Trusting Greenwald??!

I understand Glenn Greenwald has a new book out which can be seen as the capstone of the long-term project he's been undertaking to have his voice heard at the highest levels of government and corporate board rooms.

It would appear they're listening now.

To what object may still be something of a mystery, but an overall goal, beyond being "heard" has never been entirely clear with Greenwald. "Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person!" Yes, well...

It would appear he got his wish. The toast of the town, he is, at least for now, wined and dined among the highest of the mighty, with abundant accolades, prizes and gravitas besides. He is someone now, and that seems to be what he's wanted more than anything all along. To be known, to be recognized, to be honored, and more than anything, to be reckoned with.

His personal toxicity aside, Greenwald has actually accomplished quite a feat. He's managed to rise to the top of the profession of journalism primarily by means of the NSA scoop, not through any particular writing talent, understanding of the issues, or ability to tell a cohesive and compelling story. His writing throughout has been one of his weaker aspects, as much of what he writes unedited reads like a legal brief rather than news, and it became clear to me (if to no one else) that the NSA articles he was bylined for the Guardian were heavily edited by someone or someones into something more "journalistic" before publication. In fact, in the end, they didn't read like they had been written by him at all, whether or not he shared a byline with someone else.

Those many others who helped make Greenwald's meteoric rise as a journalist possible have been essentially "disappeared." This is most telling in the case of Ewen MacCaskill of the Guardian who, along with quite a few others at that institution, have essentially vanished in the marketing and tale-telling surrounding the NSA scoop. MacCaskill was awarded a Polk for his work on the NSA stories, but you'd never know it to listen to the current hagiography surrounding the "biggest story of the first half of the 21st Century" -- or however it's being marketed these days. This was made painfully obvious in Amy Goodman's coverage of the Polk Awards and Greenwald's prodigal return to the USofA from his exile in Brazil. Amy, in a nearly Stalinist propaganda move, literally erased MacCaskill from the record of the Polk Award, and ever since has barely mentioned him at all. Yet he was apparently the old-hand journalist who was sent by the Guardian to accompany Greenwald and Poitras to Hong Kong to vet Young Snowden's validity, and so far as I can tell, MacCaskill was the one who edited and co-wrote the original stories that appeared in the Guardian.

Also, there is a widespread claim that Greenwald "won a Pulitzer" -- when he specifically did not. The papers that initially published the NSA stories (the Guardian and the Washington Post) won the Pulitzer Public Service Award -- which only goes to institutions, not to individuals. But in the telling of the story of the Pulitzer Prize for the NSA stories, the nearly universal convention among Greenwald's acolytes is to claim he (sometimes he and Laura Poitras) won the Pulitzer themselves as individuals, when they clearly did not.

There's another actor in this drama, Bart Gellman for the Washington Post, who has written some of the most incisive investigative reports on the NSA documents. Gellman is also part of the team -- that's not really a team at all, it would appear -- who was given access to the Snowden Trove at the outset of the undertaking. He's a long-time serious journalist whose work is well-respected within the profession. Thus, apparently, he has to be essentially disappeared as well from the received narrative of Greenwald's intrepidness and daring.

Ah yes, and about that daring... One of the primary themes in Greenwald's narrative of himself has been his trembling fear and anger at the perfidy of the National Security State's potential to arrest him and throw him "in a cage" for being a journalist, because high-ranking individuals in Congress have suggested as much and the lawyers at DoJ wouldn't assure his lawyers that he wouldn't be arrested if he returned to the USofA. Same with Laura Poitras who lives in Berlin.

So, quaking with fear of being arrested and rendered for torture to some demonic foreign land, Greenwald and Poitras sat in exile in Rio and Berlin respectively (though apparently they traveled fairly extensively during the interim, just not to the United States or Britain) until such time as they were awarded the Polk and determined to return like prodigals to the US and to dare the authorities to do anything about it.

Of course, the authorities paid no attention to them, any more than they would to anyone else, and their breathlessly awaited return went off without a hitch. No one in a position to do anything about their arrival in the USofA let alone render them seemed to care.

And so it has been ever since, as Greenwald has embarked on a nationwide book tour, unmolested, and Poitras, well, who knows what's happened to her? She is like a wraith, appearing and disappearing at will, offering stern and sturdy perspectives now and again, but more often she is referred to but neither seen nor heard from.

And Snowden? So far as we know, Snowden is still comfortably ensconced as a resident guest of the Kremlin, in what appear to be very nice digs, somewhere in Moscow or its environs. He has "given up so much" -- and yet seems to be well provided for and happy enough in his Russian exile, able to "appear" pretty much whenever he wants to and wherever he wants to via electronic means, including (notoriously) during Vladimir Putin's annual call in show on Russian television.

It was a notorious appearance not so much because of what Snowden had to say, which was relatively innocuous, but because of the relentlessness of the anti-Russian/anti-Putin propaganda campaign that's been waged by all the capitals of the West for many months now. For Snowden to appear "with" Putin (even if only electronically and recorded at that) was yet another emblem of his supposed "treason."

Snowden doesn't get as many awards as Greenwald, doesn't have a book, isn't -- so far as we know -- profiting from any of this hoo-hah, though he seems to enjoy at least some modest luxury and apparently some freedom of movement while he is a guest of the Kremlin. There have been many stories about his life in the US and as an international spy or perhaps not a spy but a genius at IT matters, or perhaps... the stories are legion. What's true and what's not is open to speculation. There are significant portions of the received narrative that don't fit, but that's another issue for another day. The only question I would ask right now is what Snowden is actually doing in Moscow, as there have been a number of reports that he has been hired by one or another private Russian enterprise as an IT consultant. If it's true, it might be interesting to find out more, but when it comes to Snowden, fact and fiction are so intermingled, the real story is pretty much unknowable -- at least not until the book comes out and the movie is released. Even then, mystery will no doubt continue to abound.

But speaking of Snowden... one thing that was very intriguing to me (though it may not mean anything) is that Snowden was living in Hawaii -- allegedly with his high-class artistic stripper girlfriend -- while he was acquiring the data trove from the NSA through his private contractor employment with Booz Allen Hamilton. Now of course this is the story; we don't know that it is true, and we will probably never be able to know for sure given the nature of spycraft and all...

At any rate, assuming it's true, Snowden was living comfortably in Hawaii, acquiring his NSA data clandestinely while a few miles away, Pierre Omidyar was also living in Honolulu, taking care of his many far-flung projects. Projects, in the Islands, on the Mainland, and well, let's face it... all over the world, including the soon-to-erupt in revolt and civil war Ukraine. Oh yes, Pierre has his fingers in many ((MANY)) pies simultaneously. And he's not shy about it, either. He's one of the richest men in the world and he uses his wealth for whatever objective he has in mind, whether it is educating the masses in Ukraine about the wonders of European Democratic Capitalism (or is it Fascism?), or building luxury condos on unspoiled Hawaiian beaches, or getting into the lucrative micro loan business on the ground floor and making out like a bandit.

Oh but there's more. As far as I know, Pierre lives primarily in Hawaii, though he has a number of homes in United States and apparently in Europe as well.

I'm given to understand he is financially involved with Booz Allen through interlocking boards, and his PayPal subsidiary of eBay is apparently closely tied in with NSA and law enforcement at all levels all over the world. One assumes that eBay is just as closely linked with these contractor, surveillance and law enforcement outfits as PayPal is. Then of course, there's the whole PayPal14 imbroglio which dogs both Pierre and Greenwald.

Pierre owns a news outlet in Hawaii which focuses on aspects of corruption as seen through a particular lens. (There's a similar outfit in New Mexico, though it has a much lower profile and is not, so far as I know, an Omidyar project.) That lens is essentially libertarian.

At some point around the time that Young Snowden went to work for Booz Allen in Hawaii, Pierre was taking the initial steps to form First Look Media, the umbrella under which he has placed a rather impressive stable of journalists -- including, of course, Greenwald and Poitras, whose Snowden docs are their principal claim to fame ...and fortune.

It's been pointed out by some observers that once Pierre's stable was essentially filled with formerly prolific journalists, their output declined, and for some it came to a screeching halt. In other words, going to work for Omidyar meant... silence, or nearly so.

"Transformative media" indeed. When you think about it, saying and publishing nothing on a regular basis can be just as "transformative" as anything else. It's all in the way you look at it, no?

Or in the case of The Intercept, Greenwald's personal fief under the First Look umbrella, "nothing" has been accompanied by fluff, nonsense, and occasional bursts of interesting stories of Surveillance State operations both here and abroad, but without any indication of how or whether they can be controlled, curbed or thwarted.

Of course the lack of any idea of what could or should be done about the All-Pervading and All-Knowing Surveillance State has been a consistent theme in the revelations to date. The world is to know in substantial detail about the surveillance they are under, but they are not, ever, to imagine anything can be done about it. Knowing about it without the ability to thwart it is an Orwellian means of control.

When this was pointed out by Naomi Wolf so long ago now, back in June of last year, she was viciously attacked by some of those who saw her questions about the purpose of what were then called the Snowden leaks as some kind of uncalled-for assault on Snowden and/or Greenwald, no doubt set up by the NSA. Or something. No, she had it right. Knowing that there was mass surveillance going on, without the ability to do anything about it, was and is a means of controlling the behavior of the population; it works quite well, as those who have lived under such conditions can tell you.

One of the keys to understanding the NSA Surveillance is the fact that nothing has been done about it -- and the implication is that nothing can be done about it. Greenwald has shown an interest in gaining exemptions from blanket surveillance for certain categories of people, such as journalists like him, but y no means has he shown an interest in undermining the Surveillance State itself, any more than Snowden has.

Well, it's not entirely accurate to say that "nothing has been done about it." Because something most definitely has been done: The #1 and #2 at NSA were... "retired" under pressure. In other words, they were forced out, though it was with great good will, of course. Policies have been (they say) revised to better attend to the privacy interests of the public, and there has been a good deal more "transparency" about the surveillance programs under way. Further, there are a number of efforts at beginning "reform" of the NSA to enable more oversight of its surveillance activities.

Cool.

So there is that.

Meanwhile, Greenwald seems quite delighted with himself and has even taken to being somewhat less abrasive and contemptuous of others in his public appearances (which are legion). He's explained that his antagonistic and sometimes over the top assholitry/performances in public were meant to propel him into the limelight sufficiently to be heard -- apparently in the mainstream, where he seemingly wanted to be.

Well, he's heard nowadays, but what does he really have to say?

There are those who say that Greenwald is one of the few journalists -- or the only journalist -- they trust.  As far as I can tell, Greenwald is as trustworthy as most others in the field -- which is to say, somewhat, though never absolutely. Critical thinking is necessary no matter who the messenger is. Greenwald has established a place in the firmament, but neither he nor anyone else in that field should be granted blanket trust. His narrative on the Snowden matter is filled with gaps and contradictions, and his stories about it are just that, stories. Take them for what they are worth, but don't take them on faith.

It seems so obvious, and yet the desire for a heroic figure is strong. As conditions get worse for so many, the need for a heroic figure grows stronger.

Many have placed their faith and trust in Greenwald.

Some have felt betrayed by him for various reasons, others feel rewarded to bask in his reflected glory.

But in the end, we're still pretty much in the same place we were vis a vis the Surveillance State. We know a bit more about it now, but we don't have the ability to control it or to thwart it, nor does Greenwald have any intention to provide that kind of control.

Even if we were able to have some measure of control over the government's surveillance activities, there is still the little matter of corporate surveillance which is even more pervasive and intrusive than that of the state. In other words, even if we we were able to tie a rope around the All-Knowing, All-Pervading Surveillance State, it would still go on, unimpeded, through its many corporate partners.

So what ultimately has been accomplished?

And what do we want to accomplish?

Successful De-legitimization of Authority -- But Then Losing the Plot

De-legitimizing authority is one of the principal agents of civil change known in political circles. It's used all the time. It's the foundation of the many "Color Revolutions" that led to the break up of the Soviet Union, and it was used many times by Occupy demonstrators, most particularly in Oakland, during the time before Occupy transitioned to its current iteration of public service.

De-legitimization of authority is one of the key aspects of the current efforts by a coalition of community and victim groups in Albuquerque to... tame shall we say... an out of control and bloodthirsty police department.

It was also very much an aspect of the J28 (2012) actions in Oakland (along with many other actions before and after that). In Oakland, unfortunately, the J28 activists did not press their advantage once they had successfully de-legitimized the authority of the police and the civic bodies. In fact, they almost immediately threw it away.

The danger is that activists in Albuquerque may follow in the same path, even though they seem to be much more aware of the pitfalls than Occupy Oakland activists were back in the day.

What's going on in Ukraine, to the extent we in far distant lands can puzzle it out, seems to follow the pattern of de-legitimization of authority and pressing the advantage that is the hallmark of successful revolutions. True enough, the so-called revolution in Kiev is not on behalf of the People, it's on behalf of a select group of oligarchs and their western European and American co-conspirators. We understand that. The ideological motor for this revolution is Fascist right out of the '30s and '40s of the previous century, and one of its most powerful and effective elements is Nazi, in the form of the Right Sektor thugs who seem to be allowed to patrol and kill at will.

Oh yes, they are most definitely pressing their advantage, what with the ongoing "anti-terrorist" operations in the restive and rebellious Eastern Regions of Ukraine.

I keep thinking that if Yanukovych had done anything like this, there would have been an immediate NATO bombing campaign on the lines of what was done to Serbia.

But he didn't. Instead, he kept trying to negotiate with the rebels aligned against him, and he kept yielding to their demands, until it was apparent he and his government had ceded all their authority to the rebels and it dawned on the Kremlin that it was time for him to go.

On the other hand, when the Yatsenyuk "government" was installed in place of the Yanukovych debacle, he and they immediately set out to consolidate their power (which initially was only in Kiev, practically only in the Maidan) and to press their advantage through some of the most over-the-top belligerence and anti-Russian propaganda since the hey-day of Fascism and Nazi-ism in Europe. It looked to be right out of the Nazi playbook. For those of us who have some knowledge of what that was like and for those who lived through it, the implications are ugly and chilling.

Ugly, yes. But effective in that it was and is relentless. There has been no let up of belligerence and propaganda since the installation of the coup-regime in Kiev. In fact, doubling down is a way of life for this crew, even when something like the Odessa Massacre might have blown the whole thing to smithereens. They don't care. They are intent on securing their power no matter what.

Their scheme is grand -- once they find their footing and crush the rebellion in the East -- and they have the backing of every Western government and their plutocrat sponsors. This is an extraordinary advantage, and despite many missteps and that unpleasantness in Odessa (reflected if not matched by arbitrary civilian deaths and injuries elsewhere), they are making the most of it every day.

(Side note: Busheviks did this, too, once they were able to seize the operations of government after the 2000 "election" in the United States. They were relentless and, despite the disaster of their reign, they were successful in changing governance. So successful, their principles of rule are now standard and institutionalized in DC. It's really quite remarkable.)

The J28 activists in Oakland set out to liberate the long vacant Oakland Auditorium/Kaiser Convention Center for use by the community for educational and organizational purposes. From my perspective, it looked like they wanted to set up an alternative civic headquarters, one that would host the kind of civic services and deliberative bodies the citizens of Oakland could not find and did not have at City Hall.

It was a Big Idea. One that perhaps wasn't entirely worked out in advance, though there had been many precursors in Oakland itself and throughout Northern California. What they wanted to do, move into a vacant space and set up a viable social service and justice alternative to the rigid and essentially captive and useless city government, looked to be a direct outgrowth of the intentional community framework of the Oakland Commune -- which had long existed -- and Occupy Oakland which was tied in with OWS and the Oakland Commune.

My understanding is that the activists involved in the J28 Oakland action were divided from the outset, and many were not kindly disposed to taking over the Kaiser Center -- when, that is,  they found out that was the goal on the day of the action. Apparently, the destination was kept secret from all but a few of the activists until the moment they set out to liberate the Center. And when they faced the barricades, police lines, tear gas and more, some of those involved were... dismayed.

They were prevented by police from taking possession of the Center, and so about a thousand of the activists re-assembled nearby on Oak Street in front of the Oakland Museum, where the infamous -- and important -- Battle of Oak Street took place.

This battle was the moment when the authority of the police and Oakland civic bodies started to collapse.

When the activists were repulsed again, they shortly reassembled, and these incidents would go on all over the city until well into the night, when several hundred activists were kettled outside the YMCA building and were placed under arrest.

Meanwhile, there had been some minor vandalism at City Hall.

Oh. Dear.

Nothing could be more emblematic of the successful de-legitimization of authority that day than the sight of the Mayor fretting over the overturned model of her fief.

Hundreds were arrested in Oakland the night of January 28, 2012, but nearly all were the victims of an out of control and chaotic police force and a civic administration that had, for all intents and purposes, collapsed.

Had the makers of the day's -- and night's -- events understood what had happened, they might have taken advantage of their success. But apparently, they saw it as a failure, because they didn't achieve their objective of liberating the Kaiser Center, and so many hundreds were arrested. More pointedly in the aftermath, the media focused on the burning of the flag at City Hall and the minor vandalism that took place there, rather than on the day's repeated acts of violence and chaos by the police.

The sense of failure was thereby multiplied in the minds of many of the activists to the point where, during subsequent post-mortems, the recriminations were unremitting. Ultimately, rather than press their advantage, the Oakland activist community fell on one another and then fell apart.

Power and authority were given back to the police and civic administration, although in the years since, there have been a number of important developments and upheavals, including the abrupt resignations and replacements of city administrators and police chiefs and fundamental reforms of the police department ordered -- if not implemented -- by federal courts and monitors.

Nevertheless, the city of Oakland appears to be mired in a permanent condition of missed opportunity, malaise, poorly considered priorities and continuing police brutality and misconduct. Nothing the established powers that be in Oakland do seems to be able to change that. It doesn't have to be that way, but it is that way -- in part because it's "always" been that way, and no one has yet come up with an effective means and mechanism to change things. Instead, there is continued deterioration and despair on the one hand, and lower key activism for social justice on the other. The status quo has been maintained and reinforced.

Albuquerque's situation is not unlike that of Oakland, in that it's a gritty and largely working class town in which a handful of very wealthy and powerful individuals hold sway over a large and more and more impoverished and desperate underclass, an underclass which is beset by all the domestic horrors of poverty and family disintegration one can imagine, and also by an out of control and bloodthirsty police force.

For decades, these problems have festered, and efforts at reform seem to get nowhere. It's not as if nothing is done, it is that nothing that is done seems to change things for the better. Police seem to kill people at an ever greater clip, impoverishment expands, and the domestic situation for so many Buquenos deteriorates.

Nothing seems to correct what's wrong. From a statistical point of view, conditions may not be getting worse overall, but they're not getting better, either.

So what do you do? Activists in Albuquerque have been demonstrating, protesting, proposing reforms, and trying to move things in a better direction for decades, and they've had some successes, there's no denying that. The problem is that a success in one aspect doesn't solve the overall problem, and declarations of victory often dissipate the necessary energy for change. And worse, the rate of killing by police continues unabated.

Something more is needed if that bloody record is to change.

I've seen that the mayor's office and the city council, even the police department itself, have once again been goaded into action by some of the agitation of the people and the DoJ's devastating report -- even if the action is only talk at this point. There are task forces, commissions, councils and community meetings all the time now. But the killing continues. There are disruptions and protests all the time now. But the killing continues. There are many proposals and suggestions from the public and the power structure, but the killing continues.

Something more is needed if this bloody record is to change.

Authority is de-legitimized in Albuquerque in ways that are potentially even more profound than other examples given, but so far it is not clear that full advantage can or will be take of this interlude.

For whatever reason, these days the advantage is almost always seized by proto- and actual Fascists.

David Correia Explains It All For You

David has been one of the leading lights of the movement for positive change in Albuquerque.

Knowing history and knowing what kind of society you want to live in makes a potent recipe for change, especially if the foundation for change is one of "restorative justice."

For years, I've been saying that the four key elements of positive society are Dignity, Justice, Community, and Peace.

That's basically what the movement to change the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) is all about.

Momentous Shifts in Momentum

When the propaganda shifted suddenly and completely from the deteriorating situation in Ukraine to the suddenly all-important matter of Boko Haram and its captive school-girls in Nigeria, it was obvious that the momentum of making a New Ukrainia using the neo-liberal template had been lost, and the killing spree that the Ukrainian "army" and its auxiliaries were on was not playing well in the media.

It was far too straightforward and ugly in Ukraine, so why not propose something heroic and daring in Africa instead? Rescue the schoolgirls! Yeah, that's the ticket! Others have figured out what the Africa thing is really about is turning loose the death squads (again) in that torn and troubled land, so as to continue colonial control of the resources and people of the continent. Schoolgirls, bah. If they're found and rescued, hurrah, if not, too bad, so sad. Pfft. If it were about them, there would have been much incessant news all along.

What's being instigated in Ukraine is truly disgusting, more so than anything Yanukovych and his kleptocrats engineered in their day. And it's clear that the makers of this mess are playing for keeps. They are relentless in their determination to impose as much hardship on the Ukrainian people -- and as much bloodshed and destruction in the East -- as they can get away with. Greece will seem like Paradise when they're done with Ukraine.

For all the hysteria and belligerence toward Putin-(Stalin-Hitler) and Russia and his "interference" in Ukraine, it appears that the Kremlin has decided to let them fight it out as they will.  If anything, Russia's hands off policies and Putin's endless public efforts at conciliation are driving the Freaks in Kiev and their EU/US/NATO sponsors even nutzier than they were to begin with.

I'm told that Herself, Nuland-Kagan put on quite a show at the Senate Hearing on Russian Aggression the other day, but I haven't seen it yet -- one more thing to catch up on.

Meanwhile, how much longer will it take for Our Valiant Forces to Rescue the Nigerian Schoolgirls and Exterminate Yet Another Foe in Africa?

Stay tuned.

Mercs in Ukraine?

Sure. Why not?

There have been reports of merc sightings in the shadows of the upheavals in Ukraine from the beginning, and almost certain descriptions of the snipers in Kiev as mercenaries hired by Svoboda and the Right Sektor. Many observers have claimed they've been hearing unaccented English spoken among some of these shadowy forces, just before some Antimaidan dissenter is shot or otherwise incapacitated, and it is reported that the FBI and CIA -- among other US agencies -- are coordinating the crackdown on dissent and separatism in the East and throughout the country.

Given what has been noted so far in the efforts of the Kiev coup-regime to hold onto the East (Donbass) in spite of the people's defiance and refusal, there are no doubt death squads on the pattern of so many we've seen in the past) operating throughout Ukraine. They may be concentrated for now in the Donbass, but there's no reason to think their assignments and territory won't be expanded as resistance to the Kiev coup-regime's program of suffering and exploitation -- under the direction of the IMF, EU, USA, and NATO --  increases.

Mercs are an essential part of the program, especially when -- as in the case of Ukraine -- poorly paid and trained native "troops" refuse to fight their brothers and sisters.

Of course, media announcements of "The 400" or however many Academi (or are they Blackwater?) mercs there are in Ukraine look to be quite obvious propaganda to inspire terror among the refusniks and rebels. It's obvious they have no fear of the so-called "army" forces arrayed against them, as so many of the videos uploaded from the region testify. Perhaps they will fear the mercenaries, then, eh? The ones who have no qualms about liquidating the untermenschen wherever they encounter them. 

If Ukraine isn't already swarming with international mercs -- they don't have to be Americans, do they, hmm? -- ready to shed plenty of native blood for the cause of the bankers and exploiters and financiers and oppressor-class, it soon will be, no?

Monstrous.

First Division Ukraine 1 -- Odessa Massacre Investigative Report

First part is an examination of the Odessa riots on May 2 and the attack on the Trade Union building which caused the death of so many people. Some of the video clips are ones I've never seen before -- and they are chilling. Yuri Galshenko was reporting live for Vremya Odessa during the Massacre and he is extensively interviewed and his reporting is featured in this segment. I don't understand the language, so I don't know what he is saying, but overall, it appears from the visuals that the segment is more balanced and truthful than many of the reports that have come out of Ukraine.

______________________________________-
This is a link to some raw video compilations from the May 2 Massacre, some of which I saw as it was internet streamed live that night.

Ukraine Update

Voters casting ballots in Mariupol, May 11, 2014

Huh?

What's this "Ukraine?" of which you speak? That's so last week! Time to move on.

This week the issue is Boko Haram and all those schoolgirls forced into captivity in Nigeria, and their impending rescue by AFRICOM troops, Valiant and Brave.

Ukraine is so over.

It's All Africa All the Time now, baby. Get with the program!

[As for Breaking Bad, I hear it wasn't renewed...]

Thursday's Special Meeting of the Albuquerque City Council

Video of some of the silent protest at Albuquerque City Council's Special Meeting Thursday, May 8, 2014, video from Albuquerque Journal

I made the grievous and rather silly error the other day of watching the archived video of the infamous Monday, May 5, 2014, (Cinco de Mayo, no?) take-over of the Albuquerque City Council meeting and writing about it as if it were taking place live. Mea maxima culpa, but that's what happens as I try to juggle too many things, and in the process make too many assumptions about what is going on.

I watched much of Thursday's special meeting of the Albuquerque City Council -- called to make up for the aborted Monday meeting -- live as it happened, and I've now seen quite a lot of video from both the Monday and Thursday meetings, and I've got to say, parts are as deeply moving as anything I've seen in civic affairs.

No, to be completely honest, I've never seen anything quite so moving in my long experience with city council meetings, most of which I've found to be boring as sin, deceptively manipulated by staff, and minor opportunities for electeds to grandstand on matters they really don't care about at all.

When the public tries to use the mechanism of the city council to make major -- or even minor -- changes in the way the city operations are conducted (for example, by attempts to curb the outrageous behavior of the police) city staff will routinely subvert and interfere with those efforts, leaving both the council and the public wondering what just happened. I've seen it time after time in California, and I've witnessed the same dynamic in Albuquerque.

But something different has been going on through the long years of public advocacy of reform of the APD. For years, there wasn't much progress, or rather what progress there was amounted to eyewash -- the typical subversion tactic of city staff -- with no substantive power or point.

In Albuquerque, the situation deteriorated rather than improved, and between 2010 and now, dozens have been shot and killed by Albuquerque police, seemingly at a greater rate since the DoJ issued its scathing report on the matter than before it.

The public crisis of confidence in the police is mirrored by the internal crisis within the APD. The two have waltzed hand in hand for years, but now it's reached the point where something must be done, for the current status quo is unsustainable.

The fact is that the police are killing people they shouldn't even be shooting, and they've been getting away with it in the face of growing public outrage and opposition. The notorious video of the summary execution in March of James Boyd, a homeless, mentally ill camper in the Sandia foothills, touched such a nerve in the community that opposition swelled to a level that it could not be ignored any further, could not be shunted to the side, could not be treated with disdain, and the victims could no longer be held entirely to blame for their own fate. Things had gone too far.

The protest movement grew by leaps and bounds, and street protests involving hundreds or thousands were complemented by Anonymous's -- the international "hacker" consortium -- calls for protest demonstrations and attacks on the city and police internet presence, constant vigils at sites of police killings, and more and more calls for action by city officials to curb the killing spree the police were on. Calls increased for their resignation and indictment if they continued to refuse to act.

Finally, the DoJ's scathing report on APD misconduct and misuse of lethal force was issued. It didn't stop the killing spree, however. Far from it.

No, instead, the killing spree goes on at an even greater rate than before, as if the very fact that so many people are pointing out how wrong it all is inspires the police to even greater levels of carnage and bloodshed.

Nobody calls for a cease fire.

Or if they do, the calls go unheeded.

And yet the killing must stop and it will. For now, the police are resisting any reform or accountability and claiming that their union contract prohibits any policy changes they don't agree with; since they refuse to agree to any reforms or accountability, there won't be any. That's basically been their stance throughout the uproar and outrage -- for decades.

Yes, this has been going on for decades. Some date the beginning of the modern police killing spree to the Roosevelt Park Riots of 1971, others point it actually began well before that, and protests have been taking place since the 1960's. "Reforms" aplenty have been proposed and supposedly implemented, but none have been effective. The police defy any effort at reform they don't wish to follow. And they almost always get away with it.

Why? Of course, there is plenty of culpability and complicity at the highest levels of civic authority. No one has shown less interest in real reform than the current Mayor, Richard Berry, or the current Chief Administrative Officer, Robert Perry, whose authority in the matter is significant, but who are fundamentally aligned with interests who see the problem from the point of view of those who desire the suppression of inconvenient or undesirable portions of the population and find that killing them is a good way to dispose of troublesome members of the community, and an excellent way of terrorizing survivors into compliance. They've been fine with the killing spree all along. It's never bothered them in the least.

Even when it sometimes hits close to home. Some of those who have been killed by APD are relatives of reasonably prominent people, including judges and civic/county executive staff. Others are simply ordinary people trying to get by as best they can. Still others are members of designated out groups -- homeless, mentally ill, vagabonds, brown or black "gang" members, drug users and abusers, and various other kinds of outlaws. In other words, people who obviously "need killing" in the lexicon of the Wild West.

Poverty, homelessness, drug abuse, petty criminality and mental illness are common -- but by no means universal -- attributes among the victims. They're so common as to be expected. Among the common attributes of the police who are so quick on the trigger is a culture of impunity and dishonesty. That culture goes right to the top, and though it is not universal, it is so common as to be expected.

Killing the victims is considered to be an effective means of "human waste disposal," as one killer-cop described his job on some social media.  Who is he performing that job for? Though he may identify strongly with the ones to whom he renders service, I wonder if it ever dawned on him that he is just as "disposable" in the eyes of the ones he serves.

Tens of millions of dollars have been paid out in settlements on behalf of citizens who have been killed or abused by Albuquerque police, and there is no end in sight to the payouts. It's one of the stranger aspects of the issue in that city officials by and large don't consider the expense to the to the taxpayers for police misconduct to be of much concern. Apparently, they see it as just a cost of doing business, whereas the $130,000 or so the city claims it cost in bond market basis points for the uproar that shut down the city council meeting last Monday was treated as if it were the most horrendous and momentous matter in the history of the city (and that's only a slight exaggeration.) The absurdity and upside down priority is grotesque.

I have no doubt that the demonstrations and protests will continue until there is significant, positive change in the way the city operates its police department. The people involved know what they are doing and they are relentless.

They've been at it a long time and they are close to success achieving important objectives. But they've made very clear that they're in this for the long haul, on behalf of Americans in general. Police misconduct and misuse of lethal force is a national epidemic. They're hoping, as I hope, that the resolution in Albuquerque will serve as a model for police reform and future conduct throughout the country.

Uppity.

This one has been all over the internet. Video taken yesterday, May 9, in Mariupol.

All of Them Terrorists

According to the Freaks in the Kiev Coup-Regime. All of them. Terrorists.


Celebrants at the Victory Day commemoration at Slo/avyansk, May 9, 2014


If anything, this one is even more moving for me than the annual Victory Day parade in Moscow. 

(Via anonymous commenter at Vinyard of the Saker)

Nazi Freaking Cowards

Notice all the unarmed "terrorists" who got shot by the Right Sektor National Guard in Mariupol today?

There Are No Nazis in Ukraine

Well, maybe a few. Here and there...



(Via Michael Whitney at Counterpunch, h/t teri49 in comments... sorry it took me so long to post the h/t)

Still Trying to Do Amateur Forensics on the Odessa Massacre

This is the most complete video I've so far seen of the interior of the Trade Union House in Odessa where so many were killed on May 2.



Video streaming by Ustream

I confess, I haven't seen it all yet, as I've been juggling a whole bunch of other stuff, including an injured cat. But what I have seen confirms some of my previous suspicions.

Most of the building was not burned at all. The deadly fire was in the entrance lobby and the rear stairwell with which the lobby connects. From the indications in this and other videos of the interior after the flames were put out, and from testimony of survivors I've read, once the Anti-Maidan activists gained entrance to the building on May 2 -- whether they broke in or were let in to the entrance lobby remains to be determined -- they erected a makeshift barricade from materials at hand. The remains of that barricade are still visible in the video above. Those remains are mostly metal, and exactly what was in the barricade is hard to determine from the ashes, scraps and twisted bars that could be seen when the video was shot on May 4. It appears from the burnt debris of the barricade that it was fairly substantial.

Based on what's in other videos I've seen, it appears that the fire started in the lobby, probably in the barricade itself, after several Molotov cocktails were hurled through the entrance doors. One of the doors appeared to be open as the flames consumed whatever was inside, and they all seemed to have glass panels, which could have been broken by the mob outside. Consequently, the doors didn't provide any substantial protection.

There are now a number of videos posted which show the nearly free access Right Sektor thugs had to the building both before and after the fire started. They were able to break in at the side entrances, and dozens of them were roaming the place seeking out and murdering victims all through the time that
Anti-Maidan activists were attempting to shelter inside. This is of interest in part because they were inside the building as the fire in the entrance lobby suddenly and spectacularly raced up the stairwell, killing what appeared to be more than a dozen people almost instantly.

Visible in the early videos of the charred bodies on the steps are makeshift barricades that those on the steps appeared to have erected to prevent people from coming down the steps. This suggests to me that there were Right Sektor thugs roaming the upper floors before the fire started, and there are videos of people in the windows of the upper floors waving the Ukrainian flag -- to loud and raucous cheers below -- as the fire was burning and people were trying to get out of the windows of offices at the front of the building.

This link is to quite a long video that shows efforts of people to escape the building by climbing out front windows. It also shows efforts at rescue made by members of the crowd prior to the arrival of the fire brigade hoses and ladders. At one point, a man in a red jacket or sweatshirt is seen hurling a Molotov cocktail at the building, apparently aiming for some of those trying to escape. He is admonished by another man in the crowd, and he seems disappointed that his efforts were not appreciated. He appears later to hurl invective (one assumes) at those trying to escape the building. There is also a portion of the video where someone appears in a top floor window waving a Ukrainian flag to the lusty chants of "U-krai-na!" from the crowd below, as terrified people stand or crouch in the windows.

Once the fire brigade arrives, they are able to put the fire in the lobby out within a very short time.

Numerous videos show Right Sektor access to the building.

Here are a few links:

 http://youtu.be/lkqfL8gf1Qg

http://youtu.be/5Z8WzYegg5o

 http://youtu.be/yt2XoYCohEI
(above link is to a 1:17:22 video compilation which includes many scenes inside the building from the POV of rampaging Right Sektor thugs. Also shows a lot of dead bodies of people who didn't die in the fire.)

 http://youtu.be/9pUGJud91VY
(This one appears to show the first stage of the fire in the lobby, but not the outbreak itself. There is also a shot of someone holding a Ukrainian flag in a fourth floor window as the fire is burning in the lobby below.)

 http://youtu.be/qvKTe7QnLeo
(In addition to much else, this one shows the fire brigade at the back of the building and fires burning on the second and fourth floors of the stairwell.)

 http://youtu.be/FEXmGQEoruw
(Thugs rampaging inside, a fire burning on the stairway. Fire appears to be from a Molotov cocktail tossed through the window. No one appears to notice....)

http://youtu.be/NeARQM1HLF8
(WARNING: Graphic. This was live video taken as soon as news cameras could get in the building; many burned bodies, also bodies of people apparently shot inside or otherwise killed inside.)

http://youtu.be/d7cB_u89bbo
(This is some of the video I saw live on the Vremya Odessa livestream the night of May 2; there are bodies in unburned offices that have been trashed, and one in a stairwell. These people were most likely murdered rather than overcome with smoke.)

http://youtu.be/xPwbpVbF6R8
(This is an infamous video taken from Right Sektor POV immediately after most of the survivors had gotten out. There are dead bodies, and efforts are made to prove the "terrorists" are Russian. They aren't successful. Pisses 'em off.)

People tried to barricade themselves in offices for protection and sometimes they were successful. But there appear to have been many murders inside as well.

Of course the Odessa "authorities" have no interest in investigating those murders, only the ones they say took place at the riots and among the mob outside -- murders they say were caused by "Anti-Maidan" elements.

This is, as I've said before, a purely Nazi tactic. Accuse the victims of what the perpetrators have done, and "prove" it through whatever means necessary.

It's shameful enough that the so-called "government" in Kiev and its local appointees in Odessa are pulling this shit; worse though is the support they're getting from all the capitals of the EU/NATO/US axis, every single one. They're all denying that Right Sektor and other fascist thugs are responsible for any of the atrocities of the past week. Couldn't be. As all the racist thugs are Russian under Putin's direct order and control. Everyone knows that.

Still, I ask, how did the fire that killed so many people get started, and what fueled it to such intensity and prolongation?*

It's a question that goes to the nature of the fire itself, who started it and how, and how was it sustained for such a long time in an portion of the building that provided so little fuel?

The Odessa Massacre itself has become an iconic event in the current Ukrainian crisis, one that no doubt will be remembered down the ages. Propaganda is so intense around it that truth is liable to be hidden for some time to come.

Yet in the barrage of propaganda we're exposed to, it's important, in my view, to at least try to understand what really happened.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
UPDATE: I have since seen a Vremya Odessa interview with one of the investigators of the May 2 Massacre, and he said -- at least to the extent I was able to translate what he was saying -- that there was no explosion in the building, and that the fire shot up the back stairwell as if up a chimney, which is what I had suspected all along. The question remains, though, what caused a fire that had been burning in the lobby for a while to suddenly shoot up the stairwell, catching so many people in its smoke and flame.

Several things come to mind:

1)The fire was initially burning in the south end of the lobby. Early video shows no fire visible through the two northern entrances.

2)The door to the south entrance was open, however, which allowed flames and smoke to escape from the lobby to the front of the building.

3)The windows in the stairwell were broken out at some point which I haven't been able to determine. There were defenders on landings throwing stones and other objects out of the broken windows at the mob below. Members of the mob were hurling Molotov cocktails into the building through the broken stairwell windows.

4)For some time there was very little smoke coming out of the broken stairwell windows, and then suddenly there was a great deal of smoke and flames were seen shooting through the second floor windows. That's when men (and at least one woman?) jumped out of the stairwell windows, some apparently from the top floor, landing in the parking area at the foot of the stairwell, most badly injured. According to recent statistics, seven victims died in "falls" -- one assumes that means jumping out of windows. Eight were killed by gunshots. The rest of the now 48 dead died in the fire, either overcome by flame or by smoke or both. One man made it half way out of a window before he was overcome and his burnt body remained half-way out of the window until after the fire was extinguished and the bodies were collected.

5)The suddenness of flame and smoke racing up the stairwell -- when there had been very little smoke and no flame (except that caused by Molotov cocktails hurled from below) coming out of the stairwell previously, despite the fact that a fire was burning vigorously in the lobby -- suggests that either the direction of the wind changed, blowing smoke and flame from the front of the building toward the back, or some highly flammable material suddenly caught fire which massively increased the amount of smoke and flame in the lobby which could only escape through the stairwell. Of course, both could have happened simultaneously.

6) Members of the mob are seen in some videos throwing materials from the debris outside the front entrance toward the entrance doors. I haven't seen any video that shows that any of the debris they were hurling toward the front entrance actually made it inside,  but it could have. Among the debris being thrown toward the entrance were tires, pallets and other wooden debris, no doubt in order to feed the fire.

7)In one of the videos of the fire's aftermath in the lobby, there are two relatively large burnt metal containers on the steps. Did they contain a flammable liquid? There's no way to know from the video. But if they did contain something like gasoline, they might not have exploded, but they could well have burst into flame with sudden and significant force of both flame and smoke.

I will say that some of the mob outside the building seemed shocked, even horrified, when they realized what was happening, and many helped to rescue people from the burning building. Nevertheless, many of those who escaped the fire were badly beaten by the mob, and dozens were arrested and held by the police until they were released after loud and forceful protests.

They're Cowards

Reports and some video have been coming in from Mariupol, where apparently more than 100 have been killed and many hundreds injured when so-called "troops" opened fire on a large crowd, estimated at ten thousand or more, gathered to celebrate Victory Day.

The only videos I've seen so far are various angles of the scene shown in the previous post, in Mariupol.

This one shows the situation leading up to the shootings in the video (it gets pretty gory, so be warned):



While the view is clouded by something smeared on the camera lens, you can see the scene well enough to note that as the camera person gets closer to the intersection, a soldier is seen crouching down at the corner of a building while a young man in civilian clothes taunts him. Across the street there is another soldier who is shouting. APCs rattle by, and the man in civilian clothes goes to the middle of the street as they do, arms out, hurling taunts. Somebody shoots him and he crumbles to the street. Others go to his aid, and he's out of view of the camera for some time. I can't tell who shot him but I suspect it was the first soldier he was taunting.

The crowd is angry and shouting. Soldiers are trying to get across the street. There is what sounds like a lot of gunfire. In another video of the same scene,  a man in a suit who is photographing the situation near the kiosk is shot in the leg. Another man is apparently shot near the kiosk. A fourth man is seen lying on the street beside the cafe tent, and a fifth is seen lying in a pool of blood in front of the tent entrance. He's been shot through the head.

Still the crowd taunts the soldiers, who by this time have run away. They're complete cowards.

Which has something to do with why members of the APD feel they must shoot so many suspects.

They're terrified of the people. Frightened to death, and they believe that if they don't shoot first, they will be killed.

This is the mindset they're conditioned to believe, and they do.

But it is the mindset of cowards, terrified of their own shadows, and if they didn't have a gun, most of them would shit their pants.

On the other hand, the people in the streets taunting and insulting the cowardly shooters are truly brave, and much the same scene plays out time and again at the sites of police shootings.

The same conditioning, the same mindset, the same cowardice on the part of the armed, the same bravery on the part of the unarmed.

Today in Mariupol

The People respond to the Kiev-coup regime's attempts to enforce their rule by deployment of "soldiers" who fire into the crowds.



Several were shot and killed in this incident. Graham Phillips' Twitter has pictures of the gruesome aftermath. He says hospitals report up to a hundred killed. Monstrous.

The citizens show no fear, nonetheless.

Victory Day Parade, Moscow Red Square, May 9, 2014

Full video from RT.com of today's Victory Day Parade in Red Square.

There was a time when this parade, which has taken place annually in Moscow since victory over the Nazis in 1945, was considered nothing but Communist propaganda. That's the way it was presented to school-kids during the height of the Cold War, and that's all I thought it was until much later in my life when I learned just how awful the War had been for the Soviets, how many millions had died in combat and from the effects of the War, and how grateful the survivors were.

None of this was even hinted at during the many years of anti-Communist propaganda which Americans were subjected to every day.

Since I learned of what sacrifices Soviet citizens and soldiers made during the War, which they call The Great Patriotic War, I've seen this parade quite differently. Many of the older people who attend the ceremonies, dripping with their Soviet medals and ribbons, cannot hold back their emotions. Nor should they. What they went through and survived is almost inconceivable to most Americans who have no idea to this day how immense the battles were in Russia and the Soviet Union, and how determined was the Soviet defense.

Every time I see this parade, I empathize so strongly with those who sacrificed so much to ensure the survival of their nation and their progeny.

I doubt there's been anything else approaching it in human history.

ПОЗДРАВЛЯЕМ!!! УРА!!!

----------------------------
And of course, "Putin is the New Hitler..." Or for the Nazis in Ukraine, he's "The New Stalin." Pfft.

News From Odessa

To protect and serve

o1.ua  reports that there are two Right Sektor paramilitary "security" brigades occupying

Odessa in preparations for the May 9 Victory Day celebrations tomorrow. Their responsibilities include preventing "separatist manifestations" -- ie: Antimaidansky protests.

Should be worlds of fun.

Further reports are that arrests of Antimaidansky activists continue. The fires at the Trade Union building in Odessa are being blamed entirely on the Antimaidanski-ites, who are purported to have caused the fires either when the gasoline they were using on the roof to prepare the Molotov cocktails with which they were attacking the peaceful Pro-maidansky mob below ignited and "fell" to lower stories, or -- a new supposition -- when something the Antimaidansky activists brought inside the building exploded. This latest idea was presented at a news conference by Andrey Parubiy, the fascist head of the Ukrainian coup-regime's "security" services.

This is all classic Nazi behavior from the fomenting of riots, the massacre of civilians, the arrest of the opposition, to the blaming of the victims. The situation in Odessa is playing out almost exactly as similar situations played out in Nazi Germany and their conquered territories (including Ukraine) back in the day.

It's obvious as sin, and the fact that the entire Western establishment is backing these fascists and Nazis without reservation, is arming and equipping them, is encouraging and cheerleading them, should serve as a warning to every single one of us.

We are no longer "in danger" of falling into a neo-fascist future, we're there. The open support that the EU/NATO and the US are giving these freaks and thugs in Ukraine, while excoriating Russia and Putin for what these freaks and thugs are doing, is as sure a sign as anyone could want that we have arrived at the neo-fascist future, and what is happening to opposition in Ukraine is very possible everywhere the West holds sway. We've had many warnings, but now, they'll just do it.

I have little love for Vladimir Putin -- which is another topic altogether -- but most of his observations about what is and has been going on have been spot on, but most of his response has been surprisingly mild. I've always felt that he and his regime in the Kremlin are part of the pageant of neo-fascist revival, but at times he's been clear that he believes the march of Western fascism and Nazi-ism has to be stopped. Well, yes.

How and when is the question.
------------------------------------------------
This is video of a March 1 "Antimaidansky" rally at square in front of the Odessa Trade Union building. Seven thousand or more are said to have attended. Some of them are dead now and others are being hunted by the "security" forces.



This is a video of the Right Sektor and "Euromaidan" preparations and march to the Odessa Trade Union building site the day after the massacre. I watched it unfold live on Vremya Odessa and reported it at FDL as it was happening. It was chilling.

Albquerque City Council Shut Down Again [CORRECTED]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Interesting indeed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Over and over and over again.

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

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

So far, arrests have only been threatened.

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

It's that simple.

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

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

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

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

I hope!

Did Putin Just Blink?

Reports are coming in that Vladimir Putin has ordered Russian troops to withdraw from the Ukrainian border and the Russian government is urging the so-called "separatists" in the East and South to postpone the referendum on Ukrainian federalism they had scheduled for May 11.

These are extraordinary developments if true.

The main story on the matter that I've read so far is this one in the New York Times (I know, I know...)

Putin Announces Pullback from Ukraine Border

[An excerpt:]

Mr. Putin said he wanted the authorities in Kiev to immediately halt all military actions in southeastern Ukraine, referring to them again as “punitive operations.” He also welcomed the release of militants the Ukrainians had been holding, particularly Pavel Gubarev, a “people’s governor” in Donetsk who had been detained by the Ukrainian security services.

“We think the most important thing now is to launch direct dialogue, genuine, full-fledged dialogue between the Kiev authorities and representatives of southeast Ukraine,” he said, standing next to Didier Burkhalter, the president of Switzerland and the chairman of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which is coordinating the mediation effort.

“This dialogue could give people from southeast Ukraine the chance to see that their lawful rights in Ukraine really will be guaranteed,” he said. Mr. Putin also left the door open to Russia accepting, under certain conditions, the May 25 presidential elections, which Moscow had previously rejected.

“Let me stress that the presidential election the Kiev authorities plan to hold is a step in the right direction, but it will not solve anything unless all of Ukraine’s people first understand how their rights will be guaranteed once the election has taken place,” Mr. Putin said.

Mr. Putin was basically demanding that the mediation achieve what Russia has been seeking since the rebellion in Kiev overthrew Ukraine’s leader and Moscow’s ally, President Viktor F. Yanukovych, on Feb. 28: that Kiev grant some level of autonomy to the regions, including electing their own governors and directing their own foreign policy with their immediate neighbors.

Such a change would allow Russia some measure of control over the future direction of Ukraine and a possible veto over Ukraine’s attempts to join the European Union, or worse from Russia’s viewpoint, NATO.

“We all want the crisis to end as soon as possible, and in such a way that takes into account the interests of all people in Ukraine no matter where they live,” said Mr. Putin, according to the official Kremlin transcript of his remarks.

Putin has consistently behaved like the firm but ultimately conciliatory adult in the room during the Ukrainian upheavals that commenced when ousted president Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign a partnership agreement with the EU in November of last year.

While the coup-regime in Kiev has become more and more brutal and authoritarian toward resistance among Russians and Russian speakers, particularly in the East and South of the fragmenting nation, indeed launching military operations against refusniks and rebels in the East and precipitating a horrific massacre of civilians in Odessa, the Russian Federation president has been remarkably calm and deliberate in his arguments and actions, despite the increasingly shrill and bellicose rhetoric out of Kiev, Brussels, Berlin, London, and especially Washington, DC.

If indeed Putin has "blinked", I would regard it as a potentially devastating misstep for him and for Russia, let alone for Ukraine.

Yanukovych, too, was conciliatory, accommodating and willing to negotiate with the rebels and the protesters who were in the process of destroying his regime. He ultimately agreed to practically all their demands. The problem -- he realized too late -- was that the rebels demanded more and ever more and would not agree with Yanukovych. In the end, it meant that his government could not be sustained and collapsed. Yanukovych had to flee for his life, and Ukraine has been riven with strife ever since.

Surely Putin understands this and how his own government in the Kremlin could be vulnerable to a similar dynamic. It strikes me as odd that he might follow the same course as Yanukovych. And yet, with these apparently conciliatory gestures, after so much death and destruction by the Kiev coup-regime already, he may be setting his government up for a similar fall, and he may indeed be laying the foundation for the ultimate goal of the EU/NATO/US axis: the dismantlement of the Russian Federation.

Why would he do that?

It's too soon to know what's really going on, but at the moment, this particular step doesn't feel very positive...

The New Barbarians

The new barbarism out of the Kiev coup-regime is something so shocking to the conscience, it's hard to fathom or even to recognize. Of course, I understand that the coup-regime is operating in the interests of its sponsors in the EU, NATO and the US, and its barbarism is not entirely due to their own lack of humanity, but still...

The rampaging of the so-called "Ukrainian Army" and self-proclaimed "National Guard" is barely reported in the West, in part because there are few or no correspondents on the ground who can witness and testify to what is going on, and there are fewer still who can do it in English. I'm finding that by necessity, I'm learning more Russian words and phrases (it seems that even in hyper-nationalist Ukraine, Russian is the lingua franca), but it's still a struggle for me to wade through Russian language text and videos. What's interesting, as a sidelight, is that although I only understand a few spoken words and phrases and can only read Russian with what I call "averted vision" (that is, if I try to read it, I can't, but if I just let it be there and don't try so hard, it's much easier to read) when I can find English versions of what I've seen in Russian, they're very similar to what I thought I was hearing or reading in Russian. How that happens, I don't know, but it's one of many fascinating aspects of this whole nightmare.

A nightmare, it most definitely is. The Odessa Massacre is the central element of this nightmare. It took place far away from the "operations" in the East, and I'm wondering now if it was a deliberate diversion from the military (or whatever passes for the Ukrainian military) efforts to overcome and destroy the so-called "terrorists" or "separatists" or "pro-Russian" elements which have claimed the civic apparatus in many Eastern cities.

During the height of the demonstrations against him, and the numerous seizures of government buildings that took place in Kiev and elsewhere in Ukraine during the rebellion, Yanukovych never sent troops to re-capture territory or buildings. He negotiated endlessly with the rebels, and ultimately he agreed to most of their demands -- and he was implementing them when he suddenly fled Kiev. His police were almost impossibly restrained in dealing with the protests and the rebels in Kiev and elsewhere. Most of them weren't armed at all, and they suffered grievous losses from injury and death at the hands of the rebels. Some of them were engulfed in the flames of Molotov cocktails, others were beaten by rebels or pelted with cobblestones, others still were shot by members of the rebellion. The few police who were armed rarely used their weapons, and generally only did so in self-defense. An exception might -- or might not -- be during the failed efforts to clear the protest camps from Maidan Square in Kiev. There were many reports of gunfire from the police into the protest encampments, and I certainly heard a lot of popping noises on the livestream. But there were also a lot of fireworks going off, and contingents of the protesters themselves were armed. Who was actually firing amid the fiery chaos that night and how many of the popping noises were actually gunshots is a mystery.


The sniper attack in Kiev was performed by persons unknown. While the Western propagandists insist that Yanukovych set the snipers to work on the crowd, there's no evidence he did, and there are suspicions that the snipers were in the employ of Svoboda. There is evidence they were shooting at the crowd and the police simultaneously.

At any rate, the rebellion itself was relatively barbaric, from first to last, in part because its "security" was provided by a coalition of fascist and Nazi political elements called the Right Sektor. It was brutal. Svoboda may have been trying to mitigate its reputation and moderate its future, but Right Sektor was and is proudly nativist, reactionary, fascist and Nazi, through and through. They brutalized and killed those on their outlist. This was during the rebellion.

The Right Sektor was given prominent "security" responsibility after Yanukovych's government collapsed, and many of its members are said to have joined the so-called National Guard now operating in the East.

Many others are said to have been bused down to Odessa for the fiery festivities on May 2.

This was said during the Odessa riots on May 2, but I didn't see any evidence it was so. It looked to me like the rioting was spontaneous and the product of domestic animosities in Odessa. There had been previous riots there, after all, in which the same or similar elements collided leaving plenty of destruction and injury in their wake. There had also been many more or less peaceful contending demonstrations -- "pro-" and "anti-" Maidan, as they were characterized.

But then questions were raised about just how "spontaneous" all the rioting was. There were more and more indications that the rioting was deliberately incited by police and a shadowy group of "protesters" who seemed to be on both sides, egging each on to ever greater levels of violence, and firing weapons from both sides.

It appeared to me that the "anti-Maidan" side withdrew from the fray -- they were outnumbered -- and retreated... somewhere. The reports of the aftermath are not entirely clear regarding what happened to the "Antimaydanskis" -- they seemed to just melt away.

Meanwhile a contingent of "Pro-Maidan" young people took off at a run to the "Antimaydansky" encampment at the Trade Union building. It is quite a distance from the center of town where the rioting had been under way to the park where the Trade Union building is located. Well over a mile.

Once they arrived, several hundred of them, they attacked the encampment with a vengeance. They demolished it and burned the debris, then set upon the building itself. The Antimaydansky demonstrators, mostly women and older men -- how many, I don't know, there are reports of as few as dozens to as many as hundreds -- had retreated into the building for safety from the mob. The mob threw Molotov cocktails at the building and at least one man in the mob was firing a gun at the building (shown prominently in a number of videos taken at the scene. He, it is said, was also active in Kiev during the demonstrations there, and his name is said to be Micola.)

In fact, a number of people in the mob were recognized as either Right Sektor militants from Kiev or Maidan demonstrators from Kiev or as police commanders from Kiev. It's understandable that some people in Odessa would see the tragic episodes and the Massacre as instigated by Kiev.

Once the encampment was destroyed, a contingent of Right Sektor militants gained access to the interior of the building via a side entrance where a door had somehow been wrenched and twisted off its hinges. There are videos of these armed Right Sektor militants rampaging on the first and second floor well before any fires are ignited in the building.

Other members of the mob stayed outside the building throughout the assault, some of them lobbing Molotov cocktails, others stoning the building, or taunting those inside.

But it seems clear that Right Sektor militants were inside the Trade Union building from almost the first moments the mob arrived -- and maybe even before.

What happened inside is still being pieced together, but I can say that when I first saw videos of the inside of the building broadcast on Vremya Odessa on the night of the Massacre, I didn't believe what I was seeing. The place was wrecked and there were numerous burned and dead bodies shown in a video recording apparently taken moments after the fires were put out. I didn't even think it was the same building. Another live video showed the interior of the building, and it didn't seem so horrifying. The place looked pretty well trashed, to be sure, but not as badly as in the recorded video, and there was only one dead body in the live shots I saw that night, and it didn't look burned.

Later, I would understand that these videos were taken in different locations within the building, and that only parts of the building were burned. The recorded video was taken near the front entrance where an intense blaze burned for about an hour before the fire brigade arrived to put it out, and everything near the front entrance was charred, bodies and all. The live video I'd seen was taken at a side staircase where there had been no fire and very little damage had occurred. The dead body in the live shot was... a mystery.

Live video showed badly injured people in a pile outside the building, some being tended to by medics, but many simply tossed into a heap to bleed and moan. There were live scenes of violence to the injured and scenes of triumphant gloating by the mob, singing and chanting their victory songs.

Police roused the survivors of the massacre and roughly handled them, placing most in police vans (a few wound up in ambulances) where they sat unattended for hours. Eventually, they were transported to the jail where they were held until the next day, when they were released upon strident protest by another "mob" of friends and relations. Others, I'm told, were not so fortunate and are still being detained. Some 250 injuries were reported, more than two dozen serious.

Not one of the attackers has been detained, so I've read.

I was initially leery of reports of Right Sektor militant involvement in the riot and Massacres, but I've seen them in numerous videos, and I saw them live during a march and rally the next day, trying to incite more violence, so I don't doubt it. But it wasn't just Right Sektor. There was another, more shadowy, element involved in the riot and Massacre. No one seems to know who they were or where they came from, but they have been identified by the red armbands they wore. They seemed to be on both sides of the rioters and they were among police as well. They seemed to be the ones instigating the violence -- on both sides.

All against all, I guess.

I've read reports of Right Sektor militants inside the Trade Union building shooting, stabbing and beating to death anyone they came across, or anyone they could lure to their deaths from hiding places. I've seen videos of bodies in hallways and offices, some of them shot, others perished by unknown means, so the stories of Right Sektor thugs combing the building for victims seem valid enough, given the fact that I've also seen videos of Right Sektor militants rampaging inside the building well before fires raged.

There is no reason to doubt the testimony of those survivors who say they saw and heard Right Sektor militants throughout the building during the time it was being attacked from outside, and they heard shots, and the saw their comrades killed.

The survivors are said to number about 100. The dead are said to number anywhere from 40 to over a hundred, and there are reports -- to date unverified -- that many of the dead were dumped in the basement where one presumes they still are.

There is a big question in my mind about the intense blazes inside the building in which a dozen or more people were apparently burned alive. The fires that killed these people had to have happened very suddenly and they had to have been extremely large and intense for them to kill so many people almost instantly.

A Molotov cocktail is incapable of such instant incineration.

Something else caused the fires at the front entrance and the back stairwell where most of the burned bodies were found.

There is scant video evidence so far of how these fires started. There are numerous shots of Molotov cocktails being thrown at the building, and there is video of fires already burning at the front entrance and back stairwell, but so far as I've been able to find, there is no posted video of the start of those fires.

I wonder if the front entrance and the back stairwell are connected?

The fires in each are very similar, and I wonder if they are actually the same fire.

There is video that shows the back stairwell both before and immediately after the fire began there -- but not as the fire started -- and it suggests that there was a sudden and overwhelming flash over of smoke and fire, initially just heavy black smoke, which filled much of the stairwell. Many people apparently jumped for their lives at the instant the smoke and fire began in the back stairwell, for there is heart-wrenching video of a pile of perhaps ten badly injured men on the ground below the stairwell windows immediately after the fire begins. Some of the men are burned, but most seem to be bloodied about the head and face. They landed in a pile of wood debris and broken glass.

Police and bystanders pulled the injured victims away from the burning stairwell, but many people were trapped inside, and it looks like no one who could not or did not get away fast enough survived the fire in the back stairwell or at the front entrance.

The people who died in the fire have been blamed by some of the Kiev propagandists for starting it. They may have, but I've seen no evidence that they did. The claim has been made that the defenders of the Trade Union building were throwing Molotov cocktails at the mob outside, but I've seen no evidence of that, either.

Instead, I've seen abundant video evidence that Molotov cocktails were being thrown at the building, and many started fires inside it.

But those fires mostly burned out fairly quickly. The fires at the main entrance and the back stairwell burned fiercely -- for an hour or maybe more in the case of the front entrance, many minutes at the back stairwell.

Something fueled the fire at the main entrance, something more than gasoline, and something caused a flashover fire at the back stairwell, perhaps the same something that fueled the front entrance fire.

Whatever the case, what happened in Odessa, from the riots in the center of town to the Massacre at the Trade Union building was barbaric in the extreme. It appears to have been instigated in Kiev or through the agency of the coup-regime in Kiev, and it may have been deliberately engineered to distract from faltering military operations in the East, possibly even intended to provoke Russia into a military response.

To the extent it accomplished anything, however, it seems to have hardened the lines of division in Odessa, frightened the residents terribly, angered much of the population, and emboldened the radical elements looking for a fight.

As they say, "This will not end well..."

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UPDATE: This video of the interior of the Odessa Trade Union building posted by 01.ua TV basically confirms some of my suspicions about the fires that raged at the front entrance and rear stair well on May 2. It also made me cry, for the horror of what happened there can't be avoided, and the expressions on the faces of the people gathered for the memorial for the dead are heartbreaking in the extreme.



The front entrance and  rear stairwell are directly connected, and apart from the doors and window frames, there is nothing flammable either in the entrance or the stairwell. Construction appears to be stone veneer and plaster on a core of concrete blocks. The only wood or other flammable material was the door and window frames and the heavy doors themselves.

Yet the fire (it was apparently a single fire) burned with extreme intensity and for quite a long time in the entrance lobby and the stairwell, killing numerous people who had no time to flee the flames.

Interestingly, but not all that surprisingly, there is a room directly off the entrance lobby that appears to be separated from it only by a metal grille. That room was full of papers, cardboard boxes and other highly flammable material, none or very little of which appears to have burned. Yet the stone and plaster of the lobby and stairwell show signs of intense heat and even some of the thick window glass of the stairwell appears to be partially melted.

This is where the people were burned alive. Suddenly. It happened when some kind of incendiary material flashed into flame and burned fiercely in this single area for an hour or more.

The stairwell acted as a chimney, lofting smoke and flame up through all five stories in an instant.

What was the cause?
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BTW, this story of "what happened" is patently false in every way.  For those who don't like to open FOX News items, the story quotes Kiev coup-regime "investigators" who assert that the fire started on the upper floors when Molotov cocktails the defenders were making on the roof somehow "fell" and ignited. This did not happen.

The fire in the entrance lobby and rear stair well began there and burned fiercely for over an hour.