MEDIA ROOTS – At Ground Zero this past September 11, a more docile crowd congregated at the site for eternal mourning. The number of family members and protestors were generally smaller and most in the 9/11 Truth movement honored a four-hour silence out of respect for the victims and their families. What ensued was a gathering of people from across the 9/11 landscape with several constructive conversations and very few emotional diatribes.

The goal for this year’s annual gathering of 9/11 questioners was to capture activists’ collective experience. Several individuals from around the country were featured, some whom made the pilgrimage from as far as the state of Georgia. New York City is the de facto home of the 9/11 Truth movement where weekly street actions continue at Ground Zero every Saturday for several hours each afternoon.

Reflections from the 9/11 Truth movement after 11 years.

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Oscar Mosko is a producer at truth-march and is managing editor at Media Roots.

MEDIA ROOTS – Federal agents are continuing to detain a Marine Corps veteran in Chesterfield, Virginia for posts made on his website that expressed discontent for the federal government and accuse elements of it for orchestrating the 9/11 attacks.

On the evening of August 16, FBI agents accompanied by US Secret Service and Chesterfield County police officers approached the home of Brandon J. Raub, 26, a decorated combat engineer who had served tours in Iraq and Afghanistan from 2005 to 2011.

After talking with authorities for “20, 30 minutes” it is still unclear what justification was used for his detainment as his posts did not mention any specific threats of violence to any person or place, nor did they include any imagery of destruction.

Having risen to the rank of sergeant, Raub returned home and continued to serve his country by helping establish the Richmond Liberty Movement. As an organizer, he frequently updated his web page with sentiment of an impending revolution. As a citizen journalist, he made several contributions to Don’t Tread on Me, a blog that serves the expanding liberty movement in the US. And as an American citizen, he could become an example of what’s to come with the newly signed, and heavily debated, National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

Mr. Raub was most likely legally abducted under state statute. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, individuals may be interned for up to 30 days if deemed necessary by a public mental health official. However, coincidentally, the state is leading the country in fighting the NDAA that was drafted in-part by Senator McCain and signed into law on December 31, 2011 by President Obama. In April 2012, state legislators passed a law that forbids state agents from assisting the federal government in the suspension of due process against citizens of that state. The law went into effect on July 1, 2012 which means Chesterfield Police were in direct violation by aiding FBI and US Secret Service in Raub’s detainment and transport should this have been executed under the controversial law.

Both the Richmond bureau of the FBI and the US Secret Service claim that Raub was not arrested but rather simply detained for psychological examination. Chesterfield Police also claimed they did not make an arrest but were only aiding in the transport of Raub. This, however, is classic doublespeak as the very definition of arrest is to “seize a person by legal authority and take into custody,” which is exactly what occurred.

Additionally, Article I, Section 9 of the US Constitution has been clearly violated. Drafted well after the Magna Carta which initially enshrined the concept of Habeas Corpus, the section specifically safeguards against unlawful detention: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” The Latin phrase literally means “may you have the body” and implies that a person detained by the state must be formally charged within a very short period of time. In the United States, the government is given 24 hours to arraign an individual and makes no mention of lawfully detaining a person for merely the potential to commit a crime.

Those close to Raub have boycotted the corporate media throughout this encounter and consequentially are getting very little exposure among the masses. “We believe that the mainstream media is compromised,” writes Raub’s mother, Cathleen Thom. “Thank you to all the real media sources out there who daily place their very lives on the line to report uncompromising truth to the American people.”

The civil liberties organization, The Rutherford Institute, publically stands by Raub in a statement issued earlier today. “For government officials to not only arrest Brandon Raub for doing nothing more than exercising his First Amendment rights but to actually force him to undergo psychological evaluations and detain him against his will goes against every constitutional principle this country was founded upon.”

Several pages on the internet are springing up in support of the liberty activist such as I Am Brandon Raub which has received a several dozen Likes in the past 24 hours. 

Oskar Mosco for Media Roots. 

Photo provided by Flickr user banspy.

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Filmed by Mr. Raub’s mother, the video shows Mr. Raub acting in a civil manner

as he is unlawfully detained by federal agents.

Marine who served with Brandon Raub testifies to his sanity

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MEDIA ROOTS — Abby Martin of Media Roots and RT extends meaningful and challenging questions to the iconic hip hop artist and activist Immortal Technique, who notes what “seems to be a meticulous strategy to keep anything that is thought-provoking out of the mainstream.”

Like other renegades, such as artists like Zack de la Rocha, Tom Morello, Morrissey and Paul Mooney, independent recording artist Immortal Technique delivers a potent interview on an array of sundry topics.  They discuss music, conspiracy, politics, culture and the evolution of consciousness throughout the extended thirty minute interview for RT TV.

Messina

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RT — Hip-hop artist Immortal Technique is a self-described social guerrilla.  Felipe Coronel is the real name of the Peruvian-born, Harlem-raised political activist who raps about politics, religion and racism.  Since the genesis of the OWS movement, Tech has been an active voice for the cause, and on July 10 a documentary will be released showing his everyday life.  He now joins us with more on his beliefs and his work.

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Abby Martin:  “Something you rarely see these days in the MTV-generated music industry mainstream: hip hop with a message of raw truth.  Felipe Coronel, better known as Immortal Technique, is a Peruvian-born, Harlem-raised hip hop artist and political activist, a self-described social guerilla.  Tech’s views about politics, religion, classism, and racism are expressed poetically and powerfully through his lyrics.  And some of his albums pack more historical relvance than an entire school history book.  To maintain control over his work, Tech has never signed with a label, which gives him ultimate freedom of expression.  He’s a vocal supporter of many political movements and struggles for justice.  Since the Occupy Wall Street movement started last year, he’s been an active voice of support for the cause.  And now a new documentary coming out July 10 gives us an intimate look at his life, music, and activism.  Here’s a sneak peek.”

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MEDIA ROOTS — Despite the national economy still tenuously hanging on life support and many cities financially flatlining, police departments throughout the U.S. still creatively invest enormous amounts of money in futuristc, “non-lethal” crowd control weapons.  As we arrive at a point in U.S. history when true democracy is fleeting and the 1% breed new ways of absolute control, the necessity to appear less heavy handed in response to large street protests becomes paramount.  U.S. power brokers seek ever devious ways to bend protesters to their will, whilst maintaining a positive image in the global media machine.

U.S. cities, such as Pittsburgh and Oakland have already introduced their citizens to the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD), a devastating weapon capable of causing permanent hearing damage.  The latest addition to this high tech class of police weaponry is the Silent Guardian.  The Silent Guardian emits a high powered beam of heat, much like a microwave.  The beam can generate temperatures over 120° Fahrenheit. 

During an era marked by popular unrest, we must ask ourselves, how safe do we feel being increasingly confronted by police weaponry more appropriate for armies and battlefields?  As U.S. imperialism delivers deadlier and more efficient violence across the globe, how easily can the same hardware and methods seep into civilian policing at home?  The distinction between the police and the military is fading as our two-party system criminalizes dissent and transitions toward paramilitary domestic repression.  With the G8/NATO summit coming to Chicago in May likely to be met with mass protest, U.S. citizens may get a more accurate glimpse of what’s to come in the land of the free and home of the brave.

MR

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ZNET — But the prohibition on such repression enforced by those traditions has had an ironically negative and authoritarian aspect in the context of concentrated capitalist and imperial power. It has provided a great incentive for corporate and state authorities to invest heavily in the deadly arts and sciences of propaganda and manipulation. It has encouraged “the 1%”and its servants to develop quieter methods of “taking the risk out of democracy” (Alex Carey) by “manufacturing [mass] consent” (Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky) through public relations, propaganda, media control, education control, highly controlled and personalized election spectacles, among other “soft” forms of population management. At the same time, the proscriptions against sheer repression have also incentivized American authorities to develop more subtle, technically sophisticated forms of repression that operate behind the scenes (the surveillance cameras that are ubiquitous in England and ever more prevalent in the U.S. are a key example) and to deploy forms of coercion that prevent or discourage citizens from assembling and protesting without creating provocative images of state brutality.

The legal and cultural ban on outwardly murderous rule in the nominally free and democratic U.S. has compelled elites and their servants to develop new, less provocative  ways to “incapacitate” angry and active citizens – more quietly sinister methods of repression that are deadly for democracy:  penned-off “free speech zones” and “frozen zones”[54] (where protestors are denied access to those they seek to influence),  “rubber bullets” that hurt and harm but do not generally kill, “concussion grenades” that disorient and confuse without generally shattering skulls,  tear gas and pepper spray that sends protestors running, Tasers that stun but do not generally kill[55], sonic canons and other acoustic devices that make your eardrums feel like they are splitting, and perhaps – someday soon to be deployed in freedom’s “homeland” – Raytheon’s perfectly named (for the purposes of my argument) “Silent Guardian,” which noiselessly seems to cook human skin and eyeballs and has the capacity “to inflict limitless, unbearable pain.”

Repressive acoustic and heat ray technologies can bring special technical dividends for those who wish to coerce without seemingly overly coercive. As Xeni Jardin explained as LRAD-toting troops with the Louisiana National Guard patrolled otherwise abandoned and black New Orleans in September of 2005: “Crowd control is a constant challenge to law enforcement — how to stop potential troublemakers without endangering those who are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Rubber bullets can kill, tear gas drifts with the wind.”[56] Jardin might have added that mass billy-clubbing looks really bad on YouTube in an allegedly free society; so does the close-range pepper-spraying of the faces of young sitting protestors (as occurred at the University of California at Davis and went viral on television and internet last November).[57] Who can forget the live-televised police riot images of from the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention – the wildly swinging police batons landing on the skulls and torsos of white middle class reporters and youth as the crowd chanted “The Whole Word is Watching”[58] (the chant was revived during last fall’s pepper-spray incident).[59] It’s not for nothing that Wall Street super-titan and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his NYPD forced news helicopters to land and ordered a de facto media blackout[60] when they went in for the kill on Occupy Wall Street’s original camp last November.

Better to blare and/or cook the right of public assembly to death in carefully focused and targeted ways without actually killing (Tiananmen Square 1989) or beating (Chicago 1968) anyone (or too many people) if you can help it. And without letting the acrid taste of your repression drift into comfortable middle class neighborhoods as occurred during the break up of the mass marches against the World Trade Organization in Seattle in November of 1999.[61]  Smart repressors keep it as clean, quick, and contained as possible.

Read more about paramilitary consequences for civilian rights.

©2012 ZNET

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Photo by Flickr user geeves

MEDIA ROOTS – The upcoming G8 and NATO Summits to be held in tandem in Chicago this year between May 19 – 21, will greatly influence the direction the United States is headed in, as well as determine Americans’ democratic fortunes for generations to come.  Chicago will be the first city other than Washington D.C. to host a NATO summit, and it will be the first time in 30 years that any city has hosted the events together.

As socioeconomic pressure mounts and political ineptitude grows, the fate of America hangs in the balance.  The Occupy Wall Street Movement (OWSM) may be at a lull, but its state of hibernation shouldn’t be mistaken for an end to populist activism.  Economic conditions have not improved and U.S. citizens are becoming increasingly fearful, anxious, and desperate.   Come spring, protesters will likely start pouring into cities once again to demonstrate their dissatisfaction.  

The phrase “The Global Crossroads” stands prominently atop the Chicago G8/NATO homepage.   Are the global elite aware of just how significant this theme is for the “99%”?   The world has yet to see the conclusion of last year’s fierce spurt of democratic action when civil unrest and political activism engulfed wide swaths of the globe, and the temporary quiet could be compared as simply a two minute break in between rounds during a champion title fight.  Instead of countries in the Arab Spring having the light shed on their revolutionary processes, the United States could very well find itself on the world’s center stage this year. 

Throughout the Arab Spring phenomenon, President Obama admonished countries like Egypt, Syria, Tunisia and Libya for not protecting the civil rights of their respective citizenry and denounced every foreign leader for unleashing iron fisted tactics of repression on their own people that frequently resulted in bloodshed.  Although the United States purports to uphold these very lofty democratic protections and ideals that legitimate the moral superiority to forcefully export democracy abroad, the world began to see through this façade while observing the heavy handed police state repression against OWS protesters.  

Lt. John Pike, a.k.a. ‘The Pepper Spray Cop,’ became a notorious global icon of excessive police force against dissent in the U.S.  Unfortunately, last year’s events at UC Davis, NYC, and Oakland may have only been pre-game warm ups.  The G8/NATO Summit will put the Americas to the test, as the showdown sets up between the people’s desire to preserve and exercise their Constitutional rights versus the elites’ desire to squash them.  Just as in 1968, the whole world will be watching.

Mayor Richard J. Daley of Chicago, who branded the 1968 Democratic National Convention a day in infamy for the American psyche, is also responsible for bringing phrases like “storm troopers” and “Gestapo tactics” into the popular vernacular when referencing the police response to large rallies.  Up until 1968, the Chicago DNC riots held the distinction of being arguably the worst acts of police brutality during the 20th century.   For its time, the show of police force that Daley summoned was akin to a tyrannical regime. The book Battleground Chicago details the assembled forces of the Chicago police:

“The usual police contingent of 6,000 officers on the streets grew to 11,900 on twelve-hour shifts, up from the usual eight. The city requested the mobilization of 5,649 Illinois National Guardsmen, with an additional 5,000 on alert, bolstered by up to 1,000 Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officers and military intelligence officers. Waiting for signs of trouble in the suburbs would be 6,000 army troops, including members of the elite 101st Airborne Division. The men were to be equipped with bazookas and flamethrowers.”

Although some of the protesters did antagonize the police by swearing and throwing small projectiles at them, the heavy handed police response and irresponsible conduct that resulted was completely unprecedented. Police indiscriminately beat protesters with nightsticks, sprayed them with tear gas, and trampled on people’s civil rights.

On the night of August 28, 1968, the hysteria exploded into a culmination of the infamous Hilton Hotel riots. On orders from Mayor Daley, the police were told “to shoot to kill any arsonist or anyone with a Molotov cocktail in his hand.” They rushed the crowds of protesters and unleashed a brutal onslaught of epic proportions, crushing skulls and leaving pools of blood in their wake. The mayhem unfolded in front of TV cameras as the whole world watched. Curiously, in the wake of the violent standstill, public opinion polls showed that a majority of Americans supported Daley’s tactics.

USA vs. DEMOCRACY – Chicago, Illinois 1968

Despite it being a global beacon of free speech, the United States doesn’t encourage a culture of dissent and protest, and it has a long history of quelling its political activism with violence.  Look no further than the union busting efforts of the Pinkertons in the 19th century.  From the first day we can say the word “flag,” we’re ingrained with nationalistic propaganda that the United States is an infallible and just entity, and the only option given to us as children is to toe the establishment line.

Furthermore, differences exist between the mindsets of populations in the U.S. and Europe.  Europe has a much more mature history of political unrest and revolution.  They have learned the difficult lessons we have yet to learn and as a result, European governments fear their people, whereas in the United States, people fear their government.  How much will the people fear Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the Chicago police force come May? 

For years, observers, such as economist Richard Wolff, have pointed out the stark contrast between the political diversity in European parliaments, with socialist, democratic-socialist, Greens, and other third-parties.  So, when economic meltdown occurs and austerity measures start to kick in to ‘bail out’ the banks, or siphon the people’s resources away, Europeans are more astute and well-informed to mount their resistance.  Whereas, in the US, prior to Wisconsin and Occupy, the two-party system kept everybody praying for the next election or the next saviour candidate.  Perhaps, this election year will be different with the Occupy Movement largely shunning the Wall Street Democrat Party’s overtures.

The anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters, one of the coordinators of OWS, put out a call to action to gather 50,000 protesters to descend on Chicago the weekend of the G8/NATO summit. According to their website:

“This time around we’re not going to put up with the kind of police repression that happened during the Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago, 1968 … nor will we abide by any phony restrictions the City of Chicago may want to impose on our first amendment rights.”

Unfortunately, Emanuel appears to be fervently following the lineage of Richard J. Daley by ‘rahmming through,’ if you will, a slew of draconian measures that will severely put the brakes on First Amendment rights.  Approved by the Chicago City Council in January, the new measures have affectionately come to be known as the “Sit Down and Shut Up” ordinances, already an ominous sign that points to tensions ratcheting up.  Evidently, Emanuel and other Chicago politicians have not learned history’s valuable lessons.

Some of the new “Sit Down and Shut Up” ordinances are: increased fines for civil disobedience (now $200-$1000 up from $25-$500), inclusion of passive resistance as a form of resisting arrest, the power to “deputize officers,” and requirement of $1 million in liability insurance for any large parade or protest, with each contingent needing to register one week in advance with the City.  Perhaps, the City of Chicago hopes that the increased fines will offset the enormous security costs of the event.

The total costs of the summit won’t be known until weeks after its completion.  However, the security cost is coming into focus.  To begin with, the Department of Homeland Security awarded a $54 million grant to Chicago.  The grant might only cover the basics, as there is an expectation that the host committee must additionally raise “between $45 million and $60 million in outside funds for supplemental security costs, delegation social events and related matters.”  The urgency for further financial backing may be fraying Emanuel’s nerves.  He will need sufficient funding to not only cover potential property damage but also to feed and house out-of-town cops.  Emanuel might look to corporate pockets for the extra millions needed, but is there a risk of the tab eventually being picked up by taxpayers?  He would be well-served to not drop the bill on the back of the “99%.”

Perhaps, Emanuel’s moniker of “Mayor 1%,” will be the new historical mark he’ll leave in the wake of the summit.  He’s well on his way, after receiving $4.9 million from the financial services industry for his mayoral campaign war chest.  This financial windfall continues his history as a beneficiary of the FIRE (financial, insurance, real estate) sector.  During his tenure as a member of the House of Representatives he received hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions from UBS, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, and Bank of America, among others.  There will clearly be a conflict of interest between his “99%” constituency and his “1%” vested interests come May, if it’s not already evident.

On the homepage of the G8/NATO summit, Mayor Emanuel states:

“Chicago is a magnet for those that think big.  There’s no better place for leaders to find solutions to the world’s biggest challenges than right here in the President’s hometown.”

Ironically, the real leaders, the ones who aren’t ideologically bankrupt or suffer from a lack of imagination, will be out in the streets and not in convention halls, fancy hotels or behind velvet ropes.  Come spring, the protesters will endeavor to water the seeds of democracy and grow organic ideals of freedom. The powers that be will try to stop this new generation of leaders with their battalions of paramilitary storm troopers, their LRADs, ADSs, and armored vehicles.

Chicago’s broad shoulders will be burdened, not only in terms of the city’s legacy, but in relation to the “global crossroads.”  How can America’s ‘Windy City’ still blow hot air about being exceptional, democratic, and free if those in power are viciously cracking down on its citizens who dare to exercise their Constitutionally-protected rights to free speech?

Democracy is not a right, it’s a privilege, and in order to maintain our rights healthy and strong, to prevent them from atrophying, they must be exercised.  The simultaneous G8 and NATO summits in Chicago will set the stage for what could be a very rambunctious summer and a scalding hot Republican National Convention in Tampa.  Despite whatever ordinances are passed, the people on the streets will not sit down and shut up.  The smallest indignity, like the one that occurred to Mohamed Bouazizi, has proven capable of catalyzing massive, widespread tilling of moribund lands, yearning for democratic change.  On December 17, 2010, Tunisian authorities confiscated Bouazizi’s fruits and vegetables and reportedly slapped him, leading him to commit self-immolation outside the governor’s office.  The first domino of the Arab Spring had fallen.  The American domino wavers, the disgruntled and angry masses will continue to fight for America, as their rights become eradicated, as their unions become busted and their public services privatized.

But will U.S. liberals and progressives line up to rationalise another four years of Obama-style US imperialism and domestic repression?  Without a radical and critical electoral analysis, protest movements render themselves supplicant, enabling an unresponsive Democrat Party to continue to handily take its constituency for granted and leave them organising another four years of protests to bemoan business as usual.

Polish activist Rosa Luxemburg once wisely said “those who do not move do not notice their chains.” So, will the chains come off or will Chicago succumb to the second pity? The stakes are high. So high that Chicago, and the fabled “city on a hill” might just come tumbling down.

Written by Adam Miezio

Photo by flickr user cikaga jamie