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  • SaraNelson2013

    I really enjoyed the section on Civil Liberties.  The basic idea that come to mind are lack of education and lack of care from citizens.  Growing up I really only remember a very small amount of time that I was teaching about the 4th amendment.  I also think I was about 13 and didn’t really understand the context or the importance of the issue.  I went to a “nicer” public school.  I can only imagine the education that kids are receiving on the issues at an inner city school.  The second issue is the lack of people standing against this.  I know that I fall into this category.  I shouldn’t allow my rights to be violated just because I am not doing anything “wrong”

  • ShannonLeeMcBride

    So where does resistance begin for those of us who aren’t generally ‘them’? I fall into all but one privileged/dominant/agent group. What does my resistance look like? Aside from speaking up in everyday conversation, where do I go? Who do I talk to? Tasers are dangerous, far more violent than we are led to believe they are, and as evidenced in “Tagging, Tasers, and the Police State, Part 1” they are in fact lethal. Much like I feel that one innocent person put to death makes the death penalty unjust, one person whose death was the result of a tasing makes tasers lethal. But they are already in the hands of police, and for the most part unregulated. Now what…? I don’t mean to sound defeatist. I want to resist… I just don’t know where to start…

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  • Domino14 That’s the truth..:/
    thanks for stopping domino

  • Domino14

    It is really sad to say that none of this is surprising anymore.  It shouldn’t be like this.  Horrible and disgusting.

  • naheitzeg

    lawscribe You’re welcome + you’re so right — increased public awareness of all types of “spying” is crucial RaniaKhalek prisonculture

  • lawscribe

    naheitzeg thank you for the citation, it is most appreciated. A very good, comprehensive piece too. RaniaKhalek prisonculture

  • Let me also recommend Thttps://medium.com/surveillance-state/dffadd265325

  • nancy a heitzeg Seeta no prob … wish we could figure it out

  • Seeta nancy a heitzeg just tested.. i can’t use the code so hopefully the link will work for me again..Did yesterday — just not today for some reason

    thanks again for fixing seeta

  • nancy a heitzeg Seeta oh yeah — i remember.  it shouldn’t be an issue — it’s one i haven’t figured out.  i use FF, so it most likely is some specific configuration… who knows

  • ScottieThomaston KayWhitlock Scottie this is such an insightful comment. So true
    thank you for you being here — being you

  • Seeta nancy a heitzeg ok it never has for me — only straight links
    i will remember that – i am on firefox does that matter?

  • nancy a heitzeg Seeta it gets finicky — the old embed code works

  • nancy a heitzeg Seeta fixed! :)

  • Seeta nancy a heitzeg thank you ! there they are!
    what the heck was i doing wrong?? :)

  • Seeta nancy a heitzeg yes thanks

    the video links should be obvious i think eyes alexander and nypd

  • nancy a heitzeg is it okay and go in and edit?

  • nancy a heitzeg let me investigate…

  • KayWhitlock

    nancy a heitzeg Seeta Easier to organize around what we’re against than around what we’re for.

  • tech ?? why you are here..
    are you seeing the videos in the diary?? there are 3
     i am showing just links — tried to fix it.. Not sure if it is just my browser

  • KayWhitlock

    ScottieThomaston KayWhitlock Yes, great phase:  “walling off effect.” 
    I think some of today’s antiviolence organizations, like CUAV and NCAVP are definitely going in good directions.  The article I sent is historical, charting the shift.

  • Seeta i know seeta.. and the timing is just too much..
    Always time and $$ for destruction and not much else

  • KayWhitlock

    Seeta Amen, Seeta.  This anniversary should be meaningful in a different way.  But this country seems to repeat old patterns over and over.  We just dress them up slightly differently.
    Fortunately, a new spirit of movement building is afoot.

  • Thanks for this Nancy — here we go again — getting ready to go to war with Syria without multilateral action, assuming the role of world sheriff, when the US system commits inhumane, unconstitutional atrocities against its own citizens daily.  SMH on this 50th Anniversary of the MOW.

  • ScottieThomaston

    KayWhitlock ScottieThomaston Agreed. I’ve had (ridiculous) conversations with people who seem to feel like it’s just too “messy” to complicate things by bringing trans rights into the picture at this time. And people who get seriously defensive over racial discussions. There is a huge “walling off” effect. It used to seem like maybe white gay men took over the movement so their/our issues came first and others should “wait their turns”, but now I honestly get the impression that people just think they shouldn’t HAVE to discuss those other issues. This isn’t universal, or at least I’ve met a lot of people who genuinely care about ALL queer people, but it is hugely noticeable. 
    I had no idea it was happening in anti-violence orgs but from my experience I would not be surprised. It’s depressing. More and more people see only their narrow circumstances as “their” issue, and everyone else is on their own.

  • KayWhitlock ScottieThomaston this  is one of many reasons  i love that bell hooks interview
    you gotta love justice — more than anything.. the most

  • KayWhitlock

    ScottieThomaston Exactly redux!  And POC.

  • KayWhitlock

    ScottieThomaston KayWhitlock Also, we need to keep in mind that the more “equality” comes to gay people – certainly not yet to trans people – the policing will continue, but it will concentrate more and more (this has already been happening) on queers who are poor and of color and gender nonconforming.  
    Some great work has been done by Christina Hanhardt (Radical History Review – monetized, but I’ll send you a copy via email) on how even white gays who started antiviolence organizations came to regard POC as “danger” in their communities.
    We keep getting split off in every category – by race, class, and queerness (not gayness; uncontrollable queerness).  And gender.

  • ScottieThomaston exactly

  • ScottieThomaston

    Same in terms of transgender people and gender non-conforming

  • ScottieThomaston

    KayWhitlock ScottieThomaston You see that a lot with LGBT rights, too. It’s fine to harass gay people using unconstitutional laws that remain on the books in some states, or to raid bars where gays go. It’s fine to make us targets of police harassment, or at least it happens without much thought. But if that system targets something that fits into a person’s particular political ideology, suddenly the police state is the worst.

  • KayWhitlock

    nancy a heitzeg KayWhitlock ScottieThomaston Hence the prophetic voice of Niemöller.

  • KayWhitlock ScottieThomaston this is key Kay.. people think policing is for “others”.. Never them

  • KayWhitlock ScottieThomaston nancy a heitzeg  
    that’s right Kay

    white supremacy is a major feature.. Rand Paul and his Southern Avenger and all that

  • KayWhitlock

    ScottieThomaston nancy a heitzeg Money and supremacist belief.  Money and hunger for dominion.

  • ScottieThomaston

    nancy a heitzeg ScottieThomaston Great to see you too! 
     And yep. Money trumps everything.

  • KayWhitlock

    ScottieThomaston KayWhitlock And who stands to benefit from locking others up.

  • ScottieThomaston

    KayWhitlock ScottieThomaston It’s great to see you too! I feel like it’s been forever. 
    And that makes sense I suppose. It just seems counterintuitive to SAY you’re against, for example, policies that are designed to lock up people, but then to also be for other policies that do the same thing. I guess opposition or support depends on who’s most affected.

  • KayWhitlock

    ScottieThomaston Another thought.  Many people on all points along the political spectrum oppose a police state that infringes on “us.”  But support it when it targets “them.”

  • ScottieThomaston hey scottie
    great to see you..
    es.. freedom for themselves, especially to make $$$. That’s the gig

  • KayWhitlock

    ScottieThomaston Hey, Scottie, great to see you.  Actually – I don’t think it’s strange at all.  Michael Bronski and I are working on a book together that kind of tackles this perception – not just in terms of libertarians, but the larger question of why policies of exclusion, control, confinement of the “Other” always seem to trump everything else in this society.  Not only among libertarians, but also among liberals and progressives as well as conservatives and wingers.

  • ScottieThomaston

    Interestingly, the libertarian crowd, Cato, et al, is strongly in support of privatized prisons. They’re for that even while opposing the war on drugs and such. So these are people who theoretically oppose police states but whose preferred policies would lock more and more people away. Strange.

  • KayWhitlock thanks for this Kay. the current rots of much of this lie with nixon.. then reagan..
    and yeah thanks Bill Clinton.. Not

     Bleak bleak waters indeed…

  • KayWhitlock

    This is an intensification of what, basically, has always been the case.  Thank you, Nancy, for being willing to dredge these bleak waters for truthful analysis.  
    In the newly-released batch of Nixon tapes, here’s one where he’s being updated by then-Attorney General Richard Kleindeinst on the 1973 AIM occupation of Wounded Knee:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=errM6doSb3s&feature=c4-overview&list=UU00LVExPrUiWeLqQC92Ttmw
    At the time of Wounded Knee 2, a nonprofit organization posted me to the AIM-operated Wounded Knee Communications Center in Rapid City, SD to report back.  I can attest to the U.S. militarization of response.

  • Remember these?? Super Bowl 2002
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVQnbNspHsk