The Official Website of Kiilu Nyasha

A revolutionary party platform

2011-11-11T17:25:00.000-08:00

This is the 4th draft of a proposal for a revolutionary party and platform. These ideas are not new, just newly organized to fit today's realities. In September 1970, in Philadelphia, the Black Panther Party and its allies pulled together a Revolutionary Peoples Constitutional Convention (RPCC) that drew 10,000 - 15,000 people from all over the country and the globe for three days of workshops and plenary sessions to rewrite the Constitution. See Liberation, Imagination and the Black Panther Party, ed. by Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas for details of this incredible event. A follow up convention was thwarted by COINTELPRO no doubt. When Larry Pinkney and I agreed to present this proposal, we were hoping for lots of comments, suggestions, criticisms, feedback. We did receive a letter of endorsement from Mumia Abu-Jamal and support from Terry Collins (KPOO) and Dr. Lenore Daniels of the Black Commentator, among others. However, we're still hoping more of you who check this out will send us your ideas/critiques. Meanwhile, here's the latest version and a letter of introduction.

November 14, 2011

My dear sistersand brothers,

In recognition ofthe fact that human beings are in reality one family orso-called 'race,' irrespective of our color, gender,and cultural differences, the 21st century calls for a creative, novel,and politically principled approach in the ongoing struggle for theattainment of real systemic change.

It is clear thatactualized economic, social, and political justice will not and cannot bebrought to fruition within the parameters of a U. S. political system whosevery basis is steeped in the manipulation andconcomitant exploitation of human beings for the benefit of the few at theexpense of the overwhelming majority ofhumankind.

With this inmind, a lengthy collaborative effort has given birth to what we refer toas a Revolutionary Party Platform necessary for the 21stcentury. Notwithstanding the many and important historical lessons gleaned fromthe continuing everyday people's struggle for economic, social, andpolitical justice in the United States and throughout this planet of MotherEarth, humankind has reached a watershed moment in the continuumof history when we must seize the time in order to bring aboutmuch-needed, genuine, and revolutionary systemic change thatserves the needs and interests of humanity collectively.

Thus, we are sharingthe Revolutionary Party Platform (below) and urge our sisters and brothersto peruse it and join with us in this protracted struggle to bring about anew human, based upon egalitarianism and human needs versuseconomic exploitation, manipulated disharmony, and perpetual wars. The21st century can and must be better than its predecessors, and only wecan do this collectively. The time is NOW!

We remain yours insolidarity and struggle,

Larry Pinkney

Kiilu Nyasha

Fourth Draft of A Revolutionary Party Platform

"If there is to be revolution, there must be a revolutionaryparty." (Mao Tse-Tung)

We the people of these United States in recognitionof our shared oppression under the current, corporate-dominated governmentdo hereby propose the establishment of a revolutionary political party. Such aparty would be launched outside of the established parameters and would not bedependent upon corporate financing or subjected to its lobbying influence.

Our people’s party will recognize and acknowledgethe following:

* The genomic breakthrough by the HumanGenome Project of the new millennium confirms the biological, singular humanrace to which we all belong regardless of color or other differences. In short, there’s one race, the human race, and we all descended from Africa, theMotherland of humankind. Whileracism persists, we will de-institutionalize it through our revolutionaryeducation and media, fighting bigotry with international solidarity, appreciationof differing cultures, and revolutionary politics. We will become the newmen and women who will forge a new, nonracist paradigm.

* The Constitution is a flawed and racist document that needs to be corrected and updated.

In1970, the Revolutionary Peoples Constitutional Convention (RPCC), led by theBlack Panther Party and the original Rainbow Coalition, assembled some 10,000people in Philadelphia to rewrite the Constitution. It was written in1787 by British Aristocrats who were slave owners of Africans, poor Europeans,and others; excluded indigenous peoples and all women, and referred to thecommon people as “a great beast” and “scum.” It still authorizes States to import Persons but the tax or duty cannot exceed “ten dollars for eachPerson,” and although the 13th Amendment abolishes slavery, it’s stillprotected ”as a punishment for a crime.” Moreover, its 27 amendmentscover civil rights but no provisions are made for human rights.

· * The current political system must beabolished and replaced by one that enshrines into law human rights encompassing the basic right to live and thrive in amodern, global reality. Such humanrights, comprising our collective needs, are as follows:

1. EnvironmentalProtection. Scientists are now certain that the earth is warming as evidenced bycatastrophic floods, droughts, wild fires, and the ongoing extinction ofcountless species. E.g., 90% ofthe planet’s big fish are now extinct. Global warming and its horrific consequences affect every humanbeing. We must urgently move tocreate sustainable, green energy.

2. Clean, fresh water. Climate change and environmental pollution are infecting andthreatening our access to clean, drinkable water. Corporate profiteering and privatization of this vitalresource, without which life cannot exist, must be stopped.

3. Healthy, organic food. The virtual elimination of the familyfarm as the main agricultural producer and its replacement by agribusinessessuch as Monsanto has wreaked havoc with the food system and introducedgenetically modified produce and patented seeds that have jeopardized domesticand global food production. Sucharrangements must be completely transformed and reorganized to provide for theequitable redistribution of food worldwide.

4. Full employment and job security. The global multinational corporationshave enjoyed a race to the bottom in low-wage labor contracts moving from onenation to another to maximize profits. We propose a universal living wage for workers worldwide to compelcompanies to remain in their countries of origin, save shipping costs, reducetheir carbon footprints, and provide full employment at living wages to theiremployees.

5. Universal (single payer) health care. Health care is a human right and assuch should be guaranteed to every person living in the USA. Medical care should be a vital serviceprovided by the government (the people’s revenues), not a for-profit business.Nursing homes should be phased out in favor of independent, community living.

6. Affordable Housing. Every person should havethe human right to shelter from the harsh elements, privacy, and space in whichto extend or raise a family. Today’s budget cuts will virtually eliminatesubsidized housing in the face of massive homelessness and critical need. The “fastest growing public housing” isprisons, and when those residents are released, they’re denied Section 8(affordable apartments) because of their prison record -- a clarion call forrecidivism, or back to slavery. Gentrification, home foreclosures and urban removal must be stopped.

7. Universal Education and Job Training. The current race to the top, acontinuation of the Bush Administration’s no child left behind debacle, haspractically destroyed quality education in public schools. We need to provide all our childrenwith a free, quality education from preschool to graduate school. Such education should teach us criticalthinking, encourage current events discussion and debate, as well as requiredstudies on the histories of Africa, Asia, and Latin America, their indigenouspeoples and their contributions to the arts, sciences, and literature. Job training shouldprovide students with the latest tools and skills in construction, technology,and agriculture. Such training andeducation should be instituted in the prisons to assure employment uponrelease.

8. Affordable childcare. Businesses, schools and colleges shouldprovide onsite childcare to employees with children and parental leave fornewborns and childhood illnesses. Government subsidies should apply whereneeded. Such provisions have succeeded in other countries with very positiveimpact on employee productivity.

9. Social Security, unemployment insurance, and the safety net. In a country as wealthy asthe USA, every person should be guaranteed an adequate income during hardtimes, illness, disability, and aging infirmity.

10. Justice and Peace. We demand an end to the current system of injustice that hasinstitutionalized a prison industrial complex tantamount to chattelslavery. We want the immediaterelease of political prisoners and immigrant detainees, especially parents. Weadvocate abolition of the death penalty, trying children as adults, insanelylong sentences and prolonged solitary confinement. We demand an end to the criminalization of drugs, racialprofiling, and immigrant detention. Prisons should be transformed into places of educational productivity andtherapeutic healing with the ultimate goal of being phased-out altogether.

We demand that aggressive, imperialist wars beterminated and that peace be given top priority in policy making.

11. GenderEquity. Women’sliberation gave women more employment within the capitalist system at a lowerrate of pay, double duty at work and home, token representation in Board Roomsand politics per se. It changedthe all male pronouns and gave us more access to sports and constructionjobs. But men are still totallydominant, and the abuse of females is worse than ever, beginning with the fetus(selective abortion), infants (infanticide!), and lack of respect for girls,mothers, and grandmothers. Malesupremacy is alive and well everywhere, which translates to aggressive wars andno balance.

Women are more than half thepopulation, and should be at least half of all governing bodies (from citycounsels to Congresses). There should be equal pay for equal work, compensationfor caring and household work, and respect for women’s right toself-determination.

We recognize the equal human rights of lesbian,gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people to live openly with respect andfair treatment in our communities.

We also recognize that in order to finance thepeople’s needs, we would need to nationalize at least some industries. Since life in the modern world requiresutilities such as gas, electricity, and telephone communications, we thinkthese industries should belong to the people and provide for their basic humanrights as described above.

“The two parties have combined againstus to nullify our power by a 'gentlemen's agreement' of non-recognition, nomatter how we vote...May God write us down as asses if ever again we are foundputting our trust in either Republican or the Democratic parties.” (W.E.B.DuBois)

Prudence,indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changedfor light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience hath shown,that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than toright themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But, when a long train of abuses andusurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reducethem under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throwoff such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. (The Declaration of Independence)

SOLEDAD BROTHER: Memories of Comrade George (updated 9/23/11

2011-09-23T17:03:00.000-07:00

SOLEDAD BROTHER: MEMORIES OF COMRADE GEORGE (updated 9/23/11)
By Kiilu Nyasha

It’s hard to believe that our beloved Comrade, George Lester Jackson, would be 70 years old this date, September 23, 2011.

On reading his first book, a 1970 bestseller, “Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson,’ I felt a kindred spirit with George’s rage and resistance, but thought he contradicted himself on women. So I began a correspondence with him from New Haven, Connecticut, where I was a member of the Black Panther Party, and working for the lawyers defending Chairman Bobby Seale, Ericka Huggins, and Lonnie McLucas, as well as organizing community and national support for their freedom.

I remember sitting in the courtroom, where I had easy access through the same door the judge entered, and fantasizing that, since I was never searched, I could come through that door, climb up behind the judge, put a gun to his head and demand the release of Bobby and Ericka, who were being tried jointly. (The McLucas trial preceded).

Then came the newspaper headlines that reverberated throughout the world of George’s teenage brother, Jonathan Jackson, armed to the teeth, commandeering the Marin court, liberating three prisoners, taking hostages, and attempting to call the world’s attention to the murderous prison conditions, and free the Soledad Brothers.

Wow! I thought. He did it! He actually did it!

It was August 7, 1970, when Jonathan Jackson’s bravery taught us all that these pigs have no regard whatsoever for human life. They shot up the crowded van, instantly killing three brothers Jonathan, William Christmas and James McClain, as well as the judge. Ruchell Magee and a prosecutor were critically wounded. One of three jurors suffered a minor wound.
Magee remains in prison (Corcoran) still fighting for release after 48 years in California gulags.
Shortly after Jonathan’s death, George wrote: ‘I loved Jonathan, but his death only sharpens my fighting spirit.’
When I returned to San Francisco in June ‘71, George asked me to obtain a press pass so I could visit him. My former employer, Panther attorney Charles Garry, connected me with the late Carlton Goodlett, publisher of the Sun Reporter newspaper, and I wound up with a job because Reggie Major was visiting the Cleavers in Algeria. I was first a reporter (later promoted to News Editor) covering the pretrial hearings for Angela Davis and Ruchell Cinque Magee stemming from the events of Aug. 7, 1970, and the Soledad Brothers, Fleeta Drumgo, John Clutchette and George Jackson, accused of killing a guard at Soledad State Prison in retaliation for the massacre of three Black militants W.L. Nolen, Sweet Jugs Miller and Cleveland Edwards by a tower guard in January ‘70.

Seeing George for the first time in the San Francisco courtroom, I was stunned. I had never seen an egghead martial artist before :). I managed to visit him in San Quentin’s holding cell in July, an unforgettable experience, one in which I tried to convince him that there was no ‘People’s Army’ out here. Needless to say, I fell in love. Both of us were chain smokers at the time; we were smoking nearly the whole visit, an hour I’ll always treasure.

A month later, I was devastated by the news of his assassination at San Quentin, Aug. 21, which I heard on the radio. I freaked! Later on, a fellow reporter took me to the San Quentin where a press conference was being held – the first time I had rifles pointed directly at me/us. Furious at the madness and mendacity, I walked away from it and put out my last cigarette on the yard, vowing to follow his example of study, martial arts, and action (“action makes the front”).

The Administration had tried numerous times to eliminate Jackson; this time they succeeded in what we believe was a setup. What they failed to anticipate was that three guards and two inmate trustees were also killed that day. This time, the odds were different. Jackson’s comrade, Hugo Pinell (Yogi Bear) is still in solitary (currently in Pelican Bay’s SHU) after more than 40 years, 47 altogether. He’s the only one of six SQ prisoners tried in the aftermath to remain locked up.
According to attorney Steve Bingham, “It seems the armory was just over the outside wall ... and the guards would lift handguns over the wall in little baskets. There were handguns all over the place.”

Hindsight being 20/20, George’s mistake was in trusting the wrong folks.

Known then as Pat Gallyot, I produced the Sun Reporter’s front-page spread on the events of August 21 (including excerpts from some of his letters to me) and the grizzly aftermath, when 26 SQ prisoners were tortured, brutalized, even shot, and the entire California prison system was put on lock-down. Jailhouse lawyer, Magee, smuggled out an affidavit signed by all 26 alerting the public to the life-threatening atrocities being committed against them

These were life-changing experiences for me. George remains my mentor, my inspiration, my heart. His love for people was boundless; his political knowledge and analyses brilliant, prophetic.

In “Soledad Brother,” George wrote: “International capitalism cannot be destroyed without the extremes of struggle. The entire colonial world is watching the blacks inside the U.S., wondering and waiting for us to come to our senses. Their problems and struggles with the Amerikan monster are much more difficult than they would be if we actively aided them. We are on the inside. We are the only ones (besides the very small white minority left) who can get at the monster’s heart without subjecting the world to nuclear fire. We have a momentous historical role to act out if we will. The whole world for all time in the future will love us and remember us as the righteous people who made it possible for the world to live on. If we fail through fear and lack of aggressive imagination, then the slaves of the future will curse us, as we sometimes curse those of yesterday.”

‘The black bourgeoisie (pseudo-bourgeoisie), the right reverends, the militant opportunists, have left us in a quandary, rendered us impotent. ... The blanket indictment of the white race is silly and indicative of a lazy mind (to be generous, since it could be a fascist plot). It doesn’t explain the black pig; there were six on the Hampton Clark kill. It doesn’t explain ... the pseudo-bourgeois who can be found almost everywhere in the halls of government working for white supremacy, fascism, and capitalism.”
In letters to me, George had written, “My life is moving myself and other people into action. ... And ‘Action makes the front.’”

“I am a Marxist Fanonist, i.e., a realist. There is no such thing as a spontaneous revolution. ... History has been one long authoritarian process, the result has been the accretion of a very pronounced leader follower syndrome ... The throwing off of the need for leadership and the creation of communist man [woman] is a goal, it isn’t the situation of today, and must not be confused as such ... In the throws of combat, Unitarian conduct will almost flow naturally; it will not have to be contrived or strained; the pressure from without, from the enemy of all will force us to tolerate each other’s humanity.”

In ‘Blood in My Eye,’ completed just before his death and published posthumously, George wrote: “The men who placed themselves above the rest of society through guile ... and sheer brutality have developed two principal institutions to deal with any and all serious disobedience, the prison and institutionalized racism. ... Most people realize that crime is simply the result of a grossly disproportionate distribution of wealth and privilege ... an aspect of class struggle from the outset. Throughout its history, the United States has used its prisons to suppress any organized efforts to challenge its legitimacy. ... The hypocrisy of Amerikan fascism forces it to conceal its attack on political offenders by the legal fiction of conspiracy laws and highly sophisticated frame-ups.

‘We must educate the people ... to realize that even crimes of passion are the psychosocial effects of an economic order that was decadent a hundred years ago.”

San Quentin was built in 1852 to house 50 convicts. Today, it has over 5,000 prisoners jammed together in the same space, and on death row, over 700! Nationwide, there are well over two million captives and climbing.
As the war on terror (read: war on freedom fighters) escalates, and human rights are trampled; witness Guantanamo and the proliferation of tortuous control units, George’s declaration becomes crystal clear: “The police state isn’t coming – it’s here, glaring and threatening.”

“Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are already dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done; discover your humanity and your love in revolution. Pass on the torch. Join us; give up your life for the people.’

I wonder if we would be in the same mess today had we heeded George’s call 40 years ago. I ask you, how many tens of thousands must die in Iraq, Afghanistan, Africa, Haiti, Palestine, Latin America, and right here in the USA, before we take action? How many millions more have to be hungry, homeless, locked up, tortured, executed and slaughtered? How many elections bought and/or stolen before we recognize fascism and organize a truly revolutionary party on which the people can ride to freedom?

Jonathan Jackson, only 17 when he was martyred, noted, “The picture of the U.S. as a Paper Tiger is quite accurate, but there is a great deal of work to be done on its destruction, and I’m of the opinion that if there is a big job of growing to do, the sooner begun the sooner done.”

George and Jonathan Jackson’s revolutionary actions painted the month of August Black forever, Black meaning revolutionary. Mumia Abu-Jamal described Black August as “a month of meaning ... of righteous rebellion; of individual and collective efforts to free the slaves and break the chains that bind us.”
Let us work toward establishing George Jackson’s birthday, like that of Malcolm X, as one we remember and honor annually. He certainly deserves a special place in our history of struggle.

Long live the spirit of George Lester Jackson!
Power to the people!

Commemorating the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Comrade George Jackson

2011-08-08T12:24:00.000-07:00

(ABOVE: Painting of George Jackson by Sundiata Acoli)

The SF Bay View Newspaper has published Kiilu's new article reflecting on the 40-year anniversary of George Jackson's assassination. An excerpt is featured below, but you can read the full article here.

This Black August, let us honor our martyred freedom fighter, Comrade George, as well as those who recently joined the ancestors: Donald Cox, Michael Cetawayo Tabor and geronimo ji Jaga. And let us not forget all those who remain captive after many decades: Mumia Abu-Jamal, Sundiata Acoli, Herman Bell, Romaine “Chip” Fitzgerald, Ruchell Cinque Magee − sole survivor of the Marin Courthouse Rebellion of Aug. 7, 1970 − Jalil Muntaqim, Albert Woodfox, Herman Wallace, Leonard Peltier, Oscar Lopez-Rivera and exiled freedom fighter Assata Shakur, to name just a few.

“Settle your quarrels, come together, understand the reality of our situation, understand that fascism is already here, that people are dying who could be saved, that generations more will live poor butchered half-lives if you fail to act. Do what must be done; discover your humanity and your love in revolution.”

George Jackson - 40 year commemoration from Freedom Archives on Vimeo.

Robert H. King on the Angola 3 and His Autobiography, "From the Bottom of the Heap"

2011-04-07T01:37:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, November 28, 2008.

Our guest, Robert Hillary King, (aka Robert King Wilkerson), one of the "Angola Three" (members of a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party), along with Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, was serving a life sentence at Angola State Penitentiary. In February 2001, after 31 years of imprisonment and 29 continuous years of solitary confinement, King walked out of the gates of Angola a free man. King continues to struggle for the release of his comrades and all political prisoners. He has also written a book, From the Bottom of the Heap: The Autobiography of Black Panther Robert Hillary King, with an introduction by Terry Kupers, M.D., M.S.P. (PM Press).

For more information, visit www.kingsfreelines.com, www.angola3.org, and www.angola3news.com

(This show begins with commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal)

RELATED ARTICLE: The Case of the Angola 3 --A review of the new film “In The Land of the Free...” (Nov. 22, 2010)

Pierre Labossiere on Haitian Disasters & Ramshackle Infrastructure

2011-04-07T01:18:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, November 21, 2008.

Pierre Labossiere, a Haitian national, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, has been a long-time social-justice activist and advocate for the Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa. Pierre has also been active in the campaigns to free political prisoners in Haiti and the U.S.

Learn more at: www.haitisolidarity.net and www.haitiemergencyrelief.org

(This show begins with commentary by Mumia Abu-Jamal)

RELATED EPISODES: Pierre Labossiere: Revolutionary Haitian History (Oct. 12, 2007), Pierre Labossiere: The Kidnap & Exile of President Aristide (March 14, 2008), Pierre Labossiere on Haiti's 2008 Hurricanes (Sept. 19, 2008), Pierre Labossiere: Haiti's Heroic History (Aug. 14, 2009), Emiliano Echeverria & Pierre Labossiere: Coups in Honduras and Haiti (Oct. 23, 2009), Pierre Labossiere on the Disastrous Response to Haiti's Earthquake (July 23, 2010)

Ona Move With Pam and Ramona Africa

2011-03-16T23:51:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, September 26, 2008.

Pam Africa is the Minister of Confrontation for the MOVE Organization and the Coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Ramona Africa is the Minister of Communication for the MOVE Organization and the sole adult survivor of the May 13, 1985 massacre. On that day, a State Police helicopter dropped a C-4 bomb, illegally supplied by the FBI, on the roof of the MOVE Organization’s house at 6221 Osage Avenue in West Philadelphia. The bomb started a fire that was allowed to burn, and eventually destroyed 61 homes, leaving 250 people homeless: the entire block of a middle-class black community.

The Philadelphia Special Investigation Commission (The MOVE Commission), appointed by Mayor Wilson Goode, documented that when the occupants of the house tried to escape the fire, police shot at them, blocking their escape. In the end, six MOVE adults and five children died. Ramona Africa and 13 year-old Birdie Africa were the only survivors, after successfully dodging the police gunfire.

For more information about death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, visit www.freemumia.com and www.abu-jamal-news.com and read/listen to his essays at www.prisonradio.org

For more about MOVE and the struggle to free the MOVE 9, visit www.onamove.com and move9parole.blogspot.com

RELATED EPISODE: Crystal Bybee: Kevin Cooper and Mumia Abu-Jamal (Oct. 30, 2009)

Dennis Cunningham on the Attica Prison Uprising

2011-03-16T22:56:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, September 12, 2008.

Our guest, Attorney Dennis Cunningham, established the People's Law Office in Chicago, from which he and young Attorney Jeffrey Haas conducted a landmark civil rights lawsuit, "Hampton v. Hanrahan," on behalf of the families of slain Black Panther Party (BPP) leaders Mark Clark and Fred Hampton, and the survivors of the Dec. 4, 1969 police raid on the apartment of Illinois BPP Chairman Fred Hampton, at 2337 West Monroe Street in Chicago. The civil rights lawsuit lasted for almost 13 years, but ended with a $1.85 million settlement paid equally by the city, county, and federal governments--although Chicago's killer cops were never criminally charged.

Dennis continued doing civil rights cases over these 40 years, during which he also worked on the long-running class action for the prisoners who rebelled and survived the massacre at New York's Attica State Prison in 1971, and the Earth First case resulting from the 1990 bombing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in Oakland, among many other defenses of protesters and victims of police misconduct, brutality and/or murder.

RELATED EPISODES: Dennis Cunningham: The FBI and the Resistance (May 2, 2008), Dennis Cunningham: The 40th Anniversary of the Assassination of Fred Hampton (Dec. 4, 2009), Bobby Seale: The Attica Uprising (Sept. 11, 2009), Elbert "Big Man" Howard and Billy X Jennings: Black August (Aug. 7, 2009), Willie Sundiata Tate: Black August (Aug. 21, 2009)

Pierre Labossiere on Haiti's 2008 Hurricanes

2011-03-16T22:47:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, September 19, 2008.

Pierre Labossiere, a Haitian national, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, has been a long-time social-justice activist and advocate for the Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa. Pierre has also been active in the campaigns to free political prisoners in Haiti and the U.S.

Learn more at: www.haitiaction.net and www.haitisolidarity.net

RELATED EPISODES: Pierre Labossiere: Revolutionary Haitian History (Oct. 12, 2007), Pierre Labossiere: The Kidnap & Exile of President Aristide (March 14, 2008), Pierre Labossiere: Haiti's Heroic History (Aug. 14, 2009), Emiliano Echeverria & Pierre Labossiere: Coups in Honduras and Haiti (Oct. 23, 2009), Pierre Labossiere: Haiti (July 23, 2010)

Dylcia and Cisco on Panthers and Independistas

2011-02-26T22:52:00.001-08:00

ABOVE: Full, 39 minute version. BELOW: Edited, 10 minute version.

Dylcia and Cisco on Panthers and Independistas
--SF8 Hearing on March 2

By Kiilu Nyasha and Angola 3 News

This February 26, 2011 episode of Freedom is a Constant Struggle features Dylcia Pagan and Francisco Torres.

Dylcia Pagan is a Puerto Rican freedom fighter and Independista, who spent nearly 20 years in Federal prisons on charges of seditious conspiracy for her role in the underground wing of the Puerto Rican independence movement. One of 11 Puerto Rican political prisoners granted clemency in 1999 by President Clinton, she was paroled to Puerto Rico, where she has continued to struggle against U.S. colonialism nonviolently. Born and raised in New York City, Dylcia studied psychology, political science, and Puerto Rican studies at Brooklyn College where she founded the Puerto Rican Students Union. Her culture and politics are expressed through painting, ceramics, poetry, writings, and film.

She has participated in the production of a video about her life and compañeros in the struggle; and while in prison, she helped direct a documentary about Puerto Rican Women Prisoners of War. Her biography has been published in Puerto Rican Women: A History of Oppression and Resistance and she appears in the new film Machetero (view a clip with Dylcia here).

Francisco Torres (Cisco), 58, of New York City, was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York City. He is a Vietnam Veteran who fought for the grievances of Black and Latino soldiers upon his return to the states. A former Black Panther, he has been a community activist since his discharge from the military in 1969. Cisco continues to work with troubled youth in his Queens community.

Cisco is the last of the San Francisco Eight to still be facing charges. As Cisco discusses in this interview, he had an evidentiary hearing scheduled for March 2, 2011. However, three days after the interview, on February 28, this hearing was canceled. A short update published on the SF8 website states: "An evidentiary hearing had been planned to take up the question of wiretaps, whose existence had long been denied by the prosecution. It now appears that the question may be settled without a hearing. Details to be posted here as soon as available...Stay tuned for future court dates." For the latest developments in the case and what you can do to help, please go to www.freethesf8.org.

--This episode of Freedom is a Constant Struggle is a collaborative project by Kiilu Nyasha and Angola 3 News, which is a project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. Our website is www.angola3news.com where we provide the latest news about the Angola 3. We are also creating our own media projects, which spotlight the issues central to the story of the Angola 3, like racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as torture, and more.

Bato and Sundi Remember Comrade George

2011-02-20T17:48:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, Black August 22, 2008.

Luis Bato Talamantez and Willie Sundiata Tate were in the so-called Adjustment Center (lockup!) in San Quentin on Black August 21, 1971, the day their/our comrade George Lester Jackson was assassinated by prison guards in what we believe was a set-up by the Administration.

Bato and Sundi were comrades who became known as The San Quentin Six, and are currently members of All of Us or None. They both did time in California juvenile and adult prisons where they got to know Comrade George, became politicized, and turned their lives around. Bato also works with the ANSWER Coalition and California Prison Focus. They continue to advocate for equal justice, freedom for political prisoners, and equal opportunities for ex-prisoners upon release.

RELATED EPISODE: Willie Sundiata Tate: Black August (Aug. 21, 2009), Elbert "Big Man" Howard and Billy X Jennings: Black August (Aug. 7, 2009)

Richard Brown & The SF8 Case

2011-02-20T17:40:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, September 5, 2008.

(NOTE: Kiilu regrets having to go solo, much preferring to have in studio guests. However, Richard was unable to make it to the studio on that date, so we opted for a phone interview since the interview was timely--immediately prior to a SF8 court hearing in 2008.)

Richard Brown is a former Panther and long-time community activist. He was employed for 20 years as a program coordinator at the Ella Hill Hutch Community Center. For the past nine years, Richard has been a Community Court Judge Arbitrator working with the San Francisco District Attorney's office. Brown says: "We place a lot of emphasis on restorative justice, so most of the community service done will be done in our own community where the offender can give back to the community."

Brown is one of the San Francisco Eight. Since this show was filmed, the charges against him have been dismissed and Cisco Torres is the only one still facing charges. Torres has an evidentiary hearing on March 2, 2011, and an 8 AM rally prior to the hearing, where supporters are urged to attend. For the latest developments in the case and what you can do to help, please go to www.freethesf8.org.

RELATED EPISODES: Charles Bourdon: The San Francisco Eight (Feb. 8, 2008), Harold Taylor: The San Francisco Eight (April 25, 2008), Ray Boudreaux and Richard Brown: Free The SF8! (July 3, 2008), Dylcia and Cisco on Panthers and Independistas (Feb. 26, 2011), Francisco Torres: The San Francisco 8 (Oct. 2, 2009)

The People Have Won!

2011-02-15T21:04:00.000-08:00

I’m so glad to be alive! This people’s victory in North Africa, first in Tunisia and now in Egypt, is OUR VICTORY TOO. We are all North Africans, i.e., human beings struggling to be free.

Clearly, the Egyptian people have been engaged in a decades-long struggle for liberation from an extremely oppressive regime backed up by the U.S. and Israeli imperialists – to the tune of billions in support of the military machine. This victory didn’t fall out of the sky or just up and happen one fine day. It’s the culmination of hard struggle, countless martyrs and political prisoners, strikes and demonstrations previously defeated, an unwillingness to give up and faith in the power of the people...

This people’s victory in North Africa, first in Tunisia and now in Egypt, is OUR VICTORY TOO. We, the people of the world, must move forward toward global revolution that will liberate the entire global community....

-Read the full article, published Feb. 11 by the SF Bay View Newspaper, here.

-See also the previous, Jan. 31 SF Bay View article entitled Revolution Has Come!

Sbu Zikode of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the Shack Dweller's Movement of South Africa

2011-01-12T21:53:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Sbu Zikode of Abahlali baseMjondolo from Oriana Bolden on Vimeo.

In this segment of Freedom Is A Constant Struggle, Kiilu’s guest is S’bu Zikode, leader of Abahlali baseMjondolo, the shack dwellers’ movement of South Africa, who visited the Bay Area last November (2010).

Thanks to Raj Patel and Oriana Bolden, Kiilu got to have S’bu visit her to discuss on camera the disastrous living conditions and economic disparities that currently exist in the post-Apartheid nation governed by the African National Congress (ANC).

S’bu comes from the shanty town of Kennedy Road in Durban, South Africa, where Abahlali was formed in 2005 in protest of the ANC policies denying land and housing to the poor. Life threatening conditions (no water, electricity, security) pushed the people to demand the Government abide by its new Constitution, stop evictions and brutal attacks by the police, and make good on its promises.

Abahlali has grown to include some 30,000 people, and a coalition with other organizations has formed a Poor Peoples Alliance of at least 50,000 activists. A slogan adopted by Abahlali is NO LAND, NO HOUSE, NO JOB, NO VOTE!

Abolition Key To New Justice System

2010-12-11T14:41:00.000-08:00

(PHOTO: Kiilu with author Raj Patel)

Abolition Key To New Justice System

By Kiilu Nyasha

December 9, 2010

Everyone knows the U.S. has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, higher than China’s with 4 – 5 times our population, and it continues to spiral. One in 100 adults is locked up in this police state (now totaling 2.4 million), while 1 in 31 is under some other form of penal control (over 7 million).

Few people in America, especially the underfunded, don’t have a friend, relative, classmate or colleague in prison. We also know that most prisoners are there for non-violent, often drug related issues. Yet we keep silent.

“Your silence becomes approval,” wrote our brilliant journalist and revolutionary, Mumia Abu-Jamal, held under threat of death 29 years to this date for a crime he didn’t commit.

Just as chattel slavery produced abolitionists, this new form of slavery must generate prison abolitionists.

Studies have long proven that punishment (not to be confused with consequences) produces negative results more often than not. While rehabilitation and/or appropriate therapy/treatment usually works. “Cure the sickness to save the patient.”

Ancestral societies had no prisons. Offensive behavior brought social consequences, ostracizing, or banishment from the community. Often the offender was made to serve the people (the community) in a menial job.

Raj Patel recently investigated the justice system of the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mex. and learned they had devised a system much like the one described above.

Please bear in mind that the worst of the worst criminals in this nation are in the White House, Wall Street, and the Pentagon. The solution to a corrupt, fascist government has to be revolution. The 1% replaced by the 99%.

Today’s news reported still more draconian sentencing for California prisoners has been proposed. Up to 15 years can be added to a person’s sentence between parole hearings that used to be annual before being raised to a maximum of five years. Now parole board hearings will in fact be resentencing courts in many cases. E.g., Hugo Pinell (Yogi) has been in supermax solitary for most of 46 years. If he goes to Board next month, he could be told his next hearing for parole would be 2026! At which time he’d be 80 years old. Sundiata Acoli was just denied 10 years after 37, and he’ll be 83 at his next hearing. Cruel and unusual?

U.S. prisons are grossly overcrowded with prisoners living in deplorable conditions suffering inadequate or no medical care, bad food, no access to education or skills training, endemic guard brutality, torture, and provocation of prisoner conflicts for their sadistic amusement, sexual assaults, excessive use of lockup (solitary), and generally inhumane treatment.

“The latest edition of the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund’s “Death Row USA,” shows that the number of people on death row in the United States is continuing to slowly decline, falling to 3,261 as of January 1, 2010…. California (697) continues to have the largest death row population, followed by Florida (398) and Texas (337). Pennsylvania (222) and Alabama (201) complete the list of the five largest death rows in the nation.”

The U.S. is the only Western nation that still imposes capital punishment that is blatantly racist in its execution.

Georgia Prison Strike

In protest of the inhumane living and working conditions in Georgia’s prison system (the nation’s 4th largest) staged a one-day strike on December 9, 2010.

Bruce Dixon reported, “In an action which is unprecedented on several levels, black, brown and white inmates of Georgia’s notorious state prison system are standing together for a historic one day peaceful strike today, during which they are remaining in their cells, refusing work and other assignments and activities. This is a groundbreaking event not only because inmates are standing up for themselves and their own human rights, but because prisoners are setting an example by reaching across racial boundaries which, in prisons, have historically been used to pit oppressed communities against each other.”

According to the Black Agenda Report, Prisoners are refusing to come out of their cells or do work. One in every thirteen adults in the state of Georgia is in prison, on parole or probation or some form of court or correctional supervision. According to reports, the state is dispatching special units and the BAR recommends calls to facilities the next few days to ensure the safety of the prisoners. Here are some numbers:

Macon State Prison is 978-472-3900.
Hays State Prison is at (706) 857-0400
Telfair State prison is 229-868-7721
Baldwin State Prison is at (478) 445- 5218
Valdosta State Prison is 229-333-7900
Smith State Prison is at (912) 654-5000

Pacific Radio just reported that Georgia’s prisons are under lockdown and guards are forcing prisoners out of their cells and beating them.

I salute the courage and international solidarity of the Georgia prison strikers.

We should act promptly to prevent another Attica!

The struggle continues!

Long live the spirit of George and Jonathan Jackson!

Political Education With SOUL

2010-12-01T19:02:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Kiilu Nyasha from Oriana Bolden on Vimeo.

In this installment of Freedom is a Constant Struggle, interns from SOUL (School of Unity and Liberation) have the opportunity to pose questions and get Political Education from Kiilu directly.

They ask about solutions to today's problems as well as the truth about many things related to social justice and movement politics of the 60s and 70s, as well as Kiilu's personal history.

We all also took a moment of silence for Marilyn Buck as we learned of her passing just moments before the interns arrived.

(See marilynbuck.com/ and marilynbuckpresente.org/)

RT: 54 minutes

The Case of the Angola 3 --A review of the new film “In The Land of the Free...”

2010-11-22T23:13:00.000-08:00

The Case of the Angola 3

--A review of the new film “In The Land of the Free...”

Produced by Vadim Jean, in memory of Anita Roddick

Film review written by Kiilu Nyasha

“They will never be able to break me,” said Herman Wallace, despite the torment and torture of 37 years in a 6 x 9 cell in the “bloodiest prison in the nation.” He and his comrade, Albert Woodfox, suffer such solitary confinement to this day.

Targeted for their militancy, co-captives Wallace, Woodfox and Robert King had organized a prison chapter of the Black Panther Party and they became known as the Angola 3 after they were falsely convicted by kangaroo courts and all-white juries. Wallace and Woodfox were convicted for the murder of prison guard, Brent Miller in 1972, and King was convicted separately for the death of another inmate in 1973.

Brent Miller’s widow, Teenie Miller, who appears in the film, asks, “Who really killed my husband?” At a 2008 hearing she said, “If they did not do this – and I believe that they didn’t – they have been living a nightmare for 36 years!”

This movie gives us a rare look at Angola prison, built on 18,000 acres in Louisiana that was a plantation where slaves, mostly from Angola, Africa, worked the cotton fields. It pictures the ugly daily existence of the plantation’s 5,000 captives -- more prisoners per capita than any other prison in the world – forced to work 17 hours a day for 2 cents an hour in fields of corn, cotton and sugar cane at gun point. A modern-day slave plantation.

This is the story of three Black Panthers who made a difference in the prison and in the lives of their fellow inmates, stopped the systematic rapes and brutalities against “fresh fish” by guards and inmates; organized and raised the consciousness of other prisoners for which they were railroaded and isolated.

At a very young age, Albert Woodfox robbed a truck and drove it to New Orleans where he was arrested. He escaped and went to Harlem where he found the New York Panthers and joined the Party. He was recaptured and wound up in Angola. Footage of the New York chapter and other Panther events are pictured, as well as testimony from activist, Malik Rahim, another Panther from New Orleans who grew up with Robert King and helped him win release in 2001, after 31 years of incarceration.

“I may be free of Angola, but Angola will never be free of me.” So said King upon leaving prison as he vowed to fight for the freedom of his comrade brothers.

King’s story and that of Wallace and Woodfox provide viewers with a stark look at today’s prison realities, as well as the widespread suffering of families and friends involved.

Much of the narration is done by Samuel Jackson, with commentary from Congressmen, Cedric Richmond and John Conyers, who visited Wallace and Woodfox, and the lawyers, Scott Fleming and Nick Trenticosta who took up the case.

This is a remarkable film, very enlightening, and should raise the consciousness of those who have no idea. It exposes mind boggling criminality and corruption, as well as overt, ongoing racism within the system. A must see.

--For more information about the Angola 3 please visit www.angola3.org and angola3news.com.

(This article is also available to download in the flyer format above.)

Locked far too long behind the walls

2010-11-22T23:08:00.000-08:00

(Published Sept. 29, 2010 by the SF Bay View Newspaper)

“Trust no one in whom the desire to punish is strong.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky

I’ve been corresponding with prisoners since 1970, shortly after joining the Black Panther Party in 1969. At that stage of the struggle, the ‘70s, I was writing so many prisoners I had to keep files and carbon copies so as not to get mixed up with who said what. There were fierce arguments being waged regarding individual leaders, strategies and tactics, and ideology. I was also able to keep various political prisoners in touch with one another when they were transferred to different gulags in separation.

Recently, after a picture of “Pat” (my birth name) with Huey Newton and Charles Garry surfaced, one of the brothers I wrote and visited during the ‘70s saw it in another prisoner’s Bay View newspaper and sent me a kite via the SF Bay View. His name is Arthur Anderson, aka Andy or Frelimo. He was in the San Quentin AC (Adjustment Center) on Aug. 21, 1971, when George Jackson was killed. It grieved me to learn he’s been down 47 years and was just denied parole for three more.

Read the rest of the article here.

Raj Patel on Global Economics, Food Sovereignty, and Justice

2010-10-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Raj Patel from Oriana Bolden on Vimeo.

In the latest installment of Freedom is a Constant Struggle, Kiilu is joined by writer, activist and academic, Raj Patel. His first book was Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and his latest, The Value of Nothing, is a New York Times best-seller. Naomi Klein proclaims The Value of Nothing a “deeply thought-provoking book about the dramatic changes we must make to save the planet from financial madness.”

Raj Patel has not only worked for the World Bank and WTO, but also protested against them around the world. He is currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for African Studies, an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy (Food First).

Kiilu and Raj journey around the globe in this dynamic conversation about solution-based responses to the world’s most pressing problems. They cover topics including food justice, anti-colonialism and landless movements. These two consummate advocates for justice dialog about Abahlali baseMjondolo, the South African shackdwellers' movement, the Zapatista’s systems of justice, and anti-colonialism.

For more information see:

rajpatel.org/

kiilunyasha.blogspot.com/

and projectprojecting.com (video production)

RT: 37min 32sec

RELATED EPISODES: Raj Patel: The Global Food System (Nov. 7, 2008), Raj Patel: The Value of Nothing (Sept. 18, 2009),

Pierre Labossiere: The Kidnap & Exile of President Aristide

2010-08-06T15:06:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, March 14, 2008.

Pierre Labossiere, a Haitian national, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, has been a long-time social-justice activist and advocate for the Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa. Pierre has also been active in the campaigns to free political prisoners in Haiti and the U.S.

Learn more at: www.haitisolidarity.net and www.haitiemergencyrelief.org

Gioioa von Disterlo: Criminalizing Homelessness

2010-08-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, December 14, 2007.

Our guest, Gioioa von Disterlo, is the current Civil Rights Organizer at Coalition on Homelessness. She also works as a staff writer and writer facilitator for Poor Magazine. Gioioa has organized in San Francisco for seven years, and has worked on a range of community issues including abuse, disability, mental health, racism, queer institutional predation, global systems of oppression, and civil rights.

RELATED EPISODES: Jennifer Friedenbach: War on the Homeless (April 18, 2008), Tiny (Poor Magazine) and Bob (Streetsheet): Criminalizing Poverty (July 17, 2009), Homelessness in San Francisco and the US (Nov. 13, 2009), Jennifer Friedenbach: Coalition On Homelessness (Nov. 20, 2009)

Pierre Labossiere on the Disastrous Response to Haiti's Earthquake

2010-07-27T21:47:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Haiti from Oriana Bolden on Vimeo.

Freedom is a Constant Struggle, hosted by Kiilu Nyasha was a long-running, weekly TV program on SF Live. This is our first attempt at getting new episodes back "on the air," just released.

Kiilu Nyasha is a San Francisco-based journalist and former member of the Black Panther Party.

In this episode Kiilu is joined by Pierre LaBossiere in conversation about Haiti. They discuss Haiti's past, present and future, specifically in light of the promised but missing millions of dollars of aid in the wake of the major earthquake, now six months ago.

Learn more at: www.haitisolidarity.net and www.haitiemergencyrelief.org

Phavia Kujichagulia: Culture, Identity, and the Human Race

2010-07-07T15:57:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, July 25, 2008

Phavia Kujichagulia, a Griot / Djialli (Oral Historian), musician, writer, poet, dancer who utilizes music, poetry and dance to heal and reveal history -- was a professor of Ethnomusicology and African Civilizations at World College West and Stanford University's Workshop on Political and Social Issues. For more than 16 years, she taught Creative Writing and Performance Art for the California Department of Corrections at Folsom, Soledad, Vacaville, Susanville and San Quentin Prisons. Her performances include the World Drum Festival, National Black Expo, and the John Coltrane Festival. Her most recent CD is "THE HUMAN RACE."

Phavia currently writes for the SF Examiner, and you can read her articles here.

RELATED EPISODES: Phavia Kujichagulia: Cultural Consciousness (July 25, 2008), Phavia Kujichagulia: Fast Food or Fresh Fruit? (Nov. 6, 2009)

Ricardo Alvarez: Clinica Esperanza's new approach to HIV/AIDS

2010-07-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV Show, May 23, 2008.

Our Guest, Ricardo Alvarez, is the medical director of Clinica Esperanza, the Mission Neighborhood Health Center's HIV clinic, a multidisciplinary clinic serving the needs of mostly Latino uninsured or underinsured HIV patients. Clinica Esperanza is one of the premier HIV clinics in the city of San Francisco. It creatively engages in theatrical and artistic expressions of the community to tell the story of HIV. His research interests include medication adherence and institutional distrust.

www.clinicaesperanza.com

The Zionist Attack on the Free Gaza Flotilla

2010-07-05T14:59:00.000-07:00

PHOTO: Black Panther Party veterans Malik Raheem from New Orleans and Kiilu Nyasha, who was active in both the East and West Coasts, meet up at a demonstration in San Francisco. Kiilu is wearing her keffiyeh, the scarf that symbolizes Palestinian resistance.

THE ZIONIST ATTACK ON THE FREE GAZA FLOTILLA

by Kiilu Nyasha

June 24, 2010

The vicious, premeditated, and illegal attack on the 6-boat Freedom Flotilla by Israeli Zionists on May 31 in international waters, left nine humanitarians shot dead (one of whom was an American citizen) and over 40 wounded on the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara, as well as many others traumatized and injured from being badly beaten, jailed, and/or hospitalized.

Among the approximately 700 unarmed human rights activists, journalists, members of parliament and other civilians from 40 countries were Dr. Paul Larudee, co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement, Haneen Zuaby, member of the Israeli Knesset, Brazilian filmmaker, Lara Lee, Kathy Sheetz, retired nurse from Richmond and veteran of 2008 and 2009 Free Gaza voyages, and former US Army Col. Ann Wright, who noted in describing the predawn raid, "I think they anticipated and were prepared to kill innocent civilians,"

An initiative that took almost two years of grassroots organization, they were bringing 10,000 tons of medical and humanitarian aid including toys, wheelchairs, construction supplies, paper, food, and medicines for Gaza's 1.5 million besieged residents.

You can read the rest of the article at the SF Bay View Newspaper's website, where it was originally published, here.

Oakland, CA Protest/Picket of Israeli Ship: June 20, 2010 from Oriana Bolden on Vimeo.

Georgia Schreiber & Charles Minster: Prison Focus and Pelican Bay SHU

2010-06-18T16:04:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV Show, January 25, 2008.

Our first guest is Georgia Schreiber, Board Chair of California Prison Focus (CPF). Formerly known as The Pelican Bay Information Project, CPF was founded shortly after the supermax prison opened in 1989. CPF staff work with prisoners and their family members to expose human rights abuses with a larger vision of closing the SHU and ultimately abolishing California's racist, genocidal prison system (see www.prisons.org).

Also joining us will be Charles Minster, a retired trade union activist and supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee (www.partisandefense.org). Both activists have recently visited political prisoner, Hugo 'Yogi' Pinell, now enduring his 18th year in SHU, his 38th in solitary, and his 44th in California prisons.

For more information: http://www.hugopinell.org/

Jennifer Friedenbach: War on the Homeless

2010-06-18T15:59:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, April 18, 2008.

Originally from Redwood City, our guest Jennifer Friedenbach has worked about 18 years on homeless and poverty issues, including welfare rights, housing, homeless prevention, healthcare, disability, and human and civil rights. For five years, Jennifer worked at San Mateo County's Hunger and Homeless Action Coalition moving from administrative assistant to Director. She started work in San Francisco 13 years ago with the Coalition.

Jennifer has co-authored a number of reports including Locked Out! The Voices of People with Mental Illness, a 1999 study citing bureaucratic blockage of access to San Francisco's mental health system for people in crisis; Housing First for Families, which documents the impact of homelessness on children; and Shelter Shocked, which presents a statistical study of human rights abuses in San Francisco's shelter system. Jennifer sits on the Implementation Council for the Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, and was a founding member of the People's Budget Collaborative, which redirects City funding toward supporting poor people's programs in San Francisco.Last year, Jennifer was among 11 San Franciscans honored with the Women Making History Award.

Raymond Nat Turner and Zigi Lowenberg: UpSurge!

2010-06-04T13:07:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, Feb. 22, 2008

Our Guests will be the founders of UpSurge!, a Bay Area band with a compelling mix of jazz, poetry and politics, featuring Raymond Nat Turner and Zigi Lowenberg - who chant, shout, sing, whisper, and speak their message against oppression and for community while transporting the audience on a high-spirited liberating journey.

Voted 'Best of the East Bay in 2003′, the group's ensemble includes piano, bass, drums, saxophone, and trombone. Their recordings feature special guests and can be found on their websitewww.upsurgejazz.com along with listings for their upcoming gigs.

Dennis Cunningham: The FBI and the Resistance

2010-06-04T13:01:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, May 2, 2008

Our guest, Attorney Dennis Cunningham, established the People's Law Office in Chicago from which he and young Attorney Jeffrey Haas conducted a landmark civil rights case ultimately winning a large settlement for the Panthers' families -- although Chicago's killer cops were never criminally charged.

Dennis continued doing civil rights cases over these 40 years, during which he also worked on the long-running class action for the prisoners who rebelled and survived the massacre at New York's Attica State Prison in 1971, and the Earth First case resulting from the 1990 bombing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in Oakland, among many other defenses of protesters and victims of police misconduct, brutality and/or murder.

RELATED EPISODE: Dennis Cunningham on the Attica Prison Uprising (Sept. 12, 2008)

On Racism and Unity

2010-05-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

On Racism and Unity

By Kiilu Nyasha

May 18, 2010

I am so tired of hearing the static figure propagated by the Zionists -- and practically everyone else in the world – that six million Jews were the exclusive victims of Adolph Hitler’s Nazism. The racist white supremacist ideology of 1930s Germany was very particular. White people had to be Arian, so-called “pure bloods” and able-bodied. Therefore, the darker Jews, Italians, and Roma (Gypsies), among others, as well as homosexual and disabled people, were also targets for extermination. If Jews, Italians and Gypsies couldn’t make it, imagine how Africans were treated. Do you think that any Africans who happened to be in Germany at that time survived the holocaust for a minute?

We are currently witnessing the rise of a pernicious, white supremacist backlash (I believe is not only a reaction to Obama, but the reduction of the White population to a minority.) evidenced by some 30,000 skinhead and KKK white nationalists on the move, the far right, and the growing, right-wing tea party. They talk about taking their country back and honoring their leaders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (slavers); claiming they built this country and it belongs to white people, not all these niggers, gooks, and wetbacks.

The blatantly racist Arizona legislation, as well as the banning of ethnic studies in its public schools, is an attempt to once again legalize segregation and racist oppression. Combine that with the dramatic rise in the incarceration rate of Black and Brown prisoners throughout this country, especially in Arizona, Texas and California; the privatization of prisons, and the cradle-to- prison pipeline our children travel, not to mention the cold-blooded execution of Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009, and we see a picture of White racist repression and genocide.

Add to that a nearly all male, lily-White congress that, were you to photograph it, would find few dark faces among 535 politicians (supposedly representing the American people); and we see the re-emergence of an even more insidious era of racial and sexist oppression, repression, slavery-behind-the-walls (sanctioned by the Constitution), and deadly poverty on the outside.

The level of unemployment is rising sky high, and Black people have traditionally been the last hired, first fired. No doubt at least some individuals are opting for survival by going to prison to keep a roof over their heads and several meals a day – especially in cold climates.

Those of us who fought so hard in the 1960s for change, revolutionary change, are watching the clock turn backwards. It’s heartbreaking to see the struggle for ethnic studies, for example, being demolished in Arizona; textbooks being rewritten to exclude and obfuscate our true histories and herstories. Resegregation, neo-slavery, genocidal homelessness and poverty, a health-care system for the rich, quality education priced off the table, unaffordable child care with no safety nets for parents, ubiquitous junk food, and the removal of practically every healthy form of recreation from the reach of everyday people are the very things we tried so hard to prevent, to remedy, to change or transform.

It’s even more heartbreaking to see the promise of a multi-cultural, international community living in harmony (the objective our rainbow coalition initiated) going down the drain with the rise of both Black and White nationalism. But I should add Brown, Red and Yellow nationalism that likewise divides us.

We have a choice.

We can allow this thing to degenerate into a race war that would result in endless revenge killings and interminable civil war.

Or we can struggle to make friends with folks who don’t look exactly like ourselves, might play different music, eat different food, or speak with an accent of a different kind. Unless each and every one of us begins to deal with our prejudices, intolerance, bias and/or racism, nothing will change except to get worse. Moreover, we must stop being such passive liberals who say nothing when we hear racist remarks spoken right in our faces. We must develop intolerance for racism, but be careful to cure the sickness to save the patient (Mao). I don’t believe anyone really escapes the effects of a society steeped in racist white supremacy. Those who claim exemption from any degree of the sickness (racism) are likely in denial even to themselves.

Mao TseTung noted: “The unification of our country, the unity of our people and the unity of our various nationalities are the basic guarantees of the sure triumph of our cause.”

“…[I]t is only through the unity of the whole class and the whole nation that the enemy can be defeated and the national and democratic revolution be accomplished.”

We Blacks have cringed at the idea of calling ourselves “Americans;” in fact, we’ve abhorred the label, some of us refusing to use it at all. However, whenever we leave these shores, we quickly discover in foreign countries that we are Americans like it or not. Moreover, I came to the conclusion, only recently, that when we exclude ourselves from being American, we’re really being superficial and escaping responsibility for our vital role, our historic role in moving this country forward. Not only can no other group claim to have labored harder to build this country, no other group can claim to have fought longer or harder in the forefront of progressive and revolutionary struggles than Black folks. In fact, if there were one ethnic group that deserves special tribute for its national contribution, Black people would comprise the honorees.

It’s socially scientific to observe that the most oppressed will lead any revolution since they have the least to lose and the most to gain from a change.

I hope we will come to our collective senses soon, before it’s too late. All indications point to time running out…

People of the world unite!

Raymond A. Rock, III and C.C. Campbell-Rock: Gulf Coast Injustice

2010-05-07T16:20:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, February 29, 2008.

Our guests will be Katrina survivors Raymond A. Rock, III and wife, C.C. Campbell-Rock, college-educated activists and servants of the people. Prior to Katrina, Rock, a carpenter, and C.C., a journalist, built an educational justice movement in LouisianaParents for Educational Justice, challenging the states testing program. They also produced and co-hosted Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace, a live TV program, for four years. Since their arrival in the Bay Area, the couple has advocated for Gulf Coast Justice and the Right to Return, participated in a theater production about Katrina survivors experiences, and Rock has written Katrina in the Hood. Parents of two teens and two adults, they are in the midst of rebuilding their home in New Orleans.

Raj Patel: The Global Food System

2010-05-07T16:17:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, November 7, 2008.

Our guest, Raj Patel is a writer, activist and academic. He has degrees from the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics and Cornell University, has worked for the World Bank and WTO and been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against them. Hes currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeleys Center for African Studies, an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First.

He was recently invited to share his views on the global food crisis in testimony to the US House Financial Services Committee and is an Advisor to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. In addition to numerous scholarly publications, he regularly writes for The Guardian, and has contributed to the LA Times, NY Times.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Mail on Sunday, and The Observer. His first book is Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and he is the author of the new book The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy.

www.rajpatel.org

Elizabeth Martinez: 500 Years of Chicana Women's History

2010-04-29T19:25:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, July 11, 2008.

Kiilu's guest is Elizabeth Betita Martinez, legendary Chicana activist, historian, lecturer, and author of six books. She is currently the Director of the Institute for MultiRacial Justice in San Francisco. Betita is also one of the select international women nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

Her latest book, 500 Years of Chicana Women's History was just published (2008) in a bilingual, paperback edition w/more than 800 photos and illustrations. She also wrote the acclaimed bilingual volume 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, which became the basis for a video she co-directed. Her other books include De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (South End Press), Letters from Mississippi (re-issued in 2002), and The Youngest Revolution: A Personal Report on Cuba.

Mike Wong: Resistance to U.S. Wars

2010-04-28T22:01:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, December 7, 2007.

Our guest, Mike Wong, was born and raised in San Francisco, and became a soldier during the Vietnam War. He was very influenced by the anti-war movement. So when he received Viet Nam orders, he went AWOL, then turned himself in to the Presidio stockade with his lawyer, pleaded guilty to AWOL, and attempted to press a limited conscientious objector case. The Army turned him down, and put him back on Viet Nam orders. Mike escaped to Canada and lived in exile for five years. He returned after the war, pleaded guilty to Long Term AWOL, and received an Undesirable Discharge.

He later earned a Masters degree in Social Work, and has been a social worker for 30 years, as well as war resistance activist. Mike was featured in the movie "Sir! No Sir!" and the anthology, "Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace."

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/

Jeffrey Blankfort: The Zionist Occupation of Palestine

2010-04-16T21:32:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, December 21, 2007.

Jeffrey Blankfort was raised in a Jewish non-Zionist family. He produces radio programs on three stations and has written extensively on the Middle East. He was formerly the editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin and co-founder of the Labor Committee of the Middle East. His photographs of the Anti-Vietnam War and Black Panthers Movements have appeared in numerous books and magazines.

In February 2002, he won a lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which was found to have had a vast spying operation directed against American citizens opposed to Israel’s policies in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza and to the apartheid policies of the government of South Africa and passing on information to both governments. He is currently writing a new book about The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

--We apologize that we are missing some footage from the beginning of this episode.

Ida McCray: Women Prisoners

2010-04-16T19:35:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, May 9, 2008

Our guest is Ida McCray, Founder and Director of Families With A Future (FWAF). A former political prisoner, mother and grandmother, Ida formed this network in recognition of the pain of separation children and incarcerated parents suffer. FWAF provides support and transportation to facilitate family visits, and works with women released from prison to help them re-enter their communities.

http://familieswithafuture.com/

Harold Taylor: The San Francisco Eight

2010-04-09T17:03:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, April 25, 2008

Our guest is Harold Taylor, of Panama City, Florida, one of the elders known as the San Francisco 8 who was freed on bail last September. Harold was one of the organizers of the San Diego chapter of the Black Panther Party. Father of five children, Harold worked for the U.S. Air Force at Tyndal, and as a hi-voltage journeyman lineman for over 15 years. In his own words, "In 1971, two brothers and I were set up by the FBI. We didn't learn about COINTELPRO until years later. In 1973 I was arrested in New Orleans and was beaten and tortured for several days. in 2003 the detectives that were responsible for my torture came to my house to try and question me. I have not been the same since."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Currently, as of April 2010, Cisco Torres is the only member of the SF8 still facing charges. Please come to his next court date on Monday April 19: 8:00 a.m. demonstration; 9:00 a.m. court. SF Court Building: 850 Bryant Street (btw 6th and 7th streets), San Francisco. For more information, go to www.freethesf8.org.

Charles Bourdon: The San Francisco Eight

2010-04-09T16:54:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, February 8, 2008

Our guest is Charles F. Bourdon, Attorney for Francisco Torres of the San Francisco Eight. Collectively, the SF8 are a group of community activists who have devoted their lives to serving the people and making a difference. Richard Brown (65), for example, has worked for decades in the Fillmore District mentoring youth; including 20 years as a Program Coordinator at Ella Hill Hutch Community Center and is fondly referred to as the Mayor. While conspiracy charges have been dropped against Brown and four other defendants, effectively freeing Richard ONeal, lawyers will argue in court on Feb. 7 to have the same charges dropped against the remaining three defendants.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Cisco Torres is the only member of the SF8 still facing charges. Please come to his next court date on Monday April 19: 8:00 a.m. demonstration; 9:00 a.m. court. SF Court Building: 850 Bryant Street (btw 6th and 7th streets), San Francisco. For more information, go to www.freethesf8.org.

Health Care Deform

2010-04-06T17:02:00.000-07:00

WELFARE DEFORM – HEALTH CARE DEFORM

By Kiilu Nyasha

“Fascism has temporarily succeeded under the guise of reform.” (George L. Jackson/Blood In My Eye)

Clinton’s welfare reform is evident everywhere in the faces of homeless women and children, not to mention men. Since his reform virtually gutted the safety net that once kept mothers with dependent children at least housed and fed.

As you may recall, the Clintons’ health care plan turned into a huge windfall with profits and bonuses galore for the HMOs and Pharmaceuticals.

Now, the Obama health care plan, with Clinton assistance no doubt, is another boon for the insurance companies – heads they win; tails they win!

Fyi, I’m a recipient of Medi-Medi (State and Federal insurance, Medicaid or Medi-Cal and Medicare) so I can testify personally to what’s happening to millions of other folks thus insured.

While Congress was dithering over the details of this Bill just passed, I (we) lost dental and eye care (no longer covered) and doctors across the country were having their fees reduced. Now that it has passed, we’re told that a half trillion dollars will be cut from Medicare and millions more individuals will be added to Medi-Medi nationwide.

This all adds up to poor people not being able to access quality health care – period. And many being subjected to fines (and penalties for not paying???) if they can’t afford to buy insurance required by law.

If that aint health care deform, I don’t know what is.

This is the anniversary of a fall that hospitalized me last year for six weeks and from which I have not recovered the ability to stand up and walk. This experience has put me back in touch with the inadequate and uncaring medical system and taught me that it has deteriorated even further since my previous experiences as an inpatient and subsequent outpatient.

The solution to our health care system is not more of the same. We must demand free health care for all and an end to medicine for profit. We need a national health care system similar to that of Britain, Cuba, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, etc. We know it can be done because it IS being done.

Power to the people.

Avotcja honors Dr. King

2010-03-24T20:44:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, January 18, 2008.

Our guest is Avotcja, a poet, musician, photographer and teacher -- renowned as a sound junkie and storyteller, originally from NYC, she's a Bay Area cultural treasure. A popular DJ on KPFA and KPOO, founder & director of The Clean Scene Theater Project, she currently performs with her award-winning jazz band, Avotcja & Modupue. An active member of DAMO (Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization), Artist in Residence at Milestones Project & the Penal System, she teaches poetry, music, and drama in the prisons and public schools.

Joe Wanzala: Crisis in Kenya

2010-03-24T20:42:00.000-07:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, December 5, 2008.

Our Guest is Joe Wanzala, writer and community activist who lives in Oakland, California. He is originally from Uganda and Kenya, and has lived in several African countries. Joe is particularly interested in how perception management is used to manufacture grand narratives about critical geopolitical events and how this in turn influences not only public opinion, but determines and justifies policy. Joe will join Kiilu to discuss how this process has worked in the case of the crisis in the Great Lakes region of Africa, in particular the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to mask what is really going on in the region.

(The first few minutes of this episode are unavailable.)

Pierre Labossiere: Revolutionary Haitian History

2010-03-12T19:17:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, October 12, 2007.

Pierre Labossiere, a Haitian national, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, has been a long-time social-justice activist and advocate for the Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa. Pierre has also been active in the campaigns to free political prisoners in Haiti and the U.S.

Learn more at: www.haitisolidarity.net and www.haitiemergencyrelief.org

Yuri Kochiyama: On Knowing Malcolm X

2010-03-12T16:11:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, May 16, 2008.

Our guest will be the legendary human rights activist, Yuri Kochiyama, who lived in Harlem for 40 years and worked with Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik el Shabazz). Although no official holiday honors Malcolm's birthday, May 19 has become a traditional day of celebration in the Black and progressive communities. Yuri shares his birthday and will reach 87 this May 19 -- also the birthday of Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh). A tireless freedom fighter, political prisoner advocate, and author of Passing It On -- A Memoir, Yuri has also had a biography written about her life by Diane C. Fujino titled: Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama.

Phavia Kujichagulia: Cultural Consciousness

2010-03-12T16:07:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, July 25, 2008

Phavia Kujichagulia, a Griot / Djialli (Oral Historian), musician, writer, poet, dancer who utilizes music, poetry and dance to heal and reveal history -- was a professor of Ethnomusicology and African Civilizations at World College West and Stanford Universitys Workshop on Political and Social Issues. For more than 16 years, she taught Creative Writing and Performance Art for the California Department of Corrections at Folsom, Soledad, Vacaville, Susanville and San Quentin Prisons. Her performances include the World Drum Festival, National Black Expo, and the John Coltrane Festival. Her most recent CD is "THE HUMAN RACE." Phavia currently writes for the SF Examiner.

Michael Wong and Eddie Falcon: Veterans for Peace

2010-03-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, May 30, 2008

As a U.S. soldier in 1969, Mike Wong refused orders to Viet Nam and deserted to Canada. Mike is featured in the film "Sir! No Sir!" In today's wars, Eddie Falcon served as a U.S. Airman in Guantanamo Bay and various places in the Middle East including Iraq and Afghanistan. Mike Wong is a member of Veterans for Peace and Eddie Falcon is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

www.ivaw.org

www.veteransforpeace.org

Ray Boudreaux and Richard Brown: Free The SF8!

2010-03-01T14:47:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, July 3, 2008.

Guests, Ray Boudreaux and Richard Brown, former Panthers and defendants in the case of the San Francisco 8. Three days after the airing of this episode, on July 6, the case was dismissed against Ray, Richard, Harold, and Hank. Charges still remain against Cisco Torres.

For the latest developments in the case and what you can do to help, please go to www.freethesf8.org

Emiliano Echeverria & Pierre Labossiere: The Kidnapping of 2 Presidents

2010-02-19T14:39:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, July 10, 2009

Guest, Pierre Labossiere, a Haitian national, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, has been a long-time social-justice activist and advocate for the Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa. Pierre has also been active in the campaigns to free political prisoners in Haiti and the U.S.

Learn more at: www.haitiaction.net www.haitisolidarity.net

Guest, Emiliano Echeverria, Central American Scholar, radio DJ, and former Coordinator of "Freedom Is A Constant Struggle" on KPFA Pacifica Radio. Emiliano is also a long-time activist who has traveled often to Cuba where he received excellent medical care and appeared in the film Sicko.

Tiny (Poor Magazine) and Bob (Streetsheet): Criminalizing Poverty

2010-02-19T14:30:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV Show, July 17, 2009

Guest, Bob Offer-Westort, Coordinating Editor of the Street Sheet, San Francisco homeless people's newspaper, and the Civil Rights Organizer for the Coalition on Homelessness. Bob has been involved in homeless community organizing since 2005.

415.346.3740 x309

http://www.cohsf.org/

Guest, Tiny (daughter of dee, single mama of tiburcio) is a poverty scholar, co-editor and founder of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork, member of the Poetas POBRE- Po' Poets Project and the welfareQUEENs, and author of Criminal of Poverty; Growing up Homeless in America.

http://www.poormagazine.org/

LBD from KPOO Radio

2010-02-13T21:54:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV Show, July 31, 2009

Guest, LBD (William Hammons) is a DJ and co-host of KPOO's Saturday morning show (7 a.m. - Noon), Wake Up Everybody! with Donald E. Lacy, as well as co-founder with Lacy of the Love Life Foundation. The program is a mix of music, news and public affairs, liberally sprinkled with comedy. KPOO is a community-based nonprofit, noncommercial radio station that caters to the needs of populations traditionally underrepresented in the mainstream media.

http://www.kpoo.com/

Elbert "Big Man" Howard and Billy X Jennings: Black August

2010-02-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV Show, August 7, 2009

Guests:

Elbert “Big Man” Howard, author, lecturer and activist, is one of the six founding members of the BPP who was Deputy Minister of Information and Editor of the Black Panther Newspaper. He authored Panther on the Prowl, Each One Teach One, and wrote the forward for Up Against The Wall by Curtis Austin. He currently lives in Sonoma County where he helped found the PACH, Police Accountability Clinic and Helpline, in Santa Rosa.
www.pachline.org

Billy X Jennings, Black Panther Party Historian, is one of the original Oakland Panthers who joined the Party in 1968 at age 17. Billy has been the primary organizer of It's About Time BPP/Alumni Committee reunions beginning in 1996. He has traveled far and wide putting on programs and exhibits to keep the BPP legacy alive, including the famous Yerba Buena Center for the Arts exhibit of 2006 in San Francisco. He's also active in the struggle to free our political prisoners.

www.itsabouttimebpp.com

As many of you know, August 7, 1970 was the date we commemorate every Black August. when young Jonathan Jackson raided the Marin Courthouse in an armed attempt to free the Soledad Brothers and expose to the world the atrocities being committed against Black men behind prison walls. For more information, go here.

Pierre Labossiere: Haiti's Heroic History

2010-01-31T14:21:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV Show, August 14.

Guest, Pierre Labossiere, a Haitian national, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, has been a long-time social-justice activist and supporter of the Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa. Pierre has also been active in the campaigns to free political prisoners and to demand an investigation into the kidnapping and disappearance of Haitian Human Rights Advocate, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine in August, 2007.

Learn more at: www.haitisolidarity.net and www.haitiemergencyrelief.org

Willie Sundiata Tate: Black August

2010-01-31T14:07:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV Show, August 21, 2009

Guest, Willie Sundiata Tate (Sundi), was a member of All of Us or None, a group of ex-prisoners actively fighting discrimination against people who have done time in prison, and was a member of TIMERS, another group of former Black Panthers and activist ex-prisoners who organized an annual Black Family Reunion Day in West Oakland with food, speakers and a bicycle give-away for many years.

Sundi was formerly one of the six defendants put on trial for the assaults and murder of guards on that fateful day, August 21, 1971, when Soledad Brother George L. Jackson was assassinated. They became known as The San Quentin Six. Sundi was acquitted of all charges and has been out of prison for over 35 years, continuing to advocate for the release of political prisoners and equal justice.

http://www.allofusornone.org/

VIDEO: The Value of Nothing, by Raj Patel

2010-01-27T20:41:00.000-08:00

This is new video announces the release of Raj Patel's new book entitled The Value of Nothing. To learn more, go to www.RajPatel.org. Also be sure to watch Raj Patel on Freedom is a Constant Struggle here.

Nadra Foster: Survivor of Police Abuse at KPFA

2010-01-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

(UPDATE: Nadra Foster begins her trial on Feb.5 in Oakland and she needs our support. For more information read the new SF Bay View article here.)

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show Aug. 28, 2009

Guest: Nadra Foster, a/k/a, your brown sistah, Mama Nadra and emcee Saquoyah Sankofa, has been a committed programmer and producer, or love warrior, for over 15 years at Pacifica’s KPFA. In 1994, at 19 years old, she became the youngest person to be accepted to the two-year apprenticeship. Active in community and global advancement -- as a poet, political-prisoner activist and journalist, holistic Hip Hop emcee, visual artist and educator -- Nadra has worked to keep disenfranchised communities inspired and involved in using media to heal and uplift themselves.

On August 20, 2008, in the studios of KPFA, a terrifying incident took place when over a dozen Berkeley police attacked Nadra with such extreme aggression she is still recovering from serious injuries. She is also fighting misdemeaner charges. To support Nadra and learn more about her case, contact: globalelevationmovement@gmail.com.

Jahahara Alkebulan: Blacks for Reparations

2010-01-22T14:01:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show Sept. 4, 2009

Guest: Baba Jahahara Amen-RA Alkebulan-Ma'at is a proud Baba (father), son, veteran justice, community, labor, international and environmental rights organizer, author, journalist and musician. He has helped lead successful campaigns on a variety of important issues while residing and working in Chicago, New York, Kansas City and the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area. He is the past elected National Co-Chair of the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America (N'COBRA) and was editor/publisher of REPARATIONS NOW! for nearly a decade. Jahahara has also been very active in a number of campaigns to free our imprisoned and exiled political leaders; and to end the racist and classist death penalty.

Jahahara currently resides in Oakland and can be reached at support@wedemandreparations.com or at the blog wedemandreparations.wordpress.com (under reconstruction)

The Haitian Tragedy and Mainstream Media Response

2010-01-16T10:02:00.000-08:00

The Haitian Tragedy and Mainstream Media Response

by Kiilu Nyasha

I cannot remain silent in the face of so much racism and disinformation streaming over the mainstream media regarding the ongoing Haitian tragedy.

This 7.0 major earthquake of January 12 and its aftershocks have left in its wake a state of emergency unlike any of us has witnessed in our lifetime -- just 700 miles from our East coast shores.

Upwards of 50 thousand people are already counted as deceased, and many more injured and dying for lack of basic medical care. Estimates are reaching a possible 100,000 deaths, not to mention the devastating destruction of homes and buildings, including the Presidential Palace.

Time is of the essence, yet the international response has been painfully, tragically slow. Would this pace of rescue -- where every minute counts in digging people out of the wreckage – been the case if the earthquake victims were European?

Blame the victims

Ignored by most commentators is the truth of Haiti’s historic and ongoing poverty – in classic “blame the victim” coverage. E.g., it’s not mentioned that Haitians fought their way out of slavery, expelling the colonial powers of Britain, Spain and France. In fact, Haitians won their war of independence against Napoleon’s crack troops in 1804, and were celebrating their bicentennial when the U.S. kidnapped and exiled (for the second time) their popular President Jean-Bertrand Aristide who won two landslide victories in internationally monitored elections. The majority of Haitians have demanded his return ever since.

Mainstream reporters describe this U.S.-backed coup as Aristide being ousted by rebels, implying his own people ran him out of the country. They talk about Haitians living on a dollar a day but fail to mention that part of the reason Aristide was attacked involved his attempt to double the minimum wage to about $2.50 a day; or that American factories exploit Haitian workers in underpaid, overworked sweatshops. An example of such American corporate greed is the case of Disney using Haitian labor to make their garments at 27 cents an hour. Haitians organized and demanded a raise to 50 cents. Disney threatened to move to China (where labor was even cheaper) – and they did.

On his re-election in 2000, Aristide built schools, hospitals and clinics, a medical school to train doctors with help from Cuba, and demanded restitution from France for the main reason Haiti is the poorest country in the West – France’s extortion of (in today’s currency) $21 billion, the total paid to the French between 1925 and 1946 as so-called reparations for the financial losses Frances suffered when slavery ended and their richest, sugar-producing colony was liberated. The guns of Britain, Canada and the U.S backed France’s robbery. This same quartet continues to occupy Haiti through its UN Peacekeepers, a misnomer if ever there were one. Their brutality is well known among Haitians.

Media give undue credit to Bill Clinton in both his former role as President and his current position as UN Special Envoy (a first-time post). While it’s true that Clinton helped pave the way for Aristide’s return in 1994 following massive international pressure, it was not without preconditions that tied Aristide’s hands in solving Haiti’s enormous problems. After all, it was the U.S. that backed the 1991 military coup in the first place. The regime change installed Gen. Raul Cedras who unleashed the death squads on Aristide’s Fanmi Lavalas party and conducted a reign of terror resulting in some 10,000 Haitians dead and countless others maimed. The U.S. arranged for the General’s asylum in Panama and his golden exile, with impunity for his massive crimes.

More recently, Clinton has been busy setting up investment opportunities for Wall Street corporations to further exploit Haitian labor.

Racism in coverage

The slow response and the level of aid all points to the kind of racist attitudes we saw during the Katrina tragedy – the devaluing of Black lives.

About this same time of massive death and destruction (the worst quake in 250 years), mainstream media is having a fit about racist comments recorded in a new book about the presidential campaign of 2008. Let s/he who is without racism cast the first stone.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s statement that a “light-skinned” Black who doesn’t speak a “negro dialect” could win the Presidency was simply the truth. Moreover, it helps if he’s male. History’s lessons testify to the preference of Black men over women of any hue. In fact, Sojourner Truth warned Frederick Douglas that if he didn’t stand up for universal suffrage instead of compromising to allow Black men to get the vote without women, it would be a long time before women would have equal voting rights. It took another 50 years,1870 until 1920! So it was predictable that Hillary couldn’t win over Barack. But I digress.

Just how many dark-skinned Black people do you see in the media? It’s kind of comical to watch light-skinned Blacks along with lighter-skinned whites attacking Reid since they’d be unlikely to have their jobs were they darker skinned. Skin color in color-struck America is nearly always the elephant in the room.

When I was a young woman entering the employment offices of NYC in the late 1950s, early ‘60s, I knew after being hired that I was often breaking the color barrier -- finding myself the only colored girl in the company (the spook who sat by the [elevator] door) or one of two or three light-skinned office workers. Those were the days when the generally lighter ethnic groups hadn’t yet replaced us as domestics. Now, as Blacks fill the prisons, we’re seeing a cradle to prison pipeline. And it was just reported this morning (Jan. 15) that African children in America have a 50% poverty rate.

So what has changed?

Not much. America and the world are still color struck and racist, refusing to recognize the latest genetic science proving that race is a fiction, a stupid construct. We are one human species that originated in sub-Saharan Africa; our differences are essentially cultural and often political.

If we were to recognize this, we would clearly see that Haitians are among the most vibrant, creatively artistic, socially conscious, courageous and resilient people on the planet earth.

Obama’s pledge of assistance

Pres. Obama has pledged $100 million in aide to Haiti days after its worst disaster ever with a climbing death toll of tens of thousands, severe and life-threatening injuries, incalculable suffering, no infrastructure, no food, water, electricity, shelters, or even tents with some three million homeless.

True to form, mainstream pundits are praising Obama’s contribution. I was not impressed, so I decided to find out what $100 million will buy, with the help of my assistant, Nedzada.

We discovered that Obama threw a party that cost $50 million more than he’s sending to Haiti. Yup! He spent $150 million on his Inaugural Ball. We also learned the following:

Top U.S. Firms are on pace to award $148.85 Billion in payouts for 2009, according to a Wall Street Journal Study. Billions with a B!

You can also buy a Beverly Hills mansion, a yacht, or a painting for more than the relatively meager sum Obama is donating. Obviously, we cannot rely on this government to do the right thing by Haitians in their hour of need. It never has.

So I would implore you to give all you possibly can, making sure you’re getting your contribution to the best possible agents for direct assistance to the Haitian people. I know and have confidence that your money would be well spent with Partners in Health (Paul Farmer’s organization) and Doctors Without Borders, as well as the Haiti Action Relief Fund here in the Bay Area.

Finally, if you’re planning to go to Haiti, I hope you’re planning to wear jeans and carry a shovel. Haitians need real help trying to dig out victims who may still be alive, not opportunistic posturing and photo ops.

May the Haitian people turn grief into strength and keep their faith in the people, not governments.

All power to the people.

Raj Patel: The Value of Nothing

2010-01-14T17:27:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, September 18, 2009

Our guest, Raj Patel is a writer, activist and academic. He has degrees from the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics and Cornell University, has worked for the World Bank and WTO and been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against them. He’s currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley’s Center for African Studies, an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First.

He was recently invited to share his views on the global food crisis in testimony to the US House Financial Services Committee and is an Advisor to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. In addition to numerous scholarly publications, he regularly writes for The Guardian, and has contributed to the LA Times, NY Times.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Mail on Sunday, and The Observer. His first book is Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and he is the author of the forthcoming book “The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy”.

www.rajpatel.org

Michael Wong & Jeff Paterson: Courage To Resist

2010-01-14T16:38:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, September 25, 2009

Our guests are Michael Wong and Jeff Paterson, two war resisters. In every war, only one GI gets to be the first to refuse orders to that war. Jeff Paterson, a US Marine, was the first GI to refuse orders to his war - Gulf War 1. He has since become one of the founding members of the Courage to Resist collective of activists who specialize in helping GI resisters who want to resist publicly. (The GI Rights Hotline helps all resisters most of whom want to get out quietly: http://www.girightshotline.org/). He was one of the key leaders who helped launch the 1st Lt. Ehren Watada campaign, and has since helped a long list of public GI resisters.

http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/

Mike Wong was born and raised in San Francisco, and became a soldier during the Vietnam War. He was very influenced by the anti-war movement. So when he received Viet Nam orders, he went AWOL, then turned himself in to the Presidio stockade with his lawyer, pleaded guilty to AWOL, and attempted to press a limited conscientious objector case. The Army turned him down, and put him back on Viet Nam orders. Mike escaped to Canada and lived in exile for five years. He returned after the war, pleaded guilty to Long Term AWOL, and received an Undesirable Discharge. He later earned a Masters degree in Social Work, and has been a social worker for 30 years, as well as war resistance activist.

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/

Kiilu Nyasha: Still Strong, Still True, and Still a Revolutionary

2010-01-08T18:30:00.000-08:00

Kiilu Nyasha: Still Strong, Still True, and Still a Revolutionary

By Larry Pinkney, The Black Commentator, January 7, 2009

“Why Must Black People Look At Each Other Through Prison Bars? Where Is Our Freedom?”

THE BLACK PANTHER Newspaper, September 18, 1971, Vol. 7, #4

The revolutionary struggle for social, economic, and political justice on behalf of every day people in this nation and throughout the world is a long and protracted one, full of unending challenges and real obstacles. Serious political struggle is not a leisurely walk in the park. It requires dedication and sacrifice. It is all too rare that we are given examples of individuals who have waged, and continue to relentlessly wage this ongoing struggle. Nevertheless, they can be found.

Black Panther Party veteran, determined political activist, radio programmer, and published writer / journalist extraordinaire, Kiilu Nyasha (aka Pat Gallyot), is a sterling example of a woman who, since the late 1960s to the present, has served the people ‘body and soul.’

Kiilu Nyasha has, since the 1960s been a stalwart supporter of political prisoners incarcerated in this nation’s prison gulag system. She has written to and given encouragement to literally myriads of prisoners, including the late George Jackson (former Black Panther Party Field Marshal, Soledad Brother, and internationally acclaimed author) who was murdered in 1971, by this de facto fascist ‘American’ elite’s power structure. Kiilu has, and continues in the year 2010, to send funds, stamps, books, and letters of encouragement and comradeship, etc., to many political prisoners. Contrary to the well perpetuated myth that there are no political prisoners in this nation; there are in fact many. The list includes Sundiata Acoli, Eddie Conway, Mumia Abul-Jamal, Ruchell ‘Cinque’ Magee, Hugo ‘Yogi’ Pinell, Leonard Peltier, Russell Shoats, Chip Fitzerald, Herman Wallace & Albert Woodfox, Kamau Sadiki, Jamil al-Amin (aka H. Rap Brown), Jalil Muntaqim, Veronza Bowers, Jr., and Lynne Stewart to name but a few. Others of this nation’s political prisoners have died in those prison dungeons. Yet others, such as Assata Shakur, have been forced into exile. Kiilu Nyasha, with every ounce of her strength and revolutionary fervor, has long been a stalwart servant of every day people, and most especially political prisoners.

The blood, sweat, tears, and suffering of Black people are the foundation of the wealth and power of the United States of America.

- Huey P. Newton, THE BLACK PANTHER newspaper, February 17, 1969, Vol 2. #23

The Black Panther Party with its many programs, including free breakfast programs for children, free medical programs, free clothing programs, free escort programs for seniors, and free food programs in service to the people, incurred the wrath of the racist, avaricious corporate government of the United States of America, and was shamelessly, ultimately physically decimated by said government and its many agents. However, the legacy of the Black Panther Party still stands true and tall in the hearts and minds of conscious peoples in this nation and around the world.

Nonetheless, what is all too often missed is the invaluable role of women in the Black Panther Party. Indeed, had it not been for Black women there would have been no viable Black Panther Party, for as Kiilu Nyasha correctly states; “Women were the back bone of the (Black Panther) Party.” Kiilu should know, for she functioned as an integral part of that “back bone” of the Black Panther Party (BPP) while in New Haven, Connecticut, and elsewhere.

Kiilu Nyasha is a comrade’s comrade. She, like so many other sisters, gave of herself in every way. When in 1970, as a direct result of vicious and illegal U.S. Government COINTELPRO [Counter Intelligence Program] activities, Bobby Seale and Ericka Huggins were on trial for their very lives in New Haven, Connecticut; Kiilu was there performing the urgent and necessary grunt work of coordinating legal and community efforts to rally support for our beleaguered Black Panther Party (BPP) comrades. She opened up her home to BPP activists and saw to it that their needs were met. In so doing, she did not hesitate to rise in the wee hours of the morning and work steadily throughout long and grueling days in service to the people and the Black Panther Party. She did not hesitate to give her all to the struggle.

In the year 2010, Kiilu Nyasha has not stopped. Her voice is still strong as she continues to deliver the clarion call for uncompromising revolutionary struggle and systemic change. She has written and continues to adroitly write for the San Francisco Bay View newspaper and The Black Commentator. In spite of physical pain and having to use a wheel chair for mobility, her mind is sharp and her powerful voice is that of a lioness for the people. As Kiilu so succinctly says it, she remains a firm adherent to “plain living and hard struggle” in her daily life. Her life has been, and is, in a word, exemplary.

To get an important glimpse of Kiilu Nyasha’s ongoing work, go to kiilunyasha.blogspot.com . It will be an inspiration and well worth your while.

While we must always remember the enormous service to the people by men such as Huey P. Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Hutton, George Jackson, John Huggins & Alprentice ‘Bunchy’ Carter, Fred Hampton & Mark Clark, Billy X Jennings, and Emory Douglas, etc., let us not even for an instant, forget the day to day service to the people by Kiilu Nyasha and other women who were, and remain, unsung giants in service to Black people and humanity as a whole. Let them be unsung no longer!

In this period of deceit, exploitation, war, and mediocrity, Kiilu Nyasha is still strong, still true, and still a revolutionary. Thank you comrade sister Kiilu, thank you and all the brilliant and powerful women who have struggled and continue today, this struggle for the every day people!

All Power to the People!

Onward sisters and brothers. We can afford to do no less. Onward!

--This article was originally published at www.BlackCommentator.com on January 7, 2009. Permission is granted to reprint as long as The Black Commentator is cited, so please help spread the word.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS NewsHour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker , by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book). Click here to contact Mr. Pinkney.

Ziad Abbas & Nadeen Elshorafa: The Gaza Siege

2010-01-06T21:08:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, July 24, 2009

Guest, Ziad Abbas is a journalist and co-director of the Ibdaa Cultural and Community Center in Dheisheh Refugee Camp, Palestine. He is currently attending graduate school in the US and working at the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) http://www.mecaforpeace.org/

Nadeen Elshorafa is a Palestinian activist with Youth Together in Oakland, Ca, http://www.youthtogether.net/peace/

Francisco Torres: The San Francisco 8

2010-01-06T20:56:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, Oct. 2, 2009.

Guest, Francisco Torres (Cisco), 58, of New York City, was born in Puerto Rico and raised in New York City. He is a Vietnam Veteran who fought for the grievances of Black and Latino soldiers upon his return to the states. A former Black Panther, he has been a community activist since his discharge from the military in 1969. Cisco continues to work with troubled youth in his Queens community. Cisco is the last member of the San Francisco Eight still facing charges.

For more information: www.freethesf8.org

Antonio Gonzalez: Columbus Day v. Indigenous Peoples Day

2010-01-06T20:50:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, Oct. 9, 2009.

Guest, Antonio Gonzalez (Tony), AIM-WEST Director, has coordinated Community Outreach, Research & Documentation for 12 years. As U.N. Liaison Officer, Tony coordinates Treaty Council participation at the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva -- and works with the U.N. Working Group on Indigenous Populations to complete the Universal Declaration on the Rights & Principles of Indigenous Peoples - a document that will establish a standard for countries to co-exist with Indigenous Peoples. He has also met with world leaders to discuss Indigenous sovereignty, environmental degradation, religious freedom, torture and political persecution

As a Vietnam combat veteran, Tony lived the horror of war and was inspired to work for human rights. He is committed to building unity among Indigenous peoples of all colors by emphasizing their shared history and common vision for the future.

For more information: www.aimwest.info or 415-577-1492

Gloria La Riva: The Cuban Five

2009-12-29T21:11:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, Oct. 16, 2009.

Guest, Gloria La Riva is national coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, and has worked for decades to end U.S. hostility toward Cuba. She has traveled frequently to Cuba over the past two decades, as well as to Venezuela, Bolivia and Mexico, where she has been an invited speaker at many international events. La Riva has been a key organizer of mass demonstrations with the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, opposing wars from 1991 to the present. In 1998 she produced the award-winning video, Genocide by Sanctions.

La Riva is president of the Typographical Sector, Media Workers Union, Local 39521, CWA. She has also been a candidate for the Peace & Freedom Party and the Party for Socialism and Liberation, running for California Governor and U.S. President, respectively.

In September 2005, days after Hurricane Katrina, La Riva traveled to New Orleans, producing the video “Heroes Not Looters.”

For more information: www.actionsf.org or call (415) 821-6545

Emiliano Echeverria & Pierre Labossiere: Coups in Honduras and Haiti

2009-12-28T21:30:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, Oct. 23, 2009

Pierre Labossiere, a Haitian national, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, has been a long-time social-justice activist and advocate for the Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa. Pierre has also been active in the campaigns to free political prisoners in Haiti and the U.S. Learn more at: www.haitisolidarity.net and www.haitiemergencyrelief.org

Emiliano Echeverria, Central American Scholar, radio DJ, and former Coordinator of "Freedom Is A Constant Struggle" on KPFA Pacifica Radio. Emiliano is also a long-time activist who has traveled often to Cuba where he received excellent medical care and appeared in the film Sicko.

Crystal Bybee: Kevin Cooper and Mumia Abu-Jamal

2009-12-19T23:40:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, Oct. 30, 2009.

Crystal Bybee is an activist with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty and the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee. She is a friend of Kevin Cooper's and visits him at San Quentin Prison.

On November 30, 2009 the US Supreme Court rejected Kevin Cooper’s writ of certiorari. Because of this ruling, Kevin is now facing the death penalty, and support is badly needed. To get the latest updates and to learn what you can do to help, please visit: www.savekevincooper.org

The US Supreme Court has yet to rule on the Philadelphia DA’s request to have Mumia Abu-Jamal executed without the benefit of a new penalty hearing. To get the latest updates and to learn what you can do to help, please visit: www.freemumia.com

Bobby Seale: The Attica Uprising

2009-12-19T14:23:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, Sept. 11, 2009.

Guest – Bobby Seale, Founding Chairman of the Black Panther Party, organizer, author, consultant, mentor, and current producer of “Bobby Seale's R.E.A.C.H! Chronicles: An on-line SOCIAL CHANGE magazine-journal.” A revolutionary humanist, Bobby also continues to speak at colleges and universities across the country about social change from the sixties to the future.

Largely in response to the death of George Jackson in August, New York's Attica State Prison rebels staged a four-day uprising, Sept. 9 - 13, 1971, during which they called for specified observers to mediate the standoff between the rebels (holding guards hostage) and the Administration. On Sept. 11, Bobby entered the prison to act as a negotiator of prisoners' demands. Unfortunately, NY Governor Nelson Rockefeller decided to end the prison takeover with a military assault that killed 29 prisoners and 10 guards with another 85 wounded, some of whom would die later.

Learn more about Bobby Seale at www.bobbyseale.com

Phavia Kujichagulia: Fast Food or Fresh Fruit?

2009-12-17T15:25:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, November 06, 2009.

Phavia Kujichagulia, a Griot / Djialli (Oral Historian), musician, writer, poet, dancer who utilizes music, poetry and dance to heal and reveal history -- was a professor of Ethnomusicology and African Civilizations at World College West and Stanford University’s Workshop on Political and Social Issues. For more than 16 years, she taught Creative Writing and Performance Art for the California Department of Corrections at Folsom, Soledad, Vacaville, Susanville and San Quentin Prisons. Her performances include the World Drum Festival, National Black Expo, and the John Coltrane Festival. Her most recent CD is "THE HUMAN RACE." Phavia currently writes for the SF Examiner, and you can read her articles here.

Homelessness in San Francisco and the US

2009-12-17T13:39:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, November 13, 2009.

This episode looks at the homelessness crisis in San Francisco and throughout the US.

Jennifer Friedenbach: Coalition On Homelessness

2009-12-16T16:25:00.000-08:00

Jennifer Friedenbach, Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness, Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, November 20, 2009.

Originally from Redwood City, Jennifer has worked about 18 years on homeless and poverty issues, including welfare rights, housing, homeless prevention, healthcare, disability, and human and civil rights. For five years, Jennifer worked at San Mateo County’s Hunger and Homeless Action Coalition moving from administrative assistant to Director. She started work in San Francisco 13 years ago with the Coalition.

Jennifer has co-authored a number of reports including Locked Out! The Voices of People with Mental Illness, a 1999 study citing bureaucratic blockage of access to San Francisco’s mental health system for people in crisis; Housing First for Families, which documents the impact of homelessness on children; and Shelter Shocked, which presents a statistical study of human rights abuses in San Francisco’s shelter system. Jennifer sits on the Implementation Council for the Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, and was a founding member of the People’s Budget Collaborative, which redirects City funding toward supporting poor people’s programs in San Francisco.Last year, Jennifer was among 11 San Franciscans honored with the Women Making History Award.

Dennis Cunningham: The 40th Anniversary of the Assassination of Fred Hampton

2009-12-14T20:59:00.000-08:00

Freedom is a Constant Struggle television show from Dec. 4, 2009 – The 40th anniversary of the assassination of Fred Hampton.

Our guest, Attorney Dennis Cunningham, established the People’s Law Office in Chicago from which he and young Attorney Haas conducted a landmark civil rights case ultimately winning a large settlement for the Panthers’ families – although Chicago’s killer cops were never criminally charged.

Dennis continued doing civil rights cases over these 40 years, during which he also worked on the long-running class action for the prisoners who rebelled and survived the massacre at New York’s Attica State Prison in 1971, and the Earth First case resulting from the 1990 bombing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in Oakland, among many other defenses of protesters and victims of police misconduct, brutality and/or murder.

Video Interview With Kiilu Nyasha: America’s Supermax Prisons Do Torture

2009-12-12T16:45:00.000-08:00

This new video interview conducted in November, 2009 in San Francisco, is based on a recent article by Nyasha, entitled “America’s Supermax Prisons Do Torture.” This full article is featured below. For more about Nyasha, please read the recent Black Commentator interview with her, entitled “Media, Revolution and the Legacy of the Black Panther Party.”

ARTWORK BY KIILU NYASHA: From left to right: Hugo "Yogi Bear" Pinell, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Albert "Nuh" Washington.

AMERICA’S SUPERMAX PRISONS DO TORTURE

by Kiilu Nyasha

November 22, 2009

President Barack Obama has clearly stated, “We don’t torture.”

Oh, yes we do. Big time.

A myriad of studies have clearly shown that human beings are social creatures – making prolonged isolation torture.

The New Yorker published an article March 30, 2009 by Atul Gawande titled, Hellhole: The United States holds tens of thousands of inmates in long-term solitary confinement. Is this torture?

Gawande asks, “If prolonged isolation is – as research and experience have confirmed for decades –so objectively horrifying, so intrinsically cruel, how did we end up with a prison system that may subject more of our own citizens to it than any other country in history has?”

By 2000, some 60 supermax prisons had been opened nationwide, in addition to new isolation units in nearly all maximum-security prisons.

The first such gulag was established in 1983 in Marion, Illinois. In 1989, California opened Pelican Bay State Prison near the Oregon border housing over 1,200 captives. It’s been the model for dozens of other states to follow. The SHU (Security Housing Unit) is entirely windowless, and from inside a cell with doors perforated with tiny holes, prisoners can only see the hallway.

They’re confined 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year with just a brief time (when permitted) in the “dog run” or outdoor enclosure for solitary exercise with no equipment, not even a ball.

But after nearly 20 years, California is now holding more people in solitary than ever; yet its gang problem is worse, and the violence rates have actually gone up.

Nationwide, at least 25,000 prisoners are in solitary confinement with another 50-80,000 in segregation units, many additionally isolated but those numbers are not released.

According to The Washington Post, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Prisons reported there are 216 so-called international terrorists and 139 so-called domestic terrorists currently in federal facilities (I’m convinced the real terrorists are on Capitol Hill). No one has ever escaped from these “most secure prisons.”

In a 60 Minutes segment titled, Supermax: A Clean Version of Hell (revisited), June 21, 2009, the reporters took cameras into the ADX-Florence, Colorado Supermax where there have been six wardens since it opened in 1994. It’s where Imam Jalil al-Amin and Mutulu Shakur are held captive, along with myriad other political prisoners.

One former warden stated, “I don’t know what hell is, but I do know the assumption would be, for a free person, it’s pretty close to it.”

“Supermax is the place America sends the prisoners it wants to punish the most – a place the warden described as a clean version of hell.”

In a national study (Hayes and Rowan 1988) of 401 suicides in U.S. prisons —one of the largest studies of its kind—two out of every three people who committed suicide were being held in a control unit.

In one year, 2005, a record 44 prisoners killed themselves in California alone; 70 percent of those suicides occurred in segregation units

Bret Grote is an investigator and organizer with Human Rights Coalition/Fed Up!, a prisoner rights/prison abolitionist organization based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

In the Angola 3 Newsletter, Grote details how HRC/Fed Up! Documented many hundreds of human rights abuses in Pennsylvania’s 27 prisons. Their investigations concluded that Pennsylvania is “operating a sophisticated program of torture under an utterly baseless pretext of ‘security,’ wherein close to 3,000 people are held in conditions of solitary/control unit confinement each day.”

Supermax prisons can also contain death rows where prisoners can spend decades in isolation, torture, with the added torment of impending execution. One obvious example is the highly political case of former Black Panther, journalist and author, Mumia Abu-Jamal, falsely convicted of killing a cop in 1981. Despite hard evidence of innocence, he’s still locked up in SCI Green, a Pennsylvania Supermax, after 27 years on death row and the signing of two death warrants.

These conditions are a flagrant violation of article 6 of the U.S. Constitution which affirms that treaty law (i.e. international law) is the “supreme law of the land.” Thus, article 10 (3) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights stipulates that “The penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation.”

Contrary to the lock-em-up-and-throw-away-the-key rhetoric of politicians, A Zogby poll released in April 2006 found 87 percent of Americans favor rehabilitative services for prisoners as opposed to punishment only.

The Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons, a bipartisan national task force, produced a study after a yearlong investigation (2005-2006) that called for ending long-term solitary confinement of prisoners. The report found practically no benefits and plenty of harm – for prisoners and the public.

One of the most egregious cases of prolonged torture is the politically-charged isolation of Hugo Pinell still held in Pelican Bay’s SHU after nearly 20 years. For his active resistance back in the 1960s and assault conviction in the San Quentin Six case (1976), my dear friend has spent a total of 40 years in hellholes – 45 of his 64 years in California prisons. (http://www.hugopinell.org).

“In much the same way that a previous generation of Americans countenanced legalized segregation,” writes Gawande, “ours has countenanced legalized torture. And there is no clearer manifestation of this than our routine use of solitary confinement – on our own people, in our own communities, in a supermax prison, for example, that is a 30-minute drive from my home.”

In the words of Friedrich Nietzsche, Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!

Power to the people!

--Angola 3 News is a new project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. Our website is www.angola3news.com where we provide the latest news about the Angola 3. We are also creating our own media projects, which spotlight the issues central to the story of the Angola 3, like racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as torture, and more. Our online video series has now released interviews with Robert King and Terry Kupers entitled “The Psychological Impact of Imprisonment,” Black Panther artist Emory Douglas entitled “The Black Panther Party and Revolutionary Art,” author J. Patrick O’Connor entitled “Kevin Cooper: Will California Execute An Innocent Man,” author Dan Berger entitled “Political Prisoners in the United States,” and Colonel Nyati Bolt entitled “The Assassination of George Jackson.” Please help spread the word!