Breaking News from Citizens for Legit Gov.

Breaking News and Commentary from Citizens For Legitimate Government

20 Jul 2012

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Breaking: Shooter in 'full SWAT uniform' opens fire in CO theater, killing at least 12 --Suspect is neuroscience Ph.D. candidate --Suspect, dressed in black wearing gas mask, 'calm during shooting' --At least 12 dead, 50 hurt in Colorado movie theater shooting --Military confirms military members were in theater --Shooter's apartment building rigged with explosives --Three service members wounded --Shooter had 4 weapons, 3 in theater - 1 in car, gas canisters --'How would a civilian get his hands on these weapons?' asks Fox News analyst. 20 Jul 2012 [This story will be updated.]

Pentagon: Military casualties in Colorado shooting 20 Jul 2012 The Pentagon says that some members of the military were either killed or wounded in the Colorado shooting at the Batman movie. Pentagon press secretary George Little says it's not yet clear how many military casualties there were, or whether they were deaths or injuries. Marine Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, says initial indications are that the suspect, James Holmes, was not a member of the military.

Authorities: Aurora theater shooting suspect's apartment 'booby trapped' --Five buildings have been evacuated. 20 Jul 2012 Police say that the apartment of the suspect in an early morning movie theater shooting appears to be booby trapped. Police Chief Dan Oates said the explosive devices were "pretty sophisticated." "We could be here for days," he said. Jim Yacone, special agent in charge of the Denver FBI, said they were working on "how to disarm the flammable or explosive material." The 24-year-old suspect in the shooting, which left 12 people dead, was arrested at the scene but is not expected to appear in court until Monday, a court official said. He has been identified as James Holmes, 24, of the 1600 block of Paris Street in Aurora.

House votes to appropriate $606 billion for defense 19 Jul 2012 The House of Representatives on Thursday approved $606 billion in 'defense' spending for next year after two days of debate that saw lawmakers from both parties line up to condemn the ongoing war in Afghanistan as a waste of lives and money. Lawmakers in the Republican-dominated House voted 326-90 to approve the annual defense appropriations bill, which includes a Pentagon base budget of $518 billion plus $87.7 billion in spending for the Afghanistan war and other overseas operations, according to the House Appropriations Committee.

Syrian troops take control over Damascus neighborhood 20 Jul 2012 Syrian troops and tanks on Friday drove rebels from a Damascus neighborhood where some of the heaviest of this week's fighting in the capital left cars gutted and fighters' bodies in the streets. More than 300 people were killed in a single day, activists said, as the military struggles to regain momentum after a stunning bombing against the regime's leadership. A fourth member of President Bashar Assad's inner circle, national security chief Gen. Hisham Ikhtiyar, died of wounds he suffered in Wednesday's bomb blast, which went off during a high level security meeting in Damascus, the government announced.

US, Israel plotting to overthrow Assad: Report 19 Jul 2012 American defense officials are reportedly in talks with their Israeli counterparts plotting to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The New York Times reported on Wednesday that US officials worked on contingency plans for a collapse of the Syrian government, focusing particularly on the chemical weapons that "Syria is thought to possess." The talks focused on whether Israel might move to "destroy Syrian weapons facilities," two US administration officials said.

US unable to demine Strait of Hormuz: IRGC cmdr. 19 Jul 2012 An Iranian commander has downplayed the US move to dispatch modern mine sweepers to the Persian Gulf in a bid to prevent the possible closure of the Strait of Hormuz. "Americans talk a lot about different things but in practice they are faced with problems. We have no doubt that the United States can't do anything in the minesweeping sphere," said Deputy Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) naval forces Mahmoud Fahimi on Wednesday.

7 Israelis killed, dozens injured in Bulgaria bus explosion 18 Jul 2012 At least seven people have been killed and more than 30 others injured in an explosion on a bus carrying Israeli tourists in the eastern Bulgarian city of Burgas. The explosion occurred on Wednesday at Burgas International Airport on the Bulgarian Black Sea Coast, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) east of the Bulgarian capital Sofia, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported. "There are six bodies on the scene -- one critically wounded died at the hospital and two seriously injured are in intensive care. Thirty more people are being treated," the Israeli Foreign Ministry announced in a statement.

Taliban bomb destroys 22 NATO supply trucks in Afghan north 18 Jul 2012 A bomb planted by the Taliban destroyed 22 NATO trucks carrying supplies to their forces in northern Afghanistan, the Taliban and police said on Wednesday. Eighteen fuel trucks and four supply vehicles were parked in Aibak, the capital of Samangan province, when a bomb ripped through them, wounding one person, local police said. "At 2 a.m. the mujahideen attacked the invader NATO trucks," the Taliban said in a statement, referring to the wagons which had been driven from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan's north.

Ex-CIA man's vindictive prosecution claim rejected 20 Jul 2012 A judge has rejected claims by a former CIA officer accused of leaking names of covert operatives to journalists that he is a victim of vindictive prosecution. Lawyers for John Kiriakou sought Friday to have most of the charges against him dismissed. They argued in court papers that the case is retribution for public statements by Kiriakou that portrayed the CIA in an unflattering light and that similar leaks have not been the subject of a criminal prosecution. At Friday's hearing, though, the judge cut off the argument before it began and ruled that the prosecution would go forward.

GI largely barred from discussing WikiLeaks harm 20 Jul 2012 A military judge on Thursday largely barred an Army private from presenting evidence at his trial that the mountain of classified information he's accused of leaking did little harm to U.S. national security and foreign relations. Army Col. Denise Lind, presiding over a pretrial hearing at Fort Meade, agreed with prosecutors that the extent of any damage is irrelevant to the 22 charges against Pfc. Bradley Manning. He's accused of aiding the enemy by sending hundreds of thousands of diplomatic cables and war logs to the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks. That charge carries a possible life sentence.

Judge in military WikiLeaks case again refuses to throw out 2 charges against Bradley Manning 18 Jul 2012 A military judge has again refused to throw out two of the 22 charges against an Army private charged in the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history. Attorneys for Pfc. Bradley Manning argued earlier this week during a hearing at Maryland’s Fort Meade that two charges should be dropped. The judge overseeing the case, Col. Denise Lind, denied the request Wednesday. She agreed with military prosecutors it would be improper to drop the charges at this point.

US government claims it has proof of Bradley Manning aiding the enemy 16 Jul 2012 The US government claims to have proof that Bradley Manning, the WikiLeaks suspect, knowingly passed state secrets to a location where it was bound to be obtained by enemy groups, a military court in Maryland has heard. Captain Joe Morrow, a member of the five-strong prosecution team assigned to the case, said that the government would show at court martial that Manning had knowingly "aided the enemy" - the most serious of the 22 charges facing the soldier that carries the death penalty.

Five Charged With Terror Offences --One charged with possession of a digital memory card 'containing a document likely to be of use to a terrorist' 19 Jul 2012 Five people have been charged with terrorism offences following investigations by the Metropolitan Police counter terrorism command, the force has said. Three men from London - including Richard Dart, who appeared in a BBC Three documentary after converting to Islam - were charged with offences that involved travelling to Pakistan for training in terrorism between July 2010 and July 2012. A woman was also charged with possessing terrorist material. All four were arrested between July 5 and 7.

Airline catering firm that employs thousands in UK at centre of investigation into how NEEDLES were found in sandwiches on four flights --FBI launches criminal investigation into the needle discoveries 17 Jul 2012 The world's largest airline food caterer, which employs thousands of people in Britain, is today at the centre of an FBI investigation into how needles found their way into turkey sandwiches on four international flights. Gate Gourmet, which provides meals for more than 20 airlines including all long-haul British Airways flights from Heathrow, distributed the sandwiches that contained what appeared to be small sewing needles. The needles were discovered in six sandwiches on four U.S.-bound Delta Air Lines planes that departed Amsterdam Airport Schiphol on Sunday.

Limerick nuclear power plant shut down after electrical problem 18 Jul 2012 (Pottstown, PA) Government officials say one of two reactors at a nuclear power plant in suburban Philadelphia has been shut down after an electrical malfunction. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says a transformer problem in a turbine building led to the manual shutdown of Limerick's Unit 1 reactor at 8:15 a.m. today. The agency says Exelon soon announced an "unusual event," the lowest of four emergency classifications. The plant is about 20 miles northwest of Philadelphia.

Japan to probe 'active faults' under nuclear plants 18 Jul 2012 Japan's nuclear safety watchdog has ordered an investigation into claims that the country's only working nuclear power station sits on an active tectonic fault. The decision comes after geological experts argued that the Shika plant in Ishikawa is likely sitting on active faults and could be vulnerable to earthquakes if tectonic plates shift. This while, Japanese company, Kansai Electric Power (KEPCO), is getting ready to restart a second reactor at the Oi plant in western Japan.

HSBC 'sorry' for aiding Mexican drug lords, rogue states and terrorists 17 Jul 2012 Executives with Europe's biggest bank, HSBC, were subjected to a humiliating onslaught from US senators on Tuesday over revelations that staff at its global subsidiaries laundered billions of dollars for drug cartels, terrorists and pariah states. Lawmakers hammered the British-based bank over the scandal, demanding to know how and why its affiliates had exposed it to the proceeds of drug trafficking and terrorist financing in a "pervasively polluted" culture that persisted for years. A report compiled for the committee detailed how HSBC's subsidiaries transported billions of dollars of cash in armoured vehicles, cleared suspicious travellers' cheques worth billions, and allowed Mexican drug lords buy to planes with money laundered through Cayman Islands accounts.

Bain Capital started with help of offshore investors 19 Jul 2012 When Mitt Romney launched Bain Capital in 1984, he struggled at first to raise enough money for the untested venture. So he and his partners tapped an eclectic roster of investors, raising more than a third of their first $37-million investment fund from wealthy foreigners. Most of the foreign investors' money came through corporations registered in Panama, then known for tax advantages and unusual banking secrecy. The first outside investor in Bain was a leading London financier, Sir Jack Lyons, who made a $2.5-million investment through a Panama shell company set up by a Swiss money manager, further shielding his identity. Years later, Lyons was convicted in an unrelated stock fraud scandal. About $9 million came from rich Latin Americans, including powerful Salvadoran families living in Miami during their country's brutal [US-engendered] civil war.

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CLG Editor-in-Chief: Lori Price. CLG Founder: Michael Rectenwald, Ph.D. Copyright © 2012, Citizens for Legitimate Government ® All rights reserved.

Call for Conscious Black Poetry

Peace Brother Marvin,

Thank you for your submission to the anthology Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin and Marissa Alexander. It is an honor to include your work in this effort. 

I will be keep you updated as the project moves forward. At this time, we really need all the help we can get to encourage poets to contribute. I do hope you will share the call with all the poets in your global network!

Thank you,

-- 
Ewuare X. Osayande

Editor,

Stand Our Ground: Poems for Trayvon Martin & Marissa Alexander

Your Donations Support this Project

FreedomSeed Press

P.O. Box 42634

Philadelphia, PA 19101

484.362.9240

On Mon, Jul 16, 2012 at 10:42 AM, Marvin X Jackmon <jmarvinx@yahoo.com> wrote:

Memorial Day, 2007 I am a veteran Not of foreign battlefields Like my father in world war one My uncles in world war two And Korea Or my friends from Vietnam And even the Congo “police action” But veteran none the less Exiled and jailed because I refused To visit Vietnam as a running dog for imperialism So I visited Canada , Mexico and Belize Then Federal prison for a minute But veteran I am of the war in the hood The war of domestic colonialism and neo-colonialism White supremacy in black face war Fighting for black power that turned white Or was always white as in the other white people So war it was and is Every day without end no RR no respite just war For colors like kindergarten children war For turf warriors don’t own and run when popo comes War for drugs and guns and women War for hatred jealousy Dante got a scholarship but couldn’t get on the plane The boyz in the hood met him on the block and jacked him Relieved him of his gear shot him in the head because he could read Play basketball had all the pretty girls a square The boyz wanted him dead like themselves Wanted him to have a shrine with liquor bottles and teddy bears And candles Wanted his mama and daddy to weep and mourn at the funeral Like all the other moms and dads and uncle aunts cousins Why should he make it out the war zone The blood and broken bones of war in the hood No veterans day no benefits no mental health sessions No conversation who cares who wants to know about the dead In the hood the warriors gone down in the ghetto night We heard the Uzi at 3am and saw the body on the steps until 3 pm When the coroner finally arrived as children passed from school I am the veteran of ghetto wars of liberation that were aborted And morphed into wars of self destruction With drugs supplied from police vans Guns diverted from the army base and sold 24/7 behind the Arab store. Junior is 14 but the main arms merchant in the hood He sells guns from his backpack His daddy wants to know how he get all them guns But Junior don’t tell cause he warrior He’s lost more friends than I the elder What can I tell him about death and blood and bones He says he will get rich or die trying But life is for love not money And if he lives he will learn. If he makes it out the war zone to another world Where they murder in suits and suites And golf courses and yachts if he makes it even beyond this world He will learn that love is better than money For he was once on the auction block and sold as a thing For money, yes, for the love of money but not for love And so his memory is short and absent of truth The war in the hood has tricked him into the slave past Like a programmed monkey he acts out the slave auction The sale of himself on the corner with his homeys Trying to pose cool in the war zone I will tell him the truth and maybe one day it will hit him like a bullet In the head It will hit him multiple times in the brain until he awakens to the real battle In the turf of his mind. And he will stand tall and deliver himself to the altar of truth to be a witness Along with his homeys They will take charge of their posts They will indeed claim their turf and it will be theirs forever Not for a moment in the night But in the day and in the tomorrows And the war will be over No more sorrow no more blood and bones No more shrines on the corner with liquor bottles teddy bears and candles. --Marvin X 25 May 2007 Brooklyn NY Marvin X is on of the founders of the Black Arts Movement. He co-founded Black Arts West Theatre with playwright Ed Bullins in San Francisco's Fillmore District, 1966, and worked at the New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, NY, 1968.

The Public Career of Marvin X

30 Years of Teaching and Writing: The Public Career of Marvin X

by

James G. Spady

Copyright James G. Spady, 1997,
Philadelphia New Observer

Marvin X has been teaching for a long time. He has established his tenacity. As one of the founders of the Black Arts Movement (BAM), he became a teacher in an emerging field called Black Studies. Like Sonia Sanchez, Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal, Askia Toure and others, Marvin X both contributed to and later taught those pivotal courses that constituted a new discipline.

For the last thirty years, this gifted poet, journalist, dramatist, oral historian (he appears to be the only participant in the Black Arts Movement that conducted intensive and extensive oral interviews with the key participants, as well as international political, cultural and educational leaders)and teacher, has established an unusual record. Marvin X has taught at the University of California at San Diego, Mills College, San Francisco State University, Fresno State University,
Laney and Merritt Colleges in Oakland, University of Nevada,Reno, and the University of California at Berkeley.

His peers were among the first to recognize his ability. The well-known African American man of the Arts and Letters, Amiri Baraka, refers to Marvin X as "one of the outstanding African writers and teachers in America. He has always been in the forefront of Pan African writing. Indeed, he is one of the founders and innovators of the new revolutionary school of African writing."

One of the best known playwrights in America is Ed Bullins. He refers to X as "one of the founders of the modern day Black theatre movement. He is a Black artist par excellence." The editor of Black Scholar magazine, Robert Chrisman, spoke of Marvin as "an extraordinary distinguished poet who has a powerful sense of meaningful drama"....

After high school (1962), Marvin enrolled in Oakland City College, aka Merritt College. There he met Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, who went on to found the Black Panther Party. It was at OCC that Marvin began to undergo a vital change. He listened intently as speaker after speaker addressed the ever-growing members of the cognoscente at Oakland City College. They, like many area colleges, benefited from the organizing and conscious-raising activities of the Afro American Association under the leadership of a young black lawyer, Donald Warden (now Khalid Abdullah Al Mansour). Marvin's early writings appeared in the Merritt College literary magazine.

Upon receiving the A.A. degree, Marvin went on to San Francisco State University, 1964. Marvin wrote a play for one of his English classes. The professor, legendary novelist John Gardner, was sufficiently impressed to carry it over to the theatre department. In the Spring of 1965, Marvin X's one-act play "Flowers for the Trashman" was produced at San Francisco State, a novel experience for an African American. It is even more exceptional in that it was his first play. (Published initially in Black Dialogue, Winter, 1966 and later in Black Fire, edited by Larry Neal and LeRoi Jones).

Marvin X soon met Philly playwright Ed Bullins, introduced to him by Art Sheridan, founding editor of Black Dialogue magazine. Ed and Marvin founded Black Arts West Thetre in the Fillmore. Black Arts West was certainly influenced by the Black Arts Movement in the East, mainly New York and Philadelphia.

The role of Amiri Baraka in shaping national Black consciousness can not be overemphasized. However, Marvin X, Hillary X, Ethna X, Duncan X (as they would become in a few months after joining the Nation of Islam, circa 1967), along with Ed Bullins and Farouk (Carl Bossiere, rip)were part of an indigenous Black Arts Movement....

Part TWO: 30 Years of Teaching and Writing

Part Two: 30 Years of Teaching and Writing: The Public Career of Marvin X

by James G. Spady, Philadelphia New Observer,1997 

copyright (c) 1997 by James G. Spady

...The poetry of Marvin X is deeply rooted in the cosmological convictions of his ancestors and his community. His individual identity is inextricably linked to his communal identity. That is why it functions as a source of power and inspiration. Because he is open to the magico-realist perception or reality and has the authentic experiences of the streets, Marvin's works strike a chord. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in a recent collection, Love and War, 1995.

"Read Love and War for Ramadan!"--Dr. Mohja Kahf, University of Arkansas, Department of English and Islamic Literature 



cover art by Emory Douglas, Black Panther Minister of Culture



He introduces the work with these words, "Love and War is my poetic story of rediscovering self love and the internal war (Jihad) to reconquer my soul from the devil who whispers into the hearts of men, Al Qur'an. But I am also mindful of socio political conditions of my people. And this reality fills me with compassion and love, forcing me once again (now that I am clean and sober) to put on the armor of God and return to the battlefield. This collection is a signal of my return to the struggle of African American liberation after an absence of nearly a decade, caused by disillusionment and drug abuse. I return with the spirit of my friend, Huey P. Newton, rip, shaking my bones. He and I were often in the same drug territory and but for the grace of God, I chould have easily suffered a fate similar to his. I came close many times. Praise be to Allah."



"Marvin X was my teacher, many of our comrades came through his black theatre: Bobby Seale, Eldridge Cleaver, Emory Douglas, George Murray and Sam Napier."
--Dr. Huey P. Newton,co-founder of the Black Panther Party



...Craft is essential to Marvin X's poetry and drama. He knows the possibilities and constraints of the form. And he also knows how to expand. He credits Sun Ra with having helped him to realize the full possibilities of theatre. Marvin read his poetry in San Ra's grand musical energy field and he closely observed Sonny's skillful exploration of our Omniverse and all of its real possibilities. Was int not Sun Ra who told Marvin X that he would be teaching at U.C. Berkeley before it happened?




Marvin X and Sun Ra, both Gemini. Sun Ra was Marvin's mentor and artistic associate.

They performed together from coast to coast. This  pic is outside Marvin's Black Educational Theatre in San Francisco's Fillmore, 1972. Sun Ra wrote the music

for Marvin's play Take Care of Business,

the musical version of Flowers for the Trashman.





...Nearly 30 years ago, Marvin sought to teach the relationship of Islam and Black Art. In his published conversation with Amiri Baraka, he attempted to reconcile and provide voices and faces for the different expressions of Islam in the West.

As a skilled interviewer, he allows Askia Toure and Baraka's divergent views of Islam to be placed into the record. In the afterword he states, "I believe the Honorable Elijah Muhammad is at least ten years ahead of any Black group working for freedom, justice and equality in the hells of North America. The Islamic ideology, discipline and organizational structure permits the masses of our people to fully develop their self-identity, self defense and self-government."

Again, X is out front. He recognized the tremendous influence Islam had on the Black Arts Movement. He is a case study in that type of influence....


Elijah and Malcolm, major influences on Marvin X. He honors both men.



....Marvin X is credited with convincing Eldridge Cleaver to use his advance against royalties from the popular book Soul on Ice, to help set up Black House. The building became "the mecca of political, cultural activity in The Bay Area. Among artists featured were: Sonia Sanchez,Vonetta McGee, Amiri and Amina Baraka, Chicago Art Ensemble,
Avoctja, Emory Douglas, Sarah Webster Fabio, et al. Playwright Ed Bullins joined Marvin and Eldrdige at the Black House, along with Marvin's partner, Ethna X (Hurriyah Asar), and singer Willie Dale, Cleaver's buddy from San Quentin.

Eldridge Cleaver, see Marvin X's memoir, Eldridge Cleaver, My friend the Devil, 2009 Upon his release from Soledad prison, Marvin X was the first person he hooked up with. Later Marvin introduced him to Huey Newton and Bobby Seale.


....Marvin X is a teacher of primeval knowledge, a knower of both street poetry and book poetry. In fact, he combines the two in a powerful way. Each verse is a teach act, each stanza--a class. His use of alliteration, rhymes, assonance, dissonance and free rhymes indicates he has absorbed the teachings of the academy. Yet, the street consciousness lying in the cut of its content links him directly to the poets of the new idiom called Rap.

Black Panther co-founder Bobby Seale who attended Oakland's Merritt College along with Huey Newton and Marvin X. Bobby performed in Marvin's second play Come Next Summer before founding the Black
Panther Party.

His experimental verses are wholistic, historical and yet dialogical. The dynamic complexities of the situation creates in the reader an urgent need to know more. Can we expect anything elswe from a good teacher?

James G. Spady is one of our greatest literary critics. We will soon post his review of Marvin X's autobiography, Somethin Proper, entitled "Making an Inventory and Constructing Self Prior to the year 2000." His review is not dated by time.