Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Under Arrest. September 23, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Iraq and Afghanistan, Torture.Tags: Abu Ghraib, abu ghraib photos, alberto gonzalez, andy worthington, bagram, binyam mohamed, camp cropper, CIA torture, Dick Cheney, dilawar, donald rumsfeld, donald vance, general daniel mcneill, general geoffrey miller, general john gardner, general taguba, geneva conventions, George W. Bush, Guantanamo, International law, janis karpinski, jay bybee, jose padilla, judge gladys kessler, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, lawrence wilkerson, lindsey graham, lyndie england, nathan ertel, nuremberg, obama administration, ralph lopez, roger hollander, torture, torture techniques, universal jurisdiction, War Crimes, waterborading, william colby, willie brand
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http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Welcome-to-Boston-Mr-Rum-by-Ralph-Lopez-110920-706.html
September 23, 2011
By Ralph Lopez
Torture Room, Abu Ghraib
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham told reporters in 2004of photos withheld by the Defense Department from Abu Ghraib, “The American public needs to understand, we’re talking about rape and murder here…We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience. We’re talking about rape and murder and some very serious charges.” And journalist Seymour Hersh says: “boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has.”
Rumsfeld resigned days before a criminal complaintwas filed in Germany in which the American general who commanded the military police battalion at Abu Ghraib had promised to testify. General Janis Karpinski in an interview with Salon.comwas asked: “Do you feel like Rumsfeld is at the heart of all of this and should be held completely accountable for what happened [at Abu Ghraib]?”
Karpinski answered: “Yes, absolutely.” In the criminal complaint filed in Germany against Rumsfeld, Karpinski submitted 17 pages of testimonyand offered to appear before the German prosecutor as a witness. Congressman Kendrick Meek of Florida, who participated in the hearings on Abu Ghraib, said of Rumsfeld: “There was no way Rumsfeld didn’t know what was going on. He’s a guy who wants to know everything.”
And Major General Antonio Taguba, who led the official Army investigation into Abu Ghraib, said in his report:
“there is no longer any doubt as to whether the [Bush] administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account.”
Abu Ghraib Prisoner Smeared with Feces
In a puzzling and incriminating move, Camp Cropper base commander General John Gardner ordered Nathan Ertel released on May 17, 2006, while keeping Donald Vance in detention for another two months of torture. By ordering the release of one man but not the other, Gardner revealed awareness of the situation but prolonged it at the same time.
It is unlikely that Gardner could act alone in a situation as sensitive as the illegal detention and torture of two Americans confirmed by the FBI to be working undercover in the national interest, to prevent American weapons and munitions from reaching the hands of insurgents, for the sole purpose of using them to kill American troops. Vance and Ertel suggest he was acting on orders from the highest political level.
The forms of torture employed against the Americans included “techniques” which crop up frequently in descriptions of Iraqi and Afghan prisoner abuse at Bagram, Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib. They included “walling,” where the head is slammed repeatedly into a concrete wall, sleep deprivation to the point of psychosis by use of round-the-clock bright lights and harsh music at ear-splitting volume, in total isolation, for days, weeks or months at a time, and intolerable cold.
The 7th Circuit ruling is the latest in a growing number of legal actions involving hundreds of former prisoners and torture victims filed in courts around the world. Criminal complaints have been filed against Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials in Germany, France, and Spain. Former President Bush recently curbed travel to Switzerlanddue to fear of arrest following criminal complaints lodged in Geneva. “He’s avoiding the handcuffs,” Reed Brody, counsel for Human Rights Watch, told Reuters. And this month Canadian citizens forced Bush to cancel an invitation-only appearance in Toronto.
And the Mayor of London threatened Bush with arrest for war crimes earlier this year should he ever set foot in his city, saying that were heto land in London to “flog his memoirs,” that “the real trouble — from the Bush point of view — is that he might never see Texas again.”
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s Chief-of-Staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson surmised on MSNBCearlier this year that soon, Saudi Arabia and Israel will be “the only two countries Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest will travel too.”
Abu Ghraib: Dog Bites
What would seem to make Rumsfeld’s situation more precarious is the number of credible former officials and military officers who seem to be eager to testify against him, such as Col. Wilkerson and General Janis Karpinsky.
In a signed declaration in support of torture plaintiffs in a civil suit naming Rumsfeld in the US District Court for the District of Columbia, Col. Wilkerson, one of Rumsfeld’s most vociferous critics, stated:“I am willing to testify in person regarding the content of this declaration, should that be necessary.” That declaration, among other things, affirmed that a documentary on the chilling murder of a 22-year-old Afghan farmer and taxi driver in Afghanistan was “accurate.” Wilkerson said earlier this yearthat in that case, and in the case of another murder at Bagram at about the same time, “authorization for the abuse went to the very top of the United States government.”
Dilawar
The young farmer’s name was Dilawar. The New York Times reported on May 20, 2005:
“Four days before [his death,] on the eve of the Muslim holiday of Id al-Fitr, Mr. Dilawar set out from his tiny village of Yakubi in a prized new possession, a used Toyota sedan that his family bought for him a few weeks earlier to drive as a taxi.
On the day that he disappeared, Mr. Dilawar’s mother had asked him to gather his three sisters from their nearby villages and bring them home for the holiday. However, he needed gas money and decided instead to drive to the provincial capital, Khost, about 45 minutes away, to look for fares.”
Dilawar’s misfortune was to drive past the gate of an American base which had been hit by a rocket attack that morning. Dilawar and his fares were arrested at a checkpoint by a warlord, who was later suspected of mounting the rocket attack himself, and then turning over randam captures like Dilawar in order to win trust.
“Guards at Bagram routinely kneed prisoners in their thighs — a blow called a “peroneal strike”…Whenever a guard did this to Dilawar, he would cry out, “Allah! Allah!” Some guards apparently found this amusing, and would strike him repeatedly to show off the behavior to buddies.
One military policeman told investigators, “Everybody heard him cry out and thought it was funny. … It went on over a 24-hour period, and I would think that it was over 100 strikes.”"Dilawar was shackled from the ceiling much of the time, with his feet barely able to touch the ground. On the last day of his life, after 4 days at Bagram, an interpreter who was present said his legs were bouncing uncontrollably as he sat in a plastic chair. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
The New York Times reported that on the last day of his life, four days after he was arrested:
“Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar’s face.
“Come on, drink!” the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. “Drink!”At the interrogators’ behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.
“Leave him up,” one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.”
The next time the prison medic saw Dilawar a few hours later, he was dead, his head lolled to one side and his body beginning to stiffen. A coroner would testify that his legs “had basically been pulpified.”The Army coroner, Maj. Elizabeth Rouse, said: “I’ve seen similar injuries in an individual run over by a bus.” She testified that had he lived, Dilawar’s legs would have had to be amputated.
Despite the military’s false statement that Dilawar’s death was the result of “natural causes,” Maj. Rouse marked the death certificate as a “homicide” and arranged for the certificate to be delivered to the family. The military was forced to retract the statement when a reporter for the New York Times, Carlotta Gall, tracked down Dilawar’s family in Afghanistan and was given a folded piece of paper by Dilawar’s brother. It was the death certificate, which he couldn’t read, because it was in English.
The practice of forcing prisoners to stand for long periods of time, links Dilawar’s treatment to a memo which bears Rumsfeld’s own handwriting on that particular subject. Obtained through a Freedom of Information Act Request, the memo may show how fairly benign-sounding authorizations for clear circumventions of the Geneva Conventions may have translated into gruesome practice on the battlefield.
The memo, which addresses keeping prisoners “standing” for up to four hours, is annotated with a note initialed by Rumsfeld reading: “”I stand for 8–10 hours a day. Why is standing limited to 4 hours?” Not mentioned in writing anywhere is anything about accomplishing this by chaining prisoners to the ceiling. There is evidence that, unable to support his weight on tiptoe for the days on end he was chained to the ceiling, Dilawars arms dislocated, and they flapped around uselessly when he was taken down for interrogation. The National Catholic Reporter writes “They flapped like a bird’s broken wings”
Contradicting, on the record, a February 2003 statement by Rumsfeld’s top commander in Afghanistan at the time, General Daniel McNeill, that “we are not chaining people to the ceilings,” is Spc. Willie Brand, the only soldier disciplined in the death of Dilawar, with a reduction in rank. Told of McNeill’s statement, Brand told Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes: “Well, he’s lying.” Brand said of his punishment: “I didn’t understand how they could do this after they had trained you to do this stuff and they turn around and say you’ve been bad”
Exhibit: Dilawar Death Certificate marked “homicide”
Exhibit: Rumsfeld Memo: “I stand 8-10 hours a day. Why only 4 hours?”
Dilawar’s daughter and her grandfather
Binyam, Genital-Slicing
Binyam Mohamed was seized by the Pakistani Forces in April 2002 and turned over to the Americans for a $5,000 bounty. He was held for more than five years without charge or trial in Bagram Air Force Base, Guantánamo Bay, and third country “black” sites.
“They cut off my clothes with some kind of doctor’s scalpel. I was naked. I tried to put on a brave face. But maybe I was going to be raped. Maybe they’d electrocute me. Maybe castrate me…
One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. He did it once, and they stood still for maybe a minute, watching my reaction. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times, in maybe two hours. There was blood all over. “I told you I was going to teach you who’s the man,” [one] eventually said.They cut all over my private parts. One of them said it would be better just to cut it off, as I would only breed terrorists. I asked for a doctor.”
I was in Morocco for 18 months. Once they began this, they would do it to me about once a month. One time I asked a guard: “What’s the point of this? I’ve got nothing I can say to them. I’ve told them everything I possibly could.”
“As far as I know, it’s just to degrade you. So when you leave here, you’ll have these scars and you’ll never forget. So you’ll always fear doing anything but what the US wants.”
Later, when a US airplane picked me up the following January, a female MP took pictures. She was one of the few Americans who ever showed me any sympathy. When she saw the injuries I had she gasped. They treated me and took more photos when I was in Kabul. Someone told me this was “to show Washington it’s healing”.
The obvious question for any prosecutor in Binyam’s case is: Who does “Washington” refer to? Rumsfeld? Cheney? Is it not in the national interest to uncover these most depraved of sadists at the highest level? US Judge Gladys Kessler, in her findings on Binyam made in relation to a Guantanamo prisoner’s petition, found Binyam exceedingly credible. She wrote:
“His genitals were mutilated. He was deprived of sleep and food. He was summarily transported from one foreign prison to another. Captors held him in stress positions for days at a time. He was forced to listen to piercingly loud music and the screams of other prisoners while locked in a pitch-black cell. All the while, he was forced to inculpate himself and others in plots to imperil Americans. The government does not dispute this evidence.”
Obama: Torturers’ Last Defense
The prospect of Rumsfeld in a courtroom cannot possibly be relished by the Obama administration, which has now cast itself as the last and staunchest defender of the embattled former officials, including John Yoo, Alberto Gonzalez, Judge Jay Bybee, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, and others. The administration employed an unprecedented twisting of arms in order to keep evidence in a lawsuit which Binyam had filedin the UK suppressed, threatening an end of cooperation between the British MI5 and the CIA. This even though the British judges whose hand was forced puzzled that the evidence “contained “no disclosure of sensitive intelligence matters.” The judges suggested another reason for the secrecy requested by the Obama administration, that it might be “politically embarrassing.”
The Obama Justice Department’s active involvement in seeking the dismissal of the cases is by choice, as the statutory obligation of the US Attorney General to defend cases against public officials ends the day they leave office. Indeed, the real significance of recent court decisions, the one by the 7th Circuit and yet another against Rumsfeld in a DC federal court, may be the clarification the common misconception that high officials are forever immune for crimes committed while in office, in the name of the state. The misconception persists despite just a moment of thought telling one that if this were true, Hermann Goering, Augusto Pinochet, and Charles Taylor would never have been arrested, for they were all in office at the time they ordered atrocities, and they all invoked national security.
Andy Worthington writes that:
“As it happens, one of the confessions that was tortured out of Binyam is so ludicrous that it was soon dropped…The US authorities insisted that Padilla and Binyam had dinner with various high-up members of al-Qaeda the night before Padilla was to fly off to America. According to their theory the dinner party had to have been on the evening of 3 April in Karachi … Binyam was meant to have dined with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah, Sheikh al-Libi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Jose Padilla.” What made the scenario “absurd,” as [Binyam's lawyer] pointed out, was that “two of the conspirators were already in U.S. custody at the time — Abu Zubaydah was seized six days before, on 28 March 2002, and al-Libi had been held since November 2001.”"
The charges against Binyam were dropped, after the prosecutor, Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, resigned. He told the BBC later that he had concerns at the repeated suppression of evidence that could prove prisoners’ innocence.
The litany of tortures alleged against Rumsfeld in the military prisons he ran could go on for some time. The new photographic images from Abu Ghraib make it hard to conceive of how the methods of torture and dehumanization could have possibly served a national purpose.
The approved use of attack dogs, sexual humiliation, forced masturbation, and treatments which plumb the depths of human depravity are either documented in Rumsfeld’s own memos, or credibly reported on.
The techniques devised in the system, called R2I – resistance to interrogation – match the crude exploitation and abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail in Baghdad.
One former British special forces officer who returned last week from Iraq, said: “It was clear from discussions with US private contractors in Iraq that the prison guards were using R2I techniques, but they didn’t know what they were doing.”"
Torture Now Aimed at Americans, Programs Designed to Obtain False Confessions, Not Intelligence
The worst of the worst is that Rumsfeld’s logic strikes directly at the foundations of our democracy and the legitimacy of the War on Terror. The torture methods studied and adopted by the Bush administration were not new, but adopted from the Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape program (SERE) which is taught to elite military units. The program was developed during the Cold War, in response to North Korean, Chinese, and Soviet Bloc torture methods. But the aim of those methods was never to obtain intelligence, but to elicit false confessions. The Bush administration asked the military to “reverse engineer” the methods, i.e. figure out how to break down resistance to false confessions.
In the 2008 Senate Armed Services Committee reportwhich indicted high-level Bush administration officials, including Rumsfeld, as bearing major responsibility for the torture at Abu Gharib, Guantanamo, and Bagram, the Committee said:
“SERE instructors explained “Biderman’s Principles” — which were based on coercive methods used by the Chinese Communist dictatorship to elicit false confessions from U.S. POWs during the Korean War — and left with GTMO personnel a chart of those coercive techniques.”
The Biderman Principles were based on the work of Air Force Psychiatrist Albert Biderman, who wrote the landmark “Communist Attempts to Elecit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War,” on which SERE resistance was based. Biderman wrote:
“The experiences of American Air Force prisoners of war in Korea who were pressured for false confessions, enabled us to compile an outline of methods of eliciting compliance, not much different, it turned out, from those reported by persons held by Communists of other nations. I have prepared a chart showing a condensed version of this outline.”
The chart is a how-to for communist torturers interested only in false confessions for propaganda purposes, not intelligence. It was the manual for, in Biderman’s words, “brainwashing.” In the reference for Principle Number 7, “Degradation,” the chart explains:
“Makes Costs of Resistance Appear More Damaging to Self-Esteem than Capitulation; Reduces Prisoner to “Animal Level…Personal Hygiene Prevented; Filthy, Infested Surroundings; Demeaning Punishments; Insults and Taunts; Denial of Privacy”
Appallingly, this could explain that even photos such as those of feces-smeared prisoners at Abu Ghraib might not, as we would hope, be only the individual work of particularly demented guards, but part of systematic degradation authorized at the highest levels.
Exhibit: Abu Ghraib, Female POW
This could go far toward explaining why the Bush administration seemed so tone-deaf to intelligence professionals, including legendary CIA Director William Colby, who essentially told them they were doing it all wrong. A startling level of consensus existed within the intelligence community that the way to produce good intelligence was to gain the trust of prisoners and to prove everything they had been told by their recruiters, about the cruelty and degeneracy of America, to be wrong.
But why would the administration care about what worked to produce intelligence, if the goal was never intelligence in the first place? What the Ponzi scheme of either innocent men or low-level operatives incriminating each other DID accomplish, was produce a framework of rapid successes and trophies in the new War on Terror.
And now, American contractors Vance and Ertel show, unless there are prosecutions, the law has effectively changed and they can do it to Americans. Jane Mayer in the New Yorker describes a new regime for prisoners which has become coldly methodical, quoting a report issued by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, titled “Secret Detentions and Illegal Transfers of Detainees.” In the report on the CIA paramilitary Special Activities Division detainees were “taken to their cells by strong people who wore black outfits, masks that covered their whole faces, and dark visors over their eyes.”
Mayer writes that a former member of a C.I.A. transport team has described the “takeout” of prisoners as:
“a carefully choreographed twenty-minute routine, during which a suspect was hog-tied, stripped naked, photographed, hooded, sedated with anal suppositories, placed in diapers, and transported by plane to a secret location.”
A person involved in the Council of Europe inquiry, referring to cavity searches and the frequent use of suppositories, likened the treatment to “sodomy.” He said, “It was used to absolutely strip the detainee of any dignity. It breaks down someone’s sense of impenetrability.”
Of course we have seen these images before, in the trial balloon treatment of Jose Padilla, the first American citizen arrested and declared “enemy combatant” in the first undeclared war without end. The designation placed Padilla outside of his Bill of Rights as an American citizen even though he was arrested on American soil. Padilla was kept in isolation and tortured for nearly 4 years before being released to a civilian trial, at which point according to his lawyer he was useless in his own defense, and exhibited fear and mistrust of everyone, complete docility, and a range of nervous facial tics.
Jose Padilla in Military Custody
Rumsfeld’s avuncular “golly-gee, gee-whiz” performances in public are legendary. Randall M. Schmidt, the Air Force Lieutenant General appointed by the Army to investigate abuses at Guantanamo, and who recommended holding Rumsfeld protege and close associate General Geoffrey Miller “accountable” as the commander of Guantanamo, watched Rumsfeld’s performance before a House Committee with some interest. “He was going, “My God! Did I authorize putting a bra and underwear on this guy’s head and telling him all his buddies knew he was a homosexual?’ “
But General Taguba said of Rumsfeld: “Rummy did what we called “case law’ policy — verbal and not in writing. What he’s really saying is that if this decision comes back to haunt me I’ll deny it.”
Taguba went on: “Rumsfeld is very perceptive and has a mind like a steel trap. There’s no way he’s suffering from C.R.S.–Can’t Remember sh*t.”
Miller was the general deployed by Rumsfeld to “Gitmo-ize” Abu Ghraib in 2003 after Rumsfeld had determined they were being too “soft” on prisoners. He said famously in one memo “you have to treat them like dogs.” General Karpinski questioned the fall of Charles Graner and Lyndie England as the main focus of low-level “bad apple” abuse in the Abu Ghraib investigations. “Did Lyndie England deploy with a dog leash?” she asks.
Exhibit: Dog deployed at Abu Ghraib, mentally-ill prisoner
Abu Ghraib prisoner in “restraint” chair, screaming “Allah!!”
Rumsfeld’s worry now is the doctrine of Universal Jurisdiction, as well as ordinary common law. The veil of immunity stripped in civil cases would seem to free the hand of any prosecutor who determines there is sufficient evidence that a crime has been committed based on available evidence. A grand jury’s bar for opening a prosecution is minimal. It has been said “a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich.” Rumsfeld, and the evidence against him, would certainly seem to pass this test.
The name Dilawar translates to English roughly as “Braveheart.” Let us pray he had one to endure the manner of his death. But the more spiritual may believe that somehow it had a purpose, to shock the world and begin the toppling of unimaginable evil among us. Dilawar represented the poorest of the poor and most powerless, wanting only to pick up his three sisters, as his mother had told him to, for the holiday. The question now is whether Americans will finally draw a line, as the case against Rumsfeld falls into place and becomes legally bulletproof. Andy Worthington noted that the case for prosecutors became rock solid when Susan Crawford, senior Pentagon official overseeing the Military Commissions at Guantánamo — told Bob Woodward that the Bush administration had “met the legal definition of torture.”
As Rumsfeld continues his book tour and people like Dilawar are remembered, it is not beyond the pale that an ambitious prosecutor, whether local, state, or federal, might sense the advantage. It is perhaps unlikely, but not inconceivable, that upon landing at Logan International Airport on Wed., Sept. 21st, or similarly anywhere he travels thereafter, Rumsfeld could be greeted with the words such as: “Welcome to Boston, Mr. Secretary. You are under arrest.”
Take action — click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:
Prosecute Rumsfeld NOW for torture!
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//
Massachusetts District Attorneys Who Can Indict Rumsfeld, Please Email them this post and call them.SAMPLE INDICTMENT
LEGAL BACKGROUNDRELEVANT US CODE:
a. Conspiracy to torture in violation of the U.S. Code, in both Title 18, Section 2340
b. Conspiracy to commit war crimes including torture, cruel or inhuman treatment, murder, mutilation or maiming and intentionally causing serious bodily injury in violation of Title 18, Section 2441
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley:
email: Email address removedOne Ashburton Place
Boston, MA 02108 -1518
Phone: (617) 727-2200 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (617) 727-2200 end_of_the_skype_highlighting//Here is the contact info for members of the Boston City Council, which could pass a resolution directing the Police Commissioner to arrest Rumsfeld on sight (google Brattleboro Resolution, George W. Bush):
http://www.cityofboston.gov/…And Gov. Duval Patrick has an obligation to order the state police to do the same: CONTACT FORM
Local District Attorneys
Berkshire County: District Attorney David F. Capeless
Elected November 2006
OFFICE ADDRESS: P.O. Box 973
888 Purchase Street
New Bedford, MA 02741
PHONE: (508) 997-0711 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (508) 997-0711 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
FAX: (508) 997-0396
INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.bristolda.comBristol County District Attorney C. Samuel Sutter
Appointed March 2004
Elected November 2004
OFFICE ADDRESS: 7 North Street
P.O. Box 1969
Pittsfield, MA 01202-1969
PHONE: (413) 443-5951 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (413) 443-5951 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
FAX: (413) 499-6349
Internet Address: http://www.mass.gov/…Cape & Islands District Attorney Michael O’Keefe
Elected November 2002
OFFICE ADDRESS: P.O.Box 455
3231 Main Street
Barnstable, MA 02630
PHONE: (508) 362-8113 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (508) 362-8113 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
FAX: (508) 362-8221
INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.mass.gov/…Essex County: District Attorney Jonathan W. Blodgett
Elected November 2002
OFFICE ADDRESS: Ten Federal Street
Salem, MA 01970
PHONE: (978) 745-6610 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (978) 745-6610 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
FAX: (978) 741-4971
INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.mass.gov/…Hampden District Attorney Mark Mastroianni
Elected 2010
OFFICE ADDRESS: Hall of Justice
50 State Street
Springfield, MA 01103
PHONE: (413) 747-1000 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (413) 747-1000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
FAX: (413) 781-4745Middlesex County: District Attorney Gerard T. Leone, Jr.
Elected November 2006
OFFICE ADDRESS: 15 Commonwealth Avenue
Woburn, MA 01801
PHONE: (781) 897-8300 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (781) 897-8300 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
FAX: ((781) 897-8301
INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.middlesexda.comNorfolk District Attorney Michael Morrissey
Elected 2010
OFFICE ADDRESS: 45 Shawmut Ave.
Canton, MA 02021
PHONE: (781) 830-4800 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (781) 830-4800 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
FAX: (781) 830-4801
INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.mass.gov/…Northwestern District Attorney David Sullivan
Elected 2010
HAMPSHIRE OFFICE ADDRESS: One Gleason Plaza
Northampton, MA 01060
PHONE: (413) 586-9225 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (413) 586-9225 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
FAX: (413) 584-3635
FRANKLIN OFFICE ADDRESS: 13 Conway Street
Greenfield, MA 01301
PHONE: (413) 774-3186 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (413) 774-3186 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
FAX: (413) 773-3278
WEBSITE:
Northwestern http://www.mass.gov/…< a href=”http://media.fastclick.net/w/click.here?sid=48406&m=6&c=1″ target=”_blank”><img src=”http://media.fastclick.net/w/get.media?sid=48406&m=6&tp=8&d=s&c=1″ width=300 height=250 border=1></Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz
Appointed November 2001
Elected November 2002
OFFICE ADDRESS: 32 Belmont Street
Brockton, MA 02303
PHONE: (508) 584-8120 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (508) 584-8120 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
FAX: (508) 586-3578
INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.mass.gov/…Suffolk County: District Attorney Daniel F. Conley
Appointed January 2002
Elected November 2002
OFFICE ADDRESS: One Bulfinch Place
Boston, MA 02114
PHONE: (617) 619-4000 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (617) 619-4000 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
FAX: (617) 619-4009
INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.mass.gov/…Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early, Jr.
Elected November 2006
OFFICE ADDRESS: Courthouse – Room 220
2 Main Street
Worcester, MA 01608
PHONE: (508) 755-8601 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (508) 755-8601 end_of_the_skype_highlighting
FAX: (508) 831-9899
INTERNET ADDRESS: http://www.worcesterda.com
And Some Wonder Why Americans Are So Dumbed Down? November 27, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Uncategorized.Tags: roger hollander, Media, journalism, time magazine, news media, abby zimet, time life, time/life, luce family
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The covers of the US edition of this week’s Time Magazine compared to the international editions.
We can’t make this stuff up. It kind of says it all…
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The fruits of liberation November 25, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Iraq and Afghanistan, War, War on Terror.Tags: afghnaistan war, al-Qaeda, civilian casuaties, drone missiles, glenn greenwald, liberals, predator missiles, roger hollander, Taliban, U.S. imperialism
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Roger’s note: I feel like I have posted a million articles on US atrocities against Afghani civilians, and like Glenn Greenwald, I ask myself what more is there to say? And like him, I cannot bring myself to, with a ho-hum attitude, ignore yet another mass murder of children in a land 10,000 miles away in a war that has nothing to do with human values and everything to do with crass economic geo-political interests and war profiteering; a war paid for by had earned US tax dollars. WE CONTINUE TO MURDER CHILDREN.
Friday, Nov 25, 2011 1:10 PM 14:05:34 EST, www.salon.com
The lives of six more Afghan children are extinguished with an air attack as the responsible nation yawns
Six children were among seven civilians killed in a NATO airstrike in southern Afghanistan, Afghan officials said Thursday. . . .
Afghan officials claimed that the aircraft were chasing “insurgents” when they fired on the children, but the villagers and the children’s families — as usual — insist that is false:
The victims were members of two families.
Abdul Samad, an uncle of four of the children who were killed, disputed the government’s version of the attack. He said his relatives were working in fields near their village when they were attacked without warning by an aircraft.
His brother-in-law, Mohammad Rahim, 50, had his two sons and three daughters with him. They were between 4 and 12 years old and all were killed, except an 8-year-old daughter who was badly wounded, Mr. Samad said.
“There were no Taliban in the field; this is a baseless allegation that the Taliban were planting mines,” Mr. Samad said. “I have been to the scene and haven’t found a single bit of evidence of bombs or any other weapons. The Americans did a serious crime against innocent children, they will never ever be forgiven.”
I read about the death of these children yesterday and had decided not to write about it because I don’t have anything particularly new to say about it, but then all day, that decision irritated me because it just seems wrong to allow this go to unobserved (and in Southern Afghanistan, “NATO” in the vast majority of cases means: “American”). Whichever version is correct, the U.S. devastated these families forever and ended these children’s lives in a region where even U.S. officials say that there is a grand total of two Al Qeada officials and the group is “operationally ineffective.”
What’s particularly notable, I realized, is how we’re trained simply to accept these incidents as though they carry no meaning: we’re just supposed to chalk them up to regrettable accidents (oops), agree that they don’t compel a cessation to the war, and then get back to the glorious fighting. Every time that happens, this just becomes more normalized, less worthy of notice. It’s just like background noise: two families of children wiped out by an American missile (yawn: at least we don’t target them on purpose like those evil Terrorists: we just keep killing them year after year after year without meaning to). It’s acceptable to make arguments that American wars should end because they’re costing too much money or American lives or otherwise harming American strategic interests, but piles of corpses of innocent children are something only the shrill, shallow and unSerious point to as though they has any meaning in terms of what should be done.
This kind of thinking would, I suppose, be viable if these were very isolated incidents. But they’re not. All in the name of a single, one-day attack more than a decade ago, the U.S. has spent more than ten years slaughtering Muslim children in numerous countries in all sorts of different ways, and we continue to do it unabated — see here, here, here, and here as just illustrative examples. All this as The Washington Post demands regime change in Iran, national security reporters start casually calling for war in Syria the way most people ponder their lunch options, and it is reported today that the U.S. is escalating its drone attacks and other proxy war fighting in Somalia. At some point, doesn’t a country’s ongoing willingness year after year to extinguish the lives of innocent human beings in multiple countries, for no good reason, seriously mar the character of the country and the political leaders responsible for it, to say nothing of the way it inexorably degrades the political culture of the nation, and the minds of the citizens, which acquiesce to it? That should be nothing more than a rhetorical question. The gap between how many Americans perceive of their nation’s role in the world and the reality is indescribably wide.
* * * * *
Two questions which this episode raises: (1) why do they hate us?; and (2) why don’t those ridiculous, silly, unreasonable liberals — you know the dreary type: those “in their fifties with a ponytail” – swoon for President Obama the way career New Republic writers do? This is a towering, baffling mystery because there is simply nothing rational that can explain it.
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Glenn Greenwald (email: GGreenwald@salon.com) is a former Constitutional and civil rights litigator and is the author of two New York Times Bestselling books on the Bush administration’s executive power and foreign policy abuses. His just-released book, With Liberty and Justice for Some, is an indictment of America’s two-tiered system of justice, which vests political and financial elites with immunity even for egregious crimes while subjecting ordinary Americans to the world’s largest and most merciless penal state. Greenwald was named by The Atlantic as one of the 25 most influential political commentators in the nation. He is the recipient of the first annual I.F. Stone Award for Independent Journalism, and is the winner of the 2010 Online Journalism Association Award for his investigative work on the arrest and oppressive detention of Bradley Manning.
(Photo credit: Don Usner)
Foreclosed Homeowners Re-Occupy Their Homes November 25, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Economic Crisis, Housing/Homelessness, Occupy Wall Street Movement, Racism.Tags: #occupy movement, carolyn gage, evictions, forclosures, foreclosure crisis, home eviction, housing foreclosures, predatory lending, racism, roger hollander, zaineb mohammed
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SAN FRANCISCO – Carolyn Gage was evicted from her foreclosed home in January. Earlier this month, she moved back in.
“I’ve been in here for 50 years. I know no other place but here. I left and it was just time for me to come back home,” said Gage, who is in her mid-50s.
Gage’s monthly payments spiked after her adjustable rate mortgage kicked in, and she could no longer afford the payments on her three-bedroom house in the city’s Bayview Hunters Point district. She says she tried to modify her loan with her lender, Florida-based IB Properties, but to no avail.
When Gage initially left about 10 months ago, she took some personal items with her, but left most of the furniture and continued paying for some utilities.
“It didn’t feel right for me to move. I just left my things because I knew I was going to return to them eventually,” she said.
She had to re-activate a few utilities when she returned, like the water, but found the process fairly easy.
Walking back into the house was an emotional moment for Gage, but a joyous one.
“I was like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz; there’s no place like home,” Gage said. “It’s a family home; I plan to stay there.”
Gage was one of about two dozen homeowners who gathered Tuesday for a community potluck on Quesada Avenue for residents facing foreclosure and are refusing to leave their homes.
Homeowners expressed outrage at the way predatory lenders have targeted their community.
Residents of the Bayview are starting to see how the African-American community was especially victimized in the foreclosure crisis.
Gage believes that single women and elders in the black community were targeted for predatory loans. At the peak of the housing boom she was solicited for an adjustable rate loan to do some home improvements, even though she told the loan agent that she was on disability and did not have a steady income.
According to a report released last week by the Center for Responsible Lending, African Americans and Latinos were consistently more likely than whites to receive high-risk loan products. About a quarter of all Latino and African-American borrowers have lost their homes to foreclosure or are seriously delinquent, compared to under 12 percent for white borrowers.
Bayview residents Reverend Archbishop Franz King and Reverend Mother Marina King, who are founders of the St. John Coltrane African Orthodox Church, are also facing foreclosure. Their eviction date is set for Dec. 22.
King expressed deep anger and sorrow at the situation facing the black community in the Bayview.
“First redevelopment moved us out of the Fillmore and now we’re losing our properties too? It’s like there’s nowhere for us to go,” he said.
Grace Martinez, an organizer with Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE) who helped to arrange the event, commented that banks have become increasingly hostile to their efforts. “They call the police on us; they laugh at us.”
Vivian Richardson, a homeowner on Quesada Avenue whose house was also foreclosed on, also has no intention of leaving. Her current eviction date is set for Dec. 31, but she, like many of her neighbors, is asking her lender to reduce the principal on her loan in order to make the monthly payments more affordable.
Richardson has been attempting to modify her home loan for the past two years. Earlier this month, tired of the lack of communication from the lender, Aurora Loan Services based in Delaware, she worked with ACCE to coordinate an e-mail blast to Aurora’s chairman.
On Nov. 3, over the span of one to two hours, approximately 1,400 emails were sent and more than 100 phone calls made, imploring Chairman Theodore P. Janulis to stop Richardson’s eviction. A spokesperson from the bank called her an hour after the blast and asked her to send an updated set of financial information so that they could review her case.
Two weeks have passed and she has yet to hear anything further. The bank spokesperson commented that Richardson’s case is still being reviewed internally and they hope to get back to her by the end of next week.
However, Richardson has lived in her house for 13 years and plans to stay regardless of the bank’s decision.
“I will defend the home,” she said.
On Dec. 6, there will be a national day of action, “Occupy Our Homes,” where people across the country facing predicaments similar to Gage and Richardson may follow their lead.
Partly inspired by the Occupy movement, the day of action is supported by various community organizations like Take Back the Land and ACCE. The call to action is for people to move back into their foreclosed properties and to defend the properties of families facing eviction.
Martinez commented on the growing anger people are feeling. “The idea is, ‘I want what’s mine.’” She said many homeowners had trusted the banks and ultimately, “People were buying into a lie.”
Two Scandals, One Connection: The FBI link between Penn State and UC Davis November 24, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties, Occupy Wall Street Movement.Tags: #occupy movement, academic freedom, dave zinn, fbi, first amendment, graham spanier, linda katehi, militarization, national security, non violence, penn state scandal, police brutality, roger hollander, uc davis
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Two shocking scandals. Two esteemed universities. Two disgraced university leaders. One stunning connection. Over the last month, we’ve seen Penn State University President Graham Spanier dismissed from his duties and we’ve seen UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi pushed to the brink of resignation. Spanier was jettisoned because of what appears to be a systematic cover-up of assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky’s serial child rape. Katehi has faced calls to resign after the she sent campus police to blast pepper spray in the faces of her peaceably assembled students, an act for which she claims “full responsibility.” The university’s Faculty Association has since voted for her ouster citing a “gross failure of leadership.” The names Spanier and Katehi are now synonymous with the worst abuses of institutional power. But their connection didn’t begin there. In 2010, Spanier chose Katehi to join an elite team of twenty college presidents on what’s called the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board, which “promotes discussion and outreach between research universities and the FBI.”
Spanier said upon the group’s founding in 2005, “The National Security Higher Education Advisory Board promises to help universities and government work toward a balanced and rational approach that will allow scientific research and education to progress and our nation to remain safe.” He also said that the partnership could help provide “internships” to faculty and students interested in “National Security issues.”
FBI chief Robert Mueller said at a press conference with Spanier, “We knew it would not be necessarily an easy sell because of the perceived tension between law enforcement and academia. But once we’ve briefed President Spanier on the national security threats that impact all of you here at Penn State and at other universities, it became clear to all of us why this partnership is so important. “
But the reality of this partnership is far different. Its original mandate was about protecting schools from “cyber theft” and “intellectual property issues.” As has been true with the FBI since Hoover, give them a foothold, and they’ll take off their shoes and get cozy. Their classified mandate has since expanded to such euphemisms as “counter-terrorism” and “public safety.” It also expanded federal anti-terrorism task forces to include the dark-helmeted pepper-spray brigades, otherwise known as the campus police.
As Wired magazine put it in 2007, “presidents are being advised to think like ‘Cold Warriors’ and be mindful of professors and students who may not be on campus for purposes of learning but, instead, for spying, stealing research and recruiting people who are sympathetic to an anti-U.S. cause.”
Chancellor Katehi said in 2010 that despite these concerns, she was proud to join the NSHEA because “it’s important for us to learn from the FBI about the smartest, safest protocols to follow as we do our work, and it is equally important that the FBI has a solid understanding of matters of academic freedom.”
Sacremento’s FBI special agent in Charge, Drew Parenti, praised her involvement, saying, “The FBI’s partnership with higher education is a key component in our strategy of staying ahead of national security threats from our foreign adversaries…. we are very pleased that Chancellor Katehi has accepted an appointment to serve on the board.”
As for the actual meetings between the presidents of academic institutions and the FBI, those discussions are classified. If you are a rabble-rousing faculty member or a student group stepping out of line, your school records can become the FBI’s business and you’d be none the wiser.
Chris Ott, from the Massachusetts ACLU, said of the NSHEA, “The FBI is asking university faculty, staff, and students to create a form of neighborhood watch against anything that is so called ‘suspicious.’ What kinds of things are they going to report on? Who has the right to be snitching? One of the scary things is who [on the campuses] will take it upon themselves to root out spies?”
In the wake of the scandals that have enveloped and now destroyed the careers of Spanier and Katehi, the very existence of the NCHEA should now be called to question. Given the personal character on display by these two individuals, why should anyone trust that the classified meetings have stayed in the realm of “cyber theft” and intellectual property rights? What did the FBI tell Chancellor Katehi about how to deal with the peacefully assembled Occupiers? Was “counter-terrorism” advice given on how to handle her own students?
As for Spanier, how much of Sandusky’s actions at Penn State, which were documented on campus but never shared with the local police, was the FBI privy to? Why did the school hire former FBI director Louis Freeh to head up their internal investigation? Does that in fact represent a conflict of interest? And most critically, did the “chilling effect” of a sanctioned FBI presence at Penn State actually prevent people from coming forward?
When Spanier was asked in 2005, if he was concerned about whether a formal partnership with the FBI would cause objections he said, “If there is an issue on my campus, I’d like to be the first person to hear about it, not the last.” In the context of recent events, it’s probably best to let those words speak for themselves. But fear not for the futures of these two stewards of higher education and academic freedom. Maybe Spanier can put his experience as a federal informant to good use from inside a federal prison. As for Katehi, if, as suspected, she’ll be unemployed shortly, perhaps she can take advantage of one of those fabulous internship opportunities having the FBI on campus provides.
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Dave Zirin is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome: the Pain Politics and Promise of Sports (Haymarket) and the newly published A People’s History of Sports in the United States (The New Press). and his writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated.com, New York Newsday and The Progressive. He is the host of XM Radio’s Edge of Sports Radio. Contact him at edgeofsports@gmail.com
Thanksgiving: telling it like it is November 24, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in First Nations, Humor.Tags: american genocide, conan o'brien, First Nations, happy thanksgiving, humorm, humour, jon stewart, roger hollander, thanksgiving humor
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Jon Stewart: “I celebrated Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.”
Conan O’Brien: “The turkey that President Obama will pardon this Thanksgiving is from California. The turkey said, “I don’t need a pardon. I need a job.’”
Sonia Jacobs and Peter Pringle on Their Journey From Death Row to the Wedding Altar November 23, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice.Tags: amy goodman, capital punishment, Criminal Justice, culture project, death penalty, death row, Democracy Now, nermeen shaikh, peter pringle, roger hollander, sonia jacobs, susan sarandon, the exonerated
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Sonia Jacobs and Peter Pringle each served years on death row — Jacobs here in the United States and Pringle in Ireland. Both were exonerated after their convictions were overturned for murders that they steadfastly maintained they did not commit. They began dating shortly after meeting while both publicly campaigning against the death penalty. Their wedding earlier this month was perhaps the first of its kind — the union of two exonerated death row inmates. Joining us from their home in Ireland, Sunny Jacobs and Peter Pringle recount their remarkable story from death row to the wedding altar.
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AMY GOODMAN: I’m Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber announced yesterday that he would halt all executions in the state during his time in office. He said, “I refuse to be part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer.” Kitzhaber, a physician, noted that he had allowed two previous executions to go forward under his watch, but had since agonized over the decisions.
GOV. JOHN KITZHABER: Those were the most agonizing and difficult decisions I have ever made as governor, and I have revisited and questioned them over and over again for the past 14 years. I do not believe those executions made us safer. Certainly, I don’t believe they made us more noble as a society. And I simply cannot participate once again in something that I believe to be morally wrong.”
NERMEEN SHAIKH: That was the Oregon Gov. Kitzhaber. In all, 34 states allow the death penalty, but only 27 have executed someone in the past decade, according to The Death Penalty Information Center.
AMY GOODMAN: In an oddly related story, I was reading the marriage section of New York Times this past weekend and saw a piece about the wedding of a couple in Manhattan earlier this month; Peter Pringle and Sonia Jacobs. Their photograph wasn’t that unusual. Perhaps they were older than most newlyweds, Sunny was 64, Peter 73, but it was a story of their lives and their coming together that we will spend the rest of our show on today. Both Sunny and Peter have survived the death penalty. They survived death row and have been exonerated since. Sonia Jacobs and Peter Pringle.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sonia Jacobs and Peter Pringle each served a decade and a half on death row; Jacobs in the U.S., Pringle in Ireland. Both gained freedom after their convictions were overturned for murders that they steadfastly maintained they did not commit. The two would both become passionate anti-death penalty activists and their activism brought them together.
AMY GOODMAN: Peter Pringle was accused of participating in a murder of two police officers following a bank robbery in Ireland. After his conviction he was sentenced to death by hanging. Just days before a noose was to be tied around his neck, Peter learned Ireland’s president had commuted his sentence to 40 years without parole. He then immersed himself in legal text and effectively become a jailhouse lawyer. Serving as his own counsel, he eventually convinced the Court of Criminal Appeals to quash his conviction.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sonia, known as Sunny, was sentenced to death, along with her then husband, at the age of 28 for the alleged murder of two police officers in Florida. Her two young children were cast into the foster care system. Although the two maintained their innocence, it was after her husband was executed and another man confessed to the murder, that she was exonerated. Nearly 17 years after her arrest, Sunny’s conviction was overturned on appeal. She is the author of, Stolen Time: One Woman’s Inspiring Story as An Innocent Condemned To Death. Sunny’s story, along with those of five other wrongfully convicted death row inmates, became The Exonerated. Sunny has been portrayed by 28 actresses, including Mia Farrow, Brooke Shields, Amy Irving and Susan Sarandon, some of whom attended her wedding. This is Susan Sarandon playing Sunny in The Exonerated, reflecting on the murder charges leveled against her.
SUSAN SARANDON: My husband, Jesse, was tried first. He had a past record from when he was 17 years old and his trial lasted four days. We both had, of course, no good attorneys, no dream team, no expert witnesses. And so he was convicted and sentenced to death. My trial came later, and I thought, surely, that won’t happen to me. I mean, I was a hippie. I’m one of those peace and love people. I’m a vegetarian. How could you possibly think that I would kill someone? And so, I thought that I’d just—-I’d go in and they’d figure out I didn’t kill anyone and they’d let it go. but that’s not how it works.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s Susan Sarandon playing Sonia Jacobs in the play The Exonerated, put on by The Culture Project, here in New York. Well, Sunny and Peter have since spoken in schools, churches, other venues across the country and the world on human rights and abolishing the death penalty. Their wedding earlier this month was perhaps the first of its kind, the union of two exonerated death row prisoners. And so we go to Galway, right now, to Ireland to be joined by the newly weds themselves, the former death row exonerees, modern day human rights activists, Sunny Jacobs and Peter Pringle. Sunny and Peter, congratulations on your wedding. Welcome to Democracy Now!. We’re going to talk about your activism today. But I want to start with Sunny. If you wouldn’t mind going back in time and telling your story, how it was you and your husband since executed, ended up on death row, your first husband.
SONIA JACOBS: Well, briefly, we were in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people. And as a result, we ended up being present when two police officers were killed. And the man who actually did the killing took a plea bargain, which I do not think should be allowed in capital cases, which I don’t think should be allowed in capitol cases, and testified against us saying that we did it. He in turn was given three life sentences in exchange for his testimony. Jessie’s trial, as you know, took four days and he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to death. My trial took longer because I was a young mother of two children and had never been in trouble for anything violent in my life. Aside from his testimony, they also brought in a young woman who had been arrested for a drugs violation. And in order not to go to prison for a long time herself, she also testified. As a result of that, and the judge’s instructions to the jury, my jury voted for conviction. But, when it came to the sentencing phase of the trial, my jury, actually, was not able to be unanimous because one man held out for his own beliefs, rather than giving in to the pressure that was being put upon him to agree, and so my jury voted for life. The judge overruled the jury in my case and voted for—-and sentenced me to death.
AMY GOODMAN: The picture of what happened, the date that it happened, you were all driving in a car; you, your husband, Jesse, your two kids and the driver who eventually turned out to be the one that confessed. What happened? You were in Florida?
SONIA JACOBS: Yes, we were in Florida, and we were just getting a lift from one place to the other. And it got late with visiting here and there, and so we decided to pull off into a rest area on the interstate. I was asleep in the back with the children when the policeman came to do a routine check of the area, as I now know, and saw a gun between the driver’s feet, opened the door, took the gun, pulled him out, asked for his identification, called it in, and when they found out that he was on parole, that, of course, is a violation of parole, and then the scene turned ugly, and the shooting began. I ducked down to cover the children, and when I looked up, the policemen were dead and we were ordered into the police car by the man who had done the killing and driven away. So at that point, we basically had become hostages.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re both given life—-your both sentenced to death, you and Jesse. You’ve lost your children. Your children went where?
SONIA JACOBS: Well, at first, my children were held in custody. My daughter was only 10 months old at the time, and my son was 9 years old. It took my parents a couple of weeks to get my daughter. But. it took two months to get my son who was being held in the juvenile detention center in isolation because he was so young. And as a result, he was very traumatized. He was actually taken to hearings at night, handcuffed behind his back without any representation as a nine-year old boy. So when, finally, my parents were able to get a hold of him because the kind-hearted judge ordered him to be released, he developed a speech impediment and he had to be put in special school. From then on they lived with my parents, for the next six years, until my parents were killed in a plane crash, and then they went into care.
AMY GOODMAN: They went into foster care. So you wrote back and forth with your husband, Jesse, as you both sat on death row. How long were you on death row? How long were you in solitary? Explain what happened to Jesse?
SONIA JACOBS: Well, it’s interesting that you say that because, you see, the man had a death row, the women didn’t have a death row. At the time that I was convicted, I was the only woman the sentence of death in the U.S. because three years prior, they had stopped sentencing people to death. There was a sort of moratorium in the United States against using the death penalty. And so, there was, actually, no one on death row for a while. And then there were men on death row. But, as you know, murder is mostly a problem of men, not women. Women argue and smack each other, and men kill each other. And so, at the time, there were a few men on death row where Jesse was sent, but there were no women. So I was sent to the maximum security women’s prison in Florida and put into a unit all by myself, and I spent the next five years in solitary confinement.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sunny, you also talk about how it is that while you were in prison, you made your cell a kind of sanctuary. Can you talk about how you did that?
SONIA JACOBS: Yes. At first, when I was first sent to—-got my death sentence, I couldn’t really process it because. It just was beyond my imagining how it could even happen to me, no less, actually be a reality. And so my cell was very small. It was six steps from the door until the toilet. And if I reached out my arms to both sides, I could touch the walls. And all there was in the cell was a metal shelf on which there was a thin mattress and a pillow. And then there was a sink and toilet, and that’s all there was. There were no bars. There was a solid metal door. And the guards were under orders not to speak to me. And so, I just paced back and forth, mostly in anger and confusion, and truth be known, in fear, that they would actually kill me. I had no communication whatsoever with the outside world at first; no phone calls, no visits. I didn’t get out of my cell. It wasn’t 23 out of 24 hours a day in the cell, it was 24 hours in the cell, except for twice a week when I was taken out for a quick shower and was given some prison clothing and allowed to spend a few moments out in a courtyard with a guard, and then brought back into my cell again.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: And during this time, actually, the guards were forbidden, even, from speaking to you?
SONIA JACOBS: And I had no books. Yes, yes, because if there were going to participate in my execution, they couldn’t see me as another human being and sympathize with me. I had to be less than human. And in order to do that, we couldn’t have conversations. Anyway, so I had a Bible and a law book. The law book was useless because I couldn’t even understand the language and the Bible, I considered it a book of wisdom at the time, because I wasn’t even sure there was a god anymore, because I could not imagine how God could let this happen to me and my whole family. Because it doesn’t just happen to one person, it happens to the entire family.
AMY GOODMAN: Sunny, I wanted to ask, after your parents were killed in that Pan Am…
SONIA JACOBS: I was going to finish answering your question about how I turned my cell into a sanctuary. I didn’t mean to take so long to get there, but I read something in the Bible that told me, that they don’t say when I die. And it was at that point that I realized that until they do end up taking my life or setting me free, which I thought would be the proper result, my life still belonged to me. And that it would be foolish of me to spend the rest of my life, be it long or be it short, in fear and anger and confusion. So, I decided that the cell could become my sanctuary, and instead of waiting to die, I could use my time to make myself the best person I could be. And so, that’s how I turned my cell into a sanctuary. I did yoga and meditation and I prayed and had my discussion with God. I ended up, I think, maybe healthier than when I went in, in some ways.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Sunny Jacobs, your parents die in the Pan Am Flight 759 in Kenner, Louisiana. You lose touch with your children who were then in foster care. You’re writing back and forth with your then husband Jesse Tafero. And on May 4, 1990, he was executed. How did you survive after that point, and then talk about how your case turned around.
SONIA JACOBS: Well, I think the worst day of my entire life was when my parents died in the plane crash, because then, not only did my children become orphans again, but I became an orphan too, and there was no one to look out for me outside. And if you’re in prison, and especially if you’re on death row, you need someone to hang onto you from outside. The day that Jesse was executed, we were given a 10 minute phone call to say goodbye, and we told each other that we loved each other until the phone went dead. And then the officer that had escorted me to the phone call gave me a few moments to myself, and then I asked if she would bring me back to my cell, and she did. Actually, because Jesse’s execution was so horrible and so gruesome, I think everyone was sympathetic that day. It was just so horrible.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: What happened, actually, Sunny, during his execution?
SONIA JACOBS: Well, you see, when Jesse was put in the electric chair and they pulled the switch, he didn’t die. Instead, his head caught fire. And they say, the witnesses that were there, say flames shot 2 feet in the air out of his head and smoke came out of the helmet. Instead of dying, he struggled against the restraints and they had to pull the lever three times before he was actually pronounced dead, and that it took thirteen and a half minutes for Jesse Tafero to die. And the reason was because they had substituted the natural sea sponge in the helmet, which was supposed to conduct the electricity properly, they switched it with for an artificial sponge, which didn’t conduct the electricity properly, and as a result, he caught fire. As his mother later said later, when Sister Helen Prejean was escorted her to the church that night, her son was burned at the stake. It was so horrible that where our daughter, who was then fifteen and a half years old, heard what happened to her father she tried to kill herself.
AMY GOODMAN: So, it was, what, two years later in 1992, nearly 17 years after you both were arrested, that the confession of the shooter was made and you were exonerated, though Jesse was killed?
SONIA JACOBS: Yes, about two and a half years after Jesse was executed, with the help of lawyers who worked for free, pro bono, and friends, one of whom you know, my friend Micki Dickoff who is a documentary filmmaker, because of their effort, we were able to uncover evidence that had been hidden for all those years, including the fact that the man who actually did the killing had confessed in front of other witnesses. As a result, I was then released.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to break right now. When we come back, we’ll hear your new husband, your bridegroom’s story, Peter Pringle, and then hear about what the two of you are doing to gather as you continue to travel and speak out against the death penalty. Our guests are Sunny Jacobs and Peter Pringle. They are newlyweds, and they are both exonerees, they both survived death row. This is Democracy Now!, back in a minute.
STEVE EARLE: (Singing)
AMY GOODMAN: Steve Earle singing, “Christmas in Washington.” I’m Amy Goodman with Nermeen Shaikh. Our guests in Ireland are the newlyweds Peter Pringle and Sunny Jacobs. They got married in New York, flew home to Ireland, and are now telling us their story. Steve Earle, who we just played, was instrumental in the two of you coming together. But, Peter, before you tell us about Steve, tell us, if you would, your own story of how you ended up on death row and then free.
PETER PRINGLE: OK. Thank you. Very briefly, on July 7, 1980, there was a bank robbery in a town called Ballaghaderreen, in County Roscommon in Ireland, following which the escape car collided with a police car, there was an exchange of gunfire and two police officers were killed. The raiders split up, separated across country. One man was arrested that evening and another the following morning, and the third man was being pursued across country by the police. I had nothing whatever to do with it. I was in a different county in a different city at the time. The person they were chasing was chased right through the city where I was, which is the city where I am now, Galway, and he eluded them. So, they arrested me, fabricated evidence against me, and brought me before the Special Criminal Court in Dublin, which is a non-jury, politically established court, where I was convicted and sentenced to death. Upon the word of a police officer that after 43 hours of interrogation, I had uttered these words, “I know that you know I was involved, but on the advice of my solicitor, I am saying nothing and you have to prove it all away.” That is the sole evidence upon which I was convicted and sentenced to death. I should state that in the twelfth day of the trial—-the trial lasted for 34 days over six weeks, and in the twelfth day of the trial, a police officer who had attempted to arrest the culprit two days after the crime, had actually, was within arm’s reach of him and had spoken to him, but he ran away from him and escaped, he gave evidence in the trial and he was asked, had he seen the man again. He said he had, in fact, he was in the court. I was sitting in the dock. The police officer was asked to point out the man. He pointed up to a man standing in the back row of the public gallery and he said, that is him standing over there with his back to the partition. He pointed out the man in the public gallery. At which, the people standing beside this man all moved away from him. He was standing on his own like something you would see in a movie. But he was never stopped. He was allowed to leave the court, he wasn’t stopped or charged or anything else, and I was duly convicted. Sentenced to death. I spent six—-in Ireland, we didn’t have death row. I spent six months in the death cell, which would be the equivalent to deathwatch in the United States. My lawyers made an application for leave to appeal which put an automatic stay on the execution. The Court of Criminal Appeals refused that application for leave to appeal and set a new date for execution for the 8th of June, 1981. About 11 days before that, the President commuted the sentence on the advice of them and I was sentenced to forty years without any possibility of parole. I was put out into the prison population. I couldn’t possibly face forty years in prison and so I determined I would try to prove my innocence. I began to try and study law. In order to relax so I could ease my anger, my rage at what they had done to me, I began to teach myself the disciplines of yoga and meditation. It was those two disciplines that brought me through.
When, of course, Sunny and I met, we discovered we both used the same disciplines, 7,000 miles apart, without even knowing each other. That was another bond we had with each other. In January of 1992, I eventually opened my case in the high court in Dublin, on my own behalf, because I had no money and no lawyers, and I was escorted from the prison under armed escort and handcuffed, etc., and I offered my case there. In July of that year 1992, I won an order for discovery of the police papers in the case. Six months later when I got some of those documents, I found—-I was supplied with a photocopy of the notebook of the police officer who claimed I had made that statement. In his notebook, he had written in the alleged statement before his entry for the interrogation of which he claimed I said it. In any event, the case ran from January 1992 through to May 1995. Just before that, before that time in 1994, a human-rights lawyer offered me his help and I took it. In 1995 in May, the conviction was quashed by the Court of Criminal Appeal. The state asked for retrial. The court ordered a re-trial, I was sent back to prison on remand. The following day I was brought back to the Court of Criminal Appeal where I was given bail. A week later, the state dropped the case. So consequently, I received no compensation for damages whatsoever. When I was released on May 17, 1995, out of the Special Criminal Court onto the street, I had no money, I had no identification, no passport, no driving license, no Social Security number, no where to live, nothing. I didn’t even get my bus fare. But I had family and friends and they looked after me, and I survived.
NERMEEN SHAIKH: Is it the case, Peter, that you were the last person who was sentenced to death in Ireland?
PETER PRINGLE: No, that’s not, actually. The media picked that one up. I was one of the last. There were—-let me see, now, there were I think three or four were sentenced to death after me. But all of those sentences were commuted as well.
SONIA JACOBS: But you were the only person who ever was released.
PETER PRINGLE: I was the only person in history of the state who got my conviction quashed, overturned, in a capital case. I did most of it on my own. I think I’m probably the only living person in Europe who has had his conviction overturned and released, had an exoneration from a death sentence. Three years after I came out of prison, and having gone through the difficulty of settling back into society—-which is very, very difficult—-I met with Steve Earle. Steve had been communicating with a man on death row in Texas named Jonathan Noble who asked Steve to witness his execution because he wanted one person there who didn’t hate him. Steve agreed to do that, and was so traumatized by what he saw, that he came back to Ireland to chill out a little and recover from that ordeal. While there, I was introduced to him. We exchanged our stories, we became friends. Consequently, when Sunny later was on the Journey of Hope, marching against the death penalty through Texas, people from the Irish section of Amnesty International were present and heard her speak. They invited her to come to Ireland the following year to speak at the annual general meeting of the Ireland section of Amnesty, which she agreed to. And then following on that, in Tennessee on another March, she met with Steve and told him she was coming to Ireland. He said to her, oh, you should talk to Peter Pringle, but he didn’t say why. When she got to Ireland the next year, and she spoke at a meeting in Dublin, somebody asked her if she’d spoken to me. She said, no. They gave her my number.
One day at home, I got a phone call from this American lady who said to me she wanted to speak to Peter Pringle. I said, that is me. She said she was Sunny Jacobs and was going to speak at a meeting in Galway the following Friday—-going to speak at a meeting the following Friday and if I wished to come along I was welcome. I asked her what she was going to speak about it she said, the death penalty. I said, well, yeah, I’m interested in that. At the time I was thinking, what does this woman know about the death penalty? So I went along anyway the following Friday with two friends. We were in the venue, which was a room over a pub at 1:00 in the day, and the people who had traveled with Sunny had gone to get lunch. But we, neither of us, like to eat before we speak about these matters in detail. So I was up in the room waiting for the event to happen when the door opened on the far side and this little lady walked in. I walked over to her and said, you must be Sunny Jacobs.
SONIA JACOBS: And I said, you must be Peter Pringle.
PETER PRINGLE: I heard her talk. I was mesmerized by her story. I was blown away by the horror of what had happened to her. I knew I had to speak with her again. I said that to her. But she told me she had to leave in an hour to go to court with Mary, who is the general secretary of Amnesty. So when she spoke to Mary, Mary was delighted I was going to take Sunny in charge and she transferred her back to me. A friend of mine in Galway loaned me his Mercedes car and packed us a lunch, a pack lunch.
SONIA JACOBS: A cheese lunch. We’re both vegetarians.
PETER PRINGLE: …at the time. And I drove her through Ireland and down to Cork, and as we were sitting in the car, in the car ferry crossing the river Shannon, she turned to me and she said, well, what is your interest in all this? And I said … this is the first time she had heard what my story was…and I said to her, I told her that I too had been sentenced to death and I had been exonerated. She said, and how did you get through? I said yoga and meditation. She said, wow, that is something, because that is what happened with her. So we traveled down, down to Cork together, sharing our story. At times laughing, at times crying, but very, very close with each other. She spoke at the meeting that evening. Amnesty booked us into a hotel, two separate rooms. We went over to the hotel and she came to my room and we sat down together. For three hours, we discussed forgiveness. And then she went back to her room. The following morning, I went off to…back home, to return the car. We kept in communication long distance. After 9/11, we decided that we really had to make a decision whether we were going to live together or not. Neither of us did not know if we could live with someone else because we have been on our own for so long. We opted for the west coast of Ireland. Sunny reversed what her ancestors did, she packed two bags, got rid of all her belongings in California and traveled back East and came to live with me in a little cottage by the sea on the west coast of Ireland. We live there now, a different cottage now, but we still live on the west coast of Ireland and we have a, we rent a little cottage with three and half acres. We have two dogs and two cats, a couple of hens, a couple of ducks, eight goats, and our garden. We grow our vegetables. We grow our potatoes. We have our eggs from our fowl. We milk the goats and she makes wonderful goat cheese. We try to be as self-sufficient as we can be, because of course we have no money. Neither of us got compensation. But we live a very good life there together.
AMY GOODMAN: And yet you decided to…you got married in New York, you were surrounded by—-of actually in your case, Sunny, the women who played you in The Exonerated like Brooke Shields and Marlo Thomas and Amy Irving. Talk about what you were just saying, Peter, when you are not on the west coast of Ireland, what you’re doing, in these last few minutes that we have.
PETER PRINGLE: What we do is we work with different human rights organizations like Amnesty, a group in London called Amicus, a wonderful group of people in Italy called The Community of Sant’Egidio…
SONIA JACOBS: The Journey of Hope in America.
PETER PRINGLE: The Journey of Hope.
SONIA JACOBS: The Seeds of Hope.
PETER PRINGLE: The Seeds of Hope is an Irish group in Ireland. But the Culture Project in New York was the not-for-profit theater organization that put on The Exonerated. The Culture Project, we knew that if…we could get married in New York very easy, and of course Sunny is a native of New York, so that kind of was nice, to do that. But we cannot afford to go to New York. We got a phone call from the Culture Project inviting us to come to their producers’ weekend to speak at that weekend and also for Sunny to present awards. So when they heard that we were looking to get married, they said, we will host your wedding. So that is what happened. They brought us to New York and put us up and hosted our wedding.
AMY GOODMAN: We have thirty seconds.
PETER PRINGLE: The Culture Project initiated a new award, which they called the Sunny award. They’ve given it out every year to people who shed a light, an artistic light, on injustice. And Sunny got the first award and she presented the other ones.
SONIA JACOBS: If I could just say one small thing, it’s that everyone out there can do their part. If you believe something is wrong, then do something about it whether it is write a letter, protest with a sign, go down to Wall Street and support them. Bring them sandwiches. Join an organization. Every person makes a difference. If you do something about what you believe, then it makes your life and everyone’s life better.
PETER PRINGLE: And if I may make a plug here, we each of us have a book written ready for any publisher who might be interested.
SONIA JACOBS: We need a publisher.
AMY GOODMAN: Sunny Jacobs and Peter Pringle—-
SONIA JACOBS: You have always been one of my heroes, Amy.
AMY GOODMAN: Thank you for joining us. Happy holiday to everyone.
To the Winter Patriot November 23, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties, Occupy Wall Street Movement, War.Tags: #occupy movement, abby zimet, first amendment, Freedom of speech, mitch green, occupy wall street, ows, peace movement, police brutality, roger hollander, universal soldier, veterans for peace, winter patriot, winter soldier
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by Abby Zimet, www.commondreams.org, November 23, 2011
An impassioned open letter from Army vet and PhD economics student Mitch Green to his “brothers and sisters in the armed forces,” asking, What will you do when your bosses call you to put down the Occupy movement? Powerful.
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During the Vietnam conflict many African-American soldiers refused to be sent from Vietnam to the United States where they would have been part of a force that would have had to crack down on those who were taking part in demonstrations outside the Democratic presidential convention in Chicago in 1968. Many of them, just like those who participated in the GI movement back then, went to jail because of the principled stand that they had taken. So the members of the armed forces have to ask themselves if they feel that they belong, as Mitch Green inquires, to the world of humanity or to the world of the state.
Great open letter. Exceptionally well written. Whether the very important distinction between sworn allegience to the constitution and allegience to the command structure will be well and fully appreciated by most ordinary “grunts” remains to be seen. But, if it is, the real American Revolution – Part II might be getting closer.
It’s about time we saw more of this. Huzzah Mitch Green and all of the other patriots who understand your duty. Those of us who took the oath need now more than ever to recognize who the enemy of the Constitution is. Is it those in Afghanistan or Iraq or many other locations in the world we are told are the enemy, or those who openly assault the Constitution as our current leaders so brazenly have done, some even calling it mere paper.
Thank you Mitch!
“Sadly, society has placed a twin tax upon you by asking that you sacrifice both your body and your morality…Now, more than ever we need your sacrifice. But, I’m asking you to soldier in a different way. If called upon to deny the people their first amendment right to peaceably assemble and petition their government for a redress of grievance, disregard the order. Abstain from service. Or if you are so bold, join us.–Mitch Green
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ He’s 5 foot 2 and he’s 6 feet 4 He fights with missiles and with spears He’s all of 31 and he’s only 17. He’s been a soldier for a thousand years
He’s a catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain A Buddhist, and a Baptist and Jew. And he knows he shouldn’t kill And he knows he always will kill You’ll for me my friend and me for you
And He’s fighting for Canada. He’s fighting for France. He’s fighting for the USA. And he’s fighting for the Russians. And he’s fighting for Japan And he thinks we’ll put an end to war this way.
And He’s fighting for democracy, He’s fighting for the reds He says it’s for the peace of all. He’s the one, who must decide, who’s to live and who’s to die. And he never sees the writing on the wall.
But without him, how would Hitler have condemned him at Dachau? Without him Caesar would have stood alone He’s the one who gives his body as a weapon of the war. And without him all this killing can’t go on
He’s the universal soldier And he really is the blame His orders comes from far away no more.
They come from him. And you and me. And brothers can’t you see. This is not the way we put an end to war –Buffy Sainte-Marie ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪
Okay, nice letter. It is the question of the day for sure. In fact, it is the question that has gone unasked for many decades.
However, if you take a good look at the photo above what do you see?
Take a good look. Look at the details.
The upper one and the lower one both show well dressed people in affluent surroundings, (compared to say, most of Africa.) Both the police and the students have some access to money, obviously from the photos.
Now where does all this stuff come from? The nice jackets. The t shirts. The helmets, the guns, the backpacks, the glasses and the flag.
It comes from resources from the planet, which are delivered through supply chains, which are then made into products, which are then delivered through supply chains, and then put into the stores for people to buy.
Supply chains being the key factor here. Do you really think that if protestors block ports, as they did in Oakland, that is going to be allowed?
Do you want to starve in the next two weeks? Where do you think your food comes from? Where do you think all the jobs come from that make the t shirts, the glasses, the backpacks, the helmets, and all the rest?
Also, if the military and police stand down, at what point do you want them to stand back up? When YOUR job fails due to a strike, or maybe when your laptop isn’t delivered on time.
We live in an intricate network of resources and supply chains that crisscrosses the planet. Shut down this, and over here people will starve, or go to war.
Yes, people have a right to assembly, but yes, if you even THINK about shutting down the supply chains, you will face the full wrath of the world police, starting with the one’s closest to you, and working their way into more lethal fare.
What else would happen? Do you think people who own factories and stores will just let you shut them down out of principle?
Yes, the climate is changing. Yes resources are running out.
So, that’s the real trick. How do you change the system, without first shutting it down? And stay peaceful. (Because honey, they have weapons and weapons and weapons and weapons to deal with any kind of violence.)
How do you change the system that is destroying the environment and the economy, but at the same time prevent massive famine. If you fuck with the supply chain, you will cause massive famine. If you don’t change the system, the climate and environment are going to cause lots of trouble.
THAT is the question facing the young intelligent people today.
Soldiers who stand down will also have to face it.
Shutting down the supply with general strikes is EXACTLY what needs to happen if the occupies are anything more than a bourgeois hissy fit, I must admit I am starting to have my doubts. When workers start occupying factories like in Argentina (see the excellent film The Take Down) then I’ll be truly impressed. And the latest moves to roll up and become an old style day protest that disdains the actual occupation campers let by aging white middle class ex campus radical like Chris Hedges?
Not so much…
Prognosis gloomy I don’t think Americans have the balls for a general strike to shut down the supply chain that is raping the planet and third world workers, and our own workers though out sourcing.
No wonder we have all the problems we do today – what with people like you letting their rights be trampled in the name of security, I have no doubt fascism will rule.
Figures you’d look at those two pictures, and instead of a seeing bunch of out of work people protesting and police abuse, you see products the terrible possibility that you may not be able to obtain them.
Yes, let’s everyone get arrested, beaten, all to just elect our elite’s hand-picked leaders. See what happens? If you would just sign the damn pledge that you’ll get up and pull that lever for Special X candidate, then we wouldn’t be demanding that you get arrested, get beaten, pepper sprayed, sound cannoned, soon to be tank/horse trampled, tasered, shot-at/on, etc, etc, etc… (In other words, if the polls were showing a landslide victory, we wouldn’t ask you to do this in the first place. You need the coaxing and prodding to get you to the voting booth, I predict….)
>>Where do you think all the jobs come from that make the t shirts, the glasses, the backpacks, the helmets, and all the rest?<<
The jobs are in CHINA, of course, where the corporate bastards have sent all of our jobs. It’s part of the reason for the OWS protest movement.
Nice letter, BUT I have no doubt that uniformed troops will NOT be on the side of the people. Think about it. Little children glorify them. They have been awarded medals and honored with parades because of their willingness to kill. Very few will side with us. Those who do will be in prison, or worse. Think about Bradley Manning.
I am a vet and a member of VFP. Military training is very effective in removing any taboo against killing, and they do it in a matter of weeks. That’s what military training for officers and enlistees is all about.
Yeah, and for how long has the US sent troops around the world as if it were a football team that gets cheered on by the US citizens?
In a bizarre way the photo of the police holding weapons at the students is sadly amusing. What goes around comes around.
It was fine when those weapons are pointed at everyone else in the world to keep the resources and supplies flowing.
Yeah, some people knew it was happening and yeah, we knew people were being slaughtered OVER THERE, but then you go have more kids and go shopping and it drops from the front of important issues.
Only now…. good gawd…. holy fuck…..they are pointing the guns at OUR CHILDREN!!!
Oh gosh, how did that happen?
We are the ninety nine percent! Just keep chanting. Maybe they will go away.
queerplanet…GREAT COMMENT. The chickens have come home to roost.
And I agree with the other comment here…US citizens do not have the courage to resist in an effective way. In the US the brain washing starts very early – in day care centers, then in elementry schools, and on and on. Try this experiment…over the dinner table or on Main Street, mention the 500,000 Iraqi children who died because of US policies. See how many will deny that that ever happened – even though the official addmission is on tape and was seen around the world.
I talked to a 20s-something, PhD, well educated, Democrat Dept of Energy physicist who completely feels that oil must, MUST be sought out on every inch of this planet in order to fulfill all energy needs, because in his mind, there are no other energy alternatives to oil. I explained the 500K children dead in Iraq for that policy. He balked, and said Iraq had nothing to do with oil and our energy needs. KID YOU NOT! I explained the the Dept of Energy has its own “intelligence unit,” as one of 17 known intelligence agencies openly funded by our gov’t. He balked again, not believing such matters, saying Iraq is a terrorist security issue, and not an energy issue.
AND THIS FROM OUR SUPPOSED BEST AND BRIGHTEST! Imagine what the lesser educated, lesser informed, the lesser critical-thinking are understanding about such matters…
This is one of the existential struggles of Occupy: to neuter the elite’s ability to clamp down, as police brass are not numerous enough to do the actualy dirty work. There are halting signs already this is occuring, as two of the more notorious pepper spraying incidents (New York & UC Davis) were carried out by command personel.
Excellent letter by Mitch Green.
He is taking is oath seriously: I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic.
Mitch has it right, we need protection from America’s domestic terrorists now. That would be the 1% that are traitors to the Constitution, the Bill Of Rights, and the 99%.
Army vet and PhD economics student Mitch Green
Thanks Sir, You are an American Patriot, unlike those who vote for , support, and profit from the Patriot Acts. The DHS, TSA, Chertoff and his scanner contracts, Fusion centers, etc.etc.etc.
The worst legislation in American history , created in 30 days by Bush/Cheney. An amazing mount of work done in 30 days, or were they just rewriting Hitlers manifesto.
This is the United States of America , the country that nurtured men who wrote the greatest Deceleration of Independence ever penned, and a constitution that forbids legislation like the Patriot Acts. This is not the Unites Stasi of America, or the United Spys of America.
Protest everything.
Bravo for the impassioned plea to your fellow comrades, Mitch Green!!!
The reality is that when ALL these foot soldiers refuse to brutalize the peaceful protesters, we have WON. So all those foot soldiers who are too cowardly to deny their orders or have a mental illness inside that makes them sadists, if you could sum up that courage to JUST SAY NO just this once in your life, you would have saved this country from this brutal fascist reign! So THINK OF IT. YOU CAN SAVE THIS COUNTRY, Soldiers, if you just say no.
Buffy Sainte-Marie: No No Keshagesh November 23, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Art, Literature and Culture, Economic Crisis, Environment, First Nations, War.Tags: buffy sainte-marie, environment, First Nations, mother earth, native poeples, No No Keshagesh, protest music, protest song, roger hollander, Wall Street, war
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Keshagesh means Greedy Guts. It’s what you call a little puppy who eats his own and then wants everybody else’s.
* * * * *
I never saw so many business suits Never knew a dollar sign could look so cute Never knew a junkie with a money jones Who’s buying Park Place? Who’s buying Boardwalk?
These old men they make their dirty deals Go in the back room and see what they can steal Talk about your beautiful for spacious skies It’s about uranium. It’s about the water rights
Got Mother Nature on a luncheon plate They carve her up and call it real estate Want all the resources and all of the land They make a war over it; they blow things up for it
The reservation out at Poverty Row The cookin’s cookin and the lights are low Somebody tryin to save our Mother Earth I’m gonna Help em to Save it and Sing it and Pray it singin
No No Keshagesh you can’t do that no more.
Ol Columbus he was lookin good When he got lost in our neighborhood Garden of Eden right before his eyes Now it’s all spyware Now it’s all income tax
Ol Brother Midas lookin hungry today What he can’t buy he’ll get some other way Send in the troopers if the Natives resist Same old story, boys; that’s how ya do it , boys
Look at these people Lord they’re on a roll Got to have it all; gotta have complete control Want all the resources and all of the land They break the law over it; blow things up for it
While all our champions are off in the war Their final rippoff here at home is on Mister Greed I think your time has come I’m gonna Sing it and Say it and Live it and Pray it singin
No No Keshagesh you can’t do that no more.
TO VIEW THE VIDEO:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vGoAI5bb1g&ob=av3n
Buffy Sainte-Marie is a Canadian Cree singer-songwriter, musician, composer, visual artist, educator, pacifist, and social activist. By age 24, Buffy Sainte-Marie had appeared all over Europe, Canada, Australia and Asia, receiving honors, medals and awards, which continue to this day. Her song Until It’s Time for You to Go was recorded by Elvis and Barbra and Cher, and her 1964 Universal Soldier became the anthem of the peace movement, despite the fact it was pretty much banned on US radio. For her very first album she was voted Billboard’s Best New Artist. Buffy won an Academy Award Oscar and a Golden Globe Award for the song Up Where We Belong.
Less Lethal, Or You Die November 22, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Civil Liberties, Criminal Justice, Occupy Wall Street Movement.Tags: #occupy movement, abbyf zimet, cfivil liberties, combined tactical, crowd management, defense technology, first amendment, free speech, occupy wall street, ows, pepper spray, pepperball guns, police brutality, police state, roger hollander
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by Abby Zimet, www.commondreams.org, November 22, 2011
A chilling look at “crowd management tools” – a.k.a. weapons – made by companies with names like Defense Technology and Combined Tactical Systems and increasingly used by police, from pepperball guns and compressed-air pepper-spray backbacks to projectiles firing bean bag “pain compliance rounds” and fog machines dispensing clouds of tear gas “to provide reliable, less-lethal, effective means of incapacitation.” From Mother Jones.
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Most of these – and all the future ones still in development – weapons have one and only one purpose: to be used against Amereichan citizens who have the balls to dissent against the U.S. government. Think about that. Anyone thinking we still live in a democracy needs to have their blinders ripped off.
One Year, Six Months, Three Weeks Later, Manning Gets His Day In Court November 22, 2011
Posted by rogerhollander in Criminal Justice, Democracy, Civil Liberties.Tags: roger hollander, torture, military justice, habeas corpus, enhanced interrogation, kangaroo court, wikileaks, bradley manning, julian asange, courts martial
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Alleged WikiLeaks leaker Bradley Manning finally has a court date, Dec. 16, after 18 months in prison, much of that time under harsh conditions. Supporters are planning a rally.
www.commondreams.org, November 22, 2011
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Indeed. Reminds me of Catch-22. Not sure if I’m describing the book’s ideas quite right but: if this scene wouldn’t make you crazy then you’re crazy. The point with Bradley is that what type of person won’t crack under such constant brutality and rejection?
The UK-Guardian video is most heartbreaking.
Wow. How is it that Manning has spent so long in jail waiting for a court date? I assume this is some form of military court arraignment that he’ll be appearing for. In many jurisdictions in civilian courts, there is an upper limit on the number of days between the complaint’s filing and the arraignment. If there was an arraignment there is almost always an upper limit on incarceration if the suspect asserts their right to speedy trial. I guess the military system of justice has no such equivalent that curbs the power of the sovereign from giving de facto punishment in the form of pre-trial incarceration.
I would say that Galenwainwright has it right the coming court proceedings will be a kangaroo court and a joke, but not for Mr. Manning, if he is not executed for treason he will spend the rest of his life in a stockade, the govt./army is going to make a major out of him …a major example, this poor kid…. they havent begun to fuck with him, but hopefully someday he will be remembered in history as a true patriot, that suffered brutally at the hands of his own govt./comrades for telling the truth to the world. Trully a pathetic look at america. a country where you can lie, steal, cheat, defraud. get bail outs when you have really screwed everyone over…. but beware of the truth speaker…increddible
Skiendhiu has it right, Unfortunately, I often wonder about the minds of the guards who do the torture of Bradley Manning, and the minds of the police who pepper spray directly into the faces of passive students sitting on the ground. How could it be that these people grew up in the USA, learned in 2nd grade about George Washington telling the truth, recited every day that America is a land with “liberty and justice for all”, but still aggressively act to destroy truth and to deny liberty and justice? The minds of these people are something that psychologists should study and try to understand. Those minds and their thinking are the major threat to Americans and the rest of the world. But we have not a clue what is going on in their heads.
Poor guy. The shoethrower’s family claimed Bush the Inferior tortured their reporter for his harmless stunt, so you know poor Manning’s been getting “enhanced interrogation” on the John Yoo Waterboard. If so, they’ll probably give him the Timothy McVeigh treatment just to make sure he doesn’t write a book about it later.
God, a government that tortures people and shoots little kids in cars! I still feel like it’s just a bad dream, and any second I’m going to wake up and laugh my azz off about just how silly dreams can be.
But this nightmare just keeps getting worse every year.
Horrible cannibals on Wall Street who sanction this barbarism! Awful Dark Ages where laptops are smashed and nobody can read books in a park anymore. Crazy rabbit-hole where Red Queens in the Oval Office shout “Off with their heads!”
Get me outa here!
Manning’s legal team should remind the courts martial that the US President, Commander in Chief, constitutional lawyer, Nobel Peace Prize winner totally prejudiced the case by openly declaring last April in San Francisco that Manning had ‘broken the law”. This, before any evidence had been brought forth, let alone a trial. There should a summary judgment of dismissal of all charges and the release of Manning from military custody. When the national leader pronounces judgment, no fair trial is possible, especially in the military context of subservience and obeying orders.
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Yeah, Time is KNOWN to be a liberal magazine, so it’s clearly the liberal press that is guilty here.
Been watching this happen for at least 3 decades, now. You’re JUST NOW catching on to it? Jeesh.
Hah!! Decades indeed. Time/Life and Luce: The American Century, coined in 1941, before Pearl Harbor. In response to Luce and even serialized by him, Charles Beard wrote “The Republic,” an essential book it’s clear too few have read. Time was always propaganda, but sophisticated and hard to see as such. It was a great item to use for instruction in critical thinking since there were always several flaws not caught by editors.
If we are to believe David Halberstam, author of The Powers that Be (which covers in detail the history of several old school American media, including Time/LIFE), the company was founded as a Republican magazine, per se. The entire publication is about viewpoint.
In theory, the liberal counter part was Newsweek, long owned by the Washington Post, bastion of [theoretically] liberal media).
Just look at who TIME’s men of the year have been and you will not want to identify with or associate with “liberals”.
Time Warner Inc. guns for the oligarchy.
Time is a commercial enterprise, and one that clearly knows its demographic. Nobody in the States is going to buy a magazine with a cover photo featuring an angry brown guy from a place nobody’s heard of. A cartoon etching of a middle-aged, balding white guy? NOW you’re talking $$$.
Anxiety is good for whom?__ School bus drivers perhaps? __ How good is it?
Just the right amount helps you focus. Too much and you can’t function, too little and you won’t function. It’s not only good, but it’s awesome in proper doses.
What a load of BS. You mean you won’t drag yourself off to the factory to make someone else wealthy unless you’re worried about losing your house? Yeah, that’s a good thing. For the .01%. One can focus fine on the things that interests one without having to be prodded by anxiety.
I experience anxiety every time one of my grandkids ask to borrow the car, or when I can’t shit for two day straight… Can’t say it’s good for me though.
Then once the television set caught on fire and we were running around like chickens with their heads cut off, back and forth to the kitchen carrying glasses and pans of water to douse the flames… Our youngest daughter was trying to dial 9-11… No one answered,, later discovered she was using the TV remote… Anxiety? OMG,, it was right up there… Was it “good” for us? I don’t think so.
water is not a good idea on electrical fires, Wayne.
and we know that god moves in mysterious ways but do not need the same info concerning your bowels thankyouverymuch.
Dear vdb:
I don’t know about you, but taking a shit is right up there with eating, and climbing Mount Everest. Wayne forgive me this is not aimed at you. You may be a young oldster. However, when one has reached their senior years there are really only two things one talks about, and that is eating and pooping. Life can become unbearable if either of these functions is compromised. The young have yet to discover this.
Dogface - as a cancer surgery survivor – I’d like to confirm your noting the importance of bowel function. It impacts function of the entire nervous system in ways youth would be wise to attend to. Side effects of medication in surgery was one of the greatest and longest battles I had. To youth who prefer to have blinkered conversation, I can only say that to be well forewarned is to be well prepared – that is if memory serves them.
So half the nation is going broke, and I guess that is good for all those experiencing anxiety. Also, love the headline in the upper right hand corner: “Ok, go ahead and buy that lottery ticket.”
Smirk. Lottery tickets, aka: The Stupidity Tax… Guaranteed to pay .50 on a 1.00 and only 20 years to collect it. Boggles the mind, can’t even make this stuff up.
Good thing we have the Internet and sites like Common Dreams. If you get all of your news from mainstream media you’re an American Idiot as Green Day plays it! I’ve learned the hard way that media is strictly controlled by greedy people who milk it for their own bottom line, not ours! Too many people get their news from places like Fox, which makes me sick!
say the distinctly un-anxious pricks in the well-paid press.
Tyme Warmer aspires to be Murdurch.
http://www.didyouknowthat.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/hitler-Time-man-of-the-year.jpg
Was just at my Mom’s house (we went to ‘The Descendants’ together: excellent film about family emotions surrounding the death by coma of the mother – both funny and heartbreaking. Ask yourself why the subjects are in the 1%: maybe they just lead more interesting lives than the rest of us?). She’s a big Faux News viewer, staunch Republican, astute monitor of the markets, and trained critic of the ‘socialists’ amongst us, she picked up on my criticism of ‘The Descendants’ real fast: like Faux had trained her to do so, which it has (and millions of others).
And there, on her coffee-table, was this TIME magazine, with its bespeckled ‘everyman’ filling his heart with his anxious connection to the world. Say what you will, but TIME knows which picture is going to find its way onto the coffee-tables of American 70-somethings: its the picture Faux selected for them. We all love our elderly, but too many of them represent a kind of ‘lost generation’ (which, not ironically, is the term Faux has taught them to refer to us).
What is The Time magazine trying to hide from us? That the revolution is no good? Is it trying to avoid a full coverage of the Egyptian revolution? Is it trying to say that it’s good to be poor, homeless, and broke because things like that produce anxiety and that is good for you? Can someone come up with a good explanation as to why The Times has come up with this trick?
The U.S .mass media insult the intelligence of their consumers. For instance on Friday the 26 of November, the day after Thanksgiving Day, it showed a picture of Tahrir Square in Cairo showing a huge demonstration with the caption underneath reading: demonstration in support of government. Whom does CNN think they are trying to fool? Well, the answer is obvious: its audience. No wonder a majority of us are dumb.
Also, when I was out of the states I found out that CNN news cast in the states was different from those it broadcasts elsewhere in the world.
Much ado about nothing! The cover is different but the articles are still the same. Look at the top of the cover – notice that the Anxiety story is on the European mag and the revolution story is on the USA version. If you are literate you should be able to get both stories and more. If you read the electronic version you don’t get any cover at all. Why even have the discussion?
Hmmm you seem to not have much experience creating journalism or critiquing media. What the editors put on the cover says everything about their intentions, and their perception of what they can sell to the audience. What is inside the magazine matters not. It could be chopped liver.
CNN’s the same: Their international station has some actual journalism; their U S version is more of a Tea Party propaganda organ than Fox “News.”
The “intelligence” budget is black. Which is unconstitutional, by the way. Is it $50 billion or $200 billion? Who knows? Certainly not the American people. It’s illegal to use any of it to try and influence or control U.S. media or American citizen thinking. Ha, ha, ha! I can make you a good deal on some bridge property in the New York area if you are interested.
We need a revolution.
Time’s change.
People’s misuse of the apostrophe, however, continues unabated.
“present, past and future; all Time converge on one point.
NOW!”
-Robert Silverberg (close as i remember)
It is has Chomsky says: “What remains of democracy is largely the right to choose among commodities. Business leaders have long explained the need to impose on the population a ‘philosophy of futility’ and ‘lack of purpose in life’ to ‘concentrate human attention on the more superficial things that comprise much of fashionable consumption’. Deluged by such propaganda from infancy, people may then accept their meaningless and subordinate lives and forget ridiculous ideas about managing their own affairs. They abandon their fate to corporate managers and the PR industry, and, in the political realm, to the self described ‘intelligent minorities’ who administer power.” All that is left of America is banality and self-delusion.”- Noam Chomsky —————————————————————————————————————–
And when you try to bring to the truth of it , they squint, and turn back to the television. Their wives head out the door, to some Black Friday sale, with charge cards in hand – singing the praises of consumerism. And they will be debt to next Christmas, from the money they spent this Christmas.
Wow! This is too funny, and scary at the same time!
It is true, about the difference in news coverage. A few years ago, I was in Europe, and the BBC News was different. I remember seeing a segment that said something about Italy or some other country (I believe it was Italy) were tired of China bombarding them with shipping containers, and they were going to send the containers back to China.
Can you guys smell the ‘re-education camps,’ that Bachmann accused Obama of trying to create? Or, is this what they have been accusing Muslim countries of doing to us – telling their citizens to hate Americans?
I remember the news used to show segments showing people from the ME with signs saying ‘down with America,’ effigies of Bush…then they accused Cuba, Venezuela of teaching their residents to hate Americans. Does all of this sound familiar?
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Of course they ran a different cover. Not one American in 100 even knows what “redux” means!
And, if the so-called “Protect IP” act — scheduled for a vote in the Senate on Tuesday, I believe — passes, in a generation not one American in 100 will know what “revolution” means, either.
Time must step up and take responsibility.
The Onion has a good one on this subject: http://www.theonion.com/video/time-announces-new-version-of-magazine-aimed-at-ad,17950/
I remember Time Magazine´s coverage of Nicaragua in the eighties. You would have thought that the reporter never even left the hotel in Managua. It was a complete re-iteration of all of Reagan´s lies. Complete crap! I have never seen that magazine spew anything but the party line, doing their utmost to create a completely false reality in the minds of it´s readers. National geographic is similar, Reader´s Digest is similar, with complete fabrications to boot. It´s no wonder that US citizens just don´t get it, and commonly believe without question that they have a God given right to interfere anywhere they please with their big stick. Send the Marines!
I would like to point out that if you look at the magazine, the editions that are not for the United States all say in the upper left hand corner, first on their list of other featured articles, “Relax, Anxiety is Good for You”, while the United States edition says “Egypt: Revolution Reignited”. All Time did was put a different cover on the United States edition.
Not so simple: What they have done is re-ordered priorities and “Americans” are notoriously ignorant and unconcerned with the rest of the global population as if the USA is the center and all else rotates around this stolen land.
Exactly.
Not until the people of the USA are willing to pay the heavy price of Revolution as the braves in Egypt will they transform their nation. I would suggest revisiting the US Labor movement’s history for militant resistance.
Anxiety good??? …for the fascists who believe it is their God-given right to control you? It’s fabulous…. For YOU? Not so much…