MEDIA ROOTS – Video documentation by independent media outlet Rogue Media exposes how police officers and county deputies from across Minnesota have been picking up young people in Minneapolis to participate in a DRE drug training program to “recognize drug-impaired drivers.”  Multiple participants of the program claim that the officers provided them with incentives such as free cigarettes and food in order to take illicit street drugs. 

The Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has been present at Peavey Plaza in Minneapolis since April 7th, and the OWS activists appear to be the primary targets of the DRE program.  Some of the participants claim they’ve even been offered free drugs by cops to become informants and snitch on other Occupy activists.

 Rough Cut Documentary about the Minnesota DRE Program

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Image by Johnny Firecloud

RT TV — Mumia Abu Jamal is an African American writer, journalist and activist whose infamous prison case has sparked international outrage for decades.  In 1981, Mumia was charged with first degree murder for allegedly killing a police officer, but many have disputed the evidence that put him behind bars and demand for him to be re-tried.

He has spent the last 29 years of his life on death row, but in January of this year the sentence was reduced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.  At the “Occupy the Justice” rally in Washington DC, Abby Martin of RT spoke with protesters who gathered in solidarity with the Occupy Movement to “Occupy the Justice Department” on Mumia’s 58th birthday.

Hundreds rallied in front of the Department of Justice to call attention to not only Mumia’s case, but also to the inequalities of the US justice system, the privatization of the prison industry and to end mass incarceration in the US, where currently one out of every 100 Americans are in jail.

People have long used Mumia’s case to lobby attention to the inherent corruption and racial inequality in the American prison system.

Mumia supporter Matthew Johnson equated the racial injustice surrounding Mumia Abu Jamal to the controversial case of the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. “It’s the whole idea that if you’re black, you’re somehow more dangerous than a white person. [In the case of Trayvon] you’re carrying iced tea and Skittles and wearing a hoodie and somehow you’re a threat to a man who weighs 60 pounds more than you who has a gun. It just wouldn’t happen the other way around.”

He continues to explain that this particular case needs to be broadened in the context of social justice for everyone, regardless of color or creed.

Some came to protest more generally what they called the prison industrial complex, in which government and corporations collude to keep the private prisons occupied to capacity with prisoners. Activist Kevin Price elaborates on the growing trend of for profit prisons. “As violent crime rates have fallen and imprisonment rates have skyrocketed, it just doesn’t make sense unless you are looking at [the issue] in the context of for profit incarceration,” he says.

Although the reduced sentence for Mumia was seen as a hopeful step for some, others claimed that it was simply a political strategy to appease the public while still not making any significant overtures towards justice for Mumia.

“That’s their way of trying to turn their back on the issue and get political with [it]… but justice requires that the innocent be free,” declares Baba Zayed Muhhamad, national minister of culture for the New Black Panther Party.

He continues to describe how the two most prominent African American politicians, Attorney General Eric Holder and President Barack Obama, have turned their back on the black generation. “Barack Obama made the mistake of saying that we’re the ones that we’ve been waiting for, and we’re not going to wait on them. We’re going to see that we get justice for that generation and… better opportunities to create justice for our children. We’re not going to compromise with that.”

Abby Martin for RT

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RT TV – On Friday, student protesters confronted police in Montreal, Canada. Riot police used stun grenades, pepper spray and batons to beat student protesters in the city’ downtown. The outrage comes from anger over rising tuition costs in the country. A crowd of protesters attempted to interrupt a speech by Premier Jean Charest. Citizen journalist Bernard Desgagne joins us for the breaking update.

Abby Martin interviews citizen journalist Bernard Desgagne about the recent riots.

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Photo by flickr user Hozinja

MEDIA ROOTS — When you’re Julian Assange, you just can’t do right.  The USA’s establishment has got it in for him now.  Doubtless, they’d like to grab him like Bradley Manning.  Assange says he’ll be called a traitor for interviewing radicals.  Journalist Glenn Greenwald says the attacks on Assange and RT reveal as much about the critics:

“The real cause of American media hostility toward RT is the same as what causes it to hate Assange: the reporting it does reflects poorly on the U.S. Government, the ultimate sin in the eyes of our ‘adversarial’ press corps.”

“In other words, like Assange, [at RT] they engage in real adversarial journalism with regard to American political power. And they are thus scorned and ridiculed by those who pretend to do that but never actually do.”

Messina

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SALON — A new news show hosted by Julian Assange debuted yesterday on RT, the global media outlet funded by the Russian government and carried by several of America’s largest cable providers. His first show was devoted to an interview with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (video below), who has not given a television interview since 2006. The combination of Assange and a Russian-owned TV network has triggered a predictable wave of snide, smug attacks from American media figures, attacks that found their purest expression in this New York Times review yesterday of Assange’s new program by Alessandra Stanly.

Much is revealed by these media attacks on Assange and RT — not about Assange or RT but about their media critics. We yet again find, for instance, the revealing paradox that nothing prompts media scorn more than bringing about unauthorized transparency for the U.S. government. As a result, it’s worth examining a few passages from Stanley’s analysis. It begins this way:

“When Anderson Cooper began a syndicated talk show, his first guest was the grieving father of Amy Winehouse.”

“Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, unveiled a new talk show on Tuesday with his own version of a sensational get: the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.”

That contrast — between one of America’s Most Serious Journalists and Assange — speaks volumes already about who is interested in actual journalism and who is not. Then we have this, a trite little point, impressed by its own cleverness, found at the center of almost all of these sneering pieces on Assange’s new program:

“Mr. Assange says the theme of his half-hour show on RT is ‘the world tomorrow.’ But there is something almost atavistic about the outlet he chose. RT, first known as Russia Today, is an English-language news network created by the Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin in 2005 to promote the Kremlin line abroad. (It also broadcasts in Spanish and Arabic.) It’s like the Voice of America, only with more money and a zesty anti-American slant. A few correspondents can sound at times like Boris and Natasha of ‘Rocky & Bullwinkle’ fame. Basically, it’s an improbable platform for a man who poses as a radical left-wing whistleblower and free-speech frondeur battling the superpowers that be.”

Let’s examine the unstated premises at work here. There is apparently a rule that says it’s perfectly OK for a journalist to work for a media outlet owned and controlled by a weapons manufacturer (GE/NBC/MSNBC), or by the U.S. and British governments (BBC/Stars & Stripes/Voice of America), or by Rupert Murdoch and Saudi Prince Al-Waleed Bin Talal (Wall St. Journal/Fox News), or by a banking corporation with long-standing ties to right-wing governments (Politico), or by for-profit corporations whose profits depend upon staying in the good graces of the U.S. government (Kaplan/The Washington Post), or by loyalists to one of the two major political parties (National Review/TPM/countless others), but it’s an intrinsic violation of journalistic integrity to work for a media outlet owned by the Russian government. Where did that rule come from?

Also, while it’s certainly true that the coverage of RT is at times overly deferential to the Russian government, that media outlet never mindlessly disseminated government propaganda to help to start a falsehood-fueled devastating war, the way that Alessandra Stanley’s employer (along with most leading American media outlets) did. When it comes to destruction brought about by uncritical media fealty to government propaganda, RT — as the Russia expert Mark Adomanis documented when American media figures began attacking RT  – is far behind virtually all of the corporate employers of its American media critics.

Read more about Attacks on RT and Assange reveal much about the critics.

© 2012 Salon Media Group, Inc.

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Julian Assange’s The World Tomorrow: Hassan Nasrallah (E1)

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RT – Assange ‘traitor,’ show ‘foul’ – The World Tomorrow Sparks Media Frenzy

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Photo by Flickr user Espenmoe

MEDIA ROOTS — Independent journalists have a passion to get information out to individuals who might not otherwise receive it and most often require supplementary sources of income to survive.  Here at Media Roots, life’s no different.

My second line of work is operating a pedicab, a three-wheeler that helps shuttle tourists to various monuments, memorials, and museums in the nation’s capital.  Pedicabs have been in operation here for over five years and boast a perfect safety record and a near-perfect customer satisfaction record.  And while 38 police departments now claim jurisdiction within the District, only the U.S. Park Police find issue with the hard-working and generally light-hearted independents operating on the National Mall.

Most pedicabbers have other lines of work, like indy journalists, and are typically rather articulate and rational.  The majority have never had previous issue with the law and are not looking to create any unnecessary trouble for law enforcement.  But after only a few hours at the third-most popular tourist attraction in the United States, anyone can witness how the aggressors wear an official costume, while the pacifists cruise around accepting gratuities.

While peddling on Sunday, March 25, I found myself pulling up to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum at approximately 3:00 pm.  Another pedicab appeared to have been abandoned in front of the museum.  And nearby was a Park Police cruiser.  In order to prevent the missing operator from having to pay the $195 to recover the cab from the impound lot, I briefly attempted to cart the empty cab back to our shop downtown.

Almost immediately, Officer Blake of the U.S. Park Police, the same officer whom had issued me a previous citation just weeks before (only to be dismissed by DC adjudication services), appeared and ordered me to not take the human-powered vehicle.  I immediately complied and moved approximately 20 feet from the scene.  Blake would follow me and continued to instruct me I couldn’t stop where I had – in front of a parked tour bus.

“Where would you like me to go?” I asked.

“Off the Mall,” he would reply with an unlawful attempt to exile me from over 300 acres of public property.

Unsure how to respond, I steered my pedicab to what appeared to be a legal parking spot a motor vehicle had just vacated.  Again, the officer was hot on my trail.

“Give me your ID. You’re getting a ticket.”  I complied with no hesitation.  In order to maintain a level of accountability, I also pulled out my video camera to capture the scene.

“Put your camera away,” he continued.

“I don’t have to put my camera away.”  After all, I am the organizer for DC CopBlock and quite familiar with the First Amendment.

“Put your hands behind your back.”

I had officially been placed under arrest, despite the fact that two other pedicabbers were seemingly ignored by officer Blake.  I was in utter disbelief that not only was I getting arrested again (the first arrest in November, also a charge for resisting arrest, was eventually dismissed by federal prosecutors), but I was now getting arrested for a Constitutionally-protected act.

As the handcuffs were aggressively placed on my already-sore wrists, I became dizzy and uncertain about the officers’ intentions.  They screamed orders at me, even though I was not talking back nor were there any loud noises nearby.  A tourist and his son a few feet away were visibly traumatized by the incident with the younger crying and his father yelling at the police for their blatant display of excessive force.

“Stop resisting,” Officer Hiatt continued to yell at me, even though he was close enough to kiss me.

“I’m not resisting,” I calmly replied, uncertain what else to say.

The officer then slammed me down to the gravel.  Because I was already cuffed, I couldn’t break my fall and ended up landing face-first.  The fall knocked me out for a minute and the trauma to my shoulder is still present to this day.  But the emotional damage of a tyrannical police force, operating without regard to the law or morality might take years to recover from.

Oskar Mosco is a regular contributor for Media Roots

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TBD — Two Park Police officers bend down to look at another groaning black-haired pedicab operator, his face against the grass and lying on his stomach on the National Mall. They talk into their radio. On the street is a little green pedicab, abandoned. One officer fastens handcuffs on the young man, a manager at National Pedicabs.

This pedicab operator calls himself Oskar Mosco and is the same one who was arrested last fall and formed the D.C. Pedicab Operators’ Association to advocate for operators amid the evolving regulations and allegations of harassment that have come up in the last year.  He was last arrested in November, but the case was dismissed earlier this year.  The National Park Service controls the pedicab territory of the National Mall, and Park Police enforce the rules.  Yet the NPS is still developing its formal pedicab regulations, which will apparently mirror those the District Department of Transportation released last year.  The Park Police note that D.C. traffic regulations apply, however, and regularly write tickets to the region’s pedicabbers.

Mosco attempts to ask what orders he disobeyed.

“We are no longer discussing this,” the Park Police officer tells him. “You are under arrest.”

The two officers pull Mosco to his feet and escort him to a police car, in which a second pedicab operator sits, as Mosco shouts that he was arrested for videotaping the police. “You should not get arrested for videotaping a police officer!” Mosco yelled to onlookers in front of the Natural History Museum. “This is a free country, not a police state!”

Pedicabs are a human-powered transportation option that fill a unique demand in an increasingly petroleum-dependent society. They have proven to be safe and fun in areas that demand a variety of transportation options. The very survival of America’s emerging pedicab industry depend on a population that is informed, and concerned, with the what else can be possible. Those interested in following the development of American pedicab culture can follow the page Everything Pedicab.

Read more about Two D.C. pedicab operators were arrested on the National Mall.

© 2012 TBD

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Photo provided by Daniel Blackwell.