[Sosfbay-discuss] Oakland Crisis... And Old Dirt About Elaine Brown

Fri Aug 10 09:19:59 PDT 2007

Dear Green Friends, 

I am blogging about the Assassination of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey.

The silence about this shocking event from the know-it-all "liberals"?is deafening (pity Brother Chauncey didn't?manage did get his head blown off by a shotgun?by Zionists or Islamists in Jerusalem, then maybe somebody around here would give a shit).??

Today's Washington Post has an article about some long-awaited soul-searching among some African-American activists about the sick direction Black activism has taken in recent years.? Some of you will recognize some of the points I've been making in Green circles for several years (in my?Op-Ed submitted to "Green Focus", I specifically?argued that the kind of bullshit "progressive" politics we've seen in Oakland is exactly the kind of bullshit politics that needs to be?thrown in the dustbin of history.)

There is one more thing that needs to be mentioned.? While surfing around the net I?downloaded an old article from Salon by David Horowitz about Elaine Brown's dubious activities with the Black Panther Party in Oakland in the 1970s.? Especially?in the aftermath of the murder of Chauncey Bailey, if Brown is nominated by the Green Party for high office,?I am sorry to say, this old dirt will certainly come out.?

Alex Walker

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Published in The Washington Post, Friday, August 10, 2007

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/09/AR2007080902259.html?hpid=topnews

For Some in Oakland, Editor's Death Shows Subversion of Black Activism

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer

OAKLAND -- In a city where murder has taken on an element of routine, the shotgun slaying of Chauncey Bailey, in broad daylight by a young man who allegedly stood over the fallen journalist and pumped a second blast into his face, has galvanized Oakland as no single killing in decades.

It was not just the brutality that stunned the city. To some, the suspect's ties to a black Muslim bakery held a darker significance, a symbol that Oakland's radical black movement -- a history that spawned such national figures as Huey Newton and Angela Davis -- had over the years gone awry, and that the violence that infused parts of that tradition had been tolerated too long.

"This community has a radical tradition, including the Black Panthers, the West Coast Black Arts Movement, the establishment of black studies," said Marvin X, a militant-turned-writer, standing in the doorway of a downtown photocopy shop. "Look at where we are now. We've gotten off course from our tradition. Radicalism has been aborted to criminality."

Bailey, 57, editor of the Oakland Post, a black weekly newspaper, was shot Aug. 2 on his way to work. His alleged killer, 19, was a foot soldier in a local institution, Your Black Muslim Bakery, an ambitious social welfare project that court records show was deteriorating into a criminal enterprise. Police allege that he was angry that Bailey was preparing to write critically about the bakery.

Bailey's death has shaken Oakland's black elite. Bailey was a member of their fraternity and, like them, had promoted Oakland's transition from 1970s crucible of black power to African American establishment showcase.

"This was sort of the Oakland version of a fatwa," said Ishmael Reed, the poet and author of two books on Oakland. "This will wake up the African American elite, because they could be next. They feel very vulnerable now, after hundreds of people have been killed in the streets."

For Some in Oakland, Editor's Death Shows Subversion of Black Activism

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer

OAKLAND -- In a city where murder has taken on an element of routine, the shotgun slaying of Chauncey Bailey, in broad daylight by a young man who allegedly stood over the fallen journalist and pumped a second blast into his face, has galvanized Oakland as no single killing in decades.

It was not just the brutality that stunned the city. To some, the suspect's ties to a black Muslim bakery held a darker significance, a symbol that Oakland's radical black movement -- a history that spawned such national figures as Huey Newton and Angela Davis -- had over the years gone awry, and that the violence that infused parts of that tradition had been tolerated too long.

"This community has a radical tradition, including the Black Panthers, the West Coast Black Arts Movement, the establishment of black studies," said Marvin X, a militant-turned-writer, standing in the doorway of a downtown photocopy shop. "Look at where we are now. We've gotten off course from our tradition. Radicalism has been aborted to criminality."

Bailey, 57, editor of the Oakland Post, a black weekly newspaper, was shot Aug. 2 on his way to work. His alleged killer, 19, was a foot soldier in a local institution, Your Black Muslim Bakery, an ambitious social welfare project that court records show was deteriorating into a criminal enterprise. Police allege that he was angry that Bailey was preparing to write critically about the bakery.

Bailey's death has shaken Oakland's black elite. Bailey was a member of their fraternity and, like them, had promoted Oakland's transition from 1970s crucible of black power to African American establishment showcase.

"This was sort of the Oakland version of a fatwa," said Ishmael Reed, the poet and author of two books on Oakland. "This will wake up the African American elite, because they could be next. They feel very vulnerable now, after hundreds of people have been killed in the streets."

Chauncey Bailey, in broad daylight by a young man who allegedly stood over the fallen journalist and pumped a second blast into his face, has galvanized Oakland as no single killing in decades.

It was not just the brutality that stunned the city. To some, the suspect's ties to a black Muslim bakery held a darker significance, a symbol that Oakland's radical black movement -- a history that spawned such national figures as Huey Newton and Angela Davis -- had over the years gone awry, and that the violence that infused parts of that tradition had been tolerated too long.

"This community has a radical tradition, including the Black Panthers, the West Coast Black Arts Movement, the establishment of black studies," said Marvin X, a militant-turned-writer, standing in the doorway of a downtown photocopy shop. "Look at where we are now. We've gotten off course from our tradition. Radicalism has been aborted to criminality."

Bailey, 57, editor of the Oakland Post, a black weekly newspaper, was shot Aug. 2 on his way to work. His alleged killer, 19, was a foot soldier in a local institution, Your Black Muslim Bakery, an ambitious social welfare project that court records show was deteriorating into a criminal enterprise. Police allege that he was angry that Bailey was preparing to write critically about the bakery.

Bailey's death has shaken Oakland's black elite. Bailey was a member of their fraternity and, like them, had promoted Oakland's transition from 1970s crucible of black power to African American establishment showcase.

"This was sort of the Oakland version of a fatwa," said Ishmael Reed, the poet and author of two books on Oakland. "This will wake up the African American elite, because they could be next. They feel very vulnerable now, after hundreds of people have been killed in the streets."

Angela Davis -- had over the years gone awry, and that the violence that infused parts of that tradition had been tolerated too long.

"This community has a radical tradition, including the Black Panthers, the West Coast Black Arts Movement, the establishment of black studies," said Marvin X, a militant-turned-writer, standing in the doorway of a downtown photocopy shop. "Look at where we are now. We've gotten off course from our tradition. Radicalism has been aborted to criminality."

Bailey, 57, editor of the Oakland Post, a black weekly newspaper, was shot Aug. 2 on his way to work. His alleged killer, 19, was a foot soldier in a local institution, Your Black Muslim Bakery, an ambitious social welfare project that court records show was deteriorating into a criminal enterprise. Police allege that he was angry that Bailey was preparing to write critically about the bakery.

Bailey's death has shaken Oakland's black elite. Bailey was a member of their fraternity and, like them, had promoted Oakland's transition from 1970s crucible of black power to African American establishment showcase.

"This was sort of the Oakland version of a fatwa," said Ishmael Reed, the poet and author of two books on Oakland. "This will wake up the African American elite, because they could be next. They feel very vulnerable now, after hundreds of people have been killed in the streets."

Your Black Muslim Bakery, an ambitious social welfare project that court records show was deteriorating into a criminal enterprise. Police allege that he was angry that Bailey was preparing to write critically about the bakery.

Bailey's death has shaken Oakland's black elite. Bailey was a member of their fraternity and, like them, had promoted Oakland's transition from 1970s crucible of black power to African American establishment showcase.

"This was sort of the Oakland version of a fatwa," said Ishmael Reed, the poet and author of two books on Oakland. "This will wake up the African American elite, because they could be next. They feel very vulnerable now, after hundreds of people have been killed in the streets."

.? .? .

"At one time, it was an institution that brought pride to the community," said the Rev. Bill Reed, a Baptist clergyman who grew up in Oakland and returned for Bailey's funeral. "They had a great mission. They were training people coming out of prison."

Opinions differ on when things changed. A series in the East Bay Express, an alternative weekly, alleged that from the beginning, Bey used the patina of black empowerment to do as he wished. Oakland's establishment chose to ignore signs of trouble and elected leaders even channeled the project a $1.2 million federal loan, the weekly wrote.

"Let me make it real simple: This has been going on about 30 years. And it has been known," Marvin X said. The bakery "had a dark side, and it was as real as the light side."

= = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Please note this is the same Ishmael Reed who wrote a really, really nasty?denounciation?of Cornel West, Ralph Nader and the Greens in 2000.? Funny,?Reed doesn't sound so self-righteous now.?

Here'e the first couple of paragraphs from the Horowitz piece on the Black Panthers.??

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Posted by Salon, December 13, 1999

http://www.salon.com/news/col/horo/1999/12/13/betty/index.html

?

Who killed Betty Van Patter? 

by David Horowitz 
Twenty-five years ago Monday, my friend Betty Van Patter disappeared from a tavern on University Avenue called the Berkeley Square and was never seen alive again.

Six months earlier, I had recruited Betty to keep the books of the Educational Opportunities Corp., an entity I had created to run a school for the children of the Black Panther Party. By the time the police fished her battered body out of San Francisco Bay in January 1975, I knew that her killers were the Panthers themselves.

At the time, the Panthers were still being defended by writers like Murray Kempton and Garry Wills in the pages of the New York Times, and by then-Gov. Jerry Brown of California. The governor was even a confidant of Elaine Brown, who had hired Betty and whom Huey Newton had appointed to stand in for him as the Panther leader while he was in "exile" in Cuba.

At the time of Betty's death, Elaine was running for Oakland City Council and had just secured a $250,000 grant from the Nixon administration under a federal juvenile delinquency program. J. Anthony Kline, the consigliore to whom she had been able to turn when the party's enforcers got in trouble with the law, was about to be appointed to Gov. Brown's cabinet. (Today Kline is a justice on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.)

Black Panther Party. By the time the police fished her battered body out of San Francisco Bay in January 1975, I knew that her killers were the Panthers themselves.

At the time, the Panthers were still being defended by writers like Murray Kempton and Garry Wills in the pages of the New York Times, and by then-Gov. Jerry Brown of California. The governor was even a confidant of Elaine Brown, who had hired Betty and whom Huey Newton had appointed to stand in for him as the Panther leader while he was in "exile" in Cuba.

At the time of Betty's death, Elaine was running for Oakland City Council and had just secured a $250,000 grant from the Nixon administration under a federal juvenile delinquency program. J. Anthony Kline, the consigliore to whom she had been able to turn when the party's enforcers got in trouble with the law, was about to be appointed to Gov. Brown's cabinet. (Today Kline is a justice on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.)

Jerry Brown of California. The governor was even a confidant of Elaine Brown, who had hired Betty and whom Huey Newton had appointed to stand in for him as the Panther leader while he was in "exile" in Cuba.

At the time of Betty's death, Elaine was running for Oakland City Council and had just secured a $250,000 grant from the Nixon administration under a federal juvenile delinquency program. J. Anthony Kline, the consigliore to whom she had been able to turn when the party's enforcers got in trouble with the law, was about to be appointed to Gov. Brown's cabinet. (Today Kline is a justice on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.)

.? .? .

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

?

?
________________________________________________________________________
AOL now offers free email to everyone.  Find out more about what's free from AOL at AOL.com.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.cagreens.org/pipermail/sosfbay-discuss_lists.cagreens.org/attachments/20070810/b9e6b57a/attachment.html>