Like any good Republican, Rand Paul blames lack of fathers and morals for the violence in Baltimore

By Michael J.W. Stickings

You might think a supposed libertarian like Rand Paul would look at the situation in Baltimore and see something similar to what most of us living in reality are seeing, namely, yet another despicable incident of police brutality (in this case leading to murder), a long history (not just in that city but all across the U.S.) of racial and other injustice directed mostly at a hopelessly impoverished underclass that is largely black, a city deeply divided along lines of race and class, and an economic system that fuels injustice and inequality by turning large swaths of the inner-city into quagmires of despair and oppression -- and a response that, while unfortunately violent on the part of some, is nonetheless an understandable one.

Well, okay, maybe not. American libertarians are mostly just right-wing ideologues with views that fit nicely within the Republican Party, and Rand Paul, who of course is trying to lead that party on a presidential level, is no exception. Indeed his awful response to the situation in Baltimore on Laura Ingraham's radio show today was very much in line with the racist moralizing that is very much the mainstream conservative, and Republican, approach to minority issues generally, especially where blacks are concerned, and even with respect to police brutality this supposed libertarian sided with the police against those they are brutalizing:

Railing against what he repeatedly called "thuggery and thievery" in the streets of Baltimore, Paul told Ingraham that talking about "root causes" was not appropriate in the middle of a riot.

"The police have to do what they have to do, and I am very sympathetic to the plight of the police in this," he said.

As for root causes, Paul listed some ideas of his own.

"There are so many things we can talk about," the senator said, "the breakdown of the family structure, the lack of fathers, the lack of a moral code in our society."

He added that "this isn't just a racial thing."

Not that Paul really has any credibility as a libertarian, but this exposes him as a fraud -- and, of course, as nothing but yet another Republican who doesn't give a shit about the plight of black and other racial-minority Americans, the long suffering and hopeless prospects of the urban underclass, and brutality of law enforcement that is meant to keep everyone under the yoke of an authoritarian plutocracy.

Becuase it couldn't be the fact that a black man died brutally at the hands of the police, right? Or that that murder was just the latest act of grotesque violence in a long history of brutality and oppression? Or that the reaction of the protesters -- all the pent-up rage and frustration -- reflects the hopelessness and despair of their situation, and of their community, that there is actually oppression against which they are acting out?

Nah, it's because they don't have fathers, and morals, which is what Republicans always say, to their everlasting head-up-the-ass idiocy.

Welcome to Rand Paul's -- i.e., the Republicans' -- America.

Another day, another white-on-black police murder

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The article at the website of WXIA, an Atlanta NBC affiliate, isn't clear. "A DeKalb County police officer shot and killed a naked, unarmed man at an apartment complex Monday afternoon." The guy was "acting deranged," said the police chief. "When the male saw the officer, he charged, running at the officer. The officer called to him to stop, while stepping backward. He then drew his weapon and fired two shots."

And that was that. No taser, no pepper spray, nothing else. The officer used his gun, shot twice, and killed the naked man running amok.

There will be an investigation. And, more than likely, it will be concluded that the officer did what he had to do, that the shooting, that the killing, was justified.

You know how it works.

But is that the whole story? And will that be the end of it?

Because the WXIA article leaves out a couple of rather essential details, particularly given what has happened across the country, time and again, to much public attention lately. And for those details we need to look elsewhere, for example to the Times:

Naked Black Man Fatally Shot by White Police Officer in Georgia

Ah. Of course.

I wonder if that had anything to do with it.

The message is clear: Challenge Wall Street and America's plutocratic financial system and face police brutality

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I get that it could be a lot worse than pepper spray, but still. This is what those paid to protect the system (including the oh-so-beloved, can-do-no-wrong NYPD) will do -- and they will do a lot worse if necessary.

And saying it's not as bad as it otherwise could be isn't a defence, it's a threat.

(And while this particular pepper spraying of peaceful protesters may have been an act of brutality by a single rogue cop, and while we shouldn't lump all police together, don't think this was just some isolated incident.) 

In other words, if you meddle with the primal forces of nature, you're in for it.

Watch the clip below...

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I'm not sure I agree with Chris Hedges (via Balloon Juice) that the "Occupy Wall Street" protest is "really where the hope of America lies," but nor do I agree with BooMan that the protest has "no platform, no legislative vehicle, no coherent call to action, no overriding message, and very little in the way of any point."

As Ayesha Kazmi reports at The Guardian, the protest "appears to be gaining ground":

Defying harsh critiques from Stephen Colbert and slews of bloggers who scoffed last week at the "leaderless", "directionless", Frisbee-throwing hipsters camping out on cardboard at a random New York City park in the financial district, Occupy Wall Street appears to be gaining ground. From the modest 200 occupiers last week, numbers of protesters rose to an estimated peak of approximately 3,000 to 5,000 at the weekend's march. Media attention has grown exponentially.

After taking their inspiration from the Egyptian "one demand" model, Occupy Wall Street have now released their list of "one" demands, bringing much-needed clarity to their objectives. The movement has moved to reach out to a broader base, including labor unions. Last week's execution of Troy Davis also contributed to the growth of Occupy Wall Street as crowds of protesters in Zucotti Park, renamed Liberty Plaza, swelled to approximately 1,500 last Thursday night demanding an end to capital punishment.

Nothing will come of it, of course -- realism trumps idealism -- but it's nonetheless turning into an admirable expression of populist opposition not just to Wall Street but to the various interlinked policies of a decaying empire that seeks to keep its non-wealthy citizens in a state of narcotized impotence, if not utter degradation.

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Tom Swift and his amazing electric rifle

By Capt. Fogg

I was sick to my stomach after watching the man die screaming on the floor, a policeman's knee on his throat while another hit him with a Taser, again and again. Of course the immediate response was to lie and insist he had attacked the police, but the camera doesn't lie. His crime was being unable to speak English in an international airport too disorganized to have an interpreter on the staff.

I felt the same way when a handcuffed man died in a neighboring town after being hit one of these devices earlier this year and again today about the man described by BBC News who was comatose on the seat of a bus and yet was Tasered by zealous policemen when he couldn't answer their questions.

It's unlikely that any officer will be prosecuted for doing anything wrong by attacking or killing defenseless, unarmed people in this fashion even though all of them had other alternatives. The Taser, which derives it's name from the early 20th century boy's adventure books, is an acronym for Tomas A Swift Electric Rifle. Unfortunately, we're arming people with the emotional stability of a teenager with these things and convinced that it's non lethal, even though scores of people have died after being Tased, they will used them as a substitute for professional police work. Witness the Canadian police, whose first words were "Can we tase him?" and how they ignored the information that he simply needed an interpreter and tased him; tased him again when he was down on the floor screaming and then again until he died.

Taser International's assertion is that the Taser has never killed anyone although many people have died from related causes - like the cardiac arrest caused by being hit by a Taser. That's a bit like saying bullets don't kill people, it's the bleeding. Over 220 people have been killed by them in the US alone.

A quasi-lethal weapon like this is a dangerous thing. It allows or encourages inappropriate and sometimes reckless force without the appropriate restraint. It is being sadistically used against non-violent prisoners. It is being used as a first response on anyone suspicious looking, or anyone angry or shouting or stubborn or unresponsive.

It kills people at its worst, traumatizes and humiliates them at best and quite obviously is a joy to use for those authorities who enjoy traumatizing and humiliating people or are simply too cowardly to be policemen. It's time to ban the things.

(Cross-posted from Human Voices.)

From Florida to Burma -- a tasered heckler and tear-gassed monks

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There has been a good deal of attention, and rightly so, directed at the tasering of an obnoxious heckler, Andrew Meyer, at a John Kerry speech at the University of Florida on Monday. The right, notably Michelle Malkin and the obnoxious hecklers at The Weekly Standard, have been using it to attack Kerry, as if the whole incident was somehow his fault. (No, they would not be heckling so had the victim been a heckler at a Republican event, and, of course, the right remains enamored of fascist police tactics generally, as long as the victims are the right victims, such is the right's penchant for authoritarianism these days.) But two police officers have been suspended without pay, the president of the University of Florida, Bernie Machen, has called the incident "regretful" and called for a state investigation, and Kerry, who insists his exchange with Meyer was a "good healthy discussion," one that he "could have handled... without interruption," criticized both the tasering and the arrest. If anything -- and I do not mean to diminish the severity of the incident -- this was yet another brutal example of the use of excessive force by the police, an unfortunate and unnecessary use of excessive force that just happened to have involved, indirectly, John Kerry.

There needs to be an investigation, the use of excessive force by the police needs to be challenged, and, ultimately, the use of tasers needs to be addressed once and for all. There is no excuse for what happened here, as in countless other incidents that never make their way onto YouTube.

As always, you can find a lot of reaction at Memeorandum -- and I recommend in particular the thoughtful reactions of Melissa McEwan, Steve Benen, Pamela Leavey (a dedicated Kerry supporter), Libby Spencer, and the GTL (and, yes, I do agree that Kerry ought to have responded more quickly and more forcefully).

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While the tasering of a single heckler at the University of Florida has received coverage here, there, and everywhere, however, we would do well to remember that in some other parts of the world police and military brutality is a way of life (and death).

It is always reprehensible, but what is happening in the totalitarian state of Burma, what the totalitarians call Myanmar, is appalling. This is not to attempt to quantify such brutality but rather to remark on the totalitarian scope of brutality in some other parts of the world. There is brutality in the U.S., to be sure, as in other liberal democracies, but it cannot in general be described as totalitarian. It is, thankfully, the (admittedly all-too-common) exception -- and the aggressively indignant reaction from all across the spectrum, even from hypocritical right-wingers looking to score cheap political points, would seem to indicate that, as a rule, such brutality is not sanctioned.

(Or maybe not a rule: The widespread brutality at America's horrific correctional facilities goes largely ignored, and, of course, there is the widespread, and state-sanctioned, use of brutality under the guise of national security, much of it finding gleeful encouragement on the right.)

Regardless, to return to Burma, the brutality there resembles the brutality of some of the more noteworthy totalitarian regimes of the last century. Consider this latest example:

Military officials in Burma have used tear gas to disperse hundreds of monks holding a rally in the north-west city of Sittwe, reports from the area say.

Some of them were beaten and several were arrested, eyewitnesses say.

The tasering of a heckler at a John Kerry speech is hardly defensible, but nor is the tear-gassing of monks at a peaceful rally to oppose political oppression. But where the tasering triggered immediate and widespread opposition, a likely investigation, and possible reform, not to mention a popular YouTube clip, the tear-gassing and the beatings and the rest of the brutality in Burma will continue under a regime that is terrorizing the Burmese people.

Brutality everywhere, from Florida to Burma, must be resisted and opposed and brought to justice. But let us remember that it is happening everywhere.

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This is one of the "better" YouTube clips of the Meyer incident. It is clear that the police acted with excessive and completely unnecessary force:

Police brutality at LA rally

By Heraclitus

I've had trouble exercising any but the most reptilian portion of my brain lately, so I don't have much to say about the police swarming in on a peaceful May Day rally in LA and doing their damnedest to provoke a full-scale riot. Seriously, check out this post by The Unapologetic Mexican; at the very least, you really have to watch the two videos at the end, especially the second one, which shows the LAPD attacking local journalists. So far as I can see, it's impossible to interpret the actions of the police as designed to do anything other than escalate the violence.

The police claim, on one video, that they tried to break up the rally because a group of young men were "provoking" them. If true, I think this may be the most damning explanation possible. A handful of youngsters taunt a group of police, so the police start firing tear gas and rubber bullets into a crowd of thousands of peaceful protesters? After driving them from the park, they continue to drive them down residential streets, shooting rubber bullets at them? They eventually try to block them in so they arrest all of them for...what, exactly? I don't necessarily agree with everything Nezua says about the larger implications of this action (though I do think this is no time for complacency), but that doesn't matter. What does matter is that the actions of the LAPD can in no way be defended or excused. The only petition I could find online is on the ANSWER web site (sigh), but I urge everyone to contact the mayor of LA somehow or other. The ANSWER petition demands the firing of LAPD chief Bratton, but I added that a major review and overhaul or training and operations needs to be undertaken to prevent such incidents recurring the future (you should spirit yourself off to write something, secure in the knowledge that it will be more compelling and less bureaucratic than the line I just wrote). I think it would be very short-sighted, if not foolish, to think this is only of importance to people currently living in LA.