Scott Olsen, Kayvan Sabeghi and Doug Connor, but for all those who have been killed or injured as a result of police brutality.
Yea because that is what I think of when I think of Veterans day or IVAW for that matter. Also should be interesting to hear what Olsen is going to say about his past if at all.
But I am sure that few Veterans would throw in their hat in with the IVAW if they saw photos like this.
Excerpt:
November 4, 2011
Veterans of the 99%' March in Support of OWS and Scott OlsenMembers of the New York City chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War and dozens of other uniformed veterans known as 'Veterans of the 99%' pause in front of the New York Stock Exchange while marching from Vietnam Veterans Plaza to Zucotti Park where the Occupy Wall Street movement is centered on November 2, 2011 in New York City. The veterans groups, which feature current and former members of the United States military, marched in support of Occupy Wall Street and to pay homage to Scott Olsen, a former Marine and Iraq War vet who sustained a skull fracture after he was injured by police at an Occupy Oakland protest.
Excerpt:
1.) Veterans Deserve Economic Justice: Thousands of veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are finding a grim job market. Veterans who served since 9/11 experience a 12.1% unemployment rate, which is higher than the national average, while one in three male veterans are jobless. Recent reports have showed that the number of homeless veterans is surging, while there are insufficient job placement programs.
2.) Veterans Embrace Occupy Wall Street Out Of Love For Country: A growing number of veterans groups are enthusiastically embracing the movement. Although some are demonstrating against a terrible economic conditions, many are doing so out of simple patriotism. Thousands have marched near Zuccotti Park and at other occupy encampments with a message about taking their country back from the grip of lobbyists and predatory financial institutions. One iconic sign, held by a veteran at Occupy Wall Street, summed up the sentiment: “Second time I’ve fought for my country. First time I’ve known my enemy.”
3.) The Banks Are Preying On Veterans: Big banks have found ways to rip off and ruin the men and women who placed their lives on the line for this country. According to a recent whistleblower lawsuit, some of the nation’s biggest banks, including Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and J.P. Morgan Chase, “defrauded veterans and taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars by disguising illegal fees in veterans’ home refinancing loans.” Fly-by-night scam for-profit universities, many of which are owned by Wall Street investment banks, heavily target veterans with fraudulent educational programs. While military families struggle to get by all over the country, defense contractor CEO’s earn as much as $19 million a year.
4.) K Street Domination Of Government Means Defense Money Goes To War Profiteering Corporations Over Veterans: America spends more on the military than most of our rival nations combined. Yet much of that money, because of the influence of defense contractors and other private military interests, is spent on expensive weapons we never use instead of on rank and file soldiers. Revolving door lobbyists, who go from the Pentagon to K Street firms, have secured over a trillion in wasteful spending to companies like Lockheed Martin.
5.) During The Economic Downturn, Veterans Programs Are Being Cut And Privatized As Well: As Republicans and their allies have succeeded so far in pushing an austerity agenda of massive government cuts, veterans have also been targeted. According to a recent analysis by Military.com of a CBO study outlining suggested cuts, Congress is debating proposals to cap military basic pay and limiting veterans health benefits. Notably, the Defense Business Board is also considering a move to privatize the military pension program, swapping it out with a 401k system. If there is another crisis on Wall Street, veterans could lose see their retirement benefits wiped out if such a system is put in place.
Veterans protest with the 99 Percent near Wall Street
Army rushed defective body armor into the field, says Pentagon
Steve Tarlow August 17, 2011Insufficiently tested body armor triggered a sweeping investigation. (Photo Credit: Public Domain/U.S. Army/Flickr)
Steve Tarlow August 17, 2011Insufficiently tested body armor triggered a sweeping investigation. (Photo Credit: Public Domain/U.S. Army/Flickr)
In a 51-page Aug. 1 report, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Office of the Inspector General found that the Army did not properly test body armor before sending it into the field in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Associated Press reports that more than 5.1 million pieces of body armor were rushed into action at a cost of $2.5 billion, and most — if not all — of the body armor escaped testing for minimum safety standards.
Body armor or hillbilly armor
Defense contracts awarded between 2004 and 2006 for ballistic inserts were found to include either defective body armor plates or plates that were the wrong size. The harsh environment and temperatures in Iraq and Afghanistan made extracurricular field tests impossible, so potentially a few million U.S. Army troops were forced to use the body armor in trial-by-fire scenarios.
As The Moderate Voice reminds, reckless safety testing has been an issue in the U.S. military before. In December 2004, then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with Army specialist Thomas Wilson. Wilson asked Rumsfeld why U.S. soldiers had to dig through scrap heaps on the field of battle in order to assemble “hillbilly armor” for themselves and their Humvees. Rumsfeld’s response was accurate, if catastrophically inappropriate:
“You go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”
Voice of the Veteran: IVAW Veterans Speak
Feds nab Point Blank Armor officials
Excerpt:
Ripped from the front page of Military.com this morning is a story I did on the arrest of former Point Blank top officials David H. Brooks and Sandra Hatfield. Just a quick note — I write this with some sense of satisfaction since I actually met Sandra Hatfield at the Point Blank HQ in Florida back in ’05. When I broke the story of vest failures in Marine Corps ordered lots, I went down there to interview her about it. She was scary, and answered my questions with statements like: “well, you tell me, you seem to have all the answers here…” Very combative and pissed off. Well, turns out she might be a crook who could spend 75 years in jail. She was pissed I’d found out about the vest failures and had documents that proved she knew about them and did nothing to correct the problems.
Oh well, I guess Karma’s a bitch…
Oh well, I guess Karma’s a bitch…
David H. Brooks, the founder of Point Blank Body Armor and former head of its parent company, DHB Industries, was indicted on a variety of financial impropriety charges Thursday after months of investigations by federal prosecutors.
Brooks, who led DHB Industries until July 2006, was indicted for insider trading, fraud, obstruction of justice and tax evasion, the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York said in a release obtained by Military.com.
The former chief operating officer of Point Blank, Sandra Hatfield, was charged along with Brooks in the indictment. She had been served with a previous indictment for securities fraud in August 2006.
Excerpt:
Outsourcing Walter Reed
And all this was to create a new revenue opportunity for IAP. The company is an odd choice to help manage one of the nation’s premier military medical facilities. It was founded in 1989 by a South Carolina entrepreneur who enlisted the help of a logistics expert who had recently left the Army. They rode the rising wave of military outsourcing in the 1990s, specializing in supplying electric generators, while also getting federal civilian contracts for prosaic functions such as providing ice in natural disasters (a responsibility it later botched during Hurricane Katrina). Last year IAP got a $103 million contract to handle file management at the IRS but was unable to get up and running by the specified start date.
Management of the company is now in the hands of Al Neffgen and David Swindle, two former executives with Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root—one of the giants of military outsourcing and the subject of numerous allegations about overcharging the federal government. Today, IAP’s board of directors includes former Vice President Dan Quayle, a former commandant of the Marines and a former vice chief of staff of the Air Force. Such connections have undoubtedly helped the company rise up the ranks of federal contractors. Its volume of business with Uncle Sam has grown from about $222 million in 2000 to some $1.2 billion in 2005.
Excerpt:
Notable acquisitions
- Paper products — The company acquired MeadWestvaco's paper business for $2.3B in 2005 and renamed it NewPage. Cerberus also purchased, from Georgia Pacific Corporation, its Distribution Division/Building Products and all of its associated real estate. It renamed this new company BlueLinx Holdings, based in Atlanta.
- Government Services (Military, Energy, and Food & Drug) — owns IAP Worldwide Services, which bought Johnson Controls' World Services division in February 2005. Previously owned Multimax (purchased predecessor company in 2000 and Multimax in 2006; sold entire holding in 2007 to Harris Corporation). The company is also completing acquisition of the private military contractor DynCorp International.[22]
Excerpt:
IAP Worldwide Services, Inc. is a privately-owned company with "about 5,000 employees working in more than 25 countries" that serves the U.S. Department of Defense, "as well as other federal US and non-US government agencies." For IAP, "the customer is the government, and the company's services range from building Army camps in Iraq to providing ice to US hurricane victims." [1]
"In Iraq, it builds and operates Army camps the size of small cities. In the southeastern United States, it provides emergency ice and power generation to hurricane victims. IAP supports domestic and foreign military installations, provides technical employees for the US Geological Survey, crafts mock foreign military hardware for US war games, and operates trucks and heavy lift equipment that support US combat forces in Kuwait and Iraq." [2]
Contents[hide] |
Connected to Halliburton and Walter Reed Army Medical Center
"IAP is owned by Cerberus Capital Management LP, an asset-management firm chaired by former Treasury secretary John W. Snow. The company is headed by two former high-ranking executives of KBR, formerly known as Kellogg Brown & Root. Al Neffgen, IAP's chief executive, was chief operating officer for a KBR division before joining IAP in 2004. IAP's president, Dave Swindle, is a former KBR vice president. The company has worked at Walter Reed since 2003, providing housekeepers, computer analysts and clerks under a Treasury contract," Steve Vogel and Renae Merle reported March 10, 2007, in the Washington Post.Background
"IAP's heritage dates back to the days of Pan American Technical Services, Inc., a company that built America’s first space launch complex at Cape Canaveral, Fla., more than 50 years ago. The namesake International American Products (IAP) was formed in Irmo, SC, in 1990 by Doyle McBride, a retired US Army professional logistician. In response to a burgeoning US government contracting market, McBride’s IAP was growing as well. Providing a variety of logistics and contingency services, the company had grown by 2003 to $156 million from $18 million. McBride soon decided to take on a partner, selling 74% of the company in 2005 to a private investment group." [3]In 2005, IAP acquired Johnson Controls World Services, Inc. and its wholly owned subsidiary, Readiness Management Support." [4]
http://www.crocodyl.org/wiki/KBR
Excerpt:
Environment and product safety:
KBR was named in a Pentagon report describing troop illnesses in Iraq after serving contaminated water for non-potable uses at US military bases in Iraq.
A Pentagon Inspector General's report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.
The Nation reported that the Department of Defense paid KBR more than $80 million in bonuses in 2007 and 2008 for contracts to install electrical wiring that has resulted in the electrocution deaths of US soldiers according to documents revealed on May 20, 2009 in a Senate Hearing. Charles Smith, a former Army official who managed the contracts under which KBR performed electrical work in Iraq called the company's work "dangerously substandard" and the bonuses they received "highly inappropriate". Since 2003, some 18 US soldiers have died as a result of KBR's negligent electrical work. A master electrician hired by the Army to review electrical work in Iraq during 2008 reported finding improper wiring in "every" building the company had wired in the country, equalling thousands. Work was not done to code and in some cases properly wired buildings were rewired making them unsafe. Multiple others have testified against KBR alleging that everywhere in Iraq, KBR would double-bill US taxpayers by performing incomplete or incorrect electrical wiring only to bill taxpayers again later for repairs to the faulty work.
http://www.erichufschmid.net/Columbine/Columbine-Bollyn.html
Excerpt:
"I didn't realize what an epidemic it was until I went with Dr. Tracy and heard all the testimony," Taylor said. Mark's mother, Donna, told AFP that she had seen "tarantulas on the ceiling" and "snakes coming out of my mouth," hallucinations she had suffered while taking Paxil. "Racing thoughts" had prevented her from sleeping and she had not recognized her closest family members when they entered her home.
A Mayo Clinic study, said to be the first systematic demonstration of the relationship between anti-depressants and a sleep disorder known as RBD was presented at a June 19 sleep disorder conference in Salt Lake City. The Mayo study demonstrated that a link exists between the use of anti-depressant medications in young people and the onset of REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD).
RBD is the freakish sleep disorder, described by Dr. Tracy, in which patients act out their dreams, which are often unpleasant and violent.
The acting out of nightmares results from a loss of normal muscle paralysis in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the dream stage of sleep. The normal muscle paralysis prevents one from acting out a dream or nightmare. RBD patients, however, generally act out their dreams in a defensive posture, as if fending off an attacker, says R. Robert Auger, M.D., Mayo Clinic sleep medicine specialist, psychiatrist and primary investigator.
Dr. Tracy greeted the Mayo study saying this is exactly what she has been warning about for 14 years.
A Pentagon Inspector General's report obtained by The Associated Press said soldiers experienced skin abscesses, cellulitis, skin infections, diarrhea and other illnesses after using discolored, smelly water for personal hygiene and laundry at five U.S. military sites in Iraq.
The Nation reported that the Department of Defense paid KBR more than $80 million in bonuses in 2007 and 2008 for contracts to install electrical wiring that has resulted in the electrocution deaths of US soldiers according to documents revealed on May 20, 2009 in a Senate Hearing. Charles Smith, a former Army official who managed the contracts under which KBR performed electrical work in Iraq called the company's work "dangerously substandard" and the bonuses they received "highly inappropriate". Since 2003, some 18 US soldiers have died as a result of KBR's negligent electrical work. A master electrician hired by the Army to review electrical work in Iraq during 2008 reported finding improper wiring in "every" building the company had wired in the country, equalling thousands. Work was not done to code and in some cases properly wired buildings were rewired making them unsafe. Multiple others have testified against KBR alleging that everywhere in Iraq, KBR would double-bill US taxpayers by performing incomplete or incorrect electrical wiring only to bill taxpayers again later for repairs to the faulty work.
http://www.erichufschmid.net/Columbine/Columbine-Bollyn.html
Excerpt:
"I didn't realize what an epidemic it was until I went with Dr. Tracy and heard all the testimony," Taylor said. Mark's mother, Donna, told AFP that she had seen "tarantulas on the ceiling" and "snakes coming out of my mouth," hallucinations she had suffered while taking Paxil. "Racing thoughts" had prevented her from sleeping and she had not recognized her closest family members when they entered her home.
A Mayo Clinic study, said to be the first systematic demonstration of the relationship between anti-depressants and a sleep disorder known as RBD was presented at a June 19 sleep disorder conference in Salt Lake City. The Mayo study demonstrated that a link exists between the use of anti-depressant medications in young people and the onset of REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD).
RBD is the freakish sleep disorder, described by Dr. Tracy, in which patients act out their dreams, which are often unpleasant and violent.
The acting out of nightmares results from a loss of normal muscle paralysis in REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the dream stage of sleep. The normal muscle paralysis prevents one from acting out a dream or nightmare. RBD patients, however, generally act out their dreams in a defensive posture, as if fending off an attacker, says R. Robert Auger, M.D., Mayo Clinic sleep medicine specialist, psychiatrist and primary investigator.
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