TWO WAY STREET

(Special ask: Please call Governor Newsome at 916 445-2841. There are now hundreds of cases of COVID at San Quentin. Identify yourself, and leave a message for the governor. Ask him to declare clemency for those prisoners who have only a short time left to serve to be sent home to relieve the 190% overcrowding.)

TWO WAY STREET

Thursday of this week a navy destroyer, the U.S.S. Carl Nitze sailed into Venezuelan waters on what it called in new-speak a “freedom of navigation” operation, which means freedom for just-us, and blip for you. This action is just another of the dying Empire’s bullying tactics that have been its predictable practice since the signing of the Monroe Doctrine in 1823.       

Knee to neck and neck to knee, who could ever have imagined that specific choke hold would become the spark that would ignite a rebellion already smoldering with massive job and housing loss and the twin plagues of COVID 19, and a bogus president?  It’s that knee to neck suffocation I hope to train my lens on today: the import - export of a commodity called murder.

Here at home, it is the violence of our police shored up by qualified immunity and by repeated re-hiring of fired violent cops that triggers our attention. And what is the origin of that occupying-level of violence?

Location of police violence in the U.S.

For the past twenty years, ever since 9/11, and the Project for the New American Century which advocated for the conquest of seven Middle East countries in seven years, domestic municipal police have grown dependent on the Israeli Defense Forces, the IDF to train its domestic police. Captains from cities like Ferguson have gone to Israel, and Israeli trainers have come here to train whole squads.

The goal of the IDF, its recruits drawn from the Israeli civilian population, has been annihilation of Palestine, and Palestinians, by shooting, torture, imprisonment, home demolition, obliteration of over 400 villages, and murder. It’s culture is that of an occupying force licensed to kill and deprive Palestinians of life, liberty and happiness. This is where our police goes to train. Is it any wonder that the IDF culture of occupation has metastacized to these shores and that municipal police forces and other so-called law-keeping bodies are behaving like occupational forces in their own country?

Export - Import of Murder

While this movement from East to West continues, equal forces have been going from West to East.  Specifically I refer to the beginnings of Middle East distabilization in Gulf I, where General ‘stormin Normin’ Schwartzkopf decimated the retreating Iraqi army as it fled the Kuwaiti border ‘like shooting fishin a barrel.’ Followed by the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq, eventually igniting war in Yemen, Somalia, Libya, as well as repeated violation of Pakistans’s sovereign territory.  

Shock & Awe: invasion of Baghdad

 

This wave of conquest meant to be a dying Empire’s show of force required a constantly self-enriching munitions industry to the great benefit of the elite, many of them members of Congress, and a poverty draft which ensures that, unlike during the Vietnam War era, the American public remains relatively aloof and unconcerned because it goes on in someone else’s backyard, and its army consists of poor farm boys, and boys (disproportionally people of color) recruited from the ghettoes of its megalopolises. Once their tour of duty and forced redeployments are concluded, these poor boys come home to their families and communities either wrecked by PTSD and its crippling anxieties, or they join the municipal police force where their taste for combat can continue to be expressed. (Chauvin, George Floyd’s killer, served for eight years in the army reserve.) Make no mistake, the lust for power, and killing can become an addiction. (See Chris Hedges: War is a Force that Give Us Meaning; Joseba Zulaika’s anthropologist’s perspective in Fire at Paradise Ranch; and Robert Fisk’s Great War for Civilization.) 

Miami officer sits in armed vehicle watching protesters

A third force is at work here with the glut of over-designed weaponry that munitions makers keep churning out, their overflow often devolving via the 1033 program onto municipal police forces who buy bargain-basement tanks, armored vehicles, sound canons, tear gas, and assault rifles, this last movement representing our wars coming home to roost.

In conclusion, it might seem as though both movements, one from East to West, the other the reverse, have become a feedback loop

To disarm one will require disarming the other. And if we are to disarm our police, as a people we just might  have to consider declaring peace.

Police are trained by the IDF to apply knee to neck chokeholds. Refuse police brutality now.

End qualified immunity.

End the 1033 programme providing battle-grade weaponry to police.

End US.-Israeli IDF partnership.

 

Please sign: Elected officials must reject campaign contributions from the Fraternal Order of Police.

Now that Engel has been defeated by Bowman, please sign for a progressive leadership prioritizing peace over militarism.

Progressive activists help stop Pentagon’s attempt to weaken lobbying rules.

To shift funds from “endless wars” to “human needs,” Sanders unveils amendment to slash Pentagon budget by $75 billion.

Police under pressure to end training programmes with Israel.

ACLU files federal lawsuit over police use of force during anti-racism protests.

Super victory for ending police violence: new Colorado law ends qualified immunity for police.

Seattle police union expelled from large labor group because the guild failed to address racism within its ranks.

911 services that dispatch mental health counselors instead of cops gain traction.

Nationwide Black Lives Matter demonstrations continue long quest for environmental justice.

Black Lives Matter protests shift to racial justice dialogues in pro sports.

Three men accused of hunting down, killing Ahmaud Arbery are indicted on murder charges.

ACLU demands lawmakers act after Michigan man wrongfully arrested ‘because face   recognition can’t tell black people apart.’

Boston City Council bans facial recognition surveillance.

In Minnesota, Ellison announces climate lawsuit against Exxon, Koch, and API.

DC follows Minnesota in launching fossil fuel lawsuit alleging it “mislead consumers and discredited climate science in pursuit of profits.”

California passes historic rule that puts more electric trucks on the road.

States passing vote-by-mail see record breaking turnout.

Huge victory for Alabama voters as appellate court okays curb-side voting for COVID-vulnerable voters.

Calls to defund and abolish police departments fuel movements to dismantle them on college campuses.

Oakland, Seattle and San Francisco School Boards vote to disband its own police,

House passes D.C. statehood bill.

After years of advocacy, Chicago Police Department policy removes to-called school resource officers from involvement in day-to-day disciplinary matters.

Mindful of Brenna Taylor’s murder, City of Louisville bans no-knock warrants.

Uber drivers protest outside CEO’s home to demand labor protections.

Barnes and Noble warehouse workers organize to protect themselves from the pandemic.

As of June 19, 540 worker-staged wild cat strikes support BLM.

Cost-to-coast rallied insist on keeping U.S. Postal service viable

After attacking Medicare for All as “unrealistic” during primary, Biden now says healthcare amid pandemic is a “right for all”.

Protesters blockade central N. Carolina prison.

Administration’s request to bock Bolton’s book is denied.

“No one is above the law,”: Federal Court rules #45 effort to seize Pentagon funds to build border wall is illegal.

Tulsa #45 comeback tanks.

Arizona AG sends cease & desist order to Phoenix church hosted #45

Barr agrees to testify on politicization of DOJ as judiciary chairman slams AG as #45 fixer.

U. Florida announces it will no longer use unpaid labor.

House Dems introduce bill preventing Big Pharma price-gouging during pandemic.

Bayer Settles glyphosate cancer lawsuits for $10.9 billion.

Armed protesters peacefully march on Oklahoma Governor’s mansion.

Protest at Rutgers against austerity response to pandemic.

’60 Minutes’ give Assange fair shake.

‘Workers First’ car caravans drive mass turnouts nationwide.

Palestinian citizens of Israel protest land grab in Negev Desert.

Thousands of Palestinians protest against Israeli annexation plan.

UN chief calls on Israel to abandon illegal annexation plan.

Over one million view Poor People’s Assembly and moral march on
Washington.

Homeless Philadelphians move into vacant city-owned homes.

Be cause COVID leaving detention centers ‘on fire,’ judge orders release of children held by ICE.

#flattenICE campaign announces the release of 12 immigrants at risk from COVID-19 from ICE custody.

Nicaragua achieves millennial development goal of cutting undernutrition in half to 1 million in 2014-16.

Venezuela sure UK over frozen gold.

AOC trounces Wall Street-backed Democratic primary opponent with the fake address.

Progressives Jamaal Bowman and Mondaire Jones and Julia Salazar win primaries.

Booker takes lead over McGrath in Kentucky