by J.B. Gerald / September 3rd, 2016
Their sons ignore you; a fire warms them and sheds light around them, and you have not lit it.
— Jean-Paul Sartre
Heather Ann Thompson’s Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy, Pantheon was released August 23rd. Dr. Thompson is a Professor of History in the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of Michigan and remains on the Faculty of Temple University. Noted by The New York Times as a “superb work of history” the book makes clear that 33 Attica prisoners and 9 hostages were killed by bullets from the security personnel who took over the prison by force September 13, 1971. The order was given by Governor Nelson Rockefeller. Despite the State’s efforts to hide its responsibility for massacring unarmed prisoners, Dr. Thompson presents evidence of the specific murders by law enforcement which began weeks of brutalization of prisoners, torture and terrorization. Killing of prisoners by law enforcement is extra-judicial killing and the massacre of prisoners, a crime against humanity. Yet there were no challenges to the crime at international law.
Wikipedia notes that Nelson Rockefeller was instrumental in bringing the United Nations to New York City and his family donated the land where the United Nations buildings were constructed. By the end of WWII 75% of the news that reached South America originated in Washington D.C., thanks to the Rockefeller offices. As early as the…