Excerpt: "This is a clear example of the dual standard of justice when it
comes to American Indians versus non-Indian people. And here we have a man,
Hinckley, who was an obvious attempted assassin: they caught him in the act.
And we have the contrast of Leonard Peltier, who has been in prison 40
years, 10 more years than Hinckley, and they've never convicted him of the
actual shooting."
Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist and member of the American
Indian Movement (AIM). Here he is pictured in prison. (photo: Unknown)
Wanna-Be Presidential Assassin Hinkley Goes Free, Leonard Peltier Left to
Rot and Die in Prison
By Dennis J Bernstein, Reader Supported News
31 August 16
AIM founder Bill Means talks about our racist double standard
Once again, the bold expression of American racism and the racist double
standard of the U.S. justice system send shock waves through the Native
American community. In early August, John Hinckley Jr., who came an inch or
two away from assassinating President Ronald Reagan and his press secretary,
James Brady, was released in an act of mercy, so that the man who managed to
put a few bullets in the beloved 40th president of the United States was
able to return home to his mother, now terminally ill and dying, according
to public reports.
"I'm very glad this happened after Mrs. Reagan passed on," said Ed Rollins,
campaign manager for Reagan's re-election bid in 1984. Rollins suggested
that Nancy Reagan might have been a little bit upset had she learned that
the person who nearly killed her husband, and devastated - left wounded for
life - his former press secretary, was shown mercy by the Obama Justice
Department.
Upset would definitely not cut it when it comes to the outrage native
leaders in the U.S. have expressed about the treatment of Leonard Peltier,
whose health is failing. I spoke to Bill Means about the mercy granted
Hinckley and the dual standard of justice when it comes to Native Americans,
like Peltier, who has now spent over 40 years in jail based on what many
feel was a travesty of justice - a trial wrought with injustice, fatal
breaches of his civil rights, false testimony, and massive intimidation of
witnesses brought forth by the defense.
"They said Orlando was the largest massacre in the history of the United
States," Means told me in a recent radio interview. "That shows you how much
the Americans have forgotten about their own history, that we have had
countless massacres, including Sand Creek, including Wounded Knee."
Bill Means is a co-founder of the American Indian Movement, also known as
AIM, and sits on the board of the American Indian Treaty Council. Dennis
Bernstein spoke with Means in Rosebud, South Dakota.
Dennis Bernstein: Welcome back to Flashpoints, Bill Means. Well, John
Hinckley Jr. is free to go, and Leonard Peltier is still being tortured.
Double standard?
Bill Means: Yes! This is a clear example of the dual standard of justice
when it comes to American Indians versus non-Indian people. And here we have
a man, Hinckley, who was an obvious attempted assassin: they caught him in
the act. And we have the contrast of Leonard Peltier, who has been in prison
40 years, 10 more years than Hinckley, and they've never convicted him of
the actual shooting. He was convicted of aiding and abetting. The FBI
admitted in court that they don't know who shot the FBI agents.
So we have this type of evidence that continues to burn the conscience of
the justice system of America where it says that all people have equal
access to due process, etc. However, we see a man like Hinckley who actually
shot a president - I don't know if you could put a price on a president
versus two FBI agents - but first of all you have to realize the
circumstances of Peltier not being convicted of actually shooting the
agents. The evidence itself in the two cases is totally opposite, in terms
of the shooter and the conviction of the shooter. We have Leonard Peltier
sitting in jail for 40 years, for a crime he didn't commit, and we have
Hinckley, who shot a president of the United States plus his press secretary
by the name of Brady, I believe, who has been in a wheelchair since that
time. Also, we have the only substantial firearms reform law, called the
Brady Bill, as a result of the shootings. The after-effects even touched
something that all our school shootings, or assassinations, or various types
of gun violence hasn't affected, because of the tremendous lobbying power of
the NRA. And here we have the Brady Bill, which stands as a living monument
to Brady, the press secretary of Reagan who was shot. So you have all these
extenuating circumstances which show again the racism and the double
standard of justice when it applies to American Indian prisoners.
DB: We also have to say a word or two about how unbelievably corrupt and
questionable the government's case was. And the behavior of the FBI. Could
you just remind us of a little bit of that, Bill? Because we know that
Hinckley got a fair trial.
Means: Well of course in Leonard Peltier's trial there was evidence
presented at several appeals, in which he was ... his witnesses, in terms of
the prosecution, some of whom were mentally ill and coerced into saying ...
and later these people, witnesses they used against Peltier, in his case,
later recanted their story. And then we have the idea that the FBI agents
themselves, every time he comes up for parole, send letters into the U.S.
federal parole board, which doesn't exist anymore. But they have mounted
several campaigns in the past, even as far as marching visibly in front of
the Supreme Court, when his case made it to the Supreme Court.
So we have this active protest by FBI agents against the release of Leonard
Peltier, every time even the thought comes up. But yet we have Hinckley,
who's been convicted, and nobody from the FBI says anything, at least not
yet. So again, when the evidence was overwhelmingly ... you know there were
so many contradictions.
There was one case that went to the Supreme Court that involved the weapon
that was used. It turns out that this famous FBI lab, which has been used to
convict many people charged with a crime by the FBI, well, their evidence
was corrupt. And even they said that they were allowed to use this evidence
that this was the gun that killed the agents when it turned out, in court,
that it was impossible, that the firing pin evidence didn't match. And so
they used, in order to sway the jury, false evidence. And there's many, many
other examples, if you read up a little bit on the Leonard Peltier case,
even his extradition from Canada, where they used false testimony and
coerced testimony to bring him back across the border. Several federal
judges, including in Canada and in the U.S., have indicated that Peltier
should have at least gotten a new trial, based on the evidence not based on
coerced testimony, false testimony, and manipulation of the evidence.
DB: Bill, this has got to go into the extreme racism file when there's sort
of like "red lives don't matter, white lives are exalted," even if they're
people who tried to kill the president of the United States. I mean, the
standard here, the dual standard here ... this is sort of consistent with
the fact that this is the government that committed genocide against the
Indian people. And this setup of Leonard Peltier is in the context that you
were a part of, the first time ever in modern history that the indigenous
community stood up at Wounded Knee. So this is that ongoing 40-year lesson,
right? Continuing lesson, to the Native American community, the indigenous
community: "We will do whatever it takes to shut your ass down." I'm really
amazed at this one. Your thoughts on that part of it.
Means: Well, of course, we have in the case of the Black Lives Matter, and
the issue of what happened in Orlando, Florida, in the nightclub, so many
people were killed. They said Orlando was the largest massacre in the
history of the United States. That shows you how much the Americans have
forgotten about their own history. We have had countless massacres,
including Sand Creek, including Wounded Knee, including many, many others,
throughout the continental United States, where masses of Indians ... We
have a grave on our reservation, seven miles from my home community, at a
little hamlet called Wounded Knee, in which over 300 men, women and children
are still buried, in a mass grave. Same with the Cheyenne people, when they
were attacked by a Methodist minister acting as a military leader - his name
was Colonel Chivington - down in Colorado.
So we have this history that's very well documented, and very well known.
Matter of fact, at Wounded Knee they gave away, I believe, over 20 Medals of
Honor for the massacre of our people. So this is kind of like the extreme
method of racism, of perpetrating the lie of the history of America.
And now we have Hinckley being released, and then we have this idea in the
Black Lives Matter movement, and all these other various killings, they've
pushed aside the evidence about Indian people's history, and how many of our
people have been massacred throughout the years. And so it's just ... it's
just an insult to the intelligence of the American Indian that this could go
on in this day and age.
DB: And, of course, there's the ongoing oppression, the ongoing racism, the
economic racism, the kind of racism that continues to be practiced against
Indians, Indians on their land, their land being stolen, their children
being stolen. You were a part of bringing the United Nations to the
communities in North America, on the reservations, where literally the
representatives were weeping, based on the conditions, and this is the sort
of the real underside of this story.
Means: Yes, it is. Because throughout the involvement of the International
Indian Treaty Councils since 1974 at the United Nations, we have continued
to document the poverty-stricken condition of Indian people, the violation
of treaty rights, the violation of human rights, and we finally got passed
in 2007 what's called The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, in
which the United Nations finally recognized Indians as humans. So it took us
30 years working at the U.N. just to allow the United Nations, in opposition
to the United States by the way, to pass a basic standard of human rights
for indigenous people all over the world.
What happened here, in this country, to indigenous people, has indeed
happened around the world, in terms of human rights, in terms of the avarice
and greed for the minerals that are on indigenous peoples' lands, worldwide.
This little, small act of releasing infamy brings up all these various
histories of indigenous people around the world, where indigenous peoples
have been persecuted, murdered, buried in mass graves, and nobody cares.
But yet they can release this one man, Hinckley, who actually shot the
president of the United States, and act as if it was a misdemeanor. Or as if
he were some type of mentally ill person, which gave him a reason to shoot
people. So this is probably the ultimate miscarriage of justice in the
history of U.S. jurisprudence.
DB: And to be very clear, Leonard Peltier was part of a movement to resist
the oppression, the racism, and the slaughter that has finally been
recognized by the world through the United Nations. So that is at the heart
of the matter of why they have to keep a leader, an exalted leader, who
means a great deal to his people, in jail like a criminal. And it's clearly
a political act of injustice, wouldn't you say, Bill?
Means: Well, I think throughout the history of this country when people have
stood up, especially Indian people, they have been immediately criminalized
and treated as sub-standard human beings. Remember, the largest mass hanging
in the history of the United States was 38 of our Lakota people in Manteno,
Minnesota, in 1862. We could go into atrocity after atrocity to show how the
United States has continued to use Peltier as an example to all people that
Indian resistance will not be tolerated. And they don't even have a case as
strong as against Hinckley.
They don't have a case with the evidence to give him ... they're scared to
give him a new trial, first of all. But he has served more than any other
federal prisoner in the modern history of the United States. So I think he
has suffered enough. It's time for a little humanity. That's the reason
they're releasing Hinckley, they said in the press, to be with his mother
who is very ill, at the end of her time on this earth. But what about
Leonard Peltier? They have a chance to redeem themselves through the
president of the United States offering clemency. Of course this one act can
not redeem the history of the United States' treatment towards Indians, but
at least let the man who served longer than any other Indian in history, or
for that matter most federal prisoners, who don't even serve half his
sentence. The average time that a federal prisoner given life serves is
between 16 and 18 years. And now we have him doing 40 years only because
he's an Indian. What has to be brought out is the injustice and the dual
standard of justice, because Leonard Peltier deserves to be with his family
for the rest of what little life he has left.
________________________________________
Dennis J Bernstein is the executive producer of Flashpoints, syndicated on
Pacifica Radio, and is the recipient of a 2015 Pillar Award for his work as
a journalist whistleblower. He is most recently the author of Special Ed:
Voices from a Hidden Classroom.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Leonard Peltier, the Native American activist and member of the American
Indian Movement (AIM). Here he is pictured in prison. (photo: Unknown)
http://readersupportednews.org/http://readersupportednews.org/
Wanna-Be Presidential Assassin Hinkley Goes Free, Leonard Peltier Left to
Rot and Die in Prison
By Dennis J Bernstein, Reader Supported News
31 August 16
AIM founder Bill Means talks about our racist double standard
nce again, the bold expression of American racism and the racist double
standard of the U.S. justice system send shock waves through the Native
American community. In early August, John Hinckley Jr., who came an inch or
two away from assassinating President Ronald Reagan and his press secretary,
James Brady, was released in an act of mercy, so that the man who managed to
put a few bullets in the beloved 40th president of the United States was
able to return home to his mother, now terminally ill and dying, according
to public reports.
"I'm very glad this happened after Mrs. Reagan passed on," said Ed Rollins,
campaign manager for Reagan's re-election bid in 1984. Rollins suggested
that Nancy Reagan might have been a little bit upset had she learned that
the person who nearly killed her husband, and devastated - left wounded for
life - his former press secretary, was shown mercy by the Obama Justice
Department.
Upset would definitely not cut it when it comes to the outrage native
leaders in the U.S. have expressed about the treatment of Leonard Peltier,
whose health is failing. I spoke to Bill Means about the mercy granted
Hinckley and the dual standard of justice when it comes to Native Americans,
like Peltier, who has now spent over 40 years in jail based on what many
feel was a travesty of justice - a trial wrought with injustice, fatal
breaches of his civil rights, false testimony, and massive intimidation of
witnesses brought forth by the defense.
"They said Orlando was the largest massacre in the history of the United
States," Means told me in a recent radio interview. "That shows you how much
the Americans have forgotten about their own history, that we have had
countless massacres, including Sand Creek, including Wounded Knee."
Bill Means is a co-founder of the American Indian Movement, also known as
AIM, and sits on the board of the American Indian Treaty Council. Dennis
Bernstein spoke with Means in Rosebud, South Dakota.
Dennis Bernstein: Welcome back to Flashpoints, Bill Means. Well, John
Hinckley Jr. is free to go, and Leonard Peltier is still being tortured.
Double standard?
Bill Means: Yes! This is a clear example of the dual standard of justice
when it comes to American Indians versus non-Indian people. And here we have
a man, Hinckley, who was an obvious attempted assassin: they caught him in
the act. And we have the contrast of Leonard Peltier, who has been in prison
40 years, 10 more years than Hinckley, and they've never convicted him of
the actual shooting. He was convicted of aiding and abetting. The FBI
admitted in court that they don't know who shot the FBI agents.
So we have this type of evidence that continues to burn the conscience of
the justice system of America where it says that all people have equal
access to due process, etc. However, we see a man like Hinckley who actually
shot a president - I don't know if you could put a price on a president
versus two FBI agents - but first of all you have to realize the
circumstances of Peltier not being convicted of actually shooting the
agents. The evidence itself in the two cases is totally opposite, in terms
of the shooter and the conviction of the shooter. We have Leonard Peltier
sitting in jail for 40 years, for a crime he didn't commit, and we have
Hinckley, who shot a president of the United States plus his press secretary
by the name of Brady, I believe, who has been in a wheelchair since that
time. Also, we have the only substantial firearms reform law, called the
Brady Bill, as a result of the shootings. The after-effects even touched
something that all our school shootings, or assassinations, or various types
of gun violence hasn't affected, because of the tremendous lobbying power of
the NRA. And here we have the Brady Bill, which stands as a living monument
to Brady, the press secretary of Reagan who was shot. So you have all these
extenuating circumstances which show again the racism and the double
standard of justice when it applies to American Indian prisoners.
DB: We also have to say a word or two about how unbelievably corrupt and
questionable the government's case was. And the behavior of the FBI. Could
you just remind us of a little bit of that, Bill? Because we know that
Hinckley got a fair trial.
Means: Well of course in Leonard Peltier's trial there was evidence
presented at several appeals, in which he was ... his witnesses, in terms of
the prosecution, some of whom were mentally ill and coerced into saying ...
and later these people, witnesses they used against Peltier, in his case,
later recanted their story. And then we have the idea that the FBI agents
themselves, every time he comes up for parole, send letters into the U.S.
federal parole board, which doesn't exist anymore. But they have mounted
several campaigns in the past, even as far as marching visibly in front of
the Supreme Court, when his case made it to the Supreme Court.
So we have this active protest by FBI agents against the release of Leonard
Peltier, every time even the thought comes up. But yet we have Hinckley,
who's been convicted, and nobody from the FBI says anything, at least not
yet. So again, when the evidence was overwhelmingly ... you know there were
so many contradictions.
There was one case that went to the Supreme Court that involved the weapon
that was used. It turns out that this famous FBI lab, which has been used to
convict many people charged with a crime by the FBI, well, their evidence
was corrupt. And even they said that they were allowed to use this evidence
that this was the gun that killed the agents when it turned out, in court,
that it was impossible, that the firing pin evidence didn't match. And so
they used, in order to sway the jury, false evidence. And there's many, many
other examples, if you read up a little bit on the Leonard Peltier case,
even his extradition from Canada, where they used false testimony and
coerced testimony to bring him back across the border. Several federal
judges, including in Canada and in the U.S., have indicated that Peltier
should have at least gotten a new trial, based on the evidence not based on
coerced testimony, false testimony, and manipulation of the evidence.
DB: Bill, this has got to go into the extreme racism file when there's sort
of like "red lives don't matter, white lives are exalted," even if they're
people who tried to kill the president of the United States. I mean, the
standard here, the dual standard here ... this is sort of consistent with
the fact that this is the government that committed genocide against the
Indian people. And this setup of Leonard Peltier is in the context that you
were a part of, the first time ever in modern history that the indigenous
community stood up at Wounded Knee. So this is that ongoing 40-year lesson,
right? Continuing lesson, to the Native American community, the indigenous
community: "We will do whatever it takes to shut your ass down." I'm really
amazed at this one. Your thoughts on that part of it.
Means: Well, of course, we have in the case of the Black Lives Matter, and
the issue of what happened in Orlando, Florida, in the nightclub, so many
people were killed. They said Orlando was the largest massacre in the
history of the United States. That shows you how much the Americans have
forgotten about their own history. We have had countless massacres,
including Sand Creek, including Wounded Knee, including many, many others,
throughout the continental United States, where masses of Indians ... We
have a grave on our reservation, seven miles from my home community, at a
little hamlet called Wounded Knee, in which over 300 men, women and children
are still buried, in a mass grave. Same with the Cheyenne people, when they
were attacked by a Methodist minister acting as a military leader - his name
was Colonel Chivington - down in Colorado.
So we have this history that's very well documented, and very well known.
Matter of fact, at Wounded Knee they gave away, I believe, over 20 Medals of
Honor for the massacre of our people. So this is kind of like the extreme
method of racism, of perpetrating the lie of the history of America.
And now we have Hinckley being released, and then we have this idea in the
Black Lives Matter movement, and all these other various killings, they've
pushed aside the evidence about Indian people's history, and how many of our
people have been massacred throughout the years. And so it's just ... it's
just an insult to the intelligence of the American Indian that this could go
on in this day and age.
DB: And, of course, there's the ongoing oppression, the ongoing racism, the
economic racism, the kind of racism that continues to be practiced against
Indians, Indians on their land, their land being stolen, their children
being stolen. You were a part of bringing the United Nations to the
communities in North America, on the reservations, where literally the
representatives were weeping, based on the conditions, and this is the sort
of the real underside of this story.
Means: Yes, it is. Because throughout the involvement of the International
Indian Treaty Councils since 1974 at the United Nations, we have continued
to document the poverty-stricken condition of Indian people, the violation
of treaty rights, the violation of human rights, and we finally got passed
in 2007 what's called The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, in
which the United Nations finally recognized Indians as humans. So it took us
30 years working at the U.N. just to allow the United Nations, in opposition
to the United States by the way, to pass a basic standard of human rights
for indigenous people all over the world.
What happened here, in this country, to indigenous people, has indeed
happened around the world, in terms of human rights, in terms of the avarice
and greed for the minerals that are on indigenous peoples' lands, worldwide.
This little, small act of releasing infamy brings up all these various
histories of indigenous people around the world, where indigenous peoples
have been persecuted, murdered, buried in mass graves, and nobody cares.
But yet they can release this one man, Hinckley, who actually shot the
president of the United States, and act as if it was a misdemeanor. Or as if
he were some type of mentally ill person, which gave him a reason to shoot
people. So this is probably the ultimate miscarriage of justice in the
history of U.S. jurisprudence.
DB: And to be very clear, Leonard Peltier was part of a movement to resist
the oppression, the racism, and the slaughter that has finally been
recognized by the world through the United Nations. So that is at the heart
of the matter of why they have to keep a leader, an exalted leader, who
means a great deal to his people, in jail like a criminal. And it's clearly
a political act of injustice, wouldn't you say, Bill?
Means: Well, I think throughout the history of this country when people have
stood up, especially Indian people, they have been immediately criminalized
and treated as sub-standard human beings. Remember, the largest mass hanging
in the history of the United States was 38 of our Lakota people in Manteno,
Minnesota, in 1862. We could go into atrocity after atrocity to show how the
United States has continued to use Peltier as an example to all people that
Indian resistance will not be tolerated. And they don't even have a case as
strong as against Hinckley.
They don't have a case with the evidence to give him ... they're scared to
give him a new trial, first of all. But he has served more than any other
federal prisoner in the modern history of the United States. So I think he
has suffered enough. It's time for a little humanity. That's the reason
they're releasing Hinckley, they said in the press, to be with his mother
who is very ill, at the end of her time on this earth. But what about
Leonard Peltier? They have a chance to redeem themselves through the
president of the United States offering clemency. Of course this one act can
not redeem the history of the United States' treatment towards Indians, but
at least let the man who served longer than any other Indian in history, or
for that matter most federal prisoners, who don't even serve half his
sentence. The average time that a federal prisoner given life serves is
between 16 and 18 years. And now we have him doing 40 years only because
he's an Indian. What has to be brought out is the injustice and the dual
standard of justice, because Leonard Peltier deserves to be with his family
for the rest of what little life he has left.
Dennis J Bernstein is the executive producer of Flashpoints, syndicated on
Pacifica Radio, and is the recipient of a 2015 Pillar Award for his work as
a journalist whistleblower. He is most recently the author of Special Ed:
Voices from a Hidden Classroom.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission
to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader
Supported News.
http://e-max.it/posizionamento-siti-web/socialize
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