The words were valuable, sure, and within the ongoing saga of Bradley Manning served to call out Emperor Obama to (simperingly, predictably) defend his administration’s actions. But I didn’t celebrate the man. Crowley didn’t say that the way Manning was being treated was evil, barbaric, unjust, unfair, illegal, inhuman, inhumane, sick, perverted, sadistic, etc. All he said was “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid”.

Some of my allies took his statement to mean that Crowley has a good bone somewhere in his loathsome body. I knew better, but didn’t have enough information on hand to really, strongly object, until this:

From The Guardian:

Part of our strength comes from international recognition that the United States practises what we preach. Most of the time, we do. This strategic narrative has made us, broadly speaking, the most admired country in the world.

[...]

The release placed the lives of activists [ed note.: read: spies, saboteurs, agents provocateur, thugs, liars, assassins, arms dealers, etc.] around the world at risk.

Julian Assange and others have suggested that the release of the cables was to expose wrongdoing. Nonsense.

While everyone can point to an isolated cable, taken as a whole, the cables tell a compelling story of “rightdoing” – of US diplomats engaged in 189 countries around the world, working on behalf of the American people, and serving broader interests as well. As a nation, we are proud of the story the cables tell, even as we decry their release.

Much like the George W. Bush administration, Crowley has clearly divorced himself from the “reality-based community”. A little torture here, a few cruise missiles there, a wee bit of multi-billion-dollar bribery and smidge of rampant corporate imperialism over there, and we’ll just wrap that up in a delicious, low-carb, fat-free, totally non-threatening “strategic narrative” and sell it to the dumbass punters all over the world, with American Exceptionalist sprinkles on top.

P.J. Crowley spoke the truth. But he didn’t speak the truth some of my allies perceived. No, what Crowley said, very clearly, was this: “If the American government (and its fully-vested shareholders, who are not, incidentally, the electorate) intends to perpetuate the animating, exceptionalist mythos which supports its planet-dominating imperial aspirations, it must at least pretend in such a high-profile case that it cares about human rights, the rule of law, etc. For, if it does not, some people might, just for a second, truly perceive the maggot-ridden death’s head face behind the stars-stripes-uncle-sam-and-apple-pie mask, and we can’t have that.”

And from the Empire’s perspective, Crowley’s statement was not out of line. No, Crowley’s unforgivable sin lay not in his words, but that he let them be heard by the public.

I’m off to the ice cream shop. I hear they have a new flavor called “rightdoing”. I’ll bet it’s red, white and blue.

Click here to view the embedded video.

On the one hand, I am grateful to WikiLeaks for making this available. On the other, I am ashamed, disappointed and frightened that such direct evidence of evil is necessary for people to ascertain its presence and dominion.

“Bushmaster” will never be prosecuted by the system which put him in control. Maybe one or two of the CounterStrike-addled kids who actually did these murders will, and be released after a couple of years, having been “rehabilitated”. The whole goddamned thing will be swept under the rug and forgotten, much like the carpet-bombing and napalming of Vietnamese and Burmese families two generations ago. Much like the firebombing of Dresden. Much like Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Much like the massacres in the Philippines. Oh, I could go on…

And the machine will grind on. Threatening, extorting, imprisoning, torturing, maiming and murdering, until we put a stop to it. These creatures — I cannot call them “people” — live in your communities. They attend your churches. They dine in your restaurants. They attend PTA meetings at your school. They shop in your grocery store, and, maybe, they occasionally come into contact with your children or grandchildren at the playground. They are monsters, worthy of less than the bottom of a well, and yet they live among you.

And they are forming your culture. They are defining the world we live in. They are honored and revered for their “service” to rival global death machines. And the music swells, the crowd rises, hands go over hearts, and…

http://www.fr33agents.com/164/london-cops-waterboard-pot-suspects/

In 1937 Winston Churchill said of the Palestinians: “I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. [...] I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in an taken their place.”

In 1969, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir said, “Palestinians do not exist.”

Prime Minister Menachem Begin called Palestinians “two-legged beasts.”

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir called them “grasshoppers” who could be crushed.

This is the language of Heads of State, not the words of ordinary people.

– Quoted from “Come September” by Arundhati Roy in The Algebra of Infinite Justice, pp. 284-285

I saw this video about 2 weeks ago. Twice, three times. I left it up on my screen, I read the articles, I read the comments, I tried to organize my thoughts. Nothing came out but a high-pitched keening sound, so I knew it was time to move on.

Watch:

Read his full post. He’s done the research and picked apart the assumptions and lies. He’s looked into this pit of filth and come back with something instructive. Bravo, Charles.

His conclusion is as apt as it is obvious. It’s nothing shocking to those of us who share the same critique of the state, but worth repeating nonetheless:

The plain fact is that what we have here is one of two things: either a professionalized system of violent control which tacitly permits and encourages cops to exercise this kind of rampant, repeated, intense, and unrepentant abuse against powerless people—or else a system which has clearly demonstrated that it can do nothing effectual to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.

As for the Aryan Nation connection, well, imagine my shock. You didn’t really think that cops are selected for their dignity or their integrity or their intelligence or their tolerance or their morality, did you?

From CBS 2, Chicago:

Police Brutality In Beating Case

Incident Reportedly Escalated Over Number Of Recent Police-Involved Shootings

Twenty-four-year-old Patrick Richmond claims he was beaten by Chicago police and says he has the scars to prove it. The incident started at 57th Street and Prairie Avenue when he was arrested at a Father’s Day picnic.

[...]

Richmond said on the way to lock up, police took a detour down an alley near 53rd Street and King Drive. He said they parked in the most secluded spot, near some bushes, and that’s where the beating occurred.

Richmond’s cousin, Charles Odom, was in the back of the police car.

“The driver jumped out of the car and punched him in the face and I’m like I’m not fitting to die here cause that’s the first thing on my mind to even go through an alley,” Odom said.

“They kicked me in my head, just kicking and stomping me for a whole seven minutes until I say that I was a bitch,” Richmond said.

“I’m saying please man, please say it, ’cause I don’t know what’s about to happen to us,” Odom said.

Richmond said he was also having an asthma attack, but they wouldn’t take him to the hospital until later, when he spit up blood while in police lock up.

This medical report from Provident Hospital reveals he was treated for injuries including a dislocated jaw and multiple cuts and bruises.

You didn’t really believe them, did you?

The headline here is wrong…

From WTVY News 4, Dothan, Alabama:

Taser Hit Leaves Drug Suspect in Critical Condition

Taser Hit Leaves Seat Belt Suspect in Critical Condition

There, fixed that for you.

A routine traffic stop for a seatbelt infraction on Sunday evening turned into so much more for Houston County Sheriff’s Deputy Robert Reichert and the suspect, 27-year-old Nicholas Cody.

Deputy Reichert noticed a small bag with a white substance; Cody attempted to flee when the taser was first fired.

“Deputy Reichert asked him about the bag; as a struggle ensued with the subject in the cab of the pickup truck, Deputy Reichert activated his taser at which time only one probe struck the suspect,” said Sheriff Andy Hughes with Houston County.

At that point, Cody dove out of the truck and ran toward the Dollar General on Highway 231 with Deputy Reichert in pursuit. He then jumped a fence into the Tanglewood Apartments, and then the deputy redeployed the taser, this time both, prongs striking. During the struggle, Cody was hit with an additional charge.

After Cody went into respiratory arrest, Deputy Reichert , who is trained in CPR, along with another bystander, attempted to resuscitate the suspect with paramedics en route.

As of Monday, he is in critical condition in a Dothan hospital according to the sheriff.

Sheriff Hughes said, “I’m not satisfied that this came as a result of the taser. There have been deaths involving tasers across the country and most of the time, it’s been shown to be from a pre existing medical condition or due to the fact that the subject had previously ingested cocaine.”

From The Globe and Mail:

No charges called for in report on taser death

17 June 2008

Vancouver — Police have finished their investigation into the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski and forwarded a report to the Crown that does not call for any criminal charges in the matter, said a spokesman for the integrated homicide investigation team that conducted the probe.

Mr. Dziekanski died last October after being tasered by Mounties when he began acting erratically in the international arrivals area of Vancouver airport. Corporal Dale Carr said it will be up to the Crown to decide whether charges are warranted. Such charges might be laid against the officers involved in the confrontation, police have suggested.

“It’s the full, entire investigation. It’s completed, done,” said Cpl. Carr. A Crown spokesman said the office is reviewing the report.

Related, with video: Justice, truth and accountability for Robert Dziekański

McClatchy yesterday kicked off a series of reports on the people held at the US Guantánamo Bay military prison and elsewhere, saying:

An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad.

"Guantamo Graffiti" by burge5000 @ flickr.com

From Sunday’s article, We got the wrong guys: America’s prison for terrorists often held the wrong men,

Akhtiar was no terrorist. American troops had dragged him out of his Afghanistan home in 2003 and held him in Guantanamo for three years in the belief that he was an insurgent involved in rocket attacks on U.S. forces. The Islamic radicals in Guantanamo’s Camp Four who hissed “infidel” and spat at Akhtiar, however, knew something his captors didn’t: The U.S. government had the wrong guy.

And from today’s, ‘I guess you can call it torture’: U.S. abuse of detainees was routine at Afghanistan bases:

American soldiers herded the detainees into holding pens of razor-sharp concertina wire, the kind that’s used to corral livestock.

The guards kicked, kneed and punched many of the men until they collapsed in pain. U.S. troops shackled and dragged other detainees to small isolation rooms, then hung them by their wrists from chains dangling from the wire mesh ceiling.

[...]

The brutality at Bagram peaked in December 2002, when U.S. soldiers beat two Afghan detainees, Habibullah and Dilawar, to death as they hung by their wrists.

Dilawar died on Dec. 10, seven days after Habibullah died. He’d been hit in his leg so many times that the tissue was “falling apart” and had “basically been pulpified,” said then-Lt. Col. Elizabeth Rouse, the Air Force medical examiner who performed the autopsy on him.

Had Dilawar lived, Rouse said in sworn testimony, “I believe the injury to the legs are so extensive that it would have required amputation.”

Repeat after me:

• Public school is about learning, not indoctrination or obedience training
• Children are property
• Initiating violence against someone is OK when the law says so
• Children are slaves
• Offending the State is a true crime
• Torture is OK
• The theory that people beaten as children go on to beat children and commit grander crimes is ridiculous

From KGBT-TV, Texas:

Lawsuit: Los Fresnos JP ordered spankings

5 June 2008

Texas: It's like a whole 'nother country

BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS (AP) — A Los Fresnos family is going to court to prevent a Cameron County justice of the peace from ordering spankings in his courtroom.

A lawsuit filed today alleges Justice of the Peace Gustavo “Gus” Garza told a 14-year-old girl’s stepfather to strike her repeatedly on the buttocks in open court.

If he didn’t, the judge said the girl would be found guilty and fined $500 for truancy.

The lawsuit by Mary Vasquez and her husband, Daniel Zurita, described the paddle provided by Garza as large and heavy and fashioned from a thick piece of lumber.

In a story for The Brownsville Herald, Garza declined to comment on whether he has people spanked in his courtroom. He also said he had not seen the lawsuit.

Zurita says he didn’t feel as if he had a choice but to follow the order.

In an affidavit, Zurita says that when he was through, the judge told him he had not struck the girl hard enough.

Selected, choice comments to the article:

A student who is truant is violating the law and causing the school to lose funding. The kid’s step father couldn’t control the kid (Is he a wimp?). Far too many judges refuse to enforce the law. Judge garza should be recognized for enforcing the law. The parent had three choices: Make thge kid go to school, pay a fine, or paddle the kid–and he is now crying about his choice. Again, I ask if he is a wimp?

— Terry Oberg, Mcallen

Spank Her Good

The judge should have had a police officer spank that brat. Getting a strong, muscle-head cop to do the spanking would have been ideal. Then I would have paddled the hell out of the parents too. They know when their child is not attending school. I bet you she will be pregnant and on public assistance before she is 18 years old. Thats all we need another dumb teenaged parent with an attitude. Sorry if it seems harsh but thats what it is. Just a thought!

— l deleon, harlingen

Ordered Spankings

Go Judge Garza! It’s about time someone taught kids now a days about discipline. This lawsuit is a joke. If we as parents don’t want to be at this point where we are at court having to spank our kids in front of a group of people, we need to start doing it at home. We as parents need to pay more attention to our kids and instill in them the importance of education and teach them discipline. Besides its the parents spanking the kids in court not anyone else. You as parents have a right to do that if you love your child and want him or her to grow up and become a good citizen. Believe me it will only take one good spanking for your child to know that you are serious about what’s good for them. Hey you’re even saving yourself $500 that you probably don’t have!

— N R, Los Fresnos

Good for Judge Garza

Lack of discipline is what is breaking down our society. Children will not learn, pay attention in class, or even attend class, as in this case, without proper discipline. The judge ordering the parents to “paddle” not beat the child is a clear indication that at least one judge realizes that a lot more parents need to take responsibility for their children’s discipline and not rely on the courts or the state for raising their children. Isn’t it interesting that these people can afford a lawyer to sue for tax payer dollars but they couldn’t afford to pay the $500 fine for their child’s truancy and instead oppted for the corporal punishment and are now crying foul. This is just another attempt to make a fast buck by milking the system. If we had more judges like Garza maybe some actual learning will take place in schools and the community would be a lot better off because this would raise the quality of life for everyone.

— Juan Ochoa, Hidalgo County

Aw heck, why don’t we just bring back the whip and the stocks while we’re at it? Nothing’s too good for our kids here in Texas!