President Harry S. Truman was famous for the sign on his desk that read, “The buck stops here.” But when it came to my parents’ case this proved just as false as so many other truisms about our government - such as that all citizens be afforded due process before the law, be presumed innocent until proven guilty, or that our constitution’s “separation of powers” would prevent the judicial branch of government from conspiring with the executive branch to speed an execution.

 I received the January 2013 issue of the Community Church of Boston’s newsletter this week.  This venerable institution is known to this day for the key role it played in organizing against the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti in the 1920’s, and it has remained a progressive force in Boston ever since.  The newsletter contained a testament to Sara Sue Koritz, an activist stalwart, who d

 In November 2011, shortly after the violent government crackdown on the two-month old Occupy Wall Street movement, I blogged here, “It is not surprising that OWS became intolerable to the authorities the movement refused to recognize.  Such public naming of capitalism as Public Enemy Number One could not be countenanced.  Beatings, tear-gassing, property destruction and thousands of arrests were inevitable, despite the protesters’ heroic non-violence.”

The United States in the only nation in the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition that retains a grand jury system.  A grand jury is the prosecutor’s tool for investigating what the government deems to be possible criminal activity.  Although it has the power to bring criminal indictments as well as to compel people to testify about their activities and those of others in return for a grant of immunity from prosecution, witnesses are not permitted to have their attorneys accompany them into the grand jury room.  A witness who flatly refuses to cooperate or to testify after being grante

 What do the son of a Black Panther released after 27 years of false imprisonment, a young activist who traveled over a thousand miles to demonstrate against NATO, a mother with young children who is an Iraq war resister, three young radicals jailed for refusing to talk to a witch-hunting grand jury, a single mom with a teenage daughter fired for spearheading a unionization campaign at Walmart, and a refugee father fleeing from torture in Africa have in common?   They and/or their families were all welcomed into the RFC community of support this fall.