“…[I]nfiltration is the norm in political movements in the United States. Occupy has many opponents likely to infiltrate to divide and destroy it beyond the usual law enforcement apparatus. Other detractors include the corporations whose rule Occupy seeks to end; conservative right wing groups allied with corporate interests; and members of the power structure including nonprofit organizations linked with corporate-funded political parties, especially the Democratic Party, which would like Occupy to be its tea party rather than an independent movement critical of both parties.
Infiltration to Disrupt, Divide and Misdirect Is Widespread in Occupy
By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
This is Part I of a two-part series on infiltration of Occupy and what the movement can do about limiting the damage of those who seek to destroy us from within. This first article describes public reports of infiltration as well as results of a survey and discussions with Occupiers about this important issue. The second article will examine the history of political infiltration and steps we can take to address it.
In the first five months, the Occupy movement has had major victories and has altered the debate about the economy. People in the power structure and who hold different political views are pushing back with a traditional tool—infiltration. Across the country, Occupies are struggling with disruption and division, attacks on key people, escalation of tactics to include property damage and police conflict as well as misuse of websites and social media.
As Part II of this discussion will show, infiltration is the norm in political movements in the United States. Occupy has many opponents likely to infiltrate to divide and destroy it beyond the usual law enforcement apparatus. Other detractors include the corporations whose rule Occupy seeks to end; conservative right wing groups allied with corporate interests; and members of the power structure including nonprofit organizations linked with corporate-funded political parties, especially the Democratic Party, which would like Occupy to be its tea party rather than an independent movement critical of both parties.
The Lessons of 2011: Transcending the Old, Fostering the New, and Settling Outstanding Accounts
The militant working class struggles of 2011 – from the strikes and occupation in Wisconsin, to the countless demonstrations against Wall Street Banks, the direct action and broad resistance to the Keystone Pipeline, to housing occupations throughout the country, to the defeat of regressive anti-Union legislation in Ohio, to the (inter)national explosion of the Occupy Movement – demonstrated the critical fact that the multi-national working class contained in the United States can stop the” shock doctrine” measures being imposed upon it by transnational capital and the neo-liberal state.
The initial returns on these struggles are not insubstantial. Just two months into 2012, we have witnessed ILWU Local 21 coming to an agreement with transnational conglomerate EGT/Bunge in large part due to the impact of the Port Shut Down actions in Seattle, Portland, Oakland, and Los Angeles on December 12, 2011 and the threat of mass industrial action in Longview by the Occupy Movement allied with the Million Worker March Movement and militant rank and file members of the ILWU. Inspired by the Occupy Movement, the mass action in Oakland on November 2, 2001 and coast wide actions of December 12, Truck drivers inCaliforniaandWashingtonStatetook independent organizing and industrial action to win wage and safety concessions from employers and potential legislation inWashingtonStatethat that will enable the Truckers to unionize. The victory in Longview halts the concerted drive to destroy the ILWU and further weaken organized labor and the pending Washington State legislation could potentially reverse decades of circumvention of the Wagner Act and provide an opening for sectors (and with it oppressed peoples) historically excluded from its protections.
None of this would be possible without the militant mass action of the multi-national working class, both unionized and non-unionized, acting in open defiance of the rules of engagement established between organized labor, capital, and the state in the 1930’s with the New Deal. As the power struggle between capital and the working class intensifies over whom and how the economic crisis will be resolved, the working class would do well to recall the lessons of 2011 and build on them. In addition to reaffirming the lesson that the working class must rely on militant mass action – that is strikes, occupations, blockades, general strikes and other forms of industrial action – as a primary means of exerting its own will and power, several other critical lessons we believe must be affirmed. These lessons include
Today’s Love Goes to Arizona’s Banned Book Smugglers
by Jorge Rivas
The Librotraficante Caravan is bringing contraband books—or “wet-books”—to Arizona. The project is also intended to raise awareness of the “prohibition” of the Mexican-American Studies Program and the removal of books from classrooms.
“When we heard that Tucson Unified School District administrators not only prohibited Mexican-American Studies, but then walked into classrooms, and in front of young Latino students, during class time, removed and boxed up books by our most beloved authors – that was too much. This offended us down to our soul. We had to respond,” said Tony Diaz, founder of Nuestra Palabra: Latino Writers Having Their Say, which has led the charge.
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Diaz added, “With their record of anti-immigrant legislation, politicians in Arizona have become experts in making humans illegal. We did not do enough to stop that, thus that anti-immigrant legislation spread to other states such as Alabama and Georgia. Now, these same legislators want to make thoughts illegal. If we allow this to happen, these laws, too, will spread. Other branches of ethnic studies will be prohibited, and other states will follow suit.”
The Librotraficante Caravan will travel from Houston, Texas, to Tucson, Ariz., carrying a payload of contraband books, creating networks of Underground Libraries and leaving community resources in its wake.
With just days away from launching the caravan Libroficante could use your help. A Kickstarter fundraising campaign didn’t work out they way hoped for, so donations are critical. For more information on how you can make a tax-deductible donation visit librotraficante.com/Donate.html.
Syrian government tanks shelling a neighborhood in Homs
The following was sent to Kasama by A World to Win News Service. (February 13, 2012)
The U.S. military has “begun to review potential military options” in Syria, according to the New York Times. (February 11, 2012) An unnamed American military official told this authoritative newspaper, “We’re looking at a whole range of options, but as far as going to one course of action, I haven’t seen anything.” The report says the “possible options” that would be considered include “everything, including humanitarian assistance, army rebels, covert actions, airstrikes, deploying ground troops or doing nothing.”
This admission comes as the U.S. is already backing various forms of intervention in Syria, including Turkey’s efforts to use Syrian military opposition elements to form an army under its control, and the money and arms allegedly pouring into the country from Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are almost undoubtedly backing fellow Sunni Islamic fundamentalists, as they have everywhere else.
The U.S. followed an often ambiguous policy toward Syria for many years, working to isolate and weaken the regime while also recognizing its importance in preserving the status quo in the region at times when that has been a prime American goal. Bashar al-Assad’s father, Hafez, crushed the revolutionary Palestinian movement then centered in Lebanon in the 1970s, enforced peace with Israel despite the Zionist occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights since 1967, and supported the U.S. during the 1991 invasion of Iraq.
Mass demonstrations in Damascus' Mezze district February 20
Following is an edited version of an interview with Hassan Khaled Chatila, a Syrian revolutionary living in Europe.
It is circulated by A World to Win News Service, based in Britain. They write: “Although we have done our best to faithfully represent his views on the questions addressed here, they remain his own.”
The balance of forces among the opposition now favours counter-revolutionaries, because [under current circumstances] the militarization of the movement against the regime favours international interference. Alongside the unarmed protests in the streets there are now significant armed actions. But there has not been much change in the political consciousness of the mass movement, which remains a spontaneous revolt whose unifying goal is the fall of the regime. Now street slogans call for armed action to achieve this.
The head of the Free Syrian Army [formed by officers and soldiers who left the regime’s armed forces] has been calling for foreign intervention since early on. It’s not clear who they are. It seems that the name actually covers several armed groups aided and sheltered by Turkey. Because there is no real organization and little political unity among these army deserters, they are often act more like armed gangs, carrying out looting and rape. The FSA [claims its purpose is to] protect demonstrations in the cities from government attack. Their tactics are bad – they shoot at government soldiers who return fire and kill civilian protesters. Their real strategy is to militarize the clash between the movement and the regime so as to provoke foreign intervention.
Wukan is the fishing village in southern China’s Guangdong province that achieved worldwide fame as a symbol of mass resistance. Like thousands of other rural communities in recent years, the 13,000 inhabitants of Wukan rose up against corrupt local officials who have stolen land and made millions in profits. But Wukan achieved something else, by displaying a new level of organisation and mass mobilisation, setting up independent popular committees and campaign structures. In so doing, Wukan has become a benchmark for future struggle in China.
Strikes and local rebellions use slogan “Learn from Wukan”
Its people waged a daring and impressive four-month long struggle that ejected the local ‘communist’ (Chinese Communist Party) government, and set up their own elected council to run the community. Finally, in the face of repression, arrests, a siege by thousands of paramilitary police, and the death of a protest leader in police custody, a dramatic settlement was reached on 21 December that seemed to meet most of the villagers’ demands. At that time, chinaworker.info warned that the agreement with provincial CCP representatives could not be trusted; that continued mass pressure through the building of democratic grassroots organisations and links with other mass struggles was needed. Our warnings have been confirmed.
Aspirin as the New Birth Control: The GOP War on Women Reaches New Lows
We all heard about the War on Women’s Health last year, when Tea Party-empowered state legislatures passed a record slew of anti-choice laws — including deluded bills such as Arizona’s ban on “race-based abortions” and dangerous ones like Virginia’s attempt to shut down most abortion clinics in the state. These unhinged state legislatures were joined by an enthusiastic right-wing Congress that attempted to defund the entire $317 million federal family program, tried to redefine “rape,” and ate up lies about their favorite bogeyman, Planned Parenthood.
Well, the War on Women’s Health is back — and now it’s a flat-out, all-out War on Women.
Just this week, we have seen not just the stunning spectacle of major presidential candidates coming out against birth control coverage, but Republicans in the Senate holding up domestic violence protections because they protect too many people; a potential vice presidential candidate pick poised to sign a law requiring women to receive medically unnecessary vaginal probes without their consent; a leading presidential candidate claiming that “emotions” will get in the way of women serving in combat; and a House committee holding a hearing on birth control access — with a panel consisting entirely of men.
And it seems that in the lead-up to 2012, the War on Women isn’t going to die down.
The two Republican presidential front-runners, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney, have signaled that they are 100 percent on board with the anti-woman agenda of their party’s farthest-right element.
For Santorum, this isn’t news. As a U.S. senator, he championed the so-called “partial birth abortion” ban, which prevented women from making difficult choices after complications late in a pregnancy. But that was just what he could convince others to do. He not only thinks abortion should always be a crime — even in cases of even rape, incest and danger to the pregnant woman — he thinks states should be allowed to ban birth control. Why? Never mind that birth control is the best way to lower the number of abortions, he’s against it because birth control “is not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
In a stunning statement, major Santorum supporter billionaire Foster Friess put it even more bluntly on MSNBC yesterday, saying he didn’t see why women need insurance coverage for birth control: “Back in my day, they used Bayer aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.”
As police have set up shop in schools across the country, the definition of what is a crime as opposed to a teachable moment has changed in extraordinary ways. In one middle school we’re familiar with, a teacher routinely allowed her students to take single pieces of candy from a big container she kept on her desk. One day, several girls grabbed handfuls. The teacher promptly sent them to the police officer assigned to the school. What formerly would have been an opportunity to have a conversation about a minor transgression instead became a law enforcement issue.
“Every man in my family has been locked up. Most days I feel like it doesn’t matter what I do, how hard I try—that’s my fate, too.” —11th-grade African American student, Berkeley, Calif.
EDITORIAL • Stop the School-to-Prison Pipeline
By the editors of Rethinking Schools
This young man isn’t being cynical or melodramatic [moderator’s note: refer to the quote above]; he’s articulating a terrifying reality for many of the children and youth sitting in our classrooms—a reality that is often invisible or misunderstood. Some have seen the growing numbers of security guards and police in our schools as unfortunate but necessary responses to the behavior of children from poor, crime-ridden neighborhoods. But what if something more ominous is happening? What if many of our students—particularly our African American, Latina/o, Native American, and Southeast Asian children—are being channeled toward prison and a lifetime of second-class status?
We believe that this is the case, and there is ample evidence to support that claim. What has come to be called the “school-to-prison pipeline” is turning too many schools into pathways to incarceration rather than opportunity. This trend has extraordinary implications for teachers and education activists. It affects everything from what we teach to how we build community in our classrooms, how we deal with conflicts with and among our students, how we build coalitions, and what demands we see as central to the fight for social justice education.
What Is the School-to-Prison Pipeline?
The school-to-prison pipeline begins in deep social and economic inequalities, and has taken root in the historic shortcomings of schooling in this country. The civil and human rights movements of the 1960s and ’70s spurred an effort to “rethink schools” to make them responsive to the needs of all students, their families, and communities. This rethinking included collaborative learning environments, multicultural curriculum, student-centered, experiential pedagogy—we were aiming for education as liberation. The back-to-basics backlash against that struggle has been more rigid enforcement of ever more alienating curriculum.
The “zero tolerance” policies that today are the most extreme form of this punishment paradigm were originally written for the war on drugs in the early 1980s, and later applied to schools. As Annette Fuentes explains, the resulting extraordinary rates of suspension and expulsion are linked nationally to increasing police presence, checkpoints, and surveillance inside schools.
Kevin Rashid is a political prisoner and communist revolutionary in the New Afrikan Black Panther Party-Prison Chapter, an organization formed within prison. We present present Rashid’s reassessment of the Black liberation movement for discussion. This piece first appeared in Right On! #19
"Revolution." Artwork Courtesy of Kevin Rashid
“[T]rue revolutionary leaders must not only be good at correcting their ideas, theories, plans or programs, when errors are discovered… but when a certain objective process has already progressed and changed from one stage of development to another, they must also be good at making themselves and all their fellow revolutionaries progress and change in their subjective knowledge along with it….” -Mao Tse-tung, On Contradiction
Introduction
Some time ago comrades of the New Afrikan Maoist Party (NAMP) expressed a desire to reconcile contradictions between their line and the line of our New Afrikan Black
Panther Party—Prison Chapter (NABPP-PC) on the question of Black National Liberation in the 21st Century. On this question, NAMP along with several other organizations—including the New Afrikan People’s Organization (NAPO), the Provisional Government of the Republic of New Afrika, the Maoist International Movement (MIM) and others promote the Black Belt Thesis (BBT) as it was set out by the Comintern (Third Communist International) in the 1920s.
The NAMP comrades are correct in pointing out that our respective organizations have a major line contradiction on this question. We have as yet not publicly fleshed out our line on this, in contrast to that of NAMP and others, so it is time we did so in a formal position paper.
In developing our line on the Black National Question in the U.S. we have applied the method of historical dialectical materialism and deepened the analysis put forward by Huey P. Newton of the original Black Panther Party (BPP). This means we do not hold dogmatically and idealistically to outmoded ideas and formulations that no longer fit the current situation. Instead we base our analysis on the study of concrete conditions in the context of their actual historical development, realizing that everything is in a state of motion and development from a lower to a higher level, and that correct ideas develop in struggle and contradiction with incorrect ones.
Indeed, the real danger of Khader Adnan’s hunger strike for the Palestinian political establishment is that he might turn out to be less of a Palestinian Bobby Sands than a Palestinian Mohammed Bouazizi, the Tunisian fruit-vendor whose suicide by self-immolation triggered the rebellion that has rocked autocratic regimes across the Arab world.
A Hunger Striker at Death’s Door Turns Up the Heat on Israel – and on the Palestinian Leadership
By Tony Karon
“The West Bank’s Bobby Sands” is how some in the British media have begun referring to Khader Adnan, as the 33-year-old Palestinian detainee marks Monday as his 65th day of refusing food from his Israeli gaolers. The world knew the name and face of Bobby Sands long before, on the 66th day of his own 1981 hunger strike, he became the first of ten Irish Republican Army fighters to die in a British prison after starving themselves to demand prisoner-of-war status. The IRA’s political wing, Sinn Fein, made the prisoners an international cause celebre, even getting Sands elected to the British parliament during a Northern Ireland by-election held in the course of his hunger strike. (Needless to say, he never took his seat.) By contrast, Khader Adnan’s hunger strike appears to have been a solo act of defiance by a lone detainee with no other recourse, and only as his death appears to draws near has his plight begun to register on the international radar.
Israel has not charged Adnan with any crime, but its security forces say the baker from the town of Arabeh near Nablus — who is widely reported to be a member of Islamic Jihad, the more radical Islamist competitor to Hamas that has engaged in terror strikes in Israel — had been engaged in “activities that threaten regional security” when they detained him last December. Israel deals with such cases using a legal framework based on emergency laws left over from British colonial rule to detain any suspect for six months at a time without needing to provide evidence or lay charges against them. When a detainee’s six-month spell has expired, the detention can simply be renewed. Human rights groups have urged Israel to charge or release Adnan, and a petition for his release goes before Israel’s supreme court on Thursday.
This call from Seattle is a part of a call for National Day of Action Against Chase Bank on Jamie Dimon’s birthday – the very same day five people in Seattle will go to trial for shutting down a Chase bank last November. Please read their statement at your local general assembly and call the Chief Prosecutor to demand the charges be dropped (info below).
An Seattle Occupier defends the demonstration
From Oakland to Chicago we have witnessed moves to crush our #Occupy movements. We are facing repression because we represent a challenge to the legitimacy of this system. We have openly called into the question the right of the 1% to rule.
As we break with this system, we find ourselves confronting the dual threats from Democratic party operatives and their defenders. On the one hand, they attempt to cajole us into the ranks of electoral politics in order to both neutralize us and reinforce their system. Meanwhile, Democratic mayors continue to unleash the repressive apparatus of the state in the form of police attacks in the streets and legal intimidation in the courts, attempting to sow fear and confusion. #Occupiers in Houston are facing felony charges for blockading the port, and hundreds are facing charges from #occupy actions in Oakland and dozens of other cities. To counter these attacks, we must build national solidarity efforts.
In Seattle, five #occupiers are facing charges for their participation in a Chase Bank occupation. On November 2nd, JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon came to Seattle. He was confronted by massive street protests that began when 5 Occupy Seattle participants chained themselves together inside a Chase Bank branch. Hundreds of protesters arrived and encircled the bank; it was shut down for the day. That evening, hundreds blockaded a hotel where he was accepting a “business leadership” award.
The Chase 5 Trial begins on March 13 – Jamie Dimon’s bithday (!). As he roams free, the Chase 5 will be in court facing trespass charges that carry a maximum sentence of one year in jail. Concurrently, #occupiers in Atlanta are calling for nationwide actions against Chase Bank on March 13 to “celebrate” Dimon’s birthday.
Chase Bank is a part of a terminally flawed system of legalized bribery, corruption, exploitation, and injustice. It is a system that makes outlaws of those who have the audacity to rebel.
Not one banker has been arrested for destroying the lives and livelihoods of millions of people and entire nations.
Not one banker has faced criminal charges for forcing countless thousands of families into the streets.
Not one banker has been criminally charged for financing the destruction of our planet in the name of profit.
Let’s build national and global solidarity with those struggling for a new world – and against the attacks on the movement. Support Seattle’s Chase 5 and show our determination against the logic of the system as we declare our own legitimacy.
Drop the Charges Against the Chase Five and all #occupiers in Seattle. Call and email the Chief Prosecutor, Craig Sims: 206-684-7771, Craig.Sims@Seattle.Gov Organize others to call in.
Read The Chase 5 statement, released on November 2nd, at your local #Occcupy.
Forward Chase 5 press releases on to national and local press wherever you are.
To its credit, The Black Power Mixtape did show the Black Power movement in a more positive light by demonstrating how a people could be moved to (and rightfully so) pick up arms and defend themselves from police brutality, and by highlighting the lesser known programs that were beneficial to the black community’s survival like free breakfast programs for children. Where the film fell shortest was in its inability or unwillingness to connect this extraordinary moment in history to the injustices we face today.
‘The Black Power Mixtape’: Who’s Telling You Your Stories?
By Naima Ramos-Chapman
I was dopily excited to hear about this doc via Danny Glover on Democracy Now way back when he was still shopping it around the Sundance Film Festival. The Black Power Mixtapeis a compilation of never-before-seen footage of the Black Power movement shot by Swedish journalists in the 1960s and 1970s. Left neglected in a Swedish TV station’s cellar for 30 years, it was discovered by documentary filmmaker Göran Hugo Olsson who conceptualized the linking of the sparse and seemingly incohesive material of the movement with amazingly shot intimate b-roll of children playing in defunct playgrounds, commentary from Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, John Forte and other “socially conscious” artists, looped to a sweet soundtrack crafted by none-other than ?uestlove… what was there not to love?
How about everything I just described minus the soundtrack?
Kasama received the following statement from Greece’s Communist Organization (KOE):
The intensified crisis of the political system is an opportunity for the promotion of a social and political front that will put a stop to this illegal regime and set the country in a different course, materializing what the people want and claim for. A social and political front which will pave the way for the salvation of the people and the country: Real Democracy. Independence. Productive Reconstruction. Stop the payments NOW – Not one more euro to the loan sharks. We can break the chains, the fight continues!
The fight against the new occupation’s regime continues
The Communist Organization of Greece salutes the hundreds of thousands of people who swamped Athens yesterday and protested throughout Greece, resolutely opposing the new bonds that the IMF-EU-ECB troika imposes. The Greek people proved their advanced readiness for combat, and showed increased endurance and courage facing the ruthless attacks of the “special police” forces. Despite the state terrorism and the blackmails of the establishment, the fighting spirit of the people against the new occupation and the tyranny is raging.
The new Bailout Agreement is imposed entirely as in a coup, by an illegal government, and “approved” by a parliament that has lost any legitimacy. The Papadimos’ puppet government, the three bourgeois pro-Agreement parties and the politicians who voted for and supported the new disastrous Bailout Agreement are continuously violating their own Constitution and the country’s sovereignty. Their whole political system is hence entirely illegitimate. They have definitively taken a divorce from the people, and must leave immediately. Read the rest of this entry »
This was posted in Viewpoint Magazine. H/T to Jim Weill for bringing this to our attention.
The obsession over the black bloc in the past few months is a distorted reflection of the very real predominance of this tactic in contemporary struggles … But while the tactic’s geographic reach is somewhat localized, its presence in the movement’s collective imagination has grown to immense proportions.
But it’s precisely the continued obsession with this single tactic that prevents us from seriously interrogating the necessary other term in this relationship: strategy. The discussions over the so-called “diversity of tactics” indicate the problem: by focusing all our energies on disputing the merits of a tactic, we end up neglecting strategy altogether. A “diversity of tactics” has little to do with strategy; in fact, it seems to replace strategy with liberal pluralism. The question isn’t whether to pursue a “diversity of tactics,” but rather: what kind of strategy allows us to effectively incorporate a diverse range of tactics?
The “internecine ultra-left argument of the moment,” says the Wall Street Journal, is the debate over the “black bloc.” And if this debate has led the WSJ to talk about “ultra-leftism,” it’s clearly a debate we have to address.
In a report called “Activists and Anarchists Speak for Themselves at Occupy Oakland,” Susie Cagle reminds us that the recent major instances of street-fighting, which have been cited by liberals critical of the black bloc, force us to abandon the stereotype of ski-masked vandals breaking windows. She writes:
The buildings Occupy Oakland marched toward were not targeted for destruction, but for squatting, for organization and for political and community building. And the protesters who came armed with plastic, wood and metal shields, who both moved on and defended others from the police, were not a bloc, were not dressed in black and did not move as one unit.
“Black bloc is not a lifestyle choice, but a tactical one,” Cagle argues. She points out that the only recent manifestation of the black bloc was during the November 2nd “general strike,” when bank windows were smashed, “STRIKE” was spray-painted on a Whole Foods, and the Travelers Aid Building was briefly occupied, all by a group clad in black.
This comes from a report released today by the NYCLU.
NYCLU Analysis Reveals NYPD Street Stops Soar 600% Over Course of Bloomberg Administration
February 14, 2012 — The NYPD stopped and interrogated people 684,330 times in 2011, by far the highest total since the Police Department began collecting data on its troubling stop-and-frisk program in 2002. This represents a 603 percent increase in stop-and-frisks since that year, the first year of the Bloomberg administration, when there were only 97,296 stops.
Of those subjected to NYPD street stops in 2011, nearly nine out of 10 were completely innocent, meaning they were neither arrested nor issued a summons. About 87 percent were black or Latino.
“Last year alone, the NYPD stopped enough totally innocent New Yorkers to fill Madison Square Garden more than 30 times over,” NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. “It is not a crime to walk down the street in New York City, yet every day innocent black and brown New Yorkers are turned into suspects for doing just that. It is a stunning abuse of power that undermines trust between police and the community.”
Under the Bloomberg administration, the NYPD has conducted more than 4.3 million street stops. About 88 percent of those stops – nearly 3.8 million – resulted in no arrest or summons.
“These numbers make clear that illegal stops-and-frisks have become an epidemic in New York City,” said Darius Charney, senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is currently litigating Floyd v. City of New York, a federal class action lawsuit challenging the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices. “And the only antidote is meaningful, independent oversight of the Department.”
“I have been stopped, questioned and frisked four times,” said Joseph Midgley, a Picture the Homeless civil rights leader. “Each time I was standing in a public place, committing no crime. Each time, I was asked for an ID, my pockets were searched and I was asked if I had anything illegal on me, which I did not. Each time, the police found nothing illegal, and I was not charged, nor given a ticket. It made me feel profiled, pre-judged and judged. Now that I am homeless, the police harassment has only gotten worse. This form of discriminatory policing is an outrage and should be stopped now.”
Militant South Bronx march shows the power, and anger, of the people
Justice for Ramarley Graham, Free Jatiek Reed!
By Danny Shaw
Feb. 7th, 2012
“Our Streets, Our Blocks — Jail All Killer Cops!” On Feb. 4, the 13th anniversary of the murder of Amadou Diallo, a militant march responded to two new incidents of police violence that have rocked the Bronx.
The New York Police Department’s brutal beating of Jatiek Reed and the cold-blooded killing of Ramarley Graham brought hundreds of angry protesters, mostly young people, into the streets and in front of the 41st and 42nd Precincts. A spontaneous march then developed down 3rd Avenue, which the police could not contain.
In one the central arteries of the South Bronx, 149th and 3rd Avenue, the crowd took the entire intersection, detaining traffic for 15 minutes as community activists read off a list of youth slain by the NYPD. The crowd responded “Presente!” after every name. In the 13 years since Diallo’s murder, at least 204 people have fallen at the hands of the police.
In the brutal police beating of Jatiek Reed, four officers repeatedly struck him with batons and kicks as the unarmed 19-year-old lay on the ground trying to protect his face. Left black-and-blue, Reed required staples in his head and arm. His friend captured the beating on his cell phone camera, and the video spread virally throughout the city. Nonetheless, Reed remains incarcerated, falsely charged with assaulting an officer.
Greek Protests Continue As Lawmakers Pass Severe Austerity Measures
by Derek Gatopoulos and Nicholas Paphitis
ATHENS, Greece — Greek lawmakers on Monday approved harsh new austerity measures demanded by bailout creditors to save the debt-crippled nation from bankruptcy, after rioters in central Athens torched buildings, looted shops and clashed with riot police.
The historic vote paves the way for Greece’s European partners and the International Monetary Fund to release $170 billion (euro130 billion) in new rescue loans, without which Greece would default on its mountain of debt next month and likely leave the eurozone – a scenario that would further roil global markets.
Lawmakers voted 199-74 in favor of the cutbacks, despite strong dissent among the two main coalition members. A total 37 lawmakers from the majority Socialists and conservative New Democracy party either voted against the party line, abstained or voted present.
Sunday’s clashes erupted after more than 100,000 protesters marched to the parliament to rally against the drastic cuts, which will ax one in five civil service jobs and slash the minimum wage by more than a fifth.
At least 45 businesses were damaged by fire, including several historic buildings, movie theaters, banks and a cafeteria, in the worst riot damage in Athens in years. Fifty police officers were injured and at least 55 protesters were hospitalized. Forty-five suspected rioters were arrested and a further 40 detained.
As the vote got under way early Monday, Prime Minister Lucas Papademos urged calm, pointing to the country’s dire financial straits.
“Vandalism and destruction have no place in a democracy and will not be tolerated,” Papademos told Parliament. “I call on the public to show calm. At these crucial times, we do not have the luxury of this type of protest. I think everyone is aware of how serious the situation is.”
This piece comes from truthdig.com.
