Face-to-Face with the NYPD

Weekend Edition December 16-18, 2011

What They Look Like to a Guinean American

by IBRAHIM DIALLO

“It is far more important to hold accountable the enforcers of the law than the perpetrators because if you don’t, you will have a nation of warlords.
– Mahmood Mamdani.

New York’s Finest (also known as the NYPD) have come under a lot of scrutiny since activists from the Occupy Wall Street Movement took to the streets of New York City on September 17, 2011. From the pepper spraying videos on YouTube to the massive arrests, the brutality of the NYPD has shocked many. However, this only comes as a shock to those who never before had to deal with a police force inspired by a culture of brutality that encourages police officers to instill fear and contempt in those whom they are supposed to serve and protect. From the yellowcab driver, to the street vendor and from the high school students in working class neighborhoods to young men in Harlem, Brooklyn and the Bronx, this culture of unprofessionalism, fear and brutality is a daily occurrence. What Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly call the “best police force in the world,” whose mission is to “preserve the peace, reduce fear and provide for a safe environment,” has in fact been the greatest fear factor in many communities.

Under Commissioner Kelly, the policy of “Stop, Question and Frisk” was expanded – giving NYPD officers the authority to stop civilians, question and search them. Officers will then proceed to enter the names of those searched into a database, which they claim is “valuable in helping solve future crimes.” The reason for the stops, you might ask? “Because you fit a description,” as I was told following a search where the officers did not ask me a single question. I will give details of my encounter later.

The “Stop and Frisk” policy has systematically terrorized and humiliated young men of color, especially those living in working class neighborhoods in New York City, from Harlem to Brownsville.  The NYPD continues on a daily basis to disrupt the lives of young men of color in this city through what has become an institutionalized approach stemming directly from a culture of brutality, take-no-prisoners and shoot-now-and-ask-questions-later attitude under the false presumption of “crime prevention.” One of the many successes of the Occupy Wall Street movement is in its exposure of this culture of brutality, disrespect and unprofessionalism of New York’s Finest to the general public. Indeed, over the last few months, the world has seen what has long since been the reality of many young men in New York City: the police officer acting with impunity, knowing that they’ll be protected as they brutally assault peaceful civilians.

In response to the media attention that these police altercations with peaceful protestors received, the NYPD aggressively mischaracterized these incidents with mere fabrications. When Brooklyn Councilman Jumaane Williams was thrown to the ground, along with his aide, and handcuffed during the West Indian Day Parade, the NYPD immediately responded that “a crowd formed and an unknown individual punched a police captain on the scene,” suggesting that somehow the councilman had been part of that crowd. We witnessed the same level of denial on behalf of the police when Deputy Inspector Bologna, a repeat offender, indiscriminately pepper sprayed into a crowd of peaceful female protesters. The Department immediately rose to the officer’s defense, claiming rather forcefully that the office did nothing wrong and that the use of pepper spray was “appropriate.” The Deputy Inspector (the “white shirt”) was punished: a loss of ten vacation days.

In NYC, there are endless examples of police brutality. The NYPD has managed to create an environment of fear in many neighborhoods in New York City and they do so with impunity. Commissioner Kelly said that he wants to instill fear in young blacks and Hispanics. In a private meeting, the Commissioner told lawmakers, “the reason we stop and frisk and target the groups that we do is because we want all people who fit that group to feel that anytime they leave their house they can be searched by the police.” Walking down the street in my neighborhood today, I know that this is what I can expect. The nakedness and constant fear that one feels knowing that at any moment a group of police officers, whether in uniform or in plain clothes, can approach you, take your identification and pat you down, is overwhelming.

This reality was brought close to home for me four years ago when I came home for winter break during my first semester in college. I was walking to the subway from my apartment in Brooklyn, when I was approached by two undercover police officers. “Spread your legs and place your hands behind your head,” they shouted, running out of an unmarked police car. I was with my cousin at the time, who simply responded to the command as if it was second nature – this was not his first time. I, on the other hand, was home from my first semester in college and after having just completed a seminar entitled “Debating Human Rights,” I naively thought I should demand the reason for my search and debate with the officers. But before I could utter a word, the officers went ahead and patted both of us down and asked for our IDs. “Can I ask why we are being searched?” I asked. My request went ignored, as we were never given a reason for the search. Before we could even ask for their badge numbers, one of the officers handed me my ID and wished me a “happy birthday.” The experience left me distraught. After consulting with a friend, I decided the next day to call my local precinct to notify them of the incident and file a complaint. I was surprised when the operator informed me that the officers reported the search, claiming that the reason was because my cousin and I “fit a description.”

Human rights organizations, activists and lawmakers and other concerned citizens continue to work tirelessly to bring an end to the constant fear tactics many citizens are submitted to at the hands of the NYPD.  They are demanding that some checks and balances be instituted in order to reel in the power of the police, and increase transparency in their interactions with citizens. Legal Aid and the NAACP pleaded with lawmakers to intervene during a City Council Hearing on September 27. Despite the efforts of the Council members, their requests have all been ignored. To be fair, my criticism of the NYPD is not directed at the poorly trained police officers caught up in a corrupt, arrogant and unethical system of criminal injustice.

There are indeed hardworking police officers struggling to just get by. These officers do not set the culture of the NYPD; rather their actions simply reproduce an offensive culture that is shaped from upstairs: a culture which supports, defends and encourages, a police officer to pepper spray, punch and beat peaceful protesters. There is something fundamentally wrong with a system in which officers can stop and search innocent civilians because they fit a “description,” meaning that they are Black or Latino. There is more to it than the individual actions of any one police officer raping a woman at gun point, or lodging dozens of bullets in the bodies of innocent New Yorkers such as Sean Bell and my fellow countryman Amadou Diallo. There are systemic abuses in the NYPD and it is no surprise to those who live it or have been paying attention.

Ibrahim Diallo is a Guinean-American living in New York City.

Inhumane Sheriff Arpaio finally taken to task for his crimes

AlterNet: Finally, the Law Goes After Joe Arpaio -- the Most Abusive Sheriff In America
By Emptywheel, Firedoglake
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/rights/126986/
You have probably heard of the shamelessly self professed "Toughest Sheriff in America", Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio. For years he has been making a PR spectacle of himself, all the while running an unconstitutionally deplorable jail system, letting inmates die under tortuous conditions, and violating the civil rights and liberties of everybody in sight, especially minorities. Last week, the House Judiciary Committee made public a critical and public step to rein in the Most Abusive Sheriff In America.

From the HJC press release:

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.), and Immigration Subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.-my representative! Yay!), Constitution Subcommittee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), and Crime Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-Va.) called on Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to investigate allegations of misconduct by Maricopa County (Arizona) Sheriff Joe Arpaio.
Sheriff Arpaio has repeatedly demonstrated disregard for the rights of Hispanics in the Phoenix metropolitan area. Under the guise of immigration enforcement, his staff has conducted raids in residential neighborhoods in a manner condemned by the community as racial profiling. On February 4, 2009, Arpaio invited the media to view the transfer of immigrant detainees to a segregated area of his "tent city" jail, subjecting the detainees to public display and "ritual humiliation." Persistent actions such as these have resulted in numerous lawsuits; while Arpaio spends time and energy on publicity and his reality television show, "Smile… You're Under Arrest!", Maricopa County has paid millions of dollars in settlements involving dead or injured inmates.
...
It is time for the federal government to step in and uphold the rule of law in this country, even in Maricopa County."
"Law enforcement is not a game or a reality show, it is a public trust," said Scott. "There is no excuse for callous indifference to the rights of the residents of Arizona, whether in their neighborhoods or as pretrial detainees."

The full official text of the letter to Napolitano and Holder is here.
It is high time that somebody on the national scene notice, and the Federal government take action on, the egregious and violative conduct of Joe Arpaio.

Joe Arpaio is a two bit carnival barker and huckster, not a dedicated law enforcement official. The opportunistic man came into office running against a fellow Republican and incumbent Maricopa County Sheriff, Tom Agnos, by bad mouthing Agnos and arguing that the entire Maricopa County Sheriff's Department needed to be cleaned up. In fact, Arpaio's winning campaign was predicated upon his willingness to mock the very department he was running to lead and promise to expose the dirty laundry of Agnos and the Sheriff's Department for its involvement in the infamous Buddhist Temple Murder case (link is a fascinating three part story), a seminal case in textbooks on coerced confessions (from the fact that four separate coerced false confessions were obtained to a single crime). Arpaio promised to restore honor to the department, and also swore he would serve only one term in office. Five terms and seventeen years later, Arpaio has failed miserably on both promises.

Read Entire Article

Community fights racist frame-up of city councilor

By Frank Neisser
Boston

Published Dec 4, 2008

Boston’s African-American community of Roxbury and a broad coalition of supporters are standing strong with City Councilor Chuck Turner, who has come out fighting ever since his Nov. 21 arrest. The attack on Turner, who has been charged with extorting $1,000 and lying to the FBI, is viewed as part of a frame-up scheme to undermine the African-American community’s right to strong political representation. Turner won in the last election with more than 80 percent of the vote.

Hundreds support Chuck Turner at City Hall rally, Nov. 24. WW photo: Liz Green

At 6 a.m. on Nov. 21, seven armed FBI agents had gone to Turner’s front door, terrorizing his household. He was arrested an hour later at City Hall, where he was already beginning his work day, and taken in handcuffs to Worcester, 45 minutes from Boston.

At the first word of the arrest, activists and allies went into high gear. Rank-and-file union leaders from United Steel Workers Local 8751—the Boston School Bus Drivers—along with organizers from the International Action Center, Women’s Fightback Network, Restore Our Heat & Lights Campaign, the Boston Workers Alliance, the youth group FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together) and other community groups came forward to mobilize solidarity, defend the Turner household and offer whatever assistance was necessary.

People’s lawyers Barry Wilson and John Pavlos were secured and political supporters gathered in Worcester. Turner left the court surrounded by 40 supporters holding up signs and chanting, “Chuck, Chuck, Chuck!” He immediately spoke out to the throng of media, proclaiming his innocence and condemning the FBI abuse as well as the attack on his constituents’ right to the representative of their choice.

Horrific attacks on Turner from the Boston media and all corners of the capitalist establishment have thrown the concept of “innocent until proven guilty” out the window. In an unprecedented action, City Council President Maureen Feeney stripped him of all his committee chair positions and called for a special session of the City Council to consider removing him.

On Nov. 24 Turner, along with 500 supporters, held a rally and news conference on the steps of City Hall to demand that Feeney call off the City Council hearing and restore him to his committee positions. Feeney had to cancel the session.

About 70 community and grassroots supporters, including a delegation of more than 35 rank-and-file members of Local 8751, participated in another news conference and rally at Turner’s district office in Roxbury on Nov. 26. Turner said: “The media has not produced one story on the fact that I am the only Boston city councilor who in the modern era has maintained an office in the community. There has not been one story around the fact that my campaign owes Terri [Turner’s spouse] and I $140,000 because of our investment of our own resources in the maintenance of the district office.”

A mass meeting is scheduled for Dec. 2, and a Solidarity Day rally for Dec. 9. Turner’s next court appearance is at 3 p.m. on Dec. 10 at the Moakley Federal Court House in Boston. Visit SupportChuckTurner.com for details.

Turner’s massive support is based on four decades of grassroots activism and community organizing. He fought for jobs through the Third World Jobs Clearinghouse and United Community Construction Workers. He was a founder of the Boston Workers Alliance, the only organization of unemployed workers in the state, which also fights for formerly incarcerated workers’ right to a job.

Turner has fought on every community and progressive issue, from immigrant rights to foreclosure and eviction blockades and against war. Recently he spearheaded a campaign to restore heat and lights to those whose utilities have been shut off.

The attack on Turner seeks to cut off the grassroots leadership necessary to bring about the change people are looking and hoping for.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Michael Sullivan, who is prosecuting Turner as well as State Sen. Dianne Wilkerson (see Workers World, Nov. 13), is a notorious right-wing Republican whose specialty is politically motivated false prosecutions. He prosecuted the Plymouth 25—Native activists and allies who were the victims of a police riot against their peaceful demonstration on the National Day of Mourning (“Thanksgiving” Day) in 1997.

Turner’s case is part of a national campaign of racist, politically motivated prosecutions. These include the cases of: African-American Milwaukee Alderman Michael McGee, who was convicted in October based on similar FBI entrapment and trial by media; Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, who was subjected to an unprecedented FBI raid of his congressional office and was forced out of his committee positions by Speaker Nancy Pelosi even before being indicted; and Rep. Cynthia McKinney, who was lambasted for defending herself from racist guards at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

These are but the most recent chapters in a long history of racist political frame-ups and abuse by the FBI that goes back to the attacks on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, Adam Clayton Powell and Shirley Chisholm.

Robert Traynham of the International Action Center said: “Sullivan should be fired for politically motivated, racist frame-up prosecutions and abuse of the FBI. The FBI should cease and desist from its longstanding pattern of frame-ups and harassment of oppressed community leaders.”

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Invasion of the Sea-Smurfs

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20081001_invasion_of_the_sea_smurfs/

By Amy Goodman

A little-noticed story surfaced a couple of weeks ago in the Army Times newspaper about the 3rd Infantry Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team. “Beginning Oct. 1 for 12 months,” reported Army Times staff writer Gina Cavallaro, “the 1st BCT will be under the day-to-day control of U.S. Army North, the Army service component of Northern Command, as an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks.” Disturbingly, she writes that “they may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control” as well.

The force will be called the chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive Consequence Management Response Force. Its acronym, CCMRF, is pronounced “sea-smurf.” These “sea-smurfs,” Cavallaro reports, have “spent 35 of the last 60 months in Iraq patrolling in full battle rattle,” in a combat zone, and now will spend their 20-month “dwell time”—time troops are required to spend to “reset and regenerate after a deployment”—armed and ready to hit the U.S. streets.

The Army Times piece includes a correction stating that the forces would not use nonlethal weaponry domestically. I called Air Force Lt. Col. Jamie Goodpaster, a public-affairs officer for Northern Command. She told me that the overall mission was humanitarian, to save lives and help communities recover from catastrophic events. Nevertheless, the military forces would have weapons on-site, “containerized,” she said—that is, stored in containers—including both lethal and so-called nonlethal weapons. They would have mostly wheeled vehicles, but would also, she said, have access to tanks. She said that any decision to use weapons would be made at a higher level, perhaps at the secretary-of-defense level.

Talk of trouble on U.S. streets is omnipresent now, with the juxtaposition of Wall Street and Main Street. The financial crisis we face remains obscure to most people; titans of business and government officials assure us that the financial system is “on the brink,” that a massive bailout is necessary, immediately, to prevent a disaster. Conservative and progressive members of Congress, at the insistence of constituents, blocked the initial plan. If the economy does collapse, if people can’t go down to the bank to withdraw their savings, or get cash from an ATM, there may be serious “civil unrest,” and the “sea-smurfs” may be called upon sooner than we imagine to assist with “crowd control.”

The political and financial establishments seem completely galled that people would actually oppose their massive bailout, which rewards financiers for gambling. Normal people worry about paying their bills, buying groceries and gas, and paying rent or a mortgage in increasingly uncertain times. No one ever offers to bail them out. Wall Street’s house of cards has collapsed, and the rich bankers are getting little sympathy from working people.

That’s where the sea-smurfs come in. Officially formed to respond to major disasters, like a nuclear or biological attack, this combat brigade falls under the U.S. Northern Command, a military structure formed on Oct, 1, 2002, to “provide command and control of Department of Defense homeland defense efforts.” Military participation in domestic operations was originally outlawed with the Posse Comitatus Act in 1878. The John Warner National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, however, included a section that allowed the president to deploy the armed forces to “restore public order” or to suppress “any insurrection.” While a later bill repealed this, President Bush attached a signing statement that he did not feel bound by the repeal.

We are in a time of increasing economic disparity, with the largest gap between rich and poor of any wealthy industrialized country. We are witnessing a crackdown on dissent, most recently with $100 million spent on “security” at the Democratic and Republican national conventions. The massive paramilitary police forces deployed at the RNC in St. Paul, Minn., were complete overkill, discouraging protests and conducting mass arrests (National Guard troops just back from Fallujah were there). The arrest there of almost 50 journalists (myself included) showed a clear escalation in attempting to control the message (akin to the ban on photos of flag-draped coffins of soldiers). There are two ongoing, unpopular wars that are costing lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Nobel-winning economist Joe Stiglitz estimates that Iraq alone will cost more than $3 trillion.

In December 2001, in the midst of restricted access to bank accounts due to a financial crisis, respectable, middle-class Argentines rose up, took to the streets, smashed bank windows and ultimately forced the government out of power, despite a massive police crackdown and a failed attempt to control the media. Here in the U.S., with the prospect of a complete failure of our financial system, the people have spoken and do not want an unprecedented act of corporate welfare. We don’t know how close the system is to collapse, nor do we know how close the people are to taking to the streets. The creation of an active-duty military force, the sea-smurfs, that could be used to suppress public protest here at home is a very bad sign.

Denis Moynihan contributed to this column.

Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on more than 700 stations in North America.

© 2008 Amy Goodman

Distributed by King Features Syndicate

Will Wall Street's Meltdown Turn America Into a Police State?

This is one of the articles that actually tells it true. The illegitimate Bush administration has engineered the largest transfer of public wealth into private hands in history. It would seem the rogue government has plans for quelling citizen uprisings as well.--Pete

By Scott Thill, AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/story/100689/

"Raw capitalism is dead." -- Henry Paulson, U.S. Treasury secretary

"Can't we just all go out and say things are OK?" -- President Bush, to congressional leaders during bailout negotiations

I'm not much of an Army Times reader, but after reading that a brigade was shipping from Iraq in October to serve as "an on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters, including terrorist attacks" in the homeland right before the election, my antennae perked up. Same as they did when I read that an electoral college doomsday scenario exists in which Dick Cheney casts the deciding vote that gives McCain-Palin the White House.

That is, if Cheney and Bush don't take it for themselves. That may sound like fantasy, but don't kill the messenger. They are all strands of the Gordian knot the Bush administration has tied around the neck of the American people for the last two presidential terms, best represented today by the failed bailout of banks, brokers and other complicit parties that have since jacked the American people out of trillions. And while the Army Times revelation or election doomsday may turn out to be paranoia rather than prescience, the evidence just isn't there.

Like I said: antennae.

They've come in handy as bullshit detectors since Bush stole the election from a flat-footed Al Gore and set about engineering the greatest transfer of public wealth into private hands in American history. If you factor in Monday's failed takeover, as well as the $5 trillion the American people now owe thanks to the "bailout" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, not to mention the continuing hyper-expensive occupation of Iraq and so on, our citizenry is now so far in the hole that it's pointless griping about numbers. If you want one, use the figure put forth by Dennis Kucinich: half a quadrillion dollars. We have evolved past the point of economic or geopolitical reality and entered a phase of pure concept.

And all vectors of that phase point toward the conclusion that the proverbial shit has totally hit the fan -- head on, and all over again.

Meet the New Rome, Same as the Old Rome

"Franklin Roosevelt had to save capitalism from itself," Los Angeles Times business editor Tom Petruno told me as Washington Mutual and Wachovia became the latest banking dominoes to fall. "Is history repeating?"

Indeed, it is, as one could tell from the repetitive usage of loaded terms and phrases like "Great Depression," "meltdown," "apocalypse," "Armageddon" and more to describe the just-on-time cratering of the American economy. After the strange bedfellows in both parties torpedoed Bush, Bernanke and Paulson's so-called bailout, more than $1 trillion of market value in American equities disappeared in a single day. The Dow Jones average set a record for quickest suicide dive in a single day. Other indexes sunk to multiyear lows, wiping out years of value, and stocks across the board went negative like Ann Coulter. In fact, the only major stock that actually advanced on Monday was Campbell Soup.

Can there be a more fitting metaphor for the American economy stuck beneath the Bush administration's thumb?

But the reruns, and their loaded terminology, are merging: Bush himself is just another iteration of the infamous "New World Order" instituted by his father while trying to, what else, convince the American public that it needed to go to war against Saddam Hussein. The revisionism is transparent, befitting a government that cares nothing of what its people actually think. Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" recently juxtaposed Bush's address on the financial cataclysm with his pre-invasion speech in 2003 and found -- surprise! -- they were exactly the same.

This is a long way of saying that this particularly frightening crux of historical geopolitics, fascism and environmental calamity has been a long time coming. Failing banks? Deregulation. Endless war? Homeland security. Total information awareness? Transparent government. Bankrupt economy? The fundamentals are strong.

"Here's my question," Petruno adds. "If this is remembered as Black September, will that end up being too gentle a reference to what actually happened to the American financial system this month? It is beyond comprehension for people who have been on Wall Street their entire lives. I can only imagine how absolutely stunned the American public must be. Stunned, and very afraid."

It should be. From a military brigade armed for action in the homeland in blatant transgression of Posse Comitatus to what ex-hedge funder and financial personality Jim Cramer recently called "financial terrorism," the United States is pushing forward back.

To start with, the bailout was obvious theft, but our situation is more precarious than you think. The hyperreal credit default swap market, which few understand although it is estimated to involve tens if not hundreds of global trillions, is faltering under the weight of its own Ponzi origins. The scenario significantly worsens once you factor in the given that countries like China and others who have denominated their loans in dollars are shouldering our exploding debt, along with oil-soaked sovereign wealth funds from nations whose civil liberties records suck ass. As I wrote last year on this clusterfuck, if the Chinese call in our debts and oil-producing countries decide to peg their petrodollars to the euro, you can more or less kiss the dollar goodbye. Which means the last thing you'll need to worry about is your stocks, retirement or credit cards. You will instead worry whether or not the cash you have on hand will be worth anything at all. That is the loaded gun that bankers, brokers and the White House is holding to the public's head, as I write. That trillion erased on Monday, as well as the trillions that have been lost and will be lost in the coming months, was nothing more than a hostage situation engineered by the Bush administration, the Federal Reserve and their partners in crime in finance, insurance and real estate business.

They don't call that sector FIRE for nothing. Fire destroys everything and leaves little in its catastrophic wake. Which raises the question: What's left to burn?

"I think our economic situation can get much worse," argues Danny Schechter, the veteran producer and author whose 2006 indie documentary "In Debt We Trust" covered this volatile territory long before CNN would. "Jobless claims are already at a seven-year high, but the government is worried about the reaction from Asia. We are living on other countries' money, and when that spigot gets cut off, we will be in deeper doo-doo. Part of the reason for the scale of the bailout is to show Asia and sovereign wealth funds that we will protect their interests."

But for how long? The Bush administration and Congress' disdain for the American people has been painfully obvious, so it's hard to believe they will call from sky-high Dubai to see how we are doing after making off with almost all of our money.

"It's a high-stakes gamble, which is why Paulson tried to do it quickly in a climate of shock and crisis," Shechter says. "He knew that the longer it takes, the more opposition it will attract. This plan, if eventually passed, will pre-empt the next president from doing anything about it, because there will be no money. They are wrecking the government by wrecking the economy first."

That shock doctrine, as Naomi Klein explained in her brilliant book of the same name, has foisted this same kind of disaster capitalism on country after country over the last century. Klein's book is littered with democracies that slept their way through coups and takeovers, entranced by one simulation or another. The United States was plugged into a matrix that onetime White House press secretary Ari Fleischer described as "an American way of life," adding without deceit that "it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life."

By destroying it? Mission accomplished.

"This is the September of surprise," Schechter concluded, "not a war on Iran but on America."

Civil War, the Rerun?

So, what's the next step for the shoe yet to drop? Perhaps the Army Times has the clues:

(The brigade) may be called upon to help with civil unrest and crowd control or to deal with potentially horrific scenarios such as massive poisoning and chaos in response to a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear or high-yield explosive, or CBRNE, attack. ... The 1st BCT's soldiers also will learn how to use "the first ever nonlethal package that the Army has fielded," 1st BCT commander Col. Roger Cloutier said, referring to crowd and traffic control equipment and nonlethal weapons designed to subdue unruly or dangerous individuals without killing them.

Like every move the Bush administration has ever made, from the Patriot Act to the occupation of Iraq and down to bankrupting the American economy, this maneuver is a solution in search of a problem that it seems destined to create. Look around you. Housing is over. Stocks are nosediving. The banks are gone. War is ceaseless. Civil liberties are disappearing. Nerds at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury are taking hostages. It is madness.

And mad people have a tendency to infect everyone around them. The difference is that when you go mad ... well, that's the question mark: What will happen?

Ask the late Iman Morales, who went crazy in Brooklyn on a ledge 10 feet above ground and was illegally tasered by New York police officers, eventually falling to his death, immobilized. A perfect metaphor for our economy, sure, but it's also the type of literal shock we might be awaiting, as the November election creeps nearer and shit begins to hit the fan with ferocity. Many of us so-called alternative journos are not conspiracy nuts, but realists. We look at galvanizing leaders like Barack Obama, America's next president, and compare his impact to that of Lincoln, Kennedy or King -- without forgetting that all three were eventually assassinated. We are the type of realists who live through two Bush presidents, both of whom configured a New World Order, with and without the approval of the American people and the world at large. The type of realists that notice that after 9/11, we couldn't fly to Vegas, but Osama bin Laden's family was flown out of the country on government charter.

And here is what we see today: Crowds protesting in the streets, the people's money wiped out thanks to the Bush administration's latest economic shock and awe. An army brigade matter-of-factly betraying Posse Comitatus for the purpose of crowd control. The public trust and wealth almost robbed cleanly with congressional approval.

In other words, we see another unfolding coup, which is to say, a rerun. And there is no telling what the future may hold, or whether or not we are connecting vectors that should remain solitary. But our math has worked just fine in the past -- better than Ben Bernanke and Henry Paulson's math, that's for sure.

And we'd love to be wrong about what's coming. But unfortunately that isn't up to us, and it never has been: It's up to the Bush administration. And it has never failed to let us down.

Scott Thill runs the online mag Morphizm.com. His writing has appeared on Salon, XLR8R, All Music Guide, Wired and others.
© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/100689/

Police State RNC

Here are a couple videos of preemptive, a priori police raids ahead of the RNC, designed to sow fear among the populace of an allegedly democratic society. The RNC has since been partially canceled due to the incredible photo opportunities generated by the coming hurricane tragedy in the gulf states region to which all the reeps ran in a jiffy, most likely in an effort to do...something. Check the updates after the videos.





Police State RNC: A Nun and Eight Others Swept into Unmarked Van by Cops in Minnesota
By Lindsay Beyerstein, Firedoglake
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/rights/97077/

UPDATE (12:34 PDT):: One of the 9 protesters arrested was a nun, seen being loaded into an unmarked blue van. The 9 were apparently trying to climb a fence near a church.

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UPDATE: ColdSnap is reporting 9 arrests downtown near the Excel center and police massing all over the downtown core.

The National Lawyers Guild and Communities United Against Police Brutality have filed an emergency motion to stop the seizure of cell phones and cameras during the RNC.

The groups will hold a joint press conference at Hennepin County Government Plaza to discuss their application for an emergency injunction, according to a tweet issued by the ColdSnap Legal Collective.

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The 6 activists arrested during police raids in advance of the Republican National Convention are being held without charge by the Ramsey County Sheriff's Office, the Minnesota Independent reports.

The arrestees are being held on probable cause holds. These holds give the authorities 36 hours to charge them or let them go. Holds are typically used to give investigators more time to gather evidence before filing formal charges.

Holds allow police to charge first and ask questions later. Sometimes that's a good thing. Arrest opportunities are unpredictable. A suspect could slip away in the time it takes to turn a solid suspicion into sufficient evidence to file charges. A probable cause hold buys the police some time to dot the i's and cross the t's.

However, it doesn't take a genius to see how the power to detain people without charge can be abused. For example, unethical police officers have been known to use frivolous holds as quickie jail terms. Piss off the police, spend 3 days in jail--no trial required.

In Minnesota, a probable cause hold can be issued by an officer without review by a judge or a prosecutor. The 36-hour window doesn't include weekends and holidays. So the protesters arrested over the long weekend could be locked up until Wednesday.

The National Lawyers Guild is asking a judge to review these detentions in the hopes of getting the arrestees out sooner.

Imagine if the police could hold these protesters as long as they wanted.

The United States is holding suspects without charge at Guantanamo--many of whom were apprehended without anything approaching probable cause. Of course, Bush administration asserts the right to put off their trials forever.

Scenarios like these illustrate why habeas corpus is vital to the rule of law.

Lindsay Beyerstein a New York writer blogging at Majikthise.
© 2008 Firedoglake All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/rights/97077/

U.S Spy Bill Creates the 'Infrastructure for a Police State'

The delayed vote on the on the illegal wiretapping bill is being touted by some as a chance to wedge the people's voice into the debate by our supposed representatives, who seem hell-bent on granting retroactive immunity to the telecom giants who illegally handed our private information to the NSA. I have my doubts. Campaign contributors come before citizens in our corrupted system - way before. The argument being used is that the corporations were merely responding to a request from the president, as if the chief executive had the power to transcend the law of the land. This defense wasn't allowed at Nuremberg, and shouldn't be allowed here. If it is (and it probably will be), it will be the final nail in the coffin of the Republic.--Pete

The whistleblower at the heart of a lawsuit against AT&T for illegal eavesdropping says Congress is set to stage a 'coup against the Constitution' as it nears passage of a new spying bill. Former AT&T technician Mark Klein provided internal company documents that he claims show that AT&T spied on the internet inside the United States.

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Tellin' It How It Is: Hip-Hop Stands Up For Sean Bell

Jun 07, 2008 By Alexander Billet
Alexander Billet's ZSpace Page / ZSpace

"With the Sean Bell situation, New York is basically saying 'fuck niggas.'" Who in their right minds can honestly disagree with these words, bluntly stated by rapper/producer/activist David Banner? The April 25th aquittal of three New York City cops, who killed Bell after pumping fifty rounds into his car, sends a clear message to the African-American community: If the police can get away with gunning down one unarmed black man, they can get away with it again. Indeed, it happened several times over well before Bell. It's no wonder that the verdict has provoked outrage and frustration from religious leaders, local politicians and community activists.

Banner is certainly not alone as a rapper, either. The frustration, sadness and outrage provoked by the verdict has radiated through the entire hip-hop community, reaching even the upper echelons of the industry. Russell Simmons has spoke about the need for the police to be more accountable. His heir-apparent Jay-Z has set up a charity for Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell. As always, though, the most meaningful solidarity hip-hop has to offer is that of the artists themselves.

This solidarity has, notably, not just been limited to the sector of "conscious hip-hop," that artificial category created by the music industry in order to cheapen the genre; a diverse array of artists have verbally trounced the verdict, ranging from Ice Cube to Immortal Technique to Chamillionaire. By now, it's become something of a cliche to repeat Chuck D's line about rap being "CNN for black people," but the staggering hypocrisy and gutter racism of the case has once again pushed artists into that role.

In the month since the verdict, there have been enough recordings dedicated to Bell to fill a compilation album. Posted on YouTube, Brooklyn MC Papoose (who also penned a song directly following the original shooting in November 2006) calls for a new civil rights movement in "We Shall Overcome." Though lyrically awkward at times, the track almost serves as a blow-by-blow of the entire trial, highlighting the arrogance of Judge Arthur Cooperman, the flimsy defence of the officers, and the complete dismissal of all witness testimony. As the song progresses, Pap lays into the past racist brutalities of the NYPD, bringing up the shooting of Amadou Diallo and the police torture of Abner Louima, and broadens the story even further to immigrants' rights and the shipping of poor black kids to fight in Iraq: "How can they find find freedom in south Iraq? Please! / They can't even find freedom in south-side Queens."

Papoose is only the tip of the iceberg. The web has been swarmed by tracks dedicated to Bell, sometimes released withing mere hours of the verdict. Major-label artists like The Game and Joell Ortiz have released songs on the web. Unsigned artists have been able to chime in too. Pittsburgh rapper Jasiri X (whose song about the Jena Six was named by hip-hop journalist Davey D as the best political rap of 2007), posted not one but two tracks about Bell on his MySpace page the very next day. A simple Google search for "Sean Bell" and "hip-hop" will yield literally thousands of results.

Artists who haven't necessarily had the chance to hit the studio in recent weeks have nonetheless done what they can to protest the verdict. The Roots, performing on the David Letterman Show three days afterwards, wore all black in mourning for Bell as well as pins with Bell's face on it. And then, of course, there is dead prez, whose first show after the verdict in Amhearst, Massachusetts was performed in the memory of Bell. Stic.man, speaking from the event on "Breakdown FM," radio show of hip-hop activist Davey D, summed up the all-encompassing question "what now?": "That verdict's been cast down on us since slavery. We've been denied justice way before April 26th, 2008... But it's not a time to be demoralized... it's a time to organize."

It's been two and a half years since Kanye West appeared on an NBC-televised Katrina benefit to tell the world the obvious: "George Bush doesn't care about black people." Last year, after the news that a group of black teenagers were being unjustly thrown in jail in Jena, Louisiana, many in hip-hop also protested the town's style of Jim Crow justice. Now, with the killers of Sean Bell getting off the hook, artists and MCs are once again raising their voices. The sentiments coming from artists like dead prez--that more organizing, more activism, is needed--are for obvious reasons finding resonance not only in the studios, but in the streets and communities. Hip-hop, born out of the deliberate neglect of black America, is finding itself pushed into the political arena more and more. Its message is simple: Enough is enough. Maybe this is the reason politicians find are so threatened by the mere presence of hip-hop.

Alexander Billet is a music journalist and socialist activist living in Washington, DC. He is a regular contributor to Znet, Dissident Voice, and SleptOn.com. His blog, Rebel Frequencies, can be viewed at http://rebelfrequencies.blogspot.com, and he can be reached at rebelfrequencies@gmail.com.

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From: Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives
URL: http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/commentaries/3516

Police in America Can Kill Some People With Impunity

By Cynthia McKinney, Counterpunch

"[T]he legislation and histories of the time, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument. . . . [A]ltogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

And with that, the United States Supreme Court ensured that the 20th Century would be defined, as W.E.B. DuBois wrote, by the color line. So, while we might be outraged at the Sean Bell decision itself, it comes directly from the flawed jurisprudence that gave us the Dred Scott Decision in 1857, Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, Bakke in 1978, Croson in 1989, Adarand in 1995, Gratz in 2003, and all of the Ward Connerly-inspired attacks on the very same affirmative action hard won by students facing water hoses and dogs; men and women facing jail, lynch mobs, and death.

Interestingly, according to Attorney Roger Wareham of the December 12th Movement's International Secretariat, the criminal justice system in this country "always finds a rationale for letting off cops who kill black and brown people." Indeed, police officers seem to know that they can kill certain people with impunity.

Just in New York City alone, Wareham rattles off the murders that have defined police-"communities of color" relations over two generations:

Clifford Glover, 1972

Louis Baez, 1978 shot (22 times)

Randolph Evans, 1979

Eleanor Bumpers, 1985 (a grandmother)

Amadou Diallo, 1999

Patrick Dorismond, 2003

Sean Bell, 2006

Sadly, New York City isn't the only city, with this plague. In 2001, the Dayton Daily News reported that Cincinnati topped the list of police killings of Blacks, having had 22 people shot, 13 fatally. All black men. Three unarmed. Plus two additional deaths due to police use of chemical irritants.

The 2001 "Cincinnati Intifada" lasted for three nights after a white police officer murdered an unarmed black teenager. Timothy Thomas was the fifteenth black male killed by Cincinnati police over a six-year period. I traveled with Ron Daniels and others to Cincinnati to support the call by black residents, including Reverend Damon Lynch III and 36 other ministers, for a boycott of that city. Still reeling from the effects of the boycott, Cincinnati made headlines again in 2003 when the world watched as one black and five white police officers repeatedly beat Nathaniel Jones with batons and then left him in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant, only to be pronounced dead later at the hospital.

The "Benton Harbor, Michigan Intifada of 2003" lasted two nights after the murder of an unarmed black motorcyclist by white police officers. Adding insult to injury, the residents of majority-black Benton Harbor are reeling under an attempted takeover of the last "undeveloped" beachfront property on Lake Michigan. The residents are under attack by the Whirlpool Corporation, that wants to develop "Benton Shores" and move all of the residents completely out of the town. The purported goal of the development is to turn Benton Harbor into one of the "hottest vacation destinations in the country," to include a members-only indoor water park, and a Jack Nicklaus golf course. According to Reverend Edward Pinkney, the valiant leader who is trying to save Benton Harbor for the people, Harbor Shores will result in a complete takeover of Benton Harbor, a city that is 96% Black. Reverend Pinkney has been in jail since December 14, 2007 on trumped- up charges including violation of probation, for writing an article calling the chief judge racist. Mrs. Pinkney called the Office of Michigan Congressman John Conyers, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee to ask for justice for the residents of Benton Harbor and for her husband. Shockingly, Chairman Conyers refused Mrs. Pinkney's plea to get involved in this heroic struggle of a 96% Black community in his own state. When I visited Benton Harbor, it was clear to me that Reverend Pinkney has the full support of the area's residents, black and white, as they struggle to maintain the character of their community. Reverend Pinkney is recognized by the people as true hero and occupies a jail cell because of it.

Finally, however, someone broke the silence and admitted it. Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper wrote in his book, "Breaking Rank," that white police officers are afraid of Black men. He develops this theory in a chapter of the book entitled, "Why White Cops Kill Black Men." Finally: a hint of truth coming from the other side. In a June 16, 2005 interview with the Looking Glass News, Stamper says that he personally believes "that white cops are scared of black men. The bigger or darker the man, the more frightened the white cop. I can't shake that; it's a belief I will take to the grave."

So while the corporate press would have us believe that reporting on what a former Vice Presidential nominee says about a Presidential candidate is a discussion of race, the prospects are that black and brown men and women will continue to be murdered by police officers who, fundamentally, seem scared of black people. That fear apparently extends to the larger community because juries construct ways to let murderous police officers escape just punishment.

Roger Wareham, and the December 12th Movement International Secretariat raise, inside the Human Rights Council of the United Nations, the details of the type of police abuse in which a 92-year old grandmother, Kathryn Johnston, is murdered by police in Atlanta, Georgia and her family still has not seen justice or been made whole. Or where a young black male, also in Atlanta, can be sitting in his mother's car and is murdered because the police presume that the car is stolen.

The December 12th Movement has asked for United Nations Rapporteurs to come to the U.S. on fact-finding missions so that the U.S. can finally be listed as a major human rights abuser and a Rapporteur assigned to this country.

Already, the Special Rapporteur on Racism and Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance is coming to the U.S. from May 18 - June 6 and will be in New York City on May 21st and 22nd. The December 12th Movement is scheduled to have a hearing for him at the Schomberg Center where the issue of police killings will be raised. The Rapporteur is also scheduled to visit DC, Chicago, Omaha, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Miami, and San Juan.

The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Summary and Arbitrary Executions, Mr. Phillip Alston, is conducting a Mission to the U.S. in June. The Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is also interested in reports of police abuse. If a consistent and systemic pattern of abuse exists (which it clearly does in the United States), the United Nations General Assembly can pass a resolution which helps creates international public opinion and perhaps the political will to stop it.

Certainly, doing the same thing--a cycle of protest without punishment--will net the same results. Something different must be done. That's why I authored legislation to deny federal funds and the use of federal equipment to any law enforcement unit found to have violated the civil rights of the people it is organized to protect and serve. Imagine if we had the laws on the books and the apparatus of enforcement. Imagine if juries wouldn't grant impunity to killer cops.

Some of you have written to me suggesting that we do something different: perhaps a full-scale boycott. Perhaps a full-scale, all-out political response--something many in this generation have never done before.

Bobby Kennedy always said, "Some men dream of things that are and say why. I dream of things that never were and say why not."

It is not impossible for us to have justice. We don't have to lose any more people to police abuse, brutality, or murder. But, in order to change things, we're going to have to do some things we've never done before in order to have some things we've never had before.

Are you willing to entertain that idea? Today? Right now? If we demand more of our elected representatives, I'm convinced we will get it. And it should be clear exactly what is needed if we don't get what we demand.

Cynthia McKinney is seeking the Green Party's nomination for president. She can be reached through her website.