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Former Political Prisoner Geronimo Pratt Dies
by Stephen Lendman
Reporting his death, AP said:
"Former Black Panther Party leader Elmer 'Geronimo' Pratt" died at age 63 in a small (Tanzania village) "where he had lived for at least half a decade, a friend of Pratt's in Arusha, former Black Panther Pete O'Neal, said."
He lived a peaceful life in Tanzania, O'Neal explained, adding:
"He's my hero. He was and will continue to be. Geronimo was a symbol of steadfast resistance against all (he) considered wrong and improper. His whole life was dedicated to standing opposition to oppression and exploitation....He gave all that he had and his life, I believe, struggling, trying to help people lift themselves up."
Continuing Bahraini State Terror
by Stephen Lendman
For months, Bahraini and Saudi security forces targeted nonviolent protesters and activists wanting the repressive Al Khalifa monarchy replaced by constitutionally elected government, political freedom, and social justice, what Bahrainis never had and don't now.
Three previous articles discussed it, accessed through the following links:
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2011/04/police-state-terror-in-bahrain.html
Israelis Rush for Second Passports
By FRANKLIN LAMB
Beirut
Perhaps historians or cultural anthropologists surveying the course of human events can identify for us a land, in addition to Palestine, where such a large percentage of a recently arrived colonial population prepared to exercise their right to depart, while many more, with actual millennial roots but victims of ethnic cleansing, prepared to exercise their right of Return.
One of the many ironies inherent in the 19th century Zionist colonial enterprise in Palestine is the fact that this increasingly fraying project was billed for most of the 20th century as a haven in the Middle East for “returning” persecuted European Jews. But today, in the 21st century, it is Europe that is increasingly being viewed by a large number of the illegal occupiers of Palestinian land as the much desired haven for returning Middle Eastern Jews.
Jack Kevorkian meant well
Mary Shaw
Dr. Jack Kevorkian passed away on June 3. He died the old-fashioned way - in a Michigan hospital bed while suffering from pulmonary thrombosis. Kevorkian, also known as "Dr. Death", was famous as a proponent and provider of physician-assisted suicide for the terminally ill.
At the beginning, Michigan had no law against assisted suicide. Kevorkian eventually went to prison when he crossed the line and gave a lethal injection to a man suffering from Lou Gehrig's disease. He videotaped the event and provided the video to the CBS program "60 Minutes". Unlike Kevorkian's other patients, the Lou Gehrig's sufferer was unable to administer the lethal drug to himself. Kevorkian was subsequently convicted of second-degree murder. And the Michigan legislature proceeded to outlaw assisted suicide.
Truth, the First Casualty of War: Friendly Fire, FUBAR, SNAFU, 9/11 and the Pat Tillman Story
By Gary G. Kohls, MD
Duty to Warn - According to the most comprehensive survey of American war casualties (both fatal and nonfatal), 21 % of the casualties in World War II, 39 % of the casualties in Vietnam and 52 % of the casualties in the first Gulf War were “friendly fire” casualties.
Nine years ago this month, Pat Tillman walked away from a multimillion dollar NFL contract with the Arizona Cardinals. During his college and professional football career, he was known as an undersized but over achieving strong safety, and in 2002 he quit football to join the US Army, eventually becoming an Army Ranger. His life ended on April 22, 2004 in the desolate mountains of Afghanistan, another victim, but one of the more celebrated victims, of “friendly fire” fratricide, that happens all too commonly in every war.
Empire or Republic: from Joplin, Missouri to Kabul, Afghanistan
James Petras
Introduction
On May 29, 2011, President Obama visited Joplin, Missouri, the site of a devastating tornado that killed 140 and pronounced it a terrible “tragedy”. But were the deaths the inevitable result of ‘natural events’ beyond the human intervention?
Coincidentally the same week Afghan President Karzai condemned the killing of a family of 14 by a NATO fighter bomber, running the total to several hundred civilians killed so far this year and thousands over the decade.
The relation between the civilian deaths in Joplin and Afghanistan raises fundamental questions about the priorities, character and direction of the US Empire and the future of the American republic.
Geography of Tornados
Every year at least 20 major violent tornadoes – with winds exceeding 200 mph – hit “tornado alley” and beyond, including central Texas, northern Iowa, central Kansas, Nebraska, western Ohio, Missouri, Indiana, Mississippi, Louisiana and Alabama. Each and every year at least sixty are killed and several hundred are maimed and injured. This year, through May 2011, over 519 have been killed, 25% of whom were in mobile homes, almost three times as many as those in standard houses.
How China Stiffs Its Creditors
Ian Fletcher
I examined in a previous article the ethical case for America repudiating its financial obligations to China. While considering this tempting possibility—which makes for a better bargaining position if nothing else—we should recall the fact that China has, in fact, repudiated its own financial obligations to other nations.
The key here is that the formerly (and still nominally) communist government in Beijing refused, upon taking control of the country in 1949, to honor the debts incurred by the previous government, the Nationalists of Chiang Kai-shek.
That previous government, like all governments, had a substantial public debt, and just like the U.S. today, much of it was owed to foreigners.
Blockade illegal… collective punishment illegal… interception illegal… The UN called for “unimpeded” humanitarian assistance for Gaza
So why is the Secretary-General trying to scupper latest flotilla plans?
"Intercepting the Mavi Marmara on the high seas... was clearly unlawful." The United Nations said so.
It’s in the report of the UN fact-finding mission set up by the Human Rights Council to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks a year ago on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance to Gaza, during which nine people were killed and many others injured.
Mladic and international justice: Age of deception
Eric Walberg
Mladic’s upcoming trial in The Hague reminds us that international justice is a complicated business, however simple its motives.
Ratko Mladic, the most wanted fugitive of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), was arrested last week after 16 years on the run. As former commander of the Republika Srpska Army from 1992–96, he was indicted by the ICTY following the capture of Srebrenica in July 1995, and charged by ICTY Judge Richard Goldstone with genocide, crimes against humanity and violations of laws and practices of warfare from 1992 to 1995 in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The same indictment charged Radovan Karadzic, president of the Republika Srpska and Mladic’s supreme commander.
States Harming People Most in Need
by Stephen Lendman
In 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation ("welfare reform") Act (PRWORA) passed. Until then, needy households got welfare payments (since 1935) through Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), a program protecting states by sharing costs of increased caseloads during hard times.
Thereafter, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) set five year time limits, allocating fixed block grants to states to administer at their own discretion, putting needy people at risk during economic downturns when little or no additional federal funding is forthcoming.
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