An Open Letter From Assata

By Assata Shakur
Source: Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle
Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Assata Shakur’s ZSpace Page

My name is Assata Shakur, and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government’s policy towards people of color. I am an ex-political prisoner, and I have been living in exile in Cuba since 1984.

I have been a political activist most of my life, and although the U.S. government has done everything in its power to criminalize me, I am not a criminal, nor have I ever been one. In the 1960s, I participated in various struggles: the black liberation movement, the student rights movement, and the movement to end the war in Vietnam. I joined the Black Panther Party. By 1969 the Black Panther Party had become the number one organization targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO program. Because the Black Panther Party demanded the total liberation of black people, J. Edgar Hoover called it “greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and vowed to destroy it and its leaders and activists.

In 1978, my case was one of many cases bought before the United Nations Organization in a petition filed by the National Conference of Black Lawyers, the National Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, and the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, exposing the existence of political prisoners in the United States, their political persecution, and the cruel and inhuman treatment they receive in US prisons. According to the report:

‘The FBI and the New York Police Department in particular, charged and accused Assata Shakur of participating in attacks on law enforcement personnel and widely circulated such charges and accusations among police agencies and units. The FBI and the NYPD further charged her as being a leader of the Black Liberation Army which the government and its respective agencies described as an organization engaged in the shooting of police officers. This description of the Black Liberation Army and the accusation of Assata Shakur’s relationship to it was widely circulated by government agents among police agencies and units. As a result of these activities by the government, Ms. Shakur became a hunted person; posters in police precincts and banks described her as being involved in serious criminal activities; she was highlighted on the FBI’s most wanted list; and to police at all levels she became a ‘shoot-to-kill’ target.”

I was falsely accused in six different “criminal cases” and in all six of these cases I was eventually acquitted or the charges were dismissed. The fact that I was acquitted or that the charges were dismissed, did not mean that I received justice in the courts, that was certainly not the case. It only meant that the “evidence” presented against me was so flimsy and false that my innocence became evident. This political persecution was part and parcel of the government’s policy of eliminating political opponents by charging them with crimes and arresting them with no regard to the factual basis of such charges.

On May 2, 1973 I, along with Zayd Malik Shakur and Sundiata Acoli were stopped on the New Jersey Turnpike, supposedly for a “faulty tail light.” Sundiata Acoli got out of the car to determine why we were stopped. Zayd and I remained in the car. State trooper Harper then came to the car, opened the door and began to question us. Because we were black, and riding in a car with Vermont license plates, he claimed he became “suspicious.” He then drew his gun, pointed it at us, and told us to put our hands up in the air, in front of us, where he could see them. I complied and in a split second, there was a sound that came from outside the car, there was a sudden movement, and I was shot once with my arms held up in the air, and then once again from the back. Zayd Malik Shakur was later killed, trooper Werner Foerster was killed, and even though trooper Harper admitted that he shot and killed Zayd Malik Shakur, under the New Jersey felony murder law, I was charged with killing both Zayd Malik Shakur, who was my closest friend and comrade, and charged in the death of trooper Forester. Never in my life have I felt such grief. Zayd had vowed to protect me, and to help me to get to a safe place, and it was clear that he had lost his life, trying to protect both me and Sundiata. Although he was also unarmed, and the gun that killed trooper Foerster was found under Zayd’s leg, Sundiata Acoli, who was captured later, was also charged with both deaths. Neither Sundiata Acoli nor I ever received a fair trial We were both convicted in the news media way before our trials. No news media was ever permitted to interview us, although the New Jersey police and the FBI fed stories to the press on a daily basis. In 1977, I was convicted by an all-white jury and sentenced to life plus 33 years in prison. In 1979, fearing that I would be murdered in prison, and knowing that I would never receive any justice, I was liberated from prison, aided by committed comrades who understood the depths of the injustices in my case, and who were also extremely fearful for my life.

The U.S. Senate’s 1976 Church Commission report on intelligence operations inside the USA, revealed that “The FBI has attempted covertly to influence the public’s perception of persons and organizations by disseminating derogatory information to the press, either anonymously or through “friendly” news contacts.” This same policy is evidently still very much in effect today.

On December 24, 1997, The New Jersey State called a press conference to announce that New Jersey State Police had written a letter to Pope John Paul II asking him to intervene on their behalf and to aid in having me extradited back to New Jersey prisons. The New Jersey State Police refused to make their letter public. Knowing that they had probably totally distort the facts, and attempted to get the Pope to do the devils work in the name of religion, I decided to write the Pope to inform him about the reality of “justice” for black people in the State of New Jersey and in the United States. (See attached Letter to the Pope).

In January of 1998, during the pope’s visit to Cuba, I agreed to do an interview with NBC journalist Ralph Penza around my letter to the Pope, about my experiences in New Jersey court system, and about the changes I saw in the United States and it’s treatment of Black people in the last 25 years. I agreed to do this interview because I saw this secret letter to the Pope as a vicious, vulgar, publicity maneuver on the part of the New Jersey State Police, and as a cynical attempt to manipulate Pope John Paul II. I have lived in Cuba for many years, and was completely out of touch with the sensationalist, dishonest, nature of the establishment media today. It is worse today than it was 30 years ago. After years of being victimized by the “establishment” media it was naive of me to hope that I might finally get the opportunity to tell “my side of the story.” Instead of an interview with me, what took place was a “staged media event” in three parts, full of distortions, inaccuracies and outright lies. NBC purposely misrepresented the facts. Not only did NBC spend thousands of dollars promoting this “exclusive interview series” on NBC, they also spent a great deal of money advertising this “exclusive interview” on black radio stations and also placed notices in local newspapers.

. . .

Like most poor and oppressed people in the United States, I do not have a voice. Black people, poor people in the U.S. have no real freedom of speech, no real freedom of expression and very little freedom of the press. The black press and the progressive media has historically played an essential role in the struggle for social justice. We need to continue and to expand that tradition. We need to create media outlets that help to educate our people and our children, and not annihilate their minds. I am only one woman. I own no TV stations, or Radio Stations or Newspapers. But I feel that people need to be educated as to what is going on, and to understand the connection between the news media and the instruments of repression in Amerika. All I have is my voice, my spirit and the will to tell the truth. But I sincerely ask, those of you in the Black media, those of you in the progressive media, those of you who believe in truth freedom, To publish this statement and to let people know what is happening. We have no voice, so you must be the voice of the voiceless.

Free all Political Prisoners, I send you Love and Revolutionary Greetings From Cuba, One of the Largest, Most Resistant and Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps) That has ever existed on the Face of this Planet.

Assata Shakur Havana, Cuba

Below is a clip of Assata Sakur’s Documentary “Eyes of the Rainbow: Assata Shakur Documentary”

“I am a Black revolutionary woman, and because of this i have been charged with and accused of every alleged crime in which a woman was believed to have participated. The alleged crimes in which only men were supposedly involved, i have been accused of planning. They have plastered pictures alleged to be me in post offices, airports, hotels, police cars, subways, banks, television, and newspapers. They have offered … rewards for my capture and they have issued orders to shoot on sight and shoot to kill.” — Assata Shakur

“People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave.”
                                                           ? Assata Shakur, Assata: An Autobiography

Related articles

• Angela Davis: FBI Targeting Assata Shakur ‘Reflects Very Logic Of Terrorism’ [VIDEO] (newsone.com)
• Assata Shakur: Understanding the politics behind the FBI’s new attack (pslweb.org)

Assata is Not a Terrorist: She is a Freedom Fighter like Harriet Tubman, Malcolm X & Martin L. King [#Feminist Friday]

Reblogged from Moorbey'z Blog:

The attack on Sister Assata Shakur is an attack on the right of the Black masses and the Black liberation movement to resist oppression.  The U.S. government and all of its branches have always persecuted, jailed, exiled and murdered Black activists and revolutionaries no matter their philosophies or tactics-communism, Pan Africanism, separation, revolutionary nationalism, integration; nonviolence, armed self-defense, running for political office.

Read more… 636 more words

While I don't agree with all of the sentiments here I do agree that the way the American government has treated Blacks and other minorities is unwarranted and oppressive. Things need to change for all Americans who are not among the racists or elitists. (E)

Related articles

• Assata Shakur is a modern-day Harriet Tubman (workers.org)
• The government's terrorist is our community's heroine by Yasiin Bey(Mos Def) (freedomhallblog.wordpress.com)
• Why the Assata Shakur case still strikes a chord (thegrio.com)
• She's No Terrorist: The Bizarre Move By The FBI Against Assata Shakur by Bill Fletcher (zcommunications.org)
• FBI Most Wanted Terrorists List: Who Is Assata Shakur? (npr.org)
• Supporters Say 'Hands Off Assata' Shakur (theroot.com)
• An Open Letter From Assata by Assata Shakur (zcommunications.org)

Who is Behind “Al Qaeda in Iran”?

 

Original Article:  http://www.globalresearch.ca/who-is-behind-al-qaeda-in-iran/5332593

US-Canada Claim Iran-Al Qaeda Ties Despite US Funding Al Qaeda in Iran for Years

By Tony Cartalucci

Global Research, April 23, 2013

Land Destroyer

Region: Canada, Middle East & North Africa

Theme: 9/11 & ‘War on Terrorism’, Intelligence

As the FBI reels from what now appears to be revelations it was directly involved in the Boston Marathon bombings, a deluge of FBI “success” stories have been “serendipitously” splashed across Western headlines. Among them was an allegedly “foiled” terror attack in Canada, reported to be the work of terrorists supported by “Al-Qaeda operatives in Iran.” The Globe and Mail, in its report, “Canada joins U.S. in alleging al-Qaeda has operatives based in Iran,” states:

“To many, it came as a surprise that the RCMP is alleging that two terror suspects arrested in Canada on Monday were supported by al-Qaeda operatives in Iran.

The Sunni-based al-Qaeda and Shia Iran belong to different branches of Islam that have been at odds historically. But in recent years U.S. officials have formally alleged that Iran has allowed al-Qaeda members to operate out of its territory.”

Both at face value and upon deeper examination, this assertion is utterly absurd, divorced from reality, and indicative of the absolute contempt within which the Western establishment holds the global public. In reality, the West, the US, Saudi Arabia, and Israel in particular, have propped up and perpetuated Al Qaeda for the very purpose of either undermining or overthrowing the governments of Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, Libya,  Russia, Malaysia, Indonesia, and beyond.

Regarding Iran in particular, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his 2007 New Yorker piece titled, “The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?” would state:

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has cooperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

In a follow up, Hersh in his 2008 New Yorker piece titled, “Preparing the Battlefield: The Bush Administration steps up its secret moves against Iran,” spelled out a damning indictment of US involvement in bolstering, arming, and funding terror organizations, not linked to, but described as actually being Al Qaeda.

Of American support for Al Qaeda the report states (emphasis added):

The Administration may have been willing to rely on dissident organizations in Iran even when there was reason to believe that the groups had operated against American interests in the past. The use of Baluchi elements, for example, is problematic, Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. clandestine officer who worked for nearly two decades in South Asia and the Middle East, told me. “The Baluchis are Sunni fundamentalists who hate the regime in Tehran, but you can also describe them as Al Qaeda,” Baer told me. “These are guys who cut off the heads of nonbelievers—in this case, it’s Shiite Iranians. The irony is that we’re once again working with Sunni fundamentalists, just as we did in Afghanistan in the nineteen-eighties.” Ramzi Yousef, who was convicted for his role in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is considered one of the leading planners of the September 11th attacks, are Baluchi Sunni fundamentalists.

The report would continue by stating (emphasis added):

One of the most active and violent anti-regime groups in Iran today is the Jundallah, also known as the Iranian People’s Resistance Movement, which describes itself as a resistance force fighting for the rights of Sunnis in Iran. “This is a vicious Salafi organization whose followers attended the same madrassas as the Taliban and Pakistani extremists,” Nasr told me. “They are suspected of having links to Al Qaeda and they are also thought to be tied to the drug culture.” The Jundallah took responsibility for the bombing of a busload of Revolutionary Guard soldiers in February, 2007. At least eleven Guard members were killed. According to Baer and to press reports, the Jundallah is among the groups in Iran that are benefitting from U.S. support.

The manifestation of this insidious conspiracy can be seen playing out across Syria in which US-backed terrorists openly operating under the flag of Al Qaeda are locked in a catastrophic sectarian bloodbath with the Syrian people and the Syrian state’s closest ally, Iran. The conflict in Syria exposes that the machinations revealed back in 2007-2008 by Hersh, are still being carried out in earnest today.

Clearly, US-Canadian claims that Iran is somehow involved in harboring Al Qaeda within its borders, when it has been the West for years propping them up specifically to overthrow the Iranian government, are utterly absurd. In reality, while the West uses Al Qaeda’s presence both within Iran and along it peripheries to undermine and ultimately overthrow the Iranian government, it in turn uses these very terror organizations to induce paralyzing fear across Western populations in order to consolidate and expand power at home.

Additional Reading: For more information on just how much support the US has provided Al Qaeda terrorists in Baluchistan versus both Pakistan and Iran, please see, “US Attempting to Trigger Color Revolution in Pakistan.” For more information on the US’ delisting, arming and training of the terror organization, Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK or MKO) versus Iran, please see, “US to Delist & Arm American-Killing Terror Cult.”

New Normal Terror Attack

Excellent article about conditioning by Tony Soldo at The People’s Voice .org (E)

Original: http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2013/04/20/new-normal-terror-attack

April 20th, 2013

By Tony Soldo

One of the objectives of the false flag Boston Marathon bombing terror attack, was to create fear, confusion, anger, and hatred, in the subconscious minds of the masses, the millions of people who absorb and accept the “New Normal”, whenever the people in power implement a tactic or agenda

(Problem).

After the media saturates the minds of the masses, the government has a greater role in their lives to rule over them and control them.

The media conditioned the masses to cheer the police and soldiers after the suspect was caught, and the whole city of Boston came out of their houses, cheering the soldiers and police, waving their flags, and singing the national anthem

(Reaction).

Now, anytime there is any kind of attack or even a suspected threat, the government can just lock down a whole city, send in the troops, stop and search anyone, go door to door, invading homes, forbidding Citizens to leave their houses, and businesses to close, etc…and the majority of people will not only allow this “New Normal”, they will cheer and sing while the oppressors are oppressing them.

(Solution).

The New Normal is a terror attack against the people, and the minds of the people.

Everything that happened after the False Flag Boston Bombing, was meant to create a new, expanded role of government and soldiers and police, on the streets of the USA.

They can violate the rule of law, the Bill of Rights, including the 4th Amendment, Posse Comitatus, Habeas Corpus, and the Miranda Act.

This False Flag attack will be used to expand the Police State, take away more of our fast evaporating freedom and liberties, but also they will use this crisis to pass laws and bills like the CISPA act, that allows the government to extract all personal information on anyone from any source, without a warrant, and pass tougher laws demanding deeper background checks, and create a grid where all of our personal information can be stored and shared by any and all law enforcement, instantly.

Look for these measures to be hidden in any new immigration reform bills (the terror suspects will be presented as an example for stronger background checks).

And also, this attack will give the politicians more “ammo” to pass more laws taking away the people’s right to keep weapons to defend themselves.

All major False Flag Events serve many purposes, and this one will serve at least three, creating the new normal in our society and nation.

1) Police State, with troops and cops patrolling the streets, searching people and homes, whenever there is any standoff (threats, or even bank robberies and other domestic crimes).

2) More information gathering, storing, and sharing, on all of us.

3) More laws limiting and restricting the people’s right to protect themselves with weapons.

Add to that two more aspects of the expanding Police State:

More cameras on the streets, and more public announcements encouraging people to spy on their neighbors and report suspicious behavior.

These new normal conditions would be impossible to implement all at once, but, when down incrementally, step by step, over time, they are almost impossible to stop.

The only hope is Citizen activism.

Start researching issues and topics like: state sponsored false flag terror, police state, martial law, war profiteering, corporate colonialism, and individual liberty, and human rights.

Then find alternative information and news sites that don’t play the left / right game, but rise above to show the big picture of how our individual freedoms and liberties are being stolen from us and the people in power are actively gaining more power and more wealth, everyday, and they will never stop on their own, like any addict, they can’t stop.

They are addicted to power and money, and they need intervention.

These power hungry people are operating in Washington DC, and on Wall Street, they are nothing more than businessmen and actors, playing a role, they are no better than you or I, and do not deserve our respect, allegiance, or obedience.

The most important thing you can do is start talking to everyone, your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and complete strangers.

Share with them some new information that you are discovering while searching alternative sites for truth hidden from us by the mainstream media and the government.

Stop getting your news from these two sources, (Mainstream Media, and Government), question everything you see and hear, use your critical thinking skills, and separate the truth from the lies, and encourage everyone around you to do the same.

Take all that you find, that is good and true, and move forward, leaving the bad, and the lies behind.

Peace.

-###-

https://www.facebook.com/TonySoldo?ref=tn_tnmn

Tony Soldo is a Christian Pacifist Anarchist

Related articles

• US most obvious false flag attack yet (pakalertpress.com)
• ‘False-flag’ meme goes mainstream on Boston Marathon bombings (thetruthseeker.co.uk)

Study finds troubling patterns of teacher assignments within schools

From : http://phys.org/news/2013-04-patterns-teacher-assignments-schools.html#nwlt

April 23rd, 2013 in Other Sciences / Social Sciences

Even within the same school, lower-achieving students often are taught by less-experienced teachers, as well as by teachers who received their degrees from less-competitive colleges, according to a new study by researchers from the Stanford Graduate School of Education and the World Bank. The study, using data from one of the nation’s largest school districts, also shows that student class assignments vary within schools by a teacher’s gender and race.

In a paper published in the April issue of Sociology of Education, the researchers present the results of a comprehensive analysis of teacher assignments in the nation’s fourth-largest school district, Miami-Dade County Public Schools. Their findings identify trends that may contribute to teacher turnover and achievement gaps nationwide.

Previous research indicates that high-quality teachers can significantly improve education outcomes for students. However, not all students have equal access to the best teachers.

“It is well-known that teachers systematically sort across schools, disadvantaging low-income, minority, and low-achieving students,” said Demetra Kalogrides, a research associate at the Graduate School of Education’s Center for Education Policy Analysis and one of the study’s three authors. “Our findings are novel because they address the assignment of teachers to classes within schools. We cannot assume that teacher sorting stops at the school doors.”

The authors note that more research needs to be done to see whether such patterns exist within schools across the country.

The assignment of teachers to students is the result of a complex process, involving school leaders, teachers, and parents. While principals are constrained by teachers’ qualifications—not all high school teachers, for instance, can teach physics—they also may use their authority to reward certain teachers with the more desirable assignments or to appease teachers who are instrumental to school operations.

Teachers with more power, due to experience or other factors, may be able to choose their preferred classes. Parents, particularly those with more resources, also may try to intervene in the process to ensure that their children are taught by certain teachers.

“We wanted to understand which teachers are teaching which students,” said Susanna Loeb, a Stanford professor of education, the director of the Center for Education Policy Analysis, and an author of the study. “In particular, are low-achieving students more likely to be assigned to certain teachers, and if so, why?”

Using extensive data from Miami-Dade, the authors compared the average achievement of teachers’ students in the year before the students were assigned to them. They discovered that certain teachers—those with less experience, those from less-competitive colleges, female teachers, and black and Hispanic teachers—are more likely to work with lower-achieving students than are other teachers in the same school.

They found these patterns at both the elementary and middle/high school levels.

According to the researchers, teachers who have been at a school for a long time may be able to influence the assignment process in order to secure their preferred classes—for instance, classes with higher-achieving students. The study found that teachers with 10 or more years of experience, as well as teachers who have held leadership positions, are assigned higher-achieving students on average.

Assigning lower-achieving students to inexperienced teachers could have significant repercussions. According to the researchers, it could increase turnover among new teachers, since novice teachers are more likely to quit when assigned more low-achieving students.

In addition, it could exacerbate within-school achievement gaps—for example, the black-white gap. Since they are lower-achieving on average, minority and poor students are often assigned to less-experienced teachers than white and non-poor students. Less-experienced teachers tend to be less effective, so this pattern is likely to reinforce the relationships between race and achievement and poverty and achievement, the researchers said.

The study also found that lower-achieving students are taught by the teachers who graduated from less-competitive colleges, based on test scores for admission and acceptance rates. This trend is particularly evident at the middle school and high school levels, possibly due to the more varied demands of middle and high school courses. Teachers from more competitive colleges may have deeper subject knowledge than their colleagues from less-competitive colleges, leading principals to assign them to more advanced courses, the researchers said.

The researchers noted that assignment patterns vary across schools. Experienced teachers appear to have more power over the assignment process when there are more of them in a school; senior teachers are assigned even higher-achieving students when there is a larger contingent of experienced teachers in the school.

At the same time, schools under more accountability pressure are less likely to assign higher-achieving students to more-experienced teachers than schools that are not under accountability pressure.

Finally, according to the findings, class assignments vary depending on a teacher’s gender and race. Since female teachers are more likely to teach special education than male teachers, on average they work with lower-achieving students than their male colleagues. Also, black and Hispanic teachers, when compared with white teachers in the same schools, work with more minority and poor students, who tend to be lower-achieving.

Unlike sorting based on experience, the authors said that teacher-student matching based on race could improve student achievement because previous research suggests that minority students may learn more when taught by minority teachers.

“Our analyses are a first step in describing within-school class assignments, an important, yet often overlooked, form of teacher sorting,” said Kalogrides.

Provided by American Sociological Association

Journal reference: Sociology of Education

Related articles

• Study finds troubling patterns of teacher assignments within schools (phys.org)
• Bruno: New Teachers Still Get Tougher Assignments (scholasticadministrator.typepad.com)
• Low-achieving students don’t get top teachers (holykaw.alltop.com)
• Ending teacher tenure: A chance to raise standards in NC (newsobserver.com)
• School District, Teachers Union Come Together For Kids (lasvegas.cbslocal.com)

Blackout in Protest of CISPA

 

Click Photo for more Information

To learn more and find out what you can do go here: http://www.cispaisback.org/

 

Eric Schmidt Wants To Protect You From Your Neighbor’s Drone. But What About Barack Obama’s?

Here is another C4ss article. They are left leaning but are freedom loving nonetheless. I tend to lean a bit more right but am open and am exploring, reading and praying. Meanwhile this Schmidt dude sounds like a real elitist puppet. Take all rights away from the people because only government can be trusted with new technologies.

People can regulate themselves. They do not need drones (government officials) attempting to decide what is right and wrong for everyone in every situation.

Apart from certain things like theft, murder and the like most issues are not a matter of right or wrong but preference. Since this is true it should be left up to locals as to what works best in their area. As for those things that are definitely wrong, even here each community or locale must decide how best to handle these types of violations.

Of course that will present a problem since if you are traveling and kill someone it may be considered a murder in one place and accidental in another. In which case everything from being let go to a death sentence could occur. But do we truly want freedom or do we want some government that tells everyone what they can and cannot do? It seems worth the risk of freedom to me.  

I say this as a felon who could have been killed if some folks had had their choice, while others even the victim of my crime would have had me have no record whatsoever. (E)

Posted by Dave Hummels on Apr 15, 2013 in Commentary

As reported by the BBC, Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt expresses grave misgivings about civilian acquisition of drones during an interview with the Guardian (available only to that paper’s subscribers). Curiously, Schmidt voices little skepticism of government use of drones for surveillance and targeted killing. He has this to say about his fear of drone proliferation:

“ You’re having a dispute with your neighbour … How would you feel if your neighbour went over and bought a commercial observation drone that they can launch from their backyard. It just flies over your house all day. How would you feel about it?” Schmidt also cited the possibility that terrorists could acquire drone technology as another danger. To make sure that drones don’t fall into the wrong hands, Schmidt said, “It’s got to be regulated … It’s one thing for governments, who have some legitimacy in what they’re doing, but have other people doing it … it’s not going to happen.”

Schmidt’s assumption that drone deployment by governments has “some legitimacy” is debatable given the available evidence. For instance, a report from McClatchy raises serious questions about whom the US Government targets with its drones. The Obama administration claims that drone strikes “are authorized only against ‘specific senior operational leaders of al Qaida and associated forces’ involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks who are plotting ‘imminent’ violent attacks on Americans.” But according to McClatchy reporter Jonathan S. Landay,

Copies of the top-secret U.S. intelligence reports … show that drone strikes in Pakistan over a four-year period didn’t adhere to those standards.

The intelligence reports list killings of alleged Afghan insurgents whose organization wasn’t on the U.S. list of terrorist groups at the time of the 9/11 strikes; of suspected members of a Pakistani extremist group that didn’t exist at the time of 9/11; and of unidentified individuals described as “other militants” and “foreign fighters.”

These revelations led Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald to state bluntly, “The Obama Administration often has no idea who they are killing.” So why would Eric Schmidt be so unconcerned about the drones deployed by the US government?

Maybe it has something to do with Schmidt’s cozy relationship with President Obama. The administration reportedly offered Schmidt a cabinet post after the president’s 2012 re-election. According to  the Telegraph, Schmidt oversaw “Google’s $700,000 donation” to the Obama campaign and has been close to the president since the 2008 presidential campaign.

Or perhaps Schmidt is just a bourgeois liberal who thinks more highly of state and corporate officials than he does of “the rabble.” Schmidt also said, “ I’m not going to pass judgment on whether armies should exist, but I would prefer to not spread and democratise the ability to fight war to every single human being.” This statement displays a frustrating, but common, naivete about the nature of governments. If Schmidt was truly aware of the state’s capacity for mass killing and organized violence, he might become less wary of the local yokels. Schmidt’s error is similar to those who demand further restrictions on private firearm ownership even as US government at all levels becomes more militarized.

But what about Schmidt’s neighborhood squabble scenario?

If my neighbor had his drone buzzing over my residence, I suspect that I — probably accompanied by sympathetic and irritated neighbors — would pay Mr. Drone Fetish a visit. I would ask him to behave in a more neighborly fashion if he ever wanted to see his drone again. If he persisted, the best shot in the neighborhood might just blow his precious drone out of the sky. Emerging anti-drone technology and community pressure might also be used to harsh his UAV mellow.

Come to think of it, since domestic law enforcement is now in the drone game, drone shooting may become a hot new sport for freedom-loving US rifle owners. After all, clay pigeons pose no threat to you or your civil liberties. The same cannot be said of government drones, no matter what Eric Schmidt thinks.

C4SS Fellow Dave Hummels is a libertarian socialist writer from Central Illinois. He earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. Dave has over a decade of experience in the healthcare security field and is a licensed emergency medical technician.

 

Living the Lockdown Life

I trust people will take to heart what Thomas Knapp is implying here! (E)

Center for a Stateless Society

building public awareness of left-wing market anarchism

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Posted by Thomas L. Knapp on Apr 16, 2013 in Commentary

While watching coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath, I couldn’t help but notice multiple uses and variations of the word “lockdown” (e.g. “Boston is locked down”). Nor could I help thinking that I’ve been hearing that word used more and more frequently over the last few years, and finding its  connotations are troubling.

Internet etymological sources inform me that the word “lockdown” emerged in the 1940s to describe mechanical processes such as shutting down machines in an ultra-safe manner for maintenance (by the time I worked in factories, the term was “lockout,”). Its most well-known usage, however, dates from the early 1970s. Until the last decade or so it was nearly unique to “correctional institutions.”

A prison lockdown occurs in the context of a riot or other exceptional disciplinary situation: All inmates are ordered to their cells (as opposed to the cafeteria, the exercise yard or, in prisons which operate slave labor schemes, their work stations). The facility is temporarily closed to visitors, deliveries, etc. — only “essential personnel” may enter, leave, or move within the grounds.

A useful term to describe a common, or at least standardized, process. But in the early 1990s, the term vaulted over the prison wall and into more general usage. Google’s Ngram service, which traces the frequency of words in books, graphs slow, steady increase in the term’s appearance until 1990, followed by a  ”hockey stick”: Between 1990 and 2008, use of the term “lockdown” in English-language books ballooned to ten times that 1990 baseline.

Suddenly lockdowns were no longer just a prison thing. They became a school thing, and then an area, neighborhood, city thing.

As of Tuesday morning, April 16, 2013, Google News reported more than 50,000 uses of the word “lockdown” in the news media in the previous 30 days.

“Salem [Massachusetts] schools hold lockdown drills.”  “[Dallas, Texas] elementary to dismiss at normal time after lock down” (for nearly five hours because of a single shooting nearby, but not on campus). “Fallston [Maryland] High, Middle schools briefly placed on lockdown” (because a “suspicious person” was reported nearby). Lockdowns at hospitals. Lockdowns at military bases. Neighborhoods locked down for politicians’ social calls and cities locked down for politicians’ funerals.

Ironic? Portentous? Certainly not mere coincidence. The term is becoming so common because it works. It’s descriptive. Not just of the process, but of the societies in which the process is applied.

America in particular and western societies in general have, over the same decades producing that increased usage, degenerated into open air prisons. The inmates — us — although under nearly ubiquitous surveillance, are mostly left free to wander around (not all of them; last time I checked, one of every 32 Americans was “in the correctional system” — imprisoned or on parole, probation or house arrest), as long as we can produce paperwork on demand and “explain ourselves” to the guards if interrogated. And, of course, until the guards pick one of fifty bazillion reasons to “lock down” the block we happen to be on.

That’s not freedom. It’s highly conditional sufferance. And until we reject the lockdown life and abolish the states which impose it, things are going to get more and more conditional and less and less tolerable.

Citations to this article:

• Thomas L. Knapp, Living a lockdown life, Deming, New Mexico Headlight, 04/18/13

Black Men bound for Prison?

Reblogged from Knowledge For Mankind:

Today people of color continue to be disproportionately incarcerated, policed, and sentenced to death at significantly higher rates than their white counterparts. I just read an article on statements made from our current Attorney General, Eric Holder, regarding black men in prison. Before you get all into the article I just wanted to point out a quick fact; According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1 out of 3 black men can expect to end up in jail, at one point in their life.

Read more… 338 more words

Detroit Police Accused of ‘Kidnapping’ Homeless People, Leaving Them Outside City Limits

Reblogged from Moorbey'z Blog:

Following a year-long investigation, the ACLU has filed a complaint demanding that Detroit Police halt what it calls the “disturbing practice” of literally driving away the homeless, often leaving them to fend for themselves in unfamiliar areas.

RT April 19, 2013

According to complaints received by the civil rights group, Detroit Police officers routinely approach homeless people living in such areas as Greektown, which is popular with tourists, force them into vans, and drive them miles away into often unfamiliar areas.

Read more… 454 more words

I know these types of things occur as when I lived at a mission back in 1991 for a year I heard about this kind of stuf.f.

I Started A Business Yesterday, But...

Reblogged from Larry Who:

Any of us can start a business. To do so, all we must do is discover a customer need, fill that need at agreeable prices for both customers and us, and bada bing bada boom, we are in business.

Sounds easy enough, right? Why aren't more people doing it?

The answer is simple: money.

It takes money to buy supplies, equipment, rent a shop, advertise, hire workers, meet state and federal laws, insurances, provide salaries, and dozens of other things.

Read more… 311 more words

I have followed Gospel for Asia for years now. They are a trustworthy organization The blog is from my friend Larry. We were roommates back in the 90's and he is a mighty man of Yahoveh. (E)

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5 Disturbing Revelations from the NYPD Stop-and-Frisk Trial About Aggressive, Racist Policing

Moorbey’z Blog

Original post: http://moorbey.wordpress.com/2013/04/19/5-disturbing-revelations-from-the-nypd-stop-and-frisk-trial-about-aggressive-racist-policing/

2013/04/19 · by moorbey

The landmark class-action suit has revealed a lot about the NYPD, and it’s not pretty.

April 18, 2013  |

The city of New York is in the midst of a landmark class-action lawsuit. The suit, Floyd v. the City of New York, alleges that the NYPD has routinely violated the Constitution by stopping and searching black and Latino New Yorkers based on their skin color. Since Michael Bloomberg became mayor of New York City in 2002, stop-and-frisk increased by 600%, from 100,000 New Yorkers targeted to almost 685,000 in 2011. Nearly 90% of those stopped are black or Latino, and police are more likely to use force while stopping New Yorkers of color.

Grassroots community groups and national civil rights organizations have claimed for years that the NYPD’s aggressive tactics have inflicted too high a price on the “high-crime” areas affected. But the trial, expected to run well into May, has already presented some unbelievable revelations of police misconduct and abuse, with high-profile witnesses, including high-ranking NYPD officers, delivering gut-wrenching and shocking testimony. Here are five revelations from the trial.

1. Police are forced by their superiors to make up (illegal) quotas, encouraged to make bogus stops.

NYPD whistleblowers Pedro Serrano and Adhyl Polanco put their careers on the line when they secretly recorded supervisors demanding officers conduct a set amount of stops (five), summonses (20), and arrests (one) per month. Quotas for NYPD activity are illegal under New York labor law, but the city maintains that “performance standards” or “goals” that do not include punishments for officers who fail to meet them are perfectly legal. According to Polanco and Serrano, “performance standard” is just a euphemism for a quota forcing officers to meet numbers. Sometimes this requires them to break the law.

“We were handcuffing kids for no reason,” Polanco testified about the 41st Precinct in the Bronx. He said that supervisors questioning quantity “will never question the quality.” “They just want to make sure we have them. How we got them, they don’t really care about,” said Polanco.

In one of Polanco’s recordings, a supervisor says, “The goal is at least one arrest per month and 20 summons,” and an officer who fails to meet the quota may become a “Pizza Hut delivery man.”

“Things are not going to get any better. It is going to get a lot worse,” the supervisor says about numbers.

Polanco explained that superiors retaliated against officers who failed to meet or complained about quotas.

“They said, if we were willing to keep working with our partners, we better come up with the numbers; that if we want to ask for days off, we better come up with the numbers; that if we wanted overtime, the chiefs control the overtime, and that if we don’t do our numbers, we are not going to get it. We were told that it was non-negotiable, that they are going to force us to do it if we didn’t do it.”

“They can make your life very miserable,” he said.

2. NYPD cop admits to setting quotas.

Deputy Chief Michael Marino testified that when he became Commanding Officer of the 75th Precinct in 2002, he set “performance goals” or “standards” of 10 summonses and one arrest per month. When the judge asked, “So was there a performance goal of 10 summonses and one arrest?” Marino responded, “As per an administrative guide that was present at the time, I set the standards as was mandated to me by the police department, yes.”

Marino testified that upon entering the 75th Precinct, he learned that, “Surprisingly enough, the 400 or so officers assigned to patrol all saw exactly five summonses every month, no more, no less,” adding that “It told me that they had set their own quota.”

Marino testified that he did an analysis of crime conditions in the area and then, “I asked them to increase their summons production from five to 10. I asked them to try to make two good stops a month and to attempt to make one arrest a month.“

Still, he denied ever punishing officers solely for failing to meet his numbers.

3. Spinning evidence.

In 2007, the NYPD’s Office of Management Analysis and Planning (OMAP) commissioned a study by the RAND Corporation to determine whether the department’s stop-and-frisk tactic was driven by racial bias.

Given that close to 90% of police encounters involved non-whites, the report asked, “Do these statistics point to racial bias in police officers’ decisions to stop particular pedestrians? Do they indicate that officers are particularly intrusive when stopping nonwhites?”

In a summary of the report’s findings, RAND found, “small racial differences in these rates” based on which they made “communication, recordkeeping, and training recommendations to the NYPD for improving police-pedestrian interactions.”

That was the final report. But testimony at Thursday’s stop-and-frisk trial suggests that the NYPD pressured the reports’ authors to soften some of their original language. The project’s coordinator, Terry Riley, testified that in their contract the RAND Corporation agreed to take the NYPD’s concerns “into consideration.” The NYPD did indeed voice concerns about early drafts of the report, which plaintiffs say led to several alterations to the final product.

In the first draft, the report’s authors wrote of “disturbing evidence” that there was unequal treatment across race groups. After the NYPD objected to the language, that section was rewritten to say that there was “some evidence” of this. In another version of the report, they originally asked whether every stop that uncovered wrongdoing was worth stopping nine “innocent pedestrians.” The department apparently found the language offensive, and it was changed to “suspects who committed no crime.”

Darius Charney from the Center for Constitutional Rights,an attorney representing the plaintiffs, claims that the evidence they presented of emails complaining about these aspects of the report, and subsequent changes, show that the NYPD “clearly had a hand in spinning the results” even if they didn’t doctor the data.

4. Searching groins and socks…for guns?

Stop-and-frisk is supposed to get guns off the streets. Yet officers allegedly search areas where a gun cannot be reasonably hidden, and these searches are often the most invasive and humiliating.

There have been widespread allegations that NYPD frisks and searches go too far. As I recently reported, people have complained that police search their genital areas and buttocks for drugs, even though police are only allowed to search an area where they have observed a bulge and need to confirm it’s not a weapon.

A plaintiff in the case, 24-year-old Nicholas Peart, testified that, on two separate stops, officers searched him inappropriately. One day police demanded he and some relatives get down on the ground. He broke down when he described what happened next.

“They patted over my basketball shorts and I was touched,” he said, adding that they felt his groin.

In April 2011 Peart was on his way to pick up milk for his siblings. A police officer handcuffed him, removed his shoes and felt his socks, asking “if I had weed on me,” he said.

Queens College sociologist Harry Levine, an expert on stop-and-frisk, has linked the NYPD’s astonishing marijuana arrest rate to its use of stop-and-frisk. The NYPD arrests about 50,000 people annually for marijuana, the vast majority of them black or Latino and in the same neighborhoods where stop-and-frisk is prevalent. It’s telling that in 2012, after controversy surrounding stop-and-frisk heated up, both the policing tactic and marijuana arrests dropped by the same amount — 22% percent.

5) NY Senator: NYPD Commissioner told me stop-and-frisk is a fear tactic.

New York Senator Eric Adams (D-20th District) testified on April 1 that at a July 2010 meeting with Governor Andrew Cuomo about a bill (which he co-sponsored) to ban a database of persons stopped but not charged, he raised his concern about the “disproportionate” number of young black and Latino men stopped by police, prompting the Commissioner to say the tactic is crucial for controversial reasons. “[Commissioner Kelly] stated that he targeted or focused on that group because he wanted to instill fear in them, every time they leave their home, they could be stopped by the police,” Adams testified.

“I told him that I believe it was illegal and that that was not what stop-and-frisk was supposed to be used for,” he testified, adding that Kelly responded by asking, “How else are we going to get rid of guns?”

Adams later told reporters he considered Kelly’s statement evidence that, “It was not the people on the ground,” provoking illegal stops but “a policy being blessed from the top down.”

Kristen Gwynne is an associate editor and drug policy reporter at AlterNet.

 

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The Battle Continues

The preceding article spoke of recent revelations about policies of deliberate intimidation against African-Americans and Hispanics by the NYPD that have been coming out in a court case filed against that department. It is disturbing but telling.

I have no doubt that from what I have read over the years that this is policy in most police departments in any city where there are African-Americans and or Hispanic/Latino people in any numbers. I can remember back in the 70′s working in a Des Moines, IA Emergency Room and hearing the kinds of things the cops would  say about Blacks in the community. From what I read now about the arrests not much has changed in central Iowa.

White people are afraid of dark-skinned people. 

Once you get past our  swaggering we are very concerned they will hurt us because of all the Bull Shit we have been taught about them by the culture. They are violent, unpredictable, short-tempered, white haters blah blah blah. So what is the response? Well we must keep them under control and Stop and Frisk is one of the psychological warfare techniques that has been used.

It is warfare because white Americans have a tendency to declare a war on anything we fear or don’t understand. Consciously in some truly evil cases as here, and unconsciously in many of the rest of us. Most of us are unaware of our prejudices, and here I do mean those of us of any skintone. The enemy actually are a few individuals who through manipulation, theft, murder, genocide, and numerous other nefarious activities have brought about a separation of peoples.

By convincing us to fight one another, to distrust one another, to hate one another, they have effectively prevented us from “finding them out”. But the are BEING FOUND OUT! Through the Internet, through prayer, through revolution, through any number of means that the Creator is allowing they will and are being EXPOSED for what they are. Workers of iniquity and dealers in darkness. They are evil to the core and Daddy is going to deal with them SEVERELY.

This exposure is beginning in a case like this where it is evident that the tactics carried out by the NYPD were and are racist and deliberate attempts to rob individuals within the African-American and Hispanic communities of their Constitutional Rights. More importantly, it is evident to this writer and hopefully to others who are watching that this is about attempting to rob people of inalienable rights. Rights that all people everywhere are born with. 

The Right to travel free and unhindered without fear of harassment. The Right to freedom from search or seizure without warrant or strong suspicion of having committed a crime. These are rights that everyone has by reason of having been born into the world. They cannot and should not be subject to government control. So long as an individual is causing no one harm and there is no reason to suspect they have been involved in causing someone harm they should be left the hell alone.  

That, of course, is the whole point and has been all along. The minions (a servile dependent, follower, or underling) who are these Chiefs of Police, the Commissioner, even The President and other leaders of nations are merely puppets. While it is good they are being exposed we must remember they only serve. The path to those at the top will be paved with their poor souls. They will be mentally crushed as the plans of their masters continue to fail and they realize they chose the wrong side.

Lest one have too much compassion they did make a choice. Yahoveh always always gives people a choice even if the enemy causes them to feel as though they do not. Even death is preferable to serving the evil one. So…there is always a choice. Daddy wins folks.

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The Corruption of Individual Rights

Original article: http://www.thedailybell.com/28960/Tibor-Machan-The-Corruption-of-Individual-Rights

By Tibor Machan

Whenever a good idea surfaces, there will surely be many who will try to hitch their wagon to it filled with corrupt versions that aim to serve numerous purposes having little to do with the original good idea. One example is the idea of individual natural human rights.

Some simply disagree with the idea, like Jeremy Bentham did, denouncing it in various terms (e.g., “nonsense upon stilts”). Others do not like going about it straightforwardly. Instead they try to recast the idea to mean what it didn’t. A good case in point is the idea of welfare rights.

The rights John Locke identified as belonging to every adult human being are prohibitions, aimed at spelling out a sphere of personal jurisdiction, a private domain, for us all, one within which the individual is sovereign, the ruler of the realm as it were. For example, one’s right to private property spells out the area of the world that one is free to use and roam with no need for anyone else’s permission; to enter this realm one must give one’s permission without which others must remain outside. One’s right to one’s life is similar. No one may interfere with one’s life without having gained permission, not even someone who means to do one no harm but only provide help (e.g., a physician).

The point of such rights is to recognize that every adult person is in charge of his or her life and property and others must not intrude. Why is this important? Because people make significant decisions about how they will live and if others intrude, these decision become distorted. Basic rights carve out the region of the world where the individual is in charge!

This is, of course, an irritant to all those who would just as soon have other people available to be used, bothered, nudged and so forth. The tyrant is fended off by individual rights, as is the meddlesome legislator and regulator. So instead of accepting this, such folks are bent upon recrafting the idea of individual rights. Welfare rights are like that. If one has a basic right to welfare, it means others must become involuntary servants to one’s objectives and may not tend to their own affairs in peace. The idea of basic individual rights establishes peace among people. They must deal with one another by consenting to the various projects one might support. One may not be conscripted and robbed. And this is inconvenient, of course, to people who don’t want to bother about gaining the consent of those whose support they seek. Instead of convincing them of the merits of their projects, they can skip this troublesome step and just tax and draft and otherwise make people serve them whether or not they want to.

People, of course, often should help others but that must be done voluntarily. There is no merit to such help if it is coerced! To avoid the perception that one’s support is coerced, the idea of welfare rights is fabricated! This needs to be resisted good and hard!

Tibor Machan is the R. C. Hoiles Professor of Business Ethics & Free Enterprise at the Argyros School of Business & Economics, Chapman University in Orange, CA.

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Federal: Bipartisan Coalition of Lawmakers Introduce ‘Respect State Marijuana Laws Act’

The Less Federal interference the better (E)

Tuesday, 16 April 2013

United States Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), along with a bipartisan coalition of three Republicans (Reps. Rohrabacher, Rep. Justin Amash [R-MI], and Don Young [R-AK]) and three Democrats (Reps. Earl Blumenauer [D-OR], Steve Cohen [D-TN] and Jared Polis [D-CO]) are sponsoring House Bill 1523: the Respect State Marijuana Laws Act.

This measure seeks to amend the federal Controlled Substances Act to exempt from federal prosecution individuals and businesses, including marijuana dispensaries and/or retail outlets, who comply with state marijuana laws.

“This bipartisan bill represents a common-sense approach that establishes federal government respect for all states’ marijuana laws,” Rohrabacher said in a prepared statement, “It does so by keeping the federal government out of the business of criminalizing marijuana activities in states that don’t want it to be criminal.”

You can write to Congress in support of HR 1523 using a pre-written letter when you visit NORML‘s ‘Take Action Center’ here:

http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51046/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=10475

Sincerely,
The NORML Team.

 

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