Circulated on behalf of the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee:
On June 27, the 66-year-old Leonard Peltier was thrown in “The
Hole” at USP-Lewisburg where he purportedly will stay for the
next six months. According to what is currently known, Leonard’s
cell was searched that day. A guard allegedly was shocked by a
wire attached to an overhead light socket, a wire placed there a
long while ago by one of Leonard’s former cellmates. The guard
claimed “assault” (apparently he didn’t know better than to touch
an electrical wire). Leonard wasn’t present during the search,
having already been removed to “The Hole”.
The BOP’s disciplinary procedures do not allow for legal
representation for an accused prisoner. A prisoner is tried,
convicted, and sentenced without due process. Prison authorities
claim that thorough, professional investigations are conducted in
such instances, but the cards are stacked against a prisoner when a
guard is involved because the statement of a guard is always given
more weight.
Further, the culture inside is one of collective or group punishment.
Every prisoner, that is, is deemed responsible for the actions of
another prisoner.
Leonard is no stranger to “The Hole.” In the 1980s, at USP-Marion,
Leonard and others protested their ill treatment by prison
authorities, including infringement of Native prisoners’ religious
rights. This led to the infamous lock down of the prison that
persists to this day. Sadly, Marion has become a model within
the federal prison system despite these conditions being widely
considered inhumane: life in a six by eight foot cell for 23 to
24 hours a day and no human contact allowed. Leonard served 18
months in “The Hole” at Marion and was often severely beaten.
The isolation alone was torture. Leonard wrote his name on the
cell floor during those dark days so that when the cell door was
opened and a shaft of light filled the cell, he could read what he
had written and remember who he was.
Leonard was imprisoned at USP-Leavenworth when a riot occurred
there on July 5, 1992. A race-related incident, Leonard and other
Indigenous prisoners were trapped in the auditorium where the
riot occurred. At Leonard’s direction, the Indigenous prisoners
gathered together away from the melee and didn’t participate in the
resulting violence. He was thrown in “The Hole,” then too–falsely
accused of having participated in and perhaps instigating the riot.
Ironically, on this day in 1789, Parisians liberated an infamous
French prison known as the Bastille. The fortress-prison often
held people jailed on the basis of arbitrary royal indictments and
had been known for holding political prisoners whose writings had
displeased the royal government.
Friends and supporters, in the spirit of Bastille Day and the
promise of justice for all, we must liberate Leonard Peltier.
Call the BOP to protest the prison’s actions against Peltier.
Please send e-mails, write letters and call BOP every single day.
Solitary confinement is torture. Tell the BOP that the world is
watching and we’re horrified by its inhumane treatment of prisoners,
in general, and Leonard Peltier, in particular.
Make reference to Leonard Peltier #89637-132 and contact:
Thomas Kane, Acting Director (Dr. Kane is also the Assistant Director)
Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP)
E-Mail: info@bop.gov
Phone:
(202) 307-3250 (Director)
(202) 307-3123 (Assistant Director)
(202) 307-3198 (Switchboard)
Fax: (202) 514-6620
Mailing Address:
320 1st Street, NW
Washington, DC 20534
Time to set him free… Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.
Friends of Peltier
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org
No cuts to public transit!
The caravan bus rides on
Rev. Luis Barrios
Free the Cuban Five!
Rev. Luis Barrios of IFCO/Pastors For Peace and other carvanistas made a stop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin July 8 at the Central United Methodist Church to meet fellow friends of Cuba, to gather supplies and to participate in a dinner and evening forum where presenters talked about the U.S. economic blockade of Cuba and other topics regarding the socialist nation. A special guest of honor at the evening forum was Milwaukee resident Joya Mosely who is one of the students in the United States who received free medical education in Cuba. After the presentations everyone joined in to pack supplies into the bus which had been stored at the Central United Methodist Church, site of the Milwaukee event. The carvanistas on this bus, which included an array of working people including a woman from London who flew to Minneapolis to join the bus tour there, is on its way south to Mexico where all the buses on the caravans that have traveled throughout the U.S. gathering supplies will be loaded onto ships bound for Cuba. On July 9 a similar event took place in Racine. Both events were sponsored by the Wisconsin Coalition to Normalize Relations With Cuba and the Racine event was co-sponsored by the Racine/Kenosha Central American Solidarity Coalition (CASC) and the Racine Coalition for Peae and Justice.
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RESOLUTION demanding: Hands off Medicare, Medicaid & Social Security
(Adopted unanimously by the Executive Committee of the San Francisco Labor Council / AFL-CIO on July 5, 2011)
WHEREAS substantial cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security appear certain to be enacted by Congress by August 2 or soon thereafter in the absence of massive and militant protest actions; and
WHEREAS President Obama’s Bi-Partisan Commission (Simpson-Bowles) determined that Draconian cuts were needed in these “entitlements” and now various schemes are proliferating calling for takeaways of one kind or another; and
WHEREAS the takeaways contemplated for the 54 million people on Social Security, 45 million receiving Medicare, and 53 million using Medicaid are being justified by the claim that the country is broke and we all need to share in the sacrifice to restore fiscal stability; and
WHEREAS that is a giant hoax because taxing the corporations and the rich, closing the loopholes, bringing the war dollars home now, and creating tens of millions of good paying jobs — which would produce gigantic additional revenue — would ensure all the funding needed to preserve and expand our rights and gains; and
WHEREAS the big question now is what the labor movement will do to meet this challenge confronting working people and the great majority. The choice is clear: either confine labor’s protest against cuts in the social programs to pronouncements opposing them, coupled with lobbying; or combine these efforts with an all-out mobilization of the rank-and-file and our allies to prevent the cuts from being enacted; and
WHEREAS the first option, without more, will not succeed because Democrats and Republicans alike have made clear their intention to impose the cuts, and this will not change with just a lobbying campaign. On the other hand, our labor movement has the power to turn the situation around and to stop the corporate onslaught in its tracks by demanding “Hands Off Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid!” and organizing immediately a fightback campaign on a scope and magnitude that surpasses anything labor has done in the past several decades; now therefore be it
RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO) urges the AFL-CIO, Change to Win, NEA, and other independent unions to issue a statement declaring their rejection of any and all proposals to cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid; and be it further
RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO) urges the above-named labor organizations to organize a campaign to mobilize support for “No Cuts or Concessions! Tax the Corporations and the Rich!” in the streets — where it counts the most — and in every corner of the nation; and be it further
RESOLVED that the San Francisco Labor Council (AFL-CIO) urges the above-named organizations to get the wheels rolling on organizing an emergency march on Washington with the goal of generating such large numbers in the capital as to preclude enactment of the cuts being planned by the corporations, the wealthy, and the politicians willing to do their bidding; and be it finally
RESOLVED that copies of this resolution be sent to all the above-named organizations.
(resolution submitted by Alan Benjamin, OPEIU Local 3)
###
In Detroit the Moratorium NOW! Coalition and People Before Banks Coalition have been fighting to win a moratorium on foreclosures. Moratorium NOW! is a member of the national Bail Out The People Movement. Read the major feature news story in the weekly Metro Times from Detroit: http://metrotimes.com/news/up-against-the-banks-1.1171446
Moratorium NOW!
Rev. Luis Barrios
Rev. Luis Barrios of NYC will speak on “Theology, Cuba, & Social Justice” on Friday, July 8 at 7pm at the send off celebration of the 22nd Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba, at Central United Methodist Church 639 N. 25th St. in Milwaukee. The program will be preceded by a potluck dinner at 5:30 pm, and feature music of the internationally acclaimed Creole Choir of Cuba.
The Pastors for Peace 22nd “Friendshipment” Caravan to Cuba will stop in Racine on Saturday July 9 2011. The caravan will be greeted at Racine’s Monument Square at 11 am on Saturday July 9 (500 block of Main Street). Participants and guests will then march to Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church for lunch at noon and a presentation by Rev. Luis Barrios, at 625 College Avenue, Racine (College Avenue & 7th Street).
————
The Rev. Luis Barrios, Ph.D., is a professor of psychology and ethnic
studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice-City University of New York.
Since 1988, Dr. Barrios is a weekly columnist of El Diario La Prensa in New
York City, one of the oldest Spanish newspapers in the United States.
Rev Barrios is the associate priest at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in West
Harlem and the spiritual advisor for the Iglesia San Romero de Las
Americas-UCC in the Washington Heights community. He is an active member of
the IFCO-Pastor for Peace Board of Directors and was heavily involved in the
2005 campaign to free the computers seized at the border. He has since
participated as a speaker in several caravans to Cuba.
He is a passionate exponent of the use of non-violent civil disobedience to
challenge unjust laws and policies. In 2009 he spent several months in jail
for his participation in a protest about training in torture methods at the
US military’s “School of the Americas” in Fort Benning, Georgia
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