Hello everyone.

Check out this great book my friend Daniele Bolelli wrote on religion.  You all will love it!  The interview below was published in Wired Magazine in January but I'm re-posting it now to keep interest in the book circulating.

Daniele is also the author of On the Warrior's Path, Second Edition: Philosophy, Fighting, and Martial Arts Mythology.

If anyone is interested, there is also a free article by Daniele online.  The piece is called "The Shrine of Hypocrisy" and is about how the Lakota people view Mt. Rushmore.  It also deals with land claims in the Black Hills.  You can view it here:  THE SHRINE OF HYPOCRISY: THE MEANING OF MOUNT RUSHMORE FOR THE LAKOTA PEOPLE


You can buy any of his books on Amazon!

Enjoy - Jeff Hendricks

Interview: Daniele Bolelli, Author of 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know: Religion

By Tony Sims
Wired Magazine

I recently received a copy of the book 50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know: Religion as a gift from a friend. It looked like a neat little book – actual size is about a 5″x5″ square – so I thought I would browse through it and put it on the table with the magazines. I started reading through it and was hooked. This entertaining and educational book will have you looking at many different religions with different eyes.

Certainly some ideas in this book are controversial, but that is what makes it great. It gets you thinking about seemingly taboo subjects in a different light. I live in the “Bible Belt,” smack in the middle of Mississippi, and people here have very strong beliefs. This little book gives some great ideas for conversation starters with people of any religion that anyone with an open mind can appreciate.

I also had a chance to talk with the author Daniele Bolelli, who has written several books, is a college professor and a martial artist:

Sims: Tell me a little bit about 50 Things You Aren’t Supposed to Know: Religion. Why are we not supposed to know these things?

Bolelli: Because if you knew them already, you wouldn’t buy my book! Some of the topics are stories having to do with religion that may be relatively unknown but are either very fascinating or oddly funny. Others chapters focus on topics that may be better known but are shown under a new light. For example, everyone has heard about Moses and the Ten Commandments, but if someone were to ask you who masterminded the death of 3,000 civilians in the name of his religious beliefs, Moses would not be the first name that comes to mind. And yet, according to the Old Testament, that’s exactly what he did shortly after receiving the Ten Commandments.

Sims: You’re a martial artist and a religion scholar. How do these things go together?

Bolelli: Many people love indulging in the very unhealthy habit of devoting their lives to one thing and one thing only. This makes for very boring human beings. Life is greater and much more interesting than any one specific field. Tasting life in all of its weirdness, beauty and complexity requires us to be more than one thing.

Sims: Religion is a touchy subject. Why did you go into teaching in this area?

Bolelli: Because it’s a touchy subject! People live and die in the name of their religious beliefs, so it’s essential to play with such key topics. Ultimately, we all have to decide where we stand on these issues. Much of everything else in life depends on the answers we embrace or don’t embrace about religion.

Sims: What’s your own religious background? Were you influenced by your father? He’s a philosopher, right?

Bolelli: Neither one of my parents belonged to any religious group. Since it’s the headquarter of the Catholic church, Italy has seen a horrendous amount of bloodshed in the name of religion over the centuries. This has left many people less than enthusiastic about anything having to do with organized religion. So I grew up in a fairly atheist/agnostic environment.

Sims: You’re from Milan. What brought you to America?

Bolelli: Italy is fun if you are on vacation. If you want to get anything done, though, it’s the wrong place. It’s old, slow and hostile to any innovation. The way most people automatically respond to any new idea is cynicism.

Sims: You’re a dad. How will you handle your own child’s introduction to religion? Are you raising her a certain way? Will she be free to choose her own path?

Bolelli: I don’t know if I’d call the occasionally dropping and decapitating by mistake statues of Buddha and Ganesh an introduction to religion. Other than that, I’ll encourage her to question everything while at the same time keeping an open mind. It’s her life, so no one else should choose for her.

Sims: Do children have any sort of instinct to religion or is it all social indoctrination?

Bolelli: Since an early age people want answers to questions that are unanswerable. Social indoctrination at this point comes in with pre-cooked religious answers to soothe the craving at the roots of those questions.

Sims: Another question about your martial arts background: I Googled you and found that your nickname was “The Drunken Taoist.” What does that mean?

Bolelli: The long answer is: a training partner mentioned how my approach to fighting is like that of the old, drunken guy who often shows up in kung fu flicks. He usually will run into a tough, muscular, young challenger whose skills look amazing. The drunken guy looks like he can barely stand. But before anyone can understand what happened, the challenger is on the floor, out cold. My style doesn’t look all that impressive but I can often nullify the strengths of opponents who normally look flashy and much better than me. And no one understands how it happened. The short answer is that I like wine and Taoism.

Sims: What are you reading currently – assuming it is not your own book?

Bolelli: I just re-read “Common Sense” by Thomas Paine, and I am reading everything by Don Winslow I can get my hands on.

Sims: What is your next project?

Bolelli: I have four different books I am toying with right now. Let’s see which one is going to get the green light first.

To get your copy, visit Amazon.com

The Environmental Costs of Solar Power

THE SOLAR DESERT

Environmentalists feeling burned by rush to build solar projects

Local activists say national groups, focused on renewable energy, ignore projects' threat to the Mojave.

By Julie Cart, Los Angeles Times

April 6, 2012

AMARGOSA VALLEY, Calif. — April Sall gazed out at the Mojave Desert flashing past the car window and unreeled a story of frustration and backroom dealings.

Her small California group, the Wildlands Conservancy, wanted to preserve 600,000 acres of the Mojave. The group raised $45 million, bought the land and deeded it to the federal government.

The conservancy intended that the land be protected forever. Instead, 12 years after accepting the largest land gift in American history, the federal government is on the verge of opening 50,000 acres of that bequest to solar development.

Even worse, in Sall's view, the nation's largest environmental organizations are scarcely voicing opposition. Their silence leaves the conservancy and a smattering of other small environmental organizations nearly alone in opposing energy development across 33,000 square miles of desert land.

"We got dragged into this because the big groups were standing on the sidelines and we were watching this big conservation legacy practically go under a bulldozer," said Sall, the organization's conservation director. "We said, 'We can't be silent anymore.' "

Similar stories can be heard across the desert Southwest. Small environmental groups are fighting utility-scale solar projects without the support of what they refer to as "Gang Green," the nation's big environmental players.

Local activists accuse the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Defenders of Wildlife, the Wilderness Society and other venerable environmental groups of acquiescing to the industrialization of the desert because they believe large-scale solar power is essential to slowing climate change.

Janine Blaeloch, director of the Western Lands Project, a small public lands watchdog group, said Gang Green's members are compliant in order to make themselves more inviting to major foundations. In recent years, grants for projects focusing on climate change and energy have become the two top-funded issues in environmental philanthropy. Foundations have awarded tens of millions of dollars in grants to environmental groups that make renewable energy a top priority.

"It's not that they solely and directly make decisions based on funding, but they keep their eyes open to what foundations want," Blaeloch said.

As a result, "you've got enviros exactly where industry wanted them to be," she said.

Big environmental organizations say they have agonized over how to approach the issue. They acknowledge that development can have irreversible effects on ecosystems. But they are reluctant to stand in the way of renewable energy projects they regard as a vital response to climate change, which they consider the nation's most serious environmental challenge.

The Sierra Club, NRDC and Defenders of Wildlife filed suit last week to stop the troubled Calico solar project northeast of Los Angeles. But for the most part the big players have embraced solar development.

Instead of following the old adversarial formula of saying no to everything, they have adopted an approach they call, "Getting to yes."

'Green halo' effect

Grass-roots groups say that strategy has failed to protect the desert. What's worse, they say, is that the imprimatur of such groups as the Sierra Club has provided a '"green halo" to energy companies and the government — making it easy for them to ignore local environmental concerns.

Two major projects underway in the Mojave illustrate the divide between local and national groups.

Desert activists vigorously oppose the BrightSource Energy project in the east Mojave's Ivanpah Valley and NextEra's Genesis solar plant 20 miles west of Blythe. National groups have not mounted a strong challenge to either project.

When BrightSource was planning the Ivanpah installation, the big environmental players urged the firm to move the bulk of the project closer to Interstate 5 to avoid prime habitat for the desert tortoise, a protected species. The company responded by reducing its total footprint by 12%, which didn't solve the problem.

After construction began, large numbers of desert tortoises were discovered. According to federal biologists, BrightSource is now responsible for relocating and caring for 95% of all the tortoises expected to be found on all solar project sites in the Mojave.

Some rank-and-file Sierra Club members had wanted to sue to stop the project altogether, but the group's national board of directors vetoed that proposal in favor of a more neutral approach.

Separately, the Sierra Club has scolded some in the Southern California desert chapters for opposing solar projects. The national office issued a 42-page directive laying out the organization's policy regarding renewable energy and instructed local chapters to fall in line.

"It was pretty clear that the national club policy was to foster large-scale solar," said longtime Sierra Club member Joan Taylor. "I don't know how many times I've heard that building solar in the desert is going to save the world."

The NRDC's involvement at Ivanpah was constrained by a conflict of interest: NRDC senior attorneyRobert F. KennedyJr. is a BrightSource investor.

Abandonment urged

On the Genesis project, the Sierra Club and others met with NextEra executives and urged the company to abandon its plans for the site out of concern that

it is too close to a wilderness area. In addition, local groups warned the developer that the site contained sensitive cultural resources.

The project went ahead, only to become embroiled in controversy over the discovery of Native American cultural artifacts that halted construction on one-fifth of the site.

The Interior Department's plan to open a vast swath of desert to solar energy is another instance local activists say demonstrates the ineffectiveness of Big Green's approach.

In late 2010, environmental groups worked with energy companies and the government on a policy that restricted development to 677,000 acres in designated solar zones. Environmentalists left the table believing Interior would refine the agreement to even further reduce the land open to development.

Instead, not long after that compromise, Interior said 21 million acres would be available for development through a variance process, a change that no one in the environmental community supported. If the plan is approved as expected, the nation's leading environmental groups will have been outflanked by solar developers.

"The Sierra Club and the NRDC — their mission is to work on climate change" above all else, Sall said. "We refuse to compromise on that level."

The smaller groups have formed their own alliance, Solar Done Right, that supports renewable energy in previously disturbed or low-conflict lands. "We can have renewable energy — we can have tons of it — and we can do it in all the right ways," Sall said.

The Sierra Club's Barbara Boyle, senior lead for energy issues, said she understands the frustration of smaller groups. "I can appreciate that it doesn't seem that we have gotten what we want out of the process yet," she said.

Asked if the big players had been outmaneuvered by solar developers, Boyle said, "That's always possible."

But she said her 30 years of working for environmental causes have taught her that "the way that we win is through incremental progress."

"I have faith that we are going to get this right in the end," Boyle said. "We have made some mistakes, and that's really difficult. But it's not just any kind of development that we are working on here. We feel the urgency of getting as much renewable energy in California as soon as we can."

Leading environmental organizations fiercely dispute suggestions that they are influenced by major donors. But on solar development, they are fending off perceptions.

'Big Solar' proposal

Four years ago, the director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies in Sacramento wrote a document called "Big Solar." The proposal by V. John White was a pitch for solar developers to hire his company to help roll out projects.

White is a former lobbyist for the Sierra Club and the NRDC. He also lobbies and consults for energy companies.

White wrote that developers could get cooperation from environmental groups by creating a $500,000 grant-making fund. The money

ostensibly was for campaigns to tout the virtues of solar power, but the implication was unmistakable:

Give money to co-opt Big Green.

In the memo, White singled out two organizations — the Sierra Club and the NRDC — for grants. White says the fund was never created. But the strategy, coming from a former environmental lobbyist, raised the antennae of critics and invited scrutiny of funding sources.

The Energy Foundation is among the major funders of environmental groups today. It receives its money from large endowments, although not from the energy industry, and makes grants to further the goal of renewable energy. Over the last five years, the foundation has made $150 million in grants for renewable energy efforts, including $8.5 million to the NRDC and $6.2 million to the Sierra Club.

The Sierra Club's zeal to eliminate coal-fired power plants led it to praise natural gas as an acceptable "bridge fuel." Club officials rewrote their gift acceptance policy when it was discovered that from 2007 to 2010 the organization accepted $26 million from individuals with or subsidiaries of Chesapeake Energy, one of the country's largest natural gas companies.

At the NRDC, public lands attorney Johanna Wald bristled at the suggestion that she or the organization has taken it easy on solar projects in return for grant money.

"It's ridiculous," Wald said. "I'm working around the clock on these issues. I couldn't be bought off, I haven't been bought off and I won't be bought off."

White has become something of a kingmaker in California on renewable energy, deciding who will represent environmental interests on various planning groups overseeing renewable energy development.

Every appointee he has chosen came from a major environmental group that supports most solar development.

As insiders in the process, Gang Green has framed the issues, Sall said, "basically saying we have to pave over huge areas of the West with solar or we are all going to burn up with climate change."

"That set a tone that we still have not overcome."

julie.cart@latimes.com

Los Angeles Times researcher Maloy Moore contributed to this report.

How the FBI Monitored Crusty Punks, ‘Anarchist Hangouts,’ and an Organic Farmers’ Market Under the Guise of Combating Terrorism

By John Cook,

Gawker Magazine

The FBI conducted a three-year investigation, dubbed "Seizing Thunder," into a animal-rights and environmental "terrorists" in the Pacific Northwest that devolved into widespread—and seemingly pointless—surveillance of activists for no apparent reason aside from the fact that they were anarchists, or protested the war in Iraq, or were "militant feminists." Here's the file.

I first came across the name "Seizing Thunder" several years ago while rifling through the FBI's investigative files on the Animal Liberation Front. The ALF records obliquely referenced the evocatively named investigation, which I requested via the Freedom of Information Act just for kicks. Last month—after three years—the FBI returned nearly 500 pages (it held back 784).

It turns out that Seizing Thunder, which was based out of the bureau's Portland field office, was one of several investigations into animal rights and environmental activists nationwide that the FBI eventually merged into Operation Backfire, a wide-ranging probe of ALF and the Earth Liberation Front. Backfire concluded in 2006 with the indictments of 11 activists for arson and other "acts of domestic terrorism," including a notorious 1998 destruction of a $12 million ski lodge in Vail, Colo. The Portland portion seemed to focus primarily on gathering general intelligence on activists who used tree-sitting and other monkey-wrench tactics to fight old-growth logging in the Pacific Northwest.

Click to expand

What makes Seizing Thunder interesting, however, is how easily the agents slipped beyond investigating actual federal crimes and devoted considerable resources to tracking political activists with no apparent criminal intent.

Seizing Thunder was opened in 2002 to target members of the "Animal Liberation front (ALF), Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and an anarchist group called the Red Cloud Thunder, all whose members are inter-related and they openly claimed several major arsons," according to the files. The investigation involved physical and video surveillance, warrants for phone taps, and cooperation with local police departments in Portland and Eugene, Ore. But the feds quickly dropped the pretense of tracking organized groups and quickly began surveilling people simply for identifying themselves—or for being identified by informants—as anarchists. The memos read like artifacts from the Red Scare:

• July 19, 2002: "On [redacted], the source observed a [redacted] Oregon license plate...parked at [redacted], a known anarchist hangout."
• August 8, 2002: "The source observed the following vehicles in the vicinity of [redacted], a major hangout for the anarchist and [redacted]"
• September 19, 2002: "On [redacted] the source observed [redacted] vehicle, Oregon license plate [redacted] parked at [redacted] one of the hangout for anarchist...."
• October 18, 2002: "On [redacted] the source was questioned as to the [redacted] anarchist travelling to [redacted]."

"The anarchists were dressed in black"

What sort of federal crimes were all these anarchists getting up to, aside from the thought variety? The records, which document the FBI's extensive cooperation and intelligence-sharing with local police departments in Eugene and Oregon, show that agents collected intelligence about an anarchist march that was being planned to protest U.S. policy in the Middle East:

On [redacted] at approximately 2:30 p.m., the source visited [redacted]. The source did not observe any anarchists. The source walked [redacted] to view their bulletin board. Most of the ads on the bulletin board were for individuals looking for roommates.

On [redacted] the source attended [redacted]. The source visited [redacted] where the source met two unknown anarchists at [redacted]. The anarchists were dressed in black and were in their early 20s.... The source stated the anarchists are planning a protest to "Reclaim the Streets" on April 20, 2002, in Portland, Ore.

Here's how the Associated Press covered that crucible of terror and violence:

About 700 people marched through downtown Saturday in a peaceful protest against U.S. support of Israel in the Middle East crisis. There were no arrests and no altercations, police said.

The Pinky Swear Riot

Another FBI source passed along a warning of a similar anarchist plot to gather on the streets of Eugene just two days later to protest the International Monetary Fund. The feds quickly passed along the warning to the Eugene police department, thereby averting a bloody riot, by the FBI's lights:

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[Redacted] identified [redacted] a mass protest/riot planned by the Eugene anarchist where on 4/22/02 they attempted to "take over the street" and cause havoc during the rush hour. The Eugene Police Department was immediately notified and they called in numerous officers for this unexpected protest/riot. EPD was prepared for this problem and prevented a major riot. EPD expressed their appreciation for this information as it may have resulted in maJor damages of businesses and property, similar to that of a riot in June 1999 where $150,000 of property destruction occurred.

I can't find any record of any news organization covering this narrowly averted riot. A flier for the riot included in the file reads: "2 p.m.: Teach-in on the G8.... 4 p.m.: RECLAIM-THE-STREETS! Come and party in the street! Live bands: Pinky Swear (Portland/Punk) and Elevated Elements (Seattle / Hip Hop)."

Chasing Subarus

Another high point of the file shows agents conducting surveillance on the Grower's Market, a "not-for-profit food-buying club for buying organic and natural foods" in Eugene, and then literally tailing two random Subaru Legacys (naturally!) to a political rally. As the redacted memo recounting the excursion makes clear, the agents had no idea who they were following, or why.

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The interviewing agents conducted a physical surveillance in the vicinity of The Grower's Market located at 454 Willamette Street in Eugene, Oregon. This surveillance was conducted as a result of [redacted]. During the surveillance the following observations were made:

0930: Surveillance instituted in the vicinity of The Grower's Market....
1100: A gray Subaru Legacy bearing Oregon license plate [redacted] with unknown individuals left the area of the Grower's Market followed by unknown passengers in a red Subaru Legacy bearing Ohio license plate [redacted], a purple Geo Metro bearing an Oregon special license plate [redacted]. These vehicles were followed south on Interstate-5.

What caper were these Subaru-driving terrorists getting up to? Well, after meeting up with a "private bus," also with unknown individuals on board, they drove to Roseburg, Oregon:

1406: The bus and three vehicles were observed parked on the west side of Main Street, south of Oak Street, in a free parking area. The occupants of the vehicles were observed to be carrying protest signs and musical instruments and walking north on Main Street toward the South Umpqua National Bank.
1409: The occupants of the bus and three vehicles were observed protesting outside the South Umpqua National Bank located at Main and Washington streets in Roseburg, Oregon. Officers from Roseburg Police Department and the Douglas County Sheriff's Office were observed monitoring/video taping the incident.
1417: Surveillance discontinued.

"The Anarchists and homeless groups have united"

The Seizing Thunder agents weren't just worried about enviro-anarchy—they also warned of a dreaded anarchist-homeless alliance that threatened to build a "homeless camp." From a November 2002 memo:

Source advised that the Anarchists and homeless groups have united in the effort to establish a "homeless camp." Source stated that the homeless community has accepted the assistance of the Anarchists in the area of publicity and community outreach.

And don't forget the menace posed by punk rock as performed by anarchists. This memo shows that the bureau's Los Angeles office kept tabs on an the Alternative Gathering Collective, "an anarchist group in Los Angeles that organizes anarchist punk music concerts, many of which are fundraisers for animal liberation and environmental extremist groups and causes."

Review of [redacted] found that the AGC sponsored a benefit show for the Long Beach Food Not Bombs (FNB) on 2/5/2005. The concert was held at the Homeland Cultural Center, 1321 Anaheim St., Long Beach CA with the bands Sin Remedio, Ciril, Degrading Humanity, Life in Exile, Lechuza, Civil Disgust, S.O.U.P., and One Side Society.

Finally, an October 2002 memo warns agents that Lady Anarchists can be a whole mess of trouble:

Source advised that the females of the anarchist's movement are in leadership positions in Eugene, Oregon. These females are described as being very feminist and militant.

Other hilarious moments involve agents snooping on nature hikes, investigating the serious federal crime of keying cars, and unwittingly letting a warrant for a phone tap expire.

A History of Political Surveillance

Sadly, it shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody paying attention that the FBI spent much of the 2000s following people simply because they harbored forbidden political beliefs. Last year, Austin, Texas activist Scott Crow decided to see if the FBI was keeping tabs on him, so he FOIAed his file. He got back an astonishing 440 pages of surveillance records and other documents, according to the New York Times. Crow, an anarchist, has never been charged with a federal crime.

In 2010, the FBI's inspector general issued a report finding that the bureau had overstepped its bounds in investigating political and advocacy groups. The bureau's Pittsburgh office, the report said, had conducted surveillance on an anti-war rally as a "make-work" assignment for a bored agent and then "provided inaccurate and misleading information to Congress and the public" about the incident. It also found that "in several cases" of surveillance aimed at Greenpeace, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and other groups, the FBI's stated bases for the investigations were "factually weak" and demonstrated "little indication of any possible federal crime as opposed to a local crime."

A 2003 inspector general audit of the bureau's intelligence gathering and sharing capabilities took note of the increasing emphasis on domestic counterterrorism investigations aimed at "criminal activities associated with animal rights, environmental, and anti-abortion extremists, as well as by certain social protestors" as opposed to, you know, al Qaeda. The report diplomatically suggested that the FBI's counterterror resources should be reserved for combating actual terrorism: "To the extent that the FBI seeks to maximize its counterterrorism resources to deal with radical Islamic fundamentalist terrorism, WMD, and domestic groups or individuals that may seek mass casualties, we believe that FBI management should consider the benefit of transferring responsibility for criminal activity by social activists to the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division."

The bureau obviously didn't listen. It should be noted that the 11 people eventually indicted in Operation Backfire actually had committed serious crimes worthy of federal investigations. Though the documents are heavily redacted, it appears from context that at the very least one of them—Chelsea Dawn Gerlach, who participated in the Vail arson—was a target of Seizing Thunder.

I asked the FBI who, if anyone, was eventually charged based on information developed via Seizing Thunder, and what federal crimes the bureau suspected unidentified Subaru drivers, militant feminists, and frequenters of "anarchist hangouts" of committing. A spokeswoman did not immediately respond.

You can read the full file here: Seizing Thunder Combined FBI Files

65 Anracho-Punks Sent to Re-Education Camp in Banda Ache

Indonesia Punk Crackdown Leaves Youths Unchanged

By FAKHRURRADZIE GADE 12/20/11 06:38 AM ET

SEULAWAH, Indonesia -- Mohawks buzzed and noses free of piercings, dozens of youths march in military-style for hours beneath Indonesia's tropical sun – part of efforts by authorities to restore moral values and bring the "deviants" back into the mainstream.

But the young men and women have shown no signs of bending.

When commanders turn their backs, the shouts ring out: "Punk will never die!" Fists are thrown in the air and peace signs flashed. A few have managed briefly to escape, heads held high as they are dragged back.

Sixty-five young punk rockers arrived at this police detention center last week after baton-weiling police crashed a concert in Aceh – the only province in this predominantly Muslim nation of 240 million to have imposed Islamic laws.

They will be released Friday, after having completed 10 days of "rehabilitation," from classes on good behavior and religion to military-style drills aimed at instilling discipline.

Nineteen-year-old Yudi, who goes by only one name, says it's not working.

He tried unsuccessfully to shake off police when they took an electric razer to his spiky mohawk. At the sight of his hair scattered in the grass, he recalls, tears rolled down his face.

"It was torture to me."

"I can't wait to get out of here," he added. "They can't change me. I love punk. I don't feel guilty about my lifestyle. Why should I? There's nothing wrong with it."

His girlfriend, 20-year-old Intan Natalia, agrees.

Her bleach-blond hair has been cut to a bob and dyed black and she's been forced to wear a Muslim headscarf.

"They can say what they want, but I like life as a punk," she says. "It suits me."

Two young men hated it so much at the detention center, they tried to escape.

They almost succeeded, pretending they had to go to the bathroom, then fleeing to the provincial capital, Banda Aceh, 30 miles (50 kilometers) away.

Police found them strolling the streets nine hours later and brought them back.

It was just after midnight.

"They said they missed their parents, but it's pretty clear they were lying," said local police chief Col. Armensyah Thay. "They didn't go home. How could they? They've been living on the streets."

The crackdown marked the latest effort by authorities to promote strict moral values in Aceh, which, unlike other provinces in the sprawling archipelagic nation, enjoys semiautonomy from the central government.

That was part of a peace deal negotiated after the 2004 tsunami off Aceh convinced separatist rebels and the army to lay down their arms, with both sides saying they didn't want to add to people's suffering.

More than 230,000 people were killed in the towering wave, three quarters of them in Aceh.

DA dropping death penalty against Abu-Jamal

Written by KATHY MATHESON

Wednesday, 07 December 2011

PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors on Wednesday abandoned their 30-year push to execute convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther whose claim that he was the victim of a racist legal system made him an international cause celebre.

Abu-Jamal, 58, will instead spend the rest of his life in prison.

Flanked by police Officer Daniel Faulkner's widow, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced his decision two days short of the 30th anniversary of the white patrolman's killing.

He said that continuing to seek the death penalty could lead to "an unknowable number of years" of appeals, and that some witnesses have died or are unavailable after nearly three decades.

"There's never been any doubt in my mind that Mumia Abu-Jamal shot and killed Officer Faulkner. I believe that the appropriate sentence was handed down by a jury of his peers in 1982," said Williams, the city's first black district attorney. "While Abu-Jamal will no longer be facing the death penalty, he will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, and that is where he belongs."

Abu-Jamal was originally sentenced to death. His murder conviction was upheld through years of appeals. But in 2008, a federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing on the grounds that the instructions given to the jury were potentially misleading.

After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh in two months ago, prosecutors were forced to decide whether to pursue the death penalty again or accept a life sentence without parole.

Williams said he reached the decision with the blessing of Faulkner's widow, Maureen.

"Another penalty proceeding would open the case to the repetition of the state appeals process and an unknowable number of years of federal review again, even if we were successful," the district attorney said.

Widener University law professor Judith Ritter, who represented Abu-Jamal in recent appeals, welcomed the move.

"There is no question that justice is served when a death sentence from a misinformed jury is overturned," Ritter said. "Thirty years later, the district attorney's decision not to seek a new death sentence also furthers the interests of justice."

According to trial testimony, Abu-Jamal saw his brother scuffle with the patrolman during a 4 a.m. traffic stop in 1981 and ran toward the scene. Police found Abu-Jamal wounded by a round from Faulkner's gun. Faulkner, shot several times, was killed. A .38-caliber revolver registered to Abu-Jamal was found at the scene with five spent shell casings.

Over the years, Abu-Jamal challenged the predominantly white makeup of the jury, the instructions given to the jurors and the accounts of eyewitnesses. He also complained that his lawyer was ineffective, that the judge was racist and that another man confessed to the crime.

His writings and radio broadcasts from death row put him at the center of an international debate over capital punishment and made him the subject of books and movies. The one-time journalist's own 1995 book, "Live From Death Row," depicts prison life and calls the justice system racist.

He garnered worldwide support from the "Free Mumia" movement, with hundreds of vocal supporters and death-penalty opponents regularly turning out for court hearings in his case.

His message resonated on college campuses and in Hollywood. Actors Mike Farrell and Tim Robbins were among dozens of luminaries who used a New York Times ad to call for a new trial, and the Beastie Boys played a concert to raise money for Abu-Jamal's defense.

Faulkner's widow labored to ensure her husband was not forgotten.

"My family and I have endured a three-decade ordeal at the hands of Mumia Abu-Jamal, his attorneys and his supporters, who in many cases never even took the time to educate themselves about the case before lending their names, giving their support and advocating for his freedom," she said Wednesday. "All of this has taken an unimaginable physical, emotional and financial toll on each of us."

Amnesty International, which maintains that Abu-Jamal's trial was "manifestly unfair and failed to meet international fair trial standards," said the district attorney's decision does not go far enough. Abu-Jamal still has an appeal pending before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court over the validity of ballistics evidence.

"Amnesty International continues to believe that justice would best be served by granting Mumia Abu-Jamal a new trial," said Laura Moye, director of the human rights group's Campaign to Abolish the Death Penalty.

Members of Philadelphia's police community stood with Williams and Maureen Faulkner as the decision was announced. Former police union president Rich Costello blasted the courts for ordering a new sentencing hearing.

"Where do Maureen and the Faulkner family go for a reduction in their sentence?" Costello said. "For 30 years now, they have been forced to suffer grief, anguish, abuse, insults, intimidation, threats and every other sort of indignity that can be visited on a family already in grief."

Faulkner lashed out at the judges who overturned the death sentence, calling them "dishonest cowards" who, she said, oppose the death penalty. The widow also vowed to fight any special treatment for Abu-Jamal behind bars, saying he should be moved to the general population after being taken off death row.

"I will not stand by and see him coddled, as he has been in the past," Faulkner said. "And I am heartened that he will be taken from the protective cloister he has been living in all these years and begin living among his own kind — the thugs and common criminals that infest our prisons." -- (AP)