Monthly Archives: March 2016

This article was prompted by the unrelenting campaign by friends and associates of the late Dr. Walter Rodney, to maintain the false accusation that Forbes Burnham ordered Walter Rodney’s assassination. Many of these academics and commentators are not Guyanese and do not fully understand the circumstances in 1980 that led to Walter Rodney’s demise. The adage, chanted by Bob Marley, that “half the story has never been told” is 100 percent correct.

Sheriff Vicki Hennessy wrote to the Board of State and Community Corrections to rescind San Francisco’s application for jail funding under SB 863, writing: “The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has tasked the Sheriff’s Department, the Department of Public Health, and community mental health and criminal justice stakeholders to convene an effort to explore alternatives that currently preclude building a new detention facility.”

Congresswoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., ranking member of the Committee on Financial Services, introduced landmark legislation that would provide significant resources to end homelessness in America. The measure is a bold effort to declare what is really needed to address this crisis. The legislation provides $13.27 billion in new funding over five years to several programs and initiatives that will help the nearly 600,000 Americans who are currently homeless.

The 2016 Oscar Grant birthday “Love Not Blood” Campaign and the Oscar Grant Foundation sponsored a Policing in the 21st Century event, about “Where do we go from here,” on Saturday, Feb. 27, at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Oakland. The community packed the event to witness the testimonials from police victims’ families across the United States.

For decades while under solitary confinement, I was one of numerous New Afrikan subjects who was trapped in oblivion, while the world outside of solitary confinement was constantly changing. We survived by feeding off the imagination of a past movement that had died away several decades ago. It wasn’t that we couldn’t let go of the past. We simply refused to surrender to institutionalized racism.

At Merritt College, the birthplace of the Black Panther Party, on the 74th birthday of its co-founder, Huey P. Newton, the African American Studies Program fittingly hosted a talk by the recently opened Cuban Embassy’s First Secretary Miguel Fraga, where he spoke on Cuban-U.S. relations. Afterwards, he and I continued to talk about the embargo, U.S. relations with Haiti, Venezuela and Bolivia, funding of Radio Marti, and the dissipation of the radical Latin American bloc of nations opposed to U.S. aggression and hegemony in the region and in the world.

It truly is a beautiful thing seeing you all from outside of the real belly of the beast, enjoying the natural rays of the sun, long walks around a sizable track, embracing the many new faces that have been waiting decades for this opportunity. I can see you all as we speak and I smile because I can feel what you feel. With that I truly look forward to the next phase in our struggle, because there’s still a lot of work to do.

Here is a brief update on the continued disrespect that CDCR is showing to brothers involved in the Aug. 12, 2015, attack on Yogi (Hugo Pinell). The same ICC (Inmate Classification Committee) that ignored the threat on Yogi’s life is now harassing the inmates that came to Yogi’s aid – the ICC that prisoners call “The Committee.” There are six inmates in Z Unit Ad Seg. Five of us have been released back to general population, but ICC refuses to send us back to a mainline.

Fascist presidential candidate Donald Trump owns the former Bank of America building in San Francisco at 555 California St., which has become a legitimate target for protesters who want to stop his hateful presidential bid for the White House. In addition to Trump’s hateful words of contempt for women, people of color, Asians, Mexicans and the disabled, records show that Trump’s father was arrested at a KKK brawl. Trump appears to be a chip off of the old block.

Bernie Sanders made headlines this week by declining to attend the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Policy Conference held this week in Washington, D.C. High on AIPAC’s agenda were bills designed to stop the nonviolent BDS movement to “boycott, divest or sanction” Israel for its mistreatment of the Palestinian people. KPFA’s Ann Garrison has more.

Our attention has been turned this week to Holman Prison in Alabama where rolling uprisings inside have led to prisoners taking control of certain areas of the prison. Prisoners have since released a set of demands including increased educational programs for prisoners, monetary damages for physical and mental abuse, and revoking the State’s 446 laws that – similar to Three Strikes laws – harden sentences for subsequent convictions.

Block Report Radio interviews Dr. Cynthia McKinney about Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential race and the role of the Electoral College and lobbyists, the asymmetrical warfare that the U.S. has been waging against Latin America and the BRICS countries, a brief analysis on the hordes of emigrants on a quest to reach Europe and the E.U.’s response, and a comparison of the way the government works in the U.S. to how it works in Cuba and the way it used to work in Libya.

The Just Chamia show is a locally produced television talk show that is formatted in much the same way as the Queen Latifah and the Wendy Williams show. Local flavor is what makes the Just Chamia show stand out to me. She interviews interesting people, some whom I have never heard of, as well as well known figures with mass appeal. Check out Miss Chamia LaRae, on her YouTube channel as well as in this exclusive Q&A ...

Mumia’s health is seriously deteriorating, as has been witnessed in recent weeks by his visiting doctor, clergy, counselors, teachers, family and friends. Evidence of intensifying hepatitis C symptoms and possible development of the diabetes that nearly killed him a year ago call for immediate and appropriate treatment. Mumia needs us again! Please call, fax and email now! Medical malfeasance and deliberate indifference at SCI-Mahanoy are killing Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Photos of pages from what appears to be a guard’s composition book have been leaked from inside Holman Prison. Correctional Officer Howie Coates apparently wrote: “I hate inmates and won’t do anything for those motherfuckers besides what is allowed by the state correctional facility and state laws, nothing else. The thought of getting to friendly with inmates makes me feel physically ill. … I get the feeling sometimes to shot them all and not feel bad about it. Annoying insects that should be killed off the face of the earth and finally judged for their sins once and for all!”

For 24 years Bill and Hillary Clinton have courted Wall Street money with notable success. No other political couple in modern history has enjoyed so much money flowing to them from Wall Street for such a long time – $92.57 million over a quarter century. Because of the Clintons’ romance with Wall Street and their corrupt New Democratic Party, the New York bankers and the Clintons are richer today. Others – betrayed, abandoned, savaged – are not.

I began writing a eulogy for Berta Isabel Cáceres Flores years ago, though she died only last week. Berta was assassinated by Honduran government-backed death squads on March 3. Like many who knew and worked with her, I was aware that this fighter was not destined to die of old age. She spoke too much truth to too much power. Long may Berta live, in the hearts, minds, passions and actions of all of us.

Friday night, March 11, prisoners took over Holman Prison in Alabama. A fight between inmates escalated to include guards and even the warden. Staff fled, and the prisoners took over, lighting guard towers on fire and barricading the doors. Prisoners say the officer had used excessive force to break up a minor fight. “He went in swinging his stick and throwing inmates around. People get tired of seeing their fellow convicts get treated that way (and) are getting more and more aggravated every day when their rights are being taken away, even the rights we’re supposed to have as human beings.” A rally at Holman is set for Saturday, March 19, 9-11 a.m.

Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders sparred about U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, and particularly Honduras, during this week’s debate in Miami, Florida. In other debates, they have discussed the Middle East, Libya, Egypt, Russia, China and North Korea, but not Sub-Saharan Africa, aside from a few statements as to whether or not the U.S. should have intervened in Rwanda 22 years ago. KPFA’s Ann Garrison reports.

The announcement of Donald Trump’s visit to the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) came one week before his scheduled March 11 appearance. Within minutes, there was a Facebook page announcing plans to protest. There was also a moveon.org petition calling on the administration at UIC to cancel the rally. By later that afternoon, over 5,000 people signed up to protest and, by later that night, 50,000 had signed the petition.