MEDIA ROOTS — NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg stood up for the police state in a recent radio interview, where he defended the NYPD’s targeted discriminatory surveillance of Muslim communities in New York and New Jersey. 

He cites rhetoric from the 9/11 Commission Report as justification to ignore constitutional protections of free speech as outlined in the Handschu agreement of 1985.  In the 1985 federal court decision, police were allowed to obtain a warrant to monitor political activity only if there was a previous suspicion of criminality.  However, in 2002, under Bloomberg and NYC Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, the post-9/11 NYPD requested that this decision be suspended, claiming it hindered them from preventing future terrorist attacks.

“We’re not going to make the mistakes we made after the 1993 bombing,” Bloomberg preached yesterday. “We cannot let our guard down again. We cannot slack in our vigilance. The threat was real. The threat is real. The threat is not going away.’’

Newark Mayor Corey Booker adamantly rejected the practice, stating that he was unaware of the NYPD’s widespread spying operation.  “If anyone in my police department had known this was a blanket investigation of individuals based on nothing but their religion, that strikes at the core of our beliefs and my beliefs very personally, and it would have merited a far sterner response,” Booker exclaimed.

Police Director Samuel DeMaio underscored this sentiment. “We want to be clear: This type of activity is not what the Newark PD would ever do.”

Rutgers-Newark hosted a rally yesterday to address the increased Muslim surveillance in the community. “We’re here to put a human face on it,” explained Nadia Kahf, chairwoman of New Jersey’s Council on American-Islamic Relations. Muslim student associations, referred to as MSAs by the NYPD, are of particular suspicion by the agency whose secret surveillance was created with the help from the CIA.

The practice even goes beyond the scope of the FBI, according to special agent Bryan Travers, a public affairs officer of the Newark Division. “The FBI follows strict guidelines and cannot open any investigation based simply on First Amendment activity.”

The issue gained momentum last week after the Associated Press published an article on Monday exposing the extent of the NYPD’s secret Muslim surveillance. The AP also posted a copy of a leaked NYPD report.

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Oskar Mosco is a writer for Media Roots and producer at truth-march.

Photo provided by Flickr user Boss Tweed.

MEDIA ROOTS — The number of deeply impoverished Americans has exploded since Obama took office, according to Panorama,  BBC’s weekly investigative news program.  In fact, the U.S. is more unequal now than any other time since the Great Depression.  Three million are newly unemployed while one-fifth of the wealth is earned by just one percent of the population.  Additionally, nearly 50 million are now uninsured, up from 46 million in 2008.

BBC Host Hillary Anderson takes viewers inside the storm drains of Las Vegas to meet some of the hundreds of formerly middle-class Americans now living below one of the richest cities on Earth.  She continues to interview a few of the 1.5 million homeless children in the U.S., where one child tragically explains how her family once had to eat rats because no other food was available.  Anderson also stops by Tent City outside of Detroit to meet those who have been surviving the harsh elements for over a year after losing their homes.

The once idealized American Dream is now an out of reach distant memory.  Social mobility in the U.S. may be the lowest it’s ever been—half the poor, about five million families of four, now earn less than $11,000 a year.  Yet, in one of the world’s richest lands it’s even more difficult for those that are impoverished to fully admit their situation. 

MR

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BBC’s Panorama: Poor America

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Photo by flickr user nyrk03

MEDIA ROOTS — Doubtless, many have heard of the U.S. targeted killing of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki under Obama.  But many may not know that al-Awlaki wasn’t the last U.S. citizen arbitrarily killed by the state, as investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill recently reported:

“You know, President Obama authorised strikes that resulted in three U.S. citizens being killed within less than a month in Yemen:  Anwar al-Awlaki, who was born in New Mexico; Anwar al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son; and then Samir Khan, who was another U.S. citizen from North Carolina and was the editor of Inspire magazine, the English-language publication of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.  All three of those U.S. citizens were killed within one month.” 

Obama drone strikes have arbitrarily killed hundreds of civilians worldwide including three U.S. citizens without conviction, trial or due process.  One might expect more public outcry.  Yet, in light of a recent Washington Post ABC News poll revealing that 77% of self-proclaimed liberal Democrats approve of Obama’s drone policy, it seems most progressives are prepared to re-elect Obama or sit idly by as he purchases a second term. 

But while we’re all indignant about the profoundly disturbing killings by the U.S. under Obama in Yemen and elsewhere, we forget the U.S. establishment is killing many more in the U.S.  Many U.S. citizens, such as Kenneth Harding and Oscar Grant, are gunned down daily by the state, igniting uprisings of a different sort in this country. 

Jeremy Scahill recently joined Amy Goodman to discuss U.S. intervention in Yemen and the arbitrary state killings of U.S. citizens.  However, it seems important to broaden discussions to allow investigative journalists to reflect upon U.S. violence abroad as well as state violence domestically.  The state killings of Anwar al-Awlaki and Oscar Grant are related, because they are all manifestations of the police state violence necessitated by U.S. imperialism under capitalism.

Mickey Huff, of Project Censored, has recently noted how the rise of U.S. targeted killings stems from the rise of torture perpetrated by the U.S., as the citizenry becomes increasingly complacent toward its continued use in a post-9/11 sociopolitical climate.  It may also be argued the rise of torture is, really, a continuation of poorly reported domestic torture of U.S. citizens, particularly people of colour and/or low-income.

The bold-faced tyranny of the state shows itself quite plainly, if we observe the historical record against labour, civil rights, and activists throughout U.S. history.  As Naomi Klein noted, it’s important to look at history and roots to survive the shocks intended to derail nations.  But then what are the people to do?  Protest or petition our masters?  Petitions are easily ignored, but also part of proving the futility of working through the system.  Protests are ignored, downplayed, or distorted by the United States’ mostly corporate-owned media machine, which reaches the most U.S. minds.  Protesters are intimidated, bullied, beaten, arrested, and worse for exercising their inalienable rights.  Yet, they must endure. 

Voltaire wrote:

“So long as the people do not care to exercise their freedom, those who wish to tyrannise will do so; for tyrants are active and ardent, and will devote themselves in the name of any number of gods, religious and otherwise, to put shackles upon sleeping men.”

Something is glaringly amiss beyond the Election 2012 hyperbole—our political discourse sorely lacks a culture of resistance to the two-party electoral system underpinning U.S. imperialism.  Today, many seem to enjoy an apathetic stance toward electoral politics because the only two choices are owned by the same corporations.  Yet, political parties rule this nation, in the Legislative and Executive branches, some would even say in the Judicial.  And although the people need a grassroots people’s party to pose a serious Left challenge, U.S. progressives throw their lot in with their chosen political organisations, which may focus on advocacy but leave electoral politics in the unchallenged hands of Wall Street. 

A serious debate about U.S. democracy must be undertaken.  Virtually everyone says they want democracy, but few vote and less do so from an informed perspective.  Progressives put their faith in the Democrat Party and get swindled every time.  We lack a culture of reflection to learn from the past.  Perhaps, new generations of progressives are fooled by Democrat Party promises because older generations do not own up to the consequences of supporting the two-party system.  We have a captured political system or, perhaps, a subservient and brainwashed body politic.  Both yield similar results.

Observing the U.S. in its youth, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote:

“The instability of the administration has penetrated into the habits of the people: it even appears to suit the general taste, and no one cares for what occurred before his time. No methodical system is pursued; no archives are formed; and no documents are brought together when it would be very easy to do so.”

They say, in a democracy, the people get the government they deserve or allow.  If one doesn’t like the choices one can work to change them, or open up the process to consider alternative candidates like Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party in 2012.  Otherwise, how can one complain about the next Democrat’s policies when one supported, or acquiesced in, that candidacy?  In the U.S., too many are more committed to their favourite celebrity or sports team, than they are to the political candidates or parties they choose or ignore and which impact their working lives. 

Progressives must analyse this question of apathy towards electoral politics or leave the task of influencing electoral politics to the highest bidder, which always hedges its bets between either side of the same two-party coin.

Written by Felipe Messina for Media Roots

Photo by Flickr user Mark Z

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MEDIA ROOTS — Residents in the Carroll Boone Water District (CBWD) of Arkansas might soon have fluoride removed from their water supply.  According to Rene Fonseca, a licensed operator with CBWD, the corrosive additive has been proven to leach lead from aging distribution pipes which is likely causing increased lead contamination in the region’s water supply.

Several other areas in the state of Arkansas have also opposed adding fluoride to their water.  Lobbyists from the fluoridation industry claim that CBWB taxpayers would not be strapped with the $1.23 million cost to install fluoridation equipment.  But the Mockingbird Hill Water Association in Boone County unanimously opposed adding fluoride to its water supply, stating that they don’t want to take any chances amidst the current economic hardship.

Last year, in the Southern District Court of California, a lawsuit was filed asserting the U.S. people have the right to neither ingest nor be exposed to a drug that has never been tested or approved by the Food and Drug Administration.  While the Surgeon General claims that the additive helps reduce tooth decay, only the FDA is chartered by Congress with the authority to approve claims of safety for products intended to treat and prevent disease.

MR

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Carroll County News — Eureka Springs has twice voted against fluoridation. Opponents of fluoridation say many other cities across the country have stopped fluoridating waters after studies have linked it to hypothyroidism, heart disease, learning problems in children and possibly cancer.

There are also concerns the fluoride products added to the water could be contaminated with toxic chemicals. The CBWD, which serves a population of about 25,000, contacted 49 suppliers of fluoride asking for proper American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and NFS60 certification that would list all contaminants by weight, and include information about toxicological studies pertaining to those contaminants.

“These are extremely dangerous substances,” Fonseca said. “The acute lethal toxicity of sodium fluorosilicate for an adult man is 6.2 grams, which is about the weight of an average driver’s license. At a water plant the size of CBWD, you would be dumping 150 pounds a day into the water — enough oral doses to poison 9,600 men a day or 297,000 men a month. This is not pharmaceutical grade fluoride, as you would receive in the dental office.

Read more about the fight for fluoride-free water in Arkansas.

© 2012 Carroll County News

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Photo provided by Flickr user Dottie Mae