to be edited Human Rights Coalition and Others

Published: Saturday 21 January 2012
An interview with Bret Grote of Human Rights Coalition.

 
On De­cem­ber 7, fol­low­ing the US Supreme Court’s re­fusal to con­sider the Philadel­phia Dis­trict At­tor­ney’s final av­enue of ap­peal, cur­rent DA Seth Williams an­nounced that he would no longer be seek­ing a death sen­tence for the world-renowned death row jour­nal­ist Mumia Abu-Ja­mal--on death row fol­low­ing his con­vic­tion at a 1982 trial deemed un­fair by Amnesty In­ter­na­tional, the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment, the Japan­ese Diet, Nel­son Man­dela, and many oth­ers. Abu-Ja­mal’s sen­tence of ex­e­cu­tion was first “over­turned” by a fed­eral court in De­cem­ber, 2001, and dur­ing the next ten years, he was never trans­ferred from death row at the level five su­per­max prison, SCI Greene, in rural west­ern Penn­syl­va­nia.

Shortly after the DA’s an­nounce­ment in early De­cem­ber, Mumia Abu-Ja­mal, now 57 years old, was trans­ferred to SCI Ma­hanoy in Frackville, PA, 100 miles from Philadel­phia. Once there, it was ex­pected that he would be re­leased from soli­tary con­fine­ment and trans­ferred into gen­eral pop­u­la­tion where he would fi­nally have con­tact vis­its and gen­er­ally less oner­ous con­di­tions. How­ever, he was im­me­di­ately placed in “Ad­min­is­tra­tive Cus­tody,” in SCI Ma­hanoy’s “Re­stric­tive Hous­ing Unit” where his con­di­tions of iso­la­tion and re­pres­sion are now in many ways more ex­treme than they were on death row.

Presently at SCI Ma­hanoy, Mumia Abu-Ja­mal is shack­led around his an­kles and wrists when­ever he is out­side his cell, even to the shower and dur­ing al­ready re­stricted vis­its--where he is al­ready be­hind Plex­i­glas; Be­fore going to the yard he is sub­ject to strip searches be­fore and after the visit; He is only al­lowed bits of paper to write notes on, with a rub­ber flex pen, and four books (no shelves); No ac­cess to news re­ports; Let­ters de­layed; Glar­ing lights on 24 hours a day; Only one brief phone call to his wife and one to an at­tor­ney; No ac­cess to ad­e­quate food or com­mis­sary, and more.

In the first week of Jan­u­ary, at Abu-Ja­mal’s re­quest, sup­port­ers began a cam­paign di­rected at the PA Sec­re­tary of Cor­rec­tions, SCI Ma­hanoy, and DA Seth Williams, de­mand­ing that Abu-Ja­mal be im­me­di­ately trans­ferred to the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion. The Na­tional Lawyers Guild (for whom Abu-Ja­mal serves as the Vice Pres­i­dent) has re­leased a state­ment and cre­ated an on­line pe­ti­tion de­mand­ing his trans­fer to gen­eral pop­u­la­tion.

Fur­ther­more, Abu-Ja­mal has asked for sup­port­ers to not just call for his re­lease from the hole, but to chal­lenge the very prac­tice of soli­tary con­fine­ment and what are called in Penn­syl­va­nia “Re­stricted Hous­ing Units.” Sup­port­ing Abu-Ja­mal’s call to ac­tion, the Penn­syl­va­nia-based prison-ac­tivist or­ga­ni­za­tion called Human Rights Coali­tion ex­plains that "Mumia may be in soli­tary, but he is not alone. The PA De­part­ment of Cor­rec­tions holds ap­prox­i­mately 2,500 peo­ple in soli­tary con­fine­ment on any given day, many of them for years at a time."

Ten Extra Years Spent On Death Row

In 2001, US Dis­trict Court Judge William Yohn first “over­turned” Mumia Abu-Ja­mal’s death sen­tence, rul­ing that for a death sen­tence to be re­in­stated, the Philadel­phia Dis­trict At­tor­ney must first hold a sen­tenc­ing-phase jury trial, where the jury could only de­cide be­tween ex­e­cu­tion or life with­out pa­role. The DA im­me­di­ately ap­pealed this rul­ing, in an ef­fort to ex­e­cute Abu-Ja­mal with­out bring­ing him to court be­fore a jury in Philadel­phia.

Fol­low­ing Yohn’s 2001 rul­ing, Abu-Ja­mal could have been trans­ferred from soli­tary con­fine­ment on death row at SCI Greene, and into gen­eral pop­u­la­tion. If trans­ferred, he would have had more free­dom, in­clud­ing con­tact vis­its with fam­ily and friends.  How­ever, Judge Yohn granted the mo­tion by the DA to keep Abu-Ja­mal in puni­tive con­di­tions on death row while the DA ap­pealed Yohn’s rul­ing. As a re­sult, Abu-Ja­mal stayed on death row dur­ing an ap­peals process that lasted al­most ten years, a process that has now up­held the sen­tence’s re­moval.

In March 2008, the US Third Cir­cuit Court af­firmed Yohn’s 2001 rul­ing, but in Jan­u­ary 2010, the US Supreme Court va­cated the 2008 rul­ing and re­manded it back to the Third Cir­cuit. In April 2011, the Third Cir­cuit af­firmed the 2001 rul­ing for the sec­ond time. Fi­nally, in Oc­to­ber 2011, the DA’s final at­tempt to chal­lenge the de­ci­sion was re­jected by the US Supreme Court, and in De­cem­ber the DA of­fi­cially ac­cepted the life sen­tence.

Fight­ing for Mumia’s Re­lease

While Abu-Ja­mal and his in­ter­na­tional net­work of sup­port­ers cel­e­brated the final over­turn­ing of the death sen­tence, it was a bit­ter­sweet vic­tory for a move­ment that has long fought for his re­lease. In 2008 when the Third Cir­cuit first af­firmed Yohn’s 2001 rul­ing, the Court also ruled against a new guilt-phase trial, ef­fec­tively ended that av­enue of ap­peal for Abu-Ja­mal to be re­leased from prison.

At this point, a new trial will likely re­quire the bring­ing forth of new ev­i­dence.  The in­ves­ti­ga­tion of po­lice and pros­e­cu­to­r­ial mis­con­duct, in­clud­ingthe sup­pres­sion of cru­cial ev­i­dence and the in­tim­i­da­tion of wit­nesses could also lead to a new trial. These are the av­enues that will be pur­sued to ob­tain Mumia’s free­dom. Among the new ev­i­dence that has come out in re­cent years, Philadel­phia jour­nal­ists Linn Wash­ing­ton Jr. and Dave Lin­dorff have re­cently per­formed a bal­lis­tics test, (watch video) fun­da­men­tally chal­leng­ing the DA’s shoot­ing sce­nario/the­ory used to con­vict Abu-Ja­mal.

In Philadel­phia on De­cem­ber 9, the 30th an­niver­sary of Abu-Ja­mal’s ar­rest, sup­port­ers or­ga­nized a large event at the Na­tional Con­sti­tu­tion Cen­ter that was at­tended by over 1,000 peo­ple. De­clar­ing that a sen­tence of life with­out pa­role is un­ac­cept­able, speak­ers rang­ing from au­thor/ac­tivist Cor­nel West to Ra­mona Africa of MOVE & the In­ter­na­tional Con­cerned Fam­ily and Friends of Mumia Abu-Ja­mal, pledged to con­tinue fight­ing for Abu-Ja­mal’s free­dom. Pre­re­corded video mes­sages to the De­cem­ber 9 event were de­liv­ered by au­thor/ac­tivist Michelle Alexan­der and the in­ter­na­tion­ally renowned human rights ac­tivist Desmond Tutu, who days be­fore has al­ready re­leased a state­ment de­clar­ing:

"Now that it is clear that Mumia should never have been on death row in the first place, jus­tice will not be served by rel­e­gat­ing him to prison for the rest of his life—yet an­other form of death sen­tence. Based on even a min­i­mal fol­low­ing of in­ter­na­tional human rights stan­dards, Mumia must now be re­leased. I there­fore join the call, and ask oth­ers to fol­low, ask­ing Dis­trict At­tor­ney Seth Williams to rise to the chal­lenge of rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, human rights, and jus­tice: drop this case now, and allow Mumia Abu-Ja­mal to be im­me­di­ately re­leased, with full time served."

In­ter­view with Bret Grote

In this in­ter­view we speak with Bret Grote from Human Rights Coali­tion (HRC), who’s web­site de­scribes it­self as "a group of pre­dom­i­nately pris­on­ers' fam­i­lies, ex-pris­on­ers and some sup­port­ers," whose "ul­ti­mate goal is to abol­ish pris­ons." HRC seeks "to em­power pris­on­ers' fam­i­lies to be lead­ers in prison or­ga­niz­ing, while at the same time re­duce the shame of hav­ing a loved one in prison or being for­merly in­car­cer­ated," and "to make vis­i­ble to the pub­lic the in­jus­tice and abuse that are com­mon prac­tice through­out our ju­di­cial and prison sys­tems across the coun­try, and even­tu­ally end those abuses." Learn more at www.​hrcoalition.​org.

Prison Radio:         Sup­port­ers of Mumia Abu-Ja­mal argue that his cur­rent time in the hole is a form of re­tal­i­a­tion for his being a long­time po­lit­i­cal ac­tivist.  In his re­cent ar­ti­cle en­ti­tled, "Sadism in the Cell: Thanks to a Vin­dic­tive Prison Sys­tem, Abu-Ja­mal is Still in 'The Hole,'" Linn Wash­ing­ton Jr. con­tex­tu­al­izes re­cent events by doc­u­ment­ing a long his­tory of re­pres­sion, ul­ti­mately ar­gu­ing that "while Abu-Ja­mal de­trac­tors in­dig­nantly dis­miss all claims of his being a po­lit­i­cal pris­oner, his post-ar­rest or­deals pro­vide a com­pelling case of a per­son specif­i­cally tar­geted by au­thor­i­ties for who he is po­lit­i­cally more than for the crime he is sup­pos­edly serv­ing time for." Why do you think it is that Mumia is cur­rently being held in “Ad­min­is­tra­tive Cus­tody?”

Na­tionofChange fights back with one sim­ple but pow­er­ful weapon: the truth. Can you do­nate $5 to help us?

Bret Grote:    In re­gard to Mumia, the in­fer­ence should al­ways be that the gov­ern­ment is tar­get­ing him be­cause of his pol­i­tics due to the more than forty years that fed­eral agents, Philadel­phia po­lice and pros­e­cu­tors, gov­er­nors of Penn­syl­va­nia, and prison of­fi­cials have been con­spir­ing to si­lence him. The cur­rent ra­tio­nales of­fered by prison of­fi­cials for his place­ment in soli­tary con­fine­ment do not with­stand scrutiny, which lends fur­ther sup­port to the in­fer­ence that he is con­tin­u­ing to be tar­geted.

First, they as­serted that they were wait­ing for the fil­ing of pa­per­work by the Dis­trict At­tor­ney’s of­fice of Philadel­phia so that his sen­tence would be for­mally changed from death to life with­out the pos­si­bil­ity of pa­role. Ac­cord­ing to in­for­ma­tion avail­able on the DOC’s web­site, how­ever, all death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers are held on death row at State Cor­rec­tional In­sti­tu­tion (SCI) Greene or SCI Grater­ford. Abu-Ja­mal was re­moved from death row vir­tu­ally as soon as Philadel­phia DA Seth Williams an­nounced he would not seek to re-im­pose the death penalty. If the prison were in fact wait­ing for a for­mal re-sen­tenc­ing prior to place­ment in gen­eral pop­u­la­tion, Mumia would still be on death row.

Sec­ond, they have re­cently de­cided that his hair ex­ceeds the reg­u­la­tory length and that he needs this cut. It took them five weeks to no­tify him of this. Ob­vi­ously, the length of Mumia’s hair was not un­known to prison of­fi­cials. In fact, he was held on dis­ci­pli­nary sta­tus while on death row ear­lier dur­ing his con­fine­ment for eight years, al­though he was re­moved from that sta­tus-with­out cut­ting his hair-in the early-90s at some point.

The shift­ing ra­tio­nales in­di­cate that they are dig­ging their heels in and seem pre­pared to try to con­tinue sub­ject­ing Mumia to soli­tary con­fine­ment tor­ture, which has been his fate for thirty years.

It is im­por­tant to note that the United Na­tions Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Tor­ture has re­cently de­clared that, in his opin­ion, pro­longed soli­tary con­fine­ment of more than fif­teen days vi­o­lates ar­ti­cle 1 (pro­hibit­ing tor­ture) or 16 (pro­hibit­ing other cruel, in­hu­man or de­grad­ing treat­ment) of the Con­ven­tion Against Tor­ture and Other Cruel, In­hu­man or De­grad­ing Treat­ment. He fur­ther stated that the Con­ven­tion is vi­o­lated when soli­tary con­fine­ment is im­posed as pun­ish­ment. These stan­dards ap­plied to U.S. pris­ons ren­ders the over­whelm­ing ma­jor­ity of soli­tary con­fine­ment prac­tices crim­i­nal.

PR:     Can you please tell us more about how PA Pris­ons use soli­tary con­fine­ment and what are called “Re­stric­tive Hous­ing Units.” How is it used? Against whom? Are there other ex­am­ples of soli­tary con­fine­ment pun­ish­ment being used to re­tal­i­ate against po­lit­i­cal ac­tivists?

BG:     While the Penn­syl­va­nia De­part­ment of Cor­rec­tions (PA DOC) op­er­ates in a seem­ingly ar­bi­trary na­ture, there are some fac­tors that place pris­on­ers at high-risk for being kept in long-term soli­tary con­fine­ment: 1) po­lit­i­cal ac­tivism and jail­house lawyer­ing; 2) race; and 3) men­tal ill­ness.

To start with, those who file griev­ances about staff mis­con­duct and abuse, or file law­suits about civil and human rights vi­o­la­tions, are rou­tinely sub­jected to re­pres­sive treat­ment. Penn­syl­va­nia is far from alone in this prac­tice. Pro­fes­sor of Cor­rec­tions and Cor­rec­tional Law at Min­nesota State Uni­ver­sity, James Robert­son, has stated that “Re­tal­i­a­tion is deeply en­grained in the cor­rec­tional of­fice sub­cul­ture; it may well be in the nor­ma­tive re­sponse when an in­mate files a griev­ance, a statu­tory pre­con­di­tion for fil­ing a civil rights ac­tion.” He also refers to a sur­vey of Ohio pris­on­ers that found “that 70.1% of in­mates who brought griev­ances in­di­cated that they had suf­fered re­tal­i­a­tion there­after; more­over, 87% of all re­spon­dents and nearly 92% of the in­mates using the griev­ance process agreed with the state­ment, ‘I be­lieve staff will re­tal­i­ate or get back at me if I use the griev­ance process.’ [FN18] Among staff su­per­vi­sors, only 21% be­lieved that re­tal­i­a­tion never hap­pened, with one war­den char­ac­ter­iz­ing it as ‘com­mon­place’ when in­mates re­sort to the griev­ance process.” As Robert­son says, guards who re­tal­i­ate “can­not be re­garded as rogue ac­tors. They act within the norm.” (“One of the Dirty Se­crets of Amer­i­can Cor­rec­tions”: Re­tal­i­a­tion, Sur­plus Power, and Whistle­blow­ing In­mates, 42 U. Mich. J.L. Re­form 611 (2009)).

Rus­sell Ma­roon Shoats, a for­mer Black Pan­ther Party and Black Lib­er­a­tion Army mem­ber who has been in­car­cer­ated in PA pris­ons for al­most 40 years is a promi­nent ex­am­ple of a po­lit­i­cal pris­oner tar­geted for re­pres­sion via place­ment in long-term soli­tary. Ma­roon has been held in the hole for more than twenty years and has not had a mis­con­duct ci­ta­tion dur­ing that time. Al­though it is true that he es­caped in the late 70s and early 80s, prison of­fi­cials have told sup­port­ers and fam­ily that he is being kept in soli­tary be­cause he is an or­ga­nizer and a leader.

Andre Ja­cobs and Car­ring­ton Keys, two mem­bers of a group of pris­on­ers known as the Dal­las 6, have been held in soli­tary for ap­prox­i­mately 11 and 9 years re­spec­tively as a re­sult of their speak­ing out against tor­ture and other human rights vi­o­la­tions in­side PA’s con­trol units.

Da­mont Hagan is an­other who has been con­tin­u­ally tar­geted for his out­spo­ken­ness, in­clud­ing a re­cent in­ci­dent where he was as­saulted and placed in a cell with nooses at SCI Hunt­ing­don. He was re­cently held in the soli­tary units at SCI Cres­son, a prison that the Jus­tice De­part­menthas an­nounced an in­ves­ti­ga­tion into, in part due to the guard-en­cour­aged sui­cide of John Mc­Clel­lan in May 2011.

Caine Pelzer, Ra­vanna Spencer, Rhon­shawn Jack­son, Michael Ed­wards, Jerome Cof­fey, Andre Gay, Kerry Shak­a­boona Mar­shall, and count­less oth­ers have been thrown into soli­tary for the sole pur­pose of break­ing their spirit. Look them up on the PA DOC in­mate lo­ca­tor and send them a let­ter.

Re­gard­ing race, the dis­par­i­ties within the soli­tary con­fine­ment pop­u­la­tion may be the most ex­treme in the en­tire crim­i­nal legal sys­tem, which is say­ing a lot. We do not know the exact fig­ures be­cause the de­mo­graph­ics are not pub­lic, but re­ports of soli­tary units over­whelm­ingly com­prised of peo­ple of color in PA pris­ons are com­mon.

Over the last thirty-plus years there has been a na­tional trend of ware­hous­ing those with men­tal health needs in­side pris­ons. These peo­ple often end up in prison be­cause of their dif­fi­cul­ties in adapt­ing to life out­side the walls, often be­cause of ex­pe­ri­ences of child­hood trauma and sub­stance abuse, and their chal­lenges in nav­i­gat­ing so­cial life is even more dif­fi­cult in­side the walls. The stresses of prison can lead to them get­ting in trou­ble with prison au­thor­i­ties due to an in­abil­ity to fol­low the rules, which leads them to soli­tary, which leads to a wors­en­ing of their un­der­ly­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal state. This cycle of dys­func­tion is a nor­ma­tive fea­ture of prison sys­tems across the U.S.

This nexus of re­tal­i­a­tion, racism, and abuse of the men­tally ill is wide­spread in PA pris­ons, and there is no short­age of ex­am­ples to be found by re­view­ing the weekly PA Prison Re­ports on our web­site.

PR:     Be­sides soli­tary con­fine­ment, what other as­pects of PA pris­ons does HRC iden­tify as human rights vi­o­la­tions?

BG:     Some of the ob­vi­ous ex­am­ples in­clude phys­i­cal abuse, med­ical ne­glect, racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, and sex­ual vi­o­lence, all of which are chronic is­sues in pris­ons within Penn­syl­va­nia and be­yond. In re­gard to the lat­ter, a guard at SCI Pitts­burgh was re­cently in­dicted on about 100 counts re­lated to his rape and tor­ture of pris­on­ers at that fa­cil­ity. This is also being in­ves­ti­gated by the Jus­tice De­part­ment. This story has been sup­pressed in the na­tional media, a phe­nom­e­non com­mented on by Mumia (1,2), in what can only be un­der­stood as yet an­other ex­am­ple of the cor­po­rate media’s com­plic­ity in en­abling tor­ture in U.S. pris­ons.

Of course, race-based poli­cies of mass in­car­cer­a­tion vi­o­late the human right of equal­ity under the law and the right to be free from racial dis­crim­i­na­tion. Michelle Alexan­der refers to this as­pect of the U.S. prison na­tion as “the new Jim Crow.” Under in­ter­na­tional law it is known as apartheid, and it is pro­hib­ited under the In­ter­na­tional Con­ven­tion on the Sup­pres­sion and Pun­ish­ment of the Crime of Apartheid. The United States has never signed or rat­i­fied the con­ven­tion for rea­sons that should be ob­vi­ous enough.

Penn­syl­va­nia is the world leader in an­other egre­gious human rights abuse: send­ing chil­dren to prison for the rest of their lives. There are more than 400 peo­ple in PA pris­ons who were sen­tenced for crimes al­legedly com­mit­ted when they were younger than 18. In this state, life means life, an utterly despicable practice that makes a cruel mockery of any pretense that the society we inhabit is humane, enlightened, or fair.


Also of great importance in any discussion of the criminal legal system is the series of laws that enable “legal” discrimination against formerly incarcerated people, prohibiting them from obtaining access to food, housing, employment, stripping people of their right to vote in many states (though not PA) and setting them up for a life of poverty that guarantees high recidivism rates. This should be understood as a matter of deliberate policy, as it has been going on so long that it cannot plausibly be an unintended consequence of an otherwise sound system.

The system works to violate human rights in such a comprehensive manner, from the socio-economic conditions that give rise to property and drug crimes and related acts of violence to the damaging and anti-human conditions inside the walls, and then to be  released into a life of second-class status, enforced poverty, and political disenfranchisement, that it is hard to see how it is ‘legal’ in anything but pretense.

PR:     How is Human Rights Coalition working with PA prisoners and their families to improve conditions for PA prisoners?

In Pittsburgh and Philly we have weekly letter-writing to prisoners nights. Visit our website (Pittsburgh or Philly) to learn more and email us athrcfedup@gmail.com or info@hrcoalition.org. We are constantly receiving phone calls and emails from people looking to advocate for their loved ones. In 2011 we initiated a Political Action Committee in order to be better organized through the building of a membership base and engaging in consistent acts of advocacy, education events, and building other campaigns. The PAC is in real need of some committed organizers to help us build momentum.

One of the campaigns we’ve been increasingly involved with here in Pittsburgh is Decarcerate PA, which was started in Philadelphia. While the broader vision is to push for decarceration – shrinking the prison population, closing prisons, redirecting social resources to programs that care for people and communities – the immediate objective is to push back against planned prison expansion. The state of Pennsylvania is sinking some $685 million into building two new prisons and expanding a host of others. If more people are continually sent into these hellholes, then our efforts to improve conditions in any given situation will be futile.

PR:     What is HRC doing specifically to challenge the use of solitary confinement?

BG:     Aside from public education and advocacy, we are working to develop a legislative campaign with allied organizations such as theAmerican Friends Service Committee, the NationalReligious Campaign Against Torture, and the ACLU. While it is still in the planning stages, this campaign can be useful as a means for furthering political organizing objectives.

Ultimately, any efforts to push back against torture and get people out of prison is contingent upon the wholesale removal from power of both corporate-backed imperial parties, the redistribution and redefinition of political power, and the elimination of an economic system with its roots in the market, replaced by one that has its roots in the earth. Anything less spells certain doom for our specific efforts to abolish solitary confinement, mass incarceration, and prisons, as well as our very survival on this planet.

PR:     HRC is also now starting a campaign to have Russell Shoats transferred out of solitary confinement at SCI-Greene. How can our readers support this?

BG:     Russell Shoats, discussed above, is a co-founder of HRC who has spent 20 years in the hole as a consequence of his principles and resistance to the inhumanity and criminality of this system. He is a 68-year-old revolutionary who has taught and inspired countless other prisoners and activists inside and outside the walls.

Along with HRC, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the National Lawyers Guild have submitted letters to the PA DOC requesting that Maroon be released into general population.

Supporters can visit a recently-created website and click the “Follow” link at the bottom right to receive email updates when new postings are available. There is a sample letter on the site, and soon more material will be added. A new interview was just posted where Maroon discusses his thoughts on the importance of democracy and self-determination to movement building, the power of the feminist movement and matriarchal politics, Occupy Wall Street, and the imperative of centering food security (and square-foot gardening) in our movements.

PR:     Anything else to add?

BG:     It is absolutely critical to the fate of movements for social justice in this country that the situation of prisoners and the function of prisons in the social order take a central role in our analysis and practice. Everybody can correspond with a prisoner, help out a local group, get on email lists, and research the reality of the prison nation. It is not the land of the free, never was, never was intended to be, and the sooner we disabuse those around us of that notion the better chance there is to win some badly-needed victories. There is no dream too big and no action too small, let’s keep at it till the walls crumble.





http://www.emajonline.com/2010/07/mumia-faqs-and-fact-sheet/

EMAJ STATEMENT: THE “SECRET MEMO” & US ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENTS →

MUMIA FAQs and FACT SHEET

Posted on July 26, 2010 by EMAJ

Who is Mumia Abu-Jamal?

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an African-American writer and journalist, author of six books and hundreds of columns and articles, who has spent the last 29 years on Pennsylvania’s death row. His demand for a new trial and freedom is supported by heads of state from France to South Africa, by Nobel Laureates Nelson Mandela, Toni Morrison, Desmund Tutu, by the European Parliament, by distinguished human rights organizations like Amnesty International, city governments from Detroit to San Francisco to Paris, scholars, religious leaders, artists, scientists, the Congressional Black Caucus and other members of U.S. Congress, the NAACP, labor unions, and by countless thousands who cherish democratic and human rights – and justice -the world over

Why is Mumia on Pennsylvania’s Death Row?

In 1982, during a time still under the influence of the corrupt and violent police regime of Mayor Frank Rizzo, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office headed by Ed Rendell (now, Governor of Pennsylvania) secured a conviction and death sentence in a jury trial, which lasted only three weeks, claiming that Mumia had murdered Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner, on December 9, 1981.

What was the District Attorney’s Argument?

Philadelphia prosecutors argued, and still claim, that Mumia, while working as taxi-driver in downtown Philadelphia and who also carried a gun in his taxi due to past robberies he had suffered as cab driver, came across his brother who had been stopped by Officer Faulkner. Prosecutors argue that Mumia ran across a parking lot into the street where Faulkner was, pulled his gun and shot Faulkner in the back, and that, even though Mumia too had been wounded by a shot from Faulkner, he then stood over Faulkner, straddling his body, and shot him several times point blank in the face, as Faulkner lay on the sidewalk.

What do Mumia’s Supporters Say About the Crime?

There is no dispute that Mumia was wounded as he approached the crime scene where his brother also was. After Mumia was shot the details are unclear. It is clear that after police apprehended Mumia and while in transit to the hospital, he was beaten severely by the police. Many of those who believe Mumia is innocent claim that it is most likely that the shooter was a fourth person at the crime scene (beyond Mumia, his brother, and Faulkner), who was riding with the brother in his car and about whom jurors heard nothing at trial. Patrick O’Conner’s book, The Framing of Mumia offers the most reasoned account for that claim. Other supporters have no opinion about Mumia’s innocence, but nevertheless unite in viewing Mumia’s 1982 trial as a travesty of justice, and affirm, withAmnesty International’s 2000 case study, “that justice would best be served by a new trial.”

What do Mumia’s Critics Say About Him and the Crime?

Mumia’s critics who routinely tag him as “cop killer,” and who are led by the Fraternal Order of Police and a web site with a Board of Directors that includes Faulkner family members, former Philly Police Chief, John Timoney, and Mumia’s original prosecutor Joe McGill, have charged the following: (a) that the prosecutors’ argument mentioned above is an open and shut case which subsequent appeals’ rulings have simply confirmed, (b) that supporters of Mumia – whether Amnesty International or others in Philadelphia, the nation or abroad – are simply uninformed about the case against Mumia, (c) that Mumia as a former Black Panther and revolutionary journalist was just waiting for a chance to kill a cop, (d) that Mumia’s writings and notoriety are a mode of torture for the slain officer’s widow, Maureen Faulkner, who is being denied “closure,” (e) that all the arguments made by Mumia’s attorneys and supporters are based on “myths.”

What have Mumia’s Attorneys Argued?

By 1999, Mumia’s attorneys had filed appeals at all levels of state and federal courts, arguing 29 claims showing violations of Mumia’s constitutional right to a fair trial. Many of those were discussed and confirmed also in the Amnesty International 2000 study of Mumia’s case, A Life in the Balance: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The most prominent of these claims focused on the original trial judge’s racial bias, the failure of police to do minimal forensic tests, racial bias in jury selection, providing Mumia with only ineffective and under-resourced defense counsel, rushing trial proceedings, denying Mumia the right to self-defense, giving inadequate instructions to the jury about mitigating circumstances, and the prosecutors making of venomous closing arguments to the jury.

Since 1999, Mumia’s attorneys have been allowed by the federal courts to focus largely on only four areas:

(a) in relation to sentencing, whether the jury verdict form along with the judge’s instruction to the jury mislead the jury in violation of Supreme Court case law;

(b) in relation to conviction and sentencing, whether racial bias in juror selection existed to such an extent that it tended to produce an inherently biased jury and therefore an unfair trail;

(c) in relation to conviction, whether the prosecutor improperly attmpted to reduce jurors’ sense of responsibility by telling them that a guilty verdict would be subsequently vetted and subject to repeated appeals, but that a not guilty verdict could not be reviewed; and

(d) in relation to the post-conviction review hearings in 1995-1996, whether the presiding Judge Sabo, who had also presided at the trial, demonstrated unacceptable bias in his conduct.

Also in the years following 1999, Mumia’s attorneys have tried to get judicial review of (a) an affidavit by a court stenographer that Judge Sabo said in a court anteroom about his role in the case, “yeah, and I’m going to help them fry the nigger” (b) witnesses who now recant their testimony given at trial who say they were pressured by police into denying the presence of a fourth fleeing person at the scene and into naming Mumia the shooter, (c) a confession by another man who claimed to have been the actual shooter, and (d) the failure of both defense attorneys and prosecutors to present for review to any jury or judge the first photos taken at the crime scene (the Polakoff photos). Only police photos taken slightly later, and with significant differences from the Polakoff photos, were used at trial.

Where Does the Legal Case Stand Now?

Mumia’s requests for a new trial have been denied by each reviewing court.  Only claim (a) of the four post-1999 claims has been a fruitful ground for relief for Mumia, so that a district federal judge, William Yohn, set aside Mumia’s death sentence in 2000. Yohn’s decision was appealed by prosecutors to the federal appeals circuit court which affirmed it. Unfortunately, the US Supreme Court vacated that grant of relief and has asked the federal appeals court to reconsider its ruling in light of the highest court’s recent ruling on another case, Smith v. Spisak.  During all of these appeals, Mumia has never left death row.

Last year a petition was filed in Philadephia’s Court of Common Pleas asking for a new trial based upon a newly released report from the National Academies of Science that found flaws in many forms of forensic evidence.  That petition was denied and an appeal of that denial is currently pending in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, amid all these ongoing processes, Mumia remains on death row, with prosecutors and politicians in Pennsylvania ready to dispatch him to death as soon as a way is made clear. Even if execution is avoided, Mumia faces the sinister prospect of life in prison for a crime he did not commit.

What Grounds Do Supporters Cite When Claiming Mumia’s Innocence?

Supporters draw from, and usually combine, four kinds of argument:

(1) Procedurally and legally, no one should be denied innocence until a constitutional and fair trail has been provided. With the long list of distinguished jurists and human rights analyses that decry the many violations at trial, Mumia’s guilt remains unestablished.

(2) Those who know Mumia, his personal history, character, beliefs, principles,career development and convictions, argue that it is inconceivable that Mumia could be guilty of the cold-blooded murder of Officer Faulkner.

(3) The fourth person at the crime scene, Kenneth Freeman, who was riding in the car with Mumia’s brother and who fled the crime scene (a fact never heard or considered by the jury) was also known by his acquaintences to be harboring rancor, grievances and a temper under conditions of widespread and frequent police violence suffered by him and other citizens in 1970s and 1980s Philadelphia. Freeman as shooter has not been even considered by the courts, but that he was the shooter is more plausible than believing Mumia to be. (In 1985, Freeman was found dead in a Northeast Philly lot, reportedly hand-cuffed, naked and gagged, with a drug needle jabbed in his arm, the morning after Philadelphia police dropped a military explosive on MOVE headquarters, letting a fire burn out of control destroying over 50 blocks of West Philly.)

(4) During and after the time of Mumia’s arrest, trial and conviction, police were often convicted of corrupt procedures and of fabricating the guilt of defendants – all of which also makes plausible that Mumia, too, was “framed,” especially since he had so long been routinely singled out by police and authorities for his reporting on police violence in Philadelphia. It is known, for example, that in 1981, police and prosecutors framed four men: the first two of the four were acquitted in trials, one in 1982, and the second after spending 1,375 days on death row; the other two men spent nearly 20 years in prison for murder before released on DNA evidence and confessions by the real killers.

Why Have Mumia’s Appeals Failed to Bring Him Relief?

Three factors are often pointed to:

(1) New laws of judicial review, passed during both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush presidencies, protect state decision-making on death penalty cases from thorough scrutiny by higher courts at the Federal level.

(2) The Philadelphia and Pennsylvania criminal justice systems – from police officers on the street, to District Attorney Seth Williams, Mayor Michael Nutter, and Governor Ed Rendell (the Philadelphia D.A. during Mumia’s 1982 trial), to elected justices on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court who are supported by the Fraternal Order of Police – all of these, maintain an intense and unquestioned advocacy and application of the death penalty and routinely convey their beliefs to decision-makers in power.

(3) An exceptional politics of judicial review seems at work in Mumia’s case when courts repeatedly rule against Mumia, especially when those same courts have found in favor of identical appeals by other death row inmates. This has been analyzed in detail as “The Mumia Exception” by award-winning journalist, Linn Washington, Jr. of the Philadelphia Tribune, also Professor of Journalism, Temple University. (Washington’s essential article is available at the EMAJ web site.)

Why is Mumia’s Case and Struggle So Important? (After all, there are so many others on US death rows – over 3200 – and thousands more have suffered similar violations of due process.)

(1) Mumia’s Humanity. Mumia is a human being, with a family and a network of friends and family who value his life. His case and struggle is important, first of all, because of the threat to the life and dignity he bears simply as a human being. He is a husband, father and grandfather who, despite his isolation from his own family has maintained an extraordinary sense of humane care and advocacy for them and many others.

(2) Mumia’s Writings are Remarkably Inclusive. With hundreds of columns, prison radio commentaries, six books, and essays in venues as distinct from one another as the homeless Street News to Forbes Magazine, to the Yale Law Review, Mumia has foregrounded the struggle of many peoples. These have included advocacy, at times, even for prison guards and police officers, but especially for persons who routinely are rendered voiceless – whether they are African-American, Latino/a, Asian-American, Native American, Arab-American, white American, or the often detained from immigrant populations today.

(3) Mumia’s Notoriety. Mumia’s skillful journalistic writings regularly reach both national and worldwide audiences – in Europe and throughout many sites of the global South – and this notoriety has made him a human face and story of US death row and its prisons. In the context of the namelessness and dehumanization suffered by most death row inmates and prisoners and prisoners, the notoriety of his story and struggle is an important way of keeping national and international pressure on US incarceration and execution practices.

(4) Mumia’s Case as “Primer.”  Mumia’s case is frequently cited as offering  a “primer” on the many problems that attend US criminal justice systems in the US: runaway prison construction and mass incarceration, police use of excessive force, prosecutorial and judicial misconduct, inadequate defense counsel for poor defendants, excessively long sentences race, class and gender imapcts on imprisonment and execution in the US.

(5) Mumia’s Case Links Issues: For many, Mumia’s political analyses “connect the dots,” stimulating valuable reflection on connections between US mass incarceration, the US military industrial complex, and its wars abroad (overt and covert), US economic policies, the so-called “drug war” and “war on terror” – all of whch bring to the fore issues of empire and of the coloniality of power at work in US policies. Recently, he has addressed the tragedy in Haiti, the struggle for health care in the U.S., and the war in Afghanistan – all with unusual clarity, acumen and artistic skill.

(6) Mumia in Pennsylvania. As confined among the 225 men and women on death row in Pennsylvania (nicknamed “the Texas of the North” for having the largest number on death row among northerly US states), organizing around Mumia’s case is a way to challenge a criminal justice and judicial system in Pennsylvania and Philadelphia that has routinely been found corrupted by racialized and adversarial politics. The struggle for Mumia, thus, takes the struggle for political justice in the US to one of the most hotly contested sites in the nation.

How Can I Stay Informed and Involved?

The best way is to consult frequently the key web sites on Mumia’s case. Bookmark them now! EMAJ maintains a web site of its own at http://www.emajonline.com. But other web sites are also essential for keeping you informed about the broader national and international movement. The EMAJ site and others, particularly of the Free Mumia Coalition in New York City, should be consulted (http://www.freemumia.com/. Nearly all the other sites are given under “LINKS” at the EMAJ site. Follow us at Facebook, search “Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal.” Follow us on Twitter @emajonline.com.

Links:
Death Penalty Information Center

Prison Activist Resource Center

Critical Resistance

Academics for Justice

New Jerseyans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty

Campaign to End the Death Penalty

International Action Center

IMC – Independent Media Center

Free the Cuban 5 Popular Education Project

Black Radical Congress

Win Without War

The Black Commentator

The World Can’t Wait

School of the Americas Watch

Mexico Solidarity Network

Witness Against Torture

Brecht Forum

Church Folks for a Better America

About Mutulu Shakur

Wiretap: Ideas and Action for a New Generation

About Assata Shakur

Web Sites on Mumia

Posted on December 7, 2005 by EMAJ

International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Prison Radio

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)

Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia Legal Defense Committee (Robert Bryan’s Web site)

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal (Refuse & Resist!)

Journalists for Mumia (Abu-Jamal News)

Independent Journalist HANS BENNETT’s Site

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Youth Network

Freiheit für Mumia Abu-Jamal

(in German, but has some valuable documents in English)

Hell's Kitchen Goes To Hell In A Handbasket

                                                        (Flickr user bytegirl24) 



Hell's Kitchen Goes To Hell In A Handbasket 


No, not that kind of handbasket




Hell's Kitchen residents are up in arms over the decline of their neighborhood, which, despite its roots as a gang-and-hooker filled, ahem, hellhole, has been a perfectly nice place to raise your kids for the past few years. 


Until now, because dastardly legions of drunk twentysomethings are getting drunk and being loud and puking up mango-flavored vodka all over the sidewalk. 


"People are urinating, throwing all kinds of bottles, walking away with cups of liquor that I assume they sneak out of the bar, and vomit on the ground," said Steve Belida, co-chairman of the Hell's Kitchen 50-51st Street Block Association. 


Civilized adults have already been battling Boxers, a gay club that wants to open near PS 111, and more and more bars are applying for liquor licenses in the area (there are currently 699 of them approved). 


A meeting is scheduled tonight for residents, police, elected officials and bar owners to talk it out, which presumably will result in nasty insults and giveaway condoms being hurtled across the room. 


Fortunately, some heavy hitters are on the anti-gentrification side: "


[Hell's Kitchen] is filled with gritty buildings, has a rough texture and all of the amenities, which make it attractive for night life," said Mitchell Moss, a NYU urban planning professor. 


"Hell's Kitchen should not, will not and cannot become a West Side version of Gramercy Park."




Source:
http://gothamist.com/2012/01/19/hells_kitchen_goes_to_hell_in_a_han.php

Displaced People- Gaza Strip

Israel has rejected international calls to fully reopen border crossings into Gaza, delaying the massive task of reconstruction on the strip.

Al Jazeera English - News3 (ISRAEL Terrorist) by deedoox

Displaced Persons- 1948

Displaced Person Transports: Cargo of Hope

I came to the United States as a Displaced Person in 1949 at 6 years of age.For the first time in my life I had oranges, bananas, nickel Cokes in bottles out of a machine, and in the evening we saw black-and-white American movies where beautiful actresses wore strapless dress and gowns.

Displaced Persons were mostly Eastern Europeans: people who were unable or unwilling to return to their native countries after World War II. Some were "ostarbeiter" [eastern-workers] -- people forced to work in German factories and farms, some were survivors of concentration camps, and others fled to Germany to escape Communist rule. After the war they were housed in camps administered by the International Refugee Organization.

Eventually, the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, Chile, and Australia opened their doors to the refugees. To emigrate to the U.S., a Displaced Person needed a sponsor who arranged for housing and employment [which could not replace an American worker]. For most refugees their embarkation point was Bremerhaven; others left via Italy or Shanghai.


Typical C-4 Troopship used to transport Displaced Persons


Crowded accommodations in the women's hold


First glimpse of their new country


 Like other Displaced Persons, we soon found out that although the streets in America were not paved with gold, America was the land of golden opportunities.

www.USMM.org ©1998 - 2002. You may quote material on this web page as long as you cite American Merchant Marine at War, www.usmm.org, as the source.

Tom Waits

 This interview was originally broadcast on October 31, 2011 on Fresh Air

                                                        photo by Jesse Dylan


Tom Waits recorded his new album 'Bad As Me', his first collection of all-new studio recordings in eight years, in his studio, which he calls "Rabbit Foot" for good luck. The space, a converted schoolhouse, still has class pictures dotting the walls of each classroom.

"I never had my own place before," he tellsFresh Air's Terry Gross. "[In a studio], you know there was a band before you and you know you have to pack up at the end of your session because there was a band behind you. You have to photograph the board so no one changes your settings. Now, this is my own rig. It's my own trailer."


Bad As Me, Waits' 20th album, references the people he normally sings about: loners, losers, drunks and eccentrics. The "poet of outcasts," as The New York Times once called Waits, romanticizes loneliness, the city of Chicago, death and love, among other topics. The album also pays homage to some of Waits' favorite singers, including James Brown, Peggy Lee and Howlin' Wolf.

"I've always looked to [Wolf] for guidance, and probably always will," Waits says. "He does have a voice that is otherworldly. It should be in a time capsule somewhere. When you're a kid and you're trying to find your own voice, it's rather daunting to hear somebody like Howlin' Wolf, because you know that you'll never achieve that. That's the Empire State Building. You can scream into a pillow for a year and never get there."

One of the torch ballads on Bad As Me is called "Kiss Me," and has opening chords reminiscent of "Cry Me a River." The title, Waits says, was inspired by Kiss Me Like a Stranger, Gene Wilder's book about Gilda Radner.

"As soon as I heard it," Waits says, "I said, 'That's a tune waiting to be written.'"

To make the recording sound older, Waits added the sound of vinyl pops and clicks — using a piece of chicken barbecuing on a grill.

"It sounds exactly like vinyl if you hold the microphone up to your barbecue," he says. "It's the same sound, actually. ... I wanted to go back in time a little bit and give it a feeling like you're alone in a hotel with a record player."

For the words in "Kiss Me," Waits says he drew inspiration from songwriters like Peggy Lee, Julie London and Bessie Smith.

"For a songwriter, you don't really go to songwriting school; you learn by listening to tunes. And you try to understand them and take them apart and see what they're made of, and wonder if you can make one, too," he says. "And you just do it by picking up the needle and putting it back down and figuring it how these people did this magical thing. It's rather mystifying when you think about songs — where they come from and how they're born. Many times, it's very humble and very mundane, the origin of these songs."

Waits says he also grew up listening to James Brown and Ray Charles, whom he admired for his ability to sing in falsetto. Waits takes his own turn singing in falsetto in "Talking At the Same Time," which he says was inspired by Charles, as well as Marvin Gaye, Skip James, Prince and Smokey Robinson.

"Sometimes the magnetism of a song is impossible to ignore, and it demands that it be sung in a certain way," Waits says. "And that's really your job as an interpreter, to discover: 'What is the way in? Do I growl this? Do I eliminate all my growl and try to do it like a younger man? What does this song mean?' You're more like an actor."

But Waits says performing night after night on the road takes its toll on his voice.

"I bark my voice out through a closed throat, pretty much," he says. "It's more, perhaps, like a dog in some ways. It does have its limitations, but I'm learning different ways to keep it alive."



source: 
http://www.npr.org/2011/12/26/144069269/waits-paying-homage-to-outcasts-on-bad-as-me

Homeless Youth

 

The young homeless population in Vancouver increased from 154 people in 2008 to 194 counted March 16, 2011.

Photograph by: Dan Toulgoet, Vancouver Courier

Vancouver and six other municipalities have seen a spike in the number of people 25 and under who are homeless, according to preliminary results of the 2011 Metro Vancouver Homeless Count released Tuesday.

The young homeless population in Vancouver increased from 154 people in 2008 to 194 counted March 16, 2011. Of the 194, researchers counted 121 in shelters and 73 were found on the street, in parks or at drop-in programs.

Burnaby, Langley, New Westminster, the North Shore, Richmond and Maple Ridge all saw increases in the number of young homeless people.

Maple Ridge recorded the highest jump, increasing from seven in 2008 to 29 this year while Surrey dropped to 40 from 53 young homeless people and the Tri-Cities decreased from 18 to eight.

Homeless People

Homelessness 'chronic' in Canada: study
Last Updated: Tuesday, June 26, 2007 | 2:46 PM ET CBC News


Canada's homeless population is somewhere between 200,000 and 300,000 people, while another 1.7 million residents struggle with "housing affordability issues," says an analysis of the latest research on shelter.

In a report released Tuesday from the Calgary-based Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, journalist and author Gordon Laird argues homelessness is now chronic and is quickly becoming one of the country's defining social issues. He makes a case for a national housing strategy and a more robust income security program.

Citing statistics from a wide range of organizations, Laird says poverty is the leading cause of homelessness in Canada, not substance abuse or mental illness. "Roughly half of all Canadians live in fear of poverty, and 49 per cent polled believe they might be poverty stricken if they missed one or two paycheques," he writes.

Jail Time

 

It has been said that there are no athe­ists in a fox­hole. Here, after my show trial and four and a half months in a cell, I have dis­cov­ered that there are no athe­ists in prison, ei­ther.

When, de­spite un­bear­able pain, you are in­ter­ro­gated – in­clud­ing in your cell – for dozens of hours with­out a break, and an au­thor­i­tar­ian regime’s en­tire sys­tem of co­er­cion, in­clud­ing its media, is try­ing to dis­credit and de­stroy you once and for all, prayer be­comes the only in­ti­mate, trust­ing, and re­as­sur­ing con­ver­sa­tion that one can have. God, one re­al­izes, is one’s only friend and only avail­able fam­ily, be­cause – de­prived even of ac­cess to a trusted priest – there is no one else in whom to con­fide one’s wor­ries and hopes.

In this sea­son of love and fam­ily, the lone­li­ness of a prison cell is al­most un­bear­able. The gray, dead si­lence of night (guards peer in voyeuris­ti­cally through a slot in the door), the sud­den, dis­em­bod­ied shrieks of pris­on­ers, shrieks of dis­tress and rage, the dis­tant rat­tles and clangs of prison bolts: all make sleep im­pos­si­ble, or so rest­less as to be a torment.

But what is strange is that your senses are not dulled by this dead and dread­ful world. On the con­trary, they are ig­nited by it: your mind is set free from mun­dane con­cerns to pon­der the in­es­timable and your place within it – a free­dom of spirit that is a truly un­ex­pected gift this Christ­mas sea­son. In the cell’s dark­ness, I gather strength and hope from the fact that God some­how seems so near to me here. For where else would Christ be but with those who suf­fer and are per­se­cuted?


In­deed, I have re­cently been read­ing Di­et­rich Bon­ho­ef­fer’s sub­lime and chal­leng­ing Let­ters from Prison, in which he yearns for a Christ ca­pa­ble of of­fer­ing mercy to a world, our world, then in the process of being mar­tyred for a sin­gle man. Writ­ten in a cramped, dank, and pu­trid cell, where hope was meant to die be­fore the body, Bon­ho­ef­fer crafted a book rich in faith, open­ness, pos­si­bil­ity, and, yes, hope – even in hu­man­ity’s dark­est hour.




One par­tic­u­lar pas­sage res­onates with me as I con­tem­plate Ukraine’s plight. As he awaited his ap­proach­ing ex­e­cu­tion by the Nazis, Bon­ho­ef­fer wrote that, in prison, “the god­less­ness of the world is not...​concealed but, rather, re­vealed, and is thus ex­posed to an un­ex­pected light.”



So I take some com­fort this Christ­mas in know­ing that the god­less­ness, in­hu­man­ity, and crim­i­nal­ity of the regime that is now rul­ing in Kyiv is, at long last, being ex­posed to the world in a clear light. Its de­mo­c­ra­tic pos­tur­ing has been un­masked as cyn­i­cal po­lit­i­cal the­ater, its claim to de­sire a Eu­ro­pean fu­ture for Ukraine’s peo­ple re­vealed to be a lie, and the ra­pa­cious­ness of its klep­to­crats has been laid bare. The regime’s con­tempt for the con­sti­tu­tion and the rule of law is now un­de­ni­able, and that clar­ity is em­pow­er­ing.

More im­por­tantly, the suf­fer­ing of Ukraine’s peo­ple has also be­come more widely known, and we are no longer so alone in our plight. Al­le­vi­at­ing it has been em­braced as a just cause across Eu­rope and around the world. The every­day op­pres­sion, sti­fled media, and shake­downs and ex­tor­tion of busi­nesses for bribes all point to a mafia state on Eu­rope’s bor­der. Now our Eu­ro­pean friends can no longer deny the smug vile­ness of the regime with which they are forced to deal. And I am thank­ful this Christ­mas for being able to be­lieve that de­mo­c­ra­tic Eu­rope will not tol­er­ate this state of af­fairs. Ukraini­ans will be strong know­ing that they are not alone in their fight.

I do not pre­tend to be an ex­pert on re­li­gious faith and spir­i­tual val­ues. I am only a be­liever who can­not ac­cept that our ex­is­tence is the re­sult of some freak cos­mic ac­ci­dent. We are, I be­lieve, part of a mys­te­ri­ous yet in­te­gral act, whose source, di­rec­tion, and pur­pose, though dif­fi­cult to grasp at times, does have mean­ing and pur­pose – even when one is con­fined be­hind prison bars.

It is only faith in the idea that our lives mat­ter, and that our de­ci­sions must be judged by their moral con­tent, that we in Ukraine, and else­where, will be able to find our way out of the mis­ery, un­hap­pi­ness, and de­spair that has con­sumed us over the last two years. It is within our power to re­cover or rein­vig­o­rate our free­doms and our so­ci­eties, not by in­di­vid­ual ef­forts, but by join­ing forces with like­minded peo­ple all over the world. I know that we will man­age this.

This Christ­mas, I ask my fam­ily and friends every­where not to worry about me. As Anna Akhma­tova, the great po­etic chron­i­cler of Stalin’s ter­ror, said, “I am alive in this grave.” In­deed, I am more alive, I know, than the men who have im­pris­oned me here.

Christ­mas is meant to mark the pos­si­bil­ity of a new be­gin­ning for all men and women.

As Bon­ho­ef­fer af­firmed with his last words: “This is for me...​the be­gin­ning of life.”




Yuliya Tymoshenko was Prime Minister of Ukraine and is currently leader of the opposition.

I am amazed she has this amount of ability to speak to the world at large. Here is her website: http://www.tymoshenko.ua/en/
Point of correction here: She is not a "Mr." Mrs. Tymoshenko is not only a female leader but a very beautiful woman. She is determined and courageous and very sharp. But this is a vicious game she is in, now locked away in cell 260 while those who've taken over ravage Ukraine.




....................................................................................................................................




“AB900 allows the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to authorize $7.8 billion in lease-revenue bonds to fund the addition of 53,000 new prison and jail beds while bypassing the electorate.”



BY NAOMI WOLF

1 out of Every 2 Americans are Poor!!!

Woody Guthrie-This Land Is Your Land - YouTube: ""

'via Blog this'

Its a Mean Old World

THIS SHOULD ENCOURAGE THE POPULACE TO EMBRACE THE OCCUPY WALL STREET PROTEST.

Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income
-  HOPE YEN, Associated Press 


“If Americans ever allow banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless.”
- Thomas Jefferson


"One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells, and both think they are astute."
- William Feather

1 out of 2 Americans are Poor!!!

Woody Guthrie-This Land Is Your Land - YouTube: ""

'via Blog this'

Its a Mean Old World

THIS SHOULD HAVE ENCOURAGED THE POPULACE TO EMBRACE THE OCCUPY WALL STREET PROTEST.

Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income
-  HOPE YEN, Associated Press 


“If Americans ever allow banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless.”
- Thomas Jefferson


"One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells, and both think they are astute."
- William Feather

Its a Mean Old World

Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income
-  HOPE YEN, Associated Press


“If Americans ever allow banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children will wake up homeless.”
- Thomas Jefferson


"One of the funny things about the stock market is that every time one person buys, another sells, and both think they are astute."
- William Feather

One in Two Americans are Poor

According to new supplemental data from the Census Bureau, nearly half of Americans have fallen under the poverty line or are classified as “low income” .

  

................................................................................
Census shows 1 in 2 people are poor or low-income
By HOPE YEN, Associated Press  

WASHINGTON (AP) — Squeezed by rising living costs, a record number of Americans — nearly 1 in 2 — have fallen into poverty or are scraping by on earnings that classify them as low income.

'Stagflation':

Stagflation occurs when the economy isn't growing but prices are, which is not a good situation for a country to be in. This happened to a great extent during the 1970s, when world oil prices rose dramatically, fueling sharp inflation in developed countries. For these countries, including the U.S., stagnation increased the inflationary effects.
 
The latest census data depict a middle class that's shrinking as unemployment stays high and the government's safety net frays. The new numbers follow years of stagnating wages for the middle class that have hurt millions of workers and families.
About 97.3 million Americans fall into a low-income category, commonly defined as those earning between 100 and 199 percent of the poverty level, based on a new supplemental measure by the Census Bureau that is designed to provide a fuller picture of poverty. Together with the 49.1 million who fall below the poverty line and are counted as poor, they number 146.4 million, or 48 percent of the U.S. population. That's up by 4 million from 2009, the earliest numbers for the newly developed poverty measure.

*146.4 million people represents a huge number of votes.

A survey of 29 cities conducted by the U.S. Conference of Mayors released Thursday points to a gloomy outlook for those on the lower end of the income scale.

Many mayors cited the challenges of meeting increased demands for food assistance, expressing particular concern about possible cuts to federal programs such as food stamps and WIC, which assists low-income pregnant women and mothers. Unemployment led the list of causes of hunger in cities, followed by poverty, low wages and high housing costs.

 

Many people in the U.S. are in dire straights and with the cost of bank bailouts and two wars the government does not have much stored wealth to provide the 'safety nets' people need.

If you have shopped in Walmart lately, you know few goods are made in North America.  In order to ensure a steady stream of cheap consumer products, America has moved jobs overseas and the effects of that failed policy are beginning to show.  Stagflation, falling house prices and few well-paying jobs leaves one feeling hopeless.  Is this nearly the bottom in the economic cycle? Things always look thier worst at the lowest level of economic activity and begin to pick up from there.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press.  

Worry does not help any situation to improve.

The sea like life itself, is a stern taskmaster. The best way to get along with either is to learn all you can, then do your best and don't worry especially about things over which your have no control.



- Admiral Chester William Nimitz quoting his grandfather in E.B. Potter's Nimitz

HOPE FUELS MOTIVATION

"It is necessary to hope
For hope itself is happiness,
And its frustrations, however frequent
Are less dreadful than its extinction."

- Samuel Johnson

Blogger Philosophy

My Philosophy of Blogging



There are two ways of spreading light: to be the candle or to be the mirror that reflects it.
- Edith Wharton

Ms. Wharton sums up how I think of blogs. My desire is to reflect the articles and pictures that inspire me when surfing the Web by posting them on my blogs. Blogs create a scrapbook of events to review later inspiring me for a second time. This is a great pleasure and an educational activity providing me with learning missed when I was in school. The Web has demonstrated its great value in generating and spreading new ideas. Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Occupy Wall Street and other revolutions have gained momentum on the Web.
If you have a favorite cause like animal rights, you can play a part in education the world by posting to your blog. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.


"To read means to borrow; to create out of one's reading is paying off one's debts."
- Charles Lillard

Communicating my worldview, as seen from my backwater home town situated on an island in the Pacific, is my way of staying engaged with current events.  Multiple Sclerosis has reduced my physical energy and keeps me close to home so I need to adapt and find new ways of relating to the world at large.

Happiness has an optimal price?

$75,000 Can Buy Happiness:
byJennifer Robison, 

Gallup Management Journal  

The search to define happiness has consumed a lot of human energy.  

Angus Deaton, Ph.D., a renowned economist, and Daniel Kahneman, Ph.D., a Nobel prize-winning psychologist, both from Princeton University....looked for happiness in numbers.  ...they analyzed responses to the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index (GHWBI), a daily survey that asks roughly 1,000 U.S. residents a battery of questions about their wellbeing.

After analyzing more than 450,000 GHWBI responses from 2008 and 2009, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Kahneman found that happiness is actually the result of the fulfillment of two abstract psychological states -- 

1.) emotional wellbeing and 

2.) life evaluation. 

The finding is important because it offered the researchers a new and more useful way of looking at happiness.

The difference between life evaluation and emotional wellbeing is vital, though the two are related.

Dr. Kahneman says, "They're clearly distinct dimensions that are correlated. But they have somewhat different determinants. What improves people's emotional wellbeing is different from what it takes to make them say that they're satisfied with their life."

In other words, life evaluation and emotional wellbeing refer to different feelings. 

Life evaluation requires a long view of a person's overall life. Though life evaluation is colored by the day's emotions, Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton's GHWBI research shows that people evaluate their lives based on a retrospective of their achievements. If they've accomplished the goals they've set, are financially secure, and are emotionally fulfilled, they're more likely to have a high evaluation of their life.

Emotional wellbeing reflects a much shorter view and refers to the emotional quality of an individual's everyday experience. If the day's experience is negative, emotional wellbeing will take a hit. That said, people with good emotional wellbeing seem to get it through social contact.

"Emotional happiness is primarily social," says Dr. Kahneman. "The very best thing that can happen to people is to spend time with other people they like. That is when they are happiest, and so, without question, this is a major story. 

We find loneliness is a terrible thing. So is extreme poverty. But loneliness, regardless of how rich you are, is a very bad thing."

But the research also indicates that you won't become happy merely by socializing with your best friends and achieving your goals. You also need $75,000.

The most reported finding is that people with an annual household income of $75,000 are about as happy as anyone gets. More specifically, those with annual household incomes below $75,000 give lower responses to both life evaluation and emotional wellbeing questions. But people with an annual household income of more than $75,000 don't have commensurately higher levels of emotional wellbeing, even though their life evaluation rating continues to increase.
 
Your emotional life depends primarily on your relationships with people.

Emotional wellbeing may not improve with additional money, Dr. Deaton and Dr. Kahneman think, because of several factors. One is that humans adapt quickly to the things money can buy. A mansion is a thrill the first month you live in it, but it's just a house the second.

Moreover, other research suggests that wealthy people don't take as much pleasure in actual pleasure as do poor people. In one test, social researchers primed some test subjects to feel rich and found that the "wealthy" subjects didn't enjoy luxury chocolate as much as the control group, the "non-wealthy," did.

And Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton believe that when it comes to the very wealthy with high life satisfaction, their evaluations may be influenced more by keeping score than by purchasing power. If life evaluation is based on reviewing how much progress people have made in their lives, money may become a marker of success.


So people who have achieved their goals, who spend a lot of time with friends, and who make a lot of money have the most life satisfaction, while those who earn at least $75,000 a year have the greatest emotional wellbeing. But that doesn't meant they aren't stressed. 

The GHWBI data show that college graduates report more stress than people without college degrees, and that stress levels are generally higher in wealthy countries.

Comparing the U.S. life evaluation scores with data available from about 150 other countries through the Gallup World Poll, the U.S. ranks fairly high. The only nations with higher scores are the Scandinavian countries, Canada, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and New Zealand.

However, while Americans come in near the top for life evaluation and do well on wellbeing, they're also among the most stressed. U.S. stress levels are the fifth highest when compared to data from other countries in the Gallup World Poll.

There is one thing, however, left to mention in this discussion of happiness -- individual temperament. Dr. Kahneman and Dr. Deaton's research, and that of others, clearly indicates that some people are just born happier, or "sunnier," as Dr. Deaton calls them. Their emotional wellbeing will always be higher than everyone else's.

That's not to suggest that those who aren't "sunny" are doomed to lives of misery. Even the most pessimistic, grumpy-by-nature people can find solace in Dr. Deaton's statement: "It may be that we're not designed for happiness." And what is it we were designed for? "To avoid getting eaten by predators," says Dr. Deaton. "If nothing eats you today, you ought to be happy. At least it's a start."






Source:
This post originally appeared on Gallup Management Journal.

Facebook: Home to 800,000,000 Wall Flowers?

How to Stand Out Among 800 Million Facebook Users | Moneyland | TIME.com:

An ironic by-product of the success of social media, however, is that it’s become extremely hard to stand out amid all that content. The data is striking: Sure, some 800 million people use Facebook, but only 7.5% of your fans ever see your status updates, according to Page Lever. And Sysomos reports that only 29% of your Twitter followers will see your messages. So how do you keep from being ignored online? Here are five fundamental strategies.

1. Start with the basics

It should almost go without saying that your business should have a website as well as a blog and should participate on the top four social networks: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google+. People are searching for you or for other companies that offer similar services, and every search query in which your company’s name doesn’t come up is an opportunity lost.


2. Establish a niche

When creating your online brand, you need to have a specific audience in mind – the audience that would most likely purchase your product or service. For example, Rachel Rodgers Law Office in Phoenix positions itself as a company that offers “Innovative Legal Counsel for Generation Y Entrepreneurs.” If you’re too general with your positioning, you won’t attract the people that can make your company profitable over the long haul. Although this approach might not yield 2 million followers and fans, you’ll certainly generate leads.

3. Create valuable content

The content that you publish should be concentrated on a single topic related to your business. Your status updates and blog posts could contain research, quotes, facts, stories and ideas instead of product pitches. As Jeffrey Gitomer famously said, “People don’t like to be sold but they love to buy.” Direct selling through social channels turns people off and is the fastest way to impede your business growth. Your market will be drawn to the valuable and interesting content that you produce. They’ll then follow you and examine your website for your products and services.

4. Interact with your audience

Aside from producing content on a regular basis, you need to both listen and interact with your followers. By listening to what people are saying about your brand, you can better serve them with content and products. Start by using tools like Google Alerts and Twitter in order to review your brand mentions.


5. Make yourself an expert

You can’t rely on people finding your website or your profiles anymore. You need to proactively market your brand so that you can stand out in the clutter. The best way to do this is to brand yourself as an expert in your field, proactively reaching out to a select number of journalists that cover your topic, and offering yourself as a source for future articles. Each time you’re interviewed for an article, make sure your company’s name is included, which will draw more people to your website. By having a third party endorsement from a media outlet, and putting yourself out there, you will become more credible, trusted, and your visibility will multiply.

Dan Schawbel, recognized as a “personal branding guru” by The New York Times, is the Managing Partner of Millennial Branding, LLC, a full-service personal branding agency. Dan is the author of Me 2.0: 4 Steps to Building Your Future, the founder of the Personal Branding Blog, and publisher of Personal Branding Magazine.






Read more: http://moneyland.time.com/2011/11/10/how-to-stand-out-among-800-million-facebook-users/#ixzz1e7zMq300

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Joe Louis Walker - Change my ways

Joe Louis Walker - Change my ways - YouTube: ""

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East Africa drought crisis still ‘huge’ — SOS Children

I just copied this to help get the word out.

East Africa drought crisis still ‘huge’ — SOS Children:



The size of the humanitarian emergency in the Horn of Africa remains massive, says a British politician.Three months after famine was officially declared in Somalia, hundreds of people, mainly children, are still dying every day, said Britain’s International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell.

The drought and famine have forced thousands of people into refugee camps and left 12 million people in need of aid and 750,000 at risk of death in Somalia, according to the latest figures from the Famine Early Warning System FEWS.
Earlier this week it was revealed that British aid is feeding more than 2.4m people across the region and an appeal by the UK’s Disasters and Emergency Committee has raised £72m, but that is still not enough.

With the rainy season round the corner, people caught up in the crisis are now facing the risk of disease spreading across crowded refugee camps.
More than 400,000 children are still at risk of death, just in Somalia alone, Mr Mitchell notes. British aid pouring into the region has been concentrated on keeping people healthy. About 1.3m people have been given jabs against measles, for instance, and 400,000 doses of anti-malarial drugs are heading for Somalia.

Although the rains look likely to bring with them yet more misery and death, they can also play a part in the region’s recovery from the disaster. Funds raised by British people have helped buy seeds for more than 200,000 people, which they will be able to plant and grow when the weather improves. The biggest problem, however is still actually getting to people in need who are living inside the parts of Somalia worst affected by fighting. Famine was officially declared in the lawless country as far back as July. And because they can’t get aid if they stay put, the number of Somali refugees crossing into south-eastern Ethiopia is on the rise.

Announcing its appeal to help people hit by the crisis DEC chief executive Brendan Gormley said earlier this week: "The incredibly generous support of the UK public for the DEC East Africa Crisis Appeal has made the difference between life and death for many people in the region. But, he warned that "the situation remains grave however particularly in those areas of Somalia where access for most aid agencies remains severely restricted.” The appeal brought in the third highest amount in charity's 45-year history - only the Asian tsunami (£392m) and the Haiti earthquake (£107m) raised more.

Money is inedible

Only after the last tree has been cut

Only after the last river has been poisoned

Only after the last fish has been caught

Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten

~ Cree Indian Prophecy ~

Changing Times

Optimism and Laughter

Positive Attitude Month :

Optimism and laughter, while enjoyable in their own right, bring benefits like health, longevity, and a decrease in stress. You may also know that a positive attitude can be cultivated, meaning even if you're not naturally prone to bright-side looking, you can actively change that.

October is Positive Attitude Month, which reminds you to make the effort to cultivate the attitude that can bring you greater health, happier relationships, and more luck in life. 

It's true that we are all born with a certain "set point" for some traits, such as openness, agreeableness, extroversion, conscientiousness, an neuroticism (known as "The Big Five" in the world of psychology), and these inborn personality tendencies influence our levels of optimism, positivity, and happiness. 

Positive Psychology research has found, we can alter our habitual thought patterns by actively changing the way we choose to see things. 

If we challenge negative thinking patterns, for example, and replace them with more positive patterns, the new, more positive patterns become our habit, and we can actually create a new set-point for happiness.

"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle."
~Plato

We are all fighting a great battle in our lives as we seek more happiness and avoid pain therefore, we need to adopt attitudes that buoy us in turbulent moments.  Having a positive outlook is a tool you can use to motivate yourself to find solutions.  Learned helplessness is an attitude to avoid because you are going face daily difficulties.  Deal with the problems as they arise and do not waste energy worrying about the future or regretting the past.  Life unfolds in moments and our power to act is in the now.    

I cannot think of a better way to counteract the pain and uncertainty of living with M.S. than to manage your attitude.  We can choose how we feel about our situation.  Feeling better about ourselves will give us the motivation to take better care of ourselves.  M.S. is a disease with no cause, no cure and no effective treatment which forces us to take some responsibility for our well-being.  Addressing areas of your lifestyle such as, diet can exert many benefits in dealing with chronic illness.  We are fighting a great battle and need a Warrior's attitude towards our enemy within.

Positive Attitude Resources From Elizabeth Scott: 

http://stress.about.com/b/2011/10/02/happy-positive-attitude-month.htm

If Children are the future in China... Why the Smoking?

 For Chinese Students, Smoking Isn’t All Bad - Businessweek:

"In dozens of rural villages in China’s western provinces, one of the first things primary school kids learn is what helps make their education possible: tobacco. The schools are sponsored by local units of China’s state-owned cigarette monopoly, China National Tobacco. “On the gates of these schools you’ll see slogans that say ‘Genius comes from hard work—tobacco helps you become talented,’” says Xu Guihua, secretary general of the Chinese Association on Tobacco Control, a privately funded lobbying group. “They are pinning their hopes on young people taking up smoking.”

Anti-tobacco groups say efforts in China to reduce sales... "


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Blog Philosophy

ALIENATION: FORGOTTEN PEOPLE ARE CREATED BY A WORLD IN A BIG HURRY.
Society is a busy place and often people get lost in the rush and end up in an unfriendly place with no advocates and faced with a real struggle to regain a place in the mainstream. We are told that no matter how far we have gone down the wrong road, turn back. Sometimes this is not so easy and we need help.

Expect to encounter ideas of great thinkers like Erich Fromm, Rollo May, Ernst Becker, Albert Ellis, Martin Seligman, Carl Jung, Victor Frankl and many others.