I know that you’ll all likely have seen the news and various obituaries already, but I’d still feel remiss if I failed to mark not only his death (a friend calls it ‘transitioning’), but what he stood for in his long 45 years at the Center for Constitutional Rights. He and CCR meant a lot to both myself and Mr. wd, and when we reached the point at which money was seriously tight, it was Mr. wd who’d always said we could afford a couple tenners to send to them. And we did, until we had to stop even that a few years ago.
If there’s an afterlife, I reckon he’s still kickin’ up a ruckus, and smiling as he does so, bless his heart.
CCR sent this by way of email last night, and I’ll just paste it all in:
May 11, 2016, New York – The Center for Constitutional Rights is sad to release the following statement on the occasion of the passing of the Center’s president emeritus Michael Ratner:
‘From Attica to Assange, Michael Ratner has defended, investigated, and spoken up for victims of human rights abuses all over the world. For 45 years, Michael brought cases with the Center for Constitutional Rights in U.S. courts related to war, torture, and other atrocities, sometimes committed by the U.S., sometimes by other regimes or corporations, in places ranging from El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Guatemala, to Yugoslavia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Iraq, and Israel. Seeking to hold Bush administration officials accountable for torture, he turned to filing cases under the principle of Universal Jurisdiction in international courts—in Germany, Spain, Canada, Switzerland, and France. Michael dedicated his life to the most important fights for justice of the last half century.
When Michael decided to take on U.S. policies of indefinite detention at Guantanamo in January 2002, it was not a popular position. With Michael, the Center for Constitutional Rights was the first human rights organization to stand up for the rights of Guantanamo detainees, and Michael was a founding member of the Guantanamo Bay Bar Association, a group that grew to over 500 attorneys from all over the country working pro bono to provide representation to the men at Guantanamo that has been called the largest mass defense effort in U.S. history. Michael acted as counsel in the landmark case Rasul v. Bush, and after two and a half years of litigation, CCR and co-counsel won the first Guantanamo case in the United States Supreme Court.
As an attorney, writer, speaker, educator, activist, and as the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights for so many years, Michael Ratner’s passion was not just for the law but for the struggle for justice and peace. Michael’s work on Central America, Haiti, surveillance, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, whistleblowers, war powers, and Palestine will not soon be matched.
Michael’s leadership and generous spirit have shown the way for new generations of social justice lawyers. He helped found the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, bringing CCR’s style of lawyering, which he helped shape, to Europe, where the legal culture was less familiar with public interest lawyering and filing suits to press for social change. He worked with CCR and the Bertha Justice Institute on programs to educate junior lawyers, working in partnership with front-line organizations around the world and fostering artistic partnerships that bring the issues he championed his entire life to a wider audience. Michael’s legacy is the sea of people he has touched—his family, his clients, his allies, his colleagues, and all of the young lawyers he has inspired. Today we mourn. Tomorrow we carry on his work.’
RT has a few interesting bits on his personal life; Amy Goodman is sharing past interviews with him. Bless his Lion Heart for peace and justice.
(RT notes that the line is from the Roman poet Catullus’ line:
“And forever, brother, hail and farewell.”
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
nice catullus from wikileaks. i didn’t know all this about CCR or him personally. small matter, the CCR tweet you posted annoys me. can we let rigor set in & pour a 40 over his grave before we get back to work? american way of denial of death.
the quote makes my eyes water, even today again. i get your point about ‘today’, and ‘tomorrow’, but my guess is that he would have loved it, or even that his wife (william kunstler’s widow) suggested it. but for real, they have so many cases ongoing, and ratner often spoke of how slowly the wheels turned purposely. look at how many government officials he sued.
still, amerikkans do death denial too well. one of the reasons heart transplant surgeons make so much moola. ;-)
but here’s one of the cases they had to get to work on:
on edit: another of assange’s attorneys died recently, too, but i can’t recall his name.
it’s a small matter. the silly dem sheepdog thom hartmann had a nice piece on him & CCR last nite on RT’s the big pic and a nice personal note about ratner in particular. i had no idea all the stuff they are involved. in.
i sure did like the photo on the tweet; seemed like he smiled while he fought the fascist behemoth. i don’t have heroes, but i will say that he was at the top of the list of people i admire greatly.
here’s their website. it shows in how many areas they’re fighting for justice. lots of testimonials, but on the left sidebar, then further down as you scroll, some particular cases. awesome man, awesome organization. makes the aclu under romero look weak tea.
hartman’s a bit too much to bear usually, isn’t he? i liked your description. john nichols, too. :(