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The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago
Although torture is illegal under both American law and international law the USA has practiced torture for the last half century from Vietnam to Afghanistan, from Iraq to Guantánamo Cuba, and here at home in Chicago, Illinois.
President Obama refused to prosecute the torturers of the Bush era. Bush’s Vice President Dick Cheney greenlighted the torture saying we must go over to the darkside.
President Trump, who approves of waterboarding and worse, said during his campaign that torture works. It doesn’t. Tortured people will say anything to relieve their agony.
Over 100 Black men in Chicago were tortured in the 1970s and 1980s. They confessed to crimes although many of them were innocent. But in Chicago, unlike under President Obama who refused to enforce the law saying that “we must look forward not backward”, something was done about it.
Our guest attorney Flint Taylor, his office the People’s Law Office, many groups in the community, several dedicated journalists, law students, and even Amnesty International worked together and won an historic victory.
What they did and how they did it is the story told in Flint Taylor‘s new book, a tour de force, published by Haymarket Books, called The Torture Machine: Racism and Police Violence in Chicago.
For the first time in American history reparations were paid to Black persons. The torture ringleader Police Commander John Birge was sent to prison. Every Chicago public school student is now taught about what happened in their city. A monument for the victims has been put up and free college tuition and psychological counseling are available to the victims.
Guest – Flint Taylor is a founding partner of the Peoples Law Office. He was one of the lawyers for the families of slain Black Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, has represented many survivors of Chicago police torture over the past 30 years, and was also trial co-counsel in the landmark civil rights case against the KKK, Nazis, and Greensboro, North Carolina police in the murder of five anti-Klan demonstrators.
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Eugene V Debs: A Graphic Biography
Eugene V. Debs, the greatest American Socialist and the foremost agitator for socialism that we have ever had , is back in the public guy eye again after a century. Back then, with Debs as it’s outstanding spokesman, socialism began for the first time to get a hearing in this country.
Debs talked about a new social order based on cooperation and comradeship. He and the newspaper “Appeal to Reason“ for which she wrote inspired a whole generation of native radicals with the great promise of socialism.
Socialism is no longer a dirty word. Google reports that the word “socialism“ got more hits than any other word last year. A 2016 poll showed Democratic primary voters “in every age group, every gender, and every race view socialism favorably.“ Candidates are openly advocating for socialism and getting elected.
In 1894 Debs, though not yet a socialist but an militant beloved labor leader, was jailed for six months after leading the nations railroad workers in a failed strike against the powerful railroad owners. He was defended by the magnificent attorney Clarence Darrow.
In 1919 Debs was again convicted, this time for violating the Espionage Act which was used against war war one antiwar activists. He was incarcerated for a second time at age 63. He was given a 10 year sentence of hard labor in a federal penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia. His crime was making a speech opposing America’s participation in World War I.
It is the Espionage Act which will be used against WikiLeaks publisher and truth teller Julian Assange if United States Government is Able to arrest him and London where he has been granted political asylum in the embassy.
Deb’s Socialist Party of America was formed in 1901 and heralded a wave of broad popular support for the ideas of socialism. We see this phenomena currently unfolding in these dire times of permanent war and austerity.
Paul Buhle along with Attorney Dave Nance are authors of the just published by Verso Press book Eugene V Debs: a Graphic Biography.
Guest – Paul Buhle, formally a senior lecturer at Brown University, produces radical comics. He founded the journal “Radical America” and co-edited with Dan Georgakas and Mari Jo Buhle, the invaluable “Encyclopedia of the American Left”.
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