By John W. Whitehead for Counter Punch – Unfortunately, this is how the government at all levels—federal, state and local—now responds to those who choose to exercise their First Amendment right to peacefully assemble in public and challenge the status quo. This police overkill isn’t just happening in troubled hot spots such as Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, Md., where police brutality gave rise to civil unrest, which was met with a militarized show of force that caused the whole stew of discontent to bubble over into violence. A decade earlier, the NYPD engaged in mass arrests of peaceful protesters, bystanders, legal observers and journalists who had gathered for the 2004 Republican National Convention. The protesters were subjected to blanket fingerprinting and detained for more than 24 hours at a “filthy, toxic pier that had been a bus depot.” That particular exercise in police intimidation tactics cost New York City taxpayers nearly $18 million for what would become the largest protest settlement in history. Demonstrators, journalists and legal observers who had gathered in North Dakota to peacefully protest the Dakota Access Pipeline reported being pepper sprayed, beaten with batons, and strip searched by police.
By William Boardman for Reader Supported News – country doesn’t need a monolithic totalitarian government to have an effectively working police state. The United States has had a partial police state in place since before it existed as a “free country.” Slavery required a police state structure to maintain “order.” Segregation required a police state structure. Ethnic cleansing of native peoples required police state management that still exists, most obviously in North Dakota, but also across the country. Fear of immigrants has fostered police state responses, especially under the Trump administration. Fear of Communists has produced police state responses since 1917, most notoriously during the 1950s McCarthy era. Fear of nuclear weapons and nuclear power, and their very real dangers, has produced a permanent police state security network. Fear of terrorism, spiked by 9/11, has produced a host of police state responses such as the 2001 Patriot Act (ready and waiting before the attack); such as expanded citizen surveillance by the NSA and some 16 other, more secret agencies; such as unprecedented punishment of whistleblowers for their truth-telling; and such as a unified police state structure euphemistically called Homeland Security, that encourages citizens to spy on each other…
By Leonard Eiger for Ground Zero Center for Nonviolence – The Trident Three were found guilty in Federal Court on charges of “trespassing” on a U.S. nuclear submarine/weapons base last May. Larry Kerschner, Gilberto Perez and Bernie Meyer, aka: the Trident Three, appeared in United States District Court, Western District of Washington at Tacoma on Wednesday, April 12th. Magistrate Judge David C. Christel presided over the proceedings. A large number of supporters were in the courtroom to witness the trial. The defendants had their cases consolidated, meaning that their cases could all be tried at the same time. Attorney Blake Kremer, who has supported and represented many nuclear resisters, represented Larry Kerschner, and acted as standby counsel for Meyer and Perez. All parties had already agreed to and signed the “statement of facts” that defined the events that occurred on May 7, 2016 when, during a vigil held by Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action, the three demonstrators engaged in a peaceful protest, entering the main highway and briefly blocking traffic on the federal side of the Main gate at Naval Base Kitsap-Bangor in Silverdale, Washington.
By Ashoka Jegroo for Truthout – This story is the fourth in a new Truthout series, Severed Ties: The Human Toll of Prisons. This series will dive deeply into the impact of incarceration on families, loved ones and communities, demonstrating how the United States’ incarceration of more than 2 million people also harms many millions more — including 2.7 million children. Paula Clarke and her family found themselves crawling half-naked on the floor of her Bronx home at 4:51 am on April 27, 2016, after multiple heavily armed men broke through her front door and demanded that she tell them where her son was. Helicopters could be heard hovering right about her home.
By Andrea Germanos for Common Dreams – U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday took aim at sanctuary cities, saying such communities must end and that his Department of Justice would deprive them of federal grants—a move that prompted the New York attorney general to vow his continued resolution in resisting the Trump administration’s “draconian policies.” “Such policies cannot continue. They make our nation less safe by putting dangerous criminals back on the streets,” he said during a White House press briefing. “We intend to use all the lawful authorities we have to make sure our state and local officials … are in sync with the federal government,” Sessions said.
By Paul Street for Counter Punch – “We are witnessing,” the engaging Black Lives Matter founder/hash-tagger Patrisse Cullors told a full theater audience of predominantly white University of Iowa students in downtown Iowa City last Monday night, “the erosion of U.S. democracy.” President Trump, Cullors said, “is building a police state.” “We must hold our elected officials accountable,” Ms. Cullors added, after giving an address in which she related having gone into a two-week depression after Hillary Clinton was defeated by Donald Trump. She had not expected Trump to win. Ms. Cullors told the audience that she knew how to fight Hillary Clinton but “not how to fight fascism.”
By Nafeez Ahmed for MEE – The report offers no insight on how Britain has destroyed the national security of other countries – and thereby threatened its own. In early December, the British government released its first annual report on the National Security Strategy and Strategic Defence and Security Review. Despite the total media blackout, the document reveals in stark detail the Conservative government’s plans to expand Britain’s military activities around the world. In the name of defending “national security”, Britain is building a “permanent” military presence in the Gulf to defend Britain’s access to regional energy resources
By William N. Grigg for Mint Press News – Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, a relentless self-promoter who christened himself “The World’s Toughest Sheriff,” has invited Phoenix-area parents to send their grade school and teenage kids to jail for the summer. “Summer Stars” is a two-day program supposedly intended to teach impressionable youngsters about the rigors of life behind bars, thereby deterring them from bad behavior. The program will be held in two sessions – June 23-24, and July 21-22 – and will be open for students from ages 8 to 18.
By Eleanor Goldfield of Occupy – This week, a wall is a wall until it’s – the sky? Ana Teresa Fernandez shows us how we might view things differently, simply through the application of color. Next up, I’m not one to celebrate a corporatized holiday but this mother’s day, leave the chocolates behind and stand up for peace. And finally, ever wonder where the idea for our militarized police came from? Trial, error and a determined piece of low life scum. But first, poetry Can.
By John W. Whitehead for The Rutherford Institute – In the American police state, the price to be paid for speaking truth to power (also increasingly viewed as an act of treason) is surveillance, censorship, jail and ultimately death. However, where many Americans go wrong is in assuming that you have to be doing something illegal or challenging the government’s authority in order to be flagged as a suspicious character, labeled an enemy of the state and locked up like a dangerous criminal.
By Claire Bernish for Anti Media – (ANTIMEDIA) Fascism doesn’t often sweep in overnight and take over some hapless nation’s government; rather, it gradually seeps into the cultural fabric — as is quietly taking place all around the globe, evidenced by an upsurge in sales of riot equipment that has gone largely unnoticed. A new report from analysts with industry research group, Sandler Research, forecasts the Global Riot Control System Market for the next four years — but beyond a burgeoning market to parallel the expanding global police state, it appears world governments are also keenly aware of civilian discontent.
By Anonymous Israel Activists for ICAHD-USA – We would like to alert you to an ominous development in Israel. Having denied Palestinians under Occupation their rights to any form of political protest, the Israeli government is now in the process of doing the same to Israeli citizens who support the Palestinian cause. Last week the Israeli police arrested Ezra Nawi, our friend and prominent dissident, who has been indispensable in the struggle for the survival of Palestinian communities in the South Hebron Hills.
By Sikivu Hutchinson for The Feminist Wire – Whenever there’s a black girl on a school campus wielding a dangerous weapon like a cell phone, white macho can always be counted on to come to civilization’s rescue with the full force of fascist violence. These days, unarmed black children rank higher than mass murderers with semi-automatic weapons as public enemy number one on American school campuses. Shortly after the videotaped assault of a cell phone wielding sixteen year-old Spring Valley High School student in Richland, South Carolina by a white male school resource officer went viral, a New York Times letter writer naively asked—“Why are children not treated like children when they do silly things?”
By John W. Whitehead for Information Clearing House – “Fear isn’t so difficult to understand. After all, weren’t we all frightened as children? Nothing has changed since Little Red Riding Hood faced the big bad wolf. What frightens us today is exactly the same sort of thing that frightened us yesterday. It’s just a different wolf.” ― Alfred Hitchcock. October 13, 2015 “Information Clearing House” – In an age dominated with news of school shootings, school lockdowns, police shootings of unarmed citizens (including children), SWAT team raids gone awry (leaving children devastated and damaged), reports of school resource officers tasering and shackling unruly students, and public schools undergoing lockdowns and active drills, I find myself wrestling with the question: how do you prepare a child for life in the American police state?
By The Independent News – Several speakers at last week’s Pleasanton City Council meeting raised objections to the city hosting Urban Shield, a regional preparedness training program for law enforcement, fire and emergency medical services. The event will be held at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton over a four-day period starting Friday, September 11. Those speaking described Urban Shield as a pro-war, $1 million trade show and training exercise funded by the federal government. It is expected that anti-war protestors will be on hand. According to its website, the overarching goals of Urban Shield include striving for the capability to present a multi-layered training exercise to enhance the skills and abilities of regional first responders, as well as those responsible for coordinating and managing large scale events.
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