and, additionally, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to make accurate
assumptions about a person’s/family’s financial details without seeing their
bank statements, or tax returns. People prioritize and use their
resources in different ways, so two families with exactly the same number of
dollars in their hands will make very different choices. Some families will
carry massive credit card debt to have whatever it is they want or think they
have to have, others refuse to do that. Some families will have savings
because they put money aside for a rainy day, the kids’ college fund, the
daughter’s big fancy wedding, a trip back to the old country to visit
relatives, introduce their children to their heritage, whatever, others will
have none. On Sep 2, 2016, at 11:42 AM, Miriam Vieni
<miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Carl,
I wonder, how do you know that your wealthier classmates were not allowed to
deal with the real world? I'm sure their families differed from one another,
as did their child rearing practises. It seems inaccurate to assume that
because they were financially comfortable, none of them learned to think
independently.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, September 02, 2016 10:18 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Wanna-Be Presidential Assassin Hinkley Goes
Free, Leonard Peltier Left to Rot and Die in Prison
Good Friday Morning, Bob.
Now all we need are some good answers. Answers are always the stickler.
As for your feelings about being a White Man, I can only tell you what I
feel about my Whiteness. I had no control, no say in the color of the skin
I was born in. Nor did I pick my parents or the economic status in which I
found myself. Indeed, my parents turned out to be ammeters in the
profession of child rearing. Yet, they did something that many of my
friends parents failed to do. They challenged me to think for myself.
So many of my school chums had their lives laid out for them. These were
children of up coming mid management fathers and stay-at-home mothers. They
went dutifly off to Yale and Stanford and USC and even a few headed for
Harvard. Their expenses were paid for by their loving parents. But they
were never allowed to deal with the real world.
Because my parents expected me to explore and experience the world, I tried
many things that other children around me did not have the opportunity to
do. Some of these experiences were not open for discussion here. But many
of them, actually all of them, had a part in my becoming who I am today. As
well as who I might be in ten years...other than 91.
I tried being a Democrat, and finally decided that this organization did not
have my best interests at heart. I immersed myself in Religion, despite my
dad's anguish, and found that Religion raised far more questions than could
be answered, and demanded blind Faith.
Having had two parents who not only brought me into this world, but brought
me in with a brain, I finally had to toss in the towel and admit that blind
Faith did not fit with an exploring curiosity.
Later, as a blind man, I embraced the National Federation of the Blind, only
to finally find that the leaders were as demanding of blind Faith as had
been the Church.
Since weening myself from the Democratic Party, I have not been able to
embrace any organized political party.
But the bottom line is this, Bob. I am proud to be Carl Jarvis...a work in
progress. I do not apologize to anyone, let alone to myself, for the many
mistakes and miss assumptions I have made as I explored life. All that
exists is open to question. I do not believe in any absolutes, so far as
Man's rules and laws and dogma is concerned. The one absolute I do accept
is that one day I will no longer exist. So while I'm here, I plan to never
waste my time feeling guilty or ashamed over who I am or what I've done to
become the person I am.
And that, my good friend, is the short version.
Carl Jarvis
On 9/1/16, Bob Hachey <bhachey@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Carl,contented to live as one of the privileged?
Excellent questions.
Frankly, there are times, (and it's happening more often recently,
when I'm almost ashamed to be a White American.
Bob Hachey
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2016 11:26 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Wanna-Be Presidential Assassin Hinkley
Goes Free, Leonard Peltier Left to Rot and Die in Prison
If only Leonard Peltier were the only political prisoner wrongly
accused and convicted and left to rot.
I was born White, through no fault of my own, and raised in a day and
place where most everybody around me was White. It is very hard for a
young child to think in terms of living a privileged life. Especially
a White Child who is raised in near poverty while living in an
affluent community. Still, I took for granted that I could go out and
hire onto many jobs. I could attend the University of Washington
without ever wondering why so many People of Color were missing.
Even after I became blind, I attended a training center for the blind,
and never noticed that there were only two persons of color attending
with me, a native Alaskan and a Chinese American woman.
How could I even begin to understand that my life was set in place by
White Racists who made certain that the laws and privileges were there
to be enjoyed by other White Racists?
It has taken a lifetime for me to begin to understand, and to make
sense out of the world I accidentally entered back in 1935. How do I
know if I've been successful in becoming rid of my Racist
conditioning, when I still travel through Life as a White man? And
how do I begin to "educate" those others around me, when they are
Council.
Carl Jarvis
On 8/31/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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
of the shooter.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
overwhelmingly ...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
lesson, right?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
age.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
criminal.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
sentence.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
Council.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
of the shooter.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
overwhelmingly ...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
lesson, right?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
age.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
criminal.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
sentence.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
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.
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