Monthly Archives: August 2011

Lynne Stewart is one of the legendary activist lawyers of our time and also one of the many political prisoners of our time, who was incarcerated because her style of lawyering was called aiding and abetting a terrorist organization, by one of the biggest terrorist organizations ever known to humanity: the United States government.

The riots that started last Saturday night were completely unexpected, but they could have still been anticipated by everyone from the community to police. The fact that a man, Mark Duggan, was shot by police was always going to be a provocative issue, but this was amplified by the fact it took place in Tottenham – a place that has a fairly murky history with the police and authority in general – and the fact that the man was Black.

Every Muslim and Christian Palestinian refugee in Lebanon and every Lebanese citizen whose family members or loved ones were slaughtered during Israel’s two massacres at Qana, Lebanon, is reminded today of the indescribable loss suffered Sunday by their Libyan sisters and brothers at Majer, Libya.

A Voice for Neli, a grassroots advocacy group formed to bring awareness to the plight of Reginald “Neli” Latson – an autistic teen the group contends was wrongly convicted and sentenced to serve time in a Virginia state penitentiary – is urging Gov. Bob McDonnell to pardon the youth.

It is astonishing to find that the British press that is so quick to tell us about the “true” nature and motivations behind each mass protest in the Arab world is somehow intellectually lame in its attempt to grasp their own huge scale “riots” at home.

I just watched Good Morning America, where the anchors denied that there were any social or economic justice concerns driving the London rioters. They were all just criminals and copycats apparently. Shame on you, Robin and Christiane; you’re both a lot smarter than that.

The San Francisco Bay Area, historic birthplace of the Free Speech movement and a pioneer in the digital age, is now apparently the first place in the United States to have had its electronic communications deliberately disabled in order to pre-empt a political protest.

I have been recuperating from not eating for 20 days straight and I can tell you based on my personal experience that it was hell! I could feel the life gradually being sucked out of me. Now we are trying to get our weight back up because this hunger strike is far from over.

Lynch Black Libyans and be hailed a rebel by the United Kingdom. Set up on your own path of destruction on the homeland, however, and be hailed a mindless, criminal, opportunist rioter. What’s wrong with this picture?

On a post-riots walkabout in south London, guess who I bumped into? None other than goldilocks London Mayor Boris Johnson, whose summer holiday to America was so rudely interrupted by looters.

Since the beginning of the seizure of police stations and army depots by the “peaceful” protesters in Libya, Africa, in February, who were then armed to the teeth and terrorized the population of many cities in Libya, the British government has supported them, calling them “rebels,” and even in the last few days recognize them as the “official government of Libya.”

A protest that was fueled by what many deem an unlawful police shooting descended into chaos. The tragedy is, the questions that these protesters wanted, needed and had a right to ask have yet to be answered. Had these questions been answered satisfactorily, by which I mean honestly and in good time, rather than allowing allegations to be made and broadcast that were unfounded, the destruction that ensued could well have been prevented.

In an historic verdict with national implications, five New Orleans police officers were convicted on Friday of civil rights violations for killing unarmed African Americans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and could face life in prison when sentenced later this year.

By now, everyone in the U.K. is aware of the rebellion that is taking place throughout England. Most of us have read about it or watched media coverage and have been encouraged to condemn the movement as emanating from a group of mindless, opportunistic, criminal rioters. “It is nowhere near as simple as a bunch of young Black hooded males smashing and grabbing and making the most of a bad situation,” said one young British observer.

The MAGIC Program’s Back-to-School Celebration and Backpack Giveaway, the largest of its kind in San Francisco, will kick off the academic year Saturday, Aug. 13, by distributing health information, school uniforms and 3,200 new backpacks stuffed with school supplies to kids and teens.

Since the coalition came to power just over a year ago, the country has seen multiple student protests, occupations of dozens of universities, several strikes, a half-a-million-strong trade union march and now unrest on the streets of the capital – preceded by clashes with Bristol police in Stokes Croft earlier in the year. Each of these events was sparked by a different cause, yet all take place against a backdrop of brutal cuts and enforced austerity measures.

Several days of unprecedented revolt by the most impoverished minority-populated neighborhoods of London have shaken the normally staid and reserved British aristocracy. Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his Italian vacation in sunny Tuscany to return to the red-orange glare of a burning city.

Serious allegations have been made about the conduct of the House Ethics Committee in its case against Los Angeles’ Black Congresswoman Maxine Waters. The House Ethics Committee’s investigation has dragged on more than two years, only proving that “improper conduct” occurred on the part the Ethics Committee itself.

In his last public message the day before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called on Black people in Memphis to support Black banks. “We’ve got to strengthen Black institutions. I call upon you to take your money out of the banks downtown and deposit your money in Tri-State Bank,” he said ...

The latest target of a San Francisco police wave of terror is Kilo G. Perry, videographer, freedom fighter, peacemaker and educator and the disabled single father of a 3-year-old boy. Ever since the July 16 killing of Kenneth Wade Harding Jr., 19, at Third and Oakdale by the SFPD thugs in blue, our Bayview Hunters Point community has been threatened, harassed and terrorized by the police more than in recent memory – some say more than in 45 years since the September 1966 rebellion.