The
DISH
Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use
Volume10 Issue 45…Dedicated
to the Dialogue on Race…November
9, 2007
Prisoner
By Lucky Dube
Somebody told me about it
When I was still a little boy
He said to me, crime does not pay
He said to me, education is the key, yeah
As a little boy I thought I know
What I was doing, yeah man
But today here I am
in jail
Chorus:
I' m a prisoner (x3)
I looked all around me
But to see nothing
but four grey walls staring at me
the policeman said to me, son
They won' t build no schools anymore
All they' ll build will be prison, prison (x3)
'cos today, yeah
Chorus:
I am a prisoner (x2) I' m a prisoner
Dear lord
I asked the policeman and said
How much must I pay for my freedom?
He said to me, son
They won' t build no schools anymore
They won' t build no hospitals (x2)
All they' ll build
will be prison, prison (x4)
Chorus till fade
About Me: Reggae superstar Lucky
Dube (pronounced Doo-Bay) is one of reggae music's best-selling artists and
most outspoken performers. Motivated by first-hand experiences of South
Africa's apartheid, and inspired by the music of Bob Marley and controversial
lyrics of Peter Tosh, Dube switched from traditional Zulu mbaquanga music to reggae. Rasta
Never Die (1986), his first reggae album, was banned by the all-white South
African government. Despite early setbacks, Dube, who was destined for success,
became one of South Africa's biggest artists. Lucky Dube was shot and killed
October 18, 2007.
Mutulu Shakur
"We are establishing a continuum of resistance of the
oppression of New Afrikan People against the oppression of 400 years of slavery
and genocide. Many of us engaged in the conflict, targets of the conflict and
victims of the conflict find ourselves in jail or cemeteries or find ourselves
suffering mental stress and Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Without the
recognition that a conflict exists, the martyrs and patriots of our struggle
will continue to be labeled criminals in the annals of history. It is a
significant political struggle for our movement and allies of our movement to
create the recognition that there exists and will continue to exist political
prisoners and prisoners of war in America." (Dr. Mutulu
Shakur)
Born Jeral Wayne Williams on
August 8, 1950 in Baltimore, Maryland, Mutulu Shakur grew up in South Jamaica
Queens, New York. A close friend of political prisoner Geronimo Pratt, he
co-founded the Republic of New Africa. Shakur worked with the Lincoln Detox
Community Program, an addiction treatment facility. He eventually became the
center's assistant director.
While working with recovering addicts, Shakur challenged the use of methadone.
An advocate of natural remedies, he began treating withdrawal symptoms with
acupuncture. In 1978, Shakur received a Doctor of Acupuncture degree from the
Quebec Institute of Acupuncture. The following year, he and several colleagues
founded the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America. They
opened the Harlem Institute of Acupuncture and Natural Healing where community
residents received holistic healthcare and students were trained in
acupuncture.
In the 1980s, Shakur was arrested on RICO charges of bank robbery and aiding
his sister, Assata Shakur, in her escape from prison. On July 23, 1982, he
became the 380th person added by the FBI to the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
In 1987, Shakur was sentenced to 60 years imprisonment.
Since his incarceration, Dr. Mutulu Shakur helped found the Islamic Young Men's
Movement, a youth prisoner organization, and was a key organizer in the
historic gang truce between the Bloods and the Crips at Lompoc Penitentiary.
Dr. Shakur is recognized in the international media as an American political
prisoner and freedom fighter. He has been housed in some of the nation's most
notorious prison facilities, where human rights abuses have been documented by
Amnesty International.
Dr. Mutulu Shakur is a lifelong activist in the New Afrikan (Black)
Independence Movement. His supporters charge, his activism, even from within
the prison system, is why he is persecuted and subjected to torture.
Under federal law, a federal prisoner is eligible for release on parole after
serving ten (10) years of a sentence over thirty (30) years. Mutulu was
eligible for a parole in 1996, but his efforts to schedule one were blocked. A
hearing was finally held in 2002. Parole was denied and Mutulu was informed
that he would not be able to appear again before the parole board for 15 years.
His projected release date is February 10, 2016.
The father of five, Dr. Shakur is the stepfather of legendary rapper Tupac
Shakur. With Tupac, he co-wrote a "Thug Life Handbook," which
expressed an anti-drug and anti-violence message. He founded the New York-based
organization "Dare 2 Struggle" and released a compilation CD under
the same name. (Sources: www.millionsforreparations.com/shakur.html
http://prisonactivist.org/, and http://en.wikipedia.org)
Recall Redux
On Wednesday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission issued another toy recall.
Like most of the previous recalls, Aqua Dots, which made Wal-Mart's list of the
top twelve toys for this Christmas season, are made in China. The children's
craft kits are uniquely innovative; when sprayed with water, the beads (dots)
stick together to form innumerable shapes.
Unlike previous toy recalls for toxic lead paint levels or choking hazards,
Aqua Dots are being recalled because the beads contain an industrial solvent
(butanediol). If swallowed, the body converts the solvent into gamma-hydroxy
butyrate, which is commonly known as the date rape drug. Two children in the US
and three in Australia have fallen ill after swallowing these beads.
In Australia, where a nationwide ban against the toy has been imposed, Aqua
Dots are sold as Bindeez. The toy was named the country's 2007 Toy of the Year.
Other toy recalls include 110,000 Marvel Entertainment's Curious George dolls,
which are made in China. Tests show the toys contain lead levels in excess of
federal limits. Consumers are also asked to stop using 196,000 kitchen toys
made in Mexico and sold by Mattel. The toys' small pieces may pose a choking
hazard.
Other recalls include Coby Electronics Corporation's portable DVD/CD players.
Made in China for New York-based Coby, the players pose a fire hazard due to
overheating. Sold nationwide at discount, electronics and office supply stores,
the recalled models are TF-DVD170 and TF-DVD176. Consumers can contact the
manufacturer for a full refund.
Also recalled this week are lawnmowers made by Honda Motor Corporation. Sold by
Home Depot and Honda dealers, the lawnmowers contain a manufacturing defect
that can cause a fuel tank leak. Consumers should stop using the mowers (Model
# HRX217KHXA and HRX217KHMA) and contact a Honda dealer to have the fuel tank
replaced.
More Words for the Jena 6 Movement
By John Burl Smith
The immortal words of George
Santayana (1883-1952), He who does
not know his history is domed to relive live it, were demonstrated
with crystal clarity on November 2, 2007, the national blackout boycott day.
Obviously, breaking through the "learned helplessness" mind-set bred
into slaves and their descendants will require tremendous and sustained
commitment on the part of slave descendants today. Their efforts can only be
compared to trying to turn an aircraft carrier against the wind180 degrees
while traveling at full speed.
Blackout day reminded me of the immensity of the problem and the difficulty
facing young blacks that have shouldered the challenge, while viewing Look for Me in the Whirlwind.
This documentary on Marcus Garvey, presented by the Georgia Caribbean American
Heritage Coalition, provided new insight.
The most dynamic and imaginative leader of black people of African descendant, Garvey
created the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) during the early
1900s which grew into an international movement. Unlike, Booker T. Washington,
W. E. B. Du Bois, A. Phillip Randolph and many other so-called black leaders,
Garvey not only taught blacks to stand up and be proud, he took self-help to a
new level. He began by establishing schools and businesses, then shocked blacks
out of their dependent mind-set by forming a black government in exile. He
sought to represent and pull black people around the world together as one
cohesive body politic. And, therein lies the seeds of deceit that brought
Garvey down.
Garvey's imaginative approach was far beyond anything other so-called Negro
leaders or preachers could fathom let alone identify with as the best path
forward for slave descendants. Their petty jealousy, greed and lust for power
united them in a plot that not only betrayed Garvey but blacks around the
world. Led by Du Bois and Randolph, so-called black leaders wrote letters and
started a petition drive that demanded the US government stop Garvey. They
ridiculed him as a charlatan and buffoon, whose schemes hoodwinked blacks by
tricking them out of their money.
Revered today in history books as great leaders, in reality, they were Judas
goats who led Garvey to the slaughter; blacks like Du Bois and Randolph paved
the way for J. Edgar Hoover's investigations. The infamous head of the FBI in
later years, then Hoover was only a government lawyer in the Justice
Department. Put in charge of bringing Garvey down, he hired the first black
federal agent, the infamous agent 800, who infiltrated UNIA. This was the first
trial run of what became known as Co-Intel-Pro in the 1960s and 70s, which was
used to spy on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and assassinate black power
advocates.
Hoover used his agent/informants and so-called black leaders to trump up mail
fraud charges against Garvey. After he was convicted and sentenced to prison,
Garvey's UNIA fell apart. Identical to what happened following Dr. King's
assassination, blacks were back at the mercy of whites as they were in 1890.
So-called black leaders like Du Bois and Randolph had no plan that replaced or
improved on UNIA. Blacks went from self-help improvement efforts back to depending
on handouts from whites.
This is the same process Hoover used to destroy the "Poor People's
Campaign" of Dr. King and his planned coalition with the Invaders to unite
all black power groups across the US in 1968. Dr. King and the Invaders worked
out that deal just hours before his assassination. And like Garvey, that
coalition may have been the real reason for his murder. Synonymous to how
blacks supported Hoover's plot to destroy Garvey, so-called black leaders
helped Hoover destroy the Black Panthers, Invaders and other Black Power groups
beginning in 1968.
Today, leaders of the Jena 6 movement are in the cross-hairs of the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS), the new Co-Intel-Pro. The same coalition of black
leaders and preachers are busy trying to undermine black boycott efforts and
protests like the November 16th march for justice at the US Justice
Department in Washington DC. What most black people do not understand is that
the US government fought a war against black people during the 1960s and 70s to
keep slave descendants second class citizens.
The Jena 6 Movement is the point, leading black people's new thrust to gain
first class status in the US. Nooses are a stealth strategy to force blacks to
accept the government's ongoing school-to-prison pipeline for young black men.
The prison-industrial-complex has become the largest industry in the US. Those
looking to presidential candidates to provide solutions should ask Hillary
Clinton and Barack Obama, "What are they going to do to stop the
"Jenacide?" Will a vote stop this? Wake up slave descendants!
The Black Man Film Festival 2007
By John Burl Smith
The lesson of the blackout boycott held on November 2, 2007 was extended in
Atlanta by the eighth annual Black Man Film Festival. Presented at the Auburn
Avenue Research Library on Saturday (11-3-07), it was sponsored by the Center
on Blacks and the Media, which is an Atlanta non-profit media monitoring group.
The event gave the community an opportunity to show further support for the
overall goal of the blackout to bring slave descendants together around the
core issues of unity and preparing for the upcoming march for justice in
Washington DC on November 16, 2007. This festival served as a platform for film
makers to present works that explore issues relevant to the struggle of black
men in America.
More than just entertainment, the festival was a forum that showcased film
makers from diverse backgrounds and points of view that cut against the usual
cinematic grain. Some films were short exposés of personal insight or
social commentaries. Black Beauty
was an artistic ode to beauty as an ideal. Live
Yo Life presented a montage of images of life that personified its
soundtrack. Direct and in your face, Taking
a Step Back From Forgiveness cut across the viewer's consciousness
like a scratched record illuminating the tension between two brothers
struggling over the proper response to a letter from the man who killed their
father, who asked for forgiveness. A 35-minute documentary Free the Jena 6 directed by
Brother Hasan brought the September 20, 2007 gathering alive once more with
powerful images of love, commitment and unity among the more than 70,000 slave
descendants and others gathered in Jena, Louisiana to support Mychal Bell and
five other young black men.
The afternoon session featured
two powerful and very emotional films, Legacy
of Torture: War Against the Black Liberation Movement and The Hip Hop Project. Both films,
to varying degrees, held personal significance and reconnected me to torturous
times of change and suffering. The
Legacy of Torture is a 28-minute documentary that tells the story
of the Black Panther Party's San Francisco 8 and their horrendous saga. Unless
one was a victim of Co-Intel-Pro, as I was, most can not believe the US
government is capable of such atrocities.
When the media speak of torture today most think of Abu Ghraib or the US prison
in Guantanamo, Cuba. However, the same techniques used there were the
stock-in-trade of J. Edgar Hoover's Co-Intel-Pro agents during the war against
the black liberation movement in the1960s and 70s. This film tells how the US
government, under Homeland Security today, is reviving old cases courts threw
out because they were built on trumped up charges and confessions secured with
torture. The FBI is now incarcerating black men in a prison in Colorado where
they are being held without the right of habeas corpus.
Directed by Matt Ruskin, the Hip Hop Project is an eighty-five minutes feature
film. It is an epic about the life of hip hop artist Chris 'Kazi' Rolle. Born
in Jamaica, Kazi and his mother are first abandoned by his father, then at age
four, he is abandoned by his mother. Orphaned, Kazi struggles to find himself
while living on the street. He finds meaning and purpose through hip hop and
starts a project to reach out to young blacks like himself.
Both are must see films. They not only open eyes but tell powerful stories
about black men struggling to cope with the reality of 400 years as slave
descendants.
Yemi Toure, organizer of the festival, deserves to be shown a great deal of
love, appreciation and credit for his courage and farsightedness in developing
the Black Man Film Festival and presenting these much needed culturally relevant
films to the Atlanta community. His efforts should be supported by all who love
the creative spirit, art and humanity. For more information about the festival
and films, go to www.freedomarchives.org,
www.hiphopproject.org and www.myspace.com/theblackmanfilmfestival.
Disgruntled feels: Torturous! The US has a
new attorney general. Judge Michael Mukasey managed to receive Senate
confirmation despite his murky testimony on torture, specifically
waterboarding. While recognized as drowning - not simulated - Mukasey refused
to label the interrogation technique torture. His confirmation hearing
testimony was disturbingly reminiscent of scenes from Alberto Gonzales'
appearances before congressional committees in which he equivocated, obfuscated
and lied about the wholesale firing of US attorneys, illegal wiretapping and
torture. Listening to Mukasey and realizing he would receive the position were
downright disheartening; you just knew the country's standard had sunk even
lower. If the truth is ever written reflecting the George W. Bush
administration's legacy, it will be a torturous tale of treachery, treason,
lies, greed and thirst for power - the kind of stuff that gives old folks
nightmares.
Disgruntled
says: For its war on terror, the US introduced the "mother of all
bombs" (MOAB), nuclear-tipped bunker busters capable of destroying
underground installations. Recently, Russia showcased what it called the
"daddy of all bombs (DOAB) that is supposedly more powerful that MOAB in
terms of its destructive capability. Receiving little news coverage, a
low-level Chinese official announced the possibility that China may deploy the
granddaddy of all bombs (GOAB). Unlike its predecessors, MOAB and DOAB, GOAB is
not a weapon in the conventional sense; it is an economic weapon. Only a few
countries, notably China and Japan, can single-handedly pull its trigger,
simply by deciding to hold fewer dollars as their reserve currency. If the
dollar's value continues to decline, do not be surprised if GOAB is detonated
in the near future.
Disgruntled
wants to know: Under questioning by GOP presidential hopeful Rep. Ron
Paul (TX), Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke looked and sounded incompetent
and weak. Like the rest of the Bush economic team, which is seemingly composed
of witch doctors practicing voodoo economics without licenses, Bernanke is no
Alan Greenspan, the master of economic doublespeak. After an opening statement
that conceded the US economic outlook is less than rosy, Bernanke's testimony
was somewhat embarrassing as he fell back on Bush talking points about the economy's
incredible resiliency. However, given Bernanke's admission, watch out for the
big switch! As the outlook deteriorates to the point where fudged numbers and
spin will no longer work to fool the average American, the Bush regime will
attempt to blame Democrats for the nation's poor economic health. Ironically,
while Bush acquired a fairly healthy economy, he set about jawboning it down to
justify trillions in tax cuts for the wealthy. With only himself to blame for
current conditions, he will switch rather than take credit for the havoc his
policy has wrecked. Question is, will the media allow him to make the switch
without asking him any tough Ron Paul-type questions?
Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and
Phone Calls
Email www.kpbs.org
...A new report says California's high housing cost is driving military vets
into homelessness. The National Alliance to End Homelessness says veterans make
up a disproportionate share of the overall homeless population. KPBS reporter
Andrew Phelps has more. An estimated 50,000 vets are homeless on any given
night in California. The report says many more are at risk for homelessness
because tens of thousands of them spend more than half their income on rent.
Half of those people live in poverty. That's one of the highest rates in the
nation.
Email www.bloomberg.com ... Dollar Slumps to
Record on China's Plans to Diversify Reserves...By Agnes Lovasz and Stanley
White...The dollar fell the most since September against the currencies of its
six biggest trading partners after Chinese officials signaled plans to
diversify the nation's $1.43 trillion of foreign exchange reserves. The dollar
fell against all 16 of the most-active currencies, declining to the weakest versus
the Canadian dollar since the end of a fixed exchange rate in 1950, a 26-year
low against the pound and a 23-year low versus the Australian dollar. The U.S.
currency slumped to $1.4704 per euro, the lowest since the 13-nation currency
debuted in January 1999, before trading at $1.4671 as of 7:15 a.m. in New York,
from $1.4557 late yesterday. The dollar dropped the most in two months against
the yen, trading as low as 112.87 yen. The euro fell against the yen to 165.84,
from 166.99 yesterday.
Email www.nytimes.com/...JENA, La. (AP) -- The
last of the Jena Six to be arraigned in the beating of a white high school
student pleaded not guilty Wednesday to reduced charges of battery and
conspiracy. The trial for Bryant Purvis, 18, was set for March. Purvis had
initially been charged with attempted second-degree murder, but in a brief
court hearing that charge was reduced to charges of second degree-aggravated
battery and conspiracy. If convicted, he could be imprisoned for up to 22
years. The six black teens known as the ''Jena Six'' were arrested after a
December 2006 attack on Justin Barker, who was knocked unconscious. Their case
fueled allegations that prosecutors were treating blacks more harshly than
whites, because charges weren't filed against three white teens accused of
hanging nooses in a tree at the high school shortly before the attack.
Email www.legitgov.org/ US accused of
torture... The United States' willingness to resort to harsh interrogation
techniques in its so-called war on terror undermined human rights and the
international ban on torture, a United Nations spokesman says. Manfred Nowak,
UN Special Rapporteur on torture, said the US' standing and importance meant it
was a model to other countries which queried why they were subject to scrutiny
when the US resorted to measures witnessed at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib
prison.