Georgia Schreiber & Charles Minster: Prison Focus and Pelican Bay SHU

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV Show, January 25, 2008.

Our first guest is Georgia Schreiber, Board Chair of California Prison Focus (CPF). Formerly known as The Pelican Bay Information Project, CPF was founded shortly after the supermax prison opened in 1989. CPF staff work with prisoners and their family members to expose human rights abuses with a larger vision of closing the SHU and ultimately abolishing California's racist, genocidal prison system (see www.prisons.org).

Also joining us will be Charles Minster, a retired trade union activist and supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee (www.partisandefense.org). Both activists have recently visited political prisoner, Hugo 'Yogi' Pinell, now enduring his 18th year in SHU, his 38th in solitary, and his 44th in California prisons.

For more information: http://www.hugopinell.org/

Jennifer Friedenbach: War on the Homeless

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, April 18, 2008.

Originally from Redwood City, our guest Jennifer Friedenbach has worked about 18 years on homeless and poverty issues, including welfare rights, housing, homeless prevention, healthcare, disability, and human and civil rights. For five years, Jennifer worked at San Mateo County's Hunger and Homeless Action Coalition moving from administrative assistant to Director. She started work in San Francisco 13 years ago with the Coalition.


Jennifer has co-authored a number of reports including Locked Out! The Voices of People with Mental Illness, a 1999 study citing bureaucratic blockage of access to San Francisco's mental health system for people in crisis; Housing First for Families, which documents the impact of homelessness on children; and Shelter Shocked, which presents a statistical study of human rights abuses in San Francisco's shelter system. Jennifer sits on the Implementation Council for the Ten Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, and was a founding member of the People's Budget Collaborative, which redirects City funding toward supporting poor people's programs in San Francisco.Last year, Jennifer was among 11 San Franciscans honored with the Women Making History Award.

Raymond Nat Turner and Zigi Lowenberg: UpSurge!

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, Feb. 22, 2008

Our Guests will be the founders of UpSurge!, a Bay Area band with a compelling mix of jazz, poetry and politics, featuring Raymond Nat Turner and Zigi Lowenberg - who chant, shout, sing, whisper, and speak their message against oppression and for community while transporting the audience on a high-spirited liberating journey.

Voted 'Best of the East Bay in 2003′, the group's ensemble includes piano, bass, drums, saxophone, and trombone. Their recordings feature special guests and can be found on their websitewww.upsurgejazz.com along with listings for their upcoming gigs.

Dennis Cunningham: The FBI and the Resistance

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, May 2, 2008

Our guest, Attorney Dennis Cunningham, established the People's Law Office in Chicago from which he and young Attorney Jeffrey Haas conducted a landmark civil rights case ultimately winning a large settlement for the Panthers' families -- although Chicago's killer cops were never criminally charged.

Dennis continued doing civil rights cases over these 40 years, during which he also worked on the long-running class action for the prisoners who rebelled and survived the massacre at New York's Attica State Prison in 1971, and the Earth First case resulting from the 1990 bombing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney in Oakland, among many other defenses of protesters and victims of police misconduct, brutality and/or murder.

RELATED EPISODE: Dennis Cunningham on the Attica Prison Uprising (Sept. 12, 2008)

On Racism and Unity

On Racism and Unity

By Kiilu Nyasha

May 18, 2010

I am so tired of hearing the static figure propagated by the Zionists -- and practically everyone else in the world – that six million Jews were the exclusive victims of Adolph Hitler’s Nazism. The racist white supremacist ideology of 1930s Germany was very particular. White people had to be Arian, so-called “pure bloods” and able-bodied. Therefore, the darker Jews, Italians, and Roma (Gypsies), among others, as well as homosexual and disabled people, were also targets for extermination. If Jews, Italians and Gypsies couldn’t make it, imagine how Africans were treated. Do you think that any Africans who happened to be in Germany at that time survived the holocaust for a minute?

We are currently witnessing the rise of a pernicious, white supremacist backlash (I believe is not only a reaction to Obama, but the reduction of the White population to a minority.) evidenced by some 30,000 skinhead and KKK white nationalists on the move, the far right, and the growing, right-wing tea party. They talk about taking their country back and honoring their leaders like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson (slavers); claiming they built this country and it belongs to white people, not all these niggers, gooks, and wetbacks.

The blatantly racist Arizona legislation, as well as the banning of ethnic studies in its public schools, is an attempt to once again legalize segregation and racist oppression. Combine that with the dramatic rise in the incarceration rate of Black and Brown prisoners throughout this country, especially in Arizona, Texas and California; the privatization of prisons, and the cradle-to- prison pipeline our children travel, not to mention the cold-blooded execution of Oscar Grant on New Year’s Day 2009, and we see a picture of White racist repression and genocide.

Add to that a nearly all male, lily-White congress that, were you to photograph it, would find few dark faces among 535 politicians (supposedly representing the American people); and we see the re-emergence of an even more insidious era of racial and sexist oppression, repression, slavery-behind-the-walls (sanctioned by the Constitution), and deadly poverty on the outside.

The level of unemployment is rising sky high, and Black people have traditionally been the last hired, first fired. No doubt at least some individuals are opting for survival by going to prison to keep a roof over their heads and several meals a day – especially in cold climates.

Those of us who fought so hard in the 1960s for change, revolutionary change, are watching the clock turn backwards. It’s heartbreaking to see the struggle for ethnic studies, for example, being demolished in Arizona; textbooks being rewritten to exclude and obfuscate our true histories and herstories. Resegregation, neo-slavery, genocidal homelessness and poverty, a health-care system for the rich, quality education priced off the table, unaffordable child care with no safety nets for parents, ubiquitous junk food, and the removal of practically every healthy form of recreation from the reach of everyday people are the very things we tried so hard to prevent, to remedy, to change or transform.

It’s even more heartbreaking to see the promise of a multi-cultural, international community living in harmony (the objective our rainbow coalition initiated) going down the drain with the rise of both Black and White nationalism. But I should add Brown, Red and Yellow nationalism that likewise divides us.

We have a choice.

We can allow this thing to degenerate into a race war that would result in endless revenge killings and interminable civil war.

Or we can struggle to make friends with folks who don’t look exactly like ourselves, might play different music, eat different food, or speak with an accent of a different kind. Unless each and every one of us begins to deal with our prejudices, intolerance, bias and/or racism, nothing will change except to get worse. Moreover, we must stop being such passive liberals who say nothing when we hear racist remarks spoken right in our faces. We must develop intolerance for racism, but be careful to cure the sickness to save the patient (Mao). I don’t believe anyone really escapes the effects of a society steeped in racist white supremacy. Those who claim exemption from any degree of the sickness (racism) are likely in denial even to themselves.

Mao TseTung noted: “The unification of our country, the unity of our people and the unity of our various nationalities are the basic guarantees of the sure triumph of our cause.”

“…[I]t is only through the unity of the whole class and the whole nation that the enemy can be defeated and the national and democratic revolution be accomplished.”

We Blacks have cringed at the idea of calling ourselves “Americans;” in fact, we’ve abhorred the label, some of us refusing to use it at all. However, whenever we leave these shores, we quickly discover in foreign countries that we are Americans like it or not. Moreover, I came to the conclusion, only recently, that when we exclude ourselves from being American, we’re really being superficial and escaping responsibility for our vital role, our historic role in moving this country forward. Not only can no other group claim to have labored harder to build this country, no other group can claim to have fought longer or harder in the forefront of progressive and revolutionary struggles than Black folks. In fact, if there were one ethnic group that deserves special tribute for its national contribution, Black people would comprise the honorees.

It’s socially scientific to observe that the most oppressed will lead any revolution since they have the least to lose and the most to gain from a change.

I hope we will come to our collective senses soon, before it’s too late. All indications point to time running out…

People of the world unite!

Raymond A. Rock, III and C.C. Campbell-Rock: Gulf Coast Injustice

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, February 29, 2008.

Our guests will be Katrina survivors Raymond A. Rock, III and wife, C.C. Campbell-Rock, college-educated activists and servants of the people. Prior to Katrina, Rock, a carpenter, and C.C., a journalist, built an educational justice movement in LouisianaParents for Educational Justice, challenging the states testing program. They also produced and co-hosted Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Peace, a live TV program, for four years. Since their arrival in the Bay Area, the couple has advocated for Gulf Coast Justice and the Right to Return, participated in a theater production about Katrina survivors experiences, and Rock has written Katrina in the Hood. Parents of two teens and two adults, they are in the midst of rebuilding their home in New Orleans.

Raj Patel: The Global Food System

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, November 7, 2008.

Our guest, Raj Patel is a writer, activist and academic. He has degrees from the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics and Cornell University, has worked for the World Bank and WTO and been tear-gassed on four continents protesting against them. Hes currently a visiting scholar at UC Berkeleys Center for African Studies, an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and a fellow at The Institute for Food and Development Policy, also known as Food First.

He was recently invited to share his views on the global food crisis in testimony to the US House Financial Services Committee and is an Advisor to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food. In addition to numerous scholarly publications, he regularly writes for The Guardian, and has contributed to the LA Times, NY Times.com, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Mail on Sunday, and The Observer. His first book is Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System and he is the author of the new book The Value of Nothing: How to Reshape Market Society and Redefine Democracy.

www.rajpatel.org

Elizabeth Martinez: 500 Years of Chicana Women's History

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, July 11, 2008.

Kiilu's guest is Elizabeth Betita Martinez, legendary Chicana activist, historian, lecturer, and author of six books. She is currently the Director of the Institute for MultiRacial Justice in San Francisco. Betita is also one of the select international women nominated for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.

Her latest book, 500 Years of Chicana Women's History was just published (2008) in a bilingual, paperback edition w/more than 800 photos and illustrations. She also wrote the acclaimed bilingual volume 500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, which became the basis for a video she co-directed. Her other books include De Colores Means All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century (South End Press), Letters from Mississippi (re-issued in 2002), and The Youngest Revolution: A Personal Report on Cuba.

Mike Wong: Resistance to U.S. Wars

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, December 7, 2007.

Our guest, Mike Wong, was born and raised in San Francisco, and became a soldier during the Vietnam War. He was very influenced by the anti-war movement. So when he received Viet Nam orders, he went AWOL, then turned himself in to the Presidio stockade with his lawyer, pleaded guilty to AWOL, and attempted to press a limited conscientious objector case. The Army turned him down, and put him back on Viet Nam orders. Mike escaped to Canada and lived in exile for five years. He returned after the war, pleaded guilty to Long Term AWOL, and received an Undesirable Discharge.

He later earned a Masters degree in Social Work, and has been a social worker for 30 years, as well as war resistance activist. Mike was featured in the movie "Sir! No Sir!" and the anthology, "Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace."

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/

Jeffrey Blankfort: The Zionist Occupation of Palestine

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, December 21, 2007.

Jeffrey Blankfort was raised in a Jewish non-Zionist family. He produces radio programs on three stations and has written extensively on the Middle East. He was formerly the editor of the Middle East Labor Bulletin and co-founder of the Labor Committee of the Middle East. His photographs of the Anti-Vietnam War and Black Panthers Movements have appeared in numerous books and magazines.

In February 2002, he won a lawsuit against the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which was found to have had a vast spying operation directed against American citizens opposed to Israel’s policies in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza and to the apartheid policies of the government of South Africa and passing on information to both governments. He is currently writing a new book about The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

--We apologize that we are missing some footage from the beginning of this episode.

Ida McCray: Women Prisoners

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, May 9, 2008

Our guest is Ida McCray, Founder and Director of Families With A Future (FWAF). A former political prisoner, mother and grandmother, Ida formed this network in recognition of the pain of separation children and incarcerated parents suffer. FWAF provides support and transportation to facilitate family visits, and works with women released from prison to help them re-enter their communities.

http://familieswithafuture.com/

Harold Taylor: The San Francisco Eight

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, April 25, 2008

Our guest is Harold Taylor, of Panama City, Florida, one of the elders known as the San Francisco 8 who was freed on bail last September. Harold was one of the organizers of the San Diego chapter of the Black Panther Party. Father of five children, Harold worked for the U.S. Air Force at Tyndal, and as a hi-voltage journeyman lineman for over 15 years. In his own words, "In 1971, two brothers and I were set up by the FBI. We didn't learn about COINTELPRO until years later. In 1973 I was arrested in New Orleans and was beaten and tortured for several days. in 2003 the detectives that were responsible for my torture came to my house to try and question me. I have not been the same since."

EDITOR'S NOTE: Currently, as of April 2010, Cisco Torres is the only member of the SF8 still facing charges. Please come to his next court date on Monday April 19: 8:00 a.m. demonstration; 9:00 a.m. court. SF Court Building: 850 Bryant Street (btw 6th and 7th streets), San Francisco. For more information, go to www.freethesf8.org.

Charles Bourdon: The San Francisco Eight

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, February 8, 2008

Our guest is Charles F. Bourdon, Attorney for Francisco Torres of the San Francisco Eight. Collectively, the SF8 are a group of community activists who have devoted their lives to serving the people and making a difference. Richard Brown (65), for example, has worked for decades in the Fillmore District mentoring youth; including 20 years as a Program Coordinator at Ella Hill Hutch Community Center and is fondly referred to as the Mayor. While conspiracy charges have been dropped against Brown and four other defendants, effectively freeing Richard ONeal, lawyers will argue in court on Feb. 7 to have the same charges dropped against the remaining three defendants.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Cisco Torres is the only member of the SF8 still facing charges. Please come to his next court date on Monday April 19: 8:00 a.m. demonstration; 9:00 a.m. court. SF Court Building: 850 Bryant Street (btw 6th and 7th streets), San Francisco. For more information, go to www.freethesf8.org.

Health Care Deform

WELFARE DEFORM – HEALTH CARE DEFORM

By Kiilu Nyasha

“Fascism has temporarily succeeded under the guise of reform.” (George L. Jackson/Blood In My Eye)

Clinton’s welfare reform is evident everywhere in the faces of homeless women and children, not to mention men. Since his reform virtually gutted the safety net that once kept mothers with dependent children at least housed and fed.

As you may recall, the Clintons’ health care plan turned into a huge windfall with profits and bonuses galore for the HMOs and Pharmaceuticals.

Now, the Obama health care plan, with Clinton assistance no doubt, is another boon for the insurance companies – heads they win; tails they win!

Fyi, I’m a recipient of Medi-Medi (State and Federal insurance, Medicaid or Medi-Cal and Medicare) so I can testify personally to what’s happening to millions of other folks thus insured.

While Congress was dithering over the details of this Bill just passed, I (we) lost dental and eye care (no longer covered) and doctors across the country were having their fees reduced. Now that it has passed, we’re told that a half trillion dollars will be cut from Medicare and millions more individuals will be added to Medi-Medi nationwide.

This all adds up to poor people not being able to access quality health care – period. And many being subjected to fines (and penalties for not paying???) if they can’t afford to buy insurance required by law.

If that aint health care deform, I don’t know what is.

This is the anniversary of a fall that hospitalized me last year for six weeks and from which I have not recovered the ability to stand up and walk. This experience has put me back in touch with the inadequate and uncaring medical system and taught me that it has deteriorated even further since my previous experiences as an inpatient and subsequent outpatient.

The solution to our health care system is not more of the same. We must demand free health care for all and an end to medicine for profit. We need a national health care system similar to that of Britain, Cuba, France, Sweden, the Netherlands, etc. We know it can be done because it IS being done.

Power to the people.

Avotcja honors Dr. King

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, January 18, 2008.

Our guest is Avotcja, a poet, musician, photographer and teacher -- renowned as a sound junkie and storyteller, originally from NYC, she's a Bay Area cultural treasure. A popular DJ on KPFA and KPOO, founder & director of The Clean Scene Theater Project, she currently performs with her award-winning jazz band, Avotcja & Modupue. An active member of DAMO (Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization), Artist in Residence at Milestones Project & the Penal System, she teaches poetry, music, and drama in the prisons and public schools.

Joe Wanzala: Crisis in Kenya

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, December 5, 2008.

Our Guest is Joe Wanzala, writer and community activist who lives in Oakland, California. He is originally from Uganda and Kenya, and has lived in several African countries. Joe is particularly interested in how perception management is used to manufacture grand narratives about critical geopolitical events and how this in turn influences not only public opinion, but determines and justifies policy. Joe will join Kiilu to discuss how this process has worked in the case of the crisis in the Great Lakes region of Africa, in particular the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to mask what is really going on in the region.

(The first few minutes of this episode are unavailable.)

Pierre Labossiere: Revolutionary Haitian History

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, October 12, 2007.

Pierre Labossiere, a Haitian national, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, has been a long-time social-justice activist and advocate for the Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa. Pierre has also been active in the campaigns to free political prisoners in Haiti and the U.S.

Learn more at: www.haitisolidarity.net and www.haitiemergencyrelief.org

Yuri Kochiyama: On Knowing Malcolm X

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, May 16, 2008.

Our guest will be the legendary human rights activist, Yuri Kochiyama, who lived in Harlem for 40 years and worked with Malcolm X (El Hajj Malik el Shabazz). Although no official holiday honors Malcolm's birthday, May 19 has become a traditional day of celebration in the Black and progressive communities. Yuri shares his birthday and will reach 87 this May 19 -- also the birthday of Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh). A tireless freedom fighter, political prisoner advocate, and author of Passing It On -- A Memoir, Yuri has also had a biography written about her life by Diane C. Fujino titled: Heartbeat of Struggle: The Revolutionary Life of Yuri Kochiyama.

Phavia Kujichagulia: Cultural Consciousness

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, July 25, 2008

Phavia Kujichagulia, a Griot / Djialli (Oral Historian), musician, writer, poet, dancer who utilizes music, poetry and dance to heal and reveal history -- was a professor of Ethnomusicology and African Civilizations at World College West and Stanford Universitys Workshop on Political and Social Issues. For more than 16 years, she taught Creative Writing and Performance Art for the California Department of Corrections at Folsom, Soledad, Vacaville, Susanville and San Quentin Prisons. Her performances include the World Drum Festival, National Black Expo, and the John Coltrane Festival. Her most recent CD is "THE HUMAN RACE." Phavia currently writes for the SF Examiner.

Michael Wong and Eddie Falcon: Veterans for Peace

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, May 30, 2008

As a U.S. soldier in 1969, Mike Wong refused orders to Viet Nam and deserted to Canada. Mike is featured in the film "Sir! No Sir!" In today's wars, Eddie Falcon served as a U.S. Airman in Guantanamo Bay and various places in the Middle East including Iraq and Afghanistan. Mike Wong is a member of Veterans for Peace and Eddie Falcon is a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War.

www.ivaw.org

www.veteransforpeace.org

Ray Boudreaux and Richard Brown: Free The SF8!

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, July 3, 2008.

Guests, Ray Boudreaux and Richard Brown, former Panthers and defendants in the case of the San Francisco 8. Three days after the airing of this episode, on July 6, the case was dismissed against Ray, Richard, Harold, and Hank. Charges still remain against Cisco Torres.

For the latest developments in the case and what you can do to help, please go to www.freethesf8.org

Emiliano Echeverria & Pierre Labossiere: The Kidnapping of 2 Presidents

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV show, July 10, 2009

Guest, Pierre Labossiere, a Haitian national, co-founder of the Haiti Action Committee, has been a long-time social-justice activist and advocate for the Lavalas Party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, currently exiled in South Africa. Pierre has also been active in the campaigns to free political prisoners in Haiti and the U.S.

Learn more at: www.haitiaction.net www.haitisolidarity.net

Guest, Emiliano Echeverria, Central American Scholar, radio DJ, and former Coordinator of "Freedom Is A Constant Struggle" on KPFA Pacifica Radio. Emiliano is also a long-time activist who has traveled often to Cuba where he received excellent medical care and appeared in the film Sicko.

Tiny (Poor Magazine) and Bob (Streetsheet): Criminalizing Poverty

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV Show, July 17, 2009

Guest, Bob Offer-Westort, Coordinating Editor of the Street Sheet, San Francisco homeless people's newspaper, and the Civil Rights Organizer for the Coalition on Homelessness. Bob has been involved in homeless community organizing since 2005.

415.346.3740 x309

http://www.cohsf.org/

Guest, Tiny (daughter of dee, single mama of tiburcio) is a poverty scholar, co-editor and founder of POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork, member of the Poetas POBRE- Po' Poets Project and the welfareQUEENs, and author of Criminal of Poverty; Growing up Homeless in America.

http://www.poormagazine.org/

LBD from KPOO Radio

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV Show, July 31, 2009

Guest, LBD (William Hammons) is a DJ and co-host of KPOO's Saturday morning show (7 a.m. - Noon), Wake Up Everybody! with Donald E. Lacy, as well as co-founder with Lacy of the Love Life Foundation. The program is a mix of music, news and public affairs, liberally sprinkled with comedy. KPOO is a community-based nonprofit, noncommercial radio station that caters to the needs of populations traditionally underrepresented in the mainstream media.

http://www.kpoo.com/

Elbert "Big Man" Howard and Billy X Jennings: Black August

Freedom is a Constant Struggle TV Show, August 7, 2009

Guests:

Elbert “Big Man” Howard, author, lecturer and activist, is one of the six founding members of the BPP who was Deputy Minister of Information and Editor of the Black Panther Newspaper. He authored Panther on the Prowl, Each One Teach One, and wrote the forward for Up Against The Wall by Curtis Austin. He currently lives in Sonoma County where he helped found the PACH, Police Accountability Clinic and Helpline, in Santa Rosa.
www.pachline.org

Billy X Jennings, Black Panther Party Historian, is one of the original Oakland Panthers who joined the Party in 1968 at age 17. Billy has been the primary organizer of It's About Time BPP/Alumni Committee reunions beginning in 1996. He has traveled far and wide putting on programs and exhibits to keep the BPP legacy alive, including the famous Yerba Buena Center for the Arts exhibit of 2006 in San Francisco. He's also active in the struggle to free our political prisoners.

www.itsabouttimebpp.com

As many of you know, August 7, 1970 was the date we commemorate every Black August. when young Jonathan Jackson raided the Marin Courthouse in an armed attempt to free the Soledad Brothers and expose to the world the atrocities being committed against Black men behind prison walls. For more information, go here.