A Window On How Public Policy Is Actually Made

Headlined at OpEd News on 9/14/08 under the title: "Repression in Minneapolis and Pakistan."


Two items in the news offer us rare glimpses into how public policy is actually arrived at and what differences there really are between Democrats, even progressive Democrats - let alone centrists such as Obama - and Republicans.

The first item concerns the Minneapolis City Council’s role in the police state tactics used at the St. Paul RNC and the other item concerns foreign policy and Pakistan in particular.

Both are related directly to the so-called war on terror: what both major parties call the central issue of our time.

It is clear that the fulcrum for today’s politics involves the “war on terror” and whether the dominant paradigm about it that both major parties subscribe to will carry the day, or a different paradigm wins out that originates from among the people.

First item:

At OpEd News on September 11, 2008 Michael Calvan reported the inside dirty dealing in the all progressives Minneapolis City Council in which the council gave the green light to the police to use the storm trooper tactics before and during the RNC. I quote from the piece at some length as follows:

"In the months before the Republicans came to town, there had been a flurry of activity. Local activists were keeping a close eye on their local elected officials. Initially, there had been a so called Free Speech Committee set up, supposedly to look at how authorities could allow free speech during the RNC and keep order.

"We found out that the Free Speech Committee did not allow any members of the public to add our input. Only City Council members on the committee and lawyers were allowed to speak. There was no free speech allowed at the misnamed Free Speech Committee.

"Nonetheless, activists followed the Committee's actions closely and were present during each meeting. The City Council of Minneapolis is almost 100% Democratic. In fact the only real opposition in Minneapolis is the Green Party which currently has one Green on the City Council, Cam Gordon, who was a small light in a very dark room. But, we were to discover, even that light was to be extinguished.

"The so called Free Speech Committee would change the time and locations of its meetings…There was also discussion on protest groups being required to register themselves and even their members, to be 'allowed' to protest. At these times, Cam Gordon spoke eloquently on behalf of the community and in opposition to these repressive measures…

"Then suddenly [after months] we found out that the Free Speech Committee had their last meeting, July 16th. The meeting itself was unannounced, unlike the other meetings which at least had a pretense of openness and public inclusion. At the next Minneapolis City Council meeting July 25th, the recommendation of the misnamed Free Speech Committee was announced. The Free Speech Committee Resolution passed unanimously, even by our one small light, Councilman Cam Gordon.

"The Minneapolis Police were given 'legal' authority to shut down any protest or group of 25 people or greater. They were also authorized to use rubber bullets, mace and the other array of non-lethal weapons on innocent, peaceful demonstrators, practicing our First Amendment Rights. Also violated repeatedly was the Fourth Amendment Right protecting us citizens against illegal search and seizure. Police violated the laws of assault and battery and destruction of evidence of their crimes, as evidenced by their targeting journalists."

Calvan notes, probably correctly so, that even if the city council had not approved these fascistic tactics that they would have been by-passed and the police and various state and federal officials would have done it anyway.

In other words, despite months of efforts by grassroots activists and even with a Green on the City Council - making grand speeches about protecting free speech - despite the people doing the very best that they could to monitor, participate and speak out, the fix was in and democratic participation was merely a charade for the real power being exercised, even on the nearest thing to local control as you can find in the government - at the City Council level – and even in one of the most left-influenced places in the country.

Second item:

As reported by the New York Times on September 11, 2008, in July 2008 Bush secretly approved Spec Ops forces to launch ground military attacks inside Pakistan without prior approval from the Pakistani government. The NYT essay notes: “It is unclear precisely what legal authorities the United States has invoked to conduct even limited ground raids in a friendly country.” It’s unclear because such actions are blatantly against international law. (During the Vietnam War when President Nixon announced on April 30, 1970 that he had begun bombing Cambodia and thereby expanding the war, a fury broke out in America. During the widespread protests that followed, four students were famously shot and killed by National Guardsmen at Kent State University in Ohio on May 4.)

The Times’ article continues: “Pakistan’s government has asserted that last week’s raid achieved little except killing civilians and stoking anti-Americanism in the tribal areas.

“‘Unilateral action by the American forces does not help the war against terror because it only enrages public opinion,’ said Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, during a speech on Friday. ‘In this particular incident, nothing was gained by the action of the troops.’”

What gives this story even more resonance is the fact that the Bush regime is now finally embracing the tactics that Obama had called for back in August 2007. At the time, Bush, John McCain and the other Democratic presidential hopefuls including Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton derided Obama for offering such a bellicose proposal. Bush said: “he’s going to attack Pakistan” in disbelief.

As Reuters reported on August 1, 2007: “Obama said if elected in November 2008 he would be willing to attack inside Pakistan with or without approval from the Pakistani government, a move that would likely cause anxiety in the already troubled region. ‘If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will,’ Obama said.”

So there you have it: the reactionary Bush White House has now adopted a plan that it previously publicly described as overly aggressive – can you imagine this White House thinking anything is too aggressive? – a plan offered up by the Democratic Party’s standard bearer, Obama, the man that many progressives pin their hopes on.

This reminds me of the line from a comic who wondered what the world is coming to when the world’s best golfer is black and the best rapper is white.

What is the world coming to? The labels certainly don’t tell you the story. You have to look carefully and critically at what people are actually saying and what they are doing. And you have to examine carefully how political policy is actually made, not how you might have learned about it in civics class and not how it is presented everyday in the news.

Obama himself has said – correctly so - that people should pay attention to what he’s saying. He does not oppose all wars, just “dumb wars.” He approves of the war on terror. His differences are over tactics and whether the goals of the “war on terror” are being best pursued. In other words, is the US imperialist empire doing what is in its best interests? This is like campaigning for Godfather and saying that the existing Godfather isn’t being efficient enough in his extortion, racketeering, drug running, torture, brutality and death dealing.

If the city that may be second only to Berkeley in the degree to which progressives hold political office colludes, conspires and cooperates with the police state, even while some of the progressives make fine sounding speeches but vote with the gendarmes when push comes to shove, and if the one “realistic” choice on the national level that the people are being given to oppose the Bush regime’s reign of terror is a man whose foreign policy is now being adopted by the very same hated Bush regime that Obama says he is a “change” from, then what’s realistic now? What good does your vote do? Just what kind of democracy is this?

The only ones we can trust are the people themselves acting independently of the political parties and the normal, acceptable political channels. You must speak out, protest, show how you feel and call on others to do the same. A movement of the people that becomes a mass movement that must be reckoned with by public officials and the media and that does not subordinate itself to either public officials or corporate media must come into being. What is more democratic than that?

It is the ONLY realistic path. It is also the only moral stance possible. Participating in the existing structures and channels is a fool’s errand and worse: it amounts to collusion in crimes against humanity.

Stand up for those who have stood up such as the RNC 8. Wear orange daily and spread the resistance. Don’t kick yourself after the November 2008 election and say, why the hell didn’t I recognize the signs? Why did I allow myself to be sucked in once again? Why didn’t I fight the burgeoning police state when we still had a chance?

Aggression Abroad and Repression At Home II

The police state tactics employed at the RNC are graphic evidence of our government's moves to establish a new normal in which free speech and free assembly are disallowed in the name of "national security" and "combatting terrorism" and to protect, in this specific instance, the GOP from being exposed in any way to dissent.

If you're a delegate or public official attending the 2008 GOP Convention - if you haven't left the Party in disgust over what Bush, Cheney, Rove et al have been doing (or are a Ron Paulite) - you're pretty far gone and rather immune personally to dissenting views.

Principally the St. Paul gestapo-style tactics were to prevent the country from seeing that the GOP's authoritarian, reactionary populism is very unpopular - reactionaries such as the GOP leadership can only retain their air of pre-eminence when they have the forum all to themselves and aren't challenged in any way.

Allowing dissent to be displayed would also have given heart to the majority in this country who feel distaste, distress, or worse at what our government and the GOP in particular are doing.

Back in 2003 at the Pacific Sociological Association's April Meeting I gave a talk that laid out the relationship between the bellicose, pre-emptive foreign policy being implemented under the so-called Bush Doctrine and the need, if they were to carry this forward, to clamp down on domestic dissent.

I wrote a brief, updated introduction to that talk on March 9, 2007 when I posted my '03 talk here at my blog. That introduction reads as follows:

"Aggression Abroad and Repression At Home

This is the text of a talk that I gave in 2003. In it I sketched out the rationale underlying the Iraqi invasion and the USA Patriot Act and related moves (e.g., the recent John Warner Defense Authorization Act) by our government to clampdown on dissent and put into place legal and extra-legal devices in anticipation of much more dissent at home to their plans. Understanding the link between these two - their international plans for empire expansion and the consequent crackdown on the domestic front - is crucial for us. Recognizing this link underscores both the treacherous terrain that we are currently enmeshed in and also the openings for us that are inherent in such a situation. Times of great danger are also times of great opportunity - if we recognize and act on that knowledge.

The other critical point here is that making any concessions to the terms laid down by our government in the name of being 'realistic' (e.g., those who counsel us to back a Democrat for President as the only realistic path) is a fatal strategy. Our government - GOP and Democrats both - has embarked on a risky, dramatic and exeedingly brutal program to restructure the entire world. They are hellbent on this agenda and fully committed to it. (While the Democrats have a slightly different approach, in general favoring more multilateral approaches than unilateral, notice that they have not stood up and opposed the domestic programs such as the Patriot Act and the Warner Act, and that they put up no real fight against the Military Commissions Act - which they could have and should have filibustered. Having inserted us into Iraq, the Bush regime has dared the Democrats to pull us out. It's a dare that the Democrats are reluctant to take because they, just like the GOP, do not want the US imperialist empire imperiled and a humiliating loss would do just that). We are being pressganged down this road and our only hope lies in explicitly rejecting and exposing their plunderous and barbaric moves and providing a contrasting and lofty vision of an entirely different world and future for ourselves and for the rest of the planet.

'Full Spectrum Dominance and the Bush Doctrine: Over There and Over Here'
April 08, 2003 by Dennis Loo"

[For the talk, go here.]

***

At Consortium News today, Ray McGovern posted this excellent piece on the same themes.

Storm Troopers at the RNC

By Ray McGovern
September 8, 2008

Ten days ago, as the nation focused attention on the hurricane nearing the Mississippi delta, another storm was brewing far upstream in St. Paul, Minnesota — a storm far more dangerous, it turned out, but one by and large overlooked by the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM).

When I flew into St. Paul on the evening of Aug. 30, I encountered a din in local media about “preemptive strikes” on those already congregating there to demonstrate against the Iraq war and injustice against the poor in our country.

St. Paul’s Pioneer Press expressed surprise that “despite preemptive police searches” and arrests, a group calling itself “the RNC Welcoming Committee” was still intent on “disrupting the convention.”

A headline screamed, “Preemptive Arrests of Protesters in Twin Cities.” But it was the article’s lead that hit home: “Borrowing from the Bush administration’s ‘preemptive war’ playbook, police agencies in the Twin Cities have made ‘preemptive strikes’ against organizations planning to protest at the Republican National Convention.”

In the following days I was to see, up close and personal, a massive and totally unnecessary display of ruthlessness.

What struck a bell was that this domestic application of the doctrine of “preemption” was totally predictable — indeed, predicted by those courageous enough to speak out before the U.S. “preemptive” attack on Iraq.

Ironically, it was FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley, living in the St. Paul area, who served warning of precisely that in her hard-hitting Feb. 26, 2003, letter to FBI Director Robert Mueller, three weeks before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. [NYT, March 6, 2003]

Confronting Mueller on a number of key issues (like “What is the FBI’s evidence with respect to the claimed connection between al-Qaeda and Iraq?”), Rowley warned of the trickle-down effect of “the administration’s new policy of ‘preemptive strikes’”:

“I believe it would be prudent to be on guard against the possibility that the looser ‘preemptive strike’ rationale being applied to situations abroad could migrate back home, fostering a more permissive attitude on the part of law enforcement officers in this country.”

Rowley called Mueller’s attention to the abuses of civil rights that had already occurred since 9/11, and pointedly warned “particular vigilance may be required to head off undue pressure (including subtle encouragement) to detain or ‘round up’ suspects.”

Transforming the Police

While in St. Paul, I got in touch with Rowley, who has been politically active in the Twin City area, and asked for her reaction to St. Paul’s version of preemption. This was hardly her first chance to say I-told-you-so, but she called no attention to her right-on prophesy five-and-a-half years ago.

Shaking her head, Rowley simply bemoaned how easily the artificial stoking of fear had succeeded in causing the “otherwise wonderful community police officers of St. Paul to turn on their own peaceful citizens (the surreal insanity we witnessed during the RNC).”

She added that, once the Feds, the so-called fusion centers, the contractors get into the act, “all the rules go up in smoke.”

The “preemption” began on Friday, Aug. 29, well before the RNC began on Monday, Sept. 1.

An academic doing research on social movement organizations, who for several months has been observing the main protesters — the RNC Welcoming Committee, the Coalition to March on the RNC and End the War, and the Poor People’s Economic Human Rights Campaign — provided this account:

“On Friday evening the space in St. Paul that was being rented by the Welcoming Committee was raided by riot police, who knocked in the door with automatic weapons drawn, forced the 60-70 activists inside onto the floor, handcuffed them, then proceeded to confiscate all the banner-making supplies and movement literature.

“Over the course of several hours the cops interrogated, photographed, ran warrant checks, and eventually, released everyone one by one. Then they closed down the space for a code violation. The next morning a city code inspector arrived and found no basis for closing the space.

“Saturday morning was one of escalation and terror. The Ramsey County Sheriff Department, together with the St. Paul police, Homeland Security, and the FBI raided four private houses. At 8:00 AM, dozens of cops in SWAT gear broke down the door of one house where about a dozen activists were staying. They were awakened with rifle barrels in their faces and forced to lie face down for more than an hour.

“The cops stole all the computers and other electronic devices in the house, and core members of the Welcoming Committee sleeping there were arrested. It being a holiday weekend, those arrested for alleged crimes could not arrive in court until Wednesday, at the earliest. Thus, those trying to organize demonstrations will be in jail for the entire time the RNC is going on. Four other houses were raided and dozens of activists were detained.”

The academic who wrote the report appealed to those concerned over “this enormous police over-kill” to contact the Twin Cities’ mayors and demand an end to the “witch hunt.”

He added, “The people who were arrested were some of the gentlest, most dedicated activists I’ve ever met.” A far cry from the “criminal enterprise” described by notorious Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher.

Nanette Echols, a resident of St. Paul who had been extending hospitality to the visiting protesters, insisted they had done nothing wrong.

“In the place they raided on Friday night they were showing documentary movies to twenty-somethings in a clean, alcohol-free zone after dinner,” she said.

Caving In to the Feds

The St. Paul City Council? Only one member had the courage to speak out — Councilman Dave Thune, who was particularly enraged that Sheriff Fletcher took action within St. Paul city limits:

“This is not the way to start things off…I’m really ticked off…the city is perfectly capable of taking care of such things…This is all about free speech. It’s what my father fought for in the war. To me this smacks of preemptive strike against free speech.”

Thune objected in particular to Fletcher’s deputies using battering rams to knock down doors, then entering with guns drawn, and forcing people to the ground, as they did on Friday night.

This was the unsettling backdrop as I flew into St. Paul on Saturday evening, to speak at the Masses at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Church on Sunday morning.

On Monday, I joined some 10,000 on a peaceful march from the Capitol to the Berlin wall of fences and to what the old Soviet Union would have called the “organs of public safety” arrayed before the RNC convention hall.

On the fringes there was some property damage and further arrests. What violence there was bore the earmarks of provocation by the likes of Sheriff Fletcher and his Homeland Security, FBI, and, according to one well-sourced report, Blackwater buddies.

That’s right. Agent provocateurs.

Primary targets of the repression were the alternative media, including any and all those who might have a camera to record the brutality — as was successfully done at the RNC in New York four years ago.

The manner in which Amy Goodman and the two producers of “Democracy Now!” were deliberately mistreated was clearly to serve as a warning that the rules had gone up in smoke — the First Amendment be damned.

Tuesday evening, after speaking at the “Free Speech Zone,” a fenced-off area surrounded by the organs of public safety, I joined the Poor People’s march up to the fences before the RNC.

I observed no violence at all; yet, the police/FBI/national guard/and who-knows-who-else decided they needed to clear the streets. My friends and I narrowly escaped being tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, or worse. It was an overwhelming show of force — not to protect, but to intimidate.

Palin Significance

After speaking at a conference at Concordia University in St. Paul on Wednesday, I was more eager to watch the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, deliver her acceptance speech than to risk the tear gas and pepper spray.

The way she dissed community organizers was hard to take.

But those things pale in significance, so to speak, compared to the way the governor of Alaska proceeded to ridicule the notion of reading people their rights. I had thought that despite the distance between Alaska and Washington, the reach of the U.S. Constitution and statutes extended that far.

Friends tell me I should not have been surprised. But, really!

After the widespread kidnapping, torture, indefinite imprisonment, and our cowardly Congress’ empowerment of the president to imprison sine die anyone he might designate an “enemy combatant” — after all that...well, it seems to me that reading a person his/her rights takes on more, not less, importance.

Not to mention the massive repression then under way right outside the convention hall.

It was, it is, a scary juxtaposition. The following day Col. Ann Wright and I went to the jail to offer support to the young people who had been brutalized and then released. They had not been read their rights. Many were camped out on the sidewalk, refusing to leave until their friends still inside were also released.

Out of the jail came Jason, a well-built young man of about 20 years, who needed help in walking. We talked to Jason a while, and he showed us the seven, yes seven, taser wounds on his body. One, on his left buttock, had released considerable blood, creating a large stain on his pants.

Resourcefulness

The young protesters had some success in exposing infiltrators in their ranks. During confrontations, members of the Welcoming Committee, in particular, took copious photos of law enforcement officers and then memorized the faces.

This tactic worked like a charm in one of the St. Paul parks, when a man who looked like a protester — dark clothes, backpack, a bit disheveled — walked by.

One of the protesters recognized the man’s face and searched through her camera until she found a photo of the man actually performing the raid on the Welcoming Committee’s headquarters on Friday night.

The young protesters asked the man, and two associates, to leave the park, at which point the three hustled into a nearby unmarked sedan.

The license plate, observed by a Pioneer Press reporter, traced back to the detective unit of the Hennepin County sheriff’s office, according to the county’s Central Mobile Equipment Division.

Protesters later picked two other men out of the day’s planned march — one because he was wearing brand-new tennis shoes. The two left without indicating whether they were with the organs of public safety.

So there is hope. Young people are smarter than old ones. It is a safe bet that in the coming weeks lots of unwelcome photos will be exposing various agents provocateurs, including over-the-hill flat-feet in unmarked cars, as well as young Republicans with unmarked tennis shoes.

If those are the kind of “sources” upon which the police, FBI, etc. have been relying…well, that would be like having Shia reporting on Sunni, or vice versa.

The organs of public safety are probably not quite so dumb as to be unaware that one cannot expect valid “intelligence” from such amateurish antics. More likely, the attitude is that any kind of “intelligence” will do for the purposes of local law enforcement and timid public officials cowed by the Feds.

The RNC 8

http://www.nornc.org

Hello to all our friends and supporters,

In the last week, eight people affiliated with the RNC Welcoming Committee were arrested in their homes or picked up off the streets and charged with conspiracy to riot and furtherance of terrorism. The Welcoming Committee was a group that formed to facilitate logistics (food, housing, convergence center) around the 2008 Republican National Convention Protests in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Most of them were arrested in the days leading up to the convention, and many had their homes raided by law enforcement. They were being held in the Ramsey County jail but as of Thursday were all released on bail or bond. They are now facing serious criminal charges and the potential of a protracted and expensive legal battle.

This case is potentially dangerous not just for these individuals but for organizers and activists all over the country. It represents a seemingly coordinated effort between state and federal agencies to crack down on organizers as a way of intimidating and systematically repressing movement building in all its forms. It now falls to all of us to fight these charges not just for these eight people but to protect our friends, our movements and our communities.

Currently, our immediate need is for financial resources. We are asking for people to donate money or set up benefits in their own communities.

You can donate by going to www.nornc.org and clicking on the “Donate to RNC Welcoming Committee Legal Support” button.

To check out ongoing updates on the case visit www.RNC8.org.

Thank you so much for your support.

In solidarity,
The Friends of the Welcoming Committee

http://www.nornc.org
********************************************
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/09/the-perishing-republicans-twin-city-cops-and-the-rnc-8/

The Perishing Republicans, Twin City Cops, and the RNC 8
by Ron Jacobs / September 6th, 2008 DISSIDENT VOICE


Let me begin this piece by stating that I don’t give a rat’s ass about the Jerry Springer-like drama playing out around the GOP vice presidential pick Sarah Palin. Let me also state that I seriously wonder how long it will be before the folks that vote for the Republicans year in and year out realize that the men and women they are voting to rule them are part of the Washington elite just as much as the Democrats they despise. As for the rest of the lies and bombast coming out of the XCel Center in Minneapolis this week–it is as if the producers of the convention combined a megachurch service, a high school pep rally, and
the spirit of Leni Riefenstahl.

No, I don’t care about Sarah Palin and the shotgun wedding she and her husband are arranging for their daughter and her boyfriend. Nor do I care about whether or not she was vetted by John McCain. I do admit that I get a kick out of the fact that John McCain has no idea of how many houses he and his wife own, yet he is portrayed as someone who is not part of any elite. I also get a bit of a kick out of the fact that George Bush and Dick Cheney have not (and seemingly will not) appear at their own party’s convention. It is as if these two men, who have kept their party in power for the past eight years,are now disowned by the very same people that put them there in the first place. Or, perhaps, like so much else in US mainstream politics, the absence is part of the illusion voters are being fed: the Democrats have a candidate of change and so do the Republicans. See, the old guard didn’t even show up in person at this year’s convention! John McCain and Sarah Palin are new and improved, just like the cleaning product you have always bought. Familiarity improved!

What I do care about in terms of this week in Minnesota is what is going on outside the convention. From all reports in the media outlets that cover that which is not scripted by the GOP, the streets of the Twin Cities have been turned into a zone where police terror is permitted and even encouraged. If one is a protester, it is even expected. Prior to the convention itself, a series of raids were conducted against people involved in planning protests against the convention and the policies of
the Washington and the GOP. These raids were coordinated by federal, state and local authorities and involved procedural and constitutional violations by the police. On Sunday and Monday, police attacked protesters and arrested hundreds. Tuesday and Wednesday saw more of the same. A small concert attended by a few hundred people was attacked on Tuesday and, on Wednesday, police prevented the popular rock group Rage Against the Machine from performing at an outdoor show because “they would incite a riot.” (They did play a show later at the Target Center). In addition, police have attacked protesters, journalists and bystanders with clubs, pepper spray, and tear gas. So far, close to five hundred people have been arrested. Most of them are being held in open air detention centers.

These arrests, while certainly of questionable legality, are but the tip of the iceberg. On September 3, 2008, eight members of the RNC Welcoming Committee– some of the primary organizers of the protests–were formally charged with Conspiracy to Riot in Furtherance of Terrorism. These eight were among those arrested in the pre-convention raids and, according to the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), face up to 7 1/2 years imprisonment each. For those of us around forty years ago, the indictment of eight people on charges of conspiracy to incite a riot at a national political convention is an ominous deja vu. For those who need a reminder or who don’t know the history I’m referring to, eight men were charged after the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago with (among other things) conspiracy to cross state lines with the intent to incite a riot. These eight became known as the Chicago Eight. Of course, in today’s more enlightened world, authorities didn’t just charge men this time around. At least two of those charged were women. The charges against the RNC Eight (as they are being called) were brought based on the testimony of informants and provocateurs that infiltrated the loose knit organization. As the NLG news release makes clear, “None of the defendants have any prior criminal history involving acts of violence. Searches conducted in connection with the raids failed to turn up any physical evidence to support the allegations of organized attacks on law
enforcement. ” Because no physical evidence of this nature was found, police seized common household items like lighters, cleaning fluid, some nails and a couple hatchets and claimed that these items were to be used to incite insurrection. In addition, police claimed they confiscated two buckets of what they called (I’m serious here) “weaponized urine.” What these buckets actually contained was gray water used to flush toilets at the house where they were found. According to police, other seized materials included other types of household tools, padding (probably to protect people from police truncheons), some pvc pipe and an army helmet.

At this writing, the charges brought against the eight are state charges. It is unknown whether or not federal authorities have any plans to charge these eight or any of the others arrested. What is known is that, much like Chicago forty years ago, the primary cause of any riots that might occur in the Twin Cities are the result of unconstitutional police actions supported by local officials, the national party nominating its warmongering candidate, and the federal police state apparatus. Indeed, the events of forty years ago were termed a police riot by a federal commission formed to investigate the disturbances.

Ron Jacobs is the author of The Way The Wind Blew: A History of the Weather Underground. His most recent novel Short Order Frame Up is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net.

What American Forces Are Doing in This War That Palin Calls God's Work and That Obama Has Refused to End Immediately

Excerpts from the Statement of Alberto J. Mora, Navy General Counsel
Senate Committee on Armed Services
Hearing on the Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody
June 17, 2008

"Mr. Chairman, our Nation’s policy decision to use so-called 'harsh' interrogation techniques during the War on Terror was a mistake of massive proportions. It damaged and continues to damage our Nation in ways that appear never to have been considered or imagined by its architects and supporters, whose policy focus seems to have been narrowly confined to the four corners of the interrogation room. This interrogation policy – which may aptly be labeled a 'policy of cruelty' – violated our founding values, our constitutional system and the fabric of our laws, our over-arching foreign policy interests, and our national security. The net effect of this policy of cruelty has been to weaken our defenses, not to strengthen them, and has been greatly contrary to our national interest.

Before turning to this damage, it may be useful to draw some of the basic legal distinctions pertinent to interrogation. The choice of the adjectives 'harsh' or 'enhanced' to describe these interrogation techniques is euphemistic and misleading. The more precise legal term is 'cruel.'
...

All of these factors contributed to the difficulties our nation has experienced in forging the strongest possible coalition in the War on Terror. But the damage to our national security also occurred down at the tactical or operational level. I’ll cite four examples:

First, there are serving U.S. flag-rank officers who maintain that the first and second identifiable causes of U.S. combat deaths in Iraq – as judged by their effectiveness in recruiting insurgent fighters into combat – are, respectively the symbols of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. And there are other senior officers who are convinced that the proximate cause of Abu Ghraib was the legal advice authorizing abusive treatment of detainees that issued from the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel in 2002.

Second, allied nations reportedly hesitated on occasion to participate in combat operations if there was the possibility that, as a result, individuals captured during the operation could be abused by U.S. or other forces.

Third, allied nations have refused on occasion to train with us in joint detainee capture and handling operations because of concerns about U.S. detainee policies.

And fourth, senior NATO officers in Afghanistan have been reported to have left the room when issues of detainee treatment have been raised by U.S. officials out of fear that they may become complicit in detainee abuse."

When I Heard...

When I heard that police were raiding – with guns drawn – the homes and offices of prospective protesters in St. Paul in anticipation of the RNC, because protesters were concealing weapons - weapons the police didn’t find because they don’t exist - my first thought was how very deep into a police state we now are.

Then I thought, how akin this excuse is to the WMD hoax justifying the Iraq invasion. “They’re hoarding weapons of mass destruction! Oh my god! We must crush them before they get us!”

After which I thought, which part of this is the bigger story?

Is it the fact that gendarmes of the city, state and nation are behaving worse than those nasty Chinese police during the Olympics who don’t appreciate the cardinal right to demonstrate that we in America understand so well?

Is it the fact that the Democratic Party set up “Freedom cages” in Denver to shield the Democratic Party and its “Champions of the People” from protestors demanding real change?

Or is it the fact that these police state tactics are not deemed worthy of mainstream media attention from the same media that lauded Bush’s complaints about Russia’s actions towards Georgia and China’s “human rights” record?

Is it that the pre-emptive criminalization of protest and of speech, the use of percussive grenades on peaceful demonstrators, the tearing of peace activists out of their cars, the arrests of journalists and charges of “conspiracy to riot in furtherance of terrorism” and so on, are only bad when they’re done outside the U.S., but they’re democracy in action when they’re done inside the U.S.?

I honestly don’t know which is worse: the fascist actions or the deafening silence and the myopic national chauvinism of the corporate media about any of this.

* * *

At the DNC our-man-of-change Obama chooses as his running mate a senator who was even more hawkish on Iraq than were Bush and Cheney – if that is possible – and at the RNC the maverick McCain chooses a Dominionist who reminds me of an even more malevolent version of Nixon’s Veep Spiro Agnew - if that is possible - a lipstick wearing, lying, mean-spirited, Hockey Mom/pit bull, who mocks the need to give some smidgen of due process to those being held at Gitmo since they’re all “terrorists” after all. And the crowd goes wild from her words, gesticulating with signs that say “Country First,” all the while looking to my eyes like Über alles all over again.

From the German national anthem during the Nazi years:

“Deutschland, Deutschland über alles,
Über alles in der Welt,
Wenn es stets zu Schutz und Trutze
Brüderlich zusammenhält.”

English translation:

“Germany, Germany above everything,
Above everything in the world,
When it always for protection and defense,
Brotherly sticks together.”

* * *

Welcome to the free, fair and glorious celebration of democracy we call elections in America, version 2008.

Like Vista, we need to reboot because it seems to freeze all of the time when we try to write the words: End the War. Stop the Torture. Impeach the War Criminals.

Sarah Palin and Dominionism

First, a brief explanation of Dominionism from ReligiousTolerance.org:

"Its most common form, Dominionism, represents one of the most extreme forms of Fundamentalist Christianity thought. Its followers, called Dominionists, are attempting to peacefully convert the laws of United States so that they match those of the Hebrew Scriptures. They intend to achieve this by using the freedom of religion in the US to train a generation of children in private Christian religious schools. Later, their graduates will be charged with the responsibility of creating a new Bible-based political, religious and social order. One of the first tasks of this order will be to eliminate religious choice and freedom. Their eventual goal is to achieve the 'Kingdom of God' in which much of the world is converted to Christianity. They feel that the power of God's word will bring about this conversion. No armed force or insurrection will be needed; in fact, they believe that there will be little opposition to their plan. People will willingly accept it. All that needs to be done is to properly explain it to them.

"All religious organizations, congregations etc. other than strictly Fundamentalist Christianity would be suppressed. Nonconforming Evangelical, main line and liberal Christian religious institutions would no longer be allowed to hold services, organize, proselytize, etc. Society would revert to the laws and punishments of the Hebrew Scriptures. Any person who advocated or practiced other religious beliefs outside of their home would be tried for idolatry and executed. Blasphemy, adultery and homosexual behavior would be criminalized; those found guilty would also be executed. At that time that this essay was originally written, this was the only religious movement in North America of which we were aware which advocates genocide for followers of minority religions and non-conforming members of their own religion. Since then, we have learned of two conservative Christian pastors in Texas who have advocated the execution of all Wiccans. Ralph Reed, the executive director of the conservative public policy group the Christian Coalition has criticized Reconstructionism as "an authoritarian ideology that threatens the most basic civil liberties of a free and democratic society."

***

Second, these two articles lay out the connection between Sarah Palin and the Dominionists - she is a member of the Assemblies of God: here and here.

Dominionism is also known as Christian Reconstructionism.

From my book, Impeach the President: the Case Against Bush and Cheney, Chapter Five, pp. 107-108:

"'Our job is to reclaim America for Christ, whatever the cost. As the vice regents of God, we are to exercise godly dominion and influence over our neighborhoods, our schools, our government, our literature and arts, our sports arenas, our entertainment media, our news media, our scientific endeavors—in short, over every aspect and institution of human society.' --D. James Kennedy, Coral Ridge Ministries Pastor, at a “Reclaiming America for Christ” conference in February, 2005

"'Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ—to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness. . .. World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish.' —George Grant

Here is what Dr. Bruce Prescott, Executive Director of Mainstream Oklahoma Baptists, a critic of the religious right, said in 2005:

'Stripped to its barest essentials, here is their [Reconstructionists] blueprint for America. Their ultimate goal is to make the US Constitution conform to a strict, literal interpretation of Biblical law. To do that involves a series of legal and social reforms that will move society toward their goal. Here is their blueprint: 1) Make the ten commandments the law of the land, 2) Strengthen patriarchically ordered families, 3) Close public schools—make parents totally responsible for the education of their children, 4) Reduce the role of government to the defense of property rights, 5) Require “tithes” to ecclesiastical agencies to provide welfare services, 6) Close prisons—reinstitute slavery as a form of punishment and require capital punishment for all of ancient Israel’s capital offenses—including apostacy [sic: apostasy], blasphemy, incorrigibility in children, murder, rape, Sabbath breaking, sodomy, and witchcraft.

'Some Reconstructionists realize that, sooner or later, there is bound to be a backlash against the kind of society that they intend to create. Many seem to be biding their time until public sentiment turns decisively against the kind of reforms they are seeking. When that happens, I believe that some, if given the opportunity, will be willing to take up arms and wage another civil war. Some of their literature indicates that they believe that such actions can be morally and theologically justified if they follow a lesser magistrate (like the Governor of a state) who claims to be following biblical law while refusing to submit to a rule of law that is imposed by a secular constitutional authority. This kind of crisis could easily be precipitated by the Governor of state, like Alabama, refusing to execute a Court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from state government property.'"

At the RNC - This is How Homeland Security Looks

Video and some commentary on clashes between demonstrators and the police (state) troopers at the RNC.