Sam Kitching, a soft-spoken, round old man dressed in civilian clothes who works for the Sheriff’s department at the Baker County Jail put his hand on my shoulder and, addressing me as “young man,” said, “It’s very important that you be careful in there. They might have AIDS and might try to grab your hand and push something into it.”
“AIDS?” I ask.
“They could,” he said. “These men can be dangerous.”
A younger man dressed in a tight, dark green Sheriff’s uniform unlatched the door into one of the pods that holds several dozen federal immigration detainees.
Mostly Latino and black and all dressed in orange jump suits, unzipped with the arms tied around waists, the men stood or sat at metal tables in groups of four or five in the three-sided concrete room.
“Zip up,” the guard yelled as the door opened.
The detainees pulled the jumpers up over their shoulders and I followed the guard, Kitching and a young Legal Aid attorney named Karen Winston into the pod. A man stood on a grated walkway in front of one of the two-bed jail cells where the detainees eat, sleep, bathe and go to the bathroom. The rest of the men were below in the concrete room where they pass all their time—there’s only one hour of recreation time in an enclosed gravel yard.
“Hey, Honduras, get down here,” Kitching yelled to the man on the platform, who walked down the grated metal stairs and joined three other Latino men talking in a corner.
“That’s what I do sometimes,” Kitching explained to me. “I call them by their country. For some reason if they’ve been here a while, I can remember their country.”
Winston, a recent law school graduate, works long days in the south Florida jail defending some of the close to 250 immigration detainees held there. On this Friday morning, she’d driven from Jacksonville, the closest city, to conduct a “know your rights” training for as many of the detainees as possible. She noted the training name is misleading, since detainees don’t have many rights to know of. Read more »
[The noted Black author James Balwin wrote to Angela Davis in 1970, when she was being unjustly prosecuted during the Nixon era, that "we must fight for your life as though it were our own—which it is—and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber. For, if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night." These words continue to ring true, and loud, today. Those who act like nothing's wrong, those who do not speak and act against the unjust persecution of people of whatever shape, size, color, and belief, will certainly face such fate themselves, in due time. The time to resist is now. -- Frontlines ed.]
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President Obama Signs Indefinite Detention Bill Into Law
Statement from the American Civil Liberties Union–FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE–December 31, 2011
CONTACT: media@dcaclu.org
WASHINGTON – President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law today. The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill.
“President Obama’s action today is a blight on his legacy because he will forever be known as the president who signed indefinite detention without charge or trial into law,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU executive director. “The statute is particularly dangerous because it has no temporal or geographic limitations, and can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. The ACLU will fight worldwide detention authority wherever we can, be it in court, in Congress, or internationally.” Read more »
Ye come here, gather ’round the stage
The time has come for us to voice our rage
Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage
To steal from us the value of our wage
From underneath the vestiture of law
The lobbyists at Washington do gnaw
At liberty, the bureaucrats guffaw
And until they are purged, we won’t withdraw
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
Our nation was built upon the right
Of every person to improve their plight
But laws of this Republic they rewrite
And now a few own everything in sight
They own it free of liability
They own, but they are not like you and me
Their influence dictates legality
And until they are stopped we are not free
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
You enforce your monopolies with guns
While sacrificing our daughters and sons
But certain things belong to everyone
Your thievery has left the people none
So take heed of our notice to redress
We have little to lose, we must confess
Your empty words do leave us unimpressed
A growing number join us in protest
We occupy the streets
We occupy the courts
We occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
You can’t divide us into sides
And from our gaze, you cannot hide
Denial serves to amplify
And our allegiance you can’t buy
Our government is not for sale
The banks do not deserve a bail
We will not reward those who fail
We will not move till we prevail
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
We’ll occupy the streets
We’ll occupy the courts
We’ll occupy the offices of you
Till you do
The bidding of the many, not the few
We are the many
You are the few
——————————————————————
Makana sings Occupy protests songs to President Obama and APEC leaders
By Melissa Bell, Washington Post Lifestyle ArtsPost, 11/14/2011
President Barack Obama is busy in his home state of Hawaii meeting with Pacific Rim leaders on matters of global security and world economy. Even though Obama decided to skip the practice of goofy costumes at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, the leaders are still getting a healthy sampling of the Hawaiian culture. One such display, though, may not be exactly what the White House had in mind.
Makana, a popular Hawaiian troubador, was enlisted to sing and play his guitar in the background at a dinner Obama and other leaders attended Saturday night. His song of choice: a 45-minute montage of protest songs, all while wearing a shirt that read “Occupy with Aloha.” Read more »
AMY GOODMAN: We return now to the renowned Indian writer, global justice activist, Arundhati Roy. She has written many books, including The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize. Her journalism and essays have been collected in books including An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire and Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers. Arundhati Roy’s latest book, just out, is called Walking with the Comrades, a chronicle of her time in the forests of India alongside rebel guerrillas who are resisting a military campaign by the Indian government.
Last week, I sat down with Arundhati Roy when she came to New York—she had just visited Occupy Wall Street on her first day in New York—to talk about the significance of this, but also we spoke about the Arab Spring. We talk about her walk with the Maoists in India. Tomorrow, she will be speaking at Washington Square Park, part of a national day of action. First, Arundhati discusses Occupy Wall Street.
ARUNDHATI ROY: You know, what they are doing becomes so important because it is in the heart of empire, or what used to be empire, and to criticize and to protest against the model that the rest of the world is aspiring to is a very important and a very serious business. So I think that it makes me—it makes me very, very hopeful that after a long time you’re seeing some nascent political, real political anger here.
It does—I mean, it does need a lot of thinking through, but I would say that, to me, fundamentally, you know, people have to begin to formulate some kind of a vision, you know, and that vision has to be the dismantling of this particular model, in which a few people can be allowed to have an unlimited amount of wealth, of power, both political as well as corporate. You know, that has to be dismantled. And that has to be the aim of this movement. And that has to then move down into countries like mine, where people look at the U.S. as some great, aspirational model. Read more »
[The US insists that wherever its troops go, they must operate with impunity--immunity from prosecution or any accountability. In time, this makes the going difficult for the local "native" politicians and administrators of war zones and military occupations, whose precarious illegitimate authority requires invoking national sovereignty and NOT total submission to foreign invaders. So, despite the Obama administration pressing the imperial demand for immunity for US soldiers, the Iraqi government could not publicly submit. Obama attempted to turn this defeat for imperial dictates into an announcement that he is pulling all US troops out of Iraq by the end of this year, thereby fulfilling his "anti-war" pledge of the 2008 campaign. Which could, superficially, look like a win-win for warmakers and peacemakers--except for the fact that it's not true, as this article from the British "The Guardian" explains. -- Frontlines ed.]
39,000 soldiers will leave Iraq this year, but US military control will continue in such guises as security and training
Barack Obama has announced that US troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of this year. Photograph: Khalid Mohammed/AP
Barack Obama has made good on one of his election promises, announcing: “After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over.” The Iraqis’ assertion of their sovereignty – meaning no legal immunity for US troops – was the deal-breaker, and 39,000 US soldiers will leave Iraq by the end of the year.
Jonathan Steele wrote that the Iraq war was over and the US had learned “that putting western boots on the ground in a foreign war, particularly in a Muslim country, is madness”. Yet this madness may continue in a different guise, as there is a huge gap between rhetoric and reality surrounding the US departure from Iraq. In fact, there are a number of avenues by which the US will be able to exert military influence in the country.
These can be divided into four main categories:
Embassy, consulates and private security contractors
The US embassy – the largest and most expensive in the world – is in a green zone of its own in Baghdad, supplied by armed convoys and generating its own water and electricity, and treating its own sewage. At 104 acres, the embassy is almost the same size as Vatican City. It is here that the US is transforming its military-led approach into one of muscular diplomacy.
State department figures show that some 17,000 personnel will be under the jurisdiction of the US ambassador. In addition, there are also consulates in Basra, Mosul and Kirkuk, which have been allocated more than 1,000 staff each. Crucially, all these US staff, including military and security contractors, will have diplomatic immunity. Essentially, the Obama administration is reaping the political capital of withdrawing US troops while hedging the impact of the withdrawal with an increase in private security contractors working for a diplomatic mission unlike any other on the planet. Read more »
Two speeches made by a President and a Prime Minister within the short span of three days confirm what we have known all along: the US and Israeli governments have no interest in a just solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Let us begin with the second speech, delivered by Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, to a joint session of the US Congress on May 24 2011. Not unexpectedly, Netanyahu adopted an intransigent, belligerent position on all the critical issues that divide Israelis from Palestinians. He reiterated that there will be no return to the 1967 borders. In more precise language, he wants the 500,000 Israeli settlers who now occupy large tracts of the West Bank seized in the 1967 war to remain where they are. This means that in terms of actual land area the Palestinian state of the future will be much less than even the 22 per cent of historical Palestine, comprising the West Bank and Gaza, that many Palestinian and Arab leaders were prepared to accept as a settlement for the sake of peace. The Palestinian state will be nothing more than a Bantustan, a’la apartheid South Africa which is what Netanyahu and other like-minded Israeli, American and European leaders have wanted all along. Read more »
from the series, “All People’s Liberation”, by Collision Course Video:
The political establishments of the US and Israel — long time partners in settler-colonialist and ethnic cleansing projects against the Palestinian people in historic Palestine — had a series of exchanges from May 19-May 24, 2011, because the changing situation across the Arab world has prompted some differences in the US and Israeli agendas.
Breaking down these changing circumstances and agendas, and what they will mean for the Palestinian and other peoples of the Middle East, Dr. Hatem Bazian (UC Berkeley professor) and Jeffrey Blankfort (writer and radio host) had this conversation.
The video is by Collision Course Video Productions, for the series on “All People’s Liberation.”
[Revolutionary Maoists in India have released an important statement which declares that the crimes of US imperialism against the people of the world--including against the people of the US--overshadows everything that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda has done. We urge all people--oppressed peoples, workers, radical democrats, anti-imperialists, revolutionaries and communists, to study this statement. -- Frontlines ed.]
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COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST)
CENTRAL COMMITTEE Press Release
4 May, 2011 War-monger, butcher and blood-thirsty Obama and not Osama is the No.1 global terrorist threatening world peace! US imperialism and not Al Qaeda is the gravest global threat not only to the entire oppressed nations and people of the world but also to the US citizens! Condemn the brutal murder of Osama Bin Laden in a covert operation by the global gendarme CIA!
On May 2, the US imperialists murdered Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda by attacking with helicopters the building where he was staying in Abbottabad in Pakistan. US overstepped the sovereignty of Pakistan by directly conducting this operation without even informing the Pakistan government about it. They jammed the radars of Pakistan, entered its skies with four helicopters and attacked the building and finished the operation ‘with surgical precision’. One woman and two men in the building were also killed and it is said that Osama’s wife was also injured in the attack. Their child seems to have escaped death only by chance in this forty minute operation. The Obama administration was callous beyond words even towards the dead body of Osama. They did not hand over the body to his family members but threw it into the Arabian Sea! This was done to rub salt into the wounds as they very well know how insulting and outraging it would be to the muslims all over the world. Read more »
[As President Obama spun his populist oratory in praise of Egypt's democratic revolution, the White House at the same time did not miss a beat, asserting that the government in Cairo MUST continue to support and defend Israel, and NOT to give support to the legitimate struggles of the Palestinian people for self-determination (against Israeli occupation, blockades, ethnic cleansing, and apartheid). While such orders may be standard fare with the now-ruling Egyptian officer corps, the masses who have forced Mubarak out may have different views, as the coming weeks and months will show. -- Frontlines ed.]
By M. Alex Johnson, msnbc.com reporter
Any new government of Egypt must be willing to maintain peace with Israel, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs says.
Briefing reporters after President Barack Obama’s televised address welcoming the resignation of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Gibbs said much work remained to be done.
“This is the beginning of this process, not the end of it,” he said. “The partnership that we have had with the people and government of Egypt for 30 years has brought stability.”
That means it’s “important that the next government of Egypt recognize the accords that have been signed with the government of Israel,” he said, referring to the 1979 treaty that Mubarak’s predecessor, Anwar Sadat, signed with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin.
EL PASO, Texas — The United States deported more illegal immigrants than ever before during the first two years of President Barack Obama’s administration, his government said Monday.
“In both fiscal years 2009 and 2010, Immigration and Customs Enforcement removed more illegal immigrants from our country than ever before, with more than 779,000 removals nationwide in the last two years,” Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said.
The Obama administration must prove it is tough on illegal immigrants and can secure the country’s porous borders if it is to stand a chance of passing a comprehensive overhaul of America’s tattered immigration system.
Napolitano announced the record figures in El Paso, Texas — the border city which is the focus of a major drive by the administration to stem the tide of illegal immigrants flowing over the border from Mexico. Read more »
Commander-in-Chief Obama delivering a speech aimed at "keeping hope alive" among demoralized American foot-soldiers
Global Day of Listening – “We want you out” petition
To all the leaders of our world, the leaders of the US-led coalition, the Afghan government, the ‘Taliban/Al-Qaeda’ and regional countries:
We are intolerably angry.
All our senses are hurting.
Our women, our men and yes shame on you, our children are grieving.
Your Afghan civilian-military strategy is a murderous stench we smell, see, hear and breathe.
President Obama, and all the elite players and people of the world, why?
America’s 250-million-dollar annual communications budget just to scream propaganda on this war of perceptions, with its nauseating rhetoric mimicked by Osama and other warlords, is powerless before the silent wailing of every anaemic mother.
We will no longer be passive prey to your disrespectful systems of oligarchic, plutocratic war against the people.
Your systems feed the rich and powerful. They are glaringly un-equal, they do not listen, do not think and worst, they do not care.
We choose not to gluttonize with you. We choose not to be trained by you. We choose not to be pawned by you.
We henceforth refuse every weapon you kill us with, every dollar you bait us with and every lie you manipulate us with.
We are not beasts.
We are Afghans, Americans, Europeans, Asians and global citizens. Read more »
Inspired by the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers and Afghans For Peace, this GLOBAL DAY of LISTENING will allow everyone to listen to the stories told by the Afghan People of what it is like to live now in Afghanistan.
Anyone interested in talking with those gathered in Kabul and Bamiyan may now request a time to speak during this Day of Listening. You may listen at any time via conference call-in or Skype (see details below).
The Purpose of the day-long teleconference is for LISTENING:
1. To the PEOPLE : to ordinary Afghans, to ordinary internationals, including others from war-torn countries, and to world public opinion.
2. To the PAIN (anger, grief, disappointment) of the people :
- the world’s public whose opinion is swinging against the Afghan War
- the pro-war people who have their concerns, with the understanding that most Afghans are now anti-war.
3. To the People’s Afghanistan December Review
–The Afghan people know the expected military outcome of the Obama administration’s Afghanistan December Review.
–Afghans want those willing to LISTEN to hear the Afghan People’s Review. Read more »
US President Barack Obama’s visit to India seems to have infused a new zeal in the 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy survivors who organised a protest in Bhopal on Sunday demanding action against American companies allegedly responsible for the disaster.
Their campaign started gaining momentum a few days before Obama’s arrival.
They demonstrated near the now-shut Union Carbide India factory on Nov 6, the day Obama arrived in Mumbai.
The survivors staged a demonstration on Sunday at Neelam Park in Bhopal, posing as dead bodies.
The survivors have always been unhappy with the Indian government’s stand on not taking action against American companies and are now accusing the US president of adopting “double standards” on industrial disasters. Read more »
Obama speaking to US occupation forces in Afghanistan
Leader of War Mongers Looters and Exploiter of World People, US President Obama Go Back!
Join Demonstration at Jantar Mantar at 2 PM on 8 November, 2010
At a time when US imperialism has escalated the war against Afghanistan and is even extending this war by assaults by NATO forces led by it against northern districts of Pakistan, leader of warmongers, looters and exploiters of the world people, President of USA, Barack Obama, is visiting India from 6th Nov. 2010.
Since Obama came to power, US forces have increased their numbers several times over in Afghanistan. There are innumerable proven instances of deliberate targeting of innocent civilians by these forces in the name of “targeted” attacks on “enemy”. In essence, US imperialism under Obama administration is continuing the Bush era attempt of a permanent base in Afghanistan from where it will interfere in central Asia. India should be in the forefront of opposing the US move. Let us use the opportunity of Obama’s visit to strongly demand that US and NATO forces immediately withdrawn from Afghanistan.
It was 2001 that US imperialism under Bush had launched its current war, which the world people were told was against ‘terrorism’. War was launched first against Afghanistan and later against Iraq. In reality wars were launched to further the quest of US imperialism for hegemony over the world’s oil resources and also to establish military dominance over the world.
In essence, the Obama administration is continuing the aims of Bush era but it has only changed rhetoric. US under Obama has made a mockery of his promises of withdrawal of forces from Iraq, keeping a huge army stationed there in the name of ‘aid’ to local troops. While Afghanistan is the main theatre of war, US continues a sharply aggressive stance on West Asia and Central Asia. On Palestine, Obama has no policy different from the earlier one and continues backing Israel against the just fight of the Palestinian people. Read more »
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