A US newspaper has revealed that the FBI has been raiding the houses of anti-Wall Street protesters in Oregon and Washington in what the agency describes an “ongoing violent crime investigation.”
The Oregonian newspaper reported that heavily-armed domestic terrorism units of the FBI have been raiding the homes of activists in Seattle and Olympia, Washington and Portland, Oregon over the last month.
The report said that at least six homes have been raided in the two states since July 10.
The FBI has described the raids as part of an ongoing violent crime investigation, linked to last year’s Occupy May Day protests, during which a number of minor acts of vandalism allegedly took place.
In one of the raids, eyewitnesses reported as many as 80 agents in body armor, wearing military fatigues, and armed with assault rifles participated in the raid.
“I just heard lots of pounding at 6 o’clock, and I got up and I saw the whole thing,” said one of the eyewitnesses, adding, “I saw them screaming to get in. They were using the battering ram, and then finally the door just opened.”
FBI spokeswoman Beth Anne Steele told the newspaper, “The warrants are sealed… and I anticipate they will remain sealed.”
The paper said the agents were searching for “anti-government or anarchist literature or material” and “documentation and communications related to the offenses, including but not limited to notes, diagrams, letters, diary and journal entries, address books, and other documentation in written or electronic form.”
The Occupy Wall Street movement began when a group of demonstrators gathered in New York’s financial district on September 17, 2011 to protest against corruption, the unjust distribution of wealth in the country, and the excessive influence of big corporations on US policies.
On July 30 Puerto Rican governor Luis Fortuño signed into law a new Penal Code that he and legislators said would counter a recent rise in crime [see Update #1111] by imposing much stiffer prison sentences for a wide range of crimes. The new law, which replaces the Penal Code of 2004, also defines the seduction of minors through the internet as a criminal offense and gives the government the power to fire any public employee who commits a crime while carrying out a public function. “We’re not going to let the criminals take over Puerto Rico,” Fortuño said at the signing ceremony.
Fortuño insisted that the new code wouldn’t limit rights of free expression. But Puerto Rican legal experts noted that the revisions dramatically increased penalties for civil disobedience. For example, participating in a protest on the steps of the Capitol building that impedes the work of Puerto Rico’s legislature—like one carried out by students in June 2010 [see Updates #1039, 1100]–could now be punished with three years in prison, while in the 2004 Penal Code the penalty only applied if legislative work was interrupted through “intimidation, violence or fraud,” language which was removed in the new law.
Attorney César Rosado, a human and civil rights specialist who represents several unions, told the Puerto Rican daily El Nuevo Día that the new law “tries to intimidate the unions and other pressure groups—like the student movement—which historically have distinguished themselves by presenting resistance to any measure they consider unjust. Establishing a three-year sentence is a big deterrent for protest.” Activists have frequently used nonviolent civil disobedience as a form of protest in Puerto Rico, most famously in the mass arrests that led to the removal of the US Navy proving grounds from the small island of Vieques in 2003. “In democracy it’s important to allow activism,” constitutional law professor Hiram Meléndez Juarbe told the newspaper, “even if at times it’s inconvenient for the government.” (END 7/30/12, 7/31/12)
In the US the maximum penalty for interrupting a session of Congress is six months in prison and/or a $500 fine. El Nuevo Día noted that the punishment for six Puerto Rican independence activists who interrupted Congress by singing patriotic hymns on May 6, 2009, was a fine. (END 7/31/12)
This film, produced by the Union of Agricultural Work Committees in Palestine, explores through interviews, film of fishers working, and commentary, the experience of Gaza’s fishers under siege, confronted by Israeli warships, sharp restrictions on their areas for fishing, and the political, military and economic siege on Gaza. Participants in the film include Vittorio Arrigoni, the martyred international solidarity activist murdered in Gaza in April 2011.
The campaign against Ken O’Keefe is not directed at his own person, as the abduction of the Aloha Palestine mission was not directed against him. What the Palestinians and other Arabs failed to understand is that this campaign that involved Palestinians as well was in the first place directed against Palestine and Palestinians and was not an internal dispute or a quarrel between peace activists over some project or mission. It is important to find out who benefits from this whole action and who are the people behind it and what are their affiliations since the people who abducted the mission are the same people who launched the anti O’Keefe campaign.
Could real activism attempt at a peace mission? For sure not; what attempted at the mission is a certain policy and agenda and a certain conduct dictated by that policy and agenda. the people who attacked the mission and then launched their miserable campaign were implementing an agenda that is a sectarian agenda by which they aimed at monopolizing the peace movement for Gaza and handing it over to people who will operate via Turkey for Turkey to reap politically on the ground the fruits of such peaceful and supportive endeavor. It is secular Turkey now claiming to represent the Sunni sect that was to take the Gaza peace movement in charge, any personal initiative not operating through Turkey became therefore threatened and exposed. All this is but a NATO/ Turkish / Israeli agenda that wants to infiltrate the Palestinian movement in all its aspects in order to lead the Palestinian struggle away from the Hizbullah/ Iran arena where Israel has been shamefully defeated. That is how the Turkish/ Israeli/ Palestinian/ sectarian rats were let loose to dismantle the Aloha mission the same way the Libyan fanatic thugs were let loose by NATO and Israel to dismantle the Libyan regime.
It might be surprising to say that brother O’Keefe was victim of an anti Iranian campaign but that is the real label under which falls the whole situation in our area, starting from the Iranian nuclear issue, passing by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, not forgetting of course the Arab springs and, finally, the attack on Syria ; the abduction of the mission and the hatred campaign targeting brother Ken fall under the same label.
The sectarian agenda is a Turkish/Israeli agenda that has added many Palestinians to it to give it a Palestinian color and flavor and make it look true and genuine, but it is definitely an anti Palestinian agenda the same way the abduction of the mission is an anti Palestinian act. Unfortunately HAMAS was not able or not willing to hold back the sectarian rats who pirated the mission.
“How brave it is to believe that in today’s world, reasoned, nonviolent protest will register, will matter. But will it?… The threshold of horror has been ratcheted up so high that nothing short of genocide or the prospect of nuclear war merits mention. Peaceful resistance is treated with contempt. Terrorism’s the real thing.” …
— Arundhati Roy
Initial court appearances, known and unknown
James Holmes was in court Mon., July 30, in Aurora, Colorado, charged with 142 counts of murder, etc. The whole world knows of this initial hearing for the alleged murderer/terrorist because every detail of Holmes’ life is now regularly put at the top of TV and radio news shows and above the fold in every newspaper. Someone kills a lot of people and the media swarms.
Not so if your action was a peaceful attempt to prevent massacres.
On exactly the same day, the first court appearance took place in Knoxville, Tenn. for disarmament activists Michael Walli, 63, of Washington, DC, Megan Rice, 82, of New York City, and Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, of Duluth, Minn. (Greg is a married father of one and a former ROTC medical clerk trainee.)
You won’t have heard or read a word of these pacifists because their action was free of violence and mayhem. On the contrary, their protest was against nuclear madness and the continuing waste of hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear warhead production, and it involved hoisting a banner and issuing an indictment against illegal U.S. weapons.
Early on July 28, the three walked into one of the country’s “most militarily secure” sites — the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, Tenn. — and conducted a bold protest against the government’s plans to spent $80 billion on upgrading the nuclear weapons production complex.
Unarmed activists walk around nuclear “security”: Facing 1 year in prison and $100,000 fine for protest
According to statements released by the three and phone calls from Blount County jail in Tenn. where they are being held, they entered Y-12 before dawn, passed through four fences and entered the maximum security “Use of deadly force authorized” area, where they hoisted banners, spray painted messages and poured their blood (drawn by a nurse) on the Highly Enriched (weapon-grade) Uranium Materials Facility.
Appearing before federal magistrate Bruce Guyton, the three face one charge of federal trespass which carries a max of one year in prison and/or a $100,000 fine. Felony charges may be pending.
The indictment of nuclear weapons production delivered by Rice, Walli and Boertje-Obed cites U.S. Constitutional and Humanitarian Treaty Law, as well as the Nuremberg Principles. It says in part, “The ongoing building and maintenance at Y-12 constitutes war crimes that can and should be investigated and prosecuted by judicial authorities. We are required by International Law to denounce and resist known crimes.”
The action, which they called “Transform Now Plowshares,” is one of a long tradition of Plowshares actions in the U.S. and around the world which challenge or interfere with war plans and weapons of mass destruction, and which often take inspiration from the Old Testament prophesy to “turn swords into plowshares and study war no more.
At Y-12, construction is under way to replace facilities for producing “enriched uranium” for H-bombs. It is budgeted to cost over $6.5 billion. Stealing these funds from hungry and impoverished people forces them to starve, hence the protesters’ use of blood to “name” Y12.
Anniversary of U.S. Massacres at Hiroshima & Nagasaki
You may have thought that the nuclear war budget was shrinking and that the President honestly meant something when he spoke of “a world without nuclear weapons,” but you’d be mistaken.
The President and Congress have funded new construction of a pair of projects at Y-12 — one of which was reached by the protesters — for producing uranium for new U.S. H-bombs.
One of the laws mentioned by the activists, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968, obliges the U.S. to undertake complete nuclear disarmament. Y12 openly contravenes this law.
While the world notes the anniversary of the U.S. atomic bomb massacres at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, Greg, Megan and Michael wait in jail to endure the wrath of an embarrassed nuclear weapons establishment.
Prosecutors who will advance the federal case against them may not want to call their government work “protection of the Bomb” — especially in the face of international law requiring its abolition — but that’s what it is.
Still, the media won’t criticize harsh treatment of the pacifists. While the press over-kills the multiple murder story in Colorado, our TV nation seems to agree with George Carlin: The United States isn’t warlike, it just likes war.
John LaForge is on the staff of Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog and environmental justice group in Wisconsin.
Three days before the start of Ramadan, the small mountainside town of Iraq Burin was attacked by Israeli settlers from the illegal colony of Bracha. The attackers descended from the settlement at 12:30 a.m. and were soon followed by the Israeli military, shooting tear-gas and sound grenades.
“Since Ramadan started, things have been relatively calm here,” says Yousef, a resident of Iraq Burin, “earlier we used to have trouble all the time.”
Ironically, the settler attacks are most common on Saturdays, the Jewish Sabbath, which traditionally is revered as a day of rest.
“But there have also been plenty of attacks on Wednesdays and Thursdays,” says Yousef.
The settlers target farmers closest to the settlement, making it impossible for them to work their land due to risk of being attacked or shot. The farmers’ lack of activity is then used against them as settlers claim the land to be abandoned and subsequently annex it. By these means, the illegal settlements across the West Bank continue to steal the lands of neighboring Palestinian villages.
Bracha is one of over 250 Israeli settlements and outposts erected in the Palestinian West Bank and violating Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. “Seizure of land for settlement building and future expansion has resulted in the shrinking of space available for Palestinians to sustain their livelihoods and develop adequate housing, basic infrastructure and services,” wrote the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
From Yousef’s rooftop one can see clearly where the irrigated fields of Bracha have stretched down into the valley since its construction in the early 1980′s.
Of the 2000 dunums that originally was Iraq Burin, 300 have been annexed by the settlement of Bracha and many hundreds have become inaccessible to Palestinians due to the risk of violent attacks. To protest this, the village has been holding demonstrations every Saturday for the past year. Similar to numerous protests across the West Bank, Iraq Burin’s regular demonstrations are met with brute force by the Israeli army.
“The failure to respect international law, along with the lack of adequate law enforcement vis-àvis settler violence and takeover of land has led to a state of impunity, which encourages further violence and undermines the physical security and livelihoods of Palestinians. Those protesting settlement expansion or access restrictions imposed for the benefit of settlements (including the Barrier) are regularly exposed to injury and arrest by Israeli forces,” noted OCHA.
For a short while, the demonstrations ceased after 2 young men, Muhammad and Usaid Qadus, were shot dead at close range by an Israeli soldier.
“But our peaceful struggle will continue among both the young and the old,” promises Yousef.
OAK RIDGE, TN – Early this morning three plowshares activists performed a disarmament action in response to Government plans to invest $80 billion to sustain and modernize the nuclear weapons complex.
Calling themselves Transform Now Plowshares, Michael R. Walli (63), Megan Rice (82), and Greg Boertje-Obed (57) entered the Y-12 nuclear weapons facility before dawn.
They released a faith-based statement saying, “A loving and compassionate Creator invites us to take the urgent and decisive steps to transform the U.S. empire, and this facility, into life-giving alternatives which resolve real problems of poverty and environmental degradation for all.”
The actors also delivered an indictment citing U.S. Constitutional and Treaty Law as well as the Nuremberg Principles:
“The ongoing building and maintenance of Oak Ridge Y-12 constitute war crimes that can and should be investigated and prosecuted by judicial authorities at all levels. We are required by International Law to denounce and resist known crimes.”
This action is one of a long tradition of Plowshares disarmament actions in the US and around the world which challenge war-making and weapons of mass destruction.
At Y-12 NNSA plans to replace facilities for production and dismantlement of enriched uranium components with a new consolidated Uranium Processing Facility (UPF). It is budgeted to cost more than $6.5 billion.
Statement from Transform Plowshares activists about Y-12 nuclear weapons facility:
Oak Ridge Y-12 Indicted for War Crimes
Today, through our nonviolent action, we—Transform Now Plowshares—indict the U.S. government nuclear modernization program, including the new Uranium Processing Facility planned at Oak Ridge and the dedication of billions of public dollars to the continuation of the Y-12 facility.
WHEREAS, This program is an ongoing criminal endeavor in violation of international treaty law binding on the United States under the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article VI):
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
WHEREAS, The United States is bound by the United Nation’s Charter, ratified and signed in 1945. Its preamble affirms that its purpose is to “save future generations from the scourge of war”. It directs that “all nations shall refrain from the use of force against another nation”. Article II regards the threat to use nuclear weapons as ongoing international criminal activity.
WHEREAS, The Nuremberg Principles, also promulgated in 1945, primarily by the U.S., prohibit crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. They render nuclear weapons systems prohibited, illegal, and criminal under all circumstances and for any reason.
WHEREAS, The U.S. government is obligated as well by the Non Proliferation Treaty, in force since 1970 that requires the signers to pursue negotiations in good faith and to eliminate nuclear weapons at an early date. The U.S. government is also obligated by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits full-scale nuclear explosions.
THEREFORE, The work planned at Oak Ridge violates all these agreements and is thus criminal.
Oak Ridge Y-12 is slated to receive more than $6.5 billion in federal funding over the next decade for continuing nuclear weapons production. The new Uranium Processing Facility is expected to sustain a nuclear arsenal of 3000-3500 weapons beyond the middle of the century. Additional production facilities are sought as well. Instead of eliminating nuclear weaponry, Oak Ridge Y-12 perpetuates it through the nuclear modernization program.
Against these continuing violations of treaty law, we assert our human right to civil resistance. Furthermore we affirm as crucial the human right to be free from these crimes. The Nuremberg Principles not only prohibit such crimes but oblige those of us aware of the crime to act against it. “Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity…is a crime under International Law”.
The ongoing building and maintenance of Oak Ridge Y-12 constitute war crimes that can and should be investigated and prosecuted by judicial authorities at all levels. We are required by International Law to denounce and resist known crimes.
For the sake of the whole human family threatened by nuclear weapons, and for the sake of our Planet Earth, which is abused and violated, we indict the Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear weapon facility and all government officials, agencies, and contractors as responsible for perpetuating these war crimes.
Agent Orange Justice presents an extraordinary international exhibition and art auction for the innocent children being born now with horrific birth defects in Vietnam.
NSW governor Marie Bashir will open the exhibition on August 7 from 6pm, at the Mori Gallery, 168 Day St, Sydney.
Celebrated actor Kate Mulvany, a second-generation Agent Orange survivor, will recite extracts from The Seed, her autobiographical award-winning play about the daughter of an Australian Vietnam Veteran.
Agent Orange Justice helps children in Vietnam who suffer terrible birth defects as a result of this harmful chemical, which was used in the Vietnam War. To this day, the chemical remains in the soil.
The exhibition’s curator Carol Dance said: “We are overwhelmed by the support we’ve had by some of our best-known and prize-winning artists who have generously donated their work. And, over 30 contemporary works on paper have been sent from Vietnam specifically for the exhibition. More than 80 works will be sold by silent auction. All proceeds will go directly to facilities caring for children in Vietnam who are Agent Orange affected.”
Artists include Dobell and Archibald Prize winners and artists represented in national galleries and international collections. Some of the artists include Suzanne Archer, Elizabeth Cummings, Euan Macleod, Reg Mombassa, George Gittoes, Pamela Griffith, Mai Nguyen-Long, Susan Norrie, Peter O’Doherty, Bruce Petty, Larry Pickering, Alan Moir and Wendy Sharpe.
After the August 7 opening the exhibition continues over August 8 to 11, from 11am to 8pm.
“He was a documented gang member,” say the Anaheim police of Manuel Diaz, a 25 year old unarmed man they shot dead around 4:00 pm Sunday. They shot him in the buttocks as he ran, and as he stooped to his knees in someone’s yard they followed up by a bullet to the back of his head. Then they handcuffed their immobile quarry with a bloody face and a hole in his skull (as described by a 17 year old neighborhood resident), and searched his pockets before sending him to the hospital to die within three hours.
As I understand it, California law states: “Any person who actively participates in any criminal street gang with knowledge that its members engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal gang activity, and who willfully promotes,furthers, or assists in any felonious criminal conduct by members of that gang, shall be punished by imprisonment in a county jail for a period not to exceed one year, or by imprisonment in the state prison for 16 months, or two or three years.”
It does not say that gang membership in itself is illegal, or that documented gang members may be shot on sight.
According to the Associated Press, “The shooting sparked a melee in the neighborhood as some threw rocks and bottles at officers who were securing the scene for investigators to collect evidence.”
Evidence for a drug deal presumably. But his sister Lupe Diaz said on the day of his murder that Manuel had been “just hanging out with friends,” adding “There is no explanation. It’s not fair.” Neighbor Yesenia Rojas (34) who received a welt on her stomach after the police attacked her with a bean bag Sunday, calls him a “good person” and asks, “Why kill this man?” (She’s the woman with the stroller whose grandson was nearly attacked by the K-9 police dog in the now-famous video.)
Even if he was involved in a drug transaction, and even if he were known for such activity in the neighborhood, how could his murder not produce outrage?
A melee is a skirmish, brawl, free-for-all. Is that what happened? It’s not what the video shows. That’s not what the 22 photos posted on the Orange County Register site show.
The AP coverage continues: “Sgt. Bob Dunn, the department’s spokesman, said that as officers detained an instigator, the crowd advanced on officers so they fired bean bags and pepper balls at them.”
I don’t see any attack on police. I see maybe a dozen woman and children approached by cops with rifles drawn and shooting bean bags and pepper spray (and maybe rubber bullets) at close range. One sobbing woman mentions seeing a person throw a water bottle at police before a police dog attacked her and her baby. Could it be that the cops angered at verbal and symbolic expressions of outrage “were provoked” to do what they clearly do in the video? And that that’s what produced statements of defiance? And after darkness set in, such symbolic actions as blocking a street with a dumpster filled with paper on fire?
The two officers involved have been placed on paid leave. You can bet your life they wouldn’t have been, had there not been a “melee” or two and a PR nightmare for the police department. Nor would the police department and the Orange County District Attorney’s Office have announced separate investigations of the incident, nor would Anaheim mayor Tom Tait be asking California’s attorney general to assist in that. These are minimal measures to contain the natural outrage.
A video of a police statement carried on the Orange County Register site tells us a lot of how the police view these things.
“About 4 pm this afternoon,” says the spokesman, in a pleasant upbeat voice, “uh, two of our officers were on patrol here in the 600 block of North Anna Drive in the center alley. They attempted to make contact with three subjects. Uh, during that contact the subjects fled, uh, a foot pursuit ensued. During that foot pursuit one of our officers encountered, uh, one of the males they had been chasing and an officer involved shooting occurred. Only one person was hit during that officer involved shooting. That was the person that we were chasing, a male. He was transported to the hospital and at this point I don’t know what his condition is. So at this point the investigation is ongoing. There were two additional, uh, male suspects in the alley at the time this foot pursuit began. Uh, at this point we will be conducting an investigation to try to identify who those males are. This is still a very active crime scene. Anyone that saw anything or witnessed this that has not spoken to police this is welcome call and remain anonymous the Anaheim Police Department…”
“Attempted to make contact with three subjects… ” What does that mean? Attempting to see what they were doing? Attempting to arrest them? Attempting to harass them? The language is so mundane and friendly sounding.
Why did they flee? A niece of Diaz, Daisy Gonzalez (16) told reporters that her her uncle probably ran from the two officers because, “He (doesn’t) like cops. He never liked them because all they do is harass and arrest anyone.” Is that not a very common feeling, particularly among Blacks and Latinos, in cities throughout the country? Isn’t the fear totally justifiable?
“A foot pursuit ensued.” Notice how the passive voice leaves agency out of it. Why not just say, “The two policemen chased him?” And why “an officer involved shooting occurred”? As though there were no real people involved here. Like the officer didn’t really do anything but was just “involved” by something fated to happen. Like for some reason a tree fell down. Why not be honest and say: “The officers chasing him shot him to death, from the back, as he ran?”
“He was transported to the hospital and at this point I don’t know what his condition is.” Why not mention that he’d been deliberately shot in the brain and was unlikely to survive? And why not mention that he was unarmed?
“This is still a very active crime scene.” Well yes, at least in the sense that, while no weapons have been found there, armed police continue to criminally harass people.
“Anyone that saw anything or witnessed this that has not spoken to police about this is welcome call and remain anonymous the Anaheim Police Department.” (Am I being to picky in noting that “that” ought to be “who” or “whom” when we are talking respectfully to people?) Feel welcome to fink, people, to help us get those who ran away successfully and who we want for reasons we don’t need to explain to you. Trust us, we know who’s good and bad.
The real crime here is obviously the murder of an unarmed young man charged with no crime, murdered for running terrified through a crowded neighborhood at 4:00 in the evening, in full view of the people. A crime compounded by a police attack on those people with rifles and a police dog. (I suspect the claim made Monday that the dog broke free from restraint and his trainer is mortified by what happened is more PR damage control. What was a police dog doing there in the first place?)
It was not (apparently) caught on tape, like the Rodney King beating. But the vicious assault on men, women and children just hanging out outside on a warm summer late afternoon, leaving welts, bites and scratches sending a few to the hospital should be equally infuriating. It’s just another statement of the impunity the police feel. However poorly paid (and they are); however closely they resemble the criminals they’re hired to hunt down and control, they are in the end the enforcers of a system which because it cannot satisfy human needs makes humans hard to control without guns and dogs, fear and repression.
On Tuesday City Hall was surrounded with five or six hundred protesters, facing off against 250 police who arrested 24 during seven hours of what AP calls “confrontations.” The protests were peaceful all afternoon—until the police moved in to arrest someone around 6:30 supposedly threatening them with a gun. But like Diaz on Saturday, he had no gun. As on Saturday, unwarranted police action led the crowd to pelt the police with rocks, the weapon of the weak, of the intifada.
Police spokesman Dunn explained that some of the rock throwers appeared to be outsiders “who were prone to violence and wanted to incite” violence. We’ve heard this before many times.
The angry people (according to AP, citing Dunn) “took over an intersection, and a splinter group walked to the scene of one police shooting and back, throwing rocks, vandalizing cars and throwing a Molotov cocktail that damaged a police car… Throughout the night, knots of protesters spread through downtown, setting fires in trash cans and smashing windows of businesses, including a Starbucks… There also were reports that a T-shirt store was looted… A gas station was shut down after reports that some protesters were seen filling canisters with gas. Police used pepper balls and beanbag rounds. Twenty adults and four minors were arrested…”
We need more than a melee, more than a riot. To end the routine abuses of the cops we need conditions that don’t require cops, at least not cops who are outsiders charged with earning their collar by training their guns on youth, occupiers comparable to foreign troops in Afghanistan and Iraq who drop bombs almost as sport. We need conditions that allow for community self-policing based on values of kindness and respect. We need to replace the hurling of water bottles with demands for revolution.
One of the most significant political developments in recent US history has been the virtually unchallenged rise of the police state. Despite the vast expansion of the police powers of the Executive Branch of government, the extraordinary growth of an entire panoply of repressive agencies, with hundreds of thousands of personnel, and enormous public and secret budgets and the vast scope of police state surveillance, including the acknowledged monitoring of over 40 million US citizens and residents, no mass pro-democracy movement has emerged to confront the powers and prerogatives or even protest the investigations of the police state.
In the early fifties, when the McCarthyite purges were accompanied by restrictions on free speech, compulsory loyalty oaths and congressional ‘witch hunt’ investigations of public officials, cultural figures, intellectuals, academics and trade unionists, such police state measures provoked widespread public debate and protests and even institutional resistance. By the end of the 1950’s, mass demonstrations were held at the sites of the public hearings of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in San Francisco (1960) and elsewhere and major civil rights movements arose to challenge the racially segregated South, the compliant Federal government and the terrorist racist death squads of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). The Free Speech Movement in Berkeley (1964) ignited nationwide mass demonstrations against the authoritarian-style of university governance.
The police state incubated during the first years of the Cold War was challenged by mass movements pledged to retain or regain democratic freedoms and civil rights.
Key to understanding the rise of mass movements for democratic freedoms was their fusion with broader social and cultural movements: democratic freedoms were linked to the struggle for racial equality; free speech was necessary in order to organize a mass movement against the imperial US Indo-Chinese wars and widespread racial segregation; the shutting down of Congressional ‘witch hunts’ and purges opened up the cultural sphere to new and critical voices and revitalized the trade unions and professional associations. All were seen as critical to protecting hard-won workers’ rights and social advances.
In the face of mass opposition, many of the overt police state tactics of the 1950’s went ‘underground’ and were replaced by covert operations; selective state violence against individuals replaced mass purges. The popular pro-democracy movements strengthened civil society and public hearings exposed and weakened the police state apparatus, but it did not go away. However, from the early 1980’s to the present, especially over the past 20 years, the police state has expanded dramatically, penetrating all aspects of civil society while arousing no sustained or even sporadic mass opposition.
The question is why has the police state grown and even exceeded the boundaries of previous periods of repression and yet not provoked any sustained mass opposition? This is in contrast to the broad-based pro-democracy movements of the mid to late 20th century. That a massive and growing police state apparatus exists is beyond doubt: one simply has to look up the published records of personnel (both public agents and private contractors), the huge budgets and scores of agencies involved in internal spying on tens of millions of American citizens and residents. The scope and depth of arbitrary police state measures taken include arbitrary detention and interrogations, entrapment and the blacklisting of hundreds of thousands of US citizens. Presidential fiats have established the framework for the assassination of US citizens and residents, military tribunals, detention camps and the seizure of private property.
Yet as these gross violations of the constitutional order have taken place and as each police state agency has further eroded our democratic freedoms, there have been no massive “anti-Homeland Security” movements, no campus ‘Free Speech movements’. There are only the isolated and courageous voices of specialized ‘civil liberties’ and constitutional freedoms activists and organizations, which speak out and raise legal challenges to the abuse, but have virtually no mass base and no objective coverage in the mass media.
To address this issue of mass inactivity before the rise of the police state, we will approach the topic from two angles.
We will describe how the organizers and operatives have structured the police state and how that has neutralized mass responses.
We will then discuss the ‘meaning’ of non-activity, setting out several hypotheses about the underlying motives and behavior of the ‘passive mass’ of citizens.
The Concentric Circles of the Police State
While the potential reach of the police state agencies covers the entire US population, in fact, it operates on the basis of ‘concentric circles’. The police state is perceived and experienced by the US population according to the degree of their involvement in critical opposition to state policies. While the police state theoretically affects ‘everyone’, in practice it operates through a series of concentric circles. The ‘inner core’, of approximately several million citizens, is the sector of the population experiencing the brunt of the police state persecution. They include the most critical, active citizens, especially those identified by the police state as sharing religious and ethnic identities with declared foreign enemies, critics or alleged ‘terrorists’. These include immigrants and citizens of Arab, Persian, Pakistani, Afghan and Somali descent, as well as American converts to Islam.
Ethnic and religious “profiling” is rife in all transport centers (airports, bus and train stations and on the highways). Mosques, Islamic charities and foundations are under constant surveillance and subject to raids, entrapment, arrests, and even Israeli-style ‘targeted’ assassinations.
The second core group, targeted by the police state, includes African Americans, Hispanics and immigration rights activists (numbering in the millions). They are subject to massive arbitrary sweeps, round-ups and unlimited detention without trial as well as mass indiscriminate deportations.
After the ‘core groups’ is the ‘inner circle’ which includes millions of US citizens and residents, who have written or spoken critically of US and Israeli policy in the Middle East, expressed solidarity with the suffering of the Palestinian people, opposed US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan or have visited countries or regions opposed to US empire building (Venezuela, Iran, South Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza, etc.). Hundreds of thousands of these citizens have their telephone, e-mail and internet communications under surveillance; they have been targeted in airports, denied passports, subject to ‘visits’ and to covert and overt blacklisting at their schools and workplaces.
Activists engaged in civil liberties groups, lawyers, and professionals, leftists engaged in anti-Imperialist, pro-democracy and anti-police state activities and their publications are on ‘file’ in the massive police state labyrinth of data collecting on ‘political terrorists’. Environmental movements and their activists have been treated as potential terrorists – with their own family members subjected to police harassment and ominous ‘visits’.
The ‘outer circle’ includes, community, civic, religious and trade union leaders and activists who, in the course of their activity interact with or even express support for core and inner circle critics and victims of police state violations of due process . The ‘outer circle’ numbering a few million citizens are ‘on file’ as ‘persons of interest’, which may involve monitoring their e-mail and periodic ‘checks’ on their petition signing and defense appeals. These ‘three circles’ are the central targets of the police state, numbering upward of 40 million US citizens and immigrants – who have not committed any crime. For having exercised their constitutional rights, they have been subjected to various degrees of police state repression and harassment.
The police state, however, has ‘fluid boundaries’ about whom to spy on, whom to arrest and when – depending on whatever arouses the apparatchiks ‘suspicion’ or desire to exercise power or please their superiors at any given moment. The key to the police state operations of the US in the 21st century is to repress pro-democracy citizens and pre-empt any mass movement without undermining the electoral system, which provides political theater and legitimacy. A police state ‘boundary’ is constructed to ensure that citizens will have little option but to vote for the two pro-police state parties, legislatures and executives without reference to the conduct, conditions and demands of the core, inner and outer circle of victims, critics and activists. Frequent raids, harsh public ‘exemplary’ punishment and mass media stigmatization transmit a message to the passive mass of voters and non-voters that the victims of repression ‘must have been doing something wrong’ or else they would not be under police state repression.
The key to the police state strategy is to not allow its critics to gain a mass base, popular legitimacy or public acceptance. The state and the media constantly drum the message that the activists’ ‘causes’ are not our (American, patriotic) ‘causes’; that ‘their’ pro-democracy activities impede ‘our’ electoral activities; their lives, wisdom and experiences do not touch our workplaces, neighborhoods, sports, religious and civic associations. To the degree that the police-state has ‘fenced in’ the inner circles of the pro-democracy activists, they have attained a free hand and uncontested reach in deepening and extending the boundaries of the authoritarian state. To the degree that the police state rationale or presence has penetrated the consciousness of the mass of the US population, it has created a mighty barrier to the linking of private discontent with public action.
Hypothesis on Mass Complicity and Acquiescence with the Police State
If the police-state is now the dominant reality of US political life, why isn’t it at the center of citizen concern? Why are there no pro-democracy popular movements? How has the police state been so successful in ‘fencing off’ the activists from the vast majority of US citizens? After all, other countries at other times have faced even more repressive regimes and yet the citizens rebelled. In the past, despite the so-called ‘Soviet threat’, pro-democracy movements emerged in the US and even rolled back a burgeoning police state. Why does the evocation of an outside ‘Islamic terrorist threat’ seem to incapacitate our citizens today? Or does it?
There is no simple, single explanation for the passivity of the US citizens faced with a rising omnipotent police state. Their motives are complex and changing and it is best to examine them in some detail.
One explanation for passivity is that precisely the power and pervasiveness of the police state has created deep fear, especially among people with family obligations, vulnerable employment and with moderate commitments to democratic freedoms. This group of citizens is aware of cases where police powers have affected other citizens who were involved in critical activities, causing job loss and broad suffering and are not willing to sacrifice their security and the welfare of their families for what they believe is a ‘losing cause’ – a movement lacking a strong popular base and with little institutional support. Only when the protest against the Wall Street bailout and the ‘ Occupy Wall Street ’ movements against the ‘1%’ gained momentum, did this sector express transitory support. But as the Office of the President consummated the bailout and the police-state crushed the ‘Occupy’ encampments, fear and caution led many sympathizers to withdraw timidly back into passivity.
The second motive for ‘acquiescence’ among a substantial part of the public is because that they tend to support the police state, based on their acceptance of the anti-terror ideology and its virulent anti-Muslim-anti-Arab racism, driven in large part by influential sectors of pro-Israel opinion makers. The fear and loathing of Muslims, cultivated by the police state and mass media, was central to the post-9/11 build-up of Homeland Security and the serial wars against Israel ’s adversaries, including Iraq , Lebanon , Libya and now Syria with plans for Iran. Active support for the police state peaked during the first 5 years post- 9/11 and subsequently ebbed as the Wall Street-induced economic crisis, loss of employment and the failures of government policy propelled concerns about the economy far ahead of support for the police state. Nevertheless, at least one-third of the electorate still supports the police state, ‘right or wrong’. They firmly believe that the police state protects their ‘security’; that suspects, arrestees, and others under watch ‘must have been doing something illegal’. The most ardent backers of the police state are found among the rabid anti-immigrant groups who support arbitrary round-ups, mass deportations and the expansion of police powers at the expense of constitutional guarantees.
The third possible motive for acquiescence in the police state is ignorance: those millions of US citizens who are not aware of the size, scope and activities of the police state. Their practical behavior speaks to the notion that ‘since I am not directly affected it must not exist’. Embedded in everyday life, making a living, enjoying leisure time, entertainment, sports, family, neighborhoods and concerned only about household budgets … This mass is so embedded in their personal ‘micro-world’ that it considers the macro-economic and political issues raised by the police state as ‘distant’, outside of their experience or interest: ‘I don’t have time’, ‘I don’t know enough’, ‘It’s all ‘politics’ … The widespread apoliticism of the US public plays into its ignoring the monster that has grown in its midst.
Paradoxically as some peoples’ concerns and passive discontent over the economy has grown, it has lessened support for the police state as well as having lessened opposition to it. In other words the police state flourishes while public discontent is focused more on the economic institutions of the state and society. Few, if any, contemporary political leaders educate their constituency by connecting the rise of the police state, imperial wars and Wall Street to the everyday economic issues concerning most US citizens. The fragmentation of issues, the separation of the economic from the political and the divorce of political concerns from individual ones, allow the police state to stand ‘above and outside’ of the popular consciousness , concerns and activities.
State-sponsored fear mongering on behalf of the police state is amplified and popularized by the mass media on a daily basis via propagandistic-‘news’, ‘anti-terrorist’ detective programs, Hollywood’s decades of crass anti-Arab, Islamophobic films. The mass media portrayal of the police state’s naked violations of democratic rights as normal and necessary in a milieu infiltrated by ‘Muslim terrorists’, where feckless ‘liberals’ (defenders of due process and the Bill of Rights) threaten national security, has been effective.
Ideologically, the police state depends on identifying the expansion of police powers with ‘national security’ of the passive ‘silent’ majority, even as it creates profound insecurity for an active, critical minority. The self-serving identification of the ‘nation’ and the ‘flag’ with the police state apparatus is especially prominent during ‘mass spectacles’ where ‘rock’, schlock and ‘sports’ infuse mass entertainment with solemn Pledges of Allegiance to uphold and respect the police state and busty be-wigged young women wail nasally versions of the national anthem to thunderous applause. Wounded ‘warriors’ are trotted out and soldiers rigid in their dress uniforms salute enormous flags, while the message transmitted is that police state at home works hand in hand with our ‘men and women in uniform’ abroad. The police state is presented as a patriotic extension of the wars abroad and as such both impose ‘necessary’ constraints on citizen opposition, public criticism and any real forthright defense of freedom.
Conclusion: What is to be done?
The ascendancy of the police state has benefited enormously from the phony bi-partisan de-politicization of repressive legislation, and the fragmentation of socio-economic struggles from democratic dissent. The mass anti-war movements of the early 1990’s and 2001-2003 were undermined (sold-out) by the defection of its leaders to the Democratic Party machine and its electoral agenda. The massive popular immigration movement was taken over by Mexican-American political opportunists from the Democratic Party and decimated while the same Democratic Party, under President Barack Obama, has escalated police state repression against immigrants, expelling millions of Latino immigrant workers and their families.
Historical experience teaches us that a successful struggle against an emerging police state depends on the linking of the socio-economic struggles that engage the attention of the masses of citizens with the pro-democracy, pro-civil liberty, ‘free speech’ movements of the middle classes. The deepening economic crisis, the savage cuts in living standards and working conditions and the fight to save ‘sacred’ social programs (like Social Security and Medicare) have to be tied in with the expansion of the police state. A mass social justice movement, which brings together thousands of anti-Wall Streeters, millions of pro-Medicare, Social Security and Medicaid recipients with hundreds of thousands of immigrant workers will inevitably clash with the bloated police-state apparatus. Freedom is essential to the struggle for social justice and the mass struggle for social justice is the only basis for rolling back the police state. The hope is that mass economic pain will ignite mass activity, which, in turn, will make people aware of the dangerous growth of the police state. A mass understanding of this link will be essential to any advance in the movement for democracy and people’s welfare at home and peace abroad.
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has ordered the release of 572 people detained by the Army since last year’s revolution.
Morsi, who took office last month as Egypt’s first elected civilian president, on Thursday ordered military courts to grant amnesty to the defendants, AFP reported.
The Egyptian president earlier set up a committee to examine the cases of civilians put on trial by the military. The committee says 11,879 Egyptians were detained by the military throughout out the uprising that ousted former dictator Hosni Mubarak. Out of them, 9,714 have since been released.
Human rights activists and bodies have unanimously called for the end of military trials of civilians.
“International law is crystal clear on this: No civilian, regardless of the crime, should be tried by a military court,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch (HRW), said this week.
“Military trials and arrests of civilians by the military have continued, despite the June 30 handover to civilian authority,” the HRW noted.
Sworn in on June 30, Morsi is locked in a power struggle with the powerful Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
Last week, Egyptians thronged the iconic Tahrir Square in Cairo to express solidarity with Morsi over his decree to reconvene parliament.
The parliament, dominated by Muslim Brotherhood lawmakers, was dissolved in line with a ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court, based on a decision by the military, prior to the presidential elections.
Today, there is no excuse for not knowing the truth about Palestine. Even taking the disinformation spread in mainstream media, there are enough glimpses one gets of an oppressed people in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem that should compel us to ask questions. This has been considerably aided by the internet. Where once Israel could manipulate the media narrative, now millions can see videos and read witness accounts of Israel’s occupation in all its terrifying ugliness. Global initiatives, like the daring Free Gaza flotillas, force the mainstream media to report this news, however fleetingly. Consequently, people want to see for themselves what is happening in Palestine and come back with stories that have shaken them to the very core of their being.
Stories of endless queues of people at checkpoints waiting for permission from armed soldiers who decide if they should pass; devastated families making sense of the rubble that was once their homes as Israeli bulldozers move on to the next calculated demolition; heartbroken farmers grieving over their centuries-old uprooted olive trees and scorched earth orchards; already traumatised children wondering if the next missile or bomb will this time wipe out their families or friends; terrified citizens waiting for the sound of army squads coming to arrest who knows who in the early hours of the morning; and the shadow of that rapacious Wall darkening the landscape even as it closes off the world to the Palestinians it imprisons.
And these are only the obvious signs of Israel’s apartheid plans as it moves to cement an exclusively Jewish state in a land that is home to almost an equal number of Palestinians and millions more in exile waiting to return home.
The alarm bells should be ringing when this information filters through, and yet there is a wall of silence while our political leaders declare undying fealty to Israel or cavalierly wear it as a badge of honour or indulge in junkets to Israel. And those bells should be all the more alarming, when documented reports of Israel’s war crimes by human rights groups and official enquiries are virulently attacked and then ignored.
But the world lacks courage. People are terrified of being labelled anti-Semitic. Even Palestinians, who are themselves Semites, are often afraid of being further shunned and disadvantaged in countries that give them refuge. Not only do people fear repercussions, but speaking the truth or even just hearing it has a way of taking people out of their comfort zones. They fear their troubled consciences may require them to act and so they bury their heads deeper into the sand where they hope even the sounds of silence might be extinguished.
This then is the challenge for advocates the world over. How does one talk Palestine to power if one cannot even talk Palestine to the people who are in fear of the powerful?
In the face of Zionist saturation media and the new “Brand Israel” campaigns, many people wanting to advocate for Palestine might feel defeated, but time and again we see that the individual talking truth to power can be enormously effective.
The now deceased scholar and public intellectual Edward Said, showed more than anyone else that individuals can make a difference in the public defence of Palestine. He particularly saw the intellectual’s voice as having “resonance”. In fact, it is so powerful that intellectuals have been subjected to all kinds of vicious campaigns against their persons and positions for speaking up for Palestine, just as Said was himself.
Of course, one does not need to be an intellectual. Said’s words can just as aptly apply to any one of us. He said avoidance was “reprehensible” and described it as,
“that characteristic turning away from a difficult and principled position which you know to be the right one, but which you decide not to take. You do not want to appear too political; you are afraid of seeming too controversial; you need the approval of a boss or an authority figure; you want to keep a reputation for being balanced, objective, moderate; your hope is . . . to remain within the responsible mainstream . . .”[1]
As an intellectual, Said had his academic record, his professional standing, his research and his publications to give weight to his pronouncements, but it took no less courage than it would for anyone else to challenge the accepted paradigm. The challenge arises out of knowing the truth; the courage arises out of a commitment to principle in the face of collective condemnation. This is just as true against the Zionist barrage of lies as it is against convenient explanations mounted by those who accommodate the powers that be for their own ends.
In 1993 when almost everyone else thought the handshakes on the White House steps would seal the negotiated Oslo Accords and at long last give the Palestinians their freedom and bring peace to the region, Edward Said saw that these accords would merely provide the cover for Israel to pursue its colonial expansionism and consolidate its occupation of Palestine. However, he knew to criticise Oslo meant in effect taking a position against ‘hope’ and ‘peace’. His decision to do so also flew in the face of the Palestinian revolutionary leadership that had bartered for statehood.
Although Said was denounced for his views, he was not prepared to buy into the deception that he knew would leave the Palestinians with neither hope nor peace. And just as he predicted, each fruitless year of peacemaking finally exposed the horrible reality of Oslo as Palestinians found themselves the victims of Israel’s matrix of control, a term used to describe the situation by the Israeli activist Dr Jeff Halper in 1999.[2] And this domination of one people over another without any intention of addressing the injustices of the Palestinians ethnically cleansed from their homeland, has undeniably reduced Israel to an Apartheid state.
The Palestinians have nothing left worth calling a state and they are facing an existential threat on all fronts. Yet, intellectuals are still talking about a two state solution in lock step with the politicians, a mantra that is repeated uncritically, even mendaciously, in the mainstream media. Media pundits argue that it is Israel facing an existential threat, but it is becoming evident every day, that against Israel, which is armed to the teeth with nuclear and conventional weaponry, the Palestinians do not stand a chance. They have never had an army and have no acceptable means to fight off their own ongoing dispossession and occupation of their homeland. It is no wonder the two state solution became the panacea to the Palestinian struggle for self-determination.
This pandering to an idea for twenty long years has been undermined by the furious sounds of drills and hammers reverberating in illegal settlements throughout the West Bank and East Jerusalem and the catastrophic societal ruptures engineered in Gaza. Now those sounds are muffled by the rhetoric of “economic peace”, “institution-building”, “democracy”, “internal security” and “statehood”. These words must be challenged at every opportunity, for they are not only words, but dangerous concepts when isolated from truth on the ground.
It is no use talking about “economic peace” if you fail to understand that industrial estates built for Palestinian workers are intended to provide Israel with slave labour and cheap goods. It is useless to support “institution-building” when Israel continues to undermine and obstruct those programs already struggling to service Palestinian society. It is a lie to speak of “democracy” when fair elections in 2006 had Israel and the world denying Hamas the right to govern. It is a charade to accept “internal security” when arming and training Palestinians to police their own people covers for Israel’s and America’s divide and conquer scheme. It is hollow to speak of “statehood” when Israel keeps stealing land and building illegal settlements that deprive the Palestinians of their homes and livelihoods while herding them into isolated and walled-in ghettoes.
Regrettably, Edward Said was proved right.
Now, it is our turn to speak the truth and act fearlessly, regardless of the censure we are likely to encounter. The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer is believed to have said that truth passes through three stages: “first, it is ridiculed; second, it is violently opposed; third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” Today, we are at the third stage: the 11 million Palestinians, whether living under occupation, as second-class citizens in Israel, as stateless refugees or others in the Diaspora, are the living truth. That is Israel’s Achilles’ heel and Israel knows it.
The Palestinians are no longer the humble shepherds and farmers that Zionist forces terrorised into fleeing to make way for the Jewish state of Israel. A new generation wants justice and it is demanding it eloquently, non-violently and strategically. Their message: no normal relations with Israel while it oppresses Palestinians, denies their rights and violates international law. And boycotts, divestment and sanctions are the legitimate tools for challenging a state that claims exceptionalism and which perpetrates extreme and criminal actions to ensure that status.
People, of course, are always tempted to opt for the path of least resistance, especially when they simply cannot empathise with those who have been so successfully misrepresented and demonised by the Western media. However, the world is changing, and slowly people are realising that they too are vulnerable as Western societies begin to crumble under the weight of government power, which is burgeoning out of control without any checks or balances. Universal human rights and principles of international humanitarian law that once were the mainstay of our democracies have been cast aside in the stampede to fight the “war on terror” and few have been brave enough to challenge the current system.
It is indeed possible for all of us to “squeeze out of reality some of its potentialities”[3], the stuff that University of Melbourne Professor Ghassan Hage says is found in those utopic moments that come from challenging our own thoughts, fears and biases. In that space lies the untapped power we seek to speak the truth without fear or favour. In that space lies the potential for political change. In that space, there will always be those who resist and speak Palestine to power.
__________________
[1] Edward Said, Representations of the Intellectual. London: Vintage, 1994, p74
[2] Jeff Halper, “The 94 Percent Solution: The Matrix of Control”, Fall 2000, Middle East Report 216
[3] Ghassan Hage, “The Real, the Potential and the Political”, an essay presented at the 2004 Res Artis Conference, Sydney, 10-16 August 2004
“Infertility: A Diabolical Agenda,” is the fourth vaccine-related documentary by Dr. Andrew Wakefield. It tells the story of an intentional infertility vaccine program conducted on African women, without their knowledge or consent.
While it’s been brushed off as a loony conspiracy theory for years, there’s compelling evidence showing it did, in fact, happen, and there’s nothing to prevent it from happening again. … continue
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