On the evening of 28 September, the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to send an official letter to President Obama in support of an award of Executive Clemency to Leonard Peltier.
Thanks to Sampson Wolfe, LPDOC Chapter - Northern California; Tomas Reyes, AIM-WEST; Jessie Little (Wounded Knee class of 73’); and Wendy Kenin. Their presence and shared comments made all the difference for a unanimous decision.
October 2, Saturday 6-9pm, Santa Cruz, CA Louden Nelson Center 301 Center Street Contacts: Crysta and Sampson 831-338-7390
October 3, Sunday 2pm to 6pm, San Jose, CA Center for Training & Careers 749 Story Road Sampson 408-590-1347
What are the BFC Road Shows?
Buffalo Field Campaign (BFC) is a non-profit, volunteer-based organization focused on protecting America's last wild buffalopopulation. BFC lives and works in the lands where wild buffalo still roam, in southwestern Montana, and has become the leading source of news and information about them. BFC volunteers embark on daily field patrols, monitoring wild bison migration and document all actions made against them in an effort to raise awareness and gain permanent protection for this sacred, iconic species. BFC's Road Show is one way we can bring the buffalo's story to you and build a strong advocacy for their defense.
The Yellowstone buffalo population is the last one to remain free of cattle-genes, to still follow their migratory instincts, and the only buffalo to have continuously lived on their historic habitat since prehistoric times. Once roaming free in the tens of millions across North America, today, fewer than 4,000 wild buffalo are left in existence; these few are confined to Yellowstone and are under constant attack by livestock interests.
Montana's voracious cattle industry, overseen by the Montana Department of Livestock, holds a "zero tolerance" policy against buffalo, harming, harassing and killing them for following their natural, migratory instincts that bring them to habitat in the state. Since 1985 nearly 7,000 wild buffalo have been senselessly killed. Montana and the federal government agencies supporting them claim that these actions are taken to prevent the spread of a livestock disease, brucellosis, from wild bison to cattle. In the centuries of cattle invading North America, wild bison have never transmitted this disease to the livestock they got it from. Other wildlife - such as elk, deer, and even domestic dogs - also carry brucellosis. Only wild buffalo are targeted, which demonstrates a deeper issue other than disease: grass. The cattle industry fears the return of wild buffalo because they want to hoard grassland habitat for their cattle.
With our country's shameful history of mass buffalo slaughter it is a bitter irony that 130 years later history repeats itself. Adding insult to injury, Montana's livestock industry has a unlikely partner in these crimes against buffalo: Yellowstone National Park. Amazingly, the agency that is in charge of protecting this sacred species, and that uses the buffalo as their very symbol fully participates in their harassment and slaughter. During the winter of 2008, Yellowstone National Park helped livestock interests kill over 1,600 wild American buffalo, becoming responsible for the largest buffalo slaughter since the 19th century.
In addition to our daily field patrols, and using our decades of experience, BFC is working to gain wild buffalo permanent protection under the Endangered Species Act; we are working with Congress for legislative support, working with First Nations that help honor the sacred nature of the buffalo, and we have joined with other bison advocates to take legal action against the governments that harm them. These buffalo are an American treasure, belonging to themselves and the land they have roamed since prehistoric times. America's last wild buffalo need all of our help to ensure their survival.
BFC co-founder Mike Mease, along with BFC volunteer and coordinator Noah will be traveling out West visiting communities, events and Farmers Markets sharing stories, music, poetry, video and discussion about the last wild buffalo. We are honored to have family members and friends GoodShield of 7th Generation Rise, and Phoenix AfterBuffalo back again this year joining us for the entire West Coast Road Show in 2010!
Click here to view the schedule of BFC's 2010 West Coast Roadshow.
For more information on the West Coast tours, email bfc-media@wildrockies.org or call (406) 646-0070.
On 05 November the United States will give an oral presentation on its human rights record to the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group in Geneva, Switzerland.
This is an historic event.
This is also an opportunity to shine a light on human rights violations on the part of the U.S. government and the use of U.S. courts to quash dissent!
Join with other human rights organizations in a worldwide demonstration demanding recognition of the existence of U.S. political prisoners, prisoners of war, and exiles.
On 05 November—Make a noise! Gather at every embassy and consulate around the world.
On 05 November—Be present in the struggle for human rights. Gather at every U.S. court house.
Stand Up!
Demand a new trial for Leonard Peltier and all victims of politically motivated prosecution and imprisonment in the U.S.
Stand UP!
Demand accountability for the murders of COINTELPRO targets.
STAND UP!
Demand remedies for COINTELPRO targets, including commutation of sentences.
Demand direct action by President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder.
A USA TODAY investigation documented 201 criminal cases across the nation in which federal judges found that prosecutors broke the rules. The abuses put innocent people in jail, set guilty people free.
Prosecutors' conduct can tip the scales by Brad Heath and Kevin McCoy, USA TODAY (09/22/2010) A USA TODAY investigation found that prosecutors have repeatedly violated their duty to seek justice in courtrooms across the country. The abuses have put innocent people in prison, set guilty people free. VIDEO: Wrongfully jailed Video by Rhyne Piggott, USA TODAY (09/22/2010) Nino Lyons served almost three years in jail after he was convicted of trafficking cocaine. It was the evidence jurors never got to hear that eventually set him free.
MAP, DATABASE: Explore misconduct cases USA TODAY's investigation documented 201 cases in which judges threw out convictions or rebuked prosecutors. Examine the cases we identified and explore an interactive map.
Justice Department orders more training for prosecutors by Brad Heath, USA TODAY (09/22/2010) The Justice Department is taking new steps to make sure federal prosecutors live up to their constitutional duty to turn over evidence to the people they charge with crimes.
Please join me on Wednesday the 22nd at 12:30-2 PM CST when we will be going live to Bergen Community College in N.J. for a round table discussion on Native American movements. David Hill, Clyde Bellecourt (co-founder of the American Indian Movement), and Dwayne Perry, Chief of the Ramapough Lenape Indian Nation will participate. Should be an outstanding show!
Wanbli Tate, Host, Indigenous Rights Movement Radio
--Claude Marks discusses the new film COINTELPRO 101
By Angola 3 News
Claude Marks, Director of The Freedom Archives, talks to Angola 3 News about the highly anticipated new documentary film, entitled COINTELPRO 101, which is premiering on October 10, at the Mission Cultural Center of Latino Arts in San Francisco.
According to its website, the Freedom Archives “contains over 8000 hours of audio and video tapes. These recordings date from the late-60s to the mid-90s and chronicle the progressive history of the Bay Area, the United States, and international solidarity movements. The collection includes weekly news/ poetry/ music programs broadcast on several educational radio stations; in-depth interviews and reports on social and cultural issues; diverse activist voices; original and recorded music, poetry, original sound collages; and an extensive La Raza collection.”
Freedom Archives has released other audio and video documentaries, including the recent video about the San Francisco Eight, entitled "Legacy of Torture." Legacy of Torture can be viewed online, as well as the previous films Voices of Three Political Prisoners (featuring Nuh Washington, Jalil Muntaqim and David Gilbert), Charisse Shumate: Fighting for Our Lives, and Self Respect, Self Defense & Self Determination (featuring Mabel Williams and Kathleen Cleaver, introduced by Angela Davis).
Angola 3 News: What can you tell us about your upcoming film COINTELPRO 101?
Claude Marks: We’ve been aware of the need to talk more about COINTELPRO since we made The Legacy of Torture – the video about the government torture of the Panthers in New Orleans in 1973 – which later became the unjust basis for the San Francisco 8 Case. In travelling with that film and organizing for the dropping of charges, we referred to COINTELPRO but often were talking to younger people in particular, who had not heard the term and had no historical frame of reference for that period of intense repression.
So we undertook to make this new film, knowing that no government agent or agency has ever been held accountable for the assassinations of leaders, the destruction of organizations, the imprisonment and political targeting of so many people – people who still remain prisoners of the wars against movements for liberation and self-determination within the US borders.
COINTELPRO 101 is not the first or only film on the subject, although there have not been many, but we hope it can help reinvigorate some organizing work, and reopen some thinking about the violence directed against progressive movements, this hidden history, and nature of the state and its agencies of repression.
A3N: How was the film showing and related workshop at the US Social Forum received by the audience?
CM: This was a good opportunity to infuse the very broad conversations at the Social Forum with a self-conscious discussion about the nature and continuity of government repression. From the European invasion & Middle Passage forward, we have always seen genocide. Prisons, COINTELPRO, Abu Ghraib…all represent the continuity of what any movements to change power relations are and will be up against.
A3N: Your website states that the film’s “intended audiences are the generations that did not experience the social justice movements of the sixties and seventies.” Given that COINTELPRO officially ended in the early 1970s, why is this story so important for the younger generation to know about?
CM: Well, the mission of the Freedom Archives is to help educate people, and especially the rising new generations, as to the true nature of recent radical history. The high point of struggle represented by the loosely used term “the sixties” and the violent repression against it, contains essential lessons for every young person seeking a more just society. More generally, people should not be misled by the myth of democracy, the idea that the system can be made to work for “us” or that those in power will somehow reach a moral epiphany and give up anything of consequence without a fight.
We see this myth exposed today in many ways – mass imprisonment, the tearing up of families and communities – driven by racism – the criminalization of dissent so any act of resistance becomes by their definition an act of “terrorism.”
This is a continuum that is unleashed upon the world’s peoples as well as internally. Black, Brown, and Indigenous people are targeted. Muslims and South Asians are targeted. Women and queer folks are targeted. Prisoners are subjected to the worst inhumanities, and if they are ever released, what do they have they to look forward to?
The U.S. has by far the largest incarceration rate in the world—as they build more prisons, the schools deteriorate and the public education system lies in racist tatters.
A3N: How do you think the US government’s repression of the Left today differs from the COINTELPRO era?
CM: In the 1970s, the public and some officials, faced with the exposure of the illegal acts of government and police agencies against dissent, feigned concerns about the loss of civil liberties, held hearings, and alleged that reforms would take place. But today, the acts of the FBI, police, and other agencies, once illegal, are now legitimate, legal – via the Patriot Act and other unconstitutional measures, all in the name of homeland security and defending the nation against “terrorism.”
The playing field has changed. The government now openly conducts assassinations anywhere in the world, can declare people to be “enemy combatants” and imprison them indefinitely without charges; drone warfare permits mass civilian murders by so-called military experts thousands of miles away without risking US military casualties – it’s a “game” except to the thousands of victims.
Today the government claims the right to breach international human rights laws and conventions with no accountability. And the corporate media is so integrated into this strategy, that there is little room for “legitimate” opposition to get a hearing. So it becomes incumbent upon us to organize and message independently and with few resources.
COINTELPRO 101 is made with mainly love and fumes, but we hope that it will be a useful tool to engage in dialogue and to help organize movements that challenge the mythology that dissent is a guaranteed right, that seek the release of political prisoners, that counter the miseducation of our youth with an understanding of the past so they can better shape the future.
A3N: Knowing what we do about this repression in the past and present, how can activists today best defend ourselves? How should our organizing strategies be modified?
CM: We must organize to show our outrage with more consistency and despite risks. There is an urgency to demand more of one another as well. Challenging the state is serious and will not succeed as a result of stroking egos or the pronouncements of self-declared leaders. It is hard work and requires a deep commitment and a passion for serving the people and rebuilding our communities. Our capacity must grow in realistic ways as there are no shortcuts, and the path includes defeats and sacrifice. This is one of the things that our political prisoners and the many martyrs can teach us.
A3N: For our readers not close enough to San Francisco for the October 10 premiere, how will folks be able to watch the new film?
CM: The film will begin to show in communities and on campuses this fall and winter. People can reach us to make arrangements. At some point we will also manufacture DVDs. We hope to have it available with subtitles in other languages as well. Also check the website as we have resources about COINTELPRO posted and will also add a teaching curriculum to accompany the film.
A3N: How can folks best support your efforts?
CM: We are very much a grassroots organization. We have no corporate or government funding. We are one voice among many, but we encourage people to support the work of independent media, including ourselves. We welcome your questions and comments and greatly appreciate your support.
Also please use the audio and video documentaries that we’ve produced as educational materials and organizing tools. The actual Freedom Archives is searchable on line and is intended to preserve radical history and culture. So check us out!
A3N: Any closing thoughts?
CM: Years ago, as the movements grew and we worked in various political and media organizations, we were fond of quoting part of an 1857 speech by Frederick Douglass, often using Ossie Davis’s dramatic rendition of his famous words. They sum up a lesson that is central to what I am saying, and is at the heart of COINTELPRO 101. Many of your readers are probably familiar with it, but its essence bears repeating:
“The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims, have been born of earnest struggle… If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation…want crops without plowing up the ground, they want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters…. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
--
Angola 3 News is a new project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. Our website is www.angola3news.com where we provide the latest news about the Angola 3. We are also creating our own media projects, which spotlight the issues central to the story of the Angola 3, like racism, repression, prisons, human rights, solitary confinement as torture, and more.
"Upon suffering beyond suffering, the Red Nation shall rise again and it shall be a blessing for a sick world. A world filled with broken promises, selfishness and separations. A world longing for light again. I see a time of Seven Generations when all the colors of mankind will gather under the Sacred Tree of Life and the whole Earth will become one circle again.... I salute the light within your eyes where the whole Universe dwells. For when you are at that center within you and I am that place within me, we shall be one." -- Tashunka Witko (Crazy Horse), Oglala
I would like to introduce someone you have grown up with, refuse to acknowledge, who has made the life you now have possible.
Hello my relatives. I am the Indian in your living room. I am the First Nations, the original inhabitants of Turtle Island.
I am the corn, the beans, the squash, the sweet potatoes, and tomatoes on your dinner table. I am the gratitude you express every fourth Thursday in November.
I am the Corn Maiden, the Two Hills, the Sacred Mountains, Spider Woman, Shiprock. I am the Kachinas, the Thunderbird, the Black Hills, and the Buffalo.
I am the Pipe Carrier, the Keeper of the Sacred Bundles, the White Buffalo Calf, Kokopelli. I am Heyoka, Coyote, Raven, Crow, White Old Man, and Salmon Boy. I am the Sun Dance, the Ghost Dance, the inipi wakan, the hanblechya.
I am the Indian in your living room.
I am the Great Law of Peace. I am the plan for the U.S. Constitution given you by the clan mothers of the Iroquois Federation. I am political freedom, free speech, equality, and freedom of assembly which you claim as part of being an American. I am the Delaware who allowed Washington's troops to survive the winter at Valley Forge.
I am the caretaker of Mother Earth. I am the Grandfathers who tell the stories that teach us how to be human. I am the Ancestors who watch from the heavens. I am Powhatan, Pocahontas, and Sacagawea who helped the white man survive in a strange land. I am the Brotherhood of the Shield that used to care for and protect the people before the white men came.
I am the Indian in your living room.
I am the residue of Manifest Destiny. I am an inconvenience to progress. I am America's Final Solution. I am the ghost of Osceola, Pontiac, and Seattle. I am the Trail of Tears, Sand Creek, and Wounded Knee I and II. I am Baker's Massacre, Ghost Ridge, and all the atrocities carried out in your name. I am the guilt you carry for these crimes.
I am the Indian in your living room.
I am blankets infected with smallpox. I am trade whiskey, forced conversions, and Indian schools. I am slavery, spoiled beef rations, and crooked Indian agents. I am Cornstalk, Chief Joseph, Geronimo, and Crazy Horse, I am Sitting Bull, Jim Thorpe, Leonard Peltier, and Ira Hayes. I am Squanto, Red Cloud, White Calf, and SuAnne Big Crow. I am the Navajo Code Talkers who helped you win the war in the Pacific.
I am a long history of unpaid debts and broken promises. I am the spirit of the buffalo shot from train windows and left to rot on the plains. I am every treaty ever made and broken.
I am the Indian in your living room.
I am the reservation where the Constitution and Bill of Rights do not apply. I am the loss of freedom and way of life. I am poverty and unemployment, alcoholism and diabetes. I am hopelessness and suicide and I am here to tell you the reservation now includes your living room and it just swallowed New Orleans.
Now we all live here together. Welcome to the reservation. What they have done to me is being done to you and you let them away with it.
I am the Indian in your living room and I will not go away.
I am your past, your future, your heritage, and your destiny. I am that small drop of Indian blood every American family now carries. I am your parent, your grandparent, and great-grandparent and we are all related.
I am the Indian in your living room and I don't seek vengeance.
I'm done asking for just compensation. Your government is not capable of dealing honestly. I am declaring independence and you had better respect it.
I ask that the people open their hearts and listen and when you weep for the loss of my children as you would weep for your own then, I will know you have heard.
Image brought to you by Rigo23. Click to view a larger image.
Last night, Oglala Oyate - a video shot in Pine Ridge in July and August, including interviews with folks who spoke about Leonard Peltier - was projected in downtown San Jose, CA, as part of the 2010 01SJ Biennial.
This event is predicated on the notion that as artists, designers, engineers, architects, marketers, corporations and citizens we have the tools to (re)build the world, conceptually and actually, virtually and physically, poorly and better, aesthetically and pragmatically, in both large and small ways. 01SJ is about how powerful ideas and innovative individuals from around the world can make a difference and come together to build a unique and distributed city-wide platform for creative solutions and public engagement.
5K Run in Solidarity with Political Prisoners: Support Leonard Peltier and Tarek Mehanna
WHEN: Saturday, September 18, 10:00 am, RAIN OR SHINE! WHERE: Jamaica Pond Boathouse (Jamaica Plain, MA)
Let's keep up our tradition in Boston and hold another 5K run at Jamaica Pond in September in honor of Leonard Peltier's 66th Birthday.
Proceeds from the run will be divided between the Leonard Peltier Defense/Offense Committee (LPDOC) and the Tarek Mehanna support committee (www.freetarek.com). Since Leonard's actual birthday (Sept. 12th) falls on the last day of Ramadan this year, we have decided to hold the run on the following weekend: Saturday, Sept. 18th.
We are suggesting a $15 donation to register for the run; participants are invited to gather pledges and donations to help support the event.
Jamaica Pond is located on the Jamaica Way in Jamaica Plain. The run will start at the Boathouse, near the intersection of Jamaica Way and Pond St. The closest T stations are Green St. on the Orange Line and Heath St. on the Green Line; the closest bus route is the 39. Please call Jericho Boston if you need more detailed directions.
Sept. 23 - David Hill, AIM member and long-time friend of Leonard Peltier, 11:00 AM –12:15 PM, Room L-131
Sept. 24 - V. Blackhawk Aamodt, Film Maker: The Ghost Riders, 11:00 AM – 12:15 PM, Room L-131
Panel Discussion by Speakers on Thurs., Sept. 23 from 1:45 – 3:00 PM in Room L-131 For directions visit www.bergen.edu/pages/1690.asp
POW WOW Sept. 24th to 25th, 2010
Grand Entry Friday 1 PM Grand Entry Saturday 12 PM
ALL DANCERS WELCOMED!
Arena Director: Doc Morgan Drum Group: Spirit of the Mountain Drum Singers Flute Player: Frank Menusan General Public Free Vendors Free: Limited Spaces Vendor reservations are required.
This is a LPDOC Chapter - Toms River and AIM NJ coordinated event.
For information, contact Raymond Rubiano, LPDOC Chapter -Toms River, NJ, at 732-644-1682 or Ray@allamericancrow.com.
Join the LPDOC Chapter - Silicon Valley TOMORROW (September 18) at the 5th Annual American Indian Heritage Celebration, Evergreen Valley College, 3095 Yerba Buena Road, San Jose, CA 95135. Noon until 10:00 pm. Come and participate in the celebration and please come by the table to say hello. See www.americanindianheritage.org.
All you wanted was to feed The People, and a hunger entered your Spirit. All you wanted was to end the pain, and the pain of your Sundance entered your heart.
"Where are our warriors?" a Grandmother asked and the small boy in you rose up, a sweet smoke offering. You gave your life, but all you wanted was life on Earth for all your starving relations.
You spoke for the young as a young man and your Spirit-Song answered. You stoked the fire for The Elders, until now, an Elder, you fan the flames of Freedom in our lifetime, keeping the fire of all our dishonored treaties.
You studied Liberty while they waged war upon us, and upon those who looked like us, the flower of your Spirit opening to let us all inside your cell. You wanted the many colors of the Rainbow, your warrior-Spirit becoming you.
You gave us your life, your words, your Rainbow on the whitened page. You fed us all. They locked up your Light but not your fire. It blazes like sage, smolders in the concha, the smoky prayer of your resistance.
All you wanted was to feed, to end the hunger— of the flesh, of the the Spirit, of conscience. Now, with starvation all around, a mold that just won't wash, you feed us, The People, with your fasting, your writing, your glowing example.
Here, in this sacred circle of Earth, fed by the Sundance that is you, may you walk and love among us once again, telling the Truth of the Old Ones, of the ones not yet born. We are fighting for your freedom still.
Well fed by you, we know, we tell, and we demand: FREE LEONARD NOW! FREE LEONARD NOW! FREE LEONARD NOW!
Lorna Dee Cervantes Sept. 12, 2010 for Leonard Peltier's 66 birthday and for peace with dignity and justice
I wish I could sit across the table from each of you right now. We’d share a meal and reflect on changes in this world over these 35 or so years. Yes, I pay attention to things on the outside (as much as possible). I know the world is in turmoil and I ache for the Native people who languish in utter poverty on reservations and in inner cities across America.
As a young man, all I wanted to do was make a positive difference in the People’s lives. I’ll turn 66 years old next week and I still want that. It’s difficult to have an impact in my current circumstances, though. That’s a constant source of frustration for me. On the outside, given the chance to roll up my sleeves once again, I suspect I’d still be somewhat frustrated. All that must be done is more than any one person can accomplish. I’d still like the opportunity to do my part.
Thinking back to those days on Pine Ridge, what I remember is the funerals. There were so many funerals... So many families lost loved ones.
There was a powerful force at work on the reservation back then, one with a single purpose—to stamp out the last resistance of the Lakota people.
We (the Oglala traditionals and members of the American Indian Movement) stood up because we were trying to defend our People. It was the right thing to do. We had—have—the right to survive.
The land was being stolen, too… used for mining mostly. No thought was given to the disposal of toxic waste. The rivers were full of poisons. Not much has changed, I hear.
In those days, though, the reservation was torn apart by a tribal dispute and the federal government armed one group against another. The result was a long line of tragedies for the People of Pine Ridge… and for the People who were there that day in June 1975.
I honestly understand the pain and anguish suffered by all concerned and I have been part of that suffering.
I have watched people lie on the witness stand countless times and felt the doors closing on me.
I have heard judges admonish prosecutors for allowing false evidence in and, in some cases, for participating in the falsification itself.
The government hid evidence, too.
Or manufactured it. Literally.
The courts say none of this is even in dispute anymore. So I wonder, if the American standard of justice is still "beyond a reasonable doubt," why am I still here?
Some people have had their convictions overturned because of one constitutional violation. The number of constitutional violations in my case is staggering. Yet, I continue to wait here for the same justice to be applied for me.
I hope that someday someone can put it all on the table and show the enormity of the railroading I have been victimized by.
Last year, as you know, my parole was denied. That was a disappointment, but I am not defeated. My fight for freedom—for my People and myself—is not over. I am a pipe carrier and a Sundancer. Abandoning The Struggle is not—never will be—a consideration.
I am an Indian man and proud of it. I love my People and culture and spiritual beliefs. My enemies like to suggest otherwise and seek to rob me of all dignity. They won’t succeed.
When I look back over all the years, I remember all the good people who have stood up for me, for a day or a decade. Of course, many have stayed with me all along the way. I think of the hundreds of thousands of people around the world who have signed petitions for me, too... people on the poorest of reservations to the highest of political offices.
As we have learned over these many years, my freedom won’t come quickly or easily. To succeed, the coming battle will have to be hard fought. Please continue to help my Committee and legal team as you have always done. Your support is more important now than ever before. When freedom comes, it will be due in no small part to the actions you take on my behalf.
Again, thank you for remembering me. You can’t know the comfort you bring to an innocent man locked away from the world for so very long.
Doksha,
Leonard Peltier #89637-132 USP-Lewisburg US Penitentiary PO Box 1000 Lewisburg, PA 17837
24 Hour Vigil for U. S. Political Prisoner Leonard Peltier
Saturday at 6:30am - Sunday at 9:00am
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Where: The McKenzie Wetlands... Yonge Street & St. John's Sideroad, Aurora, ON, Canada
We walk for Peace On Earth in 2010. We walk to bring love and light to this historical day. We walk for Leonard Peltier..... to encourage all to HONK FOR PELTIER! We light candles for Leonard and political prisoners worldwide. We walk for the trees in Whistler. We walk for LOVE....AND FOR MORE LOVE....AND FOR MORE LOVE....for in love, miracles will happen!
Berkeley, CA: Peltier birthday event @ La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA - (510) 849-2568 - from 7:00 to 9:30 p.m. Sponsored by AIM-WEST and the LPDOC Chapter of Northern California. For more information: http://aimwest.info/.
----- San Jose, CA: Celebrating Leonard Peltier: 34 Years of Standing Strong. Honor Leonard Peltier for his 66th birthday. Help build the movement to bring about Leonard's release from prison.
American Indian Education Center (AIEC) 749 Story Rd. (at Remillard) San Jose, CA 95122
Program:
Update on Leonard Peltier Statement by Leonard Peltier Sign birthday cards to Leonard
Join us for a birthday meal & cake
Save the date!
Bring your family & friends!
Sponsored by LPDOC Chapter Silicon Valley, CA (Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee). For more information, contact Donna (h) 408-293-4774 or (cell) 408-569-6608; also email: FreeLeonardPeltier@hotmail.com.
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Albuquerque, NM: Birthday Party for Leonard Peltier sponsored by the Jericho Chapter of Albuquerque and the LPDOC Chapter - Albuquerque, NM. 5:00 to 9:00 pm. @ Albuquerque Center for Peace and Justice, 202 Harvard, SE, Albuquerque, NM 87106.
It's a Potluck! Bring a dish to share and your "spare" coins for Leonard's commissary account.
New York City: Canvass for Peltier's freedom. Washington Square Park, Manhattan, @ 1:00 p.m. (A/C/E, D/F to W 4th St, N/R to 8th St-NYU). Contact: nyclpsg@gmail.com. Join the LPDOC New York City Chapter to celebrate Leonard Peltier's 66th Birthday and canvass for Leonard's freedom!
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Barry Scheck is the co-founder and co-director of the Innocence Project, a national organization that uses DNA testing to exonerate wrongfully convicted people and implements policy reforms to prevent future injustice. Founded in 1988 under the auspices of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University, the Innocence Project has exonerated hundreds through post-conviction DNA testing.
Scheck is currently a professor of law at Cardozo and a commissioner on New York's Forensic Science Review Board, a body that regulates all of the state's crime and forensic DNA laboratories. He is first vice president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and serves on the board of the National Institute of Justice's Commission on the Future of DNA Evidence. In 2001, along with Innocence Project co-founder Peter Neufeld, Scheck co-authored the book "Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution and Other Dispatches from the Wrongly Convicted."
Image via Wikipedia For Immediate Release September 2, 2010 Contact: Sarah Paoletti, 202-821-9882; Ajamu Baraka, 404.695.0475
U.S. Human Rights Review Both Necessary and Worthwhile; Civil Society Report Details Issues Still To Be Addressed
The report on human rights in the United States submitted by the State Department to the United Nations on August 20 has been met with criticism from conservative quarters. Most recently, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer demanded that an innocuous mention of Arizona’s controversial immigration law be removed from the report. The criticisms demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding about the purpose of the report, prepared as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process that examines the human rights records of all U.N. member states every four years. Moreover, a comprehensive report of domestic human rights issues coordinated and released by the US Human Rights Network clearly demonstrates that the problems addressed in the government report are not only real, but understated.
That report, now available in hard copy as well as online, consists of 26 separate submissions by civil society groups and human rights advocates covering a sweeping range of human rights topics. The report lays out the existing human rights frameworks in the U.S.; notes the lack of a coordinating authority or other adequate monitoring and enforcement mechanisms; highlights significant and specific shortcomings in domestic compliance with international human rights standards; and makes recommendations on how the U.S. can better meet those standards and live up to its treaty obligations. More than 200 non-governmental organizations and hundreds of advocates across the country have endorsed the report, which took almost a year to research and produce and was also submitted to the U.N. as part of the UPR process.
Since the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, successive U.S. administrations and Congress have signed and ratified key international agreements that set forth a series of obligations and standards to which each participating nation must adhere. The UPR simply examines each nation’s compliance with those obligations. Rather than an abrogation of national sovereignty or kowtowing to repressive regimes, as some have characterized the process, the review provides positive opportunities for self-examination and to advance human rights on the ground for all U.S. residents. “Refusing to acknowledge that the U.S. can make any improvements in its human rights policies and practices misses a critical opportunity for the U.S. to demonstrate the need for governments to hold themselves accountable to their constituents at home,” says University of Pennsylvania Law School Practice Associate Professor Sarah Paoletti, Senior Coordinator for the Network’s UPR Project. “Enhancing human rights at home will only strengthen the nation’s standing and influence abroad, and we should embrace the challenge.”
----- Government-Civil Society UPR Consultations occurred across the country. Click here for more information. Share your human rights story through the Testify! Project and be heard at the United Nations. View UPR Reports from USHR Network Members and Allies Inludes a downloadable PDF of 26 joint Civil Society Reports and links to the UPR report issued by the US Government.
It's not too late. Send a birthday card to Leonard in recognition of his 66th birthday on 12 September:
Leonard Peltier #89637-132 USP-Lewisburg US Penitentiary PO Box 1000 Lewisburg, PA 17837
Send Leonard a Gift
What do you give a guy who has nothing?
Give him a helping hand. Send funds to Leonard's commissary account to help him with expenses (phone, toiletries, painting supplies). The deposit must be in the form of a money order made out to: Leonard Peltier #89637-132. The Bureau of Prisons will return funds that do not have valid inmate information (providing you have listed your return address). Personal checks and cash won't be accepted for deposit. Please, don't enclose anything with the money order.
Send those funds to the following address:
Federal Bureau of Prisons Leonard Peltier #89637-132 Post Office Box 474701 Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001
Leonard Peltier is a Sun Dancer, and that is one of the most honored things to be in our religion. - Chief Archie Fire Lame Deer
What is Sundance?
During a Sundance, dancers who have made vows of commitment with the Creator undergo extreme physical sacrifice. Dancers usually do without food or water for a period of four days while they pray before the Creator.
A commitment of this type is not entered into without careful thought.
Those who dance do so for various reasons; all of them being important.
Oftentimes one may pray to the Creator for a specific reason, perhaps asking for special help. Maybe a relative is sick, or someone needs help with a major decision. Whatever the reason, people often make vows with the Creator that if he has pity on them and hears their prayers, they will pray for the people and sacrifice themselves in this way upon the Sundance altar to show their gratitude in return for his kindness.
Many prayers are offered up during the Sundance. Again, many of these are in thanksgiving for help received from the Creator. Prayers are given that the elderly will be cared for. That they might have food, clothing and shelter, and that they will not be forgotten in their age. Prayers are also said for the children, as they are the life blood of the people. That they will not forget their traditional and sacred ways. That they might gain knowledge and wisdom to help their people survive in an ever changing world.
Additionally, dancers pray for all people on the earth, that whatever burdens they carry or struggles they are experiencing might be somewhat lessened and eased. This is just a taste of the Sundance. It is a very powerful and sacred ceremony that has withstood severe oppression many times since it was given to the People. Yet it has survived and continues on today on many reservations and in our communities.
Sundance makes me strong. Sundance takes place inside of me, not outside of me. I pierce the flesh of my being. I offer my flesh to the Great Spirit, the Great Mystery, Wakan Tanka. To give your flesh to Spirit is to give your life. And what you have given you can no longer lose. Sundance is our religion, our strength. We take great pride in that strength, which enables us to resist pain, torture, any trial rather than betray the People. That's why in the past, when the enemy tortured us with knives, bullwhips, even fire, we were able to withstand the pain. That strength still exists among us... And for the rest of your life, once you have made that sacrifice of your flesh to the Great Mystery, you will never forget that greater reality of which we are each an intimate and essential part and which holds each of us in an embrace as loving as a mother's arms. Every time a pin pricks your finger from then on, that little pain will be but a tiny reminder of that larger pain and of the still greater reality that exists within each of us, an infinite realm beyond reach of all pain. There even the most pitiable prisoner can find solace. So Sundance made even prison life sustainable for me. I am undestroyed. My life is my Sundance. - Leonard Peltier
