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![U.S. Military ‘Power Grab’ Goes Into Effect: Pentagon Unilaterally Grants Itself Authority Over ‘Civil Disturbances’May 14, 2013
The manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects offered the nation a window into the stunning military-style capabilities of our local law enforcement agencies. For the past 30 years, police departments throughout the United States have benefitted from the government’s largesse in the form of military weaponry and training, incentives offered in the ongoing “War on Drugs.” For the average citizen watching events such as the intense pursuit of the Tsarnaev brothers on television, it would be difficult to discern between fully outfitted police SWAT teams and the military.
The lines blurred even further Monday as a new dynamic was introduced to the militarization of domestic law enforcement. By making a few subtle changes to a regulation in the U.S. Code titled“Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” the military has quietly granted itself the ability to police the streets without obtaining prior local or state consent, upending a precedent that has been in place for more than two centuries.
Click here to read the new rule
The most objectionable aspect of the regulatory change is the inclusion of vague language that permits military intervention in the event of “civil disturbances.” According to the rule:
Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.
Bruce Afran, a civil liberties attorney and constitutional law professor at Rutgers University, calls the rule, “a wanton power grab by the military,” and says, “It’s quite shocking actually because it violates the long-standing presumption that the military is under civilian control.”
A defense official who declined to be named takes a different view of the rule, claiming, “The authorization has been around over 100 years; it’s not a new authority. It’s been there but it hasn’t been exercised. This is a carryover of domestic policy.” Moreover, he insists the Pentagon doesn’t “want to get involved in civilian law enforcement. It’s one of those red lines that the military hasn’t signed up for.” Nevertheless, he says, “every person in the military swears an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States to defend that Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.”
One of the more disturbing aspects of the new procedures that govern military command on the ground in the event of a civil disturbance relates to authority. Not only does it fail to define what circumstances would be so severe that the president’s authorization is “impossible,” it grants full presidential authority to “Federal military commanders.” According to the defense official, a commander is defined as follows: “Somebody who’s in the position of command, has the title commander. And most of the time they are centrally selected by a board, they’ve gone through additional schooling to exercise command authority.”
As it is written, this “commander” has the same power to authorize military force as the president in the event the president is somehow unable to access a telephone. (The rule doesn’t address the statutory chain of authority that already exists in the event a sitting president is unavailable.) In doing so, this commander must exercise judgment in determining what constitutes, “wanton destruction of property,” “adequate protection for Federal property,” “domestic violence,” or “conspiracy that hinders the execution of State or Federal law,” as these are the circumstances that might be considered an “emergency.”
“These phrases don’t have any legal meaning,” says Afran. “It’s no different than the emergency powers clause in the Weimar constitution [of the German Reich]. It’s a grant of emergency power to the military to rule over parts of the country at their own discretion.”
Afran also expresses apprehension over the government’s authority “to engage temporarily in activities necessary to quell large-scale disturbances.”
“Governments never like to give up power when they get it,” says Afran. “They still think after twelve years they can get intelligence out of people in Guantanamo. Temporary is in the eye of the beholder. That’s why in statutes we have definitions. All of these statutes have one thing in common and that is that they have no definitions. How long is temporary? There’s none here. The definitions are absurdly broad.”
The U.S. military is prohibited from intervening in domestic affairs except where provided under Article IV of the Constitution in cases of domestic violence that threaten the government of a state or the application of federal law. This provision was further clarified both by the Insurrection Act of 1807 and a post-Reconstruction law known as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (PCA). The Insurrection Act specifies the circumstances under which the president may convene the armed forces to suppress an insurrection against any state or the federal government. Furthermore, where an individual state is concerned, consent of the governor must be obtained prior to the deployment of troops. The PCA—passed in response to federal troops that enforced local laws and oversaw elections during Reconstruction—made unauthorized employment of federal troops a punishable offense, thereby giving teeth to the Insurrection Act.
Together, these laws limit executive authority over domestic military action. Yet Monday’s official regulatory changes issued unilaterally by the Department of Defense is a game-changer.
Source
Submitted by: http://dashielsheen.tumblr.com/](http://25.media.tumblr.com/79d6c208ba5aec1c845d9baebb95dd1c/tumblr_moh5iagyMF1r6m2leo1_500.jpg)
U.S. Military ‘Power Grab’ Goes Into Effect: Pentagon Unilaterally Grants Itself Authority Over ‘Civil Disturbances’
May 14, 2013
The manhunt for the Boston Marathon bombing suspects offered the nation a window into the stunning military-style capabilities of our local law enforcement agencies. For the past 30 years, police departments throughout the United States have benefitted from the government’s largesse in the form of military weaponry and training, incentives offered in the ongoing “War on Drugs.” For the average citizen watching events such as the intense pursuit of the Tsarnaev brothers on television, it would be difficult to discern between fully outfitted police SWAT teams and the military.
The lines blurred even further Monday as a new dynamic was introduced to the militarization of domestic law enforcement. By making a few subtle changes to a regulation in the U.S. Code titled“Defense Support of Civilian Law Enforcement Agencies” the military has quietly granted itself the ability to police the streets without obtaining prior local or state consent, upending a precedent that has been in place for more than two centuries.
Click here to read the new rule
The most objectionable aspect of the regulatory change is the inclusion of vague language that permits military intervention in the event of “civil disturbances.” According to the rule:
Federal military commanders have the authority, in extraordinary emergency circumstances where prior authorization by the President is impossible and duly constituted local authorities are unable to control the situation, to engage temporarily in activities that are necessary to quell large-scale, unexpected civil disturbances.
Bruce Afran, a civil liberties attorney and constitutional law professor at Rutgers University, calls the rule, “a wanton power grab by the military,” and says, “It’s quite shocking actually because it violates the long-standing presumption that the military is under civilian control.”
A defense official who declined to be named takes a different view of the rule, claiming, “The authorization has been around over 100 years; it’s not a new authority. It’s been there but it hasn’t been exercised. This is a carryover of domestic policy.” Moreover, he insists the Pentagon doesn’t “want to get involved in civilian law enforcement. It’s one of those red lines that the military hasn’t signed up for.” Nevertheless, he says, “every person in the military swears an oath of allegiance to the Constitution of the United States to defend that Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic.”
One of the more disturbing aspects of the new procedures that govern military command on the ground in the event of a civil disturbance relates to authority. Not only does it fail to define what circumstances would be so severe that the president’s authorization is “impossible,” it grants full presidential authority to “Federal military commanders.” According to the defense official, a commander is defined as follows: “Somebody who’s in the position of command, has the title commander. And most of the time they are centrally selected by a board, they’ve gone through additional schooling to exercise command authority.”
As it is written, this “commander” has the same power to authorize military force as the president in the event the president is somehow unable to access a telephone. (The rule doesn’t address the statutory chain of authority that already exists in the event a sitting president is unavailable.) In doing so, this commander must exercise judgment in determining what constitutes, “wanton destruction of property,” “adequate protection for Federal property,” “domestic violence,” or “conspiracy that hinders the execution of State or Federal law,” as these are the circumstances that might be considered an “emergency.”
“These phrases don’t have any legal meaning,” says Afran. “It’s no different than the emergency powers clause in the Weimar constitution [of the German Reich]. It’s a grant of emergency power to the military to rule over parts of the country at their own discretion.”
Afran also expresses apprehension over the government’s authority “to engage temporarily in activities necessary to quell large-scale disturbances.”
“Governments never like to give up power when they get it,” says Afran. “They still think after twelve years they can get intelligence out of people in Guantanamo. Temporary is in the eye of the beholder. That’s why in statutes we have definitions. All of these statutes have one thing in common and that is that they have no definitions. How long is temporary? There’s none here. The definitions are absurdly broad.”
The U.S. military is prohibited from intervening in domestic affairs except where provided under Article IV of the Constitution in cases of domestic violence that threaten the government of a state or the application of federal law. This provision was further clarified both by the Insurrection Act of 1807 and a post-Reconstruction law known as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (PCA). The Insurrection Act specifies the circumstances under which the president may convene the armed forces to suppress an insurrection against any state or the federal government. Furthermore, where an individual state is concerned, consent of the governor must be obtained prior to the deployment of troops. The PCA—passed in response to federal troops that enforced local laws and oversaw elections during Reconstruction—made unauthorized employment of federal troops a punishable offense, thereby giving teeth to the Insurrection Act.
Together, these laws limit executive authority over domestic military action. Yet Monday’s official regulatory changes issued unilaterally by the Department of Defense is a game-changer.
Submitted by: http://dashielsheen.tumblr.com/
Hundreds of climate activists join hundreds of anti-capitalists (& certainly many/most are likely both) in Canary Wharf’s biggest protest
June 14, 2013
One of London’s key financial districts saw its biggest ever protest on Friday as an estimated 200 people occupied Canary Wharf to protest against public spending cuts and lack of action against climate change. Among the protesters were pensioners, children, people with disabilities, a brass band, musicians and a range of groups including Fuel Poverty Action, Disabled People Against Cuts, the Greater London Pensioners Association, No Dash for Gas and UK Uncut.
A spokeswoman for the event said: “We picked Canary Wharf because it’s a symbol of out-of-control neoliberal capitalism. It’s completely private property where protests have been outlawed. We’ve come here because we want to pull together anti-capitalist, climate and anti-austerity struggles.”
The owner of Canary Wharf has previously taken legal action and put in place security measures to prevent protests in home of some of Britain’s biggest banks. The action was part of a range of anti-G8 protests currently taking place, but unlike other events this one passed peacefully.
Protesters erected and scaled bamboo tripods – structures designed to prevent attempts to clear the area by force. An assembly, speeches and workshops were held, as well as creative activities, music and poetry performances and guerilla gardening. James Granger, of Fuel Poverty Action, who helped organize the event, said the banks and financial institutions in Canary Wharf are “bankrolling fossil fuel projects across the world which are causing climate change and fuel poverty”.
“The price of fossil fuels is increasing, which is leading to one-quarter of the UK population facing the choice between heating and eating,” he said. “I’m here to say that there is an alternative – renewable energy which is cheaper and cleaner, and an economy that works for the needs of people not the needs of profit.”
Betty Cottingham of the Greater London Pensioners Association said: “I’m here to protest along with the young and middle-aged people about what this lot are doing to our world. There’s going to be 3,000 extra deaths this winter because pensioners and other people daren’t turn the heating on.”
A Canary Wharf banker, who did not wish to be named, said he did not make the link between banking and the recession. “If it hadn’t been caused by banking it would have been caused but something else,” he said. “I think these people are here because they care about what’s going on out there and the recession has given them a justification to get out here and do this.”
active-rva asked: Efforts to abolish arbitrary discriminatory laws should be publicized through your venue, even if they don't address underlying systems of oppression- but in this case, it would be against your anti-imperialist, anti-militarist politics to actually spend a lot of time and effort on the campaign. Share the effort, with commentary regarding your stance on enlisting in the US armed services. Don't become organizers for the campaign or necessarily endorse it, even.
That’s a helpful, thoughtful way to approach it. Thanks!
The Terrorists Have Won
The thing about the current state of the NSA Domestic Spying programs is that nobody seems to care.
This problem of apathy is probably because privacy loss on this scale is not really a tangible thing to most people. It’s hard to imagine how big a city is, let alone a country, and how many people are seeing your every tweet, status update, phone call, etc.
You threaten to “take away” people’s guns, they balk.
You threaten to “take away” people’s health care, they scream bloody murder.
But you tell them that the government is spying on them? Well, no biggie! They do that to everyone, and it’s to stop Terr’ists™.
What seems to happen is that people think of it as an either/or question:
1. The government has to watch everyone
—OR—
2. The Terr’ists™ among us will kill us all.
It rarely seems to occur to us that this reactionary spying is caving into what the terrorists want. When you live in constant fear of being killed going about your everyday life, then, to turn a phrase, the terrorists have won.
When you have the NSA doing elaborate legalistic acrobatics to say that seizing phone records, passwords, bank information, is not “unreasonable search and seizure” because it’s not on paper, that’s some bull.
So where does it stop?
Submitted by: kellanium
The People’s Record Memorial Day Dedication (video source)
Thank you to the Iraq War veterans who speak-out and organize against these imperialist wars.
From the Iraq Veterans Against the War website:
Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) was founded by Iraq war veterans in July 2004 at the annual convention of Veterans for Peace (VFP) in Boston to give a voice to the large number of active duty service people and veterans who are against this war, but are under various pressures to remain silent.
From its inception, IVAW has called for:
- Immediate withdrawal of all occupying forces in Iraq;
- Reparations for the human and structural damages Iraq has suffered, and stopping the corporate pillaging of Iraq so that their people can control their own lives and future; and
- Full benefits, adequate healthcare (including mental health), and other supports for returning servicemen and women.
Click here for a complete list of The People’s Record’s Memorial Day dedications.
— — — — —
From our 2012 Memorial Day posts.
(Source: thepeoplesrecord, via robert-cunningham)
The People’s Record Memorial Day Dedication
We wholeheartedly endorse Democracy Now!’s choice of their Memorial Day special. So along with this video, we would like to acknowledge and congratulate this Memorial Day, all those veterans who threw off their medals as an act against the United States’ imperialist wars during the NATO protests.
Click here for a complete list of The People’s Record’s Memorial Day dedications.
— — — — —
From our 2012 Memorial Day posts.
(Source: thepeoplesrecord, via robert-cunningham)
The People’s Record Memorial Day Dedication
B. Manning: Updates on the Whistleblower’s Trial (photo source)
May 28, 2012
United States Army soldier Breanna Manning, also known as Bradley Manning, has become one of the most influential figures in the quest for government transparency across the world. He was arrested in Iraq in May 2010 on suspicion of leaking classified government cables to activist publishers, Wikileaks. Cables he leaked revealed corruption in Kenya, human rights violations in Guantanamo Bay, footage of journalists and civilians being gunned down by U.S. military, expenditures of the Afghanistan war and other intelligence documents. Information Manning leaked to Wikileaks is considered to be one of the stimuli that sparked the revolution in Tunisia and in other countries throughout the Middle East.
He is being detailed in Virginia on 22 charges, including a capital offense of “aiding the enemy,” which if found guilty, could imprison Manning in jail for life.
Currently, Manning’s defense team says he is being denied a fair trial because of withheld information that may help prove his innocence. His lawyer has laid out the inconsistencies and violations of a fair trial. The military has not searched its own files to find any evidence that may aid in his release, which is it legally obligated to complete.
In addition, the Center for Constitutional Rights is petitioning the Army court of criminal appeals to open up more details about the case to the public and the media. Petitioners include Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman and Salon writer Glenn Greenwald. The secrecy behind the case is a clear violation of the First Amendment and cannot allow Manning to have a fair trial.
Manning’s defense attorney has also called for 10 of the charges be dropped as they are “unconstitutionally vague or fail to state a prosecutable offense.” A military judge will review the charges and make a ruling at the pre-trial on June 8 in Fort Meade.
Click here for a complete list of The People’s Record’s Memorial Day dedications.
— — — — —
From our 2012 Memorial Day posts.
(Source: thepeoplesrecord, via robert-cunningham)
Reblog if you Support War Resisters
(Source: redplebeian)
Middlebury students stage checkpoint, Call on college to divest from Israeli apartheid
Submitted by Jay Saper
May 19, 2013
On May 15, students at Middlebury College in Vermont staged a checkpoint outside their dining hall during the busiest meal of the year to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, which led to the establishment of the state of Israel.
As the Middlebury divestment campaign from arms and fossil fuels gains national attention, a coalition that included Palestinian, Israeli, and American Jewish students staged the act of political theater in solidarity with Nakba Day demonstrations around the globe as a call to add apartheid to the students’ divestment demands.
At a midnight breakfast event during finals week, students were greeted in the dark with barricades blocking the entrance to the dining hall and flashlights from full uniformed soldiers asking for identification cards.
Alex Jackman, a junior from New York City, described the checkpoint as “one of the coolest pieces of theater I have seen on Middlebury Campus. Performed during the time when all students are wrapped up in stress about exams and schoolwork, the piece served as a reminder that there are greater battles to fight beyond our campus.”
A gate was lifted for students who had received Israeli documentation. They could pass freely to prepare themselves a plate of pancakes. Those with Palestinian IDs were directed around the checkpoint.
Some students voiced their frustration with being held up, “This is not cool, I am trying to get to midnight breakfast.” One shouted, “I have to study for finals.”
Jackman contended it was important for students to confront the checkpoint. She explained, “Middlebury College students tend to abstract issues of social injustice, a method that allows us to remove ourselves from these issues. But by being confronted, quite literally, with this piece of theater, we were not able to remove ourselves from our privileges—even if only for a moment.”
The performance, developed by students as part of a course on Theater and Social Change and members of the organization Justice for Palestine, was broken up by campus public safety.
“This is not theater, we can tell it is political,” one officer voiced. “Everything that is political has to be approved by the College.”
For Palestinians, checkpoints are not a momentary interruption, but one persistent piece of a dehumanizing system of apartheid. Between 2000 and 2005 there were 67 Palestinian mothers who were forced to give birth at Israeli military checkpoints and 36 of those babies died.
Apartheid is not enabled through merely subjecting a people to oppressive conditions, but rather through creating separate realities whereby a group of people is not forced to confront their implication in the domination of another group.
Middlebury College itself is a settlement on stolen Abenaki land. With its pristine limestone buildings and perfectly manicured grass, Middlebury manufactures an environment seemingly separate from the oppressions it perpetuates, which is itself a political act.
Students at Middlebury are stepping up and refusing to allow a separation of conscience that tolerates inaction in face of the school profiting from Israeli apartheid. Justice for Palestine has one message for administrators, particularly fitting of a midnight action, “We will not rest, until you divest.”
Jay Saper is a student organizer with Justice for Palestine at Middlebury College.
Feature: Our veterans – the elephant in the room?
May 7, 2013
Apart from when the occasional veteran makes the headlines and is arrested (perhaps for carrying out a training run fully kitted up and armed; or by posting borderline material on facebook and being detained and sectioned under Section 922(g)(4) of the US Code) once our marines have stepped down from active duty, very little is heard of them and that seems to be the way the government likes it.
They must be feeling uneasy to say the least at the growing movement of veterans who are standing up and voicing their concerns about the way in which our country is governed and the Constitution being undermined by successive rafts of legislation, some of which is pushed through without adequate consultation or proper procedure. The government would have us believe that these few “voices in the wilderness” belong to misfits, miscreants and malcontents – that most veterans are happily adjusted to everyday society and living out their lives in the bosom of their family as productive citizens.
Myth versus reality
Truth is there is a huge gulf between the myth foisted upon us by the government and the reality. Many of these veterans start out their career in the US forces with high ideals and a vision of serving their country and protecting their family and others like it; young men and women with a clear conscience, a deep sense of moral duty and strong loyalty to their government. By the time they have done a tour or three they come back as different people with a totally changed perspective. We are fed images and news reports by the media of spouses and little children welcoming back the homecoming heroes and heroines, smiling faces, happy tears and a good helping of the American dream, complete with cream and sugar. We aren’t shown the rows of flag draped coffins; we aren’t told about the conditioning imposed on these service men and women to psychologically prepare them for the battlefront or about the drugs which are forced on them to make sure they remain emotionally stable during their tour of duty. In 2012 more active-duty soldiers killed themselves than died in the war zone. In fact, 6,500 veterans killed themselves that year alone – that equates to 1 every hour and 20 minutes.
The harsh reality is that these men and women come home, having seen things they won’t talk of to anyone other than another veteran, tired, disillusioned, often traumatized and diagnosed with PTSD, unable to easily step back into their old lives. It is no wonder that so many isolate themselves from others in the community, very often becoming reliant on alcohol or drugs (prescription or illegal) to make it through each day. It is telling that the US government has stepped up their Veterans Alcohol and Drug Dependence Rehabilitation Program, providing support for former service members at an ever growing number of drug and alcohol detox centers across the States. For drug and alcohol detox in Massachusetts, as an example, there are centers in almost every town and city across the state – something like 64 all in all. Those that make it through the transition back into civilian life and survive or avoid addiction have gone on to become some of the harshest critics of our government.
People like Adam Khokesh, who served in the US Marine Corps Reserves in Iraq, have become vocal opponents of the very government they swore to obey when they joined the forces. They have seen through the illusion that government and media have fed to communities everywhere and are joining together to voice their opposition to today’s politics specifically and to war across the board. These highly trained personnel of yesterday have become today’s conscience of the nation, highlighting injustice, false flag events and illegal or immoral activities, including wars against other sovereign states. Groups like Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans against the War now actively oppose government and governmental policy, standing against the very things they previously stood for before the veil was torn from their eyes. The treatment many of them receive only serves to underline the government’s self interest and it is telling that the government considers veterans to be a danger, with Homeland Security classifying returning US veterans as a potential terrorist threat.
With something like 20 states wanting to secede from the United States, it may be that those same veterans who no longer support the corrupt political structure will be the vanguard of our changing world. When a country as large as the United States, with the influences it has across the globe, undergoes radical change it will surely impact us all.
-Written & submitted for The People’s Record by Evelyn Roberts
Lovely submission from Evelyn Roberts. Thank you so much. Veterans are part of the story, and they are, complicated victims of the system in their own way. Of course, the communities they are trained & instructed to destroy are also a big part of the conversation – they are victims of the system and are subjected to a whole different kind of horror because it. We would be remiss to not feature stories about both.
Regarding “Jonathan Lash’s” false flag (pun intended) e-mail
May 7, 2013
On April 26th, the Hampshire College community received an email from its president, former president of the World Resources Institute Jonathan Lash, that announced his decision to flip the campus American flag upside-down and lower it to half mast. The email articulated that this action was meant as “a two-fold statement: … a reclamation of mourning, and … an act of resistance against the symbolic violence of the American flag.” He went on to make powerful assertions about the coercive ways in which the state mobilizes the flag in order to create a culture in which the state violence of the police and military is condoned, in which mourning over events such as the Boston bombing and 9/11 are channeled into a racist and bloodthirsty patriotism, and in which dissent and alternative reactions to tragedy are repressed and silenced.
Throughout the day, the email spread rapidly over social media and through word of mouth. Dozens of people thanked President Lash for his words of solidarity with those oppressed by state violence. Others marveled that such a statement would come from an administration with a “decades-long streak of complacence with neoliberalism”. A friend of mine who is of Arab descent was thrilled at the statement and sent President Lash a personal letter of thanks saying that she was “more proud than ever to be at Hampshire”.
Halfway through the day, this same friend received a response from the president. It said that he had not written the email. This was accompanied by a campus-wide response that read, “This afternoon someone falsely sent out a message under my name regarding the flag. It was not written by me. Hampshire welcomes discussion and dissent, but not by misrepresentation.” Apparently, student(s) had written the original statement and hacked his account to send it under his name.
The majority of the criticism of the action accused the students responsible for assuming that all in the community shared their sentiments. A subsequent email from the campus IT director asserted that the action had “blatantly trampled the community’s right to debate and arrive at a common position”.
Such a forum for administration-approved “discussion and dissent” was created a few weeks earlier when students facilitated an open dialogue about the campus flag. Numerous international students, some of whose home countries have long histories of colonialist oppression at the hands of U.S. imperialism, expressed outrage and personal discomfort over the flag’s presence on campus. In this discussion, the administration promised to at least partially acknowledge these concerns by putting up an earth flag on earth day and leaving it up permanently. The earth flag flew for one day and was removed.
The argument that all differing opinions concerning the American flag are valid and must be given institutional weight completely misunderstands mechanisms of oppression and destroys the prospect of solidarity. It is the responsibility of the institution and all those who benefit from U.S colonialism (via white privilege, class privilege, settler status…etc) to support those oppressed by this legacy of violence. The personal patriotism of some individuals should not obscure the real violence committed on the world and members of our community under the symbol of the flag.
Those arguing in favor of the American flag have significant power over those opposed. They have the power of the state, the power of a long history of colonial genocide, and the power of the continued legacy of white supremacy. They also have the power of the administration which continues flying the flag without the consent of the community. Advocating for a “common position” in this regard would inevitably involve compromise on the part of the oppressed. This is not solidarity. This is the perpetuation of racist and colonialist dominance and oppression in the tradition of liberal “democracy”.
Sending the email was a powerful act of resistance used to expose the oppressive nature of institutional power at Hampshire. The students responsible rejected the channels of resistance established for them by the administration and claimed the authority of the president in order to subvert that very authority. By releasing a statement that spoke forcefully and directly against state violence, the students exposed the administration for being complicit with that violence by espousing an empty rhetoric of commitment to some vague notion of “diversity” and “social justice”. The email challenged the administration and the campus to transcend the tradition of mere lip-service (http://www.hampshire.edu/shared_files/INSIDE_Spring_2013_5.2.1.pdf) and work instead toward a tradition of true solidarity with those oppressed by the state.
President Lash failed this challenge. His response did not engage with the argument of the forged email whatsoever, and the American flag continues to proudly fly over the center of Hampshire’s campus.
Share the news: Our economy added 176,000 private-sector jobs last month, while unemployment dipped to its lowest rate since December 2008. http://at.wh.gov/kGdc9
Share the news - Barack Obama is a war criminal.
Share the news - poor people don’t know what you’re talking about, we’re still jobless or over-worked & underpaid and yes, poor.
Share the news - we want a private-sector DEATH. We want private-sector abolition!
Share the news - it was a really bad idea for the White House to get a Tumblr. You are not welcome here.
Share the news!
Why would you want to get rid of the private sector when that’s the sector that actually produces the majority of jobs and actually produces money rather than spends it?
Because of this silly little idea we value called democracy. Because in the private sector, driven not by the will of the public or the well-being of the people, but rather by the undemocratic profit-motive, terrible things happen.
A few examples from the last couple of weeks:
- Private fossil-fuels companies are able to literally high-jack our natural resources and destroy our air, water, and health without recourse. (Think Progress) If our productive sector was public, and not private (aka: capitalism was abolished), then we could vote at our workplaces to prevent these types of terrible decisions that are so bad for most of us but so good for just a few.
- Factory owners/capitalists are able to make unsafe decisions about work conditions, resulting in their over-worked, underpaid, exhausted, exploited wage-slaves dying by the hundreds as a direct result. (The Guardian)
- Media is purchased by corporate owners who prevent fair & honest coverage about the terrible decisions the ruling class makes for the public. (The Nation)
One of the many problems with a productive sector driven by competition, instead of democratic will, is that corporations eventually win those competitions. Competing businesses eat each other up, and then a few large corporations, led by a few capitalist oligarchs, purchase the democracy that their corporations exist in. So our private sector eats our public sector, we get 0 democracy, and the capitalist oligarchs get all the power, all the money, and everything they need to destroy everything that belongs to all of us.
Concentrating power in the hands of a few instead of the will of the many, is problematic. It leads to disaster. It leads to devastation. We HAVE to change the system. There isn’t another choice.
That’s why. Thanks for asking!
Share the news: Our economy added 176,000 private-sector jobs last month, while unemployment dipped to its lowest rate since December 2008. http://at.wh.gov/kGdc9
Share the news - Barack Obama is a war criminal.
Share the news - poor people don’t know what you’re talking about, we’re still jobless or over-worked & underpaid and yes, poor.
Share the news - we want a private-sector DEATH. We want private-sector abolition!
Share the news - it was a really bad idea for the White House to get a Tumblr. You are not welcome here.
Share the news!
(via slothtanic)
TW: Suicide: Guantanamo attorney found dead in apparent suicide
May 1, 2013
An attorney who represented prisoners detained at Guantanamo Bay was found dead last week in what sources said was a suicide.
Andy P. Hart, 38, a federal public defender in Toledo, Ohio, apparently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Hart left behind a suicide note and a thumb drive, believed to contain his case files. It is unknown where Hart died, what the suicide note said or whether an autopsy was performed.
Hart’s death comes amid escalating chaos that has engulfed Guantanamo over the past three months—from a mass hunger strike to military commissions and renewed pressure on the White House to shut down the prison facility. Hart was one of three-dozen Guantanamo attorneys who signed a letter in March urging Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to take immediate action and bring about an end to the hunger strike.
Because Hart was a federal employee working on sensitive legal issues the FBI was contacted about his death. It is unknown if the agency has been investigating the circumstances surrounding his death.
Neither the FBI nor local law enforcement officials in Toledo, Ohio returned calls for comment. A phone number listed for Hart was disconnected Wednesday.
Truthout learned about the details of Hart’s death Wednesday from an investigator who has been tapped by attorneys to work on a number of cases involving Guantanamo prisoners’ habeas corpus petitions. The investigator requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter.
Dennis Terez, the top federal public defender in the Northern District of Ohio, where Hart worked, declined to comment on his colleague’s death.
“At this time and out of respect for Mr. Hart’s family and friends, we have no comment,” Terez said.
Hart’s name has since been removed from the federal public defender’s website.
Hart worked closely with attorney Carlos Warner, who was based out of the federal public defender’s Akron, Ohio office. Warner referred requests for comment about Hart to Terez.
With Warner, Hart was assigned by the government to defend Mohammed Rahim al-Afghani, who was detained by the CIA and allegedly subjected to torture methods until his transfer to Guantanamo in March 2008. The government maintained that al-Afghani was Osama bin Laden’s translator and a top al-Qaida official.
Hart also represented Saudi Khalid Saad Mohammed, who was transferred back to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo in 2009. He was also the attorney for Adel Hakeemy, a Tunisian who has been detained at Guantanamo for 11 years.
The Guantanamo prisoners he represents have not yet been notified about Hart’s death, according to the investigator.
In addition to defending Guantanamo prisoners, Hart also was the defense attorney for Richard Schmidt, an alleged white supremacist and convicted felon who was under federal investigation over allegations he amassed high-powered weapons and ammunition.
In 2011, Hart was assigned to represent Jeff Boyd Levenderis, 54, who was indicted by a federal grand jury on suspicion of concealing a biological toxin, ricin, and making false statements to federal investigators. An 11-year-old daughter survives Hart.
April 25 - Update from Gitmo: The military reported on Wednesday that 92 of the detainees at Guantanamo are now considered hunger striking, 17 are being force-fed, & 2 are in the hospital. Get the latest at: www.GitmoJustice.com
