Seattle: Zionism is a type of Fascism. And its in your Backyard.

As part of the international campaign to bring economic pressure to bear on Israel to abide by international human rights standards, Palestine Solidarity Committee - Seattle (PSC) has proposed a boycott of Israeli products to Central Coop/Madison Market, a local, consumer-owned food coop in Seattle.

PSC was cooperating with a Central Coop subcommittee process to investigate, consider, and make a recommendation to the Central Coop Board of Trustees. Along the way, Stand With Us, the local chapter of a national group that demands special treatment for Israel, heard of the campaign and has used their considerable financial and personnel resources to oppose the boycott. They mounted an email/phone campaign, crowded into subcommittee meetings, and have stacked the Central Coop subcommittee with new members, all demanding silence on this issue.

As a result, the Central Coop Board of Trustees has violated its own customary procedures and ordered the subcommittee to end the investigation and discussion. The Coop is characterizing this action as "maintain[ing] a neutral position".

Central Coop, which considers itself a progressive organization and community, recently quoted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the Coop Newsletter: “A time comes when silence is betrayal.” Will they listen to those words, or ignore them when there is controversy? We need to tell Central Coop that neutrality is false when it passively supports war crimes and apartheid.

Stand With Us has recognized that this is a major campaign that can reverberate nationally and beyond.

WE NEED YOUR HELP IMMEDIATELY. They were able to generate 300 calls and emails against this boycott. We had specifically chosen to avoid this kind of pressure on the limited personnel of Central Coop, but now WE NEED TO DEMONSTRATE THAT THERE IS AN EVEN LARGER COMMUNITY THAT SUPPORTS JUSTICE AND EQUAL RIGHTS.

1. TO SIGN OUR ONLINE PETITION go to: http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/bdscentralcoop/
(You may get a pop-up window to make a donation when you sign--this is a donation to the IPETITIONS website, not to PSC. You do not have to donate to sign on).

We need several hundred names on this petition and we are mounting a campaign to get them, so spread the word: this is an important opportunity to vote locally for justice and equal rights globally.

2. CALL OR EMAIL (or both!) CENTRAL COOP.
-- TELL THEM YOU SUPPORT A BOYCOTT OF ISRAELI GOODS.
--TELL THE COOP THAT THE STATUS QUO VIOLATES PALESTINIAN HUMAN RIGHTS AND IS NOT "NEUTRAL."

You don’t have to be a member of the Coop; they are open to hearing from everyone. We suggest you avoid bullying tactics; be courteous but be firm. Will you shop at a store that considers itself progressive but suppresses debate when the subject of Israel comes up?

Central Coop phone number: (206) 329-1545
Email: info@centralcoop.coop and board@centralcoop.coop or email from the webpage: http://madisonmarket.com/index.php?page=contact

For more background on the Central Coop campaign, read our letter of complaint to the Central Coop Board of Trustees at http://www.palestineinformation.org/CCLett2Board.htm

The website of the Palestine Solidarity Committee is www.palestineinformation.org . You can contact the response network with questions or comments, or subscribe to receive other action alerts about Palestine, by emailing us at outreach@palestineinformation.org.

Fmr. U.$. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney Mourns the Dead of the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza: People of the U.$. and the world must end Israeli impunity now!

I am outraged at Israel's latest criminal act. I mourn with my fellow Free Gaza travelers, the lives that have been lost by Israel's needless, senseless act against unarmed humanitarian activists. But I'm even more outraged that once again, Israel's actions have been aided and abetted by a U.S. political class that has become corrupted beyond belief due to its reliance on Zionist finance and penetration by Zionist zealots for whom no U.S. weapons system is too much for the Israeli war machine, and the silence of the world's onlookers whose hearts have grown cold with indifference.


I recently visited the offices of IHH, the Turkish humanitarian organization that sponsored one of the Freedom Flotilla boats, and that was targeted by the Israelis for its murderous rampage. Reports are still coming in as to the full extent of the senseless Israeli violence. Of course, I expect Israel's apologists in the press and in the United States government to shift into high gear to support Israel's lying machine. Take note of their names. The 12,000 internet squatters/written word grenade throwers, hired by the Israeli Foreign Ministry to defend Israel and attack peace activists online, are already busy spreading their orchestrated disinformation in cyberspace. Be very careful what you read and believe from special interest press and the internet. You could be reading one of Israel's hired hacks. As a news diversion from what Israel has just done, I suspect that we can also expect to see a lot of historical footage of war's atrocities on television: today is Memorial Day in the United States, a day long ago set aside to remember the sacrifices of U.S. war dead.


I encouraged and supported U.S.S. Liberty veteran Joe Meadors's participation in the Freedom Flotilla. Unfortunately, the fate of the U.S.S. Liberty innocents on the high seas, while in international waters, has now been visited upon the participants in the Freedom Flotilla, in large measure because of the Congressional- and Presidential-level cover-up of the 1967 Israeli attack on that U.S. surveillance ship. Combined with the failure of just about every other effort to hold Israel accountable for its crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide, and crimes against the peace. Belgium and Spain changed their domestic laws of universal jurisdiction after Israeli appeals to do so. The entire musical chairs gang of rotating Israeli leadership are war criminals. During my imprisonment in Israel for attempting to take crayons to the children of Gaza, I called Israel a failed state. If Israel is threatened by unarmed, humanitarian activists to the point of massacring them, then Israel is a failed state. Israel is a failed nuclear state.


Obama's most recent granting of an additional $205 million for Israeli "missile defense" is unconscionable, when in the same week, reports revealed for the first time, Israel's offer of nuclear weapons to apartheid South Africa. Just last week, a paper bearing the signature of former Israeli Prime Minister, Shimon Peres, was released by South Africa, revealing that in 1975, Israel could offer South Africa nuclear weapons "in three sizes." South Africa's then-Minister of Defense, P.W. Botha, was South Africa's signatory to the letter. This information would make the entire Obama Administration look sadly farcical as it points an accusing finger at Iran, except that U.S. obeisance to the Israeli bloodthirst is deadly serious. With deadly outcomes.


Earlier this month, Israel was granted admission to the Organization of Economic and Community Development (OECD), a direct affront to ongoing Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) efforts across the world. Once again, Israel has thumbed its nose at the global community--with bloody results--because it can.


I am proud to serve on the Bertrand Russell Tribunal on Palestine. Its next sitting will be in London, where we will examine corporate complicity in Israel's crimes against Palestine. The Tribunal will sit from November 5 - 7. Please put this on your calendar. We all must do what we can, where we are to end wars against the people at home and wars against human rights abroad.


Finally, a friend just sent a message to me saying that the Israelis had lost their minds. Sadly, based on the past, the Israelis could very well conclude that they can do anything--imprison me for trying to take love to the children of Gaza and kill humanitarian activists trying to do the same--because they know, in the end, they'll get away with it. Instead, I would suggest that we are the ones who have lost our minds, our souls, our spirits, and our human dignity if we allow the Israelis to get away with murder--again--and we do nothing.


I am calling on the people of the United States to change course now.


On this Memorial Day 2010, I am stunned and outraged beyond belief while mourning the dead of the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza.

-- Cynthia McKinney

Fascists at University of Arizona Put Their Inbred, Backward, Cave-Dwelling Ways on Display.

"Who Are You Callin' Illegal, Pilgrim!?" (part 2): 2 U.$. States and Congress Seek to End Citizenship-by-Birth.

In the wake of the onslaught of reactionary ideology and policies being carried out due to this ideology (and material basis for this renewed oppression), comes an attempt by U.$. fascist forces to end automatic citizenship for anyone born within U.S. borders. Keep in mind that this provision was part of the 14th amendment and applied specifically to black people who had just been freed from chattel slavery.

If this law is passed, then it seems to me it would only be fair and logical that we go through all the birth records of everyone, including and especially so-called 'white people' (indeed, many can trace their ancestors back to prior to the War of Independence from Britain) dating back over 200 years and deport any and all who found a loop hole.

Those folks didn't have U.S. citizenship papers. Nor their children or grandchilden. All of them were allowed citizenship, and ultimately maintain their citizenship (and economic and political domination of the rest of us) by force of arms against the numerous Indigenous populations at the expense of the slaves (and those of us who are the descendants of slaves) from Africa.

More on this here.

Meanwhile, Kentucky Republikkkan Senate nominee Rand Paul (son of Ron Paul) speaks on his support for racial discrimination in the private sector.

Police Terrorism is as Amerikkkan as Apple Pie.

A former police commander accused of overseeing the torture of more than 100 African American men goes on trial today in Chicago. Former Lieutenant Jon Burge is accused of lying when he denied in a civil lawsuit that he and other detectives had tortured anyone. He faces a maximum of forty-five years in prison if convicted of all charges. The accusations of torture date back forty years, but Burge has avoided prosecution until now. Go here for more on this.

In a seperate, yet related story, Seattle police are investigating whether members of their department tried to influence Q13 Fox into not running video of a Gang Unit detective telling a man he'd "beat the (expletive) Mexican piss" out of him before stomping him. A former employee of Q13 told Stranger reporter Dominic Holden that the station got preferential treatment from Seattle police while news editors would overlook stories that were unflattering to law enforcement. A current employee told Holden the station's official statement about why they sat on the video for three weeks was a total lie. Go here for all of that.

No Bailout for BP!

What BP Will Pay Under the Murkowski plan: $75,000,000.
Actual Cost of Cleanup: $587,285,345 (and counting!)

As the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig continues to spill over 1 million gallons of oil into the Gulf every day, Republicans are demanding less regulation for companies like BP and Transocean while also looking for a taxpayer-funded bailout of BP.

After a month of oil spewing into the Gulf, the cost of cleaning up BP's mess is $542 million and counting. But a group of Republican senators led by Lisa Murkowski of Alaska want the company to only pay for about the first five days of the cleanup and put taxpayers on the hook for everything else. More here.

Man faces 2 years in prison for attempting to arrest George W. Bu$h.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Splitting the Sky (STS) on the advice of legal experts Ramsey Clark, Gale Davidson and Anthony J. Hall attempted a citizen’s arrest on George W. Bush on March 17, 2009 when the former US president was addressing an audience of business people at the TELUS Convention Centre in the downtown of Calgary.

In his March 2010 trial STS invoked the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes legislation, which was enacted by the Canadian parliament in 2000, to submit to the court that he was implementing the law by seeking to apprehend Bush, and was unjustly arrested by police who were in effect “aiding and abetting a credibly accused war criminal.”

Former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney came to Calgary to attempt to testify in the March trial but was prevented from doing so as the judge shut down the trial earlier than anticipated. Instead McKinney spoke at the University of Calgary in support of Splitting the Sky.

It is hoped by supporters of justice that the arrival of Ramsey Clark in Calgary will help to publicize this unprecedented case in Canadian legal history, the knowledge of which the state and their media accomplices have made a concerted effort to suppress and censor from the public domain.

Ramsey Clark has a long history of being a thorn in the side of those political elites who would seek to apply the law expediently rather than unanimously. Born in Dallas, Texas, the son of prominent jurist Tom C. Clark, Ramsey Clark witnessed as a young man the Nuremberg trials following World War II. Clark would go on to graduate from the University of Chicago law school and become Attorney General of the United States under the administration of Lyndon Johnson.

Clark has worked tirelessly throughout his career as an outspoken civil rights attorney advocating for many prominent activists and political dissidents. After the 1971 Attica Prison debacle Clark replaced William Kunstler as Splitting the Sky's legal advocate. STS's charges were acquitted as a result of Clark's relentless advocacy.

On April 3, 2010 Clark was elected at a meeting of over 150 lawyers, legal scholars and human rights campaigners, to be the chairperson of a new international campaign to investigate the alleged crimes against humanity committed by the Bush regime.

Global Research reported: “Ramsey Clark emphasized that it is the imperative responsibility of the American people to relentlessly pursue this investigation, and to seek prosecution and indictment inside of the United States...Ramsey Clark made the point that all the war crimes and crimes against humanity flow from the commission of the most supreme crimes which he identified as the Crimes against Peace. This was the finding at the Nuremberg trial, and it is enshrined in the Nuremberg Principles.”6

Clark's reference to precedents set at Nuremberg, a German city once infamous for its right-wing extremism, encourages those of us who would like to see Calgary's image in the world evolve from one of Harperite cowboys and vulture-capitalists into a city where law enforcement agencies set precedents in human rights jurisprudence and international law with the support of the polity's residents.

Perhaps such a paradigm shift would ignite a necessary atonement for the state-endorsed despoliation of the Indigenous Peoples of the region's ancestral resources, lands and waters which has been unpardonably gifted to mainly Texas-based oil and gas conglomerates.

How Judge Manfred Delong will be influenced by Clark's arrival in Calgary is yet to be seen. Will Judge Delong compound the Culture of Impunity afforded to credibly accused war criminals emanating from Anglo-America - which the Harper-minority government and their equivalents around the world have supported - by “setting an example” and sentencing STS to spend two-more years of his life behind bars and burdening him with a fine of up to $5000? Or will he realize the broader implications of this trial and dismiss the case before the court that STS “obstructed a police officer”?

The more citizens who mobilize in solidarity with STS the less able the state and their media accomplices will be to sweep the profound juridical questions being raised by STS, Clark and others, under the carpet. The proceedings are as follows:

Ramsey Clark arrives in Calgary, June 6, 2010. He will speak at the University of Calgary, Murray Fraser Hall Room 164, 4pm – 6.30pm.

The sentencing of Splitting the Sky commences on June 7, 2010 at the Calgary Courts Centre.


1Vincent Bugliosi, “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder.” 2008. excerpt quoted: http://www.prosecutionofbush.com/excerpt3p1.php

2Anthony Hall, “Bush League Justice: Should George W. Bush Be Arrested in Calgary Alberta to be Tried for International Crimes?” Voltairenet. March 9, 2009. http://www.voltairenet.org/article159233.html and Gail Davidson, “Barring Bush From Canada: Time for the Law to Step in.” Global Research.ca http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=15733

3Anthony Hall, “Cynthia McKinney Meets Splitting the Sky.” Global Research.ca. March 14, 2010. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18115

4“Chaos Mars Saddam Court Hearing.” BBC News. Monday, 5 December 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4498102.stm

5 Josh Davidson, “Ramsey Clark Speaks Out Against War at College.” The Independent. March 19, 2003. http://independent.gmnews.com/news/2003-03-19/Front_page/013.html
6“Ramsey Clark Chosen to Head Commission to Investigate Bush Crimes.” Global Research.ca. April 14, 2010. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=18610

Responses to Black Unemployment article from Facebook friends.

tacia Hawkinson: I wish they would investigate the so-called "justice system" while they're at it - our incarceration rate is 6-10 times greater than any other industrialized nation.

Gregory Lewis: Wouldn't that be nice? Keep in mind this is the same UN who ordered African Union troops to only observe and report the genocide going on in Darfur (Sudan), not to actually do anything about it.

Saab Lofton: "In 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Commission noted its concern that while African Americans constitute just 12% of the population, they represent 50% of homeless people ... Myriad reports and studies that have been done all come up with the same basic conclusion: In order to resolve deep and persisting racial disparities in this country, a public policy initiative is urgently needed."
--Cynthia McKinney, A Discussion of Race Worth Having, March 18th, 2008

White Americans doN'T want to admit to such things because the most important thing to them is to be able to "save face," which is why there's such an undue emphasis on whether you love America, are you an anti-American and so forth. Well, it's not as simple (as in simple-minded) as "love it or leave it," as the right-wing would say. There's a third option, which is to IMPROVE it -- for ALL our sakes ...

Tremalle LaBee: The sad truth I've come across recently is the fact that some people will dispute any stat you present them. Mainly, these people are of the belief that it is classism that is the major problem and racism isn't that big of a deal in comparison. I acknowledge the fact that racism is usually enforced for capitalist reasons you also have to ... See Moreacknowledge that racisim is its own issue now that can only be solved if addressed directly. To paraphrase Michael Eric Dyson, "...poverty just makes racism worst."

Saab Lofton: "poverty just makes racism worst" That's true ...

White supremacy (the fear of being bred out; the fear of future descendents looking like Ice T and Mariah Carey) and bootstrap capitalism are like a tag team in professional wrestling and BOTH must be taken on SIMULTANEOUSLY in order for there to be a lasting victory.

If you beat white supremacy but not bootstrap capitalism, you'll have a beige/brown elite lording over the poor and homeless. If you beat bootstrap capitalism but not white supremacy, you'll have free universal health care, but ONLY for people who look like Brigitte Nielsen and Dolph Lundgren from Rocky IV.

"some people will dispute any stat you present them"

Yeah, NAZIS. To this day, you STiLL have to argue with them insofar as how many Jews died during the Jewish Holocaust. Then again, history has vilified the Nazis, as well it should, and one day, history will also vilify these inbred, ig-nant-ass teabagging libertarian minutemen that FOX News has grossly inflated the supposed importance of ...

http://www.truthout.org/why-left-has-no-answer-right-wing-lie-machine59220

The regressive bias of the corporate media is starkly revealed by the coverage, and the non-coverage, of the public demonstrations of last month. When a couple of thousand tea-party or gun-rights enthusiasts show up on the Mall in Washington, or across the Potomac in Virginia, the mainstream media is there to cover them en masse. But when up to ten thousand protesters gather on Wall Street, or fifty thousand jam downtown Los Angeles to protest the Arizona “show your papers” law, these events might just as well have taken place on the far side of the moon.

Greg @ Tremalle: Racism is a class doctrine. The global economic system as it is today has its roots in the trans-atlantic slave trade and illegal seizure of indigenous lands all over the world. That fact alone should be a clue that it is un-reformable in any lasting, fundemental way and needs to go!

Here's another good reason this system must go: whether we like it or not, ANYONE living in the United States is benefiting directly from the exploitation of 3rd world workers, especially our big bourgeoisie and government.

So here we are, oppressed as a people along side our neighbors from Africa, Mexico, Central and South America by the same amerikkka that we marginally benefit from. Where do you think the crumb$ our uncle tom [mis]leadership goes and begs them for comes from? It is the effects of the exploitation ("globalization") that bring people here from the periphery of (and next door to) the amerikkkan empire.

The government ( liberals and conservatives alike) learned in the 1960's that in order to keep power over us and other communities of color all they had to do was substitute reparations with affirmative action, start bribing us with jobs, religion, consumer goods, and a little more access to the wealth (usually in the form of loans, grants, and scholarships); while at the same time killing and imprisoning the most militant (or potentially militant) leadership of the movements of oppressed peoples (Black Panthers, AIM, Young Lords, etc).

The TEA Party gives the conservatives a way out of giving any of us any concessions: namely state/corporate-sponsored, right-wing, populist terrorism to assist law enforcement in keeping power over us and other communities of color.

Black Unemployment in the United States is So Bad the United Nations is Investigating.

The level of black unemployment in the U.S. is so bad that the United Nations is launching an investigation. And, indeed the figures on unemployment by race are grim for blacks, especially black men.

The latest unemployment figures show a stark racial disparity. For black men, the unemployment rate was 20.2%, compared to 9.6% unemployment for white men. (Of course, these numbers are low given that “discouraged workers,” those who are no longer looking for employment, are not included, nor are those who are incarcerated).

The outrageously high unemployment among black Americans means the United States has failed to live up to commitments it made under United Nations human rights agreements, a coalition of advocacy groups charges, according to a recent report by City Limits.

More here. Also see this article.

Tucson: Indigenous Peoples Protest Againt SB 1070 and HB 2281.

Anti-immigration bills such as SB 1070 rest on the "securing" of the borders in order to manage the flow of migration. This securing includes and is not limited to a physical wall to be made on Indigenous land (Tohono O'odham/Lipan Apache to name a few).
The state's power to waive pre-existing laws (such as NEPA, NAGPRA) in the name of security, directly attacks Indigenous autonomy/sovereignty.

The "political" solution will bring forced removal and relocation of the many Indigenous nations that span "their" borders by means of a reinforced physical barrier. In addition, the peoples who will be primarily targeted for racial profiling will be Indigenous peoples on both sides of the U.S/Mexico border.

The passage of HB 2281 further contributes to the cultural genocide of Indigenous peoples by criminalizing the histories of Indigenous peoples in our own lands within the Arizona public school system. The immigration struggle is also an Indigenous struggle. More here.

Neo-Nazis March in Los Angeles.

Stealing Toothpaste is a Death Sentence if you're Black in Amerikkka.

The story of a man who was choked to death by a CVS employee after stealing toothpaste from the Chicago store on Saturday is getting even more scrutiny, after police admitted Monday that a Cook County sheriff’s officer was on the scene when the man, Anthony Kyser, was killed.

Kyser, a 35-year-old barber, was chased out of the Little Village store and restrained by an employee of the store who saw him stealing, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. The employee then strangled him to death. More here.

Video Contradicts Police Claim in Killing of 7-Year-Old

In Detroit, the attorney for the family of a seven-year-old girl shot dead by police in her own home says he’s seen video contradicting the police account of the killing.

The girl, Aiyana Jones, was sleeping when police raided her family’s home in pursuit of a murder suspect on Sunday. Detroit police say an officer’s gun accidentally went off after the officer tussled with Aiyana’s grandmother.

But the attorney, Geoffrey Fieger, says video of the incident shows police opened fire after lobbing a flash grenade through the home’s front window—before they had entered.

A bullet from the gun pierced Aiyana’s head and neck.

From Democracynow.org

40 Years Ago: Police Kill Two Students at Jackson State in Mississippi.

Four decades ago, on May 4, 1970, four students were killed at Kent State University when National Guardsmen opened fire on hundreds of unarmed students at an on-campus antiwar rally.

The killings received national media attention and are still remembered forty years later across the country. But the media has largely forgotten what happened just ten days after the Kent State shootings.

60% of Amerikkkans Support Arizona Anti-Immigrant Law.

"Arizona Governor Jan Brewer last week signed a new law into effect that authorizes local police to stop and verify the immigration status of anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 60% of voters nationwide favor such a law, while 31% are opposed."

See the Rasmussen poll here.
See results of a Pew poll here.

The police bombing of MOVE: 25 Years Later.

This is a recorded version of a live feed from the African American History Museum on 5/10/10. Speakers included: Linn Washington, Chairman Fred Hampton Jr., and Ramona Africa.

Tucson students shut down meeting between state superintendent and school district, occupy building.

On Tuesday, May 11 Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed HB2281, a bill that legally prohibits ethnic studies programs from Arizona public schools, equating such classes with sedition and removing state funding from districts that offer them.

On the morning of May 12th state superintendent Tom Horne, who for years has advocated eliminating ethnic studies, tried to hold a meeting with Tucson Unified School District officials to discuss the district's curriculum. Rumors began circulating around 10:00 a.m. among Jr. high and high school students that Horne was in Tucson to immediately "pull the plug" on their classes.

In response, more than 700 spontaneously walked-out of their classes, with participants from Rincon, Cholla, Tucson and Pueblo high schools. More here from Arizona Indymedia.

General Strike In Nepal.

"If you look at Nepali Maoists from the eye of past communist movements, you won't be able to understand us. Since our movement's earliest years, no one has been able to predict how we will go. This defines our leadership. Our goal is socialism, that is constant and we are not confused. Whether elections or people's war - or this general strike -we find our tactics from our goals." - Madushi Bhattarai, student leader. More here.

A Crucial Point.

A letter sent to the Seattle PI website in response to the following article on the most recent display of police terror in Seattle.

Casey McNerthy’s article yesterday concerning a decrease in excessive force complaints against Seattle police officers since 2007 misses a crucial point, which actually calls into question the entire thrust of the article.


The Office of Professional Accountability, the city office charged with receiving and investigating complaints about police misconduct is not a truly independent entity, but effectively an arm of the Seattle Police Department. While it has a civilian director, that director reports directly to the department’s chief, and all the investigative work is done by Seattle Police Department officers. The civilian OPA Review Board are denied access to unredacted (meaning uncensored) reports of incidents, and are bound by confidentiality to never discuss the details of any investigation (both conditions were set in the Seattle Police Guild’s labor contract and fiercely defended by the police officers’ union). Finally, any final decisions concerning discipline are made by the SPD chief – regardless of the recommendations resulting from an OPA investigation.


The outcome of all this is that the Seattle Police Department itself makes the determination concerning whether or not an allegation of excessive force is sustained and sent for full investigation, and maintains absolute control over the investigative, deliberative, and disciplinary process. Under a system fraught with such conflict of interest, I find it difficult to accept wholeheartedly the assertion that excessive force complaints are decreasing. A more accurate statement might be that excessive force complaints against Seattle police officers – as defined by the Seattle Police Department – have decreased since 2007. This distinction is anything but minor.

Marc Mazique
Seattle, WA

The New Jim Crow: How the War on Drugs Gave Birth to a Permanent American Undercaste.

"Ever since Barack Obama lifted his right hand and took his oath of office, pledging to serve the United States as its 44th president, ordinary people and their leaders around the globe have been celebrating our nation's "triumph over race." Obama's election has been touted as the final nail in the coffin of Jim Crow, the bookend placed on the history of racial caste in America.


Obama's mere presence in the Oval Office is offered as proof that "the land of the free" has finally made good on its promise of equality. There's an implicit yet undeniable message embedded in his appearance on the world stage: this is what freedom looks like; this is what democracy can do for you. If you are poor, marginalized, or relegated to an inferior caste, there is hope for you. Trust us. Trust our rules, laws, customs, and wars. You, too, can get to the promised land.


Perhaps greater lies have been told in the past century, but they can be counted on one hand. Racial caste is alive and well in America." - More at Truthout.

The History of Anti-Racist Action

In the 1980s the Twin Cities were a hotbed of Neo-Nazis and racist skinhead gangs, some of which were violent and others which were openly organizing working class white young people to further an agenda of hate and intolerance.

Many folks in Twin Cities communities began organizing a response and eventually drove most of the nazis and racist skinheads out and underground through a multi-decade struggle. Among the first groups to organize a response were young punks who formed street crews that eventually founded Anti-Racist Action (ARA). ARA chapters quickly spread to other cities and still exists in other states today.

Kieran, Molly and Katrina spoke at Macalester College on April 1 about the history of ARA in Minneapolis, copwatching, sexual assault within the movement and the ongoing struggle against overt and covert white supremacy.

Is the International Situation Favorable to Revolution?

The following is from the new issue of Nepal’s Maoist English language journal Red Star.

At various stages in the Nepal revolution, the argument has been made that the international situation was too hostile to successfully embark on socialist revolution in a small, poor, landlocked country — requiring a long “transition” sub-period that did not cross the threshhold toward socialism or even New Democracy. In other words, the question of “is the international situation favorable?” is connected with a debate among Nepali revolutionaries about whether to press forward the Nepal revolution to victory.

Read more at Kasama.

Toronto: 18year old Dies in Police Custody.

Afrikaaner Terrorist Plot Foiled In South Africa.

Police in South Africa say they have foiled a plot by white extremists to bomb black townships ahead of the World Cup.

Five suspects linked to rightwing groups were arrested in police raids that uncovered major caches of explosives, illegal guns and ammunition.

From The Guardian, by way of One Peoples Project.

"Educated" Fool Shows He Has Learned Nothing From History Or His Own Experience.

Reparations isn't just about punitive damages and restitution for enslavement, economic exploitation, genetic experimentation, denial of opportunities in education, and employment, denial of what we are told "our rights" are, and outright murder.

Reparations is also required due to the current, on-going exploitation and denial of basic human rights to black people (and thousands of others, from the reservations within U.S. borders to the favelas of Brazil), as defined by both the United Nations and human rights organizations around the world.

Indeed, any indigenous people on the planet who were damaged by the rise of global capitalism (and who are continuing to be damaged by global capitalism), driven by first british, then amerikkkan imperialism, to its current stage are due reparations.

One common experience we (we, meaning black or brown people anywhere on the planet; the workers, a.k.a. the majority, in particular) can all generally relate to is police terrorism. This tends to cross all class lines within our respective communities.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has written an "analysis" of reparations riddled with unfounded claims and historic falsehoods.

This is the same Henry Louis Gates, Jr. who was assaulted by police and arrested in his own home last year. So, he too, by international law, is also owed reparations on the basis of that one act; in addition to punitive damages for slavery, geneocide, un-finished reconstruction in the U.S., un-finished U.S. civil rights movement, and destruction of black/brown/anti-imperialist movements in the U.S.

Sadly, as is the case for far too many black "intellectuals" and "leaders" in the U.S., Gates has allowed self-hate to magnify his short-sightedness, which has him advocating against himself (and real freedom, justice, and equality for the majority of the planet) for relative pocket change from the right-wing and its media.

Visit Uhuru News for the full story.

Seattle, Arizona: Seattle Cops Stomp On Latino Detainee.

by Chris Halsne.
KIRO 7 Eyewitness News Investigative Reporter.

Posted: 3:44 pm PDT May 6, 2010
Updated: 1:50 pm PDT May 7, 2010

SEATTLE -- Internal affairs detectives have launched a review after seeing a racially charged videotape of two Seattle police officers stomping on an innocent detainee.

KIRO Team 7 Investigative Reporter Chris Halsne received the footage from a freelance photographer.

Check out the interview with the guy who filmed it. He was a freelance videographer for Seattle-area Fox News affiliate Q13. Hear what Q13 told him when he gave them a copy of the video.

A Perspective On Border Controls and Immigration.

"The passing of SB1070 leads us to the police state, and does not just affect migrants, it affects us all! SB 1070 like policies already occur on the Tohono O'odham Nation since the mid-90's with the states push for immigration enforcement. Border Enforcement that would be a Berlin-like Wall through our lands to control movement. The current push for immigration reform by politicians and by reformist activists includes the push to secure “their” borders which would be the forced removal and relocations of all indigenous tribes that live in the border region (Yaqui, Lipan Apache, Mohawk to name a few). This dismissal not just shows the colonial attitude that both reformist activists and politicians have, but also the settler privilege that they evoke when constructing border policies." More at O'odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective

"I am an anarchist", says Alicia Keys.

"Keys isn't afraid of entering politics herself, presumably
to put a stop to all this sort of thing. "Some of the
greatest artists did their best work when they got
political," she told Blender. "If Malcolm [X] or Huey [P.
Newton] had the outlets our musicians have today, it'd be
global. I have to figure out a way to do it myself."


The singer considers herself an anarchist, and indeed the
New York police department revealed last year that they had Keys under observation in the lead-up to the 2004
Republican National Convention, fearing "anarchist
actions".

Visit Sons of Malcolm for the rest of the article.

Former US Marshall speaks on the War on Drugs.

What the Corporate Media Won't Tell You About The 3 Deaths In Greece.

Here's what the corporate media said about it. Below is what a surviving worker had to say.

"The management of the bank strictly bared the employees from leaving today, even though they had persistently asked so themselves from very early this morning – while they also forced the employees to lock up the doors and repeatedly confirmed that the building remained locked up throughout the day, over the phone. They even blocked off their internet access so as to prevent the employees from communicating with the outside world.


My co-workers lost their lives today by malice: the malice of Marfin Bank and Mr. Vgenopoulos personally who explicitly stated that whoever didin’t come to work today [May 5th, a day of a general strike!] should not bother showing up for work tomorrow [as they would get fired]."

More from the letter post at Occupied London here.

Putting Nukes In A Poor Black GA Town: If A Black President Does It, Is It Still Environmental Racism?

by the Black Agenda Report.

"In the weeks since President Obama announced $8.3 billion in loan guarantees to build new nuclear reactors next to an existing pair of nukes in mostly black Burke County, GA, the inconvenient questions, unanswered and mostly unasked, continue to pile up.


The first and most obvious questions are why nukes, and why Burke County?" To find out, go here.

Dead Prez "That's War"

Lakota Nation Prevents U.S. Helicopters from Landing at Wounded Knee.

-From Censored News...

"At high noon today US Army helicopters of the US Seventh Cavalry air division attempted to land their Blackhawk aircraft upon Lakota Sacred Burial grounds in South Dakota. The presence of military aircraft from this unit is a sad and insulting reminder of the slaughter of more than 300 American Aboriginals on December 29,1890 when soldiers of the US 7th Cavalry gunned down more than 300 Aboriginal Minneconjou Lakota refugee children, women, infants and the elderly at what is now called Wounded Knee in South Dakota Indian Country. The military then left the bodies of their victims to decay unburied in the driving snow.

"As of this writing, the US military was confronted by angry but peaceful and steadfast community resistance as the Aboriginal people of the area have so far, according to reports from Lakota people on the ground, managed to prevent the aircraft from touching Indigenous ground.

For all American Aboriginals of the Americas, this is a sacred area. This is the place where the promise of a people died while fleeing from a genocidal US military unit hell-bent on liquidating the continent of its Indigenous population. There has never been any official apology offered for this massacre and the military awards bestowed upon the genocidal aggressors involved in this conflict still stand, as does a physical monument in honour of the US Army killed during Custer’s “last stand” against a defiant and united Indigenous resistance to their own demise." - James (Magaska) Swan.

Go here for more on this.

"Drill, Baby, Drill" or "Kill, Kill, Kill"?

From Democracy Now...

“BP is a London-based oil company with one of the worst safety records of any oil company operating in America,” says Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen.

“In just the last few years, BP has paid $485 million in fines and settlements to the US government for environmental crimes, willful neglect of worker safety rules, and penalties for manipulating energy markets.”

For the rest of the article go here.



In a related story, from the Campaign To Seize BP...

"BP just recently announced that it was granted the contract for the Rumaila oil field in Iraq, thought to be the second largest oil field in the world. This was only possible because of the U.S. government’s military invasion in 2003. BP and the other western oil giants’ holdings in Iraq had been nationalized by the former Baathist government.

In Iran, BP worked with the CIA in 1952-53 to overthrow a democratically elected government after it dared nationalize BP, which had monopoly control over all of Iran’s oil until then. That’s how the Shah was brought back to his bloody throne for 26 years. Among his first acts was to denationalize Iran’s oil wealth and hand it right back to BP and U.S. oil monopolies.


Support for BP and Big Oil’s rapacious plunder of the planet comes from both the Republican and Democratic Parties. Bush promoted ultrahazardous deep-water, offshore drilling. The Republican corporate robots led by Sarah Palin used the RNC in 2008 to make the disgusting “Drill Baby Drill” chant a part of public lexicon. And President Obama, once in office, immediately supported BP and Big Oil’s frantic efforts to reap super-profits through dangerous and unprecedented deep-water, offshore drilling."

For more from the Campaign to Seize BP, go here.

This Is Why The Oppressed Call Him "O-Bomb-Yuh".

"White House officials confirmed last week that the president, who won the Nobel peace prize last year, is considering the deployment of a new class of hypersonic guided missiles that can reach their targets at speeds of Mach 5 — about 3,600mph." For more on this, go here.

In a related story,.... "For the first time in more than 20 years, U.S. nuclear-weapons scientists are designing a new H-bomb, the first of probably several new nuclear explosives on the drawing boards. If they succeed, in perhaps 20 or 25 more years, the United States would have an entirely new nuclear arsenal, and a highly automated factory capable of turning out more warheads as needed, as well as new kinds of warheads."

No wonder Secretary of State Hilary Clinton called Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's comments on U.S. use and proliferation of nuclear weapons a "distraction".   For that, go here.

Let us not forget that the U.S. is the ONLY country that has actually used nuclear weapons in war. To this day, the U.S. uses depleated uranimum in shells and short-range missles. As "...part of a campaign to get other nuclear nations to be more forthcoming", the Pentagon announced the number of nuclear missles they have. For that number, go here.

Blackwater wants Mercenaries to Invade Africa.

"Investigative journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill obtains a rare audio recording of a recent, private speech delivered by Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater, to a friendly audience in January, 2010.

The speech, which Prince attempted to keep from public consumption, provides a stunning glimpse into his views and future plans and reveals details of previously undisclosed activities of Blackwater. In a Democracy Now! exclusive broadcast we play excerpts of the recording and speak with Scahill about the revelations."- from Democracy Now.

The Earth Has No Rights No Imperialist Power Structure Is Bound To Respect.

"At the close of the World Climate Conference, the Hall of Shame award goes to the mainstream US media, which usually pretends to be covering world events. In the case of the World Climate Conference, the mainstream US media was not only noticeably absent, but the armchair journalists pumped out spin articles to discredit Bolivian President Evo Morales. Take note of who wrote the 'chicken' articles and other negative articles, and follow their writing.

Whether it is CIA-inspired, or just journalists attempting to make themselves look clever, the intent is to distract from the real purpose of the climate conference. The real purpose is to rescue this planet from destruction by corporations and personal indulgence." Go here for more.

A 'Good' Liberal Experiences Racial Profiling Firsthand.

Ben Lowe, an Illinois Demokkkrat running for Congress talks about his experience with racial profiling. He points to Arizona's new anti-immigration law. Read about it here.

Sadly, he doesn't seem to grasp or openly bear witness that the root issue is not about mere immigration reform or even racism, its imperialism:  legalized, state-sponsored (inter)national exploitation of entire nations (including those of us who live within the borders of amerikkka), since the early years of the global economy to the present day.

The system begets the symptom. Get rid of the system, get rid of the symptom (and possibly save the patient).

The Politics of The Comfort Zone.

by Ward Churchill.

"If you conduct your protest activities in a manner which is sanctioned by the state, the state understands that the protest will have no effect on anything...You can gauge the effectiveness—real or potential at least—of any line of activity by the degree of severity of repression visited upon it by the state. It responds harshly to those things it sees as, at least incipiently, destabilizing. So you look where they are visiting repression: that’s exactly what you need to be doing...There’s a whole feel-good ethic out there. It’s not [to] effect any substantive change."

Read more of "Politics of The Comfort Zone" here.

This is What White Privilege is All About.

"What If the Tea Party Were Black?"
by Tim Wise

"...Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis..." Continued here.

"Dick Ridin' For Obama" - Will I. Am and Thugnificent

Who Are YOU Callin' "Illegal", Pilgrim?! (part 1).

U.S. colonialism attacks Mexican-Indigenous people in Arizona.

UhuruNews
Published Apr 30, 2010

Just as the white settler Apartheid regime in South Africa used black police to downpress their own people, so does the U.S. and the state of Arizona use Mexican-Indigenous police in the same way.
On Friday, April 23 Arizona governor Jan Brewer signed into law SB 1070, vicious, white nationalist legislation designed to attack the Indigenous Mexican workers from whom Arizona and the rest of Occupied Mexico was stolen by white colonizers over the past 500 years.

The law authorizes Arizona police to stop any Mexican person anywhere, any time and demand that they show “immigration documents.”

If a Mexican worker does not produce the colonial papers they are guilty of the “crime” of trespassing on their own stolen land and will be deported across the false imperialist border imposed on them by the U.S.

SB 1070 is no different than the pass laws of Occupied Azania (South Africa) under the system of Apartheid where African workers were forced to show “passes” to the settler police at any time on stolen African land.

This brutal Arizona law criminalizing the Mexican population is supported by 70 percent of Arizona’s white population. The law legitimizes the colonial violence regularly carried out by white vigilantes, the sheriff’s departments and the vicious U.S. immigration forces known as the ICE.

The passage of SB 1070 is a symptom of imperialism in crisis, fighting its last ditch battle for white people and white power to keep this stolen land at the expense of the Indigenous people who are chasing their stolen resources across the imposed border.

This is part of genocide that began when Christopher Columbus first landed in the Caribbean in 1492 and instigated the slaughter of hundreds of millions of Indigenous people.

The genocide of the owners of what today is called North and South America goes hand in hand with the enslavement of hundreds of millions of African people whose stolen labor was also part of the foundation of this parasitic system of capitalism that gives white people opportunity, prosperity and democracy at our expense.

The fact that the law was signed by a white female governor exposes the imperialist complicity of the white women’s movement, spawned by the militancy of the African and Chicano liberation movements of the 1960s.

Instead of struggling for solidarity with the liberation of African and oppressed peoples on whose backs the oppression of white women rests, the white women’s movement has worked for equality with white men in carrying out the colonial policies against Indigenous, African and colonized peoples.

The African People’s Socialist Party recognizes unconditionally that this land belongs to the Indigenous people of this hemisphere, period.

We stand in solidarity with the right of Indigenous people to their land and their resources and their right to resist their oppression by any means necessary.

The APSP calls on white people to abandon their stance as brutal colonizers and stand in solidarity with Indigenous people struggling for the return of their land and resources.

Repeal SB 1070!