The DISH

Unbossed and unbought news and information you can use

Vol. 12 Issue 1…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…January 4, 2009

Eleven Years and Looking Forward

By John Burl Smith

Dot's Information Service Hotline (The DISH) has just finished it eleventh uninterrupted year of publication. Thinking back over the years, the world we gaze upon today is a far different place than it was when the idea of a weekly newsletter first popped into Dot's head. The two of us had been struggling writers for years; Dot began in the early1970s and I in the late 1960s. Young community organizers in Memphis, Tennessee, we were committed to black power and felt getting the word out to black people was essential to educating them and building unity.

The idea for The DISH came to Dot after we graduated from the University of Memphis, moved to Atlanta, Georgia and found employment with the federal government. Racism has always been a fact of life for us, which is why we remained supporters of black power and affirmative action, so when we both lost our jobs due to racial discrimination and "strict construction" federal judges denied our claims, the Internet allowed us to tell our stories.

Over the years, I have been amazed by the sheer number and ways black people are treated disparately and discriminated against by employers, landlords, police, and government officials, as employees, occupants, taxpayers, customers, consumers, voters and citizens in general. The DISH became an international voice for those like us, who could not get their day in court. However, through The DISH, they could tell the world what was happening to them and their communities. Connecting the dots, we filled in pictures that were barely outlines when presented via national media. The DISH broke new ground in the way it presented information, unearthed hidden facts, publicized vital research that had been ignored and exposed culprits, scam artists, the greedy and unscrupulous people that dominate our world.

The last decade has been a remarkable period and for us to still be here stronger than when we started is even more remarkable. Overcoming several government attempts to shut us down by kicking us off the web (the latest attempt was in September 2008), Dot's battle with cancer in 2007, and all the day to day challenges arising from family problems, grandchildren and economic crisis were just some issues that provided more than enough reasons to quit. But Dot kept us focused by pointing us into the storm and sailing against the wind. Surviving those turbulent times was possible only because Dot was our steady and determined helms woman. Emerging into sunlight and clear skies on the other side, we know sailing the tempestuous seas of 2009 will not be smooth or easy, yet we face the next decade with optimism.

Two thousand-nine begins the Obama decade and it already presents prospects never before considered, not just because he is the first non-white man to hold that office, but because America is facing situations no president ever confronted -- an economic crisis unlike previous ones, two wars fought on credit, foreign occupations costing lives and resources, unsustainable energy demands, environmental degradation, poverty and homelessness growing exponentially, declining health among an aging population and bleak prospects of rising health care cost for everyone, just to name a few. Such daunting realities to begin the O-decade will challenge the best minds to solve fundamental problems in such areas as education, employment, equality, crime and justice with a prison population that is not only growing but getting younger each day, an immigrant population (legal and illegal) competing for scare resources and jobs and a majority minority population that receives less than 25% of the nation's wealth.

Today, the United States of America is poised on the precipice of hope with its leaders peering into the unknown for answers that only tomorrow will reveal. This is not the first time that America has stood at such a pivotal juncture, where the fate of the nation hung in the balance. Surely, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt and even John F. Kennedy tittered precariously at such thresholds when all the retrospective analysis available to them amounted to mist in the wind. This is a place where a quantum leap must be seen as the bridge to the future and where imagination and innovation lift one to those lofty heights where only visionaries reside. Those who to dare walk among giants must traverse a valley littered with the bones of those who reached high but grasped only what was beneath their potential and possibilities.

Whatever the outcome, we are sure our loyal readers will be there with us, encouraging us and for that we are eternally grateful. From The DISH family to yours, may the best of 2008 be the worst of 2009.

Venue for an Artist

The Passing of the Year

By Robert William Service

My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,

My den is all a cozy glow;

And snug before the fire I sit,

And wait to feel the old year go.

I dedicate to solemn thought

Amid my too-unthinking days,

This sober moment, sadly fraught

With much of blame, with little praise.

Old Year! upon the Stage of Time

You stand to bow your last adieu;

A moment, and the prompter's chime

Will ring the curtain down on you.

Your mien is sad, your step is slow;

You falter as a Sage in pain;

Yet turn, Old Year, before you go,

And face your audience again.

That sphinx-like face, remote, austere,

Let us all read, what e'er the cost:

Maiden! why that bitter tear?

Is it for dear one you have lost?

Is it for fond illusion gone?

For trusted lover proved untrue?

O sweet girl-face, so sad, so wan

What hath the Old Year meant to you?

And you, O neighbour on my right

So sleek, so prosperously clad!

What see you in that aged wight

That makes your smile so gay and glad?

What opportunity unmissed?

What golden gain, what pride of place?

What splendid hope? O Optimist!

What read you in that withered face?

And You, deep shrinking in the gloom,

What find you in that filmy gaze?

What menace of a tragic doom?

What dark, condemning yesterdays?

What urge to crime, what evil done?

What cold, confronting shape of fear?

O haggard, haunted, hidden One

What see you in the dying year?

And so from face to face I flit,

The countless eyes that stare and stare;

Some are with approbation lit,

And some are shadowed with despair.

Some show a smile and some a frown;

Some joy and hope, some pain and woe:

Enough! Oh, ring the curtain down!

Old weary year! it's time to go.

My pipe is out, my glass is dry;

My fire is almost ashes too;

But once again, before you go,

And I prepare to meet the New:

Old Year! a parting word that's true,

For we've been comrades, you and I --

I thank God for each day of you;

There! bless you now! Old Year, good-bye!

About Me: Robert W. Service was born in Lancashire, England on January 16, 1874. Adventurer, poet and writer, his numerous publications include forty-five verse collections, two autobiographies, Ploughman of the Moon (1945) and Harper of Heaven (1948), and six novels. Service appeared briefly in the 1942 movie The Spoilers. Considered the people's poet, Service died in France in1958.

Bit of History

John Robert Clifford (1848-1933)

"Being a member of the National Bar Association doesn't make a Negro any better or wiser, not certain that it helps cure the caste disease -- better for them to work hard to meet and outstrip white lawyers -- especially those who 'don't like a Nigger.'" (J.R. Clifford)

John Robert Clifford was born in 1848 in the small town of Williamsport, near present-day Moorefield in the western mountains of the slave state of Virginia. Clifford's parents, Isaac and Mary Clifford, as well as his grandparents, were "free blacks" that had lived in the region for several generations. In the early 1860s, Clifford's parents sent him to Chicago to attend school, since there was no school for black children in the area.

At age fifteen (1864), Clifford enlisted in the United States Colored Troops, serving with the 13th US Heavy Artillery until 1865. After the Civil War, he learned the barber's trade and attended a writing school in Wheeling. In the early 1870s, Clifford enrolled in Harper's Ferry newly formed Storer College, which was created to educated blacks in the region. After earning his degree in 1875, Clifford accepted a teaching position at Sumner School, a segregated public school in Martinsburg, West Virginia; he was eventually promoted to principal.

In 1882, Clifford established the Pioneer Press, the state's first black newspaper. A fierce civil rights advocate, Clifford was often at odds with local and national political decisions; he even criticized the all-white management of Storer College. The Pioneer Press became one of the most respected black newspapers in the nation. The federal government closed the newspaper in 1917 because of Clifford's editorial criticisms of the US' involvement in World War I. By then, the Pioneer Press was the longest running black newspaper in the country.

Clifford studied law with J. Nelson Wysner, a white lawyer in Martinsburg. In 1887, he became the first black American to pass the West Virginia bar examination. Clifford argued two landmark civil rights and education cases before West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals. The first case, Martin v. Board of Education (1896), challenged the state's segregated school system. Clifford argued on behalf of Thomas Martin, a black Morgan County parent, who wanted his children to attend a local white school; there was no separate school for the black children in the rural area. The court ruled black children could not attend the white public school; the court's decision affirmed Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and the state's segregation policy, which were not overturned until the US Supreme Court landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Kansas (1954).

The second case, Williams v. Board of Education of Fairfax District (1898), challenged the Tucker County Board of Education's decision to shorten the school year for black school children from eight to five months to save money, while maintaining a full term for white students. Clifford advised Carrie Williams, the black school's teacher, to teach the full term. When the board refused to pay her, Clifford sued for the additional $121.00 in wages due and won the case at a jury trial and before the WV Supreme Court of Appeals. The court ruled that school boards had to provide equal pay for teachers and school terms for black and white students; the ruling in Williams (1898) was the first in US history to determine that racial discrimination was illegal.

Like W.E.B. Dubois and other founding members of the "Niagara Movement," which was organized to counter Booker T. Washington's philosophy of working within the existing system to achieve gradual civil rights advancement, Clifford wanted immediate change. The Niagara Movement called for full civil rights for black Americans and an end to legalized segregation. Clifford arranged the organization's annual gathering in August 1906 on the grounds of Storer College in Harpers Ferry. He broke with the Niagara Movement when it formed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909. Among other disagreements, Clifford objected to the use of the word "colored" in the organization's title

Civil War veteran, attorney, newspaper publisher, editor and writer, schoolteacher and principal, grandfather and civil rights pioneer, Clifford was the President of the National Independent League, first Vice-President of the American Negro Academy and member of the Knights of Wise Men. J.R. Clifford died in Martinsburg in 1933; he was buried in the city's Mount Hope Cemetery. In 1954, his body was re-interred in Arlington National Cemetery in recognition of his Civil War service. A US postal stamp honoring J.R. Clifford is scheduled for release on February 21, 2009. (Sources: www.allacademic.com, http://en.wikipedia.org and www.wvculture.org)

Intuit's Vibe

America's New Year Resolution: Stop Being Stupid

By Bob Herbert

We have behaved in ways that were incredibly and embarrassingly stupid for much too long. It's time to stop the self-destruction. I've got a new year's resolution and a new slogan for the country. Americans must resolve to be smarter going forward than we have been for the past several years.

Look around you. We have behaved in ways that were incredibly, astonishingly and embarrassingly stupid for much too long. We've wrecked the economy and mortgaged the future of generations yet unborn. We don't even know if we'll have an automobile industry in the coming years. It's time to stop the self-destruction.

The slogan? "Invest in the U.S." By that I mean we should stop squandering the nation's wealth on unnecessary warfare overseas and mindless consumption here at home and start making sensible investments in the well-being of the American people and the long-term health of the economy.

The mind-boggling stupidity that we've indulged in was hammered home by a comment almost casually delivered by, of all people, Bernie Madoff, the mild-mannered creator of what appears to have been a nuclear-powered Ponzi scheme. Madoff summed up his activities with devastating simplicity. He is said to have told the F.B.I. that he "paid investors with money that wasn't there."

Somehow, over the past few decades, that has become the American way: to pay for things -- from wars to Wall Street bonuses to flat-screen TVs to video games -- with money that wasn't there.

Something for nothing became the order of the day. You want to invade Iraq? Convince yourself that oil revenues out of Baghdad will pay for it. (Meanwhile, carve out another deficit channel in the federal budget.) You want to pump up profits in the financial sector? End the oversight and let the lunatics in the asylum run wild.

For those who wanted a bigger house in a nicer neighborhood, there were mortgages with absurdly easy terms. Credit-card offers came in the mail like confetti, and we used them like there was no tomorrow. For students stunned by the skyrocketing cost of tuition, there were college loans that could last a lifetime.

Plenty of people managed their credit wisely. But much of the country, including many of the top government officials and financial titans who were supposed to be guarding the nation's wealth, acted as if there would never be a day of reckoning, a day when -- inevitably -- the soaring markets would crash and the bubbles explode.

We were stupid in so many ways. We shipped American jobs overseas by the millions and came up with the fiction that this was a good deal for just about everybody. We could have and should have taken the time and made the effort to think globalization through, to be smarter about it and craft ways to cushion its more harmful effects and to share its benefits more equitably.

We bought into the dopey idea that you could radically cut taxes and still maintain critical government services -- and fight two wars to boot!

We were living in a dream world. The general public, and to a great extent the press, closed its eyes to the increasingly complex and baffling machinations of the financial industry, which kept screaming that oversight would ruin everything.

We should have known better. It didn't require a genius (or even an economics degree) to understand a crucial point that popped up some years ago in a front-page article in The Wall Street Journal: "Markets are a great way to organize economic activity, but they need adult supervision."

Did Alan Greenspan not understand that? Bob Rubin? Larry Summers? Now that the reality of a stunning economic downturn has so roughly intervened, we at least have the option of being smarter going forward. There is broad agreement that we have no choice but to go much more deeply into debt to jump-start the economy. But we have tremendous choices as to how we use that debt.

We should use it to invest in the U.S. -- in a world-class infrastructure (in its broadest sense) to serve as the platform for a world-class, 21st-century economy, and in a system of education that actually prepares American youngsters to deal successfully with the real world they will be encountering.

We need to invest in a health care system that improves the quality of American lives, enhances productivity, puts large numbers of additional people to work and eases the competitive burden of U.S. corporations.

We need to care for our environment (if long-term survival means anything to us) and get serious about weaning ourselves from foreign oil.

Finally, we need to start living within our means and get past the nauseating idea that the essence of our culture and the be-all and end-all of the American economy is the limitless consumption of trashy consumer goods. It's time to stop being stupid.

Hood Notes

Murder in Mississippi?

Seventeen-year-old star athlete, Billey Joe Johnson rushed for 1,559 yards and 24 touchdowns this season. According to press reports, he was being aggressively recruited by some of the nation's top colleges and universities, including Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, LSU, Mississippi and Mississippi State. A natural athlete, Johnson possessed speed and strength, "a rare combination," in the words of George County coach Al Jones.

His fans, family and friends adored him. A local hero, he was to be toasted at a banquet hosted by a television station. Instead of being showered with accolades and hearing college scholarships offers and looking forward to a bright future, Billey Joe died in the presence of a white deputy sheriff in Lucedale, Mississippi on December 8, 2008.

To say this young black man, considered one of the top high school football players in the nation, died under suspicious circumstances would be an understatement. According to a statement issued by the George County Sheriff's Department, Johnson died from a self-inflicted gun wound after being pulled over by a sheriff's deputy for running a red light and stop sign; the deputy did not see Johnson kill himself. The deputy returned to his patrol car to run a license check on the truck driven by Johnson. While sitting in the patrol car, the deputy heard a gunshot and saw Johnson laying on the ground with a shotgun lying on him.

Unanswered questions surrounding this bizarre death abounds. What crime did Johnson commit? He apparently had no police record. Why were his parents not allowed to see his body, hours after his death, while other whites were allowed to identify the body? Without any input from the victim's parents, police carried Johnson's body to Jackson, Mississippi, where an autopsy was performed. Only after the autopsy were Johnson's parents allowed to see his body. According to Mr. Johnson, "They butchered Billy's body like a pig."

In a press release issued by Ruby Sales, director of SpiritHouse Project, a Mississippi-based social justice organization, "Mr. and Mrs. Johnson and local Black people do not accept the official story that Billey killed himself. Instead, they smell murder in this small Mississippi town where they talk about an unnamed white ex girlfriend "who set him up that morning" to be killed by a group of white men. With the help of the NAACP, Billey's parents will permit an outside source to perform a second autopsy.

The family and community want justice. They need your help! They want the nation to know that their "baby boy" died under very suspicious circumstances. They want justice and accountability to make sure that the lives of Black young men have currency and value in our society. They want to uncover the truth of Billey's death. For the Johnsons and the grieving communities of Lucedale and Benndale, this is the least that they can do for their favorite son of whom they were so proud and who was the light and hope of his family and community. They offer deeply felt testimonies of a kind and polite young man who befriended people of all colors and who wanted to succeed, not only for himself, but to help his parents."

News You Use

Reject Shock and Awe Redux

Israel is the United States' most favored ally in the Middle East; it provides the US no essential natural resource or obvious reason for enjoying this vaulted status. Some scholars have eruditely suggested the stranglehold Israel has on US Middle East policy can be traced to Jewish influence and money, which have bought US policymakers and control US mainstream media.

For practical purposes, Israel can be viewed as a toehold in the region. The US provides weapons and security assistance; it lends its weight to Israel in the international community via its veto power in the UN Security Council. Such close allies, joined at the hip, whatever Israel does, especially when it violates international law and commits crimes against humanity, the US acts as a buffer in the United Nations to prevent meaningful sanctions. Given this symbiotic relationship, the US is as guilty as Israel when it slaughters and collectively punishes Palestinians.

Forced off their land so that Israel can expand, build security fences, walls, roads, settlements or whatever else Israel desires, Palestinians are treated like American Indians under US manifest destiny and black South Africans under apartheid. In both of those instances, the native-born people were dubbed "savages," now terrorists, standing in the path of progress. Defeated by militarily superior adversaries, they were moved to reservations. Gaza is a reservation.

As expected, US media are beating the drums of war for Israel. In the current round of violence in which the death and injury tolls are 100 to 1 against the Palestinians, it is their fault for democratically electing "terrorists" as their representatives and breaking a cease-fire agreement that Israel never honored. When Israel was killing Palestinians in targeted assassinations, denying the reservation essential fuel, food and medical supplies, US mainstream media were silent. Similar to their complicity in the US invasion of Iraq, they are blaming the victims in Israel's shock and awe campaign against the Palestinians.

Ramsey Clark, the 2008 U.N. Human Rights Award winner and Founder of International Action Center has launched an online petition calling on US and world leaders to reject Israel's shock and awe campaign. Thousands have already added their names to the petition at www.iacenter.org/gazapetition and joined demonstrations protesting Israel's actions.

Disgruntled wants to know: Federal prosecutors are seeking 147 years in prison for the torture convictions against the son of ex-Liberian President Charles Taylor. A judge is scheduled January 9 to sentence 31-year-old Charles MacArthur Emmanuel, who was convicted in October of committing torture and other abuses as head of a paramilitary force in his father's government. The case against Emmanuel is the first use of a 1994 US law allowing prosecution for torture overseas. According to press reports, prosecutors believe the lengthy sentence will send a worldwide message against torture. Days prior to this assertion, Vice President Dick Cheney in a television interview on ABC News confirmed he was aware of and approved torture tactics employed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and other sites where the US held prisoners in its so-called War on Terror. If prosecutors really want to send a message about the consequences of using torture shouldn't they be bringing charges against George W. Bush and his sidekick Dick Cheney?

Disgruntled says: Honeymoons are sometimes long, short or non-existent for the 'lucky' or 'unlucky' couple. In the case of President-elect Barack Obama, the latter is likely to be the case. Already, he has filled most of his cabinet positions; something that usually happens after the inauguration. Ironically, the team he has assembled has not necessarily pleased his liberal base while making those opposed to his election, if not happy, satisfied given the appearance that he will attempt to govern right of center. George W. Bush governed right of center, far right mind you, but right nonetheless. President-elect Obama cannot be the agent of change governing in such a manner that he basically maintains the status quo. If that turns out to be what he intends to do, then as honeymoons go, this one is definitely over.

Disgruntled feels: Coup de grace! Embattled Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is under a cloud for conspiring to sell the vacated Senate seat of President-elect Barack Obama, raised the stakes by appointing Roland Burris, former attorney general of Illinois and first black to win a statewide office, to fill the seat. Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have indicated they will not allow the appointment to stand. It seems they plan not the seat the black man. For the party in power, such a step is likely to have all kinds of unintended consequences, whatever move they make, given their very public assertion to oppose the Blagojevich appointment. Under the law, since he is the duly elected governor, Blagojevich can legally make the appointment of a qualified individual to fill the senate seat; there is no question that Burris is qualified. And, there is no evidence that has come to light that Burris paid to play senator. Under the circumstances, Blagojevich has presented the ultimate coup de grace!

Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls

Email www.CommonDreams.org ...America's Soul Sickness & Permanent War: Obama's Rude Awakening...by Roberto Rodriguez....Obama's first challenge will not be the unresolved Middle East crisis. Nor will it be Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo or the economy. His primary challenge will come in coming face to face with the Bush/Cheney doctrine of permanent worldwide war. Unless Obama renounces it on inauguration day, this doctrine will continue to be U.S. policy. Beyond that, an even larger challenge - one which he may not ever be able to meet - is healing a nation that for too long has been sickened by what American Indian historian, Jack Forbes terms in Columbus and other Cannibals: soul-sickness. It is a disease that historically has allowed a majority of EuroAmericans to believe that God has chosen them to lead the rest of the world into the light, permitting the United States to employ massive military might in achieving that so-called mandate.

Email gregdempsey@sti.net ....Naked man dies after 4 taser shocks...By David Edwards...A naked man wandering around an apartment complex near Houston, Texas died after police shocked him with a taser four times. The deputies involved have been put on administrative duty pending the outcome of investigations by the internal affairs and homicide divisions. Earlier this year, members of the NYPD's Emergency Unit tasered an emotionally disturbed man who was waving a fluorescent light while standing naked on a building ledge, who then fell over ten feet to his death. The tasering "violated departmental guideline," but no charges were brought against the officers involved. Not long after, the NYPD lieutenant who ordered the tasering committed suicide. Tasers have killed more than 400 people in the United States and Canada since 2001, according to a recent study. "Taser International, based in Arizona, dismissed the study as flawed," Nick Juliano recently reported for Raw Story. "The company maintains that its weapons are safe."

Email www.legitgov.org....US Votes No on Right to Food - By a vote of 180 in favor to 1 against (United States) and no abstentions, the Committee ... approved a resolution on the right to food, by which the [UN General] Assembly would "consider it intolerable" that more than 6 million children still died every year from hunger-related illness before their fifth birthday, and that the number of undernourished people had grown to about 923 million worldwide, at the same time that the planet could produce enough food to feed 12 billion people, or twice the world's present population. According to the Bush administration, then, it's entirely "tolerable" that 6 million children die from hunger each year so that we can instead support our war machine with millions of dollars per day.