Dear Dot, 

As we pull out all stops to derail the massive corporate deception 
represented by the so-called Trans Pacific Partnership, one of the 
brightest spots for us it reading the personal comments you add in 
the live stream, which you can read too from the "Last 25" link on 
every action page. 

We have so many highly informed and articulate citizens on our list, 
it does us all proud. But even if you can't draft a personal comment 
every time, please submit every action page on this. It just takes a 
click, so we can keep maximum heat on. 

Plus there is a new reference link on the action page, which does a 
terrific job of breaking down all weasel words in just one of the 
leaked sections of the TPP. So here we go again: 

Mr. President, Stop Lying: 
http://www.peaceteam.net/mr_president_stop_lying.php 

And here is the petition text: 

Mr. President, the more you try to defend the indefensible TPP the 
bigger your lies seem to get, and just this last Friday you told some 
serious whoppers. 

You told reporters that "There is nothing secret about it," and that 
"Every one of the critics I hear . . . can walk over today and read 
the text of the agreement." 

Perhaps you can begin by explaining why anyone would need to "walk" 
anywhere. 

Do you mean to the high security vault where members of Congress may 
be admitted, but NOT any of their staff members, where they are not 
allowed to even take notes, let alone have their own copy? 

Are you talking about how if they actually revealed any of the sordid 
details to their constituents, you, as the most aggressive 
whistleblower prosecuting president in history, would haul them off 
to prison for it? That kind of "nothing secret about it?" 

Will you now free their tongues so we can all hear the full truth 
before it is too late? Will you publish the full text for us all to 
see? Or are you trying to take credit for the few documents leaked 
against your express command? 

If fact, when you say "Every one of the critics I hear," are you not 
speaking only of the few members of Congress brave enough to call you 
out on this abomination. None of the rest of us can "walk over 
today," can we? In fact, you're not listening to the American people 
at all on this, are you? 

It's time to stop lying to us Mr. Barack Obama, before you go down in 
history as the Pinocchio President. 

---END PETITION TEXT--- 

Dot --

President Obama said Friday that the Democratic criticism of the Trans-Pacific Partnership that "gets on his nerves the most" is the allegation that the pact is "secret."

Well, it is. Neither you nor I can see what is in this trade deal, even though it will have a big impact on jobs and inequality.

As DFA Executive Director Charles Chamberlain explains below, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown asked the President to make public the full text of the treaty before Congress votes on a "Fast Track" bill that would strip our legislators of the ability to change the TPP.

"Members of Congress should be able to discuss this agreement with our constituents and to participate in a robust public debate, instead of being muzzled by classification rules," wrote Warren and Brown.

I totally agree. That's why I'm joining Democracy for America and adding my name in support of the letter from Senators Warren and Brown: No Fast Track without public disclosure.

Join me and DFA: Add your name in support of Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown. Make the TPP public!

Thank you for standing with these progressive champions.

Robert Reich
Former Secretary of Labor

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Charles Chamberlain, Democracy for America 
Date: Sun, Apr 26, 2015 at 9:18 AM
Subject: BREAKING: Elizabeth Warren's new letter to President Obama

Dot--

Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown are under attack by the Obama Administration for their work against the TPP--but they are fighting back. And they need our support ASAP.

On Friday, President Obama again harshly criticized Elizabeth Warren and congressional Democrats who are standing up against the TPP. He said they were “dishonest” and spreading “misinformation” about a treaty that is so secret you and I aren’t allowed to see it.

But Senators Warren and Brown are not backing down. On Saturday, they wrote a powerful letter to President Obama urging him to make the text of the TPP available to the public.Here’s a key part of their letter:

Your Administration has deemed the draft text of the agreement classified and kept it hidden from public view, thereby making it a secret deal....It is currently illegal for the press, experts, advocates, or the general public to review the text of this agreement. And while you noted that Members of Congress may “walk over...and read the text of the agreement”--as we have done--you neglected to mention that we are prohibited by law from discussing the specifics of that text in public.

Before Congress votes to facilitate adoption of the TPP, the American people should be allowed to see for themselves whether it’s a good deal for them.

Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown are absolutely right. The TPP will radically reshape our laws, our economy, and our democracy in favor of the rich and big corporations. Senators Warren and Brown are fighting back on behalf of the American people and they need our support ASAP. Are you with them?

Stand with Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown: Add your name and tell President Obama to release the full text of the TPP.

Senators Warren and Brown also pointed out that even President George W. Bush released the full text of a major trade agreement with Latin America--the Free Trade Area of the Americas--months before Congress voted on Fast Track authority for the deal. Furthermore, they noted:

At the time of the public release of the text, then-U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick noted that the release would "make international trade and its economic and social benefits more understandable to the public." 

Strongly defending themselves against the President’s unfair criticisms, Senators Warren and Brown added:

We respectfully suggest that characterizing the assessments of labor unions, journalists, Members of Congress, and others who disagree with your approach to transparency on trade issues as “dishonest” is both untrue and unlikely to serve the best interests of the American people.

In fact, the Huffington Post said that President Obama's remarks “took some creative license with the truth.” For example, they pointed out that autoworkers don’t support the trade deal, suggesting the TPP won’t actually help the American auto industry.

Let’s keep in mind what this is all about: saving American jobs from a terrible trade deal that many have rightly called “NAFTA on steroids.” That’s why Democracy for America is proud to stand with Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and every other Democrat in Congress who is fighting to stop the TPP. They need your help right now. Will you stand with them?

Join Elizabeth Warren and Sherrod Brown: Tell President Obama to make the full text of the TPP public.

Thank you for standing with Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, and their progressive allies in Congress.

- Charles

Charles Chamberlain, Executive Director
Democracy for America

The Dominant White Response to Baltimore Shows Why Black Residents are Justified in their Anger

By Grizzard

Imagine for a moment that man's neck was almost severed, nearly clean cut in the most painful way possible, while in the custody of the people charged with the duty of protecting and serving.

Imagine that man died, alone, in a prison cell, while his cries for help were blatantly ignored.

Now imagine that in the wake of that tragedy, a government had been infantile in its ability to explain even the basic details of what happened.

That's the revolting reality in Baltimore.

And through it all, the dominant white response was muted.

From different reaches of the Internet, prominent civil rights leaders weighed in on the travesty, offering perspectives on another data point in an ever-growing body of evidence that the police state is still being mobilized against black Americans.

And sure, the death of Freddie Gray received some national media attention.

But it wasn't the concern of the average guy who looks like me.

White Americans are immune to these problems, isolated from the realities of police brutality and oppression.

Severed spines are a problem in the abstract, but certainly not something to get all bothered about.

For some of us, the Freddie Gray travesty was another opportunity to reflect on the moral failings of the afflicted, noting that if Freddie had been a law-abiding choir boy, he wouldn't have found himself in the crunching grasp of Baltimore's police force.

For others, it was an opportunity to remind the world that not all cops are bad, an impulse that's certainly correct, even if ill-timed.

Could the brutal death of Freddie Gray, an example of police brutality, remind us of the dangers faced by inner-city black men on a daily basis?

Well, that's just not occasion enough for us to offer an opinion.

Now imagine that in response to this one particular tragedy, the citizens of Baltimore--most of them black, but many white--rose up to question the culture of brutality that's produced more than 100 successful claims against police over the last few years.

Imagine that in the midst of those protests, a debatable number of mostly young, mostly angry men smashed some windows, threw some rocks and bottles, and destroyed some property.

A few of those men even got violent with those around them.

After sitting on the sidelines, silent at the lynching of Freddie Gray, you'd think that some property damage and non-lethal violence would fail to shake the conscience of the average white viewer.

 You'd be wrong.

It's in the defense of that property--those CVS stores owned by faceless individuals and those police cars being bashed in--that we've seen the strongest response from the dominant element of society.

Social media is a good indication, but certainly not the only one.

There, on sites like Facebook and Twitter, folks have spoken up about Freddie Gray for the first time.

They've not come to the defense of the oppressed.

 Rather, they've spoken up in condemnation of those "animals," "thugs," and "criminals" who are "destroying their own city."

It's some combination of historical illiteracy and racial animus that drives the response.

The prevailing white view has been tragically non-curious from an intellectual perspective.

Rather than asking what might cause a people to risk life and limb in an effort to smash to bits their own neighborhoods, we've responded with a stupid, incredulous look on our faces.

"Look at them," we've said.

 "Burning down their own city."

We understand that we would never do something like that--not even when our favorite hockey team failed to win Lord Stanley's Cup.

But we fail to ask that critical next question--if these people, who are in so many ways like us, would do something that we wouldn't think of doing, what must the conditions be like to drive that behavior?

To put all of the blame on the lack of historical literacy of white folks in America would be letting too many off the hook.

Even if they don't know about the history of red-lining, the effects of the drug war, and how Jim Crow has shape-shifted into the modern criminal justice apparatus, many of these people would be unmoved if their eyes would open.

Simply put, for them, it's racial animus that drives the boat.

But white Americans, many by their own choosing, are painfully unaware of the historical context in which a mostly-black protest in Baltimore might take place.

What are these people so mad about?

We ask, as if the answers are too complicated to be discerned from one extended reading of anything by Ta-Nehisi Coates or Greg Howard.

As a white man, I'm in little position to pass judgment on the behavior of people so beaten down that they have little hope.

I'm certainly not in a position to offer the tired white liberal tripe, asking black folks in places like Baltimore to sit quietly and trust the system, waiting for me and those like me to rescue them through legitimate democratic means.

While rioting, looting, and lighting stuff on fire is certainly not a productive way to achieve equality and real civil rights, I won't lie to these people and tell them that by doing so, they're undermining progress that might have been made through legitimate protesting.

That's because I understand the unfortunate reality that powers this kind of destructive protesting.

That is--these people are aware in a way I can never be aware, that whether they choose to jump on cars, sing Civil Rights hymns, hold signs, or stage peaceful letter writing campaigns to their local congressperson, the situation is going to stay mostly the same.

Why do you see destructive rioting and looting?

 It's not because people think it's the best way to get things done.

It's because the people have finally come to realize that no matter what they do, nothing gets done.

No matter how loud they scream, the system still crushes them under its weighty wheels.

Their macro situation in many ways mirrors their individual situations.

These people are expressing not just anger and frustration at another black man killed by another group of police officers.

Rather, they're expressing anger and frustration at a socio-economic reality in which they are the bones and scraps left over after the best meat's been taken.

Despite living in the wealthiest state in the country, the residents of Baltimore's inner city find themselves in abject poverty.

No group is hit harder than young people.

In fact the child poverty rate in Baltimore is 36.5-percent, according to a 2014 report by Catholic Charities of Maryland.

 Around two in every three high school students will graduate, a number that is even an improvement over how things were just a few years ago.

These are young people who live in communities torn to pieces by the War on Drugs, where violence is the norm.

They're young people who are considered a "success story" if they achieve what people in my community would call the base level of productive existence--graduating high school without dying or being sent to prison.

They're young people who, if they were to achieve what my parents would call success, will be a story so rare that Hollywood might come calling for the movie rights.

The handful of young people who escape horrible Baltimore neighborhoods and find themselves in the middle class are the exception that proves the rule.

And they're smart enough to know it. Centuries of oppression, and more specifically, decades of policies targeted at the economic destruction of black communities in places like Baltimore, have led to this reality.

They're the bubbling furnace that powers the kind of frustration necessary for destructive protesting.

As a white male, I don't particularly care for looting and rioting.

I wouldn't like to be one of the store or property owners who will have to replace or rebuild.

But I'm forced to recognize this destruction as the final option for a group of people so systematically disenfranchised that their voices have not been heard.

And I have to ask myself a difficult question--who is the worse moral monster: The young man whose hopelessness leads him to jump on the hood of a cop car, or me, a person who has acquiesced to a system that creates justified hopelessness among young people in places like Baltimore?

When we, as white folks, seem more eager to speak up in defense of property than we are to speak up in defense of another slain black man, we demonstrate that the righteous anger of those doing the rioting is justified.

We show that our unwillingness to invest resources in their future is not a coincidence, but rather, the intentional workmanship of our decrepit value system, which tosses away young black men as readily today as it did 200 years ago.

Did Baltimore Mayor Give Permission to Riot?

Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Before condemning the thugs who are looting and burning the city, Stephanie Rawlings-Blake talked about giving ‘space’ to people intent on destruction, showing a startling lack of common sense.

Yes, she said it.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake stood before the news cameras over the weekend and really did say, “We also gave those who wish to destroy space to do that as well.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty

She uttered these words while explaining how she had sought to maintain “the very delicate balance” between the right to protest and the safety of police officers as a week of demonstrations over the death of Freddie Gray began to turn violent on Saturday.

“We work very hard to keep that balance and to put ourselves in the best position to de-escalate,” she said.

“And that’s what we saw.”

After that success over the weekend, she apparently took the same approach on Monday.

And this time those who wished to destroy just kept destroying and destroying as the situation escalated to where Maryland Governor Larry Hogan activated the National Guard.

Rawlings-Blake was only 21 at the time of the Crown Heights Riots in 1991, when New York Mayor David Dinkins held the police back in order to let protesters “blow off a little steam.”

But, the destructive result was something anyone who runs a city should have studied.

Baltimore now suddenly became Crown Heights on steroids.

And to make matters worse, each thrown brick and bottle, each trashed car, each store looted and burned was an insult to Freddie Gray’s twin sister.

Her brother had become the second young man to suffer fatal spinal injuries after being arrested for a petty crime and loaded into a Baltimore police van.

She nonetheless remained a voice for peace.

“My family wants to say, can you all please stop the violence?” Fredricka Gray said.

“Freddie Gray would not want this.”

Monday began with the chilling word from the Baltimore police of a “credible threat” that the Black Guerilla Family, the Crips, and the Bloods had formed an alliance to kill white cops as if suddenly back in the 1970s and the time of the Black Liberation Army.

 

I dunno. Think the 'children' would have listened to her if she had said, "Please have all the reading finished of 'Silas Marner.' There will be a test first thing in the morning?"

Me neither. 

Watts, California

The area now known as Watts is located on the 1843 Rancho La Tajauta Mexican land grant.

As on all ranchos, the principal vocation was at that time grazing and beef production.

With the influx of European American settlers into Southern California in the 1870s, La Tajuata land was sold off and subdivided for smaller farms and homes, including a 220-acre parcel purchased by Charles H. Watts in 1886 for alfalfa and livestock farming.

In those days each Tajuata farm had an artesian well.

The arrival of the railroad spurred the settlement and development of the area.

Most of the first residents were the traqueros, Mexican and Mexican American rail workers who constructed and maintained the new rail lines.

With this new growth, Watts was incorporated as a separate city, taking its name from the first railroad station, Watts Station that had been built in 1904 on 10 acres of land donated by the Watts family.

The city voted to annex itself to Los Angeles in 1926.

Watts did not become predominantly black until the 1940s.

Before then, there were some African American residents, many of whom were Pullman car porters and cooks.

Schoolroom photos from 1909 and 1911 show only two or three black faces among the 30 or so children pictured.

By 1914, a black realtor, Charles C. Leake, was doing business in the area.

World War II brought the Second Great Migration, tens of thousands of African American migrants, mostly from Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas, who left segregated Southern states in search of better opportunities in California.

During World War II, the city built several large housing projects (including Nickerson Gardens, Jordan Downs, and Imperial Courts) for the thousands of new workers in war industries.

By the early 1960s, these projects had become nearly 100 percent black, as whites moved on to new suburbs outside the central city.

As industrial jobs disappeared from the area, the projects housed many more poor families than they had traditionally.

Longstanding resentment by Los Angeles's working-class black community over discriminatory treatment by police and inadequate public services (especially schools and hospitals) exploded on August 11, 1965, into what were commonly known as the Watts Riots.

The event that precipitated the disturbances, the arrest of a black youth by the California Highway Patrol on drunk-driving charges, actually occurred outside Watts.

Mobs did the most property damage in Watts in the turmoil.

Watts suffered further in the 1970s, as gangs gained strength and raised the level of violence in the neighborhood.

Between 1989 and 2005, police reported more than 500 homicides in Watts, most of them gang-related and tied to wars over control of the lucrative illicit market created by illegal drugs.

Four of Watts's influential gangs—Watts Cirkle City Piru Bloods, Grape Street Watts Crips, Bounty Hunter Watts Bloods, and PJ Watts Crips—formed a Peace Treaty agreement on April 26, 1992 following just over 4 years of peace talks which were initiated in July 1988 with the support of the local community and mosque, Masjid Al Rasul (where talks had be conducted and the treaty was finalized).

The spokespersons for the groups taking part in the peace talks were Imam Mujahid Abdul-Karim (of Masjid Al Rasul) and gang members, Twilight and Daude.

Twilight and Daude photos from the 1988 Peace Talks press conference were printed on the front pages of regional and local newspapers and their interviews with TV news crews were on every news channel.

In the months and years to follow, Twilight would appear on National TV talk shows, radio talk shows, and speak at several college and university campuses.

Both Twilight and Twelve received death threats due to misinterpretation of newspaper articles by their peers, many of whom would join the peace movement in the months and years to come.

After four years of peace talks, the Peace Treaty would be drafted and then agreed the day before the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

The pact, supported by community-based education initiatives and private investments from prominent members of the community e.g. Jim Brown, continues to contribute to the decrease in gang-related death in Watts and the greater South Los Angeles area since 1992.

Key hallmarks of the pact continue to influence life in Watts to date, with colors and territory having little to do with gang-related crime.

Beginning in the 1980s, those African Americans who could leave Watts moved to other parts of South Los Angeles and suburban locations in the Antelope Valley, the Inland Empire, the San Gabriel Valley, Orange County, and the San Joaquin Valley.

The black population in Watts has been increasingly replaced by other demographic groups, primarily Hispanic immigrants of Mexican and Central American ancestry, as well as by a smaller proportion of Ethiopian and Indian ancestry.

This demographic change accelerated after the 1992 riots.

In addition, there has been a net migration of African Americans out of California to return to the South in a New Great Migration.

From 1995–2000, California was a net loser of African-American residents.

With new jobs, Southern states have attracted the most black college graduates since 1995.

Neighborhood leaders have begun a strategy to overcome Watts's reputation as a violence-prone and impoverished area.

Special promotion has been given to the museums and art galleries in the area surrounding Watts Towers at 1765 East 107th St, near the Imperial Highway and suburb of Lynwood.

This sculptural and architectural landmark has attracted many artists and professionals to the area.

I Build the Tower, a feature-length documentary film about the Watts Towers and their creator, Simon Rodia, provides a history of Watts from the 1920s to the present and a record of the activities of the Watts Towers Arts Center. Watts is one of several Los Angeles neighborhoods with a high concentration of convicted felons.

The neighborhood's irregular street boundaries follow the Los Angeles city limits on the north and east, except for a small patch of Los Angeles County territory surrounding Ritter Elementary School, between 108th Street and Imperial Highway, which the Times includes in Watts.

The southern boundary runs east-west on Imperial Highway, the eastern line is north-south on Alameda Street and the western line is north-south on Central Avenue to 103rd Street.

Ted Watkins Park and other county areas are excluded.

Then the line is Success Avenue between Century Boulevard and 92nd Street.

A total of 36,815 people lived in Watts's 2.12 square miles, according to the 2000 U.S. census—averaging 17,346 people per square mile, among the highest population densities in Los Angeles.

Population was estimated at 41,028 in 2008.

The median age was 21, making Watts the Los Angeles neighborhood with the youngest population.

The percentages of residents aged birth to 18 were among the county's highest.

Hispanics make up 61.6% of the population, with blacks at 37.1%, non-Hispanic whites 0.5%, Asian 0.2%, and others 0.5%.

Mexico and El Salvador were the most common places of birth for the 34% of the residents who were born abroad, an average percentage of foreign-born when compared with the city or county as a whole.

The $25,161 median household income in 2008 dollars was considered low for the city and county.

The percentage of households earning $20,000 or less was high, compared to the county at large.

The average household size of 4 people was high for the city.

Renters occupied 67% of the housing units, and homeowners occupied the rest.

In 2000, there were 2,816 families headed by single parents, or 38,9%, the highest rate for any neighborhood in the city. 

The percentages of never-married women (45.3) and never-married men (44.7) were among the county's highest.

In 2000, there were 739 military veterans, or 3.6% of the population, low when compared to the rest of the city.

Just 2.9% of Watts residents aged 25 and older had earned a four-year degree, according to the 2000 census, which is considered a low figure for both the city and the county.

The percentage of those residents with less than a high school diploma was high in comparison to the county at large.

King Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science opened in bungalows of Jordan in 1982.

In 1999 it moved to a standalone campus in Willowbrook.

In May 2013 Wiegand Avenue Elementary School became the first school in California from which a principal was ordered removed in response to the state's 2010 "trigger law," which compels the dismissal of a school administrator on petition of a majority of parents.

The removal of principal Irma Cobian triggered other teachers to transfer as well.

Los Angeles Public Library operates the Alma Reaves Woods–Watts Branch. 

Watts received its first library service in 1913 when temporary space was designated in the city hall for a library.

In 1914 the library moved into a newly built Carnegie library.

Los Angeles annexed Watts in 1926, so the library became the Watts Branch of the Los Angeles library system.

In 1957 voters approved a library branch bond and a 3,600 square feet (330 m²) Watts Branch opened in 1960.

On June 25, 1996 the city council voted to name the library after Alma Reaves Woods Watts, a woman in the community who encouraged reading and library usage.
 
The Watts Towers or Towers of Sabato Rodia is a collection of 17 interconnected structures, two of which reach heights of over 99 feet (30 m).

The Towers were built by Italian immigrant construction worker Sabato Rodia over a period of 33 years, from 1921 to 1954.

The work is an example of non-traditional vernacular architecture and American Natïve art.

The Watts train station was built in 1904.

It is a National Historic Landmark. 

It has been known as one of the few structures that were untouched by a huge fire along 103rd street stores during the 1965 Watts riots.

When it was found intact, it was a symbol of hope and faith for the Watts community.

Being one of the most original buildings that was first constructed in Watts, it was a popular stop for the Pacific Electric Railway's “Red Car” that ran through Los Angeles to Long Beach for 50 years.

It was admitted to the National Register of Historic Places four months after the riots.

Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia