Monday, March 18, 2024
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Tags U.S. government

Tag: U.S. government

Amend The 13th: Why the Millions for Prisoners March is vital...

Working towards the success of the Millions for Prisoners March has been a central theme of the Amend the 13th’s agenda since the outset. In a movement dedicated to not only abolishing legal slavery in Amerika, but transforming the nature and structure of unequal social, political and economic relationships upon which mass incarceration is based, support for the March is of course an obvious priority – but what is not so obvious is why this march is vital to the very future of progressive social change in Amerika.

Rwanda conscripts Burundian refugees into new ‘rebel force’: an interview with...

Western press and officials now warn that the Rwandan massacres of 1994 are close to a replay in Rwanda’s neighbor Burundi, which shares its Hutu-Tutsi-Twa demographic. In “Burundi’s dangerous neighbor,” a letter to the Washington Post, former U.N. official Jeff Drumtra argues that the Rwandan government’s conscription of Burundian refugees to fight in a new, so-called “rebel force” is a grave danger that the international community should recognize before it’s too late.

David Cameron’s visit to Jamaica: Amusing and dangerous

Progressive and revolutionary groups throughout the Caribbean are sending a clear message to British Prime Minister David Cameron regarding his arrogant, condescending and contemptuous statements with regard to slavery and the issue of reparations during his recent visit to Jamaica. Cameron’s behavior shows that the British Conservative Party’s colonial mindset is still firmly in place. Read Gerald Perreira's essay and listen to the Block Report interview, in which he delves deeper into the topics of reparations, prison and border conflict.

Cuba to release 3,522 prisoners on the eve of Pope Francis’...

Just prior to the visit of Pope Francis to Cuba on Sept. 19, the Cuban government has announced the release of 3,522 people being held in the country’s jails. This humanitarian gesture will include prisoners who are over 60 years of age, younger than 20, those with chronic illnesses, women and those who are close to their release dates. Why couldn’t Obama follow the Cuban example before Pope Francis continues on his tour to the U.S. on Sept. 22?

Concerning reactionaries and thugs: The New Black Panther Party

Like many of my comrades, original Black Panther Party members, I have for years watched these strutting caricatures who call themselves the New Black Panther Party and expressed my disgust. But now I have had enough – they have crossed a line. Their most recent attack on our comrade, former member of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, Dhoruba bin-Wahad on Aug. 8, 2015, needs to be addressed in no uncertain terms.

‘Selma’ shockingly and sadly relevant

"Selma" gives a window into the turbulent three-month voting rights campaign, a series of pivotal protest marches in 1965 that culminated with President Johnson signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The movie offers a lens into King and imperiled activists’ attempts to travel a 54-mile highway from Selma to the Alabama state capital, Montgomery, in the face of blatant racism, brutality and de facto segregation.

Stop the political persecution of Aristide and Fanmi Lavalas once and...

In March of 2011, I accompanied Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide on his trip home to Haiti following years of forced exile in South Africa. I did so in support of Haitian democracy and Aristide’s civil rights, and in protest against my country’s role in illegally removing him from power in 2004 and then preventing him from returning to his native land for seven long years. Today, Haitian democracy and the rights of Aristide are again under threat.

Child refugees: When children are ‘the enemy’

I’ve been watching for days now as media reports display the growing hatred at the arrival of Central American children across the Mexican-U.S. border. American voices crackle with bile as they begin the drumbeat for their immediate deportation. They are refugees from want and war, almost all the result of U.S. interventions in Central America in support of murderous military governments and the mindless drug war.

Hunters Point to Treasure Island: From the frying pan into the...

Gentile, soft-spoken Sandy Agee represents a group of African-American Bayview Hunters Point residents who thought they escaped radiation and chemicals that the Navy dumped at the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, turning it into one of the nation’s most radioactive EPA Superfund sites. They discovered the Navy also carpeted their refuge, Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay.

An end to ‘the hole’? 6 signs that solitary confinement reform...

Roughly 80,000 people are held in solitary in the United States on any given day, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in many cases for minor violations of prison rules (or no violation at all – ed.). Much of the momentum in the movement to reform the use of solitary confinement in the United States comes from the work of prisoners themselves.

Dr. Willie Ratcliff on Black San Francisco

Dr. Willie Ratcliff is publisher of the San Francisco Bay View, one of the leading Black newspapers in the U.S. and a treasured source of left news in the Bay Area. In an interview with Michael Chase and Ragina Johnson, Ratcliff, a longtime resident of the city, reflected on the Hunters Point Naval Shipyard and its closure, environmental racism and the changes in the Fillmore neighborhood, a historically Black area known as “Harlem West.”

Congo: The UN Combat Intervention Brigade is not there to combat...

Friends of the Congo’s Executive Director Maurice Carney told KPFA that the U.N. Combat Intervention Brigade is really just the U.S., U.K., and other Western powers’ excuse for continuing to support African dictators – Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni and Congo’s Joseph Kabila. All three, he says, collaborate with foreign interests to drain Congo of its vast resource wealth.

Report from China: ‘Human Rights Record of the United States in...

The U.S. State Department recently released its Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2012, posing as the world judge of human rights again. As in previous years, the reports are full of carping and irresponsible remarks on the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China. However, the U.S. turned a blind eye to its own woeful human rights situation and never said a word about it.

100th day of the hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay

Reportedly over 130 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have entered the 100th day of the hunger strike protesting their infinite detention. The U.S. government has denied and underplayed the hunger strike which began on Feb. 6, 2013, after cells were stripped and Qu’rans were searched following a fight with the guards.

Palestine prison

It is one of the ironies of history that the descendants of the beleaguered Warsaw Ghetto in Poland, subjected to the bitter hatreds and repression of the Nazis, have established an entire sea of the oppressed and impoverished on their periphery: the open-air prison ghettoes of Palestine, Gaza and the West Bank.

U.S. drone policy: Sen. Rand Paul filibuster

Rand Paul’s filibuster opposing nominee John Brennan’s CIA appointment had relevant historical significance. In terms of the U.S. drone policy and the capacity for targeted killing of U.S. citizens, it is important to know targeted killing of U.S. citizens under a secret program is not new. As a result of a counter intelligence program (COINTELPRO), as many as 33 Black Panthers were targeted for killing.

River of Haitians march to stop the attacks on President Aristide...

On Jan. 9, MASSIVE demonstrations throughout Haiti supported former President Aristide after he was summoned to court on frivolous charges seen as political persecution. People say that putting Aristide on trial is the same as putting the Haitian masses on trial and that the charges are meant to divert attention from the third earthquake anniversary and the theft of billions in aid. Speak out against the Red Cross for building a luxury hotel with aid funds. Rally Friday, Jan. 11, 4:30-5:30 p.m., outside Red Cross headquarters, 3901 Broadway, near MacArthur BART, Oakland.

‘COINTELPRO 101’: an interview wit’ filmmaker Claude Marks

“COINTELPRO 101” is a recently released documentary that takes a long hard look at the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program to crush resistance that led to the deportation of Marcus Garvey, the assassinations of Malcolm X, George Jackson, Fred Hampton, Martin Luther King Jr. and more.

Prisoner on stolen land: an interview wit’ Aaron about political prisoner...

Leonard Peltier is a legendary leader of resistance against police and government oppression specifically dealing with the indigenous people of Turtle Island (Amerikkka). Now his nephew Aaron is releasing the “Free Leonard Peltier Album,” which features some of the most notable rappers on the scene today that rap for freedom. The listening party is Tuesday, Nov. 30, 6:30 p.m., at the Black Dot Cafe, 1195 Pint St., West Oakland.