Thursday, December 29, 2011

George Wright will not be Extradited: Portugal's Supreme Court Confirms Decision of Lisbon Court's Refusal of US Extradition Demand




Article by Jürgen Heiser, published in Junge Welt (29.12.2011):

In the case of former US citizen, George Wright, Portugal's Supreme Court ruled to deny an appeal made by the US Justice Department, shortly before Christmas. With its appeal, registered four weeks ago, the USA was seeking the extradition of the former Black Panther Party militant. A court in Lisbon had already refused extradition, November 17, 2011. The court's refusal was based on Wright's valid Portuguese citizenship. Wright has been living with his Portuguese wife for more than 20 years near Lisbon, under the name Jorge Dos Santos and has two adult children. The refusal was also based on the fact that, in the meantime, the USA's penal claims have surpassed the statute of limitations. 
 
The Supreme Court found no legal error in this reasoning and confirmed the extradition refusal. "The Supreme Court has informed me today of its decision," declared Wright's defense counsel, Manuel Luis Ferreira, last Friday to Associated Press. There were no further details from the court, because, in Portugal, extradition cases are conducted in secret. The USA has recourse to appealing to Portugal's Constitutional Court. The US Attorney General has not yet made his next step known. 
 
Jorge Dos Santos, today 68 years old, was born George Wright in Detroit, Michigan. In 1970, he and three other inmates escaped from Bayside State Prison in Leesburg, New Jersey, and joined an underground political wing of the Afro-American liberation movement. At the time of his outbreak, he had served seven of a 15 – 30 year sentence for a robbery of $70 in 1962. The gas station owner, Walter Patterson, was shot and killed by an accomplice, who was subsequently sentenced to "life." He has long since been freed. 
 
The Wright case, the FBI's high-profile manhunt target, made international headlines, when he was tracked down in Portugal, at the end of September, following his 41 year-long odyssey through the USA, Africa, and Europe. 
 
Since his arrest, the Justice Department has not been the only one to exert pressure on Portuguese authorities, to have Wright extradited to serve the remainder of his sentence. Politicians, such as Senator Frank Lautenberg (Dem. NJ) have directly intervened to the government. "George Wright is guilty of the murder of Walter Patterson," writes Lautenberg in his dispatch to the Portuguese Prime Minister, Passos Coelho, "and has yet to serve out his full sentence for that heinous crime in the United States." 
 
In his letter, Lautenberg omits that the 19-year-old Wright, at the time, was only an accomplice and had accepted the prosecutor's plea-bargain. With his acceptance not to defend himself against the charge, he sought to avoid being sentenced to death. Had he not been under the threat of the death penalty and had had an appropriate defense counsel, he would not have had to escape from prison in 1970. He would have received a short sentence and been freed on parole already within a few years. 



Sunday, December 04, 2011

We're Having a Sale!!!



Here's the deal - while on the internet libraries of information can zap from place to place through thin air, in real life books take up space - and our basement is once again full, and we're just not sure where we're going to put all of next year's titles...

Enter that favorite solution: the end of year sale!

For a limited time, over one hundred titles from leftwingbooks.net are discounted from 10-50% off.

Whether you've had your eye on a title for a while now, or if you've simply got space on your bookshelf to fill (who doesn't!), there's sure to be something here for you. And if you give gifts this time of year, there's sure to be something for family and friends here too!

All you folks ordering in canada, also note we're keeping the prices the same for the rest of the year, regardless of what currency you pay in - which comes out to about a 5% additional savings!

To see the discounted prices, just drag your mouse over the title in question - to order, all it takes is a click.

We accept canadian and u.s. credit cards, paypal, cheques and money orders - if you have any questions just shout out to info@kersplebedeb.com.

(For holiday delivery times, see below)
(This sale sadly does not apply to our bookstore and wholesale customers.)



AIDS Conspiracy Theories - tracking the real genocide Black Flags and Windmills: Hope, Anarchy, and the Common Ground Collective Upping The Anti #13 Lives Less Valuable Revolt and Crisis in Greece
Left Turn #40 July-August 2011 Spray Paint the Walls: The Story of Black Flag Unlock the Box: Documenting the Struggle to Shut Down Prison Control Units Upping The Anti #12 The Revolution Starts at Home: Confronting Intimate Violence Within Activist Communities
Persistent Poverty: Voices From the Margins Our Friendly Local Terrorist Black Geographies and the Politics of Place Capitalism Comes to the Backcountry Booze: A Distilled History
Celebration of Resistance COINTELPRO 101 Moments of Excess: Movements, Protest and Everyday Life William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary Property is Theft! A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Reader
The Paul Goodman Reader Soccer vs. the State: Tackling Football and Radical Politics Capital and Its Discontents: Conversations with Radical Thinkers in a Time of Tumult A Swamp Full of Dollar: Pipelines and Paramilitaries at Nigeria's Oil Frontier Venezuela: Revolution as Spectacle
The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther Inside America's Concentration Camps: Two Centuries of Internment and Torture A Voice from Harper's Ferry Lucasville: The Untold Story of a Prison Uprising, 2nd ed. Black Mask & Up Against the Wall Motherfucker: The Incomplete Works of Ron Hahne, Ben Morea, and the Black Mask Group
Upping The Anti #11 Sometimes the Spoon Runs Away with Another Spoon Coloring Book Don't Mourn, Balkanize! Anarchism & Socialism: Reformism or Revolution Burn Collector
Revolutionary Women: A Book of Stencils Defying the Tomb: Selected Prison Writings and Art of Kevin "Rashid" Johnson featuring exchanges with an Outlaw Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent Carlo Tresca: Portrait of a Rebel In the Crossfire: Adventures of a Vietnamese Revolutionary
Revolution and Other Writings: A Political Reader Signal: 01: A Journal of International Political Graphics The Floodgates of Anarchy When Miners March King Kong Theory
What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race, and the State of the Nation Upping The Anti #10 The Canadian War on Queers: National Security as Sexual Regulation  The Nature of Human Brain Work: An Introduction to Dialectics Mammoths of the Great Plains
Resistance Against Empire Prison Culture The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book The Angry Brigade: A History of Britain's First Urban Guerilla Group Writers in Prison
Recovering the Sacred: the Power of Naming and Claiming Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine We Are an Image From the Future: The Greek Revolt of December 2008 George Bush International Terrorist  T-Shirt What Would It Mean to Win?
Re:Imagining Change - How to Use Story-based Strategy to Win Campaigns, Build Movements, and Change the World In And Out Of Crisis: The Global Financial Meltdown and Left Alternatives A New Notion: Two Works by C.L.R. James: "Every Cook Can Govern" and "The Invading Socialist Society" Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism How It All Began The Personal Account of a West German Urban Guerrilla
City of Widows: An Iraqi Woman's Account of War and Resistance Paranoia & Heartbreak Bakunin: The Creative Passion Stone Butch Blues Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion
Conquest: Sexual Violence And American Indian Genocide This Country Must Change: Essays on the Necessity of Revolution in the USA Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age Piracy You Don't Play With Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of C.L.R. James Upping The Anti #8
Upping The Anti #9 Upping The Anti #4 Fire on the Mountain The Story of Crass The Left Left Behind
Girls Are Not Chicks Coloring Book Diario De Oaxaca: A Sketchbook Journal of Two Years in Mexico Paper Politics: Socially Engaged Printmaking Today Lonely Hearts Killer 2010 Slingshot Pocket Organizer
Words Without Walls: Writing & Art by Women in Prison in Nova Scotia Wobblies and Zapatistas: Conversations on Anarchism, Marxism and Radical History Tipping the Sacred Cow: The Best of LiP, Informed Revolt 1996�2007 Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Science Fiction & Fantasy
The Red Army Faction, A Documentary History - Volume 1: Projectiles For the People Picture This! Posters of Social Movements in Quebec 1966-2007 The F-Word 03 : A Feminist Handbook For The Revolution No Surrender: Writings From An Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoner A New World In Our Hearts: 8 Years of Writings from the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation
Seizing the Airwaves: a free radio handbook Let Freedom Ring: a collection of documents from the movements to free U.S. political prisoners We Want Freedom: a life in the Black Panther Party Upping The Anti #3 Upping The Anti #2
Upping The Anti #6 Upping The Anti #1 Slingshot: 32 postcards The Military Strategy of Women and Children All Power to the People
Upping The Anti #7 Night-Vision: Illuminating War and Class on the Neo-Colonial Terrain They Never Crushed His Spirit: A Tribute to Richard Williams Jailbreak Out of History: the re-biography of Harriet Tubman Kuwasi Balagoon, A Soldier's Story: Writings by a New Afrikan Anarchist
My Enemy's Enemy: essays on globalization, fascism and the struggle against capitalism Confronting Fascism: Discussion Documents for a Militant Movement The Real Cost of Prisons Comix AIDS Conspiracy Theories - tracking the real genocide On Vegetarianism; The Great Kinship of Humans and Fauna 

HOLIDAY DELIVERY TIMES

For those of you ordering for December 25 or thereabouts, please note that Canada Post recommends ordering by December 8 (this Thursday!) in the United States or December 12 in Canada. Later than that and express post should work up til the 16th in the U.S. and the 21st in Canada - please keep in mind that we're located in Montreal (Eastern standard time) and if you order after 4pm we're unlikely to be able to get to the post office in time.
If you're in Europe, you're out of luck in terms of getting stuff by the 25th - but don't despair, you can still place an order, and your books should arrive in early 2012.
All the above are rough guidelines, not guaranteed.
For more information, check out the Canada Post website.