Tag: Stanley Cohen

Cincinnati Palestine Solidarity Coalition

Sounding out for solid solidarity in Cincinnati for Palestine. I have included a new category on billziegler1947: cincy4palestine. You can reference existing content on Palestinian independence and human rights by clicking it. CPSC  recognizes the need to act locally as we join in solidarity with a purpose.

CPSC is obtaining visibility in greater Cincinnati and the greater world. It began last year with a teach in at the Cincinnati and Hamilton County Public Library, a second at the University of Cincinnati, a third at the Clifton Mosque, a fourth at Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church and we are working on a fifth teach-in.

We are raising our visibility and are joining other like-minded souls in supporting BDS.

At the same time we have sponsored film screenings at several locations to shine truth on a deferred dream and a half century of occupation in Gaza and the West Bank, funded by the monetary and military power of the United States.

We believe that many small voices speaking truth will bring down the Apartheid Wall and end the occupation.

The Oslo Accords of 1993 are dead. 500,000 stakes were driven through its heart by a half-million settlers. These settlers, many of them truculent and militant, live in modern super gateway communities subsidized by the United States. It’s a divide and conquer strategy.

The United States government transfers $10,000,000 per day to Israel ($0 per day for Palestine) as well as the highest tech military support systems. These preserve a lucrative status quo for Israel and for those corporations making a killing from it.

Meanwhile Palestinians’ birthright is reported throughout US media as “stones, knives and poorly guided mortar fire.” Informed readers have to go offshore for the headlines that are ignored in our corporate or corporate-sponsored media.

The Apartheid Wall looms above a complex of modern fenced highways leading to each former Palestinian village and renamed in Hebrew from the original Arabic. Fences and security stations are everywhere. The reason: humiliation and eventual ethnic cleansing for a “greater” Israel.

 

 

 

 

Stanley Cohen in Canaan… Part Four

Linked below is the fourth installment in Stanley Cohen’s new series on Prison America. It is an account told firsthand from within the walls, cells and bunks of Canaan Prison in north-east PA.

Here is Canaan. It looks rather like the Apartheid Wall of Israel.
Here is Canaan. It looks rather like the Apartheid Wall of Israel.

A direct witness account of a system of justice steaming along in a totally broken system. The economy of our nation relies on a dead-set devotion to a Kafkaesque/Orwellian existence within institutional walls, inside the cells on the bunks. Among the complicit are highly placed, comfortable and secure community pillars, known by many as nice people.

The war on drugs began with Prohibition; it’s driving itself to an ever darker gulag state. Dick Cheney underlined the “need to go to the dark side.” Our sense of justice in on track to drive our country deeper into the darkness.

In this installment Stanley brings us evidence of our darkening national spirit. Being alive black is enough to qualify you for prison, the whims of the “justice” system assures that you rot there or sell out your cell neighbor in exchange for freedom. The year is 2016, the year is 1984. What Stanley Cohen writes is terrifying to anyone not a psychopath or a sociopath. What he writes is truth. May it rouse us to action.

Remember Kalief Browder.

Source: It Ain’t The Promised Land… Part Four

Stanley Cohen in Canaan…Part Three

I stand with Stanley Cohen. Human rights attorneys are as marginalized as the oppressed they represent. Truth does not need multiple billion dollar infusions to move dark agendas forward. Grassroots are strong.

Would that our prison industrial complex could disappear like this sand castle
Would that our prison industrial complex could disappear like this sand castle.

I’m there with my fellows in fertile soil. We are growing together. We flourish: you and I in solidarity. Hello Mensch!

Source: It Ain’t The Promised Land…Part Three

Stanley Cohen in Canaan… Part Two

Part Two of a view behind the eyes of a fertile mind and an amazing soul. This is a second look at daily existence in Prison America. It’s dark and it’s depressing and it’s real: the cancer that blooms in the darkness of our prison industrial complex.

This reminds me of our justice system interpreting the 14th Amendment.
This reminds me of how our justice system interprets the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Equal protection under the law obtained by avoiding the shovel.

A grinding mill for human beings who do not belong there, but we read here about institutional employees working jobs respected by the community. I live in a country  where the seemingly nice people of society gorge themselves, their families and their beloved systemic organs with the riches that camps of concentration manufacture. These camps may be found in every corner, but they are hidden from view. My understanding of our “criminal” justice system leads me to think that it may as well be a factory for lamp shades. Stanley Cohen spent eleven months of 2015 in Canaan. Milk and honey? You won’t find it.

Source: It Ain’t The Promised Land… Part Two