Thursday, February 26, 2009

Queen of the Bolsheviks: The Hidden History of Dr. Marie Equi, by Nancy Krieger





Queen of the Bolsheviks: The Hidden History of Dr. Marie EquiQueen of the Bolsheviks: The Hidden History of Dr. Marie Equi by Nancy Krieger
  • $2.00 from left-wing books dot net
  • Saddle-stitched pamphlet
  • 30 pages
  • Published by Kersplebedeb in 2009
  • ISBN 1-894946-30-8


Now forgotten, Dr. Marie Equi was a physician for working-class women and children, a lesbian, and a dynamic and flamboyant political activist, active first in the women's suffrage movement and the Progressive Party, and later alongside the IWW.

Spanning the period from the consolidation of northern industrial capitalism to the emergence of the U.S. as the dominant imperialist power, Equi's life serves as a chronicle of her times and illuminates how one person was affected by and sought to change world events.

A little while back a friend sent me a link to the wikipedia page about Equi and from there i learned about this essay by Nancy Krieger, which appeared in the September-October 1983 issue opf Radical America. Luckily, the Center for Digital Initiatives at Brown University has scanned in all issues of Radical America (including this one), and so with the kind permission of Dr Krieger i have turned her groundbreaking text into a pamphlet.

Thrilled by the militancy of the IWW, its commitment to organizing the unorganized, and its recognition—as stated in its preamble—of the “historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism,” Equi underwent a profound change. She began to perceive the present as history, to see history and politics as the expression of class conflict, and to realize that with this understanding one can change history. Accordingly, Equi entered a period where her life became inextricably bound with the history and politics of her times.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Nancy Krieger for sharing this important chapter of herstory with us.



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Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Up to 30% off Kersplebedeb Titles: Left-Wing Books dot Net



Once upon a time i had a nice website. People thought it was nifty, and that made me glad.

Then along came web 2.0, and increasingly my poor little kersplebedeb website became about as impressive as a cluttered desk, on which it's barely possible to find anything, never mind anything you actually might want.

Oh, the indignity of it all.

Well, no more: i now have a spiffy new website, with a spiffy new domain:


It's got a shopping cart system, it's rigged out to calculate your postage, and you can even pay via credit cards. Whoopedy doo!

i'm still stocking the database, but i do have most of my books and pamphlets up. i expect to have a lot of fun tweaking the code and kicking it into some kind of shape that feels nice to me - by which time no doubt web 3.0 or 4.0 will be around to make it look like the slow kid in the class again.

Oh well.

For the next week, until March 1st, i'm having an "Opening Sale" to celebrate by newfound cyber-sleekness. Order almost anything and get 10% off if your total comes out to more than ten bucks. An additional 20% off of those things i've actually published, for a grand total of 30%.

Have fun, and let me know what you think.



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Israeli Apartheid Week in Montreal





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Major Victory in Adil Charkaoui Case

The following from the Justice for Adil campaign:

Security certificate regime suffers another blow But the battle against 'big brother' is far from over ...

Four years after Adil Charkaoui was placed under draconian "preventive conditions", he will finally be able to walk out of his front door without his mother and father. A decision by the Federal Court released on Friday, 20 February 2009 did away with the bulk of the conditions which have suffocated the Charkaoui family since Adil was released from prison on 18 February 2005. (Read decision at www.adilinfo.org or http://cas-ncr-nter03.cas-satj.gc.ca/rss/DES-4-08%20Feb%2020-2009.pdf.)


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Pacifism as Pathology Mini-Review

Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America by Ward Churchill


My review


rating: 4 of 5 stars
i had given this book two stars from memory - what had stuck in my mind was Churchill's conflation of what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust and what might befall the American New Left, and what i remembered as being his dismissal of prefigurative politics.

However, upon rereading it i think this was a case of the good fading from memory with time, while the bad became larger than it really was. i still think Churchill's "Jews being led to the slaughter" argument is a red herring - it had nothing to do with pacifism, just with inadequate politics - but it always strikes me a somewhat cruel to look back in retrospect and sneer at people for not having had their crystal balls polished enough. Plus, while there may be no hard and fast dividing line between "regular people" and "revolutionaries", comparing repression which is visited upon self-declared activists and violence that is visited upon people regardless of their political or cultural self-identification is just mixing apples and oranges.

But these are side-issues, in what is indeed a wonderfully concise and well argued appeal to reject pacifist ideology. i appreciate it all the more with Churchill's new introduction (i had only ever read the essay in its original form as an article in New Studies on the Left) and Mike Ryan's piece, which is nice for me in particular as he's talking about debates that happened here in Montreal that i remember from my years as an anarcho-brat.

View all my goodreads reviews.



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Monday, February 23, 2009

IWD Montreal: Women of Diverse Origins Demand a New World Order!



On International Women's Day in Montreal, 2009:
Women of Diverse Origins will demand a New World Order:
End Imperialism, Occupation, War, Exploitation and Repression!

The 8th March Committee of Women of Diverse Origins demands nothing more and nothing less. We demand an end to patriarchy and misogyny in terms of family relations, societal and political institutions, culture and the media.


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RSS Feeds by Label



Many of us on the left, either as individuals or on behalf of organizations, have tried our hand at blogging. For myself, as someone who maintains several websites, a longtime frustration has been that the energy i am putting into the blog does not automatically get integrated into what else i'm doing. Unless i actually copy-paste a posting from Sketchy Thoughts, it won't show up on Kersplebedeb or anywhere else.


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Thursday, February 19, 2009

Greece's Urban Guerillas

The following article from Newsday.com about urban guerillas in Greece:

Analysis: New brand of domestic terror in Greece seeks maximum havoc

By ELENA BECATOROS | Associated Press Writer
3:12 AM EST, February 19, 2009

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — A new and possibly more dangerous generation of Greek extremists is escalating attacks against police and symbols of capitalism, years after authorities believed they had stamped out domestic terrorism.

Police were dealing with two terror attempts within the last two days — one in which a powerful car bomb with more than 50 kilograms (110 pounds) of explosives was planted outside Citibank offices, and another in which gunmen opened fire with a submachine gun outside a TV station.

Although the Wednesday car bomb did not explode and the shooting the day before caused no injuries, they come on the heels of a spate of attacks in the past few months. Nobody has been killed so far but authorities are alarmed that the terror tactics appear to demonstrate a desire to carry out indiscriminate slaughter. Police, for example, received no warning call about the car bomb — a break with extremists' usual practice in Greece.

Greek terror groups, which have been active in Greece for decades, have never aimed for mass casualties in the style of the Irish Republican Army or Islamic jihadists. They have modeled themselves more on the 1970s European radical left-wing groups which carried out targeted killings, such as Italy's Red Brigades or Germany's Red Army Faction.

Although most such groups were eradicated in the rest of Europe, they endured in Greece, where they emerged from the resistance to the 1967-74 military dictatorship that left a legacy of deep-rooted mistrust of authority.

They have sought to portray themselves as urban revolutionaries who champion the poor and fight for the oppressed, and espoused anti-capitalist, anti-American and anti-European Union rhetoric.

But experts fear the current generation, such as Revolutionary Struggle which first appeared in 2003 and is best known for firing a rocket-propelled grenade at the U.S. Embassy in 2007, are motivated less by ideology than a desire to carry out carnage, and have shown little interest in winning public support.

"The situation is very serious," Michalis Chrisochoides, who was public order minister when members of Greece's deadliest terrorist organization November 17 were arrested in 2002, told The Associated Press. November 17 was named after the date the dictatorship sent tanks into the Athens Polytechnic to crush a student uprising in 1973. It enjoyed at least some public support in its early days, when its targets included the CIA station chief in Athens.

The group acted with impunity for nearly three decades, killing 23 people until a botched bombing in 2002 led to the arrest and conviction of more than a dozen members.

But current militants "are much more violent and much more murderous," Chrisochoides said.

There is also concern that the groups are seeking to exploit the December riots, sparked by the fatal police shooting of a teenager, Alexandros Grigoropoulos, and the growing financial crisis, which is now starting to bite in Greece.

"The credit crisis that broke out a few months ago is nothing more than the start of a speedy disintegration of a system that has been rotting for years behind the shiny but fake wrapping of apparent economic prosperity," Revolutionary Struggle said last month in a statement claiming responsibility for a gun and grenade attack that critically wounded a riot policeman.

"From here on, we can only defend the value of the human lives of the poor, the dispossessed, the damned of this society with weapons," the group said. "We will defend the values of our lives by turning against those who on a daily basis and in every way mock and devalue them and in the end take them away."

The rambling 9,000-word statement can also be seen as a call to arms for any other groups that might be willing to take up the mantle of "urban guerrilla fighters."

Greece's apparently newest extremists, who call themselves Sect of Revolutionaries, might have heeded that call, although some experts believe they are connected to Revolutionary Struggle or could be a splinter group.

They entered the scene with a gun and grenade attack against an Athens police station last month that caused no injuries, and are suspected of being behind Tuesday's attack on the TV station.

Their proclamation, in which they vow to expand targets to include journalists and politicians, was striking for its cynicism and lack of political ideology or any attempt to garner public support.

"From now on the life of every cop is worth as much as a bullet, while their bodies are the ideal target practice," said the group.

Police officers, "like the doughnuts that they eat, are no good without a hole in the middle," said the statement.

Criminology professor Vasilis Karydis noted that the text opens with a quote from the Red Army Faction, considered among Europe's most violent.

Sect of Revolutionaries "gives the impression of extreme violence at any price and without too many explanations," Karydis said.

As the statement said: "We don't feel the need to justify or even explain our action. We don't do politics, we do guerrilla warfare."

Brady Kiesling, a former political officer at the U.S. Embassy in Athens who is writing a book on November 17, said the departure from Greek extremist tradition of careful targeting was alarming.

"The sense that human life is precious has protected Greece from violence for a long time, and now you have a group saying it's not precious. It could be bravado, but it could be that the old social (belief) has worn off," Kiesling said.

"If that's true, things are dangerous."

___

Elena Becatoros is AP's Athens bureau chief.


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Wednesday, February 18, 2009

[Toronto] The Power of People: Community Responses to Capitalism in Crisis



Toronto comrades have organized an impressive evening of discussion about the period we have entered - i certainly hope the organizers will be taping or videotaping it to put it online:


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Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Prisoners Savagely Attacked by Racist Guards at SCI Camp Hill, PA

This from the Human Rights Coalition=Fed Up!, this report on what is being called the "Inauguration Day Atrocity", where six men were targeted for assault with chemical and electrocution weapons by guards calling them "niggers" in retaliation for these prisoners continuing to file grievances, pursue civil litigation, expose prison conditions to the public, and otherwise seek justice.

Chemical and electro-shock weapons used
Racist violence and repression on the rise again
Take action Today Tomorrow and Next Week.

Forward further and wider than ever because enough is enough!

On January 20, 2009 guards in the Special Management Unit (SMU) at the State Correctional [sic] Institution (SCI) in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania assaulted six prisoners, reportedly citing as reasons that these men file grievances against guard misconduct and are engaged in civil litigation against DOC officials; contact outside organizations (HRC/Fed Up! and www.prisoners.com in particular) to expose conditions of torture; also to send a message-in their words: "fuck a historical day, y'all always going to be niggers."


Seven men inside the state's premier torture unit have testified to the following events in reports to HRC/Fed Up!, including six men who submitted Declarations of Truth pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1746 and subject to the penalty of perjury, adding to the hundreds of pages of prisoner reports, additional Declarations, institutional paperwork, and civil litigation documents sent to our offices from the SMU at Camp Hill alone since only June of 2008. The incidents have been verified in a personal interview with Mr. Damont Hagan, who has since been transferred (as we've been demanding for 5 months). Superintendent's Assistant Robert Volciak further verified that four or five men were subjected to forcible cell extractions on the 20th in a telephone conversation of January 26th. Several others around the state and the country, from Louisiana to California, have received reports of these assaults as well and contacted our offices.

We are asking that you read the alert, become angry, and act accordingly to help protect the men in the SMU and by extension all others subjected to the normalized white supremacist torture occurring on a daily basis inside prisons in the state of Pennsylvania and throughout the U.S.

Inauguration Day

David Smith #FZ5176: On 1/20/09 C/O Liddick, C/O Zeigler, and Lt. Kuzar approached Gary Tucker's cell upon the pretext of wanting to conduct a search, despite having conducted one on 1/15/09. When Tucker came to the door, Liddick said, "Since this guy likes filing grievances, let's make an example out of him." Tucker refused to leave his cell after Kuzar denied his request to have a Captain or Unit Manager present. Willie Robinson then refused to leave his cell out of fear for his safety. David Smith then consented to a cell search, and was promptly assaulted by the above named staff and thrown in another cell, separated from his property. Mr. Smith reportedly suffered undisclosed injuries.

Gary Tucker #FG8520: In his own words: "A little later that morning a cell extraction team came to my cell. I was then told to come to the door and cuff up. When I walked to the door a guard opened the slot and sprayed me in the face with a whole lot of OC mace. I backed away from the door blinded; seconds later more mace was sprayed inside the cell, trapping my lungs up, that's when about 7 guards (including Lt. Kuzar, C/O Brant) charged into the cell slamming me to the bed with electric shields [that discharge 50,000 volts of electricity]. These electric shields were pressed against my body and held there for several minutes while the 6 guards took turns beating, kicking, and shocking me with hand held stun guns. After cuffing me they continued beating me down and shocking me. The guard holding the camera maneuvered the camera so that the beating couldn't be caught on it. From D-12 I was dragged out the cell and hoisted into the medical cell. There the beating continued (shocking, choking, and punching) and a male nurse squirted a liquid in my eyes that didn't seem to help at all. Next I was airlifted up a flight of stairs (after protests from several inmates about my medical condition [which requires me to be] bottom tier status. I was taken into D2-20, slammed face first to the metal bed frame and the 6 or 7 guards continued jumping and shocking me with stun guns. After several minutes of this I was stripped naked, dragged to the floor and pulled up to the tray slot and the cuffs were taken off after they tried to break my wrists. I requested to see medical but was denied the request so my injuries weren't [recorded]. The injuries suffered were as follows: face swollen both sides; wrists with deep cuts from the cuffs; stiff neck (I can barely move my neck); severe pain in my lower back which makes it hard for me to move; my right arm dislocated; badly swollen right ankle that I can't put pressure on and a bloody mouth. Several inmates witnessed this assault and the Lt. Kuzar kept yelling, "Stop resisting" which was merely a means to justify their actions in assaulting me. Truth was I never resisted; I couldn't resist at all."

Damont Hagan #DS9488: In his own words: "I was approached by C/O Brant who threatened me, informing me that I had to come out for a search, stating 'the camera can be manipulated Hagan, remember that.' He also called me a 'nigger.' . . . After a while, I told Unit Manager Chris Chambers [about the threats] . . ., and informed him that 'I fear for my life.' He retorted, "Hagan, I'm tired of this complaining to HRC and www.prisoners.com and preliminary injunctions. Y'all did this to y'all selves, now y'all scared. You're coming out regardless, so write HRC [which he did-let's be there for him] or have .com write the Attorney General again, who cares.' . . . A cell extraction team came and the same SMU staff (Brant, Kuzar) were in suit. I also witnessed them abuse Gary Tucker. They told me to cuff-up and I told them I feared for my life (on camera). Sgt. Maxwell then sprayed me with OC which got in my lungs and eyes, forcing me to cuff up." After being cuffed Hagan was taken to a cell where his clothes were cut off of him and Sgt. Maxwell whispered sexually lewd comments to Hagan regarding Lt. Flowers (a female) being present. Mr. Hagan was denied water for two days, his food was tampered with when it wasn't denied altogether, and he was left naked in a freezing cell, which caused him to become sick. He was transferred on 1/27/09 to SCI Pittsburgh.

Ronald Jackson #CF3994: Mr. Jackson refused to exit his cell because of the threatening and assaultive behavior of the guards, and was subsequently attacked with mace and punched several times in the back and head by C/O Brant, carried to another cell where C/Os Brant, Liddick, Ziegler, Lt. Kuzar, and Sgt. Maxwell cut off his clothing and cut his dreadlocks. Mr. Jackson was left bleeding behind both ears, had numbness in both hands, and cuff markings remained on his wrists for 6 days. Mr. Jackson was left naked and without property or state issue items for six days-like all the others assaulted on this day. On January 26th he was returned to his cell, which was still contaminated with mace. C/O Huber, Jones, Sabolsky, Banks, Martz, and a Lt. stole and destroyed much of his personal and legal property. In a written response to Mr. Jackson regarding this theft, Superintendent Palakovich justified yet another unmistakable effort on the part of SMU staff to deny access to the courts under the pretext that his property was contaminated with mace and needed to be destroyed as a result. Given that several of the prisoners extracted that day have reported being returned to cells still contaminated with mace, this explanation cannot be taken seriously. Mr. Jackson's lawsuit against the DOC will likely be sabotaged by this theft and destruction of his legal documents, which is a widespread practice throughout the PA DOC.

Willie Robinson #FX7258: After refusing to exit his cell for obvious reasons, Mr. Robinson was attacked by the same guards with mace and thrown in a cell that had dried blood on the walls and floor for 6 days without bed sheets or underclothing. Following this he was returned to his former cell, which was still contaminated with mace, including his bedding.

Jamar Perry #DQ4432: Mr. Perry was also attacked with mace and cell extracted on this day. According to Michael Edwards, in a Declaration subject to the penalty of perjury, Mr. Perry is severely mentally retarded, constantly covers his cell and his person with bodily waste-which he also ingests-and suffers from suicidal tendencies. Staff, including C/O Flynn, Sgt. Jones, and Lt. Kuzar, frequently call him names such as "retarded nigger," and encourage him to kill himself. Mr. Perry has been constrained in a "restraint chair" on several occasions, including the first three days of February. These devices are widely recognized as implements of torture. He reportedly wants to die, and ranking officials, including Regional Deputy Secretary Shirley Moore-Smeal have witnessed his fetid condition and taken no remedial action, despite policy provisions against housing severely mentally ill and developmentally disabled inmates in the SMU.

White Supremacy and Repression

In another Declaration from Michael Edwards, Unit Manager Chris Chambers is again alleged to have threatened Mr. Edwards for his correspondence with HRC/Fed Up! Chambers and Huber and others have repeatedly threatened Damont Hagan and Gary Tucker about their involvement with HRC and www.prisoners.com, along with other efforts to expose torture and officially-sanctioned sadism inside the SMU at Camp Hill.

An all white staff in the SMU is holding hostage and waging a one-sided war against a captive, defenseless population that is "99.9% blacks and latinos," according to Mr. Edwards.

A small sampling of racist remarks made by SMU staff, according to Declarations submitted by Michael Edwards, are as follows:

  • 1/19/09: C/O Brant stated over the PA system, "I have a dream that one day all of you niggers will be dead," after which he laughed, clapped his hands, and lit a smoke; *1/20/09: Lt. Kuzar stated, "He [Obama] may have won, in my eyes he's still a nigger." Brant and C/O Flynn started laughing at this, and Kuzar continued, "There will be no showers or yard today. We are going to show you niggers who run this SMU."
  • 1/20/09: When told Tucker has a medical condition and is not to be housed upstairs, Chambers replied, "I don't give a fuck what medical says, I want that nigger upstairs now."
  • 1/30/09: After Chambers told Mr. Edwards he would not be receiving any law books or property in retaliation for his working with HRC/Fed Up!, Huber told the inmate, "Hey listen up nigger, I have the green light to kill your black ass," before walking away from the cell laughing.
  • 2/1/09: Lt. Kuzar stated to Mr. Edwards, "Nigger do you honestly believe we are going to let you, or any of these other niggers get away with what you are doing?"

Hagan, Jackson, Tucker, Robinson, Smith, Edwards, Terry Brooks, and others in the SMU are being targeted for their refusal to be silenced and submit to a regime of white supremacist torture. These men continue to file grievances, pursue civil litigation, and write family, friends, and other allies on the outside to expose the illegal and degrading conditions they are being subjected to.

Despite being starved, gassed, electrocuted, beaten, sickened, and subjected to racist death threats on a daily basis, these men refuse to submit, they continue to resist, and they are calling on us to take action again.

This action alert is more comprehensive and far ranging in the targets it lists than the ones in November and September (provide links). We have watched the Emergency Response Network grow considerably over the last 12 months, especially during the last 4, and countless people have answered the call to defend the rights and lives of prisoners. This is why we are asking even more from our allies this time, because we trust you will continue to intensify your efforts, channeling your outrage into action and building this movement against torture and racism and for human rights.

As Michael Edwards recently wrote from the SMU: "Keep doing what you are doing, because it surely is working. Some of these guards are just walking around here banging on any and everything, and using racial slurs. This means we are winning the war." I take this to mean that this latest outburst of hate and violence by SMU guards is a desperate reaction to growing outside pressure. They are trying to silence the men in the SMU through daily acts of terror, but it is not working. Resistance continues, and the outside pressure is growing. . . .

Action Alert Targets and Talking points

DOC Targets

DOC Secretary Jeffrey Beard-717-975-4918
2520 Lisburn Road
Camp Hill, PA 17001

Superintendent John Palakovich
SCI Camp Hill
P.O. Box 200
Camp Hill, PA 17001

Office of Professional Repsonsibility
Director James Barnacle (formerly with the FBI (i.e. u.s. political police) for 30 years-see the book Agents of Reprssion by Churchill and Vander Wall for more on the criminal nature of the FBI)
717-214-8473
2520 Lisburn Road
Camp Hill, PA 17001

1)-Report the truth of the Inauguration Day atrocity: six men were targeted for assault with chemical and electrocution weapons by guards calling them "niggers" in retaliation for these prisoners continuing to file grievances, pursue civil litigation, expose prison conditions to the public, and otherwise seek justice. Be specific, name the names of the prisoners, guards, the threats made and injuries suffered. Tell them that you are sickened by the endless reports of flagrant racism on the part of guards and the obvious approval of such by top officials in Camp Hill and the DOC. Grievances and civil suits reach Supt. Palakovich and Secretary Beard by the thousands regarding the racist attitudes and actions of staff under their command, and they refuse to take action

2)-Emphasize the role of Unit Manager Chris Chambers-demand he be fired: As our abuse logs indicate (http://www.thomasmertoncenter.org/fedup/abusereports.htm), Unit Manager Chris Chambers, who oversees the SMU, bears command responsibility for the actions of Jones, Kuzar, Sabalsky, Banks, Flynn, Brant, and the rest. We want to build his infamy and make him a liability to the PA DOC and SCI Camp Hill. If his superiors lean on him because of the heat they feel from the people, then he will lean on SMU staff to end the torture in order to protect himself. Tell Beard that you have reviewed the accumulated evidence from the 20th and the preceding months, and that Chambers needs to be held accountable for his crimes. Failure to do so will be understood as complicity in torture. Emphasize that several prisoners consistently report that Chambers has personally told them on multiple occasions that he is punishing them for filing lawsuits and contacting HRC/Fed Up! and www.prisoners.com.

3)-Transfers for Tucker, Jamar Perry, Michael Edwards, Terry Brooks, Ronald Jackson: These men need transferred immediately. When speaking of Gary Tucker tell them that his continued confinement in the SMU is a violation of DOC Policy 6.5.1 (which is top secret-forbidden to the public-and has been provided to HRC via clandestine means) which states that an inmate who does not show progress in the initial 12 to 18 months should be deemed a failure and transferred. Mr. Tucker has been in the SMU for 28 months. Furthermore, Jamar Perry suffers from severe developmental disability (i.e. reportedly mentally retarded) and needs an immediate transfer. Edwards, Brooks, and Jackson continue to face retaliation for filing grievances and lawsuits.

4)-Speak your own truths, make your own demands: If you have ideas of who to contact (press, lawyers, the Justice Department, law enforcement, United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, NAACP, ACLU) then tell the authorities of your intention and then get a hold of these organizations and have them contact us to learn more. Each one needs to conduct their own investigations to verify these truths. Also, be encouraged to tell them that they need to close down the SMU for good-it is a failed program that does nothing but torture vulnerable prisoners, and it is irredeemably racist. Please inform HRC/Fed Up! of your efforts so we can keep track of where this alert and the supporting evidence are sent and the various responses it receives. Be encouraged to become a point person for reaching out to Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the NAACP, or whoever. Just make sure you are familiar enough with the talking points and the evidence that supports them and stay in touch with us.

5)-Prior Notice: Beard and Palakovich have been notified of the criminal acts of retaliation, racist hate crimes, denial of access to the courts, assault, medical neglect, etc. months ago. There is a paper trail leading to their office and their adamant refusal to accept accountability for the actions of staff under the command of Unit Manager Chris Chambers amounts to complicity in torture.

6)-Accountability: Let it be known, finally, that we intend to see criminals held accountable, and that each denial, evasion, and deception on the part of prison officials will only strengthen our resolve to pursue justice by every means possible. We want accountability now.

7)-Special for OPR: The Office of Professional Responsibility (which is neither professional nor responsible, but is-supposedly-an office), the DOC's own internal "investigation" unit assured an HRC/Fed Up! investigator in early January that they were in fact conducting an investigation into documented human rights violations inside the SMU at Camp Hill. After declaring that they always talk to the inmates, OPR Director James Barnacle went on to directly contradict himself by admitting that their "investigation" consisted of cross-checking our documentation with the prison's own records. Given that the prison records will report only what guards say, since the word of prisoners is deemed prima facie untrue according to their totalitarian (and, yes, racist) ideology, Barnacle more or less admitted that his investigation was in fact not an investigation at all. Furthermore, we have specifically asked several of the men in the SMU if OPR has interviewed them, and with one exception (Brooks was interviewed two or three months ago about an assault he suffered in 2007), nobody had seen OPR-despite several having contacted them-by the end of January. Tell OPR that we know they are not engaged in transparent and good faith investigations, because if they were SMU staff under the command of Unit Manager Chris Chambers would not dare perpetrate such atrocities. Demand responsibility and professionalism from Barnacle.

Political Targets

Governor Ed Rendell

See numbers 1-6 above. Rendell was informed at the end of November, with considerable documentation. He sent it to OPR.

Senator Stewart Greenleaf

Inquire into the appropriate process for requesting hearings in front of the PA General Assembly, and then request a hearing-to be organized by HRC/Fed Up! and our allies-regarding torture in PA prisons. Provide him our contact information and ask that his staff get in contact with us. Tell staff what is going on in the SMU at Camp Hill.

Local PA Representatives

Hammer away at them, make these lazy, incompetent, and corrupt parasites take a stand. Demand they petition Greenleaf for a hearing. Who are these fools anyway?

Reminders about demeanor, temperament, manners, composure, etc.

Just a reminder, it is acceptable and appropriate to express anger, be firm in our demands, and not tolerate deceptions and diversions. That said, it is critical that we control our anger and not vice versa, and maintain composure and dignity in our demeanor. We want the functionaries manning the phones and reading the mail to be impressed by our command of the facts and message consistency.

Mary Ann Kushner at SCI Fayette apparently told one of our allies that HRC people had been "nasty" to her. Given Mary Ann's less than sterling reputation as a truth-teller, I assume that means you were all doing your job and holding firm to our shared principles in defense of prisoners' rights and lives, which no doubt upset Mary Ann. So, keep the cursing to the minimum amount necessary and get at them day after day after day.

And pace yourself. Make a call today, two tomorrow, another the next day, and keep at it for weeks on end. This is a long struggle and we're in it for life. Invite others to join, today. Thank you.

We need lawyers! Please help us find lawyers with grit, intelligence, and integrity who are willing to go to war with the DOC.

PS-Taking it to the Streets

Phone calls and letter writing are important, very important for providing some measure of oversight and security to the men in Camp Hill and other torture chambers in PA and the U.S. But it is but one tactic amongst many. We need to take this to the streets and get on a move. Be on the lookout for an invitation in the near future, when the entirety of the country-and beyond-will be welcomed into the state to voice their collective outrage over the dehumanizing white supremacist torture of the PA prison system.

HRC/Fed Up! has accumulated over 100 pages of documentation of human rights violations in PA prisons in the last 16 months alone, supported by thousands of pages of prisoner reports, affidavits, declarations, grievances, requests to staff, and civil litigation documents, and further corroborated by hundreds of hours of interviews/conversations with prisoners and their loved ones on the outside. We can assert with absolute confidence and substantial-in fact, incontrovertible-evidence that torture is a widespread, systemic feature of the prison system that deliberately sabotages parole and increases recidivism, hence creating the conditions for continued market growth for the prison-industrial complex.

PPS-Call and/or write us!

Who are you? Have you taken action? Can we know one another and work together to beat back this insufferable brutality? Call, email, write whenever.

Please provide feedback as to your conversations with the peoples above and other efforts undertaken to protect the men in Camp Hill's SMU.

Thank you.

Solidarity, Health, Respect,
Trust, and Struggle


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Hundreds of Kids Jailed to Help Pay for Judges' Pampered Lifestyle

More dog-bites-man news here - two judges in Pennsylvania set up a kickback scheme whereby they would get paid for sending kids to private kiddie prisons. One imagines they'll get in trouble for having gotten caught, but we'll see:

Monday, February 16, 2009
PA Judges Accused of Jailing Juveniles for Cash

Judges allegedly took $2.
6 million in payoffs to put juveniles in lockups

The Associated Press
updated 8:56 p.m. ET, Wed., Feb. 11, 2009

WILKES-BARRE, Pa. - For years, the juvenile court system in Wilkes-Barre operated like a conveyor belt: Youngsters were brought before judges without a lawyer, given hearings that lasted only a minute or two, and then sent off to juvenile prison for months for minor offenses.

The explanation, prosecutors say, was corruption on the bench.

In one of the most shocking cases of courtroom graft on record, two Pennsylvania judges have been charged with taking millions of dollars in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers.

“I’ve never encountered, and I don’t think that we will in our lifetimes, a case where literally thousands of kids’ lives were just tossed aside in order for a couple of judges to make some money,” said Marsha Levick, an attorney with the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which is representing hundreds of youths sentenced in Wilkes-Barre.

Prosecutors say Luzerne County Judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan took $2.6 million in payoffs to put juvenile offenders in lockups run by PA Child Care LLC and a sister company, Western PA Child Care LLC. The judges were charged on Jan. 26 and removed from the bench by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court shortly afterward.

No company officials have been charged, but the investigation is still going on.

The high court, meanwhile, is looking into whether hundreds or even thousands of sentences should be overturned and the juveniles’ records expunged.

Among the offenders were teenagers who were locked up for months for stealing loose change from cars, writing a prank note and possessing drug paraphernalia. Many had never been in trouble before. Some were imprisoned even after probation officers recommended against it.

Many appeared without lawyers, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1967 ruling that children have a constitutional right to counsel.


'I have disgraced my judgeship'
The judges are scheduled to plead guilty to fraud Thursday in federal court. Their plea agreements call for sentences of more than seven years behind bars.

Ciavarella, 58, who presided over Luzerne County’s juvenile court for 12 years, acknowledged last week in a letter to his former colleagues, “I have disgraced my judgeship. My actions have destroyed everything I worked to accomplish and I have only myself to blame.” Ciavarella, though, has denied he got kickbacks for sending youths to prison.

Conahan, 56, has remained silent about the case.

Many Pennsylvania counties contract with privately run juvenile detention centers, paying them either a fixed overall fee or a certain amount per youth, per day.

In Luzerne County, prosecutors say, Conahan shut down the county-run juvenile prison in 2002 and helped the two companies secure rich contracts worth tens of millions of dollars, at least some of that dependent on how many juveniles were locked up.

One of the contracts — a 20-year agreement with PA Child Care worth an estimated $58 million — was later canceled by the county as exorbitant.

The judges are accused of taking payoffs between 2003 and 2006.


Allegations of extortion
Robert J. Powell co-owned PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care until June. His attorney, Mark Sheppard, said his client was the victim of an extortion scheme.

“Bob Powell never solicited a nickel from these judges and really was a victim of their demands,” he said. “These judges made it very plain to Mr. Powell that he was going to be required to pay certain monies.”

For years, youth advocacy groups complained that Ciavarella was ridiculously harsh and ran roughshod over youngsters’ constitutional rights. Ciavarella sent a quarter of his juvenile defendants to detention centers from 2002 to 2006, compared with a statewide rate of one in 10.

The criminal charges confirmed the advocacy groups’ worst suspicions and have called into question all the sentences he pronounced.

Hillary Transue did not have an attorney, nor was she told of her right to one, when she appeared in Ciavarella’s courtroom in 2007 for building a MySpace page that lampooned her assistant principal.

Her mother, Laurene Transue, worked for 16 years in the child services department of another county and said she was certain Hillary would get a slap on the wrist. Instead, Ciavarella sentenced her to three months; she got out after a month, with help from a lawyer.

“I felt so disgraced for a while, like, what do people think of me now?” said Hillary, now 17 and a high school senior who plans to become an English teacher.

'I was completely destroyed'
Laurene Transue said Ciavarella “was playing God. And not only was he doing that, he was getting money for it. He was betraying the trust put in him to do what is best for children.”

Kurt Kruger, now 22, had never been in trouble with the law until the day police accused him of acting as a lookout while his friend shoplifted less than $200 worth of DVDs from Wal-Mart. He said he didn’t know his friend was going to steal anything.

Kruger pleaded guilty before Ciavarella and spent three days in a company-run juvenile detention center, plus four months at a youth wilderness camp run by a different operator.

“Never in a million years did I think that I would actually get sent away. I was completely destroyed,” said Kruger, who later dropped out of school. He said he wants to get his record expunged, earn his high school equivalency diploma and go to college.

“I got a raw deal, and yeah, it’s not fair,” he said, “but now it’s 100 times bigger than me.”


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The Trials of Ward Churchill

Just to let you all know, Ward Churchill's lawsuit against Colorado University goes to trial in a few weeks. As the Ward Churchill Solidarity Network tells us:

A little over a year ago, Ward Churchill was fired from his position as a professor at the University of Colorado on trumped up charges of academic misconduct. His firing was the result of one of the filthiest media smear campaigns in modern history, crushing pressure brought to bear by a number of hack politicians including Governor Bill Owens, and the overwhelming cowardice of CU’s administration.
As some of you may recall, the Churchill brouhaha started when some right-wing students noticed his essay about September 11th, Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens on the Kersplebedeb website. A media feeding frenzy ensued, along with a harassment campaign against professor Churchill, as the right mobilized to use this case as the first step in a more general rollback against the academic left. (For more on this see here - and yes that's right, my little Kersplebedeb site is the "obscure website" mentioned.)

Now regardless of what one thinks of the Some People Push Back essay (gotta admit it's not one of my favourites), or about the academic left, it will be a good thing for us all if Churchill delivers a spanking to to the university and political forces that had him fired.

To keep up to date on Churchill's trials and tribulations, check out the Ward Chuchill Trial blog.



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Thursday, February 12, 2009

West Germany's Urban Guerillas: Overview



The following is a quick little overview of the four largest groups that engaged in armed struggle against the West German state from the 1970s until the 1990s. The authors, André Moncourt and J. Smith, are the ones behind the editing/translating of Projectiles for the People, a documentary history of the Red Army Faction.


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Friday, February 06, 2009

Video Message from the Villanuevas and Other Victims of Officer Lapointe





Remember: tomorrow at 1pm, be there to march with the Villanueva family and other victims of August 9.



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Thursday, February 05, 2009

[Montreal] Support the Villanueva family!



URGENT : March with the Villanueva family!

The Coalition Against Police Repression and Abuse (CRAP), is joining the Villanueva family in calling for people to come out in big numbers in support of their extremely justified and legitimate demands, this Saturday, February 7th, in Montreal-North.


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Meaning-Based Translation

if you're like me and you enjoy translation, you may want to check out today's post by Mike Ely on Kasama blog... i thought in particular the discussion of words like "fuck", "con", and "motherfucker" was worth having, though it could of course be taken further...



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Quote of the Day: "cops are like doughnuts - they're no good unless they have a hole in the middle"

News today that an armed group is claiming responsibility for attacks on police in Greece:

An unknown Greek group has threatened to indiscriminately kill police officers and expand its target list to include prominent members of society.

The Sect of Revolutionaries issued the warning on a CD left on the grave of a teenager who was shot by police in December, triggering a month of riots.

Police said the declaration, which was published in a Greek newspaper on Thursday, appeared to be genuine.

The group also said it had attacked a police station in Athens on Tuesday.

Shots were fired at the station in the suburb of Korydallos, causing some damage but no injuries. A hand grenade was also thrown, but it failed to explode.

Last month, a policeman was shot and seriously wounded in central Athens. The attack was claimed by another better-known group, Revolutionary Struggle.

'Unlucky'

The proclamation by the Sect of Revolutionaries was published on Thursday morning in the newspaper, Ta Nea, just as a gas bomb exploded outside the political office of the public order ministry.


The cops are like doughnuts - they're no good unless they have a hole in the middle
Sect of Revolutionaries

In it, the group said the armed attack on the police station in Korydallos had been in retaliation for the alleged murder by police of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos.

It claimed its members had been "unlucky" not to kill a police officer during the pre-dawn assault, which many had blamed on Revolutionary Struggle.

"Our aim was to execute them," the statement said. "Next time they will not have luck on their side."

From now on, the group warned, the life of a police officer would be worth as much as a bullet.

"The cops are like doughnuts - they're no good unless they have a hole in the middle," it said. "Start handing in your resignations, otherwise we will start measuring graves."

A police spokesman said it was taking the statement seriously.

"It seems to be genuine," Panayiotis Stathis told the Associated Press. "It's a group that has not appeared before but the methodology seems to be the same as that of Revolutionary Struggle."

Police protests

The BBC's Malcolm Brabant in Athens says the desire for vengeance on behalf of the Sect of Revolutionaries and Revolutionary Struggle is worrying the police unions.

Greek police protest against attacks (15 January 2009)
Greek police have protested against the repeated attacks of recent months

They have held demonstrations protesting against the violence, saying there are human beings behind the uniforms who are just as poorly paid as the average Greek.

Our correspondent says the militant groups appear to be modelling themselves on European urban guerrilla organisations from the 1970s, such as the German Red Army Faction.

The Sect of Revolutionaries also warned that prominent Greeks, including capitalists, state functionaries and journalists, would be targeted soon.

After three serious attacks on police in the past 40 days, officers are becoming stressed and understandably nervous, our correspondent adds.

On Wednesday, a policeman working near the US embassy shot and seriously injured a guard outside the ambassador's residence. The officer is reported to have claimed that he thought he was going to be shot.



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Ville9 mtl-nord (Fredy Villanueva)



Local musicians respond to last summer's police murder of Fredy Villanueva...



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Tuesday, February 03, 2009

The Crisis Is Here



We have entered a new stage of struggle, a new moment of possibility and danger.

Western Europe is in the news; Iceland's government has fallen, hundreds of thousands from across the political spectrum shut down France for a day, and now a wave of wildcat strikes is giving England's government a much-deserved kick in the teeth.


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Fax and phone campaign to support Herman Bell & Jalil Muntaqim


Jalil Muntaqim and Herman Bell

Damn! i missed my call yesterday... guess i'll have to make one today!

People in the campaign to free the San Francisco 8 are asking us all to call New York governor David Patterson every Monday of February to state your support for returning Herman Bell and Jalil Muntaqim to New York for their parole hearings, as a practical way to celebrate Black History Month.


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