Thursday, July 31, 2008
The Outsider's Road Within
[col. writ. 7/12/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
It should surprise no one that the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama (D.IL), has evoked such fascination; not least because of his presumed outsider status as a man of (at least partial) African descent.
It is this racial inheritance that accounts, to a considerable degree, for the fascination among both Blacks and whites posed by his candidacy.
But, as ever in America, race often hides as much as it reveals. For, if Barack is an outsider to the American body politic because of his blackness, he is too an outsider to much of Black America precisely because of his direct East African heritage, one unleavened and unmitigated by the 500 years of Black bondage, resistance, repression and rebellion that is at the very heart of African-American experience and identity.
Indeed, it is this very outsider stance that allows so many of us, Black and white, to project upon him so much of what has been encapsulated in his ubiquitous campaign of 'hope' and 'change.'
In this sense, Obama is a double-talker, and as such he has had to work out his own way into what being Black in America really means.
His somewhat unique outsider status reminds us of the uniqueness of another great outsider who became the consummate insider -- Napoleon Bonaparte. Consider this; imagine a man born on the Italian-speaking island of Corsica in 1789; by the time he was 30 he was named First Consul (or dictator) of France. In 5 years he was emperor of a vast French empire.
My point isn't to malign Obama as a dictator- in-waiting. It's to show an example of how an outsider (with incredible ambition) becomes the ultimate insider.
When Napoleon was a boy in military school in France, his fellow students ridiculed him and made fun of him - not because of height (as might be expected) -- but because of his Corsican accent, which marked him as an outsider. Napoleon eventually became more French than the French, and today, by virtue of his brilliance, his French nationalism and military exploits in the field during the erection of the empire, he is regarded as one of the greatest Frenchmen who've ever lived.
Obama as a boy in Indonesia was made fun of because of his kinky hair (not to mention his slightly darker complexion) which marked him as an outsider. What does that mean in his formation of a sense of self?
We don't really know, but as Sigmund Freud reminds us, 'the child is father to the man.'
When Obama speaks (especially in his post-primary incarnation) one hears a profound nationalism. He has spoken in the past of an American history that many of us know has never actually existed. It has forced him to denounce a man he once knew, admired and respected (here I speak, of course, of the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright) for making whites uncomfortable by speaking ugly truths about American history, at home and abroad.
Is this but the necessary shifts occasioned by the nasty game of politics?
Or is it the road occasioned by one being an outsider, making that transition to the consummate insider?
Time will tell.
--(c) '8 maj
It should surprise no one that the candidacy of Sen. Barack Obama (D.IL), has evoked such fascination; not least because of his presumed outsider status as a man of (at least partial) African descent.
It is this racial inheritance that accounts, to a considerable degree, for the fascination among both Blacks and whites posed by his candidacy.
But, as ever in America, race often hides as much as it reveals. For, if Barack is an outsider to the American body politic because of his blackness, he is too an outsider to much of Black America precisely because of his direct East African heritage, one unleavened and unmitigated by the 500 years of Black bondage, resistance, repression and rebellion that is at the very heart of African-American experience and identity.
Indeed, it is this very outsider stance that allows so many of us, Black and white, to project upon him so much of what has been encapsulated in his ubiquitous campaign of 'hope' and 'change.'
In this sense, Obama is a double-talker, and as such he has had to work out his own way into what being Black in America really means.
His somewhat unique outsider status reminds us of the uniqueness of another great outsider who became the consummate insider -- Napoleon Bonaparte. Consider this; imagine a man born on the Italian-speaking island of Corsica in 1789; by the time he was 30 he was named First Consul (or dictator) of France. In 5 years he was emperor of a vast French empire.
My point isn't to malign Obama as a dictator- in-waiting. It's to show an example of how an outsider (with incredible ambition) becomes the ultimate insider.
When Napoleon was a boy in military school in France, his fellow students ridiculed him and made fun of him - not because of height (as might be expected) -- but because of his Corsican accent, which marked him as an outsider. Napoleon eventually became more French than the French, and today, by virtue of his brilliance, his French nationalism and military exploits in the field during the erection of the empire, he is regarded as one of the greatest Frenchmen who've ever lived.
Obama as a boy in Indonesia was made fun of because of his kinky hair (not to mention his slightly darker complexion) which marked him as an outsider. What does that mean in his formation of a sense of self?
We don't really know, but as Sigmund Freud reminds us, 'the child is father to the man.'
When Obama speaks (especially in his post-primary incarnation) one hears a profound nationalism. He has spoken in the past of an American history that many of us know has never actually existed. It has forced him to denounce a man he once knew, admired and respected (here I speak, of course, of the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright) for making whites uncomfortable by speaking ugly truths about American history, at home and abroad.
Is this but the necessary shifts occasioned by the nasty game of politics?
Or is it the road occasioned by one being an outsider, making that transition to the consummate insider?
Time will tell.
--(c) '8 maj
Business Sense by Mumia Abu-Jamal
[col. writ. 7/20/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
If there is an overarching ideology at work in America today, it's the ubiquity of the market.
On TV, stars shred every last fig-leaf of privacy to sell alleged 'reality.'
Everyday folks join the shows in a realm of entertainment that might best be called "Indignity for Dollars."
Politicians and press people are virtually for hire to the biggest corporate bidder.
Thus politics and media news outlets become multi-billion dollar industries. Moreover, they become industries that feed on each other, as politicians buy millions of dollars worth of commercials, and of course, TV and cable outlets make big bucks by selling ads.
Meanwhile, the everyday economy -- of food, fuel, housing and education -- goes from bad to worse.
To the average network anchor who pulls in millions per year in fees, this is decidedly under the radar.
His (or her) job is to protect the status quo.
From this convergence we get the present political structure, where accepted political debate is that which doesn't ruffle the feathers of Wall Street or the corporate elite.
When's the last time you've seen or read (in the corporate media) about the sub-prime lending debacle as a crime -- as truly the most premeditated of crimes designed to steal the wealth of millions? Not lately, I'd bet.
It's a straight news story, no 'B' roll (or background video).
It's usually an anchor reading a script, dry as day-old bread.
Because it happens primarily to people who are Black and Latino, it's not a news leader nor headliner, even though it represents the biggest loss of Black wealth in history.
According to the group United for a Fair Economy, such people lost between $164 and $213 billion dollars.
If it weren't so tragic, it would remind one of the silly character popularized by comedian Mike Myers in his Austin Powers movies -- the nefarious Dr. Evil. (y'know -'$213 billion dollars!')
But this is no joke.
It is the root of the current foreclosure crisis, which in turn has sent the Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation),the federally insured mortgage assistance agencies to the brink of bankruptcy.
How does the government respond to this crisis?
It has thrown a life preserver to the agencies (and through them the banks and traders who hustled the sub-primes), and turned its back on the people who got swindled.
Typical.
What we are seeing is the perverse logic of the market, or in a tighter phrase, 'business sense.'
Anything goes to get money, and if you fail, don't worry, for the fake free traders in government will bail you out, but only if you're big enough.
--(c) '08 maj
If there is an overarching ideology at work in America today, it's the ubiquity of the market.
On TV, stars shred every last fig-leaf of privacy to sell alleged 'reality.'
Everyday folks join the shows in a realm of entertainment that might best be called "Indignity for Dollars."
Politicians and press people are virtually for hire to the biggest corporate bidder.
Thus politics and media news outlets become multi-billion dollar industries. Moreover, they become industries that feed on each other, as politicians buy millions of dollars worth of commercials, and of course, TV and cable outlets make big bucks by selling ads.
Meanwhile, the everyday economy -- of food, fuel, housing and education -- goes from bad to worse.
To the average network anchor who pulls in millions per year in fees, this is decidedly under the radar.
His (or her) job is to protect the status quo.
From this convergence we get the present political structure, where accepted political debate is that which doesn't ruffle the feathers of Wall Street or the corporate elite.
When's the last time you've seen or read (in the corporate media) about the sub-prime lending debacle as a crime -- as truly the most premeditated of crimes designed to steal the wealth of millions? Not lately, I'd bet.
It's a straight news story, no 'B' roll (or background video).
It's usually an anchor reading a script, dry as day-old bread.
Because it happens primarily to people who are Black and Latino, it's not a news leader nor headliner, even though it represents the biggest loss of Black wealth in history.
According to the group United for a Fair Economy, such people lost between $164 and $213 billion dollars.
If it weren't so tragic, it would remind one of the silly character popularized by comedian Mike Myers in his Austin Powers movies -- the nefarious Dr. Evil. (y'know -'$213 billion dollars!')
But this is no joke.
It is the root of the current foreclosure crisis, which in turn has sent the Fannie Mae (Federal National Mortgage Association) and Freddie Mac (Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation),the federally insured mortgage assistance agencies to the brink of bankruptcy.
How does the government respond to this crisis?
It has thrown a life preserver to the agencies (and through them the banks and traders who hustled the sub-primes), and turned its back on the people who got swindled.
Typical.
What we are seeing is the perverse logic of the market, or in a tighter phrase, 'business sense.'
Anything goes to get money, and if you fail, don't worry, for the fake free traders in government will bail you out, but only if you're big enough.
--(c) '08 maj
Dog Running for Mayor
Labrador 'runs' for mayor of Fairhope, Alabama
Mon Jul 28, 8:04 PM ET
One of the candidates in the race to become Fairhope's next mayor is considerably more hairy than the rest. He also has twice as many legs and a constantly wagging tail. Wille Bean Roscoe P. Coltrane is a 7-year-old yellow Labrador retriever whose owner has taken a satirical poke at politics by launching the pooch into the race.
But Willie Bean may not be up for that rough-and-tumble world.
"When a little dog barks at him, he cringes and he runs away," owner Tress Turner told the Press-Register in a story Sunday.
Turner, 43, manages The Coffee Loft, which is also the dog's campaign headquarters where supporters can purchase T-shirts and yard signs.
Some of his supporters say all the politicking, name-dropping and sign-maneuvering in the seven-man Fairhope mayoral race is wearing on them weeks ahead of the Aug. 26 election.
"I think he polishes up the field," said Vince Kilborn, 66, of Fairhope. "We need new blood."
Kilborn, former Gov. Don Siegelman's chief attorney in his ongoing criminal corruption case, added about the dog: "He doesn't have any skeletons in his closet. He's eaten them all."
The dog's campaign began when a mayoral candidate placed a campaign sign on property that bordered the politically-neutral coffee shop about three weeks ago.
Turner told the candidate about her wish to remain out of the race, but he had permission from the neighboring property owner and the sign remained for a few days.
"Then, sure enough, customers started pulling in the parking lot and giving us a hard time," Turner said.
The owner of the coffee shop taped a sign to the door saying The Coffee Loft did not endorse the candidate.
"It turned into just people laughing and joking and playing. And I was, like, 'You know what? We are going to let Willie Bean run for mayor,'" Turner said.
Willie Bean doesn't have a realistic shot at being Fairhope's next mayor since the July 15 qualifying deadline has passed. Still, other dogs have held office.
In 2004, Rabbit Hash, Ky., elected Junior Cochran, a black Lab, as mayor. It was the second canine elected to lead the small Northern Kentucky town, according to the town's Web site. The first was a mutt named Goofy Borneman, according to Laurie Lamblin, a resident and employee of the town's historic general store.
Julie Ford, a volunteer at The Haven, Fairhope's no-kill animal shelter, said Willie Bean is setting his sights too low.
"I think he should run for president," the 61-year-old Ford said after stopping by the coffee shop.
Mon Jul 28, 8:04 PM ET
One of the candidates in the race to become Fairhope's next mayor is considerably more hairy than the rest. He also has twice as many legs and a constantly wagging tail. Wille Bean Roscoe P. Coltrane is a 7-year-old yellow Labrador retriever whose owner has taken a satirical poke at politics by launching the pooch into the race.
But Willie Bean may not be up for that rough-and-tumble world.
"When a little dog barks at him, he cringes and he runs away," owner Tress Turner told the Press-Register in a story Sunday.
Turner, 43, manages The Coffee Loft, which is also the dog's campaign headquarters where supporters can purchase T-shirts and yard signs.
Some of his supporters say all the politicking, name-dropping and sign-maneuvering in the seven-man Fairhope mayoral race is wearing on them weeks ahead of the Aug. 26 election.
"I think he polishes up the field," said Vince Kilborn, 66, of Fairhope. "We need new blood."
Kilborn, former Gov. Don Siegelman's chief attorney in his ongoing criminal corruption case, added about the dog: "He doesn't have any skeletons in his closet. He's eaten them all."
The dog's campaign began when a mayoral candidate placed a campaign sign on property that bordered the politically-neutral coffee shop about three weeks ago.
Turner told the candidate about her wish to remain out of the race, but he had permission from the neighboring property owner and the sign remained for a few days.
"Then, sure enough, customers started pulling in the parking lot and giving us a hard time," Turner said.
The owner of the coffee shop taped a sign to the door saying The Coffee Loft did not endorse the candidate.
"It turned into just people laughing and joking and playing. And I was, like, 'You know what? We are going to let Willie Bean run for mayor,'" Turner said.
Willie Bean doesn't have a realistic shot at being Fairhope's next mayor since the July 15 qualifying deadline has passed. Still, other dogs have held office.
In 2004, Rabbit Hash, Ky., elected Junior Cochran, a black Lab, as mayor. It was the second canine elected to lead the small Northern Kentucky town, according to the town's Web site. The first was a mutt named Goofy Borneman, according to Laurie Lamblin, a resident and employee of the town's historic general store.
Julie Ford, a volunteer at The Haven, Fairhope's no-kill animal shelter, said Willie Bean is setting his sights too low.
"I think he should run for president," the 61-year-old Ford said after stopping by the coffee shop.
America's Housing Collapse
America's house price time bomb
By Michael Robinson BBC World Service
With the American housing market in its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Bush is authorising new legislation to pave the way for massive new government intervention designed to slow the slide.
The intervention would come as a little known quirk of US law threatens to drive down house prices even faster.
Faced with seemingly never-ending falls in the value of their properties, some American home-owners are taking radical action; they are choosing to walk away from homes and their mortgages.
In May 2006, at the height of the housing boom, Karen Trainer bought a $500,000 apartment in California - with money borrowed from her bank.
By this year, Karen still owed $500,000 on her mortgage, but her apartment was worth $200,000 less.
So she was deep in negative equity and, to make matters worse, the interest rate on her loan was about to increase.
"I thought 'this is crazy'," Ms Trainer says. "It just does not make financial sense."
Take the hit
As a successful professional, Karen could comfortably have managed the higher mortgage payments her bank demanded.
Instead, she decided to stop her mortgage payments altogether and let her bank repossess her apartment.
Her credit record will be badly damaged by the decision, but Ms Trainer expects this to recover soon.
"Generally speaking, within 5 years you are about back where you were, so my husband and I decided we'll take the hit and live with it."
Over to the bank
In California and much of the rest of America, there is a powerful incentive for homeowners such as Ms Trainer to walk away from their mortgage obligations.
Though banks can repossess and sell the homes of borrowers who stop paying their mortgages, under a legal quirk originating in the Great Depression of the 1930s, banks cannot easily pursue borrowers for any balance outstanding on the main mortgage on their homes.
Consequently, by walking away from her apartment, Ms Trainer has also walked away from the loss on her property.
Her bank gets stuck with that.
Unthinkable option
Traditionally in America there is a social stigma attached to those who default on their debts, which should be a deterrent to walking away from your home.
But according to Susan Wachter, professor of real estate and finance at Wharton School of Business, in the depth of this crisis the social attitudes to such actions are changing.
"This is the kind of conversation that's going on at cocktail parties, at swimming pools," Professor Wachter says. "And suddenly this option which was truly unthinkable in the past becomes thinkable."
Worrying development
Ms Trainer says she feels no moral obligation to go on paying a loan on a property that is going to go on losing her money. She says her friends support her decision.
"I think people are taking a more cold-hearted look at it," she says.
"Is the bank going to pay for my retirement because I was a good girl and paid my mortgage, even though legally I didn't have to?"
Professor Wachter believes that, to date, most people have had their homes repossessed because they could not manage the repayments.
The trend of people now positively choosing to walk away because it makes financial sense to do so is a worrying new development.
"The dangers are extraordinary," Professor Wachter says.
"If all that is needed is that the house value is less than the mortgage value, there is a large number of homeowners in the United States who are in that situation".
No renegotiation
In the city of Stockton - the foreclosure, or repossession, capital of the US for 2007 - estate agent Kevin Morgan sells repossessed houses on behalf of the banks that now own them.
According to him, walking away has become commonplace.
"I would say it's probably 70% of the volume of our foreclosures right now," he says.
"It's a business decision for their family that the smartest thing they can do is walk away from their home."
As a sign of the changing times, some 60% of borrowers do not even bother to contact their banks to attempt a renegotiation of their loan, Mr Moran explains.
"They stop paying and they stop talking," he says. "They just plain walk away."
Total disaster
It is impossible to know for sure how many of the people who are now walking away from their homes could have gone on paying their mortgages.
But Professor Nouriel Roubini of New York University, one of the first economists to warn of the dangers of the American house price boom, believes the number of people positively choosing to walk away is growing rapidly.
"This is becoming a tsunami of voluntary defaults," Professor Roubini says.
"The losses for the financial system from people walking away could be of the order of one trillion dollars when the entire capital of the US banking system is only $1.3 trillion.
"You could have most of the US banking system wiped out, so this is a total disaster."
Which is why it is not just US policymakers who are hoping America's new, multi-billion dollar initiative to stabilise the housing market will succeed in its aims and thus make walking away less attractive.
Because if it fails, the economic fallout could be felt far beyond America's shores.
By Michael Robinson BBC World Service
With the American housing market in its worst crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, President Bush is authorising new legislation to pave the way for massive new government intervention designed to slow the slide.
The intervention would come as a little known quirk of US law threatens to drive down house prices even faster.
Faced with seemingly never-ending falls in the value of their properties, some American home-owners are taking radical action; they are choosing to walk away from homes and their mortgages.
In May 2006, at the height of the housing boom, Karen Trainer bought a $500,000 apartment in California - with money borrowed from her bank.
By this year, Karen still owed $500,000 on her mortgage, but her apartment was worth $200,000 less.
So she was deep in negative equity and, to make matters worse, the interest rate on her loan was about to increase.
"I thought 'this is crazy'," Ms Trainer says. "It just does not make financial sense."
Take the hit
As a successful professional, Karen could comfortably have managed the higher mortgage payments her bank demanded.
Instead, she decided to stop her mortgage payments altogether and let her bank repossess her apartment.
Her credit record will be badly damaged by the decision, but Ms Trainer expects this to recover soon.
"Generally speaking, within 5 years you are about back where you were, so my husband and I decided we'll take the hit and live with it."
Over to the bank
In California and much of the rest of America, there is a powerful incentive for homeowners such as Ms Trainer to walk away from their mortgage obligations.
Though banks can repossess and sell the homes of borrowers who stop paying their mortgages, under a legal quirk originating in the Great Depression of the 1930s, banks cannot easily pursue borrowers for any balance outstanding on the main mortgage on their homes.
Consequently, by walking away from her apartment, Ms Trainer has also walked away from the loss on her property.
Her bank gets stuck with that.
Unthinkable option
Traditionally in America there is a social stigma attached to those who default on their debts, which should be a deterrent to walking away from your home.
But according to Susan Wachter, professor of real estate and finance at Wharton School of Business, in the depth of this crisis the social attitudes to such actions are changing.
"This is the kind of conversation that's going on at cocktail parties, at swimming pools," Professor Wachter says. "And suddenly this option which was truly unthinkable in the past becomes thinkable."
Worrying development
Ms Trainer says she feels no moral obligation to go on paying a loan on a property that is going to go on losing her money. She says her friends support her decision.
"I think people are taking a more cold-hearted look at it," she says.
"Is the bank going to pay for my retirement because I was a good girl and paid my mortgage, even though legally I didn't have to?"
Professor Wachter believes that, to date, most people have had their homes repossessed because they could not manage the repayments.
The trend of people now positively choosing to walk away because it makes financial sense to do so is a worrying new development.
"The dangers are extraordinary," Professor Wachter says.
"If all that is needed is that the house value is less than the mortgage value, there is a large number of homeowners in the United States who are in that situation".
No renegotiation
In the city of Stockton - the foreclosure, or repossession, capital of the US for 2007 - estate agent Kevin Morgan sells repossessed houses on behalf of the banks that now own them.
According to him, walking away has become commonplace.
"I would say it's probably 70% of the volume of our foreclosures right now," he says.
"It's a business decision for their family that the smartest thing they can do is walk away from their home."
As a sign of the changing times, some 60% of borrowers do not even bother to contact their banks to attempt a renegotiation of their loan, Mr Moran explains.
"They stop paying and they stop talking," he says. "They just plain walk away."
Total disaster
It is impossible to know for sure how many of the people who are now walking away from their homes could have gone on paying their mortgages.
But Professor Nouriel Roubini of New York University, one of the first economists to warn of the dangers of the American house price boom, believes the number of people positively choosing to walk away is growing rapidly.
"This is becoming a tsunami of voluntary defaults," Professor Roubini says.
"The losses for the financial system from people walking away could be of the order of one trillion dollars when the entire capital of the US banking system is only $1.3 trillion.
"You could have most of the US banking system wiped out, so this is a total disaster."
Which is why it is not just US policymakers who are hoping America's new, multi-billion dollar initiative to stabilise the housing market will succeed in its aims and thus make walking away less attractive.
Because if it fails, the economic fallout could be felt far beyond America's shores.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Monday, July 28, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Why Are Muslims Divided Into Sects?
This is an interesting article that I saw posted as a bulletin on MySpace. I wanted to repost it here for others to view.
by Dr.
Zakir Naik
WHY ARE MUSLIMS DIVIDED INTO SECTS / DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT?
Question:
When all the Muslim follow one and the same Qur’an then why are there so many sects and different schools of thoughts among Muslims?
Answer:
1.
Muslims Should be United
It is a fact that Muslims today, are divided amongst themselves. The tragedy is that such divisions are not endorsed by Islam at all. Islam believes in fostering unity amongst its followers.
The Glorious Qur’an says:
"And hold fast,
All together, by the rope
Which Allah (stretches out for you),
and be not divided among yourselves;"
[Al-Qur’an 3:103]
Which is the rope of Allah that is being referred to in this verse? It is the Glorious Qur’an. The Glorious Qur’an is the rope of Allah which all Muslims should hold fast together. There is double emphasis in this verse. Besides saying ‘hold fast all together’ it also says, ‘be not divided’.
Qur’an further says,
"Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger"
[Al-Qur’an 4:59]
All the Muslim should follow the Qur’an and authentic Ahadith and be not divided among themselves.
2.
It is Prohibited to make sects and divisions in Islam
The Glorious Qur’an says:
"As for those who divide
Their religion and break up
Into sects, thou hast
No part in them in the least:
Their affair is with Allah:
He will in the end
Tell them the truth
Of all that they did."
[Al-Qur’an 6:159]
In this verse Allah (swt) says that one should disassociate oneself from those who divide their religion and break it up into sects.
But when one asks a Muslim, "who are you?", the common answer is either ‘I am a Sunni, or ‘I am a Shia’. Some call themselves Hanafi, or Shafi or Maliki or Humbali. Some say ‘I am a Deobandi’, while some others say ‘I am a Barelvi’.
3.
Our Prophet was a Muslim
One may ask such Muslims, "Who was our beloved prophet (pbuh)? Was he a Hanafi or a Shafi, or a Humbali or a Maliki?" No! He was a Muslim, like all the other prophets and messengers of Allah before him.
It is mentioned in chapter 3 verse 52 of Al-Qur’an that Jesus (pbuh) was a Muslim.
Further, in chapter 3 verse 67, Al-Qur’an says that Ibrahim (pbuh) was not a Jew or a Christian but was a Muslim.
Qur’an says call yourselves Muslim If anyone poses a Muslim the question who are you, he should say "I am a MUSLIM, not a Hanafi or a Shafi".
Surah Fussilat chapter 41 verse 33 says
"Who is better in speech
Than one who calls (men)
To Allah, works righteousness,
And says, ‘I am of those
Who bow in Islam (Muslim)?’"
; [Al-Qur’an 41:33]
The Qur’an says "Say I am of those who bow in Islam". In other words, say, "I am a Muslim".
The Prophet (pbuh) dictated letters to non-Muslim kings and rulers inviting them to accept Islam.
In these letters he mentioned the verse of the Qur’an from Surah Ali Imran chapter 3 verse 64:
Say ye: "Bear witness
That we (at least)
Are Muslims (bowing
To Allah’s Will)."
[Al-Qur’an 3:64]
Respect all the Great Scholars of Islam
We must respect all the great scholars of Islam, including the four Imaams, Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi, Imam Humbal and Imam Malik (may Allah be pleased with them all). They were great scholars and may Allah reward them for their research and hardwork. One can have no objection if someone agrees with the views and research of Imam Abu Hanifa or Imam Shafi, etc. But when posed a question, ‘who are you?’, the reply should only be ‘I am a Muslim’.
Some may argue by quoting the hadith of our beloved Prophet from Sunan Abu Dawood Hadith No. 4579. In this hadith the prophet (pbuh) is reported to have said, "My community will be split up into seventy-three sects."
This hadith reports that the prophet predicted the emergence of seventy-three sects. He did not say that Muslims should be active in dividing themselves into sects. The Glorious Qur’an commands us not to create sects. Those who follow the teachings of the Qur’an and Sahih Hadith, and do not create sects are the people who are on the true path.
According to Tirmidhi Hadith No. 171, the prophet (pbuh) is reported to have said, "My Ummah will be fragmented into seventy-three sects, and all of them will be in Hell fire except one sect." The companions asked Allah’s messenger which group that would be. Where upon he replied, "It is the one to which I and my companions belong."
The Glorious Qur’an mentions in several verses, "Obey Allah and obey His Messenger". A true Muslim should only follow the Glorious Qur’an and the Sahih Hadith. He can agree with the views of any scholar as long as they conform to the teachings of the Qur’an and Sahih Hadith. If such views go against the Word of Allah, or the Sunnah of His Prophet, then they carry no weight, regardless of how learned the scholar might be.
If only all Muslims read the Qur’an with understanding and adhere to Sahih Hadith, Inshallah most of these differences would be solved and we could be one united Muslim Ummah
by Dr.
Zakir Naik
WHY ARE MUSLIMS DIVIDED INTO SECTS / DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT?
Question:
When all the Muslim follow one and the same Qur’an then why are there so many sects and different schools of thoughts among Muslims?
Answer:
1.
Muslims Should be United
It is a fact that Muslims today, are divided amongst themselves. The tragedy is that such divisions are not endorsed by Islam at all. Islam believes in fostering unity amongst its followers.
The Glorious Qur’an says:
"And hold fast,
All together, by the rope
Which Allah (stretches out for you),
and be not divided among yourselves;"
[Al-Qur’an 3:103]
Which is the rope of Allah that is being referred to in this verse? It is the Glorious Qur’an. The Glorious Qur’an is the rope of Allah which all Muslims should hold fast together. There is double emphasis in this verse. Besides saying ‘hold fast all together’ it also says, ‘be not divided’.
Qur’an further says,
"Obey Allah, and obey the Messenger"
[Al-Qur’an 4:59]
All the Muslim should follow the Qur’an and authentic Ahadith and be not divided among themselves.
2.
It is Prohibited to make sects and divisions in Islam
The Glorious Qur’an says:
"As for those who divide
Their religion and break up
Into sects, thou hast
No part in them in the least:
Their affair is with Allah:
He will in the end
Tell them the truth
Of all that they did."
[Al-Qur’an 6:159]
In this verse Allah (swt) says that one should disassociate oneself from those who divide their religion and break it up into sects.
But when one asks a Muslim, "who are you?", the common answer is either ‘I am a Sunni, or ‘I am a Shia’. Some call themselves Hanafi, or Shafi or Maliki or Humbali. Some say ‘I am a Deobandi’, while some others say ‘I am a Barelvi’.
3.
Our Prophet was a Muslim
One may ask such Muslims, "Who was our beloved prophet (pbuh)? Was he a Hanafi or a Shafi, or a Humbali or a Maliki?" No! He was a Muslim, like all the other prophets and messengers of Allah before him.
It is mentioned in chapter 3 verse 52 of Al-Qur’an that Jesus (pbuh) was a Muslim.
Further, in chapter 3 verse 67, Al-Qur’an says that Ibrahim (pbuh) was not a Jew or a Christian but was a Muslim.
Qur’an says call yourselves Muslim If anyone poses a Muslim the question who are you, he should say "I am a MUSLIM, not a Hanafi or a Shafi".
Surah Fussilat chapter 41 verse 33 says
"Who is better in speech
Than one who calls (men)
To Allah, works righteousness,
And says, ‘I am of those
Who bow in Islam (Muslim)?’"
; [Al-Qur’an 41:33]
The Qur’an says "Say I am of those who bow in Islam". In other words, say, "I am a Muslim".
The Prophet (pbuh) dictated letters to non-Muslim kings and rulers inviting them to accept Islam.
In these letters he mentioned the verse of the Qur’an from Surah Ali Imran chapter 3 verse 64:
Say ye: "Bear witness
That we (at least)
Are Muslims (bowing
To Allah’s Will)."
[Al-Qur’an 3:64]
Respect all the Great Scholars of Islam
We must respect all the great scholars of Islam, including the four Imaams, Imam Abu Hanifa, Imam Shafi, Imam Humbal and Imam Malik (may Allah be pleased with them all). They were great scholars and may Allah reward them for their research and hardwork. One can have no objection if someone agrees with the views and research of Imam Abu Hanifa or Imam Shafi, etc. But when posed a question, ‘who are you?’, the reply should only be ‘I am a Muslim’.
Some may argue by quoting the hadith of our beloved Prophet from Sunan Abu Dawood Hadith No. 4579. In this hadith the prophet (pbuh) is reported to have said, "My community will be split up into seventy-three sects."
This hadith reports that the prophet predicted the emergence of seventy-three sects. He did not say that Muslims should be active in dividing themselves into sects. The Glorious Qur’an commands us not to create sects. Those who follow the teachings of the Qur’an and Sahih Hadith, and do not create sects are the people who are on the true path.
According to Tirmidhi Hadith No. 171, the prophet (pbuh) is reported to have said, "My Ummah will be fragmented into seventy-three sects, and all of them will be in Hell fire except one sect." The companions asked Allah’s messenger which group that would be. Where upon he replied, "It is the one to which I and my companions belong."
The Glorious Qur’an mentions in several verses, "Obey Allah and obey His Messenger". A true Muslim should only follow the Glorious Qur’an and the Sahih Hadith. He can agree with the views of any scholar as long as they conform to the teachings of the Qur’an and Sahih Hadith. If such views go against the Word of Allah, or the Sunnah of His Prophet, then they carry no weight, regardless of how learned the scholar might be.
If only all Muslims read the Qur’an with understanding and adhere to Sahih Hadith, Inshallah most of these differences would be solved and we could be one united Muslim Ummah
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Another Father Phleger Video Clip
Here's another video that I saw that pissed whitey off. But hey, the truth hurts!
Father Phleger Mocking Senator Hillary Clinton
I know that this is old news but I had to post this. Father Phleger of Saint Sabina Church made comments mocking Senator Hillary Clinton and that was classic. I have a feeling that this may come up again somewhere down the road.
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
California town creates parking havens for homeless
Every night at dusk in this wealthy California coastal town, Barbara Harvey puts down food for her golden retrievers, Phoebe and Ranger, and watches as they go for their evening walk.
Not long afterwards, the 66-year-old mother-of-three clambers into the back of her white Honda CR-V, pulls up a blanket, and beds down for the night, snuggling next to her beloved dogs for comfort.
"For the most part I sleep okay," says Harvey. "But it is very cramped. And my dogs are big.
The CR-V wasn't designed for people to sleep in."
This was not quite the old age Harvey had been hoping for. Until recently she rented an apartment that featured a garden bristling with roses and heavy with the scent of jasmine.
But when Harvey's job as a 37,000-dollar-a-year (23,600 euros) notary evaporated in the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, she found herself penniless and destitute in a town where the average price of a home is one million dollars.
Harvey's nightly "home" now is the quiet carpark of the historic Santa Barbara Mission, one of 12 sites around the town that is part of a safe parking program run by a non-profit outreach group, New Beginnings.
According to Michael Stoops, executive director of the Washington-based National Coalition for the Homeless, Harvey's experience is not exceptional.
"We are receiving reports from different agencies and individuals in the field that it is becoming more common," Stoops said. "It's definitely a trend.
"For people who lose their homes or their jobs their worst nightmare is to end up living on the streets, literally homeless. So for many it is preferable to live in their vehicles."
In Santa Barbara, the traditional middle-class has all but disappeared as property prices have soared, according to Gary Linker, executive director of New Beginnings.
New Beginnings has sought to help people who are living out of their vehicles, like Harvey, by organizing a network of safe overnight parking havens, mostly in church and public carparks.
Based on what he has seen, however, Linker is skeptical about suggestions of middle-class homelessness reaching epidemic proportions.
"I wouldn't use the word many, but there are some (middle class)," Linker told AFP.
"We are seeing more people, who I wouldn't call classic middle class, but more accurately are lower middle class, versus people who are chronically homeless and bouncing around for 10-15 years."
New Beginnings has received a flood of donations from all over the United States as a result of the publicity surrounding Harvey's case, evidence perhaps that her story has struck a chord in difficult times, Linker says.
"She could be anybody in this country who is essentially one paycheck away from losing their home," Linker said. "That is what resonates with people."
New Beginnings manages 12 parking lots across Santa Barbara, which are currently filled by some 55 vehicles.
Linker said that the profile of people enrolled in the program varies.
"There are clusters, people who are disabled, people who are mentally ill, substance abusers, people who are war veterans," he said.
Perhaps surprisingly, around half of the people have jobs.
"In our last appraisal, just around half are working. We have electricians, plumbers, bus drivers.
We had one case where a woman had nothing -- and now she is the night supervisor at one of our local supermarkets," he said.
"People of all walks of life working lower-income jobs are in our program."
While the ultimate aim of the program is to place people in permanent housing, some in the safe-parking scheme are in no hurry to leave.
Guy Trevor, a 53-year-old British-born interior designer who lost his home and his job in the mortgage crisis, says he spent three months living in a pick-up truck before entering the parking scheme.
"The real difference is you're not sneaking around any more," Trevor said. "You feel safe. It's nice to feel safe."
Former software engineer and dotcom CEO, Jess Jessop, 54, has lived with his two sons in a converted school bus for the past four years, three of them in Santa Barbara. He says the parking scheme is a "life-saver."
"Wherever else we've, it's almost always okay for one day, maybe two. But nobody wants you to stay, so you're constantly being forced -- usually in the middle of the night -- to move on. And that's pretty tough," he told AFP.
"But here with this program we've had a stable home for over three years, and my kids are part of the community."
Single parent Jessop, who saw his career implode after the 2001 dot-com crash, says the situation in Santa Barbara has attracted national attention as America's economic problems have deepened.
"In 2001 there were a bunch of us in the dot-com community who suddenly found out what it was like to be out of work, out of the picture, not earning," Jessop said.
"Right now there's a whole new crop of people facing that. There are so many people on the edge of the same situation."
Not long afterwards, the 66-year-old mother-of-three clambers into the back of her white Honda CR-V, pulls up a blanket, and beds down for the night, snuggling next to her beloved dogs for comfort.
"For the most part I sleep okay," says Harvey. "But it is very cramped. And my dogs are big.
The CR-V wasn't designed for people to sleep in."
This was not quite the old age Harvey had been hoping for. Until recently she rented an apartment that featured a garden bristling with roses and heavy with the scent of jasmine.
But when Harvey's job as a 37,000-dollar-a-year (23,600 euros) notary evaporated in the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, she found herself penniless and destitute in a town where the average price of a home is one million dollars.
Harvey's nightly "home" now is the quiet carpark of the historic Santa Barbara Mission, one of 12 sites around the town that is part of a safe parking program run by a non-profit outreach group, New Beginnings.
According to Michael Stoops, executive director of the Washington-based National Coalition for the Homeless, Harvey's experience is not exceptional.
"We are receiving reports from different agencies and individuals in the field that it is becoming more common," Stoops said. "It's definitely a trend.
"For people who lose their homes or their jobs their worst nightmare is to end up living on the streets, literally homeless. So for many it is preferable to live in their vehicles."
In Santa Barbara, the traditional middle-class has all but disappeared as property prices have soared, according to Gary Linker, executive director of New Beginnings.
New Beginnings has sought to help people who are living out of their vehicles, like Harvey, by organizing a network of safe overnight parking havens, mostly in church and public carparks.
Based on what he has seen, however, Linker is skeptical about suggestions of middle-class homelessness reaching epidemic proportions.
"I wouldn't use the word many, but there are some (middle class)," Linker told AFP.
"We are seeing more people, who I wouldn't call classic middle class, but more accurately are lower middle class, versus people who are chronically homeless and bouncing around for 10-15 years."
New Beginnings has received a flood of donations from all over the United States as a result of the publicity surrounding Harvey's case, evidence perhaps that her story has struck a chord in difficult times, Linker says.
"She could be anybody in this country who is essentially one paycheck away from losing their home," Linker said. "That is what resonates with people."
New Beginnings manages 12 parking lots across Santa Barbara, which are currently filled by some 55 vehicles.
Linker said that the profile of people enrolled in the program varies.
"There are clusters, people who are disabled, people who are mentally ill, substance abusers, people who are war veterans," he said.
Perhaps surprisingly, around half of the people have jobs.
"In our last appraisal, just around half are working. We have electricians, plumbers, bus drivers.
We had one case where a woman had nothing -- and now she is the night supervisor at one of our local supermarkets," he said.
"People of all walks of life working lower-income jobs are in our program."
While the ultimate aim of the program is to place people in permanent housing, some in the safe-parking scheme are in no hurry to leave.
Guy Trevor, a 53-year-old British-born interior designer who lost his home and his job in the mortgage crisis, says he spent three months living in a pick-up truck before entering the parking scheme.
"The real difference is you're not sneaking around any more," Trevor said. "You feel safe. It's nice to feel safe."
Former software engineer and dotcom CEO, Jess Jessop, 54, has lived with his two sons in a converted school bus for the past four years, three of them in Santa Barbara. He says the parking scheme is a "life-saver."
"Wherever else we've, it's almost always okay for one day, maybe two. But nobody wants you to stay, so you're constantly being forced -- usually in the middle of the night -- to move on. And that's pretty tough," he told AFP.
"But here with this program we've had a stable home for over three years, and my kids are part of the community."
Single parent Jessop, who saw his career implode after the 2001 dot-com crash, says the situation in Santa Barbara has attracted national attention as America's economic problems have deepened.
"In 2001 there were a bunch of us in the dot-com community who suddenly found out what it was like to be out of work, out of the picture, not earning," Jessop said.
"Right now there's a whole new crop of people facing that. There are so many people on the edge of the same situation."
Mumia 7/8 Legal Update + Articles
Legal Update
Date: July 8, 2008
From: Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel
Subject: Petition for Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc, United States Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit, filed on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row, Pennsylvania
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia On June 27, 2008, I submitted on behalf of my client, Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Petition for Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Yesterday it was deemed "filed" by the court following rulings on related motions. The focus of the Petition is the issue of racism in jury selection. If unsuccessful, we will proceed to the United States Supreme Court.
Below are two news articles concerning the Petition. Today's Philadelphia Inquirer piece gives an overview of this newest development, while that by Dave Lindorff is a brilliant analysis of these case developments and its politics. A copy of the actual Petition for Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc, which is before the federal court, is attached.
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. To make tax deductible donations to the legal defense, please make checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). They should be mailed to:
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
Conclusion Even though the federal court granted a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty, we want a complete reversal of the conviction. I will not rest until my client is free.
Yours very truly,
Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
[http://us.mc304.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=RobertRBryan%40aol.com]
Date: July 8, 2008
From: Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel
Subject: Petition for Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc, United States Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit, filed on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row, Pennsylvania
United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia On June 27, 2008, I submitted on behalf of my client, Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Petition for Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Yesterday it was deemed "filed" by the court following rulings on related motions. The focus of the Petition is the issue of racism in jury selection. If unsuccessful, we will proceed to the United States Supreme Court.
Below are two news articles concerning the Petition. Today's Philadelphia Inquirer piece gives an overview of this newest development, while that by Dave Lindorff is a brilliant analysis of these case developments and its politics. A copy of the actual Petition for Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc, which is before the federal court, is attached.
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. To make tax deductible donations to the legal defense, please make checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). They should be mailed to:
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
Conclusion Even though the federal court granted a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty, we want a complete reversal of the conviction. I will not rest until my client is free.
Yours very truly,
Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
[http://us.mc304.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=RobertRBryan%40aol.com]
_________________________________
Abu-Jamal seeks new trial in Phila. officer's slaying
By Emilie Lounsberry
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Pennsylvania death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal has asked a federal appeals court to reconsider the decision that denied him a new trial in the 1981 slaying of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.
In late March, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit left intact Abu-Jamal's conviction but said a new jury should decide whether he deserved death or should be sentenced to life behind bars.
In court papers docketed today, Robert R. Bryan, the San Francisco lawyer representing Abu-Jamal with Widener University law professor Judith Ritter, asked the three-judge panel and the full Third Circuit court to take another look.
They contended that the panel should have ordered a hearing on Abu-Jamal's contention that prosecutors intentionally excluded blacks from his jury in violation of a later 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
They noted that one of the panel members, Judge Thomas Ambro, wanted a hearing held on that issue, and said the majority "has backed away from this Circuit's historical commitment to equal justice for all."
The three-judge panel affirmed the December 2001 ruling by U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr., who had thrown out the death sentence after concluding that the jury might have been confused by the trial judge's instructions and wording on the verdict form filled out when the jury decided on death.
Yohn found that the jury might have mistakenly believed it had to agree unanimously on any mitigating circumstances - factors that might have persuaded jurors to decide on a life sentence, rather than death.
Abu-Jamal, 54, has been on death row since his 1982 conviction in the killing of Faulkner, who was shot to death near 13th and Locust Streets early in the morning of Dec. 9, 1981.
While Abu-Jamal is appealing because he wants a new trial, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence. Assistant District Attorney Hugh Burns said last month that no decision had been made on whether to ask the high court to consider the matter.
Abu-Jamal has written books and given taped speeches from death row, and his case has been followed in many parts of the world.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld his conviction and death sentence in 1989, and also rejected three other appeals - including one earlier this year.
______________________________________
OpEd News Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Mumia-Abu-Jamal-s-Long-Sho-by- Dave-Lindorff- 080707-97. html
July 7, 2008
Mumia Abu-Jamal's Long-Shot Appeal for Reversal of Last Year's Disastrous Third Circuit Ruling
By Dave Lindorff
Mumia Abu-Jamal and his attorney Robert R. Bryan yesterday filed a formal petition seeking a full en banc reconsideration of last spring's decision by a three-member panel of the Third Circuit Federal Court of Appeals rejecting his claim of a constitutional violation in the selection of jurors at his 1982 murder trial in the shooting death of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.
The three-judge panel, in a 2-1 ruling, rejected Abu-Jamal's claim of a so-called Batson violation—namely that the city prosecutor trying his case had denied him a fair trial by improperly barring qualified African Americans from sitting on his jury. The two judges in the majority--both appointed to their posts by President Ronald Reagan--stated that Abu-Jamal had failed to raise the issue at the time of his trial, and that he had failed to make a prima facie case of racial discrimination.
In their majority opinion rejecting Abu-Jamal's Batson claim, Judge Anthony Scirica and Judge Robert Cowan had argued that even though it was demonstrably true that Assistant DA Joseph McGill had used 10 of his 15 peremptory challenges to reject two-thirds of the potential black jurors who had agreed that they could vote for a death penalty in the case, it could not be seen as a prima facie case of impermissible racial discrimination, because no one had established the racial make-up of the total jury pool. In other words, as one of the two judges actually stated during the hearing, "perhaps the jury pool itself was two-thirds black." The majority also ruled that because Abu-Jamal had not formally raised the objection about the number of racial jury strikes at the time they occurred, his claim was denied.
As attorney Bryan pointed out in his request for a re-examination of the ruling by the full Third Circuit panel of 12 judges, however, both these arguments fly in the face of both US Supreme Court and Third Circuit precedents. Under Batson, a defendant, in order to obtain a full hearing into the issue of race discrimination in jury selection, need only demonstrate that one single juror was improperly rejected by the prosecution on the basis of race. Furthermore, both those courts have also established that all relevant issues must be taken into consideration, not just the juror strike (dismissal) rate. Bryan noted, for example, that the case was racially charged, given that the defendant was black and the victim was white, and that it was especially charged, given that the defendant had been a Black Panther and had been associated with the MOVE organization, while the victim had been a police officer. Both the Supreme Court and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals have held that such issues can contribute to making a prima facie case of discrimination, yet neither was considered by the three-judge panel in its ruling in this case. Bryan also noted that at the time of the trial, there was no Batson standard to raise an objection to (the US Supreme Court's Batson standard was established in 1986, but was made retroactive for all cases). Indeed, in 1982, at the time of Abu-Jamal's trial, it was technically legal for prosecutors to reject jurors on the basis of race, so he and his trial attorney would have been making a pointless objection at trial had they formally complained back then.
All these points, Bryan argues in his petition for a re-consideration of his client's Batson claim, were also powerfully made in a dissent by the third appellate judge, Thomas Ambro (a Clinton appointee), who charged that his two senior colleagues on the bench were making "a newly created contemporaneous objection rule for habeas petitions," which he warned would conflict with all the court's prior decisions.
Judge Ambro, Bryan points out, also was dismissive in his dissent of his two colleagues' claim that they needed to know the composition of the jury pool before they could say the prosecutor's dismissal of two thirds of the qualified black jurors might constitute improper discrimination in jury selection. "It is my belief," he wrote, "that this strike rate without reference to total venire (jury pool) can stand on its own for the purpose of raising an inference of discrimination.
"In any event, Bryan went on to demonstrate, using the trial transcript record and some simple math, that in fact the racial composition of the original jury pool can be established: it was 14 blacks and 31 whites, or in other words, 31 percent black. Since it has been stipulated by the district attorney's office, and accepted as fact by the state courts, that the prosecutor used his ability to dismiss jurors peremptorily (without cause) to eliminate 10 black jurors already considered acceptable by the court, that gives the prosecution a strike rate of 66.67 percent, or more than double the actual percentage of available black jurors in the pool. Admittedly it would have been better had the defense been able to make that damning point at the Third Circuit hearing last year, when the two Republican judges on the bench were demanding it, properly or not. That said, it is still a point that the full Third Circuit bench should consider carefully, in examining lst year's bizarre ruling by the three-judge panel of Scirica, Cowen and Ambro.
' The challenge faced by Abu-Jamal in this bid for a reconsideration of his Batson claim ruling is that the three judges who already ruled, including Judge Cowen, could be part of any en banc reconsideration. Judge Marjorie Rendell, one of the 12 active members of the Third Circuit, has recused herself from the hearing because her husband, Gov. Ed Rendell, was district attorney and as such was boss of the prosecutor, Joe McGill, when the case was tried. Another judge, Clinton appointee Theodore McKee, also recused himself, as did Bush appointee D. Michael Fisher. Ordinarily, en banc deliberations are limited to active judges, but Judge Cowen, though retired, might be able to participate, since he was one of the judges who issued the ruling in question. If Judge Cowan did not participate in an en banc session, that would mean four additional judges would have to side with Judge Ambro, for a reversal and an order for a hearing on Abu-Jamal's Batson claim. If Cowan were to join the bench, however, that would mean a total of 10 judges, and thus a majority of six--or five in addition to Ambro--would be needed for a reversal.
Without Cowan, the odds would be daunting enough. Even if the other two Clinton appointees to the Third Circuit Court and one remaining Carter appointee were to side with Ambro, Abu-Jamal would need one Bush appointee to come over to get five votes for a reversal. With Cowan voting, five votes would just give a tie, leaving last year's ruling standing. For a reversal, a second Bush appointee would have to be swayed to Abu-Jamal's side.
That is quite a hurdle. Then again, stranger things have happened: One of the key Third Circuit rulings establishing the precedent that it should be relatively easy for a death row prisoner to establish prima facie evidence of race-based jury selection (to which Judge Ambro referred when he said his colleagues were ignoring the precedents of their own circuit) and gain a full hearing of the evidence, was written by a recent member of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Samuel Alito. Alito, recall, left the Third Circuit when he was appointed last year to the Supreme Court by Bush.
Technically, what Abu-Jamal is seeking at this point is an order from the Third Circuit Court of Appeals for a full Batson hearing, at which all evidence could be presented, and the prosecution questioned, about the prevailing practice by the district attorney's office in 1982 of excluding blacks from juries in Philadelphia (academic research shows that under Rendell's direction, prosecutors struck blacks from capital-case juries 58 percent of the time, compared to only 22 percent for whites), the record of prosecutor Joe McGill (who records show struck black jurors from the capital cases he tried 74 percent of the time, vs. 25 percent of the time for whites), and about what actually happened during jury selection process at Abu-Jamal's own trial, when two-thirds of black jurors were struck by the prosecutor.
If a judge were to establish after such a hearing that there was a racial motive behind McGill's actions during jury selection, or during the removal of one seated black juror early in the trial, or that even one juror was removed for racial reasons, under Batson rules, it would result automatically in Abu-Jamal's getting a new trial before a new, fairly selected jury.
The Third Circuit drama over Abu-Jamal's Batson claim plays out as evidence continues to mount that his trial was a sham and a travestry. Among these are new photographs showing: 1) police manipulation of the evidence at the crime scene, 2) a lack of any bullet holes in the sidewalk surrounding the spot where officer Faulkner was lying when he was allegedly shot by Abu-Jamal, and 3) no indication of a taxi cab parked where cab driver Robert Chobert, a key prosecution "eye-witness, " claimed he had been located during the shooting incident. Other credible witnesses are also surfacing with evidence that there was never a shouted out "confession" in Jefferson Hospital's emergency room, and that witness Chobert was actually not a witness to the shooting, but was rather parked on another street, facing away from the incident.
The District Attorney's office is expected to file a counter petition opposing an en banc review of last year's Third Circuit ruling.
Author's Website: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/Author's Bio: Dave Lindorff, a columnist for Counterpunch, is author of several recent books ("This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of American Democracy" and "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"). His latest book, coauthored with Barbara Olshanshky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, May 2006). His writing is available at http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/
Ex-Black Panther's murder conviction overturned
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (AP) -- A federal judge on Tuesday overturned the conviction of a former Black Panther in the 1972 stabbing death of a Louisiana prison guard.
Albert Woodfox, who was held in solitary confinement for over 30 years, is one of three former Panthers known as the "Angola Three." He and two other black prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola were convicted in the killing of guard Brent Miller on April 17, 1972.
U.S. District Judge James Brady issued a ruling late Tuesday approving a federal magistrate's June recommendation that Woodfox's conviction be overturned because one of his former lawyers failed to object to a prosecutor's testimony about a witness' credibility. Brady also found that Woodfox's trial lawyer failed to object to testimony from a witness who had died after the trial.
Woodfox's decades in solitary confinement attracted worldwide attention from activists who called him a political prisoner.
Nick Trenticosta, the New Orleans-based defense lawyer who handled the appeal, said Woodfox's immediate future lies in the hands of prosecutors, who could request a new trial.
Trenticosta said he hoped Woodfox to be released without another trial.
"The man was convicted on false evidence, and he's been held in solitary for almost 40 years. Let's release him," Trenticosta said.
A message left for prosecutors late Tuesday was not immediately returned.
Trenticosta said Woodfox had probably not yet heard about the ruling.
"I don't believe he knows," Trenticosta said. "But I'll talk to him in the morning and he'll probably find out about it in the newspaper."
Woodfox and Herman Wallace were kept in solitary confinement from 1972 until March, when they were moved to a maximum-security dormitory with other prisoners. Woodfox was serving 50 years for armed robbery when the 1972 killing occurred.
Wallace has been appealing his conviction based on arguments similar to Woodfox's.
The third member of the "Angola Three" spent 29 years in isolation before his conviction was overturned in 2001. Robert King, known as Robert King Wilkerson in the 1970s, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and was freed.
Albert Woodfox, who was held in solitary confinement for over 30 years, is one of three former Panthers known as the "Angola Three." He and two other black prisoners at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola were convicted in the killing of guard Brent Miller on April 17, 1972.
U.S. District Judge James Brady issued a ruling late Tuesday approving a federal magistrate's June recommendation that Woodfox's conviction be overturned because one of his former lawyers failed to object to a prosecutor's testimony about a witness' credibility. Brady also found that Woodfox's trial lawyer failed to object to testimony from a witness who had died after the trial.
Woodfox's decades in solitary confinement attracted worldwide attention from activists who called him a political prisoner.
Nick Trenticosta, the New Orleans-based defense lawyer who handled the appeal, said Woodfox's immediate future lies in the hands of prosecutors, who could request a new trial.
Trenticosta said he hoped Woodfox to be released without another trial.
"The man was convicted on false evidence, and he's been held in solitary for almost 40 years. Let's release him," Trenticosta said.
A message left for prosecutors late Tuesday was not immediately returned.
Trenticosta said Woodfox had probably not yet heard about the ruling.
"I don't believe he knows," Trenticosta said. "But I'll talk to him in the morning and he'll probably find out about it in the newspaper."
Woodfox and Herman Wallace were kept in solitary confinement from 1972 until March, when they were moved to a maximum-security dormitory with other prisoners. Woodfox was serving 50 years for armed robbery when the 1972 killing occurred.
Wallace has been appealing his conviction based on arguments similar to Woodfox's.
The third member of the "Angola Three" spent 29 years in isolation before his conviction was overturned in 2001. Robert King, known as Robert King Wilkerson in the 1970s, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and was freed.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Bush poised for victory as US Congress nears approval of wiretapping bill
Elana Schor in Washington
guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday July 8, 2008
Article history
George Bush is poised for a major victory this week as Congress nears final approval of a plan to provide legal immunity to private companies that aided government wiretapping as well as expand those spying powers.
Debate on the wiretapping bill is slated to begin in the Senate today, with a vote expected by week's end. Although civil liberties groups and liberal activists have pressed Democrats to oppose the proposal, its approval is considered a near-certainty.
The bill's most controversial provision gives legal immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the Bush administration monitor phone calls and emails without a court warrant in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
The immunity debate has created particular headaches for Barack Obama, who last fall joined a group of liberal senators in blocking a separate wiretapping bill that contained a liability shield for telecoms.
But after securing the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama veered to the centre and indicated he would support the wiretapping plan even if the final version cancelled lawsuits against the companies. His staunchest supporters on the left protested the sudden shift, even forming a network on Obama's website to castigate him.
Obama attempted to smooth over the rift in a statement posted to that online network yesterday.
"Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise," Obama wrote to the backers disenchanted with his move.
"Democracy cannot exist without strong differences. And going forward, some of you may decide that my [wiretapping] position is a deal breaker. That's okay. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have."
The wiretapping plan passed the House of Representatives on June 20 by a 293-129 vote, with several Democrats from conservative states joining Republicans to make up the margin of victory.
The bill seemed to face an uphill battle as recently as February, when Democrats in Congress allowed the previous, Republican-written statute on government wiretaps to expire rather than give in to White House demands on immunity.
But the tide turned in favour of compromise this summer, with existing wiretaps set for de-authorisation in August and Democrats fearing election-year attacks on national security issues.
A deal was eventually reached between House Democratic majority leader Steny Hoyer and Republican leaders. Democrats won some concessions from the White House: the new plan prohibits warrant-free spying on Americans travelling overseas and requires a court to evaluate the basis for wiretaps before they go into effect – not after.
Still, the American civil liberties union (ACLU) and other leading civil-rights groups have condemned the bill, calling it a capitulation to Bush and an unconstitutional violation of privacy rights.
"Not only will the [wiretapping bill] allow for the wholesale violation of Americans' fourth amendment rights, it will shut the door on investigations into the administration's warrant-less wiretapping program by closing active court cases," Colleen Connell, executive director of the Illinois ACLU, said in a statement.
"The Senate is the last opportunity for any real improvements to be made to this legislation - senators should fix the bill or vote it down."
guardian.co.uk,
Tuesday July 8, 2008
Article history
George Bush is poised for a major victory this week as Congress nears final approval of a plan to provide legal immunity to private companies that aided government wiretapping as well as expand those spying powers.
Debate on the wiretapping bill is slated to begin in the Senate today, with a vote expected by week's end. Although civil liberties groups and liberal activists have pressed Democrats to oppose the proposal, its approval is considered a near-certainty.
The bill's most controversial provision gives legal immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the Bush administration monitor phone calls and emails without a court warrant in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
The immunity debate has created particular headaches for Barack Obama, who last fall joined a group of liberal senators in blocking a separate wiretapping bill that contained a liability shield for telecoms.
But after securing the Democratic presidential nomination, Obama veered to the centre and indicated he would support the wiretapping plan even if the final version cancelled lawsuits against the companies. His staunchest supporters on the left protested the sudden shift, even forming a network on Obama's website to castigate him.
Obama attempted to smooth over the rift in a statement posted to that online network yesterday.
"Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise," Obama wrote to the backers disenchanted with his move.
"Democracy cannot exist without strong differences. And going forward, some of you may decide that my [wiretapping] position is a deal breaker. That's okay. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have."
The wiretapping plan passed the House of Representatives on June 20 by a 293-129 vote, with several Democrats from conservative states joining Republicans to make up the margin of victory.
The bill seemed to face an uphill battle as recently as February, when Democrats in Congress allowed the previous, Republican-written statute on government wiretaps to expire rather than give in to White House demands on immunity.
But the tide turned in favour of compromise this summer, with existing wiretaps set for de-authorisation in August and Democrats fearing election-year attacks on national security issues.
A deal was eventually reached between House Democratic majority leader Steny Hoyer and Republican leaders. Democrats won some concessions from the White House: the new plan prohibits warrant-free spying on Americans travelling overseas and requires a court to evaluate the basis for wiretaps before they go into effect – not after.
Still, the American civil liberties union (ACLU) and other leading civil-rights groups have condemned the bill, calling it a capitulation to Bush and an unconstitutional violation of privacy rights.
"Not only will the [wiretapping bill] allow for the wholesale violation of Americans' fourth amendment rights, it will shut the door on investigations into the administration's warrant-less wiretapping program by closing active court cases," Colleen Connell, executive director of the Illinois ACLU, said in a statement.
"The Senate is the last opportunity for any real improvements to be made to this legislation - senators should fix the bill or vote it down."
Monday, July 07, 2008
Saving Bankers While Homeowners Fall
[col. writ. 6/29/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Throughout the presidential primaries, while politicians amassed millions from both corporate and private sources, how many times did you hear the sub-prime lending disaster discussed?
Over a million homeowners, most of them Black or brown, faced foreclosures and the loss of their most valuable financial asset, and most politicians passed over it in relative silence, while they begged or lied for votes.
How can this be, unless they, like most pols, were the paid for property of corporations?
When the sub-prime mess hit, in a matter of hours, the Federal Reserve Board's head, Ben Bernanke, slipped $200 billion in government guarantees to keep the mortgage loan industry afloat. Thus, the U.S. government used its power to back the banks' hustling of what were essentially junk bonds.
A fifth of a trillion bucks to back those who ripped off a million people with loans designed to fail; and for those who got ripped off, nothing.
Indeed, the only politician who was attacking this practice was New York's former Attorney General (and later Governor), Eliot Spitzer. But once caught in the web of a hooker's scandal, this threat melted away into mist.
These sub-prime loans, saddled with balloon-like expanded repayment rates, were designed to fail (at least for the borrowers), and these legalized hustles were steered at an astonishing rate, at 73% of high-income African-Americans and Hispanic families. Among white high-income homeowners, only 17% were recipients of sub-primes. Should we chalk this up to coincidence?
This Greed Riot has sent shivers throughout the economy, not just in America, but overseas as well, because foreign companies and governments invested in these junk mortgage bonds.
The foreclosure crisis has slowed housing construction; loans are almost impossible to get, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates banks and investors will lose $1 trillion.
But for nearly a million families their losses will be infinitely greater. They lose their dreams, their homes, and perhaps their very families. How many divorces have been spawned by these foreclosures? How many families have been split asunder? How many suicides?
These things do not fall on the cold pages of a business ledger.
These non economic losses can be traced to pure, unmitigated greed of bankers, investment houses, and the willing blindness of a government addicted to deregulation.
--(c) '08 maj
Throughout the presidential primaries, while politicians amassed millions from both corporate and private sources, how many times did you hear the sub-prime lending disaster discussed?
Over a million homeowners, most of them Black or brown, faced foreclosures and the loss of their most valuable financial asset, and most politicians passed over it in relative silence, while they begged or lied for votes.
How can this be, unless they, like most pols, were the paid for property of corporations?
When the sub-prime mess hit, in a matter of hours, the Federal Reserve Board's head, Ben Bernanke, slipped $200 billion in government guarantees to keep the mortgage loan industry afloat. Thus, the U.S. government used its power to back the banks' hustling of what were essentially junk bonds.
A fifth of a trillion bucks to back those who ripped off a million people with loans designed to fail; and for those who got ripped off, nothing.
Indeed, the only politician who was attacking this practice was New York's former Attorney General (and later Governor), Eliot Spitzer. But once caught in the web of a hooker's scandal, this threat melted away into mist.
These sub-prime loans, saddled with balloon-like expanded repayment rates, were designed to fail (at least for the borrowers), and these legalized hustles were steered at an astonishing rate, at 73% of high-income African-Americans and Hispanic families. Among white high-income homeowners, only 17% were recipients of sub-primes. Should we chalk this up to coincidence?
This Greed Riot has sent shivers throughout the economy, not just in America, but overseas as well, because foreign companies and governments invested in these junk mortgage bonds.
The foreclosure crisis has slowed housing construction; loans are almost impossible to get, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates banks and investors will lose $1 trillion.
But for nearly a million families their losses will be infinitely greater. They lose their dreams, their homes, and perhaps their very families. How many divorces have been spawned by these foreclosures? How many families have been split asunder? How many suicides?
These things do not fall on the cold pages of a business ledger.
These non economic losses can be traced to pure, unmitigated greed of bankers, investment houses, and the willing blindness of a government addicted to deregulation.
--(c) '08 maj
Wednesday, July 02, 2008
None Dare Call It Genocide
The depth of American culpability for Haiti's misery is immeasurable. At every stage in the first Black republic's history, the U.S. has attempted to snuff out not just the spirit of the people, but the people themselves. In the current era of occupation by American surrogates, Haitians are denied the elemental necessities of life, such as food and potable water. Because the Americans and French willed it so, Haitians "would have to forget that they were human beings deserving of rights and respect; they would still be dipping water from gutters and puddles.
None Dare Call It Genocide
by John Maxwell
This article originally appeared in Jamaica Observer.
It may come as a surprise to many more Europeans than to American white people that a great many intelligent and sophisticated people of African ancestry are convinced that there are important classes of whites who are conspiring to wipe them off the face of the Earth.
This may be the most pervasive conspiracy theory of all because it is made more credible by an impressive history of genocidal attacks on black people and other non-whites. Advocates for "Indians" of the Amazon say the natives believe they are threatened not simply by greedy ranchers and gold miners but by missionaries from the United states, hoping to clear oil-rich areas of the indigenous populations as in Darfur. In Bolivia, for example, the recent attempt by some provinces to disaffiliate themselves from the rest of the state is seen as a kind of proto-genocide aimed at separating the richest land from control by the majority Indian populations.
The slave trade was itself a genocidal operation as well as a plutocratic enterprise, and there are those who say that the damage done by the slave trade has been grievously underestimated, in order to deprecate the importance of Africans and their civilizations and, therefore, their worth in the world.
King Leopold's "civilizing" assault on the Congolese, described by him as a charitable endeavor comparable in intent to the Red Cross, was able to kill 10 million Congolese in 20 years, suggesting that the toll of the slave trade may have been grossly underestimated. In South Africa, the 50 year Apartheid regime was not only explicitly anti-African, but in its terminal stages was frantically developing biocidal agents to eliminate and exterminate black people all over the world. Dr. Wouter Basson, a cardiologist, was the lead scientist in the attempt to sanitize the world for white people. He still practices medicine in South Africa.
The United States has always had a bad reputation in race matters. Although a black Barbadian, Crispus Attucks was the first American military casualty of the Revolutionary war, and blacks from Haiti, including the later Emperor of Haiti Henri Cristophe, fought for American Independence, blacks were infamously defined as only three fifths human when the new state proclaimed its freedom and independence.
It was probably no surprise that twenty years later when the new state of Haiti proclaimed its own independence, the Haitians, having fought for freedom over three centuries, thought it so precious that they implemented the first universal declaration of human rights, valuing every human being, male and female, adult and child, as essentially entitled to the same rights.
Ever since then the Americans and the Haitians have been at odds over freedom and human rights and the United States has felt able, whenever it chose, to "intervene" to put the Haitians in their proper place.
There is not enough time to detail the various methods used to pacify the restless natives of Haiti, including dive-bombing peasants in the 1920s, installing a cruel and corrupt army in the thirties and watching paternally as the army and the elite, empowered by the US, wreaked their sadistic and oppressive will on the Haitian people.
Having tolerated and fostered the wicked Duvalier dictatorships for 30 years, the US and its elite clients were not about to let democracy loose on the Haitian people. And when the Haitians decided to reclaim their freedom under the leadership of Jean Bertrand Aristide, the Americans first sabotaged and then aborted the Haitians' dreams of democracy, first by blackmail and then at gunpoint.
‘Rock stone a' river bottam'
If the Americans had left the Haitians to their own devices they would probably be just as poor but a lot less miserable.
When Jean Bertrand Aristide took office in Haiti in 1990 it was with the enthusiastic approval of the Haitian people, who saw in him the man of their dreams of emancipation, the little black priest who knew them and what they wanted to do. The Duvaliers and their successor military rulers allowed the parasitic elite, Haitian/American businessmen and other foreigners with "dual citizenship" to rape and pillage Haiti. Aristide meant to build paradise on the dungheap their oppressors had created. That was not the American/elite plan.
They threw him out after a few months but relented under pressure to accept him back in 1994 to serve out the few months left of his term. When he campaigned again for reelection after the Preval interregnum (Haitian presidents are limited to one term) the Americans directed by the International Republic Institute and US AID poured millions into Haiti to set up anti-Aristide movements. It didn't work but they continued with campaigns of lies, slander and political doublespeak designed to discredit him internationally, if not in Haiti.
Since they couldn't move his people they hit on a brilliant idea. They would make it impossible for him to govern.
"The prevalence of disease and malnutrition is staggering in Haiti. The country is plagued by the highest HIV rates in the hemisphere, representing nearly 60 percent of the known HIV infections in the Caribbean. Tuberculosis remains endemic and is a significant cause of mortality. Malaria-nearly non-existent in many other Caribbean countries-remains a deadly problem in Haiti. Even simple prevention measures, such as childhood vaccination for tuberculosis, are woefully lacking.
"Water-related diseases are also rampant throughout Haiti. For example, in 1999, infectious diarrhea was found to be the second leading cause of death in Haiti. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 88 percent of diarrhea cases in the world result from the combination of unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and improper hygiene.xlii In the same 1999 study, gastro-intestinal infection was the leading cause of under-five mortality in Haiti."
‘Water is Life'
If Haiti could manage to bring clean water to the people, that alone would revolutionize the country. It would be a powerful means of raising health standards generally and preventing epidemic infant deaths. It would, by itself, be a new dawn of freedom.
The InterAmerican Development Bank agreed and in 1998 said it would lend Haiti some money to set up modern water supplies in two cities for a start. To get these loans Haiti cleaned up its debts to the international financial institutions and got ready for some progress.
They are still waiting. The water supplies, intended to reduce disease and infant mortality were repeatedly blocked by the United States and its accomplices. The George Bush administration intervened illegally to stop the IDB distributing the pittance and the other members of the Bank including France and Canada went along with the fraud. And countries like Jamaica, Trinidad and the rest of the hemisphere, caved in like terrified pimps and said not a word.
Meanwhile Aristide was getting help from Cuba to build a medical school; Dr Paul Farmer's Boston based Partners in Health was revolutionizing the management and treatment of HIV/AIDS, which had been decimating Haiti, and Aristide built more schools in three years than had been but in Haiti for the past 200.
He had to go.
Worthies such as the Jamaican descended Colin Powell swallowed the propaganda of the elite and their fascist North American friends. Luigi Einaudi, the American deputy secretary General of the Organization of American states was heard to say that all that was wrong with Haiti was that Haitians were running the place.
They would soon fix that.
Some of the most fantastic lies began to be spread about Aristide: He was a devil worshipper, a dictator, a hater of democracy, a tyrant, a terrorist, a murderer. And one fine morning in 2004, almost exactly 200 years after the worlds first declaration of human rights on the soil of Haiti, the American ambassador came to President Aristide with a message. You'd better leave old chap, or there are people here with some coffins for you and your wife.
So, the dream was over. Aristide was gone. And, best of all, the poor, disease ridden Haitians would not get their water supplies, would have to forget that they were human beings deserving of rights and respect; they would still be dipping water from gutters and puddles.
There is a report out this last week which chronicles this bestial farce in excruciatingly painful detail. It is published by a coalition of NGOs: the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice and its affiliate the International Human Rights Clinic at Mew York University's School of Law, and Partners in Health, now the largest health care providers in Haiti with its sister organization in Haiti, Zanmi Lasante, treating almost 2 million patients last year, building houses and treating malnutrition as well as AIDS and TB and The report is in English but is called in Haitian creole Wòch nan Soley : The Denial of the Right to Water in Haiti. Woch nan soley may be loosely translated into jamaican creole as "Rock stone a ribba bottam neva know sun hot."
It is an irresistible true story of some of the most depraved mischief ever visited upon any people, anywhere by another people. It may be downloaded from the web at the websites of any of the authors. Partners in Health may be found at www.pih.org. The RFK center at www.rfkmemorial.org and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at chrgj.org.
Read it and weep with rage.
John Maxwell of the University of the West Indies (UWI) is the veteran Jamaican journalist who in 1999 single-handedly thwarted the Jamaican government's efforts to build houses at Hope, the nation's oldest and best known botanical gardens. His campaigning earned him first prize in the 2000 Sandals Resort's Annual Environmental Journalism Competition, the region's richest journalism prize. He is also the author of How to Make Our Own News: A Primer for Environmentalists and Journalists. Jamaica, 2000. Mr. Maxwell can be reached at jankunnu@gmail.com
Copyright© 2008 John Maxwell
None Dare Call It Genocide
by John Maxwell
This article originally appeared in Jamaica Observer.
It may come as a surprise to many more Europeans than to American white people that a great many intelligent and sophisticated people of African ancestry are convinced that there are important classes of whites who are conspiring to wipe them off the face of the Earth.
This may be the most pervasive conspiracy theory of all because it is made more credible by an impressive history of genocidal attacks on black people and other non-whites. Advocates for "Indians" of the Amazon say the natives believe they are threatened not simply by greedy ranchers and gold miners but by missionaries from the United states, hoping to clear oil-rich areas of the indigenous populations as in Darfur. In Bolivia, for example, the recent attempt by some provinces to disaffiliate themselves from the rest of the state is seen as a kind of proto-genocide aimed at separating the richest land from control by the majority Indian populations.
The slave trade was itself a genocidal operation as well as a plutocratic enterprise, and there are those who say that the damage done by the slave trade has been grievously underestimated, in order to deprecate the importance of Africans and their civilizations and, therefore, their worth in the world.
King Leopold's "civilizing" assault on the Congolese, described by him as a charitable endeavor comparable in intent to the Red Cross, was able to kill 10 million Congolese in 20 years, suggesting that the toll of the slave trade may have been grossly underestimated. In South Africa, the 50 year Apartheid regime was not only explicitly anti-African, but in its terminal stages was frantically developing biocidal agents to eliminate and exterminate black people all over the world. Dr. Wouter Basson, a cardiologist, was the lead scientist in the attempt to sanitize the world for white people. He still practices medicine in South Africa.
The United States has always had a bad reputation in race matters. Although a black Barbadian, Crispus Attucks was the first American military casualty of the Revolutionary war, and blacks from Haiti, including the later Emperor of Haiti Henri Cristophe, fought for American Independence, blacks were infamously defined as only three fifths human when the new state proclaimed its freedom and independence.
It was probably no surprise that twenty years later when the new state of Haiti proclaimed its own independence, the Haitians, having fought for freedom over three centuries, thought it so precious that they implemented the first universal declaration of human rights, valuing every human being, male and female, adult and child, as essentially entitled to the same rights.
Ever since then the Americans and the Haitians have been at odds over freedom and human rights and the United States has felt able, whenever it chose, to "intervene" to put the Haitians in their proper place.
There is not enough time to detail the various methods used to pacify the restless natives of Haiti, including dive-bombing peasants in the 1920s, installing a cruel and corrupt army in the thirties and watching paternally as the army and the elite, empowered by the US, wreaked their sadistic and oppressive will on the Haitian people.
Having tolerated and fostered the wicked Duvalier dictatorships for 30 years, the US and its elite clients were not about to let democracy loose on the Haitian people. And when the Haitians decided to reclaim their freedom under the leadership of Jean Bertrand Aristide, the Americans first sabotaged and then aborted the Haitians' dreams of democracy, first by blackmail and then at gunpoint.
‘Rock stone a' river bottam'
If the Americans had left the Haitians to their own devices they would probably be just as poor but a lot less miserable.
When Jean Bertrand Aristide took office in Haiti in 1990 it was with the enthusiastic approval of the Haitian people, who saw in him the man of their dreams of emancipation, the little black priest who knew them and what they wanted to do. The Duvaliers and their successor military rulers allowed the parasitic elite, Haitian/American businessmen and other foreigners with "dual citizenship" to rape and pillage Haiti. Aristide meant to build paradise on the dungheap their oppressors had created. That was not the American/elite plan.
They threw him out after a few months but relented under pressure to accept him back in 1994 to serve out the few months left of his term. When he campaigned again for reelection after the Preval interregnum (Haitian presidents are limited to one term) the Americans directed by the International Republic Institute and US AID poured millions into Haiti to set up anti-Aristide movements. It didn't work but they continued with campaigns of lies, slander and political doublespeak designed to discredit him internationally, if not in Haiti.
Since they couldn't move his people they hit on a brilliant idea. They would make it impossible for him to govern.
"The prevalence of disease and malnutrition is staggering in Haiti. The country is plagued by the highest HIV rates in the hemisphere, representing nearly 60 percent of the known HIV infections in the Caribbean. Tuberculosis remains endemic and is a significant cause of mortality. Malaria-nearly non-existent in many other Caribbean countries-remains a deadly problem in Haiti. Even simple prevention measures, such as childhood vaccination for tuberculosis, are woefully lacking.
"Water-related diseases are also rampant throughout Haiti. For example, in 1999, infectious diarrhea was found to be the second leading cause of death in Haiti. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 88 percent of diarrhea cases in the world result from the combination of unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and improper hygiene.xlii In the same 1999 study, gastro-intestinal infection was the leading cause of under-five mortality in Haiti."
‘Water is Life'
If Haiti could manage to bring clean water to the people, that alone would revolutionize the country. It would be a powerful means of raising health standards generally and preventing epidemic infant deaths. It would, by itself, be a new dawn of freedom.
The InterAmerican Development Bank agreed and in 1998 said it would lend Haiti some money to set up modern water supplies in two cities for a start. To get these loans Haiti cleaned up its debts to the international financial institutions and got ready for some progress.
They are still waiting. The water supplies, intended to reduce disease and infant mortality were repeatedly blocked by the United States and its accomplices. The George Bush administration intervened illegally to stop the IDB distributing the pittance and the other members of the Bank including France and Canada went along with the fraud. And countries like Jamaica, Trinidad and the rest of the hemisphere, caved in like terrified pimps and said not a word.
Meanwhile Aristide was getting help from Cuba to build a medical school; Dr Paul Farmer's Boston based Partners in Health was revolutionizing the management and treatment of HIV/AIDS, which had been decimating Haiti, and Aristide built more schools in three years than had been but in Haiti for the past 200.
He had to go.
Worthies such as the Jamaican descended Colin Powell swallowed the propaganda of the elite and their fascist North American friends. Luigi Einaudi, the American deputy secretary General of the Organization of American states was heard to say that all that was wrong with Haiti was that Haitians were running the place.
They would soon fix that.
Some of the most fantastic lies began to be spread about Aristide: He was a devil worshipper, a dictator, a hater of democracy, a tyrant, a terrorist, a murderer. And one fine morning in 2004, almost exactly 200 years after the worlds first declaration of human rights on the soil of Haiti, the American ambassador came to President Aristide with a message. You'd better leave old chap, or there are people here with some coffins for you and your wife.
So, the dream was over. Aristide was gone. And, best of all, the poor, disease ridden Haitians would not get their water supplies, would have to forget that they were human beings deserving of rights and respect; they would still be dipping water from gutters and puddles.
There is a report out this last week which chronicles this bestial farce in excruciatingly painful detail. It is published by a coalition of NGOs: the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice and its affiliate the International Human Rights Clinic at Mew York University's School of Law, and Partners in Health, now the largest health care providers in Haiti with its sister organization in Haiti, Zanmi Lasante, treating almost 2 million patients last year, building houses and treating malnutrition as well as AIDS and TB and The report is in English but is called in Haitian creole Wòch nan Soley : The Denial of the Right to Water in Haiti. Woch nan soley may be loosely translated into jamaican creole as "Rock stone a ribba bottam neva know sun hot."
It is an irresistible true story of some of the most depraved mischief ever visited upon any people, anywhere by another people. It may be downloaded from the web at the websites of any of the authors. Partners in Health may be found at www.pih.org. The RFK center at www.rfkmemorial.org and the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at chrgj.org.
Read it and weep with rage.
John Maxwell of the University of the West Indies (UWI) is the veteran Jamaican journalist who in 1999 single-handedly thwarted the Jamaican government's efforts to build houses at Hope, the nation's oldest and best known botanical gardens. His campaigning earned him first prize in the 2000 Sandals Resort's Annual Environmental Journalism Competition, the region's richest journalism prize. He is also the author of How to Make Our Own News: A Primer for Environmentalists and Journalists. Jamaica, 2000. Mr. Maxwell can be reached at jankunnu@gmail.com
Copyright© 2008 John Maxwell
Obama Embraces Bush's Faith-Based Corruption
George W. Bush as his mentor, Barack Obama shamelessly dives into the political sewer of "faith-based initiatives," the Republican strategy to bribe the Black preaching class. Obama takes his cues from "W," who early in his first term lured hustler/preachers by the thousands into GOP ranks by grabbing them by the greedy-bones. Rather than prepare to cast out this great corruption along with the Bush regime, Obama adopts it as his own - a shocking display of cynicism and amorality. Obama's faith-based treachery will inevitably result in a weakening of the Black progressive tradition.
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Barack Obama has wracked up a shocking number of betrayals of progressive ideals in the last several weeks, but his latest foray into the sewers of rightwing ideology puts him at the very heart of strategies developed by George W. Bush's presidency. By embracing so-called faith-based public policies, Obama has aligned himself with the most rightwing forces in American society.
First, a brief history of what Bush called his "faith-based initiatives." Early in his presidency, Bush adopted two schemes developed by the Far Right Bradley Foundation, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. One would allow churches and other religious organizations to use public money to take over public services to the poor, while at the same time cutting funding to public sector services in disproportionately Black, poor constituencies. The other Bradley Foundation project that became Bush administration policy was to provide public funds to private schools, through vouchers. Many if not most of these schools would be run by churches.
Together, private school vouchers and church-based social services became the central domestic policies targeting Black America under President Bush. Vouchers and faith-based services were the Bush regime's tools of political outreach to African Americans. It would be more accurate to say that the two initiatives were designed to carve out a Black Republican constituency for Bush where none had previously existed, by offering billions of dollars in public funds to Black preachers. In a word, Bush would build a Black Republican base through bribery.
To a large extent, it worked. Bush's faith-based initiatives and private school vouchers dangled unprecedented billions of dollars in the faces of the Black preacher class, and many were eager to cash in. The scheme was especially effective among previously nonpolitical Pentecostal clergy, many of whom suddenly became aggressively right-wing - in pursuit of federal dollars. It is widely believed that Bush garnered record-breaking numbers of Black votes in states like Ohio in 2004, based on mobilizations of Black ministers tied to faith-based Republican money. As should have been expected, Bush's lavish use of public funds to solicit greedy ministers created grave divisions among Black clergy, revealing a deep corruption in ministerial ranks.
Now Barack Obama has again shown himself to be a rank opportunist, eager to use George Bush's corrupt scheme for his own benefit, as he seeks to attract voters deep in right-wing circles. In the process, he will further the "split" in the Black church and the African American body politic as a whole, with the inevitable result that the progressive Black tradition will be battered and weakened. Once again, Obama has proven that he isn't about change - at least not change for the better. He has become a convert to Bush's kind of evangelism: bribery on a huge scale, under the guise of religious faith.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford
Barack Obama has wracked up a shocking number of betrayals of progressive ideals in the last several weeks, but his latest foray into the sewers of rightwing ideology puts him at the very heart of strategies developed by George W. Bush's presidency. By embracing so-called faith-based public policies, Obama has aligned himself with the most rightwing forces in American society.
First, a brief history of what Bush called his "faith-based initiatives." Early in his presidency, Bush adopted two schemes developed by the Far Right Bradley Foundation, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. One would allow churches and other religious organizations to use public money to take over public services to the poor, while at the same time cutting funding to public sector services in disproportionately Black, poor constituencies. The other Bradley Foundation project that became Bush administration policy was to provide public funds to private schools, through vouchers. Many if not most of these schools would be run by churches.
Together, private school vouchers and church-based social services became the central domestic policies targeting Black America under President Bush. Vouchers and faith-based services were the Bush regime's tools of political outreach to African Americans. It would be more accurate to say that the two initiatives were designed to carve out a Black Republican constituency for Bush where none had previously existed, by offering billions of dollars in public funds to Black preachers. In a word, Bush would build a Black Republican base through bribery.
To a large extent, it worked. Bush's faith-based initiatives and private school vouchers dangled unprecedented billions of dollars in the faces of the Black preacher class, and many were eager to cash in. The scheme was especially effective among previously nonpolitical Pentecostal clergy, many of whom suddenly became aggressively right-wing - in pursuit of federal dollars. It is widely believed that Bush garnered record-breaking numbers of Black votes in states like Ohio in 2004, based on mobilizations of Black ministers tied to faith-based Republican money. As should have been expected, Bush's lavish use of public funds to solicit greedy ministers created grave divisions among Black clergy, revealing a deep corruption in ministerial ranks.
Now Barack Obama has again shown himself to be a rank opportunist, eager to use George Bush's corrupt scheme for his own benefit, as he seeks to attract voters deep in right-wing circles. In the process, he will further the "split" in the Black church and the African American body politic as a whole, with the inevitable result that the progressive Black tradition will be battered and weakened. Once again, Obama has proven that he isn't about change - at least not change for the better. He has become a convert to Bush's kind of evangelism: bribery on a huge scale, under the guise of religious faith.
For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
Cynthia McKinney Deserves Your Support, Obama Does Not
Former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who seems poised to capture the Green Party presidential nomination, in Chicago, this month, "is at this juncture in history the only vehicle through which progressives can both register their outrage at Barack Obama and begin the process of rebuilding a mass, Black-led movement for real social change." Meanwhile, the frequency of Obama's Right turns seem to increase in direct proportion to the nearness of the general election. "Surely no one with a brain any longer believes that Obama is a closet progressive, or even a genuine liberal." The question is, How many progressives will put their votes and resources to honorable use?
A Campaign Foreign Policy Focus by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
"We have to bring the war in Iraq to a respectable, responsible and honorable end," said Barack Obama, sharing a platform with Hillary Clinton in Unity, New Hampshire, last week. The list of qualifiers and impediments to a quick exit from Iraq lengthens with each Obama lurch to the Right. The closer the Illinois senator gets to the White House, the farther he projects the Iraq occupation into a future just as murky as that envisioned by George Bush and John McCain. In Obama's endlessly conditional world, withdrawal from Iraq must be done "responsibly" - meaning, in actuality, that the U.S. must retain the power to keep the Iraqis "responsive" to American military, economic and political demands. A U.S. military pullout (of who knows how many troops, since Obama has always been elusive on the question) must be "honorable" - meaning, it should not give the appearance of weakness or admission of criminality. Most important, the U.S. must emerge from the withdrawal (or reduction, or draw-down, or other conjure-word) in a position of "respect" - a total impossibility, unless respect actually means evoking terror throughout the neighborhood at the very thought of ever again provoking the Americans into violating the laws of modern civilization.
Such is the endless elasticity of terms like "peace" and "withdrawal" when mouthed by Barack Obama, a master of bait-and-switch, a game he apparently believes he can play indefinitely on the people of the United States and the planet. The general debasement of language in the U.S. political culture - a degeneration that devalues meaning and facts, cause and effect, in favor of bells, whistles, hype and prettily-packaged but hollow "hope" - provides a perfect soundstage for Obama's politics of vapidity, in which no term has reliable, lasting definition. Only in a flim-flam market culture, in which old products are packaged as "new and improved" and senile reactionary farts like Ronald Reagan are deemed "revolutionaries," could Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Democratic congressional leadership masquerade as proponents of peace - even as virtually the entire senatorial Party endorses another $162.5 billion for Iraq-Afghanistan war funding.
Obama is confident he can retain the "peace candidate" label while erecting successive obstacles to actual, physical withdrawal from Iraq, and while simultaneously pledging to add 92,000 troops to the U.S. Armed Forces in order "to fight two wars and defend our homeland." His confidence is well-placed, not just because he is the Big Money Candidate in the current historical shift of corporate dollars from Republicans to Democrats - money that buys a mass version of reality - but because generations of two-party homogenized gibberish has rendered millions of Americans incapable of distinguishing between fact and fantasy, between waging war and pursuing peace.
The true voices of peace speak clearly, in simple language. "The U.S. should withdraw all troops and mercenaries from Iraq in as orderly a fashion as possible," says former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, candidate for the Green Party's presidential nomination.
"This withdrawal should be quickly accomplished, since the troops and the equipment were all pre-positioned in the area to start with, at the start of the invasion."
No flim-flam, no equivocations, no inventing of excuses to prolong the crime against peace (a Nuremburg capital offense). McKinney speaks as both a former U.S. Representative and a movement activist, one of the architects of the Reconstruction Party's Power to the People Platform, which declares:
"We need an end to all wars and occupations by U.S. forces, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need an immediate cessation of funding for war. We need prosecution for all individuals guilty of violating the law, including having committed or authorized crimes against humanity, crimes against the peace, torture, or war crimes. We need a complete renunciation of the pre-emptive war doctrine. We need an end to all wars and war's utility. We need to dismantle the apparatus that implements schemes of regime change around the world, and that instead assists in self-determination of all peoples."
The platform on which McKinney runs is straightforward, eminently understandable, and in conformance with the substance and spirit of international law. It is what Barack Obama used to pretend to say, in front of progressive audiences, only without his mitigating language designed for ease of reversal - commonly called flip-flop, but more accurately, betrayal - terms that ultimately smother peace in a pillow of words like "respectable, responsible and honorable."
This is how Obama uses his impressive language skills: to lure constituencies that seek peace into the maelstroms of war; to assault the integrity of language itself with his relentless tinkering with meanings, until finally, his original peaceful promises turn into their warlike opposites.
Obama's modus operandi is consistent and, especially after his recent flurry of policy reversals, transparent to all who care to observe him dispassionately. He is a word-hustler, a slickster, a politician/actor who has always been eager to serve the global aims of the very rich. That's why, back in the summer of 2003, while a candidate for the Illinois Democratic U.S. senatorial nomination, he had to be pressured (by Bruce Dixon and me) to have his name removed from the corporatist Democratic Leadership Council membership list. And that's why, five years later, he stripped off his anti-NAFTA clothing to announce on CNBC, the businessman's cable source: "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market."
As Naomi Klein wrote in "Obama's Chicago Boys" (June 14, The Nation), Obama "is thoroughly embedded in the mind-set known as the Chicago School," established by Ronald Reagan's favorite economist, Milton Friedman, at the University of Chicago, where Obama taught constitutional law for ten years. Obama's chief economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, is on the faculty. It was Goolsbee who, back in February, urged the rightwing Canadian government not to pay too much attention to Obama's campaign critiques of NAFTA, explaining that the candidate's rhetoric was "more reflective of political maneuvering than policy."
Goolsby spoke the truth. Obama has maneuvered himself out of the anti-NAFTA camp, entirely. As he told Nina Easton of Fortune, the quintessential ruling class magazine:
"Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake," despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.
Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? "Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don't exempt myself," he answered.
Obama used to say he would reexamine NAFTA in its totality. Now he says, "I'm not a big believer in doing things unilaterally." He has capitulated.
But there is an unwavering progressive in the race. "The practical effect of NAFTA is that it is an anti-union policy," says Green candidate Cynthia McKinney. "Why US unions would support a political party [the Democrats] that has decisively contributed to their own demise, is beyond me. I support the international right to unionize. My legislation, the Corporate Responsibility Act and the TRUTH Act sought to compel US corporations operating abroad to abide by U.S. labor, environmental standards, thereby lifting up workers in other parts of the world, not exploiting them. The Reconstruction Movement Draft Manifesto also calls for repeal of Taft Hartley, to strengthen workers' rights in this country."
McKinney cites the Power to the People Platform: "We need to promote and enact laws for U.S. corporations that keep labor standards high at home and raise them abroad. Toward that end, it is clear that we need a repeal of NAFTA, CAFTA, the Caribbean FTA, and the U.S.-Peru FTA and justice for immigrant workers, including an end to the guest-worker program riddled with abuses."
Both Black and white progressives deliberately made themselves irrelevant to the Democratic campaign by failing to challenge Obama before and during the primary season. Now there is one remaining chance to put a healthy fear into Obama and to help build a Black-led movement that will fight for progressive values after the election is over: solidarity with Cynthia McKinney.
Surely no one with a brain any longer believes that Obama is a closet progressive, or even a genuine liberal. Last month he finally confessed that Black Agenda Report has been right about him all the time: he's Hillary Clinton's political clone "If you look at my positions and Senator Clinton's, there's not a lot of difference, which is why it's so easy for advisers, senior advisers of Senator Clinton, to support my candidacy," said Obama, unveiling his roster of national security advisors.
And what a "Back to the Future" crew of Bill Clinton and Bush #1 retrograde hacks he has chosen! Obama's core group of foreign policy gurus is non-change personified - U.S. imperialism from the pre-Bush #2 era in the flesh. (See "Background of Obama's Foreign Policy Group," Institute for Public Accuracy.) Endless war is written on their faces. Progressives should have taken Obama seriously when he announced to everyone who would listen, back in March, "The truth is that my foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional, bipartisan, realistic foreign policy of George Bush's father, John F. Kennedy, of in some ways Ronald Reagan."
Obama had the gall to praise Reagan and the elder Bush while on a "Stand for Change" bus tour.
Cynthia McKinney offers real change - peace for a change.
"The United States should and must engage the world, but not in empire, not in military," said McKinney, who was first elected to the U.S. Congress from a suburban Atlanta district in 1992.
"Ninety percent of the US security budget is dedicated to some military engagement with the world. The United States should stop arming factions, supporting factions, new elections should be held [in Iraq] with international advisors, and the "coalition of the willing" should work with the United Nations to disarm and restore to the extent possible the Iraqi civil sector. The Reconstruction Draft Manifesto calls for an end to US militarism and the establishment of a Department of Peace by restructuring the US State Department."
So it does. The manifesto is a comprehensive movement document, a basis for political action beyond the narrow confines of electoral contests. "Sadly," says the manifesto, "the Bush - Pelosi war policy is a formula for endless global conflict, deterioration of the rule of law among nations, and growing impoverishment, indebtedness and evisceration of civil liberties at home."
More and more each day, "the Bush-Pelosi war policy" is also Barack Obama's policy, as further evidenced by his about-face on Bush spying on U.S. citizens with the aid of U.S. telecom companies.
In going the extra, unrequested mile for AIPAC, the Israel lobby, Obama moved to the Right of every U.S. president in history. Obama's blustering vow that Jerusalem will remain forever an "undivided" "Jewish" city would lock the U.S. into a position unacceptable to every Arab or Muslim government on Earth. His bellicosity regarding Iran differs from John McCain's, only in that Obama would theoretically deign to hold talks with Iranians "at a time and place of my choosing," while refusing to rule out a preemptive strike.
Every Obama foreign policy instinct seems to support the "special" and unlimited "relationship" with Israel, robust defense of American Manifest Destiny, ever-increasing war expenditures, and inherent supra-national, extra-legal U.S. rights - formulas for planetary doom. On not one major foreign policy front does Obama any longer advocate positions consistent with peaceful planetary development. Not one!
It's time for people claiming to be progressives who supported Obama, to accept that they were bamboozled by a champion slickster. Actually, that's putting the best face on the situation, since most of Obama's progressive credentials were simply wished into existence by folks who were tired of even pretending to fight. Obama now dares to drop all pretense of progressivism, trusting that there will be no ramifications on the Left, especially among the otherwise most dependable progressive constituency, African Americans.
Will the next few weeks and months prove Obama right? Cynthia McKinney deserves Black and Left support, while Obama manifestly does not.
McKinney, whose last act in Congress was to submit articles of impeachment against George Bush in 2006; who courageously questioned the White House version of events before and after September 11, 2001; who acted as a one-person conscience of the House Armed Services Committee, speaking out against corporate and military mega-theft under both Clinton and Bush; who has with amazing consistency always placed principle above her own personal and electoral fortunes, is at this juncture in history the only vehicle through which progressives can both register their outrage at Obama and begin the process of rebuilding a mass, Black-led movement for real social change. (Ralph Nader cannot, for reasons of temperament and race, achieve such dual purposes.)
On Venezuela, the difference between Obama and McCain is narrow, indeed: Obama has reflexively included popularly (and repeatedly) elected President Hugo Chavez among the world's "rogue" leaders, deriding his "predictable yet perilous mix of anti-American rhetoric, authoritarian government, and checkbook diplomacy," while McCain's pitiful verbal skills at first allowed him only to sputter that Chavez is "wacko." More recently, McCain vowed to "work to impede Venezuela and Bolivia from following the same path of failure that Castro followed in Cuba." McCain criticized Obama for, again, being theoretically prepared to meet with Chavez. Not to be outdone, Obama held a match to the region, condoning the Colombian narco-state's armed intrusion into the territory of Ecuador, a nation friendly to Venezuela.
McKinney's position on the region is as follows:
"It is totally irresponsible to call Hugo Chavez an ‘oil tyrant' as published some time ago. Totally irresponsible to support the violation of the territorial integrity of Ecuador, a country that has signaled its desire to join the framework for peace and against destabilization by pulling out of the school of the Americas.... I pledge untiring support for self-determination in Bolivia, wracked now by a secessionist-type ‘autonomy' movement, probably fomented outside Bolivia's borders."
Obama wholeheartedly backs the militarization of Africa through the new U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM. "There will be situations that require the United States to work with its partners in Africa to fight terrorism with lethal force. Having a unified command operating in Africa will facilitate this action," said Obama.
McKinney has acted as a sentinel for Africa, on guard against U.S. recolonization of the continent. She correctly regards AFRICOM as a threat to the region. "More than likely, this force will be used in just the same way as Plan Colombia is used -- to police dissent and punish the innocent solely for pecuniary reasons. The last thing Africa needs is AFRICOM, U.S. soldiers, or a School of the Americas-type relationship with Africa."
When Obama is not carrying imperial water in the bullying of weaker nations, he is silent on burning global issues - especially those of keen interest to African Americans.
The December 2006 U.S.-instigated Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, which according to the United Nations created "the worst [and still ongoing] humanitarian crisis in Africa," elicits not a peep from Obama. In fact, the only comments from Obama on Somalia that we have found are his complaints about pictures taken during a trip to his father's homeland, Kenya, depicting Obama in the ceremonial tribal garb of the overwhelming Muslim Somalis.
McKinney has repeatedly denounced the U.S. overthrow of Haiti's elected government in 2004, the kidnapping and exile of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, and Brazil's and the United Nation's role in occupying the country on behalf of the Americans.
Obama's last recorded comments on Haiti, from 2005, were summarized on his Senate web site:
"Obama said he favors a congressional fact-finding mission to Haiti. He said additional aid is needed there, but it must come with strings attached to ensure it is used properly and not to line the pockets of politicians, as happened in his father's native Kenya."
This is apparently all that Obama has to say about the bloody suppression of the Haitian nation by the U.S. and its allies.
There can be no effective reasoning with those African Americans who want only that a member of The Race occupy the Oval Office - no matter the character and politics of that Black individual. But self-described progressives of all races cannot excuse their own docility in the face of Obama's rightward lunge - especially when there exists one last opportunity to threaten the Democratic nominee-to-be with a backlash against his betrayals of progressive principles - one last chance to affect Obama's behavior before Election Day, November 4, and beyond.
Cynthia McKinney has made herself available to the Green Party's convention in Chicago, July 10-12, and will almost surely be their nominee.
If progressives cannot bring themselves to vote honorably, they can at the very least go to McKinney's campaign site and send money. Even a little principled behavior is better than none at all.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
A Campaign Foreign Policy Focus by BAR executive editor Glen Ford
"We have to bring the war in Iraq to a respectable, responsible and honorable end," said Barack Obama, sharing a platform with Hillary Clinton in Unity, New Hampshire, last week. The list of qualifiers and impediments to a quick exit from Iraq lengthens with each Obama lurch to the Right. The closer the Illinois senator gets to the White House, the farther he projects the Iraq occupation into a future just as murky as that envisioned by George Bush and John McCain. In Obama's endlessly conditional world, withdrawal from Iraq must be done "responsibly" - meaning, in actuality, that the U.S. must retain the power to keep the Iraqis "responsive" to American military, economic and political demands. A U.S. military pullout (of who knows how many troops, since Obama has always been elusive on the question) must be "honorable" - meaning, it should not give the appearance of weakness or admission of criminality. Most important, the U.S. must emerge from the withdrawal (or reduction, or draw-down, or other conjure-word) in a position of "respect" - a total impossibility, unless respect actually means evoking terror throughout the neighborhood at the very thought of ever again provoking the Americans into violating the laws of modern civilization.
Such is the endless elasticity of terms like "peace" and "withdrawal" when mouthed by Barack Obama, a master of bait-and-switch, a game he apparently believes he can play indefinitely on the people of the United States and the planet. The general debasement of language in the U.S. political culture - a degeneration that devalues meaning and facts, cause and effect, in favor of bells, whistles, hype and prettily-packaged but hollow "hope" - provides a perfect soundstage for Obama's politics of vapidity, in which no term has reliable, lasting definition. Only in a flim-flam market culture, in which old products are packaged as "new and improved" and senile reactionary farts like Ronald Reagan are deemed "revolutionaries," could Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Democratic congressional leadership masquerade as proponents of peace - even as virtually the entire senatorial Party endorses another $162.5 billion for Iraq-Afghanistan war funding.
Obama is confident he can retain the "peace candidate" label while erecting successive obstacles to actual, physical withdrawal from Iraq, and while simultaneously pledging to add 92,000 troops to the U.S. Armed Forces in order "to fight two wars and defend our homeland." His confidence is well-placed, not just because he is the Big Money Candidate in the current historical shift of corporate dollars from Republicans to Democrats - money that buys a mass version of reality - but because generations of two-party homogenized gibberish has rendered millions of Americans incapable of distinguishing between fact and fantasy, between waging war and pursuing peace.
The true voices of peace speak clearly, in simple language. "The U.S. should withdraw all troops and mercenaries from Iraq in as orderly a fashion as possible," says former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, candidate for the Green Party's presidential nomination.
"This withdrawal should be quickly accomplished, since the troops and the equipment were all pre-positioned in the area to start with, at the start of the invasion."
No flim-flam, no equivocations, no inventing of excuses to prolong the crime against peace (a Nuremburg capital offense). McKinney speaks as both a former U.S. Representative and a movement activist, one of the architects of the Reconstruction Party's Power to the People Platform, which declares:
"We need an end to all wars and occupations by U.S. forces, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. We need an immediate cessation of funding for war. We need prosecution for all individuals guilty of violating the law, including having committed or authorized crimes against humanity, crimes against the peace, torture, or war crimes. We need a complete renunciation of the pre-emptive war doctrine. We need an end to all wars and war's utility. We need to dismantle the apparatus that implements schemes of regime change around the world, and that instead assists in self-determination of all peoples."
The platform on which McKinney runs is straightforward, eminently understandable, and in conformance with the substance and spirit of international law. It is what Barack Obama used to pretend to say, in front of progressive audiences, only without his mitigating language designed for ease of reversal - commonly called flip-flop, but more accurately, betrayal - terms that ultimately smother peace in a pillow of words like "respectable, responsible and honorable."
This is how Obama uses his impressive language skills: to lure constituencies that seek peace into the maelstroms of war; to assault the integrity of language itself with his relentless tinkering with meanings, until finally, his original peaceful promises turn into their warlike opposites.
Obama's modus operandi is consistent and, especially after his recent flurry of policy reversals, transparent to all who care to observe him dispassionately. He is a word-hustler, a slickster, a politician/actor who has always been eager to serve the global aims of the very rich. That's why, back in the summer of 2003, while a candidate for the Illinois Democratic U.S. senatorial nomination, he had to be pressured (by Bruce Dixon and me) to have his name removed from the corporatist Democratic Leadership Council membership list. And that's why, five years later, he stripped off his anti-NAFTA clothing to announce on CNBC, the businessman's cable source: "Look. I am a pro-growth, free-market guy. I love the market."
As Naomi Klein wrote in "Obama's Chicago Boys" (June 14, The Nation), Obama "is thoroughly embedded in the mind-set known as the Chicago School," established by Ronald Reagan's favorite economist, Milton Friedman, at the University of Chicago, where Obama taught constitutional law for ten years. Obama's chief economic adviser, Austan Goolsbee, is on the faculty. It was Goolsbee who, back in February, urged the rightwing Canadian government not to pay too much attention to Obama's campaign critiques of NAFTA, explaining that the candidate's rhetoric was "more reflective of political maneuvering than policy."
Goolsby spoke the truth. Obama has maneuvered himself out of the anti-NAFTA camp, entirely. As he told Nina Easton of Fortune, the quintessential ruling class magazine:
"Sometimes during campaigns the rhetoric gets overheated and amplified," he conceded, after I reminded him that he had called NAFTA "devastating" and "a big mistake," despite nonpartisan studies concluding that the trade zone has had a mild, positive effect on the U.S. economy.
Does that mean his rhetoric was overheated and amplified? "Politicians are always guilty of that, and I don't exempt myself," he answered.
Obama used to say he would reexamine NAFTA in its totality. Now he says, "I'm not a big believer in doing things unilaterally." He has capitulated.
But there is an unwavering progressive in the race. "The practical effect of NAFTA is that it is an anti-union policy," says Green candidate Cynthia McKinney. "Why US unions would support a political party [the Democrats] that has decisively contributed to their own demise, is beyond me. I support the international right to unionize. My legislation, the Corporate Responsibility Act and the TRUTH Act sought to compel US corporations operating abroad to abide by U.S. labor, environmental standards, thereby lifting up workers in other parts of the world, not exploiting them. The Reconstruction Movement Draft Manifesto also calls for repeal of Taft Hartley, to strengthen workers' rights in this country."
McKinney cites the Power to the People Platform: "We need to promote and enact laws for U.S. corporations that keep labor standards high at home and raise them abroad. Toward that end, it is clear that we need a repeal of NAFTA, CAFTA, the Caribbean FTA, and the U.S.-Peru FTA and justice for immigrant workers, including an end to the guest-worker program riddled with abuses."
Both Black and white progressives deliberately made themselves irrelevant to the Democratic campaign by failing to challenge Obama before and during the primary season. Now there is one remaining chance to put a healthy fear into Obama and to help build a Black-led movement that will fight for progressive values after the election is over: solidarity with Cynthia McKinney.
Surely no one with a brain any longer believes that Obama is a closet progressive, or even a genuine liberal. Last month he finally confessed that Black Agenda Report has been right about him all the time: he's Hillary Clinton's political clone "If you look at my positions and Senator Clinton's, there's not a lot of difference, which is why it's so easy for advisers, senior advisers of Senator Clinton, to support my candidacy," said Obama, unveiling his roster of national security advisors.
And what a "Back to the Future" crew of Bill Clinton and Bush #1 retrograde hacks he has chosen! Obama's core group of foreign policy gurus is non-change personified - U.S. imperialism from the pre-Bush #2 era in the flesh. (See "Background of Obama's Foreign Policy Group," Institute for Public Accuracy.) Endless war is written on their faces. Progressives should have taken Obama seriously when he announced to everyone who would listen, back in March, "The truth is that my foreign policy is actually a return to the traditional, bipartisan, realistic foreign policy of George Bush's father, John F. Kennedy, of in some ways Ronald Reagan."
Obama had the gall to praise Reagan and the elder Bush while on a "Stand for Change" bus tour.
Cynthia McKinney offers real change - peace for a change.
"The United States should and must engage the world, but not in empire, not in military," said McKinney, who was first elected to the U.S. Congress from a suburban Atlanta district in 1992.
"Ninety percent of the US security budget is dedicated to some military engagement with the world. The United States should stop arming factions, supporting factions, new elections should be held [in Iraq] with international advisors, and the "coalition of the willing" should work with the United Nations to disarm and restore to the extent possible the Iraqi civil sector. The Reconstruction Draft Manifesto calls for an end to US militarism and the establishment of a Department of Peace by restructuring the US State Department."
So it does. The manifesto is a comprehensive movement document, a basis for political action beyond the narrow confines of electoral contests. "Sadly," says the manifesto, "the Bush - Pelosi war policy is a formula for endless global conflict, deterioration of the rule of law among nations, and growing impoverishment, indebtedness and evisceration of civil liberties at home."
More and more each day, "the Bush-Pelosi war policy" is also Barack Obama's policy, as further evidenced by his about-face on Bush spying on U.S. citizens with the aid of U.S. telecom companies.
In going the extra, unrequested mile for AIPAC, the Israel lobby, Obama moved to the Right of every U.S. president in history. Obama's blustering vow that Jerusalem will remain forever an "undivided" "Jewish" city would lock the U.S. into a position unacceptable to every Arab or Muslim government on Earth. His bellicosity regarding Iran differs from John McCain's, only in that Obama would theoretically deign to hold talks with Iranians "at a time and place of my choosing," while refusing to rule out a preemptive strike.
Every Obama foreign policy instinct seems to support the "special" and unlimited "relationship" with Israel, robust defense of American Manifest Destiny, ever-increasing war expenditures, and inherent supra-national, extra-legal U.S. rights - formulas for planetary doom. On not one major foreign policy front does Obama any longer advocate positions consistent with peaceful planetary development. Not one!
It's time for people claiming to be progressives who supported Obama, to accept that they were bamboozled by a champion slickster. Actually, that's putting the best face on the situation, since most of Obama's progressive credentials were simply wished into existence by folks who were tired of even pretending to fight. Obama now dares to drop all pretense of progressivism, trusting that there will be no ramifications on the Left, especially among the otherwise most dependable progressive constituency, African Americans.
Will the next few weeks and months prove Obama right? Cynthia McKinney deserves Black and Left support, while Obama manifestly does not.
McKinney, whose last act in Congress was to submit articles of impeachment against George Bush in 2006; who courageously questioned the White House version of events before and after September 11, 2001; who acted as a one-person conscience of the House Armed Services Committee, speaking out against corporate and military mega-theft under both Clinton and Bush; who has with amazing consistency always placed principle above her own personal and electoral fortunes, is at this juncture in history the only vehicle through which progressives can both register their outrage at Obama and begin the process of rebuilding a mass, Black-led movement for real social change. (Ralph Nader cannot, for reasons of temperament and race, achieve such dual purposes.)
On Venezuela, the difference between Obama and McCain is narrow, indeed: Obama has reflexively included popularly (and repeatedly) elected President Hugo Chavez among the world's "rogue" leaders, deriding his "predictable yet perilous mix of anti-American rhetoric, authoritarian government, and checkbook diplomacy," while McCain's pitiful verbal skills at first allowed him only to sputter that Chavez is "wacko." More recently, McCain vowed to "work to impede Venezuela and Bolivia from following the same path of failure that Castro followed in Cuba." McCain criticized Obama for, again, being theoretically prepared to meet with Chavez. Not to be outdone, Obama held a match to the region, condoning the Colombian narco-state's armed intrusion into the territory of Ecuador, a nation friendly to Venezuela.
McKinney's position on the region is as follows:
"It is totally irresponsible to call Hugo Chavez an ‘oil tyrant' as published some time ago. Totally irresponsible to support the violation of the territorial integrity of Ecuador, a country that has signaled its desire to join the framework for peace and against destabilization by pulling out of the school of the Americas.... I pledge untiring support for self-determination in Bolivia, wracked now by a secessionist-type ‘autonomy' movement, probably fomented outside Bolivia's borders."
Obama wholeheartedly backs the militarization of Africa through the new U.S. Africa Command, AFRICOM. "There will be situations that require the United States to work with its partners in Africa to fight terrorism with lethal force. Having a unified command operating in Africa will facilitate this action," said Obama.
McKinney has acted as a sentinel for Africa, on guard against U.S. recolonization of the continent. She correctly regards AFRICOM as a threat to the region. "More than likely, this force will be used in just the same way as Plan Colombia is used -- to police dissent and punish the innocent solely for pecuniary reasons. The last thing Africa needs is AFRICOM, U.S. soldiers, or a School of the Americas-type relationship with Africa."
When Obama is not carrying imperial water in the bullying of weaker nations, he is silent on burning global issues - especially those of keen interest to African Americans.
The December 2006 U.S.-instigated Ethiopian invasion of Somalia, which according to the United Nations created "the worst [and still ongoing] humanitarian crisis in Africa," elicits not a peep from Obama. In fact, the only comments from Obama on Somalia that we have found are his complaints about pictures taken during a trip to his father's homeland, Kenya, depicting Obama in the ceremonial tribal garb of the overwhelming Muslim Somalis.
McKinney has repeatedly denounced the U.S. overthrow of Haiti's elected government in 2004, the kidnapping and exile of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, and Brazil's and the United Nation's role in occupying the country on behalf of the Americans.
Obama's last recorded comments on Haiti, from 2005, were summarized on his Senate web site:
"Obama said he favors a congressional fact-finding mission to Haiti. He said additional aid is needed there, but it must come with strings attached to ensure it is used properly and not to line the pockets of politicians, as happened in his father's native Kenya."
This is apparently all that Obama has to say about the bloody suppression of the Haitian nation by the U.S. and its allies.
There can be no effective reasoning with those African Americans who want only that a member of The Race occupy the Oval Office - no matter the character and politics of that Black individual. But self-described progressives of all races cannot excuse their own docility in the face of Obama's rightward lunge - especially when there exists one last opportunity to threaten the Democratic nominee-to-be with a backlash against his betrayals of progressive principles - one last chance to affect Obama's behavior before Election Day, November 4, and beyond.
Cynthia McKinney has made herself available to the Green Party's convention in Chicago, July 10-12, and will almost surely be their nominee.
If progressives cannot bring themselves to vote honorably, they can at the very least go to McKinney's campaign site and send money. Even a little principled behavior is better than none at all.
BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com
NY hospital staff lets woman die on waiting room floor
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
There's a philosophy that says a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members. If that's true - and I think it is - we're in a whole heap o' trouble.
'New York hospital officials said they are shocked by surveillance footage showing a woman falling from her chair in a hospital waiting area, writhing on the floor and dying as workers failed to help for more than an hour.'
Yeah, I'll bet they're shocked. Those cameras were no doubt installed to protect the hospital staff from liability and to provide evidence against those who might commit crimes on hospital property. Talk about ironic.
'Esmin Green, a 49-year-old psychiatric patient, had been involuntarily committed the previous morning to the psychiatric unit at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn and had waited nearly 24 hours for a bed.
After she fell to the floor at 5:32 a.m. on June 19, Green laid unattended for almost an hour before a nurse kicked her to see if she would respond, reported New York television station WNBC.
'The nurse kicked her. While she's lying on the floor, motionless. Can you say 'bedside manner'? BTW, all the videos I can find now are edited - you don't see the scenes of the nurse or the doctor. There was one unedited version I saw and the nurse tapped the woman with her toe, she wasn't trying to punt her. I wish I could find it again, but no dice. If you know where the unedited version is, please lemme know and I'll post the link.
'During that time, two hospital security guards apparently saw her but didn't do anything to help. The first walked by, and the second didn't rise from his chair until about 10 minutes later.'
Well, I guess she wasn't bothering anyone, just minding her own business, dying quietly. But it only goes from bad, to worse to...
'The tape shows a doctor walking by as well. He apparently looked at the woman but kept going.'
The security guards? Yeah, maybe I can give them a pass. The nurse? Uh, no. But the doctor?
Come on, what kind of doctor is he? I'd revoke the license of a veterinarian if he or she saw a woman (or a dog for that matter) lying motionless on the floor - in a hospital waiting area - and just turn and walk away. I don't care how busy, how overworked, how tired or whatever else he may have been - there's just no excuse for that level of callous indifference.
'The Brooklyn woman died on the floor, but not right away. The tape showed that she moved her legs and even rolled to her side, trying to get up.'
God rest her soul.
'The New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., which runs the hospital, said six people have been fired as a result of the incident, including the doctor, the nurse and the two security guards shown on the tape.'
I've read different versions, some saying that only the security guards were fired. Union rules and all that. I guess we'll have to wait and see.And this is the icing on the cake:
'While the videotape showed that she was on the floor at 6 a.m., the New York Civil Liberties Union said hospital records were filed stating that she was "awake, up and alert" at that time.'
On top of everything else, they were falsifying medical records.
We make fun of Islamic extremists for their disregard for the value of human life, yet look what happens in a major US hospital. And this instance just happened to get caught on tape and just happened to be made public. One can only image what else goes on off-camera in this and other US hospitals.
It's sad to think we've sunk so low that we have mentally ill people dying on the floors of big-city hospitals while hospital employees - including trained medial staff, sworn to save lives - do nothing and just let them die, alone.
It's sad and it's downright frightening.
(Thank you Sam for the tip!)
There's a philosophy that says a society is judged by how it treats its most vulnerable members. If that's true - and I think it is - we're in a whole heap o' trouble.
'New York hospital officials said they are shocked by surveillance footage showing a woman falling from her chair in a hospital waiting area, writhing on the floor and dying as workers failed to help for more than an hour.'
Yeah, I'll bet they're shocked. Those cameras were no doubt installed to protect the hospital staff from liability and to provide evidence against those who might commit crimes on hospital property. Talk about ironic.
'Esmin Green, a 49-year-old psychiatric patient, had been involuntarily committed the previous morning to the psychiatric unit at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn and had waited nearly 24 hours for a bed.
After she fell to the floor at 5:32 a.m. on June 19, Green laid unattended for almost an hour before a nurse kicked her to see if she would respond, reported New York television station WNBC.
'The nurse kicked her. While she's lying on the floor, motionless. Can you say 'bedside manner'? BTW, all the videos I can find now are edited - you don't see the scenes of the nurse or the doctor. There was one unedited version I saw and the nurse tapped the woman with her toe, she wasn't trying to punt her. I wish I could find it again, but no dice. If you know where the unedited version is, please lemme know and I'll post the link.
'During that time, two hospital security guards apparently saw her but didn't do anything to help. The first walked by, and the second didn't rise from his chair until about 10 minutes later.'
Well, I guess she wasn't bothering anyone, just minding her own business, dying quietly. But it only goes from bad, to worse to...
'The tape shows a doctor walking by as well. He apparently looked at the woman but kept going.'
The security guards? Yeah, maybe I can give them a pass. The nurse? Uh, no. But the doctor?
Come on, what kind of doctor is he? I'd revoke the license of a veterinarian if he or she saw a woman (or a dog for that matter) lying motionless on the floor - in a hospital waiting area - and just turn and walk away. I don't care how busy, how overworked, how tired or whatever else he may have been - there's just no excuse for that level of callous indifference.
'The Brooklyn woman died on the floor, but not right away. The tape showed that she moved her legs and even rolled to her side, trying to get up.'
God rest her soul.
'The New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., which runs the hospital, said six people have been fired as a result of the incident, including the doctor, the nurse and the two security guards shown on the tape.'
I've read different versions, some saying that only the security guards were fired. Union rules and all that. I guess we'll have to wait and see.And this is the icing on the cake:
'While the videotape showed that she was on the floor at 6 a.m., the New York Civil Liberties Union said hospital records were filed stating that she was "awake, up and alert" at that time.'
On top of everything else, they were falsifying medical records.
We make fun of Islamic extremists for their disregard for the value of human life, yet look what happens in a major US hospital. And this instance just happened to get caught on tape and just happened to be made public. One can only image what else goes on off-camera in this and other US hospitals.
It's sad to think we've sunk so low that we have mentally ill people dying on the floors of big-city hospitals while hospital employees - including trained medial staff, sworn to save lives - do nothing and just let them die, alone.
It's sad and it's downright frightening.
(Thank you Sam for the tip!)
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Texas man cleared in shooting deaths of 2 men
Shooter suspected men of burglarizing his neighbor's home
updated 6:09 p.m. ET, Mon., June. 30, 2008
HOUSTON - A Texas man who shot and killed two men he suspected of burglarizing his neighbor's home was cleared in the shootings Monday by a grand jury.
Joe Horn, 61, shot the two men in November after he saw them crawling out the windows of a neighbor's house in the Houston suburb of Pasadena.
Horn called 911 and told the dispatcher he had a shotgun and was going to kill the men. The dispatcher pleaded with him not to go outside, but Horn confronted the men with a 12-gauge shotgun and shot both in the back.
"The message we're trying to send today is the criminal justice system works," Harris County District Attorney Kenneth Magidson said.
Horn's attorney, Tom Lambright, has said his client believed the two men had broken into his neighbor's home and that he shot them only when they came into his yard and threatened him.
The suspected burglars, Hernando Riascos Torres, 38, and Diego Ortiz, 30, were unemployed illegal immigrants from Colombia. Torres was deported to Colombia in 1999 after a 1994 cocaine-related conviction.
The episode touched off protests from civil rights activists who said the shooting was racially motivated and that Horn took the law into his own hands. Horn's supporters defended his actions, saying he was protecting himself and being a good neighbor to a homeowner who was out of town.
"I understand the concerns of some in the community regarding Mr. Horn's conduct," Magidson said. "The use of deadly force is carefully limited in Texas law to certain circumstances ... In this case, however, the grand jury concluded that Mr. Horn's use of deadly force did not rise to a criminal offense."
Lambright did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment from The Associated Press.
Texas law allows people to use deadly force to protect themselves if it is reasonable to believe they are in mortal danger. In limited circumstances, people also can use deadly force to protect a neighbor's property; for example, if a homeowner asks a neighbor to watch over his property while he's out of town.
It's not clear whether the neighbor whose home was burglarized asked Horn to watch over his house.
updated 6:09 p.m. ET, Mon., June. 30, 2008
HOUSTON - A Texas man who shot and killed two men he suspected of burglarizing his neighbor's home was cleared in the shootings Monday by a grand jury.
Joe Horn, 61, shot the two men in November after he saw them crawling out the windows of a neighbor's house in the Houston suburb of Pasadena.
Horn called 911 and told the dispatcher he had a shotgun and was going to kill the men. The dispatcher pleaded with him not to go outside, but Horn confronted the men with a 12-gauge shotgun and shot both in the back.
"The message we're trying to send today is the criminal justice system works," Harris County District Attorney Kenneth Magidson said.
Horn's attorney, Tom Lambright, has said his client believed the two men had broken into his neighbor's home and that he shot them only when they came into his yard and threatened him.
The suspected burglars, Hernando Riascos Torres, 38, and Diego Ortiz, 30, were unemployed illegal immigrants from Colombia. Torres was deported to Colombia in 1999 after a 1994 cocaine-related conviction.
The episode touched off protests from civil rights activists who said the shooting was racially motivated and that Horn took the law into his own hands. Horn's supporters defended his actions, saying he was protecting himself and being a good neighbor to a homeowner who was out of town.
"I understand the concerns of some in the community regarding Mr. Horn's conduct," Magidson said. "The use of deadly force is carefully limited in Texas law to certain circumstances ... In this case, however, the grand jury concluded that Mr. Horn's use of deadly force did not rise to a criminal offense."
Lambright did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment from The Associated Press.
Texas law allows people to use deadly force to protect themselves if it is reasonable to believe they are in mortal danger. In limited circumstances, people also can use deadly force to protect a neighbor's property; for example, if a homeowner asks a neighbor to watch over his property while he's out of town.
It's not clear whether the neighbor whose home was burglarized asked Horn to watch over his house.
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