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3 NATO Protesters Charged With “Terrorism” in Chicago — Identical to Other FBI Plots

Raleigh, NC - State lawmakers returned to town today to find about a hundred and fifty disappointed but determined North Carolinians here to greet them with a clamorous protest they are not likely to soon forget. Fed up with actions taken by the General Assembly to enrich and empower the few at the expense of the rest, people from different walks of life - young and old, working and unemployed, gay and straight - united on Bicentennial Mall for a cacerolazo - a Pots & Spoons Protest - the first-of-its-kind protest of our out-of-control state legislature. Learn more at www.AFLCIONC.org. May 16, 2012.

How to create a dilemma

How a small group can take a long walk — and make a difference
 

 

Preparing for EQAT's PNC Windmill Action in January. Via EQAT's Facebook page.

I just walked 200 miles across Pennsylvania in Earth Quaker Action Team’s Green Walk for Jobs and Justice. The Patriot-News, which serves Pennsylvania’s capital of Harrisburg, called us “a multimillion-dollar threat to the sixth-largest bank in the nation.” I wouldn’t claim that this young group should be taken as an exact model for others to follow, but there might be a few ideas from our story that could be usefully borrowed.

The anthropologist Margaret Mead famously said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” I’ve always thought her statement is a bit of an exaggeration, but she knew at least that people in the United States obsess about size. I’m glad she put it so strongly. Her sentiment emboldened a handful of Philadelphia-area Quakers who were deeply concerned about eco-justice to tackle climate change by using direct action. It spurred us to ask: How can we be most strategic in using our limited numbers and resources?

In scanning the political environment, we first looked for people under immediate threat — for an issue that’s easily understood, a target available to us, and a goal that could be achieved. The people of Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia are threatened with continued mountaintop removal coal mining, and for over a century have endured a colonial relationship with the rest of the United States — their natural resources exported with poverty as their reward.

Anyone can understand the injustice of blowing up mountains in order to extract coal, especially when it means releasing toxics into the air and water so as to double the cancer rate for the local people, increase joblessness, and reduce ancient and biologically-diverse mountains to a lunar landscape.

One of the top funders of mountaintop removal is in our neighborhood (now stretching from Florida to Indiana): PNC Bank. It is a depositor-oriented bank and needs its good name. It presents itself as a “green bank,” even while being up to its ears in coal mining and hydrofracking for natural gas. We realized that we could be in solidarity with people in coal country while opening a new front in the struggle by targeting an opponent of theirs where we live.

Why target a bank rather than, for example, the EPA or Congress? Because, as a former White House occupant used to remind himself, “It’s the economy, stupid!” The banks brought the United States to the edge of the cliff, and they continue to disgrace themselves in the eyes of those we want to reach. By weakening their power, the goal of ending mountaintop removal coal mining in Appalachia becomes achievable, if the movement continues to grow as it has been. The Appalachian people already have allies in the White House and Environmental Protection Agency.

Ours was largely a group of novices at nonviolent direct action, so we wanted to join an already-existing movement rather than start from scratch. The Appalachian culture of resistance wanted allies, and Rainforest Action Network could mentor us, so we could do our Quaker thing in a larger and supportive context. Before long, we were ready to name our first climate change campaign: Bank Like Appalachia Matters! (BLAM!)

While the particulars of Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT, pronounced “equate”) are inevitably different from those of other small groups starting out, the questions that we discussed can be powerful questions for any group: What people are under immediate threat? Is there an issue that can be easily understood? Is there a target available to us? Do we have an achievable goal? Is there a movement already started or resources available to support our learning curve?

When all the talk was done, we finally got started.

First, we told the president of the regional PNC headquarters that we wanted to see him, and he refused until we told him we were about to protest a PNC-sponsored event. Then he wanted to see us. From there, we escalated at a big PNC-sponsored flower show by coming in black T-shirts that said “Flower Crime Scene” and wrapping the PNC information booth with crime scene tape, accompanied by singing, leafleting, signs and speaking. We expected to be arrested but at the last minute were not.

We created a people’s court and held a trial in the headquarters building lobby, demanding that the president come downstairs and defend his bank against the charges. He declined to come down, but it seemed that all the other suits did come down to inspect our spectacle, where once again we expected to be arrested. I had a physical collision with one official, when he jumped in front of the moving picket I was leading; he threatened to sue me for assault, but didn’t. Our clearly-asserted nonviolent commitment worked every time in protecting us from dirty tricks and assisting us to hold the moral high ground, which is where every strategically-smart activist wants to be.

The Rainforest Action Network and Reverend Billy and the gospel choir from the Church of Life After Shopping joined us for a sit-in at a PNC bank near the White House. That was during Appalachia Rising in 2010. We built a small dirt mountain-top on the carefully-protected marble floor, had a joint worship service, closed the bank for hours and finally four of the 16 participants were arrested. In the internal organizational culture of PNC, this action was called “terrorism.”

Students have been attracted to our actions, and we’ve worked with groups in nearby colleges and universities. There’s not space here to detail all the many actions we did at many bank branches, but EQAT’s website includes videos and interviews with members. You’ll see, for instance, the time we built two faux-windmills in the headquarters lobby; two of the “Windmill Five” will be on trial for that on June 7.

Our choice to ground our strategy in nonviolent direct action increased our confidence, skills, numbers and funding so we could challenge ourselves with a long walk to Pittsburgh, home of the (LEEDS-certified) towers of PNC’s corporate headquarters. We arrived on May 16, having done actions at over a dozen PNC branches along the way. More than 250 people participated in the Walk for some period of time; Gail Newbold and I walked every day. My daily blog is availablehere.

The mass media gave us great coverage, and PNC looked worse and worse as it rigidly stuck to its “no comment” strategy. Over a year ago, PNC told all its branch managers not to talk to us — we never met a low-level employee who already knew about PNC’s dirty business — so it sent regional managers to meet us at various local branches across the state, plus additional security guards.

The Green Walk for Jobs and Justice was as much for organizing as for direct action. At almost all our stopping points we arrived at a local church or Quaker meeting in time for a potluck supper with local members; we showed a video about mountaintop removal and discussed our campaign; we were taken by members to their homes for bed and breakfast; we converged on the local PNC branch for an action; and we walked the 11 to 20 miles to the next stopping point for a repeat of the pattern.

The Walk provided people in towns and farms with easy ways to support our direct action, through hospitality and accompanying us to the action at their local bank. Meanwhile, EQAT walkers were developing their assertiveness skills, meeting strangers day after day in their homes and churches, in multiple rest stops along the way, and in bank branches. The result: A Philly-area group built skills and gained a statewide network.

Further, we were unfolding a larger narrative: a long, slow walk to Pittsburgh to confront the 1 percent on their corporate home turf. (Sometimes drama, like love-making, works best at a slower pace, rather than in a quick spasm.)

The unfolding narrative heightened the dilemma for the bank leadership: if it tries to defend itself it looks bad, and if it continues to give “no comment” it looks bad. How does a bank defend erasing jobs, poisoning people, and destroying ancient mountains?

The Green Walk also serves as the beginning for the next phase of the campaign: the Green Your Money initiative, in which groups of people will accompany PNC account holders to their local branches to close their accounts, starting on June 1 if PNC doesn’t reverse its policies before then.

The Global Nonviolent Action Database contains many cases in which small groups had a large impact. The overthrow of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic started that way. A small group orchestrated the closing of all U.S. ports from shipping guns for dictator Yaya Khan in Bangladesh in 1971. Most of the civil rights victories were initiated by small groups. The Liberian women who successfully intervened to stop civil war in 2003 started small. The dictatorship of Argentina began to unwind when a small group of mothers of the disappeared began their campaign. A small group of Quakers and allies started the Abolition Committee to stop the British slave trade in 1787, and 20 years later they succeeded.

For a more general outline of what works in organizing a dynamic action group, including tips based on half a century of experience, see my manual, “Starting an Action Group.”

George Lakey is Visiting Professor at Swarthmore College and a Quaker. He has led 1,500 workshops on five continents and led activist projects on local, national, and international levels. Among many other books and articles, he is author of “Strategizing for a Living Revolution” in David Solnit’s book Globalize Liberation(City Lights, 2004). His first arrest was for a civil rights sit-in and most recent was with Earth Quaker Action Team while protesting mountain top removal coal mining.

How students are painting Montreal red

 

Felt red square, via Free Education Montreal.

On Wednesday night in Montreal, we shared a long dinner with student organizers, discussing everything from police tactics in Montreal and New York to the necessity of an anti-racist and anti-colonial framework for our movements. Our hosts noticed that, around the time that the nightly 8:30 p.m. march was supposed to begin, we were getting nervous about missing it. They laughed and said, “Don’t worry, it will go on until 2 a.m.” Or at least they normally do.

By midnight, after peacefully and joyfully marching through the city for hours, the police charged our march of about 4,000 people with batons and pepper spray. In a moment the scene became one of chaos and confusion. Many in the crowd turned around and ran, but there were police behind us, too, coming straight at us with their batons out as people were pepper sprayed and thrown to the ground. Eventually, we found our way out of the melée and asked our Canadian comrade what had happened to provoke the police. “Nothing,” she answered. “They just got tired of us.”

We had been lucky. Moments after the police charged us, they surrounded a group of 506 protesters and arrested everyone in what became the largest single mass arrest since the indefinite student strike began here in Quebec 103 days ago.

The student movement in Quebec is growing. On Tuesday, an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 students, workers and supporters took to the streets to protest tuition hikes and the passing of the new, draconian anti-protest law — Law 78 — as well as to celebrate the 100th day of the student strike. But state repression is also growing. Last night’s mass arrest and other forms of police violence bear witness to the new climate of fear and repression that the Charest government is trying to create in order to break the student movement.

The passing of Law 78 is a direct attack on the freedom of assembly and the right to protest. It not only bans unpermitted marches or any unpermitted gathering of more than 50 people, but the vaguely worded “special law” also threatens to levy enormous fines against organizers, unions and potentially anyone who participates in an unpermitted assembly. The law comes in response to the growing popularity of the student movement and can be read as as symptom of the government’s inability to control the movement; it is a sign that in some ways the students are winning. In fact, since its passage last Friday, the nightly marches have only gotten larger as more people see the struggle expanding from the single issue of university tuition to a broader one that includes the right to protest and the suppression of dissent.

The media in the United States have hardly noticed the Quebec student strike, despite it being the longest and largest in the history of North America. Those of us who have been following the movement have been amazed by the sheer numbers that these mass demonstrations have mobilized, with hundreds of thousands taking to the streets on major days of action. What is less known, but equally important, is that every single night for the past month there have been marches of several thousand protesters. These high-energy marches snake their way across the eastern side of the island for hours, through residential and commercial neighborhoods. People in bars, restaurants and apartment windows shout back, wave flags, chant with the protesters and cheer them on, even banging their pots and pans, in reference to the Latin American tradition ofcacerolazo protests. The breadth of politicization and the everyday forms of solidarity in Montreal is formidable to witness.

“This didn’t happen overnight”

The prevalence of the red squares that symbolize the student strike is stunning: pinned in the hair of a girl on the metro, worn as earrings by another, attached to a baby carriage, or duct-taped on backpacks, shoes, bike helmets and cell phones. But most of all the small, red felt squares are safety-pinned to people’s jackets or shirts, a visible expression of the crushing student-loan debt that Canadian students face — on average, $27,000, according to the Canadian Federation of Students. They’re derived from to the expression “carrément dans la rouge,” literally translated as “squarely in the red.” They are everyday reminders of the increased burden of debt that will come with increased tuition. So many people are wearing the red squares, some claim that the dollar stores where the red felt is bought are running out of it.

When we express disbelief that one of the biggest universities in Canada, the Universitité du Montréal, has been forced to cancel classes and end its semester early because of the strike, and when we are amazed at the prevalence of red squares, people simply say, “Yes, but we have been working for two years to get here.” And it is true. The tuition hikes have been on the table since 2010, when the tuition freeze ended. In March 2011, Quebec announced its plan to raise tuition by $325 a year over 5 years. In response to this, protesters occupied the finance minister’s office.

When we ask how, over that time, so many students have been mobilized and politicized, the answer is both simple and complex. As student organizer Myriam Zaidi said, “We’ve been standing on corners handing out leaflets and having conversations with people about this for years. Just opening up that space of conversation has been hugely important. This didn’t happen overnight.” These basic forms of disseminating information about the tuition hikes and fostering debate about these issues have been pivotal in mobilizing massive on-the-ground support behind their call for a strike.

But the more complicated answer to our question lies in the organizing structure and history of student unions at universities in Quebec. Organized at a variety of levels — from that of the whole Quebec Province all the way down to individual departments — these unions provide a way for students to organize politically, granting them both legitimacy and power. Longer-term mobilizing strategies include campaigns to build strike votes at general membership meetings, carefully navigated negotiations with governments and university administrations, and coalition-building between the various unions. These have been pivotal in securing a unified front during the current strike. This current round of protests are also only the most recent expressions of a much longer history of radical student unionism in Quebec, which dates back to the 1960s.

Solidarité

All in all this has meant that when, on February 14, the student unions at the Universitié du Montréal called for a strike, they already had a very strong base level of support. From there, picket-lines were organized in front of classrooms, and efforts to shut down the university required constant organizing and action. As one student organizer told us, “In those first few weeks, it was very tedious. We knew the class schedule, and we would stand outside the classrooms with signs … Many students would know this was going on and just stay home … One conservative history professor charged the picket line once.”

The university didn’t take these actions lightly. Our friend went on to describe how, in March, fed up with the picket lines and the strike, the university hired a notorious strike-breaking security firm. Armed guards patrolled its hallways, interrogating people about why they weren’t in class, stopping professors and students alike to bully and harass them. This, however, only lasted a few days until widespread outrage from faculty of all political leanings forced the administration to withdraw the guards. Unbroken, the strike continued to the present, and now the provincial government has called for an early end to the semester in yet another attempt to break it.

There are varying levels of support at different universities and in different parts of Quebec. At the English-speaking, elite McGill University, support has not been as widespread, and an attempted student strike there has not been successful (despite having had an occupation of the administrative offices there in the winter). In some ways, this is emblematic of historic divisions between the French-speaking and English-speaking communities in Montreal and Quebec, and of the way that these divisions also fray along class lines. Occasionally this has meant that the protests have a nationalistic flavor to them, with people carrying the Quebec flag and chanting things like: “A qui le Québec? A nous le Québec!” (Whose Quebec? Our Quebec!)

These nationalist undertones have been increasingly contested by student organizers of color who have been actively working to articulate an anti-racist and anti-colonial analysis within the movement, while also combating the false view that the movement is dominated by white students. These efforts are increasingly successful, as shown by the creation of the students-of-color and anti-racist coalitions that had a presence at Tuesday’s march. (Listen to an interview with one of the organizers here, starting at 23:00.)

During these marches, or while banging pots on street corners with our Montreal comrades, the question often on our minds is how we as students in New York City can stand in solidarity with them. The first answer, of course, is to build our own movement and to build it in explicit connection with the one happening here in Montreal. We too are facing tuition hikes at public schools, from New York to California. We too are met with repression and violence when we express dissent. And, fundamentally, the core issues at stake here are the same ones that students and workers around the world are facing right now: the implementation of austerity measures, the increasing privatization of education and (to use Prime Minister Charest’s unapologetically Thacharist language) a “cultural revolution” in the way we think of education. What was once a common good is being purposefully transformed into an elite commodity available to only those who can afford it.

Last night, as we marched in Montreal, it was with the knowledge that hundreds of our Occupy Wall Street comrades in New York were marching in solidarity for the third time. (Here is video of the first.) Occupy Wall Street itself grew out of solidarity with the Tunisian and Egyptian and Spanish and Greek uprisings, after people began asking themselves, “How do we do that here?” Our generation of students in the United States has yet to mobilize on a mass scale, but after watching what’s happening up here in Quebec, perhaps that will change.

Manissa McCleave Maharawal is a doctoral student in the Anthropology department at the CUNY Graduate Center and a New York City based activist.

Zoltán Glück is PhD student in Anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center. He is also a full-time student organizer and activist based in New York City.

“Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living." Gen. Omar Bradley

For this Memorial Day, we share two articles with you. “Memorial Day: Pick Your Perversion” was written by Leah Bolger, current President of Veterans for Peace. The other is a speech given by Jay Wenk, a WWII Veteran and active member of Veterans for Peace. Both Leah and Jay were active in organizing and participating in the occupation of Freedom Plaza.

Here is some music that you might appreciate as you read this report from Chicago -  Tom Morello and other musicians playing at the Chicago NATOprotest standing with the crowd after the sound system stopped working.

On Saturday, May 19, members of Veterans for Peace attempted to deliver a letter to the NATO leaders in Chicago but were denied access. They had to leave their powerful letter, folded in an American flag, in the street outside McCormick Place. The veterans from wars dating back to WWII were ignored by both the NATO leaders and the press.

The protest against NATO in Chicago on Sunday was a strong one.  At least15,000 people marched in a peaceful protest that culminated in a powerful ceremony by Afghan and Iraq War veterans.  Nearly 50 veterans spoke about their war experience and then returned their medals by throwing them toward the NATO Summit. The vets were supported by veterans fromVeterans for Peace and VVAW who served as their security. (Photos of the day here.)

The police presence was deep at the march and throughout the city.  It would be fair to say that downtown Chicago was militarized in response to the protest.  There were not a lot of arrests, but there was harassment of activists.  Journalists were a particular focus of police attention reminding us how important the citizen media is to getting out our message – and how the authorities know that preventing the message from getting out is important to protecting the status quo. Indeed, the media situation is likely to worsen because the current National Defense Authorization Act contains provisions to legalize state department propaganda developed for use around the world to now be used within the US (repealing the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948).

The first use of the NDAA’s provisions for support of terrorism were used in Chicago.  The three arrested have been held in solitary confinement in all white “observation” cells where they are denied contact with each other or other prisoners and denied any reading or writing material.  This case deserves special attention of the democratized citizen media because its implications are important to all of us. The three youths are being prosecuted under support for terrorism and other charges.  The prosecution comes just after a New York federal judge stopped the use of the indefinite military detention provisions of the NDAA.

A police clash occurred after the medal ceremony when the protest organized by a coalition of groups was officially over.  There was a group of protesters who wanted to remain behind to try to get closer to the NATO meetings, which were about three blocks away.  The police had made it difficult for protesters to leave the area, funneling them through a narrow exit.  As a result some people who did not want conflict with the police were stuck in the melee. From video tape of the event it seems that police were responsible for the escalation of the conflict, but there are mixed reports. The conflict has led to continued criticism of Black Bloc tactics undermining the message of the day, making the day more about conflict with the police than about the unjust and immoral wars as expressed by the peaceful protest and the veterans who returned their medals.

We have submitted Freedom of Information Act requests with various federal agencies about the terrorism arrests in Cleveland and Chicago and whether this is part of a national strategy by the federal government.

Prior to the Chicago protest, we organized an Occupy G8 People’s Summit.  At the summit we talked about issues like the Financial Transactions Tax on speculation by banks and investors.  This was part of a week of activities around the world in support of the tax.  The Summit also examined the illegitimacy of the G8 trying to make economic decisions for more than 190 nations and excluding the voice of civil society in the process.  Speakers at the summit spoke about how to build the international economy from the ground up so that it was a sustainable, clean-energy based economy where people worked together to meet human needs within the limits of the ecology of the Earth.

Click here to listen to an interview with Jacob George, a veteran of the occupation of Afghanistan who participated in the NATO Summit Medal Ceremony, and Medea Benjamin who has a new and very thorough book out, “Drone Warfare: Killing by Remote Control.” We will send out a report and videos from the Occupy G8 Peoples’ Summit soon. 

In peace and solidarity,
October2011.org/OccupyWashingtonDC

Why Aren't You Writing About This? 

"It is surprising that the government is pursuing this case because it has other statutes that specifically target terrorist groups," Bruce Afran, attorney for plaintiffs.

(Reuters) - Federal prosecutors on Friday urged a judge to lift her order barring enforcement of part of a new law that permits indefinite military detention, a measure critics including a prize-winning journalist say is too vague and threatens free speech.

Manhattan federal court Judge Katherine Forrest this month ruled in favor of activists and reporters who said they feared being detained under a section of the law, signed by President Barack Obama in December.

The government says indefinite military detention without trial is justified in some cases involving militants and their supporters.

But critics worry that the law is unclear and gives the Executive Branch sole discretion to decide who and what type of activities can be considered as supporting militants.

The judge's preliminary injunction bars the government from enforcing section 1021 of the National Defense Authorization Act's "Homeland Battlefield" provisions.

The section authorizes indefinite military detention for those deemed to have "substantially supported" al Qaeda, the Taliban or "associated forces."

In a brief filed in New York late on Friday, the government said the plaintiffs in this particular case had nothing to fear.

"As a matter of law, individuals who engage in the independent journalistic activities or independent public advocacy described in plaintiffs' affidavits and testimony, without more, are not subject to law of war detention as affirmed by section 1021," prosecutors in the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office wrote.

During oral arguments in March, Forrest heard lawyers for former New York Times war correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges and others argue that the law would have a chilling effect on their work.

The judge said she was worried by the government's reluctance at the March hearing to say whether examples of the plaintiffs' activities - such as aiding the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks in the case of Birgitta Jonsdottir, a member of parliament in Iceland - would fall under the scope of the provision.

Bruce Afran, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the government's brief failed to address fundamental concerns about what type of conduct is outside the law, and which person or group is deemed sufficiently "independent" of enemy forces.

"It is surprising that the government is pursuing this case because it has other statutes that specifically target terrorist groups," Afran said.

The government noted that courts rarely intervene in matters directed by the Executive Branch.

"Issuing an injunction regarding the President himself, or restraining future military operations (including military detention) ... would be extraordinary," prosecutors wrote, noting that they were considering an appeal of the judge's order.

(Reporting By Basil Katz; Editing by Xavier Briand)

More: Nick Wing, Seven Ways to Get Yourself Into Military Detention, Huffington Post, May 26, 2012.

Baton strikes to the head and face, broken collar bones, broken arms, teeth knocked out, heads bashed in, lips busted and concussions

By YanaKunichoff
Chicago Muckrackers, May 23, 2012

Now that the barricades are cleared from the streets, downtown traffic has resumed its sluggish pace and thousands of workers in the loop no longer have an excuse to take a day off, what is the legacy of the massive Sunday protest that brought out an estimated 15,000 people?

One lasting effect, on both the city and the protesters, is how the Chicago Police Department behaved over the much-hyped weekend.

According to Sarah Gelsomino with the National Lawyers Guild and the People's Law Office, the NLG received 70 separate claims of police misconduct from Sunday's events.

"The majority of those incidences are baton strikes to the head and face," said Gelsomino. "We saw broken collar bones, broken arms, teeth knocked out, heads bashed in, lips busted and a numbers of concussions."

The National Lawyers Guild says that 100 protesters were arrested altogether over the weekend and during the week of action, with the "vast majority"--60 people--being taken into police custody on Sunday.

A total of 6 protesters were charged with felonies--one for attempting to break through a line of police on bicycles Sunday night.

What actually took place Sunday after the march ended has been highly debated, but the general outline compiled from numerous eyewitness reports goes like this: while the speeches from the main stage were ending, a crowd of 'black blocers' began advancing east toward McCormick Place.

As the group started pushing forward, rows of police in riot gear formed a square, with a small outlet at the cross section of Michigan Avenue and Cermak Road. However, also in the crowd, and at points sandwiched between the black bloc and the police, were journalists and marchers who were unable to leave the scene because of the surrounding police presence.

From this reporter's view, there were at least 30-50 people in the square surrounded by police that were not dressed in black or pushing east towards McCormick Place. Soon after, this reporter saw people being taken out of the crowd with bleeding heads and, in one case, a bleeding eye.

According to a photographer briefly sandwiched between the black bloc and the police, individual officers would reach into the crowd and strike the advancing marchers with their batons without warning. He surmised this as an attempt to intimidate the group and force them to back off.

As the standoff continued, other marchers reported seeing police in riot gear amass a block away and begin to block off the exit west from Michigan Avenue. Several eye witnesses said that the Long Range Acoustic Device was mounted on a pole at this time.

The standoff continued for several hours, with police continuing to bring in reinforcements in full riot gear and marchers, who were north of police but unable to leave because other streets were blocked by riot police, slowly exiting the area.

Gelsomino stressed that the injuries received by protesters showed police brutality, though only the most serious accusations would likely become formal complaints to the CPD.

In response to a photo of one activist bleeding from the head, the Chicago Police Department alleged that the blood was "fake."

An event that took place Saturday night saw a similarly vast gap between the accounts of protesters on the ground and the official response from the Chicago Police Department.

In the video below, taken on Saturday, May 19th, a police van is seen accelerating into a crowd of protesters.

But what eyewitnesses say is difficult to see is that a man is lying under the van--James Amico, who was later treated at Northwestern Memorial Hospital for a concussion.

In this video, the crowd can be seen calling for street medics to help Amico, who was later interviewed about Saturday night by the Occupied Chicago Tribune.

In response, the CPD Superintendent Gary McCarthy "suggested to reporters that the protester faked the injury," reported the Chicago Tribune, and said "the officer driving the van was punched and suffered a concussion."

There was also some confusion over where Amico was taken and what injuries he sustained. In addition to McCarthy denying that Amico was injured, the Guardian was told by Northwestern Memorial Hospital that no one by the name of Amico had been admitted.

But other reports, including in the Chicagoist and from an interview with Amico himself, say that he was treated for a concussion.

The most recent accusations of brutality coincide with The Chicago Reporter's most recent investigation: "Who's policing the police?"

Reporter Angela Caputo focused on repeat offenders and found, along with growing legal costs to defend a handful of rogue officers, "glaring evidence that the city’s effort to stem police misconduct is falling short of the mark."

How these new misconduct and brutality claims will be addressed in the aftermath of the NATO summit weekend may be a telling statement on who's policing whom.

Photo credit: Sara Goke

Democracy Now!
May 25, 2012

More than 400,000 filled the streets of Montreal this week as a protest over a 75 percent increase in tuition has grown into a full-blown political crisis. After three months of sustained protests and class boycotts that have come to be known around the world as the "Maple Spring," the dispute exploded when the Quebec government passed an emergency law known as Bill 78, which suspends the current academic term, requires demonstrators to inform police of any protest route involving 50 or more people, and threatens student associations with fines of up to $125,000 if they disobey. The strike has received growing international attention as the standoff grows, striking a chord with young people across the globe amid growing discontent over austerity measures, bleak economies and crushing student debt. We’re joined by Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, spokesperson for CLASSE, the main coalition of student unions involved in the student strikes in Quebec, and Anna Kruzynski, assistant professor at the School of Community and Public Affairs at Concordia University in Montreal. She has been involved in the student strike as a member of the group, Professors Against the Hike. [includes rush transcript]

Is the government unleashing the same methods of entrapment against OWS that it has used against left movements and Muslim-Americans?

By Arun Gupta
AlterNet, May 24, 2012  

With the high-profile arrest of activists on terrorism charges in Cleveland on May Day and in Chicago during the NATO summit there, evidence is mounting that the FBI is unleashing the same methods of entrapment against the Occupy Wall Street movement that it has used against left movements and Muslim-Americans for the last decade.

In Cleveland the FBI announced on May 1 that “five self-proclaimed anarchists conspired to develop multiple terror plots designed to negatively impact the greater Cleveland metropolitan area.” The FBI claimed the five were nabbed as they attempted to blow up a bridge the night before using “inoperable” explosives supplied to them by an undercover FBI employee.

Then on May 19, the day before thousands marched peacefully in Chicago to protest NATO-led wars, the Illinois State Attorney hit three men with charges of terrorism for allegedly plotting to use “destructive devices” against targets ranging from Chicago police stations to the home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Defense attorneys for the Chicago activists claim their clients, like the Cleveland activists, were provided with supplies for making Molotov cocktails by undercover agents in an operation that included the participation of the FBI and Secret Service. This was followed up on May 20 by the arrest of two other men on terrorism charges in Chicago for statements they made, which critics say amount to thought crimes. The Chicago cases are also reportedly the first time the state of Illinois is charging individuals under its post-September 11 terrorism law.

To hear FBI officials describe it, “Law enforcement took swift, collaborative action…to eliminate the risk of violence and protect the public.” To many observers, however, the government itself is the overarching threat, systematically repressing peaceful dissent.                                                

Will Potter, who analyzes FBI entrapment plots in his book Green is the New Red, says the two incidents are “a reflection of an ongoing pattern of behavior from the FBI of singling out political activists and having a direct influence in creating so-called terrorist plots for the purpose of proclaiming a victory in the war on terrorism.” Potter claims, “There have been many other cases like these in which the FBI had a role in manufacturing the plot itself. We’ve seen this time and again with animal rights activists, environmental activists and the anarchist movement.”

Simply put, the Cleveland and Chicago cases appear to be instances of the federal government foiling its own terror plots. Two days before the Cleveland plot was supposedly thwarted, David Shipler, author of Rights at Risk: The Limits of Liberty in Modern America, presciently described in the New York Times the mechanics of the FBI trap about to be sprung. Shipler wrote that FBI terror stings typically begin by targeting “suspects for pure speech” such as comments, emails and “angry postings” on the Internet. The suspects are then “woo[ed] into relationships with informers, who are often convicted felons working in exchange for leniency, or with FBI agents” working undercover. Some suspects are “incompetent and adrift, like hapless wannabes looking for a cause that the informer or undercover agent skillfully helps them find.”  Noting that the FBI is “cultivating potential terrorists,” Shipler asked, “would the culprits commit violence on their own?”

That’s what the FBI claims – that it thwarted the deadly plans of Brandon Baxter, 20; Anthony Hayne, 35; Joshua Stafford, 23; Connor Stevens, 20; and Douglas Wright, 26. The plot allegedly began last fall after Doug Wright discussed deploying smoke bombs as a decoy while individuals toppled bank signs from skyscrapers in downtown Cleveland, and evolved with FBI planning into using “C4 plastic explosive devices” to demolish a bridge connecting the Ohio communities of Brecksville and Sagamore Hills.

Stephen Anthony, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Cleveland office, claimed during the May 1 press conference “that at no time during the course of the investigation was the public ever in danger.” So if the public was never in danger, was there ever a threat?

To get to the bottom of the story I traveled to Cleveland shortly after the arrests and interviewed about 20 friends and family members of the "Cleveland 5," as supporters are calling them. They describe a group of naïve, vulnerable and even desperate individuals that the FBI preyed on. A government informant provided the five with jobs, money, a place to live, a friendly ear, beer, pot, the prescription stimulant Adderall, and most significant, the ideas and means to carry out a plot conceived by the Bureau itself.

The Lost Boys

Friends describe the five – everyone calls them boys or kids – as “quasi-hobos” and on the losing end of society. Lea Tolls, a 46-year-old mother and self-described “Occu-mom,” says, “Except for Connor [Stevens] they were destitute. They are angry, some have mental illnesses, and there is alcoholism and abuse in their families.”

Kaiser, a Cleveland occupier, told me that Doug Wright, the alleged ringleader, was “like a big brother to me. He ran away from his parents when he was 12.” Everyone invariably mentioned Wright was a train hopper, an explanation that accounts for his mangled nose, missing teeth and abrasive manner. Ben Shapiro, 26, an environmental organizer who was active with Occupy Cleveland last fall, said, “Doug was poor. He was angry, had a hard time dealing with people and was short-tempered.” Nonetheless, numerous youth said Wright was protective of and cared about them and was a hard worker. Zachy, a lanky 21-year-old who hung out with the five, says, “Doug actually did shit. He was running logistics at the Occupy camp. He was the one that knew how to tie knots and put tarps on the tents.”

The story is the same for the others: lost souls wanting to help others. Most Cleveland Occupiers were wary of Anthony Hayne, the oldest of the accused, labeling him a “con man,” “swindler” and “schemer.” Lea Tolls defended him, stating, “Tony was an addict, and we treated him accordingly.” Others added that Hayne's mother died a week before Occupy Cleveland began. Jonnie Peskar, 22, a member of Occupy Cleveland, says one night another defendant, Brandon Baxter, told him his life story, “He grew up in violence. He and his dad would fist fight. Brandon talked about how he was traumatized growing up.”

Gloria, a friend of Brandon Baxter's, called him “an absolute joy to be around. He wants to help everyone he comes in contact with.” But he also suffered from “horrible depression” and tried to kill himself in February by jumping off a bridge before being talked down by cops, she claimed. “He spent weeks in the hospital from the suicide attempt.” As for Joshua Stafford, who is known as Skelly, his mother anonymously told the media of a troubled life, saying he had been “in and out of hospitals, prisons, jails. He's just been a troubled soul since he's been born.” 

Joshua Stafford and Brandon Baxter are also described as highly impressionable. Tolls says Stafford, “would have done anything anyone told him to, just to have friends.” Peskar says Brandon Baxter admitted to him, “‘I’m easily brainwashed because I was pulled into being a Neo-Nazi.’ Brandon was in a very confused state. He always contradicted himself.  He didn’t know what he wanted.”

Of the five, only Brandon Baxter and Connor Stevens appear to be in contact with their families. Curious as to how Stevens was caught up in the trap, I sat down with his family in their modest ranch house in the suburbs of Cleveland to hear of a thoughtful and passionate young man trying to surmount life’s obstacles on the path to adulthood. Stevens' mother Gail describes her son as “extremely intelligent" although "school didn’t engage him.” Connor Stevens dropped out his junior year. In his sophomore year, Stevens and some friends founded a social justice group called “Fighters for Freedom” that was quickly shut down by the school administration. He was also elected class president, but was not allowed to serve because of a low grade point average. When he was 16 he told his family he was gay, which his siblings said neither surprised nor fazed them.  

Gail also spoke of family troubles that affected Connor and her other children deeply – her mother and sister passing away in quick succession, followed less than a year later by her husband James running afoul of the law in 2001, which resulted in more than two years in prison for him and the dissolution of their marriage. Gail went from a stay-at-home mom to the sole breadwinner and had to handle the stress of moving her family into her father’s house.

Occupy gave Connor Stevens a sense of belonging. Gail says, “I was excited for him. There was something he could actually be part of in Cleveland.” In early 2012 he began to say “he wanted to be a pastor. He felt he was being called.” She read a letter Stevens sent her from the Corrections Corporation of America facility near Youngstown, Ohio, where he is being held. He wrote:

“I am in good spirits and feel at the top of my game physically, mentally, spiritually. … I have great faith and do not underestimate the power of prayers. The bible I’m reading, the New American, in which I’ve been focusing on the Old Testament, speaks constantly of the Lord’s uplifting the oppressed, siding with the poor, the downtrodden, the widows and the orphans. I believe God is on our side. The scripture you quoted from Jeremiah is very fitting. And just before I came down to our last visitation … I read Psalms 27:1. This is my rock, this passage. It conveys everything.”

The Plot Begins

Cleveland 5 supporters claim that Connor Stevens and possibly others were threatened to participate in the plot. Others interpret as a threat a comment in the FBI affidavit in which the informant tells the group they are “on the hook” for the explosives. Interviews with more than a dozen Cleveland activists also provide evidence that a possible FBI asset by the name of Ryan is still floating around Cleveland and is cryptically mentioned just once as “Ryan LNU” (Last Name Unknown) in the criminal complaint against the five.

The FBI plot begins on October 21. On that day the city of Cleveland announced it was shutting down the two-week-old occupation in the downtown Public Square. Organizers say Occupy Cleveland held a rally on Oct. 21 more than 500 strong, including nonviolent civil disobedience, while choosing to roll up dozens of tents in the camp so as to save its equipment from imminent confiscation by the police.

Also on Oct. 21, the FBI’s “Confidential Human Source” (CHS), subsequently identified as Shaquille Azir, made contact with Douglas Wright. The affidavit states: “Based on an initial report of potential criminal activity and threats involving anarchists who would be attending an event held by a protest group, the Cleveland FBI directed the CHS to attend that event.” That night, the FBI report continues, while most occupiers were engaged in protest, a group of seven men “was constantly moving throughout the crowd expressing displeasure at the crowd's unwillingness to act violently.”

Numerous friends of the five dispute this account, saying violence was never raised. Because there is no audio recording of the encounter, as there are for many others, the FBI claims could easily be fabricated, which would mean the basis for the investigation was spurious. People present say there was a tactical dispute between “do-it-yourself” punk kids, which the five identified with, who wanted to keep the camp going, and more mainstream, college-educated occupiers who agreed to take down dozens of tents while staging a nonviolent civil disobedience action to demonstrate support for free speech rights. Zachy and Natalie, friends of the five, say the punk kids were disillusioned with both the decision to end the occupation and what they saw as an ineffectual protest, but no one discussed violence.

'Silly Kid Things'

Zachy says, “About a week after the collapse of tent city on Oct. 21, we created a group called the Revolutionary People’s Army. We were being romantic. We were drunk and high … Doug, Connor, Brandon, Joshua and Tony were all involved in the RPA. There were a couple of serious meetings and it turned into spray painting Guy Fawkes masks, 'Rise Up' and 'RPA' and 'circle A' anarchist symbols around town. We also plastered 'Wake Up' with circle A and Occupy stickers. RPA was real tongue-in-cheek. It was silly kid things.”

Tolls calls them “boys playing cowboys and Indians with fireworks and spray paint," adding, "They were trying to empower themselves and passionately wanted to change their world. Occupy gave them hope. They were targeted by the FBI and culled from a peaceful group. They were guided toward this by individuals who provided the means and motivation. They didn’t have these violent actions in them.”

It was from these childish antics that the FBI claims that Doug Wright conjured up the initial plot – deploying smoke bombs as cover as while toppling bank signs from buildings such as the Key Bank tower. Friends of Doug Wright laugh at the allegations. They mention that with Wright’s smashed-up face and punk attire he would not even be allowed into the building, much less be able to scale the 947-foot-tall skyscraper and blast off the enormous red key affixed to the outside.

Ben Shapiro, who is highly regarded in the activist community, says he noticed suspicious activities he interprets as police disruption. “Certain people were actively trying to isolate the Cleveland 5 from other organizers last fall by spreading rumors they were FBI agents.” Additionally, says Shapiro, during the first few weeks of the occupation at the centrally located Public Square, “We saw people in strange white vans circling around the square, conducting surveillance. They were parked in an area downtown where anyone else would have been towed or ticketed within minutes.”

After the encampment ended, Shapiro says he was concerned about the punk kids and cautioned them against engaging in unsafe behavior. “They had every reason to be frustrated – there were poor group dynamics and an inability to reoccupy the square.” At the same time, he adds, “They were good kids and were coming up with elaborate plans on how to hide their tents in backpacks.” Shapiro says the activity wasn’t a strategic answer to the loss of space, but “it was very spirited.”

In hindsight, says Shapiro, there was “evidence of narcs … People spreading rumors, isolating members of the community, providing money, transportation and space.” He emphasizes he is referring not only to Shaquille Azir, but to the shadowy Ryan as well. When he heard news of the arrests, Shapiro says, “I saw the list of names. I saw this group of kids that had been targeted was now entrapped. It seems so fabricated.”

Zachy says during the next few months the five except for Anthony Hayne (whom he said was serving a jail sentence) would regularly stop by the one remaining tent downtown to pull night shifts. Zachy adds that in early November Ryan tried to recruit him to meet Shaquille Azir, telling him, “This guy is buying us breakfast and will give us a house with no strings attached.” Zachy says he was suspicious and declined the offer. Despite multiple claims that Ryan is in contact with Azir and even recruiting people to meet him in the fall, Ryan is only mentioned once in the affidavit in February 2012.

Over the winter, according to the FBI affidavit, the contact between Shaquille Azir and Doug Wright is sporadic. Azir and Wright reconnect in mid-February at the same time Occupy Cleveland rents a warehouse as a crash pad for occupiers who were maintaining a presence at the tent.

Anarchist Romper Room

In mid-May, I ventured to the red-brick warehouse dubbed the "fortress.” Entering the decrepit building was like walking into an anarchist Romper Room: tents pitched indoors, graffiti, belongings strewn about, people dozing mid-day, dirty dishes and pungent toilet odors. It was here that Brandon Baxter, Connor Stevens, Tony Hayne and Joshua Stafford reassembled. I joined half a dozen people around a table as they puffed hand-rolled cigarettes incessantly. They were clearing out as the lease was up the next day. Right off the bat, Zachy said, “A lot of us had never lived in a communal situation. This was the first time living away from our parents. Dishes were always a fight. We’re a bunch of uneducated kids.”

When the topic of cleaning came up, Rachel jumped in, “I got the name ‘mother hen’ for always complaining. ‘Come on guys, clean this trash up.’”

The discussion repeatedly circled around to Ryan. The warehouse crew expressed suspicion because Ryan appeared in mid-October, saying he drove up from Florida, but soon had connections to Azir, whom virtually no one ever met outside the five. They also mentioned Ryan would take regular road trips in his car and claim his steady source of income was via his parents wiring money to him.

In April everything comes to a head. Jonnie Peskar said Doug Wright seemed excited one day in early April. He says Wright told him, “Today is going to be a really good day. My boss has some joints waiting.” Peskar continues, “Shortly thereafter Doug asked Connor if he wanted work. They told me multiple times, ‘It’s a really cool job. He gives us beer. He smokes us out.’”

Gail said this is the first job her son ever had in his life, the first time he made money – five bucks an hour. She showed me text messages Connor Stevens sent her at the time:

“A long day of labor for me. Made $60, long day 9:30 am to 9:30 pm … If I wanna do it again, I gotta get up at 9 tomorrow. Lifes rough.”

“I kinda feel like an ant”

“My friend doug got me the job. The $ goes fast. Turned out not to have work today. Still needa get footwear.”

As the alleged plot to blow up the bridge takes shape, the warehouse members say Shaquille Azir would swing by the warehouse in the morning to pick up the boys to do home repairs, but he would sit in the car and never interact with anyone else. Rachel says she asked Doug Wright for work with Azir, but was rebuffed, as were others who offered their services. Friends of Baxter's say Wright hooked him up with work with Shaquille April.

Peskar says jobs weren’t the only thing Azir was hooking them up with. Baxter admitted to him that he was taking Adderall, a widely abused prescription stimulant. Peskar says, “Connor was also taking it, and mentioned, ‘I have a connect for Adderall.’ Both Wright and Baxter said the connection for the Adderall was Azir. I asked Baxter where he got it from, and he said ‘Doug’s boss.’”

The warehouse was also buzzing with rumors that something was afoot. One individual told me that someone asked him, “Did you hear that Doug is trying to blow up a bridge?” The individual said, “I literally laughed it off. I said Doug is a moron. He doesn’t know how to do anything like that.” Another person fingered Ryan as the source of the rumors. Ryan allegedly told them in early April, “The warehouse is going to get raided. There are people who are going to do something dangerous with explosives. It’s sitting at a house.”

I pointed out to the warehouse group that after such a dramatic incident like the arrest of the five on terrorism charges, there is a tendency to see everything that happened over the previous months in a paranoid light. Julia Boyd, who is active with Occupy Cleveland, says, “A lot of the detrimental effects of this is everyone is suspicious of everyone else.”

I suggested maybe Ryan is just crazy, not an FBI operative. One person got Ryan on the line and put him on speaker phone. After a minute of small talk, Ryan claimed someone they all knew had been arrested. Everyone was concerned this signaled a wider sweep of activists on terrorism charges. Except hours later I met up with the person in question who was never arrested and was adamant that Ryan is an FBI operative. I was able to find Ryan’s number and called him. A male answered who claimed he wasn’t Ryan and hung up after a minute. Subsequent attempts to contact Ryan by phone were unsuccessful.

It remains to be seen if Ryan is on the FBI payroll or just mentally unhinged, but lawyers told me that at minimum Ryan would be of interest for the defense lawyers for the five and it might be possible to determine if he is a paid agent. Another lawyer, who has been handling high-profile political cases like the Cleveland 5 for nearly 40 years, mentioned that in addition to the use of undercover agents and informants, the FBI employs "agent provocateurs" to infiltrate and discredit political movements, changing the name of programs to make it appear as if it has reformed its underhanded ways.

In the case of the five Chicago activists who have been swept up on terrorism charges, defense attorneys charge that two police informants nicknamed “Mo” and “Gloves” were the masterminds. In the post-9/11 era the FBI has up to 60,000 informants and spies around the United States, according to an expose by Mother Jones. The FBI cut its teeth as a repressive police force during the Red Scare after World War 1, raiding homes and deporting thousands of legal foreign-born radicals in the labor, anarchist and socialist movements. After World War II, the FBI destroyed thousands of lives and decimated the left during the McCarthy Era. The FBI famously spied on Martin Luther King, Jr., during the 1960s and at one point thousands of agents were devoted to disrupting and sabotaging the anti-Vietnam War, student and black liberation movements.

During the 1980s the FBI spied on Central American solidarity activists. Since Sept. 11 the FBI has snared hundreds of Muslim Americans in cases involving informants who supplied the ideas, motivation and means for a terrorist plot. In recent years the FBI has termed “animal rights and environmental extremists,” as well as anarchists as some of the main domestic terrorist threats. It has used infiltrators, most infamously one code-named Anna, to entrap environmental activists. In 2008, the FBI sent a snitch by the name of Brandon Darby on a fishing expedition, and he managed to cajole and push two Austin, Texas youth into agreeing to make Molotov cocktails at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. These were all political cases as are the two against the Cleveland 5 and the Chicago group.

The fact that the FBI sprang cases during the biggest Occupy events this year – May Day and NATO – indicates it has the Occupy movement in its sights. They are hardly the only ones. Reams of federal government documents secured by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund reveal widespread government surveillance and information gathering on the movement ranging from the Department of Homeland Security to the Pentagon. The public interest legal organization asserts that the documents regarding Occupy Wall Street “scratch the surface of a mass intelligence network including Fusion Centers, saturated with 'anti-terrorism' funding, that mobilizes thousands of local and federal officers and agents to investigate and monitor the social justice movement."

For now the Cleveland 5 are languishing in jail. Connor Stevens and Doug Wright have been on suicide watch according to those who visited them. Brandon Baxter wrote in a letter dated May 19, “So Skelly was just dragged out of his cell a bit ago, He wrote ‘They all want me to DIE’ all over his walls, They said they'll bring him back, but he may be a suicide watch for awhile.” 

Their trial has been set for September 17, 2012, the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street, after the defense objected to Sept. 11, which was originally scheduled as the trial start date.

Summing up the feeling of many supporters, Lea Tolls says, despite their hard backgrounds the five “all have good hearts and souls. I tried to give them comfort, guidance and stability. I used to call them my lost boys, and now they’re very lost. The richest country in the world can’t support them, give them healthcare, a proper education and they end up falling through the cracks. Instead of helping them, the FBI targets them for something nefarious and violent. It’s just disgusting that the government uses them towards this end.”

Arun Gupta is a founding editor of The Indypendent newspaper. He is writing a book on the decline of American Empire for Haymarket Books.

A Diversion We Don't Need