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$7.7 Trillion Funnelled to Wall Street by Fed

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UOwnBanksFlickrMikeLicht,NotionsCapital.comMEDIA ROOTS — The private, unaccountable, Federal Reserve operates above the law, as it dictates monetary policy.  That’s enough to spur Ron Paul followers into calling for an end to the Fed.  Now, if you shared in the justified rage of thousands of Occupy encampments across the nation, protesting, ‘Banks got bailed out, We got sold out,’ at the thought of hundreds of billions going to Wall Street in the name of trickle-down economics salvation, then imagine the rage at the news Bloomberg recently released.  Bloomberg has obtained thousands of pages of Federal Reserve documents under a Freedom of Information Act request revealing the Fed quietly funnelled trillions to Wall Street back in 2008 as Congress debated awarding banks those begrudged billions in bailouts.

If Ron Paul’s followers are misguided in their calls to ‘End the Fed,’ they are on the right track in pointing to the absurdity of having the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve System, privately run by unelected technocrats representing the 1%.  If the scale of the U.S. economy necessitates a central bank, at the very least, it must be publicly controlled.  As Thom Hartmann writes for Truthout, we need state banks a la North Dakota and the U.S. Treasury must “either buy the Fed from the for-profit banks that own it, or simply nationalize it.”  Meanwhile the token reformer in the Democrat Party, Kucinich, has called for something billed The Need Act.

This $7.7 Trillion dollar revelation is striking, as we are witnessing a breakdown of our capitalist economic system and of our political process.  The Occupy Movement and the journalists trying to cover it have witnessed the shredding of the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment.  This type of story, financial coup d’état, should be a national scandal and take centre stage, as we approach 2012 with the U.S. Presidential Election underway, not rumours of personal foibles. 

Messina

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TRUTHOUT — Do you know who Elizabeth Duke is? How about Donald Kohn or Kevin Warsh? No? Well – you should. Because while Congress was debating back in 2008 whether or not to bailout banksters with a $700 billion blank check – these guys and girls were just doing it. They were funneling $7.7 trillion to Wall Street under the table – without one constituent phone call – without worrying about one election – without having to give one explanation.

They were able to do that because they’re members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors – a group of people who are not voted into office, but have the power to completely dictate monetary policy in America. They are not politicians – they’re technocrats – they’re bankers and financial experts. Technocrats aren’t interested in democracy – it takes too long, and often the interests of the majority of voters don’t quite line up with the interests of the minority of bankers and foreign investors. Or – to put it in today’s terms – the interests of the 99% rarely line up with the interests of the 1%. That’s why – back in 2008 – the technocrats at the Fed weren’t interested in waiting for Congress – with all of its open debate and constituent services – to bail out the banks – they just went ahead and did it themselves. According to documents obtained by Bloomberg News – in 2009 – the Fed dished out $7.7 trillion in no-strings-attached, super-low interest loans to Wall Street’s biggest players.

That’s $7.7 trillion!

That’s more than half of the total value of EVERYTHING – every single thing produced in America – that same year. $7.7 TRILLION out the door – with no one bothering to inform the electorate about it until now. And since they were super-low interest loans – banks made enormous profits off of them. Six of the nation’s biggest banks – like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America – pocketed a not-too-shabby $13 billion in undisclosed profits, thanks to the deal with the technocrats at the Fed. So today – thanks to a decision made by technocrats, and not politicians – the too-big-to-fail banks are even bigger, and Wall Street has raked in more profits in just the last 30 months then they did in the entire eight years leading up to the 2008 financial crisis.

I guess the economic crisis that brought banksters to the ledge ended up being pretty lucrative for them in the long run. But the bigger picture is this: can our democracy survive future financial crises? As the world descends into financial turmoil on fears that the Eurozone may collapse, it’s the technocrats who are taking power – replacing elected officials.

The clearest example of this is what happened in Greece a few weeks ago. In order to preserve the euro – keep financial markets steady and ensure that foreign investors get what’s theirs – the technocrats at the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank demanded that Greece take a bailout. Knowing that a bailout would mean more layoffs – higher taxes and less benefits for the Greek people – Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou wanted to hold a national referendum on whether or not to take the bailout, just like Iceland had done a year earlier. He wanted the people – through democracy – to determine their own fate. But that never happened.

Just floating the idea cost Papandreou his job – he was forced out of office and replaced by a technocrat, Lucas Papademos, who just so happened to be the former vice president of the European Central Bank. Probably because when the Icelandic people were asked in a national referendum if they should take austerity cuts to bail out their banksters, they said, overwhelmingly, “No, let the banks fail.” But with a technocrat in charge, there will be no vote – a bailout will be shoved down the throat of the Greek people, and so, too, will painful austerity – anything to keep the banksters happy.

[Conservative] New York Times op-ed columnist Ross Douthat laid out this new reality of technocrat control in a recent article in which he wrote, “For the inhabitants of Italy and Greece, who have just watched democratically elected governments toppled by pressure from financiers, European Union bureaucrats, and foreign heads of state, it evokes the cold reality of 21st-century politics. Democracy may be nice in theory, but in a time of crisis it’s the technocrats who really get to call the shots. National sovereignty is a pretty concept, but the survival of the European common currency comes first.”

All signs indicate that we’ll be confronted with this problem once again in America – as another financial crisis, be it caused by Europe or some other bubble like student debt or housing, seems like a foregone conclusion at this point. And when it hits the fan – and the American people tell Congress no way in hell will they sign off on another bailout of Wall Street – then the technocrats at the Fed will takeover and our democracy will be irrelevant – just like it was in 2008 and 2009. That’s why we, the people, need to take back control of the Fed, and why the people of Europe need to take back control of their central banks and global financial institutions.

Only when the Federal Reserve becomes an instrument of the people to calm the mood swings of the market – and not a piggy bank for transnational banking corporations – can we really protect ourselves from a technocratic takeover in the future. And the way to do it is pretty straightforward – it was Alexander Hamilton’s idea back in the George Washington administration. Have the central bank owned by the US government and run by the Treasury Department, so all the profits from banking go directly into the Treasury and you and I pay less in taxes while the banksters on Wall Street can find a job at Wal-Mart.

The good people of North Dakota did just this, back in 1919, established something very much like this – the Bank of North Dakota – and it’s kept the state in the black, and kept its farmers, manufacturers and students protected from the predations of New York banksters for nearly a century. It’s time for every state to charter their own state bank, just like North Dakota did, and for the Treasury Department to either buy the Fed from the for-profit banks that own it, or simply nationalize it.

Only when we get control of our money out of the hands of sociopathic banksters will our democracy begin to function for the people instead of just for the banksters.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Photos by flickr user Late Night Task Force (synopsis) and flickr user Mike Licht, NotionsCapitol.com (above)

MR Transcript – Michael Ratner CCR on OM Repression

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USFlagflickrBeverlyandPackMEDIA ROOTS — Yesterday, Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights, discussed on Letters and Politics the Federal involvement in the coordinated nationwide repression of the Occupy Movement, evictions of OM encampments and the U.S. history of police state repression of dissent and First Amendment activities. He also talks about the recent disturbing provision, sponsored by Democrat Carl Levin, to the National Defense Authorization Act Bill S.1867, granting the Executive authority to order the Military to detain indefinitely U.S. citizens without charge.

Ratner asserts:  “The governments of various cities, mayors, in conjunction with the Feds, wanted to see [the OM] come to an end.”  He also points out the false pretexts for evicting OM encampments, which, because of the visibility, functioned as powerful symbols of economic disparity.  Ratner confirms there are deep First Amendment issues with the Federal repression and evictions of the OM encampments and reminds people have the right to expressive protest:  “Even the use of tents can be a form of expressive protest, certainly sleeping outside, particularly when it’s related to the homeless situation, is considered a form of expressive protest.”

Messina

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LETTERS AND POLITICS

Mitch Jeserich (16:09):  “Now for more on the evictions of Occupy encampments around the country, I’m joined by Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights.  He’s also the co-author of the new book Hell No:  You’re Right to Dissent in the 21st Century.  Michael Ratner, always good to talk to you.”

Michael Ratner (16:24):  “Mitch, it’s always good to be with you.”

Mitch Jeserich (16:26):  “Okay, so, reportedly more than a thousand police officers participated in evicting both Occupy Los Angeles and Philadelphia earlier this morning.  Most Occupations across the country have had one type of raid or another.  Here in the [S.F.] Bay Area, we still have two sizeable Occupations, one in San Francisco and one in Berkeley.  But what is your take?”

Michael Ratner (16:49):  “Well, we’ve seen over the last two weeks, it was really three weeks maybe, is a coordinated effort by the mayors, most likely, it appears, in conjunction with the Feds, start clearing the Occupied spaces all over the country.  And that’s worrisome because as long as they existed, I think, as a public symbol, we were really pushing this agenda in a positive, amazing way, both real democracy and economic disparities.  And the fact that they were all coordinated, you know, it makes you think this was a real threat to them.  It wasn’t just about, as they said, in the excuse in Los Angeles, something about health and safety.  The excuse in Philadelphia was they had to use a $50 Million dollar renovation of a plaza.  In New York, it was health and safety.  They come up with different excuses all the time.  But in the end, the bottom line is this visible symbol of economic disparity in the United States.  The governments of various cities, mayors, and, I think, in conjunction with the Feds, wanted to see it come to an end.”     

Mitch Jeserich (17:52):  “Do you think that’s what’s really behind this?  ‘Cos there’s a lot of people, at the same time, that would say, ‘Well, these are mostly plazas in front of city hall or whatever it may be. They’re not campsites.’  Issues like that.”

Michael Ratner (18:05):  “Well, there are deep First Amendment issues [here].  But, you know, we have won in New York in the past the right to sleep on the sidewalk.  And I think the big issue that comes in is, ‘Can other people use that space as well?’  That’s one issue.  But in New York, for example, we have Zuccotti/Liberty Park.  But we have 550 public plazas in New York, so the fact that the Occupy Wall Street people were dominating one and were willing, as far as I understand to negotiate how that domination would take place, it seems to me, and the answer to the question of, ‘Well, these are public for everybody,’ it does seem when you have an overriding issue like this and you have 550 plazas, the idea that you say, ‘Well, all of a sudden we have to clear this particular one,’ or in Philadelphia to make the renovations, or in Los Angeles, I’m not as familiar with the public space there, it does seem to me to be justified that you should allow the people under their First Amendment rights to continue those kinds of protests.” 

Mitch Jeserich (19:09):  “So, you think that people have the First Amendment right to form an encampment to protest?”

Michael Ratner (19:17):  “It’s called ‘expressive protest.’  And, you know, most people think of free speech as I have the right to speak to you now as I am.  But, in fact, the way social change happens and the way First Amendment protections are provided, it includes the right to assemble and to petition the government.  And expressive protest is permitted.  And that’s what you see when you wear, you know, a black armband in protest.  That’s what you see when you burn the American flag.  Those are all protected.  And we have won many cases saying that expressive protest is protected.  Even the use of tents can be a form of expressive protest, certainly sleeping outside, particularly when it’s related to the homeless situation, is considered a form of expressive protest.  So, I think we have a strong argument in many of these situations that, first of all, getting rid of the curfews, which [we] succeeded, in a number of cities.  We didn’t succeed as well on the sleeping part.  We succeeded on that in some cities.  So, it’s sporadic.  But I think it’s clearly protected by the First Amendment.  You have a right to protest by sleeping in a public space.  And that’s particularly tied in with the message of the protest, which is homelessness, housing, economic disparity.  Our view is that you have the right to do that.  As I said, the courts have been uneven on it.  But in some cases we’ve been winning.”

Mitch Jeserich (20:40):  “Again, we are speaking to Michael Ratner.  Michael Ratner is the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights.  He is the co-author of the new book Hell No:  You’re Right to Dissent in the 21st Century.  In your book, you, kind of, outline the policing of movements over the last decade or so, especially around some of the anti-globalisation movements.  Tell me about that and how Occupy Movements fit into this?”

Michael Ratner (21:05):  “You know, looking backwards, it’s interesting because everybody says, ‘Oh, where did this spring from? Where do we get all of a sudden Occupy Wall Street?’  If you look backwards to Seattle 1999, that was a protest against the economic disparities in this world.  If you look to the Free Trade [Area] of the Americas demonstrations in Miami, again economic disparities.  If you look to the G8 in Pittsburgh a couple of years ago, again economic disparities.  If you look at Montreal, again, against G8 and G20.  So, looking backwards, you see that there was a lot of bubbling up, and, of course, you look to North Africa.  But a lot of bubbling up of opposition to the economic division of the world and the way it was going.  Then you also look back to Seattle and you see what came out of Seattle.  It was the Seattle model of policing.  Even before 9/11, and as your listeners may recall, the demonstrators were actually successful in Seattle from blocking the delegates from getting to the World Trade Organization meeting that they were supposed to go to.  And, after that, they began to develop the governments, state, local, Federal, began to develop a Seattle form of policing. 

“And, of course, after 9/11 it got accelerated.  But some of the elements were there early on.  One is the Darth Vader-type outfits, which are militarised police that really send a message of, ‘You get out of here or we’ll use force and violence against you.’  You saw the use of penning.  You know, we had our march in 2003 against the Iraq War in New York.  We had tens of thousands of people, but none of us could really be in one place together.  They put us in pens on the blocks, so that we could only stay on those blocks and those pens.  That you’ve seen consistently.  We saw it in New York at Occupy Wall Street when they round up people on the Brooklyn Bridge.  We saw it at the 2004 Republican Convention in New York where they arrested 400 people by putting netting around them.  So, netting and penning came out of Seattle and came out of 9/11.  And, of course, tear gas, which you saw used in Oakland so outrageously is another form of policing.  Surveillance is another, is the beginning of that, trying to get information from people.  So, we’ve seen, really, what I would say is incredibly aggressive policing with Federal involvement, with huge amounts of money coming from Homeland Security into these local police departments, a huge amount of weaponry, really, a militarisation of the police that should just terrify us, really.”

Mitch Jeserich (23:41):  “Tell me about the 2008 FBI Guidelines, which I suppose regulate the Government’s domestic response to dissent.”

Michael Ratner (23:49):  “The FBI has an internal set of guidelines that were originally promulgated in [the] 1970s after all the exposures of what the FBI did to the Black Panthers, the Black Liberation Movement, the New Left , Communist Party, etcetera, a number of dirty tricks and surveillance.  And they were never great, but the key thing was in ’76 and on, they required there to be some kind of, what they called, criminal predicate before the FBI could start an investigation and start intrusive surveillance techniques.  They’ve been watered down and watered down and watered down ‘til there was very little left and at the end of the Bush Administration, Bush 2, [Michael] Mukasey, the Attorney General, issued a new set of FBI Guidelines that, essentially, removed any criminal predicate.  It really gave open season to the FBI to walk into every mosque in the country, to infiltrate every Muslim group, to infiltrate every anti-war group, to infiltrate the Quakers, to start surveillance.  And those were passed.  They don’t need to pass the legislator; they’re just passed by the FBI or they’re promulgated by the FBI.  A new President, in this case, President Obama could have decided to have his Attorney General [Eric] Holder issue a new, tighter set of guidelines, but he refused to do that.  So, now the FBI’s operating, essentially, with no restrictions.  And the best recent example, or good recent example, was the G8 Demonstration in Pittsburgh where the FBI labelled certain Quaker groups as ‘terrorists’ and started infiltrating them.  The Inspector General for the FBI was asked to look into, ‘How could they do this? These are Quaker pacifist groups? What is this?’  And he concluded that, while he didn’t like it, that it was completely legal under the Guidelines.  That gives you an example of the fact that we have almost, what’s the way to say this, almost no way of, really, restricting the FBI at this point.  And, of course, in New York we have our City Police, which are broad authority.  Then we have the FBI, of course, domestic.  Then we have the CIA operating here, although, we claim it’s not the CIA actually doing work; we’re just giving them information.  And then, of course, on my last demonstration that I walked, after we were kicked out of Occupy Wall Street, you know Zuccotti/Liberty Park, we had a court order to walk back into the Park briefly and along the entire path there are Homeland Security people, again, indicating the Federal involvement in making sure the Occupy Wall Street Movement is suppressed.   

Mitch Jeserich (26:34):  “Michael Ratner, I wanna turn our attention to Capitol Hill where the Senate yesterday [11/29/11] rejected an amendment to the Defense Authorization Bill that would have taken out language that would make law the indefinite detention of so-called ‘enemy combatants,’ have the Military take the lead in detaining people that are deemed ‘terror suspects’ regardless that they are apprehended in another country or even in this country and potentially even U.S. citizens.  This is Carl Levin, the Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee.  He is a Democrat and he is the principal sponsor of [the provision within this S.1867 bill authorising a President to order the Military to detain indefinitely U.S. citizens without charges].  He spoke about it on the Senate floor yesterday [11/29/11]. 

Audio of Democrat Senator Carl Levin (27:15):  “A citizen, the Supreme Court said in 2004, no less than an alien can be part of supporting forces hostile to the United States and engage in armed conflict against the United States.  Such a citizen, referring to an American citizen, if released could pose the same threat of returning to the front during the ongoing conflict.  And here’s the bottom line for the Supreme Court.  If we just take this one line out of this whole debate, it would be a breath of fresh air to cut through some of the words that have been used here this morning, one line.  ‘There is no bar to this nation’s holding one of its own citizens as an enemy combatant.’”

Mitch Jeserich (28:00):  “Again that was the Democrat Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin of Michigan.  He was speaking on the Senate floor yesterday [11/29/11].  And we are right now speaking to Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights.  Michael Ratner, your response to these proposals.” 

Michael Ratner (28:18):  “It’s hard to believe that Senator Levin was a legal aid lawyer once.  And it’s harder to believe he’s a lawyer.  And it’s harder to believe, maybe not harder, than he’s a Democrat.  Maybe it’s harder to believe he’s a lawyer.  It’s an utter misinterpretation of the Supreme Court’s position on Hamdi.  And just to be a tiny bit, not technical, but precise, [Yaser Esam] Hamdi was an American citizen picked up in the actual war in Afghanistan on the battlefield that was initially authorised.  That is not what the Levin legislation is any longer talking about.  He’s using that.  Of course, an American citizen, if he’s fighting against your forces in an actual shooting war, he can be picked up and detained ‘til the end of that particular shooting war.  It doesn’t make any difference, American citizen or not.  What this new legislation is doing, I mean, it’s saying that anywhere in the world in the so-called ‘War On Terror,’ not the shooting war in Afghanistan that took place for a number of months after 2001, but an alleged terrorist anywhere in the world, U.S. citizen or not, even in the United States, can be picked up and sent and put in Military detention and held there for life.  And part of the [S.1867] bill makes that detention mandatory.  It doesn’t even give the President the right to take him out and try him.  I mean it’s such an outrageous—”

Mitch Jeserich (29:40):  “I thought the President would have the right to issue a waiver.”

Michael Ratner (29:43):  “Yeah, right.  There is a waiver in that section, a very difficult waiver.  And, of course, the President, if we know anything about waivers, rarely, if ever, has exercised such a waiver.  In the current situation, which has to do with whether the President can get people from Guantanamo into trials, get people from Guantanamo transferred to other countries, he has a waiver for that.  But have we seen any waivers?  No.  So, the waiver is not really a relevant part.  What’s relevant here is that Senator Levin is, essentially, putting into law, I mean, part of what he’s putting into law is what Obama is already doing, which is preventive detention in general.  But he’s going beyond that and saying a certain category of preventive detention, including U.S. citizens has to mandatorily be detained by the U.S. Military.  They can’t, except for this waiver we just mentioned, be brought into a civilian trial system.” 

Mitch Jeserich (30:38):  “We haven’t had such a law since the 1950s and that was never used.”

Michael Ratner (30:43):  “Right.  That’s correct.  We haven’t had a detention law like that since the 1950s.  It was never used.  This law, there was an objection, this new law, the Japanese-Americans, you know, put in a letter saying, just like they did with our Guantanamo litigation earlier, ‘Look what happened to us. Is this what you want to happen to people living here? Detention?  Just look at what happened to us during the Second World War.’  And they know.  It’s hard for me to believe that the country is going backwards much faster than it’s moving forwards, at least not the country; Congress, the President, I mean they just don’t get it.  In the similar way they don’t get Occupy Wall Street.  They don’t get that the world has changed.  And they don’t get that the Constitution still has a place in our democracy.”

Mitch Jeserich (31:35):  “Well, it seems strange that this is happening now.  Osama bin Laden is dead.  We’re planning to withdraw by the end of the year from Iraq.  There’s even plans to get out of Afghanistan.  Yet, here we are putting many of the practices that we’ve seen over the last decade and solidifying them.”

Michael Ratner (31:55):  “Ten years after and the ten-year Guantanamo anniversary, January 11th.  If you had told me this, I was outraged obviously when they started Guantanamo, that I would be sitting here talking to you ten years later and these practices were becoming a permanent part of our law, I would’ve said, ‘It’ll never happen.’  And here it is.  And you have, really, remember, this term antediluvian, you know, before the flood.  These guys are operating in another theatre.  They’re ignoring the Constitution.  They’re looking at what they think is gonna sell on national security.  And you would think that Obama, after all of, you know, the killing of bin Laden and all those things that he would believe helping our national security, that they would stand up a little more for this.  There is one provision I don’t like, which is the one on the mandatory detention, but the rest of the preventive detention act they seem to be going along with just fine.”

Mitch Jeserich (32:52):  “Michael Ratner, thank you so much.”

Michael Ratner (32:54):  “Thank you very much.”

Mitch Jeserich (32:55):  “Again, Michael Ratner has been our guest, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-author of the new book Hell No:  You’re Right to Dissent in the 21st Century.”

Transcript by Felipe Messina

Photo by flickr user Beverly and Pack

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MR Transcript: Davey D Speaks With Carl Dix RCP

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WestDixCRGUCB120211MEDIA ROOTS — On Friday, December 2, 2011, at 7pm, at the Pauley Ballroom on the UC Berkeley campus, a dialogue will take place between Cornel West and Carl Dix.  This upcoming event open to the public free of charge is being organised by the University of California, Center for Race & Gender, which notes:

“Carl Dix is a longtime revolutionary and a founding member of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. In 1970 Carl was one of the Fort Lewis 6, six GIs who refused orders to go to Vietnam. He served 2 years in Leavenworth Military Penitentiary for his stand. In 1985 Carl initiated the Draw The Line statement, a powerful condemnation of the bombing of the MOVE house in Philadelphia. In 1996, Carl was a founder of the October 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality. Carl coordinated the Katrina hearings of the 2006 Bush Crimes Commission.”

Yesterday, Davey D broadcast an interview with longtime activist Carl Dix on The Morning Mix out of KPFA radio in Berkeley, CA. 

Some will take issue with the Revolutionary Communist Party, yet acclimate to extremes on the Right.  Some will stay open-minded and employ critical thinking.  Others take issue with the RCP’s reclusive figurehead, Bob Avakian.  Yet, it’s hard to dismiss RCP spokesperson Carl Dix’s cogent, radical analysis of U.S. imperialism, hegemony, and domestic repression, which, following Obama’s nationwide militarised assaults against peaceful Occupy Movement encampments, is timely and logical.

And, whatever one may hold against Cornel West, such as his support for Obama in 2008, one must appreciate his dogged celebration of the Socratic Method, as he welcomes dialogue with thinkers from diverse schools of thought, even those of the RCP taxon.  And Carl Dix is certainly a worthy dialectician.

Among the sundry topics Carl Dix discusses in conversation with Davey D (below) is the role of Obama as the Commander in chief of the U.S. global empire; police state repression and its dimensions of White supremacy, as manifested through racist policies like Stop and Frisk and racial profiling; apathy among the masses and how we can wake the folk up; the pretext of national security to stifle dissent, S.1867 (passed by the two-party Senate today) granting the Executive the use of the Military and arbitrary indefinite detention against U.S. citizens, or anyone, in today’s U.S. global empire, and the titanic lurch toward fascism in the wake of coordinated Federalised assaults against the Occupy Movement; police brutality and repression; mass incarceration and the prisoner hunger strikes; the 1% versus the 99%; and what we can do about all of this.

The absurdity of militarised platoons of riot cops brutalising and repressing peaceful demonstrators, First Amendment activity, and even journalists covering it all makes this a timely discussion.

Messina

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THE MORNING MIX WITH DAVEY D

Davey D (7:10):  “Listenin’ to a little James Brown right here on The Morning Mix, Davey D hangin’ out wit’ you.  And there is big doings in the City of Berkeley in the [S.F.] Bay Area, come this Friday.  Pauley Ballroom, my old stomping ground, is going to feature an incredible dialogue between Cornel West and Mr. Carl Dix.  Carl Dix, of course, one of the founders of the Revolutionary Communist Party here in the U.S.  He is also the founder of the October 22nd Coalition Against Police Brutality.  And there are so many other things that we could talk to Carl about.  But he’s outspoken.  He’s an activist, a freedom fighter.  And he’s on the phone lines wit’ us this morning.  Carl, how you doin’?”

Carl Dix (7:52):  “I’m doing good, Davey.  How you doin’?”

Davey D (7:55):  “Good.  So, you and Cornel [West] have been kicking up a lot of dust.  That’s what we’re hearing.  And you’re bringin’ a lot of heat to some issues that many like to sweep under the carpet, in particular, police terror, incarceration, no jobs, miseducation, all in the age of Obama.  Let me start off with my first question.   Are you surprised that these issues are as problematic as they are with our first Black President?”

Carl Dix (8:21):  “No, it didn’t surprise me at all.  Because I peeped that when Obama was running for President, he was basically applying for the job of Commander in chief of the U.S. global empire and he was basically sayin’ I’m the best guy to meet the needs of the empire at this point.  And if you gon’ meet the needs of the U.S.’s global empire, that does not include getting jobs for the youth, ending police terror, correcting the way the education system works because all of that is built into the fabric of U.S. capitalism, historically and currently. 

“We’ve been doing this campaign to stop ‘Stop and Frisk’ here in New York City, which is a policy of the New York Police Department, under which they stop more than 700,000 people.  That’s the pace they’re on this year.  That’s 1,900 people each and every day.  And five out six of those people stopped are Black or Latino.  And over 92% of them are doing nothing wrong.  But this ain’t a mistake or an error in judgment.  This is a system based upon exploitation that has no future for the youth.  So, rather than allow them to get roused up and rise up the way that youth did in the 1960s, they have criminalized them and tried to lock ‘em down.  And whatever colour the President is, he’s going to preside over that and see that that’s carried out.”

Davey D (10:04):  “Let me ask you.  When you just mentioned that figure of the ‘Stop and Frisk,’ 700,000 people being stopped, mostly Black and Brown folks in New York City.  How does this happen with 8 million people in a city and we just sit back and there’s no outrage.  We don’t see people, you know, bat an eye and say, ‘This is wrong. Let’s stop this.’  Have we been dumbed down that much?”

Carl Dix (10:32):  “There is some growing outrage.  But, on the other side, yes, most people buy into this.  And they’re told that this is done in order to protect them from crime and there’s a certain ignorance of the reality because, if it’s about crime, why is that 92-plus-percent of the people that the police stop, they can’t find the reason to even write ‘em a ticket?  And of the seven-plus-percent who do get violations or arrested, some of them weren’t doing anything wrong.  They just looked the wrong way at a cop, gave ‘em a little too much lip or were carrying a non-criminal amount of marijuana in their pockets.  But they were told by the cop to empty their pockets and when they took the marijuana out a cop arrested them for displaying marijuana in public.  Because in New York state it is not a criminal offence to have less than 25 grams of marijuana as long as you don’t display it.”

Davey D (11:33):  “Wow.”

Carl Dix (11:34):  “But then there’s a certain trick-bag for Black or Latino youth where the cop will tell you to empty your pockets.  If you refuse they arrest you for violating his order.  If you comply with his order they arrest you if you have that non-criminal amount of marijuana because it then becomes public.  That’s kinda how they go at this and how they go at criminalizing our youth.  But people accept it because they’re told it has to do with safety against crime.  And the police chief even goes to Black and Latino churches and talks about how he does what he does to protect their communities against criminals when, actually, they’re criminalizing the youth of that community.  And, you  know, Cornel and I wanna bring that to light, including that he and I collaborated on launching a campaign of non-violent civil disobedience aimed at bringing mass resistance [and] opposition to stop ‘Stop and Frisk.’”

Davey D (12:33):  “You know, a lot of people listening would probably say this doesn’t apply to me because it’s in New York City.  And others will say this doesn’t apply to me because the old adage, ‘If they have nothing to hide then they should just go along with the programme and expose themselves,’ you know.  ‘We’re in extraordinary times and this requires extraordinary measures in order to protect our population.’  I bring this up because yesterday [11/28/11] in the Senate they started debating a bill that was drawn in secret, the National Defense Authorization Act, which would give the President as well as the Military great powers in terms of stopping people and holding them as ‘detainees’ for an indefinite amount of time.  And to me, this is brought up by John McCain as well as Democrat Carl Levin, I wanna see if you can connect the dots between the two in terms of, you know, we let the kids get stopped and frisked in New York and now it could apply to anybody on a national level and we don’t seem to be outraged.  We were all eating turkey and enjoying the football games, myself included, and not really having our attention focused on these types of bills that are going through the House and Senate.”  

Carl Dix (13:52):  “Yeah, all of this does come together because ‘Stop and Frisk’ is a policy that’s applied in New York City and a couple of other cities across the country.  But most cities don’t have that explicit policy.  But there is probably no city across the country where the racial profiling that underlay ‘Stop and Frisk’ doesn’t get applied and isn’t spoken of, perhaps not explicitly, but as the way you go at crime.  What’s really happened is that Black and Latino youth have been made a criminalized group of society.  And they basically treat ‘em all like criminals, guilty until proven innocent, if they can survive their encounter with police to prove their innocence.  And we have to bring that into the picture because we remember Oscar Grant and the many other young Black and Latino people who did not survive those encounters. 

“But it also goes to this national security point because they have expanded that racial profiling.  I mean, we’ve talked about driving while Black or Latino, but we also gotta talk about flying while Muslim or Arab because that is also something that has become criminal.  And now with a bill like this, they are granting the Executive the power to determine for whatever reason that someone could be arrested, held, interrogated, treated as a national security threat, and not have to give them the ability to challenge that to have it heard in open court and to say, ‘Show and prove.’  Now, when Bush talked about grabbing that kind of power there was a lot of opposition.  But Obama came in as the anti-Bush and he has actually consecrated some of the things that were controversial under Bush because you look at the fact that they explicitly executed a U.S. citizen with a drone strike in North-East Africa and there wasn’t a [huge outcry] about that, similar to this [S.1867] bill that you’re talking about.  And people need to deal with that.

“This dialogue that Cornel and I are having is happening in a different situation because you’ve got this spreading Occupy Movement.  And that’s a very good development.  But we also have to deal with the fact that there were coordinated national assaults on the Occupy Movement.  You know, there were conference calls that the Mayor of Oakland was on with 15 to 18 other mayors and there was participation in that conference call from the Department of Homeland Security.  Now, people need to deal with the fact that protesting has become something that there will be national military security conference calls and coordinated assaults on.  And the assault that happened in Oakland was nothing short, on the Occupy Movement, was nothing short of a military assault.  I mean, we just gotta call it what it is.  When they start throwing flash-bang grenades and comin’ in the way that they came in, that was a military assault on people who were protesting.  Or the UC Davis thing where students sitting down with their arms linked were hit with pepper spray.  And we gotta deal with the pepper spray that the police routinely use is actually banned in warfare according to international law.  That’s what that came down to.  And you watch that cop very calmly spray those students and then shake his can, so he could spray ‘em some more.  They’re actually telling us something about what future they have in store for us.  And we need to be talking about how we’re gonna seize a different future because the future that they have is:  ‘If you go with the programme and don’t rock the boat, you can be a functionary in their oppressive, exploitative worldwide system. If you rock the boat or if you don’t fit into that, which is the case for huge numbers of Black and Latino youth, then they got a different future.’  They got prisons.  They got police.  You know?  They got all of this or being in their Military and going around the world and killing people for ‘em.”

Davey D (18:24):  “Right.  If you’re just tuning in, we have Carl Dix on the phone line wit’ us.  Carl Dix, well-known freedom fighter, activist, founder of the October 22nd Coalition Against Police Brutality, member of the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, founding member of that.  Let me ask you this, Carl.  You and Cornel are having this conversation Friday, UC Berkeley, Pauley Ballroom.  We’re gonna hear all this information, you know; some of the stuff you’re saying is gettin’ people riled up.  But now, at that point, what do we do to change that and can we have a change that, you know, or at least start to see change that’s immediate, understanding that ‘I don’t wanna wait seven generations; I’m not trying to get involved with something where we have to wait for, you know, my great-great-grandkids to receive the benefits. I wanna hear, now, some sort of solution that I can see.’  What’s the prescription at this point?”

Carl Dix (19:21):  “Well, the prescription, and this is going to be a dialogue, so we’ll have two people who’ll come at it with some unity and with some differences.  You know?  And I really respect and love my brother Cornel.  And we work together a lot.  Like I said, we started this campaign to stop Stop and Frisk together in addition to having these dialogues.  But I’m gonna come from the revolutionary communist perspective and I’m gonna put two things to people.  One is building a movement for revolution, which we gotta do right now.  Okay?  And I’m gonna develop that, bring out what that revolution would be like, what it aims to do, why it could bring a whole different and far better world into being.  And I’m also gonna say to people, ‘Whether or not you’re with that, that’s something that I want people to dig into and check out.’  And I’m gonna bring source material that I can encourage people to get into on that front.  I’m also gonna say, ‘We have to stop things like mass incarceration, 2.4 million people in jail in prisons all across the country, many of them held in torture-like conditions; policies like Stop and Frisk and racial profiling that serve as a pipeline to prison; the way in which prisoners are treated like less-than-human when they get out, denied access to government loans, public housing, even denied the right to vote.’  We have to actually build a fight around that right now and beat back some of this.  That’s what we’re engaged in doing in New York around Stop and Frisk. 

“The prisoners, themselves, in California stood up; and people need to relate to that struggle, support it, things like the hunger strikes that the prisoners in the California Special Housing Units waged, as well as other forms to, both, bring to light these horrors, but also to fight, now, to change them because they’re moving in a way that they wanna have us so locked down that there’s nothing we could do about it.  And, at the same time, I’m gonna engage some of the questions that are posed by the Occupy Movement because it has accomplished quite a bit.  It has moved people to resist the outrageous inequality in society, to stand up and fight back, but also to question why it is like this and what could be done about it.  And, like I said, I’m gonna engage why it’s like this because it’s like this because of capitalism in its very nature, what it functions based on.  And we need revolution to get rid of it.  And I’m gonna bring to them the kind of revolution that we need and the work that Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party has done on that revolution, how to make it, what kind of world we could bring into being and how we could go farther and do better than the previous revolutions that have occurred.” 

Davey D (22:27):  “Okay.  You know, let me just see if we can just get a couple of calls in with you—”

Carl Dix (22:32):  “Okay.”

Davey D (22:32):  “—before we let you go.  The phone number here, we’re talking with Carl Dix, he will be speaking with Cornel West this Friday at Pauley Ballroom, UC Berkeley Campus, in the age of Obama.  Him and Cornel [West] will have a conversation about police terror, incarceration, no jobs, and miseducation.  The subtitle: ‘What Is the Future for Our Youth?’  He’s on the phone line wit’ us and you could give us a call.  510.848-4425.  Once again, 510.848-4425.  Carl, while we wait for some of those calls, when you say ‘revolution,’ two questions come to mind.  Under the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act and the proposed new laws that they’re trying to push through and all that, that, kind of, makes you an enemy.  Are you concerned that all of a sudden before, you know, when you’re talking about this and you’re using words like ‘revolution’ and you are a member of the Communist Party, that all of a sudden you won’t find yourself locked up?  You know, because we have to, you know, you might be deemed a quote-unquote ‘terrorist’ in this day and age.  And, also, when we’re talking about ‘revolution,’ are we talking about, you know, goin’ to the rifle range and gettin’ a gun?  Or is there another approach towards this?”

Carl Dix (23:45):  “Okay.”

Davey D (23:45):  “I mean can we have a ‘revolution’ at the voting booth?”

Carl Dix (23:48):  “Alright.  Let me start with the second question and then move to the first question.  When we talk about ‘revolution,’ we’re talking about meeting and defeating the violent attempts at suppression that this governmental structure will undoubtedly launch at a revolutionary people.  Now, it is not yet time for the all-out move to revolution.  The society is not yet deep enough in crisis.  There’s not yet the revolutionary people numbering in the millions who are ready to put everything on the line and don’t wanna live another day under this system.  So, it would be in very much different conditions.  That’s what ‘revolution’ means.  And it’s about dismantling the repressive apparatus that keeps capitalism and its exploitative relations in effect here in this country and around the world and putting in its place a whole different society with a different economic programme that’s not based on exploitation, a socialist economic programme, that would be in transition to an end to exploitation and oppression once and for all.  That’s what ‘revolution’ is about.  That’s what we’re talking about.  And that’s what it would take to pull it off. 

“Now, when I talk about building a movement for ‘revolution,’ I’m talkin’ about a couple things.  One is bringing to people that things don’t have to be this way, that it isn’t like this is the best possible of all societies.  Revolution has been made.  It could be done again and we could go farther and we could do much better.  I’m also talking about an approach that we call fighting the power and transforming the people for revolution because we know people ain’t ready for revolution right now.  But they do need to resist these attacks and through the course of the resistance we try to bring out:  Where do these attacks come from?  Why do they continually come down?  And where do we need to go to end them?”

Davey D (25:45):  “Okay.”

Carl Dix (25:45):  “So, that’s what I mean when I talk about ‘revolution.’  And as far as this thing of, ‘Am I on some enemies list?’  I wouldn’t be surprised if I were.  I mean, I do know that at the time of the first Gulf War there were debates at the highest level of Government, as to whether people who were saying what I was saying should be arrested for it.  And this was like the early 1990s, we’re talkin’ about, because they were like, people who were criticising this move towards war before it happened were maybe ‘treasonous’ and should be gone after.  They decided not to do it at that point.  But I don’t hold back on what I say and say, ‘Well, I can’t say that because They may not like it and They may criminalize it.’  I have to say what I think is true because while the truth won’t set you free, in and of itself, if you ain’t basin’ yourself on truth, you ain’t gon’ get free.  If you’ based on a lie, you ain’t gon’ get free and humanity’s not gon’ get free.

Davey D (26:44):  “That’s real.”

Carl Dix (26:44):  “So, that’s how we go at it.  And we try to expose to people the ways in which all of this repressive apparatus is geared not towards their safety, but towards keeping the current status quo in effect.”

Davey D (27:00):  “Okay.”

Carl Dix (27:00):  “You know, and if you like this set-up with 1%, actually less than 1%, owning and controlling and dominating everything then go with it.  But if you’re against that then you have to talk about the mechanisms that they have that keep that in effect.”

 

KPFA FREE SPEECH PHONE LINES OPEN

Davey D (27:15):  “That’s the voice of Carl Dix.  It is 8:27 in the morning on The Morning Mix and we’re gonna take a couple of calls.  We’re gonna kick it off with Sharif in El Sobrante.  You’re on the Morning Mix.  How are you doing, Sharif?”

Sharif in El Sobrante (27:25):  “Alright.   As-Salamu `Alaykum.”

Davey D (27:27):  “Good.  What’s happenin’?

Sharif in El Sobrante (27:28):  “Alright.  Listen, I love this.  I’ve never heard of this brotha befo’, but he is well-spoken.  And he can certainly explain to me what the heck he’s talkin’ about.  I can dig it.  I also, are you there?”

Davey D (27:41):  “Yeah.  We’re listenin’.”

Sharif in El Sobrante (27:42):  “Okay.  Well, I would tend more towards socialism, which means a society of men or a group of men with one common cause.  Have him to deal with that, would you, please?”

Davey D (27:52):  “Okay.  Let me, before you hit that, Carl, let me just get another call in and then I’ll let you hit ‘em both—”

Carl Dix (27:57):  “Okay.”

Davey D (27:57):  “—at the same time.  Alright, so he asked a question about socialism.  Let’s go to Ayana in Oakland.”

Ayana in Oakland (28:02):  “Hello.” 

Davey D (28:04):  “Hey, Ayana, you’re on the air.  What’s your question or comment?”

Ayana in Oakland (28:06):  “Hi, yeah, question, kind of comment, maybe both.  Um, White Skin Privilege, White Supremacy:  During this Occupy Movement it just seemed like folks love having conversations about class and economy absent of that.  And I feel like that very basis is what has a lot of the structures be the way that they are today, just in terms of how they affect people of colour.  And, so, I’m just wondering where do you stand on that just in terms of [basic] conversation in terms of race constructed in that way—”

Davey D (28:46):  “Okay.”

Ayana in Oakland (28:47):  “—because that’s, essentially, what it is that we’re dealing with.”

Davey D (28:49):  “Okay.  We appreciate that.  So, Sharif wanted to know, you know, ‘socialism’—”

Carl Dix (28:52):  “Okay.  Socialism and White supremacy.

Davey D (28:54):  “Yes.”

Carl Dix (28:55):  “Okay.  Let me start with the second question first.  And those are both very good questions and, both, things I’m gonna get into more this Friday when I dialogue with Cornel.  And I really encourage people to come out.  I believe it’s going to be at seven o’clock.  I mean, on this question of ‘White supremacy,’ that is something that was built into the fabric of U.S. society from the very beginning, from when they dragged the first African here in slave chains and carried out genocide against the Native inhabitants.  And, literally, every bit of wealth in this country is based on that foundation.  And that is something that you ain’t supposed to talk about.  And, in fact, given that I’m gon’ be in California, one of the things that we got to address is the banning of affirmative action in the UC system.  It’s kind of like, ‘Oh, well, a couple of decades ago we ended Jim Crow segregation. So, of course, there’s no reason for any remediative action to be taken about the centuries of oppression that Black people, in particular, suffered.  So, that is a very important point.  Now, how do you go at it at this point? 

“And one of the things I’m gonna get into is the way we went at the struggle to build, bring dramatic mass resistance around ‘Stop and Frisk’ here in New York City.  And one of the things that we decided to do is we had to go down to Occupy Wall Street.  And we had some discussion and even some argument over whether that would be a wise thing to do, since this was mostly White young people who did not experience Stop and Frisk and the viewpoint that went out was, ‘Okay, they don’t experience Stop and Frisk, but if they’re talking about the 99% and they really mean that then they need to know what happens to part of that 99%, which is part of what is used to keep all of us down.  So, we went down there and we started telling people.  We did mic checks and started doing speak-outs around Stop and Frisk.  And, initially, only a few people responded, but as it developed, so far, each time that we have done, we’ve done three civil disobedience actions, each time a good section of the people who went and got arrested to stop Stop and Frisk were activists from Occupy Wall Street.  And they were people, they included a few Black or Latino people, but mostly they were White people, who were like, ‘I did not know this happened, but I can’t stand by and let it happen, you know, so-called, in my name. I have to register my opposition.’  And see that’s the kind of struggle we gotta take to people.  Be real about this thing about 99% ‘cos the 99% does not just suffer economic inequality across the board.  There is oppression aimed at whole groupings of people based on race or nationality within that 99%.  There’s oppression aimed at women within that 99%.  And a movement that’s really about addressing that has to be about addressing all of that.  And I would bring to that a view that it will take revolution to end all of that. 

“That’s what I bring to that, which brings me to the so the socialism question.  That’s why I wanted to go at it this way.  Socialism is an economic way to run a society.  It is also a political approach.  And for us, it’s a transition to a full classless communist world and that all of that needs to be in the mix because when you talk about meeting revolution one part of that is that you have to go up against a repressive structure that is aiming to keep capitalism in effect.  And you see that in the attacks on Occupy because even though people were merely protesting and raising questions about the nature of society, the people that the run the show decided that was a danger to them and needed to be repressed.  So, that’s part of it, but then even after you make the revolution, you have to deal with the fact that there are a lot of differences that are left over from capitalism ‘cos you can’t deal with all instantly right away.  One we’ve talked about, the oppression that’s aimed at Black people and Latino people, the White supremacy that’s in society.  You can take big steps on that, but the ideas that people have taken on behind that are something that you gotta work to get people out of.  And you gotta figure out the ways to do that, the same on the oppression of women, also, the fact that some people do mental work while other people do back-breaking labour.  You have to work to end all of those differences.”

Davey D (34:00):  “Right.”

Carl Dix (34:01):  “And doing that actually requires a transitional period.  And that’s why for us socialism is a transition to that full classless communist [world] where exploitation has been ended once and for all.  And Bob Avakian, the leader of the Revolutionary Communist Party, has done a lot of work on that.  And I’m gonna address some of it and I’ll also tell people about some of the sources like the recent book Basics, quotations and short essays from his work that get more deeply into that.”

Davey D (34:31):  “Okay.  You know, let me see if I can squeeze one more call in—”

Carl Dix (34:34):  “Okay.”

Davey D (34:34):  “—before we get to our other guest who’s here on The Morning Mix.  I believe we have Beverly out of Petaluma.  How you doing?  You’re on The Morning Mix, Beverly.”

Beverly in Petaluma (34:43):  “Good morning.  I found this a very interesting dialogue.  But I had a thought, which is that the word ‘revolution,’ in itself, is like a red flag to a lot of people.  And I was thinking that what about using the term evolution, which doesn’t have the same threatening connotations, and focusing more, rather than on how we can’t stand the way things are, on really creating a vision for how we would like things to be and doing that in a way that inspires people because simply fighting against something that’s wrong is not necessarily gonna lead to something that’s right.”

Davey D (35:35):  “Okay.”

Beverly in Petaluma (35:36):  “So, I wanted to suggest some way to inspire people so that the wrongness becomes intolerable, but they have a good feeling about the direction they’re moving in and making sure that happens.”

Davey D (35:56):  “Okay.  Let me let him get to that.  Carl:  evolution versus revolution.”

Carl Dix (35:58):  “Again, a very good question, a very good point.  And the way that we go at this, we feel, we have to lay bare what’s wrong about this set-up.  But at the same time we bring forward what the world could be like.  And, in fact, the Revolutionary Communist Party produced a draft Constitution for a future socialist republic in North America.  We produced that because we wanted to give people an idea of the kind of society that we are aiming to bring into being, how the government would work in that society, where elections would fit in, how education would be handled, how the rights of the people would be respected, how we would deal with international relations, how the economy would be run.  And we wanted people to know that, one, because we thought it would inspire people, but also we wanted people to be able to say, ‘This is what you’re supposed to be going for; now let’s look at how you’re going at it, whether it’s in line with what you’ve laid out there.

“Now, on this question about revolution and the connotations that go with it, we’re actually aware of the connotations.  The reason we feel like we need to use that term is that it actually describes the kind of transformation that’s needed.  You know?  And I know there are a lot of views of, ‘Can we just organise at a distance from the state and its repressive apparatus?’  We think that that is not a winning approach.  And you even see something like the Occupy Movement, which on one level was not directly challenging the state, but was protesting inequality and all that and the state violently came at it because it saw even people protesting and questioning as dangerous.  And I mean that’s what we’re up against.  That’s what we gotta deal with.  And we do need the kind of transformation that revolution represents, so that’s why we take that approach.  And I can further go into that when Cornel [West] and I talk this Friday up at the Pauley Ballroom at seven o’clock on UC Berkeley’s campus.  I also wanted to give people a phone number and a way to get programme information if they’re interested in more information.”

Davey D (38:22):  “Sure, what’s the number?”

Carl Dix (38:24):  “The number is 510.848-1196; I believe that’s the number for Revolution Books.  But also get programme information by going to the Center for Race and Gender at UC Berkeley’s website.  I believe that’s CRG.Berkeley.edu.”   

Davey D (38:58):  “Well, the Center for Race and Gender, they can find out if they Google.”

Carl Dix (39:02):  “They can Google it.”

Davey D (39:04):  “Okay.  And, again, the number 510.848-1196.  Carl, we’re gonna have to wrap up.  We appreciate it.  We look forward to seeing you on Friday at Pauley Ballroom and so thank you for hangin’ out.”

Carl Dix (39:12):  “Yeah, I look forward to getting out to the [S.F.] Bay Area.”

Davey D (39:15):  “Thank you for hangin’ out with us this mornin’.”

Carl Dix (39:17):  “Thank you.”

Transcript by Felipe Messina

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Aphex Twin’s Remote Control Orchestra in Poland

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MEDIA ROOTS — Watch Aphex Twin, aka Richard D. James, conduct a 48-piece orchestra and 24-piece choir by remote-control using midi controllers, headphones, and remote visual cues in Wroclaw, Poland.  This man is a living legend dedicated to the craft, truly one of our generation’s musical geniuses.  Richard D. James, ‘nuff said.

Messina

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Richard D. James

PITCHFORK — As previously reported, Richard James, a.k.a. Aphex Twin, was commissioned to compose a series of short pieces for the European Culture Congress in Poland. His commissioned works, available here, were produced in response to the composer Krzysztof Penderecki. But James also conceived a “remote orchestra” piece while in Poland, wherein he used midi controllers, headphones, and remote visual cues to conduct and control the sound of a 48-piece orchestra and 24-piece choir. Warp (via Self-titled) now points to video footage of the eery and highly cinematic performance, which took place on September 10 at the Centennial Hall in Wroclaw, Poland, and included members the AUKSO chamber orchestra and OCTAVA ensemble+. Watch it below, and check out more footage of Aphex Twin’s performances in Poland here.

© 2011 Pitchfork Media Inc.

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Bill S.1867 Seeks Military Powers Against Americans

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MEDIA ROOTS — Apparently, militarised platoons of riot cops repressing peaceful protesters with police brutality and intimidation wasn’t enough. 

As the Occupy Movement has been successful in powerfully impacting the U.S. body politic, Republican Senator John McCain and Democrat Senator Carl Levin have secretly written, in a closed-door session, a provision into this year’s Department of Defense budgeting bill, which would authorise Presidential use of the U.S. military against its own people by being able to arrest anyone, anywhere in the world, and hold them indefinitely without charges. 

This provision to S. 1867 currently on the Senate floor would expedite a U.S. President’s ability to further repress First Amendment activities beyond the exemptions already built into the Posse Comitatus Act and the powers granted to a U.S. President within the Insurrection Act of 1807.  Obama has claimed he’ll veto the bill, but it’s hard to imagine him vetoing the yearly budgeting bill for the DOD. 

If it’s passed, Obama will have a greater ability to brutally crackdown against dissent.  We’ve seen this coming: in 2008, the Military was deployed against peaceful protesters during the Democratic and National Conventions, as protests hit record highs of discontent.  With the Occupy Movement posing a serious challenge to business as usual as we approach the 2012 election year, the Senate has already drafted a pre-emptive strike against dissent.  Learn more about the bill and how you can stop it below.

MR

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ACLU — The Senate is going to vote on whether Congress will give this president—and every future president — the power to order the military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians anywhere in the world. Even Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) raised his concerns about the NDAA detention provisions during last night’s Republican debate. The power is so broad that even U.S. citizens could be swept up by the military and the military could be used far from any battlefield, even within the United States itself.

The worldwide indefinite detention without charge or trial provision is in S. 1867, the National Defense Authorization Act bill, which will be on the Senate floor on Monday. The bill was drafted in secret by Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) and passed in a closed-door committee meeting, without even a single hearing.

I know it sounds incredible. New powers to use the military worldwide, even within the United States? Hasn’t anyone told the Senate that Osama bin Laden is dead, that the president is pulling all of the combat troops out of Iraq and trying to figure out how to get combat troops out of Afghanistan too? And American citizens and people picked up on American or Canadian or British streets being sent to military prisons indefinitely without even being charged with a crime. Really? Does anyone think this is a good idea? And why now?

The answer on why now is nothing more than election season politics. The White House, the Secretary of Defense, and the Attorney General have all said that the indefinite detention provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act are harmful and counterproductive. The White House has even threatened a veto. But Senate politics has propelled this bad legislation to the Senate floor.

But there is a way to stop this dangerous legislation. Sen. Mark Udall (D-Colo.) is offering the Udall Amendment that will delete the harmful provisions and replace them with a requirement for an orderly Congressional review of detention power. The Udall Amendment will make sure that the bill matches up with American values.

In support of this harmful bill, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) explained that the bill will “basically say in law for the first time that the homeland is part of the battlefield” and people can be imprisoned without charge or trial “American citizen or not.” Another supporter, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.) also declared that the bill is needed because “America is part of the battlefield.”

The solution is the Udall Amendment; a way for the Senate to say no to indefinite detention without charge or trial anywhere in the world where any president decides to use the military. Instead of simply going along with a bill that was drafted in secret and is being jammed through the Senate, the Udall Amendment deletes the provisions and sets up an orderly review of detention power. It tries to take the politics out and put American values back in.

In response to proponents of the indefinite detention legislation who contend that the bill “applies to American citizens and designates the world as the battlefield,” and that the “heart of the issue is whether or not the United States is part of the battlefield,” Sen. Udall disagrees, and says that we can win this fight without worldwide war and worldwide indefinite detention.

The senators pushing the indefinite detention proposal have made their goals very clear that they want an okay for a worldwide military battlefield, that even extends to your hometown. That is an extreme position that will forever change our country.

Now is the time to stop this bad idea. Please urge your senators to vote YES on the Udall Amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act.

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Photo by Abby Martin

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