Monthly Archives: December 2009

Freeway Ricky Ross was one of the biggest publicly known fundraisers for the U.S. government’s proxy wars against the people of Latin America, specifically in the countries of Nicaragua and El Salvador. He didn’t do it selling candy like school children do; he did it selling thousands of kilos of crack cocaine in the Los Angeles area. After serving over 20 years behind enemy lines, he met with me in Chicago at Mosque Maryam, where he was the featured speaker two weeks ago.

“I applaud and welcome the passage of H.R. 4173, The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act,” declared Congresswoman Barbara Lee, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), several of whose members, led by Congresswoman Maxine Waters, were responsible for the bill’s key provisions. "Nobody has more at stake here than Black America," says Kai Wright, senior writer for The Root.

During his speech to the 15th United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez slammed the “lack of political will” of the most powerful nations to take serious action to avert climate change and called for systemic change to save the planet.

Faced with mounting issues like melting glaciers and destruction of the rainforests on his home continent, President Morales has called for very necessary measures to lower our world’s temperatures by even more than the recent warnings from most scientists and even our colleagues in G77, Africa Group and AOSIS. “One degree (Centigrade) rise is too much!” says Morales. Negotiators remain at work. Keep calling the Obama administration.

BMAGIC’s 5th Annual Winter Ball on Friday, Dec. 18, at the Joseph Lee Recreational Center, 1395 Mendell St., San Francisco, is the event that youth in Bayview Hunters Point have been waiting for. All youth ages 14-18 in Bayview Hunters Point are invitedto celebrate the end of the year and take pride as their accomplishments are recognized and honored. Free admission to the formal includes DJ and dancing, dinner and professional photos. Teens who show up in street clothes will change into formal wear and keep the clothes they select.

California state prisons are to begin implementing a plan for the unsupervised release of up to 40,000 non-violent inmates and are required to train staff on non-revocable parole eligibility by Jan. 21, according to a memo sent from the State Department of Corrections.

The 10 Black members of the powerful House Finance Committee are still being applauded this week by the Black press and Black leaders nationally for boldly boycotting a committee meeting in order to force a $4 billion allocation to benefit the Black community. They plan to escalate protests if lawmakers continue to ignore the suffering of their constituents, including advertising discrimination against Black newspapers.

We are too big to fail! Call President Barack Obama to remind him that a bold reinvestment in, recovery for and restoration of our environment is even more critical, and less expensive, than the trillions he has given to prop up Wall Street, the military contractors, capitalist for-profit corporations and now the insurance industry that stands to benefit so greatly from his health care “reform.”

In this conversation between two young Black men who are passionate about the potential role of radio in the Black community, Minister of Information JR begins: "Rob Redding is one of few Black program directors at a mainstream talk radio station: KMLB in Monroe, Louisiana. He is also syndicated on XM Radio and on Green 960 AM in the Bay Area."

Stand with the residents of Bayview Hunters Point Thursday, Dec. 17, 6:30-10 p.m., at the SF Planning Commission hearing on Lennar's Environmental Impact Report in San Francisco City Hall Room 400. Tell the commissioners: No to bricks on Jello! No building on top of liquefaction! No nuclear stadiums! No capping over toxic landfills! And YES to true complete cleanup of the ENTIRE SHIPYARD.

December 4th, International Revolutionary Day, was a historic day, not just because it was the 40th commemoration of the assassination of Deputy Chairman Fred Hampton and Defense Captain Mark Clark of the Black Panther Party, but because of the way the people responded to remember these freedom fighters after such time.

Recently the cold war against Cuba was ratcheted up when an acrimonious debate broke out over the issue of racism in Cuba and for the first time the issue of Brazil was thrown into the mix. The brouhaha began when scores of prominent African Americans, many of whom should have known better, put their names to a petition calling upon the Cuban government to release a dissident from prison.

The U.N. Climate Change Conference entered its final week under a cloud of uncertainty as the Africa Group led a protest of the developing world against a perceived attempt to abandon the Kyoto Protocol. By the middle of the day, the Africa Group’s displeasure had brought official talks to a halt.

Here in the frigid capital of Denmark, we continue our long and difficult work to achieve REPARATIONS NOW! for Afrikan and Indigenous nations and ascendants, women and girls, and everyone in our sacred earth.

With the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) engulfed in bloodshed and terrorism due to the secretive occupation and expansion by the Rwandan regime of Paul Kagame, Congo’s President Joseph Kabila has reportedly requested an immediate emergency military intervention from Belgium to crush a growing rebellion sparked by resistance forces in the far Western Congo.

KPFA has been actively trying to restrain Flashpoints’ success for years now, but most of all during Rijio’s tenure as general manager. We take on the stories that make the establishment nervous, whether it’s police beatings and injustice inside the station – Nadra Foster – or outside the station. We report from the ground, whether it’s from Haiti or the West Bank or at the frontlines of the Native American struggle. Our Palestine coverage in particular has garnered intense scrutiny, to use a euphemism, from the pro-Zionist crowd.

The Olympic torch, a flamed staff that represents white supremacy, is running through Indigenous nations and territories, symbolizing their theft and dominance of our lands and ways. For 106 days every Indigenous nation in these lands has the opportunity to talk to the world about your issues and show unity between all nations here who have a common oppressor and common invader, KKKlanada (“Canada”). Let us unite voices and show the world we are a proud and independent people who will never surrender our lands.

The leak of a so-called “Danish text” that would sideline the U.N. in future climate deals is reverberating around the Copenhagen negotiations. Today I witnessed an unexpected and extraordinary outburst of candor from one of the key players in these negotiations – Lumumba Di-Aping, chief negotiator of the G77 bloc of mostly poor countries.

A leader in the movement for justice for Oscar Grant, Minister of Information JR is headed to Los Angeles for a screening of his new film, “Operation Small Axe,” focusing on resistance to police terror in occupied communities, and a discussion of the Oscar Grant case and its implications. It’s this Saturday, Dec. 12, 6:30 p.m., at Leimert Park’s Kaos Network, 4343 Leimert Blvd. Let’s support this brotha!

As San Francisco grapples with a looming budget crisis, Public Defender Jeff Adachi is seeking $2 million in state reimbursement to the City for its defense of eight men charged in a 1971 homicide case involving a police officer. The city’s right to reimbursement is based on the fact that the California Attorney General took on the 36-year-old case after the San Francisco District Attorney’s office declined to prosecute.