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Shocking Still!: The Children Of Activist Are Paying A Price, ONCE AGAIN?

With the NEW McCarthyism so rampant in the USA today, TAKE TIME to learn a bit from the ORPHAN son of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, for I fear this is just the start.

 

THE RFC

The Rosenberg Fund for Children (RFC) is a non-profit, public foundation that makes grants to aid children in the U.S. whose parents are targeted, progressive activists. We also assist youth who themselves have been targeted as a result of their progressive activities. Donations to the RFC are tax-deductible to the full extent of the law.

Our Story

My name is Robert Meeropol, but I was born Robert Rosenberg. When I was three, my parents, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, were arrested and charged with giving the secret of the Atomic Bomb to the Soviet Union. When I was six, the government executed my parents at the height of the McCarthy era. Now, more than fifty years later, I can sense the same chill winds that wreaked havoc on my life and many others, once again sweeping our nation.

In recent years, we have witnessed the most rapid and widespread erosion of our civil liberties since the 1950’s. Those who speak out in opposition to our criminal war abroad and the growing repression at home are condemned as “traitors” and treated as enemies of the state.

These conditions are familiar to anyone who lived through the anti-communist hysteria of the 1950’s. After my parents’ arrests, my relatives were so frightened of being associated with "communist spies" that they refused to take me into their homes. First I lived in a shelter. Later I lived with friends of my parents in New Jersey, but I was thrown out of school after the Board of Education found out who I was. After my parents' execution, the police even seized me from the home of my future adoptive parents, and I was placed in an orphanage.

Bad as this was, it could have been much worse. As I grew older, I came to realize the debt I owed to so many generous individuals whom I never met, but who rallied to my support. As a result of their collective efforts and generosity, I grew up in a loving household and flourished in the supportive environment provided by child-oriented progressive institutions.

In 1990 I figured out how I could repay the community that helped me survive. I initiated the Rosenberg Fund for Children to find and help children who are enduring the same kind of nightmare I endured as a child. You may be shocked to learn that there are hundreds of children in these circumstances in this country today! Moreover, as thousands of outraged young people across the nation protest against injustice, many of these activist “children” are themselves becoming the targets of repression.As happened during my own childhood, our beneficiaries’ lives have been thrown into turmoil by the harsh reprisals aimed at those resisting repression today. The Rosenberg Fund for Children provides the shelter of a supportive community for children whose parents are working for social justice, and -- as a direct result -- have lost their livelihood, their liberty, their physical or emotional well-being or even their lives in the course of that work.

Children are suffering right now because their parents have been persecuted in response to their involvement in progressive movements including the struggles to preserve civil liberties, wage peace, safeguard the environment, combat racism and organize on behalf of workers, prisoners and others whose human rights are under threat.

My experience has taught me what is needed to ease the pain of these children. I never would have survived to build my life and create the Rosenberg Fund for Children were it not for the help I received from a supportive community made up of so many socially aware individuals and institutions. I started the Fund to enable today’s members of this community to rally around the children of this era’s targeted activists.

The Rosenberg Fund for Children provides for its beneficiaries’ educational and emotional needs in the same way that I was helped. The Fund makes grants to institutions and professionals who nurture these youngsters and cultivate progressive values.

For the first time, many of these children have been able to learn and flourish in a supportive community of sympathetic peers and adults. Attending a school or a summer camp that celebrates struggles for economic and social justice has a powerfully positive impact on a child whose parents have been attacked for participating in such struggles.

Children in traumatic circumstances yearn for stability.  The RFC recognizes that need and aims to make long-term commitments to our beneficiaries.  Once children have begun receiving grants, the RFC strives to continue providing aid until the children reach an age where they are no longer eligible for our assistance.

We have learned from prior episodes of repression. We know that the best defense is to be outspoken and for communities to rally around those who are targeted.

Robert Meeropol

The Rosenbergs' Last Letter

From Sing Sing prison's death row hours before their execution, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg wrote one, final letter to their young sons Robby and Michael.
 

June 19, 1953

Dearest Sweethearts, my most precious children,

Only this morning it looked like we might be together again after all. Now that his cannot be, I want so much for you to know all that I have come to know.  Unfortunately, I may write only a few simple words; the rest your own lives must teach you, even as mine taught me.

At first, of course, you will grieve bitterly for us, but you will not grieve alone. That is our consolation and it must eventually be yours.

Eventually, too you must come to believe that life is worth the living. Be comforted that even now, with the end of ours slowly approaching, that we know this with a conviction that defeats the executioner!

Your lives must teach you, too, that good cannot really flourish in the midst of evil; that freedom and all the things that go to make up a truly satisfying and worthwhile life, must sometimes be purchased very dearly. Be comforted then that we were serene and understood with the deepest kind of understanding, that civilization had not as yet progressed to the point where life did not have to be lost for the sake of life; and that we were comforted in the sure knowledge that others would carry on after us.

We wish we might have had the tremendous joy and gratification of living our lives out with you. Your Daddy who is with me in these last momentous hours, sends his heart and all the love that is in it for his dearest boys. Always remember that we were innocent and could not wrong our conscience.

We press you close and kiss you with all our strength.

Lovingly,
DADDY AND MOMMY
JULIE             ETHEL 

(Click here to read a special message from Robert Meeropol about June 19, 2009, the 56th anniversary of his parents' executions. )

LEARN MORE AND GIVE via www.rfc.org

Where Is My America? The Tea Party Explained -- Part I

As children, many of us imagine what a perfect future looks like.  As we get older our expectations and fantasies become more grounded, but no less ideal.  Instead of being King or Queen with throngs of adoring subjects and fearful foes kept at bay, we daydream of financial and emotional security with those we adore as illness is kept away.  If we should want children, we want them growing up going to good schools in neighborhoods safely removed from the dangers we read in the B section of local newspapers.  These dreams, while not unanimous, would find approving ears from most people on the right and left side of American politics. How we GET THERE is where the fight ALWAYS seems to lie in wait.

As Americans our daydreams are our birthright. Jefferson’s “pursuit of happiness” is declared for us in the self same document that ensured our country’s origin. Yet daydreams like babies are born(e) without handbooks, without a natural weighing of pros and cons; without a sense of right or wrong; but with undoubted fragility, until they mature.  But also like young toddlers if we fail to discipline them early they grow spoiled, disrespectful and incapable of playing nice with other people’s “dreams.”  The failure of most of our institutions of higher learning, and often some parents is the passing on of a dream without preparations  as to how you respond  when the dream that you’ve nurtured and cared for dies prematurely; when urban east coast dreams grow plain, and Midwestern dreams are deferred.

Dreams as belief systems can be hereditary; capable of being passed down with facial features, eye color, and unfortunately genetic illnesses. And as such, dreams and belief systems can evolve over time, and those with outdated characteristics either adapt or suffer the solitude that comes when one is made painfully aware of their impending extinction.

If you were raised with the belief that if you did an honest day’s work, married the first girl that let you “go all the way,” kept an American flag on your front lawn, showed up at the same church every Sunday, and remained loyal to your hometown, you were most likely guaranteed an adult life with a limited tax burden, a strong military, a white president, and gay people tucked away in closets.  What would you do now?  How would you reconcile that you did your part and aside from our incredibly capable military, you didn’t get your promised returns?  Oh of course you’d point to the tax burden, and complain about other people spending YOUR money.  But the point of the matter is you’d see other people’s “progressive” success as a “regressive” trend from your ideal America.  You’d probably mount picket signs that express your frustration.  You’d probably storm the Washington Mall (the site of the most historic Progressive victory in two centuries).  You’d probably call out like a parent for a lost child. Your lost child. Your promised dream. Your America.

It’s easy to paint the tea-party for being gay bashing racists, their rhetoric hints of a ‘purer’ (excuse me?) America that existed before present events.  They couldn’t care less about this appearance as they don’t perceive the people they are recruiting to be offended by such rhetoric.  But with all their ‘empowered’ attacks, and calls for a return to American ideals I believe something far more subtle is taking place.

This isn’t the roar of a burgeoning society.  This isn’t the opening stanza of a new battle hymn of a new republic. _{^{It’s the loud deafening moan of a dying woolly mammoth.}} 

In these cries for a lost America,  should you listen carefully you will hear Jim Crow choking on 220 yr old cigar; hear Woodrow Wilson’s pen signing the laws that made segregation legal running out of ink that coincidentally becomes invisible after some years; you can hear the last iteration of Dixie playing on a 250 yr old loop.

But for all the pained sonic textures I still don’t see it as malicious. I still don’t see it as something to be feared.  I see great sadness. I see it is as the resulting consequence of allowing your dreams to exclude others; when you’re the last to know your views are antiquated. I see it as a situation when one would rather argue than adopt or adapt. As they are still Americans, and as a patriot; my heart goes out to them in a way that my vote most certainly will not.  After all I was promised that while I am a minority, if I were to work hard, apply myself, and carry myself professionally;  I’d be able to live in a world where no neighborhood was off limits and I could be treated fairly in the workplace.  I now live in that America.  Maybe I’m hypocritical in the grand sense.  I often forget how that dream coming true must make some others feel.

Note: No copyright found and guessing this was written by "Stone" at the web site: UrbanPolitico.com. Hopefully you will share this and the site with others. Good stuff.

Guest Post: "Imagine if the Tea Party Was Black" - Tim Wise

Let’s play a game, shall we?

The name of the game is called “Imagine.” The way it’s played is simple: we’ll envision recent happenings in the news, but then change them up a bit. Instead of envisioning white people as the main actors in the scenes we’ll conjure - the ones who are driving the action - we’ll envision black folks or other people of color instead. The object of the game is to imagine the public reaction to the events or incidents, if the main actors were of color, rather than white. Whoever gains the most insight into the workings of race in America, at the end of the game, wins.

So let’s begin.

Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protester — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.

Imagine that a rap artist were to say, in reference to a white president: “He’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on my machine gun.” Because that’s what rocker Ted Nugent said recently about President Obama.

Imagine that a prominent mainstream black political commentator had long employed an overt bigot as Executive Director of his organization, and that this bigot regularly participated in black separatist conferences, and once assaulted a white person while calling them by a racial slur. When that prominent black commentator and his sister — who also works for the organization — defended the bigot as a good guy who was misunderstood and “going through a tough time in his life” would anyone accept their excuse-making? Would that commentator still have a place on a mainstream network? Because that’s what happened in the real world, when Pat Buchanan employed as Executive Director of his group, America’s Cause, a blatant racist who did all these things, or at least their white equivalents: attending white separatist conferences and attacking a black woman while calling her the n-word.

Imagine that a black radio host were to suggest that the only way to get promoted in the administration of a white president is by “hating black people,” or that a prominent white person had only endorsed a white presidential candidate as an act of racial bonding, or blamed a white president for a fight on a school bus in which a black kid was jumped by two white kids, or said that he wouldn’t want to kill all conservatives, but rather, would like to leave just enough—“living fossils” as he called them—“so we will never forget what these people stood for.” After all, these are things that Rush Limbaugh has said, about Barack Obama’s administration, Colin Powell’s endorsement of Barack Obama, a fight on a school bus in Belleville, Illinois in which two black kids beat up a white kid, and about liberals, generally.

Imagine that a black pastor, formerly a member of the U.S. military, were to declare, as part of his opposition to a white president’s policies, that he was ready to “suit up, get my gun, go to Washington, and do what they trained me to do.” This is, after all, what Pastor Stan Craig said recently at a Tea Party rally in Greenville, South Carolina.

Imagine a black radio talk show host gleefully predicting a revolution by people of color if the government continues to be dominated by the rich white men who have been “destroying” the country, or if said radio personality were to call Christians or Jews non-humans, or say that when it came to conservatives, the best solution would be to “hang ‘em high.” And what would happen to any congressional representative who praised that commentator for “speaking common sense” and likened his hate talk to “American values?” After all, those are among the things said by radio host and best-selling author Michael Savage, predicting white revolution in the face of multiculturalism, or said by Savage about Muslims and liberals, respectively. And it was Congressman Culbertson, from Texas, who praised Savage in that way, despite his hateful rhetoric.

Imagine a black political commentator suggesting that the only thing the guy who flew his plane into the Austin, Texas IRS building did wrong was not blowing up Fox News instead. This is, after all, what Anne Coulter said about Tim McVeigh, when she noted that his only mistake was not blowing up the New York Times.

Imagine that a popular black liberal website posted comments about the daughter of a white president, calling her “typical redneck trash,” or a “whore” whose mother entertains her by “making monkey sounds.” After all that’s comparable to what conservatives posted about Malia Obama on freerepublic.com last year, when they referred to her as “ghetto trash.”

Imagine that black protesters at a large political rally were walking around with signs calling for the lynching of their congressional enemies. Because that’s what white conservatives did last year, in reference to Democratic party leaders in Congress.

In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?

To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis.

Game Over.

Tim Wise is among the most prominent anti-racist writers and activists in the U.S. Wise has spoken in 48 states, on over 400 college campuses, and to community groups around the nation. Wise has provided anti-racism training to teachers nationwide, and has trained physicians and medical industry professionals on how to combat racial inequities in health care. His latest book is called Between Barack and a Hard Place.

CHOCOLATE LAB PUPPY "COCO" WAS STRANGLED-DIES; HIGHLIGHTS NEED FOR SENATOR DEAN FLOREZ BILL ESTABLISHING ANIMAL ABUSE REGISTRY

"He told us that he pinned the dog down by the neck and throat for 20 seconds while the puppy defecated and urinated on itself in panic or because it started to lose consciousness, we don't know," said Lt. Dan DeSousa with SD County Animal Services.

 

Coco died Friday, one week after CA Senator Dean Florez introduced AB 1277, which would establish an Animal Abuse Registry in California and "make those guilty of Animal Abuse famous for their crimes" and hopefully prevent horrors that Coco suffered. 

Coco's owner and alleged puppy killer, David Hale Warner, 50, is currently in the San Diego Detention Center and has been booked on felony animal cruelty charges.  The Department of Animal Services has 72 hours to prepare a case for the District Attorney.  If convicted, Warner may be punished with up to three years in a state prison, one year in a county prison or fined $20,000.

At booking, it was discovered that Warner had an existing arrest warrant for spousal abuse.

Future animal cruelty cases (and other abuses) may well be prevented if California State Senator Dean Florez, also a candidate for California Lt. Governor, is successful passage of Senate Bill 1277.

California state Sen. Dean Florez hopes a love of animals will bring the parties together. Florez is the chair of the state Senate's Food and Agriculture Committee and an animal welfare advocate.

Details of Bill

Sen. Florez has offered a bill, S.B. 1277, to establish an online registry of people convicted of felony animal abuse.  The registry would help warn shelters and rescues as well as pet owners of abusers in the area to avoid. It would be a deterrent to animal abuse. It would also serve as an early warning indicator of those likely to commit domestic abuse or other violent crimes.

There is a well-established link between animal abuse and domestic violence and other violent crimes.

Animal abuse is often an indicator of future violence to humans

In one study 71% of women in a battered women's shelter reported their abuser either abused a household pet or threatened to abuse a pet. (Ascione, 1998)  

In another study 88% of child abusers also abused the animals in the home. (Ascione) 

In a study by Dr. Jacquelyn Campbell, Public Health Department, the Johns Hopkins University from 1994 to 2000 in eleven USA metropolitan cities, pet abuse was one of the four significant predictors for determining who was at highest risk for becoming a batterer. Many abused spouses delay leaving out of fear for their pets' safety and because they have nowhere to take them.

70% of animal abusers were found in one 20 year study to have then committed other crimes, and 44% went on to harm people. (Arluke, A. & Luke, C. 1997).

In another study 99% of animal abusers had convictions for other crimes. (Clarke, J. P. 2002). In that same study it was found 100% of people who committed sexual homicide had abused animals. (Clarke, J. P. 2002). That study also revealed 61.5% of animal abusers had assaulted a human as well. (Clarke, J. P. 2002).

63.3% of inmates in a prison study who were in for violent crimes admitted to abusing animals. This doesn't include the ones who didn't admit it. (Schiff Louw Ascione, 1999)

Police have found animal abuse is a better predictor of whether someone will commit sexual assault than previous convictions for murder or arson. (Clarke, J. P. 2002).

WHAT YOU CAN DO

Find your California state senators and representatives here and urge them to vote yes to S.B. 1277 and help identify persons convicted of felony animal abuse for the protection of both animals and people.

Read more: http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2010-02-24/local-county-news/suspect-in-puppy-choking-case-arrested#ixzz0gjQ3XL3w and http://www.animallawcoalition.com/ which were used in preparing this post.

Twelve Angry White People: Jury Nullification in a Pennsylvania Coal Town

When someone tells you that we have gone beyond the racism of the past, which is in the press a lot these days, remember this brand new example:

The Schuylkill County, Pa., justice system managed to do something that insurance actuaries do with mixed results—it has determined not only the penalty for threats to a human life, but also the value of a human life.  

Twelve Angry White People

Except: 

However, the life of Luis Eduardo Ramirez-Zavalo, 25, a Mexican who lived and worked in Shenandoah before dying, in June 2008 after a beating by a gang of about a half-dozen drunken Shenandoah High School football players, is worth no more than 23 months in a county jail. 

           Judge William E. Baldwin sentenced Brandon J. Piekarsky, 17, to six to 23 months, and Derrick M. Donchak, 19, to six to 20 months, June 17, after an all-White jury convicted them only of simple assault, a second degree misdemeanor. Baldwin also sentenced Donchak to one year probation for three counts of corruption of minors, a first degree misdemeanor that carries a maximum sentence of two to five years in state prison; Donchak was also sentenced to three months in prison on each of three counts of furnishing alcohol to minors; the sentences would be served concurrently. His total sentence is seven to 23 months in county jail.  

          The jury about six weeks earlier refused to convict Piekarsky of criminal homicide, although witnesses said that it was Piekarsky who kicked Ramirez in the head after he had already been on the ground; Ramirez died two days later from the beatings, with medical evidence suggesting the kick was the fatal blow. The jury also found both Piekarsky and Donchak not guilty of aggravated assault, recklessly endangering another person, criminal solicitation/hindering apprehension or prosecution, and ethnic intimidation, although witnesses said they distinctly heard racial slurs and obscene language during the beating. 

More: 

OpEdNews » OpEdNews.

Op-Ed Columnist - The Big Hate - NYTimes.com

"Today, as in the early years of the Clinton administration but to an even greater extent, right-wing extremism is being systematically fed by the conservative media and political establishment."

An Amazingly, Spot On Analysis by Paul Krugman

Full Article here.