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2017 September

Monthly Archives: September 2017

U.S. budget priorities and healthcare

My column last month reported on the vote in the U.S. House of Representatives to support HR 2810, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018. The vote was 344 Yes and 81 No. Seventy-nine percent of our elected representatives in the House voted for “nearly $30 billion more for core Pentagon operations than President Trump requested,” according to the San Francisco Chronicle, July 15, 2017.

Lynching culture: Florida officials are experts at killing prisoners by natural causes

On Aug. 24, guards here at Florida State Prison (FSP) donned special “formal” uniforms of black pants, dark grey shirts and black neckties. The special occasion? They were executing a man who was sentenced to die for a double homicide in 1987. Looking at each guard that day, I could only shake my head at their solemn pretensions and utter hypocrisy. There they were united in killing a man as punishment for a “crime” that they frequently collude in committing themselves.

No more fire fighting slave labor

As our tortured climate pounds the East with water and leaves much of California tinder dry, Southern California fire season seems to grow worse by the year. And in our growing need for firefighters, California continues the abusive practice of using pennies-an-hour prison labor to fight these fires. About 4,000 California prisoners fight fires for $1 an hour. This is abuse, simply. I want to organize with people everywhere to end all prison slave labor, and to close California private prisons.

Pentagon Human Rights Auxiliary pushes ICC to indict Burundi

In October 2016, the tiny East African nation of Burundi made history by raising an independent head against U.S. empire. Its legislature voted to withdraw from membership in the International Criminal Court, a tool that the U.S. and its Western allies use to discipline unruly African leaders – especially those who sign resource extraction contracts with Russia or China and/or those who try to do anything for their own people. The Burundian government fits both descriptions.

SF County Transportation Authority issues RFQ for On-Call Modeling Services, due 10/4

  REQUEST FOR QUALIFICATIONS FOR ON-CALL MODELING SERVICES (RFQ 17/18-01) Notice is hereby given that the San Francisco County Transportation Authority is requesting statements of qualifications...

RFP to develop, own, operate affordable rental housing on Blocks 52 and 54 in...

  NOTIFICATION: DEVELOPMENT OPPORTUNITY Request for Proposals (“RFP”) for Blocks 52 and 54 in the Hunters Point Shipyard Redevelopment Project Area     The Office of Community Investment and...

Ken Burns’ and Lynn Novick’s ‘The Vietnam War’ mandates we examine ourselves, our nation

“The Vietnam War” provides us a new opportunity to examine the history of the war and to examine ourselves and our nation. Burns’ and Novick’s documentary will be evaluated based on the historiography they employ, the balance and fairness of their approach, whether they give equal weight to the Vietnamese voices as to the American voices, and their objectivity. Let us not forget the Vietnam War. Let us not, in the name of misguided foreign policy, allow the government to send our young men and women abroad to kill and to be killed.

An open letter to Black America: Rally ‘round Colin Kaepernick

My premise is a simple one: Why are we not rallying around Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco football player and quarterback? Colin Kaepernick has earned our love, our trust and support. Colin Kaepernick did what we all should be doing. Colin Kaepernick deserves better. If we do not give it to him, he will not get it. Colin Kaepernick is worthy of emulation. Colin Kaepernick made a supreme sacrifice.

War on Blacks at Wabash Valley: Shaka Shakur charged with attacking guard

It is urgent that the security of Shaka Shakur and Jimmy Jones be ensured, but the only way is through mass pressure from the outside. IDOC Watch asks that people call Wabash Valley warden Richard Brown at 812-398-5050 and IDOC Commissioner Robert E. Carter Jr. at 317-232-5711. Say that you are aware that Shaka Shakur, 135647, is being charged for defending himself against mistreatment by guards and that Jimmy Jones, 891782, is facing repression for exposing the situation. Demand that charges against Shaka be dropped and all disciplinary action against Jones be ceased.

Harvey’s victims: Prisoners drink toilet water in a fight to survive under lockdown

The following interview was conducted over a week after Hurricane Harvey hit. Rachel’s husband is incarcerated in Beaumont Federal Prison, located about an hour outside of Houston and 40 minutes from the Gulf of Mexico. Although some local media have denounced the conditions in the prison, in general, the media have remained silent on the plight of those who are incarcerated.

The right words can help tear down the prison system

I am a prison abolitionist in my heart. But I’m a prison reformist in the world by virtue of the sad fact that I can’t yet imagine a working society without prisons. I’ve spent every birthday since my 13th in an institution, so I’ve seen only prisons, heard only “prisons.” I want to abolish prisons; I just don’t have the imagination. Part of my failure is a lack of language to describe such a world convincingly. Likewise, a barrier we face trying to dismantle the prison industrial complex is we continue to use the language that helped build it.

The condemnable and the condemned: To live and die in Texas prisons

Should you or a loved one ever have the great misfortune of being tried and convicted in the state of Texas, your sentence, no matter how great or small, could very well be a death sentence. If you are resilient, strong of mind and body, then perhaps you would survive the conditions: deadly heat, toxic water, squalid living quarters and ill prepared food – and struggle through the conditioning: slave labor, consistent degradation, dehumanization in a variety of fashions – bowing down to insulting, offensive verbal abuse from staff, group strip searches, zero privacy.

People helping people survive Harvey: Dispatches from Beaumont and Houston

I spoke to Jonathan Chartian this morning. Released from prison Dec. 14, 2016, he is confined to his home when not at work, his job suspended since Hurricane Harvey. He is really concerned about the excessive show of police and military presence, which is not protecting the rights of citizens, rather complicating an already volatile situation between Black and Brown people and law enforcement.

US prisons practice the same slavery and racism celebrated by Confederate monuments

On Aug. 11, white supremacists rallied in Charlottesville, Virginia, against the removal of the statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee, It turned deadly. The Charlottesville events happened just a week before Aug. 19, the date of the planned mass rally in Washington, D.C., against mass imprisonment. This rally and the growing movement of which it is part are aimed at dismantling not merely symbols of past racism and slavery like Confederate monuments, but the 13th Amendment, which still authorizes slavery today and is directed predominantly against people of color.

San Franciscans push back on Tasers

More than 100 people turned out for a community meeting on Tasers Tuesday night, first breaking into small groups of roughly 25 each and then convening in a fiery public comment session that at one point erupted into activists chanting, “No Tasers!” and drowning out Police Commissioner Sonia E. Melara’s calls for order. The Police Commission has voted against the use of Tasers three times in recent years – in 2004 and twice in 2010.

Mercury in retrograde: Las Vegas cops assault NFL star Michael Bennett

Las Vegas cops jumped NFL star Michael Bennett, held a gun to his head and threatened to blow it off. How else could they have chosen the perfect target to prove that the U.S. is a racist police state? How else could their police union have followed up with a letter imploring NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to investigate Bennett for defaming them by telling his story and claiming that the LVPD had racially profiled him? You can’t make this stuff up.

Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Apply by 9/22 to join the 2017 Loop Leadership Development Program

  APPLY BY SEPTEMBER 22nd TO JOIN THE 2017 LOOP LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM! APPLY NOW JOBS! JOBS! JOBS! Health Education, Public Policy, Public Law, Law Enforcement, Public Relations, Journalists, Program Evaluation,...

Political Prisoner Herman Bell assaulted

Black Panther Party political prisoner Herman Bell was viciously assaulted by guards at Great Meadow Correctional Facility (Comstock) in New York on Sept. 5, 2017. While being “escorted” by a guard back to his housing unit, Herman, age 69, was struck in the face by a guard, causing his glasses to drop to the floor. The guard pushed Herman against the wall, Herman stumbled and fell to the ground. The guard then continued viciously hitting and kicking Herman.

Haiti in crisis: What next after the stolen election?

Dr. Maryse Narcisse, presidential candidate of Fanmi Lavalas, addressed an overflow audience in Oakland in late April. She spoke in the wake of the selection of Haiti’s new president, Jovenel Moise, a right-wing businessman and protégé of former president Michel Martelly, who took office via an electoral process so replete with fraud and voter suppression that opposition forces called it an “electoral coup.”

The new segregation: Antifa redefines ‘Black Lives Matter’

I watched a homeless Black man wander between and among these whites with their “Black Lives Matter” signs. They would make no connection between the content of the signs they strutted and the poor human asking for a dollar to buy a Big Mac. But from the point of view of the homeless Black man, who is still asking for a dollar among the self-conceited crowd at the color-blinded rally, neither group – the anti-fascists nor the Fascists – mean anything to him. The signs communicate their indifference.