Daily Archives: November 26, 2017

In the late 1960s and early ‘70s, two names emerged from the Native American and Indigenous community that stood for resistance to white repression and assaults on Native life: Russell Means and Dennis Banks. In a time of mass resistance and social upheaval shown by the anti-war (re Vietnam) and Black liberation movements, Banks was among thousands of young activists of Native, Indigenous communities who rose up to speak – and act – on behalf of the oppressed.

On Nov. 18, Rwandan President Paul Kagame inducted seven thieves without borders and one medical doctor into his “National Order of Outstanding Friendship,” presenting them with medals for “exemplary service” to the nation, meaning himself and his ruling party, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Kagame is a modern day exemplar of French King Louis XIV’s theory of government: “L’état, c’est moi” (“I am the state”).

A prisoner in New York’s Sullivan Correctional Facility was given a glass-laced pastry by a correctional officer in what he describes as an attempt to murder him. Dr. Al-Fatah Stewart complained about guards destroying his legal work and, in retaliation, he was framed with a weapon, placed in solitary confinement and his food was laced with rocks and glass, now confirmed in a laboratory report. Dr. Stewart reports that “there have been a lot of mysterious deaths at Sullivan, but the families can’t afford autopsies … there are a lot of grievances about staff placing glass in prisoners’ food but nothing is ever done.”