Monthly Archives: February 2012

Amoeblog invited author, journalist, broadcaster and activist JR Valrey, aka the People’s Minister of Information, to be a guest contributor. The Oakland-based Valrey, who was interviewed and profiled on the Amoeblog last month, is known for his work on KPFA radio, the San Francisco Bay View newspaper, and his book “Block Reportin’.” The book will soon be available for sale in Amoeba Hollywood’s book section.

Discussions are underway with the intent to set short term and long term goals in the resistance struggle against SHU practices and the prison industrial complex. People are indoctrinated, brainwashed into believing they are weak or powerless – that prisoners in this state are evil and deserve to be punished and treated as some type of sub-human animal, based on their felon status.

Who should control the San Francisco Police Department’s counter-terrorism activities – the FBI or San Franciscans? At SF City Hall Room 250 on Thursday, March 1, 10:30 a.m., stop FBI targeting of ‘Black separatist extremists’ who advocate reparations under the banner of preventing terrorism!

On Jan. 25, 2012, 8 a.m., at CSP-San Quentin II, West Block convicts revolted, shutting down the entire unit, as a result of prison guards and unit Sgt. Bloise abusing their authority and discretion by attempting to move convicts from cleaned cells to filthy ones.

A vicious land grab is being carried out in Uganda, pairing the country’s dictator with an ‘investor,’ and the targets are the Acholi, genocide survivors who live in the northern part of the East African country, on abundant, fertile and mineral-rich land.

The 1987 Constitution has not only thwarted a return to a dictatorship, but also prevented foreign concerns from buying the country wholesale from officials of the executive branch. One of the proposed amendments to the 1987 Constitution stated: “From now on, until the municipal elections of 2013, all Haiti’s mayors will be replaced by ‘Municipal Agents’ designated by the central government.”

We are saddened by the news of the loss of our frontline immortal freedom fighter, Christian Alexander Gomez. Tragically, it’s believed to be fact that on Feb. 2, 2012, he died because of an infection he developed during the phases of our hunger strike here in CSP Corcoran ASU-1. It happened because of the medical staff and prison officials' negligence.

"After the disaster in July 2010, when Judge Koeltl, following the directives of the Second Circuit, increased my sentence from 28 months to 10 years, our righteous indignation fueled this appeal," writes Lynne Stewart. Occupy the park all night and then the court: Come to Tom Paine (Foley Square) Park, beside the Federal Courthouse, 500 Pearl St., Lower Manhattan, on Tuesday, Feb. 28, 6 p.m.; stay all night until the Wednesday morning court appeal Feb. 29. Let the government know we dissent from the use of incarceration as a tool of political terror.

The good news is that 11 months after the Fukushima meltdown, thousands of Japanese marched in the streets to protest the continuing operation of nuclear power plants in their country, and urged a shift to renewable energy. Meanwhile in the U.S. the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approved the building of two new nuclear power plants in Georgia.

Oakland Police shot Tony Jones, 24, late Sunday. He is a cousin of Oscar Grant, whose murder by BART police officer Johannes Mehserle sparked a movement for justice that presaged the Occupy movement. Unarmed, Jones was running from police, “but that does not give them the right to shoot him in the back,” declared his attorney, Waukeen McCoy.

The death of Christian Gomez, 27, the first California hunger strike martyr, will be covered by Democracy Now! on Friday, Feb. 24, on 1,024 TV and radio stations around the country and online at DemocracyNow.org. His family is speaking out about the loss of their family member in the hope that similar incidents are avoided in the future. While CDCR emphasizes Gomez' conviction to discourage public sympathy, his sister contends his conviction was wrongful, and according to a late report, the assault charge that sent him to segregation was about to be dropped.

Johnny decided to teach a class on the history of Black Music in America. His concept for the class was revolutionary and drew large enrollments. It holds the record for the most popular class ever in the history of the Peralta Community College system.

Malcolm was our manhood, our living, Black manhood! This was his meaning to his people. Consigning these mortal remains to earth, the common mother of all, secure in the knowledge that what we place in the ground is no more now a man but a seed which, after the winter of our discontent, will come forth again to meet us. And we will know him then for what he was and is. A prince. Our own Black shining prince who didn’t hesitate to die because he loved us so.

Africans in Haiti, by the tens of thousands, broke their chains and though penniless, hungry and scarred by the ravages of bondage, found weapons and the will to fight for freedom against the defenders of slavery: France, Britain, and Spain. They did what no “slave” army had ever done in modern or ancient history. They defeated an empire.

Everyone knows the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, higher than China’s with four to five times our population, and it continues to spiral. One in 100 adults is locked up in this police state, now totaling 2.4 million. Just as chattel slavery produced abolitionists, this new form of slavery must generate prison abolitionists.

What is wrong with prisoners asking for better living conditions and pay for work? What is wrong with prisoners requesting better educational programs, better religious programs, better rehabilitative programs or any useful programs at all instead of the current ones in place, which we hardly are even allowed to attend?

I got your letter, and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. ... You shot at me twice before I left you.

Our hunger strikes were the only way to effectively resist the nonstop assault on our humanity which is the inevitable consequence of burying us indefinitely in these sensory deprivation torture units. The success of the Occupy Movement, like the hunger strikes, requires sacrifice and strategic insight. The kind of sacrifices you exemplify – we love it, we love you and we stand with you.

Welcome to the great month of February, my favorite month of the year! And I’m not just saying that because on Feb. 18 my starship landed here. And on the day before that, the 17th, the voice and moxy of the Black Panthers, Huey P. Newton, was born. And on the 14th of this guilded, star-studded month the furious freedom fighter Frederick Douglass hit the earth like a comet!

The striker reportedly knew Christian Gomez and described the day of his death. Several inmates were screaming and pounding their fists on their cell doors trying to get the attention of the correctional officers. His knuckles were noticeably battered during the visit. CDCR officials continue to assert that autopsy results show Gomez did not die of starvation.