The erosion of academic freedom

Since the defeat of McCarthyism in the 1950s, there has been long legal tradition that protects freedom of academic inquiry and teaching at U.S. colleges and universities. This tradition is based on several critical Supreme Court decisions over the past half century.

Tanzania today: an African-American perspective - Part I

For two weeks in late 2006, I traveled throughout Tanzania, East Africa, on a fact-finding tour. Over thirty years earlier, I had attended the University of Nairobi, in Kenya, as an undergraduate college student. During my year in East Africa, I visited and traveled throughout Kenya, as well as neighboring Uganda and Tanzania, immersing myself in the Swahili language, African cultures, and the region’s politics.

Throughout the 1970s, there was a large expatriate community of idealistic, young African Americans who lived and worked throughout Tanzania, and especially in its capital city, Dar Es Salaam. What attracted most of them to the East African country was a remarkable social experiment called “Ujamaa,” or “African Socialism.” The political architect of Ujamaa was Tanzania’s humble yet charismatic president, Julius K. Nyerere, who was universally called “Mwalimu,” which in the Swahili language means “teacher.”

Waist deep in the big muddy

George W. Bush has an urge to surge.  Like every junkie, he asks for just one more fix:  let him inject just 21,000 more troops and that will win the war.

Been there.  Done that.  In 1965, Tom Paxton sang,
    Lyndon Johnson told the nation
    Have no fear of escalation.
    I am trying everyone to please.
    Though it isn't really war,
    We're sending 50,000 more
    To help save Vietnam from the Vietnamese.
Four decades later, Bush is asking us to save Iraq from the Iraqis. 

There's always a problem with giving a junkie another fix.  It can only make things worse.  Our maximum leader says that unless he gets to mainline another 21,000 troops, "Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons," and terrorists "would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people." 

Excuse me, but didn't we hear that same promise in 2003?  Nearly four years ago, on the eve of invasion, this same George Bush promised, "The terrorist threat to America and the world will be diminished the moment that Saddam Hussein is disarmed."

A message from Leonard Peltier

"Much of the government's behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed."

BACKGROUND

For over 30 years I have sought justice from the United States Courts which have failed to provide me with any relief despite acknowledging numerous acts of Government misconduct. For example, after my trial, my lawyers issued Freedom of Information Act Requests ("FOIA") and discovered that the Government fabricated the ballistics evidence which it used at trial to argue that I shot the agents in cold blood. Once we revealed this egregious misconduct, the Government has had to admit on several occasions in open Court and before the Parole Commission that it could not prove I shot the agents and that it could not prove who shot the agents.

Why do we need a national conference for media reform?

Here's why.

Bush just connected Iraq to 9-11 again, and the media will not tell you it was a lie.

Bush just gave a list of reasons why this time his escalation of the war will work. The reasons amounted to:

1)We'll have more troops.
2)We'll go into neighborhoods holding hands with Iraqis
3)Maliki won't "tolerate" any interference

A minute later Bush told us there will still be IED attacks and suicide bombings. The media will not point out that such actions ought really to count as interference.

Bush just announced that he wanted to share Iraq's oil profits with all of the Iraqi people, and the media will not examine what Bush is actually doing or even question his right to determine what happens to Iraq's oil.

Bush just said that Al Qaeda is "still" active in Iraq, and the media will not tell you that Al Qaeda's activities in Iraq really began when Bush attacked and turned the country into a training ground for terrorism.

Bush just issued a vague threat to Iran and Syria, and the media will not question his right to do that or the sanity of doing so.

Out of Iraq and back to the American city

Dennis J. Kucinich, Democratic Candidate for President of the United States
10th Annual Wall Street Project Conference
Sheraton New York & Towers, Monday, January 8, 2007

We are losing our nation to a philosophy of war and destruction. It is time for policies of peace and construction. It is time for the philosophy of peace, nonviolence and economic justice. This was the philosophy of Dr. King, Gandhi, Jesus, Fredrick Douglas, A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, Fannie Lou Hamer, Sojourner Truth, Cesar Chavez, and Jesse Jackson.

We are all united with the philosophy which birthed the New Deal, the New Frontier, the Great Society, the dreams of social and economic justice which could be called forth by those who were ready to stand up, to speak out, to march, to demand, to testify about the good news:

National press conference for border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean

This Wednesday (Jan. 10, 2007) Grassfire will be in Washington, D.C. to present more than 200,000 petitions at a national press conference for border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

This could be the last opportunity to make a plea for these agents who are scheduled to begin their decade long prison terms on January 17!

These men have been abandoned by the justice system, and now with their final hours of freedom dwindling, we are calling on members of our team to help us make one final, energetic plea to pardon these men and right this wrong.

+ + Please Alert your Friends

We have just surpassed 200,000 petition signatures--with more than 40,000 new signers added over the last two weeks!

We have witnessed an incredible turnout on behalf of agents Ramos and Compean. And as we near this final press event, we want to punctuate this amazing show of support by adding an additional 15,000 signatures over the next 24 hours!

It is an aggressive push, but Americans are a great group, and if they are told of the plight of these two agents, they will react...

Stand up against the surge

The purpose of this old-fashioned newspaper crusade to stop the war is not to make George W. Bush look like the dumbest president ever. People have done dumber things. What were they thinking when they bought into the Bay of Pigs fiasco? How dumb was the Egypt-Suez war? How massively stupid was the entire war in Vietnam? Even at that, the challenge with this misbegotten adventure is that WE simply cannot let it continue.

            It is not a matter of whether we will lose or we are losing. We have lost. Gen. John P. Abizaid, until recently the senior commander in the Middle East, insists that the answer to our problems there is not military. "You have to internationalize the problem. You have to attack it diplomatically, geo-strategically," he said.

            His assessment is supported by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who only recommend releasing forces with a clear definition of the goals for the additional troops.

Mr. President, surge this

Here's a statement that's blasphemy both in the peace movement and in the halls of the warmongers:

Whether we escalate the war or not is unimportant. 

Here's the situation we're in.  President Bush and his gang lied us into a war.  The occupation of Iraq has nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction or 9-11 or Saddam Hussein or democracy or making Americans more safe.  There is no reason for this war respectable enough to discuss in public.  And so, the U.S. corporate media does not discuss the reason, or absence of any reason, for the war.  Instead we're treated to endless debates over whether the war is a civil war, or we're given hundreds of hours of coverage of a report that has no legal force and no coherent point to it.  Or we learn all about new appointees and how their personalities differ from those of the outgoing war-makers.  Or we learn about new committee chairs and power-shifts in Congress.  Or we hear about polls and surveys on the war.  Or media coverage focuses on whether to escalate the war by sending in an additional number of troops that is small relative to the number already there. 

If not now, when?

Passing the grim marker of 3,000 U.S. troops killed in Iraq briefly focused Americans’ attention on the war.  But we live in a big country with lots of malls. 

To be sure, the death of 3,000 soldiers is tragic and sickening, yet we are a nation of over 300 million and most families have not lost a loved one.  Even with some 32,000 G.I.’s requiring medical evacuation for wounds, most Americans still do not personally know a casualty of this war. 

But what if our fellow citizens were killed and wounded at the same rate as people in Iraq?  Here’s the math. 

Last fall the British medical journal “Lancet” published a study done by researchers from Johns Hopkins University estimating that the midrange number of Iraqis dead “as a consequence of the war” was about 2.5 percent of that country’s population, or roughly 655,000 people.  Over 90% of those died from violence.   

Comparable casualties in our country would mean that every person in Atlanta, Denver, Boston, Seattle, Milwaukee, Fort Worth, Baltimore, San Francisco, Dallas and Philadelphia would be dead.  Every.  Single.  Person. 

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