"A
very great vision is needed and the man who has it must
follow it as the eagle seeks the deepest blue of the sky."����������������������������������������������
��������������������������������������������������������
- Chief Crazy Horse
Today's very succinct column is meant as a reminder
to everyday Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people
of a vision to which many of our Indigenous Native sisters
and brothers have often made reference. It is also a vision
embodied by the ongoing unjust incarceration of Indigenous
Native rights activist and long time political prisoner
Leonard Peltier.
This week Mr. Peltier became the recipient of the
first Mario Benedetti international human rights prize.
The aforementioned Mario Benedetti Foundation was established
"to support human rights and cultural causes in synch
with the work of the Uruguayan writer who died in 2009."
It is important for everyday people of all colors
in this nation and throughout the world to take a moment
to consider and salute our brother Leonard Peltier, and
indeed all political prisoners wherever they are.
Mr. Peltier is one of the longest serving political prisoners
in�this nation, and he has remained steadfast in his principles
despite enormous and continuous adversity.
Like the great 1870s Indigenous Native warrior, philosopher,
and chief - Crazy Horse,� Mr. Peltier has demonstrated a
vision which all people of goodwill must yet rekindle.
From Leonard Peltier to Mumia Abu-Jamal to Lynne
Stewart and so very, very many others�who have been
and remain incarcerated in a sadistic and unjust U.S. prison
gulag system; we must be clear that their imprisonment
is our own imprisonment and their suffering is ours
as well. Likewise their yearning for justice and spirit
of resistance must� also be ours even as we honor and struggle
to save our Mother Earth. All political prisoners and prisoners
of conscience must be freed!
In the spirit of Crazy Horse, we congratulate
you brother Leonard on the attainment of the
Mario Benedetti international human rights prize! All Power
To The People!
Onward then my sisters and brothers! Onward!
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of
the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior
of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner
and the only American to have successfully self-authored
his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing
activities in opposition to voter suppression, etc., Pinkney
was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News
Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil/Lehrer
News Hour. For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and
Thinker,
by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book). Click
here to contact Mr. Pinkney.
|