William Ramsey Clark, the passing of a great man
Edited by Patrice Greanville
WILLIAM RAMSEY CLARK—18 December 1927 ~ 9 April 2021
Looking for heroes in all the wrong places
Despite all the self-flattering noise, the US is not a culture that has produced an overabundance of true heroes. Anti-heroes like Custer, maybe. Real heroes, not that many. The pickings are particularly slim in the nation's record of the past 50 years. That's why we watch with disgust the transparent effort of the official propaganda machine to manufacture heroes out of people who merely did their duty, like simply wear a uniform, or whose deeds, if anything, harmed, traduced, and debased our putative ideals, people like John McCain, or Ronald Reagan, for example. However, this counterfeit coin is not just reserved for conservatives. Eventually, when his time comes, sit back and watch the outpouring of panegyrics, the sheer level of bloviations that Barack Obama will receive. A foretaste of that we saw already in the extravagant sendoff accorded civil rights leader John Lewis, whose true stature was significantly less exalted—by several magnitudes— than what the media pundits and politicians would want us to believe, and who, for the last few decades of his life, as a prominent member of the Black Democrats' cabal, a bunch that Black Agenda Report editors justly label "the Black misleaders", had actually become an active betrayer of the interests of his people and of Americans in general.
Well, with Ramsey Clark we had the real article, a true hero. A tribune and patriot in the Gracchi mould. And that's why—just watch closely—besides a few "correct" and obligatory mentions in parts of the duplicitous mainstream press, his name won't be on everyone's lips, nor will anyone suggest some state funeral or special honors. The purpose in his case will be to quickly bury and erase his example. That won't do for us, of course, since our aim is precisely the opposite. We want people to learn who Ramsey Clark was, what he did, and why he mattered. So here's a set of articles and testimonies to remember Ramsey Clark by, and to keep his legacy burning bright in our ranks, till victory finally smiles on our arms.—PG
Caleb does chats like this almost every day. He usually begins by discussing a major topic, on which he offers information and commentary, later he recognises the people watching the video, by location, and finally he answers the "superchats", questions posed to him by the video audience. So bear with his beginning, which may take a few minutes.
Ramsey Clark; A Life Well Lived for the People of the World
By Bill Hackwell on April 10, 2021
Samarra Iraq 1996, Ramsey Clark visiting pharmaceutical plant. Photo: Bill Hackwell
Yesterday Ramsey Clark died at the age of 93 in New York and today justice and peace-loving people and movements in the US and around the world are in mourning for a man who stood up and fought tirelessly in support of justice, equality and against his country’s drive for endless wars.
Ramsey Clark, the son of a Supreme Court Justice, was a lawyer who began an 8-year career in the US Justice Department in 1961 where he helped draft the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 and 1968 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, becoming the US Attorney General in 1967. During this time he took on the establishment by banning wiretapping of progressive movements, calling for the abolition of capital punishment, and banning federal executions.
Ramsey could have easily remained in the ruling class circles he was born into but once outside of the US government he became a voice against its policies that could not be ignored. He chose instead to become a beacon of unequivocal support for the people of the world going to literally more than 100 countries on fact-finding missions and leading humanitarian delegations. He flew tirelessly to countries being targeted by the Pentagon sometimes even as the bombs were beginning to fall.
Sanctions as a Weapon of War
It is almost impossible to list all the countries and peoples that Ramsey Clark stood up for but perhaps his role in helping to expose the 12 years (between the first Gulf War to the full-scale attack in 2003) of sanctions against Iraq is the most illustrative one in showing the cruelty of the slow misery and death that sanctions cause. During that time Ramsey went to Iraq over and over again to document just how horrific it was. In February 1996 I had the honor of accompanying him as the photographer on a delegation to document on the ground evidence for a report being compiled by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization that was claiming that 567,000 Iraqi children had died as a consequence of the draconian economic sanctions being applied in just 5 years. We went from empty hospital to empty hospital where doctors informed us that children were dying from preventable dysentery because they could not even get or produce simple hydration tablets and that diseases that had been eliminated were reappearing because of the conditions. Prior to the war, Iraq had the most modern medical system in the Middle East. We witnessed a pharmaceutical factory that lay dormant because they could not get the material needed to make medicine. Sewage flowed into the Tigris River through bombed-out sanitation plants that could get no spare parts to get them running again. It was obvious everywhere we went, from government officials to people on the street the level of respect and love that people in Iraq and throughout the Middle East for that matter had for Ramsey.
Today the US has sanctions leveled at over 20 countries for the crime of insisting on their independence. Ramsey Clark was opposed to all sanctions and said, “The lawlessness and cruelty of death-dealing sanctions must be recognized as genocide and a crime against humanity and must be prohibited.”
Support for Self Determination in Latin America
Over the years Ramsey played a significant role by leading delegations and participating in events throughout Latin America and the Caribbean including against the US-financed Contras during the Reagan years, to meeting with Hugo Chavez as leader of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela, the Zapatistas in Chiapas, and support for the FMLN in El Salvador.
Ramsey actively opposed the over 60 year blockade of Cuba and called for the closure of the illegally occupied US naval base at Guantanamo and returning the land to the Cuban People. He involved himself in the struggle to send Elian Gonzalez home with his father and the prolonged campaign to free the Cuban 5 from US prisons. In recognition for his endearing and unwavering support, Ramsey was awarded the Order of Solidarity granted by the State Council of the Republic of Cuba in November 2013 in Holguin by the mothers of the five Cuban heroes.
Today Cuban President Miguel-Diaz Canel Bermudez tweeted. “We mourn the death of Ramsey Clark, former US Attorney General. Honest and supportive, he joined us in crucial battles and was critical of the great injustices committed by his country in the world. Cuba pays grateful tribute to him.”
Fernando Gonzalez, President of the Institute of Friendship with the People (ICAP) added, “Ramsey was a sincere and faithful friend of Cuba. We share common ideals with regard to civil and human rights and the defense of just causes like Palestine… Cuba will never forget a friend as loyal as Ramsey Clark”.
Today on Facebook, anti-war activist Brian Willson said from Nicaragua something that rings true to many of us about what a role model Ramsey Clark was. He was just that for a generation of activists, always speaking truth to power, calm and humble, but with unrelenting conviction.
Ramsey Clark Presente!
Source: Resumen Latinoamericano – English
RAMSEY CLARK – A LIFE OF INDOMITABLE COURAGE – TALKS WITH JEFF J. BROWN ON CHINA RISING RADIO SINOLAND 20170120
Pictured above: a recent photo of the wise, serene and wizened Ramsey Clark. (Image by Veterans Today)
Sixteen years with the people on the streets of China, Jeff
Downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), YouTube video, as well as being syndicated on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, RUvid and Ivoox (links below),
Downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), YouTube video, as well as being syndicated on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, RUvid and Ivoox (links below),
Growing up in Oklahoma, we had a macabre idiom. Anytime someone got some money, like pay day, or unexpectedly, like being repaid a debt, we would say, “Well, I guess I can cut my throat and die rich”! For Jeff J. Brown, author and analyst on China Rising Radio Sinoland, interviewing Mr. Ramsey Clark is like journalistically becoming a millionaire, but spare the knife please. As Ramsey will tell you, there’s too much work to do, too many battles to fight for social justice for all the world’s people, not for Westerners who are living off the immoral lucre of imperial exploitation.
Growing up in Oklahoma, we had a macabre idiom. Anytime someone got some money, like pay day, or unexpectedly, like being repaid a debt, we would say, “Well, I guess I can cut my throat and die rich”! For Jeff J. Brown, author and analyst on China Rising Radio Sinoland, interviewing Mr. Ramsey Clark is like journalistically becoming a millionaire, but spare the knife please. As Ramsey will tell you, there’s too much work to do, too many battles to fight for social justice for all the world’s people, not for Westerners who are living off the immoral lucre of imperial exploitation.
Former uber-insider in Washington in the 1960s’ Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) administration, he could have spent the rest of his life rich, fat and superficially happy, writing fake news CIA editorials in the New York Times, on Meet the Press and CNN, fawning over America’s Worldwide Wehrmacht. But he didn’t. No, something clicked inside and he took the hard path of attacking Western empire and fighting the Princes of Power in the media and courthouses, relentlessly and fearlessly. For 45 years hence, Ramsey has been inflicting serious pain on the West’s elite owners – the oil bankers, the military-industrial- and CIA-MI6 complexes – so much so, that he has to live 24-7 with security personnel guarding him and his life. Our Western governments use murder, extortion, blackmail, bribery and false flags as everyday tools of policy and law, along with genocide, extermination, war and exploitation, like plants and animals breathe air.
Jeff will not take time to repeat Wikipedia facts here, although he does review with Ramsey a synopsis of his illustrious life. During the interview, Ramsey talks about his three and half months in Civil War China, in the summer of 1948, and his positive impressions of the Chinese people. They talk about the murders of JFK, RFK, MLK and his friendship with Mr. William Pepper, and that he has read all of Pepper’s books, which clearly name names of those in the US government who helped kill these three leaders, making these acts known false flags. Jeff reviews with Ramsey the revenge of the West’s governments on the people of Malaysia, for convicting Netanyahu, Bush, Blair et al., of genocide and crimes against humanity, by downing three national flagship airliners, in the improbable span of nine months in 2014: more evil.
Jeff also asks Ramsey if he supports communism, through his relationship with the Worker’s World Party, a question Jeff had not heard Ramsey get asked in other venues. Listen to his answer and see for yourself if Ramsey is a communist.
The photo above shows the wizened face of a man who has stared down the face of global evil and fought it tooth and nail, writing books, legally representing victims of Western empire, establishing organizations and confronting world leaders in newspapers, conferences and symposiums. Who you see is a revolutionary standard bearer of global social justice and peace, while exposing the West’s long history and its daily, ongoing racism, false flags, genocide, exploitation, war, colonialism and imperial tyranny on every inhabited continent on Earth.
At the wise old age of 89, Ramsey hopes that everyone who listens to this interview will find inspiration in his long journey, to take his lofty banner of resistance and courage into the 21st century, to fight the good fight for global social justice, equality and peace, while exposing our many leaders, who support and nurture the evils of global empire.
May there be a million, no, make that billion Ramsey Clarks in the world.
Please share Ramsey’s interview widely and often in the future. Happy New Year of the Fire Rooster 2017, from China Rising Radio Sinoland.
PS: Jeff owes an incalculable debt of thanks to Mr. Jay Janson, who organized this interview with Ramsey Clark in New York City. Listen to Jay’s own incredible life story here: http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/12/24/music-and-revolution-the-amazing-life-story-of-jay-janson-on-china-rising-radio-sinoland-161224/
Where to become an agent for truth and justice:
http://iacenter.org/
http://indictbushnow.org/
http://www.answercoalition.org/
Ramsey’s books:
https://www.amazon.com/Fire-This-Time-U-S-Crimes/dp/1560250712/
https://www.amazon.com/Challenge-Genocide-Let-Iraq-Live/dp/0965691640/
More on Ramsey:
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ramsey-Clark
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsey_Clark
https://www.c-span.org/video/?317441-1/ramsey-clark-oral-history-interivew
RAMSEY CLARK’S AND JAY JANSON’S WAY TO STOP WESTERN GENOCIDE – MAKE THE BASTARDS PAY. CHINA RISING RADIO SINOLAND 20170903
By Jeff J. Brown
Pictured above: there’s not a mouse fart’s worth of difference between the genocidal criminals on the left and the genocidal criminals on the right. The ones on the right deserved to die a grisly death at the hangman’s gallows. Now, it’s time for the psychopathic mass murderers on the left to die too. All living US presidents merit no less, as well as all the others, posthumously, for supporting racist global imperialism and colonialism. Also, we can’t leave out all of Europe’s imperial, exterminating leaders.
Sixteen years with the people on the streets of China, Jeff
Downloadable SoundCloud podcast (also at the bottom of this page), YouTube video, as well as being syndicated on iTunes, Stitcher Radio, RUvid and Ivoox (links below),
While back in the United States this summer, I had the pleasure and honor of meeting for the first time two courageous and principled people: Ramsey Clark and Jay Janson. This, after I interviewed both of them on China Rising Radio Sinoland. Both have spent their adult lives fighting the good fight against Western imperialism, colonialism, racism, genocide and war.
Victories against humanity’s vampire squid are few and far between. It takes guts and perseverance for Ramsey and Jay, both in their eighties, to keep charging up the hill and heaving spears of righteous justice at the Hydra-headed Western monster.
Recently, these two wise octogenarians came upon an elegant way to get the West to stop its pan-global genocide: sue the bastards in court and make them pay reparations, just like after a war. In fact, a victim of American genocide has taken up the idea and put it into action.
A single Iraqi mother of three, Sundus Shaker Saleh (http://alicewalkersgarden.com/2013/10/hope-of-healing/) and an American lawyer, Mr. Inder Comar (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/11/man-who-sued-george-bush-and-the-iraq-war-dave-eggers), filed a suit against George W. Bush, Richard Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, and Paul Wolfowitz in March 2013 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saleh_v._Bush). Using the international law established during the World War II Nuremberg Trials, Saleh v. Bush (http://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/california/candce/3:2013cv01124/264248/53/0.pdf?ts=1428823991) clearly shows that the defendants are guilty of crimes of aggression against the Iraqi people, in other words, crimes against humanity http://www.yesmagazine.org/peace-justice/why-an-iraqi-single-mom-is-suing-george-bush-for-war-crimes.
You have to be ideologically blind not to see that (as stated in the case filed),
The defendants broke the law in conspiring and committing the crime of aggression against the people of Iraq. Defendants planned the war against Iraq as early as 1998; manipulated the United States public to support the war by scaring them with images of ‘mushroom clouds’ and conflating the Hussein regime with al-Qaeda; and broke international law by commencing the invasion without proper legal authorization. More than sixty years ago, American prosecutors in Nuremberg, Germany convicted Nazi leaders of the crimes of conspiring and waging wars of aggression. They found the Nazis guilty of planning and waging wars that had no basis in law and which killed millions of innocents.
“[These] are charges of the utmost gravity. War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences […] affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole. http://theantimedia.org/former-us-attorney-general-joins-lawsuit-against-bush-for-illegal-war-in-iraq/
All this goes without saying, not to mention hundreds of other Western acts of genocide, massacres, exterminations, invasions, occupations and false flags, for the last five hundred years and ongoing across the planet. Westerners have a self-serving habit of shutting out the “ongoing” bit. But trying to use the US justice system to plunge a knife into empire’s heart of darkness is a tall order. Justice has never been blind in any society and when you go up against a society’s owners, the extortion, blackmail and bribery are locked and loaded.
Albert Einstein, a lifelong socialist, was also a pacifist who wrote powerfully and persuasively about the evils of empire. He knew what the root cause was: capitalism
For good measure, the imperial Obama administration fought it tooth and nail in the California District Court (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/sundus-shaker-saleh-bush-lawsuit_n_3830203.html). Who knows what went on behind closed doors. So, no surprise that in December 2014, this court dismissed Saleh v. Bush with prejudice, using the Westfall Act as a pretext. The bench said that Bush and Company are granted immunity, as federal employees, who acted “within the scope of their employment”. Just think of it, you can massacre a million Iraqis and say it’s OK, because it was your professional duty http://pontiactribune.com/2015/03/illegal-invasion-of-iraq-resulted-in-1-million-civilians-dead/. This just happens to be the exact same excuse that Nazi leaders used during the Nuremberg Trials, and those judges were having none of that. Now what was good for the fascist goose, is perfect justice for the imperial gander.
After Saleh v. Bush was appealed to the US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, Ramsey Clark filed a friend of the court brief (http://witnessiraq.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/AOB-Brief-Only-Final.pdf), in support of Saleh v. Bush(https://www.rt.com/usa/267946-attorney-general-iraq-lawsuit/), with a number of other notables adding their principled voices. These included high level representatives from the International Commission for Labor Rights, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, International Committee of the National Lawyers Guild, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, and the National Lawyers Guild.
In this brief, these speakers of truth to power stated the obvious,
…That the previous court was “forbidden” to use Westfall protections to dismiss the charges because the Nuremberg Tribunal established “norms” that prohibit “the use of domestic laws as shields to allegations of aggression […] National leaders, even American leaders, do not have the authority to commit aggression and cannot be immune from allegations they have done so.
Touché Herr Nuremberg.
A gallery shot of the Nuremburg Tribunal. Anybody got a spare courtroom to try Bush & Co., so we can hang the bastards?
Amazingly, and to plunge the sword of justice to its depths of clarity and reason, a second friend of the court brief was filed (http://witnessiraq.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/SalehBush.pdf) by the sole surviving Nuremberg chief prosecutor, Benjamin Ferencz! Mr. Ferencz warned (paraphrasing),
Those in positions of power should not be allowed to subvert their influence to escape responsibility for their crimes. The U.N. stated after Nuremberg that planning, initiating, or waging a war of aggression is a crime against humanity for which individuals as well as states shall be tried before the bar of international justice.
In response to these powerful briefs of truth and justice, Ms. Saleh’s lawyer, Inder Comar lamented that,
This is a horror that continues to play itself out, daily, in Iraq; the architects of such chaos have yet to be meaningfully questioned as to their role in this unmitigated tragedy. http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31360-former-us-attorney-general-files-brief-in-lawsuit-challenging-legality-of-iraq-war
While Ramsey Clark has been busy in the courtroom, Jay Janson has been occupied writing articles, contacting news agencies and politicians to highlight the case (https://www.greanvillepost.com/2017/08/08/buried-history-27-million-died-in-russia-because-wall-street-built-up-hitlers-wehrmacht-to-knock-out-soviet-union/).
Nobody seriously expects the American courts to side with truth and justice. Even if the 9th Circuit Court agrees with the world’s oppressed and slaughtered, that reactionary, ideological snake pit, known as the US Supreme Court will shoot it down in the end.
If you say, “Why don’t they go to that high falootin’ International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague, far from Uncle Sam’s suffocating grip? Ha! Like almost all postwar international institutions, from the United Nations to OPEC to OECD, the ICC takes its imperial orders from Washington. Out of the ten ICC cases heard for “crimes against humanity”, nine were dark skinned Africans and the one lone white guy, Slobodan Milosovic, was a socialist ally of Russia. Are you seeing a pattern here? Uncle Sam will not allow any of the numerous, genocidal Latin American dictators to be tried at The Hague. Too white and too close for comfort. Hence, around the world, the ICC is derisively called the International Caucasian Court http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2016/11/05/the-dark-skinned-exploited-peoples-of-the-world-are-calling-the-west-for-what-it-is-racist-china-rising-radio-sinoland-161105/ and http://chinarising.puntopress.com/2015/10/01/slavs-and-the-yellow-peril-are-niggers-brutes-and-beasts-in-the-eyes-of-western-empire-the-saker-44-days-radio-sinoland-2015-10-1/.
So, the goal of Saleh v. Bush is to expose the racism, genocide and crimes against humanity that are being perpetrated by Western empire, all over the world, right now, as you read this article. Please don’t forget the “right now” part. Court cases attacking the US’s Jim Crow slave system kept getting “denied with prejudice”, until the time was ripe for change, after World War II. Those cases helped frame the moment and prime the pump for hopeful social justice.
So, help make this new moment arrive sooner than later. After signing up, at the top of this webpage, to receive the free China Rising Bulletin, you can show your contempt for the West’s owners, by putting your social media to good use and posting this page and its main website. Then, spice up your work lunch or water cooler break with a copy of this article to pass around. Who knows, maybe you can help save the West from itself, before it’s too late. Sharing is caring. No one can say you didn’t try!
One of the 20th century’s towering giants, who fought Western imperialism all his adult life, Fidel Castro, knew the source of humanity’s never-ending exploitation, misery and war: capitalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Fidel_Castro).
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