DIR Return Create A Forum - Home
---------------------------------------------------------
Renewable Revolution
HTML https://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com
---------------------------------------------------------
*****************************************************
DIR Return to: Catastrophic Climate Change
*****************************************************
#Post#: 13144--------------------------------------------------
America’s Very Violent President— Time for a morality check on t
he US presidency!
By: AGelbert Date: August 6, 2019, 8:51 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Surly1 link=topic=4.msg13141#msg13141
date=1565136850]
[center]America’s Very Violent President— Time for a morality
check on the US presidency! [/center]
When giving a speech in Florida this past May, Donald Trump
asked his audience “how do we stop these people (immigrants)?”
Someone shouted from the audience, [b]“shoot them!”
[center]
[img
width=640]
HTML https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*I6Vxx3F-rZsiNjxTFoSxew.jpeg[/img][/center]
[size=10pt]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/general-discussion/you-will-have-to-pick-a-side-there-is-no-longer-room-for-procrastination/msg13141/#msg13141
[/quote]
[move][font=courier]America’s Very Violent President— Time for a
morality check on the US presidency! [/font][/move]
True. [img
width=40]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418202709.png[/img]<br
/>
[center][img
width=540]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-281017143754.jpeg[/img][/center]
[center][img
width=640]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-301216165623.jpeg[/img][/center]
[center][img
width=340]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-301216142007.png[/img][/center]
#Post#: 13255--------------------------------------------------
"The Public Is Now Aware That the Elites Are Taking Them To
Their Death!"
By: Surly1 Date: August 17, 2019, 6:08 am
---------------------------------------------------------
This interview would have never seen the light of day in the US.
they'd have Tucker Carlsoned this segment and have had Hallam's
children murdered before letting this see the light of day.
"The Public Is Now Aware That the Elites Are Taking Them To
Their Death!"
Roger Hallam BBC interview—like the infamous Newsroom scene with
Toby, but IRL.
Excerpt:
UK Corporopresenter: So on the science there's no disagreement
but are you saying that groups like Greenpeace and many many
others have fundamentally failed in their mission to convince
the world that things need to change?
Roger Hallam: Yes. We fundamentally failed. I mean I failed,
other activists have failed, campaigners have failed, we've all
failed. The fact of
the matter is were facing mass starvation in the next 10 years,
social collapse and the possible extinction of the human race.
It couldn't be worse. So that situation has come about over 30
years of failure failure by the elites, failure by the
governments, and failure by
campaigners.
UK Corporopresenter Cunt: Your message is entirely about
failure, it's about negativity.
Roger Hallam: It is in a way I suppose a howl of rage and
despair. That's right it is and you think that is a message that
the people of the world and the political leaders of the world
are going to respond to yes and the reason why is because when
people go through depression and rage they come out and decide
to do things- extinction rebellion is the most successful
climate change movement in the UK...
HTML https://youtu.be/NItiaVobDPA
#Post#: 13264--------------------------------------------------
Re: You will have to pick a side. There is no longer Room for Pr
ocrastination
By: AGelbert Date: August 17, 2019, 4:39 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Surly1 link=topic=4.msg13255#msg13255
date=1566040097]
This interview would have never seen the light of day in the US.
they'd have Tucker Carlsoned this segment and have had Hallam's
children murdered before letting this see the light of day.
"The Public Is Now Aware That the Elites Are Taking Them To
Their Death!"
Roger Hallam BBC interview—like the infamous Newsroom scene with
Toby, but IRL.
Excerpt:
UK Corporopresenter: So on the science there's no disagreement
but are you saying that groups like Greenpeace and many many
others have fundamentally failed in their mission to convince
the world that things need to change?
Roger Hallam: Yes. We fundamentally failed. I mean I failed,
other activists have failed, campaigners have failed, we've all
failed. The fact of
the matter is were facing mass starvation in the next 10 years,
social collapse and the possible extinction of the human race.
It couldn't be worse. So that situation has come about over 30
years of failure failure by the elites, failure by the
governments, and failure by
campaigners.
UK Corporopresenter ****: Your message is entirely about
failure, it's about negativity.
Roger Hallam: It is in a way I suppose a howl of rage and
despair. That's right it is and you think that is a message that
the people of the world and the political leaders of the world
are going to respond to yes and the reason why is because when
people go through depression and rage they come out and decide
to do things- extinction rebellion is the most successful
climate change movement in the UK...
[center]
HTML https://youtu.be/NItiaVobDPA[/center]
[/quote]
I just watched it. [img
width=30]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-210614221847.gif[/img]<br
/>Roger Hallam gets it [img
width=40]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418202709.png[/img]<br
/> [img width=25
height=30]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-080515182559.png[/img].<br
/>The 🙉🙊 status quo defending 😈 UK
Corporopresenter doesn't.
I had a good discussion about the attitude of the elites and
their lackey mouthpieces recently. People are figuring it out:
Drumroll > agelbert • 3 days ago
What Chris is recommending
HTML https://www.truthdig.com/articles/fear-vs-fear/
[quote]We will save ourselves only by pitting power against
power. And since our two major political parties slavishly serve
corporate power, and have few substantial differences on nearly
all major issues from imperialism to unfettered capitalism, we
must start from scratch.[/quote]
and
[quote]The American political system is not salvageable. It will
be overthrown in a mass uprising—a version of which we saw
recently in Puerto Rico—or vast swaths of the globe will become
uninhabitable and the rich will feed like ghouls off the
mounting human misery. These are the two stark options. And we
have very little time left.[/quote]
As long as the propaganda machine keeps the American public from
remembering "garbage in; garbage out" from the early days of
computer programming, we won't be able to start from scratch
even if Chris Hedges were to lead the way.
agelbert > Drumroll • 3 days ago
True. We all need to do our part to spread the truth, the whole
truth, and nothing but the truth. The bottom line is that if we
do not stop these 🦕🦖 planet killers 🐉
corrupting the US Government from continuing to run roughshod
over the biosphere, we have no future.
[center][img
width=640]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-020818201645-1486464.jpeg[/img][/center]
Doubling Down: The Military, Big Bankers and Big Oil Are Not In
Climate Denial, They Are in Control and Plan to Keep It That
Way.
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/hydrocarbon-industry-skullduggery/hydrocarbon-crooks-evil-actions/msg12839/#msg12839
[center][img
width=640]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/styles/renewablerevolution/files/3398_Bottom%20Line%20Waking%20the%20climate%20giant.png[/img][/center]
[center][img
width=640]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/styles/renewablerevolution/files/3000_Things%20can%20only%20get%20worse.png[/img][/center]
[center][img
width=640]
HTML https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Iqseo2pRwtg/XRTayEokARI/AAAAAAAArfA/X1tzXpYlE0g5QxX8edsA2vP4Fr155VuNwCLcBGAs/s640/book.jpg[/img][/center]
#Post#: 13385--------------------------------------------------
Let Yourself Feel How Bad This Is
By: Surly1 Date: August 25, 2019, 9:49 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Let Yourself Feel How Bad This Is
HTML https://www.thecut.com/2019/08/amazon-fires-the-case-for-climate-grief.html
[html]<header> <div><span data-editable="bylines"><span>By
</span><span itemprop="author" itemscope=""
itemtype="
HTML http://schema.org/Person"><a<br
/>href="
HTML https://www.thecut.com/author/bridget-read/"<br
/>rel="author"><span>Bridget
Read</span></a></span></span></div> </header> <section>&
#13;<div
data-editable="content"
itemprop="articleBody"> <div><picture><source
media="(min-resolution: 192dpi) and (min-width: 1180px),
(-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) and (min-width: 1180px)"
srcset="
HTML https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/fashion/daily/2019/08/23/23-amazon-fire.w700.h467.2x.jpg<br
/>2x" /><source media="(min-width: 1180px) "
srcset="
HTML https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/fashion/daily/2019/08/23/23-amazon-fire.w700.h467.jpg"<br
/>/><source media="(min-resolution: 192dpi) and (min-width:
768px), (-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2) and (min-width:
768px)"
srcset="
HTML https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/fashion/daily/2019/08/23/23-amazon-fire.w700.h467.2x.jpg<br
/>2x" /><source media="(min-width: 768px)"
srcset="
HTML https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/fashion/daily/2019/08/23/23-amazon-fire.w700.h467.jpg"<br
/>/><source media="(min-resolution: 192dpi),
(-webkit-min-device-pixel-ratio: 2)"
srcset="
HTML https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/fashion/daily/2019/08/23/23-amazon-fire.w700.h700.2x.jpg"<br
/>/><img
src="
HTML https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/fashion/daily/2019/08/23/23-amazon-fire.w700.h700.jpg"<br
/>data-src="
HTML https://pixel.nymag.com/imgs/fashion/daily/2019/08/23/23-amazon-fire.w700.h700.jpg"<br
/>data-content-img="" alt=""
/></picture> <div> <div><sub><span>Photo: Dado
Galdieri/Bloomberg via Getty
Images</span></sub></div> <div><sub><span></span></sub></div
> </div> </div> <p
data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zocg8h100h9nlyem1ltsl2i@published"
data-word-count="44">I started waking up in the middle of the
night in fear of climate change about five years ago. I was
living with my parents in Southern California, and every day I
discovered around me new signs pointing to the death of the
world.</p> <p data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zochic3000u3h61kc7w22d8@published"
data-word-count="68">It was fall; their lawn had been bleached
to straw by drought. I hiked the Santa Ynez Mountains with my
dad, who ran his hands along rocks stained with the memory of
creeks and falls, marveling, “The sound of rushing water
used to be so loud here.” He was 13 the last time it
snowed in Los Angeles — measly flakes that barely covered
the street, but still.</p> <p data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zochid1000v3h61gqrilylr@published"
data-word-count="68">Looking out from the trail at the Pacific,
I imagined it rising up along the coastline and changing its
whole shape. We didn’t know that in three years, fires
would make the mountains and the foothills even more bone dry.
And that a year after that, rain, when it finally came, would
roll down with the force of a tidal wave, washing a body up on
the beach.</p> <p data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zochie4000w3h61f67fxkf3@published"
data-word-count="66">I cried on the hikes, at the dinner table,
when I couldn’t get to sleep, when I woke up from it. We
tried carving pumpkins on Halloween and I was humiliated to find
the feel of the cheap plastic knife sinking into the
fruit’s flesh unbearable. Whatever had been separating my
intellectual understanding of what was happening to the planet
from my emotional state had collapsed.</p> <p
data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zochig5000x3h615femvrca@published"
data-word-count="80">Worse were my parents looking at me like I
was temporarily disturbed instead of like I was reacting to
something that was actually happening. They told me they were
sure my anxiety was a delayed response to an event that had
occurred two years earlier: the loss of my partner to an
extremely rare cancer that took his life in nine months, from
diagnosis to death rattle. That seems practical, I thought, and
waited for the feeling to go
away.</p> <div> <div></div> </div> <p
data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zochih8000y3h61zudkw6fr@published"
data-word-count="79">Still, sitting up at night on my laptop, I
sought out the like-minded. I learned from a friend about an
organization called <a
href="
HTML https://www.theclimatemobilization.org/">The
Climate
Mobilization.</a> It intrigued me because it was run by a woman
trained as a clinical psychologist named Margaret Klein Salamon.
I thought maybe I could try talking to a climate therapist in
addition to my behavioral one, someone who wouldn’t make
everything about me, when all I wanted to talk about was the
whole world.</p> <p data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zochii8000z3h61mkr1v7rl@published"
data-word-count="50">I ended up interviewing Margaret on the
phone for a literary magazine. Her climate psychology work,
funnily enough, had started with trauma. She had written a
dissertation on women with romantic partners who had experienced
a psychotic episode, and the tactics they used to endure
terrible upheaval in their lives.</p> <p
data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zocp2ph001n3h61ql2enw0e@published"
data-word-count="89">After this work was completed, she saw that
most people used similar methods to avoid the terror of climate
change, and that denial had created a massive lack of solidarity
on the issue among family members, friends — networks who
were used to talking about all the things that hurt them, except
this. She devised a pledge that people could ask their loved
ones to take, a kind of climate-change-awareness pyramid scheme,
so that they could have a way to share their pain, to let them
feel bad together.</p> <p data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zochij800103h6165gqylf1@published"
data-word-count="121">We tend to think that the realm of the
personal supersedes the global, but it makes sense to me that,
instead, intimate grief can be the locus at the center of
tenderness for the planet. Watching a young, healthy person as
he took his last breath had left me porous, hysterically aware
of my own smallness and mortality. I wasn’t displacing my
mourning — it was simply expanding. I was suddenly awake
to the fragility of everything: the eaves of my parents’
old house; kumquat bushes in their front yard; hatch chili salsa
every August; the 101 hugging the ocean; water in Lake Cachuma;
walking out at low tide. Their potential loss struck me like an
earthquake, splitting the future open.</p> <p
data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zochikb00113h61u28o8pha@published"
data-word-count="50">Sadness isn’t an endpoint; neither is
fear. I don’t cry all the time anymore, though I cried
last night, watching a video of Indigenous women singing in the
streets of Sao Paulo to <a
href="
HTML http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/08/why-is-the-amazon-rainforest-on-fire.html">protest<br
/>the fires raging in the Amazon</a>, the product of agribusines
s
unleashed by a greedy, nihilistic president.</p> <p
data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zochilc00123h61bv6ife99@published"
data-word-count="80">For those of us who haven’t yet seen
climate change fill our lungs with toxic air, fill our pipes
with poisonous water, carry away our homes, kill our crops, or
drown our families, grief is an aperture. It’s an opening
in the soul where the pain of those faraway people can rest with
yours. And where you can start to be willing to consider a
future different from the one you imagined, to redress an
epically uneven distribution of suffering.</p> <p
data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zochima00133h61ejmnhjoa@published"
data-word-count="80">In my weaker moments, I tend toward ironic
detachment when confronting massive-scale horrors like the
burning of the Amazon, posting something cooly depressed. Or I
look away entirely, which I tell myself is an act of self care.
The brain simply can’t take it all in. I don’t think
that’s true — we just don’t have the language
for it yet. Or we’re not used to applying the language we
reserve for talking about our private tragedies to collective
pain.</p> <p data-editable="text"
data-uri="www.thecut.com/_components/clay-paragraph/instances/cj
zochine00143h61ygwtgds8@published"
data-word-count="107">At least, we aren’t used to it here.
On Sunday, a team of researchers, activists, politicians, and
regular, despairing people in Iceland held the first known <a
href="
HTML https://www.sciencealert.com/iceland-just-held-a-funeral-for-the-first-glacier-killed-by-climate-change">funeral<br
/>for a glacier</a>. They hiked two hours up a volcano on which
15
square kilometers of glittering ice used to stretch, and where
there are now long patches of bare rock and shallow puddles. The
memorial plaque they installed on top of Okjokull, declared
extinct a decade ago, lists the record amount of carbon in the
air when it was inscribed, 415 ppm of CO2, a number that has
only gone up. The glacier was issued an official death
certificate.</p> </div> </section>[/html]
#Post#: 13387--------------------------------------------------
Re: You will have to pick a side. There is no longer Room for Pr
ocrastination
By: AGelbert Date: August 25, 2019, 2:29 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Surly1 link=topic=4.msg13385#msg13385
date=1566744542]
[center]Let Yourself Feel How Bad This Is
HTML https://www.thecut.com/2019/08/amazon-fires-the-case-for-climate-grief.html[/center][/quote]
For several years I have become angrier and angrier as I watched
TPTB responding to warnings from scientists (like the quote
below) by doubling down on their ruthless planetary predation.
"The core responsibility assigned to governments in democracies
is the public welfare, protecting the human birthright to basic
needs: clean air, water, land, and a place to live, under
equitable rules of access to all common property resources.
It is astonishing to discover that major political efforts in
democracies can be turned to undermining the core purpose of
government, destroying the factual basis for fair and effective
protection of essential common property resources of all to feed
the financial interests of a few.
These efforts, limiting scientific research on environment,
denying the validity of settled facts and natural laws, are a
shameful dance, far below acceptable or reputable political
behavior.
It can be treated not as a reasoned alternative, but scorned for
what it is – simple thievery." —George M. Woodwell, Woods Hole
Research Center founder
I know who the criminals are that are totally responsible for
the "simple thievery" that George M. Woodwell so eloquently
described. I have known who they are for at least 20 years. What
has changed now is that the most people now know that too. I
hope my small voice helped somewhat in getting the masses to
finally understand why, in regard to the environment, things
just keep getting worse, not better.
Critical mass awareness has been reached. Good [img width=25
height=30]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-080515182559.png[/img].<br
/>
However, there is no short term environmental solution. That too
is understood now by most people.
True, most people still (erroneously) think there IS a solution,
though longer term, with a lot of dead people and plants and
animal SPECIES along the way, that TPTB will eventually embark
on when they can no longer kick the can down the road.
TPTB are the source of the problem, so it is irrational to
believe that they, and all the scientists they can pay to give
us a techno-fix solution, will solve this problem.
The problem was never about pollution.
The problem was never about rampant greed based pecuniary
profits that depend on trashing the biosphere.
The problem is a rejection of ethical standards of conduct.
Slaves to greed and ambition embrace an Orwellian definition of
ethics in order to justify irrational planetary predation.
Without that "justification", peer presure alone can keep them
somewhat in line. Today, ethical behavior is considered
"weakness". The inevitable result of this inversion of ethical =
common sense behavior is rampant environmental destruction.
So, the solution can only come from a society that reaches a
critical mass REJECTION of the UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR at ALL levels
of human society.
The principled, honest person who wrote that excellent, poignant
article you just posted is aware of this painful, uncomfortable
reality. Initially mourning a senseless personal loss, followed
by mourning observed environmental degradation, she has now
realized that the environmental losses are not senseless, but
the result of malice aforethought (It's the lack of ethics,
STUPID!).
Critical mass is here. That does does not mean this yet:
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/2/3-190119153601.gif
The conundrum here is that some angry people think killing off
the 1% will solve the problem. It won't, but the 1% now have a
very, very clear BULLSEYE drawn around them by most people.
I would form a committee of citizens (membership would be
maximum net worth limited, of course) that would put the
criminal elite, and 100% of the nomenclatura lackeys that
embrace Orwellian "Ethics", and their familes, to work, for the
rest of their lives, in humane conditions in massive duckweed
ponds in the desert areas of the planet.
The entire juridical system hierarchy would be replaced by
computer judges. Every human judge would be sentenced to a
duckweed farm or some other type of community service, depending
on his or her track record as a judge. The software for the
computer judges would be written by programmers hired by Bill
McKibben, Paul Beckwith anf Guy McPherson.
Prison sentences for all nonviolent offenders would be cancelled
and $100,000, tax free, would be paid to said individuals for
education and reintegration into ethical society. EVERY case
involving violent offenders would be scrutinized carefully. If
prejudice was involved, that prisoner will also get freed and
paid $100,000, tax free.
Police forces would be disarmed COMPLETELY. It would be illegal
to have more than two bullets of ammunition in any home in any
city on Earth. [img
width=40]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-130418202709.png[/img]<br
/>People either turn in excess bullets or expect to be sentenced
to work at a duckweed CO2 reduction (Lemna minor photosynthetic
CO2 capture and sequestration) farm for a period corresponding
to the level of their ammunition hoarding. Body covering bullet
proof armor would be worn by the police while on duty.
All polluting industries would be outlawed, period.
No manufactured product that cannot be 100% recycled would be
outlawed, period.
Military budgets would be reduced to a size small enough that
they could be "drowned in a bathtub". [img
width=20]
HTML http://www.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/3-141113185047.png[/img]<br
/>
That's just a small part of how an ethics based society MUST
function. Cheap rationalizations solve NOTHING. For thousands of
years, while there was still a lot of biosphere to trash, human
society could get away with ignoring the ROOT of the UNETHICAL
ROT abounding in human society's elte. That is no longer
possible. The toxic sewer we allowed the most evil people among
us to create has backed up into our faces. So there is no other
option but to face the fact that an ethics based society is sine
qua non, not just for the viability of the biosphere, but to
prevent its destruction.
Yeah, that sounds real utopian, doesn't it?
BUT, an ethics based society is the ONLY type of society with
the mental and spiritual tools to come up with a viable solution
to Catastrophic Climate Change.
If the "rational" people out there decide it is "okay" to just
kill off the Planet Eaters, we are toast as a species. We either
go full ethical or we go extinct. There is no middle ground, no
matter how much the "Orkin Man solution" types claim otherwise.
The brutal (see below) "solution" to brutallity has NEVER
worked.
[center][img
width=220]
HTML https://consumerist.com/consumermediallc.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/orkinman.png[/img][img<br
/>width=100]
HTML http://www.sherv.net/cm/emoticons/fighting/guillotine-smiley-emoticon.gif[/img][img<br
/>width=200]
HTML https://i.pinimg.com/236x/46/d2/15/46d215edd8ae8cfba8323114d1d3d0f4--meal-moths-types-of-ants.jpg[/img][/center]
It's time for our species to embrace ethics instead of cheap
rationalizations about the causes and consequences of biosphere
degradation.
Unfortunately for all of us, our species may go this route:
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/2/3-190119153601.gif
I sincerely hope not. September is coming. I suspect the events
accross the globe this September will provide important clues to
which way human society is going to go in dealing with TPTB
criminals.
Fasten your seat belt.
#Post#: 13422--------------------------------------------------
Re: You will have to pick a side. There is no longer Room for Pr
ocrastination
By: Surly1 Date: August 28, 2019, 8:01 am
---------------------------------------------------------
There are those extolling the virtues of the Proud Boys while
decrying the "menace" of antifa, positing a false equivalency,
the last argument of outgunned extremists everywhere. ("good
people on both sides," don't you know.) Here's a firsthand
report from the ground at Portland.
Those who want to minimize these blackshirt groups do so at
their peril, while ignoring history.
The death toll ascribed to antifa remains at zero.
The Proud Boys’ Real Target
HTML https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/08/meaning-street-protests-portland/596686/
They are endangering both American citizens and American ideals
at large.
[html] <time datetime="2019-08-23T06:00:00-04:00"
itemprop="datePublished">AUG 23, 2019 </time> <div><address
data-author-id="1464" itemprop="author"
itemtype="
HTML https://schema.org/Person"<br
/> itemscope=""> <div
itemprop="image" itemtype="
HTML http://schema.org/ImageObject"<br
/>itemscope=""> <figure><a
href="
HTML https://www.theatlantic.com/author/garrett-epps/"<br
/>title="Garrett Epps's writer page"><picture><img
data-src="
HTML https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/None/Fridas/200.jpg?mod=1547137988"<br
/>alt=""
src="
HTML https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/None/Fridas/200.jpg?mod=1547137988"<br
/>width="101" height="101"
/></picture></a></figure> </div> <div> <div><a
href="
HTML https://www.theatlantic.com/author/garrett-epps/">Garrett<br
/>Epps</a></div> <div itemprop="description">Professor of
constitutional law at the University of
Baltimore</div> </div> </address></div> </div> <
div> <div> <div> <figure
itemprop="image" itemtype="
HTML http://schema.org/ImageObject"<br
/>itemscope=""><picture><img alt="Demonstrators at the Portland
rally"
src="
HTML https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2019/08/RTS2MVVW/lead_720_405.jpg?mod=1566508586"<br
/>itemprop="url" /></picture> <figcaption><span>JIM URQHART
/
REUTERS</span></figcaption> </figure> <section
itemprop="articleBody"> <p><small><em>Updated at 10:30 a.m.
ET on August 25, 2019.</em></small></p> <p dir="ltr">I
haven’t seen Justice Hans Linde in more than a decade, but
I thought of him last Saturday, when I found myself locked in a
science museum with frightened parents and children while
neofascist thugs marched by. Hans was a child in Weimar Germany;
I suspect he would have known how I was feeling.</p> <p
dir="ltr">The museum was the <a href="
HTML https://omsi.edu/"<br
/>data-omni-click="r'article',r'',d,r'intext',r'0',r'None'">Oreg
on
Museum of Science and Industry</a>, in Portland. The occasion
was a rally organized by the Proud Boys, an all-male group that
exalts “Western values” and promotes Islamophobia.
<a href="
HTML https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounders/proud-boys"<br
/>data-omni-click="r'article',r'',d,r'intext',r'1',r'None'">Othe
r
affiliated groups joined in</a>—a loose conglomeration of
racists, chauvinists, and just plain thugs. Some of them were
connected to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville,
Virginia, two years ago, at which a right-wing marcher drove his
car into a crowd of counterprotesters, killing a woman named
Heather Heyer. The Proud Boys aren’t from Portland, but
they have selected the Rose City as the site for their rallies,
threats, and clashes with local “antifa,” or
antifascist activists. The rally Saturday was nominally to
demand that Portland suppress the antifa groups so that the
Proud Boys can march unopposed whenever they choose.</p> <p
dir="ltr"><span>As a washed-up reporter who covered 1960s street
protests, I felt the impulse to watch what happened when the
Proud Boys confronted both police and a mix of local groups,
some seemingly violent and others committed to overwhelming the
occasion with harmless absurdity. (</span><a
href="
HTML https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYO-04uvi_E"<br
/>data-omni-click="r'article',r'',d,r'intext',r'2',r'None'">Some
dressed as bananas, others in unicorn
costumes</a><span>.)</span></p> <p dir="ltr">But Saturday
was a family day. I was with my son, my daughter-in-law, and two
little boys under five years old. We did not want my
grandchildren anywhere near fascists. The Portland police bureau
had published a map promising that OMSI, across the river from
the planned site of the rally, would be safe. Alas, as police
defused the main rally, some of the fascists found their way
across the river and marched past the museum.</p> <p
dir="ltr">While the kids played in the beautiful Science
Playground, the public-address system announced that the museum
was in “lockup”; no one could enter or leave until
further notice. We could not see the street; none of the staff
knew what was going on; no one could tell us how long the lockup
would last; no one knew whether the marchers might assemble in
front of the museum, making escape impossible.</p> <p
dir="ltr">In any event, the group of marchers near the museum
was apparently relatively small; within a few minutes, the
lockup was lifted. But the walk back to the light-rail system
through a stark industrial area was, for me at least,
heart-in-mouth. We had no place to hide on the street if
something went wrong. When we made it back to our hotel, I felt
relief, unreality, and fury.</p> <p dir="ltr">Citywide, the
rally was largely anticlimactic; Portland police kept marchers
and counterprotesters separate. Only after the main event ended
did sporadic violence occur. <em>Willamette Week</em> described
the aftermath as</p> <blockquote> <p dir="ltr">a game of
cat-and-mouse that felt more like a <em>Tom and Jerry
</em>cartoon—and kept the two groups more than a mile
apart at all times, even as some said they wanted a
confrontation. Police made 13 arrests, and the few moments of
violence arrived mainly as the right-wing groups attempted to
leave downtown in two small buses. Antifascists were seen on
videos shattering the bus windows, and a right-wing protester
appeared to attack the leftists from inside the bus with a
hammer.</p> </blockquote> <p dir="ltr">I am glad the
violence was not worse. But I’m sure I will never forget
that moment in the museum. It was the second time in one week
that my family’s vacation was disrupted by groups
simulating a war zone on Oregon streets. The previous Saturday,
we had planned to show my grandchildren the sheer magic of
Eugene’s <a href="
HTML https://www.eugenesaturdaymarket.org/"<br
/>data-omni-click="r'article',r'',d,r'intext',r'4',r'None'">Satu
rday
Market</a>, where artisans sell their own creations, local bands
perform, and farmers offer fresh produce from all over the lush
Willamette Valley. But then a shadowy group calling itself
“God, Guns, and Trump” (later changed to “God,
Guns, and Liberty”) announced a pro-gun rally across the
street from the market. The group’s Facebook post
proclaimed that only “bold conservatives” should
attend; those who had no firearms, it suggested, should buy them
for the occasion. The group told those who wanted to march with
Confederate or Nazi flags to stay away.</p> <p
dir="ltr">That rally was largely peaceful, with
counterprotesters tangling with marchers using only words. But
we couldn’t have predicted that in advance. Saturday
Market was out. Who would bring a child near this unknown
threat, only days after the shootings in El Paso, Texas, and
Dayton, Ohio? Across the river, meanwhile, Eugene’s LGBTQ
community was holding its Pride rally. That gathering went on as
planned, but there was anxiety throughout the city.</p> <p
dir="ltr">What has this to do with Hans Linde? Hans was born in
1924 to a prosperous Jewish family in Berlin. He once told me
that his first clear memory was of watching from the family
apartment while Nazis in brown shirts brawled with Communists on
the Kurfürstendamm below. When Jewish life in Germany
became untenable, the Lindes relocated to Denmark, and then, by
good fortune, obtained U.S. visas. The Lindes settled in
Portland; Hans attended Oregon public schools, and then Reed
College, in the city’s Eastmoreland neighborhood. He
served in the Army, attended law school at UC Berkeley, and
began a brilliant career as a U.S. Supreme Court clerk, a Senate
aide, a law professor, and finally the greatest justice ever to
serve on the Oregon Supreme Court. I came to know Linde because,
many years ago, I wrote a profile of him.</p> <p
dir="ltr">Linde’s jurisprudence sparked a national
movement to revive judges’ interest in the constitutions
of American states. State courts, Linde said, should construe
their state’s constitution first before diving into the
Supreme Court’s federal case law; a state constitutional
text might make a federal ruling unnecessary. Linde left the
bench nearly two decades ago, but his “first things
first” approach lives on. As recently as last year, Judge
Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit, in his book, <em>51
Imperfect Solution</em>s<em>: States and the Making of American
Constitutional Law</em>, called on state judges to “revive
Linde’s idea—to make constitutional arguments the
first line of defense in individual rights
disputes.”</p> <p dir="ltr">Perhaps the most important
legacy of the Linde years were his opinions interpreting
Oregon’s free-speech guarantee much more broadly than the
federal First Amendment. That protection has helped preserve
Oregon’s wide-open democratic culture, where ideas from
the Neanderthal to the utopian can contend, and where human
experience comes in many shades.</p> <p dir="ltr">That very
culture, I suspect, is what has drawn out-of-state fascist
leaders to focus on Portland. From years of study—and
personal experience—I know about Oregon’s dark
racist past and the shadow it casts over the state today.
Nonetheless, in recent years, leaders here have worked to create
an inclusive culture—one that the fascists would like to
discredit, stigmatize, and eventually destroy. Since the
Saturday demonstration, the Proud Boys have announced that they
will be back every month until the City suppresses the antifa
movement, whom they call “domestic
terrorists.”</p> <div> <div> <section
itemprop="articleBody"> <p dir="ltr">The impudence is
striking. The Proud Boys are threatening violence to achieve
political change. That is the textbook definition of terrorism.
Moreover, even before Charlottesville, domestic terrorism had
emerged as a danger from people motivated by the
far<i>-</i>right ideology—that is, from the political
forces (if not the actual individuals) now demanding that the
government crush their enemies so that they can own the streets.
Consider a very partial list of horrendous crimes motivated by
right-wing racism, misogyny, and anti-Semitism: a mass killing
at an African American church in Charleston, South Carolina;
pipe bombs sent to public figures who oppose Donald Trump; a
massacre at a Pittsburgh synagogue; and 20 people—mostly
Latino—gunned down at an El Paso Walmart.</p> <p
data-id="injected-recirculation-link" dir="ltr"><a
href="
HTML https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/12/brotherhood-of-losers/544158/"<br
/>data-omni-click="r'article',r'',d,r'intext',r'5',r'None'">Read
:
The lost boys</a></p> <p dir="ltr">Meanwhile, some antifa
protesters have worn masks or armor, or have shouted down
speakers; some beat up the conservative journalist Andy Ngo at a
demonstration earlier this year; some have thrown milkshakes,
and some have threatened violence or physically fought at
right-wing rallies. But the number of mass shootings committed
by people identified with antifa is zero, and so is the number
of lives taken. The demonstrators that trapped my family in the
museum were there to disrupt the politics of a city they have no
stake in. Many, if not most, of the counterprotesters were there
to defend their hometown. Most of them were nonviolent and came
to oppose violence.</p> <p dir="ltr">Having lived in the
Northwest for many years, I am familiar with left-wing forces
that use violent tactics. Violence is self-defeating and morally
wrong, and I want no part of it or them. But there is simply no
equivalence here.</p> <p dir="ltr">Although no major
political figure has embraced antifa activism, the Republican
Party has begun to embrace the Proud Boys. Last fall, the
Metropolitan Republican Club invited a Proud Boys leader to
speak at a club event. (After the event, two Proud Boys beat
four protesters so badly that a jury on Monday convicted two of
them on charges of assault and riot.) The Republican activist
Roger Stone has said he was initiated as a Proud Boy, and Proud
Boys appeared at a federal courthouse when he turned himself in
on charges brought by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
Stone and the Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson <a
href="
HTML https://www.thewrap.com/tucker-carlson-poses-with-hate-group-members-in-fox-news-green-room/"<br
/>data-omni-click="r'article',r'',d,r'intext',r'6',r'None'">pose
d
in the Fox greenroom</a> with two Proud Boys accompanying
Stone.</p> <p dir="ltr">This summer, Republican Senators Ted
Cruz and Bill Cassidy are sponsoring a resolution that would
designate antifa as a “domestic terrorist group.” No
mention of the Proud Boys or any of the other neofascist groups
who feel empowered by the ascent of Trump.</p> <p
dir="ltr">But the group’s greatest triumph came on the
morning of last Saturday’s march. Trump tweeted,
“Major consideration is being given to naming ANTIFA an
‘ORGANIZATION OF TERROR.’ Portland is being watched
very closely. Hopefully the Mayor will be able to properly do
his job!” One Proud Boy leader hailed the tweet as part of
the protest’s aim: “We wanted national attention and
we got it,” the organizer Joe Biggs told The
<em>Oregonian</em>. “Mission
success.”</p> <article role="article"
itemtype="
HTML https://schema.org/NewsArticle"<br
/>itemscope=""> <div> <div> <div> <section
itemprop="articleBody"> <p dir="ltr">Linde’s life was
shaped by gangs of thugs deployed to shatter democratic order
and impose racist dictatorship. Portland provided his family a
haven and a life as citizens of a democratic nation.</p> <p
dir="ltr">Now the right has targeted Linde’s haven for
destruction. The real target, though, is not Portland or antifa
but all of us, and our sense of security that we are free
citizens of a democratic nation, free to take our children
downtown to play or to assemble peacefully to advocate values
that the Republican Party does not approve. That party under
Trump is now taking sides in the uneven war in Portland’s
streets—and it is taking the dangerously wrong
side.</p> <section> <p>We want to hear what you think
about this article. <a
href="
HTML https://www.theatlantic.com/contact/letters/">Submit
a
letter</a> to the editor or write to
letters@theatlantic.com.</p> </section> <address
data-author-id="1464"
data-include="css:
HTML https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/static/b/frontend/dist/theatlantic/css/components/article-writer.ccce81ff6d92.css"<br
/>itemprop="author" itemtype="
HTML https://schema.org/Person"<br
/>
itemscope="" data-currentinclude=""> <div itemprop="image"
itemtype="
HTML http://schema.org/ImageObject"<br
/>itemscope=""> <figure><a
href="
HTML https://www.theatlantic.com/author/garrett-epps/"<br
/>title="Garrett Epps's writer page"><picture><img
data-src="
HTML https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/None/Fridas/200.jpg?mod=1547137988"<br
/>alt=""
src="
HTML https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/None/Fridas/200.jpg?mod=1547137988"<br
/>width="115" height="115"
/></picture></a></figure> </div> <div> <div
itemprop="description"><a
href="
HTML https://www.theatlantic.com/author/garrett-epps/"<br
/>data-omni-click="inherit">GARRETT EPPS</a> is a contributing
editor for <em>The Atlantic</em>. He teaches constitutional law
and creative writing for law students at the University of
Baltimore. His latest book is <em><a
href="
HTML http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15328.html">American<br
/>Justice 2014: Nine Clashing Visions on the Supreme
Court</a></em>.</div> </div>[/html]
#Post#: 13430--------------------------------------------------
Ah yes, "Proud Boys" is a new name of the Skinheads
By: AGelbert Date: August 28, 2019, 5:02 pm
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Surly1 link=topic=4.msg13422#msg13422
date=1566997310]
There are those extolling the virtues of the Proud Boys while
decrying the "menace" of antifa, positing a false equivalency,
the last argument of outgunned extremists everywhere. ("good
people on both sides," don't you know.) Here's a firsthand
report from the ground at Portland.
Those who want to minimize these blackshirt groups do so at
their peril, while ignoring history.
The death toll ascribed to antifa remains at zero.
[center]The Proud Boys’ Real Target[/center]
[center][img
width=640]
HTML https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/mt/2019/08/RTS2MVVW/lead_720_405.jpg?mod=1566508586[/img][/center]
[center]They are endangering both American citizens and American
ideals at large.
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/general-discussion/you-will-have-to-pick-a-side-there-is-no-longer-room-for-procrastination/msg13422/#msg13422[/center][/quote]
Ah yes, "Proud Boys" is the new name of the Skinheads (who never
really went away but became Texas Dentists, preppers, Gold bug
Libertarians, Wall Street brokers and used car salesmen). The
younger Skinheads are always doing their predictable fascist
crap. May they all go bald.
Today some Vermont racists in Addison county (that is south of
Chittenden County where I live) flattened the tires of hard
working (cow milkers) immigrants' toyota. They pushed the air
conditioner into their home and generally terrorized them with
some other property damage.
The police, who KNOW EXACTLY WHO DID THIS AND WHY, are "having
difficulty" determining whether this is vandalism or a hate
crime. [img
width=40]
HTML http://renewablerevolution.createaforum.com/gallery/renewablerevolution/1/3-250718202127.gif[/img]<br
/>You see, if it is a hate crime, the penalty is greater. A hate
crime would imply racism. Vermont doesn't like to admit that
racism is UBIQUITOUS here. They don't want to "needlessly" jail
local white boys who are just "feeling their oats", don'tcha
know? Vermont doesn't want to admit that these racists have been
given the green SKINHEAD LIGHT by TRUMP and his RACIST WRECKING
CREW.
I can guarantee you that if it was a latino or black that
perpetrated these "fun and games" against a white family, the
Vermont police would have no difficulty whatsoever in charging
the minority person or persons with whatever crime had the
greatest penalty.
If Trump doesn't go away, they'll be visiting my home soon,
Surly. I hope I can be a good Christian and not respond in kind.
#Post#: 13439--------------------------------------------------
Re: You will have to pick a side. There is no longer Room for Pr
ocrastination
By: Surly1 Date: August 29, 2019, 5:30 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote]Today some Vermont racists in Addison county (that is
south of Chittenden County where I live) flattened the tires of
hard working (cow milkers) immigrants' toyota. They pushed the
air conditioner into their home and generally terrorized them
with some other property damage.
The police, who KNOW EXACTLY WHO DID THIS AND WHY, are "having
difficulty" determining whether this is vandalism or a hate
crime. You see, if it is a hate crime, the penalty is greater.
A hate crime would imply racism. Vermont doesn't like to admit
that racism is UBIQUITOUS here. [/quote]
Racism is ubiquitous everywhere. And white nationalists have
done enough of a job infiltrating both the military and local
law enforcement such that brownshirts get a police escort while
protest is criminalized.
Stay prepared.
#Post#: 13443--------------------------------------------------
Re: You will have to pick a side. There is no longer Room for Pr
ocrastination
By: AGelbert Date: August 29, 2019, 11:36 am
---------------------------------------------------------
[quote author=Surly1 link=topic=4.msg13439#msg13439
date=1567074604]
[quote]Today some Vermont racists in Addison county (that is
south of Chittenden County where I live) flattened the tires of
hard working (cow milkers) immigrants' toyota. They pushed the
air conditioner into their home and generally terrorized them
with some other property damage.
The police, who KNOW EXACTLY WHO DID THIS AND WHY, are "having
difficulty" determining whether this is vandalism or a hate
crime. You see, if it is a hate crime, the penalty is greater.
A hate crime would imply racism. Vermont doesn't like to admit
that racism is UBIQUITOUS here. [/quote]
Racism is ubiquitous everywhere. And white nationalists have
done enough of a job infiltrating both the military and local
law enforcement such that brownshirts get a police escort while
protest is criminalized.
Stay prepared.[/quote]
Sound advice. I'll do what I can.
#Post#: 13672--------------------------------------------------
Martial law masquerading as law and order: The police state’s la
nguage of force
By: Surly1 Date: September 20, 2019, 10:27 am
---------------------------------------------------------
Martial law masquerading as law and order: The police state’s
language of force
HTML http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/28155
[html]<div class="entry-meta">By John W. Whitehead
<span class="meta-prep meta-prep-author">Posted on</span> <a
href="
HTML http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/28155"
title="12:08
am" rel="bookmark"><span class="entry-date">September 20,
2019</span></a><span class="byline"><span
class="meta-sep">by</span> <span class="author vcard"><a
class="url fn n"
href="
HTML http://www.intrepidreport.com/archives/author/john-w-whitehead/"<br
/>title="View all posts by John W. Whitehead">John W.
Whitehead</a></span></span></div> <div
class="entry-content"> <div
class="pf-content"> <blockquote> <p>“Since when
have we Americans been expected to bow submissively to authority
and speak with awe and reverence to those who represent us? The
constitutional theory is that we the people are the sovereigns,
the state and federal officials only our agents. We who have the
final word can speak softly or angrily. We can seek to challenge
and annoy, as we need not stay docile and
quiet.”—Justice William O. Douglas, dissenting,
<em>Colten v. Kentucky</em>, 407 U.S. 104
(1972)</p> </blockquote> <p>Forget everything
you’ve ever been taught about free speech in
America.</p> <p>It’s all a lie.</p> <p>There can
be no free speech for the citizenry when the government speaks
in a language of force.</p> <p>What is this language of
force?</p> <p>Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage
gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper
spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras.
<a
href="
HTML http://www.wnyc.org/story/militarization-american-police-departments/">Kevlar<br
/>vests</a>. Drones. <a
href="
HTML http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/08/police_in_ferguson_military_weapons_threaten_protesters.html">Lethal<br
/>weapons.</a> <a
href="
HTML https://theintercept.com/2016/11/27/arrests-of-journalists-at-standing-rock-test-the-boundaries-of-the-first-amendment/">Less-than-lethal<br
/>weapons unleashed with deadly force.</a> Rubber bullets. Water
cannons. Stun grenades. Arrests of journalists. <a
href="
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettling">Crowd
control
tactics</a>. Intimidation tactics. Brutality.</p> <p>This is
not the language of freedom.</p> <p>This is not even the
language of law and order.</p> <p>This is the language of
force.</p> <p>Unfortunately, this is how the government at
all levels—federal, state and local—now responds to
those who choose to exercise their First Amendment right to
peacefully assemble in public and challenge the status
quo.</p> <p>This police overkill isn’t just happening
in <a
href="
HTML http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-baltimore-20150429-story.html">troubled<br
/>hot spots</a> such as Ferguson, Mo., and Baltimore, Md., where
police brutality gave rise to civil unrest, which was met with a
militarized show of force that caused the whole stew of
discontent to bubble over into violence.</p> <p>A decade
earlier, the NYPD engaged in mass arrests of peaceful
protesters, bystanders, legal observers and journalists who had
gathered for the 2004 Republican National Convention. The
protesters were subjected to blanket fingerprinting and detained
for more than 24 hours at a “<a
href="
HTML https://www.nyclu.org/en/press-releases/victory-unlawful-mass-arrest-during-2004-rnc-largest-protest-settlement-history">filthy,<br
/>toxic pier that had been a bus depot</a>.” That particul
ar
exercise in police intimidation tactics cost New York City
taxpayers nearly $18 million for what would become the largest
protest settlement in history.</p> <p>Demonstrators,
journalists and legal observers who had gathered in North Dakota
to peacefully protest the Dakota Access Pipeline reported being
<a
href="
HTML https://www.thenation.com/article/militarized-police-are-cracking-down-on-dakota-access-pipeline-protesters/">pepper<br
/>sprayed, beaten with batons, and strip searched by
police</a>.</p> <p>In the college town of Charlottesville,
Va., protesters who took to the streets to peacefully express
their disapproval of a planned KKK rally were held at bay by <a
href="
HTML http://www.c-ville.com/kkk-rally-peaceful-police-tear-gas-protesters-afterward/#.WWQTWtPyuRs">implacable<br
/>lines of gun-wielding riot police</a>. Only after a motley cre
w
of Klansmen had been safely escorted to and from the rally by
black-garbed police did the assembled army of city, county and
state police declare the public gathering unlawful and proceed
to <a
href="
HTML http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/07/09/536248327/protesters-surround-kkk-gathering-in-charlottesville">unleash<br
/>canisters of tear gas on the few remaining protesters</a> to
force them to disperse.</p> <p>More recently, this
militarized exercise in intimidation—<a
href="
HTML https://www.thedahloneganugget.com/news/downtown-protests-dominate-day-dahlonega">complete<br
/>with an armored vehicle and an army of police
drones</a>—reared its ugly head in the small town of
Dahlonega, Ga., where 600 state and local militarized <a
href="
HTML https://www.ajc.com/news/supremacists-outnumbered-protesters-police-dahlonega-rally/3uL15rYS0adNZHYTs44zGJ/">police<br
/>clad in full riot gear vastly outnumbered the 50 protesters an
d
150 counterprotesters</a> who had gathered to voice their
approval/disapproval of the Trump administration’s
policies.</p> <p>To be clear, this is the treatment being
meted out to protesters across the political
spectrum.</p> <p>The police state does not
discriminate.</p> <p>As a <em>USA Today</em> article notes,
“Federally arming police with weapons of war <a
href="
HTML https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/2016/08/25/right-protest-also-means-freedom-militarized-police-column/89365026/">silences<br
/>protesters across all justice movements</a>… People
demanding justice, demanding accountability or demanding basic
human rights without resorting to violence, should not be
greeted with machine guns and tanks. Peaceful protest is
democracy in action. It is a forum for those who feel
disempowered or disenfranchised. Protesters should not have to
face <a
href="
HTML https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/policing/2016/08/25/right-protest-also-means-freedom-militarized-police-column/89365026/">intimidation<br
/>by weapons of war</a>.”</p> <p>A militarized police
response to protesters poses a danger to all those involved,
protesters and police alike. In fact, <a
href="
HTML https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/30/does-military-equipment-lead-police-officers-to-be-more-violent-we-did-the-research/">militarization<br
/>makes police more likely to turn to violence to solve
problems</a>.</p> <p>As a study by researchers at Stanford
University makes clear, “When law enforcement receives
more military materials — weapons, vehicles and tools
— it becomes … more likely to jump into high-risk
situations. <a
href="
HTML https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/06/30/does-military-equipment-lead-police-officers-to-be-more-violent-we-did-the-research/">Militarization<br
/>makes every problem — even a car of teenagers driving aw
ay
from a party — look like a nail that should be hit with an
AR-15 hammer</a>.”</p> <p>Even the color of a police
officer’s uniform adds to the tension. As the Department
of Justice reports, “Some research has suggested that the
uniform color can influence the wearer—with <a
href="
HTML https://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/12-2013/will_the_growing_militarization_of_our_police_doom_community_policing.asp">black<br
/>producing aggressive tendencies</a>, tendencies that may produ
ce
unnecessary conflict between police and the very people they
serve.”</p> <p>You want to turn a peaceful protest
into a riot?</p> <p>Bring in the militarized police with
their guns and black uniforms and warzone tactics and
“comply or die” mindset. Ratchet up the tension
across the board. Take what should be a healthy exercise in
constitutional principles (free speech, assembly and protest)
and turn it into a lesson in authoritarianism.</p> <p>Mind
you, those who respond with violence are playing into the
government’s hands perfectly.</p> <p>The government
wants a reason to crack down and lock down and bring in its
biggest guns.</p> <p>They want us divided. They want us to
turn on one another.</p> <p>They want us powerless in the
face of their artillery and armed forces.</p> <p>They want
us silent, servile and compliant.</p> <p>They certainly do
not want us to remember that we have rights, let alone
attempting to exercise those rights peaceably and
lawfully.</p> <p>And they definitely do not want us to
engage in First Amendment activities that challenge the
government’s power, reveal the government’s
corruption, expose the government’s lies, and encourage
the citizenry to push back against the government’s many
injustices.</p> <p>You know how one mayor characterized the
tear gassing of protesters by riot police? He called it an
“<a
href="
HTML http://www.roanoke.com/townnews/politics/police-fire-tear-gas-at-crowd-protesting-charlottesville-kkk-rally/article_253bd711-b7af-5a44-b602-341105772f34.html">unfortunate<br
/>event</a>.”</p> <p>Unfortunate, indeed.</p> <p>Y
ou
know what else is unfortunate?</p> <p>It’s unfortunate
that these overreaching, heavy-handed lessons in how to rule by
force have become standard operating procedure for a government
that communicates with its citizenry primarily through the
language of brutality, intimidation and
fear.</p> <p>It’s unfortunate that “we the
people” have become the proverbial nails to be hammered
into submission by the government and its vast
armies.</p> <p>And it’s particularly unfortunate that
government officials—especially police—seem to
believe that anyone who wears a government uniform (soldier,
police officer, prison guard) must be obeyed without
question.</p> <p>In other words, “we the people”
are the servants in the government’s eyes rather than the
masters.</p> <p>The government’s rationale goes like
this:</p> <blockquote> <p>Do exactly what I say, and
we’ll get along fine. Do not question me or talk back in
any way. You do not have the right to object to anything I may
say or ask you to do, or ask for clarification if my demands are
unclear or contradictory. You must obey me under all
circumstances without hesitation, no matter how arbitrary,
unreasonable, discriminatory, or blatantly racist my commands
may be. Anything other than immediate perfect servile compliance
will be labeled as resisting arrest, and expose you to the
possibility of a violent reaction from me. That reaction could
cause you severe injury or even death. And I will suffer no
consequences. It’s your choice: <a
href="
HTML http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/12/04/1349342/--Comply-or-Die-policing-must-stop#.">Comply,<br
/>or die</a>.</p> </blockquote> <p>Indeed, as Officer
Sunil Dutta of the Los Angeles Police Department
advises:</p> <blockquote> <p><a
href="
HTML http://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2014/08/19/im-a-cop-if-you-dont-want-to-get-hurt-dont-challenge-me/">If<br
/>you don’t want to get shot, tased, pepper-sprayed, struc
k
with a baton or thrown to the ground, just do what I tell
you</a>. Don’t argue with me, don’t call me names,
don’t tell me that I can’t stop you, don’t say
I’m a racist pig, don’t threaten that you’ll
sue me and take away my badge. Don’t scream at me that you
pay my salary, and don’t even think of aggressively
walking towards me.</p> </blockquote> <p>This is not the
rhetoric of a government that is of the people, by the people,
and for the people.</p> <p>This is not the attitude of
someone who understands, let alone respects, free
speech.</p> <p>And this is certainly not what I would call
“<a
href="
HTML https://cops.usdoj.gov/html/dispatch/12-2013/will_the_growing_militarization_of_our_police_doom_community_policing.asp">community<br
/>policing</a>,” which is supposed to emphasize the
importance of the relationship between the police and the
community they serve.</p> <p>Indeed, this is martial law
masquerading as law and order.</p> <p>Any police officer who
tells you that he needs tanks, SWAT teams, and pepper spray to
do his job shouldn’t be a police officer in a
constitutional republic.</p> <p>All that stuff in the First
Amendment (about freedom of speech, religion, press, peaceful
assembly and the right to petition the government for a redress
of grievances) sounds great in theory. However, it amounts to
little more than a hill of beans if you have to exercise those
freedoms while facing down an army of police equipped with
deadly weapons, surveillance devices, and a slew of laws that
empower them to arrest and charge citizens with bogus <a
href="
HTML http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/contempt-of-cop-america-s-defiance-revolution-1.2498082">“contempt<br
/>of cop” charges</a> (otherwise known as asserting your
constitutional rights).</p> <p>It doesn’t have to be
this way.</p> <p>There are other, far better models to
follow.</p> <p>For instance, back in 2011, the St. Louis
police opted to employ a passive response to Occupy St. Louis
activists. First, police gave the protesters nearly 36
hours’ notice to clear the area, as opposed to the 20 to
60 minutes’ notice other cities gave. Then, as journalist
Brad Hicks <a
href="
HTML https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/12/08/how-to-break-up-a-peaceful-protest-peacefully/">reports</a>,<br
/>when the police finally showed
up:</p> <blockquote> <p>They didn’t show up in
riot gear and helmets, they showed up in shirt sleeves with
their faces showing. They not only didn’t show up with
SWAT gear, they showed up with no unusual weapons at all, and
what weapons they had all securely holstered. They politely woke
everybody up. They politely helped everybody who was willing to
remove their property from the park to do so. They then asked,
out of the 75 to 100 people down there, how many people were
volunteering for being-arrested duty? Given 33 hours to think
about it, and 10 hours to sweat it over, only 27 volunteered. As
the police already knew, those people’s legal advisers had
advised them not to even passively resist, so those 27 people
lined up to be peacefully arrested, and were escorted away by a
handful of cops. The rest were advised to please continue to
protest, over there on the sidewalk … and what happened
next was the most absolutely brilliant piece of crowd control
policing I have heard of in my entire lifetime. All of the cops
who weren’t busy transporting and processing the voluntary
arrestees lined up, blocking the stairs down into the plaza.
They stood shoulder to shoulder. They kept calm and silent. They
positioned the weapons on their belts out of sight. They crossed
their hands low in front of them, in exactly the least
provocative posture known to man. And <a
href="
HTML https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/12/08/how-to-break-up-a-peaceful-protest-peacefully/">they<br
/>peacefully, silently, respectfully occupied the plaza, using
exactly the same non-violent resistance techniques that the
protesters themselves had been trained
in</a>.</p> </blockquote> <p>As <em>Forbes</em>
concluded, “This is a more humane, less costly, and
ultimately more productive way to handle a protest. This is
great proof that <a
href="
HTML https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/12/08/how-to-break-up-a-peaceful-protest-peacefully/">police<br
/>can do it the old fashioned way</a>—using their brains a
nd
common sense instead of tanks, SWAT teams, and pepper
spray—and have better results.”</p> <p>It can be
done.</p> <p>Police will not voluntarily give up their
gadgets and war toys and combat tactics, however. Their training
and inclination towards authoritarianism has become too
ingrained.</p> <p>If we are to have any hope of dismantling
the police state, change must start locally, community by
community. Citizens will have to demand that police de-escalate
and de-militarize. And if the police don’t listen, contact
your city councils and put the pressure on
them.</p> <p>Remember, they are supposed to work for us.
They might not like hearing it—they certainly won’t
like being reminded of it—but we pay their salaries with
our hard-earned tax dollars.</p> <p>“We the
people” have got to stop accepting the lame excuses
trotted out by police as justifications for their inexcusable
behavior.</p> <p>Either “we the people” believe
in free speech or we don’t.</p> <p>Either we live in a
constitutional republic or a police state.</p> <p>We have
rights.</p> <p>As Justice William O. Douglas advised in his
dissent in <em>Colten v. Kentucky</em>, “we need not stay
docile and quiet” in the face of authority.</p> <p>The
Constitution does not require Americans to be servile or even
civil to government officials.</p> <p>Neither does the
Constitution require obedience (although it does insist on
nonviolence).</p> <p>This emphasis on nonviolence goes both
ways. Somehow, the government keeps overlooking this important
element in the equation.</p> <p>There is nothing safe or
secure or free about exercising your rights with a rifle pointed
at you.</p> <p>The police officer who has been trained to
shoot first and ask questions later, oftentimes based only on
their highly subjective “feeling” of being
threatened, is just as much of a danger—if not
more—as any violence that might erupt from a protest
rally.</p> <p>Compliance is no guarantee of
safety.</p> <p>Then again, as I point out in my book <a
href="
HTML https://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-America-War-American-People/dp/1590793099"><em>Battlefield<br
/>America: The War on the American People</em></a>, if we just
cower before government agents and meekly obey, we may find
ourselves following in the footsteps of those nations that
eventually fell to tyranny.</p> <p>The alternative involves
standing up and speaking truth to power. Jesus Christ walked
that road. So did Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and
countless other freedom fighters whose actions changed the
course of history.</p> <p>Indeed, had Christ merely complied
with the Roman police state, there would have been no
crucifixion and no Christian religion. Had Gandhi meekly fallen
in line with the British Empire’s dictates, the Indian
people would never have won their independence.</p> <p>Had
Martin Luther King Jr. obeyed the laws of his day, there would
have been no civil rights movement. And if the founding fathers
had marched in lockstep with royal decrees, there would have
been no American Revolution.</p> <p>We must adopt a
different mindset and follow a different path if we are to alter
the outcome of these interactions with police.</p> <p>The
American dream was built on the idea that no one is above the
law, that our rights are inalienable and cannot be taken away,
and that our government and its appointed agents exist to serve
us.</p> <p>It may be that things are too far gone to save,
but still we must try.</p> <p><em>Constitutional</em><em>
</em><em>attorney</em><em> </em><em>and</em><em>
</em><em>author</em><em> </em><em>John</em><em>
</em><em>W</em><em>. </em><em>Whitehead</em><em>
</em><em>is</em><em> </em><em>founder</em><em>
</em><em>and</em><em> </em><em>president</em><em>
</em><em>of</em><em></em><em>The</em><em>
</em><em>Rutherford</em><em> </em><em>Institute</em><em>.
</em><em>His</em><em> </em><em>book</em><em> </em><a
href="
HTML http://www.amazon.com/Battlefield-America-War-American-People/dp/1590793099/"><em>Battlefield</em><em><br
/></em><em>America</em><em>: </em><em>The</em><em>
</em><em>War</em><em> </em><em>on</em><em>
</em><em>the</em><em></em><em>American</em><em>
</em><em>People</em></a><em> </em><em>is</em><em>
</em><em>available</em><em> </em><em>online</em><em>
</em><em>at</em><em>
</em><em>www</em><em>.</em><em>amazon</em><em>.</em><em>com</em>
<em>.
</em><em>Whitehead</em><em> </em><em>can</em><em>
</em><em>be</em><em></em><em>contacted</em><em>
</em><em>at</em><em>
</em><em>johnw@rutherford</em><em>.</em><em>org</em><em>.
</em><em>Information</em><em> </em><em>about</em><em>
</em><em>The</em><em> </em><em>Rutherford</em><em>
</em><em>Institute</em><em>
</em><em>is</em><em></em><em>available</em><em>
</em><em>at</em><em>
</em><em>www</em><em>.</em><em>rutherford</em><em>.</em><em>org<
/em><em>.</em></p> </div> </div>[/html]
*****************************************************
DIR Previous Page
DIR Next Page