We got home from our day with visitors in Santa Fe the day before yesterday, turned on the TV to find out what was going on with The Voice (Ms. Ché's favorite won), only to witness several interruptions due to the ongoing protests inside and outside the Albuquerque Convention Center where Trump was holding forth the way he does before a crowd of frothing supporters.
People were outside driving around in cars and trucks waving Mexican flags of all things, and surely that was riotous. Tear gas was being deployed. Horse police were moving the crowd of protesters away from the Convention Center, and resistant women were being kicked and hauled out of the rally by police and private security to the cheers of the mob inside.
Oh it was a melée.
A good deal of the reporting on the Albuquerque Anti-Trump Riot later turned out to be false or inaccurate, but that's how it goes, doesn't it? My initial impression from the selection of video I saw was that that there was no riot (of course), and that those who were protesting most vigorously were not Bernie supporters (as they were initially being characterized) but were most probably part of Albuquerque's substantial anarchist community.
This is what they do, and they are good at it. It's not so much "riot" as it is confrontation with Power, and it can be very effective -- because in this country, Power is typically so out of touch with The People that almost any hostile confrontation will produce results. You can't always anticipate what they will be, but you can be almost certain that something will happen to delegitimize Power's authority.
So, that's why these things typically happen, and it seems to me from observations over years that the folks in Albuquerque who engage in this kind of disruptive confrontation know what they are doing and are pretty darned sophisticated about it.
There were people strategically placed inside the convention hall disrupting Himself's speechifying, doing it in a way that would incite Trump to behave badly, and I think they were partially successful in that -- though I saw very little of the confrontations, and it could be that Trump and his partisans bested the protesters inside.
Based on what I saw and read, the outdoor protests were both more confrontational and ultimately more effective --because they not only made their Anti-Trump points, they also pointed to the failures (once again) in the APD's response.
I read that APD was actually behaving much better in response to the "riot" than they have in previous confrontations with protesters. In a sense, that's true I suppose, but in other ways, you've got to wonder. The report I read in the Albuquerque Journal went on and on about how the protesters threw rocks and "urine bombs" (right, sure) and "molotov cocktail-like" devices (what the hell is that supposed to mean?) and how the police and their horses had been injured, and how awful it was and how This Must Not Stand! -- heads (of protesters) must roll. Pictures of likely suspects were shown (two young Hispanic males, ohhh scary).
OK.
The police, it turns out, did not use tear gas -- as was erroneously initially reported they did. No, they used smoke grenades. Oh. Never mind then. And yes these grenades were thrown or kicked back at police, a fairly standard response these days.
The horse police were deployed, yes, but not particularly effectively, partly because people are becoming less afraid of the horse police and are very sympathetic to the plight of their mounts.
One horse apparently fell. Not severely injured, but still. I've seen this happen in other confrontations, the officer on the horse unable to handle it carefully enough to prevent a fall on the pavement. This is one reason horse police should not be used on pavement, but who listens to me? Heh. The case can be made that horse police should not be used at all, but I've seen enough confrontations where the presence of horses defuse what might otherwise become an ugly situation, so I wouldn't go so far as to say, "no horses." At least not yet.
At least there seems to have been a recognition that the crowd of protesters was not on the whole -- maybe not even in part -- a Bernie crowd. It was apparently made up of mostly young, mostly male, mostly Hispanic activists who were protesting (rightly I believe) Trump discriminatory statements (which could turn into policies) toward Hispanics, Muslims and other "undesirables" whom he has a penchant for calling "criminals."
You know what? Protesting that kind of crap is necessary, and to be effective, the protests have to be disruptive and impolite.
Trump won no points except among his feverish supporters who would follow him no matter what he said over any cliff he wanted them to. He could not have come to New Mexico thinking he could get away with his anti-Hispanic schpiel. This ain't Texas. Thank you very much.
So this might be part of why the Anti-Trump "riot" in Albuquerque did not get the obsessive wall-to-wall coverage that the Nevada Democratic Convention did -- wherein the Bernie supporters were widely and falsely accused of violence. The Anti-Trump Riot in Albuquerque did indeed become disruptive and at times violent toward Power and Authority. There was one report I saw that claimed the high windows over the doors to the Convention Center were "cracked" by rocks thrown! Yeek.
Just remember, the point is to delegitimize authority and disrupt business as usual. I'd say that goal was accomplished. How much further this can go I don't know.
But it's completely different than what went on in Nevada.
Showing posts with label Riot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Riot. Show all posts
Friday, May 27, 2016
Sunday, May 10, 2015
On Violence -- a Mother's Day Perspective (on the Baltimore Uprising and Other Matters)
By now, everyone's seen this video of a mother beating up her teenage son during the initial phases of the Baltimore Uprising (#BaltimoreUprising):
She's been hailed a heroine by many for her violent attack on her son. She's said she didn't want him to wind up like Freddie Gray -- dead -- and he's expressed contrition for his actions that day in the midst of the Uprising.
I was watching a livestream during this phase of the confrontations between police and the crowd of teenagers by Mondawmin Mall, but I didn't see this incident. There was so much going on in any case, that I probably would have missed it even if the livestreamer had captured it. He was a little way down the road, behind the iron fence, and was concentrating on the people running from or confronting the police at the time. He was also holding his phone in portrait mode, so the view was very narrow.
What I also didn't see was this was ground level video of some of the confrontation between the high school students who were essentially trapped once the police yanked them off the buses that would take them home and confined them tho the Mondawmin area:
\
While flipping through news sources after the Freddie Gray funeral -- which I saw parts of on livestream as well -- I briefly saw an overhead view of police in confrontation with a crowd, but I didn't know what was going on until later, and when I saw a more complete video of the incident, it appeared that 1) police were throwing rocks at demonstrators (they were); 2) demonstrators were pelting the police line with rocks and forcing them back (they were).
Context, however, was totally lacking, and the rest of the coverage I saw of the "riots" focused on the vandalism, arson and looting that took place, not on the confrontations between police and rioters that took place in the afternoon following the end of the school day at Frederick Douglass High School adjacent to Mondawmin Mall.
Ever since, almost all the coverage -- including the BET gab-fests in the post below (sorry for the auto-start; I've tried to make it go away, and it won't, so I'll replace the embed video with a link to the page...) -- focus on "violence" as 1) property damage; 2) the acts of the police which lead to the deaths of so many, day in and day out; 3) sometimes -- but rarely -- the "violence inherent in the system" (h/t Monty Python) of capitalist exploitation.
The incident we witness from ground level in the raw video above is almost never mentioned in reports and analysis of the "riots" these days and if video of it is shown, it is the overhead shots, generally without comment, or if there is comment, it will focus on the injuries police sustained in the confrontation, not on what the incident actually showed about the Uprising.
I think it is too shocking to the sensibilities of the Powers That Be, for what happened was this:
The police either made up or freaked out over a social media post that suggested the students at Frederick Douglass were going to live out "The Purge" idea of "a day without law" following the funeral of Freddie Gray. The students got out of school at their regular time (3:00p -- sounds late to me, but that's what the most reliable reports say) and went to the Mall transportation hub to take the subway or catch a bus to go home. They were met with hundreds of riot police who forced them to get off the buses and closed the metro station. Some went to the Mall, but many dispersed through the neighborhood only to be further confronted by aggressive riot police.
And the students fought back. They were being harassed, taunted and violently confronted by ranks of riot police for no other reason but that the police could do so. The students responded with rocks and bottles thrown at the police line, and for the next hour or two, the students and police contended for territory in the Mondawmin neighborhoods. For the most part, the police retreated, and except for a few tear gas and smoke grenades, they did not fire on the students.
Looking back on some of the videos from the scene now, especially the raw video from ground level embedded above, I get the distinct impression that what happened was almost like a "live fire" training exercise for police to see how a crowd would react to an arbitrary police action in an urban area and to find out whether or not it could be controlled by the presence of riot police alone. That's what it looked like to me. It didn't go well.
The students and the residents participating in the resistance lost their fear of police that day in Baltimore, and that's critical for understanding what happened later. The looting and vandalism and arson happened later, and though the focus has been on those relatively random and relatively isolated actions, there were targeted actions that were much more important (IMHO).
Dozens of police vehicles were trashed or burned, for example. As police vehicles sped through the Penn North area, they were pelted with rocks, bottles, paint and other objects. Some were parked along the streets and were attacked and burned by the crowds. This was targeted rage against police, not the kind of "mob violence" and looting that was being focused on by the media. The people were no longer afraid, and they vented their anger on the appropriate targets. The police. The police, for their part, largely withdrew until they obtained the protection of the National Guard the following day.
This needs to be clear: the people of Baltimore (at least in that area) rose up and said "No more." They literally forced the police out until such time as they returned with the protection of troops.
That was the most important aspect of the first day of the Baltimore Uprising, and it is barely recognized by most observers. It's been sent down the Memory Hole, but much of the evidence is still retrievable through videos like the one above.
There were other incidents, such as confrontations between drunken white baseball fans and largely but not exclusively black protesters outside Camden Yards -- which ultimately resulted in the cancellation of games and the absurd sight of a game played in an empty stadium.
These confrontations involved a lot of physical interaction and fighting between the drunken white folks and the angry black (and brown and white) protesters that led to a lot of mayhem outside Orioles Park. Some of it is seen in this video -- it's quite long, and I'm not embedding it. The Camden Yards footage is around 15 minutes in.
Again, it's clear the demonstrators had lost their fear, not only of police but of drunken white folks, too. This is important.
What I've seen while reviewing some of the video captures of the Baltimore "riots" reminds me a lot of incidents in the West Bank during which unarmed Palestinians confront heavily armed Israeli police and troops, and many of the urban disturbances in Ukraine during the prelude to and aftermath of the overthrow of Yanukovych. There are many other examples one could cite -- uprisings in Greece and other parts of the European "periphery", for example -- that follow a distinctive pattern, essentially a vocabulary, of incitement and repression, over and over and over again, sometimes leading to overthrows or revolution, but often leading nowhere at all -- except to more of the same. In other words, the struggle between arbitrary authority and resisting populations becomes routinized, almost institutionalized, but with little or no discernible effect or outcome.
Despite numerous protests against police violence around the country in the past year or so in city after city, the Baltimore Uprising is the first time I'm aware of that civilians responded to police provocation and violence with targeted violence of their own, albeit there have been some incidents of targeted vandalism of police facilities in other cities (Albuquerque among others) during the protests against violent policing and murder.
The results in Baltimore were predictable: the curfew and National Guard presence specifically designed to protect the police and civic institutions, not so much to protect the citizens or their property. Given some of the confrontations during the curfew, it would almost be funny, except for the fact that people are still being treated violently and outrageously by police all over the country, and far, far too many are being killed day in and day out.
However, I think we are seeing a distinctive change in the way civilians respond to police provocation and violence.
The Baltimore Uprising represents something new in the ongoing struggle against violent policing.
It can lead to positive change or it can lead to disaster, or it can lead nowhere at all.
It all depends, methinks, on calculations made behind the scenes by the PTB. How much mayhem are they willing to endure and engage in in order to perpetuate systematized injustice? What is the benefit to them for doing so?
And how much more injustice are the people willing to endure?
I've suggested that we are past the "tipping point" with regard to police violence. The previous situation is not sustainable, but simply because we've gone past the tipping point, it doesn't mean the resolution will necessarily be positive.
The economy went over a cliff after all. The dire and destructive results are all around us. Simply because a crisis reaches a climax is no guarantee of positive outcomes.
In fact, what happens is that populations tend to adjust to the new reality, no matter how bad it is. The tipping point of violent policing may have been passed, and already dire situation may get worse. We don't know, and we can't necessarily direct the outcome.
Hailing the mom who beat up her son in Baltimore that day, though, may be the harbinger of what is to come.
Just saying...
She's been hailed a heroine by many for her violent attack on her son. She's said she didn't want him to wind up like Freddie Gray -- dead -- and he's expressed contrition for his actions that day in the midst of the Uprising.
I was watching a livestream during this phase of the confrontations between police and the crowd of teenagers by Mondawmin Mall, but I didn't see this incident. There was so much going on in any case, that I probably would have missed it even if the livestreamer had captured it. He was a little way down the road, behind the iron fence, and was concentrating on the people running from or confronting the police at the time. He was also holding his phone in portrait mode, so the view was very narrow.
What I also didn't see was this was ground level video of some of the confrontation between the high school students who were essentially trapped once the police yanked them off the buses that would take them home and confined them tho the Mondawmin area:
\
While flipping through news sources after the Freddie Gray funeral -- which I saw parts of on livestream as well -- I briefly saw an overhead view of police in confrontation with a crowd, but I didn't know what was going on until later, and when I saw a more complete video of the incident, it appeared that 1) police were throwing rocks at demonstrators (they were); 2) demonstrators were pelting the police line with rocks and forcing them back (they were).
Context, however, was totally lacking, and the rest of the coverage I saw of the "riots" focused on the vandalism, arson and looting that took place, not on the confrontations between police and rioters that took place in the afternoon following the end of the school day at Frederick Douglass High School adjacent to Mondawmin Mall.
Ever since, almost all the coverage -- including the BET gab-fests in the post below (sorry for the auto-start; I've tried to make it go away, and it won't, so I'll replace the embed video with a link to the page...) -- focus on "violence" as 1) property damage; 2) the acts of the police which lead to the deaths of so many, day in and day out; 3) sometimes -- but rarely -- the "violence inherent in the system" (h/t Monty Python) of capitalist exploitation.
The incident we witness from ground level in the raw video above is almost never mentioned in reports and analysis of the "riots" these days and if video of it is shown, it is the overhead shots, generally without comment, or if there is comment, it will focus on the injuries police sustained in the confrontation, not on what the incident actually showed about the Uprising.
I think it is too shocking to the sensibilities of the Powers That Be, for what happened was this:
The police either made up or freaked out over a social media post that suggested the students at Frederick Douglass were going to live out "The Purge" idea of "a day without law" following the funeral of Freddie Gray. The students got out of school at their regular time (3:00p -- sounds late to me, but that's what the most reliable reports say) and went to the Mall transportation hub to take the subway or catch a bus to go home. They were met with hundreds of riot police who forced them to get off the buses and closed the metro station. Some went to the Mall, but many dispersed through the neighborhood only to be further confronted by aggressive riot police.
And the students fought back. They were being harassed, taunted and violently confronted by ranks of riot police for no other reason but that the police could do so. The students responded with rocks and bottles thrown at the police line, and for the next hour or two, the students and police contended for territory in the Mondawmin neighborhoods. For the most part, the police retreated, and except for a few tear gas and smoke grenades, they did not fire on the students.
Looking back on some of the videos from the scene now, especially the raw video from ground level embedded above, I get the distinct impression that what happened was almost like a "live fire" training exercise for police to see how a crowd would react to an arbitrary police action in an urban area and to find out whether or not it could be controlled by the presence of riot police alone. That's what it looked like to me. It didn't go well.
The students and the residents participating in the resistance lost their fear of police that day in Baltimore, and that's critical for understanding what happened later. The looting and vandalism and arson happened later, and though the focus has been on those relatively random and relatively isolated actions, there were targeted actions that were much more important (IMHO).
Dozens of police vehicles were trashed or burned, for example. As police vehicles sped through the Penn North area, they were pelted with rocks, bottles, paint and other objects. Some were parked along the streets and were attacked and burned by the crowds. This was targeted rage against police, not the kind of "mob violence" and looting that was being focused on by the media. The people were no longer afraid, and they vented their anger on the appropriate targets. The police. The police, for their part, largely withdrew until they obtained the protection of the National Guard the following day.
This needs to be clear: the people of Baltimore (at least in that area) rose up and said "No more." They literally forced the police out until such time as they returned with the protection of troops.
That was the most important aspect of the first day of the Baltimore Uprising, and it is barely recognized by most observers. It's been sent down the Memory Hole, but much of the evidence is still retrievable through videos like the one above.
There were other incidents, such as confrontations between drunken white baseball fans and largely but not exclusively black protesters outside Camden Yards -- which ultimately resulted in the cancellation of games and the absurd sight of a game played in an empty stadium.
These confrontations involved a lot of physical interaction and fighting between the drunken white folks and the angry black (and brown and white) protesters that led to a lot of mayhem outside Orioles Park. Some of it is seen in this video -- it's quite long, and I'm not embedding it. The Camden Yards footage is around 15 minutes in.
Again, it's clear the demonstrators had lost their fear, not only of police but of drunken white folks, too. This is important.
What I've seen while reviewing some of the video captures of the Baltimore "riots" reminds me a lot of incidents in the West Bank during which unarmed Palestinians confront heavily armed Israeli police and troops, and many of the urban disturbances in Ukraine during the prelude to and aftermath of the overthrow of Yanukovych. There are many other examples one could cite -- uprisings in Greece and other parts of the European "periphery", for example -- that follow a distinctive pattern, essentially a vocabulary, of incitement and repression, over and over and over again, sometimes leading to overthrows or revolution, but often leading nowhere at all -- except to more of the same. In other words, the struggle between arbitrary authority and resisting populations becomes routinized, almost institutionalized, but with little or no discernible effect or outcome.
Despite numerous protests against police violence around the country in the past year or so in city after city, the Baltimore Uprising is the first time I'm aware of that civilians responded to police provocation and violence with targeted violence of their own, albeit there have been some incidents of targeted vandalism of police facilities in other cities (Albuquerque among others) during the protests against violent policing and murder.
The results in Baltimore were predictable: the curfew and National Guard presence specifically designed to protect the police and civic institutions, not so much to protect the citizens or their property. Given some of the confrontations during the curfew, it would almost be funny, except for the fact that people are still being treated violently and outrageously by police all over the country, and far, far too many are being killed day in and day out.
However, I think we are seeing a distinctive change in the way civilians respond to police provocation and violence.
The Baltimore Uprising represents something new in the ongoing struggle against violent policing.
It can lead to positive change or it can lead to disaster, or it can lead nowhere at all.
It all depends, methinks, on calculations made behind the scenes by the PTB. How much mayhem are they willing to endure and engage in in order to perpetuate systematized injustice? What is the benefit to them for doing so?
And how much more injustice are the people willing to endure?
I've suggested that we are past the "tipping point" with regard to police violence. The previous situation is not sustainable, but simply because we've gone past the tipping point, it doesn't mean the resolution will necessarily be positive.
The economy went over a cliff after all. The dire and destructive results are all around us. Simply because a crisis reaches a climax is no guarantee of positive outcomes.
In fact, what happens is that populations tend to adjust to the new reality, no matter how bad it is. The tipping point of violent policing may have been passed, and already dire situation may get worse. We don't know, and we can't necessarily direct the outcome.
Hailing the mom who beat up her son in Baltimore that day, though, may be the harbinger of what is to come.
Just saying...
Tuesday, November 25, 2014
No Indictment -- Ferguson Burns
I wasn't able to stay with the story of the announcement of the Non-Indictment of Brave Officer Wilson all day yesterday, but I did check in at night and saw some of McCulloch's droning presentation of the Non-Indictment to the assembled media -- of course Wilson wasn't indicted, he got married, how could they indict the man, good heavens -- and watched quite a bit of Bassem Masri's downright superb live video from Ferguson, mostly at the police station or very nearby.
What I saw was disappointing but not unexpected. In fact, I don't think anybody who's followed the story expected there to be an indictment of a police officer for killing some Negro in Missouri. It was never likely. I thought it was interesting that McCulloch's summary of the GJ findings tracked so closely, sometimes word for word, with things that had been in the media almost from the day Mike Brown was killed, things that could be considered exculpatory for the Brave Officer Wilson, whereas practically everything that could be considered indication of a crime by the Brave Officer was impugned in just the way it had been by various "experts" on the teevee. In other words, the failure to indict, the "no true bill" result of the GJ process could have been written by the FOX News crew -- or CNN for that matter -- to exonerate the Brave Officer, who just got married, so he couldn't be indicted anyway.
Oh, and don't forget all the celebrity news readers who already had private audience with the Brave Officer. I'll have to leave that to the side for the time being since I haven't been able to process it fully in the midst of everything else. Just remember that numerous celebrity news readers -- including Anderson ("Anderson!") Cooper -- have had private interviews with Darren Wilson well before the Grand Announcement yesterday. Almost as if they were in cahoots... Or something else has been going on...
When word reached the street outside the Ferguson PD, Bassem Masri's camera was on Leslie McSpadden, Mike Brown's mother, but my sound was down, so I did not hear what she said, but I saw her break down in heaving sobs after she said a few words to the crowd, and it was an incredibly moving moment. Her heart was broken the day her son was killed almost before her very eyes, and her sobs last night were the sobs of a mother wronged. She was devastated, and the sight of her tears was a powerful image I don't think I will soon forget.
Not that she or anyone in the crowd, let alone the police, expected an indictment. Of course they didn't. Police are so rarely held to trial for anything -- except sexual peccadilloes -- in this country that an indictment of Brave Officer Wilson would have signaled something profound, almost a sea-change in the way Americans of the darker and poorer persuasion are policed. The Powers That Be are clearly not ready for that.
Bassem continued to record and move among the crowd. From indications, he is really well-regarded by those who know him and know his work documenting the turmoil in Ferguson. He also seemed to be very concerned with the people of Ferguson. His interactions with those he was among -- whether he knew them or not -- were remarkable for their openness, kindness, consideration, and what appeared to be a deep love for their humanity. This is not the way he has been characterized by the mainstream media and the radical reactionaries who have cast him in the role of Demon. He is after all very outspoken, unafraid, and profane. He uses street language, and his whole persona is that of a gangsta or gangsta affiliate. But what he's tried to show, I think pretty effectively, is that the persona which is so strongly demonized by Authority in this country, is in fact representative a wide variety of people, most of whom are no different in essence than you or me.
This was the insight that happened to so many in Albuquerque when they came together to protest the constant police killings. As Dinah Vargas put it, the media demonized every one of the dead in a kind of ritual of victim blaming, and she went along with it -- until she got to know some of the survivors and heard the stories of those who had been killed. She found out that they were "just people." They weren't demons at all, and in many -- too many -- cases, they'd done nothing wrong or they'd done nothing to warrant a sentence of Death in the Streets. The media depiction and ritual demonizing of victims of police violence was simply wrong. It was in fact outrageous.
Bassem has been showing that those who are protesting police violence in Ferguson are "folks" and he's one of them. They're not demons, Mike Brown wasn't a demon, and the script that demonizes them is wrong.
As he traveled through the crowds, greeting and encouraging and sharing grief with them, he came upon the scene of a police car being vandalized. I still didn't have the sound on, so I didn't hear what he said about it, but what I could tell from what I saw was that a large-ish crowd had gathered around this police car which had been parked in the street and a few -- let's call them "hot heads" -- throwing bricks at it and kicking it while the crowd maintained a distance from the action and watched, some yelling, some silent. In other words, the vandalism was being done by no more than five or six people who were distinct from the crowd.
In the background, a formation of militarized police led by MRAPs could be seen advancing on the crowd, and many started to leave. Bassem stayed for a bit, then he, too left the scene. Soon clouds of teargas could be seen rising from the vicinity of the police car. Most people in crowd dispersed from that location and moved toward the police station a few blocks away.
Bassem was covering the tear gas barrage, and he and numerous others were caught in it. He was coughing and wretching along with everyone else, and when I turned the sound up, I heard him condemning the police for gassing people this way. People tried to get away from the tear gas but were trapped. Another formation of militarized police were coming down the opposite end of the street. Those who could get away somehow got away, but most seemed to stay put, and eventually the tear gas cleared. The formations of police paused.
Teargas was being shot into the residential areas beside the street on which the protests were taking place. Bassem was shocked. How could they do this? WHY? Barrage after barrage of teargas grenades were shot into residential areas for reasons no one could fathom. It made no sense at all. "No one is there!" Well, protesters weren't there, though maybe residents were.
Then a column of smoke could be seen rising behind the police lines, and people started back toward the police and the smoke to see what was burning. It was the police car that had been vandalized earlier. How it got on fire is a mystery because no one had used incendiaries in the vandalizing, and the car was inside the police perimeter when it caught on fire. My immediate thought was that the police set it on fire, either deliberately or accidentally when they fired tear gas at the people around the car.
At any rate, while the car burned there were numerous sounds like gunfire, often rapid-fire, and I thought that perhaps the police were firing at the crowd. There were reports of rubber bullets being fired. Bassem said that no, the apparent gunshots were ammunition going off inside the car from the heat of the fire, and he encouraged people to get away.
The police formations moved together, and as they did, more teargas was fired. Another police car, again behind the police lines, was on fire, so there were now two burning police cars, both of which contained ammunition which was exploding from the heat.
The militarized police formations assembled in front of what I call their "fort" -- the PD headquarters and the fire department. There was no sign whatsoever of any attempt to put out the fires burning just down the street.
No, instead, the militarized police formed a cordon around the police and fire department buildings -- their "fort" -- and gave hard and threatening looks at the crowd (a crowd that was still loud but quite small and completely non-violent, unless you consider trash-talk to be violence) and they displayed their armaments in threatening fashion. Network media did standup after standup in the midst of all this, which clued me that it was all a display staged for the media. The police did nothing except look threatening and protect their fort while the police cars burned, ammunition exploded and reports of other fires were coming in.
For some reason, Anderson ("Anderson!") Cooper was not there doing a standup, he was relatively far away in an undisclosed location doing a standup, no one else, certainly no police, in view.
Bassem started to call bullshit -- because the police were doing nothing about the fires. The fire department was right there, after all, and there wasn't a single fireman on scene, no fire trucks, nothing, and the police in their gear and MRAPs were doing nothing but threatening the crowd, a crowd that relatively small, had just been teargassed, and which was not threatening them. It was absurd. Given all the media celebrities doing standups in the vicinity, the absurdity was quite touching. Aww.
Bassem continued to cover this more and more surreal and absurd situation in front of the police department when suddenly it seemed he started running. This was startling to say the least, and it wasn't at all clear what was happening or why. The title of the UStream page Bassem used changed from his name to "I.I.OK." Very strange. He ran and ran and ran, and I heard someone say, "Are you OK," and the only part of the response I heard was "Some nigger..." and it didn't sound like Bassem. I thought maybe it was because he'd been running. After a few moments, it looked like he fell down and the livestream went down.
I was very concerned. What happened? I reported what I'd witnessed on a thread at FDL, and soon came word that Bassem was on Twitter now; his iPhone had been swiped out of his hand by someone he thought was a "police agitator" and he couldn't livestream any more. He would live Tweet from his backup phone, but that was all he could do. He was OK. He wasn't harmed and he wasn't arrested.
I shifted over to Rebelutionary_Z's livestream which was coming from the freeway in Shaw, a freeway which had been shut down in both directions by a large crowd. The police were ordering dispersal, and as I watched, they did disperse, more or less, and the freeway re-opened. Z said that it had been shut down successfully for between a half hour and an hour, and he was pretty jazzed by it. He went with the crowd to a safe house in a church and had something to drink before he went back outside and sat for a bit resting and catching his viewers up with what had been happening. Apparently he'd been asked to livestream something from Shaw but wasn't told what and was not supposed to tell where he was going exactly.
He was asked to livestream the freeway shutdown -- which he did. He said he was going to stay in Shaw to cover any other action there.
Meanwhile Bassem was tweeting pictures from W. Florissant Ave. in Ferguson where fires were burning. One after another, the chain and corporate merchants were being torched as Bassem watched, but it was not at all clear who was doing the torching. There appeared to be no one on the streets, not protesters and certainly not police -- they were all guarding their fort. All the blather from the governor about "protecting property" was bullshit. There was no one there. No one was protecting property in Ferguson, and there was no one on the streets, either, as one after another Ferguson's chain businesses went up in flames.
At this point, I decided that things were following a script, and I'd seen enough of this play.
I don't know how much of the vandalism and arson I saw was due to provocateurs, but Bassem is convinced that a "police agitator" stole his iPhone so he could not continue to livestream whatever was going on. I tend to agree. I suspect the police set the two police cars on fire themselves, whether deliberately or accidentally when they were firing teargas. They did nothing at all to put the fires out. Bassem reported that he thought he saw other fires near where teargas had been fired into the neighborhood, but he couldn't get to those places.
The pictures on his Twitter show businesses burning, but no crowds of protesters or any police or fire department personnel attempting to manage the situation, and Bassem's commentary excoriates the police and government for causing all of this. His fury is palpable.
I couldn't sleep, so I started this post about 3:30 this morning. It's now about 5:15. I haven't looked at "news" so I don't know how what happened is being reported by the Big Media. I'm sure it's filled with lies, however. I don't know whether there was a response to the arson and vandalism, or whether there was looting and "riot," but what I saw indicated that the crowds of protesters were not engaged in arson, vandalism or looting. They had another objective altogether which they stuck with through it all.
Now to check the "news." Pfft.
What I saw was disappointing but not unexpected. In fact, I don't think anybody who's followed the story expected there to be an indictment of a police officer for killing some Negro in Missouri. It was never likely. I thought it was interesting that McCulloch's summary of the GJ findings tracked so closely, sometimes word for word, with things that had been in the media almost from the day Mike Brown was killed, things that could be considered exculpatory for the Brave Officer Wilson, whereas practically everything that could be considered indication of a crime by the Brave Officer was impugned in just the way it had been by various "experts" on the teevee. In other words, the failure to indict, the "no true bill" result of the GJ process could have been written by the FOX News crew -- or CNN for that matter -- to exonerate the Brave Officer, who just got married, so he couldn't be indicted anyway.
Oh, and don't forget all the celebrity news readers who already had private audience with the Brave Officer. I'll have to leave that to the side for the time being since I haven't been able to process it fully in the midst of everything else. Just remember that numerous celebrity news readers -- including Anderson ("Anderson!") Cooper -- have had private interviews with Darren Wilson well before the Grand Announcement yesterday. Almost as if they were in cahoots... Or something else has been going on...
When word reached the street outside the Ferguson PD, Bassem Masri's camera was on Leslie McSpadden, Mike Brown's mother, but my sound was down, so I did not hear what she said, but I saw her break down in heaving sobs after she said a few words to the crowd, and it was an incredibly moving moment. Her heart was broken the day her son was killed almost before her very eyes, and her sobs last night were the sobs of a mother wronged. She was devastated, and the sight of her tears was a powerful image I don't think I will soon forget.
Not that she or anyone in the crowd, let alone the police, expected an indictment. Of course they didn't. Police are so rarely held to trial for anything -- except sexual peccadilloes -- in this country that an indictment of Brave Officer Wilson would have signaled something profound, almost a sea-change in the way Americans of the darker and poorer persuasion are policed. The Powers That Be are clearly not ready for that.
Bassem continued to record and move among the crowd. From indications, he is really well-regarded by those who know him and know his work documenting the turmoil in Ferguson. He also seemed to be very concerned with the people of Ferguson. His interactions with those he was among -- whether he knew them or not -- were remarkable for their openness, kindness, consideration, and what appeared to be a deep love for their humanity. This is not the way he has been characterized by the mainstream media and the radical reactionaries who have cast him in the role of Demon. He is after all very outspoken, unafraid, and profane. He uses street language, and his whole persona is that of a gangsta or gangsta affiliate. But what he's tried to show, I think pretty effectively, is that the persona which is so strongly demonized by Authority in this country, is in fact representative a wide variety of people, most of whom are no different in essence than you or me.
This was the insight that happened to so many in Albuquerque when they came together to protest the constant police killings. As Dinah Vargas put it, the media demonized every one of the dead in a kind of ritual of victim blaming, and she went along with it -- until she got to know some of the survivors and heard the stories of those who had been killed. She found out that they were "just people." They weren't demons at all, and in many -- too many -- cases, they'd done nothing wrong or they'd done nothing to warrant a sentence of Death in the Streets. The media depiction and ritual demonizing of victims of police violence was simply wrong. It was in fact outrageous.
Bassem has been showing that those who are protesting police violence in Ferguson are "folks" and he's one of them. They're not demons, Mike Brown wasn't a demon, and the script that demonizes them is wrong.
As he traveled through the crowds, greeting and encouraging and sharing grief with them, he came upon the scene of a police car being vandalized. I still didn't have the sound on, so I didn't hear what he said about it, but what I could tell from what I saw was that a large-ish crowd had gathered around this police car which had been parked in the street and a few -- let's call them "hot heads" -- throwing bricks at it and kicking it while the crowd maintained a distance from the action and watched, some yelling, some silent. In other words, the vandalism was being done by no more than five or six people who were distinct from the crowd.
In the background, a formation of militarized police led by MRAPs could be seen advancing on the crowd, and many started to leave. Bassem stayed for a bit, then he, too left the scene. Soon clouds of teargas could be seen rising from the vicinity of the police car. Most people in crowd dispersed from that location and moved toward the police station a few blocks away.
Bassem was covering the tear gas barrage, and he and numerous others were caught in it. He was coughing and wretching along with everyone else, and when I turned the sound up, I heard him condemning the police for gassing people this way. People tried to get away from the tear gas but were trapped. Another formation of militarized police were coming down the opposite end of the street. Those who could get away somehow got away, but most seemed to stay put, and eventually the tear gas cleared. The formations of police paused.
Teargas was being shot into the residential areas beside the street on which the protests were taking place. Bassem was shocked. How could they do this? WHY? Barrage after barrage of teargas grenades were shot into residential areas for reasons no one could fathom. It made no sense at all. "No one is there!" Well, protesters weren't there, though maybe residents were.
Then a column of smoke could be seen rising behind the police lines, and people started back toward the police and the smoke to see what was burning. It was the police car that had been vandalized earlier. How it got on fire is a mystery because no one had used incendiaries in the vandalizing, and the car was inside the police perimeter when it caught on fire. My immediate thought was that the police set it on fire, either deliberately or accidentally when they fired tear gas at the people around the car.
At any rate, while the car burned there were numerous sounds like gunfire, often rapid-fire, and I thought that perhaps the police were firing at the crowd. There were reports of rubber bullets being fired. Bassem said that no, the apparent gunshots were ammunition going off inside the car from the heat of the fire, and he encouraged people to get away.
The police formations moved together, and as they did, more teargas was fired. Another police car, again behind the police lines, was on fire, so there were now two burning police cars, both of which contained ammunition which was exploding from the heat.
The militarized police formations assembled in front of what I call their "fort" -- the PD headquarters and the fire department. There was no sign whatsoever of any attempt to put out the fires burning just down the street.
No, instead, the militarized police formed a cordon around the police and fire department buildings -- their "fort" -- and gave hard and threatening looks at the crowd (a crowd that was still loud but quite small and completely non-violent, unless you consider trash-talk to be violence) and they displayed their armaments in threatening fashion. Network media did standup after standup in the midst of all this, which clued me that it was all a display staged for the media. The police did nothing except look threatening and protect their fort while the police cars burned, ammunition exploded and reports of other fires were coming in.
For some reason, Anderson ("Anderson!") Cooper was not there doing a standup, he was relatively far away in an undisclosed location doing a standup, no one else, certainly no police, in view.
Bassem started to call bullshit -- because the police were doing nothing about the fires. The fire department was right there, after all, and there wasn't a single fireman on scene, no fire trucks, nothing, and the police in their gear and MRAPs were doing nothing but threatening the crowd, a crowd that relatively small, had just been teargassed, and which was not threatening them. It was absurd. Given all the media celebrities doing standups in the vicinity, the absurdity was quite touching. Aww.
Bassem continued to cover this more and more surreal and absurd situation in front of the police department when suddenly it seemed he started running. This was startling to say the least, and it wasn't at all clear what was happening or why. The title of the UStream page Bassem used changed from his name to "I.I.OK." Very strange. He ran and ran and ran, and I heard someone say, "Are you OK," and the only part of the response I heard was "Some nigger..." and it didn't sound like Bassem. I thought maybe it was because he'd been running. After a few moments, it looked like he fell down and the livestream went down.
I was very concerned. What happened? I reported what I'd witnessed on a thread at FDL, and soon came word that Bassem was on Twitter now; his iPhone had been swiped out of his hand by someone he thought was a "police agitator" and he couldn't livestream any more. He would live Tweet from his backup phone, but that was all he could do. He was OK. He wasn't harmed and he wasn't arrested.
I shifted over to Rebelutionary_Z's livestream which was coming from the freeway in Shaw, a freeway which had been shut down in both directions by a large crowd. The police were ordering dispersal, and as I watched, they did disperse, more or less, and the freeway re-opened. Z said that it had been shut down successfully for between a half hour and an hour, and he was pretty jazzed by it. He went with the crowd to a safe house in a church and had something to drink before he went back outside and sat for a bit resting and catching his viewers up with what had been happening. Apparently he'd been asked to livestream something from Shaw but wasn't told what and was not supposed to tell where he was going exactly.
He was asked to livestream the freeway shutdown -- which he did. He said he was going to stay in Shaw to cover any other action there.
Meanwhile Bassem was tweeting pictures from W. Florissant Ave. in Ferguson where fires were burning. One after another, the chain and corporate merchants were being torched as Bassem watched, but it was not at all clear who was doing the torching. There appeared to be no one on the streets, not protesters and certainly not police -- they were all guarding their fort. All the blather from the governor about "protecting property" was bullshit. There was no one there. No one was protecting property in Ferguson, and there was no one on the streets, either, as one after another Ferguson's chain businesses went up in flames.
At this point, I decided that things were following a script, and I'd seen enough of this play.
I don't know how much of the vandalism and arson I saw was due to provocateurs, but Bassem is convinced that a "police agitator" stole his iPhone so he could not continue to livestream whatever was going on. I tend to agree. I suspect the police set the two police cars on fire themselves, whether deliberately or accidentally when they were firing teargas. They did nothing at all to put the fires out. Bassem reported that he thought he saw other fires near where teargas had been fired into the neighborhood, but he couldn't get to those places.
The pictures on his Twitter show businesses burning, but no crowds of protesters or any police or fire department personnel attempting to manage the situation, and Bassem's commentary excoriates the police and government for causing all of this. His fury is palpable.
I couldn't sleep, so I started this post about 3:30 this morning. It's now about 5:15. I haven't looked at "news" so I don't know how what happened is being reported by the Big Media. I'm sure it's filled with lies, however. I don't know whether there was a response to the arson and vandalism, or whether there was looting and "riot," but what I saw indicated that the crowds of protesters were not engaged in arson, vandalism or looting. They had another objective altogether which they stuck with through it all.
Now to check the "news." Pfft.
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Molly Crabapple Illustrates the Situation in Ferguson Since Michael Brown's Death
[They say preparations are nearly complete for the Riots set to begin tomorrow with the announcement of the Grand Jury's Decision Not to Indict Brave Officer Wilson. If it comes tomorrow. Which it may not.]
Will there be Riots in your town, too?
Thursday, November 20, 2014
What On Earth Is the FBI Thinking?
Today marks the another Alternate Release Date for the Darren Wilson Non-Indictment from the St. Louis County Grand Jury. Other sources put the Alternate Date on Sunday or maybe the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, or maybe not till Christmas week, or... well, you get the picture.
Meanwhile, elaborate preparations and displays of force are under way to put down all the "riots" that will ensue. Everyone has bought a gun, it seems, and they've stockpiled food and water and have materials on hand to build barricades, the Apocalypse being nigh and all.
All of this was kind of ludicrous until the FBI leaked their assessment of the pre-festivities the other day. We can assume the leak came directly from the FBI and was intentional incitement to police rioting if not public riot.
The wording that I've read inadvertently indicates the FBI knows there are agents provocateur seeded among the protesters and they know just how those agents will behave; their leaked advisory could be read as a descriptive of what the agents provocateur are likely to do once the GJ decision not to indict Darren Wilson comes down.
In other words, it has little or nothing to do with the protesters and everything to do with inciting LEOs to react to the protests violently.
Unbelievable, or it would be if there hadn't been constant rumors of provocateurs and infiltrators from the beginning of the Ferguson protests. That combined with the failure of police to produce any evidence at all that they had been "firebombed" with Molotov cocktails or shot at by protesters -- despite their constant claims -- and the litany of lies coming out of the mouths of ostensibly responsible police supervisors (Belmar's woppers just the other day about "only teargassing criminals," for example, or not using "rubber bullets" beggared belief -- "You gonna believe me or your lying eyes?") really tells us pretty much all we need to know about the expectations of violence and where they're coming from.
It's not the protesters.
It's the police themselves and their allied adjuncts like the resurgent KKK.
Insane.
But more and more people are seeing through the lies and the fabrications and the falsehoods and the provocations.
More and more people seem to see the situation for what it is. The police have been enabled by their sponsors to act as an army of occupation, and their wargames involve whatever mayhem and deception required to produce the desired result.
In this case, it seems the desired result is the provocation of "riots" -- or whatever mayhem can be stirred up and sustained -- so that the "riots" can be put down with displays of overwhelming force (with as little bloodshed as possible, no doubt) in pursuit of a higher objective: keeping the Rabble in fear and dread of what will happen to them if they so much as think of rising against their oppressors.
This has been the Israeli tactic applied to the Palestinians for decades.
Works well, right?
Meanwhile, elaborate preparations and displays of force are under way to put down all the "riots" that will ensue. Everyone has bought a gun, it seems, and they've stockpiled food and water and have materials on hand to build barricades, the Apocalypse being nigh and all.
All of this was kind of ludicrous until the FBI leaked their assessment of the pre-festivities the other day. We can assume the leak came directly from the FBI and was intentional incitement to police rioting if not public riot.
The wording that I've read inadvertently indicates the FBI knows there are agents provocateur seeded among the protesters and they know just how those agents will behave; their leaked advisory could be read as a descriptive of what the agents provocateur are likely to do once the GJ decision not to indict Darren Wilson comes down.
In other words, it has little or nothing to do with the protesters and everything to do with inciting LEOs to react to the protests violently.
Unbelievable, or it would be if there hadn't been constant rumors of provocateurs and infiltrators from the beginning of the Ferguson protests. That combined with the failure of police to produce any evidence at all that they had been "firebombed" with Molotov cocktails or shot at by protesters -- despite their constant claims -- and the litany of lies coming out of the mouths of ostensibly responsible police supervisors (Belmar's woppers just the other day about "only teargassing criminals," for example, or not using "rubber bullets" beggared belief -- "You gonna believe me or your lying eyes?") really tells us pretty much all we need to know about the expectations of violence and where they're coming from.
It's not the protesters.
It's the police themselves and their allied adjuncts like the resurgent KKK.
Insane.
But more and more people are seeing through the lies and the fabrications and the falsehoods and the provocations.
More and more people seem to see the situation for what it is. The police have been enabled by their sponsors to act as an army of occupation, and their wargames involve whatever mayhem and deception required to produce the desired result.
In this case, it seems the desired result is the provocation of "riots" -- or whatever mayhem can be stirred up and sustained -- so that the "riots" can be put down with displays of overwhelming force (with as little bloodshed as possible, no doubt) in pursuit of a higher objective: keeping the Rabble in fear and dread of what will happen to them if they so much as think of rising against their oppressors.
This has been the Israeli tactic applied to the Palestinians for decades.
Works well, right?
Friday, October 24, 2014
This IS "Justice" -- as the High and Mighty See It
There's been a great deal of angst and handwringing over the selective leaking of information favorable to Mike Brown's killer Darren Wilson apparently from information only available to the prosecutor's office and the Grand Jury so leisurely "considering" whether to indict the Brave Officer Wilson over the incident.
The leakage is seen as corrupting and specifically intended to influence the grand jury proceedings and public opinion with the upshot being no indictment of the Brave Officer just trying to protect himself and others from the big-scary black man. Or something.
So when the riots come, there will be justification for shooting into the Angry Mobs of Agitated Negroes. And so forth.
This is all being bruited about as the likely outcome of the leisurely proceedings in St. Louis by all and sundry. It has become the Standard Narrative.
The thing of it is, the people of Ferguson and St. Louis have not been playing to script. They have their own ideas, no matter how the Powers That Be try to shape the narrative to present a defense of the System As It Is, Things As They Are, and the justified suppression of the Natives.
It's amazing to witness. Now we're coming close to the dénouement, and people in the news -- apparently -- are getting themselves all worked up over the "impeding riots," when Young Officer Wilson isn't indicted.
Jebus. If I recall correctly, the killers of John Crawford in Ohio weren't indicted by the Grand Jury, either. They declined to indict, so the story went, because the Officers, Brave and True to Their Calling, genuinely thought the Negro With A Gun was an Active Threat To Themselves and/or Others, and when that is the Genuine Belief of Law Enforcement, there is no legal basis for indictment. Or so we are to believe. Grand Juries generally don't have the option of indicting on "no legal basis." The purpose of turning these cases over to a Grand Jury is to give the appearance of public accountability to a process that is basically a rubber stamp of internal decisions already arrived at.
So. John Crawford's killers were not indicted. Police officers who use deadly force on innocent and guilty alike are almost never indicted so long as they use the magic phrase: "I feared for my life and/or that of others."
That's all they have to do to get away with murder.
It happens all the time, and there are no riots, rarely is there more than a demonstration and march or two. There were no riots in Ohio, despite the egregiousness of the killing of John Crawford III. There were no riots in New York, despite the egregiousness of the killing of Eric Garner. There were no riots in Los Angeles, despite the egregiousness of the killing of Ezell Ford. The idea that there will be riots in Ferguson when Officer Wilson is not indicted for the egregious killing of Mike Brown is an expectation based on a fantasy of what Ferguson residents see as justice.
The Ferguson police and other authorities in the area have been trying for months to incite riots in Ferguson without success. They've consistently accused the crowd of violence against police and property, but the crowds of protesters have not been violent. A handful of individuals -- widely regarded as provocateurs -- have engaged in arson, looting and vandalism periodically, but these people have been denounced by most of the crowd, a crowd which on the whole has consistently been determined and nonviolent. The contrast between police statements about the crowds and the protesters and the reality could not be more acute.
The police have repeatedly claimed -- without evidence -- that members of the crowd have thrown rocks and fired weapons at police lines. The only thrown objects that witnesses have testified to are bottles, plastic bottles, often empty plastic bottles, water bottles in other words. Even they are widely thought to be the result of provocateurs within the crowd trying to incite violence.
From the day of Mike Brown's execution on Canfield Drive, the police have behaved as if they are at the scene of a riot when there has been no riot. The burning of the QuikTrip two days after the killing is seen by Ferguson residents as an aberration, something not in character with the community, and likely not done by anyone in the community. The burning of the QuikTrip was the sole act that might be called 'rioting', but who did it? The answer to that question is still unclear.
There are many other questions left unanswered or muddled by events, including questions about a number of shooting incidents that did not involve members of the crowd of protesters but which were elided into the protests by police in a rather pathetic effort to smear the protesters and justify the highly inappropriate deployment of military-style force against the demonstrators.
The police were in effect the rioters, not the crowd. And this was clear to anyone who was witness to events in Ferguson. It was so clear, in fact, that the police were forced to step back and stand down. They simply looked absurd.
But it's clear they are determined to suppress a riot no matter what.
A riot they incite once the Grand Jury refuses to indict, an indictment that has been demanded but never expected by the protesters. Huh.
The refusal to indict is seen as genuine Justice by the Powers That Be. As long as they feel they are being protected by the police, they're satisfied with whatever the police do to those scary people in the streets, including shooting them down in cold blood. It's part of the job police are expected to do to maintain a sufficient level of fear among the Rabble. That's how Justice is supposed to work in the eyes of the High and the Mighty, no matter what we're taught in school or what the foolish Rabble believes about it.
Justice serves the Mighty.
Everyone else gets what they deserve.
The leakage is seen as corrupting and specifically intended to influence the grand jury proceedings and public opinion with the upshot being no indictment of the Brave Officer just trying to protect himself and others from the big-scary black man. Or something.
So when the riots come, there will be justification for shooting into the Angry Mobs of Agitated Negroes. And so forth.
This is all being bruited about as the likely outcome of the leisurely proceedings in St. Louis by all and sundry. It has become the Standard Narrative.
The thing of it is, the people of Ferguson and St. Louis have not been playing to script. They have their own ideas, no matter how the Powers That Be try to shape the narrative to present a defense of the System As It Is, Things As They Are, and the justified suppression of the Natives.
It's amazing to witness. Now we're coming close to the dénouement, and people in the news -- apparently -- are getting themselves all worked up over the "impeding riots," when Young Officer Wilson isn't indicted.
Jebus. If I recall correctly, the killers of John Crawford in Ohio weren't indicted by the Grand Jury, either. They declined to indict, so the story went, because the Officers, Brave and True to Their Calling, genuinely thought the Negro With A Gun was an Active Threat To Themselves and/or Others, and when that is the Genuine Belief of Law Enforcement, there is no legal basis for indictment. Or so we are to believe. Grand Juries generally don't have the option of indicting on "no legal basis." The purpose of turning these cases over to a Grand Jury is to give the appearance of public accountability to a process that is basically a rubber stamp of internal decisions already arrived at.
So. John Crawford's killers were not indicted. Police officers who use deadly force on innocent and guilty alike are almost never indicted so long as they use the magic phrase: "I feared for my life and/or that of others."
That's all they have to do to get away with murder.
It happens all the time, and there are no riots, rarely is there more than a demonstration and march or two. There were no riots in Ohio, despite the egregiousness of the killing of John Crawford III. There were no riots in New York, despite the egregiousness of the killing of Eric Garner. There were no riots in Los Angeles, despite the egregiousness of the killing of Ezell Ford. The idea that there will be riots in Ferguson when Officer Wilson is not indicted for the egregious killing of Mike Brown is an expectation based on a fantasy of what Ferguson residents see as justice.
The Ferguson police and other authorities in the area have been trying for months to incite riots in Ferguson without success. They've consistently accused the crowd of violence against police and property, but the crowds of protesters have not been violent. A handful of individuals -- widely regarded as provocateurs -- have engaged in arson, looting and vandalism periodically, but these people have been denounced by most of the crowd, a crowd which on the whole has consistently been determined and nonviolent. The contrast between police statements about the crowds and the protesters and the reality could not be more acute.
The police have repeatedly claimed -- without evidence -- that members of the crowd have thrown rocks and fired weapons at police lines. The only thrown objects that witnesses have testified to are bottles, plastic bottles, often empty plastic bottles, water bottles in other words. Even they are widely thought to be the result of provocateurs within the crowd trying to incite violence.
From the day of Mike Brown's execution on Canfield Drive, the police have behaved as if they are at the scene of a riot when there has been no riot. The burning of the QuikTrip two days after the killing is seen by Ferguson residents as an aberration, something not in character with the community, and likely not done by anyone in the community. The burning of the QuikTrip was the sole act that might be called 'rioting', but who did it? The answer to that question is still unclear.
There are many other questions left unanswered or muddled by events, including questions about a number of shooting incidents that did not involve members of the crowd of protesters but which were elided into the protests by police in a rather pathetic effort to smear the protesters and justify the highly inappropriate deployment of military-style force against the demonstrators.
The police were in effect the rioters, not the crowd. And this was clear to anyone who was witness to events in Ferguson. It was so clear, in fact, that the police were forced to step back and stand down. They simply looked absurd.
But it's clear they are determined to suppress a riot no matter what.
A riot they incite once the Grand Jury refuses to indict, an indictment that has been demanded but never expected by the protesters. Huh.
The refusal to indict is seen as genuine Justice by the Powers That Be. As long as they feel they are being protected by the police, they're satisfied with whatever the police do to those scary people in the streets, including shooting them down in cold blood. It's part of the job police are expected to do to maintain a sufficient level of fear among the Rabble. That's how Justice is supposed to work in the eyes of the High and the Mighty, no matter what we're taught in school or what the foolish Rabble believes about it.
Justice serves the Mighty.
Everyone else gets what they deserve.
Saturday, August 16, 2014
Judas Goats and Southern Gothic
He sweated and fidgeted. The pudgy little potbellied white man poked at his sweaty upper lip and a mosquito bit at his forehead while he made remarks before assembled media flanked by roided up white men in uniform, his "force." In the morning, he said there had been some kind of strongarming reported at the Stop and Rob down the street from the burnt out Quik-Trick where he was holding forth in the parking lot. It was on the day, he said, a few minutes before that young Negro was shot and killed in the middle of Canfield Street, too bad for him, we're so sorry for his loved ones. Sure we are. Really!
There was a strongarming reported from the market, a 911 call, and one of our officers was sent out to investigate, and our other officer was just leaving a sick call, the pudgy little sweaty little fidgety man said in the broiling sun out front of the QuikTrip ruin, and he came upon these Negro boys out walking in the middle of the road and he...
Something, something, fidget fidget, and one of the Negroes got shot and then he was dead. Some cigars were reported stolen from the Stop and Rob, and then the Negro boy was dead. Here are some pictures; here is the police report.
Oh, and the officer who shot the Negro boy was named something-something, what was that? Oh yeah, fidget fidget, Darren, Wilson, something something, but don't forget the robbery. The Negro boy and his friend were the prime suspects. The one that got dead. In the middle of the street. Fidget. "'Bye!"
This one:
Fuckfuck fuck pic.twitter.com/UpPNMEzuwf
— Bruh. (@TheePharoah) August 9, 2014
But later on, the fidgety little sweaty man would come out with his phalanx of white cops, all bigger and roider and stoic and shit, and say, "Well, you know that robbery that we reported to you at your request had nothing to do with the encounter Our Brave Officer had with those Negroes. What would make you think it did? A-henh." Fidget. "Oh, and you know that Negro boy who got shot? He was holding the box of cigars he stole from the Stop and Rob..."Pan-de-monium.
Ron Johnson, the Highway Patrol Captain appointed by the Governor to calm things down in Ferguson, was blind-sided by the pudgy little sweaty man, and he knew it. In fact, everybody was blindsided. That was the point of his fidgeting, that and incitement. Get those Negroes riled up and then see what happens. Show you a thing or two, just watch.
Sure enough.
Overnight, according to reports I'm just checking out, there were protests in the rain, and then everybody went home and the police withdrew, and then... just like clockwork, the looters arrived and struck the store where Michael Brown is said to have stolen those cigars, and they struck nearby businesses, and they made off with plenty of loot. Armloads. And then they went down to the WalMart, so it's said, and took more loot.
The people of Ferguson have been going around town cleaning up the mess and hauling away the trash and expressing their outrage to the local FOX station -- which has been doing a good job covering the situation in Ferguson, much better and more fairly and honestly and directly than most of the other St. Louis media -- at what these "outsiders" are doing to their community.
Self-protection.
We've seen this pattern so many times before.
The word is that the police "withdrew" last night when the crowds of protesters were gone -- 4am? -- and that left an opening for the looters to swoop in. It sounds almost as if it were arranged...
Knowing the duplicity of the players and the nature of the game being played, with the people of Ferguson as pawns, it wouldn't be at all surprising if the events have been as carefully arranged as on a chess-board for the purpose of achieving a particular outcome.
Even I sometimes forget the Southern-ness of Missouri, and particularly of St. Louis, and the Gothic rotting nature of it all. The story is playing out as if it were a Southern Gothic novel, and no one seems able to stop it...
I worried that Ron Johnson might be a Judas goat, and he might be, but more likely he's being played like one of the pawns in somebody else's game.
As for the sweaty little fidget man? He, too, might be a rook in someone else's game.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio...
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
"The Riot" -- or How Propaganda is Done
You may have heard that there was a "riot" in Sacramento on Monday as Occupy Oakland "attacked" other demonstrators and police at the California State Capitol, "injuring" at least two officers and resulting in the arrest of at least three "black clad and bandana wearing anarchists from Oakland."
You may or may not have heard that the other demonstrators were a white supremacist group from Oakland who had a permitted event to publicize what they claimed was the "genocide" of white people in South Africa and that the Occupy Oakland group had come to Sacramento specifically to oppose their demonstration.
You more than likely heard nothing of the fact that the opposition to this white supremacist demonstration at the Capitol was composed of a number of autonomous affinity groups, and that the "riot" actually consisted of hurling mutual anathemas and epithets at one another, and that the officers who were injured apparently injured themselves -- one tackling an unidentified protestor, and one by other means unknown (you have probably heard the claim that he was maced or pepper sprayed, but if so, it wasn't by anyone in the crowd.)
You may have heard that objects such as cans, bottles, rocks and "paint filled eggs" were thrown at the police, but you probably have not heard that perhaps nothing except one paint-filled plastic baggie was actually thrown at the police, and that as a means of marking the officer as one who committed assault on demonstrators. (This tactic was also used in Oakland during some of the confrontations with police on October 25 -- after the violent eviction from Ogawa/Grant Plaza but before the wounding of Scott Olsen.)
You may or may not know that most or all of the reports about what happened that have appeared in the press and mainstream media to date were filed by people who were not there and have no first-hand knowledge. Their second and third-hand knowledge comes from interviews and statements almost exclusively from Sacramento police, California State Highway Patrol, and a very limited number of witnesses.
You also may or may not know that almost all the stories that have been filed to date about the "#F27" events at the California State Capitol have been massaged to fit a "riot" narrative heavily featuring the (scary) Occupy Oakland contingent of "black bloc anarchists" in order to frighten the bejeebers out of the old people and the horses.
This is how propaganda is done. It can be highly effective.
Note: I wasn't there, didn't even know there was going to be a "riot" to attend. I found out about it through police channels well after the events of the day. The police were calling it a "riot Downtown" and advising people to stay out of the area from very early on in the confrontation according to the reports I heard (second-hand t0 be sure.) These reports were -- so far as I was able to discern -- at least half in jest. Much was made by the police of the presence of a contingent from Occupy Oakland. The entire protest was alleged to be an "Occupy Oakland" protest, but it was not.
A point can and should be made that the police in California -- and the 1% they serve -- are terrified of the militancy of Occupy Oakland; not their "violence, " for they are not violent in any rational sense. They stand their ground in other words, and by doing so, they are examples for other Occupys. Standing ground is one of the most effective means of delegitimizing Authority.
In addition to police sources (at least second hand), I also found first hand sources on the ground, whose reports, though not perfect, at least came from within the events themselves in real time. Something that "the Media" seems incapable of doing any more, whether by intention or neglect, we'll leave it to the reader to decide.
These reports paint a very different picture of what happened -- and more to the point, why they happened.
There was a small (permitted) demonstration at the Capitol on Monday sponsored by an outfit calling itself "The South Africa Project" -- which is apparently a rather notorious white supremacist affinity group (widely scattered throughout the country) which focuses on the "genocide" of whites by blacks in South Africa. These sorts of claims of whites being mindlessly slaughtered by gibbering blacks and other Natives of course has a long and miserable history in this country and throughout the Euro centers of the Universe. There are always gibbering Natives slaughtering Peaceful and Civilized White Folk somewhere; it's just the way things are. It's a wonder there are any White Folk left. /snark
There was an unpermitted demonstration against "The South Africa Project" at the Capitol that involved at least 100 and perhaps more protestors including contingents from Oakland and elsewhere in the Bay Area as well as locations in the Central Valley. (California geography lesson: Oakland is about 80 miles west of Sacramento; Sacramento is near the center of California's Central Valley which extends approximately 400 miles north to south and is between 50 and 100 miles wide. The Central Valley is flat land, mostly orchard, farm, and ranch land, though heavily suburbanized during the run up to the Crash of 2007-8, that is often referred to as "The Other California" as it is quite a different sort of place than California's coastal and mountain enclaves. Many of those who live in the coastal areas have only the vaguest notions about the Central Valley, mostly contemptuous, but that's another essay for another time.)
In other words, the counter-demonstration against The South Africa Project's demonstration was by no means an "Occupy Oakland" event. It was an Anti-Fascist event that included people from many parts of California, including Oakland.
Some of them wore black and carried black flags. Eek. Anarchists! Black Bloc! Run for your lives children, we're all going to dieeeeee! Demonization of the Other is one of the primary tactics of propagandists, no matter what interests they serve, and in this particularly instance the propaganda of demonization was heavy on all sides.
Demonization, dehumanization and scapegoating go on so often, many people don't notice when it's happening. In this case, the "Nazis" -- and the police who were protecting them -- were being demonized by the crowd of protesters who had come from the Bay Area and the Central Valley (interestingly, Occupy Sacramento was not involved in this Direct Action) to protest them. The kaffir Natives of South Africa were being demonized by the "Nazis" for killing whites. The media was demonizing "Occupy Oakland" and the "black-clad anarchists" for "causing a riot." And so on.
In addition, there was an excess of process during the day's events. The "Nazis" were allowed onto the Capitol grounds on Monday because they had a permit. The demonstrators who came from the Bay Area and the Central Valley to protest them were not allowed on the Capitol grounds because they did not have a permit, and they were held at bay by a heavy state and local police presence, some of it on horseback. Certain members of the independent media were not allowed on the Capitol grounds while others were, depending -- it seemed -- on skin color and (shall we say) how "polite they were." Later, only media with big honking cameras were allowed to record close ups of those who were arrested after the rallies broke up.
The police were solicitous and very protective of the "Nazis," escorting them from the Capitol grounds when their rally was done, and protecting them from the objects thrown from the crowd of protestors. Who actually threw the objects and what they actually were is not entirely clear. The videos I posted above do not show the objects themselves; one of them doesn't even show the "riot" itself. The one that does show the incident that has been called a "riot" also shows that it lasted approximately 5 seconds. It shows police chasing and running down demonstrators who supposedly threw things at the "Nazis" but there is some question of whether they were actually the ones who did so. One mounted officer is heard to exclaim that his target for arrest has just committed a felony. The man runs and is tackled by a rather portly officer who is then hauled away in an ambulance because he seems to have bloodied his chin in the tackle.
It's all supposedly being done "by the book," though it does seem the police actions are somewhat laid back -- as they often tend to be in Sacramento in connection with Occupy. Certain rituals have been adopted that maintain a rather formal and polite, sometimes even humorous, relationship between Occupy Sacramento and the local gendarmerie. The "black-clad anarchists" from the Bay Area and the Central Valley are another kettle of fish altogether. They were far louder and far ruder toward the police than the police are used to in Sacramento, and it was obviously disconcerting to them. Nevertheless, I'm sure that they had been warned of what to expect from the Occupy Oakland people -- who inspire such fear all across the nation.
Whether any of them actually threw anything at anyone (apart from insults and a baggie filled with paint) is a matter of dispute. As we know, infiltrators are legion in the ranks of Occupy -- why every other Black Bloc is all police infiltrators, aren't they? Or maybe not. It's so difficult to say anymore. The question of who is actually throwing things at any given time, and what their affiliation is, never really gets explored, and it should be. I think there might be some surprises.
There was no riot in Sacramento on Monday; this is the third or fourth time I have seen reports of "riots" in connection with Occupy that were no such thing. You would think that people would be able to discern the fact that something like loud voices and one or two thrown objects and a handful of arrests do not a "riot" make. But propaganda is powerful. And if the propaganda media says it's a "riot," many will uncritically believe it to be so.
It's literally taken me this long -- since Monday evening -- to pore through the "news" and the other material available to piece together something like a factual understanding of what happened based on evidence as opposed to hearsay and hysteria. Propagandists know that most people can't do that, and they aren't inclined to do so anyway. So propagandists can often get away with saying whatever they want. On the other hand, they can't get away with it forever.
How long will it take for average Americans to understand they are being lied to? Something tells me they already know it.
Monday, February 13, 2012
No Requirement To Occupy -- and Something About Greece
During the Occupy National Strategy conference call yesterday on the topic of Nonviolence and Diversity of Tactics, a fellow in Portland spoke about some incidents there during an anti police repression march last weekend in which cars and businesses were vandalized by an autonomous splinter group not affiliated with Occupy Portland. Because the action was taking place during an Occupy Portland event, the OPDX Spokes Council went into emergency session to consider and draft a document to clarify what sorts of action OPDX will not allow during its events and actions.
I saw some of the evening march in Portland last weekend on the video livestream, including some pretty hostile confrontations between police and demonstrators. The livestreamer explained that earlier -- and so far as anyone knew, still -- the police were conducting "snatch and grab" arrests among the marchers, targeting or sometimes just randomly going after individuals in the march, pulling them out of the crowd, beating them, arresting them, taking them away. He said it was terrifying to witness. He mentioned vandalism had occurred earlier, and he speculated the police were conducting these snatch and grab arrests to apprehend suspects who had engaged in vandalism, but no one actually knew why they were doing it and that was a reason why people on the march were being so hostile toward the police and why some were trying to protect others from these police tactics.
As more than a few people have pointed out, these and other indications suggest that the conflict between Occupy and the authorities in general is intensifying, and this kind of thing is not exactly family friendly.
And some of the scenes of the renewed Greek Riots -- that I've got on the livestream as I type this post -- are deeply troubling and fear-inducing. Is that what we're headed for?
I say no, we're nowhere near the Greek situation, and there's no sign whatever that if we were, Occupy would in the vanguard or even on the periphery, of the kind of popular revolt and rioting going on in Greece. That kind of thing is not found at all in the Occupy framework. ("But what about the Black Bloc???") Black Blocs basically don't figure in the context of Occupy, and to the extent they appear at all -- extremely rare -- they don't engage in the kinds of things we're seeing in Athens right now.
My knowledge of Black Blocs is limited, to be sure, and based mostly on personal contact and interaction with some of those who proposed to -- possibly -- form a Black Bloc and utilize Diversity of Tactics tactics. They're not hooligans, far from it. They've been extremely bright young people, strongly principled, and absolutists about not bringing harm to another human being, including the police. The ones I describe may or may not have participated in the Black Bloc in Oakland on November 2 of last year -- the only time a Black Bloc has appeared in Oakland during an Occupy event. That Black Bloc was autonomous, as they all are.
Just to review: participants in that Black Bloc engaged in strategic vandalism of targeted banks, businesses and institutions. They did not engage in random acts of violence, nor did they engage in actions that were intended to or were likely to bring harm to another human being even in self defense. Recall, some of the participants in that Black Bloc were physically assaulted by self-proclaimed "nonviolence" advocates, not the other way around.
I dispute the value of strategic vandalism in an Occupy context or in the larger context of the struggle under way -- which of course puts me on the other side in the Class War! Even as an "informational display" strategic vandalism has little resonance beyond its core of supporters, largely because of the conditioning Americans are subjected to regarding the sacredness of private property, Lifestyle and Nonviolence. In other words, even if the issue is one Americans tend to support, methods to highlight it that involve destruction of property or substantial disruption of normal operations of daily life are widely if not necessarily mindfully denounced.
This conditioning is a legacy of the Reagan Era, starting with his election as Governor of California in 1966, in which the power elites of that era vowed 1) to crush the student and civil uprisings then taking place, and 2) to NEVER let anything like it happen again.
So let it be written, so it has been.
The PTB has been engaged in a full-scale disempowerment campaign against students, workers, religious institutions, minority communities, indeed against any form of "unapproved" opposition or criticism ever since. Their strategies have now shifted to disempowering women, the "middle class," and even segments of the elites. It's been relentless, and it was largely successful. This disempowerment campaign has relied heavily on conditioning the masses to accept their lot, to engage in the pursuit of phantoms of wealth, to struggle among themselves rather than against the Overclass, and to be servile in the presence of Authority. Effective revolt and rebellion has been made all but impossible. Or so the Overclass assures itself.
Effective strategies to counter this state of affairs from below are very difficult to develop because this conditioning is so very strong, it involves every aspect of living that might in spire or lead to an effective revolt, and it has been going on for decades. Generations have been subjected to this disempowerment and conditioning and to the propaganda machine that helps sustain it. Another world may well be possible (it is!) but how to get past the barricades (behind which Our Rulers are cowering) to it is still not clear.
"Another way" is necessary. The standard revolt-revolution pattern is all but non-functional. This includes the strategies of the advocates of nonviolent resistance. They don't work any more; they've been disempowered, quite deliberately.
We see this disempowerment constantly in the Occupy Nonviolence vs Diversity of Tactics conversations. So many people in so many segments of the Occupy Movement are so conditioned to believe that "nonviolence works" (so long as it strictly adheres to MLK/"Ghandi" principles) that they are incapable of seeing that it doesn't work anymore, nor can it work again due to the prevalence of strategic disempowerment and conditioning. Their devotion to what they believe took place in the past is touching, but their obliviousness to a) context of the times, and b) what was actually taking place that led to MLK/"Ghandi" victories is striking. Even some of those who were there don't seem to remember any more. I can still remember some things, not everything to be sure, but the deliberate whitewashing of what was really going on Back In The Day, along with intense conditioning to believe and revere myths about King and Gandhi and their movements, myths that largely obscure the truth, is quite apparent to me. I keep wanting to say, "It wasn't like that!" but, quite literally, what the hell do I know anyway!?
During yesterday's conference call I spoke up a few times, in what I thought would be a futile effort to bring some kind of perspective to the discussion, but I was surprised to find that some of the rigidity of viewpoint about the effectiveness of strictly mythological "Ghandian" nonviolence has essentially crumbled. New methods and approaches to effective nonviolent resistance may not have been found, but more and more of those engaged in the struggle are rejecting the strict-adherence to ineffective tactics and methods as a way forward, whether those methods are categorized as "violent" or "non-violent."
Yay. The categories are becoming irrelevant.
As I wrote on Saturday, and have repeated in other fora, "it's about trust." And one of the reasons I feel I can trust the Occupy Movement, even when I'm opposed to something that's going on or to methods of operations (for example, the Spokes Council model adopted in New York and some other places), because -- surprise -- it's working, and the process is one of discovery of possibility not one of imposition of ones own ideological demands and desires. I don't have to get my way, in other words -- and I often don't -- in order to trust that things will ultimately turn out right, or at least OK. I don't have to agree with everything that goes on, and I don't have to like the individuals involved.
And there is no requirement that I or anyone else "Occupy." Stepping back and standing aside are quite all right. No opprobrium accrues for doing so. This Revolution continues with or without any particular individual.
I was chatting with someone very close to me about the local first pre-Occupation meeting that we both attended -- seemingly so long ago now. We were recollecting how diverse the assemblage was, and how rough the operating format was. It was actually pretty chaotic, and if it hadn't been for a Peace and Freedom Party apparatchik in attendance to give some pointers on :horizontalism: and working groups and such, I'm not altogether sure we could have gotten through it. As it was, some of the elements that were decided at that first meeting were simply forgotten or so it seemed by the time the local Occupy emerged into public view a few days later.
We were remembering how some of those in attendance assured the multitude that the local OWS (as it was at the time) couldn't work unless this or that hierarchical political-party-union-nonprofit-organization-charted format and method of operation were adopted. This insistence was so rigid and absolute among some of the attendees; and they didn't get their way. Others expressed their strong reservations about this "leaderless" notion, and offered all kinds of advice about how movements are "supposed to be done." Some people left in a huff because they weren't getting their way.
That's the right thing to do. It's OK. No one is required to Occupy, and there is no requirement that Occupy appeal to everyone all the time, or even necessarily to the majority at any time. Big marches and rallies are great, but they aren't required. There's nothing wrong with clearly stated ideologies and elaborate rules, but they aren't required, either. Occupy is not like movements of the past, it's forging new paths to the future. It may not work. But so far it has worked remarkably well given all the catcalling and sniping from the inside and outside. Its resilience and adaptability have been severely tested, and it's come through the fire even stronger.
It's sure not what I thought Teh Revolution might look like, but even at its rowdiest, it's nothing at all like the Greek Riots, nor, so far as I can tell, can it become anything like that.
Meanwhile, what is wrong with the Rulership of Greece and Europe, and everywhere else that they are oblivious -- or is it indifferent -- to how badly they have fucked up? Where do they expect to flee?
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Sterling Newberry on the UK Riots and the irrelevancy of the left
Sterling has a lot to say about what's been going on in Britain and what it means for the rest of us. This is just a snippet:
The current left is irrelevant, precisely because its first gesture, is to join with the powerful, in condemning it. It shows that the leadership of the current left is, in fact, on the side of oppression, so long as their own place in that oppression is more reasonable. One can see this from larger issues, but this shows that it is a deeply rooted, deeply seated moral identification with power and the profits of pillaging the world and slapping down the poor. To tell the poor that they should wait for the wheels of law to turn is to insult their intelligence. Anyone with any intelligence knows that the law does not work: the police sell information to Rupert Murdoch, and beat people for filming the police beating people, and only an editor has faced the dock, none of the principals will. No one from the bank meltdown has gone to jail. Or ever will. Only people who are comfortable in their place, can say that it is a moral imperative to wait on a legal system which is manifestly corrupt beyond all redemption. Where the courts are criminals, there is no justice.Ouch. That'll leave a mark.
The riots are not, of course, some great sign of immediately coming hope. Riots and insurrection are common through history, and most come to an ignominious end. Even large rebellions, such as the insurrection against the British East India Company, or the Boxer Rebellion, are put to an end. The best most insurrections can hope for, is to tie their oppressing state in knots, forcing it to spend ever escalating amounts on unaffordable and unattainable security. Al-Qaeda's goal was to do this to the West, and it seems to have worked: the west now spends a trillion dollars a year on wars and security that it cannot afford, but will not stop.
The moral hollowness of the left, however, is my topic here, because it is the key and final failure. We should expect those who hold the gates of commerce to want to extract vast tolls from their control of them. We should expect princes born to wealth to suck the riches of the world into their playgrounds in Dubai. This is their nature. However, the corruption of the left is not of its nature, and it is proof that the present discourse, the present economy, the present society, is going to burn, in a much larger magnification of London burning. The problem is that the present left is a conservative force, which is dedicated to keeping their part of the profits of privilege. They are not the oppressed, but functionaries in the more global extraction of wealth, and they merely want a better deal from the very corporations that they have erected. Lower debit card fees and better protections against their insurance companies. No windmills that might hurt their property values.
In short, a moral void which, none the less, passes moral judgments.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Is Somebody Getting Very Rich From All The Tumult In The Streets, Too?
The Market Plunge on the news of the Standard and Poor's downgrade of US Government debt was of course obviously a short selling bonanza for those who were properly set up to profit from the Plunge. The notion of deliberate market manipulation to produce said Bonanza is hardly far-fetched. The Gods Who Walk Among Us wanted another injection of cash-dollars to momentarily sate their insatiable financial demands, and so they "manufactured" another Crisis Bubble, and we were once again on that E-Ticket Roller Coaster Ride with no way to get off.
The Crisis -- repeated over and over again -- is the New Bubble Economy, a game only played at the top.
Which of course brings me to a consideration of the tumult in the streets all over Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and from time to time the United States (in muted form), tumult that has devolved into civil war in more than one state experiencing street protests and battles between the People and Authority. Are these Crises, too, aspects of the New Bubble Economy? Is somebody getting rich off them?
I don't have an answer. I don't think this aspect of Tumult, Popular OUTRAGE!!!™, has been explored in the literature, and I doubt that anyone participating in the demonstrations, civil disturbances, riots, and civil wars that are wracking so much of the West and Middle East are counting the shekels involved, if they are counting much of anything at all -- apart from the dead and injured or the number of useless cell-phones they can cart away from the shops.
But the Money? Could there be Money, indeed handsome profits, involved in the uproars?
Why not?
Some of this tumult is similar to, if not modeled on, the protests and demonstrations, the riots and civil disturbances of the '60's, and while in those days it was all very horrifying to the Silent Majority, especially the riots in the Ghettos (it's hard to imagine just how much fear those riots inspired in the white suburbs), there were plenty of people making money off of them, off of the Student Movements that were underlying much of the tumult, and off of the security measures necessary to protect the White Women from the Rampaging Hippies and Negroes. Fear of Nuclear Annihilation was nothing compared to fear of Hippies and Negroes. Of course the drug dealers ("God Damn the Pusher Man!") were making out like bandits. Which some of them were.
Commercialization of the Movements of the Era was taken for granted and was criticized in lengthy screeds published in obscure periodicals like Ramparts and The Realist.
The Death of the Hippie was famously celebrated in the Haight in October, 1967, in part due to the hyper commercialization of the Summer of Love.
Of course one of the most famous activists of the era, Jerry Rubin, famously became a multi-level marketer and toured the country with Yippie co-founder Abbie Hoffman presenting a staged debate between "Yippie versus Yuppie."
But that kind of commercialization of a Movement -- which most of us at the time took for granted, even if it was criticized intellectually as more evidence of the oppression of the system -- is quite a different thing from the kind of money that is possibly being made from all the tumult in the streets these days.
From a cultural and political standpoint, what's going on now is on a different plane. Those raising a ruckus now are no longer motivated by their belief that they could make a better world. Instead, in Europe and America at any rate, they're trying to hold on to what little they have before it is taken away by a handful of hyper-rich and not very bright economic predators.
That's a key difference, in my view, and the transformation happened before our eyes in Seattle at the WTO conference in 1999. It seems so long ago now. Though I wasn't in Seattle for the WTO protests themselves, I was on the phone with people who were there while the action in the streets was taking place. They could recognize right away that there were provocateurs among the crowds who were trying to precipitate violence among the protestors and who were committing most, if not all, of the acts of vandalism that were used as the pretext for the excessive police crackdown on the protests. This was obvious to people who were there at the time, and it has been pointed out many times that many protest actions are peppered with undercover police and provocateurs as a matter of course. Exposing them has become a protest action sport.
The heavy-handed repression of the WTO protest in Seattle in 1999 became the model for such actions, and we see it repeated over and over again. Protestors get injured and sometimes die in these events. It has become an almost ritualized process, though, with heavily armed paramilitary police on one side, masked Black Bloc Anarchists (who may or may not be provocateurs) on the other, and the masses in between. The police and the Black Blocs are the ones who get the attention. What the protestors are agitated about is almost never discussed.
The repression, however, is. It is discussed and widely celebrated.
But are these events set up to make money for speculators?
The mind boggles at the thought.
I'm not going to get into it too much more because I don't have enough information, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Liveblogging today's riots in St Paul
From the Minnesota Independent:
7:31: Riot police have charged the crowd, scattering the crowd, tackling one person. People tripping. Crowd chanting, “Let them go!”
7:35: Overheard by an onlooker: “I’ve been a St. Paul guy forever. This is TIME Magazine shit!”
7:42: Marchers are now on the move again, heading towards John Ireland, but east of the site of the original standoff.
7:43: Marching down the median on John Ireland, the automatic sprinklers just turned on, startling everyone. (Sprinkler hiss sounds a lot like pepperspray being sprayed… Also, it’s wet.) Marchers skipping through the sprinklers. No cops nearby.
7:47: Bike police buzzing past to head off march line overshot as marchers turn. Protesters are going down the I-94 onramp. Bike police in pursuit, blowing whistles. Crowd ran but gave up trying to beat police. Various scattered groups seem to have reunited in one larger group.
7:51: Riot police showing up in ATVs and vans. Riot police “pouring out of minivans.” Aim of march: to end up at Xcel by the time McCain takes the podium.
7:52: Right turn on Marion, toward Sears. Police look confused, but haven’t yet made an attempt to block the turn.
7:53: Guntzel says that for the first time this week, protesters seem organized and in control, even as they improvise. Cops seem confused and are hustling to catch up.
7:56: Crowd singing “We all live in a fascist police state” to the tune of “We all live in a yellow submarine.”
7:57: Lone SPPD squad car driving the opposite direction of traffic on the other side of the median — the only police presence ahead of the marchers.
7:59: Crowd reaches University and Marion, crosses University, heads toward capitol. Police unable to stop the march.
8:00: Bike police are forming a line on University at Rice, right outside of Greyhound Station.
8:01: Green and blue smoke everywhere. Smoke cannisters being thrown. Tear gas cannisters being exploded. Riot police are here. Guntzel and five other journalists engulfed in smoke.
8:02: Protesters scattered. Only a few people remain, but police are trying to scare them off with smoke bombs.
8:05: Six riot police are firing rifles, likely at protesters who are down an alley. Guntzel just passed an officer with an M-16.
The "riot" is still going on, check it out at the Minnesota Independent
Please note: the only violence is from the police.
Despite some vandalism during the last few days, absolutely the only violence against people in St Paul has been by the Officers of the Law.
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