In Fraudida 2000, the sanctity of the vote was
dispensed with, now in 2003, your right of free
assembly is being seriously curtailed...If the Bush
cabal, which seized power illegitmately, and has used
it to wage illegal war aboard and class war at home,
is not turned out into the street in the 2004
Presidential election, it will be "lights out" in
America...You are now very close to being a
"terrorist" for demonstrating against them, soon you
will be very close to being a "terrorist" for voting
against them...Free speech? No problem with free
speech in a monopolistic media environment, in which
the press censors itself to placate its corporate
overlords. You are free to say anything you want,
because no one can hear it...except, of course, for
the Information Rebellion on the Internet, and those
puzzling titles like "Dude, Where's My Country" and
"Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them" on the Best
Seller Lists...We are heading for a political
explosion in America. It was narrowly avoided in
Fraudida 2000 when Gore told Jesse Jackson to go home,
and then hide behind his courtly manners. It will
hopefully be unavoidable this time...
Guardian (UK): For the Miami model to work, the police had to establish a connection between legitimate activists and dangerous terrorists. Enter the Miami police chief, John Timoney, an avowed enemy of activist "punks", who classified FTAA opponents as "outsiders coming in to terrorise and vandalise our city". With the activists recast as dangerous aliens, Miami became eligible for the open tap of public money irrigating the "war on terror". In fact, $8.5m spent on security during the FTAA meeting came out of the $87bn Bush extracted from Congress for Iraq last month.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1093185,00.html
America's enemy within
Armed checkpoints, embedded reporters in flak jackets, brutal suppression of peaceful demonstrators. Baghdad? No, Miami
Naomi Klein
Wednesday November 26, 2003
The Guardian
In December 1990, President George Bush Sr travelled
through South America to sell the continent on a bold
new dream: "A free trade system that links all of the
Americas." Addressing the Argentine Congress, he said
that the plan, later to be named the Free Trade Area
of the Americas, would be "our hemisphere's new
declaration of interdependence the brilliant new dawn
of a splendid new world."
Last week, Bush's two sons joined forces to try to
usher in that new world by holding the FTAA
negotiations in Florida. This is the state that
Governor Jeb Bush vowed to "deliver" to his brother
during the 2000 presidential elections, even if that
meant keeping many African-Americans from exercising
their right to vote. Now Jeb was vowing to hand his
brother the coveted trade deal, even if that meant
keeping thousands from exercising their right to
protest.
Despite the brothers' best efforts, the dream of a
hemisphere united into a single free-market economy
died last week - killed not by demonstrators in Miami
but by the populations of Argentina, Brazil and
Bolivia, who let their politicians know that if they
sign away more power to foreign multinationals, they
may as well not come home.
The Brazilians brokered a compromise that makes the
agreement a pick-and-choose affair, allowing
governments to sign on to the parts they like and
refuse the ones they don't. Washington will continue
to bully countries into sweeping trade contracts on
the model of the North American Free Trade Agreement,
but there will be no single, unified deal.
Inside the Inter-Continental hotel, it was being
called "FTAA lite". Outside, we experienced something
heavier: "War lite". The more control the US trade
representatives lost at the negotiating table, the
more raw power the police exerted on the streets.
Small, peaceful demonstrations were attacked with
extreme force; organisations were infiltrated by
undercover officers who used stun guns; buses of union
members were prevented from joining permitted marches;
people were beaten with batons; activists had guns
pointed at their heads at checkpoints.
Police violence outside trade summits is not new; what
was striking about Miami was how divorced the security
response was from anything resembling an actual
threat. From an activist perspective, the protests
were small and obedient, an understandable response to
weeks of police intimidation.
The FTAA Summit in Miami represents the official
homecoming of the "war on terror". The latest
techniques honed in Iraq - from a Hollywoodised
military to a militarised media - have now been used
on a grand scale in a major US city. "This should be a
model for homeland defence," the Miami mayor, Manny
Diaz, said of the security operation that brought
together over 40 law-enforcement agencies, from the
FBI to the Department of Fish and Wildlife.
For the Miami model to work, the police had to
establish a connection between legitimate activists
and dangerous terrorists. Enter the Miami police
chief, John Timoney, an avowed enemy of activist
"punks", who classified FTAA opponents as "outsiders
coming in to terrorise and vandalise our city". With
the activists recast as dangerous aliens, Miami became
eligible for the open tap of public money irrigating
the "war on terror". In fact, $8.5m spent on security
during the FTAA meeting came out of the $87bn Bush
extracted from Congress for Iraq last month.
But more was borrowed from the Iraq war than just
money. Miami police also invited reporters to "embed"
with them in armoured vehicles and helicopters. As in
Iraq, most reporters embraced their role as pseudo
soldiers with zeal, suiting up in combat helmets and
flak jackets.
The resulting media coverage was the familiar wartime
combination of dramatic images and non-information. We
know, thanks to an "embed" from the Miami Herald, that
Timoney was working so hard hunting down troublemakers
that by 3:30pm on Thursday "he had eaten only a banana
and a cookie since 6am".
Local TV stations didn't cover the protests so much as
hover over them. Their helicopters showed images of
confrontations, but instead of hearing the voices on
the streets - voices pleading with police to stop
shooting and clearly following orders to disperse - we
heard only from police officials and perky news
anchors commiserating with the boys on the front line.
Meanwhile, independent journalists who dared to do
their jobs and film the police violence up close were
actively targeted. "She's not with us," one officer
told another as they grabbed Ana Nogueira, a
correspondent with Pacifica Radio's Democracy Now! who
was covering a peaceful protest outside the Miami-Dade
county jail. When the police established that Nogueira
was "not with us" (ie neither an embedded reporter nor
undercover cop) she was hauled away and charged.
The Miami model of dealing with domestic dissent
reaches far beyond a single meeting. On Sunday, the
New York Times reported on a leaked FBI bulletin
revealing "a coordinated, nationwide effort to collect
intelligence" on the anti-war movement. The memorandum
singles out lawful protest activities. Anthony Romero,
executive director of the American Civil Liberties
Union, said the document revealed that "the FBI is
targeting Americans who are engaged in lawful protest.
The line between terrorism and legitimate civil
disobedience is blurred."
We can expect more of these tactics on the homeland
front. Just as civil liberties violations escalated
when Washington lost control over the FTAA process, so
will repression increase as Bush faces the ultimate
threat: losing control over the White House.
Already, Jim Wilkinson, director of strategic
communications at US Central Command in Doha, Qatar
(the operation that gave the world the Jessica Lynch
rescue), has moved to New York to head up media
operations for the Republican National Convention.
"We're looking at embedding reporters," he told the
New York Observer of his plans to use some of the Iraq
tricks during the convention. "We're looking at new
and interesting camera angles."
The war is coming home.
Posted by richard at November 26, 2003 08:31 AM