"Wypipo"

Until today, I'd never encountered that term before: "Wypipo" (ie: white people) -- a take on the unawareness of the dominant-colonist society. He he.

Well. It was said in connection with Standing Rock and how crazy the situation is getting there, with the tribal council apparently working with the feds to clear the camps and various elements within the camps being defiant.

Meanwhile, despite diktats from the White House, nobody in the bureaucracy quite knows how to proceed. Because of the EIS order from Obama's regime, the ACoE can't just issue the easement under the river on Trump's say-so. And yet they can't defy it outright. I don't know what they'll do.

Meanwhile, it appears (at least from drone footage) that the Company has proceeded anyway. Whether they've drilled under the river, who knows? I'd say it looks like they've gotten as close to drilling horizontally under the river as they can without being in technical violation of orders to desist, and once the go ahead is given, they expect to complete work within a few days. The statement that the pipeline will be in operation by "next quarter"  -- some time between April and June -- tells me that they expect the EIS process to be carried out but expeditiously. We'll see.

We get periodic but very sketchy reports of what's going on at Standing Rock. I can see now why we didn't get a heads up about the recent raid of the "Last (Lost/Little) Child" resistance camp up on the hill. Initial reports were somewhat overwrought. On the other hand, it seems relatively calm at Standing Rock compared to the chaos in DC and spreading over the country and the world.
-------------------------------------
Things are not going well for the Trumpists, and it won't end well. How it will end, I don't know. A few days ago, I gave this shit-show another month before the plug is pulled, but how that happens, I can't say. There are open calls for a military coup, which is what I thought could happen even before the inauguration. It still might. It depends in part on how out of hand things get in the streets. It also depends on when the OverClass decides they've had enough of this horseshit.

RefuseFascism, RevCom, various anarchist outfits and Black Bloc tactics may be in the vanguard, but the urge to revolution is not yet critical. The hysteria over a "Soros funded Color Revolution" waxes and wanes. The elements are mostly in place, and it could happen in a twinkling. On the other hand, if it does, we cannot expect the results to be all that beneficial to the Rabble.

So far, Trump's dictatorial effusions are causing both laughter and fear. He is attempting to rule as an autocrat, but he's finding out he can't do so, at least not the way he wants. However, I don't think the system of rule as it is can really cope with a would-be dictator like this one without imploding. Things are happening too fast and furiously. The institutional desire is to slow it down, and I don't think that's going to happen. If anything, we're facing a racing, out of control train.

Best to just get out of the way.

The bumpy ride continues...

The Stimulator Explains It All For You

I haven't linked to The Stimulator for a good long time, though I check in with him every six months or so. After the election he posted this little number (NSFW language and shit) that really helped explain what happened and what to do about it.



Then most recently, he's reposted a little effort from Global Uprising on the J20 actions in DC that were intended to disrupt the inaugural festivities...



These are some of the deeper currents of revolt in this country. They have not been able to gain more than momentary recognition from the public, and what recognition they get is typically bad. On the other hand, the "intersectional" nature of the growing revolt against Trumpism/Fascist USA has meant that even the most marginalized upriser may have a role to play in whatever is to come.

We shall see...

The Squeeze

After the coup fizzled out, it looked for a time like Our Betters were simply going to let things devolve under Trump however they might and say fuck it all. A reason why the coup may have fizzled out is that the factions have become too polarized and they have very different visions of what should come after The End. They couldn't agree on a path forward, the military didn't provide buy in, and the factions are too evenly matched power-wise for any of them to assert rule over the others.

So we get Trump getting more and more off kilter as the days go by -- how many has it been? two? -- and his defenders are flailing wildly to hold on to something solid before it all flies apart.

The Squeeze has taken the place of the Coup.

Maybe that's the better way to go, I don't know. If I had confidence that the golpistas had the best interests of the People in mind, I'd go with the Coup (reluctantly), but clearly they don't. It's all against all with them and we the Rabble are the Devil's Hindmost. But the coup-plotters seem to have given up on the project for now, so The Squeeze is coming into play.

Perhaps it's better because it is more populist. And it is closing in from all directions.

The Revolutionary Communist Party (RevCom, RCP, Bob Avakian's little pop stand) is in the vanguard -- of course -- and it makes me laugh a bit because they can't actually do a damned thing, but they're out there, and they're acting all radical and shit, and saying what has to be said: "We gotta stop this fascist shitshow once and for all."

Just putting it as bluntly as that can make a difference. Most commentators dance around the obviousness of what's going on, fearful perhaps that if things are what they look like, those who speak out will be caught up in the meatgrinder and their remains will be fed to the dogs. Yes, that's a real risk. And that's why, no matter how bizarre RCP is/can be (and there are times I don't know what they have to do with any political archeology or ideology, communist or not) their presence on the front lines can make a difference. Somebody has to do it.

RCP is out front. I would think the anarchists would be out there too, but apart from some Black Blocyness during the Inaugural Pageant, I haven't seen much anarchist involvement in the whole hoo-hah, "peaceful transition of power," yadda yadda.. It doesn't mean it's not there, I just haven't seen it, locked as I am in my prison of illness and disability. (Whine, whine). It's possible that anarchists are revving up for something else later on, but my sense is that they're essentially withdrawing into the shadows with perhaps occasional outbursts of Black Blocyness to keep the pot stirred. Survival mode.

Things aren't going to be pretty, after all.

No, the Squeeze isn't coming from the anarchists nor necessarily from the radical vanguard.

It's coming from a consolidation of domestic and international business and financial interests with the anti-Trump factions of the permanent government and from the rising and (more or less) genuine grassroots populist movement -- signified by the spectacular turnout for the Women's March -- on the other.

I don't think Trump will survive it -- but of course, he's pulled through many other efforts to kneecap him, so I'm not placing bets yet. It's risky for those involved, and there's no sign yet of what comes after.

If The Squeeze merely replaces Trump with Pence we're probably worse off than if nothing were done. But we might feel better about it. I don't know. I know I wouldn't, but that's me. I think a lot of anti-Trump activists would be much happier with Pence, though the anti-Fascists would puke. Myself, I'd prefer to see the entire cavalcade swept away, but I don't have much of a solution beyond that, either.

The inability to predict or describe what comes next is one of the chief impediments to action. I would think this was all gamed out long ago by the Ruling Clique, but apparently not. Signs are clear that they were not prepared, not even close, for what's happened. Thus so much wheel spinning.

We don't have an image of what comes next in part because we've been conditioned not to think that way. When people did think that way, we got utopian visions such as Communism, Fascism and Nazi-ism. I think Our Betters want to ensure that never happens again, so thinking through what comes next is almost impossible except for those with an apocalyptic frame of reference. No more utopias, in other words.

Trump was selling a different kind of dystopia, and enough people bought the snake oil to put him into the White House (if that's where he is, I kind of doubt he actually stays there. Not enough gold plate...)  But they're finding out it tastes awful and doesn't cure what ails them. It makes them sicker.

The media is part of The Squeeze, but note, plenty of formerly "progressive"ish websites among the New Media ("") have thrown in their lot with Trump, placing a bet that whatever happens under his rule, it will be better for them to be on the side of the winner than not. That will only work for them if he actually wins in the end. It's a calculated risk, of course, for the Internet as we've known it looks slated to go away sooner rather than later -- and that would be likely whether or not Trump were in the White House. Noncompliant as well as compliant websites and their proprietors are in the crosshairs no matter what. It really won't matter much whether a blog or website proprietor defended Trump or not. The point will be to stifle dissenting points of view and market only approved positions.

The coastal enclaves and their economic clout are part of The Squeeze. Trump ultimately can't do anything without them. And he's done his absolute best to alienate them.

Elements of the military and the MIC are part of The Squeeze. Of course the anti-Trump faction of the intelligence community is part of The Squeeze.

One of the more interesting factors of The Squeeze is that the professional bureaucracy that actually does the business of government is not just resisting, they're actively subverting many of his initiatives and desires. Not just saying "No," they're saying "Fuck you very much."

Oh my. Something like this happened with Reagan, too, but the bureaucrats were ultimately brought around, though it took quite some time and the Reaganites had to yield on many fronts before they were able to get their modified way. They thought they could just wave a wand and compel obedience. That's not how it works.

I don't think Trump will be given that kind of time to sort things out. And if the subversion is as extensive as it seems, he won't be able to mollify the resisters. Too many other things to do on too many other fronts.

The Squeeze is coming from the tech sector, the financial sector, as well as many other sectors which feel uneasy about the advent of this gross abuser in office, and it's coming from some who probably want revenge for some of his behavior in business. This is their chance.

Mob interest must be keen. Factions there, too.

Ultimately, it boils down to a popular revolt. All these interests and more will try to manipulate it, but we can't know in advance how it will turn out.

But recall that early on, the Trump defenders and loyalists were hyperventilating over some sort of Soros-funded Color Revolution their paranoias told them was under way when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets right after the "election."

There were millions in the streets on Saturday, and the color was pink pussy.

The hyper ventilating and paranoia was triggered once again. Soros! Soros! Soros! No doubt he and his money has something to do with the growing resistance, and maybe his idea is to underwrite a Color Revolution in the USofA. So? Not that I approve -- these Color Revolutions elsewhere have turned into disasters for the Rabble -- but when you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind, that's just the way it is. Trump opened this door, and if he doesn't like what's behind it, too fucking bad.

This might be a good time to post a link to Gene Sharp's directions on how to do a Color Revolution. 

Maybe the paranoia is justified as many of the elements Sharp says are necessary are in place.

Ahem.

There are alternatives. 

Take the Square provided the guidebook for Occupy -- one that's been expanded with lessons learned since then.

Peter Gelderloos' How Nonviolence Protects the State is a good and useful reference for understanding just what all those cries for "nonviolent resistance" really mean.

Then there's David Graeber's Revolution in Reverse which turns the whole Revolution!! theory on its head. There are other ways to do it, people. Think!

These are some of the alternatives to a Color Revolution, there are many others, and we really haven't seen anything yet.

I'll close this long-winded screed with the observation that the Internet is designed to overwhelm any likelihood of action. It is filled to bursting with entertainment, fear, uncertainty and doubt. It is made to hold your attention and keep you from doing anything about your situation and condition but submit to what you are told to do. Ie: send money to candidates, vote for one shit-show or the other.

Decoupling is necessary.

Be careful of falling into the propaganda and argument trap. You'll never emerge!

Onward.

The Problem With Presidents

So as far as we know, later this morning New Mexico time, Mr. Trump will approach the podium set up on the back steps of the Capitol in Washington and be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America, to the shock and horror of much of the population of those United States and the world.

W. T. F. America?

So far as we know, there has been no serious intervention that would prevent Mr. Trump's ascension to office. There have been numerous opportunities for intervention since he began his rise during the primary contests with however many rivals the Republican Party threw up against him.

He was a force of nature. Chatty and incoherent, insulting to any and all critics or rivals and ingratiating with his adoring fans, telling everyone he didn't care what they thought of him, he was going to plow on no matter, and he would win, like he always did in business. Just watch.

He ran as an entertainer, a clown, a vicious street fighter, a financial and sexual predator, a bully, a con man, a force of nature to be reckoned with or to yield to. There were no alternatives, at least none offered in his own narrative or that of the propaganda media.

Accept him as he is or reject him; it didn't matter to him, not in the least. He would win, you just watch.

Sure enough, come election night, the shocked and then resigned looks on the faces of the media talking heads told the tale. Though he was never ahead in the overall popular vote as reported, he got enough votes in the crucial battleground states to defeat Mrs. Clinton soundly in the Electoral College, "the only vote that matters."

Hm. Well, there you are then. For the second time in 16 years, the loser of the popular vote will ascend to the White House as President due to the clever Electoral College mechanism specifically designed -- they say -- to prevent this sort of thing from happening. "They say." In fact, the Electoral College ensures this sort of thing will happen more and more often as time goes by. But that's another issue for another day.

What I'd rather deal with today is the problem with Presidents and the Presidency in general.

We have an archaic system of rule that's largely based in the model of the 18th Century British Empire from which what would become the United States rebelled. The rebellion wasn't on behalf of abstract notions of "equality," "freedom," and "liberty," but for the specific purpose of ensuring the advantages obtained by a rising colonial aristocracy. Fine words were employed to support the cause, but in the end, only about a third of the colonial population -- some of the white ones -- supported the rebellion. Had the Crown and Parliament in London actually taken the matter seriously, it's likely the United States as we know it would never have come into being.

But that's as may be. It did come into being, and after some initial difficulty and some internal rebellions, it began to flourish.

The initial concept under the Constitution that was ratified and went into force in 1789 was that of a domestic empire ruled as a Republic by a qualified class of patriotic aristocrats. White Men (only) of Means, Reputation, and Eminence.

For a long time, I thought one of them was among my ancestors, but it turns out he wasn't. While we may share ancestors in common (I haven't found them if they exist), there is no direct relationship between descendants.  I was lied to.

The President is a somewhat anomalous position in that Republic. He (or maybe one day she) has vast powers -- exceeding those of any modern king or potentate, and in some ways exceeding those of 18th Century British monarchs, The President was to be constrained by the monetary appropriations of the Congress, the advice and consent of the Senate, and the rule of law as interpreted by the courts. Initially, the President was considered weaker than a monarch in most respects, but in others -- that is in his representation of the Nation -- he was more glorious than any Emperor.

As the role of the President evolved, however, the Presidency took on not just the trappings of autocracy but the reality of it as well, seen in stark relief during war time, and consolidated with relish during occasional outbreaks of "peace."

In fact, the United States government has engaged in perpetual war domestically and/or internationally for its entire existence, and this constant war-making has had a profound effect on the nature of the Presidency and the US Government as a whole.

Our rulers long ago set themselves up as a warrior caste -- whether or not they personally engaged in military action -- with an ever-varied list of "enemies" to be defeated. Our government runs on the principles of making war, as anyone who's been paying close attention or has had a close relationship with the federal government can recognize.

Behind the Warrior Caste is a Wealth Class, some of whom participate directly in the government, others stay in the shadows directing the government.

This has been the case for as long as there has been a government of the United States, and it isn't changing because Trump is to assume the office of President. He may have pretended to be a Warrior Caste member in his personal pageant, but for decades he's been a member of the Wealth Class who have the power to direct the government to their own advantage from behind the scenes.

This is why the pretense that he is "anti-establishment" is ludicrous. He IS "establishment" -- albeit part of a faction of the establishment that is generally considered contemptible and/or criminal. Nevertheless, it's always been a powerful faction, usually easier to accommodate than contest.

No one quite like him has been "elected" to the Presidency since Andrew Jackson, and the parallels with Jackson are not close enough to be particularly illustrative.

No, this is for all intents and purposes a unique -- and hopefully one-off -- experiment in direct rule by the Plutocracy.

It isn't just the President, the Congress, Courts and Statehouses of the nation are dominated by plutocrats, kleptocrats, and their agents as well.

They have some popular support -- as they have always had in national and state affairs -- but it isn't large, and as long as they have the power, the people's objections to their rule don't matter to them.

Until now, the presidency has been held by an heroic figure such as Mr. Washington, or Mr. Lincoln, or Mr. Eisenhower, or by an agent of the plutocrats, not directly by a member of the plutocracy/kleoptocracy.

But that's about to change, and many of those who celebrate it have no idea what kind of change is in the works.

In my view, this is the end-point of the Republic -- a Republic that was on life support anyway -- and there will be no going back. The experiment in self-government -- never perfected -- will end, either with a crash or a whimper, and that will be that.

The President will no longer be a genuinely powerful but ever-modest figurehead, he (or maybe one day she) will be what the office has always inherently implied: an autocrat, an Emperor in all but name, a divinity.

The Congress and courts and to a great extent the shadowy government of the Wealthy will do his bidding or feel his wrath. The People, the Rabble, will be cut loose to fend for themselves -- and be cut down if they get uppity -- or they will be patriotically "organized" and "coordinated" into Imperial support corps led by Himself.

White Supremacy will be restored to its rightful place in the National Mythology.

Too bad for those who don't fit the ideal.

Too, too bad.

The problem with Presidents and the Presidency is that this kind of authoritarian/autocratic and overtly racist rule has always been inherent in the position itself. I'm sure Mr. Trump will innovate in many ways, doing things we've never seen a President do before, but the nature of the position is such that he can do this with little or no interference from those vaunted "checks and balances." This power and authority has always been inherent in the position, but until now, certain formalities and traditions of the office have generally prevented their open expression.

Since 2001 (and actually before) those formalities and traditions have been under threat, and many have already been jettisoned. We entered an alternate political reality when GW Bush was installed in the Presidency lawlessly in 2001, and that alternate reality has only been reinforced and consolidated ever since. Mr. Obama, while seeming to be Mr. Modest in his rule actually carried on the processes that had been under way for quite a long time, and while he didn't adopt the trappings of an Emperor, he ruled like one where and when he could, and when he couldn't, he provided "Imperial Cover" for pretty much whatever the government's owners and sponsors wanted.

So here we're about to encounter the apotheosis of the Presidency, it's open transformation. There will be no going back.

I'm not sure the Nation can or will survive. A unified national consciousness --- and conscience --- has essentially disappeared.  There are regional and largely independent perspectives, but they conflict with one another to such an extent that there's little common ground between them any more -- if there ever really was. The only times they've come together, and then only temporarily, has been under the gun. Otherwise they fight one another.

A breakup into several semi-autonomous regional super-states is therefore somewhat likely to relieve the stress of the transformations to come. The secessionists in California, Oregon, and Washington see themselves as a vanguard for this breakup, and maybe they are.

But there are all sorts of potential consequences to the coming ascension of Mr. Trump to the Presidency. Once he is in office, an intervention is still possible but much less likely, simply because it's easier to go along with a New Boss than to fight him.

We'll see.

Opposition is pervasive, true enough, but I have no clue where it will lead.

More and more folks are waking up to the New Reality, and to my eyes, more and more of them are saying "No!" -- but it's too late to stop what's coming (oh, I could go on and on about what could have been done) and we'll just have to ride it out.

Or something.

Strap in; it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
---------------------------------------

Frankie Say:



(There are about eighty-eleven different versions of this, but this one seems to fit the mood of the moment....)

Coups, Revolutions, Civil Wars, and All the Rest

Yeah right. Whatever.

I'm getting sick of the threats from the Trump loyalists and defenders that if he is denied the presidency by legal or other means, there will almost certainly be a civil war. Revolution. Chaos. Yadda, yadda.

What crap.

Of course I've long made clear my preference that Trump not be allowed to ascend to the presidency, and I favor almost any legal or at least "acceptable" means to prevent it. There are plenty of mechanisms available, and a number of them appear to be in play at the moment.

I don't favor Hillary back in the White House, either. That, to me, would be a grotesque perversion and misperception of the will of the voters. The majority chose neither one, and that's the key to my understanding of what's to be done.

Trump defenders, of course, feel threatened and paranoid by the efforts under way to thwart the announced election outcome. You start listening to them and you realize they feel threatened and paranoid about most everything, particularly about losing their superior status.

Which they hope to reclaim through the agency of their Promised Redeemer, D J Trump.

Oh dear.

Now my Predict-0-Meter hasn't worked properly for a very long time, so anything I say about what might happen is to be taken with a barrel of salt, but still, the outlines of what could come have been sketched for many years.

Civil war and/or Revolution do not apply to the resolution of the disputed presidential (s)election.

Instead, what is likely to occur, should by some slight chance Mr. Trump be denied his ascension to the throne, is the installation of an "interim government" of military officers and technocrats.

They'd be called "Caretakers". Bless their hearts. Some high-ranking and broadly respected general would be the face of the interim government, but he would not necessarily rule. More likely the same Deep State/Shadow Government that's been in charge for decades would continue uninterrupted. The General would be there as a calming authority figure, much as Obama has been since his advent as Redeemer.

It's likely that the expressed plan would be to re-do the presidential election -- or maybe all elections -- in a year or so, but it wouldn't be surprising if elections never again take place (legitimately) above the local level.

Neither Mr. Trump nor Mrs. Clinton would be able to run for any office.

Candidates would be selected by committee. There would be no primaries. Their qualifications would include loyalty and obedience and the ability to keep a lid on revolt and resistance.

The likelihood of revolution or civil war is much less under such a coup and transfer of power, but the possibility isn't eliminated.

We'll see, won't we?

Resistance Art -- The Art of Resistance (or "Why don't you put a feather on it?")

Yesterday, I spent a good deal of time at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art in Santa Fe, a project/program of the Institute of Native American Arts -- where Ms Ché is now a student.

The whole place has a fresh-new feel and the art on exhibit is much edgier than that of the recent past or even longer ago (I can't recall offhand when I first visited the museum, but it's been years and years). Candice Hopkins is the new curator, and I'm sure it is her vision more than any other that has guided the re-vision of the exhibits at MoCNA, and that vision is one of continual resistance by Native people and particularly Native artists against the impositions of stereotypes and expectations.

Consequently, there is much resistance art on view. I wish I could illustrate this post with images from the exhibitions, but as a rule, MoCNA does not post many pictures of what's on exhibit, indeed, sometimes there are none at all.

What is "resistance art?" I supposed it depends to a certain extent on one's own perceptions of resistance. In order to arrive at a realistic definition, we may ask: "What or whom is being resisted, by what or by whom, and to what object -- if there is one?"

Many artistic forms and expressions can fall into the resistance category, even when the artist is not consciously trying to create resistance art. Among the most commonly recognized forms of resistance art is the poster highlighting a particular issue, rebellion or campaign. One of my all time favorites is "Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge" (El Lissitsky, 1919), propaganda art produced to help inspire the struggle against the White Russians in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (El Lissisky, USSR, 1919)

The poster, while intended as a populist statement regarding the civil war then under way in the nascent Soviet Union, is in fact constructivist fine art, one of the strongest examples of the genre. Very often, posters and other forms of resistance art are both populist statements and fine art simultaneously. There's no real dividing line between them. There is no way I know of to separate the fine artist from the populist rabble rouser and propagandist. When the cause is strong or just, the works emerge almost spontaneously from many sources, including the studios of fine artists.

In the case of the exhibits at the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, many of the pieces of resistance art are the works of honors students at IAIA or of alumnae of the Institute. Some of it is straightforward and in-your-face, some is subtly subversive. The point of much of it is the rejection of stereotypes of what "Indian art" is supposed to be as well as challenging expectations of who qualifies as an "Indian artist."  These seem to be constant themes within the fairly small Indian arts community, especially in Santa Fe and New Mexico in general where Indian art and artists have a very prominent position and role in the highly competitive art market.

On the other hand, much of the resistance art on exhibit at MoCNA deals with specific issues in the ongoing Native struggles for dignity and justice in the context of constant predation and expropriation by the dominant culture, whether it's war, poverty, abuse, abandonment, dispossession or what have you.

Indian artists fight stereotypes, and they also fight for what's right.

David Bradley, for example, has produced an enormous body of resistance (fine) art that mocks and disparages, indeed insults, the "Disneyfication" of Santa Fe in particular, the Southwest in general, as it molds and shapes everything to attract and please the tourists who flock to the region every spring and summer -- and the poseurs who settle in for the long term. Bradley currently has a major exhibit at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe. Resistance art that he did early on, collages of various "Indian" ideas and struggles, are on display at the MoCNA.

And example of one of his statements of resistance is his Land o' Fakes Museum Currency:

Virgil Ortiz has been creating subversive images of his re-visioning of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 -- translated into contemporary iconography -- for years. His vision is encompassing. He uses every bit of his talent, skill, connections and imagination to create what is becoming an enormous body of resistance art that focuses almost entirely on the most successful Indian resistance action in North American history.

Why would he do this? Isn't it just "style," "fashion," or "entertainment?"

I say no, not at all. Virgil uses the elements of the high-style and fashion world he once served in the Donna Karan studio in order to highlight something that's often forgotten about Indian history -- the Pueblo Revolt -- and to send a clear message to his high and mighty clients that it can come again.

In effect, he becomes a translator, an interpreter of the Revolt, both for the benefit of young Indians who might not otherwise find the events of so long ago interesting or relevant, and for the education of a clientele that instinctively believes they are the Masters of the Universe.

Virgil left New York and the high-fashion industry he'd been eagerly accepted into in order to return to Cochiti Pueblo where he was from -- something that was in and of itself an act of resistance and rebellion -- where he develops his re-vision and the themes of revolt and rebellion based on what happened to chastise and drive the Spanish out of New Mexico in 1680. An aspect of that re-vision was the Venutian Soldiers concept of 2012, which was -- I think -- the first gallery exhibit we attended after moving to New Mexico in 2012.

Venutian Soldiers c. 2012, Virgil Ortiz

Now wait. Surely this is not resistance art, it's some kind of wild-ass fashion statement, right? Actually, it's both. The "soldiers" depicted are the soldiers of a Pueblo Revolt of 2180, futuristic images of what may be to come based on what went before.

Virgil now has a major exhibit at the Denver Art Museum. 

Through similar images -- in ceramics, leather and fabric, paint, video and film, and whatever other materials and means Virgil decides to use -- a picture emerges of his vision that ought to give some of his expensive clients pause. I'm not sure it does because I still see some of them parading around Santa Fe in the Virgil Ortiz creations, many of which are the figurative equivalent of daggers and arrows to the hearts of those who wear them. It's all highly subversive but in a way that -- perhaps -- his targets can't understand at all, any more than the Spanish were able to comprehend what Po'pay and the other Pueblo rebels were up to in advance of the Revolt itself. They thought they knew... but they were wrong...

At the IAIA Scholarship Dinner Virgil and Rose B(ean) Simpson, presented a collaborative performance piece that took these resistance concepts several steps further, but I'm convinced most of those who saw it had no idea what they were seeing. To them, perhaps, it was something charming, even cute. But to others, it was as strong a statement of resistance to the status quo as had ever been presented in that context.

At the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, Rose and Virgil have extended their collaborative efforts with an installation of even more elements of the re-visioning and translation of the Pueblo Revolt theme. There are manikins wearing costumes Virgil created for his characters and also, importantly, ceramic "masks" for each of eight named characters in the  story of the Revolt (c. 2180). I put masks in quotes because they are more like three-dimensional head-shots rather than face coverings, though they are called masks in the exhibit. To me they are quite disturbing -- which is, I think, what they are supposed to be -- because they do not depict humans. They are from another realm altogether, and I'm not at all sure they are benign.... they wouldn't be, would they, if they were representations of the forces of a future Revolt.

But then, most of what's in the Redness exhibit is disturbing. Deliberately so. Resistance art? Absolutely.

Carmen Selam is a young artist whose work I was able to purchase at last year's IAIA open house. The piece I bought was a print called "Indian Red":

"Indian Red", Carmen Selam, 2014

I was immediately attracted to it because it is a piece of resistance art that comments on the mis-appropriation of "Indian-ness" for commerce and (Anglo) 'beauty.' Carmen has written very well about it on her website:

Throughout my indigenous life, I have lived with elements of racism over the duration of my existence. The misappropriated usage of Native American imagery can be seen as a metaphorical modern day scalping. There was once a time when gathering pigment for the earth was a long and arduous task. This pigment, carefully selected was used to make paint that we used in ceremony and on the war field. We gathered the elements from the earth that my ancestors were buried. It was honorable to wear paint, eagle feathers, amongst other things. However, these days, it is not the same. The scapegoat for blunt racism is often disguised by the cloak of one word: honor. Often times we are dishonored in the name of honor by non-natives appropriating our sacred motifs and regalia as Halloween costumes, sports logos, and corporate emblems. My piece Indian Red is a reflection of the idea that the pigment and color of our skin is seen as a commodity by the red-lipped, twenty-something, non-native hipsters, who don the plastic war bonnet and faux war-paint.

Resistance art? Of course. What else could it be?

There are many other Native artists whose work is on exhibit at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts and elsewhere in galleries and museums around the country and particularly the Southwest, much of it resistance art -- but some of it not.

There's a joke that goes around in the Indian arts community: "Oh, yer stuff ain't sellin'? Why don't you put a feather on it? That's what they like to see, you know?"

Yep.

That's what they like to see. They don't -- usually -- want their Indian stuff to bite, if you know what I mean. But what I've been seeing more and more of, encouragingly, is Indian resistance art flourishing in galleries and museums, where some of the wealthy and powerful might see it. Whether they understand it or not is another question. But it really doesn't matter.

What matters is that artists are once again rebelling and resisting the pressure to conform to stereotypes and expectations. Artist rebellions typically presage popular rebellion, and I think we're getting closer every day.

The Greek Thing

I haven't had much to say about the Greek Thing -- or that much of anything -- lately due to the fact that so much of the reporting about it has been based on rumor, insult, innuendo, and advice, not on whatever is actually happening at all.

Much of it is absolutely captivated with the sayings of various heavy-hitter-players in the drama with no particular interest in the consequences to ordinary Greek people -- who have been suffering mightily under the lash of a bunch of wilding Euro-Creeps, the men and women of the Institutions wielding the instruments of the financial torture of the Greek People on behalf of... whom? Who is profiting from all this suffering?

You know that somebody is.

Yesterday, however, was the referendum on the question of whether to accept the terms of the Euro-Creeps for more austerity which has been wrongly (deliberately wrongly) termed a "Greek Bailout." There's been no hint of a Greek bailout since the start of the crisis all those many years ago. The bailout, such as there's been one, has been of the banks that lent Greece money it couldn't pay back, and of the Titans of Europe, the Troika, the "Institutions" which made the banks whole and which are now demanding the Greeks make them whole on a bunch of loans that shouldn't have been made in the first place, most of them "odious" by any rational standard.

The referendum was considered to be running neck and neck right up to the point where the initial results came in showing a 60/40 No (OXI) to Yes (NAI) vote. It was not neck and neck, it was not even close. The pre-vote polling was wildly wrong, but that's been typical of the reporting too. The overwhelming sentiment among the Greek people is to reject -- in no uncertain terms -- the threats, ultimatums and harsh impositions from Brussels and Berlin and do what it takes to achieve a decent resolution to the crisis.

Brussels and Berlin are apparently not in the mood for a decent resolution, and they have never cared a whit about the dignity -- let alone the survival -- of the Greek People. The impasse remains. But the Greeks have finally taken matters far enough into their own hands that they have options they did not have when they were yoked tightly to the demands of their creditors putting the lives of ordinary Greeks in jeopardy, and the well-being of many Greeks in the toilet.

We'll see whether the Titans of Europe come to their senses. I doubt they will. Instead, they are likely to seek titanic levels of vengeance -- just as they have blustered and threatened all along. Defiance is to be punished. But the time comes when defiance, sustained defiance, is the right course, and all I can say for the moment is that the Greek defiance is a thrilling sight to see.

The Titans may not be tameable, but the Greeks have already gone far to undermining their authority and turning back the fear with which they rule. The gods will have to deal with their creatures in time, and that time is drawing nigh.

The Greeks just might save civilization one more time... or at least give it a boost.

The Revolution This Time -- Sheep vs Dogs

These young people who are leading the protests and demonstrations and the Movement against police violence, murder and impunity that is growing and spreading like wildfire around the country and now over parts of the world are truly impressive. They've shown themselves to be among the most clearheaded, determined, and able organizers and strategists that have arisen during our times of trouble (those times go back a long way now, don't they?)  and I have nothing but respect and admiration for them.

Occupy and its descendants are deeply involved with the current cycle of Movement building, disruption and dissent. It is in some ways more rebellious than Occupy's encampment phase was, but the Occupy element is taking a backseat to the young black and brown men and very many women of color who are the organizational motors for the current Movement. This is strategic wisdom, given the frequent complaints during Occupy's encampment phase that the Movement was overly solicitous to and dominated by white men -- who weren't necessarily God's Gift to Teh Revolution anyway.

And there was another thing too, which I worry about in connection with the current Movement: infiltration and subversion by agents provocateur and worse whose goal is and was disruption of the Movement and ultimately its destruction. In the case of Occupy, disruption was a daily occurrence, and it was fairly obviously a coordinated effort undertaken by agents of both the public and the private sectors.

Part of the problem with Occupy, of course, was that so many people were spontaneously attracted to the Movement, and there wasn't enough time for them to get to know one another, let alone for them to learn the intricacies of direct democracy, horizontalism, and to become grounded in the various strains of anti-capitalist and anarchist thought and philosophy that had given birth to Occupy as if from Zeus's Brow. There just wasn't time. The encampments themselves were difficult environments for this process to take place, and the massed police presence which lurked on the perimeters was not particularly reassuring. When the coordinated and frequently violent and destructive crackdowns came the Movement sputtered and the flame almost went out.

But it didn't go out entirely. Instead, it went underground where it spread essentially from hand to hand, among like-minded people who found one another through their mutual interests in building a better future, repairing the earth, and being kind to one another.

It's a beautiful thing. Occupy is now deeply integrated into hundreds of communities throughout the land and abroad. Those communities of mutual interest have spawned many more, in a very organic process of growth. In turn these communities are built on such strong foundations of mutual aid that an enormous effort like Occupy Sandy could spontaneously arise when the need was greatest and could provide succor and services to the survivors of the Hurricane that the traditional disaster relief institutions either couldn't or wouldn't. The tragedy of our failed institutions was overcome through the voluntary efforts of individuals working on behalf of a common cause.

The Occupy Movement has been building an alternative infrastructure to the more and more incapable, incompetent, corrupt and failed government agencies and private sector institutions that Americans previously relied on. We can't rely on government or the private sector, or on schools, charities, churches, police, the military or what have you to routinely do the right thing in the public's interest. Not anymore -- if we ever really could. There might have been a time when the public interests and the institutional interests were aligned, but those times have long since passed.

Over and over again, the People have learned that we cannot control the actions of government or the corporate sector which has captured the government, Not more than marginally and infrequently at any rate. Government governs contrary to the public interest as one of its fundamental principles, it seems.

And then there are the police.

Oh, the Po Po.

The problem of killer cops and their impunity has been around a long time, and the People have been objecting for just as long. In the past, the issue was localized, however. Individualized. Made into an aberration, attributed to the bad apples which any force will have, yada, yada, and it was difficult or impossible to build a movement around opposition to police violence and murder and their impunity.

It was commonly believed that the incidents were rare and that by and large, the victims "needed killing" anyway because of their behavior, their past problems with the law, their drug or alcohol use/abuse, their mental condition or disability, the color of their skin, their threatening gender, their supposed gang affiliation or their poverty and homelessness. If occasionally mistakes were made and someone who shouldn't have been killed was caught in the crossfire or was targeted erroneously, oh well. Too bad so sad. The courts would order a substantial payout to the survivors from the public purse and that would be that. Until the next time, and then the cycle would repeat.

This routine went on for years and years and years. The police would commit some atrocity or other, either of abuse or murder, there would be an outcry, the police would smear the victim(s) as deserving their sorry fate, there would be a cursory "investigation" which would almost always absolve the Brave Officers of culpability (because the abuse/killing would almost always be determined to be "justified," ie: within policy) and that would be the end of it.

Everyone knew the routine. No matter what they did, the police would not be held to account. Justice would not be done.

The protests and demonstrations against police abuse were highly localized. No one actually knew the statistics of police killings or the pervasiveness of police abuse. There were no comprehensive published data. People who were attuned or involved sensed the problem was widespread enough to be considered universal, but without firm data it was -- and still is -- difficult to show.

A catalyst was needed, and it came with the egregious police execution of James Boyd in Albuquerque in March of this year. Police helmet cam video of Boyd's execution was released by the APD as evidence of "justification" for killing him, but the public strenuously disagreed. The man was mentally impaired, harming no one, and he was surrendering when he was shot multiple times, bean bag rounds were then fired and a dog was set on his paralyzed and mortally wounded body. It was absurd. More than that, it was obscene.

Boyd was literally executed, with neither trial nor conviction, for "failure to obey" correctly and swiftly enough for his killers' satisfaction. That was it, period.

The public outrage was swift and the protests were intense, but it was all built on a long history of police abuse and murder of the innocent, on a well-known police culture of violence and brutality. Police in Albuquerque were out of control, and practically everyone knew it. The killings were frequent, often outrageous, and complaints and protests were already almost nonstop by the time Boyd was executed.

The outrageousness of Boyd's execution merely escalated the public outcry and protest against police misconduct and murder that was already underway.

There were large and sustained protests, the freeway through town was even shut down briefly in protest, and the police trotted out their military gear to suppress protesters with threats and teargas and grenades, in a rather striking prelude to the current episode of protest against police violence. Protests that spread nationwide after the egregious killings of Eric Garner John Crawford III, Mike Brown, Kajieme Powell, Darrien Hunt, and on and on and on and on and on and on.


This has got to stop.

It wasn't just that there was so much killing by police, it was also that the police were almost never held to account for their abuse and killing. Time after time, as the protests this summer went on, district attorneys and grand juries refused to find officers culpable in any way for their actions when they abused or killed citizens. As always, almost every killing and act of violence committed by police was deemed "justified" (ie: within policy.)

Meanwhile the dead pile up. A website called Killed By Police began tracking media accounts of police killings in May of last year. The numbers were startling. So startling, and so divergent from the "official" statistics put out by the FBI that many people refused to accept them, just as many news organizations continue to ignore them. As of today, the number of deaths caused by police since last May is up to at least 1,808. At least 1,050 have been killed so far this year. The statistics the FBI releases annually list "only" about 400 killed by police. This is not just an error, it's a gross error, and many think it is a deliberate undercount.

So far, Killed by Police is the only resource that tracks reports of police killings in almost real time. The statistics are horrifying; the annual death toll of civilians at the hands of police is greater than the death toll of soldiers in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, and we're starting to get an idea of how often civilians are assaulted and/or wounded by police in the US as well. The numbers are shocking: hundreds of thousands of assaults by police annually. Hundreds. Of. Thousands.

The police are engaged in war against civilians. There's no other way to put it.

It's a war in which the rules of engagement are simplicity itself: civilians must comply with police commands instantly or suffer the frequently lethal consequences; any Negro with a gun -- or thought to have a gun or other weapon -- is to be shot on sight. That is all.

Simple, direct and to the point.

According to the cult of police, civilians are sheep, the police are sheepdogs, and by definition those they kill or abuse are wolves, predators to be guarded against and killed. The problem is and has been that the police are killing a lot of "sheep" in their quest to protect the flock against supposed wolves.

The sheep have had enough.

They're not going to take it anymore.

They've risen up against the dogs that are harassing and killing them.

The police and those they serve are in a bind, to say the least. Note is made of the fact that the police don't serve the people, they serve their masters, the High and the Mighty, which until now have been content to let the police do whatever they want to civilians, kill them if they want, it doesn't matter to those the police serve, so long as the police don't interfere with or attack them -- and so long as the People, the sheep, don't rise up sufficiently for the High and Mighty to notice.

The prelude to the current nation-wide rebellion against the "sheepdogs" in Albuquerque this spring and summer demonstrated that the High and Mighty would be forced to notice. The Department of Justice released a scathing report against the Albuquerque Police Department's pattern and practice of violence, unjustified use of force, incompetence and unconstitutional policing. The city and police department have entered into an enforceable consent decree that reforms some of the department's practices and requires extensive reporting. There has not been a police killing in Albuquerque since August [see update below], though there have been a number of incidents which in the past would have led to summary execution.

Police killings continue in the rest of the country, many of them as outrageous as that of Tamir Rice in Cleveland. The protests against them have gained strength, largely through the efforts of those young people who have spearheaded the Movement since the killing of Mike Brown by Darren Wilson in Ferguson, MO, in August.

The protests have involved a growing array of Americans, from lawyers and medical professionals staging die-ins, to students walking out of schools, to professional sports players signaling their dismay with police conduct through various means like tee-shirts and "hands up" gestures. Even congressional staffers and DC city workers have walked off the job and expressed their sympathy with the protesters.

Tens of thousands march against police murder and brutality in cities all over the country. Over 600,000 Americans are said to have participated in the demonstrations last Saturday.

The protests continue every day. The Oakland, CA, police headquarters was blockaded for over four hours on Monday, vigils are held constantly,  traffic on freeways and city streets is brought to a halt by protests routinely, the all-important Christmas shopping season is disrupted, Chanukah this year is dedicated to the idea expressed everywhere in the protests: "Black Lives Matter." Jews and Muslims march together against police violence.

We may soon see Christian clerics saying "Enough" and joining the Movement.

Enough.

Stop the killing. Black lives matter. Stop. Cease fire. End the murder. End the madness.

The focus on Black lives is due to the fact that throughout the country, Black people have long been the main targets of police abuse and murder, and due to the fact that so many of those killed by police have been Black men who are instantly executed like Tamir Rice was or John Crawford. Police got word of a "Negro with a gun." That's all they need. Rice and Crawford were shot on sight, simply because of reports that they were armed and Negro. No other reason at all. And of course, like almost all cases of summary execution by police, their killers were absolved by DA/Grand Jury. The Brave Officers feared for their lives... they can't be held to account when they're so frightened. Right? As everybody knows. a Negro with a gun is an existential threat to all mankind. Right? Must kill on sight. Right?

Well, no.

The people say no.

The sheep are corralling the dogs.

The revolution this time is a revolution of conscience and consciousness. There is no resolution yet, but it will come. The pressure on authority cannot be resisted forever.
---------------------------------------------------------
[Re: Police killing in Albuquerque update. ]

 Last night, a man was shot and killed in Albuquerque by a Bernalillo County Sheriff Deputy. This was not an APD shooting/killing. BCSO has long had a better reputation for use of force -- at least in the field if not at the jail -- than APD, so this incident is something of a surprise, even an anomaly. Accounts of what happened differ of course, but apparently the deputy stopped a car driven by Adam Padilla for expired tags. His girlfriend was a passenger. After the stop, Padilla was allowed to go -- whether a citation was issued is not clear. Padilla was stopped by the same deputy shortly afterwards, and when he got out of his car to speak to the deputy, the deputy used a taser on him. At some point, the deputy claims that Padilla struggled with him, and the deputy believed Padilla had a gun and his life was in danger. The deputy then shot Padilla multiple times. When his girlfriend attempted to go to Padilla's aid, the deputy threatened to shoot her, too. Padilla was seriously wounded and was transported to the hospital where he died.

From what little has been said about the incident it's impossible to know why the deputy killed Padilla. But it was the first officer-involved killing in Albuquerque (but not New Mexico) since August.

The Crisis of Legitimacy -- Updated

Protests over police violence and lack of accountability have roiled the country since the repeated failures of prosecutors and grand juries to indict police officers for the murders and summary executions that they commit. The protests and demonstration in solidarity with #Ferguson and Michael Brown and Eric Garner are spreading abroad as well. The movement that has arisen since the issue of police violence and lack of official accountability became the paramount social issue of the year looks to be growing as demonstrations continue to disrupt the routines of the comfortable and authority seems unable to cope -- except with more violence against nonviolent civil disobedience and hunkering down to protect their fortresses. How striking it has been to witness the police giving free rein to vandals, arsonists, and looters in Ferguson and elsewhere while vigorously attacking and dispersing crowds of nonviolent protesters or simply forming protective cordons around police stations.

Governments all over the United States and much of the world are facing a crisis of legitimacy, as more and more of them unleash violence and murder on their own people and refuse to conduct their operations in the People's interests.

Most clearly and immediately, that refusal is manifest in the continuing refusal to hold police accountable for their murder and execution of unarmed citizens. But there is so much more: the refusal of the Justice Department to prosecute the horrifying crimes against humanity committed by agents of the US Government; the refusal to address the issue of disparate and racist "justice" in this country; the refusal to hold bankers and financial fund managers criminally liable for imploding the US and global economies, forcing millions upon millions of Americans into poverty; the constant brutalization of the innocent; the lawlessness at nearly every level and branch of government; the endless warring against phantom enemies, some of which are the direct creations of our own spooks; the everpresent and pervasive domestic spying... the list goes on and on.

The Crisis of Legitimacy is the product of all these things and more.

The Crisis of Legitimacy is the result of years and years of failed institutions, failed policies, and the absence of the rule of law.

It has come to a head with the current wave of #ShutItDown and #BlackLivesMatter demonstrations.

Everywhere we turn, the Powers That Be and their agents react to the demands of the People with violence and contempt. The protests only grow. The inconveniences only grow. There will be continued disruption until and unless the concept of "justice" -- real justice, not the pretend version that practiced today -- is restored.

At the same time, Authority is being de-legitimized. Police are routinely taunted and defied. Elected officials -- when they aren't hiding behind their barricades -- are rudely dismissed as corrupt and incompetent. The school administrators cannot keep students in class. Teachers join in the demonstrations.

And still, those in power insist that there's nothing they will do or can do to correct the legal, social, and economic injustices that they have fostered and that the People are now calling to account. There is nothing they can do but to crackdown even harder on dissent.

As they do, their legitimacy evaporates. The "mandate of heaven" -- the right to rule -- is withdrawn.

That's what's happening now.

Solidarity!
-----------------------------------------
UPDATE: The Tipping Point, it has come:

Today on the Capitol steps, congressional staff reminded us that #BlackLivesMatter. Proud to lend my support. pic.twitter.com/J5uuJgXNKj
— Nancy Pelosi (@NancyPelosi) December 11, 2014

It is now virtually impossible for police and DAs to continue absolving killer cops from culpability and accountability.

It will nevertheless continue until and unless the financial costs of doing so become too onerous...

Solidarity!

Not Quite Ready

Saw some of the Shut It Down actions in New York via JamesFromTheInternet's livestream last night, and I was impressed by the size of the crowds -- estimated at 15,000 or more --  by the time I had to head to bed. This is good.

However.

The decision to hold off on Shutting Shit Down until after the workday ended for many/most New Yorkers is somewhat puzzling. The police themselves shut down the Brooklyn Bridge and other sites to prevent the protesters from doing so. And the police have adopted tactics that split the crowds of marchers and protesters into numerous rather easily controlled elements which they then lead either in circles or into dead ends, causing a kind of "natural dispersal."

NYPD is skilled at these tactics. They used them against Occupy as well. They work to dissipate the energy of crowds of protesters and limit the effectiveness of actions. So far, it appears that demonstrators in New York have not found successful countermeasures, though it's obvious that they are aware of the tactics used against them.

Meanwhile I was catching up on some of the actions in St. Louis and watched an archived video shot by Rebelutionary_Z at Webster University in Webster Groves. A contingent of students gathered and marched on campus (one I'm somewhat familiar with, though obviously it's changed in the last 30 years), police and campus security in the lead. This happened at St. Louis University one time too. All of a sudden the march stopped and confusion reigned. Something had happened. There were outbreaks of anger, police lines were formed to prevent resumption and progress of the march, and there was considerable tussling in the crowd as they attempted to find out/figure out what was going on.

Eventually, the cause of the disruption became known. Someone had been arrested at the back of the march. It was one of the banner-carriers, a banner that reads "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" -- a quote from Martin Luther King, Jr. This banner has been used in a number of actions and demonstrations in the St. Louis area.

According to reports from witnesses, the arrest had been a "snatch and grab" -- another anti-protester tactic widely used by police these days, and often seen during G-20s and other Big Gatherings of the Mighty, as well as during Occupy's hey-day in the public eye. "Snatch and grabs" are a form of kidnapping in which putative leaders are targeted by police and removed suddenly, often dramatically dragged away by a phalanx of police. Other times, random protesters are similarly targeted and dragged away. Almost always, the only pretext for the arrest of these individuals is that they are strategically placed where the effect of their kidnapping/detention will have the greatest impact on the crowds. This is a link to a video of a similar kind of police action in San Francisco during the #Ferguson protests in which a man who vocally challenged an officer is suddenly grabbed and thrown down, arrested basically for mouthing off. It is a nasty and ought to be an illegal tactic, as charges against snatch and grab victims are rarely pursued. The point is to disrupt and discourage the protesters, and it often works.

It worked in Webster Groves in that the march on campus immediately stopped and the participants then spent twenty or thirty minutes wondering what was going on and/or arguing with police. Eventually, the police said that the man who had been arrested would be released on no bond, provided that the crowd abandoned the march and dispersed. They did so.

Whether the man was ever released, I don't know, but I read this morning about another incident that demonstrates the level of contempt police have for those who are engaged in protest against police violence, and the lengths they are prepared to go to stifle dissent.

Yesterday, a member of the Ferguson Commission who attended a meeting with the President at the White House on Tuesday was arrested by St. Louis Metropolitan Police and charged with assault for his participation in an action at St. Louis City Hall. This was clearly a targeted arrest aimed at intimidating the young man, Rasheen Aldridge, Jr. He's been very vocal about the issue of police abuse in St. Louis, and has participated in numerous demonstrations since the killing of Mike Brown in August. He's also received a lot of press and media coverage, especially after he was appointed to the Ferguson Commission.

His arrest comes on the heels of the failure of the St. Louis County Grand Jury to indict Darren Wilson for killing Mike Brown and the failure of the Staten Island Grand Jury to indict Daniel Pantaleo for killing Eric Garner in July. It's worth noting (again) that the man who recorded the video of Eric Garner's take-down and arrest, Ramsey Orta, the man who provided the video proof that Pantaleo used an unauthorized chokehold in the take-down, leading directly to Garner's death, was indicted by another Staten Island Grand Jury on unrelated weapons charges, and his wife was arrested shortly thereafter. 

The issue here is the tactic of "making life miserable" for troublemakers. It's a tactic widely by police and Authority in general to silence dissent.

These are not random incidents or coincidences, these are dissent suppressing tactics on full display.

Even the appointment of commissions and meetings at the White House are strategic elements in a cynical campaign by Power to curb and disrupt dissent, protest, and uprisings of all kinds.

They work.

These tactics can be countered, and the disruption of protests and other actions can be thwarted, but it doesn't appear that the organizers of some of the current protests and actions are attempting to do so. I don't know whether it's a strategic choice to let events unfold as they will, or it is a lack of preparedness to counter the kinds of disruptions the police are engaging in.

My sense is that we are still in the "precursor" stage of a potential rebellion and revolution. Activists and Americans in general are not quite ready...

It could be decades before they are "ready." We won't know the day, the how, or the why until it comes.

Albquerque City Council Shut Down Again [CORRECTED]

Tumult at the Albuquerque City Council -- pic from Monday's meeting which was shut down by protesters

A delegation of Albuquerque's people once again shut down the City Council last night at their special meeting to make up for the one on Monday that was shut down by the same people's delegation.

I was surprised when I saw it happening on the livestream, because I expected the activists to be polite and to follow the new rules -- which prohibited the display of signs and banners at the podium and limited public comment to 2 minutes each, among other things.

The public remained polite throughout the council's special business (they were meeting as a committee of the whole rather than the Council per se) and when the public comment period commenced, most speakers were very polite, almost baroque in their politesse toward the Councilors (oh yes, they know how to play this game).

And then David Correia was called upon to speak, and tumult and uproar ensued. Ken Sanchez, the President of the Council, gavelled the meeting into recess (he said for five minutes, but it was less than two) saying "This meeting is out of control!" and the councilors left the chambers while activists took over.

When he returned, Sanchez found that the tumult hadn't abated a bit and declared the meeting adjourned. (I'm sure someone can dig into the formalities of it all, but I don't think that meetings can be adjourned without a motion and a second.)

There was a full City Council special meeting scheduled for 8pm but as far as I could tell, it didn't happen.

[NOTE: This posting was based on what I saw on the Abq city council livestream last night. It was labeled "live" but it was actually an archived video. It was a replay of Monday's debacle, which I had not previously seen, so I didn't recognize it as having run previously. No archived video of the Monday meeting was  available when I checked previously. Mea maxima culpa, for not being up to date on what was being shown.]

I noted that despite all the news cameras that were there, and the fact that the meeting was taking place during local or national news broadcasts (I was watching NBC, for example, and a fairly extensive report on Monday's shut-down, including an interview with David Correia, was aired just as public comment at last night's meeting began), there was no local teevee coverage of last night's shut down of the 5pm council meeting. How interesting.

None of the mainstream outlets -- whether print or television -- have so far even mentioned it, despite the fact that they were clearly in attendance.

Interesting indeed.

Even La Jicarita -- David Correia's news blog -- doesn't have a story up about last night's tumult yet. I can understand, somewhat, why there wouldn't be anything new at the Jicarita site, in part because of Correia's pretty intense media interview schedule of late, but no news at all, anywhere, is somewhat bewildering.

What I saw last night on the city's livestream was that the audience appeared to be mostly made up of anti-police abuse activists, ones that those interested in the topic have come to know relatively well. I saw many of them at the DoJ community meeting I attended, and the same ones have been active against the common "shoot first" culture of APD for a LONG time. These people are not amateurs. They know what they are doing, and causing disruption of this sort is a necessary tactic when the forces against which they are aligned refuse to budge.

The members of the audience held signs and chanted before the meeting began, but once Sanchez began the meeting, the signs were put away and the audience quieted. The proclamations and such that were on the agenda were taken care of, and the floor was opened to public comment.

Ken Ellis (whose son was killed by APD as he put a gun to his own head) was called, but he deferred to another who spoke eloquently against police violence, and so it went. One after another, people spoke in near unanimity about the pressing need to rein in police violence in Albuquerque. One man explained the moral duty the council had to do something about it, and deplored the fact that they hadn't done anything.

He was asked by a councilor to tell them what should be done, and the man said that he'd shared his opinions extensively with the DoJ and he couldn't possibly list all the things the council should be doing under the time constraints of the rules. Another councilor stated that not one of his constituents had ever told him that they agreed with the man's position. This led to a good deal of booing the audience and the suggestion that he'd probably never spoken with anyone who didn't have lots of money. He denied it, but it's probably true.

One speaker mentioned that once again, the same councilor "wasn't listening", he was looking at his I-Pad throughout public comment. And as he'd done before the councilor (whose name I won't bother to look up right now) showed his laptop screen (it wasn't an I-Pad) and said he "was reading the DoJ Report" while listening to public speakers. I thought I heard someone in the audience call out, "Liar!" but I can't be sure.

Other speakers brought up specific suggestions of what the council could and should be doing to rein in police abuse, and pointed out they'd done nothing. If a video is posted, I'll try to review these suggestions. They were made by one of the members of the Police Oversight Commission -- who resigned in disgust when the City Attorney and the City Administrator essentially made their jobs impossible by interpreting the ordinance that established the Commission "contrary to the plain language" of the ordinance and told them their only function was to agree with the Independent Review Officer who was charged with looking into police abuse complaints and had never found any to be justified. Ever.

One speaker very politely ended her comment with the subtle chanting of "No justice, no peace... no justice, no peace" -- a chant taken up by other members of the audience in such a low-key and quiet manner that I'm sure some of the councilors saw it as a threat.

When David Correia was called to speak, he began in a relatively low key manner, but he became more and more strident, making demands and calling for the people's arrest of the police chief. When Sanchez told him his time was up, he said he wouldn't stop speaking because the council wasn't listening to the people, and it was time the people held their own People's Council. Others joined in, threw papers into the air and that's when Sanchez said the meeting was in recess, and then, when the people would not sit down and shut up he called it adjourned.

It was quite a show. In my view, this sort of theater and disobedience, the discomfort and discommoding of the comfortable and complacent is necessary for there to be change of the kind called for here when the police and establishment insist they need to make no change and refuse to do so, as has long been the case in Albuquerque.

It's not that no one in office cares, it is that no one who can do anything about the appalling and bloody behavior of the police will do anything. Instead, they routinely divert, deny, and distract.

For its part, APD has been increasing the death rate under its guns, not ratcheting it back, and the police spokespeople have been nothing if not disputatious and defiant in the face of DoJ and international criticism of their behavior and killer culture.

Much of the media has become alarmed enough about the situation that they have taken to calling names and ridiculing the protesters as if they were somehow alien intruders who needed a lesson in deportment and courtesy, completely ignoring the fact that APD keeps right on killing people. This is the problem with the council, mayor, police chief, city attorney, district attorney, and city administrator as well. APD keeps right on killing and killing more frequently, all these city officials and much of the media take the opportunity before them to denounce and criticize the protesters not the police.

They claim they've criticized the police already, and they are "working on" reforms, but the people have heard that before, many times before, and nothing changes. The killing goes on and on and on, with the same official response or lack thereof.

Over and over and over again.

So the objective now is to make it impossible for the status quo to continue any longer. To shame the police, the council, the mayor, the police chief, the city administrator, the city attorney and the district attorney in as many ways and as frequently as possible. National and international attention is being brought to their failings -- and to the spiraling death rate from police gunfire in Albuquerque.

Many of those involved in the demonstrations have declared their willingness to go to jail over the issue, and the sight of them being dragged away is sure to raise even more antagonism and animosity toward Official Albuquerque.

So far, arrests have only been threatened.

The basic issue is that Official Albuquerque is digging in its heels or spinning its wheels while the killing continues unabated. They speak airily about "reform" but do nothing. They insist the protesters are the problem while people are being shot down again and again and again in the streets. Police violence has got to stop.

It's that simple.

And the people who are taking over the city council meetings will not relent until police violence is stopped. It's been a long battle already, but it looks to be reaching the climactic phase.

I wish them well.
----------------------------------------------

David Correia's statement to the Council which he read on Monday night, and partially read at Thursday's special meeting.

------------------------------------------------
CORRECTION!!!: There wasn't a city council meeting last night. It wasn't shut down again. I misconstrued an apparent livestream on the city video feed (labeled as "live") as a an actual, happening now, live event. It was instead a replay of Monday's aborted meeting. The actual live stream is going on right now. Lesson learned.

I hope!

Not All Revolutions Are Worthy of Our Support

The Maidan in Kiev, Jan 2014, before the explosion

And (so-called) progressives and leftists are fools to support the ones under way or recently manifested. Some of these uprisings and revolts are rightist, reactionary, counter-revolutionary, corporatist, globalist, and deeply contrary to the People's interests and well-being.

This sequence of reactionary, rightist, crypto-Fascist uprisings seemed to get going in Cairo last year when tens of thousands, and then reputedly millions, turned out in Tahrir Square and elsewhere in Egypt to denounce and demand the end of the elected Morsi regime. When Morsi refused an ultimatum from the military, the military removed him, by main force, and when Morsi supporters gathered in the squares of Egyptian cities to protest this clear violation of the democratic process, the military mounted snipers on rooftops to shoot into the crowds of protestors -- something that Morsi didn't do in the face of the protests against him and his rule.

When the snipers weren't able to adequately control the protests against the military coup in Egypt-- a "coup" by any other name, since the "world community" (ie: the United States government) refused to call it a coup -- the golpistas sent in the infantry and armored transport (otherwise known as tanks) and massacred hundreds and then thousands of Morsi supporters, massacred as many as it took to kill the protests against the coup, but the protests wouldn't die. Thousands, then tens of thousands of survivors of the massacres were arrested, disappeared, many were tortured, and still the protests would not die.

Institutional Failure and the Rise of the Rebel

I've been pondering the situations in Ukraine, Venezuela, Thailand, Bosnia, and so many other places where neo-Fascist uprisings are underway with the full support, let it be said, of the EU and the US Government and its dozens of "democracy" NGOs, as well as the no doubt abundant collaboration of our amazing and ever-so-patriotic black ops and security apparats. Not to forget our ever-eager propaganda media spreading lies and half-truths in order to shape American opinion in favor of these neo-Fascist led crises.

Why is this happening now, I wonder, and why is it so easy to bamboozle the masses to accept this bullshit as the genuine rise of the People? Why is it so easy for the propaganda media to evade the whole issue of the violence inherent in all of these revolts and pretend they are all "peaceful" and "innocent" and that they are being brutally attacked by corrupt, tyrannical governments? Never mind that these governments were, by and large, elected and are not behaving tyrannically in any relative or rational sense at all.

I saw Zbigniew Brzezinski on Charlie Rose last night night before last [this post has been in the hopper for a while, and will continue being edited...] prattling like the bitter old man he is about the Ukrainian Thing and going off into fantasies of Russia as Putin "wants it to be." His imagination is obsessed with Russia and "containing the Soviet Union," for in Putin he sees a reincarnation of Stalin and  the reassembled and reestablished Soviet Union, something that the Free World must prevent or destroy at all costs. The Ukrainian Thing has nothing to do with Ukraine, in other words. It's all about preventing the rise of the New Stalin and his perfidious reestablishment of the Soviet Union and its Empire of yore.

The man is mad. The man is out of his frigging mind. He's old and he's bitter and his hatred for Russia and the Russian people knows no bounds. He won't rest until the Russian state is no longer even a remnant of its Imperial and Soviet extent. He won't rest until it is gone altogether, shattered into a thousand pieces, in ruins and destitute. He is our Cato the Elder, I guess, screaming out: "Russia delenda est!!!" every chance he gets.

The horrible thing is that our remnant governmental institutions and much of the corporate sector that owns them believes this shit even more fundamentally than Brzezinski himself does. He's almost mild and sane compared to them. This is one reason why we have been inundated with such relentless and bloodthirsty propaganda about the the troubles in Ukraine -- but have heard and read so little about the almost identical uprisings elsewhere.

It is yet another instance of institutional failure on a massive scale and yet another instance of how the vacuum is filled with madness, brutality -- and wherever possible, with rebellion.

The insane fantasy that Russia under Putin is somehow seeking to re-create and re-assemble the Soviet Union, and Putin himself is trying to become The New Stalin has been driving much of American foreign policy in the region for as long as Putin has been on the political scene in Russia. Anyone who's not the drunk but compliant Yeltsin, in other words, is seen as a threat to be contained and/or overthrown, the sooner the better. The Global Hegemon will not be content with anything less than submission, abject, full and willing.

Our government has never gotten beyond its fantasies of the Soviet Union, and many of our institutions are similarly locked in combat with something that truly never was -- the great and powerful monster they think it was and believe it still is.

And that's why Ukraine is being torn apart by the EU and US. Rent as fully asunder as, oh, say Yugoslavia was, or as the Soviet Union itself was under Yeltsin, back in the day. Our failed institutions, locked in the past, are still fighting the subversive and hot wars they dreamed about winning during the Cold War.

This can be nothing but insanity.

As insane as the behavior of these failed institutions is, it doesn't mean that the rebellions themselves entirely lack legitimacy. As I've said in other posts, people under oppression have a right and duty to rise up against their oppressors. That should be a given.

The question is, do these rebels represent the genuinely oppressed? And what, ultimately, do they want?

In Venezuela, the fact that the people rising up are not oppressed is starkly obvious. The rebels are almost entirely composed of los ricos or their wannabes. They are often blonde, well-dressed, well-coiffed, well-housed, and well-educated. They are the upper crust of Venezuelan society, and they want their power back. They resent being ruled by the Lower Orders, people they consider to be "salvajes"  and "animales" -- people only fit to be ruled, not to rule over los caballeros themselves. The very idea of it, ptui!

These class and race divisions giving rise to rebellion in Venezuela are very stark and obvious as they have been throughout the Bolivarian Revolutionary period under Chavez and Maduro, and as they have been throughout Venezuela's history since it was settled by German immigrants under Spanish rule. Of course they want their power back. They believe it is their right. Democracy? Piffle!

The anti-Bolivarian propaganda in this country has been strenuous and relentless since the establishment of the Bolivarian Revolution in the late '90s. When there was a coup against Chavez in 2002, American media, led by the New York Times, exploded with joy and rapture. Unfortunately for the celebrators, the coup only lasted a couple of days, and Chavez regained his presidential palace to continue on the path he'd set -- toward ever more democracy and social justice, something populations in Latin America had long yearned for, yearnings long thwarted by institutions established to prevent the rise of the People. Ever. Institutions that were enabled by the Spanish, by the governments that won their independence from Spain, and not much later by the United States government which took charge of the Hemisphere as its own private backyard empire.

The Bolivarian Revolution reversed the power structure of Venezuela, putting the long oppressed majority in charge and curtailing the power of los ricos to rule over them. A rather mild version of social and economic justice was instituted. The rich were not deprived of their wealth -- at least not entirely -- only their power over the state, power which was reserved to The People as a whole.

The uprisings of the rich against that state of affairs have been ongoing for close to two decades, and they have often turned bloody. The state, under Chavez and Maduro, has been remarkably tolerant of the mischief made by the rebels, essentially declaring an amnesty for the rebels time and again, in an apparent effort to include them in the Revolution. The burden the rebels are attempting to throw off does not appear to be that of genuine oppression, for it is difficult to find any significant effort to oppress the rich in Venezuela or to confiscate their wealth, or to silence their voices, or to interfere significantly with their ways of life. The burden the rich in Venezuela seek to throw off is a psychological one, the burden of their own sense of powerlessness -- though they are not truly powerless in the Bolivarian system at all, not any more so than anyone else is truly powerless.

One of the remarkable features of the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela is the widespread use of direct democratic councils through which Venezuelans of all classes are empowered, and by which the country has been able to progress in the interests of all the people, not just a few.

And it is that very empowerment of the whole people as well as the extensive provision of basic housing, healthcare, education, and justice for all that the rebels seek to eliminate and destroy. When they talk about Maduro's "exit" they're talking about overthrowing the entire Bolivarian system and remaking Venezuela into a version of what it used to be, putting the closed sign on the institution of People's democracy and ending such frivolous nonsense as social and economic justice once and for all.
--------------------------------------------
Now that the Ukrainian uprising has apparently succeeded in driving out Yanukovych and ending his rule (though it's not entirely certain), rebels in Caracas are no doubt encouraged. If they can only turn the military and police away from Maduro's government, they're home free, yes?

How might they do that?

Money talks, as we've been seeing in almost every corner of the globe, every aspect of life.

The rule of money, the failure of institutions, and the rise of rebels are all tied together. This year may well turn into one for the books.

[Events have intervened to cut short this post, though I'm sure it's quite long enough!]

The New Model Color Revolution

Ukraine's elected president has fled the capital and the government in Kiev, to the extent there is one, is in the hands of a parliament and rebels -- as well as, perhaps, the security services.

The New Model Color Revolution is on the march.

Whether this revolution will be consolidated or not remains to be seen, in part because it was apparently triggered and engineered by American and European economic and political interests in collaboration with a wide range of Ukrainian dissidents -- including neo-Fascist and Nazi groups.

Just yesterday, Polish and German representatives worked out an agreement with Yanukovych to restore the 2004 constitution and to hold new elections by December. In addition, all the armed groups were to turn in their weapons and stand down. A new Interior Minister would be selected. The police would not assault or harass protesters. Apparently, Putin told Yanukovych to agree. So he did.

And I wouldn't be surprised if immediately after this agreement was initialed, the new Interior Minister told Yanukovych that he could not count on the loyalty of the police or the troops, that for all intents and purposes, his rule was at an end.

Momentarily, the parliament voted to impeach Yanukovych, and he fled for the east, perhaps seeking Russian protection, but at this point, it's probably too late for that, as Yanukovych has shown himself to be, shall we say, somewhat inept in dealing with the uprising he's had in his midst for the last several months.

While this uprising has utilized some of the attributes of Gene Sharp's Color Revolutions as well as Occupy, the protests in Kiev have been very violent, with many hundreds injured over the last several months and dozens killed. Police have been routinely assaulted with firebombs and other weapons, and until the other day, they were unarmed and did not respond in kind.

However, it is my understanding that Putin was not happy with the weakness Yanukovych consistently showed in the face of the protests, and told him to man up and crack down. When he did so, it led to even more bloodshed, fires in the square and even more people protesting, which led to the "diplomatic" of the Poles and Germans at the presidential level, which essentially sealed Yanukovych's fate.

There are some indications that a civil war is possible, but with the military and police no longer loyal to Yanukovych, and with the parliament expressing its loyalty to the rebels, the likelihood of civil war is diminished. What happens from this point will depend, in large part, on how magnanimous the rebels are toward the ethnic Russian population.

Under German banking and Eurozone financial control, Ukraine will more than likely be subjected to Greek style austerity -- something Yanukovych was trying to avoid. The Greeks have risen up many times against the crippling, indeed killing, austerity being imposed on them by their German and Eurozone masters, but to no avail. Whether Ukrainians will be as ineffective in resisting the measures they will face as clients of the Germans and Eurozone financiers as the Greeks, Spanish, Portuguese, Italians and so many others have been remains to be seen. But I doubt they will be able to mount a serious defense.

The question of whether Russia will assert some sort of hegemony under the circumstances is still open. I doubt Russia will intervene more than symbolically. More likely in my view, Russia will attempt to strike a deal that enables a quasi independent Ukraine under German and Eurozone financial control, perhaps with a semi-autonomous Russian district.

If anyone in the region is politically skilled, it's Vladimir Putin. And it's clear Putin is disgusted with Yanukovych.

This New Model Color Revolution will no doubt be spreading, sooner rather than later, and there is little sign the results will be positive for the vast majority of humanity.