via; Freedom Archives
==================
Date: February 8, 2009
From: Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel
Subject: Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row - U.S. Supreme Court
Download the document HERE
<http://www.freemumia.com/pdfs/febupdate.pdf>
New case filing in Supreme Court On February 4, 2009, the U.S. SupremeCourt docketed and accepted for filing the Petition for Writ ofCertiorari, with supporting Appendix, that I had submitted December 19,2008 on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal. (AbuJamal v. Beard, U.S. Sup. Ct. No.08-8483.) A copy of the petition is attached. The central issue in thiscase is racism in jury selection. The prosecution systematically removedpeople from sitting on the trial jury purely because of the color oftheir skin, that is, being black. The bigotry that killed Martin LutherKing, Jr., so many years ago, has been rampant in the case of my clientand is a central part of the state's quest to murder him in the name ofthe law.
Prosecution's separate Supreme Court petition In an entirely separatecase (Beard v. Abu-Jamal, Sup. Ct. No. 08-652), the prosecution isseeking to overturn the victory we achieved last year in the U.S. Courtof Appeals for the Third Circuit. (Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d 272 (3rd Cir. 2008).) In that ruling the court ordered a new jury trial on the question of thedeath penalty. Our Brief In Opposition will be filed in the SupremeCourt on February 13, 2009.
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense -- The legal defense for Mumia needshelp. The costs for our litigation in two case before the Supreme Courtare substantial. To help, please make your checks payable to the"National Lawyers Guild Foundation" (indicate "Mumia" on thebottom left). The donations are tax deductible, and should be mailed to:
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
Conclusion -- Mumia remains on Pennsylvania's death row. We are in an epic struggle in which his life hangs in the balance. What occurs now in the Supreme Court will determine whether Mumia will have a new jury trial,or die at the hands of the executioner.
As I have previously pointed out, Mumia is in greater danger than at anytime since his 1981 arrest. Your support and activism is needed. Thisgreat journalist and author does not belong on death row or in prison. We must not rest until he is free.
Yours very truly,
Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal[E-mail: RobertRBryan@aol.com
Monday, February 23, 2009
Economy of Ashes
[col. writ. 2/4/09] (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal
What we are seeing in the economy is something not seen in this country since the 1930's -- the time of the Great Depression.
If we think of the companies shedding jobs like trees shedding leaves, they are so numerous that it may prove easier to name companies that haven't -- (if we could find any!)
In January alone, some 1/2 million workers got pink slips.
And this economic crisis is global. Europe is locked in a financial vise, and big countries, like England and France, have announced ambitious stimulus packages. England has openly nationalized prominent banks facing default. Iceland has, for all intents and purposes, declared bankruptcy -- with not just banks, but government itself is failing.
And while China, the site of the world's most robust economy is still growing, its rate of growth has fallen so fast that some 20 million people -- 20 million! -- have lost their jobs, a direct result of the U.S. economic recession.
Over a year ago, American economist Nouriel Roubini, speaking at a meeting in Davos, Switzerland, said the U.S. economy looked "like an emerging market."
Roubini predicted that the U.S. would enter a recession which would last at least a year. he added, "The debate is not whether we're going to have a soft or hard landing. The question is only how hard the hard landing will be." *
A Chinese economist echoed that sentiment. Yu Yongding, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences described the Chinese economy as at "quite a delicate stage." The problem, he concluded, was the "very bad situation" in the U.S.
Globalization was sold as the next best thing to the industrial age, when Americans would live in the warm glow of the information age, lit by computer screens, and the rest of the world would do scut work.
How's that working out, as the economy crumbles?
--(c) '09 maj
[*Source: Landler, Mark, "U.S. Policies Evoke Scorn at Davos: Fed Caved In to the Markets (or Maybe It Dawdled), Critics Say, New York Times, Thurs., Jan. 24, 2008, p. C9.]
What we are seeing in the economy is something not seen in this country since the 1930's -- the time of the Great Depression.
If we think of the companies shedding jobs like trees shedding leaves, they are so numerous that it may prove easier to name companies that haven't -- (if we could find any!)
In January alone, some 1/2 million workers got pink slips.
And this economic crisis is global. Europe is locked in a financial vise, and big countries, like England and France, have announced ambitious stimulus packages. England has openly nationalized prominent banks facing default. Iceland has, for all intents and purposes, declared bankruptcy -- with not just banks, but government itself is failing.
And while China, the site of the world's most robust economy is still growing, its rate of growth has fallen so fast that some 20 million people -- 20 million! -- have lost their jobs, a direct result of the U.S. economic recession.
Over a year ago, American economist Nouriel Roubini, speaking at a meeting in Davos, Switzerland, said the U.S. economy looked "like an emerging market."
Roubini predicted that the U.S. would enter a recession which would last at least a year. he added, "The debate is not whether we're going to have a soft or hard landing. The question is only how hard the hard landing will be." *
A Chinese economist echoed that sentiment. Yu Yongding, of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences described the Chinese economy as at "quite a delicate stage." The problem, he concluded, was the "very bad situation" in the U.S.
Globalization was sold as the next best thing to the industrial age, when Americans would live in the warm glow of the information age, lit by computer screens, and the rest of the world would do scut work.
How's that working out, as the economy crumbles?
--(c) '09 maj
[*Source: Landler, Mark, "U.S. Policies Evoke Scorn at Davos: Fed Caved In to the Markets (or Maybe It Dawdled), Critics Say, New York Times, Thurs., Jan. 24, 2008, p. C9.]
Music Over the Mall
[col. writ. 1/28/09] (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal
As a student of history, of politics and of music I viewed the recent presidential inauguration with considerable interest.
And while it was obviously a moment of historic proportions, it can't be said that it held surprise.
That's usually because politics tends to flatten highs, and lop off lows, as politicians attempt to appeal to the broadest base.
That's also because political systems strive for the safety and security of protocol; the safe refuge of precedent, to give the image that all is well, that the U.S. endures,and the empire is essential unchanged, and still regnant.
I therefore beheld it from a distance; interested, yes, but not engaged.
If anything was utterly remarkable, it was the vast throng, standing for hours in the biting cold for as far as the eye could see.
Yet, for all the glitter and spectacle, what moved most was something quite unexpected.
John Williams' composition (he of "Star Wars" and "Jaws" fame), "Heirs..." performed by violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo- Ma, clarinet player Anthony McGill and pianist Gabriela Montero, was a breathtaking piece of musical mastery. Perlman began the piece, his violin sounding a mournful dirge that was almost funereal. He was joined shortly thereafter by Yo-Yo Ma's deeper cello, which echoed this theme, painting a picture of wintry mourning, of emotional heaviness. This mood was shattered by McGill's light, airy clarinet, which was as triumphant as the coming of spring. By the time Montero graced the keys, the theme had wholly changed. From winter, to the bright warmth of spring, from dissonance to ebullient unity.
To say this was a composition of beauty and brilliance would be understatement.
It was a work finely tuned to its time. It was a music nicely pitched to the passing of a political era.
It teaches us that music. at its best, can be magical.
It was so wondrous that I wept.
--(c) '09 maj
As a student of history, of politics and of music I viewed the recent presidential inauguration with considerable interest.
And while it was obviously a moment of historic proportions, it can't be said that it held surprise.
That's usually because politics tends to flatten highs, and lop off lows, as politicians attempt to appeal to the broadest base.
That's also because political systems strive for the safety and security of protocol; the safe refuge of precedent, to give the image that all is well, that the U.S. endures,and the empire is essential unchanged, and still regnant.
I therefore beheld it from a distance; interested, yes, but not engaged.
If anything was utterly remarkable, it was the vast throng, standing for hours in the biting cold for as far as the eye could see.
Yet, for all the glitter and spectacle, what moved most was something quite unexpected.
John Williams' composition (he of "Star Wars" and "Jaws" fame), "Heirs..." performed by violinist Itzhak Perlman, cellist Yo-Yo- Ma, clarinet player Anthony McGill and pianist Gabriela Montero, was a breathtaking piece of musical mastery. Perlman began the piece, his violin sounding a mournful dirge that was almost funereal. He was joined shortly thereafter by Yo-Yo Ma's deeper cello, which echoed this theme, painting a picture of wintry mourning, of emotional heaviness. This mood was shattered by McGill's light, airy clarinet, which was as triumphant as the coming of spring. By the time Montero graced the keys, the theme had wholly changed. From winter, to the bright warmth of spring, from dissonance to ebullient unity.
To say this was a composition of beauty and brilliance would be understatement.
It was a work finely tuned to its time. It was a music nicely pitched to the passing of a political era.
It teaches us that music. at its best, can be magical.
It was so wondrous that I wept.
--(c) '09 maj
!*3/10 NY Live From Death Row! w/ Pam Africa + DR Prisoners
via: info@freemumia.com
================
LIVE FROM DEATH ROW! with PAM AFRICA, International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
City College - 137th St. & Amsterdam, NY - NAC Ballroom
Tuesday, March 10 - 7 PM
These are America's condemned, who bear a stigma far worse than "prisoner." These are America's death row residents: men and women who walk the razor's edge between half-life and certain death.--Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pennsylvania death row prisoner, from his book 'Live from Death Row'
Over 3,500 men and women sit on death row across this country. This national tour will bring you their voices and their struggles.
The tour features death row prisoners speaking live via speakerphone. Including:
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Pennsylvania death row prisoner, author of Live from Death Row, We Want Freedom and numerous other books
KEVIN COOPER
California death row prisoner who came within 3 1/2 hours of being executed before he won a stay of execution
TROY DAVIS
On death row in Georgia and came within hours of execution in 2008 before he won a stay
STANLEY HOWARD
Former death row prisoner and torture victim still imprisoned in Illinois; contributing writer to the New Abolitionist...and more!
Also speaking at City College:
Lawrence Hayes, former NYS death row prisoner
Yusef Salaam, exonerated in the Central Park jogger case
LIVE FROM DEATH ROW!
City College - 137th St. & Amsterdam - NAC Ballroom
Tuesday, March 10 - 7 PM
www.nodeathpenalty.org
nyc@nodeathpenalty.orgSponsored by: Campaign to End the Death Penalty & the Free Mumia Coalition-NYC
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
PLEASE CONTACT:International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJP.O. Box 19709Philadelphia, PA 19143Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180E-mail - icffmaj@aol.comWeb - www.freemumia.com
AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-JamalAM 8335
SCI-Greene175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.comRead: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/readSubscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailingicffmaj@aol.com!
[Check out Mumia's latest: *WE WANT FREEDOM:A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from SouthEnd Press (http://www.southendpress.org); Ph.#1-800-533-8478.]
================
LIVE FROM DEATH ROW! with PAM AFRICA, International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
City College - 137th St. & Amsterdam, NY - NAC Ballroom
Tuesday, March 10 - 7 PM
These are America's condemned, who bear a stigma far worse than "prisoner." These are America's death row residents: men and women who walk the razor's edge between half-life and certain death.--Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pennsylvania death row prisoner, from his book 'Live from Death Row'
Over 3,500 men and women sit on death row across this country. This national tour will bring you their voices and their struggles.
The tour features death row prisoners speaking live via speakerphone. Including:
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Pennsylvania death row prisoner, author of Live from Death Row, We Want Freedom and numerous other books
KEVIN COOPER
California death row prisoner who came within 3 1/2 hours of being executed before he won a stay of execution
TROY DAVIS
On death row in Georgia and came within hours of execution in 2008 before he won a stay
STANLEY HOWARD
Former death row prisoner and torture victim still imprisoned in Illinois; contributing writer to the New Abolitionist...and more!
Also speaking at City College:
Lawrence Hayes, former NYS death row prisoner
Yusef Salaam, exonerated in the Central Park jogger case
LIVE FROM DEATH ROW!
City College - 137th St. & Amsterdam - NAC Ballroom
Tuesday, March 10 - 7 PM
www.nodeathpenalty.org
nyc@nodeathpenalty.orgSponsored by: Campaign to End the Death Penalty & the Free Mumia Coalition-NYC
The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org
PLEASE CONTACT:International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJP.O. Box 19709Philadelphia, PA 19143Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180E-mail - icffmaj@aol.comWeb - www.freemumia.com
AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-JamalAM 8335
SCI-Greene175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!
Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.comRead: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/readSubscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailingicffmaj@aol.com!
[Check out Mumia's latest: *WE WANT FREEDOM:A Life in the Black Panther Party*, from SouthEnd Press (http://www.southendpress.org); Ph.#1-800-533-8478.]
!*MUMIA Releases NEW BOOK!/Events Planned Nationally on his Birthday!
YOUR SUPPORT IS GREATLY NEEDED,
ATTEND AND/OR HOST YOUR OWN EVENTS!
===============================
via: info@freemumia.com
NEW BOOK! (View Book at http://www.freemumia.com/april242009.html)
JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE U.S.A.
Authored by MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Foreword by Angela Y. Davis
--------
APRIL 24 MUMIA'S BIRTHDAY NATIONALLY COORDINATED "MORE THAN A BOOK PARTY" EVENTS
Mumia writes:
"This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion-dollar endowed universities but in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America .. It is law learned in a stew of bitterness, under the constant threat of violence, in places where millions of people live, buy millions of others wish to ignore or forget"
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant and moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
In the spirit of Mumia's book, we dedicate these "More Than a Book Party" events to the thousands and thousands of jailhouse lawyers who practice their craft in their own and their brothers' (and sisters') struggle for justice, against all odds and with the high risk of being subjected to the venom, punishment, and brutality of the prison system that is directed against them more than to any other sector of the prison population. THESE ARE THE HEROES AND SHEROES WE WILL HONOR. INVITE SOME OF THEM WHO ARE FORMER PRISONERS TO PARTICIPATE IN YOUR "MORE THAN A BOOK PARTY EVENTS!!!
MUMIA BIRTHDAY "MORE THAN A BOOK PARTY" APRIL 24TH EVENTS ALREADY SCHEDULED IN:
-PHILADELPHIA
-NEW YORK (NOTE: SCHEDULED FOR SATURDAY APRIL 25TH BY THE FREE MUMIA COALITION TO AVOID CONFLICT WITH OTHER EVENTS)
-SAN FRANCISCO
-PITTSBURGH
-PORTLAND
-BOSTON
-WOODSTOCK
AND OTHERS !
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212 330-8029
TO ORDER BOOKS CONTACT: STACEY@CITYLIGHTS.COM
OR CALL
FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE GRASSROOTS WORK: (FUNDS WILL GO TO BOTH INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL AND THE FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC)) ONLINE GO TO:
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
OR MAIL CHECKS TO:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION, PO BOX 16, NEW YORK, NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
ATTEND AND/OR HOST YOUR OWN EVENTS!
===============================
via: info@freemumia.com
NEW BOOK! (View Book at http://www.freemumia.com/april242009.html)
JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE U.S.A.
Authored by MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Foreword by Angela Y. Davis
--------
APRIL 24 MUMIA'S BIRTHDAY NATIONALLY COORDINATED "MORE THAN A BOOK PARTY" EVENTS
Mumia writes:
"This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion-dollar endowed universities but in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America .. It is law learned in a stew of bitterness, under the constant threat of violence, in places where millions of people live, buy millions of others wish to ignore or forget"
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant and moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
In the spirit of Mumia's book, we dedicate these "More Than a Book Party" events to the thousands and thousands of jailhouse lawyers who practice their craft in their own and their brothers' (and sisters') struggle for justice, against all odds and with the high risk of being subjected to the venom, punishment, and brutality of the prison system that is directed against them more than to any other sector of the prison population. THESE ARE THE HEROES AND SHEROES WE WILL HONOR. INVITE SOME OF THEM WHO ARE FORMER PRISONERS TO PARTICIPATE IN YOUR "MORE THAN A BOOK PARTY EVENTS!!!
MUMIA BIRTHDAY "MORE THAN A BOOK PARTY" APRIL 24TH EVENTS ALREADY SCHEDULED IN:
-PHILADELPHIA
-NEW YORK (NOTE: SCHEDULED FOR SATURDAY APRIL 25TH BY THE FREE MUMIA COALITION TO AVOID CONFLICT WITH OTHER EVENTS)
-SAN FRANCISCO
-PITTSBURGH
-PORTLAND
-BOSTON
-WOODSTOCK
AND OTHERS !
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212 330-8029
TO ORDER BOOKS CONTACT: STACEY@CITYLIGHTS.COM
OR CALL
FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE GRASSROOTS WORK: (FUNDS WILL GO TO BOTH INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL AND THE FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC)) ONLINE GO TO:
WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM
OR MAIL CHECKS TO:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION, PO BOX 16, NEW YORK, NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)
The Fallen
[col. writ. 2/12/09] (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal
A nation's economy is always a work of complexity, which accounts for the divergent opinions of economists, who often come down on different sides of the big issues, as in what works, and what doesn't.
Broadly speaking, the conflict is between classic and Keynesian economics, with the former of the view that the market is self-regulating, and the latter of the view that the market isn't self-regulating, but must be massaged and managed by government fiscal policies.
The latest stimulus package is Keynesian (after British economist John Maynard Keynes [1883-1946], as was the bailout of the banks and financial institutions.
It seeks to influence events by an aggressive expansionist fiscal policy.
But it seems like this is less stimulus than stopgap, for it seeks to stimulate something that is in almost deadly shape.
Look at it this way; if your heart stops, and you are given a powerful jolt of electricity, your heart may resume beating, but the problem is hardly solved.
You don't need a defibrillator unless the body (the system) is in an advanced state of collapse. And it's that state of serious illness that isn't being seriously addressed, for the American economy has been ill for quite some time.
Much can be traced to the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) era, which sought to emphatically transform the economy to one run on information and financial services, with the manufacturing to be exported to foreign markets where labor was cheaper.
Unfortunately, no serious educational efforts were undertaken to adjust to this dramatic economic shift, and instead, a decade was wasted on largely irrelevant battles over No Child Left Behind, when millions of children experienced school as a test-taking prison, instead of a site of substantive learning.
With manufacturing hollowed out, and real wages falling annually, how could the economy not have a massive seizure?
For, of all the money roaring through the U.S. economy, over 70% is from personal consumption of goods and services, which means the economy is consumer-driven.
Let us illustrate; the U.S. GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for 2006 was over $13 trillion. Personal consumption of goods and services came to over $9 trillion.
The net effect of joblessness and lowered wages is a hit at the heart of the economy, that $750 billion could hardly touch.
Until the fundamentals can be recognized and corrected, these problems will continue, and the economy will sputter along, until the next heart attack.
--(c) '09 maj
A nation's economy is always a work of complexity, which accounts for the divergent opinions of economists, who often come down on different sides of the big issues, as in what works, and what doesn't.
Broadly speaking, the conflict is between classic and Keynesian economics, with the former of the view that the market is self-regulating, and the latter of the view that the market isn't self-regulating, but must be massaged and managed by government fiscal policies.
The latest stimulus package is Keynesian (after British economist John Maynard Keynes [1883-1946], as was the bailout of the banks and financial institutions.
It seeks to influence events by an aggressive expansionist fiscal policy.
But it seems like this is less stimulus than stopgap, for it seeks to stimulate something that is in almost deadly shape.
Look at it this way; if your heart stops, and you are given a powerful jolt of electricity, your heart may resume beating, but the problem is hardly solved.
You don't need a defibrillator unless the body (the system) is in an advanced state of collapse. And it's that state of serious illness that isn't being seriously addressed, for the American economy has been ill for quite some time.
Much can be traced to the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) era, which sought to emphatically transform the economy to one run on information and financial services, with the manufacturing to be exported to foreign markets where labor was cheaper.
Unfortunately, no serious educational efforts were undertaken to adjust to this dramatic economic shift, and instead, a decade was wasted on largely irrelevant battles over No Child Left Behind, when millions of children experienced school as a test-taking prison, instead of a site of substantive learning.
With manufacturing hollowed out, and real wages falling annually, how could the economy not have a massive seizure?
For, of all the money roaring through the U.S. economy, over 70% is from personal consumption of goods and services, which means the economy is consumer-driven.
Let us illustrate; the U.S. GDP (Gross Domestic Product) for 2006 was over $13 trillion. Personal consumption of goods and services came to over $9 trillion.
The net effect of joblessness and lowered wages is a hit at the heart of the economy, that $750 billion could hardly touch.
Until the fundamentals can be recognized and corrected, these problems will continue, and the economy will sputter along, until the next heart attack.
--(c) '09 maj
With 'Judges' Like These....
[col. writ. 2/7/09] (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal
In Pennsylvania's Luzerne County, there are 9 judges of the Court of Common Pleas. Two of them just pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to convict and sentence juveniles to a private prison, so that they could get kickbacks from the prison's builders and owners.
According to published accounts, Judge Mark A. Ciavarella and Senior Judge Michael T. Conahan sent hundreds of boys and girls to the private facility, and pocketed some $2.5 million in kickbacks.
This was accomplished not merely because of the venal greed of the judges, but because virtually none of the children were provided with legal representation.
When the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center filed a petition in the PA Supreme Court calling the county's practice of adjudicating and sentencing some 250 kids to jail without legal representation unconstitutional, the state's highest court denied the petition on Jan. 8, 2009. To make matters even worse, recently filed criminal information states that the 2 judges used their power and influence in the county to de-fund the county juvenile facility, precisely as they were steering kids to the private jail (boy -- talk about privatization!).
Nearly a month later, the state's highest court changed their minds, vacating the denial.
What transpired in the interim?
Well, for one thing, the 2 judges provisionally pleaded guilty to federal charges of honest wire service fraud.
Hundreds of children get socked into jail, after demonstrably unconstitutional proceedings with no legal representation, and the state's highest court doesn't even raise an eyebrow.
The media reports on this outrage, and the PA Supreme Court expresses little interest.
This is the nature of judging these days, when even kids are expendable fodder for the prison industrial complex.
Luzerne County is the state's 10th largest county, with just over 300,000 souls.
At least 22% of their judges have admitted being corrupt, in the sordid business of selling the freedom and well-being of poor children for profit.
--(c) '09 maj
{Sources: Legal Intelligencer, 2/3/09; 2/4/09.}
In Pennsylvania's Luzerne County, there are 9 judges of the Court of Common Pleas. Two of them just pleaded guilty to a conspiracy to convict and sentence juveniles to a private prison, so that they could get kickbacks from the prison's builders and owners.
According to published accounts, Judge Mark A. Ciavarella and Senior Judge Michael T. Conahan sent hundreds of boys and girls to the private facility, and pocketed some $2.5 million in kickbacks.
This was accomplished not merely because of the venal greed of the judges, but because virtually none of the children were provided with legal representation.
When the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center filed a petition in the PA Supreme Court calling the county's practice of adjudicating and sentencing some 250 kids to jail without legal representation unconstitutional, the state's highest court denied the petition on Jan. 8, 2009. To make matters even worse, recently filed criminal information states that the 2 judges used their power and influence in the county to de-fund the county juvenile facility, precisely as they were steering kids to the private jail (boy -- talk about privatization!).
Nearly a month later, the state's highest court changed their minds, vacating the denial.
What transpired in the interim?
Well, for one thing, the 2 judges provisionally pleaded guilty to federal charges of honest wire service fraud.
Hundreds of children get socked into jail, after demonstrably unconstitutional proceedings with no legal representation, and the state's highest court doesn't even raise an eyebrow.
The media reports on this outrage, and the PA Supreme Court expresses little interest.
This is the nature of judging these days, when even kids are expendable fodder for the prison industrial complex.
Luzerne County is the state's 10th largest county, with just over 300,000 souls.
At least 22% of their judges have admitted being corrupt, in the sordid business of selling the freedom and well-being of poor children for profit.
--(c) '09 maj
{Sources: Legal Intelligencer, 2/3/09; 2/4/09.}
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Ship Of Fools
Paul Craig Roberts
Infowars
February 9, 2009
Is there intelligent life in Washington, DC? Not a speck of it.
The US economy is imploding, and Obama is being led by his government of neconservatives and Israeli agents into a quagmire in Afghanistan that will bring the US into confrontation with Russia, and possibly China, American’s largest creditor.
The January payroll job figures reveal that last month 20,000 Americans lost their jobs every day.
In addition, December’s job losses were revised up by 53,000 jobs from 524,000 to 577,000. The revision brings the two-month job loss to 1,175,000. If this keeps up, Obama’s promised three million new jobs will be wiped out by job losses.
Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com/) reports that this huge number is an understatement. Williams notes that built-in biases in seasonal adjustment factors caused a 118,000 understatement of January job losses, bringing the actual January job loss to 716,000 jobs.
The payroll survey counts the number of jobs, not the number of employed as some people have more than one job. The Household Survey counts the number of people who have jobs. The Household Survey shows that 832,000 people lost their jobs in January and 806,000 in December, for a two month reduction of Americans with jobs of 1,638,000.
The unemployment rate reported in the US media is a fabrication. Williams reports that
"during the Clinton Administration, ‘discouraged workers’ those who had given up looking for a job because there were no jobs to be had–were redefined so as to be counted only if they had been ‘discouraged’ for less than a year. This time qualification defined away the bulk of the discouraged workers. Adding them back into the total unemployed, actual unemployment, [according to the unemployment rate methodology used in 1980] rose to 18% in January, from 17.5% in December."
In other words, without all the manipulations of the data from a government that lies to us every time it opens its mouth, the US unemployment rate is already at depression levels.
How could it be otherwise given the enormous job loss from offshored jobs. It is impossible for a country to create jobs when its corporations are moving production for the American consumer market offshore. When they move the production offshore, they
shift US GDP to other countries. The US trade deficit over the past decade has reduced US GDP by $1.5 trillion dollars. That is a lot of jobs.
I have been reporting for years that American university graduates have had to take jobs as waitresses and bartenders. As over-indebted American consumers lose their jobs, they will visit restaurants and bars less frequently. Consequently, Americans with university degrees will not even have jobs waiting on tables and mixing drinks.
US policymakers have ignored the fact that consumer demand in the 21st century has been driven, not by increases in real income, but by increased consumer indebtedness. This fact makes it pointless to try to stimulate the economy by bailing out banks so that they can lend more to consumers. The American consumers have no more capacity to borrow.
With the decline in the values of their principal assets–their homes–with the destruction of half of their pension assets, and with joblessness facing them, Americans cannot and will not spend.
Why bail out GM and Citibank when the firms are moving as many operations offshore as they possibly can?
Much of US infrastructure is in poor shape and needs renewing. However, infrastructure jobs do not produce goods and services that can be sold abroad. The massive commitment to infrastructure does nothing to help the US reduce its massive trade deficit, the financing of which is becoming a major problem. Moreover, when the infrastructure projects are completed, so are the jobs.
At best, assuming Mexicans do not get most of the construction jobs, all Obama’s stimulus program can do is to reduce the number of unemployed temporarily.
Unless US corporations can be required to use American labor to produce the goods and services that they sell in American markets, there is no hope for the US economy. No one in the Obama administration has the wits to address this problem. Thus, the economy will continue to implode.
Adding to the brewing disaster, Obama has been deceived by his military and neoconservative advisers into expanding the war in Afghanistan, a large mountainous country. Obama intends to use the draw-down of US soldiers in Iraq to send 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan. This would bring the US forces to 60,000–600,000 fewer than US Marine Corps and US Army counterinsurgency guidelines define as the minimum number of soldiers necessary to bring success in Afghanistan–and less than half as many as the army that was unable to occupy Iraq.
The Iranians had to bail out the Bush regime by restraining its Shi’ite allies and encouraging them to use the ballot box to attain power and push out the Americans. In Iraq the US troops only had to fight a small Sunni insurgency drawn from a minority of the population. Even so, the US "prevailed" by putting the insurgents on the US payroll and paying them not to fight. The withdrawal agreement was dictated by the Shi’ites. It was not what the Bush regime wanted.
One would think that the experience with the "cakewalk" in Iraq would make the US hesitant to attempt to occupy Afghanistan, an undertaking that would require the US to occupy parts of Pakistan. The US was hard pressed to maintain 150,000 troops in Iraq. Where is Obama going to get another half million soldiers to add to the 150,000 to pacify Afghanistan?
One answer is the rapidly growing massive US unemployment. Americans will sign up to go kill abroad rather than be homeless and hungry at home.
But this solves only half of the problem. Where does the money come from to support an army in the field of 650,000, an army 4.3 times larger than US forces in Iraq, a war that has cost us $3 trillion in out-of-pocket and already incurred future costs. This money would have to be raised in addition to the $3 trillion US budget deficit that is the result of Bush’s financial sector bailout, Obama’s stimulus package, and the rapidly failing economy. When economies tank, as the American one is doing, tax revenues collapse. The millions of unemployed Americans are not paying Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes. The stores and businesses that are closing are not paying federal and state income taxes. Consumers with no money or credit to spend are not paying sales taxes.
The Washington Morons, and morons they are, have given no thought as to how they are going to finance a fiscal year 2009 budget deficit of some two to three trillion dollars.
The practically nonexistent US saving rate cannot finance it.
The trade surpluses of our trading partners, such as China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, cannot finance it.
The US government really has only two possibilities for financing its budget deficit. One is a second collapse in the stock market, which would drive the surviving investors with what they have left into "safe" US Treasury bonds. The other is for the Federal Reserve to monetize the Treasury debt.
Monetizing the debt means that when no one is willing or able to purchase the Treasury’s bonds, the Federal Reserve buys them by creating bank deposits for the Treasury’s account.
In other words, the Fed "prints money" with which to buy the Treasury’s bonds.
Once this happens, the US dollar will cease to be the reserve currency.
In addition, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia, countries that hold enormous quantities of US Treasury debt in addition to other US dollar assets, will sell, hoping to get out before others.
The US dollar will become worthless, the currency of a banana republic.
The US will not be able to pay for its imports, a serious problem for a country dependent on imports for its energy, manufactured goods, and advanced technology products.
Obama’s Keynesian advisers have learned with a vengeance Milton Friedman’s lesson that the Great Depression resulted from the Federal Reserve permitting a contraction of the supply of money and credit. In the Great Depression good debts were destroyed by monetary contraction. Today bad debts are being preserved by the expansion of money and credit, and the US Treasury is jeopardizing its credit standing and the dollar’s reserve currency status with enormous quarterly bond auctions as far as the eye can see.
Meanwhile, the Russians, overflowing with energy and mineral resources, and not in debt, have learned that the US government is not to be trusted. Russia has watched Reagan’s successors attempt to turn former constituent parts of the Soviet Union into US puppet states with US military bases. The US is trying to ring Russia with missiles that neutralize Russia’s strategic deterrent.
Putin has caught on to "comrade wolf." He has succeeded in having the president of Kyrgyzstan, a former part of the Soviet Union, evict the US from its military base. This base is essential to America’s ability to supply its soldiers in Afghanistan.
To stop America’s meddling in Russia’s sphere of influence, the Russian government has created a collective security treaty organization comprised of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Uzbekistan is a partial participant.
In other words, Russia has organized central Asia against US penetration.
To whose agenda is President Obama being hitched? Writing in the English language version of the Swiss newspaper, Zeit-Fragen, Stephen J. Sniegoski reports that leading figures of the neocon conspiracy–Richard Perle, Max Boot, David Brooks, and Mona Charen–are ecstatic over Obama’s appointments. They don’t see any difference between Obama and Bush/Cheney.
Not only are Obama’s appointments moving him into an expanded war in Afghanistan, but the powerful Israel Lobby is pushing Obama toward a war with Iran.
The unreality in which he US government operates is beyond belief. A bankrupt government that cannot pay its bills without printing money is rushing headlong into wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, the cost to the US taxpayers of sending a single soldier to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq is $775,000 per year!
The world has never seen such total mindlessness. Napoleon’s and Hitler’s march into Russia were rational acts compared to the mindless idiocy of the United States government.
Obama’s war in Afghanistan is the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. After seven years of conflict, there is still no defined mission or endgame scenario for US forces in Afghanistan. When asked about the mission, a US military official told NBC News, "Frankly, we don’t have one." NBC reports: "they’re working on it."
Speaking to House Democrats on February 5, President Obama admitted that the US government does not know what its mission is in Afghanistan and that to avoid "mission creep without clear parameters," the US "needs a clear mission."
How would you like to be sent to a war, the point of which no one knows, including the commander-in-chief who sent you to kill or be killed? How, fellow taxpayers, do you like paying the enormous cost of sending soldiers on an undefined mission while the economy collapses?
Research related articles:
Canada firm on quitting Afghanistan by 2011
Russia to ship equipment to finish Iranian nuclear plant
Irish Times Lisbon poll fools public - Deception has set in for referendum 2
Woman fools Japan’s airport security fingerprint system
Hezbollah says US ship is threat
Russia sinks Georgian ship trying to attack Russian navy ships
Another Russian Bomber Intercepted Near U.S. Navy Ship
Who’s going to Finance the rising US National Debt?
‘US ship nearly fired at Iranians’
Iranian aid ship to break Israeli siege of Gaza
Army Officials Say Many More Active-Duty Troops Are Needed
‘Iran aid ship nears Gaza’
Infowars
February 9, 2009
Is there intelligent life in Washington, DC? Not a speck of it.
The US economy is imploding, and Obama is being led by his government of neconservatives and Israeli agents into a quagmire in Afghanistan that will bring the US into confrontation with Russia, and possibly China, American’s largest creditor.
The January payroll job figures reveal that last month 20,000 Americans lost their jobs every day.
In addition, December’s job losses were revised up by 53,000 jobs from 524,000 to 577,000. The revision brings the two-month job loss to 1,175,000. If this keeps up, Obama’s promised three million new jobs will be wiped out by job losses.
Statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com/) reports that this huge number is an understatement. Williams notes that built-in biases in seasonal adjustment factors caused a 118,000 understatement of January job losses, bringing the actual January job loss to 716,000 jobs.
The payroll survey counts the number of jobs, not the number of employed as some people have more than one job. The Household Survey counts the number of people who have jobs. The Household Survey shows that 832,000 people lost their jobs in January and 806,000 in December, for a two month reduction of Americans with jobs of 1,638,000.
The unemployment rate reported in the US media is a fabrication. Williams reports that
"during the Clinton Administration, ‘discouraged workers’ those who had given up looking for a job because there were no jobs to be had–were redefined so as to be counted only if they had been ‘discouraged’ for less than a year. This time qualification defined away the bulk of the discouraged workers. Adding them back into the total unemployed, actual unemployment, [according to the unemployment rate methodology used in 1980] rose to 18% in January, from 17.5% in December."
In other words, without all the manipulations of the data from a government that lies to us every time it opens its mouth, the US unemployment rate is already at depression levels.
How could it be otherwise given the enormous job loss from offshored jobs. It is impossible for a country to create jobs when its corporations are moving production for the American consumer market offshore. When they move the production offshore, they
shift US GDP to other countries. The US trade deficit over the past decade has reduced US GDP by $1.5 trillion dollars. That is a lot of jobs.
I have been reporting for years that American university graduates have had to take jobs as waitresses and bartenders. As over-indebted American consumers lose their jobs, they will visit restaurants and bars less frequently. Consequently, Americans with university degrees will not even have jobs waiting on tables and mixing drinks.
US policymakers have ignored the fact that consumer demand in the 21st century has been driven, not by increases in real income, but by increased consumer indebtedness. This fact makes it pointless to try to stimulate the economy by bailing out banks so that they can lend more to consumers. The American consumers have no more capacity to borrow.
With the decline in the values of their principal assets–their homes–with the destruction of half of their pension assets, and with joblessness facing them, Americans cannot and will not spend.
Why bail out GM and Citibank when the firms are moving as many operations offshore as they possibly can?
Much of US infrastructure is in poor shape and needs renewing. However, infrastructure jobs do not produce goods and services that can be sold abroad. The massive commitment to infrastructure does nothing to help the US reduce its massive trade deficit, the financing of which is becoming a major problem. Moreover, when the infrastructure projects are completed, so are the jobs.
At best, assuming Mexicans do not get most of the construction jobs, all Obama’s stimulus program can do is to reduce the number of unemployed temporarily.
Unless US corporations can be required to use American labor to produce the goods and services that they sell in American markets, there is no hope for the US economy. No one in the Obama administration has the wits to address this problem. Thus, the economy will continue to implode.
Adding to the brewing disaster, Obama has been deceived by his military and neoconservative advisers into expanding the war in Afghanistan, a large mountainous country. Obama intends to use the draw-down of US soldiers in Iraq to send 30,000 more American troops to Afghanistan. This would bring the US forces to 60,000–600,000 fewer than US Marine Corps and US Army counterinsurgency guidelines define as the minimum number of soldiers necessary to bring success in Afghanistan–and less than half as many as the army that was unable to occupy Iraq.
The Iranians had to bail out the Bush regime by restraining its Shi’ite allies and encouraging them to use the ballot box to attain power and push out the Americans. In Iraq the US troops only had to fight a small Sunni insurgency drawn from a minority of the population. Even so, the US "prevailed" by putting the insurgents on the US payroll and paying them not to fight. The withdrawal agreement was dictated by the Shi’ites. It was not what the Bush regime wanted.
One would think that the experience with the "cakewalk" in Iraq would make the US hesitant to attempt to occupy Afghanistan, an undertaking that would require the US to occupy parts of Pakistan. The US was hard pressed to maintain 150,000 troops in Iraq. Where is Obama going to get another half million soldiers to add to the 150,000 to pacify Afghanistan?
One answer is the rapidly growing massive US unemployment. Americans will sign up to go kill abroad rather than be homeless and hungry at home.
But this solves only half of the problem. Where does the money come from to support an army in the field of 650,000, an army 4.3 times larger than US forces in Iraq, a war that has cost us $3 trillion in out-of-pocket and already incurred future costs. This money would have to be raised in addition to the $3 trillion US budget deficit that is the result of Bush’s financial sector bailout, Obama’s stimulus package, and the rapidly failing economy. When economies tank, as the American one is doing, tax revenues collapse. The millions of unemployed Americans are not paying Social Security, Medicare, and income taxes. The stores and businesses that are closing are not paying federal and state income taxes. Consumers with no money or credit to spend are not paying sales taxes.
The Washington Morons, and morons they are, have given no thought as to how they are going to finance a fiscal year 2009 budget deficit of some two to three trillion dollars.
The practically nonexistent US saving rate cannot finance it.
The trade surpluses of our trading partners, such as China, Japan, and Saudi Arabia, cannot finance it.
The US government really has only two possibilities for financing its budget deficit. One is a second collapse in the stock market, which would drive the surviving investors with what they have left into "safe" US Treasury bonds. The other is for the Federal Reserve to monetize the Treasury debt.
Monetizing the debt means that when no one is willing or able to purchase the Treasury’s bonds, the Federal Reserve buys them by creating bank deposits for the Treasury’s account.
In other words, the Fed "prints money" with which to buy the Treasury’s bonds.
Once this happens, the US dollar will cease to be the reserve currency.
In addition, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia, countries that hold enormous quantities of US Treasury debt in addition to other US dollar assets, will sell, hoping to get out before others.
The US dollar will become worthless, the currency of a banana republic.
The US will not be able to pay for its imports, a serious problem for a country dependent on imports for its energy, manufactured goods, and advanced technology products.
Obama’s Keynesian advisers have learned with a vengeance Milton Friedman’s lesson that the Great Depression resulted from the Federal Reserve permitting a contraction of the supply of money and credit. In the Great Depression good debts were destroyed by monetary contraction. Today bad debts are being preserved by the expansion of money and credit, and the US Treasury is jeopardizing its credit standing and the dollar’s reserve currency status with enormous quarterly bond auctions as far as the eye can see.
Meanwhile, the Russians, overflowing with energy and mineral resources, and not in debt, have learned that the US government is not to be trusted. Russia has watched Reagan’s successors attempt to turn former constituent parts of the Soviet Union into US puppet states with US military bases. The US is trying to ring Russia with missiles that neutralize Russia’s strategic deterrent.
Putin has caught on to "comrade wolf." He has succeeded in having the president of Kyrgyzstan, a former part of the Soviet Union, evict the US from its military base. This base is essential to America’s ability to supply its soldiers in Afghanistan.
To stop America’s meddling in Russia’s sphere of influence, the Russian government has created a collective security treaty organization comprised of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan. Uzbekistan is a partial participant.
In other words, Russia has organized central Asia against US penetration.
To whose agenda is President Obama being hitched? Writing in the English language version of the Swiss newspaper, Zeit-Fragen, Stephen J. Sniegoski reports that leading figures of the neocon conspiracy–Richard Perle, Max Boot, David Brooks, and Mona Charen–are ecstatic over Obama’s appointments. They don’t see any difference between Obama and Bush/Cheney.
Not only are Obama’s appointments moving him into an expanded war in Afghanistan, but the powerful Israel Lobby is pushing Obama toward a war with Iran.
The unreality in which he US government operates is beyond belief. A bankrupt government that cannot pay its bills without printing money is rushing headlong into wars in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. According to the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Analysis, the cost to the US taxpayers of sending a single soldier to fight in Afghanistan or Iraq is $775,000 per year!
The world has never seen such total mindlessness. Napoleon’s and Hitler’s march into Russia were rational acts compared to the mindless idiocy of the United States government.
Obama’s war in Afghanistan is the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. After seven years of conflict, there is still no defined mission or endgame scenario for US forces in Afghanistan. When asked about the mission, a US military official told NBC News, "Frankly, we don’t have one." NBC reports: "they’re working on it."
Speaking to House Democrats on February 5, President Obama admitted that the US government does not know what its mission is in Afghanistan and that to avoid "mission creep without clear parameters," the US "needs a clear mission."
How would you like to be sent to a war, the point of which no one knows, including the commander-in-chief who sent you to kill or be killed? How, fellow taxpayers, do you like paying the enormous cost of sending soldiers on an undefined mission while the economy collapses?
Research related articles:
Canada firm on quitting Afghanistan by 2011
Russia to ship equipment to finish Iranian nuclear plant
Irish Times Lisbon poll fools public - Deception has set in for referendum 2
Woman fools Japan’s airport security fingerprint system
Hezbollah says US ship is threat
Russia sinks Georgian ship trying to attack Russian navy ships
Another Russian Bomber Intercepted Near U.S. Navy Ship
Who’s going to Finance the rising US National Debt?
‘US ship nearly fired at Iranians’
Iranian aid ship to break Israeli siege of Gaza
Army Officials Say Many More Active-Duty Troops Are Needed
‘Iran aid ship nears Gaza’
CHINESE SICK LEAVE: 'I NO COME WORK TODAY!!!
Note: I received the following joke in an email today. It's probably old, but what the hell, I'll share it with the rest of you anyway.
Hung Chow calls into work and says, 'Hey, I no come work today, I really sick. Got headache, stomach ache and legs hurt, I no come work.'
The boss John says, 'You know something, Hung Chow, I really need you today. When I feel sick like you do, I go to my wife and tell her to give me Sex. That makes everything better and I go to work. You try that.' Two hours later Hung Chow calls again. 'I do what You say and I feel Great. I be at work soon.........You got nice house'
Hung Chow calls into work and says, 'Hey, I no come work today, I really sick. Got headache, stomach ache and legs hurt, I no come work.'
The boss John says, 'You know something, Hung Chow, I really need you today. When I feel sick like you do, I go to my wife and tell her to give me Sex. That makes everything better and I go to work. You try that.' Two hours later Hung Chow calls again. 'I do what You say and I feel Great. I be at work soon.........You got nice house'
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Freedom Rider: Black America Surrenders
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
By a twist of fate, this Obama critic ended up with a silver ticket, the least prestigious standing room ticket, for the presidential inauguration ceremony. I was among the crowd of nearly two million love struck Obama supporters. They hailed from every region of the country, but they were united in their love for Barack Obama.
The racial demographic was mixed black and white, but the black faces were disproportionately represented, particularly among the non-ticketed portions of the crowd. Their coats were covered with Obama buttons and they kept their heads warm with Obama caps and hats. Some pushed babies in strollers or senior citizens in wheel chairs, all amidst streets packed so tightly with pedestrian traffic that public safety was at risk.
Feelings about the new president are more than just positive, they are joyful, and not just among black people. The political clinical depression brought on by the last eight years cannot be under estimated. Humans want to be happy, and happiness experienced with large groups of other giddy beings meets fundamental psychological needs.
But just 72 hours after the new president took office, he started killing people. U.S. military drones killed at least 20 people in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, all in the service of the war on terror. Obama has spent many months saying he would do exactly that, even though the Pakistani government has repeatedly asked the U.S. to stop killing its citizens in a pointless effort to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
It is true that Obama signed an executive order pledging to close the military prison at Guantanamo and other detention sites within one year. It is also true that the Center for Constitutional Rights warns that it can be closed in a shorter period of time, and that closure without a return to civilian trials is a sham and a continuation of the travesties of justice committed by this country.
The celebrations surrounding the Guantanamo order should have been very short lived. While he gave with one hand, Obama took with the other. On Monday, January 19th, his last full day in office, George W. Bush asked a federal judge to stay an order forcing the government to release classified documents related to a warrantless surveillance lawsuit.
A few days later, President Barack Obama replaced Bush as the defendant in the case, siding with the previous administration's request to keep the documents secret and thereby preventing plaintiffs from making their case for redress of government wrongdoing.
None of these facts matter to the Obama lovers. They literally do not care what he does. Throughout 2008 the honest idol worshippers said as much. They didn't care what Obama did as president, they just wanted him to become president. Some reasoned, with some degree of a sad logic, that white people had ruined the world, so what would be so bad about a black man doing the same thing.
Others lied. They claimed that if they could just get their guy elected, they would hold his feet to the fire and demand a progressive agenda. Of course, very few of them actually meant what they said. Election night joy was followed by the joy of watching his transition take shape. As he chose one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress to serve as chief of staff and kept the same defense secretary who served under Bush, they were silent and demanded silence from others as well. So much for feet and fires.
The experience of personally witnessing this madness in action was both difficult and illuminating. Scattered boos emanated from the crowd as we heard the new president politely thank his predecessor by name. One black woman admonished her fellow celebrants not to be so rude. I felt compelled to speak up with this stranger and point out that booing was entirely appropriate. The not very bright woman replied that Obama would take care of everything, so there was no need for any of us to say a word or even utter one little boo to protest criminality.
This woman is not alone in her twisted thinking. For the first time in history, black Americans have willingly become accessories to their government's criminal activity and willingly developed amnesia about that history. Gone are the days when black Americans could be counted on to oppose wars of aggression abroad and wars against people here at home. Now that the president looks like them, he has carte blanche to do whatever he likes and he can expect nearly unanimous approval of any action he takes.
They don't care that he is asking John McCain for advice or that he replaces Bush in defending illegal surveillance on Americans. They don't care about people in Waziristan, or Afghanistan or Gaza. They don't care that Obama pledged to use his political capital to change Social Security and Medicare, their only safety nets in an uncaring society.
They don't even care about themselves. During the campaign they pointedly gave him permission to ignore them and their condition, all to help insure electoral victory. Black people happily threw themselves under the Obama bus and loudly proclaimed themselves to be less important than one man's career success.
They do care that a black woman is first lady and that she is now described as a fashion icon. They care that white people gush over her cute children. Some have even convinced themselves that a black president will improve the way they are personally viewed by most white people. The denial is boundless.
The Obama phenomenon will get much worse before it gets any better. If the sight of Barack and Michelle dancing at inaugural balls puts lumps in throats, what will happen when they meet the Queen of England or the Pope? What will happen when he appears on national television to tell us that he has decided to drop bombs somewhere in the world?
As happened with other presidents, his approval ratings will soar along with the body count he creates and for the first time, so will the hearts of black America. Black people will join white people in celebrating the power of the American state and will foolishly see themselves as having an interest in maintaining an awful status quo.
Sadly, this stratospheric level of support can only end if truly terrible events take place. It is difficult to contemplate what could be so bad that black people will awaken themselves from such deep, self-induced slumber.
Our numbers are currently small, but little by little, as the economy crumbles, or the war on terror spreads, new eyes will be opened. It won't matter that we are in the minority because minorities have always been in the forefront of making history.
Individuals must be ready to act as events unfold. The willingness and ability to see the opportune moment cannot be lost. That is the only hope for black people, the nation, and for the world at large. This is not the moment to worry about someone too foolish to boo George Bush.
We must remain true to our convictions not only because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows it is the only thing that brings about true change.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
By a twist of fate, this Obama critic ended up with a silver ticket, the least prestigious standing room ticket, for the presidential inauguration ceremony. I was among the crowd of nearly two million love struck Obama supporters. They hailed from every region of the country, but they were united in their love for Barack Obama.
The racial demographic was mixed black and white, but the black faces were disproportionately represented, particularly among the non-ticketed portions of the crowd. Their coats were covered with Obama buttons and they kept their heads warm with Obama caps and hats. Some pushed babies in strollers or senior citizens in wheel chairs, all amidst streets packed so tightly with pedestrian traffic that public safety was at risk.
Feelings about the new president are more than just positive, they are joyful, and not just among black people. The political clinical depression brought on by the last eight years cannot be under estimated. Humans want to be happy, and happiness experienced with large groups of other giddy beings meets fundamental psychological needs.
But just 72 hours after the new president took office, he started killing people. U.S. military drones killed at least 20 people in the Waziristan region of Pakistan, all in the service of the war on terror. Obama has spent many months saying he would do exactly that, even though the Pakistani government has repeatedly asked the U.S. to stop killing its citizens in a pointless effort to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
It is true that Obama signed an executive order pledging to close the military prison at Guantanamo and other detention sites within one year. It is also true that the Center for Constitutional Rights warns that it can be closed in a shorter period of time, and that closure without a return to civilian trials is a sham and a continuation of the travesties of justice committed by this country.
The celebrations surrounding the Guantanamo order should have been very short lived. While he gave with one hand, Obama took with the other. On Monday, January 19th, his last full day in office, George W. Bush asked a federal judge to stay an order forcing the government to release classified documents related to a warrantless surveillance lawsuit.
A few days later, President Barack Obama replaced Bush as the defendant in the case, siding with the previous administration's request to keep the documents secret and thereby preventing plaintiffs from making their case for redress of government wrongdoing.
None of these facts matter to the Obama lovers. They literally do not care what he does. Throughout 2008 the honest idol worshippers said as much. They didn't care what Obama did as president, they just wanted him to become president. Some reasoned, with some degree of a sad logic, that white people had ruined the world, so what would be so bad about a black man doing the same thing.
Others lied. They claimed that if they could just get their guy elected, they would hold his feet to the fire and demand a progressive agenda. Of course, very few of them actually meant what they said. Election night joy was followed by the joy of watching his transition take shape. As he chose one of the most conservative Democrats in Congress to serve as chief of staff and kept the same defense secretary who served under Bush, they were silent and demanded silence from others as well. So much for feet and fires.
The experience of personally witnessing this madness in action was both difficult and illuminating. Scattered boos emanated from the crowd as we heard the new president politely thank his predecessor by name. One black woman admonished her fellow celebrants not to be so rude. I felt compelled to speak up with this stranger and point out that booing was entirely appropriate. The not very bright woman replied that Obama would take care of everything, so there was no need for any of us to say a word or even utter one little boo to protest criminality.
This woman is not alone in her twisted thinking. For the first time in history, black Americans have willingly become accessories to their government's criminal activity and willingly developed amnesia about that history. Gone are the days when black Americans could be counted on to oppose wars of aggression abroad and wars against people here at home. Now that the president looks like them, he has carte blanche to do whatever he likes and he can expect nearly unanimous approval of any action he takes.
They don't care that he is asking John McCain for advice or that he replaces Bush in defending illegal surveillance on Americans. They don't care about people in Waziristan, or Afghanistan or Gaza. They don't care that Obama pledged to use his political capital to change Social Security and Medicare, their only safety nets in an uncaring society.
They don't even care about themselves. During the campaign they pointedly gave him permission to ignore them and their condition, all to help insure electoral victory. Black people happily threw themselves under the Obama bus and loudly proclaimed themselves to be less important than one man's career success.
They do care that a black woman is first lady and that she is now described as a fashion icon. They care that white people gush over her cute children. Some have even convinced themselves that a black president will improve the way they are personally viewed by most white people. The denial is boundless.
The Obama phenomenon will get much worse before it gets any better. If the sight of Barack and Michelle dancing at inaugural balls puts lumps in throats, what will happen when they meet the Queen of England or the Pope? What will happen when he appears on national television to tell us that he has decided to drop bombs somewhere in the world?
As happened with other presidents, his approval ratings will soar along with the body count he creates and for the first time, so will the hearts of black America. Black people will join white people in celebrating the power of the American state and will foolishly see themselves as having an interest in maintaining an awful status quo.
Sadly, this stratospheric level of support can only end if truly terrible events take place. It is difficult to contemplate what could be so bad that black people will awaken themselves from such deep, self-induced slumber.
Our numbers are currently small, but little by little, as the economy crumbles, or the war on terror spreads, new eyes will be opened. It won't matter that we are in the minority because minorities have always been in the forefront of making history.
Individuals must be ready to act as events unfold. The willingness and ability to see the opportune moment cannot be lost. That is the only hope for black people, the nation, and for the world at large. This is not the moment to worry about someone too foolish to boo George Bush.
We must remain true to our convictions not only because it is the right thing to do, but because history shows it is the only thing that brings about true change.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgandaReport.Com. Ms. Kimberley maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com. More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.
ADHD Drugs Cause Hallucinations in Children; Psychiatry Pushes Hallucinogenic Drugs for Profit
Mike Adams
Natural News
Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009
New research published in the journal Pediatrics reveals that the ADHD drugs prescribed to millions of children are causing them to experience frightening hallucinations. Children on these drugs hallucinated that snakes and bugs were crawling all over them, says Reuters, and some kids taking the drugs experience other bizarre psychotic side effects such as thinking they ran into a wall and falling to the ground even when no wall was present.
ADHD drugs, of course, are powerful psychotropic mind-altering chemicals that are often molecularly identical to street drugs. The industry of psychiatry is virtually owned by Big Pharma, which hopes to drug every child, teenager and adult with at least one mind-altering medication.
The drugs reviewed in this study include: Ritalin and Focalin XR (Novartis), Adderall XR and Daytrana patch (Shire), Concerta (Johnson & Johnson), Strattera (Eli Lilly), Metadate CD (Celltech Pharmaceuticals) and Provigil (Cephalon).
Researchers noticed that only children taking these drugs suffered from hallucinations. Those taking placebo had no hallucinations, and the children who stopped taking ADHD drugs saw their hallucinations cease.
Reuters reports that “…FDA researchers urged doctors to discuss the potential side effects with parents and children to help ease their anxiety if such symptoms should occur.” So instead of getting their kids off these drugs, the FDA thinks parents and kids just need to “talk about the hallucinations” to ease their anxiety.
And if that’s not enough, I suppose, there are anti-anxiety drugs they can both take in order to avoid getting too uptight about the fact that their children are on hallucinogenic drugs.
Stop the insanity!
I’m just going to come right out and say the obvious: These children are tripping out on hallucinogenic, mind-altering street drugs. This isn’t “treatment” for some genuine health problem; it’s a legalized mass-drugging campaign that’s permanently harming the brains of children while earning sick profits for Big Pharma.
The psychiatric pill pushers have managed to turn a generation of children into druggies who are now demonstrating the same symptoms as a street junkie burnout. And rather than trying to get kids OFF these drugs, the FDA, Big Pharma and modern psychiatrists are doing everything in their power to put MORE kids on these dangerous, hallucinogenic drugs!
That this continues in America today is outrageous. In a nation that spends billions of dollars on the so-called “War on Drugs” — see the Drug War Clock at http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm — to ignore the mass drugging of its own children with hallucinogenic street drugs relabeled as “medication” is unconscionable.
If there’s really a War on Drugs, why doesn’t that war target the biggest drug pushers of all? Big Pharma has put more kids on drugs than any street corner crack dealer could ever hope to achieve. In fact, the entire industry of psychiatric medicine is little more than a legalized drug dealing network that hides behind the jargon of “medicine” and “therapy.”
Mind-numbed parents lead to drugged children
It’s not just the industry that’s to blame on all this, either: Parents who allow their children to be drugged with these hallucinogenic ADHD drugs are just as much a part of the problem. In the same households where parents are adamantly restricting their child’s use of pot or alcohol, they will literally feed that same kid dose after dose of hallucinogenic street drugs on the advice of a psychiatric medicine quack who’s on the take from Big Pharma.
What are they thinking? Say no to drugs, but say yes to hallucinogenic psychotropic drugs if a corrupt psychiatrist tells you your kid needs them?
Somehow, when speed is labeled under Big Pharma’s brand names, it eludes all rational thinking by parents, doctors, pharmacists and drug war zealots. It is one of the largest sectors of the hallucinogenic drug trade in America, and yet it goes completely unnoticed by virtually everyone.
My latest hip-hop song takes a shot at mind-altering medications with some disturbing, uncensored lyrics. Listen to “SSRIs - S.S.R.Lies” here: http://www.naturalnews.com/SSRIs_S_…
The ugly truth about the War on Drugs
The War on Drugs, of course, was never really about ending drug use in the first place. It was about eliminating the competition for Big Pharma, making sure kids get off generic black market drugs and get onto brand-name Big Pharma drugs. To legitimize this mass drugging of children, the industry of modern psychiatry was created, with all its imaginary (hallucinated?) disorders and dysfunctions used to befuddle the public with seemingly intelligent-sounding technical jargon.
It’s all just drug-pushing psychobabble, of course. Disorders like ADHD are purely fictional, having no basis in reality whatsoever, and the brain shrinkage pointed to by psychiatrists who claim ADHD causes stunted growth is actually the result of the amphetamine drugs they put the kids on. It is well documented that drugs like Ritalin cause stunted grown and reduced brain size (http://www.naturalnews.com/021944.html).
The degree of quackery present in the psychiatric industry today is simply staggering. And to think that mainstream doctors defend this quackery is yet more evidence that modern medicine has nothing whatsoever to do with actual science; it’s all based on a Cult of Pharmacology where all drugs are considered good and necessary, regardless of the mountain of evidence showing them to be dangerous and medically useless.
This is where I have to challenge all the so-called “skeptics” out there who attack natural medicine. These skeptics and self-proclaimed quack observers are, in fact, among the greatest quacks of all. Why? Because they aren’t skeptical in the least about psychiatric medicine!
The skeptics are quacks
Where is the skepticism about this home-grown brand of legalized drug pushing? Where are all the intelligent questions demanding proof that ADHD is a genuine disease and not just something made up to sell more drugs? The skeptics are silent when it comes to psychiatric medicine, and in their silence they reveal themselves to be quacks.
Logic, reason and scientific evidence are all thrown out the window on the subject of psychiatric disorders. The most rational-sounding skeptics are instantly transformed into psychobabble-spouting quacks who defend the indefensible — the mass drugging of children with powerful hallucinogenic street drugs as “treatment” for some imaginary disease.
Sure, the skeptics will attack meditation, crystals, prayer, intention, chiropractic care and even herbal medicine (all of which can be healing, by the way), but when it comes to the loopy loose logic of psychiatric medicine inventing diseases and drugging up the children with hallucinogenic amphetamines, they swallow the whole thing without blinking an eye!
So much for the credibility of the so-called skeptics and quack busters. It turns out they’re quacks themselves. They’ve simply subscribed to their own form of quackery: Drugs and surgery for all!
The quacks are on crack, and they’re supporting an industry that hands out speed to the children. Meanwhile, the War on Drugs fills the prisons with people who smoked a little weed while completely ignoring the psychiatric pill pushers. Crazy, huh? I’m beginning to thinking everybody’s on drugs!
Just remember, folks: If you want to sell drugs to kids, just get FDA approval first. It keeps the DEA off your back and fools parents into thinking your hallucinogenic drugs are “medicine.”
Research related articles:
Film Review: GenerationRx Documents Chemical Abuse of Children by Pharmaceutical Industry, Modern Psychiatry
Big Pharma’s New Mass-Drugging Agenda Pushes Statin Drugs for Healthy People
Children as Big Pharma Guinea Pigs: 98 Percent of Drug Trials on Children Have no Safety Checks
Prescription Drugs Kill 300 Percent More Americans than Illegal Drugs
Hormone Replacement Therapy Doubles Risk of Breast Cancer, Women Warned to Stop HRT Drugs
Psych Doctor Nemeroff Barred from Emory University Chairmanship after Revelation of Secret Financial Ties to Big Pharma
Pfizer Implicated in Human Drug Experimentation on Critically Ill Children in Nigeria
Schoolchildren could be given ’smart drugs’ in a bid to boost brainpower
Americans Drug Their Children with 300 Percent More Psychotropic Meds
Psychiatric Medications Should be Prescribed to Healthy People, Declares Medical Journal
Don’t call the kids obese: Parents to get ‘prissy’ letters telling them they’re children are overweight
Parents Warned: Avoid Ritalin
Natural News
Tuesday, Jan 27, 2009
New research published in the journal Pediatrics reveals that the ADHD drugs prescribed to millions of children are causing them to experience frightening hallucinations. Children on these drugs hallucinated that snakes and bugs were crawling all over them, says Reuters, and some kids taking the drugs experience other bizarre psychotic side effects such as thinking they ran into a wall and falling to the ground even when no wall was present.
ADHD drugs, of course, are powerful psychotropic mind-altering chemicals that are often molecularly identical to street drugs. The industry of psychiatry is virtually owned by Big Pharma, which hopes to drug every child, teenager and adult with at least one mind-altering medication.
The drugs reviewed in this study include: Ritalin and Focalin XR (Novartis), Adderall XR and Daytrana patch (Shire), Concerta (Johnson & Johnson), Strattera (Eli Lilly), Metadate CD (Celltech Pharmaceuticals) and Provigil (Cephalon).
Researchers noticed that only children taking these drugs suffered from hallucinations. Those taking placebo had no hallucinations, and the children who stopped taking ADHD drugs saw their hallucinations cease.
Reuters reports that “…FDA researchers urged doctors to discuss the potential side effects with parents and children to help ease their anxiety if such symptoms should occur.” So instead of getting their kids off these drugs, the FDA thinks parents and kids just need to “talk about the hallucinations” to ease their anxiety.
And if that’s not enough, I suppose, there are anti-anxiety drugs they can both take in order to avoid getting too uptight about the fact that their children are on hallucinogenic drugs.
Stop the insanity!
I’m just going to come right out and say the obvious: These children are tripping out on hallucinogenic, mind-altering street drugs. This isn’t “treatment” for some genuine health problem; it’s a legalized mass-drugging campaign that’s permanently harming the brains of children while earning sick profits for Big Pharma.
The psychiatric pill pushers have managed to turn a generation of children into druggies who are now demonstrating the same symptoms as a street junkie burnout. And rather than trying to get kids OFF these drugs, the FDA, Big Pharma and modern psychiatrists are doing everything in their power to put MORE kids on these dangerous, hallucinogenic drugs!
That this continues in America today is outrageous. In a nation that spends billions of dollars on the so-called “War on Drugs” — see the Drug War Clock at http://www.drugsense.org/wodclock.htm — to ignore the mass drugging of its own children with hallucinogenic street drugs relabeled as “medication” is unconscionable.
If there’s really a War on Drugs, why doesn’t that war target the biggest drug pushers of all? Big Pharma has put more kids on drugs than any street corner crack dealer could ever hope to achieve. In fact, the entire industry of psychiatric medicine is little more than a legalized drug dealing network that hides behind the jargon of “medicine” and “therapy.”
Mind-numbed parents lead to drugged children
It’s not just the industry that’s to blame on all this, either: Parents who allow their children to be drugged with these hallucinogenic ADHD drugs are just as much a part of the problem. In the same households where parents are adamantly restricting their child’s use of pot or alcohol, they will literally feed that same kid dose after dose of hallucinogenic street drugs on the advice of a psychiatric medicine quack who’s on the take from Big Pharma.
What are they thinking? Say no to drugs, but say yes to hallucinogenic psychotropic drugs if a corrupt psychiatrist tells you your kid needs them?
Somehow, when speed is labeled under Big Pharma’s brand names, it eludes all rational thinking by parents, doctors, pharmacists and drug war zealots. It is one of the largest sectors of the hallucinogenic drug trade in America, and yet it goes completely unnoticed by virtually everyone.
My latest hip-hop song takes a shot at mind-altering medications with some disturbing, uncensored lyrics. Listen to “SSRIs - S.S.R.Lies” here: http://www.naturalnews.com/SSRIs_S_…
The ugly truth about the War on Drugs
The War on Drugs, of course, was never really about ending drug use in the first place. It was about eliminating the competition for Big Pharma, making sure kids get off generic black market drugs and get onto brand-name Big Pharma drugs. To legitimize this mass drugging of children, the industry of modern psychiatry was created, with all its imaginary (hallucinated?) disorders and dysfunctions used to befuddle the public with seemingly intelligent-sounding technical jargon.
It’s all just drug-pushing psychobabble, of course. Disorders like ADHD are purely fictional, having no basis in reality whatsoever, and the brain shrinkage pointed to by psychiatrists who claim ADHD causes stunted growth is actually the result of the amphetamine drugs they put the kids on. It is well documented that drugs like Ritalin cause stunted grown and reduced brain size (http://www.naturalnews.com/021944.html).
The degree of quackery present in the psychiatric industry today is simply staggering. And to think that mainstream doctors defend this quackery is yet more evidence that modern medicine has nothing whatsoever to do with actual science; it’s all based on a Cult of Pharmacology where all drugs are considered good and necessary, regardless of the mountain of evidence showing them to be dangerous and medically useless.
This is where I have to challenge all the so-called “skeptics” out there who attack natural medicine. These skeptics and self-proclaimed quack observers are, in fact, among the greatest quacks of all. Why? Because they aren’t skeptical in the least about psychiatric medicine!
The skeptics are quacks
Where is the skepticism about this home-grown brand of legalized drug pushing? Where are all the intelligent questions demanding proof that ADHD is a genuine disease and not just something made up to sell more drugs? The skeptics are silent when it comes to psychiatric medicine, and in their silence they reveal themselves to be quacks.
Logic, reason and scientific evidence are all thrown out the window on the subject of psychiatric disorders. The most rational-sounding skeptics are instantly transformed into psychobabble-spouting quacks who defend the indefensible — the mass drugging of children with powerful hallucinogenic street drugs as “treatment” for some imaginary disease.
Sure, the skeptics will attack meditation, crystals, prayer, intention, chiropractic care and even herbal medicine (all of which can be healing, by the way), but when it comes to the loopy loose logic of psychiatric medicine inventing diseases and drugging up the children with hallucinogenic amphetamines, they swallow the whole thing without blinking an eye!
So much for the credibility of the so-called skeptics and quack busters. It turns out they’re quacks themselves. They’ve simply subscribed to their own form of quackery: Drugs and surgery for all!
The quacks are on crack, and they’re supporting an industry that hands out speed to the children. Meanwhile, the War on Drugs fills the prisons with people who smoked a little weed while completely ignoring the psychiatric pill pushers. Crazy, huh? I’m beginning to thinking everybody’s on drugs!
Just remember, folks: If you want to sell drugs to kids, just get FDA approval first. It keeps the DEA off your back and fools parents into thinking your hallucinogenic drugs are “medicine.”
Research related articles:
Film Review: GenerationRx Documents Chemical Abuse of Children by Pharmaceutical Industry, Modern Psychiatry
Big Pharma’s New Mass-Drugging Agenda Pushes Statin Drugs for Healthy People
Children as Big Pharma Guinea Pigs: 98 Percent of Drug Trials on Children Have no Safety Checks
Prescription Drugs Kill 300 Percent More Americans than Illegal Drugs
Hormone Replacement Therapy Doubles Risk of Breast Cancer, Women Warned to Stop HRT Drugs
Psych Doctor Nemeroff Barred from Emory University Chairmanship after Revelation of Secret Financial Ties to Big Pharma
Pfizer Implicated in Human Drug Experimentation on Critically Ill Children in Nigeria
Schoolchildren could be given ’smart drugs’ in a bid to boost brainpower
Americans Drug Their Children with 300 Percent More Psychotropic Meds
Psychiatric Medications Should be Prescribed to Healthy People, Declares Medical Journal
Don’t call the kids obese: Parents to get ‘prissy’ letters telling them they’re children are overweight
Parents Warned: Avoid Ritalin
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Kiss The Bill of Rights Goodbye
US Supreme Court says passenger can be frisked
2 days ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers have leeway to frisk a passenger in a car stopped for a traffic violation even if nothing indicates the passenger has committed a crime or is about to do so.
The court on Monday unanimously overruled an Arizona appeals court that threw out evidence found during such an encounter.
The case involved a 2002 pat-down search of an Eloy, Ariz., man by an Oro Valley police officer, who found a gun and marijuana.
The justices accepted Arizona's argument that traffic stops are inherently dangerous for police and that pat-downs are permissible when an officer has a reasonable suspicion that the passenger may be armed and dangerous.
The pat-down is allowed if the police "harbor reasonable suspicion that a person subjected to the frisk is armed, and therefore dangerous to the safety of the police and public," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.
The case is Arizona v. Johnson, 07-1122.
2 days ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday that police officers have leeway to frisk a passenger in a car stopped for a traffic violation even if nothing indicates the passenger has committed a crime or is about to do so.
The court on Monday unanimously overruled an Arizona appeals court that threw out evidence found during such an encounter.
The case involved a 2002 pat-down search of an Eloy, Ariz., man by an Oro Valley police officer, who found a gun and marijuana.
The justices accepted Arizona's argument that traffic stops are inherently dangerous for police and that pat-downs are permissible when an officer has a reasonable suspicion that the passenger may be armed and dangerous.
The pat-down is allowed if the police "harbor reasonable suspicion that a person subjected to the frisk is armed, and therefore dangerous to the safety of the police and public," Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said.
The case is Arizona v. Johnson, 07-1122.
Study Finds High-Fructose Corn Syrup Contains Mercury
Monday, January 26, 2009; 12:00 AM
MONDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.
HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.
"Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply," said the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies.
In the first study, researchers found detectable levels of mercury in nine of 20 samples of commercial HFCS. The study was published in current issue of Environmental Health.
In the second study, the agriculture group found that nearly one in three of 55 brand-name foods contained mercury. The chemical was most common in HFCS-containing dairy products, dressings and condiments.
The use of mercury-contaminated caustic soda in the production of HFCS is common. The contamination occurs when mercury cells are used to produce caustic soda.
"The bad news is that nobody knows whether or not their soda or snack food contains HFCS made from ingredients like caustic soda contaminated with mercury. The good news is that mercury-free HFCS ingredients exist. Food companies just need a good push to only use those ingredients," Wallinga said.
More information
The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry has more about mercury and health.
SOURCE: Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, news release, Jan. 26, 2009
MONDAY, Jan. 26 (HealthDay News) -- Almost half of tested samples of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury, which was also found in nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products where HFCS is the first- or second-highest labeled ingredient, according to two new U.S. studies.
HFCS has replaced sugar as the sweetener in many beverages and foods such as breads, cereals, breakfast bars, lunch meats, yogurts, soups and condiments. On average, Americans consume about 12 teaspoons per day of HFCS, but teens and other high consumers can take in 80 percent more HFCS than average.
"Mercury is toxic in all its forms. Given how much high-fructose corn syrup is consumed by children, it could be a significant additional source of mercury never before considered. We are calling for immediate changes by industry and the [U.S. Food and Drug Administration] to help stop this avoidable mercury contamination of the food supply," said the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy's Dr. David Wallinga, a co-author of both studies.
In the first study, researchers found detectable levels of mercury in nine of 20 samples of commercial HFCS. The study was published in current issue of Environmental Health.
In the second study, the agriculture group found that nearly one in three of 55 brand-name foods contained mercury. The chemical was most common in HFCS-containing dairy products, dressings and condiments.
The use of mercury-contaminated caustic soda in the production of HFCS is common. The contamination occurs when mercury cells are used to produce caustic soda.
"The bad news is that nobody knows whether or not their soda or snack food contains HFCS made from ingredients like caustic soda contaminated with mercury. The good news is that mercury-free HFCS ingredients exist. Food companies just need a good push to only use those ingredients," Wallinga said.
More information
The U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry has more about mercury and health.
SOURCE: Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, news release, Jan. 26, 2009
OSCAR GRANT -- and YOU
[col. writ. 1/17/09 (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Like you, I've seen the searing phone-camera tape of the killing of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, of Oakland, California.
And although it's truly a terrible thing to see, it's almost exceeded by something just as shocking. That's been how the media has responded to this police killing, by creating a defense of error.
This defense, that the killer cop who murdered Grant somehow mistook his pistol for his Taser, has been offered by both local and national news reporters -- even though they haven't heard word one from Johannes Mehserle, the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) cop who wasn't even interviewed for weeks after shooting an unarmed man!
If you've ever wondered about the role of the media, let this be a lesson to you. You can see here that the claim that the corporate media is objective is but a cruel illusion.
Imagine this: if the roles were reversed, that is, if bystanders had footage of Grant shooting Mehserle, would the media be suggesting a defense for him?
Would Grant have been free to roam, to leave the state a week later?
Would he have made bail?
The shooting of Oscar Grant III is but the latest, West Coast version of Amadou Diallo, of Sean Bell, and of hundreds of other Black men -- and like them, don't be surprised if there is an acquittal -- again.
Oscar Grant is you -- and you are him, because you know in the pit of your stomach that it could've been you, and the same thing could've happened.
You know this.
And what's worse is this: you pay for this every time you pay taxes, and you endorse this every time you vote for politicians who sell out in a heartbeat.
You pay for your killers to kill you, in the name of a bogus, twisted law, and then pay for the State that defends him.
Something is terribly wrong here--and it's the system itself.
Until that is changed, nothing is changed, for we'll be out here again (in the streets) -- chanting a different name.
--(C) '09 MAJ
Like you, I've seen the searing phone-camera tape of the killing of 22-year-old Oscar Grant, of Oakland, California.
And although it's truly a terrible thing to see, it's almost exceeded by something just as shocking. That's been how the media has responded to this police killing, by creating a defense of error.
This defense, that the killer cop who murdered Grant somehow mistook his pistol for his Taser, has been offered by both local and national news reporters -- even though they haven't heard word one from Johannes Mehserle, the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) cop who wasn't even interviewed for weeks after shooting an unarmed man!
If you've ever wondered about the role of the media, let this be a lesson to you. You can see here that the claim that the corporate media is objective is but a cruel illusion.
Imagine this: if the roles were reversed, that is, if bystanders had footage of Grant shooting Mehserle, would the media be suggesting a defense for him?
Would Grant have been free to roam, to leave the state a week later?
Would he have made bail?
The shooting of Oscar Grant III is but the latest, West Coast version of Amadou Diallo, of Sean Bell, and of hundreds of other Black men -- and like them, don't be surprised if there is an acquittal -- again.
Oscar Grant is you -- and you are him, because you know in the pit of your stomach that it could've been you, and the same thing could've happened.
You know this.
And what's worse is this: you pay for this every time you pay taxes, and you endorse this every time you vote for politicians who sell out in a heartbeat.
You pay for your killers to kill you, in the name of a bogus, twisted law, and then pay for the State that defends him.
Something is terribly wrong here--and it's the system itself.
Until that is changed, nothing is changed, for we'll be out here again (in the streets) -- chanting a different name.
--(C) '09 MAJ
Obama's Time
[col. writ. 1/20/09 (c) '09 Mumia Abu-Jamal
With poise and considerable grace, Barack Hussein Obama took the stage of history, and tried to turn a mammoth page in the book of America's national life.
With an air of seriousness and exuding confidence, he glided across the stage, shaking hands, giving hugs, and kissing ladies. He seemed to particularly revel in shaking hands -- and hugging! -- the next to the last number of the exclusive club of 44, former president George W. Bush.
But if Barack Obama was the shining star to Bush's fading star of this political moment, the other star that shone brightest was the People, who filled the streets in ways that seemed unprecedented -- by the millions.
Faces beamed warmth and excitement, seemingly ignoring the frigid temperatures.
There was, as there ever is in political gatherings, pomp and circumstance, but popular good nature seemed to radiate from the people,who stood in the cold for hours to witness a history that few thought they would live to see: the installation of a man of discernible African heritage taking the helm of the ship of state.
If the nation beamed with excitement, the world drew an almost collective breath of relief at the sight not only of Obama's inauguration, but the leaving of a man seen as the quintessential 'ugly American.' While things will probably not change as drastically as some hope, and others fear, the transition from an administration seen as blusterers, saber-tattlers, and fear-mongers to one at least capable of projecting competence and intelligence seems like a sea-change.
To paraphrase Shakespeare's play "Macbeth", of Bush's departure from office, 'Nothing so became him as leaving it.'
Has this change been more symbolic that substantive?
This we shall surely see.
--(c) '09 maj
With poise and considerable grace, Barack Hussein Obama took the stage of history, and tried to turn a mammoth page in the book of America's national life.
With an air of seriousness and exuding confidence, he glided across the stage, shaking hands, giving hugs, and kissing ladies. He seemed to particularly revel in shaking hands -- and hugging! -- the next to the last number of the exclusive club of 44, former president George W. Bush.
But if Barack Obama was the shining star to Bush's fading star of this political moment, the other star that shone brightest was the People, who filled the streets in ways that seemed unprecedented -- by the millions.
Faces beamed warmth and excitement, seemingly ignoring the frigid temperatures.
There was, as there ever is in political gatherings, pomp and circumstance, but popular good nature seemed to radiate from the people,who stood in the cold for hours to witness a history that few thought they would live to see: the installation of a man of discernible African heritage taking the helm of the ship of state.
If the nation beamed with excitement, the world drew an almost collective breath of relief at the sight not only of Obama's inauguration, but the leaving of a man seen as the quintessential 'ugly American.' While things will probably not change as drastically as some hope, and others fear, the transition from an administration seen as blusterers, saber-tattlers, and fear-mongers to one at least capable of projecting competence and intelligence seems like a sea-change.
To paraphrase Shakespeare's play "Macbeth", of Bush's departure from office, 'Nothing so became him as leaving it.'
Has this change been more symbolic that substantive?
This we shall surely see.
--(c) '09 maj
Friday, January 23, 2009
EARTHA KITT -- (1928-2008)
[col. writ. 12/25/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal
For generations, the name, Eartha Kitt, was synonymous with sexy, sultry, and outspoken.
In an industry where careers can sometimes be measured in minutes, Eartha Kitt was the real thing, for quite a while; dancer, singer, actress, and on occasion, a comedian.
Since the tender age of 14, she worked the stage, and for nearly 7 decades, she left her indelible imprint by her work on the big screen, TV, and on recordings.
On Jan. 26, 1928 she was born in South Carolina as Eartha Mae Kitt.
She danced, sang, and acted her way into the hearts of millions.
In 1968, she dared speak out against the Vietnam War, when the war was raging at it's hottest, and was both blacklisted and hounded for doing so. That's because she spoke at a photo op at the White House in the face of First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson (wife of Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson). For daring to speak her mind at the heart of the empire, and for denouncing an Imperial war, the media and the state tried to 'disappear' her. She had to go abroad to find her freedom of speech, where she remained for nearly a decade.
For those who want to see her as a seductive chanteuse, the 1958 film, St. Louis Blues, starring Nat King Cole, Ruby Dee, Pearl Bailey and the gospel great, Mahalia Jackson, is a great source. For a slightly comic turn, see her as an amorous entrepreneurial cougar on the hunt for a young Eddie Murphy in the 1992 film Boomerang starring Halle Berry as the principal love interest.
Although she was known as the quintessential sex kitten for her acting, her public outspokenness came at quite a cost. Her comings, goings, doings and sayings were tracked by both the FBI and the CIA.
She moved through life with an intelligence, wit and nerve that made her distinctive and unforgettable.
Eartha Mae Kitt was 80.
--(c) '08 maj
[Source:African Arts and Letters, eds, Appiah, Kwame Anthony and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., (Phila., PA: Running Press, 2004.]
For generations, the name, Eartha Kitt, was synonymous with sexy, sultry, and outspoken.
In an industry where careers can sometimes be measured in minutes, Eartha Kitt was the real thing, for quite a while; dancer, singer, actress, and on occasion, a comedian.
Since the tender age of 14, she worked the stage, and for nearly 7 decades, she left her indelible imprint by her work on the big screen, TV, and on recordings.
On Jan. 26, 1928 she was born in South Carolina as Eartha Mae Kitt.
She danced, sang, and acted her way into the hearts of millions.
In 1968, she dared speak out against the Vietnam War, when the war was raging at it's hottest, and was both blacklisted and hounded for doing so. That's because she spoke at a photo op at the White House in the face of First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson (wife of Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson). For daring to speak her mind at the heart of the empire, and for denouncing an Imperial war, the media and the state tried to 'disappear' her. She had to go abroad to find her freedom of speech, where she remained for nearly a decade.
For those who want to see her as a seductive chanteuse, the 1958 film, St. Louis Blues, starring Nat King Cole, Ruby Dee, Pearl Bailey and the gospel great, Mahalia Jackson, is a great source. For a slightly comic turn, see her as an amorous entrepreneurial cougar on the hunt for a young Eddie Murphy in the 1992 film Boomerang starring Halle Berry as the principal love interest.
Although she was known as the quintessential sex kitten for her acting, her public outspokenness came at quite a cost. Her comings, goings, doings and sayings were tracked by both the FBI and the CIA.
She moved through life with an intelligence, wit and nerve that made her distinctive and unforgettable.
Eartha Mae Kitt was 80.
--(c) '08 maj
[Source:African Arts and Letters, eds, Appiah, Kwame Anthony and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., (Phila., PA: Running Press, 2004.]
'Imperial Power & Counter-Power': (M.A. Jamal's Remarks to the Rose Luxemburg Conference in Germany / Jan. '09
[sp. writ. 12/30/08] (c) '08 Mumia Abu-Jamal]
If one is to address the reactions to the recent election of Illinois Senator Barack Obama to the U.S. Presidency, this can perhaps be best encapsulated by the term, exultation.
For if ever a political figure rode the currents of a stellar alignment, Barack Obama did so.
The exultation was both national and global.
In my 1/2 century of life, I can recall no presidential election that elicited so profound a political -- indeed visceral! -- response.
When one considers what role the left had in such a spectacular political event, again we must look to alignments; not of stars, but of constituencies, which converged to not only elect Obama, but to also close the door to the ruinous politics of the U.S. right wing, represented by the incumbent President, George W. Bush, and his presumed political heirs, Arizona Sen. John McCain, and Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin of the Republican Party.
While the U.S. left was a constituent part of the larger constituency, it neither drove nor directed the forces that elected Obama. In many ways it was hostage to those forces.
Those forces were youth -- those between 18-28, who mobilized in ways never seen before; it was also African Americans who voted in unprecedented numbers for one they perceived as one of their own; add to this millions of women, some of whom felt, frankly, disrespected by the choice of Palin, who, though a woman, betrayed an astonishing lack of knowledge and expertise on issues, especially given the very real possibility that her running mate, sen. McCain, might not survive the rigors of office.
But one cannot ignore the significant segment of those who felt betrayed or disaffected by the hard-right tilt of the Republican Party -- which ran almost exclusively on the notion that Obama was a "socialist", who in Palin's oft-repeated quote, "pals around with terrorists."
For those beyond our shores, it may be necessary to briefly decode this language. The "socialist" tag was a kind of cleaned - up, classy version of 'communist', the ultimate slur in U.S. capitalist politics, only exceeded by the post 9/11 term "terrorist" (and by calling Obama a "pal" of terrorists, it was tantamount to calling him one).
The last reference was to the alleged friendship between Obama and William Ayers, a Hyde Park educator who, in the 1960's, was a leading member of the Weather Underground, student anti-war and anti imperialist activists, who engaged in acts against property, and who supported the Black liberation movements of the era.
In point of fact, Obama was, by no measure, a leftist.
In the Spring of 2008 issue of The Black Scholar, African-American studies professor, Charles P. Henry makes the point explicitly, citing both Obama's own words, as well as a political biography of him in the New York Times Magazine. (1)
Obama's quoted remarks are instructive:
The Democrats have been stuck in the arguments of Vietnam,
which means that either you're a 'Scoop' Jackson Democrat or you're suspicious of any military action. And that's just not my framework .(2)
Obama's choices were illustrative of two poles of the Democratic Party: Sen. Henry 'Scoop' Jackson was so pro-war that he was called the "Senator from Boeing". (3) ; Hayden by contrast, was a student anti-war activist, and member of S.D.S. (Students for a Democratic Society). (Interestingly, Obama never referred to himself as a Jesse Jackson Democrat either).
This leads us to the next query on the role of the U.S. anti-war movement; in a word, it is moribund.
This, paradoxically, can be traced to the massive demonstrations of Spring 2003 in protest of the imminent Iraq War. For millions of people, this was their first, and last experience of mass action. Sadly, the lesson they learned was of their impotence, not their power, for Bush promptly ignored the protests, rattled the sabers of war, and launched Operation Shock and Awe.
For many people, unused to popular protests, this short-term failure to stop the war blinded them to the rarity that such mass protests represented: never had the nation seen such mass protests before the war was begun. At this stage, the people were a Counter-Power, but they stopped far too soon.
To further analyze the question of whether the election of Obama represents a leftist surge, or if the anti-war movement is in its ascendancy we need only recall that Obama is neither a leftist nor is he anti-war. The early stages of his electoral campaign were explicitly against the Iraq War. As he ran in the later stages, his sound bites announced a troop withdrawal in Iraq was necessary to buttress U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Indeed, given the events occurring as these words are written, there will probably be more U.S. anti-war protests against the Israeli blitzkrieg on Gaza in the next 2 weeks, than there was against the U.S. occupation in Afghanistan in the last two years.
That, I think, succinctly states the case of where we are.
But where we are need not determine where we can go. For people move by inches and by leaps. This was, undoubtedly, a giant step in U.S. history. This was not a day ever envisioned by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln or even John F. Kennedy.
Yet, one of Black America's most revered historians, Vincent Harding, (author of the classic, There is a River), spoke for far more than himself when he said, "So my hopes are very much focused on him, but not on him alone. I see the energy that's been built up over these two years of campaigns, and I see the possibility that we could gather ourselves together and begin to ask, in a very powerful way, not what should Barack Obama be doing next, but where do we go from here? What is our role as committed, progressive citizens to move to the next stages?"
Harding, a close confidante of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ended his comments on the Obama election with this fitting suggestion: "Maybe a democracy needs community organizers more than it needs commanders."(4)
Maybe so.
It appears Dr. Harding is suggesting that instead of empire, we need a republic, for if history teaches us anything, it is that the two realities are un- reconcilable. In the days of ancient Rome, the advent of empire spelled the end of the republic.
In 193 C. E., an African seized the throne of Rome. Emperor Septimius Severus extended Rome's power, and strengthened its empire. His sons succeeded him, and exceeded him in cruelty and brutality.
They didn't bring change -- they brought continuity.
Will this empire be any different?
Danke! Aus die Todeszelle,
Hier Sprecht Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Endnotes
1. Traub, James, "Is His Biography Our Destiny?", New York Times Magazine, November 4, 2007, pp.50-55.
2.Hayden, Tom, "An Appeal to Barack Obama", post to ariannahuff@aol.com, November 8, 2007; cited in Henry, Charles P., O"Obama '08 -- Articulate and Clean,"The Black Scholar, (Spr. '08) [vol. 38:no.1}, p.6, fn.17.
3.Johnson, Chalmers, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), p.211. Boeing received some $20 billion in defense contracts in 2006.
4. Wane, Aly (compiled by), "Historical Moment: Black Thinkers Reflect on the Election of Barack Obama", Syracuse Peace Council's Peace newsletter (Jan. '09: #780), p.7.
If one is to address the reactions to the recent election of Illinois Senator Barack Obama to the U.S. Presidency, this can perhaps be best encapsulated by the term, exultation.
For if ever a political figure rode the currents of a stellar alignment, Barack Obama did so.
The exultation was both national and global.
In my 1/2 century of life, I can recall no presidential election that elicited so profound a political -- indeed visceral! -- response.
When one considers what role the left had in such a spectacular political event, again we must look to alignments; not of stars, but of constituencies, which converged to not only elect Obama, but to also close the door to the ruinous politics of the U.S. right wing, represented by the incumbent President, George W. Bush, and his presumed political heirs, Arizona Sen. John McCain, and Alaska's Gov. Sarah Palin of the Republican Party.
While the U.S. left was a constituent part of the larger constituency, it neither drove nor directed the forces that elected Obama. In many ways it was hostage to those forces.
Those forces were youth -- those between 18-28, who mobilized in ways never seen before; it was also African Americans who voted in unprecedented numbers for one they perceived as one of their own; add to this millions of women, some of whom felt, frankly, disrespected by the choice of Palin, who, though a woman, betrayed an astonishing lack of knowledge and expertise on issues, especially given the very real possibility that her running mate, sen. McCain, might not survive the rigors of office.
But one cannot ignore the significant segment of those who felt betrayed or disaffected by the hard-right tilt of the Republican Party -- which ran almost exclusively on the notion that Obama was a "socialist", who in Palin's oft-repeated quote, "pals around with terrorists."
For those beyond our shores, it may be necessary to briefly decode this language. The "socialist" tag was a kind of cleaned - up, classy version of 'communist', the ultimate slur in U.S. capitalist politics, only exceeded by the post 9/11 term "terrorist" (and by calling Obama a "pal" of terrorists, it was tantamount to calling him one).
The last reference was to the alleged friendship between Obama and William Ayers, a Hyde Park educator who, in the 1960's, was a leading member of the Weather Underground, student anti-war and anti imperialist activists, who engaged in acts against property, and who supported the Black liberation movements of the era.
In point of fact, Obama was, by no measure, a leftist.
In the Spring of 2008 issue of The Black Scholar, African-American studies professor, Charles P. Henry makes the point explicitly, citing both Obama's own words, as well as a political biography of him in the New York Times Magazine. (1)
Obama's quoted remarks are instructive:
The Democrats have been stuck in the arguments of Vietnam,
which means that either you're a 'Scoop' Jackson Democrat or you're suspicious of any military action. And that's just not my framework .(2)
Obama's choices were illustrative of two poles of the Democratic Party: Sen. Henry 'Scoop' Jackson was so pro-war that he was called the "Senator from Boeing". (3) ; Hayden by contrast, was a student anti-war activist, and member of S.D.S. (Students for a Democratic Society). (Interestingly, Obama never referred to himself as a Jesse Jackson Democrat either).
This leads us to the next query on the role of the U.S. anti-war movement; in a word, it is moribund.
This, paradoxically, can be traced to the massive demonstrations of Spring 2003 in protest of the imminent Iraq War. For millions of people, this was their first, and last experience of mass action. Sadly, the lesson they learned was of their impotence, not their power, for Bush promptly ignored the protests, rattled the sabers of war, and launched Operation Shock and Awe.
For many people, unused to popular protests, this short-term failure to stop the war blinded them to the rarity that such mass protests represented: never had the nation seen such mass protests before the war was begun. At this stage, the people were a Counter-Power, but they stopped far too soon.
To further analyze the question of whether the election of Obama represents a leftist surge, or if the anti-war movement is in its ascendancy we need only recall that Obama is neither a leftist nor is he anti-war. The early stages of his electoral campaign were explicitly against the Iraq War. As he ran in the later stages, his sound bites announced a troop withdrawal in Iraq was necessary to buttress U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Indeed, given the events occurring as these words are written, there will probably be more U.S. anti-war protests against the Israeli blitzkrieg on Gaza in the next 2 weeks, than there was against the U.S. occupation in Afghanistan in the last two years.
That, I think, succinctly states the case of where we are.
But where we are need not determine where we can go. For people move by inches and by leaps. This was, undoubtedly, a giant step in U.S. history. This was not a day ever envisioned by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln or even John F. Kennedy.
Yet, one of Black America's most revered historians, Vincent Harding, (author of the classic, There is a River), spoke for far more than himself when he said, "So my hopes are very much focused on him, but not on him alone. I see the energy that's been built up over these two years of campaigns, and I see the possibility that we could gather ourselves together and begin to ask, in a very powerful way, not what should Barack Obama be doing next, but where do we go from here? What is our role as committed, progressive citizens to move to the next stages?"
Harding, a close confidante of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., ended his comments on the Obama election with this fitting suggestion: "Maybe a democracy needs community organizers more than it needs commanders."(4)
Maybe so.
It appears Dr. Harding is suggesting that instead of empire, we need a republic, for if history teaches us anything, it is that the two realities are un- reconcilable. In the days of ancient Rome, the advent of empire spelled the end of the republic.
In 193 C. E., an African seized the throne of Rome. Emperor Septimius Severus extended Rome's power, and strengthened its empire. His sons succeeded him, and exceeded him in cruelty and brutality.
They didn't bring change -- they brought continuity.
Will this empire be any different?
Danke! Aus die Todeszelle,
Hier Sprecht Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Endnotes
1. Traub, James, "Is His Biography Our Destiny?", New York Times Magazine, November 4, 2007, pp.50-55.
2.Hayden, Tom, "An Appeal to Barack Obama", post to ariannahuff@aol.com, November 8, 2007; cited in Henry, Charles P., O"Obama '08 -- Articulate and Clean,"The Black Scholar, (Spr. '08) [vol. 38:no.1}, p.6, fn.17.
3.Johnson, Chalmers, Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic (New York: Metropolitan Books, 2006), p.211. Boeing received some $20 billion in defense contracts in 2006.
4. Wane, Aly (compiled by), "Historical Moment: Black Thinkers Reflect on the Election of Barack Obama", Syracuse Peace Council's Peace newsletter (Jan. '09: #780), p.7.
36 HOURS: Death in a Cell
[col. writ.1/12/09] ('09) Mumia Abu-Jamal
The strangulation death of 19 year old Ronnie L. White in a jail cell in Upper Marlboro, Prince George's County, Maryland, after 36 hours confinement has confronted Ron Harris, the teenager's father.
A month ago Harris told reporters, "it's been six months, and still nobody can tell me who killed my son or what happened leading up to his death." Harris added, "I want to know why there is still so much secrecy in this case and why, after all this time, I still don't have answers."
And despite the empanelment of a county grand jury looking into the case, Harris still has no answers, for the grand jury disbanded without bringing any indictments.
Community groups, from the People's Coalition for Police Accountability, Cas de Maryland, and the Princes George's County of the NAACP have protested the death of Ronnie l. White, and braved the bitter December winds to gather together to demand a true, fair and impartial investigation into his death, and the prosecutions of all involved.
That's because White died 36 hours after his arrest in connection with the death of a Prince George's county cop, who was hit by a car allegedly driven by White.
White's father is left with little more than questions after the events of June 2008. Ron Harris says, "My son died in solidarity confinement in a jail. They knew who was working in the unit and where he was that day. The doors were locked, and only a few people had keys. Yet, after all this time, they say they don't have enough evidence to know who did it? Why not?"
Community groups smell a cover up.
For more info: P.# 301-779--7432 or email : fightpolicebrutalit yinpg@gmail. com
maj
The strangulation death of 19 year old Ronnie L. White in a jail cell in Upper Marlboro, Prince George's County, Maryland, after 36 hours confinement has confronted Ron Harris, the teenager's father.
A month ago Harris told reporters, "it's been six months, and still nobody can tell me who killed my son or what happened leading up to his death." Harris added, "I want to know why there is still so much secrecy in this case and why, after all this time, I still don't have answers."
And despite the empanelment of a county grand jury looking into the case, Harris still has no answers, for the grand jury disbanded without bringing any indictments.
Community groups, from the People's Coalition for Police Accountability, Cas de Maryland, and the Princes George's County of the NAACP have protested the death of Ronnie l. White, and braved the bitter December winds to gather together to demand a true, fair and impartial investigation into his death, and the prosecutions of all involved.
That's because White died 36 hours after his arrest in connection with the death of a Prince George's county cop, who was hit by a car allegedly driven by White.
White's father is left with little more than questions after the events of June 2008. Ron Harris says, "My son died in solidarity confinement in a jail. They knew who was working in the unit and where he was that day. The doors were locked, and only a few people had keys. Yet, after all this time, they say they don't have enough evidence to know who did it? Why not?"
Community groups smell a cover up.
For more info: P.# 301-779--7432 or email : fightpolicebrutalit yinpg@gmail. com
maj
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