For millions of people, during the election of 2008, Barack Hussein Obama emerged as the ‘peace candidate’ (if only in the imagination), the urbane, educated, cool alternative; indeed, the antidote to the bumbling bellicosity of George W. Bush.
A term and a half later and Bush looks surprisingly refreshing in the rear-view mirror.
For Obama, the 4th U.S. President to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize (after Theodore Roosevelt in 1906; Woodrow Wilson, 1919, and Jimmy Carter, 2002), the lures of war have been almost impossible to resist.
For despite the coveted prize, peace, true peace, has been elusive during his tour of duty in the White House.
Technology, especially drone tech, has made war almost easy. Thus, U.S. drones have bombed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and Pakistan. According to an article on alternet.org, the U.S has launched some 94,000 drone airstrikes in the noted areas. 94,000!*
How many people have been killed, in collateral damage? We don’t know; and we don’t care.
A good round number? About a million. A million!
Let’s call them ‘collateral damage’, OK?
Some peace.
But presidents, once elected, are anxious to exercise their enormous imperial, martial power.
The latest is Obama’s war against a relatively small organization: ‘ISIS’.
ISIS: a group that is a close descendant of a group founded and formed by American, British, and Pakistani intelligence: al-Qaeda.
War–air power, over a ground-based organization.
The Obama administration, trying to finesse this question by promising ‘no boots on the ground’, by unleashing U.S. ferocious air-power, in involved in war — period.
There’s an old saying: ‘War is the sport of kings.’
![Prison Radio is sharing an abbreviated version of a press release covering recent racist incidents at SCI Rockview in PA and the organizing to demand accountability. We are reaching out to people incarcerated at Rockview as well as recently transferred folks, inviting them to call, in hopes of hearing commentaries from them.
Benner Township, PA.-
On November 24th, 2023, imprisoned people at SCI Rockview found two nooses hanging in the CO’s office, displayed visibly for many prisoners to see. When the prisoners asked the staff why the nooses were hung, they were told it was a joke.
By December 4th, prisoners filed a grievance to document what they saw, noting that the hanging of the nooses was “unethical, racially motivated, hateful, [a] deliberate debasement of black inmates" and “unsafe for inmates, staff, [and] the whole prison in general.” In the grievance, they demanded that Sgt. Mosser and CO Richard be fired and investigated for a hate crime, and for CO Kirchner to get therapy. Captain Andrews, the head of security, denied the grievance.
The sergeant and COs are still working in the prison to this day, with no repercussions...
As of March 10th, prisoners have reached out to Pennsylvania officials at the Dept. of Corrections in a letter campaign, sending 100 copies of the grievance. Copies of the letter also were mailed to Governor Shapiro, Senator Fetterman, Senator Street, and various advocacy groups. The demands for relief in the original grievance have now become the platform of demands for this campaign. About 20 of the 100 letters were withheld by the prison.
Activists on the outside are joining forces with prisoners to elevate their demands, flooding the phone lines of DOC offices, assisting with outreach to media, and circulating the stories of prisoners who have found unity in opposition to the facility's virulent institutional racism.
In any other workplace, hanging a noose would be grounds for immediate termination. However, Nicki Paul, the superintendent's assistant and "grievance coordinator" informed the public that they self-investigated their staff and found they did nothing wrong.
Read the full article at i
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