Cartoon of the Day

Rage Against The Machine Reunites

INDIO, California (Reuters) – Militant rap-rock group Rage Against the Machine reunited after a seven-year absence during a California music festival over the weekend, offering a sharpened version of their old message: fight the power.

De la Rocha and his colleagues, guitarist Tom Morello, drummer Brad Wilk and bassist Tim Commerford, treated the crowd to a healthy dose of anti-war and anti-establishment songs such as “Killing in the Name,” “Freedom” and “Guerrilla Radio.”

Full Article

Picture of the Day

NEWPORT, R.I.—Mahalia Jackson, 1958.

Voice of the Day

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity”

– Charles Mingus

Supporting the troops

Thou Shalt Not

Thou Shalt Not

While the peace movement in Portland, Oregon had a peaceful
demonstration marking the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq,
the U.S. War Machine continues its violent madness across Iraq.

Violence probably never solved much, except to defend oneself
against narcissistic aggressors.

If Ho Chi Minh had not picked up the gun, there would still be
American PXs in Vietnam.

It’s admirable being non-violent, as long as it’s someone else’s
entire family who has been dismembered in an explosion.

While America’s Bush commits murder in Iraq everyday,
most of the churches across this country pray for peace,
while never leaving their pews.

Marching for justice is too risky, because they would rather
be on the safe side of law and order.

After all, what would Jesus do?

Law and Order, that’s an interesting phrase.

To think,
America is in Iraq defending its impression of law and order.

Excuse me,
While someone spreads my ashes over the graves of the
Iraqi people.

– Mike Hastie
U.S. Army Medic
Vietnam 1970-71

Tulsa Race Riot Survivors Seek Justice

Survivors of Tulsa Race Riots Seek Help From Congress for a Wrong Never Righted
By Lois Romano

washingtonpost.com

Legendary black historian John Hope Franklin captivated a congressional hearing this week when he eloquently urged members to pass legislation that would clear the way for survivors of the nation’s worst race riots to sue for reparations.

The federal courts have ruled that the statute of limitations has expired for the victims and heirs to sue the city of Tulsa and the state of Oklahoma over losses during 1921 race riots that left more than 200 blacks dead and 400 businesses and countless homes in a prosperous black neighborhood torched.

At the time, the legal system did not allow the black community any legal remedies.

“There was a code of silence that settled” over Tulsa, said Franklin, in explaining why legal action was not brought sooner. Those who survived, he said, “suffered most of their lives through the trauma.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) said the issue merits congressional attention because of evidence suggesting that governmental officials deputized and armed the mob. Harvard legal scholar Charles J. Ogletree, who has been representing the victims, noted that “no one has ever been held responsible criminally or civilly for destroying a 42-block area.”

Ogletree introduced 104-year-old Otis Clark, a survivor of the riots, and asked the committee to provide justice to the remaining survivors before they die. University of Alabama law professor Alfred L. Brophy called the riots a way of keeping the blacks “in their place.” Olivia J. Hooker, six years old during the riots, said her mother told her “your country is shooting at you.”

“This was devastating to me,” she said at the hearing.

Democrats and Republicans on the Judiciary subcommittee for civil rights seemed sympathetic to the arguments. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) arrived at the hearing with her cab driver, who told her he was interested in the legislation. He got an ovation.

Some members asked whether it would be enough to simply pledge that this would never happen again.

Franklin, 92, who was born in Oklahoma and whose father was in Tulsa at the time of the riots, argued that had the riots not occurred, many descendants might be further “along the road of prosperity.”

The prolific and revered educator told of a colossal slight at a private club where he had been celebrating his 1995 White House Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor.

“A white woman came up to me and said, ‘Here, you get my coat,’ ” he recalled. “What was I doing there except to serve her?

” ‘No more’ is not good enough.”

Cartoon of the Day

Picture of the Day

El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico perform at last night’s Billboard Latin Music Awards.

The Size of the Prize