Blog #35: Proposal for Open Discussion

As we witness the growing frustration of young people to police profiling and terror and economic injustice in urban cities across the country, it is extremely important for activists to recognize the potential for building a revolutionary determination. However, in order to do so, we need to recognize a revolution is not a series of events or insurrections. While young people vent their anger, and emotional outlet and expression of defiance to racist repression, it is not necessarily a progressive determination. It is incumbent on seasoned activists to be able to shape and mold these emotional responses into defined tactics and strategy with the capacity to forge long-term vision that seeks to create the capacity to build a new country.

More specifically, based on my last two blogs,“Future Focus” and "Towards a National Coaliton for a Changed America," the interest cultivated by some activists in building the Million Youth Independence Day March 2016 (MY-ID March), requires more definitive debate. In fact it is hoped soon activists will officially announce the national mobilization to organize and build MY-ID March 2016.

In some of my correspondence on this task, broadening the potential for a successful national determination, it has been suggested it would be a three day program. The first day will be a march and rally demanding the three principle issues raised in Future Focus blog: the second day, a plenary session and strategy meetings held at Howard University, the theme being "A Changed America 2020"—to further consolidate discussion for the National Coalition and the agreement on a national agenda; on the third day, Cultural Events and the reading of the agreed Statement of Points of Unity for building the National Coalition, etc.

My thinking is this objective would be a way for activists of the 60's and 70's era to pass the torch to the next generation leading into the 2020 election year, etc. If there is to be a "last hurrah" for the former generation of activists (some disagree with this notion) and revolutionaries, I believe it is appropriate for us to create a political environment conducive to a vision of the future that supports a revolutionary determination, having passed on lessons learned.

Therefore, I am requesting all folks out of the woodwork in a generational effort to support the Million Youth Independence Day March for 2016. Also, as part of the organizing process, activists will be demanding the issues we intend to rally around are made part of the national debate during the election year. Just as Climate Change and Same-Sex Marriage are expected to be contending issues during the election year, we want to make sure our concerns and issues are made part of the national debate. In this way, we empower the youth in demanding the government be responsive to this organizing agenda. Naturally, when the government/elite fails to be responsive and resists substantial institutional change, it gives credence for the need to build the National Coalition with the theme "A Changed America for 2020." I am confident the majority of long time and young activists will recognize the potential for this national mobilization to be a deciding historical course of action, subject to establishing a mass and popular movement.

Needless to say, it is time for us to pursue a more politically forceful national determination. Naturally, if we can get as many of the "old heads" to support this initiative, to at minimun enter dialogue with others across the country abut building a National Coalition for a Changed America, to evolve out of the Million Youth Independence Day March (MY-ID March) 2016, it would be a huge accomplishment with revolutionary significance. Therefore, as part of this organizing determation, it would be necessary to divide the country into organizing regions, with each region forming coalitions bulding toward the national mobilization. Each region will be responsible to discuss the issues and develop points of unity on the issues presented inFuture Focus, to be formalized during the plenary sessions and strategy meetings on the second day of the Million Youth Independence Day March to form the national agenda of "A Changed America 2020."

Needless to say, our ultimate goal is to envision and manifest the Power of the People encompassing our collective humanity. To live in a world absent of class exploitation and racist divisions forging the mass and popular movement for a Changed America.

Respectfully submitted,
Jalil A. Muntaqim
Attica, April 2015

http://www.freejalil.com/blog35.html
Write to Jalil:
Anthony J. Bottom #77A4283
Attica Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 149

Elephants vs. Tigers

Made in 400 years of racist suppression,                                        

now only 150 years of Black decompression,
a mental time machine envisioning a future
after this seemingly endless war.

I emerge from the black-hole of
white supremacy in a quantum leap,
Dark Matter compressed into an atomic
fusion of ancestral revolutionary
determination.

Black Lives Matter! Opposing the white
noise of indifference and cultural
ambience of dominance that some
continue to believe is inherited like
a genetic aberration. The dialectics 
of our existence, the unity and struggle
of opposites, forges magnetic polarization
as humanity seeks the universal norm
bridging a new reality from a violent
past.

I do not damn the heavens, being blessed
with tragedy testing my resolve like an
Afrikan elephant defeating the hunger of a
Bengal tiger. An elephant who remembers
the triumphs of revolutions defeating
the avarice of capitalist-imperialism.

Finding solace within the madness,
grappling with the contradictions
like a mathematical equation solution
formulaic revelation putting theory
into practice as did Che, Castro,
Cabral and Carlos.

Just one hundred and fifty years since
the Thirteenth Amendment, Reconstruction
and the Black Codes, followed by Jim Crow
and COINTELPRO, now Racial Profiling and
Mass Incarceration, Police Violence a reminder
of Slave Patrols, how long will ths war go
on?

April 2015
Jalil A. Muntaqim
Attica, NY State

http://www.freejalil.com/poems/elephants.html

Write to Jalil:
Anthony J. Bottom #77A4283
Attica Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 149
Attica, NY 14011-0149

May Day Greetings

Well hello my friends - family -- MayDay has always been a holiday I have celebrated, enjoyed, supported and shared.  Here in 2015, I certainly believe that MayDay is as important and necessary to raise up, talk about, shout about, take it to the streets and MORE...!!   And people are taking to the streets in Baltimore and yesterday around the country and in many towns and cities, that most of us don't even hear much about.  A new wave of outrage and disgust at the cops and the system they protect and serve is rippling across this imperialist beast of a nation.  It is part of a long chain of similar protests and resistance, but a new and vigorous generation is taking some real initiative right now -- so what more can I say -- follow the youth and give them some guidance as well.  As my old comrade Bill always says "The Future Holds Promise!" MayDay-MayDay -- a warm and Red Revolutionary MayDay salute and greeting to you! --jaan

The Campaign To Bring Mumia Home
April 7th, 2015


Dear Brothers and Sisters


"Mumia was very ill when we saw him last Friday, April 3. For that reason, Pam Africa insisted that we return to SCI Mahanoy today,  Monday, April 6, to check on him.

His blood sugar registered in the mid 200s today and continues to fluctuate, and although Mumia is still very weak, he was better than on Friday. He told us that the doctors gave him a double shot of insulin right before he came out for the visit, likely in an effort to make him appear temporarily more energetic than he is. This concerns us because insulin overdose is a possibility in these instances. Again Mumia has not yet been seen by a diabetes specialist, although the general practitioner told him today that perhaps he needs to see a nutritionist. This is a sign that our muckraking is working, since the news has gotten around that he was given spaghetti for lunch when his blood sugar registered at 336.

However, despite this modest progress Mumia  struggled to get out of his wheelchair so that we could take a photo of him. He remained in the wheelchair for the rest of the visit.

Mumia also told us that his mind is filled with a million things each day, but he only has the mental and physical capacity to focus on just one thought. He said that he has learned that because he has always had a strong constitution, he had failed to appreciate the centrality of life's energy force to living. He also shared something that must have been profoundly humiliating and difficult to come to terms with.

Last Thursday, Mumia tried to go to the bathroom in the infirmary. Because he was so weak, he was not able to sustain himself on his feet. He slid down to the floor and waited there, helplessly and unable to call for assistance, for 45 minutes until he was found by a doctor and another prisoner.

We shared a touching moment with Mumia in an effort to raise his spirits. Two teachers delivered letters to us that their students had written to Mumia. One batch came from a 3rd grade class taught by Ms. Marylin Zuniga in Orange, New Jersey. The other batch was from a group of high school students in the Philadelphia Student Union, which fights for school reform and is led by Mr. Hiram Rivera.

It had been a long time since we had seen Mumia smile. He chuckled as he read excerpts from these touching letters.

We share these photos to give you a sense of the gravity of Mumia's condition. He has lost over 50lbs and his entire body is covered with a hard, leathery layer of jet-black skin, that is bloody, painful and itchy.

We continue to demand that he be allowed to see an independent team of specialists chosen by his family and supporters."


Pam Africa
Johanna Fernandez
Abdul Jon

Toward a National Coalition for a Changed America

The movement must address itself to the question of restructuring the whole of American society. There are forty million poor people here. And one day we must ask the question, “Why are there forty million poor people in America?” And when you begin to ask that question, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. When you ask that question, you begin to question the capitalistic economy.”

—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)

Since my last posting, “Future Focus,” I have received several letters from activists raising concerns about the development of a National Coalition for a Changed America. Obviously, coalition building is an essential organizing tool to bridge differences between several activist organizations addressing the needs of poor and oppressed peoples. As an organizing tool, one of the principle objectives of coalition building is to concentrate resources and personnel, uniting in uniformity to a specific demand and goal. Seldom will a coalition last longer than the specific task of the coalition’s origin. However, the usefulness of a coalition as an organizing tool serves to strengthen activists’ belief in their abilities to challenge corporate or government wrong (read: oppressive and/or repressive) actions, and overcome obstacles in the service of poor and oppressed peoples.

Therefore, while there are thousands of coalitions in cities across the country, very few address national issues, as proposed in Future Focus. Therefore, allow me to share some thinking on the development of a National Coalition for a Changed America.

There are approximately 20,000 American families (plutocrats) who control 99 percent of the wealth of this country. That means 20,000 families, through their various corporate and government institutions, dictate the socio-economic destiny of over 300 million people. Furthermore, subject to the corporate government foreign policy, this same number of families influences and dictates human conditions in the world, via international forums, i.e., Bilderberg Committee, Davos, IMF, World Bank, WTO, etc., notwithstanding China’s growing influence in this arena of geopolitical power. Given this reality, it is incumbent on those interested in the development of the National Coalition for a Changed America to come to terms with specific aspects of the ruling class capacity to function and to oppose any substantial change. The principle factors of the ruling class security are based on these conditions:

1. The means from which the ruling class continues to propagate its ideas, philosophy and culture through the various media;
2. The maintenance of class divisions, national oppression, the struggle between nationalities competing as wage earners in the labor market, and the struggle between laborers and managers of the means of production. This is essentially the struggle between the poor with middle class aspirations, and middle class struggle to maintain its level of subsistence, while the rich continue to hoard the majority of wealth;
3. The maintenance of the threat or use of force by the police bureaucracies and judicial process, the power to take life and/or liberty, when the bourgeois ruling class laws are threatened.

These three essential aspects of the 20,000 families’ security can be aptly understood in similitude to the power to persuade, manipulate and coerce the oppressed masses into control. Thus, the building of a National Coalition for a Changed America must comprise organizations with the capacity address each of the three above aspects of ruling class security and maintaining of power. Needless to say, in order for poor and oppressed peoples to wrestle power, demanding redistribution of wealth and restructuring of the social contract and institution of governance, will require an arduous and formidable revolutionary determination for change. Any national coalition organized to bridge ideological and political differences between the various activist groups, must come to terms with the primary objective in the service of poor and oppressed peoples. Evidently, the ruling class has differences, for example the issue of climate change; however, they are united on how they accumulate wealth, and continue to maintain class and nationalistic divisions. These points of contention must be addressed as part of consolidating and unifying the national coalition, just as they are addressed on local political and institutional levels. Yet, these concerns are questions of leadership development in the course of coalition organizational development.

“The coalition-alliance leadership is usually comprised of members of several different organizations, in principled working relationship, unified under the banner of the masses’ struggle for social change and justice. Such leadership must be capable of subordinating their individual group’s political aspirations to the unified goals of the coalition-alliance. In this way, the collective purpose of the coalition-alliance determines the relationship of the coalition-alliance with the masses’ struggle. Its leadership must be capable of maintaining principled and congenial relationships under the guiding principles of democratic centralism, as these principles affect any member body of the coalition-alliance. It is important that the leadership recognizes the points of unity and the differences between each member/body of the coalition-alliance and secures the working unity based upon goals common to each member/body.” (read: We Are Our Own Liberators, pp. 73-96)

Hence, the specific objective must be spelled out in no uncertain terms in direct relationship to the masses’ struggle:

1. Seek to establish the Coalition in direct relationship with the masses’ struggle, to ensure the Coalition’s goals become the masses’ political aspirations to achieve;
2. Keep politics in command. The political program subject to the above three areas of concern challenging the ruling class ability to govern, demand strategic objectives become the basis from which to secure internal discipline within the Coalition. This is to prohibit and prevent liberalism and opportunism from subverting the prospects of the Coalition from achieving its goals. It further builds principled and congenial working relationships between the various components of the Coalition, forging a progressive and revolutionary future;
3. To seek greater unity and working class relationships amongst other political groups and activists. Combat and dispel revisionism and sectarian manipulations by other groups and activist, broadening the base of support for the Coalition.

It is this quality of revolutionary leadership the Coalition must seek to achieve as part of the overall process of building substantial institutional change in America.

In closing, I offer these insights in furtherance of what was proposed in “Future Focus.” I sincerely hope this will continue to deepen the dialogue and debate suggesting the building of a National Coalition for a Changed America.

We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. It means that questions must be raised. You see, my friends, when you deal with this, you begin to ask the question, “Who owns the oil?” You begin to ask the question, “Who owns the iron ore?”

—Martin Luther King, Jr. (1968)

Remember: We Are Our Own Liberators!

In fierce struggle,

Jalil A. Muntaqim

Attica, March 2015

Write to Jalil:

Anthony Bottom #77A4283
Attica Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 149
Attica NY 14011-0149

Blog #33: Future Focus

In seven years, by 2023, the U.S. will be 40 percent minority, and 50 percent of the entire population will be under 40 years old. These are the demographics that cannot be ignored as progressives move forward building opposition to institutional racism and plutocratic governing.

In my thinking, it is incumbent on today’s activists to take into account what America will look like in ten years, so we will be better positioned to ensure the future will not be governed by deniers of change. In this regard, I am raising dialogue toward building a National Coalition for a Changed America (NCCA) comprised of social, economic and political activists who are prepared to build a future-focused America based on equitable distribution of wealth. It is important that progressives seek the means to organize greater unity and uniformity in ideological and political objectives toward the construction of a mass and popular movement. It is well established that the most pressing issues confronting the poor and oppressed peoples are wage inequities, housing displacement, dysfunctional public schools and student debt, climate change, the criminalization of the poor, mass incarceration, and the militarization of the police. In each are negative racial and economic implications creating social conflicts and confrontations.

However, the most pervasive and devastating cause for all of these issues is the unequal distribution of wealth. It is well researched and recorded that the wealth disparity, income gap between whites and blacks is 40% greater today than in 1967, with the average black household’s net worth at $6,314 and the average white household’s at $110,500 (New York Times, “When Whites Just Don’t Get It,” by Nicholas Kistof). When we account for how such economic disparity impacts educational opportunities or criminal behavior in the black community, we are better able to identify the overall pernicious problem. The Brookings Institute reported last July that: “As poverty increased and spread during the 2000s, the number of distressed neighborhoods in the United States—defined as census tracts with poverty rates of 40% or more—climbed by nearly three-quarters.” The report continued: “The population living in such neighborhoods grew by similar margins (76%, or 5 million people) to reach 11.6 million by 2008-2012.” (New York Times, “Crime and Punishment,” by Charles M. Blow).

Obviously, America is in increasing economic crisis, especially when considering … “According to a recent paper by the economists Emmanuel Saez of the University of California, Berkeley, and Gabriel Zucman of the London School of Economics, almost all of the increase in American inequality over the last 30 years is attributable to the “rise of the share of wealth owned by the 0.1% richest families.” And much of that rise is driven by the top 0.01%. “The wealth of the top 1% grew an average of 3.9% a year from 1986 to 2012, though the top one-hundredth of that 1% saw its wealth grow about twice as fast. The 16,000 families in the tiptop category—those with fortunes of at least $111 million—have seen their share of national wealth nearly double since 2002, to 11.2%.” (New York Times, “Another Widening Gap: The Haves vs. the Have-Mores,” by Robert Frank).

Can there by any serious disputing the reality that this so-called democracy is actually a plutocracy, and the governing plutocrats have us all hustling and scraping for the crumbs, demanding a minimum wage increase, when we should be demanding control of production? Hence, it is necessary for progressives to realize the future of our struggle must be based on participatory democracy, direct-action engagement. It is important for the more educated and experienced activists to teach the younger activists, and young people in general need to know the future belongs to them, and we are concerned about what that future will look like and how to make it productive. It is essential we figure ways to bridge differences between the evolving demographics and growing minority population.

For instance, I am heartened to see young people taking to the streets challenging the common impunity of police repression and violence. Indeed, Black Lives Matter! However, I am not confident these protests will result in anything substantial in terms of institutional changes or build a sustainable movement. We remember Occupy Wall Street (OWS) had created similar national attention, but void a national organization, leadership or agenda (demands), it was a matter of time before OWS would dissipate and disappear after police removed the public nuisances.

In this regard, I am asking activists to post on their Facebook pages and other online sites these musings, for open discussion and dialogue. Specifically, I suggest that young people across the country enter open debate about the future of specific issues that have captured national attention. Obviously, it is necessary to build a mass and popular movement to effectuate real institutional change in this country. This was a vital lesson from the civil rights movement challenging the institution of Jim Crow. Therefore, I am urging young activists to consider organizing toward a “Million Youth Independence Day March” (MY-ID March) for July 4, 2016, in Washington, D.C., making the following demands:

1. De-Militarization and De-Centralization of the Police, Demand Community Control of Police;
2. Debt Relief for College Students, Lower Tuition Cost for College Education;
3. Support the Manifestation of the Dreamers Act—Stop Deportations and the Splitting of Families.

These three issues, as they become part of the national dialogue and challenge to the plutocratic government, are able to unite a universal national determination. A one-issue protest/campaign is not sustainable when confronting an oppressive/repressive government policy supported by right-wing corporate interests. However, these interwoven issues reach three demographics of young people, each directly challenging institutions of government. Again, it is important to use the current unrest to forge a unified and uniform national youth movement.

Secondly, politically, we need to consider how best to ensure these issues become a major factor in the national debate, possibly imposing them into the national election of 2016. In this way, inspiring and encouraging a mass and popular youth movement organized during the election year of 2016, we empower the youth to be future focused. It is well established that it was the youth who were instrumental in getting Obama elected as President. Despite our collective disappointment with his presidency, the lesson learned is the power of the youth when united and determined to accomplish a task. Again, recognizing that in 7 years the electoral demographics will be drastically changed, it is time to prepare for that eventuality, even if some do not believe in the electoral process. Therefore, during the election year of 2016, not a single candidate will be permitted to conduct a public forum without being challenged by these issues. These would be acts of participatory democracy and direct-action engagement. Obviously, to hold a national rally and march in Washington, D.C. during the July 4, 2016 weekend tells the entire country that young people will divorce themselves from the status quo, becoming independent of the Republican/Democratic party politics.

In closing, it is anticipated this proposal will raise questions concerning the potential for the development of a National Coalition for a Changed America (NCCA). Permit me to say that this proposed organization is only a suggestion. I firmly believe that building a national coalition is necessary to establish a mass and popular movement capable of forcing institutional changes, including the ultimate goal of redistribution of America’s wealth. I request this paper be widely distributed and discussed. I am prepared to enter discussion with anyone interested in the potential development of a National Coalition for a Changed America. Lastly, I humbly request activists to review what I wrote in“Toward a New American Revolution.”

“Our First Line of Defense IS Power to the People!”

Remember: We Are Our Own Liberators!

In fierce struggle,
Jalil A. Muntaqim
Attica, February 2015

Write to Jalil:

Anthony J. Bottom #77A4283
Attica Correctional FacilityP.O. Box 149
Attica, NY 14011-0149

Letter from Leoard Peltier POW

Greetings My Friends, Relatives and Supporters:
I know that many of you have concerns about the status of my situation and have been wanting an update about what is going on.  A lot has been happening in the last few months and I am sorry I have not written in a while.  The deaths over this last year have been hard to accept, including the recent loss of my Sister Vivian.  I want to deeply thank everyone for your loving words, prayers and also for helping my son Chauncey pay for her funeral expenses, I am humbled beyond what my words can express.

We are coming up on 40 years of my being in prisons.  Sometimes, I honestly cannot believe it, sometimes I just don’t want to believe it.  You have been here with me through many dark times.  It is not possible for me to respond to each of you personally, I sure wish I could.

The reality is that I am not getting any younger, I feel my body every day.  My hip hurts, I cannot see very well, my body aches and my diabetes makes me feel uneasy a lot of the time. I do not say these things so you’ll feel sorry for me, I just want to share because I would like for you to understand where I am at in my life. When I put the losses of my friends and family together in my mind with the way my body feels, I feel a hunger to go home like I have never felt in all these long years.

It is time.

If only for a while, to feel the grass under my feet, to paint with the wind on my face while I listen to the laughter of my grandchildren in the yard, to smell some apple pie cooking in the air.  Some simple things is all I need.

I hear there are many of my Native Brothers and Sisters who are much younger than I who are doing some great work and it gives me great peace to know that the struggles our people face will always be addressed with honor and spirit.  I know about the problems we are all facing, and I want to encourage you to never give up on the things you know are right.

I am not giving up either.

Being in prison is a lot like being given a terminal diagnosis, and with that in mind, I am pleased to announce that I have retained a new legal team to represent my needs and best interests.  Together we have developed a careful “treatment plan” to hopefully gain the freedom and balance we have all been working for. 

I do not know what the future will hold, but you should know that I am confident I have the best team I could have ever asked for.  I want to say that I am finding hope and slowly letting it find me. Take it from this old dude, life is different at 70.

I have been strongly advised, and I agree, that in order for this process to have a chance to work, the details and inner working of our plans must remain confidential. I am placing my very life in the hands of my legal team.  We cannot have any entity or person outside of my legal team speaking for me, acting on my behalf, or representing me. I am asking all of you to honor and respect this decision.  Much like a surgeon who performs a lifesaving operation, it is critical to my freedom that they be allowed to do what they are highly skilled at, without any outside interference.

You will still hear from me, as we all know, I am not going anywhere yet.

I want you to continue to support what you know is right. Be active, take an active role in our world and support the things you know need to be supported. Stand up for those that need to be stood up for, teach and take care of our children and our Mother Earth. Help one another to be strong and honorable, keep and carry on the traditions, languages and culture of our people. Be kind and caring toward each other.

I will continue to need your support, prayers, your love, and your understanding as I walk on this final path toward my freedom.

We will share as much information as we can as the process moves forward.  In the meanwhile, if you have any questions or concerns, please direct your inquiries to the website as that is the only official point of contact for myself and my team.

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse
 Leonard Peltier, Mitakuye Oyasin

www.leonardpeltier.info
freedom@leonardpeltier.info

http://www.leonardpeltier.info/

Leonard Peltier Freedom Campaign · 255 Primera Blvd, 160, Lake Mary, FL 32746, United States 

A Mother’s Loss

(For the Mothers who lost a child from an unjustified police shooting)

To lose a child under any circumstances is heart-wrenching for any parent. This is especially true when it is done by a representative of government. When the police kill, particularly a child, more specifically a man-child of color, it raises many questions about justification. As the rash of such police killings has created a national debate, it is important to recognize law enforcement in America has evolved into a militarized institution. Like many American institutions, it has been awarded with various forms of immunity, a type of exceptionalism. The contradictory dichotomy between becoming a hero or villain is based on the intent of the police officer who takes a civilian life, and how the law interprets that intent. The problem is that, when a person takes and passes the civil service exam and is sworn in as law enforcement personnel, they are granted the presumption of immunity. Yet the philosophy endemic and common to all law enforcement agencies is that they are guardians of a social order, as defined by law. Impressed upon this philosophy is the evolving of an ideology and a culture that reinforces an ideal, almost a belief system. Such a belief system creates a socio-political environment of a “them” and “us” paradigm, setting them apart and above the civilian population. Here is where the problem begins, which is especially significant when the horrific history of race is added to this evolving institutionalized culture. Just as all police officers are not villains or heroes, the culture of the Blue-line makes it difficult to distinguish them apart, especially when they consistently rally around each other whether right or wrong. Within a known racially biased judicial system, they in essence protect the ideal of their immunity and the sanctity of their institutionalized culture.

It is with this understanding that a Mother must know when they lose a child to a police shooting, it is more than the individual cop they have to confront, it is the culture and institution that they represent. In this regard, while it is not necessary here to offer insight into the well-documented historical relationships between the system of slavery and the development of the police system, I must quote from Steve Martinot, “White Identity, Constitutionality, and its Double Legal System,” where he recounts:

“Both the police and the impunity of slave masters belong to the same paradigm of dual system of law, sanctioned by the law, in producing the subjection of people of color. What contemporary juridical procedure has done, by valorizing police impunity, is to regenerate the double system of law of the slave system … Thus, both manifest the component elements of white racial identity: paranoia … violence …, and white solidarity …”

Hence, the reality of the situation is our community is not confronting individual cops or police agencies, but a historical cultural dynamic that has been institutionalized, not unlike the prison industrial complex and the school to prison pipeline as trinity of repression. It is apparent that these oppressive conditions are not circumstantial, it is policy driven and codified in law. For example, the well-known disparity in sentencing for crack possession compared to cocaine possession, or the number of Black folks stopped and arrested for marijuana possession compared to white folks being stopped and arrested. As a recent Times/CBS poll discovered, 45 percent of Black people, compared to 7 percent of white people, believed they had experienced a specific instance of police discrimination because of their race. Such is the case that 31 percent of white folks recognize police are more likely to use deadly force in Black neighborhoods than in white neighborhoods. If there is to be a remedy to this national problem, it is essential that Mothers of children lost to unjustified police shootings create a national database to identify the extent of the problem. To ensure a national dialogue on this problem demands congressional hearings on how best to De-Centralize and De-Militarize police forces across the country.

In this way, this struggle has the potential to demystify the invincibility of the police culture of impunity and immunity. Obviously, this debate needs to strengthen the argument the police are to represent the interests of people above the profits of the capitalist system. Essentially, Mothers who have lost children to police killings and the community must take a position that law enforcement is not above the law. Secondly, passing a civil service exam does not exempt law enforcement personnel from prosecution for the unjustified killing of innocent civilians. Since the culture of law enforcement supports the impression they are above the law, people must argue that legislation be passed that Community Review Boards have investigative and subpoena power, and are capable of demanding the prosecution and/or firing of police officers who have been found to violate people’s civil and human rights. In this way, the community, especially Mothers of lost children, will be able to take control of the narrative in defining the relationship between the community and law enforcement. This may seem extreme; however, Martin Luther King, Jr. is reported to have instructed: “The question is not whether we will be extremists but what kind of extremists we will be. Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?” I believe all will agree there is nothing more extreme than the unjustified killing by police of Black children and men.

I am sorry for all the losses of these children, and Black boys, based on the failure of the Black Panther Party to pass on to the next generation lessons from the Cointelpro onslaught on the BPP. It is extremely unfortunate that such an important institution (police force) embedded in our community maintains a culture that seemingly epitomizes a “them” and “us” dysfunctional relationship. Obviously, community policing, in which police officers live and work in the community, would be best to engender a better relationship with law enforcement. But because of all that has been expressed above, the potential for that to happen is a far-fetched ideal. However, the fight for community policing empowers the community to take control of crime and punishment in the community. We can only hope that by virtue of Mothers’ losses and the struggle to remedy such tragedy, we will win a more improved and appreciated relationship by lessening dependence on the police, and not cultivate negatively perceived belief in the police as an occupying force to keep the natives in control.

I would like to close by making one other observation. There is a need for the inhabitants of our community to take control of the community to lessen the need for police patrols. Street violence and drug dealing that puts everyone’s lives in jeopardy, including cops, is the responsibility of the community. This is a collective failure, despite all of the political and socio-economic policies and decision-making that reinforce impoverishment, joblessness, homelessness and hopelessness … crime in the community is a principle enemy. Collectively, we must confront Black on Black crime to preserve the future of our youth. This means that our youth must be recruited and trained to become community activists in the fight opposing political policies that disenfranchise and impoverish the community. The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense held that criminal activity in the community was reactionary, and potentially counter-revolutionary. We have lost several generations since the Cointelpro destruction of the Black Panther Party to prison and the grave as a result of police repression. We must make every effort as part of challenging the current wave of police killings to eliminate the need for police entrenchment in the community. This requires the community’s responsibility to end Black on Black crime.

This is the hard discussion that must be held as part of the national debate to eliminate these police killings, further eliminating the need for the overwhelming police presence in the community. A Mother’s loss of a child to police or street violence makes this demand on all of us, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. instructed:

“Every step toward this goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.

The First Line of Defense IS Power to the People!

Fist Up! Fight Back!

Remember: We Are Our Own Liberators!

Jalil A. Muntaqim
Attica 1/5/15

Anthony Jalil Bottom #77A4283
Attica Correctional Facility
P.O. Box 149
Attica NY 14011-0149

The Empire Hits!

Bill Dunne,Political Prisoner

The U.S. Parole Commission conducted a hearing for a 15 year
reconsideration of my case on 5 November 2014. The last 15 year
continuance (“hit”) was set to expire in December, 2014. The hearing examiner went through the usual things: offender characteristics; the circumstances of my 1979 offenses; a1983 escape attempt; ancient disciplinary infractions.  

I was thinking a good outcome would be a one-year date, a bad one, five years (and, having long experience with the agency of
repression, expecting the worst!).  Then the examiner went unusual.  He unleashed a tirade about anarchist connections and anti-authoritarian views.  He recommended another 15 year hit on the basis thereof.  Four weeks later, I got a Notice of Action (NOA) from the Parole Commission adopting the recommendation and setting my next reconsideration for November of 2029.
The commission made much of the facts that I was on parole and the 1979 conspiracy included three armed bank robberies to finance the escape of a federal prisoner who had killed a customs agent. It also changed the assault of a Seattle police officer during the escape to attempted murder, using this change to raise my offense behavior category and guideline range.  It did so notwithstanding that I was not at the scene of the shooting. the shooter was paroled ten years ago, and having established the old category in 2000 and defended it through seven hearings and appeals. The real reason for the higher offense behavior category is that its guidelines have no upper limit.  I’ve already served more than the top guidelines under, the lower category.
The commission then added a specific amount of time to my parole
guidelines for each disciplinary infraction I’ve had.  That came to
(erroneously, but ad arguendo) 32-132 months.  Next, it singled out five of those infractions from 31, 31, 30, 25, and 19 years ago (attempted escape, knife, handcuff key, “uncompleted” handcuff key, escape paraphernalia -- the second and last bogus) as indicative I was a more serious risk than my parole prognosis showed.  These infractions, the commission alleged without saying why, further justified exceeding the guidelines by so much as the 15 year hit.  It thus used the infractions to both raise and exceed the guidelines contrary to its own rules.
The commission required my codefendant to serve some 198 months on identical charges stemming from the jailbreak conspiracy, and our
offender characteristics are virtually identical. The 132 month maximum the commission’s rescission guidelines say should be added to my parole guidelines thus suggests a sentence in the range of 330 months for me.  The commission and the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) both agreed I had 344 months in at the time of the hearing.  (I actually had 421 months in, but they say the other 77 months went to the state time I got as a result of the same events.)  The commission also ignored the statutory injunction that “old law” prisoners like me should be paroled after 30 years, which would put me out no later than 18 March 2016, even under their erroneous calculation. The commission shifted into political police mode, saying, “the Commission finds your continued association and affiliation with anarchist organizations is evidence you still harbor anti-authoritarian views that are not compatible with the welfare of society or with the conditions of parole.”  

The NOA says zero about what it means by “anarchist,” “association,” “affiliation,” or “anti-authoritarian views” or why they might be problematic for society or parole.  The examiner did mention a
few specifics and waved some printouts, but did not explain what was so wrong with their content.  He said I’d get copies, but so far I have
not. There is no BOP or commission rule forbidding information by or about prisoners being published on the net.
The commission’s hearing examiner mentioned three sites: Prison Radio, LA-ABCF (Los Angeles Anarchist Black Cross Federation), and Denver ABC. None of them advocate violence or criminality.  

They are posted by mostly working class and poor people who want to make their communities and the world better places.  

The examiner denounced “Running Down the Walls,” but did
not say why.  RDTW is a running event sponsored every year by LA-ABCF for more than the last 20 in which people from many communities participate to express their opposition to the overuse of incarceration, especially for political purposes.  The Prisoners’ Committee of the ABCF, of which the examiner also disapproved for no stated reason, advises the ABCF on effective ways to support political prisoners, none of which involve illegality.  Nor is the committee’s advice always solicited or followed. Prison Radio produces broadcasts of news and information about prison
issues from a radical left perspective but advocates no violation of the
law.  All of these web sites post information about particular cases,
prisoners, situations, and events their operators think the bright light
of public scrutiny would help reach a more positive resolution.  They
make their posts based on their own analysis and choices; they are
self-directed and independent.  As for anti-authoritarian, that’s
supposed to be the position of the government itself: “anti” authoritarian regimes such as Putin’s Russia, etc., and pro democracy.  The commission’s decision was the reverse.
The commission also said efforts to contact my codefendant were evidence I am likely to “reengage in similar criminal activity” if released, but does not say how so.  My codefendant was released from prison 10 years ago and from parole five years ago.  I don’t think he’s had so much as a traffic ticket in that time.  One would think the commission would want me to learn from him whatever it was he did to convince them to release him from both prison and parole.  No hearing examiner could tell me, and I asked at many hearings.
The commission apparently feels anything it deems anarchist -- and, by implication, any radical left--political activity or connection warrants
denial of parole. It denied me because it feels I am thus involved.
I’ve already served more time than could be reasonably assessed for my offense behavior and disciplinary record.  My codefendant’s offense role and offender characteristics are virtually identical.  Hence, the time demanded of me should be comparable plus prescribed disciplinary time. That total would be less time than I’ve already served.  Nor is politics any basis for parole denial.  The notion that mere correspondence with anarchists or my codefendant evidences criminal intent is simply frivolous: no print or pictures or audio to felonious intent were ever alleged, and there are no rules against such contact.  Nor has the commission ever objected before to these long-standing connections, and the BOP approved them.  Neither the “anarchist organizations” nor my
codefendant has any criminal history during the relevant times.
The commission’s blatant use of such demonstrably inadequate and
inappropriate reasons to deny my parole is remarkable. I have already filed an administrative appeal and will continue the appeal via habeas corpus against both the BOP and commission.  Not only are the unsupported, conclusory, and irrelevant claims cited for denying me parole a violation of the commission’s own rules, their use constitutes a gross infringement on the First Amendment.  That use violates what remains of my right to hold and express positive, progressive politics as well as that of the people and groups whose speech and association are undermined by such government attacks on political expression via the internet.

I am confident that any comrades who have supported me by putting information by or about me or my politics into the public domain to protect me from the depredations of power, have done so in good faith and not in any way that could legitimately be construed as “not compatible with the welfare of society.”  I’m confident we will not cave to such pressure to self-censor.

Bill Dunne #10916-086
FCI Herlong
Post Office Box 800
Herlong, California  96113

JEICHO IS HONORED TO HAVE AS OUR 

FIRST GUEST WRITER 

FORMER POLITICAL PRISONER 

LYNNE STEWART

 

THE GRAND JURY

One of my most prophetic statements is that the “law” is what “they” want it to be at any given time. Witness the Dred Scott decision, the Japanese internment cases of World War II, and the Scottsboro and other legal lynching cases.

In 2014, stemming from the series (ongoing since 1619) of unprosecuted crimes against the African American population, we confront the lawlessness, now inherent, of an ancient legal institution, the Grand Jury. My history here may be fuzzy (due to my jail time of four-plus years and subsequently battling the big C)—but hey, there’s always Wikipedia! Nonetheless, my own experiences as a practicing criminal defense lawyer for over 30 years will help in this short essay.

In New York State, people accused of serious crimes (felonies) can be brought before the court by a number of avenues. Most common is the presentation of the case, by the District Attorney, in a rudimentary way, to a Grand Jury, who will then vote on an indictment. (The famous or infamous statement that a Grand Jury will indict a ham sandwich being entirely true.)

As I recall, the Grand Jury was an outgrowth of the Magna Carta, a medieval document that was fought for by the nobles (male and white and born to privilege) in which they won the right to not be thrown in and left forever in a dank and dark prison by the king. They now had the right (habeas corpus) to demand to be heard and judged by their “peers” (equals). Of course, we are not talking “fair” here, just the way it operated.

The functioning of the Grand Jury has not changed a great deal since those days. It is still possible for a defense attorney to present her client and allow him to tell his story (usually in a self-defense case), and there are even those rare instances
where the Grand Jury will vote no indictment.

However, the abuse by the Grand Jury in cases such as Michael Brown and Eric Garner, where there is only prosecution testimony, and that is in total control of the District Attorney or prosecuting authorities, is obvious when there can be no presentation of an opposition scenario—they have killed the obvious witnesses. And so, the Grand Jury does what it is best at, following the instructions and demands of the District Attorney, Missouri or Staten Island, N.Y. It is the ham sandwich approach, and there is no blame, no accountability. The police and prosecutors are a single entity, and they have an agenda.

The Grand Jury, in my not so humble view, should be abolished. It is an anachronism, and the miniscule number that benefit from it are not worth the rubber stamp it has become, particularly in the murder of people of color by the police.

A far better solution (short of the revolution we all hope and dream of) is to make those suspected of those heinous crimes stand TRIAL. Let the 12 jurors decide their fate in an open and fully presented evidentiary case. It’s not a perfect solution but far, far better that the endless parade of murderers going free because their victims don’t matter.

Lynne Stewart
— January 3, 2015