Category: Protests

Has Black Lives Matter Been Hijacked by the Hillary Clinton Campaign?

1 Comment
So, for the second time in as many months, Black Lives Matter has disrupted a Bernie Sanders speech:

Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks at a rally in Dallas in July. (Mike Stone/Reuters)

Bernie Sanders came to Seattle on Saturday with plans to give two speeches.

The first didn’t happen. An appearance by the senator from Vermont at an event celebrating the anniversary of Social Security and Medicare was scuttled after protesters from a local Black Lives Matter chapter took over the stage.

Hours later, Sanders, who has been drawing bigger crowds than any other presidential contender, drew his largest yet: about 15,000 at the college basketball arena where the Washington Huskies play.

Aides said Sanders, who has emerged as the leading alternative to Hillary Rodham Clinton for the Democratic nomination, spoke to a full house of 12,000 inside the arena and to what police estimated to be an overflow of 3,000 people outside of it.

………

Sanders was the final speaker on a long program held at a city park. Shortly after he took stage, a small group of protesters from a Seattle chapter of Black Lives Matter took the microphone and demanded that the crowd hold Sanders “accountable” for not doing enough, in their view, to address police brutality and other issues on the group’s agenda.

The question that I am asking is why we aren’t seeing this at any of Hillary Clinton’s events?

I am not alone in this. Over at B.A.R., Bruce Dixon is wondering the same thing, though he extends his net to Obama and the “Black political class”, and he makes this trenchant observation:

There are ominous signs. Last month folks whom Alicia Garza described as “part of our team” disrupted two minor white male candidates at NetRootsNation, the annual networking event for paid and wannabe paid Democratic party activists, embarrassing them with demands over structural racism and “say her name”. If they were positioning themselves for careers inside the far-flung Democratic party apparatus, it was a smart move, because Hillary wasn’t there. Hence they got noticed in that crowd of Democrat operatives without antagonizing the people with the real money and connections.

When Hard Knock Radio’s Davey D interviewed Garza on July 21, just before the Cleveland #BlackLivesMatter conference, Garza dropped several more indications that seem to point toward an eventual affiliation with Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.

The fact that Black Lives Matter appears to be studiously avoiding a confrontation with Hillary Clinton is telling.

I do not have quite the cynicism of Mr. Dixon, but I do find the pattern here to be extremely suspect.

Hero of the Day

2 Comments

And the accursed flag comes down

Brittany ‘Bree’ Newsome:

A woman scaled the flagpole in front of the South Carolina Statehouse Saturday morning and temporarily removed the Confederate flag that flew there. The woman was arrested by State Capitol police along with a man who had entered the grounds with her, the Associated Press reported. The flag was replaced and raised a short time later.

The woman, who was not identified by authorities, was named on social media as Brittany “Bree” Newsome, an activist from North Carolina. Her actions inspired the hashtag #KeepItDown, which was one of the top trending topics on Twitter in the U.S. Saturday. Later in the day, the hashtag #FreeBree was also trending in the U.S.

According to BreeNewsome.com, a site linked to a Twitter account belonging to a user with the name Bree Newsome and mentioned by numerous users in conjunction with the #KeepItDown hashtag, Newsome is an activist and graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.

 Here is hoping that this happens regularly until it comes down forever.

What Part of “Peace Officer” Don’t You Get?

No Comments

Protests in Baltimore were relatively peaceful last night, and now we are getting reports police escalated last night’s events by penning up the teenagers who were at the Mondawmin Mall:

After Baltimore police and a crowd of teens clashed near the Mondawmin Mall in northwest Baltimore on Monday afternoon, news reports described the violence as a riot triggered by kids who had been itching for a fight all day. But in interviews with Mother Jones and other media outlets, teachers and parents maintain that police actions inflamed a tense-but-stable situation.

 ………

 When school let out that afternoon, police were in the area equipped with full riot gear. According to eyewitnesses in the Mondawmin neighborhood, the police were stopping busses and forcing riders, including many students who were trying to get home, to disembark. Cops shut down the local subway stop. They also blockaded roads near the Mondawmin Mall and Frederick Douglass High School, which is across the street from the mall, and essentially corralled young people in the area. That is, they did not allow the after-school crowd to disperse.

 Meghann Harris, a teacher at a nearby school, described on Facebook what happened:

Police were forcing busses to stop and unload all their passengers. Then, [Frederick Douglass High School] students, in huge herds, were trying to leave on various busses but couldn’t catch any because they were all shut down. No kids were yet around except about 20, who looked like they were waiting for police to do something. The cops, on the other hand, were in full riot gear, marching toward any small social clique of students…It looked as if there were hundreds of cops.

The kids were “standing around in groups of 3-4,” Harris said in a Facebook message to Mother Jones. “They weren’t doing anything. No rock throwing, nothing…The cops started marching toward groups of kids who were just milling about.”

A teacher at Douglass High School, who asked not to be identified, tells a similar story: “When school was winding down, many students were leaving early with their parents or of their own accord.” Those who didn’t depart early, she says, were stranded. Many of the students still at school at that point, she notes, wanted to get out of the area and avoid any Purge-like violence. Some were requesting rides home from teachers. But by now, it was difficult to leave the neighborhood. “I rode with another teacher home,” this teacher recalls, “and we had to route our travel around the police in riot gear blocking the road… The majority of my students thought what was going to happen was stupid or were frightened at the idea. Very few seemed to want to participate in ‘the purge.'”

A parent who picked up his children from a nearby elementary school, says via Twitter, “The kids stood across from the police and looked like they were asking them ‘why can’t we get on the buses’ but the police were just gazing…Majority of those kids aren’t from around that neighborhood. They NEED those buses and trains in order to get home.” He continued: “If they would’ve let them children go home, yesterday wouldn’t have even turned out like that.”

Meg Gibson, another Baltimore teacher, described a similar scene to Gawker: “The riot police were already at the bus stop on the other side of the mall, turning buses that transport the students away, not allowing students to board. They were waiting for the kids.…Those kids were set up, they were treated like criminals before the first brick was thrown.” With police unloading busses, and with the nearby metro station shut down, there were few ways for students to clear out.

………

Mondawmin Mall is where lots of students catch the bus, when you shut down MTA how the heck they gonna get home? @BaltimorePolice
— Jay (@Ms_lionesss) April 27, 2015

It is the job of police to maintain the peace. It is why they sometimes are called peace officers.

The police are the professionals in this situation, and they must act professionally.

The expectation of professionalism is why they are get to use a gun, a badge, and tools like tear gas and pepper spray.

It means, for example, that they need to use the appropriate tools to manage a situation, and not, for example, throw bricks back at the protesters:

We’re about to look now. Here’s a video of police throwing rocks back at protesters:

This is not in indicator of professionalism in a police force.

The rioting last night was foreseeable given the behavior of the police.

They presented themselves in an overly confrontational way to teenagers, they then made impossible for people to leave the area.

While the behavior of the protesters is reprehensible, the behavior of the police can only be described as extreme malpractice.

There are a number of senior cops on the Baltimore PD who needs to be fired over this.

TPP Dayenu

No Comments

For the gentiles out there, Dayenu is a song that sung at the Passover Seder. (My family’s Minhag [tradition] is that it is sung in the key of “off”).

It describes the exodus from Egypt, and ends each stanza with “Dayenu”, which means, “It would be enough”.

In any case, I will reproduce part of the TPP trade deal Dayenu:

1. The TPP makes it easier to offshore more jobs now performed in the United States.

2. If the TPP just made it easier to offshore more jobs and did not also generate increasing downward pressure on wages, it would still be sufficient to vote to kill it!

3. If the TPP just generated increasing downward pressure on wages and did not also empower another 25,000 foreign corporations to use Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) tribunals to gut our net neutrality, environmental, health, labor and safety laws and regulations, it would still be sufficient to vote to kill it!

4. If the TPP just empowered another 25,000 foreign corporations to use investor state tribunals to gut our net neutrality, environmental, health, labor and safety laws and regulations and did not also give big pharma new monopoly patent rights, it would still be sufficient to vote to kill it!

5. If the TPP just gave big pharma new monopoly patent rights, and did not also provide for rolling back financial regulations put in place after the crash of 2008, it would still be sufficient to vote to kill it!

6. If the TPP just rolled back financial regulations and did not also provide for banning buy local and buy domestic policies, it would still be sufficient to vote to kill it!

7. If the TPP just provided for banning buy local and buy domestic policies and did not also undermine climate change and energy policies by constraining the permissible policies governments can use to implement them, it would still be sufficient to vote to kill it!

8. If the TPP just undermined climate change and energy policies by constraining the permissible policies governments can use to implement them and did not also use an anti-democratic fast track process that gives Representatives and Senators no space to represent the range of people they represent, it would still be sufficient to vote to kill it!

9. If the TPP did not just use an anti-democratic fast track process that gives Representatives and Senators no space to represent the range of people they represent, and did not also potentially prevent the Treasury from replacing the practice of issuing Treasury debt to fund deficit spending with alternative funding methods, it would still be sufficient to vote to kill it!

Read the rest.

Nope, No Racism Here

No Comments

When activists marching from Ferguson to the state capitol, Jefferson City, Missouri, got to Rosebud, MO, they confronted with a display on the road of fried chicken, watermelon, and a 40 oz bottle of beer.

The crowd waved Confederate flags, and shouted racial epithets:

About 50 activists marching from Ferguson to Jefferson City encountered a hostile counter-protest Wednesday in Rosebud.

About 200 people met the marchers as they reached Rosebud around noon, activists said. A display of fried chicken, a melon and a 40-ounce beer bottle had been placed in the street. A Confederate flag flew. Counter-protestors shouted racial epithets.

Rhea Willis of Velda City, Missouri, said she saw a boy she estimated to be 8 years old holding a sign that read, “Go home.”

Somebody shot the window out of the back of one of the buses traveling with the march, dubbed by the NAACP as the Journey for Justice. The outer pane of glass broke. The bullet landed in the windowsill, the driver said.

Clearly, we are in a post-racial society.

After all, we have a black President, don’t we?

M of A – The (NED Financed) Hong Kong Riots

No Comments

Guess what? It looks like the CIA front known as the National Endowment for Democracy is dumping money into yet another so called color revolution:

Some organized “student groups” in Hong Kong tried to occupy government buildings and blocked some streets. The police did what it does everywhere when such things happen. It used anti-riot squads, pepper spray and tear gas to prevent occupations and to clear the streets.

 ………………
 Peter Lee aka Chinahand has an excellent piece on the issue at Asia Times Online. But Lee is making one mistake in that he does not consider outside influence:

Occupy Hong Kong decided to light it, starting with a class boycott and demonstrations organized by the Hong Kong Federation of Students. And, since I’m never afraid to mix a metaphor, the Hong Kong government poured fuel on the fire by pepper-spraying and teargassing it.

Who really “decided to light this”? To me the protests, and the “western” reporting about it, have the distinct smell not of tear gas but of some expensive Color Revolution perfume of “western” origin.

 So lets look up the usual source of such exquisite fragrance. The 2012 annual report of the U.S. government financed National Endowment of Democracy, aka the CCA – Central Color-Revolution Agency, includes three grants for Hong Kong one of which is new for 2012 and not mentioned in earlier annual reports:

National Democratic Institute for International Affairs – $460,000

To foster awareness regarding Hong Kong’s political institutions and constitutional reform process and to develop the capacity of citizens – particularly university students – to more effectively participate in the public debate on political reform, NDI will work with civil society organizations on parliamentary monitoring, a survey, and development of an Internet portal, allowing students and citizens to explore possible reforms leading to universal suffrage.

So the U.S. government in 2012 (2013 numbers are not yet available) hands over nearly half a million to “develop the capacity” of “university students” related to the issue of “universal suffrage” in the election of Hong Kong’s chief executive.

Why do we keep doing this sh%$?

Not only does it reduce the credibility of protesters in country, but the results (the Ukraine, Georgia, etc.) have been spotty, to put it mildly.

If the definition of insanity is, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results,” the US state security and foreign policy apparatus are insane.

University of California Study Reveals the Obvious

No Comments

Rather unsurprisingly, when protests occur, police frequently provoke violence:

The violence that turns a small-town protest into a fiery national spectacle like the one that has played out this month in Missouri is often unwittingly provoked by police, according to researchers at UC Berkeley.

The research team, which studied clashes between police and activists during the Occupy movement three years ago, found that protests tend to turn violent when officers use aggressive tactics, such as approaching demonstrators in riot gear or lining up in military-like formations.

Recent events in Ferguson, Mo., are a good example, the study’s lead researcher said. For nearly two weeks, activists angered by a white police officer’s fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager have ratcheted up their protests when confronted by heavily armed police forces.

“Everything starts to turn bad when you see a police officer come out of an SUV and he’s carrying an AR-15,” said Nick Adams, a sociologist and fellow at UC Berkeley’s Institute for Data Science who leads the Deciding Force Project. “It just upsets the crowd.”

Adams said many law enforcement agencies aren’t aware that they set the tone of a protest and end up inflaming it.

I disagree with the last point.

I think that police are very aware that militarized responses encourage protests to turn violent, and that this violence gives a justification to engage in kinetic action to break up the protests.

This has been the norm for police-protest interactions ever since the mid 1800s, when police were used to crush organized labor.

Time for Some Schadenfreude

No Comments

There was an open carry demonstration in Richmond, VA, and only two people showed up:

More than 300 people were invited on Facebook to walk down Cary Street on July Fourth with handguns, rifles and other so-called “long guns” proudly displayed.

 Two showed up — and they were the organizers of the midday event in the family-oriented Carytown shopping district.

 “I don’t know why,” said organizer Jason Spitzer, 29, when asked to explain the low turnout for what he described as an Independence Day demonstration to “spread Constitutional awareness” of Americans’ Second Amendment right to bear arms.

 “But even if nobody came I’d still walk,” the Chesterfield County steel mill worker said, holding a large American flag in his hands, with a rifle slung over his shoulder and a holstered handgun on his hip. “It’s the Fourth of July and I love my country.”

 But with turnout so low, the shoppers and diners along Cary Street weren’t quite sure what to make of the two-man march, which might very well have gone unnoticed were it not outnumbered by two television crews and a photographer in tow.

BTW, I’m with the Institute for Philosophy in Public Life on the appropriate response if some of the open carry terrorists show up to your school/restaurant/laundromat, leave the area immediately without making an effort to pay:

The questions that concerns me now is how we bystanders should react when people come into a store with guns. There really is no legitimate way of determining intent. Even if the people with guns are carrying a sign claiming to be activists (which they do not do), they could be lying, just setting us all up for slaughter. And since there is no way to know what is on their minds, all we have are our instincts, but as we all should know, our instincts are often racist, classist, and frequently mistaken. So, what should we do?

My proposal is as follows: we should all leave. Immediately. Leave the food on the table in the restaurant. Leave the groceries in the cart, in the aisle. Stop talking or engaging in the exchange. Just leave, unceremoniously, and fast.

But here is the key part: don’t pay. Stopping to pay in the presence of a person with a gun means risking your and your loved ones’ lives; money shouldn’t trump this. It doesn’t matter if you ate the meal. It doesn’t matter if you’ve just received food from the deli counter that can’t be resold. It doesn’t matter if you just got a haircut. Leave. If the business loses money, so be it. They can make the activists pay.

Following this procedure has several advantages. First, it protects people. Second, it forces the businesses to really choose where their loyalties are. If the second amendment is as important as people claim, then people should be willing to pay for it. God knows, free speech is tremendously expensive. If it weren’t, I’d be reading this on ESPN during prime time, not posting this on Blogger.

Third, this proposal has the added advantage of taking the activists seriously. Most gun-rights activists describe a world of tremendous dangers. Guns, they repeatedly tell us, are the only thing between home invasion, rape, murder, and government intrusion. Okay, well if that’s true, then we bystanders should be equally afraid, and react instantaneously to keep away the chaos and the violence. We learned to be afraid from the gun-rights supporters. They have gotten everything they wanted.

This is an unbelievably appropriate response.

25 Years Ago Today

No Comments

The most famous news photo of the 1980s


The long shot


A ground level shot about a minute earlier (on the left side between the two trees in the background)

The Tienanmen massacre.

That’s all been swept under the rug, and to the degree that anyone in China thinks about it, it’s in the context of a highly restrictive media environment which mischaracterizes the events of that day.

One wonders when the people who did this will be made accountable through either the justice system or via the judgement of history.

If these guys are any indication:

It won’t ever happen.

It Sucks to be Tom Wheeler

No Comments

It turns out that the Telco Lobbyist turned FCC Chairman is experiencing a lot of push-back regarding his proposal to gut net neutrality, not individuals, but also from internet giants like Google and other Democratic FCC commissioners:

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler’s proposal to let ISPs charge Web services for an Internet fast lane drew condemnation from many net neutrality advocates, and now two members of the commission have expressed doubts about the plan as well.

Jessica Rosenworcel and Mignon Clyburn, the two Democratic members of the commission other than Wheeler, spoke about the chairman’s proposal yesterday. In a speech at a gathering of state library agencies, Rosenworcel called for delaying a vote on the proposal:

Network neutrality is the principle that consumers can go where they want and do what they want on the Internet, without interference from their broadband provider. The American Library Association and the library community have long been champions of network neutrality and an open Internet. Libraries, of course, know that an open Internet is important for free speech, access to information, and economic growth. I also support an open Internet. So I have real concerns about FCC Chairman Wheeler’s proposal on network neutrality—which is before the agency right now.

To his credit, he has acknowledged that all options are on the table. This includes discussion about what a “commercially reasonable” Internet fast lane looks like. While I do not know now where this conversation will head on a substantive basis, I can tell you right now I have real concerns about process.

His proposal has unleashed a torrent of public response. Tens of thousands of e-mails, hundreds of calls, commentary all across the Internet. We need to respect that input and we need time for that input. So while I recognize the urgency to move ahead and develop rules with dispatch, I think the greater urgency comes in giving the American public opportunity to speak right now, before we head down this road.

For this reason, I think we should delay our consideration of his rules by a least a month. I believe that rushing headlong into a rulemaking next week fails to respect the public response to his proposal.

The FCC is scheduled to vote on a notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) on May 15. This would open a new public comment process, but Rosenworcel explained that it would also end the so-called “Sunshine Period,” another good opportunity for debate.

………

Also yesterday, dozens of tech companies including Amazon, Dropbox, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Netflix, reddit, Tumblr, Twitter, and Yahoo sent a letter to the FCC (PDF) asking the commission to halt any plan allowing payments from Web services to ISPs in exchange for speeding up traffic.

“Instead of permitting individualized bargaining and discrimination, the Commission’s rules should protect users and Internet companies on both fixed and mobile platforms against blocking, discrimination, and paid prioritization, and should make the market for Internet services more transparent,” the letter said. “The rules should provide certainty to all market participants and keep the costs of regulation low.”

It’s still on the agenda for May 15, but I think that it likely that it will be delayed.

There is a groundswell of opposition to this, and if they delay this, I don’t think that it will go forward, much in the way that the SOPA/PIPA protests first delayed, then shut down those bills. (For that year anyway)

I do think that this will come back though.

I will say that Wheeler may be the point man, but the only way that this happened is with approval from the White House.

The Cossacks work for the Czar.

And Ukraine Returns to Form………

No Comments

I am not surprised that a prominent Ukrainian rabbi has called for Jews to flee Kiev.

He is that there have been credible threats against the Jewish community:

Ukrainian Rabbi Moshe Reuven Azman, called on Kiev’s Jews to leave the city and even the country if possible, fearing that the city’s Jews will be victimized in the chaos, Israeli daily Maariv reported Friday.

“I told my congregation to leave the city center or the city all together and if possible the country too,” Rabbi Azman told Maariv. “I don’t want to tempt fate,” he added, “but there are constant warnings concerning intentions to attack Jewish institutions.”

According to the paper’s report Azman closed the Jewish community’s schools but still holds three daily prayers. He said the Israeli embassy told members of the Jewish community to avoid leaving their homes.

It’s a fact that a significant number of of the protesters had ties to right wing nationalists, most notably the Svoboda party.

What’s more the history of the Ukraine, and Kiev in particular has been extremely antisemitic Even By the Standards of the Russian Empire and the Republics of the Former Soviet Union.

Seriously, the 200,000 or so Jews living in the Ukraine need to make arrangements for a quick exit.

I expect to see synagogues to burn.

A New Definition of Chutzpah………

1 Comment


Know your meme

Yes, John Pike, infamous as the Pepper Spray cop in Berkeley, who subsequently became a meme, and is now a poster boy for the banality of evil, has now filed for workmans’ comp:

The former UC police officer who was internationally condemned for pepper-spraying demonstrators at UC Davis is seeking workers’ compensation, saying he suffered psychiatric injury as a result of the November 2011 incident.

 John Pike has a settlement conference set for Aug. 13 in Sacramento, according to the state Department of Industrial Relations’ website and an Associated Press report.

 Pike was fired in July 2012, eight months after a task force investigation found that his action was unwarranted.

I’m beginning to think that the only folks out there with a bigger sense of entitlement than Congressional Republicans Newt Gingrich are bad cops.

Whenever the worm turns, and the scrutiny that they apply to others is applied to them, they employ every trick in the book to avoid justly deserved consequences.

On the Way to the WTC Memorial

No Comments

And I am hanging out in a little square watching portions and waiting for the time our passes say we can go in, and I am using Google maps to look at things to do while we cool our heels.  (Which is pretty amazing on it’s own, that I can look for stuff on my phone.)

I then notice that Zucotti Park is near by, and then I realize that I am in Zucotti Park, and that there are OWS protesters at the other end.

Kewl!

More pix to follow.

Posted via mobile.

Turkish Authorities Use Fake Protestors to Justify Crackdown

No Comments

I’m not particularly surprised by this.

Between his bankster friendly policies and his social and religious conservatism, it was inevitable that he would resort to infiltration and false flag operations:

And so it proved, with police encircling the square at 6am on Tuesday, firing rubber bullets and teargas, and ripping down banners calling for Erdoğan’s resignation. By happy coincidence, Turkey’s state media, which for days had blithely ignored the country’s huge anti-government demonstrations, were on hand to record the event.

 Turkish TV viewers witnessed this: a small group of four or five “demonstrators” throwing molotov cocktails at police. At one point they advanced on police lines in a comic Roman-style phalanx while holding the flag of a fringe Marxist party. The “protesters” were in fact middle-aged undercover police officers, staging a not very plausible “attack” on their own for the benefit of the cameras.

 But the violence meted out against the genuine protesters camped out under the plane trees of nearby Gezi Park was real enough. Dozens were left choking or injured as teargas billowed across central Istanbul. Meanwhile, some 50 lawyers acting for detained activists were themselves dragged away by police and roughed up at Istanbul’s Çağlayan court.

(Emphasis mine)

The Austin Texas police did much the same thing with an Occupy Houston protest.

Of course, it’s not going to be a problem with the US, because Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is Wall Street’s man, so he’s going to be supported by our foreign policy establishment.

H/t Jonathan Turley.

A Baloney Sandwich

No Comments

Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, who rose to infamy when he pepper sprayed women who were peacefully behind a police line, has been thrown to the wolves by the city of New York, which is refusing to defend him in civil suits filed against him:

New York City has distanced itself from a high-ranking police official accused of firing pepper spray at Occupy Wall Street protesters, taking the unusual step of declining to defend him in a civil lawsuit over the incident.

The decision means Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna also could be personally liable for financial damages that may arise out of the suit, said lawyers familiar with similar civil-rights claims.

The 29-year veteran has asked a judge to reverse the city. “He wasn’t doing this as Anthony Bologna, mister. He was doing this as Anthony Bologna, deputy inspector, NYPD,” said his lawyer, Louis La Pietra. Mr. Bologna’s union, the Captains Endowment Association, is now covering the cost of his defense.

Mr. Bologna was one of the most contentious public figures to emerge out of frequent clashes between Occupy Wall Street protesters and police officers last fall. A video that purported to show him aiming pepper spray at a group of demonstrators who were being held behind orange netting was widely viewed on the Internet.

Four weeks after the Sept. 24 incident, which allegedly occurred during an unpermitted march that ended in dozens of arrests, an internal investigation found Mr. Bologna in violation of New York Police Department guidelines. He was given a departmental punishment called a command discipline and docked 10 vacation days.

The city’s action is an uncommon occurrence, and I’m wondering if this means that he will start rolling on higher-ups.

This should get interesting.

Lieutenant John Pike No Longer Works At UC Davis

No Comments

Breaking news,
University of California Police Lieutenant John Pike is no longer employed as a police officer:

Lt. John Pike, the UC Davis police officer who became a focal point of last November’s pepper-spraying incident during a campus protest, is no longer employed by the university, a spokesman confirmed late Tuesday.

UC Davis spokesman Barry Shiller said he could not discuss the details of Pike’s departure, but in response to queries from The Bee, he said Pike was no longer employed there as of Tuesday.

“Consistent with privacy guidelines established in state law and university policy, I can confirm that John Pike’s employment with the university ended on July 31, 2012,” Shiller said. “I’m unable to comment further.”

Pike, 39, declined to comment when reached by The Bee as he was sitting in a meeting on campus where he said he was being terminated.

Pike’s 2010 salary was listed as $110,243.12. He has been on paid leave since the debacle unfolded last year, sparking worldwide outrage, numerous investigations and calls for the resignation of UC Davis leaders.

It certainly took long enough, he spent something like 8 months on paid administrative leave, but don’t blame the unions.

He’s a Lieutenant, and management, and so not covered by a labor agreement.

Instead blame an internal police department disciplinary process that is pretty much written by, and for, the benefit of the cops, not the general public.

H/t the Stellar Parthenon BBS for the PhotoShops.

Win

No Comments

You know, I’ve never been a fan of the zombie genre.

I’ve never sat through a whole zombie movie (though I do want to see the genre bender Shaun of the Dead), and I really don’t get the whole zombie walk thing.

However, the ziomnbie protest of Fred Phelps’ twisted bigoted family is a genius:

Counter-demonstrators dressed as zombies outnumbered protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church at a military base near DuPont, Washington over the weekend.

Melissa Neace, 27, launched a Facebook group to organize the zombies event after she learned that the radical ant-LGBT church would be picketing Joint Base Lewis-McChord near Seattle.

“We wanted to turn something negative around, into something people could laugh at and poke fun at,” Neace explained to The News Tribune. “It was the easiest way to divert attention from something so hateful.”

Over 200 people committed to attending the event on Saturday, which she called “Zombie’ing Westboro Baptist Church AWAY from Fort Lewis!”

Of course, this is completely unrealistic.

Zombies eat brains, and they’d starve if they had to depend on Westboro Baptist.

Thatcherism: The Belief That Things Will Get Better if You Make Your Modern State More Like An Arab Dictatorshiop

No Comments

It is therefore no surprise that an Israeli has set fire to himself to protest the continued right wing tilt of Israeli society:

TEL AVIV — As doctors struggled on Monday to save the life of Moshe Silman, an Israeli man who set himself on fire at a protest for social justice in this Mediterranean city two days earlier, a grim mood had already replaced the mostly blithe atmosphere that characterized Israel’s popular movement for social change last summer.

While activists said Mr. Silman’s desperate act reaffirmed the relevancy of a grass-roots struggle that had seemed to be floundering, they appeared traumatized as they searched for an appropriate response.

“We must never encourage such a thing,” Stav Shaffir, a prominent leader of the movement, said in a telephone interview. “On the other hand, it cannot be ignored. Moshe Silman cried the cry of a lot of people.”

At the peak of last summer’s rallies, at least 400,000 Israelis peacefully took to the streets in this city and others, in one of the largest protests in the nation’s history. In the past few weeks, though, efforts to revive those heady days have been met with a degree of public apathy.

Then on Saturday, thousands of demonstrators turned out to mark the anniversary of the start of last year’s protests, dividing up into clusters and gathering around small stages. One by one the protesters voiced a wide range of complaints, from limited resources for school psychologists to the lack of public housing for disadvantaged Russian-speaking immigrants. A few people danced nearby to a song by an Israeli rap group that boomed from large speakers.

Suddenly, a tower of flames shot up near one of the podiums.

Mr. Silman, in his 50s, a fixture at the street protests over the past year, came to Tel Aviv on Saturday night equipped with gasoline and a suicide note. He had once run his own truck delivery business, but he had gotten into debt and then suffered a stroke.

In a typed letter he had copied and distributed in advance, he complained that his pleas for help had been rejected by the courts, the Housing Ministry and the National Insurance Institute, and that he was about to become homeless.

“The state of Israel stole from me and robbed me,” he wrote. “They left me with nothing.”

He added, “And I will not be homeless and this is why I protest.”

One of the worst things that Netanyahu had done (and that’s saying a lot) was to shift political discussion in Israel completely away from any consideration of a just society.

This is some kind of Middle Eastern version of, “When you stare into the abyss the abyss stares back at you.”

Israel is now Tunisia.