Former U.S. Congresswoman and presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney
By Cynthia McKinney
January 21, 2012 10:59 AM
Most people know about being “Sleepless in Seattle.” Well, I am “snowed in in Seattle!” But even six inches of snow in Seattle don’t keep me from becoming steamed when I read the latest news reports on the activities of the U.S. war machine:
At a time when U.S.-Iran tensions are the highest I have experienced in my lifetime, Danger Room of wired.com breaks a news story on 19 January 2012 that a new United States commando special operations team is operating near Iran. Meanwhile, a columnist in Lebanon’s “The Daily Star” newspaper writes that Syria increasingly looks like Libya. And at the same time, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta admits in a press conference that he believes that the annual number of sexual assaults in the U.S. military could number as high as 19,000. This is from the Administration that shamefully accused the Libyan Jamahiriya military of issuing Viagra to its soldiers and using rape as a weapon.
U.S. troops currently on ground in Libya (Photo: Libya Free Press)
And finally, coming hot on the heels of an Algeria-ISP report that that the Obama Administration offered to reconstitute the Libyan military, forming desert troops, special forces, and a Libyan air force, tunisiefocus.com reports that U.S. troops are already in Libya, in Brega, Ras Lanouf, and Sirte, in order to secure Libyan oil for western markets at a very cheap price.
Libyan troops at Mitiga Air Base on 41st anniversary of US withdrawal, prior to the current US/NATO war on Libya
Last week, I reported on numerous reports that I had read indicating that U.S. troops were on the island of Malta waiting for the word to deploy to Libya. If the above reports are correct, then it would appear that that word has been given. Interestingly, the reports of U.S. troops were reported in several African, Libyan, and Russian online sites, yet there was no response from either Malta or the U.S. In fact, the Russian site za-afriku.ru as late as 19 January 2012 wrote, “The administration of the United States still has not refuted a lot of messages in various MEDIA for the transfer of 12000 troops on Malta as a preliminary step to the further redeployment in Libya in order to control the deteriorating situation in the country.” Continue reading →
Congress is on the verge of handing sweeping, unprecedented control over how we use the Internet over to a bunch of major corporations, with devastating consequences for our ability to communicate freely and without fear of reprisal.
Pending federal legislation would force nearly every domestic website to engage in a tremendous degree of self-censorship to ensure it won’t be subject to serious legal and financial liability. Any website featuring user-generated content—think YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, not to mention the user comment sections of blogs, news sites, and commercial/retail sites like Amazon—would be forced to scrutinize every last post to ensure that none contain links to vaguely-defined, so-called foreign “rogue” sites that may fall afoul of US copyright law.
The unjustifiable repercussions of self-censorship, for both content producers and content consumers, strikes at the root of ColorOfChange’s purpose—to amplify those voices historically marginalized by the powers that be. Black Americans’ effective and powerful history of organizing—and our victories in gaining freedoms, rights and respect—has always been dependent on our ability to use the latest technology to share information and communicate with each other. Today, maintaining an open Internet is critical to protecting and building on the progress we’ve made—our ability to compete on a level playing field and have our voices heard on the Internet is unmatched in any other media platform.
This over-broad Internet policing scheme elevates corporate interests over freedom of expression, and is an immediate threat to Black folks’ full participation in civic, social, and cultural life. Please join us in urging Congress to block any bill that suppresses our voices online:
BUILD FEB. 4 EMERGENCY DEMONSTRATION TO STOP U.S. WAR AGAINST IRAN: NO WAR! NO SANCTIONS! NO INTERVENTION! NO ASSASSINATIONS!
A broad spectrum of U.S.-based anti-imperialist and anti-war organizations, including the IAC, agreed on a Jan. 17 conference call to hold coordinated protests across the country on Saturday, Feb. 4. The demands will be: “No war, no sanctions, no intervention, no assassinations against Iran.”
The ad-hoc group that took part in the call decided that although there are only two weeks to organize, it will invite anti-war forces around the world to join in to make this emergency protest a global day of action.
U.S. President Barack Obama; 60 percent of U.S. budget goes to Pentagon
All agreed on the need to stop U.S. imperialism and/or Israel from launching a military attack on Iran. There was also a consensus that the new sanctions President Barack Obama signed into law on Dec. 31 — with the goal of breaking the Iranian central bank — were themselves an act of war aimed at the Iranian people. The political activists on the call raised the danger of a wider war should fighting break out in or around Iran.
While the organizations involved had varied assessments of the Iranian government, they all saw any intervention from U.S. imperialism in the Southwest Asian country as a threat to the entire region and to peace. Some of the people on the call who are originally from Iran and who were in touch with family and friends there conveyed the Iranian people’s anger at the recent assassination of a young scientist.
There was agreement to make “no assassinations” one of the demands to show solidarity with the Iranian population as well as to condemn the U.S. and its allies for criminal activities against Iran and its people.
As of Jan. 19, the organizations that called the actions or endorsed later included:
United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC), the International Action Center (IAC), SI! Solidarity with Iran, Refugee Apostolic Catholic Church, Workers World Party, World Can’t Wait, American Iranian Friendship Committee, ANSWER Coalition, Antiwar.com, Peace of the Action, ComeHomeAmerica.us, St. Pete for Peace, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality-Virginia, WESPAC Foundation, Peace Action Maine, Occupy Myrtle Beach, Minnesota Peace Action Coalition, Twin Cities Peace Campaign and Bail Out the People Movement (BOPM).
Individual endorsers include authors David Swanson, “When the World Outlawed War,” and Phil Wilayto, “In Defense of Iran: Notes from a U.S. Peace Delegation’s Journey through the Islamic Republic”; and U.N. Human Rights Award winner Ramsey Clark, a former U.S. attorney general.
The list is expected to grow steadily as word spreads. Right now people can follow developments on the Facebook link: No War On Iran: National Day of Action Feb 4,http://www.facebook.com/events/214341975322807/.
On January 21, 2010, with its ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are persons, entitled by the U.S. Constitution to buy elections and run our government. Human beings are people; corporations are legal fictions.
We, the People of the United States of America, reject the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United, and move to amend our Constitution to firmly establish that money is not speech, and that human beings, not corporations, are persons entitled to constitutional rights.
The Supreme Court is misguided in principle, and wrong on the law. In a democracy, the people rule. We Move to Amend.
Inspired by our friends at Occupy Wall Street, and Dr. Cornel West, Move To Amend is planning bold action to mark the second anniversary of the infamous Citizens United v. FEC decision!
Occupy the Courtswill be a one day occupation of Federal courthouses across the country, including the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on Friday January 20, 2012.
Move to Amend volunteers across the USA will lead the charge on the judiciary which created — and continues to expand — corporate personhood rights.
Americans across the country are on the march, and they are marching OUR way. They carry signs that say, “Corporations are NOT people! Money is NOT Speech!” And they are chanting those truths at the top of their lungs! The time has come to make these truths evident to the courts.
Defend Democracy! Stop Gov. Snyder E. Manager! A No Struggle, No Development! Production By Kenny Snodgrass (comments at end of article.)
Marchers demand an end to EM’s in majority-Black cities like Detroit WHAT WILL OBAMA DO?
By Diane Bukowski
January 25, 2011
What will Obama do about PA 4?
DETROIT – This week, U.S. President Barack Obama plans to visit Michigan as part of his campaign kick-off for President in November, 2012, according to recent reports. He is beginning today in Iowa and then will travel to Arizona.
It is unclear if he will come to Detroit, where the city’s residents are in imminent danger of being returned to the status of Blacks in the South prior to the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. That movement included the heroic voter registration drives, the integration of the public school systems, and the National Voting Rights Act that Dr. King and hundreds of thousands fought and died for.
President Obama’s visit to Michigan will be a momentous opportunity for the nation’s first Black president. But will he address the fact that Detroit residents are in danger of losing those same voting rights to Emergency Managers, as have the residents of other majority-Black cities in Michigan, and that majority Black school districts are being decimated and replaced by charter schools to What Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did at make way for new “gentrified,” the Edmund Pettus bridge in Alabama white-dominated neighborhoods?
To date, the Voice of Detroit has received only a noncommital response from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Zochitl Hinojosa regarding a letter U.S. Congressman John Conyers (D-Detroit) sent to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s Dec.2. The letter asked that the USDOJ open an investigation into violations of the National Voting Rights in Michigan due to Public Act 4, the Emergency Manager, or “Dictator” law as some have termed it. (Click on U-S-Representative-John-Conyers-Jr-s-Letter-to-Attorney-General-Regarding-Michigan-Emergency-Manager-December-1-2011[1] to read letter.)
Thousands of marchers proceed up Geddes Rd. to Gov. Snyder's house at 2016 Valleyview Drive in a wealthy gated community in Superior Township, on MLK day, Jan. 16, 2012
Hinojosa replied on Jan. 23, “We are reviewing the letter and decline further comment at this time.” She implied that no response has yet been sent, almost two months after the letter was received.
On Jan. 24, a member of Conyers’ staff said that his office has not received even a courtesy reply indicating the USDOJ will look into the matter, explaining that they do not comment on investigations until charges are brought. Eighty communities across Michigan are in deficit and many have been for years. However, predominantly white communities do not face the PA4 lash.
Young marchers: MLK wanted "army of the poor"
“As we come to grips with the reality that fully two-thirds of the states in the United States have legislated some form of voter suppression policy, according to Ben Jealous of the National NAACP, clearly Public Act 4 is not just significant in Michigan,” Detroit City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said in a recent release. “This is a part of a national agenda to place a chilling effect on the potential electorate of 2012; and the campaign to re-elect President Barack Obama.”
Marchers head down Valleyview Drive toward Snyder's house
But therein lies the rub. Which came first, the chicken or the egg? The attack on Michigan’s Black electorate, or Obama’s failure to respond to the demands of Blacks in the U.S., by cutting the military budget and ending wars abroad to fund the cities and provide jobs, and to overcome attacks on the voting rights of Black peoople?
“Years ago, WEB Dubois made the decision not to participate in the election because of neither party’s willingness to confront the chronic problems of black unemployment and racial inequality,” Dr. Boyce Watkins, editor of Your Black World.com, said in a recent video conference. “Given that black people are worse off economically than they’ve been in two decades, should the same option be considered today?” (Video at end of story.)
What about the option to devote the people’s energies instead on mass direct action like that initiated by the national Occupy Wall Street movement?
Snyder's residence at 2016 Valleyview Drive is marked in red on aerial map of gated enclave
MLK DAY MARCH ON GOV. SNYDER’S HOUSE: “THE PEOPLE’S ARMY”
Snyder home in at 2016 Valleyview Drive, located at far end of all-white, walled and guarded enclave
On the national Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday Jan. 16, 3,000 Michigan residents came from all over the state to converge on Governor Rick Snyder’s mansion in the exclusive gated community of Valleyview Estates.
Edith Payne, who marched with Dr. King, said “The EM law desecrates the memory of Dr. King and all he died for. Our government needs to obey U.S. and state laws, and Public Act 4 violates those laws.” Payne is one of the litigants in a lawsuit against the act, which Snyder has stalled by getting the state Supreme Court to override the Ingham County Circuit’s right to hold an initial hearing on the suit.
PA4 = RACISM!
It was an awesome spectacle. Marchers chanted, “Who who who are we? We are the people’s army!” and “Dictators and Snyder say good-bye, we’ll run this state and occupy.” They came from Benton Harbor, Detroit, Flint, Grand Rapids, Inkster, Muskegon Heights, Pontiac, Washtenaw County, and numerous other areas suffering under Snyder’s soft-spoken but dictatorial rule.
Wealthy whites living in the compound brought their children to the gates to see all the Black, working and poor people gathering outside. Snyder never moved to the governor’s mansion because he wanted his daughter to continue attending school in their wealthy district rather than in Lansing, which is 23 percent Black, with a per capita income of only $19, 408.
Young marchers with BAMN were among the most militant
Marchers raised the issue of the $1 billion Michigan budget surplus just announced by Snyder and the state legislature. The surplus resulted from huge cuts in funding for education and revenue-sharing to the cities, and the public assistance cut-offs of tens of thousands of mainly women and children, in a state where jobs are few.
It was a windfall for the banks, which will claim a large part to re-pay the state debt. Like the little pig on a current commercial, corporate executives meanwhile are going “whee, whee, whee” all the way to the bank to celebrate their own $1 billion tax break.
Pastors speak; Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, second from right, cheers but was not heard to speak
Retirees are left paying taxes on their pensions for the first time, as breaks like the homestead property tax rebate are being steadily eliminated, and union contracts are being busted, downgrading workers’ wages and eliminating their benefits.
Marchers chanted, “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out” as they proceeded miles down Valleyview Drive to Snyder’s home. “We don’t need emergency managers, we need emergency re-investment,” they shouted, and “We want our money, we want our share!”
Only a few state police guarded Snyder's enclave from entry by marchers.
As Councilwoman JoAnn Watson has repeatedly raised, the state of Michigan owes the city of Detroit over $220 million in revenue-sharing funds, part of a deal negotiated under a previous governor in which the city agreed to cut its income tax rates. Snyder has made the specious argument that he is not obligated to carry out what another governor negotiated. Even though the money would cover Detroit’s expected deficit of $155 million, he said it would only represent a “stopgap measure.”
Marchers on Jan. 16 were barred by only a scarce few state troopers from actually entering the compound, although there was an open walkway gate.
WHAT WOULD DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. HAVE DONE?
Occupy marchers began a sit-in outside Snyder's compound.
Some of the young participants from Occupy Detroit and By Any Means Necessary began an occupation blockading the entrance to the compound, but march organizer Rev. Charles Williams II of the National Action Network told them it was time to leave. He declared the march over by 5:30 pm, although it was supposed to last until 7 p.m. according to his own Facebook posts.
Speeches by Williams, Bullock, and other organizers are featured in the video above, by Kenny Snodgrass, and need not be repeated here.
Snyder's chief of staff talks Snyder-speak to Rev. Williams, who later told marchers to leave as they began a sit-in outside the gates
According to an article in Ann Arbor.com, Williams also spoke politely to Gov. Snyder’s chief of staff Dennis Muchmore during the rally, asking him to relay the marchers’ message to Snyder, who was nowhere to be seen, and who certainly did not welcome marchers to his home.
“We certainly recognize the concerns and we share those concerns, and we want to make sure that all of these cities are vibrant and have got a financial status for the future that can be sustained,” Muchmore told AnnArbor.com afterwards, using Snyder soft-speak.
“I think everybody has a concern about what happens to cities or school districts or townships when they have a problem financially,” he said. “We think that in each of these situations, what we’ve got to do is try to find some kind of common ground between the community to solve the problems. If we can do that, we will do that.”
State worker at march on Governor’s house; public assistance has been cut off to thousands of recipients
Such Snyder soft-speak may be making inroads with some Black politicians, including City Council President Pro-Tem Gary Brown who has advocated a “consent agreement,” as Snyder has done. Brown and Council President Charles Pugh met with members of the review team Jan. 24, although Council members JoAnn Watson and Kwame Kenyatta refused to do so, citing the unconstitutionality of Public Act 4.
But during an NAACP “Allies, Activities and Issues” meeting the same day, Pugh’s aide Quantez Pressley said Council members are experiencing doubts about the matter.
“After several conversations with [Snyder] administration officials along with the State Treasurer,” Pressley said, “many Council members are nervous about the prospect of a consent agreement as thethe state envisions it. It looks like an emergency manager under another name.”
Snyder resides in Washtenaw County; residents oppose PA4
The Detroit Public Schools lasted three months in 2008 under a draconian “consent agreement” before former Gov. Jennifer Granholm decided a complete state takeover was in order for a second time.
As Councilwoman JoAnn Watson said last year, “A consent agreement consents to the takeaway, the giveaway of Detroit. It has a trigger that says if you don’t pay your bills on time, or numerous other situations, you end up on a slippery slope to an emergency manager (EM) within seconds. There is nothing to be gained from giving away our city, we don’t have that right.” (Click on VOD story http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/12/31/no-pa-4-consent-agreement-or-em-for-detroit/.)
VOD asked Rev. Maurice Rudd, an ally of Williams, whether their organizations would call for a tactic that would hit the powers that be in their pocketbooks, namely a boycott of Michigan businesses, if the current petition drives and lawsuits to defeat Public Act 4 fail or are stymied by state legislation or the governor.
Valleyview residents go for a stroll during the march.
“We haven’t decided that yet,” Rudd said. Rev. Jesse Jackson of Rainbow:PUSH responded to the idea with an emphatic “No” last September outside Detroit’s state building, during a march against the imminent public assistance cut-offs of thousands.
Marchers from Muskegon included Charles Nash and James Barber
VOD spoke to some of the marchers to get their perspectives.
Charles Nash, a former school board member from Muskegon, now mentors youth for a non-profit agency.
“Muskegon Heights schools have been taken over by an EFM, who is looking at the possible shutdown of our school district, or combining it with another one,” Nash said. “This will cause unemployment, and force students to attendother districts.”
Muskegon Heights is 76.3 percent Black.
“When you destroy the tax base through lay-offs and unemployment, and diminish revenue streams, there will be no more local services,” said James Barber of Muskegon County. “Only the wealthy folks at the top are benefiting.”
Inkster delegation at march
Bishop Walter Starghill Jr, of the Face to Face Outreach Ministries in Inskter, said, “Other cities with financial problems way worse than Inkster, like Allen Park, have not faced EM takeovers. We’ve done everything they asked for, but are still faced with an EM. We want elected officials, not anyone who does not know Inkster and what it can be. We want our share of the state surplus, we pay taxes, but they’re financing everyone else.”
Inkster Mayor Hilliard Hampton
Inkster Mayor Hilliard Hampton said at the NAACP meeting Jan. 24 that the city’s EM review team has now sent its report to State Treasurer Andy Dillon, and that he does not expect positive results. He called on Black mayors all over the state to join forces to stop the racist takeovers.
Inkster is 72.3 percent Black.
The Flint Journal reported that that city’s EM Michael Brown has now sent his financial plan for the city to State Treasurer Andy Dillion, pending release to the public. Brown has already laid off at least ten employees, and terminated the city’s civil service commission and ombudsman office.A young organizer from Flint at the march said Flint is the only city in Michigan which still has an occupy camp. He was among those who sat down outside the gates of Snyder’s enclave to increase the militancy of the protest.
Flint is 56.6 percent Black.
Mari Cruz Lopez was among many youth who attended the march representing the By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) coalition. She read a telling statement from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s. speech to the Aug. 28, 1963 March on Washington.
“In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capitol to cash a check,” Dr. King proclaimed. “When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This was a promise that all men, yes Black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable’ rights of ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, so far as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.
Mari Cruz Lopez reads the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity in this nation. And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us on demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. . . .This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality . . . .And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.”
Video above from Kenny Snodgrass, videographer, whose comments follow:
Sunday January 15, a press conference was held to “Stop The Emergency Manager Law!” This has been used to come into cities having economic crises, but people feel it is only a new way of taking over our cities’ government and taking away our democracy!
A press conference was held at The Historic King Solomon Baptist Church in Detroit, MI. Some of the people attending were Senior Pastor Charles E. Williams II, Associate Pastor Rev. Charles E. Williams Sr., Rev. Al Sharpton, Congressman John Conyers, Charles Simmons, esq, Associate Minister Sandra Simmons, etc.
Then on Monday they celebrated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday by going to the Governor’s house in the Ann Arbor MI. area, where they rallied and march for the rights of Michigan citizens: Who Will Run The City Of Detroit? People came from Benton Harbor, Detroit, Flint, Pontiac, Ecorse, Highland Park, Muskegon etc. —
A No Struggle, No Development! Production By Kenny Snodgrass, Activist, Photographer, Videographer,
The U.S. police state process that began under the Bush Administration and completed under the Obama Administration, persecutes thousands of innocent citizens known as “targeted individuals,” a term used in the Federal Buerau of Investigation’s secret counterintelligence operation, Cointelpro, according to the Church Committee congressional hearings in the 1970’s.
That intolerable assault by congress and the president, nevertheless officiated martial law in the United States, according tocivil and human rights defenders. It gave the president and military powers to target and silence anyone opposed to police state corruption, to treat them as enemy of the state targeted individuals to be secretly or overtly silenced.
From the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948
Article 9of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.” This human right that the U.S. military, CIA and subcontractors have violated in other countries under the Bush and Obama Administrations, is now, under the Obama administration, to be “officially violated” within the U.S.
Innocent targeted individuals persecuted by U.S. Police State
Below is Turley’s list of 10 reasons the U.S. is a police state, condensed with additional attention regarding human rights abuses of innocent targeted individuals. As highlighted below, life in a police state is nothing new to innocent American targets, many of whom have pleaded for years, especially since 2001 when their ranks dramatically began increasing, that their families, friends and public advocates learn about police state targeting tactics and help defend them from their government’s targeting abuses, including assaults with secret weaponry including directed energy weapons (DEWs) and other high-tech abuses in the U.S.
4. Warrantless Searches: The president may now order warrantless surveillance on innocent targeted individuals, including forcing companies and organizations to turn over information on citizens’ finances, communications and associations. Bush acquired this sweeping power under the PATRIOT ACT in 2001 and in 2011. Obama extended the power, including searching everything related to a targeted individual, “from business documents to library records.” The government can use “national security letters” to demand, without probable cause, that organizations turn over information on citizens – and order them not to reveal the disclosure to the affected party,as targeted individuals have consistently reported since 2011.
Joseph Weekley shot 7-year-old Aiyana Jones, to death May 16, 2011, as depicted by artist
5. Secret Evidence: The government routinely uses secret evidence to detain targeted individuals and uses secret evidence in federal and military courts. “It forces dismissal of cases against the U.S. by simply filing declarations that the cases would make the government reveal classified information that would harm ‘national security,’ as claimed in various privacy lawsuits and largely accepted by federal judges without question.” Even legal opinions have been classified, allowing government to claim secret legal arguments to support secret proceedings using secret evidence. Some cases never get to court and Federal courts routinely deny constitutional challenges to policies and programs. Civil and human rights defender organizations have called to expose and expunge innocent targeted individuals on watch lists subjected to persecution, a call that officials have dismissed to date.
(VOD: In the case of the Detroit police murder of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, 7, on May 16, 2010, killer cop Joseph Weekley’s charges of “involuntary manslaughter” were brought in a secret grand jury proceeding, while her father Charles Jones faces charges of first-degree murder. Click on http://voiceofdetroit.net/2011/10/31/child-killer-cop-weekleys-trial-set-for-april-30-2012-in-death-of-aiyana-stanley-jones/ along with other VOD stories on Aiyana, accessible by putting “Aiyana” in the search engine.)
6. War Crimes: World-wide pressure to prosecute officials responsible for torturing, including waterboarding, “terrorism suspects” during the Bush administration was dismissed by the Obama administration in 2009, saying it would prevent CIA employees from being investigated or prosecuted for torture and related war crimes, violating U.S. treaty obligations and Nuremberg principles of international law, all based on human rights. When courts in Spain and other countries moved to investigate Bush officials for war crimes, the Obama administration reportedly urged foreign officials to prevent them, despite U.S. historically claiming the same authority regarding alleged war criminals in other countries. The torture business is lucrative. Continue reading →
This Tuesday, January 17, at noon, we have an opportunity to drive forward our fight to victory. If we turn out a large crowd for our rally and fill up the Library Commission meeting room and assert our will, we can make the commissioners vote to reverse their shameful decision to close the Lincoln, Monteith, Richard and Mark Twain branches. Continue reading →
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial, Washington, D.C.
By Greg Thrasher, VOD Washington DC Bureau contributing editor planeidea@msn.com
January 15, 2012
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has ordered a correction to a badly mangled quotation from Martin Luther King Jr. inscribed in granite on the Tidal Basin memorial to the slain civil rights leader.
Salazar has told the National Park Service to consult with the memorial foundation and the King family and to report back to him within 30 days with a plan to fix the carved excerpt. Yet for many this is not enough. Instead of just some minor clerical repairs to the quotation additional quotes and words that reflect the total work of MLK, which included a focus on racial injustice must be a part of the National Park Service’s repairs to the monument.
The future of Black youth is still gravely imperiled by racism, poverty, destruction of public education, police brutality and mass incarceration
What many people don’t know is that presently none of the quotes on the King memorial mention race nor any words about King’s body of work in America’s civil rights movement. King’s work which encompassed major protests against racial injustice and inequality are not reflected nor present as quotes on the King Monument. To officially ignore the core work of Dr. King is not only a national disgrace but almost Orwellian in construction and design. This omission of Dr. King’s civil rights legacy is an affront to the holiday and the King Memorial.
It is shocking to discover that this was deliberate and intentional to not insert any verbiage or words, quotes which recognize the real life work and mission of MLK. This deliberate omission of acknowledgment of King’s body of work in the arena of racial justice reflects a contempt in part for Black Americans . The mission of MLK encompassed more than a kum ba ya cultural drive feeling. MLK’s work was all about racial injustice as well as concerns about the poor and ending the war in Vietnam.
Instead of minor clerical repairs to the King Memorial is it is incumbent that the King Memorial reflect authentic truth and the reality of King’s life and body of work. We must demand a complete portrait of MLK on his memorial not a pc driven almost censored view of the truth about the mission of MLK.
From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:
“Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam”
“When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, militarism and economic exploitation are incapable of being conquered.”
Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech:
“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”
