Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Russell Charles Means ,Great Oglala Sioux
RUSSELL MEANS SPECIAL: The Decline of American Culture (10/22/2012)
Russell Charles Means (November 10, 1939 – October 22, 2012) was an Oglala Sioux activist for the rights of Native American people and political activist. He became a prominent member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) after joining the organization in 1968, and helped organize notable events that attracted national and international media coverage.
Means was active in international issues of indigenous peoples, including working with groups in Central and South America, and with the United Nations for recognition of their rights. He was active in politics at his native Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and at the state and national level.
Beginning an acting career in 1992, he appeared in numerous films and released his own music CD. He published his autobiography Where White Men Fear to Tread in 1995.
Means was born in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, a community located in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, to Theodora Feather and Harold "Hank" Means. He was baptized Oyate Wacinyapin, which means "works for the people" in the Lakota language. His Oglala Sioux parents met as students at an Indian boarding school.
In 1942, when Russell was three, the Means family resettled in the San Francisco Bay Area, seeking to escape the poverty and problems of the reservation. His father worked at the shipyard. Means grew up in the Bay area, graduating in 1958 from San Leandro High School in San Leandro, California. He attended four colleges but did not graduate from any of them. In his 1995 autobiography, Means recounted a harsh childhood; his father was alcoholic and he himself fell into years of "truancy, crime and drugs" before finding purpose in the American Indian Movement in Minneapolis.
His father died in 1967, and in his 20's, Means lived in several Indian reservations throughout the United States while searching for work. While at the Rosebud Indian Reservation in south-central South Dakota, he developed severe vertigo. Physicians at the reservation clinic believed that he had been brought in inebriated. After they refused to examine him for several days, Means was finally diagnosed with a concussion due to a presumed fist fight in a saloon. A visiting specialist later discovered that the reservation doctors had overlooked a common ear infection, which cost Means the hearing in one ear.
After recovering from the infection, Means worked for a year in the Office of Economic Opportunity, where he came to know several legal activists who were managing legal action on behalf of the Lakota people. After a dispute with his supervisor, Means left Rosebud for Cleveland, Ohio. In Cleveland, he worked with Native American community leaders against the backdrop of the American Civil Rights Movement.
Russell Means Interview
No truer words have ever been stated about the evils prevalent in this country known as the United States of America, a country built upon greed. Until America revises its stance to righteous living, then its eventual downfall is to be seen in the annals of time and history as all empires of the world have been been shown to dissolve. This man is so intelligent that he spews wisdom the like the world has rarely known. He is competent and capable of analyzing the predicament of the American Indian. I have a close concern for the Native American, especially since they are a part of my family on both sides even though we never search it out, but we know it is accurate. This sense of attachment needs to be preserved and passed down through the family line.
Posted by Marileeza
Russell Means :Our Part of Worldwide Wreckage
In 1968 at age 29, Means joined the American Indian Movement (AIM), where he rose to become a prominent leader.[6] Means participated in the 1969 Alcatraz occupation. In 1970, Means was appointed AIM's first national director, and the organization began a period of increasing protests and activism
On Thanksgiving Day 1970, Means and other AIM activists staged their first protest in Boston: they seized the Mayflower II, a replica ship of the Mayflower, to protest the Puritans' and United States' mistreatment of Native Americans.[7] Later that year, Means was one of the leaders of AIM's takeover of Mount Rushmore, a federal monument.[citation needed]
In 1972, he participated in AIM's occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) headquarters in Washington, D.C. Many confidential records were taken or destroyed, and more than $2 million in damages was done to the building.[citation needed]
In 1973, Dennis Banks and Carter Camp led AIM's occupation of Wounded Knee, which became the group's most well-known action.[7] Means appeared as a spokesman and prominent leader as well. The armed standoff of more than 300 Lakota and AIM activists with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and state law enforcement lasted for 71 days. A visiting Cherokee from North Carolina and an Oglala Lakota activist from Pine Ridge Reservation were killed in April 1973. Earlier an FBI agent was shot and became paralyzed from his wounds.
Russell Means Freedom Part 1
Russell Means Freedom Part 2
Russell Means - Freedom is Your Responsibility
Mount Rushmore: One of America's greatest national monuments is,
to Native Americans, one of the most inflammatory and blasphemous
symbols of what was taken from them.
LRI Tribute to Russell Means
Monday, October 22, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Can a Black Man Defend Himself at Home?
Can a Black Man Defend Himself at Home?
The NAACP and activists fight for the release of a black Georgia man who shot a man on his lawn.
By: Aisha I. Jefferson | Posted: September 12, 2012 at 12:38 AM
NAACP President Benjamin Todd Jealous, second from left (Charles Cook/NAACP)
(The Root) -- Members of the NAACP -- including its president and CEO, Benjamin Todd Jealous -- along with local politicians and other activists, addressed a small crowd of journalists in Atlanta on Monday in an effort to bring attention to the case of a black Georgia man serving a life sentence for killing a white man who was trespassing on his property.
Despite Kennesaw, Ga., police detectives declaring in 2005 that John McNeil , 46, acted in self-defense, Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head decided a year later to try the case . McNeil was sentenced in November 2006.
"If this can happen to John McNeil, then it can happen to [Georgia NAACP President] Ed DuBose, it can happen to William Barber, it can happen to Ben Jealous. It can happen to any black man standing out here or standing anywhere in America, no matter how much good you've done or how right you are," the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina NAACP, told the crowd in front of the Georgia State Capitol. Barber, a longtime friend of McNeil's, along with Jealous and other NAACP members, went to see him in prison before the press conference.
The "it" relates to events that took place Dec. 6, 2005, when McNeil arrived home after his teenage son called him about an unfamiliar man lurking about their property. According to testimony, the man, Brian Epp, a hired contractor with whom McNeil had past difficulties, had already pulled a knife on the teenager.
Epp refused to leave, and McNeil, who had called 911, fired a warning shot into the ground. Epp then charged toward McNeil while reaching into his pocket. McNeil fatally shot him in the head at close range. Court documents state that a pocketknife was clipped inside Epp's pants pocket. McNeil's neighbors who witnessed the incident backed his story.
Kennesaw police detectives investigated the case, decided that McNeil had acted in self-defense and didn't charge him. McNeil's self-defense claim is supported by Georgia's "castle doctrine" law , which allows an individual to use deadly force to protect his or her home, or anyone inside it, from a violent trespasser.
McNeil and his family thought the worst was over, until Pat Head decided nearly a year later to pursue prosecution. Although the Kennesaw Police Department refused to arrest McNeil, the Cobb County Sheriff's Office did, under Head's advisement, according to NAACP members.
During the trial, McNeil's neighbors, the two senior detectives investigating the case and a couple who said that they felt threatened by Epp when they hired him to do work all testified in McNeil's defense. All of those individuals are white.
From: Benjamin Jealous, NAACP
Date: Wed, Oct 17, 2012 at 12:55 PM
Subject: John McNeil could be heading home
To: Mary White
Great news — a recent decision by the Georgia Superior Court has paved the way for John McNeil to be released from prison in a couple of weeks.
Only one thing stands in John's way. Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens has twelve more days to appeal the decision of the Superior Court. You previously took action to call for justice for John McNeil — now we need everyone you know to do the same.
Tell everyone you know to sign our petition urging Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens not to appeal the Georgia Superior Court decision so John McNeil can go home:
http://action.naacp.org/send-john-home
The Georgia Superior Court saw the same thing you did when you signed our petition in support of John. They cited multiple errors at trial in granting John's petition for habeas corpus. These included ineffective counsel and a lack of proper instruction to the jury on a person's right in Georgia to use force to defend himself or another person from a violent attack.
John's ailing wife Anita was thrilled with the court's decision, "I know we still have a journey in front of us, but today we smile, for we have won. We are thankful first to God and then to the judge. She looked at the case and saw it for what it is."
I visited John in prison last month with North Carolina State President Reverend Barber and Georgia State Conference President Edward Dubose. His spirits were high because he knows how hard we are fighting on his behalf.
This is the final step towards righting the wrong of the Cobb County DA who prosecuted a father for defending his family on his own property. Together, we can send John home, where he belongs.
Tell your family and friends to sign the petition in support of justice for John:
http://action.naacp.org/send-john-home
Thank you,
Ben
Benjamin Todd Jealous
President and CEO
NAACP
ATLANTA – The wife of a successful African-American businessman, who is serving a life sentence for killing a trespasser who was threatening his family, has said she will continue to fight for his release.
“It is hard to think he got convicted,” John McNeil’s wife, Anita, 46, told theGrio. “You expect the law to be on the side of the person defending themselves and not the aggressor.”
In fact, initially the law was on his side. Following an initial investigation, Kennesaw, Ga., detectives concluded in 2005 that John McNeil, 45, acted in self-defense.
The case relates to events on December 6, 2005, when McNeil received a distress call from his teenage son that a man was lurking around in their backyard.
“John called 911 and told the police he was on his way home,” said his wife, who is living with advanced stage cancer. According to testimony, the man, Brian Epp, a hired contractor with whom McNeil had past disagreements, had already pulled out a knife on McNeil’s 19-year-old son.
When McNeil returned home, Epp, who is white, refused to leave, despite being asked several times. McNeil and eye-witnesses testified that he fired a warning shot but when Epp charged towards him with his hand in his pocket he shot out in self-defense.
Despite the conclusion of Kennesaw police detectives that McNeil committed no crime, Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head decided nearly a year later to charge him with murder. As a result, McNeil was sentenced to life in prison in November 2006.
Ironically, Georgia’s “Castle Doctrine” permits individuals to defend themselves with a weapon if they feel threatened on their own property without having to wait for the situation to escalate.
The case has led activists to wonder why a family man, with no prior criminal convictions, could on the basis of the evidence and witness accounts, be sentenced to a life behind bars.
So much so that the NAACP is calling for a reexamination of the case, which they categorize as a blatant miscarriage of justice. “The events of this case can only be described as tragic,” said NAACP President Benjamin Jealous.
“But that tragedy has been compounded by Georgia’s decision to prosecute and convict a dedicated father for protecting his family and himself on his own property,” added Jealous.
In fact, those who have met John McNeil describe him as a mild-mannered, family man, who adored his wife and cherished his two sons.
“In one of the interviews I had with him he was choked up and emotional when talking
ak to him he comes across as very credible.”
In many ways, McNeil’s life was typical of a hard-working American. A graduate from North Carolina’s Elizabeth City State University, he was a businessman and community volunteer, whose main priority was taking care of his family.
Last week in Georgia, the NAACP, alongside other activists and local elected officials, addressed a crowd of journalists in a bid to reunite McNeil with his family. They also plan to hold a rally on the anniversary of his sentence in November.
“The John McNeil case is the best example of unequal justice, not just in Georgia, but in America,” said DuBose. “Whether it is a black man trying to defend his property or he’s a victim of circumstance, there’s not justice.”
Earlier this year, John McNeil filed a writ for Habeas Corpus relief arguing that his conviction was unsound. His petition is pending before the Baldwin County, Georgia Superior Court.
Mark Yurachek, John’s McNeil’s attorney, said, “It’s fair to say we have made what we feel is a compelling case for everyone to believe at the minimum my client deserves new trial, if not a release.”
Friday, October 12, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Obama Will Triumph -- So Will America
Obama Will Triumph -- So Will America
By Frank Schaeffer
Before he'd served even one year President Obama lost the support
of the easily distracted left and engendered the white hot rage of
the hate-filled right. But some of us, from all walks of life and
ideological backgrounds -- including this white, straight, 57-year-
old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer
and (given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader)
this unlikely Obama supporter -- are sticking with our President.
Why?-- because he is succeeding.
We faithful Obama supporters still trust our initial impression of
him as a great, good and uniquely qualified man to lead us.
Obama's steady supporters will be proved right. Obama's critics
will be remembered as easily panicked and prematurely discouraged
at best and shriveled hate mongers at worst.
The Context of the Obama Presidency
Not since the days of the rise of fascism in Europe , the Second
World War and the Depression has any president faced more
adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more
bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial
integration has any president faced a more consistently short-
sighted and willfully ignorant opposition - from both the right
and left.
As the President's poll numbers have fallen so has his support from
some on the left that were hailing him as a Messiah not long ago;
all those lefty websites and commentators that were falling all
over themselves on behalf of our first black president during the
2008 election.
The left's lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling "prophecy"--
snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall and
then pretend you didn't have anything to do with it!
Here is what Obama faced when he took office-- none of which was
his fault:
# An ideologically divided country to the point that America was
really two countries
# Two wars; one that was mishandled from the start, the other that
was unnecessary and immoral
# The worst economic crisis since the depression
# America 's standing in the world at the lowest point in history
# A country that had been misled into accepting the use of torture
of prisoners of war
# A health care system in free fall
# An educational system in free fall
# A global environmental crisis of history-altering proportions
(about which the Bush administration and the Republicans had done
nothing)
# An impasse between culture warriors from the right and left
# A huge financial deficit inherited from the terminally
irresponsible Bush administration.
And those were only some of the problems sitting on the
President's desk!
"Help" from the Right?
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What did the Republicans and the religious right, libertarians and
half-baked conspiracy theorists -- that is what the Republicans
were reduced to by the time Obama took office -- do to "help" our
new president (and our country) succeed? They claimed that he
wasn't a real American, didn't have an American birth certificate,
wasn't born here, was secretly a Muslim, was white-hating "racist",
was secretly a communist, was actually the Anti-Christ, (!) and was
a reincarnation of Hitler and wanted "death panels" to kill the
elderly!
They not-so-subtly called for his assassination through the not-so-
subtle use of vile signs held at their rallies and even a bumper
sticker quoting Psalm 109:8. They organized "tea parties" to sound
off against imagined insults and all government in general and
gathered to howl at the moon. They were led by insurance industry
lobbyists and deranged (but well financed) "commentators" from
Glenn Beck to Rush Limbaugh.
The utterly discredited Roman Catholic bishops teamed up with the
utterly discredited evangelical leaders to denounce a president who
was trying to actually do something about the poor, the
environment, to diminish the number of abortions through
compassionate programs to help women and to care for the sick! And
in Congress the Republican leadership only knew one word: "No!"
In other words the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy
American far right,combined with the educated but obtuse
neoconservative war mongers, religious right shills for big
business, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving
crazies, child-molesting acquiescent "bishops", frontier loons and
evangelical gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite
them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from succeeding at
all costs!
"Help" from the Left?
What did the left do to help their newly elected president? Some of
them excoriated the President because they disagreed with the bad
choices he was being forced to make regarding a war in Afghanistan
that he'd inherited from the worst president in modern history!
Others stood up and bravely proclaimed that the President's
economic policies had "failed" before the President even instituted
them! Others said that since all gay rights battles had not been
fully won within virtually minutes of the President taking office,
they'd been "betrayed"! (Never mind that Obama's vocal support to
the gay community is stronger than any other president's has been.
Never mind that he signed a new hate crimes law!)
Those that had stood in transfixed legions weeping with beatific
emotion on election night turned into an angry mob saying how
"disappointed" they were that they'd not all immediately been
translated to heaven the moment Obama stepped into the White House!
Where was the "change"? Contrary to their expectations they were
still mere mortals!
And the legion of young new supporters was too busy texting to pay
attention for longer than a nanosecond. "Governing"?! What the hell
does that word, uh, like mean?"
The President's critics left and right all had one thing in common:
impatience laced with little-to-no sense of history (let alone
reality) thrown in for good measure. Then of course there were the
white, snide know-it-all commentators/talking heads who just
couldn't imagine that maybe, just maybe they weren't as smart as
they thought they were and certainly not as smart as their
president. He hadn't consulted them, had he? So he must be wrong!
The Obama critics' ideological ideas defined their idea of reality
rather than reality defining their ideas-say, about what is
possible in one year in office after the hand that the President
had been dealt by fate, or to be exact by the American idiot nation
that voted Bush into office. twice!
Meanwhile back in the reality-based community - in just 12 short
months -- President Obama:
#Continued to draw down the misbegotten war in Iraq
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Thoughtfully and decisively picked the best of several bad choices
regarding the war in Afghanistan
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Gave a major precedent-setting speech supporting gay rights
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Restored America 's image around the globe
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Banned torture of American prisoners
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Stopped the free fall of the American economy
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Put the USA squarely back in the bilateral international community
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Put the USA squarely into the middle of the international effort
to halt global warming
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Stood up for educational reform
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Won a Nobel peace prize
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Moved the trial of terrorists back into the American judicial
system of checks and balances
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Did what had to be done to start the slow, torturous and almost
impossible process of health care reform that 7 presidents had
failed to even begin
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Responded to hatred from the right and left with measured good
humor and patience
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Stopped the free fall of job losses
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Showed immense personal courage in the face of an armed and
dangerous far right opposition that included the sort of disgusting
people that show up at public meetings carrying loaded weapons and
carrying Timothy McVeigh-inspired signs about the "blood of
tyrants" needing to "water the tree of liberty".
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
#Showed that he could not only make the tough military choices but
explain and defend them brilliantly
(But that wasn't good enough for his critics)
Other than those "disappointing" accomplishments -- IN ONE YEAR --
President Obama "failed"! Other than that he didn't "live up to
expectations"!
Who actually has failed...
...are the Americans that can't see the beginning of a miracle of
national rebirth right under their jaded noses. Who failed are the
smart ass ideologues of the left and right who began rooting for
this President to fail so that they could be proved right in their
dire and morbid predictions. Who failed are the movers and shakers
behind our obscenely dumb news cycles that have turned "news" into
just more stupid entertainment for an entertainment-besotted
infantile country.
Here's the good news: President Obama is succeeding without the
help of his lefty "supporters" or hate-filled Republican detractors!
The Future Looks Good
After Obama has served two full terms, (and he will), after his
wisdom in moving deliberately and cautiously with great subtlety on
all fronts -- with a canny and calculating eye to the possible
succeeds, (it will), after the economy is booming and new industries
are burgeoning, (they will be), after the doomsayers are all proved
not just wrong but silly: let the record show that not all
Americans were panicked into thinking the sky was falling.
Just because we didn't get everything we wanted in the first short
and fraught year Obama was in office not all of us gave up. Some of
us stayed the course. And we will be proved right.
PS. if you agree that Obama is shaping up to be a great president,
please pass this on and hang in there! Pass it on anyway to ensure
that his "report card" gets the attention it deserves.
Frank Schaeffer is an American author, film director, screenwriter and public speaker. He is the son of the late theologian and author Francis Schaeffer.
Saturday, October 6, 2012
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