OCTOBER 2005

Doremus Jessup, editor of the Fort Beulah The Daily Informer, in Sinclair Lewis' famous book "It Can't Happen Here", at its conclusion, after imprisonment and torture escaped and "drove out, saluted by the meadow larks, and onward all day, to a hidden cabin in the Northern Woods where quiet men awaited news of freedom.....still Doremus goes on, into the sunrise, for a Doremus Jessup can never die......
U.S. Assassinates Puerto Rican Independence Figure

By Bill Van Auken

09/27/05 "WSW" -- -- The fatal September 23 shooting of Puerto Rican nationalist leader Filiberto Ojeda Rios represents an act of state terror and cold-blooded murder by the US government. It is one more proof that in the name of a “global war on terrorism,” Washington has arrogated to itself the right to conduct political assassinations and act as judge, jury and executioner against opponents of US policies and interests.

Aged 72, Ojeda Rios was the leader of the Boricua Popular Army, also known as the Macheteros, a group that advocated independence for Puerto Rico. He was wanted on charges that he had participated in the planning of a 1983 Wells Fargo armored car robbery in Hartford, Connecticut, in which $7.1 million was taken. A fugitive for 15 years since fleeing house arrest in 1990, he was sentenced in absentia to 55 years in jail.

Ojeda Rios was alone with his wife in their home in the rural southwestern Puerto Rican municipality of Hormigueros, near the city of Mayagüez, when scores of FBI agents stormed his property, unleashing a rain of bullets. According to reports, at least 100 armed agents were involved, backed by helicopters and a squad of military sharpshooters brought to the island from Virginia.

The nationalist leader was struck by a single bullet from a sharpshooter’s high-powered rifle. While he suffered no wound to any vital organ, he was left to bleed to death on the floor of his home as FBI agents refused to allow Puerto Rican authorities and emergency medical teams anywhere near the house, maintaining a militarized perimeter for 24 hours.

Later, an FBI spokesman claimed that the agents who had surrounded the house and shot Ojeda Rios feared that the house could be wired with explosives and were waiting for reinforcements to fly in from the US.

Testimony from his wife and a neighbor, as well as the results of an autopsy, exposed as lies the FBI’s version of events. US authorities had claimed that federal agents had come to arrest Ojeda Rios, opening fire only after he had fired on them.

In a press conference Monday, however, the nationalist leader’s wife, Elma Beatriz Rosado Barbosa, testified, “On Friday, September 23, in the afternoon hours, our house was surrounded. Armed men penetrated our property and took our house by assault, hitting it in a brutal and terrible manner, firing with heavy weapons against the front wall of our residence.”

Hector Reyes, whose house is approximately 300 feet from that of Ojeda Rios, confirmed this account, saying that the US assault team began firing on the house as soon as the helicopters arrived on the scene. “The first shots were very powerful, not from a little revolver like they say he had,” said Reyes.

The killing sparked spontaneous demonstrations throughout the island and statements of condemnation by leaders of virtually every political tendency, from pro-independence to the supporters of the island’s status as a US “commonwealth” and those advocating US statehood.

Even the territory’s Governor Anibal Acevedo Vila, whose Popular Democratic Party supports the island’s current colonial status, found himself compelled to declare his “deep indignation” and demand an explanation from the FBI for the killing of Ojeda. “As governor, I make an energetic demand to the federal authorities to end the silence that they have maintained in relation to these events,” he said.

Neither the governor nor the Puerto Rican police and local prosecutors were given any advance notice that the FBI was about to mount a military operation on the island. They first learned of the siege from news reports and received no official report from the FBI until nearly a full day later. An FBI spokesman claimed that the silence owed to the fact that the operation was “developing” and the agency feared endangering its agents.

The head of the Catholic Church in Puerto Rico, Monsignor Roberto Gonzalez Nieves, also condemned the killing, warning that it would “continue the cycle of violence.”

“They are operating as if they were in hostile territory, like Iraq or Afghanistan,” said Radio Isla political commentator Ignacio Rivera. “It has political consequences,” added Rivera, a supporter of statehood for Puerto Rico. “They achieved their military objective, but the political side was absurd.”

The half-hearted protests from the island’s establishment were a timid reflection of the popular outrage the killing has provoked throughout Puerto Rico.

There were demands on the island for the declaration of a day of national mourning for Ojeda. The University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras, the island’s largest campus with 23,000 students, announced that students would be excused from classes and university employees given the day off to attend the nationalist leader’s funeral Tuesday.

In a press release, the university’s president, Gladys Escalona de Motta, stated, “I call on the university community, in an exercise of its free expression, to set a high example in these moments when the nation demands clarity.” She added, “Puerto Rico needs to take stock of its convictions to confront the feelings that have overcome the country.”

The FBI chose as the day to carry out the assassination the 137th anniversary of the “Grito de Lares,” the first revolt for Puerto Rican independence from Spain. The day is celebrated each year as a commemoration of the Puerto Rican national struggle against colonialism.

It appears likely that the day was chosen based on the belief that Ojeda Rios would more likely be alone, as his sympathizers and supporters would be marking the day with public meetings and demonstrations. The Puerto Rican nationalist leader recorded messages that were read out in Lares every year. Ironically, his last message was broadcast even as federal agents were moving in to kill him.

Many, however, saw the choice of the day as a political statement by Washington of impunity and contempt for the sentiments of the Puerto Rican people.

An autopsy performed at the San Juan Institute of Forensic Sciences confirmed the sadistic character of the FBI’s assassination of Ojeda Rios. It showed that he suffered a single bullet wound entering beneath his collarbone and exiting his back.

“He did not die instantaneously,” said Doctor Hector Pesquera, who participated in the autopsy. “What I saw as a doctor was that they let him bleed to death.... In my opinion, there was enough time, a considerable time in which he was wounded and he did not receive the aid that could have saved his life.”

Puerto Rico’s Justice Secretary, Roberto Sanchez Ramos, concurred with this assessment, stating, “The information we have is that if Mr. Ojeda had received immediate medical attention after being shot, he would have survived.”

Ojeda Rios had been the subject of a similar FBI raid involving helicopters and scores of agents in 1985, when he was arrested in connection with the Wells Fargo robbery. He was subsequently jailed and tried for attempted murder for shooting and wounding one of the FBI agents during the arrest. A federal jury in San Juan, however, found him not guilty, its members accepting his argument that he had acted in self-defense against the government’s aggression.

The FBI and other US authorities never forgave nor forgot this humiliation. Now they have taken advantage of changed political conditions in the US—characterized by the “global war on terrorism” and the USA Patriot Act—to murder him. Clearly, if the agency had wanted to arrest a 72-year-old man, accompanied only by his wife, they could have taken him alive.

The assassination of Ojeda is a case of Washington deploying a death squad on what it claims as its own territory. This brutal killing serves as a warning of the methods the US government is prepared to use to suppress political opposition within the US itself.

Copyright 1998-2005 World Socialist Web Site

The Right to Armed Struggle 

"No other woman in the Hemisphere has been in prison on such charges for so long a period [as Lolita Lebrón]; a fact which Communist critics of your human rights policy are fond of pointing out.” - National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski (in a secret memo to President Jimmy Carter in 1979)

By Mickey Z. 

09/27/05 "ICH" -- -- When early American revolutionaries chanted, “Give me liberty or give me death” and complained of having but one life to give for their country, they became the heroes of our history textbooks. But, thanks to the power of the U.S. media and education industries, the Puerto Rican nationalists who dedicated their lives to independence are known as criminals, fanatics, and assassins. 

On March 1, 1954, in the gallery of the House of Representatives, Congressman Charles A. Halleck rose to discuss with his colleagues the issue of Puerto Rico. At that moment, Lolita Lebrón alongside three fellow freedom fighters, having purchased a one-way train ticket from New York (they expected to be killed) unfurled a Puerto Rican flag and shouted “Free Puerto Rico!” before firing eight shots at the roof. Her three male co-conspirators aimed their machine guns at the legislators. Andrés Figueroa’s gun jammed, but shots fired by Rafael Cancel Miranda and Irving Flores injured five congressmen. 

“I know that the shots I fired neither killed nor wounded anymore,” Lebrón stated afterwards, but with the attack being viewed through the sensationalizing prism of American tabloid journalism, this did not matter. She and her nationalist cohorts became prisoners of war for the next 25 years. 

Why prisoners of war? To answer that, we must recall that since July 25, 1898, when the United States illegally invaded its tropical neighbor under the auspices of the Spanish-American War, the island has been maintained as a colony. In other words, the planet’s oldest colony is being held by its oldest representative democracy—with U.S. citizenship imposed without the consent or approval of the indigenous population in 1917. It is from this geopolitical paradox that the Puerto Rican independence movement sprang forth. 

This movement is based firmly on international law, which authorizes “anti-colonial combatants” the right to armed struggle to throw off the yoke of imperialism and gain independence. UN General Assembly Resolution 33/24 of December 1978 recognizes “the legitimacy of the struggle of people’s for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination and foreign occupation by all means available, particularly armed struggle.” 

For more info, please visit: www.prolibertadweb.com. 

This is excerpted from 50 American Revolutions You’re Not Supposed to Know: Reclaiming American Patriotism. Mickey Z. can be found on the Web at: www.mickeyz.net . 

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Cindy Sheehan arrested in Manhattan.

Mon Sep 19th, 2005 at 12:42:39 PDT
http://www.livejournal.com/users/mparent7777/2913402.html
I witnessed this with my own eyes. Here is my account.
Cindy Sheehan was arrested moments ago in Union Square, Manhattan for allegedly speaking in the square without the proper permit.
A small group of police began to congregate around 2:00 on the south east corner of Union Square. Cindy and her peace entourage were slightly late to the event, contending with public transportation. Upon her arrival, applause and cheers filled the crowd awaiting her speech.

A few other members of the tour movement spoke. Afterward, about 2:50, Cindy began her speech. It was friendly and empowering. She was grateful for the support and urged everyone to go to Washington DC on the 24th of September for a march on Washington. At the conclusion of her speech, from my perspective, a few loud and impassioned boos erupted, then I saw a hand come from behind Cindy and grab her shoulder-strap on her backpack. The arm jerked her backwards, with such force as to snap her head forward, and she fell from my view.

The crowd erupted in booing and jeering. The crowd rushed the elevated park where she once stood, not to fight but to witness what was happening. People crowded the police, who had formed a semi-circle around what was happening to Cindy (which I could not witness from my vantage point). "Nazis," "Gestapo," "free speech," "burn the constitution," "traitors," "you can't have her," could be heard from all sides of the angry crowd. The police stood shoulder-to-shoulder with emotionless looks on their faces. One woman from the tour, I did not see who, urged everyone to that it is a waste of energy to yell at the police, we can't stop it from happening, but what we can do is trumpet this event to the rest of the United States.
I'm not sure the details of the permit situation. The announcer said they sought a permit for weeks with no response from the city government.
Details prompted by comments There was no violence, no violent rhetoric, and the spirit of the event was positive and strong. She was only there for about 10 minutes before she spoke, and spoke for about 5 minutes.
The crowd was respectful and peaceful. Cindy and the other speakers were using a microphone and speakers, which may have caused the problem with the permits. The announcer told the crowd that they had been officially warned before Cindy got there. I'm trying to find out the permit stuff right now.
She was speaking at "Camp Casey NYC" in Union Square. It was a planned event, advertised in the newspaper. And from what I heard (Union Square is a noisy place), they tried to get a permit but did not get a response from city government after many messages were left. My view was not the best, so I did not see if it was a cop behind her that jerked her away. The immediate booing and
rushing of the "stage" (a large part of the park raised by about 3 steps) made me believe it was the police. I could not see if she resisted or not. Sorry for the bad view...I wish I had more. Watch the wires, this will be out soon. from Dennis Mills

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anonymous warning from america:

If they demand your guns, DON`T GIVE THEM UP! IF they demand your Gold,, DON`T GIVE IT UP! IF they come to arrest you, fight like Hell to the death, because the alternative is a "living hell" - possibly worse [Solzhenitsyn].

I don`t know what YOU "passive rabbits" are going to do! In Russia, people just sat in their apartments and waited to be arrested. They went quietly to a quick or long, slow tortured death. Solzhenitsyn: "...and as we sat in Prison we burned with regret!; Why didn`t we wait for those "bluecaps" [NKVD] down in the lobby with knives, clubs, guns, shovels, Anything? Why didn`t we spike the tires on that black car at the curb? If we had, Stalin`s cursed 'machine' would have ground to a halt! We just didn`t Love Freedom Enough!!! We came home from the war [1917] and just passively 'submitted'".

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From The Daily Reckoning:    
Last night, we read about Hitler's campaign against Leningrad and gave a start. What we had been wondering was why the dollar does not fall; why stocks remain high; and how come people still have faith in the U.S. economy, even though it loses money every day and has no reserves to draw upon? We believe we can tell where we are in a financial (or even an imperial) cycle by studying the delusions of the participants. In the month of July, for example, the personal savings rate in America went to a negative 0.6%. Not in 70 years had the rate been so low. The last time it was so low wasin the Great Depression, when Americans felt their backs to the wall; they had to dip into savings in order to keep going.

Now, they no longer dip into savings. Instead, every emergency sends them running to foreigners, asking for credit. Two nations effectively control the world's credit: Germany and Japan. Between the two of them, they provide more than half the world's surplus savings. If they ever decided to stop lending to the United States, the world economy would change quickly.The cost of Katrina is now thought to go to $120 billion or beyond. Congress has already authorized $62 billion in supplementary spending. But since neither the American government nor its citizens had saved money for this very rainy day on the bayous, they are forced to borrow in order to fix the roof.

What makes the foreigners think they will get their money back? America is already the world's largest debtor. And it is already effectively insolvent. Add up all the debt and financial obligations of government and private citizens and they exceed the total value of the entire country and everything in it. Why do they not sell the dollar, rather than buy it? People do not really operate on the basis of hard, rational calculations. Instead, they react to symbols, feelings, delusions and conventions.

IS HISTORY REPEATING ITSELF : GERMANY.....
In September of 1941, practically all the German high command and every foot soldier in the ranks believed the war was won. It was not a matter of whether or not the Russians would capitulate; but when, how and to whom. They did not seem to notice that they had stretched their lines of supply to the breaking point; that they had no real reserves to call upon; that they were wearing out their tanks and supplies in the opening months of the war; or that they were up against a nation capable of producing more war material than they could, with vastly shorter distances to go to put them into service. The tank factory still operating in Leningrad, for example, built four new tanks every day. They practically rolled out the factory doors and began firing at the enemy. Instead of thinking hard about the fundamentals of the war facing them; in these palmy days of victory and self-delusion, German officers plotted against their commander-in-chief. They had seen what the S.S. troops were doing to civilians behind the front lines. They had seen, too, what the Nazis had done to Germany's military, subordinating it to amateurs with a loony political agenda. They saw the Fuhrer as a threat not only to Germany's battlefield success, but also to the nation's soul.

"I could have had him arrested," said one of his generals after the war. "It would have been easy." It would have also been the smart thing to do: Bring Hitler to justice. Get out of Russia while the getting was good. Make peace with Britain. Live to a ripe old age. But Hitler was the lawful head of the German state. The army could never quite bring itself to do such a thing. Instead, the generals went along with the program. As a result, most died in combat, before firing squads, or disappeared in Soviet prisons. Germany itself suffered unspeakable horrors...and only recently has been reunified and normalized.

Most people, most of the time, go along with the program, no matter how bizarre and pernicious it is. That is why history runs in such broad currents. All the world seems to be held together by flimsy webs of convention. You believe you own something, but it is only convention that makes you the owner. That is, it is only so long as others are willing to go along with the program. You might go to your house one night and find another family living there. How would you get them out, except with the aid of a vast network of conventions? You could go to the police, to a lawyer, and eventually to the courts. They might just as well decide that someone else is the real owner; or, as they did in communist countries, that private property cannot exist. Dictators are said to control their nations by brute force, but what dictator has enough brute force to subdue a whole nation? Instead, he has to rely on an entire web of conventions: An army that willingly supports him, business groups, lenders, religious groups, and workers. Large sections of the population have to go along with the program or it won't work.

Kings, emperors, and Tsars all depend on the conventions that surround them. Genghis Khan may have ruled one of the world's largest land empires, but he wouldn't have ruled even his own tent if his bodyguards turned against him. That is true of business leaders, too. A corporate CEO or a field marshal may give an order, but his underlings could perfectly well ignore it if they wanted to. Factory workers could decide to take the day off. Soldiers could turn on their commanders (and sometimes do) and shoot them. If at any moment people decide to defy convention, the whole jig is
up. Hitler was protected by conventions. It was not customary to arrest the head of state. The campaign against Russia had to run its course to its dismal end. America's fantasy economy is protected by conventions. And the dollar, too. It was worth something yesterday; people expect it to be worth only a little less tomorrow. It is still the imperial money, the world's reserve currency. But who bothers to look at the fundamentals? And so, the dollar must run its course, too, to its dismal end.