The War on Drugs

Prologue:

Now that details have begun to emerge on the upcoming biography of President Barack Obama, there could be no better time to take a look at the United States world wide war on drugs. But before we get in to the nitty gritty let's learn a little more about our sitting president. This paragraph comes from The Huffington Post but you can find similar reporting nearly everywhere.

 David Maraniss' book, Barack Obama: The Story, describes Obama as a marijuana enthusiast: "When a joint was making the rounds, he often elbowed his way in, out of turn, shouted 'Intercepted!' and took an extra hit," Maraniss writes. 

Maraniss also describes Obama's technique of "roof hits" while hot-boxing cars. "When the pot was gone, they tilted their heads back and sucked in the last bit of smoke from the ceiling," he writes. 

Obama has been less than shy about his drug use in the past, writing about the topic in Dreams from My Father, "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it," he writes in the memoir.

BuzzFeed gave a detailed report on what seems to be every mention of cannabis use in the upcoming book by David Maraniss.  Here are my personal favorites:

A self-selected group of boys at Punahou School who loved basketball and good times called themselves the Choom Gang. Choom is a verb, meaning "to smoke marijuana." 

As a member of the Choom Gang, Barry Obama was known for starting a few pot-smoking trends. The first was called "TA," short for "total absorption." To place this in the physical and political context of another young man who would grow up to be president, TA was the antithesis of Bill Clinton's claim that as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford he smoked dope but never inhaled.

There are more than a dozen other interesting details about the president you might not have known.  All of which lead most thoughtful people to wonder why in the world a man who knows how harmless cannabis use is, could be among the harshest of administrations in regards to drug enforcement.

America:

Louisiana

There are many undeniable fact one faces when looking at Louisiana's incarceration rate. NOLA had this to say about the subject:

Louisiana is the world's prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana's incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran's, seven times China's and 10 times Germany's.

This may make you wonder if there are more criminals or a harder working police force in place to account for so many arrest.  Sadly the problem stems from a deeply rooted racism and a system of people profiting off  of the incarceration of others.

If the inmate count dips, sheriffs bleed money. Their constituents lose jobs. The prison lobby ensures this does not happen by thwarting nearly every reform that could result in fewer people behind bars.

A prison system that leased its convicts as plantation labor in the 1800s has come full circle and is again a nexus for profit.

There are many tribulations that put people in jail (as opposed to hard crimes) and Louisiana does have a high crime rate, however part of the reason there are so many inmates year after year is their harsh sentencing practices.

A trio of drug convictions can be enough to land you at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola for the rest of your life.

To prove the point that drug enforcement policy provides plenty of fodder for the jail system the article goes  further:

Every dollar spent on prisons is a dollar not spent on schools, hospitals and highways. Other states are strategically reducing their prison populations -- using tactics known in policy circles as "smart on crime." Compared with the national average, Louisiana has a much lower percentage of people incarcerated for violent offenses and a much higher percentage behind bars for drug offenses -- perhaps a signal that some nonviolent criminals could be dealt with differently.

"You have people who are so invested in maintaining the present system -- not just the sheriffs, but judges, prosecutors, other people who have links to it," said Burk Foster, a former professor at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette and an expert on Louisiana prisons. "They don't want to see the prison system get smaller or the number of people in custody reduced, even though the crime rate is down, because the good old boys are all linked together in the punishment network, which is good for them financially and politically."

If this is not the definition of a police state, then I do not know what is. We've become a nation addicted to creating laws and enforcing them to the fullest extent.  There are so many laws on the books that a police officer can rightfully arrest you for nearly anything.  Talking too loud, touching an officer, taking a picture, walking in the street, wearing a mask, and so on.  They can literally arrest you for nothing and just make something up and get away with it many times.  How many of the laws that we allow police to detain people for are legitimate causes for concern among society?  Sadly I think not many.

California

Even a progressive state with laws that allow cannabis use for medicinal purposes like California had seen rising arrests for misdemeanor cannabis possession.  Not to mention the rising DEA raids of local dispensaries.  Legislators recently passed a bill looking to create a regulatory board that would oversee all the dispensaries in the state in order to lessen the need for federal raids.  Of course the bill has it detractors.  The Miami Herald had this gem to share with it's readers:

Republican Assemblyman Don Wagner of Irvine blasted the bill for creating an oversight board stacked with people supportive of a marijuana industry. The board's nine members would include two physicians familiar with medical marijuana, a patient advocate, a marijuana union representative and at least one medical marijuana user.

"Something smells when you stack the deck like that," Wagner said. "And we know what that smell is."

Sound just like the oversight boards that are created to regulate energy production whose members are all from big oil or the ones created to regulate health care whose members all come from the pharmaceutical companies or how the Federal Reserve is filled with former bankers.  It's only fair when it works to the Federal Governments advantage to place insiders on a advisory board.  Hopefully this will help ease the DEA raids though, like last years bill which decriminalized possession of under an ounce of cannabis in CA  has helped lessen arrests for simple possession.

New Jersey

New Jersey has recently introduced a bill which would have similar effects to California's recent legislation, Philly.com explained it as such:

Under the measure, a first-time offender arrested with 15 grams of marijuana or less would face a $150 fine. The fine for subsequent offenses could increase to up to $500, along with referral to a state drug-education program. The bill won unanimous approval with bipartisan support Monday from the Assembly Judiciary Committee. A Senate version was introduced last week.

The bill isn't looking very likely to pass sadly.

Connecticut

On a brighter note, Friday June 1st Connecticut became the 17th state to legalize the medicinial use of cannabis.  Reuter's distinguished the law from it's counter part's in other parts of the country, noting that certain provisions will keep them from repeating past mistakes which have called federal attention to local matters.

Under the bill, patients and their caregivers must register with the Department of Consumer Protection. In addition, a doctor must certify there is a medical need for marijuana to be dispensed, including such debilitating conditions as cancer, glaucoma, HIV, AIDS, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis or epilepsy.

Finally, only a pharmacist with a special license can dispense medical marijuana, according to the new law.

New York

Meanwhile Connecticut's neighbors to the south in New York might see a reduction of the penalty for having 25 grams or less of cannabis out in public view.  Right now it is a misdemeanor offence which can lead to an arrest, court dates and a record.  If Gov. Andrew Cuomo has his way thousands of ethnic youths will be saved the indignity of being stopped and searched on the side of the road just to get arrested for a dime bag of weed.

The New York Times explains the law as such:

The governor will call for the decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana in public view, administration officials said. Advocates of such a change say the offense has ensnared tens of thousands of young black and Latino men who are stopped by the New York City police for other reasons but after being instructed to empty their pockets, find themselves charged with a crime.

The consequences of even a small possession charge can be devastating as the article explains:

“For individuals who have any kind of a record, even a minuscule one, the obstacles are enormous to employment and to education,” said Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. “When it’s really a huge number of kids in the community who go through this, and all have the same story, the impact is just devastating.”


The Huffington Post expanded on the issue when they reported:

Reverend Al Sharpton was correct in praising Cuomo's marijuana proposal as "a step in the right direction," but it is only the first of many steps that need to be taken to address drug abuse in our state and our nation. For one thing, the proposal continues to classify public marijuana smoking as a misdemeanor, whereas another bill proposed by Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries and State Senator Mark J. Grisanti would end low-level marijuana arrests entirely. That is the kind of bill we need, and neither the state nor the nation should rest until every non-violent drug offender (yes, even those caught using in public) is treated, not incarcerated.

Chicago

Following hot in Governor Cuomo's footsteps Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago is now considering similar measures, Rueters explains the situation as:

Under the proposed ordinance, to be voted on by the city council later this month, police officers in the nation's third-largest city would be able to issue a written violation for possession of 15 grams or less.

Of course this decision is based on a detailed investigation revealing:

Chicago Police Department statistics indicate that last year there were 18,298 arrests for possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana, according to a statement from the mayor's office. Each case involves approximately four officers - two arresting and two transporting officers - and places an additional burden on the Cook County court and jail system, the statement said.

World Wide:

Mexico

The reverberation of the choices made by a sitting president don't just influence the people inside the United States, not by a long shot.  Since the war on drugs was initiated a serious and deadly war between drug cartels has enfolded just south of our borders.  To get an idea of how serious the power a drug cartel holds over a country's people take this example from MSNBC as a starter:

A message signed by the Zetas and hung from a bridge in Monterrey in February took aim at the Mexican government. "Even with the support of the United States, they cannot stop us, because here the Zetas rule," it said. "The government must make a pact with us because if not we will have to overthrow it and take power by force."

There are those who may think that threats like this are idle and passing, but what kind of odds do you want to take with a group who is known for dismemberment and mass graves filled with innocent people.

The article goes in to deeper detail by revealing:

"The Zetas have created a new model of organized crime and unleashed new levels of violence to try and unseat the older cartels," said Mike Vigil, the former head of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. "This has destabilized many areas of Mexico."

In any war there are expected casualties between the opposing sides, each cartel for instance can fairly expect to have members be slain and possibly strewn out on to a busy highway.  It's when these battles start spilling over in to the public that things get really ugly.  Regular people are terrified to say anything to the police over the threat of being offed by a Zeta hitman and migrant workers trying to get to American and routinely held for ransom and murdered en mass.

This all goes on just 45 miles from the Texas border with much of the reason being due to the legal status of Cannabis.  The day the United States stops it's war on drugs is the first day not just the Zeta's but every drug cartel's money flow will start to dry up and their reigns of terror will surely start to crumble.  However an atrocity such as the one described in The News has many angles to be tackled before the root of the problem can be eliminated:

On Sunday, May 13th, the decapitated bodies of 43 men and women were found scattered alongside a highway in Monterrey, Mexico. According to officials, the dismembered corpses were dumped beside a banner signed by the top leaders of Zetas, an infamous Mexican drug cartel.

They go on to explain:

Indeed, since the Mexican government first announced its “War on Drugs” in 2006, U.S. strategy designed help with the removal of illicit drug operations have evolved.  Yet such policy has lacked efficiency when combating the greatest cause of the violence that starts on the American side of the border: firearms trade.  In fact, according to a recent U.S. Senate report, approximately 87% of weapons used by cartels in Mexico have roots in the United States.

However the initial sales of most of these weapons were definitely not meant to go directly in to the hands of the Zetas or any other cartel, most of the original weapons were sold to the military or police, corruption south of the border leads to their eventual use in gang violence.

In an interview with CBS, Bill Hartung, a proponent for arms control in the Arms and Security Project, stated, “There have been 150,000 or more Mexican soldiers defect to go work for the cartels, and I think it’s safe to assume that when they defect they take their firearms with them.”

The Zetas are the new kids on the block as far as Mexican Drug cartels do though and their older more seasoned counterpart the Sinoloa cartel are making sure that their reputation isn't tarnished by the recent surge in territory the Zetas have achieved.  TribLive had this to say about the situation:

"What was once viewed as extreme is now normal. So these gangs must find new extremes. And the only real limit is their imagination, and you do not want to know what is the limit of psychopaths," said Alejandro Hope, a security analyst with the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness, a nonpartisan think tank. 

In the past month alone, in what authorities describe as gruesome version of text messaging, the two criminal groups and their allies deposited 14 headless bodies in front of city hall in the border city of Nuevo Laredo, and hung nine people, including four women, from a bridge in the same city.

If you're wondering how they can get away with such brutal slayings without any repercussions, it's because they control entire towns with their automatic rifles and stacks of cash.

To bolster their defense of regions they control, and to destabilize their opponents, both groups have taken the fight to the other's territory. Part of this strategy is to "heat up the plaza" -- a plaza being a city or town where a criminal group controls corrupt officials and police as well as smuggling routes, a network of safe houses, armories of stashed weapons, and teams dedicated to spying, collecting money and killing.

Afghanistan

All of this madness is perpetuated in order to attempt to keep a joint out of the reach of ultra conservative America's children.  After all the money spent and violence wrecked weed is still everywhere!  Even in war torn countries where drug lords were on the run our hypocritical American ways have brought them back to the forefront of society.

Since the invasion of Afghanistan by "allied forces" drug lords who were held in check by the Taliban have started their opium empires once again with absolutely no interference from the US military.  I truly wonder how those poppy pods make it all the way across the world to America from the Middle East to be sold as heroin on the streets to addicts.  Even with the huge amount of drugs being produced in the country Afghans find themselves getting high off of a much rarer and more unusual substance, Suburra explains it as:

David Macdonald argues in his 2007 book, Drugs in Afghanistan, that Afghanistan’s increased drug usage is driven by an impoverished battle-scarred population trying desperately to relieve its suffering.* Western-led efforts to universally criminalize drugs are futile because distressed people will always be able to find chemical relief.

As an example, Macdonald notes that in Afghanistan even the ubiquitous scorpions can be used for intoxication. Tartars in Bamiyan province prepare scorpions by smashing them between stones and letting them dry. The main part of the tail, with the sting, is then crushed into a powder and smoked with tobacco and/or hashish (marijuana).

In India one police officer described the situation as:

Because of our successful drives against the sellers and addicts of alcohol, opium, cough syrup, and heroin in urban areas, young people are flocking on the highways to try the new craze of scorpion stings.

What's next, will America make Scorpions illegal so they can later inundate the streets with them in hopes that when the crack dries up they can start imprisoning non violent Scorpion addicts?  Only time shall tell.

Canada's Student Protests

They do this, paradoxically, because they care enough to make sacrifices in the hope of helping the group, and because this movement has offered something many students have discovered over the passing weeks - a sense of shared identity and shared grievance.
Montreal Gazette

“This isn’t a student strike, it’s a society waking up”
National Post

While there had been clashes at other points in the dispute, violence marked every night of the long weekend and the first part of the week. Wednesday’s demonstration looked as though it was going to break the pattern with an almost party-like atmosphere kicked off in many neighborhoods by the supportive pot banging that continued in some cases as the demonstration passed by.

In recent days, the percussion-heavy approach has been happening every night at 8 p.m. in Montreal and each night it’s gotten bigger and louder and lasted longer. Wednesday night, there were thousands doing it and they spilled out from their houses into the streets in different pockets of the city in crowds that included children, their parents, students and elderly people.

After dozens of similar rallies have been held, in support of Canadian students protesting tuition hikes they have been facing, last night in Montreal and all across Canada events took a swift turn for the worse.  Towards the early morning hours of May 24th 2012 Montreal Police "kettled" off 518 protesters creating a "civil rights free zone" in order to systematically detain and imprison each and every one of them.  The same was done to 176 protesters in Quebec.  During the arrest The Globe and Mail had this to say of the crowd:

While the crowd waited to be led away one by one to be handcuffed and sent for processing at a police operational center — a procedure expected to take several hours — a man started reading poetry and the crowd hushed to listen. Someone else sang a folk song. At one point a woman called out the phone number of a lawyer which the mob took up as a chant.

Does this sound like a dangerous group of people, terrorists and thugs who should be rounded up and put away for everyone's safety?  I think not.

Boston.com had this to say of the reason they were rounded up:
Montreal police spokesman Daniel Lacoursiere said an order to disperse was given because police had been pelted by projectiles and other criminal acts had been committed. 

If certain individuals in that group are responsible for breaking the law it is the police's job to single out those specific individuals for arrest, not to sanction off entire areas and deem everyone inside to be breaking the law.  

RT.com had this to add to the mix:

Most of those detained have already been released. Some face $1,000 fines. 

In order to give the police another non-lethal means of pressure on protesters, Quebec’s legislative assembly adopted a bill that introduces enormous fines of $24,000 to $122,000 against unions and student organizations which do not stop their members from protesting. Individuals found guilty of organizing a protest now face a fine of some $34,000. 

That'll make it so much easier for these already struggling students to pay off their debts and further their education.  Fine them for protesting, discouraging them to do so and endangering their education and future if they decide to join the demonstrations.  That's despicable.

The Guardian expanded on the story by revealing:

But what began as a protest against university fee increases has expanded to a wider movement to oppose Bill 78, which was rushed through by legislators in Quebec in response to the demonstrations. The bill imposes severe restrictions on protests, making it illegal for protesters to gather without having given police eight hours' notice and securing a permit.

"Hello... 911... yes we will be holding an impromptu protest tonight at 8PM, can you please come by with batons, pepper spray and tasers and complete the night for us?  It wouldn't be a party without you!"

"It makes a lot of people angry," she said. "We fear that tonight, because there will be more demonstrations going on, people will become a bit more violent, because as you saw yesterday, when you are peaceful, you get arrested."

Martine Desjardins

UPDATE 5/25:

Last night thousands took to the streets in support of student protests and in defiance of Bill 78, 500+ less people were arrested this time.

The student strike is the longest in Quebec history. Bill 78 suspended classes at 14 CEGEPs and 11 universities affected by the dispute. The law calls for classes to resume in August.

National Post

UPDATE 5/26:
Canadian officials made a horrible mistake when they passed Bill 78 and subsequently "kettled" hundreds of people for arrest earlier this week.  In an attempt to subdue popular protest, they have actually created a nation wide response.  Last night towns all over the country joined with Montreal and the rest of Quebec in banging pots and pans in the street!  The Huffington Post had this to say:

Montreal's nightly marches have grown in size since the bill was passed, including a demonstration on Tuesday in which more than 100,000 are estimated to have taken part. 

"The demonstrations now are no longer about the tuition raises," said Jacques Hamel, a sociologist at the Universite de Montreal. 

"The people in the streets with their casserole dishes aren't overwhelmingly people who would have confronted the government on other questions."

Kate McDonnell of the Montreal City Weblog explained Bill 78 very succinctly when she said: 

The most recent ratcheting of tension was last week's passage of a new law, Bill 78, the loi spéciale which limits freedom of assembly, protest, or picketing on or near university grounds, or anywhere in Quebec without prior police approval. A more vaguely worded part of the bill would criminalize the act of encouraging people to demonstrate.



UPDATE 5/27:
An English speaking activist from Quebec has started a blog to translate past articles as well as create new ones concerning what is going on in the French speaking province for all English speaking citizens of the world to read.  In an open letter to Western Media outfits one administrator of Translating the printemps érable had this to say:

Some of you have even started mentioning that when people are rounded up and arrested each night, they aren’t all criminals or rioters. Some of you have admitted that perhaps limiting our freedom of speech and assembly is going a little bit too far. Some of you are no longer publishing lies about the popular support that you seemed to think our government had. Not all of you, mind you, but some of you are waking up.

That said, here is what I have not seen you publish yet: stories about joy; about togetherness; about collaboration; about solidarity. You write about our anger, and yes, we are angry. We are angry at our government, at our police and at you. But none of you are succeeding in conveying what it feels like when you walk down the streets of Montreal right now, which is, for me at least, an overwhelming sense of joy and togetherness.

In what becomes a very encouraging read, the author brings to light many of the positive aspects of the ongoing protests and how they are going to influence regular people in his neighborhood for a long time.  Well worth your time if you are interesting in a human perspective of the grandiose happenings taking over Quebec nightly.   

UPDATE 5/29:

While the initial response by the Canadian government to create Bill 78 was in order to STOP protesting, they have brought a more diverse corss section of people, some of whom may NEVER have protested in their entire lives, if not for this watershed moment. National Post reports that last night even lawyers were out in force in the streets.

Lawyers dressed in their courtroom gowns paraded in silence from the city’s main courthouse through the streets of Old Montreal to join the nightly march. 

“It is one of the first times I’ve seen lawyers protest in public like this…and I’ve been practising for almost 30 years,” Bruno Grenier said outside the building surrounded by about 250 people, some carrying copies of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

The lawyer said his colleagues wanted to show the public that they oppose a law they “find unjust and which is probably unconstitutional.”

All of this, of course leads the Government to its most deeply embedded fear, loss of money!  Noone in power cares about what the students want, or lawyers, or every day residents.  There main concern is this:

The government, on the other hand, has a more immediate worry: that a prolonged dispute will cause chaos for tourists heading to take in Montreal’s big summer festivals.

Tourists, the most important people to any government local or federal, they bring in money, have no local rights, and go home after a few days.  Sounds like the perfect person to care about.  Why do something for your future generations, your current students, to help them succeed in life, what have they ever done for you?  Just wait, this world is changing with or without the old boys and their cronies club, they fear us more than we fear them.  The police can only intimidate for so long before the masses realize who is really in control.  

UPDATE 5/30:
Talks between student protesters and the government proposing tuition hikes is entering its third day and one leader of the people had this to say of the negotiations according to The Washington Post:

Asked if a deal was imminent, Martine Desjardins, the head of one of the university student groups, said “it depends how many hours you consider to be imminent.”

This week also marked the return of mass arrests as the police have been sitting low since last Wednesday.

On Monday, riot police were deployed as about 200 protesters stood in front of the building where the talks were held. Quebec City Police Lt. Stephane Dufresne said 84 were arrested. It was the first incident of mass arrests since last Wednesday when nearly 700 protesters were arrest. More than 2,500 people have been arrested since a student strike at more than a dozen Quebec colleges and universities began in February.

I feel as if the tuition talks have little to do with the actual protests any more.  No matter what happens between student representatives and the government the people still have cause to take to the streets until Bill 78 is repealed for good.

UPDATE 6/1:
The Star so aptly described the current situation in Quebec when they "printed" the following:

Quebec Premier Jean Charest is accusing student groups of “hurting Quebecers” as they take to the streets to protest the recent breakdown in talks with the government.

With Montreal’s Grand Prix weekend less than a week away, Charest expressed concern that student groups would disrupt the international event, which brings millions of dollars to the province each year.

He said students, who have spent almost four months striking against a proposed tuition hike, should leave Grand Prix fans alone given the financial importance of the race.

The latest round of talks collapsed Thursday afternoon when Charest’s education minister, Michelle Courchesne, declared the two sides had reached an “impasse.”

Around 10,000 students took to the streets of Montreal that night to decry the government’s decision to give up on negotiations. A much smaller crowd did the same in Quebec City.

UPDATE 6/4:
Just in case the severity of the fight we are all facing against the oppression of a police state is not clear enough.  Let these words from The Alaska Dispatch reverberate through your mind:

Since the start of the movement, more than 2,500 demonstrators have been arrested — and dozens were hurt. One person lost an eye because of a rubber bullet, said Renaud Poirier-St-Pierre, spokesman for student group CLASSE. There were also head injuries and broken arms and legs.

Once a battle has been brought so far, the initial causes for concern, such as tuition hikes, become secondary.  Whatever happens between the government and student leaders these protest seemed destined to continue:

Meanwhile, it is not clear that protests would end even if the government and the student representatives came to an agreement. The pots-and-pans movement has now expanded beyond the control of student organizations, into spontaneous gatherings.


UPDATE 6/9:
While not the most violent night and definitely not a night of mass arrests, last nights skirmishes between protesters and race car fans I believe is a perfect demonstration of the polarities of a nations people.  The Sun News described the nights events as such:

Downtown Montreal was once again the scene of arrests as demonstrators crashed the Formula One Grand Prix party.

Montreal cops confirmed 12 arrests overall Friday night, some of which were made near restaurants and terraces crowded with F1 fans.

*

Let us not forget our neighbors to the south as well, Mexican students have taken to the street recently with their reasons being described as such:

“We don’t think that the media [in Mexico] are providing fair coverage of events,” student leader Maria Jose Lopez said.

“Our main goal is to seek greater democracy within Mexican media,” said fellow activist, Rodrigo Serrano.

“It was a watershed moment, when we woke up on May 12 [the day following the candidate’s visit to the Iberoamericana] and saw how the media had manipulated [information about] what had really happened,” Partago told Televisa journalist Carlos Loret, who had the students appear on his morning talk show after they staged a protest in front of the TV station’s headquarters.

Anti-PRI posters and chants against Peña Nieto were abundant at Wednesday’s march -- perhaps an indication that some of the protesters have a broader agenda than the organizers.

They also plan to demand that all TV channels in Mexico show the next debate between the country’s presidential candidates as the first debate was shunned by TV Azeca and Televisa and replaced by a soccer match and the talent show Pequeños Gigantes.

Highbrow Magazine

In what can only be described as a global uprising, on the other side of the planet in Nigeria students protest for their right as well, their story can be found at Fox News, but the highlights go like this:

A senior police officer threw stones back at the students in between firing tear gas canisters.

At least one student became overcome by the gas and had to be carried away. Officers briefly detained one of the students.

After firing the tear gas, police attempted to broker a truce by buying angry students and the unemployed men drinking water in plastic bags and offered money to help bring a disc jockey to turn the protest into an impromptu block party.

National Defense Authorization Act

The Court then asked: Give me an example. Tell me what it means to substantially support associated forces.

Government: I’m not in a position to give specific examples.

Court: Give me one.

Government: I’m not in a position to give one specific example.        

We all remember last years NDAA bill which was passed including a little caveat allowing the US government to indefinitely detain American citizens they deem to be aiding or embedding terrorism. Just a few days ago, on May 15 2012, Judge Katherine Forrest ruled that Section 1021 of the NDAA would be enjoined, or prohibited from use. This case will undoubtedly be brought to a higher courts decision and let's hope they stick with the ruling.

What is the most likely reason for the government not being able to give even one example of what it is to support the enemy though?  It's simple, the list is so long they don't know where to start.  Writing this blog could probably be considered under the law a form of helping the enemy, if spun the right way.  All of this madness leads us to present day, when Reps. Mac Thornberry from Texas and Adam Smith from Washington are attempting to use this years draft of the bill for, believe it or not, an even more diabolical plot.

The two representatives added an amendment to the bill that would allow the US government to disperse propaganda, initially aimed at foreign audiences, inside the continental United States.  "Is this serious?!" were my first thoughts.  The bill doesn't actually call for propaganda as much as it repeals two preexisting laws that we're created to ban it in the first place.

The rationale behind such an act is that it would be used on the Internet which has become borderless and allows for foreign propaganda to reach Americans in it's current inception.  So the best bet isn't to educate citizens and show them how to find the truth, but to create even more lies that sway opinion in the direction that the government wants it.  Which honestly they do already, this would just allow them to take it a step further.

BuzzFeed had this to say about the bill.

The amendment's passage in the House as part of a group indicated that key members in both parties either back it or haven't been paying attention. The change — which would give the Department of State and Broadcasting Board of Governors a free hand in what it sees as a borderless Internet propaganda war against Al Qaeda — has been on the intelligence community's wish list for years. 

 The House amendment repeals the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948 and Foreign Relations Authorization Act in 1987, which were enacted during the Cold War to prevent against the spreading of propaganda to U.S. audiences.

They go on to say:

Though the amendment says, “No funds…shall be used to influence public opinion in the United States,” public statements issued by Thornberry and Smith promise just the opposite: the ability to use taxpayer dollars to spread government-issued material produced overseas at home, especially online.

Is this really what we need our tax dollars spent on, spreading more lies and hate throughout the country to influence popular opinion?  We already spend so much on bombing foreign children, subjugating peaceful protesters, and creating biological weapons.  Can we really afford to spend an extra dollar on dispersing propaganda as well?

UPDATE 5/25:

The version of the defense appropriateions bill that passed through markup in the Senate Armed Services Committee Thursday afternoon does not include an amendment to "strike the current ban on domestic dissemination" of propaganda says Glen Caplin, Communicaitons Director for Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who is a member of the committee.

Even though the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that passed through Senate committee includes no mention of altering the Smith-Mundt Act, it remains possible for an amendment allowing for domestic propaganda to be introduced on the Senate floor, or added when the House and Senate versions of the bill are reconciled.

BuzzFeed

NATO 2012

The fight began in New York, it escalated in the Bay Area and it's new front line lies directly in the windy city.  As of this weekend Chicago has become a battle ground.  Protesters from all walks of life and with vastly diverse political interests converged this week leading up to today's start to NATO and the G8 meetings.

To get a better idea of the events leading up to last nights melee take a gander at this publication entitled, NATO So Far...

Make of this what you will, but there's a big uproar over this police van supposedly hitting a protester.

Just last night the We Are Change crew had a nasty run in with some of Chicago's finest.

Meanwhile earlier in the week...

Supporters of three men arrested in a Wednesday night raid at the Bridgeport apartment of Occupy Chicago activists were gathering at the Cook County Criminal Courthouse at 26th and California for the arrestees’ noon bail hearing. Each was slapped with a bond of $1.5 million; Cook County States’ Attorney Anita Alvarez had originally asked for $5 million bonds for each, and trotted out a litany of charges deployed in the first-ever use of the state’s anti-terrorism statutes, claiming the Florida residents, Brian Church, Jared Chase and Brent Betterly, were making Molotov cocktails and planned to hit targets that included Obama campaign headquarters and Emanuel’s house. All three men had earlier in the week released a video that documented their targeted harassment by Chicago police, a tape which is said to have enraged local cops.
OWS

This is getting scary now, police officers with a grudge arresting three men and charging them with terrorist crimes, those powers should not be in the hands of low level officers with petty self interests in mind.  The lives of three men now lie in the hands of the system because of the word of a few embarraced police men.  What a sad state of affairs.

The Chicago Tribune sounds like they support the actions of the police when they say:

The three were charged Friday with conspiracy to commit terrorism and other crimes. The men planned to attack Mayor Rahm Emanuel's home, President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters in the Loop and "certain downtown financial institutions," prosecutors said.

Prosecutors say the men were members of the "Black Bloc" — a group of self-proclaimed anarchists whose tactics typically involve wreaking chaos within otherwise peaceful protests. The challenge for Chicago police has been to guard against that sort of trouble while shepherding thousands of nonviolent demonstrators around town safely.

I'll leave you with this for now...
"Be safe, look out for one another, organize in small, accountable groups of affinity and trust, Stay calm, and remember why we traveled to Chicago - to stand in the face of a war machine that acts recklessly beyond transparency and accountability to the people it affects and claims to represent - and to say we want a world free of war and oppression."

3 Anonymous Occupiers

UPDATE:

“His mother was watching a live stream and she saw him in the front line,” Dee said. “Then it panned away, then she saw him holding his head. Then it panned away, and then she saw him being carried off by three police officers.

“His mother is so worried about him. We want to know if he is okay.”

A police officer eventually confirmed that Dee’s boyfriend was indeed there. However, she had no idea how he was doing.

This sounds eerily like the beginning of straight up disappearing people.  Rounding up a few hundred protesters, claiming they were plotting a terrorist attack and holding them indefinitely without any information being given to their loved ones.  The article goes on to say:

“There have been a lot of people calling asking if we know what happened to this person or that person,” said another attorney waiting outside, who said she was with the National Lawyers Guild but who declined to be identified. “Most of those arrested will probably never get a phone call, never get food, and often times, never get medical attention.

The police club you over the head, drag you down to the station, disregard your rights and treat you worse than an enemy combatant.  Sometimes just for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Other times for breaking laws that are hardly ever enforced, and many times for merely stating ones beliefs too loudly.  Learn more over at the Sun Times.

Occupy Wall St.

It’s now “about building self-sufficient communities that can support themselves without the government,” he said. “It’s no longer political. It’s social.”

The Occupy movement, Kirkland says, teaches people how to cope with the absence of government. As social programs, school offerings and health and pension benefits get cut, working-class people will have to learn to take charge of their own communities.

Because of the movement, “they’ll be prepared for when there is no government to serve them,” he said.

UPDATE 03/01:

More proof that cops are trained liars and somehow get away with perjury each and every single day.  As per The Village Voice:

In the first jury trial stemming from an Occupy Wall Street protest, Michael Premo was found innocent of all charges yesterday after his lawyers presented video evidence directly contradicting the version of events offered by police and prosecutors.

UPDATE 10/14:

Good news for Occupy Oakland participants, after 1,127 complaints were filed during last years protests some actual changes were made to the police force as The Chicago Tribune reports:

Forty officers have been disciplined by the department so far, with two officers fired, 15 suspended and others receiving a mix of written reprimands, more training and one demotion. 

 UPDATE 9/17:

Happy Birthday OWS!  The New York Times reported this morning on the march and subsequent arrests which have added up significantly:

Police officers repeatedly warned protesters that they could be arrested if they did not keep moving. Most of those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct, the police said.

At one point, at Broad Street and Beaver Street, a police commander grabbed a man from a crowd. Protesters tried to pull the man free, but officers surged forward and wrested the man back and placing him in handcuffs. 

One of the more tense episodes took place as several hundred people marched slowly along Broadway. As part of the group passed Wall Street, a line of officers separated the marchers into two parts. A few moments later, officers approached a man who had been objecting loudly to the metal barricades that cordoned off Wall Street. The officers grabbed the man, who yelled “I did nothing wrong,” then removed him. As they were leading him away, a line of officers pushed a crowd, which included news photographers, away from the arrest. 

One officer repeatedly shoved photographers with a baton and a police lieutenant warned that no more photographs should be taken. “That’s over with,” the lieutenant said. 

By midday, 124 people had been arrested. The arrests were mostly on disorderly conduct charges “for impeding vehicular or pedestrian traffic,” according to Paul J. Browne, the Police Department’s chief spokesman. On Saturday and Sunday, the police arrested 43 people in connection with the protests, Mr. Browne said. While most of those arrests involved charges of disorderly conduct, he said that some were on assault and resisting arrest charges.

UPDATE 9/16:

The number of arrests have risen over night to 25 thus far.  Far from the hundreds of arrests last fall, but so far the only provocation according to the New York Daily News has been:

By late afternoon, tensions between activists and cops led to arrests, as a procession of protesters chanting “F--- the police!” marched down Broadway bound for Zuccotti Park, the movement’s old base.


UPDATE 9/15:

With just two days to go until the one year anniversary of OWS a few hundred people began the weekend by marching down Broadway Ave this afternoon toward Zuccotti Park.  According to The New York Times:

At two different points along the way, police officers plunged into the crowd and made arrests.

There doesn't seem to be any information on what prompted these arrests but in typical NYPD fashion:

A commander wearing a white shirt grabbed one man and threw him forcefully face down on the sidewalk. Some in the crowd said that officers appeared to be pointing out specific individuals for arrest.

Sounds to me like some officers may have recognized faces from previous rallies that may have been involved in devious activities.  The officers most likely felt they had missed their opportunity to arrest these people in the past so they went ahead and nabbed them today. 

Then again I could be completely off course and these individuals could have dome something as nefarious as step off the side walk for a moment, in that case they definitely deserved to have their face smashed in to the pavement.  

UPDATE 8/5:

Awesome news out of the Huffington Post this morning:

Anthony Bologna-- the NYPD Deputy Inspector caught on video pepper-spraying two women Occupy Wall Street protesters in Union Square last fall-- could have to dig into his own pockets to pay for the damages in the women's civil lawsuit against him. New York City has opted not to defend Bologna in court, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The decision indicates the city finds the 29-year NYPD veteran's defense of his actions inadequate, and is a stark contrast from NYPD spokesman Paul Browne's initial remarks on the incident in September.

UPDATE 6/18:
Yesterday thousands of protesters from all walks of life and differing "political" groups came to the streets to protest NY Police stop and frisk policies.  Of course OWS had their fair share of demonstrators and one arrest being decribed in Fox News I think perfectly explains MANY of the arrests made over the past year during these protests.

One woman was seen wrestling with an officer who had leaped across a barricade, chasing her before she was arrested. Police said nine people were arrested on various charges including assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

I've personally seen numerous videos of similar actions being taken by brutal and forceful police officers around the country.  For instance, maybe a protester was shoved by someone behind them and they knocked in to a police officer accidentally, what does the officer do, they throw them to the ground and arrest them.  If the person tries to get away they are chased and now detained under even worse charges of resisting arrest.  Hundreds if not thousands of arrests based on one singular officer being offended at having his uniform touched by a disgusting hippie, so they take it upon themselves to jump barricades and chase them down instead of standing their ground and doing their job.  Too many cops truly and utterly disgust me, I feel sad for the good ones who have to be stuck in the same boat.

UPDATE 6/16:
Officials in Oakland are finally taking steps to decreasing the militarism of their police force in actions taken against protesters.  If we never have to see tear gas and flash grenades used on US citizens by their own police officers again then OWS has achieved a great feat.  Reuters ends their article on the subject by stating:

Oakland police officials announced in April that the department was making significant changes to how it trains officers to control large crowds following criticism of its handling of the Occupy protests. It received more than 1,000 misconduct complaints during those protests.

UPDATE 6/9:
After nearly 8 months, those OWS protesters awaiting sentencing for their part in the Brooklyn Bridge incident have been justified in their actions as Judge Jed  S. Rakoff ruled that police did not give sufficient warning that entering the road way would be cause for arrest.  The Guardian goes on to say:

The decision clears the way for a class-action lawsuit accusing police officers and officials involved in the arrests of violating the protesters' constitutional rights by leading them into a trap. The lawsuit calls for all arrest records stemming from the incident to be cleared, an injunction to end the police practice of trapping and detaining demonstrators, and damages to be awarded to those who were arrested.

UPDATE 6/3:
With article after article being written about the failure of OWS and how their lack of leaders and less than enthusiastic approach towards party politics will lead to their eventual demise, it is great to see that one man in NY has the guts to show that those editorials and opinions are just the very loud voices of people who have not done anything themselves to promote the movement and quickly lose interest if their ideal version of how events are supposed to take place doesn't occur.  Huffington Post published an article about George Martinez, just days after also being one of those publications blasting OWS for not attempting to win political seats.

George Martinez, who can be seen in full hip-hop flow in a YouTube video backing the Occupy movement, is not just a gadfly candidate, however. 

An adjunct professor of politics at Pace University, he is also a cultural ambassador for the State Department.

Whereas a handful of other Occupy activists have either tried and failed to make the ballot (Nathan Kleinman in Pennsylvania’s 13th district), or will run on third-party tickets (Colin Beavan, who will run as the Green Party candidate in New York’s 8th district), Martinez collected enough signatures to get on the Democratic Party primary ballot.

Although it will be an uphill battle against an incumbent whose been in her seat for two decades and two other tough Democratic challengers the article shares an optimistic thought for future OWS candidates:

She also added that even a modestly impressive showing for Martinez — getting more than 10 percent of the votes cast — would be enough to encourage other Occupy activists to run elsewhere, and to lay the groundwork for a future bid.

“George is a viable candidate,” she insisted. “If not now, then two years from now.”

UPDATE 5/23: 
Bill O'Reilly calls OWS terrorists, truly demeaning the definition of the word and attempting to create domestic panic and fear, which is in and of itself terrorism.

We have now spent six months without a central place for our movement to thrive, for us to work and meet one another, for new people to know where to come to get involved, or for us to provide services to the community. Those long, hard months have taught us that the police state will never tolerate public occupations again, having seen the strength of our alternatives. Like the model for an Oakland Commune emerging out of Occupy Oakland, a New York Commune would be a way for the movement to live, grow and thrive. For this, we need to find a way to acquire space, whether it’s by defending a new indoor occupation, or purchasing one through a fundraising campaign, which OWS is more than capable of mounting.

In a New York Commune, we can practice mutual aid by providing a place for a free school, a really really free market, meeting spaces, food-banking, time-banking — the possibilities are endless. Renovating a large building would give us an ongoing community project to which thousands of people can apply their unique skills and talents. We can offer rent-free workspace to a variety of horizontal worker co-ops emerging from the Occupy movement, like the OccuCopy print shop. Our community center can put on display alternatives to the state and capitalism, and give people a way to envision a world without these forces of oppression, as Liberty Square once did.

Indypendent

This 99-track Occupy benefit shows how far beyond Sixties folk lefty rabble-rousing has come, with hip-hop, electronica and indie rock sitting alongside Pete Seeger and Joan Baez. The comp's high point is unexpectedly ambivalent: the slow-build amp howl of Mogwai’s “Earth Division” leading into the battle rattle of the Occupy Wall Street drummers – a one-two punch designed to strike at the rotten heart of capitalism.

Rolling Stone

An Introduction to the Occupation of Wall St...