Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire

Lynne Stewart Gets Ten Years – The Progressive Movement Gets Lethal Injection
Bill Quigley
21 Jul 2010
🖨️ Print Article

lynee and ralph

by U-Savior

It’s time to regroup, rethink, and possibly re-boot the “movement,” which has been gravely damaged from inside and out. “The back biting and murmuring amongst the agenda-less, corrupted, dysfunctional and disheveled ‘grass root progressives’ has led us to exactly where we are today.”

 

Lynne Stewat Gets Ten Years – The Progressive Movement Gets Lethal Injection

by U-Savior

“Our inability to secure the release of Lynne Stewart supports my assertion that the so-called ‘movement’ has stopped and has functionally collapsed.”

Where was the massive movement to set Lynne free? Time served? Why do we allow our enemies to set the tone, pace, debate, discourse and agenda? It keeps us off balance and off our A-game. Twenty-eight months was ridiculous. Lynne broke a bullshit law that was inherently unconstitutional. No one was hurt, maimed or killed by her actions but she has received a death sentence because ten years for a seventy year-old woman fighting cancer and poor prison medical care spells death. In contrast Bush’s and now Obama’s war policies kill people every day! Our inability to secure the release of Lynne Stewart supports my assertion that the so- called “movement” has stopped and has functionally collapsed. Despite all the issues that plague this case and many cases like this we still face the innate inability of individuals and groups to put aside small and petty differences. Where’s my name on this flier? Whose speaking first and how much time will I get on the microphone or stage? I’m not coming or supporting if this person or group is there. Lynne is not Black, Lynne is not Brown, She didn’t support me when, Lynne is too radical, blah blah....

No, you’re probably not radical enough and she makes you feel uneasy because your uninspiring weak approach sounds so silly and corny against her clear courageous uncompromising analysis. The back biting and murmuring amongst the agenda-less, corrupted, dysfunctional and disheveled “grass root progressives” has led us to exactly where we are today, where the wicked can at will kill us in broad daylight, snatch our young, crush our dreams and imprison and/or kill the best thinkers, speakers and fighters.

We must start fresh! Imagine a world where Mumia, Peltier, The Cuban Five, Mehanna and Lynne are among us.

“It’s a time to get things right and learn from past mistakes.”

When things collapse it’s not always a bad thing (unless you’re caught in the debris). It’s a time to start unsullied, introduce new and youthful ideas, blood and tools. And to get things right and learn from past mistakes.

1. Zero tolerance for gossip, back biting and slander. Only the facts.

2. Individuals and groups will be judged on what they actually do.

3. A resurgence of a people-led lunch, literacy and health program.

4. Ending all vertical movements – lead by example and everyone should be an example.

5. Defy containment.

6. Destroy the illusion.

7. Crush the Machine.

On the other hand, knowing what I know about Lynne there will be a surge in jail house lawyers, prison reform and anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist and anti-fascist revolutionaries. One of my catch phrases for the last twenty years has been, ”this entire system was never designed to empower us.” Knowing this and being in media, everything I touch is aimed at exposing, indicting and criticizing this system while creatively designing a world without fascists, imperialists and dictators masked in free enterprise. Lynne was not the only one indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced; every attorney who would defend The Poor, The Destitute, The Unpopular, The Depraved, The Insane, The Innocent, The Framed, The Black, The Brown, The Red, The Yellow, The Radical Thinker, The School Teacher who teaches Mao, Huey and Avakian, etc. You, me; we all have been sentenced to a lack of access to this beautiful bright light that made us better every day.

One day Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Gonzales, Powell and Cheney were in jail and needed a great defense attorney. They’re all looking around at each other and Sarah Palin asks, "What happened to that frumpy passionate woman attorney Lynne Stewart?" Cheney looks over at Bush and says, “That’s another thing you fucked up.”

U-Savior is a journalist, media activist and filmmaker. He is the director of Disappearing Voices - The Decline of Black Radio. He can be reached at usavior@blackwaxx.com. www.disappearingvoices.com

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • BAR Book Forum: Jennifer Nash’s “Black Feminism Reimagined”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: Jennifer Nash’s “Black Feminism Reimagined”
    05 Jun 2019
    Black women are still regularly ignored by the very political projects that celebrate us.
  • BAR Book Forum: An Excerpt from Belén Fernández’s “Exile: Rejecting America and Finding the World”
    Belen Fernandez
    BAR Book Forum: An Excerpt from Belén Fernández’s “Exile: Rejecting America and Finding the World”
    05 Jun 2019
    The US is a nation of freedom: the freedom to carry or be shot by a firearm, and to go into eternal debt.
  • Climate Terrorism: The Politically Farsighted Way to Impeach Trump
    Patrick Walker
    Climate Terrorism: The Politically Farsighted Way to Impeach Trump
    05 Jun 2019
    By focusing on climate terrorism, Democrats could show voters that they care more about the common good than their self-serving Russiagate narrative. 
  • Book Review: Bringing Police Torture in Chicago to the Full Light of Day
    Carl Davidson
    Book Review: Bringing Police Torture in Chicago to the Full Light of Day
    05 Jun 2019
    A new book reveals Chicago as a racist police state where the entire criminal justice system was complicit in torture.
  • The Bankers’ “Power Revolution” -- How the Government Got Shackled by Debt
    Ellen Brown
    The Bankers’ “Power Revolution” -- How the Government Got Shackled by Debt
    05 Jun 2019
    There is no reason for the government to borrow trillions from capitalists – except to enrich the financial classes and enforce austerity.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us