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Showing posts with label audio. Show all posts
Showing posts with label audio. Show all posts

Arkansas State Health Department: Mandatory Vaccines Are Constitutional

Legal council tells concerned caller that American citizens must accept enforced shot in event of mass swine flu vaccination program
Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet.com, June 26, 2009

A member of the public who was concerned about a mandatory mass vaccination program in light of the swine flu pandemic called the Arkansas State Health Department for advice only to be told that mandatory vaccines were constitutional and could be enforced at gunpoint by the government if necessary.

The editor of the popular blog “Pissed Off Former Democrat” phoned the legal council at the Arkansas State Health Department to seek advice about obtaining waiver forms for a future mass swine flu vaccination program.

One of his main concerns centered around the fact that the company chosen to mass produce the swine flu vaccine, Baxter International, were recently caught in a scandal after it emerged they had sent out vaccines contaminated with the H5N1 avian flu virus to 18 countries from their Austrian branch. It was only by providence that the contamination was found after the batch was first tested on ferrets in the Czech Republic, before being shipped out for injection into humans. The ferrets all died and the shocking discovery was made.

Some Czech newspapers speculated at the time that Baxter was embroiled in a conspiracy to provoke a pandemic from which it would reap billions in profits from producing the vaccine to counter a bird flu outbreak.

As we have previously covered, the last time the government ordered a mass vaccination drive in response to a swine flu outbreak, the program had to be stopped short after the shots caused over 500 cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a severe paralyzing nerve disease. 30 people died as a direct result of the vaccinations.

During the phone conversation, the legal council discusses the potential of a future mandatory swine flu vaccination program and states, “That’s constitutional, there’s no doubt about it….mandatory vaccinations are legal under the Supreme Court….absolutely.”

The caller responds, “I’m an American and I have a legal right to make my own decision whether or not someone sticks a needle in me,” to which the legal council responds, “That’s not true….no.”

“As a lawyer you believe that I don’t have the right to deny a vaccination,” asks the caller,” to which the legal council responds, “Absolutely….I don’t know why you have a problem with that….mandatory vaccines are constitutional,” adding that it doesn’t matter about personal or religious objections.

The caller then asks how the mandatory vaccine would be enforced by law, “for example somebody sticking a gun in my face,” to which the legal council responds, “you could be held liable.”

The legal council at the Arkansas State Health Department cites the 1905 Supreme Court case of Jacobson v Massachusetts to argue that governments can force citizens to take vaccines.

Less than 50 years before, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, the Supreme Court also ruled that black people were slaves - property of their slaveowners with no inherent rights whatsoever.

22 years after Jacobson v Mass., in Buck v Bell, the Supreme Court also ruled that people designated “feeble-minded” by the government could be sterilized.

The fact that the Supreme Court made a ruling over 100 hundred years ago saying the government could inject people by force doesn’t make it morally or constitutionally justifiable.

To stick needles in people at gunpoint by government decree is blatantly unconstitutional under any reasonable definition of basic human rights or the freedoms enumerated by the founders in the constitution itself.

American Indians were rounded up and sent to death camps under legal orders, but that didn’t make it right or justifiable.

Hitler’s mistreatment of Jews, Gypsies, political dissidents, homosexuals and others who resisted government policies imposed during times of “emergency” in Nazi Germany was all perpetrated behind a thin veil of legality, but that didn’t make it right either.

As a member at the Prison Planet Forum points out, “Tyrannical evil loves to mask itself in the robes of righteousness, to justify itself with legal documents, to trample the very ideas of what Law and Right mean. Resisting that evil, rising against that tyranny, by saying No More. That is right.”

As we previously reported, Time Magazine has been preparing Americans to accept the idea of mandatory vaccinations, reporting on April 28th that a mass vaccination program is being readied to combat swine flu while also urging Americans to “trust that the government is working for the greater good” and to not resist draconian measures.

Listen to the phone call below.



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US Strategy for Color Revolution in Iran: A continuity of American policy under Bush and Cheney

By Francis A. Boyle, ZMag.org

Francis A. Boyle is a scholar in the areas of international law and human rights, Professor Boyle received a J.D. degree magna cum laude and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from Harvard University. Prior to joining the faculty at the College of Law, he was a teaching fellow at Harvard and an associate at its Center for International Affairs. His latest book for 2009 is, Tackling America's Toughest Questions, ZNet interview. (More below.)

click here to listen to audio interview with Talk Nation Radio
Produced by Dori Smith, Storrs, CT - TRT:29:49

Is the US running a covert operation in Iran designed to promote a color revolution as a way to bring about regime change? We asked international law expert Francis A. Boyle.

According to Professor Boyle, the Obama administration is likely trying this policy out prior to implementing other strategies, and notes that the people working on the region now are maintaining continuity with previous administration. The U.S. may well delay diplomatic talks at least for now.

We hear about Obama's MidEast advisory team and discuss what the events in Iran mean in context with US policy.

Under former President Bush and Vice President Cheney the US was supporting opposition candidates, and in 2007 Bush authorized a covert "black" operation to destabilize the Iranian government, according to ABCNews.com. You can read a May 22, 2007 report about the operation in www.GlobalResearch.ca.

Questions about Iran's election results persist and they are more specific now that the Guardian Council there has released more of the numbers. Professor Ali Ansari, Daniel Berman and Thomas Rintoul, have written a report for the London think tank, Chatham House questioning the result of 13 million more votes for Ahmandinejad. The report notes that two districts produced more votes than eligible voters. A joint BBC and ABC News poll taken before the election did predict an 89 percent turnout with Ahmandinejad the winner by two to one over leading contender Mir Hossein Mousavi. The poll was taken by the Center for Public Opinion of the New America Foundation.

Former State Department, NSC, and CIA official Flynt Leverett is now with the New America Foundation and he has said he finds the Ahmandinijad win credible, even if the election was imperfect.

The US press has largely covered political controversy surrounding President Barack Obama's reaction to violence against election protesters in Iran. And some of the details of the election itself have not been well analyzed. For example, opposition candidates declined a proposed ten percent recount early on. (Note, the ten percent election review standard is also used in various US states including Connecticut, which uses it for audits.)

A spokesperson for opposition candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi, told al-Jazeera only a fresh election would do. And on Tuesday June 23rd the opposition was offered a five day extension to a deadline for looking into election complaints. It is not clear if the extension was accepted, but there was something of an answer in large street protests called by two remaining opposition candidates, Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi.

Dozens of people have been killed during street protests though reports on the numbers vary widely. [See this report in Al Jazeera, English.]

At a press conference Tuesday June 23rd President Obama responded to questions about a video depicting the death of Neda Agha Soltan. She appears to have been shot by government troops during a protest in Tehran June 20th.

BACKGROUND: By 2006, US journalists and scholars like Dahr Jamail, Seymour Hersh and Francis A. Boyle, were expressing concern that the Bush administration's policy of regime change for Iran would include a military attack, likely conducted with Israel.

The University of Southern California's Muhammad Sahimi provides a detailed overview of the political climate in Iran in 2006 in a report titled: The Neoconservatives' Strategy for Regime Change in Iran. He argues that US efforts to use the Persian Press to build up opposition candidates in Tehran would likely be seen as propaganda. But there were other operations that seemed far more ominous.

Guy Dinmore reported in the Financial Times of London that the US Marine intelligence wing had launched a probe into Iran's ethnic minorities, and were searching for any grievances against the Islamic Government that could be exploited. The Pentagon was studying whether like Iraq, Iran might be prone to violent fragmentation along ethnic lines.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, carried out a well funded operation on behalf of the International Republican Institute. The institute had historically been used to funnel money from the National Endowment for Democracy into foreign aid projects.

In August of 2003, former CIA agent Philip Agee, tied the International Republican Institute to both the National Endownment for Democracy and the CIA.

Elizabeth Cheney had gone to Iran on an overt operation on behalf of the US State Department and MEPI, the Iran Middle East Partnership Initiative, as well as ISOG, the Iran Syria Policy and Operations Group. In that capacity she had millions of US dollars at her disposal for propaganda using radio outlets like the US owned Radio Farda and Voice of America.

The US continued its covert operations at the Iraq/Iran border, even using the Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) [also spelled: 'Mojahedin Khalgh Organization' or 'MKO'] which had been listed as a terrorist organization by the US State Dept. [See also, Jeremy R. Hammond, Foreign Policy Journal, 'Has the U.S. Played a Role in Fomenting Unrest During Iran's Election?' and also, Biden Vows to Continue Bush Policy Towards Iran, by Jeremy R. Hammond.]

The US and Europe also declassified the MEK as a terrorist organization, leading some to wonder about possible ongoing intelligence roles involving the group.

Members of Congress have been arguing for military attacks on Iran, and have set forth numerous bills that would effectively place America on a war footing with Iran.

See this piece too on the vote count in Iran. ‘A Hard Look at the Numbers', By Esam AL-Amin, Counterpunch.


Francis A. Boyle bio: continued from above

Francis A. Boyle practiced tax and international tax with Bingham, Dana & Gould in Boston. He has written and lectured extensively in the United States and abroad on the relationship between international law and politics. His eleventh book, Breaking All the Rules: Palestine, Iraq, Iran and the Case for Impeachment was recently published by Clarity Press. His Protesting Power: War, Resistance and Law (Rowman & Littlefield Inc. 2007) has been used successfully in anti-war protest trials.

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Dawud Akbar: Peoples Psychologist Passes in Pittsburgh

by Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio, Written 4/29/09; Recorded 06-02-09

click here to listen to audio column

For the Black community of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania, this is a time of quiet mourning.

For it marks the unexpected passing of Dawud Akbar, a man who made his home there.

Since leaving school in the early 1970's, Akbar built a life of service and caring in Pittsburgh, not just as a psychologist, but as a community organizer, teacher and mentor for many.

Born January 6, 1949 in Harlem, New York, he witnessed the murder of his mother at the tender age of 8 years. When he went to college at Morehouse, in Atlanta, GA, he met and was deeply inspired by the renowned Black psychologist, Dr. Na'im Akbar, who so inspired him that he took the name Akbar, and converted to Islam.

He earned a Masters degree at the University of Pittsburgh in 1973, and with his wife, Sama'iyah, built a life and family in his adopted city. He founded the Nzingha Institute, and helped to bring the Maafa ritual to hundreds of Pittsburgers annually. The local practice was a ceremony where the history of African captivity, transport and freedom struggles in the Americas was remembered and ritualized.

Given the trauma of his childhood, he worked with young people to try to give them a sense of their place in the larger community.

He wrote several books on social and familial health and harmony.

He worked long and hard to serve the many needs of his community, and even three heart attacks didn't stop him.

Recently, he suffered a debilitating cerebral hematoma.

Dawud Albar was 60 years old.

--(c) '09 maj

[Note: Mr. Jamal has recently published his latest book, Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners vs. the USA (San Francisco: City Lights Bks, Dr. Angela Y. Davis. For more info: www.citylights.com; or write: City Lights Books, 261 Columbus Ave., San Francisco, CA 94133

===================

The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!

URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: http://www.iacenter.org/mumiapetition/

Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org

http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.

Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090

If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com

Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, 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!

Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).

WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM

Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029

Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:

Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com

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GM's Newest Deal (audio)

by Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio, Written & Recorded, May 28, 2009

click here to listen to audio column

As the prospect of GM (General Motors) being forced into bankruptcy looms closer, the company (as well as the government) enters yet the next phase in a long, bitter and seemingly intractable war against workers -- and not just members of the UAW (United Auto Workers).

For the courtroom represents a battleground more vicious than any negotiating table, for there, the rules are (to borrow a phrase from segregation days) 'separate and unequal.'

That's because civil laws favor corporations. How could it be otherwise when lawyers are trained in corporate and contract law -- and rarely, if ever -- labor law? Under bankruptcy law, prior contracts can be broken, and new arrangements made, as long as creditors and investors get paid.

What of a man or woman who has spent decades at work for the company? Isn't that an investment?

To the investors and bondholders that is irrelevant.

They, and the White House, will have driven GM into bankruptcy court, not UAW, which has bent over so far backwards they're in knots.

In Sept. 2007, UAW signed a "landmark" pact with GM, in which the union assumed massive health care costs under what's called VEBA (volunteer employee benefit association). According to the terms, GM donates cash or stock to the UAW to administer VEBA, and GM agrees to the present work force of 73,000 workers. The VEBA contract was for 4 years, expiring in 2011.

Two years later, and tens of thousands have been laid off. Even before bankruptcy proceedings began, UAW heads were being pushed to accept GM stock (now around $1.40 a share) and corporate debt, instead of cash to run VEBA, and urged to accept "immediate cuts" to retiree benefits at the insistence of Timothy Geithner's Treasury Department, citing GM's "financial difficulties."

GM, we tend to forget, is a multinational, which builds and sells cars in Mexico, Canada and Asia. And while sales have indeed slumped in the Americas, sales are hot in Asia.

In China, the world's most populous market, an American car is still a status symbol, and China's economy is still the healthiest on earth, growing at an annual rate of 6%.

Moreover, while jobs are being lost in the U.S., and retirees' benefits are slashed, the bailout billions will fuel GM's efforts overseas, where, for example, a Chinese auto worker earns $3 an hour, versus $54 an hour for an American.

Does that make economic sense? Only when the bottom line is the be-all and end-all of existence (as in capitalism).

Meanwhile, six top GM execs recently sold all of their GM stock, sending a signal of imminent bankruptcy.

Having eaten the goose of GM profit, they leave the bones.

--(c) '09 maj

[Announcement: Mr. Jamal's newest book, Jailhouse Lawyers (S.F.: City Lights Bks., 2009) has recently been released. The stirring foreword is by renowned human rights scholar/activist and prison abolitionist, Angela Y. Davis. The book examines the profession of jailhouse law, as practiced by prisoners, often fighting for other prisoners, against the State.]


======================

The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!

Audio of most of Mumia's essays are at: http://www.prisonradio.org

http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/
Mumia's got a podcast! Mumia Abu-Jamal's Radio Essays - Subscribe at the website or on iTunes and get Mumia's radio commentaries online.

URGENT Need for Petition Signatures at: www.freemumia.com

Mumia Abu-Jamal's new book -- JAILHOUSE LAWYERS: PRISONERS DEFENDING PRISONERS V. THE USA, featuring an introduction by Angela Y. Davis -- has been released! It is available from City Lights Books: http://www.citylights.com/book/?GCOI=87286100448090

If you are planning to organize an event or would like to order in bulk, you can also receive a 45% discount on any bulk orders of 20 copies or more. The book retails for $16.95, for orders of 20 copies or more the discounted price would be $9.32 per book, plus shipping and handling. Prepayment would be required and books are nonreturnable. If you or your organization would like to place a bulk order, please contact Stacey Lewis at 415.362.1901 or stacey@citylights.com
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant, 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!

Please make a contribution to help free Mumia. Donations to the grassroots work will go to both INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL and the FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION (NYC).

WWW.FREEMUMIA.COM

Please mail donations/ checks to:
FREE MUMIA ABU JAMAL COALITION
PO BOX 16, NEW YORK,
NY 10030
(CHECKS FOR BOTH ORGANIZATIONS PAYABLE TO: FMAJC/IFCO)

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:

Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
http://www.FreeMumia.com



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Brown at 55 and counting

by Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio, Recorded May 21, 2009
Written May 17, 2009

click here to listen to audio column

Brown v. Board of Education

It has been over 1/2 a century (55 years) since the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Brown vs. Board of Education case, desegregating American public education.

The decision came to be regarded as a landmark ruling, one which transformed the very nature of U.S. public schools.

Or did it?

There is no question but that Brown dealt a severe blow to the common American practice of educational apartheid, by finding the nation's public school systems, which were unevenly divided between Black and white institutions, were separate and unequal, and thus violative of the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. As such, Brown became the precedent by which all racial segregation came to be declared unconstitutional.

But back to the public schools.

Who can doubt that millions of public school students now attend inner-city schools that are just as segregated as they were 50 years ago?

How can this be, we wonder?

Well, there are differences. Funding for schools is based on property taxes, and as inner cities are sited in poor urban cores, where taxes are lessened, there are fewer resources for such schools.

And while racial segregation is unconstitutional, class segregation is not. This, coupled with the segregated housing customs which still determines where people live, also determines where young people go to school.

Just because a law changes, doesn't mean life does.

There are other reasons, as well.

Millions of whites fled to the suburbs, and many built private schools that could legally segregate. Much of this energy went into the voucher school movement, so that parents could siphon off public monies to pay for private, and even religious schools.

With some major American cities facing drop-out rates of 50%, public schools are failing in their mission of teaching and training children to handle the glaring needs of tomorrow.

And what of No Child Left Behind? It was by any honest measure, a disaster.

The less said about it, the better.

--(c) '09 maj

The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!

PLEASE CONTACT:
International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
E-mail - icffmaj@aol.com
AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!

Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

Submitted by: Sis. Marpessa

Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
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www.FreeMumia.com



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The Politics of Office

by Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio, recorded May 18, 2009

click here to listen to audio column

The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!

PLEASE CONTACT:
International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
E-mail - icffmaj@aol.com
AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!

Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

Submitted by: Sis. Marpessa

Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!

"When a cause comes along and you know in your bones that it is just, yet refuse to defend it--at that moment you begin to die. And I have never seen so many corpses walking around talking about justice." - Mumia Abu-Jamal

www.FreeMumia.com



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Government for Whom

by Mumia Abu-Jamal, recorded May 11, 2009
re: Bank bailouts and the economy...

click here to listen to audio column

The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!

PLEASE CONTACT:
International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
E-mail - icffmaj@aol.com
AND OFFER YOUR SERVICES!

Send our brotha some LOVE and LIGHT at:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI-Greene
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370

WE WHO BELIEVE IN FREEDOM CAN *NOT* REST!!

Submitted by: Sis. Marpessa

Subscribe: mumiacolumns-subscribe@topica.com
Read: http://topica.com/lists/mumiacolumns/read
Subscribe ICFFMAJ email updates list by e-mailing
icffmaj@aol.com!
www.FreeMumia.com



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Of Pirates & Piracy

Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio, April 20, 2009

Listen to audio column: short | full

In the news of late is the piracy drama off Africa's horn -- the eastern coast of Somalia.

All of a sudden, piracy is a problem, one needing military, if not global solutions.

Every petty politician is bum-rushing the mike, to spout off on how pirates are "thugs", "criminals", or the latest Western curse, " terrorists".

Such pronouncements almost always leave me cold, or, at best, ambivalent, for behind these events lie a history that cries out for clarity and perspective.

If piracy is a crime when individuals do it, what is it when states do it?

Who can deny that America was stolen and swindled from the Indians? Or that millions of people were stolen from Africa to work for them for centuries?

Is that piracy-- or just plain policy?

Piracy did occur in the 17th and 18th centuries, and this was either cases of conflict between colonial powers (where British 'privateers', for example, would target and steal from Spanish ships), or simply in pursuit of profits.

The Somali state has been absent for a generation, and as such, what is today's piracy but making a living, albeit a dangerous one?

When Ethiopia was armed and egged on to invade Somalia several years ago by the Bush administration, was that state piracy?

When the U.S. invaded and occupied Iraq in 2003, removed it's government, imposed its puppets, bombed its people, and ran a third of its population into exile, based on lies--was this piracy of one nation against another--or 'national security?'

Pirates are retail; nations are wholesale.

Who are the 'thugs', the 'criminals', the real pirates?

To my knowledge, no band of pirates has ever stolen a nation.

Guess who has?

--(c) '09 maj

The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!

PLEASE CONTACT:
International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
www.freemumia.com



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Crossing the Line: US role in the war on Gaza

Podcast, Crossing the Line, Feb. 13, 2009

This week on Crossing The Line: As US President Barack Obama stood before a crowd of two million and gave his inaugural address, he pledged to work with those in the Arab and Muslim world towards peace. But absent in the address was any condemnation of Israeli atrocities committed against the Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Host Naji Ali speaks with The Electronic Intifada co-founder Ali Abunimah about the Obama administration, the recent massacre in Gaza and the prospects of peace in the region.

Also this week, Ali speaks with Gaza-based journalist Rami Almeghari about the current situation on the ground in Gaza in the aftermath of the 22 days of Israeli attacks.

And as always, Crossing the Line begins with "This week in Palestine," a service provided by The International Middle East Media Center.

* Listen Now [MP3 - 22 MB]



Crossing the Line is a weekly podcast dedicated to giving voice to the voiceless in occupied Palestine. Through investigative news, arts, eyewitness accounts, and music, Crossing the Line does its best to present the lives of people on the ground.

Crossing the Line's host, Naji Ali, is an independent journalist currently living in San Francisco. Ali's South African roots and desire for social change are the reason for his strong solidarity with the Palestinian people. In 1990 Ali was arrested in South Africa where he was detained and tortured for nearly two years by the South African secret police. Ali also lived and worked in the Old City of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

Audio: Abunimah, Finkelstein, Mearsheimer discuss Israel's attacks on Gaza

Audio, The Electronic Intifada, Jan. 21, 2009

Audio: Abunimah, Finkelstein, Mearsheimer discuss Israel's attacks on Gaza

On Saturday, 27 December 2008, Israel began its onslaught against the 1.5 million besieged and imprisoned Palestinians in the Gaza Strip -- one of the most densely populated areas in the world. One week later, on 3 January, Israel began its ground invasion. Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire on 17 January, 22 days after the attacks began. The attacks have been the deadliest since Israel's occupation of Gaza in 1967, with more than 1,300 Palestinians killed and thousands injured by intense bombardment from air, land and sea.

On 8 January, a panel featuring the following speakers was held at the University of Chicago to discuss the the reasons and ramifications of the recent attacks on Gaza and the larger Palestinian-Israeli conflict:

* John J. Mearsheimer is the Wendell Harrison Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and the co-author of The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy, a New York Times Best Seller.

* Ali Abunimah is a writer, commentator, and author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to end the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse, and co-founder of The Electronic Intifada.

* Norman G. Finkelstein is a scholar of political theory and the Israel-Palestine conflict. He is the author of five books including Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, and most recently, Beyond Chutzpah: On the misuse of anti-Semitism and the abuse of history.

A Divine Love

Ahmad Daniels, Creative Interchange, Feb. 19, 2008

Every now and then I encounter a poem that captivates my imagination and titillates the strings of my heart. DIVINE LOVE, composed by E. Burton Miller, Director of African American Resources Center at Howard University, is such a poem. Mr. Miller has an ability to weave together memorable characteristics of persons who have left their mark in history books and in our hearts. His words take the reader through a panoramic sojourn of some of history's greatest. He does it with such glowing passion and depth of sensitivity that I found myself coming to appreciate each and every person mentioned in a new way. It is my sincere desire that this lovely poem moves something deep inside of you as it has me.

You can hear Mr. Miller reading his poem by visiting http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php? storyId=19128143&sc=emaf. His recitation of Divine Love comes eight minutes into a 10 minute interview with him and another essayist. I dedicate this poem to all that know love or are presently seeking its spiritual fulfillment. Asante Sana.

Major Demonstration Planned in Jena to Protest Pending Charges Against Six Students

Democracy Now!, Sept. 18, 2007

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Thousands of people are expected to gather in Jena, Louisiana on Thursday to protest the pending charges against six African American high school students. Last week, a Louisiana appeals court threw out the conviction of 17-year-old Mychal Bell. Bell was supposed to have been sentenced for attempted second-degree battery this Thursday. The court ruled that he should not have been tried as an adult. He has been jailed since January, unable to meet his $90,000 bond. We speak with Lewis Scott. [includes rush transcript - partial]

Mychal Bell and five other students were arrested for beating a white student during a schoolyard fight last year. The fight occurred after white students hung three nooses on a tree in the schoolyard.

Bell has been jailed since January unable to meet his $90,000 bond. As of this morning he remains in prison waiting for his new bond to be posted. The Associated Press is reporting that District Attorney Reed Walters plans to appeal Bell's overturned conviction at the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Lewis Scott, Mychal Bell's attorney on the phone from Monroe, Louisiana.

One year after the nooses were hung from the tree, the case of the Jena 6 is drawing thousands to the small town of Jena this Thursday. Mychal Bell is the only one of the Jena Six who remains in prison. But it’s been ten months since the boys were arrested for the schoolyard fight and seventeen-year-old Bryant Purvis hasn’t even been arraigned. The court has just set his arraignment date for the first week of November. He is the only remaining member of the Jena Six to be charged as an adult with attempted second-degree murder.

I spoke to Bryant Purvis’s mother Tina Jones earlier this month. We met on the front porch of her house in Goodpine, an all Black community just outside of Jena. Bryant Purvis was expelled from Jena High School and is now studying in Dallas, Texas and living with his uncle Jason Hatcher. Hatcher grew up in Jena but plays professional football for the Dallas Cowboys. I began by asking Tina Jones to explain what her son has been charged with.

Tina Jones, mother of Bryant Purvis.

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AMY GOODMAN: We turn to Jena, Louisiana, where thousands of people are expected to gather Thursday to protest the charges against six African American high school students. Last week, the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeals threw out the conviction of seventeen-year-old Mychal Bell. The court ruled he should not have been tried as an adult. Bell was supposed to have been sentenced for attempted second-degree battery this Thursday.

Mychal Bell and five other students were arrested for beating a white student during a schoolyard fight last December. The fight occurred after white students hung three nooses on a tree in the schoolyard. Bell has been jailed since January, unable to meet his $90,000 bond. As of this morning, he remains in prison, waiting for his new bond to be posted.

The Associated Press is reporting that District Attorney Reed Walters plans to appeal Bell's overturned conviction at the Louisiana Supreme Court.

Lewis Scott is the lead attorney for Mychal Bell. He joins us on the phone right now from Monroe, Louisiana. Welcome to Democracy Now!

LEWIS SCOTT: Good morning. How are you doing?

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Can you tell us the status? What happened with Mychal Bell's conviction?

LEWIS SCOTT: It was overturned by the Third Circuit on the basis of the fact that he was only sixteen at the time of the charge. So, therefore, he should not have been tried in Louisiana as an adult. As a matter of fact, the charges that he was convicted of were not charges that an individual can be charged as an adult for if they're under seventeen years old.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you go back and explain this case to us? We've been covering it on Democracy Now! We've just returned from Jena, Louisiana. We’re going to be playing an interview with one of the moms, in the minute, of the Jena Six. But explain what happened and why Mychal Bell was tried first and separately.

LEWIS SCOTT: Well, I don't know the answer to that. I don't know why the district attorney chose to try Mychal first. By the time I entered the case, the trial was already over. So I entered the case about June or early July of this year, and at the time he had already been convicted. I’ve not been able to determine why he was tried first.

AMY GOODMAN: So you have this situation where last September a black student asked the principal if black students could sit under the tree in the Jena schoolyard. The principal says yes. The black students go to sit under the tree. The next day, the three nooses are hung. Some students are suspended for a couple of days. Tensions mount. It goes for a few months. Then one of the Jena Six, Robert Bailey, goes to a party. He's beaten up by whites. In the next few days, he goes to the local convenience store, the Gotta-Go, and one of those white men has a weapon. Robert grabs it from him, runs home.

Then, the next day is the schoolyard fight, and six African American students are charged. They're charged with second-degree attempted murder, facing each a hundred years in jail. Mychal Bell is tried first. He refuses the plea bargain. And so, they drop the attempted murder charge, but charge him with aggravated battery and said the dangerous weapon was his tennis shoes. And he is convicted by an all-white jury, from an all-white jury pool, and facing twenty-two years in jail.

You then came into the picture after he was convicted. And now the judge, before the court threw out the conviction, said that they were going to drop the conspiracy charge, is that right? He was charged with conspiracy and aggravated battery?

LEWIS SCOTT: Yes, what happened, the district judge threw out the conspiracy and the Third Circuit threw out the aggravated second-degree battery. So you had one charge thrown out at a district level, one charge thrown out at the appellate level.

AMY GOODMAN: Why is Mychal Bell still in jail? The other students, one after another, eventually got out of jail as their families tried to make the bail. Theo Shaw was the last of them to be released just recently. But why is Mychal still in jail?

LEWIS SCOTT: Well, after Mychal was convicted, his bail was revoked. And then, after that, the cases were thrown out. At the present time, our position is that he should not be in jail. However, he does have one juvenile charge of conspiracy still pending against him as a result of him being charged with that charge after the Third Circuit threw out the adult conspiracy charge. So, therefore, he's being held in jail now. And I’m not exactly sure what the reasoning is, but that's a part of what we're challenging at the present time.

AMY GOODMAN: Why was he charged as an adult?

LEWIS SCOTT: Well, I can only speculate at that. But what happened was, he was first charged with attempted murder, which is a charge that you can be charged as an adult for. And then, the attempted murder was downgraded to aggravated second-degree battery. Aggravated second-degree battery is not a charge that you can be charged as an adult for. So it's possible that the purpose was a procedural maneuver to charge the greater charge to change the jurisdiction and then try to determine -- I mean, try to keep the jurisdiction in the district court rather than in the juvenile court. But I would only have to speculate regarding the motivation in charging that and then reducing it.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you explain, Lewis Scott, how it was that all of these young people were charged with attempted second-degree murder originally and still some facing a hundred years in jail? And the response in the Jena community?

LEWIS SCOTT: I wasn't quite able to understand what you said on the last question.

AMY GOODMAN: How the boys were charged with second-degree attempted murder, facing a hundred years each in prison originally.

LEWIS SCOTT: Well, in Louisiana, the district attorney has a lot of discretion in determining what charge he's going to charge. But, again, to answer that question, I would have to deal with the motivations of someone else in order to answer the question. So I really can't answer that question regarding what the district attorney's motivation was in charging such a tremendous crime in this particular circumstance.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, the DA, the District Attorney Reed Walters, after the nooses were hung from the tree and then the students, the black students, protested and all went to stand under the tree, came in with police, according to teachers and students, to the school. They held an assembly, and he warned the students. He said, “I could wipe out your lives with the stroke of a pen.” And then you have the schoolyard fight, and he charges them with attempted second-degree murder.

Mychal Bell is charged. He is convicted by an all-white jury, from an all-white jury pool, and he faces first twenty years, and then, when they drop the conspiracy charge, something like fifteen years. His original lawyer did not bring up one witness in Mychal's defense. Will you be charging incompetent counsel in that case? He had a public defender.

LEWIS SCOTT: Well, it's not up to us to charge. But that was one of the things we were investigating. However, we won't actually be going any further with that, because that entire charge was thrown out. So that was something that we were looking into prior to the time that the Third Circuit made its ruling, but after the Third Circuit made its ruling, then that pretty much gave us the opportunity for a new trial without dealing with all of those issues. So that was something we were investigating into, but at the present time it's not something that we are dealing with under the present circumstance.

AMY GOODMAN: If Mychal Bell is charged as a juvenile, what does he face?

LEWIS SCOTT: A maximum of up to twenty-one.

AMY GOODMAN: Years?

LEWIS SCOTT: Up to his twenty-first birthday, I’m sorry.

AMY GOODMAN: Up to the age of twenty-one. And he has been in jail now for, well, almost ten months. He was a football star. They expected a lot of Mychal, going on to college on a football scholarship. Have you visited Mychal? What are his spirits like in jail?

LEWIS SCOTT: Well, they range from being cautiously optimistic to being optimistically cautious. That is, he's happy over certain things that happen, but then there are other things that cause him to feel like things are not going very well, mainly because he hasn't been able to have his freedom. So I think that's what bothers him most. So he may be happy about good decisions and things of that nature, but he doesn't really feel the full impact of that unless he's released.

AMY GOODMAN: Lewis Scott, what is the impact of the public exposure of this case, as it grows around the country, and then the protests? This one on Thursday, there are many people expected to show up in Jena, Louisiana.

LEWIS SCOTT: Again, I wasn't able to hear.

AMY GOODMAN: What is the impact of the public exposure and the public protest, this large protest expected for the day it was expected that Mychal Bell would be sentenced, now unclear what will happen with the overturning of the decision and the district attorney saying he will appeal?

LEWIS SCOTT: Well, I intentionally try not to evaluate the impact of things of that nature. What I try to do is to concentrate on the legal effort, to make sure that everything is done legally. But then, I don't really get involved in determining how what is done in the public will affect the legal process.

AMY GOODMAN: Well we will certainly follow what happens. We're just back from Jena. I want to thank you very much. We hope to talk to you again, Lewis Scott, the new attorney for Mychal Bell, who remains in jail. Thanks for joining us.

LEWIS SCOTT: OK, thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. When we come back, we'll talk to the mother of one of the Jena Six, and then we'll have a debate on the role of Blackwater in Iraq. The Iraqi government says they're throwing the security company out. Stay with us.

[break]

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BBC Reports on Bush's Grandfather Trying to Engineer Facsist Coup in the US

The Whitehouse Coup, By BBC

Document uncovers details of a planned coup in the USA in 1933 by a group of right-wing American businessmen. The coup was aimed at toppling President Franklin D Roosevelt with the help of half-a-million war veterans. The plotters, who were alleged to involve some of the most famous families in America, (owners of Heinz, Birds Eye, Goodtea, Maxwell Hse & George Bush’s Grandfather, Prescott) believed that their country should adopt the policies of Hitler and Mussolini to beat the great depression. Mike Thomson investigates why so little is known about this biggest ever peacetime threat to American democracy.

Click here to listen to BBC story.