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I Support Terry Nichols’ Hunger Strike
As a lifelong progressive committed to nonviolence, I have little sympathy for a man who conspired in the most heinous act of domestic rightwing terrorism in U.S. history.
For his role in the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing that killed 168 people (including kids at childcare), Terry Nichols is serving life-without-parole sentences. And that's a good thing,
But I don't want him to "rot in jail." That's why I support his hunger strike and lawsuit, and hope he doesn't rot to death inside the federal Supermax prison in Colorado.
Indeed, if Nichols wins and starts eating again, it may be one of his first useful contributions to society.
In a suit filed last year in federal court, Nichols demanded 100% whole-grain foods, more fresh vegetables and fruits, and digestive bacteria - contending that he needs a better diet for medical and religious reasons, and that his prison diet of "unhealthy dead and refined foods" causes him to "sin against God." (In Bowling for Columbine, you may recall Michael Moore interviewing Nichols' scary brother James at his certified organic tofu farm in Michigan.)
In a handwritten note filed in court Thursday, Terry Nichols told the judge that he had began a hunger strike and is prepared to die rather than allow his body to be "defiled by those refined. . .[and] dead foods."
I don't want Nichols to die - and it's not that I give a damn about this pitiful man.
I want Nichols to win his lawsuit in hopes it leads to broad dietary changes inside prisons. Because he's right that our overly processed American diet, lacking in fresh fruits and vegetables, is a sin to people - whether Christian or atheist, whether prisoner or not.
As shown in study after study - as well as the powerful Oscar-nominated documentary Food, Inc. on the corporatization of our food supply - the deterioration of our diets contributes to premature death and chronic illness, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer.
So why should we care about Nichols' diet and that of other inmates? As much for our benefit as theirs, because a significant upgrading in the diet of any large group of Americans may have a multiplier effect throughout society - in terms of more healthy foods being produced and reducing costs.
That's why the efforts of parents and educators to transform the standard student lunch (highlighted in Food, Inc.) could boost healthful food supplies way beyond schools.
Like students, prisoners are a huge group in our country. Indeed, no other country has as many inmates as we do, over 2 million. With less than 5 percent of the world's population, we have nearly a quarter of the world's prisoners - and, unlike Nichols, most are not murderers or serious criminals. Many are nonviolent drug offenders - often poor people of color who never had a chance in life.
Terry Nichols is a self-centered killer. Yet I hope he survives, wins his lawsuit and accomplishes something positive for others . . . in spite of himself.
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43 Comments so far
Show AllIn remembering the Oklahoma bombing it should be stated that according to Tim McVey the killing was a result of his military training. One of the things that the US military does best is to remove any taboo against killing. That's how they can transform the nice kid next door into a killing machine. Maybe Oklahoma was just one more example of the chickens coming home to roost (or as this article might prefer, the tofu coming home to roost).
Well said....
A very scary situation as I live in Colorado Springs where messed up young troops are coming home everyday. I don't wish ill for these guys, but a lot of them need help and they're not getting any. Every weekend, before they're let loose for a couple of days, they all get mandatory lectures from their CO's telling them not to beat their wives or kick their dogs or hit their children, etc. etc. A lot of these guys are not reintegrating well at all. Not enough adrenaline rushes stateside.
blythespirit: How is the community of Colorado Springs coping? Are troops getting the help they need? I have read conflicting reports coming out of Washington.
rosemarie: Great point -- the military training that removes the taboo of killing.
Certainly, reintegrating the men and women back into society is a complex issue.
I found the following information in an article written for the Gazette News, out of Boulder, Colorado -- concerning Fort Carson:
The toxic mix left a death toll in Colorado.
*Judilianna Lawrence, 19, was raped and killed by a soldier last October, prosecutors charge.
*In June 2008, Cesar Ramirez Ibanez, 21, and Amairany Cervantes, 18, were mowed down with an AK-47. A soldier is charged.
*In December, 2007, Spc. Kevin Shields was shot to death on the city's west side. Three soldiers are in prison for that.
*A few months earlier, Pfc. Robert James was shot to death in a robbery. Two soldiers are doing time for it.
*Before that, a taxi driver in Pueblo was gunned down by a Fort Carson GI who has since been convicted.
*Another soldier is doing 30 years behind bars for gunning down an alleged drug dealer in a botched robbery.
*One killed his infant.
*One killed a friend with a fire poker.
*Another killed his wife and then himself.
"Soldiers allegedly involved in crimes related to homicide at Fort Carson from 2005-2008 were, in retrospect, at risk for engaging in violent behavior based on a clustering of known risk factors for violence, namely prior criminal behavior and psychopathology," the report found.
The study probed 14 homicides and attempted cases involving Fort Carson soldiers since 2005 and also used surveys and focus groups to examine attitudes at the post.
It is a shame some of these sick troops don't kill their former commanders. If some did, the system would get to fixing the problems.
I was stationed at Fort Carson back in 1970, and liked it.
Today it has problems, for sure.
George Bush unleashed the dogs of war, and Obama refuses to rein them in. They both have blood on their hands.
blythespirit--The situation that you describe above, while totally inexcusable and indefensible, is by no means unique as an aftermath of our present wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This kind of situation where many messed-up young soldiers coming home from our wars, are in dire need of help and not getting any also occurred during our Indo-China war, Operation Desert Storm (our first Iraq war), and it's happening now, only worse.
I normally don't support hunger strikes or self-immolation. The elites want progressives to die. Why should people be succumbing to famine and fire when they're already shot, beaten, shocked, jailed, and ruined?
rosemarie-Didn't McVeigh talk about "collateral damage?"
If USAF General Partin was correct, and there were explosive devices planted inside the Murrah Building, then it is likely that McVeigh, Nichols and perhaps others were being worked by agents of the US Government, probably ATF.
If that is the case, then perhaps Nichols is not quite as wicked as Jeff Cohen thinks he is.
"....perhaps Nichols is not quite as wicked as Jeff Cohen thinks he is."
No kidding. I have had problems with OKC all along. General Partin's credentials and analysis are damning to the government's contention that this crime was the result of a Lone Bomber's ANFO Truck Bomb.
I also find it incredible that McVeigh would be driving a car away from the scene without license plates. They were removed IMO to facilitate a police stop and subsequent arrest.
Prison food is unhealthy? Color me Shocked! American food as a whole is unhealthy. Prison food is simply the worst of the worst. Millions of Americans are subsisting on a less than optimal diet, often b/c of cost. In a time of massive economic collapse, demands for a better diet for prisoners is likely to fall on deaf ears. It would set a powerful precedent to improve prisoners diets though. Fast food has become the predominant food choice for the masses since about 1980 however......
The FBI section in OK had no agents that day.
An attorney recently received video tapes from three cameras aimed at the building in which the government claimed all three cameras ran out of tape just before the blast.
Exactly....wake up my fellow progressives...this was a set up.
Wow... Well, I have to agree with Jeff. My daughter fights to bring local, farm fresh foods to a blue collar town where the state drug court lives. More Section 8 housing than anywhere in the state. It's an uphill battle, but after 3 years in business, the locals are actually starting to come in for lunch... So, I, too, hope he wins.
let's not forget... privitized prisons have as their FIRST duty... a return to shareholders... even if nichol's facility is not privitized... many hundreds more are...
let's not forget the 100's of teens incarcerated in Pa. as "kickbacks" by the judges to the privitized juvenile detention center...
and... decriminalizing non-violent drug (esp. users v. dealers') crimes... too many inmates are guilty of nothing more than pursuing a temporary respite from the daily human condition...
PRIVITIZATION IS OK FOR TV'S AND TENNIS SHOES... NOT NECESSARY SERVICES FOR ALL LIKE WATER SYSTEMS AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEMS...
the "faster, better, cheaper" cry that corporations supposedly can do better then govenment... FORGETS the aspects of stable, available to all and secure human services...
i can live without the olympics and flat screen... however... when i take a dump... you don't want it ending up in your living room...
(still i would have picked a better trigger than this to puport this point about prison food)
Hey, not to annoy, but don't you think schools might be a better battleground than prisons for this fight? And maybe homeless shelters and Soup Kitchens?
Just from a political strategy pov, Nichols is not what you'd call a sympathetic character. The typical McDonalds addict is not going to be anywhere near as understanding as Mr Cohen. And connecting the organic/clean food issue to this guy is a PR nightmare. Why not seek Osama bin Laden's endorsement while you're at it?
In New London, there is a group of organic people's gardeners that are hooked up through student groups in the highschool and with Green community organizers, named FRESH New London. They have gardens around the city on land that is loaned to them. They teach mostly High School kids how to produce good clean organic food in an urban environment and more than that, they teach an awareness of what constitutes good food, showing them the value, or lack of, to the food they can access in school(cafeteria is bad enough but the Vending Machines are the killers). When their gardens are going in the summer and fall, they have a truck they go around the projects in and they supply the shelters in town.
And there are probably groups like FRESH all over, among all of that, there must be a more attractive focal point then Terry Nichols.
CV 9:15 ---- Sounds like a great program!
Privately Funded?
The H.S. are being taught by FRESH members or is another group of gardners doing the teaching?
Who brings the food to the Projects? Is it sold or given away?
This is one of the best things happening today!
Privately funded, donations mostly.
The senior staff of FRESH include several organic gardners, dedicated foodies.
A staff member usually drives the van, but usually several kids are on too. The food is sold, but the prices are kept low (and sometimes waived). We've found that people value things more if they pay for them, even if it's a very small, symbolic payment. It's not charity, it was bought with money earned. Just from a dignity standpoint, it works better this way.
New London, like many cities, concentrated many of it's poor people into urban redevelopement projects. Barren plot of hi-rises with no close access to supermarkets or actually any shopping. Everything is a long walk or a busride. So just bringing fresh produce into the Projects is a great improvement. Several of the kids come from the projects themselves so this is a cool thing they bring home, not just the van, but the skills.
You miss the point, kids in schools have a choice, prisoners don't.
The point I'm concerned with is hitching your wagon to this convicted trrrrrrrrrrrst works against the cause of improving peoples' understanding of and access to good food.
If you are trying to reach outside of a small group of likeminded (or at least, understanding) people, you want to associate your issue with people that attract your target audience. If you want to reach Bubba, get Dale Jr to endorse. Trying to reach Teens, Death Cab for Cutey, doing their Vegetarian shtick.
Association isn't always overt, either. Scotch Whiskey will always be connected, in my mind, with the half-smashed country club bigots and Rotarians in my town.
Associations of the negative variety can kill a worthwhile initiative. That's why PR firms make so much money cleaning up the negative connotations of their clients' behavior, and why people sue for libel. A negative meme, even if it's not true, sticks to you like dog poo on your shoe and if it's not removed quickly, it makes a mess everywhere you step.
Someone Asked me to list 12 Things I like about America in response to "negative" information I sent to them:
My response to that question of listing 12 qualities about your country that you admire is that it is the equivalent of "when did you stop beating your wife?" The person asking presumes the (unearned) moral high ground - while impugning the motives of the responder with the implicit truism that criticism is "negative" and therefore "wrong" - Meaning be damned. See no evil, Hear no evil, speak no evil - even if that literally translates to "be oblivious to evil" as long as you are not immediately impacted... not your problem.
In answer to the question however... What I like about this country is that the responsibility to demand that the country live up to the stated intent of the founding fathers was clearly spelled out as the role of citizenship. This country was founded on worthy life serving principles. Living here does not make one a citizen. Citizenship in America is not a passive spectator sport or an e-ticket in Consumer Toyland issued in exchange for an obligatory role of knee jerk cheer-leading or a piece of paper that "legally" grants one that status.
If I idly mouth words of praise for what my country is supposed to be while the Constitution is dismantled and atrocities committed in the name of this country that I claim to champion then I would be actively at cause in the destruction of a country for which I feign "love".
Real love demands commitment and vigilance - not robotic repetition of slogans.
"What I like about this country is that the responsibility to demand that the country live up to the stated intent of the founding fathers was clearly spelled out as the role of citizenship."
So since you are probably a 'citizen', what have you actually done to support the 'moral high ground' that you speak of? I have lived in this country since MY birth (59 years ago)and I haven't had to do ANYTHING in order to 'have' my status confirmed. Yes, I did graduate from high school and took some college classes, but I haven't had to confirm my status as 'citizen' ever. So what qualifications do you need to prove your citizenship, absoulutely NONE! This country was founded on the white mans commitment to RULE the planet and nothing else. I'm so sick of this 'requirement' to uphold the rules of the founding fathers (white ,rasist, homophobic males), which are 'white MAN RULES' it makes me puke. Get over your superiority white dude!
but it is a 'passive spectater sport', if you are a citizen from birth there is nothing that you have to do, ever. There is no 'draft' anymore. Get over this ridicules notion that you have to do anything if you were born here, it's just not truthful. This country is 'Lost' in reference to ANY 'moral high ground', it receives an 'F' in the case of that subject. The Rethuglicans have proved the point.
But O'Bomber is no better than Rethuglicans.
More troops in combat than under W.
More "contractors" than under W.
Pro torture officials from McChrystalnacht on down being re-appointed by O'Bomber.
Not to mention uber-spook Gates who never left. Even foolish liberals should have heard the death knell when O'Bomber kept Iran Contra Gates on board.
W gave birth to the living dead known as the War on Terror, Obama feeds it with innocent Afghan blood and millions of US dollars.
Who needs Rethuglicans when you got friends like O'Bomber!
Sioux Rose
CHELSEA: Great post!
12 things I like about America -
1. Most Americans recognize that their leaders rob and cheat them.
2. Most Americans recognize that their elections are more farce than representation.
3. Most Americans recognize that the media that they watch for entertainment lies to them profusely and deliberately.
4. Most Americans recognize that corporations are inhuman and inhumane and find advertisements asserting that corporations care to be ridiculous.
5. Most Americans dislike most direct oppression on the part of government even when they are so duped as to believe that their government does not actively or does not profusely or does not wantonly engage in it
6. Most Americans support an egalitarian socialist healthcare system in which all taxpayers contribute to provide health care for the entire society.
7. Most Americans want to contribute more to an egalitarian socialist system of education despite the fact that the only one they know is so ineffective as to give them the idea that it exists primarily to provide skills sellable to industry, despite the fact they therefore imagine that it primarily serves others and not themselves.
8. Most Americans do not want blood for oil although they are mostly duped into believing that it is their own affluence that they stand to lose by denying it.
8. Most Americans insist on maintaining egalitarian socialist care for the elderly, and bristle so fiercely at any suggestion that it be retracted that politicians, elites almost to the person, have not managed to retract it.
9. Most Americans do not want their government to support rightist coups or to kill foreign people or to intimidate foreign governments or peoples or domestic peoples to line corporate coffers. It is for this reason that government and corporations must lie so massively and repeatedly.
10. Most Americans dislike their bosses.
11. Most Americans would prefer to help people rather than do the petty, mundane things that occupy them all day, and would prefer it even if they earned less money, if they could only see a way clear to do it and get by.
12. Many Americans do not let themselves be gulled by American exceptionalism.
Chelsea, you might mention to your correspondents that another 12 items can be made available on command, rather quickly. I have not mentioned those Appalachian mountains not yet removed; those streams not yet clogged by toxic mining debris; the land not rendered radioactive by power plants or the institutional sadism passing for "nuclear tests;" the old-growth forests not marred by harvests; the life teeming off the shores of Oregon despite the depredations of fishers and toxins leached from suburbia; the scraps of life remaining off the shores of Los Angeles and holding on despite the reek of urine and feces and the demonspawn of industrial imagination; the places like Death Valley that offer mineral resistance to human abuse; that part of the rich earth not yet blown from Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Texas, and Oklahoma despite abundant abuse ---
well, I have to give someone a ride.
The next list might start with Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, ....
Terry Nichols - The First Teabag Terrorist
I am unaware of any such actions by this group. Can you enlighten me otherwise?
The pro-lifers come to mind. Armed fanatical cults and paramilitary clubs also.
Austin Texas TeaBagger upset about his taxes funding the ZOG. flies a plane into a Federal Office building in an attempt to kill IRS employees.
If you read his suicide note you would have found very little identifying him with the "teabaggers"...But I guess you havent.
We cannot hope to make any progress if we do not familiarize ourselves with the issues and problems.
I did indeed read the Stack Manifesto and it is a rehash of the same TeaBagger complaints written by an educated person (which is why it fooled you, it's not all bad syntax and misspellings) illustrated with a personal tale of woe.
He had written anti-government screeds in wingnut forums and was a hardcore hawk, a defense contractor.
And judging by the way the TeaBaggers and FUX are now deifying the guy, he's become a TeaBag Hero and copycats are sure to follow.
The even-handed, lets-be-fair approach to this suicide bomber is understandable in the Corporate Media and the RightWing circle-jerks, he's a white guy, not an A-rab, but soft pedal on the Left? Even if you agree with his hatred of taxes, his answer is dead wrong and should be condemned by Left, Right and Center.
How nice of you to assume that I talk through my hat.
I could respond with a fact filled post noting Stack's differing with the goals and objctives of the so-called "tea party revolution" but, in the face of your childish temper I wont bother.
Having four kids and fifteen grandkids inures me to large extent from such immaturity as you display but why bother with you....Come back when you grow up and we can discuss issues and such.
No, Jeff, not Nichols - let him live on bread and beans. However much he imagines himself to be some kind of aristocrat, basic sustenance and adequate medical care are all he's entitled to. His demand for special food is not based on genuine concerns about nutrition, but is an expression of his narcissism.
How will we respond when he rejects his prison polyester/cotton blend uni-suit because the cotton is not organically grown or the dye is not organic? Will you see this as a stimulus to progress on farming or fashion for the rest of society?
I agree with the CV February, who suggested that starting a nutrition campaign in the schools is a much better idea. Children take priority over the destructive elements in our society.
Why should good diet remain associated with aristocracy?
Why should Nichols' motives be an issue in any way?
Why should feeding prisoners stop us from feeding students or vice versa?
jeff Cohen is just taking the matter of better food for all to apply to all including this prisoner.
It doesn't in the least mean this person won't remain incarcerated.
I have no idea about all the details of this case, and if somehow this individual didn't get a fair trial thus allowing the conviction of an innocent person. This happens quite often in the USA.
I do know the US mainstream media initially tried hard to tie it to the Middle East.
AD
Why no let prisoners farm their own vegetables? That would be good for them on so many levels, and hardly cost anything. Put Nichols to work to take the focus off himself.
That's what several Prisons in the south do. Huge acreage of crops tended by gangs of (mostly) black men toiling under the sun for no pay with white guys with guns standing over them. Sound familiar?
I watched USAF General Partin state on the network nightly news in 1995 that the Murrah Building was mostly destroyed due to demolitions inside the building. He had studied explosives and their effects as an expert in the military for 30 years and said the evidence was as plain as day that structural supports inside the building had been sabotaged with explosives and that the Ryder truck was merely a decoy. Conveniently, there was no video of the actual explosion that wasnt erased on tape. I think it's obvious that this was the first dry-run attempt preceding 911 in an effort to adopt The Patriot Act. The Neocons only failed in this attempt due to staunch anti-Clinton resentment amongst many obstructionist republicans. If this is the case, then why hasnt there been a full revolt in this country even when something like this was exposed on ABC news by a General with full credibility. It's because people still gobble up most of the lies the major media puts forth and one kernal of truth cant stop the overwhelming momentum of lies in the media blitz.
wow, you and your buddy Norman Solomon used to have something insightful to say when you wrote, so what is this rubbish? For real? You support Terry Nichols' hunger strike because you hope it improves the diet of all federal prisoners, if not the country as a whole? Why not write an apology to your readers for duping them into voting for Obama? Hail Caesar.
Speaking of hunger stikes.
A political prisoners in Cuba has died from his hunger strike....SHOCKINGLY no mention is made my common dreams.
Well, you just made a comment and told us about it. Why not write an article and submit it? I am new to this website and I am sooooo glad that my home website is Truthout.org. A lot of information and not a lot of off topic arguments. I agree with the writer who supports the hunger strike. We do need to improve all the institutional food. It would help EVERYONE like nursing homes, schools, etc., etc., etc. Believe it or not, there are some people in prison who are innocent and die in prison. When my time comes, I do not think that I will last long with all the processed institutional food in the nursing homes. I guess I will become lean and mean.
If sarcasm was a political tool then you might be famous. Unfortunately it is only a symptom of a worthless contribution...Yes, exactly like this one in fact..;-)