John HOPE Franklin

John Hope Franklin: The Passing of a Giant

The senior historian and sage John Hope Franklin passed away today. I’m between classes now but I had to make a few brief observations about the size of the void he leaves behind. Dr. Franklin was part of that generation who understood scholarship as a form of activism, a small, desperately outnumbered band who set out to assault the edifice of false knowledge that upheld inequality. His life literally connects the dark onset of Jim Crow to the election of Barack Obama. There are literally dozens of things that could be said about his contributions but consider this one: it was his historical research that Thurgood Marshall relied upon in writing his arguments for the Brown v. Board of Education case.

When asked how he felt about the election of an African American president last year, Dr. Franklin remarked that his mother raised him to believe that he would, in fact, be the first African American president. And perhaps by some measure he was.

He did not take an oath of office or reside in the White House, but his body of work was an extended State of the Union address and he upheld the Constitution. He was certainly a singular leader and a man whose work laid the groundwork for all of us — historians and civilians alike — to stand on equal footing in this world.

Bolivian President Morales Defends Coca Leaves

Let Me Chew My Coca Leaves
Evo Morales Ayma. The New York Times. March 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/opinion/14morales.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

La Paz, Bolivia

THIS week in Vienna, a meeting of the United Nations Commission on Narcotic Drugs took place that will help shape international antidrug efforts for the next 10 years. I attended the meeting to reaffirm Bolivia's commitment to this struggle but also to call for the reversal of a mistake made 48 years ago.

In 1961, the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs placed the coca leaf in the same category with cocaine - thus promoting the false notion that the coca leaf is a narcotic - and ordered that "coca leaf chewing must be abolished within 25 years from the coming into force of this convention." Bolivia signed the convention in 1976, during the brutal dictatorship of Col. Hugo Banzer, and the 25-year deadline expired in 2001.

So for the past eight years, the millions of us who maintain the traditional practice of chewing coca have been, according to the convention, criminals who violate international law. This is an unacceptable and absurd state of affairs for Bolivians and other Andean peoples.

Many plants have small quantities of various chemical compounds called alkaloids. One common alkaloid is caffeine, which is found in more than 50 varieties of plants, from coffee to cacao, and even in the flowers of orange and lemon trees. Excessive use of caffeine can cause nervousness, elevated pulse, insomnia and other unwanted effects.

Another common alkaloid is nicotine, found in the tobacco plant. Its consumption can lead to addiction, high blood pressure and cancer; smoking causes one in five deaths in the United States. Some alkaloids have important medicinal qualities. Quinine, for example, the first known treatment for malaria, was discovered by the Quechua Indians of Peru in the bark of the cinchona tree.

The coca leaf also has alkaloids; the one that concerns antidrug officials is the cocaine alkaloid, which amounts to less than one-tenth of a percent of the leaf. But as the above examples show, that a plant, leaf or flower contains a minimal amount of alkaloids does not make it a narcotic. To be made into a narcotic, alkaloids must typically be extracted, concentrated and in many cases processed chemically. What is absurd about the 1961 convention is that it considers the coca leaf in its natural, unaltered state to be a narcotic. The paste or the concentrate that is extracted from the coca leaf, commonly known as cocaine, is indeed a narcotic, but the plant itself is not.

Why is Bolivia so concerned with the coca leaf? Because it is an important symbol of the history and identity of the indigenous cultures of the Andes.

The custom of chewing coca leaves has existed in the Andean region of South America since at least 3000 B.C. It helps mitigate the sensation of hunger, offers energy during long days of labor and helps counter altitude sickness. Unlike nicotine or caffeine, it causes no harm to human health nor addiction or altered state, and it is effective in the struggle against obesity, a major problem in many modern societies.

Today, millions of people chew coca in Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and northern Argentina and Chile. The coca leaf continues to have ritual, religious and cultural significance that transcends indigenous cultures and encompasses the mestizo population.

Mistakes are an unavoidable part of human history, but sometimes we have the opportunity to correct them. It is time for the international community to reverse its misguided policy toward the coca leaf.

Evo Morales Ayma is the president of Bolivia.

Poem by Famous Nuclear Whistleblower

If you don't know who Mordecai Vanunu is, I urge you to visit this website as well as Vanunu's own website.

Mordecai needs YOUR help. He has been held under house arrest in Israel for decades after being imprisoned for spilling nuclear secrets to the British. He is a brave and honest man who deserves his freedom to travel wherever he pleases and speak to whomever he pleases.

Hiroshima – 50 Years

by Mordechai Vanunu

Hiroshima Hiroshima
My beloved Hiroshima
Your sons daughters elders wives
Blew radiated with an Atomic Bomb
A radioactive cloud consumed rubbed out Hiroshima
Hiroshima Hiroshima
For a live nuclear test sentenced you
a nuclear laboratory of children women trees animals
in and under nuclear mushroom live burning
burned flattened to ground radioactive ash- Hiroshima

Hiroshima Hiroshima
Nuclear weapons gamblers win against you '
a U.S. revenge for Pead Harbour
Hiro-shima Japan heroism is the target
wipe out rain Hiro - Hero- shima - Truman
Hiroshima Hero- shima
Japan and U.S. betrayed you Hero Hiroshima
silence forget Hiroshima Atomic tragedy
Japan sacrifices your holocaust on the Yen altar
Hollywood doesn't know you - you are not a Jewish Holocaust
Hiroshima Hiroshima
Ant-nuclear weapons campaigners adopting your
orphans. Heritage of Hiroshima our heroes
carry preach the memory message of Hiroshima
to the future ages to end nuclear gamblers.
Beginning and end of nuclear weapons. Hiroshima. Hero.
Hiroshima. Hero. Hero. Hero.

Presented at the exhibition Hiroshima Sans Amour

Abolition in New Mexico!

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson Takes Bold Step By Abolishing Death Penalty

Move Is Indicative Of A National Trend Toward Decreasing Use Of Capital Punishment

NEW YORK - March 18 - The American Civil Liberties Union today praised New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson for signing a bill abolishing the death penalty in New Mexico and replacing it with a sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

The bill, HB 285, was passed by the state House last month and was approved by the Senate Friday. With its signing, New Mexico becomes the fifteenth state to abandon capital punishment. The legislatures in a number of other states – including Colorado, Montana, Kansas, New Hampshire and Maryland – have all debated bills this year that would replace the death penalty with permanent imprisonment.

The following can be attributed to John Holdridge, Director of the ACLU Capital Punishment Project:

“Gov. Richardson’s decision today to sign the bill abolishing the death penalty in New Mexico is a historic step and a clear sign that the United States continues to make significant progress toward eradicating capital punishment once and for all. Gov. Richardson’s courageous and enlightened decision should send a powerful message to other states, governors and Americans about the need to take a hard look at our error-prone, discriminatory and bankrupting system of capital punishment. It is a system incapable of ensuring that innocent lives are not unjustly taken. It is a system plagued by racial, economic and geographic discrimination. And it is a system that police chiefs, criminologists and statistical experts around the country agree does not deter crime. Gov. Richardson deserves enormous credit for acting in the best interests of the people of his state and the people of this country.”

Don't be foreclosed without a fight

Produce The Note ?How-To?

June 19, 2008

Fight Foreclosure: Make ?Em Produce The Note!

Using the ?produce the note? strategy is something all homeowners facing foreclosure can do. If you believe you?ve been treated unfairly, fight back. We have created templates for a legal request, a letter to your lender and a motion to compel to help you through the process. Read the step by step ?how to? under the videos.

Special note: In some states, a lender can foreclose on your home without going to court. These are called non-judicial foreclosure states. You can still use the ?Produce the Note? strategy in these states, but it takes a few more steps on your part.


Produce the Note - Steps To Follow:

WHO OWNS THE NOTE?

Your goal is to make certain the institution suing you is, in fact, the owner of the note (see steps to follow below). There is only one original note for your mortgage that has your signature on it. This is the document that proves you owe the debt.

During the lending boom, most mortgages were flipped and sold to another lender or servicer or sliced up and sold to investors as securitized packages on Wall Street. In the rush to turn these over as fast as possible to make the most money, many of the new lenders did not get the proper paperwork to show they own the note and mortgage. This is the key to the produce the note strategy. Now, many lenders are moving to foreclose on homeowners, resulting in part from problems they created, and don?t have the proper paperwork to prove they have a right to foreclose.

THE HARM

If you don?t challenge your lender, the court will simply allow the foreclosure to proceed. It?s important to hold lenders accountable for their carelessness. This is the biggest asset in your life. It?s just a piece of paper to them, and one they likely either lost or destroyed.

When you get a copy of the foreclosure suit, many lenders now automatically include a count to re-establish the note. It often reads like this: ??the Mortgage note has either been lost or destroyed and the Plaintiff is unable to state the manner in which this occurred.? In other words, they are admitting they don?t have the note that proves they have a right to foreclose.

If the lender is allowed to proceed without that proof, there is a possibility another institution, which may have bought your note along the way, will also try to collect the same debt from you again.

A Tennessee borrower recently had precisely that happen to her. Her lender, Ameriquest, foreclosed on her in July of 2007. About three months later, another bank sent her a default notice for the mortgage on the house she just lost. She called to find out what was going on. After being transferred from place to place and left on hold for lengthy periods of time, no one could explain what happened. They said they would get back to her, but never did. Now, she faces the risk of having her credit continually damaged for a debt she no longer owes.

FIGHT FOR FAIRNESS

This process is not intended to help you get your house for free. The primary goal is to delay the foreclosure and put pressure on the lender to negotiate. Despite all the hype about lenders wanting to help homeowners avoid foreclosure, most borrowers know that?s not the reality.

Too many homeowners have experienced lender resistance to their efforts to work out a payment structure to keep them in their homes. Many lenders bear responsibility for these defaults, because they put borrowers into unfair loans using deceptive, hard-sell practices and then made the problem worse with predatory servicing.

Most homeowners just want these lenders to give them reasonable terms on their mortgages, many of which were predatory to begin with. With the help of judges who see through these predatory practices, lenders will feel the pressure to work with borrowers to keep them in their homes. Don?t forget lenders made incredible amounts of money by using irresponsible practices to issue and service these loans. That greed led to the foreclosure crisis we?re in today. Allowing lenders to continue foreclosing on home after home, destroying our neighborhoods and our economy hurts us all. So, make it hard for your lender to take your home. Make ?em produce the note!

STEPS TO FOLLOW

A. If your lender has already filed suit to foreclose on your home:

1. Use the first form. It?s a fill-in-the-blank legal request to your lender asking that the original note be produced, before it can proceed with the foreclosure. In some jurisdictions, the courts require the original request to be filed with the clerk of court and a copy of the request to be sent to the attorney representing the lender. To find out the rules where you live, call the Clerk of Court in your jurisdiction.
2. If the lender?s attorney does not respond within 30 days, file a motion to compel with the court and request that the court set a hearing on your motion. That, in effect, asks the judge to order the lender to produce the documents.
3. The judge will issue a ruling at your hearing. Many judges around the country are becoming more sympathetic to homeowners, because of the prevalence of predatory lending and servicing. In the past, many lenders have relied upon using lost note affidavits, but in many cases, that?s no longer enough to satisfy the judge. They are holding the lender to the letter of the law, requiring them to produce evidence that they are the true owners of the note. For example:

* In October 2007, Ohio Federal Court Judge Christopher Boyko dismissed 14 foreclosure cases brought by investors, ruling they failed to prove they owned the properties they were trying to seize.

B. If you are in default, but your lender has not yet filed suit against you:

1. Use the second form. It?s a fill-in-the-blank letter to your lender which also requests they produce the original note, before taking foreclosure action against you.
2. If the lender does not respond and files suit against you to foreclose, follow the steps above.

Remember Rachel Corrie

Please visit this site to learn more about Rachel Corrie and find out what you can do to support her memory and further her struggle:

And here is a Democracy Now report marking the sixth anniversary of her death.

Rachel died a year before I got to college. I learned about her in a discussion about The Diamondback, my university's (The University of Maryland's) student newspaper. Some friends of mine planted themselves inside The Diamondback's newsroom and refused to leave in protest because of a nasty political cartoon ridiculing Rachel's death and claiming that she was doing nothing more than "protecting terrorists" and basically got what she deserved.

The more I learn about her, the more I wish I had met her. How does a privileged blond girl from Washington state become a martyr for the Palestinian cause? Why hasn't there been more outrage from her fellow countrymen? Do Americans still not understand that Israel routinely bulldozes the homes of innocent Palestinians for no other purpose than to expropriate their lands?

Rachel died a noble death. I'm sure all of those who continue to defame her (most of them in ignorance, acting as if she wanted to be crushed when in fact the bulldozer had trapped her) secretly wish they had an iota of her courage. They wish their lives had such a purpose -- that they, too, can fight for something greater than themselves and not simply repeat the same propaganda justifying the illegal actions of the Israelis until it becomes fact.

When will the masses of this country stand up for what is just and condemn the military support their country provides Israel to maintain its occupation?

Yes, Women Are People Too...

Time to Ratify Women's Treaty, Groups Urge

by Haider Rizvi

UNITED NATIONS - Rights activists in the United States are urging their newly-elected government to support global initiatives aimed at protecting women's rights.

"If Barack Obama wants one important thing to do for women, he will direct the U.S. Senate to ratify CEDAW," said Ritu Sharma, a leading women's rights activist.

CEDAW is the acronym for the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which has been endorsed by over 170 countries.

In the past three decades, U.S. policymakers rejected CEDAW by reasoning that women in the United States already enjoyed legal protections against violence and discrimination.

But rights activists counter that the U.S. refusal to ratify the treaty encourages repressive regimes to promote discriminatory practices against women.

"There is no reason for us to wait for the U.S. ratification of CEDAW," said Sharma, who leads the Women's Edge Coalition, which comprises hundreds rights groups worldwide.

Created about 30 years ago, CEDAW clearly defines what constitutes gender discrimination and sets an agenda for national action to end abuse of women's rights.

Many countries that are signatory to the treaty have improved their laws, but in most cases, have failed to protect women from everyday violence and abuse.

Numerous studies carried out by the U.N. and independent think tanks in recent years show that in many parts of the world millions of women continue to face discrimination of every description.

Researchers say every year hundreds of thousands of women are forced into prostitution, with many suffering beatings not only by pimps and customers, but also policemen.

And how many women repeatedly endure violence in the supposed safety of their own homes? No one really knows, not even those who specialize in this subject. In many countries, including those with high rate of education, domestic violence is still regarded as a "private" matter, which gives authorities a justification to look the other way.

Women's situation, according to U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon, is not going to change unless men, particularly those in power, are willing to change their behavior.

"Changing mindset and habits of generations is not easy," stated Ban on the eve of International Women's Day, which is observed all over the world on Sunday, Mar. 8.

"We must work together to state loud and clear, at the highest level, that violence against women will not be tolerated, in any form, in any context," he said.

Women's rights activists who work closely with the U.N. note that since the 1995 World Summit in Beijing, some progress has been made to protect women's rights. But many of them say there's still a long way to go for full recognition of women's rights as human rights.

As the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women convened its annual meeting last week, delegates said they were hopeful that the new U.S. leadership would act differently.

The past U.S. administration had imposed harsh conditions for funding to the U.N. agencies working to help improve women's life conditions in poor countries.

The George W. Bush administration refused to fund health programs in countries that recognized women's right to have abortion. As a result, hundreds of thousands of women died during pregnancy.

Ban was silent on the issue of the U.S. non-ratification of CEDAW. However, in a recent conversation with IPS, he said he appreciated the intentions of the new administration.

"I think it is going to be very positive," he said in response to a question about whether the Obama administration would be willing to sign U.N. treaties that the previous administration had either ignored or worked actively to undermine.

Last week, Ban ordered U.N. officials to organize special events all across the world in observance of International Women Day. The U.N.-sponsored events are supposed to include rallies, seminars, exhibits, film screening and concerts to create awareness about women's rights.

Women's rights activists say they are glad that the world community was consistent in trying to make progress on its agenda, but stress that in order to gain positive results a powerful country like the United States must be part of the movement.

Sharma hopes that the new U.S. secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, would play an important role in advancing the international agenda on women's rights.

Before taking charge of the State Department, Clinton stressed the importance of aiding women and girls, who are at greatest risk of being poor, and form seven in 10 of the world's hungry.

"Investing in our common humanity through social development is not marginal to our foreign policy but integral to accomplishing our goals," she said in a recent statement. In her view, "If half of the world's population remains vulnerable to economic, political, legal, and social marginalization, our hope of advancing democracy and prosperity will remain in serious jeopardy."

Though pleased with Clinton's position on women's rights, Sharma, like many other activists, said she would like to see the new administration take real and practical steps to cooperate more closely with the international community.

"Clinton's nomination as our third female secretary of state means that, once again, a woman will be the nation's chief diplomat and public face to the world, underscoring America's commitment to women's equality and empowerment worldwide," she said.

"But to take this commitment to the next level, this administration has to make U.S. international assistance a foreign policy priority and ensure that it benefits the world's women," she added. "Putting a real emphasis on investing in women would mean both women and men can contribute to lifting themselves from poverty."