… [From this] contradiction arises the strange paradox that the poverty for the worker must be perpetual, in order to be compelled to work for the rich.
W.E.B. Du Bois, 1953
Many of us are just ill-equipped to deal with the darkness. We’ve been living in America’s Disney World too long.
Dr. Cornel West
The original prompt read: Write a letter in praise of someone in your community.
“This is our essay prompt for Friday night,” I said on Wednesday night as the intensive writing session came to an end.
“No. We don’t have anyone to praise in our community.” NO.
Older African and younger Black and Latino/a students populate the classroom.
“Okay. I will come up with another topic.”
At home, I select a topic from an English writing workbook:
You should not shop at Wal-Mart because they do not provide health care benefits for most workers.
It is a typical, simple, beginners prompt for a basic five-paragraph essay for the next session.
Wal-Mart executives cultivated support among lack city council members and church leaders in Chicago, according to Anmol Chaddha in Colorlines, “for building two stores…each about the size of ten football fields.” Wal-Mart’s strategy, Chaddha writes, is to bring “Wal-Mart to the ‘hood’—touting not just lower prices but also racial equity.”
“With over $280 billion in annual sales and 3,500 stores across the United States, the company is now selling itself as a solution to urban racial inequality.”
Wal-Mart’s “pitch” for conquering the “hood,” Chaddha explains, is to convince “poor people of color” that Wal-Mart means jobs and inexpensive goods.
What executives don’t mention is that the jobs come with notoriously low wages and that the company has cracked down on union organizing. But Wal-Mart executives know that poor people of color are in no position to be picky about who brings what jobs to the community.
Over 1.2 million workers make Wal-Mart the “largest private employer in the United States [and] also the leading employer of African American and Latino workers.”
Wal-Mart is not the only corporation capitalizing “amidst this urban gold rush for developers,” Chaddha explains. Staples, Marriott Hotel, and Ikea are just a few corporations spreading their wings in Black communities throughout the nation.
You can read and study Das Kapital until the heavily annotated pages of your copy fall loose from the book’s bind, but ultimately the students, particularly those on the margins of society, will teach.
Back in the classroom, I am at the board writing the new topic. I heard behind me, “she means ‘work.’” In other words, you should not work at Wal-Mart…
She has that wrong, of course—meaning, I have it wrong.
“Miss. Miss. Dr. Miss, don’t you mean ‘work” at Wal-Mart”?
“I mean ‘shop,’” I answer looking at the prompt again. Empathy, I say to myself.
“Shop?”
“What’s the problem?”
Why should we stop shopping at Wal-Mart?
What’s that gotta do with us?
“Health care for others?” I asked.
“Wal-Mart is cheap!”
“Don’t you know why?” I paint a picture featuring workers, women sitting in a room, working long hours, piecing together sneakers, shirts, pants—women earning slave wages. “There is the shopper from an urban area, you, the Wal-Mart worker with low wages and no health care benefits, and the sweatshop worker in China.”
Now, who is in the margins? I am someone out of touch with reality!
“Okay, please, start the essay.”
Some twenty hours later, I am transported to the “hood” as I read paper after paper praising Wal-Mart.
The items are cheap…
My family shops at Wal-Mart
If people fill out a job application at Wal-Mart, then they know they will not have health care benefits…
Corporations can’t afford to pay workers health care!
A sister works without health care, therefore…
Wal-Mart helps children!
Would that be the children of women working for slave wages at sweatshops in over 40 countries?
Is an hourly wage of a little more than $8 helping the children of Black and Latino/a workers at Wal-Mart?
The students did write a praise letter—in support of corporate leadership in their community!
The conquistadors have never stopped capitalizing on others with material resources and sellable labor. Tactics have changed not the strategy of conquering. “At opportune moments,” writes Frantz Fanon in Wretched of the Earth, “the [enemy] combines his policy of brutal repression with spectacular gestures of friendship, maneuvers calculated to sow division, (sic) and ‘psychological action.” The enemy employs “the traditional collaborates” and “the lumpenproletariat.” The enemy, Fanon continues,
discovers the existence, side by side with the disciplines and well-organized advance guard of rebellion, of a mass of men who participation is constantly at the mercy of their being for too long accustomed to physiological wretchedness, humiliation, and irresponsibility.
Convince the poor and undereducated that they have someone looking out for them!
Malcolm’s plea for the development of Black entrepreneurs and Black self-reliance—is damned! The Sam Walton’s of the world have been successful community organizers!
What was supposed to be a lesson in essay writing for these students becomes a lesson in the corporation’s growing interests in the lumpenproletariat.
When it comes to historical resistance against those who would withhold justice, freedom, indeed, human rights, Black Americans are on the record as coordinators of protest. As an enslaved population to budding capitalists, Black Americans were not human and certainly not citizens of the United States. To be white in the United States was not to be Black! Whites begin at one starting gate as immigrants and Blacks at another as enslaved labor.
Black Americans struggled to survive the brutality of slavery and protested the political and social oppression of legalized segregation. Most important, Black humanity is always in question, always at risk of being denied the right of recognition by those for whom the myth of white supremacy must sustain the superiority of Euro-Americans. In the face of this stubbornness, particularly directed at the Black community, Black resistance demands a constant stands of opposition, for we are far more vulnerable to the hatred of the mob—in the person of these modern-day, market-driven conquistadors.
Dissent, for any U.S. citizen, triggers the government’s law enforcement and military apparatus; however, dissent is perilous, particularly for Black Americans. Consider the long delay and the side winding maneuvers by the government when it came to civil rights for Black Americans and the systematic assassination of those Black leaders who called on the community to reject a demoralizing and a dehumanizing economic system.
The most vulnerable among us, writes Fanon, is the lumpenproletariat. “Any movement for freedom ought to give its fullest attention to this lumpenproletariat.” When it is feasible and profitable, the oppressor’s frown becomes a smile directed at the weak and vulnerable within the Black community. This segment of the community, starved for anything that will acknowledge its humanity, Fanon writes, “is so precarious and dim that it is affected by the slightest spark of kindness.” As willingly as the lumpenproletariat will work and then shop grateful on the new master’s plantation, he will pick up a police or military issue weapon and defend his right—to enslavement. If the leadership of rebellion fails to consider the growing masses of the “wretched of the earth,” writes Fanon, this mass of people “will throw itself into the battle and will take part in the conflict—but this time on the side of the oppressor.” The oppressor, on the other hand, “never loses a chance of setting the niggers against each other,” and the oppressor “will be skillful in using that ignorance and incomprehension,” characteristic of the lumpenproletariat, to his advantage.
The whole of Earth rattles as it tries to absorb such an unholy alliance.
We praise the workers and students in the Honduras, in Iran, in France. We praised the workers at Republic Windows in Chicago when they locked themselves behind the doors of their workplace and refused to permit owners to leave them without work, pay—an explanation. In the confines of the hood (as opposed to Black neighborhoods), the corporations are uniting corporate strategists with the servitude of weakened Red, Black, and Brown people. Genocide has a corporate smiley face, but the Left is silent. It is no wonder that similar to the corporate conquistadors, the Black lumpenproletariat lacks all empathy for humanity—including her own when lead by the likes of the Walton Klan!
The culpability of the Left notwithstanding, the Left has a responsibility to challenge corporations and corporate strategies that privatize the minds and bodies of the lumpenproletariat and ultimately weakens the Left’s overall opposition to the corporate-military complex.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
No Consumer's Servitude Left Behind: Wal-Mart's Successful Community Organizing
… [From this] contradiction arises the strange paradox that the poverty for the worker must be perpetual, in order to be compelled to work for the rich.
W.E.B. Du Bois, 1953
Many of us are just ill-equipped to deal with the darkness. We’ve been living in America’s Disney World too long.
Dr. Cornel West
The original prompt read: Write a letter in praise of someone in your community.
“This is our essay prompt for Friday night,” I said on Wednesday night as the intensive writing session came to an end.
“No. We don’t have anyone to praise in our community.” NO.
Older African and younger Black and Latino/a students populate the classroom.
“Okay. I will come up with another topic.”
At home, I select a topic from an English writing workbook:
You should not shop at Wal-Mart because they do not provide health care benefits for most workers.
It is a typical, simple, beginners prompt for a basic five-paragraph essay for the next session.
Wal-Mart executives cultivated support among lack city council members and church leaders in Chicago, according to Anmol Chaddha in Colorlines, “for building two stores…each about the size of ten football fields.” Wal-Mart’s strategy, Chaddha writes, is to bring “Wal-Mart to the ‘hood’—touting not just lower prices but also racial equity.”
“With over $280 billion in annual sales and 3,500 stores across the United States, the company is now selling itself as a solution to urban racial inequality.”
Wal-Mart’s “pitch” for conquering the “hood,” Chaddha explains, is to convince “poor people of color” that Wal-Mart means jobs and inexpensive goods.
What executives don’t mention is that the jobs come with notoriously low wages and that the company has cracked down on union organizing. But Wal-Mart executives know that poor people of color are in no position to be picky about who brings what jobs to the community.
Over 1.2 million workers make Wal-Mart the “largest private employer in the United States [and] also the leading employer of African American and Latino workers.”
Wal-Mart is not the only corporation capitalizing “amidst this urban gold rush for developers,” Chaddha explains. Staples, Marriott Hotel, and Ikea are just a few corporations spreading their wings in Black communities throughout the nation.
You can read and study Das Kapital until the heavily annotated pages of your copy fall loose from the book’s bind, but ultimately the students, particularly those on the margins of society, will teach.
Back in the classroom, I am at the board writing the new topic. I heard behind me, “she means ‘work.’” In other words, you should not work at Wal-Mart…
She has that wrong, of course—meaning, I have it wrong.
“Miss. Miss. Dr. Miss, don’t you mean ‘work” at Wal-Mart”?
“I mean ‘shop,’” I answer looking at the prompt again. Empathy, I say to myself.
“Shop?”
“What’s the problem?”
Why should we stop shopping at Wal-Mart?
What’s that gotta do with us?
“Health care for others?” I asked.
“Wal-Mart is cheap!”
“Don’t you know why?” I paint a picture featuring workers, women sitting in a room, working long hours, piecing together sneakers, shirts, pants—women earning slave wages. “There is the shopper from an urban area, you, the Wal-Mart worker with low wages and no health care benefits, and the sweatshop worker in China.”
Now, who is in the margins? I am someone out of touch with reality!
“Okay, please, start the essay.”
Some twenty hours later, I am transported to the “hood” as I read paper after paper praising Wal-Mart.
The items are cheap…
My family shops at Wal-Mart
If people fill out a job application at Wal-Mart, then they know they will not have health care benefits…
Corporations can’t afford to pay workers health care!
A sister works without health care, therefore…
Wal-Mart helps children!
Would that be the children of women working for slave wages at sweatshops in over 40 countries?
Is an hourly wage of a little more than $8 helping the children of Black and Latino/a workers at Wal-Mart?
The students did write a praise letter—in support of corporate leadership in their community!
The conquistadors have never stopped capitalizing on others with material resources and sellable labor. Tactics have changed not the strategy of conquering. “At opportune moments,” writes Frantz Fanon in Wretched of the Earth, “the [enemy] combines his policy of brutal repression with spectacular gestures of friendship, maneuvers calculated to sow division, (sic) and ‘psychological action.” The enemy employs “the traditional collaborates” and “the lumpenproletariat.” The enemy, Fanon continues,
discovers the existence, side by side with the disciplines and well-organized advance guard of rebellion, of a mass of men who participation is constantly at the mercy of their being for too long accustomed to physiological wretchedness, humiliation, and irresponsibility.
Convince the poor and undereducated that they have someone looking out for them!
Malcolm’s plea for the development of Black entrepreneurs and Black self-reliance—is damned! The Sam Walton’s of the world have been successful community organizers!
What was supposed to be a lesson in essay writing for these students becomes a lesson in the corporation’s growing interests in the lumpenproletariat.
When it comes to historical resistance against those who would withhold justice, freedom, indeed, human rights, Black Americans are on the record as coordinators of protest. As an enslaved population to budding capitalists, Black Americans were not human and certainly not citizens of the United States. To be white in the United States was not to be Black! Whites begin at one starting gate as immigrants and Blacks at another as enslaved labor.
Black Americans struggled to survive the brutality of slavery and protested the political and social oppression of legalized segregation. Most important, Black humanity is always in question, always at risk of being denied the right of recognition by those for whom the myth of white supremacy must sustain the superiority of Euro-Americans. In the face of this stubbornness, particularly directed at the Black community, Black resistance demands a constant stands of opposition, for we are far more vulnerable to the hatred of the mob—in the person of these modern-day, market-driven conquistadors.
Dissent, for any U.S. citizen, triggers the government’s law enforcement and military apparatus; however, dissent is perilous, particularly for Black Americans. Consider the long delay and the side winding maneuvers by the government when it came to civil rights for Black Americans and the systematic assassination of those Black leaders who called on the community to reject a demoralizing and a dehumanizing economic system.
The most vulnerable among us, writes Fanon, is the lumpenproletariat. “Any movement for freedom ought to give its fullest attention to this lumpenproletariat.” When it is feasible and profitable, the oppressor’s frown becomes a smile directed at the weak and vulnerable within the Black community. This segment of the community, starved for anything that will acknowledge its humanity, Fanon writes, “is so precarious and dim that it is affected by the slightest spark of kindness.” As willingly as the lumpenproletariat will work and then shop grateful on the new master’s plantation, he will pick up a police or military issue weapon and defend his right—to enslavement. If the leadership of rebellion fails to consider the growing masses of the “wretched of the earth,” writes Fanon, this mass of people “will throw itself into the battle and will take part in the conflict—but this time on the side of the oppressor.” The oppressor, on the other hand, “never loses a chance of setting the niggers against each other,” and the oppressor “will be skillful in using that ignorance and incomprehension,” characteristic of the lumpenproletariat, to his advantage.
The whole of Earth rattles as it tries to absorb such an unholy alliance.
We praise the workers and students in the Honduras, in Iran, in France. We praised the workers at Republic Windows in Chicago when they locked themselves behind the doors of their workplace and refused to permit owners to leave them without work, pay—an explanation. In the confines of the hood (as opposed to Black neighborhoods), the corporations are uniting corporate strategists with the servitude of weakened Red, Black, and Brown people. Genocide has a corporate smiley face, but the Left is silent. It is no wonder that similar to the corporate conquistadors, the Black lumpenproletariat lacks all empathy for humanity—including her own when lead by the likes of the Walton Klan!
The culpability of the Left notwithstanding, the Left has a responsibility to challenge corporations and corporate strategies that privatize the minds and bodies of the lumpenproletariat and ultimately weakens the Left’s overall opposition to the corporate-military complex.
W.E.B. Du Bois, 1953
Many of us are just ill-equipped to deal with the darkness. We’ve been living in America’s Disney World too long.
Dr. Cornel West
The original prompt read: Write a letter in praise of someone in your community.
“This is our essay prompt for Friday night,” I said on Wednesday night as the intensive writing session came to an end.
“No. We don’t have anyone to praise in our community.” NO.
Older African and younger Black and Latino/a students populate the classroom.
“Okay. I will come up with another topic.”
At home, I select a topic from an English writing workbook:
You should not shop at Wal-Mart because they do not provide health care benefits for most workers.
It is a typical, simple, beginners prompt for a basic five-paragraph essay for the next session.
Wal-Mart executives cultivated support among lack city council members and church leaders in Chicago, according to Anmol Chaddha in Colorlines, “for building two stores…each about the size of ten football fields.” Wal-Mart’s strategy, Chaddha writes, is to bring “Wal-Mart to the ‘hood’—touting not just lower prices but also racial equity.”
“With over $280 billion in annual sales and 3,500 stores across the United States, the company is now selling itself as a solution to urban racial inequality.”
Wal-Mart’s “pitch” for conquering the “hood,” Chaddha explains, is to convince “poor people of color” that Wal-Mart means jobs and inexpensive goods.
What executives don’t mention is that the jobs come with notoriously low wages and that the company has cracked down on union organizing. But Wal-Mart executives know that poor people of color are in no position to be picky about who brings what jobs to the community.
Over 1.2 million workers make Wal-Mart the “largest private employer in the United States [and] also the leading employer of African American and Latino workers.”
Wal-Mart is not the only corporation capitalizing “amidst this urban gold rush for developers,” Chaddha explains. Staples, Marriott Hotel, and Ikea are just a few corporations spreading their wings in Black communities throughout the nation.
You can read and study Das Kapital until the heavily annotated pages of your copy fall loose from the book’s bind, but ultimately the students, particularly those on the margins of society, will teach.
Back in the classroom, I am at the board writing the new topic. I heard behind me, “she means ‘work.’” In other words, you should not work at Wal-Mart…
She has that wrong, of course—meaning, I have it wrong.
“Miss. Miss. Dr. Miss, don’t you mean ‘work” at Wal-Mart”?
“I mean ‘shop,’” I answer looking at the prompt again. Empathy, I say to myself.
“Shop?”
“What’s the problem?”
Why should we stop shopping at Wal-Mart?
What’s that gotta do with us?
“Health care for others?” I asked.
“Wal-Mart is cheap!”
“Don’t you know why?” I paint a picture featuring workers, women sitting in a room, working long hours, piecing together sneakers, shirts, pants—women earning slave wages. “There is the shopper from an urban area, you, the Wal-Mart worker with low wages and no health care benefits, and the sweatshop worker in China.”
Now, who is in the margins? I am someone out of touch with reality!
“Okay, please, start the essay.”
Some twenty hours later, I am transported to the “hood” as I read paper after paper praising Wal-Mart.
The items are cheap…
My family shops at Wal-Mart
If people fill out a job application at Wal-Mart, then they know they will not have health care benefits…
Corporations can’t afford to pay workers health care!
A sister works without health care, therefore…
Wal-Mart helps children!
Would that be the children of women working for slave wages at sweatshops in over 40 countries?
Is an hourly wage of a little more than $8 helping the children of Black and Latino/a workers at Wal-Mart?
The students did write a praise letter—in support of corporate leadership in their community!
The conquistadors have never stopped capitalizing on others with material resources and sellable labor. Tactics have changed not the strategy of conquering. “At opportune moments,” writes Frantz Fanon in Wretched of the Earth, “the [enemy] combines his policy of brutal repression with spectacular gestures of friendship, maneuvers calculated to sow division, (sic) and ‘psychological action.” The enemy employs “the traditional collaborates” and “the lumpenproletariat.” The enemy, Fanon continues,
discovers the existence, side by side with the disciplines and well-organized advance guard of rebellion, of a mass of men who participation is constantly at the mercy of their being for too long accustomed to physiological wretchedness, humiliation, and irresponsibility.
Convince the poor and undereducated that they have someone looking out for them!
Malcolm’s plea for the development of Black entrepreneurs and Black self-reliance—is damned! The Sam Walton’s of the world have been successful community organizers!
What was supposed to be a lesson in essay writing for these students becomes a lesson in the corporation’s growing interests in the lumpenproletariat.
When it comes to historical resistance against those who would withhold justice, freedom, indeed, human rights, Black Americans are on the record as coordinators of protest. As an enslaved population to budding capitalists, Black Americans were not human and certainly not citizens of the United States. To be white in the United States was not to be Black! Whites begin at one starting gate as immigrants and Blacks at another as enslaved labor.
Black Americans struggled to survive the brutality of slavery and protested the political and social oppression of legalized segregation. Most important, Black humanity is always in question, always at risk of being denied the right of recognition by those for whom the myth of white supremacy must sustain the superiority of Euro-Americans. In the face of this stubbornness, particularly directed at the Black community, Black resistance demands a constant stands of opposition, for we are far more vulnerable to the hatred of the mob—in the person of these modern-day, market-driven conquistadors.
Dissent, for any U.S. citizen, triggers the government’s law enforcement and military apparatus; however, dissent is perilous, particularly for Black Americans. Consider the long delay and the side winding maneuvers by the government when it came to civil rights for Black Americans and the systematic assassination of those Black leaders who called on the community to reject a demoralizing and a dehumanizing economic system.
The most vulnerable among us, writes Fanon, is the lumpenproletariat. “Any movement for freedom ought to give its fullest attention to this lumpenproletariat.” When it is feasible and profitable, the oppressor’s frown becomes a smile directed at the weak and vulnerable within the Black community. This segment of the community, starved for anything that will acknowledge its humanity, Fanon writes, “is so precarious and dim that it is affected by the slightest spark of kindness.” As willingly as the lumpenproletariat will work and then shop grateful on the new master’s plantation, he will pick up a police or military issue weapon and defend his right—to enslavement. If the leadership of rebellion fails to consider the growing masses of the “wretched of the earth,” writes Fanon, this mass of people “will throw itself into the battle and will take part in the conflict—but this time on the side of the oppressor.” The oppressor, on the other hand, “never loses a chance of setting the niggers against each other,” and the oppressor “will be skillful in using that ignorance and incomprehension,” characteristic of the lumpenproletariat, to his advantage.
The whole of Earth rattles as it tries to absorb such an unholy alliance.
We praise the workers and students in the Honduras, in Iran, in France. We praised the workers at Republic Windows in Chicago when they locked themselves behind the doors of their workplace and refused to permit owners to leave them without work, pay—an explanation. In the confines of the hood (as opposed to Black neighborhoods), the corporations are uniting corporate strategists with the servitude of weakened Red, Black, and Brown people. Genocide has a corporate smiley face, but the Left is silent. It is no wonder that similar to the corporate conquistadors, the Black lumpenproletariat lacks all empathy for humanity—including her own when lead by the likes of the Walton Klan!
The culpability of the Left notwithstanding, the Left has a responsibility to challenge corporations and corporate strategies that privatize the minds and bodies of the lumpenproletariat and ultimately weakens the Left’s overall opposition to the corporate-military complex.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
President Obama: Tell the People Again: “Not a Pax Americana Enforced on the World by American Weapons of War.”
I have, therefore, chose this time and this place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is to rarely perceived - - yet it is the most important topic on earth : world peace.
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace - - the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living -- the kind that enables man and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children - - not merely peace for Americans by peace for all men and women - - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all of the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by the wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations unborn.
President John F. Kennedy
June 10, 1963, American University's Spring Commencement
The world is waiting for the newest Deciders to decide the fate of Afghani citizens and thousands of U.S. troops preparing to deploy to the land where Empires come to die. Do I send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan? He is thinking or, rather for General Stanley McCrystal, stalling the Empire’s Manifest Destiny plans.
President Barrack Obama wants new troop plans!
The U.S. government believes war is the answer. No resistance will go unpunished and no excuses will be tolerated. War and more war is the only reasonable course of action.
I came across an interview with author Gordon Goldstein (Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam) on C-Span. Near the end of his life, Bundy, who served as National Advisor for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, admitted that the Vietnam War could not be won and should not have been fought, said Goldstein. This was Bundy’s “lesson of disaster.” When Kennedy, in 1961, faced the first proposal by his generals and advisors to send ground combat forces, some 200,000, to Vietnam, Goldstein recalled, he was encircled by war hawks who promoted the proposal for war. Kennedy, skeptical that the U.S. could prevail in Vietnam, held his ground and denied their request. Kennedy’s courage in 1961, Goldstein suggests, should inspire a President Obama in 2009 as he decides on McCrystal’s proposal to send 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan.
Kennedy’s “courage” did not end the pursuit of war for Bundy, McNamara, LeMay, and Wall Street bankers. Something else needs contemplation.
I also remember the Kennedy of November 22, 1963.
Kennedy was assassinated. Many believe Kennedy, as does private investigator John Judge and others that the generals, headed by Joint Chief of Staff, Curtis LeMay, gave the order because Kennedy said NO to war. The full history of the U.S. and its engagement in violence includes war and assassinations.
All the rhetoric of American innocence cannot clean away the contamination of American violence. There are unfortunate consequences for challenging the War Lords and war profiteers in the U.S.! Our anti-war stance should include a debate on those assignations associated with war industry.
Surely the Decider is considering his immediate surroundings there in Washington D.C. where the extremists, he himself placed around him, make him pause. It is a matter of strategy, now, Goldstein points out. Then, for Kennedy, it was about the numbers. It is strategy now. Strategy.
Before November 5, 2009, when Major Nidal M. Hasan, Army Psychiatrist, decided to point his non-military guns and kill 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian and wound 31 soldiers, the Fort Hood community experienced on the average some 10 suicides per month. A reported 75 soldiers have taken their own lives at Fort Hood this year. Those are the numbers. The strategy at Fort Hood is to deploy troops anyway. Blood has to be spilled in order to sustain the madness. People have to suffer for the Empire to stay alive.
American born son of Palestinian parents, Major Hasan had recently received his marching orders: He was on his way to war in Afghanistan. From all reports, the news came at a time when Hasan was becoming a devoted Muslim, particularly since arriving at Fort Hood in July after his transfer from Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He went mad thinking about a war he did not yet see.
But Hasan saw something while he listened, observed, and counseled returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan. What did he see when he sat before Americans traumatized by war but who spoke of the “enemy” while describing their actions in combat?
Did he project an image of himself in a country surrounded by the enemy as an American or as a Muslim? Did he see fellow soldiers like those he counseled, standing beside him, one minute speaking of him as the “camel jockey” and, the other minute, storming a village home occupied by women and children?
Did he ever think—how did he and these soldiers get to this place where the business is to kill or be killed?
And the drones from the Third Estate push on: Is he a Muslim? An Extremist? Did Hasan, as one report asked, harbor extremist thoughts? Would that be killing? Would that be killing?
An honest debate would have to recognize the expression of cruelty on the ground at Fort Hood, further lessons of disaster that are labeled as singular and monstrous aberrations of a sick mind. Citizens of a beloved community would have to put themselves in Hasan’s shoes and experience the shaky foundation. Am I an enemy, a Muslim or am I an American—a potential American hero? Who is courageous enough to step into those shoes when it is easier to speak of a Muslim, a singular monster, an extremist? Do extremists reside in some particular geographic space and are they distinguishable from their thoughts—thoughts about killing?
In the frantic rush to discover a motive, a video tape emerges. It is from June 2007 when Major Hasan was a senior-year psychiatrist at Walter Reed. The residents and interns are presenting to their classmates and supervisors on medical topics. Hasan opts to discuss, according to Washington Post writer, Dana Priest, “Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan.” It is an odd power-point presentation, an elephant among a sea of hopeful residents and interns talking about—what?—medical treatment for the severely wounded by IEDs, perhaps? Is this presentation the evidence that Hasan was mad? Is this it? Is this the moment—sure to pass as a usable lesson, until another moment, in which, to everyone’s horror, another Hasan or even John Smith arises and says no?
Behind Hasan are thousands of enlisted ready to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan—thousands considering the consequences of war.
The Decider, too, has to consider war—U.S. style—where killing and dying for War Lords and war profiteers makes heroes to mourn at Arlington National Cemetery.
What happens if President Obama backs off? If he decides that war is not the answer and request a withdrawal immediately of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? What if he used his rhetorical skills, for once, wisely, and he recalls Eisenhower’s warning about the military industrial complex and its accompanying intelligence agencies? How would the world respond? How would citizens in the U.S. respond if the drones for war assure them that war is reasonable? How swift would the real Deciders take their revenge?
The Deciders born and breed of capitalism are relentless.
But there are some people who are courageous and not deterred by the insanity of war.
At Fort Hood, on November 10, Private Michael Kerns was present at the memorial services attended by President Obama and the First Lady where, ironically, our man of peace will speak of justice paying a visit to Hasan while he withholds justice for the War Lords and profiteers. Kerns, trained to kill, puts his weapon aside. Instead, a member of Iraq Veterans against the War, he holds out a letter, plea for sanity, in which he attempts to hand to President Obama. The Commander-in-Chief, the Decider, greets Kern until he sees the letter. He doesn’t shake Kerns hand. Instead, he, the Decider, decides the letter is not part of the procedures, not proper protocol. He moves on to the next soldier in line. The secret service secured the letter!
President Obama:
In your recent comments on the Fort Hood tragedy, you stated ‘These are men and women who have made the selfless and courageous decision to risk and at times give their lives to protect the rest of us on a daily basis. It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil.’ Sir, we have been losing these brave Americans on American soil for years, due to the mental health problems that come after deployment, which include post-traumatic stress disorder, and often, suicide.
You also said that ‘We will continue to support the community with the full resources of the federal government.’ Sir, we appreciate that — but what we need is not more FBI or Homeland Security personnel swarming Fort Hood. What we need is full mental healthcare for all soldiers serving in the Army. What happened at Fort Hood has made it abundantly clear that the military mental health system, and our soldiers, are (sic) broken.
You said ‘We will make sure that we will get answers to every single question about this terrible incident.’ Sir, one of the answers is self evident: that a strained military cannot continue without better mental healthcare for all soldiers.
You stated that ‘As Commander-in-Chief, there's no greater honor but also no greater responsibility for me than to make sure that the extraordinary men and women in uniform are properly cared for.’ Sir, we urge you to carry out your promise and ensure that our service members indeed have access to quality mental health care. The Army has only 408 psychiatrists — military, civilian and contractors — serving about 553,000 active-duty troops around the world. This is far too few, and the providers that exist are often not competent professionals, as this incident shows. Military wages cannot attract the quality psychiatrists we need to care for these returning soldiers.
We ask that:
1. Each soldier about to be deployed and returning from deployment be assigned a mental health provider who will reach out to them, rather than requiring them to initiate the search for help.
2. Ensure that the stigma of seeking care for mental health issues is removed for soldiers at all levels-from junior enlisted to senior enlisted and officers alike.
3. Ensure that if mental health care is not available from military facilities, soldiers can seek mental health care with civilian providers of their choice
4. Ensure that soldiers are prevented from deploying with mental health problems and issues.
5. Stop multiple redeployments of the same troops.
6. Ensure full background checks for all mental health providers and periodic check ups for them to decompress from the stresses they shoulder from the soldiers they counsel to the workload they endure.
Sir, we hope that you will make the decision not to deploy one single Fort Hood troop without ensuring that all have had access to fair and impartial mental health screening and treatment.
You have stated on a number of occasions, starting during your campaign, how important our military and veterans are to this nation. The best way to safeguard the soldiers of this nation is to provide ALL soldiers with immediate, personal and professional mental health resources.
Iraq Veterans Against the War
Will he, President Obama, listen to the soldiers? Will he hear what Hasan heard about war? Will he as Commander-in-Chief keep his promise and provide the care these veterans require after they return from theatre, as the War Lords call it?
What happened at Fort Hood has made it abundantly clear that the military mental health system, and our soldiers,(sic) are broken.
It is not just the soldiers who are broken. In the years since November 22, 1963, the U.S. has fought a never-ending stream of war and the military and military intelligence budget has soared to the detriment of domestic security. We have trained a generation of young people to torture only to be tortured by their memories. We have produced enemies who sincerely hate because they are hated. And yet the war Lords and profiteers are still willing and able to kill presidents and soldiers for the blood and gore (not glory) of war to continue. War is too profitable and presidents, soldiers, and citizens who get in the way are thought by them to be expendable. How far we have come from 1961 when Kennedy thought this nation capable of being “confident and unafraid” to “labor on - - not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace”?
We, citizens of the U.S., have a second chance again to say NO war to the military and intelligence War Lords and profiteers in Washington D.C. and to McCrystal and his cadre of sable rattlers.
We have a second chance and may not have another!
What kind of peace do I mean? What kind of peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace - - the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living -- the kind that enables man and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children - - not merely peace for Americans by peace for all men and women - - not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.
I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age when great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age when a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all of the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by the wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations unborn.
President John F. Kennedy
June 10, 1963, American University's Spring Commencement
The world is waiting for the newest Deciders to decide the fate of Afghani citizens and thousands of U.S. troops preparing to deploy to the land where Empires come to die. Do I send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan? He is thinking or, rather for General Stanley McCrystal, stalling the Empire’s Manifest Destiny plans.
President Barrack Obama wants new troop plans!
The U.S. government believes war is the answer. No resistance will go unpunished and no excuses will be tolerated. War and more war is the only reasonable course of action.
I came across an interview with author Gordon Goldstein (Lessons in Disaster: McGeorge Bundy and the Path to War in Vietnam) on C-Span. Near the end of his life, Bundy, who served as National Advisor for Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, admitted that the Vietnam War could not be won and should not have been fought, said Goldstein. This was Bundy’s “lesson of disaster.” When Kennedy, in 1961, faced the first proposal by his generals and advisors to send ground combat forces, some 200,000, to Vietnam, Goldstein recalled, he was encircled by war hawks who promoted the proposal for war. Kennedy, skeptical that the U.S. could prevail in Vietnam, held his ground and denied their request. Kennedy’s courage in 1961, Goldstein suggests, should inspire a President Obama in 2009 as he decides on McCrystal’s proposal to send 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan.
Kennedy’s “courage” did not end the pursuit of war for Bundy, McNamara, LeMay, and Wall Street bankers. Something else needs contemplation.
I also remember the Kennedy of November 22, 1963.
Kennedy was assassinated. Many believe Kennedy, as does private investigator John Judge and others that the generals, headed by Joint Chief of Staff, Curtis LeMay, gave the order because Kennedy said NO to war. The full history of the U.S. and its engagement in violence includes war and assassinations.
All the rhetoric of American innocence cannot clean away the contamination of American violence. There are unfortunate consequences for challenging the War Lords and war profiteers in the U.S.! Our anti-war stance should include a debate on those assignations associated with war industry.
Surely the Decider is considering his immediate surroundings there in Washington D.C. where the extremists, he himself placed around him, make him pause. It is a matter of strategy, now, Goldstein points out. Then, for Kennedy, it was about the numbers. It is strategy now. Strategy.
Before November 5, 2009, when Major Nidal M. Hasan, Army Psychiatrist, decided to point his non-military guns and kill 12 fellow soldiers and one civilian and wound 31 soldiers, the Fort Hood community experienced on the average some 10 suicides per month. A reported 75 soldiers have taken their own lives at Fort Hood this year. Those are the numbers. The strategy at Fort Hood is to deploy troops anyway. Blood has to be spilled in order to sustain the madness. People have to suffer for the Empire to stay alive.
American born son of Palestinian parents, Major Hasan had recently received his marching orders: He was on his way to war in Afghanistan. From all reports, the news came at a time when Hasan was becoming a devoted Muslim, particularly since arriving at Fort Hood in July after his transfer from Walter Reed Army Medical Center. He went mad thinking about a war he did not yet see.
But Hasan saw something while he listened, observed, and counseled returning vets from Iraq and Afghanistan. What did he see when he sat before Americans traumatized by war but who spoke of the “enemy” while describing their actions in combat?
Did he project an image of himself in a country surrounded by the enemy as an American or as a Muslim? Did he see fellow soldiers like those he counseled, standing beside him, one minute speaking of him as the “camel jockey” and, the other minute, storming a village home occupied by women and children?
Did he ever think—how did he and these soldiers get to this place where the business is to kill or be killed?
And the drones from the Third Estate push on: Is he a Muslim? An Extremist? Did Hasan, as one report asked, harbor extremist thoughts? Would that be killing? Would that be killing?
An honest debate would have to recognize the expression of cruelty on the ground at Fort Hood, further lessons of disaster that are labeled as singular and monstrous aberrations of a sick mind. Citizens of a beloved community would have to put themselves in Hasan’s shoes and experience the shaky foundation. Am I an enemy, a Muslim or am I an American—a potential American hero? Who is courageous enough to step into those shoes when it is easier to speak of a Muslim, a singular monster, an extremist? Do extremists reside in some particular geographic space and are they distinguishable from their thoughts—thoughts about killing?
In the frantic rush to discover a motive, a video tape emerges. It is from June 2007 when Major Hasan was a senior-year psychiatrist at Walter Reed. The residents and interns are presenting to their classmates and supervisors on medical topics. Hasan opts to discuss, according to Washington Post writer, Dana Priest, “Islam, suicide bombers and threats the military could encounter from Muslims conflicted about fighting in the Muslim countries of Iraq and Afghanistan.” It is an odd power-point presentation, an elephant among a sea of hopeful residents and interns talking about—what?—medical treatment for the severely wounded by IEDs, perhaps? Is this presentation the evidence that Hasan was mad? Is this it? Is this the moment—sure to pass as a usable lesson, until another moment, in which, to everyone’s horror, another Hasan or even John Smith arises and says no?
Behind Hasan are thousands of enlisted ready to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan—thousands considering the consequences of war.
The Decider, too, has to consider war—U.S. style—where killing and dying for War Lords and war profiteers makes heroes to mourn at Arlington National Cemetery.
What happens if President Obama backs off? If he decides that war is not the answer and request a withdrawal immediately of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan? What if he used his rhetorical skills, for once, wisely, and he recalls Eisenhower’s warning about the military industrial complex and its accompanying intelligence agencies? How would the world respond? How would citizens in the U.S. respond if the drones for war assure them that war is reasonable? How swift would the real Deciders take their revenge?
The Deciders born and breed of capitalism are relentless.
But there are some people who are courageous and not deterred by the insanity of war.
At Fort Hood, on November 10, Private Michael Kerns was present at the memorial services attended by President Obama and the First Lady where, ironically, our man of peace will speak of justice paying a visit to Hasan while he withholds justice for the War Lords and profiteers. Kerns, trained to kill, puts his weapon aside. Instead, a member of Iraq Veterans against the War, he holds out a letter, plea for sanity, in which he attempts to hand to President Obama. The Commander-in-Chief, the Decider, greets Kern until he sees the letter. He doesn’t shake Kerns hand. Instead, he, the Decider, decides the letter is not part of the procedures, not proper protocol. He moves on to the next soldier in line. The secret service secured the letter!
President Obama:
In your recent comments on the Fort Hood tragedy, you stated ‘These are men and women who have made the selfless and courageous decision to risk and at times give their lives to protect the rest of us on a daily basis. It's difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil.’ Sir, we have been losing these brave Americans on American soil for years, due to the mental health problems that come after deployment, which include post-traumatic stress disorder, and often, suicide.
You also said that ‘We will continue to support the community with the full resources of the federal government.’ Sir, we appreciate that — but what we need is not more FBI or Homeland Security personnel swarming Fort Hood. What we need is full mental healthcare for all soldiers serving in the Army. What happened at Fort Hood has made it abundantly clear that the military mental health system, and our soldiers, are (sic) broken.
You said ‘We will make sure that we will get answers to every single question about this terrible incident.’ Sir, one of the answers is self evident: that a strained military cannot continue without better mental healthcare for all soldiers.
You stated that ‘As Commander-in-Chief, there's no greater honor but also no greater responsibility for me than to make sure that the extraordinary men and women in uniform are properly cared for.’ Sir, we urge you to carry out your promise and ensure that our service members indeed have access to quality mental health care. The Army has only 408 psychiatrists — military, civilian and contractors — serving about 553,000 active-duty troops around the world. This is far too few, and the providers that exist are often not competent professionals, as this incident shows. Military wages cannot attract the quality psychiatrists we need to care for these returning soldiers.
We ask that:
1. Each soldier about to be deployed and returning from deployment be assigned a mental health provider who will reach out to them, rather than requiring them to initiate the search for help.
2. Ensure that the stigma of seeking care for mental health issues is removed for soldiers at all levels-from junior enlisted to senior enlisted and officers alike.
3. Ensure that if mental health care is not available from military facilities, soldiers can seek mental health care with civilian providers of their choice
4. Ensure that soldiers are prevented from deploying with mental health problems and issues.
5. Stop multiple redeployments of the same troops.
6. Ensure full background checks for all mental health providers and periodic check ups for them to decompress from the stresses they shoulder from the soldiers they counsel to the workload they endure.
Sir, we hope that you will make the decision not to deploy one single Fort Hood troop without ensuring that all have had access to fair and impartial mental health screening and treatment.
You have stated on a number of occasions, starting during your campaign, how important our military and veterans are to this nation. The best way to safeguard the soldiers of this nation is to provide ALL soldiers with immediate, personal and professional mental health resources.
Iraq Veterans Against the War
Will he, President Obama, listen to the soldiers? Will he hear what Hasan heard about war? Will he as Commander-in-Chief keep his promise and provide the care these veterans require after they return from theatre, as the War Lords call it?
What happened at Fort Hood has made it abundantly clear that the military mental health system, and our soldiers,(sic) are broken.
It is not just the soldiers who are broken. In the years since November 22, 1963, the U.S. has fought a never-ending stream of war and the military and military intelligence budget has soared to the detriment of domestic security. We have trained a generation of young people to torture only to be tortured by their memories. We have produced enemies who sincerely hate because they are hated. And yet the war Lords and profiteers are still willing and able to kill presidents and soldiers for the blood and gore (not glory) of war to continue. War is too profitable and presidents, soldiers, and citizens who get in the way are thought by them to be expendable. How far we have come from 1961 when Kennedy thought this nation capable of being “confident and unafraid” to “labor on - - not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace”?
We, citizens of the U.S., have a second chance again to say NO war to the military and intelligence War Lords and profiteers in Washington D.C. and to McCrystal and his cadre of sable rattlers.
We have a second chance and may not have another!
Friday, August 21, 2009
Thoughts for the Day
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Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Leonard Peltier and the Indigenous People: Our Lives Have Meaning
Leonard Peltier and the Indigenous People: Our Lives Have Meaning
I know this. My life has a meaning. I refuse to believe that this existence, our time on Mother Earth, is meaningless. I believe that the Creator, Wakan Tanka, has shaped each of our lives for a reason. I don’t know what that reason is. Maybe I’ll never know. But you don’t have to know the meaning of life to know that life has a meaning.
Leonard Peltier,
Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance
Spiritual warrior of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nation, Leonard Peltier is 65 years old. In 1977, the
Another day ends. That’s good. But now another night is beginning. And that’s bad. The nights are worse. The days just happen to you. The night you’ve got to imagine, to conjure up, all by yourself. They’re the stuff of your own nightmares. The lights go down but they never quite go out in here. Shadows lurk everywhere. Shadows within shadows. I’m one of those shadows myself. I, Leonard Peltier. Also known in my native country of
For three years, since the end of the 71-day takeover of
The people of Oglala had had enough. As they had done in 1973, when they requested the help of the American Indian Movement (AIM) at
Thirty-four years ago, on
Peltier remembers resting near the homes where the women were doing the laundry. He heard shooting and dismissed it at first, until he heard screaming. “My job was to protect the terrified people,” wrote Peltier (Prison Writings). He led the people away from the “dead zone” to a gulley where they prayed.
AIM activist Joe Stuntz and the two Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams were dead. Stuntz was shot in the head. To this today, neither Stuntz’s murder nor the murders of 60 Oglala people were ever investigated. A few days later, the body of another AIM activist Anna Mae Aquash was found murdered.
Bob Robideau and Dino Butler were captured at charged with double murder. Both men contended that they were defending the people who had for so long experienced an atmosphere of terror at Pine Ridge. The jury found them not guilty. The FBI cried foul! They set about to stack the deck on Peltier who was fighting extradition from
“Peltier's conviction is one of the worst examples of government manipulation of the justice process in American history,” according to Dan Skye, June 2009, “Leonard Peltier Parole Hearing July 27, 2009.” “In 1977… the judge disallowed testimony describing the state of open warfare that existed on Pine Ridge, nor was Peltier allowed to claim self-defense. Later, an appeals judge called the conduct of the FBI ‘a clear violation of the investigative process.’” By the time the trial ended, it was Peltier’s red and white van (not a red pick up truck now) that was just ahead of the two unmarked car. It was Peltier’s rifle that shot the officers “point blank.” Peltier is sentenced for crimes in which “false affidavits” were used as evidence and witnesses were “intimidated” and “coerced” into testifying against Peltier (Skye).
The Spiritual warrior of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Nation, entered the hellhole that can only be conjured by hate and fear for people who struggle for freedom.
During the 1960s, Peltier worked as a farmer and then an auto shop worker in
My own personal story can't be told, even in this abbreviated version, without going back long before my own birth on September 12, 1944, back to 1890 and to 1876 and to 1851 and, yes, all the way back through all the other calamitous dates in the relations between the red men and white, back to that darkest day of all in human history: October 12, 1492, when our Great Sorrow began (Peltier).
Some people know the facts surrounding
long before the 1948 Nakba in
A First people, the Indigenous People of the Americas, abused by European forces and then by the might of the United States is expected to be forgetful and further assist in their own annihilation by assimilating to the rulers of capitalism and to foreign beliefs and values.
Give up the fight or at least remain silent!
Silence, they say, is the voice of complicity.
But silence is impossible.
Silence screams.
Silence is a message,
just as doing nothing is an act
Let who you are ring out and resonate
in every word and every deed.
Yes, become who you are.
There's no sidestepping your own being
or your own responsibility.
What you do is who you are.
You are your own comeuppance.
You become your own message.
You are the message.
Peltier, “The Message”
The Great Sorrow, while victimizing the Indigenous People of Americas, has not diminished the peoples’ knowledge of their history and relationship with the Mother Earth.
I had the honor to speak by phone with Tiokasin Ghosthorse, master musician and flutist, storyteller, poet, university lecturer, scholar, essayist, human rights activist, and host of First Voices Indigenous Radio (WBAI). “We are not claiming to be victims,” Ghosthorse said. “We’ve known we have always been out of the box.”
Ghosthorse is a survivor of the official Reign of Terror, 1972-1976. But the Reign of Terror began long before 1972. During the 1960s, Ghosthorse explained, the mining for uranium on the Pine Ridge Reservation included more than mining of the land: it mined the spirit of the people. “Some people ended up working for the government on those projects while it was said of the ‘traditional’ people that we were ‘backward.’”
But traditionalist persisted, as has the Reign of Terror, he said.
“The Reign of Terror began long before the years of 1972-1976. Before that things were happening,” Ghosthorse recalls. The government came and told the Nation that thousands of Lakota people living near the
The Reign of Terror precedes the official beginnings of the COINTELPRO FBI program. As early as the 1950s, “if you said you didn’t like the system, you were deemed a dissident.” And the police state continues today.
Ghosthorse explains that in 1999, 2000, and 2001, 9 men, educated in both traditional and at non-Indigenous
Currently, at Pine Ridge, “the life span of men is down to 40 years of age. It used to be 120.” Women’s life span is 45 years of age. “Sixty-four percent of our population is 20 years.” That means most of our young people “are without parents and grandparents,” Ghosthorse said.
He remembers that in his own childhood, he walked to school, dodging the GOONs and the FBI. “Everyone walked. But we knew where to walk and where not to walk.” The people devised ways to walk where the GOONs and FBI agents wouldn’t drive their cars. But people were “maimed for life and wounded” during this period. Many were killed, “far more than 60 people.”
The culture of greed fuels the continuation of the Reign of Terror against the Indigenous People whose understanding of “freedom” precedes the imposition of capitalist values.
If we were dealing with truth, the
But, Ghosthorse added, if we use “the language of the government…we are not going to get anywhere. We are going to stand until we get it—our ‘freedom.’”
“It’s about who we are—not were.”
“We have always been poor,” Ghosthorse concluded, “but we’ve been the riches in spirit. This is what the government does not want Americans to know. [But] if we forget who we are, this country is lost.”
The persecution of elder Leonard Peltier is intended to conceal the attack against spiritual warriors who attempt to defend the Indigenous People against the violence of the
The meaning of Peltier’s life is linked to the meaning of freedom for the Indigenous People.
This spirit of Crazy Horse is a spirit of being in total resistance to the wrongs perpetrated towards your people, community, family and yourself. It is when we make a conscious choice to try and balance the wrongs in this society that we are being compelled by this spirit of resistance to stand in defense of the wronged.
Leonard Peltier, “Letter Written November 5, 2008 ,” San Francisco
AIM Casualties on Pine Ridge, 1973-1976
4.17.73-Frank
4.23.73-Between eight and twelve individuals (names unknown) packing supplies into
4.27.73-Buddy Lamont-AIM member hit by M16 fire at
6.19.73-Clarence Cross-AIM supporter shot to death in ambush by Goons. Although assailants were identified by eyewitnesses, brother Vernal Cross-wounded in ambush-was briefly charged with crime. No further investigation.
4.14.73-Priscilla White Plume-AIM supporter killed at Manderson by Goons. No investigation.
7.30.73-Julius Bad Heart Bull-AIM supporter killed at Oglala AIM supporter killed at Oglala by “person or persons unknown.” No investigation.
9.22.73-Melvin Spider-AIM member killed Porcupine,
9.23.73-Philip Black Elk-AIM supporter killed when his house exploded. No investigation.
10.5.73-Aloysius Long Soldier-AIM member killed at
10.10.73-Phillip Little Crow-AIM supporter beaten to death by Goons at Pine Ridge. No investigation.
10.17.73-Pedro Bissonette-Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO) organizer and AIM supporter assassinated by BIA Police/Goons. Body removed from Pine Ridge jurisdiction prior to autopsy by government contract coroner. No investigation.
11.20.73-Allison Fast Horse-AIM supporter shot to death near Pine Ridge by “unknown assailants.” No investigation.
1.17.74-Edward Means, Jr.-AIM member found dead in Pine Ridge alley, beaten. No investigation.
2.27.74-Edward Standing Soldier-AIM member killed near Pine Ridge by “party r parties unknown.” No investigation.
4.19.74-Roxeine Roark-AIM supporter killed at Porcupine by “unknown assailants.” Investigation open, still “pending.”
9.7.74-Dennis LeCompte-AIM member killed at Pine Ridge by Goons. No investigation.
9.11.74-Jackson
9.16.74-Robert Reddy-AIM member killed at Kyle by gunshot. No investigation.
11.16.74-Delphine Crow Dog-sister of AIM spiritual leader Leonard Crow Dog. Beaten by BIA police and left lying in a field. Died from "exposure." No investigation.
11.20.74-Elaine Wagner-AIM supporter killed at Pine Ridge by “person or persons unknown.” No investigation.
12.25.75-Floyd S. Binais-AIM supporter killed at Pine Ridge by Goons. No investigation.
12.28.74-Yvette Loraine Lone Hill-AIM supporter killed at Kyle by “unknown party or parties.” No investigation.
1.5.75-Leon L. Swift Bird-AIM member killed at Pine Ridge by Goons. Investigation still “ongoing.”
3.1.75-Martin Montileaux-killed in a Scenic, S.D. bar. AIM leader Richard Marshall later framed for his murder. Russell Means also charged and acquitted.
3.20.75-Stacy Cotter-shot to death in an ambush at Manderson. No investigation.
3.21.75-Edith Eagle Hawk and her two children-AIM supporter killed in an automobile accident after being run off the run by a white vigilante, Albert Coomes. Coomes was also killed in the accident. Goon Mark Clifford identified as having also been in the Coomes car, escaped. Investigation closed without questioning Clifford.
3.27.75-Jeanette Bissonette-AIM supporter killed by sniper at Pine Ridge. Unsuccessful attempt to link AIM members to murder; no other investigation.
3.30.75-Richard Eagle-grandson of AIM supporter Gladys Bissonette killed while playing with loaded gun kept in the house as protection from Goon attacks.
4.4.75-Hilda R. Good
4.4.75-Jancita Eagle Deer-AIM member beaten and run over with automobile. Last seen in the company of provocateur Douglass Durham. No investigation.
5.20.75-Ben Sitting Up-AIM member killed at Wanblee by “unknown assailants.” No investigation.
6.1.75-Kenneth Little-AIM supporter killed at Pine Ridge by Goons. Investigation still “pending.”
6.15.75-Leah Spotted Elk-AIM supporter at Pine Ridge by Goons. No investigation.
6.26.75-Joseph Stuntz Killsright-AIM member killed by FBI sniper during Oglala firefight. No investigation.
7.12.75-James Briggs Yellow-heart attack caused by FBI air assault on his home. No investigation.
7.25.75-Andrew Paul Stewart-nephew of AIM spiritual leader Leonard Crow Dog, killed by Goons on Pine Ridge. No investigation.
8.25.75-Randy Hunter-AIM supporter killed at Kyle by “party or parties unknown.” Investigation still “ongoing.”
9.9.75-Howard Blue Bird-AIM supporter killed at Pine Ridge by Goons. No investigation.
9.10.75-Jim Little-AIM stomped to death by Goons in Oglala. No investigation.
10.26.75-Olivia Binais-AIM supporter killed in Porcupine by “person or persons unknown.” Investigation still “open.”
10.26.75-Janice Black Bear-AIM supporter killed at Manderson by Goons. No investigation.
10.27.75-Michelle Tobacco-AIM supporter killed at Pine Ridge by “unknown persons.” No investigation.
12.6.75-Carl Plenty Arrows, Sr.-AIM supporter killed at Pine Ridge by “unknown persons.” No investigation.
12.6.75-Frank LaPointe-AIM supporter killed at Pine Ridge by Goons. No investigation.
2.76-Anna Mae Pictou Aquash-AIM organizer assassinated on Pine Ridge. FBI involved in attempt to conceal cause of death. Ongoing attempt to establish “AIM involvement” in murder. Key FBI personnel never deposed. Coroner never deposed. [to testify or bear witness, especially on oath in court].
1.5.76-Lydia Cut Grass-AIM member killed at
1.30.76-Byron DeSersa-OSCRO organizer and AIM supporter assassinated by Goons in Wanblee. Arrests by local authorities resulted in two Goons-Dale Janis and Charlie Winters-serving two years of five year sentences for “manslaughter.” Charges dropped against two Goon leaders, Manny Wilson and Chuck Richards, on the basis of “self-defense” despite DeSersa having been unarmed when shot to death.
2.6.76-Lena R. Slow Bear-AIM supporter killed at Oglala by Goons. No investigation.
3.1.76-Hobart Horse-AIM member beaten, shot, and repeatedly run over with automobile at Sharp's Corners. No investigation.
3.26.76-Cleveland Reddest-AIM member killed at Kyle by “person or persons unknown.” No investigation.
4.28.76-Betty Jo Dubray-AIM supporter beaten to death at
5.6.76-Marvin Two Two-Aim supporter shot to death at Pine Ridge. No investigation.
5.9.76-Juia Pretty Hips-AIM supporter killed at Pine Ridge by unknown assailants.” No investigation.
5.24.76-Sam Afraid of Bear-AIM supporter shot to death at Pine Ridge. Investigation “ongoing.”
6.4.76-Kevin Hill-AIM supporter killed at Oglala by “party or parties unknown.” Investigation “still open.”
7.3.76-Betty Means-AIM member killed at Pine Ridge by Goons. No investigation.
7.31.76-Sandra Wounded Foot-AIM supporter killed at Sharp's Corners by “unknown assailants.” No investigation.
From “AIM, Pine Ridge and the FBI”
http://www.dickshovel.com/Aim.Pine.html
Leonard Peltier Defense/Offense Committee:
Friday, August 14, 2009
Obama-- Have You Ever Heard the Story about the First Democratically-Elected President of the Congo?
Obama--
Have You Ever Heard the Story about the First Democratically-Elected President of the
My Dear Wife,
I am writing this without knowing whether you will ever get it or when or whether I shall still be alive when you read it...
Dead or alive, free or imprisoned by the colonialists, it is not I who matter, it is the
For where there is no dignity there is no freedom and where there's no justice there's no dignity and where there's no independence there are no free men...
History will have its say one day…
Not the history they teach in
Do not weep my love; I know that my country, which has suffered so much, will be able to defend its independence and liberty.
Long live the
He didn’t sit atop a throne, or darn himself in gold chains or a uniform heavy with shiny metal. He didn’t ask the people to bow but rather rise with him. Stand side by side with him. He point to their condition: colonized, enslaved, abused. Worse, their history had been stolen. Memory of another time when they honored the land and each other had been replaced with a history that spoke of their inferiority. Recount how we are depicted as animals. See the demoralization of our children. Feel how we are made to live in fear. We are equals to the white man, the Belgian. We are a people from a great civilization beyond this imposed “civilization” that has made us the “wretched of the earth.”
Above ground, men from other lands surround our material resources while we labor beneath the ground pulling up copper, cobalt, diamonds, and other minerals that are shipped off to other lands to provide “civilization” for Europeans and
And what do we know about freedom?
The people came. They wanted to hear more. They had been thinking but dared to articulate what this man was saying to them. Take responsibility, he said. Stand up and we’ll stand together. To the elite Blacks he said, join us, for we are human and this is our land and we have a right to control our land. Lies for generations tell us otherwise. Lies tell us that we belong to the King and the land, too. We can’t remain silent any longer. The “wretched of the earth” must rise! We want a democracy here in the
All of
Patrice Lumumba—not monkey, not ape—but the son of a farmer, the son and brother of Congolese who declare independent, freedom, the right to form a democracy and rid the Congo of the corruption and violence of the Belgian rule.
Patrice Lumumba and we are organizing to take control of our people and our land.
Patrice Lumumba and we are taking responsibility for the
This was not the first time a people rose up and took responsibility for their destiny, a people rose up and said enough of watching people suffer, people brutalized, people staving and dying from thirst, people without shelter, without education, without medical care, but forced to work until they died while others lived from the human carnage.
Another democratically-elected president Arbenz in
Yes, declared the CIA. He’s a communist! And again the CIA swooped down and reestablished order. Arbenz ran for his life. The elites and foreign took control again and the peasants, evil’s accomplices, were imprisoned, tortured and slaughter by the thousand. Even closer than
Did Lumumba know of this traditional method of securing democracy in post-colonial countries?
He has hope and big ideas. The people were willing.
The Europeans and the
On
But Lumumba, first democratically-elected president of the
Good to see King Baudouin and the other
For this independence of the Congo, even as it is celebrated today with Belgium, a friendly country with whom we deal as equal to equal, no Congolese worthy of the name will ever be able to forget that is was by fighting that it has been won [applause], a day-to-day fight, an ardent and idealistic fight, a fight in which we were spared neither privation nor suffering, and for which we gave our strength and our blood.
We are proud of this struggle, of tears, of fire, and of blood, to the depths of our being, for it was a noble and just struggle, and indispensable to put an end to the humiliating slavery which was imposed upon us by force.
This was our fate for eighty years of a colonial regime; our wounds are too fresh and too painful still for us to drive them from our memory. We have known harassing work, exacted in exchange for salaries which did not permit us to eat enough to drive away hunger, or to clothe ourselves, or to house ourselves decently, or to raise our children as creatures dear to us.
We have known ironies, insults, blows that we endured morning,
We have seen our lands seized in the name of allegedly legal laws which in fact recognized only that might is right.
We have seen that the law was not the same for a white and for a black, accommodating for the first, cruel and inhuman for the other.
We have witnessed atrocious sufferings of those condemned for their political opinions or religious beliefs; exiled in their own country, their fate truly worse than death itself.
We have seen that in the towns there were magnificent houses for the whites and crumbling shanties for the blacks, that a black was not admitted in the motion-picture houses, in the restaurants, in the stores of the Europeans; that a black traveled in the holds, at the feet of the whites in their luxury cabins.
Who will ever forget the massacres where so many of our brothers perished, the cells into which those who refused to submit to a regime of oppression and exploitation were thrown [applause]?
All that, my brothers, we have endured...
But we, whom the vote of your elected representatives have given the right to direct our dear country, we who have suffered in our body and in our heart from colonial oppression, we tell you very loud, all that is henceforth ended.
The Republic of the
Together, my brothers, my sisters, we are going to begin a new struggle, a sublime struggle, which will lead our country to peace, prosperity, and greatness.
Together, we are going to establish social justice and make sure everyone has just remuneration for his labor [applause].
We are going to show the world what the black man can do when he works in freedom, and we are going to make of the
I call on all Congolese citizens, men, women and children, to set themselves resolutely to the task of creating a prosperous national economy which will assure our economic independence.
Glory to the fighters for national liberation!
Long live independence and African unity!
Long live the independent and sovereign
[applause, long and loud]
The Congolese can thank themselves. The Congolese always knew they were human; they were the rightful owners of the
Jacques Brassine, Belgian diplomat, said Lumumba was “dangerous for us.” Belgian Secret Service called him a communist. They called in the CIA who seized up the matter and confirmed: Lumumba “was a danger” to the West.
The Belgians set up listening devises in his office and huddled in meetings with the CIA. What do you think? What do you think? You watch and listen and we’ll get to work with the public. We’ll find some on the Congolese who find this man a horror. We’ll tell get to the press. And the white people! Yes! Let’s get to work!
Mr. Cash, Moise Tshombe, bowed and said yes. And the Belgians handed him the presidency of
In the press around the world, bulletins went out warning of the imminent danger of violence in the
The Ape has escaped! Satan himself in person!
The
The diamond and copper mines were secured. The peasants were pushed back. People stayed home. Lumumba heard his president. He could recognize the words. He ordered Kasavubu to step down. We will stand fast and for the people, for the struggle. But Kasavubu went to the Belgians.
The Belgians and CIA found in Mobutu Sese Seke a man of ambition, a man who would take responsibility! Head of the army, Mobutu, too bowed, and said yes, Master! You will be prime Minister. Yes, Master. Guns and money! Good, Master!
Lumumba looked to the
It was called Operation Barracuda.
Lumumba, at wits end, called to the world: will anyone step in and help us?
But President Eisenhower didn’t like what he was hearing about Lumumba. Allen Dulles is called to the White House. How fast can this communist, this ape, this man who dares to pull the wealth of the
Do it!
Done!
Where would the
A totalitarian regime in the
The people receive death. Mobutu knew how to torture and imprison. He knew how to slaughter. Individuals who dared to think Lumumba was still alive would finally come to understand their error. Opponents were executed until the people finally got the point. Elections? Lumumba is DEAD! Elections are for the electing of me, Mobuto! Dictator Mobuto!
Foreign dignitaries couldn’t miss that Mobutu was everywhere. The people couldn’t dare forget. Mobuto news, too, 24/7 reminded them. Mobutu repression kept them silent. Watch the greatest show on earth: Mobutu cars and homes, Mobutu family members as government military official. Mobutu! Never mind the Congolese workers didn’t receive pay for work. That’s called slavery—and that’s fine for the
He helped the
In 1990, came the end of the Cold War and the fall of the
An oversight!
The riots and anti-Mobutu movements finally drove the dictator out of the
We gave you billions, said the
The people of the
The Belgian secret service and the CIA assassinated Patrice Lumumba while the world watched, thanks to the
In other words, the CIA, on behalf of democracy, had business elsewhere. In the meantime, the Belgians were left to dispose of the body and they dissolved the corpse in sulfuric acid.
But two of Lumumba’s teeth refused to burn, and they are souvenirs for the assassins to this today—reminders for them of the audacity of this African to think the people of
“The future of
You have the audacity to tell the people to take responsibility. Applause from the CEOs sharing the throne here in the
Admit it: You, Mr. Barrack Obama, a capitalist, are proposing a continuation of imperialist policies in
Remember Lumumba: the people will resist!
Note:
[1] Corporations benefited from the Mobutu regime or “from the World Bank and IMF funds used to compensate them for money stolen by Mobuto…” According to International Relations, Foreign Policy in Focus, 1997:
In recent years
The
Mobutu reciprocated by providing bases and supply routes for UNITA rebels and by backing the
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