Allegations of Communist influence in the civil rights movement were widely publicized in the summer of 1963 by opponents of the administration's proposed public accommodations bill. On July 12, 1963, Governor Ross E. Barnett of Mississippi testified before the Senate Commerce Committee that civil rights legislation was "a part of the world Communist conspiracy to divide and conquer our country from within." Barnett displayed a photograph entitled "Martin Luther King at Communist Training School" taken by an informant for the Georgia Commission of Education, which showed Dr. King at a 1957 Labor Day Weekend seminar at the Highland Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee with three individuals whom he alleged were communists. When Senator Mike Monroney challenged the accuracy of this characterization, Barnett stated that he had not checked the allegations with the FBI and suggested that the Commerce Committee do so. The FBI subsequently concluded that the charges were false.
Later that day, Senator Monroney asked Director Hoover for his views on whether Dr. King and the leaders of other civil rights organizations had Communist affiliations. Senator Warren G. Magnuson also asked Hoover about the authenticity of the photograph, the status of the Georgia Commission on Education, and the nature of the Highlander Folk School. Director Hoover forwarded these requests and similar inquiries from other Senators to the Justice Department with a memorandum summarizing the COMINFIL* information about SCL [sic]:
In substance, the Communist Party, USA, is not able to assume a role of leadership in the racial unrest at this time. However, the Party is attempting to exploit the current racial situation through propaganda and participation in demonstrations and other activities whenever possible. Through these tactics, the Party hopes ultimately to progress from its current supporting role to a position of active leadership. [Emphasis added.]
In the same memorandum, Director Hoover brought up the subject of Advisers A and B's alleged Communist affiliations.** He claimed that the Communist Party had pinned its hopes on Adviser A, and that although Adviser B had resigned from the SCLC, he continued to associate with Dr. King.
On July 15, Governor George C. Wallace of Alabama testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in opposition to the Civil Rights bill, berating officials for "fawning and pawing over such people as Martin Luther King and his pro Communist friends and associates." Wallace referred to the picture displayed by Governor Barnett three days before and added:
Recently Martin Luther King publicly professed to have fired a known Communist, [Adviser B], who had been on his payroll. But as discovered by a member of the US Congress, the public profession was a lie, and Adviser B had remained on King's payroll.
On July 17, the President announced at a news conference:
We have no evidence that any of the leaders of the civil rights movement in the United States are Communists. We have no evidence that the demonstrations are Communist-inspired. There may be occasions when a Communist takes part in a demonstration. We can't prevent that. But I think it is a convenient scapegoat to suggest that all of the difficulties are Communist and that if the Communist movement would only disappear that we would end this.
On July 23, Robert Kennedy sent to the Commerce Committee the Justice Department's response to the queries of Senators Monroney and Magnuson:
Based on all available evidence from the FBI and other sources, we have no evidence that any of the top leaders of the major civil rights groups are Communists, or Communist controlled. This is true as to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., about whom particular accusations were made, as well as other leaders.
It is natural and inevitable that Communists have made efforts to infiltrate the civil rights groups and to exploit the current racial situation. In view of the real injustices that exist and the resentment against them, these efforts have been remarkably unsuccessful.
Burke Marshall, who aided in formulating these responses for the Justice Department, told the Committee that rumors of communist infiltration in the civil rights movement had caused the Administration considerable concern.
At that point, in some sense the business was a political problem, not from the point of view of the support that the civil rights movement was giving the administration or anything like that, but how to be honest with the Senators with this problem facing us and at the same time not to give ammunition to people who for substantive reasons were opposed to civil rights legislation.
Generally, for years the civil rights movement in the South and to some extent in some quarters in the North ... were constantly referred to as communist infiltrated, communist inspired, radical movements ... So that the political problem that I would identify with this whole situation would be that and not a question of whether or not there was support given the Administration by civil rights groups in the South.
(UNITED STATES SENATE, SUPPLEMENTARY DETAILED STAFF REPORTS ON INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES AND THE RIGHTS OF AMERICANS, BOOK III, FINAL REPORT OF THE SELECT COMMITTEE TO STUDY GOVERNMENTAL OPERATIONS WITH RESPECT TO INTELLIGENCE ACTIVITIES, DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., CASE STUDY, APRIL 23 (under authority of the order of April 14), 1976)
NOTES
*COMINFIL is how the FBI referred to its "Communist Infiltration" investigations.
**Excerpted here is section III B of the MLK Case Study, linked in the citation, above. The background on Advisers A and B can be found in section III A, available at the same link, above. The red baiting of MLK's advisers has been discussed at length by David Garrow. Stanley Levison, Jack O'Dell and Bayard Rustin were all red baited out of prominent roles in the SCLC (Rustin was also gay baited).
If you examine the fine print at the bottom right of the MLK smear flier included in yesterday's post, you'll find the words "Reprint from Georgia Commission On Education."
What was the Georgia Commission On Education?
On Dec. 10, 1953, the state of Georgia established the Commission by a joint resolution of the Georgia General Assembly.
A Resolution. To establish The Georgia Commission on Education, to define its duties and authority, and to provide therefor such funds as are necessary to effectuate the purposes thereof.
Whereas, the Constitution of the State provides for the separate education of the white and colored races, and
Whereas, necessity for further legislation or constitutional amendments in that regard might hereafter arise;
It is therefore resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives as follows:
One. The Georgia Commission on Education is hereby established.
Two. Said commission shall formulate a plan or plans of legislation, prepare drafts of suggested laws, and recommend courses of action for consideration by the General Assembly whereby the State may by taxation continue to provide adequate education for all its citizens consisted with the provisions of the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Georgia.
Who sat on the Commission?
Said commission shall be composed of the Governor, Lieutenant-Governor, Speaker of the House of Representatives, State Auditor, the Attorney General, Chairman of the Board of Regents, Chairman of the State Board of Education, State School Superintendent, Chancellor of the University System of Georgia, Chairman of the Judicial Council; a representative from the Georgia Bar Association, and, representative of the State both geographically and in all segments of her economy, ten other citizens to be appointed by the Governor, one from each congressional district of the State.
Summary
The Georgia Commission On Education was a state funded agency, established to maintain segregation in Georgia's schools.
I had stopped trying to follow the fine details of the controversy over Cindy Sheehan's Nightline letter. But a couple of nights ago I got drawn back into it. There are nasty elements on both the right and the left who opportunistically insist that Cindy made the comment that she denies.
(That's Christopher Hitchens linked as my representative right-wing hack. Some will say he is a centrist and I should be linking someone else. But Hitchens cannot deliver his quasi-defensible centrist position on the war without compulsive, unsupported attacks on Sheehan—landing him squarely in winger city. It is worth reading Max Blumenthal on Hitchens to understand his hypocrisy and to get the dirt on his admiration for Holocaust deniers.)
While I am not one hundred percent convinced by Cindy Sheehan's own explanation, Blake Wilson's supposedly definitive analysis to the contrary is not conclusive either.
(As I'm linking to some of the commentaries on this controversy, I would be remiss if I didn't mention billmon on antisemtism in the DLC, neocons, Israel, Iraq, Iran and, yes, Cindy Sheehan. If you're going to read anything on the Sheehan brouhaha, billmon's post is a good one. It's also where I stole the the first part of my title from.)
I spent a little more time over at the bullyard google group, where Cindy's letter made its internet debut in March. I ran searches on Tony Tersch and Skeeter Gallagher's posts—the two men who were responsible for forwarding emails from Cindy Sheehan to the group. Sheehan never joined the group and posted messages to it directly. I could not find anything in Tersch or Gallagher's posts that was even remotely anti-Israel or antisemitic. But there are others at bullyard who are virulent with conspiracy theories about Israel and a war mongering Jewish "cabal."
James Morris, who forwarded Cindy Sheeehan's letter to Nightline is, according to Wilson, an "an anti-Zionist activist." What exactly does that mean? What sort of activism is he involved in? What is his "anti-Zionist" ideology? Why haven't any of the reporters who are trying to authenticate the content of Cindy's Nightline letter provided any other details about Morris? In fact the only two news sources on Morris are Britt Hume (Fox) and Blake Wilson (Slate). Morris has very little, if any, web presence (i.e., I cannot verify the James Morris at those links is the one who knows Cindy Sheehan). The two news reports that mention contact with him do not even say where he resides, though we know that Tony Tersch resides in Thailand and can be reached by email, postal mail, phone and fax—contact info he has sent me, since my initial attempt to contact him.
Meanwhile almost anywhere you look for conversations about the Nightline letter—including, as of last week, at bullyard—there is someone who goes by truthseeker (aka justiceseeker2000) posting links and brief comments to promote the idea that Casey Sheehan died for Israel and that Cindy Sheehan has said this is so. One of truthseeker's favorite things to do is post a link to the haloscan comments for the post at the Representative Press blog, which I linked to, above, on the word "left." In that comments thread and nowhere else, you can find, posted by truthseeker, supposed correspondence from James Morris on Cindy Sheehan. In a supposed exchange with Daniel Levine, a "producer at FOX news channel," truthseeker's James Morris talks about the "Israel agenda," asserting that "it is time that Ms. Sheehan addresses the truth of what she had so accurately written in the email." You will find similar stuff in the truthseeker James Morris letter to Christopher Hitchens.
Is truthseeker James Morris? If so or if not, is the correspondence with Levine and Hitchens authentic? I emailed truthseeker yesterday and also left an inquiry in the haloscan thread on the Representative Press blog. While truthseeker has since posted another comment there, he or she has not responded to my queries. My point is not that truthseeker is the key to all of our unanswered questions, but that the circumstances surrounding Cindy Sheehan's letter to Nightline continue to be murky with provocateurs and defamers available in abundance.
The prevalence of provocateurs and defamers should be a big tip off for everyone. Figures on the left with Cindy Sheehan's power to galvanize public opinion and inspire action have long been targets for these tactics. I alluded to this before, and I bring it up again because the sad history is just too well documented.
So I'm remaining agnostic on the antisemitism question, as billmon puts it, and remaining a supporter of Cindy Sheehan's protest—especially since the murky circumstances and all of the other charges of sedition and guilt by association make Cindy's story seem much too familiar to anyone with a good sense of history.
Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission Records
SCR ID # 3-23A-2-125-1-1-1
Mississippi Department of Archives & History
http://www.mdah.state.ms.us
Pete Seeger continues to be a big favorite for my toddler. Standing in the chair in front of the stereo, he pulls the Pete Seeger CD of choice out of the stack, gets the disc out of the case, opens the CD player drawer, places the disc in, closes the drawer—and finds his favorite songs by himself.
This all started with him simply calling out the names of songs or artists he wanted to hear and repeating the name with great insistence. Then he started asking for CDs to put into the player himself. And now, most recently, he's been cuing up the desired songs without help.
The first song he did this with was Sweet Potatoes, on We Shall Overcome: The Complete Carnegie Hall Concert (1963). He figured out how to press the track advance button three times to get to track 3 on disc 2. What was mind blowing, though, was when he figured out how to get to track 18 on the Children's Concert At Town Hall (Abiyoyo). I'm pretty sure that at 2 1/2 he hasn't learned to count to 18 but rather has learned to recognize what the track number for Abiyoyo looks like in the CD player display. Still, it's pretty darn cool . . .
It's a good thing I like Pete Seeger so much. Instead of getting sick of the recordings, I've been finding new pleasures in songs I hadn't paid as much attention to when I was younger. The first song that struck me this way was Pete's rendition of the the John Lair song, Little Birdie. The liner notes say Pete learned the song in the 1940s from one the Coon Creek Girls, who were Lair's proteges. Pete's mountain-style banjo on this track is hypnotic, and the lyrics are beautiful. When I tried to find a transcription of them online, there were many versions of the song, but none with words that Pete sings on this recording—which makes me think that it was Pete himself who came up with this most deeply poetic and mysterious version of the song that I've come to love so well:
Little birdie, little birdie,
What makes you fly so high?
It's because I am a true little bird
And I do not fare to die?Little birdie, little birdie,
What makes your wings so blue?
It's because I've been a grieving
Grievin' after you.Little birdie, little birdie,
What makes your head so red?
Well after all that I've been through
It's a wonder I ain't dead.Little birdie, little birdie,
Come sing to me a song.
I've a short while to be here,
And a long time to be gone.
In the middle two verses, the movement between the images and the states of mind and emotion they signify reminds me of reading William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Exprience (of all things). Maybe that's just the ballad tradition bubbling up through both the 19th and 20th centuries, but I can't really say.
Now to the song that got me writing this post in the first place: Oh What A Beautiful City, as performed on We Shall Overcome. You can read the lyrics of a different version here, but first just sit back and listen.
The credits say Pete's version is as adapted and arranged by Marion Hicks. There is almost nothing about her on the internet, and there do not seem to be any recordings to her name. In looking around, I discovered a noted arrangement by Edward Boatner, who seems like an interesting figure in Black musical history whom I hadn't heard of before.
I really want to know about Marion Hicks. If any readers can tell me more about her, or if anyone knows good recordings of Oh What A Beautiful City by African American gospel artists, or any other interesting recordings, or anything else about the song's history, please let me know in the comments.
UPDATE
Via Guy Carawan, Rise Up Singing notes that "Marion Hicks was a cook in Brooklyn who taught this traditional song to the Seeger family." She is credited with new words and adaptation of words and
music.
In my last post, the Arkansas Delta Peace And Justice Center noted that under Mississippi law
every person who knew a decision had been made and/or a plan had been developed to murder Michael Schwerner is as criminally complicit as the one(s) who actually fired the shot(s).
Anyone following the Edgar Ray Killen trial might notice mentions of some of the many persons who are criminally complicit in this way. Just the other day, when the Clarion Ledger reported on Attorney General Jim Hood's response to Killen's release on appeal bond (via the Arkansas Delta Peace And Justice Center), Jerry Mitchell noted that
Five days before the killings, former Klansman Delmar Dennis testified in a 1967 federal conspiracy trial, Killen led a gathering of more than 75 Klansmen in Neshoba County. "Edgar Ray Killen asked for volunteers" to go to the all-black Mount Zion church because civil rights workers might be there, Dennis testified. Klansmen returned with bloody knuckles, he said.
In June, shortly before the 2005 trial, Mitchell summarized Dennis' testimony in more detail:
Killen swore him into the Klan in March 1964 at Cash Salvage Store in Meridian, testified Dennis, a Klansman-turned-FBI informant. "He said there would be things that the Klan would need to do and would do and among those would be the burning crosses, people would need to be beaten and occasionally there would have to be elimination."
"What did he mean by elimination?" asked John Doar, the former Justice Department official who prosecuted the case with U.S. Attorney Robert Hauberg.
"He meant killing a person. He explained that any project that was carried out by the Klan had to be approved by the Klan."
Dennis said elimination "had to be approved by the state." By the state, he explained, he meant Sam Bowers.
In Klan meetings twice in the spring of 1964, Schwerner's name arose with Klansmen saying they wanted to eliminate him, Dennis testified.
He testified Killen, who was running the meeting, said that project "had already been approved by the state officers of the Klan and had been made a part of their program."
At a June 16 Klan meeting, Killen called to order the more than 75 Klansmen gathered, Dennis said.
When one mentioned seeing a heavily guarded meeting at the all-black Mount Zion church, "Killen asked if the group thought that anything should be done about it, and some person in the group suggested that there probably were civil rights workers in the church or it would not have been heavily guarded, and it was agreed that something would be done," Dennis testified. "Edgar Ray Killen asked for volunteers."
The armed group returned an hour later, Dennis said. "Wayne Roberts had blood on his hands or knuckles, and he told me he got this when he was beating a n-----."
Dennis said Bowers said Judge Cox "would probably make them take those bodies back and put them where they got them, that they had found the bodies on an illegal search warrant. ... On another occasion shortly after that meeting he said that he was pleased with that job that it was the first time that Christians had planned and carried out the execution of Jews." (Emphasis added.)
You can read the full transcript of the 1967 Delmar Dennis testimony here.
~
Photo
James E. Jordan (right) and the Rev. Delmar Dennis (left) leave the federal court in Meridian under heavy guard Oct. 13, 1967, after testifying in the trial of 18 white men charged with conspiracy in the deaths of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. Jordan and Dennis both testified against other fellow Klansmen in the trial that ended with seven convictions. (Clarion Ledger File Photo/The Associated Press)
By the Arkansas Delta Peace And Justice Center
It may be so according to the legal interpretation of former Mississippi District Attorney, Commissioner of Public Safety, Assistant Attorney General, and Chancery Judge W.O. Dillard.
Judge Dillard states in his book Clearburning (1993) on page 280:
There is one other legal principle that should be kept in mind under the law in Mississippi. That is, as explained in the Bill Smith decision, one of the Dahmer cases, a conspirator in Mississippi becomes an accessory before the fact and is tried and punished the same as the principal...
Under this legal principle as described by Judge Dillard, every person who knew a decision had been made and/or a plan had been developed to murder Michael Schwerner is as criminally complicit as the one(s) who actually fired the shot(s). It has been documented that at least scores of individuals had knowledge of the decision to murder Michael Schwerner prior to the act being committed. It may have been many more than scores of individuals, perhaps hundreds, had knowledge.
Bruised, derided, cursed, defiled,
she beheld her tender Child
All with scourges rent:
For the sins of His own nation,
saw Him hang in desolation,
Till His spirit forth He sent.
studyholic,
Sorry it's taken me a little while to respond to your second comment. But maybe it's a good thing that some time has passed and there is more information about the statement we've been discussing. It has also given me a chance to think some more and talk some of this over with a couple of friends.
As far as the "My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel" statement goes, either
a) Cindy Sheehan didn't say it, or
b) she wants to distance herself from any such statement
"[T]hat doesn't even sound like me," she said to Anderson Cooper. It does not sound like her now, anyway, and I affirm what she is doing now. If she did say it, I think I would have advised her to distance herself from the statement a little differently, but she did solidly disown it. I have to agree with you when you say, "People can change and people make mistakes."
A friend of mine reminded me of a Jewish ethical principle that was very important to my father—dan b'kaf z'chut, judging others (and yourself) in the scale of merit.
Our Rabbis taught: A person should always regard himself as though he were half guilty and half meritorious. If one performs one good deed, happy is he for weighing himself down in the scale of merit. If one commits one transgression, woe to him for weighing himself down in the scale of guilt, for it is said, “But one sinner destroys much good” (Ecclesiastes 9.18). On account of a single sin which he commits much good is lost to him.
R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon said: “Because the world is judged by its majority, and an individual too is judged by the majority of deeds, good or bad, if he performs one good deed, happy is he for turning the scale both for himself and for the whole world on the side of merit; if one commits one transgression, woe to him for weighing himself and the whole world in the scale of guilt, for it is said, ‘But one sinner.’ – on account of the single sin which this man commits he and the whole world lose much good.' ” (Talmud, Kiddushin 40a)
In the end we are judged by the sum total of our actions, and right now Cindy Sheehan's message is unambiguous and morally compelling.
I think my friend DK is correct that currently the world sees Cindy Sheehan as a living Stabat Mater—making it rather difficult to think clearly about anything negative that might be attributed to her. It is therefore a good thing that we can look at the remark in question by itself, uncolored by any ideas of what Cindy may have meant by it.
So let's go back to the statement: "My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel." Speaking to you as a Jewish person who is opposed to Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and who supports the rights of Israelis and Palestinians to political self-determination, I am saying the statement trades in—or, at the very least, invites—antisemitic conspiracy theories about Jewish control of US foreign policy.
Perhaps to support this claim, I should elaborate on the history of the antisemitic tract, Protocols of the Elders of Zion and link to current examples of the kind of thing I think the statement comes from and encourages more of. Perhaps you would want to debate whether assertions that the war in Iraq is a war for Israel are antisemitic. However, I do not think I need to debate the rights of others to criticize Israel. Asking me to do that inappropriately changes the subject.
Consider this scenario. It's December 2002. Trent Lott has recently spoken at the birthday and retirement party for Senator Strom Thurmond, saying, "I want to say this about my state: When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We're proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn't have had all these problems over all these years, either." You bump into an African American friend who asks you if you've heard about the Lott statement and immediately starts cursing him out for being a racist.
In an effort to be fair minded you tell your friend, "Hey, Lott's entitled to criticize the American electorate. After all, it is true that Mississippi has a terrible economy and its schools are a mess. I think Lott just means that Thrumond's a Southerner who understands the problems of the South and is uniquely qualified to address them."
Your friend storms off, really pissed. To her, it doesn't matter what Thurmond may understand about the special needs of Mississippi or anywhere else in the South. To her any praise of Thrumond's agenda is praise of states' rights, segregation, Jim Crow. But if you didn't already know the history, you needed to have asked her why she thinks supporting Thurmond is inherently racist, above all else. If you'd asked that question, instead of launching into a defense of Lott's right, on principle, to be critical of the American electorate, your friend might have rattled off from memory the quote from Thurmond's 1948 presidential campaign speeech:
I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there's not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our theatres into our swimming pools into our homes and into our churches.
I know the analogy isn't perfect. But I hope it makes the point.
(Special thanks to hf and to b.)
~
Painting: Mater Dolorosa by Spanish artist Luis de Morales (Public Domain, via Wikipedia).
Photo: Cindy Sheehan, Crawford, Texas (Lonestar Iconoclast)
Update From Cindy Sheehan on her diary at Kos (via AfterDowningStreet.org):
Another "big deal" today was the lie that I had said that Casey died for Israel. I never said that, I never wrote that. I had supposedly said it in a letter that I wrote to Ted Koppel's producer in March. I wrote the letter because I was upset at the way Ted treated me when I appeared at a Nightline Town Hall meeting in January right after the inauguration. I felt that Ted had totally disrespected me. I wrote the letter to Ted Bettag and cc'd a copy to the person who gave me Ted's address. I believe he (the person who gave me the address) changed the email and sent it out to capitalize on my new found notoriety by promoting his own agenda. Enough about that. (Emphasis added.)
This is not a clear explanation. The letter existed in the form that includes the "My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel" statement on March 20, as it was posted on bullyard—before Cindy Sheehan's "new found notoriety."
Let's start by saying that last night, on Anderson Cooper's 360 Degrees (CNN), Cindy Sheehan denied making the "My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel" comment.
COOPER: You were also quoted as saying, "My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism." How responsible do you believe Israel is for the amount of terrorism in the world?
SHEEHAN: I didn't say that.
COOPER: You didn't say that? OK.
SHEEHAN: I didn't -- I didn't say -- I didn't say that my son died for Israel. I've never said that. I saw somebody wrote that and it wasn't my words. Those aren't even words that I would say.
I do believe that the Palestinian issue is a hot issue that needs to be solved and it needs to be more fair and equitable but I never said my son died for Israel.
COOPER: OK, I'm glad I asked you that because, you know, as you know, there's tons of stuff floating around on the Internet on sites of all political persuasions.
SHEEHAN: I know and that's not -- yes.
COOPER: So, I'm glad we had the opportunity to clear that.
SHEEHAN: Yes, and thank you because those are not my words. Those aren't -- that doesn't even sound like me saying that.
COOPER: OK. I'm very glad we got that...
SHEEHAN: And I have read it. I have read it. I'm glad you did too.
It's reassuring, I think, that Cindy Sheehan doesn't want to be associated with the comment in question. However, going back to Nightline letter's point of origin on the internet raises questions about Cindy's denial.
As far as I can tell, the first place the letter appears on the internet is on a google group called bullyard. Cindy did not post the letter herself. Instead, an American living in Thailand, named Tony Tersch, posted the letter, via someone else named Skeeter Gallagher who seemed to be forwarding the letter to Tony at Cindy's behest. I include the full headers, without parsing, to allow the source to be evaluated carefully (bullyard requires you verify you are 18 before taking you into pages from the group). The following is what precedes the the text of the letter:
Received: by 10.11.53.59 with SMTP id b59mr115320cwa;
Sun, 20 Mar 2005 16:07:42 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <ter...@mweb.co.th>
Received: from smtp2.ksc.net.th (smtp2.ksc.net.th [203.107.131.213])
by mx.googlegroups.com with ESMTP id v11si625300cwb.2005.03.20.16.07.39;
Sun, 20 Mar 2005 16:07:42 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: neutral (googlegroups.com: 203.107.131.213 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of ter...@mweb.co.th)
Received: from DADLAPTOP (unknown [203.107.210.253])
by smtp2.ksc.net.th (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9B747C3612;
Mon, 21 Mar 2005 07:05:29 +0700 (ICT)
Message-ID: <004601c52da9$b34b32e0$fdd26bcb@DADLAPTOP>
From: "Tersch" <ter...@mweb.co.th>
To: "BULL YARD" <bullyard@googlegroups.com>
Cc: "William O'Leary" <billole...@mac.com>,
"Cindy Sheehan" <SCINDY...@aol.com>,
"Ed Skeeter" <skee...@ksc.th.com>, "Jerry Wall" <j...@cox.net>,
"John Hibbs" <h...@bfranklin.edu>,
"Joni/Jack Woolf-Steppe" <steppenwo...@msn.com>,
<Kurn...@netscape.net>, "Mike Shea" <m...@loxinfo.co.th>,
"Nick Governale" <TQMN...@aol.com>,
"S Phillip Brown" <zpbr...@cox.net>,
"Sharon Thomas nee Costello" <sharinpa...@hotmail.com>,
"Vince Aggeler" <v...@netium.com.br>
Subject: Fw: Happy St. Pat's to Cindy O'Sheehan & Family!
Date: Mon, 21 Mar 2005 07:05:26 +0700
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
boundary="----=_NextPart_000_003F_01C52DE4.5C0A9D00"
X-Priority: 3
X-MSMail-Priority: Normal
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2800.1106
X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1106This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
------=_NextPart_000_003F_01C52DE4.5C0A9D00
Content-Type: text/plain;
charset="ISO-8859-1"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable----- Original Message -----=20
From: Skeeter Gallagher=20
To: Tersch=20
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 11:20 PM
Subject: Re: Happy St. Pat's to Cindy O'Sheehan & Family!Tony,
Apparently Cindy tried to send her Nightline letter (below) to the =
Bullyard group but it bounced because she's not a member. Perhaps you'd =
like to send it on to them?Thanks ~ Skeeter
----- Original Message -----=20
From: SCINDY...@aol.com=20
To: skee...@ksc.th.com=20
Sent: Thursday, March 17, 2005 12:11 PM
Subject: Re: Happy St. Pat's to Cindy O'Sheehan & Family!Skeeter asked me to send Cindy's response to NightLine, in case some of =
you did not get it. She asked him to ... so here it is:Tony
Thanks Skeeter, that was sweet!!
Hey, I sent an e-mail to the group in response to the NightLine =
e-mail...and I can't post to the group...so it bounced...
Can you send it out for me?
Love and happy st paddy's day to you too!!!
It appears that when Tony forwarded Cindy's message to the bullyard group on March 20, he wrote an introductory note to the group between Cindy's header and her message. Immediately following quoted text, above, is the letter that appears to be from Cindy. I'm going to paste in the entire text of the letter at the end of this post.
The message from Tony Tersch on the bullyard google group raises a number of questions.
The content of all the other smears of Cindy Sheehan has been answered:
- To the flip flop smear, many people, including myself, showed Cindy was quoted out of context and that her views had remained pretty consistent.
- To the Cindy consorts with communists smear, Bob Fertik clearly refuted guilt by association accusations.
- To the letter from Cindy's family pleading with her to stop her protest, Cindy answered that the letter comes from her in-laws who disagree with her politically and with whom she has been on bad terms.
Other smears—such as the more general Cindy is being played by far left extremists—have been dismissed out of hand since they are not documented.
These new allegations about Cindy's possible antisemitic remarks come with a document attached. If Cindy didn't write it, is it a forgery? Who are Tony Tersch and Skeeter Gallagher? If you search through Tony's messages on the bullyard group, there are several others in which it appears Tony is acting as an intermediary between Cindy Sheehan and members of the google group. Are these others forgeries too?
Why are the many people on the left who rushed to refute the substance of the previous smear attempts staying away from this one? The lefty blogs are overwhelmingly silent on this one, except for a few heaping on apologetics.
Last night at 8:00 PM I sent Cindy Sheehan a respectful email message, with a link to the letter as it appears in the bullyard google group, and asked for an explanation. This morning (Tuesday) at 10:57 AM I left a voicemail on the cell phone number listed after Cindy's name on the Gold Star Families For Peace website and asked the question again, emphasizing my support for what she has been doing and expressing my sympathies for her loss. This afternoon (Tuesday) at 12:43 PM I sent an email to Tony Tersch to ask him for verification or explanation concerning the email from Cindy on the bullyard group. I am sure Cindy is receiving a thousand calls and emails per day. Still, I will note that at this writing I have received no answers.
~
Technical Notes
- Quoted text in the body of google groups messages is hidden by default. You will usually have to click on "Show quoted text" in order to the the messages that seem to have been forwarded from Cindy Sheehan.
- If you follow the link to the message on google groups, click on "View Parsed" at the top in the orange strip, and then click on one of the ellipses in the email addresses, you can see the full email addresses of the recipients.
Click on "Continue reading..." to view the end of this post with the supposed letter to Nightline, allegedly from Cindy Sheehan.
Via Professor Kim.
Mrs. Coretta Scott King, the widow civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been admitted to a hospital in Atlanta for an udisclosed ailment, according to news reports. She is 78 years old.
photo from MSNBC website
In the comments we've begun discussing the latest controversy concerning Cindy Sheehan. No, not her and her husband's divorce. That got cleared up the same day it hit the news. I'm talking about the March 15, 2005 letter to Nightline that's been shooting around the internet in various forms at least since August 11.
Before I proceed, I want to state that I do not yet have satisfactory verification that the letter to Nightline comes from Cindy Sheehan. I'll address that question in part II, later on tonight.
Here is the paragraph, attributed to Cindy Sheehan, that is under discussion:
Am I emotional? Yes, my first born was murdered. Am I angry? Yes, he was killed for lies and for a PNAC Neo-Con agenda to benefit Israel. My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel. Am I stupid? No, I know full-well that my son, my family, this nation, and this world were betrayed by a George Bush who was influenced by the neo-con PNAC agenda after 9/11. We were told that we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists hate our freedoms and democracy...not for the real reason, becuase the Arab-Muslims who attacked us hate our middle-eastern foreign policy. That hasn't changed since America invaded and occupied Iraq...in fact it has gotten worse.
DK, who is a friend of mine, was the first person I heard this from. Yesterday DK wrote:
And I thought, oh yeah, same shit, different decade. I resent like hell having to support an anti-war activist who is an anti-semite. In fact, I can't. I can't describe how much I want a voice without an agenda as nefarious as this administration's to come out of the wilderness and just speak against this inhumanity of war, but this ain't it.
Now Cindy Sheehan is a veritable pieta, and her son a christ figure, killed by the machination of Jews. Can you amen that?
studyholic responded to DK:
Being against the colonial occupation and policies of Israel is not the same as being either anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic.
[snip]
No one people are saints and no one person is a saint and I'm going to support Cindy's anti-war cause. I have empathy for both Israel and Palestine and I realize the faults on both sides.
I also know that the anti-war movement needs Cindy, and she has the right to be critical of Israeli policies and not be called an anti-Semite.
That's the gist but not all of what studyholic said. I took serious issue with some of how studyholic defended Cindy Sheehan's purported remarks and you can read the rest of studyholic's comment and why I objected in the comments section. studyholic wrote in again, to respond to me. While I appreciate studyholic's good faith efforts at dialogue and mutual understanding, I am going to respond here with a more general statement of my bottom line.
I don't question anybody's right to be critical of Israel's policies, especially regarding the occupation.
What I question is the statement, "My son joined the army to protect America, not Israel." That is not a criticism of Israeli policy. That is an assertion of a lie that solidly crosses the line into antisemitic conspiracy theories about how Israel controls US foreign policy.
I have not heard Cindy Sheehan holding forth on the Palestinian need for contiguous territory, water rights, freedom of movement, freedom from indiscriminate shelling, house demolitions, uprooting of olive groves, etc. Nor have I heard her express solidarity with the Israeli soldiers who are refusing to serve in the occupied territories, any number of whom have gone to prison for their patriotism.
What I would like to hear now from people on the anti-war left is a solid disavowal antisemitic conspiracy theories—not knee-jerk rushing to defend Cindy's right to be critical of Israeli policies.
I think I understand studyholic's anxiety that criticism of Cindy Sheehan from the left hurts the new momentum that she's given to the anti-war movement. However, not demanding clarity and accountability on this subject hurts the anti-war movement even more. If folks on the left can't disavow a statement like "My son joined the Army to protect America, not Israel," the left will increasingly find that is keeping some unpleasant company.
Remember Pete Seeger's Children's Concert?
Well this song from that recording is dedicated to Cindy Sheehan.
When Pete says, "This is one that he taught me," the reference is to Leadbelly.
~
Photo: Legendary folksinger and social activist Pete Seeger performs at Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, on August 4 as part of Freedom Summer, 1964. Photo by Herbert Randall. Published by University of Southern Mississippi Libraries.
After Killen was convicted on June 21, his attorneys announced they would appeal the conviction and seek an appeal bond for the Klansman's release. On June 25, Jerry Mitchell published an article in the Clarion Ledger, reporting on the analysis of Aaron Condon, professor emeritus at the University of Mississippi School of Law.
"It's pretty much up to the judge," said Aaron Condon . . .
"It's one of those lengthy statutes full of sound and fury and signifying nothing," Condon said.
If Gordon does grant an appeal bond, it would mark the first given in a prosecution since 1994 involving killings from the civil rights era.
Murder convictions have resulted in most of those cases, making those defendants ineligible since they were sentenced to life.
In a 1999 trial involving the 1970 killing of Rainey Pool, a one-armed sharecropper beaten by a white mob and thrown in the river, a jury convicted three men of manslaughter, and a fourth pleaded guilty to the charge. Circuit Judge Jannie Lewis denied appeal bonds in that case.
If Killen had been convicted of murder, he would not be eligible for an appeal bond. In fact, according to Professor Condon,
Because Gordon sentenced Killen . . . to the maximum 60 years . . . the judge may treat Killen's case as if it were a murder conviction.
Under state law, appeal bonds are denied to those sentenced to death or life, or to those convicted of felony child abuse.
Another reason why Judge Gordon didn't have to allow the appeal bond and another reason to be enraged that AG Hood and DA Duncan did not do their jobs as prosecutors.
"The release raises the possibility that Mr. Killen, 80 and in poor health, will die a free man after serving barely six weeks of his sentence," writes New York Times reporter Shaila Dewan.
Dewan continues with Judge Gordon's rationale and Rita Schwerner Bender's incisive response, which gets to the crux of the matter:
Judge Marcus Gordon of Circuit Court, who gave Mr. Killen the maximum possible sentence, said in court that he had little choice but to set bond while Mr. Killen appealed his conviction. Judge Gordon said the state had not proved that Mr. Killen, who uses a wheelchair, was a flight risk or threat.
"It's not a matter of what I feel, it's a matter of the law," Judge Gordon said.
Rita Bender, wife of Mr. Schwerner, said the judge had not considered the danger to the community in the broader sense."To me this indicates a lack of understanding the seriousness of, and conveying the seriousness of, crimes of racial violence," Ms. Bender said by telephone from Seattle, where she lives.
Mr. Killen's release, she said, increases "the risk of violence by people who get the message once again that there is no control over them" (emphasis added).
Ms. Bender's critique is further supported by experts who say
Mississippi law is not crystal clear on when a judge has to grant bail. The law says a person convicted of any felony other than child abuse, sexual battery of a minor or a crime in which a death sentence or life imprisonment is imposed is entitled to be released on bail pending appeal if the convict shows that he is not a flight risk or a danger.
The statute also says the convict is entitled to release "within the discretion of a judicial officer," and "only when the peculiar circumstances of the case render it proper."
District Attorney Mark Duncan made the literal minded argument that Killen himself is a physical threat, though disabled and elderly.
On Friday, the prosecution called two jailers who testified about a remark Killen made.
When asked by jailers whether he had any suicidal thoughts, the part-time preacher told them, "I'll kill you before I kill myself,' " Neshoba County jailer Kenny Spencer testified.
Fellow jailer Willie Baxter corroborated his account, and both testified they believed the remark was a threat.
Asked about the remark, Killen replied, "I didn't make the comment."
But if he did, he said, "It'd have to be joking. I don't do those things."
If Killen did level a threat, it wouldn't be the first time. In 1975, a Newton County jury convicted him of making a threat over the telephone.
Duncan introduced Killen's indictment and conviction to show Killen poses a threat. He quoted from Killen's threat: "That son of a b---- will be dead by 8 o'clock. ... I like revenge."
After that conviction in 1975, Killen called and threatened the jury foreman, according to a Newton County official.
Duncan argued Killen has shown a pattern of behavior throughout the years of threats and inciting violence.
Reader Ann Williams, member of the Mississippi Democratic Club, wrote in to alert me that, according to Jackson, Mississippi's WLBT TV,
[n]o one with the Attorney General's office was in Gordon's courtroom Friday, but the office issued a statement saying, "We are in the process of looking at our options and considering filing a request with the appellate court for extraordinary relief."
"I find that quite troubling and curious. He was there for the trial and media attention," Ann Writes. Though it may not have been procedurally necessary for Hood's office to be represented in the courtroom, it definitely behooved him to attend. This is the same Attorney General who declared in his closing statement at the trial that he was in court on his daughter's second birthday because
this is where justice is done. . . .
I wanted to be here myself, I didn't want to have any regrets. That I did my duty to the victims and their families.
While the international news media was in Philadelphia for the trial, Hood made personal sacrifices because of his commitment to seeing justice done. Now the press corps is gone and so is Hood's sense of "duty to the victims and their families."
At the bond hearing, Killen spent a lot of time complaining about his discomfort in prison.
Mr. Killen took the stand, complaining of a lack of medical care since he entered the Central Mississippi prison in Pearl, though he acknowledged that he had been seen by doctors.
"They checked me through the line like a cattle auction," he said. "I'm very unhappy with the treatment I've received. . . ."
Mr. Killen said he had to bribe a convict to obtain a pillow.
"I can barely sleep," he said. "I still don't understand how I could lie in severe pain for 24 hours and no one even brings me an aspirin. I'm not a drug addict."
My heart really goes out to the poor, old, grandfatherly Klansman. Though I am not moved, Killen may have meant his moaning and groaning to pull at Judge Gordon's heart strings. Remember, before Killen knew Marcus Gordon in his professional capacities as prosecutor and then judge, Gordon knew Killen in his capacity as preacher:
Gordon grew up in Union, the youngest of three sons born to Benton and Flossie Gordon. His dad was a barber, his mom a factory worker.
He lost both parents within 24 hours, in 1965. His mom died of a brain hemorrhage. While he and his brothers were picking out her gravesite, Benton Gordon died of congestive heart failure.
Killen, a preacher, presided over the funerals (emphasis added).
It might just have broke Judge Gordon's heart to hear his dear, family preacher, there for them in their time of need, complain about the hardships of prison life.
At the 41st Annual Chaney, Schwerner, Goodman Memorial, held on on the land of civil rights pioneers Cornelius and Mable Steele, Bernice Sims, who was one of the last people to see the three civil rights workers alive, asked, "why don't the families of the killers ever get the spotlight? Why don't we know who they are?" This time around we know who some of them are:
The Neshoba County circuit clerk's office said the following helped Killen post bond: his brother, Bobby, Frank Richardson, Ray and Jean Hamil and Henry and Marcia Bassett. Henry Bassett testified Friday he didn't believe Killen posed a danger to flee or a threat to the community.
Several dozen friends and family packed one side of the courtroom to Killen and warmly greeted him after the judge gave him bond. Asked what he thought of Killen's release, Henry Bassett replied, "I'm not the judge. We have an almighty judge. I'm going to go with God's laws."
These are the people who have $600,000 on hand to keep white, racist murderers out of prison. Of course these folks are just the tip of the iceberg—the white power structure that generally keeps white, racist murders out of prison, free of charge.
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