Tag: President Barack Obama

Thousands of people from around our world – grassroots activists, government delegations, scholars, artists, media and, yes, representatives of capitalist corporations and the national and international police forces who serve them – have assembled in this large, Critical Mass-like 24/7, bicycle-friendly metropolis of Copenhagen. It is said that this Conference of Parties 15th year climate change meeting (COP-15) is the largest United Nations’ gathering ever!

President Barack Obama has clearly stated, “We don’t torture.” Oh, yes we do. Big time. A myriad of studies have clearly shown that human beings are social creatures – making prolonged isolation torture.

While investigators probe for a motive behind the mass shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas Thursday, in which an army psychiatrist is suspected of killing 13 people, military personnel at the base are in shock as the incident “brings the war home.” “Fort Hood is pretty much a ghost town right now,” said Specialist Michael Kern, an active duty veteran of the Iraq war.

Using footage from local policing activity in Oakland, intimate interviews with marginalized residents who have been imprisoned or impacted by the imprisonment of close family members, "Oakland Lockdown" brings to light the trauma, destruction and frustration experienced by those who remain repetitively wreaked by the economic, psychological, social and moral stigmatization of criminalization.

The Gulf Coast Civic Works Campaign welcomes President Barack Obama’s decision to create a federal working group to examine our nation’s long-term recovery policies in the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and to extend the mandate of the Office of the Federal Coordinator for Gulf Coast Recovery.

“On Sunday, the 15th of July, about noon, we were at Hunters Point and they put on us what we now know was the atomic bomb.” – Capt. Charles B. McVay III, U.S. Navy commanding officer, USS Indianapolis (from the Operational Archives Branch, Naval Historical Center)

One is hard pressed to find media accounts of what the Congolese people want or how they believe that the United States could best play a constructive role in ending the suffering in the Congo. Considering that the United States has played a significant historical role in the stifling of the democratic aspirations of the Congolese people and the backing of the 1996 and 1998 invasions of the Congo by its allies, Rwanda and Uganda, which unleashed what the United Nations say is the deadliest conflict in the world since World War II, it is important to hear directly from the Congolese people regarding U.S. engagement in the Congo.

The Bush administration holdovers on the U.S. Parole Commission today adopted the position of the FBI that anyone who may be implicated in the killings of its agents should never be paroled and should be left to die in prison. The commission denied Leonard Peltier's application for parole and set a reconsideration hearing in July 2024.

Charles Manson cheerleader Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme walked free last week through the front doors of Fort Worth Federal Prison. Fromme attempted in 1974 to assassinate then President Gerald R. Ford. Native American spiritual leader Leonard Peltier has also served almost 35 years behind bars for a crime that has never been proven. So it would seem to be a no brainer: If you’re going to release Fromme, still a self-proclaimed Manson supporter, it’s time to free this internationally revered indigenous leader who was clearly framed by the government and then ground through the racist prison system.

Most Americans are not familiar with Assata Shakur. After all, she's not exactly the type of Black superhero that they parade around during Black History Month. This is the type ignorance that some legislators in New Jersey hope will allow them to extradite Shakur back to the U.S. under the cover of our darkness.

We now know where a lot of coltan and cassiterite stolen from Congo go, in the end. They go to Ghana and other parts of Africa as toxic electronic waste, often disguised as charity: European and North American "contributions" of worn-out, broken, no longer fashionable tech garbage.

After the execution of three Somalis and the wounding and capturing of another in the Indian Ocean on April 12, a leader of the so-called pirates vowed to avenge the deaths of these youth who held the U.S. captain of a cargo vessel known as the Maersk Alabama for five days.

Angela Davis called for a new movement to abolish what she called "the prison-industrial complex" in the U.S., which has become the largest jailer in the world. "Racism is directly responsible for the fact that the U.S. has become the great incarcerator."

I recently received a phone call from an investigator for the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, and I shared my uncertainty about the ethics of collaborating with an "International Criminal Court" that was only indicting Black Africans.

Photo exhibit and fundraiser Friday, March 13, 6-7:30 p.m., at Youth Radio, 1701 Broadway, Downtown Oakland: Help this young artist study in Egypt this summer.

Rally and march Saturday, March 7, 1 p.m., Orleans and Claiborne Avenues in New Orleans to stop the demolition of Lafitte and the Mid-City area where the replacement for Charity Hospital is planned.

El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) was assassinated 44 years ago, on Feb. 21, 1965, because of his attempt to internationalize the African American struggle for self-determination.

Madison suggested creating a new capital, one that would geographically be part of the South but in close proximity to the North - a capital that would allow Southerners to safely bring their human property.

We want to call the names of those who made their transition in January and offer condolences to their loved ones who have yet to cross that bridge. I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that Ave Montague is gone.

Leonard Peltier was severely beaten after being transferred to another prison. Learn how you can help and read a letter from Leonard and commentary - ‘President Obama must free Leonard Peltier' - written Jan. 23 by Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman.