Last night in Portland, the scene was different than before, but strangely the same. A huge crowd assembled at the Multnomah County Justice Center on the next block over from the federal courthouse. They were, as they are every night, primarily focused on the Black Lives Matter movement and supporting the de-racialization of police, justice and society. It's festive, angry and determined. There were upwards of two thousand people in attendance; I'd say closer to four or five thousand, but it was impossible for me to see the edges of the crowd from the live-streamers' pov.
At a certain point, many of the demonstrators moved over to the federal courthouse on the adjacent block. It had been surrounded by a high metal mesh fence, much like the one deployed in DC to keep the rabble away from the White House and out of Lafayette Park. Point of interest: it may actually be the same one, transported by DHS over the past few weeks. Maybe they'll take it all around the country as to "quell" protests.
The fence appeared to surround the whole building, but that wasn't entirely clear. There are sally ports on the sides and rear of the building, and you'd think the feds would want to keep access to them open, but who knows? The fencing had obviously been erected sometime after the previous night's festivities, and it appeared that while the fencing was being put up, all the trash and debris collected under the portico in front of the building had been removed. The cleanup made things look a little less gross, but the graffiti decorating the building remained to remind us of what was going on.
As the crowd assembled in front of the courthouse, there was no sign of federal officers (or whatever they are) protecting the building. Someone pointed out however that the front entrance sally port was open, so no doubt at some point, the feds would get to work and "quell" the protests.
There were gates in the fence, and apparently it was easy enough to open them and wander around inside the barricade. Some chose to do so while others collected trash (from the park across the street?) and placed it in bags along the perimeter of the fence. At some point, the trash was thrown over the fence and lit on fire. Multiple garbage fires burned inside the fence, not threatening the building, but certainly serving as an emblem of the disaster the federal "law enforcement" presence was in Portland.
As the fires burned, protesters wandered in and out of the barricaded area, and the feds finally bestirred themselves to do something about it. While some chased the protesters out of the barricaded area, others tackled protesters (one woman was caught and screamed lustily as she was dragged inside by the feds), others shot teargas and impact munitions at the crowd outside (every tear gas canister I saw was thrown back) and one used a fire extinguisher to put out some of the fires. Others kept burning.
Tear gas was shot outside the fence and was immediately thrown back. Clouds of teargas were dispersed with leaf blowers, fireworks were shot at the building, some exploding very loudly, others flashing brightly.
A riot was declared, and protesters ordered to disperse. They did not. Mutual fire went back and forth between the feds and the protesters for some time. Teargas, fireworks, bottles, impact munitions, and so on, and the crowd outside the barricade did not seem to diminish. It looked to be close to a thousand. Many were hit, yet because of the fence, not as many were hurt as in previous confrontations.
Eventually, things calmed down as they tend to do. The crowd went home, the fires were out, and the feds retreated into their fortress.
What was different was that the feds did not go beyond their fenced perimeter -- at least I didn't see them do so. The Federal Protective Service made several announcements that damaging the fence would lead to tear gas and impact munitions, but damaging that fence was pretty much impossible, and there was abundant tear gas and impact munitions fired no matter. The declaration of riot and dispersal orders came from the Portland Police -- and they were ignored. So far as I could tell, the PPB did not enforce their orders, but maybe they did. Hard to say.
Did I mention the mayor was there? Oh yes, he got lustily insulted by the crowd and was told to resign. He also got teargassed by the feds. Lucky him. It was sort of like seeing Minneapolis's boy-mayor get humiliated by the BLM crowd back in the day.
Now if the feds have secured a defensible perimeter around the courthouse -- just that, nothing else -- and they stay inside it, I would be willing to guess that the protests will continue but not as intensely. After all, it was the feds going wilding on the streets of Portland that led to the huge protests we've seen since Sunday. If they stay inside their fortress, I think nobody will much care anymore. I imagine garbage fires will be set now and then -- metaphorically stating the case that the federal government is a garbage fire that will keep burning and flaring up until substantial change is made.
It's being called a revolution, and the protests in Portland certainly evoke the uprisings in many other countries, but a revolution, no. Not yet, perhaps not possible. Demands are being made, and some are being met. That's about as far as it will go.
De-policing, de-racializing policing, dignity, community, justice in all forms, these are among the demands. Will they be achieved? Some, yes. But not easily, and not soon.
Trump's days on the throne are numbered. His reality show is being canceled. Aw too bad. His surge of law enforcement in Portland has been a disaster. The notion that he can bypass local authorities and dictate what and how law enforcement will be done (and by whom) is ludicrous. It appears that in the Chicago and Albuquerque "surges" his agents are working directly with police unions, cutting out local electeds altogether. This won't end well. But we've been saying that about the Trump regime for years.
And it's not ending well.
Not well at all...
Much of what I saw of last night's actions in Portland came from Sergio Olmos's and Cory Elia's coverage.
Showing posts with label The Revolution This Time. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Revolution This Time. Show all posts
Thursday, July 23, 2020
Wednesday, December 17, 2014
The Revolution This Time -- Sheep vs Dogs
These young people who are leading the protests and demonstrations and the Movement against police violence, murder and impunity that is growing and spreading like wildfire around the country and now over parts of the world are truly impressive. They've shown themselves to be among the most clearheaded, determined, and able organizers and strategists that have arisen during our times of trouble (those times go back a long way now, don't they?) and I have nothing but respect and admiration for them.
Occupy and its descendants are deeply involved with the current cycle of Movement building, disruption and dissent. It is in some ways more rebellious than Occupy's encampment phase was, but the Occupy element is taking a backseat to the young black and brown men and very many women of color who are the organizational motors for the current Movement. This is strategic wisdom, given the frequent complaints during Occupy's encampment phase that the Movement was overly solicitous to and dominated by white men -- who weren't necessarily God's Gift to Teh Revolution anyway.
And there was another thing too, which I worry about in connection with the current Movement: infiltration and subversion by agents provocateur and worse whose goal is and was disruption of the Movement and ultimately its destruction. In the case of Occupy, disruption was a daily occurrence, and it was fairly obviously a coordinated effort undertaken by agents of both the public and the private sectors.
Part of the problem with Occupy, of course, was that so many people were spontaneously attracted to the Movement, and there wasn't enough time for them to get to know one another, let alone for them to learn the intricacies of direct democracy, horizontalism, and to become grounded in the various strains of anti-capitalist and anarchist thought and philosophy that had given birth to Occupy as if from Zeus's Brow. There just wasn't time. The encampments themselves were difficult environments for this process to take place, and the massed police presence which lurked on the perimeters was not particularly reassuring. When the coordinated and frequently violent and destructive crackdowns came the Movement sputtered and the flame almost went out.
But it didn't go out entirely. Instead, it went underground where it spread essentially from hand to hand, among like-minded people who found one another through their mutual interests in building a better future, repairing the earth, and being kind to one another.
It's a beautiful thing. Occupy is now deeply integrated into hundreds of communities throughout the land and abroad. Those communities of mutual interest have spawned many more, in a very organic process of growth. In turn these communities are built on such strong foundations of mutual aid that an enormous effort like Occupy Sandy could spontaneously arise when the need was greatest and could provide succor and services to the survivors of the Hurricane that the traditional disaster relief institutions either couldn't or wouldn't. The tragedy of our failed institutions was overcome through the voluntary efforts of individuals working on behalf of a common cause.
The Occupy Movement has been building an alternative infrastructure to the more and more incapable, incompetent, corrupt and failed government agencies and private sector institutions that Americans previously relied on. We can't rely on government or the private sector, or on schools, charities, churches, police, the military or what have you to routinely do the right thing in the public's interest. Not anymore -- if we ever really could. There might have been a time when the public interests and the institutional interests were aligned, but those times have long since passed.
Over and over again, the People have learned that we cannot control the actions of government or the corporate sector which has captured the government, Not more than marginally and infrequently at any rate. Government governs contrary to the public interest as one of its fundamental principles, it seems.
And then there are the police.
Oh, the Po Po.
The problem of killer cops and their impunity has been around a long time, and the People have been objecting for just as long. In the past, the issue was localized, however. Individualized. Made into an aberration, attributed to the bad apples which any force will have, yada, yada, and it was difficult or impossible to build a movement around opposition to police violence and murder and their impunity.
It was commonly believed that the incidents were rare and that by and large, the victims "needed killing" anyway because of their behavior, their past problems with the law, their drug or alcohol use/abuse, their mental condition or disability, the color of their skin, their threatening gender, their supposed gang affiliation or their poverty and homelessness. If occasionally mistakes were made and someone who shouldn't have been killed was caught in the crossfire or was targeted erroneously, oh well. Too bad so sad. The courts would order a substantial payout to the survivors from the public purse and that would be that. Until the next time, and then the cycle would repeat.
This routine went on for years and years and years. The police would commit some atrocity or other, either of abuse or murder, there would be an outcry, the police would smear the victim(s) as deserving their sorry fate, there would be a cursory "investigation" which would almost always absolve the Brave Officers of culpability (because the abuse/killing would almost always be determined to be "justified," ie: within policy) and that would be the end of it.
Everyone knew the routine. No matter what they did, the police would not be held to account. Justice would not be done.
The protests and demonstrations against police abuse were highly localized. No one actually knew the statistics of police killings or the pervasiveness of police abuse. There were no comprehensive published data. People who were attuned or involved sensed the problem was widespread enough to be considered universal, but without firm data it was -- and still is -- difficult to show.
A catalyst was needed, and it came with the egregious police execution of James Boyd in Albuquerque in March of this year. Police helmet cam video of Boyd's execution was released by the APD as evidence of "justification" for killing him, but the public strenuously disagreed. The man was mentally impaired, harming no one, and he was surrendering when he was shot multiple times, bean bag rounds were then fired and a dog was set on his paralyzed and mortally wounded body. It was absurd. More than that, it was obscene.
Boyd was literally executed, with neither trial nor conviction, for "failure to obey" correctly and swiftly enough for his killers' satisfaction. That was it, period.
The public outrage was swift and the protests were intense, but it was all built on a long history of police abuse and murder of the innocent, on a well-known police culture of violence and brutality. Police in Albuquerque were out of control, and practically everyone knew it. The killings were frequent, often outrageous, and complaints and protests were already almost nonstop by the time Boyd was executed.
The outrageousness of Boyd's execution merely escalated the public outcry and protest against police misconduct and murder that was already underway.
There were large and sustained protests, the freeway through town was even shut down briefly in protest, and the police trotted out their military gear to suppress protesters with threats and teargas and grenades, in a rather striking prelude to the current episode of protest against police violence. Protests that spread nationwide after the egregious killings of Eric Garner John Crawford III, Mike Brown, Kajieme Powell, Darrien Hunt, and on and on and on and on and on and on.
This has got to stop.
It wasn't just that there was so much killing by police, it was also that the police were almost never held to account for their abuse and killing. Time after time, as the protests this summer went on, district attorneys and grand juries refused to find officers culpable in any way for their actions when they abused or killed citizens. As always, almost every killing and act of violence committed by police was deemed "justified" (ie: within policy.)
Meanwhile the dead pile up. A website called Killed By Police began tracking media accounts of police killings in May of last year. The numbers were startling. So startling, and so divergent from the "official" statistics put out by the FBI that many people refused to accept them, just as many news organizations continue to ignore them. As of today, the number of deaths caused by police since last May is up to at least 1,808. At least 1,050 have been killed so far this year. The statistics the FBI releases annually list "only" about 400 killed by police. This is not just an error, it's a gross error, and many think it is a deliberate undercount.
So far, Killed by Police is the only resource that tracks reports of police killings in almost real time. The statistics are horrifying; the annual death toll of civilians at the hands of police is greater than the death toll of soldiers in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, and we're starting to get an idea of how often civilians are assaulted and/or wounded by police in the US as well. The numbers are shocking: hundreds of thousands of assaults by police annually. Hundreds. Of. Thousands.
The police are engaged in war against civilians. There's no other way to put it.
It's a war in which the rules of engagement are simplicity itself: civilians must comply with police commands instantly or suffer the frequently lethal consequences; any Negro with a gun -- or thought to have a gun or other weapon -- is to be shot on sight. That is all.
Simple, direct and to the point.
According to the cult of police, civilians are sheep, the police are sheepdogs, and by definition those they kill or abuse are wolves, predators to be guarded against and killed. The problem is and has been that the police are killing a lot of "sheep" in their quest to protect the flock against supposed wolves.
The sheep have had enough.
They're not going to take it anymore.
They've risen up against the dogs that are harassing and killing them.
The police and those they serve are in a bind, to say the least. Note is made of the fact that the police don't serve the people, they serve their masters, the High and the Mighty, which until now have been content to let the police do whatever they want to civilians, kill them if they want, it doesn't matter to those the police serve, so long as the police don't interfere with or attack them -- and so long as the People, the sheep, don't rise up sufficiently for the High and Mighty to notice.
The prelude to the current nation-wide rebellion against the "sheepdogs" in Albuquerque this spring and summer demonstrated that the High and Mighty would be forced to notice. The Department of Justice released a scathing report against the Albuquerque Police Department's pattern and practice of violence, unjustified use of force, incompetence and unconstitutional policing. The city and police department have entered into an enforceable consent decree that reforms some of the department's practices and requires extensive reporting. There has not been a police killing in Albuquerque since August [see update below], though there have been a number of incidents which in the past would have led to summary execution.
Police killings continue in the rest of the country, many of them as outrageous as that of Tamir Rice in Cleveland. The protests against them have gained strength, largely through the efforts of those young people who have spearheaded the Movement since the killing of Mike Brown by Darren Wilson in Ferguson, MO, in August.
The protests have involved a growing array of Americans, from lawyers and medical professionals staging die-ins, to students walking out of schools, to professional sports players signaling their dismay with police conduct through various means like tee-shirts and "hands up" gestures. Even congressional staffers and DC city workers have walked off the job and expressed their sympathy with the protesters.
Tens of thousands march against police murder and brutality in cities all over the country. Over 600,000 Americans are said to have participated in the demonstrations last Saturday.
The protests continue every day. The Oakland, CA, police headquarters was blockaded for over four hours on Monday, vigils are held constantly, traffic on freeways and city streets is brought to a halt by protests routinely, the all-important Christmas shopping season is disrupted, Chanukah this year is dedicated to the idea expressed everywhere in the protests: "Black Lives Matter." Jews and Muslims march together against police violence.
We may soon see Christian clerics saying "Enough" and joining the Movement.
Enough.
Stop the killing. Black lives matter. Stop. Cease fire. End the murder. End the madness.
The focus on Black lives is due to the fact that throughout the country, Black people have long been the main targets of police abuse and murder, and due to the fact that so many of those killed by police have been Black men who are instantly executed like Tamir Rice was or John Crawford. Police got word of a "Negro with a gun." That's all they need. Rice and Crawford were shot on sight, simply because of reports that they were armed and Negro. No other reason at all. And of course, like almost all cases of summary execution by police, their killers were absolved by DA/Grand Jury. The Brave Officers feared for their lives... they can't be held to account when they're so frightened. Right? As everybody knows. a Negro with a gun is an existential threat to all mankind. Right? Must kill on sight. Right?
Well, no.
The people say no.
The sheep are corralling the dogs.
The revolution this time is a revolution of conscience and consciousness. There is no resolution yet, but it will come. The pressure on authority cannot be resisted forever.
---------------------------------------------------------
[Re: Police killing in Albuquerque update. ]
Last night, a man was shot and killed in Albuquerque by a Bernalillo County Sheriff Deputy. This was not an APD shooting/killing. BCSO has long had a better reputation for use of force -- at least in the field if not at the jail -- than APD, so this incident is something of a surprise, even an anomaly. Accounts of what happened differ of course, but apparently the deputy stopped a car driven by Adam Padilla for expired tags. His girlfriend was a passenger. After the stop, Padilla was allowed to go -- whether a citation was issued is not clear. Padilla was stopped by the same deputy shortly afterwards, and when he got out of his car to speak to the deputy, the deputy used a taser on him. At some point, the deputy claims that Padilla struggled with him, and the deputy believed Padilla had a gun and his life was in danger. The deputy then shot Padilla multiple times. When his girlfriend attempted to go to Padilla's aid, the deputy threatened to shoot her, too. Padilla was seriously wounded and was transported to the hospital where he died.
From what little has been said about the incident it's impossible to know why the deputy killed Padilla. But it was the first officer-involved killing in Albuquerque (but not New Mexico) since August.
Occupy and its descendants are deeply involved with the current cycle of Movement building, disruption and dissent. It is in some ways more rebellious than Occupy's encampment phase was, but the Occupy element is taking a backseat to the young black and brown men and very many women of color who are the organizational motors for the current Movement. This is strategic wisdom, given the frequent complaints during Occupy's encampment phase that the Movement was overly solicitous to and dominated by white men -- who weren't necessarily God's Gift to Teh Revolution anyway.
And there was another thing too, which I worry about in connection with the current Movement: infiltration and subversion by agents provocateur and worse whose goal is and was disruption of the Movement and ultimately its destruction. In the case of Occupy, disruption was a daily occurrence, and it was fairly obviously a coordinated effort undertaken by agents of both the public and the private sectors.
Part of the problem with Occupy, of course, was that so many people were spontaneously attracted to the Movement, and there wasn't enough time for them to get to know one another, let alone for them to learn the intricacies of direct democracy, horizontalism, and to become grounded in the various strains of anti-capitalist and anarchist thought and philosophy that had given birth to Occupy as if from Zeus's Brow. There just wasn't time. The encampments themselves were difficult environments for this process to take place, and the massed police presence which lurked on the perimeters was not particularly reassuring. When the coordinated and frequently violent and destructive crackdowns came the Movement sputtered and the flame almost went out.
But it didn't go out entirely. Instead, it went underground where it spread essentially from hand to hand, among like-minded people who found one another through their mutual interests in building a better future, repairing the earth, and being kind to one another.
It's a beautiful thing. Occupy is now deeply integrated into hundreds of communities throughout the land and abroad. Those communities of mutual interest have spawned many more, in a very organic process of growth. In turn these communities are built on such strong foundations of mutual aid that an enormous effort like Occupy Sandy could spontaneously arise when the need was greatest and could provide succor and services to the survivors of the Hurricane that the traditional disaster relief institutions either couldn't or wouldn't. The tragedy of our failed institutions was overcome through the voluntary efforts of individuals working on behalf of a common cause.
The Occupy Movement has been building an alternative infrastructure to the more and more incapable, incompetent, corrupt and failed government agencies and private sector institutions that Americans previously relied on. We can't rely on government or the private sector, or on schools, charities, churches, police, the military or what have you to routinely do the right thing in the public's interest. Not anymore -- if we ever really could. There might have been a time when the public interests and the institutional interests were aligned, but those times have long since passed.
Over and over again, the People have learned that we cannot control the actions of government or the corporate sector which has captured the government, Not more than marginally and infrequently at any rate. Government governs contrary to the public interest as one of its fundamental principles, it seems.
And then there are the police.
Oh, the Po Po.
The problem of killer cops and their impunity has been around a long time, and the People have been objecting for just as long. In the past, the issue was localized, however. Individualized. Made into an aberration, attributed to the bad apples which any force will have, yada, yada, and it was difficult or impossible to build a movement around opposition to police violence and murder and their impunity.
It was commonly believed that the incidents were rare and that by and large, the victims "needed killing" anyway because of their behavior, their past problems with the law, their drug or alcohol use/abuse, their mental condition or disability, the color of their skin, their threatening gender, their supposed gang affiliation or their poverty and homelessness. If occasionally mistakes were made and someone who shouldn't have been killed was caught in the crossfire or was targeted erroneously, oh well. Too bad so sad. The courts would order a substantial payout to the survivors from the public purse and that would be that. Until the next time, and then the cycle would repeat.
This routine went on for years and years and years. The police would commit some atrocity or other, either of abuse or murder, there would be an outcry, the police would smear the victim(s) as deserving their sorry fate, there would be a cursory "investigation" which would almost always absolve the Brave Officers of culpability (because the abuse/killing would almost always be determined to be "justified," ie: within policy) and that would be the end of it.
Everyone knew the routine. No matter what they did, the police would not be held to account. Justice would not be done.
The protests and demonstrations against police abuse were highly localized. No one actually knew the statistics of police killings or the pervasiveness of police abuse. There were no comprehensive published data. People who were attuned or involved sensed the problem was widespread enough to be considered universal, but without firm data it was -- and still is -- difficult to show.
A catalyst was needed, and it came with the egregious police execution of James Boyd in Albuquerque in March of this year. Police helmet cam video of Boyd's execution was released by the APD as evidence of "justification" for killing him, but the public strenuously disagreed. The man was mentally impaired, harming no one, and he was surrendering when he was shot multiple times, bean bag rounds were then fired and a dog was set on his paralyzed and mortally wounded body. It was absurd. More than that, it was obscene.
Boyd was literally executed, with neither trial nor conviction, for "failure to obey" correctly and swiftly enough for his killers' satisfaction. That was it, period.
The public outrage was swift and the protests were intense, but it was all built on a long history of police abuse and murder of the innocent, on a well-known police culture of violence and brutality. Police in Albuquerque were out of control, and practically everyone knew it. The killings were frequent, often outrageous, and complaints and protests were already almost nonstop by the time Boyd was executed.
The outrageousness of Boyd's execution merely escalated the public outcry and protest against police misconduct and murder that was already underway.
There were large and sustained protests, the freeway through town was even shut down briefly in protest, and the police trotted out their military gear to suppress protesters with threats and teargas and grenades, in a rather striking prelude to the current episode of protest against police violence. Protests that spread nationwide after the egregious killings of Eric Garner John Crawford III, Mike Brown, Kajieme Powell, Darrien Hunt, and on and on and on and on and on and on.
This has got to stop.
It wasn't just that there was so much killing by police, it was also that the police were almost never held to account for their abuse and killing. Time after time, as the protests this summer went on, district attorneys and grand juries refused to find officers culpable in any way for their actions when they abused or killed citizens. As always, almost every killing and act of violence committed by police was deemed "justified" (ie: within policy.)
Meanwhile the dead pile up. A website called Killed By Police began tracking media accounts of police killings in May of last year. The numbers were startling. So startling, and so divergent from the "official" statistics put out by the FBI that many people refused to accept them, just as many news organizations continue to ignore them. As of today, the number of deaths caused by police since last May is up to at least 1,808. At least 1,050 have been killed so far this year. The statistics the FBI releases annually list "only" about 400 killed by police. This is not just an error, it's a gross error, and many think it is a deliberate undercount.
So far, Killed by Police is the only resource that tracks reports of police killings in almost real time. The statistics are horrifying; the annual death toll of civilians at the hands of police is greater than the death toll of soldiers in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan, and we're starting to get an idea of how often civilians are assaulted and/or wounded by police in the US as well. The numbers are shocking: hundreds of thousands of assaults by police annually. Hundreds. Of. Thousands.
The police are engaged in war against civilians. There's no other way to put it.
It's a war in which the rules of engagement are simplicity itself: civilians must comply with police commands instantly or suffer the frequently lethal consequences; any Negro with a gun -- or thought to have a gun or other weapon -- is to be shot on sight. That is all.
Simple, direct and to the point.
According to the cult of police, civilians are sheep, the police are sheepdogs, and by definition those they kill or abuse are wolves, predators to be guarded against and killed. The problem is and has been that the police are killing a lot of "sheep" in their quest to protect the flock against supposed wolves.
The sheep have had enough.
They're not going to take it anymore.
They've risen up against the dogs that are harassing and killing them.
The police and those they serve are in a bind, to say the least. Note is made of the fact that the police don't serve the people, they serve their masters, the High and the Mighty, which until now have been content to let the police do whatever they want to civilians, kill them if they want, it doesn't matter to those the police serve, so long as the police don't interfere with or attack them -- and so long as the People, the sheep, don't rise up sufficiently for the High and Mighty to notice.
The prelude to the current nation-wide rebellion against the "sheepdogs" in Albuquerque this spring and summer demonstrated that the High and Mighty would be forced to notice. The Department of Justice released a scathing report against the Albuquerque Police Department's pattern and practice of violence, unjustified use of force, incompetence and unconstitutional policing. The city and police department have entered into an enforceable consent decree that reforms some of the department's practices and requires extensive reporting. There has not been a police killing in Albuquerque since August [see update below], though there have been a number of incidents which in the past would have led to summary execution.
Police killings continue in the rest of the country, many of them as outrageous as that of Tamir Rice in Cleveland. The protests against them have gained strength, largely through the efforts of those young people who have spearheaded the Movement since the killing of Mike Brown by Darren Wilson in Ferguson, MO, in August.
The protests have involved a growing array of Americans, from lawyers and medical professionals staging die-ins, to students walking out of schools, to professional sports players signaling their dismay with police conduct through various means like tee-shirts and "hands up" gestures. Even congressional staffers and DC city workers have walked off the job and expressed their sympathy with the protesters.
Tens of thousands march against police murder and brutality in cities all over the country. Over 600,000 Americans are said to have participated in the demonstrations last Saturday.
The protests continue every day. The Oakland, CA, police headquarters was blockaded for over four hours on Monday, vigils are held constantly, traffic on freeways and city streets is brought to a halt by protests routinely, the all-important Christmas shopping season is disrupted, Chanukah this year is dedicated to the idea expressed everywhere in the protests: "Black Lives Matter." Jews and Muslims march together against police violence.
We may soon see Christian clerics saying "Enough" and joining the Movement.
Enough.
Stop the killing. Black lives matter. Stop. Cease fire. End the murder. End the madness.
The focus on Black lives is due to the fact that throughout the country, Black people have long been the main targets of police abuse and murder, and due to the fact that so many of those killed by police have been Black men who are instantly executed like Tamir Rice was or John Crawford. Police got word of a "Negro with a gun." That's all they need. Rice and Crawford were shot on sight, simply because of reports that they were armed and Negro. No other reason at all. And of course, like almost all cases of summary execution by police, their killers were absolved by DA/Grand Jury. The Brave Officers feared for their lives... they can't be held to account when they're so frightened. Right? As everybody knows. a Negro with a gun is an existential threat to all mankind. Right? Must kill on sight. Right?
Well, no.
The people say no.
The sheep are corralling the dogs.
The revolution this time is a revolution of conscience and consciousness. There is no resolution yet, but it will come. The pressure on authority cannot be resisted forever.
---------------------------------------------------------
[Re: Police killing in Albuquerque update. ]
Last night, a man was shot and killed in Albuquerque by a Bernalillo County Sheriff Deputy. This was not an APD shooting/killing. BCSO has long had a better reputation for use of force -- at least in the field if not at the jail -- than APD, so this incident is something of a surprise, even an anomaly. Accounts of what happened differ of course, but apparently the deputy stopped a car driven by Adam Padilla for expired tags. His girlfriend was a passenger. After the stop, Padilla was allowed to go -- whether a citation was issued is not clear. Padilla was stopped by the same deputy shortly afterwards, and when he got out of his car to speak to the deputy, the deputy used a taser on him. At some point, the deputy claims that Padilla struggled with him, and the deputy believed Padilla had a gun and his life was in danger. The deputy then shot Padilla multiple times. When his girlfriend attempted to go to Padilla's aid, the deputy threatened to shoot her, too. Padilla was seriously wounded and was transported to the hospital where he died.
From what little has been said about the incident it's impossible to know why the deputy killed Padilla. But it was the first officer-involved killing in Albuquerque (but not New Mexico) since August.
Tuesday, December 16, 2014
"A Pretty Good Day For The Revolution"
[Title taken from a comment posted at FDL yesterday].
Yes, it was a pretty good day for the revolution (small "r" so far this cycle) yesterday when a coordinated effort by numerous groups banding together with BlackOut Collective seized and shut down the Oakland (CA) police headquarters and held it for 4 hours and 28 minutes as a memorial to Mike Brown and in honor of so many of those killed by police in Oakland and around the country.
It was both a moving tribute and an expression of the full blown disgust and anger so many Americans share at the terror inflicted on fellow Americans by out of control and unaccountable police.
One action does not a Movement nor a Revolution make, to be sure. But the cumulative effect of all these actions all over the country, sustained by determined young people and their allies, is a wonder to behold, and that wonder can lead to revolutionary change in consciousness and behavior -- and that's the point of all these actions.
I saw an articulation yesterday regarding the underlying issues and objectives of the current actions, and I ransacked my own archives. So much of it seemed so familiar. So much of what we were going through just a few years ago with Occupy and police issues has been repeated in response to the outrage and protests over the incessant killings by police, so many of them unarmed black men. Similarity is not identity, but Occupy activists understood quite clearly that the police behavior toward them was merely mirroring what had been going on in communities of color for generations -- it was in no way comparable, but it was a reflection.
So much of what people have been yearning for -- which I have long characterized as "dignity, justice, community, and peace" -- has been cynically thwarted and subverted by a ruling elite which sees its own interests as the only interests that matter. Shooting people down in the streets, as the police so often are wont to do, is simply one of the tactics used by Our Rulers to keep the rest of us in line.
It doesn't matter who they shoot or why; it matters that they shoot, and shoot to kill, so as to serve as a warning to everyone else. It is no longer "Get outta line, the man come and take you away," it's "Bang, bang, you shot me down."
It's been happening in communities of color, especially in black communities, for as long as there has been a United States, and long before that. For as long as Europeans have colonized and conquered the Americas, the Other has been subjected to whatever torments their oppressors choose to indulge in. The original sins and some of the methods of genocide and chattel slavery live on in contemporary America, despite all the calls to "get over it" and "move on."
Shutting down freeways, shopping malls, bridges and intersections, walking out of work and school, all are effective tactics used during the current period of unrest following the repeated killings by police of unarmed and/or nonthreatening individuals by roided up rangers on a mission of murder. They are not engaged in shootouts with desperadoes. Far from it. They are hunters and killers, not protecting and serving, but seeking out "righteous battle," targeting and executing whoever gets in their sights.
Yesterday's tactic in Oakland was to shut down the police headquarters itself.
According to Bella Eiko who was livestreaming part of the action, previously it had been nigh unto impossible for protesters to get to the police headquarters in Oakland as it had been barricaded by police and traffic was diverted away from it. Yesterday morning, however, a dedicated cohort of black activists and white and Asian allies made their way to the building and chained themselves to the doors; one intrepid soul used climbing gear to successfully mount the flagpole in front of the building and unfurl a "Black Lives Matter" flag showing the images of some of those who have been killed by police in Oakland and elsewhere in the country.
So far as I could tell from the videos and tweets that I saw yesterday, the police were caught completely off guard. Their shields were down; their defenses were penetrated. And the action -- completely nonviolent -- put them in a very bad light indeed. For once, they could not even protect and serve themselves -- the only people who really matter in their universe.
Throughout the country, let it be noted, police and government offices in general have taken to barricading themselves against the public. Police stations are some of the most heavily guarded and barricaded locations, but all government offices sport layers of security and barricades to keep the public at bay. During protests, there will often be phalanxes of police surrounding their "forts" -- police stations and offices.
In Ferguson, I noted that the only places protected by police and National Guard when the Darren Wilson nonindictment was announced were the police and fire department buildings. Everything else was on its own, and where vandalism and arson were being committed, there was no police or fire department presence at all.
The police protect their "fort" and almost nothing else. It's happened again and again, in many other places besides Ferguson.
But yesterday, the Oakland main "fort" was compromised, and the police could do nothing but let it happen.
Well, they did nothing but let it happen.
Whether they could have done anything to prevent it or fight it, I don't know.
Ordinarily, under typical circumstances, they would have used gas and grenades and batons and rubber bullets, the full panoply of hardware and brutality, to break up and disperse the demonstrators and the throngs who gathered to watch.
Ordinarily they would have arrested all the demonstrators -- violently in some cases -- and they would have hauled them all off to Santa Rita where they would have been processed as slowly as possible, and more of them would be assaulted and injured by police and guards.
Though there were preparations and expectations that the police would respond to this action with their typical violence and brutality, they did not. They appeared to be slow to respond at all. Did they not notice what was going on, or were they told to stand down?
As I watched some of the action unfold, I became suspicious that something was going on behind the scenes that curbed the OPD's general penchant for violence in the face of protests. Someone was telling them to cool their jets, put away their weapons, and let this thing play out.
I assume it was the chief. But perhaps someone was telling him to cool it. Perhaps it was the City Manager/Administrator (currently Henry Garner, who I know nothing of) -- who is in charge of the police in Oakland, not the Mayor or City Council.
And perhaps someone in authority over the chief and the city administrator (who could that be?) was telling both of them to stand down.
If that's the case, then I'd say something has finally penetrated the thick skulls of the Highest of the Local Mighty and they got the message: "Back the fuck off or...?" Or what? Revolution? This time they may feel it's real or has the potential to become real if they push against the protests too much.
The point has been made, too, that this action in Oakland was planned and executed by BlackOut Collective together with white and Asian allied affinity groups who consciously used their privilege as a shield for everyone against police violence and brutality. They knew the risks of what they were doing, but they also understood that because they weren't black they would have a certain level of protection from police violence.
And so it was. Not only were they protected from police violence, most of them weren't even arrested, and those that were arrested were released apparently within minutes.
It was as stark a demonstration of the nature of privilege in this society as I've ever seen. Except for a strong presence at the beginning of the demonstration, black folk were kept in a kind of kettle or cage across the street and were allowed to watch while white and Asian allies conducted their action with little or no interference or presence by police. Only the ones who blocked the doors and the street were taken away, but it's not entirely clear that more than a few of them were arrested (25 are said to have been arrested). According to reports, all of those who were arrested were subsequently released. The ones around the flagpole and the "Flagpole Homie" who climbed the pole and stayed there for 4 hours unfurling the "Black Lives Matter" flag were allowed to leave with neither citation nor arrest, though arrests of all and charges to be filed had been previously announced by the Oakland PD PIO.
Meanwhile, in Washington DC, some of the activists from Ferguson who initially were not allowed to address the crowd assembled for the "Justice For All" rally organized by The Reverend Al Sharpton on Saturday spoke at what looked like a hotel conference room about why they shut shit down, including the rally until they were allowed to speak. They spoke about why and about how important the tactics of inconvenience and discomforting the comfortable are in this struggle.
I think they're brilliant:
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream
This is Bella Eiko's video of the last hour and a half of yesterday's action in Oakland.
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream
And a link to earlier in the day:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/56508513
This is a copy of a statement by those who organized the action yesterday:
The key here is that this aspect of the revolution is being led by the young. Those of us of a certain age and background are thrilled to see it. We can't tell them what to do -- and most of us won't try. The young are the ones who will find their way through this period of cruelty. And they're doing it.
They have shown a resolute intent to build a better world for themselves and for the future, and I for one cannot but be filled with respect and admiration.
Their voices have been heard, but we're not to the point of resolution. Not yet.
Yes, it was a pretty good day for the revolution (small "r" so far this cycle) yesterday when a coordinated effort by numerous groups banding together with BlackOut Collective seized and shut down the Oakland (CA) police headquarters and held it for 4 hours and 28 minutes as a memorial to Mike Brown and in honor of so many of those killed by police in Oakland and around the country.
It was both a moving tribute and an expression of the full blown disgust and anger so many Americans share at the terror inflicted on fellow Americans by out of control and unaccountable police.
One action does not a Movement nor a Revolution make, to be sure. But the cumulative effect of all these actions all over the country, sustained by determined young people and their allies, is a wonder to behold, and that wonder can lead to revolutionary change in consciousness and behavior -- and that's the point of all these actions.
I saw an articulation yesterday regarding the underlying issues and objectives of the current actions, and I ransacked my own archives. So much of it seemed so familiar. So much of what we were going through just a few years ago with Occupy and police issues has been repeated in response to the outrage and protests over the incessant killings by police, so many of them unarmed black men. Similarity is not identity, but Occupy activists understood quite clearly that the police behavior toward them was merely mirroring what had been going on in communities of color for generations -- it was in no way comparable, but it was a reflection.
So much of what people have been yearning for -- which I have long characterized as "dignity, justice, community, and peace" -- has been cynically thwarted and subverted by a ruling elite which sees its own interests as the only interests that matter. Shooting people down in the streets, as the police so often are wont to do, is simply one of the tactics used by Our Rulers to keep the rest of us in line.
It doesn't matter who they shoot or why; it matters that they shoot, and shoot to kill, so as to serve as a warning to everyone else. It is no longer "Get outta line, the man come and take you away," it's "Bang, bang, you shot me down."
It's been happening in communities of color, especially in black communities, for as long as there has been a United States, and long before that. For as long as Europeans have colonized and conquered the Americas, the Other has been subjected to whatever torments their oppressors choose to indulge in. The original sins and some of the methods of genocide and chattel slavery live on in contemporary America, despite all the calls to "get over it" and "move on."
Shutting down freeways, shopping malls, bridges and intersections, walking out of work and school, all are effective tactics used during the current period of unrest following the repeated killings by police of unarmed and/or nonthreatening individuals by roided up rangers on a mission of murder. They are not engaged in shootouts with desperadoes. Far from it. They are hunters and killers, not protecting and serving, but seeking out "righteous battle," targeting and executing whoever gets in their sights.
Yesterday's tactic in Oakland was to shut down the police headquarters itself.
According to Bella Eiko who was livestreaming part of the action, previously it had been nigh unto impossible for protesters to get to the police headquarters in Oakland as it had been barricaded by police and traffic was diverted away from it. Yesterday morning, however, a dedicated cohort of black activists and white and Asian allies made their way to the building and chained themselves to the doors; one intrepid soul used climbing gear to successfully mount the flagpole in front of the building and unfurl a "Black Lives Matter" flag showing the images of some of those who have been killed by police in Oakland and elsewhere in the country.
So far as I could tell from the videos and tweets that I saw yesterday, the police were caught completely off guard. Their shields were down; their defenses were penetrated. And the action -- completely nonviolent -- put them in a very bad light indeed. For once, they could not even protect and serve themselves -- the only people who really matter in their universe.
Throughout the country, let it be noted, police and government offices in general have taken to barricading themselves against the public. Police stations are some of the most heavily guarded and barricaded locations, but all government offices sport layers of security and barricades to keep the public at bay. During protests, there will often be phalanxes of police surrounding their "forts" -- police stations and offices.
In Ferguson, I noted that the only places protected by police and National Guard when the Darren Wilson nonindictment was announced were the police and fire department buildings. Everything else was on its own, and where vandalism and arson were being committed, there was no police or fire department presence at all.
The police protect their "fort" and almost nothing else. It's happened again and again, in many other places besides Ferguson.
But yesterday, the Oakland main "fort" was compromised, and the police could do nothing but let it happen.
Well, they did nothing but let it happen.
Whether they could have done anything to prevent it or fight it, I don't know.
Ordinarily, under typical circumstances, they would have used gas and grenades and batons and rubber bullets, the full panoply of hardware and brutality, to break up and disperse the demonstrators and the throngs who gathered to watch.
Ordinarily they would have arrested all the demonstrators -- violently in some cases -- and they would have hauled them all off to Santa Rita where they would have been processed as slowly as possible, and more of them would be assaulted and injured by police and guards.
Though there were preparations and expectations that the police would respond to this action with their typical violence and brutality, they did not. They appeared to be slow to respond at all. Did they not notice what was going on, or were they told to stand down?
As I watched some of the action unfold, I became suspicious that something was going on behind the scenes that curbed the OPD's general penchant for violence in the face of protests. Someone was telling them to cool their jets, put away their weapons, and let this thing play out.
I assume it was the chief. But perhaps someone was telling him to cool it. Perhaps it was the City Manager/Administrator (currently Henry Garner, who I know nothing of) -- who is in charge of the police in Oakland, not the Mayor or City Council.
And perhaps someone in authority over the chief and the city administrator (who could that be?) was telling both of them to stand down.
If that's the case, then I'd say something has finally penetrated the thick skulls of the Highest of the Local Mighty and they got the message: "Back the fuck off or...?" Or what? Revolution? This time they may feel it's real or has the potential to become real if they push against the protests too much.
The point has been made, too, that this action in Oakland was planned and executed by BlackOut Collective together with white and Asian allied affinity groups who consciously used their privilege as a shield for everyone against police violence and brutality. They knew the risks of what they were doing, but they also understood that because they weren't black they would have a certain level of protection from police violence.
And so it was. Not only were they protected from police violence, most of them weren't even arrested, and those that were arrested were released apparently within minutes.
It was as stark a demonstration of the nature of privilege in this society as I've ever seen. Except for a strong presence at the beginning of the demonstration, black folk were kept in a kind of kettle or cage across the street and were allowed to watch while white and Asian allies conducted their action with little or no interference or presence by police. Only the ones who blocked the doors and the street were taken away, but it's not entirely clear that more than a few of them were arrested (25 are said to have been arrested). According to reports, all of those who were arrested were subsequently released. The ones around the flagpole and the "Flagpole Homie" who climbed the pole and stayed there for 4 hours unfurling the "Black Lives Matter" flag were allowed to leave with neither citation nor arrest, though arrests of all and charges to be filed had been previously announced by the Oakland PD PIO.
Meanwhile, in Washington DC, some of the activists from Ferguson who initially were not allowed to address the crowd assembled for the "Justice For All" rally organized by The Reverend Al Sharpton on Saturday spoke at what looked like a hotel conference room about why they shut shit down, including the rally until they were allowed to speak. They spoke about why and about how important the tactics of inconvenience and discomforting the comfortable are in this struggle.
I think they're brilliant:
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream
This is Bella Eiko's video of the last hour and a half of yesterday's action in Oakland.
Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream
And a link to earlier in the day:
http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/56508513
This is a copy of a statement by those who organized the action yesterday:
For those of yall that have seen the action today that shut down the Oakland Police Department for 4 hours and 28 minutes, that was why this was posted this early in the AM, to give context to how this came about. Local black organizers, connected to The BlackOut Collective, Black Lives Matter, and #BlackBrunch, held down the very center of the action, with their message #BlackAndBreathing. Members of their groups were giving overall political direction. Multiple Affinity Groups (teams) of about 200 non-black folks, under the name Bay Area Solidarity Action Team, locked down to doors all around the building, scaled the flag poles and dropped a #BlacklivesMatter banner with the faces of Oscar Grant, Mike Brown, Alan Blueford, and Renisha Mcbride, and Tamir Rice. Blockade team with lock boxes at the base. Other allied POC, including an Asian affinity group #Asians4BlackLives locked to the front doors. Two intersections were blockaded as well, including folks in wheelchairs using them as blockade devices. The logic was allies leveraging their privilege to support the black reclamation of space, especially in front of the #OPD, an institution known for its violence on black lives. By the end, many more people in the streets supporting. Everyone safe, everyone who was arrested is out. Action demands lifted up national demands from #FergusonAction. Lots of lessons and mistakes along the way, looking forward to debriefing and learning more from this experience to keep it moving in a good way.(h/t hotflashcarol at FDL who was in the thick of Occupy Oakland back in the day and has many stories to tell.)
The key here is that this aspect of the revolution is being led by the young. Those of us of a certain age and background are thrilled to see it. We can't tell them what to do -- and most of us won't try. The young are the ones who will find their way through this period of cruelty. And they're doing it.
They have shown a resolute intent to build a better world for themselves and for the future, and I for one cannot but be filled with respect and admiration.
Their voices have been heard, but we're not to the point of resolution. Not yet.
Monday, March 26, 2012
On Gene Sharp and The Revolution This Time
Gene Sharp, author of "From Dictatorship to Democracy" and many other works on Revolutionary theory, has been both hailed and denounced as the godfather of the Color Revolutions that swept much of the world, as well as being a central thinker relied on by the revolutionaries of the Arab Spring and its current descendants. His works are considered by many to constitute the Rulebook for Modern Revolution.
I'm not much of a theoretician; I'm more inclined to study practice and results, and when Gene Sharp's name is raised in connection with the Occupy Movement, I tend to encourage people to really think about what kind of results have come from Gene Sharp-inspired revolutions and ask themselves whether that's really what they want from this revolution.
The first "color" revolution that I can recall was the People Power revolution in the Philippines against Ferdinand Marcos in 1986. It's color was yellow, and its symbol was a hand sign: index finger raised with thumb at a 90 degree angle in the form of the letter "L" (for "Laban.")
It was an astonishing event, and it helped trigger a cascade of revolutions against dictatorship throughout the rest of the 1980's and continuing to this day. These revolutions eventually led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the stark hegemony of the United States and vulture capitalism.
In other words, things today are the way they are, socially, politically, and most especially economically, largely as a consequence of the numerous revolutions against dictatorship that have taken place under "colors" (all but red and black allowed, apparently!) and the theories of (sometimes the direct consultation with) Gene Sharp and his disciples.
But wait. Aren't we conducting something of a revolution against the way things are?
Indeed.
From the Sharp-ian point of view, then, isn't the Occupy Movement really a counter revolution?
This is where things can get very muddled indeed.
"The Politics of Nonviolent Action" (1973) was Gene Sharp's seminal nonviolent uprising study that became something of a manual for the People Power uprising against Marcos in 1986. Many of the forms of nonviolent resistance that Sharp advocates were codified in the Philippines: a distinctive color, a charismatic leader, mass rallies and marches, refusal to comply with the orders of the state, varied forms of nonviolent resistance and so on. Key to the Sharp version of nonviolent revolution is the Demand. The Demand was part of the initial call to Occupy Wall Street from AdBusters in the summer of 2011 when the poster announcing Occupy Wall Street carried the heading: "What is our one demand?"
That's straight out of the Gene Sharp recipe. The Revolution must have a demand or a series of demands.The Revolution must have a leadership as well.
The Revolution must appeal to the masses.
The Revolution must have a Grand Strategy.
And in some of his works, Gene Sharp seems to be saying, "The Revolution must follow my recipe exactly -- or it will fail."
To date, there has been no set of demands from Occupy as a unit -- in part because it is not a unit -- nor has an identifiable leadership for the Movement emerged. There is no Ninoy or Cory Aquino. The Occupy Movement has a strong resonance with the People, but it is not, by any means, a mass movement, nor does it look much like it will become one. There is no identifiable Grand Strategy beyond slogans and ideals. "UnFuck the World" is about as close to a Grand Strategy as the Movement has come, and that came very early, and it's not really a strategy. It's also about as close to a unifying demand as Occupy seems able to get. And there are those who would dispute it's value because of "language."
To my way of looking at these things, that's quite all right, but it is deeply dissatisfying in the Sharp vision of Revolution.
Very little -- at times, nothing -- that Occupy is doing fits the Sharp model, and thus to many of Sharp's disciples and devotees, the Occupy Movement hasn't really started yet. It isn't a "movement." And it's not "revolutionary."
The Sharp recipe for revolution is very exact and exacting. Certain things must be done, or it is not a revolution. They must be done in a certain way, under certain authorities, or they will not succeed. The movement must develop in stages, generally over a long period of time, building into a mass movement, or it will fail.
The many failures of Sharp-style revolutions of late (as examples see: Syria, Jordan, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya, Greece, Spain, Portugal, etc.) are typically blamed on the revolutionaries for not following the recipe Sharp lays out with enough exactitude, and not having established the proper groundwork before rising up.
On the other hand, many of those who now live under regimes where the Sharp-style revolutions succeeded -- in the Philippines, throughout Eastern Europe and much of the former Soviet Union, as well as more recently Tunisia and Egypt -- are saying, "Wait just a minute here, this isn't quite what we bargained for at all..."
Yes, well. That's part of what I see as the chief problem with the Sharp recipe for revolution: it's not really a revolutionary recipe at all. It is a recipe for a marketing campaign that has certain aspects of a revolution. New bosses, but a similar -- and in some cases arguably a worse -- system.
It's a political and economic marketing campaign that aims to gain popular support to replace the present ("dictatorship") with a new product (an ersatz "democracy") that serves the interests of the oligarchs and plutocrats while giving the People the semblance of "liberty" which they are -- somehow, oh how can it be? -- unable to utilize successfully on their own behalf.
The thrill of revolutionary victory often leads to serious reassessment of what actually took place. It was not what many people thought it was or should be.
I would argue that the Sharp recipe for revolution works poorly against dictatorships these days, and it doesn't work at all against what I call "civil democracies," which is to say the kinds of governments that are now the norm. They are not real democracies, but they have the appearance of civil democratic procedures.
Which is not to say that there is no value in studying Sharp; there is value, plenty of it. He's thought long and hard and has written extensively about how the People (or more precisely, an activist faction thereof) can effectively change the conditions under which they live, and change the governments by which they are ruled, through a multipronged program of strategic nonviolent resistance.
That's why I say that those who wish to follow the Sharp model really should give it a go. Try it. I have never seen it successfully deployed in a civil democracy, but there is no reason it couldn't be. Or is there? Others have pointed out that the Sharp model of revolution can only be employed overseas. It could never be done in the United States, and it's not meant to be utilized here. After all, the Neo-Libs and Neo-Cons are already in power and they are the ones we are struggling against...
(h/t to Cuchulain in comments for spurring me to actually write something about this topic...)
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