The Southern Socialist
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“If I am right, then (religious fundamentalists) will not go to Heaven, because there is no Heaven. If they are right, then they will not go to...”
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sexual assaults in the military - ‘abuse and a culture of impunity persist. It is time for fundamental change’ .. (from this article)
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Angelina Jolie had a double mastectomy, in case you hadn’t heard. How dare she remove those ticking time bombs from her chest,...
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FBI to add Assata Shakur to Most Wanted Terrorist List; Doubles reward for her capture to $2 million
May 2, 2013Forty years ago today, the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper led to the imprisonment and conviction of Black Panther Party member & revolutionary Assata Shakur.
Assata currently lives in exile in Cuba.
To commemorate this “anniversary,” the FBI will announce today that Assata Shakur has been added to the Most Wanted Terrorist List; and that reward for her capture has doubled, from $1 million to $2 million.
Why the Assata Shakur case still strikes a chord
Published in 1987, the autobiography chronicles Shakur’s emergence as an activist at the center of America’s racial conflict. She ultimately affiliated with the Black Panther Party and the black liberation movement in the 1960s. Her case and her bouts with the criminal justice system recall all of the angst and murkiness within which the battles for black freedom were fought in the mid-20th century: brutal prison conditions, falsified evidence, conflicting statements, frenzied media panic, and violent racists posing as officers of the law.
In spite of these at times unlawful and regularly dehumanizing experiences, Assata Shakur has been living in exile with asylum in Cuba since 1984.
‘She Who Struggles’
Assata – whose name means “she who struggles,” was implicated in the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper on May 2 1973. Today marks 40 years since that day.
While little detail is available as to how Ms. Shakur was ferreted away to freedom from the maximum security wing of the Clinton Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey in 1979, the “facts” of her case, or rather, the state’s case against her are shaky at best. By her supporters’ accounts they are institutionally designed to falsely prosecute and imprison her.
For more info on her case and details of her experiences go here.
As recently as 2005, the U.S. government issued a one million dollar bounty for information leading to her capture and/or extradition from Cuba. Her name, as well as her government name, Joanne Chesimard, has been on the FBI’s most wanted list since before most Americans had ever heard of Osama Bin Laden.
’20th Century Escaped Slave’
Assata refers to herself as “a 20th century escaped slave” and her experiences with the criminal justice system and the verve with which the U.S. government prosecuted and persecuted her suggest that this reference is not exaggerated in the slightest.
She has occasionally given interviews and or written from somewhere inside of Cuba, but it is unlikely that our government will ever be able to come to terms with its own role in the violent racial conflicts of its immediate past, and thus unlikely that Assata will ever be able to live freely in her country of origin – these United States.
Assata’s status, the government’s case against, her and the moment out which all of this emerged, are signal reminders to many of us that not so long ago, members of the Black Panther Party were considered the greatest threat to the United States government; that revolutionary activists like Assata Shakur, were considered this nation’s most feared terrorists.
We can only hope that as the fight against terror creeps through the beginnings of a new century, that this nation will fight to uphold the tenets of justice above and beyond its xenophobic and racialized history.
Here is a free e-book version of Assata’s autobiography. Read & share this with everyone you know. Everyone should know Assata’s story & about her struggle.
(via silas216)
IMAGINE THAT you’re an 8-year-old child. Your family receives welfare. Maybe your mom is a single mother who works a low-wage job (or more than one low-wage job) with no benefits. Your family may not be able to make the rent this month, and there’s not much left in the house to eat. Your family gets food stamps, but they don’t stretch very far.
Now imagine you—a hungry, worried kid—were told that if you don’t get good enough grades at school, the little bit of government assistance your family receives could be snatched away.
That could soon be the reality for schoolchildren in Tennessee. Currently, a bill known as HB261/SB132 is making its way through the state legislature. If passed, it would mandate that if a child fails a grade and their parents don’t attend two parent-teacher conferences, the family’s Temporary Assistance to Needy Family (TANF)/Families First benefits could be cut by up to 30 percent.
Some 52,800 Tennessee families currently receive state TANF benefits. The maximum TANF benefit is $185 a month. Struggling families could see that cut to $129.50—a significant drop in for those struggling to make ends meet. Tennessee already ties welfare benefits to a child’s school attendance.
Supporters of the legislation say there should be nothing stopping parents from attending a parent-teacher conference. But that’s hard to do for low-wage workers who frequently don’t get paid vacation or sick days, or any sort of flexibility in their schedules.
In a comment on a petition against the bill organized by the group Clergy for Justice, Melissa Jennings, a former welfare recipient, explained her own struggle to feed her kids:
I have been on assistance since I was laid off three years ago and chose to go back to school. If not for that help, my children and I would have starved. I have not been through a drive-through or eaten in a restaurant in over two years…My kids don’t get to go to McDonald’s or Dairy Queen, but that assistance has provided me the only way I have to “treat” my kids, and cook them healthy meals…This assistance has allowed me to allow them to “fit in” [at school] and take part in what is asked of them.
Now I am graduating in one month, as a provider to the community, and will more than pay back my share of the benefits given to my family. It has been a needed and appreciated stepping-stone for me, and not everyone abuses the system. I will gladly pay my share of taxes to help support those in need, because if my fellow community had not done the same for me, what would my kids have done?
A former teacher who also signed the petition noted, “I have seen firsthand what lack of food does to a child in an educational setting. When you are hungry, you cannot learn. It is just that simple.
(via government-hookers)
