By KATE PICKERT Mon Jun 30, 1:25 AM ET
American supermarkets are epics of excess: it often seems like every item in the store comes in a "Jumbo" size or has "Bonus!" splashed across the label. But is it possible that the amount of food Americans are buying is, in fact... shrinking? Well, yes. Soaring commodity and fuel prices are driving up costs for manufacturers; faced with a choice between raising prices (which consumers would surely notice) or quietly putting fewer ounces in the bag, carton or cup (which they generally don't) manufacturers are choosing the latter. This month, Kellogg's started shipping Apple Jacks, Cocoa Krispies, Corn Pops, Froot Loops and Honey Smacks containing an average of 2.4 fewer ounces per box.
Similar reductions have recently happened or are on the horizon for many other products: Tropicana orange juice containers are shrinking from 96 ounces to 89; Wrigley's is dropping its the 17-stick PlenTPak in favor of the 15-stick Slim Pack; Dial soap bars now weigh half an ounce less, and that's even before they melt in the shower. Containers of Country Crock spread, Hellmann's mayonnaise and Edy's and Breyer's ice cream have all slimmed down as well (although that may not necessarily be a bad thing).
"People are just more sensitive to changes in price than changes in quantity," says Harvard Business School Professor John Gourville, who studies consumer decision-making. "Most people can tell you how much a box of cereal costs, but they have no clue how much is actually in it." Other segments of the economy have made similar moves to pass on their higher costs to the consumer without raising prices directly. American Airlines announced in May that it would charge $15 each way for a single checked bag, part of what airlines have dubbed "a la carte" pricing, which - along with the industrywide drive to put price tags on former freebies like soft drinks, meals and headphones - some airline observers say is really an effort to avoid increasing base ticket prices.
Once they're asked about the changes, food manufacturers are quick to explain their own increasing overhead costs - a Kellogg's spokeswoman said reducing the amount of cereal per box was "to offset rising commodity costs for ingredients and energy used to manufacture and distribute these products" - but most are not exactly going out of their way to let consumers know they're getting less for their money. Some claim newly shrunk products are responses to consumers' needs. Tropicana told the New York Daily News earlier this month that its orange juice containers, which also include a newly designed cap and retail for the same price as the previous larger size, were the result of customer complaints. Said spokeswoman Jamie Stein, "We had a lot of spillage with our old products. It's a value-added redesign."
Reducing the size of products as a way of increasing prices is not new. Frito-Lay cut the amount of chips in their bags and Poland Springs reduced its water cooler jugs from 6 to 5 gallons years ago, all while keeping prices the same. Still, says Chris Waldrop, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federal of America, "What's going on now is definitely reflective of rising food costs and rising fuel costs." Waldrop says he doesn't blame manufacturers for taking the step to protect their bottom lines, but says the food companies should be honest with their customers about it. "If they're transparent and open, consumers are less willing to think [manufacturers] are trying to pull one over on them," says Waldrop. The changing product sizes are part of the reason the Bureau of Labor Statistics says groceries cost 5.8% more than the same time last year. Price checkers in the department measure more than 2,000 food items to determine overall food inflation, and when they notice product size changes, they adjust the inflation index accordingly, according to Ephraim Leibtag, an economist with the Economic Research Service of the Department of Agriculture.
When a product amount drops below a benchmark like "1 pound" or "1 gallon" consumers often take note, according to Gourville. But after that, it's much easier for manufacturers to further whittle down amounts. It's all about taking away consumers' ability to compare apples to apples. The best way to compare food products if you're not sure if sizes have changed is to look at the "unit price," which breaks down the cost per ounce or per quart.
- With Reporting by Alex Altman View this article on Time.com
Monday, June 30, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
A Hollow Victory
[col. writ. 6/19/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
As millions ready themselves for the general elections in November, it takes some effort to summon up the elections of 2 years ago.
In 2006, mid-term elections brought dramatic change to the Congress, and seemed to presage a change in the nation's direction as well.
Those mid-terms centered around the public's demand and hunger for an end to the Iraq war and illegal occupation, and was an electoral expression of that deep national discontent.
Well, it's been two years now, and the Congress has just voted another $165 billion (that's right, with a b) to fund the Iraq war.
It's been two years - and the Iraq mess is still a scar on the national psyche.
It's now become the property of both major political parties -Democrats and Republicans.
It's the very nature of politics that politicians regularly betray the interests of those who have voted for them.
They'll take the votes, yes: but they don't answer to the people. As the saying goes, 'They answer to a higher power' - the military industrial complex.
If we think back to the primaries, candidates of both parties who ran on genuine anti-war platforms had to contend with waves of media ridicule. Think about how the corporate media treated either Dennis Kucinich (D. OH), or Ron Paul (R. TX), or former congressman, Mike Gravel.
All were depicted as little better than boobs, objects of an occasional sidebar, but never seriously presented as candidates of 'presidential timber.'
And, as Marshall McLuhan (1991-1980) said, 'the medium is the message.'
The media, hired guns for their corporate bosses, served their interest by coverage which slanted the perceptions of millions, that only those they thought electable were 'serious' candidates.
'Only so-and-so can raise enough money', most reporters opined, selling candidates as surely as they sold soap.
These processes have produced the very hour we now live in; a time of peril and disaster.
What kind of democracy can such a process engender?
And now, 1/2 year from another election, we will hear a plethora of promises, spun with the best commercials that money can buy.
We will march into the booth, our eyes shiny with anticipation.
In a matter of months, or years, we will look back at the ashes of promises aborted, and wonder how we keep doing it again, and again, and again.
--(c) '08 maj
As millions ready themselves for the general elections in November, it takes some effort to summon up the elections of 2 years ago.
In 2006, mid-term elections brought dramatic change to the Congress, and seemed to presage a change in the nation's direction as well.
Those mid-terms centered around the public's demand and hunger for an end to the Iraq war and illegal occupation, and was an electoral expression of that deep national discontent.
Well, it's been two years now, and the Congress has just voted another $165 billion (that's right, with a b) to fund the Iraq war.
It's been two years - and the Iraq mess is still a scar on the national psyche.
It's now become the property of both major political parties -Democrats and Republicans.
It's the very nature of politics that politicians regularly betray the interests of those who have voted for them.
They'll take the votes, yes: but they don't answer to the people. As the saying goes, 'They answer to a higher power' - the military industrial complex.
If we think back to the primaries, candidates of both parties who ran on genuine anti-war platforms had to contend with waves of media ridicule. Think about how the corporate media treated either Dennis Kucinich (D. OH), or Ron Paul (R. TX), or former congressman, Mike Gravel.
All were depicted as little better than boobs, objects of an occasional sidebar, but never seriously presented as candidates of 'presidential timber.'
And, as Marshall McLuhan (1991-1980) said, 'the medium is the message.'
The media, hired guns for their corporate bosses, served their interest by coverage which slanted the perceptions of millions, that only those they thought electable were 'serious' candidates.
'Only so-and-so can raise enough money', most reporters opined, selling candidates as surely as they sold soap.
These processes have produced the very hour we now live in; a time of peril and disaster.
What kind of democracy can such a process engender?
And now, 1/2 year from another election, we will hear a plethora of promises, spun with the best commercials that money can buy.
We will march into the booth, our eyes shiny with anticipation.
In a matter of months, or years, we will look back at the ashes of promises aborted, and wonder how we keep doing it again, and again, and again.
--(c) '08 maj
The Crimes of Kings
[col. writ 6/21/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
There is an adage in Anglo-American law that says, "The King can do no wrong," a reflection of the power of kings stemming from the conquest of Britain by William the Conqueror in 1066.
It remains in American law under the doctrine called sovereign immunity, which protects the government from suit by its citizens.
But beyond the law there is the practice of politicians of bowing to the power of the president, no matter what he (or someday, she) does.
There is no question that Richard Nixon broke laws during the Watergate scandal. Nor is there serious question that Ronald Reagan violated the Boland Amendment, which outlawed aid to the contras in Nicaragua.
When the present Bush administration wiretapped the phone calls of Americans it violated the F.I.S.A. (or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) law, which required secret court orders to proceed.
Yet, in none of these cases were presidents charged for violating the laws. Indeed, when Nixon was threatened with impeachment, his handpicked successor, Gerald Ford, issued a pardon before any charges were even made!
There's an important lesson here, in that the presidents known as the toughest on crime, didn't want that toughness when it came to their crimes.
Historians have demonstrated that high ranking congressmen worked out a nice, neat deal with Nixon, sparing him the embarrassment of impeachment if he resigned.
Centuries after a revolution, in the name of democracy , and it's still 'the king can do no wrong.' Or as Richard Nixon put it, "When the President does it, that makes it legal."
Clearly, if George W. Bush has studied anything, it's Nixon.
From secret prisons to legalized torture; from renditions abroad to wiretaps at home; from illegal wars to ruinous occupations, crimes - as in violations of both U.S. and International laws - have become presidential prerogatives.
And Congress has become legislative enablers, by not only taking impeachment off the table, but by rewriting laws to make crimes legal, and also granting retroactive immunity to those corporate criminals which aided and abetted the White House in its crime sprees.
When the White House urged companies to quietly violate FISA by spying on Americans' communications, both sides knew the law was being violated. If this involved poor folks, conspiracy charges would've been leveled, and the conspirators would've been cast into prison.
But in the recent FISA amendments, a majority of the members of the House voted to grant immunity to phone companies.
How would you like that kind of juice?
Well, you can't have it. You'd have to be a multi-million (or billion) dollar corporation...or a president.
--(c) '08 maj
There is an adage in Anglo-American law that says, "The King can do no wrong," a reflection of the power of kings stemming from the conquest of Britain by William the Conqueror in 1066.
It remains in American law under the doctrine called sovereign immunity, which protects the government from suit by its citizens.
But beyond the law there is the practice of politicians of bowing to the power of the president, no matter what he (or someday, she) does.
There is no question that Richard Nixon broke laws during the Watergate scandal. Nor is there serious question that Ronald Reagan violated the Boland Amendment, which outlawed aid to the contras in Nicaragua.
When the present Bush administration wiretapped the phone calls of Americans it violated the F.I.S.A. (or Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) law, which required secret court orders to proceed.
Yet, in none of these cases were presidents charged for violating the laws. Indeed, when Nixon was threatened with impeachment, his handpicked successor, Gerald Ford, issued a pardon before any charges were even made!
There's an important lesson here, in that the presidents known as the toughest on crime, didn't want that toughness when it came to their crimes.
Historians have demonstrated that high ranking congressmen worked out a nice, neat deal with Nixon, sparing him the embarrassment of impeachment if he resigned.
Centuries after a revolution, in the name of democracy , and it's still 'the king can do no wrong.' Or as Richard Nixon put it, "When the President does it, that makes it legal."
Clearly, if George W. Bush has studied anything, it's Nixon.
From secret prisons to legalized torture; from renditions abroad to wiretaps at home; from illegal wars to ruinous occupations, crimes - as in violations of both U.S. and International laws - have become presidential prerogatives.
And Congress has become legislative enablers, by not only taking impeachment off the table, but by rewriting laws to make crimes legal, and also granting retroactive immunity to those corporate criminals which aided and abetted the White House in its crime sprees.
When the White House urged companies to quietly violate FISA by spying on Americans' communications, both sides knew the law was being violated. If this involved poor folks, conspiracy charges would've been leveled, and the conspirators would've been cast into prison.
But in the recent FISA amendments, a majority of the members of the House voted to grant immunity to phone companies.
How would you like that kind of juice?
Well, you can't have it. You'd have to be a multi-million (or billion) dollar corporation...or a president.
--(c) '08 maj
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Hillary's Homecoming
[col. writ. 6/8/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
The concession speech recently rendered by Senator Hillary R. Clinton (D.NY), was not, truth be told, a concession speech.
For she did not end her campaign; she suspended it.
Some may say that this is splitting hairs, but she's a lawyer, and obviously knows the difference. To concede would've meant the relinquishing of her delegates; to suspend is to hold her delegates in suspension, in the event, say, of a floor fight at the convention when they may be needed.
That said, she did endorse her opponent (Sen. Barack Obama (D.IL), and she urged her supporters to do likewise.
And she did so in a manner, and in a speech that may've been her best of the presidential campaign (If not in her political career). For she spoke of grand themes, broad visions and the surging sweep of history.
If this had been the face of her candidacy it is quite likely that she would today be the nominee, rather than the runner-up.
For, on the advice of experts, she muted her feminist roots, and indeed deprecated the political value of speechifying.
Inspiration is an invaluable political tool, as many presidents have used this to achieve their ends.
Yet, experts advised her to play it down.
Like old generals, experienced political experts often fight past battles - not current ones.
They become creatures of habit, unable to adapt to new conditions.
During this campaign, her generals failed her, and gave her advice that failed her during the long war to the nomination.
What was once thought to be her greatest asset, former President Bill Clinton, instead became her greatest liability, especially among Black voters. For Clinton had a genuine (if inexplicable) base of support among Black voters, who defended and supported him throughout his impeachment, when many of his fair-weather friends flew the coop. He squandered that base.
Sen. Obama's Black votes weren't inevitable.
Two years ago most Black voters didn't know his name.
And in any race, the known always trumps the unknown.
At the beginning of the primaries, Sen. Hillary Clinton was the inevitable candidate, and even her staunchest opponents all but conceded her victory in November, given the Clinton name, the aura of an ex-president, a wealth of funding, and a ready organization at the highest levels of the Democratic Party.
Yet, as we've learned in politics as in life, ain't nothing inevitable.
--(c) '08 maj
The concession speech recently rendered by Senator Hillary R. Clinton (D.NY), was not, truth be told, a concession speech.
For she did not end her campaign; she suspended it.
Some may say that this is splitting hairs, but she's a lawyer, and obviously knows the difference. To concede would've meant the relinquishing of her delegates; to suspend is to hold her delegates in suspension, in the event, say, of a floor fight at the convention when they may be needed.
That said, she did endorse her opponent (Sen. Barack Obama (D.IL), and she urged her supporters to do likewise.
And she did so in a manner, and in a speech that may've been her best of the presidential campaign (If not in her political career). For she spoke of grand themes, broad visions and the surging sweep of history.
If this had been the face of her candidacy it is quite likely that she would today be the nominee, rather than the runner-up.
For, on the advice of experts, she muted her feminist roots, and indeed deprecated the political value of speechifying.
Inspiration is an invaluable political tool, as many presidents have used this to achieve their ends.
Yet, experts advised her to play it down.
Like old generals, experienced political experts often fight past battles - not current ones.
They become creatures of habit, unable to adapt to new conditions.
During this campaign, her generals failed her, and gave her advice that failed her during the long war to the nomination.
What was once thought to be her greatest asset, former President Bill Clinton, instead became her greatest liability, especially among Black voters. For Clinton had a genuine (if inexplicable) base of support among Black voters, who defended and supported him throughout his impeachment, when many of his fair-weather friends flew the coop. He squandered that base.
Sen. Obama's Black votes weren't inevitable.
Two years ago most Black voters didn't know his name.
And in any race, the known always trumps the unknown.
At the beginning of the primaries, Sen. Hillary Clinton was the inevitable candidate, and even her staunchest opponents all but conceded her victory in November, given the Clinton name, the aura of an ex-president, a wealth of funding, and a ready organization at the highest levels of the Democratic Party.
Yet, as we've learned in politics as in life, ain't nothing inevitable.
--(c) '08 maj
Monday, June 23, 2008
Freedom Rider: 35 Crimes
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
As George W. Bush's second term comes to an end, we are compelled to face the fact that "the worst outrages of the Bush regime could have been stopped with sustained opposition." The reminder comes from Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who last week submitted a 35-count bill of impeachment against the Texas criminal, thus giving Democratic leadership - including Barack Obama - yet another chance to show their spinelessness and sweep it off the table. "Bush will leave office after having completed the destruction of what little was left of democracy and his successors will know that they too can get away with anything they want."
The world has been spared from some of the evil dreams of the Bush emporium because help sometimes arrived from unexpected places. In 2007, career CIA agents blew the whistle on the bold faced lie that Iran threatened Israel with nuclear weapons when it neither threatened Israel nor had any nukes. The now famous National Intelligence Estimate report slowed down what appeared to be an inevitable rush to war. Bush may still attack Iran before leaving office, but the NIE did the right kind of damage and made further bloodshed less likely.
Last week the conservative leaning Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Bush war of terror inflicted on the men detained at Guantanamo. In a 5 to 4 decision the court ruled that prisoners have the right to challenge their detention by filing civil suits against the United States government. While CIA agents and unreliable justices make the case against Bush law breaking, most Democrats in Congress do nothing but enable the continuing criminality.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich is the exception. He is once again carrying the burden for the entire body by presenting articles of impeachment. His previous resolution was directed at Vice President Cheney, but now he is taking on the president directly, and on June 11, 2008 introduced 35 articles of impeachment, high crimes and misdemeanors, which should be investigated by Congress.
Kucinich stood on the House floor for more than four hours and delivered a laundry list of the crimes committed during the Bush administration. These include waging a war of aggression, imprisoning children, spying on American citizens, failing to respond to the hurricane Katrina disaster, violating the Voting Rights Act, obstructing investigations of the 9/11 attacks, torture, rendition, and failure to comply with subpoenas.
Kucinich is doing nothing more than obeying the oath he took to uphold the constitution of the United States. Because of Democratic party enabling, impeachment, and Kucinich himself, are seen as lost causes, laughing stocks to be ignored. The corporate media once again ignored him, in large part because his colleagues have publicly announced their refusal to enforce national and international law. While Kucinich acts as a one person police force, the House leadership has already negotiated their next capitulation.
Democrats in the House and Senate have agreed to give the Bush administration everything it wants on warrantless surveillance, including the granting of retroactive immunity to the telecoms that illegally spied on Americans. John Conyers, Chairman of the Judiciary committee, ought to be leading the charge for impeachment against this and other outrages. Yet so far he has only been willing to say that would act on impeachment only if Bush attacked Iran. Bush will have to commit a grand total of 36 crimes before the timid Congressman will take a stand.
Democrats have steadfastly refused to do anything to stop Bush and as a result his presidency is one of the most successful of any in modern history. His approval ratings may be in the cellar but he has gotten away with almost all of his terrible plans. The few instances when he was turned back are significant and tell us what must be done to fight for democracy. He faced serious opposition from politicians and the public when he tried to undo the Social Security safety net. The NIE report stalled an attack on Iran and may have prevented the deaths of thousands of people.
So it is all simple and tragic at the same time. The worst outrages of the Bush regime could have been stopped with sustained opposition. Instead Bush will leave office after having completed the destruction of what little was left of democracy and his successors will know that they too can get away with anything they want.
Perhaps Kucinich is putting the next president on notice and letting John McCain and Barack Obama know that there will be a price to pay for law breaking. When asked if he would endorse Obama, Kucinich raised issues that were swept under the rug during the campaign year:
". . . this election is an election that is about hope, certainly, but it's about something else, too. It's about shifting away from policies that have destroyed our economy. And I am looking forward to having a conversation with my good friend Barack Obama about what he intends to do about matters relating to NAFTA, about Social Security privatization, about whether or not he's going to be leaving troops in Iraq. I mean, these are all things that I want to know about, you know, before I give a personal endorsement."
Obama, like most Democrats, says that impeachment is off the table. "I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the president's authority." Obama made that statement one year ago, when all of the 35 crimes were well known. If he doesn't think that imprisoning children is a "grave breech," Kucinich may someday need to introduce articles of impeachment against him too.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
As George W. Bush's second term comes to an end, we are compelled to face the fact that "the worst outrages of the Bush regime could have been stopped with sustained opposition." The reminder comes from Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich, who last week submitted a 35-count bill of impeachment against the Texas criminal, thus giving Democratic leadership - including Barack Obama - yet another chance to show their spinelessness and sweep it off the table. "Bush will leave office after having completed the destruction of what little was left of democracy and his successors will know that they too can get away with anything they want."
The world has been spared from some of the evil dreams of the Bush emporium because help sometimes arrived from unexpected places. In 2007, career CIA agents blew the whistle on the bold faced lie that Iran threatened Israel with nuclear weapons when it neither threatened Israel nor had any nukes. The now famous National Intelligence Estimate report slowed down what appeared to be an inevitable rush to war. Bush may still attack Iran before leaving office, but the NIE did the right kind of damage and made further bloodshed less likely.
Last week the conservative leaning Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Bush war of terror inflicted on the men detained at Guantanamo. In a 5 to 4 decision the court ruled that prisoners have the right to challenge their detention by filing civil suits against the United States government. While CIA agents and unreliable justices make the case against Bush law breaking, most Democrats in Congress do nothing but enable the continuing criminality.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich is the exception. He is once again carrying the burden for the entire body by presenting articles of impeachment. His previous resolution was directed at Vice President Cheney, but now he is taking on the president directly, and on June 11, 2008 introduced 35 articles of impeachment, high crimes and misdemeanors, which should be investigated by Congress.
Kucinich stood on the House floor for more than four hours and delivered a laundry list of the crimes committed during the Bush administration. These include waging a war of aggression, imprisoning children, spying on American citizens, failing to respond to the hurricane Katrina disaster, violating the Voting Rights Act, obstructing investigations of the 9/11 attacks, torture, rendition, and failure to comply with subpoenas.
Kucinich is doing nothing more than obeying the oath he took to uphold the constitution of the United States. Because of Democratic party enabling, impeachment, and Kucinich himself, are seen as lost causes, laughing stocks to be ignored. The corporate media once again ignored him, in large part because his colleagues have publicly announced their refusal to enforce national and international law. While Kucinich acts as a one person police force, the House leadership has already negotiated their next capitulation.
Democrats in the House and Senate have agreed to give the Bush administration everything it wants on warrantless surveillance, including the granting of retroactive immunity to the telecoms that illegally spied on Americans. John Conyers, Chairman of the Judiciary committee, ought to be leading the charge for impeachment against this and other outrages. Yet so far he has only been willing to say that would act on impeachment only if Bush attacked Iran. Bush will have to commit a grand total of 36 crimes before the timid Congressman will take a stand.
Democrats have steadfastly refused to do anything to stop Bush and as a result his presidency is one of the most successful of any in modern history. His approval ratings may be in the cellar but he has gotten away with almost all of his terrible plans. The few instances when he was turned back are significant and tell us what must be done to fight for democracy. He faced serious opposition from politicians and the public when he tried to undo the Social Security safety net. The NIE report stalled an attack on Iran and may have prevented the deaths of thousands of people.
So it is all simple and tragic at the same time. The worst outrages of the Bush regime could have been stopped with sustained opposition. Instead Bush will leave office after having completed the destruction of what little was left of democracy and his successors will know that they too can get away with anything they want.
Perhaps Kucinich is putting the next president on notice and letting John McCain and Barack Obama know that there will be a price to pay for law breaking. When asked if he would endorse Obama, Kucinich raised issues that were swept under the rug during the campaign year:
". . . this election is an election that is about hope, certainly, but it's about something else, too. It's about shifting away from policies that have destroyed our economy. And I am looking forward to having a conversation with my good friend Barack Obama about what he intends to do about matters relating to NAFTA, about Social Security privatization, about whether or not he's going to be leaving troops in Iraq. I mean, these are all things that I want to know about, you know, before I give a personal endorsement."
Obama, like most Democrats, says that impeachment is off the table. "I think you reserve impeachment for grave, grave breeches, and intentional breeches of the president's authority." Obama made that statement one year ago, when all of the 35 crimes were well known. If he doesn't think that imprisoning children is a "grave breech," Kucinich may someday need to introduce articles of impeachment against him too.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
Obama Insults Half a Race
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
The Black man who wants to be president spends Father's Day at church in loud and general denunciation of Black males. For added insult, he describes them as "boys." Barack Obama's primary audience isn't the conservative Black Pentecostal congregation, but "white social conservatives in a race where these voters may be up for grabs," says the New York Times. In America, even the "Black" corporate candidate runs against Black people. How did such madness come to pass in 2008? Blame the Black "progressive" misleaders who failed to challenge Obama when they had the chance. Now it's too late, and African Americans are reduced to objects of derision.
The Democratic presidential nominee-apparent seldom speaks directly to Black people, but when he does it is usually to denounce individuals once close to him or to criticize The Race in general for some moral failing. Thus it was no surprise that Barack Obama used the occasion of Father's Day to give Black males the back of his hand, no doubt to the delight of millions of potential white supporters. Black males have "abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men," said Obama, citing statistics on female-headed households. "You and I know how true this is in the African-American community."
Even the New York Times could see through Obama's transparent bid for white approval at Black people's expense. Reporter Julie Bosman noted that Obama "laid out his case in stark terms that would be difficult for a white candidate to make" - terms (such as boy?) that "his campaign hopes [will] resonate among white social conservatives in a race where these voters may be up for grabs."
In effect, Obama is following an established American electoral tradition of running against Black people. He claims to be teaming up with Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh to promote legislation to combat a "national epidemic of absentee fathers." However, Obama's church rant was anything but "race-neutral" - it was targeted directly at Black males. By selecting the politically conservative (in Black terms) Apostolic Church of God as the venue for his blanket Black male denunciation, Obama also reminded whites that he is no longer a member of Trinity United Church of Christ, formerly pastored by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, also located on Chicago's South Side.
To make himself acceptable to whites, Obama finds it necessary to shout out how unacceptable he finds the conduct of other Blacks. As could have been expected, corporate headline editors had a field day: "Obama Tells Black Fathers to Act Like Men" (AFP), "Obama Calls on Black Men to Be Better Fathers" (U.S. News & World Report), "Black Fathers Missing From Too Many Lives" (The Age), "Obama Calls for More Responsibility From Black Fathers" (NYT). Words like these are music to the ears of those who blame African American "pathology" for the ills of the ghetto and the nation as a whole, especially the "Reagan Democrats" Obama so shamelessly woos.
Can one imagine Obama or any other presidential aspirant repeatedly hectoring any other ethnic group on moral issues? Singling out Jews for excessive materialism? The Irish for excessive drinking? Of course not; that would be unfair and politically suicidal. But there are large regions of the white body politic in which it is not only acceptable, but damn near required, that politicians demonstrate their impatience with the alleged moral shortcomings of Black people.
Barack Obama trolls for votes in those foul waters, at the cost of Black people's dignity.
Obama's two young daughters were seated in the church, upfront, to hear their father call other Black men "boys" with no sense of responsibility. Ironically, a key Black rationale for supporting Obama is that he is a great "role model" for Black children. Imagine that: an ethnic role model, whose ostensible purpose is to make The Race proud, yet who with great fanfare periodically sneers at the supposedly debased morality of his own people. That's close to the definition of sick.
Black-Basher, Power Worshipper
Obama goes race-specific-negative on Black people whenever it is useful in attracting white electoral support. Otherwise, he is studiously "race neutral" - a cynical device he deploys to avoid recognizing the pervasiveness of racial wrongs against African Americans. The candidate periodically offers loud and specific criticisms of Blacks, but prescribes no programs - not one - to address specific Black grievances. He feels quite secure with this cruel and crooked campaign posture, confident that no significant complaint will emanate from African American quarters - they are loyal, no matter what. And for that reason, they need not be respected.
The Black burden is even heavier than that. African Americans are expected to circle the wagons at the merest hint of racist threats to the candidate. Any slight to Obama, real or imagined, must be met with massive Black response, while Obama's disregard of Black priorities and sensibilities is endlessly forgivable. At the commonsensical level, the entire Obama-Black folks relationship is so bizarre as to seem insane. The candidate has been imposed on the African American polity by corporate forces in the Democratic Party, of which he is a loyal, Harvard-vetted operative. He constantly swears fealty to the white American civic religions of American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny, both rooted in race supremacy. He has proven his devotion to this ghastly Euro-American mythology and worldview, through public denunciation of liberation theology and ritual separation from one of its major institutions. He bows to imperial power and its endless expansion, fully aware that, as Dr. Martin Luther King phrased it 40 years ago, the military will "draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube," draining all hope for creation of a just society.
Obama is no Prince of Peace - more like Damion, of The Omen. His peace-savaging declaration earlier this month that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided" expressed a position that no U.S. government has ever taken, that no Arab government can accept and, as Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery has written, "has disappeared - quietly, almost secretly - from the arsenal of official [Israeli] slogans." Translation: Obama is more hyper-Zionist on Jerusalem than the Israelis themselves, more than successive American governments that have never formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital or as wholly Israeli.
He is emphatically outside the possible parameters of peace in the most volatile region of the planet. Obama is not a peace candidate.
To point up how hawkish Obama has shown himself to be in his groveling before the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), no less than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was dispatched to Jerusalem this past weekend to caution the Israelis against building further housing for Jews in the western part of city, lest they have "a negative effect on the atmosphere for the negotiation" with Palestinians. Obama is to the Right of Rice, who had to journey to Israel to try to clean up the mess he made at the AIPAC meeting in Washington! Predictably, the Israelis rebuked Rice. After all, they can look forward to an even more pliant Obama administration.
Obama has expressed willingness to militarily violate the sovereignty of Pakistan - home of the A Q Khan nuclear proliferation racket and, along with Israel, among the wildest nuclear cards in the planetary deck - and to launch "surgical" strikes against Iran, a catastrophe of unimaginable dimensions.
Is he John McCain? No, and that's literally as much as can be said with any degree of certainty.
Phony ‘Movement'
Most of the commentary and pseudo-reporting about the campaign amounts to ramblings of the insane. Insanity is the logical product of a culture rooted in plunder, genocide and slavery. There are no guarantees that social structures marinated in such evil can ultimately be made habitable. Madness in, madness out. Only the most courageous, sustained popular struggle can even hope to distill civilization from its opposite. The Black Freedom Movement, embedded in the history of The Americas, could have been - and might yet become - the great engine of general liberation.
But no transformation is possible if the Great Diversion and Illusion of Obamamania chokes the sense and consciousness out of Black America - a true pathology that has already rendered folks previously considered among the "best and brightest" among African Americans deaf, dumb, blind and at the feet of their utterly false Messiah.
The general African American rush to touch Obama's garments is understandable - not rational, but explicable - as the product of 400 years of frustrated yearnings for "deliverance" by "our own" hands. Add two parts willful self-delusion plus eight parts corporate public manipulation (the "hope" mantra, which conjures up totally different visions in the minds of different consumers), and a full blown dream-savior appears.
Black "leadership," especially on the left side of the African American political spectrum (which, as a polity, is distinctly to the left of the white American spectrum), has shamefully packaged Obama as a progressive, knowing full well he is not. This is cowardice: the "leaders" fear having to tell Black folks the truth, which would require that they provide real and risky political direction that challenges Obama, the Man Who Would Like To Be Called Joshua (see Obama, Selma). Black leaders would have to disabuse the people of their illusions, and explain that Obama's/Joshua's destination for the multitudes is not Black self-determination, true racial justice and peace - about which he fundamentally differs from the Historical Black Political Consensus - but a one-day trip to the ballot box to benefit himself, followed by four years of even more malign neglect than he has shown Blacks heretofore in the campaign.
Having led no one anywhere recently, the Obama-backing "leaders" pretend that the candidate's popularity in the presidential race is the equivalent of a "movement." It is no such thing, and they and Obama know it. Obama's claim to be at the head of a movement is no surprise, part of his slick M.O., signifying nothing. The last thing any politician wants is to be bothered with movements. They are, at the very least, distractions to the smooth running of governments, which seek to be unencumbered by meddlesome popular demands. More to the point, Obama doesn't see any need for a specifically "Black" movement, since African Americans have already "come 90 percent of the way" to equality, as he proclaimed in Selma, last year.
He made clear in his Philadelphia "Race Speech" three months ago that Black-centered complaints are "divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all."
Obama wants to shut down what's left of the Black Freedom Movement. He's getting help from panicked and unprincipled Black Left misleaders who contort their former politics beyond recognition in order to attach themselves, mostly uninvited, to a corporate campaign that tries to masquerade in movement clothing. They meekly offer insubstantial but nevertheless unwelcome advice to unhearing campaign operatives on how to make the campaign appear more like a genuine people's mass political vehicle, as if Goldman Sachs and the other Wall Streeters who made Obama the early money frontrunner would tolerate interference in their behind-the-curtain rule.
McKinney Candidacy Plus People's Movement
There is a presidential candidate who is Black, a proven progressive, a person of courage and unchallenged integrity. Cynthia McKinney, running on a Power to the People platform for the Green Party nomination, wants to rebuild a real movement. Peace and racial and social justice cannot be achieved absent a popular movement, which in the United States must be led by African Americans. Presidential aspirant Barack Obama has never faced movement scrutiny, because Black "progressive" leaders rolled over like puppies (minus the cuteness) without initially presenting even strong policy suggestions, much less demands, to Obama's corporate campaign. Not satisfied with neutering themselves, they encouraged Black people as a body to become irrelevant. Now, they are objects of derision, fare game for Obama's piercing scowl.
A vote (and/or contribution) for Cynthia McKinney, the former congresswoman from Georgia, signals that you have not been fooled by the corporate handmaiden, Obama, and his "progressive" apologists. It means you are ready to build a movement in which periodic electoral politics is a secondary appendage to 24-7 mass struggle.
It means that you support a woman who genuinely loves people and would never defame half a race on Father's Day.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
The Black man who wants to be president spends Father's Day at church in loud and general denunciation of Black males. For added insult, he describes them as "boys." Barack Obama's primary audience isn't the conservative Black Pentecostal congregation, but "white social conservatives in a race where these voters may be up for grabs," says the New York Times. In America, even the "Black" corporate candidate runs against Black people. How did such madness come to pass in 2008? Blame the Black "progressive" misleaders who failed to challenge Obama when they had the chance. Now it's too late, and African Americans are reduced to objects of derision.
The Democratic presidential nominee-apparent seldom speaks directly to Black people, but when he does it is usually to denounce individuals once close to him or to criticize The Race in general for some moral failing. Thus it was no surprise that Barack Obama used the occasion of Father's Day to give Black males the back of his hand, no doubt to the delight of millions of potential white supporters. Black males have "abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men," said Obama, citing statistics on female-headed households. "You and I know how true this is in the African-American community."
Even the New York Times could see through Obama's transparent bid for white approval at Black people's expense. Reporter Julie Bosman noted that Obama "laid out his case in stark terms that would be difficult for a white candidate to make" - terms (such as boy?) that "his campaign hopes [will] resonate among white social conservatives in a race where these voters may be up for grabs."
In effect, Obama is following an established American electoral tradition of running against Black people. He claims to be teaming up with Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh to promote legislation to combat a "national epidemic of absentee fathers." However, Obama's church rant was anything but "race-neutral" - it was targeted directly at Black males. By selecting the politically conservative (in Black terms) Apostolic Church of God as the venue for his blanket Black male denunciation, Obama also reminded whites that he is no longer a member of Trinity United Church of Christ, formerly pastored by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, also located on Chicago's South Side.
To make himself acceptable to whites, Obama finds it necessary to shout out how unacceptable he finds the conduct of other Blacks. As could have been expected, corporate headline editors had a field day: "Obama Tells Black Fathers to Act Like Men" (AFP), "Obama Calls on Black Men to Be Better Fathers" (U.S. News & World Report), "Black Fathers Missing From Too Many Lives" (The Age), "Obama Calls for More Responsibility From Black Fathers" (NYT). Words like these are music to the ears of those who blame African American "pathology" for the ills of the ghetto and the nation as a whole, especially the "Reagan Democrats" Obama so shamelessly woos.
Can one imagine Obama or any other presidential aspirant repeatedly hectoring any other ethnic group on moral issues? Singling out Jews for excessive materialism? The Irish for excessive drinking? Of course not; that would be unfair and politically suicidal. But there are large regions of the white body politic in which it is not only acceptable, but damn near required, that politicians demonstrate their impatience with the alleged moral shortcomings of Black people.
Barack Obama trolls for votes in those foul waters, at the cost of Black people's dignity.
Obama's two young daughters were seated in the church, upfront, to hear their father call other Black men "boys" with no sense of responsibility. Ironically, a key Black rationale for supporting Obama is that he is a great "role model" for Black children. Imagine that: an ethnic role model, whose ostensible purpose is to make The Race proud, yet who with great fanfare periodically sneers at the supposedly debased morality of his own people. That's close to the definition of sick.
Black-Basher, Power Worshipper
Obama goes race-specific-negative on Black people whenever it is useful in attracting white electoral support. Otherwise, he is studiously "race neutral" - a cynical device he deploys to avoid recognizing the pervasiveness of racial wrongs against African Americans. The candidate periodically offers loud and specific criticisms of Blacks, but prescribes no programs - not one - to address specific Black grievances. He feels quite secure with this cruel and crooked campaign posture, confident that no significant complaint will emanate from African American quarters - they are loyal, no matter what. And for that reason, they need not be respected.
The Black burden is even heavier than that. African Americans are expected to circle the wagons at the merest hint of racist threats to the candidate. Any slight to Obama, real or imagined, must be met with massive Black response, while Obama's disregard of Black priorities and sensibilities is endlessly forgivable. At the commonsensical level, the entire Obama-Black folks relationship is so bizarre as to seem insane. The candidate has been imposed on the African American polity by corporate forces in the Democratic Party, of which he is a loyal, Harvard-vetted operative. He constantly swears fealty to the white American civic religions of American Exceptionalism and Manifest Destiny, both rooted in race supremacy. He has proven his devotion to this ghastly Euro-American mythology and worldview, through public denunciation of liberation theology and ritual separation from one of its major institutions. He bows to imperial power and its endless expansion, fully aware that, as Dr. Martin Luther King phrased it 40 years ago, the military will "draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube," draining all hope for creation of a just society.
Obama is no Prince of Peace - more like Damion, of The Omen. His peace-savaging declaration earlier this month that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided" expressed a position that no U.S. government has ever taken, that no Arab government can accept and, as Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery has written, "has disappeared - quietly, almost secretly - from the arsenal of official [Israeli] slogans." Translation: Obama is more hyper-Zionist on Jerusalem than the Israelis themselves, more than successive American governments that have never formally recognized Jerusalem as the capital or as wholly Israeli.
He is emphatically outside the possible parameters of peace in the most volatile region of the planet. Obama is not a peace candidate.
To point up how hawkish Obama has shown himself to be in his groveling before the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), no less than Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was dispatched to Jerusalem this past weekend to caution the Israelis against building further housing for Jews in the western part of city, lest they have "a negative effect on the atmosphere for the negotiation" with Palestinians. Obama is to the Right of Rice, who had to journey to Israel to try to clean up the mess he made at the AIPAC meeting in Washington! Predictably, the Israelis rebuked Rice. After all, they can look forward to an even more pliant Obama administration.
Obama has expressed willingness to militarily violate the sovereignty of Pakistan - home of the A Q Khan nuclear proliferation racket and, along with Israel, among the wildest nuclear cards in the planetary deck - and to launch "surgical" strikes against Iran, a catastrophe of unimaginable dimensions.
Is he John McCain? No, and that's literally as much as can be said with any degree of certainty.
Phony ‘Movement'
Most of the commentary and pseudo-reporting about the campaign amounts to ramblings of the insane. Insanity is the logical product of a culture rooted in plunder, genocide and slavery. There are no guarantees that social structures marinated in such evil can ultimately be made habitable. Madness in, madness out. Only the most courageous, sustained popular struggle can even hope to distill civilization from its opposite. The Black Freedom Movement, embedded in the history of The Americas, could have been - and might yet become - the great engine of general liberation.
But no transformation is possible if the Great Diversion and Illusion of Obamamania chokes the sense and consciousness out of Black America - a true pathology that has already rendered folks previously considered among the "best and brightest" among African Americans deaf, dumb, blind and at the feet of their utterly false Messiah.
The general African American rush to touch Obama's garments is understandable - not rational, but explicable - as the product of 400 years of frustrated yearnings for "deliverance" by "our own" hands. Add two parts willful self-delusion plus eight parts corporate public manipulation (the "hope" mantra, which conjures up totally different visions in the minds of different consumers), and a full blown dream-savior appears.
Black "leadership," especially on the left side of the African American political spectrum (which, as a polity, is distinctly to the left of the white American spectrum), has shamefully packaged Obama as a progressive, knowing full well he is not. This is cowardice: the "leaders" fear having to tell Black folks the truth, which would require that they provide real and risky political direction that challenges Obama, the Man Who Would Like To Be Called Joshua (see Obama, Selma). Black leaders would have to disabuse the people of their illusions, and explain that Obama's/Joshua's destination for the multitudes is not Black self-determination, true racial justice and peace - about which he fundamentally differs from the Historical Black Political Consensus - but a one-day trip to the ballot box to benefit himself, followed by four years of even more malign neglect than he has shown Blacks heretofore in the campaign.
Having led no one anywhere recently, the Obama-backing "leaders" pretend that the candidate's popularity in the presidential race is the equivalent of a "movement." It is no such thing, and they and Obama know it. Obama's claim to be at the head of a movement is no surprise, part of his slick M.O., signifying nothing. The last thing any politician wants is to be bothered with movements. They are, at the very least, distractions to the smooth running of governments, which seek to be unencumbered by meddlesome popular demands. More to the point, Obama doesn't see any need for a specifically "Black" movement, since African Americans have already "come 90 percent of the way" to equality, as he proclaimed in Selma, last year.
He made clear in his Philadelphia "Race Speech" three months ago that Black-centered complaints are "divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all."
Obama wants to shut down what's left of the Black Freedom Movement. He's getting help from panicked and unprincipled Black Left misleaders who contort their former politics beyond recognition in order to attach themselves, mostly uninvited, to a corporate campaign that tries to masquerade in movement clothing. They meekly offer insubstantial but nevertheless unwelcome advice to unhearing campaign operatives on how to make the campaign appear more like a genuine people's mass political vehicle, as if Goldman Sachs and the other Wall Streeters who made Obama the early money frontrunner would tolerate interference in their behind-the-curtain rule.
McKinney Candidacy Plus People's Movement
There is a presidential candidate who is Black, a proven progressive, a person of courage and unchallenged integrity. Cynthia McKinney, running on a Power to the People platform for the Green Party nomination, wants to rebuild a real movement. Peace and racial and social justice cannot be achieved absent a popular movement, which in the United States must be led by African Americans. Presidential aspirant Barack Obama has never faced movement scrutiny, because Black "progressive" leaders rolled over like puppies (minus the cuteness) without initially presenting even strong policy suggestions, much less demands, to Obama's corporate campaign. Not satisfied with neutering themselves, they encouraged Black people as a body to become irrelevant. Now, they are objects of derision, fare game for Obama's piercing scowl.
A vote (and/or contribution) for Cynthia McKinney, the former congresswoman from Georgia, signals that you have not been fooled by the corporate handmaiden, Obama, and his "progressive" apologists. It means you are ready to build a movement in which periodic electoral politics is a secondary appendage to 24-7 mass struggle.
It means that you support a woman who genuinely loves people and would never defame half a race on Father's Day.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
Friday, June 13, 2008
Police Shooting of Mother and Infant Exposes a City's Racial Tension
Here's a story that I just learned about today from Lima, Ohio. The act of police terrorism took place back in January of this year. A Black woman shot and killed by the police while holding her 14 month old baby in her arms. The baby was hit as well. These racist devils are shooting our babies now. And black folks won't ride for nothing. What will it take for us to fight back against our open enemies. Caucasians understand only two things and that's money and violence. That's it! The murderous pig who committed this act of terror goes on trial soon. But I have a feeling that these crackers have already found a way out for their comrade. We have a God-given right to defend ourselves and it's about time we start exercising it. White people really want us to do a life for a life. Let's show them what we got and just how vulnerable their families are. Whitey is a race of beasts. This is nothing new. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad spoke of this day coming for Black people here in America. The real white devil is out and they're manifesting their true selves. They have no mercy in their hearts for us. Not even towards their own people. You can take it or leave it alone!
January 30, 2008
By CHRISTOPHER MAAG
LIMA, Ohio — The air of Southside is foul-smelling and thick, filled with fumes from an oil refinery and diesel smoke from a train yard, with talk of riot and recrimination, and with angry questions: Why is Tarika Wilson dead? Why did the police shoot her baby?
“This thing just stinks to high heaven, and the police know it,” said Jason Upthegrove, president of the Lima chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. “We’re not asking for answers anymore. We’re demanding them.”
Some facts are known. A SWAT team arrived at Ms. Wilson’s rented house in the Southside neighborhood early in the evening of Jan. 4 to arrest her companion, Anthony Terry, on suspicion of drug dealing, said Greg Garlock, Lima’s police chief. Officers bashed in the front door and entered with guns drawn, said neighbors who saw the raid.
Moments later, the police opened fire, killing Ms. Wilson, 26, and wounding her 14-month-old son, Sincere, Chief Garlock said. One officer involved in the raid, Sgt. Joseph Chavalia, a 31-year veteran, has been placed on paid administrative leave.
Beyond these scant certainties, there is mostly rumor and rage. The police refuse to give any account of the raid, pending an investigation by the Ohio attorney general.
Black people in Lima, from the poorest citizens to religious and business leaders, complain that rogue police officers regularly stop them without cause, point guns in their faces, curse them and physically abuse them. They say the shooting of Ms. Wilson is only the latest example of a long-running pattern of a few white police officers treating African-Americans as people to be feared.
“There is an evil in this town,” said C. M. Manley, 68, pastor of New Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church. “The police harass me. They harass my family. But they know that if something happens to me, people will burn down this town.”
Internal investigations have uncovered no evidence of police misconduct, Chief Garlock said. Still, local officials recognize that the perception of systemic racism has opened a wide chasm.
“The situation is very tense,” Mayor David J. Berger said. “Serious threats have been made.
People are starting to carry weapons to protect themselves.”
Surrounded by farm country known for its German Catholic roots and conservative politics, Lima is the only city in the immediate area with a significant African-American population. Black families, including Mr. Manley’s, came to Lima in the 1940s and ’50s for jobs at what is now the Husky Energy Lima Refinery and other factories along the city’s southern border. Blacks make up 27 percent of the city’s 38,000 people, Mr. Berger said.
Many blacks still live downwind from the refinery. Many whites on the police force commute from nearby farm towns, where a black face is about as common as a twisty road. Of Lima’s 77 police officers, two are African-American.
“If I have any frustration when I retire, it’ll be that I wasn’t able to bring more racial balance to the police force,” said Chief Garlock, who joined the force in 1971 and has been chief for 11 years.
Tarika Wilson had six children, ages 8 to 1. They were fathered by five men, all of whom dealt drugs, said Darla Jennings, Ms. Wilson’s mother. But Ms. Wilson never took drugs nor allowed them to be sold from her house, said Tania Wilson, her sister.
“She took great care of those kids, without much help from the fathers, and the community respected her for that,” said Ms. Wilson’s uncle, John Austin.
Tarika Wilson’s companion, Mr. Terry, was the subject of a long-term drug investigation, Chief Garlock said, but Ms. Wilson was never a suspect.
During the raid, Ms. Wilson’s youngest son, Sincere, was shot in the left shoulder and hand. Three weeks after the shooting, he remains in fair condition, said a spokeswoman at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus.
Within minutes of the shooting, at around 8 p.m., 50 people gathered outside Ms. Wilson’s home and shouted obscenities at the police, neighbors said. The next day, 300 people gathered at the house and marched two miles to City Hall.
Many protesters believe they saw snipers atop police headquarters. The men on the roof were actually photographers, Chief Garlock said.
“The police can say whatever they want,” Tania Wilson said. “Even before they shot my sister, I didn’t trust them.”
Smaller marches have continued every week since the shooting. The N.A.A.C.P. will hold a public meeting on Saturday to air complaints about police brutality. The group will soon request that the Department of Justice investigate the police department and the Allen County prosecutor’s office, Mr. Upthegrove said.
Junior Cook was a neighbor of Tarika Wilson. He says that he watched from his front porch as the SWAT team raced across his front yard, and that seconds later he watched a police officer run from Ms. Wilson’s house carrying a bleeding baby in a blanket.
“The cops in Lima, they is racist like no tomorrow,” said Mr. Cook, 56. “Why else would you shoot a mother with a baby in her arms?”
January 30, 2008
By CHRISTOPHER MAAG
LIMA, Ohio — The air of Southside is foul-smelling and thick, filled with fumes from an oil refinery and diesel smoke from a train yard, with talk of riot and recrimination, and with angry questions: Why is Tarika Wilson dead? Why did the police shoot her baby?
“This thing just stinks to high heaven, and the police know it,” said Jason Upthegrove, president of the Lima chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. “We’re not asking for answers anymore. We’re demanding them.”
Some facts are known. A SWAT team arrived at Ms. Wilson’s rented house in the Southside neighborhood early in the evening of Jan. 4 to arrest her companion, Anthony Terry, on suspicion of drug dealing, said Greg Garlock, Lima’s police chief. Officers bashed in the front door and entered with guns drawn, said neighbors who saw the raid.
Moments later, the police opened fire, killing Ms. Wilson, 26, and wounding her 14-month-old son, Sincere, Chief Garlock said. One officer involved in the raid, Sgt. Joseph Chavalia, a 31-year veteran, has been placed on paid administrative leave.
Beyond these scant certainties, there is mostly rumor and rage. The police refuse to give any account of the raid, pending an investigation by the Ohio attorney general.
Black people in Lima, from the poorest citizens to religious and business leaders, complain that rogue police officers regularly stop them without cause, point guns in their faces, curse them and physically abuse them. They say the shooting of Ms. Wilson is only the latest example of a long-running pattern of a few white police officers treating African-Americans as people to be feared.
“There is an evil in this town,” said C. M. Manley, 68, pastor of New Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church. “The police harass me. They harass my family. But they know that if something happens to me, people will burn down this town.”
Internal investigations have uncovered no evidence of police misconduct, Chief Garlock said. Still, local officials recognize that the perception of systemic racism has opened a wide chasm.
“The situation is very tense,” Mayor David J. Berger said. “Serious threats have been made.
People are starting to carry weapons to protect themselves.”
Surrounded by farm country known for its German Catholic roots and conservative politics, Lima is the only city in the immediate area with a significant African-American population. Black families, including Mr. Manley’s, came to Lima in the 1940s and ’50s for jobs at what is now the Husky Energy Lima Refinery and other factories along the city’s southern border. Blacks make up 27 percent of the city’s 38,000 people, Mr. Berger said.
Many blacks still live downwind from the refinery. Many whites on the police force commute from nearby farm towns, where a black face is about as common as a twisty road. Of Lima’s 77 police officers, two are African-American.
“If I have any frustration when I retire, it’ll be that I wasn’t able to bring more racial balance to the police force,” said Chief Garlock, who joined the force in 1971 and has been chief for 11 years.
Tarika Wilson had six children, ages 8 to 1. They were fathered by five men, all of whom dealt drugs, said Darla Jennings, Ms. Wilson’s mother. But Ms. Wilson never took drugs nor allowed them to be sold from her house, said Tania Wilson, her sister.
“She took great care of those kids, without much help from the fathers, and the community respected her for that,” said Ms. Wilson’s uncle, John Austin.
Tarika Wilson’s companion, Mr. Terry, was the subject of a long-term drug investigation, Chief Garlock said, but Ms. Wilson was never a suspect.
During the raid, Ms. Wilson’s youngest son, Sincere, was shot in the left shoulder and hand. Three weeks after the shooting, he remains in fair condition, said a spokeswoman at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus.
Within minutes of the shooting, at around 8 p.m., 50 people gathered outside Ms. Wilson’s home and shouted obscenities at the police, neighbors said. The next day, 300 people gathered at the house and marched two miles to City Hall.
Many protesters believe they saw snipers atop police headquarters. The men on the roof were actually photographers, Chief Garlock said.
“The police can say whatever they want,” Tania Wilson said. “Even before they shot my sister, I didn’t trust them.”
Smaller marches have continued every week since the shooting. The N.A.A.C.P. will hold a public meeting on Saturday to air complaints about police brutality. The group will soon request that the Department of Justice investigate the police department and the Allen County prosecutor’s office, Mr. Upthegrove said.
Junior Cook was a neighbor of Tarika Wilson. He says that he watched from his front porch as the SWAT team raced across his front yard, and that seconds later he watched a police officer run from Ms. Wilson’s house carrying a bleeding baby in a blanket.
“The cops in Lima, they is racist like no tomorrow,” said Mr. Cook, 56. “Why else would you shoot a mother with a baby in her arms?”
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Is Obama's Victory Ours?
[col. writ. 6/5/08] (c)'08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
With the attainment of the required delegates to claim the Democratic Party's nomination for U.S. president, Sen. Barack H. Obama (D. ILL.) has written a new page in American history.
For by so doing he succeeds where Channing Phillips, Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Sr., and Al Sharpton could not - by gaining the necessary delegates to demand nomination.
Of course, there have been numerous Black candidates for president, but these have been third party efforts designed more to raise issues, to organize or protest than to actually win elections. Some of the best known have been Eldridge Cleaver (former Black Panther Minister of Information), Dick Gregory, Dr. Lenora Fulani, and the former congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney.
But this is a different kettle of fish, for Obama's candidacy is the closest to make it to the winner's circle.
What also distinguishes Obama from his predecessors is he doesn't come from civil rights, Black liberation, socialist or anti war movements. (He often remarks at speeches, "I'm not against all wars, I'm just against dumb wars")
Indeed, although his detractors may try to paint him as a leftist liberal this is hardly true. On issues both foreign and domestic he would've been more at home in the Republican Party of his senatorial forebear, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts. For though he is Black by dint of his African father, he has studiously avoided Black political groups in his long, harrowing climb to the rim of the White House.
He has studiously avoided the very real and long standing grievances of Black America. In fact, he tried to run a 'post-racial' campaign until Sen. Hillary R. Clinton (D.N.Y.) (and her rambunctious husband, former Pres. Bill), brought race front and center during the Super Tuesday February primaries, by trying to pigeonhole him as 'the Black candidate'.
This primary wounded Obama, and as he won in the delegate count, he also lost a number of primary states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, which are necessary for a win in November.
Politics is the art of making people believe that they are in power when in fact, they have none.
It is a measure of how dire is the hour that they've passed the keys to the kingdom to a Black man.
As in many American cities, Black Mayors were let in when the treasuries were almost barren, and tax bases were almost at rock-bottom.
With the nation's manufacturing base also a thing of history, amidst the socioeconomic wreckage of globalization, with foreign affairs in shambles, the rulers reach for a pretty, brown face to front for the Empire.
'Real change that you could believe in' would be an end to Empire, and an end to wars for corporate greed, not just a change of the shade of the political managers.
That change, I'm afraid, is still to come.
--(c) '08 maj
With the attainment of the required delegates to claim the Democratic Party's nomination for U.S. president, Sen. Barack H. Obama (D. ILL.) has written a new page in American history.
For by so doing he succeeds where Channing Phillips, Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Jackson, Sr., and Al Sharpton could not - by gaining the necessary delegates to demand nomination.
Of course, there have been numerous Black candidates for president, but these have been third party efforts designed more to raise issues, to organize or protest than to actually win elections. Some of the best known have been Eldridge Cleaver (former Black Panther Minister of Information), Dick Gregory, Dr. Lenora Fulani, and the former congresswoman, Cynthia McKinney.
But this is a different kettle of fish, for Obama's candidacy is the closest to make it to the winner's circle.
What also distinguishes Obama from his predecessors is he doesn't come from civil rights, Black liberation, socialist or anti war movements. (He often remarks at speeches, "I'm not against all wars, I'm just against dumb wars")
Indeed, although his detractors may try to paint him as a leftist liberal this is hardly true. On issues both foreign and domestic he would've been more at home in the Republican Party of his senatorial forebear, Edward Brooke of Massachusetts. For though he is Black by dint of his African father, he has studiously avoided Black political groups in his long, harrowing climb to the rim of the White House.
He has studiously avoided the very real and long standing grievances of Black America. In fact, he tried to run a 'post-racial' campaign until Sen. Hillary R. Clinton (D.N.Y.) (and her rambunctious husband, former Pres. Bill), brought race front and center during the Super Tuesday February primaries, by trying to pigeonhole him as 'the Black candidate'.
This primary wounded Obama, and as he won in the delegate count, he also lost a number of primary states, such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, which are necessary for a win in November.
Politics is the art of making people believe that they are in power when in fact, they have none.
It is a measure of how dire is the hour that they've passed the keys to the kingdom to a Black man.
As in many American cities, Black Mayors were let in when the treasuries were almost barren, and tax bases were almost at rock-bottom.
With the nation's manufacturing base also a thing of history, amidst the socioeconomic wreckage of globalization, with foreign affairs in shambles, the rulers reach for a pretty, brown face to front for the Empire.
'Real change that you could believe in' would be an end to Empire, and an end to wars for corporate greed, not just a change of the shade of the political managers.
That change, I'm afraid, is still to come.
--(c) '08 maj
Rejecting the Church Pew, for the Altar of Power
[col. writ. 6/1/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
The recent resignation of Sen. Barack Obama (D.-ILL.) (and all of his family) from Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ is the latest scene of a tragicomic play that is as much religious as it is political.
Tragic because it is the very real parting of lifelong friends and families, as well as the severing of what seemed to be quite deep friendships between remarkable men; Sen. Obama and Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, longtime pastor at Trinity.
Comic because of how the illusory act of politics compels people to play roles to appeal to broad segments of the populace for votes, or just to assuage their fears.
The heat and light of politics does not reflect well on the inner sanctums of the Black Church, which, since its inception during the hellish depths of American slavery, had to speak in voices of pain, bitterness, truth and hope, in order to have any relevance to a people drowning in a sea of hopelessness.
The Rev. Dr. Wright spoke to this central truth when he observed at the National Press Club recently that enchained Africans in the holds of the slave ship didn't pray to the same god as those of the crew on the top decks, manning the masts. Nor, obviously, did they pray for the same thing - for one prayed for peace and a good breeze; and the other prayed for the storms and a chance to break their bonds, to make a break for freedom.
I've been struck by the role of religion in this presidential campaign, especially in light of Article VI of the Constitution, which states, quite explicitly, that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification, to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
But, if American history teaches us anything, it is that the Constitutions can be conveniently ignored, by millions.
One's church is as much a social decision as it is a religious one, but politics is the art of ego, illusion and imagery.
To gain a political office, is it necessary to reject one's church?
One of America's greatest leaders, Frederick Douglass, once wrote that one of the worst slave masters he ever experienced was the most religious: Thomas Auld of Bayside, Talbot County, Maryland. Writing of his conversion, Douglass noted: "If it made any effect on his character, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways; for I believe him to have been a much worse man after his conversion than before. Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sanction him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty." [Douglass, F., Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Mineola, NY:Dover, 1995), p. 32]
Douglass said Auld prayed night and day, but he "starved" his slaves, while he "stuffed" his church friends.
Religion is a poor barometer by which to judge a politician. For, to a politician victory is his god, and a church merely a means to that end.
--(c) '08 maj
The recent resignation of Sen. Barack Obama (D.-ILL.) (and all of his family) from Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ is the latest scene of a tragicomic play that is as much religious as it is political.
Tragic because it is the very real parting of lifelong friends and families, as well as the severing of what seemed to be quite deep friendships between remarkable men; Sen. Obama and Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright, longtime pastor at Trinity.
Comic because of how the illusory act of politics compels people to play roles to appeal to broad segments of the populace for votes, or just to assuage their fears.
The heat and light of politics does not reflect well on the inner sanctums of the Black Church, which, since its inception during the hellish depths of American slavery, had to speak in voices of pain, bitterness, truth and hope, in order to have any relevance to a people drowning in a sea of hopelessness.
The Rev. Dr. Wright spoke to this central truth when he observed at the National Press Club recently that enchained Africans in the holds of the slave ship didn't pray to the same god as those of the crew on the top decks, manning the masts. Nor, obviously, did they pray for the same thing - for one prayed for peace and a good breeze; and the other prayed for the storms and a chance to break their bonds, to make a break for freedom.
I've been struck by the role of religion in this presidential campaign, especially in light of Article VI of the Constitution, which states, quite explicitly, that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification, to any Office or public Trust under the United States."
But, if American history teaches us anything, it is that the Constitutions can be conveniently ignored, by millions.
One's church is as much a social decision as it is a religious one, but politics is the art of ego, illusion and imagery.
To gain a political office, is it necessary to reject one's church?
One of America's greatest leaders, Frederick Douglass, once wrote that one of the worst slave masters he ever experienced was the most religious: Thomas Auld of Bayside, Talbot County, Maryland. Writing of his conversion, Douglass noted: "If it made any effect on his character, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways; for I believe him to have been a much worse man after his conversion than before. Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sanction him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty." [Douglass, F., Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Mineola, NY:Dover, 1995), p. 32]
Douglass said Auld prayed night and day, but he "starved" his slaves, while he "stuffed" his church friends.
Religion is a poor barometer by which to judge a politician. For, to a politician victory is his god, and a church merely a means to that end.
--(c) '08 maj
So-called Conspiracy Theories
Everytime we hear the actual truth about historical events like WWI and WWII, the murder of former president John F. Kennedy, international bankers taking control of various government's currencies via central banking systems and the 9/11 attacks just to name a few, those people are often put down as conspiracy theorists or paranoid people lost out in left field somewhere. What do you call them when what they said has been confirmed and proved to be true? Example: officials in the U.S. government and the media have denied that there's an existing shadow government operating in the United States. Well, back in March of 2002, president G.W. Bush admitted during a press conference that there is a shadow government operating in the U.S. Anyway, here's some places I suggest you go to to gain more information and knowledge about the time and just how dangerous things today.
www.zeitgeistmovie.com
www.infowars.com
Books that I suggest that you read:
1. Behold A Pale Horse by William Cooper
2. None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Garry Allen
3. The Choice by Samuel Yette
4. The American Police State by David Wise
5. The Invisible Government by David Wise
6. The End of America by Naomi Wolf
7. New World Order by Ralph Eppersen
I will post additional books that I suggest you read in the near future .
www.zeitgeistmovie.com
www.infowars.com
Books that I suggest that you read:
1. Behold A Pale Horse by William Cooper
2. None Dare Call It Conspiracy by Garry Allen
3. The Choice by Samuel Yette
4. The American Police State by David Wise
5. The Invisible Government by David Wise
6. The End of America by Naomi Wolf
7. New World Order by Ralph Eppersen
I will post additional books that I suggest you read in the near future .
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Free Bees: 9/11’s a Lie (Stayin’ Alive)
This gave me a good laugh with a dose of truth. The official story of 9/11 is a lie. Whether you like it or not, 9/11 was an inside job. It was carried out by your very own government. The most Honorable Elijah Muhammad said that, "you cannot fathom the depth of Satan". Nothing is too low and these devils will stop at nothing to maintain their power and control over the 85% of the masses of the people that have been tricked, trapped and deceived. Enjoy the video.
Why You Shouldn’t Spend that ‘Stimulus’ Check
Max Keiser
Alternet
June 9, 2008
If we refused to cash our checks, the value of the dollars in our pockets would go up by more than the face value of the stimulus refund.I’ll explain two reasons why you should not spend your economic stimulus check: the first applies to people who work regular jobs for wages, the second applies to people who work in investment banks for bonuses.
If you work for wages (or live on a pension), consider this: if every American said, “No thank you” to Bush’s stimulus check and refused to cash them, the value of the dollars in your pocket right now, in terms of their purchasing power would go up by a factor greater than the face value ($600) of the stimulus check. In other words, if you didn’t spend these checks, you’d be the richer for it.
The reason being that America does not have a hard-money economy, it’s a debt-based fiat currency economy. All the money in circulation in America has been borrowed and then re-lent. So borrowing more money ($168 billion for the stimulus package) and then re-lending it to Americans, as Bush is doing, only increases the debt load and debases the value of the currency outstanding (against a backdrop of stagnant wages and minuscule interest rates for savers).
If an American was planning to spend $40K this year on food, clothing, shelter, health and various other expenses and they were hoping to defray some of that cost thanks to Bush’s stimulus check understand that by simply adding another $168 billion of debt (the cost of the stimulus package) on top of America’s current multi-trillion debt load will continue the Bush-Paulson-Benanke trend of debasing the purchasing power of your money and, therefore, raise the price of goods and services by more than the $600 ‘gift’ (without a commensurate rise in wages or increase in interest paid on savings).
This is why America’s debt problems won’t go away. Every dollar spent adds debt and spawns more fiat currency issuance which has the effect of decreasing the purchasing power of the U.S. dollars in your pocket. Bush tries to make up the difference by borrowing even more; borrowing 340 million a day to fund the war and close to 3 billion a day to cover U.S. operating expenses, not to mention Wall Street borrowing over $30 billion a day to keep their Ponzi scheme going. All this borrowing keeps alive the vicious financial spiral trending lower towards permanent currency debasement and possible sovereignty loss.
Now, if you work in investment banking, the opposite is true. Bigger money supply growth means bigger fees and bonuses. You may lose more than $600 in purchasing power with that $600 stimulus check, but the fees and bonuses you make processing all that debt (read: dollars) is greater still. In other words, the more the government increases the debt load (money supply), the more you make — even discounting for the lost purchasing power caused by the inflationary impact of higher money supply growth.
But listen bankers, resist the temptation to spend your stimulus check even though by doing so you are increasing America’s indebtedness and, therefore, your fees and bonuses.
In a year or so, after 99.999% of America has cashed their stimulus check, any checks that have not been cashed will accrue value as collector’s items.
As such, the value of these checks as un-cashed mementos of the failed Bush presidency should appreciate at the inflation rate plus a collector’s item premium rate for years to come.
As a matter of fact, an enterprising soul might make a pretty penny by setting up a website to buy people’s un-cashed stimulus checks at the face value plus a small premium. Five to six years from now, you might be able to re-auction and sell these un-cashed checks on eBay for double or triple the price you paid to Asian and European collectors buying these up like visitors to the Berlin Wall who buy chunks of concrete left over after the collapse of East Berlin.
Alternet
June 9, 2008
If we refused to cash our checks, the value of the dollars in our pockets would go up by more than the face value of the stimulus refund.I’ll explain two reasons why you should not spend your economic stimulus check: the first applies to people who work regular jobs for wages, the second applies to people who work in investment banks for bonuses.
If you work for wages (or live on a pension), consider this: if every American said, “No thank you” to Bush’s stimulus check and refused to cash them, the value of the dollars in your pocket right now, in terms of their purchasing power would go up by a factor greater than the face value ($600) of the stimulus check. In other words, if you didn’t spend these checks, you’d be the richer for it.
The reason being that America does not have a hard-money economy, it’s a debt-based fiat currency economy. All the money in circulation in America has been borrowed and then re-lent. So borrowing more money ($168 billion for the stimulus package) and then re-lending it to Americans, as Bush is doing, only increases the debt load and debases the value of the currency outstanding (against a backdrop of stagnant wages and minuscule interest rates for savers).
If an American was planning to spend $40K this year on food, clothing, shelter, health and various other expenses and they were hoping to defray some of that cost thanks to Bush’s stimulus check understand that by simply adding another $168 billion of debt (the cost of the stimulus package) on top of America’s current multi-trillion debt load will continue the Bush-Paulson-Benanke trend of debasing the purchasing power of your money and, therefore, raise the price of goods and services by more than the $600 ‘gift’ (without a commensurate rise in wages or increase in interest paid on savings).
This is why America’s debt problems won’t go away. Every dollar spent adds debt and spawns more fiat currency issuance which has the effect of decreasing the purchasing power of the U.S. dollars in your pocket. Bush tries to make up the difference by borrowing even more; borrowing 340 million a day to fund the war and close to 3 billion a day to cover U.S. operating expenses, not to mention Wall Street borrowing over $30 billion a day to keep their Ponzi scheme going. All this borrowing keeps alive the vicious financial spiral trending lower towards permanent currency debasement and possible sovereignty loss.
Now, if you work in investment banking, the opposite is true. Bigger money supply growth means bigger fees and bonuses. You may lose more than $600 in purchasing power with that $600 stimulus check, but the fees and bonuses you make processing all that debt (read: dollars) is greater still. In other words, the more the government increases the debt load (money supply), the more you make — even discounting for the lost purchasing power caused by the inflationary impact of higher money supply growth.
But listen bankers, resist the temptation to spend your stimulus check even though by doing so you are increasing America’s indebtedness and, therefore, your fees and bonuses.
In a year or so, after 99.999% of America has cashed their stimulus check, any checks that have not been cashed will accrue value as collector’s items.
As such, the value of these checks as un-cashed mementos of the failed Bush presidency should appreciate at the inflation rate plus a collector’s item premium rate for years to come.
As a matter of fact, an enterprising soul might make a pretty penny by setting up a website to buy people’s un-cashed stimulus checks at the face value plus a small premium. Five to six years from now, you might be able to re-auction and sell these un-cashed checks on eBay for double or triple the price you paid to Asian and European collectors buying these up like visitors to the Berlin Wall who buy chunks of concrete left over after the collapse of East Berlin.
Obama Resigns From Black Nation
by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
How far is Barack Obama willing to run from the very same Black nationalism that was fundamental to his victories in so many state Democratic primaries? The nominee-apparent is in pell-mell flight from everything that does not conform to his own "race-neutral" worldview. Obama's political contradictions compel him to reject his most fervent supporters, and apparently to reexamine his ties to the Black Church as an institution. The "journey" to Black identity that Obama describes in his book Dreams From My Father seems in conflict with the Road to the White House. Longtime friends - maybe Black people as a whole - are left by the wayside. Perhaps "Obama ought to just keep on steppin' out of Black America entirely."
Having this weekend severed a 16-year relationship with Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, Barack Obama might as well let the final shoe drop and resign once and for all from Black America, a polity he refuses to recognize or respect despite garnering 90 percent of Black electoral support. Never in African American history have Black people's collective affections been so callously rebuffed by an individual Black recipient. The fact that Black people's "love" for the Illinois Senator is wholly unrequited is obvious to everyone except wishful Obamites - a pitiful spectacle to behold.
If there is a tie that binds more tightly and unthinkingly than the romantic urges of adolescents, it is the pull of nationalism. African Americans have the misfortune to be self-shackled to Obama by deep historical yearnings to wield power through their own racial representatives, as other "nations" of people do. The problem is, Black Americans find themselves trapped in a threesome, in which the object of their Black nationalist aspirations is hopelessly enamored of someone else: the mythical white American nation.
"I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country," said Obama, in banishing Trinity's retiring senior pastor Jeremiah Wright from his inner circle, in April. Obama believes in One-Love - of the white fairy tale kind that despises the "use [of] incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation." Barack Obama is true-blue to the slaveholding forefathers and heroic blond mothers of the storybook U.S. of A. His intense (white) nationalist fealty to the Indian-killer and slave-whipper compels him to reject out of hand the African American version of U.S. and world history - to compulsively dismiss both the Black counter-narrative and narrators, like Rev. Wright. And if some stray white man in a clerical collar wanders in, assaulting white sensibilities with denunciations of white skin privilege and other unwelcome language, Obama can be counted on to slap the wayward priest down, forthwith.
"I am deeply disappointed in Father [Michael] Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric," said Obama, appalled at the effrontery of a man whose parishioners call a practitioner of "blue-eyed black soul," who mocked a Hillary Clinton character bawling that "a black man" was "stealing my show." Pfleger, pastor of predominantly Black St. Sabina Catholic Church since 1981, has been described in the corporate press as "Chicago's renegade priest." He was invited to Trinity Church specifically to expose "white entitlement and supremacy wherever it raises its head." Otis Moss III, the 37-year-old "hip-hop pastor" who took over from Rev. Wright, seemed thoroughly pleased with 59-year-old Father Pfleger's performance, as were the knee-slapping deacons arrayed behind him. Nevertheless, Father Pfleger found it necessary to make a blanket apology for his joyful exuberance, and to specifically beg the pardon of Barack Obama for mixing the presidential frontrunner's name into the skit.
"My words are inconsistent with Senator Obama's life and message," said Pfleger. He was right. Obama's life and message have nothing to do with Black liberation, of the theological or secular variety. Both Reverends Pfleger and Wright support in practice African American political self-determination and general Black nationalist aspirations - goals that are repugnant to Obama, who behaves as if on constant guard against perceived insults to white folks' (and America's) sacred honor.
Rev. Wright was also correct a month ago in characterizing the shameless corporate media attacks on his liberationist teachings as an "attack on the Black church." Obama pulled his family out of the 8,000 member congregation because, in his words, "our relations with Trinity have been strained by the divisive statements of Reverend Wright, which sharply conflict with our own view." But Wright had already retired. Clearly, Obama is not comfortable with the youthful new minister, Rev. Moss, either, or with the congregation that supports him, or with Trinity's political ties to the radical Catholic priest, Rev. Pfleger - who until a few weeks ago was actively working on Obama's campaign. Obama is distraught with the whole Black church scene - which seems to attract trouble with white people. As the Washington Post reported on Sunday:
"Obama acknowledged that joining another black church, where ‘there's a different religious tradition or a worshiping style' might be equally problematic as his membership in Trinity. He said he probably will not make a decision about a new church until January."
By all rights, Obama ought to just keep on steppin' out of Black America entirely, since his real problem lies with the two-edged sword of Black nationalism. The great irony of the Obama phenomenon is, his fundamental strength in the Democratic primaries - near-universal Black support - is based on an ideology that is a nightmare to white voters and to Obama, himself: Black nationalism. As cunning and cynical as Obama may be, he cannot tame the nationalist impulses of his Black supporters and thus lives in terror that they will spoil his game among white voters.
Of course, Obama constantly claims that most Black folks are as politically deracinated - rootless - as he is, but that's never been true. Black nationalism has always been pervasive in Black America, and Obama can no more wish it away than he can pretend white racism out of existence. As the late, great historian Herbert Aptheker noted in his 1971 volume Afro-American History: The Modern Era, in a chapter titled Consciousness of Afro-American Nationality: "No other people" express this concept of nationalism so consistently "over 200 years." Arch enemies Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois at the turn of the 20th Century both spoke in Black nationalist terms. Dubois referred to African Americans as "a nation," while Washington described southern Blacks as "a nation within a nation." Even the politically passive pre-Revolutionary poetess Phillis Wheatley remarked in 1772 how pleased she was that "so many of my nation" [Blacks] were embracing Christianity.
Black nationalism is everywhere that African Americans exist. It's the bond that makes perfectly sane people collectively embarrassed by the antics of Michael Jackson. In 2008, it causes millions of normally sober African Americans to binge on Obama'laide, to drink constantly to the political health of a man who gives not a damn about them, and who actually flees from their presence like a plague.
Black nationalism has scared Obama at least temporarily out of The Church!
In his ceaseless attempts to meld Black realities and white illusions, Obama tries to marginalize Rev. Wright by calling Wright's belief system "generational" - another word for outdated - only to have Wright replaced in the pulpit by a "hip hop pastor" whose politics is perfectly compatible with Wright's, and with the radical white clerical elder, Rev. Pfleger. At that point, Obama must head for the door, family in tow, never to return.
University of Chicago Black political scientist Michael Dawson writes that "the black movement that is developing in support of [Obama's] campaign has some of the markings of black nationalism." Specifically, Obama is buoyed by a "middle-class" type of Black nationalism - the kind that is more common in politicized Black Christian churches and professional groupings than Nation of Islam circles. Obama's lurching exit from Trinity Church shows that he can't tolerate Black nationalism of any kind, if it gets in the way of white outreach.
In the end, Black people's one-sided love affair with Barack Obama can never be consummated. He recoils at every stage, answering love with unconcealed revulsion. One day soon, we'll take the hint.
Of course, the real deal is former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, presidential candidate for the Green Party ticket. McKinney reports she's leading in the Greens' delegate count. Unlike Obama, whose politics is substantially to the Right of most Blacks, Cynthia McKinney loves you back.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it.
How far is Barack Obama willing to run from the very same Black nationalism that was fundamental to his victories in so many state Democratic primaries? The nominee-apparent is in pell-mell flight from everything that does not conform to his own "race-neutral" worldview. Obama's political contradictions compel him to reject his most fervent supporters, and apparently to reexamine his ties to the Black Church as an institution. The "journey" to Black identity that Obama describes in his book Dreams From My Father seems in conflict with the Road to the White House. Longtime friends - maybe Black people as a whole - are left by the wayside. Perhaps "Obama ought to just keep on steppin' out of Black America entirely."
Having this weekend severed a 16-year relationship with Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ, Barack Obama might as well let the final shoe drop and resign once and for all from Black America, a polity he refuses to recognize or respect despite garnering 90 percent of Black electoral support. Never in African American history have Black people's collective affections been so callously rebuffed by an individual Black recipient. The fact that Black people's "love" for the Illinois Senator is wholly unrequited is obvious to everyone except wishful Obamites - a pitiful spectacle to behold.
If there is a tie that binds more tightly and unthinkingly than the romantic urges of adolescents, it is the pull of nationalism. African Americans have the misfortune to be self-shackled to Obama by deep historical yearnings to wield power through their own racial representatives, as other "nations" of people do. The problem is, Black Americans find themselves trapped in a threesome, in which the object of their Black nationalist aspirations is hopelessly enamored of someone else: the mythical white American nation.
"I categorically denounce any statement that disparages our great country," said Obama, in banishing Trinity's retiring senior pastor Jeremiah Wright from his inner circle, in April. Obama believes in One-Love - of the white fairy tale kind that despises the "use [of] incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation." Barack Obama is true-blue to the slaveholding forefathers and heroic blond mothers of the storybook U.S. of A. His intense (white) nationalist fealty to the Indian-killer and slave-whipper compels him to reject out of hand the African American version of U.S. and world history - to compulsively dismiss both the Black counter-narrative and narrators, like Rev. Wright. And if some stray white man in a clerical collar wanders in, assaulting white sensibilities with denunciations of white skin privilege and other unwelcome language, Obama can be counted on to slap the wayward priest down, forthwith.
"I am deeply disappointed in Father [Michael] Pfleger's divisive, backward-looking rhetoric," said Obama, appalled at the effrontery of a man whose parishioners call a practitioner of "blue-eyed black soul," who mocked a Hillary Clinton character bawling that "a black man" was "stealing my show." Pfleger, pastor of predominantly Black St. Sabina Catholic Church since 1981, has been described in the corporate press as "Chicago's renegade priest." He was invited to Trinity Church specifically to expose "white entitlement and supremacy wherever it raises its head." Otis Moss III, the 37-year-old "hip-hop pastor" who took over from Rev. Wright, seemed thoroughly pleased with 59-year-old Father Pfleger's performance, as were the knee-slapping deacons arrayed behind him. Nevertheless, Father Pfleger found it necessary to make a blanket apology for his joyful exuberance, and to specifically beg the pardon of Barack Obama for mixing the presidential frontrunner's name into the skit.
"My words are inconsistent with Senator Obama's life and message," said Pfleger. He was right. Obama's life and message have nothing to do with Black liberation, of the theological or secular variety. Both Reverends Pfleger and Wright support in practice African American political self-determination and general Black nationalist aspirations - goals that are repugnant to Obama, who behaves as if on constant guard against perceived insults to white folks' (and America's) sacred honor.
Rev. Wright was also correct a month ago in characterizing the shameless corporate media attacks on his liberationist teachings as an "attack on the Black church." Obama pulled his family out of the 8,000 member congregation because, in his words, "our relations with Trinity have been strained by the divisive statements of Reverend Wright, which sharply conflict with our own view." But Wright had already retired. Clearly, Obama is not comfortable with the youthful new minister, Rev. Moss, either, or with the congregation that supports him, or with Trinity's political ties to the radical Catholic priest, Rev. Pfleger - who until a few weeks ago was actively working on Obama's campaign. Obama is distraught with the whole Black church scene - which seems to attract trouble with white people. As the Washington Post reported on Sunday:
"Obama acknowledged that joining another black church, where ‘there's a different religious tradition or a worshiping style' might be equally problematic as his membership in Trinity. He said he probably will not make a decision about a new church until January."
By all rights, Obama ought to just keep on steppin' out of Black America entirely, since his real problem lies with the two-edged sword of Black nationalism. The great irony of the Obama phenomenon is, his fundamental strength in the Democratic primaries - near-universal Black support - is based on an ideology that is a nightmare to white voters and to Obama, himself: Black nationalism. As cunning and cynical as Obama may be, he cannot tame the nationalist impulses of his Black supporters and thus lives in terror that they will spoil his game among white voters.
Of course, Obama constantly claims that most Black folks are as politically deracinated - rootless - as he is, but that's never been true. Black nationalism has always been pervasive in Black America, and Obama can no more wish it away than he can pretend white racism out of existence. As the late, great historian Herbert Aptheker noted in his 1971 volume Afro-American History: The Modern Era, in a chapter titled Consciousness of Afro-American Nationality: "No other people" express this concept of nationalism so consistently "over 200 years." Arch enemies Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Dubois at the turn of the 20th Century both spoke in Black nationalist terms. Dubois referred to African Americans as "a nation," while Washington described southern Blacks as "a nation within a nation." Even the politically passive pre-Revolutionary poetess Phillis Wheatley remarked in 1772 how pleased she was that "so many of my nation" [Blacks] were embracing Christianity.
Black nationalism is everywhere that African Americans exist. It's the bond that makes perfectly sane people collectively embarrassed by the antics of Michael Jackson. In 2008, it causes millions of normally sober African Americans to binge on Obama'laide, to drink constantly to the political health of a man who gives not a damn about them, and who actually flees from their presence like a plague.
Black nationalism has scared Obama at least temporarily out of The Church!
In his ceaseless attempts to meld Black realities and white illusions, Obama tries to marginalize Rev. Wright by calling Wright's belief system "generational" - another word for outdated - only to have Wright replaced in the pulpit by a "hip hop pastor" whose politics is perfectly compatible with Wright's, and with the radical white clerical elder, Rev. Pfleger. At that point, Obama must head for the door, family in tow, never to return.
University of Chicago Black political scientist Michael Dawson writes that "the black movement that is developing in support of [Obama's] campaign has some of the markings of black nationalism." Specifically, Obama is buoyed by a "middle-class" type of Black nationalism - the kind that is more common in politicized Black Christian churches and professional groupings than Nation of Islam circles. Obama's lurching exit from Trinity Church shows that he can't tolerate Black nationalism of any kind, if it gets in the way of white outreach.
In the end, Black people's one-sided love affair with Barack Obama can never be consummated. He recoils at every stage, answering love with unconcealed revulsion. One day soon, we'll take the hint.
Of course, the real deal is former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, presidential candidate for the Green Party ticket. McKinney reports she's leading in the Greens' delegate count. Unlike Obama, whose politics is substantially to the Right of most Blacks, Cynthia McKinney loves you back.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
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Tuesday, June 03, 2008
Abu-Jamal’s lawyers given two more weeks to file for rehearing on new trial plea
http://www.philly.com/inquirer/breaking/news_breaking/20080527_Abu-Jamals_lawyers_given_two_more_weeks_to_file_for_rehearing_on_new_trial_plea.html
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit yesterday granted a two-week extension for lawyers for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal to file a petition for a rehearing on his effort to get a new trial.
Abu-Jamal was convicted in 1982 of the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death. In late March, a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit affirmed Abu-Jamal's conviction but vacated the death sentence. The court said Abu-Jamal should be sentenced to life in prison or get a chance to persuade a new Philadelphia jury that he deserves a life sentence rather than death.
Defense lawyer Robert R. Bryan of San Francisco intends to seek a rehearing before the court on his contention that Abu-Jamal deserves a new trial, or at least a hearing on his argument that some blacks were intentionally excluded from his jury.
The court said the new filing deadline is June 10. Inquirer Staff
=================
Efficiently and Methodically Framed--Mumia is innocent!
That is the conclusion of a new book on the case of former Black Panther, and internationally-known political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has now spent over a quarter of a century on death row for a crime he didn't commit. The book is, THE FRAMING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, by J Patrick O'Connor (Lawrence Hill Books 2008). The author is a former UPI reporter who took an interest in Mumia's case. He is now the editor of Crime Magazine (www.crimemagazine.com).
O'Connor offers a fresh perspective, and delivers a clear and convincing breakdown on perhaps the most notorious frame-up since Sacco and Vanzetti. This is a case not just of police corruption, or a racist lynching, though it is both. The courts are in this just as deep as the cops, and it reaches to the top of the equally corrupt political system.
"This book is the first to convincingly show how the Philadelphia Police Department and District Attorney's Office efficiently and methodically framed [Mumia Abu-Jamal]." (from the book jacket)
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (LAC) wants to alert you to this important new work. THE FRAMING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL is in bookstores now, at $16.95. but a little research in the SF Bay Area suggests that it may be hard to find. Contact the Labor Action Committee if you can't find it. We have a limited number ordered from the publisher at a discount.
Send a check or money order for $15 (includes shipping)
Author J Patrick O'Connor says Mumia was framed at the hands of corrupt cops and courts, who were bent on vengeance against one of their most prominent critics.
"What makes getting to the truth of this case so difficult is that the prosecution built its case on perjured testimony with a calculated disregard for what the actual evidence established," says O'Connor (p. xii).
THE FRAMING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL is based on a thorough analysis of the 1982 trial and the 1995-97 appeals hearings, as well as previous writings on this case, and research on the MOVE organization, with which Mumia identifies, and the history of racist police brutality in Philadelphia. While leaving some of the evidence of Mumia's innocence unconsidered or disregarded, this book nevertheless makes clear that there is a veritable mountain of evidence--most of it deliberately squashed by the courts--that shows that Mumia was blatantly and deliberately framed, that he is innocent, that somebody else did the crime, and that corrupt cops and courts have "fixed" this case against Mumia from the beginning.
Upcoming Events with the Author
NEW YORK: SAVE THE DATE! Thursday, June 24th, New York City book signing party with author J. Patrick O'Connor for 'The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal' at 6:00PM at the Brecht Forum, 451 West Street (between Bank and Bethune Streets). Bring your questions and be prepared for surprise guests! For more information, call the Hotline: (212) 330-8029
For an interview with the author and other material about this book, visit Journalists For Mumia, www.Abu-Jamal-News.com. The publisher is Chicago Review Press. Get your local bookstore or library to order a copy!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit yesterday granted a two-week extension for lawyers for death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal to file a petition for a rehearing on his effort to get a new trial.
Abu-Jamal was convicted in 1982 of the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death. In late March, a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit affirmed Abu-Jamal's conviction but vacated the death sentence. The court said Abu-Jamal should be sentenced to life in prison or get a chance to persuade a new Philadelphia jury that he deserves a life sentence rather than death.
Defense lawyer Robert R. Bryan of San Francisco intends to seek a rehearing before the court on his contention that Abu-Jamal deserves a new trial, or at least a hearing on his argument that some blacks were intentionally excluded from his jury.
The court said the new filing deadline is June 10. Inquirer Staff
=================
Efficiently and Methodically Framed--Mumia is innocent!
That is the conclusion of a new book on the case of former Black Panther, and internationally-known political prisoner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has now spent over a quarter of a century on death row for a crime he didn't commit. The book is, THE FRAMING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, by J Patrick O'Connor (Lawrence Hill Books 2008). The author is a former UPI reporter who took an interest in Mumia's case. He is now the editor of Crime Magazine (www.crimemagazine.com).
O'Connor offers a fresh perspective, and delivers a clear and convincing breakdown on perhaps the most notorious frame-up since Sacco and Vanzetti. This is a case not just of police corruption, or a racist lynching, though it is both. The courts are in this just as deep as the cops, and it reaches to the top of the equally corrupt political system.
"This book is the first to convincingly show how the Philadelphia Police Department and District Attorney's Office efficiently and methodically framed [Mumia Abu-Jamal]." (from the book jacket)
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (LAC) wants to alert you to this important new work. THE FRAMING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL is in bookstores now, at $16.95. but a little research in the SF Bay Area suggests that it may be hard to find. Contact the Labor Action Committee if you can't find it. We have a limited number ordered from the publisher at a discount.
Send a check or money order for $15 (includes shipping)
pay to/send to: Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610
Author J Patrick O'Connor says Mumia was framed at the hands of corrupt cops and courts, who were bent on vengeance against one of their most prominent critics.
"What makes getting to the truth of this case so difficult is that the prosecution built its case on perjured testimony with a calculated disregard for what the actual evidence established," says O'Connor (p. xii).
THE FRAMING OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL is based on a thorough analysis of the 1982 trial and the 1995-97 appeals hearings, as well as previous writings on this case, and research on the MOVE organization, with which Mumia identifies, and the history of racist police brutality in Philadelphia. While leaving some of the evidence of Mumia's innocence unconsidered or disregarded, this book nevertheless makes clear that there is a veritable mountain of evidence--most of it deliberately squashed by the courts--that shows that Mumia was blatantly and deliberately framed, that he is innocent, that somebody else did the crime, and that corrupt cops and courts have "fixed" this case against Mumia from the beginning.
Upcoming Events with the Author
NEW YORK: SAVE THE DATE! Thursday, June 24th, New York City book signing party with author J. Patrick O'Connor for 'The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal' at 6:00PM at the Brecht Forum, 451 West Street (between Bank and Bethune Streets). Bring your questions and be prepared for surprise guests! For more information, call the Hotline: (212) 330-8029
SF BAY AREA: A book tour by the author is in planning stages. For more information, send your request to: LACFreeMumia@aol.com
For an interview with the author and other material about this book, visit Journalists For Mumia, www.Abu-Jamal-News.com. The publisher is Chicago Review Press. Get your local bookstore or library to order a copy!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610 • 510.763.2347
=======
When Empires Fade
[col. writ. 5/21/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Two things brought me to this topic; the fading of empires.
First, reading an article on the heyday of the British Empire, and their efforts to suppress popular resistance to their rule in parts of Asia; and secondly, the reception of US President George W. Bush, when he recently ventured to the Middle East in search of lower oil prices and relevancy.
Both were eye-opening.
The former for what it revealed about the lengths to which empires will go to hold on to power; the latter for how quickly power and influence can slip away.
Ostensibly, an American President is a kind of temporary global monarch, for his (?) power is so vast that, as Iraq showed, whole societies can be upended, their lives, economy, politics and culture shattered-quite literally, on one person's whim.
Yet, as we've also seen, that power is not absolute, and can be challenged by the most unlikely of opponents.
It has costs, some of which are the precipitous decline in Bush's popularity, and the corresponding fall in American prestige.
One instance was when Bush begged the Saudis for a break in oil prices and a loosening in supplies. The Saudi princes coolly declined his requests; nothing personal - it's just business.
Then the president was scheduled to meet with Lebanon's embattled Prime Minister, Fuad Saniora, but Saniora called to cancel the meeting. He apparently had a more important meeting planned with high-ranking members of Hezbollah.
Such sights aren't seen everyday. They are markers of how the US is seen -often by it's 'friends'!
Egyptian journalist Hisham Qassem observed, on the latest Bush visit and his reception, "It was clear that America is neither loved nor feared," a remarkable statement that would've hardly been heard some 8 years ago. *
When the British Empire was trying to hold on to its imperial properties in Asia, it formed treacherous military units called the Special Operation Volunteer force (SOVF) in Malaysia, composed of ex-communists who hunted down their former comrades and butchered them for bucks.
After their dirty deeds, they were paid blood money, their crimes were written off the books, they were given false identities, and they were released into Malaysian society, some doubtless forming criminal networks.
The US performed similar tricks during Operation Phoenix in Vietnam during the war. Few of us know, even now, the full dimensions of Operation Phoenix and how it ravaged Vietnamese society. We know, of course, how the Vietnam War turned out.
If these events tell us anything, it is that empires are capable of immense violence, but there comes a time when even their influence fades.
No empire can last forever.
I think we are witnessing the fading of this one.
--(c) '08 maj
[*Sources: Levinson, Charles, "Bush's Mideast words go over hot, cold: Trip ends in Egypt with a bit of a thud, analysts say, "USA Today, Mon., May 19, 2008, p.6A.; Williams, Gwydion M., "Notes On the News". Labour & Trade Union Review. (No. 180: March 2008) pp.13-14; (//www.ltureview.com/
Two things brought me to this topic; the fading of empires.
First, reading an article on the heyday of the British Empire, and their efforts to suppress popular resistance to their rule in parts of Asia; and secondly, the reception of US President George W. Bush, when he recently ventured to the Middle East in search of lower oil prices and relevancy.
Both were eye-opening.
The former for what it revealed about the lengths to which empires will go to hold on to power; the latter for how quickly power and influence can slip away.
Ostensibly, an American President is a kind of temporary global monarch, for his (?) power is so vast that, as Iraq showed, whole societies can be upended, their lives, economy, politics and culture shattered-quite literally, on one person's whim.
Yet, as we've also seen, that power is not absolute, and can be challenged by the most unlikely of opponents.
It has costs, some of which are the precipitous decline in Bush's popularity, and the corresponding fall in American prestige.
One instance was when Bush begged the Saudis for a break in oil prices and a loosening in supplies. The Saudi princes coolly declined his requests; nothing personal - it's just business.
Then the president was scheduled to meet with Lebanon's embattled Prime Minister, Fuad Saniora, but Saniora called to cancel the meeting. He apparently had a more important meeting planned with high-ranking members of Hezbollah.
Such sights aren't seen everyday. They are markers of how the US is seen -often by it's 'friends'!
Egyptian journalist Hisham Qassem observed, on the latest Bush visit and his reception, "It was clear that America is neither loved nor feared," a remarkable statement that would've hardly been heard some 8 years ago. *
When the British Empire was trying to hold on to its imperial properties in Asia, it formed treacherous military units called the Special Operation Volunteer force (SOVF) in Malaysia, composed of ex-communists who hunted down their former comrades and butchered them for bucks.
After their dirty deeds, they were paid blood money, their crimes were written off the books, they were given false identities, and they were released into Malaysian society, some doubtless forming criminal networks.
The US performed similar tricks during Operation Phoenix in Vietnam during the war. Few of us know, even now, the full dimensions of Operation Phoenix and how it ravaged Vietnamese society. We know, of course, how the Vietnam War turned out.
If these events tell us anything, it is that empires are capable of immense violence, but there comes a time when even their influence fades.
No empire can last forever.
I think we are witnessing the fading of this one.
--(c) '08 maj
[*Sources: Levinson, Charles, "Bush's Mideast words go over hot, cold: Trip ends in Egypt with a bit of a thud, analysts say, "USA Today, Mon., May 19, 2008, p.6A.; Williams, Gwydion M., "Notes On the News". Labour & Trade Union Review. (No. 180: March 2008) pp.13-14; (//www.ltureview.com/
Blues for Bill Tilley (1962 - 2008)
[col. writ. 5/28/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
William 'Billy' Tilley has been on Pennsylvania's Death Row for a lifetime.
For much of that time he worked as a librarian, insuring that hundreds of men received weekly reading materials. He seemed to enjoy his job, and performed it in an efficient and upbeat manner.
On early Tuesday, May 27, 2008, around 6:30 am, his long shift on Death Row came to an end.
For it was then that Tilley was found, hanging in his cell.
It was around 1985 when Tilley began his trek to Death Row, although he probably didn't know it then. He was a young drug fiend, who doubled as a petty thief to get what he (thought he) needed to feed his nagging habit.
During one illicit search of a neighbor's house, he found himself in the basement when he heard the front door opening, and the footfalls of someone approaching the basement door. He saw a man's leg descending the staircase, coming ever so much closer. The man apparently sensed someone was in his home, and he began saying what he would do when he caught that someone: and it wasn't nice.
Scared, fidgety, cornered, and high as a kite, Tilley opened up, firing at the approaching figure.
He fired again, grabbed a briefcase, and fled the scene.
If he felt anything, it was filtered through the haze of drugs.
The briefcase was chockfull of cocaine, pills, and other drugs. He used what he wanted, sold what he could, and sought other ways to fill the maw.
Before long he was facing a first degree murder charge and the prospect of a death sentence before Philadelphia's infamous Judge Sabo, known as the hanging judge. It would not take long before he would indeed be consigned to Death Row.
Years of subsequent sobriety allowed him to access what was a remarkable mind, and to become quite the jailhouse lawyer. He wrote briefs and motions for himself and other guys on the block.
Bill Tilley was bright, funny and had moved miles away from the young drug fiend who arrived on Death Row over 23 years ago.
He might not have been a new man, but he was a better one.
One early morning, before the rising of the sun, he reached journey's end, and chose which door to exit.
We may never know why. He taped a 1- page note to the wall shortly before he took the noose.
Tilley was 46 years of age.
--(c) '08 maj
When The State Attacks: (FLDS Raid)
{col. writ. 5/24/08]
(c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
The early April raid on the homes and headquarters of the Eldorado, Texas-based branch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) on sexual abuse charges, has always struck me as a foul, prejudicial and a stark example of governmental overreach.
In conversations with other guys on Death Row, I opined that the raid lacked probable cause, as it was based on reports that weren't substantiated.
The recent Texas appellate court decision reversing the lower court actually went a good deal farther, ruling that the grounds for the raid offered by the government were "legally and factually insufficient", and that there was no evidence of immediate danger of sexual abuse. Some children have since been returned to their mothers.
The Eldorado raid, which resulted in the stat's seizure of some 450 children, was as much a paramilitary attack as a legal one, and it brought to mind the infamous raids on the MOVE house on May 13th, 1985, and Waco, Texas on the Branch Davidians on April 19th, 1993, both of which led to great loss of life, and which were based on state lies and exaggerations.
What was almost more remarkable than the raids, though, was the muted responses, and the nature of them, as well.
On a popular women's talk program, discussion centered more on the mothers' weird hairdos and their conservative long dresses, than the sheer injustice of the state separating 450 children from their parents and their brothers and sisters.
It revealed how the State can isolate and attack those seen as different, with the support of the corporate media.
While I'm no fan of polygamy, and definitely oppose the sexual abuse of anybody, I don't recall any kind of similar raids on Catholic churches or parish houses, where the abuse of kids happened for generations, and was, if anything, an open secret.
The Mormons formally rejected polygamy (until then a central tenet of their faith), in 1890 in part as the price of joining the Union as the state of Utah (it was formerly named the State of Deseret). It's not surprising that some Mormon families would hold to their beliefs, and reject the official line.
But in the name of protecting children, Texas caused immense trauma to hundreds of innocent mothers, innocent fathers, and innocent children. For what can be more traumatic than to snatch a nursing infant from her mother's breast?
What can be more traumatic that separating a mother from her child? Or father from wife and children? Or what of brothers from sisters?
States do this every day, because they have the /power/ to do so, but to quote MOVE's John Africa, " Just because it's legal, don't make it right."
-(c) '08 maj
(c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
The early April raid on the homes and headquarters of the Eldorado, Texas-based branch of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) on sexual abuse charges, has always struck me as a foul, prejudicial and a stark example of governmental overreach.
In conversations with other guys on Death Row, I opined that the raid lacked probable cause, as it was based on reports that weren't substantiated.
The recent Texas appellate court decision reversing the lower court actually went a good deal farther, ruling that the grounds for the raid offered by the government were "legally and factually insufficient", and that there was no evidence of immediate danger of sexual abuse. Some children have since been returned to their mothers.
The Eldorado raid, which resulted in the stat's seizure of some 450 children, was as much a paramilitary attack as a legal one, and it brought to mind the infamous raids on the MOVE house on May 13th, 1985, and Waco, Texas on the Branch Davidians on April 19th, 1993, both of which led to great loss of life, and which were based on state lies and exaggerations.
What was almost more remarkable than the raids, though, was the muted responses, and the nature of them, as well.
On a popular women's talk program, discussion centered more on the mothers' weird hairdos and their conservative long dresses, than the sheer injustice of the state separating 450 children from their parents and their brothers and sisters.
It revealed how the State can isolate and attack those seen as different, with the support of the corporate media.
While I'm no fan of polygamy, and definitely oppose the sexual abuse of anybody, I don't recall any kind of similar raids on Catholic churches or parish houses, where the abuse of kids happened for generations, and was, if anything, an open secret.
The Mormons formally rejected polygamy (until then a central tenet of their faith), in 1890 in part as the price of joining the Union as the state of Utah (it was formerly named the State of Deseret). It's not surprising that some Mormon families would hold to their beliefs, and reject the official line.
But in the name of protecting children, Texas caused immense trauma to hundreds of innocent mothers, innocent fathers, and innocent children. For what can be more traumatic than to snatch a nursing infant from her mother's breast?
What can be more traumatic that separating a mother from her child? Or father from wife and children? Or what of brothers from sisters?
States do this every day, because they have the /power/ to do so, but to quote MOVE's John Africa, " Just because it's legal, don't make it right."
-(c) '08 maj
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