[Peace] also Tuesday evening ... County Board

[Karen Medina]

Dear Peace,

So many local government meetings this Tuesday evening (April 10)

Decide now how you are going to deploy: township then county OR county then
township.

-------

Policy meeting of the entire Champaign County Board
(Carol Ammons will be chairing)
Tuesday, April 10
6pm
Brookens Administration Center / 1776 E. Washington, Urbana, Illinois /
Debt on a jail expansion could run the county budget into debt to at least
2029.
Better use of tax-payers money: Jobs, substance abuse treatment, mental
health counseling and treatment, apprenticeships, education, etc. -- real
turn-arounds for people's lives, prevention, and cheaper ways to deal with
issues.

----  article ----Justice for Trayvon Martin Also Means Joining the
International Struggle Against U.S. Lawlessness
 Wed, 04/04/2012 - 00:16 — Cynthia McKinney

<http://blackagendareport.com/print/content/justice-trayvon-martin-also-means-joining-international-struggle-against-us-lawlessness>

  *by Cynthia McKinney*
“If the number of persons murdered by the police were included in the sum
of executions, America would rank third in executions globally – just
behind Iran.” The Trayvon Martin horror reminds us that U.S. foreign policy
mirrors its domestic behavior towards Blacks and browns. “If leadership
inside the U.S. will do this to their own citizens, what is done to others
outside the U.S. should come as no surprise.”
*Justice for Trayvon Martin Also Means Joining the International Struggle
Against U.S. Lawlessness*
*by Cynthia McKinney*
“*The United States Department of Justice, according to the ACLU 2009
report, has done virtually nothing to combat the clear evidence of systemic
racism the nation.”*
As a mother of a young Black man whom I pray for nightly and worry daily
about his life being violently ended either by someone marginalized by the
unjust social structure of U.S. life or by some rogue officer of the law or
one pretending to be a policeman, I offer my sincerest condolences to the
Martin family and friends over their loss of their son Trayvon. Each loss
is irreparable and I have no words that can succor the pain that this
entire nation is feeling.  Further, I wish to extend my compassionate
sympathies to the hundreds of thousands of victims of police brutality,
racial profiling, and the millions wrongfully ensnared in the American
gulag prison-industrial complex.
All of my life, no matter how my reputation has been assailed and vilified,
I have struggled to promote justice and dignity to those people most
adversely affected by the racist, intolerant, predatorily capitalistic, and
venal society that feels more every day like when Medgar Evers, Malcolm X,
or Martin Luther King, or martyred Floridian Harry T. Moore walked the
Earth decades ago.
April 4, 2012 will mark the 44th anniversary of the assassination of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr. April 29, 2012 marks the twentieth anniversary of
the Los Angeles Uprising of 1992. According to Dr. King, the U.S. was “the
greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” Forty-five years later this
fact remains true with some frightening new additions. The U.S. imprisons
more of its citizens per 100,000 persons than any other nation on earth. In
2011, the USA ranked fifth in the world in execution of prisoners, and
annually police murder scores of citizens. If the number of persons
murdered by the police were included in the sum of executions, America
would rank third in executions globally—just behind Iran. In spite of the
fact that the United States ratified the International Convention on the
Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), which obligates
all levels of government to comply with the treaty, the United States
Department of Justice, according to the ACLU 2009 report regarding the
persistence of racial profiling in the United States, has done virtually
nothing to combat the clear evidence of systemic racism the nation.*
*Therefore,
I cannot say that anyone can be certain that justice will be served to the
many Trayvon Martins and their grieving families. It is sobering and
hurtful to believe that America’s first Black President and first Black
Attorney General will allow this nation to possibly descend into greater
levels of intolerance and tension, when the laws and mechanisms to address
the problems exist on the books.
“*I cannot say that anyone can be certain that justice will be served to
the many Trayvon Martins and their grieving families.”*
This should be an easy one for the people of this country to face.
President Obama called for us to push him to stand for the people. Now is
the time for us to push so hard that President Obama has no choice but to
stand and show us – who are tired of mourning Stolen Lives in this country
– that he is able to lead as well as compromise and bow to his political
rivals.* *President Obama, along with the people of this country, can act
and begin to remove the legacy of hatred, violence, and injustice before
the U.S. is consumed by it – because our community of leaders and followers
lacked the will to be a better society.
To the people who care and sacrifice daily for the marginalized and the
dispossessed among us, I wish to remind you that I led a Congressional
delegation to the United Nations World Conference on Racism in Durban South
Africa in 2001 despite President Bush and Zionists daring us to go It was
my hope that the African American leadership would discover the realm of
international law, as was the dream of W.E.B. Dubois, William Patterson,
Paul Robeson, Malcolm X, and Dr. King. The traditional Civil Rights
leadership must become more effective and adroit in presenting the plight
of our human rights before the international community.* *We have enough
experience to know that our progress has always been linked to
international pressure because we are in a “majoritarian democracy” that
tramples on the rights of minorities. We must push within and without the
United States to bring the egregious slaughter of our young people and the
mass incarceration and oppression of Black and Brown people to an end using
all tools that we can secure. We cannot wait for another so-called “random
slaying.”
“*Now is the time for us to push so hard that President Obama has no choice
but to stand and show us that he is able to lead as well as compromise and
bow to his political rivals.”*
It is clear that the President does not speak in our names when he denies
the existence of racism (in the United Nations follow-up Durban
conferences) as he has done twice. We know that we are world citizens with
rights that every Mark Furman, Rick Santorum, or George Zimmerman must
respect – even if our only venue for redress is before the people of the
world. Chattel slavery and Jim Crow Apartheid were, in part, overturned
because of the joint domestic and international efforts. Let us honor the
agreement of Dr. King and Malcolm X to have a two-fold struggle for our
human rights and full freedom. In the 1940s, we called this the Double
Victory over Nazism and fascism abroad and racism and Jim Crow at home.
At home, the U.S. tolerates extra-judicial killings, violation of human
rights, persecution, racial discrimination, and genocide – yes, genocide.
So, if leadership inside the U.S. will do this to their own citizens, what
is done to others outside the U.S. should come as no surprise. The real
answer lies in what "we the people" of the United States are going to do
differently to stop this madness. Clearly, what we've all collectively done
in the past is not nearly enough. If you harbor any doubt about that, just
ask young Trayvon.
*Cynthia McKinney is a former congresswoman from Georgia, and 2008 Green
Party presidential candidate.*
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