San Francisco Copies Repressive Middle East Protest Policy

In the wake of England’s worst street protests and riots in a generation, British PM David Cameron has called for U.S.-style “gang” policy to repress its restive youth, as well as authoritarian Middle East-style suppression of free speech by blocking cell phone and social media networks.

In San Francisco, famous for its liberal politics and advocacy of civil liberties, the Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) actually did shut down cell phone transmission in its train stations for three hours Thursday in order to preemptively squelch a threatened protest, the SF Chronicle reported today.

In England, the riots erupted in response to the police killing of an unarmed black man in a poor neighborhood that had been suffering ongoing police harassment of youth of color. The planned BART protest was in response to the killing of Charles Blair Hill, an unarmed homeless man who was shot in the back by BART police. This was the second time BART police had killed an unarmed man in the past three years (they murdered Oscar Grant in January, 2009). In both cases, protesters invaded BART stations, disrupting traffic and annoying BART officials.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation likened the transit board to Hosni Mubarak. The ACLU said the move was the “wrong response to political protests.” Others called it illegal and unconstitutional. It was certainly unnecessary and inappropriate to block phone communication for all riders, some of whom may have had legitimate business, transportation or safety issues to communicate with colleagues or family members. BART, however, justified the tactic, saying it is illegal to demonstrate on their station platforms or in their trains.

Of course it is absurd to say that one illegal or inappropriate act justifies another. However, it is also absurd to claim support for free speech by sequestering demonstrators in “free speech” cages away from foot traffic and their desired audience, as BART has done.

Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber: UK Turns To U.S. To Solve Unrest

Several news media reported yesterday that British Prime Minister David Cameron wants Britain to look to the United States for solutions to gang violence after nights of riots and looting.

The first problem with this, of course, is that the rioting was not caused by gangs and the destruction bore no similarity to gang violence. There are substantial differences in both quality and quantity between drive by shootings, assassinations of competitors and street brawls on the one hand, and looting, arson and vandalism on the other. There are also significant differences in motive.

But let’s ignore all that, since the politicians have and they will do what they wish anyway. What they want is class harmony or, more accurately, class servility. Workers and their children must accept graciously the conditions imposed by the ruling class and be grateful they are permitted any luxuries or freedoms at all. Anyone who threatens private property, regardless of their motivations, is a dangerous thug and must be dealt with harshly.

Britain has already labeled large portions of its immigrant and minority underclasses terrorists or potential terrorists, justifying a sharp curtailing of civil liberties and protection from search and seizures. By now calling them gangsters and equating them with Crips, Bloods, Mara Salvatrucha, Nortenos and Surenos, and calling for  a U.S.-style response, they must surely also be calling for the massive buildup of new prisons, three- (and two-) strikes laws, and mass incarceration of youth of color. In the U.S., this policy has led to incarceration rates higher than any other country in the world and a society in which nearly 12% of young black men are incarcerated.

Perhaps they are also calling for the imposition of youth curfews and injunctions that would allow the police to round up any juveniles who are dressed in inappropriate colors or styles or who happen to be hanging out publicly with more than two friends.

It might also include giving the police greater fire power and the green light to use it against unarmed people of color who talk back to police on the tube and do not shuffle and bow to them on the streets.

We do know that Cameron is considering allowing police to evict troublemakers from subsidized housing and temporarily disabling cell phone instant messaging services, Twitter and Facebook, as the SF Chronicle reported today.

The use of the term “troublemakers” rather than “convicts” implies that innocent people could lose their homes merely for being suspects, or that they might evict people for thought crimes or even free speech. It is entirely possible to make heaps of trouble for the authorities and the bosses of the world without breaking any laws at all. Going on strike, advocating strikes, picketing corporations or even private homes, writing scathing articles, boycotts, even nasty letters could all be considered troublemaking, particularly by those affected by the tactics. If fully enforced, England could be creating a homeless problem far worse than in the U.S.

The disabling of cell phone instant messaging services and social networking sounds eerily like Iran or China. Even so, they are pretty naïve if they think that will stop future riots, protests or even insurrections. For large masses of unemployed, frustrated and angry people, world of mouth can go a long way. People still have access to printed pamphlets, fliers and posters. There is also the ever useful tactic of one-on-one organizing, which is far more powerful than any digital communication as it allows face to face interaction, feedback, give and take. And for every person that gets organized in this way, there are potentially many others who they will reach.

Training Teens to Tackle Terrorists

Hundreds of Explorer Scouts from all over California are in San Diego this week being trained how to be cops. The training includes “crowd control” of a simulated riot on the UCSD campus, at the Residential Hall of 6th College, with sheriff deputies masquerading as “rioters” and the use of a police helicopter, according to the OB Rag. They will also be trained in arrest techniques, ethics, shooting at a firing range, gangs, domestic violence, and narcotics. 

As the Rag correctly implies, this training is more about social control and propaganda than making our communities safer or providing serious job training for youth. Choosing the university as the site of the simulated riot reinforces the stereotype that universities are dangerous hotbeds of radicalism and that college students are not to be trusted.

In light of the massive looting of the public sector, attacks on unions and working people, and overall decimation of living standards for 90% of Americans, one should certainly expect civil unrest. Yet the economic crisis has been due in large part to white collar and corporate crimes, few of which of have been investigated and even fewer prosecuted. The scouts are unlikely to receive any training in this. Furthermore, the majority of scouts come from families who are among the 90% of Americans who are getting squeezed by the recession, who are losing their jobs or homes. Rather than ignoring this simmering cauldron of discontent, the Explorer program is converting them into dutiful servants of the state, who will jump when called to protect the private property of the wealthy.

Militarization of America’s Youth

The Explorer Scouts program is overseen by an affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America called Learning for Life. For several years now they have been training teens in counter terrorism and immigration control, the New York Times reported back in 2009. According to the Times, the training includes chasing down illegal border crossers, facing down terrorists, taking out school shooters and raiding marijuana plantations.

All of these activities involve a huge leap from traditional Boy Scout training and are not simply the product of a few renegade scout leaders. The program has been supported by the Department of Homeland Security, which has sought to “offer a program consistent with the aims and objectives of the Learning for Life organization.” Mark Sullivan, director of the Secret Service, is on the Explorers board of directors and the Secret Service is involved in a partnership with the Explorers program.

When one considers the types of training the scouts are receiving, a more accurate statement would be that the Learning of Life organization is seeking a program consistent with the aims and objectives of the Department of Homeland Security (i.e., fighting terrorists, drug dealers, protesters and illegal immigrants).

None of this training is particularly useful if the goal is to produce effective police cadets, as none of these are significant problems in terms of overall crime or police responsibilities. There is little or nothing in the training to prepare scouts to address driving violations, domestic disputes, theft, hate crimes, or disaster and emergency response. But the training is useful if the goal is to produce a paramilitary force for suppressing civil unrest and terrorizing immigrant communities.

Hitler Youth in America?

The Explorers program is like the Boy Scouts on steroids, with its emphasis on weapons training, interrogation and the rounding up of civilians. It also bears an uncanny resemblance to the Hitler Youth, which recruited boys aged 14-18, indoctrinating them in the propaganda of the Nazis and training them to fight faithfully for the Third Reich. The Hitler Youth also had a parallel with the Boy Scouts, developing after the Scouts were banned and taking over many of their activities.

However, it seems that the right wing gun nuts and conspiracy theorists have glommed onto this story more than anyone, feeding into their hysteria that the government is trying to take away their guns. They love the Hitler analogy, particularly as it feeds into their delusion that Obama is both a socialist and a Nazi. Some even call the Explorers the Obama Youth, in homage to the Hitler-Jugen. In one Explorer training, scouts had to take down a deranged Iraq war vet, further fueling their paranoia that the program is an attack on patriotic Americans, rather than a general assault on civil liberties and freedom of association, and specifically an attack on immigrants and rebellious youth and workers.

Education Cops Rough Up Black Man for Wife’s Student Loan Default

Thanks to Angus Johnston, of Student Activism blog, for finding this one.

Kenneth Wright, who lives in Stockton, California, said that federal agents sent by the Department of Education (DOE) busted down his door without warning Tuesday morning, and left him for more than six hours handcuffed him in the back of a police car. He says it was all because his estranged wife defaulted on her student loans. Acting on orders of the DOE, a SWAT team broke into his home at 6 am and roughed him up before arresting him. (You can see video footage here).

The feds deny that the raid was about a student loan default, but a spokesperson from the department’s Office of the Inspector General said that they “conduct about 30-35 search warrants a year on issues such as bribery, fraud, and embezzlement of federal student aid funds.”  They also said that it was federal agents, not a local SWAT team, who arrested Wright.

Embezzling student aid funds sounds an awful lot like defaulting on them, but with the implication that she was a crook and did it on purpose. Is this the fed’s new way to criminalize poor people who try to go to college? When Wright went to the Stockton police to complain, they showed him a search warrant from the DOE stating that he (or his wife) owed on a student loan.

Regardless of his wife’s actual or perceived crimes, she was not there and he had nothing to do with the matter. Yet he was grabbed by the neck by the SWAT team, handcuffed and dragged out to a police car in his skivvies, all in front of his three children. His small children were detained for 2 hours.