preventive detention

Philly Cops on Killing Spree

A rash of police shootings of Blacks has prompted Philadelphia police commissioner Charles Ramsey to call for a federal investigation of his own department. “This is not a few rogue cops,” said Dr. Tony Monteiro, professor of African American studies at Temple University. “I think Ramsey recognizes that this is institutional and structural.” Mayor Michael Nutter’s political rhetoric “gives sanction to this type of behavior,” said Monteiro, “and there is also the sense that the DA is not going to rigorously pursue killer cops.” All three officials are Black.

Obama = Bush on Secret War Guidelines

Just like his predecessor, President Obama wages illegal wars behind a screen of secret “guidances” and classified interpretations of the law, said Coleen Rowley, a former FBI agent and noted whistleblower. If Obama is serious about eventually ending America’s perpetual wars, he must begin by making his war-making guidelines public. Otherwise, said Rowley, “he doesn’t have a leg to stand on, after giving that speech, for why he’s so secretive,” said Crowley.

Obama Big Liar

Barack Obama’s portrayal of himself as a morally conflicted commander is pure play-acting, said Chris Hedges, the former war correspondent and complainant in a suit against Obama’s preventive detention legislation. “It’s called the Big Lie,” said Hedges. “It worked pretty well in Nazi Germany and it’s working pretty well, here.” U.S. culture “is utterly awash in lies and very sophisticated forms of propaganda,” said Hedges. “The snuffing out of the First Amendment is pretty far advanced, if we are not already there.”

Obama’s Killing Touch

Black America’s long legacy of opposition to U.S. military adventures abroad “has been destroyed under Obama,” said Black Agenda Report senior columnist Margaret Kimberley. African Americans “see everything through a prism of protecting him. There are now 30 million Secret Service agents in the Black community who think they have to throw themselves in front of Obama and defend him from his critics,” Kimberley told Solomon Comissiong, producer of the documentary film The More Effective Evil: The Impact of Barack Obama on the Black Community and Humanity. “It’s killed Black politics.”

McKinney Book Details Black Caucus Subservience to Pelosi

In her new book, Ain’t Nothing Like Freedom, former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney says she was “shocked” to discover that “my friend, my buddy, my brother” Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. was “an FBI informant.” The veteran lawmaker, who ran for president in 2008 on the Green Party ticket, recalled the Congressional Black Caucus’s subservience to House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi. When orders came down to avoid ANSWER Coalition anti-war demonstrations, McKinney was “the only one who showed up.” Democrats were forbidden to take part in Republican hearings on Katrina – and all but McKinney complied.

Cuban Five Trial “Rigged,” Says Gonzalez

Rene Gonzalez, the Cuban Five member who served his prison sentence and was allowed to return to Cuba for his father’s funeral, said he and his comrades were convicted in “a rigged trial, which took place in an atmosphere of fear.” The five Cuban intelligence agents infiltrated Cuban exile groups that were launching terror attacks from southern Florida. Instead of arresting the exiles, the U.S. charged the Cuban Five with spying. Four remain behind bars. “The American people, who are supposed to have been the victims of our ‘crimes,’ are not aware of the details of the trial,” said Gonzalez.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by BAR executive editor Glen Ford

The president's men drib and drab out their rationale for how President Obama decides which Earthlings live or die. A newly leaked “white paper” claims the president can transfer his killing authority to unnamed, unranked “informed, high level” officials. Thus, the people-killing process “is whatever the president or the nearest 'informed, high-level official of the U.S. government' says it is.