December 17, 2014 – Arsenal For Democracy 111

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Topics: Torture Report, CRomnibus spending package, video game review – This War of Mine. People: Bill, Nate. Produced: December 15th, 2014.

Discussion Points:

– Torture Report: Why US actions after 9/11 are symptomatic of a wider unresolved White Supremacy in American policymaking and society — and why torture and drones are the logical extension of daily police brutality and accidental shootings.
– CRomnibus Spending Package: Should Democrats and President Obama have stood more firmly on principle against the new funding measure even at the cost of a shutdown?
– Political Pop Culture: Nate reviews “This War of Mine,” a survival game set in the Siege of Sarajevo

Episode 111 (53 min)
AFD 111

Related links
Segment 1

Boston Globe: 20 key findings of Senate’s CIA torture report
Arsenal For Democracy coverage of the 2014 Torture Report
Arsenal For Democracy archive coverage of the 2009 Torture Memos

Segment 2

AFD: The Terrible CRomnibus
NYT Dealbook: Wall Street Seeks to Tuck Dodd-Frank Changes in Budget Bill
Huffington Post:The Levee Breaks: Democrats Rage Against Obama Over Wall Street Giveaway
AFD: US prepares to give sacred Native land to Australian mining firm
AP: Federal budget would raise limits on big donors in campaign finance

Segment 3

AFD Review by Nate: My War
Steam: “This War of Mine”

Subscribe

RSS Feed: Arsenal for Democracy Feedburner
iTunes Store Link: “Arsenal for Democracy by Bill Humphrey”

And don’t forget to check out The Digitized Ramblings of an 8-Bit Animal, the video blog of our announcer, Justin.

In support of the youth-led movement after Ferguson

The tagline for Arsenal For Democracy is “a new generation in democratic leadership.” Not the “next” generation, which would imply leadership later, but the “new” generation — the one that is already here.

I’ve been rattling the bars of the cage here and there for the past four years, as I’ve gotten increasingly tired of being told by grindingly-slow-moving (and often unrepresentative) “movement” leaders to “wait your turn” and the like, while they continually pre-compromise and reach for nowhere close to the stars.

Unsurprisingly, I’m 100% on board for my fellow young people taking charge of a political movement the way we’ve seen young people seizing the reins of the new wave of civil rights action after Ferguson — even if they have to physically grab the microphone from people who refuse to accept that their own time (and credibility) to lead has passed. I stand behind young leaders — people like Johnetta Elzie and DeRay Mckesson and so many others — in these efforts, on a range of issues.

I’m not saying there’s no value to folks with more experience, but sometimes that means advising rather than insisting on leading. Why? We need young people leading movements for change because we haven’t yet been defeated by “The Way Things Are” and because we aren’t resting on old wins. We’re still able to re-imagine what is possible and achievable and to try to get farther than those who came before us. We need to move past the paradigms of “Once Upon A Time We Took A Step Forward” & “Why can’t you just be grateful you got one thing a while ago?”

We need to stop saying “Why can’t you ever be happy with what we’ve achieved?” and listen when people say “I can’t accept partial-progress.” Not because they’re picky or overly demanding but because their lives depend on not accepting half-measures that still leave them in danger.

Compromise has its place but it’s not the end goal. And it’s ok to point out what else needs to be fixed. How else would more get done? Not everyone who is unhappy with past compromises and past steps forward is a mean complainer. Most are just ambitious for more.

AFD Radio Special: Black Lives Matter Protests

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Topic: Ferguson and Beyond — What happens next in the growing movement? Panel: Jamie Nesbitt Golden, Ama, and JP. Host: Bill. Recorded: December 7th, 2014.

AFD Episode 110:
Ferguson Special II

Panelist bios

Jamie Nesbitt Golden, from Chicago: Freelance writer, participant in the August rallies in Ferguson and the November rallies in Chicago
Ama, from St. Louis County: Lives next to Ferguson, wife owns a business there, 12 year county resident, participant in the August rallies in Ferguson
JP, from St. Louis County: Lives near Ferguson, 10-year U.S. military veteran, 20 year county resident

Related links

Black Lives Matter official website
Hood Feminism
Jamie’s Twitter
STL Public Radio: St. Louis County Emergency Fund Tapped for Police
The Atlantic: How Police Unions and Arbitrators Keep Abusive Cops on the Street
Jacobin: The Bad Kind of Unionism
Daily Camera / Boulder News: Sam Carter, ex-Boulder cop, convicted on all counts in Mapleton elk trial

Subscribe

RSS Feed: Arsenal for Democracy Feedburner
iTunes Store Link: “Arsenal for Democracy by Bill Humphrey”

And don’t forget to check out The Digitized Ramblings of an 8-Bit Animal, the video blog of our announcer, Justin.

Phoenix: Another unarmed Black person killed by a White officer

Police account:

“Witnesses indicated to us that the suspect was verbally challenging to the officer”

 
As noted last night, White police officers can apparently legally put Black people to death for talking back to them. This is the same as the heyday of lynching in the American South.

The victim here will be smeared and painted as a dastardly criminal because of his various minor charges, convictions, and prison time in previous cases, but whatever his history might be, he didn’t deserve to die for it.

Witness account, saying victim did not argue:

“Who’s gonna argue with police?” Dickerson said. “He had no death wish yesterday.”

 
Ann Hart, chairwoman of the African American Police Advisory for South Phoenix:

“We need to take a deeper dive into why police officers are feeling compelled to shoot and kill as opposed to apprehend and detain, arrest and jail.”

 
Yep. That is the million dollar question. I think we know the answer but too many Americans want to live in their post-racial fantasies (or are just straight-up racists who assume it’s justified unless proven otherwise … which is never, in their minds).

America loves its sidewalk executions

Excerpt from a comparison of US police use of deadly force to other countries (and the racial influences in those differences):

Worse, police in the U.S. expect to be shown special deference by members of the public at large. Noble sounding as that idea is in the abstract, in practical terms it has devastating results. Given that doctrine of “respect,” any hint of disrespect or disobedience during a routine encounter – even completely imagined – can escalate into a sidewalk execution.

Combined with an ongoing legacy of historically charged, extraordinary demands of respect from racial minorities by law enforcement, such situations become exceptionally dangerous for non-White citizens.

Since a policeman can expect total deference, all it takes to legitimize a shoot to kill action is feeling threatened. The doors to playing God and/or cowboy are wide open. This legal derivation, perverted as is sounds, is no accident. It is a full reflection of American culture and mythology. Today’s shooting practices and incidents allow the police to tap into the imagery of the Lone-Ranger sheriff establishing justice in a lawless landscape.
[…]
In an international context of other civilized countries, though, U.S. practices are clearly outside the bounds of what is seen as legally permissible.

 
Eric Garner was street-executed by the NYPD on suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes. They were filmed on a bystander’s camera. There won’t be a trial.

 
An initial version of this post was corrected for factual accuracy.

After Ferguson: In defense of non-peaceful resistance

The regular suspension of due process and the repeated failure to restrain or reasonably manage the use of lethal force by the state against its citizens violates the American social contract on a fundamental level.

The social contract is an “agreement” that the state will have a legitimate monopoly on the use of force, instead of all individual people having the use of force all over the place with no rules, in exchange for meeting those basic conditions and maintaining the safety of all people and protecting their property.

Although it’s never possible to preserve that balance 100% of the time — and the United States has an unusually extensive set of loopholes for normal civilian use of force — it is reasonably considered in effect if it is upheld the vast majority of the time and with consistent, non-discriminatory application. Significant and repeated failure of the balance or failure to apply the principles consistently across the population would constitute a breach of the contract.

With a widespread and ongoing breach in the social contract by the state, the use of force is legitimately de-monopolized and reverts to the people to use on an individual or collective level, against threats and oppressors, including but not limited to — racial supremacists, exploitative businesses, and the state. The data has been clear for some time that a breach of the social contract exists between the state (federal, local, and everything in between) and the Black citizens of the United States.

Therefore: Violent resistance to police and destruction of select private property in the aftermath of a particularly egregious violation such as witnessed in Ferguson last week (suspension of the rule of law and restricted rights to peaceful assembly) is quite easily morally justifiable — though obviously optional — until the restoration of a legitimate social contract between the people and their government, which re-monopolizes the use of force.

To be clear: I’m not calling for violence and destruction; I’m just saying it’s not inherently unacceptable right now, and that decision is a matter of basic self-determination by those for whom the social contract has been broken (a sub-population which does not include me). For the majority of Americans, the social contract remains intact and normal rules of conduct apply. For a regularly legally and forcibly repressed sub-population without redress of grievances, the contract is currently void.
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Video released of John Crawford’s execution by police

WARNING: Below is the silent surveillance video showing an unarmed John Crawford being gunned down by the police last month in an Ohio Wal-Mart. [Video removed. Learn why.]

The video is not graphic. It is just the grainy, abrupt, and unnecessary extinguishing of an innocent human life on camera. Moreover, it corroborates everything we knew about the circumstances that led to John Crawford, a Black man, being summarily executed by White police officers on the false statements of a serial liar (full background at the link). It depicts everything the family told us it did and appears to match the account of his conversation on the phone at the moment he was shot.

At no point did Crawford pose a threat or attempt to threaten anyone, least of all the police, whom he apparently did not see or hear before they opened fire. Nevertheless, as the video shows, he is shot multiple times — first from down the length of the aisle, and then again at close range as he attempts to “surrender” (though he was of course unarmed the whole time).

[Video removed. Learn why.]

As alerted by a reader of mine, I encourage folks to listen to the ten minutes of Crissle and Kid Fury’s reaction (1:09:40 – 1:19:20) to this video on their podcast “The Read.”

And as an additional update to the story, the county coroner has ruled a homicide the death of 37-year-old Angela Williams, a customer who died of a heart attack related to a heart condition as she attempted to flee the store during the panic that followed the police opening fire.

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