Damn It- President Trump Pardon Native American Leader Leonard Peltier Now-He Must Not Die In Prison!

Damn It- President Trump Pardon Native American Leader Leonard Peltier Now-He Must Not Die In Prison! 

Statement by the Committee For International Labor Defense 


Now that the bid by Amnesty International and others nationally and internationally seeking to get former President Barack Obama to pardon Leonard Peltier have gone for nought we supporters are between a rockand a hard place. The denial notice was for very flimsy reasons despite the fact that even the prosecutor does not know who killed those two FBI agents in a firefight at Pine Ridge. Hell it could have been friendly forces who knows sometimes in a war zone, and that was exactly what that situation was, who knows. (For a current example of another war zone on Native lands check the story on what the various local,state, federal and mercenary forces brought in by the pipe line company at Standing Rock. One false move, provoked or not, would have ended in a bloodbath according to a well-respected Vietnam veteran who along with a few thousand other vets showed up to defend the lands and water and  thought he was in the Central Highlands again.) 

All we know is that Brother Peltier has spent forty some years behind bars and has a slew of medical problems which would have let Obama pardon just on compassionate grounds. He didn't. Don't expect, we almost have to laugh even saying such a thing, one Donald J.Trump, POTUS, and maybe off to jail himself to pardon Leonard Peltier before his term of office is up.         

Still Leonard Peltier along with Mumia Abu-Jamal and now Reality Leigh Winner are America's best known political prisoners and need to be supported and freed. To that end we in Boston have committed ourselves to as best we are able to continue ot keep the Peltier case in the public eye by holding  periodic vigils calling for his pardon and freedom. We call on all Leonard Peltier supporters to keep his name before the public. Free Leonard Peltier-He Must Not Die In Prison     
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Latest Leaflet 

We demand freedom for Leonard Peltier!

Native American activist Leonard Peltier has spent over 40 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was one of the people convicted of killing 2 FBI agents in a shoot-out on the Pine Ridge Reservation on June 26, 1975.  The others who were convicted with him have long since been released.  Prosecutors and federal agents manufactured evidence against him (including the so-called “murder weapon”); hid proof of his innocence; presented false testimony obtained through torturous interrogation techniques; ignored court orders; and lied to the jury.

In spite of his unjust imprisonment and terrible personal situation, being old and sick and likely to die in jail, he writes every year to the participants at the National Day of Mourning, which is held by Natives in Plymouth, MA in place of Thanksgiving, offering wishes for the earth and all those present and gratitude for the support he receives.  To read some of his statements, go to UAINE.org (United American Indians of New England).  That is also a good site for info about the National Day of Mourning and the campaign against Columbus Day and in favor of Indigenous Peoples Day.

Sometimes people claim that the US does not have political prisoners, but Leonard Peltier has been in prison for a very long time and even the FBI admits that they do not know who killed those FBI agents.  If Leonard Peltier dies in prison, it will be one of the worst miscarriages of justice in this country’s long history of injustice.

For more info and to sign a petition demanding hearings on the Pine Ridge “Reign of Terror” and COINTELPRO, a counter-intelligence program conducted against activists including Native groups, go to WhoIsLeonardPeltier.info.

Write to Leonard Peltier at Leonard Peltier, #89637-132, USP Coleman 1, P O Box 1033, Coleman, FL 33521.  Prisoners really appreciate mail, even from people they don’t know.  Cards and letters are always welcome.

This rally is organized by the Committee for Int’l Labor Defense, CForILD@gmail.com, InternationalLaborDefense.org.

In Harvard Square Cambridge, Ma Tuesday December 19^th 5 PM to 6 PM The Committee For International Labor Defense (labor donated)

Free Native American Leader Leonard Peltier-Free “The Voice Of the Voiceless” Mumia Abu Jamal-Free Russian Interference Whistle-Blower Reality Leigh Winner-Hands Off Whistle-Blower Edward Snowden and all our political prisoners from this year’s anti-fascist struggles.   

Holidays are tough times for political prisoners- join us to show your support from outside the wall for those inside the walls so that they know they do not stand alone.  

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Today the Committee for International Labor Defense (CILD) follows in the tradition of the International Labor Defense, established by the early Communist Party to mobilize labor and progressive-centered protest to free leftist political prisoners. An especially important tradition during the holiday season for those inside the prisons and their families.

Every political prisoner we honor today had the instinct and inner strength to rebel against the injustices which were there for all to see. They knew that if they fought those injustices in the face of governmental repression the prisons were part of the price they might have to pay for standing up for what they believed in.

The political prisoners of today, just as those in previous periods of history, are representatives of the most courageous and advanced section of the oppressed. They are individuals of particular audacity and ability who have stood out conspicuously as leaders and militants, and have thereby incurred the hatred of the oppressors.

As James Cannon one of the founders of the ILD said in The Cause That Passes Through a Prison- “The class-war prisoners are stronger than all the jails and jailers and judges. They rise triumphant over all their enemies and oppressors. Confined in prison, covered with ignominy, branded as criminals, they are not defeated. They are destined to triumph...”

This stand-out is organized by the Committee for Int’l Labor Defense, CForILD@gmail.com, InternationalLaborDefense.org.

Honor Native American Heritage Month-Leonard Peltier: Victimized by Criminal Injustice - by Stephen Lendman-Free Leonard Peltier Now!

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Leonard Peltier: Victimized by Criminal Injustice

Leonard Peltier: Victimized by Criminal Injustice - by Stephen Lendman

A Leonard Peltier Defense Committee site can be accessed through the following link:

http://www.leonardpeltier.net/theman.htm

It calls him:

-- an artist;

-- writer;

-- great-grandfather;

-- 2007 Nobel Peace Prize nominee;

-- 2004 Peace and Freedom Party primary ballot presidential candidate nominee;

-- advocate of resolving all issues peacefully;

-- human and indigenous rights activist; and

-- wrongfully imprisoned political prisoner since 1976.

Peltier was framed, convicted and imprisoned for the deaths of two FBI agents, killed during a 1975 Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, South Dakota shoot-out. Though innocent, he's currently serving two consecutive life terms - not for murder, for activism.

A Free Leonard.org site covers facts about his case, accessed through the link below:

http://www.freeleonard.org/case/index.html

It says attorneys representing him filed FOIA requests to obtain previously unavailable government information. Federal obstruction so far prevents it to conceal disturbing revelations, proving his innocence.

Incarcerated since 1976, he's been denied parole, clemency, a pardon, due process justice on appeal, (including by the US Supreme Court), or retrial for serious prosecutorial and FBI irregularities, including fabricated evidence to frame him. More on it below.

The FBI also targeted him for assassination in prison. Moreover, he's been brutalized in solitary confinement numerous times, and at age 66, suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, heart and prostate problems, as well as other health issues.

Peltier, in fact, was targeted for being a Native American activist, a topic Ward Churchill addressed in numerous books and an article titled, "The Covert War Against Native Americans," saying:

Liberation organizations like the American Indian Movement (AIM), International Indian Treaty Council, and Women of All Red Nations struggle for Native American rights.

"In essence, their positions imply nothing less than the literal dismantlement of the modern (US) empire from the inside out. The stakes involved are tremendous," including treaty obligations denied, involving land, resources, human and civil rights.

By imprisoning "Native American freedom fighters," federal authorities "have been free to pursue programs of physical repression within America's internal colonies" like abroad.

"At one level, this has meant the wholesale jailing of the movement's leadership. Virtually every know AIM leader has been incarcerated in either state or federal prisons" since 1968 or earlier, "some repeatedly."

"This, in combination with accompanying time spent in local jails awaiting trial, the high costs of bail and legal defense," and time spent at trial is calculated malfeasance to wear down resistance, drain resources to pursue it, and "cripple (movement) strength."

Peltier is perhaps its best know victim, denied justice to isolate, silence, and let him rot behind prison bars unjustly.

1973 Wounded Knee Siege and Tragedy

Beginning February 27, 1973, it lasted 71 days, a confrontation between AIM activists v. FBI thugs and complicit Native American vigilantes - so-called "GOONS, (Guardians of Our Oglala Nation)," battling on the wrong side against their own.

In fact, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and Tribal Council corruption, as well as out-of-control tension, got Lakota Nation elders to ask AIM for help. On February 27, armed Oglala Sioux reclaimed Wounded Knee, wanting their 1868 treaty rights honored.

It stated that "(t)he government of the United States desires peace, and its honor is hereby pledged to keep it." It also re-affirmed all Indian rights granted under the 1851 Treaty, abrogated and denied, nonetheless, like others.

Before the 1770s, the Great Sioux Nation held territories from Minnesota to the Rocky Mountains and from the Yellowstone to Platte Rivers. Its famed leaders included Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Red Cloud and Black Elk, among others.

Until the Treaty of 1868, they were the richest northwestern plains Native American nation. However, treaties made and broken changed their lives. Settlers, railroads, and mining interests stole their lands and resources. Now they wanted them back.

When AIM took over Wounded Knee, over 75 Indian Nations were represented, and more supporters arrived daily from around the country. Against them were GOONS, FBI thugs, federal marshals, and National Guard troops, surrounding and cutting them off, yet supporters still got through.

When it ended, an FBI/BIA "reign of terror" began. Lasting three years, roving death squads killed at least 342 AIM members and supporters. Hundreds more were harassed and beaten, and over 560 others arrested. Only 15 were convicted of a crime. Perhaps none, in fact, were guilty.

Brief Timeline of Peltier's Case

-- June 26, 1975: FBI Special Agents Jack Coler and Ronald Williams killed at Wounded Knee;

-- February 6, 1976: Peltier arrested in Hinton, Alberta, Canada, then held for an extradition hearing;

-- June 18, 1976: he's ordered extradited to America;

-- March/April 1977: he's tried for killing Coler and Williams;

-- April 18, 1977: he's convicted on two counts of first-degree murder;

-- June 1, 1977: he's sentenced to two consecutive life terms in federal prison;

-- he's subsequently denied parole, retrial, clemency, a pardon, or justice on appeal.

Evidence of FBI and Prosecutorial Obstruction of Justice

-- witnesses were intimidated and coerced, including children;

-- key defense witnesses were prohibited from testifying;

-- evidence refuting conflicting ballistics reports was ruled inadmissible;

-- no one could identify Peltier as Coler and Williams' killer;

-- a climate of fear was created at trial;

-- evidence was fabricated;

-- exculpating evidence was withheld;

-- perjured testimonies and affidavits were used;

-- jury tampering was discovered;

-- FBI provocateurs gave GOONS illegal arms and ammunition to commit murder;

-- FBI and federal judges ex parte contact compromised Peltier's right to due process and judicial fairness; and

-- false inflammatory testimony was permitted at trial.

Overall, Department of Justice malfeasance framed Peltier, manipulating jurors to wrongfully convict him. In fact, authorities later admitted they weren't sure who killed Coler and Williams or if Peltier was involved. Moreover, hundreds of FBI-instigated "reign of terror" killings were never investigated. Government-sponsored killers remain free.

Amnesty International considers Peltier a political prisoner who "should be immediately and unconditionally released." Of course, he never should have been arrested, extradited, tried, convicted or imprisoned.

Governments, past and present congressional members, and hundreds of world dignitaries agree, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Mikail Gorbachov, and former MP/anti-war activist Tony Benn.

Repressive Democrat and Republican leaders keep him imprisoned, waging war against truth, justice and democratic values ruthlessly, filling America's gulag with many thousands of innocent men, women and children.

A Final Comment

On June 26, part of a Peltier statement to friends and relations said:

"I always try to come to you full of good spirit and vigor. But I cannot lie. There are days when the ugliness of my situation weighs me down....I never thought this could happen. I never believed law enforcement and the government (would) keep their dirty laundry hidden away" this long.

Yet through dedicated efforts, "we have learned of hidden evidence, coerced testimony, and outright lies by the FBI and prosecutors....I am living proof that my case is about squashing Indian rights and Indian sovereignty."

Those responsible for framing him will live "their last moments (in) shame....If you believe in truth, justice, honor, freedom, all of what is supposed to make America great, then help me open the door to my release....join my cause....and do all you can to eradicate injustice."

Aho! Mitakuye Oyasin (All my relations, as part of a prayer for oneness and harmony with all forms of life)

Doksha (See you before long). Lakota has no word for goodbye.

Leonard Peltier

On June 27, he was placed in solitary confinement for six months. According to his attorney, Robert R. Bryan, it was for minor infractions, saying imprisonment weakened him, adding:

"Officials are using (excuses) to torture my 66-year-old client. His health is poor because of decades of imprisonment. It is an attempt to break and intimidate him."

In fact, they're trying to kill him. Currently incarcerated at US Penitentiary, Lewisburg, PA, he called his cell a "cement steel hotbox" with little ventilation. As a result, he's "drenched in hot sweat," Bryan saying he was put in a "hellhole."

He's there 23 hours a day weekdays, 24 hours on weekends, given no personal visits, and allowed to shower Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

That's how distinguished activists are treated in America, notably Muslims and people of color, including Native Americans, continuing a centuries long genocidal process.

Lewisburg is the oldest US federal prison. It's also one of the most notorious. Bureau of Prisons says it's now:

"run entirely as a Special Management Unit (SMU) as a more controlled and restrictive environment for managing the most aggressive and disruptive inmates from USP general population."

Though a model prisoner, Peltier was sent there before. According to Bryan:

"They're hoping he'll die there, that he'll be forgotten there" and perish, denied justice his friends and supporters worldwide won't ever quit fighting for. Nor will they let up condemning ruthless officials who destroy human beings for political advantage.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.

http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.

posted by Steve Lendman @ 12:57 AM

Honor Native American Heritage Month- *The Trail Of 1000, No, One Million Tears- The Native American Struggle- “Broken Rainbow”

Click on title to link to "The New York Times Review" Of "Broken Rainbow".

DVD Review

Broken Rainbow, various commentators and Native American interviewees, Docurama Productions, 1985

Frankly, I have, other than a tribute to Native American folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie and many, many entries calling for the freedom of unjustly imprisoned long time Native American activist Leonard Peltier, not had occasion in this space to deal with the centuries long question of the injustices and horrors done to the Native Americans on this continent. This review of the film documentary, “Broken Rainbow”, acts as one attempt to spend more time on this issue. And in a sense this film fits neatly in with the other aims of the entries in this space; here to try and draw together the threads of the struggle for Native American rights with the other struggles of the labor movement.

In that sense this film is tailor-made for that connection. Why? Well, among other things, one of the key points made in this film is the trampling of Native American rights (and destruction of their cultural traditions) by the American government in the interests of the energy companies who exploit the minerals and other treasure on Native American lands in the West, focusing here on the ravishing of the Hopi and Navajo lands in the Southwest. And the prime example of acting in those interests as noted in the film was the relation between the Reagan Administration in the 1980s and the Peabody Coal Company. For those who know about the ‘exploits’ of this company in the eastern U.S. coal fields this connection is self-explanatory. For those who don’t viewing this footage will give a rather graphic picture of what the Kentucky and West Virginia miners workers went though in an earlier, more militant time.

That footage is the main political message to be taken from the film, at least that is how I took it. There are also other points made concerning the historic abuses of the rights and cultural expressions of the Hopi and Navajo tribes in the Southwest that are also in the center of the controversy here(destruction of burial and ceremonial sites, forced assimilation, etc.). Some time is also spent on the sorry history of attempts by whites, then (particularly in the 19th century) and now to, there is no lesser word to be used, decimate, the traditions and to “assimilate”, forcibly or not, the remaining Native American population. Or worst. The main importance of this film, however, and the reason that it was worthy of a film documentary Oscar back in the 1980s, is that it provides in capsule form and in a little over an hour all of the historic issues that are still unresolved if we are ever to make headway in order to bring some measure of justice to the original inhabitants of this continent. Oh, and by the way, just not lose sight of an important task still before us. Free Native American leader Leonard Peltier. That is always on the agenda. He must not die in jail.



To show, musically at least, the connection between the Native American struggle against the coal companies, , notably the Peabody Coal Company, here are the lyrics to John Prine's "Paradise". Sound familiar?

John Prine, Paradise Lyrics


When I was a child my family would travel
Down to Western Kentucky where my parents were born
And there's a backwards old town that's often remembered
So many times that my memories are worn.

Chorus:
And daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking
Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away

Well, sometimes we'd travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we'd shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.

Repeat Chorus:

Then the coal company came with the world's largest shovel
And they tortured the timber and stripped all the land
Well, they dug for their coal till the land was forsaken
Then they wrote it all down as the progress of man.

Repeat Chorus:

When I die let my ashes float down the Green River
Let my soul roll on up to the Rochester dam
I'll be halfway to Heaven with Paradise waitin'
Just five miles away from wherever I am.

Repeat Chorus:

Honor Native American Heritage Month- The Trail Of 1000, No, One Million Tears- Buffy Sainte- Marie's Native American "National" Anthem- "My Country 'Tis Of Thy People You're Dying"

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Buffy Sainte-Marie performing "My Country 'Tis Of Thy People You're Dying" on Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest".

MY COUNTRY 'TIS OF THY PEOPLE YOU'RE DYING (BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE) (early 1960s)

Any copyrighted material on these pages is used in "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s)


"My Country 'Tis of Thy People You're Dying" is Buffy Sainte-Marie's statement-in-song about Indian affairs.
"My point in the song is that the American people haven't been given a fair share at learning the true history of the American Indian. They know neither the state of poverty that the Indians are in now nor how it got to be that way. I try to tell the side of the story that's left out of the history books, that can only be found in the documents, the archives and in the memories of the Indians themselves."
Nat Hentoff, liner notes for Buffy Sainte-Marie, Little Wheel Spin And Spin, 1966


Lyrics transcribed by Manfred Helfert
© 1966, Gypsy Music, Inc.


Now that your big eyes have finally opened,
Now that you're wondering how must they feel,
Meaning them that you've chased across America's movie screens.
Now that you're wondering how can it be real
That the ones you've called colorful, noble and proud
In your school propaganda
They starve in their splendor?
You've asked for my comment I simply will render:
My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

Now that the longhouses breed superstition
You force us to send our toddlers away
To your schools where they're taught to despise their traditions.
You forbid them their languages, then further say
That American history really began
When Columbus set sail out of Europe, then stress
That the nation of leeches that conquered this land
Are the biggest and bravest and boldest and best.
And yet where in your history books is the tale
Of the genocide basic to this country's birth,
Of the preachers who lied, how the Bill of Rights failed,
How a nation of patriots returned to their earth?
And where will it tell of the Liberty Bell
As it rang with a thud
O'er Kinzua mud,
And of brave Uncle Sam in Alaska this year?

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

Hear how the bargain was made for the West:
With her shivering children in zero degrees,
Blankets for your land, so the treaties attest,
Oh well, blankets for land is a bargain indeed,
And the blankets were those Uncle Sam had collected
From smallpox-diseased dying soldiers that day.
And the tribes were wiped out and the history books censored,
A hundred years of your statesmen have felt it's better this way.
And yet a few of the conquered have somehow survived,
Their blood runs the redder though genes have paled.
From the Gran Canyon's caverns to craven sad hills
The wounded, the losers, the robbed sing their tale.
From Los Angeles County to upstate New York
The white nation fattens while others grow lean;
Oh the tricked and evicted they know what I mean.

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

The past it just crumbled, the future just threatens;
Our life blood shut up in your chemical tanks.
And now here you come, bill of sale in your hands
And surprise in your eyes that we're lacking in thanks
For the blessings of civilization you've brought us,
The lessons you've taught us, the ruin you've wrought us --
Oh see what our trust in America's brought us.

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

Now that the pride of the sires receives charity,
Now that we're harmless and safe behind laws,
Now that my life's to be known as your "heritage,"
Now that even the graves have been robbed,
Now that our own chosen way is a novelty --
Hands on our hearts we salute you your victory,
Choke on your blue white and scarlet hypocrisy
Pitying the blindness that you've never seen
That the eagles of war whose wings lent you glory
They were never no more than carrion crows,
Pushed the wrens from their nest, stole their eggs, changed their story;
The mockingbird sings it, it's all that he knows.
"Ah what can I do?" say a powerless few
With a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye --
Can't you see that their poverty's profiting you.

My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

Honor Native American Heritage Month ***Once More Into The Time Capsule, Part Two- The New York Folk Revival Scene in the Early 1960’s-Buffy Sainte-Marie

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Buffy Sainte-Marie performing her classic tribute to her Native American culture, "My Country 'Tis Of Thy People You're Dying" on Pete Seeger's "Rainbow Quest".

CD Review

Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Revival Boom, 1950-1970, various artists, 3CD set, Rhino Records, 2001

Except for the reference to the origins of the talent brought to the city the same comments apply for this CD. Rather than repeat information that is readily available in the booklet and on the discs I’ll finish up here with some recommendations of songs that I believe that you should be sure to listen to:

Disc Two: Dave Van Ronk on “He Was A Friend Of Mine” and You’se A Viper”, The Chad Mitchell Trio on “Last Night I Had The Strangest Dream”, Hedy West on “500 Miles”, Ian &Sylvia on “Four Strong Winds”, Tom Paxton on “I Can’t Help But Wonder Where I’m Bound”, Peter, Paul And Mary on “Blowin’ In The Wind”, Bob Dylan on “Boots Of Spanish Leather”, Jesse Colin Young on “Four In The Morning”, Joan Baez on “There But For Fortune”, Judy Roderick on “Brother, Can You Spare A Dime?”, Bonnie Dobson on “Morning Dew”, Buffy Sainte-Marie on “Cod’ine” and Eric Von Schmidt on “ Joshua Gone Barbados”.

Buffy Sainte-Marie on “Cod’ine”. One of the female folk singers that I did have in mind when I thought about doing a series on ‘not Joan Baez’ and their fates was very definitely Buffy Sainte-Marie. Her moth harp on “Cripple Creek” blew me away. Her “Until It’s Time For You To Go” was, at one point, something of a personal anthem in the stormy waters of young love. Of course the classic anti-war song, covered by Donovan and many other folk performers, is “Universal Soldier”. While I would disagree with some aspects of the song’s lyrics now since there are some fights, class war fights, left before we can leave fighting behind this song drove a lot of my young pacifist inclinations. As for Buffy’s fate, I gain have no clue except the liner notes in the booklet refer to the personal nature of this song as part of her own personal struggle against drugs. Sing on.

Note: Since this comment was originally written I have found out that Buffy is alive and well and has just produced a CD after many years. The "sing on" part stlill goes, though.

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER
Buffy Sainte-Marie
© Caleb Music-ASCAP

I wrote "Universal Soldier" in the basement of The Purple Onion coffee house in Toronto in the early sixties. It's about individual responsibility for war and how the old feudal thinking kills us all. Donovan had a hit with it in 1965.

He's five feet two and he's six feet four
He fights with missiles and with spears
He's all of 31 and he's only 17
He's been a soldier for a thousand years

He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an atheist, a Jain,
a Buddhist and a Baptist and a Jew
and he knows he shouldn't kill
and he knows he always will
kill you for me my friend and me for you

And he's fighting for Canada,
he's fighting for France,
he's fighting for the USA,
and he's fighting for the Russians
and he's fighting for Japan,
and he thinks we'll put an end to war this way

And he's fighting for Democracy
and fighting for the Reds
He says it's for the peace of all
He's the one who must decide
who's to live and who's to die
and he never sees the writing on the walls

But without him how would Hitler have
condemned him at Dachau
Without him Caesar would have stood alone
He's the one who gives his body
as a weapon to a war
and without him all this killing can't go on

He's the universal soldier and he
really is to blame
His orders come from far away no more
They come from him, and you, and me
and brothers can't you see
this is not the way we put an end to war.

Once Again Haunted By The Question Of Questions-Who Represented The “Voice” Of The Generation Of ’68 When The Deal Went Down-And No It Was Not One Richard Millstone, Oops, Milhous Nixon

By Seth Garth

I have been haunted recently by various references to events in the early 1960s brought to mind by either seeing or hearing those references. First came one out of the blue when I was in Washington, D.C. on other business and I popped in as is my wont to the National Gallery of Art to get an “art bump” after fighting the dearies at the tail-end of the conference that I was attending. I usually enter on the 7^th Street entrance to see what they have new on display on the Ground Floor exhibition areas. This time there was a small exhibit concerning the victims of Birmingham Sunday, 1963 the murder by bombing of a well-known black freedom church in that town and the death of four innocent young black girls and injuries to others. The show itself was a “what if” by a photographer who presented photos of what those young people might have looked like had they not had their precious lives stolen from them by some racist KKK-drenched bastards who never really did get the justice they deserved. The catch here, the impact on me, was these murders and another very disturbing viewing on television at the time, in black and white, of the Birmingham police unleashing dogs, firing water hoses and using the ubiquitous police billy-clubs to beat down on peaceful mostly black youth protesting against the pervasive Mister James Crow system which deprived them of their civil rights.

Those events galvanized me into action from seemingly out of nowhere. At the time I was in high school, in an all-white high school in my growing up town of North Adamsville south of Boston. (That “all white” no mistake despite the nearness to urban Boston since a recent look at the yearbook for my class showed exactly zero blacks out of a class of 515. The nearest we got to a black person was a young immigrant from Lebanon who was a Christian though and was not particularly dark. She, to my surprise, had been a cheer-leader and well-liked). I should also confess, for those who don’t know not having read about a dozen articles  I have done over the past few years in this space, that my “corner boys,” the Irish mostly with a sprinkling of Italians reflecting the two major ethic groups in the town I hung around with then never could figure out why I was so concerned about black people down South when we were living hand to mouth up North. (The vagaries of time have softened some things among them for example nobody uses the “n” word which needs no explanation which was the “term of art” in reference to black people then to not prettify what this crowd was about.)

In many ways I think I only survived by the good graces of Scribe who everybody deferred to on social matters. Not for any heroic purpose but because Scribe was the key to intelligence about what girls were interested in what guys, who was “going” steady, etc. a human grapevine who nobody crossed without suffering exile. What was “heroic” if that can be used in this context was that as a result of those Birmingham images back then I travelled over to the NAACP office on Massachusetts Avenue in Boston to offer my meager services in the civil rights struggle and headed south to deadly North Carolina one summer on a voting drive. I was scared but that was that. My guys never knew that was where I went until many years later long after we had all gotten a better gripe via the U.S. Army and other situations on the question of race and were amazed that I had done that.         

The other recent occurrence that has added fuel to the fire was a segment on NPR’s Morning Edition where they deal with aspects of what amounts to the American Songbook. The segment dealt with the generational influence of folk-singer songwriter Bob Dylan’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ as an anthem for our generation (and its revival of late in newer social movements like the kids getting serious about gun control). No question for those who came of political age early in the 1960s before all hell broke loose this was a definitive summing up song for those of us who were seeking what Bobby Kennedy would later quoting a line of poetry from Alfred Lord Tennyson call “seeking a newer world.” In one song was summed up what we thought about obtuse indifferent authority figures, the status quo, our clueless parents, the social struggles that were defining us and a certain hurried-ness to get to wherever we thought we were going.

I mentioned in that previous commentary that given his subsequent trajectory while Bob Dylan may have wanted to be the reincarnation Plus of Woody Guthrie (which by his long life he can rightly claim) whether he wanted to be, could be, the voice of the Generation of ’68 was problematic. What drove me, is driving me a little crazy is who or what some fifty plus years after all the explosions represented the best of what we had started out to achieve (and were essentially militarily defeated by the ensuing reaction before we could achieve most of it) in those lonely high school halls and college dormitories staying up late at night worrying about the world and our place in the sun.

For a long time, probably far longer than was sensible I believed that it was somebody like Jim Morrison, shaman-like leader of the Doors, who came out of the West Coast winds and headed to our heads in the East. Not Dylan, although he was harbinger of what was to come later in the decade as rock reassembled itself in new garb after some vanilla music hiatus but somebody who embodied the new sensibility that Dylan had unleashed. The real nut though was that I, and not me alone, and not my communal brethren alone either, was the idea that we possessed again probably way past it use by date was that “music was the revolution” by that meaning nothing but the general lifestyle changes through the decade so that the combination of “dropping out” of nine to five society, dope in its many manifestations, kindnesses, good thought and the rapidly evolving music would carry us over the finish line. Guys like Josh Breslin and the late Pete Markin, hard political guys as well as rabid music lovers and dopers, used to laugh at me when I even mentioned that I was held in that sway especially when ebb tide of the counter-cultural movement hit in Nixon times and the bastinado was as likely to be our home as the new Garden. Still Jim Morrison as the “new man” (new human in today speak) made a lot of sense to me although when he fell down like many others to the lure of the dope I started reappraising some of my ideas -worried about that bastinado fate.  

So I’ll be damned right now if I could tell you that we had such a voice, and maybe that was the problem, or a problem which has left us some fifty years later without a good answer. Which only means for others to chime in with their thoughts on this matter.         

*Honor Native American Heritage Month- Those Who Fight For Native American Leader Leonard Peltier's Freedom Are Kindred Spirits- From The Pen Of Peter Matheissen

Click on title to link to a "The New York Review Of Books" article by writer Peter Matheisssen, "The Tragedy Of Leonard Peltier vs. The United States", detailing his long personal struggle to gain freedom for Native American leader Leonard Peltier. Hats off. Leonard Peltier Must Not Die In Prison!

Honor Native American History Month- Bob Feldman 68: 'Free Leonard Peltier!'-A Guest Commentary- He Must Not Die In Jail

Click on the title to link to the "Bob Feldman 68" blog for a commentary on Leonard Peltier.

Markin comment:

This space had as one of its original intents,and continues to do so today, of propagandizing the plight of class war prisoners. Native American leader Leonard Peltier's story, without question, is a prime example of vagaries of the American 'justice' system. Those, like Bob Feldman, who publicize his case are kindred spirits. Again, Leonard Peltier must not die in jail!

Honor Native American Heritage Month- Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-"Incident At Ogala: The Leonard Peltier Story"- Leonard Peltier Must Not Die In Jail

Films to While Away The Class Struggle By-"Incident At Ogala: The Leonard Peltier Story"- Leonard Peltier Must Not Die In Jail

Recently I have begun to post entries under the headline- “Songs To While Away The Class Struggle By”-that will include progressive and labor-oriented songs that might be of general interest to the radical public. I have decided to do the same for some films that may perk that same interest under the title in this entry’s headline. In the future I expect to do the same for books under a similar heading.-Markin

DVD Review

Incident At Ogala: The Leonard Peltier Story, Leonard Peltier, various leaders of the American Indian Movement (AIM), defense attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, witnesses and by-standers, directed by Michael Apted, 1991

Let’s start this review of this documentary of the incidents surrounding the case of Leonard Peltier at the end. Or at least the end of this documentary, 1991. Leonard Peltier, a well-known leader of the Native American movement, convicted of the 1975 murder, execution-style, of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota after he had been extradited from Canada in the wake of the acquittal of two other Pine Ridge residents. In an interview from federal prison in that period the then still relatively young Peltier related that after receiving his life sentences and being told by prison officials that that meant his release date would be in 2035 he stated that he hoped not, for he would then be an old, old man. Here is what should make everyone interested in the case, and everyone interested in the least sense of justice, even just bourgeois justice, blood boil, he is now an old sick man and he is still in jail for a crime that he did not commit, and certainly one that was not proven beyond that cherished “reasonable doubt”

This documentary, narrated by Robert Redford in his younger days as well, goes step by step through the case from the pre-murder period when Native Americans, catching the political consciousness crest begun in the 1960s by the black civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement, started organizing, mainly through the American Indian Movement (AIM), on the Indian reservations of the West, some of the most impoverished areas in all the Americas. The focal point of this militant organizing effort came in the war zone-showdown, the siege at Wounded Knee in 1973. The tension that hovered in the air in the aftermath of that war between the American government and its Indian agent supporters on one side, and the AIM-led “warrior nation” on the other is the setting for this incident at Ogala.

Through reenactment of the crime scene; eye witnesses, interested and disinterested, voluntary or coerced; defense strategies at both trials from self-defense to lack of physical evidence, and on appeal; the prosecution's case, its insufficient evidence, and it various maneuvers to inflame white juries against unpopular or misunderstood Native Americans in order to get someone convicted for the murders of one of their own; the devastating, but expected effect of the trials on the political organizing by AIM; and the stalwart and defiant demeanor of one Leonard Peltier all come though in this presentation. As a long time supporter of organizations that defend class-war prisoners, like Leonard Peltier, this film only makes that commitment even firmer. With that in mind- Free Leonard Peltier-He Must Not Die In Jail!

*Partisan Defense Committee- 23rd Holiday Appeal- Free All Class War Prisoners i

Click on title to link to the James P. Cannon Internet Archive's copy of his articel on the Scottsboro Boys from 1932, as an example of his keen understanding of the need for the international labor movement to protect its own and other oppressed segments of society. An injury to one is an injury to all!

This is a repost of the 22nd Holiday Appeal in 2007. Unfortunately this issue of freedom and support of these class war prisoners is still with us. Donate generously, if you can, to this important component of the struggle for a more just, socialist world. This is our duty to those militants in prison, it is not charity.

23 November 2007


22nd Annual Holiday Appeal

Free the Class-War Prisoners!


“The class-conscious worker accords to the class-war prisoners a place of singular honor and esteem.”

—James P. Cannon, “The Cause that Passes Through a Prison,”
Labor Defender, September 1926

For the past 22 years, the Partisan Defense Committee has been sending monthly stipends as an expression of solidarity to those imprisoned for standing up to racist capitalist repression. In doing so, we have revived the tradition initiated by the International Labor Defense (ILD) under Cannon, a founding leader of the Communist Party and the ILD’s first secretary (1925-28). This year, as in years past, the PDC calls on labor activists, fighters for black rights, radical youth and defenders of civil liberties to join us in building our annual Holiday Appeal, which raises funds for this unique program.

The Holiday Appeal benefits will focus particularly on our campaign to mobilize mass protest demanding freedom for death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. Mumia currently awaits a decision by a federal appeals court on whether to reinstitute the death sentence, keep him entombed in prison for life or grant him a new trial or other legal proceedings. For those fighting for Mumia’s freedom, there must be no illusions in capitalist “justice.” Earlier this year, the capitalist courts again turned down appeals by class-war prisoners Leonard Peltier, Ed Poindexter and Mumia’s son Jamal Hart. Build the Holiday Appeal! Free all class-war prisoners!

Mumia Abu-Jamal is a former Black Panther Party spokesman, a well-known supporter of the MOVE organization and an award-winning journalist known as “the voice of the voiceless.” The fight to free America’s foremost class-war prisoner has reached a crucial juncture. This past May, oral arguments were heard before the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals—the last stage before the U.S. Supreme Court. A decision could come at any moment.

9 December 2007 marks the 26th anniversary of Mumia’s arrest for a killing that the cops know he did not commit. Mumia was framed up for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death explicitly for his political views. More than six years ago, Mumia’s attorneys submitted to the courts the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, shot and killed Faulkner, but to the racists in black robes, a court of law is no place for evidence of the innocence of this fighter for the oppressed.

Mumia faces the racist death penalty or life in prison because he has always spoken for the oppressed, like the Jena 6 or those left to die in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Workers, immigrants, minorities and all opponents of racist oppression must redouble their efforts to free Mumia now!

Leonard Peltier is an internationally revered class-war prisoner. His incarceration for his activism in the American Indian Movement has come to symbolize this country’s racist repression of its native peoples, the survivors of centuries of genocidal oppression. Peltier’s frame-up trial for the deaths of two marauding FBI agents in what had become a war zone at the South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975 shows what capitalist “justice” is all about. Although the lead government attorney has admitted: “We can’t prove who shot those agents,” and the courts have acknowledged blatant prosecutorial misconduct, the 63-year-old Peltier is still locked away. In separate lawsuits, early this year federal courts in New York and Minnesota kept under government seal thousands of FBI documents, once again covering up the racist frame-up that has already stolen 30 years of his life.

Jamal Hart, Mumia’s son, was sentenced in 1998 to 15 1/2 years without parole on bogus firearms possession charges. Hart was targeted for his prominent activism in the campaign to free his father. Although Hart was initially charged under Pennsylvania laws, which would have meant a probationary sentence, Clinton’s Justice Department intervened to have Hart thrown into prison under federal laws. Hart was transferred to Minersville, PA, where prison officials subjected him to repeated provocations and improperly adjusted Hart’s security level to deny him transfer to a lower level security facility; a transfer to Loretto, PA, has finally been granted. In October, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals summarily turned down Hart’s habeas corpus petition which would have freed him after more than ten years in prison.

Eight MOVE members, Chuck Africa, Michael Africa, Debbie Africa, Janet Africa, Janine Africa, Delbert Africa, Eddie Africa and Phil Africa, are in their 30th year of prison. They were sentenced to 30-100 years after the 8 August 1978 siege of their Philadelphia home by over 600 heavily armed cops, falsely convicted of killing a police officer who died in the cops’ own cross fire. In 1985, eleven of their MOVE family members, including five children, were massacred by Philly cops. In 2008, the MOVE prisoners will be eligible for parole, but without massive calls for their freedom can only expect continued imprisonment.

Jaan Laaman and Thomas Manning are the remaining anti-imperialist activists known as the Ohio 7 still in prison, convicted for their roles in a radical group that took credit for bank “expropriations” and bombings in the late 1970s and ’80s against symbols of U.S. imperialism such as military and corporate offices. Before their arrests in 1984 and 1985, the Ohio 7 were targets of massive manhunts. Their children were kidnapped at gunpoint by the Feds.

The Ohio 7’s politics were once shared by thousands of radicals during the Vietnam antiwar movement and by New Leftists who wrote off the possibility of winning the working class to a revolutionary program and saw themselves as an auxiliary of Third World liberation movements. But, like the Weathermen before them, the Ohio 7 were spurned by the “respectable” left. From a proletarian standpoint, the actions of these leftist activists against imperialism and racist injustice are not a crime. They should not have served a day in prison.

Ed Poindexter and Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen we Langa are former Black Panther supporters and leaders of the Omaha, Nebraska, National Committee to Combat Fascism. They were victims of the deadly FBI COINTELPRO operation under which 38 Black Panther Party members were killed and hundreds more imprisoned on frame-up charges. Poindexter and Mondo, railroaded to prison for a 1970 explosion which killed a cop, were sentenced to life and have now served more than 35 years in jail. In September, a Nebraska court denied a new trial for Poindexter despite the fact that a crucial piece of evidence excluded from the original trial, a long-suppressed 911 audio tape, proved that testimony of the state’s key witness was perjured.

Hugo Pinell is the last of the San Quentin 6 still in prison. He was a militant anti-racist leader of prison rights organizing along with his comrade and mentor, George Jackson, who was gunned down by prison guards in 1971. Despite hundreds of letters of support and no disciplinary write-ups for over 26 years, Pinell has repeatedly been denied parole, most recently in November 2006. Now in his 60s, Pinell continues to serve a life sentence at the notorious Pelican Bay Security Housing Unit in California.

Contribute now! All proceeds from the Holiday Appeals will go to the Class-War Prisoners Stipend Fund. Send your contributions to: PDC, P.O. Box 99, Canal Street Station, New York, NY 10013; (212) 406-4252.

* * *

(reprinted from Workers Vanguard No. 903, 23 November 2007)

Workers Vanguard is the newspaper of the Spartacist League with which the Partisan Defense Committee is affiliated.

For The Folkies From Muskogee And Elsewhere- The Bob Feldman Music Blog On "My Space"-Richard Farina Is Gone

Click on the headline to link to the Bob Feldman Music Blog( for lack of a better name) on My Space.

Markin comment:

This is great stuff for any music aficionado, especially of folk, social protest, and roots music. I am going to be "stealing" entries off of this site periodically but you should be checking it out yourselves. Kudos, Bob Feldman.

*The Latest From "The San Francisco Eight" Website- Drop All Charges Against Francisco Torres

Click on the headline to link to the "Free The San Francisco Eight" Website.

Markin comment:

Enough is enough! Drop All Charges (bogus on their face anyway) against Francisco Torres! This whole case, going all the way back to the 1970s, should be an object lesson for every new, and old, leftist militant about the relentless nature of the government's vendetta, using every resource at their disposal, when they get you (in this case fiery, militant Black Panthers)in their legal and lethal cross hairs. Think also of Mumia Abu-Jamal's and Leonard Peltier's cases that have that same relentless governmental vendetta feel to them. Free Mumia and Leonard Peltier!

*President Obama Talks To The Tribal Nations- Question: Where Is Leonard Peltier's Place At The Table?

Click on title to link to "The Washington Post" article about President Obama's meetings with various Native American tribal leaders. My question in the headline stands.

The Trail Of 1000, No, One Million Tears- The Native American Struggle-Free Leonard Peltier-He Must Not Die In Jail!

Click on title to link to the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Website.

*The Latest On Native American Leader Leonard Peltier- Free Leonard Peltier- He Must Not Die In Jail!

Click on title to link to the Leonard Peltier Defense web site. The information below is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee.

Outrage

Leonard Peltier Denied Parole

On August 21, the U.S. Parole Commission again turned down the parole request of Leonard Peltier, a prominent member of the American Indian Movement who was framed up on charges of killing two FBI agents during the federal assault on the Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975. The commission coldbloodedly declared Peltier would not be considered for parole for another 15 years! For the 64-year-old Peltier, who suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, partial blindness and a heart condition, this is a declaration by the racist rulers that this courageous man will die in prison.

Grotesquely, U.S. Attorney Drew Wrigley gloated, “Leonard Peltier is exactly where he belongs—federal prison, serving two life sentences.” Wrigley added the claim that Peltier “has neither accepted responsibility for the murders nor shown any remorse,” a standard ruse for denying parole to those imprisoned for crimes they did not commit. As the PDC pointed out in a June 29 letter to the Parole Commission demanding freedom for Peltier (see WV No. 940, 31 July):

“One court proceeding after another has laid bare the evidence of his innocence and of massive prosecutorial misconduct. In a 1985 appeals hearing, the government’s lead attorney admitted, ‘We can’t prove who shot those agents.’

“In 1986, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the trial jury could have acquitted Mr. Peltier if records improperly withheld from the defense had been made available.

“In November 2003, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals stated, ‘Much of the government’s behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed.’

“In 2001, in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act and lawsuits, the U.S. government admitted it had withheld a staggering 142,579 pages of evidence of its secret COINTELPRO efforts to persecute and convict Mr. Peltier.”

Yet again, the depraved capitalist rulers have demonstrated there is no justice for fighters for the oppressed like Peltier. We join with millions worldwide in demanding: Free Leonard Peltier now!

***Not Joan Baez- The Roots Music Of Native American Singer Buffy Sainte Marie

Click on title to link to YouTube's film clip of Native American activist and folk singer performing "My Country 'Tis Of Thy People You're Dying". My friends, this is powerful stuff even forty years later.


MY COUNTRY 'TIS OF THY PEOPLE YOU'RE DYING


Buffy Sainte-Marie
1966

Now that your big eyes have finally opened,
Now that you're wondering how must they feel,
Meaning them that you've chased across America's movie screens.
Now that you're wondering how can it be real
That the ones you've called colorful, noble and proud
In your school propaganda
They starve in their splendor?
You've asked for my comment I simply will render:


My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.


Now that the longhouses breed superstition
You force us to send our toddlers away
To your schools where they're taught to despise their traditions.
You forbid them their languages, then further say
That American history really began
When Columbus set sail out of Europe, then stress
That the nation of leeches that conquered this land
Are the biggest and bravest and boldest and best.
And yet where in your history books is the tale
Of the genocide basic to this country's birth,
Of the preachers who lied, how the Bill of Rights failed,
How a nation of patriots returned to their earth?
And where will it tell of the Liberty Bell
As it rang with a thud
O'er Kinzua mud,
And of brave Uncle Sam in Alaska this year?


My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.


Hear how the bargain was made for the West:
With her shivering children in zero degrees,
Blankets for your land, so the treaties attest,
Oh well, blankets for land is a bargain indeed,
And the blankets were those Uncle Sam had collected
>From smallpox-diseased dying soldiers that day.
And the tribes were wiped out and the history books censored,
A hundred years of your statesmen have felt it's better this way.
And yet a few of the conquered have somehow survived,
Their blood runs the redder though genes have paled.
From the Gran Canyon's caverns to craven sad hills
The wounded, the losers, the robbed sing their tale.
From Los Angeles County to upstate New York
The white nation fattens while others grow lean;
Oh the tricked and evicted they know what I mean.


My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.


The past it just crumbled, the future just threatens;
Our life blood shut up in your chemical tanks.
And now here you come, bill of sale in your hands
And surprise in your eyes that we're lacking in thanks
For the blessings of civilization you've brought us,
The lessons you've taught us, the ruin you've wrought us --
Oh see what our trust in America's brought us.


My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.


Now that the pride of the sires receives charity,
Now that we're harmless and safe behind laws,
Now that my life's to be known as your "heritage,"
Now that even the graves have been robbed,
Now that our own chosen way is a novelty --
Hands on our hearts we salute you your victory,
Choke on your blue white and scarlet hypocrisy
Pitying the blindness that you've never seen
That the eagles of war whose wings lent you glory
They were never no more than carrion crows,
Pushed the wrens from their nest, stole their eggs, changed their story;
The mockingbird sings it, it's all that he knows.
"Ah what can I do?" say a powerless few
With a lump in your throat and a tear in your eye --
Can't you see that their poverty's profiting you.


My country 'tis of thy people you're dying.

*Update on Leonard Peltier From The Partisan Defense Committee

Click on title to link to Leonard Peltier Defense Committee web site for updates on this long and sordid case against a central leader of the Native American struggles (and ours as well). Free Leonard Peltier!!!

This information concerning Leonard Peltier is passed along from the Partisan Defense Committee.

Freedom Now for Leonard Peltier!

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

A parole hearing for class-war prisoner Leonard Peltier was held on July 28, with a decision still pending. We print below a June 29 letter by the Partisan Defense Committee sent to the United States Parole Commission.

The Partisan Defense Committee joins with those supporting the release of political prisoner Leonard Peltier. A prominent member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), Mr. Peltier is in prison only because of his courageous activism on behalf of Native Americans, the victims of centuries of genocidal terror.

Between 1973-1976, hated Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) agents and FBI-trained thugs terrorized Indian activists at the Pine Ridge Reservation, carrying out over 300 attacks and killing at least 69 people. In June 1975, 250 FBI and BIA agents, SWAT policemen and local vigilantes descended on the reservation and precipitated a shootout. Two FBI agents were killed. Mr. Peltier and three others were charged. All charges were dropped against one AIM activist, and two others were acquitted in a separate trial in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Jurors at that trial stated that they did not believe the government witnesses.

Mr. Peltier’s 1977 trial was moved to Fargo, North Dakota. The judge ruled out of order any evidence of the documented government violence against Native American activists at Pine Ridge. The prosecution concealed ballistics tests that showed that Peltier’s gun could not have been used in the shooting. As Mr. Peltier said at his sentencing, “I’m not the guilty one here; I’m not the one who should be called a criminal.”

One court proceeding after another has laid bare the evidence of his innocence and of massive prosecutorial misconduct. In a 1985 appeals hearing, the government’s lead attorney admitted, “We can’t prove who shot those agents.”

In 1986, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the trial jury could have acquitted Mr. Peltier if records improperly withheld from the defense had been made available.

In November 2003, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals stated, “Much of the government’s behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed.”

In 2001, in response to requests under the Freedom of Information Act and lawsuits, the U.S. government admitted it had withheld a staggering 142,579 pages of evidence of its secret COINTELPRO efforts to persecute and convict Mr. Peltier.

The long trail of injustice against Leonard Peltier has been documented in the film Incident at Oglala, narrated by Robert Redford, and the book In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen. He has been framed up for crimes the government knows he did not commit. Millions worldwide have demanded his freedom.

It is an injustice that Mr. Peltier was ever incarcerated at all. The more than 33 years of unjust imprisonment have not only robbed this honorable man of a majority of his lifetime. They have taken a devastating toll on his physical well-being as he suffers from diabetes, high blood pressure, partial blindness and a heart condition. We call for the immediate and unconditional release of Leonard Peltier.

*Bob Feldman 68: `Free Leonard Peltier!'

Bob Feldman 68: `Free Leonard Peltier!'

***Damn It- Free Leonard Peltier Now-He Must Not Die In Jail!

Click below to link to Leonard Peltier Defense Committee site.

http://www.leonardpeltier.net/

Commentary

This entry is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. I need add little except to say that this man, a natural leader of the American Indian Movement (AIM), should never have spent a day in jail. Free him now.


Savagely Beaten in Prison

Free Leonard Peltier!

(Class-Struggle Defense Notes)

In January, Leonard Peltier, a leader of the American Indian Movement who has been in prison for 33 years for a crime he did not commit, was outrageously put in solitary confinement after having been savagely attacked when he was transferred to the United States Penitentiary in Canaan, Pennsylvania. In a January 20 statement, Betty Peltier-Solano, Peltier’s sister, stated: “We feel that prison authorities at the prompting of the FBI orchestrated this attack and thus, we are greatly concerned about his safety.” We print below a January 22 protest letter from the Partisan Defense Committee to USP Canaan warden Ronnie R. Holt. The PDC is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization associated with the Spartacist League.

It has come to our attention that soon after his transfer to your prison, political prisoner Leonard Peltier was placed in solitary confinement and allowed only one meal a day. This is an outrage. Given this courageous man’s medical conditions, your actions put his life at risk.

Mr. Peltier had asked that he be transferred to a facility near his family and home in the Dakotas. Instead he was vindictively sent far away to USP Canaan. Shortly after his arrival he was set upon and brutally beaten, reportedly by prisoners he did not know. He sustained numerous bruises, a large lump on his head, discoloration and swelling to his hands as well as pain in his chest and ribcage. This incident is the supposed pretext for his being thrown into solitary.

Mr. Peltier is an innocent man who has been unjustly incarcerated for nearly 33 years because of his activism in defense of the rights of Native Americans. During that period his health has seriously deteriorated. He suffers from high blood pressure, a heart condition, failing eyesight and diabetes. As he is at risk for kidney failure, blindness and/or amputation, it is critical that Mr. Peltier be released from solitary confinement immediately and afforded all necessary medical treatment.

We, along with millions of others, do not believe that Leonard Peltier should have been incarcerated at all. We demand his unconditional release from prison.

*GEORGE BUSH-NOW THAT SCOOTER HAS GOTTEN HIS COMMUTATION HOW ABOUT LEONARD PELTIER?

Click on title to link to the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee web site.

COMMENTARY

FREE LEONARD PELTIER!

By now everyone in the civilized world knows that President George W. Bush has commuted the 30 month federal sentence of his Vice President’s man, Scooter Libby. Apparently the thought that one of the boys who helped pull off the disinformation debacle in the lead up to the Iraq war would actually serve time was too much for Bush to bear. That has led me to think that while the man is in one of his thoughtful moods that this would be an excellent time to bring up the case of Leonard Peltier the Native American leader wrongly convicted almost thirty years ago for his part in the action at the infamous Pine Ridge Reservation. If there is a crying case of injustice that needs correction it is Peltier’s case. However, we being realistic know what El Presidente would say to a pardon request for brother Peltier. After all his name is not Scooter or Biff or Muffy or Buffy or any one of THEIR tribal names but only the righteous symbol of the fate of the Native American in this unjust capitalist system.

For those unfamiliar with the current (or at least my knowledge of it) status of Leonard Peltier’s case check my April 2006 archives. Or Google the Partisan Defense Committee or Free Leonard Peltier Committee. FREE LEONARD PELTIER!

*FREE LEONARD PELTIER!!-He Must Not Die In Prison!

Click on the title to link to the Leonard Peltier Defense Committee Web site.

THIS ARTICLE FROM PARTISAN DEFENSE NOTES WAS PASSED ON TO THE WRITER BY THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTTEE, P.O. BOX 99 CANAL STREET STATION, NEW YORK, NEW YORK 10013. 

THERE IS NOTHING THAT I NEED TO ADD EXCEPT THAT HISTORIANS OVER THE LAST GENERATION HAVE STEPPED OVER ALL OVER THEMSELVES TO CORRECT THE PREVIOUS FALSE ROLE ASSIGNED TO INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. THAT IS TO THE GOOD. BUT THE WRITER HAS ONE QUESTION –WHY IS THIS NATIVE AMERICAN LEADER STILL IN JAIL? ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
Thirty years ago, on 6 February 1976, American Indian Movement (AIM) leader Leonard Peltier was seized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in western Canada. Peltier had fled there after a massive U.S. government attack the previous June—by FBI and Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) agents, SWAT cops and white vigilantes—on South Dakota's Pine Ridge reservation during which two FBI agents were killed. After Canadian authorities held Peltier for ten months in solitary confinement in Oakalla Prison, he was extradited to the U.S. on the basis of fabricated FBI testimony. In 1977, Peltier, a member of the Anishinabe and Lakota Nations, was convicted and sentenced to two consecutive life sentences on frame-up murder charges stemming from the shooting of the two FBI agents.

While Peltier had sought refuge in Canada, two others charged in the agents' killings were acquitted in a federal court in Iowa. Jurors stated that they did not believe the government witnesses and that it seemed "pretty much a clear-cut case of self-defense" against the FBI invasion. In Peltier's trial the prosecution concealed ballistics tests showing that his gun could not have been used in the shooting, while the trial judge ruled out any chance of another acquittal on self-defense grounds by barring any evidence of government terror against the Pine Ridge activists. At a 1985 appeal hearing, a government attorney admitted, "We can't prove who shot those agents."

AIM had been in the Feds' gun sights because of its efforts to fight the enforced poverty of Native Americans and the continued theft of their lands by the government and energy companies, which were intent on grabbing rich uranium deposits under Sioux land in South Dakota. The Leonard Peltier Defense Committee stated in 2004: "Virtually every known AIM leader in the United States was incarcerated in either state or federal prisons since (or even before) the organization's formal emergence in 1968, some repeatedly." Between 1973 and 1976, thugs of the Guardians of the Oglala Nation (GOON), armed and trained by the hated BIA and FBI, carried out more than 300 attacks in and around Pine Ridge, killing at least 69 people.
As we wrote during the fight against Peltier's threatened deportation, "The U.S. case against Peltier is political persecution, part of a broader attempt by the FBI to smash AIM through piling up criminal charges against its leaders, just as was done against the Black Panthers" (PTFNo. 112, 4 June 1976). AIM and Peltier were targeted by the FBI's deadly Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) of disruption, frame-up and murder of the left, black militants and others. Under COINTELPRO, 38 Black Panthers were killed by the FBI and local cops. Panther leader Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt) spent 27 years in prison for a crime the FBI knew he could not have committed before finally winning release in 1997. Mumia Abu-Jamal—also an innocent man— remains on Pennsylvania's death row today.

In November 2003, a federal appeals court ruled, "Much of the government's behavior at the Pine Ridge Reservation and in its prosecution of Mr. Peltier is to be condemned. The government withheld evidence. It intimidated witnesses. These facts are not disputed." But the court still refused to open the prison doors for Peltier. Last year, U.S. District Court judge William Skretny turned down Peltier's request for documents suppressed by the government, even while acknowledging that he could have been acquitted had the government not improperly withheld them. Peltier attorney Michael Kuzma stated that the evidence withheld by the government amounts to a staggering 142,579 pages!

On February 24, Skretny again ruled that the FBI can keep part of its records secret in the name of "national security." Peltier noted in a message to the March 18 protests against the Iraq occupation, "Our government uses the words 'national security' and fighting the war on transnational terrorism as a smoke screen to cover up further crimes and misconduct by the FBI." Also this February, defense attorney Barry Bachrach argued in St. Louis federal court that the federal government had no jurisdiction in Peltier's case, since the shootings occurred on a reservation.

Millions of people have signed petitions for Peltier over the years, including by 1986 some 17 million people in the former Soviet Union. His frame-up, like that of Geronimo ji Jaga and Mumia Abu-Jamal, demonstrates that there is no justice in the capitalist courts of America. While supporting all possible legal proceedings on behalf of the class-war prisoners, we place no faith whatever in the "justice" of the courts and rely solely on the power of mass protest centered on the integrated labor movement.

After Peltier's third appeal for a new trial was denied in 1993, thousands of prominent liberals, celebrities and others—ranging from Willie Nelson to Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa—called for a presidential pardon. In a recent column titled "Free Leonard Peltier!" (5 February), Mumia Abu-Jamal wrote: "Many Peltier supporters put their trust in a politician named Bill Clinton, who told them that when he got elected he 'wouldn't forget' about the popular Native American leader. Their trust (like that of so many others) was betrayed once Clinton gained his office, and the FBI protested. In the waning days of his presidency, he issued pardons to folks like Marc Rich, and other wealthy campaign contributors. Leonard Peltier was left in his chains!"

Peltier is one of 16 class-war prisoners to whom the Partisan Defense Committee sends monthly stipends. For more information on his case, or to contribute to Peltier's legal defense, write to: Leonard Peltier Defense Committee, 2626 North Mesa #132, El Paso, TX 79902. Free Leonard Peltier and all class-war prisoners!