Powerful Message in Art

This picture was painted by a street artist named Emanuel Alaniz and it is called "No Child is Born a Criminal". I really like this artists work, and I especially like this piece in particular because it is really strong. It really makes you think. I personally think about the things that mold a childs mind on his way to manhood, things like the media, family, friends, school, community, surroundings.

Peer pressure is another thing that comes to mind when I see this picture. Is this young man being coerced into doing what he is doing? Does he really want to do what he is doing? Does he really want to be what he is about to become?

I have heard the saying about how it takes a village to raise a child, and I truly believe that, but there are other things that should not be so influential in his upbringing e.g. the media, violent video games. Their is certain propaganda out there waiting to see who will fall for the trap, and who can be wrapped up by the system, they can later be just a number in the system.

What Democracy?

It is so sad to see the community of Ferguson Missouri suffering like this, while no one speaks out for them or comes to their aid. It is sad to see that some people still get no justice. I find it so shocking that an unarmed kid can get shot 6 times and have his body left on the street for almost 5 hours. That kind of thing does not happen to white kids in the U.S., you only hear stories like this happening to people of color. I find it so sad.

Elu the Poet - Workers Revolution

O T Da Detonator ft. Elu the Poet - Freedom of Speech

THE FIRST THING

Before we do anything, we first have to free our minds. There has been a number done on each and everyone of us, and we must come to terms with that, and we must remove the poisonous ideas that have been inplanted in our heads. We must become more human. We have to speak up for those that suffer from injustice. Life is precious, and each one of us is special, and we can all help each other, but first we have to learn to love one another and show compassion for each other.

We are all entitled to the same things.
We are all equal.
We all deserve the best.



(I have included two quotes I find interesting regarding the subject)

 

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. ...We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. ...In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons...who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
― Edward L. Bernays, Propaganda

 

• "Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
  Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
  Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."            - Hermann Göring

Free Russell Maroon Shoatz!

Russell Schoatz was born in Philadelphia Pennsylvania on the 23^rd of August, 1943. He is a former member of the Black Unity Council and later Black Panther Party. He has been imprisoned since 1972 and is being charged with murder. He has spent much of his incarceration in Solitary Confinement, although it is said that he has now, at the age of 70, been released to the general population.

He is accused of being a member of a group who is said to have attacked a police station and murdered a police officer, and wounded another officer. It is thought to have been a retaliatory action, for an African American youth that was killed by a police officer. Russell Shoatz has twice escaped from jail and this earned him the nickname „Maroon“.

He has a published book of his writings it is called „Maroon the Implacable: The Collected Writings of Russell Maroon Shoaz“. I read the book and highly recommend it, while Mr. Shoatz offers a history lesson from a different perspective. I feel that there is not enough proof to pin this crime on this man, and I feel this man has been incarcerated for way too long, and that he should be allowed to return to his 7 children and grand children immediately.

Contact Russell Shoatz:

RUSSELL MAROON SHOATZ
#AF-3855
SCI Graterford
PO Box 244
Graterford, PA 19426 – 0246

Free Leonard Peltier!

The American Indian Movement or A.I.M. was formed in 1968 by Native Americans so that they could fight for freedoms and for a different way of life. Native people were tired of having their kids being taken away and sent to boarding schools where they were indoctrinated in the white man's ways, and they were tired of over 300 years of lies, and broken promises. These people wanted their own rights to choose and to live the way they wished to live, on their land.

Leonard Peltier was born on September 12^th, 1944 in Grand Forks North Dakota. He is a member of the American Indian Movement and has been incarcerated now for over 38 years. Leonard Peltier is being charged with the deaths of two F.B.I. agents during a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation on June 26^th 1975. If you study the case you will see that their are many serious violations and that Mr. Leonard Peltier did not get a fair trial, and that there are many things that just don't make sense.

What where those F.B.I. Agents doing on the reservation in plain clothes and unmarked cars chasing a car matching one belonging to a man named Jimmy Eagle? The whole affair is said to be regarding some alledged stolen cowboy boots. This man Jimmy Eagle could have easily mistaken the men chasing him for someone out to hurt him.

One thing to keep in mind is that there had been many shootings on the reservation at Pine Ridge , and they were being carried out by the reservations Elected Tribal Leader Richard (Dickie) Wilson's Goons (Guardians of Oglala Nation) who had been shooting up the homes of American Indian Movement members and other native people who they thought were affiliated with the group, or helping them in any way. Sixty people had died at the hands of the GOONS.

Soon after shooting broke out, and after the shooting had stopped, American Indian Movement member Joe Stuntz and two F.B.I. Agents Ronald A. Williams and Jack R. Coler had been killed.

It is tragic that anyone died on that sad day. I think it is tragic that we cannot live in peace, I would like to send my condolences to the families of the men who lost their lives on that day. I also believe that Mr. Peltier did not get a fair trial and that he has been in jail way too long. I feel that he should be let out immediately so he can be reunited with his family and friends.

On a personal note, I really do not like jails, I do not like what they do to people, and I really do not like what they do to the families of the incarcerated beings. I have personally seen people I love taken away, and put into jail. I have personally seen people crying out due to the pain the separation from their loved one is causing them. I think that we need to find a better way. I think that many men in jail are innocent or are there for some non sense reasons, and people may also be incarcerated for having been tried by racist juries, and not their peers, or being pressured into signing plea bargain agreements that trick them into pleeding guilty even when they are innocent. I think this is an attack against the poor and the colored.

Contact Leonard Peltier:

LEONARD PELTIER #89637-132

USP COLEMAN I
P.O. BOX 1033
COLEMAN, FL 33521

Scrutinizing My Writing - Poem

See, they are still laughing

scrutizing my writing

see your Mama

get hit too many times

and ask me why am I so violent

ask me why my father left

and never came back

why the bottle over the years

has been more of a dad

why my Grandma died

and never saw me make it

why the only time I kissed her

she was under a flower arrangement

see I don't owe it to myself

I owe it to my family

that is why I take offence

when fake emcees want to battle me

I am mentally disturbed

I swear something aint balanced

if my body is a temple

than that crackhouse must be a palace

and I can still recall the early years

I am only 4 years old Pops

why you giving me beer

throwing bottles at my Mama

always fighting

everytime he drank

he'd tend to get violent

but check it my heart no longer

holds a place

because where was he at

when I was smoking base

when steps was beating me up

socking my face

when I had nowhere to go

when I was locked in a cage

and then these enemies flashing

throwing up their sets

see I don't even bang

but I am caught up in this mess

Life - song / poem, verse 1

Everyday guns blast

and bullets fly

innocent bystander
and the kid was only 5

his mother mourns his death

crying everyday

now there are candles and flowers

on the curb where his body laid

in hopes my little brother 

and my little sisters

won't grow up 

in a world that is so viscious

I will die for my family

I am their protector

I will be their knight

evil harm interceptor

battlefield Earth

Tournament life

every man, woman and child

is signed up for this ride

little boy don't cry

Mama did not abandon you

what are you going to tell him

that Mama had better stuff to do

need to stop lying and face the truth

and if the end is near

just how saved are me or you

will I see the light

or will I be too late

with the rest of the sinners

outside Heaven's Gates

why despised

lost in a world of lies

you ever broke down and cried

bcause it hurt inside

alone in the dark

and I can hear the echoes

of the past

just telling me to let go

so how do you expect a future

when destiny is wrote

will I live to see my children

or will I get smoked

where is the antidote

because we are dying in need

and no one is going to help you

just watch you bleed

 

Free Mumia Abu Jamal!

In this world today, when we perhaps we would need it most, there is a lack of good people. People with good morals, and people that are not afraid to stand up for what they believe in. One of the few good people we have left is Mumia Abu Jamal. Mumia has been behind bars for 32 years and is still standing up for us. He is still fighting the fight. We need more people like Mumia Abu Jamal if we are going to have a chance.

Mumia Abu Jamal was born Wesley Cook on April 24^th, 1954 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. When he was 14 years old he joined the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party. He got involved and worked with the party newspaper. but later left the party in 1970.

After leaving the B.P.P. he became a journalist, and even reached the height of becoming president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists.

As a journalist in Philadelphia, Mumia heard about this group of people who called themselves the Move Organization Mumia learned more and more about this group and was later really interested in the Move Organization and John Africa and he kept reporting about the Organization and their actions.

After a while Mumia found it hard to get work because some considered his stories too provacative or simply not what the establishment wanted reported. So Mumia in order to support his family started to drive a cab at night. One night Mumia was robbed, and after that he started carrying protection. One night while Mumia was driving his cab, he saw a police officer beating up his brother, and he got out of the car to see if he could calm the situation. This is when Mumia was shot, and then shot again. On that night, December 9^th 1981, police officer Daniel Faulkner lost his life.

A woman claimed that she saw Mumia shoot the officer. When other police got to the scene they did not really follow protocol, and Mumia was taken to a faraway hospital and roughed up by the police somemore before a doctor intervened and Mumia was finally treated.

The investigation that followed was a joke, the trail was strictly corrupt, and Judge Sabo was a racist. I used to think that innocent men did not go to jail, but now after studying many cases I believe many men and women in jails today are innocent.

Veronica Jones the woman that originally claimed to have seen Mumia commit the shooting, more recently changed her story and said she was pressured by police to testify against Mumia. There is even a man named Arnold R. Beverly that says and signed a sworn affidavit, stating that he shot the police officer, but that does not seem to matter to them.

Mumia was on Death Row until his death sentence was changed in 2012 to a life sentence without the possibility of parole . He is now 60 years old and has been in jail for 32 years. This man is not a violent man. No violent man would care this much about the world, He has published various books while being behind bars, and has over a thousand radio broadcasts. One can only imagine all the good he could get done if he was let out, I think he could make the world a better place. After more than three decades behind bars, they should let him out so he can return to his family immediately.

Write to Mumia:

Mumia Abu Jamal

#AM 8335

SCI Mahanoy

301 Morea Road

Frackville, PA 17932

Free the Move 9

      The Move Organization is a group founded in 1972 by John Africa. Members of the group adopted the surname Africa. They were a group that was very much in touch with nature and all its beings and worked tobetter their lives and help those around them with their problems including helping addicts fight addictions. They were a group that had enough with the modern day destructive society, and just wanted a different life and a different way. They were a group that fought for justice for all living things. This group would avidly demonstrate and would quickly protest when they disagreed with something, or thought something was inhumane. 

     Through the years the Move Organization continued to protest when they felt it necessary, protesting things such as animal cruelty by demonstrating outside Zoo's. Due to these demonstrations many run ins with law enforcement followed, and it got so bad that at one point fearing for their lives, Move members decided to arm themselves. After a raid on their home in which a police officer lost his life, 9 members of Move were incarcerated

and they are known as the Move 9. One member has died in prison and the remaining 8 have all served over 30 years in prison. 

      It is believed that police officer James J. Ramp who was shot in the back of the head and killed during the firefight, was accidentally fataly shot by his own men, in what is commonly called a case of „Friendly Fire“. What reaffirms this notion is that it is believed that the members of the Move Organization did not fire a single shot during the massive attack on their home.

     I have read and seen video clips about many injustices that happened to this group, and no where was law enforcement punished for its misdeeds. I have read about law enforcement beatings causing 4 miscarriages and the death of one baby boy who was only 3 weeks old when he was killed in an altercation with police. No one was punished more any of these misdeeds, nor for the beating of Delbert Africa that was caught on tape, nor for the bombing of the home on Osage Avenue in Philadelphia on May 13th 1985. No one is doing time except the Move 9. 

     

                                                 Write to the Move 9

Charles "Chuck" Sims Africa #AM-4975

Delbert Orr Africa #AM-4985
William "Phil" Phillips Africa #AM-4984
1000 Follies Road
Dallas, PA 18612

Debbie Sims Africa #OO6307

Janet Holloway Africa #OO6308
Janine Phillips Africa #OO6309
451 Fullerton Ave.
Cambridge Springs, PA 16403-1238

Edward "Eddie" Goodman Africa #AM-4974
301 Morea Road
Frackville, PA 17932

Michael Davis Africa #AM-4973
P.O. Box 244
Graterford, PA 19426-0246

Free Oscar Lopez Rivera!

I recently finished reading the book“Between Torture and Resistance“, by Oscar Lopez Rivera. It is a book made up of many of Mr. Lopez Rivera's letters and it is a really great book. It is edited by Luis Nieves Falcon, and has a great forward by, Archbishop Desmond Tutu – who is also pushing for Oscar's immediate release. I believe Oscar Lopez Rivera probably would have released a book a lot sooner, but in the mid 1980's, five years worth of his writings were taken from him and they were never recovered.

Oscar Lopez Rivera was born on January 6^th 1943 in San Sebastian Puerto Rico. He is 71 years old today, and has been imprisoned for the last 32 years.

He is currently being held at Terre Haute Federal Prison in Indiana U.S.A on a Seditious Conspiracy charge – meaning that there is no proof he did anything he is accussed of. This is the same reason Nelson Mandela was incarcerated for 27 years in South Africa.

Mr. Lopez Rivera came to the United States when he was fourteen years old. Upon becoming an adult he did a lot of good work for his community that really bettered the lives of his people. He was involved in projects like helping start the Spanish Coalition for Housing. He also involved in starting the first Latino Cultural Center in the state of Illinois. Helping launch the LARES (Latin American Recruitment Education Services) Program, and he even helped establish a school (Dr. Pedro Albizo Campos High School).

I have talked to many people about Oscar, and the general overview seems to be that people agree he his a Political Prisoner, and that he has been incarcerated for too long and he should be released.

While in prison Mr. Rivera has been a model prisoner, and has earned 104 College and University credits. I am one of the many who personally believe this man is innocent of all charges, and I believe that if he was freed he could help society in many ways like he did before and he would continue to be a model citizen and a wonderful human being. 

If you can take the time please write to President Barack Obama, and ask him to release Mr. Lopez Rivera, and let him rejoin his family immediately. Here is the address:

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20500

If you would like to write to Mr. Lopez Rivera here is his address:

Oscar Lopez Rivera

#87651-024

FCI Terre Haute

PO Box 33

Terre Haute, IN 47808

Tonight I Cry Blood - Poem

I raced out the door

spitting out blood

all I heard were screams

from the woman I love

young tears witnessed

domestic imperfection

why has the outcast

grown to be so reckless

the black sheep

the one that got away

never really returned

from the last time I went out to play

puzzle without closure

blade with no sharpness

star without exposure

pacifist gone heartless

am I priceless art, or am I scribble

I am everything you hate

from the time I was little

played for keeps

scrapping on the street

till we bleeding on concrete

got to cut out

cause I can hear the sirens

street life, drugs, alcohol, and violence

damn, I was my mother's first born

now I look at myself 

as the cause to why her hearts torn

my mind is sick

my heart is worse

angels crying in the heavens

cannot describe the hurt

lights flashing

lives crashing

purple moon, violet skies

life hurts, and everybody dies

dreams and promises

I tried my best

but they blew up in my face 

and punctured my chest

I played with the current

now I am drowning in the flood

with everything to lose

tonight I cry blood

It aint alright now - Poem

Listen to the sounds 

of the sirens outside

who said life was fair

and why did that boy have to die

every night on the same steps his Mama cries

and she don't know whether pray

or curse the bloody skies

Baby Sis crying

saying she don't want to live

just a baby and already

I see the anger in that kid

it aint safe no more

bullets flying like confetti

all around me adversaries

got me staying ever ready

and I can't hold myself back

I just want to avenge

in church they teach peace

on the streets its revenge

laws pass and still some laws

stay unwritten

I'll take the law into my own hands

when no one will listen

Mama I am sorry for what I do

and how I live

it is too late for me now

save your other kids

I am a lost cause

from the 1st time I left the house

like the man on the corner

it aint alright now