Crackdown On Students And Information As Genocide Widens

Communiqué from Cal Poly Humboldt Building Occupation shared on Twitter

Students at college campuses across the U.S. are rejecting Israel's genocide in Gaza, and their encampments are spreading rapidly following violent repression by police at Columbia University. In addition to calling the NYPD on their own students, the geniuses in administration locked students out of their dorms and meal plans, and suspended them. Once they were suspended they could be arrested for trespassing -- on a campus where their families have paid tens of thousands each year to house, feed, and educate them.

This repression has only caused the resistance at Columbia to grow.

https://twitter.com/palyouthmvmt/status/1783007862765109677

Students don't get their information about atrocities against the Palestinians from mainstream media that were long since captured by the military-industrial complex. Instead, they get their information from eye witness accounts shared on social media. 

https://twitter.com/Newyorkist/status/1782879723833487630

Is it any wonder that Congress in its wisdom just enshrined domestic spying as law and ramped up liability for social media companies and everyone who works there for sharing what the government deems "misinformation"?

It is said that truth is the first casualty of war. Since the U.S. has been continuously at war for decades, the ever tightening screws of information control are absolutely key to the WW3 project. World wars start with genocide (WWI was Armenians, WWII was European Jews). Before the 21st century these were conducted secretly, keeping the details from ordinary people until after the fact. Nowadays we watch genocide unfolding in real time, with new mass graves at Gaza's Nasser Hospital the latest in the atrocity parade.

Students are showing what normal human beings do when faced with evidence of unspeakable cruelty on a massive scale: grieve, and turn the anger of grief into action. 

White Privilege In Death, And The Rise Of The Police State

All the flags on the main street of Somerset County seat Skowhegan (and there are many) were swapped for pro-police versions for the funeral procession of the first law enforcement officer killed in Maine in 30 years.

The recent killing of a sheriff's deputy here in Maine has resulted in a huge outpouring of sentiment that looks to be gaining momentum as the weeks pass. Corporal Eugene Cole was well-loved, and his compassion and skill at deescalating potentially violent situations are often cited by those remembering him. I experienced this firsthand myself, and I can only imagine how shocking his death has been to family and friends, who have my condolences.

But the uses of Corporal Cole's death are disturbing. The rise of the police state with its many forms of violence against people of color is receiving a haze of righteousness that none dare question in this whitest state of all.

This poster appears in every shop window in Skowhegan, a town a few miles from where Corporal Cole was killed by a drug addict who owned several guns. I wonder how black people see this?

Seeing the town swarming with dress uniformed police from other states makes me look through my white privileged eyes to wonder: how do people of color see the deification of all police as the result of one tragic white on white crime?


Where is the rational response to an opioid epidemic that is ravaging New England and produced the desperate junkie who shot Corporal Cole? My friend and sister peaceworker Mary Beth Sullivan was quoted in this hard-hitting look at the Portland, Maine neighborhood where she works. In the article, a 36 year old military veteran who was homeless for a while describes conditions far worse than any she witnessed in the many other countries she saw while in the Navy.

The focus of the article is the predators who abound among a population with no access to mental health services or drug rehab, but plenty of access to guns.

Instead of a logical response to the conditions that led to Corporal Cole's death, we're swept away in a flood of emotional and sentimental law enforcement worship.

A recent facebook post I saw and now can't find again denigrated Black Lives Matter activists in Portland who "abused" police. That is, they sat down in the street to protest the racist policing of people of color in Maine's largest city. Where is the outpouring of sorrow over the murder of mentally challenged black man Chance David Baker by police in Portland last year? The officer who shot him was cleared of any charges for his death despite the fact that a 911 caller said Baker had a bb gun (in an open carry state) and despite the fact that Baker was killed within minutes of police arriving on the scene. Baker had harmed no one.

Mainer Shay Stewart-Bouley calls out the corporate press for their role in promoting racist treatment of alleged criminals in a post to her blog BlackGirlinMaine: "Black suspects or Black victims? Will someone dig deeper?" Remember we are in a state where the governor infamously said drug traffickers are "these type of guys":





This all leads me to a question that must be asked: Do people of color think Corporal Cole was as good of a cop as the white people do?

Police are so routinely brutal to people of color who are found waiting while black, golfing while black, asking to see the manager while black, that a currently trending article in my social media world spells out what to do instead of calling the police on black people.

I've been arrested in Maine, for calling out the insanity of building nuclear weaponized warships. I was with eight other white people, and we peace protesters got the white treatment by police despite the fact that plans for handling us are deemed inaccessible because they involved planning for "terrorism." No police officers threatened us with bodily harm, or even disrespect. 

A well-known Native activist and ambassador for the Penobscot Nation recently encountered the highly militarized border police coming back home from Canada.

Would my grandmother and I have been treated like this?

Maulian Dana

May 5 at 4:38pm · Milford, ME · 

Being treated like criminals at the Houlton border crossing coming back into Maine was a bummer. Having my car searched, him yelling at my 79 year old grandmother to keep her hands visible while she looked for her passport, and two tribal officials being spoken to like Colombian drugs lords after I’d been up since 430am really could have made me grouchy.

However my grandmother calling us “Thelma and Louise” made it all better.

White On White Crime, And The Diseases Of Despair

My school has been on partial lockdown this week because a drug addict on our vicinity killed a sheriff's deputy, stole his car, and robbed a convenience store. The photo above is from the FBI's wanted poster and it is emblematic of the poor white addicts who abound in this neck of the woods. 

Covered with scabs and tattoos -- one a common gun rights motto -- with a rap sheet dating back over a decade, John Williams was reportedly distraught over an upcoming court date and/or his girlfriend's recent arrest by sheriff's deputies for opioid possession.

A friend who worked with him in a town in my school district gave him a ride from the town where many of my family members live to Norridgewock, where deputy Eugene Cole was shot and killed shortly thereafter. (The friend contacted police and you can read his account here.)

Old friends of Williams said similar things: nice guy, could have done a lot of things but got into drugs and went off the rails.

The #FBI, Somerset County Sheriff's Office & @MEStatePolice are offering a $20K reward for information leading to the arrest of John D. Williams. He is considered armed & dangerous. Anyone with information should call 207-624-7076 or email https://t.co/48YS0b0hkh pic.twitter.com/9ah2W2XUM7

— FBI Boston (@FBIBoston) April 26, 2018

When he and his girlfriend were arrested a few weeks back in Massachusetts they allegedly had a car full of baggies with white powder residue, one Percocet, and two guns.

Earlier this year, the father of one of my students was arrested in sight of the school for heroin and fentanyl trafficking. Some of the drugs were found in the bureau of the child's bedroom.

These are the diseases of despair: depression, addiction, often suicide.

They abound here in Maine, the whitest state in the nation.

White people are not doing well. I believe this is the reason so many of them lash out at black people, calling the police on them for playing golf too slowly or waiting in Starbucks for a friend. 

White people's fear is palpable. 

Many of us have family members who are in the same rough shape as John Williams. 

Many older white people are raising grandchildren after the parents go to prison or die of overdoses or take their own lives. Grandparents worry over the little ones while working long past retirement at low paying jobs that can be made to fit around the school schedule. They wonder where they went wrong with their own kids and pray that they will be able to successfully raise children who have PTSD from living with drug addicted parents during their formative years.

Racism has long elevated white people's levels of home ownership and other measures of net worth. Poor white people are humiliated by their poverty, their poor health, their unemployment and lack of prospects to better themselves despite a playing field tilted in their favor. 

Calling the police on black people is one of the hallmarks of white privilege.

But is that really where the (increasingly militarized police) need to respond? Can even more men with guns really save us from the road we're on?

REVISED 4/29
John Williams was arrested after three days, hiding out in the woods. Here's the trophy photo being unofficially circulated by police who were present for the arrest.

Arrest photo from the Kennebec Journal, published with this caption: "This photo taken by Maine State Police on Saturday, April 28, 2018, shows the moment when law enforcement apprehended John Williams, sought in the slaying of Somerset County Sheriff’s Cpl. Eugene Cole. This photo appeared on Reddit, and Maine State Police confirmed Saturday that they took the photo."

Online comments suggest that many found this documented inhumane treatment of the prisoner to be ill-advised. My comment: lucky for Williams that he is white, because a black man can't stand in a parking lot holding a bb gun without being shot and killed by police in Maine. #JusticeforChance

Militarized Policing, School Lockdowns And Our Culture Of Violence

Source: Debra J. Groom blogging on Syracuse.com. 
"School district officials wanted to alert district residents that there were no problems today at Oswego High School or Leighton Elementary School. Five state police vehicles were parked along Buccaneer Boulevard Friday, Nov. 3, but were there as the New York State Police Troop D canine units conducted training at the high school while providing a community service to the district."

Yesterday we stood in freezing rain outside of Bath Iron Works for an hour during the shift change. Aside from the ankle deep slush it was warming to be standing with the Smilin' Tree Disarmament Farm organizers of the annual Advent series of vigils outside the gates where weapons of mass destruction are made by hard-working Mainers.

Some of the workers were quite angry to see us while others exchanged friendly greetings with Bath resident Bruce Gagnon, a regular outside the gates when the shifts change. Hundreds walked or drove by Bruce's sign: "Zumwalt Provocative Expensive" referring to General Dynamics' (the corporation that owns BIW) latest product. One worker assured Bruce that "Ships protect the peace, ships keep us safe." Bruce politely disagreed, noting that the Zumwalt is a first strike weapon.

Maine's entire Congressional delegation paying homage at the launch of a $4 billion Zumwalt destroyer last April at BIW.

While standing I had time to connect with peaceworker Jane, who is 83 years old and can hold a sign for an hour in freezing rain without wearing gloves. Jane recently moved to Maine from Vermont, where she worked extensively in counter recruitment in the schools. Military recruiters in public schools use local, state and federal tax support to provide access to teenagers and sometimes even children younger than that. It's one of the ways education dollars are redirected to support the aims of our highly militarized and violent culture.

Another way came to light when we circled up at the end of the vigil. A vigiler who works at Rockland High School told us that she came out of her office this week to find the school was in lockdown mode. These are drills which are supposed to keep students and staff safe in the event of a school shooting. However, this drill went far beyond locking doors and closing window shades.

Every student was ordered to line up his or her backpack in the halls and then hide in a classroom while police moved through the packs with several police dogs trained to sniff out drugs. None were found, nor did the school have information that any would be found. Just a drill, folks. The dogs also sniffed the cars in the parking lot, including those of the adults who work there. A warrantless search that, again, found nothing. It seems clearly designed to scare people, and the woman who told us about it indeed reported that she found police dogs sweeping through the halls very intimidating.

At least one school board member has raised questions about the drill, as reported in the Bangor Daily News on Dec. 5:

Rockland police, assisted by canines and their handlers from the Knox County Sheriff’s Office and Lincoln County Sheriff’s Office, took about 45 minutes to search for drugs, said Rockland police Detective Sgt. Chris Young. He said students were instructed to take their backpacks and leave them in the middle of the hallway outside their classrooms and then return to class. 

The dogs came through and sniffed the lockers and backpacks, he said. One of the dogs detected something in a backpack, which was opened, but no illegal substances were found...

The school-wide search was done at the request of principal Renee Thompson. Thompson said that there had not been problems with drugs at the school, but she wanted to be proactive and send the message to students and the community that there is a zero tolerance for drugs on campus.

Also zero tolerance for the Constitution, apparently. Hope the U.S. government students don't get those questions wrong on the AP exams they weren't studying for while helping police and sheriffs practice teaming up to intimidate an entire student body.

If, like me, you're keeping tabs on the creep of fascism in the USA, you could note that your rights are checked at the door when you enter a school run by the likes of Principal Thompson. Or Oswego High School in New York, or who knows how many others with militarized police and county sheriff's departments bringing in dogs for your "safety."

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If you're in Maine you can join  the Smilin' Trees Disarmament Farm's annual Advent peace vigils at Bath Iron Works (BIW) on December 13 and 20.  Folks meet from 11:30am on Washington Street in front of the BIW administrations building. 

What's Wrong With This Picture? #HandsUpDontShoot

News media ran a back to school article last week with this photo under this headline:

CHILDREN ARE PROTECTED ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL IN CHICAGO

Does this African American student look like she feels safer having these armed white men with bullet proof vests walking in front of her elementary school?

It's hard to tell how the woman with her is feeling or even what she is doing. Perhaps she is giving her daughter advice on how to stay safe in the face of violent patriarchy. Or maybe just giving her lunch money.

Can you write a better caption for this photo?

#CapitalShooting In The Empire Of Moral Decay

Source: NYT

Yesterday the imperial guards gunned down a deranged woman with an 18 month old child in the car, killing the mother, who suffered from delusions and depression. She had been hospitalized, and believed that Barack Obama was sending her "messages." A pretty 30-something unemployed dental hygienist who was unarmed but driving her car like -- well, like a madwoman. She was African American, a single mom, and her own mother said she had suffered from postpartum depression following the unplanned pregnancy. The kind of person that our society consistently fails to protect.

Miriam Carey had been hospitalized at times for her mental condition. She didn't stand a chance against the trigger happy cops who, receiving no gunfire and spotting no weapon, chose to shoot her dead rather than shoot out the tires on her car. Her crime? Running away from police and ramming a Jersey barrier near the Capitol building, shuttered due to congressional intransigence over implementing corporate welfare health care. White House response to the police action: no comment. 

According to The Guardian:

Police were hailed as "heroic" after thwarting the car chase. Congress afforded the officers a standing ovation as members lined up to praise their dedication and bravery. But it was unclear why police had shot the woman dead.

As I searched for news about Miriam, I stumbled upon the fact that another citizen of the empire had gone down in flames at the imperial capital, setting fire to himself on the national mall, motive unknown.

Source: AP "In this photo provided by eyewitness Katy Scheflen, people run to a man who set himself on fire on the National Mall in Washington, Friday, Oct. 4, 2013." via Al Jazeera

The more vulnerable among us act out their suffering under the regime of austerity that affords the police state and the military domination of the globe the ability to appear to prosper.

The president signed the Pay Our Military Act two hours before the midnight government shutdown that ensued on the first day of October, the month of brilliant, beautiful leaves dying. The Pentagon rushed through multi-million dollar orders to the merchants of death who wine and dine the supposed representatives of the people in order to keep the filthy lucre flowing.

The president also quietly signed a bill to keep sending military "aid" to regimes that oppress, torture and murder their own citizens and immigrants, even if said regimes employ child soldiers in direct contravention of moral codes and international law. Which, by the way, the US military does when it enlists 17 year olds.

A budget is a moral document.

When one child in five grows up in poverty, the imperial government's response is to suspend the WIC program which feeds infants, children under five, and their postpartum mothers.

The lumpen proletariat, deranged by decades of hate talk radio and cleverly crafted disinformation, absurdly support Tea Party candidates who are sharpening their knives to carve up Social Security and Medicare as the price of re-opening federal government functions like food safety inspections.

A friend who lives near Acadia National Park in Maine commented on the eerie silence in place of the usual throngs of leaf peepers this time of year. I read of canceled destination weddings, canceled trips of a lifetime to raft down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Such activities, while good for the dying capitalist growth-at-any-price economy, seem frivolous in the face of tens of thousands of Head Start children sent home and deprived of preschool with hot meals as a result of the government shutdown.

The last time I visited the Grand Canyon I heard tourists speaking so many different languages I could close my eyes and imagine I was on the streets of New York City, perhaps outside the United Nations headquarters. Where this week imperial servant Netanyahu spoke to a nearly empty hall of Israel's isolation, vulnerability, and continued belligerence in the time of US decline.

An educator I met yesterday told me that her daughter had been teaching elementary school in Israel for the last several years before succumbing to exhaustion and finding another, better paying job as a nanny for a baby. Her daughter had taught thirty 4th graders six days a week, working from around 7am to around 10pm in order to be a good teacher, for a salary that barely paid her bills.

Weapons of mass destruction and the price of eternal occupation vs. education and food. These are the simple moral choices humanity is faced with at present. Here in the heart of the empire we spend around 60% of each year's revenues on the military.

Until the collective wisdom of mothers and grandmothers is able to prevail over the death culture that the patriarchs have spawned, we appear likely to continue spiraling down toward a fiery end for us all.

Information Control Ramps Up Post-Snowden, RIP Free Press

I posted the item above on Facebook early this morning. An environmental leader in my community tried to watch the video and he got the same message I did. According to Newsmax.com:

The decision to block American audiences from viewing their international news videos is apparently a concession on the part of the Persian Gulf-based television news network to get U.S. TV operators to carry them, Gigaom.com reported.

Here's the short text in full from the Al Jazeera English tar sands article:

Canada's oil sands boom is producing an unwanted by-product, huge piles of petroleum coke. Tens of millions of tonnes of the black powdery substance are accumulating in both Canada and the US. Al Jazeera's Daniel Lak reports from the US city of Detroit, where large clouds of coke from nearby Canada blew into homes last month.

This suppression of key health information for citizens reminds me of the virtual blackout of news from Fukushima these past two and half years. 

Dedicated nuclear disaster watchers have shared as much information as they could gather or glean, but only this month did corporate news outlets finally begin reporting on a situation that is already well into its meltdown phase, as in NBC reporting yesterday Radiation spikes to fatal levels at Japan's Fukushima nuclear plant. Had information been freely available to us since the earthquake and tsunami, might TEPCO and the Japanese government have received the kind of urgent expert help they have needed to possibly contain the disastrous effects on human and other life on our planet? We'll never know.

When corporations own media outlets, put politicians in office and remove them, and ignore the will of the people, we get action that focuses on capitalism's bottom line rather than life's bottom line. From Al Jazeera's article today on the Prime Minister of Japan (finally) stepping in to head up the disaster response:

Public concern over Fukushima, revived by the news of leaks of radiated water at the plant, have threatened to further delay the restart of other off-line reactors - a crucial part of Abe's plan for economic revival and a pillar of the turnaround plan Tepco has given its creditor banks.

Note that "public concern" is the threat here, not the 1,800 millisieverts per hour of radiation TEPCO admits it detected, a level which will kill a human in four hours.

Photo making the rounds on the Internet. Looks like the US government may have a problem on their hands. Did I mention that the US Army admitted it was blocking The Guardian website from access by all enlisted personnel due to reporting of NSA surveillance news via Edward Snowden's leaks?

Meanwhile, keeping people well distracted: the imminent threat that the US will bomb Syria. Around 80% of the public currently opposes this military action -- for a variety of sound reasons. Demonstrations broke out all over the globe after corporate government spokesmen Obama and Kerry went on t.v. to rattle their sabres at Assad.

Compare if you will the reporting on Portland, Maine's protest and march organized by Veterans for Peace chapters and joined by about 50 participants.

The corporate news version was produced by a writer for the Portland Press Herald, which is owned by the hedge fund billionaire husband of Democrat Chellie Pingree, who represents Portland in Congress.

The second report was compiled from footage and interviews. I was pleased to see my CODEPINK associate Pat Taub speaking up for the grandchildren, and calling for "more feet on the street" to keep pressure on as Congress considers the matter. Also pleased to hear a handful of citizens pointing out that budget cuts at home are a direct result of out of control spending on the military.

Monument Square August 31, 2013 Portland Maine Syria protest / Regis Tremblay on Vimeo.

The same day I compared these two reports I noticed a Huff Po column by Norman Solomon warning that the propaganda ramp up to sell an attack on Syria will be beyond the scope of anything we've seen so far. I was not surprised since when I searched for "protest Syria" I found numerous corporate news accounts giving equal billing to Syrian-Americans calling for the US to bomb Assad regime strongholds, and repeating a lie against CODEPINK that we have been "disturbingly silent" about criticizing the Obama administration's ongoing air strikes in numerous countries. I have seen this lie -- which I believe is intended to herd us onto one side of the false dichotomy of Democrats vs. Republicans -- so many times in so many places that I sense it must spring from a common source.

Activists have used blogs, Twitter, Facebook, web sites, and email as tools to share information and plan resistance.

Source: US woman violently arrested at protest against US military action in Syria / Press TV

Facebook is how I learned of police state creeping in this report that veteran Emily Yates was arrested and roughed up in Philadelphia for playing her banjo in a spot on Independence Mall deemed unacceptable by park police. Last summer I experienced the arbitrary zones and restrictions imposed in this public space during the Occupy National Gathering. Good thing I did not have a banjo.

Also via Facebook, I learned of this Arizona checkpoint action recording threats, dogs, and the order to "shut up." If this brave citizen wasn't a white woman with a white male companion, a camera, and lots of family houses, how might this incident have ended?

Any day now I expect to open my blog and find that access has been denied. Information control is the order of the day.