Archive for October 3rd, 2007


Racism: Not just in Jena

Allyn Wright, an African-American engineer at Electric Boat in Connecticut, was challenged by tradesman Stephen Judge, who is white, on how to handle equipment.

Judge called Wright “a dumb engineer.” He noted that he was the only black, and they all could “get” him. Judge said, “We got a black boy surrounded, and what’s he going to do now. We got you and you can’t go nowhere.” One man mentioned that he thought Wright would fit in a nearby trashcan and lifted its lid. All laughed, and ultimately dispersed.

Judge isn’t laughing any more. He was just sentenced to six months in federal prison for civil rights violations.

“Instead of going forward, we sometimes go backward.” [Wright's uncle in testimony] invoked the recent racial conflict involving the “Jena Six” in Louisiana. “This racial thing has got to stop.”

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Another record smashed!

1689 pounds. Which makes our attempts seem positively puny.

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Oversight of Blackwater a “grey zone”

Robert Young Pelton, author of “Licensed to Kill. Hired Guns in the War of Terror” was interviewed on NPR after Blackwater head Erik Prince testified before Congress yesterday. Pelton says what Blackwater and similar security contractors do is in a ‘gray zone’ and probably deliberately so. Primarily hired by the State Department, who appear to be their major enablers, they are permitted to kill if, for example, while escorting a diplomat, a car approaches them, ignores a warning, and keeps coming. Even if the driver is a woman with a baby. That’s their rules of engagement under State Department rules. Murky, aren’t they?

And if dealing with one private military contractor gets too messy, well, State can easily discard them and another contractor will take their place. Plausible deniability. Shifting of responsibility.

Pelton suggests, and rightfully so, that the real problem here exists within the US government and State Department, without whom the security contractors would not exist.

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“Jena” by John Mellencamp

Advance video from his upcoming CD

Jena

An all white jury hides the executioner’s face
Is this how we are, me and you?
Everyone needs to know their place
And here we thought this blackbird was hidden in the flue

Oh oh oh Jena
Oh oh oh Jena
Oh oh oh Jena
Take your nooses down

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More on the Alisher Usmanov Affair

Bloggers revenge (animated, with music!)

PS Craig Murray is expected to be back online shortly.

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