One day after Barack Obama’s first visit to the White House as President-elect, we speak to the Pulitzer-winning novelist Alice Walker. In a recent open letter to Obama, Walker writes, “Seeing you take your rightful place, based solely on your wisdom, stamina and character, is a balm for the weary warriors of hope, previously only sung about.”

With reactions from author Eduardo Galeano, Dr. Vincent Harding, political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Relevant links: theroot.com, democracynow.org, prisonradio.org.

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In the latest issue of the New York Review of Books, Hacker writes, “Obstacles to getting blacks to vote have always been formidable, but this year there will be barriers—some new, some long-standing—that previous campaigns have not had to face.” [includes rush transcript]

via Democracy Now!

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In Haiti, as many as 1,000 people have died and an estimated one million left homeless after the impoverished country was hit by four major storms and hurricanes in less than a month. We speak to the renowned physician Dr. Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners in Health, a group that provides free medical care in Haiti. After visiting Gonaives over the weekend, Dr. Farmer wrote, “After 25 years spent working in Haiti and having grown up in Florida, I can honestly say that I have never seen anything as painful as what I just witnessed.” [includes rush transcript]

via Democracy Now!

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Listen or watch at Democracy Now!

 JEREMY SCAHILL: Perhaps more than any candidate in history, Barack Obama has seen an impressive array of celebrities line up to support him. Many of these figures are flying into Denver to cheer on Obama, as they have with high-profile advertisements.

The Brooklyn-based political hip-hop group dead prez was not among those artists invited inside to perform at the DNC, like Kanye West, Wyclef Jean and Black Eyed Peas. But the duo of M1 and stic.man is here in Denver performing at rallies and evening political gatherings. And they seemed right at home among the crowds in the Denver streets.

M1: Their political objectives are limited, and we know that they are surface, surface. We’re looking at a government who’s a paper tiger and someone who wants to participate in a paper democracy.

JEREMY SCAHILL: What do you make of this major embrace, as it seems, not just of hip-hop, but the whole entertainment industry, of the Obama camp?

STIC.MAN: It’s lack of understanding, the lack of political clarity, you know what I mean? And it’s marketing, you know what I mean? It’s like Barack is hot. He’s, you know—he’s the [blank] right now, so throw him on your jacket, you know what I mean? And, you know, it ain’t really deep. It’s just people riding the wave, you know what I mean? And that’s what hip-hop is being used for, is, you know, to sell products, to sell [blank] to us, stuff [blank] down our throat that might not necessarily be good for us. So some of the hip-hop people, you know, who do hip-hop, and this is our culture, we have to speak from the vantage point of people who want real power. And hip-hop is part of that. Barack wouldn’t even be in the position he’s in without the support of hip-hop. You know, and we—

JEREMY SCAHILL: So are you guys going to vote?

M1: Hell no.

STIC.MAN: Yeah, yeah, I’m going to vote.

M1: OK, cool.

JEREMY SCAHILL: Who are you going to vote for?

STIC.MAN: I mean, I’m voting with my art.

M1: Yeah.

STIC.MAN: I’m voting with my participation in rallies like this. I’m voting—you know what I mean?—in raising my son, you know what I mean, to recognize the truth about this system. I’m voting in so many ways, I don’t even got time to go to the booth in November.

M1: I’m voting for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Free ’em all. Feel me.

A story involving an Army recruiter in Texas last week has led to a call for an investigation. The recruiter in Houston was suspended after a recording of his threats aired on a local TV station. The recruiter warned eighteen-year-old Irving Gonzalez that he would be sent to jail if he decided to go to college instead of joining the military.

Excerpt from a conversation with a recruiter:

CPL. LISETTE DIAZ: Yeah, he needs—you know, you don’t want whatever is going to happen to him to happen to you.

IRVING GONZALEZ: What’s going to happen?

CPL. LISETTE DIAZ: You know, I don’t know. I mean whatever. If he ever gets pulled over or whatever [inaudible], you never know what can happen.

IRVING GONZALEZ: I think I can do better with my life out here than in there.

CPL. LISETTE DIAZ: You think so? The way the economy is going right now?

IRVING GONZALEZ: I’d rather struggle and be free.

CPL. LISETTE DIAZ: I have your best interest—what’s that?

IRVING GONZALEZ: I think I’d rather struggle.

CPL. LISETTE DIAZ: You’d rather struggle?

IRVING GONZALEZ: Yeah.

CPL. LISETTE DIAZ: Are you serious? Think about what you’re saying. The way the economy is going right now and the way it’s going to go for the next couple of years, it’s not looking good. Sometimes you have to grow up and learn how to be a man and to take care of stuff on your own. You know what I’m saying? Do you want to sit there and live with your mom for the next three, four, five, six years or whatever? You know, you want to do something different now to what your friends are doing, because when you come back and you see what your friends are doing, still living at home with mom and dad, struggling, trying to make a job, make money, make a living, you’re going to be like, bam, I’m glad I didn’t. You know what I’m saying? I’m telling you from experience, because I see that.

For more information click here.

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The parents of LaVena were on Democracy Now! last week. There’s no way you can not take action after hearing this. Thanks to Color of Change for leading the way on this issue.  You can also visit www.lavenajohnson.com for more info.

LaVena Johnson was a 19 year old private in the Army, serving in Iraq, when she was raped, murdered, and her body was burned–by someone from her own military base. Despite overwhelming physical evidence, the Army called her death a suicide and has closed the case.¹

For three years, LaVena’s parents have been fighting for answers. At almost every turn, they’ve been met with closed doors or lies. They’ve appealed to Congress, the one body that can hold the military accountable. But, as in other cases where female soldiers have been raped and murdered and the Army has called it suicide, Congress has failed to act.

Will you join Mr. and Mrs. Johnson in calling on Congressman Henry Waxman, Chairman of the House Government Oversight Committee, to mount a real investigation into LaVena Johnson’s death and the Army’s cover-up²? Will you ask your friends and family to do the same?

http://www.colorofchange.org/lavena/

From the beginning, LaVena’s death made no sense as a suicide. She was happy and had been talking with friends and family regularly³–nothing indicated she could be suicidal. And when the Johnsons received her body, they noticed signs that she had been beaten.⁴ That was when they started asking questions.

After two years of being denied answers and hearing explanations that made no sense, the Johnsons received a CD-ROM from someone on the inside. It contained pictures of the crime scene where LaVena died and an autopsy showing that she had suffered bruises, abrasions, a dislocated shoulder, broken teeth, and some type of sexual assault. Her body was partially burned; she had been doused in a flammable liquid, and someone had set her body on fire. A corrosive chemical had been poured in her genital area, perhaps to cover up evidence of rape.⁵

Still the Army sticks by their story. They refuse to explain the overwhelming physical evidence that LaVena was raped and murdered and continue to claim that she killed herself.

For many Black youth, and working class young people of every race, the military is seen as an option for securing a better future. LaVena came from a deeply supportive family, and while the military wasn’t her only option, she was attracted by its promise to help her pay for a college education and the opportunity to travel around the world. She also thought that by joining she could continue her lifelong commitment to serving other people in need. She made a decision to serve in the military, with all its risks, and expected respect and dignity in return.

LaVena’s death is part of a disturbing pattern of cases where female soldiers have been raped and killed, and where the military has hidden the truth and labeled the deaths suicides.^6,7 In virtually all cases, Congress has been slow to investigate or hold the military accountable in any way. Unfortunately, most families simply don’t have the resources, time, and psychological strength to push back.

We can help the Johnsons, and other families, by holding Congress accountable in the LaVena Johnson case and by demanding it investigate the pattern of cover-ups by the military.

Please take a moment to join those calling on Congressman Waxman to investigate the cover-up of LaVena Johnson’s death:

http://www.colorofchange.org/lavena/

Thanks and Peace,

– James, Gabriel, Clarissa, Andre, Kai, and the rest of the ColorOfChange.org team
July 28th, 2008

References:

1. “The cover-up of a soldier’s death?” LavenaJohnson.com, March 6, 2007
http://www.lavenajohnson.com/2007/03/cover-up-of-soldiers-death.html

2. “Is There an Army Cover Up of Rape and Murder of Women Soldiers?” CommonDreams.org, April 28, 2008
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/28/8564/

3. Ibid.

4. Ibid.

5. “Suicide or Murder? Three Years After the Death of Pfc. LaVena Johnson in Iraq, Her Parents Continue Their Call for a Congressional Investigation,” Democracy Now!, June 23, 2008.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/23/suicide_or_murder_three_years_after

6. See reference 2.

7. “2 Years After Soldier’s Death, Family’s Battle Is With Army,” New York Times, March 21, 2006.
http://tinyurl.com/mzcvh

Other References:

“Justice for Pfc. LaVena Johnson,” DailyKos, June 30, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/5bh73v

“Rapists in the Ranks, Los Angeles Times, March 31, 2008
http://tinyurl.com/2z2c8l

Interview with Dennis Banks: Thirty years ago, some 40,000 Native Americans and their supporters participated in a historic cross-country march called the Longest Walk to protest Congressional legislation that would have abrogated treaties protecting Native American Sovereignty.

For more information: www.longestwalk.org

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Legendary comedian George Carlin died of heart failure on Sunday evening at the age of seventy-one. Carlin was one of the most well-known comedians of the past fifty years and was widely considered one of the top stand-up comics of all time.

Listen to some of his best social critique at Democracy Now!

In case you’re wondering why we’re remembering George Carlin, check out these exerpts:

America and war….GEORGE CARLIN: It’s the old American double standard, you know, say one thing, do something different. And, of course, the country is founded on the double standard. That’s our history. We were founded on a very basic double standard. This country was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free. Am I right? A group of a slave owners who wanted to be free, so they killed a lot of white English people in order to continue owning their black African people, so they could wipe out the rest of the red Indian people and move west and steal the rest of the land from the brown Mexican people, giving them a place to take off and drop their nuclear weapons on the yellow Japanese people. You know what the motto of this country ought to be? You give up a color, we’ll wipe it out. You got it.
So, anyway, about eighty years after the Constitution is ratified, eighty years later, the slaves are freed. Not so you’d really notice it, of course. Just sort of on paper. And that was, of course, during the Civil War. Now, there’s another phrase I dearly love. That is a true oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one: civil war. Do you think any country could really have a civil war? “Say, pardon me” [gun shots]—“I’m awfully sorry. I’m awfully sorry.” Now, of course, the Civil War has been over for about 120 years, but not so you’d really notice it, because we still have these people called Civil War buffs, people who thought it was a really keen war, and they study the battles carefully, and they try to improve on the strategies and the tactics to increase the body count, in case we have to go through it again sometime. In fact, some of these people actually get dressed up in uniform once a year and go out and refight these battles. You know what I say? Use live ammunition, [bleep], would you please? You might just raise the intelligence level of the American gene pool.
But what do you expect? Hey, come on, this is a warlike country. We come from that northern European, basically the northern European genes, the blue eyes. Those blue eyes. Boy everybody in the world learned real quick, didn’t they? When those blue eyes sail out of the north, you better nail everything down [bleep]. Nail it down, strap it down, or they’ll grab it. If they can’t take it home, they’ll burn it. If they can’t burn it, they’ll [bleep]. That’s what happened to us. And it’s a warlike country. C’mon, I mean, forget foreign policy. Even the domestic rhetoric is warlike. Everything about our domestic policy invokes the thought of war. We don’t like something in this country, we declare war on it. The war on poverty, the war on drugs, the war on crime, the war on AIDS, the war on cancer. We’ve got the only national anthem that mentions [bleep] rockets and bombs in the [bleep] thing. You know what I mean?

Language in Amerca…GEORGE CARLIN: When I was a little kid, if I got sick, they wanted me to go to the hospital and see the doctor. Now they want me to go to a health maintenance organization or a wellness center to consult a healthcare delivery processional. Poor people used to live in slums. Now the economically disadvantaged occupy substandard housing in the inner cities. And they’re broke! They’re broke. They don’t have a “negative cash flow position.” They’re [bleep] broke! ‘Cause a lot of them were fired. You know, fired? Management wanted to curtail redundancies in the human resources area, so many people are no longer viable members of the work force.
Smug, greedy, well-fed white people have invented a language to conceal their sins. It’s as simple as that. The CIA doesn’t kill anybody anymore, they neutralize people. Or they de-populate the area. The government doesn’t lie, it engages in disinformation. The Pentagon actually measures nuclear radiation in something they call “sunshine units.” Israeli murderers are called commandos. Arab commandos are called terrorists. Contra killers are called freedom fighters. Well, if crime fighters fight crime, and firefighters fight fire, what do freedom fighters fight? They never mention that part of it to us, do they? Never mention that part of it.

Any other white men that can talk sh*t like George Carlin, please stand up.
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In case you thought they weren’t experimenting on us anymore….

Lawmakers and the NAACP are calling for an investigation into reports that federally funded scientific experiments in 2000 spread sewage sludge on yards in poor, black neighborhoods to test if it could fight lead poisoning in children.

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Democracy Now! Special: Martin Luther King’s Life and Legacy 40 Years After His Assassination

HARRY BELAFONTE: When Dr. King was murdered, I was in Atlanta in their home, and we separated ourselves from others who were there in the living room, and she said, “Would you come with me?” We went into the bedroom, and she said, “Help me select the clothes that I must—we must dress him in.” And it was a very private and a very remarkable thing to—the intimacy of it with her. And as we were selecting the suits and the shirt and the tie and laying it out, she sat on the bed, and she kind of—a place where she had slept so often with her husband, and all those memories. And I said, “What is it?” She says, “You know, I’m worried about where this is all going. I’m worried about the nation, the rage, the anger, and I need to know what to do.” And we talked for a second. Then I said to her, “You know, at this very moment in Memphis, thousands of sanitation workers are on hold, because Dr. King was supposed to have been there tomorrow to lead that movement and to speak to the people, and before your husband, our leader, is put in his grave, if you have the will and the capacity to go down there tomorrow and stand up before those workers and let the world know that the movement has not been interrupted, that the process continues, and that all of us, as strong or as weak as we may be, will step into the breach and do what must be done.” And she did.

The Struggle continues y’all.

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated forty years ago today. He was in Memphis, Tennessee to march with sanitation workers demanding a better wage. We spend the hour on his life and legacy. We hear from the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who was with King at the Lorraine Motel, where he was killed; Harry Belafonte, who was with Coretta Scott King at the King home in Atlanta on April 4, 1968; Dr. Vincent Harding, a close friend and colleague of King’s who wrote King’s major antiwar speech, “Beyond Vietnam;” Taylor Rogers, a former sanitation worker in Memphis; Charles Cabbage, a longtime activist and community organizer in Memphis who met with King hours before he died; Jerry Williams, one of the only African American detectives in the Memphis Police Department in 1968; Judge D’Army Bailey, a circuit court judge in Memphis and co-founder of the National Civil Rights Museum; and we hear King in his own words, giving his major speech against the war in Vietnam and his last public address given the night before his death in Memphis, Tennessee.

[includes rush transcript]

Images from the march in Memphis, via Reuters.

Cesar Estrada Chavez, legendary labor activist, civil rights leader and founder of the first successful farm workers union, would have been eighty-one years old today. Events are planned across the country to honor his life and legacy. Thousands marched in his memory over the weekend, and nine states recognize March 31st as an official holiday. We speak with Dolores Huerta. [includes rush transcript]

From Democracy Now!

Five years ago tonight, on March 19, 2003, the US launched the invasion of Iraq. Half a decade later, as the occupation continues with no end in sight, some of the most powerful voices against the war have been the men and women who have fought in it. For four days this past weekend, soldiers convened at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Maryland for Winter Soldier, an eyewitness account of the war and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan. We broadcast their voices.

“Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present” is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation, abuse and neglect of African Americans. The book reveals the hidden underbelly of scientific research and the roots of the African American health deficit. It begins with the earliest encounters of blacks and the medical establishment during slavery, looks at how eugenics and social Darwinism was used to justify medical experiments conducted by the government and the military–and offers new details about the infamous Tuskegee Experiments that began in the 1930’s.

“Medical Apartheid” also examines less well-known abuses and looks at unethical practices and mistreatment of blacks that are still taking place in the medical establishment today.

listen to an interview with Harriet Washington with Democracy Now!

Also acknowledged was Edwidge Danticat who won in the autobiography category for “Brother, I’m Dying”.

Edwidge Danticat is an award-winning Haitian-born writer who now lives in Miami. In November 2004, Danticat’s 81-year-old uncle, Reverend Joseph Dantica, died in the custody of immigration officials. He had arrived from Haiti seeking political asyslum following threats on his life. Denied his medicines and accused of faking an illness, he died just days after his detention. Edwidge Danticat tells this devastating story in her latest book, “Brother, I’m Dying.”

listen to her interview here

On the anniversary of the assassination of Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz), take time to listen to Black leadership at its best. Both brilliant, and sorely missed.

“OnApril 25 1961, two giants of African American history faced each in a debate on the nature of racism in America and possible solutions. The discussion between brings into sharp focus many of the issues that still plague this country. ” - Democracy Now!

listen here

and then go here to hear/read an account of his assassination from Yuri  Kochiyama, Japanese-American activist and friend of Malcolm X.

Former Democratic Rep. Cynthia McKinney is now seeking the Green Party presidential nomination. McKinney is among the most outspoken critics of the Bush administration, and one of her last measures in office was to introduce a bill for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. She joins Democracy Now! to talk about her new campaign and why she left the Democratic Party after more than a decade in public office. [includes rush transcript]

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