NOW Identifies Murder of Dr. George Tiller As Domestic Terrorism, Calls for Action from Justice Department and Homeland Security
Statement of NOW President Kim Gandy
June 1, 2009
Women across the country have lost a champion today. The cold-blooded murder of Dr. George Tiller this morning in church is a stark reminder that women’s bodies are still a battleground, and health care professionals are on the frontlines.
This kind man and skilled doctor braved blockades, harassment, assault, and countless threats, including an attempted murder in 1993 when he was shot in both arms. He knew his life was in constant jeopardy, and that he would likely die at the hands of an anti-abortion terrorist — yet he continued to protect his patients and provide safe and legal abortions to women in often-desperate circumstances. Those who are behind this murder may believe that the killing of George Tiller will mean that these women will have nowhere else to turn, but they are wrong. On the contrary, I believe their depraved acts will inspire another doctor to take up the torch, and another, and another.
RedFlags suggested that we post this piece from Al’s blog “The Field.” We are posting this because of the importance of this assassination, and (as usual) this does not mean that we are endorsing the particular analysis made.
By Al Giordano
“…those who today, either out of despair or because they are victims of the propaganda the regime propagates in favour of terrorism as the nec plus ultra of subversion, contemplate artificial terrorism with uncritical admiration, even attempting sometimes to practise it, do not know that they are only competing with the State on its own terrain, and do not know that, on its own terrain, not only is the State the strongest but that it will always have the last word.”
- Gianfranco Sanguinetti
On Terrorism and the State
The assassination this morning of Wichita doctor George Tiller, on his way into a Lutheran church service, was the second attempt on his life, this one successful. The first attempt on the doctor who works in a reproductive health clinic that has long been targeted by Operation Rescue and other anti-choice organizations came on August 19, 1993, when a man named Stanley Shannon’s bullets wounded the doctor in both arms. (Shannon served an 11-year sentence for that crime.)
WICHITA, Kan. — Authorities said they had a suspect in custody Sunday afternoon in the shooting death of George Tiller, a Wichita doctor who was one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions.
Dr. Tiller, who had long been a lightning rod for controversy over the issue of abortion and had survived a shooting more than a decade ago, was shot inside his church here on Sunday morning, the authorities said. Dr. Tiller, 67, was shot with a handgun inside the lobby of his longtime church, Reformation Lutheran Church on the city’s East Side, just after 10 a.m. (Central Time). The service had started minutes earlier.
Dr. Tiller, who had performed abortions since the 1970s, had long been a lightning rod for controversy over the issue of abortion, particularly in Kansas, where abortion opponents regularly protested outside his clinic and sometimes his home and church. In 1993, he was shot in both arms by an abortion opponent but recovered.
Incidents in the United States (taken from wikipedia)
Murders
In the U.S., violence directed toward abortion providers has killed at least 9 people, including 5 doctors, 2 clinic employees, a security guard, and a clinic escort.[4]
June 29, 1994: Dr. John Britton and James Barrett, a clinic escort, were both shot to death outside of another facility in Pensacola. Rev. Paul Jennings Hill was charged with the killings, received a death sentence, and was executed September 3, 2003.
December 30, 1994: Two receptionists, Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, were killed in two clinic attacks in Brookline, Massachusetts. John Salvi, who prior to his arrest was distributing pamphlets from Human Life International,[5] was arrested and confessed to the killings. He committed suicide in prison and guards found his body under his bed with a plastic garbage bag tied around his head. Salvi had also confessed to a non-lethal attack in Norfolk, Virginia days before the Brookline killings.
The short story is that one of the unique genes that define human beings, the speech gene known as FoxP2 was grafted into a mouse’s DNA, and the newborne critter started making new and unsual sounds for mice.
This represents an important development by Wolfgang Enard and his colleagues. Nicholas Wade writes in the New York Times:
In a region of the brain called the basal ganglia, known in people to be involved in language, the humanized mice grew nerve cells that had a more complex structure and produced less dopamine, a chemical that transmits signals from one neuron to another. Baby mice utter ultrasonic whistles when removed from their mothers. The humanized baby mice, when isolated, made whistles that had a slightly lower pitch, among other differences, Dr. Enard says. Discovering that humanized mice whistle differently may seem a long way from understanding how language evolved. Dr. Enard argues that putting significant human genes into mice is the only feasible way of exploring the essential differences between people and chimps, our closest living relatives.
Of course, implanting this gene did not enable the mouse to talk. Actual speech requires a cascade of genetic changes in humans from even their close chimp cousins (including brain size, physical throat structures, and more).
We received the following reports from New Zealand — in a bold protest two revolutionaries, Joel Cosgrove and Alistair Reith, burned the flag of South Pacific island nation of New Zealand. Their action was taken on ANZAC Day, in protest against the death of youth in New Zealand’s imperialist wars. It was particularly controversial because of the level of assumed patriotism in New Zealand, including within much of the Left.
While burning the U.S. flag is quite common, it was startling for many to see New Zealand’s flag destroyed and its military called out as imperialist. The two flag-burners and their cameraman were then suspended from the Victoria University.
Chokwe Lumumba, a long time leader among Black nationalist revolutionaries, has won a city council seat in Jackson, Mississippi, where he has lived for the last twenty years. Lumumba, leader of the New Afrikan Peoples Organization (NAPO) and its successor Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, won the election with over 60% of the vote in a runoff following an election in which Lumumba trounced a large number of competitors but failed to make the 50% cut.
The Kasama Project believes it is crucially important to deeply sum up previous attempts at developing a viable revolutionary movement in the U.S. — this includes a wide range of organizations and strategies that dug into the challenges of radically transforming power and society here in North America. For that reason we are excited to receive the following piece, gathered by Suzy Subways, on the important experience of SLAM — a radical student movement based in CUNY during the 1990s.
This article was originally published in Upping the Anti #8. For the full issue, with articles on the economic crisis, Gaza, indigenous organizing and more, buy a copy at your local radical bookstore or visit upping the anti website. Please consider making a donation to this all-volunteer project.
As always sharing this piece here on Kasama does not mean that the Kasama Project endorses the analysis it contains. It is offered here for discussion and debate.
A Culture of Resistance:
Lessons Learned from the Student Liberation Action Movement
In March 1995, 20,000 students from City University of New York (CUNY) were attacked by police after surrounding city hall to protest a draconian tuition increase. This protest, organized by the CUNY Coalition Against the Cuts, marked an upsurge in student movement activity that continued into 1996, when the group transformed into the Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM), a multiracial radical organization. Before disbanding in 2004, SLAM established chapters at CUNY colleges in all five boroughs of the city. This roundtable focuses on the chapter at Hunter College in Manhattan and explores SLAM’s legacy of building a left culture in New York City and across the country.
After weeks of many parts of Mexico being literally shut down and shut tight because of the Swine Flu, Pablo Milanés performed for the people in an open concert. Thousands attended, but the in-person numbers were limited by the government, thus thousands more watched him on TV, “en vivo.”
What was particularly poignant about this event was, most knew every word of his songs, and you could see their mouths moving in unison behind their donned “cobrebocas.”
And it was clear that in what has been an overwhelmingly stifling and grim environment, the people needed to hear and participate in this concert, their culture, their music, to which they identify with so closely.
Pablo Milanés is Cubano—loved and revered by the people. His songs are in the nueva trova style, a combination of both folk music/folklore with progressive and politicized lyrics. He is a true internationalist and has consistentlybeen involved (with other artists worldwide, e.g. Gabriel García Marquez) in the struggle for Puerto Rican independence.
Musically, there is a strong internationalist trend among los mexicanos . The annual International Music Festival draws thousands, with a focus on a different country or culture. Some of the most popular groups have come from Brazil , Cuba , the Harlem Jubilee Gospel singers (NY), Turkey , Japan , the Philippines , or South Africa , highlighting Hugh Masakela. Pablo Milanés’ music encorporates that same spirit.
Gajurel of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)
This article was published on Steven Mauldin’s Zblog.
Interview with C. P. Gajurel
Conducted by Stephen Mauldin May 28, 2009
“In every revolution there are very few who have a real understanding of Marxism, what Lenin and Mao have said. The masses are motivated by attaining something for their basic well-being not by an understanding of theory. But they learn by practice. The real intentions of the reactionaries are revealed to the masses as they are led through the revolutionary process. Of course, even among the masses supporting the revolutionary struggle are the opportunists. We believe that, over time, the people, without theoretical understanding, will in practice understand the necessity of removing the reactionaries and will recognize the opportunists for what they are. In time, in this way, a transformation will happen; there will be a New Nepal.”
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C.P. Gajurel is a leader of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), a member of the party’s Central Committee and head of their International Department.
In August 2003, when attempting to travel to London, using forged travel documents, Comrade Gajurel was arrested in Chennai, India. Nepali and foreign supporters, including several international communist parties launched a campaign to have him released. In April 2005 a team of European human rights activists was allowed to meet Gajurel in prison. His supporters feared that he would be extradited to Nepal and tortured by Nepali authorities. After the CPN (M) and the government of Nepal signed a Comprehensive Peace Agreement, India dropped charges against Gajurel, of “conspiracy against India”. He was released in November 2006 and returned to Nepal. [1]
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SDM: Thank very much for meeting with me. It’s an honor. Just to begin, a very general question in the direction I would like to explore. The supposition is that the central question is how to seize state power now the Maobadi have left government, the tactics now in these new conditions. [2]
CPG: Yes. This is always the central question. It’s not just the central question for the Maoists. All the parties are looking to seize state power, not just the Maoist party. But the Maoists are bringing about a new transformation in Nepal. It is more important that since the elections, where the Maoists emerged as the single largest party in the Constituent Assembly, we are leading the creation of the new constitution. Because of the election, the Maoist party has been recognized internationally as the legitimate leadership in Nepal. Now, this is our most important work, to use the CA for transformation of Nepal. [3]
On May 26th, Prof. Ronald Takaki (1939 – 2009) passed away. He was a founding figure in the development of multicultural studies in the U.S..
Perhaps it is hard to reconstruct how radical and controversial the very idea of African American studies or “Ethnic Studies” once was. But suffice it to say that it was once widely and officially assumed that the U.S. was a “white, Christian, Anglo nation” and that the study of white settler expansion and the subsequent culture of that nationality WAS the history and culture of the U.S. The experiences and struggles of Black people, of Chicanos, of Native Americans, and of non-white immigrants was a void — a large gaping hole enforced by the assumptions of white supremacy. They were not studied (or taught) because there was assumed to be nothing there — and that marginalization helped hide (read: defend) the profoundly ugly truths that lie at the foundation of the United States, its founding, its expansion, its wealth, and its century-old attempt to dominate the world.
And we need to remember this now precisely because the nature of U.S. society remains the focus of sharp struggle — and the forces of a white, Christian, male-dominated America have not rested or conceded the future. And because there needs to be intensified struggle over what a liberated multicultural society in North America would look like.
Pioneers like Ronald had to fight — often literally in building takeovers and other militant actions — to be heard. And it is only in the wake of Black rebellions, leaving smoking city cores in the mid-1960s, that the hidebound racist stonewalls of official academia started to crack.
The Kasama Project is participating in the work of organizing the RWIOT conference this summer. We would like to urge everyone to come.
We will be posting reports on plans for the conference as it comes closer and as they become more developed. But clear the time now.
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Revolutionary Work in Our Times
Revolutionary Work in Our Times is a three day gathering of revolutionaries and social movement organizers. At this year’s strategic dialogue, we’ll talk about left strategies to confront the economic crisis in the age of Obama.
Benno Ohnesorg dying on the street in West Berlin, June 2, 1967
By Mike Ely
It is ancient history for some. But for others, of an older generation, it still aches like an open wound.
Benno Ohnesorg was shot dead, in cold blood, on June 2, 1967, by a police bullet entering the back of his head. The killer was a West Berlin cop named Karl-Heinz Kurras.
The killing happened in the middle of a frenzied police attack on a powerful radical demonstration in West Berlin. It was a protest against the state visit of Iran’s rightwing pro-U.S. dictator, the Shah. And they ended it using a bloody police riot. It was the first demonstration Benno had ever been part of.
Benno’s death was like the German Kent State. I went to Germany as a teenage radical the following year, 1968-69, meeting anarchist, communist and Reichian radicals and learning about their movement. The anger over Benno’s killing was still smoking hot. It was one of those events that “lit the sky” — and taught a profound lesson to everyone watching.
It divided the country between those orderly Germans who thought the society should crack down, and those rising in just rebellion. And it helped harden the emerging radical movement, making people consider serious revolutionary politics against the West German state and capitalist society.
Now, there are startling new revelations about the killing of Benno — and about the identify of the plainclothes cop who pulled the trigger that night, in the midst of the police mayhem.
This pamphlet is based on a discussion document presented to a recent Kasama conference by Enzo Rhyner, J.B. Connors, John Steele, Kobayashi Maru, Mike Ely, Rita Stephan and Rosa Harris.
This essay was also posted online (in HTML format) in the Kasama discussions:
One way to understand the Kasama Project is to sketch two other alternatives:
We could rush off again, like peasants to war, disperse ourselves deeply among the people and “just do it” — wielding the political understandings we have at this moment, take up urgent struggles and expect to develop new strategy and theory from that process.
Or we could rush to encapsulate ourselves as a new little political sect — carve quick lines of demarcation, proclaim strategy and theory based on the political understandings we have at the moment, and rush out to proclaim it to the world.
“It is a very sharp contradiction — that this election “means” something profound to Black people (as you say), and yet this is still imperialism (as you also say). And so it “means” all kinds of things internationally (in terms of a reboot for the U.S. strategic moves, in terms of international illusions etc.) thanks for writing so powerfully — in ways that give us a chance to deal with this contradiction, and these broadly felt experiences.”
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By Reali
It’s really hard to convey to white people what Obama means.No amount of political understanding or movement participation can translate this perhaps.
I walk down the street and feel better about myself. I feel more confident. I truly imagine that people-whites, asians, latinos, whoever-see me differently. Do you have any idea what that means? What is means to my little cousins?
But it’s not real! It’s still imperialism. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. This is true. And it’s not. It is different.
It means something for Black people. I even look at me and all of us differently. New Democracy? Dunno. But until people start really communicating and at least attempting to acknowledge what Black folks are experiencing..I just can’t get with you, this. And please don’t paint me with the dismissal of nationalist or identity politicist (made that up). I have something to say.
Enzo posted this.
