Stephen Lendman

Earlier articles explained his ordeal, a man Bush administration prosecutors hounded, persecuted, and imprisoned on bogus charges. Articles on him can be accessed through the following links here, here and here.

Though free on bail, Al-Arian remains politically imprisoned like many hundreds of others behind bars. Because of his faith, ethnicity, prominence and political activism, he was accused of supporting "terrorism" and other outrageous charges.

In fact, he's a Palestinian refugee, a distinguished professor, scholar, community leader, and civil activist, a man deserving honor, not incarceration doing hard time until released after five and half years of brutal treatment, including solitary confinement in rat and roach-infested cells.

He was denied religious services, got no watch or clock, and was kept in windowless cells with artificial lights kept on round the clock. Whenever outside his cell, he was also shackled hands behind back and ankles. In protest, he staged hunger strikes, long enough to endanger is life.

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Terrence McNally
AlterNet

Germans have six weeks of federally mandated vacation, free university tuition, and nursing care. Why the US pales in comparison.

While the bad news of the Euro crisis makes headlines in the US, we hear next to nothing about a quiet revolution in Europe. The European Union, 27 member nations with a half billion people, has become the largest, wealthiest trading bloc in the world, producing nearly a third of the world's economy -- nearly as large as the US and China combined. Europe has more Fortune 500 companies than either the US, China or Japan.

European nations spend far less than the United States for universal healthcare rated by the World Health Organization as the best in the world, even as U.S. health care is ranked 37th. Europe leads in confronting global climate change with renewable energy technologies, creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs in the process. Europe is twice as energy efficient as the US and their ecological "footprint" (the amount of the earth's capacity that a population consumes) is about half that of the United States for the same standard of living.

Unemployment in the US is widespread and becoming chronic, but when Americans have jobs, we work much longer hours than our peers in Europe. Before the recession, Americans were working 1,804 hours per year versus 1,436 hours for Germans -- the equivalent of nine extra 40-hour weeks per year.

In his new book, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent?, Thomas Geoghegan makes a strong case that European social democracies -- particularly Germany -- have some lessons and models that might make life a lot more livable. Germans have six weeks of federally mandated vacation, free university tuition, and nursing care. But you've heard the arguments for years about how those wussy Europeans can't compete in a global economy. You've heard that so many times, you might believe it. But like so many things, the media repeats endlessly, it's just not true.

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Stephen Lendman

Two web sites, among others, provide information on their case, accessed through the following links:

The CubansFive.org + FreeTheFive.org

In September 1998, Miami FBI agents arrested Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, and René González on spurious charges, including conspiracy to commit espionage. For days, however, no formal notification was given until a complicit media campaign smeared them falsely and maliciously.

At a June 2, 2010 Washington National Press Club press conference, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five's coordinator, Gloria La Riva, announced new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) obtained evidence revealing names of 14 journalists who "were receiving covertly (paid) monies from the US government."

Included was Pablo Alfonso who received $58,600 for 16 articles published in (the south Florida Spanish language) El Nuevo Herald newspaper. La Riva explained that "During the pre-trial period, there were hundreds of articles on the Cuban Five and not one was favorable." Journalists were bribed to write them.

According to the National Lawyers Guild Heidi Boghosian, "This shows that the US Government was an accomplice to manipulating the jury by bribing journalists that violated the principles of impartiality and accuracy."

She also affirmed that the Five's Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial was violated, federal authorities corrupting the process to convict them.

On September 9, 2006, New York Times writer Abby Goodnough headlined, "US Paid 10 Journalists for Anti-Castro Reports," saying:

"The Bush administration's Office of Cuba Broadcasting paid (them) to provide commentary on Radio and TV Marti, which transmit" anti-Castro propaganda to Cuba. Journalists named included Pablo Alfonso getting almost $175,000 since 2001 and Armstrong Williams (a notorious right wing liar) receiving $240,000 to write on various issues, including privatizing public education.

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