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Just over 16% of the population of the United States is Hispanic. Those of Mexican origin number some 12%, Puerto Ricans 2%, Cubans less than 1%, and the remainder are assorted Caribbeans, and Central and South Americans. (Whites are 64%, and Blacks 13%.)
The Real Cuba...
Within this Spanish-speaking mélange, while similar in language and culture, there are significant variations. Relative to voting, conservative or liberal, one would have to comprehend these differences. more…
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When I was 17 (1959), Cuba won its Independence. Cuba was a nation under a brutal dictatorship allied to the US and abetted by corporate and Mafia influence.
I had joined the Army in 1959 and was serving in the 101st Airborne Division. We were designated and trained as the STRAC-I unit of the US military for instant air transport to anywhere in the world. more…
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Born in the summer of ‘42, four years in front of the Baby Boomer generation, has made for an interesting journey. In ’59 at 17 I joined the US Army, 101st Airborne, Ft. Campbell, Kentucky.
With a 9th grade education, I completed my GED in the Army. When I joined, Eisenhower was president, when I came out, Kennedy. more…
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In the summer of ‘66, leaving UC Berkeley, Frank J. Rafalko applied to the CIA to become a spy. He spent the next 32 years staying in-the-box with an adagio performance of the requisite noblesse oblige before the altar of gov’t service.
Rafalko is the author of a 4-volume series on the history of counter-intelligence in America. In 2011 he published, MH/CHAOS, The CIA’s Campaign Against the Radical New Left and the Black Panthers (Naval Institute Press). Save your money, they aren’t worth the postage. more…
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When I caught my case back in ’89, I was on my way to the airport to catch a flight to Managua. I was working on an investigation involving the bombing of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, some 7 weeks earlier.
When the OIC informed me of the initial charge, I was actually relieved. Little did I know that a year later I’d find myself in a federal trial for cocaine conspiracy.
Cocaine? Hell, I can beat that, I remember thinking. I had quit doing all drugs back around ’73. And I had quit any “business” with them by ’83. Nevertheless, I was convicted and got a 25-year sentence. more…
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When 9/11 occurred, I was working in a prison factory at FCI Jesup, Georgia. After lunch, as I was returning to the factory, 3 lieutenants stopped me and I was locked down in the hole for the next 50 days incommunicado. Never charged or accused of anything, no explanations…
(Click image to enlarge...)
By the time I got to hear of what occurred, the conspiracy theories were also running rampant…confusing the issues more than illuminating them. I suppose those who profit from 9/11 kind of like it that way…keeps the focus off themselves.
Some believe that the jets that hit the Towers were remotely guided. That the plane wreckage outside of the Pentagon was dropped there by a C-130. That United Flight 93 that went down in Pennsylvania was shot down by a US missile.
Given the power grab by the White House to enact significant martial law (Patriot Act) over America, and foment wars of retribution and profit throughout the Middle and Near East, it’s no wonder people will believe these irrationalities. more…
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(Note: In the first of this 3-part series, I spoke briefly to my arrest by SEMCO in Detroit, February 11th, 1989, and the year leading up to it. In the second article, I commenced a two-week trial by jury in August of 1990.)
Allow me to briefly note here some comments made by observers as to my being involved in the drug business yet denying my guilt. Circa 1983, when the CIA et al. popularized crack on the West Coast to finance the White House Contra War, most of us on the left got out of that business.
Recent cooler days...
Cocaine had become devastating to the black and poor communities; there was no longer any political justification for including cocaine in our fund-raising (but, of course, that didn’t stop the gov’t…).
By the time 1989 rolled around, I had been out of that business some 5yrs. This case involves the gov’t (failing to entrap me with their informant) inserting me into a conspiracy of which I was never a member. I make no other claims of “innocence.” more…
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The wonder is that Luis Posada was ever charged with anything… Posada was acquitted at trial in Texas last week.
Cubana Airlines DC-8...
The US Dept of “Justice” effectively conspired with Posada’s defense by only charging him with lying to US Immigration authorities. It would have been extremely embarrassing should Posada have decided to “talk”; he’s the main slug in USG terrorism against Cuba. more…
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Another trial in Texas is about to commence—no doubt with the same laughable result. Last week Tom DeLay was sentenced to three yrs for public corruption. I doubt he’ll ever serve a day. The CIA’s arch-terrorist, Luis Posada Carriles, is scheduled for trial today (Jan. 17th) in a Houston federal court for perjury to an immigration judge.
The face of terror...
Posada was tailor-made for the CIA. Not having their own hit teams (they borrow them from the Special Forces, the Mafia, or other nations), they recruit others to do their dirty work.
Posada is one of those psychopathic killers (DSM-IV) that conservative and neo-liberal corporatists in gov’t love, or at least tolerate as necessary in their pursuit of power and wealth. more…
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When I served time on a chain-gang in the Old South (1963-65), snitching was practically unheard of. The one snitch that I recall in general pop where I was at was punked out. He gave handjobs to all comers for candy bars, and blowjobs for smokes.
Joe Wilson & Valerie Plame
Today’s a different story. Over 90% of convicts have either “accepted responsibility” and pled guilty for a deal, and/or “cooperated” by snitching out others (even when they had nothing; police and prosecutors would provide) for an even better deal.
Certainly there are rational and responsible reasons for taking a plea—assuming you do so on yourself. But snitching when you’re a player in the game? You’re a punk.
These realities don’t exist in a vacuum. The prison system is a reflection of the people who create and run them. From the top-down. more…
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