[Ppnews] Obama Visits Mandela's Old Cell, But Won't Free His Own Political Prisoners

[Political Prisoner News]

  Obama Visits Mandela's Old Cell, But Won't Free His Own Political
  Prisoners

Tue, 07/02/2013 - 22:22 --- Glen Ford
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/obama-visits-mandelas-old-cell-wont-free-his-own-political-prisoners

"/Obama has no sympathy, however, for political prisoners of any race in 
his own country."/

President Barack Obama, a man of infinite cynicism, made a great show of 
going on pilgrimage to Nelson Mandela's _old prison cell 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/01/world/africa/obama-visits-prison-where-mandela-was-jailed.html?pagewanted=all&pagewanted=print>_ 
on Robben Island, where the future first Black president of South Africa 
spent 18 of his 27 years of incarceration. With his wife and daughters 
in tow, Obama said he was "humbled to stand where men of such courage 
faced down injustice and refused to yield.... No shackles or cells can 
match the strength of the human spirit," said the chief executive of the 
unchallenged superpower of mass incarceration, a nation whose population 
comprises only 5 percent of humanity, but is home to fully one-quarter 
of the Earth's prison inmates.

True sociopaths, like the commander-in-chief who updates his _Kill List 
<http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/world/obamas-leadership-in-war-on-al-qaeda.html?pagewanted=all>_ 
every Tuesday, have no sense of shame, much less irony. Obama feigns awe 
at Mandela's suffering and sacrifice in the prisons of apartheid South 
Africa, yet presides over a regime that, on any given day, holds 80,000 
inmates in the excruciating torture of solitary confinement. During 
Nelson Mandela's nearly three decades of imprisonment by the white 
regime, he spent a total of only _about one week 
<http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/mandela/interviews/stengel2.html>_ 
in solitary confinement. The rest of the time, despite often harsh 
treatment, backbreaking labor, and unhealthy conditions, Mandela and 
other political prisoners at Robben Island and other South African jails 
were typically housed together. Indeed, Mandela and his incarcerated 
comrades called the prisons their "university," where they taught each 
other to /become/ the future authorities over their jailers.

"/A social death alien to the human species."/

Racist South Africa's treatment of Mandela and his co-revolutionists was 
downright benign and enlightened, compared to fate of U.S. prisoners who 
are deemed a threat to the prevailing order.* *At U.S. high security 
facilities, the slightest evidence that an inmate is of a political bent 
of mind is cause for him to be condemned to a solitary existence for 
decades -- a social death alien to the human species. At California's 
Pelican Bay and the state prison at Corcoran, thousands of inmates are 
held in isolation, 80 of them for more than 20 years, the very 
definition of barbarism. Yet, Obama journeys across oceans and 
continents to stand for a photo op in the cell of a prisoner whose 
ordeal was nowhere near as horrific as the standard fare for political 
prisoners in his own country.

On his trip to South Africa, Obama proclaimed that "the world is 
grateful for the heroes of Robben Island." And, that's certainly true, 
although it was a U.S. intelligence agent who lured Nelson Mandela into 
a trap in 1962 that ultimately led to his capture and imprisonment. 
Obama has no sympathy, however, for political prisoners of any race in 
his own country. Former Black Panther _Herman Wallace 
<http://video.pbs.org/program/pov/>_ is thought to be the 
longest-serving prisoner in solitary confinement in the United States, 
having spent 40 years alone in a cell in Louisiana's notorious Angola 
Prison. Obama could free him at any time, but of course, he won't. He 
could emancipate Black Panther captive _Russell Maroon Shoatz 
<http://russellmaroonshoats.wordpress.com/>_, who has spent nearly 30 
years in solitary, or Republic of New Africa political prisoner _Mutulu 
Shakur 
<http://prisonbooks.info/2013/05/21/call-the-warden-for-mutulu-shakur/>_ 
or any and all of the scores of other aging political prisoners -- 
people whose dedication to human freedom is no less than Mandela's, yet 
have been subjected to far worse treatment at American hands. Instead, 
Obama has doubled the bounty on Shakur's comrade and sister, _Assata 
<http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/not-your-daddys-cointelpro-obama-brands-assata-shakur-most-wanted-terrorist>_, 
in exile in Cuba. She might even be on Obama's Kill List -- which is the 
real and authentic legacy of this country's First Black President.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to 
BlackAgendaReport.com.

/BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at 
/_/Glen.Ford at BlackAgendaReport.com/ 
<mailto:Glen.Ford at BlackAgendaReport.com>_/./

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 www.freedomarchives.org
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