Tag: protests

(I will be cross-posting at OpenLeft and thomhartmann.com)

I.e., a set of national demonstrations by which people will demonstrate not on any one or two particular issues which serves as a theme, but rather on any issue for which they believe that neither the Democrats nor Republicans represent them. Another way to think of this is: the protests are jointly directed at the Democratic and Republican parties, themselves. I’ve never heard of such a thing, so the novelty, alone, might make it significant.

I’ve already thought up my sign’s slogan: “Down with the Dumbos, and down with the Jackasses! (If I want clowns running things, I can go to a circus.)”

Besides the Demonstration-As-Free-Speech-Expression aspect, and the (probably vain) hope that Congressional D’s and R’s will change course, such a demonstration COULD HELP FOSTER COOPERATION BETWEEN GROUPS THAT, THOUGH HAVING UNBRIDGEABLE GAPS IN SOME OF THEIR POSITIONS, WOULD DO WELL TO COLLABORATE IN THROWING OUT CORPORATIST SCOUNDRELS, OF BOTH PARTIES.

Voting bloc technology is going to make this more practical than it is, right now, but getting rid of UNECESSARY polarization could help us get a jump start on bottom-up, collaborative processes.

Another benefit is that it’ll help Independents to realize their collective power.

Yet another benefit: I’ll bet you could make an entertaining book and movie out of the demonstrations. Hopefully including a friendly competition of skits wherein the hypocrisy and apparent incompetence of members of the government (especially Presidents) is the subject – but the audience will not be told, ahead of time, the ideological orientation of the actors (if any). Think of political skits on “Saturday Night Live”, but with more of a bite, and with an implicit motive of actually doing something about the situation. The idea here is educational as much as entertaining – instead of wallowing in the “aren’t they stupid?” mudhole, Democrats can see that Republican voters aren’t happy with Republican politicos, and vice versa, and often for some of the same reasons. Such a video and book might prove seminal as the public moves to an e-democracy.

The new “Reds under the Bed”, actually categorized as “domestic extremists”:

Don’t those people look scary to you?  

They should.  They are ……. (looking around nervously, whispering) ……. “protesters!”

Gasp!

You know, people who are well informed enough to be angry.  And angry enough to step away from their TV’s and exercise their supposed (ha!) freedom to “Assemble” and “Speechify”.  

How dare they.

It was a very sloppy policeman who dropped this “spotter card” at a protest in England.   Very sloppy.   These cards are NOT supposed to be seen by the dangerous public, you know, those people who actually employ and pay the police.   I’m sure if they catch this incompetent, he’ll be soundly punished, perhaps with some nice electrodes to his genitals.    We must ensure he never makes a similar mistake!

And I know, I know, this is in England, very far away from us, but you can bet if England is doing it, the United States is, too.   Been to any protests lately?   Seen all the cops with cameras?   There sure are a lot of them, and you can bet they’re not taking pictures for their Facebook pages.  

This kind of highly confidential document – pictured above – is rarely seen by the public.

These so-called “spotter cards” are issued by police to identify individuals they consider to be potential troublemakers because they have appeared at a number of demonstrations.

The photographs are drawn from police intelligence files. This card was apparently dropped at a demonstration against Britain’s largest arms fair in 2005.

H is Mark Thomas, the comedian and political activist. Asked why it was justifiable to put Thomas, who has no criminal record, on this card, the Metropolitan police replied: “We do not discuss intelligence we may hold in relation to individuals.”

Thomas had been acquitted of criminal damage after attaching himself to a bus containing arms traders at a previous fair.

The Met said: “This is an appropriate tactic used by police to help them identify people at specific events … who may instigate offences or disorder.”

The arms fair “is a biannual event that is specifically targeted by known protest groups, who in the past have stated their intention was to shut down or disrupt the event.” As the cards are “strictly controlled”, the officers who lost it were “dealt with”.

On Comment is Free today Thomas writes: “Protesters – or, as the police call them, ‘domestic extremists’ – are the new ‘reds under the bed’.”

I’ve never heard of Mark Thomas, but I’m a fan now.   Here’s what else he said about this discovery:

I was sent the now notorious “police spotter card” through the post. It’s an official laminated card for “police eyes only” and labelled as coming from “CO11 Public Order Intelligence Unit”. The card contained the photographs of 24 anti-arms trade protesters, unnamed but lettered A to X. My picture appeared as photo H. You can imagine my reaction at finding I was the subject of a secret police surveillance process … I was delighted. I phoned my agent and told him I was suspect H. He replied: “Next year we’ll get you top billing … suspect A.”

The Metropolitan police circulated the card specifically for the Docklands biannual arms fair in London to help its officers identify “people at specific events who may instigate offences or disorder”. Which is such a flattering quote I am thinking of having it on my next tour poster. While being wanted outside the arms fair, I was legitimately inside researching a book on the subject, and uncovered four companies illegally promoting “banned” torture equipment. Questions were later asked in the Commons as to why HM Revenue & Customs and the police didn’t spot it. Though, in fairness, none of the torture traders featured on the spotter card.

What exactly was I doing that was so awfully wrong as to merit this attention? Today’s Guardian revelations of three secret police units goes some way to explain the targeting of protesters and raises worrying questions. The job of these units is to spy on protesters, and collate and circulate information about them. Protesters – or, as the police call them, “domestic extremists” – are the new “reds under the bed”.

Many of those targeted by the police have committed no crime and are guilty only of non-violent direct action. So it is worth reminding ourselves that protest is legal. Sorry if this sounds obvious, but you might have gained the impression that if three police units are spying on and targeting thousands, then those people must be up to something illegal.

The very phrase “domestic extremist” defines protesters in the eyes of the police as the problem, the enemy. Spying on entire groups and organisations, and targeting the innocent, undermines not only our rights but the law – frightfully silly of me to drag this into an argument about policing, I know.

Protest is part of the democratic process. It wasn’t the goodwill of politicians that led them to cancel developing countries’ debt, but the protests and campaigning of millions of ordinary people around the world. The political leaders were merely the rubber stamp in the democratic process. Thus any targeting and treatment of demonstrators (at the G20 for example) that creates a “chilling effect” – deterring those who may wish to exercise their right to protest – is profoundly undemocratic.

No police, secret or otherwise, should operate without proper accountability. So how are these three units accountable? Who has access to the databases? How long does information remain in the system? What effect could it have on travel and future employment of those targeted? How closely do these units work with corporate private investigators, and does the flow of information go both ways? Do the police target strikers?

A police spokesman has said that anyone who finds themselves on a database “should not worry at all”. When a spokesman for the three secret units will not disclose a breakdown of their budgets, and two of the three will not even name who heads their operations (even MI6 gave us an initial, for God’s sake), then the words “should not worry at all” are meaningless. Indeed, when the police admit that someone could end up on a secret police database merely for attending a demonstration, it is exactly the time to worry.

This is what we’re up against.  

And I am reminded of this quote, which I happened to look up this morning for a response in another post here.   Many seem to have forgotten it especially those in charge:

JFK: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

Why have they forgotten or ignored this?    

This is original to docudharma.

Obama’s on our side, right?

Well, let’s consider.

One of my daily hits on the internet is Cryptogon.   The site is run by a fellow who was lucky enough to be able to leave the country and set up a self-sustaining farm out in the middle of nowhere in New  Zealand.  Now did he pull this off?   Well, he married a woman from New Zealand.   That’s step one that not everyone can do of course.  🙂  

He has a knack for finding the out-of-the-way story, and has a unique perspective on the world.

Usually he posts articles and information with just a few comments, sometimes none, but today he has a post which is pure commentary.   And I just have to share it because it’s brilliant.

A few people seem surprised that the U.S. is a police state.

Oh the cops. Oh the poor students. Oh boo hoo, we just want to wave our signs.

The don’t taze me bro generation is obviously going to have to figure this one out the hard way.

My position has always been that people who wave signs at fascists are clinically nuts; holy roller, speaking in tongues, batshit crazy nuts.

Sign waving is not resistance. Sign waving is part of the problem in the same way that voting is part of the problem. How’s that Change working out for the Obama supporters? (Some of those bozos are already talking about how they’re going to get it right in 2012…)

In the few video clips of the G20 protests that I watched, I saw a bunch of zombies with iPhones, running around like chickens with their heads cut off, as the Legion of Doom tested out its new sonic weapons and tear gas lobbing skills.

WTF is the matter with these people? Where does someone get the idea that the way to deal with Darth Vader is to wave a sign at him? Maybe a few, “Fuck the police” tweets will do the trick? Send out invites to join revolutionary sign waving groups on Facebook?!

The Twitbook aspect of this is, frankly, bizarre. Maybe I’ve been out here in the bush too long, but it looks like powerlessness is manifesting itself into a sort of flaccid, me-too technophelia, crossbred with a hamster wheel. This is more embarrassing than anything else.

The U.S. is no longer a country. It’s a company town. If waving signs at the company’s goon squad just makes people look stupid, what does twitbooking about it amount to?

Here are some other ideas:

Eliminate your debt. Take your money off the table. Stop buying stuff that you don’t need. Live well on very little. Grow your own food. Participate in alternative and/or outlawed food economies for what you don’t produce yourself. Barter, or use cash. Support people who do good work. Finally, draw a line in the sand. Don’t tell anyone where that line is, or what the consequences will be if it’s crossed. Don’t wave a sign about it. Don’t twitbook about it. Let the fascists figure it out the hard way.

The U.S. is no longer a country. It’s a company town.    That’s just stating the obvious so perfectly that I wish I’d thought of it.  

Just had to share.    

A month ago, non-violent protesters infiltrated an anti-Progress Mines (Massey Energy) Mountaintop Removal site in Western Virginia.  Through the early morning, they snaked through desolated terrain, formally beautiful mountains and valleys, reminiscent of a World War I battlefield. A trained group climbed the dragline and put up a Stop Mountaintop Removal sign.

Everyone involved had training in non-violent protest. Everyone involved knew that, no matter their actions, they risked physical harm from angered Massey Energy employees. They knew that they risked arrest for this action.  Yet, they went in anyway because they know the harm that Mountaintop Removal is wrecking West Virginia and the devastation that coal is contributing to globally.  People willing to sacrifice their safety and their liberty for something larger than themselves merit a simple description: hero.

And, when called, the police quickly arrived and eventually arrested 19 of the protesters.  And, the FBI is investigating the incident (hmmm … probably not Massey Energy’s devastating impacts on the area and the planet).  

In contrast, at a July 4th picnic with many of locals concerned about Mountain Top Removal went a bit differently than one might expect.  The vast majority of those there: local citizens ranging in age from babies in their parents arms to octogenarians proud of the generations of their families there with them.  To this event came 20 or so (rather obviously) drunken Massey Energy employees (okay, 20 or so people wearing Massey Energy clothing claiming that they worked for the company) who disrupted the event, cursing, and threatening people’s lives — quite directly.  One witness account from jacquesellul.

My wife and I were present at the event and witnessed the? trespass and harassment. The MountainKeepers Festival is a family event with music, food, (no alcohol), and friends hanging out together.

The violent and obscene talk and physical threats certainly were frightening to children and their parents. It should be noted that some of the trespassers tried to prevent overt violence, and that others in the vicinity refrained from coming over.

Intimidation and threats are an ongoing occurrence.

The police arrived — over two hours after they were called.  Despite publicly available film evidence of crimes (at minimum drunk and disorderly), there is no sign of impending arrests.

Hmmm … people make a peaceful protest and 19 people are arrested on site.  On the other hand, people disrupt a private event, threaten people’s lives, and the “Friend of Coal” Gov. Joe Manchin has ignored the situation so far and the rest of the West Virginia State Government remains starkly silent.

And, the indications are that the potential exists for real, rather than simply threatened, violence to hit this battlefield for the future of West Virginia and the planet.  Check out the comment sections to the video of the protest and the video of the picnic.  

Utrecht is a lively university town in The Netherlands. The medieval warehouses at canal level have been turned into cafes and above, are shops, street musicians, and a constant swirl of people.

One of Utrecht’s great landmarks is its Dom Tower, a surreal computer-generated-like gothic tower that dominates the landscape and the sky. As I said to my nephew, visiting me from NY, you don’t see this in Poughkeepsie. No, he said, you don’t.

Perhaps just as unlikely, in Poughkeepsie, would be running into a small band of Iranians seeking solidarity in another revolutionary attempt. Yesterday, though, there were 11 Iranians standing in front of St. Martin’s Cathedral in Utrecht, each holding the picture of someone killed in the protests in Iran. One of those faces was Neda, perhaps this century’s Anne Frank. Anne was on my mind, having been at the Secret Annex the day before and still thinking about Primo Levi’s observation . . .

One single Anne Frank moves us more than the countless others who suffered just as she did… Perhaps it is better that way: If we were capable of taking in the suffering of all those people, we would not be able to live.”

^{Primo Levi}

^{cross posted at Daily Kos}

Original article, by Maziar Razi and titled A few words with the Iranian workers on recent events, via Iranian Revolutionary Marxists’ Tendency:

Honourable and brave workers of Iran

And I will add, greetings and solidarity from the United States.