By Karla Fetrow

Conditioned Brutality
Police brutality… We hear about it all the time.  It has become the great expectation; if you are confronted by the police, surrender your rights because he does not recognize them.  Of all the domestic violence offenders, the police place first on the list.  According to a report on The Impact of Police-Perpetrated Domestic Violence, “The characteristics and skills developed in training to produce competent officers are those that, when used in an intimate relationship, make police officers the most dangerous abusers.

Police officers use professional skills, police equipment, and the mobility of the job to keep their partners under surveillance. They run license plates of her friends and have access to information about anyone with whom she associates. They follow in their squad cars, park their squads or unmarked cars outside the victim’s home for hours on end. They install recording devices in the victim’s home or on her telephone. They use binoculars to observe the victim’s activities from a distance. These methods serve as a constant reminder to the victim that she is always within the abuser’s reach. He comes to be seen as omniscient and omnipotent, almost god-like.”

Many carry this sense of omniscience beyond the victims of partner relationships.  They choose their victims from those who are vulnerable; people who frequent bars, teenagers hanging out in malls, those too poor to legally fight back, women without partners, minorities and people they just don’t like.  Because they are well acquainted with the courts and documentation of evidence, an abusive policeman can commit his crimes against citizens with impunity.

The two most common charges attached to the revolving door system are, “resisting arrest” and “assault on a police officer”.  The curious part of this is that in seven out of ten cases, there are no other charges involved.  In other words, if a policeman walks up and says, “let’s go, buddy,” it’s best to just comply because to question his motives is to resist arrest.  If you become belligerent, it’s an assault on an officer.  It makes no difference whether or not you struck out at him.  The abusive policeman doesn’t need a reason for accosting you.  He only needs for you to show some form of hostility or resistance and you will land in jail.

What Isn’t Talked About

It gets scarier.  There is another type of police brutality that generally stays under wraps for a very long time before it ever begins to surface; if it does.  This brutality remains so secretive only the combined efforts of the victims lend it any credibility at all.  This is the policeman who rapes.  Most women will not report her attacker.  She has already been humiliated, undressed, forced behind bars and subjected to the whims and caprice of her captors.  She has no reason to believe anyone will come to her defense.

On the day I stood before a judge to plead guilty to one account of misconduct with a controlled substance, a far more spectacular case was rocking the courtroom.  Anthony Rollins, an ex-police officer, entered a plea of “not guilty” to fourteen felony counts, most of them involving rape or assault, and to six misdemeanor charges of official misconduct.  The investigation began in April 2009, when the victims’ agency, “Standing Together Against Rape”, filed a report that Rollins had sexually assaulted a woman while on duty.  Rollins was placed on paid leave, while five other victims came forth to say they had been raped.  On July 15, 2009, Rollins was indicted, arrested and suspended without pay.

In a telephone interview later, Sgt. Derek Hsieh, president of the Anchorage police union, said fellow officers are disappointed and worried that Rollins’ indictment will affect the way they are perceived by the people they serve.

The problem is, this group mentality of standing up for their own allows police misconduct to become commonplace.  It isn’t an isolated incident.  It is a behavior that hides itself behind bars, behind the protective uniform of the badge, and only occasionally receives attention.  It is a part of the ongoing machinery diligently churning out the sociopath society.

The Subtle Sociopath

While it’s true my vacation land did not contain such blatant misuse of power, its undercurrents of false accusations, assumptions of guilt and categorizing without examining mitigating circumstances, still contribute to sociopath behavior.  A sociopath might be very pleasant on the outside, but will lie and manipulate for his own self-serving purposes.  He might not actually break the law, but will use it to serve his own ends.

While I was incarcerated, I became very fond of our house mouse, our little orderly mother who kept the pod running smoothly.  Janice had that type of soft, open face and studious expression you would expect from a teacher or a counselor.  She rarely exercised her authority, allowing the other girls the run of the television and their choice of obligatory chores, but when she did, her word was law.  You did not clam the door or stand in your room and shout.  To do so would mean the entire house would lose its privileges to the microwave and television.  She was determined this was not going to happen.

Only once did she try to exercise her authority with me.  She wanted me to attend church with the other girls on Easter morning.  I told her no.  When she asked me why not, I told her, “I take my spirituality very seriously.  In Mexico, I saw people die for their moral convictions.  They were people of God.  I am not so impressed with someone who stands at a pulpit and lectures simply because it feels good.”

“Oh,” she said, and that was the end of that, but the beginning of our friendship.  I finally asked her one day how she ended up in jail.  “I stole,” she admitted honestly, then added, “but I didn’t steal from people’s houses.  I didn’t steal from regular folk.  I stole from big chain stores.  They have the insurance to cover it.”

I laughed.  “You’re a revolutionary!”

I found it odd that she continued to remain in the hole while other long-term inmates had moved into houses with greater liberties.  I finally asked her about it.  “They hate me,” she said at first.  Finding her a very difficult person to hate, I told her maybe it was because she did her job as the house mouse so well.  “No,” she said firmly.  “They hate me.”

She paused a bit as though debating whether or not to trust me, then said, “In February, I pushed a girl into a snowbank.  I don’t know why I did it.  She was making fun of me and I got irritated.  She was carrying her property box at the time, going to one of the better houses.  She stumbled backward into the snowbank, but she wasn’t hurt, and I didn’t hit her.  Still, she told an officer about it.

Two days later, I was charged with a major infraction, a B6, which is assault on a prisoner by another prisoner.”  The following week, Janice was brought before the disciplinary board, which even the officers call the kangaroo court.  Without allowing her to give her side, they found her guilty of the assault, and gave her thirty days of segregation in the hole, suspending it for 180 days, provided she was not given another write-up.

Janice planned to appeal the write-up, but the next day, she was once again called before the board.  “I heard from three different inmates that you were having relationships with a female officer,” said Lieutenant Johnson, the board director.  “I need to know who this officer is.”

“I had no idea what she was talking about,” said Janice, “and told her so.”

The lieutenant persisted.  “Whether the allegations can be proven or not, we can still house you in the hole for the remainder of your sentence, so you might just as well make things easier on yourself.”

Again Janice told her she had no idea what the lieutenant was talking about.  After returning to her room, she filed an appeal, stating the allegations had no basis in fact.  The next day, the paperwork was returned to her with “denied” stamped on it.  In the denial, it was claimed they had a video clip and a recorded phone call as evidence that Janice had been with a female officer.  When Janice asked to see the evidence, she was denied.

Once Janice had been designated to the hole, she was denied her furlough, admission to the half-way house, or an ankle bracelet monitor so she could be released to work.  She has been refused all visitors, including her husband, and refuse to allow him to put money on her books.  They have decided not to drop the assault charge, and still have not shown evidence of her misconduct.

I don’t believe Janice was lying.  She was candid about her theft and about pushing the girl.  She was a victim of the sociopath society.

When We’ve All Gone Through the Door

The sociopath feels no guilt, no remorse, has no conscience.  Two very tragic homicides followed closely on each other this last winter.  One was a young barrister of a drive through coffee shop, the other involved a young airman on leave.  The barrister was abducted from her place of work; the video cameras proved this, while the airman’s where about’s were uncertain for several days.  In both cases, it was weeks before their bodies were found.

The fathers of the barrister and the airman recently went out to drink together.  Understandably, they were inconsolable.  Late in the evening, an employee of the bar, noticing  the barrister’s father was about to get into his truck inebriated, offered to call a cab.  The bereaved man told the employee to get away from his truck or meet his 1911, which was assumed to refer to a family of .45 caliber pistols.  The bar employee called the police stating the two men had left drunk, but that he could not stop them because he feared for his life.  This was in compliance with a law that states those serving alcohol must not allow a person to leave their premises and drive drunk unless they fear for their lives.

The police entered the premises of the barrister’s father, where they found both men.  The barrister’s father was charged with a DUI, even though he was home by then and there had been no mishaps on the highway.  He was charged with assault on an officer for refusing to take a breath test.  He was charged with misconduct with a firearm after a search of his vehicle uncovered a 1911 Ruger in his console that he had not pulled out and had not used.  His 2012 truck was impounded and he was placed under $4,000 bail, along with a $2,000 appearance bond and a $2,000 performance bond.  In a kinder era, there would have been more understanding for the grieving man, but this is the year of the letter of the law and the law is carried out without guilt, remorse or conscience.

The sociopath has a limited range of emotions.  A person in prison learns to behave pleasantly, regardless of personal feelings.  She must show no anger, no disappointment, no impatience, no tears.  She learns strict obedience to the rules no matter how unfair they might seem.  She learns not to anticipate.  You do not anticipate your phone call or a visit because they can be taken away from you.  You learn not to anticipate your release date as it can fill you with too much longing, which invites other strong emotions.  The jails have their own time schedule, separate from the courts.  Some girls were kept as many as three days after their release was ordered, while the jails went through their own system of paperwork.  During that time period, they did not dare to appear anything except pleasant and co-operative, or they could be charged with another infraction.  It was several weeks after I was released before I was able to deal with the full flood of normal emotions again.  Someone who has been incarcerated for months or years is completely overwhelmed by her initial release.

I asked myself many times what the purpose was in this revolving door justice, which rarely gave a great deal of formal time behind bars but that usually gave long months and even years of probation or parole.  Obviously, there is a high profit making mechanism involved.  Your taxes pay for the burgeoning police force, justified by the number of “necessary” arrests, and for the administration of the court system.  The inmate never gets out of jail free.  Even if she has paid no bail or bonds, she must pay for court costs, the $250 an hour public defender and filing fees.  Nearly every inmate is ordered to take anger management classes, drug counseling or both.  These also come out of the inmate’s pockets.

There is also the conditioning to obedience, to compliance without question.  This too became obvious during my stay, yet it wasn’t until I read the standard terms of probation and parole, applied to all released inmates that I began to see a far more sinister reason for the revolving door.  While you are serving your probation or parole, you may not vote, take part in elections or serve on a jury.  For as long as you have a felony record, this part remains.  While you are on probation or parole, you may not own a firearm or any blade over three inches long, with the exception of kitchen knives.  You may not even own a machete for cutting down brush.  While you are on probation or parole, you may not spend more than 24 hours away from your home.  Your travel is restricted to a one hundred mile radius of your home.  You may not consort with others convicted of a felon, not even family members.  The police may come at any time to your home without a warrant and search it, or search your person at any time without cause.  If you are in the company of someone who is arrested, you will be arrested, too.  By creating a revolving door of a populace charged with felonies, every single one of our rights can be removed without ever once tampering with any aspect of the Constitutional amendments.  The United States places more people behind bars than any country in the world, and this is why.  It’s not so much that we are apathetic.  It’s that we are learning to become sociopaths, with no strong connections to each other, no normal emotional range, no self-determination as to right and wrong and complete acceptance that brutality is okay as long as exercised within the legal confines of the law.

http://www.adn.com/2009/07/16/867167/cop-pleads-not-guilty-in-sex-assaults.html

http://www.abuseofpower.info/Article_FBI.htm

By Jennifer Lawson Zepeda

I kept saying it!  That the torture the U.S. sanctioned against people held in Guantanamo Bay would come back to haunt us.  And it finally has!

Thank GOD, there are still ethical people left in this world!

“In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were yesterday (Fri) found guilty of war crimes.”

“The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

“They included testimony from British man Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee and Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was tortured in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.”

“At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.”

(Source: Bush Convicted of War Crimes)

It had to happen!  Torture is something that the U.S. has customarily taken a strong stance against; so to use it as an effective method of eliciting information?  Deplorable!

But the huge question is, What happens now?

“Full transcripts of the charges, witness statements and other relevant material will now be sent to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.”

“The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission is also asking that the names of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Yoo, Bybee, Addington and Haynes be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals for public record.”

(Source: Bush Convicted of War Crimes)

Obama Where are You

That’s a start; but what about the International Criminal Tribunal demanding warrants for their arrest?  Shouldn’t that follow?

So, my next question is this…

Why isn’t President Obama putting on his big boy pants and demanding their arrest?  After all, the U.S. has been BIG on hunting down other war criminals and ensuring they were prosecuted; so, why not now?

WASHINGTON, April 26, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A UN-backed tribunal Thursday convicted former Liberian president Charles Taylor of aiding and abetting war crimes and crimes against humanity – the first time a head of state has been convicted by an international court since the Nazi trials at Nuremberg. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) worked closely with successive prosecutors at the Special Court for Sierra Leone in making today’s breakthrough possible. Leahy, as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee’s Subcommittee on the State Department and Foreign Operations, wrote U.S. laws to withhold aid to any government that harbored Taylor, to increase the reward for Taylor’s capture, and to provide crucial funding for the court, even when it was not requested by an earlier administration. Leahy has long led as well in seeking justice for war criminals and in securing resources to help their victims. The court found that Taylor also personally profited from his crimes, receiving “blood diamonds” during the conflicts involving Liberia and Sierra Leone. Leahy heralded the roles of former Rep. Tony Hall (D-Ohio), joined by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and others, who led efforts in Congress to stigmatize the role of that illicit diamond trade, which paved the way for the Kimberley Process, a joint effort by governments, industry and civil society to stem the role of diamonds in conflict zones.

(Source:  Leahy: Taylor Conviction Shows That The World Can Hunt Down War Criminals And Bring Them To Justice)

Where is Sen. Patrick Leahy on this?  Where’s the UN-backed forces, working to arrest G.W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld et al?

Why aren’t people like the self admitted torturer, ‘Hard Measures‘ author and former CIA official, Jose Rodriguez also declared as war criminals?  We’ve allowed him to profit off of his campaign of torture by publishing a book?

In the Bernie Farber’s blog, War Criminals — At Any Age — Should Be Punished, he admits that the common assumption is that war criminals evade prosecution because of many excuses.  One that remains is that many believe that given the age of the perpetrators and that the murderous brutalities occurred more than 65 years ago, we best just move on.

So, will we adopt this attitude towards our own war criminals of Bush et al?

If so, shame on us for being also the worlds biggest hypocrites!

By: Grainne Rhuad

By now most of the world is familiar with the picture taken during the May 7^th Russian protests.  The stark contrast of innocence facing down riot police has touched the world.  At the same time the rest of the world is slowly coming to terms with the fact that democracy is a lie and doesn’t work, Russians are protesting hoping to make a change within their system.

On May 7^th as Vladamir Putin was sworn into office, he was not met with the types crowds he had in the past.  In their stead, there were hundreds of protesters outside being corralled by thousands of police.  Putin has been at the helm of Russia since 2000, first as President and Now as Prime Minister.  With this election, he will likely remain there until 2018 with the option to run again.

It is this long-term rule that people in Russia are tired of.

The demonstrators, separated into several groups, were met by helmeted riot police. A total of 120 were detained, including opposition leader Boris Nemtsov.

The day before, protests had turned violent when some demonstrators tried to march toward the Kremlin and riot police beat back the crowds with batons and detained more than 400 people.

While Putin has dismissed the Moscow protesters as ungrateful, pampered urbanites and agents of the West, others are taking them more seriously. “The government must understand that the split in society is getting wider, and the anger over unfair elections and the lack of normal dialogue is growing. In this situation, radicalism is inevitable,” Zyuganov said. “Any attempts to shut people’s mouths with the help of a police baton are senseless and extremely dangerous.” (Source: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/05/07/putin-sworn-in-as-russia-president-after-day-protests/#ixzz1uPDRz700)

This dismissiveness that characterizes Putin is most likely going to be his downfall.  Putin won nearly 64% of the vote. Opposition leaders have denounced the result as “illegitimate”.  It was in response to this supposed discrepancy, that the protests were formed.  Their anger has been fuelled by widespread reports of fraud, including evidence of ballot-stuffing and “carousel voting”, when voters are employed to cast their votes several times at various polling sites.

While OSCE states in their report: “The conditions for the campaign were clearly skewed in favour of one candidate. Also, overly restrictive candidate registration requirements limited genuine competition.” The rest of the report outlines a pretty straight forward election.

Certainly, most countries cannot hope to be any better, it has become an accepted fact that media will pick sides and money will out in such elections.

There is no denying that Putin in the last few years has moved away from the progressive policies of the 1990’s.  He has been more restrictive in response to protest and criticism, both within his country and internationally.  Even recently allowing the statement that Russia will launch pre-emptive strikes if NATO and the U.S.  continues its plans to implement the European Shield.

However, many Russians still believe Putin to be good for Russia, siting his unwillingness to support or excuse the U.S. her meddling in foreign affairs as well as the business he has lately brought to Russia.  Namely huge oil contracts with ExxonMobil for research and development in the Arctic Oil Fields.

But like so many political maneuvers, there is the cost of this deal.  Some believe Mikhail Khodorkovsky is paying that cost.  Khodorkovsky, once head of oil giant Yukos and Russia’s richest man, is now in jail for tax evasion, clearing the way for other oil deals to be made. Putin has also been accused of abusing his hold on energy, allegedly punishing fellow ex-Soviet states like Ukraine with price hikes when they leant towards the West.

It may be Russia’s improved economy that is allowing for protest where before it was impossible.  The cities of Russia are full of work.  With companies and corporations in need of qualified workers at a higher rate than seen in maybe 50 years, as well as supportive services, more people are comfortable.

Comfortable people have more time to think, intellectualize, discuss and ultimately protest.  As it is the city dwellers who are showing up for protests analysts feel it is their increased economic stability that makes them feel they should have more of a say in government.

Perhaps this makes Putin’s “Spoiled” statement make a little more sense.  After all it has been under his leadership that Russia has seen stability and growth.

Political analyst Masha Lipman points out however, “The turning point was the “trading places” trick in that occurred in late September. That was when Medvedev declared he would not run and that Putin would run instead. For his part, Putin said, if elected, he would make Medvedev his prime minister. Medvedev added that they had made this decision several years earlier. It was this contempt of the people that triggered change: the mood became a movement. Elections suddenly mattered: lots of young Muscovites volunteered as election observers and gained first-hand experience with blatant fraud. They changed their electoral behavior and voted for anyone to ensure that the United Russia (the party of Putin’s loyalists) would lose support and seats in the Russian parliament. This activism evolved into mass protests after the December 4 election. It was broadly seen as fraudulent, especially in Moscow where the rigging was especially blatant and the constituency was already more critical of Putin.”

Are protests likely to do any good in a system where one man effectively has control of the government?  The people seem to think so. The opposition leader and member of the Solidarity movement political council, Boris Nemtsov seems to think so stating in an interview, “Russia’s future depends entirely on the level of protest, not Putin. Protests cannot constantly grow. They are not a linear process. The current protests do not amount to a revolution that would lead to explosive changes but the revival of civil activities and development of civil society. This is why there are always ups and downs. Indeed, now the protests are weakening, but this does not mean that they have exhausted themselves.” (Source: http://valdaiclub.com/politics/41601.html )

When asked if he thinks “The screws will be tightened.” (on the protestors) Nemtsov answers, “This depends only on us. If we sit in a kitchen, Lukashization is inevitable. If we take the initiative and protest, things will change. We are witnessing a decline of the Putin regime with all its convulsions, idiotic escapades and provocations. Clearly, it does not have the energy and strength to oppose the nation. But if the people sit quiet, the government will be able to tighten the screws with ease and Putin will turn into a 100% Lukashenko clone. He is 50/50 now.”

In agreement is Alexei Navalny, a crusading anti-corruption blogger and new-wave folk hero. He says: “A revolution is inevitable, and that it won’t be something plotted out ahead of time. It will start with an incident — an arrest, maybe, or a protest — and then snowball unexpectedly and unrelentingly. It will happen,” he told Esquire, “just because most people understand that this system is wrong.”

By: Jennifer Lawson-Zepeda

You hear it all of the time. “We ARE the ninety-nine percent!” At least in Los Angeles you do. It’s written all over billboards, scrawled on walls, depicted on stickers stuck to lamp posts. It’s everywhere! But has anyone figured out exactly who qualifies as the 99%?

Define 99%

Most people who back the Occupy Movement seem to have a grasp of who the 99% are and what that means; but in case some are confused, let’s go over this.

99% of the Occupy Movement gets it. They know we are all in this together and as a movement they are, for the most part, a very peaceful movement.

The rock behind this movement lies in the stories of people. The stories of struggling as 1% of society uses policy to enrich themselves, avoid paying their fair share of taxes, dictate civil and human rights, and practices corrupt banking and business practices to bilk the rest of us.

Its stories like:

“I am 20K in debt and am paying out of pocket for my current tuition while I start paying back loans with two part time jobs.”

“I am a 28 year old female with debt that had to give up her apartment + pet because I have no money and I owe over $30,000.”

“Married mother of 3. Lost my job in 2009. My family lost our health insurance, our savings, our home, and our good credit. After 16 months, I found a job — with a 90 mile commute and a 25 percent pay cut. After gas, tolls, daycare, and the cost of health insurance, I was paying so my kids had access to health care.”

I am young. I am educated and hard working. I am not able to pay my bills. I am afraid of what the future holds.”

“I am a 19 year old student with 18 credit hours and 2 part time jobs. I am over 4000 dollars in debt but my paychecks are just enough to get me to school and back. next year my plan was to attend a 4 year college and get my bfa, but now I am afraid that without a co-signer I will have no shot at a loan and even if I can get a loan I am afraid that I will leave college with no future and a crippling debt.”

“I went to graduate school believing that there might be some financial security afforded by a higher degree, and that with that security I could finally buy my mom her own house and take care of her. Instead, I have wasted six years of my life.”

“I am a 27 year old with a bachelor degree. I ran out of my student loans while trying to find a job. I am ‘living’ with my mother again to get back on my feet. So far, the best I can do is a part time retail job paying $8 an hour. I am hearing impaired with cochlear implant. My cochlear implant warranty expired. I do not have the money to renew it. How can I work at my new minimum wage job when my implant is broken? I need it to HEAR.”

(Source: Who are the 99 percent?

So, does this include workers in all jobs? For instance, are the police officers of this nation part of the 99% too?


Police Brutality

Let’s examine police behavior. It’s a shame that so many officers in cities like Los Angeles condone illegal violent and excessive force against citizens. Because this creates a feeling of disgust among the very people they need to back them up when they are attempting to defend these people during crowd control.

But in many cities, police forces have well-earned reputations for using their authority inappropriately.

I know this for a fact, because of my dealings with the Long Beach Police Department and one of its officers who used excessive force on me in 2009.

No matter how many bruises I had; or, how many photos they took while investigating the attack on me by one of their “finest;” in the end the LBPD investigated themselves and determined that beating the crap out of a 55-year old woman trying to get on the ground after being ordered to do so, was justifiable. Even though a camera showed I complied with the officer’s command, the police officer created a story, a lie, a bunch of b.s. that he had reason to leave bruises up and down my arms and legs, breaking my finger and toenails by leaping on me and sending me crashing to the pavement. Even though at 55 I was not so nimble, I was trying my best to get on the ground in my not-so-limber way.

And in spite of the fact that they dropped the charges against me when they realized how ridiculous they were and that they had arrested a member of the neighborhood watch committee — a woman who had no arrest record in a lifetime of over fifty years, and who had film evidence that the cop was lying, they still found the abusive jerk innocent for abusing me.

During my incident, I had a female jailer named Hernandez at the Long Beach Jail tell me should would “fuck me up if I didn’t shut up” when I asked a simple question. Yeah…SHE was a real class act, like so many there. I was threatened many times during that weekend I was held. Why? Because I was pressing excessive force charges against an officer. I was even told I’d “never make my way to court,” by some of the most gutless minority jailers there, who used their authority and the power of many against one to try to intimidate me.

Certainly, the case of Perry Grays, who was brutalized by Long Beach police on Super Bowl Sunday 2011, duplicates a bit of what I went through. I wasn’t tased; but the elements of this case and mine are similar. In the following interview, Mr. Grays tells a familiar story to many arrested needlessly in places like Long Beach:

“Can I get your badge number,” and he says, “No, I’m not giving you anything,” and I said, “Isn’t it illegal to deny me your badge number?” and he says, “I’m not giving you anything.”
So then his partner asked, “What is your name?” and I said, “Sir, I didn’t come down here to give you my name, I came down here to get your partner’s badge number and he’s being unprofessional.” So he asks my friend what’s his name and my friend says, “Sir I don’t even live here”. So the officer who hit my window with the flashlight pulls out his taser and I said, “Okay, are you going to tase me?” He says, “Are you going to give me a reason to?” I said, “No, I didn’t say that, you’re putting words in my mouth” and he says, “Well you’re putting words in my mouth”.

I know the following paragraph is identical! I was arrested for resisting arrest and being drunk in public, no matter that I was behind a gate in my own yard and had barely taken a sip of a Mojito while barbecuing with friends, when the incident happened. Fortunately, a camera recorded the entire event and proved my point. But this man’s experience mirrors mine in many ways:

And they charged me with threatening a police officer, resisting arrest, and having a loud party. They released me after two days. I guess the charges were dropped because after their investigation they couldn’t prove any of those things, so they let me go.

So I understand very well that there are cops out there who should be held accountable for using excessive force. I’ve heard the stories of inmates in Los Angeles County Jail being told to, “turn and face the wall and don’t look, or they would get some too” as a team of jailers beat the crap out of some guy arrested for something like fighting a police officer.

Mayday Incident

But what I’m asking is, do police qualify as the 99% too? If so, then how do we include them in the 99%? And if so, how does this happen?

Los Angeles police arrested a man they say hit a female officer on the head with a snare drum during May Day protests.

He walked behind the policewoman on a skirmish line and out of the blue, struck her in the back of the head with a drum, nearly knocking off her helmet. She was treated for a minor concussion.

Police say 6’1″ 280 pound Brian Mendoza of Los Angeles was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of assault on a peace officer who stood about 5’1″ and weighed about 100 pounds. He remains jailed Thursday without bail.

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/03/state/n105547D24.DTL#ixzz1tzrHwHzD)

Look, I don’t believe in all of the rash of security officers that have been hired by Homeland Security to protect us against ourselves:

• I don’t believe the hype about warnings of terrorist      plots happening potentially in every government building.
• I certainly don’t believe in the new laws stating that      saying something intimidating now amounts to a terrorist threat.
• I think this country has gone WAYYYY overboard on the      police state.

And if anyone has a reason to hate police, then, it would be me after dealing with the corruption of San Diego’s Homeland Security agents at the border and in Correction Corporation of America’s Immigration Detention Center in Otay and the Long Beach Police Department. I saw firsthand how unscrupulous people can be during my dealings with them.

But part of me also wonders if in placing this, me-against-them attitude against police simply maintaining crowd control at an event like the Mayday demonstrations isn’t taking this 99% thing to an extreme.

Why do we need to brutalize a person who is simply doing their job? Are we claiming after the L.A. riots 20 years ago that we don’t need police? If so, I disagree. And as a person who was a victim of police brutality, I’ll also be the first to admit that I believe there are good police officers out there. They are family men and women and they work hard. To me, they deserve respect, just like any other hard working employee.

After all, don’t these people worry about their mortgages too? Don’t police officers have kids struggling to attend school? What financial stories can they tell that might classify them as part of the 99% too?

And realizing this, why do we allow protesters to assault the police when they aren’t doing anything but maintaining crowd control.

I will be the first to admit that I have a hard time stomaching police when they overstep their boundaries. Simply, I think it takes a great deal more strength to be a cop who respects their community, than a spineless wimp who abuses it.

And I won’t lie and say that when I hear stories (like yesterday) of ICE agents being murdered by anyone, including their own sons, that I have much compassion. I don’t.

Simply, after knowing how corrupt they are and how so many of them treat others, I can’t affect a caring attitude about something horrible happening to them.

• I know what pain and human rights violations they      inflict on others.
• I know that Homeland Security refuses to hold them      accountable.
• I have no respect for them for that reason.
• And until we demand that Homeland Security investigate      these abuses, I will continue to feel that way.

But with all of that said, I still view them as part of the 99%. Not the part I want to associate with; but part of the problems we all suffer. And because of that, as much as I hate them, I don’t feel they should be needlessly assaulted during protests. I would hope others would agree.

By Karla Fetrow

How the Citizen’s Informer sets up Deals 

Jennifer, oh Jennifer, how could you be so cruel?  This is not to say all Jennifers are invested with slithering personalities… I know several who are decent, honest, gregarious and kind, but this particular Jennifer; one whose last name I never did learn, throws a stone-packed ice-ball at the good name of Jennifers everywhere.  She used to be my friend; or so I thought.  Apparently friendships are not nearly so valuable to her as saving her skin when it came time to take a dose of federal induced medicine.

In all fairness, I had been forewarned.  A couple months earlier, I had been stopped by two federal agents while on my way to work, told they had a warrant to search my house, and the right to search my backpack.  There was nothing in my backpack except my wallet, camera  and a few of the things women were inclined to incur as necessary items for leaving the house, and nothing in my home except an ounce of marijuana, so I wasn’t greatly concerned.  It’s legal in Alaska to keep a few ounces of weed rattling about in your house for personal use, and I readily admitted to the presence of an ounce when they asked me.

They then proceeded to ask me about the guns, expensive electronic equipment and large sums of cash they insisted I had somewhere in hiding in my home.  This was surprising to me.  All that wealth, and I was living in a ramshackle trailer, with a faulty furnace not generating enough heat to bring the temperature up over fifty degrees in the winter, had to carry water because I had no plumbing, and was walking to work every day in thirty below weather because I had no car.  I asked them why I would be doing this if I had lots of money.

They weren’t impressed.  One of the agents told me he had worked in law enforcement for twenty years and he could tell I’ve been selling pounds of weed.  Pounds of weed!  Whoa!  He must have been mistaking me for the neighbor down the road, or one of at least half a dozen other people within a close vicinity.  I didn’t tell him this, but I did tell him I was lucky to receive two ounces at a time, and that on a front.  “You don’t sell weed?”  He asked.

“No, I answered.

“We have information you just sold an ounce.”

That’s when it occurred to me; there was only one person who had gotten an ounce from me and that was Jennifer.  Figuring she had just gotten popped for the pain killers she liked to peddle to anyone interested and they had found her little stash as well, causing her to squeal like a little stuck pig, I told them, “sometimes, if my friends are looking, I help them out, and if I am  looking, they do me the same favor.  But it isn’t really selling.  It’s just favors between friends.”

They then began asking me questions about my boss, which began to piss me off a little.  “Look,” I told them.  “My boss has cameras all over the store to keep things legal and aboveboard. Nobody conducts illegal transactions from his store.  He wouldn’t stand for it.”

They finally let me go, and I arrived at work with one minute to spare before I was officially late.  I punched in, then decided to tell both my co-workers and my boss what had just happened.  They decided Jennifer was not allowed back in the store.  She was trouble.

She certainly was.  According to the police report, CS11-17; Jennifer; was given three hundred dollars to purchase an ounce of marijuana from me.  The report read that “due to scheduling conflict within the unit, the controlled purchase needed to be moved to a later date.”  There was a scheduling conflict alright, but not with the agents.  Jennifer had been calling me night and day, wheedling and begging for an ounce and I had been ignoring her.  The report went on to say that she was finally escorted to my work place to arrange the purchase, telling the police deals were often set up from there.  It was because she showed up at my work place that I finally caved.  I was very protective of my boss’s small, independent business, and had made it a point to keep business and indulgences separate.  In order to get her off my back, I had told her to come by when I got off work and we’d set something up.

The little snitch was wired the entire time.  She had recorded my agreement to meet her at the house and when she arrived, had recorded our conversation in which I had told her I’d call a friend.  Officially, the arrangements had been made for the feds trafficking case.  And officially, I had just committed a felon when I scored the ounce and turned it over to her for the same price I had paid for it.  We were friends.  I wasn’t interested in capitalizing off her, but apparently, she was very interested in capitalizing off me.

My first meeting with my attorney, I was distrustful.  After all, he was a public defender and public defenders weren’t that interested in winning cases. I told him frankly I wanted a Civil Liberties attorney because the whole thing had been a set-up.

“What do you mean?”  He asked.   So I told him the whole story, adding I knew it was Jennifer because I don’t deal and she was the only one who had come by to ask for ounce.

“She begged me,” I said.  “She had gone to the states for several years, so when she came back, I figured she’d lost touch with her regular dealer.  I used to buy from her at least as much as she bought from me, so I thought I would do her a favor.”

“Then it was entrapment.”   Since it was rather pointless to try and continue hiding her identity, he then told me Jennifer was a citizen informant; a fancy word fora narc, a squealer.  She had agreed to turn in everyone she could so the charges against her would be dropped. “She chose you because you are not dangerous.”

There is a rather outdated viewpoint of the citizen’s informer as a somewhat sympathetic person; someone caught between the forces of lawful and illicit dealings by unfortunate circumstances; the unwilling or unwitting fool trapped by the mafia, the drug addict who would like to get off drugs but finds himself hopelessly entrenched, racketeers who develop a conscience, smugglers who wish to drop out of the game… but there is very little truth to this stereotype.  An informer informs for one reason only; he or she got caught and wants the least amount of sentencing possible.

The modern day informant might do it for money or do it for some kind of weird sense of glory, but a snitch chooses the least likely avenues for retaliation.  When Tim Allen, the oil lobbyist turned informer, welched out a number of Alaskan legislators, he did not mention even one of his oil cronies, who certainly carried their own guilt.  He did set up and ruin the life of one rather guileless representative named Vic Kohring.  I’ve known the Kohring family since my early teenage years.  They were honest and hardworking.  The boys didn’t even get into the usual trouble teenagers are so apt to get into, like staying up all night drinking, then terrorizing the neighborhood with loud noise and fast cars, or sneaking off during school hours to smoke cigarettes and make out with girls.  They were part of the clean cut crowd.

Vic was a junior representative.  He hadn’t even been in politics long enough to cut that many shady deals.  Most likely, when he saw how some of the legislators lined their pockets, he was ripe and eager to get a taste of the action himself.  He was set up, and Tim Allen was the wired informer.

When Ted Stevens beat the corruption charges filed against him, stating that the prosecution had with-held evidence favorable to his case, the feds said the elderly Senator’s case was the exception, not the rule.  Senator Lisa Murkowski disagrees.  She recently began pushing a bill that would require prosecutors to immediately turn over evidence to the defense that could be favorable to the accused.  The American Civil Liberties Union, among other human rights committees, also support the bill, saying this type of problem happens too often.

Special Prosecutor, Henry Schuelke, who produced the court -ordered report on misconduct in the Ted Stevens case states there have been cases with Justice Department errors comparable to the Stevens prosecution.  The same judge who presided over Stevens’ case, for example, in 2009 found that prosecutors improperly with-held important psychiatric records of a government witness who was used in a significant number of Guantanamo cases.

According to Schulke, prosecutors with-hold evidence simply because they want to win.  “The motive to win the case is the principal, operative motive.  I do not believe any of the prosecutors harbored a personal animus toward Senator Stevens.  I don’t believe they sought fame and glory.  They did, however, want to win the case.”

Winning is all it’s really about.  Jennifer did not turn in any of the real dealers, the ones who were moving pounds of marijuana or had growing operations in their back yards, and she certainly didn’t turn in her pharmaceutical contacts.  She turned in someone safe, someone who would not jeopardize her own illicit dealings.   “In fact,” said my attorney, “what the courts really want are the major players.  If you turned in your contacts, they would just set you free… but, I don’t see you as that kind of person.”

“I’m not,” I answered.  “And even if I was, the town is really a very small community.  By now, everyone has heard what has happened.  If I walked out of here and starting knocking on people’s doors, they would shut down tighter than a drum.”

My attorney was willing to take the case to trial, but he cautioned me that the wire tapping was damaging.  “It doesn’t really matter,” he explained.  “That you got her the ounce as a favor.  It doesn’t matter that you made no money from it.  The point they will make is that moving a controlled substance without a medical prescription is a felony.”  He then went on to illustrate just how easy it is to commit a felony.  “If you have a friend with a back-ache and you give her pain pills to relieve it, you’ve just committed a felony.  If your friend has an ear infection, and you give her some left-over antibiotics you happen to have on hand, you’ve just committed a felony. “

There are a number of other ways one can quite effortlessly and randomly commit a felony.  Under the three strikes system, practiced in twenty-six states, you can receive a felony conviction for your third driving under the influence of alcohol offense.  Or how about for a one dollar cup of soda?  A Florida man faces felony charges after refusing to pay $1 for a cup of soda in an East Naples McDonald’s restaurant.  The initial charge was for petty theft. But due to Abaire’s record of prior petty theft convictions, the charge was increased from a misdemeanor to a felony under Florida’s ‘three strikes’ statute.

After throwing a tantrum in school, Selecia Johnson was handcuffed, charged with battery, and kept in police custody for an hour before her parents found out what was going on. Though all charges have been dropped, Salecia — a 6-year-old –  now has an arrest record.

Should I try to beat the feds?  I had to think about this.  People who are sitting in jail do not normally beat a trial by jury.  People who are sitting in jail with a young public defender; even a very sincere and idealistic one; do not normally beat a trial by jury.  “I want a reduced bail hearing,” I said.

Two weeks later, there still was no word that I would be granted a reduced bail hearing.  Five thousand dollars cash or credit bail; called corporate bail; is really an astronomical amount for trafficking a small quantity of weed in a state where marijuana is the primary drug of choice.  In terms of bonded bail, where the bail bondsman covers the main cost, it would amount to $50,000 bail; the type of bail usually placed on more serious crime, like burglary or armed robbery.  It’s to be supposed that somehow, as a corporate, the courts still believed I should be able to cough up five thousand dollars.

So I sat, and read, and took walks in their melting exercise yard.  I also observed.  It wasn’t long before I noticed a particular pattern in the revolving door of detainees.  As soon as a few beds were unoccupied for any length of time, there was a sudden rash of new criminals, and we were filled to maximum capacity again.

I also discovered four other women from my community within the first two weeks I was incarcerated; women I knew on a first time basis; a couple who were long term friends.  Doing the math, I estimated that at this rate, every woman in my home town would have a taste of Highland Vacation Land within the next five years.

I noticed another disturbing trend, the number of girls who had been arrested because of the men who had placed them there.  One young woman, no more than five feet tall and a hundred ten pounds, was arrested after getting into a shouting match with her (male) neighbor and attacking him with her fists.  When she requested a reduced bail hearing, she was denied, because, the neighbor told the court, he feared for his life.  Another was thrown in the day after she broke up with her boyfriend for using his credit card; a card he had given her permission to use until the day of their quarrel.  One woman was thrown in for going to her ex-boyfriend’s house and destroying all the gifts she had given him previously.  The most pitiful case was a woman charged with harboring a fugitive; a man who had not bothered to tell her he was running from the law when he asked permission to stay at her house.

Women represent the fasted growing population in prison. Between 1980 and 1993, the growth rate for the female prison population increased approximately 313%, compared to 182% for men in the same period. At the end of 1993 women accounted for 5.8% of the total prison population and 9.3% of the jail population nationwide.

Incarcerated women are overwhelmingly poor. The majority of women prisoners (53%) and women in jail (74%) were unemployed prior to incarceration.

When women go to prison, it takes a devastating toll on the family. Sixty seven per cent of women incarcerated in state prisons are mothers of children under 18. Seventy percent of these women compared to 50% of men had custody of their dependent children prior to incarceration.

Six per cent of women are pregnant when they enter prison. In almost all cases, the woman is abruptly separated from her child after giving birth.

In the Continental United States, a disproportionate number – 60% – of inmates are black or Hispanic, but in Alaska discrimination favors a separate minority.  While thirty-seven percent of the population is Alaskan Native, approximately 54% of these girls gone wild belong to the Native category.  Most are incarcerated for minor infractions; drinking while driving, disorderly conduct, petty theft, resisting arrest, but generally receive the maximum penalty for their misdemeanors.

Finally, I received another visit from my attorney.  “The judge has offered you a plea bargain.  If you plea guilty to one count of misconduct with a controlled substance, they will give you thirty months of probation.  If you complete your probation without another infraction, the charge will be stricken from the record.  It’s a good deal,” he added hesitantly.  “If you agree, we can go to court Friday and you can walk out of jail.”

Friday was five days away.  Five days away and there had been no bail reduction hearings, no indication that some champion of human rights would come to my rescue, very little contact with the outside world at all.  I had bills to pay, a house in disorder, responsibilities to assume.  All I had to do was report to a probation officer once a month and stay out of trouble.  While a part of me still wanted to fight the good fight, the entire rest of me wanted to be free.  I accepted the deal.

To be Continued

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/1-mcdonalds-bill-leads-felony-charge-florida-resident

http://www.adn.com/2012/03/28/v-printer/2395454/dont-target-all-prosecutors-for.html

http://people.umass.edu/~kastor/walking-steel-95/ws-women-in-prison.html

By: Jennifer Lawson-Zepeda

May 1st, if you lived in the financial district of Los Angles; or anywhere near it, you couldn’t help but hear the demonstrations going on. I happen to enjoy these things; so I already knew I would participate.

They Marched and Spoke

And yes, it was a wonderful feeling to see them all supporting the very things I write about and have supported for so long.

But, I couldn’t help but feel that it was only just one day.

And that all of the ideas they spoke about were great, if only people would maintain that thought all year long. But would they? I wasn’t confident about that.


Personalizing the Demonstrations

I was asked by two men why I was there. I answered that I was there for probably the same reason as everyone else. But one young man made it more personal.

He said, “No! I want to know why are YOU here?”

So I told him my personal story and he made sort of a usual statement...”You should talk to the press. They love stories like yours.”

I had to correct him. In reality, the press could care less about stories like mine. When all of this happened to me, I was certain that if only the right reporter heard about the injustice, they’d run with the story. I realized, quickly, that this was far from the truth.

After May Day

But even while I sat at Pershing Square and listened to all of the music and speeches; I couldn’t help but wonder about the aftermath of May Day.

What would happen once the demonstrators, police, rebel rousers, speechmakers, street painters, hippie socialists and fake hippie photo shooting police spies went home?

And I’m not talking about simply marching in the streets, as the Occupy LA Movement does every Friday night, blocking traffic, and carrying tents, as they shout, “Whose streets, our streets!”

What now?

I’m talking about action in the voting booths, active participation in boycotting corporations exploiting employees, living our lives in a manner that tells the 1% that we aren’t lying down and accepting what they’ve planned for us; but instead, we are actively going to ensure that living our lives with quality matters too.

We’ve proven that boycotts work. Remember the boycotts of Bank of America and how that changed their policy? Why not implement this into a method of change? For instance, can we start a site aimed at:

• Companies asking for Facebook passwords during an      interview
• Companies discriminating based on age
• Companies threatening employees for using vacation time
• Companies with over 50 people who don’t offer health      care plans

Why not provide a list of companies and their behavior, the same way they look upon us for our reputations? Do I really need financial services from a company who asks for Facebook passwords during the hiring process?

Yesterday was supposed to be the day of the worker. So why aren’t workers bringing back unions to solidify fair employment contracts?

If the excuse is that we removed unions to keep our jobs, then aren’t we living in denial?

Those jobs went overseas right after the unions were removed!

So…what happens now?

• Are we going to unite and go after the 1%?
• Are we going to vote for a leader that demands they pay      their fair share of taxes?
• Are we going to stop unfair overly personal background      checks?
• Are we going to create corporate reputations?

We have the ability. But will we do what’s needed?

By: Grainne Rhuad

Here we are at the neginning of May and a lot of Americans are still in a fugue after finishing up their taxes.  A good many more aren’t finished and have filed extensions.

As sure as morning will arrive, you will hear people bitch and complain about paying taxes.  After all, our country was born out of a tax kerfuffle, and even if it had to do with no representation, we are not happy to be compelled to hand over our increase.

And why would we be?  It is one thing for a wage earner to support causes they believe in, or need  like local infrastructure.  I have never heard any great deal of bitching when rural property owners have to pony up to gravel a rode together.  It’s not exciting to spend money on gravel, but it makes getting home a lot easier.  People share the cost willingly when it makes sense.

But more and more nothing our taxes are collected for is making sense to the general constituency.  And, by more and more, I mean for over a century, this didn’t appear from nowhere.  One of the biggest problems constituents are having is the Federal Income Taxes.

Brought on by (what else?) war, the Federal Income Tax was first instituted in 1862 to support the Civil War effort.  Now there were taxes and tariffs before this but they were mostly on “stuff”; things like Alcohol, Tobacco, fine china, imports/exports and niceties.  All the “Stuff” taxes provided proficient money to run the government.  It did not however provide outfitting an army and fighting a war.

In 1868, Congress again focused its taxation efforts on tobacco and distilled spirits and eliminated the income tax in 1872. It had a short-lived revival in 1894 and 1895. In the latter year, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the income tax was unconstitutional because it was not apportioned among the states in conformity with the Constitution

It was the 16^th Amendment, passed in 1913 that made federal income taxes a permanent fixture.  So, next year maybe mail a nice pie or cupcake in with your return, for the 100^th birthday of you paying protection fees to the U.S. government.

Now, it should not  have escaped notice that in the early 1900’s when the Federal Income taxes where made constitutional, it was also the birthing time of another important part of our government;  Special Interests.

Special Interests were really picking up at that time, politicians, businessmen and Hoods were keen on making money from constituents through construction of all sorts of things from roads to airplanes.  After all they had to find a way to supplement (and launder) the money they made/had made from alcohol and the prohibition thereof.

As part of the New Deal the withholding of income taxes was made constitutional in 1943, up until that time people could conceivably hide money in their mattresses or whatever and not pay taxes.  But the citizenry were sold on helping each other out and expanding their horizons through radio ads and wanted road and dams so they too could check out the cool places they heard of and partake of General Electric’s toys and gadgets.  Interesting that they forgot the Railroad managed to build a cross-continental line and expand their parent’s lives without taxes.

Here is the rub: Is it really the federal government’s place to collect from all of its citizens income taxes?  If not why are we not working to change the current tax laws so we can better manage our own resources from state to state as intended when we began this “great experiment.”  (Which, by the way was part of the reason the south seceded in the first place, they were fed up with paying taxes for exporting their highly profitable goods.-It was never about slavery, that was a happy convenience for the north.)

Many states themselves are saying enough is enough and if the Federal Government is not going to help our constituents to live manageably, we are.  Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas and Washington currently have no state income tax.  Tennessee and New Hampshire have only dividend income tax.  Currently the state of Tennessee is looking at getting rid of income tax all together as are Missouri, Massachusetts, North Dakota, Kansas and Oklahoma.

However the thinking behind this may be flawed.  Generally the pitch is “It will force the State to get rid of flawed, big government programs that don’t work and that make things worse.” Or “It will increase personal revenue thus injecting the economy.” or “Ending the income tax will make the legislature accountable to workers and taxpayers – instead of government employees, lobbyists and special interests who profit from high government spending.”

Some of these things may be true but what it won’t do is cast down laws agreed upon by voters to provide services within states like Mental Health , Social Services, Housing, Education(Including Higher) , Foster Care, etc.  These services will still need to be filled because to not fill them will put the state out of compliance and they will get sued and lose money because of it. These are the “Big Government Programs” people are complaining about. This isn’t an overwhelming problem; it’s just short-sighted.  If you are going to get rid of the funds also get rid of the things you agreed to pay for with them at the same time.  Just be prepared because currently “Big Government Programs” pay for over half the jobs in any given state either directly or indirectly through contracts.

What is an overwhelming problem is the states will be that much more beholden to the Federal Government.  What that means is if say we want collapsing bridges fixed we are going to do the Feds a favor and deport some immigrants, even if we don’t really want to. Or let them bust pot farmers, even if your state says it’s legal or enforce any other of their numerous stupid rules that are not regionally minded.   And we all want crumbling bridges fixed right?  But constituents don’t make that connection when voting; they just remember writing out that last income tax payment.

A better solution may be to keep the State Taxes and get rid of the Federal ones.  Yes, the Feds are going to cry “We are in an insurmountable amount of debt, Atlas will be released from his curse before we are out of debt and everyone in the nation owes…You guys are responsible!”

No you are not.

Americans may have bought into this in 1993 when Clinton was president and he passed  Revenue Reconciliation Act of 1993 into law- The act’s purpose was to reduce by approximately $496 billion the federal deficit that would otherwise accumulate in fiscal years 1994 through 1998.  But he also reduced taxes to middle income families AND nearly did away with our debt.

What we have on our tab now is not our fault.  We are paying for a war that our “representatives” voted for when they were scared and lied to.  Also they did not consult with their constituents, there wasn’t time given. So yeah, YOU have been taxed without representation because YOU had none of your letters, phone calls or protests heard.  And YOU have continued to be taxed without representation.  In fact the only people being represented or “heard” are the Special Interest groups that sprung from the criminal activity of the prohibition era.

What did we do last time we were taxed without representation?

Just a thought.

However we don’t need to break up, we just need some serious considering of our relationship here in the U.S.  We need couples therapy between the States and the Feds.  The States need to be empowered so they will be infused with life and a will.  Especially a will.

Because maybe if the States were a little less beholden to the Feds, they wouldn’t vote for things their constituents don’t want or need.  Like wars.  And maybe if the Feds had a little less of our money they would have to make a choice between paying off our debt and funding their wars.  Not that they would chose correctly, just we would know how much or little they care.

The Federal Government can be run on tariffs and “Stuff” taxes.  And, there is a way for everyone to be happy. If Big Business and other Special Interests want armies and research and Space Stations they can pay for it outright, get together and send a check to the government.

It would save them money on lobbyists, cocaine and hookers.

By: Jennifer Lawson-Zepeda

The discussion over George Zimmerman, with so many attempting to classify his race for him proves that as much as some like to say that we are all “Just part of the human race;” this is not necessarily true. We are still defined by our racial category when it comes to many things, and crime is one of them. Hispanics aren’t a race but a multiracial minority group.

Hispanics and Race

All These Children Are Latino

Latino identity is often a visible identity. But, there are many exceptions.

The Hispanic culture challenges black/white thinking, in that we define the word, ‘multiculturalism’ in our various shades. And we have many shades and colors within our homogenous culture, some of which can be listed as:

• the Afro looking Cuban
• the Southern Cone European look of many Argentinos
• the Bolivian Quechuan or Aymaran appearance
• the Mestizo mixtures of Chile

We have a mixture of races, appearances and ethnicities or mixed identities. Even within the regions or countries listed above, there is always an ethnic breakdown of racial categories that give us each different looks.

Why this perplexes non-Hispanic Americans amazes me, since we have the same thing in the U.S. today. But the hypocrisy of so many in the U.S. who love to minimize this by saying inane things like, “We are all just part of the human race,” amazes me.

Why Racialize Us?

Why? Because they are the same people who also use ethnicity to decide who:

• Immigrates to the U.S.
• rises in corporations
• is elected into office
• will be tried in a court of law
• will marry their daughters
• is dangerous on the street

But most of these people hide behind cute little clichés that distance them from the discussion of race out of some need to be politically correct.

Ignorance

It’s hard for me to believe that in this day and age, people still don’t realize that Hispanics or Latinos come in all races. Apparently, there are people who are so dull that they still feel a need to define a person, like Zimmerman, by their misconceptions of race.

Therefore, many blacks wanted to define him as white, to get the maximum racial stereotypical historical associated hatred for him; while whites were saying things like, “He’s not white, he’s half Hispanic,” to ensure he is not affiliated with them.

“People like purity. They also enjoy using easy identity categories, especially if they can be differentiated from each other. But from what we now know of George Zimmerman, the man accused of killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida, he is a sum of hodgepodge parts: Jewish, Catholic, white, and Peruvian. No wonder the press had trouble deciding whether to identify him as “white,” “Hispanic,” or “a white Hispanic.”

“To return to Zimmerman: he identifies himself as white, which is normal. The fact that he speaks no Spanish is also typical of a large percentage of Hispanics. Despite that, non-Spanish-speaking Latinos often get a bad rap for not being able to use their ancestral language—another form of internal segregation. My opinion is that were Zimmerman a Spanish speaker, the Hispanic minority would be feeling much closer to him now. Had he been Cuban, perhaps the Cuban-American community in Florida would have already marched in his defense. Had he been Mexican, the tenor of the conversation might be about how Mexicans have become ubiquitous, to the point that some of them even live in gated communities that need vigilantes to protect against hoodlums.”

(Source: George Zimmerman, Hispanics, and the Messy Nature of American Identity)

A Race or What?

This leads to the questions: Are Hispanics a race? Are we an ethnicity? Or are we simply a mixture of similar cultures?

The concept of a “Latino” identity today is not coming solely from European or white Americans. Today’s descriptions of Latinos are being dictated to us by members of many racial groups, depending on how they want to define us for any given scenario.

Much of the information is based on misunderstanding, even within the Latino communities.

For one thing, throughout history, Latinos have considered the color of a person’s skin a relevant determiner for things like marriage, based on the racism against blacks and indigenous people in our cultures. Racial identity has long been a determinant in our social status, privilege and even the focus of many wars in Latin America. It certainly has been a determinant in human rights. So, racial identity is still very much ingrained into our culture.

The attempts by other ethnic groups to assimilate us from individuals with a rich heritage and traditions into a more generic existence, therefore, is not acceptable to many of us. We like our identity. We feel no need to surrender it to satisfy other ethnic ideas.

Have you ever wondered why that might be? After all, we are all immigrants to the U.S., so some ask why it is so important for some to hold onto our identities. The answer lies in the history of the U.S. and immigration in general. Linda Martin Alcoff addresses this in her discussion of Latinos and categories of race:

“Irish, Italian, Polish, Ukrainian, and other so-called “white ethnic” communities have organized cultural events on the basis of their identities at least since the 1960′s, with the cooperation of police and city councils across the country. Certainly for the Irish and the Italians, this movement of ethnic assertion has been precisely motivated by their discrimination and vilification throughout much of U.S. history, a vilification that has sometimes taken racialized forms. Thus, there are some clear parallels between Latinos and white ethnics: many have immigrant family histories, and many today share a cultural pride and desire to maintain some cultural traditions perhaps motivated by an awareness of historical if not ongoing discrimination. So why does the growth of a visible, politically assertive Latino population so often elicit such strong negative reactions and a flurry of political analysis about its likely degenerative effects on the general society? ”

“Latino-themed events are marked as such in a way that white cultural traditions are not—the latter are seen as simply “American” or “Christian” rather than white American or Anglo Christianity. Whites who enjoy a surfeit of opportunities for their own cultural expression often do not realize this privilege, and then feel mystified and threatened by the cultural expressions of other groups.”

(Source: Latinos and the categories of race)

Binary racial thinking

The U.S. has been founded on a sort of black/white binary form of thinking that divides us when it comes to things like racial profiling and convictions. So here comes this new mixture of people who defy the racial stereotypical thinking of racial identities, and blam! You have confusion over whether people like Zimmerman are white or Latino, instead of an acceptance of diversity.

Linda Martin Alcott mentions this too in the following:

“Despite our hopes that the influx of Latinos on the North American continent, in all of our beautiful diversity, would transform and annihilate the binaries and purist racial ideologies prevalent in the United States, this is not likely, at least not likely very soon. The racializing practices long dominant in the U.S. will not simply implode because of the pressure of Latino self-representation as non-raced or as racially mixed. Latinos in the U.S. have without a doubt been racialized. And I would argue that the history and even contemporary socio-economic situation of Latinos in the U.S. simply cannot be understood using ethnicity categories alone; we have been shut out of the melting pot because we have been seen as racial and not merely cultural “Others”. However, although we may be stuck with racial categories for longer than some of us would wish, it may be easier to help “race” slowly evolve than trying to do away with it as a first step.”

“It will also mean that Latinos will be unable or at least unlikely to address the racial issue from within Latino identity: if “Latino” comes to mean merely ethnicity, race will come to be viewed as an issue that may affect many of us but is properly outside of our identity as Latinos. Light Latinos will do what too many white estadounidenses have done: believe that race has nothing to do with them.”
(Source: Latinos and the categories of race)

Ms. Martin Alcott also mentions that the practice of racializing Hispanics also removes our solidarity as a people; and this has been proven in the Zimmerman case. As blacks united to stand behind Trayvon Martin, the NCLR chose to avoid taking a stand on the issue, because of the racial divisiveness this could ultimately cause. This happened again in the Kendric McDade case.

Dividing through Racialization

As other racial ethnicities; or people of color unite to help their social status in the U.S. by racializing our culture, we divide our interests. We are not always included in the racial categories of other ethnicities, even if we fit in by the general characteristics we share with them. We are that “other” category. The one that so many in organized and unite racial ethnicities tell to, “Go home” when they feel divided from us.

And that is what much of this comes down to. The attitude of “Go back to Mexico” that is parroted across the U.S., to Hispanics from a variety of countries. As I’ve said before, the attitude today is that all Hispanics are invaders into the this great land we call “America,” in spite of the fact that “America” is part of a larger continent called “Las Americas,” which houses has housed our culture much longer than many “Americans” have been American.

By Bill the Butcher:

One of the most interesting bits of news in the last few days seems to have been largely ignored by media obsessing over what some “celebrity” wore in a function or what a politician’s latest profundity on this or that might be.

Simply put, it was this: that there is, almost to a certainty, life on Mars. And this life was discovered as long ago as 1976; only nobody recognised the fact till now.

Think about that; 1976, when I was just starting school, the Vietnam War had been over only a year, a mulitlateral world order still existed, there was no such thing as a cell-phone or the internet, and the Viking rovers were digging into Martian soil. The scientists didn’t recognise it then, but the data didn’t vanish, and re-examination showed that there’s, apparently, a 99% chance that the Red Planet actually has life. In most statistical systems, a 99% chance is considered about as close to a sure thing as you can get.

In other words, there are almost certainly Martians, though they aren’t climbing into cylinders and blasting through space to land in your backyard and disgorge tripod fighting machines. Not yet, anyway.

These Martians are, if they exist, bacteria, or organisms analogous to bacteria. You know bacteria? Those tiny things somewhere between the worlds of the viruses and the earliest, smallest algae, which aren’t even eukaryotic in their cell structure? I mean those bacteria, or organisms equivalent to them.

This might not seem like a big deal. And, actually, it isn’t a big deal.

It is a humongous, a gigantic, a titanic deal.

From our viewpoint as self-appointed lords of the earth, bacteria aren’t significant. In reality, they are so significant that life as we know it would be impossible without them. Everything – but literally everything – that can be considered “life as we know it” ultimately depends on bacteria. (And a note here, referencing HG Wells’ The War Of The Worlds, in which the Martian invaders died off because Mars didn’t have bacteria and so they had no defences against them; that is simply not possible. Without bacteria, Wells’ Martians could never have existed, since all organic matter would have been locked up in corpses which could not decompose and release their nutrients to the environment. The first generation of complex life would have been the last. So there.) And there are, correspondingly, more bacteria than there are anything else. In terms of numbers, almost all life is bacteria. Such gigantic creatures as blue whales, humans or cockroaches are infinitesimal compared to them.

It’s not just that bacteria are somewhere else, either. A few days ago I’d written an article in which I pointed out, inter alia, that we humans have, on average, a hundred trillion bacteria in our bodies. When we’re looking in the mirror, we are viewing a composite organism, most of which is bacterial. We are part bacteria ourselves.

So, yes, bacteria on Mars are something of a gargantuan deal; but it’s more than just the fact that bacteria are important to life.

Mars, as you may know, isn’t exactly the canal-irrigated, hospitable world that nineteenth-century science fiction would have led us to expect. It is, in fact, a cold, extremely arid planet where there hasn’t been running water for billions of years, a planet with an atmosphere that isn’t exactly breathable by our standards – what little there is of it. Think of the moon with a thin wrapping of carbon dioxide, and you wouldn’t be all that far off.

And yet, Mars has, it seems, bacterial life. And I don’t mean possible fossils in an ancient meteor, though those are important enough; I mean actual, feeding, reproducing, bacterial life.

What does this mean? It means something extremely important, so important that we humans should stop murdering each other and think about the implications. And those implications are these:

Firstly, if Mars has life, active bacterial life, then we are not alone in this solar system, let alone the Universe. It doesn’t matter that this life is “just” bacterial life; its very existence immediately knocks humanity off its self-styled pedestal as the pinnacle of creation. All right, so it’s “only” bacteria; but, as I said, bacteria (or equivalents) are essential to the existence of any more organised life. If you don’t have bacteria, you have nothing. Ergo, if bacteria exist elsewhere, the fundamentals of life exist elsewhere. And that means…

…that, secondly, if bacteria can exist in an environment as inimical as Mars, then they can exist just about anywhere; in fact, we don’t have to depend on “goldilocks planets” to find life. If life can exist on Mars, then we can expect to find it almost anywhere, from the seas of Europa to the atmosphere of Jupiter, from the planets orbiting nearby stars to the gas clouds between the galaxies. It might well be that lifelessness is the exception.

Now think about that for a moment; not in scientific terms, but in philosophical.

Not so very long ago, the earth was a flat disc, around which the sun, moon, and entire cosmos revolved. It was the centre of all creation, the only favoured place of the gods, and, of course, the ruling species was the pinnacle of creation – so much so that the majority of religions ascribed to the gods the same physical characteristics as humanity. But time passed, and the earth – in spite of the efforts of the Catholic Church, which burned Giordano Bruno at the stake for stating that the sun was a star and other worlds could have life – shrank to a sphere orbiting the Sun, which briefly took its place as the centre of creation, before becoming an ordinary little star on a spiral arm of an ordinary galaxy in the seas of time and space; hardly a fleck in the heavens. And, simultaneously, that most favoured species of the gods became just another ape, the result of random mutations and evolutionary pressures; a creature which has existed for the blink of an eye, and might vanish tomorrow when circumstances change – as they will.

So now, when we suddenly have to consider the fact that we are definitely not the only place in the cosmos which has life, and we have to consider the possibility that the cosmos is teeming with life, what does that do to us, the former Centre of All Creation? We shrink to the position of, perhaps, a gnat, or worse. We are as nothing.

Can we – do you think human society, especially human society as regulated by absolutist Abrahamic religions, is ready to deal with that realisation? When you consider that the nation which arrogates to itself the right to rule this planet as its private domain, the nation which claims to be the fount of enlightenment and liberty, still can’t make its own citizens accept the fact that they are simply evolved apes, then what chance do you think this further realisation stands?

And this is why, I think, we aren’t going to hear much about the Martian bacteria; in fact, I’ll even say efforts to confirm their existence will be killed off by deliberate underfunding and suchlike underhanded tactics. Unless there’s a potential military or other profit-making applicability, the powers that be are scared of science. They absolutely do not wish to know. And if these bacteria are confirmed, you can bet the news will be carefully buried in other chatter.

Of course, that won’t stop the Martian bacteria from existing, just as the Creationists can’t erase evolution just by denying it. Even King Knut couldn’t turn back the tide.

But it’s a tragedy on a Cosmic scale that we allegedly rational creatures don’t take this opportunity to measure our own place in the wonder that is the Universe, and realise what a precious bubble of life we inhabit – this beautiful blue planet, where bacteria are just the foundations on which everything from elephants to earthworms, from earwigs to echidnas, have evolved. We should come together now, to preserve what we have. Unfortunately we just keep on destroying it.

Looking at it from the level of sustainability, then, the Martian bacteria may be the favoured ones.

By: Bill The Butcher

Statutory Disclaimer: This article is a statement of my beliefs and the result of my research and writing. The sources I have drawn from are indicated at the conclusion of this article and are available on the internet for independent consultation. I am not in any way responsible for any fights, disagreements, quarrels or fallings-out arising as a result of discussions of this article on any media on which it, or reference to it, may appear. Thank you.

“This soldier,” Vern Kimmit from Orlando, Florida, wrote, “probably prevented dozens if not hundreds of future terrorist attacks, singlehandedly and on his own initiative. Nice shooting son, I just popped open an icy cold Sam Adams in your honor (sic)!”

This comment was made in the response columns of an article [1] about the celebrated massacre near Kandahar, where sixteen Afghan civilians (including nine children and three women) were murdered in their beds by American occupation forces (whether in the form of a single soldier or a group of them). It was also far from the only comment of this sort – that article, and others on the same topic, are virtually crawling with them. With one more exception, from the same article, I don’t intend to post a selection; the reader can, if interested, check them out for himself or herself. I’d recommend a strong stomach.

Before we go any further, let me declare the names of these dead and injured Afghans, since otherwise, as we shall discuss, nobody will ever get to know of them. They are [2]:

The dead:
Mohamed Dawood son of Abdullah
Khudaydad son of Mohamed Juma
Nazar Mohamed
Payendo
Robeena
Shatarina daughter of Sultan Mohamed
Zahra daughter of Abdul Hamid
Nazia daughter of Dost Mohamed
Masooma daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Farida daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Palwasha daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Nabia daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Esmatullah daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Faizullah son of Mohamed Wazir
Essa Mohamed son of Mohamed Hussain
Akhtar Mohamed son of Murrad Ali

The wounded:
Haji Mohamed Naim son of Haji Sakhawat
Mohamed Sediq son of Mohamed Naim
Parween
Rafiullah
Zardana
Zulheja

These nameless, faceless, Afghan civilians had names, and faces, and lives, and deserve to have those names, faces and lives recorded. But, to an amazing extent, those names, faces and lives have not been recorded. I could barely find another mention of these people anywhere.

And that is what’s so significant. Why is it that those Afghans remain nameless and faceless?

In the course of this article, I shall mention the actual massacre only as a means of discussing this larger question: the reason why the “reactions” focus almost exclusively on the perpetrator/s, not the dead and injured. Since this is far from the first massacre of Afghan civilians by occupation forces, and is likely to be far from the last, the massacre itself is less interesting than the reaction.

Of course, in order to understand the reaction, we need to talk a little bit about the massacre itself.

Since most readers of this article will already be in cognisance of the “facts” (insofar as such a constantly shifting tale [3] can be termed to contain any facts whatsoever) I’ll just go over them quickly: that at or about 0200 on the 11th of March 2012, one or more American soldiers from a base near Kandahar went to two separate villages, where they murdered sixteen Afghan civilians in their homes (including eleven from a single family), and burned their bodies with some kind of inflammable liquid. A few days later, it turned out that the alleged “lone gunman” who had perpetrated the massacre had “turned himself in” on his return to base and was quickly removed from the country, being sent to Kuwait, and when that nation was unhappy with this, to the US itself.

From the beginning, the “lone shooter” theory did not stand up to even casual, let alone serious, analysis. The survivors of the massacre, and other villagers, were unanimous in claiming that there had been “several” soldiers involved, and that one person could not possibly have done all that the killer had been accused of doing [4]. Even though the story had so many holes that nobody in any other circumstances would have taken it seriously, there was an incredible and concerted effort, apparently, in the mainstream media to believe it – to the extent that it’s standard now to read of “an American serviceman” who had “carried out the shootings”. And it’s only natural to wonder why.

As the first days went past, the identity of this “serviceman” was kept secret, to the extent that some of the aforementioned respondents began wondering aloud what the reason for this might be. As one Pookie Sue from Davenport, Iowa said [1]

If the shooter was a white Christian, we would know his name, see his picture, and hear all about him. Who is the shooter? Why is it being kept quiet?… Evidently he is black or a Muslim.

Unfortunately for such people, the identity of the “sole gunman” was later revealed to be a Staff Sergeant Robert Bales, a white Christian who immediately became a subject of overt or implied sympathy. He was on his fourth deployment in a war zone, he’d had part of a foot amputated, he’d suffered possible brain damage in a car crash, he’d been suffering marital problems, he’d seen a friend have a leg blown off by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED; a fancy term for a homemade landmine)

only a day or two before, and as his friends said, he was a “nice guy”, a husband and father. Not someone who was really to blame – if there was any blame, it lay elsewhere. Where, nobody seemed to be clear; on the (black, Muslim, Kenyan) President, on the (evil, raghead) Taliban, on “society” – but elsewhere.

Then, things became murkier, as Bales’ personal history came seeping out. He was, it appeared, less of an angel than at first appeared. He had defrauded an investor of over a million dollars, had been involved in an assault on a former girlfriend, and had taken part in at least one massacre in Najaf, Iraq – meaning he was likely a war criminal as well [5].

Now, can you think of a better candidate for a “fall guy” to take the blame? He is either a stressed-out victim of circumstances, not really in control of his own actions; or he’s an intrinsically evil person, who should have been locked up long ago and the key thrown away. Either way, he is the perfect scapegoat – leaving the rest of his colleagues blameless and still eminently worthy of worship.

Worship, did I say? Isn’t that too strong a word?

Not at all; and it’s in the extent to which soldier-worship has become a part of modern Western discourse that the key to the puzzle lies.

Rewind a moment, to the war in Vietnam. Back in those long-ago days, when the smell of napalm hung in the air over the rice paddies, US soldiers had fought and died in another war against a faceless, invisible enemy. There had been massacres there, too, and crazed soldiers running amok, and “free fire zones” where any Vietnamese was fair game. But there were differences – important differences.

In Vietnam, a large majority of the American soldiers in that war were conscripts. These young men, who had been forced into uniform because they could not get student deferments and whose only other options were jail or hiding in Canada, had been sent off into a never-ending war they didn’t understand in a nation they couldn’t find on a map. And when they returned, they came back to find themselves reviled as “baby killers” and worse, by those (as they saw it) with the money and connections to escape the draft that had swallowed them. And, of course, most importantly, the US ended on the losing side in Vietnam.

Today, a different narrative has been quite deliberately created – the narrative of the Heroic Soldier, protecting the Homeland from the Freedom-hating Evildoer. In Afghanistan, Iraq, and everywhere on the planet Earth that the American Soldier treads, he’s now no longer a baby-killer; he’s a torch-bearer of freedom, fighting for what used to be called Truth, Justice and the American Way but now goes by the name of Freedom and Democracy. It’s fed by everything from bumper stickers to yellow ribbons, and the myth is as assiduously cultivated as the military-industrial-political multiplex (MIP) is protected and encouraged. Of course, this Heroic Soldier is not, on the surface of it at least, an embittered draftee who couldn’t get out of serving his time; he’s a volunteer who put his life on the line for freedom. The fact that the average military volunteer worldwide has – after the Great War, at all events – been a victim of the poverty draft, joining the military because he has no other option, is neither here nor there in that narrative. Whereas the murderous Vietnam War American soldier was One of Them, the heroic

American soldier of today is emphatically One of Us.

Obviously, the Heroic Soldier cannot be allowed to lose – he has to be supported through thick and thin, at the cost of everything else. The blood he spills is sacred; the sacrifices he makes cannot be allowed to go in vain.

And this is exactly why the media… was quick to follow the lead of “U.S. military officials” who “stressed that the shooting was carried out by a lone, rogue soldier, differentiating it from past instances in which civilians were killed accidentally during military operations.” [6]

Even if one ignores the canard that civilians were killed “accidentally” – the recent history of Afghanistan and Iraq is rife with instances [7] in which civilians were not just killed deliberately but with malice aforethought, as sport – the “officials”, one ought to note, “stressed” that the shooting was carried out by a lone, rogue soldier; meaning, a soldier not under control, and whose actions were not therefore the responsibility of the army which employed, armed, and deployed him.

This, therefore, kills two birds with one stone. For the civilian at home, who has no direct stake in the conflict on the other side of the planet, but whose finances may be suffering from the diversion of money to the Endless War, it provides reassurance; a monstrous act may have been committed, but it was the fault of a lone, out-of-control trooper. It’s possible he was too PTSD’d out to know what he was doing, in which case he needs counselling, not jail. Possibly this provides a bit of cognitive dissonance, because the particular civilian may also be one of those who rail against “liberals” who “mollycoddle” criminals and ignore their victims. But then, he or she can slip easily into the second thread of the narrative; the killer was a vile man, someone who could strip an elderly person of a million and a half dollars and then run for safety into the army. Either way, the suffering the individual civilian, or his family or friends, is enduring isn’t in vain, because it’s a lone bad apple and not the military as a whole.

And for the military, it gives another kind of comfort – it’s not another massacre by an out-of-control group, like the one at Haditha, or the Kill Team, or, earlier, at the unforgettable incident at Mai Lai. Since it’s a single soldier, and “such things happen”, there’s no particular need to do anything about it; the military’s carefully constructed mythology of the Heroic Soldier is not at stake, nor does there have to be any actual action taken on the ground to prevent anything of the like from happening in future. And, as a corollary, the Afghan “government’s” demands to withdraw these troops from villages is not justified, and cannot be agreed to.

In both these cases, it should be noticed, the essential narrative needs to suppress the individuality of the victims. Dead Afghans with names, faces, hopes and lives need to be mourned, and their deaths cry out for justice. Dead Afghans without names or faces are just numbers; nobody really cares about them, even when they say they do. And that slots in with the idea that uncivilised Afghans don’t really mind dying; it isn’t that much to them, since “human life is cheap” there. [8]

A legitimate question can be asked at this point – what about the likes of Mr Vern Kimmit of Orlando, Florida, with whose quote I began this article? Where, with their frantic bloodthirstiness, do they fit in this framework? Aren’t they outside this scenario I have put together?

Answer: no, they aren’t. They are a part of it, all right.

The likes of Mr Kimmit are a subgroup of the people who need constant reassurance that everything that’s going on in the world is someone else’s fault. Like the KONY2012 bandwagon, which provides the believer with an easily hateable figure on whom to blame everything that’s gone wrong with a part of the world, these people have invested a lot of emotion into hating the Other – the Evildoing Muslim Terrorist. They need to keep polishing and buffing up that hate, in order to hold it up so that the reflected light of it can shine in their eyes and keep them from seeing the ugly truth. That’s why those of them who do finally admit the fact that one or more American soldiers can have murdered multiple civilians need to justify that in terms of that hate. Maybe like Mr Kimmit, they claim those children and women were future terrorists and therefore better off dead. Maybe, like others, they seek refuge in claiming that Muslims had killed Americans (in their version of events, no Muslim can be a true American), so this is nothing but turn and turn about. But it’s just twisting and turning on the hook – a way of turning their faces away from the hard light of facts.

And what are those facts? The Afghans, from the start, have not believed the narrative of the single soldier who ran amok, but then, it can be argued, they have equally compelling reasons not to. But they do add to the holes [3] in the official story. For example, they point out [9] that days before the massacre, residents of one of the villages targeted were lined up by American soldiers from the base and threatened with a massacre in retaliation for the bombing in which Sgt Bales’ friend “lost his leg”. They note that the massacre continued for three hours, and that the base in question had complete surveillance over the area and yet utterly failed to stop the so-called “lone gunman” [10]. They point out to all the eyewitness accounts of multiple killers – up to twenty of them, as the chief of staff of the Afghan Army himself declared [11]. In other words, they tell what seems to be a far more believable version of the truth. And to them, flying out the accused killer is all the proof they need that a cover-up is in the works; he’s been taken where he can’t be confronted by witnesses or be subject to a court which isn’t predisposed to believe in the official narrative. Also, going by the fact that earlier cases where American troops were accused (and convicted) of murder and yet got off virtually scot free [12], they have no reason to believe that justice will be done in this case either.

[Source]

But, of course, the official narrative isn’t meant to convince the Afghans, like the man who lost eleven members of his family and has only one son left alive [13]. As I believe I’ve made clear in the course of this article, it’s meant for domestic consumption only, to reassure the people at home that the Heroic Soldier is still a hero, and that the war is still worth fighting, at a time when an increasing majority of the people feel it is not [14]. The Afghans are much more likely to react by joining the insurgency in larger numbers, but they were doing that anyway.

Supposing, therefore, that the massacre was carried out by a group of soldiers, what might their motivation have been? As far as I can see, it comes down to one of two likely possibilities, with a third as a remote chance:

First, and most likely, that the massacre was carried out by a group of soldiers (with or without the knowledge of the rest of the base, but the lack of any effort to stop the massacre indicates that it happened with the knowledge and approval of someone in a position to give orders) in order to “teach the Afghans a lesson”. The burning of the corpses – obviously the shooter/s carried inflammable liquid with malice aforethought – can only be interpreted as a clumsy attempt to cover up the evidence, and supports this idea.

Second, and a little less probably, that it was a “night raid” that went wrong [15]. These “night raids” are, after drones, the lynchpin of the Occupation’s anti-insurgent strategy, and consists of attacking the houses of anyone who is even suspected of being sympathetic to the resistance. Said thought crime is punished by summary execution without trial, and is extremely deeply resented by the Afghans – so much so that even the puppet “President” of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has demanded that they be stopped. It’s certainly not impossible that a group of soldiers sent on a mission to murder suspected Taliban sympathisers ran amok and killed civilians. However, the obviously premeditated attempts to burn the corpses go against this theory. The Occupation normally makes no attempt to cover its tracks where night raids are concerned, because as a terror tactic it makes sense not to cover it up to achieve the maximum impact.

The third and least likely hypothesis is that this was a deliberate action, authorised at the highest levels of the occupation, to try and provoke an Afghan reaction so intense as to provide an excuse to stop the withdrawal of forces as “promised” (if you can believe that) by 2014. However, while the US military commander in Afghanistan, John Allen, has demanded [16] that the “withdrawal” be halted, the NATO vassals are getting out as fast as they can [17] and the Afghan “government” has summoned up the temerity to ask for more control over what happens after 2014 [18] . So, if at all this was a deliberate action, it would seem to have been counterproductive.

Meanwhile…

If I were an Afghan, and if I were to take the “single person shooter” theory of the massacre seriously, then I’d have to conclude I was safer under the Taliban. Could a PTSD’d/deranged/inebriated/brain-damaged (take your pick) foreign soldier wander through villages for hours, entering houses, murder people in their beds and burn their bodies, if the Taliban were around?

I do not think so.

Sources:

[1] http://news.yahoo.com/ap-source-afghan-shooter-stryker-brigade-175222910.html

[2] http://blogs.aljazeera.com/asia/2012/03/19/no-one-asked-their-names

[3] http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2012/03/21/kandahar-massacre-official-story-changes-dramatically/

[4] http://willyloman.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/kandahar-massacre-bales-joined-army-to-avoid-1-5-million-dollar-lawsuit-and-antiwar-publishes-misleading-headline/

[5] http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/03/20/george-packer-and-the-unfathomable/

[6] http://www.wideasleepinamerica.com/2012/03/american-morlocks-another-civilian.html

[7] http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/03/11/who-are-the-terrorists/

[8] http://www.salon.com/2012/03/16/npr_and_nyt_on_americans_v_afghans/

[9] http://news.antiwar.com/2012/03/20/afghan-villagers-were-threatened-by-us-troops-ahead-of-massacre/

[10] http://www.salon.com/2012/03/15/why_did_they_not_stop_the_killings/singleton/

[11] http://www.rt.com/news/kandahar-massacre-counterinsurgency-operation-805/

[12] http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/308-12/9596-marine-accused-in-killing-of-24-iraqis-in-haditha-makes-plea-deal

[13] http://www.npr.org/2012/03/20/148974952/afghan-farmer-lost-11-relatives-in-shooting-rampage

[14] http://news.antiwar.com/2012/03/11/poll-overwhelming-us-opposition-to-afghan-war/

[15] http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012/03/22/robert-bales-lone-nut-or-scapegoat/

[16] http://news.antiwar.com/2012/03/22/top-us-commander-in-afghanistan-troop-withdrawal-should-stop-next-year/

[17] http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/NC23Df03.html

[18] http://news.antiwar.com/2012/03/22/karzai-pushes-for-sovereignty-in-post-2014-afghan-security-pact/

Further Reading:

War Crimes and the Mythology of ‘Bad Apples’

The Conflicting Afghan Shooting Reports