I watched Barack Obama's acceptance speech for the democratic party nomination on CNN and I must say that I am impressed. He lit John McCain's ass up like a Christmas tree. Barack Obama bitched slapped John McCain before the world.
He called into question McCain's temperament and judgment to be commander-in-chief and said that he said that he would chase bin Laden to the gates of hell, but will not go to the cave where he lives. What a kick to the nuts. Obama told the republicans that they need to "own up to their failures".
I was actually in awe because Obama actually did what Senator Kerry failed to do back in 2004 and that was strike back at the republican party negative attacks. He has the republicans scrambling and to be honest, I cannot see him losing this election.
However, with suspect voting machines and denying people their right to vote at the polls, I would not be surprised if John McCain gets in the white house. As for now, Obamania has the momentum and is going at full speed. Obama's speech was acidic and took no prisoners.
Wow, and this is coming from a person who don't trust Obama and believes he's more dangerous than a president McCain. Anyway, I am looking forward to hearing what the republicans will say and what dirty tactics they will be sinking down to. One major thing that I picked up from Obama's acceptance speech tonight is that if the republicans swiftboat him, he will strike back. He's definately no John Kerry. That old fart McCain probably exploded as Obama slapped him with the gloves.
Now that this Obama buzz is waning, I'll be going back to posting various articles from www.blackagendareport.com that talk about the real Barack Obama. Cynthia McKinney and Ralph Nader are better choices for president. Even Ron Paul and Dennis Kuccinich were better choices.
Is there going to be change? Will that change be for the better? We'll just have to wait and see.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Pakistani Democracy -- and Ours
[col. writ. 8/18/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
With news of the abrupt resignation of Pakistani general-cum-president, Pervez Musharraf, comes the stark realization that, in Islamabad, democracy means the power of the people over that of a dictator.
It also means that Pakistanis so believe in their Constitution that they were willing to confront a military dictator who violated it.
Musharraf, buffeted by the bellows of opposition, chose to switch, rather than fight. He knew that parliamentary opposition parties were intent on impeaching him for violation of the national constitution.
They protested in the streets from the elites to the poor, and Musharraf threw them into jails. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated under suspicious circumstances.
Some 7,000 miles away, another president violates the constitution at will, and breaks both statutory and international laws on torture, secret prisons, renditions, illegal detentions, wiretaps -- and on and on. But,of course, in this other democracy, the constitution is an historical artifact, held under special glass in a vacuum of a special gas, something to be worshipped from a distance, while violated daily.
And the national legislature? They favor false stability over all things -- and when the party in opposition recently gained the majority, they immediately announced impeachment was "off the table."
In a nation based on precedent, this means every president -- from now on- can feel free to violate the constitution at will. He - or she - can go to war on a whim - or lies. She may order her subordinates to torture, to kidnap, to break any law with impunity, and be sure that she is protected by precedent.
The political classes have decided that the only avenue left for the people is every four years or so, during an election where millionaires are the candidates. In the meantime, anything goes.
Right?
In the US, democracy is a word that we throw out to justify armed invasions and illegal violations of international law -- it has no intrinsic meaning.
In Pakistan, democracy is thriving and alive. It marched in the streets, it spoke in the courts, and it ran in the actions of Parliament, demanding impeachment.
In democracy, it seems, Americans have a great deal to learn.
--(c) '08 maj
With news of the abrupt resignation of Pakistani general-cum-president, Pervez Musharraf, comes the stark realization that, in Islamabad, democracy means the power of the people over that of a dictator.
It also means that Pakistanis so believe in their Constitution that they were willing to confront a military dictator who violated it.
Musharraf, buffeted by the bellows of opposition, chose to switch, rather than fight. He knew that parliamentary opposition parties were intent on impeaching him for violation of the national constitution.
They protested in the streets from the elites to the poor, and Musharraf threw them into jails. Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated under suspicious circumstances.
Some 7,000 miles away, another president violates the constitution at will, and breaks both statutory and international laws on torture, secret prisons, renditions, illegal detentions, wiretaps -- and on and on. But,of course, in this other democracy, the constitution is an historical artifact, held under special glass in a vacuum of a special gas, something to be worshipped from a distance, while violated daily.
And the national legislature? They favor false stability over all things -- and when the party in opposition recently gained the majority, they immediately announced impeachment was "off the table."
In a nation based on precedent, this means every president -- from now on- can feel free to violate the constitution at will. He - or she - can go to war on a whim - or lies. She may order her subordinates to torture, to kidnap, to break any law with impunity, and be sure that she is protected by precedent.
The political classes have decided that the only avenue left for the people is every four years or so, during an election where millionaires are the candidates. In the meantime, anything goes.
Right?
In the US, democracy is a word that we throw out to justify armed invasions and illegal violations of international law -- it has no intrinsic meaning.
In Pakistan, democracy is thriving and alive. It marched in the streets, it spoke in the courts, and it ran in the actions of Parliament, demanding impeachment.
In democracy, it seems, Americans have a great deal to learn.
--(c) '08 maj
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
'68 -- Then and Now
[col. writ. 8/19/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Ona Move!
Thank you, Re-Create '68, for inviting me to join your efforts in Denver, to practice real democracy in the shadows of the Empire.
When I think of the DNC, I'm reminded of the words of the great French writer, Voltaire, who, when speaking of the Holy Roman Empire, quipped it "was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."
The Democratic National Committee is neither democratic, nor national, nor a committee. If it were democratic why would it reject the voices of the people, who protest against its rule? If it were national, it wouldn't be driven by imperialist and globalist corporate interests. (Let us not forget William J. Clinton - perhaps the best known globalist (NAFTA?) in the country). And if it were truly a committee then anybody could join it - not just the political puppets of corporate power.
In 1968, a Democratic mayor named Daley unleashed brutal and vicious cops on people who dared protest against the Democratic Party's support for the atrocities in Vietnam. Those young people were allegedly protected under the free speech 'guarantees' of the Constitution. Instead, they got the crap beat out them.
It was imperial war then - and it's imperial war now, and only the names and faces have changed (some names - there's still a Mayor Daley in Chicago).
In fact, things are more repressive today than they were in '68, for then, anti-war activists and students could at least march through the streets. They got their asses whipped, but at least they marched. Today, city governments have built cages for protest. So much for respect for the constitution!
Now, as in LA 2000, you can get your ass whipped -- in a cage!
That is what American democracy looks like in 2008.
For another idea, look at what Pakistan did a few days ago. When the head-of-state violated the constitution, the people took to the streets. When he brought out the troops, they continued to protest. And they demanded impeachment!
There, democracy forced a dictator to resign!
There, democracy marches - ona move!
Here, democracy is in cages, hidden in the boondocks, while alleged representatives sell their souls to the highest corporate bidder, to further the interests of imperial war.
Here, politicians take the label of 'democrat', hire the cops to beat you, hire the media to slander you, so that they can send your children to war for oil pipelines, or to protect foreign despots and princes.
Here, democracy is on life-support, while paid-for politicians give mouth to mouth to imperialism, rampant globalization and the ravaging of the poor.
Our revered ancestor Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and never will." Your protests are in that great spirit of resistance.
We only need more!
Ona Move! Long Live John Africa!
I thank you all!
Mumia Abu-Jamal
(c) '08 maj
Ona Move!
Thank you, Re-Create '68, for inviting me to join your efforts in Denver, to practice real democracy in the shadows of the Empire.
When I think of the DNC, I'm reminded of the words of the great French writer, Voltaire, who, when speaking of the Holy Roman Empire, quipped it "was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire."
The Democratic National Committee is neither democratic, nor national, nor a committee. If it were democratic why would it reject the voices of the people, who protest against its rule? If it were national, it wouldn't be driven by imperialist and globalist corporate interests. (Let us not forget William J. Clinton - perhaps the best known globalist (NAFTA?) in the country). And if it were truly a committee then anybody could join it - not just the political puppets of corporate power.
In 1968, a Democratic mayor named Daley unleashed brutal and vicious cops on people who dared protest against the Democratic Party's support for the atrocities in Vietnam. Those young people were allegedly protected under the free speech 'guarantees' of the Constitution. Instead, they got the crap beat out them.
It was imperial war then - and it's imperial war now, and only the names and faces have changed (some names - there's still a Mayor Daley in Chicago).
In fact, things are more repressive today than they were in '68, for then, anti-war activists and students could at least march through the streets. They got their asses whipped, but at least they marched. Today, city governments have built cages for protest. So much for respect for the constitution!
Now, as in LA 2000, you can get your ass whipped -- in a cage!
That is what American democracy looks like in 2008.
For another idea, look at what Pakistan did a few days ago. When the head-of-state violated the constitution, the people took to the streets. When he brought out the troops, they continued to protest. And they demanded impeachment!
There, democracy forced a dictator to resign!
There, democracy marches - ona move!
Here, democracy is in cages, hidden in the boondocks, while alleged representatives sell their souls to the highest corporate bidder, to further the interests of imperial war.
Here, politicians take the label of 'democrat', hire the cops to beat you, hire the media to slander you, so that they can send your children to war for oil pipelines, or to protect foreign despots and princes.
Here, democracy is on life-support, while paid-for politicians give mouth to mouth to imperialism, rampant globalization and the ravaging of the poor.
Our revered ancestor Frederick Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and never will." Your protests are in that great spirit of resistance.
We only need more!
Ona Move! Long Live John Africa!
I thank you all!
Mumia Abu-Jamal
(c) '08 maj
Saturday, August 23, 2008
The Foreign Policy of Fools
[col. writ. 8/16/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
It is impossible to look at recent US diplomacy without discovering that it is one based more on whim and fancy, than reason.
That's because much of what passes for diplomacy and foreign policy is driven by the market, which is ultimately, the only true bipartisan feature of the nation's politics.
The market buys politicians by the bushel, and when they are slick enough to gain office, they serve corporate interests first, second, and always.
When you think about it, isn't this a perversity of democracy?
In Raj Patel's brilliant new book, Stuffed & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publ., 2008) we find a telling quotation from Robert Strauss, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, describing his relationship with the agricultural business giant, Archer Daniels Midland. Speaking of the company's former chairman, Strauss said, "Dwayne Andreas just owns me. But I mean that in a nice way" (pp.112-13).
If you visited the nation's capital, you'd doubtless find hundreds of men and women who could quite effortlessly replace ADM with Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton ad infinitum.
And it is precisely on behalf of such interests that foreign policy is made. It's not, and has never been, democracy. It's not freedom. It's none of these things. It's what's good for business.
This may seem a hard truth, but it is the truth.
The Iraq war was a pipe dream of the energy corporations, and opposed by more Americans than almost any war in generations. Who did the politicians listen to -- the people? -- or the corporations?
The impact on US foreign policy and democracy couldn't be more pronounced, as shown by incumbent President Bush's recent visit to the Middle East. America's closest allies essentially gave him the brush-off, and one US-supported leader, Lebanon's Prime Minister, Fuad Saniora, actually told Bush that he didn't have time to rap -- he had another, more important meeting -- with Hezbollah.
Indeed, several weeks later Lebanon's Parliament voted to give more power to Hezbollah.
That's one side-effect of US foreign policy; here's another.
Virtually every elected forum in Pakistan has voted for the impeachment of Pakistan's so-called President (and US ally) Pervez Musharraf, the de facto dictator who locked up his opponents, tossed lawyers in jail, and removed Supreme Court judges who didn't vote his way. Who has America supported - the dictator? -- or the People?
How's this supporting democracy?
Over the border in Afghanistan, the US supports what may be called a narcocracy -- or a narco-state.
The preferred US ally is a military junta (or dictatorship) which oppressed its people with violence and terror. We have nearly a century of examples to prove this all throughout Latin America.
What kind of foreign policy is this but an imperial one? One designed to make millions of enemies, instead of a few isolated 'friends?'
--(c) '08 maj
=========
[Source: "Hezbollah Gains Power in Lebanon," USA Today, 8/13/08, 5A; Mr. Patel's book, Stuffed & Starved, is available at:www.mhpbooks.com]
It is impossible to look at recent US diplomacy without discovering that it is one based more on whim and fancy, than reason.
That's because much of what passes for diplomacy and foreign policy is driven by the market, which is ultimately, the only true bipartisan feature of the nation's politics.
The market buys politicians by the bushel, and when they are slick enough to gain office, they serve corporate interests first, second, and always.
When you think about it, isn't this a perversity of democracy?
In Raj Patel's brilliant new book, Stuffed & Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System (Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publ., 2008) we find a telling quotation from Robert Strauss, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, describing his relationship with the agricultural business giant, Archer Daniels Midland. Speaking of the company's former chairman, Strauss said, "Dwayne Andreas just owns me. But I mean that in a nice way" (pp.112-13).
If you visited the nation's capital, you'd doubtless find hundreds of men and women who could quite effortlessly replace ADM with Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman, Occidental Petroleum, Exxon Mobil, Halliburton ad infinitum.
And it is precisely on behalf of such interests that foreign policy is made. It's not, and has never been, democracy. It's not freedom. It's none of these things. It's what's good for business.
This may seem a hard truth, but it is the truth.
The Iraq war was a pipe dream of the energy corporations, and opposed by more Americans than almost any war in generations. Who did the politicians listen to -- the people? -- or the corporations?
The impact on US foreign policy and democracy couldn't be more pronounced, as shown by incumbent President Bush's recent visit to the Middle East. America's closest allies essentially gave him the brush-off, and one US-supported leader, Lebanon's Prime Minister, Fuad Saniora, actually told Bush that he didn't have time to rap -- he had another, more important meeting -- with Hezbollah.
Indeed, several weeks later Lebanon's Parliament voted to give more power to Hezbollah.
That's one side-effect of US foreign policy; here's another.
Virtually every elected forum in Pakistan has voted for the impeachment of Pakistan's so-called President (and US ally) Pervez Musharraf, the de facto dictator who locked up his opponents, tossed lawyers in jail, and removed Supreme Court judges who didn't vote his way. Who has America supported - the dictator? -- or the People?
How's this supporting democracy?
Over the border in Afghanistan, the US supports what may be called a narcocracy -- or a narco-state.
The preferred US ally is a military junta (or dictatorship) which oppressed its people with violence and terror. We have nearly a century of examples to prove this all throughout Latin America.
What kind of foreign policy is this but an imperial one? One designed to make millions of enemies, instead of a few isolated 'friends?'
--(c) '08 maj
=========
[Source: "Hezbollah Gains Power in Lebanon," USA Today, 8/13/08, 5A; Mr. Patel's book, Stuffed & Starved, is available at:www.mhpbooks.com]
A New Russia: A New Reality
[col. writ. 8/13/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
The conflict between Russia and Georgia gives us some idea of things to come.
It shows, more than conflicts in Eastern Europe, the extra costs of the Iraqi Imperial adventure.
For America, though it would dearly love to intervene, hasn't the troops nor the material to engage the Russians on Georgia's behalf.
Instead, it is relegated to the sidelines while French President Nicolas Sarkozy mediates a cease fire between the two sides, while the US issues press releases.
The US media has, once again, echoed the administration line, which points Russians as the side which provoked the conflict. But most media can only do so if it ignores news reports from early August, which stated that Georgian troops attacked rebel fighters in South Ossetia, an impoverished mountainous region which won independence from Georgia after a bloody war in the early '90's.
The Russian incursion also shows that the country, now flush with cash, is a far cry from the debtor nation of a decade ago. This was a demonstration as much to Georgia as it was to the world, of a new Russia, aggressive, armed and willing to enter its former territories of the Soviet era.
Russian aggressiveness was made possible in part by its recent oil wealth. As a major oil power, it has profited from the rise in prices since the Iraq invasion, which sent prices soaring worldwide.
The actions of one state influences the fate and actions of other states.
And where was US outrage at military attacks on neighbors when Israel bombed Lebanon from coast to coast? When the Arab League begged the US to mediate peace between the two warring sides, America's Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, said what people in Lebanon were seeing weren't bombs, death and destruction, but "the birth pangs of democracy."
But that was then -- this is now.
Russia saw an opportunity, provided a justification; and seized it.
Sound familiar?
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: Schwirtz, Michael, "6 Die as Georgia Battles Rebel Group," Sun. New York Times, 8/3/08, p.12.]
The conflict between Russia and Georgia gives us some idea of things to come.
It shows, more than conflicts in Eastern Europe, the extra costs of the Iraqi Imperial adventure.
For America, though it would dearly love to intervene, hasn't the troops nor the material to engage the Russians on Georgia's behalf.
Instead, it is relegated to the sidelines while French President Nicolas Sarkozy mediates a cease fire between the two sides, while the US issues press releases.
The US media has, once again, echoed the administration line, which points Russians as the side which provoked the conflict. But most media can only do so if it ignores news reports from early August, which stated that Georgian troops attacked rebel fighters in South Ossetia, an impoverished mountainous region which won independence from Georgia after a bloody war in the early '90's.
The Russian incursion also shows that the country, now flush with cash, is a far cry from the debtor nation of a decade ago. This was a demonstration as much to Georgia as it was to the world, of a new Russia, aggressive, armed and willing to enter its former territories of the Soviet era.
Russian aggressiveness was made possible in part by its recent oil wealth. As a major oil power, it has profited from the rise in prices since the Iraq invasion, which sent prices soaring worldwide.
The actions of one state influences the fate and actions of other states.
And where was US outrage at military attacks on neighbors when Israel bombed Lebanon from coast to coast? When the Arab League begged the US to mediate peace between the two warring sides, America's Secretary of State, Condoleeza Rice, said what people in Lebanon were seeing weren't bombs, death and destruction, but "the birth pangs of democracy."
But that was then -- this is now.
Russia saw an opportunity, provided a justification; and seized it.
Sound familiar?
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: Schwirtz, Michael, "6 Die as Georgia Battles Rebel Group," Sun. New York Times, 8/3/08, p.12.]
Friday, August 22, 2008
Bush to Putin, “Get out now!” Putin to Bush, “Nyet!”
Information Clearing House
August 22, 2008
When Vladimir Putin heard President Bush demand that Russian troops “leave Georgia territory immediately”, he did what any sensible leader of a great nation would do; he yawned, scratched his belly and ambled over to the Kremlin frig to see if there were any left-overs from last night’s imperial banquet with the French dignitaries. He may have even smiled wistfully to himself as he peered over the Chicken Kiev and the Siberian cutlets, thinking, “Nyet, George; South Ossetia’s future is no longer negotiable”.
The illusion created by the western media, is that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are hanging on every word that emerges from the White House and gaging their strategy accordingly. Wrong. In fact, they’re not even listening; they can’t be bothered.
Whatever Bush says is irrelevant. Who cares? Not Putin, that’s for sure. Moscow is working out the details of its so-called “withdrawal plans” with the United Nations, not Washington. Bush isn’t even a part of the process; he has no say-so at all. None. His fulminations might add a few toxins to the jet stream, but other than that, they make no difference at all. Putin is in the driver’s seat now.
American’s are convinced that their activities in the world still matter. That’s because Americans are marinated in a culture of narcissism. In truth, “American exceptionalism” is just a misunderstanding of one’s own basic insignificance. The dust-up in South Ossetia will help dispel some of those illusions and clarify what little influence the US really has. Bush demagoguery and foot-stomping won’t change a thing; he’s wasting his time. This is Russia’ backyard. They’ll decide the outcome. Bush should stop his jabbering and mind his own business.
And, no; there won’t be a war with Russia; that’s all just more handwringing speculation from liberal pundits. It’s pure rubbish. The Bush administration will do what US policymakers always do when faced with a well-armed adversary; thrust their sabers into the air and rattle them ferociously while beating a hasty retreat. “Cut and run” is not a neocon bullet-point; it’s a summary of 60 years of foreign policy. In fact, the US and its good friend, Israel, sing from the same hymnal; they love blasting-away at defenseless women and children in Gaza or Falluja, but stear-clear of the guys with guns and rocket-launchers. Israel lost a mere 118 men in its 34 Day war with Hezbollah before they decided to pack it in and go home. Putin knows that; that’s why he’s been sending anti-aircraft weaponry to Iran hoping it will dissuade Israel from doing something foolish, like blowing up what’s left of the Middle East. And, it’s a good plan, too. Bush and Olmert have already shown that moral considerations don’t make a bit of difference; what matters is weapons and men who know how to use them.
Now that the Russian army is in South Ossetia, Bush, Cheney, Rice have been getting madder and more frustrated by the day. “Get out now or face the consequences”, they growl. But, Putin, with obvious disdain, just shrugs his shoulders and says, “Make me”.
Everyone in the world knows what’s going on. They can see that Putin has drawn a line in the sand and is openly challenging American credibility. This is the perfect opportunity for Bush to prove that he’s really the War President he says he is and not just a cardboard-cutout fraudster. He can show those smug Ruskis who’s really the boss. After all, he has Putin’s address, doesn’t he? He can order his war machine to turn north and head for Georgia, guns blazing. What’s stopping him?
South Ossetia is a tipping point; the culmination of 8 years of persistent violence and aggression. It is the moment of truth. Now we’ll see what the real ‘governing principle’ of the administration’s foreign policy is: is it the Bush Doctrine or the Wimp Doctrine? Many of the pundits and analysts are convinced that Bush and his clatter of gangsters will lead us into WW3, but it won’t happen. It’s just more hot air. There are more chickens in the Bush White House than there are at a KFC Poultry Farm. They’re only too eager to send some other mother’s sons to fight their wars, but they’d never risk losing anything themselves. Go ahead George; you’re the war president, President. Show the world those aren’t Lima beans hanging between your legs. Let’s see what you got?
Bush isn’t going to send American troops in South Ossetia. No way. This is a man who won’t peep his head out of the White House without 8,000 armed guards shadowing his every move and a small squadron of Apache Helicopters flying overhead. A guy like that isn’t about to take on the Russian army. Forget about it. Bush will do all his fighting from the safety of the Executive Media Center where he can duck behind the Presidential podium if a car backfires on Pennsylvania Ave. That’s his kind of fighting.
NOTES FROM LIBERATED SOUTH OSSETIA
Was the War in the Caucasus was the work of the Neocons?
Some people think so; and they could be right. Putin may have just been playing a role that was written in Washington. Does that sound crazy?
A few months ago, Putin rejected Bush’s unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence. Serbia is a traditional ally of Russia’s and Putin has no intention of allowing it to be split up by Washington. Bush’s proclamation was a violation of the UN Charter. No one has the right to simply ignore national sovereignty and carve up another country as they see fit. The UN never approved the initiative, but Bush went ahead anyway to satisfy the global ambitions of his neocon base.
So Putin did what any reasonable leader would do; he convened a meeting of his foreign policy team–many of them Soviet-era hardliners who warned him that the US could not be trusted–and decided on a plan to annex South Ossetia. (which he said he would do if Bush declared Kosovo independent) As it turns out, Israeli advisers in Georgia, wanted to strike a deal with Putin over the high-tech weapons systems that Russia had been selling to Iran. So (I believe) Putin made a deal with Israel to suspend arms-sales to Iran if Israel would trick the dim-witted Saakashvili into invading South Ossetia. That would set the stage for a Russian counter-attack and de facto annexation. Good plan, eh?
The question is; would friends of the neocons agree to pull the wool over Saakashvili’s eyes to stop Putin’s weapons shipments to Iran? No one knows for sure, but the degree of Russian preparedness before the counter-attack suggests that they had been tipped-off by people close to Saakashvili. Who would that be? Maybe someone who had something to gain, right?
Consider this excerpt from George Friedman’s article for Stratfor, “The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power”:
“The United States maintained about 130 military advisers in Georgia, along with civilian advisers, contractors involved in all aspects of the Georgian government and people doing business in Georgia. It is inconceivable that the Americans were unaware of Georgia’s mobilization and intentions. It is also inconceivable that the Americans were unaware that the Russians had deployed substantial forces on the South Ossetian frontier. U.S. technical intelligence, from satellite imagery and signals intelligence to unmanned aerial vehicles, could not miss the fact that thousands of Russian troops were moving to forward positions. The Russians clearly knew the Georgians were ready to move. How could the United States not be aware of the Russians? Indeed, given the posture of Russian troops, how could intelligence analysts have missed the possibility that the Russians had laid a trap, hoping for a Georgian invasion to justify its own counterattack?”
For the United States, the Middle East is far more important than the Caucasus, and Iran is particularly important. The United States wants the Russians to participate in sanctions against Iran. Even more importantly, they do not want the Russians to sell weapons to Iran, particularly the highly effective S-300 air defense system. Georgia is a marginal issue to the United States; Iran is a central issue. The Russians are in a position to pose serious problems for the United States not only in Iran, but also with weapons sales to other countries, like Syria.” (George Friedman, “The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power”, Stratfor)
Friedman’s summary makes the “neocon theory” seem all the more plausible. A quid pro quo with Putin would have been the only way to guarantee that Iran would not get its hands on critical defensive weaponry. Certainly, the neocons must have taken that into consideration. All they had to do was hoodwink Saakashvili and Putin would do the rest. No problemo. The outcome, however, has created a few unintended consequences. The Bush administration’s chances of securing access to the oil-rich Caspian Basin or of gaining NATO membership for Georgia are now nil. America’s gambit in Central Asia just made an unexpected crash landing.
Of course, there’s no way to verify this theory without someone stepping forward and corroborating the details. But wherever there’s trouble, there’s bound to be a few neocon fingerprints somewhere.
You Call This Freedom?
New Guidelines Would Give F.B.I. Broader Powers
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: August 20, 2008
WASHINGTON — A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.
The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations.
Congressional staff members got a glimpse of some of the details in closed briefings this month, and four Democratic senators told Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in a letter on Wednesday that they were troubled by what they heard.
The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,” the letter said. It was signed by Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
As the end of the Bush administration nears, the White House has been seeking to formalize in law and regulation some of the aggressive counterterrorism steps it has already taken in practice since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Congress overhauled the federal wiretapping law in July, for instance, and President Bush issued an executive order this month ratifying new roles for intelligence agencies. Other pending changes would also authorize greater sharing of intelligence information with the local police, a major push in the last seven years.
The Justice Department is already expecting criticism over the F.B.I. guidelines. In an effort to pre-empt critics, Mr. Mukasey gave a speech last week in Portland, Ore., describing the unfinished plan as an effort to “integrate more completely and harmonize the standards that apply to the F.B.I.’s activities.” Differing standards, he said, have caused confusion for field agents.
Mr. Mukasey emphasized that the F.B.I. would still need a “valid purpose” for an investigation, and that it could not be “simply based on somebody’s race, religion, or exercise of First Amendment rights.”
Rather than expanding government power, he said, “this document clarifies the rules by which the F.B.I. conducts its intelligence mission.”
In 2002, John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, allowed F.B.I. agents to visit public sites like mosques or monitor Web sites in the course of national security investigations. The next year, Mr. Bush issued guidelines allowing officials to use ethnicity or race in “narrow” circumstances to detect a terrorist threat.
The Democratic senators said the draft plan appeared to allow the F.B.I. to go even further in collecting information on Americans connected to “foreign intelligence” without any factual predicate. They also said there appeared to be few constraints on how the information would be shared with other agencies.
Michael German, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union and a former F.B.I. agent, said the plan appeared to open the door still further to the use of data-mining profiles in tracking terrorism.
“This seems to be based on the idea that the government can take a bunch of data and create a profile that can be used to identify future bad guys,” he said. “But that has not been demonstrated to be true anywhere else.”
The Justice Department said Wednesday that in light of requests from members of Congress for more information, Mr. Mukasey would agree not to sign the new guidelines before a Sept. 17 Congressional hearing.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: August 20, 2008
WASHINGTON — A Justice Department plan would loosen restrictions on the Federal Bureau of Investigation to allow agents to open a national security or criminal investigation against someone without any clear basis for suspicion, Democratic lawmakers briefed on the details said Wednesday.
The plan, which could be made public next month, has already generated intense interest and speculation. Little is known about its precise language, but civil liberties advocates say they fear it could give the government even broader license to open terrorism investigations.
Congressional staff members got a glimpse of some of the details in closed briefings this month, and four Democratic senators told Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey in a letter on Wednesday that they were troubled by what they heard.
The senators said the new guidelines would allow the F.B.I. to open an investigation of an American, conduct surveillance, pry into private records and take other investigative steps “without any basis for suspicion.” The plan “might permit an innocent American to be subjected to such intrusive surveillance based in part on race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, or on protected First Amendment activities,” the letter said. It was signed by Russ Feingold of Wisconsin, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
As the end of the Bush administration nears, the White House has been seeking to formalize in law and regulation some of the aggressive counterterrorism steps it has already taken in practice since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Congress overhauled the federal wiretapping law in July, for instance, and President Bush issued an executive order this month ratifying new roles for intelligence agencies. Other pending changes would also authorize greater sharing of intelligence information with the local police, a major push in the last seven years.
The Justice Department is already expecting criticism over the F.B.I. guidelines. In an effort to pre-empt critics, Mr. Mukasey gave a speech last week in Portland, Ore., describing the unfinished plan as an effort to “integrate more completely and harmonize the standards that apply to the F.B.I.’s activities.” Differing standards, he said, have caused confusion for field agents.
Mr. Mukasey emphasized that the F.B.I. would still need a “valid purpose” for an investigation, and that it could not be “simply based on somebody’s race, religion, or exercise of First Amendment rights.”
Rather than expanding government power, he said, “this document clarifies the rules by which the F.B.I. conducts its intelligence mission.”
In 2002, John Ashcroft, then the attorney general, allowed F.B.I. agents to visit public sites like mosques or monitor Web sites in the course of national security investigations. The next year, Mr. Bush issued guidelines allowing officials to use ethnicity or race in “narrow” circumstances to detect a terrorist threat.
The Democratic senators said the draft plan appeared to allow the F.B.I. to go even further in collecting information on Americans connected to “foreign intelligence” without any factual predicate. They also said there appeared to be few constraints on how the information would be shared with other agencies.
Michael German, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union and a former F.B.I. agent, said the plan appeared to open the door still further to the use of data-mining profiles in tracking terrorism.
“This seems to be based on the idea that the government can take a bunch of data and create a profile that can be used to identify future bad guys,” he said. “But that has not been demonstrated to be true anywhere else.”
The Justice Department said Wednesday that in light of requests from members of Congress for more information, Mr. Mukasey would agree not to sign the new guidelines before a Sept. 17 Congressional hearing.
Billionaires say US debts need attention
By JOSH FUNK, AP Business Writer
2 hours, 16 minutes ago
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Two billionaires used the screening of a documentary in theaters across the United States on Thursday to urge the country to come to grips with its staggering debt load.
Warren Buffett and Pete Peterson were at the premiere of the movie "I.O.U.S.A." to add their views to the film's message: An economic disaster will befall the nation if the federal government's $53 trillion in debts continue to grow.
But Buffett said at a news conference before the movie's showing that he doesn't think the country's financial picture is quite as dire as the filmmakers portray.
"I do not regard our national debt as unduly alarming," said Buffett, who is chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and is listed by Forbes magazine as the world's richest man.
Buffett said he's confident the country will be able to address its debts and remain prosperous, but he doesn't want to see the share of the U.S. gross domestic product devoted to debt continue to grow.
"We've overcome things far worse than what is going on right now," Buffett said, who was interviewed in the movie but is not backing it financially.
The film that was shown Thursday in 358 theaters nationwide details the federal government's debts. The movie is backed by Peterson — who co-founded the Blackstone Group LP private equity firm and served as commerce secretary under President Nixon — and is part of his foundation's campaign to give the ballooning debt a central role in the presidential campaign.
"What concerns me more than anything is our savings rate," Peterson said.
Peterson said the meager U.S. rate of savings today means that roughly 70 percent of the nation's debts are being bought by foreign investors, and that could create geopolitical and economic problems for the country.
A panel discussion in Omaha followed the movie and was broadcast live to the other theaters, except on the West Coast where it was shown tape-delayed. Thursday's panel discussion featured Buffett, Peterson, AARP Chief Executive Bill Novelli and William Niskanen, chairman of the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute.
Niskanen said the nation has to increase the retirement age in Social Security to at least 70 from the current range of 65 to 67. He also backed adding an income test to Medicare so those with more money pay a larger share of their health costs.
Peterson said he hopes the movie will help explain the problems debt can bring, so politicians will feel more pressure to act.
"The problem is getting the public understanding and the political will to do something about it," he said.
The "I.O.U.S.A." filmmakers followed former U.S. Comptroller David Walker as he toured the country, speaking to college groups, newspaper editorial boards and community groups about the nation's financial problems.
Most of the talks in the movie took place while Walker still ran the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that audits and evaluates the performance of the federal government.
Walker and the movie cite GAO figures that show the U.S. government owed roughly $53 trillion more than it had at the end of the 2007 fiscal year, the most recent figure available.
About $11 trillion of that covers publicly traded government debt, the amount the federal government owes to employee pensions and the cost of environmental cleanup of federal land.
The rest of the $53 trillion figure accounts for projected shortfalls in Medicare and Social Security.
The cost of covering those obligations is expected to soar as more baby boomers become eligible for the two programs.
Buffett said he doesn't believe those programs that help provide for the elderly will consume the bulk of the government's resources in the future because America will be wealthier.
"The important thing to remember is that the pie gets larger over time, and there's more to divide up," Buffett said.
But Walker, who also took part in the panel discussion, said he disagrees with Buffett's assessment because the predictions the movie highlights about the country's debt already assume the nation will be wealthier.
Walker said he hopes both the Democratic and Republican candidates for president will acknowledge the staggering amount of debt the nation carries, and pledge to appoint a bipartisan coalition next year to look for solutions.
The film also featured interviews with prominent businessmen and officials from both major political parties, such as former Federal Reserve chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker and former U.S. Treasury secretaries Paul O'Neill and Robert Rubin.
Greenspan warned that the nation cannot continue consuming more than it produces indefinitely.
"Without savings, there is no future," Greenspan said in the movie.
Thursday's screenings and panel discussion will be followed by a 12-city theatrical run beginning Friday. Peterson says he wants to have the movie shown on TV next year.
___
On the Net:
I.O.U.S.A. movie: http://www.iousathemovie.com
2 hours, 16 minutes ago
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Two billionaires used the screening of a documentary in theaters across the United States on Thursday to urge the country to come to grips with its staggering debt load.
Warren Buffett and Pete Peterson were at the premiere of the movie "I.O.U.S.A." to add their views to the film's message: An economic disaster will befall the nation if the federal government's $53 trillion in debts continue to grow.
But Buffett said at a news conference before the movie's showing that he doesn't think the country's financial picture is quite as dire as the filmmakers portray.
"I do not regard our national debt as unduly alarming," said Buffett, who is chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and is listed by Forbes magazine as the world's richest man.
Buffett said he's confident the country will be able to address its debts and remain prosperous, but he doesn't want to see the share of the U.S. gross domestic product devoted to debt continue to grow.
"We've overcome things far worse than what is going on right now," Buffett said, who was interviewed in the movie but is not backing it financially.
The film that was shown Thursday in 358 theaters nationwide details the federal government's debts. The movie is backed by Peterson — who co-founded the Blackstone Group LP private equity firm and served as commerce secretary under President Nixon — and is part of his foundation's campaign to give the ballooning debt a central role in the presidential campaign.
"What concerns me more than anything is our savings rate," Peterson said.
Peterson said the meager U.S. rate of savings today means that roughly 70 percent of the nation's debts are being bought by foreign investors, and that could create geopolitical and economic problems for the country.
A panel discussion in Omaha followed the movie and was broadcast live to the other theaters, except on the West Coast where it was shown tape-delayed. Thursday's panel discussion featured Buffett, Peterson, AARP Chief Executive Bill Novelli and William Niskanen, chairman of the libertarian-leaning CATO Institute.
Niskanen said the nation has to increase the retirement age in Social Security to at least 70 from the current range of 65 to 67. He also backed adding an income test to Medicare so those with more money pay a larger share of their health costs.
Peterson said he hopes the movie will help explain the problems debt can bring, so politicians will feel more pressure to act.
"The problem is getting the public understanding and the political will to do something about it," he said.
The "I.O.U.S.A." filmmakers followed former U.S. Comptroller David Walker as he toured the country, speaking to college groups, newspaper editorial boards and community groups about the nation's financial problems.
Most of the talks in the movie took place while Walker still ran the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that audits and evaluates the performance of the federal government.
Walker and the movie cite GAO figures that show the U.S. government owed roughly $53 trillion more than it had at the end of the 2007 fiscal year, the most recent figure available.
About $11 trillion of that covers publicly traded government debt, the amount the federal government owes to employee pensions and the cost of environmental cleanup of federal land.
The rest of the $53 trillion figure accounts for projected shortfalls in Medicare and Social Security.
The cost of covering those obligations is expected to soar as more baby boomers become eligible for the two programs.
Buffett said he doesn't believe those programs that help provide for the elderly will consume the bulk of the government's resources in the future because America will be wealthier.
"The important thing to remember is that the pie gets larger over time, and there's more to divide up," Buffett said.
But Walker, who also took part in the panel discussion, said he disagrees with Buffett's assessment because the predictions the movie highlights about the country's debt already assume the nation will be wealthier.
Walker said he hopes both the Democratic and Republican candidates for president will acknowledge the staggering amount of debt the nation carries, and pledge to appoint a bipartisan coalition next year to look for solutions.
The film also featured interviews with prominent businessmen and officials from both major political parties, such as former Federal Reserve chairmen Alan Greenspan and Paul Volcker and former U.S. Treasury secretaries Paul O'Neill and Robert Rubin.
Greenspan warned that the nation cannot continue consuming more than it produces indefinitely.
"Without savings, there is no future," Greenspan said in the movie.
Thursday's screenings and panel discussion will be followed by a 12-city theatrical run beginning Friday. Peterson says he wants to have the movie shown on TV next year.
___
On the Net:
I.O.U.S.A. movie: http://www.iousathemovie.com
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Shame on America’s battlefields and bases
By FinalCall.com News Editorial
Updated Aug 19, 2008, 11:18 pm
(FinalCall.com) - When a soldier enlists in the American military, there is perhaps no worse news than to receive the awful notification that a loved one has died. The pain and sense of loss must be almost unbearable and bring a burden that can test the strongest parents and families.
But to have a loved one who was possibly raped and murdered at the hands of a fellow soldier or battlefield colleague must bring a sense of outrage and anger that accompanies the great sense of loss. With a battlefield death, there is a ceremony and maybe the consolation that the soldier died at the service of her country. With the prospect of murder, closure can only come with justice for the life of an innocent wrongly taken.
The parents of LaVena Johnson, who was 19-year-old when she died in Balad, Iraq, are struggling with the aftermath of her death and engaged in a battle to uncover the truth. Linda and John Johnson say their daughter was mentally strong and came from a close knit family.
They don’t buy the Army’s claim that Private First Class Johnson committed suicide. The couple maintains photos and other information, much obtained under duress from the Army; don’t bear witness to a suicide. For example, for the Army story to work, LaVena would had to have held a high-powered rifle in the wrong hand and shot herself in the head. Typically suicides with a rifle involve placing the weapon under the chin or in the mouth to achieve the desperate act.
The Johnson’s said their daughter couldn’t have shot herself as described by the Army and Army photos of her of dead body offer other evidence. John Johnson said his baby girl’s nose was broken, teeth were knocked out, scratches and bruises could be seen on her body and burns were found on the right side of her back and on her right hand. Her vaginal area was “tore all to hell,” according to her father. The parents are convinced that in an attempt to hide evidence of rape, lye was apparently poured into the young woman’s private parts.
LaVena’s mother never wanted her daughter to join the military and the child’s almost daily calls home from the base communications center didn’t erase her fears. “She would try to reassure me that being there right on the base that she would be ok, but she was in a place with a bunch of Satanic predators that wore the same uniform that she did,” said Linda Johnson, of her daughter.
The couple is awaiting a response to their call for a full investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into their daughter’s death. Rep. William Clay, a Black congressman from Missouri, raised questions about the death of LaVena Johnson during a nationally televised hearing and the Army responded with a CD containing photos from her death. Before Rep. Clay raised his voice, the Army had told the Johnson’s they weren’t entitled to the photos of their dead daughter.
Rep. Clay did the right thing by raising questions about this case and the Congressional Black Caucus should fully stand behind the call for an investigation. The Johnson family is pushing forward in its quest for truth with support from Color of Change, an activist internet organization that has created an on-line petition, and Black media outlets have allowed the couple from St. Louis to share their story.
If the couple’s charges about the death of their daughter are proven true, it would not be a surprise. A horrible reality faced by women in the military today is the specter of rape and assault—not from an enemy but from someone wearing the same uniform.
While Bush administration spokesmen, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush were proud to announce Iraqi women no longer had to endure rape rooms under one-time U.S. patron Saddam Hussein as part of victory cries in Iraq, little is heard from the White House when it comes to sexual assaults and gang rapes suffered by U.S. servicewomen.
Such incidents don’t make for very good public relations materials or help sell lies about a war that was built on deceit and fabrications from the beginning. One group counted nearly 1,000 instances of Bush administration lies told to buttress its desire to go to war in Iraq.
“As my favorite playwright, Bertina Brecht, said, ‘When the leaders talk of peace, the people know the war has already begun.’ When the suits talk now about rescuing women, sisters should know that mass rapes have already started. Go to the u.s. women closest to the scene of the crime—the tens of thousands of servicewomen in khaki and desert camouflage. There they are, with M-16s in hand, in combat boots, young and fit, been through the world’s most expensive patriarchal capitalist boot camp. Are they protecting Iraqi women and children from terrorism and rape? No way. Because they’re the first line of vics themselves. They’re who gets raped first in the warmup before GI rapists even get to the Iraqi women and children. How can they protect Iraqi women and children if they can’t protect themselves?” asked essayist Bruce Lee, who wrote an on-line piece titled “For Women Only: The Rape Movement in Iraq & Men’s Anti-War Politics.”
The Denver Post reported back in 2004 that U.S. servicewomen were being victimized. “No war comes without cost, but the cost should be born out of conflict with the enemy, and not because of egregious violations by some of our own troops,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican on the Armed Services personnel subcommittee, according to the New York Times.
The sexual abuses can start long before the women even officially don a military uniform. The Associated Press reported in 2006 that 100 high school girls were raped or sexually assaulted by military recruiters.
The tendency for the Bush administration and the military to lie and engage in cover-ups and the already documented horror stories of the brutal violations of women in the U.S. armed forces demand forceful action. The Congressional Black Caucus should take the lead and the Democratic Party should follow quickly behind to get to the truth of the death of LaVena Johnson. It is shameful that little protection seems to exist for women because they took a vow to protect their country.
Related link:
U.S. Army says suicide; Parents seek investigation (FCN, 08-19-2008)
FCN is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties. Original content supplied by FCN and FinalCall.com News is Copyright © 2008 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com.
Content supplied by third parties are the property of their respective owners.
Updated Aug 19, 2008, 11:18 pm
(FinalCall.com) - When a soldier enlists in the American military, there is perhaps no worse news than to receive the awful notification that a loved one has died. The pain and sense of loss must be almost unbearable and bring a burden that can test the strongest parents and families.
But to have a loved one who was possibly raped and murdered at the hands of a fellow soldier or battlefield colleague must bring a sense of outrage and anger that accompanies the great sense of loss. With a battlefield death, there is a ceremony and maybe the consolation that the soldier died at the service of her country. With the prospect of murder, closure can only come with justice for the life of an innocent wrongly taken.
The parents of LaVena Johnson, who was 19-year-old when she died in Balad, Iraq, are struggling with the aftermath of her death and engaged in a battle to uncover the truth. Linda and John Johnson say their daughter was mentally strong and came from a close knit family.
They don’t buy the Army’s claim that Private First Class Johnson committed suicide. The couple maintains photos and other information, much obtained under duress from the Army; don’t bear witness to a suicide. For example, for the Army story to work, LaVena would had to have held a high-powered rifle in the wrong hand and shot herself in the head. Typically suicides with a rifle involve placing the weapon under the chin or in the mouth to achieve the desperate act.
The Johnson’s said their daughter couldn’t have shot herself as described by the Army and Army photos of her of dead body offer other evidence. John Johnson said his baby girl’s nose was broken, teeth were knocked out, scratches and bruises could be seen on her body and burns were found on the right side of her back and on her right hand. Her vaginal area was “tore all to hell,” according to her father. The parents are convinced that in an attempt to hide evidence of rape, lye was apparently poured into the young woman’s private parts.
LaVena’s mother never wanted her daughter to join the military and the child’s almost daily calls home from the base communications center didn’t erase her fears. “She would try to reassure me that being there right on the base that she would be ok, but she was in a place with a bunch of Satanic predators that wore the same uniform that she did,” said Linda Johnson, of her daughter.
The couple is awaiting a response to their call for a full investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee into their daughter’s death. Rep. William Clay, a Black congressman from Missouri, raised questions about the death of LaVena Johnson during a nationally televised hearing and the Army responded with a CD containing photos from her death. Before Rep. Clay raised his voice, the Army had told the Johnson’s they weren’t entitled to the photos of their dead daughter.
Rep. Clay did the right thing by raising questions about this case and the Congressional Black Caucus should fully stand behind the call for an investigation. The Johnson family is pushing forward in its quest for truth with support from Color of Change, an activist internet organization that has created an on-line petition, and Black media outlets have allowed the couple from St. Louis to share their story.
If the couple’s charges about the death of their daughter are proven true, it would not be a surprise. A horrible reality faced by women in the military today is the specter of rape and assault—not from an enemy but from someone wearing the same uniform.
While Bush administration spokesmen, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and President Bush were proud to announce Iraqi women no longer had to endure rape rooms under one-time U.S. patron Saddam Hussein as part of victory cries in Iraq, little is heard from the White House when it comes to sexual assaults and gang rapes suffered by U.S. servicewomen.
Such incidents don’t make for very good public relations materials or help sell lies about a war that was built on deceit and fabrications from the beginning. One group counted nearly 1,000 instances of Bush administration lies told to buttress its desire to go to war in Iraq.
“As my favorite playwright, Bertina Brecht, said, ‘When the leaders talk of peace, the people know the war has already begun.’ When the suits talk now about rescuing women, sisters should know that mass rapes have already started. Go to the u.s. women closest to the scene of the crime—the tens of thousands of servicewomen in khaki and desert camouflage. There they are, with M-16s in hand, in combat boots, young and fit, been through the world’s most expensive patriarchal capitalist boot camp. Are they protecting Iraqi women and children from terrorism and rape? No way. Because they’re the first line of vics themselves. They’re who gets raped first in the warmup before GI rapists even get to the Iraqi women and children. How can they protect Iraqi women and children if they can’t protect themselves?” asked essayist Bruce Lee, who wrote an on-line piece titled “For Women Only: The Rape Movement in Iraq & Men’s Anti-War Politics.”
The Denver Post reported back in 2004 that U.S. servicewomen were being victimized. “No war comes without cost, but the cost should be born out of conflict with the enemy, and not because of egregious violations by some of our own troops,” said Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican on the Armed Services personnel subcommittee, according to the New York Times.
The sexual abuses can start long before the women even officially don a military uniform. The Associated Press reported in 2006 that 100 high school girls were raped or sexually assaulted by military recruiters.
The tendency for the Bush administration and the military to lie and engage in cover-ups and the already documented horror stories of the brutal violations of women in the U.S. armed forces demand forceful action. The Congressional Black Caucus should take the lead and the Democratic Party should follow quickly behind to get to the truth of the death of LaVena Johnson. It is shameful that little protection seems to exist for women because they took a vow to protect their country.
Related link:
U.S. Army says suicide; Parents seek investigation (FCN, 08-19-2008)
FCN is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties. Original content supplied by FCN and FinalCall.com News is Copyright © 2008 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com.
Content supplied by third parties are the property of their respective owners.
The United States Draft: Will you answer the call?
By the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan
Updated Aug 20, 2008, 04:13 pm
[Editor’s note: The following excerpt is taken from a message delivered June 20, 2004 by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan at Muhammad’s Mosque No. 11 in Boston, Massachusetts.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
The United States of America is in terrible shape right now. The country is teetering on the brink of an economic collapse, but the government makes you think that you really have a lot of money. But the money is not supported by anything of value. The gross national product of the country supports the dollar bills that you have in your pocket. But one day, in the twinkling of an eye, the economy will just collapse. The wise of the country know that this is coming and they’re trying to hedge against it. But the poor Blacks and Hispanics, and even poor Whites, they don’t really know what is going on with their country.
The President of the United States, in his misadventure in Iraq, is raping the treasury of a government that already has a half a trillion dollar deficit. Then, he spends $100 billion to send troops into a country that could, in no way, threaten the United States of America.
I visited Iraq, along with my wife and members of my staff, on at least two or three occasions. The last time I was there was July 2002 (on a peace mission), about eight months before the war. When I got off the plane in Iraq, they received me like the Boston police received me here during this visit. They blocked the highways and brought me to my hotel. A female reporter asked me, “Why are you here?” I said, “I’m here to try to stop a war.” I knew that America was going to attack Iraq, and I was going to try to impress upon Saddam Hussein that he should let the inspectors into his country, because he did not have anything to hide. He should not give America a stick, because they really were looking for a pretext for war.
Years ago, when I was growing up in Roxbury, we never had guns in the streets. We would buy a switchblade or something like that, but we never had guns. Now, most of you young men think that a gun represents power. So, they bring guns into the community and you think the gun is there to protect you from your brother. But the gun is giving the enemy the pretext for the annihilation of a people.
In Gaza on the West Bank in Palestine, or Israel, we see on television, young men throwing stones at tanks—but some of them have AK-47s, like some of you. But the Israelis are not thinking about coming on the ground, fighting AK-47 to AK-47. No, they come in with tanks and helicopter gunships, shooting rockets down on unarmed people. You may say this is terrible. Of course it is, but that’s what you see happening over there. You never would think that you are going to see that happening in Roxbury, would you? Or in Harlem or on the South side and West side of Chicago or in Watts in Los Angeles? But you will, in just a few days from now.
Next year, the military is going to impose the draft. You beautiful, young men, you don’t have a job and you barely graduated from high school, if you did. So, they are going to give you an offer next year that you can’t refuse. In fact, when you turn 18 now, they are at the high schools telling you what a future you would have by joining the armed forces of the United States of America.
You don’t have any future in that, brother—they don’t have a future. Our young women are facing the same now, because they are recruiting you to the armed forces. What are you going 9,000 miles away to fight for? Who are you fighting? What have those people done to you? They call them insurgents, but the military is in that man’s house as an occupier. What are you doing there? If they rise up to kill you for being there, what are you going to say? Are you going to say, “That’s the enemy,” when you are in their house? That’s like a robber breaking into your house, taking over your house, and holding your wife and your children under arms. You are on the top floor, you hear it going on downstairs, get a pistol, run down and shoot the people that have your wife and your children—and the media calls you an insurgent who rose against a legitimate occupier of your house. Does that make sense? It’s so insane that one must wonder who could be the architect of such a policy.
So next year, you will have to decide: Am I going to go into the military because they called me or should I stand my ground? If you never thought of standing your ground against the president of the United States and an invitation to join the military, you might as well start entertaining that thought. Look at how strong you young men are, how powerful you are in beating each other up, but what we want to do is give you some legs that allow you to stand, so when the president writes in a draft letter, “Greetings. You can report to such and such place for induction into the military,” you will say, “Not me.”
You may say, “I’m an American citizen.” Who said so? When did you become a citizen? You say, “The Emancipation Proclamation freed me and I’m a citizen.” Really? Well, if you are a citizen, why don’t you have the rights and the privileges of a U.S. citizen? How can a foreigner named Schwarzenegger, a man who came here 20 years ago, become the governor of the state of California, but you have been here 400 years and he has rights that you don’t have, and you built the country.
I know that you want to be a citizen. Bless your heart. You are just like the Bible’s Prodigal Son who left his father’s house and went into a strange country to try to join himself on to be a citizen in that strange country. That’s us. He squandered everything that he had and we have lost everything here that we had when we were Africans. We don’t have our own mind anymore. We are very sick people who need a doctor to cure us from the madness imposed on us by our former slave masters and their children. You are a made people.
What do I mean “made”? You are the creation of Allah (God), but you are the make of the White man.
Allah (God) makes man; the White man makes ni---s, boys and Colored people. So, you and I are the reflection of his own sickness. He hates Black, so he taught you to do what? He’s a liar and a thief, that’s what the Bible says. So, what did he make us? He made us the worst of himself and when he looks at us, he’s looking at a mirror image. When you are ugly and you look at a mirror, you want to break it. So, he sees the mirror image of his own madness in you. So, the police come and they don’t have any love for you. It’s sad that you and I are in this condition after so many great ones have come among us to teach us.
Next year, when the draft comes, Brother Minister Don, your young sons and mine, and grandsons and daughters, they’ll be asking them to join. Muhammad Ali was the heavyweight champion of the world and a Muslim. In the ’50s, Ali said, “Them Viet Cong never called me no ni---r.” Think about that. “Why should I go over there and fight some poor rice farmers? They haven’t done anything to me. Why are you sending me there?” Ali said, “No, I’m not going.”
They stripped him of his championship, yet the brother stood up. He would not fight for America in an unjust war, but he later became the people’s champ. People loved him all over the world because he made a righteous stand. Eventually, the Supreme Court upheld his right to be a conscientious objector. So, if Muhammad Ali, as a follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was legitimately a conscientious objector, then every Black man and woman who follows the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, according to the Supreme Court’s decision, were conscientious objectors. So, we are not going to answer the call of the draft. Now, I would advise you to join the Nation of Islam.
When it gets hot in the military, come on home, brother. Say, “No, I’m not going to fight for you.” But, before you do that, you have to stop fighting and killing one another, because if you can kill one another, and that’s your own brother and sister that suffered right along with you, then what right do you have to tell the President that you won’t go to fight Iraqis or Syrians, when you are in the ’hood killing your own brother because he does not wear the right color or did not give the right hand signal?
So, you’ve got to clean that behavior up now, in order to justify saying “I’m a conscientious objector.” How are you going to have an AK-47 in your house, saying “any ni---r come up in here, he’s going to get it.” No, you have to show the world that you are a people of peace.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was such a wise and masterful teacher. He took away from us all weapons. He forbade us to carry weapons, or even have them in our homes. We didn’t need any weapons to protect us. Usually, when you’ve got a weapon in your house, and you get angry with your wife or your husband, one of you will end up dead, or both of you. That’s who’s in prison today, victims of domestic violence.
But you do not need weapons if you have The God. We, in the Nation of Islam, have never relied on weapons. When we were attacked by those who had weapons, Allah (God) delivered their weapons into our hands. You don’t need them. You have to show the world that you are a people of peace, and you can’t wait until next year to do it. You need to start doing that right now. Clean up your act.
FCN is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties. Original content supplied by FCN and FinalCall.com News is Copyright © 2008 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com. Content supplied by third parties are the property of their respective owners.
Updated Aug 20, 2008, 04:13 pm
[Editor’s note: The following excerpt is taken from a message delivered June 20, 2004 by the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan at Muhammad’s Mosque No. 11 in Boston, Massachusetts.]
In The Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful.
The United States of America is in terrible shape right now. The country is teetering on the brink of an economic collapse, but the government makes you think that you really have a lot of money. But the money is not supported by anything of value. The gross national product of the country supports the dollar bills that you have in your pocket. But one day, in the twinkling of an eye, the economy will just collapse. The wise of the country know that this is coming and they’re trying to hedge against it. But the poor Blacks and Hispanics, and even poor Whites, they don’t really know what is going on with their country.
The President of the United States, in his misadventure in Iraq, is raping the treasury of a government that already has a half a trillion dollar deficit. Then, he spends $100 billion to send troops into a country that could, in no way, threaten the United States of America.
I visited Iraq, along with my wife and members of my staff, on at least two or three occasions. The last time I was there was July 2002 (on a peace mission), about eight months before the war. When I got off the plane in Iraq, they received me like the Boston police received me here during this visit. They blocked the highways and brought me to my hotel. A female reporter asked me, “Why are you here?” I said, “I’m here to try to stop a war.” I knew that America was going to attack Iraq, and I was going to try to impress upon Saddam Hussein that he should let the inspectors into his country, because he did not have anything to hide. He should not give America a stick, because they really were looking for a pretext for war.
Years ago, when I was growing up in Roxbury, we never had guns in the streets. We would buy a switchblade or something like that, but we never had guns. Now, most of you young men think that a gun represents power. So, they bring guns into the community and you think the gun is there to protect you from your brother. But the gun is giving the enemy the pretext for the annihilation of a people.
In Gaza on the West Bank in Palestine, or Israel, we see on television, young men throwing stones at tanks—but some of them have AK-47s, like some of you. But the Israelis are not thinking about coming on the ground, fighting AK-47 to AK-47. No, they come in with tanks and helicopter gunships, shooting rockets down on unarmed people. You may say this is terrible. Of course it is, but that’s what you see happening over there. You never would think that you are going to see that happening in Roxbury, would you? Or in Harlem or on the South side and West side of Chicago or in Watts in Los Angeles? But you will, in just a few days from now.
Next year, the military is going to impose the draft. You beautiful, young men, you don’t have a job and you barely graduated from high school, if you did. So, they are going to give you an offer next year that you can’t refuse. In fact, when you turn 18 now, they are at the high schools telling you what a future you would have by joining the armed forces of the United States of America.
You don’t have any future in that, brother—they don’t have a future. Our young women are facing the same now, because they are recruiting you to the armed forces. What are you going 9,000 miles away to fight for? Who are you fighting? What have those people done to you? They call them insurgents, but the military is in that man’s house as an occupier. What are you doing there? If they rise up to kill you for being there, what are you going to say? Are you going to say, “That’s the enemy,” when you are in their house? That’s like a robber breaking into your house, taking over your house, and holding your wife and your children under arms. You are on the top floor, you hear it going on downstairs, get a pistol, run down and shoot the people that have your wife and your children—and the media calls you an insurgent who rose against a legitimate occupier of your house. Does that make sense? It’s so insane that one must wonder who could be the architect of such a policy.
So next year, you will have to decide: Am I going to go into the military because they called me or should I stand my ground? If you never thought of standing your ground against the president of the United States and an invitation to join the military, you might as well start entertaining that thought. Look at how strong you young men are, how powerful you are in beating each other up, but what we want to do is give you some legs that allow you to stand, so when the president writes in a draft letter, “Greetings. You can report to such and such place for induction into the military,” you will say, “Not me.”
You may say, “I’m an American citizen.” Who said so? When did you become a citizen? You say, “The Emancipation Proclamation freed me and I’m a citizen.” Really? Well, if you are a citizen, why don’t you have the rights and the privileges of a U.S. citizen? How can a foreigner named Schwarzenegger, a man who came here 20 years ago, become the governor of the state of California, but you have been here 400 years and he has rights that you don’t have, and you built the country.
I know that you want to be a citizen. Bless your heart. You are just like the Bible’s Prodigal Son who left his father’s house and went into a strange country to try to join himself on to be a citizen in that strange country. That’s us. He squandered everything that he had and we have lost everything here that we had when we were Africans. We don’t have our own mind anymore. We are very sick people who need a doctor to cure us from the madness imposed on us by our former slave masters and their children. You are a made people.
What do I mean “made”? You are the creation of Allah (God), but you are the make of the White man.
Allah (God) makes man; the White man makes ni---s, boys and Colored people. So, you and I are the reflection of his own sickness. He hates Black, so he taught you to do what? He’s a liar and a thief, that’s what the Bible says. So, what did he make us? He made us the worst of himself and when he looks at us, he’s looking at a mirror image. When you are ugly and you look at a mirror, you want to break it. So, he sees the mirror image of his own madness in you. So, the police come and they don’t have any love for you. It’s sad that you and I are in this condition after so many great ones have come among us to teach us.
Next year, when the draft comes, Brother Minister Don, your young sons and mine, and grandsons and daughters, they’ll be asking them to join. Muhammad Ali was the heavyweight champion of the world and a Muslim. In the ’50s, Ali said, “Them Viet Cong never called me no ni---r.” Think about that. “Why should I go over there and fight some poor rice farmers? They haven’t done anything to me. Why are you sending me there?” Ali said, “No, I’m not going.”
They stripped him of his championship, yet the brother stood up. He would not fight for America in an unjust war, but he later became the people’s champ. People loved him all over the world because he made a righteous stand. Eventually, the Supreme Court upheld his right to be a conscientious objector. So, if Muhammad Ali, as a follower of the Honorable Elijah Muhammad was legitimately a conscientious objector, then every Black man and woman who follows the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, according to the Supreme Court’s decision, were conscientious objectors. So, we are not going to answer the call of the draft. Now, I would advise you to join the Nation of Islam.
When it gets hot in the military, come on home, brother. Say, “No, I’m not going to fight for you.” But, before you do that, you have to stop fighting and killing one another, because if you can kill one another, and that’s your own brother and sister that suffered right along with you, then what right do you have to tell the President that you won’t go to fight Iraqis or Syrians, when you are in the ’hood killing your own brother because he does not wear the right color or did not give the right hand signal?
So, you’ve got to clean that behavior up now, in order to justify saying “I’m a conscientious objector.” How are you going to have an AK-47 in your house, saying “any ni---r come up in here, he’s going to get it.” No, you have to show the world that you are a people of peace.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad was such a wise and masterful teacher. He took away from us all weapons. He forbade us to carry weapons, or even have them in our homes. We didn’t need any weapons to protect us. Usually, when you’ve got a weapon in your house, and you get angry with your wife or your husband, one of you will end up dead, or both of you. That’s who’s in prison today, victims of domestic violence.
But you do not need weapons if you have The God. We, in the Nation of Islam, have never relied on weapons. When we were attacked by those who had weapons, Allah (God) delivered their weapons into our hands. You don’t need them. You have to show the world that you are a people of peace, and you can’t wait until next year to do it. You need to start doing that right now. Clean up your act.
FCN is a distributor (and not a publisher) of content supplied by third parties. Original content supplied by FCN and FinalCall.com News is Copyright © 2008 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com. Content supplied by third parties are the property of their respective owners.
Denver 2008: Hope Is For The Weak
by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon
You know you're addicted to a drug when you need it just to feel normal. By that standard, African Americans have been addicted to hope for a long, long time. Nothing wrong with that. As Robert Jensen of the University of Texas, from whom the title of this piece is borrowed points out, hope is seductive, it's attractive, and when times are hard, hope is absolutely necessary. We're all quite naturally attracted to those full of hope, while we pity or shun those without it. But if hope is much like a drug, it's also a lot like capital. Hope can be invested, wisely based on facts and a sober analysis of the forces in play, or it can be squandered foolishly, based on wishful thinking and outright lies. The air in Denver the last week of August will be full of hope. And full of lies.
Since hope is a limited thing, and sometimes all that we have, Jensen suggests that we ought to be realistic and tough-minded about where we invest it and how. The nomination of the Democratic party's first black candidate is an historic occasion, to be sure. But what is there in Denver to invest our hopes in?
The political conventions bill themselves as glittering spectacles of participatory democracy. But those days, if they ever existed, are long gone. Today's political conventions are week-long staged-for-TV marketing spectacles, in which the permanent party of corporations and wealthy individuals publicly crown their champions, frame the issues and present the package to voters.
True to the core marketing principal of avoiding fact-based arguments and comparisons, striving instead to establish powerful, reason-proof emotional connections to their brands, convention planners often choose their dates to coincide with “historical” themes. Thus the 2004 Republican convention was held in New York City on the anniversary of 9-11, to facilitate the kind of fearmongering warlike campaign in which Republicans excel. And this year's Democratic extravaganza is scheduled to conclude with the acceptance speech of Senator Obama at Mile High Stadium on the 45th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and King's “I Have A Dream” speech, a tenuous connection which we confidently predict will be recycled and stressed endlessly.
No less an historical authority than Oprah Winfrey herself has declared Obama's career to be “the fulfillment of Dr. King's Dream”, as if the 20th century Freedom Movement was exclusively about overcoming prejudice without challenging America's empire overseas or her inequalities at home. As usual, Oprah has the establishment message dead-on. For more than forty years, the media have taught and sold an eviscerated history of the Freedom Movement which they have branded as “Dr. King's Dream.” According to the authorities, “Dr. King's Dream” was about individual worth, about judging people by “the content of their character” and affording an equal opportunity for all to rise.
Even though Dr. King died supporting a black union in the midst of a militant citywide strike, the media-endorsed versions of his life, of the Freedom Movement, and of “the Dream” (probably trademarked) which the election of Barack Obama will supposedly “fulfill” are never about collective action, or democracy in workplaces. They never mention the right – won and held by people in most other nations around the world --- to organize and strike without being fired or penalized. Despite Dr. King's prescient warnings that if we did not swiftly end the war in Vietnam and turn our energies to peace abroad and justice at home we would be marching against US wars here, there and everywhere, we will be told in Denver, on the 45th anniversary of “I Have A Dream” that his legacy is being satisfied by the elevation of a black candidate who celebrates empire, who endorses the so-called worldwide “war on terror”, who has assured us he will not end the war in Iraq while he, co-signs the Bush threats to Iran and escalates the conflict in Afghanistan, perhaps extending it to nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Despite his African heritage, Obama shows no signs of ending, or even publicly acknowledging the fact that the US has furnished arms and military aid to more than 50 of 54 African nations, making it the most war-torn continent on earth. Thanks in large part to US policies, AK-47s are manufactured nowhere in Africa, but are cheaper there than anywhere else on earth.
The crowning of Barack Obama in Denver, and the linking of his brand to King's “I Have A Dream” speech on its 45th anniversary are the cynical triumphs of this limited, truncated version of anti-racist struggle. The hollowness for ordinary people, and the usefulness, for elites, of anti-racist struggle divorced from any challenges to empire and inequality could have been, and were seen clearly a long way off. But not by anybody on our side.
Vijay Prashad reminds us that when the University of Michigan was litigating its affirmative action lawsuit in the late 90s, DuPont, Steelcase, Abbott Laboratories, Intel, Microsoft, Texaco, Lucent and a raft of other Fortune 500 companies filed a brief in support of affirmative action.
Racial and ethnic diversity in institutions of higher education is vital to amici's efforts to hire and maintain a diverse workforce, and to employ individuals of all backgrounds who have been educated in a diverse environment. Such a talented workforce is important to amici's continued success in the global marketplace.
In other words, without highly placed minority executives they could not hope to penetrate minority markets, or influence the politics of those communities to corporate advantage. The Pentagon filed similar objections in support of affirmative action. With more than 800 military bases around the world in nearly a hundred countries, they argued, the US military also needed a critical number of minority officers to influence the politics of minority communities, and to effectively make war in Africa, Asia and all the places Dr. King predicted decades before.
When the struggle against racism is shorn of its living connections to the fights against American empire abroad and structural inequality at home, it's just a way of promoting a few black faces into high places with no positive effect on the rest of us. The Denver co-branding of Obama with “I Have A Dream Day” (probably trademarked too) is the triumph of America's official and elite movement against racism, which was never a mass movement at all. It was a survival strategy to superficially integrate the elite.
America's structural inequalities, the vast eleven to one wealth gap between white and black families, the staggering imprisonment rate of young African Americans, the dispossession of hundreds of thousands from the Gulf Coast --- all these and other racially disproportionate structural elements of American life will remain as they have been. Parasitic insurance companies will continue to eat a third of every American health care dollar. And the pointless, predatory so-called “war on terror” will continue, as Bush and Cheney intended under a black Democrat, should he be elected, indefinitely.
The air in Denver the last week of August will definitely be full of hope. And full of something else too.
Bruce Dixon managing editor at Black Agenda Report is based in Atlanta and can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.
You know you're addicted to a drug when you need it just to feel normal. By that standard, African Americans have been addicted to hope for a long, long time. Nothing wrong with that. As Robert Jensen of the University of Texas, from whom the title of this piece is borrowed points out, hope is seductive, it's attractive, and when times are hard, hope is absolutely necessary. We're all quite naturally attracted to those full of hope, while we pity or shun those without it. But if hope is much like a drug, it's also a lot like capital. Hope can be invested, wisely based on facts and a sober analysis of the forces in play, or it can be squandered foolishly, based on wishful thinking and outright lies. The air in Denver the last week of August will be full of hope. And full of lies.
Since hope is a limited thing, and sometimes all that we have, Jensen suggests that we ought to be realistic and tough-minded about where we invest it and how. The nomination of the Democratic party's first black candidate is an historic occasion, to be sure. But what is there in Denver to invest our hopes in?
The political conventions bill themselves as glittering spectacles of participatory democracy. But those days, if they ever existed, are long gone. Today's political conventions are week-long staged-for-TV marketing spectacles, in which the permanent party of corporations and wealthy individuals publicly crown their champions, frame the issues and present the package to voters.
True to the core marketing principal of avoiding fact-based arguments and comparisons, striving instead to establish powerful, reason-proof emotional connections to their brands, convention planners often choose their dates to coincide with “historical” themes. Thus the 2004 Republican convention was held in New York City on the anniversary of 9-11, to facilitate the kind of fearmongering warlike campaign in which Republicans excel. And this year's Democratic extravaganza is scheduled to conclude with the acceptance speech of Senator Obama at Mile High Stadium on the 45th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington and King's “I Have A Dream” speech, a tenuous connection which we confidently predict will be recycled and stressed endlessly.
No less an historical authority than Oprah Winfrey herself has declared Obama's career to be “the fulfillment of Dr. King's Dream”, as if the 20th century Freedom Movement was exclusively about overcoming prejudice without challenging America's empire overseas or her inequalities at home. As usual, Oprah has the establishment message dead-on. For more than forty years, the media have taught and sold an eviscerated history of the Freedom Movement which they have branded as “Dr. King's Dream.” According to the authorities, “Dr. King's Dream” was about individual worth, about judging people by “the content of their character” and affording an equal opportunity for all to rise.
Even though Dr. King died supporting a black union in the midst of a militant citywide strike, the media-endorsed versions of his life, of the Freedom Movement, and of “the Dream” (probably trademarked) which the election of Barack Obama will supposedly “fulfill” are never about collective action, or democracy in workplaces. They never mention the right – won and held by people in most other nations around the world --- to organize and strike without being fired or penalized. Despite Dr. King's prescient warnings that if we did not swiftly end the war in Vietnam and turn our energies to peace abroad and justice at home we would be marching against US wars here, there and everywhere, we will be told in Denver, on the 45th anniversary of “I Have A Dream” that his legacy is being satisfied by the elevation of a black candidate who celebrates empire, who endorses the so-called worldwide “war on terror”, who has assured us he will not end the war in Iraq while he, co-signs the Bush threats to Iran and escalates the conflict in Afghanistan, perhaps extending it to nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Despite his African heritage, Obama shows no signs of ending, or even publicly acknowledging the fact that the US has furnished arms and military aid to more than 50 of 54 African nations, making it the most war-torn continent on earth. Thanks in large part to US policies, AK-47s are manufactured nowhere in Africa, but are cheaper there than anywhere else on earth.
The crowning of Barack Obama in Denver, and the linking of his brand to King's “I Have A Dream” speech on its 45th anniversary are the cynical triumphs of this limited, truncated version of anti-racist struggle. The hollowness for ordinary people, and the usefulness, for elites, of anti-racist struggle divorced from any challenges to empire and inequality could have been, and were seen clearly a long way off. But not by anybody on our side.
Vijay Prashad reminds us that when the University of Michigan was litigating its affirmative action lawsuit in the late 90s, DuPont, Steelcase, Abbott Laboratories, Intel, Microsoft, Texaco, Lucent and a raft of other Fortune 500 companies filed a brief in support of affirmative action.
Racial and ethnic diversity in institutions of higher education is vital to amici's efforts to hire and maintain a diverse workforce, and to employ individuals of all backgrounds who have been educated in a diverse environment. Such a talented workforce is important to amici's continued success in the global marketplace.
In other words, without highly placed minority executives they could not hope to penetrate minority markets, or influence the politics of those communities to corporate advantage. The Pentagon filed similar objections in support of affirmative action. With more than 800 military bases around the world in nearly a hundred countries, they argued, the US military also needed a critical number of minority officers to influence the politics of minority communities, and to effectively make war in Africa, Asia and all the places Dr. King predicted decades before.
When the struggle against racism is shorn of its living connections to the fights against American empire abroad and structural inequality at home, it's just a way of promoting a few black faces into high places with no positive effect on the rest of us. The Denver co-branding of Obama with “I Have A Dream Day” (probably trademarked too) is the triumph of America's official and elite movement against racism, which was never a mass movement at all. It was a survival strategy to superficially integrate the elite.
America's structural inequalities, the vast eleven to one wealth gap between white and black families, the staggering imprisonment rate of young African Americans, the dispossession of hundreds of thousands from the Gulf Coast --- all these and other racially disproportionate structural elements of American life will remain as they have been. Parasitic insurance companies will continue to eat a third of every American health care dollar. And the pointless, predatory so-called “war on terror” will continue, as Bush and Cheney intended under a black Democrat, should he be elected, indefinitely.
The air in Denver the last week of August will definitely be full of hope. And full of something else too.
Bruce Dixon managing editor at Black Agenda Report is based in Atlanta and can be reached at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com.
John Edwards and Fake Morality
Despite all the recent hoopla over when and how long former North Carolina Senator and recent Democratic party presidential contender John Edwards cheated on his wife Elizabeth and whether he and Reil Hunter have a love child or not, at the end of the day it has very little bearing on our collective wellbeing.
When someone watches Entertainment Tonight or picks up a supermarket tabloid, they do so because they are interested in the private lives of the rich and famous. They do it out of morbid curiosity, or simply to know how the other half lives.
But when one reads the "news" it is with the anticipation that you will be provided with useful information. So when we are served a menu of tabloid news - the information on Edwards's affair was initially taken from the National Enquirer - one has to ask: what does this have to do with me?
Is infidelity an indicator of how a politician will perform in office? I think not. Judging from past presidents that were philanderers it didn't seem to limit their effectiveness in office. While Bill Clinton may have been the worst of the lot, in terms of sexual discretion, he was still able to steer the US imperial ship and impose America's will on the world. John Kennedy was rumored to have shared Marilyn Monroe with his brother and was otherwise unfaithful to his wife, Jacqueline. It does appear that the current president has been faithful to his wife - yet George Bush has committed every transgression imaginable against the U.S. Constitution, and has behaved faithlessly towards to the citizenry he is sworn to protect.
Salacious reporting about extramarital affairs and rumors of affairs is part of the pornification of the news. Most print and broadcast outlets do not give us actual news, but rather, their own prepackaged, prejudiced perspective on the world. And since the American public has been trained to be entertained more than informed - titillated rather than intellectually stimulated - porn posing as news is right up our alley.
While FOX news is little more than an infomercial for right wing ideology - and the worst offender in this race to numb our minds - the other "news" organizations are not far behind. CNN, supposedly "the most trusted name in news," and MSNBC brought in their experts to kick the John Edwards scandal around, and CBS, NBC and ABC all used up precious airtime dabbling in dirt.
Not that there is a dearth of real news. There are two big Bush wars that are barely covered beyond the airing of official press releases and Pentagon-inspired commentary. Why aren't the media scandalized by the General Accounting Office's discovery that $23 billion slated to be spent in Iraq is unaccounted for? Why does the Attorney General of the United States think that folks should go Scott-free for unlawfully filling Justice Department jobs? There are enough unanswered questions to busy any 24-hour news machine - if explicating the world were actually the objective.
But the press chose to belabor Edwards' indiscretions.
Edwards is no longer running for office, though there were rumors that he was being considered as a vice presidential candidate.
I suspect that one of the other reasons the former presidential candidate was attacked with such ferocity was because he had the nerve to run a populist campaign in an age when the ruling class feels no need to throw a bone to working people. Whatever the reason, Edwards showed real heart and compassion, touring poverty-stricken areas and speaking of the "two Americas." Like none of the other contenders, he put a spotlight on New Orleans. In some ruling circles, that's considered a crime.
If a politician came along who made sure that Johnny could read whether he lived in the Ozarks or the ghetto, kept affordable roofs over our heads, ensured that we all took home a fair and livable wage, were afforded universal health care and equal opportunity, few of us would care about the condition of his or her marriage.
Corporate media keep us focused on false morality - on the private affairs of luminaries - so that we won't confront the real forces that devalue the lives of the vast majority of us.
Mel Reeves is an activist living in Miami. He can be contacted at mellaneous19@yahoo.com
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it.
When someone watches Entertainment Tonight or picks up a supermarket tabloid, they do so because they are interested in the private lives of the rich and famous. They do it out of morbid curiosity, or simply to know how the other half lives.
But when one reads the "news" it is with the anticipation that you will be provided with useful information. So when we are served a menu of tabloid news - the information on Edwards's affair was initially taken from the National Enquirer - one has to ask: what does this have to do with me?
Is infidelity an indicator of how a politician will perform in office? I think not. Judging from past presidents that were philanderers it didn't seem to limit their effectiveness in office. While Bill Clinton may have been the worst of the lot, in terms of sexual discretion, he was still able to steer the US imperial ship and impose America's will on the world. John Kennedy was rumored to have shared Marilyn Monroe with his brother and was otherwise unfaithful to his wife, Jacqueline. It does appear that the current president has been faithful to his wife - yet George Bush has committed every transgression imaginable against the U.S. Constitution, and has behaved faithlessly towards to the citizenry he is sworn to protect.
Salacious reporting about extramarital affairs and rumors of affairs is part of the pornification of the news. Most print and broadcast outlets do not give us actual news, but rather, their own prepackaged, prejudiced perspective on the world. And since the American public has been trained to be entertained more than informed - titillated rather than intellectually stimulated - porn posing as news is right up our alley.
While FOX news is little more than an infomercial for right wing ideology - and the worst offender in this race to numb our minds - the other "news" organizations are not far behind. CNN, supposedly "the most trusted name in news," and MSNBC brought in their experts to kick the John Edwards scandal around, and CBS, NBC and ABC all used up precious airtime dabbling in dirt.
Not that there is a dearth of real news. There are two big Bush wars that are barely covered beyond the airing of official press releases and Pentagon-inspired commentary. Why aren't the media scandalized by the General Accounting Office's discovery that $23 billion slated to be spent in Iraq is unaccounted for? Why does the Attorney General of the United States think that folks should go Scott-free for unlawfully filling Justice Department jobs? There are enough unanswered questions to busy any 24-hour news machine - if explicating the world were actually the objective.
But the press chose to belabor Edwards' indiscretions.
Edwards is no longer running for office, though there were rumors that he was being considered as a vice presidential candidate.
I suspect that one of the other reasons the former presidential candidate was attacked with such ferocity was because he had the nerve to run a populist campaign in an age when the ruling class feels no need to throw a bone to working people. Whatever the reason, Edwards showed real heart and compassion, touring poverty-stricken areas and speaking of the "two Americas." Like none of the other contenders, he put a spotlight on New Orleans. In some ruling circles, that's considered a crime.
If a politician came along who made sure that Johnny could read whether he lived in the Ozarks or the ghetto, kept affordable roofs over our heads, ensured that we all took home a fair and livable wage, were afforded universal health care and equal opportunity, few of us would care about the condition of his or her marriage.
Corporate media keep us focused on false morality - on the private affairs of luminaries - so that we won't confront the real forces that devalue the lives of the vast majority of us.
Mel Reeves is an activist living in Miami. He can be contacted at mellaneous19@yahoo.com
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Some Prisoners Declared Innocent, But Not Freed
by Maya Schenwar
This article originally appeared in Truthout.
Former Black Panther Albert Woodfox, convicted of murdering a prison guard with two other inmates, has spent the last 35 years in prison, most of it in solitary confinement. Last month, Woodfox's conviction was overturned by a federal judge. However, despite being cleared of charges, Woodfox remains incarcerated, as the Louisiana attorney general's office persists in challenging the judge's decision.
After repeated reexaminations of his case and an intervention by US House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, who called Woodfox's continued incarceration a "tragic miscarriage of justice," evidence against Woodfox is practically nonexistent. Nevertheless, he remains embroiled in litigation, and until the prosecutors have had their fill, he will stay behind bars.
Pam LaBorde, spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Corrections, told Truthout that the attorney general would be appealing Woodfox's exoneration. She said that she does not know when a trial will take place, adding, "We're very early in the process."
"He has to remain in prison until the new trial takes place," LaBorde said.
Woodfox's case brings to light the startling reality that defendants who have been declared innocent may languish in prison indefinitely, due to endless litigation or conflicting legal technicalities. An overturned conviction is often countered by prosecutors with a "stay the mandate" motion, requiring prisoners to remain incarcerated until appeal. Due to poor lawyers, influential prosecutors and ever-changing legal statutes, the motion is often granted.
Woodfox's lawyers have called upon the state of Louisiana to drop its attempts at retrial, arguing that an immediate release is the only humane option.
"How can Louisiana continue to imprison a 61-year-old man after a federal judge has ruled that he shouldn't have been convicted in the first place?" Nick Trenticosta, one of Woodfox's attorneys, told the San Francisco Bay View in July. "The state needs to move forward. Albert must be released."
However, according to a spokeswoman for the Louisiana attorney general's office, a motion for reconsideration has been filed, and the state could even take the case to the Supreme Court, leaving Woodfox incarcerated for the foreseeable future.
"I don't think we have a timeline," the attorney general's spokeswoman told Truthout.
The situation is not atypical, according to Kerry Max Cook, who spent 22 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. He recently published the book Chasing Justice, which details his battle to prove his innocence and gain his freedom. Cook, who was declared innocent in 1999, cites his own case as an example of post-exoneration incarceration.
"The mandate [for release] had been issued and I still remained on death row, though I had no more conviction," Cook told Truthout. "I myself had to petition the state district judge and demand the Constitution be followed and I be removed from death row. Some lawyers won't fight for their clients, and the client has to fight for themselves like I did."
For clients who do not or cannot "fight for themselves," an open-ended prison sentence may be inevitable, hinging on the whims of prosecutors and judges.
Another reason prisoners may stay incarcerated when they should be released: Legal statutes on sentencing change often and quickly, and sometimes a prisoner's release date is simply computed wrong, according to Rene Aucoin, a New England journalist who has followed the matter closely.
"Say you were arrested in 1993 and the statutes mandated that you serve 75 percent of your sentence. Say the statutes were changed and/or new statutes created so that the law mandates inmates serve 85 percent of their sentence. By the time your release/parole date is near, the statutes have been changed again, and since you were convicted so long ago and have been incarcerated through several changes in legal statutes, no one remembers how the original law worked," Aucoin told Truthout.
When prisoners are not properly represented and are not advised on sentencing policy, such breaches slip by unnoticed. Cook partially attributes illegal extended incarceration to "laziness and unconcern" on the part of judges and the prison system.
In the Woodfox case, judges and defendants alike cited another culprit: discrimination. Before they were charged with murder, Woodfox and his two co-defendants - now dubbed the Angola 3, after the Angola Penitentiary where they were incarcerated - were engaged in rallying other inmates to participate in nonviolent protests against the prison's segregated quarters and ingrained racial violence.
Last year, a magistrate judge noted in her findings for Woodfox's case, "Punishment for crimes committed 35 years ago, for political beliefs, for religious beliefs, and for leadership qualities are not legitimate penological interests." Judges' opinions since have indicated that Woodfox's conviction may well have been prompted by political and racial discrimination.
In a column for The Guardian UK, Helen Kinsella notes that 36 years later, that same motivation may well be driving Woodfox's continued incarceration. She notes that some of the same players may even be involved.
"The attorney general's second-in-command, John Sinquefield, who is helping to preside over the decision to continue fighting the case, is implicated in some of the wrongdoings referred to in the magistrate's June report," Kinsella writes.
The attorney general's office did not return requests for comment on Sinquefield's connection to the case by press time.
According to Cook, who is gay, discrimination played a direct role in his own past-due incarceration.
"As a convicted homosexual I always struggled to get basic human rights in Texas," Cook said, noting that he was unable to use those civil rights violations to defend himself in court and in his petitions for release.
A host of other impetuses may result in prisoners staying in jail past their release dates. For example, in some states, if an inmate is eligible for parole but has nowhere to "parole to," he or she must remain in prison.
Illinois mother Carleen Cross is currently experiencing that phenomenon firsthand. Her son completed his sentence last October, but due to the nature of his crime and the effect it's had on their family, Cross and her relatives could not take him in during his parole period. Since there is no approved public facility in Cross's area that houses sex crime parolees, her son was denied release.
"We had 48 government-approved beds in the state for sex offenders and that's been cut to 28, so he won't ever get one of those," Cross told Truthout.
Therefore, her son is serving out his parole time in prison. He will not be released until October 2010 - two full years after his intended release date.
"There is no one to help him at all or even visit but me," Cross said. "He made the statement to me last week that he knows what it feels like to be dead."
This article originally appeared in Truthout.
Former Black Panther Albert Woodfox, convicted of murdering a prison guard with two other inmates, has spent the last 35 years in prison, most of it in solitary confinement. Last month, Woodfox's conviction was overturned by a federal judge. However, despite being cleared of charges, Woodfox remains incarcerated, as the Louisiana attorney general's office persists in challenging the judge's decision.
After repeated reexaminations of his case and an intervention by US House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, who called Woodfox's continued incarceration a "tragic miscarriage of justice," evidence against Woodfox is practically nonexistent. Nevertheless, he remains embroiled in litigation, and until the prosecutors have had their fill, he will stay behind bars.
Pam LaBorde, spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Corrections, told Truthout that the attorney general would be appealing Woodfox's exoneration. She said that she does not know when a trial will take place, adding, "We're very early in the process."
"He has to remain in prison until the new trial takes place," LaBorde said.
Woodfox's case brings to light the startling reality that defendants who have been declared innocent may languish in prison indefinitely, due to endless litigation or conflicting legal technicalities. An overturned conviction is often countered by prosecutors with a "stay the mandate" motion, requiring prisoners to remain incarcerated until appeal. Due to poor lawyers, influential prosecutors and ever-changing legal statutes, the motion is often granted.
Woodfox's lawyers have called upon the state of Louisiana to drop its attempts at retrial, arguing that an immediate release is the only humane option.
"How can Louisiana continue to imprison a 61-year-old man after a federal judge has ruled that he shouldn't have been convicted in the first place?" Nick Trenticosta, one of Woodfox's attorneys, told the San Francisco Bay View in July. "The state needs to move forward. Albert must be released."
However, according to a spokeswoman for the Louisiana attorney general's office, a motion for reconsideration has been filed, and the state could even take the case to the Supreme Court, leaving Woodfox incarcerated for the foreseeable future.
"I don't think we have a timeline," the attorney general's spokeswoman told Truthout.
The situation is not atypical, according to Kerry Max Cook, who spent 22 years on death row for a murder he did not commit. He recently published the book Chasing Justice, which details his battle to prove his innocence and gain his freedom. Cook, who was declared innocent in 1999, cites his own case as an example of post-exoneration incarceration.
"The mandate [for release] had been issued and I still remained on death row, though I had no more conviction," Cook told Truthout. "I myself had to petition the state district judge and demand the Constitution be followed and I be removed from death row. Some lawyers won't fight for their clients, and the client has to fight for themselves like I did."
For clients who do not or cannot "fight for themselves," an open-ended prison sentence may be inevitable, hinging on the whims of prosecutors and judges.
Another reason prisoners may stay incarcerated when they should be released: Legal statutes on sentencing change often and quickly, and sometimes a prisoner's release date is simply computed wrong, according to Rene Aucoin, a New England journalist who has followed the matter closely.
"Say you were arrested in 1993 and the statutes mandated that you serve 75 percent of your sentence. Say the statutes were changed and/or new statutes created so that the law mandates inmates serve 85 percent of their sentence. By the time your release/parole date is near, the statutes have been changed again, and since you were convicted so long ago and have been incarcerated through several changes in legal statutes, no one remembers how the original law worked," Aucoin told Truthout.
When prisoners are not properly represented and are not advised on sentencing policy, such breaches slip by unnoticed. Cook partially attributes illegal extended incarceration to "laziness and unconcern" on the part of judges and the prison system.
In the Woodfox case, judges and defendants alike cited another culprit: discrimination. Before they were charged with murder, Woodfox and his two co-defendants - now dubbed the Angola 3, after the Angola Penitentiary where they were incarcerated - were engaged in rallying other inmates to participate in nonviolent protests against the prison's segregated quarters and ingrained racial violence.
Last year, a magistrate judge noted in her findings for Woodfox's case, "Punishment for crimes committed 35 years ago, for political beliefs, for religious beliefs, and for leadership qualities are not legitimate penological interests." Judges' opinions since have indicated that Woodfox's conviction may well have been prompted by political and racial discrimination.
In a column for The Guardian UK, Helen Kinsella notes that 36 years later, that same motivation may well be driving Woodfox's continued incarceration. She notes that some of the same players may even be involved.
"The attorney general's second-in-command, John Sinquefield, who is helping to preside over the decision to continue fighting the case, is implicated in some of the wrongdoings referred to in the magistrate's June report," Kinsella writes.
The attorney general's office did not return requests for comment on Sinquefield's connection to the case by press time.
According to Cook, who is gay, discrimination played a direct role in his own past-due incarceration.
"As a convicted homosexual I always struggled to get basic human rights in Texas," Cook said, noting that he was unable to use those civil rights violations to defend himself in court and in his petitions for release.
A host of other impetuses may result in prisoners staying in jail past their release dates. For example, in some states, if an inmate is eligible for parole but has nowhere to "parole to," he or she must remain in prison.
Illinois mother Carleen Cross is currently experiencing that phenomenon firsthand. Her son completed his sentence last October, but due to the nature of his crime and the effect it's had on their family, Cross and her relatives could not take him in during his parole period. Since there is no approved public facility in Cross's area that houses sex crime parolees, her son was denied release.
"We had 48 government-approved beds in the state for sex offenders and that's been cut to 28, so he won't ever get one of those," Cross told Truthout.
Therefore, her son is serving out his parole time in prison. He will not be released until October 2010 - two full years after his intended release date.
"There is no one to help him at all or even visit but me," Cross said. "He made the statement to me last week that he knows what it feels like to be dead."
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Homeland Security Phones Hacked
And these are the people who are suppose to secure the homeland and they cannot keep hackers out of their phone system. Data is stolen from the Veterans Administation, NIH and the Pentagon. There's so much lying and prying and spying. The Bush Idiocracy has let the country go to the dogs and it's getting worse. Secret detention camps have been built in the U.S. and is ready to receive the cattle. That day is so near.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2008
(AP) A hacker broke into a Homeland Security Department telephone system over the weekend and racked up about $12,000 in calls to the Middle East and Asia.
The hacker made more than 400 calls on a Federal Emergency Management Agency voicemail system in Emmitsburg, Md., on Saturday and Sunday, according to FEMA spokesman Tom Olshanski.
FEMA is part of Homeland Security, which in 2003 put out a warning about this very vulnerability.
The voicemail system is new and recently was installed. It is a Private Branch Exchange, or PBX, a traditional corporate phone network that is used in thousands of companies and government offices. Many companies are moving to a higher tech version, known as Voice Over Internet Telephony.
This type of hacking is very low-tech and "old school," said John Jackson, a St. Louis-based security consultant. It was popular 10 to 15 years ago. Telecommunications security administrators now know to configure security settings, such as having individual users create unique passwords and not continue to use the password assigned to users in the initial setup.
"In this case it's sort of embarrassing that it happened to FEMA themselves - FEMA being a child of DHS, with calls going to the Middle East," Johnson said.
Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, India and Yemen are among the countries calls were made to, Olshanski said. Most of the calls were about three minutes long, but some were as long as 10 minutes.
Sprint caught the fraud over the weekend and halted all outgoing long-distance calls from FEMA's National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg.
FEMA's chief information officer is investigating who hacked into the system and where exactly the calls were placed to.
At this point it appears a "hole" was left open by the contractor when the voicemail system was being upgraded, Olshanski said. Olshanski did not know who the contractor was or what hole specifically was left open, but he assured the hole has since been closed.
In 2003, Homeland Security and the FBI investigated multiple reports about private industry being breached by these types of hackers.
"This illegal activity enables unauthorized individuals anywhere in the world to communicate via compromised U.S. phone systems in a way that is difficult to trace," according to a department information bulletin from June 3, 2003.
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 20, 2008
(AP) A hacker broke into a Homeland Security Department telephone system over the weekend and racked up about $12,000 in calls to the Middle East and Asia.
The hacker made more than 400 calls on a Federal Emergency Management Agency voicemail system in Emmitsburg, Md., on Saturday and Sunday, according to FEMA spokesman Tom Olshanski.
FEMA is part of Homeland Security, which in 2003 put out a warning about this very vulnerability.
The voicemail system is new and recently was installed. It is a Private Branch Exchange, or PBX, a traditional corporate phone network that is used in thousands of companies and government offices. Many companies are moving to a higher tech version, known as Voice Over Internet Telephony.
This type of hacking is very low-tech and "old school," said John Jackson, a St. Louis-based security consultant. It was popular 10 to 15 years ago. Telecommunications security administrators now know to configure security settings, such as having individual users create unique passwords and not continue to use the password assigned to users in the initial setup.
"In this case it's sort of embarrassing that it happened to FEMA themselves - FEMA being a child of DHS, with calls going to the Middle East," Johnson said.
Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, India and Yemen are among the countries calls were made to, Olshanski said. Most of the calls were about three minutes long, but some were as long as 10 minutes.
Sprint caught the fraud over the weekend and halted all outgoing long-distance calls from FEMA's National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg.
FEMA's chief information officer is investigating who hacked into the system and where exactly the calls were placed to.
At this point it appears a "hole" was left open by the contractor when the voicemail system was being upgraded, Olshanski said. Olshanski did not know who the contractor was or what hole specifically was left open, but he assured the hole has since been closed.
In 2003, Homeland Security and the FBI investigated multiple reports about private industry being breached by these types of hackers.
"This illegal activity enables unauthorized individuals anywhere in the world to communicate via compromised U.S. phone systems in a way that is difficult to trace," according to a department information bulletin from June 3, 2003.
© MMVIII The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
You Call This Freedom?
I got the following information from the ACLU via email. I found this very interesting because they said the exact same thing on Democracy NOW! this morning. Privacy is gone and America is finished. We hear all this talk from both presidential candidates about rights and freedom, but why is it that so much of those rights and freedoms is being taken away? The people who make policy and run this country have gone insane and the worse is still yet to come.
Traveling shouldn’t mean checking your rights when you’re checking your luggage.
Did you know...
Border security can seize your laptop, cell phone or camera with no suspicion or explanation.
Many airports use scanners that conduct a virtual "strip search" of passengers.There are over one million names on the terrorist watch list.
The TSA recently expressed interest in having every airline passenger wear "electro-muscular disruption" bracelets that could be used to shock passengers into submission.
Law and order: Curfew America
War zone security has arrived in the US as cities are shut down at night by police struggling to control a deadly wave of gun crime. David Usborne reports from Hartford, Connecticut
The police state has not arrived quite yet but it may feel like it to the residents of some American cities, where a handful of embattled mayors and police chiefs are imposing strict and sometimes sweeping curfews as a last resort to quell new waves of gun violence this summer.
"We must do this because we cannot and will not tolerate innocent people, especially children, to be victims," insists Eddie Perez, the Mayor of Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, where a night-time curfew was introduced last week and will remain in effect for a month for those under 18 years old.
Nor are there any apologies from the authorities in Helena-West Helena on the banks of the Mississippi in Arkansas, small pockets of which are under a24-hour curfew that all ages must respect. Police are enforcing it, moreover, with night-vision goggles and M16 military rifles.
In Hartford, the centre of America's insurance industry, the approach is not quite as militaristic. Children found on the streets between 9pm and 5am are approached and escorted by officers to their homes. Most nights since the curfew came into effect last Thursday have seen only a dozen or so picked up.
But there was nothing softly-softly about the violence that prompted Hartford to take such action. Two weekends ago, 11 people were shot in three different attacks, the worst at the annual West Indian Parade in the city's North End, which left one man dead and two children hurt. A toddler in a pushchair was grazed by bullet on her leg. A seven-year-old boy remains in hospital with serious head wounds.
"I am still traumatised," says Darlene Johnson, 44, who had a food stall at the parade with her husband and father. "I see this man pulling this long gun from under his shirt and he started shooting. I just couldn't believe it. Some people thought it was firecrackers but I knew different. I saw the little girl rubbing her leg and the boy with blood coming out of his head."
Much of the city cannot believe it either, yet 150 shootings have been recorded this year In summer, bored teenagers have little to do but wander the streets. Gangs mark out turf. Insults are traded and revenge is taken. The man killed at the parade, Ezekial Roberts, had been running with gangs.
While curfews sound like they belong in war zones or natural disaster areas, they have long been a popular tool of US police departments. And it is in the dog days of summer, when humidity and violence seem to join hands, that they most often come into vogue. For the duration of the school holidays this year, for instance, Baltimore has an 11pm curfew (midnight on Fridays and Saturdays) for children under 17. Those who violate it are taken to a school until a parent or guardian picks them up.
It is a trend the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), does not welcome. The group "opposes juvenile curfews because they're essentially a violation of fundamental rights of innocent people," said David McGuire of the Connecticut ACLU. "Curfews essentially are placing an entire demographic, in this case, youth, under house arrest for the inappropriate actions of a few."
Residents of Connecticut's north end, however, tired of the shootings, seem mostly to support the curfew, though few believe it alone will solve the larger problems of young people with little to do, attracted by gangs and lacking discipline. "We need to keep the young people off the streets," says Ms Johnson on the front steps of her home. "And the parents need help. The law is the law." Taquana Quan, 18, standing outside Burger and Pizza Land on Barbour Avenue, where two other men were shot on the same weekend, also supports the Mayor's decision. So does his cousin, Shantay Taytay, who is 21. They have had enough. "This dude pulled a gun on me last week to take my bike. We are moving to Atlanta, the whole family."
"We'll see if it works," says Barbara Shannon, who lives across from the restaurant and said she starting praying when she heard the shots. But it will not be enough. The problem lies in the upbringing of the teenagers, she says, mostly by single mothers. Indeed, of all the households with children in Hartford, almost 70 per cent are headed by single parents. And nearly always they are the mothers. "Babies are having babies and kids are having kids," she asserts confidently. "And the mothers are always looking to have fun. They don't make time to look after their young ones."
Valencia Coleman, 68, who has a dance studio in the north end and witnessed the shooting at the parade, is more blunt. "The children can't stay in their homes because of what their mothers are doing behind the bedroom door. They are having sex. The boys especially have a big problem with that. Every kid I know who is in trouble, it's always the same story. They can't handle their mothers' boyfriends."
More dubious still is Alisha Jackson, whose oldest child is 12. She thinks the curfew is a "band-aid" that will only deepen tensions between young people and the police. "I hope it works. But I think it's going to cause a lot of trouble. A lot of kids are going to end up being locked up, I bet you."
And what of the young targets of the curfew, such as Rackwon Hicks, who is hanging out with a cousin and two friends on the front steps of another dour brick apartment building on Barbour Street? (Never mind the metal sign by the door prohibiting the "Peddleing of drugs" (sic) as well as sitting on the entryway steps".)
He is 10 years old and says staying at home after 9pm is not an option. His mother is there. "I just can't be there, that's all. They can't coop us up like that, it's not right"
One of the friends, Rashad Hassan, a burly 16-year-old, is cocky. "I really don't care about it. I will still be outside anyways."
A few doors down a teenage girl has turned a speaker of her stereo out onto the street to fill it with tinny dance music. A dope dealer lingers by a corner store and offers the wisdom that the curfew is "garbage".
Interesting? Click here to explore further
The police state has not arrived quite yet but it may feel like it to the residents of some American cities, where a handful of embattled mayors and police chiefs are imposing strict and sometimes sweeping curfews as a last resort to quell new waves of gun violence this summer.
"We must do this because we cannot and will not tolerate innocent people, especially children, to be victims," insists Eddie Perez, the Mayor of Hartford, the capital of Connecticut, where a night-time curfew was introduced last week and will remain in effect for a month for those under 18 years old.
Nor are there any apologies from the authorities in Helena-West Helena on the banks of the Mississippi in Arkansas, small pockets of which are under a24-hour curfew that all ages must respect. Police are enforcing it, moreover, with night-vision goggles and M16 military rifles.
In Hartford, the centre of America's insurance industry, the approach is not quite as militaristic. Children found on the streets between 9pm and 5am are approached and escorted by officers to their homes. Most nights since the curfew came into effect last Thursday have seen only a dozen or so picked up.
But there was nothing softly-softly about the violence that prompted Hartford to take such action. Two weekends ago, 11 people were shot in three different attacks, the worst at the annual West Indian Parade in the city's North End, which left one man dead and two children hurt. A toddler in a pushchair was grazed by bullet on her leg. A seven-year-old boy remains in hospital with serious head wounds.
"I am still traumatised," says Darlene Johnson, 44, who had a food stall at the parade with her husband and father. "I see this man pulling this long gun from under his shirt and he started shooting. I just couldn't believe it. Some people thought it was firecrackers but I knew different. I saw the little girl rubbing her leg and the boy with blood coming out of his head."
Much of the city cannot believe it either, yet 150 shootings have been recorded this year In summer, bored teenagers have little to do but wander the streets. Gangs mark out turf. Insults are traded and revenge is taken. The man killed at the parade, Ezekial Roberts, had been running with gangs.
While curfews sound like they belong in war zones or natural disaster areas, they have long been a popular tool of US police departments. And it is in the dog days of summer, when humidity and violence seem to join hands, that they most often come into vogue. For the duration of the school holidays this year, for instance, Baltimore has an 11pm curfew (midnight on Fridays and Saturdays) for children under 17. Those who violate it are taken to a school until a parent or guardian picks them up.
It is a trend the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), does not welcome. The group "opposes juvenile curfews because they're essentially a violation of fundamental rights of innocent people," said David McGuire of the Connecticut ACLU. "Curfews essentially are placing an entire demographic, in this case, youth, under house arrest for the inappropriate actions of a few."
Residents of Connecticut's north end, however, tired of the shootings, seem mostly to support the curfew, though few believe it alone will solve the larger problems of young people with little to do, attracted by gangs and lacking discipline. "We need to keep the young people off the streets," says Ms Johnson on the front steps of her home. "And the parents need help. The law is the law." Taquana Quan, 18, standing outside Burger and Pizza Land on Barbour Avenue, where two other men were shot on the same weekend, also supports the Mayor's decision. So does his cousin, Shantay Taytay, who is 21. They have had enough. "This dude pulled a gun on me last week to take my bike. We are moving to Atlanta, the whole family."
"We'll see if it works," says Barbara Shannon, who lives across from the restaurant and said she starting praying when she heard the shots. But it will not be enough. The problem lies in the upbringing of the teenagers, she says, mostly by single mothers. Indeed, of all the households with children in Hartford, almost 70 per cent are headed by single parents. And nearly always they are the mothers. "Babies are having babies and kids are having kids," she asserts confidently. "And the mothers are always looking to have fun. They don't make time to look after their young ones."
Valencia Coleman, 68, who has a dance studio in the north end and witnessed the shooting at the parade, is more blunt. "The children can't stay in their homes because of what their mothers are doing behind the bedroom door. They are having sex. The boys especially have a big problem with that. Every kid I know who is in trouble, it's always the same story. They can't handle their mothers' boyfriends."
More dubious still is Alisha Jackson, whose oldest child is 12. She thinks the curfew is a "band-aid" that will only deepen tensions between young people and the police. "I hope it works. But I think it's going to cause a lot of trouble. A lot of kids are going to end up being locked up, I bet you."
And what of the young targets of the curfew, such as Rackwon Hicks, who is hanging out with a cousin and two friends on the front steps of another dour brick apartment building on Barbour Street? (Never mind the metal sign by the door prohibiting the "Peddleing of drugs" (sic) as well as sitting on the entryway steps".)
He is 10 years old and says staying at home after 9pm is not an option. His mother is there. "I just can't be there, that's all. They can't coop us up like that, it's not right"
One of the friends, Rashad Hassan, a burly 16-year-old, is cocky. "I really don't care about it. I will still be outside anyways."
A few doors down a teenage girl has turned a speaker of her stereo out onto the street to fill it with tinny dance music. A dope dealer lingers by a corner store and offers the wisdom that the curfew is "garbage".
Interesting? Click here to explore further
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
NSA Security Officer: We Should Just Kill Troublesome Bloggers
Richard Volaar / OpEd News August 19, 2008
When somebody within your own government calls you out, do you show up? How do you handle it?
Wayne Madsen, always spoiling for a fight with Bush and Cheney, or the chance to show off his undies to minimum wage airport TSA workers, has an executive level NSA staff person on record saying that significant sentiment exists within the NSA to kill troublesome bloggers and journalists.
The NSA executive staffer was, apparently, not the source of the sentiment, but this individual did pass along the context and the precise wording of the “junior G-man” working in the NSA.
Prominent names listed in the NSA database of troublemakers?
1. Bill Gertz
2. James Bamford
3. Vernon Loeb
4. Jim Risen
5. Dr. John C. K. Daly
6. Wayne Madsen
7. Seymour Hersh
These were all the names Madsen published, but there are, of course, many others. Possibly you, gentle reader.
If not now, probably later.
As much as Madsen hates Daily Kos, I would think that if Kos was in the database, he would have published his name, too. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga — a name that should just roll off the Hebroid-Russian tongue of George Soros, and frequently does — is he NOT in the NSA’s database of journalists and bloggers to be put out of Cheney’s misery?
Wear nice underwear when you travel, bloggers. The TSA will soon be checking your anal orifice for that extra 3 ounces of shampoo you just can’t live without.
Award winning poet, writer and refugee from the educational testing industry. Richard agitates, supports and motivates activists of all kinds, the most well-known being Cindy Sheehan. Web developer and designer by day, writer by night, Richard has the disposition of an observer and essayist. Richard has fallen in love, one day at a time, with the writing of Raymond Carver, while sparring, verbally, with the flying monkey right since 1998. Richard built his first computer from scratch in 1977 and had his heart broken for the first time in 1980. It has been stomped on and dragged behind a Chevrolet for many miles since that time. Thanks in no small part to Republican partisan politics and internecine policies.
When somebody within your own government calls you out, do you show up? How do you handle it?
Wayne Madsen, always spoiling for a fight with Bush and Cheney, or the chance to show off his undies to minimum wage airport TSA workers, has an executive level NSA staff person on record saying that significant sentiment exists within the NSA to kill troublesome bloggers and journalists.
The NSA executive staffer was, apparently, not the source of the sentiment, but this individual did pass along the context and the precise wording of the “junior G-man” working in the NSA.
Prominent names listed in the NSA database of troublemakers?
1. Bill Gertz
2. James Bamford
3. Vernon Loeb
4. Jim Risen
5. Dr. John C. K. Daly
6. Wayne Madsen
7. Seymour Hersh
These were all the names Madsen published, but there are, of course, many others. Possibly you, gentle reader.
If not now, probably later.
As much as Madsen hates Daily Kos, I would think that if Kos was in the database, he would have published his name, too. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga — a name that should just roll off the Hebroid-Russian tongue of George Soros, and frequently does — is he NOT in the NSA’s database of journalists and bloggers to be put out of Cheney’s misery?
Wear nice underwear when you travel, bloggers. The TSA will soon be checking your anal orifice for that extra 3 ounces of shampoo you just can’t live without.
Award winning poet, writer and refugee from the educational testing industry. Richard agitates, supports and motivates activists of all kinds, the most well-known being Cindy Sheehan. Web developer and designer by day, writer by night, Richard has the disposition of an observer and essayist. Richard has fallen in love, one day at a time, with the writing of Raymond Carver, while sparring, verbally, with the flying monkey right since 1998. Richard built his first computer from scratch in 1977 and had his heart broken for the first time in 1980. It has been stomped on and dragged behind a Chevrolet for many miles since that time. Thanks in no small part to Republican partisan politics and internecine policies.
Large U.S. bank collapse ahead, says ex-IMF economist
By Jan Dahinten
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The worst of the global financial crisis is yet to come and a large U.S. bank will fail in the next few months as the world's biggest economy hits further troubles, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said on Tuesday.
"The U.S. is not out of the woods. I think the financial crisis is at the halfway point, perhaps. I would even go further to say 'the worst is to come'," he told a financial conference.
"We're not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we're going to see a whopper, we're going to see a big one, one of the big investment banks or big banks," said Rogoff, who is an economics professor at Harvard University and was the International Monetary Fund's chief economist from 2001 to 2004.
"We have to see more consolidation in the financial sector before this is over," he said, when asked for early signs of an end to the crisis.
"Probably Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- despite what U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said -- these giant mortgage guarantee agencies are not going to exist in their present form in a few years."
Rogoff's comments come as investors dumped shares of the largest U.S. home funding companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Monday after a newspaper report said government officials may have no choice but to effectively nationalize the U.S. housing finance titans.
A government move to recapitalize the two companies by injecting funds could wipe out existing common stock holders, the weekend Barron's story said. Preferred shareholders and even holders of the two government-sponsored entities' $19 billion of subordinated debt would also suffer losses.
Rogoff said multi-billion dollar investments by sovereign wealth funds from Asia and the Middle East in western financial firms may not necessarily result in large profits because they had not taken into account the broader market conditions that the industry faces.
"There was this view early on in the crisis that sovereign wealth funds could save everybody. Investment banks did something stupid, they lost money in the sub-prime, they're great buys, sovereign wealth funds come in and make a lot of money by buying them.
"That view neglects the point that the financial system has become very bloated in size and needed to shrink," Rogoff told the conference in Singapore, whose wealth funds GIC and Temasek have invested billions in Merrill Lynch and Citigroup.
In response to the sharp U.S. housing retrenchment and turmoil in credit markets, the U.S. Federal Reserve has reduced interest rates by a cumulative 3.25 percentage points to 2 percent since mid-September.
Rogoff said the U.S. Federal Reserve was wrong to cut interest rates as "dramatically" as it did.
"Cutting interest rates is going to lead to a lot of inflation in the next few years in the United States."
(Editing by Neil Chatterjee)
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The worst of the global financial crisis is yet to come and a large U.S. bank will fail in the next few months as the world's biggest economy hits further troubles, former IMF chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said on Tuesday.
"The U.S. is not out of the woods. I think the financial crisis is at the halfway point, perhaps. I would even go further to say 'the worst is to come'," he told a financial conference.
"We're not just going to see mid-sized banks go under in the next few months, we're going to see a whopper, we're going to see a big one, one of the big investment banks or big banks," said Rogoff, who is an economics professor at Harvard University and was the International Monetary Fund's chief economist from 2001 to 2004.
"We have to see more consolidation in the financial sector before this is over," he said, when asked for early signs of an end to the crisis.
"Probably Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- despite what U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson said -- these giant mortgage guarantee agencies are not going to exist in their present form in a few years."
Rogoff's comments come as investors dumped shares of the largest U.S. home funding companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac on Monday after a newspaper report said government officials may have no choice but to effectively nationalize the U.S. housing finance titans.
A government move to recapitalize the two companies by injecting funds could wipe out existing common stock holders, the weekend Barron's story said. Preferred shareholders and even holders of the two government-sponsored entities' $19 billion of subordinated debt would also suffer losses.
Rogoff said multi-billion dollar investments by sovereign wealth funds from Asia and the Middle East in western financial firms may not necessarily result in large profits because they had not taken into account the broader market conditions that the industry faces.
"There was this view early on in the crisis that sovereign wealth funds could save everybody. Investment banks did something stupid, they lost money in the sub-prime, they're great buys, sovereign wealth funds come in and make a lot of money by buying them.
"That view neglects the point that the financial system has become very bloated in size and needed to shrink," Rogoff told the conference in Singapore, whose wealth funds GIC and Temasek have invested billions in Merrill Lynch and Citigroup.
In response to the sharp U.S. housing retrenchment and turmoil in credit markets, the U.S. Federal Reserve has reduced interest rates by a cumulative 3.25 percentage points to 2 percent since mid-September.
Rogoff said the U.S. Federal Reserve was wrong to cut interest rates as "dramatically" as it did.
"Cutting interest rates is going to lead to a lot of inflation in the next few years in the United States."
(Editing by Neil Chatterjee)
Monday, August 18, 2008
Where Is The Outrage?
Note: I wrote this last year when I saw all the hoopla surrounding Michael Vick, Paris Hylton and so on. It's so amazing how the American public is so easily distracted by stupidity and senselessness. With the president admitting to torturing the detainees to the recent meeting VP "Shotgun" Dick Cheney had planning and staging terrorist attacks, yet the American public remains numb. The society has been dumbed down to the point that the people don't care. When the fighting broke out between Russia and the Republic of Georgia, people here thought that the state of Georgia (USA) was being attacked. This is the real America. Where is the outrage???
Wow, with all the problems in the world, why all the outrage over the Michael Vick case? Whitey is up in arms over dog fighting and has been calling for Michael Vick’s head ever since the allegations surfaced. I heard dog lovers speak of these “poor animals being tortured.” WHAT??? The federal government has a policy of torturing detainees (human beings) in secret detention centers all over the world. Where’s the outrage in that? Animal rights? How about human rights? In the U.S. government’s kidnapping and torture program, they’ve taken children as young as seven years old. Where is the outrage? With the slaughter of cows, chickens, hogs, turkeys and fish, where is the outrage? Raised in crowded, unsanitary conditions and shipped off to the market for human consumption, where many get sick and even die. Where is the outrage?
White people treat their dogs better than Black people. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said a long time ago that whitey would set a place at their table for a dog before they would a Black man. I’m sure most of you have already seen the news that Michael Vick has agreed to plead guilty in the dog fighting case. It’s bad enough that his boys turned state’s evidence against him and now his NFL career is in jeopardy. And to add further insult, the state of Virginia announced last week that they will be filing charges against Vick as well. This bullshit is pathetic.
America’s corporate media has helped to create a bloodlust for Michael Vick. I would not be surprised if a lynch mob is down at the courthouse the day he enters his plea. And speaking where is the outrage:
Where is the outrage (whitey in particular) for the Jena Six in Louisiana? An injustice is taking place before our very eyes, the target our children. Six young Black men face prison time over a fight with a white boy. One of the boys has been convicted by an all white jury, and faces a possible 22 years in prison. The other five boys were charged with attempted murder and face a possible sentence up to 100 years if convicted. Where’s whitey’s outrage when the prosecutor told the Black students at an assembly that he can ruin their lives with the stroke of a pen? These same devils speak of America being this beacon of human rights and justice in the world, but have problems giving Black people justice (due process). It’s blatant hypocrisy and these devils are full of shit.
Where is the outrage in the Kenneth Foster case? An innocent Black man is about to be executed by the state of Texas on August 21, 2007. The state acknowledged that Mr. Foster did not commit the murder, however he was convicted and sentence to death under the states’ “law of parties” statute. I can’t help wondering how many whites have been sentenced to death under this same statute? And how about the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal? Despite the fact he was not given a fair trial and all the constitutional violations committed in the process, Mumia has been unsuccessful at trying to get his conviction overturned, much less a retrial despite the overwhelming evidence that supports such action. To this day, brother Mumia still sits on Pennsylvania’s death row. The Supreme Court has refused to hear his petition. He sits on death row even though, police coerced witnesses into giving false testimony, Mumia’s hands were never tested for gunpowder residue to see if he even fired a gun, and the deceased officer’s partner said that Mumia allegedly confessed to committing the crime, which the officer reported about 60 days later. And that was entered into evidence. Where is the outrage? Where is whitey’s outrage, since they’re torchlight of justice and human rights for the rest of the world?
Where is the outrage in Bush’s illegal NSA spying program? Where is the outrage in the passage of the Military Commissions Act? Patriot Act II? The president now has the power to designate ANYBODY as a terrorist/enemy combatant and take people into military custody indefinitely. Congress recently passed the so-called Protect America Act of 2007, which goes beyond just wiretapping. It was recently revealed that this same law permits physical searches and financial records gathering without a warrant. The Bush Idiocracy’s (administration for the sensitive) attorney general for national security, Ken Wainstein told former [In]Justice Department lawyer Bruce Fein the administration does not consider itself bound by Congressional restrictions. Where the hell is the outrage? The president is running afoul of the law and not even a wimper. Let’s not forget the president and his propaganda machine lied the nation into a war that has resulted in the deaths of over one million Iraqi people and close to 4,000 U.S. soldiers and no impeachment for these high crimes. But Michael Vick is indicted and on his way to prison for dog fighting. It’s good to know that the American people got their priorities straight.
It’s rampant hypocrisy and it’s a goddamn shame that people in this country sit around and pretend nothing is going on. The media has joined the government’s scheme and now journalistic integrity is dead. From cuts in education and healthcare to rising unemployment and outsourcing of American jobs to places like India and China, I ask where is the outrage? But it doesn’t matter, the latest media blitz has passed with Paris Hilton’s confinement, to K-Fed and Britney Spears’ custody battle to Lindsay Lohan’s drug induced madness to the media lynching of Michael Vick over dogs. What’s going to be the next media blitzkrieg event that takes our focus off of government scandals and corruption? When the next political scandal breaks, outrage will be nowhere to be found.
-Aquil Aziz
Wow, with all the problems in the world, why all the outrage over the Michael Vick case? Whitey is up in arms over dog fighting and has been calling for Michael Vick’s head ever since the allegations surfaced. I heard dog lovers speak of these “poor animals being tortured.” WHAT??? The federal government has a policy of torturing detainees (human beings) in secret detention centers all over the world. Where’s the outrage in that? Animal rights? How about human rights? In the U.S. government’s kidnapping and torture program, they’ve taken children as young as seven years old. Where is the outrage? With the slaughter of cows, chickens, hogs, turkeys and fish, where is the outrage? Raised in crowded, unsanitary conditions and shipped off to the market for human consumption, where many get sick and even die. Where is the outrage?
White people treat their dogs better than Black people. The Honorable Elijah Muhammad said a long time ago that whitey would set a place at their table for a dog before they would a Black man. I’m sure most of you have already seen the news that Michael Vick has agreed to plead guilty in the dog fighting case. It’s bad enough that his boys turned state’s evidence against him and now his NFL career is in jeopardy. And to add further insult, the state of Virginia announced last week that they will be filing charges against Vick as well. This bullshit is pathetic.
America’s corporate media has helped to create a bloodlust for Michael Vick. I would not be surprised if a lynch mob is down at the courthouse the day he enters his plea. And speaking where is the outrage:
Where is the outrage (whitey in particular) for the Jena Six in Louisiana? An injustice is taking place before our very eyes, the target our children. Six young Black men face prison time over a fight with a white boy. One of the boys has been convicted by an all white jury, and faces a possible 22 years in prison. The other five boys were charged with attempted murder and face a possible sentence up to 100 years if convicted. Where’s whitey’s outrage when the prosecutor told the Black students at an assembly that he can ruin their lives with the stroke of a pen? These same devils speak of America being this beacon of human rights and justice in the world, but have problems giving Black people justice (due process). It’s blatant hypocrisy and these devils are full of shit.
Where is the outrage in the Kenneth Foster case? An innocent Black man is about to be executed by the state of Texas on August 21, 2007. The state acknowledged that Mr. Foster did not commit the murder, however he was convicted and sentence to death under the states’ “law of parties” statute. I can’t help wondering how many whites have been sentenced to death under this same statute? And how about the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal? Despite the fact he was not given a fair trial and all the constitutional violations committed in the process, Mumia has been unsuccessful at trying to get his conviction overturned, much less a retrial despite the overwhelming evidence that supports such action. To this day, brother Mumia still sits on Pennsylvania’s death row. The Supreme Court has refused to hear his petition. He sits on death row even though, police coerced witnesses into giving false testimony, Mumia’s hands were never tested for gunpowder residue to see if he even fired a gun, and the deceased officer’s partner said that Mumia allegedly confessed to committing the crime, which the officer reported about 60 days later. And that was entered into evidence. Where is the outrage? Where is whitey’s outrage, since they’re torchlight of justice and human rights for the rest of the world?
Where is the outrage in Bush’s illegal NSA spying program? Where is the outrage in the passage of the Military Commissions Act? Patriot Act II? The president now has the power to designate ANYBODY as a terrorist/enemy combatant and take people into military custody indefinitely. Congress recently passed the so-called Protect America Act of 2007, which goes beyond just wiretapping. It was recently revealed that this same law permits physical searches and financial records gathering without a warrant. The Bush Idiocracy’s (administration for the sensitive) attorney general for national security, Ken Wainstein told former [In]Justice Department lawyer Bruce Fein the administration does not consider itself bound by Congressional restrictions. Where the hell is the outrage? The president is running afoul of the law and not even a wimper. Let’s not forget the president and his propaganda machine lied the nation into a war that has resulted in the deaths of over one million Iraqi people and close to 4,000 U.S. soldiers and no impeachment for these high crimes. But Michael Vick is indicted and on his way to prison for dog fighting. It’s good to know that the American people got their priorities straight.
It’s rampant hypocrisy and it’s a goddamn shame that people in this country sit around and pretend nothing is going on. The media has joined the government’s scheme and now journalistic integrity is dead. From cuts in education and healthcare to rising unemployment and outsourcing of American jobs to places like India and China, I ask where is the outrage? But it doesn’t matter, the latest media blitz has passed with Paris Hilton’s confinement, to K-Fed and Britney Spears’ custody battle to Lindsay Lohan’s drug induced madness to the media lynching of Michael Vick over dogs. What’s going to be the next media blitzkrieg event that takes our focus off of government scandals and corruption? When the next political scandal breaks, outrage will be nowhere to be found.
-Aquil Aziz
FREE THE MOVE 9!!
via: onamovellja@aol.com
=========================
Today MOVE women were denied parole and this is an immediate response---
ONA MOVE, Ramona
Today, April 22, 2008, MOVE women that survived the August 8, 1978 police attempt to kill off MOVE were denied parole by the Pennsylvania Department of Probation and Parole. The parole board says that MOVE women were denied parole because they minimized or denied the nature and circumstances of the offense; refused to accept responsibility; lacked remorse and because the prosecutors office said MOVE should not be paroled because we act outside the “law”. In fact, it’s the parole board that is “acting outside the law” by demanding that any inmate (especially those that have maintained their innocence from the very beginning) say that they are guilty when they are not. MOVE is innocent, we ain’t guilty, we ain’t gonna say we’re guilty and the parole board has no authority to demand that we lie and say we’re guilty. That is the height of arrogance when the parole board knows that countless people are convicted in the courts daily, are sent to jail and end up being released after 20, 25, 30 years because they are innocent just like they said they were. Where would any “remorse” come from when you are innocent? Why would anybody take responsibility for a crime that they didn’t commit? Where is the wrong in denying something that you did not do. It is obvious that these officials are sending a very clear message to the people. The message is that they’re gonna do whatever they want to do and they don’t care about the truth , they don’t care that they’re breaking they very laws that they claim to have MOVE and millions of others in prison for breaking and they don’t even care that people know that they’re the ones that are breaking the law. Lynn Abraham (the district attorney of Philadelphia that used to be a judge) says that MOVE “acts outside the law” so we should stay in prison? In fact, She acted outside the law when she signed warrants for MOVE in May of 1977 even though the police commissioner said MOVE had committed no crime. Then mayor, Rizzo, “acted outside the law” on August 8, 1978 when he ordered MOVE HQ., vital evidence in a murder trial, the “scene of the crime” destroyed. The courts “acted outside the law” when they proceeded with the trial after destroying the scene of the crime because when they destroyed the evidence they destroyed the bases for any trial. Judge Malmed, the trial judge in the August 8th murder trial “acted outside the law” when he sentenced 9 innocent MOVE people to a maximum 900 years in prison for a crime that he could not say or prove that any 1 of the 9 committed, a crime that he admitted publicly that he didn’t have the “faintest idea” who committed. Lynn Abraham “acted outside the law” when she knowingly signed fraudulent warrants for cops to come out and murder innocent MOVE people in May of 1985. The proof of just how fraudulent those warrants were lie in the fact that every single charge listed in those warrants were dismissed as having no basis, every single charge. Is there any question why MOVE people are so bitter, so full of fight and so motivated to keep revolting against this rotten ass system? JOHN AFRICA has opened our eyes and HE keeps us motivated, keeps us full of fight. They can hurt MOVE because we’re alive, we have feelings, but thanks to JOHN AFRICA they WILL NEVER STOP MOVE!
LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA! LONG LIVE REVOLUTION!
=========================
Today MOVE women were denied parole and this is an immediate response---
ONA MOVE, Ramona
Today, April 22, 2008, MOVE women that survived the August 8, 1978 police attempt to kill off MOVE were denied parole by the Pennsylvania Department of Probation and Parole. The parole board says that MOVE women were denied parole because they minimized or denied the nature and circumstances of the offense; refused to accept responsibility; lacked remorse and because the prosecutors office said MOVE should not be paroled because we act outside the “law”. In fact, it’s the parole board that is “acting outside the law” by demanding that any inmate (especially those that have maintained their innocence from the very beginning) say that they are guilty when they are not. MOVE is innocent, we ain’t guilty, we ain’t gonna say we’re guilty and the parole board has no authority to demand that we lie and say we’re guilty. That is the height of arrogance when the parole board knows that countless people are convicted in the courts daily, are sent to jail and end up being released after 20, 25, 30 years because they are innocent just like they said they were. Where would any “remorse” come from when you are innocent? Why would anybody take responsibility for a crime that they didn’t commit? Where is the wrong in denying something that you did not do. It is obvious that these officials are sending a very clear message to the people. The message is that they’re gonna do whatever they want to do and they don’t care about the truth , they don’t care that they’re breaking they very laws that they claim to have MOVE and millions of others in prison for breaking and they don’t even care that people know that they’re the ones that are breaking the law. Lynn Abraham (the district attorney of Philadelphia that used to be a judge) says that MOVE “acts outside the law” so we should stay in prison? In fact, She acted outside the law when she signed warrants for MOVE in May of 1977 even though the police commissioner said MOVE had committed no crime. Then mayor, Rizzo, “acted outside the law” on August 8, 1978 when he ordered MOVE HQ., vital evidence in a murder trial, the “scene of the crime” destroyed. The courts “acted outside the law” when they proceeded with the trial after destroying the scene of the crime because when they destroyed the evidence they destroyed the bases for any trial. Judge Malmed, the trial judge in the August 8th murder trial “acted outside the law” when he sentenced 9 innocent MOVE people to a maximum 900 years in prison for a crime that he could not say or prove that any 1 of the 9 committed, a crime that he admitted publicly that he didn’t have the “faintest idea” who committed. Lynn Abraham “acted outside the law” when she knowingly signed fraudulent warrants for cops to come out and murder innocent MOVE people in May of 1985. The proof of just how fraudulent those warrants were lie in the fact that every single charge listed in those warrants were dismissed as having no basis, every single charge. Is there any question why MOVE people are so bitter, so full of fight and so motivated to keep revolting against this rotten ass system? JOHN AFRICA has opened our eyes and HE keeps us motivated, keeps us full of fight. They can hurt MOVE because we’re alive, we have feelings, but thanks to JOHN AFRICA they WILL NEVER STOP MOVE!
LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA! LONG LIVE REVOLUTION!
Judge to ex-pastor: 'You lied'
By ROCCO LaDUCA
Observer-Dispatch
Posted Feb 29, 2008 @ 05:25 PM
Last update Feb 29, 2008 @ 05:27 PM
UTICA — When the Rev. William Procanick put his hand on the Bible during his sex-abuse trial in Oneida County Court earlier this year, he swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
But as the former Clinton pastor was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for inappropriately touching a 7-year-old girl at his home last March, Judge Michael L. Dwyer said Procanick sacrificed his honesty the day he testified.
“As a minister of God, you got on the stand and you lied,” Dwyer told Procanick, the 54-year-old former pastor of Resurrection Assembly of God church on Kirkland Avenue.
A jury found Procanick guilty Jan. 22 of first-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.
Dwyer said he believes Procanick was being honest when he told the girl's mother in a recorded phone call that he was wrong to caress the girl's body while she was trying to fall asleep.
However, Procanick instead testified in court that he did nothing wrong other than spend time alone with the girl, who was a friend of the family, Dwyer noted.
If Procanick had accepted responsibility from the beginning instead of straying from the truth, Dwyer said, Procanick would likely have faced a lesser punishment and possibly avoided jail time.
“The truth would have set you free,” Dwyer said. “You had a chance to be a man and say, 'I made a mistake.' But as always, the cover-up is much worse than the original crime.”
Procanick's defense attorney, George Aney, noted that Procanick still received a sentence less than the maximum, which was up to seven years in prison.
“It's considerably less than the maximum, but considerably more than he deserved,” Aney said.
Aney also took issue with how Dwyer and the victim's mother used harsh language to attack Procanick's Christian values.
“You are just an evil man,” the victim's mother said Friday in court. “You lied, and you had your wife lie. And all these people who showed up in court to support you, did you lie to them, too?”
The Observer-Dispatch does not identify sex-abuse victims and their families.
The victim's mother said her daughter is still waking up scared at night because of what happened, and she continues to see a therapist. The young girl also feels that everybody is mad at her, the mother said.
Assistant District Attorney Doug DeMarche Jr. then read a note written by the girl, who did not appear in court Friday.
“Bill made me sad and scared,” DeMarche read. “I thought I did something wrong, because I trusted him.”
Dwyer gave Procanick an opportunity to speak in court, but Procanick had nothing to say to the victim and her family.
Aney did not plan to speak in court, he told Dwyer, but he felt obligated to respond to what the victim's mother said about Procanick and his wife.
“I believe she shows her own lack of Christianity by referring to people as liars,” Aney said.
After the sentencing, Aney further commented about what was said in court.
“I respect Judge Dwyer for what he said this morning, but I have to say I disagreed with him,” Aney said. “I have every right to express my feelings, and my feelings are that we are not permitted to call anybody a liar. That's a judgment someone higher than I makes.”
DeMarche, however, said he can understand why the girl's mother spoke of Procanick in such harsh terms.
“She had a lot of faith and trust in Mr. Procanick, and he violated that trust,” DeMarche said. “I think she's justified in being angry.”
Observer-Dispatch
Posted Feb 29, 2008 @ 05:25 PM
Last update Feb 29, 2008 @ 05:27 PM
UTICA — When the Rev. William Procanick put his hand on the Bible during his sex-abuse trial in Oneida County Court earlier this year, he swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
But as the former Clinton pastor was sentenced Friday to three years in prison for inappropriately touching a 7-year-old girl at his home last March, Judge Michael L. Dwyer said Procanick sacrificed his honesty the day he testified.
“As a minister of God, you got on the stand and you lied,” Dwyer told Procanick, the 54-year-old former pastor of Resurrection Assembly of God church on Kirkland Avenue.
A jury found Procanick guilty Jan. 22 of first-degree sexual abuse and endangering the welfare of a child.
Dwyer said he believes Procanick was being honest when he told the girl's mother in a recorded phone call that he was wrong to caress the girl's body while she was trying to fall asleep.
However, Procanick instead testified in court that he did nothing wrong other than spend time alone with the girl, who was a friend of the family, Dwyer noted.
If Procanick had accepted responsibility from the beginning instead of straying from the truth, Dwyer said, Procanick would likely have faced a lesser punishment and possibly avoided jail time.
“The truth would have set you free,” Dwyer said. “You had a chance to be a man and say, 'I made a mistake.' But as always, the cover-up is much worse than the original crime.”
Procanick's defense attorney, George Aney, noted that Procanick still received a sentence less than the maximum, which was up to seven years in prison.
“It's considerably less than the maximum, but considerably more than he deserved,” Aney said.
Aney also took issue with how Dwyer and the victim's mother used harsh language to attack Procanick's Christian values.
“You are just an evil man,” the victim's mother said Friday in court. “You lied, and you had your wife lie. And all these people who showed up in court to support you, did you lie to them, too?”
The Observer-Dispatch does not identify sex-abuse victims and their families.
The victim's mother said her daughter is still waking up scared at night because of what happened, and she continues to see a therapist. The young girl also feels that everybody is mad at her, the mother said.
Assistant District Attorney Doug DeMarche Jr. then read a note written by the girl, who did not appear in court Friday.
“Bill made me sad and scared,” DeMarche read. “I thought I did something wrong, because I trusted him.”
Dwyer gave Procanick an opportunity to speak in court, but Procanick had nothing to say to the victim and her family.
Aney did not plan to speak in court, he told Dwyer, but he felt obligated to respond to what the victim's mother said about Procanick and his wife.
“I believe she shows her own lack of Christianity by referring to people as liars,” Aney said.
After the sentencing, Aney further commented about what was said in court.
“I respect Judge Dwyer for what he said this morning, but I have to say I disagreed with him,” Aney said. “I have every right to express my feelings, and my feelings are that we are not permitted to call anybody a liar. That's a judgment someone higher than I makes.”
DeMarche, however, said he can understand why the girl's mother spoke of Procanick in such harsh terms.
“She had a lot of faith and trust in Mr. Procanick, and he violated that trust,” DeMarche said. “I think she's justified in being angry.”
A Picture of What is Coming in America
Should you decide to click on the link below, then I strongly suggest that you be advised of the graphic nature and detail. You have been warned.
http://www.flurl.com/video/5501441_vom.htm
http://www.flurl.com/video/5501441_vom.htm
FDA Faulted for Approving Studies of Artificial Blood
By Rob SteinWashington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 29, 2008; A02
A new analysis concludes that the Food and Drug Administration approved experiments with artificial blood substitutes even after studies showed that the controversial products posed a clear risk of causing heart attacks and death.
The review of combined data from more than 3,711 patients who participated in 16 studies testing five different types of artificial blood, released yesterday, found that the products nearly tripled the risk of heart attacks and boosted the chances of dying by 30 percent.
Based on the findings, the researchers questioned why the FDA allowed additional testing of the products to go forward and why the agency is considering letting yet another study proceed.
"It's hard to understand," said Charles Natanson, a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health who led the analysis, which was released early by the Journal of the American Medical Association so the data could be presented at an FDA meeting on the subject. "They already had data that these products could cause heart attacks and evidence that they could kill."
An FDA official defended the agency, saying it had carefully weighed the risks and benefits of each study individually and had convened this week's two-day meeting to address the very concerns raised by the analysis.
"FDA independently was aware of essentially the same concerns that have been raised, and indeed that is the reason we have convened this scientific workshop and is the reason why we have made careful decisions about allowing some studies to proceed and others not to proceed," said Jay S. Epstein, director of the Office of Blood Research and Review. "Our point of view is that FDA has been highly vigilant in its oversight."
An artificial blood substitute that has a long shelf life and does not need refrigeration could save untold lives by providing an alternative to trauma patients in emergencies, especially in rural areas and in combat settings.
But attempts to develop such products have been marred by repeated failures and fraught with controversy, in part because some products have been studied under rules allowing researchers to administer them without obtaining consent from individual patients. Such trials were permitted based on the argument that there was no alternative because trauma patients are often unconscious and time is often too limited to obtain consent from a family member.
Natanson conducted the analysis after becoming concerned about the consistent risks emerging from studies of various versions of products known as hemoglobin-based blood substitutes. After the Washington-based consumer group Public Citizen sued the FDA to gain access to data submitted to the agency, Natanson and colleagues at NIH and Public Citizen pooled data from studies conducted between 1998 and 2007.
"It didn't matter what type of patient you studied. There was no one product that was responsible for this. It was similar regardless of the patient population studied, the company that manufactured the product, whether the study was published or unpublished, or the chemical characteristics of the individual products," Natanson said. "The effect was robust."
Based on the available data, Natanson and his colleagues said, the FDA could have been aware of the risk as early as 2000.
"Since this time they did five more trials," he said, including a 2004 study involving 714 patients in which 11 patients receiving an artificial blood had heart attacks and 47 patients died.
The earlier findings should have been disclosed so that doctors at hospitals considering whether to participate in the studies would be better informed about the potential risks.
"Keeping data from being public represents real risks to patients," Natanson said. "If secret science is allowed, other companies can't build on the successes and failures and [outside reviewers] won't be able to fully assess the risk."
But Epstein said the FDA did block some studies from proceeding and allowed them to proceed only when officials were satisfied that the potential benefits outweighed the risks.
"We have viewed each product in its own right. We have needed to consider the extent to which different products and different clinical circumstances warranted an independent assessment of the relative risks and benefits. We have done that in every case," Epstein said.
Although none of the products have been approved in the United States, at least one has been approved in South Africa. Five studies are ongoing in eight other countries, and the FDA is considering a request by the Navy to conduct another study of Hemopure, an artificial blood product made by Biopure Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., on 334 trauma patients.
Biopure condemned the analysis as fundamentally flawed.
"There are vast differences among these products that make any pooling of data flawed, especially across different clinical experiences," A.G. Greenburg, the company's vice president of medical affairs, said in an e-mail. "Moreover, the analysis of Biopure's experience, based on pooling of heterogeneous trials, we believe to be significantly flawed as it fails to meet the homogeneity criteria of meta-analysis, thus invalidating the conclusions."
But a former Biopure official said yesterday that he agreed with the analysis.
"The risk appears to be a class risk. It appears to be present for all products," said William D. Hoffman, director of the cardiac intensive-care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who was Biopure's medical director and chief medical officer from 1998 to 2000. "They should all be on hold until they figure out what is causing the toxicity."
Hoffman said he tried to get the company to halt an earlier study when he became concerned about the product's safety.
"I went to the leadership at the company at the time and was outvoted," he said.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
© 2008 The Washington Post Company
Tuesday, April 29, 2008; A02
A new analysis concludes that the Food and Drug Administration approved experiments with artificial blood substitutes even after studies showed that the controversial products posed a clear risk of causing heart attacks and death.
The review of combined data from more than 3,711 patients who participated in 16 studies testing five different types of artificial blood, released yesterday, found that the products nearly tripled the risk of heart attacks and boosted the chances of dying by 30 percent.
Based on the findings, the researchers questioned why the FDA allowed additional testing of the products to go forward and why the agency is considering letting yet another study proceed.
"It's hard to understand," said Charles Natanson, a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health who led the analysis, which was released early by the Journal of the American Medical Association so the data could be presented at an FDA meeting on the subject. "They already had data that these products could cause heart attacks and evidence that they could kill."
An FDA official defended the agency, saying it had carefully weighed the risks and benefits of each study individually and had convened this week's two-day meeting to address the very concerns raised by the analysis.
"FDA independently was aware of essentially the same concerns that have been raised, and indeed that is the reason we have convened this scientific workshop and is the reason why we have made careful decisions about allowing some studies to proceed and others not to proceed," said Jay S. Epstein, director of the Office of Blood Research and Review. "Our point of view is that FDA has been highly vigilant in its oversight."
An artificial blood substitute that has a long shelf life and does not need refrigeration could save untold lives by providing an alternative to trauma patients in emergencies, especially in rural areas and in combat settings.
But attempts to develop such products have been marred by repeated failures and fraught with controversy, in part because some products have been studied under rules allowing researchers to administer them without obtaining consent from individual patients. Such trials were permitted based on the argument that there was no alternative because trauma patients are often unconscious and time is often too limited to obtain consent from a family member.
Natanson conducted the analysis after becoming concerned about the consistent risks emerging from studies of various versions of products known as hemoglobin-based blood substitutes. After the Washington-based consumer group Public Citizen sued the FDA to gain access to data submitted to the agency, Natanson and colleagues at NIH and Public Citizen pooled data from studies conducted between 1998 and 2007.
"It didn't matter what type of patient you studied. There was no one product that was responsible for this. It was similar regardless of the patient population studied, the company that manufactured the product, whether the study was published or unpublished, or the chemical characteristics of the individual products," Natanson said. "The effect was robust."
Based on the available data, Natanson and his colleagues said, the FDA could have been aware of the risk as early as 2000.
"Since this time they did five more trials," he said, including a 2004 study involving 714 patients in which 11 patients receiving an artificial blood had heart attacks and 47 patients died.
The earlier findings should have been disclosed so that doctors at hospitals considering whether to participate in the studies would be better informed about the potential risks.
"Keeping data from being public represents real risks to patients," Natanson said. "If secret science is allowed, other companies can't build on the successes and failures and [outside reviewers] won't be able to fully assess the risk."
But Epstein said the FDA did block some studies from proceeding and allowed them to proceed only when officials were satisfied that the potential benefits outweighed the risks.
"We have viewed each product in its own right. We have needed to consider the extent to which different products and different clinical circumstances warranted an independent assessment of the relative risks and benefits. We have done that in every case," Epstein said.
Although none of the products have been approved in the United States, at least one has been approved in South Africa. Five studies are ongoing in eight other countries, and the FDA is considering a request by the Navy to conduct another study of Hemopure, an artificial blood product made by Biopure Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., on 334 trauma patients.
Biopure condemned the analysis as fundamentally flawed.
"There are vast differences among these products that make any pooling of data flawed, especially across different clinical experiences," A.G. Greenburg, the company's vice president of medical affairs, said in an e-mail. "Moreover, the analysis of Biopure's experience, based on pooling of heterogeneous trials, we believe to be significantly flawed as it fails to meet the homogeneity criteria of meta-analysis, thus invalidating the conclusions."
But a former Biopure official said yesterday that he agreed with the analysis.
"The risk appears to be a class risk. It appears to be present for all products," said William D. Hoffman, director of the cardiac intensive-care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who was Biopure's medical director and chief medical officer from 1998 to 2000. "They should all be on hold until they figure out what is causing the toxicity."
Hoffman said he tried to get the company to halt an earlier study when he became concerned about the product's safety.
"I went to the leadership at the company at the time and was outvoted," he said.
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
© 2008 The Washington Post Company
MOVE Confrontation
On today, May 13, 1985, 11 MOVE men, women and children were bombed, burned and shot to death in the city of Philadelphia. No police officer or city, state or federal official did one second of one moment of jail time for these horrific murders. The sole adult survivor, Ramona Africa, did seven years in prison simply for surviving that wicked day.
=======================================
via: onamovellja@aol.com
LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA
The MOVE Organization wants to alert people to a situation that happened at our home at approximately 11:pm on Thurs., May 8th. About eight young Black kids (between 16 and 18 years old) were jumping up and down in the back of and walking on top of our pick-up. When one of our supporters saw them, he told them to get out of our truck. They were getting belligerent with him and one our sisters came over and she gave them some information too. The kids got out of the truck, walked across the street and stood on the corner a few feet from our house. My brother came out and moved the truck, he parked it in front of our house. These kids wouldn’t leave, they just stayed on the corner eying us. A couple of us, including me, went over to ask them what was going on. We asked them if they were working for the cops and if they were trying to provoke something. We made it clear who we are and what represent. They remained belligerent and when we gave them information about who our fight is with, what we’ve been through and gave them examples about the bombing, Sean Bell, etc. they said things “we didn’t do it” and “what’s that got to do with us”. We told them that they were getting belligerent with us if the cops stopped them wouldn’t get loud with them. One of boys got on his cell phone and told whoever he was talking to to look under his bed and get his “piece” and bring it to him”. We were out there about 45 minutes when the cops came out, 2 cars and a wagon. This is extremely unusual because we live in a university area and the university security as well as bike cops patrol this area religiously to keep it a certain way for those students but while all of this was going on there was not one cop or university person around. We told the cops what happened, who we are and what our position was. Then they talked to those kids. They never asked them for ID. and never responded to us telling them how one boy had told somebody to bring him his gun. We are very suspicious about this situation. We know this system is on the hot seat about this parole issue and we also know that they would love to arrest MOVE people out here on the street. If we had got into a fight with kids, they would have arrested all of us and took our kids. We’re just letting people know what’s going on because we think this was no random situation. We think this government is trying to provoke something in order to justify this parole decision and possibly arrest us. Keep your eyes and ears open---Ramona
=======================================
via: onamovellja@aol.com
LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA
The MOVE Organization wants to alert people to a situation that happened at our home at approximately 11:pm on Thurs., May 8th. About eight young Black kids (between 16 and 18 years old) were jumping up and down in the back of and walking on top of our pick-up. When one of our supporters saw them, he told them to get out of our truck. They were getting belligerent with him and one our sisters came over and she gave them some information too. The kids got out of the truck, walked across the street and stood on the corner a few feet from our house. My brother came out and moved the truck, he parked it in front of our house. These kids wouldn’t leave, they just stayed on the corner eying us. A couple of us, including me, went over to ask them what was going on. We asked them if they were working for the cops and if they were trying to provoke something. We made it clear who we are and what represent. They remained belligerent and when we gave them information about who our fight is with, what we’ve been through and gave them examples about the bombing, Sean Bell, etc. they said things “we didn’t do it” and “what’s that got to do with us”. We told them that they were getting belligerent with us if the cops stopped them wouldn’t get loud with them. One of boys got on his cell phone and told whoever he was talking to to look under his bed and get his “piece” and bring it to him”. We were out there about 45 minutes when the cops came out, 2 cars and a wagon. This is extremely unusual because we live in a university area and the university security as well as bike cops patrol this area religiously to keep it a certain way for those students but while all of this was going on there was not one cop or university person around. We told the cops what happened, who we are and what our position was. Then they talked to those kids. They never asked them for ID. and never responded to us telling them how one boy had told somebody to bring him his gun. We are very suspicious about this situation. We know this system is on the hot seat about this parole issue and we also know that they would love to arrest MOVE people out here on the street. If we had got into a fight with kids, they would have arrested all of us and took our kids. We’re just letting people know what’s going on because we think this was no random situation. We think this government is trying to provoke something in order to justify this parole decision and possibly arrest us. Keep your eyes and ears open---Ramona
Philadelphia: City of Brotherly Thugs
[col. writ. 4/21/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
The scene is as common as sunlight: cops beating Black men in the streets.
This time, captured on videotape from a hovering helicopter, a malevolent swarm of cops pull occupants from a car, and then proceed to beat the paste out of the men, kicking, punching, and slamming with a club. At least 15 cops are seen in the broadcast beatdown; an average of 5 to 1.
Within moments of its broadcast came the predictable defense: cops in Philly are "stressed."
One need not even await such defenses anymore: just put a tape on speed dial, and repeat.
If ever there was irony, the three car occupants were charged with aggravated assault, and criminal conspiracy.
How much do you wanna bet that the cops, who were caught on film in the midst of aggravated assault, and as they committed the crime in common, criminal conspiracy, are never charged with these crimes -- and probably will never be arrested?
How can I dare make such a claim?
Well, I have plenty of practice.
Most folks flash back to the infamous Rodney King case, where cops in L.A. went into a whipping fit, because King tried to outrun them.
Were they too, stressed?
It also reminded me of the taped beating of Delbert Africa, a MOVE member who was beaten during the August 8th, 1978 police raid on MOVE's home.
These cops, too, were easily acquitted by explicit judicial decree.
If tape doesn't matter, what does?
In the case against three cops who rifle-butted, punched and kicked Delbert, the judge ignored the video tapes, and cited both Delbert's muscularity, and the claim of a Black TV reporter, who claimed she saw him armed --this, despite the tape showing him shirtless, empty hands opened, and naked from the waist up!
Prepare for the all but inevitable whitewash.
Look at that tape again, and you will see something that you'll see if you looked at a gang attack, for these are gangsters, pure and simple.
Only it's the Blue gang.
Welcome to Philadelphia: the city of brotherly thugs.
--(c) '08 maj
The scene is as common as sunlight: cops beating Black men in the streets.
This time, captured on videotape from a hovering helicopter, a malevolent swarm of cops pull occupants from a car, and then proceed to beat the paste out of the men, kicking, punching, and slamming with a club. At least 15 cops are seen in the broadcast beatdown; an average of 5 to 1.
Within moments of its broadcast came the predictable defense: cops in Philly are "stressed."
One need not even await such defenses anymore: just put a tape on speed dial, and repeat.
If ever there was irony, the three car occupants were charged with aggravated assault, and criminal conspiracy.
How much do you wanna bet that the cops, who were caught on film in the midst of aggravated assault, and as they committed the crime in common, criminal conspiracy, are never charged with these crimes -- and probably will never be arrested?
How can I dare make such a claim?
Well, I have plenty of practice.
Most folks flash back to the infamous Rodney King case, where cops in L.A. went into a whipping fit, because King tried to outrun them.
Were they too, stressed?
It also reminded me of the taped beating of Delbert Africa, a MOVE member who was beaten during the August 8th, 1978 police raid on MOVE's home.
These cops, too, were easily acquitted by explicit judicial decree.
If tape doesn't matter, what does?
In the case against three cops who rifle-butted, punched and kicked Delbert, the judge ignored the video tapes, and cited both Delbert's muscularity, and the claim of a Black TV reporter, who claimed she saw him armed --this, despite the tape showing him shirtless, empty hands opened, and naked from the waist up!
Prepare for the all but inevitable whitewash.
Look at that tape again, and you will see something that you'll see if you looked at a gang attack, for these are gangsters, pure and simple.
Only it's the Blue gang.
Welcome to Philadelphia: the city of brotherly thugs.
--(c) '08 maj
Food Wars
[col. writ. 4/21/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Like a shadowy echo out of history, angry throngs massed at the Big House in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. But this time, they were not clamoring for freedom.
Or, if they were, it was for freedom from hunger.
Their protests shook the government, and forced the Prime Minister, Jacques-Edourd Alexis, to step down.
Several years ago, we saw massive protests in Oaxaca, Mexico, against exorbitant hikes in corn prices, the grain which forms the basis, and is the staple of the national diet (tortillas and tacos).
In Egypt, bread prices are so high that the army has been called in to stifle dissent, and to distribute bread.
Wheat, corn and other such grains are becoming so expensive that millions of people around the world are seriously threatened by hunger.
The cause? In truth, there are many, but perhaps chief among them is speculation and anticipated demand for bio fuels, or the use of grains to produce fuel to run cars.
Many grains are held off the food markets, to await better prices for bio fuels. In other words, people are going hungry -- facing starvation - so that people can pump fuel into cars.
If ever there was an encapsulated image of the mercenary nature of capitalism, it can be seen in this one example: filling cars instead of feeding people.
This is also a window into what we have come to call globalism.
There are 5 major companies that control some 85% of the world's grain trade, and nearly half of the world's grain production. As huge multinationals, will they utilize this power to feed the people of the world, or to maximize profits?
The answer is obvious.
And even though kids in American schools aren't taught this truth, the fact of the matter is we all live closer to the age of gasoline than the age of the atom. For every item we purchase, from food to coats, from jewelry to DVD's, bears the cost of transportation in its price, and as the price of gas soars, that price is passed on to the consumer.
So fuel exacts a kind of double tax when it comes to grains. Through speculation and transfer to bio fuels, all such grain prices rise.
To this is added the price of transport.
The logic of the market leads to mass starvation.
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: Esteva, Gustavo and Madhu Suri Prakash, "From Global to Local: Beyond Neo liberalism to the International of Hope," in The Globalization Reader, 3d ed. Frank J. Lechner & John Boli, eds., p.455]
Like a shadowy echo out of history, angry throngs massed at the Big House in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. But this time, they were not clamoring for freedom.
Or, if they were, it was for freedom from hunger.
Their protests shook the government, and forced the Prime Minister, Jacques-Edourd Alexis, to step down.
Several years ago, we saw massive protests in Oaxaca, Mexico, against exorbitant hikes in corn prices, the grain which forms the basis, and is the staple of the national diet (tortillas and tacos).
In Egypt, bread prices are so high that the army has been called in to stifle dissent, and to distribute bread.
Wheat, corn and other such grains are becoming so expensive that millions of people around the world are seriously threatened by hunger.
The cause? In truth, there are many, but perhaps chief among them is speculation and anticipated demand for bio fuels, or the use of grains to produce fuel to run cars.
Many grains are held off the food markets, to await better prices for bio fuels. In other words, people are going hungry -- facing starvation - so that people can pump fuel into cars.
If ever there was an encapsulated image of the mercenary nature of capitalism, it can be seen in this one example: filling cars instead of feeding people.
This is also a window into what we have come to call globalism.
There are 5 major companies that control some 85% of the world's grain trade, and nearly half of the world's grain production. As huge multinationals, will they utilize this power to feed the people of the world, or to maximize profits?
The answer is obvious.
And even though kids in American schools aren't taught this truth, the fact of the matter is we all live closer to the age of gasoline than the age of the atom. For every item we purchase, from food to coats, from jewelry to DVD's, bears the cost of transportation in its price, and as the price of gas soars, that price is passed on to the consumer.
So fuel exacts a kind of double tax when it comes to grains. Through speculation and transfer to bio fuels, all such grain prices rise.
To this is added the price of transport.
The logic of the market leads to mass starvation.
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: Esteva, Gustavo and Madhu Suri Prakash, "From Global to Local: Beyond Neo liberalism to the International of Hope," in The Globalization Reader, 3d ed. Frank J. Lechner & John Boli, eds., p.455]
ILWU Strikes for Peace
[col./speech writ. 4/25/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
It should surprise no one that the mighty ILWU (International Longshoreman & Warehouse Union) is in the forefront of this 8-hour dock shutdown for peace.
The ILWU's proud and illustrious history is one of supporting peoples' movements, for life, freedom, workers solidarity and immigration rights, worldwide!
They remember the stirring words of Eugene V. Debs (socialist labor leader and 1900 presidential candidate), who said, almost a century ago "It is the master class that declares war. It is the subject class that fights the battles."
For these words, and his antiwar sentiments, Debs was cast into prison.
That the ILWU is echoing his words today is proof of their power and truth - 100 years later!
It also proves how little we have moved from the dawn of the 20th century, to the dawn of the 21st; for war is still a tool of imperial power, to fuel corporate wealth and global domination.
Who can deny that this is a war for oil?
Who can deny that this is and illegal occupation (that is, in violation of international law), more concerned with what's under the earth, than for the millions living in dread upon it?
For Iraq may not've been a barrel of laughs before the US invasion and occupation, but it's surely hell now.
And Congress, like Nero amidst the fires of Rome, does little more than twiddle its thumbs.
It's labor power that makes the wheels go round - and this powerful demonstration of the denial of labor for May Day, for peace and an end to occupation in Iraq is workers' solidarity made real.
Kudos to the ILWU!
For Labor Power, Peace and anti-Imperialism!
*******
It should surprise no one that the mighty ILWU (International Longshoreman & Warehouse Union) is in the forefront of this 8-hour dock shutdown for peace.
The ILWU's proud and illustrious history is one of supporting peoples' movements, for life, freedom, workers solidarity and immigration rights, worldwide!
They remember the stirring words of Eugene V. Debs (socialist labor leader and 1900 presidential candidate), who said, almost a century ago "It is the master class that declares war. It is the subject class that fights the battles."
For these words, and his antiwar sentiments, Debs was cast into prison.
That the ILWU is echoing his words today is proof of their power and truth - 100 years later!
It also proves how little we have moved from the dawn of the 20th century, to the dawn of the 21st; for war is still a tool of imperial power, to fuel corporate wealth and global domination.
Who can deny that this is a war for oil?
Who can deny that this is and illegal occupation (that is, in violation of international law), more concerned with what's under the earth, than for the millions living in dread upon it?
For Iraq may not've been a barrel of laughs before the US invasion and occupation, but it's surely hell now.
And Congress, like Nero amidst the fires of Rome, does little more than twiddle its thumbs.
It's labor power that makes the wheels go round - and this powerful demonstration of the denial of labor for May Day, for peace and an end to occupation in Iraq is workers' solidarity made real.
Kudos to the ILWU!
For Labor Power, Peace and anti-Imperialism!
*******
The Politics of Denunciation
[col. writ. 4/30/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
When was the last time that you saw a politician asked to denounce a religious leader with whom he or she was associated?
For generations, we have seen a succession of presidents, from both political parties, under the wing of the Rev. Billy Graham.
Historians have recently reported that Graham and his Oval Office acolytes have spoken in racist and xenophobic terms about both Blacks and Jews.
The Rev. Graham recently was lionized as the personal spiritual advisor to presidents, in times of stress, pressure, war and peace.
Neither he, nor his presidential prayer pals have ever been damned or denounced for profoundly racist speech in the palaces of the powerful.
Now, as a Black man begins to climb the greased pole of American political power, he is asked to either defend or denounce a man whom he has known and admired for a generation.
Barack Obama opted for the latter.
He has all but jettisoned the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright from the close circle to the cold periphery of the political realm.
Whence comes this demand for denunciation?
If we are honest, it arises from the specter of white fear, that demand of Black people a higher standard than that of their own.
For what reason has Jeremiah Wright been jettisoned - if not for his proud, open Blackness? Rev. Wright is an advocate of Black Liberation Theology - a school of Black religious thought that sees the hand of God in the liberation of Black people from bondage.
White Americans are so used to hearing Blacks speak with quiet and pacific tones, that when a man expresses himself fully, as did Rev. Wright, they are, quite frankly, frightened. (What do they fear, that Blacks will dare remember?)
Through the corporate media talking heads, they demanded that Obama "distance himself" from that scary, Black (uppity?) preacher - and do it fast.
Yowza, boss.
The politics of denunciation is, ultimately, the politics of betrayal. It asks - no - it demands that the candidate denounce those whom the White Nation opposes.
If they don't, then they are presumed to be a supporter of that person, or ideology. Meanwhile, white conservative preachers can say virtually anything, and calls for denunciation are swallowed into silence.
Former presidential candidate, and Republican supporter, Rev. Pat Robertson, called for the killing of a foreign head of state! (I speak here of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.)
Did the White House denounce this prominent religious supporter? Not to my knowledge (in fact, it would be rather difficult, given the current regime's failed coup d'etat against him).
But Barack, the son of a continental African, cannot be seen calling for Black Liberation; for he seeks not to become leader of the Black Nations, but the world's leading White Nation.
Once again, Blacks, and their deep indigenous concerns, are pushed to the periphery. Their free expression ain't free, for there is a cost.
When I saw his latest dis' of the Rev. Dr. Wright, I thought of a question posed in the Bible, in the words of Jesus of Nazareth speaking to his disciples (in Matthew 16:26): For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?...
What would you do to get a job?
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: Holy Bible, St. Matthew (King James Version.]
When was the last time that you saw a politician asked to denounce a religious leader with whom he or she was associated?
For generations, we have seen a succession of presidents, from both political parties, under the wing of the Rev. Billy Graham.
Historians have recently reported that Graham and his Oval Office acolytes have spoken in racist and xenophobic terms about both Blacks and Jews.
The Rev. Graham recently was lionized as the personal spiritual advisor to presidents, in times of stress, pressure, war and peace.
Neither he, nor his presidential prayer pals have ever been damned or denounced for profoundly racist speech in the palaces of the powerful.
Now, as a Black man begins to climb the greased pole of American political power, he is asked to either defend or denounce a man whom he has known and admired for a generation.
Barack Obama opted for the latter.
He has all but jettisoned the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah Wright from the close circle to the cold periphery of the political realm.
Whence comes this demand for denunciation?
If we are honest, it arises from the specter of white fear, that demand of Black people a higher standard than that of their own.
For what reason has Jeremiah Wright been jettisoned - if not for his proud, open Blackness? Rev. Wright is an advocate of Black Liberation Theology - a school of Black religious thought that sees the hand of God in the liberation of Black people from bondage.
White Americans are so used to hearing Blacks speak with quiet and pacific tones, that when a man expresses himself fully, as did Rev. Wright, they are, quite frankly, frightened. (What do they fear, that Blacks will dare remember?)
Through the corporate media talking heads, they demanded that Obama "distance himself" from that scary, Black (uppity?) preacher - and do it fast.
Yowza, boss.
The politics of denunciation is, ultimately, the politics of betrayal. It asks - no - it demands that the candidate denounce those whom the White Nation opposes.
If they don't, then they are presumed to be a supporter of that person, or ideology. Meanwhile, white conservative preachers can say virtually anything, and calls for denunciation are swallowed into silence.
Former presidential candidate, and Republican supporter, Rev. Pat Robertson, called for the killing of a foreign head of state! (I speak here of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.)
Did the White House denounce this prominent religious supporter? Not to my knowledge (in fact, it would be rather difficult, given the current regime's failed coup d'etat against him).
But Barack, the son of a continental African, cannot be seen calling for Black Liberation; for he seeks not to become leader of the Black Nations, but the world's leading White Nation.
Once again, Blacks, and their deep indigenous concerns, are pushed to the periphery. Their free expression ain't free, for there is a cost.
When I saw his latest dis' of the Rev. Dr. Wright, I thought of a question posed in the Bible, in the words of Jesus of Nazareth speaking to his disciples (in Matthew 16:26): For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?...
What would you do to get a job?
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: Holy Bible, St. Matthew (King James Version.]
!*Part 2 - Boots Interviews Mumia/Block Report Radio!
The Minister of Information
JRPOCC Block Report Radio
www.blockreportradio.com
Another World is Possible: Boots of the Coup Interviews Mumia Abu-Jamal
PART 2
The POCC: Block Report Radio show recently recorded a conversation where internationally known musician Boots Riley of the Coup interviewed political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. Although people can hear Mumia on prisonradio.org with his weekly commentaries, the Block Report believes that it is important to hear from Mumia in a looser setting where he can talk casually and interact, rather than just try to make a few concise points with credible evidence. The interview that we produced before this was with M1 and Mumia; it can be found at www.blockreportradio.com, along with the audio from this interview in its entirety.
by The Minister of Information JR
This is the final segment of the interview that legendary political rapper Boots from the Coup did with political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal, via telephone. This is one of the many interviews that Block Report Radio has done in its project, to expose political prisoners to cultural and political forces on the streets. There are more to come.
In the 2nd segment of this interview, Boots and Mumia talk about unions, Mumia's favorite writers, as well as Mumia's comments on a recent Supreme Court decision giving Guantanamo Bay prisoners the right to see a judge. Check it out.
Boots: And I think that that was kind of the thought that I was having, is that the union movements that we see now, they are definitely not revolutionary or radical. There is some really good people trying to do things, do you think that people who do consider themselves revolutionary or radicals or progressives, more of them need to get involved with some issues that have to do with labor or economics on the grassroots level?
Mumia: I do. That might mean joining a trade union. That might mean just organizing among trade unionist and union members. You know in order to make this thing happen, in order to change society , all the factors of society have to be organized, and touched, and moved, and motivated. You see, if it doesn't happen that way, then there'll be increasingly smaller groups of people involved in organizations. And there'll be less and less influential. When people organized those union things that I've talked about, they did it because their lives were hell, and they also did it, if you think back and check back, the Supreme Court said "criminal syndicalism or syndicalization".The Supreme Court criminalized unionization, saying it was a burden on production, and a burden on business, and the private property of corporations. It took millions and millions of people organizing all around the country, to change that into the kind of normalization that...We now think of unions as a background noise. It's a normal thing. It's not extraordinary. Instead of what they could be, they're much better than they were. They can be much much better, but its going to take a change in consciousness among union people, and among organizers to work together, and work outside of the realm of work, and in the area of culture for example. I mean, we can not under-estimate the power of culture in a society where entertainment is one of the biggest industries in this country, in the world really, because that's where people hear things, that's where their minds are changed. Think of the impact of a Bob Marley for example.
THIS CALL IS FROM THE STATE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION SC GREENE, AND IS SUBJECT TO MONITORING AND RECORDING.
Boots: You and Commandante Marcos are two of the most beautiful right-on writers that I have read, to break down how society works.
Mumia: Thank you, brotha.
Boots: And who are some of your favorite writers?
Mumia: I have a lot, given the situation, I read a lot, but I've found that some of Huey's early stuff is, and it hasn't really been read even by former members of the Party. He was brilliant. He truly was brilliant. There is an old-head, a West Indian, who's no longer among us, he wrote some really deep stuff. His name was C.L.R. James. He was from Trinidad. This brotha was brilliant, because you know, he was a scholar, a thinker, and all of that, and he was also an organizer, a revolutionary, a political figure, a thinker, a writer, and one of his greatest collections of interviews and speeches was something called, "Every Cook Could Govern", where he analyses the world. He was just a brilliant cat. So I read a great deal, and a lot of people have influenced me in different ways; Eldridge. I was a teenager when I first got turned on to Eldridge. Eldridge was a very very powerful and brilliant writer, who influenced me deeply when I was a kid, and I still have that influence with me today.
Boots: What do you think about the Supreme Court decision letting people in Guantanamo get to see a judge?
Mumia: You know what is most amazing about that Boots, that 4 members of the Court said "no they don't". (Sarcastically Laughing) You know, I am surprised pleasantly that 5 members of the Court said that the Constitution covers them because they are under the jurisdiction of the United States of Amerikkka, okay. So there has to be some kind of hearing, or the availability of habeus corpus in federal court. But 4 justices, including the chief justice said "no they don't", and when you think about that, that should astound people. You know in the space of 7 or 8 years, in addition to Guantanamo, you have so-called "black sites", secret prisons, you have legalized for all intents and purposes torture, and there are other prisons that we don't even talk about, called Diego Garcia, and others around the world, where people are tortured in the name of Amerikkka. And the fact that more people aren't crazy about it, or making noise about it, or demonstrating in the streets about it, is stunning, and it shows you how repression really does close down the minds of people. Because people must be paralyzed by fear, instead of energized by indignation to say "this is not my country", "this is not the country I want", "this is not the world that I want to live in". Now we know, as African-Americans, that Amerikkka has rarely if ever followed its own Constitution. I mean, it would be a good idea if they did that. They certainly violated it for centuries when it comes to African-Americans. It doesn't even matter what the Constitution say, they passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment and then said in so many words, this applies to everybody and corporations, but not niggers, you see? And denied Black people for a hundred years, the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
YOU HAVE 60 SECONDS REMAINING.
Mumia: It took people organizing in the streets, all across the South and the North to change those words into reality. Ona Move. Good to hear you Boots.
Boots: Thank you very much, and its an honor to speak to you.
Mumia: The honor is mine brotha. Keep doing what you're doing, because you're doing some real beautiful stuff.
Boots: Oh wow, I'm glad that you even know who I am. Thank you very much.
Mumia: I've read about you in the Bay View. I saw your interview, and it was all of that (laughing). Thank you brotha.
You could hear the entire audio version of this interview at www.blocktreportradio.com
-- The Minister of Information JRPOCC Block Report Radiowww.blockreportradio.com
JRPOCC Block Report Radio
www.blockreportradio.com
Another World is Possible: Boots of the Coup Interviews Mumia Abu-Jamal
PART 2
The POCC: Block Report Radio show recently recorded a conversation where internationally known musician Boots Riley of the Coup interviewed political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. Although people can hear Mumia on prisonradio.org with his weekly commentaries, the Block Report believes that it is important to hear from Mumia in a looser setting where he can talk casually and interact, rather than just try to make a few concise points with credible evidence. The interview that we produced before this was with M1 and Mumia; it can be found at www.blockreportradio.com, along with the audio from this interview in its entirety.
by The Minister of Information JR
This is the final segment of the interview that legendary political rapper Boots from the Coup did with political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal, via telephone. This is one of the many interviews that Block Report Radio has done in its project, to expose political prisoners to cultural and political forces on the streets. There are more to come.
In the 2nd segment of this interview, Boots and Mumia talk about unions, Mumia's favorite writers, as well as Mumia's comments on a recent Supreme Court decision giving Guantanamo Bay prisoners the right to see a judge. Check it out.
Boots: And I think that that was kind of the thought that I was having, is that the union movements that we see now, they are definitely not revolutionary or radical. There is some really good people trying to do things, do you think that people who do consider themselves revolutionary or radicals or progressives, more of them need to get involved with some issues that have to do with labor or economics on the grassroots level?
Mumia: I do. That might mean joining a trade union. That might mean just organizing among trade unionist and union members. You know in order to make this thing happen, in order to change society , all the factors of society have to be organized, and touched, and moved, and motivated. You see, if it doesn't happen that way, then there'll be increasingly smaller groups of people involved in organizations. And there'll be less and less influential. When people organized those union things that I've talked about, they did it because their lives were hell, and they also did it, if you think back and check back, the Supreme Court said "criminal syndicalism or syndicalization".The Supreme Court criminalized unionization, saying it was a burden on production, and a burden on business, and the private property of corporations. It took millions and millions of people organizing all around the country, to change that into the kind of normalization that...We now think of unions as a background noise. It's a normal thing. It's not extraordinary. Instead of what they could be, they're much better than they were. They can be much much better, but its going to take a change in consciousness among union people, and among organizers to work together, and work outside of the realm of work, and in the area of culture for example. I mean, we can not under-estimate the power of culture in a society where entertainment is one of the biggest industries in this country, in the world really, because that's where people hear things, that's where their minds are changed. Think of the impact of a Bob Marley for example.
THIS CALL IS FROM THE STATE CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION SC GREENE, AND IS SUBJECT TO MONITORING AND RECORDING.
Boots: You and Commandante Marcos are two of the most beautiful right-on writers that I have read, to break down how society works.
Mumia: Thank you, brotha.
Boots: And who are some of your favorite writers?
Mumia: I have a lot, given the situation, I read a lot, but I've found that some of Huey's early stuff is, and it hasn't really been read even by former members of the Party. He was brilliant. He truly was brilliant. There is an old-head, a West Indian, who's no longer among us, he wrote some really deep stuff. His name was C.L.R. James. He was from Trinidad. This brotha was brilliant, because you know, he was a scholar, a thinker, and all of that, and he was also an organizer, a revolutionary, a political figure, a thinker, a writer, and one of his greatest collections of interviews and speeches was something called, "Every Cook Could Govern", where he analyses the world. He was just a brilliant cat. So I read a great deal, and a lot of people have influenced me in different ways; Eldridge. I was a teenager when I first got turned on to Eldridge. Eldridge was a very very powerful and brilliant writer, who influenced me deeply when I was a kid, and I still have that influence with me today.
Boots: What do you think about the Supreme Court decision letting people in Guantanamo get to see a judge?
Mumia: You know what is most amazing about that Boots, that 4 members of the Court said "no they don't". (Sarcastically Laughing) You know, I am surprised pleasantly that 5 members of the Court said that the Constitution covers them because they are under the jurisdiction of the United States of Amerikkka, okay. So there has to be some kind of hearing, or the availability of habeus corpus in federal court. But 4 justices, including the chief justice said "no they don't", and when you think about that, that should astound people. You know in the space of 7 or 8 years, in addition to Guantanamo, you have so-called "black sites", secret prisons, you have legalized for all intents and purposes torture, and there are other prisons that we don't even talk about, called Diego Garcia, and others around the world, where people are tortured in the name of Amerikkka. And the fact that more people aren't crazy about it, or making noise about it, or demonstrating in the streets about it, is stunning, and it shows you how repression really does close down the minds of people. Because people must be paralyzed by fear, instead of energized by indignation to say "this is not my country", "this is not the country I want", "this is not the world that I want to live in". Now we know, as African-Americans, that Amerikkka has rarely if ever followed its own Constitution. I mean, it would be a good idea if they did that. They certainly violated it for centuries when it comes to African-Americans. It doesn't even matter what the Constitution say, they passed the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendment and then said in so many words, this applies to everybody and corporations, but not niggers, you see? And denied Black people for a hundred years, the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
YOU HAVE 60 SECONDS REMAINING.
Mumia: It took people organizing in the streets, all across the South and the North to change those words into reality. Ona Move. Good to hear you Boots.
Boots: Thank you very much, and its an honor to speak to you.
Mumia: The honor is mine brotha. Keep doing what you're doing, because you're doing some real beautiful stuff.
Boots: Oh wow, I'm glad that you even know who I am. Thank you very much.
Mumia: I've read about you in the Bay View. I saw your interview, and it was all of that (laughing). Thank you brotha.
You could hear the entire audio version of this interview at www.blocktreportradio.com
-- The Minister of Information JRPOCC Block Report Radiowww.blockreportradio.com
War Declarations and Acts of Torture
Back on July 30, 2008 I received the following email message from the ACLU online and thought that I should post it up here. With a president who has no regard for the rule of law and a congress that sits back do nothing it's critical that the people, especially Black people recognize the truth and reality for what it really is. Complete separation from America and starting a nation of our own is the cure for the ills of our people. Integration has brought us nothing but self-destruction and setback after setback. America is going down into the abyss of hell fire and if you hang on to her you're going down with her.
Dear ACLU Supporter,
A few days ago, we alerted you to Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s demand that Congress issue a new declaration of war. This would make the entire globe -- including the United States itself -- a “battlefield” where the president gets to decide who is an “enemy combatant” and lock that person up forever.
The Bush/Mukasey plan also includes a congressionally-approved subversion of the Constitution and a cover-up of the Bush administration’s systemic torture and abuse of detainees.
At the same time, an ACLU lawsuit has uncovered new evidence that the torture and abuse Mukasey wants Congress to cover up was authorized by -- you guessed it -- the Justice Department. One of the documents obtained by the ACLU is a redacted version of a previously undisclosed 2002 Justice Department opinion that authorizes the CIA to use specific interrogation methods, including waterboarding.
Now, Mukasey -- as head of the Justice Department -- wants Congress to cover up torture committed under the watch of his predecessor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. It’s outrageous!
Don’t let it happen. Read the alert I’ve attached below and take action now at: http://action.aclu.org/coverup
Dear ACLU Supporter,
A few days ago, we alerted you to Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s demand that Congress issue a new declaration of war. This would make the entire globe -- including the United States itself -- a “battlefield” where the president gets to decide who is an “enemy combatant” and lock that person up forever.
The Bush/Mukasey plan also includes a congressionally-approved subversion of the Constitution and a cover-up of the Bush administration’s systemic torture and abuse of detainees.
At the same time, an ACLU lawsuit has uncovered new evidence that the torture and abuse Mukasey wants Congress to cover up was authorized by -- you guessed it -- the Justice Department. One of the documents obtained by the ACLU is a redacted version of a previously undisclosed 2002 Justice Department opinion that authorizes the CIA to use specific interrogation methods, including waterboarding.
Now, Mukasey -- as head of the Justice Department -- wants Congress to cover up torture committed under the watch of his predecessor, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. It’s outrageous!
Don’t let it happen. Read the alert I’ve attached below and take action now at: http://action.aclu.org/coverup
The Vital Importance of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Sunday, April 13, 2008
by Walidah Imarisha
Mumia Abu-Jamal, award winning journalist, activist, organizer, "voice of the voiceless" and resident of Pennsylvania's death row, was denied his appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to receive a new trial. They did uphold the decision to give him life without parole instead of the death penalty, which the state will probably appeal.
They waited almost an entire year to hand down that verdict, I remember the big protest we had outside the court the day the hearing happened (a hearing Mumia was supposed to be allowed to appear at personally, until the last minute when they wouldn't let him come. It would have been his first in person court appears in over a decade).
The case of Mumia is so important to justice, to the state of things, and to me personally. My first protest I ever went to, at the age of 15 in Eugene, Oregon, was a Free Mumia protest. It was such a small protest now that I have been at gatherings with hundreds of thousands. But at the time it seemed massive.
The flyer had said to gather at the entrance to the University of Oregon. Unfamiliar with activist time, I had shown up about 20 minutes early, and had seen no one. I worried if I'd gotten the location wrong, if it had been cancelled, if it was really going to happen.
I had just begun my foray into political education, thanks to an internship I stumbled onto at a local social justice organization. My time in the office set in a creaky old building with pipes that rattled set the stage for the rest of my life. It was sitting in the frayed worn couches near the bay window that I first heard the words communism and socialism as more than just some dangerous evil that would devour me if it wanted. While typing up stories for the newsletter at the antiquated box of a computer, talk of the Zapatistas, political prisoners, Sandinistas, Central America, Cuba, apartheid, Assata Shakur, Malcolm X all swirled around me. I didn't know what the hell these people were talking about. But I knew they were individuals I already respected, who knew so much about things I had never dreamed existed. I knew I had to educate myself.
I asked my mentor, a young white man who wore cardigan sweaters and converse and looked more at home in a 50s car hop poster than organizing in support of farmworkers, timidly one day if he could recommend some books for me to read. He reached up without hesitation and handed me a small black book, with a dreadlocked man staring solemnly out of the cover. "You should really check this out, I think you might find some good stuff in here."
I started Mumia's Live From Death Row on the long bus ride home (I actually lived in another city, Springfield, so I had to transfer three times to get home). I stayed up until 3 in the morning, neglecting school work and my favorite show on tv, to finish the book. Mumia's words were elegant, poetic, searing and undeniable. He wrote about live on death row, vinettes about the people there with him, the supposed scum of the earth, he wrote them as humans, beautiful flawed tragic humans. He wrote about the larger prison industrial complex, wrote about why prisons exist and who benefits from them, not in safety but in real material dollars. And whose flesh is sold to make those dollars, poor and black and brown and illiterate and mentally delayed and never had a chance and nobody never listened to their voice. His book was not about him, he was the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth and the heart that drew it all together, linked connections I had never imagined, showed me the web of oppression that threaded through my entire life, tangling me without my realizing it. And he showed me how to begin to hack away at those threads. I believed and believe with all my heart Mumia when he says he's innocent. But his book and his commitment showed me that that is not the biggest question. The biggest question is who is guilty of what crimes, and why are those guilty of the worst atrocities against humanity rarely ever brought to justice?
Back at the gate to the University of Oregon, I looked up as about 10 young white people, some dreadlocked with patch work pants, a couple in all black with patches on their ripped up hoodies, came towards me, carrying signs that said "Free Mumia" and "Free All Political Prisoners". One young woman came up to me and asked, "Are you here for the Mumia protest?" I was so happy, I nodded my head vigorously. "Great," she said, handing me a sign, "We're almost ready to start."
In about 10 minutes, the group of 30 to 40 folks assembled set off down the street, marching through the business district around the University. I had never been in a crowd of people chanting and banging drums, yelling slogans, stopping traffic. I felt strong, and unstoppable. This is the power that people in the dilapadated office had talked about, the power that can stand up to bullets and batons and tanks and dictators and empires. The power of the people.
Someone pushed play on a boombox they had brought, and Mumia's rich voice, tempered with honey and with steel, burst from the speakers, rained down on the boutiques and pizza shops and on me. I had never heard Mumia's voice before. Listening to him read one of his commentaries he had written in prison, I knew why they didn't play Mumia's voice, why they were scared to let this radio journalist's voice free from the cage. You could not listen to Mumia's voice and not be moved by the power, the rationality and most of all the humanity in it. You could never believe this man was the rabid loose cannon crazy person they tried to paint him as. You couldn't hear Mumia's voice and not want to join in the fight to free him, and the fight to make sure there would be no more Mumia's on death rows ever again.
As he closed out his commentary, "Live from death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal," I hoisted my Free Mumia NOW sign as high as I could, and yelled with all my might with the dozens of throats around me, "Brick by brick, wall by wall we're going to free Mumia Abu-Jamal."
I screamed the same chant 13 years later, in front of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals last May as they heard evidence to decide Mumia's fate. What they don't understand, and what we have to, is that is is not their decision. The decision, as always, rests with the people, who have the real power. I still believe wholeheartedly in the chant, and I know you do too. Now is the time to make our voices and our determination heard.
by Walidah Imarisha
Mumia Abu-Jamal, award winning journalist, activist, organizer, "voice of the voiceless" and resident of Pennsylvania's death row, was denied his appeal to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to receive a new trial. They did uphold the decision to give him life without parole instead of the death penalty, which the state will probably appeal.
They waited almost an entire year to hand down that verdict, I remember the big protest we had outside the court the day the hearing happened (a hearing Mumia was supposed to be allowed to appear at personally, until the last minute when they wouldn't let him come. It would have been his first in person court appears in over a decade).
The case of Mumia is so important to justice, to the state of things, and to me personally. My first protest I ever went to, at the age of 15 in Eugene, Oregon, was a Free Mumia protest. It was such a small protest now that I have been at gatherings with hundreds of thousands. But at the time it seemed massive.
The flyer had said to gather at the entrance to the University of Oregon. Unfamiliar with activist time, I had shown up about 20 minutes early, and had seen no one. I worried if I'd gotten the location wrong, if it had been cancelled, if it was really going to happen.
I had just begun my foray into political education, thanks to an internship I stumbled onto at a local social justice organization. My time in the office set in a creaky old building with pipes that rattled set the stage for the rest of my life. It was sitting in the frayed worn couches near the bay window that I first heard the words communism and socialism as more than just some dangerous evil that would devour me if it wanted. While typing up stories for the newsletter at the antiquated box of a computer, talk of the Zapatistas, political prisoners, Sandinistas, Central America, Cuba, apartheid, Assata Shakur, Malcolm X all swirled around me. I didn't know what the hell these people were talking about. But I knew they were individuals I already respected, who knew so much about things I had never dreamed existed. I knew I had to educate myself.
I asked my mentor, a young white man who wore cardigan sweaters and converse and looked more at home in a 50s car hop poster than organizing in support of farmworkers, timidly one day if he could recommend some books for me to read. He reached up without hesitation and handed me a small black book, with a dreadlocked man staring solemnly out of the cover. "You should really check this out, I think you might find some good stuff in here."
I started Mumia's Live From Death Row on the long bus ride home (I actually lived in another city, Springfield, so I had to transfer three times to get home). I stayed up until 3 in the morning, neglecting school work and my favorite show on tv, to finish the book. Mumia's words were elegant, poetic, searing and undeniable. He wrote about live on death row, vinettes about the people there with him, the supposed scum of the earth, he wrote them as humans, beautiful flawed tragic humans. He wrote about the larger prison industrial complex, wrote about why prisons exist and who benefits from them, not in safety but in real material dollars. And whose flesh is sold to make those dollars, poor and black and brown and illiterate and mentally delayed and never had a chance and nobody never listened to their voice. His book was not about him, he was the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth and the heart that drew it all together, linked connections I had never imagined, showed me the web of oppression that threaded through my entire life, tangling me without my realizing it. And he showed me how to begin to hack away at those threads. I believed and believe with all my heart Mumia when he says he's innocent. But his book and his commitment showed me that that is not the biggest question. The biggest question is who is guilty of what crimes, and why are those guilty of the worst atrocities against humanity rarely ever brought to justice?
Back at the gate to the University of Oregon, I looked up as about 10 young white people, some dreadlocked with patch work pants, a couple in all black with patches on their ripped up hoodies, came towards me, carrying signs that said "Free Mumia" and "Free All Political Prisoners". One young woman came up to me and asked, "Are you here for the Mumia protest?" I was so happy, I nodded my head vigorously. "Great," she said, handing me a sign, "We're almost ready to start."
In about 10 minutes, the group of 30 to 40 folks assembled set off down the street, marching through the business district around the University. I had never been in a crowd of people chanting and banging drums, yelling slogans, stopping traffic. I felt strong, and unstoppable. This is the power that people in the dilapadated office had talked about, the power that can stand up to bullets and batons and tanks and dictators and empires. The power of the people.
Someone pushed play on a boombox they had brought, and Mumia's rich voice, tempered with honey and with steel, burst from the speakers, rained down on the boutiques and pizza shops and on me. I had never heard Mumia's voice before. Listening to him read one of his commentaries he had written in prison, I knew why they didn't play Mumia's voice, why they were scared to let this radio journalist's voice free from the cage. You could not listen to Mumia's voice and not be moved by the power, the rationality and most of all the humanity in it. You could never believe this man was the rabid loose cannon crazy person they tried to paint him as. You couldn't hear Mumia's voice and not want to join in the fight to free him, and the fight to make sure there would be no more Mumia's on death rows ever again.
As he closed out his commentary, "Live from death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal," I hoisted my Free Mumia NOW sign as high as I could, and yelled with all my might with the dozens of throats around me, "Brick by brick, wall by wall we're going to free Mumia Abu-Jamal."
I screamed the same chant 13 years later, in front of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals last May as they heard evidence to decide Mumia's fate. What they don't understand, and what we have to, is that is is not their decision. The decision, as always, rests with the people, who have the real power. I still believe wholeheartedly in the chant, and I know you do too. Now is the time to make our voices and our determination heard.
The Boah They Called "Bushead"
[col. writ. 7/1/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
They called him "Bushead", and he is no longer on death row.
That's only because "Bushead" is no more.
He died on Sunday, June 29, 2008, in the early evening, after a long and valiant struggle against the ravages of Hepatitis C, which had wreaked havoc on his liver.
For those who have known him, they are undoubtedly sad at his passing, but as they remember him, perhaps they can't help but snicker, for "Bushead" was a man gifted with a priceless sense of humor.
His jests and jokes were so keen, so sharp, that men often laughed until they cried, their sides gripped in delicious pain.
On the prison rosters he was recorded as Billy Brooks, but he was born Larry Shavers on April 1, 1958. On the mean streets of Philadelphia, and throughout the meaner halls of state and county prisons, he was known simply as Bushead.
Relatively short in height, of once stocky build, Bushead was, simply put, a hell raiser. He took no stuff from anyone, and would fight at the drop of a hat.
His fiery temper would send him to Death Row in the '80's when he got into a conflict with a prisoner in Philadelphia county prison over a bathrobe. When they fought over possession of knife, he gained control, and he stabbed the other young man, which would've normally resulted in a voluntary manslaughter, or third degree homicide conviction, except the deceased was the son of a prominent state prison warden. The notoriety meant the State would seek and receive the death sentence against him.
Stories about him abound from all who knew him. One fellow on Death Row recalled:
"Once, me and Bushead was in the yard, and I was braiding his hair. A guard came out and said I had to stop doing this because it violated the rules. Bushead told the guard, 'If you
don't stop that dumb stuff, I'm gonna ball your old ass up!'
Later, when we was at work, Bushead found a rule book, strolled into the office, and said, 'Find that rule in the rule book!'
The Sgt. had to admit there wasn't such a rule -- and Bushead hollered, 'I told ya'll! I told ya'll!"
That was Bushead; outspoken, loud, earthy, and wildly funny.
When he was housed at the state prison in Pittsburgh, he participated in the Scared Straight program, and spoke to young people coming into the prison, deeply impressing upon them the emptiness and loss of imprisonment. He did all he could to convince them to avoid this fate.
Bushead was 50 years old. He lived from the streets to the prison, a high octane, high energy, high volume life. His illness, which led to his long and tortuous suffering, was utterly debilitating.
Hi memory among many prisoners, will evoke smiles, and hearty laughter, despite the manner of his passing.
--(c) '08 maj
They called him "Bushead", and he is no longer on death row.
That's only because "Bushead" is no more.
He died on Sunday, June 29, 2008, in the early evening, after a long and valiant struggle against the ravages of Hepatitis C, which had wreaked havoc on his liver.
For those who have known him, they are undoubtedly sad at his passing, but as they remember him, perhaps they can't help but snicker, for "Bushead" was a man gifted with a priceless sense of humor.
His jests and jokes were so keen, so sharp, that men often laughed until they cried, their sides gripped in delicious pain.
On the prison rosters he was recorded as Billy Brooks, but he was born Larry Shavers on April 1, 1958. On the mean streets of Philadelphia, and throughout the meaner halls of state and county prisons, he was known simply as Bushead.
Relatively short in height, of once stocky build, Bushead was, simply put, a hell raiser. He took no stuff from anyone, and would fight at the drop of a hat.
His fiery temper would send him to Death Row in the '80's when he got into a conflict with a prisoner in Philadelphia county prison over a bathrobe. When they fought over possession of knife, he gained control, and he stabbed the other young man, which would've normally resulted in a voluntary manslaughter, or third degree homicide conviction, except the deceased was the son of a prominent state prison warden. The notoriety meant the State would seek and receive the death sentence against him.
Stories about him abound from all who knew him. One fellow on Death Row recalled:
"Once, me and Bushead was in the yard, and I was braiding his hair. A guard came out and said I had to stop doing this because it violated the rules. Bushead told the guard, 'If you
don't stop that dumb stuff, I'm gonna ball your old ass up!'
Later, when we was at work, Bushead found a rule book, strolled into the office, and said, 'Find that rule in the rule book!'
The Sgt. had to admit there wasn't such a rule -- and Bushead hollered, 'I told ya'll! I told ya'll!"
That was Bushead; outspoken, loud, earthy, and wildly funny.
When he was housed at the state prison in Pittsburgh, he participated in the Scared Straight program, and spoke to young people coming into the prison, deeply impressing upon them the emptiness and loss of imprisonment. He did all he could to convince them to avoid this fate.
Bushead was 50 years old. He lived from the streets to the prison, a high octane, high energy, high volume life. His illness, which led to his long and tortuous suffering, was utterly debilitating.
Hi memory among many prisoners, will evoke smiles, and hearty laughter, despite the manner of his passing.
--(c) '08 maj
The Perils of Black Political Power
[col. writ. 8/6/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
As we are on the eve of what may be the most powerful Black achievement in U.S. history, it would be well to examine the history of Black political leadership in this country.
Most historical researchers look to the 1967 election of Carl Stokes, (1927-1996), as Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio as the emergence of black political power in major American cities. Many Blacks saw this as the beginning of an age of freedom for our people.
From the 1960's to now, we most certainly have been disabused of that notion.
For while black political leadership has surely been a source of pride, they have not been a source of black political power.
That's because as agents of the States, they must defend the interests of the State, even when this conflicts with the interests of their people.
For example, let's look at the experience of Mayor Stokes.
Shortly after taking office, Stokes appointed former U.S. Army Lt.-General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. as his public safety director (a kind of super police chief). Gen. Davis, fresh from the rigors of Vietnam, ordered 30,000 rounds of hollow point (or dum-dum) bullets, items in violation of the laws of war.
The object of his ire? The Cleveland branch of the Black Panther Party, and a local office of the National Committee to Combat Fascism, a Panther support group.
In Aug. 1970, Gen. Davis resigned from the post, and criticized Mayor Stokes for not giving him sufficient support in his battle against radicals (like the Panthers).
Stokes, the more politically adroit of the two, made Davis look bad for ordering ammo which violated the Geneva Conventions, but Stokes' personal papers revealed meetings between the two men, and their agreement on dum-dums as appropriate arms to be used against Panthers.
Just because he was a Black mayor, didn't mean he wasn't dedicated to destroying a Black organization. Indeed, in times of Black uprising and mass discontent, Black mayors seem the perfect instrument of repression, for they dispel charges of racism.
If Barack Obama wins the White House, it will be a considerable political achievement. It will be made possible only by the votes of millions of whites, most especially younger voters.
This does not diminish such an achievement, it just sharpens the nature of it.
But Black faces in high places does not freedom make.
Power is far more than presence. It is the ability to meet people's political objectives of freedom, independence and material well-being.
We are as far from those objectives as we were in 1967.
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: Nissim-Sabat, Ryan, "Panthers Set Up Shop in Cleveland," p.111; from Judson L. Jeffries, ed., COMRADES: Local History of the Black Panther Party (Blomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007), pp. 89-144.]
As we are on the eve of what may be the most powerful Black achievement in U.S. history, it would be well to examine the history of Black political leadership in this country.
Most historical researchers look to the 1967 election of Carl Stokes, (1927-1996), as Mayor of Cleveland, Ohio as the emergence of black political power in major American cities. Many Blacks saw this as the beginning of an age of freedom for our people.
From the 1960's to now, we most certainly have been disabused of that notion.
For while black political leadership has surely been a source of pride, they have not been a source of black political power.
That's because as agents of the States, they must defend the interests of the State, even when this conflicts with the interests of their people.
For example, let's look at the experience of Mayor Stokes.
Shortly after taking office, Stokes appointed former U.S. Army Lt.-General Benjamin O. Davis, Jr. as his public safety director (a kind of super police chief). Gen. Davis, fresh from the rigors of Vietnam, ordered 30,000 rounds of hollow point (or dum-dum) bullets, items in violation of the laws of war.
The object of his ire? The Cleveland branch of the Black Panther Party, and a local office of the National Committee to Combat Fascism, a Panther support group.
In Aug. 1970, Gen. Davis resigned from the post, and criticized Mayor Stokes for not giving him sufficient support in his battle against radicals (like the Panthers).
Stokes, the more politically adroit of the two, made Davis look bad for ordering ammo which violated the Geneva Conventions, but Stokes' personal papers revealed meetings between the two men, and their agreement on dum-dums as appropriate arms to be used against Panthers.
Just because he was a Black mayor, didn't mean he wasn't dedicated to destroying a Black organization. Indeed, in times of Black uprising and mass discontent, Black mayors seem the perfect instrument of repression, for they dispel charges of racism.
If Barack Obama wins the White House, it will be a considerable political achievement. It will be made possible only by the votes of millions of whites, most especially younger voters.
This does not diminish such an achievement, it just sharpens the nature of it.
But Black faces in high places does not freedom make.
Power is far more than presence. It is the ability to meet people's political objectives of freedom, independence and material well-being.
We are as far from those objectives as we were in 1967.
--(c) '08 maj
[Source: Nissim-Sabat, Ryan, "Panthers Set Up Shop in Cleveland," p.111; from Judson L. Jeffries, ed., COMRADES: Local History of the Black Panther Party (Blomington/Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007), pp. 89-144.]
"Oooh! -- Sorry About that Slavery Thing!"
[col. writ. 8/9/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Several days ago, a majority of the US House of Representatives approved a resolution apologizing for slavery. The Senate has not yet moved on such a measure, and probably has no intention to do so.
That it comes today, some 143 years after slavery was prohibited in the Constitution (notice I said 'prohibited', and not stopped, for historians and scholars have uncovered that the trade continued long thereafter, as an underground one, kind of like drugs today), gives us some idea of how deeply slavery still resides in American consciousness, and how empty such an apology is in light of all that has intervened in the century and a half since the cessation of the Civil War.
It's like robbing someone, growing fat and rich on stolen wealth, and then passing that person on the street, who is now homeless, destitute and starving -- and tossing him a nickel. (Except, of course, in the case of the US House resolution, there isn't even a nickel!).
As the great Black historian, J. A. Rogers taught us (especially in his Africa's Gift to America {1961} ) the wealth of America was founded on African slavery. One need look no further than the brilliant young W.E.B. DuBois, who published his doctoral thesis, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America: 1638-1870 (1896). For, citing contemporary sources, DuBois quoted the following: "The number of persons engaged in the slave - trade, and the amount of capital embarked on it, exceed our powers of calculation. The city of New York has been until of late {1862} the principal port of the world for this infamous trade..." [p. 179].
Centuries of slavery, the intentional destruction of families, tribes, and nations; ripping people asunder from their religions, their clans, their spouses, children, lands and all that they knew and loved -- for centuries -- to build and enrich a nation of strangers -- who enforced the practices of slavery for a hundred years after it's supposed abolition; only to consign the grandchildren of these people to the bitter half-lives of sub-par education, poor housing, second rate health care, under/employment, the cruelties of mass incarceration and a cynical judicial and political system that endlessly engages in white supremacy (without the labels)....
Yeah, a political apology should just about cover that.
--(c) '8 maj
============
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia! PLEASE CONTACT: International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ P.O. Box 19709 Philadelphia, PA 19143 Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180 E-mail - icffmaj@aol. com Web - www.freemumia. comAND OFFER YOUR SERVICES! Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at: Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335 SCI-Greene 175 Progress Drive Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns- subscribe@ topica.com Read: http://topica. com/lists/ mumiacolumns/ read Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing icffmaj@aol. com!
[Check out Mumia's latest: *WE WANT FREEDOM: A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from South End Press (http://www. southendpress. org); Ph. #1-800-533-8478. ]
Several days ago, a majority of the US House of Representatives approved a resolution apologizing for slavery. The Senate has not yet moved on such a measure, and probably has no intention to do so.
That it comes today, some 143 years after slavery was prohibited in the Constitution (notice I said 'prohibited', and not stopped, for historians and scholars have uncovered that the trade continued long thereafter, as an underground one, kind of like drugs today), gives us some idea of how deeply slavery still resides in American consciousness, and how empty such an apology is in light of all that has intervened in the century and a half since the cessation of the Civil War.
It's like robbing someone, growing fat and rich on stolen wealth, and then passing that person on the street, who is now homeless, destitute and starving -- and tossing him a nickel. (Except, of course, in the case of the US House resolution, there isn't even a nickel!).
As the great Black historian, J. A. Rogers taught us (especially in his Africa's Gift to America {1961} ) the wealth of America was founded on African slavery. One need look no further than the brilliant young W.E.B. DuBois, who published his doctoral thesis, The Suppression of the African Slave Trade to the United States of America: 1638-1870 (1896). For, citing contemporary sources, DuBois quoted the following: "The number of persons engaged in the slave - trade, and the amount of capital embarked on it, exceed our powers of calculation. The city of New York has been until of late {1862} the principal port of the world for this infamous trade..." [p. 179].
Centuries of slavery, the intentional destruction of families, tribes, and nations; ripping people asunder from their religions, their clans, their spouses, children, lands and all that they knew and loved -- for centuries -- to build and enrich a nation of strangers -- who enforced the practices of slavery for a hundred years after it's supposed abolition; only to consign the grandchildren of these people to the bitter half-lives of sub-par education, poor housing, second rate health care, under/employment, the cruelties of mass incarceration and a cynical judicial and political system that endlessly engages in white supremacy (without the labels)....
Yeah, a political apology should just about cover that.
--(c) '8 maj
============
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia! PLEASE CONTACT: International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ P.O. Box 19709 Philadelphia, PA 19143 Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180 E-mail - icffmaj@aol. com Web - www.freemumia. comAND OFFER YOUR SERVICES! Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at: Mumia Abu-Jamal AM 8335 SCI-Greene 175 Progress Drive Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns- subscribe@ topica.com Read: http://topica. com/lists/ mumiacolumns/ read Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing icffmaj@aol. com!
[Check out Mumia's latest: *WE WANT FREEDOM: A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from South End Press (http://www. southendpress. org); Ph. #1-800-533-8478. ]
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
THE WAR AT HOME
U.S. MILITARY CIVIL DISTURBANCE PLANNING
By Frank Morales
Under the heading of "civil disturbance planning", the U.S. military is training troops and police to suppress democratic opposition in America. The master plan, Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, is code-named, "Operation Garden Plot". Originated in 1968, the "operational plan" has been updated over the last three decades, most recently in 1991, and was activated during the Los Angeles "riots" of 1992, and more than likely during the recent anti-WTO "Battle in Seattle."
Current U.S. military preparations for suppressing domestic civil disturbance, including the training of National Guard troops and police, are actually part of a long history of American "internal security" measures dating back to the first American Revolution. Generally, these measures have sought to thwart the aims of social justice movements, embodying the concept that within the civilian body politic lurks an enemy that one day the military might have to fight, or at least be ordered to fight.
Equipped with flexible "military operations in urban terrain" and "operations other than war" doctrine, lethal and "less-than-lethal" high-tech weaponry, US "armed forces" and "elite" militarized police units are being trained to eradicate "disorder", "disturbance" and "civil disobedience" in America. Further, it may very well be that police/military "civil disturbance" planning is the animating force and the overarching logic behind the incredible nationwide growth of police paramilitary units, a growth which coincidentally mirrors rising levels of police violence directed at the American people, particularly "non-white" poor and working people.
Military spokespeople, "judge advocates" (lawyers) and their congressional supporters aggressively take the position that legal obstacles to military involvement in domestic law enforcement civil disturbance operations, such as the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, have been nullified. Legislated "exceptions" and private commercialization of various aspects of U.S. military-law enforcement efforts have supposedly removed their activities from the legal reach of the "public domain". Possibly illegal, ostensible "training" scenarios like the recent "Operation Urban Warrior" no-notice "urban terrain" war games, which took place in dozens of American cities, are thinly disguised "civil disturbance suppression" exercises. In addition, President Clinton recently appointed a "domestic military czar", a sort of national chief of police. You can bet that he is well versed in Garden Plot requirements involved in "homeland defense".
Ominously, many assume that the training of military and police forces to suppress "outlawed" behavior of citizens, along with the creation of extensive and sophisticated "emergency" social response networks set to spring into action in the event of "civil unrest", is prudent and acceptable in a democracy. And yet, does not this assumption beg the question as to what civil unrest is? One could argue for example, that civil disturbance is nothing less than democracy in action, a message to the powers-that-be that the people want change. In this instance "disturbing behavior" may actually be the exercising of ones' right to resist oppression. Unfortunately, the American corporate/military directorship, which has the power to enforce its' definition of "disorder", sees democracy as a threat and permanent counter-revolution as a "national security" requirement.
The elite military/corporate sponsors of Garden Plot have their reasons for civil disturbance contingency planning. Lets' call it the paranoia of the thief. Their rationale is simple: self-preservation. Fostering severe and targeted "austerity", massive inequality and unbridled greed, while shifting more and more billions to the generals and the rich, the de-regulated "entities of force" and their interlocking corporate directors know quite well what their policies are engendering, namely, a growing resistance. Consequently, they are systematically organizing to protect their interests, their profits, and their criminal conspiracies. To this end, they are rapidly consolidating an infrastructure of repression designed to "suppress rebellion" against their "authority". Or more conveniently put, to suppress "rebellion against the authority of the United States." And so, as the Pentagon Incorporated increases its¹ imperialist violence around the world, the chickens have indeed come home to roost here in America in the form of a national security doctrine obsessed with domestic "insurgency" and the need to pre-emptively neutralize it. Its' code-name: "Garden Plot".
Recently, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth H. Bacon "acknowledged that the Air Force wrongfully started and financed a highly classified, still-secret project, known as a black program without informing Congress last year." The costs and nature of these projects "are the most classified secrets in the Pentagon."(1) Could it be that the current United States Air Force Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2 Garden Plot is one such program financed from this secret budget? We have a right to know. And following Seattle, we have the need to know.
As this and numerous other documents reveal, U.S. military training in civil disturbance "suppression", which targets the American public, is in full operation today. The formulation of legitimizing doctrine, the training in the "tactics and techniques" of "civil disturbance suppression", and the use of "abusable", "non-lethal" weaponry, are ongoing, financed by tax dollars. According to the Pentagon, "US forces deployed to assist federal and local authorities during times if civil disturbanceŠwill follow use-of-force policy found in Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan-Garden Plot." (Joint Chiefs of Staff, Standing Rules of Engagement, Appendix A, 1 October 1994.)
ORIGINS OF OPERATION GARDEN PLOT: THE KERNER COMMISSION
By Frank Morales
Under the heading of "civil disturbance planning", the U.S. military is training troops and police to suppress democratic opposition in America. The master plan, Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, is code-named, "Operation Garden Plot". Originated in 1968, the "operational plan" has been updated over the last three decades, most recently in 1991, and was activated during the Los Angeles "riots" of 1992, and more than likely during the recent anti-WTO "Battle in Seattle."
Current U.S. military preparations for suppressing domestic civil disturbance, including the training of National Guard troops and police, are actually part of a long history of American "internal security" measures dating back to the first American Revolution. Generally, these measures have sought to thwart the aims of social justice movements, embodying the concept that within the civilian body politic lurks an enemy that one day the military might have to fight, or at least be ordered to fight.
Equipped with flexible "military operations in urban terrain" and "operations other than war" doctrine, lethal and "less-than-lethal" high-tech weaponry, US "armed forces" and "elite" militarized police units are being trained to eradicate "disorder", "disturbance" and "civil disobedience" in America. Further, it may very well be that police/military "civil disturbance" planning is the animating force and the overarching logic behind the incredible nationwide growth of police paramilitary units, a growth which coincidentally mirrors rising levels of police violence directed at the American people, particularly "non-white" poor and working people.
Military spokespeople, "judge advocates" (lawyers) and their congressional supporters aggressively take the position that legal obstacles to military involvement in domestic law enforcement civil disturbance operations, such as the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, have been nullified. Legislated "exceptions" and private commercialization of various aspects of U.S. military-law enforcement efforts have supposedly removed their activities from the legal reach of the "public domain". Possibly illegal, ostensible "training" scenarios like the recent "Operation Urban Warrior" no-notice "urban terrain" war games, which took place in dozens of American cities, are thinly disguised "civil disturbance suppression" exercises. In addition, President Clinton recently appointed a "domestic military czar", a sort of national chief of police. You can bet that he is well versed in Garden Plot requirements involved in "homeland defense".
Ominously, many assume that the training of military and police forces to suppress "outlawed" behavior of citizens, along with the creation of extensive and sophisticated "emergency" social response networks set to spring into action in the event of "civil unrest", is prudent and acceptable in a democracy. And yet, does not this assumption beg the question as to what civil unrest is? One could argue for example, that civil disturbance is nothing less than democracy in action, a message to the powers-that-be that the people want change. In this instance "disturbing behavior" may actually be the exercising of ones' right to resist oppression. Unfortunately, the American corporate/military directorship, which has the power to enforce its' definition of "disorder", sees democracy as a threat and permanent counter-revolution as a "national security" requirement.
The elite military/corporate sponsors of Garden Plot have their reasons for civil disturbance contingency planning. Lets' call it the paranoia of the thief. Their rationale is simple: self-preservation. Fostering severe and targeted "austerity", massive inequality and unbridled greed, while shifting more and more billions to the generals and the rich, the de-regulated "entities of force" and their interlocking corporate directors know quite well what their policies are engendering, namely, a growing resistance. Consequently, they are systematically organizing to protect their interests, their profits, and their criminal conspiracies. To this end, they are rapidly consolidating an infrastructure of repression designed to "suppress rebellion" against their "authority". Or more conveniently put, to suppress "rebellion against the authority of the United States." And so, as the Pentagon Incorporated increases its¹ imperialist violence around the world, the chickens have indeed come home to roost here in America in the form of a national security doctrine obsessed with domestic "insurgency" and the need to pre-emptively neutralize it. Its' code-name: "Garden Plot".
Recently, Pentagon spokesman Kenneth H. Bacon "acknowledged that the Air Force wrongfully started and financed a highly classified, still-secret project, known as a black program without informing Congress last year." The costs and nature of these projects "are the most classified secrets in the Pentagon."(1) Could it be that the current United States Air Force Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2 Garden Plot is one such program financed from this secret budget? We have a right to know. And following Seattle, we have the need to know.
As this and numerous other documents reveal, U.S. military training in civil disturbance "suppression", which targets the American public, is in full operation today. The formulation of legitimizing doctrine, the training in the "tactics and techniques" of "civil disturbance suppression", and the use of "abusable", "non-lethal" weaponry, are ongoing, financed by tax dollars. According to the Pentagon, "US forces deployed to assist federal and local authorities during times if civil disturbanceŠwill follow use-of-force policy found in Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan-Garden Plot." (Joint Chiefs of Staff, Standing Rules of Engagement, Appendix A, 1 October 1994.)
ORIGINS OF OPERATION GARDEN PLOT: THE KERNER COMMISSION
This is Deep - A message to the Hip Hop Grassroots from former Political Prisoner & Black Panther Dhoruba Bin Wahad
A Message to Grassroots Hip Hop
by Davey D
Listen to the Breakdown FM Speech by clicking HERE:
http://odeo. com/episodes/23162473-A-message-to-the-Hip-Hop-Grassroots-from-former-Political-Prisoner-Black-Panther-Dhoruba-Bin-Whad
This is an incredible speech from long term Freedom Fighter and fomer political prisoner Dhoruba Bin Wahad..It took place during the recently held National Hip Hop Political Convention in Las Vegas. Dhoruba sat on a panel that focused on the legacy of Cointel-Pro which took down the Panthers, the anti-war movement and other organizations during the 1960s.. The purpose of this panel was to see how this insidious policy of domestic spying had manifested itself within Hip Hop.
Dhoruba was scheduled to be part of a panel, and offer brief remarks, but people were so moved by him and his unwavering commitment to the freedom struggle, he was asked at the last moment to address the entire convention.. He really dropped some bombs.
He talked about this country's ascension into being an empire and starts off with the landmark year of 1968... Its interesting to note that Dhoruba's breakdown of social and political events that took place in 1968 parallels the social and political events chronicled by author Jeff Chang in his landmark book about the Hip Hop generation called'Can't Stop Won't Stop'.
The message that Dhoruba delivers is an important one and hopefully it will motivate all of us to pay closer attention and get more involved in the day to day political discourse that impacts our communities.
Enjoy, Get Enlightened and Evolve..
PS.. The song you hear in the beginning is brand new music from the Black Panther of Hip Hop- Paris is new album Acid Reflex is due out in early September. It was almost as if he wrote this song for Dhoruba.
Listen to the Breakdown FM Speech by clicking HERE:
http://odeo. com/episodes/23162473-A-message-to-the-Hip-Hop-Grassroots-from-former-Political-Prisoner-Black-Panther-Dhoruba-Bin-Whad
This is an incredible speech from long term Freedom Fighter and fomer political prisoner Dhoruba Bin Wahad..It took place during the recently held National Hip Hop Political Convention in Las Vegas. Dhoruba sat on a panel that focused on the legacy of Cointel-Pro which took down the Panthers, the anti-war movement and other organizations during the 1960s.. The purpose of this panel was to see how this insidious policy of domestic spying had manifested itself within Hip Hop.
Dhoruba was scheduled to be part of a panel, and offer brief remarks, but people were so moved by him and his unwavering commitment to the freedom struggle, he was asked at the last moment to address the entire convention.. He really dropped some bombs.
He talked about this country's ascension into being an empire and starts off with the landmark year of 1968... Its interesting to note that Dhoruba's breakdown of social and political events that took place in 1968 parallels the social and political events chronicled by author Jeff Chang in his landmark book about the Hip Hop generation called'Can't Stop Won't Stop'.
The message that Dhoruba delivers is an important one and hopefully it will motivate all of us to pay closer attention and get more involved in the day to day political discourse that impacts our communities.
Enjoy, Get Enlightened and Evolve..
PS.. The song you hear in the beginning is brand new music from the Black Panther of Hip Hop- Paris is new album Acid Reflex is due out in early September. It was almost as if he wrote this song for Dhoruba.
August 8th
[col. writ. 8/4/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
For most people, August 8th is merely a reference to the upcoming
Beijing Olympics.
Because of the sheer passage of time, most people have forgotten
August 8th, 1978, when police in Philadelphia unleashed a blitzkrieg
against members of the MOVE Organization.
There, police fired hundreds of rounds into the house, fired tons of
water, and after people were flushed from their house, several were
beaten on the street. The cops who beat one man, Delbert Africa, for
example, were /ordered/ acquitted by a local judge, /despite videotape!/
When MOVE members went to trial, 9 men and women were railroaded on
dubious charges for killing a cop who almost certainly was the subject
of so-called friendly fire.
The city of Philadelphia made sure that this question couldn't be
resolved by literally tearing down MOVE's house -- allegedly an active
crime scene -- by nightfall.
But none of this mattered, for there was a railroad in process, and
9 MOVE people were sent to state gulags for 30 to 100 years!
Behind the attack on MOVE was certainly their radical lifestyle and
opposition to state power, but there was also the dynamic of powerful
real estate interests which wanted to expand their holdings to create a
greater University City.
For MOVE, August 8th isn't 30 years ago; it's yesterday. It's that
close.
They need your support to end this injustice!
--(c) '08 maj
For More Information: write the MOVE Organization, P.O. Box 19709,
Phila, PA 19143; or contact them on the web at: www.onamove.com.
For most people, August 8th is merely a reference to the upcoming
Beijing Olympics.
Because of the sheer passage of time, most people have forgotten
August 8th, 1978, when police in Philadelphia unleashed a blitzkrieg
against members of the MOVE Organization.
There, police fired hundreds of rounds into the house, fired tons of
water, and after people were flushed from their house, several were
beaten on the street. The cops who beat one man, Delbert Africa, for
example, were /ordered/ acquitted by a local judge, /despite videotape!/
When MOVE members went to trial, 9 men and women were railroaded on
dubious charges for killing a cop who almost certainly was the subject
of so-called friendly fire.
The city of Philadelphia made sure that this question couldn't be
resolved by literally tearing down MOVE's house -- allegedly an active
crime scene -- by nightfall.
But none of this mattered, for there was a railroad in process, and
9 MOVE people were sent to state gulags for 30 to 100 years!
Behind the attack on MOVE was certainly their radical lifestyle and
opposition to state power, but there was also the dynamic of powerful
real estate interests which wanted to expand their holdings to create a
greater University City.
For MOVE, August 8th isn't 30 years ago; it's yesterday. It's that
close.
They need your support to end this injustice!
--(c) '08 maj
For More Information: write the MOVE Organization, P.O. Box 19709,
Phila, PA 19143; or contact them on the web at: www.onamove.com.
Beyond Politics
[col. writ. 7/23/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
If TV channels are any measure, the US presidential elections, now
less than 4 months away, are the permanent stuff of headlines.
If candidate A sneezes, it's breaking news; if candidate B hiccups,
it's film at eleven.
It's hardly worthy of headlines, but the beast [the media] must be
fed.
For far too many people this news overdose on the elections has
bred a kind of passivity among millions, as they wait in front of TV
screens and computers, like deer caught in headlights.
What happened to anti-war protests?
What happened to housing rights protestors?
What happened to anti-FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)
activists?
People are dulled by the almost sure expectation that the Democrats
will prevail in the next election due to the low ratings of the
Republican Party, and its lame duck President George W. Bush.
And those dull expectations are based upon the totally unfounded
faith that a Democratic win of the White House really means an end to
the war. (We might ask, /which war?)/
Millions have apparently forgotten the bitter lessons from the 2006
mid term election, when Democrats prevailed in congressional
elections, formed a slight majority in both houses, and proceeded to
do -- nothing.
Peace in Iraq? Off the table. Instead, like lemmings leaping off
a cliff they voted for more and more billions for war.
And what of the recently renewed FISA bill, which legalized the law-
breaking of the Bush Administration -- and gave retroactive protection
to phone an communications companies which violated prior law?
FISA -- signed, sealed and delivered: and even the Democratic
candidate (Sen. Barack Obama, D.IL), who blasted the measure, put his
John Hancock on it, voting 'yes.'
The great abolitionist (and women's right supporter), Frederick
Douglass, supported Abraham Lincoln, yet that didn't stop him from
protesting against him, when he moved too slowly, or not at all.
Reading his criticisms are still biting, even though over a century
has passed. And yet, his teaching remains just as relevant, for
Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without demand."
If people demand nothing, that is precisely what they will get.
These lessons from history must teach us today, that protesters
must PROTEST.
Elections aren't endings -- they are beginnings -- and movements
mustn't stop moving; they should protest more!
-(C) '08 maj
If TV channels are any measure, the US presidential elections, now
less than 4 months away, are the permanent stuff of headlines.
If candidate A sneezes, it's breaking news; if candidate B hiccups,
it's film at eleven.
It's hardly worthy of headlines, but the beast [the media] must be
fed.
For far too many people this news overdose on the elections has
bred a kind of passivity among millions, as they wait in front of TV
screens and computers, like deer caught in headlights.
What happened to anti-war protests?
What happened to housing rights protestors?
What happened to anti-FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act)
activists?
People are dulled by the almost sure expectation that the Democrats
will prevail in the next election due to the low ratings of the
Republican Party, and its lame duck President George W. Bush.
And those dull expectations are based upon the totally unfounded
faith that a Democratic win of the White House really means an end to
the war. (We might ask, /which war?)/
Millions have apparently forgotten the bitter lessons from the 2006
mid term election, when Democrats prevailed in congressional
elections, formed a slight majority in both houses, and proceeded to
do -- nothing.
Peace in Iraq? Off the table. Instead, like lemmings leaping off
a cliff they voted for more and more billions for war.
And what of the recently renewed FISA bill, which legalized the law-
breaking of the Bush Administration -- and gave retroactive protection
to phone an communications companies which violated prior law?
FISA -- signed, sealed and delivered: and even the Democratic
candidate (Sen. Barack Obama, D.IL), who blasted the measure, put his
John Hancock on it, voting 'yes.'
The great abolitionist (and women's right supporter), Frederick
Douglass, supported Abraham Lincoln, yet that didn't stop him from
protesting against him, when he moved too slowly, or not at all.
Reading his criticisms are still biting, even though over a century
has passed. And yet, his teaching remains just as relevant, for
Douglass said, "Power concedes nothing without demand."
If people demand nothing, that is precisely what they will get.
These lessons from history must teach us today, that protesters
must PROTEST.
Elections aren't endings -- they are beginnings -- and movements
mustn't stop moving; they should protest more!
-(C) '08 maj
Obama Abroad
[col. writ. 7/27/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
The recent world tour of freshman Sen. Barack Obama, was, by any measure, a blockbuster.
The senator's trek to Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France, and England was a hit, from the word go.
What was more impressive, however, were the graphics. The crowds (especially in Germany) were nothing if not spectacular.
In political terms, the senator's campaign could hardly have asked for more.
If it wouldn't seem to smarmy, perhaps they ought to give thanks to the Republican candidate, John McCain, who harped on Obama's lack of travel to Iraq for weeks.
What happens?
Obama goes to Iraq, and the U.S. supported Iraqi puppet, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, essentially endorses Obama's timetable to remove the bulk of US troops.
McCain sought airtime in ethnic eateries, or geriatric golf greens.
His comments attacking Obama seemed, by contrast, petulant and small.
It was, quite frankly, stunning to see world leaders fall under his sway, as if the election were a mere formality.
When he met Germany's Prime Minister, Angela Merkel, one could only flashback to lame duck President Bush's impolitic grasp of her shoulders, which forced her to grimace and gasp at the invasion of her personal and political space.
Right wingers have, predictably, attacked his tour on numerous counts. "He thinks he's already president", some said. "He's arrogant", said others. Still others opined that he was 'inexperienced.'
If his global tour had one flaw, it was that it was too successful, for it cast an unflattering light on the incumbent Bush Administration, which is, to put it lightly, far from popular in the world today. This, of course, also impacts McCain's campaign.
Whether he helped his domestic campaign is questionable.
What is not is the palpable hunger of many countries for a change from what has been.
--(c) '08 maj
The recent world tour of freshman Sen. Barack Obama, was, by any measure, a blockbuster.
The senator's trek to Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France, and England was a hit, from the word go.
What was more impressive, however, were the graphics. The crowds (especially in Germany) were nothing if not spectacular.
In political terms, the senator's campaign could hardly have asked for more.
If it wouldn't seem to smarmy, perhaps they ought to give thanks to the Republican candidate, John McCain, who harped on Obama's lack of travel to Iraq for weeks.
What happens?
Obama goes to Iraq, and the U.S. supported Iraqi puppet, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, essentially endorses Obama's timetable to remove the bulk of US troops.
McCain sought airtime in ethnic eateries, or geriatric golf greens.
His comments attacking Obama seemed, by contrast, petulant and small.
It was, quite frankly, stunning to see world leaders fall under his sway, as if the election were a mere formality.
When he met Germany's Prime Minister, Angela Merkel, one could only flashback to lame duck President Bush's impolitic grasp of her shoulders, which forced her to grimace and gasp at the invasion of her personal and political space.
Right wingers have, predictably, attacked his tour on numerous counts. "He thinks he's already president", some said. "He's arrogant", said others. Still others opined that he was 'inexperienced.'
If his global tour had one flaw, it was that it was too successful, for it cast an unflattering light on the incumbent Bush Administration, which is, to put it lightly, far from popular in the world today. This, of course, also impacts McCain's campaign.
Whether he helped his domestic campaign is questionable.
What is not is the palpable hunger of many countries for a change from what has been.
--(c) '08 maj
The Struggle for the Safe Release of Lovinsky, Haitian Human Rights Activist
[col. writ. 7/30/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
For Haitians, this coming August is a reminder of the kidnapping and disappearance of their brother, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, who was taken after a meeting with a US-Canadian human rights delegation visiting Haiti in mid-August, 2007.
Pierre-Antoine was a co-founder of the Fondayson Trant Septenm, (Kreyol for September 30th Foundation), a group which assisted and supported the people who during (and especially after) the 1991 and 2004 coups against the democratically-elected president, Bertrand Aristide. Members of the Fondayson have been targeted for years.
Around the world, activists have been organizing in Lovinsky's support, calling on various governments, from Haiti's President Rene Preval, Brazil (which forms the bulk of the United Nations forces in the country), Canada, the US and France, which organized the latest coup against Haitian democracy.
When Pierre-Antoine was abducted, it forced other democracy and human rights activists in Haiti to go into hiding to avoid waves of state repression.
Haiti has a proud and illustrious career on the world's stage, becoming the first free Black republic in the West after its 1804 revolution against France, which abolished slavery almost 70 years before the US Civil War spelled the end to human bondage in the US. Their freedom spread the bright lights of liberty and independence throughout the Caribbean, and when South America rose against Spain, it was to Haiti that their Liberator Simon Bolivar turned for support, arms, and a place to rest.
For their bold struggle to bring Black freedom to the West, the US and Europe have unleashed an unholy war. France forced reparations (!) on Haiti -- an act unprecedented in history, forcing the victor in war to pay away it's wealth for almost a century. The US repeatedly invaded the country, brutalized its people, and imposed an assortment of puppet dictators to exploit the country for foreign benefit, and national impoverishment, /for generations/!
Because Haiti's popularly elected Bertrand Aristide dared to oppose Haiti's rich elite, and tried to make things nominally better for its peasantry, US Marines forced him into exile.
Because Lovinsky comes from the popular mass movements, he was snatched off the streets of Haiti a year ago, and the movement is building to bring him back home to his family, his community, and the popular movements of which he was a part.
Haiti must never be forgotten, and neither must we forget Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine.
[For petitions to circulate and sign, contact: womenstrike8m@servor101.com <mailto:womenstrike8m@servor101.com>; or call: (215) 848-1120. Or sign online:www.petitiononline.com/lovinsky/petition.html--(c) '08 maj
Friday, August 01, 2008
Of Terrorist Lists & Listers
[col. writ. 7/5/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
With the news that Nelson Mandela, former South African president, was, until some scant days ago, on a U.S. government terrorist watch list, comes knowledge of how false and political such a process is.
For, you can bet your bottom dollar that no U.S. terrorist list ever included the names of the white Afrikaners who led South Africans Nationalists, who used the machinery of government to inflict terror on millions of Africans for generations.
Mandela though, as part of the Black resistance movement against racism and apartheid, had his name, and those of others who were members of the African National Congress, added to U.S. government terrorist lists.
Does this at least suggest that something other than terrorism motivated American list-makers?
The government that shot down Black school kids for protesting at Sharpville didn't merit listing.
The government that relegated the lives, hopes and dreams of millions - the majority of its population -- to half-lives of poverty, ignorance and servitude through brutality and violence, didn't merit such a listing.
Yet those who opposed it did.
What does this tell you about the list-makers?
When the International community, voting through the United Nations, opposed the racist apartheid regime, one government in the world used its vote to veto and block all actions against the South Africans: the United States.
When young people around the world protested, the U.S. (often through president Ronald W. Reagan, and his colleague in the Senate, the late Jesse Helms) called for "constructive engagement."
The State terrorists who ran South Africa had no greater ally than the USA.
Why should it then surprise us that the opponents of that racist, white supremacist government were listed (until a few days ago) by the U.S. government, as terrorists?
--(c) '08 maj
With the news that Nelson Mandela, former South African president, was, until some scant days ago, on a U.S. government terrorist watch list, comes knowledge of how false and political such a process is.
For, you can bet your bottom dollar that no U.S. terrorist list ever included the names of the white Afrikaners who led South Africans Nationalists, who used the machinery of government to inflict terror on millions of Africans for generations.
Mandela though, as part of the Black resistance movement against racism and apartheid, had his name, and those of others who were members of the African National Congress, added to U.S. government terrorist lists.
Does this at least suggest that something other than terrorism motivated American list-makers?
The government that shot down Black school kids for protesting at Sharpville didn't merit listing.
The government that relegated the lives, hopes and dreams of millions - the majority of its population -- to half-lives of poverty, ignorance and servitude through brutality and violence, didn't merit such a listing.
Yet those who opposed it did.
What does this tell you about the list-makers?
When the International community, voting through the United Nations, opposed the racist apartheid regime, one government in the world used its vote to veto and block all actions against the South Africans: the United States.
When young people around the world protested, the U.S. (often through president Ronald W. Reagan, and his colleague in the Senate, the late Jesse Helms) called for "constructive engagement."
The State terrorists who ran South Africa had no greater ally than the USA.
Why should it then surprise us that the opponents of that racist, white supremacist government were listed (until a few days ago) by the U.S. government, as terrorists?
--(c) '08 maj
"What I Meant to Say Was....Uh...."
[col. writ. 10/30/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Once again, a major American scientific figure has emerged from the shadows of his laboratory, to insult Black people, and their genetic inability.
The latest, James D. Watson, a co-winner of the 1962 Nobel prize for deciphering the double-helix of DNA, made statements in a recent interview that spanned the globe.
Speaking to the Times of London (published Sun., 10/14/07) he spoke of "the prospect of Africa" as "inherently gloomy". The British newspaper quoted Dr. Watson as saying, "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really."
Presumably, by "ours" Dr. Watson meant, not Americans, but white people.
Days later, Dr. Watson issued a statement saying he couldn't "understand" how he could have said such a thing. Added the biologist, "There is no scientific basis for such a belief."*
Some of us remember similar slurs launched by Nobelist, William B. Shockley, who asserted that inherent characteristics like intelligence are attributable to skin color.
These scientific slurs aren't the first such attacks on Black intelligence; it won't be the last.
They remind us that scientists are often experts in their fields of study, but idiots in other areas of life.
Dr. Watson studied biology. Dr. Shockley won his 1956 Nobel in physics, for his part in the discovery of the transistor.
Neither man had expertise in the social sciences.
For them not to know of such studies is equivalent to the old Sufi story of the mullah who lost his purse, but was looking in the wrong place to find it. When others asked Mullah Nasruddin why he was looking in a place where he couldn't have lost his purse, he replied, "Because the light is better here."
Drs. Watson and Shockley looked within to explain something that they saw around them, and we shouldn't be surprised at their observations.
That said, it is undeniable that Black Americans perform woefully worse than their white, Asian, or Latina counterparts in educational testing. Could the reasons lie in the equally undeniable fact that school funds are raised, almost universally, on property taxes, which, in most inner cities, amounts to little? That such a design was guaranteed not just to create a failing, under funded and under resourced educational system -- but one that continues to be so?
Just several months ago, an American monthly magazine published a special article on Africa. In an article penned by Kenyan writer, Wainaina Binyavanga, a 2003 study by a State University of New York - Albany sociologist showed that "Africans averaged the highest attainments of any group in the United States -- higher even than whites and Asians."
Africans are the highest academic achievers in U.S. colleges?
I don't remember reading this in my local [or national] newspaper!
Apparently, neither did Dr. Watson.
Perhaps if he did, he would have rethought his ideas, for if African-Americans perform one way, and continental Africans perform another way, then genetics is clearly not the culprit.
In Black America, which has had its share of slurs cast its way, it should also be inspiring to know that Africans coming here are outscoring all of their peers.
It shows what is possible.
-(c) ''07 maj
[*Sources: Dean, Cornelia, "Nobel Winner Issues Apology for Comments About Blacks," New York Times, Fri., Oct., 19,2007, p.A24. ; Binyavenga, Wainaina, "Generation Kenya, "Vanity Fair (July 2007), pp.84-94, citing 2003 study by Dr. John R. Logan, Lewis Mumford Center/ SUNY-Albany.]
Once again, a major American scientific figure has emerged from the shadows of his laboratory, to insult Black people, and their genetic inability.
The latest, James D. Watson, a co-winner of the 1962 Nobel prize for deciphering the double-helix of DNA, made statements in a recent interview that spanned the globe.
Speaking to the Times of London (published Sun., 10/14/07) he spoke of "the prospect of Africa" as "inherently gloomy". The British newspaper quoted Dr. Watson as saying, "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really."
Presumably, by "ours" Dr. Watson meant, not Americans, but white people.
Days later, Dr. Watson issued a statement saying he couldn't "understand" how he could have said such a thing. Added the biologist, "There is no scientific basis for such a belief."*
Some of us remember similar slurs launched by Nobelist, William B. Shockley, who asserted that inherent characteristics like intelligence are attributable to skin color.
These scientific slurs aren't the first such attacks on Black intelligence; it won't be the last.
They remind us that scientists are often experts in their fields of study, but idiots in other areas of life.
Dr. Watson studied biology. Dr. Shockley won his 1956 Nobel in physics, for his part in the discovery of the transistor.
Neither man had expertise in the social sciences.
For them not to know of such studies is equivalent to the old Sufi story of the mullah who lost his purse, but was looking in the wrong place to find it. When others asked Mullah Nasruddin why he was looking in a place where he couldn't have lost his purse, he replied, "Because the light is better here."
Drs. Watson and Shockley looked within to explain something that they saw around them, and we shouldn't be surprised at their observations.
That said, it is undeniable that Black Americans perform woefully worse than their white, Asian, or Latina counterparts in educational testing. Could the reasons lie in the equally undeniable fact that school funds are raised, almost universally, on property taxes, which, in most inner cities, amounts to little? That such a design was guaranteed not just to create a failing, under funded and under resourced educational system -- but one that continues to be so?
Just several months ago, an American monthly magazine published a special article on Africa. In an article penned by Kenyan writer, Wainaina Binyavanga, a 2003 study by a State University of New York - Albany sociologist showed that "Africans averaged the highest attainments of any group in the United States -- higher even than whites and Asians."
Africans are the highest academic achievers in U.S. colleges?
I don't remember reading this in my local [or national] newspaper!
Apparently, neither did Dr. Watson.
Perhaps if he did, he would have rethought his ideas, for if African-Americans perform one way, and continental Africans perform another way, then genetics is clearly not the culprit.
In Black America, which has had its share of slurs cast its way, it should also be inspiring to know that Africans coming here are outscoring all of their peers.
It shows what is possible.
-(c) ''07 maj
[*Sources: Dean, Cornelia, "Nobel Winner Issues Apology for Comments About Blacks," New York Times, Fri., Oct., 19,2007, p.A24. ; Binyavenga, Wainaina, "Generation Kenya, "Vanity Fair (July 2007), pp.84-94, citing 2003 study by Dr. John R. Logan, Lewis Mumford Center/ SUNY-Albany.]
"What I Meant to Say Was....Uh...."
[col. writ. 10/30/07] (c) '07 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Once again, a major American scientific figure has emerged from the shadows of his laboratory, to insult Black people, and their genetic inability.
The latest, James D. Watson, a co-winner of the 1962 Nobel prize for deciphering the double-helix of DNA, made statements in a recent interview that spanned the globe.
Speaking to the Times of London (published Sun., 10/14/07) he spoke of "the prospect of Africa" as "inherently gloomy". The British newspaper quoted Dr. Watson as saying, "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really."
Presumably, by "ours" Dr. Watson meant, not Americans, but white people.
Days later, Dr. Watson issued a statement saying he couldn't "understand" how he could have said such a thing. Added the biologist, "There is no scientific basis for such a belief."*
Some of us remember similar slurs launched by Nobelist, William B. Shockley, who asserted that inherent characteristics like intelligence are attributable to skin color.
These scientific slurs aren't the first such attacks on Black intelligence; it won't be the last.
They remind us that scientists are often experts in their fields of study, but idiots in other areas of life.
Dr. Watson studied biology. Dr. Shockley won his 1956 Nobel in physics, for his part in the discovery of the transistor.
Neither man had expertise in the social sciences.
For them not to know of such studies is equivalent to the old Sufi story of the mullah who lost his purse, but was looking in the wrong place to find it. When others asked Mullah Nasruddin why he was looking in a place where he couldn't have lost his purse, he replied, "Because the light is better here."
Drs. Watson and Shockley looked within to explain something that they saw around them, and we shouldn't be surprised at their observations.
That said, it is undeniable that Black Americans perform woefully worse than their white, Asian, or Latina counterparts in educational testing. Could the reasons lie in the equally undeniable fact that school funds are raised, almost universally, on property taxes, which, in most inner cities, amounts to little? That such a design was guaranteed not just to create a failing, under funded and under resourced educational system -- but one that continues to be so?
Just several months ago, an American monthly magazine published a special article on Africa. In an article penned by Kenyan writer, Wainaina Binyavanga, a 2003 study by a State University of New York - Albany sociologist showed that "Africans averaged the highest attainments of any group in the United States -- higher even than whites and Asians."
Africans are the highest academic achievers in U.S. colleges?
I don't remember reading this in my local [or national] newspaper!
Apparently, neither did Dr. Watson.
Perhaps if he did, he would have rethought his ideas, for if African-Americans perform one way, and continental Africans perform another way, then genetics is clearly not the culprit.
In Black America, which has had its share of slurs cast its way, it should also be inspiring to know that Africans coming here are outscoring all of their peers.
It shows what is possible.
-(c) ''07 maj
[*Sources: Dean, Cornelia, "Nobel Winner Issues Apology for Comments About Blacks," New York Times, Fri., Oct., 19,2007, p.A24. ; Binyavenga, Wainaina, "Generation Kenya, "Vanity Fair (July 2007), pp.84-94, citing 2003 study by Dr. John R. Logan, Lewis Mumford Center/ SUNY-Albany.]
Once again, a major American scientific figure has emerged from the shadows of his laboratory, to insult Black people, and their genetic inability.
The latest, James D. Watson, a co-winner of the 1962 Nobel prize for deciphering the double-helix of DNA, made statements in a recent interview that spanned the globe.
Speaking to the Times of London (published Sun., 10/14/07) he spoke of "the prospect of Africa" as "inherently gloomy". The British newspaper quoted Dr. Watson as saying, "All our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours -- whereas all the testing says not really."
Presumably, by "ours" Dr. Watson meant, not Americans, but white people.
Days later, Dr. Watson issued a statement saying he couldn't "understand" how he could have said such a thing. Added the biologist, "There is no scientific basis for such a belief."*
Some of us remember similar slurs launched by Nobelist, William B. Shockley, who asserted that inherent characteristics like intelligence are attributable to skin color.
These scientific slurs aren't the first such attacks on Black intelligence; it won't be the last.
They remind us that scientists are often experts in their fields of study, but idiots in other areas of life.
Dr. Watson studied biology. Dr. Shockley won his 1956 Nobel in physics, for his part in the discovery of the transistor.
Neither man had expertise in the social sciences.
For them not to know of such studies is equivalent to the old Sufi story of the mullah who lost his purse, but was looking in the wrong place to find it. When others asked Mullah Nasruddin why he was looking in a place where he couldn't have lost his purse, he replied, "Because the light is better here."
Drs. Watson and Shockley looked within to explain something that they saw around them, and we shouldn't be surprised at their observations.
That said, it is undeniable that Black Americans perform woefully worse than their white, Asian, or Latina counterparts in educational testing. Could the reasons lie in the equally undeniable fact that school funds are raised, almost universally, on property taxes, which, in most inner cities, amounts to little? That such a design was guaranteed not just to create a failing, under funded and under resourced educational system -- but one that continues to be so?
Just several months ago, an American monthly magazine published a special article on Africa. In an article penned by Kenyan writer, Wainaina Binyavanga, a 2003 study by a State University of New York - Albany sociologist showed that "Africans averaged the highest attainments of any group in the United States -- higher even than whites and Asians."
Africans are the highest academic achievers in U.S. colleges?
I don't remember reading this in my local [or national] newspaper!
Apparently, neither did Dr. Watson.
Perhaps if he did, he would have rethought his ideas, for if African-Americans perform one way, and continental Africans perform another way, then genetics is clearly not the culprit.
In Black America, which has had its share of slurs cast its way, it should also be inspiring to know that Africans coming here are outscoring all of their peers.
It shows what is possible.
-(c) ''07 maj
[*Sources: Dean, Cornelia, "Nobel Winner Issues Apology for Comments About Blacks," New York Times, Fri., Oct., 19,2007, p.A24. ; Binyavenga, Wainaina, "Generation Kenya, "Vanity Fair (July 2007), pp.84-94, citing 2003 study by Dr. John R. Logan, Lewis Mumford Center/ SUNY-Albany.]
Richard Viguerie: Bush White House Hides True Scope of Federal Deficit
Last update: 6:29 p.m. EDT July 29, 2008
MANASSAS, Va., July 29, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The following is a statement by Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, regarding the White House projection of a $482 billion deficit for Fiscal Year 2009:
"The White House has issued figures indicating that President Bush and his enablers in Congress will leave his successor with a budget deficit of $482 Billion for Fiscal Year 2009, which is a record. How's that for a legacy?
"As shocking as this deficit figure is, that's still not the true scope of our budget woes because it excludes $80 billion in war costs and $227 billion borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund.
"The real budget deficit is therefore $789 billion.
"Under accounting trickery that would probably land the top officers of a publicly traded company in jail, the money borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund -- and spent on anything and everything except Social Security payments -- is not counted towards the budget deficit, although it is part of our $9.49 Trillion National Debt.
"It's way past time for Washington politicians to have their own Sarbanes-Oxley.
"But this is how corrupt Washington has become. Besides the dangerous practice of massive deficit spending, which will saddle our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt, the Bush White House and Congress are conspiring to conceal the true nature and scope of the problem.
"This year's budget deficit will actually be $307 billion worse than the politicians are saying. This fraud on the American people is a conspiracy of silence by both major political parties.
"In stunning hypocrisy, the White House blamed the record budget deficit on the slowing economy and the $150 billion stimulus package passed earlier this year.
"No, Mr. President, the buck stops with you. Stand up and accept the responsibility -- and your legacy -- for massively expanding government."
NOTE TO EDITORS: Richard A. Viguerie pioneered political direct mail and has been called "one of the creators of the modern conservative movement" (The Nation magazine) and one of the "conservatives of the century" (The Washington Times). His latest book is Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big-Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause (Bonus Books), which, Jerome Corsi wrote in WorldNetDaily, is "destined to become a classic of conservative thinking" and "may be the most important conservative book written in the last quarter century."
SOURCE ConservativeHQ.com http://conservativehq.com
Copyright (C) 2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved
MANASSAS, Va., July 29, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- The following is a statement by Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of ConservativeHQ.com, regarding the White House projection of a $482 billion deficit for Fiscal Year 2009:
"The White House has issued figures indicating that President Bush and his enablers in Congress will leave his successor with a budget deficit of $482 Billion for Fiscal Year 2009, which is a record. How's that for a legacy?
"As shocking as this deficit figure is, that's still not the true scope of our budget woes because it excludes $80 billion in war costs and $227 billion borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund.
"The real budget deficit is therefore $789 billion.
"Under accounting trickery that would probably land the top officers of a publicly traded company in jail, the money borrowed from the Social Security Trust Fund -- and spent on anything and everything except Social Security payments -- is not counted towards the budget deficit, although it is part of our $9.49 Trillion National Debt.
"It's way past time for Washington politicians to have their own Sarbanes-Oxley.
"But this is how corrupt Washington has become. Besides the dangerous practice of massive deficit spending, which will saddle our children and grandchildren with trillions of dollars of debt, the Bush White House and Congress are conspiring to conceal the true nature and scope of the problem.
"This year's budget deficit will actually be $307 billion worse than the politicians are saying. This fraud on the American people is a conspiracy of silence by both major political parties.
"In stunning hypocrisy, the White House blamed the record budget deficit on the slowing economy and the $150 billion stimulus package passed earlier this year.
"No, Mr. President, the buck stops with you. Stand up and accept the responsibility -- and your legacy -- for massively expanding government."
NOTE TO EDITORS: Richard A. Viguerie pioneered political direct mail and has been called "one of the creators of the modern conservative movement" (The Nation magazine) and one of the "conservatives of the century" (The Washington Times). His latest book is Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big-Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause (Bonus Books), which, Jerome Corsi wrote in WorldNetDaily, is "destined to become a classic of conservative thinking" and "may be the most important conservative book written in the last quarter century."
SOURCE ConservativeHQ.com http://conservativehq.com
Copyright (C) 2008 PR Newswire. All rights reserved
Police Raid Wrong House, Shoot it up and gets Rewarded
Minneapolis police: A mistake, an apology and then medals
By RODRIGO ZAMITH, Star Tribune
July 30, 2008
First, the city apologized. Then it gave awards.
Eight Minneapolis officers received medals in City Hall Monday for their valor in a botched raid that the city apologized for last year. That isn't sitting well with the family shot at multiple times by the officers.
"I'm shocked that they're receiving awards for that night," said Yee Moua. "My family is a mess right now. My [9-year-old] son, who saw the shooting, still has nightmares and has needed therapy. They've ruined a life, and I don't understand why they would get rewarded for that."
The awards stemmed from a high-risk search in December. The eight officers -- who had SWAT training -- entered the house expecting to find a violent gang member. Instead, they found Vang Khang, a 35-year-old homeowner who thought he was being robbed. Khang shot through his bedroom door at the officers until he understood who they were.
In the midst of the shootout were Moua, who is Khang's wife, and their six children, who range in age from 3 to 15. Moua said her family has since abandoned the house and can no longer afford to keep it.
Minneapolis police spokesman Sgt. William Palmer said Tuesday the department has acknowledged the raid was a mistake and has apologized to the family. But he said the officers "performed very bravely under gunfire and made smart decisions."
Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan said that he knew giving the award might get negative attention but that "we've never not recognized an officer shot in the line of duty."
Three officers received shrapnel damage to body armor and their ballistic helmets, Palmer said.
Dolan said he did not speak with the family prior to the award ceremony, but he did speak with Hmong community leaders in north Minneapolis who were "mostly understanding."
"I can understand [Moua's] feelings, but the officers didn't make any mistakes and they were able to stop things from getting worse," Dolan said. "Like the old maxim says, 'You don't punish your officers for the mistake of the general.'"
'We almost died that night'
Police said they acted on bad information from an informant, who reportedly was a victim of a crime at a house in the 1300 block of Logan Avenue N. Police said they had no reason to believe the information was inaccurate and they had the right address on the warrant, but the house wasn't occupied by anybody they wanted.
The raid was part of an investigation by the department's Violent Offender Task Force, which typically goes after the most violent gang members and drug dealers. Officers had retrieved guns in searches connected with the case before the raid.
According to police, officers entered the home without knocking -- a standard procedure in cases where officers expected to find weapons -- and called out, "Police!" as they searched the home's first floor. They didn't find anybody, so went to the second floor. At a small landing at the top of the stairs, they again shouted, "Police!"
Shots then came through the walls and doors as officers searched two bedrooms, police said. It was Khang shooting from a third bedroom.
Authorities said there were children in the other bedrooms, and the officers quickly realized there was a language barrier. The older children were able to communicate to their father that police were in the house and to stop shooting.
"As soon as they started taking fire, [officers] got in front of the kids and used their body as a shield," Palmer said. "They used great restraint and shot precisely at where the bullets were coming back from."
Moua disputed the police account.
"They never identified themselves; we thought they were a whole bunch of drunk, crazy guys," she said. "We didn't know anything until my oldest son yelled, 'Dad, it's the police!'"
She also said the officers did not try to protect her children, but rather hid themselves behind furniture and shot back indiscriminately. She said officers treated her and her husband roughly, and did not explain the situation after the two surrendered.
"They stepped on my husband, and we kept asking, 'Where are the bad guys?'" she said. "We were just trying to protect ours kids. We almost died that night."
Lawsuit against the city
Sgt. Jesse Garcia said the city conducted an internal affairs investigation after the raid and the SWAT team was cleared of any wrongdoing. He said no other details were available because the investigation was still open.
Casper Hill, a spokesman for the city of Minneapolis, said the city has reimbursed the Khang family $7,500 for "miscellaneous expenses."
The family's lawyer, Thomas Heffelfinger, said that he has had ongoing conversations with the city attorney's office and that there will be a lawsuit if they cannot reach a resolution.
"They fired 22 rounds with 9 millimeter automatic weapons into a room with two adults and four children," Heffelfinger said. "That's not protecting kids. They were firing at a room they couldn't see into. They fired with the intent to kill the person on the other side of the door.
"To give these men awards for that behavior is nothing more than an attempt to sanitize their conduct."
Heffelfinger also said the family had lived at the house for four years and had no history of wrongdoing. He said police "failed to do their homework" and "acted outrageously once they got there."
Officers receiving medals of commendation included Sgt. Nicholas Torborg and officers Steven Blackwell, Matthew Kaminski, Ricardo Muro and Craig Taylor. Sgt. Michael Young and officers John Sheneman and Alan Williams received medals of valor.
"We knew there might be political implications with this," Palmer said. "We're not passing judgment today on the rest of what happened there. But those officers were shot in the line of duty, and there isn't an appropriate level of award for that."
Staff writer Abby Simons contributed to this report. Rodrigo Zamith • 612-673-4895
© 2008 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
By RODRIGO ZAMITH, Star Tribune
July 30, 2008
First, the city apologized. Then it gave awards.
Eight Minneapolis officers received medals in City Hall Monday for their valor in a botched raid that the city apologized for last year. That isn't sitting well with the family shot at multiple times by the officers.
"I'm shocked that they're receiving awards for that night," said Yee Moua. "My family is a mess right now. My [9-year-old] son, who saw the shooting, still has nightmares and has needed therapy. They've ruined a life, and I don't understand why they would get rewarded for that."
The awards stemmed from a high-risk search in December. The eight officers -- who had SWAT training -- entered the house expecting to find a violent gang member. Instead, they found Vang Khang, a 35-year-old homeowner who thought he was being robbed. Khang shot through his bedroom door at the officers until he understood who they were.
In the midst of the shootout were Moua, who is Khang's wife, and their six children, who range in age from 3 to 15. Moua said her family has since abandoned the house and can no longer afford to keep it.
Minneapolis police spokesman Sgt. William Palmer said Tuesday the department has acknowledged the raid was a mistake and has apologized to the family. But he said the officers "performed very bravely under gunfire and made smart decisions."
Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan said that he knew giving the award might get negative attention but that "we've never not recognized an officer shot in the line of duty."
Three officers received shrapnel damage to body armor and their ballistic helmets, Palmer said.
Dolan said he did not speak with the family prior to the award ceremony, but he did speak with Hmong community leaders in north Minneapolis who were "mostly understanding."
"I can understand [Moua's] feelings, but the officers didn't make any mistakes and they were able to stop things from getting worse," Dolan said. "Like the old maxim says, 'You don't punish your officers for the mistake of the general.'"
'We almost died that night'
Police said they acted on bad information from an informant, who reportedly was a victim of a crime at a house in the 1300 block of Logan Avenue N. Police said they had no reason to believe the information was inaccurate and they had the right address on the warrant, but the house wasn't occupied by anybody they wanted.
The raid was part of an investigation by the department's Violent Offender Task Force, which typically goes after the most violent gang members and drug dealers. Officers had retrieved guns in searches connected with the case before the raid.
According to police, officers entered the home without knocking -- a standard procedure in cases where officers expected to find weapons -- and called out, "Police!" as they searched the home's first floor. They didn't find anybody, so went to the second floor. At a small landing at the top of the stairs, they again shouted, "Police!"
Shots then came through the walls and doors as officers searched two bedrooms, police said. It was Khang shooting from a third bedroom.
Authorities said there were children in the other bedrooms, and the officers quickly realized there was a language barrier. The older children were able to communicate to their father that police were in the house and to stop shooting.
"As soon as they started taking fire, [officers] got in front of the kids and used their body as a shield," Palmer said. "They used great restraint and shot precisely at where the bullets were coming back from."
Moua disputed the police account.
"They never identified themselves; we thought they were a whole bunch of drunk, crazy guys," she said. "We didn't know anything until my oldest son yelled, 'Dad, it's the police!'"
She also said the officers did not try to protect her children, but rather hid themselves behind furniture and shot back indiscriminately. She said officers treated her and her husband roughly, and did not explain the situation after the two surrendered.
"They stepped on my husband, and we kept asking, 'Where are the bad guys?'" she said. "We were just trying to protect ours kids. We almost died that night."
Lawsuit against the city
Sgt. Jesse Garcia said the city conducted an internal affairs investigation after the raid and the SWAT team was cleared of any wrongdoing. He said no other details were available because the investigation was still open.
Casper Hill, a spokesman for the city of Minneapolis, said the city has reimbursed the Khang family $7,500 for "miscellaneous expenses."
The family's lawyer, Thomas Heffelfinger, said that he has had ongoing conversations with the city attorney's office and that there will be a lawsuit if they cannot reach a resolution.
"They fired 22 rounds with 9 millimeter automatic weapons into a room with two adults and four children," Heffelfinger said. "That's not protecting kids. They were firing at a room they couldn't see into. They fired with the intent to kill the person on the other side of the door.
"To give these men awards for that behavior is nothing more than an attempt to sanitize their conduct."
Heffelfinger also said the family had lived at the house for four years and had no history of wrongdoing. He said police "failed to do their homework" and "acted outrageously once they got there."
Officers receiving medals of commendation included Sgt. Nicholas Torborg and officers Steven Blackwell, Matthew Kaminski, Ricardo Muro and Craig Taylor. Sgt. Michael Young and officers John Sheneman and Alan Williams received medals of valor.
"We knew there might be political implications with this," Palmer said. "We're not passing judgment today on the rest of what happened there. But those officers were shot in the line of duty, and there isn't an appropriate level of award for that."
Staff writer Abby Simons contributed to this report. Rodrigo Zamith • 612-673-4895
© 2008 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.
Cheney, Neocons Considered Killing Americans in Pretext to Attack Iran
In the video here, taped at the Campus Progress journalism conference earlier this month, the Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh reveals how the neocons convened around Dick Cheney and brainstormed ways to kick off World War IV, as they fondly call their pet project to take out the Muslims and foment a contrived “clash of civilizations.”
According to Hersh, this meeting occurred after the neocons failed miserably to stage a rehashed version of the Gulf of Tonkin incident in the Strait of Hormuz, mostly because it is no longer 1964 and such Big Lies — thanks to the internet and bloggers — are far more difficult to float. “For all I know, our Navy was shooting at whales out there,” quipped LBJ about the imaginary act of North Vietnamese boats supposedly attacking U.S. ships, leading to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and undeclared war in Southeast Asia, ultimately resulting in the death of nearly 60,000 Americans and around 3 million Southeast Asians.
In an exclusive Think Progress story, we learn the meeting took place in Cheney’s office and the subject on the table was “how to create a casus belli between Tehran and Washington,” part of an ongoing effort to provide an excuse to attack Iran. “There was a dozen ideas proffered about how to trigger a war,” Hersh explains. “The one that interested me the most was why don’t we build — we in our shipyard — build four or five boats that look like Iranian PT boats. Put Navy seals on them with a lot of arms. And next time one of our boats goes to the Straits of Hormuz, start a shoot-up.”
Hersh would have us believe this scenario did not play out because “you can’t have Americans killing Americans,” an absurd explanation considering the fact the attacks of September 11 were just that — “Americans killing Americans,” a calculated and cold-blooded act of mass murder carried out by elements in the U.S. government as a “new Pearl Harbor,” a cynical pretext to launch the “war on terror,” now grinding into its seventh year.
Ominously, these “ideas” hark back to Operation Northwoods, the JSC plan to stage a false flag terror event — or a number of events — designed to provide a pretext to invade Cuba and take out Fidel Castro. Such “ideas” included “friendly Cubans” attacking the U.S. base at Guantanamo, shooting down a drone disguised as a chartered civil airliner and blaming it on Cuba, inciting riots and staging terror attacks in Miami, and other terrorist acts. Fortunately, then Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, put a kibosh to this insane plan.
More recently, in January, 2003, in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion George Bush and Tony Blair discussed painting planes in United Nations colors “in order to provoke an attack which could then be used to justify material breach” and thus set in motion an invasion, according to Philippe Sands, a leading British human rights lawyer (see Revealed: Bush and Blair discussed using American Spyplane in UN colors to lure Saddam into war, Channel Four News).
In fact, the neocons have not rested in their effort to foment war and force the support of the American people by way of deception. On May 16, 2008, Paul Joseph Watson, writing for Prison Planet, noted confidential recordings released under the Freedom of Information Act revealing the efforts of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and top military analysts to cook up another terrorist attack on America in order to gain support for their ambitious plans to decimate Muslim culture. “The most extraordinary exchange takes place when Lt. Gen. Michael DeLong bemoans shrinking political support for Neo-Con war plans on Capitol Hill and suggests that sympathy for the Bush administration’s agenda will only be achieved after a new terror attack,” writes Watson. “Rumsfeld agrees that the psychological impact of 9/11 is wearing off and the ‘behavior pattern’ of citizens in both the U.S. and Europe suggests that they are unconcerned about the threat of terror.” Rumsfeld characterizes Bush as “a victim of success” because America has not suffered “an attack in five years” and for Rumsfeld and the neocons this state of affairs is indeed lamentable.
Obviously, the neocons will stop at nothing — including the murder of more Americans in a false flag terror attack — to realize their agenda.
Finally, Sy Hersh casts suspicion on himself during the interview when he admits he did not bother to write an article on the neocon casus belli brainstorming session because it did not go forward. “So I can understand the argument for not writing something that was rejected — uh maybe. My attitude always towards editors is they’re mice training to be rats…. But the point is jejune, if you know what that means.” It was “jejune” because Hersh believes the “American public, if you get the right incident, the American public will support bang-bang-kiss-kiss. You know, we’re into it.”
Of course, that may be true for some of the American public, even a large segment, but for those of us up to speed on the master plan of the neocons — total war, so the children of the neocons will “sing great songs about us years from now,” as Richard Perle once said — this comment stinks of irresponsibility. It avoids discussion of the criminal mindset of the neocons, who are determined to start WW IV, even if such a conflict leads to the distinct possibility the Prince of Darkness’ children may not be around to sing great songs.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)