For weeks now, the people of Jujuy, Argentina, have been in the streets resisting right-wing political attacks on wages and the right to protest. In the past few days the conflict has escalated with severe police repression throughout the largely Indigenous and impoverished province. Reports from on the ground show repression including massive deployments of riot police, people being chased in the…
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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The ongoing attack on the network of environmental and abolitionist activists in Atlanta should make all people concerned with the right to protest, the future of the environment and the rise of militarized police forces take notice. At 5 am on June 6, after over 200 community members had spoken against moving forward with the facility, the Atlanta City Council voted to allocate $31 million in…
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This content originally appeared on The Real News Network and was authored by The Real News Network.
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This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Residents in Atlanta shattered the record for turnout at a city council meeting Monday, as thousands lined up to voice their opposition to the construction of a massive police training facility known as Cop City. Ultimately, the Atlanta City Council voted 11-4 to approve $30 million in additional funding for the project, bringing the total to $67 million — more than double the original estimate. The contentious vote comes after a SWAT team raided the Atlanta Solidarity Fund last Wednesday and arrested three people who had been raising money to bail out protesters opposed to Cop City, charging them with money laundering and charity fraud. Forty-two protesters still face charges including domestic terrorism for opposing Cop City, and activists continue to demand answers over the fatal police shooting of environmental activist Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán in January. For more on Cop City, we speak with Reverend James Woodall from the Southern Center for Human Rights, who spoke at the City Council meeting, as well as Atlanta Solidarity Fund organizer Marlon Kautz, one of the three people arrested in last week’s SWAT raid. Kautz says the charges are “malicious political prosecutions” with the intent to “suppress a political movement.”
This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Berlin, June 5, 2023—Kosovo authorities must investigate the recent attacks on multiple news crews covering protests in the country and ensure journalists can cover demonstrations safely, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Monday.
In late May, protests broke out throughout northern Kosovo over the election of several ethnic Albanian mayors to represent Serb-majority areas, after many Serbs had boycotted the elections.
More than a dozen ethnic Albanian journalists have been attacked or harassed while covering the protests, according to news reports and Xhemajl Rexha, chair of the independent trade organization Association of Journalists of Kosovo.
“Kosovo authorities must thoroughly investigate the recent attacks on news crews covering protests in the country and hold the perpetrators to account,” said Attila Mong, CPJ’s Europe representative. “Kosovo authorities, as well as international NATO-led forces in the area, must ensure that members of the press can safely cover protests without fear of harassment or assault.”
May 29
In the northern town of Zvečan, a group of 15 to 20 Serb protesters approached about 10 Albanian-speaking reporters and demanded that they stop filming, according to news reports and Rexha. When the journalists refused, the protesters began throwing rocks and eggs and shouted ethnic slurs at them.
Masked individuals also attempted to seize a camera from a journalist with the Kosovo news Periskopi and tore the camera operator’s shirt, and three people wearing masks separately knocked a camera out of the hands of a journalist with the Kosovo news website Gazeta Papirus.
People also painted Serbian nationalist symbols on a parked car with the logo of the privately owned Albanian TV station Top Channel in Zvečan.
In the northern town of Leposavić, crews with the local broadcaster RTV Dukagjini, news website Kallxho, and the regional outlet Balkan Investigative Reporting Network found their cars vandalized with their tires slashed and painted with Serbian nationalistic symbols after they returned from reporting.
Protestors also slashed the tires and broke the windows of a car with the logo of the privately owned Kosovo TV channel TëVë 1 and set it on fire while the journalists covered protests in the northern town of Zublin Potok.
May 30
In Leposavić, eight to 10 protesters, some wearing masks, approached news crews with RTV Dukagjini and the privately owned Kosovo website KOHA and demanded they stop filming. As the reporters continued to cover the demonstrations, protesters threw rocks and eggs and tried to block them from filming by putting their hands in front of their cameras. Protestors also took a camera from a TëVë 1 camera operator and broke it.
Also in Leposavić, four or five people threw bricks and stones at two cars, each marked as “Press,” while they were carrying journalists with the privately owned independent Albanian TV channels A2 CNN and News23, and the news websites Panorama and News24. No one was injured.
A2 CNN reporter Jul Kasapi was later quoted by his employer saying that officers with the NATO-led international peacekeeping Kosovo Force, or KFOR, stood by and did not intervene.
In North Mitrovica, protesters took a mobile phone from Berat Bahtiri, a camera operator for privately owned Kosovo broadcaster RTV21. Police later found it destroyed, Rexha told CPJ. Bahtiri suffered minor injuries on his arms during a scuffle over the phone.
In the northern town of Zubin, protesters threw an explosive at a taxi containing a news crew with the Albanian service of the U.S. Congress-funded broadcaster RFE/RL, which did not damage the vehicle or result in any injuries.
Masked protesters in Zveçan shot at a car marked “Press” carrying camera operator Bledar Rexha and reporter Butrint Bejra, with the privately owned Albanian station Syri TV. One bullet hit the car, but no one was injured.
Also in Zveçan, unidentified people broke windows, punctured tires, and painted Serb nationalist symbols on two cars used by journalists with KOHA and the privately owned Kosovo TV station T7. Separately in Zveçan, people punctured the tires of two cars used by journalists with the privately owned Kosovo TV channels Kanal 10 and ATV, and also punctured the tires and shot bullets into a car, which was not marked press, used by journalists working for Periskopi.
May 31
An unknown individual punched RTV21 reporter Burim Zariq in the abdomen while he was recording protests in Zveçan. The journalist did not report any serious injury.
On June 2, CPJ joined 12 other press freedom organizations in a joint statement calling on Kosovo authorities to implement the necessary measures to guarantee reporters’ safety as they report on the protests. CPJ emailed KFOR and the Kosovo police for comment but did not receive any replies.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Erik Crouch.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Human Rights Watch and was authored by Human Rights Watch.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Just Stop Oil and was authored by Just Stop Oil.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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This content originally appeared on Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was authored by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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We speak with Justin Jones, one of two Black Democratic lawmakers expelled by a Republican supermajority in the Tennessee state House of Representatives Thursday for peacefully protesting gun violence in the chamber last week as thousands rallied at the Capitol to demand gun control after the Covenant elementary school shooting in Nashville. A vote to expel their white colleague who joined them in…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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Israel‘s hard-right government will undertake a second day of talks on 29 March over controversial judicial reforms. They come after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu bowed to pressure in the face of a nationwide walkout on 27 March.
The judicial overhaul would curtail the authority of the Supreme Court and give politicians greater powers over the selection of judges. As the Canary previously reported, this led to vocal criticism of Netanyahu’s government, culminating in widespread protests against state overreach.
The 27 March general strike and mass protests were the country’s most severe in years. The strike hit airports, hospitals and more. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of opponents of the reforms rallied outside parliament in Jerusalem. As a result, Netanyahu paused progress on the reform. In a broadcast, he said:
Out of a will to prevent a rupture among our people, I have decided to pause the second and third readings of the bill [to allow time for dialogue]
The decision to halt the legislative process marked a dramatic U-turn for Netanyahu. He had announced he was sacking his defence minister, who had called for the very same step just a day earlier.
Israel amidst a ‘judicial coup’
President Isaac Herzog hosted the first day of talks between the government and two main centrist opposition parties – Yesh Atid and the National Unity Party. However, scepticism and suspicion over the negotations remained high throughout Israel. Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute think-tank, remarked that it did not amount to a peace deal. He added:
Rather, it’s a ceasefire perhaps for regrouping, reorganising, reorienting and then charging – potentially – charging ahead
Israel’s opposition leader Yair Lapid reacted warily, saying that he wanted to be sure “there is no ruse or bluff”. And a joint statement between Lapid’s Yesh Atid and the National Unity Party said talks would stop immediately “if the law is put on the Knesset’s (parliament’s) agenda”.
Meanwhile, activists vowed to continue their rallies, which have persisted for weeks, sometimes drawing tens of thousands of protesters. The Umbrella Movement of Resistance Against Dictatorship said:
We will not stop the protest until the judicial coup is completely stopped
Far right pulling the strings
The crisis has revealed deep rifts within Netanyahu’s fledgling coalition, an alliance with far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties. Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s far-right national security minister, had pressed his supporters to rally in favour of the reforms. He also threatened to quit if the government put the overhaul on hold. His Otzma Yehudit (Jewish Power) party revealed that, as a result, the decision to delay the legislation involved an agreement to expand the Ben-Gvir’s portfolio.
The affair has hit the coalition’s standing among the Israeli public, just three months after it took office. Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party has dipped seven points, according to a poll by Israel’s Channel 12. It went on to predict that the government would lose its majority in the 120-seat parliament if an election were held now.
Featured image via BBC News/YouTube
Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
By Glen Black
This post was originally published on Canary.
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LGBTQ advocates are taking to the streets to protest the coordinated legislative attacks on transgender people nationwide after successfully beating back bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth in West Virginia and Wyoming. Trans activists have organized demonstrations at capitol buildings across the country and are currently coordinating protests for Trans Day of Visibility on March 31 and…
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Workers across Israel are taking part in a general strike Monday to protest plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to disempower Israel’s judiciary. This comes after Netanyahu fired his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, on Sunday over Gallant’s warning that the judicial overhaul represents “a clear, immediate and tangible threat to the security of the state.” Hundreds of thousands of Israelis…
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This week, the City of Philadelphia agreed to a $9.25 million settlement with protesters who were brutalized with tear gas and pepper spray during demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd in late May 2020. Such accountability for police who crush protests with crowd-control weapons is rare both in the United States and across the world. The settlement comes as researchers report that…
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In Atlanta, a judge has denied bond for 8 of the people indiscriminately arrested at a music festival against the proposed “Cop City” police training facility in the Weelaunee Forest. Jailed since March 5, they are charged with domestic terrorism based on scant evidence like muddy clothes or simply being in the area at the time of the festival. We’re joined by Micah Herskind…
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Protests in Paris and across France have ramped up since President Emmanuel Macron’s government on Thursday used a controversial constitutional measure to force through a pension reform plan without a National Assembly vote. Fears that the Senate-approved measure — which would raise the retirement age from 62 to 64 — did not have enough support to pass the lower house of Parliament led to a…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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(CC photo: Chad Davis)
This week on CounterSpin: If there are ideas, tools or tactics that are part of both this country’s horror-filled past, and some people’s vision for its dystopic future, they are at work in Cop City. Over-policing, racist policing, paramilitarization, the usurping of public resources, environmental racism, community voicelessness, and efforts to criminalize protest (that’s some kinds of protest)—it’s all here. Add to that a corporate press corps that, for one thing, disaggregates issues that are intertwined—Black people, for instance, are impacted not only by police brutality, but also by the environment, breathing air and drinking water as they do—and seems intent on pressing a vital, important situation into old, tired and harmful frames.
Kamau Franklin is founder of Community Movement Builders, the national grassroots organization, and co-host of the podcast Renegade Culture. We’ll hear from him about Cop City and the fight against it.
CounterSpin230317Franklin.mp3Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at press coverage of DC’s crime bill.
CounterSpin230317Banter.mp3The post Kamau Franklin on Cop City Protests appeared first on FAIR.
This post was originally published on CounterSpin.
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The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Washington, D.C. filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the U.S. government over the use of low-flying, military-grade helicopters used to disturb and disperse protesters during the 2020 uprisings following the police murder of George Floyd. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of plaintiff Dzhuliya Dashtamirova, a participant in the protests who said that she…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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In the early evening of March 5, a noxious plume of black smoke wafted over the proposed site of the unpopular Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, known as “Cop City.” Construction equipment and vehicles were reportedly set on fire, igniting an incendiary response by police on the second day of the Week of Action called by the Defenders of the Atlanta Forest. It was the fifth such week-long…
This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
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Bristol Crown court has sentenced two more people to prison this week, for charges arising out of the city’s 2021 Kill the Bill demonstrations.
Judge Patrick handed Jesse Geaney 12 months in prison on Monday 27 February for allegedly shining a laser pen towards a police helicopter at a Kill the Bill protest on 26 March 2021. He also sentenced Carl Davis to two and a half years for ‘riot’, for his role in the 21 March uprising outside Bridewell police station.
Supporters held a demonstration outside the court on 28 February, in support of the defendants.
Notorious sentencing
Judge Patrick has presided over almost all of the Kill the Bill trials since March 2021. He has become notorious for handing down harsh sentences. In fact, 34 of Bristol’s Kill the Bill demonstrators have now received a total of over a hundred years in prison between them.
The 2021 Kill the Bill protest was against the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Act (then a Bill), and came in the wake of the murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer. The mood was angry and defiant. And when police used shields and batons to attack the crowd, the protesters had had enough. People fought back – seizing police batons, shields, and helmets. Demonstrators breached the windows of the police station, and set several police vehicles on fire.
Carl Davis was allegedly one of a crowd of people who kicked at the windows of Bridewell police station. The reinforced glass frontage eventually buckled and broke, as demonstrators attacked it with rocks, a skateboard, a bicycle, and reappropriated police batons.
Before the sentencing on 28 February, Carl wrote this statement:
Guess I’m off to Butlins to take one for the team! Plead guilty for riot as the evidence seemed too strong for trial. Ironically one of the main pieces of evidence was traces of my blood that in fact came from an injury caused by riot police which is a classic example of what really happened that day…
I don’t even like to consider it as a riot when in my eyes it was just a peaceful protest against an inhumane bill that was turned violent by the police who broke countless laws and then lied to the media about getting injuries. All we did was defend each other and show the world that if the people who enforce the laws won’t abide by them then neither will we.
Imprisoned for shining a laser pen
On 27 February, Jesse Geaney was imprisoned for 12 months for allegedly shining a laser pen at a police helicopter. Jesse had been part of one of the Kill the Bill protests which followed the Bridewell uprising.
On the Tuesday two days after the clash at Bridewell, a vigil was held on Bristol’s College Green in support of the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) community, who the PCSC Bill directly targeted. The cops were out for revenge. Hundreds of riot police attacked the vigil, bringing down their riot shields as weapons on the heads of protesters. The police violence set the scene for at least 10 more demonstrations, which saw intense physical force from riot cops, as crowds fought back.
Police arrested Jesse after the third mass Kill the Bill demonstration, the following Friday 26 March. Riot cops – many of them on horseback – had been viciously attacking the crowd. Jesse was arrested after police claimed that the laser pen had forced their helicopter to change its flight path.The Tory government has passed legislation specifically against the use of laser pens to disrupt aircraft and other vehicles in recent years.
Defence barrister Margot Munro-Kerr said that her client had a rare health condition called Marfans syndrome. This would make Jesse’s stay in prison more difficult. She explained that the prison was unable to provide Jesse with adequate care. However, Judge Patrick chose to impose a custodial sentence anyway.
‘Harsh and brutal’ sentencing
Justice for Bristol Protesters (JBP) told The Canary that their members were “heartbroken” at the “callous and inequitable” sentences. JBP is a campaign made up of friends, families, and supporters of the defendants. One parent said:
The prison sentences handed down this week have been harsh and brutal. The judge chose to totally disregard probation reports and their recommendations, which begs the question of why spend public money producing them.
They emphasised the toll the sentences were taking on the defendants’ mental health. They also said that the agonising wait for trial is already comparable to serving a prison sentence:
Given that these cases have taken the best part of two years to come to court and the devastating impact this has had on the mental health of the defendants and their families they have already served a sentence.These cases need to be reviewed and a full enquiry undertaken.Two years of state repression
As we approach the second anniversary of the Bridewell uprising, the state’s repressive response is nowhere near over. The Kill the Bill trials are set to carry on at least until this summer. 34 people have already received custodial sentences, and many more are awaiting trial.
In many ways, what’s happening in Bristol is a microcosm of what’s happening across the UK, as well as on a global scale. Here in the UK, the state is handing out more and more prison sentences to those who resist. On an international scale, states routinely act to stamp out rebellion wherever peoples’ anger spills out onto the streets. Local struggles like the one in Bristol are just one part of the global struggle of people against power. Perhaps we can take solace in the thought that when we suffer state crackdowns we are not alone. Countless others are experiencing the same struggle, and that state repression will only make people fight harder.
Click here to donate to the Kill the Bill prisoners’ support fund.
Featured images via Bristol Anti Repression Campaign and Carl Davis (with permission)
By Tom Anderson
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In a new article titled “European antiwar protests gain strength as NATO’s Ukraine proxy war escalates,” The Grayzone’s Stavroula Pabst and Max Blumenthal document the many large demonstrations that have been occurring in France, the UK, Germany, Greece, Spain, the Czech Republic, Austria, Belgium and elsewhere opposing the western empire’s brinkmanship with Russia and proxy warfare in Ukraine.
Pabst and Blumenthal conclude their report with a denouncement of the way the western media have either been ignoring or sneering at these protests while actively cheerleading smaller demonstrations in support of arming Ukraine.
“When Western media has not ignored Europe’s antiwar protest wave altogether, its coverage has alternated between dismissive and contemptuous,” they write. “German state broadcaster Deutsche Welle sneeringly characterized the February 25 demonstration in Berlin as ‘naive’ while providing glowing coverage to smaller shows of support for the war by the Ukrainian diaspora. The New York Times, for its part, mentioned the European protests in just a single generic line buried in an article on minuscule anti-Putin protests held by Russian emigres.”
This bias is of course blatantly propagandistic, which won’t surprise anyone who understands that the mainstream western media exist first and foremost to administer propaganda on behalf of the US-centralized empire. And chief among their propaganda duties is to suppress the emergence of a genuine peace movement.
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European antiwar protests gain strength as NATO’s Ukraine proxy war escalates@stavroulapabst and @MaxBlumenthal cover the surge of antiwar activity across the continent over the past year, from Athens to Prague to London to Berlin to Paris and beyondhttps://t.co/At63ggS8M4
— The Grayzone (@TheGrayzoneNews) February 27, 2023
As we’ve discussed previously, it has never in human history been more urgent to have a massive, forceful protest movement in opposition to the empire’s rapidly accelerating trajectory toward a global conflict against Russia and China. Other peace movements have arisen in the past in response to horrific wars which would go on to claim millions of lives, but a world war in the Atomic Age could easily wind up killing billions, and must never be allowed to happen.
And yet the public is not treating this unparalleled threat with the urgency it deserves. A few protests here and there is great, but it’s not nearly enough. And the reason the people have not answered the call is because the mass media have been successfully propagandizing them into accepting the continuous escalations toward world war that we’ve been seeing.
People aren’t going to protest what their government is doing if they believe that what their government is doing is appropriate, and the only reason so many people believe what their government is doing with regard to Russia and China is appropriate is because they have been propagandized into thinking so.
The mass media are not telling the public about the many well-documented western provocations which led to the war in Ukraine and sabotaged peace at every turn; they’re just telling everyone that Putin invaded because he’s an evil Hitler sequel who loves killing and hates freedom. The mass media are not telling the public about the way the US empire has been encircling China with war machinery in ways it would never permit itself to be encircled while deliberately staging incendiary provocations in Taiwan; they’re just telling everyone that China is run by evil warmongering tyrants. The mass media are not reminding the public that after the fall of the Soviet Union the US empire espoused a doctrine asserting that the rise of any foreign superpower must be prevented at all cost; they’re letting that agenda fade into the memory hole.
Because people believe Russia and China are the sole aggressors and the US and its allies are only responding defensively to those unprovoked aggressions, they don’t see the need for a mass protest movement against their own governments. If you tell the average coastal American liberal that you’re holding a protest about the war in Ukraine, they’re going to assume you mean you’re protesting against Putin, and they’ll look at you strangely if you tell them you’re actually protesting your own government’s aggressions.
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There Has Never In History Been A Greater Need For A Large Anti-War Movement
"The wars in Vietnam and Iraq killed millions; we're talking about a conflict that can kill billions."https://t.co/eMXpSNBuLH
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) February 27, 2023
The narrative that Russia and China are acting with unprovoked aggression actually prevents peace, because if your government isn’t doing anything to make things worse, then there’s nothing it can change about its own behavior to make things better. But of course there is a massive, massive amount that the western power alliance can change about its own behavior with regard to Russia and China that would greatly improve matters. Instead of working to subordinate the entire planet to the will of Washington and its drivers, they can work toward de-escalation, diplomacy and detente.
We’re not going to get de-escalation, diplomacy and detente unless the people use the power of their numbers to demand those things, and the people are not going to use the power of their numbers to demand those things as long as they are successfully propagandized not to. This means propaganda is the ultimate problem that needs to be addressed. Ordinary people can only address it by waking the public up to the fact that the political/media class are lying to them about what’s happening with Russia and China, using whatever means we have access to.
So that’s what we need to do. We need to fight the imperial disinformation campaign using information. Tell people the truth using every medium available to us to sow distrust in the imperial propaganda machine, because propaganda only works if you don’t know it’s happening to you.
Our rulers are always babbling about how they’re fighting an “information war” against enemy nations, but in reality they’re fighting an information war against normal westerners like us. So we must fight back. We need to cripple public trust in the propaganda machine and begin awakening one another from our propaganda-induced sleep, so that we can begin organizing against the horrific end they are driving us toward.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon or Paypal, or buying an issue of my monthly zine. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
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Thousands of people from across the political spectrum gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC to protest US militarism, proxy warfare and nuclear brinkmanship in Ukraine on Sunday.
I’ve been seeing some people try to downplay the numbers on social media, but footage from the Rage Against the War Machine rally makes it clear that attendance was in the thousands; people who were there place the number at around three thousand.
This is significantly better attendance than any other American anti-war demonstration in recent years that I’m aware of. It’s nowhere remotely close to the historic numbers people demonstrated in to protest the war in Iraq, and it’s nowhere remotely close to what it should be for an issue of such existential importance.
But it’s a start. Maybe the start of something good. The ANSWER Coalition has a March on Washington scheduled for March 18th for the 20th anniversary of the Iraq invasion demanding “Negotiations not escalation” in Ukraine and an end to US militarism abroad. We shall see if this thing continues to pick up steam.
#RageAgainstWar is out here pic.twitter.com/31fiEP8enH
— Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) February 19, 2023
One criticism I hear of anti-war demonstrations is that they don’t make a difference. “Millions of us marched in opposition to the Iraq invasion, and they did it anyway!” is a common sentiment.
While it’s true that demonstrations failed to stop the invasion of Iraq, if you look at the US war machine’s actual behavior following that war, it has clearly been reacting defensively to public opposition.
If anti-war protests made no difference, the US empire wouldn’t have completely abandoned full-scale ground invasions after 2003 and switched to sneakier, less effective means of warfare while launching unprecedented narrative management systems to suppress anti-war sentiments. They abandoned Bush-era Hulk Smash ground invasions in favor of drones, proxy warfare, covert ops and sanctions because enough people rose up and said “NO” to make them afraid of the masses beginning to wake up and begin turning against them and their institutions.
And now people are even beginning to protest the proxy warfare. I guarantee you that’s making our rulers nervous about the possibility of losing the ability to effectively dominate the world with violence and coercion, and even losing the ability to continue to rule us.
These things very clearly and obviously make a difference. The only reason Syria and Iran remain sovereign, unabsorbed governments, and the only reason the imperial body count isn’t much higher today, is because enough people put their foot down and said “NO” to that kind of war.
On Feb 15 2003 millions marched against the impending invasion of Iraq, a war which in the end killed over 100,000 Iraqis.
Now 20 years later, in its proxy war, the US is determined to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Join us again to say NO to ALL US WARS!
Info below⤵️ pic.twitter.com/37yOFdkPw0
— ANSWER Coalition (@answercoalition) February 15, 2023
Our rulers pour so much effort into manufacturing consent because they absolutely require that consent in order to rule. Their worst-case nightmare scenario is the emergence of a large, robust movement of people saying “NO” to the imperial war machine, because military violence and the threat thereof is the glue that holds the empire together. It’s bringing public consciousness to the very most important aspect of the empire, which also happens to be the very least defensible.
Noam Chomsky said “Propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state” because over the centuries those who seek large-scale power over other humans have discovered that dominating people psychologically is more energy-efficient than dominating them with brute force, and is far less likely to see them wind up on the business end of a guillotine blade. If you can simply trick a profoundly unfree populace into thinking that they are free, you don’t have to waste any further energy wrestling their freedom away from them.
But what this means is that the entire power structure which rules over us is entirely dependent on the ability to successfully administer propaganda and maintain the illusion of freedom. If it can’t manufacture consent for the things it wants to do, it has to either refrain from doing those things until it can manufacture the necessary consent or do those things anyway without the consent of the public. If they do that, public trust in the ruling institutions will immediately begin to disintegrate, and they won’t be able to propagandize people anymore because propaganda only works if people trust its source.
Our rulers could of course then switch to the direct bludgeon of totalitarianism if they want to, but then they’re up against an angry populace, and in America’s case a very heavily armed one. All the narrative management that holds the US-centralized power structure together would lose trust around the world, because the “Freedom-Loving Good Guys Vs Tyrannical Bad Guys” framing of imperial propaganda would no longer be believable.
The US-centralized empire will crumble if it cannot preserve the illusion that it is accountable and responsive to the public.
Of course a few thousand people at one protest is not going to bring peace to our world. Even a few million wouldn’t be enough. But public demonstrations are one of the many ways in which our society can be drawn toward awareness of what’s really going on in our world, what our rulers are really up to, and how much we’ve been lied to all our lives. From there health can follow, because with enough awareness people will cease consenting to things that they’ve come to recognize as being against their interests.
All positive changes in human behavior are always preceded by an expansion of consciousness. Demonstrations are one of the many different tools ordinary people have to spread awareness so that positive change can occur; that’s why they’ve featured so prominently in civil rights movements throughout history, and that’s why the US empire has been pouring so much energy into preventing the reemergence of a lively antiwar movement in the western world ever since Vietnam.
All we’re doing is nudging our species bit by bit toward consciousness. Other tools we can use toward this end include new media like online videos, blogs, tweets and memes, and old media like pamphlets, public speaking and graffiti. Anything we can do to get people opening their eyes to the horrors of imperial warmongering and start bringing some actual movement into the anti-war movement will help. Our survival may very well depend on it.
___________________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal, or buying an issue of my monthly zine. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
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Featured image via Alison Hogg/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)
This post was originally published on Caitlin Johnstone.
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The Owen Wilkes book Peacemonger, edited by May Bass and Mark Derby, was due to be launched in Wellington today after earlier launches in Auckland and Christchurch. Here Buller conservationist Peter Lusk reflects on his mahi with Owen.
COMMENTARY: By Peter Lusk
I worked closely with peace researcher Owen Wilkes in 1973 and 1974, writing stories for the student newspaper Canta from files of newspaper clippings and hand written jottings that Owen had collected over a period of years.
These stories covered quite a range of subjects. For example, an American millionaire named Stockton Rush who purchased a beautiful valley near Te Anau from the Crown and built a luxury lodge. There was controversy over this. I can’t remember exactly why, probably the Crown selling the land when it shouldn’t.
Then a file on Ivan Watkins Dow who were making Agent Orange or similar at their plant in New Plymouth. They were releasing gases at night and the gases would drift over the city wiping out home vegetable gardens.
The company’s CEO described objectors as “eco-nuts”.
Owen’s biggest file was on Comalco. I went to the Bluff smelter and Manapouri power station and met activists in the area. Also interviewed Stockton Rush while in the area, namely Southland.
Peacemonger . . . the first full-length account of peace researcher Owen Wilkes’ life and work. Image: Raekaihau Press Another file was on a self proclaimed millionaire who had been in the media over his proposed housing development in Governors Bay on Lyttelton Harbour, with a new tunnel to be built through Port Hills. This guy turned out to be a conman and we were able to expose him.
I wrote up the story, we printed it as a centrefold in Canta, then used the centrefold as a leaflet to assist the action group in Governors Bay. This was very successful at exposing the conman whose name I cannot recall.
There were a few other files of Owen’s that I turned into stories, and the sum of the stories were the basis of a 4 page leaflet we printed off for the South Island Resistance Ride held at end of 1974.
I never got to write up the files on Stockton Rush and Ivan Watkins Dow which was a personal disappointment. From memory it was due to Owen suddenly getting the peace research job in Norway [at SIPRI – Stockholm International Peace Research Institute].
“The only time in my life I’ve ever met, let alone worked with, a genius. He had a huge amount of energy.”
I found Owen very good to work with. It’s the only time in my life I’ve ever met, let alone worked with, a genius. He had a huge amount of energy. Far more than me, and I was a full-on activist along with others in our little group like Canta editor Murray Horton and graphics/layout man Ron Currie.
I worked alongside Owen at Boons bakery for a single night. It came about when one of my flatmates, who regularly worked there, needed a night off and convinced me to cover his shift.
So I turned up at Boons at 8pm or whenever it was. The foreman was none too pleased, but he showed me the ropes. I was taking cooked bread out of one oven, while Owen was doing the same from a bigger oven beside me.
The bread was coming out fast, in hot tins, and it was very easy to get burned on the tins, specially for a novice. I got several burns in the course of the shift. Looking over at Owen, I couldn’t help notice how he revelled in the job, he was like a well-oiled machine, banging the bread out of the tins, and oiling them up.
Very competent, no burns for him because he was a regular at Boons and had everything well worked out.
Something else. Owen was living at a commune at Oxford at the time. They had two pigs needing to be slaughtered. I’d killed and dressed a few sheep in my farm worker days, so offered to help.
Owen had never done such “home-kills”, but in typical Owen fashion had got hold of a book on butchering and he took it with him to the pig sty. He’d previously read-up on how to “stick” a pig, stabbing it between the ribs and slicing its heart, all in one motion.
He accomplished this very successfully. One pig, then two pigs, then haul them over to a bath full of hot water to scald, then scrape. After that we gutted them and hung up the tidy carcasses to cool.
Yes, I had great admiration for Owen.
Photo of Owen Wilkes
About the picture at the start of this article: This photo is from the 1974 Long March across Australia against US imperialism and the Vietnam War.We overnighted in all sorts of places and this was the campground at Mildura in Victoria.
I like the photo because it typifies Owen with his steel box of files — so heavy and awkward to handle. But it was strong and, from memory, lockable.
Having the files with him, meant Owen could immediately provide evidence for media if they asked for verification on something he said. Even though the Long March was organised from Australia, Owen was still the onboard authority on what the US was doing over there.
- Peacemonger: Owen Wilkes: International peace researcher, edited by May Bass and Mark Derby. Wellington: Raekaihau Press, 196 pages. $35. ISBN 978-1-99-115386-9
- The Wellington launch scheduled for today, 14 February 2023, at Minerva Handcraft Bookshop has been cancelled. It will be rescheduled. Guest speaker: Nicky Hager
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