Law and Disorder May 25, 2009

Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power

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Updates

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Jeremy Scahill – “Little Known Military Thug Squad Still Brutalizing Prisoners at Gitmo Under Obama”

Author and independent journalist Jeremy Scahill delivers a rare report on the actions of the Immediate Reaction Force’s torture tactics with disturbing detail. While the Obama administration prevents the release of thousands of photos, Scahill describes the graphic imagery of the ongoing torture of prisoners in Guantanamo and in prisons abroad.  Teams of men in padded gear enter the cell of a Guantanamo prisoner and are basically assigned body parts to restrain. Rarely heard about in the media, Scahill writes about the multiple accounts of severe beatings delivered by IRF teams that include sustained injuries such as broken noses, blindness and brain damage. In one incident a US soldier was IRF’d during a training exercise, he now suffers seizures up to 10 episodes a day.

Jeremy Scahill:

  • The US has a one party system and Obama is showing that very clearly.
  • On January 22, Obama said that Guantanamo would be closed in a year.
  • Obama is continuing the use of a notorious military police unit at Guantanamo, known as the Immediate Reaction Force.
  • They come into a cell, five men deep, they douse the prisoner with chemicals, each thug sent in is assigned a different body part and their job is to subdue restless or combative prisoners.
  • This is not about stopping a riot in prison, or keep a prisoner from stabbing a guard. What’s going on is if a prisoner has an extra styro-foam cup in their cell, they are IRF’d.
  • They have smeared feces of another prisoner onto the face of a prisoner.
  • In one case that CCR has taken, a prisoner was doused with chemicals, beaten and the IRF team members urinate on his head.
  • Scott Horton says this force was authorized at the highest levels of the Bush Administration.
  • When you don’t prosecute those who set the tone for this torture, you encourage it, not allow it, you encourage it to continue.
  • The Democratic Party is a shill for powerful corporations. Harry Reid implied that Guantanamo prisoners should not be moved to the US because they would be a threat to US security.
  • The real danger here is to the US Constitution and the reality is that the torture program was bi-partisan.
  • Nancy Pelosi’s participation in authorizing the torture program is not a partisan issue, it’s a law enforcement issue with grave implication to the United States and the world.
  • Michael Ratner: Looking forward to a future without torture is guaranteed by prosecution, not impunity.
  • I actually have people standing up and walking out on speeches, when I was criticizing Obama, a group of students at an American University walked out.
  • Name the countries of the world where people walk around with the president’s face on their T-shirts.
  • The facade is starting to crack. People are realizing now we are at a critical moment in history to reflect on the one party system that we have.
  • Obama has sucked the air out of the social movements that were co-opted by the Democratic Party or willingly folded themselves into the Obama campaign mechanism.

Jeremy Scahill, an independent journalist who reports frequently for the national radio and TV program Democracy Now, has spent extensive time reporting from Iraq and Yugoslavia. He is currently a Puffin Writing fellow at The Nation Institute. Scahill is the author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army. His writing and reporting is available at Rebel Reports.

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Chris Hedges – Buying Brand Obama

We’ve been duped. The global celebrity status of President Obama has been molded into a brand writes Chris Hedges, former Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times. Obama’s campaign was a marketer’s dream and won the vote of top marketer in Advertising Age magazine. Chris Hedges article, Buying Brand Obama takes a scathing look at how clever marketing diverts public attention away from critical issues such as the expansion of war, Obama’s rejection of single payer healthcare, his refusing to prosecute the Bush administration for war crimes and allowing Bush era surveillance and secrecy laws to remain intact.

Chris Hedges:

  • There’s a wild disconnect between what Obama does and what he says that can only be cleverly bridged with illusion. That’s what his PR people do. That 600 million dollars of campaign funding had to go somewhere.
  • Listen to the professionals:   Obama Wins Ad.Age Marketer of the Year!
  • He does one thing and he like any “brand” gets you to believe another.
  • This started a while ago, if you remember Benetton ads, they used risque images and progressive politics to give themselves an edge.  It is intended to make the passive consumer mistake a brand for an idea or experience.
  • He (Obama) didn’t make many promises, it was sloganeering and the confusion of propaganda.
  • It’s what Benjamin DeMott calls Junk Politics, in his book Junk Politics. Junk politics is not about demanding justice. It moralizes issues, it doesn’t clarify them. The result: Nothing Changes.
  • Obama is a classic example of how re-branding allows for the disintegration of American democracy.
  • Obama once again has followed the lead of the Bush Administration.  It has spent, lent or guaranteed at this point 12 trillion dollars of tax payer dollars.  Handed out to Wall St. and firms like AIG.  It’s a bizarre effort to re-inflate a bubble through massive loans.
  • This has forestalled catastrophe, but when that catastrophe comes, we’re going to be broke.  . .  that time will come at a profound crisis.
  • The problem is not Obama, the problem is the American Left which forgot it’s place.  Politics is a game of pressure and we don’t do that.  Look at Moveon.org, it’s become an arm of the Obama campaign.
  • I’m re-reading Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky, what happens to a bankrupt liberalism which took hold of Russia in the latter part of the 19th century, moral nihilism.
  • Allowing Americans to remain in this self delusional belief that everything is going to go back to the way it was and we are always going to be powerful and rich.  . . . you’re essentially maintaining a population in a state of childishness. They never grow up because they never face reality.
  • Book: Empire of Illusion – Post literate society, unable to discern lies from truth.

Guest – Chris Hedges, author of many books specializing in American and Middle Eastern politics and society. He spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He was also the Middle East bureau chief for The New York Times.  Chris Hedges’ new book, “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle,” will be out in July and can be preordered at your local bookstore.

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Law and Disorder May 18, 2009

Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Impeachment, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Torture, Truth to Power

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[Law and Disorder Radio:  Encore Interviews on Prosecution]

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The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book – Michael Ratner

We are very pleased to talk with our own Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights about his recent book The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution by Book. Michael’s book exposes how hundreds of individuals were victims of gruesome crimes inside the secret prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba while under International and American law. Michael Ratner not only levels the charge against former US secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld but lists others to be guilty of the US War Crimes Act of 1996 such as David Addington, George Tenet, Alberto Gonzales, and John Yoo.

The case is presented in shocking detail, it’s a blueprint for prosecuting war criminals and a powerful reference tool for holding the Bush administration’s rogue leadership accountable. One review states that it quote represents a case that a prosecutor could bring against Donald Rumsfeld were he not shielded by dubious immunity doctrines crafted by the Bush administration and the judges it has appointed.

Guest – Michael Ratner – president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of many books including, Guantanamo: What the World Should Know. Michael has worked for decades, as a crusader for human rights both at home and abroad litigating many cases against international human rights violators resulting in millions of dollars in judgments for abuse victims and expanding the possibilities of international law. He acted as a principal counsel in the successful suit to close the camp for HIV-positive Haitian refugees on Guantanamo Base, Cuba. Over the years, he has litigated a dozen cases challenging a President’s authority to go to war, without congressional approval. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, the Center has focused its efforts on the constitutionality of indefinite detention and the restrictions on civil liberties as defined by the unfolding terms of a permanent war. Among his many honors are: Trial Lawyer of the Year from the Trial lawyers for Public Justice, The Columbia Law School Public Interest Law Foundation Award, and the North Star Community Frederick Douglass Award.

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David Swanson: Why We’re Planning to Prosecute Cheney and Bush

In an article published on the website – AfterDowningStreet, author David Swanson lays out another powerful case as to why it is critical to hold leadership accountable for war crimes. He explains that if much needed change is made in the United States such as a transparent electoral process, eliminating secret government and constitutional amendments, it would still not be enough to “chain the dogs of war.”  Hosts discuss with David Swanson about why it’s critical to hold a conference to plan the prosecution of Bush and Cheney.

War Crimes Conference Archive

Guest – David Swanson, creator of many media-based websites including MeetWithCindy.org and KatrinaMarch.org, he has worked as a newspaper reporter and as a communications director, with jobs including press secretary for Dennis Kucinich’s 2004 presidential and three years as communications coordinator for ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now)

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Legislation To Stop Preemptive Pardons

So far George W Bush has issued nearly 170 pardons, they include a Missouri farmer who unintentionally poisoned three bald eagles. Pardons give the recipients greater leeway to find jobs, live in public housing and vote. Many expect that President Bush will pardon himself and other high officials as a shelter from criminal charges and that’s what New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler is trying to prevent. Nadler is the Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties, and he’s recently introduced House Resolution 1531 demanding that Bush refrain from issuing pre_emptive pardons of senior officials in his Administration during the final 90 days of office.

New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler:

  • No pre-emptive pardons, the president should not do it, it’s a dangerous abuse of pardon power.
  • HR 1531 also says that we believe an attorney general should appoint an independent counsel to investigate alleged various crimes, such as warrantless wiretapping, torture, renditions and so forth committed during the Bush administration.
  • Premptive Pardons: President Ford pardoned Nixon, for any crimes that he might have committed.
  • President H W Bush pardoned Casper Weinberger and various other people for any crimes they might have made. President Carter pardoned anyone who violated the draft laws in evading the draft during the Vietnam War.
  • My feeling is the reason for pardons or give the pardon power in the first place is you want to temper justice with mercy.
  • It would be an abuse of power before they get convicted of a crime. If he pardoned all the people well, then how do you develop a case.
  • I think there should be a commission with supoena power, that can get at the facts, that can have people testify, that can develop more information for prosecutors to use.
  • Right now the narrative will be: Nobody did anything wrong, we protected the American people from terrorism.
  • We need to educate the American people about why these prosecutions must be done.
  • It’s very important for the people in a democratic country to know what was done in their name.
  • One of the problems we have in this country today is that everything is secret.
  • The resolution will not be passed in this Congress. If Bush exercises pardons, then there’s very little we can do about those pardons. I’m going to introduce a constitutional amendment to restrict the pardon power in the future.

Guest – Congressman Jerrold Nadler – He represents New York’s Eighth Congressional district. The Eighth, one of the most diverse districts in the nation, includes Manhattan’s West Side below 89th Street, Lower Manhattan, and areas of Brooklyn including Borough Park, Coney Island, Brighton Beach, Sea Gate, Bay Ridge, and Bensonhurst.

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Harpers Magazine Panel: Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration

We hear from our own Michael Ratner President, Center for Constitutional Rights. The event discussed methods available to a democracy to prosecute high officials in the Bush Administration and responded to Scott Horton’s Harper’s Magazine cover story called “Justice After Bush: Prosecuting an Outlaw Administration.”

  • Elizabeth Holtzman, Author, The Impeachment of George W. Bush
  • Scott Horton, Contributing Editor, Harper’s Magazine
  • Jerrold Nadler, Chairman, House Subcommittee on the Constitution
  • Antonio Taguba, Major General (U.S. Army Ret.)

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Law and Disorder May 4, 2009

Censorship, Criminalizing Dissent, FBI Intrusion, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Impeachment, Iraq War, Prosecution of the Bush Administration, Supreme Court, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power

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Unreasonable Intrusions Report

Last month, the Muslim Advocates released a report titled Unreasonable Intrusions: Investigating the Politics, Faith & Finances of Americans Returning Home. The report documents the systematic and widespread practice of federal agents interrogating Americans returning home after overseas travel at our nation’s borders and international airports. Muslim Advocates, a sister group with the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML), which is a group of approximately 500 Muslim lawyers, law students and other legal professionals.

Farhana Khera:

  • These are folks who are returning home from travel and they’re being stopped at borders, land crossings.
  • After showing valid US passports, federal agents are engaging in very invasive questioning and searches of these Americans.
  • Muslim or those Americans who may look Muslim.
  • The questions (from border agents) go into first amendment protected areas. What mosque do you attend? How often do you pray?
  • We want to educate federal policy makers, members of Congress, Homeland Security and the Obama Administration about this practice.
  • Laptops, cameras and phones searched, in some cases asking about people in images, and how they particular individuals.
  • Again, all of this without any evidence or suspicion.
  • Ninth Circuit Decision US v Arnold, pretty much gives blanket authority to federal agents at the border to search laptops and electronic devices of law abiding Americans.
  • We really need some standards in place that address the need of probable cause and reasonable suspicion before seizing personal data.
  • We believe that Americans have the right to enter the country and not be compelled to answer questions, particularly about first amendment protected beliefs.
  • We are giving practical advice in saying that you think this line of questioning is inappropriate. Get badge #’s of officers who have your stuff, then file a complaint.
  • Traveler’s Privacy Protection Act – Proposed Legislation, to be re-introduced.

Guest – Farhana Khera, first Executive Director of Muslim Advocates and the National Association of Muslim Lawyers (NAML). Prior to joining Muslim Advocates and NAML in 2005, Ms. Khera was Counsel to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Property Rights. In the Senate, she worked for six years directly for Senator Russell D. Feingold (D_WI), the Chairman of the Constitution Subcommittee. Ms. Khera focused substantially on the USA PATRIOT Act, racial and religious profiling, and other civil liberties issues raised by the government’s anti_terrorism policies since September 11, 2001. She was the Senator’s lead staff member in developing anti_racial profiling legislation and organizing subcommittee hearings on racial profiling.

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FBI Exposed: Federal Judge Orders FBI to Provide Full Muslim Surveillance Records

Last week a federal judge ordered the FBI to submit 100 documents detailing the bureau’s surveillance of Muslim leaders and organizations in Southern California and specifically, documents relating to the Council on American_Islamic Relations of Greater Los Angeles and its executive director. The court’s decision came in response to a 2007 lawsuit filed by the ACLU of Southern California that claimed the government’s incomplete and long_delayed response violated the Freedom of Information Act.

An attorney with the ACLU of Southern California says the surveillance records will show how the FBI infiltrated Southern California mosques and invasively monitored members of the Muslim community as if they were criminals.

“Truth can never be redacted. Only full disclosure will satisfy us and alleviate the pervasive fear in our communities and congregations,” said Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California, who joins us today.

Shakeel Syed:

Guest – Shakeel Syed, executive director of the Islamic Shura Council of Southern California.

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Law and Disorder April 20, 2009

Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Surveillance, Truth to Power

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Mumia Exception: Supreme Court Denies Appeal For Mumia Abu-Jamal

In early April the Supreme Court denied a petition for writ of certiorari in the longstanding case of Mumia Abu Jamal. The appeal to the high Court included an examination of the so-called culture of discrimination operative among Philadelphia prosecutors. It cited 11 separate rulings in which federal and Pennsylvania state courts specifically faulted Philadelphia prosecutors for engaging in intentional discrimination during jury selection.  Mumia Exception

Citing dozens of court rulings nationwide, it noted a U.S. Supreme Court ruling where one justice used a statistical study documenting Philadelphia prosecutors purging potential Black jurors at twice the rate of whites during death penalty trials between 1981 and 1997.

Linn Washington:

  • Courts, be they city courts in Philadelphia, apellate courts in Pennsylvania or federal courts at the trial level and appeals level,
  • they will either ignore or alter their established rulings, their precedent . . .when it comes to the Mumia case.
  • In Mumia’s case, we have a situation where police actually, withheld evidence, they altered evidence, we now know this clearly, but the courts have helped suppress that
  • Prison authorities have barred photographing or recording for broadcast purposes of inmates in institutions, just as a way to get at Mumia. You can go in with a notebook and pen.
  • Batson Case: In the first 3 years of prosecution in Mumia’s trial, there was deliberate purging of black people from the jurors, for racially discriminatory purposes.
  • A video tape had surfaced of a training session, a formal training session in the office, where a senior prosecutor was instructing other prosecuters,  on how to purge blacks for juries,  in a way that it would mask what they’re doing and thus get around the Batson ruling.
  • In March 2008, the US Supreme Court issued relief to an inmate on death row in Louisiana, citing Batson, the essence of it was, if there was one provable instance of discrimination against a black juror – you would have a new trial.
  • Two months later, the US Third Circuit, ignored that ruling and created new law, new restriction, higher burden for inmates to raise, in Batson cases.
  • Justice Samuel Alito had initially ruled if one legal juror was discriminated against, it was provable, . . to get a new trial – Batson case.  Then he changed his view.
  • Here we had an award winning journalist, at that time the head of the black journalist association in Philadelphia.
  • This has been fascinating in terms of the police withholding evidence, perjury, intimidating witnesses, prosecuters engaged in egregious misconduct and judges from the trial court level, all the up to the US Supreme Court ignoring their duty to justice
  • Regarding Judge Sabo’s remark ” to fry that n-word” a court stenographer overheard this and years later came forward to make it public.


Guest –  Linn Washington is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Temple University in Philadelphia and a weekly columnist for The Philadelphia Tribune – America’s oldest black owned newspaper. He has reported on the Abu-Jamal case for nearly thirty years. Linn Washington is currently writing a book on police brutality, the thesis is why we have police brutality. We have a continuation of police brutality decade after decade because prosecutors actually aid by ignoring the misconduct of officers.

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Leonard Peltier: Update On A Political Prisoner

Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist who was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. He was recently transferred back to prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania after being attacked and beaten. Leonard Peltier was also denied clemency by the Bush Administration, the request had been pending for 8 years.  He is featured in the recently published book, Let Freedom Ring, A Collection of Documents From the Movements to Free US Political Prisoners, brings together the voices of numerous US political prisoners who have taken great risk and sacrifice to stand up for human and civil rights.

Political prisoners such as Leonard Peltier,  receive some of the harshest treatment behind bars, such as torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, they’re also subjected to disproportionately lengthy prison sentences.  Attorney Michael Kuzma will give us an update on Leonard Peltier’s current condition and case.

Michael Kuzmar

  • Two FBI agents, Kohler and Williams allegedly had a warrant they were trying to serve on Jimmy Eagle, who had allegedly stolen some cowboy boots.  They went to execute the warrant, a fire fight erupted and the next thing you know, Joe Stunts and the two agents are dead.  Subsequently, Leonard Peltier, Bob Robado, Dino Butler, were charged with murdering the two agents.
  • For Leonard Peltier’s case it was tragic in that the lead attorney Eliot Takiff, had never tried a murder case before, you had an unfriendly judge and the prosecutors had a field day with ramping up the fear.
  • When Bill Kunstler picked up the case on a Habeas, after losing appeals. It was about the bullet not matching.
  • There was a balistics report that was withheld from defense attorneys in 1977, it was later unearthed by John Privatera and Michael Tigar.
  • When Leonard was arrested on February 6, 1976, he was with an individual named Frank Blackhorse.  Blackhorse was wanted for several offenses and indicted in 1973 for wounding at FBI agent at Wounded Knee.
  • The most curious thing about this case is that Frank Blackhorse is not extradicted, he’s allowed to roam free in Western Canada. Turns out also, Frank Blackhorse isn’t his real name.
  • The head of security for the American Indian Movement was a paid FBI operative.
  • Based on the work I’ve done with the FOIA requests, its clear that along with others in the AIM, Leonard Peltier had been targeted by the FBI under Cointel Pro.
  • We’ve been fighting to get documents that show how the FBI used a host of dirty tricks against Leonard.
  • One of the prosecutors who is now retired, Len Krooks, has publicly stated that they don’t know who shot the agents.
  • What we discovered is that the government turned over 3500 pages of material to Leonard’s defense attorneys and said this is all we have. As a result of a FOIA case brought in the late seventies we discovered the FBI had 18 thousand pages of material.
  • Twelve thousand pages were released, 6 thousand pages withheld. Then as a result of another FOIA request in 2001 we found the FBI had 142, 579 pages of material.
  • We have a suit still pending, we’re waiting for a decision from the court of appeals, for the 8th circuit. We’re trying to get 90 thousand pages, that’s what we’re sueing for.  The government is fighting to hold onto 11 thousand pages of material. The reason they say is that the material if released will hamper the nation’s war on trans-national terrorism.
  • The FBI can’t afford to have this information come out, because if people learned how extensive the informants and under cover agents were
  • Leonard Peltier will be 65 on September 12, 2009. He has diabetes, his eyesight is not the best. There’s no threat whatsoever if Leonard was released today. William Kunstler believed Peltier did not shoot the FBI agents.
  • Leonard is considered to be an old law inmate.
  • Leonard had been in Ft. Leavenworth Prison and was transferred to the Lewisburg Federal Penitentiary. He was then transfere
  • January 13th. Leonard was brutally attacked by two other inmates and suffered a possible concussion, he was kicked around the ribcage, he’s having headaches, his knee was bruised.
  • What we’ve been hoping to do is get Leonard transferred to a medium security prison, he’s eligible.

Guest –  Michael Kuzma, attorney for Leonard Peltier.  As many know, Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist who was convicted of killing two FBI agents during a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in 1975. He was recently transferred back to prison in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania after being attacked and beaten. Leonard Peltier was also denied clemency by the Bush Administration, the request had been pending for 8 years.

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Law and Disorder April 6, 2009

Criminalizing Dissent, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture

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Code Pink Delegation Returns From Gaza

Recently a delegation from Code Pink and other organizations brought humanitarian and emotional support to women and women organizations in Gaza. They also pressured the US, Egyptian and Israeli governments to lift the blockade against the Palestinians.  According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, the Israeli attack that began on December 27 left over 1,000 dead, including 412 children and 110 women, and more than 5,000 injured which include  – – (1855 children and 795 women).

The UN also reports that hundreds of millions of dollars in humanitarian aid are needed to help Gaza’s 1.4 million people.

Helen Schiff  / Felice Gelman:

  • Helen Schiff: Growing up in Great Neck in the 50s, a lot of Jewish community were liberal and in support of civil rights movement.  I learned about colonialism, and that Israel was created at the behest of US and British colonialism.  I learned that Israel supported the French in Algeria, they supported France and British against Egypt in a war for the Suez Canal.
  • So I realized the Palestinian struggle is a colonial struggle.
  • Code Pink organized a delegation to Gaza and we did bring 10 thousand dollars in aid. We are drawing attention to the blockade also.
  • We throw around the words siege and blockade, modern war doesn’t have sieges.
  • The last siege was the battle of Leningrad, which is people blocked in to an area and attacked with all military armament.
  • Gaza is about the size of Philadelphia. The current number of trucks that bring supplies into Gaza are about 100 a day.  , 8700 supply trucks arrive in Philadelphia, on just one bridge in one day.
  • The claim that Hamas broke the truce by firing missles is false. The truce also meant to open up borders. That hasn’t happen since Hamas were elected.
  • We brought baskets for a thousand women, filled with different products that women would appreciate. We brought this on International Women’s Day.
  • Psychiatrists say that the children of Gaza are exhibiting caged rat syndrome.(PDF link)
  • When you are in Gaza you say to yourself, why does Israel care about Gaza, what’s the big deal?
  • Two things, Gaza is an example to the West Bank and in 1999 natural gas reserves where discovered in the coastal waters of Gaza. 1.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Israel has tried to negiotiate for control of the reserves since 1999.
  • They have two drilling platforms north of Gaza that some believe are slant drilling into the natural gas reserves.
  • The Israelis are wearing down the fighting spirit of the people in Gaza by forbidding pasta, jam, candy and any building materials. Desalinization plants have been bombed, children have kidney disease because Israelis have siphoned off the good water and there’s too much salt seeping into the wells.
  • It was a targeted attempt to breakdown the infrastructure. Wanton killing of civilians and destroying infrastructure.
  • Every single day we were in Gaza there was bombing or shelling. Tunnels being bombed and fishermen being shelled. Permanent tent cities.
  • More delegations planned to visit Gaza to open borders. May 22 – June 14
  • Palestinian Committee For Human Rights – accountability – documenting evidence.ple and billions of dollars will be required to rebuild its shattered buildings and infrastructure.

Guests – Code Pink members/activists Helen Schiff and Felice Gelman, they both had boots on the ground in Gaza and give their first hand accounts of the devastating aftermath.

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Left Forum – Vivek Chibber: American Violence: Actually Existing Barbarism?

This year’s Left Forum panels are addressing the many facets in the  current global economic crisis and subsequent political conditions.  Author and professor Vivek Chibber joins us today in the studio to tell us about the 2009 Left Forum at Pace University and the panel titled American Violence: Actually Existing Barbarism? The panel will explore the roots of violence, military, terrorist, criminal and casual in contemporary society that includes America’s inner cities and prisons.

Vivek Chibber:

  • The Left Forum used to be known as the Socialist Scholars Conference.
  • My panel on America Barbarism is from the annual volume of the Socialist Register, this years theme is around the issue of violence. The various forms violence takes under capitalism.
  • I’ll be focusing on the violence of American foreign policy. Iraq in particular. The motives and interest behind Bush’s invasion of Iraq.
  • Turning Points – theme for Left Forum. We’re seeing tremors in American power, which historically is the time to build progressive movements. Social welfare, pro-labor policies in favor of women, recognizing the plight of minorities.
  • It’s the largest Left Forum conference ever. Everyone realizes that this is a time when we got to get some analysis of what’s going on.
  • Right now, there’s a complete loss of legitimacy for the economic model of neoliberalism and a corresponding loss for all the journalists, the media gurus and intellectuals who were promoting it all this time.
  • If you look carefully at Obama , his primary worry, has been not to take advantage of the opportunity of this crisis to enact any type of progressive social agenda. His main worry is to contain the pressure and not take advantage of that.

Guest – Vivek Chibber,  professor of sociology at NYU and the author of Locked in Place: State_Building and Late Industrialization in India.

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Law and Disorder March 30, 2009

Afghanistan War, Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power

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Frances Golden: Jailhouse Lawyers, Prisoners Defending Prisoners Against the United States of America by Mumia Abu Jamal

Frances Golden joins us today to discuss a very well known political prisoner, as we continue our political prisoner series based on the book Let Freedom Ring.  Frances is the literary agent for Mumia Abu Jamal. Mumia as many know, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner.  Mumia was a Black Panther Party activist, cab driver, and journalist.  Since his conviction, Mumia has become an international cultural icon for political prisoners.  A previous guest here on Law and Disorder, author/ journalist J. Patrick O’Connor who wrote The Framing of Mumia Abu Jamal, says the real shooter was Kenneth Freeman a business partner of Mumia’s brother. Freeman, was found dead in 1985, bound and cuffed in a Philadelphia parking lot.

We get a another perspective today from Mumia’s literary agent Frances Golden. Frances also visits six death row in a Pittsburgh maximum security prison.  Jailhouse Lawyers, Prisoners Defending Prisoners Against the United States of America by Mumia Abu Jamal.

Frances Golden:

  • Visiting death row inmates happened because I went to visit Mumia as a visitor.
  • I had to become a member of the Pennsylvania prison society.  40 bucks a year you can see any prisoner anywhere.
  • Now, because the PPS applications were flooded to see Mumia, they changed the policy that only Pennsylvania residents can become members of PPS.
  • You have to see more than one prisoner as a PPS member. So, Mumia gave me names of others including Robert Lark aka Sugar Bear.
  • I hope I don’t cry when I say this, out of the 6 death row inmates I see, 5 of them are innocent.
  • You’re behind very thick glass, there are quarter inch thick screens on each side of the cell where your voice can travel through. It’s awful, insulting but it’s what exists on death row.
  • I have a little book with their names in it, with 100 pages(of notes) between each name.
  • The prison system is illegal and inhuman. The person who speaks most clearly about that is Angela Davis.
  • One prisoner nicknamed Slim was on the streets of Philadelphia without a home at 10 years old. Never went to school, got in trouble ended up on death row. He learned to read in prison, he’s a phenomenal jail house lawyer.
  • Two of the five could get out, that’s Sugar Bear and Osiris.
  • I have a prisoner friend whose name is Russel Shoates. He will never be executed but he’s on death row because he escaped 3 times. Russell is shackled and tied to his waist. I dance with them and do yoga. I can’t do that with Russell. I asked the warden to unshackle him.  This man is gentle, he’s small, he’s wickedly intelligent.
  • Philadelphia, the most corrupt city in the United States, from beginning to end. –Judges lock up kids for kickbacks in Pennsylvania

Guest: Frances Golden, activist and literary agent for Mumia Abu-Jamal, Frances is a member of the Pennsylvania Prison Society and visits 6 death row inmates monthly.

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Laura Whitehorn and Susie Day – Let Freedom Ring, A Collection of Documents From the Movements to Free US Political Prisoners.

Among the many contributors to the book Let Freedom Ring is revolutionary ex-political prisoner and native New Yorker Laura Whitehorn. Since the 1960s Laura was active in supporting groups such as the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Movement and was active with Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground. Laura also worked to expose the FBI’s Counter Intelligence Program. Laura was arrested in 1985, convicted of the 1983 US Capitol bombing and charged with… “conspiracy to oppose, protest and change the policies and practices of the United States government in domestic and international matters by violence and illegal means.” She was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and was released August 1999 after 14 years. Laura lives in New York City and is active in a wide range of progressive issues.

Laura’s partner Susie Day, activist, writer and contributer to Let Freedom Ring also joins Law and Disorder hosts in the studio.

Laura Whitehorn:

  • I’m in my sixties now, I was moved by the Black Liberation struggle and the struggle of the Vietnamese people against the United States.
  • But I ended up spending years in prison later, in a case called the conspiracy case and our indictment was a thing of beauty –  using the words violent and illegal means. It was a series of bombings of buildings. No one was ever hurt, great care was taken. One of the buildings was the U.S. Capitol.
  • But in that period in 1988, we were in the DC jail for 3 years and it was the beginning of the huge epidemic of AIDS in Washington DC.  It was a time of absolute fear, stigma, no drugs to treat HIV, and so we started to learn about HIV and did counseling, almost all the political prisoners had done that.  This is because AIDS is huge in prison. A quarter of the people with AIDS in this country go through the prison system at some point.
  • The fact that the government says there are no political prisoners, it’s a denigration of everything that you stand for. So, it was important that we had a lot of support.
  • There’s a great interest in the sixties movements, the movies and books etc, but that doesn’t translate into the willingness to say enough is enough. People have been in jail since the late sixties and early seventies. How much time do you have to serve in this country, what kind of country do we have?
  • In Europe the maxium is 20 years, sometimes they go farther. That’s a life sentence in Europe, but here, you could have saved the warden’s life but if you were a black panther and go to the parole board, they say you can’t get out.
  • We have Obama, but the same justice system. We have to fight for a new justice system. What happens to political prisoners will happen to everyone else. We were held in preventive detention now everyone knows what it is.
  • The book is a guide in how to raise these cases, who these people are, what kinds of organizations are out there. What can people do?  The Jericho Movement

Susie Day:

  • Before I met Laura Whitehorn, I was sort of intrigued by all the compromises most of us make everyday, for decades.  We cut corners everyday to go to our jobs, to raise kids, to pay the rent, and we support involuntarily things that we abhor. So, I was interested in people who did not compromise. Who lived underground, who would go to extremes of giving up their lives of basic middle class educated comfort. . .and give up their identities to fight an establishment that made it so easy for everyone else to just get along.

Guest: Laura Whitehorn – revolutionary ex-political prisoner and native New Yorker Laura Whitehorn. Since the 1960s Laura was active in supporting groups such as the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Movement and was active with Students for a Democratic Society and the Weather Underground. Laura also worked to expose the FBI’s Counter Intelligence.

Guest: Susie Day lives in New York City where she writes a humor column for feminist and gay publications. She has also written on U.S. political prisoners and labor issues and thinks her girlfriend, Laura Whitehorn, is hot stuff.  Can’t get enough of Susie?  Read other pieces by Susie Day in MRZine: Susie Day, “Fugitive Offers Reward for Rumsfeld’s Capture” (22 July 2005); “Street Life of a Mad Activist” (28 July 2005);

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Matt Meyer – Let Freedom Ring, A Collection of Documents From the Movements to Free US Political Prisoners.

New York based educator and activist Matt Meyer. Matt is the editor of several books including the recently published Let Freedom Ring, A Collection of Documents From the Movements to Free US Political Prisoners. – The book nicely pulls together two decades of essays, interviews and resolutions of US political prisoners. These are the voices and intimate writings of those who have challenged the US empire from within, Black Panthers, Puerto Rican independentistas, white anti-imperialists, environmental and animal rights militants and Arab and Muslim activists. Meyer is a former public draft registration resister and chair of the War Resisters League.

Matt Meyer:

  • We wanted to bring awareness to that yes, there are political prisoners in the US.
  • There’s been a history to support those movements and free them.
  • This book focuses on the last 25 years as a key era that took us through the late sixties and seventies of social change.
  • The majority of peoples that have been in prison come from the black civil rights liberation movement, come from the American Indian Movement, come from the Puerto Rican and Chicano movements and come from some white allies and supporters.
  • Political prisoners are in jail because of the ideas they’ve had as much as the acts they’ve committed. They’re political actions and beliefs and who are in jail 20, 30 years, incredibly long sentences and harsh conditions.
  • It is also a collection of documents from the movement to free them. For example from the Puerto Rican movement. We have a collection of documents that began to help free 12 Puerto Rican political prisoners – this shows how this came through by a combination of grassroots support and international pressure.
  • This book says to activists and all readers that we can build upon the strategies that have been used in the last 20 years. We can look at some of the documents and get a sense of how to use these strategies today to help not only political prisoners but prisoners in the ever increasing US prison system. There is a growing sense that we should all pay more attention to these folks who are languishing in jail.
  • The fact that the information in this book was not readily available, it was scattered here and there. This volume was designed as a tool with the hope to spark new movements.
  • What can people do?  The Jericho Movement

Guest: Matt Meyer –  Founding PJSA Co-Chair along with USF Dean Jennifer Turpin, Meyer has long worked to bring together academics and activists for lasting social change. A former public draft registration resister and chair of the War Resisters League, he continues to serve as convener of the War Resisters International Africa Working Group. With Bill Sutherland, Meyer authored Guns and Gandhi in Africa: Pan-African Insights on Nonviolence, Armed Struggle and Liberation, of which Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote, “Sutherland and Meyer have looked beyond the short-term strategies and tactics which too often divide progressive people.

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