By Eddie Griffin
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
These people are not my people, though I am shamefully associated with them as an American. Nationalism is the only thing we have in common.
These people would hound a man and hound a man, chase him all over the country about something he said in the heat of a passionate sermon. So what if he railed against the evil doings of our government and its benign neglect of the poor? So what if he lambasted America with hot scalding words? (But note, however, that these are his words, not words from heaven… not words from the lips of a politician… and certainly not the words of all African-Americans). Nevertheless, they would not let it be. They had to chase him down, corral and lasso him, and lynch him like a Mississippi sharecropper because his words irked them.
It would be one thing to condemn him for what he said, but it is patently evil to condemn another man… in this case, Barack Obama, candidate for the presidency of the United States. The sermonizer is pastor and community leader, Jeremiah Wright.
The only reason the media chased Wright down was to use his words to defame and lynch the innocent man Barack Obama, simply because he was a hearer of words of Wright’s sermons. This reminds me of what might have happened to those slaves in church who listened and overheard a plot to revolt.
Lord, help us! What does this say about the culpability of the rest of us African-American churchgoers who sits and idly listens to a Sunday sermon? If the Bible teaches one thing, it teaches that every man would give account of his own words.
So, why must Barack Obama give account of the words of Jeremiah Wright? Is this the proper standard of judgment?
No one can tell me how an innocent black man might be defamed, condemned and lynched, or framed and sent to prison. It’s the American way. It’s politics. It’s mass social control through the purposeful deceit and subliminal agitation of hatred and fear.
I commend Pastor Wright for taking the media head on. These people seem that they cannot be satisfied with simply creating controversy… no, not these people. They have to divide us by the color of our skin and then pit us one against the other… provoke suspicion and animosity… like the devil is behind the camera, giving the viewer snippets of truth and distorting fact. To what end will these people go to destroy Barack Obama’s chances of being the next President of the United States?
The lynch law says: Guilty by Association. At a time when the Jeremiah Wright’s story should have long been out of the news, they continually play it over and over and over again… on television… on radio. It is making Afro-America nauseous. (Don’t forget: This lie is being brought to you by ABC, CBS, FOX, MSNBC, CNN, and a hose of agents of deceit). They associate the innocent with the guilty because they cannot find anything, otherwise, to fault Barack Obama.
Is this the worst they can find… snippets of Barack Obama’s former pastor’s sermon? (The devil will go to the ends of the earth, and even before the throne of heaven, to falsely accuse the innocent of some guilt, even guilt by mere association. This is the American way.
So, these people just could not leave well enough alone… these people. They had to chase Pastor Wright down, with barking television bloodhounds in tow. And, after they catch him and he grants them an interview at the National Press Club, they turn around and say: “This is not going to help Barack Obama.”
What does that say about the rest of us Afro-Americans… that we are chicken liver? (You can almost see the devil in the crowd, whispering from ear to ear, “Crucify… Lynch him.” It comes as no surprise that the devil will do any and everything in his power to protect the kingdoms of the world where he rules by “divide and conquer”?) These people and their idea of politics is just a sport for lynching another black man and destroying the hopes of the sick-and-tired masses.
There is no Moses… there is no Messiah, these people say. Like the words of the late FBI director J. Edgar Hoover in referring to Martin Luther King, Jr. as a “messiah” for the hope of Negroes, in the same breath, he also characterized King as “the most dangerous man in America”. These same people, with their insatiable appetite for hate, ate it up… hook, line, and sinker… like fried eggs on toast… Then they consented to kill our dream with an assassin’s bullet. Now, today, these very same people shed false tears like they truly cared. Worse, they pretend, like hypocrites, to care about the future of our community, us African-American people, and our leaders. They intervene with their commentaries just so we wont duped or sucked in by charlatans… for the sake of our own good. (Which of the prophets did their fathers not kill?)
Ever black leader in our generation who has had to courage to speak truth to power have been ostracized and condemned before our very eye… not only Martin Luther King, Jr., but also Malcolm X, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Elijah Muhammad, Louis Farrakhan, and on down the line. They have castrated every black leader who ever opened his mouth and uttered hope to the downtrodden masses… that is, every black man who has not cloned for white America’s acceptance.
But here is where they got it wrong, and Wright got it right. The difference between Barack Obama and Jeremiah Wright is similar to the difference between Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Obama is more “white” than black as King was more pacifist and tolerant. Obama speaks the king’s language, of hopes and dreams and possibilities. Where firebrands like Malcolm and Wright boldly declare that we will all either learn to live with each other or we will all perish together as a nation. 9/11 proved that.
But these people forgot that Barack Obama was brought up by white grandparents, reared on American idealism and hope. He never knew this thing called black rage, except that it existed, and still exists, deep in the hearts of most Afro-Americans, like a wound that can never be allowed to heal. But Barack is more like them in ideals than he is with the true parsimonious sentiments of black America. Being born of mixed marriage, he has only our skin color in common. He does not have the militant anger that we Afro-Americans cut our teeth on. He is a sweetheart compared to the volcanic seething just below the surface of our black skin.
For the sake of consciousness and a good night’s sleep, it is better to hear the words of hope coming from Barack Obama than the bitter words of Jeremiah Wright and what’s on the minds of most African-Americans. Obama’s words are wholesome and digestible. The words of Eddie Griffin are indigestible.
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Friday, April 25, 2008
Olympics Torch Human Rights
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact Information:
Eddie Griffin (BASG)
URL: www.eddiegriffinbasg.blogspot.com
EMAIL: eddiegriffin_basg@yahoo.com
Virtual Campaign headquarters: www.rootsofhumanity.blogspot.com
Campaign Organizers can be reached: RootsofHumanity@gmail.com
Bloggers Target Human Rights Violation in “Am I Not Human” Campaign
Humanity is imperiled, more today than ever before. Raping, pillaging, and maiming in Darfur has raised a voice against Sudan, and its trading partner, China. The violent crush of Tibetans by the Chinese military raises the question about its human rights practices. If the country appears to condone inhumane practices in another country and, itself, suppresses human rights protest within its own domain, then it is no better than the Imperial China of the past.
But oil makes allies of strange bedfellows.
People in Haiti are eating dirt, while an obese world looks on, and restaurants in the United States throw leftover food in the trash. And, yet the world seems oblivious to human suffering, as if humanity is helpless to relief the suffering. Can humanity save itself?
The recent food riots in Haiti again raise the Blogger Danielle to question, “Am I not human, too?”
“There is something wrong in the world if we cannot save our humanity,” says Blogger known as PurpleZoe
On Sunday, April 27th, bloggers from around the world will take a stand in “Remembrance of Humanity”. (See http://rootsofhumanity.blogspot.com/2008/04/am-i-not-human-press-release.html).
The group joins other international groups to protest the condition of humanity and human rights violations by countries like China and benign neglect from countries like the United States.
The 'Am I Not Human? Campaign issued this statement to the international press:
With the intent to ask the masses to remember humanity when they think of major competitive events such as the Olympics, set to be hosted in Beijing by a country guilty of involvement in numerous civil rights violations and outright oppression, April 27th is being observed as the day to question must be asked for Darfurians, and Tibetans to name only a few countries that have been affected by China's lack of concern for human rights, 'Am I not human?'
Contact Information:
Eddie Griffin (BASG)
URL: www.eddiegriffinbasg.blogspot.com
EMAIL: eddiegriffin_basg@yahoo.com
Virtual Campaign headquarters: www.rootsofhumanity.blogspot.com
Campaign Organizers can be reached: RootsofHumanity@gmail.com
Bloggers Target Human Rights Violation in “Am I Not Human” Campaign
Humanity is imperiled, more today than ever before. Raping, pillaging, and maiming in Darfur has raised a voice against Sudan, and its trading partner, China. The violent crush of Tibetans by the Chinese military raises the question about its human rights practices. If the country appears to condone inhumane practices in another country and, itself, suppresses human rights protest within its own domain, then it is no better than the Imperial China of the past.
But oil makes allies of strange bedfellows.
People in Haiti are eating dirt, while an obese world looks on, and restaurants in the United States throw leftover food in the trash. And, yet the world seems oblivious to human suffering, as if humanity is helpless to relief the suffering. Can humanity save itself?
The recent food riots in Haiti again raise the Blogger Danielle to question, “Am I not human, too?”
“There is something wrong in the world if we cannot save our humanity,” says Blogger known as PurpleZoe
On Sunday, April 27th, bloggers from around the world will take a stand in “Remembrance of Humanity”. (See http://rootsofhumanity.blogspot.com/2008/04/am-i-not-human-press-release.html).
The group joins other international groups to protest the condition of humanity and human rights violations by countries like China and benign neglect from countries like the United States.
The 'Am I Not Human? Campaign issued this statement to the international press:
With the intent to ask the masses to remember humanity when they think of major competitive events such as the Olympics, set to be hosted in Beijing by a country guilty of involvement in numerous civil rights violations and outright oppression, April 27th is being observed as the day to question must be asked for Darfurians, and Tibetans to name only a few countries that have been affected by China's lack of concern for human rights, 'Am I not human?'
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Fort Worth Demonstration by MoveOn Draws Eddie Griffin Support
Thursday, April 24, 2008
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Iraq and the Recession
Host(s): Krissi S.
When: Thursday, April 24, 5:00 PM
Where: Tarrant County Court House Steps
100 East Weatherford
Fort Worth, TX
After a national survey conducted by MoveOn.org, we discovered that the American people believed that the War in Iraq and the Recession in the US are somehow connected. Today’s demonstration in downtown Fort Worth will draw attention to these two important national issues.
Joining MoveOn in this event will be Eddie Griffin, the 61-year old former Black Panther activist and ex-political prisoner.
STATEMENT OF SUPPORT from Eddie Griffin
Since the brokered peace between leftist revolutionaries of the 1970s and the US government, Eddie Griffin has remained largely silent about government policies and the War in Iraq.
In exchange for the release of some revolutionary radicals from the uprisings of the 1960s and 1970s, Black Panther political prisoners, along with other militant organizations, renounced the used of violence through armed struggle. Among the releases were Puerto Rican Nationalist Rafael Cancel Miranda (1979), Black Panthers Lorenzo Komboa Irvin (1979) and Eddie Griffin (1984).
Times had changed. J. Edgar Hoover had died in 1972. President Richard Nixon had been impeached and had resigned, and many members of his administration had been sent to prison, during the time of our incarceration. The War in Vietnam was brought to a tragic end.
During this time, Congress forced the Executive Branch to examine violations against human rights against Black Panthers and other civil rights and radical organization from the 1960s and 1970s movement. When Jimmy Carter became president, his UN Ambassador Andrew Young acknowledged that there were “political prisoners” in the US, to the shock of the American public.
The United Nations declared 1977 to be the Year of the Prisoner of Conscious. The World Peace Council, meeting at the University of Helsinki, Finland, issued an international list of prisoners of conscious around the world. Topping the list was Nelson Mandela of South Africa. Also, on the list were US prisoners including the Wilmington Ten, Leonard Peltier of the American Indian Movement, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Lorenzo Komboa Irvin, and Eddie Griffin.
BACKGROUND
In 1966, Eddie Griffin was drafted into the US Army, after being expelled for boycotting classes at Arlington State College over it’s Confederate tradition and support of the Vietnam War. In 1969, living under the alias of his cousin, Griffin escaped from the stockade at Fort Hood, Texas, and went underground to join the Black Panther Party.
In a highly publicized 1972 bank robbery, Eddie Griffin and three black radicals were sent to prison with sentences up to 50 years. Griffin became one of the subjects of the US government mind control experimentation program at Marion Federal Penitentiary. After staging a 15-day hunger strike, Griffin was held on "no-contact" status in the notorious Control Unit deprivation chambers, and later freed by international protest and the work of Southern Illinois University Law Students.
Today, Eddie Griffin is an active church member and bible class teacher, as well as a free lance writer and blogger affiliated with MoveOn and the Afrospear.
“When I read where MoveOn was coming to my hometown of Fort Worth, I had to become involved,” said Griffin. “The war in Iraq is dragging us down. It’s dragging our economy down. It’s dragging our spirits down because there is no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel. Even worse, it’s dragging our morals down.”
In reference to prisoner torture, Griffin is an expert, having endured CIA experimental mind control techniques now being employed on suspected terrorists.
“They say we do not torture people,” says Griffin. “But that’s only because they do not leave physical marks and scares on a prisoner’s body. But sensory deprivation and sleep deprivation are torture techniques. This is the reason the United Nations Commission on Human Rights took up our case in 1977.”
Eddie Griffin (BASG)
Eddie Griffin is the author of “Breaking Men’s Minds: Behavior Control and Human Experimentation at the Federal Prison in Marion”, now available through U.S. Department of Justice, National Criminal Justice Reference Service, (NCJ Number: NCJ 141852).
IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Iraq and the Recession
Host(s): Krissi S.
When: Thursday, April 24, 5:00 PM
Where: Tarrant County Court House Steps
100 East Weatherford
Fort Worth, TX
After a national survey conducted by MoveOn.org, we discovered that the American people believed that the War in Iraq and the Recession in the US are somehow connected. Today’s demonstration in downtown Fort Worth will draw attention to these two important national issues.
Joining MoveOn in this event will be Eddie Griffin, the 61-year old former Black Panther activist and ex-political prisoner.
STATEMENT OF SUPPORT from Eddie Griffin
Since the brokered peace between leftist revolutionaries of the 1970s and the US government, Eddie Griffin has remained largely silent about government policies and the War in Iraq.
In exchange for the release of some revolutionary radicals from the uprisings of the 1960s and 1970s, Black Panther political prisoners, along with other militant organizations, renounced the used of violence through armed struggle. Among the releases were Puerto Rican Nationalist Rafael Cancel Miranda (1979), Black Panthers Lorenzo Komboa Irvin (1979) and Eddie Griffin (1984).
Times had changed. J. Edgar Hoover had died in 1972. President Richard Nixon had been impeached and had resigned, and many members of his administration had been sent to prison, during the time of our incarceration. The War in Vietnam was brought to a tragic end.
During this time, Congress forced the Executive Branch to examine violations against human rights against Black Panthers and other civil rights and radical organization from the 1960s and 1970s movement. When Jimmy Carter became president, his UN Ambassador Andrew Young acknowledged that there were “political prisoners” in the US, to the shock of the American public.
The United Nations declared 1977 to be the Year of the Prisoner of Conscious. The World Peace Council, meeting at the University of Helsinki, Finland, issued an international list of prisoners of conscious around the world. Topping the list was Nelson Mandela of South Africa. Also, on the list were US prisoners including the Wilmington Ten, Leonard Peltier of the American Indian Movement, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Lorenzo Komboa Irvin, and Eddie Griffin.
BACKGROUND
In 1966, Eddie Griffin was drafted into the US Army, after being expelled for boycotting classes at Arlington State College over it’s Confederate tradition and support of the Vietnam War. In 1969, living under the alias of his cousin, Griffin escaped from the stockade at Fort Hood, Texas, and went underground to join the Black Panther Party.
In a highly publicized 1972 bank robbery, Eddie Griffin and three black radicals were sent to prison with sentences up to 50 years. Griffin became one of the subjects of the US government mind control experimentation program at Marion Federal Penitentiary. After staging a 15-day hunger strike, Griffin was held on "no-contact" status in the notorious Control Unit deprivation chambers, and later freed by international protest and the work of Southern Illinois University Law Students.
Today, Eddie Griffin is an active church member and bible class teacher, as well as a free lance writer and blogger affiliated with MoveOn and the Afrospear.
“When I read where MoveOn was coming to my hometown of Fort Worth, I had to become involved,” said Griffin. “The war in Iraq is dragging us down. It’s dragging our economy down. It’s dragging our spirits down because there is no end in sight, no light at the end of the tunnel. Even worse, it’s dragging our morals down.”
In reference to prisoner torture, Griffin is an expert, having endured CIA experimental mind control techniques now being employed on suspected terrorists.
“They say we do not torture people,” says Griffin. “But that’s only because they do not leave physical marks and scares on a prisoner’s body. But sensory deprivation and sleep deprivation are torture techniques. This is the reason the United Nations Commission on Human Rights took up our case in 1977.”
Eddie Griffin (BASG)
Eddie Griffin is the author of “Breaking Men’s Minds: Behavior Control and Human Experimentation at the Federal Prison in Marion”, now available through U.S. Department of Justice, National Criminal Justice Reference Service, (NCJ Number: NCJ 141852).
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Liar, Liar, Hair on Fire
It is better to have a wild-eyed idealist in the Whitehouse than a proven cynic liar.
By Eddie Griffin
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
There are those who live by lies and feel comfortable therein. Sometimes, however, I am amazed at the content of their lies. But the liar and the lies do not irritate me as much as those who love a lie.
The song says, “Lie to me. That’s all I want you to do.” So goes America and those find a comfort in supporting Hillary Clinton.
I do not have to judge her to know all the untruths she has already told on the campaign trails. She has left a string of lies, from yonder to yonder, across America, from sea to shining sea, so much so that she has defaced our democracy.
Her recent win in Pennsylvania sickens my stomach. I am sick enough about the wickedness of her campaign, but moreover by those who believe and love a lie. How could they?
Such is politics, some might say, but that’s not what has me so heartbroken. It is the downward spiral in American values like a house without a home... empty... for sale.
Poor Barack Obama has tried ernestly to invoke the spirit of Abraham Lincoln in appealing to “the better angels of our nature”.
With the Union teetering on the brink of Civil War, Lincoln, in his 1861 inaugural address said:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
But there were no better angels of our nature in 1861, and it is more and more apparent here in 2008, that America's better angel has fallen from heaven.
How can you say that, Brother Griffin? That is so unbiblical.
What happened in Pennsylvania reminded me of an ancient prophecy that has long since been fulfilled in the book of Judges. It begins:
The trees once went out to anoint a king over themselves. So they said to the olive tree, "Reign over us.'
The olive tree answered them, "Shall I stop producing my rich oil by which gods and mortals are honored, and go to sway over the trees?'
Then the trees said to the fig tree, "You come and reign over us.'
But the fig tree answered them, "Shall I stop producing my sweetness and my delicious fruit, and go to sway over the trees?'
Then the trees said to the vine, "You come and reign over us.' But the vine said to them, "Shall I stop producing my wine that cheers gods and mortals, and go to sway over the trees?'
So all the trees said to the bramble, "You come and reign over us.'
And the bramble said to the trees, "If in good faith you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.'
Is America ready to take refuge in the lies? Will they chose the bramble bush over the cedar?
O Woe is me! Is the liar more honorable than those who relish in the lies?
By Eddie Griffin
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
There are those who live by lies and feel comfortable therein. Sometimes, however, I am amazed at the content of their lies. But the liar and the lies do not irritate me as much as those who love a lie.
The song says, “Lie to me. That’s all I want you to do.” So goes America and those find a comfort in supporting Hillary Clinton.
I do not have to judge her to know all the untruths she has already told on the campaign trails. She has left a string of lies, from yonder to yonder, across America, from sea to shining sea, so much so that she has defaced our democracy.
Her recent win in Pennsylvania sickens my stomach. I am sick enough about the wickedness of her campaign, but moreover by those who believe and love a lie. How could they?
Such is politics, some might say, but that’s not what has me so heartbroken. It is the downward spiral in American values like a house without a home... empty... for sale.
Poor Barack Obama has tried ernestly to invoke the spirit of Abraham Lincoln in appealing to “the better angels of our nature”.
With the Union teetering on the brink of Civil War, Lincoln, in his 1861 inaugural address said:
“We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
But there were no better angels of our nature in 1861, and it is more and more apparent here in 2008, that America's better angel has fallen from heaven.
How can you say that, Brother Griffin? That is so unbiblical.
What happened in Pennsylvania reminded me of an ancient prophecy that has long since been fulfilled in the book of Judges. It begins:
The trees once went out to anoint a king over themselves. So they said to the olive tree, "Reign over us.'
The olive tree answered them, "Shall I stop producing my rich oil by which gods and mortals are honored, and go to sway over the trees?'
Then the trees said to the fig tree, "You come and reign over us.'
But the fig tree answered them, "Shall I stop producing my sweetness and my delicious fruit, and go to sway over the trees?'
Then the trees said to the vine, "You come and reign over us.' But the vine said to them, "Shall I stop producing my wine that cheers gods and mortals, and go to sway over the trees?'
So all the trees said to the bramble, "You come and reign over us.'
And the bramble said to the trees, "If in good faith you are anointing me king over you, then come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, let fire come out of the bramble and devour the cedars of Lebanon.'
Is America ready to take refuge in the lies? Will they chose the bramble bush over the cedar?
O Woe is me! Is the liar more honorable than those who relish in the lies?
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Art of Deception by Charlie Gibson & George Stephanopoulos
By Eddie Griffin
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
In prison, there are some good and honorable men who simply made a mistake in their lives. But then there are some of the vilest creatures on the planet locked up. Although God changed my life in prison, some of the meanest men in the world changed my attitude about sin. I was not one of them, had no desire to be one of them, and didn’t want them around me. If they asked me, I will tell them to their face that I could care less if they fell off the face of the earth. They were bad and were not about to change. And, I was as mad and as bad as they were.
So do not ask me about the death penalty. I have my own option based upon my personal experiences and what I learn from the scriptures. It’s not politics to me, because I saw men justifiably executed by their fellow inmates, and I would not even lift a finger to stop it. One man rapes another man, and the other man kills him. Justifiable death penalty, I say.
Now there is a question about who has the authority to speak on a subject, seeing that everybody has a butt hole for an option. If their idea stinks, it stinks. You cannot sell me.
Recently, the mass media got busted trying to brainwash the public. ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos tried to pull the wool over the public’s eye in the presidential debate, and then tried to sell the American public on the idea that presidential candidate Barack Obama was crying because of “tough questions”.
Yeah, riiiiight!
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Garbage-in, Garbage-out, Gibson puts the garbage-in and George Stephanopoulos takes the garbage out... like two trash men.
Men in prison may study the art of deception, but ABC News has made it a science.
But you can only fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. Them idiots you can fool all the time, they are a dime a dozen, but you cannot fool me, none of the time.
You may as well call ABC News “Cartoon World”. Here is the wily fox is standing behind a tree with a club in his hand, waiting for the innocent chicken to walk by. (In Cartoon World, it is sooo obvious). But when the fox is Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos and the innocent chicken is Barack Obama, Cartoon World turns into a Soap Opera, “As the World Turns” on its ear, brought to you by ABC News.
POST NOTE:
There has always been political “mouthpieces” that speaks for the kings and lords, explaining why there is divine rule in the land. They create philosophies of state and government and religion. But a funny thing happened in the revolution in medieval times. When the peasants chopped off the king’s head, there went the heads of his philosophers also.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
In prison, there are some good and honorable men who simply made a mistake in their lives. But then there are some of the vilest creatures on the planet locked up. Although God changed my life in prison, some of the meanest men in the world changed my attitude about sin. I was not one of them, had no desire to be one of them, and didn’t want them around me. If they asked me, I will tell them to their face that I could care less if they fell off the face of the earth. They were bad and were not about to change. And, I was as mad and as bad as they were.
So do not ask me about the death penalty. I have my own option based upon my personal experiences and what I learn from the scriptures. It’s not politics to me, because I saw men justifiably executed by their fellow inmates, and I would not even lift a finger to stop it. One man rapes another man, and the other man kills him. Justifiable death penalty, I say.
Now there is a question about who has the authority to speak on a subject, seeing that everybody has a butt hole for an option. If their idea stinks, it stinks. You cannot sell me.
Recently, the mass media got busted trying to brainwash the public. ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos tried to pull the wool over the public’s eye in the presidential debate, and then tried to sell the American public on the idea that presidential candidate Barack Obama was crying because of “tough questions”.
Yeah, riiiiight!
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Garbage-in, Garbage-out, Gibson puts the garbage-in and George Stephanopoulos takes the garbage out... like two trash men.
Men in prison may study the art of deception, but ABC News has made it a science.
But you can only fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time. Them idiots you can fool all the time, they are a dime a dozen, but you cannot fool me, none of the time.
You may as well call ABC News “Cartoon World”. Here is the wily fox is standing behind a tree with a club in his hand, waiting for the innocent chicken to walk by. (In Cartoon World, it is sooo obvious). But when the fox is Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos and the innocent chicken is Barack Obama, Cartoon World turns into a Soap Opera, “As the World Turns” on its ear, brought to you by ABC News.
POST NOTE:
There has always been political “mouthpieces” that speaks for the kings and lords, explaining why there is divine rule in the land. They create philosophies of state and government and religion. But a funny thing happened in the revolution in medieval times. When the peasants chopped off the king’s head, there went the heads of his philosophers also.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
HAT TIP to Will Bunch
Someone needed to call ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson and his sidekick George Stephanopoulos into account. Their charade of a presidential debate on Wednesday night was like a couple of pompus skunks stinking up the Halls of Liberty, without shame or remorse. So distasteful to good public conscious, that audience spectators could not resist booing and hissing when it was over.
How could they live with themselves in the aftermath? How can ABC even stomach to have them around?
Below Will Bunch writes an Open Letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, reprimanding them of their shameful behavior, but also letting them know that their disgrace spills over to others in the profession of journalism.
Who can you trust, when you cannot trust the newsman? When the trumpet of the watchman makes an uncertain sound? Eddie Griffin
An open letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos
Dear Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos,
It's hard to know where to begin with this, less than an hour after you signed off from your Democratic presidential debate here in my hometown of Philadelphia, a televised train wreck that my friend and colleague Greg Mitchell has already called, quite accurately, "a shameful night for the U.S. media." It's hard because -- like many other Americans -- I am still angry at what I just witnessed, so angry that it's hard to even type accurately because my hands are shaking. Look, I know that "media criticism" -- especially when it's one journalist speaking to another -- tends to be a genteel, collegial thing, but there's no genteel way to say this.
With your performance tonight -- your focus on issues that were at best trivial wastes of valuable airtime and at worst restatements of right-wing falsehoods, punctuated by inane "issue" questions that in no way resembled the real world concerns of American voters -- you disgraced my profession of journalism, and, by association, me and a lot of hard-working colleagues who do still try to ferret out the truth, rather than worry about who can give us the best deal on our capital gains taxes. But it's even worse than that. By so badly botching arguably the most critical debate of such an important election, in a time of both war and economic misery, you disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself. Indeed, if I were a citizen of one of those nations where America is seeking to "export democracy," and I had watched the debate, I probably would have said, "no thank you." Because that was no way to promote democracy.
You implied throughout the broadcast that you wanted to reflect the concerns of voters in Pennsylvania. Well, I'm a Pennsylvanian voter, and so are my neighbors and most of my friends and co-workers. You asked virtually nothing that reflected our everyday issues -- trying to fill our gas tanks and save for college at the same time, our crumbling bridges and inadequate mass transit, or the root causes of crime here in Philadelphia. In fact, there almost isn't enough space -- and this is cyberspace, where room is unlimited -- to list all the things you could have asked about but did not, from health care to climate change to alternative energy to our policy toward China to the deterioration of Afghanistan to veterans' benefits to improving education. You ignored virtually everything that just happened in what most historians agree is one of the worst presidencies in American history, including the condoning of torture and the trashing of the Constitution, although to be fair you also ignored the policy concerns of people on the right, like immigration issues.
You asked about gun control -- phrased to try for a "gotcha" in a state where that's such a divisive issue -- but not about what we really care about, which is how to reduce crime. You pressed and pressed on those capital gains taxes, but Senators Clinton and Obama were forced to bring up the housing crisis on their own initiative.
Instead, you wasted more than half of the debate -- a full hour -- on tabloid trivia that for the most part wasn't even that interesting, because most of it was infertile ground that has already been covered again and again and again. I'm not saying that Rev. Wright and Bosnia sniper fire and "bitter" were never newsworthy -- I myself wrote about all of these for the Philadelphia Daily News or my Attytood blog, back when they were more relevant -- but the questions were stale yet clearly intended to gin up controversy (they didn't, by the way, other than the controversy over you.) The final questions of that section, asking Obama whether he thought Rev. Wright "loved America" and then suggesting that Obama himself is somehow a hater of the American flag, or worse, were flat-out repulsive.
Are you even thinking when simply echo some of the vilest talking points from far-right talk radio? What are actually getting at -- do you honestly believe that someone with a solid track record as a lawmaker in a Heartland state which elected him to the U.S. Senate, who is now seeking to make some positive American history as our first black president, is somehow un-American, or unpatriotic? Does that even make any sense? Question his policies, or question his leadership. because that is your job as a journalist. But don't insult our intelligence by questioning his patriotism.
Here's a question for you, George. Is it true that yesterday you appeared on the radio with conservative talk radio host Sean Hannity, and that you said you were "taking notes" when he urged you to ask a question about Obama's supposed ties to a former member of the Weather Underground -- which in fact you did? With all the fabulous resources of ABC News at your disposal, is that an appropriate way for a supposed journalist to come up with debate questions - by pandering to divisive radio shows?
And Charlie...could you be any more out of touch with your viewers? Most people aren't millionaires like you, and if Pennsylvanians are losing sleep over economic matters, it is not over whether the capital gains tax will go back up again. I was a little shocked when you pressed and pressed on that back-burner issue and left almost no time for high gas prices, but then I learned tonight that you did the same thing in the last debate, that you fretted over that middle-class family that made $200,000 a year. Charlie, the nicest way that I can put this is that you need to get out more.
But I'm not ready to make nice. What I just watched was an outrage. As a journalist, you appeared to confirm all of the worst qualities that cause people to hold our profession in such low esteem, especially your obsession with cornering the candidates with lame "trick" questions and your complete lack of interest or concern about substance -- or about the American people, or the state of our nation. You embarrassed some good people who work at ABC News -- for example, the journalists who worked hard to break this story just last week -- and you embarrassed yourselves. The millions of people who watched the debate were embarrassed, too -- at the state of our political discourse, and what it has finally become, at long last.
Quickly, a word to any and all of my fellow journalists who happen to read this open letter: This. Must. Stop. Tonight, if possible. I thought that we had hit rock bottom in March 2003, when we failed to ask the tough questions in the run-up to the Iraq war. But this feels even lower. We need to pick ourselves up, right now, and start doing our job -- to take a deep breath and remind ourselves of what voters really need to know, and how we get there, that's it's not all horse-race and "gotcha." Although, to be blunt, I would also urge the major candidates in 2012 to agree only to debates that are organized by the League of Women Voters, with citizen moderators and questioners. Because we have proven without a doubt in 2008 that working journalists don't deserve to be the debate "deciders."
Charlie, I'm going to sign off this letter the way that you always sign off the news, that "I hope you had a great day."
Because America just had a horrible night.
Will Bunch
How could they live with themselves in the aftermath? How can ABC even stomach to have them around?
Below Will Bunch writes an Open Letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, reprimanding them of their shameful behavior, but also letting them know that their disgrace spills over to others in the profession of journalism.
Who can you trust, when you cannot trust the newsman? When the trumpet of the watchman makes an uncertain sound? Eddie Griffin
An open letter to Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos
Dear Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos,
It's hard to know where to begin with this, less than an hour after you signed off from your Democratic presidential debate here in my hometown of Philadelphia, a televised train wreck that my friend and colleague Greg Mitchell has already called, quite accurately, "a shameful night for the U.S. media." It's hard because -- like many other Americans -- I am still angry at what I just witnessed, so angry that it's hard to even type accurately because my hands are shaking. Look, I know that "media criticism" -- especially when it's one journalist speaking to another -- tends to be a genteel, collegial thing, but there's no genteel way to say this.
With your performance tonight -- your focus on issues that were at best trivial wastes of valuable airtime and at worst restatements of right-wing falsehoods, punctuated by inane "issue" questions that in no way resembled the real world concerns of American voters -- you disgraced my profession of journalism, and, by association, me and a lot of hard-working colleagues who do still try to ferret out the truth, rather than worry about who can give us the best deal on our capital gains taxes. But it's even worse than that. By so badly botching arguably the most critical debate of such an important election, in a time of both war and economic misery, you disgraced the American voters, and in fact even disgraced democracy itself. Indeed, if I were a citizen of one of those nations where America is seeking to "export democracy," and I had watched the debate, I probably would have said, "no thank you." Because that was no way to promote democracy.
You implied throughout the broadcast that you wanted to reflect the concerns of voters in Pennsylvania. Well, I'm a Pennsylvanian voter, and so are my neighbors and most of my friends and co-workers. You asked virtually nothing that reflected our everyday issues -- trying to fill our gas tanks and save for college at the same time, our crumbling bridges and inadequate mass transit, or the root causes of crime here in Philadelphia. In fact, there almost isn't enough space -- and this is cyberspace, where room is unlimited -- to list all the things you could have asked about but did not, from health care to climate change to alternative energy to our policy toward China to the deterioration of Afghanistan to veterans' benefits to improving education. You ignored virtually everything that just happened in what most historians agree is one of the worst presidencies in American history, including the condoning of torture and the trashing of the Constitution, although to be fair you also ignored the policy concerns of people on the right, like immigration issues.
You asked about gun control -- phrased to try for a "gotcha" in a state where that's such a divisive issue -- but not about what we really care about, which is how to reduce crime. You pressed and pressed on those capital gains taxes, but Senators Clinton and Obama were forced to bring up the housing crisis on their own initiative.
Instead, you wasted more than half of the debate -- a full hour -- on tabloid trivia that for the most part wasn't even that interesting, because most of it was infertile ground that has already been covered again and again and again. I'm not saying that Rev. Wright and Bosnia sniper fire and "bitter" were never newsworthy -- I myself wrote about all of these for the Philadelphia Daily News or my Attytood blog, back when they were more relevant -- but the questions were stale yet clearly intended to gin up controversy (they didn't, by the way, other than the controversy over you.) The final questions of that section, asking Obama whether he thought Rev. Wright "loved America" and then suggesting that Obama himself is somehow a hater of the American flag, or worse, were flat-out repulsive.
Are you even thinking when simply echo some of the vilest talking points from far-right talk radio? What are actually getting at -- do you honestly believe that someone with a solid track record as a lawmaker in a Heartland state which elected him to the U.S. Senate, who is now seeking to make some positive American history as our first black president, is somehow un-American, or unpatriotic? Does that even make any sense? Question his policies, or question his leadership. because that is your job as a journalist. But don't insult our intelligence by questioning his patriotism.
Here's a question for you, George. Is it true that yesterday you appeared on the radio with conservative talk radio host Sean Hannity, and that you said you were "taking notes" when he urged you to ask a question about Obama's supposed ties to a former member of the Weather Underground -- which in fact you did? With all the fabulous resources of ABC News at your disposal, is that an appropriate way for a supposed journalist to come up with debate questions - by pandering to divisive radio shows?
And Charlie...could you be any more out of touch with your viewers? Most people aren't millionaires like you, and if Pennsylvanians are losing sleep over economic matters, it is not over whether the capital gains tax will go back up again. I was a little shocked when you pressed and pressed on that back-burner issue and left almost no time for high gas prices, but then I learned tonight that you did the same thing in the last debate, that you fretted over that middle-class family that made $200,000 a year. Charlie, the nicest way that I can put this is that you need to get out more.
But I'm not ready to make nice. What I just watched was an outrage. As a journalist, you appeared to confirm all of the worst qualities that cause people to hold our profession in such low esteem, especially your obsession with cornering the candidates with lame "trick" questions and your complete lack of interest or concern about substance -- or about the American people, or the state of our nation. You embarrassed some good people who work at ABC News -- for example, the journalists who worked hard to break this story just last week -- and you embarrassed yourselves. The millions of people who watched the debate were embarrassed, too -- at the state of our political discourse, and what it has finally become, at long last.
Quickly, a word to any and all of my fellow journalists who happen to read this open letter: This. Must. Stop. Tonight, if possible. I thought that we had hit rock bottom in March 2003, when we failed to ask the tough questions in the run-up to the Iraq war. But this feels even lower. We need to pick ourselves up, right now, and start doing our job -- to take a deep breath and remind ourselves of what voters really need to know, and how we get there, that's it's not all horse-race and "gotcha." Although, to be blunt, I would also urge the major candidates in 2012 to agree only to debates that are organized by the League of Women Voters, with citizen moderators and questioners. Because we have proven without a doubt in 2008 that working journalists don't deserve to be the debate "deciders."
Charlie, I'm going to sign off this letter the way that you always sign off the news, that "I hope you had a great day."
Because America just had a horrible night.
Will Bunch
Thursday, April 17, 2008
A Letter to Mayor Mike Moncrief
All Well on Home Front
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Dear Mayor Mike Moncrief:
It is not often that I get a chance to express my appreciation for the great work going on in the City of Fort Worth. I am pleased and gratified that we are a community that works together.
We are a blessed city to be sitting on one of the richest natural gas deposits in the country. I remember it once said that every Texan had an oil well in his backyard. Now every little property owner in Fort Worth has a little Barnett Shell gas. That means some older inner city residents are reaping a little windfall, therewith lifting some of the burden of poverty in our community.
The forecast looks even brighter for our city. First, I commend the City Counsel for selecting Dale Fisseler as our new City Manager. He is a fine leader that meritoriously came up through home ranks, tried, tested, and a proven leader in my sight, from my experience with him. I trust his judgment and leadership capabilities.
The selection of Fernando Costa for Assistant City Manager was also a great move. And, we are almost assured continuity of quality leadership in the City’s Planning Department, which has a pipeline full of great talent, from which to pick the new City Planner. I have also enjoyed working with Fernando over the years, especially on the New Orleans Recovery Plan. He is one of those municipal planning engineers who is so visionary that only I can understand him.
This brings me to the subject of the Trinity River Vision. As you know, I have worked on various committees over the years formulating a vision for the future of downtown Fort Worth. I was part of Downtown Revitalization planners in 1993, and worked on Kay Granger’s Retail Water Rate Committee, before retiring from McDonald & Associates, Consulting Engineers. Our company was among the pioneer planners for the Alliance corridor development, and we were a part of the City’s long-term storm sewer water solution, as well as planners for the T&P commuter rail project. We helped set the stage for downtown residential development, and the urbanization plan that eventually lead to the river-front development known as the “Uptown Trinity River Project”.
It was good to see Kathleen Hicks appointed to the board overseeing this project. I love the enthusiastic spirit of J.D. Granger, an exciting kid whose vision that matches Fernando. I am indebted to his mother also, Kay Granger, who never misses an Eddie Griffin email to the U.S. Congress. She has shown great leader in bringing the Trinity River Project home.
I am concerned, however, about the continuation of this important development. Our community has a vested interest in the Oxbow portion of the project, and we look forward to new Trinity River corridor spinning off park and recreational developments. But, as you know, this development still has much opposition.
There are some old friends I will miss, among them retiring City Manager Charles Boswell, whom I have known since my volunteer days on the Water Rate Committee. It was nice to see him lead the Martin Luther King Day Parade downtown this past January. It was a nice way to go out for a truly nice guy.
I also will miss retired police Chief Ralph Mendoza, a man I truly loved from the heart. I almost envy the fact that he retired with so much youth left in him. I know his wife also, and I know she will be happy to spend some quality time with him out on the ranch.
As for his replacement, Patricia Kneblick: She is the ideal first female police chief in the city. I saw her in action during the Katrina evacuee crisis. She is a good leader. Greatness comes with overcoming challenges. Of course, she has some challenges with the yahoos on her force, as I am beginning to get a steady stream of complaints about an overzealous police force. This is not unexpected with a change of leadership, and especially a shift to a female chief. Nevertheless, she will be challenged on both ends, first in keeping crime down, and in keeping her macho male-dominated police force under control.
Let me say, I may not attend City Council as much as before. Neither do I see a need to raise much hell. I keep my eye on the city, as a watchman ought. So far, I like what I see.
Therefore, I commend you for your outstanding leadership, as C.E.O. of this City. You have led the way in pulling together this great metropolis of diverse interests and forging a common goal.
I have seen you in the trenches, going under bridges, in the highways, byways, and bushes, searching out the homeless, and then setting up a task force with coordinator to solve their problems and minister to their needs. And, this does not overshadow all the other work and undertakings under your leadership. I have seen you on various boards and involved in different organizations. I feel a sense of closeness, as a personal friend to you, your wife Rosie, and the grandkids.
Therefore, your woes are my woes. Can you bear my woes also?
Sincerely,
Eddie Griffin
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Dear Mayor Mike Moncrief:
It is not often that I get a chance to express my appreciation for the great work going on in the City of Fort Worth. I am pleased and gratified that we are a community that works together.
We are a blessed city to be sitting on one of the richest natural gas deposits in the country. I remember it once said that every Texan had an oil well in his backyard. Now every little property owner in Fort Worth has a little Barnett Shell gas. That means some older inner city residents are reaping a little windfall, therewith lifting some of the burden of poverty in our community.
The forecast looks even brighter for our city. First, I commend the City Counsel for selecting Dale Fisseler as our new City Manager. He is a fine leader that meritoriously came up through home ranks, tried, tested, and a proven leader in my sight, from my experience with him. I trust his judgment and leadership capabilities.
The selection of Fernando Costa for Assistant City Manager was also a great move. And, we are almost assured continuity of quality leadership in the City’s Planning Department, which has a pipeline full of great talent, from which to pick the new City Planner. I have also enjoyed working with Fernando over the years, especially on the New Orleans Recovery Plan. He is one of those municipal planning engineers who is so visionary that only I can understand him.
This brings me to the subject of the Trinity River Vision. As you know, I have worked on various committees over the years formulating a vision for the future of downtown Fort Worth. I was part of Downtown Revitalization planners in 1993, and worked on Kay Granger’s Retail Water Rate Committee, before retiring from McDonald & Associates, Consulting Engineers. Our company was among the pioneer planners for the Alliance corridor development, and we were a part of the City’s long-term storm sewer water solution, as well as planners for the T&P commuter rail project. We helped set the stage for downtown residential development, and the urbanization plan that eventually lead to the river-front development known as the “Uptown Trinity River Project”.
It was good to see Kathleen Hicks appointed to the board overseeing this project. I love the enthusiastic spirit of J.D. Granger, an exciting kid whose vision that matches Fernando. I am indebted to his mother also, Kay Granger, who never misses an Eddie Griffin email to the U.S. Congress. She has shown great leader in bringing the Trinity River Project home.
I am concerned, however, about the continuation of this important development. Our community has a vested interest in the Oxbow portion of the project, and we look forward to new Trinity River corridor spinning off park and recreational developments. But, as you know, this development still has much opposition.
There are some old friends I will miss, among them retiring City Manager Charles Boswell, whom I have known since my volunteer days on the Water Rate Committee. It was nice to see him lead the Martin Luther King Day Parade downtown this past January. It was a nice way to go out for a truly nice guy.
I also will miss retired police Chief Ralph Mendoza, a man I truly loved from the heart. I almost envy the fact that he retired with so much youth left in him. I know his wife also, and I know she will be happy to spend some quality time with him out on the ranch.
As for his replacement, Patricia Kneblick: She is the ideal first female police chief in the city. I saw her in action during the Katrina evacuee crisis. She is a good leader. Greatness comes with overcoming challenges. Of course, she has some challenges with the yahoos on her force, as I am beginning to get a steady stream of complaints about an overzealous police force. This is not unexpected with a change of leadership, and especially a shift to a female chief. Nevertheless, she will be challenged on both ends, first in keeping crime down, and in keeping her macho male-dominated police force under control.
Let me say, I may not attend City Council as much as before. Neither do I see a need to raise much hell. I keep my eye on the city, as a watchman ought. So far, I like what I see.
Therefore, I commend you for your outstanding leadership, as C.E.O. of this City. You have led the way in pulling together this great metropolis of diverse interests and forging a common goal.
I have seen you in the trenches, going under bridges, in the highways, byways, and bushes, searching out the homeless, and then setting up a task force with coordinator to solve their problems and minister to their needs. And, this does not overshadow all the other work and undertakings under your leadership. I have seen you on various boards and involved in different organizations. I feel a sense of closeness, as a personal friend to you, your wife Rosie, and the grandkids.
Therefore, your woes are my woes. Can you bear my woes also?
Sincerely,
Eddie Griffin
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Propaganda War Starts
By Eddie Griffin
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
It is the 11th hour in Pennsylvania on the eve of the Democratic primaries. Expect the unexpected in tonight debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This would seem the ideal time to pull a media “swiftboat” with ABC’s Charlie Gipson and George Stephanopoulos sitting in the devil’s chair.
These two latent racists have been taking potshots at Barack Obama in very sneaky and evil underhanded ways, as if the public is not looking.
Remember NAFTA-gate: It didn’t happen, but Gipson and Stephanopoulos made it appear that it did. Thereby, they executed Hillary Clinton’s “Kitchen Sink Strategy”, by raising a false issue at the last minute without giving the candidate a chance to inquire the validity and substance of allegations, thereby making Obama appear stupid and inept. These are the dirty tricks of broadcast journalism, out of the School of Walter Winchelle.
Now the Propaganda War starts
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
It is the 11th hour in Pennsylvania on the eve of the Democratic primaries. Expect the unexpected in tonight debate between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This would seem the ideal time to pull a media “swiftboat” with ABC’s Charlie Gipson and George Stephanopoulos sitting in the devil’s chair.
These two latent racists have been taking potshots at Barack Obama in very sneaky and evil underhanded ways, as if the public is not looking.
Remember NAFTA-gate: It didn’t happen, but Gipson and Stephanopoulos made it appear that it did. Thereby, they executed Hillary Clinton’s “Kitchen Sink Strategy”, by raising a false issue at the last minute without giving the candidate a chance to inquire the validity and substance of allegations, thereby making Obama appear stupid and inept. These are the dirty tricks of broadcast journalism, out of the School of Walter Winchelle.
Now the Propaganda War starts
Friday, April 11, 2008
Obama’s Statement on Olympic Ceremony Boycot, China, Tibet, and Darfur
Activists are urging world leaders to stay away from the ceremonies to underscore concerns about China's human rights record, its handling of recent unrest in Tibet and its relationship with Sudan. (Source: Obama wants Olympic ceremonies boycott, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Thursday, April 10)
Barack Obama joined Democratic presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday in calling for President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games in Beijing.
"If the Chinese do not take steps to help stop the genocide in Darfur and to respect the dignity, security and human rights of the Tibetan people, then the president should boycott the opening ceremonies," Barack Obama said. "As I have communicated in public and to the president, it is past time for China to respect the human rights of the Tibetan people, to allow foreign journalists and diplomats access to the region, and to engage the Dalai Lama in meaningful talks about the future of Tibet."
[End of Excerpt]
Barack Obama joined Democratic presidential rival Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday in calling for President Bush to boycott the opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games in Beijing.
"If the Chinese do not take steps to help stop the genocide in Darfur and to respect the dignity, security and human rights of the Tibetan people, then the president should boycott the opening ceremonies," Barack Obama said. "As I have communicated in public and to the president, it is past time for China to respect the human rights of the Tibetan people, to allow foreign journalists and diplomats access to the region, and to engage the Dalai Lama in meaningful talks about the future of Tibet."
[End of Excerpt]
Monday, April 7, 2008
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE DARK-
And The Case of Sami Al-Arian
By Eddie Griffin
There is a prison within a prison within a prison that I once described as “the end of the line for all society”. It is one step from the death chamber. Very few men have gone and returned to the outside world. The reason is this: Most men confined to these special isolation cells are considered the most dangerous in America, and indeed the world.
Officials made the mistake of sending me there and allowing me to survive and return to society. I was the guinea pig that got away. But these special isolation units remain, containing those who are stigmatized and labeled the “most dangerous”, among them are accused terrorists and outlaws of every political persuasion, which once also included the Black Panthers.
In fact, it was black radicalism that reasoned into the building of super-max prisons. They did not intend to ever let us go home alive. We were all doing life sentences and beyond, except I had a feasible 50-years to see daylight. Most of my contemporaries never would.
Rarely does the world know about prisoners who are held incommunicado. "We do not torture", the US government says, but they deny the prisoner the right to speak, the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and the right to life. The cries of these prisoners are muffled. They cannot speak outside the confines of their isolated incarceration, in the dungeon… the prison within the prison within the prison… the end of the line, from the closest place to hell on earth.
Sensory deprivation chambers insulate man from the electro-magnetic field of the earth. The brick and steel makes it impossible to get oxygen enough to the brain and sensory organ input. By strangulation of the senses, a man becomes disoriented, and animus, brutal as beast, defiant to death.
Welcome home, Eddie Griffin. This is where your short-lived prison rebellion has landed you, in max segregation in a maximum security institution, where you have no privilege to inside and outside mail service. Nothing goes out. Nothing comes in. Plus, we’ll leave all the windows open so you can freeze to death in the coldest of winter time.
You do not have the privilege of wearing nothing but your humble pair of BVDs. And you will have 15-minutes of running water in the morning and 15-minutes in the evening. The warden spelled it out, as cold and plain as he could. The government of the United States wanted Eddie Griffin dead.
Oh how wonderful, it did not make me feel. A mistake, a tactical error, and here I was in the dead zone. “Mr. Smart Ass,” the warden called me.
I must have had a heavenly smile on my face when I handed that warden our Petition for Redress of our Grievances that lead to the Bicentennial Hunger Strike of 1976. For two years, we researched and drafted the petition. And, as I proudly presented to the warden, he snatched it out of my hand, and banished me to the dungeon. I was charged with instigating a hunger strike.
This is not the most ideal way to international fame. But that’s what happened to me, as I became a cog in an international controversy over human rights and political prisoners.
Oh great! See. I’m on TV.
The Russians loved it: U. S. Political Prisoners. And, so did South Africa, who was holding Nelson Mandela in prison for political protests that rocked the country. Now I was featured as a hunger striker against prison conditions, and being used as guinea pigs in CIA-backed mind control experiments against black political dissidents.
Okay, being on television is not a very good idea. Now any and everything that happened, you are the blame, Eddie Griffin.
So, they take me to segregation, and a riot erupts in the prison. They bring the rioters to segregation with me. There is another riot in the dungeon. Everything is burned.
Griffin, we can charge you with instigating a riot and destroying government property. You could get ten more years.
Oh my gosh! Fifty plus ten is sixty years. But then they had a bigger problem… prisoners killing guards. Oh my gosh! Are they going to charge me with murder also? They could, but I was “political” and had good lawyers and international attention.
Good? Not good.
Mr. Smart Ass had a bunch of smart ass lawyers. So, they moved me again, and shot me full of drugs to break my resistance. When I woke up, I was staring the devil in his eyes. His name was Lt. Allen, and he already had one lynching to his credit.
The Case of Sami Al-Arian
The government witch hunt for terrorists has led to an onslaught against Muslims living in the United States. However, to quickest way to get black listed is to publicly defend a Muslim organization under investigation. By popular mob rule, the government has now empowered itself to indiscriminately snatch people of the street like the KGB, and hold them incommunicado infinitum.
Such is the case of a Palestinian immigrant and computer science professor Sami Al-Arian. It is one of a rash of government prosecution of those who support Palestinian institutions, because they are labeled terrorists.
Sami Al-Arian was acquitted of all 16 charges. Yet the government refuses to free him. To protest his condition, Sami has commenced a hunger strike.
How would you feel to be torn away from your family, held for two years, acquitted, and still incarcerated? The U. S. government has used its broadest powers to do as it did to me… silence me to death.
On Thursday, May 4, Dr. Al-Arian was hauled from Orient Road Jail in Tampa at 3:45 a.m. to a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida. He was placed in the Special Housing Unit (SHU), a section of the prison reserved to temporarily house convicted inmates who violate prison rules. Prison administrators said they received a letter, believed to be from federal marshals, which contained the ridiculous allegation that Dr. Al-Arian is a danger to other inmates. This claim was made to justify the torturous conditions under which Dr. Al-Arian has been placed in Tallahassee.
Dr. Al-Arian's family, supporters and all people of conscience would be shocked and outraged by this claim because Dr. Al-Arian is a well-known community leader, respected professor, and political prisoner, who not only has no connection to violence but was acquitted by 12 jurors of any connection to violence after a 6-month trial in December 2005. Even the government conceded in its plea deal with Dr. Al-Arian that he has no connection to violence.
Once again, Dr. Al-Arian is being held in solitary confinement, a constant in his three and a half year imprisonment. Violent, hardened criminals are given more rights and treated more humanely than Dr. Al-Arian. He is clearly being subjected to especially harsh conditions because of his political beliefs, ethnicity and religion. It is further evident that this vindictive treatment is a deliberate attempt to break him physically and psychologically.
Furthermore, as he has no watches or clocks, Dr. Al-Arian feels disoriented and cannot properly carry out the five daily Muslim prayers. He was only able to leave his cell twice in one week for one hour each; the law states that inmates in solitary confinement must be given one hour a day. He was allowed only one phone call with his family, exactly a week after he was moved. His family was extremely worried and distraught when they did not hear from him for a week. Moreover, Dr. Al-Arian was not able to contact his attorneys, nor were they able to reach him to discuss pressing legal issues with deadlines that passed during the week he was deprived from communication.
In the course of his detention and during the critical time preparing for his trial, Dr. Al-Arian spent 27 months in the SHU unit of Coleman Federal Penitentiary. The legal limit of placing regular inmates in the SHU is one year. Again, the stark discrepancy in treatment undoubtedly demonstrates that he is being singled out.
Conscious of the infamously abusive treatment of conditions in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison, the international community is closely watching the treatment of political prisoners in the United States.
Please sign the Petition:[Here]
For more information contact:
Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace: tampabayjustice@yahoo.com
Sami Al-Arian (#19638)
Northern Neck Regional Jail
P.O. Box 1060
Warsaw, VA 22572
By Eddie Griffin
There is a prison within a prison within a prison that I once described as “the end of the line for all society”. It is one step from the death chamber. Very few men have gone and returned to the outside world. The reason is this: Most men confined to these special isolation cells are considered the most dangerous in America, and indeed the world.
Officials made the mistake of sending me there and allowing me to survive and return to society. I was the guinea pig that got away. But these special isolation units remain, containing those who are stigmatized and labeled the “most dangerous”, among them are accused terrorists and outlaws of every political persuasion, which once also included the Black Panthers.
In fact, it was black radicalism that reasoned into the building of super-max prisons. They did not intend to ever let us go home alive. We were all doing life sentences and beyond, except I had a feasible 50-years to see daylight. Most of my contemporaries never would.
Rarely does the world know about prisoners who are held incommunicado. "We do not torture", the US government says, but they deny the prisoner the right to speak, the right to petition the government for redress of grievances, and the right to life. The cries of these prisoners are muffled. They cannot speak outside the confines of their isolated incarceration, in the dungeon… the prison within the prison within the prison… the end of the line, from the closest place to hell on earth.
Sensory deprivation chambers insulate man from the electro-magnetic field of the earth. The brick and steel makes it impossible to get oxygen enough to the brain and sensory organ input. By strangulation of the senses, a man becomes disoriented, and animus, brutal as beast, defiant to death.
Welcome home, Eddie Griffin. This is where your short-lived prison rebellion has landed you, in max segregation in a maximum security institution, where you have no privilege to inside and outside mail service. Nothing goes out. Nothing comes in. Plus, we’ll leave all the windows open so you can freeze to death in the coldest of winter time.
You do not have the privilege of wearing nothing but your humble pair of BVDs. And you will have 15-minutes of running water in the morning and 15-minutes in the evening. The warden spelled it out, as cold and plain as he could. The government of the United States wanted Eddie Griffin dead.
Oh how wonderful, it did not make me feel. A mistake, a tactical error, and here I was in the dead zone. “Mr. Smart Ass,” the warden called me.
I must have had a heavenly smile on my face when I handed that warden our Petition for Redress of our Grievances that lead to the Bicentennial Hunger Strike of 1976. For two years, we researched and drafted the petition. And, as I proudly presented to the warden, he snatched it out of my hand, and banished me to the dungeon. I was charged with instigating a hunger strike.
This is not the most ideal way to international fame. But that’s what happened to me, as I became a cog in an international controversy over human rights and political prisoners.
Oh great! See. I’m on TV.
The Russians loved it: U. S. Political Prisoners. And, so did South Africa, who was holding Nelson Mandela in prison for political protests that rocked the country. Now I was featured as a hunger striker against prison conditions, and being used as guinea pigs in CIA-backed mind control experiments against black political dissidents.
Okay, being on television is not a very good idea. Now any and everything that happened, you are the blame, Eddie Griffin.
So, they take me to segregation, and a riot erupts in the prison. They bring the rioters to segregation with me. There is another riot in the dungeon. Everything is burned.
Griffin, we can charge you with instigating a riot and destroying government property. You could get ten more years.
Oh my gosh! Fifty plus ten is sixty years. But then they had a bigger problem… prisoners killing guards. Oh my gosh! Are they going to charge me with murder also? They could, but I was “political” and had good lawyers and international attention.
Good? Not good.
Mr. Smart Ass had a bunch of smart ass lawyers. So, they moved me again, and shot me full of drugs to break my resistance. When I woke up, I was staring the devil in his eyes. His name was Lt. Allen, and he already had one lynching to his credit.
The Case of Sami Al-Arian
The government witch hunt for terrorists has led to an onslaught against Muslims living in the United States. However, to quickest way to get black listed is to publicly defend a Muslim organization under investigation. By popular mob rule, the government has now empowered itself to indiscriminately snatch people of the street like the KGB, and hold them incommunicado infinitum.
Such is the case of a Palestinian immigrant and computer science professor Sami Al-Arian. It is one of a rash of government prosecution of those who support Palestinian institutions, because they are labeled terrorists.
Sami Al-Arian was acquitted of all 16 charges. Yet the government refuses to free him. To protest his condition, Sami has commenced a hunger strike.
How would you feel to be torn away from your family, held for two years, acquitted, and still incarcerated? The U. S. government has used its broadest powers to do as it did to me… silence me to death.
On Thursday, May 4, Dr. Al-Arian was hauled from Orient Road Jail in Tampa at 3:45 a.m. to a federal prison in Tallahassee, Florida. He was placed in the Special Housing Unit (SHU), a section of the prison reserved to temporarily house convicted inmates who violate prison rules. Prison administrators said they received a letter, believed to be from federal marshals, which contained the ridiculous allegation that Dr. Al-Arian is a danger to other inmates. This claim was made to justify the torturous conditions under which Dr. Al-Arian has been placed in Tallahassee.
Dr. Al-Arian's family, supporters and all people of conscience would be shocked and outraged by this claim because Dr. Al-Arian is a well-known community leader, respected professor, and political prisoner, who not only has no connection to violence but was acquitted by 12 jurors of any connection to violence after a 6-month trial in December 2005. Even the government conceded in its plea deal with Dr. Al-Arian that he has no connection to violence.
Once again, Dr. Al-Arian is being held in solitary confinement, a constant in his three and a half year imprisonment. Violent, hardened criminals are given more rights and treated more humanely than Dr. Al-Arian. He is clearly being subjected to especially harsh conditions because of his political beliefs, ethnicity and religion. It is further evident that this vindictive treatment is a deliberate attempt to break him physically and psychologically.
Furthermore, as he has no watches or clocks, Dr. Al-Arian feels disoriented and cannot properly carry out the five daily Muslim prayers. He was only able to leave his cell twice in one week for one hour each; the law states that inmates in solitary confinement must be given one hour a day. He was allowed only one phone call with his family, exactly a week after he was moved. His family was extremely worried and distraught when they did not hear from him for a week. Moreover, Dr. Al-Arian was not able to contact his attorneys, nor were they able to reach him to discuss pressing legal issues with deadlines that passed during the week he was deprived from communication.
In the course of his detention and during the critical time preparing for his trial, Dr. Al-Arian spent 27 months in the SHU unit of Coleman Federal Penitentiary. The legal limit of placing regular inmates in the SHU is one year. Again, the stark discrepancy in treatment undoubtedly demonstrates that he is being singled out.
Conscious of the infamously abusive treatment of conditions in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison, the international community is closely watching the treatment of political prisoners in the United States.
Please sign the Petition:[Here]
For more information contact:
Tampa Bay Coalition for Justice and Peace: tampabayjustice@yahoo.com
Sami Al-Arian (#19638)
Northern Neck Regional Jail
P.O. Box 1060
Warsaw, VA 22572
Friday, April 4, 2008
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Unconventional Thoughts on Martin Luther King, Jr.
By Eddie Griffin
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Is there room for honesty in America or, indeed, the world? I don’t think so. If there were, they would build a three-mile nuclear clear zone, just in case this Negro blows his top. Honesty in America, from the lips of a black man, is like a nuclear holocaust. (Oh, horrors! Did he just say that?)
Strange, how we all loved Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. after the fact of his death, some 40 years ago, this April 4th. Even those who hated him in life now show a kind of post-mortem reverence, like “Thank God, he’s dead.” What he stood for, what he fought for, and what he died for, was a threat to the American way of life. No one was ready for black people to be equal. Even now, there are diehards standing at the gate, obstructing the way to a truly gregarious society.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was only in his mid-20s when he catapulted onto the national stage. To the world, he was the embodiment of a new black uprising challenging America’s apartheid system of segregation. He was the media baby for the Civil Rights Movement.
Meanwhile, black youth in Texas watched on, as the movement in the South began to take shape. Martin was just a man, we thought, just like us, only a few years older, and he was leading an integration movement in Mississippi, a hopeless state gone to hell. We suspected that black people in Mississippi were still oppressed because they didn't have the courage to stand up and defend themselves. Nevertheless, we supported Martin and his movement. We, Texas boys, just opposed the non-violent part. (Texas and non-violence don't go together).
The sit-movement came and went in one day in Fort Worth. A sit-in demonstration at the downtown Woolworth, and the next day the store was integrated. When the Transportation Department declared that separate accommodations on buses and bus depots were unlawful, we began to sit where we wished, with little, if any, physical opposition.
Sure, we were berated and chided, and called everything but a child of God. But sticks and stones might break our bones, but words would never hurt us. Our resolve: Just don’t let them put their hands on us like they did the people in Mississippi.
We remembered the story of Emmitt Till from 1955, before Martin came on the scene. The poor 14-year old black boy was dragged out of his uncle’s house and tortured to death. But it came as no surprise to the rest of us black boys except to remind us to stay off the street at night and never be caught alone among white men. This was our natural way of life during the 1950s while we were growing up.
We watched the white society around us. These were times when the only black face working downtown was the janitor at the courthouse. That was a high class job, we thought. Pullman porters were the crème de la crème of the black community. The rest of us darkies stayed out of sight and out of mind.
We had our own black downtown, our own movie houses, our own restaurants, our own cab stand, our own schools, our own land, our own houses, our own community, our own everything. We had no need from white society in the Fort Worth black community during the 1950s. Only the integrationists wanted to mix the races... a nice idea, we thought, if it would worked. Otherwise, we were mostly satisfied with what we had, except in the area of housing and education. In these areas, there was still overt discrimination.
The walls began to come down during the time of President John F. Kennedy who was moved by Martin Luther King’s courage to lead a non-violent confrontational movement against brutal southern authority. The administration began to support the cause of the Negro. In 1961, Kennedy ordered the colleges to be desegregated and housing discrimination to end. As a result, the way was opened for us to move up and into a middle-class.
There was some white opposition, but nothing that we could not overcome. Instead of living together in harmony as the civil rights activists wished, whites began to move out, and blacks moved into their abandoned neighborhoods, into second-class houses, still second-class citizens.
As young black men in Texas felt, we could not make white people love us. But sure as hell, we thought, they were not going to stop us from achieving equality. However, we never expected a subversive fight. We never expected to fight off drugs and police suppression at the same time. We were targets and never knew it. Therefore, we never saw our downfall coming.
As racial barriers in equal employment began to come down, as a new wave of Afro-Americans began to move into the labor market. We found ourselves in positions of employment in an alien white world. Instead of being treated as equals, we were either patronized with sympathetic liberal paternal hands or treated with subtle disdain and contempt. We had to pretend that we didn’t see it, if we wanted to keep our new jobs, because America was not ready for honesty from the lips of blacks.
Some of us never made false pretenses. If we hated our job, the hostile work environment, and our bosses, we told him so. (And, so came the expression of "giving them a piece of my mind", but not all. Their response was an arrogant ultimatum: Love it or leave it.
Those who would assimilate would have to endure these dismissive put-downs for decades to come. They, however, in due time, would rise from tokenism to new positions of authority. Corporate culture and practices began to change. But the angry horde of black men in the labor market found themselves drifting from one demeaning position of employment to another. Having to put up with hostile white people on the job became a way of life, even unto today.
“I tell you something, boy,” a white co-worker told me. “That Martin Luther Coon is gonna to get hisself killed. Don’t you agree he's nothing but a trouble-making nigger?”
Be careful, Eddie Griffin, how you answer that question. Your job was on the line if you answer one way or the other. It was a trap to weed me out of the manufacturing plant. My boss and my boss’s boss, and his boss over him, were all white, and they were all prejudice. These were the same men who took a pair of scissors and cut off my beard before they would hire me. But until this day, I do not believe they hired me out of love. They hired me because they were taking government money on contracts and had historically be spending the wealth paying good wages to an all-white workforce. Now the government required diversity. But the old southern ways died hard.
When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, they celebrated. When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, they celebrated. When Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, they celebrated again. These were not secret celebrations, but big bonfire events.
On April 5, 1968, the day after MLK’s assassination, I bought my first gun. Gun sales skyrocketed, even in the white community. Everybody expected race war.
They called it an open season on black men. Black jack rabbits, they called us. Shoot first, ask questions later. And so we made a song: Shotgun... Shoot him before he runs. In response, black men began to carve out turfs. So began the turf wars which, to date, has never ended.
The old once all-white police force began a recruitment drive to hire more minority officers work inside these exclusive enclaves ravished by violence. White officers, like Jodie Fee and Bush, were no longer welcome inside the 'hood. For as long as I could remember, there were “shakedown cops” who took graft from bootleggers, payoffs from pimps, and sexual favors from black prostitutes. Now they faced an armed insurrection.
We called it the Black Power Movement.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Is there room for honesty in America or, indeed, the world? I don’t think so. If there were, they would build a three-mile nuclear clear zone, just in case this Negro blows his top. Honesty in America, from the lips of a black man, is like a nuclear holocaust. (Oh, horrors! Did he just say that?)
Strange, how we all loved Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. after the fact of his death, some 40 years ago, this April 4th. Even those who hated him in life now show a kind of post-mortem reverence, like “Thank God, he’s dead.” What he stood for, what he fought for, and what he died for, was a threat to the American way of life. No one was ready for black people to be equal. Even now, there are diehards standing at the gate, obstructing the way to a truly gregarious society.
Martin Luther King, Jr. was only in his mid-20s when he catapulted onto the national stage. To the world, he was the embodiment of a new black uprising challenging America’s apartheid system of segregation. He was the media baby for the Civil Rights Movement.
Meanwhile, black youth in Texas watched on, as the movement in the South began to take shape. Martin was just a man, we thought, just like us, only a few years older, and he was leading an integration movement in Mississippi, a hopeless state gone to hell. We suspected that black people in Mississippi were still oppressed because they didn't have the courage to stand up and defend themselves. Nevertheless, we supported Martin and his movement. We, Texas boys, just opposed the non-violent part. (Texas and non-violence don't go together).
The sit-movement came and went in one day in Fort Worth. A sit-in demonstration at the downtown Woolworth, and the next day the store was integrated. When the Transportation Department declared that separate accommodations on buses and bus depots were unlawful, we began to sit where we wished, with little, if any, physical opposition.
Sure, we were berated and chided, and called everything but a child of God. But sticks and stones might break our bones, but words would never hurt us. Our resolve: Just don’t let them put their hands on us like they did the people in Mississippi.
We remembered the story of Emmitt Till from 1955, before Martin came on the scene. The poor 14-year old black boy was dragged out of his uncle’s house and tortured to death. But it came as no surprise to the rest of us black boys except to remind us to stay off the street at night and never be caught alone among white men. This was our natural way of life during the 1950s while we were growing up.
We watched the white society around us. These were times when the only black face working downtown was the janitor at the courthouse. That was a high class job, we thought. Pullman porters were the crème de la crème of the black community. The rest of us darkies stayed out of sight and out of mind.
We had our own black downtown, our own movie houses, our own restaurants, our own cab stand, our own schools, our own land, our own houses, our own community, our own everything. We had no need from white society in the Fort Worth black community during the 1950s. Only the integrationists wanted to mix the races... a nice idea, we thought, if it would worked. Otherwise, we were mostly satisfied with what we had, except in the area of housing and education. In these areas, there was still overt discrimination.
The walls began to come down during the time of President John F. Kennedy who was moved by Martin Luther King’s courage to lead a non-violent confrontational movement against brutal southern authority. The administration began to support the cause of the Negro. In 1961, Kennedy ordered the colleges to be desegregated and housing discrimination to end. As a result, the way was opened for us to move up and into a middle-class.
There was some white opposition, but nothing that we could not overcome. Instead of living together in harmony as the civil rights activists wished, whites began to move out, and blacks moved into their abandoned neighborhoods, into second-class houses, still second-class citizens.
As young black men in Texas felt, we could not make white people love us. But sure as hell, we thought, they were not going to stop us from achieving equality. However, we never expected a subversive fight. We never expected to fight off drugs and police suppression at the same time. We were targets and never knew it. Therefore, we never saw our downfall coming.
As racial barriers in equal employment began to come down, as a new wave of Afro-Americans began to move into the labor market. We found ourselves in positions of employment in an alien white world. Instead of being treated as equals, we were either patronized with sympathetic liberal paternal hands or treated with subtle disdain and contempt. We had to pretend that we didn’t see it, if we wanted to keep our new jobs, because America was not ready for honesty from the lips of blacks.
Some of us never made false pretenses. If we hated our job, the hostile work environment, and our bosses, we told him so. (And, so came the expression of "giving them a piece of my mind", but not all. Their response was an arrogant ultimatum: Love it or leave it.
Those who would assimilate would have to endure these dismissive put-downs for decades to come. They, however, in due time, would rise from tokenism to new positions of authority. Corporate culture and practices began to change. But the angry horde of black men in the labor market found themselves drifting from one demeaning position of employment to another. Having to put up with hostile white people on the job became a way of life, even unto today.
“I tell you something, boy,” a white co-worker told me. “That Martin Luther Coon is gonna to get hisself killed. Don’t you agree he's nothing but a trouble-making nigger?”
Be careful, Eddie Griffin, how you answer that question. Your job was on the line if you answer one way or the other. It was a trap to weed me out of the manufacturing plant. My boss and my boss’s boss, and his boss over him, were all white, and they were all prejudice. These were the same men who took a pair of scissors and cut off my beard before they would hire me. But until this day, I do not believe they hired me out of love. They hired me because they were taking government money on contracts and had historically be spending the wealth paying good wages to an all-white workforce. Now the government required diversity. But the old southern ways died hard.
When John F. Kennedy was assassinated, they celebrated. When Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, they celebrated. When Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, they celebrated again. These were not secret celebrations, but big bonfire events.
On April 5, 1968, the day after MLK’s assassination, I bought my first gun. Gun sales skyrocketed, even in the white community. Everybody expected race war.
They called it an open season on black men. Black jack rabbits, they called us. Shoot first, ask questions later. And so we made a song: Shotgun... Shoot him before he runs. In response, black men began to carve out turfs. So began the turf wars which, to date, has never ended.
The old once all-white police force began a recruitment drive to hire more minority officers work inside these exclusive enclaves ravished by violence. White officers, like Jodie Fee and Bush, were no longer welcome inside the 'hood. For as long as I could remember, there were “shakedown cops” who took graft from bootleggers, payoffs from pimps, and sexual favors from black prostitutes. Now they faced an armed insurrection.
We called it the Black Power Movement.
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