7/20/2015

BAUAW NEWSLETTER, MONDAY, JULY 20, 2015

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Support The Million People’s March

        The Black masses and workers’ movements
need bases of contending power!

Statement by The Black Workers League

The Million People’s March Against Police Brutality, Racial Injustice and Economic Inequality to be held in Newark, New Jersey on July 25th is attracting growing numbers of long term mainly Black, Latino, working-class and poor people’s mass organizations with constituencies that are the most victimized by the injustices perpetuated by the forces of the state and the capitalist one-percent.

More than 120 organizations have endorsed the March. And while POP (Peoples Organization for Progress) is mainly a state of New Jersey based organization, it is recognized by revolutionary and progressive forces nationally as a leading organization fighting for social, economic and racial justice and fundamental systemic change.

The police are the frontline military of the U.S. imperialist national state that occupy our communities; brutalize and kill our people; break labor strikes; patrol public schools; harass the homeless; support housing evictions; attack peaceful demonstrations; and form organizations that support killer cops and put up bounties for the capture, and execution of political prisoners and exiles.


The Israeli Defense Forces training of the heads and officers of U.S. police departments further points out that the U.S. government is orienting and militarizing the police as an occupation force. This is part of the U.S. imperialist global strategy of endless war and world domination often referred to as empire.

The largely spontaneous struggles across the U.S. responding to the extrajudicial police and racist vigilante killings of unarmed Blacks and Latinos have been inspired by slogans like No More Trayvonnes! Black Lives Matter!, Stop the War on Black America!, Hands Up Don’t Shoot!, and Fists Up Fight Back!. They have created a national sentiment anchored in the struggles against African American/Black and Latino national oppression and supported by white social justice allies, labor activists and students, in need of a national program.

This is a major reason why many on the Black left are studying and discussing a Draft Manifesto for Black Liberation and promoting a call for Black revolutionary and radical organizations to work together to hold a National Assembly for the Black Liberation Movement to unite the many battlefronts around a national/international strategic program of action.

The Million Peoples March is developing as a national rallying point for revolutionaries, civil and human rights forces and militants among the masses, that see the urgent need to build a national movement for mass based power that begins to unite the many battlefronts of the Black and general working-class against the increasing repression of the U.S. imperialist state. Contending power is the consciously organized power of the masses to challenge, disrupt, weaken and eventually eliminate the repressive functions of the state and the operations of the capitalist economy that create profits for the capitalist elites.

The intensifying impacts of the U.S. and global capitalist economic crisis on all oppressed and working-class communities, has led to the development of social movements and mass struggles, that if politically organized and nationally/internationally coordinated, would represent a major threat to the U.S. and global capitalist system.

The economic restructuring taking place over the past 30-plus years—the using of technology, temporary workers and government policies to force down wages, eliminate benefits, create massive unemployment and gentrify communities have create huge profits for the capitalist elites and intensified the peoples suffering.

The attacks on basic democracy—the laws and social policies that allow the working-class, women and nationally oppressed peoples to challenge many injustices in the courts, to hold protests in the streets and by labor strikes, have been weakened, eliminated and replaced by a police state. Legislation like the Trans Pacific Partnership that further structures U.S. and global capitalism in ways that deepen the economic and social crises for working people, are being fast tracked and developed in secret without public knowledge of the specific content.

These attacks on democracy shamelessly continued and intensified under the administration of Barak Obama, a Black president who promised to break with the injustices of the past. Yet he filled his administration with bankers, heads of big corporations and war hawks that create the economic, social and foreign policies that cause greater suffering not only for the masses of people in the U.S., but also for working-class and oppressed nations and peoples throughout the world from U.S. imperialist led wars, economic sanctions, blockades and forced regime changes.

The racist murders of the nine Black members in prayer session at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, grows out of a racist climate created by the capitalist ruling-class and the mainstream media that it owns and controls, and reinforced by the U.S. government, that is scapegoating Blacks, people of color and immigrants for the U.S. economic crisis.

The police killings of Blacks and Latinos every 28 hours, with the court’s ruling on the side of the police, and the militarization of the police, sends a message that Blacks are the enemy of U.S. democracy, national security and social privileges, that are shaped by the structural racism and white and male supremacy, that are deeply rooted in the capitalist and imperialist system.

POP has been a major force leading the struggles around the many issues impacting working-class Black and people of color communities. POP’s campaigns against the abuse police powers and the murders of the unarmed, has raised mass consciousness that led to the establishment of a city of Newark Community Control Board of the Police by way of an executive order issued by social justice activist and recently elected Mayor Raz Baraka.

The struggle for self-determination must be understood as a struggle for contending and transformative mass based Black, working-class and women’s power. Altering power relations that create greater levels of people’s democratic enforcement must be part of a transitional program to empower the masses over areas of the state, and over the means of production and services of the economy and the distribution of wealth, to address the needs of the masses of people.

A national campaign to establish community control of police boards with subpoena and disciplinary powers would help to build a national Black working-class led movement for contending power against the national police state. While a reform in that it does not end the capitalist system causing the oppression; it is a strategic reform that empowers the masses in struggling against the state repression that protects the capitalist ruling-class’ control over society.

The Million Peoples March should make the call for a national campaign to establish Community Control (not review) Boards of the Police with subpoena and disciplinary powers. This would represent an advance for the Newark board and would help to bring the spontaneous struggles across the U.S. under a national strategic demand and political direction.

However, it’s very important to remember, that community controlled police boards alone without a strong and well organized movement of mass based power, can become used by the state and opportunist forces of the Black political class, to bring about ineffective and unprincipled compromises that don’t serve the real interest of the people. The boards must be continuously transformed until they represent an aspect of people’s democratic control of the state as part of the struggle for self-determination and revolutionary change. It’s time to move from defensive spontaneity, to consciously organized and coordinated national and international resistance.

Black Workers League, July 15, 2015
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On Thursday, August 6, 2015 please join us for the Hiroshima commemoration, rally and nonviolent direct action, 8 AM at Livermore Lab, corner of Vasco Road and Patterson Pass Road in Livermore.

As we approach the 70th Anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, Daniel Ellsberg, Country Joe McDonald, Taiko drummers, A-bomb survivors and hundreds of peace advocates will gather at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab to shine light on the true cost of the nuclear age. On this major anniversary, we will confront the human, ethical, environmental, social and financial price that nuclear weapons are extracting from us – and, indeed, from all life on earth. And, together, we will act to change the future!

There will also be a pre-action organizing meeting in Berkeley on Saturday, July 11 at 10 AM.

For August 6 action and pre-action info…

We have downloadable fliers and more information on the web at:
http://www.trivalleycares.org/new/SaveDate.html

We have a Facebook page at:

August 6 Hiroshima Commemoration and Action at Livermore Lab


Please join us, let us know if your group would like to cosponsor the August 6 commemoration, and help us publicize the event with your members and friends.


More information, Tri-Valley CAREs, (925) 443-7148
www.trivalleycares.org
marylia@trivalleycares.org

Thanks!

###


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You care; We Care2.

Start a petition - we will help you win!

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Starting this September, Rising Tide North America is calling for mass actions to shut down the economic and political systems threatening our survival.

Already, hundreds of thousands are streaming into the streets to fight back against climate chaos, capitalism and white supremacy.

This wave of resistance couldn’t be more urgent. To stop climate chaos we need a phenomenal escalation in organizing, participation and tactical courage. We need a profound social transformation to uproot the institutions of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy, the systems that created the climate crisis. And we need to link arms with allies fighting for migrant justice, dignified work and pay, and an end to the criminalization and brutal policing of black and brown bodies.

We need to #FloodTheSystem.

In the lead up to the United Nations climate talks in Paris, in December, we will escalate local and regional resistance against systems that threaten our collective survival. Together, we will open alternative paths to the failing negotiations of political elites.

This is not another protest. It is a call for a massive economic and political intervention. It is a call to build the relationships needed to sustain our struggles for the long haul. To build popular power along the intersections of race, class, gender and ability. To collectively unleash our power and change everything.

The Story So Far

Over the past year, hundreds of thousands of people have flowed into the streets to fight back.

Fast food workers in over a hundred cities went on strike, with thousands arrested demanding $15 an hour and a union. Young people in Ferguson, protesting the murder of Michael Brown by Darren Wilson, showed us the power of sustained action as they fought back against state violence for weeks, reinvigorating a national movement for Black liberation. Hundreds of thousands of climate activists marched at the People’s Climate March in New York, and the next day Flood Wall Street shut down the heart of New York’s financial district.

Across the country, and the world, powerful movements are using nonviolent direct action to to disrupt business as usual and demand lasting systemic change.

These moments show that broad mobilization and disruption are ways that we can transform our society. It is time we move beyond conventional strategies. Its time we connect across movements and #FloodTheSystem.

Rising Tide North America and its allies call on communities, networks, affinity groups and organizations across the continent to join together this Fall to rapidly escalate the pace and scale of the anti-capitalist climate justice movements.

We need to wash away the root causes of climate change -- capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and colonialism. These systems enable the domination of people and Earth. They place gains for the elite before the well being of our communities.

To build the scale of movements necessary to take on this challenge, we need everyone. Using sustained, coordinated direct action we can bring more people into a movement for radical social transformation than ever before.

The upcoming United Nations meeting of the Conference of the Parties in Paris (COP 21) at the end of the year provide us with an opportunity. Framed as climate negotiations they are really about capitalism and the corporate elites. We have an opportunity to focus the debate on capitalism itself as negotiators wedded to and benefiting from the status quo refuse to discuss the systems that drive the crisis. This is a natural moment to preemptively highlight community resistance and radical alternatives in advance of another colossal failure of international leadership. Through our combined action we can turn the failure of these critical talks into a moment in which the systemic nature of the crisis moves to the center and in which our movements begin to connect and collaborate.

In the past, the climate movement has repeatedly tried days of action and one-day marches. While these have built important relationships, they have not created the sustained movement swells we need. To lay the groundwork for exponential movement growth we are asking groups to convene Action Councils, like those forming in the Pacific Northwest, California, Montana, Northeast and elsewhere, with the intention of coming together to organize sustained actions beginning in late Summer, continuing through November and beyond.

With luck, waves of mobilizations breaking across the continent and world will build off each other to create a flood of resistance to fossil fuel extraction, capitalism and colonialism.

Vision

#FloodTheSystem invites the Rising Tide network, the larger climate justice movements, and other non-climate focused groups to create a flood of massive economic and political disruption of the systems that allow the climate and economic crisis to continue to escalate. This is not a simple call to action or day of action, it’s a long-term process. We want to organize a series of actions that would:
  • Build a more robust anti-capitalist movement that clearly defines climate change as a symptom of capitalism. Specifically, we hope to support and catalyze regional organizing networks and relationships to challenge extreme energy infrastructure and the systems of oppression that enable it.
  • Build long term local, regional and continental networks that can continue to coordinate, build connections between movements, and escalate these fights in 2016 and beyond.
  • Begin to work closely with other movements through the analysis of where our struggles intersect and through a commitment to anti-oppressive organizing practices.
  • Share, implement and gain experience in innovative models of horizontal movement structures and mass democracy in organizing that will serve radical forces for the long haul.
  • Create a flood of energy within regions that inspires others to join in with organic, spontaneous actions and organizing. Regional blocks of escalating action are already planned that will lead into, and play off, each other. More emerge everyday.
  • Preemptively highlight community resistance and real alternatives to the fossil fuel economy ahead of the inevitable colossal failure by global elites at the United Nations climate negotiations in Paris.

Principles

#FloodTheSystem will organize and act according to the following principles.
  • Anti-capitalism/colonialism/racism/patriarchy - We see the climate crisis as a symptom of hierarchical social systems based upon domination and exploitation of lands, and predominately people of color. Addressing the crisis at its roots means joining with and supporting those who are fighting for liberation from these and other oppressive systems, and for their replacement with relations based upon equity, mutual aid, and ecological stewardship.
  • Grassroots Led, NGOs in Support Role - Non-profits and NGOs often function to co-opt and defuse resistance into reform-based avenues which are amenable to the social systems we are ultimately seeking to dismantle and replace. The priorities of this mobilization should be driven by groups grounded in and accountable to the communities most impacted by white supremacy, capitalism, and settler colonialism, with NGOs in a support role -- not the other way around.
  • Community-Based Alternatives - Corporations, nation-states, and multilateral institutions like the United Nations are integral pillars upholding global capitalism and colonialism. We see alternatives to extreme energy and the climate crisis arising out of social struggles which challenge and seek to replace these institutions and their logics. However, we recognize that there may be important defensive struggles within the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, such as fighting the expansion of carbon markets or advancing state recognition of Indigenous land rights.

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Free Albert Woodfox!

On June 8, 2015 a federal judge granted Louisiana prisoner Albert Woodfox unconditional release. Albert's conviction had already been overturned three times - most recently in 2013 - yet every time the state has appealed.

Today, Albert is still behind bars after spending four decades in cruel, unjust solitary confinement. He believes that he and fellow prisoners, Herman Wallace and Robert King, were first placed in solitary confinement in retaliation for their activism. All three men were members of the Black Panther Party. Together, they came to be known as the Angola 3.

It is time for the State of Louisiana to stop standing in the way of justice. Call on Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal to ensure Albert's cruel and unjust confinement is not his legacy. Learn more

http://act.amnestyusa.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1839&ea.campaign.id=35593&ea.tracking.id=Country_USA~MessagingCategory_PrisonersandPeopleatRisk&ac=W1506EAIAR2&ea.url.id=414689&forwarded=true

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Amnesty for all those arrested demanding justice for Freddie Gray!

Amnesty for ALL those arrested
demanding justice for Freddie Gray!

Sign and distribute the petition to drop the charges!
Spread this effort with #Amnesty4Baltimore

"A riot is the language of the unheard"
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

An estimated 300 people have been arrested in Baltimore in the last two weeks. Many have been brutalized, beaten and pepper-sprayed by police in the streets, and held for days in inhumane conditions. Those arrested include journalists, medics and legal observers.

One individual arrested for property destruction of a police vehicle is now facing life in prison and is being held on $500,000 bail. That's $150,000 more than the officer charged with the murder of Freddie Gray.  

The legal system has made it clear that they care more about broken windows than broken necks; more about a CVS than the lives of Baltimore's Black residents.

They showed no hesitation in arresting Baltimore's protesters and rebels, and sending in the National Guard, but took 19 days to put a single one of the killer cops in handcuffs. This was the outrageous double standard that led to the Baltimore Uprising.

 Sign the petition to drop the charges on all who have been arrested.

Petition to Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake

Download PDF of Petition 

http://www.answercoalition.org/amnesty_for_all_those_arrested_demanding_justice_for_freddie_gray?utm_campaign=baltimore_amn1&utm_medium=email&utm_source=answercoalition

Amn3.pngMayor Stephanie C. Rawlings-Blake
City Hall, Room 250,
100 North Holliday St.,
Baltimore, MD 21202

Dear Mayor Rawlings-Blake:

I stand in solidarity with those in Baltimore who are demanding that all charges be dropped against those who rose up against racism, police brutality, oppressive social conditions and delay of justice in the case of Freddie Gray. The whole world now recognizes that were it not for this powerful grassroots movement, in all its forms, there would be no indictment.

It is an outrage that peaceful protesters have been brutalized, beaten and pepper-sprayed by police in the streets, and held for days in inhumane conditions. Those arrested include journalists and legal observers.

Even the youth who are charged with property destruction and looting should be given an amnesty. There is no reason a teenager -- provoked by racists and justifiably angry -- should be facing life in prison for breaking the windows of a police car.

The City of Baltimore should work to rectify the conditions that led to this Uprising, rather than criminalizing those who took action in response to those conditions. Drop the charges now!

Sincerely,
[add your name below]

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CANCEL ALL STUDENT DEBT!

Sign the Petition:

http://cancelallstudentdebt.com/?code=kos



Dear President Obama, Senators, and Members of Congress:


Americans now owe $1.3 trillion in student debt. Eighty-six percent of that money is owed to the United States government. This is a crushing burden for more than 40 million Americans and their families.

I urge you to take immediate action to forgive all student debt, public and private.

American Federation of Teachers
Campaign for America's Future
Courage Campaign
Daily Kos
Democracy for America
LeftAction
Project Springboard
RH Reality Check
RootsAction
Student Debt Crisis
The Nation
Working Families


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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter

Table of Contents:

A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS

B. ARTICLES IN FULL



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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS


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More on Mumia's Medical Needs

Mumia Abu-Jamal's will to live and his commitment to telling the truth is matched by our collective resolve to see him well and free. 

Please take action again. Please know that your calls, letters, emails, and faxes (even the ones that they hang up on or seem to ignore) are the only reason that he was given diagnostic testing.  Mumia is still weak, in a wheelchair, and his legs are bandaged heavily. He has still not been given a diagnosis or a treatment plan. Mumia needs a plan that will address the underlying causes of his chronic and potentially life threatening conditions. Please know that his mind is clear, and his energy is returning. He sends his love and his understanding- that because you took action, he is alive.

Mumia spent nine days Geisinger Medical Center in Danville PA, and is now back in the infirmary at SCI Mahanoy. Our actions today will ensure that Mumia receives the urgent diagnosis and medical treatment.

In the latest outrage, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections is refusing to release Mumia's medical records. Their excuse- that Bret Grote from the Abolitionist Law Center and co-counsel Bob Boyle went to federal court to demand that his lawyers and family be allowed to advise and see him while he was hospitalized. Holding Mumia's medical records is simply retaliation for exercising his constitutional right to access to the courts.

And It is a direct attack on his ability to get expert advice and care. They are preventing Mumia and his doctor from seeing these critical records, at a time when his condition, while stable, remains serious.

Act Now.  

1. Call the Prison, the Governor, and the DOC. Demand that they release Mumia's medical records immediately (see numbers below).

2. Make a Gift to Prison Radio. We took a risk: we fronted $4K dollars so that we could place a full page Ad in The Nation Magazine. It appears in the June 1st issue. Stand with us as we amplify this message. Please give now. Then sign this important letter.

3. Make a gift to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Medical and Legal Fund. Help us get independent medical care for Mumia. We are still in need of funds for life sustaining advocacy and care. Click here to give.
Call, write and fax today!

John Kerestes, Superintendent SCI Mahanoy
Address: 301 Morea Road, Frackville, PA 17932
Phone: 570-773-2158 x8102
Fax: 570-783-2008

Secretary John Wetzel, Pennsylvania Department of Corrections
Address: 1920 Technology Parkway, Mechanicsburg, PA 17050
Phone:  717-728-4109, 717-728-2573
E-mail: ra-crpadocsecretary@pa.gov

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf
Address: 508 Main Capitol Building, Harrisburg, PA 17120
Phone:  717-787-2500
Fax: 717-772-8284
Email: governor@pa.gov
                      
Your support of Prison Radio allowed us to recently record: Mumia Abu-Jamal, Kenneth Hartman, Reverend Edward Pinkney, Shaka Zulu, Jane Dorotik, Bill Dunne, Bryant Arroyo, Troy Thomas, Mondo We Langa (David Rice), and more.

Mumia's and other commentators' searing truth is needed on the radio. Listen to these commentaries at prisonradio.org.

Mumia Abu-Jamal:
137 Shots (2:00)

Kenneth Hartman:
Stop Strip Searching My Mom (4:21)

Bryant Arroyo:
The Unconstitutional AEDPA (11:06)
As you know, we are pulling out all the stops to free Mumia and keep him alive. Together with International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal & the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC) we placed this full page Ad in The Nation Magazine. Please print it out and share it with friends. Please sign it at bit.ly/OpenLetterForMumia. Please help us print this Ad. It is costing $4K to design, print and motivate. Please take a moment to help Prison Radio make it happen, by sending a gift now.

Support Prison Radio

$35 to become a member.

$50 to become a member and receive a beautiful tote bag. Or call us to special order a yoga mat bag.

$100 to become a member and receive the DVD "Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary."

$300 to become a member and bring one essay to the airwaves.

$1,000 (or $88 per month) will make you a member of our Prison Radio Freedom Circle. Thank you!
Support Prison Radio

To give by check:
Prison Radio/Redwood Justice Fund
PO Box 411074
San Francisco, CA
94141

Stock or legacy gifts:
Noelle Hanrahan
(415) 706 - 5222
Prison Radio is a project of the Redwood Justice Fund a CA 501c3 non profit.

Prison Radio has recorded Mumia and other political prisoners for over 25 years, and we are pulling out all the stops to keep these voices on the air. 

Please donate today to amplify prisoners' voices far and wide beyond the bars:

     Support Prison Radio: prisonradio.org/donate
     Defeat SB 508: bit.ly/defendfreespeech


Copyright © Prison Radio

www,prisonradio.org 415-706-5222

Our mailing address is:

Prison Radio PO Box 411074, SF CA 94141

http://us10.campaign-archive2.com/?u=247585f092e945ff55b9a1bb2&id=e113d0b6d0&e=0107d76ccd

Donate Now

$35 is the yearly membership.

$50 will get you a beautiful tote bag (you can special order a yoga mat bag, just call us).

$100 will get the DVD "Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary"

$300 will bring one essay to the airwaves.

$1000 (or $88.83 per month) will make you a member of our Prison Radio Freedom Circle. Take a moment and Support Prison Radio

Luchando por la justicia y la libertad,

Noelle Hanrahan, Director, Prison Radio

PRISON RADIO

P.O. Box 411074 San Francisco, CA 94141

www.prisonradio.org
info@prisonradio.org 415-706-5222


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The  Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Mobilizes Support Internationally:
No Execution by Medical Neglect!

International Unions Demand Decent Medical Treatment for Mumia Abu-Jamal


June 2, 2015

Mumia Abu-Jamal was recently sent back to prison after having been hospitalized for the second time. There are some reports that his health is improving. He said to Suzanne Ross of the International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal that “if there had not been an international outcry about the lack of appropriate treatment, in fact AGAINST the 'treatment' that was bringing him so close to death, he was sure he would not be alive today”.

In some good news, he was also told by the prison doctor that his biopsy results came back negative.
However, neither Mumia nor his wife, lawyers or consulting doctors have been seen the actual medical reports detailing his condition. The Department of Corrections refuses to hand over his medical records, claiming that they don't have to hand them over because there is litigation to have them released! Denying Mumia and his family his medical records is an outrage!
We would like to inform you about some recent actions taken by unions around the world on behalf of Mumia.

- Unite, the largest union in the UK, representing over 1.4 million members, wrote letters to Governor Tom Wolf, Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel and Legal Counsel Theron Perez protesting Mumia's treatment.

- The International Dockworkers Council, representing 90,000 dockworkers from affiliated unions around the world, wrote an appeal to the labor movement calling for action on behalf of Mumia.
- The Inlandboatmen's Union of the Pacific sent a protest letter to Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel.

We hope that you will continue to take action on behalf of Mumia. Please call and email Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel and demand the following:

1) Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man! He should be freed immediatel
2) Confirm what Mumia's medical condition is. Release his medical records to his family and lawyers!

3) Allow Mumia to be given medical treatment from a doctor of his choice. His doctor should be allowed to conduct an on-site medical examination, to communicate by phone with Mumia, and to communicate freely with prison medical staff.

4) Allow Mumia daily visits from his family, friends and lawyers!

5) Conduct an independent investigation of healthcare treatment inside the Pennsylvania prison system!
DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS, SECRETARY JOHN WETZEL 717 728 4109

We are also attaching a sample union resolution for you to use as a template. Please consider submitting it to your union and asking them to take action on behalf of Mumia. We would also be happy to work with you and make a presentation to your union or community group about his condition.

The Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jam


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Campaign to Free Lorenzo Johnson

Lorenzo Speaks Concerning Prosecution's Brief:

JANUARY 1, 2015—The prosecutor has run away from (almost) every issue raised in my PCRA by begging the Court to dismiss everything as “untimely”. When they don’t do this, they suggest that me and my lawyers were “defamatory” towards either my former prosecutor Christopher Abruzzo or Detective Kevin Duffin, in our claims they withheld, misused or hid evidence of my Innocence, in order to secure an unjust conviction in this case. If I charged, a year ago, that about a dozen AGs (attorneys general) were involved in circulating porno via their office computers, people would’ve laughed at me, and seen me as crazy.

But, guess what? During 2014, we learned that this was the truth. How can it be defamatory to speak the truth? Notice the OAG (Office of Attorney General), never said the obvious: That AG Abruzzo didn’t inform the Defense about the relationship between his Motive Witness and his head detective (Victoria Doubs and Det. Duffin); that Det. Duffin doesn’t deny Doubs was his god-sister, and that she lived in his family home, or that he assisted her whenever she got into trouble.

Why not? Because it is true. How can you defame someone who defames himself? Mr. Christopher Abruzzo, Esq., when a member of the higher ranks of the OAG, sent and/or received copious amounts of porno to other attorneys general and beyond. What does this say about his sense of judgment? He thought enough about his behavior to resign from his post in the Governor’s Cabinet. If he thought that his behavior was okay, he’d still be sitting in the Governor’s cabinet, right? The OAG cannot honestly oppose anything we’ve argued, but they try by seeking to get the Court to do their dirty work, how? By denying an Evidentiary Hearing to prove every point we’ve claimed.

The prosecution is trying desperately to avoid dealing with the substance of my claims in Com. v. Lorenzo Johnson. So, they slander my Legal Team and blame them for defaming the good AG’s and Cops involved with this case. They try to do what is undeniable, to deny that they hid evidence from the Defense for years. They blamed me for daring to protest the hidden evidence of their malfeasance and other acts to sabotage the defense. They claim that they had an “Open File” policy with my trial counsel. But “Open File” is more than letting an attorney read something in their office. If it’s a search for the truth it must include what is turned over to the attorney, for how do we really know what was shown to her?

They say it is inconceivable that an attorney would read a file, beginning on page nine (9), and not ask for the preceding eight (8) pages. Yet, it is conceivable if trial counsel was ineffective for not demanding the record of the first eight pages. Pages that identify the State’s only witness as a “SUSPECT” in the murder for which her client was charged! How could such an attorney fail to recognize the relevance of such an issue, barring their sheer Ineffectiveness and frankly, Incompetence.

By seeking to avoid an evidentiary hearing, the prosecution seeks to avoid evidence of their wrongdoing being made plain, for all to see. If they believe I’m wrong, why not prove it? They can’t. So they shout I filed my appeal untimely, as if there can ever justly be a rule that precludes an innocent from proving his innocence! Not to mention the fact that the prosecution has failed to even mention the positive finger prints that ay my trial they said none existed. Don’t try to hide it with a lame argument about time. When isn’t there a time for truth? The prosecution should be ashamed of itself for taking this road. It is unworthy of an office that claims to seek justice.

After the trial verdict The Patriot-News (March 18, 1997) reported, “Deputy Attorney General Christopher Abruzzo admitted there were some serious concerns about the strength of the evidence against Johnson and praised the jury for doing a thorough job.” I guess he forgot to mention all of the evidence he left out to show Innocence.

Now, more than ever, Lorenzo Johnson needs your support.

Publicize his case; bring it to your friends, clubs, religious

and social organizations.

SIGN LORENZO JOHNSON'S FREEDOM PETITION

http://www.freelorenzojohnson.org/sign-the-petition.html

CONTRIBUTE TO LORENZO'S CAMPAIGN FOR FREEDOM!

http://www.freelorenzojohnson.org/how-can-i-help.html

Write: Lorenzo Johnson, DF 1036

            SCI Mahanoy

            301 Morea Rd.

            Frackville, PA 17932

 Email: Lorenzo Johnson through JPAY.com code:

              Lorenzo Johnson DF 1036 PA DOC


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Join the Fight to Free Rev. Pinkney!

Click HERE to view in browser

http://www.iacenter.org/prisoners/freepinkney-1-28-15/
   

On December 15, 2014 the Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan was thrown into prison for 2.5 to 10 years. This 66-year-old leading African American activist was tried and convicted in front of an all-white jury and racist white judge and prosecutor for supposedly altering 5 dates on a recall petition against the mayor of Benton Harbor.

The prosecutor, with the judge’s approval, repeatedly told the jury “you don’t need evidence to convict Mr. Pinkney.” And ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE WAS EVER PRESENTED THAT TIED REV. PINKNEY TO THE ‘ALTERED’ PETITIONS. Rev. Pinkney was immediately led away in handcuffs and thrown into Jackson Prison.

This is an outrageous charge. It is an outrageous conviction. It is an even more outrageous sentence! It must be appealed.

With your help supporters need to raise $20,000 for Rev. Pinkney’s appeal.

Checks can be made out to BANCO (Black Autonomy Network Community Organization). This is the organization founded by Rev. Pinkney.  Mail them to: Mrs. Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union Street, Benton Harbor, MI 49022.

Donations can be accepted on-line at bhbanco.org – press the donate button.

For information on the decade long campaign to destroy Rev. Pinkney go to bhbanco.org and workers.org(search “Pinkney”).

We urge your support to the efforts to Free Rev. Pinkney!Ramsey Clark – Former U.S. attorney general,
Cynthia McKinney – Former member of U.S. Congress,
Lynne Stewart – Former political prisoner and human rights attorney
Ralph Poynter – New Abolitionist Movement,
Abayomi Azikiwe – Editor, Pan-African News Wire<
Larry Holmes – Peoples Power Assembly,
David Sole – Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice
Sara Flounders – International Action Center

MESSAGE FROM REV. PINKNEY

I am now in Marquette prison over 15 hours from wife and family, sitting in prison for a crime that was never committed. Judge Schrock and Mike Sepic both admitted there was no evidence against me but now I sit in prison facing 30 months. Schrock actually stated that he wanted to make an example out of me. (to scare Benton Harbor residents even more...) ONLY IN AMERICA. I now have an army to help fight Berrien County. When I arrived at Jackson state prison on Dec. 15, I met several hundred people from Detroit, Flint, Kalamazoo, and Grand Rapids. Some people recognized me. There was an outstanding amount of support given by the prison inmates. When I was transported to Marquette Prison it took 2 days. The prisoners knew who I was. One of the guards looked me up on the internet and said, "who would believe Berrien County is this racist." 

Background to Campaign to free Rev. Pinkney

Michigan political prisoner the Rev. Edward Pinkney is a victim of racist injustice. He was sentenced to 30 months to 10 years for supposedly changing the dates on 5 signatures on a petition to recall Benton Harbor Mayor James Hightower.

No material or circumstantial evidence was presented at the trial that would implicate Pinkney in the purported5 felonies. Many believe that Pinkney, a Berrien County activist and leader of the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO), is being punished by local authorities for opposing the corporate plans of Whirlpool Corp, headquartered in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

In 2012, Pinkney and BANCO led an “Occupy the PGA [Professional Golfers’ Association of America]” demonstration against a world-renowned golf tournament held at the newly created Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course on the shoreline of Lake Michigan. The course was carved out of Jean Klock Park, which had been donated to the city of Benton Harbor decades ago.

Berrien County officials were determined to defeat the recall campaign against Mayor Hightower, who opposed a program that would have taxed local corporations in order to create jobs and improve conditions in Benton Harbor, a majority African-American municipality. Like other Michigan cities, it has been devastated by widespread poverty and unemployment.

The Benton Harbor corporate power structure has used similar fraudulent charges to stop past efforts to recall or vote out of office the racist white officials, from mayor, judges, prosecutors in a majority Black city. Rev Pinkney who always quotes scripture, as many Christian ministers do, was even convicted for quoting scripture in a newspaper column. This outrageous conviction was overturned on appeal. We must do this again!

To sign the petition in support of the Rev. Edward Pinkney, log on to: tinyurl.com/ps4lwyn.

Contributions for Rev. Pinkney’s defense can be sent to BANCO at Mrs Dorothy Pinkney, 1940 Union St., Benton Harbor, MI 49022

Or you can donate on-line at bhbanco.org.

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COURAGE TO RESIST

http://couragetoresist.org/

New Action--write letters to DoD officials requesting clemency for Chelsea!

Secretary of the Army John McHugh

President Obama has delegated review of Chelsea Manning’s clemency appeal to individuals within the Department of Defense.

Please write them to express your support for heroic WikiLeaks’ whistle-blower former US Army intelligence analyst PFC Chelsea Manning’s release from military prison.

It is important that each of these authorities realize the wide support that Chelsea (formerly Bradley) Manning enjoys worldwide. They need to be reminded that millions understand that Manning is a political prisoner, imprisoned for following her conscience. While it is highly unlikely that any of these individuals would independently move to release Manning, a reduction in Manning’s outrageous 35-year prison sentence is a possibility at this stage.

Take action TODAY – Write letters supporting Chelsea’s clemency petition to the following DoD authorities:

Secretary of the Army John McHugh

101 Army Pentagon

Washington, DC 20310-0101

The Judge Advocate General

2200 Army Pentagon

Washington, DC 20310-2200

Army Clemency and Parole Board

251 18th St, Suite 385

Arlington, VA 22202-3532

Directorate of Inmate Administration

Attn: Boards Branch

U.S. Disciplinary Barracks

1301 N. Warehouse Road

Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027-2304

Suggestions for letters send to DoD officials:

The letter should focus on your support for Chelsea Manning, and especially why you believe justice will be served if Chelsea Manning’s sentence is reduced.  The letter should NOT be anti-military as this will be unlikely to help.

A suggested message: “Chelsea Manning has been punished enough for violating military regulations in the course of being true to her conscience.  I urge you to use your authorityto reduce Pvt. Manning’s sentence to time served.”  Beyond that general message, feel free to personalize the details as to why you believe Chelsea deserves clemency.

Consider composing your letter on personalized letterhead -you can create this yourself (here are templates and some tips for doing that).

A comment on this post will NOT be seen by DoD authorities–please send your letters to the addresses above

This clemency petition is separate from Chelsea Manning’s upcoming appeal before the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals next year, where Manning’s new attorney Nancy Hollander will have an opportunity to highlight the prosecution’s—and the trial judge’s—misconduct during last year’s trial at Ft. Meade, Maryland.

Help us continue to cover 100% of Chelsea’s legal fees at this critical stage!


Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org


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B. ARTICLES IN FULL


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1) Eric Garner’s Family Says Settlement Will Not Stall Push for Police Reform
“It’s a buyout without justice,” ...“They pay us out without the justice. Where’s the justice at?” 


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2) Puerto Rico, Running Short of Cash, Misses a Debt Payment


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3) Video of 2013 Police Shooting of Unarmed Man Renews Familiar Questions


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4) One Year Later, Remembering Eric Garner




A year after Eric Garner was killed by a police officer who placed him in a chokehold, a cloud of anger and impatience still hangs over the streets of Tompkinsville, Staten Island.

Drawn by what he called a “trauma” that he said paralleled his own experience growing up in post-apartheid South Africa, the photographer Gareth Smit returned to these streets with his camera again and again. Over a period of five months, he earned the trust of Mr. Garner’s friends and relatives.

Mr. Smit’s photographs tell two stories. One captures the ordinary lives of black Staten Island residents in the kind of images that are often overshadowed by the popular perception of the borough as overwhelmingly white. The other involves the varied ways that the people who live in the neighborhood mourn Mr. Garner’s death. Some march. Some sing. Some look after the plastic box that marks the spot where he was wrestled to the ground.

Mr. Smit was present when Mr. Garner’s 1-year-old daughter, Legacy, and her mother, Jewel Miller, attended a court hearing in support of Ramsey Orta, the man who filmed the fatal confrontation with the police. He visited Ms. Miller’s family in her Tompkinsville duplex, where three generations doted on Legacy.

While some of Mr. Garner’s relatives have left Staten Island, most of his friends remain. For them, his death was a public retelling of the racism they describe facing in Tompkinsville, their own nightmare caught on video to be replayed over and over again.

Some have called this the post-Garner era for New York City, referring to the push for police reforms his death helped spawn. In Tompkinsville, that moment — the chokehold, the limp body, the crush of officers — has yet to fade.

Gareth Smit is an independent visual storyteller currently based in New York. Born in Heidelberg, South Africa, he began his career as a freelance photographer at Independent Newspapers in Cape Town. Smit is a recent alumnus of the International Center of Photography, which he attended through the support of a fellowship from the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust and the Alan L. Model Scholarship from ICP.




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5) British Pilots Have Been Conducting Airstrikes in Syria, Defense Ministry Confirms


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6) Egyptian Forces Kill 6 Protesters During Clashes


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7) Friends and Family Ask if Policing Has Changed Since Eric Garner’s Death
"'Every time that man applied for a job, he was denied,' Mr. Reed said of Mr. Garner. 'That’s the type of thing I don’t think has changed.'”


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8) Coal Miners Struggle to Survive in an Industry Battered by Layoffs and Bankruptcy


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9) Judges Rebuke Limits on Wiping Out Student Loan Debt


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10) Ku Klux Klan and New Black Panther Party Protest at South Carolina Capitol


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11) Protesters Confront Candidates on Race at Netroots Nation Conference


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12) Family Renews Calls for Civil Rights Charges a Year After Garner’s Death


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13) Sandra and Kindra: Suicides or Something Sinister?
By Charles M. Blow


Although the mantra “Black Lives Matter” was developed by black women, I often worry that in the collective consciousness it carries with it an implicit masculine association, one that renders subordinate or even invisible the very real and concurrent subjugation and suffering of black women, one that assigns to these women a role of supporter and soother and without enough space or liberty to express and advocate for their own.

Last week, the prism shifted a bit, as America and the social justice movement focused on the mysterious cases of two black women who died in police custody.

The first and most prominent was Sandra Bland, a black woman from suburban Chicago who had moved to Texas to take a job at her alma mater, Prairie View A & M University, a historically black school about 50 miles northwest of Houston.

She never started that job. After being arrested following a traffic stop, Bland was found dead in her jail cell. The police say she killed herself. Her family and friends doubt it.


As The New York Times reported last week: Bland “was arrested last Friday in Waller County by an officer with the Texas Department of Public Safety on a charge of assaulting a public servant. She had been pulled over for failing to signal a lane change.”

The Times continued:

“A statement from the Waller County Sheriff’s Office said that the cause of Ms. Bland’s death appeared to be self-inflicted asphyxiation. An autopsy on Tuesday classified her death as suicide by hanging, according to The Chicago Tribune.”

Indeed, the Waller County district attorney, Elton Mathis, told a Houston station last week: “I will admit it is strange someone who had everything going for her would have taken her own life.”

According to NBC News, Mathis also said: “If there was something nefarious, or if there was some foul play involved, we’ll get to the bottom of that.”

The F.B.I. has joined that investigation.

Then, there was the case of 18-year-old Kindra Chapman, arrested on Tuesday in Alabama for allegedly stealing a cellphone. According to AL.com: “Jailers last saw her alive at 6:30 p.m. She was found unresponsive at 7:50 p.m. Authorities said she used a bed sheet to hang herself.” According to the paper, she had been booked in the Homewood City Jail at 6:22 p.m.

The deaths seem odd: young women killing themselves after only being jailed only a few days or a less than a couple hours, before a trial or conviction, for relatively minor crimes.

And the official explanations that they were suicides run counter to prevailing patterns of behavior as documented by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which has found that, on the whole, men are more likely to commit suicide in local jails than women, young people are less likely to do so than older people, and black people are the least likely to do so than any other racial or ethnic group.

That doesn’t mean that these women didn’t commit suicide, but it does help to explain why their coinciding deaths might be hard for people to accept.

Indeed, because state violence echoes through the African-American experience in this country, it is even understandable if black people might occasionally experience a sort of Phantom Lynching Syndrome, having grown so accustomed to the reality of a history of ritualized barbarism that they would sense its presence even in its absence.We have to wait to see what, if any, new information comes out about these cases. But it is right to resist simple explanations for extraordinary events.

These black women’s live must matter enough for there to be full investigations of the events surrounding their deaths to assure their families and the public that no “foul play” was involved.

Women are not adjuncts to this movement for social justice and the equal valuation of all lives; they are elemental to it.

The same week that news broke about these black women found dead in their jail cells, Google celebrated the 153rd birthday of anti-lynching advocate Ida B. Wells with a Google Doodle image. There seemed to me a fortuitous righteousness in the timing, an aligning of stars, an act of cosmic symmetry: celebrating a black female civil rights icon at the very moment that black females were the singular focus of the present civil rights movement.

Wells once said: “Somebody must show that the Afro-American race is more sinned against than sinning, and it seems to have fallen upon me to do so.”

I think that this burden of proof remains, and in this moment has gathered onto itself an increased, incandescent urgency, “like the light from a fire which consumes a witch,” as James Baldwin once phrased it.

In this moment, it falls to many of us to take up the mantle and articulate and illuminate the balance of the sinning against, vs. the sinning, for both black men and women alike.

This week that means investigating the “suicides” of Sandra and Kindra.

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14) Morgan Stanley’s Profit Tops Estimates

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/21/business/dealbook/morgan-stanleys-profit-tops-estimates.html?ref=business

Morgan Stanley reported second-quarter results on Monday that were stronger than expected, as trading revenue and its wealth management business drove a 13 percent gain in net revenue.

The Wall Street firm earned $1.8 billion, or 85 cents a share, down from $1.9 billion in the quarter a year earlier. Revenue rose to $9.7 billion from $8.6 billion.

Excluding charges related to it debt and a tax benefit in the previous year, Morgan Stanley earned $1.7 billion, or 79 cents a share, compared with $1.2 billion in the quarter a year ago.

Analysts had been expecting earnings of 74 cents a share, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

Although the firm has shifted its focus toward wealth management in recent years, the results for a second-consecutive quarter were buoyed largely by the firm’s traditional trading business.

Revenue from trading in bonds and commodities rose 30 percent, to $1.3 billion, from the quarter a year ago.

That strong performance was something of a surprise because other big banks said last week that revenue from their fixed-income trading desks dropped from a year ago.

Morgan Stanley’s results looked good in part because it had a particularly bad quarter last year, but the bank was also helped by strength in areas such as currency trading, where competitors were weaker.

In a call with analysts, the firm’s chief executive, James P. Gorman, played down a recent report in The Wall Street Journal that said that Morgan Stanley was beefing up its fixed-income, commodities and currency trading business after years of cutting it back.

“Don’t believe everything you read in the press,” Mr. Gorman said.

Revenue from stock sales and trading also rose 28 percent, to $2.3 billion.

Wealth management, the firm’s most promising unit since the financial crisis, continued to deliver strong results, with pretax income from continuing operations rising 16 percent, to $885 million, from the quarter a year ago.

On the call with analysts on Monday morning, Mr. Gorman was joined by Jonathan Pruzan, the firm’s new chief financial officer. Mr. Pruzan recently took over from Ruth Porat, who left to take the same position at Google.

“We delivered a strong quarter across each of our businesses, through client-focused execution, expense discipline and prudent risk management,” Mr. Gorman said Monday in a statement.

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