/en-us

  • Passenger Traffic At Israel’s Main Int’l Airport Drops Nearly 43 Percent Amid Conflict
    https://menafn.com/1108759882/Passenger-Traffic-At-Israels-Main-Intl-Airport-Drops-Nearly-43-Percent-Amid-

    Passenger traffic at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport fell by 42.92 percent, in the first nine months of this year, compared to the same period last year, just before the ongoing conflict began, according to a report from the Airports Authority yesterday.

    The report showed that, 10.85 million international passengers passed through the Israeli Regime main international airport between Jan and Sept, this year, down from 19.01 million, during the same period last year.

    Due to the conflict, many foreign airlines have stopped or reduced flights to the regime, leading to a 15-25 percent increase in passengers flying with the regime’s three main airlines, according to the report.

    A separate report by the regime’s Central Bureau of Statistics revealed that, the number of foreign tourists visiting the regime dropped by 73.2 percent year-on-year, from 2.83 million to 757,100 in the first nine months of this year.

  • Ukraine’s Hiroshima Moment is Drawing Closer (The Consequences of Neocon Madness)
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukraine-s-hiroshima-moment-is-drawing-closer-the-consequences-of-neocon-madness/ar-AA1pksAP

    79 ans après l’extermination de la population civile d’Hiroshima et de Nagasaki per les bombes nucléaires états-uniennes les habitants de Kiev et Charkiv risquent le même destin à cause d’une situation stratégique comaprable.

    D’habitude les actualités du front ne me préoccupent pas trop. A Berlin nous nous trouvons toujours à 1343 km de Kiev et à 1823 km de Charkiv. Les années de guerre « froide » jusqu’en 1989 nous ont enseigné que les menaces et déclarations agressives mutuelles des maîtres du monde sont ce qu’elles sont, des menaces et déclarations, des mots et que des mots.

    Cette leçon est en train de perdre sa raison d’être. Aujourd’hui la Russie se trouve dans une situation similaire à celle des États Unis en été 1945. Ses dirigeants discutent sans doute une frappe nucléraire contre l’Ukraine. Cet article explique pourquoi la Russie pourrait essayer d’accelérer la défaite prévisible de l’Ukraine par une attaque avec des fusées nucléaires « tactiques ».

    Nous ne somme pas en mesure d’empêcher les dirigeants russes de jouer la carte nucléaire ni d’empêcher les impérialistes états-unien de poursuivre leur politique d’escalation, mais nous pouvons revendiquer de la part de nos gouvernements d’abandonner la livraison d’armes aux marionettes états-uniennes de Kiev et de s’engager dans des pourparlers de paix. C’est l’unique voie qui peut mener à une fin de cette guerre qui évite la déstruction totale du pays.

    Nous avons immédiatement besoin d’un mouvemant pour la paix.

    23.8.2024 by Thomas Palley - In August 1945, the US atom bombed the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then, nuclear weapons have never been used in conflict. That may soon change as Ukraine faces the increasing likelihood of a Hiroshima moment.

    Conditions in Ukraine increasingly give Russia military and geopolitical cause to use tactical nuclear weapons. Though Russia will use them, the US and NATO are deeply implicated in the process. They are in the grip of Neocon madness which casually dismisses potentially catastrophic consequences and blocks all off-ramps.

    Lessons from Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    One way to understand the current moment is via the history of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Those attacks also had military and geopolitical motivations. The former is widely recognized: the latter is not.

    According to standard history, in August 1945, Japan was de facto defeated and had signaled willingness to “conditionally” surrender. However, the US wanted “unconditional” surrender. It also estimated conquest of Japan might cost a million US casualties. Consequently, it elected to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki, thereby achieving unconditional surrender without such casualties.

    The geopolitical motivation concerned the Soviet Union. It had declared war on Japan the day after the Hiroshima attack, and the US feared it would conquer Japan’s lightly defended north. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs prevented that by abruptly ending the war. They also sent the Soviet Union a chilling message about US power.

    The Ukraine parallel

    The Ukraine war has spawned a logic which echoes 1945. The military parallel is clear. Russia wants to bring the war to an acceptable close. Even after it has conquered the Donbass oblasts, it will confront continued attacks from long-range weaponry provided by the US and its NATO junior partners. The resulting loss of Russian lives and damage will be unacceptable. Tactical nuclear weapons can surgically end the conflict, with Ukraine compelled to accept the outcome or face further destruction.

    The geopolitical parallel is also clear. In 1945, the US sent a message to the Soviet Union. In Ukraine, tactical nuclear weapons will send a message to the US that continuing its strategy of incremental conflict escalation risks full-blown nuclear war.

    Neocon madness: incremental escalation and the straw that breaks the camel’s back

    Neoconservatism is a political doctrine which holds never again shall there be a foreign power, like the former Soviet Union, which can challenge US supremacy. The doctrine gives the US the right to impose its will anywhere in the world, which explains US intervention in Ukraine long before Russia’s 2022 invasion. The doctrine initially seeded itself among hardline Republicans, but it has since been adopted by Democrats and is now politically hegemonic.

    Since the late 1990s, the Neocon project has driven a slow-motion war against Russia based on a strategy of “incremental escalation”. The first step was incorporation of Central European countries into NATO, which was followed by incorporating the former Soviet Baltic Republics. Thereafter, the US began fomenting anti-Russian sentiment in the former Republics of Georgia and Ukraine. Longer term, it seeks to foster Russia’s disintegration, as advocated by US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in the 1990s.

    A similar incremental escalation strategy has marked US/NATO involvement in Ukraine. In the decade prior to the war, Ukraine was the largest recipient of US military aid in Europe and NATO members stalled the Minsk peace process. Thereafter, engagement has been steadily ratcheted up, turning assistance into a proxy war and then into a tacit direct conflict with Russia. The time-line includes sabotaging peace negotiations in early 2022; providing Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, Javelin anti-tank missiles, and artillery ordinance; providing Patriot missile air defense systems; transferring MIG-29 jets from former Warsaw Pact countries; providing ultra-long-range artillery, advanced infantry carriers, and tanks; providing long-range HIMARS rocket systems, and longer-range ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles; and providing modernized F-16 jets.

    Side-by side, the US has provided satellite information, while under-cover advisers have assisted long-range missile attacks deep inside Russia which include attacking the Kerch bridge, Russian naval vessels at sea, naval yards in Crimea and in Novorossiysk, Russia’s high altitude AWACS defense system, and an attack on Russia’s anti-ballistic missile defense system.

    The incremental escalation strategy aims to tighten the noose, with each tightening supposedly small enough to deny Russia grounds for invoking the nuclear option. However, the strategy risks blindness to the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

    Ending the war, ending incremental escalation, and restoring deterrence

    Walking in the other’s shoes can be enlightening. Russia’s goals are threefold. First, it wants to end the war on acceptable terms. Second, it wants to blunt the US strategy of incremental escalation. Third, it wants to restore credibility of its nuclear deterrent which has been compromised by escalations that have blurred red lines which should not be crossed.

    Using tactical nuclear weapons has become increasingly rational as it would achieve all three goals, which is why the situation is dire. The great paradox is deterrence aims to prevent nuclear war, yet restoration of deterrence may require using nuclear weapons as it proves willingness to do so.

    Many Neocon supporters have casually talked of “Putin’s nuclear bluff”. The reality is it is the US threat of nuclear retaliation that is a bluff. No sane US politician or general would risk thermo-nuclear war for the sake of Ukraine.

    A grim prognosis

    There is still time to freeze the sequence. The problem is peace cannot get a hearing. Ukraine’s flawed democracy is suspended, the Azov extremists are in control, and any Ukrainian opposing the war faces imprisonment or worse.

    In the US, the Neocons are in charge and the public is fed a Manichean narrative that paints the West as good and Russia as evil. That false narrative is constantly reinforced, and it makes compromise politically and ethically harder.

    The prognosis is grim. Ironically, the thing that may prevent a Hiroshima moment is Russian success on the battlefield.
    Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

    #USA #Russie #Ukraine #guerre_nucléaire #guerre #Hiroshima #Nagasaki

    • Deux points :
      – Oui, la guerre en Ukraine doit cesser, pour que cesse le bain de sang ;
      – C’est à priori une légende urbaine et une justification morale tardive qu’il était nécessaire d’utiliser la Bombe sur le Japon. L’Histoire dit que les japonais étaient déjà en quête de reddition, et la Bombe n’y a pas changé grand chose. L’Histoire dit aussi que les américains avaient besoin de prouver qu’ils possédaient cette arme, afin de justifier les dépenses dispendieuses liées à ce programme.

      Les russes n’ont pas besoin d’accélérer la guerre ; rien à part leur population qui en a marre de voir les occidentaux fanfaronner et applaudir après chaque action terroriste sur le territoire russe.

      Les russes voient aussi que l’OTAN souhaite aller plus loin. Et il se peut en effet qu’à un moment, ils sifflent la fin de la récré, sans nécessité d’utiliser une arme nucléaire, puisque comme déjà dit, les russes disposent - pour de vrai - de projectiles hypersoniques, en mesure de provoquer des dommages aux installations militaires les mieux protégées, sans vecteur nucléaire.

    • L’Histoire dit aussi que les américains avaient besoin de prouver qu’ils possédaient cette arme, afin de justifier les dépenses dispendieuses liées à ce programme.

      Oui, et aussi montrer aux Russes qu’ils avaient une arme nucléaire opérationnelle, dans un contexte de partage du monde/ début de guerre froide.

  • Iran threat prompted increased protection of Trump, Saturday attack appears unrelated, officials say
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/iran-threat-prompted-increased-protection-of-trump-saturday-attack-appears-unrelated-officials-say/ar-BB1q68Rh

    Je suis rassuré, c’était un coup des Iraniens !

    A threat from Iran prompted the U.S. Secret Service to boost protection around Donald Trump before Saturday’s attempted assassination of the former president, though it appears unrelated to the rally attack, according to two U.S. officials.

  • Zionist minister Smotrich mastermind of genocide: UN rapporteur - IRNA English
    https://en.irna.ir/news/85525485/Zionist-minister-Smotrich-mastermind-of-genocide-UN-rapporteur

    Francesca Albanese wrote in a message on her X social network that “even considering the significant political pressure on the International Criminal Court, I really don’t understand why the ICC Prosecutor has not yet requested an arrest warrant against this man (Smotrich), who is a key mastermind of Israel’s genocidal policies against the Palestinians,” IRNA cited the quote from Al Jazeera on Monday morning.

    Et la réponse sioniste :

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/un-official-called-terror-sympathizing-antisemite-by-israeli-ambassador-as-calls-grow-for-her-dismissal/ar-BB1pahvl
    Israel’s outgoing ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, told Fox News Digital, “Francesca Albanese is the very definition of a terror sympathizing antisemite. Her role at the U.N. is dedicated toward one goal: the destruction of the State of Israel. I’m not surprised that the secretary-general, who is motivated by hatred for Israel, is not doing anything about her justification of terror against Israelis.”

    “Enough is enough,” U.N. Watch Executive Director Hillel Neuer told Fox News Digital. “Francesca Albanese must be removed from her position immediately. For far too long, Albanese has abused her U.N. mandate to spread Hamas propaganda. She is the first U.N. special rapporteur in history to be condemned by France, Germany and the U.S. for antisemitism.”

    wikipaedia
    Hillel C. Neuer, né en 1969 ou 19701 à Montréal, est un avocat canadien spécialiste du droit international public, un diplomate, écrivain, activiste. Il est directeur d’UN Watch, une organisation non-gouvernementale qui se donne pour mission « d’assurer que l’ONU respecte sa propre Charte et que les Droits de l’Homme soient accessibles à tous »
    Neuer was selected as one of the “top 100 most influential Jewish people in the world” by Israeli newspaper Maariv,[9] and by the Algemeiner Journal in 2017. He is an outspoken defender of Israel[10][11] and critic of the UN’s human rights councils’ actions.

  • US House passes Republican bill to sanction International Criminal Court over Israel
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-house-passes-republican-bill-to-sanction-international-criminal-court-over-israel/ar-BB1nD8Pi

    Projet de loi aux USA pour punir les membres de la Cour internationale de justice !

    The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation that would impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court over its prosecutor’s decision to seek arrest warrants for Israeli officials related to the war in Gaza.

    The vote was 247 to 155, with 42 Democrats joining Republicans in backing the measure. There were no Republican “nay” votes, although two voted “present.”

    The measure is not expected to become law, but reflects continuing support for Israel in Congress amid international criticism over the Middle East country’s campaign in the Gaza Strip.

  • استطلاع رأي : حوالي 4 من كل 10 إسرائيليين يؤيدون إحياء المستوطنات في غزة - تايمز أوف إسرائيل
    https://ar.timesofisrael.com/%D8%A7%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%B7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%B9-%D8%B1%D8%A3%D9%8A-%D8%

    Sondage pour la télé israélienne : 4 Israéliens sur 10 soutiennent le retour des colonies à Gaza.

    استطلاع رأي: حوالي 4 من كل 10 إسرائيليين يؤيدون إحياء المستوطنات في غزة

  • Scoop : Blinken warns Israeli officials global pressure will grow longer war goes on
    https://www.axios.com/2023/11/30/blinken-israel-gaza-war-warning-hamas

    Israel Defense Forces chief of staff Gen. Herzi Halevi told Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Thursday that the Israeli military operation in Gaza, including in the southern part of the enclave, is expected to take “more than a few additional weeks,” three people with direct knowledge of the meeting said.

    […]

    Blinken didn’t ask Israel to stop the operation but expressed concern and said the longer the high-intensity military campaign goes on, the more international pressure will build on both the U.S. and Israel to stop it, one source said.

    On est donc priés de massacrer un peu plus discrètement, parce que ça commence à donner une mauvaise image des États-Unis. Une fois cela dit, Blinken est remonté dans son avion et le massacre a repris.

  • The Recount sur X :

    Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) chokes up while condemning the resolution to censure her that the House is considering: “Speaking up to save lives, Mr. Chair, no matter faith, no matter ethnicity, should not be controversial in this chamber.

    https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1721989360730444271

    https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1721988041194012672/vid/avc1/1282x720/onKQM35YUPOBk4jy.mp4?tag=16

    • Ryan Grim sur X : l
      https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1722004700239642975

      Jamie Raskin is on the House floor describing how unusual it would be in congressional history to censure a member of Congress for their speech.

      Stepping back, it is indeed incredible to move a censure vote for speech, no matter the speech.

      That it’s happening to the only Palestinian member of Congress while Gaza is being flattened makes it that much more extraordinary. What a dark moment.

    • 23:00 GMT
      https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2023/11/7/israel-hamas-war-live-one-month-of-conflict-10000-dead-in-gaza

      Vote to rebuke US Congresswoman Tlaib expected tomorrow

      As we’ve been reporting throughout the day, the US House of Representatives is pushing forward with a resolution to rebuke Tlaib over her criticism of Israel.

      But a final decision on the measure is not expected until tomorrow after lawmakers postponed the vote.

      Earlier, we reported that Tlaib rejected the resolution as an attempt to silence her.

      “The cries of Palestinian and Israeli children sound no different to me. What I don’t understand is why the cries of Palestinians sound different to you all,” she said on the House floor.

      I am the only Palestinian American serving in Congress, and my perspective is needed here now more than ever. I will not be silenced and I will not let anyone distort my words.

      I’m from Detroit, where I learned to speak truth to power, even if my voice shakes. pic.twitter.com/bXhGPCcKat

      — Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) November 7, 2023

    • https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/house-votes-to-censure-rep-rashida-tlaib-over-israel-comments/ar-AA1jze61

      Nov. 8 (UPI) — The U.S. House of Representatives voted Tuesday night to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., over comments she has made on the Israel-Hamas war.

      The censure resolution, introduced by Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., was approved by a vote of 234 to 188 with all but four House Republicans and 22 Democrats voting in favor.

      “For the 26th time in our nation’s history, Congress has censured a member,” McCormick wrote Tuesday night in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

      A censure in the House is a form of public humiliation to rebuke a member for a specified misconduct.
      “I was proud to lead a bipartisan coalition of our members to hold Rashida Tlaib accountable for her dishonest and antisemitic behavior. Thank you to all the other members who helped me refine the language of the bill, who cosponsored and spoke on the floor in support, and the 22 Democrats that had the courage to join us in voting for final passage,” McCormick added.

    • Who is Rashida Tlaib, why was the Palestinian-American lawmaker censured?
      By Al Jazeera Staff
      Published On 8 Nov 20238 Nov 2023 | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera
      https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/8/who-is-rashida-tlaib-why-was-the-palestinian-american-lawmaker-censured

      The congresswoman says she will not be silenced as Republicans and some fellow Democrats accuse her of supporting the destruction of Israel.

      The US House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to censure its sole Palestinian-American lawmaker, Rashida Tlaib, for her comments on the Israel-Hamas war.

      The resolution, which was backed by some 22 members of her Democratic party, claimed Tlaib had been “promoting false narratives” regarding the October 7 Hamas attack inside Israel that killed more than 1,400 people. She was also accused of seeking “destruction of Israel” – a charge she rejected. (...)

      #7oct23

  • V.serious mistake to let Gaddafi be killed - Tajani
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vserious-mistake-to-let-gaddafi-be-killed-tajani/ar-AA1fmnvn

    It was a “very serious mistake” on the part of the West to let former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi be killed after an uprising in the Arab Spring in 2011 because his death unleashed instability in the north African nation, Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said Wednesday. “It was a very serious mistake to let Gaddafi be killed, he may not have been the champion of democracy, but once he was finished, political instability arrived in Libya and Africa”, said Tajani, interviewed by conservative journalist Alessandro Sallusti at the Versiliana midsummer forum in Marina di Pietrasanta (Lucca) on the north Tuscan coast. Gaddafi, who presided over a rapprochement with Italy, was killed by rebels on October 20, 2011.

    – « to let be killed », comme c’est joliment dit !
    – on progresse tout de même, pour l’Irak on n’a même pas eu droit à ce constat.
    (- et pour le Niger, très bientôt ?)

    #libye

  • Fossil of vomited-up amphibians offers ‘rare glimpse’ into ancient life, Utah park says
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/fossil-of-vomited-up-amphibians-offer-rare-glimpse-into-ancient-life-utah-park-says/ar-AA11NgD5

    Paleontologists found the fossil of multiple amphibians that were likely vomited by a fish, perhaps as it was fleeing a predator 150 million years ago, Utah officials said.

    The fossil was found by paleontologists from the Utah Division State Parks, the Utah Geological Survey and the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum in rocks of the Morrison Formation in southern Utah, according to a Sept. 13 news release from Utah State Parks.

    “This fossil gives us a rare glimpse into the interactions of the animals in ancient ecosystems,” John Foster, curator for Utah Field House of Natural History State Park Museum, said. “There were three animals that we still have around today, interacting in ways also known today among those animals — prey eaten by predators and predators perhaps chased by other predators.”

    This, he said, “shows how similar some ancient ecosystems were” to those of today.

    Paleontologists think it is likely that the fossil was from a startled bowfin fish that vomited “a recent meal of tadpoles and a salamander” while escaping a predator, Utah State Parks said.

    While “fish, frogs and salamanders have been found in the Morrison Formation since the late 1800s,” what makes this find so unique is that it “documents a predator’s meal” and its need to vomit that meal, according to Utah State Parks.

    “That is a first in the Jurassic rocks of North America,” Utah State Parks said.

  • Vaccine Delivery Canceled to Country That Did Not Condemn Russia
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/vaccine-delivery-canceled-to-country-that-did-not-condemn-russia/ar-AAUKbha

    Among the abstaining members was the South Asian country of Bangladesh. As a result of that decision, Lithuania reversed a previous decision from earlier in the week to send over 440,000 doses of COVID-19 vaccines to Bangladesh, according to a report from Lithuanian National Radio and Television (LRT). This was confirmed to LRT by a spokesperson for Lithuanian prime minister Ingrida Šimonytė.

    Suggestion pour le prochain vote à l’ONU : ceux qui votent mal, on leur envoie un virus.

  • Earth’s continents emerged 500 million years EARLIER than thought
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/earths-continents-emerged-500-million-years-earlier-than-thought/ar-BB1g2P3O?li=BBnbfcL

    Based on their results, the team concluded that weathering of continents first started some 3.7 billion years ago — 500 million years earlier than had been thought.

    ’That is a huge time period. It essentially has implications for the way that we think about how life evolved,’ Dr Roerdink said, explaining that while scientists usually think life started in deep sea, hydrothermal settings, the biosphere is complex.

    ’We don’t really know if it is possible that life could have developed at the same time on land, but then that land has to be there.’

  • What a World Without Cops Would Look Like – Mother Jones
    https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2020/06/police-abolition-george-floyd

    Efforts to cut off funding for police have already taken root in Minneapolis, where the police department’s budget currently totals $193 million. (In 2017, the department received 36 percent of the city’s general fund expenditures.) Two days after Floyd’s killing, the president of the University of Minnesota declared that that the campus would no longer contract with the police department to provide security for large gatherings like football games. On Friday, a member of the Minneapolis Board of Education announced a resolution to end the school district’s contract to station 14 cops in its schools. And community groups such as the Black Visions Collective and Reclaim the Block are petitioning the city council to cut the police department’s budget by $45 million and reinvest the money in health and (non-police) safety programs.

    With other campaigns to cut police budgets underway in cities like Los Angeles and New York and calls to defund the police gathering steam on social media, I spoke with Brooklyn College sociology professor Alex Vitale, the coordinator of the Policing & Social Justice Project and author of The End of Policing, to talk about the sweeping vision of police abolition and what it means in practice.

    #abolir_la_police #police #justice #justice_réparative #USA

    • Minneapolis council member: Conversations underway to disband police
      https://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/america-in-crisis/minneapolis-council-member-conversations-underway-to-disband-polic

      "The department is ungovernable,” Fletcher said. “Chief (Medaria) Arradondo is a leader that we’ve all had very high hopes in and that I imagined could play a role in envisioning the next version of public safety. But he has clearly not been able to make the culture change happen that we were hoping for and investing in.”

      What it would take to disband the department is unclear. But what is clear is that the department is already seeing a reduced role in the protection of the city.

      On Wednesday, the Minneapolis Park Board voted to terminate its relationship with the department, and the Minneapolis Police will no longer be involved in guarding events on park property.

      Fletcher said in a Twitter post that it’s time to “declare policing as we know it a thing of the past.”

      Minneapolis City Council members look to disband the police department as schools and other city agencies cut ties with police
      https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/world/minneapolis-city-council-members-look-to-disband-the-police-department-as-schools-and-other-city-agencies-cut-ties-with-police/ar-BB152szZ
      https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB152eBW.img?h=630&w=1200&m=6&q=60&o=t&l=f&f=jpg

      Several members of the Minneapolis City Council are exploring ways to permanently disband the Minneapolis Police Department.
      Over the past week, several other city agencies have severed their ties to the department.
      “We can send a city response that makes situations better. We can resolve confusion over a $US20 grocery transaction without drawing a weapon, or pulling out handcuffs,” Councilmember Steve Fletcher said.

      Mais pas de grosse presse sur ça...

    • Six Ideas for a Cop-Free World - Rolling Stone
      https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/police-brutality-cop-free-world-protest-199465

      Editor’s note: This story was originally published on December 16th, 2014, following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, black men who were killed by police. In recent days, in the wake of nationwide protests demanding justice for George Floyd, we are sharing some of our previous coverage about how to end systematic racism in America.

      After months of escalating protests and grassroots organizing in response to the police killings of Michael Brown and Eric Garner, police reformers have issued many demands. The moderates in this debate typically qualify their rhetoric with “We all know we need police, but…” It’s a familiar refrain to those of us who’ve spent years in the streets and the barrios organizing around police violence, only to be confronted by officers who snarl, “But who’ll help you if you get robbed?” We can put a man on the moon, but we’re still lacking creativity down here on Earth.

      But police are not a permanent fixture in society. While law enforcers have existed in one form or another for centuries, the modern police have their roots in the relatively recent rise of modern property relations 200 years ago, and the “disorderly conduct” of the urban poor. Like every structure we’ve known all our lives, it seems that the policing paradigm is inescapable and everlasting, and the only thing keeping us from the precipice of a dystopic Wild West scenario. It’s not.

    • I’m a Minneapolis City Council Member. We Must Disband the Police—Here’s What Could Come Next | Time
      https://time.com/5848705/disband-and-replace-minneapolis-police

      I have been surprised, then, by how difficult and controversial it has been to pass the relatively small budget changes that we have made, which have not even cut their budget but merely redirected some proposed increases to fund a new Office of Violence Prevention. Other programmatic proposals to change the way we police have been met with stiff institutional resistance.

      Minneapolis Police had an opportunity to distance themselves from Derek Chauvin, to express sympathy, to be a calming presence. Instead, they deployed tear gas and rubber bullets, effectively escalating the situation from protest to pitched conflict. By the next day, it was clear that people on Lake Street were rallying for much more than the prosecution of four officers. They were demonstrating their anger at decades of harassment and racialized violence and calling for it to end.

      We have a talented, thoughtful police chief who has attempted some important steps. He has fired officers for significant abuses only to have his decisions overturned and those officers reinstated by arbitrators. Mayor Frey has met fierce resistance from the Federation to implement even minor policy changes.

      After viewing George Floyd’s murder, watching police not only fail to apologize, but escalate the situation with aggressive tactics, and finally watching the department abandon neighborhood businesses to exclusively defend their precinct building, most of my constituents have had enough.

      Every member of the Minneapolis City Council has now expressed the need for dramatic structural change. I am one of many on the Council, including the Council President and the Chair of Public Safety, who are publicly supporting the call to disband our police department and start fresh with a community-oriented, non-violent public safety and outreach capacity. What I hear from most of my constituents is that they want to make sure we provide for public safety, and they have learned their whole lives to equate “safety” with “police,” but are now concluding that need not be the case.

      We had already pushed for pilot programs to dispatch county mental health professionals to mental health calls, and fire department EMTs to opioid overdose calls, without police officers. We have similarly experimented with unarmed, community-oriented street teams on weekend nights downtown to focus on de-escalation. We could similarly turn traffic enforcement over to cameras and, potentially, our parking enforcement staff, rather than our police department.

      By Steve Fletcher
      June 5, 2020 9:57 AM EDT
      Fletcher is a City Council Member for Ward 3 in Minneapolis, Minn.

      We can invest in cultural competency and mental health training, de-escalation and conflict resolution. We can send a city response that that is appropriate to each situation and makes it better. We can resolve confusion over a $20 grocery transaction without drawing a weapon or pulling out handcuffs.

      Mostly—and this might be the hardest part to envision and make real—we need to be more deeply engaged with each other. We need to build the relationship networks, skills, and capacity in our communities to support each other in resolving conflicts and keeping each other safe before things escalate dangerously. Our isolation from each other has required us to outsource the management of social interactions. We have to get relational.

    • Opinion | The Police Killed George Floyd. Redirect Their Funding Elsewhere. - The New York Times
      https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/30/opinion/george-floyd-police-funding.html

      The only way we’re going to stop these endless cycles of police violence is by creating alternatives to policing. Because even in a pandemic where black people have been disproportionately killed by the coronavirus, the police are still murdering us.

      On Monday, a worker at a store in Minneapolis called 911, claiming that George Floyd had used counterfeit money. The incident ended with a police officer suffocating Mr. Floyd to death, despite his and bystanders’ pleas for mercy. Protests have since erupted across the country while the police respond with military-style violence.

      As the case of George Floyd makes clear, calling 911 for even the slightest thing can be a death sentence for black people. For many marginalized communities, 911 is not a viable option because the police often make crises worse.

      More training or diversity among police officers won’t end police brutality, nor will firing and charging individual officers. Look at the Minneapolis Police Department, which is held up as a model of progressive police reform. The department offers procedural justice as well as trainings for implicit bias, mindfulness and de-escalation. It embraces community policing and officer diversity, bans “warrior style” policing, uses body cameras, implemented an early intervention system to identify problematic officers, receives training around mental health crisis intervention, and practices “reconciliation” efforts in communities of color.

      George Floyd was still murdered. The focus on training, diversity and technology like body cameras shifts focus away from the root cause of police violence and instead gives the police more power and resources. The problem is that the entire criminal justice system gives police officers the power and opportunity to systematically harass and kill with impunity.

      The solution to ending police violence and cultivating a safer country lies in reducing the power of the police and their contact with the public.

      Municipalities can begin by changing policies or statutes so police officers never respond to certain kinds of emergencies, including ones that involve substance abuse, domestic violence, homelessness or mental health. Instead, health care workers or emergency response teams would handle these incidents.

      Ideally, people would have the option to call a different number — say 727 — to access various trained response teams.

      The good news is, this is already happening. Violence interruption programs exist throughout the country and they’re often led by people from the community who have experience navigating tricky situations. Some programs, like one in Washington, D.C., do not work with the police; its staff members rely instead on personal outreach and social connections for information about violence that they work to mediate and diffuse. We should invest in these programs, which operate on shoestring budgets, so they have their own dedicated dispatch centers outside of 911.

      Dallas is pioneering a new approach where social workers are being dispatched to some 911 calls that involve mental health emergencies. The program has shown success, and many of the people receive care that they would never have gotten in jails or overcrowded hospitals.

      In California, the Bay Area Transformative Justice Collective deals with child sexual abuse without the police. The collective develops pods — groups of people including survivors, bystanders or people who have harmed in the past — that each pod-member feels they can turn to for support when needed.

      Here’s another idea: Imagine if the money used to pay the salaries of police officers who endlessly patrol public housing buildings and harass residents can be used to fund plans that residents design to keep themselves safe. The money could also pay the salaries of maintenance and custodial workers; fund community programs, employment and a universal basic income; or pay for upgrades to elevators and apartment units so residents are not stuck without gas during a pandemic, as some people in Brooklyn were.

      https://batjc.wordpress.com

      By Philip V. McHarris and Thenjiwe McHarris

      Mr. McHarris is a doctoral candidate focusing on race, housing and policing. Ms. McHarris is a strategist with the Movement for Black Lives.

    • Black Lives Matter Has Been Doing The Work To ’Defund The Police’ For Years
      https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/black-lives-matter-has-been-doing-the-work-to-defund-the-police-for-years/ar-BB156D9S
      https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB156BjH.img?h=630&w=1200&m=6&q=60&o=t&l=f&f=jpg&x=3157&y=7

      Los Angeles’ BLM chapter and its partners proposed an alternative “People’s Budget,” which showed how redirecting money allocated for LAPD could pay for desperately needed housing assistance, rent suspension, mental health services and support for public schools. The activists succeeded in embarrassing City Council members into delaying a vote on the budget and ultimately allowing a June 1 deadline to pass without revising the budget.

      Despite its progressive reputation, Los Angeles has lagged behind the rest of the state in criminal justice reform. L.A. County jails incarcerate more people than any other jail system in the country.Black Lives Matter activists have been at the forefront of efforts to change that.

      Although Black Lives Matter does not endorse candidates, it has led the effort to oust Lacey, who has opposed almost every criminal justice reform measure that has come up during her eight years in office. Lacey, the county’s first Black district attorney, ran for reelection in 2016 unopposed but is facing a progressive challenger in November after failing to secure more than 50% of the vote in the primary.

      Thanks to BLM organizing, L.A. residents will also have the chance to vote on Measure R, a civilian-driven ballot initiative that aims to reduce the county’s jail population by getting prisoners with mental health conditions out of jail and into treatment. Organizers collected 250,000 signatures to get Measure R on the ballot.

    • What does ’defund the police’ mean? The rallying cry sweeping the US – explained | US news | The Guardian
      https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/05/defunding-the-police-us-what-does-it-mean?ref=hvper.com
      https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8fd0ed9636b86ed15b807511f42695dda676873d/0_135_3219_1931/master/3219.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-ali

      For years, community groups have advocated for defunding law enforcement – taking money away from police and prisons – and reinvesting those funds in services. The basic principle is that government budgets and “public safety” spending should prioritize housing, employment, community health, education and other vital programs, instead of police officers. Advocates argue that defunding is the best way forward since attempts to reform police practices over the last five years have failed, as evidenced by the brutal killing of George Floyd. Groups have a range of demands, with some seeking modest reductions and others viewing full defunding as a step toward abolishing contemporary police services.
      How much does America currently spend on police?

      In the past four decades, the cost of policing in the US has tripled and is now $115bn, according to a recent analysis. That steady increase comes as crime has been consistently declining. In most cities, spending on police is significantly greater than spending on services and other departments ($1.8bn on police in Los Angeles, for example, which is more than half the city’s general fund). The Covid-19 economic crisis has led cities and states to make drastic budget cuts to education, youth programs, arts and culture, parks, libraries, housing services and more. But police budgets have grown or gone largely untouched – until pressure from protests this week.

    • Abolishing Prisons Is within Our Grasp | Bitch Media
      https://www.bitchmedia.org/article/prison-abolition-should-be-the-american-dream

      The United States incarcerates more people than any other country, with 2.2 million adults in prisons or jails at the end of 2016. Nearly 60,000 children under the age of 18 are also incarcerated in juvenile jails or prisons, and about 10,000 more children are held in adult jails or prisons. Citizens pay the high price for this system because our tax dollars are funneled into policing and incarcerating the people in these systems—predominantly Black and Brown people. This is by design. Slavery legally ended in 1865 with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, but the language of this amendment still allowed slavery as punishment for a crime. The carceral system revived slave labor, allowing the United States to continue disenfranchising and enslaving incarcerated Black people. Now almost every aspect of Black and Brown people’s lives is affected by the carceral state—from extra surveillance and imprisonment to disenfranchisement upon release. The entire system is built to maintain white supremacy, which remains the status quo in the United States.

      “It might be challenging to envision a world without policing or imprisonment because we’re constantly being told that these systems are natural [they’re not] and have always existed [they haven’t],” says Mohamed Shehk, the national media and communications director of Critical Resistance. Though some Americans have difficulties imagining a world without police or prisons, communities who don’t rely on the PIC do exist. Shehk says the Palestinian village where his mother grew up doesn’t have a police force. Problems there are resolved by “bringing in the elders of the community to come up with a resolution.” In 2011, the indigenous Purépecha town of Cherán banned political parties, gangs, and police. Since then, they boast the lowest murder rate in the entire Michoacán region, which is historically one of the most violent regions in Mexico. What’s more, since Cherán abolished the corrupt police force, they haven’t had a single kidnapping.

      “Policing exists to manage the consequences of inequality in ways that benefit those people who are creating the inequality,” says Alex S. Vitale, a sociology professor at Brooklyn College and author of the 2017 book The End of Policing. “The decision to use police to manage the problems of the poor is inherently unjust in most circumstances and actually racist because this burden so falls most heavily on communities of color.” Many wealthy white communities have already abolished police forces because they don’t want the criminal justice system solving their intercommunal problems. Why is this option not available to all of us?

      Abolitionists are often asked to explain what will happen to people who commit murder or rape if police and prisons are abolished. Shehk responds with a similar question: “What are we doing now with people who commit those harms?” Some of the high-profile assault stories that surfaced during the #MeToo movement, including Chanel Miller’s rape at the hands of Brock Turner and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony of her assault by Brett Kavanaugh, revealed that survivors of sexual harassment and assault aren’t being protected by this system. Instead, the criminal justice system protects and maintains agents of the patriarchy, including students like Turner, police officers, lawyers, Supreme Court justices, and presidents.

      Since the United States locks people up at a higher rate than any other country, you’d assume this “would be the safest place, virtually free of harm or violence,” Shehk says, but that’s obviously not the case. The president of the United States and two Supreme Court justices have been accused of sexual harassment or sexual assault on multiple occasions. Less than 1 percent of rapes result in the incarceration of the perpetrator, while at least 89 percent of survivors face emotional and physical consequences. Often the rapes reported to police aren’t even investigated, considering the 200,000 rape kits the federal government estimates are sitting—submitted, yet unopened—in police storage. That’s not justice.

      ActivismMagazinePoliticsprisonThe Fantasy Issue
      Beyond BarsPrison Abolition Should Be the American Dream
      by Reina Sultan |

      artwork by Matice Moore and Dawud Lee
      Published on June 4, 2020

      I do not have all the answers, left. I try to have conversations about every subject we must deal with in our communities, center. Someone you love needs your support, but you cannot be there, no matter how much they need you, right. (Artwork by Matice Moore and Dawud Lee for the LifeLines Project)
      This article was published in Fantasy Issue #87 | Summer 2020 Subscribe »

      In her 2003 book, Are Prisons Obsolete?, scholar and activist Angela Y. Davis wrote, “Prison abolitionists are dismissed as utopians and idealists whose ideas are at best unrealistic and impracticable, and, at worst, mystifying and foolish.” Those who oppose prison-industrial complex (PIC) abolition partially see it as a fantasy that can’t be realized. “This is a measure of how difficult it is to envision a social order that does not rely on the threat of sequestering people in dreadful places designed to separate them from their communities and families. The prison is considered so ‘natural’ that it is extremely hard to imagine life without it,” Davis writes.

      But activists and organizations have been imagining life without prisons for decades. The Prison Research/Education/Action Project’s 1976 pamphlet “Instead of Prisons: A Handbook for Abolitionists” laid out the pillars of abolition: “moratorium,” “decarceration,” and “excarceration.” “Moratorium” calls for an end to the building of prisons, jails, and detention centers; “decarceration” works to have nonviolent offenders released from prison; and “excarceration” involves diverting people away from interacting with law enforcement through decriminalization. In 1997, Davis and City University of New York professor Ruth Wilson Gilmore cofounded Critical Resistance, an international organization that aims to dismantle the pic by using these three pillars. A year later, 3,500 people convened for a three-day Critical Resistance conference to discuss the limitations of the PIC in the United States.

      Other organizations with similar goals have also been erected: Decrim NY wants to decriminalize sex work in New York City and in the state and decarcerate sex workers. The Black Youth Project 100 uses a Black, queer, and feminist lens to work toward the liberation of all Black people, including those who are currently incarcerated. No New Jails NYC calls for an end to the building and funding of new prisons and jails in New York City. All of these organizations are working toward a common goal: ending the pic.
      Justice Is Not Served

      The United States incarcerates more people than any other country, with 2.2 million adults in prisons or jails at the end of 2016. Nearly 60,000 children under the age of 18 are also incarcerated in juvenile jails or prisons, and about 10,000 more children are held in adult jails or prisons. Citizens pay the high price for this system because our tax dollars are funneled into policing and incarcerating the people in these systems—predominantly Black and Brown people. This is by design. Slavery legally ended in 1865 with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, but the language of this amendment still allowed slavery as punishment for a crime. The carceral system revived slave labor, allowing the United States to continue disenfranchising and enslaving incarcerated Black people. Now almost every aspect of Black and Brown people’s lives is affected by the carceral state—from extra surveillance and imprisonment to disenfranchisement upon release. The entire system is built to maintain white supremacy, which remains the status quo in the United States.

      “It might be challenging to envision a world without policing or imprisonment because we’re constantly being told that these systems are natural [they’re not] and have always existed [they haven’t],” says Mohamed Shehk, the national media and communications director of Critical Resistance. Though some Americans have difficulties imagining a world without police or prisons, communities who don’t rely on the PIC do exist. Shehk says the Palestinian village where his mother grew up doesn’t have a police force. Problems there are resolved by “bringing in the elders of the community to come up with a resolution.” In 2011, the indigenous Purépecha town of Cherán banned political parties, gangs, and police. Since then, they boast the lowest murder rate in the entire Michoacán region, which is historically one of the most violent regions in Mexico. What’s more, since Cherán abolished the corrupt police force, they haven’t had a single kidnapping.
      Doctor Climax

      From Our Sponsors

      Some communities within the United States are also accustomed to policing themselves. Shehk says it’s “important to remember that many communities don’t call the cops because of rightful mistrust.” He also points out that “you can also visit Beverly Hills or the Golden Triangle or the other elite, wealthy, white neighborhoods of this country to see what a community without police or prisons looks like.” When a student at an elite private school in Orange County, California, is found with weed in their backpack, teachers don’t call the police—and there isn’t an active police presence within the school itself. Instead, teachers call the student’s parents, believing it’s an issue that can be solved within the family. Black and Brown students, on the other hand, are funneled from school into the criminal justice system in what is commonly known as the school-to-prison pipeline. These students are increasingly accused of crimes, suspended, or reported to the police compared to their white counterparts, which often creates a lasting connection with the carceral state.

      Reducing interaction with law enforcement would allow students the space to make mistakes and learn from them, and would encourage teachers to build better relationships with parents. It also moves resources away from metal detectors, surveillance equipment, and onsite police and toward quality educators, better school supplies, and extracurricular activities. “Policing exists to manage the consequences of inequality in ways that benefit those people who are creating the inequality,” says Alex S. Vitale, a sociology professor at Brooklyn College and author of the 2017 book The End of Policing. “The decision to use police to manage the problems of the poor is inherently unjust in most circumstances and actually racist because this burden so falls most heavily on communities of color.” Many wealthy white communities have already abolished police forces because they don’t want the criminal justice system solving their intercommunal problems. Why is this option not available to all of us?
      What Does Abolition Look Like?

      Abolitionists are often asked to explain what will happen to people who commit murder or rape if police and prisons are abolished. Shehk responds with a similar question: “What are we doing now with people who commit those harms?” Some of the high-profile assault stories that surfaced during the #MeToo movement, including Chanel Miller’s rape at the hands of Brock Turner and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony of her assault by Brett Kavanaugh, revealed that survivors of sexual harassment and assault aren’t being protected by this system. Instead, the criminal justice system protects and maintains agents of the patriarchy, including students like Turner, police officers, lawyers, Supreme Court justices, and presidents.

      Since the United States locks people up at a higher rate than any other country, you’d assume this “would be the safest place, virtually free of harm or violence,” Shehk says, but that’s obviously not the case. The president of the United States and two Supreme Court justices have been accused of sexual harassment or sexual assault on multiple occasions. Less than 1 percent of rapes result in the incarceration of the perpetrator, while at least 89 percent of survivors face emotional and physical consequences. Often the rapes reported to police aren’t even investigated, considering the 200,000 rape kits the federal government estimates are sitting—submitted, yet unopened—in police storage. That’s not justice.

      Get Bitch Media’s top 9 reads of the week delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning! Sign up for the Weekly Reader:
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      Murder clearance rates aren’t much better, with police reportedly solving only about 60 percent of murders. When the victim is Black—as the majority of homicide victims are—the clearance rate declines to the lowest of any other racial group. In communities that are particularly disenfranchised, those rates can be in the single digits. These figures don’t instill much faith in law enforcement’s efficacy.

      As Vitale puts it, “serial killers don’t just fall out of the sky.” According to him, treating criminalization as the only option for deterrence is one of the reasons nothing is done to help children or teenagers who, despite the threat of prison, still exhibit violent tendencies. That violence might be prevented through robust social services, mental healthcare, and support systems. Shehk also lists “restorative and transformative justice practices, healing circles, or community accountability models” as examples of nonpunitive ways of addressing harm. “Rather than trying to cage away the problem, one key part of these models is an attempt to address the root cause of the harm and to change the conditions in which it occurred so that it doesn’t happen again,” he says. “Many of these are informed by Indigenous practices, and all of them seek to uplift the humanity of the parties involved.”

      Mass incarceration costs $182 billion a year, when considering policing, court costs, and the operating costs of prisons and jails—and it doesn’t even effectively deter crime, achieve justice for victims, or rehabilitate perpetrators. Rather than funneling money into the PIC, the United States could fund an education system that invests in mental-health services instead of policing and surveillance. We could use those billions of dollars to finance living accommodations for houseless people and provide them with mental healthcare and drug rehabilitation as needed. This money could be used to train crisis intervention teams or violence interrupters to deal with escalated situations.

      The possibilities are endless, if we allow ourselves to dream bigger than criminalization and bondage. “Being an abolitionist is the most realistic position because it is based in statistics and logic along with empathy and respect for human dignity,” says Agbebiyi. To Daoud, “over-policing creates a system of engineered conflict and perpetuates harm. As such, she—and others at BBO—believes that abolishing prisons must be coupled with radically caring for your community in many forms, including cop-watching and bystander intervention. The dream of abolition is being realized every day by people working for a more equitable world. “If you’re doing work to advocate for a living wage, that’s abolitionist work. If you’re doing work to advocate against environmental racism, that’s abolitionist work. If you’re working to make sure folks have access to affordable healthcare, that’s abolitionist work,” Agbebiyi says. Moving abolition from a fantasy to a reality is going to happen incrementally, but we can certainly make it happen. Vitale confirms this, saying, “Abolition is embedded in tons of movements all over the country and it’s happening right now.”

      by Reina Sultan
      #abolitionnisme_carcéral #prison

    • Majority of the Minneapolis City Council pledges to dismantle the Police Department.
      https://seenthis.net/messages/859237

      Nine members — a veto-proof majority — of the Minneapolis City Council pledged on Sunday to dismantle the city’s Police Department, promising to create a new system of public safety in a city where law enforcement has long been accused of racism.

      Saying that the city’s current policing system could not be reformed, the council members stood before hundreds of people gathered late in the day on a grassy hill, and signed a pledge to begin the process of taking apart the Police Department as it now exists.

    • Mpls. Council majority backs dismantling police department - StarTribune.com
      https://www.startribune.com/mpls-council-majority-backs-dismantling-police-department/571088302


      Alondra Cano was one of nine Minneapolis Council members who spoke out in support of advocacy group Black Visions, which is calling for the end of the Minneapolis Police Department.
      JERRY HOLT – STAR TRIBUNE

      In their boldest statement since George Floyd’s killing, nine Minneapolis City Council members told a crowd Sunday that they will “begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department.

      We recognize that we don’t have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does,” they said, reading off a prepared statement. “We’re committed to engaging with every willing community member in the City of Minneapolis over the next year to identify what safety looks like for you.

      Their words — delivered one day after Mayor Jacob Frey told a crowd of protesters he does not support the full abolishment of the MPD — set off what is likely to be a long, complicated debate about the future of the state’s largest police force.

      With the world watching, and the city’s leaders up for re-election next year, the stakes are particularly high. While Minneapolis has debated the issue in the past, Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police has added a sense of urgency, and the calls for police departments to be disbanded have echoed in other cities around the country.

      Council members have noted repeatedly since Floyd’s death that Minneapolis has the chance to redefine policing. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, nine of them walked onto a stage at Powderhorn Park to support members of advocacy group Black Visions, who were calling for the end of the MPD. On stage were Council President Lisa Bender, Vice President Andrea Jenkins and Council Members Alondra Cano, Phillippe Cunningham, Jeremiah Ellison, Steve Fletcher, Cam Gordon, Andrew Johnson and Jeremy Schroeder.

      Decades of police reform efforts have proved that the Minneapolis Police Department cannot be reformed and will never be accountable for its actions,” they said. “We are here today to begin the process of ending the Minneapolis Police Department and creating a new, transformative model for cultivating safety in Minneapolis.

      #démantèlement de la #police_municipale


      Gallery: A new sculpture was erected on Chicago Avenue S. just north of E. 38th Street, the site where George Floyd was was asphyxiated in Minneapolis police custody
      JEFF WHEELER – STAR TRIBUNE.


      Visitors to the intersection where George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis were continuously leaving fresh flowers on the names of other victims of police violence on Sunday, June 7.
      JEFF WHEELER – STAR TRIBUNE_

    • The End of Policing: Alex Vitale on How Cops & Their Unions Cover Up Inequality, Exploitation | Democracy Now!
      https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/8/alex_vitale_end_of_policing#transcript

      Professor Alex Vitale argues the answer to police violence is not “reform.” It’s defunding. The author of “The End of Policing” says the movement to defund the police is part of “a long story about the use of police and prisons to manage problems of inequality and exploitation.” He asks, “Why are we using police to paper over problems of economic exploitation?” He also discusses the role of police unions. “They become, in many cities, the locus, the institutional hub, for a whole set of right-wing ’thin blue line’ politics that believe that policing is not only effective but it’s the most desirable way to solve our problems. And embedded in this is a deep racism that says that certain populations can only be managed through constant threats of coercion.”

    • Minneapolis City Council Vows to Dismantle Police Dept. After Mass Protests & Grassroots Organizing | Democracy Now!
      https://www.democracynow.org/2020/6/8/minneapolis_police_abolition#transcript

      The City Council of Minneapolis announced Saturday it would disband and abolish the police department responsible for the killing of African American man George Floyd, following nearly two weeks of mass protest and growing calls to defund the police.

      In a statement, nine of the city’s 12 councilmembers said, quote, “Decades of police reform efforts have proved that the Minneapolis Police Department cannot be reformed, and will never be accountable for its action. … We recognize that we don’t have all the answers about what a police-free future looks like, but our community does,” they said.

      The historic announcement comes after years of organizing on the ground by groups like Reclaim the Block, Black Visions Collective and MPD150.

  • Trump administration has expelled 10,000 migrants at the border during coronavirus outbreak, just 100 in custody at the border
    #Covid-19#migrant#migration#US#expulsion

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/trump-administration-has-expelled-10000-migrants-at-the-border-during-coronavirus-outbreak-just-100-in-custody-at-the-border/ar-BB12oCra
    https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB12oCr5.img?h=630&w=1200&m=6&q=60&o=t&l=f&f=jpg

    The Trump administration has carried out nearly 10,000 summary deportations or “expulsions” since March 21, using emergency public health measures that have given U.S. Customs and Border Protection broad authority to bypass immigration laws, CBP officials said Thursday.

  • Government Tracking How People Move Around in Coronavirus Pandemic
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/government-tracking-how-people-move-around-in-coronavirus-pandemic/ar-BB11PDb4?ocid=se2

    WASHINGTON—Government officials across the U.S. are using location data from millions of cellphones in a bid to better understand the movements of Americans during the coronavirus pandemic and how they may be affecting the spread of the disease. The federal government, through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and state and local governments have started to receive analyses about the presence and movement of people in certain areas of geographic interest drawn from cellphone (...)

    #Unacast_ #Verizon #AT&T #smartphone #géolocalisation #marketing #publicité #santé #BigData

    ##AT&T ##publicité ##santé
    https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB11PEmw.img

  • Germany shooting livestreamed despite efforts by tech firms
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/germany-shooting-livestreamed-despite-efforts-by-tech-firms/ar-AAIxxj2

    The news come after the deadly New Zealand mosque shooting livestreamed on Facebook in March, which prompted governments to press social networks to prevent the airing of violent acts on their platforms.

    [...]

    “Filtering algorithms so far have not been very good at detecting violence on livestream,” noted Jillian Peterson, a professor of criminology at Hamline University, who suggested that social media firms may end up being “held accountable” for their role in spreading violent and hateful content.

    Research by Peterson and others suggest shooters may be affected by contagion when they see similar attacks.

    “In many ways, these shootings are performances, meant for all of us to watch,” Peterson said.

    “Social media — and now livestreaming services --- have given perpetrators a larger stage and wider audience. Perpetrators are looking to show their grievance to the world, and livestreaming gives them the means to do it.”

    Hans-Jakob Schindler of the Counter Extremism Project, a group seeking to curb online violence, said the latest livestream highlights a need for stronger actions against social platforms.

    “Online platforms need to step up and stop their services being used and in turn, parent companies need to hold them accountable,” Schindler said.

    “Amazon is just as much to blame as Twitch for allowing this stream online. This tragic incident demonstrates one more time that a self-regulatory approach is not effective enough and sadly highlights the need for stronger regulation of the tech sector.”

    #algorithmes #filtres #régulation versus #censure #surveillance #GAFA #silicon_valley #violence

  • MoA - June 04, 2019 - Tiananmen Square - Do The Media Say What Really Happened ?
    https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/06/tiananmen-square-do-the-media-say-what-really-happened.html


    Le bloggeur Moon of Alabama (#MoA) et un commentateur de son article nous rappellent qu’il y a des informations fiables qui démentent le récit préféré en occident à propos des événements du square Tiananmen il y a trente ans.

    Since 1989 the western media write anniversary pieces on the June 4 removal of protesters from the Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The view seems always quite one sided and stereotyped with a brutal military that suppresses peaceful protests.

    That is not the full picture. Thanks to Wikileaks we have a few situation reports from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing at that time. They describe a different scene than the one western media paint to this day.

    Ten thousands of people, mostly students, occupied the square for six weeks. They protested over the political and personal consequences of Mao’s chaotic Cultural Revolution which had upset the whole country. The liberalization and changeover to a more capitalist model under Deng Xiopings had yet to show its success and was fought by the hardliners in the Communist Party.

    The more liberal side of the government negotiated with the protesters but no agreement was found. The hardliners in the party pressed for the protest removal. When the government finally tried to move the protesters out of the very prominent square they resisted.

    On June 3 the government moved troops towards the city center of Beijing. But the military convoys were held up. Some came under attack. The U.S. embassy reported that soldiers were taken as hostages:

    TENSION MOUNTED THROUGHOUT THE AFTERNOON AS BEIJING RESIDENTS VENTED THEIR ANGER BY HARASSING MILITARY AND POLICE PERSONNEL AND ATTACKING THEIR VEHICLES. STUDENTS DISPLAYED CAPTURED WEAPONS, MILITARY EQUIPMENT AND VEHICLES, INCLUDING IN FRONT OF THE ZHONGNANHAI LEADERSHIP COMPOUND. AN EFFORT TO FREE STILL CAPTIVE MILITARY PERSONNEL OR TO CLEAR THE SOUTHERN ENTRANCE TO ZHONGNANHAI MAY HAVE BEEN THE CAUSE OF A LIMITED TEAR GAS ATTACK IN THAT AREA AROUND 1500 HOURS LOCAL.

    There are some gruesome pictures of the government side casualties of these events.

    Another cable from June 3 notes:

    THE TROOPS HAVE OBVIOUSLY NOT YET BEEN GIVEN ORDERS PERMITTING THEM TO USE FORCE. THEIR LARGE NUMBERS, THE FACT THAT THEY ARE HELMETED, AND THE AUTOMATIC WEAPONS THEY ARE CARRYING SUGGEST THAT THE FORCE OPTION IS REAL.

    In the early morning of June 4 the military finally reached the city center and tried to push the crowd out of Tiananmen Square:

    STUDENTS SET DEBRIS THROWN ATOP AT LEAST ONE ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER AND LIT THE DEBRIS, ACCORDING TO EMBOFF NEAR THE SCENE. ABC REPORTED THAT ONE OTHER ARMORED PERSONNEL CARRIER IS AFLAME. AT LEAST ONE BUS WAS ALSO BURNING, ACCORDING TO ABC NEWS REPORTERS ON THE SQUARE AT 0120. THE EYEWITNESSES REPORTED THAT TROOPS AND RIOT POLICE WERE ON THE SOUTHERN END OF THE SQUARE AND TROOPS WERE MOVING TO THE SQUARE FROM THE WESTERN SIDE OF THE CITY.

    The soldiers responded as all soldiers do when they see that their comrades get barbecued:

    THERE HAS REPORTEDLY BEEN INDISCRIMINATE GUNFIRE BY THE TROOPS ON THE SQUARE. WE CAN HEAR GUNFIRE FROM THE EMBASSY AND JIANGUOMENWAI DIPLOMATIC COMPOUND. EYEWITNESSES REPORT TEAR GAS ON THE SQUARE, FLARES BEING FIRED ABOVE IT, AND TRACERS BEING FIRED OVER IT.

    Most of the violence was not in the square, which was already quite empty at that time, but in the streets around it. The soldiers tried to push the crowd away without using their weapons:

    THE SITUATION IN THE CENTER OF THE CITY IS VERY CONFUSED. POLOFFS AT THE BEIJING HOTEL REPORTED THAT TROOPS ARE PUSHING A LARGE CROWD OF DEMONSTRATORS EAST ON CHANGANJIE. ALTHOUGH THESE TROOPS APPEAR NOT TO BE FIRING ON THE CROWD, POLOFFS REPORT FIRING BEHIND THE TROOPS COMING FROM THE SQUARE.

    With the Square finally cleared the student protest movement ebbed away.

    Western secret services smuggled some 800 of the leaders of their failed ’color revolution’ out of the country, reported the Financial Times in 2014:

    Many went first to France, but most travelled on to the US for scholarships at Ivy League universities.

    The extraction missions, aided by MI6, the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service, and the CIA, according to many accounts, had scrambler devices, infrared signallers, night-vision goggles and weapons.

    It is unclear how many people died during the incident. The numbers vary between dozens to several hundred. It also not known how many of them were soldiers, and how many were violent protesters or innocent bystanders.

    The New York Times uses the 30th anniversary of the June 4 incidents to again promote a scene that is interpreted as successful civil resistance.

    He has become a global symbol of freedom and defiance, immortalized in photos, television shows, posters and T-shirts.

    But three decades after the Chinese Army crushed demonstrations centered on Tiananmen Square, “Tank Man” — the person who boldly confronted a convoy of tanks barreling down a Beijing avenue — is as much a mystery as ever.

    But was the man really some hero? It is not known what the the man really wanted or if he was even part of the protests:

    According to the man who took the photo, AP photographer Jeff Widener, the photo dates from June 5 the day after the Tiananmen Square incident. The tanks were headed away from, and not towards, the Square. They were blocked not by a student but by a man with a shopping bag crossing the street who had chosen to play chicken with the departing tanks. The lead tank had gone out its way to avoid causing him injury.

    The longer video of the tank hold up (turn off the ghastly music) shows that the man talked with the tank commander who makes no attempt to force him away. The scene ends after two minutes when some civilian passersby finally tell the man to move along. The NYT also writes:

    But more recently, the government has worked to eliminate the memory of Tank Man, censoring images of him online and punishing those who have evoked him.
    ...
    As a result of the government’s campaign, many people in China, especially younger Chinese, do not recognize his image.

    To which Carl Zha, who currently travels in China and speaks the language, responds:

    Carl Zha @CarlZha - 15:23 utc - 4 Jun 2019

    For the record, Everyone in China know about what happened on June 4th, 1989. Chinese gov remind them every year by cranking up censorship to 11 around anniversary. Idk Western reporters who claim people in China don’t know are just esp stupid/clueless or deliberately misleading

    In fact that applies to China reporting in general. I just don’t know whether Western China reporters are that stupid/clueless or deliberately misleading. I used to think people can’t be that stupid but I am constantly surprised...

    and

    Carl Zha @CarlZha - 15:42 utc - 4 Jun 2019

    This Image was shared in one of the Wechat group I was in today. Yes, everyone understood the reference

    Carl recommends the two part movie The Gate To Heavenly Peace (vid) as the best documentary of the Tiananmen Square protests. It explores the political and social background of the incident and includes many original voices and scenes.

    Posted by b on June 4, 2019 at 03:00

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/tiananmen-square-world-marks-30-years-since-massacre-as-china-censors-all-mention/ar-AACl8Sy?li=BBnbcA1
    https://search.wikileaks.org/?query=Tiananmen&exact_phrase=&any_of=&exclude_words=&document_dat
    https://twitter.com/Obscureobjet/status/1135970437886881792
    https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/89BEIJING15390_a.html
    https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/89BEIJING15411_a.html
    https://www.ft.com/content/4f970144-e658-11e3-9a20-00144feabdc0
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/world/asia/tiananmen-tank-man.html
    http://www.fccj.or.jp/number-1-shimbun/item/984-the-truth-about-tankman/984-the-truth-about-tankman.html
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq8zFLIftGk


    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/03/world/asia/tiananmen-tank-man.html
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Gtt2JxmQtg&feature=youtu.be

    –---

    Here’s Minqi Li — a student of the “right” (liberal) at the time ["How did I arrive at my current intellectual position? I belong to the “1989 generation.” But unlike the rest of the 1989 generation, I made the unusual intellectual and political trajectory from the Right to the Left, and from being a neoliberal “democrat” to a revolutionary Marxist"] — about 1989.

    It is in the preface of his book “The Rise of China”, which I don’t recommend as a theoretical book. It doesn’t affect his testimony though:
    The 1980s was a decade of political and intellectual excitement in China. Despite some half-hearted official restrictions, large sections of the Chinese intelligentsia were politically active and were able to push for successive waves of the so-called “emancipation of ideas” (jiefang sixiang). The intellectual critique of the already existing Chinese socialism at first took place largely within a Marxist discourse. Dissident intellectuals called for more democracy without questioning the legitimacy of the Chinese Revolution or the economic institutions of socialism.
    [...]
    After 1985, however, economic reform moved increasingly in the direction of the free market. Corruption increased and many among the bureaucratic elites became the earliest big capitalists. Meanwhile, among the intellectuals, there was a sharp turn to the right. The earlier, Maoist phase of Chinese socialism was increasingly seen as a period of political oppression and economic failure. Chinese socialism was supposed to have “failed,” as it lost the economic growth race to places such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Many regarded Mao Zedong himself as an ignorant, backward Chinese peasant who turned into a cruel, power-hungry despot who had been responsible for the killing of tens of millions. (This perception of Mao is by no means a new one, we knew it back in the 1980s.) The politically active intellectuals no longer borrowed discourse from Marxism. Instead, western classical liberalism and neoliberal economics, as represented by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, had become the new, fashionable ideology.
    [...]
    As the student demonstrations grew, workers in Beijing began to pour onto the streets in support of the students, who were, of course, delighted. However, being an economics student, I could not help experiencing a deep sense of irony. On the one hand, these workers were the people that we considered to be passive, obedient, ignorant, lazy, and stupid. Yet now they were coming out to support us. On the other hand, just weeks before, we were enthusiastically advocating “reform” programs that would shut down all state factories and leave the workers unemployed. I asked myself: do these workers really know who they are supporting?
    Unfortunately, the workers did not really know. In the 1980s, in terms of material living standards, the Chinese working class remained relatively well-off. There were nevertheless growing resentments on the part of the workers as the program of economic reform took a capitalist turn. Managers were given increasing power to impose capitalist-style labor disciplines (such as Taylorist “scientific management”) on the workers. The reintroduction of “material incentives” had paved the way for growing income inequality and managerial corruption.
    [...]
    By mid-May 1989, the student movement became rapidly radicalized, and liberal intellectuals and student leaders lost control of events. During the “hunger strike” at Tiananmen Square, millions of workers came out to support the students. This developed into a near-revolutionary situation and a political showdown between the government and the student movement was all but inevitable. The liberal intellectuals and student leaders were confronted with a strategic decision. They could organize a general retreat, calling off the demonstrations, though this strategy would certainly be demoralizing. The student leaders would probably be expelled from the universities and some liberal intellectuals might lose their jobs. But more negative, bloody consequences would be avoided.
    Alternatively, the liberal intellectuals and the student leaders could strike for victory. They could build upon the existing political momentum, mobilize popular support, and take steps to seize political power. If they adopted this tactic, it was difficult to say if they would succeed but there was certainly a good chance. The Communist Party’s leadership was divided. Many army commanders’ and provincial governments’ loyalty to the central government was in question. The student movement had the support of the great majority of urban residents throughout the country. To pursue this option, however, the liberal intellectuals and students had to be willing and able to mobilize the full support of the urban working class. This was a route that the Chinese liberal intellectuals simply would not consider.
    So what they did was … nothing. The government did not wait long to act. While the students themselves peacefully left Tiananmen Square, thousands of workers died in Beijing’s streets defending them.

    Posted by: vk | Jun 4, 2019 3:21:31 PM

    #Chine #démocratie #histoire #4689