Lynne Stewart released

Good news for the new year. Political prisoner Lynne Stewart has been freed on 'compassionate release' grounds.

We interviewed Lynne Stewart's spouse, Ralph Poynter, on our radio show back in July. At that time, she was very ill from late-stage cancer. It has taken months, but some activists believed she wouldn't get out at all.

From The Brooklyn Paper:

A former Park Slope lawyer convicted of helping a jailed terrorist communicate with his followers is coming home after a judge ordered her release from a Texas prison where she has been dying of cancer.

The federal-prison-bureau-requested release of Lynne Stewart, 74, ends four years of imprisonment, much of which Stewart spent suffering from breast cancer. She was known for representing poor, politically active, and sometimes deeply unpopular clients as a defense attorney before her 2007 disbarment and subsequent jailing for communicating on behalf of blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted of plotting to blow up the New York landmarks including the United Nations and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. Her family cheered the decision to allow her to return home, but lamented the circumstances.

“We were pretty surprised — it is very bittersweet,” said Stewart’s son and lawyer Geoffrey Stewart. “Freedom is the most important thing, and we still feel like she should have never been put through this in the first place.”

Stewart will arrive home on Jan. 1, according to the Justice for Lynne Stewart support website. The release ruling cuts short a 10-year sentence and follows a global outpouring of support for the firebrand advocate and an order from the Bureau of Prisons recommending her freeing. Backers argued that her conviction threatened the constitutional right to counsel, but multiple courts disagreed, finding that her transmission of messages from Rahman, nicknamed “the blind sheik,” to his supporters in Egypt’s “Islamic Group” was conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism. Judges overturned and quadrupled an initial 28-month sentence following a press conference where Stewart said she could do that time “standing on [her] head.”

U.S. District Judge John Koeltl granted the compassionate release appeal after denying the same bid in April because the federal Bureau of Prisons had not approved it. The prison bureau and the justice department recommended Stewart be freed on New Year’s Eve morning and the Koeltl signed off on Stewart’s release in the afternoon. In his decision, the judge pointed out that Stewart is near death and unlikely to commit further crimes.

The freed advocate will live in her son’s Flatbush home because a granddaughter lives in the Park Slope pad the agitator owns, a supporter said. She will be excited to check out Prospect Park’s new ice-skating rinks and to listen to jazz with her husband, her son said.

“I know she has a lot of people that she wants to thank, have private meetings with, and catch up with,” he said. “She will be amazed at all the changes in Brooklyn.”

Reach reporter Megan Riesz at mriesz@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4505. Follow her on Twitter @meganriesz.

More about Lynne Stewart's release:

Dying defense lawyer Lynne Stewart released from jail (CNN)

Dying Radical Lawyer Lynne Stewart Freed From Prison On "Compassionate Release" (Gothamist)

Civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart 'compassionately released' from prison by federal judge (Allvoices)

Lynne Stewart, Dying Ex-Lawyer Convicted In Terror Case, Released From Prison (Huffington Post)

Exclusive: Dying Lawyer Lynne Stewart’s Jubilant Return Home After Winning Compassionate Release (Democracy Now)

Dead Air Church: Invictus, a tribute to Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela was buried today, in his ancestral village Qunu. I reprint the following comic in his honor.

For those who doubt that comics can be inspirational art, I defy you not to get chills and/or cry at the end. I first saw this on Tumblr and could not get it out of my mind. It easily eclipses all the TV-talking-heads trying to capture his spirit in mere words.

Invictus is by Australian artist Gavin Aung Than, at his amazing website, Zenpencils.com.

He's got a million of em, and I also greatly enjoyed his tribute to Roger Ebert. Great talent and great work!

Rest in peace, Nelson Mandela.

~*~

Nelson Mandela 1918-2013

The media mourning for Nelson Mandela has been shocking to me. Revisionism in my lifetime always rearranges my senses, and here we are again. (Note: Our radio show honoring Mandela was yesterday; our show honoring martyr Fred Hampton was Wednesday.)

It seems that only a short while ago, Mandela was regarded as a dangerous terrorist. Republicans spoke his name with audible contempt. It is dizzying and disorienting to see Fox News being all polite and respectful. I feel as if I have fallen through the proverbial Looking Glass.


As Mark Quincy Adams accurately writes (at Alan Colmes' blog titled Liberaland):

Their failed attempt to co-op the memory of Rosa Parks have not stopped our friends on the Right from trying the same with the late Nelson Mandela. Whether their hope is widespread ignorance of history or an attempt to disguise their true feelings, we must remember that Conservatives have always despised Nelson Mandela.

Dick Cheney, in particular, should be singled out as a leader in the ‘COWSHIT* Coalition’ (*Conservatives On the Wrong Side of HIstorys Tide). He was a vocal opponent of even setting the man free from prison! Sure, he said years later that Mandela had “mellowed out” but that’s hardly a recant of his indefensible position. Clearly, those who populate the Conservative Movement today are equally as hateful toward the man as Cheney and his ilk were in the 1980′s as we see from comments on Ted Cruz’s Facebook post attempting the gentlest of praise of Mandela.

While on some level we should welcome those on the Right who now want to praise Mandela, their sincerity should be met with great skepticism. The good news is there is something Conservatives really have to be genuinely thankful to him for. They should never forget that when Mandela was elected President of South Africa after 27 years in prison, he called for “Truth and Reconciliation” NOT “Truth and Retribution”. That’s a precedent Conservatives across the world should celebrate and hope that others in the future will find the Mandela-like strength to be so forgiving. Given their history, they will certainly need it.

And as Nelson Mandela himself said:

I was called a terrorist yesterday, but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists. I tell them that I was also a terrorist yesterday, but today, I am admired by the very people who said I was one.

~*~

As I get older, I am more and more curious about how history will judge us. The longer I live and the more I witness this kind of revisionism, the more I realize we will be judged in ways we can not even anticipate right now.

A couple of months ago, I mentioned that as I stood reading the words on the Confederate memorial downtown, I was struck by the total moral certainty of the poem engraved on the side of that memorial. It never once occurred to the folks erecting the monument, that mores might change; that there would come a time that their moral certitude would be shameful and even regarded as patently evil.

And that will happen to us, too. About the drones, maybe... or the way we have refused to take responsibility for changing the climate. What are we doing right now, that we will be held ethically accountable for in the future? What horrors do we tolerate so we can hold on to our standard of living?

If I contemplate this too long (and I have made the whole "history's judgment" concept a repeated subject of my anicca meditation), I become afraid that I am not doing enough. I can become nearly frantic. It's a scary concept for me, which of course means that I must deal with it, head on.

I am often overwhelmed by trying to do everything at once. I spread myself pretty thin as it is, and yet... I worry it simply is not enough. And I also worry that no matter what we do, it will make no difference.

At least we can look at a life like Mandela's and say, HERE is a life that truly mattered, that made a difference in ways that counted, in ways that endured.

And at such times, when I have doubts that what we do makes any difference, I hold on to one truth:

"For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business." -- TS Eliot.

Rest in peace, Nelson Mandela.

Glenn Greenwald verbalizes my worries about gay rights

Yesterday it was announced by the LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, that Wikileaks whistleblower/political prisoner Bradley Manning was selected as one of the Grand Marshals of the yearly San Francisco gay pride parade, considered a high honor in the gay community.

Almost immediately, Lisa L Williams, president of the Board of SF Pride, wrote a statement retracting his nomination:

Bradley Manning is facing the military justice system of this country. We all await the decision of that system. However, until that time, even the hint of support for actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform — and countless others, military and civilian alike — will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride. It is, and would be, an insult to every one, gay and straight, who has ever served in the military of this country.

Yes, you read that right. Blowing the whistle on war crimes is an insult to the military.

Glenn Greenwald (who is also gay, for the record) wasted no time in blasting Williams, calling her statement a "substance-free falsehood originally spread by top US military officials, which has since been decisively and extensively debunked, even by some government officials." Greenwald correctly reminds us:

Indeed, it's the US government itself, not Manning, that is guilty of "actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform."

And then Greenwald underscores the incipient fascism (my label, not his) of Williams warning the organization's members that EVEN THE HINT of support for Manning, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. WILL. NOT. BE. TOLERATED.

Wow.

This certainly is a long, long way from the San Francisco Gay Pride parade I once attended, decades ago, which tolerated (celebrated!) every bizarre, crazy activity and wayward political belief in the world. This had the wonderful result of making everyone feel welcome and giving off a warm, beneficent glow. This event was where I saw the revolutionary Tom Robinson Band, in 1981. (Robinson was an influential, radical gay punk rocker from the UK, who founded Rock Against Racism, a cause I was once allied with myself.) I suddenly realized that me and Tom Robinson probably do not belong in today's gay rights movement, which is now officially aligning itself with the government and trashing a courageous gay man who dares to speak out (and has had his civil rights violated as a result). Tom Robinson and Bradley Manning and Glenn Greenwald (and me) are OUT... apologists for right-wing warmongering like Lisa Williams are IN... it is the wholesale Lady Gagaization of gay rights; the defanging and neutralizing of a once-radical movement that asked the tough questions. Its all razzle-dazzle and the Bravo Network and Will and Grace reruns... nothing that asks participants to seriously question the status quo. (As it was for me, when I was young.)

Depressing.

Further, it isn't just the Lady Gagaization of gay rights, but the corporate sponsorship of gay rights... Glenn Greenwald ticks off the list of glitzy parade sponsors (HERE is the official list) which include AT&T, Verizon, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Clear Channel, Kaiser Permanente... basically the same list of corporate shysters presented by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Greenwald carefully catalogs their sins against the people, and then sputters:

So apparently, the very high-minded ethical standards of Lisa L Williams and the SF Pride Board apply only to young and powerless Army Privates who engage in an act of conscience against the US war machine, but instantly disappear for large corporations and banks that hand over cash. What we really see here is how the largest and most corrupt corporations own not just the government but also the culture. Even at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, once an iconic symbol of cultural dissent and disregard for stifling pieties, nothing can happen that might offend AT&T and the Bank of America. The minute something even a bit deviant takes place (as defined by standards imposed by America's political and corporate class), even the SF Gay Pride Parade must scamper, capitulate, apologize, and take an oath of fealty to their orthodoxies (we adore the military, the state, and your laws). And, as usual, the largest corporate factions are completely exempt from the strictures and standards applied to the marginalized and powerless. Thus, while Bradley Manning is persona non grata at SF Pride, illegal eavesdropping telecoms, scheming banks, and hedge-fund purveyors of the nation's worst right-wing agitprop are more than welcome.

And then, Greenwald starts making some interesting connections. Lisa Williams once worked for the political campaign of ... guess who?! President Hopey-Changey himself!* Greenwald reminds us:

It was President Obama, of course, who so notoriously decreed Bradley Manning guilty in public before his trial by military officers serving under Obama even began, and whose administration was found by the UN's top torture investigator to have abused him and is now so harshly prosecuting him. It's anything but surprising that a person who was a loyal Obama campaign aide finds Bradley Manning anathema while adoring big corporations and banks (which funded the Obama campaign and who, in the case of telecoms, Obama voted to immunize).

And finally, Greenwald voices the worries and concerns I have had for years... which it seems are finally coming to pass:

When I wrote several weeks ago about the remarkable shift in public opinion on gay equality, I noted that this development is less significant than it seems because the cause of gay equality poses no real threat to elite factions or to how political and economic power in the US are distributed. If anything, it bolsters those power structures because it completely and harmlessly assimilates a previously excluded group into existing institutions and thus incentivizes them to accommodate those institutions and adopt their mindset. This event illustrates exactly what I meant.

Yeah. And I remember ancient arguments I engaged in, with wacky old reds like the RCP, who warned me that gay rights was cosmetic and would NOT upend the status quo the way I was convinced it would. Were they right, after all?

From Greenwald's piece last month, mentioned above, titled The gay marriage snowball and political change:

If anything, one could say that the shift on this issue has been more institution-affirming than institution-subverting: the campaign to overturn "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" continually glorified and even fetishized military service, while gay marriage revitalizes a traditional institution - marriage - that heterosexuals have been in the process of killing with whimsical weddings, impetuous divorces, and serial new spouses (as Rush Limbaugh might put it: I'd like you to meet my fourth wife). And these changes are taking a once marginalized and culturally independent community and fully integrating it into mainstream society, thus making that community invested in conventional societal institutions.

Notably, Malcolm X also worried about the "buying off" of the black community, in just this same fashion. Some of us have probably forgotten that this was one of the tenets of Black Nationalism, that integration was also a form of neutralization ... and in the process of integration and assimilation, much intrinsic radicalism and core identity can be compromised.

Is the gay community being bought off and neutralized?

Unfortunately, I think so. Faster than you can say LADY GAGA. Or Bradley Manning.

~*~

*This perfect term for President Obama comes from Mister LarryE, aka Lotus, who has a cool blog you should all check out.

Midweek updates

Time for an old car! DEAD AIR regulars know all about my enduring love of old cars, and this cherry-red Chrysler Plymouth parked next to the Peace Center in downtown Greenville, absolutely made me swoon. (As always, you can click to enlarge.) Any guesses on the year? I am guessing 1952. The license plate on the front says "Southern First"--which is a local bank.

Obviously, that license plate proves you have to be a well-paid banker to afford a car like this.

~*~

Some people are having issues finding the radio show's new location... it comes in best on 910 AM here in upstate South Carolina. We are on every weekday from 5-6pm on WOLI, the Source. Drive-time radio! Live at Five! Hope you will tune in. If you miss us, we are also on Spreaker.

I didn't do a proper obit of movie critic Roger Ebert (whom I admired) here on the blog, but I did do one on Occupy the Microphone last Thursday.

And speaking of our show, we interviewed Cynthia McKinney on Monday and Dr Margaret Flowers today. This was our second time talking to Dr Flowers; she was on the show last April as well. (You can also listen to her regularly on Clearing the Fog radio.)

Tomorrow we will be re-interviewing Efia Nwangaza, Greenville Occupier, radical lawyer and tireless activist (our March interview with Efia is here), about her recent trip to Switzerland to lobby the UN Human Rights Committee on behalf of US political prisoners, including the Angola 3. (Efia was also on the Daisy Deadhead show last year, see graphic below!) We will be taking phone calls and questions.



On Friday, we will be interviewing Jill Stein, 2012 Green Party candidate for president. (Last year's interview with Dr Stein is here.)

Give us a listen, and we sincerely hope you are having a good week.

Bradley Manning nominated for Nobel 2013 Peace Prize

Political prisoner and free-speech hero Bradley Manning has been held under inhumane conditions for over 1000 days, and I am hoping this nomination means that the international spotlight will finally be turned on the conditions of his imprisonment. Since he is currently on trial, this is coming at the best possible time. Out of 259 nominees for the Nobel Peace Prize, he is probably the most well-known and 'notorious' name.



Bradley Manning Nobel Peace Prize Nomination 2013

Dear Norwegian Nobel Committee,

We have the great honour of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2013 Nobel Peace Prize.

Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, war crimes, and a lack of respect for the sovereignty of other democratic nations by the United States government in international dealings.

These revelations have fueled democratic uprisings around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on the foreign and domestic policies of European nations, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all U.S.troops from the occupation in Iraq.

Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for more then 1000 days by the U.S. Government. He spent over ten months of that time period in solitary confinement, conditions which experts worldwide have criticized as torturous. Juan Mendez, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has repeatedly requested and been denied a private meeting with Manning to assess his conditions.

The documents made public by WikiLeaks should never have been kept from public scrutiny. The revelations – including video documentation of an incident in which American soldiers gunned down Reuters journalists in Iraq – have helped to fuel a worldwide discussion about the overseas engagements of the United States, civilian casualties of war and rules of engagement. Citizens worldwide owe a great debt to the WikiLeaks whistleblower for shedding light on these issues, and so we urge the Committee to award this prestigious prize to accused whistleblower Bradley Manning.

We can already be reasonably certain that Bradley Manning will not have a fair trial as the head of State, the USA President Mr. Barack Obama, stated over a year ago on record that Manning is guilty.

Sincerely,

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Christian Engström, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Sweden

Amelia Andersdottir, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party, Sweden

Margrét Tryggvadóttir, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Þór Saari, Member of Parliament for the Movement, Iceland

Slim Amamou, former Secretary of State for Sport & Youth (2011), Tunisia

Bradley Manning statement (UK Guardian)

Bradley Manning, Malala among Nobel Peace Prize nominees (CBS News)

Opinion: Bradley Manning trial shows disconnect between transparency and treason (The Daily Reveille - LSU)

Bradley Manning called 'traitor,' 'hero' after Nobel nomination (MSN News)

The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning’s detention (Salon)

We Must Not Fail Bradley Manning (Counterpunch)

Thursday links

Got copious links for your perusal.

~*~

Did Nikki Haley Kill Climate Study?:

The article in The State [Columbia, SC newspaper] also reported that [John] Frampton [head of South Carolina's Department of Natural Resources] retired in 2012 after conflicts with Caroline Rhodes, then the Chairperson of the Board that oversaw the Department of Resources. Rhodes had been appointed to her position by Republican Governor Nikki Haley. The DNR climate change study pre-dated the Haley administration. Although current DNR officials are claiming that the refusal to release the study is not politically motivated, it's hard to accept their denials at face value. The report was on track to be released until Haley, a Tea Party favorite, was elected as South Carolina's governor and appointed her own people to the DNR Board after assuming office in 2011.

The only logical conclusion is that her administration quashed the climate change report prepared by the state's own scientists based on political considerations.

~*~

Kirk Smalley Found A Mission After the Suicide of His Son:

Smalley’s life has become a mission to stop bullying, and youth suicide. Kirk now spends his days telling his son’s story at schools around the world. He has told Ty’s story at more than 500 hundred schools and has talked to hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, and school administrators since Ty’s suicide nearly three years ago. He said,

We do it because we don’t want another family to live our nightmare. Laura doesn’t ever want another mama to find her baby the way she found ours. We don’t want another kid to ever feel the way Ty felt, that that was the only option. We’re not doing it for Ty. We’re doing it for all the other kids out there. The main part of our message is not to stand silent and watch it happen and that’s addressing the bystanders. If we can empower those kids to be willing to stand up and say ‘you know what – this isn’t right. It’s not funny,’ then we’ll greatly outnumber the bullies. One kid, one voice can make a difference.

~*~

One of my favorite bloggers has called it a day: Renegade Evolution, whom I have written about on this blog before.

Good luck to you, my friend. May the wind always be at your back.

~*~

TOO ADORABLE FOR WORDS! SQUEEEE! AIYEEEE! The San Diego Zoo's panda cub, Xiao Liwu, playing with his little ball during his medical exam.

If you die from cuteness, not my fault, you were warned.

~*~

Obama to urge court to overturn same-sex marriage ban in California:

Government sources say the Justice Department will by day's end articulate a legal position in the so-called Proposition 8 case, a ban by California voters over same-sex marriage that is now being challenged in the Supreme Court. At the very least, the administration will express general support for gay and lesbian couples in that state alone to wed.

That case and another appeal over the federal Defense of Marriage Act will produce blockbuster rulings from the justices in coming months.

Gay rights groups have privately urged Obama and his top aides to go beyond his previous personal rhetoric in support of the right and come down "on the side of history" in this legal fight. Those sources tell CNN that Obama has made the final decision over whether to file a brief and what to say.

As of earlier this week, there was still internal debate among White House and Justice Department staff about whether the president should take the big step and say there is a constitutional right of gay and lesbian couples to wed. The administration was also considering a compromise position -- affirming previous support for same-sex marriage, at least in California, while conceding other states may have the option to ban it.

~*~

Wikileaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning pleads guilty to 10 of the 22 charges against him:

After two months in military jail in Kuwait, Manning was moved to the US Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia, on July 29, 2010. He was held there in maximum security confinement for nearly a year, where he sat alone in a cell for 23 hours per day and was denied a pillow and sheets. An online petition at Avaaz.org received more than 500,000 signatures calling for President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to "end the torture, isolation, and public humiliation of Bradley Manning." And in February of this year a UN report from Juan Mendez, the special rapporteur on torture, concluded after receiving information from the US government about Manning's treatment that "imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity…"

~*~

I heard Toubab Krewe last night, on the namesake of this blog, the indispensable UNCLE DAVE'S DEAD AIR. Loved em! Sharing their musical genius here... apparently, they play frequently at the Orange Peel in Asheville (their hometown), and I am fervently hoping to get up there to see them in the future.

This is an acoustic set recorded live at The Festy Experience, October 2011. Their electric sets are just as impressive.

Acoustic Sessions at The Festy : Toubab Krewe



If you know the names of any of these exotic instruments, please let me know!

Iraq war veteran's skull cracked at Oakland Occupy

Scott Olsen, Oakland Occupier and member of the advocacy group for veterans Iraq Veterans Against the War, is now in critical condition.


I hope Fox News and other conservatives who encouraged the violence, are happy about that. They kept banging the drum for police intervention and bloodshed, and now the blood is flowing, just what they enjoy most.

Relating a message from OccupyMARINES:

We at OccupyMARINES are asking ALL Occupy Wall Street members AND supporters to flood the Corporate media with pictures, videos, and personal stories of how troubling, disturbing, and WRONG the actions of the Oakland Police Department under the orders of the City of Oakland California Mayor Jean Quan, were in the violent attempts to disperse peaceful protesters at Occupy Oakland on October 25th, 2011. We ask that you ESPECIALLY mention how horrifying it is that an Iraq Marine Veteran was seriously injured and taken to the hospital with a skull fracture from a police projectile. This is your revolution, this is your fight, this is your mission, WE ARE THE 99% - TAKE UP YOUR ARMS - KEEP PUSHING FORWARD! - NO ONE GETS LEFT BEHIND!

OccupyMARINES

~*~

I think this shows us that patriotism will not help us, when the authorities decide to clear the area. For all the blather that they care about the veterans, they certainly don't care about injuring one.

This is what the words of the government are worth, people. PAY ATTENTION.

This is how they will repay you for fighting in their filthy wars. PAY ATTENTION.

This is what they really think of veterans: you are cannon fodder. They will get rid of you as quickly as any of us.

This is what freedom of speech has come to in the USA: A sham.

I remember Karl Marx called the American system, "The Democratic Sham"... yes, we have come to the point where we are quoting Marx.

Apparently, as in so much else, he was right about that.

~*~

Links regarding the brutal attack on Occupy Oakland and Occupiers nationwide:

Cities crack down on Occupiers (New York Times)

Occupy Oakland livestream (hope you have better luck with it than I have)

Occupy Oakland: Iraq war veteran in critical condition after police clashes (Guardian UK)

New York City Live Stream-- apparently this showed some action earlier, but now just shows traffic. I guess when hoopla starts, they switch to lower Manhattan. (beware annoying, periodic feedback)

Chemical Bomb tossed into Occupy Portland (Maine) encampment (Portland Press Herald)

Occupy Oakland: Did police use flashbangs and rubber bullets on protesters? (Washington Post blog)

Occupy Oakland: Veteran Scott Olsen’s injuries prompt internal police review (Washington Post blog)



This is a petition, which is more of the Democratic sham, but I figured I would link it on the outside chance that fascists pay attention to petitions. (Since they are Jean Quan's henchmen in the first place, why would she investigate?)

Tell Oakland Mayor Jean Quan: Condemn and investigate police brutality!

EDIT: I started writing this last night and finished it this morning (Oct 27th) so it is backdated by about 13 hours. Just noticed that, and sorry about the delay in publising.--DD

October 16, 1859

The biographies either emphasize what a mild-mannered fellow he was, or how crazy he was; fire in the eyes. I would like to have met him, and seen for myself.

I assume his demeanor changed, depending on the subject at hand.

Radicals from Ohio swear he was from Ohio, as radicals from New York swear the same. In fact, he was born in Torrington, Connecticut:

During his first fifty years, John Brown moved about the country, settling in Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Massachusetts, taking along his ever-growing family. (He would father twenty children.) Working at various times as a farmer, wool merchant, tanner, and land speculator, he never was financially successful -- he even filed for bankruptcy when in his forties. His lack of funds, however, did not keep him from supporting causes he believed in. He helped finance the publication of David Walker's Appeal and Henry Highland's "Call to Rebellion" speech. He gave land to fugitive slaves. He and his wife agreed to raise a black youth as one of their own. He also participated in the Underground Railroad and, in 1851, helped establish the League of Gileadites, an organization that worked to protect escaped slaves from slave catchers.

In 1847 Frederick Douglass met Brown for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts. Of the meeting Douglass stated that, "though a white gentleman, [Brown] is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery." It was at this meeting that Brown first outlined his plan to Douglass to lead a war to free slaves.

Brown moved to the black community of North Elba, New York, in 1849. The community had been established thanks to the philanthropy of Gerrit Smith, who donated tracts of at least 50 acres to black families willing to clear and farm the land. Brown, knowing that many of the families were finding life in this isolated area difficult, offered to establish his own farm there as well, in order to lead the blacks by his example and to act as a "kind father to them."

Despite his contributions to the antislavery cause, Brown did not emerge as a figure of major significance until 1855 after he followed five of his sons to the Kansas territory.

And in Kansas, it got ugly.

It's important to remember that he was a violent man. He fully believed that he who lived by the sword, died by the sword.

Literally, he used swords:

In Aug. 1855 he followed 5 of his sons to Kansas to help make the state a haven for anti-slavery settlers. The following year, his hostility toward slave-staters exploded after they burned and pillaged the free-state community of Lawrence. Having organized a militia unit within his Osawatomie River colony, Brown led it on a mission of revenge. On the evening of 23 May 1856, he and 6 followers, including 4 of his sons, visited the homes of pro-slavery men along Pottawatomie Creek, dragged their unarmed inhabitants into the night, and hacked them to death with long-edged swords. At once, "Old Brown of Osawatomie" became a feared and hated target of slave-staters.

Of course, I have been to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. I have seen the armory's engine house, which isn't even as big as a typical contemporary suburban house. I remember being startled at it's wee size: Did he really think he could hold them off from there? Good lord. A suicide mission!!! Or did he really believe a mass slave rebellion would ensue? Perhaps he had reason to be optimistic, but in retrospective, such an endeavor seems like madness:

...Brown had only 21 men (16 white and 5 black - three free blacks, one freed slave, and a fugitive slave). They ranged in age from 21 to 49. Twelve of them had been with Brown in Kansas raids.

On October 16, 1859, Brown (leaving three men behind as a rear guard) led 19 men in an attack on the Harpers Ferry Armory. He had received 200 breechloading .52 caliber Sharps carbines and pikes from northern abolitionist societies in preparation for the raid. The armory was a large complex of buildings that contained 100,000 muskets and rifles, which Brown planned to seize and use to arm local slaves. They would then head south, drawing off more and more slaves from plantations, and fighting only in self-defense. As Frederick Douglass and Brown's family testified, his strategy was essentially to deplete Virginia of its slaves, causing the institution to collapse in one county after another, until the movement spread into the South, essentially wreaking havoc on the economic viability of the pro-slavery states. Thus, while violence was essential to self-defense and advancement of the movement, Brown's hope was to limit and minimize bloodshed, not ignite a slave insurrection as many have charged. From the Southern point of view, of course, any effort to arm the enslaved was perceived as a definitive threat.

Initially, the raid went well. They met no resistance entering the town. They cut the telegraph wires and easily captured the armory, which was being defended by a single watchman. They next rounded up hostages from nearby farms, including Colonel Lewis Washington, great-grand-nephew of George Washington. They also spread the news to the local slaves that their liberation was at hand. Things started to go wrong when an eastbound Baltimore & Ohio train approached the town. The train's baggage master tried to warn the passengers. Brown's men yelled for him to halt and then opened fire. The baggage master, Hayward Shepherd, became the first casualty of John Brown's war against slavery. Ironically, Shepherd was a free black man. For some reason, after the shooting of Shepherd, Brown allowed the train to continue on its way. News of the raid reached Washington by late morning.

In the meantime, local farmers, shopkeepers, and militia pinned down the raiders in the armory by firing from the heights behind the town. Some of the local men were shot by Brown's men. At noon, a company of militia seized the bridge, blocking the only escape route. Brown then moved his prisoners and remaining raiders into the engine house, a small brick building at the entrance to the armory. He had the doors and windows barred and loopholes were cut through the brick walls. The surrounding forces barraged the engine house, and the men inside fired back with occasional fury. Brown sent his son Watson and another supporter out under a white flag, but the angry crowd shot them. Intermittent shooting then broke out, and Brown's son Oliver was wounded. His son begged his father to kill him and end his suffering, but Brown said "If you must die, die like a man." A few minutes later he was dead. The exchanges lasted throughout the day.

By morning (October 18) the engine house, later known as John Brown's Fort, was surrounded by a company of U.S. Marines under the command of Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee of the United States Army. A young Army lieutenant, J.E.B. Stuart, approached under a white flag and told the raiders that their lives would be spared if they surrendered. Brown refused, saying, "No, I prefer to die here." Stuart then gave a signal. The Marines used sledge hammers and a make-shift battering-ram to break down the engine room door. Lieutenant Israel Greene cornered Brown and struck him several times, wounding his head. In three minutes Brown and the survivors were captives. Altogether Brown's men killed four people, and wounded nine. Ten of Brown's men were killed (including his sons Watson and Oliver). Five of Brown's men escaped (including his son Owen), and seven were captured along with Brown.

We need to go back to my post on Saturday morning, and play the James Brown refrain here: I'm a bad mother. Indeed, by all accounts, Brown dazzled all the soldiers and authorities he encountered, with his utter lack of fear and total righteous attitude.

And then, his trial, which for it's day, apparently made OJ's look like a tea party. His famous final words, upon his death sentence:

I have, may it please the Court, a few words to say.

In the first place, I deny everything but what I have all along admitted: of a design on my part to free slaves . . .

Had I interfered in the matter which I admit, and which I admit has been fairly proved . . . had I so interfered in behalf of the rich, the powerful, the intelligent, or the so-called great . . . and suffered and sacrificed, what I have in this interference, it would have been all right. Every man in this Court would have deemed it an act worthy of reward rather than punishment.

I see a book kissed which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do unto me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me further to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. I endeavored to act up to that instruction. I say that I am yet too young to understand that God is any respecter of persons. I believe that to have interfered as I have done, as I have always freely admitted I have done in behalf of His despised poor, I did no wrong, but right.

Now if it is deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the furtherance of the ends of justice and mingle my blood further with the blood of my children and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are disregarded by wicked,cruel and unjust enactments, I say, let it be done.

John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859, virtually the eve of the Civil War. Some people blamed him for the Civil War. And certainly, his unapologetic, incendiary abolitionist presence hovered over Union troops, and they even made up a marching song about him, which they sang with enthusiasm. The Battle Hymn of the Republic was taken from the Union marching song:

John Brown's body lies a moulderin in the grave
John Brown's body lies a moulderin in the grave
John Brown's body lies a moulderin in the grave
But his soul goes marching on

Yes, I do like Julia Ward Howe's Christian rewrite, but I have always preferred the original.

The discussion of vigilante/street justice and whether it is ever warranted continues today; on the right, regarding violence against abortion clinics, doctors and employees; on the left, regarding direct-action groups like Earth First and the Animal Liberation Front. In the 70s, the Weather Underground, as well as radicals such as Karl Armstrong and David Fine, rekindled a long-standing feud between those radicals who held to pacifism at all costs, and those who thought pacifism rendered one a sitting duck.

And in every such discussion, there is his name, waved about like a bloodied banner: What about John Brown? His name is invoked as an indictment, as well as a blessing.

His soul goes marching on.




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Listening to: Patti Smith Group - Till Victory
via FoxyTunes

Free Myo Min Zaw!

Photo of Myo Min Zaw courtesy of Amnesty International


Progressive bloggers have been called to blog about Myanmar (Burma) today. Without hesitation, I knew I had to blog about Myo Min Zaw, a political prisoner I have thought about for years. I have prayed for him, cried over him. My small, local Amnesty International group has concentrated on him for a long, long time. I can remember when my daughter was in high school, I gave her a pen with Myo's name on it, to use during school. That was about 7 years ago. She is a grown woman now, and he is still in prison. Since then, the situation in Myanmar has worsened considerably, and Myo seems destined to serve his entire sentence of 52 years.

My Amnesty International group (#182) once received an official reply from a bureaucrat in Myanmar, one of the few (if any?) answers to our constant cards and letters. In this indignant correspondence, we were referred to as "street people"--which made us laugh. But the adamant tone was unmistakable. Myo wasn't going anywhere.

Myo Min Zaw, a Burmese student leader, is currently held in Mandalay prison.

In 1996, Myo Min Zaw was a second year student majoring in English in Hlaing College, Rangoon University. He became actively involved in the 1996 December students' demonstration. When all the universities were closed down, he and other students continuously met and discussed issues concerning politics, economics, education and student rights.

In 1998, he set up a study group, the Student and Youth United Front, of which he became the chairperson. It was at this time that he took the name Moe Hein Aung, as he was participating in preparing for the upcoming student movement and distributing statements by the SYUF.

Myo Min Zaw was the leader of the student demonstration that broke out at Hledan junction in Rangoon on 24 August 1998. The main slogans during the August and September demonstrations were as follows:
(1) We call for the immediate convening of parliament; (2) The people's government is our government (3) We don't want the military regime.

Before the three slogans were chosen, decisions were made to spread the movement all over Rangoon and to initiate demonstrations in other towns. Myo Min Zaw, therefore, was an important target for military intelligence (MI). He was arrested when MI finally tracked him down in September 1998.

He was taken to an interrogation center where he was reportedly tortured in many severe ways. At the news conference of the military government held in October 1998, Myo Min Zaw was accused of being the chief organizer of riots in cooperation with the All Burma Federation of Students' Union (ABFSU). He was sentenced to 38 years imprisonment without any representation. According to the Burmese Jail Manual, which was in force during the rule of British Colonial days, all prisoners have the right to parole for one third of the given prison term. However, no parole has been allowed and recently his sentence has been extended in 52 years.

Amnesty International (AI), a London base human rights watch group, considers him a prisoner of conscience as he was imprisoned for his non-violent political beliefs. We sincerely thank local AI groups around the world who are calling for the immediate release of Myo Min Zaw.

We also want the world to be aware that the current military government sentenced a student activist to 52 years imprisonment for the non-violent expression of his beliefs.

From Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (Burma)

He was 27 years old at the time of his arrest; he is therefore about 36 now. In 2006, BurmaNet reported the following:

With student prisoner, Myo Min Zaw, suffering from a debilitating skin disease for over three months, which has led to decay of his fingers and nails, the exiled student union has urged authorities of Mandalay prison, in central Burma, to provide immediate treatment.

The Thailand based Foreign Affairs Committee of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions ABFSU (FAC) in a statement released on July 30 said Myo Min Zaw, who was sentenced to 52 years in prison in September 1998 for leading a student’s demonstration in Mandalay, has been suffering from a skin disease which has severely affected his fingers and nails.

“We are told that the skin disease was caused by unhygienic water, food, and toilet, the use of soap and lack of treatment by prison authorities”, said Min Naing, in-charge of the ABFSU (FAC) to Mizzima.

For the rest of the story about Myo Min Zaw. Also, check out AI Manhattan's campaign on his behalf.