Military Resistance 12D16 Death by Cost Cutting

7/27/2019 Military Resistance 12D16 Death by Cost Cutting

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Military Resistance: [email protected] 4.25.14 Print it out: color best. Pass it on.

Military Resistance 12D16

40 U.S. Veterans Die While OnPhoenix VA Hospitals Cost-Cutting Secret Waiting List:

Scheme Set Up By VA Managers InPhoenix To Hide The Fact ThatBetween 1,400 And 1,600 Sick

Veterans Were Forced To Wait Up To21 Months To See A Doctor

Plans Involved Shredding Evidence ToHide The Long List
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]


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[Thanks to Clancy Sigal, who sent this in.]

April 24, 2014 BY Melanie Greenwood, NEW YORK DAILY NEWS & By Scott Bronsteinand Drew Griffin, CNN Investigations

At least 40 U.S. veterans have died waiting for medical appointments at PhoenixVeterans Affairs Health Care system including many placed on a secret waiting list.

The list was part of a complex cost-cutting scheme set up by Veterans Affairs managersin Phoenix aiming to hide the fact that between 1,400 and 1,600 sick veterans were

forced to wait up to 21 months to see a doctor, according to whistle-blowing retired topVA doctor and high-level sources.

Internal emails reveal managers at Arizonas VA hospital knew about the practice andeven condoned it.

Retiring Dr. Sam Foote, who spent 24 years wi th the VA system, told CNN that thePhoenix VA worked off two patient appointment lists.

The "official" list shows the VA was offering timely appointments within 14 to 30days. Foote called this a sham list because there was another secret documentwhere waits where much longer.

"The scheme was deliberately put in place to avoid the VAs own internal rules.They developed the secret waiting l ist, he said.

According to Foote, the elaborate plans involved shredding evidence to h ide thelong li st, with VA officials instructing staff to not make veterans appointments inthe computer system.


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Instead, Foote explained, when a veteran sought an appointment, "They enterinformation into the computer and do a screen-capture, hard-copy printout. They then donot save what was put into the computer so theres no record.

That hard copy is then placed into a secret electronic waiting list, Foote said, with thepaper data being shredded.

He also revealed that patients wouldnt be taken off the secret list until theirappointment time was within 14 days or less giving the appearance that the VAwas improving waiting times.

" I feel very sorry fo r the people who work at the Phoenix VA," said Foote.

"Theyre all frustrated. Theyre all upset. They all wish they could leave causethey know what theyre doing is wrong.

"But they have families, they have mortgages and if they speak out or sayanything to anybody about i t, they will be fired and they know that."

Several other high-level VA staff confirmed Footes description to CNN and confirmedthis is exactly how the secret list works in Phoenix.

In the case of 71-year-old Navy veteran Thomas Breen, the wait on the secret listended much sooner.

"We had noticed that he started to have bleeding in his urine," said Teddy Barnes-Breen,his son. "So I was like, Listen, we gotta get you to the doctor. "

Teddy says his Brooklyn-raised father was so proud of his military service that he wouldgo nowhere but the VA for treatment.

On September 28, 2013, with blood in his urine and a history of cancer, Teddy and hiswife, Sally, rushed his father to the Phoenix VA emergency room, where he wasexamined and sent home to wait.

"They wrote on his chart that it was urgent," said Sally, her father-in-laws maincaretaker. The family has obtained the chart from the VA that clearly states the"urgency" as "one week" for Breen to see a primary care doctor or at least aurologist, for the concerns about the blood in the urine.

"And they sent him home," says Teddy, incredulously.

Sally and Teddy say Thomas Breen was given an appointment with a rheumatologist tolook at his prosthetic leg but was given no appointment for the main reason he went in.

No one called from the VA with a primary care appointment. Sally says she andher father-in-law called " numerous times" in an effort to try to get an urgentappointment for him. She says the response they got was less than helpful.


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"Well, you know, we have other patients that are critical as well," Sally says shewas told. " Its a seven-month waiting list. And you re gonna have to havepatience."

Sally says she kept calling, day after day, from late September to October. Shekept up the calls through November.

But then she no longer had reason to call.

Thomas Breen died on November 30. The death certificate shows that he diedfrom Stage 4 bladder cancer. Months after the initial visi t, Sally says she finallydid get a call.

"They called me December 6. Hes dead already."

Sally says the VA official told her, "We finally have that appointment. We have a primaryfor him. I said, Really, youre a little too late, sweetheart. "

Sally says her father-in-law realized toward the end he was not getting the care heneeded.

"At the end is when he suffered. He screamed. He cried. And thats somethin Idnever seen him do before, was cry. Never. Never. He cried in the kitchen righthere. Dont let me die. "

Teddy added his father said: "Why is this happening to me? Why wont anybodyhelp me?"

Teddy added: "They didn t do the righ t thing ." Sally said: "No. They neglectedPop."

CNN obtained emails from July 2013 showing top management, including Phoenix VADirector Sharon Helman, was aware of wait times and the electronic off-the-booksrecords. They also showed that some patients were waiting 6-20 weeks to get their firstappointment with a primary care physician.

Foote sent letters to the VA Office of the Inspector General detailing the secret electronicwaiting list and veteran deaths. Foote confirmed IG inspectors have interviewed himabout the allegations.

Foote says the entire secret list and the reason for its existence was planned andcreated by top management at the Phoenix VA to avoid detection of the long wait times

by veterans.

"This was a plan that involved the Pentad, which includes the director, the associatedirector, the assistant director, the chief of nursing, along with the medical chief of staff

in collaboration with the chief of H.A.S.," he said.

Rep. Jeff Miller, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs, has demandedthe VA preserve all records in anticipation of a congressional investigation.


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Congress has now ordered all records in Phoenix, secret or not, be preserved, includingthat of Thomas Breen.

YOUR INVITATION:

Comments, arguments, articles, and letters from service menand women, and veterans, are especially welcome. Write to Box126, 2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657 or [email protected]: Name, I.D., withheld unless yourequest publication. Same address to unsubscribe.

FORWARD OBSERVATIONS

At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed. Oh hadI the abili ty, and could reach the nations ear, I would, pour out a fiery stream ofbiting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stern rebuke.

For it is not ligh t that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder.

We need the storm, the whir lwind, and the earthquake.

The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom theyoppose.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Frederick Douglass, 1852

There is no democracy without socialism and no socialism without democracy.-- Rosa Luxemburg

A Story of WarThat Never Gets Told

Medevac Helicopter An Khe, Vietnam. Photograph by Mike Hastie. Full Disclosure untilthe day I die.

From: Mike HastieTo: Military Resistance NewsletterSent: April 23, 2014Subject: A Story of War That Never Gets Told

A Story of War That Never Gets Told

A couple of weeks ago a f riend cal led me from

Salem, Oregon and wanted to know if I wasinterested in going to a college baseball gamewith him and three of his old high school buddies.I said yes, so he ordered me a ticket.This past Saturday I drove to Salem from Portlandto join him and his three friends who graduated fromhigh school together in 1968.The game was being played in Eugene, Oregon, wherethe University of Oregon was playing Washington State


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University.It was the last game of a three game series betweenthe two schools. Oregon had won the first two games.

Of the five of us , only Jerry and I were Vietnam vets.Just before the game started, the national anthem was played.

Al l f ive of us stood up, but at the t ime I knew Jerry had a hardtime with this ri tual, because Jerry had a secret only I knew about .In 1994, Jerry and I and two other Vietnam vet friends went backto Vietnam to make amends to the Vietnamese people, so I knewJerry very well, probably much better than his three class mateswho were at the game.Jerry and his three high school buddies were from a small townalong the southern Oregon coast.Jerry had excelled in long distance running, and continues to runmarathons to this day.It is his saving grace that helps keep him alive from the stressesof war trauma and his sense of guilt.

When Jerry entered the U.S. Army, he was trained in " Radio Intercept."Essentially, he was trained to break enemy radio code traffic.When he got to Vietnam, he was assigned to Bien Hoa, near Saigon.He joined a well respected crew that had a reputation for breakingViet Cong radio codes.Because Jerry excelled at his job , he was given a more prestigiousassignment of giving radio coordinates to B-52 pilots who werebombing military targets.Jerry did th is for awhi le, unti l he began to question the targets theB-52s were bombing.To deal with his stress, he began drinking more, and going on long

runs around the base perimeter with his boots on.Eventually, he and a few other members of his radio crew discoveredthat the targets the U.S. bombers were carpet bombing were noneother than civilian targets.Thats when a 19 year-old k id from a small town in Oregon beganto have panic attacks.That is when he discovered there are no ru les in war.The daily kil ling of civil ians, are military targets.Thats when his belief system was shot at point -blank range.

Af ter ten months of being in Vietnam, Jerry made a decis ionthat changed his life.One morning, he simply walked into his company orderly room,

and told his commanding o fficer that his tour of du ty in Vietnamwas officially over.He was not going to work for the U.S. Government anymore.He was absolutely done with being a partic ipant in war crimes.His commanding officer threatened him w ith court martial anddisobeying a lawful order as an American soldier in a time of war.When Jerry continued to disobey any further orders, he was puton psychiatric hold and restricted to base.The medics put h im on medication to calm his attitude.


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Within a week he was sent back to the United States,where he was admit ted to a psychiatric ward at Madigan

Army Hospi tal in Tacoma, Washington.Jerry found himself in the arts and crafts room doinglittle projects with other soldiers who decided not to

cooperate with the U.S. Government in Vietnam.Eventually, Jerry was discharged from the Army with apsychiatric diagnosis, and failure to adjust to military life.So, this is Jerrys story.This is what he had to do to maintain his moral convic tions,and refuse to commit further killing in an immoral war.It took many years for Jerry to come to terms with hisparticipation as an American soldier in Vietnam.The suffering he went through took him to another world.His deep feelings of betrayal and guilt made him suic idal formany years.These are the stor ies that are never revealed to the American

publ ic, because all they want to believe is that their sold iersare all heroes.Well, Jerry did one of the most heroic things in Vietnamthat I have ever heard.He is one of the greatest gifts o f my li fe.The price of peace for Jerry was against the law.

Mike HastieArmy Medic VietnamApri l 23, 2014

Photo and caption from the portfol io of Mike Hastie, US Army Medic, Vietnam

1970-71. (For more of his outstanding work, contact at:([email protected]) T)

One day while I was in a bunker in Vietnam, a sniper round went over my head.The person who f ired that weapon was not a terroris t, a rebel, an extremist, or aso-called insurgent. The Vietnamese individual who tried to kill me was a citizenof Vietnam, who did not want me in his country. This truth escapes millions.

Mike HastieU.S. Army MedicVietnam 1970-71December 13, 2004

The Silent Wars

From: Dennis SerdelTo: Military Resistance
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]


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Subject: The Silent WarsDate: Apr 19, 2010

By Dennis Serdel, Military Resistance 2010; Vietnam 1967-68 (one tour) Light Infantry,Americal Div. 11th Brigade; United Auto Workers GM Retiree

****************************************************************

The Silent Wars

What are they fight ing forLand and its richeswhat kind of richesOil Minerals Natural GasWhat else are they fighting forPositioning in the worldSo thats why the wars areon the other side of earth Yes

Looks like a big countrypicking on a smaller one againYou mean like Vietnam Yesa long time agoTheir people just listenbut all they hear is si lenceYes they have their own problemsmany live hand to mouththey are in a rich depressionMany go to work whileothers sit at home eating food stampsTheir government keeps

them poor so they will justthink of their own problemsand keep disconnectedto the silent wars beyondSome have lost their housesthe rich banks took them awayWhy does their rich governmentkeep them alivewhile so many are brokenIts some sort of distraction

just their own silent warsthe wars on TV mean nothing

to themMany have diedthey die in their streetsthey die in their carsin the rich mans prisonsmen surrounded by wallsso their screaming cant be heardsilence is torturesilence is death


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written by Dennis Serdel for Military Resistance Apr 19, 2010

ANNIVERSARIES

April 25, 1945:Remembering Joe Polowsky

[Thanks to Dennis Serdel, who sent this in.]

From Wikipedia

Joseph (Joe) Polowsky (19161983) was an American soldier who with others metSoviet troops on the banks of Elbe River on April 25, 1945 and later became an anti-waractivist.

He was the youngest son of Jewish immigrants who had immigrated from the Kiev area

in the Russian Empire to the United States and worked as a taxi driver in Chicago.

During World War II he was conscripted and served in the 69th Infantry Division. Hebelonged to a scouting party which crossed the Elbe in Torgau on April 25, 1945 andmet Soviet troops on the other bank.

When the Americans and the Soviets saw bodies of German civilians killed by strayartillery fire near the river the soldiers of both armies swore to do everything to prevent anew war.

In 1946 Polowsky was discharged from the army. Back in the U.S., he unsuccessfullyasked the United Nations to declare 25 April a World Day of Peace. During the

McCarthyism era he was prosecuted for "un-American activities". Each year hecommemorated the Elbe Day on the Michigan Avenue Bridge in Chicago and held avigil. He continued to work as a taxi driver.

In 1959 he met Soviet Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev who visited the United States. Ashort time later he was invited to visit the Soviet Union where he again met Khrushchevin the Kremlin. Then he visited East Germany and met Walter Ulbricht.


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Already ill with cancer, Polowsky held his last vigil on Michigan Avenue Bridge on April25, 1983. He died in Chicago on October 17, 1983. In his will he asked to be buried inTorgau, and was buried there with military honors on November 26, 1983.

In 1995 a high school in Torgau was named after him. He was memorialized in the FredSmall song "At The Elbe". A new rose variety was dedicated to Joe Polowsky in Torgau

in 2006.

MORE:

VFP Chapter Joseph Polowsky #76

From: Dennis SerdelTo: Military Resistance NewsletterSent: April 18, 2014Subject: VFP Chapter Joseph Polowsky #76

By Dennis Serdel, Vietnam 1967-68 (one tour) Light Infantry, Americal Div. 11th Brigade;United Auto Workers GM Retiree

Back in the 80s, I started VFP Chapter Joseph Polowsky # 76 inKalamazoo, Michigan. At the Elbe River in WWII, Joe Polowsky & other

American Soldiers made a

Peace Pact with the Russian Soldiers to Meet every year at the Elbe & toStop all future Wars. One time 6 Russian Soldiers flew to Chicago & wereamazed at the

difference between the Workers & the Rich. As they got older, it dwindleddown to just Joe going to the Elbe River until his death. I went to the NationalVFP Convention

in Arizona after Chapter 76 was formed that year. It was run by WWIIVeterans with a Navy Admiral & Army Officers.

In Arizona, there were not many Vietnam Veterans & the Powers that be,tried to make a Resolution that Vietnam was never declared a War & it was

just a Conflict.

Upon debate I raised my hand & said that Vietnam was a War, another

Vietnam Veteran spoke up & said he was in Vietnam & it was a War.In VFP Chapter #76, we made our name known by attending many Events,but just as it was taking off, my General Motors factory said, they wereclosing the GMfactory in Kalamazoo, Michigan. I headed for Flint, Michigan & others headedfor other GM factories in the nation, so I lost GM Members & others, butChapter 76lasted for just a little while after that.My wife attended Catholic Mass today & although I too was raised as a


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Catholic, I dont believe in it anymore. But in the Catholic Times she broughtback, I found the Obituary

for Father John Grathwohl who was a VFP & in Chapter # 76. He was aChaplain in Vietnam in 1968 & he told me that in Vietnam, they ordered himto make a speech on

Memorial Day. I wrote a poem about him because All he did on MemorialDay, was to Speak the Name, Rank & date of Death of the Soldiers thathad been killed since he

was there. It had been Tet 1968 & we lost many Soldiers & it was at theheight of the Vietnam WAR. Now VFP has been mostly taken over byVietnam Veterans.

SOS - Dennis

DO YOU HAVE A FRIEND OR RELATIVE IN THEMILITARY?

Forward Military Resistance along, or send us the email address if youwish and well send it regularly with your best wishes. Whether in

Afghanistan or at a base in the USA, this is ext ra impor tant for your servicefriend, too often cut off from access to encouraging news of grow ingresistance to injustices, inside the armed services and at home. Sendemail requests to address up top or write to: Military Resistance, Box 126,2576 Broadway, New York, N.Y. 10025-5657.


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April 25, 1974: Portugal:Most Honorable Anniversary

Soldiers Rise Up To Overthrow ADictator

Socialist Worker.co.uk

Carl Bunin Peace History April 23-29

A peaceful uprising by army and civilians, known as the carnation revolution (Revoluodos Cravos), ended 48 years of fascism in Portugal.

The regime killed four before giving into the popular resistance.

25 April 2004 By Manny Thain, Socialist World.net [Excerpts]

It started at 12.25 am on Thursday 25 Apri l 1974 when the rebel song, GrandolaVila Morena, played on the radio.

By early evening the end of dictatorship was announced.

The Movimento das Foras Armadas (MFA), radical mid-ranking officers, hadexecuted the plan devised by Captain Otelo de Carvalho. Troops secured Lisbonand the second city, Porto. Key installations were taken, ministers arrested.


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THE news of the regimes downfall spread like wild fire.

People flooded the streets.

MFA vehicles were mobbed by adoring crowds.

Thousands of school students marched, shouting Down with fascism.

Red carnations, the symbol of the revolution, blossomed in rifle barrels andfestooned the streets in this festival of freedom.

The ex-dictator, Marcello Caetano, cowered in National Guard barracks.

He was the successor to the fascist regime consolidated in the early 1930s by AntnioSalazar. Paramilitary groups terrorised left-wing and industrial militants. Independenttrade unions and the right to strike were illegal.

The secret police had a massive network of agents and informers.

Torture was systemic.

But it was the armed African liberation struggles - especially Angola, Guinea-Bissau andMozambique - begun in the early 1960s, which drove the final nails into the coffin of thefascist regime.

Many mid-ranked officers had been influenced by the Marxism they read incounter-insurgency training.

Radicalisation continued in Africa with the brutal repression meted out to the people

fighting for their freedom. A policy of fast-tracking new officers fuelled the anger.

The MFA set up a junta of national salvation to rule until a provisional government wasformed. Elections were promised within a year. It announced freedom of associationand expression, and an amnesty for political prisoners.

Having suffered at the hands of bosses and landowners linked to the regime, workersdrove them out of the factories and off the land. The editor of the daily, Dirio deNotcias, was forced out on 7 June after print workers seized the presses, publishing afront-page article exposing his fascist connections.

Homeless people occupied empty properties. Shipyard and underground workers went

on strike for a 50% pay rise. Car workers won a 40-hour week. Bakery and textileworkers struck. Train and tram conductors refused to collect fares.

General Antnio de Spnola was made acting president. The son of a friend of Salazar,Spnola had impeccable fascist credentials. He had, however, called for the easing ofdirect colonial rule, which gave him a certain amount of support.

Spnola made one more pathetic bid for power, on 11 March 1975.


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But the paratroopers he mobi lised mutinied.

The fact that six members of the Esprito Santo banking family were implicated in thecoup fiasco fuelled further outrage.

Army Establishes Excellency ExcellentCenter Of Excellently Excelling

Excellence

Photo Credit: US Army

April 21, 2014 By Frederick Taub, The Duffle Blog

With much fanfare, the Chief of Staff of the Army announced the opening of the latestcross-branch U.S. Army School designed to indoctrinate officers and crush anydissenting thinkers, sources confirmed today.

The Excellency Excellent Center of Excellently Excelling Excellence or E2CE3because this is the Army is the logical conclusion of the nightmarish hodgepodge ofgood ideas that some sadistic lunatic in the Pentagon came up with in combining

completely different branches of the service together into a schoolhouse in the name ofpecuniary considerations.

Thanks to a recent revision of the oxymoronically namedArmy Writing Guidebanning alladjectives and adverbs save variations on excellent, the Dept. of the Army related thatcreating monikers for these cesspits of egotism has never been easier.

Examples of this new order include the Maneuver Center of Excellence in which armorand infantry officers glare at each other and argue about who really won the World War


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II, and the Fires Center of Excellence, which irrationally blends the Field Artillery, astrictly offensive branch and the Air Defense Artillery, an eponymously defensive one.

Renowned Duffel Blog contributor Brig. Gen. J.B. Jay Burton informed us that a petproject of his, combining Explosive Ordnance Disposal and the Chemical Corps into asingular organization dubbed simply The Branch of Excellence has recently received

the approval of the Secretary of the Army and is awaiting Defense Secretary ChuckHagels signature.

I am very proud of the potential behind E-two-C-E-three, said Army Chief of Staff Gen.Raymond Odierno, while wiping perspiration from his shiny bald head. What exactlymakes it so excellent? Im afraid thats classified. The official crest is still being createdby the Army Heraldry Center of Excellence, but I am confident that not one most bogusdude will be able to make his or her way through its hallowed halls without emerging amost triumphantly excellent character on the other end!

Odierno grinned broadly, eyes as black and pitiless as a sharks gleaming over yellowed,slab-like teeth.

Of course, in order to get funding for this most excellent center, I had to cut an excellentdrug deal with Congress that involved a 15% cut to basic pay to everyone without one ofthese on their shoulder, said Odierno, smugly rubbing imaginary dust from his four-starshoulderboard.

But I told them My soldiers dont mind losing pay, as long as they can get even bettertraining!

After finishing his comments and cannily dodging questions about actually importanttopics, Odierno brought up the two first graduates of the E2CE3, introducing themWilliam S. Preston Esq. and Theodore Logan, both lieutenant colonels.

What has your time at the new Army Center of Whatever taught you?

The question floated limply up from the apathetic crowd of reporters like a week-oldbirthday balloon.

Lt. Col. Preston paused briefly, leaning towards his companion to murmur a fewindistinguishable words before returning to the microphone. He cleared his throat. Beexcellent to each other, he proclaimed beneficently.

Lt. Col. Logan raised his hand, Party on dudes!

CLASS WAR REPORTS

A Win For Our Side:


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Auto Parts Workers At The PistonAutomotive Factory In Toledo, Ohio,

Went On Strike For Union Recognit ion At9 A.M. April 17And By 5 P.M., The Boss

Had Given In

Workers who build brakes and struts for Jeep used the tightness of the "just-in-time"

supply system to threaten a shutdown of the profitable vehicle, as they struck forrecognition. Photo: Paul Wohlfarth

April 17, 2014 by Jane Slaughter, Labor Notes [Excerpts]

This article was updated with new information after management gave in and recognizedthe UAW at 5 p.m. April 17.

Auto parts workers at the Piston Automotive factory in Toledo, Ohio, went on strike forunion recognition at 9 a.m. April 17and by 5 p.m., the boss had given in.

The 70 workers make brake systems and struts for the new Jeep Cherokee, built by

Chrysler in a plant across town. Because of Chryslers tight just-in-time deliverysystem, their strike could have quickly shut down production of the profitable Cherokee.Piston.

Workers said 75-80 percent had signed cards asking for representation by the UnitedAuto Workers, but management refused to recognize them. A unions typical next stepis filing for an election with the National Labor Relations Boardbut that gives the bossa chance to drag out the process and put workers through an anti-union wringer.


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Strikes for recognition, once common, have become rare.

UAW Regional Director Ken Lortz said the union informed Chrysler, as a courtesy,about the potential for interruption, as one of their suppliers was not listening to us asclosely as we thought they should.

The parts made at Piston Automotive used to be made in-house at Jeep, Lortz said. Butin 2002 the company created a supplier park and outsourced a wide array of vitalcomponents to suppliers. The parts were then made by what the auto industry calls afirst-tier supplier, Dana, which agreed to card-check recognition of the UAW.

But last year Jeep decided it wanted the parts cheaper, and non-union Piston underbid.

Striker Trina Lawson said workers approached the UAW when they learned that othersupplier plants paid more than the $12.55 made by experienced workers at Piston.

Lawson cited instances of managers picky, childish intimidation and saidworkers were sometimes made to work through their breaks or lunches.

Sarina McLaughlin, who torques bolts for the knuckles and puts trailing arms onthe rear brake line, said sometimes managers tell workers two minutes beforequitt ing t ime that they have to stay overand then dismiss them at 12 minutesafter the hour, before extra pay would kick in.

Asked why she backed the union, McLaughl in said, In 1982 I was making $10.54an hour at a union Safeway bread plant in Houston. They only want to pay us$12.55 and that was 32 years ago; thats all I got to say.

Cigarettes have tripled, gas has quadrupled, she added. Those people up there in theoffice couldnt support their family on $12.55 an hour. She said even temporary

workers were on the line.

Lawson said the morning of the stri ke, the plant manager gave a speech ins ide theplant, threatening workers with points on their record or loss of holiday pay, andwarning them that a walkout would shut Jeep down and they all walked outanyway.

Shutting Jeep down was the plan, after all.

Lortz said workers walked out before the meeting was over, to be met by cheering UAWstaff.

Some got phone calls while on the picket line, telling them theyd been terminated. Butthe strike settlement guaranteed no retaliation.

In 1997 the UAW used a similar strategy to take advantage of the outsize power thatjust-in-time gives to supplier workers. Seat builders at Johnson Controls, a supplier toFord, stopped production of Fords Expedition SUV (profit: $10,000 per vehicle) topressure for a first contract.


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And in 2002 the union shut down Jeep production to force recognition and first contractsat four other Johnson Controls plants.

George Windau, a skilled trades worker at Jeep, said at the time that the strikewas so devastating on production simply because of the just-in-time supplyphilosophy used in the plants, which relies on a steady and continuous flow of

these parts from Johnson Controls.

When Labor Notes noted the power on display by Piston workers, McLaughlin laughed.Im loving it, she said.

DANGER: CAPITALISTS AT WORK

OCCUPATION PALESTINE

BTselem Volunteer Arrested ForArguing With Soldiers Who InvadedHis Home:

The Soldiers Knocked His CameraDown And Pepper-Sprayed His Face


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8 Apr 2014 BTselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the OccupiedTerritories [Excerpts]

On Friday 28 March 2014, Shadi Sidr a volunteer with BTselems camera project inHebron was in the street outside his home with his brother and a neighbor.

Soldiers who had gone up to the roof of the house filmed the three Palestinians andaimed their weapons at them.

Sidr entered the house to protest these actions. Sidr went back outside after hereceived an apology from one of the soldiers.

Yet the soldiers did not stop filming, and Sidr went back into the building. This time heargued at length with the soldiers and filmed the exchange: Sidr demanded that thesoldiers explain their presence in his home; the soldiers said Sidr was in their way andtherefore must leave the premises.

Not only did the soldiers not explain their presence, they even tried to apprehend Sidrsbrother and his neighbor, both of whom were completely uninvolved bystanders.

When Sidr objected to their arrest, the soldiers knocked his camera down and pepper-sprayed his face. Sidrs mother, who was inside the house at the time, sustained areaction to the pepper-spray and had to be taken to hospital for treatment.

The soldiers then handcuffed and detained the three Palestinians.

The soldiers held the men for hours, with no justification, without taking them to a policestation and without offering any medical assistance to Sidr, whose eyes had been hurtby the pepper-spray.

The three men were finally taken to the Hebron Police only at around 10:30 P.M. someeight hours after the incident began. They were subsequently released without evenbeing questioned.

Throughout the West Bank soldiers are allowed virtually unrestricted access toPalestinian homes, entering without having to justify their actions to theoccupants.

This state of affairs is particularly common and invasive in Hebrons H2 area, with itsconstant Israeli military presence.

In this case, in addition to violating the sense of security of the homes occupants,violating their privacy, property and normal routine, the soldiers response to Sidrsrequests to explain their presence in his home is extremely disturbing.

The soldiers clearly felt that they are not bound to provide any explanation whatsoever tothe homeowner.


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Their subsequent conduct seems to indicate that they detained the three men for hourson end solely for punitive purposes, as punishment for Sidrs persistence in trying toobtain an explanation for their presence on the roof of his home.

BTselem sent a complaint to the Legal Advisor in Judea and Samaria regarding theunjustified detention.

Palestinians Get Shit On, AsUsual:

Zionists Planning To ConfiscatePrivate Palestinian Land For Sewage

Plant Serving Only Other Zionists Israeli Civil Administration Planning To

Confiscate The Land Despite CourtsDecision

10 April 2014 The Middle East Monitor

The Israeli Civil Administration is planning to confiscate 180 dunums (180,000 squaremetres) of private Palestinian land belonging to the residents of the villages of EinYabrud and Silwad near the West Bank city of Ramallah to build a sewage treatmentplant to serve the Mateh Binyamin settlement bloc.

Several years ago the villages residents petitioned against the project taking their caseto the Israeli High Court through the Yesh Din organisation.

The court ruled on their side, but Israeli media revealed today that the Israeli CivilAdministration was planning to confiscate the land despite the courts decision.

Israels Walla news site said the Israeli Environmental Protection Ministry and CivilAdministration endorsed a new scheme which aims to legalise the confiscation andsubmitted it to the governments legal adviser for approval.

Although Palestinians will lose their land to the project, they will not benefit from it.

Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, said the cour ts deliberations revealedthe existence of criminal aspects to the project and questioned the governmentsmotives to confiscate 180 dunums to establish a project which needs much lessspace.


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Yesh Din attorney Shlomi Zacharia said that although Israel has vowed not toconfiscate private Palestinian land fo r the benefit of the settlements, it plans tolegitimise the confiscation and provide retrospective coverage for legal violationsit has commit ted against the Palestinians and their properties.

Prayers From Palestinians OfQaryut Vil lage Met With Violence

From The Israeli Army: Israeli Soldiers Arrived Immediately,

With One Soldier Yelling: Go Back

Home! A Resident Of Qaryut Responded;

Inshallah (If God Wills It), This Is OurHome

Photo by ISM

April 19, 2014 International Solidarity Movement, Nablus Team

Qaryut, Occupied Palestine


23/27

The people of Qaryut began weekly demonstrations three weeks ago, due to the Israelimilitarys decision to close the main road near to the village.

Yesterday, the 18th April, approximately 300 from the village, of which 100 werechildren, decided to come to the hill to pray rather than to march. Israeli soldiers arrivedimmediately, with one soldier yelling: Go back home! A resident of Qaryut responded;

Inshallah (if God wills it), this is our home.

The prayer began despite the provocative military presence on the hill, during theprayers Israeli soldiers surrounded the gathering, one solider removed a Palestinian flagfrom its place in the ground.

As prayers f in ished, one of the vi llagers declared to the army that it was theirintention to leave the area, repeating over and over that they brought a messageof peace.

However, within a few steps of the peoples return to the village, Israeli so ldiersstarted shoot ing tear gas at their backs.

Due to the rocky terrain, many were unable to get away from the tear gas that thesoldiers continued to fire.

15 people had to be treated by paramedics due to several tear gas inhalation, however itwas difficult to access those in need because of the difficult conditions underfoot.

Stun grenades were also used extensively by the Israeli forces.

Qaryut is surrounded by a number of large illegal settlements, including Eli and Shilo.

The road closure could mean losing the part of the hill where prayers took place today.

Loss of the road leading to the main route from the village to Ramallah hasalready caused significant economic hardship and many other problems.

To check out what life is like under a murderous mil itary occupation commandedby foreign terrorists, go to:

http://www.maannews.net/eng/Default.aspx andhttp://www.palestinemonitor.org/list.php?id=ej898ra7yff0ukmf16

The occupied nation is Palestine. The foreign terrorists call themselves Israeli.

MILITARY RESISTANCE BY EMAILIf you wish to receive Military Resistance immediately anddirectly, send request to [email protected]. There isno subscription charge. Same address to unsubscr ibe.
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24/27

DANGER: POLITICIANS AT WORK

[Thanks to SSG N (retd) who sent this in with caption. She writes: Cheap propagandacomes across for what it is. Cheap propaganda.]

Vietnam GI: Reprints Available

[THEY STOPPED AN IMPERIAL WAR]


25/27

Edited by Vietnam Veteran Jeff Sharlet from 1968 unti l his death, this newspaperrocked the world, attracting attention even from Time Magazine, and extremelyhostile attention from the chain of command.


26/27

The pages and pages of letters in the paper from troops in Vietnam condemningthe war are lost to his tory, but you can find them here.

Military Resistance has copied complete sets of Vietnam GI. The originals were abit rough, but every page is there. Over 100 pages, full 11x17 size.

Free on request to active duty members of the armed forces.

Cost for others: $15 if picked up in New York City. For mailing inside USA add $5for bubble bag and postage. For outside USA, include extra for mailing 2.5pounds to wherever you are.

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Al l proceeds are used for projects g iv ing aid and comfort to members of thearmed forces organizing to resist todays Imperial wars.

Military Resistance Looks Even Better Printed OutMilitary Resistance/GI Special are archived at website

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27/27

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