Letters of support needed immediately for Jalil Muntaqim’s parole hearing
Jalil is asking that we write letters supporting his 2009 parole, which has been postponed for 30 to 90 days for lack of records. This means the hearing could occur as early as Oct. 22 and as late as the end of December. It is believed that they want a new victim impact statement and the sentencing minutes from California. In the interim he said we need to continue efforts to build support. Please write a letter and urge others to do so, addressing the letters to the Parole Commissioners (Re: Parole application of Anthony Jalil Bottom #77A4283) but send to: NYC Jericho, P.O. Box 1272, New York, NY 10013.
Life, health care, prisons and cutting costs
Although much of prison health care is inadequate, many of its youthful captives can at least squeak by on what’s presently provided. Not so for those over 50 years of age, most of whom are beset by the common old age infirmities. The smartest and quickest way to begin reducing prison health care costs and prison overcrowding is to release aged and infirmed Lifers and those serving Life Without Parole (LWOPs).
Prison guards avoid cost-cutting, rip off taxpayers
CDC (California Department of Corrections) has adopted a way to circumvent the impact of the furlough rule and, in the process of getting over by not having to adhere to this rule, never having to suffer any loss of their wages. They make extra money at the taxpayers’ expense!
Tasering: The new terror in our schools
It seems that there’s a new, easy-way-out solution for security people having to deal with troubled kids who act out or cause disruptions in school: Taser them! That’s right. Zap them with electricity. Elementary and high schools across this great land of ours are hiring security guards equipped with the nasty little weapons that the manufacturers call “non-lethal.” In fact, over 4,000 law enforcement agencies now arm their security people with Tasers.
CIA report: Israel will fall in 20 years
The CIA report predicts “an inexorable movement away from a two-state to a one-state solution as the most viable model based on democratic principles of full equality that sheds the looming specter of colonial apartheid while allowing for the return of the 1947-1948 and 1967 refugees. The latter being the precondition for sustainable peace in the region.”
California’s mean streak, from Native annihilation to Oscar and Lovelle: Ishmael Reed on history
Ishmael Reed is one of the most read writers of his generation, along with Toni Morrison and Amiri Baraka, living in America. In 1962, Reed co-founded “East Village Other,” a well known underground publication at the time, and was a member of the Umbra Writers Workshop, which helped to give rise to the Black Arts Movement. He has published nine novels, four collections of poetry, six plays, four collections of essays and a libretto. He currently lives in Oakland, and I approached him one day while he was visiting KPFA’s studios to ask him what he thought about the state of affairs between the police and Oakland’s Black community, with the backdrop of the police murder of Oscar Grant and, in a separate incident, the police murder of Lovelle Mixon, after Mixon allegedly killed four Oakland police officers.
Violence between Raza and African prisoners
Once again, major violence between Raza and African prisoners has erupted within the United States Concentration Camp (Prison) System, this time at Chino California State Prison. Beginning at 8:20 on Saturday evening, Aug. 8, African and Raza (Latino) prisoners, in the most brutal fashion, slashing, cutting, hitting each other with anything that could get their hands on, battled for more than 11 hours. Over 200 were hurt, several critically, with severe head injuries or stab wounds. Blood was spilled everywhere. Many of those involved will be scarred and maimed for life, both physically and mentally.
Taboo news and corporate media
The corporate media in the United States are ignoring valid news stories, based on university quality research. It appears that certain topics are simply forbidden inside the mainstream corporate media today. To openly cover these news stories would stir up questions regarding “inconvenient truths” that many in the U.S. power structure want to avoid.
Judge says JR is ‘reckless’ for maintaining innocence
Cynthia McKinney, former member of Congress and presidential candidate, supported her long time friend, Bay View associate editor and Minister of Information JR, at his last hearing. We need YOU to pack the courtroom for his TRIAL on Thursday, Sept. 3, 9 a.m., Courtroom 11, 1225 Fallon St., Oakland. Don’t let the police silence their severest critic! Free JR!
Attorney salutes Bay View’s stand on ‘Black August’
The decision by the San Francisco Bay View to include coverage of “Black August” in its August 2009 edition was courageous and correct both from a legal and historical perspective. To have refrained from publishing its own editorial and articles from others on this subject would most certainly have strengthened the hand of reactionary state actors who have used prior restraint to curb “dangerous” speech since the days of British colonial rule.
Cynthia McKinney discusses her upcoming Triumph Tour, Aug. 20-24
The SF Bay View newspaper is in dire financial straits, and former presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney is bailing us out with her stimulus plan that comes by way of the Triumph Tour through Northern California that is being organized as a series of fundraisers for a very essential media outlet that amplifies the people’s voices in times of need and in times of triumph.
Thousands of California elders losing long-term care
Renowned bassist Ortiz Walton was once the youngest person and first African American to play in the Boston Symphony. But at 75, not only can’t Walton play his bass, but he cannot bathe, dress, eat or move in his wheelchair without the help of his wife, Carol, and assistance from state-subsidized services designed to keep him in their Berkeley, Calif., home and out of a nursing institution.
Chained in childbirth: Gov. Paterson urged to sign bill that protects pregnant prisoners
Childbirth is a painful and difficult experience for most women, but Toya Murray says for her, it was torture. Like many other incarcerated women across New York state, she was shackled immediately before and after giving birth. “When it was due for me to have my baby, they shackled my hands and feet when I went into labor to go to the hospital,” Murray said.
Black August
“George Jackson was my hero. He set a standard for prisoners, political prisoners, for people. He showed the love, the strength, the revolutionary fervor that’s characteristic of any soldier for the people. He inspired prisoners, whom I later encountered, to put his ideas into practice. And so his spirit became a living thing.” – from the eulogy by Huey P. Newton, former Minister of Defense, Black Panther Party, at the Revolutionary Memorial Service for George Jackson, 1971
Save Bayview parkland! No on SB 792!
Add your name and organization to the growing chorus of grassroots and environmental justice organizations — including the Caravan for Justice, Sierra Club, Audubon Society, Chinese Progressive Association, POWER, PODER, La Raza Centro Legal, Asian Pacific Environmental Network, Arc Ecology, Greenlining Institute, San Francisco Green Party, San Francisco Bay View newspaper and many more — saying No to California Senate Bill 792, a bill state Sen. Mark Leno introduced that would allow the state of California to sell 42 acres of state parkland on the shoreline at Candlestick Point in Bayview Hunters Point for private condominium development.
Print, sign and mail Jalil Muntaqim’s petition for parole or commutation of sentence
Jenny Kang, attorney for political prisoner Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom), writes: “Attached is a petition to New York Gov. Paterson requesting that Jalil be granted parole or have his sentence commuted. He would very much appreciate your support in signing the petition and sending it to Gov. Paterson. Please feel free to widely distribute the petition.” Jalil, one of the San Francisco 8, made the ultimate sacrifice on July 6, when he pled “no contest” in exchange for the dismissal of all charges against four of his brothers. As a token of our love and appreciation, readers are urged to print this letter, sign it and mail it to Gov. Paterson. – ed.
Toxic tour of West Oakland
Thirty-seven percent of the adults and 20 percent of the kids living in West Oakland have asthma and children living in this community are seven times more likely to be hospitalized for breathing related illness than any other children in California.
Taxing fossils to educate for renewables
In response to the California state budget crisis and to global warming urgencies, California’s 20th District Assemblymember Alberto Torrico has proposed Assembly Bill 656, a tax “for the privilege of severing oil or gas from the earth or water in this state,” to fund higher education, especially renewable energy education, to train a generation capable of helping California make a transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy.
WBOK purchased by Danny Bakewell, champion of Black economic self-determination
WBOK has come back strong from the severe damage inflicted on its studio, offices, transmitter site and broadcast tower by the flooding in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Now broadcasting over a powerful signal, the station adopted a Black talk format – “Real Talk for Real Times” – on Nov. 1, 2007, after it was purchased and upgraded by Danny Bakewell Sr. on behalf of the Bakewell family.
Unfair trade! Sen. Leno aims to give our clean parkland to Lennar, toxic land to the people
Sen. Mark Leno’s Senate Bill 792 would give clean parkland at Candlestick Point to Lennar and replace it with toxic land. Lennar, the “toxic dust developer,” plans to build 10,000 luxury condos at the Hunters Point Shipyard. This toxic trade bill is now in the California Assembly, so calls opposing SB 792 should be made immediately to Fiona Ma, (916) 319-2012, and Tom Ammiano, (916) 319-2013.
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